Richard Broughton, A True Memorial of the Ancient, Most Holy, and Religious State of Great Britain Flourishing with Apostles, Apostlical Men, Monasteries, Religious Rules, and Orders, in Great Number in the Time of the Britains; and Primitive Church of the Saxons. No Rule, nor Order from Egypt, or of S. Benedict; nor of S. Equitius, being to be Found in her Precincts, in those Times (1650).
The author, Richard Broughton (c. 1561-1635), was a Roman Catholic priest and enthusiastic antiquarian. He published The Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain in 1633, two years before his death. He seems to have received many positive reactions, which he writes in the preface to this volume encouraged himself to 'hasten these few sheets, treating of the ancient Founders of divers Religious Orders in great Britain, and the adjacent Isles before S. Augustins coming thither; which for the most part were Natives of the said Countries, and no Ægyptian, Benedictin, nor Equitian Monks' (p. A3). He also writes that considering his age and weakness, he would not live long, and that there would be no better way to spend the remainder of his days than 'by vindicating such glorious Worthies from hateful oblivion', because he did not 'hear of any modern Author labouring in this kind ... and do find the late English Antiquaries to acknowledge their lack of reading such matters' (p. A4) as he intends to make the subject of this book. He finished writing the book in less than two years, before he died, but it was not published until 1650, fifteen years after his death.
As the title of the book, as well as the summary of the first chapter (quoted below), shows, what he argues in this book is that 'Britain first received and embraced the most holy and perfect Christian life and conversion from the Apostles, in the first dayes of Christianity' (p. B1). In his The Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, he also argues that Christianity was first brought to Britain by St Peter.
My copy is rebound in a modern binding and it has no signatures or bookplates of previous owners, but one of them left a note on the author, quoting words from Thomas Fuller's History of the Worthies of England (1622).