THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE : WRITTEN IN FRENCH BY MONSIEUR MAIMBOURG TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH ACCORDING TO HIS MAJESTY'S COMMAND BY MR. DRYDEN by Maimbourg, Louis. Translated by John Dryden - 1684

London: Printed by M. Flesher, for Jacob Tonson at Judge's-Head in Chancery-lane near Fleet Street, 1684. Leather-bound. Very Good. Professionaly rebacked in calf with original leather boards, spine title in gilt on red label. Raised bands, marbled edges. Small thick octavo. 524,731-996,49,42 pages. Frontis engraving of Charles II, Family crest of Ambrose Hollbech of Mollingham [old landowning family] pasted down to obverse of title page. Name and address stamp to front pastedown, some pencil notes to top of pastedown, Small name in calligraphic script at top corner of endpaper, browning to front gutter and margins of pastedown and endpaper. Text is bright and clean in tight binding. Dreyden wrote the dedication to the king and also the 49 page postscript. "The break in pagination is a consequence of the work having been given to two compositors". [Cited by William Reese Books]. Louis Maimboug [1610-1686] was a French historian and this concerns the religious wars in France. Maimbourg was a Jesuit, but he supported the power of Louis XIV over that of the Pope for which he was expelled by the Jesuits, but rewarded with a pension by the king. Dryden served as the "Historiographer Royal" to the court of Charles II, and was requested to translate the work. In Dryden's postcript he argues for the Divine Right of Kings.