JAMES II'S MILITARY MIGHT ON DISPLAY
A Prospect of His Majestie’s forces as they ly encamped (at least three Miles in length) on Honslow-Heath in the county of Midlesex in the year 1686.
[London].
Sold by J. Oliver...and J. Sellar junior, [s.d., c.1686?]
Dimensions: Sheet - 490 x 310 mm; Engraved area - 462 x 230 mm.
Single engraved sheet, folded vertically and housed in modern blue paper wrappers. Some old folds (with occasional minor tearing), offsetting, and browning - especially to gutter. Short tear to the head of spine of the enclosing wrappers.
A rare survival of a choice, engraved plan of the annual military review of King James II's troops, at Hounslow Heath in July 1686.
The Restoration settlement of Charles II provided the King with just a small defensive military; a standing army in name only. This was expanded greatly during the 1660s and 1670s, largely as a result of the Anglo-Dutch - and Franco-Dutch - wars. But the accession of his brother, James II, himself intent on expanding his armed presence, in part out of necessity given the threat of rebellion as demonstrated by the efforts of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, led to significant expansion of the English armed forces.
Annual military manoeuvres and reviews were hosted at Hounslow Heath each summer between 1685 and 1688, in order to train this enlarged and increasingly professional force, and in no small part to demonstrate the substantial military support that the King - always in a politically precarious position in relation to the Church, Parliament and landed gentry, despite apparent popularity amongst his subjects - could muster.
The English puritan minister and journalist Roger Morrice noted in his diaries that several thousand visited the camp - the early-modern equivalent of the earlier chivalric tournament - represented by this engraving. It is perhaps therefore unsurprising that a number of commercial opportunities, from prostitution to printing, arose from the impressive and novel gathering.
Whilst ESTC locates a single copy (Oxford) of this plan, finely engraved for English print and map-seller's John Seller (1668–1698) and John Oliver, OCLC adds a further example, at Cambridge, and reproductions have supposedly been made from an 'original in the Huntington Library' which we have been unable to locate, other editions of the same view are also known. A broadside version of this prospect 'printed for and sold by Richard Palmer' - with letterpress titling and woodcut illustration - was also issued. Another, also in broadside format and with a variant title with an exact date specified, An exact prospect of his Majesty's forces, as they are encamped on Hounslow Heath, 19 July 1686 (London, 1686), bears the imprint of 'Walter Davis in Amen-Corner', is recorded by ESTC at three location (Ashmolean, BL and Oxford).
The Restoration settlement of Charles II provided the King with just a small defensive military; a standing army in name only. This was expanded greatly during the 1660s and 1670s, largely as a result of the Anglo-Dutch - and Franco-Dutch - wars. But the accession of his brother, James II, himself intent on expanding his armed presence, in part out of necessity given the threat of rebellion as demonstrated by the efforts of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, led to significant expansion of the English armed forces.
Annual military manoeuvres and reviews were hosted at Hounslow Heath each summer between 1685 and 1688, in order to train this enlarged and increasingly professional force, and in no small part to demonstrate the substantial military support that the King - always in a politically precarious position in relation to the Church, Parliament and landed gentry, despite apparent popularity amongst his subjects - could muster.
The English puritan minister and journalist Roger Morrice noted in his diaries that several thousand visited the camp - the early-modern equivalent of the earlier chivalric tournament - represented by this engraving. It is perhaps therefore unsurprising that a number of commercial opportunities, from prostitution to printing, arose from the impressive and novel gathering.
Whilst ESTC locates a single copy (Oxford) of this plan, finely engraved for English print and map-seller's John Seller (1668–1698) and John Oliver, OCLC adds a further example, at Cambridge, and reproductions have supposedly been made from an 'original in the Huntington Library' which we have been unable to locate, other editions of the same view are also known. A broadside version of this prospect 'printed for and sold by Richard Palmer' - with letterpress titling and woodcut illustration - was also issued. Another, also in broadside format and with a variant title with an exact date specified, An exact prospect of his Majesty's forces, as they are encamped on Hounslow Heath, 19 July 1686 (London, 1686), bears the imprint of 'Walter Davis in Amen-Corner', is recorded by ESTC at three location (Ashmolean, BL and Oxford).
ESTC R25579. Wing R25579.
£ 2,000.00
Antiquates Ref: 22662
