"Droit le Roy; or, A Digest of the Rights and Prerogatives of the
Imperial Crown of Great Britain. By a Member of the Society of
Lincoln's Inn. 'Dieu et Mon Droit.' [Royal Arms, with G. R.] London:
printed and sold by W. Griffin, in Fetter Lane, MDCCLXIV."
Lord Mahon (_History of England_, vol. v. p. 175.) says:
"It was also observed, and condemned as a shallow artifice, that the
House of Lords, to counterbalance their condemnation of Wilkes's
violent democracy, took similar measures against a book of exactly
opposite principles. This was a treatise or collection of precedents
lately published under the title of _Droit le Roy_, to uphold the
prerogative of the crown against the rights of the people. The Peers,
on the motion of Lord Lyttleton, seconded by the Duke of Grafton, voted
this book 'a false, malicious, and traitorous libel, inconsistent with
the principles of the Revolution to which we owe the present happy
establishment;' they ordered that it should be burned by the hands of
the common hangman, and that the author should be taken into custody.
The latter part of the sentence, however, no one took any pains to
execute. The author was one Timothy Brecknock, a hack scribbler, who,
twenty years afterwards, was hanged for being accessary to an atrocious
murder in Ireland."
A copy of the book (an octavo of xii. and 95 pages) is in my possession. It
was apparently a presentation copy, and formerly belonged to Dr. Disney; at
whose sale it was purchased by the late Richard Heber, as his MS. note
testifies. Against the political views which this book advocates, I say not
one word; as a legal treatise it is simply despicable.