they could agree to have all their Wives in common Encounters hapned among them as they were invited by Desire or favoured by Opportunity Every Womans Children were attributed to him that had married her but all had a share in the Care and Defence of the whole Society since no Man knew which were his own Though this Custom be alledged as a Testimony how savage or barbarous a People the Britains were yet I know not why it should appear more extravagant than the community of VVomen in some other Countries the deflowering of Virgins by the Priest the first Night of their Marriage the unlimited number of Wives and Concubines not to mention the Marriage of Sisters among the ancient Egyptians and Athenians and the borrowing and lending of VVives among the Romans On t'other side it may be alledged for some excuse of these our Ancestors that by such a Custom they avoided the common mischiefs of Jealousie the injuries of Adultery the Confinement of single Marriages the Luxury and Expence of many VVives or Concubines and the partiality of Parents in the Education of all their own Children All which are Considerations that have fallen under the Care of many famous Law-givers But the best excuse was made upon this occasion by a British VVoman in the time of Severus who being grown familiar with Iulia Augusta and other chief Ladies of that Court and having observed what passed there behind the Curtain was one day reproached for this Custom of the Britains as Infamous in the VVomen as well as Barbarous in the Men. She answered coldly we do that openly with the best of our Men which you do privately with the worst of yours However it be such were the People and the Customs of Britain when the Romans first invaded their Island under the Ensigns of Iulius Cesar. This famous Roman Leader then Governour of Gaul after having subdued all that Province and the bordering parts of Germany was the first we read of with any certainty that enter'd Britain with Foreign Arms. His Forces were composed of Germans Batavians and Gauls besides the best of his Old Roman Legions Yet in two Expeditions he made into this Island he rather encreased the Glory than the Dominion of Rome and gave Britain the Honour of being the last Triumph of that mighty Republick which had before subdued and reduced into Provinces so many Kingdoms and Common-wealths in Europe Asia and Africa The Britains with their naked Troops made a Brave Opposition against this Veterane Army in many fierce encounters with mutual Losses and various Successes till Dissention entering among the several Princes some of them jealous of Cassivelaunus or his Greatness fled over to Cesar submitted to the Romans and desired their Protection Others followed their Example till Cassivelaunus weakned by these Desertions resolved likewise to make the best Terms he could for himself and the rest he sends to Cesar acknowledges the Roman State agrees upon a certain Tribute and delivers Hostages And here began the Fate of Britain to make way for Foreign Conquests by their Divisions at home The Romans were pleased with the Name of a New Conquest and glad to end an Adventure with some Honour which they found was not further to be pursued without long Time and much Danger and having discovered rather than subdued the Southern Parts only of the Island returned into Gaul with their whole Forces and left the Britains to their own Customs Laws and Governments Cesar being esteemed the best Writer as well as the greatest Captain of his Age or perhaps of any other has with his own Pen left us the best Account not only of this Enterprise but of this Island too till then little known to the rest of the World Those Tales we have of what passed there before his time of Brute and his Trojans of many Adventures and Successions are covered with the Rust of Time or involved in the Vanity of Fables or pretended Traditions which seem to all Men obscure or uncertain but to me forged at Pleasure by the Wit or Folly of their first Authors and not to be regarded From the first Entrance of Cesar's Triumphant Arms we have some constant Light in the Story of Britain tho often very weak and uncertain from the Obscurity of those Barbarous Nations who invaded the Northern Parts of the Island and from the Ignorance of those Illiterate Ages that passed from the Decay to the Restoration of the Greek and Roman Languages and Learning in the Western Parts of Europe As the Roman Conquests advanced in this Island during the Reigns of so many Emperors the bravest of the Natives who could not endure that Subjection retired into the Mountainous and Rocky Parts of Wales and Cornwall where they preserved their Liberty some time longer but fell at last with the rest into the common Servitude But the greatest numbers and of the hardest Bodies as well as Courage among the Britains after many brave Attempts for Defence of their Country and Liberty and many Defeats by the invincible Romans still retired Northward from the Encroachments of the Conqueror till they were at last beaten out into the rough and savage Parts beyond the two Fryths where the Romans afterwards built a Wall These native Britains were by them called Picts from the Custom they still retained of Painting their Bodies and their Shields And this I take for the most probable Account of the Nation so termed by the Romans for among themselves they were called Albins though much Pains and Invention has been employed by many Authors to make them a Foreign Race of People who from they know not what Country and at they know not what Time invaded and possessed Caledonia or the Northern Parts of Scotland 'T is more difficult to find out the Original of the Scots or the Time of their Entrance upon those North-west Regions but as far as can be gathered out of the Dust or Rubbish of such barbarous Times and Writings and what remains still of known Appellations and Events it seems probable that vast numbers of a savage People called Scyths at some certain time began and atchieved the Conquest of the Northern Parts both of Britain and Ireland and by an easie Change of the word were called Scots and from them those two Countries were called Scotia major and Scotia minor Whether the Scots landed first in Ireland or Scotland I leave disputed and undetermined among their Authors But it seems agreed that both those Countries were for some Course of Time stiled Scotiae and that both the Northwest Parts of Scotland as well as Ireland were called Ierne I am apt to conjecture that when these Scots seated themselves in those Parts of Scotland they divided themselves into two Races or Nations whereof those who inhabited the North-East Parts called themselves Albin-Scots the Name of the Natives there being then Albins and the rest who possessed the North-west Parts were called Iren-Scots from a River of that Country which gave
it the Name of Ierne and this Name was communicated to all the rest of that Race who conquered and possessed the North of Ireland which from them was stiled by the Saxons Iren-land and by Abbreviation Ireland And the Original Name seems to have belonged rather to those Parts of Scotland than Ireland since it is given us by the ancientest Latin Verse that mentions it with the Epithet of Glacialis Ierne which agrees little with the Clymate of Ireland That these fierce Invaders were Scythians or Scyths which was their Vulgar Termination is probably conjectured if not ascertained not only from their Name but from the Seat of that Continent which is nearest to the North of Scotland This is Norway and is the utmost Western Province of that vast Northern Region which extends from thence to the farthest Bounds of Tartary upon the Eastern Ocean and was by the Ancients comprehended in that general Appellation of Scythia as well as divided into several other Barbarous Names and Countries Besides 't is both usual and rational that such great Transmigrations of People should be made from a worse to a better Clymate or Soil rather than to a worse which makes this probable to have proceeded from Norway than from lower and more fertile parts of Germany and the Island which is the nearest part of Land to that Continent of Norway retains still the Name of Schetland as the first point which is reported to have been touched by the Scots or Scyths in this Navigation Another Argument may be drawn from several Customs still remaining among the Old Northern Irish which are recorded to have been anciently among some of the Scythian Nations removing their Houses or Creats from one place to another according to the Seasons Burning of their Corn instead of Beating or Treading in other Countries Eating Blood they drew from living Cattle Feeding generally upon Milk and using little other Husbandry besides the Pasture and Breed of Cattle To this is added that the Mantle or Plad seems to have been the Garment in use among the Western Scythians as they continue still among the Northern Irish and the Highland Scots For their Language it must be confess'd there is not left the least Trace by which we may seek out the Original of this Nation for it is neither known nor recorded to have been used any where else in the World besides Ireland the High-lands of Scotland and the Isle of Man and must be allowed to be an Original Language without any Affinity to the Old British or any other upon the Continent and perhaps with less mixture than any other of those Original Languages yet remaining in any parts of Europe The Conjecture raised of its having come from Spain because some Spanish words are observed in it appears too light to be regarded when those very words are of the modern Spanish which is a Language not above seven or eight Hundred Years Old and compounded chiefly out of Old Roman and Gothick with a later intrusion of the Saracen among them And yet I know no better ground than this for the other Tradition of Ireland having been anciently planted from Spain and esteem the few Spanish words to have been introduced only by Traffick of the South-west parts of Ireland to Spain It seems probable that from what part soever of the Continent this Nation Sailed upon this Adventure they were driven away by the force or fear of some other Invaders and in so great numbers that the Natives remaining neither preserved any where their Name or Language but were either destroy'd by the Conquerors or blended into the Masse of the new Nations who seated themselves in their Country as we find the Old British to have been in England by the Conquests and Inundations of the Saxons The time of this Expedition is yet less in view nor does Buchanan or any other Author that I know of pretend to tell or so much as conjecture further than upon a supposition of the Scots coming first out of Ireland without alledging any Authority for that neither I know no way of making any guesses at a matter so obscure without recourse to the Runick Learning and Stories by which we find that the Asiatick Scythians under the Names of Getes or Goths and the Conduct of Odin their Captain their Law-giver at first and afterwards one of their Gods are esteemed to have begun their Expedition into the North-west parts of Europe about the time that the Roman Arms began first to make a great noise and give great fears in Asia which was in the Reigns of Antiochus first and then of Mithridates How long the Arms of Odin and his Successors were imployed in the Conquest and Settlement of that vast Kingdom which contained all the Tracts of Country surrounding the Baltick Sea is not agreed upon in these Runick Stories but 't is necessary Norway must have been the last they possessed in their Western Progress and I am apt to think the Scyths may have been driven by them to seek nearer Seats in our Islands and that 't is probable to have been some time of the first Century Whenever it was it seems more agreed that after the first Entrance of the Scots into Caledonia they subdued much of the Country mingled with the the rest of the Native Picts continued long to infest the Frontier Parts of the Roman Colonies in Britain with great fierceness and many various Events and would possibly have made much greater noise and impressions upon the Romans if their greater Numbers had not been drawn another way by so great a Drain as that of Ireland which they totally conquered and long possessed This is the best Account I have been ever able to give my self of these ancient Times and Events in the Northern Parts of our Islands being a matter that has imployed so many unskilful Pens in so much idle Trash and worthless Stuff as they have left upon it but all involved in such groundless Traditions and vanity of Fables so obscured by the length of Time and darkness of unlearned Ages or covered over with such gross Forgeries made at Pleasure by their first Inventers that I know few ancient Authors upon this subject worth the pains of Perusal and of dividing or refining so little Gold out of so much course Oar or from so much Dross And I have the rather made this Excursion because I have met with nothing in Story more Obscure and often observed with wonder that we should know less of Ireland than of any other Country in Europe For besides its having been anciently planted by the Scots and taken their Name and then after several Centuries been subdued and much of it planted by the Danes we know nothing certain of the Affairs or Revolutions of that Island till the English began their Conquests there under the Ensigns of Henry the Second For the Danish Establishments there we neither know the Time nor the manner they either began or ended though
almost deserted by such numbers of Goths Vandals and Saxons as had issued out of them some Centuries before began under the Names of Danes and Normans to infest at first the Sea and at length the Lands of the Belgick Gallick and British Shores filling all where they came with Slaughters Spoils and Devastations The Normans first over-run the Belgick Provinces upon the Mouth of the Rhine and gave them new Names of Holland and Zealand to those parts adjacent to the Sea Afterwards they sailed with mighty Numbers into the Mouth of the Sean and with great fierceness subdued that Northern part of France which from them first received and ever since retained the Name of Normandy and became the State of a great Norman Duke and his Successors for several Generations In the mean time the Danes began their Inroads and furious Invasions upon the Coasts of England with mighty numbers of Ships full of fierce and barbarous People sometimes entring the Thames sometimes the Humber other times Coasting as far as Exeter Landing where-ever they found the Shores unguarded filling all with Ravage Slaughter Spoil and Devastations of the Country where they found any strong Opposition retiring to their Ships sailing home laden with Spoil and by such encouragements giving Life to new Expeditions the next Season of the Year The bravest Blood of the English had been exhausted in their own Civil Wars during the Contentions of the Heptarchy since those ended the rest were grown slothful with Peace and with Luxury softned with new Devotions of their Priests and their Monks with Pennances and Pilgrimages and great numbers running into Cloysters and grown as unequal a Match now for the Danes as the British had been for the Saxons before Yet this Century passed not without many various Successes between the two Nations many Victories and many Defeats on both sides so that twelve Battels are said to have been Fought between them in one Year The Danes divided their Force into several Camps removed them from one part of the Country to another as they were forced by necessity of Provisions or invited by hopes of new Spoils or the weakness and divisions of the English At length fortified Posts and Passages built Castles for defence of Borders one against the other which gave the beginning to those numerous Forts and Castles that were scattered over the whole Country and lasted so long as to remain many of them to this very Age. The English sometimes repulsed these Invasions sometimes purchased the Safety of their Provinces by great Sums of Money which occasioned great Exactions of their Kings upon the People and that great Discontents While the Danes encreasing still by new Supplies of Numbers and Force began to mingle among the Inhabitants of those parts they had subdued made Truces and Treaties and thereupon grew to live more peaceably under the Laws and Government of the English Kings Alfred to prevent the danger of New Invasions began to Build Ships for the Defence of his Coasts and Edgar a Prince of great Wisdom and Felicity in his Reign applying all his thoughts to the encrease and greatness of his Naval Forces as the true strength and safety of his Kingdom raised them to that height both of Numbers and Force and disposed them with that Order for the Guard of the Seas round the whole Island as proved not only sufficient to secure his own Coasts from any new Invasions but the Seas themselves from the Rovers and Spoilers of those Northern Nations who had so long infested them So that all Traders were glad to come under his Protection Which gave a rise to that Right so long claimed by the Crown of England to the Dominion of the Seas about the year 960. But these provisions for the safety of the Kingdom began to decline with the Life of Edgar and neglected in the succeeding Reigns made way for new Expeditions of the Danes who exacted new Tribute from the Kings and Spoils from the Subjects till Ethelred compounding with them for his own Safety and their peaceable living in England and fortifying himself by an Alliance with Richard Duke of Normandy laid a design for the general Massacre of the Danes spred abroad and living peaceably throughout the Realm which was carried on with that secrecy and concurrence of all the English that it was executed upon one day and the whole Nation of the Danes massacred in England about the year 1002. This cruel and perfidious Massacre of so many Thousands instead of ending the long miseries of this Kingdom from the Violences Invasions and Intrusions of the Danes made way for new and greater Calamities than before For Swane King of Denmark exasperated by the Slaughter of his Nation here and among them of his own Sister and animated by the Successes of so many private Expeditions soon after landed with great Forces formed several Camps of Danes in several parts of England filled all with Spoil and Slaughter forced Ethelred to fly for Relief into Normandy and though he returned again yet being a weak and cruel Prince and thereby ill beloved and ill obeyed by his Subjects he never recovered Strength enough to oppose the Forces and Numbers of the Danes to whom many of the English Nobles as well as Commoners had in his absence submitted Swane died before he could atchieve this Adventure but left his Son Canute in a Course of such prosperous Fortunes and the English so broken or divided that coming out of Denmark with new Forces in two hundred Ships he reduced Edmund Son of Ethelred first to a Division of the whole Kingdom between them and after his untimely Death was by the whole Nobility of the Realm acknowledged and received for King of England This fierce Prince cut off some of the Royal Line and forced others into Exile Reigned long and left the Crown for two Successions to his Danish Race who all swore to Govern the Realm by the Laws which had been established or rather digested by Edward the First and Edgar out of the Old Saxon Customs and Constitutions But Hardecaute last of the Danish Kings dying suddenly at a Feast in the year 1042. left the Race so hated by the Imposition and Exaction of several Tributes upon his People that Edward surnamed the Confessor and Grandson to Edgar coming out of Normandy where he had been long protected found an easie accession to the Crown by the general Concurrence both of Nobles and People and with great Applause restored the Saxon Race in the year 1043. Thus expired not only the Dominion but all Attempts or Invasions of the Danes in England which though continued and often renewed with mighty Numbers for above two hundred years yet left no change of Laws Customs Language or Religion nor other Traces of their Establishments here besides the many Castles they built and many Families they left behind them who after the Accession of Edward the Confessor to the Crown wholly submitting to his Government and
Nations which under the Names of Goths and Vandals invaded the Roman Empire with infinite Numbers Fury and Danger to Rome it self all the Roman Legions were at last drawn out of Britain with most of the Britains that were fit for Military Service to relieve the Emperor who was pursued by the Goths into Piedmont and there besieged in a strong Passage or Town he pretended to Defend The Romans taking their last Leave of this Province here left the Britains to their own Government and Choice of their own Kings and Leaders with the best Instructions for the Exercise of their Arms and Discipline and the Repairs and Defence of the Wall or Rampart they had raised against their Northern Foes But these finding the whole Country deserted by the Roman Bands exhausted of their own bravest Youth and weakned by their new Divisions began to pour in greater Numbers than ever into the Northern Parts and ravaged all before them with greater Rage and Fury The poor Britains sent over their miserable Epistle for Relief still upon Record to the renowned Aetius who had by several famous Successes for a time repelled the Violence of the Gothick Arms which was addressed in these words To Aetius thrice Consul The Groans of the Britains and told him after other lamentable Complaints That the barbarous People drove them to the Sea and the Sea back to the barbarous People between which they had only left the Choice of these two Deaths either to be killed by the one or drowned by the other But having no Hopes given them by the Roman General of any Succours from that Side they began to consider what other Nation they might call over to their Relief The Saxons were one Branch of those Gothick Nations which swarming from the Northern Hive had under the Conduct of Odin possessed themselves anciently of all those mighty Tracts of Land that surround the Baltick Sea A Branch of these under the Name of Suevi from whom the Baltick was of old called Mare Suevicum had some time before Cesars Wars in Gaul invaded and subdued very large extended Territories in Germany from the Coast of the North-west Ocean to the South-eastern Parts whereof Suabia still retains the Memory and the Name These Suevi or Suabi were for their Strength and Valour grown so Formidable to all the German Nations they had Conquered and forced to seek new Seats That those upon the Rhine sending Embassadors to Cesar told him They would neither seek War with the Romans nor avoid it That they esteemed themselves as Valiant as any other Nation excepting only the Suevi for whom the very immortal Gods were not a Match These Suevi became afterwards divided into two several Nations and by Limits agreed between them Those towards the South-east of Germany were called Francs from their great Love of Liberty and their Valour in preserving it and never submitting to the Roman Subjection as many other German Nations had done These upon the fatal Decline of that Empire invaded Gaul under the leading of Pharamond and under the succeeding Kings of his Race conquered the whole Province and established that noble and ancient Kingdom of France The other Branch of the Suevi possessed themselves of all those Tracts of Land in Germany that lie between the Elve and the lower Rhine had extended their Seats all over the Coasts of the North-west Sea and from thence exercised their Arms and fierce Courages in all sorts of Spoils and Pyracies not only upon Merchants or Traders at Sea but upon the Maritime Coasts of Britain opposite to those Countries about the Mouth of the Rhine or thereunto adjacent These fierce People were called Saxons from a Weapon generally used among them and made like a Sythe with the Edge reversed which in in their Language were termed Seaxes To these Vortigern chosen King by the deserted and afflicted Britains made Address for Aid against the Picts and Scots who had now made Inroads as far as Trent Their desires of Relief and offers of Seats in Britain were soon accepted and granted by the Saxons who under the Conduct of Hengist and Horsa of the Race of Odin came over with great Numbers to the Assistance of the Britains in the year 450. They joyned with the Natives at first as Friends and Allies had the Isle of Thanet assigned them at their Landing and upon occasion of greater numbers the County of Kent for their Colony and Habitation They marched against the Picts and Scots and in Conjunction with the British Arms overthrew their Forces in several Battels or Encounters with those cruel Ravagers and beat them back into the most Northern Parts of the Province After this by Consent of the Britains Hengist and Horsa sent for their two Sons or near Kinsmen to come over with a new Army of Saxons by Sea into those Northern Parts who seated their Colony about Northumberland upon pretence of guarding that Frontier against the Picts and Scots and their Incursions upon the Britains which they did with great Bravery and Successes and thereby left those Nations contented or forced to bound their Territories with those rough and mountainous Countries that lye between the two Seas near the River Tweed and which ever since continued as the Borders between the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland into which the Island came afterwards to be divided The Province now delivered and secured from their ancient Foes Dissentions began to arise between the Britains and their new Allies The Saxons valuing too high the assistance they had given and the Britains perhaps too low what they had received till the first allured by so fair a Prey and the fertile Soil of so sweet a Country inviting still greater numbers from the Continent establish'd two Saxon Kingdoms one in the Southern and t'other in the Northern Parts and from both these sides invaded the Britains who for some time defended themselves and their Liberties with various Successes and with the greater hatred and distinction the Saxons being all Pagans and the British generally Christians which Religion seems to have been planted here in the first Century but to have taken Root and spred chiefly under Constantius who was long Governour of the Roman Province here a great favourer of Christianity and Father of Constantine the Great In the time of these first Wars between the Saxons and Britains Ambrosius reigned over the last and either as General of his Armies or his Successor in the Kingdom Arthur so famous in the Traditions or rather in the Romances of succeeding Ages and who is said to have gained twelve Battels over the Saxons and to have left the Britains in the middle of the Province for some time to secure from these fierce Enemies till Peace and Luxury had again softned them and by new Dissentions among themselves exposed their whole Province to become an easie Prey to so fierce and numerous Invaders The time of King Arthur's Reign or Atchievments if any such there were must have been