Manuscript of “Tom Tell Troth” ca. 1640. This manuscript is titled “Tom Tell Troth”, written by an anonymous author or authors circa 1641 and 1703, there is no place of publication because it was all hand-written, and whoever wrote it was considered a truth-teller for standing up to officials about the abuses of the government and the church. We took the book to a local bookseller who examined the book, and he believes it is an original manuscript from the 1600’s and not a facsimile. Then we took the book to Frank Mowery, a noted bookbinder in Venice, Florida, who looked at the manuscript and told us it was not a facsimile, but on original paper, and the papers had been professionally repaired, washed, and trimmed for the new binding. The first ninety-nine pages were written in one ink and the last fifteen pages had been written by someone else - it was a different ink and a different hand or script for the last fifteen, which included six blank pages and two poems - so the majority of the book was written by one author (up to 1641) and the last part of the book was written by someone else (between 1641 and 1703). The first part was written during the reign of King Charles I of England, who succeeded his father James I in 1625 as King of England and Scotland. During Charles' reign, his actions frustrated Parliament and resulted in the English Civil Wars, which eventually led to his execution in 1649. Charles was born in 1600 and ruled with controversy, largely over finances and religion: first with civil war with the Scots in 1637, then with Ireland in 1641, and with England on and off between 1642 and 1649, when he was beheaded on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London. (See lot 252 for an engraving of Banqueting Hall.) The paste-down at the rear has a typed note which reads “426. Manuscript Written in English during the Reign of Charles I, entitled ‘Tom-tell-Troth; or, A Fresh Discourse Touching Ye Manners of the Tymes Directed to His Majestie by Way of Humble Advertisement.’ With several other admonitory letters addressed to the King. 116 pp. 4to, half calf. About 1620,” but the first page of the second part of the text in the back is dated 1641 and 1703. One copy from 1642 was attributed to William Prynne (“Tom-Tell-Troth, or A free discourse touching the murmurs of the times”). Prynne (1600-1669) was a lawyer and pamphleteer who was active in the 1640’s on Parliament’s side in the English Civil War. He was commissioned to write a defense of Parliament against the King in the early 1640’s; later he came into conflict with the more independent-minded Christians who opposed his form of Presbyterianism, which called for state control of religion. He opposed the execution of Charles I and gradually became more politically conservative, eventually siding with the restoration of the Stuarts after 1660. A militant Puritan, he abhorred decadence and strongly opposed religious feast days, including Christmas, and he pushed for the supremacy of the state over the church. He argued that the custom of drinking healths was sinful, and he asserted that for men to wear their hair long was "unseemly and unlawful unto Christians", while it was "mannish, unnatural, impudent, and unchristian" for women to cut it short. More on Prynne: in January 1633, he took part in the performance of a stage play (Walter Montagu's The Shepherd's Paradise) and one passage which reflected on the character of female actors was construed as an aspersion on the Queen. The Chancellor of the Exchequer ordered one of Prynne’s books to "be burnt, in the most public manner”, and William Noy, as attorney-general, took proceedings against Prynne in the Star-chamber - you didn’t want to go there. Prynne was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment in the Tower of London, then in 1634 he was sentenced to life in prison, a fine of £5,000, being stripped of his Oxford University degree, and amputation of both his ears in the pillory, which happened in May 1634. His book was burnt before him, and with over a thousand pages, it nearly suffocated Prynne in its smoke. In June 1637 he was sentenced to another fine of £5,000, imprisonment for life, and to lose the rest of his ears. At the proposal of Chief Justice John Finch, he was branded on the cheeks with the letters S. L., standing for "seditious libeller”. He was released by Parliament in 1640. The House of Commons declared the two sentences against him illegal, restored his degree and voted him pecuniary reparation, but he couldn’t get his ears back, so Prynne definitely had reason to write the manuscript. There is no way to prove Prynne wrote “Tom-Tell-Troth”, but he wrote pamphlets against Parliament and government officials, he suffered horrific punishments at the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Prynne was shut out of Parliament, had his book burnt (it was so long, and they didn’t have copy machines in those days), he was pilloried and had his ears cut off for allegedly making aspersions against the queen, but there is no proof he ever wrote Tom-Tell-Troth. The book measures 8 5/8 x 7 in. wide, it is 3/4 bound in a modern binding, with five raised bands, marbled covers, marbled endpapers, and a beige slipcase. There are a few faint brown spots here and there and some of the pages have been trimmed, and still an important manuscript about life in England in the 1600’s, and how life could turn on a dime if you offended the wrong people. #190 #1569