1-272-897 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Letter from James II to his brother-in-law, Lawrence Hyde, First Lord of the Treasury, late 17th century. Letter written, as Duke of York, during his retirement in Scotland at the time of the Exclusion Bill, on the untrustworthiness of the Duchess of Portsmouth, proposed changes in the Ministry, the necessity of a dissolution of Parliament, the conviction of Lord Stafford for complicity in the Popish Plot, and his own determination not to change his religion. The detached signature is taken from a letter to Samuel Pepys (The Hague, 25th April, 1679). From the third series of Facsimiles of royal, historical, literary and other autographs in the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum: Series I-V, (London, 1899).