[MILITARY]

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of this focal work from Charles I s expedition against the Scots in 1639. Rarer than the London reissue, this Newcastle edition was the second book printed in Newcastle. This pamphlet was produced during the Bishops Wars of 1639 and 1640, when the Scots had opposed the bishops appointed by the king, instead favouring a Presbyterian kirk (church), where a more localised and democratic form of election to power was common. Charles attempted to impose bishops on the Scots, leading Scots to expel them from the kirk. Charles responded by marching 20,000 English soldiers up to Edinburgh as well as sailing 5,000 naval troops to Aberdeen. The king chose to fund the mission with his own resources rather than Parliament s. This book was created when the army had marched as far as Newcastle, en route to Berwick-upon-Tweed where they were planning to muster. It sought to instruct the mainly untrained conscripts the complexities and correct practices of war and was distributed and read out to the soldiers. Key emphasis is given to correct moral and religious behaviour, i.e. no blasphemy, gambling, whoredom , nor drunkenness. Charles insists on soldiers behaving like gentlemen, and any that engage in notorious crimes like willfull murders, rapes, burning of houses, thefts, outrages, unnatural absues and so on will be mortally punished. Attention is paid to the respectful treatment of women and children, with no dishonest touching permitted. Treachery, mutinies, disrespecting

• Binding: Hardcover

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