157 - [LEAGUE]. Letters of Union to be Sent Throughout Christendom.

[LEAGUE]. Letters of Union to be Sent Throughout Christendom. No place, no publisher, 1589. In-12 (15 x 10 cm), brown cardboard binding. 11 pp.; title included in the pagination, portrait of the Duke of Guise on the verso, coat of arms of Lorraine on the recto of the last leaf. The edges of the vertical leaves have been re-trimmed. Provenance: pasted-in bookplate (Ld Marcel) First edition. A political and religious pamphlet published by the supporters of the Holy Catholic League (the “Ligueurs”), led at the time by the city of Paris and the House of Guise, who had rebelled against the king. At the end of 1588, during the Estates General convened at the Château de Blois, Henry III had the two principal leaders of the Catholic League assassinated: Henry I of Lorraine and Louis II of Lorraine. These letters, written one month after the deaths of the Lorraines (January 1589), are addressed to the League members, whom the author urges to revolt against Henry III (who would himself be assassinated a few months later, in August 1589).