Brown Leather binding .Replaced Spine with Raised banding and gilt title. Gilt heraldic emblem on the boards.

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This is a rare, good clean and very readable edition of Burnett’s great work still housed in its original 17th century binding.

This First Part of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England is in three books, bound as one. Bound in full leather, the covers are plain. Illustrated half title page. Red and black title page. Contains a Table of Contents of the History beginning. Also contains “A Collection of Records and Original Papers; With other Instruments Referred to in the Former History”, also in three books, paginated separately. An appendix and addenda are at the back. The book concludes with a type of index with the heading: “A Table of the Records and Papers that are in the Collection, with which the places in the History to which they relate, are marked’ Binding is sound and very readable. A wonderful copy.

“Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715) was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek , and Hebrew. Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, a preacher, an academic, a writer and a historian. He was always closely associated with the Whig party, and was one of the few close friends in whom King William III confided. [.] In the mid-1670s, a French translation of Nicholas Sanders’ De origine et progressu schismatis Anglicani libri tres (1585) appeared. Sanders attacked the English Reformation as a political act carried on by a corrupt king. Several of Burnet’s friends wished him to publish a rebuttal of the work, so in 1679 his first volume of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England was published. This covered the reign of Henry VIII; the second volume (1681) covered the reign of Elizabeth and the Elizabethan Religious Settlement; the third volume (1715) consisted of corrections and additional material. His literary reputation was greatly enhanced by this publication. The Parliament of England voted thanks for Burnet after the publication of the first volume, and in 1680 the University of Oxford awarded Burnet the degree of Doctor of Divinity on the advice of William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury. For over a century this was the standard reference work in the field, although Catholics disputed some of its content.”

Gilbert Burnet (18 September 1643 – 17 March 1715) was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, a preacher, an academic, a writer and a historian. He was always closely associated with the Whig party, and was one of the few close friends in whom King William III confided.