The birth of Prince James Francis Edward in 1688 was plagued by rumors that he was an imposter baby and that the actual child of James II of England and his wife, Mary of Modena, had been still-born. Written by an unnamed author, which could be due to not wanting to be persecuted, the book is an accusation against the royal family of sneaking a commoner’s child into the royal palace and claiming the child as their own in order to have an heir. This book therefore argues that Prince James Francis Edward was not the true heir to the throne. The book not only contains supposed written evidence of how the child was smuggled into St. James’s Palace and the Queen’s chamber, it also contains a map (Fig 1) of the palace and outlines the alleged pathway by which the child was brought into the chamber.
Fig 1: Map of the Palace with the alleged pathway of how Prince James Francis Edward was snuck in
The text of the Depositions was printed from two different settings of type. Setting 1 has line 10 of ‘The Authors Apology’ beginning with ‘quick’, while for setting 2, line 10 begins with ‘buick’ (with ‘q’ inverted). The setting of the book that is being presented is that of setting 1 (Fig 2). Furthermore, upon comparing the book at hand with those housed at the British Library and Bodleian Libraries using their online catalogue, it is noted that across all the books on page 8, paragraph 7 has been overprinted with the same type ornaments and the letter m. This indicates that the same stamp has been used across all books, at least those observed, to censor the paragraph. Further inspection reveals that the type ornaments and the letter m are not stamped at the same angle throughout all books. Hence overprinting could possibly have occurred after the book had been published and that it had most likely been done by a person and not a machine.
Fig 2: Page of “The Authors Apology” where line 10 begins with ‘quick’
However, what is hard to ascertain is the person who had the paragraph censored. One assumption is that it could have been the author himself or had at least instructed someone to censor the paragraph due to errors with regards to the information. What makes this assumption less credible is that if the author had been one to have censored the paragraph, it would have been most likely reflected in the ‘The Authors Apology.’ where the author himself has noted the errors and changes that have been made throughout the book. Another theory is that it could have been censored by the bookseller Simon Burgis himself as the same stamp has been used in the books that were printed for him. It is important to note that all these remain theories as it is impossible to figure out who authorized the censorship due to the lack of information regarding the book.
Prepared by Lee Ann