Author
Anonymous
Title
Some Historical Memoires of the Life and Actions of His Royal Highness, The Renowned and most Illustrious Prince JAMES Duke of York and Albany, &c. (Only Brother to his Most Sacred Majesty King CHARLES II) From his Birth, Anno 1633, To this present Year 1682
Published
London: Printed for Daniel Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-Bar, and The Bearskin in St. Bride’s Church-yard Fleet-Street, 1683
Location
923.142 FM2167
What is this book about?
The Historical Memoires is a biography of the future king James II, published in 1683, 5 years before his ascension to the throne. Kevin Sharpe has described it as a ‘almost a campaign document’ for James’s succession (Rebranding Rule: The Restoration and Revolution Monarchy, 1660-1714, ebook – no page number). The book is a celebration of James’s qualities – personal, military, professional – and presents him as the best possible candidate for succeeding his brother, Charles II.
Why does this book matter?
This book is a delightful example of seventeenth-century biography. It is small and short (and very much readable in an afternoon, coming in at 136 pages of seventeenth-century print). It gives an insight not just into late seventeenth-century political culture, but also into biography writing. James, of course, was the monarch who was overthrown in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688-89, which had wide-ranging repercussions for eighteenth-century Scottish culture. It is for him that the Jacobites are named.
The English Short Title Catalogue lists two more copies in Scotland (Glasgow University Library and National Library of Scotland), but not the Inverness copy.
