JONES, Theophilus, & OTHERS. A Letter Sent from Ireland, Dated at Dublin Decemb.15.1659. Subscribed, For The Right Honourable William Lenthall, Esq; Speaker to the Parliament. These. To be Communicated to the Rest of Parliament at Westminster.

London: Printed by John Streater and John Macock, Printers to the Parliament, 1659. Small quarto. pp. 8. A2 close trimmed to fore-edge with minute loss to a few letters. Recent grey papered boards. A very good copy. Very rare.
Sweeney 2632. Wing L1601. COPAC locates only 2 copies.
William Lenthall (1591-1662) was an English politician of the Civil War period. Educated at Lord Williams’s School, he later left Oxford without taking a degree in 1609, and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1616, becoming a bencher in 1633. He represented Woodstock in the Short Parliament (April 1640), and was chosen by King Charles I to be Speaker of the Long Parliament, which met on 3 November 1640. According to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, a worse choice could not have been made, for Lenthall was of a very timorous nature. He was treated with little respect, and was unable to control the proceedings.
On the outbreak of war, Lenthall threw in his lot with Parliament. He had already called attention to the inadequacy of his salary and been granted a sum of £6000 in April, 1642; in the following year he was now appointed Master of the Rolls, and was one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal. After the Civil War he supported the House of Stuart.

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