John Lesley - Works

Works

The chief works of Lesley are as follows:

• A Defence of the Honor of Marie, Queene of Scotland, by Eusebius Dicaeophile, London, (1569)
  • reprinted, with alterations, at Liege (1571), under the title, A Treatise concerning the Defence of the Honour of Marie, Queene of Scotland, made by Morgan Philip pes, Bachelor of Divinitie, Piae afflicts animi consoleiones, ad Mariam Scot. Reg., Paris, (1574)
• De origine, moribus, ac rebus gestis Scotiae libri decem, Rome (1578). This History of Scotland from 1436 to 1561 (10 volumes) was presented to Mary Queen of Scots in 1571. The general title of Lesley's History of Scotland is: De origine, moribus, et rebus gestis Scotorum, Libri decerm. E quibus septem, veterum Scotorum res in primis memorabiles contractius reliqui vero tres posteriorum Regum ad nostra tempora historiam, quæ hucusque desiderabatur, fusius explicant; and the title prefixed to the second part is: De rebus gestis Scotorum posteriores libri tres, recentiorum regum historiam, quæ hucusque desiderabatur, ab anno Domini MCCCCXXXVI. usque ad annum MDLXII. fusius continentes. Nunc primum in lucem editi. It owes much, in its earlier chapters, to the accounts of Hector Boece and John Mair, though some portion of the topographical matter is first-hand. In later sections he gives an independent account, from a Catholic point of view, which is a valuable supplement and corrective in many details, to the works of George Buchanan and John Knox.
  • De origine moribus & rebus gestis Scotorum libri decem, Rome (1675), second Latin edition.
  • Cody, E. G., ed., History of Scotland, 2 vols., Scottish Text Society (1888, 1895). A Scots language translation of the published Latin made in 1596 by James Dalrymple of the Scottish Cloister at Regensburg.
  • Thomson, Thomas, ed., The history of Scotland, from the death of King James I. in the year M.CCCC.XXXVI to the year M.D.LXI, Bannatyne Club (1830) from a Scottish manuscript of De Origine.
  • Lesley's Latin continuation of his history from 1562 to 1571, is translated in Forbes-Leith ed., Narrative of Scottish Catholics, (1885), from the original manuscript in the Vatican.
• De illustriun feminarum in repubtica administranda authoritate libellus, Reims, (1580). A Latin version of a tract on The Lawfulness of the Regiment of Women (cf. Knox's pamphlet);
• De titulo et jure Mariae Scot. Reg., quo regni Angliae successioneoi sibi juste vindicat, Reims, (1580); translated in (1584).