ornaments He suffered Licinius Crassus Frugi to follow after himselfe in this triumph mounted upon a trapped courser with a rich caparison and arraied in a roabe of Date tree worke Upon Posidius the Eunuch hee bestowed a speare staffe without an head upon C. Gavius cheines bracelets horseâ—trappings and a coronet of gold as is to be seene in an ancient marble at Taurinum In the meane time Aulus Plautius went on with the reliques of this war and sped so well in his battels that Claudius passed a decree that he should ride in pety triumph ovant and when he was entred into the City himselfe went to meet him giving him the right hand all the way both going and comming And Vespasian even then shewed by the destinies whom Claudius assumed unto him to beare a part of this British war partly under the conduct of Claudius himselfe and partly of Plautius fought thirty battels with the enemy two most mighty nations and above twenty townes together with the Isle of Wight he subdued For which worthy exploits he received triumphall ornaments and within a short space two sacerdotall dignities with a Consulship beside which hee bare the two last moneths of the yeare Titus also served here in quality of a Tribune under his father with exceeding commendation for his industry and valour for valiantly he delivered his father when he was besieged and no lesse report of his modest carriage as appeareth by a number of his Images and titles to them annexed thorowout the Provinces of Germanie and Britaine The rest of the Occurrences which hapned in Britaine afterward unto the very latter end of Domitian Tacitus who best can do it will declare by his owne words to this effect P. Ostorius Propraetor in Britan was welcomed at his first landing with troubles and tumults The enemies ranged all over the Allies country and used so much the greater violence for that they thought the new captaine was unacquainted with the army the winter also being now began would not come foorth to encounter But he knowing well that the first successes alwaies breed either feare or confidence gathered with all speed his readiest cohorts advanced toward the enemy and having slaine those which made head against him pursued the rest that were dispersed for feare they should joine againe and lest an hatefull and faithlesse peace might give neither captaine nor souldier any rest he went about to disarme as many of them as he suspected and by raising forts and setting garrisons upon the two rivers Aufona and the Severn to restrain and hem in the Britons Which the Iceni first of all refused a strong nation and unshaken with battels because of their owne motion they had sought our alliance and amity And at their instigation the people adjoyning chose a place to fight in compassed about with a rude and rusticall rampire having a narrow entrance of purpose to hinder the comming in of horsemen This fense the Romane captaine albeit he had under his conduct the power of his allies alone without the maine forces of the Legion assaieth to breake thorow And having bestowed his cohorts in rankes setteth the troupes of horsemen in like readinesse to performe their service Then after the signall given they broke open the said rampire and disordered the enemies encombred and penned within their owne hold And they knowing in their owne conscience they were no better than rebels and seeing all passages for escape stopped up shewed great valour and courage in defending themselves In which fight M. Ostorius the lieutenants sonne deserved the honor of saving a Citizen Vpon the discomfiture and slaughter of these Iceni they that wavered betweene warre and peace became setled and were quiet and so the army was led against the Cangi Whose territory they wasted harried and spoiled all over whiles the enemies durst not shew themselves in the field or if privily by stealth they attempted to cut off the taile of our armie as they marched they paid for their craft and deceit Now by this time were the Romanes come well neere to the sea coast that looketh toward Ireland when certaine troubles and discords sprung up among the the Brigantes brought their leader backe being certainly resolved to attempt no new matters before he had setled the old But as for the Brigantes some few being put to death that began first to take armes he pardoned the residue and all were quieted The Silures could neither by cruelty nor faire meanes bee reclaimed but they would needs war and therefore no remedy there was but to keepe them under with garrisons of Legionary souldiers Which to performe more easily the colonie called Camalodunum consisting of a strong company of old souldiers was brought into the countries by conquest subdued for succour and savegard against Rebels and an inducement to traine the Associats to observe the lawes Certaine Cities and States were granted by way of Donation to King Cogidunus according to the ancient custome of the people of Rome that they might have even Kings to be instruments of servitude and thraldome Then went the Romanes from thence against the Silures who besides their owne stoutnesse trusted much in the strength of Caractacus a man whom many dangerous adventures which he had waded thorow and as many prosperous exploits by him atchieved had so lifted up that he carried the reputation and praeheminence above all the British Commanders But he in subtill craft and knowledge of the deceitfull waies having the advantage of us though otherwise weaker in strength of souldiers translateth the warre into the country of the Ordovices and there joyning to him as many as feared our peace resolveth to hazard the last chance having chosen a place for the battell where the comming in and going forth with all things else might be incommodious to us but for his very advantageous Then against the high hilles and wheresoever there was any easie passage gentle accesse he stopped up the way with heaps of stones raised in manner of a rampier withall there ranne hard by a river having a doubtful foord and the severall companies of his best souldiers had taken their standing before the fortifications Besides all this the leaders of every nation went about exhorted and encouraged their men by making lesse all causes of feare and kindling in them good conceits of hope with all other motives and inducements to war And verily Caractacus bestirring himself and coursing from place to place protested That this was the day this the battell which should begin either the recovery of their libertie for ever or else perpetuall bondage And here he called upon his ancestors by name who had chased Caesar the Dictator from hence through whose valour they were freed from the Romane axes and tributes and enjoyed still the bodies of their wives ann children undefiled As he uttered these and such like speeches the generall multitude of the
which were either doubtfull or knowne adversaries were wasted with fire and sword But nothing distressed them so much as famine being negligent in sowing of corne by reason that of all ages they were given to warre for that also they made full account to live of our provision and as all other fierce and stout nations slowly give eare to peace because Iulius Cliassicianus being sent to succeed Catus and at variance with Suetonius hindred the common good with private grudges and had given it out abroad that they were to expect and tarrie for a new Lieutenant who without any hostile rancour and pride of a Conqueror would gently entreat and use with all clemencie such as yielded unto him Withall he sent word to Rome that they should looke for no end of warre unlesse some one or other succeeded Suetonius upon whose overthwartnesse he laid all his ill proceedings and attributed all fortunate successe to the happy fortune of the common weale To see therefore in what state Britaine stood Polycletus one of Neroes freed men was sent for good hope he had that by his authoritie there should not onely be wrought a perfect agreement betweene the Lieutenant and the Procurator but also that the rebellious minds of the Barbarians would be won to peace Neither failed Polycletus being with his mightie hoast burdensome to Italie and Gaul after he had passed the Ocean sea to shew himselfe terrible even to our souldiers also But to the enemies he was but a laughing stocke who whiles libertie was still fresh on foot among them knew not what the power of these freed men was and they made a marvell of it that a Captaine and an armie which had atchieved so great a war should yield to obey slaves But of all these things the best was made to the Emperor And Suetonius being busied still in these affaires for that he had lost afterwards some few Gallies upon the shore and the gallie slaves in them as if the warre continued still was commanded to deliver up the armie to Petronius Turpilianus who now was newly out of his Consulship as unto a man more exorable-unacquainted with the delinquencies of the enemies and therefore more ready to accept of their repentance who neither incensing the enemie nor provoked by him colouring a lazie and idle life with the honest name of peace after hee had dared and done no more but composed former troubles and debates delivered the charge of the province unto Trebellius Maximus But he a man unfit for action and altogether unexpert in war-service by a kind of courteous and mild regiment entertained the country in quiet For now the Britaines also had learned the good manners not rudely to repulse the sugred assaults of flattering vices and the disturbance of civill dissentions comming between ministred a lawfull excuse for his doing nothing But much discord arose among them whiles the souldier accustomed to warfare waxt wanton with ease and grew to be mutinous and he for his niggardly sparing and base taking of bribes was both despised and hated of the armie This hatred of theirs against him was enflamed by Roscius Caelius Lieutenant of the twentieth Legion an ancient enemie of his but now by occasion of civill dissentions they were fallen out farther and brake into more heinous tearmes Trebellius objected ever and anon to Caelius and charged him with factious behaviour and confounding the order of discipline Caelius againe that Trebellius had spoiled and beggered the Legions But in the meane time whiles the Lieutenants thus jarred the modest cariage of the armie was marred and the discord at length grew so great that Trebellius was driven away with the railing of the Auxiliaries also in cohorts and wings sorting themselves to Caelius side was glad as a man forsaken to give place and flie to Vitellius The Province although the Consular Lieutenant Generall was absent remained in quiet whiles the Lieutenants of the Legions supplied the charge in right of equall authoritie But Caelius indeed bare the greater stroke because he was of more boldnesse Whiles the Civill war betweene Galba Otho and Vitellius grew hot Vectius Bolanus was by Vitellius sent to succeed him Neither troubled he Britanny with any discipline The same default continued still against the enimies and the like licentiousnesse in the campe saving onely that Bolanus a good honest harmelesse man and not odious for committing any crime had wonne himselfe love and good will in lieu of obedience and albeit Vitellius sent for aids out of Britanny yet Bolanus made no hast for that Britain was never quiet enough As for the Island that great favour and reputation in warlike affaires which Vespasian had gotten being Lieutenant there of the second Legion under Claudius did easily win it unto him yet not without some stir of the other Legions wherein many centurions and souldiers who had bin advanced by Vitellius were loth to change that Prince whom they had proved already And besides the souldiers of the fourteenth Legion called the subduers of Britain removed from thence by Nero to the Caspian wars and in the quarrell of Otho vanquished were by Vitellius sent backe into Britanny and called away againe by Mutianus letters For all this civill warre no quarrell nor mutinies there were in the Britaine armie And to say a truth during all the troubles of civill warres no Legions behaved themselves more harmelesse either because they were farre off and severed by the Ocean or for that they were taught by continuall service and soulderie to hate the rather all hostility and dealing with enemies Howbeit by meanes of these dissentions and rumours still of civill war the Britaines tooke heart and rebelled through the procurement of Venusius who besides a naturall fiercenesse of courage and hatred of the Roman name was incensed particularly by private unkindnesses between him and his wife Queene Carthismandua This Carthismandua was Queene of the Brigantes of high and noble linag who upon the delivery of King Caractacus whom shee tooke by fraud and sent to furnish and set out the triumph of Claudius that glorious spectacle I meane in manner of a triumph wherein Caractacus was shewed had woon favour with the Romans and greatly increased her strength Whereupon ensued wealth of wealth and prosperitie riotous and incontinent life in so much that casting off Venusius her husband and intercepting his kinsfolke shee joyned her selfe in marriage with Vellocatus his harnesse-bearer and crowned him King which foule fact was the overthrow immediately of her house The good will of the country went generally with the lawfull husband but the Queenes intemperate affections were peremptory and violent in maintaining her minion the adulterer Whereupon Venutius by the helpe of friends which he procured and the revolt of the Brigantes themselves made warre upon Carthismandua and brought her into great extremities Then upon her instant praier unto the Romans for aid our garrisons cohorts and wings were sent to defend her
Fort at Blackewater repaired and re-enforced by the Rebels by which the way lieth into the Countie of Tir-Oen and which besides woods and marshes was the onely strength that the Rebels had and by this first attempt gave good proofe that if the warre were well prosecuted they might easily be vanquished The very same day whereon this Fort was taken whiles the Deputie together with his armie were giving thankes unto God for this victorie suddenly an allarum was given and the enemie shewed himselfe from an hill hard by against whom Henrie Earle of Kildare presently marched with a cornet of horse and certaine of the better sort of Gentlemen voluntaries and setting upon them put them to flight Yet were there slaine of the English part Francis Vagham brother to the Lord Deputies wife R. Turner Serjeant Major a doughty and approved servitour two of the Earle of Kildares foster brethren whose death he tooke so heavily that himselfe within few daies after for griefe of heart ended his life For there is no love in the world comparable by many degrees to that of foster-brethren in Ireland But many more were wounded and among the rest Sir Thomas Waler highly commended for his Martiall forwardnesse After that this Fort was with new munitions re-enforced no sooner had the L. Deputy withdrawne his army from thence but the Rebels waving now betweene hope feare and shame thought it their best and safest course straightly to besiege it For the Earle supposed it was the most important place to offend and annoy them as that both his honour and fortunes were for ever at their down-set if he might not recover it With a strong power therefore he beleaguered it round about Against whom the Deputy straightway setteth forward and marched without intermission but alas marching on thus in his full pace to victory hee was arrested by violence of sicknesse and cut off by untimely death leaving a great misse of him to the State and security to the ranging Rebels Certes if he had lived longer by the judgement of wisemen he had abated their insolencies and the State had not beene plunged into so great perils The Rebels understanding of the Deputies death became exceeding stout and bold and so eft-soones with mighty out-cries and furious violence assaulted the Fort but repulsed alwaies they were with the greater losse they that gave the Scallado were thrown down headlong and most of them by the Garrison souldiers sallying resolutely upon them borne downe and troden under foot in so much as distrusting now to maine force they changed their copy and determined to protract the siege being perswaded that they within had victuals but for few daies and besides they conceived good hope that the Garrison souldiers for very want would bee wavering in their alleageance and turne traitours But through the singular valour of Thomas Williams the Captaine and of the band within the place was manfully defended who having suffered hunger sharp fights and all extremities after they had eaten up their horses were driven to pluck up the weeds growing among the stones for their food and endured all the miseries that might be Now by this time the government was by authority from the Queene committed unto the Earle of Ormond under the title of Lievtenant Generall of the Armie unto the Chancellor and Sir Robert Gardiner Then Tir-Oen recapitulateth in a long letter unto the said Lievtenant all his greivances afore specified and not leaving out the least insolencie either of souldiers or of Sheriffes coldly excuseth his breach of Covenants with Sir John Norris But principally he complaines that Feogh Mac-Hugh a â—eere associate and kinsman of his had been persecuted and executed and in the end That his letters unto the Queen were in England intercepted and suppressed as also that those impositions and compositions laid both upon the Nobles and Commons were intolerable He addeth moreover and saith he saw full well that all the Territories of the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland would shortly bee parted and shared among the Councellors Lawyers Souldiers and Notaries And herewith he closely sendeth succour unto the sonnes of Feogh Mach-Hugh that they might kindle new coales in Leinster So that now every man might see that this war was begun to no other end whatsoever was pretended but to extirpate the English quite out of Ireland All this while the Earle continued his siege about the Fort at Black-water for the raising whereof the Lievtenant Generall of the Armie for there was no Deputy as yet substituted sent the most choice troupes fourteene Ensignes under the conduct of Sir Henry Bagnall the Mareschall and the bitterest adversary the Earle had upon whom as he marched with divided troupes the Earle edged with fretfull malice assailed most furiously neere unto Armagh and forthwith the Mareschall against whom he had bent all his force being slaine amongst the thickest of his enemies as he obtained a most joyous triumph over his private adversarie so he went away with a glorious victory over the English And verily since the time that they set first footing in Ireland they never had a greater overthrow wherein thirteene valiant Captaines lost their lives and fifteene hundred of the common souldiers who being routed and put to shamefull flight as they were disparkled all over the fields were cut in pieces and such as remained alive laid the fault reproachfully not upon their owne cowardice but their chiefe leaders unskilfulnesse a thing now a daies ordinary Immediately upon this followed the yeelding up of the Fort at Black-water when as the garrison souldiers having held out with loyaltie in heart and weapon in hand unto extreme famine being now driven to exceeding great distresse saw all hopelesse of succour and reliefe A notable victory this was and of great consequence to the Rebels who furnished themselves hereby with armour and victuals and now the Earle renowned all Ireland over and magnified in every place as the founder of their freedome above all measure swelled with haughty arrogancy and sent into Mounster Ouny-Mac-Rory-Og-O-More and Tirell who although by his first originall he were of English blood yet none so maliciously bent against the English name as hee with 4000. preying rogues against whom Sir Thomas Norris President of that Province advanced forward with a strong power as far as to Kilmalock but before hee saw the enemy he dispersed his forces and retired backe to Corcke Which when the Rebels understood having a great rabble of most lewd rascals flocking from all parts unto them they fell to waste the country to drive booties before them to ransack and burne where ever they went the castles houses and farme places of the English and most cruelly in all places to kill them Iames Fitz-Thomas one of the family of the Earles of Desmond they set up as Earle of Desmond yet so as he should hold as tenant in fee of the O-Neal or Earle of Tir-Oen And thus after a month when they had kindled this
the Greeks used for drinke Others bring it from the BRVTII in Italy whom the Graecians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for those smatterers in Grammar who keepe a babbling and prating that Britaine should carry that name of British manners let them be packing These are all the opinions to my knowledge that have beene received touching the name of Britaine But heerein as wee cannot but smile at the fictions of strangers so the devices coined by our owne countrymen passe not currant with generall allowance And verily in these and such like cases an easier matter it is to impeach the false than to teach and maintaine a truth For besides this that it were an absurditie to seeke the reason of this name in a forrein language the generall consent of all Historiographers of better note doth confute Laetus who with one accord deliver unto us that those Armorica Britons departed hence and so from us carried the name with them Againe Britaine flourished under this name many hundred yeares before the names of Dania and Prutenia came up But what doth the word Britannia to doe with the Spaniards Bretta which I doubt whether it be Spanish or no and why should this Island be so termed rather than other Land That the drinke called Brithin was ever in use among our countrymen can hardly be proved and to give name to our nation of the Greekes drinke were ridiculous As for those Brutii in Italy whom as Strabo witnesseth the Lucans called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one would say traiterous fugitives it can never be prooved that they like runnagates ranne hither into Britaine But to come now to our owne countrimens conjectures Eliots 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seemeth not probable seeing that word was proper to the Athenians and considering the Greeks called this Isle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lhuyds Prid-Cain for the Britan seemeth not onely too farre fetched but also over-hardly streined to say nothing how that word Cain came from the Latines Candidum and so crept into the provinciall language of the Britaines But as touching those reports of Brutus were they true certaine and undoubted there is no cause why any man should bestow farther study and labor in searching out the beginning of the Britaines The thing is dispatched to our hand and the searchers of Antiquitie are eased of their troublesome and painfull travell For mine owne part it is not my intent I assure you to discredit and confute that story which goes of him for the upholding whereof I call Truth to record I have from time to time streined to the heighth all that little wit of mine For that were to strive with the streame and currant of time and to struggle against an opinion commonly and long since received How then may I a man of so meane parts and small reckoning be so bold as to sit in examination of a matter so important and thereof definitively to determine Well I referre the matter full and whole to the Senate of Antiquarians for to be decided Let every man for me judge as it pleaseth him and of what opinion soever the Reader shall be of verily I will not make it a point much material And yet I see that I may tell you so much aforehand beeing as I am a plaine honest and diligent searcher after the truth how men most judicious and passing well learned goe about divers waies to extenuate the credit of this narration and so often as I stand in defence thereof to come upon me fiercely with these and such like arguments First grounding their reason upon the time they protest and say that all is but fabulous with reservation onely of the Sacred Historie whatsoever is reported to have beene done before the first Olympias to wit the yeare 770. before the birth of Christ like as these reports of Brutus which are before the said time 300. yeares and more And this they averre by the authoritie of Varro the most learned writer of all the Romans who as he named the first age immediately after mans creation unto the Deluge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is uncertaine by reason of the ignorance thereof so he termed the second even from the said Deluge unto the first Olympias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Fabulous because in that time there is related nothing else for the most part but tales even among the Greekes and Latines learned nations much more then among the Barbarous and unlettered such as in those daies they were in all this tract every one Then they alleage that for the confirmation of this matter in question the authoritie of sufficient writers which to the knowledge of things past maketh most and is all in all is altogether defective Now those they call sufficient writers whose antiquitie and learning the greater it is so is their credit the better accepted who all of them like as the ancient Britaines themselves by their saying knew not so much as the name of Brutus Caesar say they sixteene hundred yeares since as he testifieth of himselfe By all the enquirie that he could make found no more but this that the in land part of Britaine was inhabited by those who said they were borne in the very Island and the maritime coasts by such as from out of Belgium passed over thither Tacitus also a thousand and foure hundred yeares agoe who searched diligently into these particulars wrote thus What manner of men the first inhabitants of Britain were borne in the land or brought in as among barbarous people it is not certainely knowne Gildas being himselfe a wise and learned Britaine who lived a thousand yeares since hath not one word of this Brutus and doubteth whether the old Britaines had any records or writings whereby they might convey unto posteritie their own beginning and Historie professing that he wrote by the relation which hee had from beyond-sea and not by any direction out of the writings of his owne country or any records left by writers which if there were ever any at all either the enemies had burnt them or else they were carried away farre off in some fleet of exiled persons and so not extant Ninius also disciple of Eluodugus taking in hand to write a Chronicle eight hundred yeares agoe complaineth that the great Masters and Doctors of Britaine had no skill and left no memoriall in writing confessing that himselfe gathered whatsoever hee wrote out of the Annals and Chronicles of the holy Fathers To these they adjoyne Beda William of Malmesburie and as many as wrote eleven hundred and threescore years since who seeme not once to have heard of Brutus his name so silent are they of him in all their owne writings Hereupon they have noted that the name of that Brutus was never heard of in the world before that in a barbarous age and amid the thickest clouds of ignorance one Hunibald a bald writer fabled and feined That Francio a
Trojane King Priams sonne was the founder of the French Nation Hence they collect that when our country-men heard once how the French-men their neighbours drew their line from the Trojanes they thought it a foule dishonour that those should out-goe them in nobilitie of Stocke whom they matched every way in manhood and proesse Therfore that Geffrey Ap Arthur of Monmouth foure hundred yeares ago was the first as they thinke that to gratifie our Britans produced unto them this Brutus descended from the gods by birth also a Trojane to bee the author of the British Nation And before that time verily not one man as they say made any mention at all of the said Brutus They adde thus much moreover that about the same time the Scotish writers falsely devised Scota the Egyptian Pharaoes daughter to bee the Foundresse of their nation Then also it was that some misspending their wit and time yea and offring violent abuse unto the truth forged out of their owne braines for the Irish their Hiberus for the Danes their Danus for the Brabanders their Brabo for the Goths their Gothus and for the Saxons their Saxo as it were the Stock-fathers of the said nations But seeing that in this our age which hath escaped out of those darke mists of fatall ignorance the French have renounced their Francio as a counterfeit Progenitor Whereas the Frenchmen quoth Turnibus a right learned man stand highly upon their descent from the Trojanes they doe it in emulation of the Romans whom they seeing to beare themselves proud of that Pedigree and noble stocke would needs take unto themselves also the like reputation And for that the Scots such as be of the wiser sort have cast off their Scota and truth it selfe hath chased away Hiberus Danus Brabo and the rest of these counterfeit Demi-gods and Worthies of the same stampe Why the Britans should so much sticke unto their Brutus as the name-giver of their Island and to the Trojane originall they greatly wonder as who would say before the destruction of Troy which happened in the thousand yeare or there about after Noahs floud there had beene no Britaines heere and as if there had not lived many valorous men before Agamemnon Furthermore they avouch that very many out of the grave Senate of great Clerks by name Boccace Vives Hadr. Jâ—nius Polydore Buchanan Vigneier Genebrard Molinaeus Bodine and other men of deepe judgement agree joyntly in one verdict and denie that ever there was any such in the world as this Brutus also that learned men of our owne country as many acknowledge him not but reject him as a meere counterfet Among whom they produce first John of Weathamsted Abbat of S. Albanes a most judicious man who in his Granarie wrote of this point long since in this manner According to other histories which in the judgment of some are of more credit the whole Discourse of this Brutus is rather Poeticall than historicall and for divers reasons built upon opinion more than truth indeede First because their is no where mention made in the Roman stories either of killing the father or of the said birth or yet of putting away the sonne Secondly for that after sundry authors Ascanius begat no such sonne who had for his proper name Sylvius for according unto them he begat but one onely sonne and that was Iulus from whom the house of Iulii afterwards tooke their beginning c. And thirdly Sylvius Posthumus whom perhaps Geffrey meaneth was the sonne of Aeneas by his wife Lavinia and hee begetting his sonne Aeneas in the eight and thirtieeh yeare of his reigne ended the course of his life by naturall death The Kingdome therefore now called England was not heeretofore as many will have it named Britaine of Brutus the sonne of Sylvius Wherefore it is in their opinion a vaine peice of worke and ridiculous enough to challenge noble bloud and yet to want a probable ground of their challenge For it is not manhood only that ennobleth a nation the mind it is also with perfect understanding and nothing else that gaineth gentilitie to a man And therefore Seneca writeth thus in his Epistles out of Plato That there is no King but hee came from slaves and no slave but hee descended of Kings Wherefore to conclude let this suffice the Britaines from the beginning of their Nobilitie that they bee couragious and valiant in fight that they subdue their enemies on every side and that they utterly refuse the yoke of servitude In a second rancke they place William of Newborough a writer of much greater authoritie who too too sharply charged Geffrey the Compiler of the British history for his untruth so soone as ever it came forth in these words A certaine writer quoth he in these our daies hath risen up who deviseth foolish fictions and tales of the Britaines and in a vaine humour of his owne extolleth them farre above the valorous Macedonians and Romans both he hath to name Geffrey and is surnamed Arthurius for that the tales of Arthur taken out of the Britaines old fables and augmented by inventions of his owne with a new colour of Latine speech laid over them hee hath invested into the goodly title of an Historie who also hath adventured farther and divulged under the name of authentike prophesies grounded upon an undoubted truth the deceitfull conjectures and foredeemings of one Merline whereunto hee added verily a great deale of his owne whiles hee did the same into Latine And a little after Moreover in his booke which he entituleth The Britans Historie how malapertly and shamelesly hee doth in manner nothing but lie there is no man that readeth the said booke can doubt unlesse hee have no knowledge at all of ancient histories For hee that hath not learned the truth of things indeede admitteth without discretion and judgement the vanitie of fables I forbeare to speake what great matter thaâ— fellow hath forged of the Britans acts before the Empire and comming in of Julius Caesar or else being by others invented hath put them downe as authentike In somuch as Giraldus Cambrensis who both lived and wrote at the same time made no doubt to terme it The fabulous story of Geffrey Others there bee who in this narration of Brutus laugh at the foolish Topographie set downe by this Geffrey as also how falsly hee hath produced Homer as a witnesse yea and they would perswade us that it is wholly patched up of untunable discords and jarring absurdities They note besides that his writings together with his Merlins prophesies are among other books prohibited forbidden by the church of Rome to be published Some againe doe observe thus much how these thaâ— most of all admire Brutus are very doubtfull and waver to and fro about their 〈◊〉 He say they that taketh upon him the name and person of Gildas and 〈…〉 briefe glosâ—es to Ninius deviseth first that this Brutus was a Consul of Rome then that hee was
British pearles the bignesse and weight whereof hee was wont to peize and trie by his hand or rather upon an ardent deâ—ire of glorie which wee must most easily believe considering that he rejected the Embassadors of the Britaines who having intelligence of his designement repaired unto him and promised to put in hostages and to become obedient to the Roman Empire But his entrance into the Island I wil compendiously set down even in his own very words Considering the coasts ports and landing places of Britaine were not well knowne unto Caesar he sent C. Volusenus before with a galley to discover what he might who having taken what view of the countrey hee could in five daies space returned In the meane time the resolution of Caesar being made knowne unto the Britans by merchants many particular States sent their Embassadours to him into Gallia promising both to put in pledges and also to submit themselves unto the Roman Empire Having then exhorted these to continue in that mind still he sent them home backe againe and together with them Comius of Arras a man in those countreys of great authoritie for the Attrebates had before time departed out of Gaule and planted themselves there to perswade the said Cities vnd States to accept of the friendship and protection of the people of Rome No sooner was hee set a shore but the Britaine 's cast him into prison and hung irons upon him Meane while Caesar having gotten together and put in readinesse about fourescore ships of burden for the transporting of two Legions and eighteene others besides which hee appointed for the horsemen put out to sea from the countrey of the Morini at the third watch and about the fourth houre of the day arrived upon the coast at an unfit landing place For the hilles lay so steepe over the sea that from the higher ground a dart or javelin might easily be cast vpon the shore beneath Having therefore at one time both wind and tide with him hee weighed anchor and sailed eight miles from that place unto a plaine and open shore and there hee rid at anchor But the Britaines perceiving the Romans determination sent their horse and chariots before and there kept the Romans from landing Here the Romans were exceeding much distressed For the ships were so great that they could not ride neere unto the shore where the sea was ebbe the souldiers in strange and unknowne places being loden with heavie armour were at one instant to leape downe of necessitie from those tall ships withall to stand amid the very billowes and to fight with their enemies whereas contrariwise the Britaines were perfect in the knowledge of those places lightly appointed as having all parts of their bodies at libertie fought either from the dry shore where they had sure footing or wading not farre into the water Hereupon the Romans being terrified behaved not themselves with the like courage and alacritie as before time But after that Caesar had caused the Gallies to be remooved from those hulkes to bee rowed and laid against the open side of the Britaines and so from thence the enemie to be beaten backe and displaced with slings ordinance and shot of arrowes the Britans being troubled with the strange forme of those Gallies the stirring of the Oares and the unusuall kind of their engines reculed Then the Eagle-bearer of the tenth Legion earnestly beseeching the Gods that it might fall out happily for the Legion Leape downe quoth he my fellow souldiers unlesse ye will forsake your standerd and betray it into the enemies hands For mine owne part I will bee sure to doe my devoir both to the common-weale and also to my Generall so forthwith hee cast himselfe into the sea and began to advance the Eagle against the enemie then all the rest followed hard at his heeles But if we believe Julian Caesar himselfe was the first that came downe from his ship The fight on both parts was very eager But the Romans encombred with their heavie armor and weapons tossed with the waves not able to get any firme footing and put out of array were wonderfully troubled untill such time as Caesar had caused the ship-boats pinnaces and smaller vessels to bee manned with souldiers and when he saw need of helpe sent them to rescue such as were overcharged As soone as the Romans got footing on the dry land they made head together charged the Britaines and put them to flight but they were not able to follow them in chace for want of the horsemen that were not arrived in the Island The Britaines beeing overthrowne in battell presently dispatched Embassadors unto Caesar to treat of peace and together with them the foresaid Comius of Arras whom they had detained bound in prison and withall laid the fault upon the multitude and excused all by their owne ignorance Caesar soone pardoned them and commanded hostages to be delivered unto him which they presently performed in part and gave their word to bring in the rest Thus was peace concluded foure daies after that Caesar was landed in Britaine At the same time those eighteene ships which transported the horsemen approching so neare the coast of Britanny that they were within view by reason of a suddaine tempest that arose were cast upon the west part of the Island from whence with much adoe they recovered the continent of France In the same night also it hapned that the Moone being in the full and the tides very high both the Gallies which were drawne up to the shore were filled with the tide and the ships of burden also that lay at anchor so shaken with the tempest that they became altogether unserviceable This beeing knowne to the Princes of Britaine when they understood also that the Romans now wanted horsemen shipping and provision of corne they rebelled and resolved to cut off their provision of graine Caesar suspecting that which fell out indeed brought corne daily out of the fields into his campe and with the timber and other stuffe of those twelve ships which were most weather beaten and dismembred repaired the rest While these things were in action the seventh Legion being sent out to fetch in corne and busie in reaping the Britains suddenly set upon and so with their horsemen and chariots all at once encompassed them round about The manner of their fight from out of these chariots is thus as I related a little before First they ride up and downe into all parts and cast their darts and with the very terrour of the horses and ratling of the wheeles often times disorder the rankes and when they have wound themselves betweene any troups of horsemen they forsake their chariots and fight on foot In the meane time the guiders of the chariots drive a little a side out of the battell and place their chariots so as that if the other chance to bee overcharged with the multitude of enemies they might have an easie passage unto them
againe Thus they performed in all their fights the nimble motion of horsemen and the firme stabilitie of footmen so ready with daily practise exercise that in the declivity of a steepe hill they could stay their horses in the very full cariere quickly turn short moderate their pace run along the beame or spire of the Chariot stand upon the yoke and harnesse of the horses yea and from thence whip in a trice into their chariots again But by the cōming of Caesar to rescue them in so good time the Romans took heart afresh and the Britans stood still who having conceived good hope to free themselves for ever presuming upon the small number of the Roman forces together with the scarcitie of corne among them had assembled a great power and were come to the campe of Caesar. But he received them even before the campe with a battell put them to rout slew many of them and burnt their houses far and neare The same day came messengers from the Britans to Caesar intreating peace which they obtained upon condition that they should double the number of their hostages whom he commanded to be brought into Gaule And streight after because the Aequinox was at hand hee put to sea hoised saile from Britaine and brought all his ships safe unto the continent of France And thither two onely of all the States of Britaine sent hostages unto him the rest neglected it These exploits thus performed upon the relation of Caesars Letters the Senate decreed a solemne procession for the space of twentie daies although he gained nothing to himselfe nor to Rome but the glorie onely of an expedition enterprized The yeare next ensuing Caesar having gotten together a great fleet for what with ships for convoy of corne and victuals and what with other private vessels that every man had built for to serve his owne turne there was 800. saile and above and the same manned with five Legions and 2000. horsemen he launched from the port called Iccius and landed his forces in that part of the Isle where hee did the yeare before Neither was there an enemie to be seene in the place For albeit the Britans had beene there assembled with a great power yet terrified with so huge a number of ships they had secretly withdrawne themselves into the upland countrey Here Caesar encamped in a place convenient and left two cohorts and three hundred horsemen as a garrison or guard for his ships Himselfe having by night marched forward twelve miles espied the enemies who having gone forward as farre as to the river began to give battell but beaten backe by the cavallery they conveighed themselves into a wood and there lay hid as lodging in a place strongly fortified both by nature and mans hand But the Romans with a Testudo or targnet-roofe which they made and mount that they raised against their fortifications tooke the place and drave them out of the woods neither followed they them with any long pursuit for they were to fortifie the campe in that very place The next day Caesar divided his forces into three regiments and sent them out to pursue the Britaines but straightwaies called them back againe for that hee had intelligence by messengers of such a tempest at sea the night before that his navie was sore beaten run one against another and cast on shore And thereupon himselfe in person returned to the ships and with the labour of ten daies haled them all up to land and enclosed them and his campe together within one and the same fortification and so goeth to the place from whence he was returned Thither also had the Britaines assembled themselves with greater forces under the conduct of Cassivellaunus or Cassibelinus unto whom in a publike counsell of all the Britains the whole government and managing of the warre was committed whose cavallery and chariotiers together gave the Romanes a sharpe conflict in their march wherein many of both sides lost their lives But the Britans after some intermission of time whiles the Romans were busie in fortifying their campe charged fiercely upon those that kept ward before the campe unto whom when Caesar had sent for rescue two cohorts and those the principall and choysest of two legions they most boldly and with full resolution brake through the thickest of the enemies and from thence retired in safety The next morrow the Britans shewed themselves here and there in small companies from the hils but about noone they made an assault upon three legions and all the horsemen sent out for to forage yet beaten backe they were and a great number of them slaine Now by this time were all their auxiliarie forces that had met together departed neither encountred they afterward the Romans with their maine power Caesar then marched with his army to the river Thames and so to the confines of Cassivelaunus Vpon the farther banke of this river yea and under the water they had covertly stucke sharpe stakes and embattelled themselves with a great power But the Romans went and waded over with such violence notwithstanding they had but their heads cleere above the water that the enemy was not able to endure the charge but left the banke and betooke themselves to flight not skared as Polyaenus writeth at the sight of an Elephant with a turret upon his backe Cassivellaunus having now no courage to contend any longer retained onely foure thousand Charioters with him and observed the Romanes journeys and so often as their horsemen went foorth and straied out in the fields for forage or booty he sent out his chariots and kept them from ranging all abroad Meane while the Trinobantes submit themselves unto Caesar and intreated that he would defend Mandubratius whom Eutropius and Beda out of the Fragments of Suetonius now lost call Androgorius and our Britans Androgeus from the oppression of Cassivellaunus and send him unto them to be their soveraign Of them Caesar required and received forty hostages and corne for his army and therewith sent Mandubratius Then the Cenimagi Segontiaci Ancatites Bibroci aad Cassij following the example of the Trinobantes yeeld unto Caesar By whom he understood that Cassivellaunus his towne was not far off fortified with woods and bogs which as he assaulted in two severall places the Britans flung out at a back way but many of them in their flight were taken and put to the sword Whiles these things were a doing foure pety Kings that ruled Kent to wit Cingetorix Carvilius Taximagulus and Segonais by a mandate from Cassivellaunus did set upon the campe where the Romanes navy was kept but by a sally that the Romanes made they were driven backe and Cingetorix one of the said Kings was taken prisoner Then Cassivellaunus having received so many losses and troubled most of all with the revolt of the states sent Embassadour to Caesar by Conius of Arras tending unto him a surrendry Whereupon
which were left behind to build fortresses in the Silures country And if the villages ans forts next adjoyning had not speedily come to rescue they had beene put to the sword every man Neverthelesse the Camp-Master with eight Centurions and all the forwardest maniples of common souldiers were slaine and not long after they put to flight our forragers and the very troupes of horsemen that were sent out to succour them Then Ostorius setteth out certaine companies lightly appointed and yet thereby could not stay their flight had not the Legions come in and undertooke the battell By their strength they fought with small ods on either hand but afterward wee had the better of it and the enemie betooke himselfe to his heeles and escaped with small losse because the day was farre spent After this they had many skirmishes and for the most part in manner of rodes and robberies in woods on marishes rashly or with foresight it skilled not according as it fell out either as occasion by chance or their owne hearts served them one while for anger another while for booty sometime by commandement from their Captaines and sometimes againe without their warrant and privitie but principally through the wilfull obstinacie of the Silures who were exasperated with a speech of the Roman Generalls that was bruted abroad and came to their eares which was this That as the Sugambri were rooted out and transported over into Gaul so the name of the Silures should utterly be extinguished And in this heat they intercepted two auxiliary bands as they through the avarice of their Praefects forraied and spoiled without advised circumspection Also by large giving away of spoiles and prisoners they drew the rest of the Nations to revolt And then Ostorius wearied with care and griefe of heart yielded up his vitall breath Whereat the enemies rejoyced as at the death of a Captaine not to be despised who though he died not in battell yet was toiled out and spent by reason of the warres But Caesar having intelligence of his Lieutenants death lest the Province should bee destitute of a governour appointed A. Didius in his place He beeing thither come with great speed yet found not all in good state For in the meane space the Legion whereof Manlius Valens had the charge met with an unlucky and disasterous fight The fame whereof the enemies had made greater than it was to terrifie the captaine which was comming who also in the like policie multiplied all that he heard to win more praise by appeasing those troubles or to purchase pardon more easily if they continued still The Silures were they that wrought us this displeasure and damage whereupon they overran the province far and nere untill such time as by Didius his comming they were driven backe About this time Claudius departed this life and Nero succeeded him in the Empire one who had no heart at all to attempt any thing in warfare nay he was minded once to withdraw the forces out of Britain Neither gave he over that intent of his but onely for shame lest he might have been thought to deprave the glory of Claudius After that Caractacus was taken Venutius a very expert man above the rest in military affaires borne under the state of the Iugantes long time trusty to us and defended by the Romanes power having to wife Queene Cartismandua by occasion soone after of a divorce and then of open war between them rebelled also against us and proceeded to plaine hostility At the first the quarrell was onely between them two untill Cartismandua by pollicie and craft had intercepted the brother and neere kinsmen of Venutius Whereupon our enemies kindled with rage and pricked forward with an ignominous indignity lest they should be brought under the yoke of a womans government with a strong power of choise youth by force of armes invaded her kingdome which was foreseen by us and thereupon were cohorts sent to aid her and they fought a hot battell The beginning whereof was doubtfull but the end more joifull The Legion also which Cesius Nasica commanded fought with like successe For Didius yee must thinke being strucken in yeeres and having many honours heaped upon him thought it sufficient to execute his charge and keep off the enemy by the ministery of others For what was woon by others he held onely a few fortresses he built forward farther into the country whereby he might purchase the name of enlarging his office These exploits although they were atchieved by two Propraetors Ostorius and Didius in many years yet I thought good to joyne together lest beeing severed they should not so well have beene remembred After Didius Avicus there succeeded Verannius who having with small rodes spoiled the Silures was hindered by death for warring any farther a man while he lived carrying a great name of precise severitie but in his last will he shewed himselfe manifestly ambitious For after much flattering of Nero he added this That he would have subdued the Province unto his obedience if he had lived the next two yeares But then Suetonius Paulinus governed the Britans one in martiall skill and opinion of the people which suffereth no man without a concurrent striving to match Corbule desirous to equall the honour which he won in recovering Armenia by subduing the enemies that stood out in this country And therefore hee maketh all the preparation hee can to invade the Isle of Mona peopled with strong Inhabitants and a receptacle of traiterous fugitives To this purpose hee buildeth flat botom vessels for the shalowes and uncertaine landing places Thus the footmen passed over and then followed the horsemen by the foord or if the waters were any thing high by swimming they put the horses over Against them the enemies stood upon the shore in divers places embattelled thicke in array well appointed with men and weapons with women also running among who all in blacke and mournefull array with their haire about their eares carried firebrands before them in their hands like the Furies of hell The Druidae likewise round about them lifting up their hands to heaven and pouring out deadly and cursing praiers with this so strange and uncoâ—th sight amazed the souldiers so as they stood still as stockes and stirred not a foot as if they would expose their bodies to receive all wounds presented unto them But afterwards being encouraged by their Captaine and animating one another that they should not feare a flocke of women and franticke people they displaied their ensignes and advanced forward Downe they went with such as encountred them and thrust them within their owne fires This done they planted garrisons in their townes and cut downe their woods and groves consecrated to their execrable superstitions For they accounted it lawfull to offer sacrifies upon their altars with the bloud of captives and to aske counsell of their Gods by inspection of mens fibres and entrailes As Suetonius was
which after sundry skirmishes with divers event delivered the Queenes person out of perill but the kingdome remained to Venutius and the warre unto us Now when as the state of Rome Citie was for Vespasian governed by Mutianus hee made Iulius Agricola who was gone to side with Vespasian and had behaved himselfe with great integritie and courage Lieutenant of the two and twentieth Legion in Britanny a Legion which slowly had sworne allegiance to Vespasian In which province his predecessour by report seditiously demeaned himselfe For the said Legion was out of awe or rather it over-awed even Lieutenants generall that had beene Consuls Neither was the ordinarie Legions Lieutenant who had beene but Praetor of power sufficient to restrain and keepe it under whether it were through his owne weaknesse or the stubborne disposition of the souldiers it is not certaine Thus being elected both to succeede and revenge hee shewed an example of most rare moderation in making choice to bee thought rather to have found them than to have made them dutifull souldiers And albeit that Vectius Bolanus Lieutenant Generall of Britannie for the time being governed in a gentler and milder manner than was fit for so fierce a Province Yet under him Agricola cunningly conforming himselfe to that humor and not unlearned to joyne profitable counsels with honest tempered the heat of his owne nature that it might not grow upon him still But when as Vespasian recovered together with the rest of the world Britanny also brave captaines good souldiers were sent and the enemies hope was greatly abated For straightwaies Petilius Cerialis strooke a terror into them by invading at his first entry the Brigantes thought to be the most populous state of the whole Province Many battels were fought and some bloudy And the greatest of the Brigantes he either conquered or wasted And whereas Cerialis would doubtlesse have dimmed the diligence and fame of another successor Iulius Frontinus a great man sustained also as hee might after such a predecessor that waightie charge with reputation and credit who subdued the puissant and warlike people of the Silures where he had beside the vertue of the enemie struggled with the streights and difficult places In this estate Agricola found the Province and the wars thus far proceeded in when as about the middest of summer he passed the seas at what time the souldiers as if the season were past attended an end for that yeare of their service and the enemie occasions to begin for to hurt The Ordovices a little before he entred the land had hewed almost wholly in pieces a wing which lay in their borders Vpon which beginning the countrey being awaked as men desirous of warre allowed the example and some staied to see how the new Lieutenant would take it Then Agricola although the Summer was spent and the bands lay dispersed in the Province and his souldiers had fully presumed of rest for that yeare which hindred much and crossed directly his undertaking of warre most men also being of opinion rather to keepe and assure the places suspected all this notwithstanding resolved fully to encounter the danger having gathered therefore the ensignes of the Legions and some few Auxiliaries because the Ordovices durst not descend into indifferent ground himselfe before the voward to give others like courage in the like danger led up in battell-ray to encounter the enemie And having slaughtered almost the whole nation knowing full well that fame must with instance be followed and as the first fell out so the rest would succeede hee deliberated to conquer the Island Mona from the possession whereof as before I have rehearsed Paullinus was revoked by the generall rebellion of Britannie But as in purposes not resolved on before ships being wanting the pollicie and resolutenesse of the captaine devised a passage over For he commanded the most choise of the Aid-souldiers to whom all the foords and shallowes were knowne and who after the usuall practise of their countrie were able in swimming to governe all at once themselves their armour and horses laying aside their carriage to put over at once and suddenly invade them Which thing so amazed the enemie attending for a fleet for shipping for tide that they surely believed nothing could bee hard or invincible to men that came so minded to war Whereupon they humbly intreated for peace and yielded the Island Thus Agricola at his first entry into this province which time other consume in vaine ostentation or ambitious seeking of complements entring withall into labors and dangers became famous indeed and of great reputation Neither abused Agricola the prosperous proceeding of his affaires to vanity or braving in speeches as to tearme it an exploit or a conquest thus to have kept in order persons subdued before or to bedeck with lawrell his letters of advertisement but by stopping and suppressing the fame he augmented it the more whiles men began to discourse upon what great presumptions of future successe hee should make so light an account of such great actions already performed as not to speake a word of them Now as touching civill government Agricola knowing right well the disposition and mind of the Province taught also by the experience of others that armes availe little to settle a new conquered State if injuries and wrongs bee permitted determined to cut off all causes of warres And beginning at home his owne house first of all he reformed and restrained a point of as much hardnesse with many as to governe a province He committed no manner of publike affaires to bond men or freed hee admitted no souldier about his person either upon private affection of partiall suiters or upon the commendation and intreatie of Centurions but elected simply the best presuming the same to be the most faithfull He would see into all things but not exact all things to the rigor Light faults he would pardon and the great severely correct not alwaies proceeding to punish but often content with repentance chusing rather not to preferre unto office and charge such as were like to offend than after offence to condemne them The augmentation of corne and tributes he mollified with equall dividing of charge and burthen cutting away those petty extortions which grieved the subject more than the tribute it selfe For the poore people were constained in a mockery to waite at the barnes fast locked against them and first to buy the corne then after to sell it at a price Severall waies were enioyned and far distant places by the purveiors commandement that the country should carry from the neerest standing-camps to those which were far off out of the way till that which lay open to all and at hand was turned in fine to the gaine of a few By repressing these abuses presently in his first yeare a good opinion was conceived from him of peace which either by the negligence or connivence of former Lieutenants was now no lesse feared than
billowes the one of the land and enemie conquered the other of the Ocean subdued The Britains as by the prisoners was understood were amazed also at the sight of the navie as though now the secrets of their sea were disclosed and no refuge remained if they were overcome Whereupon the Caledonians arming with great preparation and greater bruit thereof as the manner is of matters unknowne having of themselves first set in hand to assault our Castles braved our men and put them in feare as Chalengers in so much that some of our side who would seeme to be wise but were dastards indeed counselled the Generall to retire on this side Bodotria and that the best course was to depart of their own accord rather than to be repelled with shame in the mean while Agricola takes knowledge that the enemies meant to divide themselves and to give the onset in severall Companies whereupon lest hee should bee enclosed about and entrapped by their multitude and skill in the country he also marched with his armie divided in three Which when it was knowne to the enemie they on a sodaine changing advise and uniting their forces together joyntly assaulted by night the ninth Legion as being of weakest resistance and having slaine the watch partly asleep and partly amazed with feare brake into the campe And now were they fighting within the very trenches when Agricola having intelligence given him by Spies what way the enemies had taken and following withall their footsteps commanded the lightest horsemen and footmen to play on their backs and maintaine the skirmish and the whole armie anone to second them with a shout And when it drew neere to day the glittering of the ensignes was seene So the Britaines were quailed with a duple danger but the Romans recovered courage againe and being past perill of their persons fought now for their honour freshly assailing their late assailers And verily within the streights of the gates the conflict was sharpe and cruell till in the end the enemies were forced to flie whilest both our armies contended the one would seeme to have helped their fellows the other to have needed none other to help them and if the bogs and wood had not covered their flight that one victory had ended the warre Vpon this battell so manfully fought so famously wonne the armie presuming that to their prowesse all things were easie and open cried To lead into Caledonia and to find out the limit of Britan with a course of a continued Conquests and even those who ere while were so warie and wise waxt forward enough after the event and grew to speak bigly such is the hard condition of warres If ought fall out well all challenge a part misfortunes are ever imputed to one Contrariwise the Britans presupposing that not valour but the cunning of the Generall by using the occasion had carried it away abated no whit of their stomacke but armed their youth transported their children and wives into places of safetie and sought by assemblies and religious rites to establish an association of their Cities and States together And so for that yeare both parties departed away incensed The same summer a cohort of Vsipians levied in Germanie and sent over into Britan committed a hainous and memorable Act. For having slaine a Centurion and certaine souldiers intermingled among other manciples and set over them for direction of discipline they fled and embarqued themselves in three pinnaces compelling by force the Masters of the said vessels to execute their charge and only one doing his office the other two being suspected and thereupon slaine this strange going out and putting to sea the fact as yet not noised abroade was gazed and wondred at afterwards being driven uncertainly hither and thither and having skirmished with the Britains standing in defence of their owne often prevailing and sometimes repulsed they came at last to that miserie that they were enforced to eat one another first the weakest then as the lot lighted Thus after they had floated round about Britain and lost their vessels for lacke of government they were intercepted first by the Suevians then by Frisians as Pirats and Rovers Now some of them there were that being bought by merchants as slaves and by change of Masters brought to our side of the river grew into a name by giving first notice of so great and so rare an adventure In the beginning of Summer Agricola was deepely touched with a grievous mischance that happened in his owne house for he lost his owne Sonne about a yeare old Which infortunate hap he neither bare out as most of these great men do in the like case vaine-gloriously nor tooke it againe so impatiently with sorrow and lamentation as women are wont and amidst his mourning used the warre as one of his remedies Therefore having sent his fleete afore which by spoiling in sundry places should induce a greater and more uncertaine terrour upon his enemies hee made ready and followed after with his armie joyning thereto some of the valiantest Britaine 's whom by long experience in peace he had found most faithfull and so came as farre as to the mount Grampias where the enemies were lodged before For the Britans nothing danted with the event of the former battell and attending for nothing else but revenge or servitude and being taught at length that common danger must bee repelled with concord by embassages and league made had raised the power of all their Cities and States together And now by this time there were entred into the field the view being taken above thirty thousand armed men besides an endlesse number of youth which daily flocked to them still yea and lusty old men renowned in warr and bearing every one the badge due to their honour at what time among many other leaders Galgacus for his valour birth the principall man seeing the multitude thus assembled hotly to demand battell is said to have used this speech unto them When I view and consider the causes of this warre and our present necessitie I have reason me seemes to presume that this day and this your agreeing consent will give a happy beginning to the freedome of the whole Island For both have we all hitherto lived in liberty besides no land remaineth beyond no nor so much as sea for our safegard The Romane navie thus as you see hoovering upon our coasts so that Combat and armes which valiant men desire for honour the dastard must also use for his best securitie the former battels which have with divers events been fought against the Romanes had their hope and refuge resting in our hands Because we the flower of the British Nobilitie and seated therefore the furthermost in never seeing the coasts of the countries which serve in slaverie have kept even our eies unpolluted and free from all contagion of tyrannie Beyond us is no land beside us none are free us hitherto this very corner and the inward recesse
and Batavia allured by the spoiles of whole provinces no small power of Barbarian forces to be his associates and the Franks especially whom he trained to sea-service and in one word made all the sea coasts every way dangerous for passage To the vanquishing of him Maximianus set forward with a puissant army out of which som there were who in the very voyage suffered death gloriously for Christs sake but when he was come to the sea-side being skared partly for want of sea-souldiers and partly with the rage of the British Ocean staied there and having made a fained peace with Carausius yielded unto him the rule of the Island considering he was taken to bee the meeter man both to command and also to defend the Inhabitants against the warlike nations Hereupon it is that wee have seene in the silver coines of Carausius two Emperours joyning hands with this circumscription CONCORDIA AVG. G. But Maximian turned his forces upon the Frankners who then held Batavia and had secretly under hand sent aide unto Carausius whom he surprized on such a sudden that he forced them to submission In this meane while Carausius governed Britain with incorrupt and unstained reputation and in exceeding great peace against the Barbarians as writeth Ninnius the disciple of Elvodugus hee reedified the wall betweene the mouthes of Cluda and Carunus and fortified the same with 7. castles and built a round house of polished stone upon the banke of the river Carun which tooke name of him erecting therewith a triumphall arch in remembrance of victory Howbeit Buchanan thinketh verily it was the Temple of Terminus as we will write in Scotland When Dioclesian and Maximian as well to keepe that which was won as to recover what was lost had taken to them Constantius Chlorus and Maximianus Galerius to bee Caesars Constantius having levied and enrolled an armie came with great speed and sooner then all men thought to Bologne in France which also is called Gessoriacum a towne that Carausius had fortified with strong garrison and they laid siege unto it round about by pitching logs fast into the earth at the very entry and piling huge stones one upon another in manner of a rampire he excluded the sea and tooke from the towne the benefit of their haven which damme the strong and violent current of the Ocean beating against it forcibly for many daies together could not breake and beare downe no sooner was the place yielded but the first tide that rose made such a breach into the said rampire that it was wholly dis-joyned and broken in sunder And whiles he rigged and prepared both heere and elsewhere an Armada for the recoverie of Britaine he rid Batavia which was held by the Francks from all enemies and translated many of them into the Roman nations for to till their waste and desert territories In this meane time Allectus a familiar friend of Carausius who under him had the government of the State slew him by a treacherous wile and put upon himselfe the Imperiall purple roabe Which when Constantius heard he having manned armed divers fleets drave Allectus to such doubtfull termes as being altogether void of counsell and to seek what to doe he found then and never before that he was not fenced with the Ocean but enclosed within it And withall hoyzing up saile in a tempestuous weather and troubled sea by meanes of a mist which over-spread the sea hee passed by the enemies fleet unawares to them which was placed at the Isle of Wight in espiall and ambush to discoved and intercept him and no sooner were his forces landed upon the coast of Britaine but he set all his owne ships on fire that his Souldiers might repose no trust in saving themselves by flight Allectus himselfe when he espied the Navy of Constantius under saile approaching toward him forsooke the sea-side which he kept and as he fled lighted upon Asclepiodotus Grand Seneschal of the Praetorium but in so fearful a fit like a mad man he hastned his own death that he neither put his footmen in battell ray nor marshalled those troopes which he drew along with him in good order but casting off his purple garment that he might not be knowne rushed in with the mercenary Barbarians and so in a tumultuary skirmish was slaine and hardly by the discovery of one man found among the dead carcases of the Barbarians which lay thick spread every where over all the plaines and hils But the Frankners and others of the barbarous souldiers which remained alive after the battell thought to sacke London and to take their flight and be gone at which very instant as good hap was the souldiers of Constantius which by reason of a misty and foggy aire were severed from the rest came to London and made a slaughter of them in all places throughout the citie and procured not only safetie to the citizens in the execution of their enemies but also a pleasure in the sight thereof By this victory was the Province recovered after it had beene by usurpation held seven yeares or there about under Carausius and three under Allectus Whereupon Eumenius unto Constantius writeth thus O brave victorie of much importance and great consequence yea and worthy of manifold triumphs whereby Britaine is restored whereby the nation of the Frankners is utterly destroyed and whereby upon many people beside found accessarie to that wicked conspiracie there is imposed a necessitie of obedience and allegiance and in one word whereby for assurance of perpetuall quietnesse the seas are scoured and cleansed And as for thee ô invincible Caesar make thy boast and spare not that thou hast found out a new world and by restoring unto the Roman puissance their glorie for prowesse at sea hast augmented the Empire with an element greater than all Lands And a little after unto the same Constantius Britaine is recovered so as that those nations also which adjoyne unto the bounds of the same Island become obedient to your will and pleasure In the last yeares of Dioclesian and Maximian when as the East Church had beene for many years already polluted with the bloud of martyrs the violence of that furious persecution went on and passed even hither also into the West and many Christians suffered martyrdome Among whom the principall were Albanus of Uerlam Julius and Aaron of Isca a citie called otherwise Caër Leon c. of whom I will write in their proper place For then the Church obtained victorie with most honourable and happy triumph when as with ten yeares massacres it could not be vanquished When Dioclesian and Maximinian gave over their Empire they elected that Constantius Chlorus for Emperour who untill that time had ruled the State under the title of Caesar and to him befell Italie Africke Spaine France and Britaine but Italy and Africke became the Provinces of Galerius and Constantius stood contented with the rest This Constantius what
time as hee served in Britaine under Aurelian tooke to wife Helena daughter of Coelus or Coelius a British Prince on whom he begat that noble Constantine the Great in Britaine For so together with that great Historiographer Baronius the common opinion of all other writers with one consent beareth witnesse unlesse it be one or two Greeke authors of late time and those dissenting one from the other and a right learned man grounding upon a corrupt place of Iul. Firmicus Howbeit compelled he was by Maximian to put her away for to mary Theodora his daughter This is that Helena which in antike Inscription is called VENERABILIS and PIISSIMA AVGVSTA and for Christian piety for clensing Ierusalem of Idols for building a goodly Church in the place where our Lord suffered and for finding the Saving Crosse of Christ is so highly commended of Ecclesiasticall writers And yet both Iewes and Gentiles termed her by way of ignominy and reproach Stabularia because shee a most godly Princesse sought out the crib or manger wherein Christ was borne and in the place where stood that hostelry founded a Church Hereupon S. Ambrose They say that this Lady was at first an Inholder or Hostesse c. Well this good hostesse Helena hastned to Ierusalem and sought out the place of our Lords passion and made so diligent search for the Lords crib This good hostesse was not ignorant of that host which cured the wayfaring mans hurts that was wounded by theeves This good hostesse chose to be reputed a dung-farmer that she might thereby gâ—ine Christ. And verily no lesse praise and commendation goeth of her husband Constantius for his piety and moderation A man who having utterly rejected the superstition of the ungodly in worshipping divers gods willingly of himselfe acknowledged one God the Ruler of all things Whereupon to try the faith and beleefe in God of his owne Courtiers hee put it to their free choice either to sacrifice unto those gods and so to stay with him or els to refuse and depart But those that would depart rather than renounce and forsake their faith to God hee kept with him still casting off all the rest who he supposed would prove disloiall unto him seeing they had abandoned their beleefe in the true God This most noble and worthy Emperor in his last British expedition against the Caledonians and the Picts died at Yorke leaving behind him his sonne Constantine Emperor his successor and Caesar elect Some few daies before the death of Constantius his sonne Constantius rode from Rome to Yorke on post horses and the rest which were kept at the charges of the State hee maimed and lamed all the way as hee went because no man should pursue him and there he received his fathers last breath Whereupon an ancient Orator spake thus unto him Thou entredst this sacred place not as a competitor of the Empire but as heire apparant and ordained already and forthwith that fathers house of thine saw thee the lawfull successor For there was no doubt but that the inheritance duly belonged unto him whom the destinies had ordained the first begotten sonne unto the Emperor Yet for all that constrained in maner by the souldiers and especially by the meanes of Erocus King of the Almanes who by way of aid accompanied him advanced hee was to the Imperiall dignity The souldiers regarding rather the publike good of the common-wealth than following his affections invested him in the purple roabe weeping and setting spurs to his horse because hee would avoid the endeavor of the armie that called so instantly upon him c but the felicity of the common-wealth overcame his modesty And hereof it is that the Panegyrist crieth out in these words O fortunate Britaine and more happy now than all other lands that hast the first sight of Constantine Caesar And now Caesar at his very entrance having first pursued the reliques of that war which his father had begun against the Caledonians and other Picts and set upon those Britans more remote and the Inhabitants of the Ilands lying there the witnesses as one said of the Suns setting some of them hee subdued by force and armes others for you must thinke he aspired to Rome and higher matters by offering fees and stipends he allured and drew to be associates and there were besides of them whom of open enemies he made his friends and of old adversaries his very familiars Afterwards having vanquished the Frankners in Batavia and that with so great glory that he stamped certaine golden pieces of coine whereof I have seene one with the Image of a woman sitting under a Trophee and leaning with one hand upon a crossebow or a brake with this subscription FRANCIA and this writing about it GAVDIVM ROMANORVM Having also overthrowne the Barbarians in Germany won unto him the German and French Nations and levied souldiers out of Britaine France and Germany to the number in all of 90000. foot and 8000. horsemen hee departed into Italie overcame Maxentius who at Rome had challenged to himselfe the Empire and having conquered Italy and vanquished the Tyrant he restored unto the whole world the blessed gifts of secure libertie and as we find in the Inscription of an Antiquitie INSTINCTV DIVINITATIS MENTIS MAGNITVDINE CVM EXERCITV SVO TAM DE TYRANNO QVAM DE OMNI EIVS FACTIONE UNO TEMPORE IVSTIS REMP. ULTVS EST ARMIS that is By instinct of the divine power with great magnanimitie and the helpe of his owne armie at one time in the behalfe of the Common wealth he was by lawfull warre revenged as well of the Tyrant himselfe as of his whole faction Howbeit that he returned againe into Italy Eusebius implieth in these words Constantine quoth he passed over to the Britans enclosed on every side within the bankes of the Ocean whom when hee had overcome hee began to compasse in his mind other parts of the world to the end he might come in time to succour those that wanted helpe And in another place After he had furnished his armie with mild and modest instructions of pietie he invaded Britaine that he might likewise instruct those who dwell environed round about with the waves of the Ocean bounding the Suns setting as it were with his coasts And of Britan are these verses of Optatianus Porphyrius unto Constantine to be understood Omnis ab Arctois plaga finibus horrida Cauro Pacis amat cana comperta perennia jura Et tibi fida tuis semper bene militat armis Resque gerit virtute tuas populosque feroces Propellit ceditque lubens tibi debita rata Et tua victores sors accipit hinc tibi fortes Teque duce invictae sustollunt signa cohortes From Northern bounds the land throughout where bleak North-west winds blowen Lov 's lawes of peace right ancient and ever during knowen Prest alwaies in their loyaltie for service in thy right With valiant and
the Arians their heresie crept into Britaine wherein from the first yeares of the great Constantine a sweete concent and harmonie of Christ the head and his members had continued untill such time as that deadly and perfidious Arianisme like to a pestiferous Serpent from the other side of the sea casting up her venom upon us caused brethren dwelling together to be dis-joyned piteously one from another and thus the way as it were being made over the Ocean all other cruell and fell beasts wheresoever shaking out of their horrible mouthes the mortiferous poison of every heresie inflicted the deadly stings and wounds of their teeth upon this our countrey desirous evermore to heare some noveltie but holding nought at all stedfastly In favour of these Arians Constantius summoned foure hundred Bishops of the West Church to Ariminum for whom the Emperour by his commandement allowed corne and victuals But that was thought of the Aquitanes French and Britaines an unseemely thing refusing therefore that allowance out of the Emperours coffers they chose rather to live at their owne proper charges Three onely out of Britaine for want of their owne had maintenance from the State refusing the contribution offered unto them from the rest reputing it more safe and void of corruption to charge the common treasure than the private state of any person After this when Constantius was departed this world Julianus that Apostata who had taken upon him the title of Augustus against Constantius first drave out Palladius who had been master of Offices into Britaine and sent away Alphius who had governed Britan as Deputy Lieutenant to reedifie Jerusalem but fearefull round balles of flaming fire breaking forth neere unto the foundations skarred him from that enterprize and many a thousand of Jewes who wrestled in vaine against the decree of God were overwhelmed with the ruines This dissolute Augustus and in his beard onely a Philosopher feared as hath erewhile been said to come and aid the poore distressed Britans and yet from hence he carried out every yeare great store of corne to maintaine the Roman garrisons in Germany When Valentinian the Emperour steered the helme of the Roman Empire what time as through the whole world the trumpets resounded nothing but the warlike Al Arme the Picts Saxons Scots and Attacots vexed the Britans with continuall troubles and annoyances Fraomarius then King of the Almanes was translated hither and by commission made Tribune or Marshall over a band of the Almanes for number and power in those daies highly renowned to represse the incursions of those barbarous nations Neverthelesse Britaine was through the generall conspiracie of those Barbarians afflicted and brought to extreme distresse Nectaridius Comes or Lieutenant of the maritime tract slaine and Bucholbaudes the Generall by an ambush of the enemies circumvented The intelligence of which occurrences when it was brought unto Rome with great horror the Emperour sent Severus being even then Lord High Steward of his houshold to redresse what was done amisse in case his hap had beene to have seene the wished end who being within a while after called away Iovinius went to the same parts sent backe Proventusides in post minding to crave the puissant helpe of an armie For they avouched than the urgent necessary occasions required so much At the last so many and so fearefull calamities were by daily rumors reported as touching the same Iland that Theodosius was elected and appointed to make speed thither a man of approved skill in warlike affaires most fortunatelie atchieved who having levied and gotten unto him a couragious company of young gallants to furnish as well Legions as cohorts put himselfe in his journey with a brave shew of confidence leading the way At the same time the Picts divided into two nations the Dicalidones and Vecturiones the Attacots likewise a warlike people and the Scots ranging in divers parts did much mischiefe where they went As for the cohorts of Gaule the Frankners and Saxons confining upon them brake out and made rodes where ever they could either by land or sea and what with driving booties with firing towns and killing poore captives made foule worke there To stay these wofull miseries if prosperous fortune would have given leave this most vigorous and valiant Captaine intending a voiage to the utmost bounds of the earth when he was come to the sea side at Boloigne which lieth divided from the opposite tract of land by a narrow streit ebbing and flowing where the water is wont to swell on high with terrible tides and againe to fall downe flat and lie like even plains without any harme of sailer or passenger from thence having sailed and leasurely crossed the said sea he arrived as Rhutupiae a quiet rode and harbour over against it From whence after that the Batavians Heruli Iovij and Victores companies confident of their strength and power who followed were come hee departed and marching toward London an old towne which the posteritie called Augusta having divided his troopes into sundry parts hee set upon those companies of roving and robbing enemies even when they were heavy loaden with bootie and pillage And having quickly discomfited those that drave before them their prisoners bound and cattell he forced them to forgoe the prey which the most miserable tributaries had lost In the end after full restitution made of all save onely some small parcels bestowed upon his wearied souldiers he entred most joyfully into the citie over set before with distresses and calamities but now suddenly refreshed so far forth as hope of recovery and safetie might effect and there being raised up with this luckie hand to adventure greater exploits and yet casting with himselfe projects promising securitie he staied doubtfull of the future event as having learned by the information of revolting fugitives and confession of captives that so great a multitude of sundry nations and a stiffe-necked people of so fell and fierce a disposition could not possibly be vanquished but by secret wiles and sudden excursions Finally after proclamations published and promises made of impunitie he summoned as well the traiterous runagates as many others that went with free pasport dispersed sundry waies to present themselves ready for service Vpon which summons given so soone as most of them were returned he as one pricked forward with so good a motive and yet held backe by heavie cares called for Civilis by name who was to rule Britaine as Deputie to bee sent unto him a man of a very quicke hastie nature but a precise keeper of Iustice and righteousnesse likewise for Dulcitius a redoubted Captaine and right skilfull in feates of armes Afterwards having gotten heart and courage to him he went from Augusta which in old time they called Londinum well appointed with industrious and considerate souldiers and so brought exceeding great succour to the ruinate and troubled estate of the Britaines gaining
their naturall Princes To speake in a word this victory was held to be so worthy and memorable that the Romans from thence forward solemnized that day every yeare as festivall There succeeded Theodosius in the West Empire his sonne Honorius a child ten yeares old over whom was ordained as Tutor and Protector Flavius Stilicho a man passing famous for a long time as who being an inward companion of Theodosius in all his warres and victories and by degrees of militarie service advanced unto high authoritie and the Princes affinitie in the end cloied and glutted with prosperitie and carried away through ambition miserably lost his life This man surely for certaine yeares had a provident regard of the Empires good estate and defended Britaine against the invasion of Picts Scots and Vandals And hereof it is that Britaine speaketh thus of her selfe in Claudian Me quoque vicinis pereuntem gentibus inquit Munivit Stilicho totam quum Scotus Hibernem Movit infesto spumavit remige Thetis Illius effectum curis ne bella timorem Scotica nec Pictum tremerem ne littore toto Prospicerem dubiis venientem Saxona ventis And me likewise at hand quoth she to perish in despight Of neighbour Nations Stilicho protected 'gainst their might What time the Scots all Ireland mov'd offensive armes to take And with the stroke of enemies ores the Sea much fome did make He brought to passe his care was such that I the Scotish warre Should feare no more nor dread the Picts ne yet ken from a farre Along the shore whiles I looke still when wavering winds will turne The Saxons comming under saile my coasts to spoile and burne And thus for that time Britaine seemed safe enough from any danger of enemies For in another place that Poet writeth thus Domito quod Saxona Thetis Mitior aut fracto Secura Britannia Picto What either seas more quiet now that Saxons conquer'd are Or Britaine become secure since Picts subdued were And when Alaricus King of the Gothes hovered about Rome seeking meanes to assault and spoile it that Legion which in the marches kept Station against the Barbarians was called from hence as Claudian signifieth when he reckoneth up the aids sent for from all parts Venit extremis legio praetenta Britannis Quae Scoto dat fraena truci ferroque notatas Perlegit exanimes Picto moriente figuras The Legion also came which did for British frontiers lie In garrison that curbs fell Scots and doth pursue with eie Those yron-brent markes in Picts now seene all bloudlesse as they die In these daies flourished Fastidius a Bishop of Britaine and wrote bookes of divine learning I assure you Chrysanthâ—s likewise the sonne of Bishop Martian who having beene a Consular deputy in Italy under Theodosius and made Uicar of Britan deserved that praise and admiration for his good mannaging of the common-weale that he was against his will enstalled at Constantinople Bishop of the Novatians who having made a schisme in that Church and calling themselves Cathari had Bishops apart of their owne and sectaries who stoutly but impiously denied that such as after baptisme received fell by relapse into sinne could not returne againe and bee saved This is that Bishop who as wee read in histories of all Ecclesiasticall revenues and profits was wont to reserve nothing for himselfe but two loaves of bread onely on the Lords day When as now the Roman Empire began to decline and decay and barbarous Nations every way made foule havocke of the provinces all over the Continent the British armes fearing least the flame of their neighbours fire might flash out and catch hold likewise of them supposing also that they stood in need of some Generall Soveraign commander to expell the Barbarians addressed themselves to the election of Emperors First therefore they enthronized in the royall seat Marcus and him they obeied as one that in these parts bare the chief soveraignty But afterward having made him away because his carriage was not answerable unto theirs they bring foorth and set up Gratian countryman of their owne him they crowned and arraied in the regall purple and him they dutifully attended upon as their Prince Howbeit upon a mislike that they tooke to him also at foure moneths end they deprive him of his Empire take away his life and made over the Soveraignty of State to one Constantine a souldier of the meanest place onely because his name imported as they thought the osse of good luck For they conceived assured hope that he by the fortunate name of Constantine would likewise constantly and fortunately governe the Empire and dispatch all enemies like as that Constantine he Great had done who in Britaine was advanced to the Imperiall dignitie This Constantine putting to sea from Britan landed at Bologne in France and easily induced withal the Roman forces as far as to the Alpes to joyne with him in his war Valentia in France he manfully defended against the puissance of Honorius Augustus the Roman Emperor the Rhene which long before had been neglected he fortified with a garison Upon the Alpes as well Cottiae and Peninae as those toward the maritime coasts where ever there was any passage he built fortresses In Spaine under the leading and name of his sonne Constans whom of a Monk he had denounced Augustus or Emperor he warred with fortunate successe and afterwards by letters sent unto Honorius requesting to be held excused for suffering the purple forcibly to be done upon him by the souldiers received at his hands of free gift the Imperiall roabe Whereupon he became prouder than before and after he had passed over the Alpes intended to march directly to Rome but hearing that Alaricus the King of the Goths who had sided with him was dead hee retired himselfe to Arles where he planted his Imperiall seat commanded the Citie to be called Constantina and ordained therein that the assemblies for Assizes of 7. provinces should be held His sonne Constans hee sendeth for out of Spaine to the end that meeting together they might consult as touching the State Who leaving the furniture of his Court and wife at Caesar Augusta and committing the charge of all matters within Spaine to Gerontius came speedily without intermission of journey to his father When they had met together after many daies Constantinus seeing no feare of any danger from Italy gave himselfe wholly to gluttony and belli-cheere and so adviseth his sonne to returne into Spaine But when he had sent his forces to march before whiles he abode still with his father newes came out of Spaine that Maximus one of his vassals and followers was by Gerontius set up and advanced to the Empire and having about him a strong power and retinue of barbarous nations prepared to come against them Whereat they being affrighted Constans and Decimius Rusticus who of the Master of Offices was
God was minded to purge his family and to recure it thus infected with so great corruption of sinnes by hearesay onely of tribulation the winged flight as one would say of an headlesse rumour pierceth the attentive eares of all men giving notice of ancient enemies ready to arrive and upon their comming fully minded to destroy them utterly and after their wonted manner to possesse and inhabite the countrey from one end to another Yet for all this were they never the better but like unto foolish and senselesse horses resisting the bridle of reason and refusing to admit the bit as they say into their close shut mouth leaving the way to salvation narrow though it were ran up and downe at randum all in the broad way of all wickednesse which leadeth directly and readily to death Whiles therefore as Salomon saith the obstinate and stubborne servant is not amended with words scourged hee is for a foole and feeleth not the whip For loe a pestilent contagion bringing much mortalitie falleth heavily upon the foolish people which in a short space when the enemies sword was gone destroied so great a multitude of them as that the living were not able to bury the dead Neither verily were they the better for it that the saying of Esay the Prophet might in them also bee fulfilled And God calleth them quoth he to sorrow and mourning to baldnesse and sackcloth but behold they fell to killing of calves to slaying of rams Lo they went to eating and drinking and said withall Let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall die And why the time drew neere wherein their iniquities like as those in times past of the Amorites should come to the fulnesse For they fall to consult what was the best and most convenient course to be taken for to represse so cruell and so many invasions of the forenamed nations with the booties which they raised Then all the Counsellors together with the proud tyrant become blinded and bewitched devising such a protection nay a destruction rather of their country as this namely that those most fierce Saxons a people foully infamous odious both to God and man should be let into this Island as one would say wolves into the sheep-folds to repulse forsooth and beat backe the Northern nations Than which I assure you nothing was ever devised and practised more pernicious nothing more unhappy unto this land O mist of sense and grossest understanding that ever was O desperate dulnesse and blind blockishnesse of mind Those whom in their absence they were inclined and given to dread more than very death now of their owne record these foolish Princes of Egypt entertained as I may say under the roofe of one house giving as hath beene said fond-foolish counsell unto Pharao Then rushed forth out of the barbarous Lionesses den a Kennell of whelps in three Vessels called in her language Cyulae that is Keeles and in our Latine tongue Longae naves under full saile carried with the wind of lucky sure presaging auguries whereby fore-prophesied it was unto them that for 300. yeares they should possesse and hold that land as their countrey unto which they directed their course and for an hundred and twentie that is the one moity of the said space oftentimes waste and depopulate the same These being put on shore first in the East-part of the Island and that by commandement of this infortunate tyrant set fast their terrible pawes and clawes there pretending unto the Islanders defence of their countrey but more truely intending the offence thereof unto which whelpes the foresaid dam the Lionesse finding that their first setting foote and marching forward sped well sends likewise a greater rabble of worrying freebooters which being arrived here in Flotes conjoyned themselves with the former misbegotten crew From hence it is that the shoot-grifts of iniquitie the root of bitternesse and virulent plants due to our deserts sprout and put forth in our soile proudly bud branch leafe Well these barbarous Saxons thus admitted into the Island obtaine allowance of victuals and wages as for douty souldiers and such as would endure hard service and much hazard for so they falsly beare men in hand in defence of their good hosts and friends for their kind entertainment Which being given unto them a long time stopped as wee say the dogs mouth Howbeit afterward they complaine that their monthly wages was not well paid them devising of purpose colourable occasions of quarrell protesting and threatning that unlesse they might feele more munificence powred and heaped upon them they would with the breach of covenant spoile and waste the whole Island throughout And without further delay they second these threats with very deeds for the cause of deserved revenge for precedent wickednesse was still nourished the fire kindled and set a flaming by these prophane men from sea to sea ceased not to consume all the cities and countreys bordering there about untill such time as burning well neere all the inland soile of the Island it licked up with a red flaming and terrible tongue all unto the westerne Ocean In this violent furious invasion comparable to that of the Assyrians in old time against Iuda is fulfilled also in us according to the historie that which the Prophet by way of sorrowfull lamentation uttereth They have burnt with fire thy Sanctuarie they have polluted in the Land the Tabernacle of thy name And againe O God the Gentiles are come into thine heritage they have defiled thy holy Temple c. In such wise as all the Colonies by the force of many engines and all the Inhabitants together with the Prelates of the Church both Priests and People by drawne sword glittering on every side and crackling flame of fire were at once laid along on the ground yea and that which was a piteous spectacle to behold in the midst of the streets the stone workes of turrets and high walles rent and torne in sunder from aloft the sacred altars and quarters of carcases covered with imbossed works of imagerie of a bloudy hue were seene all blended and mixed together as it were in a certaine horrible wine-presse neither was there any Sepulcher at all abroad save onely the ruins of buildings and the bowels of wild beasts and fowles When we shall read these reports let vs not be offended and displeased with good Gildas for his bitter invectives against either the vices of his owne countrey-men the Britans or the inhumane outrages of the barbarous enemies or the insatiable crueltie of our Fore-fathers the Saxons But since that for so many ages successively ensuing we are all now by a certaine engraffing or commixtion become one nation mollified and civilized with Religion and good Arts let us meditate and consider both what they were and also what wee ought to be lest that for our sinnes likewise the supreame Ruler of the world either translate other nations hither when wee are first rooted out
names The Britwales or Welshmen a very warlike nation for many yeares defended their libertie under pettie-kings and albeit they were secluded from the English-Saxons by a Ditch or Trench which King Offa cast a wonderfull piece of worke yet otherwhiles by fire and sword they spoiled their cities and in like sort suffered at their hands all extremities of hostilitie whatsoever At the length in the raigne of Edward the First as he writeth of himselfe The Divine providence which in the owne dispose is never deceived among other good gifts dispenced by it and with which it hath vouchsafed our Kingdome of England to bee adorned hath converted now full wholly and entirely of her good grace the Land of Wales with the Inhabitants thereof subject before time unto to us by fealtie and service into our proper dominion and without any let or barre whatsoever hath annexed and united it unto the Crowne of the foresaid Realme as a part of one and the same bodie politicke Howbeit in the age next ensuing they could no way bee induced to undergoe the yoke of subjection neither could the quarrels by any means possibly be taken up nor the most deadly hatred betweene the two nations extinguished untill that King Henry the seventh who descended of them assisted the oppressed Britans with his gracious hand and King Henry the Eighth admitted them unto the same condition of Lawes and Liberties that the English enjoy Since which time yea and very often also before the Kings of England have had triall of their constant fidelitie and loyall allegiance As for those Cornwallians although they stoutly bent all their force together in defence of their Country yet soone became they subject to the Saxons as who neither matched them in number neither was their Countrey sufficiently fenced by nature to defend them Let this suffice that hath beene said touching the Britans and Romans but since we treat of the Inhabitants we may not in this place omit although wee have heretofore spoken thereof already that which Zosimus reporteth How that Probus the Emperour sent over into Britaine the Vandals and Burgundians whom he had overcome who having seated themselves here stood the Romans in good stead as oft as any one raised tumult and sedition But where they were planted I know not unlesse it were in Cambridge-shire For Gervase of Tilbury maketh mention of an ancient rampier or hold in that shire which he calleth Vandelsbury and saith it was the worke of the Vandals Neither let any man surmize that in the daies of Constantius the Poeni had their abode here grounding upon these words of Eumenius the Rhetorician Except perhaps no greater ruine had fallen upon Britaine and borne it downe than if it had beene drenched throughout and overwhelmed with the over-flowing of the Ocean which being delivered from the most deepe gulfe Poenorum began to appeare and shew it selfe at the view and sight of the Romans For in the old Copie belonging sometime to Humfrey Duke of Glocester and afterwards to the right honourable Baron Burghly Lord high Treasurer of England we reade Poenarum gurgitibus that is The gulfes of punishments and not Poenorum gurgitib For he seemeth to speake of the calamities and miseries wherewith Britaine was afflicted under Carausius Whereas Agathias in the second booke of his Histories hath these words Hunnica natio Britones sunt that is The Britons are a nation of the Hunnes I would have no man hereby raise a slander upon the Britans or thinke them to bee issued from the savage cruell Hunnes For long since Francis Pithaeus a very learned man hath averred unto mee and now of late I. Lewenclaius a right worthy Historian published in writing that in a Greeke Copie it is read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not Britones PICTS NOw let us come to the other Inhabitants of Britaine and first unto the Picts whom for Antiquitie next unto Britains the Historiographers have accounted the second Hector Boetius deriveth these from the Agathyrsti Pomponius Laetus Aventinus and others from the Germans some from the Pictones in France and Beda from the Scythians It hapned saith hee that the nations of the Picts came in long ships and those not many out of Scythia as the report goeth into Ireland and of the Scots whom they found there requested but in vaine a place of habitation by whose perswasion they went into Britaine and inhabited the Northerne parts thereof and that was about the yeare of our Redemption as many would have it 78. I for my part in so great a varietie of opinions know not which I should follow yet that I may speake what I suppose to be true and deliver mine owne judgement were it not that in this point the authoritie of venerable Beda did over-weigh all the conjectures of all others I would thinke that the Picts came from no other place at all but were very naturall Britaines themselves even the right progenie of the most ancient Britaines those Britans I meane and none other who before the comming in of the Romans were seated in the North part of the Island and of those who afterwards casting off the yoke of bondage as they are a nation most impatient of servilitie repaired unto these in the North. Like as when the Saxons over-ran the Isle those Britaines which would not forgoe their libertie conveied themselves into the Westerne parts of the Island full of craggie hils as Wales and Cornwall even so doubtlesse when the Roman warre grew hot the Britaines lest they should undergoe servitude which is of all the miseries the extreamest gat them into these Northerne parts frozen with the bitter cold of the aire full of rough and rugged passages and full of washes and standing meeres Where being armed not so much with weapons as with a sharpe aire and climate of their owne they grew up together with the native Inhabitants whom there they found unto a mightie and populous nation For Tacitus reporteth that the enemies of the Romans were by his wives father Agricola driven into this part as it were into another Island and no man doubteth but Britans they where which inhabited these remotest parts of the Island For shall we dreame that all those Britans enemies to the Romans which brought out thirtie thousand armed men into the field against Agricola who gave unto Severus so great overthrowes that of Romans and Associats he lost in one expedition and journey 70000. were killed up every mothers sonne and none left for seed and procreation that they might give roome unto forrainers out of Scythia and Thracia So farre am I from beleeving this although Beda hath written so much by relation from others that I would rather affirme they were so multiplied that the very soile was not able either to relieve or receive them and were enforced therefore to over-flow and over-whelme as it were the Roman Province which came to passe wee know afterwards when the Scots came in
of the Romans helpe For the people of Rome after that the Emperour Martial was by his souldiers killed being sore tired out with forraigne warres was not able to assist their friends with supply of accustomed aides Yet neverthelesse the Romanes having built a mightie peece of worke for the defence of the Countrey reaching betweene the confines from sea to sea where it was thought that the enemies would assaile the Inhabitants left the Land But no difficultie it was for the enemie fiercely bent and alwaies ready to wage warre especially where they deale with a nation feeble and unable to make warlike resistance to destroy the said worke Therefore hearing by report of the worthy and fortunate exploits atchieved by the Saxons they send an humble Embassage to require their helping hand and so the Embassadors having audience given them came forth and spake as followeth Most noble Saxons The poore and distressed Brets out-toiled and over-tired by the many incursions of their enemies hearing the fame of those victories which yee have valorously atchieved have sent us suppliants unto you craving that yee would not denie us your helpe and succour A large and spatious Land plentifull and abundant in all things they yeeld whollie to be at your devotion and command Hitherto have we lived liberally under the patronage and protection of the Romanes after the Romans we know none of more prowesse than your selves and therefore wee seeke for refuge under the wings of your valour So that we may by your puissant vertue and armes be found onely superiour to our enemies what service soever ye impose upon us willing we are to abide the same To this petition the Peeres and Nobles of the Saxons briefly made answere in this wise Know yee that the Saxons will be fast friends unto the Brets and prest at all times both to assist them in their necessitie and also to procure their wealth and commoditie With joy returne these Embassadours home and with this wished for tidings make their countrey-men more joyfull Hereupon according to promise an armie sent into Britaine and joyfully received in short time freeth the Land from the spoiling enemies and recovered the countrey unto the behoofe of the Inhabitants For the performance hereof required no great labour the enemies who had long since heard of the Saxons were terrified with the verie fame that was bruited of them so that their very presence drave them farre off For these were the nations that troubled the Brets namely Scots and Pehits against whom the Saxons whiles they maintaine warres received of the Brets all things necessary They abode therefore in that country a good while making use in civill sort of the Brets friendship reciprocally But so soone as the Chieftaines of the armie saw the countrey to be large and fertile and withall the hands of the Inhabitans slow to practise feats of armes and considered therewith that themselves and the greatest part of the Saxons had no certaine place to seat themselves in they send over to call unto them a greater power and more forces Thus having concluded peace with the Scots and Pehits they rise all together in common against the Brets drive them out of the countrey and divide the Land at their pleasure as if it were their owne Thus much Witichindus The originall and Etymologie of the Saxons like as of other nations not onely Monkes ignorant as they were in learned antiquitie but also latter Writers being men of some exact and exquisite judgment have enwrapped with forged and fained fables Some derive them and their name from Saxo the sonne of Negnon and brother of Vandalus others from their stonie nature some from the remaines of the Macedonian armie others of certaine knives whereupon was made that rhyme in Engelhusius Quippe brevis gladius apud illos Saxa vocatur Vnde tibi nomen Saxo traxisse putatur For Sax with them and Short-sword is the same From whence it 's thought the Saxon tooke his name But Crantzius deriveth them from the Catti in Germanie and that learned Capnio from the Phrygians Of these let every man follow which he liketh best For such conjectural opinions as these I will not labour to disproove Howbeit that conceit of the best learned Germans may seeme worthy of acceptance and to bee preferred before the rest who suppose that the Saxons descended from the Sacae a most noble Nation and of much worth in Asia and so called as one would say Sacosones that is the sonnes of the Sacae and that out of Scythia or Sarmaria Asiatica they came in companies by little and little together with the Getae Suevi Daci and others into Europe Neither is this opinion of theirs improbable which fetcheth the Saxons out of Asia wherein mankind was first created and multiplied for besides that Strabo writeth how those Sacae as before time the Cimerij made invasions into countreys which lay farre off and termed a part of Armenia after their owne name Sacacena Ptolomee also placeth the Sassones Suevians Massagetes and Daci in that part of Scythia and Cisner observeth that these Nations retained the same vicinitie or neighborhood in a manner in Europe which was among them in former times when they were in Asia Neither is it lesse probable that our Saxons descended from these Sacae or Sassones in Asia call them whether you will than the Germanes from those Germanes in Persia of whom Herodotus maketh mention which they themselves after a sort doe affirme by reason of the affinitie of their Language for that singular Scholer Ioseph Scaliger sheweth that these words Fader Moder Tutchter Band and such like are at this day found in the Persian tongue in the same sence as we use Father Mother Brother Daughter and Bond. But when the Saxons began first to bee of any name in the world they had their abode in Cimbrica Chersonesus which wee now call Denmarke wherein Ptolomee placeth them who was the first author as far as I find that mention them For we should not indeed read Saxones as it is in some bookes but more truly Axones in that verse of Lucan Longisque leves Axônes in armis And Axons in side armour light and nimble Out of this Cimbrica Chersonesus in the time of Dioclesian they with the Frankes their neighbours troubled our coasts and the seas with Piracie in so much as for the defence of the countrey and to repell them the Romanes made Carausius their Generall Afterwards they having passed over the river Albis part of them by little and little gat footing within the seat and territorie of the Suevians where now is the Dukedome of Saxonie and part of them bestowed themselves in Frisland and Holland which now the Frankes had quite forsaken For those Frankes who before time had inhabited those inmost Fennes of Frisland whereof some by overflowes and flouds are growne to be that sea which at this day they call Zuider-sea and possessed
unlesse it were for a lucky osse and foretoken of their warlicke prowesse according to that verse of Virgil. Bello armantur equi Bella haec armenta minantur For warre our horses armed are These beasts also doe threaten warre They used also casting and drawing of lots very much for they did cut downe a branch from some tree that bare fruit and slived or cleft the same into slips and twigs and when they had distinguished them with certain marks they skattered them at hap-hazard upon a white garment Straight waies if the consultation were publike the Priest if private the goodman of the house after prayers first unto the Gods looking up to heaven tooke each of them up three times and having lifted them up they interpreted them according to the marke set before upon them To trie out the event and issue of warres they were wont to set a prisoner of that nation against which they denounced warre and a man chosen out of their owne countrimen to fight together a combat each of them with the weapon used in their countrie and so to guesse by him that was victour which nation should goe away with victorie Above all other Gods they worshipped Mercurie whom they called Wooden whose favour they procured by sacrificing unto him men alive and to him they consecrated the fourth day of the weeke whereupon wee call it at this day Wednesday like as the sixth unto Venus whom they named Frea or Frico whence wee name that day Friday even as we do Tuesday of Tuisco the stocke-father of the German or Dutch nation They had a Goddesse also named Eoster unto whom they sacrificed in the moneth of Aprill and hence it commeth saith Beda that they called April Eoster monath and we still name the feast of the Resurrection Easter but rather as I thinke of the rising of Christ which our progenitors called East as we do now that part whence the Sunne riseth In generall as saith Tacitus the English and other neighbour-nations worshipped Herthus that is Dame Earth for a Goddesse and they had an opinion that she intermediated in humane affaires and relieved the people And even with us in these daies that word Earth is in use but growne out of use with Germans who in stead of Earth say Arden Of these superstitions that foresaid Ethelward writeth thus respectively unto the time wherein he lived So grievously seduced are the unbeleevers of the North that unto this very day the Danes Normanes and Suevians worship Woodan as their Lord and in another place The Barbarous people honoured Woodan as their God and the Painims offred sacrifice unto him that they might be victorious and valorous But more fully Adam Bremensis setteth these things downe In a temple saith he called in their vulgar and native speech Vbsola which is made altogether of gold the people worship the statues of three Gods in such maner as that Thor the mightiest of them hath onely a throne or bed on either hand of him Woodan and Fricco hold their places And thus much they signifie Thor say they beareth rule in the aire as who governeth thunder and lightning winds showres faire weather corne and fruits of the earth The second which is Woodan that is stronger maketh wars and ministreth manly valour against enemies The third is Frico bestowing largely upon mortall men peace and pleasure whose image they devise and pourtray with a great viril member Woodan they engrave armed like as with us they use to cut and expresse Mars And they seeme to represent Thor with the scepter of Iupiter But these errors the truth of Christian religion hath at length chased quite away After that these nations above said had now gotten sure footing in the possession of Britain they divided it into seven kingdomes and established an Heptarchie In which notwithstanding the prince that had the greatest power was called as we read in Beda King of the English nation So that in this very Heptarchie it may seeme there was alwaies a Monarchie After this Augustine whom commonly they call the Apostle of the English men being sent hither by Gregorie the great having abolished these monstrous abominations of heathenish impietie with most happy successe planting Christ in their hearts converted them to the Christian faith But for what cause and upon what occasion this Gregorie was so diligent and carefull for the salvation of this English nation Venerable Beda hath by tradition of his forefathers recounted unto us in these words The report goeth that on a certaine day when upon the comming of merchants lately arrived great store of wares was brought together into the market place at Rome for to be sold and many chapmen flocked together for to buy Gregory also himselfe among others came thither and saw with other things boies set to sale for bodies faire and white of countenance sweet and amiable having the haire also of their head as lovely and beautifull Whom when he wistly beheld he demanded as they say from what countrey or land they were brought Answere was made that they came out of the Isle of Britaine the people whereof were as welfavoured to see unto Then he asked againe Whether those Ilanders were Christians or ensnared still with the errours of Paganisme To which it was said They were Painims but he fetching a long deepe sigh from his very heart root Alas for pitie quoth he that the foule fiend and father of darknes should be Lord of so bright and light some faces and that they who caryed such grace in their countenances should be void of the inward grace in their hearts soules Once againe he desired to understand by what name their nation was knowne They made answer That they were called Angli And well may they so be named quoth he for Angelike faces they have and meete it is that such should bee fellow-heires with Angels in heaven But what is the name of that Province from whence these were brought Answere was returned that the Inhabitants of the said province were cleped DEIRI DEIRI quoth he They are in deed De ira eruti that is delivered from ire and wrath and called to the mercie of Christ. How call you the King of that province said he Answere was given that his name was Aelle Then he alluding to the name said That Allelu-jah should be sung in those parts to the praise of God the Creator Comming therefore to the Bishop of the Romane and Apostolicall See for himselfe as yet was not made Bishop he entreated that some ministers of the word should be sent unto the English nation by whose meanes it might be converted to Christ and even himselfe was ready to under take the performance of this worke with the helpe of God incase it would please the Apostolicall Pope that it should be so Concerning this conversion the same Gregorie the Great writeth thus Behold he hath now entred
of his pride and confident hope Forthwith he dispatched his Embassadours also unto William by way of insolent termes to menace him unlesse with all speed he retired backe into Normandie Yet William gave him a gentle answer and dismissed them with great courtesie Meane time Harold mustreth up souldiers in London and findeth that by the former battell against the Norwegians his forces were very much diminished yet a mightie armie hee levied of Nobles Gentlemen and others whom the love of their native countrey had raised and brought into the field for to put backe repell the common danger Presently he leadeth forth into Southsex notwithstanding his mother though in vaine did what she could to stay him and with an undaunted heart encamping upon a faire plaine scarce seven miles from Duke William sat him downe And thither also immediately the Norman approached with his Armie First there were secretly sent out on both sides Espies and they of the English part either not knowing the truth or disposed to lie made incredible report of the Normans number their furniture and provisiō of their good order also and discipline insomuch as Gyth a younger brother of King Harold a man renowned for martiall exploits thinking it no good policy to hazard all in the triall of one battel advertised the King that the events of war were doubtful that victories oftener depend of fortune than of valour that holding off and deliberate delay was the chiefest point of militarie discipline Also he advised him that in case he had made promise unto William of the Kingdom he should for his owne person withdraw himself for surely he could not with all his forces be fenced against his conscience and God no doubt would require punishment for breach of faith promise neither saith he wil any thing strike greater terrour into the Normans than if he should be levying and enrolling of a new Armie whereby they might bee received eftsoones with fresh battels Furthermore he assureth him in his owne behalfe that if he would commit the fortune of that battell into his hands hee would not faile to performe the part of a good brother and a valiant Captaine as who trusting upon the clearenesse of his heart and a good conscience might either more easily defeat his enemies or else more happily spend his life for his country The King was not well content to heare these admonitions and counsels which seemed to tend unto his dishonour for as he could willingly abide the event and issue of warre so in no wise could he endure the reproach of fearefull cowardise And therfore the praises of the Normans with bad words he depraved neither thought he that it would stand with his owne dignitie or the reputation of his former prowesse being now come as it were to the utmost point of perill and hazard like a milke-sop and dastard to draw foot backe and incurre the perpetuall staine and blot of shame Thus whom it pleaseth Almightie God to overthrow hee first maketh them uncapable of good counsell Whiles these matters thus passed between them Duke William upon a pious affection to preserve maintaine the state of Christendome and to spare the effusion of Christian bloud sendeth a Monke as a mediatour between both who proposed this offer condition unto Harold Either wholly to resigne up his Kingdom or to acknowledge from thence forth that he holdeth it of the Norman Duke as his superiour Lord or else to decide the quarrell with William by combate or at leastwise stand to the judgment of the Pope of Rome touching the Kingdom of England But he as one having no rule of himselfe and accepting of no condition whatsoever referred the whole triall of the matter to the tribunall seat of God made answer that the very next day following which was the second before the Ides of October he would bid him battell and this day upon a credulous errour he had assured himselfe would be fortunate unto him because it was his birth day All the night ensuing the Englishmen spent in licentious revels in riotous excesse of banqueting and in clamorous noises But the Normans bestowed the same in praiers and vows for the safetie of the armie and for victorie The next morning by day light they embattell thēselves on both sides Harold placed in the vant-guard the Kentish men with their billes and halberts for by an old custome the front of the battell was due to them and in the rereguard himselfe took place with his brother and those of middle England with the Londoners Of the Normans vaward Roger of Montgomerie and William Fitz-osberne had the leading the same consisted of horsemen out of Anjou Perch and little Britaine the most part of whom served under Fergentus the Briton The maine battell which stood of Poictovins Germans Geffery Mattell and a German Pensioner commanded In the rereguard was the Duke himselfe with the whole manhood of Normans and the flower of his Nobilitie and Gentrie But in every place were intermingled with the rest certaine companies of Archers The Normans having with no confused nor untunable shout sounded the battell and advanced forward with their Battalions at the first encounter did let flie lustily on every side a volley of arrowes like haile a kind of fight which as it was strange to the Englishmen so it terrified thē exceedingly for they flew so thick that they thought they had their enemies even in the midst of thēselves Then with a violent charge they assaile the vaward of the English and they for their parts who resolutely had determined to cover the place which they had taken up with their bodies rather than to give one foot of ground bending all their forces and keeping themselves close together right valiantly put the enemies backe and slew a number of them the Normans reenforced themselves againe upon them and with an horrible noise the battels of both sides gave the strok And now by this time were they come to the medley wherin as if foot to foot man to man they had coped together there was for a good while a fierce cruel fight The Englishmen standing thick close as if they had stuck one to another abid the brunt charge of the enemies with constant resolution insomuch as after many a bloudy wound received they were now at the point to have reculed had not William performing the part of a leader as well as of a souldier with his authoritie restrained them Thus the fight continuing still the Norman horsemen brake in upon them and withall from above the arrowes flew so thick about the English mens eares that they were in manner overwhelmed with them yet for all that they kept their array unbroken For Harold neglecting no dutie of a valorous Captaine was ready in person every where and William againe for his part bare himselfe as worthily who having one or two horses stabbed and slaine under him seeing that he could not
by fine force and true valour indeed get the upperhand betooke himselfe to stratagems commanding his men to sound the retreat and keeping them still in good order and array to give ground and retire The English men supposing now that they turned backe and fled and that themselves had the victorie in their hands display their ranks and being thus disraied presse hard upoÌ„ their enemies as making full account that the day was now sure enough theirs Wheras the Normans casting themselves suddenly againe into array and winding about charge the English afresh and thus setting upon them being scattered and out of order enclosed them round about and made an exceeding great slaughter of them Many of them whiles they stood doubtfull whether to fight or to flie were borne downe and slaine but more of them having recovered an higher ground casting themselves round into a ring and comforted with the exhortation one of another with good resolution turned head and resisted a long time as if they had made choice of that place for an honorable death until that Harold being shot through the head with an arrow together with his two brethren Gyth Leofwin lost his life Then Edwin and Morcar with some others that remained alive and escaped by flight yielded to the hand of God and gave place unto the time considering that the battell had continued without intermission from seven of the clock in the morning unto the evening twilight There were in this battell missed of Normans much about 6000. but of English many more by far William now Conqueror rejoyced exceedingly by way of a solemne supplication or procession which he appointed gave all honor to the Almightie and most gratious God and when he had erected his pavilion in the midst of the bodies lying slain by heapes there he passed that night The morrow after when he had buried his owne men granted leave unto the English men to do the like himselfe returned to Hastings partly to consult about following the traine of his victorie and in part to refresh awhile his wearied souldiers No sooner was the newes of this grievous overthrow by fearfull Messengers brought to London and to other cities of England but the whole land generally was striken into dumps and as it were astonied Githa the Kings mother like a woman gave her selfe to plaints and lamentations so as that she would admit no consolation but with most humble praiers intreated the Conquerour for the dead bodies of her sonnes And those she enterreth in the Abbey of Waltham Edwin sendeth Queen Algitha his sister into the farther parts of the Kingdome But the Lords and Peeres of the Realme will the people not to cast downe their hearts but lay their heads together about the State and Common wealth The Archbishop of Yorke the Citizens of London and the Sea souldiers whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave their advice to consecrate Edgar King and to begin warre againe with William Edwin and Morcar plotted secretly to usurpe the Imperiall rule and dignitie for themselves but the Bishops Prelates and others who were terrified with the flashing thunderbolts of the Popes curse thought best to yield and not by doubtfull battell to provoke the Conquerours heavie indignation against them nor to strive against God who now for the sinnes of the people calling for vengeance had delivered England as it wâ—re into the hands of the Norman William all this while fortifying the Towne of Hastings purposed to march directly with his armie in warlike manner to London but because he would raise the greater terrour abroad and make all sure behinde having divided his forces he rangeth over part of Kent over Southsex Suthrey Southampton shire and Berk shire fireth villages and upland houses driveth booties at Wallangford hee passeth over the Thames and terrifieth all the countrey as hee goeth Yet for all this the Nobles and Peeres wist not what counsell or course to take neither could they be brought to lay downe private grudges and enmities and with one heart to consult in common for the good of the State The Prelates to be absolved from curses of the Church and censures of the Bishop of Rome whereby he now exercised his authoritie not only over mens soules but also over Kingdomes seeing that the state of the Realme was now not decaied but quite ruinate and past recoverie persisted in this mind to submit in so much as many seeking to save themselves secretly departed out of the Citie But Alfred Archbishop of Yorke Wolstan Bishop of Worcester and other Prelates together with Eadgar Aetheling Edwin and Morcar at Berkhamsted doe meete the Norman Conquerour who made them many and large promises and having given hostages committed themselves to his protection and submitted Then forthwith speedeth he to London where being received with great and joyfull acclamations he was saluted King for the solemnizing of his Coronation which he appointed should be on Christmas day he made all the preparation that might bee and meane while bent his whole mind and all his thoughts to the setling of the State Now was the period and revolution of the English-Saxons Empire in Britaine come about which was determined within the compasse of 607. yeeres and a notable alteration and change made in the Kingdome of England which some lay upon the base a varice of the Magistrates and the superstitious lazinesse of the Prelates others impute to that Comet or blazing Starre and the powerable influence of celestiall bodies some againe made God the Author thereof who in his secret judgements and those never unjust disposeth of Kingdomes Others also there were who looked into neerer secondarie causes and they found a great want and lacke of wisedome in King Edward in that whiles under a goodly shew and pretext of religious and vowed virginitie he casting off all care of having issue exposed the Kingdome for a prey to ambitious humours WHat an insolent and bloudie victorie this was the Monks that write of it have declamed with full mouth neither is it to be doubed but in this Victorie as it hapneth in other wickednes tooke head and bare the full sway William the Conquerour in token as it were of a Trophee for this conquest abrogated some part of the ancient positive lawes of England brought in some Customes of Normandie and by vertue of a decree commanded That all causes should be pleaded in the French tongue The English hee thrust out of their ancient Inheritances assigned their lands and Lord-ships to his souldiers yet with this reservation to himself that he should still remaine chiefe Lord and bind them to doe due service and homage unto him and his successors that is to say That all of them should hold their lands in Fee or fealty He caused also a Seale for himselfe to be made of purpose with this inscription upon the one side Hôc Normannorum Guilielmum nosce Patronum The Normans Patron William know by this stamp that you
other publique huntings among the Romans For as the same Strabo writeth they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of a generous kind and framed naturally for hunting Whereupon Nemesianus wrote thus divisa Britannia mittit Veloces nostrique orbis venatibus aptos Though Britaine from this world of ours doth lie secluded farre Swift hounds it sends which for our game most fitly framed are Gratius also of their price and excellencie saith thus Quod freta si Morinûm dubiâ— refluentia ponto Veneris atque ipsos libeat penetrare Britannos O quanta est merces quantum impendia supra If that to Calice-streights you goe Where tides uncertaine ebbe and flow And list to venture further more Crossing the seas to British shore What meede would come to quite your paines What overdeale beside of gaines Yea and that very dog with us which of the old name Agasaeus we call yet at this day a Gasehound those ancient Greekes both knew and also had in great price And this will Oppian in his first booke of his Cynegeticks tell you in these Greeke verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Bodine turned into Latine thes Est etiam catuli species indagine clara Corpus huic breve magnifico sed corpore digna Picta Britannorum gens illos effera bello Nutrit Agasaeosque vocat vilissima forma Corporis ut credas parasitos esse latrantes And may be Englished in this wise Stout hounds there are and those of finders kind Of bodie small but doughtie for their deed The painted folke fierce Britans as we find Them Gasehounds call for they with them doe breed In making like house dogs or at a word To lickerous curs that craven at our bord Claudian also touching our Mastives writeth in this sort Magnaque taurorum fracturi colla Britanni And British mastives downe that puls Or breake the necks of sturdy bulls I have too far digressed about dogges yet hope a favourable pardon In this Citie as our owne Historiographers doe report in the time of the Romans was that Constans the Monke who by his father Constantine was first elect Caesar and afterwards Augustus that Constantine I say who upon hope of this name had assumed the Imperiall purple roabe that is usurped the Empire against Honorius For long since as Zosinus recordeth speaking of those times as well in villages as in Cities there were great colledges peopled as it were with Monks who before time â—â—ying the light lived scattering heere and there among mountaines woods and forrests all solitary by themselues whereof also they were so called Now of this Colledge wherein the said Constans was those old broken walles which are seene of that thicknesse and strength at the West-gate of the Cathedrall Church may seeme to be the ruines and reliques But this imperiall Monke taken out from hence suffered soone after condigne punishment both for his fathers ambition and also for the contempt of his professed religion During the Heptarchie of the Saxons this Citie albeit once or twice it suffered much calamity and miserie yet it revived and recovered againe yea and became the seat royall of the West-Saxons Kings adorned with magnificent Churches and a Bishops See furnished likewise with six mint houses by King Aethelstane In the Normans time also it flourished very much and in it was erected an office for keeping of all publike records and evidences of the Realme In which prosperous estate it continued a long time but that once or twice it was defaced by misfortune of suddaine fires and in the civill war betweene Stephen and Maude about the Kingdome of England lacked by the unruly and insolent souldiers Whereupon Necham our countriman who lived in that age writeth thus Guintoniam titulis claram gazisque repletam Noverunt veterum tempora prisca patrum Sed tam sacra fames auri jam caecus habendi Vrbibus egregiis parcere nescit amor Our ancestours knew Winchester sometimes a goodly Towne In treasure rich and plentifull in name of great renowne But now for hunger after gold our men so greedy are That even such Cities excellent they know not how to spare But of these losses it recovered it selfe by the helpe of Edward the third who heere appointed the Mart for wooll and cloth which we commonly call the Staple What was the face and outward shew of this Citie in these foregoing times a man can hardly tell considering that as the said Necham writeth Flammis toties gens aliena dedit Hinc facies urbis toties mutata dolorem Praetendit casus nuntia vera sui So many times a nation strange Hath fir'd this towne and made such change That now her face and outward hue Her griefe bewray's and tels full true In these daies of ours it is indifferently well peopled and frequented having water plentie by reason of the River turned and conveighed divers waies into it lying somewhat in length from East to West and containeth about a mile and a halfe in circuit within the walls which open at sixe gates and have every one of them their suburbs reaching forth without a good way On the South side of the West gate there mounteth up an old Castle which oftentimes hath beene besieged but most sore and straightly above the rest what time as Mawd the Empresse held it against King Stephen and at length by a rumour given out that she was dead and causing her selfe to be caried out in a coffin like a course deceived the enemie As concerning that round table there hanging up against the wall which the common sort useth to gaze upon with great admiration as if it had beene King Arthurs table I have nothing to say but this That as a man which vieweth it well may easily perceive it is nothing so ancient as King Arthur For in latter times when for the exercise of armes and feates of warlike prowesse those runnings at tilt and martiall justlings or torneaments were much practised they used such tables least any contention or offence for prioritie of place should through ambition arise among Nobles and Knights assembled together And this was a custome of great antiquitie as it may seeme For the ancient Gaules as Athenaeus writeth were wont to sit about round tables and their Esquires stood at their backes holding their shields About the midst of the citie but more inclining to the South Kenelwalch King of the West-Saxons after the subversion of that Colledge of Monkes which flourished in the Romans time as William of Malmesburie saith First founded to the glory of God the fairest Church that was in those daies in which very place the posteritie afterwards in building of a Cathedrall seate for the Bishop although it were more stately than the first yet followed just in the very same steps In this See there have
which the unskilfull rurall people envie us the having Onely one was brought from hence to London which was to be seene in the gardens of the right honourable Sir William Cecill Lord Burghley and high Treasurer of England to wit MEMORIAE FL. VICTORINAE T. TAM VICTOR CONJUX POSVIT That this Tombe was erected for that Victorina which was called Mater Castrorum that is The mother of the Campe and who against Gallienus the Emperour excited in Gaule and Britaine the two Victorini her sonne and sonnes sonne Posthumus likewise Lollianus Marius and Tetricus Caesars I would not with others affirme Yet I have read that two of the VICTORS were in some place here in Britaine and those at one and the selfe-same time the one Maximus the Emperour his soone the other Praefectus Praetorio to the same Emperour of whom Saint Ambrose maketh mention in his Epistles but I dare avouch that neither of these twaine reared this monument for his wife As one high way or street of the Romans went straight from hence Southward to Winchester so there was another ran west-ward through Pamber Forrest very full of trees and other by-places now standing out of the way hard by Litchfield that is the field of dead bodies to the Forrest of Chute pleasant for coole shade of trees plentifull game in which the Hunters and Forresters themselves do wonder at the banke or ridge thereof so evident to be seene paved with stone but broken here and there More toward the North in the very edge and frontier of this Shire we saw Kings-Cleare a market towne in these daies well frequented the residence in times past of the Saxon Kings by it Fremantle in a parke where King Iohn much haunted also Sidmanton the habitation of the Kingsmils Knights and Burgh-Cleare scituate under an high hill in the top whereof a warlike rampire such as our countreymen called a Burgh hath a trench taking a great compasse about it from whence there being a faire and open prospect every way ever the countrey lying underneath there standeth a Beacon that by light burning fire the enemies comming may bee shewed to all the neighbour-Inhabitants round about And verily such watches or signals as this we terme in common speech Beacons of the old word Beacnian that is to shew by a signe and for these many hundred yeares they have beene in right great request and much used among us in some places by heaping up a deale of wood in others by barrels full of pitch fastened to the top of a mast or pole in the highest places of the countrey at which by night some doe evermore watch and in old time there were set horsemen as posts in many places whom our Ancestors called Hobelers who in the day time should give notice of the enemies approach This shire like as the rest which hitherto we have run over belonged to the west-Saxon Kings and when they had deposed Sigebert from his Kingdome for his tyrannie evill entreating and lewd managing of his province this countrey as Marianus writeth was assigned unto him least hee should seeme altogether a private person Whom notwithstanding afterward for his wicked deeds they likewise expelled from hence and so far was it off that this afflicted state of a King moved any man to take pitie of him that a Swine-heard in the end slew him in the wood Anderida where he had lurked and hidden himselfe This Shire can reckon but very few Earles besides those of Winchester which I have already named In the first time of the Normans Bogo or Beavose the English man who fought against the Normans in the battell at Cardiff in Wales is reputed to have beene Earle of South-hampton a man for warlike prowesse much renowned whom while the Monks laboured to set out with their fained fables they have obscured his doughtie deeds in greater darkenesse From which time unto the daies of K. Henry the Eight there was no Earle of South-hampton that I read of but he created William Fitz-williams descended from the daughter of Marquesse Montacute both Earle of South-hampton and also Admirall of England when he was now well stricken in yeares Who dying straight after without issue King Edward the Sixth in the first yeare of his raigne conferred the said honour upon Thomas Wriotheosley Lord Chancellor whose grand-child Henrie by his sonne Henrie enjoyeth the same at this day and in the prime and flowre of his age hath by good literature and militarie experience strengthned his honorable parentage that in riper yeares he might be more serviceable to his Prince and countrey There be found in this shire Parishes 253. and mercate townes 18. VECTA INSVLA ISLE OF WIGHT TO this Countie of South-hampton belongeth that Island which lieth out in length over against the midst of it South-ward called by the Romans in times past VECTA VECTIS and VICTESIS by Ptolomee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Britaines Guith by English-Saxons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For an Island they termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by us in these daies the Isle of Wight and the Whight by so small a streight running betweene anciently called Solent It is severed from the maine land that it may seeme to have beene conjoyned to it whereof that British name of it Guith which betokeneth a separation as Ninnius saith is thought to have beene given even as Sicilie also being broken off as it were and cut from Italie got the name from Secando the Latin word which signifieth cutting as the right learned Iulius Scaliger is of opinion Whereupon under correction alwaies of the Iudicious Criticks I would read in the sixt Quest. Naturall of Seneca thus Ab Italia Siciliaresecta that is Sicilie cut from Italie wheras it is commonly read there rejecta By this Vicinitie of Scite Affinitie of name we may well thinke this Vecta to be that Icta which as Diodorus Siculus writeth seemed at every tide to be an Island but when it was ebbe the ancient Britaines were wont that way to carry tinne thither by carts which should bee transported into France But yet I would not deeme it to be that MICTIS in Plinie which likewise commeth very neere unto VECTA For that in it there was plentie of tinne but in this of ours there is not to my knowledge any veine at all of mettall This Isle betweene East and West in ovall forme stretcheth out twentie miles in length and spreadeth in the midst where it is broadest twelve miles having the one side turning to the North and the other Southward The ground to say nothing of the sea exceeding full of fish consisteth of soile very fruitfull and is thankefull to the husbandman in so much as it doth affoord corne to be carried forth breeding every where store of conies hares partridges and phesants One little forrest it hath likewise and two parkes replenished with deere for game and hunting pleasure Through the midst thereof
from both sides then setting foote to foote as if they fought man to man they maintained fight a longer time But when the English men had most valiantly received their first violent on set the Norman horsmen with full cariere put forward and gave an hot charge But seeing they also could not breake the battaile they retired for the nonce and yet kept their rankes in good order The Englishmen supposing them to flie presently disranged themselves and in disray preassed hard upon the enemies but they all on a sudden bringing backe their companies charged them a fresh on every side with all their joynt forces thicke united together and so enclosing them round about drove them backe with great slaughter who not withstanding having gotten the higher ground withstood the Normans a long time untill Harold himselfe was shot through with an arrow and fell downe dead for then straightwaies they turned their backes and betooke themselves every man to flight The Duke lofty and haughty with this victory and yet not unmindfull of God the giver thereof errected in memoriall of this battaile an Abbey to the glory of God and S. Martin which he called de Bello or Battaile Abbey in that very place where Harold after many a wound and stab among the thickest of his enemies gave up the ghost that the same might bee as it were an everlasting monument of the Normans victorie and therein he offered his sword and royall robe which he ware the day of his Coronation These the Monkes kept untill their suppression as also a table of the Normans gentry which entred with the Conquerour but so corruptly in later times that they inserted therein the names of such as were their benefactours and whosoever the favour of fortune or vertue had advanced to any eminencie in the subsequent ages About this Abbey there grew afterwards a towne of the same name or that I may use the words of the private History of this Abbey As the Abbey encreased there were built about the compasse of the same one hundred and fifteene houses of which the towne of Battell was made Wherein there is a place called by a French word Sangue lac of the bloud there shed which by nature of the ground seemeth after raine to wax red Whence William Newborough wrote although untruely thus The place in which there was a very great slaughter of the English men fighting for their countrey if peradventure it be wet with any small showre sweateth forth very fresh bloud endeed as if the very evidence thereof did plainely declare that the voyce of so much Christian bloud there shed doth still cry from the earth to the Lord. But to the said Abbey King William the Conquerour granted many and great priviledges And among other to use the very words of the Charter If any thiefe murderer or felon for feare of death fly and come to this Church let him have no harme but be dismissed and sent away free from all punishment Be it lawfull also for the Abbat of the same Church to deliver from the gallowes any thiefe or robber wheresoever if he chance to come by where such execution is in hand Henrie the First likewise that I may rehearse the words of his Charter instituted a mercate to be there kept on the Lords day free from all toll and tallage But Sir Anthony Browne Lord Vicount Mount-acute who not long since in that place built a goodly house obtained of late by authoritie of Parliament that this mercate should bee held upon another day And as for the priviledges of Sanctuary in those more heinous and grievous crimes they are here and every way els by Parliamentary authoritie quite abolished For they perceived well that the feare of punishment being once removed stout boldnesse and a will to commit wickednesse grew still to greater head and that hope of impunity was the greatest motive of ill-doing Neither heere or in that quarter nere adjoyning saw I any thing worth relation but onely Ashburnham that gave the name to a family of as great antiquity as any one in all this tract Hastings which I spake of called in the English Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is situate somewhat higher upon the same shore Some there bee that ridiculously derive this name from out of our tongue from haste or quicknesse forsooth because as Matthew Paris writeth William Conquerour at Hasting did set up hastily a fortresse of timber But it may seeme to have taken this new name of Hastings a Danish Pirate who wheresoever hee landed with intent to spoile and raise booties built oftentimes fortresses as we read in Asserius Menevensis of Boemflote castle built by him in Essex as also of others at Appledor and Middleton in Kent The tradition is that the old towne of Hastings is swallowed up of the sea That which standeth now as I observed is couched betweene a high cliffe sea-ward and as high an hill land-ward having two streetes extended in length from North to South and in each of them a parish Church The haven such as it is being fedde but with a poore small rill is at the South end of the Towne and hath had a great Castle upon the hill which over commanded it now there are onely ruines thereof and on the said hill Light houses to direct sailers in the night time Here in the reigne of King Althelstan was a mint-house Afterward it was accounted the first of the Cinque Ports which with the members belonging to it namely Seford Peuensey Hodeney Bulverhith Winchelsey Rhy c. was bound to finde one and twenty ships for warre at sea In what manner and forme if you desire to know both this Port and the rest also were bound to serve the King in his warres at sea for the immunities that they enjoy in most ample manner have heere in those very same words whereby this was in times past recorded in the Kings Exchequer Hastings with his members ought to find at the Kings summons one and twenty ships And in every shippe there must bee one and twenty tall and able men well armed and appointed for the Kings service Yet so as that summons bee made thereof on the Kings behalfe fortie daies before And when the foresaid ships and men therein are come to the place whereunto they were summoned they shall abide there in the Kings service for fifteene daies at their owne proper costs and charges And if the King shall have farther neede of their service after the fifteene daies above said or will have them to stay there any longer those ships with the men therein being whiles they remaine there shal be in the Kings service at the kings costs and charges so long as it shall please the king to wit The Master of every ship shall receive sixe pence by the day the Constable sixe pence a day and every one of the rest three pence by the day Thus Hastings flourished
Rochester would give unto the King an hundred pound of deniers At last by the intercession of Sir Robert Fitz Hamon and Henry Earle of Warwick the King granted it thus farre forth in lieu for the money which hee demanded for grant of the Manour that Bishop Gundulph because he was very skilfull and well experienced in architecture and masonrie should build for the King at his owne proper charges a Castle of stone In the end when as the Bishops were hardly brought to give their consent unto it before the King Bishop Gundulph built up the Castle full and whole at his owne cost And a little after King Henrie the first granted unto the Church of Canterbury and to the Archbishops the keeping thereof and the Constableship to hold ever after as Florentius of Worcester saith yea and licence withall to build in the same a towre for themselves Since which time it was belaied with with one or two great sieges but then especially when the Barons with their Al'armes made all England to shake and Simon Montford Earle of Leicester assaulted it most fiercely though in vaine and cut downe the wooden bridge which was after repaired But in the time of King Richard the Second Sir Robert Knowles by warlike prowes raised from low estate to high reputation and great riches built a very goodly stone bridge of arch-work with money levied out of French spoiles At the end of the said bridge Sir Iohn Cobham who much furthered the worke erected a Chapell for our elders built no notable bridge without a chapell upon which besides armes of Saints are seen the armes of the King and his three uncles then living And long after Archbishop Watham coped a great part of the said bridge with iron bars Vnder this Medway swelling with a violent and swift streame strugleth and breaketh through roaring and loud but forthwith running more still and calme becommeth a road at Gillingham and Chetham for a most royall and warlike navy of strong and serviceable ships and the same most ready alwaies at a short warning which our late gracious Ladie Queene Elizabeth with exceeding great cost built for the safegard of her subjects and terror of her enemies and for the defence thereof raised a castelet at Vpnore upon the river side Now Medway growne more full and carying a greater breadth with his curling waves right goodly and pleasant to behold runneth a long by the fruitfull fields untill that being divided by meeting with Iland Shepey which wee supposed to bee Ptolemeis TOLIATIS maketh his issue into the Aestuarie or Frith of Thames at two mouthes Of which twaine the Westerne is called West-Swale the Easterne that seemeth to have severed Sheppey from the firme land is named East-Swale but by Bede termed Genlad and Yenlet This Isle of the sheepe whereof it feedeth mighty great flockes being called by our ancestours Shepey that is The Isle of Sheep passing plentifull in corne but scarse of woods containeth twentie one miles in compasse Vpon the North-shore it had a little Monasterie now they call it Minster built by Sexburga wife of Ercombert the King of Kent in the yeare of 710. Vnder which a certaine Brabander of late beganne to trie by the furnace out of stones found upon the shore both Brimstone and Coperas It hath Westward in the Front thereof a very fine and strong Castle which King Edward the third built as himselfe writeth Pleasant for site to the terrour of his enemies and solace of his people unto which hee adjoyned a Burgh and in the honour of Philip the Queene his wife called it Queene-borough as one would say The Queens Burgh The Constable whereof at this day is Sir Edward Hoby who hath polished his excellent wit with learned studies Eastward is Shurland seated which belonged in late times to the Cheineies and now to Sir Philip Herbert second sonne to Henry Earle of Pembroch whom King Iames in one and the same day created Baron Herbert of Shurland and Earle of Mont-Gomerie This Isle appertaineth to the Hundred of Middleton so named of Middleton the towne now Milton This was some time a towne of the Kings aboade and of greater name by farre than at this day although Hasting the Danish pirate for to annoy it fortified a Castle hard by in the yeare 893. Neere adjoyning heereto Sittingburn a towne furnished with Innes sheweth it selfe with hiw new Major and corporation the remaines also of Thong Castle which as some write was so called for that Hengist built it by a measure of thongs cut out of a beasts hide when Vortigern gave so much land to fortifie upon as hee could encompasse with a beasts hide cut into thongs Since the conquest it was the seat of Guncelline of Baldismer of noble parentage whose sonne Bartholomew begat Guncelline and hee by the Inheretrie of Raulph Fitz-Barnard Lord of Kings-Downe was father to that seditious Sir Bartholomew Lord Baldismer of whom I spake he againe of Margaret Clare begat Sir Giles Lord Baldismer that died without issue also Margerie wife to William Roos of Hamlake Maude the wife of Iohn Vere Earle of Oxford Elizabeth espoused to William Bohun Earle of Northampton and afterward to Edmund Mortimer and Margaret whom Sir Iohn Tiptoft wedded from whom descended a goodly of-spring and faire race of great nobilitie Then saw I Tenham not commended for health but the parent as it were of all the choise fruit gardens and Orchards of Kent and the most large and delightsome of them all planted in the time of King Henrie the Eighth by Rich. Harris his fruterer to the publike good For thirty Parishes thereabout are replenished with Cherie-gardens and Orchards beautifully disposed in direct lines Amongst these is Feversham very commodiously situate For the most plentifull part of this countrey lieth round about it and it hath a creeke fit for bringing in and carrying forth commodities whereby at this day it flourisheth amongst all the neighbour townes It seemeth also in former times to have flourished considering that King Aethelstane assembled hither an assembly the Sages of his Kingdome and made lawes heere in the yeare of our redemption 903. King Stephen also he that usurped the Kingdome of England founded an Abbey heere for the Monkes of Clugny In which himselfe Maude his wife and Eustach his sonne were entombed Nigh thereto like as else where through this Countie are found pits of great depth which being narrow in the mouth and very spatious beneath have their certaine distinct roomes or chambers as it were with their severall supporting pillers of chalke Concerning these there are divers opinions I for my part cannot tell what to thinke of them unlesse they were those pits out of which the Britaines in old time digged forth chalke or white marle to dung their grounds withall as Plinie writeth For they sound pits saith hee An hundred foote deepe streight at the mouth but of great capacitie within like unto
downe heere the maner of assaulting this Castle out of a writer who then lived and saw it to the end wee may understand with what devises and engines that age as wittie well neere as ours to worke men mischiefe used in their sieges of Townes On the East-side saith hee there was planted one Petrarie and two Mangonells which daily played upon the Towre and on the West-side two Mangonells which battered the old Towne also one Mangonell on the South part and another on the North which made two breaches and entries in the next walles Besides these there were two frames or engines of Timber made by Carpenters erected higher above the toppe of the Tower and Castle for Shootters in brakes and for discoverers There were moreover there many frames wherein shooters out of Brakes and slingers were set in await furthermore there was a frame or engine there called the Cat under which the Pioners and underminers had their ingresse and egresse whiles they digged under the Walles of Towre and Castle Now was this Castle taken by foure assaults In the first was the Barbican wonne in the second the out Ballie At the third fell the Wall downe neere the olde Towre by the meanes of the Miners where by the helpe of a chinke or breach with great daunger they became possessed of the inner Ballie At the fourth the Miners put fire under the Towre so that the smoke brake forth and the Towre was rent asunder in so much as the clifts and breaches appeared wide and then the enemies yeelded themselves Of these Mangonells Patraries Trabucks Bricols Espringolds and of that which our ancestors termed the Warwolse by which before that Gunnes were devised they discharged volies of mighty huge stones with great violence and so brake through strong walles much might heere be said were they not beside my purpose But my author proceedeth thus Falco remained Excommunicate untill he restored unto the King the Castle of Plumpton and Stoke-curcy with his plate of gold and silver both and such money as that he had and from thence was led to London Meane while the Sheriffe had commandement to demolish and rase the Towre and out Ballie As for the inward Ballie when the Bulwarks were cast downe and both Trench and Rampier laid levell with the ground it remained unto William Beauchamp for to dwell in The stones were graunted unto the Chanons of Newenham and Chaldwell and of Saint Pauls Church in Bedford Neither yet for all this is there any thing here more worth the seeing than the remaines of this Castle on the East side of the towne hanging over the river On both sides of Bedford stood two prety and very faire religious houses Helenstow now Eustow on the South part consecrated by Judith wife to Waltheof Earle of Huntingdon unto Helena Great Constantines Mother and to sacred Virgins on the East Newenham which Roise the wife of Paine de Beauchamp translated thither from Saint Paules within Bedford Ouse is not gone farre from hence but he seeth the tokens of a decayed Castle at Eaton which was another seate of the family de Beauchamp and bids Bedford-shire farewell hard by Bissemed where Hugh de Beauchamp and Roger his brother founded a little Monastery for the Chanons of Saint Austins order as appeareth by the Popes Bull. These stand on the farther side of Ouse which yet before from the South is augmented with a namelesse brooke at whose confluents is to be seene Temsford well knowne by reason of the Danes standing Campe and the Castle there which they then built when they wintering in Campe lay sore upon this Country and threw downe the Britans Fort as it is thought The place whereof now called Chesterfield and Sandie sheweth oftentimes peeces of Romane coyne as expresse tokens of the antiquity thereof Neither doe some doubt by the very situation but that this was that SALENAE which Ptolomee ascribeth to the Cattieuchlani if Salndy be the name as divers have avouched unto me Heere I overpasse Potton a little mercat towne because I finde nothing of it but that Iohn Kinaston gave it and the Lands adjoyning freely unto Thomas Earle of Lancaster Neither have I reason to make many words of such places as be situate upon this Brooke to wit Chicksand where Paine de Beauchamp built a little Monastery Shelford a mercat Wardon more inward where was a house of Cistertian monkes and was mother to the Abbaies of Saulterey Sibton and Tilthey Biglesward much spoken of and frequented for the horse Fayre there and the stone bridge From whence Stratton is not farre the mansion place in times past of the Barons Latimer afterward of the Enderbeies and from them hereditarily untill our time of the Pigotts Five miles from the head of this brooke in the very heart and middest well neere of the shire standeth Ampthill upon an hill a parcell of the Barony of Kainho heeretofore and lately a stately house resembling a castle and environed with Parks built by Sir Iohn Cornwale Baron Fanhop in the reigne of Henry the Sixth with the spoyles wonne from the French whose goods as I have read when Edward the Fourth had confiscated for taking part with the Familie of Lancaster and indited him or this house rather as Fanhop himselfe saith of high treason forthwith it was granted unto Edmund Grey Lord of Ruthin and afterwards Earle of Kent whose grandchild Richard passed both it and Ruthin over to King Henry the Seventh and he annexed the same unto the Kings Sacred Patrimony as the Civilians terme it or as our Lawyers use to say unto the Crowne and shortly after with the Lands appertaining it was made the Honour of Ampthil From hence more Northward lieth Haughton Conquest so called of a worshipfull and ancient family which a long time dwelt therein Westward is Woburn where now is a free schoole founded by Francis Earle of Bedford and where sometime flourished a notable monastery built by Henry de Bolebic for Cistercians who himselfe entred into this order Under which at Aspley Gowiz there is a kinde of earth men say that turneth wood into stones and for proofe and testimony thereof I have heard say there was a wooden ladder to be seene in that monastery that having lien a good while covered all over in that earth was digged forth againe all stone More into the East Tuddington sheweth a faire house goodly to be seene which Sir Henry Cheiney made by Queene Elizabeth Baron Cheyney of Tuddington built and shortly after died Sans-issue where also in old time Paulin Pever a Courtier and Sewer to King Henry the Third as Matthew Paris witnesseth built a strong house with the hall chappell chambers and other houses of stone and the same covered with lead with Orchards also and Parkes to it in such sort as it caused the beholders to wonder thereat We were not gone forward farre from hence but we came to Hockley
the East with Essex and the North with Cambridge-shire A rich country in corne fields pastures medows woods groves and cleere riverets And for ancient townes it may contend with the neighbours even for the best For there is scarsely another shire in all England that can shew more places of Antiquities in so small a compasse In the very limit thereof Northward where it boundeth upon Cambridge-shire standeth Roiston a towne well knowne but of no antiquity as being risen since the Normans daies For one Dame Roise a woman in that age of right great name whom some thinke to have been Countesse of Norfolke erected there about a Crosse in the high way which was thought in that age a pious worke to put passengers in minde of Christs passion whereupon this place was for many yeeres called Roises-Crosse untill that Eustach de Marc adjoined thereto a little Monastery in the honour of Thomas of Canterbury for then were Innes built and by little and little it grew to be a towne which in stead of Roises Crosse was called Roiston that is Roises towne unto which King Richard the First granted a Faire at certaine set times and a mercat Now it is very famous and passing much frequented for Malt For it is almost incredible how many buyers and sellers of corne how many Badgers yea and Corne-mongers or Regraters flocke hither weekely every mercat day and what a number of horses loden doe then fill the high waies on every side Over Roiston Southward is mounted Tharfield among the high hils an ancient habitation of the familie of Berners descended from Hugh de Berners unto whom in recompence of his valiant service in the Normans Conquest King William the Conquerour granted faire lands in Eversdon within the county of Cambridge And in so great worship and reputation flourished his posterity that Sir John Bourchier who married the right heire at common law of that familie being promoted by King Edward the Fourth to the honour of Baron tooke his addition thereof and was stiled Baron Bourchier of Berners and usually Lord Berners Upon this confineth Nucelles belonging in times past to the house of the Rochesters or Roffes but all the repute and glory that it hath arose from the inhabitants thereof afterwards namely the Barons of Scales descended out of Norfolke but yet the heires of Roffe For King Edward the First gave unto Sir Robert de Scales in regard of his valourous service in the Scotish warres certaine lands to the value in those daies of three hundred markes by the yeare and called him among the Barons to the Parliament Their Eschocheon Gules with sixe escallops argent is seene in many places They flourished unto King Edward the Fourth his daies at what time the only daughter and heire of this family was wedded vnto Sir Anthonie Widevile Earle Rivers whom being advanced by his owne glorious prowesse and the kings marriage with his sister the malicious hatred and envie of his enemies most vilanouslie overwrought and brought to utter destruction For King Richard the Third beheaded him innocent man as he was And when as she died without issue the inheritance was parted in King Henry the Sevenths time betweene Iohn Earle of Oxford who by the Howards and Sir William Tindale knight who by the Bigods of Felbridge were found next cousens and coheires The Manour of Barkway hereby appertained also to those Lords Scales a well knowne throughfare Beyond which is Barley that imparted surname to the ancient and well allied family of the Barleies and on this side Anestie which was not long since the inheritance of the house of Yorke and in elder times the Castle there was a nest of rebels wherefore Nicholas of Anesty Lord thereof was expresly commanded by King Henry the Third to demolish so much of it as was raised since the Barons warres against his Father King John But now time hath wholy rased it all To returne though disorderly East-ward is Ashwell as one would say The well or fountaine among the Ashes a Country towne of good bignesse and full of houses situate on a low ground in the very North edge of the shire where there is a source of springs bubling out of a stony banke overshadowed on every side with tall ashes from whence there floweth at certaine veines continually running such store of water that forthwith being gathered within banks it carrieth a streame able to drive a Mill and all of a sudden as it were groweth to a good big river Of these wels and ashes together as most certaine it is that the English-Saxons imposed this new name Ashwell so I have been sometime of this opinion that the ancient Britans who as Gildas witnesseth heaped divine honours upon hils rivers fountaines and groves from the very same thing and in the same sense called it Magiovinium and that it was the same which Antonine named MAGIONINIVM But time hath now discovered a more certaine truth neither am I ashamed to change mine opinion in this point seeing I take no pleasure at all in mine owne error And yet to prove the ancientnesse of this towne the large quadrant adjoyning enclosed with a trench and rampire maketh much which by the Romane peeces of coyne digged up there oftentimes sheweth whose worke it was and in that booke wherein above 500. yeeres since King William the Conquerour tooke the review and account of all the townes in England it is in plaine words tearmed a Burgh Southward we saw Merkat-Baldock situate upon a whitish soile wherein as also in Hitching hard by we read of no antiquity Then is there seated in a well-husbanded and good ground Wimondley an ancient and famous Lordship held by the most honourable tenure with us which our Lawyers terme Grand-Sergeanty namely that the Lord thereof should serve unto the Kings of England upon their Coronation day the first cup and be as it were the Kings Cup-bearer Which honorable office in regard of this Lordship certaine Noble Gentlemen called Fitz-Tek held in the beginning of the Normans reigne from whom by a daughter it came unto the Argentons These fetched their name and pedegree from David de Argenton a Norman and a martiall knight who under King William the Conquerour served in the wars and they in remembrance heereof gave for their armes Three Cups Argent in a shield Gueules But at last for want of issue male in King Henry the Sixth his daies Elizabeth Argenton the sole and entier inheritrice brought it unto her husband Sir William Allington knight with faire lands thereby and this dignity from whom Sir Giles Allington now the heire of this family is the seventh a young Gentleman right courteous and of a generous nature who I hope will give some new lustre by his vertues unto the ancient worship of his house Hard by and neere unto the roade high-way betweene Stevenhaugh and Knebworth the seat of the worshipfull house of the
spirituall benefits in that Church as praiers blessings c. and so when he had entertained them with a very sumptuous feast hee gave them his blessing and dismissed them chearefully every man to his owne home But I will dwell no longer in this matter But hereby you may see how by small contributions great workes arose From Crowland there goeth a Cawsey planted on both sides with Willowes betweene the River Welland and the deepe Marishes Northward upon which two miles from Crowland I saw the fragment of a Piramis with this Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I SAY THAT SAINT GUTHLAKE THIS STONE HIS BOVND DOTH MAKE Higher yet upon the same River is seated Spalding enclosed round about with Riverets and draines a fairer Towne I assure you than a man would looke to finde in this Tract among such slabbes and water-plashes where Ivo Talbois whom Ingulph elsewhere calleth Earle of Anjou gave an ancient Cell to the Monkes of Angiers in France From hence as farre as to Deeping which is ten miles off Egelrick Abbat of Crowland afterwards Bishop of Durham made for the ease of travailers as saith Ingulphus through the middest of a vast Forest and of most deepe Fennes a sound causey of wood and sand after his owne name called Elrich-road which notwithstanding at this day is not to be seene In higher Hoiland that bendeth more into the North first we have in sight Kirkton so named of the Church which is passing faire and then where the River Witham hemnd in strongly with bankes on both sides runneth in a maine and full streame toward the sea flourisheth Boston more truely named Botolphs-towne For it carried that name from one Botolph a most holy and devout Saxon who at Icanhoe had a Monastery A famous Towne this is standing on both sides of the River Witham which hath over it a wooden bridge of a great height and well frequented by the meanes of a commodious haven unto it the Mercat place is faire and large and the Church maketh a goodly shew as well for the beautifull building as the greatnesse thereof the towre-steeple of it which riseth up to a mighty height doth as one would say salute passengers and travailers a great way off and giveth direction also to the sailers A lamentable overthrow it sustained in the Raigne of Edward the first For when bad and Ruffian-like behaviour rufled at that time over all England certaine military lusty fellowes having proclaimed heere a Justs or running at Tilt at a Faire time when there was much resort of people thither came apparelled in the habit of Monkes and Chanons set fire on the Towne in most places thereof brake in upon Merchants with sodaine violence tooke away many things by force burnt a great deale more in so much as our Historians write that as the ancient Writers record of Corinth when it was destroied molten gold and silver ran downe in a streame together The Ring-leader Robert Chamberlan after hee had confessed the act and what a shamefull deed had been committed was hanged yet could he not be wrought by any meanes to disclose his complices in this foule fault But happier times raised Boston againe out of the ashes and a staple for wooll here setled did very much enrich it and drew thither merchants of the Hanse Society who had here their Guild At this day it is for building faire and by good trade rich For the Inhabitants give themselves both to merchandise and also to grasing Nere unto this was the Barony de Croeun or de Credonio out of which family Alan de Croeun founded the Priory of Freston and at length Parnel heire of the family being twice married transferred no small inheritance first to the Longchamps which came to the Pedwardins and secondly to John Vaulx from whom the Barons Roos are descended Beyond it scarce six miles reacheth Holland all which Ivo Talboys of Anjo◠received at the bountifull hands of king William the Conqueror but Herward an English man of good hope and full of douty courage being sonne to Leofrick Lord of Brane or Burne not brooking his insolency when he saw his owne and his Country mens safety now endangered after he had received the cincture with a military Belt by Brann Abbat of Peterborough whose stomacke rose also against the Normans raised warre against him oftentimes put him to flight and at length carried him away captive and suffered him not to bee ransomed but with such conditions that he might be received into the Kings favour wherein he dyed his liege man For so deserved his valour which is alwayes commended even in a very enemy His Daughter being wedded to Hugh Enermeve Lord of Deping enjoyed his lands which afterwards as I understand was devolved upon the Family of Wake which being mightily enriched with the Possessions of the Estotevills was of right great honour in these parts untill the Raigne of Edward the Second for then by an heire Generall their inheritance came by right of marriage unto Edmund of Woodstocke youngest sonne to King Edward the First and Earle of Kent But of a younger sonne the ancient Family of the Wakes of Blisworth in Northampton-shire yet remaining is descended The second part of this Country commonly called Kesteven and by Aethelward an ancient Authour Ceostefnewood adjoyning to Hoiland on the West side is for aire farre more wholesome and for Soile no lesse fruitfull Greater this is and larger than the other yea and garnished every where with more faire Townes At the entry thereinto upon the river Welland standeth Stanford in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 built of rough stone whence it hath the name A Towne well peopled and of great resort endowed also with sundry immunities and walled about It gave Geld or Tribute as wee reade in Domesday Booke for twelve hundreds and an halfe in the army shipping and Danegeld and in it were sixe Wards What time as King Edward the elder fortified the South bankes of Rivers against the Danes breaking by force into the Land out of the North parts Marianus recordeth that hee built a very strong Castle just over against this Towne also on the South banke which now is called Stanford Baron yet there appeareth not any one token thereof at this day for that Castle which in time of the civill Warre Stephen strengthened against Henry of Anjou was within the Towne as both the generall report holdeth and the very plot also whereon it stood as yet remaining sheweth But soone after the said Henry being now King of England gave the whole Towne of Stanford which was in his Demaine excepting the fees or Feifs of the Barons and Knights of the same Towne unto Richard de Humez or Homets who was Constable to the King his Soveraigne Lord for his homage and service And the same afterwards held William Earle of Warren by the will and pleasure of King John Under the
I chuse rather to reject them than heere to propound them According therefore to my purpose I will severally runne over those Provinces which after Ptolomees description the CORNAVII seeme to have possessed that is to say Warwick-shire Worcester-shire Stafford-shire Shrop-shire and Cheshire In which there remaineth no footing at this day of the name Cornavij although this name continued even untill the declining State of the Romane Empire For certaine Companies and Regiments of the CORNAVII served in pay under the later Emperours as wee may see in the Booke of Notitia Provinciarum WARWICI Comitatus a cor nauiis olim inha bitatus WARWICK-SHIRE THe County of WARVVICK which the old English Saxons as well as wee called WARVVICK-SHIRE being bounded on the East side with Northampton-shire Leicestershire and the Watling-street Way which I spake of on the South with Oxford-shire and Glocestershire on the West for the greatest part with Worcester-shire and on the North side with Stafford-shire is divided into two parts the Feldon and Woodland that is into a plaine Champian and a woody Country which parts the River Avon running crookedly from North-East to South-West doth after a sort sever one from the other The Feldon lyeth on this side Avon Southward a plaine Champian Countrey and being rich in Corne and greene grasse yeeldeth a right goodly and pleasant prospect to them that looke downe upon it from an Hill which they call Edge-hill Where this hill endeth nere unto Wormington we saw a round Fort or military fense cast up of a good bignesse which as others of that kinde wee may well thinke to have beene made for the present and not long to continue by occasion of some enemies that in times past were ready to invade those parts Of the redy Soile heere come the names of Rodway and Rodley yea and a great part of the very Vale is thereupon termed The Vale of Red-horse of the shape of an Horse cut out in a red hill by the Country people hard by Pillerton In this part the places worth naming are Shipston and Kinton the one in times past a Mercate of Sheepe the other of Kine whereupon they gat those names also Compton in the Hole so called for that it lyeth hidden in a Valley under the Hilles yet hath it delights and pleasures about it and from thence a noble Family hath taken the name out of which the most excellent Prince Queene Elizabeth advanced Sir Henry Compton to the honour of a Baron in the yeere of our Redemption 1572. Likewise Wormeleighton so highly commended and notorious for good Sheepe-pasture but now much more notable since that King James created that right worshipfull Sir Robert Spenser of whom I have already spoken Baron Spenser of Wormeleighton Moreover Shugbury where the stones called Astroites resembling little Starres are found which the Lords of the place sirnamed thereupon Shugbury have long shewed in their Coat Armour Southam a Mercate Towne well knowne as also Leamington so called of Leame a small Brooke that wandereth through this part of the Shire where there boyleth out a spring of salt water and Utrhindon now Long Ichingdon and Harbury Neither verily are these two places memorable for any other cause but for that Fremund sonne to King Offa was betwixt them villanously in times past slaine by those that forelayed him a man of great renowne and singular Piety to God ward unto whom nothing else procured envie and evill will but because in an unhappy time hee had by happy Conduct quelled the audacious Courage of his enemies Which Death of his notwithstanding turned to his greater Glorie For beeing buryed at his Fathers Palace now called Off-Church hee liveth yet unto Posterity as who beeing raunged in the Catalogue of our Saints hath among the multitude received Divine Honours and whose life is by an ancient Writer set out in a good Poeme out of which let it bee no offence to put downe these few Verses following touching the Murderer who upon an ambitious desire of a Kingdome slew him Non speraâ—s vivo Fremundo regis honore Optato se posse frui molitur in ejus Immeritam tacitò mortem gladióque profanus Irruit exerto servus Dominà jacentis Tale nihil veritum saevo caput amput at ictu Talis apud Wydford Fremendum palma coronat Dum simul sontes occîdit occidit insons Past hope whiles Fremund liv'd to speed of wished regalty All secret and unworthy meanes he plots to make him dye With naked sword prophane slave he assaileth cowardly His Lord unwares and as he lay beheads him cruelly At Wydford thus Prince Fremund did this glorious crowne attaine Whiles slaying guilty folke at once himselfe is guiltlesse slaine Thus much of the Feldon or Champion part which that ancient Fosse-way a thing that would not bee overpassed cutteth overthwart the ridge whereof is seene in pastures lying now out of the way neere unto Chesterton the habitation of that ancient Family of the Peitoes out of which was that William Peito a Franciscane Frier whom Paul the Fourth Pope of Rome of stomach to worke Cardinall Pole displeasure would you thinke these heavenly Wights were so wrathfull created though in vaine Cardinall and â—egate of England having recalled Cardinall Pole to Rome before to bee accused and charged as suspected corrupt in Religion But Queene Mary albeit shee were most affectionately devoted to the Church of Rome interposed or rather opposed her selfe so that Peito was forbidden to enter into England and the power Legantine left entire and whole to Cardinall Pole Heere I wote not whether it would bee materiall to relate how in the Raigne of Edward the Fourth certaine Writers in Bookes of purpose penned made complaint of Covetousnesse how that she having assembled heere about flockes of Sheepe as a puissant power of armed forces besieged many Villages well peopled drave out the Husbandmen wonne the said Villages destroyed rased and depopulated them in such miserable sort heereabout that one of the said Writers a learned man in those daies cryed out with the Poet in these termes Quid facerent hostes capta crudeliùs urbe What could more cruelly be done By enemies to Cities wonne But nere unto the River Avon where carrying as yet but a small streame he closely entereth into this County first offereth it selfe Rugby having a Mercat in it standing chiefely of a number of Butchers Then Newenham Regis that is Kings Newenham standing upon the other side of the River where three fountaines walme out of the ground streined as it should seeme through a veine of Alum the water whereof carrying both colour and taste of milke is reported to cure the stone Certes it procureth urine abundantly greene wounds it quickly closeth up and healeth being drunke with salt it looseth and with sugar bindeth the belly After it Bagginton which had a Castle to it and belonged sometime to the Bagottes as noble a
to recover the Holy Land That part of this Country which lyeth beyond the Haven and hath onely these two Rivers to water it the Britans doe call Ros making the name answerable to the thing for that it lyeth for the most part all low on a flat and greene plaine This Tract was inhabited by Flemings out of the Low Countries who by the permission of King Henry the First were planted heere when the Ocean by making breaches in the bankes had overwhelmed a great part of the said Low Countries These are distinctly knowne still from the Welsh both by their speech and manners and so neere joyned they are in society of the same language with Englishmen who come nighest of any Nation to the low Dutch Tongue that this their little Country is tearmed by the Britans Little England beyond Wales A Nation this is as saith Giraldus strong and stout and continually enured in warres with the Welsh a Nation most accustomed to seeke gaine by clothing by traffique also and merchandise by sea and land undertaking any paines and perills whatsoever A Nation of very great power and as time and place requireth ready by turnes to take plough in hand and till the ground as ready also to goe into the field and fight it out And that I may adde thus much moreover a Nation most loyally devoted to the Kings of England and as faithfull to Englishmen and which in the time of Giraldus was wonderfull skilfull in Sooth-saying by the Inspection of Beasts inwards whose worke also is heere seene as they are a people passing industrious namely The Flemish High way reaching out a great length The Welshmen have many a time banded all their Forces in one and to recover this country belonging sometimes unto their ancestors have violently set upon these Flemings and overrunne their lands spoiling and wasting where ever they went yet they most courageously have alwayes from time to time defended their estates their name and life Whereupon concerning them and King William Rufus the Historian Malmesbury writeth thus Many a time and often King William Rufus had but small successe against the Welsh men which any man may well mervaile at considering that alwaies otherwise he spread most fortunately in all adventures of Warre But I take it that as the unevennesse of the ground and sharpnesse of the ayre maintained their Rebellion so the same empeached his valour But King Henry who now Reigneth a man of an excellent wit found meanes to frustrate all their devices by placing Flemings in their Country who might be alwaies ready to represse and keepe them in And in the fifth booke King Henry with many a warlike expedition went about to force the Welsh men who ever and anon rose up in Rebellion for to yeeld and submit themselves and resting in the end upon this good and holsome policie for to take downe and abate their swelling pride he brought over thither all the Flemings that dwelt in England For a number of them who in those daies in regard of his Mothâ—rs 〈◊〉 by her Fathers side flocked thither were closely shrowded in England in so much 〈◊〉 they for their multitude seemed burdensome unto the Realme Wherefore he sent them altogether with their substance goods Wives and Children unto Ros a Country in Wales as it were â—â—to a common avoidance thereby both to purge and clense his owne Kingdome and also to quaile and represse the rash boldnesse of his enemies there By the more westward of these two Rivers is Harford West called by the English men in times past Haversord and by the Britans Hulphord a faire Towne and of great resort situate upon an hill side having scarce one even streete but is steepe one way or other which being a Countie by it selfe hath for Magistrates a Major a Sheriffe and two Bailiffs The report goeth that the Earles of Clare fortified it with Rampier and Wall on the North side and we read that Richard Earle of Clare made R. Fitz-Tancred Castellan of this Castle Beyond Ros there shooteth out with a mighty front farre into the West Ocean a great Promontory which Ptolomee called OCTOPITARUM the Britans Pebidiauc and Cantred Devi we Saint Davids land A stony barren and unfruitfull ground as Giraldus saith Neither clad with Woods nor garnished heere and there with Rivers ne yet adorned with Medows lying alwaies open to windes onely and stormes Yet a retyring place for most holy men and a nurserie of them For Calphurnius a Britaine Priest as some I know not how truly have written heere in the vale of Ros begat of his Wife Concha Sister to Saint Martin of Tours Patricke the Apostle of Ireland and Devi a most religious Bishop translated the Archiepiscopall See from Isca Legionum into the most remote and farthest angle heereof even to Menew or Menevia which afterwards the Britans of his name called Twy Dewy that is Devi his house the Saxons Dauy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the English men at this day Saint Davids and was for a long time an Archbishops See But by occasion of a pestilence that contagiously raged in this Country whereby the Pall was translated into little Britaine in France to Dole this Archiepiscopall dignity had an end Yet in the foregoing ages the Welsh men commensed an action heere about against the Archbishop of Canterbury Metropolitane of England and Wales but they were cast in the Law What this Saint Davids was and what maner of thing in times past a man can hardly tell considering it hath beene so often by Pirates rased but now it is a very small and poore Citie and hath nothing at all to make shew of but a faire Church dedicated to Saint Andrew and David which having been many times overthrowne Petre the Bishop in the reigne of King John and his successors erected in that forme which now it sheweth in the vale as they tearme it of Ros under the Towne and hard by it standeth the Bishops Pallace and faire houses of the Chaunter who is next unto the Bishop for there is no Deane heere of the Chauncellor Treasurer and foure Archdeacons who be of the number of the XXII Canons all enclosed round within a strong and seemely wall whereupon they call it the Close This Promontorie thrusteth it selfe so farre Westward that in a cleere Sunshine day a man may from thence see Ireland and from hence is the shortest cut to Ireland and by Plinies measure which he tooke false was from the Silures for he thought that the Silures reached thus farre thirty miles But that this land ran out farther and that the forme of the Promontory hath been changed it may be gathered out of these words of Giraldus What time saith he as King Henry the Second made his abode in Ireland by reason of an extraordinary violence of stormes the sandy shores of this coast were laide bare as farre as to the very hard ground and the face of
to take any thing that pertained to the Warren without the licence and good will of Henry himselfe and his Successours Which was counted in that age for a speciall favour and I note it once for all that we may see what Free Warren was But the male issue of this Family in the right line ended in Henry Kigheley of Inskip Howbeit the daughters and heires were wedded to William Cavendish now Baron Cavendish of Hardwick and to Thomas Worseley of Boothes From hence Are passeth beside Kirkstall an Abbay in times past of no small reckoning founded by Henry Lacy in the yeere 1147. and at length visiteth Leedes in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which became a house of the Kings when CAMBODUNUM was by the enemy burnt to the ground now a rich Towne by reason of clothing where Oswy king of Northumberland put to flight Penda the Mercian And as Bede saith this was to the great profit of both Nations for he both delivered his owne people from the hostile spoiling of the miscreants and also converted the Mercians themselves to the grace of Christian Faith The very place wherein they joyned battaile the writers call Winwidfield which name I suppose was given it of the Victory like as a place in Westphalia where Quintilius Varus with his legions was slaine is in the Dutch tongue called Winfield that is The fields of victory as that most learned man and my very good friend Abraham Ortelius hath observed The little Region or Territory about it was in times past by an old name called Elmet which Eadwin king of Northumberland the sonne of AElla after hee had expelled Cereticus a British king conquered in the yeere of Christ 620. Herein is digged limestone every where which is burnt at Brotherton and Knottingley and at certaine set times as it were at Faires a mighty quantity thereof is conveied to Wakefield Sandall and Stanbridge and so is sold unto this Westerne Country which is hilly and somewhat cold for to manure and enrich their Corne fields But let us leave these things to Husbandmen as for my selfe I professe my ignorance therein and will goe forward as I beganne At length Are entertaineth Calder aforesaid with his water as his Guest where neere unto the meeting of both Rivers standeth Castleford a little Village Marianus nameth it Casterford who reporteth that the Citizens of Yorke slew many of king Ethelreds Army there whom in their pursuite they set upon and charged heere and there at advantages what time as hee invaded and overranne this Country for breaking the allegeance they had sworne unto him But in Antonine this place is called by a more ancient name LEGEOLIUM and LAGETIUM Wherein beside expresse and notable tokens of Antiquity a mighty number of Roman peeces of money the common people there tearme them Sarasins head were found at Beanfield a place so called now of Beanes hard by the Church The distance also from DAN and YORKE betweene which he placed it doth most cleerely confirme as much to say nothing of the situation thereof hard by the Romanes High Street and last of all for that Roger Hoveden in plaine tearmes calleth it A City From hence Are being now bigger after it hath received Calder unto it leaveth on the left hand Brotherton a little Towne in which Queene Margaret turning thither out of the way as she road on hunting was delivered of childe and brought forth unto her Husband king Edward the First Thomas de Brotherton so named of the place who was afterward Earle of Norfolke and Mareshall of England And not farre beneath Are after it hath received into it Dan looseth himselfe in Ouse On the right hand where a yellower kinde of marke is found which being cast and spred upon the fields maketh them beare Corne for many yeeres together he passeth by Ponttract commonly called Pontfret situate not farre from the river banke which Towne gat life as it were by the death of old Legeolium In the Saxons time it was called Kirkby but the Normans of a broken Bridge named it in French Pontfract Upon this occasion it is commonly thought that the wooden Bridge over Are hard by was broken when a mighty multitude of people accompanied William Archibishop a great number fell into the River and yet by reason that the Archbishop shed many a teare at this accident and called upon God for helpe there was not one of them that perished Seated it is in a very pleasant place that bringeth forth Liquirice and skirworts in great plenty adorned also with faire buildings and hath to shew a stately Castle as a man shall see situate upon a rocke no lesse goodly to the eye than safe for the defence well fortified with ditches and bulwarkes Hildebert Lacy a Norman unto whom king William the First after that Alricke the Saxon was thrust out had given this Towne with the land about it first built this Castle But Henry Lacy his nephew came into the field at the battaile of Trenchbrey I speake out of the Pleas against King Henry the First wherefore hee was disseised of the Barony of Pontfract and the King gave the Honour to Wido de Lavall who held it untill King Stephens dayes at which time the said Henry made an entry into the Barony and by mediation of the King compounded with Wido for an hundred and fifty pounds This Henry had a sonne named Robert who having no issue left Albreda Lizours his sister by the mothers side and not by the father to bee his heire because hee had none other so neere in bloud unto him whereby shee after Roberts death kept both inheritances in her hand namely of her brother Lacies and her father Lizours And these be the very words of the booke of the Monastery of Stanlow This Albreda was marryed to Richard Fitz Eustach Constable of Chester whose Heires assumed unto them the name of Lacies and flourished under the title of Earles of Lincolne By a daughter of the last of these Lacies this goodly inheritance by a deede of conveyance was devolved in the end to the Earles of Lancaster who enlarged the Castle very much and Queene Elizabeth likewise bestowed great cost in repairing it and beganne to build a faire Chappell This place hath beene infamous for the murder and bloudshed of Princes For Thomas Earle of Lancaster the first of Lancastrian House that in right of his wife possessed it stained and embrewed the same with his owne bloud For King Edward the Second to free himselfe from rebellion and contempt shewed upon him a good example of wholsome severity and beheaded him heere Whom notwithstanding standing the common people enrolled in the Beadroll of Saints Heere also was that Richard the Second King of England whom King Henry the Fourth deposed from his Kingdome with hunger cold and strange kindes of torments most wickedly made away And heere King Richard the
the people dwelling thereby gather from hence salt sufficiently for their use And now the River as though it purposed to make an Island compasseth almost on every side the chiefe City of this Province standing on an hill whence the Saxons gave it the name Dunholm For as you may gather out of Bede they called an hill Dun and a river Island Holme Heereof the Latine Writers have made DUNELMUM the Normans Duresme but the common people most corruptly name it Durham It is seated on high and passing strongly withall yet taketh it up no great circuit of ground shaped in forme as one would say of an egge environed on every side save on the North with the River and fortified with a wall Toward the South side almost whereas the River fetcheth it selfe about standeth the Cathedrall Church aloft making a solemne and a sightly shew with an high Towre in the middest and two Spires at the West end In the middest there is a Castle placed as it were betweene two stone bridges over the river the one Eastward the other Westward From the Castle Northward is seene a spacious Mercate-place and Saint Nicholas Church from whence there runneth out a great length North-East a Suburbe compassed on two sides the River like as others on both sides beyond the River which leade unto the Bridges and euery of them have their severall Churches The originall of this City is of no great Antiquity For when the distressed Monkes of Lindisfarn driven hither and thither by the Danes Warres wandered up and downe without any certaine place of abode with the corps of Saint Cuthbert at length heere they setled themselves by divine direction about the yeere of our Salvation 995. But heare the whole matter out of mine Authour of Durham All the people accompanying the corps of that most holy Father Cuthbert came into Dunholme a place verily strong of it selfe by nature but not easily to bee inhabited as being wholly beset on every side with a most thicke Wood onely in the middest was a little Plaine which was wont to bee tilled and sowed with Corne where Bishop Aldwin built afterwards a faire Church of stone The foresaid Prelate therefore through the helpe of all the people and the assistance of Uthred Earle of Northumberland stocked up all the Wood and in short time made the whole place habitable To conclude the people generally from the River Coqued as farre as to Tees came right willingly as well to this worke as after that to build a Church and untill it was finished ceased not to follow that businesse devoutly Wherefore after the Wood was quite grub'd up and every one had their mansion places assigned out by lot The said Bishop in a fervent love to Christ and Saint Cuthbert upon an honest and godly intent beganne no small peece of worke to build a Church and endeavoured by all meanes to finish the same Thus farre mine Authour Not many yeeres after those Englishmen who could not endure the insolent command of the Normans presuming upon the naturall strength of the place chose it for their chiefe Hold and seat of resistance yea and from thence troubled the Conquerour not a little For William Gemeticensis writeth thus They went into a part of the Country which for waters and woods was inaccessible raising a Castle with a most strong trench and rampier which they called Dunholme out of which making many rodes sundry waies for a certaine space they kept themselves close there waiting for the comming of Swene King of the Danes But when that fell not out according to their expectation they provided for themselves by flight and King William comming to Durham granted many priviledges for establishing the liberty of the Church and built the Castle whereof I spake on the highest part of the hill which afterwards became the Bishops house and the keies thereof when the Bishopricke was voide were wont by an ancient custome to be hanged upon Saint Cuthberts shrine When this Castle was once built William of Malmesbury who lived about that time describeth this City in these words Durham is a prety hill rising by little and little from one plaine of the Valley with a gentle ascent untill it come to bee a mount and although by reason of the rough and steepe situation of the Rockes there is no way for the enemy to enter it yet they of these daies have erected a Castle upon the hill At the very foote and bottom of the Castle runneth a River wherein is great store of fish but of Salmons especially At the same time well neere as that ancient Booke reporteth William de Careleph the Bishop who gathered againe the dispersed Monkes hither for the Danes in every place had overthrowne their Cloistures pulled downe that Church which Aldwin had formerly built and beganne the foundation of another of a fairer worke which his successour Ralph finished And after that Nicholas Feruham Bishop and Thomas Mescomb Prior adjoyned a new Fabrique or frame unto it in the yeere of Christ 1242. And a good while after W. Skirlaw the Bishop built at the West end of the Church a faire peece of worke which they call Gallilee whereinto hee translated the marble Tombe of Venerable Bede In which place Hugh Pudsey beganne in times past an house wherein I use the words of an ancient Booke women might lawfully enter that whereas they had not corporall accesse unto the more secret holy places yet they might have some comfort by the beholding of the holy mysteries But that Ralph the Bishop aforesaid as our Historian writeth reduced the place â—etweene the Church and the Castle which had beene taken up with many dwelling houses into a plaine and open ground for feare least either any annoyance by filth or dangers by fire might come neere unto the Church And all be it the City was strong enough by the naturall site yet hee made it more strong and stately with a Wall reaching in length from the Chauncell of the Church unto the Keepe and Towre of the Castle Which wall now by little and little giveth place unto time and never that I could heare suffered any assault of enemy For when David Brus King of Scots had forraied the Country with fire and sword as farre as to Beanparke or Beereparke which is a Parke neere unto the City whiles King Edward the Third besieged Calais Henry Percy and William Zouch Archbishop of Yorke with their Companies of men mustered up in haste encountered the Scots and so couragiously charged them that having taken the King prisoner they slew the most of the first and second battaile and put the third to a fearefull flight neither staied they at most steepe and cumbersome places untill they recovered their owne Holds This is that famous Battaile which our people call The Battaile at Nevils Crosse. For the chiefest of the Scottish Nobility being slaine and the King taken prisoner at this field they were enforced
if good occasion were offered to encounter with them before they came to the Limits In this Iland the Romans when they perceived that the farther parts of Britaine lying North were cold and a rough barren soile and inhabited by the Caledonian Britans and barbarous nations in subduing whereof they were sure to take much paines and reape very small profit built at sundry times divers fore-fenses as well to bound as to defend the Province The first of these seemeth to have beene made by Iulius Agricola when he fortified with holds and garrisons that narrow space of ground that lieth betweene Edenborrough Frith and Dunbretten Frith which afterwards was eftsoones strengthened When TERMINUS the god of bounds who would not give place to Jupiter himselfe was so enforced to yeeld to Hadrian the Emperour that he withdrew the Limit of the Roman Empire in the East to the river Euphrates whether for envie to Trajans glorie under whom the Empire extended furthest or for feare he likewise withdrew the limits fourescore miles or thereabout within this Iland to the river Tine and there made the second fore-fence He saith Spartianus brought a wall on for fourescore miles in length which should divide the Barbarians and the Romans asunder raised with great stakes or piles pitched deep in the ground and fastned together in maner of a murall or military mound for defence as may be gathered out of that which followeth in Spartianus And this is that fore-fense wherewith we are now in hand for it goeth out in length Lxxx. Italian miles About which were PONS AELIUS CLASSIS AELIA COHORS AELIA ALA SABINIANA which tooke their names from Aelius Hadrianus and Sabina his wife And that Scottish Historiographer who wrote The wheele of Times writeth thus Hadrian was the first of all that made a rampier or wall of a huge and wonderfull bignesse like unto a mountaine all of turfes digged out of the ground with a ditch lying to it afront from the mouth of Tine unto the river Eske that is from the German Sea unto the Irish Ocean which Hector Boetius accordingly witnesseth in the same words Lollius Urbicus Lievtenant of Britain under the Emperour Antoninus Pius by his fortunate fights did enlarge the bounds againe as farre as to that first frontier fense that was made by Iulius Agricola and even there raised up a third fense with a wall He saith Capitolinus vanquished the Britans and having driven out the Barbarians made another wall of turfes beyond that of Hadrianus The honour of which war happily dispatched and finished in Britain Fronto as the Panegyricall Orator saith ascribed unto Antonine the Emperour and hath testified that he although sitting still at home in the very Palace of Rome had given charge and commission to another Generall for the war yet like unto the Pilot of a Galley sitting at the sterne and guiding the helme deserved the glorie of the whole voiage and expedition But that this Wall of Antoninus Pius and of his Lievtenant Lollius Urbicus was in Scotland shal be proved hereafter When the Caledonian Britans whiles Commodus was Emperor had broken through this wall Severus neglecting that farre and huge big Countrey made a fortification crosse over the Iland from Solway Frith to Tinmouth in that very place if I have any judgement where Hadrian made his wall of stakes and piles and of mine opinion is Hector Boetius Severus saith he commanded Hadrians wall to be repaired with Bulwarks of stone and Turrets placed in such convenient distance as that the sound of a trumpet though against the wind might be heard from the one unto the other And in another place Our Chronicles report that the wall begun by Hadrian was finished by Severus Also Hierom Surita a most learned Spaniard who writeth That the Fense of Hadrian was extended farther by Sept. Severus with great fortifications by the name of Vallum Semblably Guidus Paucirolus who affirmeth that Severus did but re-edifie and repaire the wall of Hadrian being falne downe He saith Spartianus fensed Britain which is one of the chiefe acts recorded in his time by erecting up a wall overthwart the Iland to the bound of the Ocean on both sides the Ile whereupon he got the title of BRITANNICUS After he had driven out the enemies as saith Aurelius Victor he fensed Britaine so far forth as it was commodious unto him c. As also Spartianus Againe Eutropius To the end that he might forâ—ifie with all safety and security the Provinces which he had recovered he made a wall for 35. or rather more truely 80. miles in length even from sea to sea That part of the Iland which he had recovered as Orosius writeth he thought good to sever from other untamed Nations by a rampier or wall and therefore he cast a great ditch and raised a most strong wall fortified with many turrets for the space of an hundred and twenty two miles from sea to sea with whom Bede agreeth who will not willingly heare that Severus made a wall for that he laboureth to prove that a wall is made of stone and a rampier named Vallum of stakes or piles that be called Valli and of turfes whereas in very truth Vallum and Murus that is a wall be indifferently used on for another And yet Spartianus called it Murus that is a wall and should seeme to shew that he made both a wall and a trench by these words Post murum apud vallum in Britannia missum c. Howbeit we gather out of Bede that the said Vallum or Rampier was nothing else but a wall of turfes and no man can truely say that the wall of Severus was built of stone But have here the very words of Bede himselfe Severus having gotten the victorie in civill wars at home which had fallen out to be very dangerous was drawne into Britain upon generall revolt almost of all the allies there Where after great and sore battells many times fought when he had regain'd part of the Iland he thought good to have the same divided from other wild and untamed nations not with a wall as some thinke but with a rampier for a wall is made of stones but a rampier whereby Camps are fortified to repell the force of enemies is made of turfes cut out of the earth round about but raised high in maner of a wall above ground so that there be a ditch or trench afront it whereout the turfes were gotten upon which are pitched piles of very strong timber And so Severus cast a great ditch and raised a most strong rampier strengthened with many turrets thereupon from sea to sea Neither is it knowne by any other name in Antonine or the Notice of Provinces than by Vallum that is a Rampier and is in the British tongue termed Gual-Sever Hereto we may annexe the authoritie also of Ethelward our ancientest writer next unto Bede who as touching Severus hath these words He
did cast a ditch or trench crosse over the Iland from sea to sea within it also he built a wall with turrets and bulwarkes Which afterwards he calleth Fossam Severiam that is Severs fosse or ditch like as we read in the most ancient Annales of the English-Saxons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Severus foregirded and fenced Britain with a ditch from sea to sea And other later writers in this wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Severus in Britain made and finished a wall of turfes or a rampier from sea to sea William of Malmesburie likewise nameth it a famous and most notorious trench In which very place two hundred yeeres after or much thereabout a wall of stone was set up whereof I am to speake anon Whereas Eutropius hath set downe the length of it to be 35. miles Victor 32. and other Authors 132. I suppose some faults have crept into the numbers For the Iland is not so broad in that place although a man should take the measure of the wall as it stood winding in and out rising also and falling here and there Nay if one should reduce it into Italian miles he should find little above fourescore as Spartianus hath truely reckoned them Some few yeeres after this Munition as it seemes was forlet Howbeit when Alexander Severus the Emperour as we read in Lampridius had once given unto the Captaines and souldiers of the marches those grounds and lands which were won from the enemies so that they should be their proprietie if their heires served as souldiers and that they should never returne to any private men supposing they would goe to the wars more willingly and take the better care if they should defend their owne peculiar possessions Note these words well I pray you for hence may be deduced either a kind of Feudum or the beginning of Feuds After this the Romans marching beyond the wall and building themselves stations within the out-land and barbarian soile fortifying also and furnishing them accordingly enlarged the limits of the Roman Empire againe as farre as to Edenborough Frith Neverthelesse the savage and barbarous people never ceasing to assaile them upon advantages drave them backe now and then as farre as to Severus Trench Dioclesian the Emperour had a provident eye to these limits under whom when as the whole command in Britaine was committed unto Carausius for that he was reputed the fitter man to warre against these warlike nations he did set up againe the fore-fense betweene Dunbritton Frith and Edenborough Frith as I will shew in place convenient The first that ever had blame for neglecting these limits was Constantine the Great for thus writeth Zosimus Whereas the Roman Empire by the providence of Dioclesian was in the utmost marches thereof every where surely fensed with Townes Castles and Burghs and all their military companies made their abode in them it was impossible for the barbarous nations to passe in but they were so met withall at every turne by forces there set to repell them backe Constantine abolishing this munition of Garrisons placed the greater part of the souldiers whom hee had removed from out of the marches in townes that had no need of Garrisons and defence So hee left the marches open to the inrodes of barbarous nations without garrisons and pestered the Cities that were at peace and quiet with a sort of souldiers whereby most of them are now already become desolate and the souldiers themselves addicted to Theatricall sports and pleasures grew by his meanes deboshed To conclude and simply to speake in one word he it was that gave the first cause and beginning that the state of the Empire runneth to wrecke and ruine The Countrey that lay betweene these enclosures or fore-fenses Teodosius father unto Theodosius the Emperour recovered he re-edified and repaired the Cities strengthened the garrison castles and the limits with such watch and ward and fortications yea and when he had recovered the Province restored it to the ancient estate in such wise as that it had a lawfull Governour by it selfe and was afterward in honour of Valentinian the Emperour called VALENTIA Theodosius also his sonne having now by his own vertue attained unto the Imperiall Majestie had a provident care of these limits and gave commandement that the Master of the Offices should yeere by yeer give advice and advertisement unto the Emperour how all things went with the souldiers and in what sort the charge of castles holds and fore-fenses was performed But when the Roman Empire began once to decay apparently and the Picts together with the Scots breaking through the wall of Turfes by Edenborrow-frith cruelly wasted and over-ranne these parts the Roman legion sent to aid the Britans under the leading of Gallio of Ravenna after they had driven away and quite removed the Barbarians being now called backe againe for the defence of France exhorted the Britans these be the very words of Gildas and Bede to make a wall overthwart the Iland between the two seas which might serve for a defence to keep off the enemies and so returned home with great triumph But the Ilanders fall to building of a wall as they were willed not so much with stone as with turfes considering they had no workman to bring up so great a piece of work and so they did set up one good for nothing Which as Gildas saith being made by the rude and unskilfull common multitude without any one to give direction not so much of stone as of turfe served them in no stead As touching the place where this wall was made Bede proceedeth to write in this maner They raised it betweene the two friths or armes of the sea for the space of many miles that where the fense of water failed there by the help of a rampier they might defend the borders from the invasion of enemies And such a fore-fense reaching a great length secured Assyria from the inrodes of forraine nations as Ammianus Marcellinus writeth And the Seres at this day as we read in Osorius fortifie their vales and plaine champion with walls that they might thereby shelter and defend themselves from the violent incursions of the Scythians Of which worke there made saith Bede that is to say of a most broad and high rampier a man may see the expresse and certaine remaines to this day which beginneth almost two miles from a Monastery called Abercurving Eastward at a place named in the Picts language Penvahel in the English tongue Penveltun and reaching Westward endeth neere the Citie Alcluid But the former enemies no sooner perceived that the Roman souldiers were returned but presently sailing thither by water breake through the bounds into the marches kill and slay all before them and whatever stood in their way they went downe with it under foot they over-trample it as if it had bin standing corne ready for harvest Whereupon Embassadours were dispatched againe to Rome making piteous moan and with
which Scots at a low water when the tide was past used to passe over the river and fall to boot-haling But they would in no wise take Aeneas with them although hee intreated them very instantly no nor any woman albeit amongst them there were many both young maids and wives passing faire For they are perswaded verily that the enemies will doe them no hurt as who reckon whoredome no hurt nor evill at all So Aeneas remaines there alone with two servants and his Guide in company of an hundred women who sitting round in a ring with a good fire in the mids before them fell to hitchell and dresse hemp sate up all night without sleep and had a great deale of talk with his Interpreter When the night was far spent what with barking of dogs and gaggling of geese a mighty noise and outcry was made then all the women slipped forth divers waies his Guide also made shift to be gone and all was of an hurry as if the enemies had beene come But Aeneas thought it his best course to expect the event within his bed-chamber and that was a stable for feare lest if he had runne forth of dores knowing not the way he should become a prey and booty to him that should first meet him But see streightwaies the women returned with the Interpreter bring word all was well and that they were friends and not enemies were come thither There have been in this countrey certaine petty nations called Scovenburgenses and Fisburgingi but to point out precisely the very place of their abode in so great obscurity passeth my skill Neither can I define whether they were Danes or English But Florentius of Worcester published by the right honourable Lord William Howard writeth That when there was an assembly or Parliament holden at Oxenford Sigeferth and Morcar the worthier mightier ministers of the Scovenburgenses were secretly made away by Edrike Streona Also that Prince Edmund against his fathers will married Alfrith the wife of Sigefrith and having made a journey to the Fisburgings invaded Sigeferth his land and brought his people in subjection to him But let others inquire farther into these matters This region of North-humberland being brought under the English Saxons dominion by Osca Hengists brother and by his sonne Jebusa had first officiall governors under the fealty of the Kings of Kent After that when the kingdome of the Bernicii whom the Britans call Guir a Brinaich as it were Mountainers was erected that which reached from Tees to the Scottish Frith was the best part thereof and subject to the Kings of North-humberland who having finished their period whatsoever lay beyond Twede became Scottish and was counted Scotland Then Egbert King of the West-Saxons laied it to his owne kingdome when it was yeelded up to him Afterwards King Aelfred permitted the Danes to possesse it whom Athelstane some few yeeres after dispossessed and drave out yet after this the people set up Eilrick the Dane for their king whom King Ealdred forthwith displaced and expelled From which time forward this countrey had no more Kings over it but such as governed it were tearmed Earles Amongst whom these are reckoned up in order successively in our Histories Osulfe Oslake Edulph Walde of the elder Uchtred Adulph Alred Siward Tostie Edwin Morcar Osculph and that right valiant Siward who as he lived in armes so would he dye also armed Then his Earldome and these parts were given unto Tostie the brother of Earle Harold but the Earldomes of Northampton and Huntingdon with other lands of his were assigned to the noble Earle Walde of his sonne and heire These words of Ingulphus have I put downe because some deny that hee was Earle of Huntingdon And now will I adde moreover to the rest that which I have read in an old manuscript memoriall of this matter in the Librarie of Iohn Stow a right honest Citizen and diligent Antiquarie of the City of London Copso being made Earle of Northumberland by the gift of King William Conquerour expelled Osculph who notwithstanding within a few daies after slew him Then Osculph being runne through with a Javelin by a thiefe ended his life After this Gospatricke purchased the Earldome of the Conquerour who not long after deposed him from that honour and then succeeded after him Walde of Siwards sonne His fortune was to lose his head and in his roome was placed Walcher Bishop of Durham who like as Robert Comin his successour was slaine in a tumultuous commotion of the common people Afterwards Robert Mowbray attained to the same honour which hee soone lost through his owne perfidious treacherie when he devised to deprive King William Rufus of his royall estate and to advance Stephen Earle of Albemarle a sonne to the Conquerors sister thereunto Then K. Stephen made Henrie the sonne of David King of Scotland as wee read in the Poly Chronicon of Durham Earle of Northumberland whose sonne also William that afterwards was King of Scots writ himselfe William de Warrenna Earle of Northumberland for his mother was descended out of the familie of the Earles of Warren as appeareth out of the booke of Brinkburne Abbey After some few yeeres King Richard the first passed away this Earldome for a summe of money unto Hugh Pudsey Bishop of Durham for tearm of his life scoffing that he had made a young Earle of an old Bishop But when the said King was imprisoned by the Emperour in his returne out of the Holy-land and Hugh for his deliverie had contributed only 2000. pounds of silver which the King took not well at his hands because he was deemed to have performed but a little whom hee understood to have raised and gotten together a huge masse of money under pretence of his ransome and release he devested and deprived him of his Earldome After which time the title of the Barledome of Northumberland lay discontinued about an hundred and fourescore yeeres But at this day the family of the Percies enjoyeth the same which family being descended from the Earles of Brabant inherited together with the surname of Percie the possessions also of Percie ever since that Joscelin of Lovaine younger sonne of Godfrey Duke of Brabant the true issue of the Emperour Charles the Great by Gerberga the daughter of Charles a younger brother to Lothar the last King of France of the line of Charles tooke to wife Agnes the daughter and sole heire of William Percie of which William the great grandfather William Percie comming into England with King William the Conquerour was rewarded by him for his service with lands in Tatcaster Linton Normanby and other places Between this Agnes and Joscelin it was covenanted that hee should assume the name of Percies and retaine still unto him the ancient Armes of Brabant viz. A Lion azure which the Brabanters afterwards changed in a shield Or. The first Earle of Northhumberland out of this family was Henrie Percie begotten of Marie daughter
ever wee read that Adam of Kilconath was about the yeere 1270. Earle of Carrict and died serving in the Holy-land whose onely daughter Mariha fell extremely in love with Robert Brus a beautifull young Gentleman as she saw him hunting and thereupon made him her husband advanced him with the title of Earle and with possessions unto whom she bare Robert Brus that most renowned King of Scots from whom the royall line of the Kings is descended But the title of the Earle of Carrict being left for a time to the younger sonnes of the family of Brus afterwards among other honours encreased the stile of the Princes of Scotland KYLE MOre inward from Clids-forth followeth KYLE plentifull in all things and as well inhabited In Bedes Auctarium it is called Campus Cyel that is The Field Cyel and Coil where it is recorded That Eadbert King of Northumberland annexed this with other territories unto his owne Kingdome In Ptolomees time there was known a place here named VIDOGARA haply Aire which is a Sherifdome hath a townlet also of merchandise and a well known port by a little river of the same name Touching which I can thinke of no better thing to write than these verses sent unto mee from Master Iohn Ionstoun AERA sive AERIA Parva urbs ast ingens animus in fortibus haeret Inferior nulli nobilitate virûm Aeris è campis haurit purissima coelum Incubat miti mollior aura solo Aeria hinc non Aera priùs credo illa vocata est Cum duris quid enim mollia juris habent Infera cum superis quod si componere fas est Aurea fo rs dici debuit illa priùs A City small but yet great mindes in valiant bodies rest For noblenesse of Gentlemen matching the very best Out of the fields what aire it drawes is right pure fresh and kinde The soile is milde and upon it there breathes a gentle winde Hence I suppose AERIA first not Aera call'd it was For what have elements to doe with matters hard as brasse But to compare low things with high if that I may be bold Then haply well it should have beene nam'd AUREA of old Besides the river Aire there be other two riverets that water this little territorie having many villages scattering along their bankes namely Longar neere unto which the Caufords and Cesnocke by which the Cambels families in this tract of good worship dwell upon the banke whereof standeth Uchiltre castle the seat of the Stewarts that are of the blood royall as who issued from the Dukes of Albanie and thereupon are the Barons of Uchiltrey out of which house was that noble Robert Stewart who kept continually with the Prince of Condie as an inseparable companion and was with him slain in France in battaile The government of Kyle belongeth by an heritable right to the Cambells of Louden as Bailiffe thereof CUNNINGHAM CUNNINGHAM adjoyning to Kyle on the East side and the North butteth upon the same Forth so close that it restraineth the breadth thereof which hitherto lay out and spread at large The name if one interpret it is as much as the Kings Habitation by which a man may ghesse how commodious and pleasant it is This territorie is watered with Irwin that divideth it from Kyle at the spring-head well neere whereof Kilmarnock sheweth it selfe the dwelling place of the Barons Boids of whom in the reigne of James the first Thomas by a prosperous gale of Court favour was advanced to the authoritie of Regent or Vice-Roy Robert his sonne to the dignitie of Earle of Arran and marriage with the Kings sister But soone after when the said gale came about and blew contrarie they were judged enemies to the State Robert also had his wife taken from him and given unto James Hamilton their goods were confiscate fortune made a game of them and when they had lost all they died in exile Howbeit their posteritie recovered the ancient honour of Barons and honorably enjoy it at this day At the mouth of the river Irwin standeth Irwin a Burrough with an haven so barred up with shelves of sand and so shallow withall that it can beare none other vessels but small barkes and boates Ardrossan also a pile belonging to the Montgomeries more above standeth higher over the Creeke this is a verie ancient and famous familiy as any other who have to shew for witnesse of their warlike prowesse Poununy a fort built with the ransome mony of Sir Henrie Percie surnamed Hot-Spur whom I. Montgomerie with his owne hand tooke prisoner in the battaile at Otterburne and led away captive Not farre from Ardrossan is Largis embrued with the blood of the Norwegians by King Alexander the third From whence as you follow the shore bending and giving in you meet with Eglington a faire castle which was the possession of certaine Gentlemen highly descended of the same surname from whom it came by marriage unto the Montgomeries who thereby received the title of Earles of Eglington But whence the said surname should come a man can hardly tell this I know that out of Normandie it came into England and that divers families there were of the same name but that in Essex from which Sir Thomas Montgomerie Knight of the order of the Garter descended in the reigne of Edward the fourth gave Armes a little different from these This noble linage is faire and farre spread and out of those of Gevan was that Gabriel de Lorges called Earl of Montgomerie Captain of the guard of Scots which Charles the fifth King of France instituted for defence of his owne person and his successors in testimonie of their fidelitie and his love toward them who in running at tilt slew Henrie the second King of France by occasion that a broken splint of his speare where the helmet chanced to be open entred at his eye and pierced into his brain and afterwards in that civill war wherein all France was in a broile whiles he took part with the Protestants he was apprehended and beheaded But the Cunninghams in this tract are counted to be the greater and more numerous family the chiefe whereof enjoying the honour of Earle of Glencarn dwelleth at Kilmauris and fetcheth his descent out of England and from an English Gentleman who together with other killed Thomas Archbishop of Canterburie How true this is I know not but they ground it haply upon a probable conjecture taken from an Archbishops pall which the Cunninghams give in their coat of Armes ISLE GLOTTA OR ARRAN WIthin the sight of Cunningham among sundry other Ilands GLOTA the Isle mentioned by Antonine the Emperour beareth up his head in the very Forth and salt water of the river Glota or Cluyd called at this day Arran of a castle bearing the same name Inwardly it mounteth up altogether with high rising hills at the bottome and foot whereof along the shore it is well inhabited The first Earle hereof that I can read of
the Kingdome that had dealt before time so craftily and deceitfully with him And as for the Cessation would he never so faine he could not revoke it because he had already entred another course and appointed O-Donel to goe into Conaught and other of his confederates into other parts In this meane space there ran among the Rebells rumours very rife and the Earle of Tir-Oen questionlesse was the authour that there should be within a while the greatest and strangest alteration that ever was in England and lewd persons began daily to encrease both in number and in courage For they that were of the Irishry aspired now to their ancient freedome and Nobility contrariwise good and honest men of the English blood were much dejected and discouraged seeing so great expences of the Prince came to nothing who also complained one unto another that they had been of late excluded as meere strangers from bearing offices in the common-Weale But the Earle all in a glorious jollity giveth it out every where and that with open mouth That he would recover the liberty both of Religion and of his Country he receiveth in every place busie and tumultuous persons into his protection he sends them succour and aide strengthneth and comforteth the distrustfull stoutly streineth and setteth-to his helping hand to subvert the English government in Ireland being drawne on and fed with hope which the King of Spaine by sending now and then munition and some money made shew of and the Pope by promises and indulgences maintained as having sent unto him before the plume of a Phoenix haply because Pope Urban the third had sent in times past a little Coronet platted with peacocks feathers unto Iohn King Henries the second his sonne when he was invested Lord of Ireland And now triumphantly glorying of his victories to the end that he might make a goodly shew of his greatnesse in every place and by his personall presence set that fire to burne out light which in his absence hee had kindled in Mounster under a faire and religious pretence of visiting a little peece of wood of Christs Crosse which is thought to be kept in the Monastery of the Holy Crosse in Tipperary in mid-winter thither hee goes on Pilgrimage and sent out into the grounds of true and faithfull subjects a number of preying robbers under the conduct of Mac-Guir he by chance hapned upon Sir Warrham Saint Leger who runne him through with his lance and was withall at the same instant himselfe runne through by him Whose funeralls when the Earle had performed he hasteneth home sooner than all men looked for as having heard that the Earle of Ormond appointed Generall of the Army was raising of a power from all parts and that Sir Charles Blunt Baron Monâ—joy appointed the Lord Deputy was comming unto whom the Queene before time had purposed in her minde this government but Robert Earle of Essex who for to pleasure military men and to deserve the better of them into whose love he studiously insinuated himselfe sought though covertly to compasse the same himselfe wholly opposed against him as if he the said Lord Montjoy had seene no service nor beene experienced in the warres more than in the Netherlands had no followers and dependants nor much aforehand with the world and overmuch bookish He arriveth in Ireland in the moneth of February without any great noise and stirre accompanied with a small traine and so entred upon the Government Now hee found the state of Ireland very distressed or rather desperately sick and past all hope of recovery yea at the point as it were to give up the ghost for every good and honest meaning minde was dismaied to see such a confluence of calamities without all hope of remedy or any allevation at all but the worst sort seeing all to goe well on their side and prosper still to their desire rejoiced and applauded one the other and the Earle himselfe without any resistance had passed through the whole length of the Iland in triumphant manner even from the utmost part of Ulster into Mounster The Rebells moreover to terrifie the Deputy now at his first comming strucke up an Al'arme in the very suburbs of Dublin But he full of good courage desired nothing more than to set upon the Earle himselfe who as hee had intelligence given him was to returne out of Mounster Mustering up therefore in all haste such a power as hee could for the companies of choice souldiers were in Mounster already with the Earle of Ormond he hastened to stop the Earles passage in Fereal and there to give him battell But the Earle by celerity and quicke speed prevented him being privily enformed of the Deputies designes for certaine there were even of the Queenes Councell there who alwaies highly favoured and tendered his proceedings The Deputy being returned to Dublin was wholly busied in mustering of the old souldiers that should be sent by shipping to Logh-Foile and Bala-shanon neere unto the mouth of Logh-Earn that by placing garrisons there they might make sallies upon the Earle both on backe and sides as also about sending aide unto the garrison souldiers in Lease and Ophaly a matter by reason of so many enemies round about of great danger and difficulty In the beginning of May the Deputy put himselfe on his march toward Ulster with this purpose to divert the Earle another way whiles Sir Henry Docwra at Logh-foile and Sir Matthew Morgan at Bala-shanon planted the garrisons which they with small adoe effected for Sir Henry Docwra tooke Logh-foile and Sir Iohn Bâ—lle who accompanied him tooke Don-a-long and Lhiffer castles suppressing the rebells with divers overthrowes Whiles the Earle was every day kept occupied by the Deputy with light skirmishes wherein he evermore had so bad successe that hee perceived now the fortune of warre was turned and himselfe driven back into his owne corners The Lord Deputy being returned in Mid-June when as the garrisons aforesaid were placed accordingly required out of England certaine companies of souldiers and victuals for to bestow and plant a garrison also in these parts at Armagh thereby to bring the Rebels within a straighter compasse Meane while hee tooke a journey into Lease which was the place of refuge and receipt of all the Rebels in Leinster where he slew Ony-Mac-Rory-Og the chiefe of the O-Mores family a bloody bold and most desperate young man who of late had made so soule a stirre in Mounster him I say he slew with other most wicked and mischievous Rebells and after he had layed their fields waste hee chased them into woods and forrests so as that in those parts they were scarcely ever after seene When as now new succours were come out of England although he wanted both come and money the Equinoxe was past and winter weather began already in that climate yet marched hee forward to the very entrance of Moyery three miles beyond Dondalk This passage is naturally the most combersome of all others
because they were more in number fresh and better furnished with all kinde of meanes whereas contrariwise the English were out-wearied with the inconveniences that follow a winter-siege excluded from victuals and their horses besides with travell and hunger together altogether unserviceable In these difficulties and distresses the Deputie consulteth with the Captaines what was to be done Some thought the best way was to break up the siege to retire into Corke and not to hazzard the whole Realme upon the fortune of one battell Contrariwise the Deputy adviseth and perswadeth to persist and not to degenerate from the approved vertue of their ancestors adding that valiant men could not have a more wished opportunity presented unto them than that which was now fallen into their laps namely either to spend their lives with glory or to vanquish their enemies with honour He urgeth therefore and plieth the siege with all the power he had with raising platformes and continuall battering he plaied upon the towne and withall fortifieth his Campe with new trenches Upon the one and twentieth day of December the Earle of Tir-Oen sheweth himselfe with his horse upon an hill about a mile from the campe and there encamping himselfe maketh a bravado likewise the next day in the same place the night following both the Spaniards sallied forth of the towne and the Irish also assayed to steale into the towne but both were forced to retire On the three and twentieth day the English men discharge their greater peeces upon the towne as if they had not cared for the Earle now so neere at hand and the very same day were the letters of D' Aquila unto the Earle intercepted wherein he importuned Tir-Oen that the Spaniards newly arrived might bee put into the towne and that they might assaile the campe on both sides When the Moone was ready to rise over the horizon the Deputy commanded Sir Henry Poer to leade forth into the field eight ensignes of old souldiers and to make a stand on the West side of the campe Sir Henry Greame who that night had the charge of the horsemen that watched very earely in the morning advertised the Deputy that the enemies for certaine would advance forward for that a great number of their matches were lighted Hereupon the al'arme was given throughout the campe and companies placed wheresoever there was any way to the towne The Lord Deputy himselfe with the President of Mounster and Sir Richard Wingfeld Marshall marched toward the watch and withall by the advise of Sir Olivar Lambart chooseth out a plot wherein he might give battell to the enemies Thither were brought the Ensignes and Regiments of Sir Henry Folliot and Sir Olivar Saint Iohn with sixe hundred sea souldiers under the conduct of Sir Richard Levison But the Earle of Tir-Oen who resolved as afterwards it was knowne to have brought into Kinsale by darke night the new supplie of Spaniards and eight hundred Irishmen when hee saw now the day to breake and beheld withall the Marshall and Sir Henrie Danvers with the power of horsemen and Poer with the Companies of old souldiers at the foot of the hill being disappointed of his hope stood still and soone after by his bag-pipers sounded the retreat No sooner was the Deputy certified of this retreat of his so confused and disordered but hee commanded the pursuit and himselfe advanced before the vantgard to marke the manner of their retreat and according to the present occasion to resolve what to doe but so thicke a mist with a storme beside fell upon the earth that for a time they could not see before them Within a while after the weather cleering up againe hee observed that they retired hastily for feare in three great battalions and with the horsemen placed behind at their backes hee fully determined therefore to charge upon them having sent backe the President of Mounster with three companies of horsemen into the campe to restraine the Spaniards if haply out of the towne they should sallie and breake out upon them And the Lord Deputie himselfe followed after the Rebels with such speed in their retreat that hee forced them to stand in the brinke of a bogge whereunto there was no accesse but at a foord but when those horsemen that kept the foord were by the valour of the Marshall and the Earle of Clan-Ricard discomfited and put to rout the other and courageously gave the onset upon the maine troupes of the enemies horsmen which charge when Sir William Godolphin who had the leading of the Deputies horse Sir Henry Daâ—vers Minshaw Taff Fleming and Sir John Barkly Sergeant Major of the Camp who joyned with them redoubled with so great alacrity that the Rebels presently brake and fell in disorder But it was not thought good to follow the chase but gathering their forces and power together they charged upon the maine battell now in feare and wavering which they also brake Tirell with his company and the Spaniards all this while kept their standing and made their ground good against whom the Deputy putteth forward his rereward and that he might accomplish not onely the part of a leader in commanding but also of a souldier in fighting with three companies of Oliver S. Iohns whereof Captaine Roe had the conduct chargeth violently upon them and so brake their arraies that in great disorder and confusion they reculed backe and betooke themselves to the Irish by whom they were presently left unto the edge of the sword and routed by the troupe of the Duputies horsemen whereof Sir William Godolphin had the leading Then Ter-Oen O-Denel and the rest on all sides put to flight flung away their weapons and made what shift they could to save themselves Alphonso O Campo was taken prisoner with three other Captaines of the Spaniards and six ensigne bearers slaine there were one thousand and two hundred nine ensignes taken whereof six were Spanish Of the English part scarce two men lost their lives many were wounded and among them Sir Henry Danvers Sir William Godolphin and Crâ—ft so little cost this so great a victory The Lord Deputy after he had founded the retreat and rendred thankes unto almighty God for this victory among the dead bodies of the enemies lying thicke in heapes gave the order of Knight-hood to the Earle of Clan-Ricard for his right valiant service in this battell and thus with lucky acclamations returned victor into his Campe which he found safe and found from all dangers For the Spaniards within the towne seeing all places every way made sure with guardes and having experience before time that all sallies were to their losse kept themselves at home in carefull expectation of the event A noble victory this was and in many regards important whereby Ireland most miserably distressed and ready to revolt was retained the Spaniards ejected the Arch-rebell Tir-Oen repulsed into his starting holes in Ulster O Donell driven into Spaine the rest of the rebellious rable scattered into sundry parts the
their great charges sought there of late for Alum More Northward lieth that Mona whereof Caesar maketh mention in the mids of the cur as he saith betweene Britaine and Ireland Ptolomee termeth it MONOEDA as one would say Mon-eitha that is if I may be allowed to conjecture The more remote Mona to put a difference betweene it and the other Mona that is Anglesey Plinie MONABIA Orosius MENAVIA and Bede Menavia secunda that is the second Menavia where he termeth Mona or Anglesey Menavia prior that is the former Menavia and calleth them both Ilands of the Britans in which writers notwithstanding it is read amisse Mevania Ninius who also goeth abroad under the name of Gildas nameth it Eubonia and Manaw the Britans Menow the inhabitants Maning and we Englishmen The Yle of Man stretched out just in the mid levell as saith Girald Cambrensis betweene the Northren coasts of Ireland and Britaine about which Isle and namely to whether of the two countries it ought of right to appertaine there arose no small doubt among those in ancient times At length the controversie was taken up in this manner For as much as this land fostered venemous wormes brought over hither for triall adjudged it was by a common censure and doome to lye unto Britain Howbeit the inhabitants both in language and manners come nighest unto the Irish yet so as they therewith savour somewhat of the qualities of the Norvegians It lieth out in length from North to South much about thirty Italian miles but reacheth in bredth where it is widest scarce above fifteene miles and where it is narrowest eight In Bedes dayes it contained in it three hundred families like as Anglesey 96. but now it numbreth seventeene Parish Churches Flaxe and hempe it beareth abundantly it hath fresh pastures and fields by good manuring plenteous of Barley and Wheat but of Oates especially whence it is that the people there eate most of all Oaten bread Store of cattell every where and mighty flockes of sheepe but both their sheepe and other cattell also bee smaller of body there like as in Ireland neighbouring upon it than in England and nothing so faire headed And considering it hath few or no woods at all they use for fewell a kind of clammy turfe which as they are digging out of the earth they light many times upon trees buried under the ground In the middest it riseth up with hils standing thick the highest whereof is Sceafull from whence a man may see on a cleere and faire day Scotland England and Ireland Their chiefe towne they count Russin situate on the South-side which of a castle wherein lieth a Garison is commonly called Castle-Towne where within a little Iland Pope Gregory the fourteenth instituted an Episcopall See the Bishop whereof named Sodorensis of this very Iland as it is thought had jurisdiction in times past over all the Ilands West Irish Iles or Hebrides but exerciseth it now onely upon that Iland and is himselfe under the Archbishop of Yorke Howbeit he hath no place nor voice in the assembly of the States of England in Court of Parliament Duglasse is the best peopled towne and of greatest resort because the haven is commodious and hath a most easie entrance unto which the Frenchmen and other forrainers use to repaire with their bay-salt having trafficke with the Ilanders and buying of them againe leather course wooll and poudred beefe But on the South side of the I le stand Bala-Curi where the Bishop for the most part is resiant and the Pyle a Block-house standing in a little Iland where also there are souldiers in garison Also before the very South point there lyeth a prety Iland called the Calfe of Man wherein are exceeding great store of sea-foule called Puffins and of those duckes and drakes which breeding of rotten-wood as they say the Englishmen call Bernacles the Scots Clakes and Soland geese That which here followeth I will set downe out of a letter which that learned and reverend father in God John Meryk Bishop of this I le wrote unto me This Iland for cattell for fish yea and for corne rather through mens industry than by any goodnesse of the ground hath not only sufficient for it selfe but also good store to send into other countries Yet happier it was for the government thereof as being defended from neighbour enemies by souldiers prest and ready at the expences of the Earle of Darby upon which he employed the greatest part of his yeerely revenue in this Isle All controversies are decided without writings or any charges by certaine Iudges whom they chuse from among themselves and call Deemsters For the Magistrate taketh up a stone and when he hath given it his mark delivereth it unto the plaintiffe who by vertue thereof citeth his adversary and witnesses If there fall out any doubtfull case of greater importance it is referred to twelve men whom they terme The Keyes of the Iland It hath certain Coroners and those they call Annos who stand in stead of Sheriffes and execute their office The Ecclesiasticall Judge doth cite persons and determine causes within eight dayes they stand to his award or they are clapt up in prison They had as I have heard say as a peculiar language of their own so also their peculiar lawes which are signes of a peculiar seigniory Their Ecclesiasticall lawes next after this Canon Law come neerest unto the Civill Upon any Iudge or Clerks of the Court for making of Processe or drawing Instruments the people never bestow so much as one penny As for that which English Writers report of mischiefes done by witchcraft and sorcery it is meere false They that are of the wealthier sort and hold faire possessions and for their good houskeeping and honest cariage are conformable to imitate the people of Lancaster The women whither soever they go out of their doores gird themselves about as mindfull of their mortality with the winding sheet that they purpose to be buried in Such of them as are by law condemned to die are sewed within a sack flung from a rock into the sea They are all of them in this Isle as far from the customary practice of theeving or begging from doore to doore as may be wonderfull religious and most ready every one to entertain the forme of the English Church The disorders as well Civill as Ecclesiasticall of their neighbour nations they detest and whereas the whole Isle is divided into two parts South and North this in common speech resembleth the Scottish the other the Irish. Haply it were worth my labour if I should here insert a little History of this Iland which truth of due demandeth at my hands that so I may keepe alive and in remembrance still the Acts heretofore atchieved which if they bee not buried yet are waxen old and have as it were one foot in the grave of oblivion That the Britans held this Iland as they did all Britaine it is confessed
the great preparation for the English warre hanging so neere over his head he betooke himselfe into the protection of King Henry the second without trying the hazzard of battell But when as forthwith he brake his allegeance and revolted Miles Cogan was the first Englishman that gave the attempt upon Conaght yet sped hee not in his enterprise Howbeit that King of Conaght abovesaid was driven to this exigent as to acknowledge himselfe the King of Englands Liegeman to serve him faithfully as his man and to pay unto him yeerely of every tenth beast one hide mercateable c. And King John granted that the third part of Conaght should remaine unto him still to bee held hereditarily for an hundred Markes But William Fitz-Adelme whose posterity are called in Latin de Burgo and Burke or Bourke in Irish Robert Muscegros Gilbert Clare Earle of Gloster and William de Birmingham were the first English that fully subdued this country and laboured to bring it to civill government And William Bourk and his lineall posterity being called Lords of all Conaght governed that province together with Ulster for a long time in great peace and tranquility yea and raised thereout rich revenues untill the onely daughter of William Burke sole heire in grosse of Conaght and Ulster both was matched in marriage with Leonell Duke of Clarence King Edward the thirds sonne But when as he abode for the most part in England and the Mortimers his heires and successours looked but negligently to their patrimony and inheritance in Ireland the Bourkes there allies whom they had appointed as overseers of their lands taking the advantage of their Lords absence and presuming upon the troubles in England despising the authority of lawes entring into alliance with the Irish and contracting marriage with them seized upon all Conaght to their owne behoofe and degenerating by little and little have laid downe English civility and taken up Irish behaviour Whereof some who fetched their pedegree from Richard Burke were called Clan-Ricard others Mac William Oughter that is The upper others Mac William Eughter that is The lower even as they who in the countie of Maio were of greatest power and authority affected to be tearmed simply Mac-William as being a name full of honour glory and authority because they descended from William de Burgo or Burke whom I mentioned erewhile under countenance of which name they for a long time tyrannized over the poore inhabitants with most grievous exactions ULTONIA OR ULSTER ALL the land beyond the mouth of the river Boyn Meath the County Longford and the mouth of the river Ravie that stretcheth Northward is counted the fifth part of Ireland called in Latin Ultonia and Ulidia in English Ulster in Irish Cui Guilly that is The Province Guilly and of our Welsh Britans Ultw Which Province was wholly inhabited in Ptolomees time by the VOLUNTII DARNI ROBOGDII and ERDINI A large country bespred with many and those very large loghes and lakes shaded with many and thicke woods in some places fruitfull in others barren howbeit fresh and green to see to in every place and replenished with cattell But as the countrey for want of manuring is growne to be rough so the naturall dispositions of the people wanting civill discipline are become most wild and barbarous Yet to the end that they might be kept within the bounds of their duty who were wont to breake in sunder all bands of equity of honesty and of duty the hether part of it was in times past divided into three counties Louth Downe and Antrim and now the rest is laid out into seven new counties that is to say Cavon Fermanagh Monaghan Armagh Colran Tir-Oen and Donegall or Tir-Conell by the provident care of Sir Iohn Perot L. Deputy who being notable and worthy man well acquainted with the humours and haughty spirits of the Province foreseeing that no policy would serve better to appease the tumults of Ireland than to reduce these parts of Ulster into order and to keepe them downe going thither in a dangerous and ticklish time when the King of Spaine hovered and gaped both for Ireland and England with his gravitie and authority whiles by barring all wrongs hee did cut off the causes and quarrells of warre brought all the Potentates or Captaines of Ulster to this passe that willingly they suffered their Seigniories to bee divided into Counties and Sheriffes to bee appointed for the government thereof But he being within a while after recalled home and climbing still higher unto honours the heavie displeasure and envie of some whom hee was not able to counterpoise and his owne lavish tongue together for unadvisedly he had let flye somewhat against the Princes Majestie which to impaire in word is a capitall matter plunged him headlong ere he was aware upon his owne destruction as I have declared elsewhere more amply THE COUNTIE OF LOUTH THe county of LOUTH in ancient bookes written Luva and Luda called in the Irish tongue Iriel or Uriel if that be not rather a part of this territory situate beyond Meth and the mouth of the river Boyn turning full upon the Irish sea runneth out with a shore much winding into the North the soile whereof is so full of forage and so fruitfull that it soone answereth and recompenseth the husband mans toile and charges Neere unto Boynes mouth is seated Drogheda or Droghda in English Tredagh a fine towne well peopled and frequented so called of the bridge and divided by the river Boyne running through it Unto which King Edward the second for Theobald Verdons sake granted licence for a mercate and Faire the Kings confirmed many and great liberties and among other a Mint Neere unto this standeth Mellifont Abbey founded by Donald a King of Uriel and much praised by Saint Bernard which Queene Elizabeth when as the religious Monkes were before thrust out gave unto Sir Edward More of Kent for his good deserts both at home and abroad in the warres Ardeth seven miles from hence is a dry in-land towne well knowne and above it Dundalk with a commodious haven and in times past strongly walled which Edward Brus brother to the King of Scots who had proclaimed himselfe King of Ireland burnt but hee within a while after was with eight thousand two hundred of his men slaine neere thereabout And in our remembrance Shan O Neale laied siege unto it but straightwaies hee was forced with shame enough to dislodge Eight miles from hence standeth Carlingford a port also of good request and resort neither be there to my knowledge any other places in this county worth the naming This Louth had for Earle Sir Iohn Birmingham an Englishman whom in reward of his martiall valour when hee had discomfited and in a pitcht field slaine that Edward Brus who assuming the title of King of Ireland for a time had made soule work with fire and sword in Ireland King Edward the second advanced to the
honour of Earle of Louth to have unto him and his heires males and withall the dignity of Baron of Athenry to him and his heires But this honourable title as it began so it ended in him for he that in warre vanquished his enemies was soone after in a tumult of rebellious people vanquished and slaine by his owne men in this territory with many other of his sirname leaving no issue behinde him But in our fathers remembrance King Henry the eighth honoured Sir Oliver Plonket with the title of Baron of Louth There remaine in this county the Verdons Tates Clintons Bellews Dowdals Gernons Hadsors Wottons Brandons Mores Warrens Chamberlanes and very many besides of English blood and of the Irish the Mac-Mathons c. THE COUNTY OF CAVON THe county of CAVON lieth next unto Louth to the West called in times past East Breanny the habitation of the O-Reilyes who vaunt themselves to have had their beginning of the Ridleys in England whereas in their whole course and maner of life they be meere Irish. These O-Reileys not long since were of great power in horsemen but to the end they might be that way lesse powerfull Sir Henry Sidney in his policy divided their county into seven Baronies whereof the Lords out of that family should immediately hold the same by service in fee from the Crowne of England They dwell scattering in piles and forts not in towns A Bishop they have of their own and him a poore one God he knoweth whose See is at Kilmore and yet is not he so poore as those Irish Bishops were who had no other rents and revenues than three milch kine which the parishioners exchanged for others new milch when they went dry according as Adam Bremensis from their owne relation when they returned by Germany out of Italy learned and put downe in writing THE COUNTY OF FERMANAGH BEyond Cavan West and North FERMANAGH presenteth it selfe where sometimes the ERDINI dwelt a country full of woods and very boggish In the midst whereof is that most famous and the greatest Meere of all Ireland Logh Erne stretching out 40. miles bordred about with shady woods and passing full of inhabited Ilands whereof some containe an hundred two hundred and three hundred Acres of ground having besides such store of Pikes Trouts and Salmons that the fishermen complain oftner of too great plenty of fishes and of the breaking of their nets than they doe for want of draught This Lake spreadeth not from East to West as it is described in the common Maps but as I have heard those say who have taken a long and good survey thereof first at Bal-Tarbet which is a little towne farthest North of any in this county of Cavon it stretcheth from South to North foureteene miles in length and foure in bredth Anon it draweth in narrow to the bignesse of a good river for six miles in the chanell whereof standeth Inis Killin the principall castle in this tract which in the yeere 1593. was defended by the rebels and by Dowdall a most valiant Captaine won Then turning Westward it enlargeth it selfe most of all twenty miles long and ten broad as far as to Belek neere unto which is a great downefall of water and as they terme it that most renowned Salmons Leape A common speech is currant among the inhabitants there by that this Lake was once firme ground passing well husbanded with tillage and replenished with inhabitants but suddenly for their abominable buggery committed with beasts overflowne with waters and turned into a Lake The Almighty God saith Giraldus Creator of Nature judged this land privie to so filthy acts against Nature unworthy to hold not only the first inhabitants but any others for the time to come Howbeit this wickednesse the Irish Annales lay upon certaine Ilanders out of the Hebrides who being fled out of their owne Countrey lurked there Among the Lords in this tract Mac-Gwir was most noble and powerfull untill he overthrew himselfe and his state in the late rebellion And they that be of that Sept dwell on both sides yet so as that those beyond the Lake are reckoned of Ulster and they on this side of Conaght THE COUNTY MONAGHAN ALong the Lough-Erne on the East side stretcheth out the Countie Monaghan mounting aloft with hills well attired with woods but knowne by no towne at all unlesse it be Monaghan which imparted the name unto the whole country It is divided into five Baronies containeth Iriel Dartre Ferey Loughty which by authority of Parliament were for rebellion given away from the Mac-Mahons with the little territory Donemain which Queen Elizabeth bestowed upon Walter D'Evereux Earle of Essex Those Mac-Mahons that is if we interpret it out of the Irish language The Sons of Ursus or the Beare ruled here as tyrannicall Lords a long time and derive their Genealogy from Walter Fitz-Urse who imbrued his hands with the bloody murdering of Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury The most puissant of these after the manner of that nation tooke upon him to Lord it over the rest and by way of excellency was termed Mac-Mahon About which preheminence when as of late daies they of that Sept or Family were at most bitter debate by way of hard words open armes foule practises yea and close corruptions Sir William Fitz-William the Lord Deputy came hither among them and judicially convented Hugh-Roe Mac-Mahon whom he by his authority had set up in this Seigniory and being upon his triall condemned of treason caused him to be hanged and to the end that he might suppresse for ever both the name and soveraignty of Mac-Mahon he divided the territory betweene the kinred of the said Hugh and certaine Englishmen to have and to hold after the English tenure to them and theirs THE COUNTY ARMAGH ON the East side again lieth out in length the county of Armagh so as that it is compassed as it were about with the river Neury by East with the county of Louth by South and with the Black-water by North. A County as I have sundry times heard the Earle of Denshire Lord Lievtenant Generall say that for a most rich and battle soile passeth all other parts of Ireland insomuch as if any compost be laid upon it to make it more fruitfull it scorneth and disdaineth as one would say the same and becommeth barren The first place in it that we meet with is Fewes a little territory belonging to Turlogh Mac-Henry one of the family of O-Neale thicke set with woods and by reason of loughs and bogs unpassable Then have you Orry as scarce of woods where dwelleth O-Hanlan and the fort Mont-Norris built by Charles Baron Mont-joy when he was Lord Deputy and so named in honour of Sir Iohn Norris under whom he had served first and was trained in military discipline Eight miles from hence neere unto the river Kalin Armach maketh a poore shew