Brown calf binding with red title plate, gilt decoration and title on the spine. Rebound with orginal cambridge panels boards overlaid.

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“The True English Constitution Vindicated” [Harbin, George]. The Hereditary Right of the Crown of England Asserted; the History of the Succession Since the Conquest Clear’d; And the True English Constitution Vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Dr. Higden’s View and Defence. Wherein Some Mistakes also of Our Common Historians are Rectify’d; And Several Particulars Relating to the Succession, And to the Title of the House of Suffolk, Are now First Publish’d from Ancient Records and Original MSS; Together with an Authentick Copy of King Henry VIII.’s Will. By a Gentleman. London: Printed for Richard Smith, At Bishop Beveridge’s Head in Pater-Noster-Row, 1713. One of two issues from 1713. This vigorous argument in support of the restoration of the Stuart succession is a reply to the thesis advanced in William Higden’s A View of the English Constitution, With Respect to the Sovereign Authority of the Prince, And the Allegiance of the Subject (1710) and A Defence of The View of the English Constitution with Respect to the Sovereign Authority of the Prince, And the Allegiance of the Subject (1710). George Ridpath replied to Harbin with a defense of Higden titled Parliamentary Right Maintain’d or the Hanover Succession Justify’d (1714). Some sources attribute Harbin’s book to Hilkiah Bedford, who probably edited it and saw it through the press, and, erroneously, to Charles Leslie.

George Harbin (c.1665-1744) was an English clergyman, a nonjuror and significant political writer. He graduated B.A. at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1686, took holy orders, and became chaplain to Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely. At the Glorious Revolution he followed Turner by refusing to take the oaths to the new rulers. After Turner’s death he became chaplain and librarian to Thomas Thynne, 1st Viscount Weymouth. He was an intimate friend of Bishop Thomas Ken. Harbin was the author of the following works:

• The English Constitution fully stated, with some Animadversions on Mr. Higden’s Mistakes about it. In a Letter to a Friend, London, 1710. Against William Higden.

• The Hereditary Right of the Crown of England Asserted: The History of the Succession since the Conquest Clear’d: And the True English Constitution Vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Dr. Higden’s “View and Defence,” &c., London, 1713. This work was wrongly attributed to Hilkiah Bedford, who was fined and imprisoned for three years as its author. There was a preface by Theophilus Downes, who admitted he drew on Robert Brady.

Harbin also wrote an epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton, and assisted Michael Maittaire in his Commentary on the Oxford Marbles (1732). Letters written by Harbin to Arthur Charlett on literary subjects have been preserved in the Bodleian Library.