Variously attributed to Robert Brown and Bishop William Juxon, Subjects Sorrow functions as both a sermon and a discourse on political theology in the immediate aftermath of Charles I's execution in January 1649. The biblical King of Judah, Josiah, here serves as a prototype of the righteous, suffering King - which for English monarchists of the 17th-century were terms easily applied to the recently executed monarch. As a work of political theology, Subjects Sorrow presents the monarchists' position that God's "High Grace" of kingship, conferred on an individual in coronation or through an hereditary line, is essentially irrevocable. The Josiah motif was a common feature of monarchist political writing, both in 1649 and during the early Restoration. The present work was widely used after 1660 in other political tracts and sermons.

References: ESTC R206109; Wing S6106A; Thomason, E.546[16].

Small Quarto, [2], 32 pages. In Good minus condition. Half bound in brown leather and brown paper covered boards. Boards have significant cracking to leather along joints, with front board and front free end papers loosening (but still attached. The leather on spine is significantly chipped and cracking, and corners and edges of boards show moderate plus wear. Text block shows light age-toning and foxing to edges and to pages interiorly. Pages are tightly trimmed, impacting many of the marginal notes. The bookplate of Sir Richard Burton (1773-1855), of Sackett's Hill House, appears on the front paste down. Another bookplate ("Henry L. Pierce") appears on the verso of the second free end paper. Title page present, but lacking the final leaf of plates reported in the ESTC, and several unpaginated leaves at the beginning of the volume reported there also. RW Consignment. Shelved case 7