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2 disbound pamphlets. Each (4to) 30x20 cm (12x8").

Includes:

• Williams, John. An impartial consideration of those speeches, which pass under the name of the five Jesuits lately executed viz. [brace] Mr. Whitebread, Mr. Harcourt, Mr. Gawen, Mr. Turner, and Mr. Fenwick : in which it is proved, that according to their principles, they not only might, but also ought, to die after that manner, with solemn protestation of their innocency.  Title page, 14 pp. London: Printed for Richard Chiswell, 1679.

• The last speeches of the five notorious traitors and Jesuits : viz. Thomas White ... William Harcourt ... John Gavan ... Anthony Turner and John Fenwick ... who were justly executed at Tyburn, June 20, 1679, for conspiring the death of His Sacred Majesty, and the subversion of the government and Protestant religion. The last three lines are handwritten in period ink. [London: 1697?]

Blessed Thomas Whitbread was an English Jesuit missionary, wrongly convicted of conspiracy to murder Charles II of England. The King, who knew that he and his fellow victims were innocent, ordered that they be allowed to die before being mutilated. The crowd showed that on this occasion its sympathies were with the victims, and it listened in respectful silence as Whitbread and the others made lengthy speeches protesting their innocence. Whitbread was beatified in 1929. Very scarce. No previous auction records could be located for either piece.