This is the second edition of Sir John Doddridge's account of Wales, Cornwall and Chester. It was first printed posthumously in 1630 under the title The History of the ancient and modern estate of the principality of Wales, dutchy of Cornwall and earldome of Chester.
These titles are generally reserved for the heir to the throne and the idea to write an introduction to them may have come about several decades earlier. In 1604, Doddridge was appointed Serjeant to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales by James VI & I. The Scottish James had acceded to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 and he and the new Prince of Wales would have had little knowledge of their new kingdom, so an introduction to them was probably very useful.
The work, which was dedicated to James, gives a brief introduction to the history of each region before moving on to discuss their divisions, laws peculiar to them and their annual revenue.
This second edition was published in 1714 following the accession of the Hanoverian George I. It contains an additional dedication to the new king, written in both Latin and in English, perhaps because it was known that George could not speak the latter. This copy was presented to the Prince of Wales, the future George II, possibly by the publisher.

Binding information

Contemporary black goatskin binding, with gold-tooling on both sides and spine.

Both sides tooled in the ‘cottage-roof’ style: outer triple fillet border surmounted by a swirling vine roll, with wavy gouges in each of the inner corners; inner ‘cottage-roof’ border formed of fillets, dotted rolls and gouges, the upper and lower border surmounted by rows of small sprouting acorn tools interspersed with dots and fleurons, with the rest of the space filled with a profusion of swirling vines, dots, stars, circles, and fleurons; in the centre of the cottage-roof border, above and below the arms, a wreath-like pattern formed of a series of separate star, circle, flower and fleuron tools; in the centre, a diamond-shaped design formed of a central circle tools, surrounded by swirl tools and pointed fleurons.

Sides and insides of both boards gold-tooled with semi-circular roll.

Spine divided into six compartments by raised bands, each tolled with semi-circular roll. Each compartment tooled with triple fillet border and a central cross-shape formed of dotted gouges, with swirls, sprouting flowers and fleurons in each four divisions and swirls in each of the outer corners; head and tail of spine tooled with triple fillet lines.

Contemporary painted and gilt (goffered?) endpapers; all edges gilt.

Binding design very similar to RCIN 1081178 (Add B 65); outer roll border and wreath-like pattern of stars, circles, flowers and fleurons identical on both volumes.