£995.00
Stuart (Andrew). Genealogical History of the Stewarts, from the Earliest Period of Their Authentic History to the Present Times. Containing a Particular Account of the Origin and Successive Generations of the Stuarts of Darnley, Lennox, and Aubigny, and of the Stuarts of Castlemilk; with Proofs and References; an Appendix of Relative Papers; and a Supplement… London: printed for A. Strahan; and T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1798.
First edition of Andrew Stuart’s substantial investigation into the ancestry of the House of Stewart, tracing the dynasty from its earliest documented origins and concentrating particularly upon the branches of Darnley, Lennox, Aubigny and Castlemilk.
With half-title, folding genealogical table and three plates. Bookplate of George Harrison to the front pastedown, with neat early manuscript marginalia to several leaves.
Bound in handsome contemporary calf, the boards framed by a gilt Greek-key border, the spine divided into raised compartments with gilt floral ornaments and gilt-lettered title label. Rebacked preserving the original backstrip; some rubbing and wear to extremities and corners, with occasional light spotting internally.
An imposing copy of an important late eighteenth-century contribution to the genealogy of Scotland’s royal dynasty.
Author: Andrew Stuart (1725–1801)
Title: Genealogical History of the Stewarts, from the Earliest Period of Their Authentic History to the Present Times
Year: 1798
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: A. Strahan; T. Cadell Jun. & W. Davies
Place: London
Format: 4to
Illustrations: Folding genealogical table and 3 plates
Provenance: Bookplate of George Harrison
Reference: ESTC T109576
Contemporary calf, boards framed with gilt Greek-key borders, raised bands and gilt floral decoration to spine. Rebacked preserving the original backstrip. Binding rubbed and marked in places with wear to extremities and corners, but retaining considerable period character and presenting attractively.
Half-title present. Folding genealogical table and three plates. Bookplate of George Harrison to front pastedown. Neat early manuscript marginalia to several leaves. Occasional light spotting and age-toning internally.
Few family histories carry the political and historical weight of the House of Stewart.
From medieval Scotland the Stewarts rose to the Scottish throne with Robert II in 1371. Their descendants would include Mary, Queen of Scots and her son James VI of Scotland, who in 1603 inherited the English throne as James I and united the crowns of Scotland and England under a single monarch.
By the eighteenth century, however, the precise origins and seniority of different branches of this extraordinary family remained matters of serious antiquarian dispute.
Andrew Stuart—lawyer, politician and one of Scotland’s most determined genealogical researchers—set out to resolve the question through documentary evidence.
Published in 1798, this Genealogical History of the Stewarts was the result.
Stuart concentrated particularly upon the Stewarts of Darnley, whose descendants included the royal line, as well as the Lennox, Aubigny and Castlemilk branches. Rather than producing merely a narrative family history, he assembled documentary proofs, references and genealogical evidence in an attempt to establish the family’s descent on a scholarly basis.
The title page itself reveals the remarkable breadth of his research. Stuart incorporated material discovered during searches undertaken in 1789 in the Vatican archives at Rome, including documents concerning Robert the Stewart of Scotland—later King Robert II—and the much-contested questions surrounding his marriages to Elizabeth Mure and Euphemia Ross.
The book immediately became part of a vigorous historical dispute.
In the following year an anonymous opponent published The Genealogy of the Stewarts Refuted, attacking Stuart’s conclusions. Stuart answered with his own Supplement to the Genealogical History of the Stewarts.
Thus this 1798 volume represents the book that began the controversy.
It is both a substantial work of eighteenth-century historical scholarship and a surviving record of the continuing fascination with the origins of the dynasty that had ruled Scotland and, eventually, all three Stuart kingdoms.
This is the first edition of one of the major eighteenth-century genealogical studies of the House of Stewart, published at a period when genealogy was increasingly being subjected to documentary and antiquarian scholarship rather than simply repeated family tradition.
Its subject is exceptional: the ancestry of the dynasty of Robert II, Mary Queen of Scots, James VI & I and the later Stuart monarchs.
The physical book is also impressive. Large-format eighteenth-century genealogical works of this type have considerable presence, and this copy retains its attractive contemporary gilt calf binding with Greek-key borders and decorated spine, together with its folding genealogical table and plates.
The George Harrison provenance and surviving early marginal annotations add further evidence of contemporary ownership and scholarly use.
For a collection centred upon Scottish history, British monarchy, genealogy, Jacobite and Stuart history, or eighteenth-century antiquarian scholarship, this is a substantial cornerstone volume.
