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Biblia, dat is De gantsche H. Schrifture : vervattende alle de canonycke boecken des Oude en des Niewen Testaments.
Amsterdam : Gedruckt by de Weduwe wulen Paulus van Ravesteyn, anno 1662. 

Lower Library, F.29.73

This handsome Bible has a noteworthy provenance. The ex libris inscription records that it was once the property of William (1650–1702), Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1672–1702) and King William III of Great Britain (1689–1702), joint sovereign with his wife, Mary II, until her death in 1694. He is credited with upholding the Protestant religion following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of the Catholic James II (reigned 1685-1688).

At some point the Bible passed to the Scot Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715), an academic theologian. A man of strict personal rectitude, Burnet’s relationship with the House of Stuart was uneasy. In 1675 he preached the commemoration sermon on the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, a copy of which is held in the Library. In 1680, during a political crisis, he wrote, rashly, to Charles II (reigned 1660-1685) reproaching him for impropriety in his private life and advocating a new morality in government. The letter was not well-received. Charles is reputed to have thrown it into the fire. When in 1683 some of Burnet’s friends were implicated in a plot to assassinate the King and his brother (the future James II) he felt obliged to leave the country. He settled in the Low Countries, where he ingratiated himself with the young Stadtholder and Mary, his wife, estranged daughter of the new King James II. Both were staunch Protestants. Relations were cordial, at least initially; soon Burnet was advising the young couple on theological matters. When he proposed marriage to a wealthy young Scottish woman resident in The Hague an exasperated James II demanded in his extradition on dubious grounds of high treason. It was refused.

As Burnet had a reputation for a loose tongue he was not informed of the Stadtholder’s plan to invade England until the last minute, although he was appointed to be William’s chaplain. The invasion was successful; James II fled the country and was judged to have abandoned the throne, which was offered to William and Mary as joint sovereigns. For his loyalty William III appointed Burnet to the see of Salisbury (Sarum) shortly after his succession and, in this capacity, Burnet preached the coronation sermon, a copy of which is also held here. Later into the reign, following the death of Mary II, Burnet fell from favour (William referred to him disparagingly as a Tartuffe, (a French word for a hypocritical pretender to piety, derived from the character in Molière's comedy of the same name), but he retained the bishopric through the reign of Anne (1702-1714) and saw in the Hanoverian age. He died in 1715. ‘After his decease’ records the inscription, the Bible ‘fell into the hands’ of a Major Ralph Whitfeld, whose book-plate, inserted on the inside front board, is dated 1737. Whitfeld presented it to the Library in the same year. He has no other connection to the College, but we know that in 1736 Whitfeld gave Eton College Library an updated (1699) edition of De Mariana’s General history of Spain (originally published 1592). In a rather satisfactory twist, William III’s father was Stadtholder in 1648, the year that the Dutch Republic finally gained independence from Spain.

The scarlet and gold morocco binding is particularly striking but should not detract from the dainty gauffering that adorns the text-block. It depicts the expulsion, by a sword-bearing angel, of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, but is much faded. 

Een rechte Tartuffe means A straight Tartuffe; a Tartuffe is a French word for a hypocritical pretender to piety, derived from the character in Molière's comedy of the same name.