Kingdom been destroy'd but for the enormity of their sins Whereof whoever pleases may see proofs at large in Fitz-Herberts Policy and Religion Part 1. chap. 21. 22. 23 c. yea Jesus the son of Syrach for he may be more easily consulted in every Bible at hand may give to a sober man assurance enough where he says First cap. 10. 8. that the Kingdom is translated from Nation to Nation because of unjust dealings injuries calumnies and various deceits Secondly c. 40. 10. that death and bloodshed strife and the sword oppression famine contrition and scourges were all of them created for the wicked and for them the deluge was made Nay if we consult the Books of Kings read the Prophets run over the Books of Josuah Judges Deuteronomy Chronicles and the rest of the old Testament examine all the Histories of Christendom we shall not find any whole Kingdom or Nation destroy'd but for grievous and horrible sins either of the Rulers or People or Priests or all together Yea we shall commonly find the very quality and species of those transgressions mentioned that brought the vengeance on them However and notwithstanding that further yet we know that bloodshed is one of those four sins that cry to Heaven Gen. X. 11. for vengeance the Voice of thy brothers blood cries to me from the earth said God himself to Cain and that the very second of the Gen. IX 6. Laws he gave to Noe was that whosoever did shed the blood of man his also should be shed after all I dare not affirm positively that either those very Feuds of the Irish how unparallel'd soever in blood or those other transgressions in specie be they what you please were the sins that moved God to pronounce this final doom against them but only in general That their great sins compell'd him to it And how should I indeed For who was the Counsellor Esay XL. 13. Rom. XI 39. of God or who knows any thing of the secrets of his Providence except only those to whom himself was pleased to reveal them Nevertheless I dare acquaint the Reader that although I give but little credit generally and sometimes none at all to the Relations of Cambrensis where he seems rather to vent his passion and write a Satyr against that People than regard either Modesty or Truth yet I will not call in question what he relates l. 2. de Expug Hib. c. 33. of the Prophetical predictions made so many Ages before by the four Prophetical Saints of that Nation Moling Brachan Patrick and Columb-Cille and written by themselves says he in their own Irish Books extant yet in Ireland concerning the final Fate of their Countreymen the old Milesian Race viz. That the people of Great Brittain shall not only invade them but for many Ages continue a sharp cruel and yet doubtful War upon them at home in Ireland sometimes the one and sometimes the other side prevailing That although those Invaders shall be often disturb'd worsted weakned especially and according to the prophecy of Brachan by a certain King that shall come from the desert Mountains of Patrick and on a Sunday-night seize a Castle in the Woody parts of Ibh Faohlain and besides force them almost all away out of Ireland yet they shall continually maintain the Eastern Sea-Coast in their possession That in fine it will be no sooner than a little before the day of judgment and then it will be when they shall be throughly and universally victorious over all Ireland erect Castles every where among the Irish and reduce the whole Island from Sea to Sea under the English Yoak And verily those Prophetical predictions five hundred years since delivered us by Cambrensis as he received 'em from the Irish themselves are the more observable That by consulting the History of after-Ages from Henry II. of England to the last of Queen Elizabeth and first of King James we may see them to a tittle accomplish'd Unless peradventure some will unreasonably boggle at the circumstance of time express'd in these words Paulò ante diem Judicii a little before the day of Judgment Which yet no man has reason to do Because we know not how near this great day which shall end the World may be to us at this very present As for that King foretold as coming from the desâ—rt Mountains of Patric there may be occasion and place enough to speak of him again that is hereafter in the Second Part of this Treatise But whether from this Irish Prophesie either had as for the substance not the exact words of it from Cambrensis for he pretends not to give to us the exact words or had perhaps at least for some part of it from the Irish themselves resorting to Rome in those days the famous Italian Prophet of Calabria Joachimus Abbot of Flore did foretell in his time the utter destruction and eternal desolation that Joachimus Ab. post Tract super cap. X. Isaiae Part 1. de Oneribus sexti Temporis was to come upon the Irish Nation I cannot say This I know 1. That in all his predictions all along in his several Commentaries on Jeremy Esay the Apocalyps c. he pretends to divine Revelation 2. That he lived several years after the Writings of Cambrensis on Ireland had been publick For Cambrensis dedicated one part of them to Henry II. himself who died in the Year of Christ 1189. and the rest to his Son Richard when yet but Earl of Poicton And Joachim was in Sicily with Richard now King of England and Philip Polydore Virgil. in Ricardo primo King of France both wintring there with their Fleets An. 1190. in their way to the Invasion of the holy Land Nay I have my self read his submission of his Works to the See Apostolick dated by himself ten years after which was the Year 1200. of our Saviours Incarnation 3. That being ask'd what the success of this great expedition to the holy Land against Saladine should be his Answer was it should prove unsuccessful and that the time of recovering Hierusalem was not yet come 4. That this prediction of his was punctually true as appear'd ere long 5. That his Prophecy of the old Irish Nation is in these genuin words you read in the Margin * Ex rigoribus horribilis hyemis glacialis flatibus Aquilonis parit Hibernia Incolas furibundos Sed si sequentium temporum terrores praenoscerent internos impetus cogitarene à facie spiritus Domini ferreum pectus averterent se à sempiternis opprobriis liberarent Sed ex quo invicem vertitur furor aspideus involvit tam Clerum quam populum par insultus non video quod superna Clementia ulterius differat quin in â—os exactissimum judicium acuat in stuporem perpetuae desolationis impellat Omnes istos populos Cathedra Dubliniensis astringit Sed Darensium enormis iniquit as totum defaedat ordinem charitatis Et ideo
in like manner Claudius the Roman Emperour though come in person with a mighty power of Legions and Auxiliaries into Brittain found it his safest way to run away in two great Battels from the victorious Army of Guiderius and Arviragus the Lxvii and Lxviii Brittish Monarchs one after another in so much that Claudius was content at last ' een fairly to capitulate for Peace with Arviragus by sending to Rome for his own Daughter Gennissa and giving her in marriage to him nay and leaving him too the Government wholly of all these Provincial Islands for so Geoffrey calls them in this place That Severus how great soever both a Souldier and Emperour he was found it a desperate business to fight in Great Brittain against the Brittons when he saw himself receiving his death's wound from Fulgenius in that Battel whence he was carried dead and buried in York That under Vortigern their Lxxxvi Monarch Hengistus the Saxon invited in by him landed the second time in Great Brittain with an Army of three hundred thousand Heathen Foreigners and yet Aurelius Ambrosius the next Brittish King after Vortigern fought him in the head of all his formidable Forces and in a plain Field overthrew both him and them all nay pursued them in their Flight till he reduced them to nothing and the whole Island of Brittain to its native liberty from any Foreign Yoak Nor had his Victories a period here but over-run Ireland also where he took Prisoner in a great Battel the Monarch of that Countrey Gillomar and then brought away Choream Gigantum the Giants Monument of stones from the Plains of Kildare in that Kingdom which he set up on Salisbury Plains in England That Arthur who was likewise save one the next King of Great Brittain for he was son to Vter Pendragon that Reign'd immediately before him subdued all England Scotland Ireland the Isles of Orkney Denmark Norway Gothland along to Livonia France and as many Kingdoms in all as made up XXX Yea moreover i. e. after so many great and mighty Conquests and besides the killing too of Monsters and Giants fought even Flollo and Lucius the two Lieutenant Generals of the Roman Emperour Leo kill'd them both in France and the later of them I mean Lucius in the head of a dreadful Army consisting of four hundred thousand men all which he overthrew and ruin'd That although by occasion of some unhappy quarrels among the Britons themselves under Catericus their Lxxxxvi King a bad man the Saxons to be reveng'd on them wrought King Gurmundus the late African Conqueror of Ireland to come from thence into Great Britain with an Army of a hundred sixty six thousand Heathen Africans and burn spoil and destroy the better parts thereof and after put and leave the Saxons in possession of all he could which was that whole Countrey then called Loegria now England as distinguish'd both from Scotland and Wales meaning by Wales the ancient Kingdom of Cambria which comprehended all beyond the Savern and that notwithstanding the Saxons had by such means got possession of all Loegria and held it for several years they were beat out again so soon as the Britons agreed amongst themselves meeting at Westchester and chusing there Caduallo for their King who bravely recovered the whole Island every way round even to the four Seas and kept both Picts and Scots and such of the Saxons as were left alive or permitted to stay in perfect obedience to the British Crown during his own Reign which lasted forty years in all and that so did Cadwallador after him during his In short that as the progeny of Frute continued free independent successful glorious in the first period of their Monarchy under sixty six Kings of their own during at least a thousand years and forty from the landing of Brute till the Invasion of Julius Caesar and as for the next period which took up five hundred and nine years more till the landing of Hengistus the Saxon albeit the Roman power and glory did sometimes lessen sometime ecclipse theirs yet they preserved still their freedom and Laws and Government under twenty other Kings of their British Nation successively reigning over them and paying only a slight acknowledgment of some little tribute to the Roman Emperours nay and this same but now and then very seldom so in the third or last period of it containing somewhat above two hundred and fifty years from the said landing of Hengistus to the twelfth year of Cadwallador they upon the Romans quitting them not only restor'd themselves under Aurelius and Arthur by their own sole valour to the ancient glory of their Dominion but maugre all the opposition of the Confederated Saxons Picts and Scots now and then rebelling against them enjoyed it under the succession of seven Brittish Kings more from Arthur to Cadwallador yea Malgo the fourth of this very last number when the six foreign Provincial Countreys as Geoffrey calls them viz. Ireland Island the Orcades Norway Denmark and Gothia had rebell'd anew was so fortunately brave as by dint of Sword to have reduced them all again to their old subjection under Great Brittains Empire Add moreover that Cadwallador himself albeit the last of this Trojan Race wielding the Sâ—â—pter of Great Brutus enjoyed the same Glorious Power that his Predecessours had before him over the whole extent of this Noble Island That the total change and utter downfal of the Brittish Government happening after in his days proceeded only from an absolute Decree of Heaven and mighty Anger of God incensed against the Brittons for their sins but neither in the whole nor in part from any Power of the Saxons or other Enemies or men upon Earth That the immediate visible means which God made use of to destroy them irrecoverably were 1. A most bloody fatal Division after some years of this Cadwallador's reign happening among them yea continuing so long and to such a degree that between both sides all the fruitful Fields were laid waste no man caring to till the ground 2. The consequence of this waste a cruel Famine over all the Land 3. A Plague so prodigiously raging that the number of the Living was not sufficient to bury the Dead That the Almighty's hand lying so heavy on them by so dreadful a Pestilence was it alone that forc'd Cadwallador in the twelfth year of his Reign to retire for some time into Little Britanny in France That after ten years more when this Epidemical Plague had been wholly over and Cadwallador prepared to ship his Army and return a voice of Thunder by Angelical Ministery spake to him from Heaven commanding him aloud to desist from his Enterprize and telling him in plain terms it was decreed above unalterably The Race of Brutus should bear no more sway in Great Brittain till the time were come which Merlin had prophecied of to King Arthur And to conclude all That in pure obedience to this Voice of God it was that Cadwallador giving
and gloriously in twelve great Battels victorious over the Saxons That he took at last even York and London from them and after this again overthrew them in very Essex and Kent where they were strongest and placed their last reserve That he forc'd the remainders of them either to fly the Kingdom or submit to his pleasure In a word That he restored his whole Countrey and perfect peace unto it And that this happy effect of his pious and victorious Armes continued until the ambition anger and which you please to call it either treacherous rebellion or just indignation and resentment of his Nephew Modroedus for being put by the right of Succession gave too great a turn to his fortunate successes chiefly by the Scottish i. e. Irish Army's falling from him and their conjunction with Modroedus against him For this also I must here particularly note that during their confederacy and sideing with him which had early begun and always continued from the very beginning of his Wars until this unlucky difference about the succession and second unlucky Battel of Humber that followed thereupon he also continued perpetually successful But so soon as they joyn'd against him fortune deserted him and together with him his Countrey But whether so or no or whether indeed any of those other particulars related of K. Arthur by Buchanan himself as true History be or be not such as he would have us believe I think enough return'd in answer to Hanmer and Campion's making the Kings of Ireland Tributary to King Arthur of Great Brittain However because I believe it not very forrein nor much beside the matter I do on this occasion add That Polidore Virgil found so little satisfaction to his mind nay so great certainty of untruth in the relations written of this so much celebrated King Arthur that although in his History l. 3 he sums up in brief that is in seven or eight lines all the Wonders of them yet as he calls them so he reputes them no other than Vulgar stories Which to have been his inward sentiment of those relations may be further seen by his telling us That although King Arthur died in the very flower of his youth yet because of his exceeding great strength of body and no less vigorous heroick bravery of Soul Posterity has reported almost the very same Wonders of him which in our own time are among the Italians Romantickly sung of Rowland Nephew to Charles the Great And this without so much as mentioning any years at all of his Reign is all that Polidore has of this great Brittish Heroe Save only that he was the son of King Vter-pendragon That if he had lived a while i. e. his just age longer he had at last restored his perishing Countrey And that but a few years before the Reign of Henry VIII there was in Glastenbury Cloyster a very magnificent Tomb erected to his memory of purpose that after Ages might be thereby persuaded he had been a Prince adorned with all whatever ought be reputed most excellently great and stupendious and that this Tomb as if it had been erected soon after his death had certainly been design'd a memorial of his glory whereas indeed the Cloister it self wherein it stood was not in being then So this Author Polydore Virgil. And yet after all I cannot but acknowledg that so great a concurrence of other Authors together with the general vogue of King Arthur even all along to our time in these Nations of England Scotland and Ireland especially considering that all sides are agreed about his having existed or been and been also about the year of Christ five hundred King of Great Brittain must argue of necessity some great extraordinary exploits of his against the Saxons Nor truly do I see how otherwise Polydore himself cou'd say That if he had lived longer a while he had enfranchiz'd his Countrey Neither is it a valuable argument to the contrary at least if we believe the judicious impartial Cambden That the Saxon Chronologie or other Saxon Authors have nothing of him and his brave atchievements against them I am sure I have my self read in Cambden this very day to this purpose That he has observ'd the Saxon Writers defective in this particular viz. That they pass over in silence what was bravely done against their own Nation and only care the recording what redounded to their glory or concern'd their own People The conclusion of all is That the Romantick stories made of King Arthur by idle Wits in part and part by others who as they were equally ambitious to magnifie their Nation and ignorant or heedless how easily they might be disprov'd out of the known undoubted Histories of the times brought his true deeds into question so far that no man knows which or what to believe of them 51. To ruin the Romantick Fable indeed of Hanmer's three incredible Armies * In my 26 page my memory fail'd me when relying upon it as having not had the Hiâ—â—ory of Hanmer by me then or at hand I suppos'd those truly incredible and false numbers of men related by him to have been really poured into Ireland by the Danes in the first true War made by them on that Countrey Whereas indeed upon review of Hanmer himself I found he related those very incredible Numbers as landed there long before that is when truly there was neither Invasion nor any kind of Number either of Danes or any other forein Enemies troubling that Kingdom invading Ireland by combination at the same time and this the very time when Constantine the Great was Emperour of Rome Cairbre Laoffachair Monarch of Ireland and Conn Ceadchathach one of the Princes of Vlster c the Irish Analists are unanimous in furnishing us abundantly with particulars Out of them it is clear and manifest that Conn Ceadehathach was not one of the Princes of Vlster as Hanmer says he was but Monarch of Ireland That he came to the Monarchy in the year of the World 5324. of Christ 122 and continued Monarch thirty five years till he was murthered by Assassines employ'd on that Errand by Tibraid Tiriogh King of Vlster which happened at least a hundred and twenty years before Constantine the Great was Emperour of Rome That as he was called or surnamed in Irish Ceadchatach in Latin Centimachus from the hundred Battels which he had fought so he fought not any of them or other soever against any Foreiner but all against his own Countrey-men the native Irish nor in all his Reign as neither indeed for some Ages before and after it did any Foreigners invade the Irish That although Cairbre Lissechaire was Monarch of that Kingdom begun his Reign Anno Mundi 5456 Christi 267. and continued it twenty seven years and so perhaps might have been contemporary for some part of his Reign with Constantine the Great of Rome yet during his Reign there was no other Battel fought in Ireland but the Battel of Gowra I am sure
had once more recruited from the Isle of Man and other Islands possess'd as yet by the Danes but were now finally destroyed in Ireland by the said new King of Leinster And lastly as Hackluyt reports in his Chronicle and so does Hanmer too that in the Reign of Muirchiortach mhac Brien who was the fourth after Brian Boraimhe Magnus then King of Denmark would needs venture the attempting Ireland once more to recover what his Predecessors held there but that landing with part of his Fleet before the greater part of them came up he was set upon immediately by the Countrey people and kill'd and his Fleet understanding it return'd presently from whence they came SECT II. The Irish for 2600 years a free Nation They were never subject to nor so much as invaded by the Romans Their Political Government or three Great Councils of Teamhvuir alias Tarach Eumhna and Cruachain The first a Triennial Parliament It 's Laws Feastings and other Ceremonies The strict examination therein of their publick Acts and Monuments What of that nature done in the great Parliament under Laogirius St. Patrick himself being one of the Examiners What matters debated in the Councils of Eumhna and Cruachain The Titles of Duke Marquess Earl Baron Knight not in use with them as neither in Scotland till William the Conqueror's time Their Leinster Militia called Fiona Eirlonn commanded by Fionn mhac Cuuail as General of it Hector Boethius and Hanmer corrected Their other Militia in Mounster by name Dal-Gheass Their celebrated Learning after their Conversion to Christianity Their four chief Vniversities whereof Ardmagh had 7000 Scholars at one time Their wonderful Sanctity i. e. the prodigious Numbers of their holy Monks and Nuns under S. Patrick first and next under the great Abbot Conghall alias Congellus This Abbot in person founded and governed the Monasteries both of Beanchuir in Ulster and Bangor in Wales near West-Chester his Disciples those of Lindisfarn in England Luxeu in Burgundy Bobie in Italy c. They converted several foreign Countreys But Scotland particularly was converted by Columb Cille A special priviledge given him and his Successors the Abbots of Hy. AND so by this time I think enough is said of the Warlike Spirit and Valour of the ancient Irish for so many Ages of the World until that time which was near the Eleventh Century of Christian Religion For as yet the infinite goodness patience and mercy of God expecting still their amendment restrain'd his Justice from bereaving them utterly of that Virtue that masculine bold Heroick Spirit I mean which preserv'd them so long even well nigh six and twenty hundred years a free Nation independent of any other unsubdued undisturb'd uninvaded otherwise and no longer nor no oftner nor with other success or issue than we have seen Not even the old Roman Empire it self whose conquering Eagles made all the rest at least of the Western World and among them all even the very most unaccessible remote recesses of Great Brittain a prey to their uncircumscribed ambition having never at any time had either footing or command or tribute or acknowledgment in Ireland Though we knowwell enough out of History a Tacitus in vit Agric. what a longing they had to be doing there at least to see that Countrey and people which dared receive continually so many fugitives b Cum suum Romani Imperium undique propagassent multi proculdâ—bio ex Hispania Gallia Britannia huc se receperunt ut iniquissimo Romanorum jugo colla subducerent Camden Hibern from their power in Spain and France and Great Brittain and protect them to their face But I am not to dwell or dilate on this Subject nor indeed on any other concerning that Nation the method I prescribed my self and bulk of this Treatise not allowing it 11. What I would in the next place reflect upon and as briefly as I well can is somewhat of their Policy or Government their standing Militia their Learning and their Sanctity when they were a happy flourishing people before the first Invasion of the Danes For their Government besides a Monarch five Provincial Kings and in process of time especially since the first Danish War manyother much lesser Kings they had anciently three great Councils held in three several places the Council of Taragh the Council of Eumhna and the Council of Gruachain all three called in their language Feis Teambrach Feis Eumhna and Feis Gruachain The first was a Triennial Parliament of all the Estates assembled at Taragh in Meath at the Monarch's pleasure about that time of year which we call now All Saints It was ordained first by Ollamh Fodhla the Twentieth Monarch after Herimon to be thenceforth from time to time perpetually observ'd in after Ages It was death without mercy without any hopes of it without any power in the Monarch himself to extend it to any person whatsoever either to â—ssault or wound or strike or draw upon any man attending that great Assembly or to be convicted either of robbery or stealth during the Session of it It was called only for making Laws reforming general abuses revising their Antiquities Genealogies Chronicles and either restoring or preserving peace and love among 'em by feasting together for seven days in one great House And therefore it is notable what Dr. Keting has in the Reign of Tuathall Teachtvair the Monarch of the manner of their meeting and sitting at these Feasts That the Room prepared to receive them all being made of purpose tho very longs yet narrow with Tables set on both sides and both ends and all things ready for the Entertainment and then the Room cleared of all persons whatsoever only the Marshal the chief Herauld or Chronicler and a Horn-winder excepted and then at three convenient little distances of time this Horn-winder calling to Dinner by the winding of his Horn at the first of 'em all the Esquires or Shield-bearers to the Princes and Nobility came to the door and there delivered their Shields to the Marshal who by the Heraulds direction hung them up in their due places over the Tables prepared of the right hand-side for the Estates At the second in like manner all the Taget-bearers to the Generals and other great Commanders of the Militia delivered up theirs and were on the other side of the House placed orderly as the former But at the third all the Kings Princes Estates Military men and other chief Gentry came in and fat down each one under his own Goat of Arms blazon'd on his Shield without any disorder about precedency or of places no man sitting on the outside of the Table nor any Woman at all admitted the Table in one end being for the Antiquaries and in the other for other Officers But to pass over this matter of Ceremony Herauldry and Feasting what I chiefly note in their procedure when they sat in Council or Parliament is their extraordinary care diligence and exactness in providing That all their
a single Person must evince the same truth So for Spain Alphonsus III. by putting out the eyes of all his Brethren save one that was kill'd Alfonsus IV. with the like cruelty us'd by his own Brother â—aymirus Peter the Legitimat Son of Alphonsus XI depos'd and kill'd by his Bastard Brother Henry Garzias by Sanctius then Sanctius by Vellidus and after so many retaliations all Spain under King Roderic betray'd to the Moors by a natural Spaniard a Subject to that King Count Julian Prince of Celtiberia as Bodin calls him yea seven hundred thousand Spaniards kill'd in the short space of fourteen months next following that hideous treachery must evince mightily the self-same truth So for France those horrible Feuds Combustions Devastations cruelties inhumanities barbarous sacriledges of the late Civil Wars there continued 40 years against four Kings whereof you may read at large in D'Avila and the Holy Ligue and both Henry III. and Henry IV. one after another so vilely murder'd by those devoted Assassins of Hell Jacques Clement and Ravilliac evince it still Lastly and to come nearer home tho in an earlier time even so for England 1. Those eight and twenty Saxon Kings of the Heptarchy part by one another kill'd part by their own Subjects murder'd besides many other depos'd and forc'd to fly away for their lives For as Matthew of Westminster l. 1. c. 3. writes of the very Northumbrian Kings alone four were murder'd and three more deposed within the little time of one and forty years only And therefore it was that Charles the Great of France when the news of the last of them by name Ethelbert being murdered came to his hearing not only resolv'd to stop the presents he was before on sending to England nor only to do the English in lieu of sending them gifts all the mischiefs he could but said to Alcuinus an English man his own Instructor in Rhetorick Logick and Astronomy that indeed That was a perfidious and perverse Nation a murderer of their Lords and worse than Pagans Nay therefore also it was that many of the Bishops and Nobles fled out of this Northumbrian Kingdom and no man dared for 30 years next following venture on being their King but all men declined it and so left them a prey to the Irish Scâ—ts and Danes who by the just judgment of God over-run them and destroy'd them at last on that very occasion principally 2. Since the Norman Conquest besides the horrible rebellion of Henry the 2d's own Children against him and many other particulars which I pass over not only all the calamities miseries cruelties unspeakable evils of the Barons Wars on both sides under King John Henry III. and Edward II. nor only the deposition and murder too of this poor Edward even his own Wife Queen Eleanor and his own very Soâ—thâ—e Prince of Wales having both of them concurr'd in the deposing him and usurping his Crown but the most prodigiously mortal dissentions of Lancaster and York began with the rebellion against deposition and murder of Richard the II. and so bloodily prosecuted for thirty years under Henry VI. and Edw. IV. that besides eleven main Battels fought with infinite slaughter of English men on either side nay even twenty thousand men kill'd besides the wounded in one of them which Polydore calls the Battel of Touton a Village of Yorkshire the excellent Historian Philip Comines tells us of 80 of the Blood Royal destroyed in them and among this number Henry VI. a most vertuous innocent holy King most barbarously murder'd To say nothing of Richard the Third that Usurping Tyrant so justly dispatch'd in the Battel of Bosworth by the Earl of Richmond who thereupon succeeded King by the name of Henry VII and by marrying the Daughter of Edward IV. and thereby most happily uniting in himself and his Queen and Issue the right of the two Houses ended those fatal dissentions of Lancaster and York Dissentions indeed so fatal to England that besides all her best blood at home as we have seen by their long continuance from the year of Christ 1393. to the year 1486. lost Her not only the Kingdom of France but even the more ancient Inheritance of our Kings in the Dukedoms of Normandy Aquitane and whatever else belong'd to the English Crown on that side of the Sea only the Town of Calais with its little Appendages excepted Were it necessary Buchanan could furnish out of the neighbouring Kingdom of Scotland a very large addition of more examples to the purpose of this place But more than enough has been already said to conclude that notwithstanding any thing or expression in either of the two former Sections my meaning could not be to make those bloody Feuds in Ireland or consequents of them so peculiar to the Milesian Race or Irish Nation as if no other People on Earth had been at any time guilty of the like or as horrid The truth is I mean'd only to say That in respect of their long duration perpetual return from time to time for almost five and twenty hundred years compleat and their excessive degree at very many times within that long Succession of Ages especially considering the small extent of Ireland those cruel bloody Feuds were both National and peculiar to that People only Which I think is true notwithstanding that other Nations either much greater or much lesser might have been in some few Instances of time as high nay peradventure much more horrible transgressors in the very same kind than those antient Milesians were at any one time since their Conquest of Ireland from Tuath-Dee-Danan 33. The second point is to do those ancient Milesians the right as to acknowledg what their Histories have at large That amidst all the Feuds and fury of their Arms how bloody or how lasting soever they had several both Monarchs and after the Pentarchy was set up lesser Kings yea some of those too in their time of Paganism and many more as well of those as these after Christianity establish'd that were of great renown among them for other excellent Qualifications becoming their dignity than those only of Martial Vertue and Fortitude In time of Paganism they had their XXII Monarch Ollamh Fodhla so called from his great Knowledg that very name given him importing in Irish as Gratianus Lucius hath observ'd a great master in Sciences and Teacher of all Knowledg to his People It was he that divided the Lands of Ireland into Hundreds call'd by them Triochae-chead and placed a Lord over each Hundred and over each Town of the Hundred a Bailiff an Applotter of Duties and receiver of Strangers to provide Entertainment for them They had their XCI Monarch Conair mor mhac Eidirsgceoil so great a Justiciar so zealous a Prosecutor of all Malefactors that although with great pains industry hazard to himself yet he forc'd at last all kind of Robbers Thieves Vagabonds and Idlers to fly the whole Kingdom and after this during his Reign
Contemporaries so soon as it came out Which notwithstanding and whatever else I have given any where in this Reflection on my own foresaid eighth and ninth page I desire may be understood by the Reader as I intended it i. e. without any prejudice or diminution of the great and known both Antiquity and bravery of the Brittish Nation whencesoever they have truly derived the name of Brittons for themselves or that of Brittain for their Countrey Of the former I mean their Antiquity Julius Caesar is a witness beyond exception where he speaks in his Commentaries L. v. of the inland people of Brittain as if they had been Aborigenes without any derivation from elsewhere abroad quos natos in Insula memoria proditum dicunt says he Of the later both Tacitus and Beda Writers no less unexceptionable have recorded to Posterity very considerable Instances The one in his Annals and History and Agricola's Life telling their fierce Fights and sometimes their successes too against the Roman Generals in their own Countrey Great Brittain The other in his Ecclesiastical History of England acknowledging several great Victories had by them both in the same Island their own Countrey over his Countreymen the Saxons that invaded them nay particularly telling us in the 16th chap. of his First Book of two very special Victories the first under the leading of Aurelius Ambrosius the second in Black more about that place where Scarborough Castle is now called by Polidore in his History Mons Badonicus adding withal that after the first overthrow given by them although sometimes worsted yet they continued the War with great resolution worsting also not seldom their Foes until at last they hem'd them in about the said Hill or Mountain Badonicus and made a mighty slaughter of them there Which happened says Bede in the forty fourth year after the first landing of the Saxons Above all the Defence made by the Reliques of them in Wales after their Kingdom had been utterly destroy'd upon Cadwallador's withdrawing to France yea made and continued by them for seven hundred years and their fighting so long for their Liberty against the Saxons first and Normans after till they obtain'd honourable Conditions at last from Edward I. are sufficient arguments of their Martial Spirit and brave Souls however Fortune frown'd upon them And as I ought to be so ingenuous in acknowledging what I have now done concerning that Nation in general so likewise in reference to Jeffry himself I will be so just as to acknowledg what he says of the hand of God that lay so heavy upon them at last even to their utter destruction by the mortal Feuds and cruel Famine and most destructive of all the Pestilence that follow'd For besides this one particular of those three heavy scourges from God which I must confess are attested by V. Bede himself l. 1. cap. 12 14. there is little else of truth to be acknowledg'd in the whole Summary given before of that Romantick History of Galfridus Tho Richard White of Basingstoke has in our days written and printed a Latin History of his own pursuing in most particulars the good Example given by him and to make it the more known has prefix'd unto it an Epistle Dedicatory to Albertus Arch-Duke of Austria c. 45. In my 13. page I spake somewhat of the causes moving the eight sons of Milesius after his death to think seriously of invading Ireland But I might have added How their consultation about this matter was held in Breoghuin's Tower in Gallicia How it was from thence they employ'd Ith or Ithius their Uncle on the Father's side as being son to Breoghuin their great Grandfather in a ship well provided and man'd with a hundred and fifty stout Soldiers to discover the state of Ireland How Ith having landed in Mounster and there understood that Cearmada's three sons who as three Kings ruled Ireland alternatively were together at Oileach Neidh in the North but at some difference among themselves about the Jewels of their Ancestors went thither by Land accompanied with a hundred of his men the ship failing about with the rest to meet him there How being come to Oileach and honourably received by the sons of Cearmada and because he was a stranger and consequently indifferent in their dispute being chosen Arbitrator of it he decided their quarrel to all their satisfaction first by dividing the Jewels equally betwixt them and then exhorting them to mutual love and peace adding withal very much in praise of their delightsom plentiful Countrey How when he had taken leave of them to return to his ship for Spain the eldest of the Three reflecting on the high praises he gave the Land and fearing his design should be to bring others to invade them breaks his jealousie to the other two and with their consent and some armed Troops pursues Ith overtakes him fights him routs his men wounds himself deadly and leaves him in that condition of a dead man groveling on the Earth at a place called from that Fight and his Name Magh Ith. How the few survivers of his men headed by his own son carried away his body a shipboard where he died of his wounds but they nevertheless arrived in Spain and coming to their Cousins the eighth Brothers exposed it before them all of purpose to excite and hasten their revenge And in the last place how that although as well these as those i. e. all the Milesians in general and their Cousins and adherents made this killing or this murder which you please to call it committed on the said Ithius and his men the pretence of their Invasion and War and consequently of the justice of their quarrel and following Conquest of that Countrey by them yet the whole History makes it plain That 't was no other indeed but a meer pretence being Ithius went thither as a meer Spy to discover the Countrey and that they were resolved to invade it upon their return whetâ—er he had or had not met with any injury or pretence of injury there All which I note of purpose here because it may be usefully in the second Part of this Treatise on another occasion related to again 46. In the mean while and in this very place the Reader will give me leave to observe a thing that may prevent some question or some admiration about the sons of Cearmada chusing Ithius their Arbitrator For it may be peradventure ask'd how they understood one another or what Language did he or they speak their sâ—ntiments in or was it by Interpreters they Discours'd c. But the Irish Historians prevent such demands by telling us that all the several Invasions of Ireland only the first plantation of it by Ciocal which properly was no Invasion excepted whether by Partholan or Neimhedh or Feaâ—a-bolg or Tuath-Dâ—-Danan were by Scythians descended from Japhet who for their Language had the Irish Tongue Gaodhlec as 't is called originally by it self common to them all no
Title of Gregory the Great which he says was deservedly given him by his own People 5. That although in Buchanan's account this very Gregory began his Regn an Christi 870. and finish'd it by his death anno 892. and consequently was not only King of Scots but of Scotland being the Pictish Kingdom there at least as 't is commonly suppos'd had been utterly destroy'd full thirty years before the very first of his Reign yet if his being either King of Scotland or King of Scots be no truer than Buchanan's Relation of his invading Ireland fighting a great Battel victoriously there against the two Protectors or Tutors of the young King Duncanus a Minor and then visiting this young King at Dublin where he resided and then appointing new Tutors for him and last of all taking with him to Scotland threescore Irish Hostages out of the several Provinces of Ireland I dare say there was never any such thing or Person or Prince as Gregory King of Scots For besides what I have given before page 23 24. to disprove this great fiction of Gregory the Great either conquering or at all invading Ireland 't is clear out of all the Irish Antiquities recording the Danish Wars that not the Irish nor any Irish King Minor or not Minor did possess Dublin at that time but the Danes And indeed to confirm this truth the Annals of Vlster tell us that in the year of our Lord 871. two great Danish Captains viz. Ainlaph and Juor came from Albania to Ath-Cliath alias Dublin with two hundred sail and an exceeding great Prey of English and Brittons and Picts whom they brought Captives to Ireland So that Dublin most certainly was in the Reign of that Gregory of Scotland not under any Monarch or other Irish King as no more was it in a hundred and fifty years following but in the power of the Danes who were at least the first Re-builders of it much about the same time that Buchanan supposes it to have been the Metropolitan City of Ireland tho it came not to be so till Henry the Second's Reign For he indeed was the first King or Lord of Ireland that ever kept his Court there and by appointing it the Residence of his Vice-Roys gave it in a little time so great splendor that the Forger seeing it so in his own time thought fit in much earlier times to place his forged Irish Monarch of Gregory of Scotlands story Duncanus in it as in the Royal Mansion of the Kings of Ireland Whereas to the contrary nothing is more known in the Irish Histories than that the City of Tarach full twenty miles from Dublin was the Royal Seat of the Kings of Ireland till its destruction by the first Danish War and in the same days Dublin at best but a very mean place respectively 6. That nevertheless as I am apt enough to believe that allowing Cambden the liberty of an hyperbolical expression he has upon sufficient grounds told us that the Earls of Argile derive their Race from the ancient Princes and Potentates of Argile by an infinite descent of Ancestors so I am verily persuaded that by how much the Genealogy of Kings must be more narrowly sifted than that of any Subjects by so much Gratianus Lucius has upon surer grounds exactly derived in a direct Line the descent of James the sixth of Scotland and first of Great Brittain not only through so many Kings his Predecessors of Scotland from the ancient Kings of Argile up along to Fergus I. nor only from those before that very Fergus through fourteen Generations up to Reuda but even before this Reuda through fifty three Generations whereof Twenty four were Monarchs of Ireland up along to Herimon the first sole absolute Monarch of the Milesian blood in that Kingdom even so long since as Three thousand years wanting only seven Nay I am likewise persuaded that he has also very exactly in two other Lines carried up the descent of the same King James through thirty one other Monarchs of Ireland to the said Herimon as also in a fourth and fifth Line through four and twenty more of the Irish Monarchs and here I mean twenty four more wholly different from all those fifty six already given of Herimons Race up along to Heber who being the stock in these two last Lines makes the 25th King of Ireland in this number ascending upwards for so he was during his short life in a joynt Sovereignty with his foresaid Brother Herimon 7. That undoubtedly this derivation of King James through so many Lines for three thousand years and from the Loins of eighty one Irish Monarchs besides all the truly real both Kings of Scotland and Kings of Scots or Dal-Riada and Argathelia in Scotland given us at large by Gratianus Lucius in his Camb. Evers page 242. 243 and 244. as it is by many degrees a much more ancient so it is a much more glorious derivation of the Royal Pedigree than either Buchanan or Boethius or Major or indeed any other Scottish Historian nay or even any Scottish Herald whatsoever among those called English Scots was capable to make even so much as in any manner well or ill as being wholly ignorant of the Irish Antiquities which they could neither understand nor read if they had had ' em And these are the Animadversions I desire them take to thought who shall either persuade themselves they can reconcile the difference 'twixt the Scottish and Irish Histories concerning Fergus or except against me for laying it open how justly soever the story of Him and Coilus given by me page 20 out of Buchanan has put a necessity on me to do so here There is a passage in my 21 page that says The Romans built Towers and Bulwarks all along the Southern Coast of Brittain at convenient distances against the landing of the Irish on that side out of their plundering Fleets Herein also I followed my Author Keting if I understand him rightly But having since consulted Cambden I found that either Keting had mistaken the matter or I him For the truth is that albeit in relation to the Caledonians or Picts and Scots inhabiting or those driven at that time to the Countreys lying North of Grahams Dyke the foresaid Towers or Castles must be acknowledg'd built in the South yet in relation to the whole Island of Great Brittain or to us now in England they were not so Which and whatever else concerning either that Dyke or Wall of the Romans that you may the more fully understand take this following Extract out of Cambden according to Hollands translation of him Camden in his Scotia and Sterling Sheriffdom Julius Agricola observing the narrow land or Streight by which Dunbritton Frith and Edenborough Frith are held from commixing fortined this space between with Garrisons So as all the part this side was then in possession of the Romans the Enemies remov'd and as it were driven into another Island In so much as Tacitus judg'd
commending them that came last Unto those and these Messengers was delivered so great and Royal a sum by the foresaid King of Mounster that thereby this Cloister was from the very foundations not only re-built in a little time so magnificently that for the stateliness of the Work it surpass'd all other to be seen in those days any where but moreover to maintain it and the Monks therein for ever purchased both within that very City of Reinsburg and abroad in the Countrey in Houses Lands Villages Towns a mighty great Revenue and perpetual Estate And yet after all supererat ingens copia pecuniae Regis Hiberniae there was remaining still an exceeding great quantity of the King of Ireland's money says the said Chronicle For so that Author calls the above Conchabhar O Brien though only King of Mounster the time of whose Reign was from the year of Christ 1127. when it began to the year 1142. when he ended both it and together with it his Life in a Pilgrimage at Kildare I say nothing of the mighty rich Presents which he sent and were carried from him and presented in his name to the Emperour Lotharius the II. by some of the noblest Peers of Ireland who had receiv'd the Cross for going to the holy War at that time in Palestine But there are two particulars which on this occasion coming to remembrance I cannot pass over in silence The one is concerning Marianus Scotus a famous man among the Learned specially Chronologers For in that Reinsburg Chronicle which speaks of Gregory the third of those Irish Abbots now mention'd we have this account of him 1. That after the same Gregory upon the death of his predecessour Christianus was chosen Abbot to succeed him in the foresaid Cloister of Reinsburg and therefore gone to Rome to be consecrated by the Pope who then was Adrian IV. an English man at that very time turn'd Monk in this Cloister egregius Clericus Hiberniensis nomine Marianus c. an excellent Irish Clerk by name Marianus a most learned man who a long time at Paris had publickly taught the seven Liberal Arts and other Sciences and was there Master to this very Adrian who now presided in the Apostolical Chair at Rome when the foresaid Gregory was admitted by him to Audience 2. That among other questions Adrian enquiring of Gregory concerning Marianus his old Praeceptor at Paris Gregory answered him thus Master Marianus is well and having forsaken the World lives with us a Monk at Reinsburg 3. That hereupon the Pope delivered himself in these words God be thanked says he For throughout the Catholick Church we do not know under an Abbot such an other man so excelling in Wisdom Prudence Wit Eloquence good manners humanity dexterity and other divine gifts as my Master Marianus c. Hitherto the very words of that Reinsburg Chronicle done only into English Which I have therefore given here out of Camb. Evers page 164. because I would restore that famous man to his own native Countrey Ireland notwithstanding his surname of Scotus What time he flourish'd we may gather hence being we know that Pope Adrian IV. whose Instructor in the Sciences he was died in the year of Christ 1159. the fourth year and tenth month of his Pontificate The other particular shews how the Irish had been five hundred years before piously munificent to Foreiners come to lead religious lives with them at home in Ireland as we have but lately seen they were five hundred years after to those of their own Natives that devoted themselves wholly to the same Life among Foreiners abroad I must confess there are many more Instances in History to shew the same thing but this one extracted by Cambden Cambden in his country of Maio. out of V. Bede l. 1. Eccles Histor cap. 4. may be sufficient in this place Colman an Irish Bishop found a place in Ireland meet for building a Monastery named in the Scottish that is Irish Tongue Mageo And he bought a part of it which was not much of the Earl whose possession it was to found a Monastery therein but with this condition annex'd to the sale that the Monks residing there should pray for the Soul of him that permitted them to have the place Now when he had in a very little time with the help of the said Earl and all the Neighbour Inhabitants built this Cloister he plac'd the English men there who were thirty in number leaving the Scots behind him in the Monastery which he had before built in a small Isle on the West of Ireland by name Inis-Bofindhe that is the Island of the white Cow And that Cloister which he had built within the Land is inhabited even at this day by English men For it is the same which of a small one is grown great and usually call'd Mageo And now having this good while turn'd all to better orders it contains a notable Covent of Monks who being assembled there out of the Province of England according to the Example of the reverend Fathers under regular disciplin and a Canonical Abbot live in great continency and sincerity by the labour of their own hands Hitherto Bede And Cambden where he treats of the County of Maio in Connaght adds that if he deceive not himself that place named Mageo in Bede is the very same that now we call the Town of Maio the Head of that Shire Which to be true not only the neerness of Inis-Bofindhe where Colman left the Irish Monks whom together with those English he took along with him from Lindisfearn in Great Brittain * Ann 664. according to the Saxon Chronology printed with Bede by Wheloc but the right Irish name of Maio confirms For in that Language 't is call'd Magheo even at this day But 't is high time now to end a digression which though at first occasion'd by my reflecting on Felim mhac Criomthain 's costly Progress about Ireland has after by degrees of it self insensibly spun out to this length 61. Although you may see for above four leaves together that is from page 190 to page 199. very much as well of the great Actions and fortunate successes of the last Irish Monarch Ruaruidh O Conchabhair in his youth as of the total Ecclipse of his glory yea and pitiable change of his Royal State in his old days to the miserable condition of a poor private flitting forlorn Exile and all proceeding from the unnatural cruelty of his own very Son nevertheless amongst those former smiles of Fortune favouring him had it occurr'd I had surely mention'd the General Assembly or Parliament of all the Estates of Ireland which he held with great solemnity in the first year of his Reign being the year of Christ 1166. at a place which Gratianus Lucius in his Camb Evers page 161. calls in Latin Athboylochia perhaps that Town which now we call Athboy in Meath and the Irish in their Language Bale-Ath-Buoy But which foever or where