[Scott, Thomas]:

$1,250 · Offered by William Reese Company

VOX POPULI. OR NEWES FROM SPAYNE, TRANSLATED ACCORDING TO THE SPANISH COPPIE. WHICH MAY SERVE TO FOREWARN BOTH ENGLAND AND THE UNITED PROVINCES HOW FARRE TO TRUST TO SPANISH ... "[This work] purports to describe the report of the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, to the council of state in Madrid on his return from his first embassy to England in 1618. The ambassador recounts the success of his efforts to subvert the English government, and describes with evident satisfaction the crowds that flocked to mass in his chapel in London. Relaxation of the recusancy laws, the banning of decent protestant preaching as 'puritan,' and the distribution of popish propaganda, Gondomar claims, have all been obtained by bribery of courtiers and the king's ministers. Gleefully Gondomar also describes the failure of Ralegh's expedition and his subsequent destruction, connived at by the unholy alliance of greedy courtiers, personal enemies, and outright papists which the Spaniard boasts of orchestrating....Apparently taken for a piece of genuine reportage at a time of deep, and not entirely unjustified, religious paranoia, the anonymously published pamphlet caused a furore, and prompted an energetic hunt for its author. Its printers remained at work producing new editions, though they were evidently disturbed by the hue and cry - several of these editions 'are composed of assorted sheets of different impressions hastily bound together' (Adams, 'Captain Thomas Gainsford,' 143)....[T]his tract stand

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