one of the deepest clerks of his time What a rare man and of heavenly speculations was Io de sacro bosco the Author of the sphaere which remaines yet engraven upon his tomb in Paris some ages after these the world of learned men did much esteem Reginald Poole Iohn Colet William Lillie Linacre Pace Cardinall Fisher Bishop of Rochester Sir Thomas More Latimer Tindall Baleus Tunstall men inferior to none as well for sanctimony of life as for rare erudition and knowledg Toby Matthew Archbishop of York another Chrysostom Thomas Stapleton Nic. Wotton Iewell Cheek Humphreys Grindall Whitgift Plowden Ascham Cooke Smyth Whitaker Perkins Mountagu those great speculative Lords Baeon and Herbert Andrews Usher that rare Primat Selden who knows as much as both the Scaligers Camden the English Strabo Owen another Martiall with divers excellent Dramatique Poets and it is a great wrong to the Common-wealth of learning that their works are not made intelligible in a larger toung then that Insulary Dialect Add hereunto that for Physicians and Lawyers both Civill and Common there are as profound spirits there as any on earth And as for learning so for prowess and magnanimity the Inhabitants of Great Britain have been and are still very celebrous And though there hath been alwayes an innated kind of enmity twixt the French and the English yet they have extorted prayses out of their enemies mouths witnes Comines Froissard and Bodin who write so much in honor of the English Nor do they herein complement or flatter a whit What a bold Britain was Brennus who liv'd long before the English took footing there what notable feates did he perform in Italy Greece and Asia so that the old Britains or Welsh in honor of that Heroe call a King after his name to this day viz. Brennin and there is a Castle in Wales of his name to this day How manfully did the ancient Britains tugg with the Romans who receav'd fowler defeats there then in any other Region which one of their Poets seemes to confesse when he saith Invictos Romano Marte Britannos The Silures who are a peeple but of a few small shires in Wales viz. Monmouth Brecknock and others being animated by the courage of their King Cataracus and provok'd by the menaces of the Emperour Claudius who threatned to extinguish the very names of them met his army in open field and cutting off an auxiliary Regiment which was going to recreut the Emperour under Marius Valens they utterly routed him In so much that Ostorius the propraetor of Britanny for the Romans resenting this dishonor died out of a sense of grief Charles the Great had to doe with them in three battailes wherein there was such a slaughter of his men that he cryed Si vel semel tantùm cum illis adhuc depugnandum foret ne unum quidem militem sibi superfuturum If he were to encounter the Britains but once more he should not have a soldier left him a saying proceeding from such a man as Charlemain that tends much to the reputation of the Britains But the Gaules are they whom the Britains galld having in so many victories left their arrowes in their thighs in their breasts and some sticking in their hearts which makes Bodin complain Gallos ab Anglis in ipsa Gallia clades accepisse ac pene Imperium amisisse That the French receaved many overthrowes in France herself by the English and had almost lost their Kingdom whereupon the Poet sings wittily Anglorum semper virtutem Gallia sensit Ad Galli cantum non fugit iste Leo. For how often have the French Kings with their Nobles been routed defeated and discomfited by the English Gray-goose-wing how often hath it pierc'd the very center of the Kingdom what notable rich returnes have the English made from France And what pittifull looks must France have when Edward the fourth got such a glorious victory at Cressy where above thirty thousand perish'd among whom the King of Bohemia was found among the dead bodies ten Princes eighty Barons twelve hundred Gentlemen and the flower of the French fell that day and King Philip of Valois did hardly escape himself to a small town which being ask'd at the gate who he was qui va la answer'd la Fortune de France the Fortune of France This made France weare black a long time But in another battail she had as ill luck wherein her King Iohn and David King of Scots where taken prisoners and attended the prince of Wales to England yet such was the modesty of that prince though conquerour that he waited upon King Iohn bareheaded at table this was such a passage as happen'd in King Edgars raign who had foure Kings to row him upon the river Dee hard by Westchester viz. Kennad Kind of the Scots Malcolm King of Cumberland Maconus King of Man and another Welsh King The English reduc'd France to such a poverty at that time that she was forc'd to coin leather money In divers other battailes in the raignes of Charles the fift sixt and seventh and Lewis the elevenths time the English did often foyl the French untill the war pour le bien public begun by the Duke of Burgundy Such a large livery and seifin the English had taken in France that for three hundred and fifty years they were masters of Aquitain and Normandy Nay Henry the sixt of England was crowned King of France in Paris And so formidable were the English in France that the Duke of Britany when he was to encounter the French army in the field thought it a policy to cloth a whole Regiment of his soldiers after the English mode to make them more terrible to the French What shall I say of that notable Virago Queen Elizabeth who did such exploits again Spain by taking the united provinces of the Low Countreys under her protection How did she ply the Spaniard and bayt him by Sea and Land how did she in a manner make him a Bankrupt by making him lose his credit in all the banks of Europe And all that while Spain could do England no harme at all touching the strength of which Kingdom you may please to hear what a judicious Italian speaks of it Il Regno d'Ingliterra non há bisogno d'altri per la propria difesa anzi non solo é difficile mà si può dir impossible se non é divisione nel Regno che per via de force possa esser conquistato The Kingdom of England stands in no need of any other for her own defense so that it is not only difficult but a thing impossible unlesse there be some intestin division to make a conquest of that Countrey Philip offer'd very fairly for her in the year eighty eight when he thought to have swallowed her with his Invincible Fleet which was a preparing three yeers she consisted of above 150. saile 8000. Mariners 20000. foot besides voluntiers she carried 1600. Canons of brasse 1000. of iron
and a hundred and twenty thousand granados of all sorts The Fleet stood the King in every day thirty thousand Duckets insomuch that Bernardin Mendoza the Spanish Ambassadour in France being in a private conference one day with King Henry the fourth assured him that viis modis that Fleet had stood his Master in above tenne Millions first and last from the time that she set sayl from Lisbon This Fleet look'd like a huge Forrest at Sea as she made her way Good Lord how notably did that Masculine Queen bestirre her self in viewing her Armies in visiting her Men of Warre and Ships Royall in having her Castles and Ports well fortified in riding about and in the head of the Army her self in discharging the Office of a true Pallas wearing a Hat and Feather in lieu of a Helmet Henry the fourth of France sent her seasonable notice hereof so that most of the Roman Catholiques up and down were commanded to retire to the I le of Ely a fenney place and others were secured in Bishops houses till this horrid cloud which did threaten the destruction of England should be overblown But this prodigious Fleet being come to the British seas how did the little English vessels pelt those huge Gigantick Galeons of Spain whereof those few which were left for all the rest perisht were forc'd to fetch a compass almost as far as Norway in 62. degrees and so got to Spain to bring the sad tidings what became of the rest There were Triumphs for this not onely in England but all the United Provinces over where a Medal was coyn'd bearing this Inscription on the one side Classis Hispanica The Spanish Fleet on the other side Venit â—…vit fuit She came she went she was But had the Duke of Parma come out of Flanders with his Land Army then it might have prov'd a black day to England and herein Holland did a peece of Knight-service to England for she kept him from comming forth with a squadron of Men of Warre How gallantly did the English take Cales the Key of Spain and brought home such rich plunder How did they infest the Indies and what a masse of Treasure did Drake that English Dragon bring home thence he made his Sailes of Silk and his Anchors of Silver Most noble Princes you have heard something though not the tyth that might be said of the early Piety and Devotion of the exquisite Knowledge and Learning of the Manhood and Prowesse of Great Britain but these praises that I give her is but a bucket of water cast into her Seas Now touching both King and people it is observ'd that there is such a reciprocation of love betwixt them that it is wonderfull the one swayes the other submits obeyes and contributes to the necessities and preservation of the honour and majesty of the King for which he receives protection and security Touching the Regall Authority and absolute Power and Prerogatives of the Kings of Great Britain it is as high and supreame as any Monarchs upon Earth They acknowledge no Superior but God himself they are not feudetary or homageable to any they admit no forraign jurisdiction within the bounds of their Kingdomes and herein they have the advantage of the Kings of France and Spaine yea of the Emperour himself who is in a kind of vassalage to the Pope and may be said to divide authority with him in their own Dominions No they have long time shaken off that servitude and manumitted the Crown from those immense sums which were erogated and ported from England to pay for First fruits for Indulgences for Appeales Palls and Dispensations and such merchandises of Rome How many hundred of years did England pay Tribute though it went under the name of Peter-pence to Rome think you no less than near upon a thousand from the reign of King Inas the Saxon to Henry the eighth From the Power of the Kings of Great Britain let us goe to their Justice let us descend from the Throne to the Tribunall Now such is the Divinitie of the Kings of Great Britain that they cannot doe any Injustice it is a Canon of their Common Law that the King can doe no wrong if any be done it is the Kings Minister the Judge Magistrate or Officer doth doe it and so is punishable accordingly such a high regard the English have of the honour of their King and such a speciall care the Kings of England have us'd to take for punishing of Injustice and corruption such a care as King Edgar had to free the Iland from Wolves and corrupt Officers are no better than Wolves which he did by a Tribute that he impos'd upon a Welsh Prince for his ranson which was to bring him in three hundred skinnes of Wolves every year this produced â—…o good effects that the whole race of Wolves was extirpated in a short time so that it is as rare a thing to see a Wolf now in England as a Horse in Venice Touching the care that the Kings of England us'd to have to enrich their subjects hath been us'd to be very great and to improve the common stock Edward the third that Gallorum malleus the hammer of the French he quell'd them so was the first who introduced the art of making of Cloth into England whereby the Exchequer with the publique and private wealth of the Kingdome did receive a mighty increment for Wooll is the Golden Fleece of England and the prime Staple-commodity which is the cause that by an old custome the Judges Masters of the Rolls and Secretaries of State in Parliament time doe use to sit upon Woolsacks in the House that commodum lanarum ovium non negligendum esse Parliamentum moneatur that they put the Parliament in mind that the commodity of Wool and Sheep be not neglected The Swede the Dane the Pole the German the Russe the Turk and indeed all Nations doe highly esteem the English cloth The time was that Antwerp her self did buy and vend two hundred thousand English cloths yearly as Camden hath it And great and antient are the priviledges that the English have in Belgium for since the year 1338 which is above three hundred yeares agoe when Lewis Malan Earl of Flanders gave them very ample immunities in the Town of Bruges since which time it is incredible how all kind of commerce and merchantile affaire did flourish among the Flemins for which they were first obliged to the English for the English Wooll hath been a Golden Fleece also to the Flemins as well as the English themselves because it was one of the principal causes of enlarging their Trade whereunto the Duke of Burgundy related when he established the order of the Golden Fleece Guicciardin makes a computation that the Traffique and Intercourse betwixt England and Flanders amounted to twelve millions yearly where of five was for woollen manufactures What an Heroique incomparable Princesse was Queen Elizabeth who wore the English Crown and
was one law enacted in Canutus time Omnis homo abstineat a Venerijs meis super poenam vitae Upon pain of life let every man refrain from my deer and my hunting places The Swainmote Courts have harsh punishments and amercements and for the poor Husbandman ther 's no remedy for him against the Kings dear though they lye all night in his corn and spoile it Sarisburiensis a reverend and authentic Author comprehends all this in a few words when he speaks of the exorbitancies of England in this kind Quod magis mirere ait pedicas parare avibus laqueos texere allicere nodis aut fistula aut quibuscunque insidijs supplantare ex edicto saepe fit genus criminis vel proscriptione bonorum mulctatur vel membrorum punitur salutisque dispendio Volucres coeli pisces maris communes esse audieras sed hae Fisci sunt quas venatica exigit ubicunque volant manum contine abstine ne tu in poenam laesae majestatis venantibus caedas in praedam Anovalibus suis arcentur Agricolae dum ferae habeant vagandi libertatem illis ut pascua augeantur praedia subtrahantur Agricolis sationalia insitiva Colonis cùm pascua armentarijs gregarijs tum alvearia a floralibus excludunt ipsis quoque apibus vix naturali libertate uti permissum est But that which is more to be wondred at saith Sarisburiensis is that to lay netts to prepare trapps to allure birds by a whissle or to supplant them by any kind of wile becomes oftentimes a kind of crime by the Edicts of England and is punish'd either by amercement or some corporall punishment whereas in other climes the birds of the Air and the fish of the Sea are common but not in England they belong to the Fisk or some particular person you must hold your hand and refraine for fear of comitting treason The Yeoman is hunted away from his new plowd fields while wild beasts have liberty to wander in them at pleasure nay sometimes cattle are kept from pasture and the Bees are scarce permitted to use their naturall liberty of sucking flowers But the English tyranny doth not terminat onely in the King but it difuseth it selfe further among the Nobles In so much that as Camden relates there were in King Stephens raigne as many tyrants in England as there were Castellans or Governors of Castles Stephani Regis temporibus tot erant in Anglia tyranni quot Castellorum Domini Who arrogated to themselves regall rights and prerogatives as coyning of money marshall law and the like For now there is no Kingdom on earth Naples excepted where there have been more frequent insurrections then in England for as the Kings have been noted to be Tyrants so the subjects are branded for devills In the Civill warrs that happen'd in Comines time there were above fourescore that were slain by the fortune of war and otherwise of the blood Royall besides the Kings themselves that perish'd Whereupon when the Queen of Scots heard of the fatall sentence that was pronounc'd against her with an intrepid and undaunted heart she said as an Author of credit hath it Angli in suos Reges subinde caedibus saevierunt ut neutiquam novum sit si etiam in me ex eorum sanguine natam itidem saevierint If the English have been often so cruell in the slaughter of their own Kings it is no new thing then that they have grown so cruell to me that am descended of their blood What a horrid and destructive conjuration was that subterranean plot of the Gunpowder Treason so bloody a designe no age can parallell It was like the wish of Caligula who wish'd the peeple of Rome had had but one neck that he might cut it off at one blow He had it onely in wish but these had a reall attempt to blow up not onely the blood Royall but all the Nobility and chief Gentry of the Kingdom And Guido Faux who was to set fire to the powder did shew so little sign of feare and repentance that he boldly said It was none but the great Devill of Hell who had discovered the plot and hindred him from the execution of it that God Almighty had no hand in the discovery and prevention of that meritorious work Which if it had taken effect one of the Conspirators sayd it would have satisfied for all the sins of his whole life had he liv'd a thousand yeers after And whereas my Noble Baron you travelled in your highstrain'd and smooth Oration through all the Shires of England and pointed at some things extraordinary in every one of them you shall find that they have as many blemishes as they have blessings When you extoll the Province of Cornwall so much you should also have made mention of their Pyrrhocoracas their Sea-theeves and Pirates which are so thick as choughes among them And whereas you magnifie Drake so much he was no better then a Corsary or a Skimmer of the Seas and an Archpyrate who notwithstanding there was an Ambassador here resident from Spain and a firm peace twixt the two Crownes yet was he permitted to steal and robb by land as well as by Sea among the subjects of the King of Spain Nor did he exercise cruelty on the Spaniards and Indians only but upon his own Countrymen as for example when he landed at Port San Iulian and finding a Gallowes there set up by Magellan he hang'd up by his own power a gentleman better then himself which was Mr. Iohn Doughty meerly out of envy because he might not partake of the honor of his Expeditions You praise Devonshire and the Town of Exeter especially about which there growes nothing but thin Oates and eares without grains in many places but you should have remembred that whereas Henry Duke of that City had married Edward the fourths Sister yet in tattered raggs and barefooted he was forc'd to begge his bread up and down in Flanders Whereas you speak also of Dorsetshire you should have call'd to mind the tyranny of King Henry the third against de Linde for killing one of his Dear which was made a Hart in White Forrest for which he was not onely amerc'd in a great sum of money but the Tenants of those Gentlemen that hunted with him were condemn'd to pay every year such a tax call'd White heart Silver every year to the Exchequer You passe also over Portland a poor naked Iland without Woods or any kind of Fuel but the ordure of beasts which they use for fyring For Somersetshire what huge tracts of wast grounds are found there up and down without Inhabitants which makes it so subject to theeves and Robbers Touching Hampshire what a large act of sacriledge did King William commit there by demolishing divers Churches and takeing away the Glebes from God and men the space of thirty miles and upwards making it a wild Forrest to plant and people the Country with bruite beasts useful only for
underneath Touching the large Province of York whereas you averre that Constantine and his Mother Helen were Britaines and born there Nicephorus makes a question of it and would have them to be of Bithynia Towards Richmond there are such squalid uncouth places and horrid Mountaines that the English themselves call them the Northern Alpes and there be such roaring streames of water which rush out of them that the inhabitants name them Hell-becks that is Infernal or Stygian Rivers Now for Scotland Good Lord what a pittifull poor Country is it It were no petty kinde of punishment to be banisht thither for it is a Country onely for those to dwell in that want a Country and have no part of the earth besides to dwell upon In some parts the soyl is such that it turns trees to stones and wheat to oats apples to crabbs and melons to pumpions In some places as you pass along you shall see neither bird in the aire nor beast on the earth or worm creeping on the ground nor scarce any vegetall but a black gorsie soyl a raw rheumatique air or some craggy and squalid wild disconselate hils And touching Woods Groves or Trees as Stephen might have scap'd stoning in Holland for want of stones so if Iudas had betrayed Christ in Scotland he might as one sayd have repented before he could have found out a tree to have hang'd himself upon And most noble Auditors you may make easie conjectures of the poverty of Scotland by the demeans of the Crown which scarce amount to a hundred thousand Dollars a year which you know is the ordinary Income of a German Prince and this both Boterus and Bodin do testifie who were Eagle-ey'd Inspectors into the Revenues of all Kingdomes and States And the answer which the Duke of Norfolk made Queen Elizabeth when she reprehended him for his presumption to marry the Queen of Scots doth verifie this Madam said he it is no great presumption in me to attempt this for my Revenues are not much inferiour to the King of Scotlands This induced the Queen Elizabeth to give King Iames her Godsonne and Successor a Pension every year Nor were the Revenues of the Crown of England any thing considerable till of late years that Trade began to encrease so infinitely and consequently the Customes with Suits in Law since the demolition of Abbeyes and the alienation of Church-Lands to the Crowne with the First-fruits Fines and other perquisites by Offices and Courts of Justice I say before these additions to the Crown the Revenue of the Crown of England was but very contemptible in comparison of other Princes I must confesse indeed that in these late Wars the Wealth of England as well as the Strength thereof hath wonderfully appear'd for I believe on both sides there hath been above two hundred Millions consum'd And there is now coming into this new Republique I beleeve above twelve Millions of Crownes every year And for her Strength one may say England was like a Horse she knew not her own strength till now for who would have thought that England could have put forth a hundred thousand foot and forty thousand horse all arm'd besides her power at Sea I say who could have thought it Yet there were so many in number at least betwixt King and Parliament at one time But to reflect again upon Scotland as the Country is pittifully barren insomuch that long Keale and short Keale which is a kind of Cabbidge that they can dress twenty sorts of wayes is one of their principall food besides fish and some odde fowle as the Solan Goose which is their greatest Regalo yet the Eater must stop his nose when he takes a bit into his mouth the smell is so rank and strong I say as the Country is so steril so is the people sordid and subject to vermine Good Lord what nasty little huts and holes shall you finde there up and down what dirty courts and stables above the anckle deep cramm'd with dung The sight of an ordinary Scots woman is a remedy against Lust for they are as big as Cows in the middle Nature seems to make no distinction there between the two sexes but the women commonly are as bigge limb'd as the men These short commons at home drive the men commonly abroad to seek their fortunes in Swethland Denmark and Poland where they are in such multitudes that in case of necessity the King of Poland might put in the field thirty thousand Scots Pedlars though they passe by the name of Merchants for if one can come up to a horse and a pair of panniers he presently assumes that name unto him Now though abroad the Scots are kept under a strict discipline that they cannot steal yet at home they are notable theeves and indeed the Caledonians were ever so to a proverb they goe now under the names of Mossetroupers Hear I pray what their own Country man Iohn Lesley the Bishop of Rosse speaks of them Noctu turmatim per invia loca perque multos maeandros è suis finibus exeunt interdiu in prostitutis latibulis equos viresque suas recreant donec eò tandem per tenebras quo volunt perveniant Arrepta praeda similiter noctu per circuitus devia loca dunt axat ad sua redeunt Quò quisque peritior Dux per illas solitudines anfractus praecipitia media caligine tenebris esse potest is ut ingeniâ—… excellens majore in honore habetur tanta calliditate hi valeut ut rarissimè praedam sibi eripi sinant nifi canum odoratu quorum ductu rectis semper vestigiis insequentium ab adversariis non nunquam capiantur In the night time the Scots doe use to steal forth by troups through odde invious places and divers Meanders and windings they bait in the way in some odde nook or cave where they refresh themselves and their horses untill they come unto the places they aime at where they had intelligence there was booty for them which when they have got they return by some other devious passage wheeling about until they are come to their own home He who is the most cunning conductor through these unfrequented and craggy by-places in the dark is cried up to be a very knowing man and consequently he is held in greatest esteem And so cautious crafty they are in their art this way that their prey is seldome or never taken away from them unlesse they be pursued with Dogs But these Borderers or Mossetroopers which this description aimes at are far inferiour to the Highlanders or Redshankes who sojourne 'twixt craggs and rocks who in the art of Robbery go much beyond all other insomuch that it is a Law in Scotland St quis ex aliqua illorum gente damna intulerit quicunque captus fuerit aut damna resarciat aut capite luat When any of the Highlanders commit any Robbery let the next that is taken repair the losse or suffer death I
know I shall strike a horrour and astonishment into this Princely Assembly by relating here what Saint Hierome writes of this people he saith Se adolescentulum in Gallia vidisse Scotos gentem Britannicam humanis vesci carnibus cum per sylvas porcorum greges armentorum pecudumque reperiant pastorum nates faeminarum papillas solere abscindere has solas ciborum delicias arbitrar When I was a young man among the Gaules I saw Scots there a people of Britain who fed upon humane flesh for when they passed through the Woods where there were Swineheards and other Shepheards they us'd to seize upon and cut off the buttocks of the male and paps of the female which they us'd to feed upon as the greatest dainties For the Learning of the Scots once in an age haply they produce a Wit but tentimes they prove pestiferous witness Buchanan and Knocks which two villaines were fratres in malum what a world of troubles have they rais'd what a distraction did they bring on mens braines what proud rascals were they in their own conceit how they would vapour and raunt an humor that is more the Scotchmans own than any nay what a malitious and ingratefull monster was one of them I mean Buchanan who though a poor Paedagogue yet he presum'd to write in such familiar terms and disgorge such base invectives against so great a personage as Mary Queen Dowager of France and his own Soveraign Princesse and which sets forth his abject spirit further this Paedagogues pen was mercenary for he was hir'd to doe it Yet King Iames took him afterwards for his Tutor notwithstanding that he had been so ingratefull and bespatter'd his mother so fowly as appeares by these pedantick dunsticall incongruous lines this most base and scurrilous Libell which hee vomited against her with that virulencie O Maria O Scota O Meretrix O quà m bene nota Impurè illota Veneri dedidissima tota Quae stimulis mota moechos trahis ad tua vota Vinoque praepota facis id quod rancida Gota Reproba Regina mage salax quam Messalina Altera Faustina semper recubans resupina Pellex Palatina temerans conjugia bina Moribus lupina Regni jurata ruina Belie incepisti tu quando puella fuisti Inguine pruristi procaxque viros petiisti Hinâ—… excussisti pudorem aperuisti Seram tuae cistae quam claudere non potuisti Quid precor egisti tu in Francia quando fuisti Antequam nupsisti cum Cardinale coisti Marito tristi tu â—…ornua multa dedisti Contra jus Christi vitrico temet subegisti Nec minus arsisti postquam in patriam rediisti Nonne tuo mystae Davidi succubuisti Unde viro tristi causam vindictae dedisti Et huic isti mortis tu causa fuisti Nonne virâ—… est scitum te propinasse aconitum Blandéque accitum somno jugulasse sopitum Nec mora protritum moechum duxisti maritum Caede insignitum Regni scelerisque peritum At principatus moecho est pro munere datus Hinc Scotiae status tumultibus est cruciatus Miles armatus jugi in statione locatus Usque quò fugatus est Boshwellus dux sceleratus Itaque cunâ—… tota sic intus in cute nota Daemoni devota tam prudens ut est Idiota Ut sic amota cupimus ante omnia vota Fortunae Rota si reflectat vae tibi Scota But now that I have given a touch of Ingratitude I think the Scots are aâ—… guilty of that base vice as any Nation What mountaineÌ„s of favours did the two last Kings of England tumble upon them What honors offices and dignities did they conferr upon them What vast pensions had they from the English Exchequer how did the last King enervat his own prerogative to strengthen their priviledges What gracious concessions did he make them according to their own confessions how he pull'd down Bishops at their request and distributed the lands amongst them how at his last being in Scotland in Parliament he was so easy and yeelding unto them that they did nothing but ask and have In so much that as one said he had granted them so much of his Royall right that for the future he was but King of Scotland as he was King of France only Titular How at his deparâ—…ure they confessed that they had nothing to complain of for the government of Kirk or State that they could imagine and therefore in lieu of their gratitud their Parliament voted that the old Act should be reviv'd which is that it should be detâ—…stable and damnable treason in any of the subjects of Scotland of what degree condition or quality soever to make any military leviâ—…s or put themselves in armes without the Kings Royall commission to observe which Act they took their oths upon the Evangelist yet the yeer scarce revolv'd when they rais'd an Army and rush'd into England not only without his comission but point blanck and expresly against his Royall letters wherein he desir'd them as they confess'd themselves since they had nothing to complain of that they would be Spectators onely and no Actors in some differences which were 'twixt him and his English Subjects yet directly against his will and request they did thrust themselves into the busines And afterwards when their own Country-man and King had fled to them in his greatest extremity for shelter and comfort they most basely sold him away O monsters of men O horrid ingratitude and perâ—…idiousnes which hath cast such foule blemishes and indelible Spoâ—…ts upon that nation that I believe all the water of the Tweed will never be able to wash away But the judgments of heaven were never so visible upon any peeple as those which have fallen upon the Scots since for besides the sweeping furious Plague that raign'd in Edenburgh and the incredible multitude of Witches which have encreas'd and been executed there since besides the sundry shamefull defeats they have receav'd by the English who carried away more of them prisoners then they were themselves in number besides that many of them died by meere hunger besides that they were sold away slaves at half a crown a dozen for forren plantations among sauvages I say besides all this chaine of judgments with divers other they have quite lost their reputation among all mankind some jeer them some hate them and none pitty them What 's become now of their hundred and ten Kings which they us'd to raunt of so much What 's become of their Crown which they bragg'd to be more weighty and have more gold in it then any Crown in Christendome I will now by the continuance of the sweet gale of your Noble favours cross over to Ireland another rough hewn Country and crosse graind peope too and indeed the Irish and Scots are originally but birds of one feather the same tongue being maternal to both Yet for the soyl and the climes Ireland much exceeds Scotland Nevertheless the
best in that kind that can be found any where For all other commodities either for pleasure profit or necessity what doth Germany want what delightfull Orchards are there what large fields of Graine what a World of Cattle where can you finde Cowes that will yeeld twelve quarts of milk every day as in Holland where can you find better Cheese where can you find such Bacon as in Westphalia a Gamon whereof is accounted so rare that in feasts it is served up last after all the fine courses of Fowle and Fruit. Heare what Guicciardin spoak in his times of Holland that in Cheese and Butter shee did vent every yeare above a million and what shall we think shee does now that her Trade is com to such a portentous encrease some think that the benefit shee makes of Milk may compare with Bourdeaeux Wines or the spices of Portugall Touching other animalls and Horses especially Germany yeelds to no other Countrey either for all kind of labours as also for service in Warre as France knowes well who is furnish'd hence what horse can carry a Cuirassier more stoutly then a Frislander what famous Marts are in Germany for Horses what choice breed I will instance but only in one Prince of Holsteyn a Kinsman of ours who at one time had above a thousand Mares for breed and above one hundred choice Stallions Now will I go to the shores of Prussia Pomerland and Livonia to gather Gum and Lord what abundance of it is found there a curious kind of Aromatique Ambar which tricles down from the Firre Trees whereof there are such huge Forrests which serves for Marchandize all the World over Now for Noblenesse of Rivers what Countrey is comparable to Germany We have the Danube acknowledg'd by all to be King of Rivers Qui centum populos et magnas alluit Urbes Shee waters a hundred severall people with many mighty Citties The Rhin is ours The Elve is ours the Main the Mossell the Skeld the Vistula with ten great Navigable Rivers are ours which for Fish and freighting of comodities and conveyance of them from place to place run very conveniently Guicciardin in his time made a supputation that the Fishing of the Low Countries alone came to above two millions a year Now in High Germany there are some Fish who of themselves are so savoury and sweet that they need no sawce and in Prague he is held to have but a very dull tast who useth any sawce with some sorts of fish Now for salt pits what numbers are there in Luneburg in Saxony in Suabland Austria and other places What variety of Baths and Medicinall waters have wee whose virtue proceeds from Mineralls whereof there are such plenty What curious Marble is dig'd up in Limburg and Namur you have there Marble of all colours white black red gray which may vie with Crystall for lustre and brightnesse Germany hath her Mines also of Gold Silver Copper Lead Tinne and Iron The German Dollars furnishd all the Mints of Europe before the Mines of Mexico and Potosi were discovered in America And it is wonderfull how the plenty of Gold and Silver is encreasd in Germany these two last ages which hath enhancd the price of all things Yet the Helvetians scarce made any use or had any esteem of Gold and Silver till they gave that fatall over-throw to Charles the Hardy nere Granson where they carried away their Cap-fulls of Gold and Silver which since is extremely multiplyed amongst them by the salary the Kings of France have given them both for their attendance about his person by way of garde as also for their service in the Warre against the House of Austria The Swisse herby being come to the apprehension of the value of Gold and Silver with other Nations have mightily approvd their stock since that time In so much that they provd often very usefull to France and other people in great sommes of money And as Germany abounds thus with Gold and Silver so the bowels of her earth is also full of Mettalls in divers places Tirol above other Provinces of Europe hath plenty of Mettalls the Elve Edera with other Rivers afford Gold Corbachi in Westphalia hath also som Steinheid in Franconia and other places Cellerfiela in Saxonie hath Mines of Silver as also Friburg Marieburg Anneberg and Sneberg Ioachims vale Cotteberg and other Soyles in Bohemia have much Silver Schonback also and Beraun in Bohemia hath quantity of quick-Silver Melibot and Carpat abound with Copper Aldeberg and Irberesdort in Misena likewise have great store of white Lead and the Mountaine Ramel in Saxony hath black and Ash-colour Lead There are innumerable places where Iron is found the best in Sorland Gishubel and Lavestein In this affluence of all earthly commodities Germany hath often relievd her Neighbours and supplyed them with necessaries according to the rule of Charity the Germans being observd to be least given to the base vice of covetousnesse They have been hospitable in the highèst degree making no difference twixt Native and stranger herin as Tacitus himselfe confesseth And to this in most places we retain that Primitive Vertue But because by giving still and not receiving the 〈◊〉 might draw scarcity upon her self therefore the mystery of Marchandizing was found out and permitted to be exercisd by way of Commutative Justice for bartering Commodities by way of Exchange or else by taking reasonable prices for them In so much that any under the degree of a Gentleman might export superfluous Wares out of Germany and make a return of others in their steed which custom tended both to publique and private benefit and nombers hereby have raysd their families to be great and rich And as high Germany is full of such gallant Marchants so the lower Germans exceed all other in the feat and mystery of comerce where Women as well as men do exercise the trade and beat bargaines in their Husbands absence And the advantagious situation of their Countrey seems to invite them hereunto And if any doubt this let him look upon the multitude of Shipps that lye in every Port so that take bottoms of all sorts they have more that sayle upon salt water then all Christendom besides witnes els that nomber which the King of Denmark did stay of theirs at one time in the Baltique Sea which were 600 for offring an affront to his Ambassadors In Amsterdam alone ther go in and out as many Vessells of all sorts one day with another as there be dayes in the yeare either for England Scotland France Spain Italy Turky Egypt Norway Russia and the East or West Indies What a thing was Antwerp before the revolt of the Low Countries ther usd to be more Mercantile businesses transacted there in one month then a whole yeer in Venice ther being no lesse then 300 families of Spaniards there at one time besides other Nations she erected the first Burse in Christendom where twice a day many thousand negociators use to
slave whom he had bought in Spain the slave being told of the Constitutions of France came and told his Master Sir I have serv'd you hitherto in quality of a slave but I am now a Freeeman yet I am content to serve you still but as a free attendant according to the custome of this noble Countrey The like thing happen'd at the siege of Mets where a servant had play'd the fugitive and ran away with his Master Don Luis de Avila's horse who was Master of the horse to the Emperour Don Luis sent to the Duke of Guyse a Trompetor for his man and his horse The Duke understanding that the horse was sold caus'd the money to be sent the Spaniard but for the servant he sent him word That his servant had enter'd into the inner parts of France where the Law is that if any of a servile condition puts his foot once he instantly recovers his liberty which custom being so consonant to reason and agreeable to Christianity he could not nor would not violat Touching the magnanimity and valour of the French ther are infinit Examples all the World over Alexander the great hearing of their valour sent to know of them what they fear'd most They answer'd Ne coelum rueret Least the heaven should fall 'T is tru Gallia became a Province to the Romanes but presently after the death of Iulius Caesar she was declared free And Rome call'd the Gaules in their publique writings by the appellation of frends 'T is well known what footing the Gaules took in Italy for the best part of Lombardy was call'd Gallia Cisalpina We read in Caesar that the time was cum Germanos Galli virtute superarent that the Gaules were superior to the Germans in valour that they had conquer'd much of the Countrey about the Hercynian Forest Are not the Britains of the Gaulic or Wallic race are not divers Provinces in Spain and Portingal descended from Them Afterward in revolution of time the German Franconians and Gaules being neighbours came by coalition to be one Nation and they have continued so above these 12 Ages The Kings of Sicily descend from Tanered the Norman so do the Kings of England from William the Conqueror and the Plantagenets The Kings of Cyprus Syria and Greece com from Guy of Lusignan nay Constantinople was held awhile by Gallic Emperours What glorious Expeditions have bin made to the Holy Land by 5. French Kings in person Me thinks I see Godefroy of Bâ—…llion having sold his Duchy to that purpose marching with a huge Army through Germany Hungary and Greece and so passing to Asia and Syria to encounter the Forces of Soliman the Ottoman Emperour and Chalypha the Soldan of Egipt with other Barbarian Kings whom he put all to flight making himself Master of Nice of Antioch and Hieresulam her self with the holy Sepulcher of Christ Me thinks I see him when he was to be crown'd King of Hierusalem throwing away a Crown of gold and taking one of thorns in imitation of his Saviour Me thinks I see all the tributary Princes therabouts bringing offrings unto him and he clad in the habit of a common Gregarian Soldier wherat they being astonished som of them as the Archbishop of Tyre said How is it that so great a King so admirable a Conqueror who coming from the West hath shaken all the Eastern World shold go so plain and homely But to step back a little look upon Brennus ransacking Rome with an Army of Gaules look upon Charles Martel who was call'd Conservator of the Christian World which was then upon point of ruine and to fall under the yoke of Infidels and Saracens Look upon Pepin who chas'd the Longâ—…bards out of Italy upon Bertrand who depriv'd Peter King of Castile of his Kingdom for his tyranny I could instance in a great nomber who have their names engraven and their Ensigns hung up in the Temple of immortality Moreover for Cavalleers and horsemen it is granted by all Nations that the French are the prime It is recorded in good how in the African Warr 30. French repuls'd 2000. Moors But to come neerer home In the siege of Mets where the fifth himself commanded in chief What resolute Sallies did the French make out of the Town causing the Emperour at last to trusse up his bagg and baggage and go away by torchlight Inso much that the Town of Mets being then kept by a French Garrison put the last bounds to the Conquests of that Great Captain as a Poet could tell him Si metam nescis Urls est quae Meta vocatur Now to go from the Sword to the Crosier What brave Prelats and Champions against haeresie hath France bred St. Hilary the queller of the Arrian heresie St. Hierom Pontius Paulinus Bishop of Nola Rusticus Phaebadius Prosper â—…cditius Avitus Mamertus Archbishop of Vienna Sidonius Apollinaris Lupus Germanus Salvianus Remigius Archbishop of Rheims with multitudes more all of them most pioâ—…s and learned Prelats whose Monuments shew them to be so to this day And so well devoted were the French alwayes to the Church of God that they thought nothing too dear and precious to endow her withall witnesse those mighty revenues the Gallican Church possesseth For in the late Raign of Charles the 9. ther was a cense brought in of the demains of the Church and they amounted to 12 millions and 300. thousand Franks in annual rent besides voluntary oblations Now touching Learning and Eloquence Lucius Plotius a Gaul was the first began to read Latin Lectures at Rome and Cicero being then a boy and finding such a great confluence of Auditors to flock ev'ry day to hear him he griev'd that he could not do the like as Suetonius hath left it upon record Marcus Antonius Gnipho a Gaul did then florish also at Rome a man of singular Elocution and a prodigious Memory he delivered praecepts in Greek and Latin and among others Cicero himself when he was Praetor us'd to be his Auditor Marseilles was very renowned for great learned men having bin so many ages a Greek Colony so was Lions also a special seat of the Muses as it is now for Marchants of all Nations of whom the Kings of France have borrow'd Millions of money to supply their sudden necessities Valence was also famous for Philosophers and Poets witnesse Athenaeus as also Vienne where Latin was so vulgar according to that signal Epigram of Martial Fertur habere meos si vera est fama 〈◊〉 Inter delicias pulchra Vienna suas Me legit omnis ibi Senior Iuvenisque puerque Et coram tetrico cast a puella viro Hoc ego maluerim quà m si mea carmina cantent Qui nilum ex ipso protinus ore bibunt Quà m Meus Hispano si me Tagus impleat auro Pascat et Hybla meas pascat Hymettos apes c. And questionlesse no Countrey florish'd with Learning more then France in those daies witnesse St. Hierom when he writ Sola Gallia monstra
side then the Peasan in the Countrey which makes the Hollander oftentimes bring thither French Salt back again and gain by it One shall see somtimes the poor Roturier or yeoman to go from the market with his pockets cram'd with salt to avoid paying the gabel and women steal it home in their purses Now touching such an affluence of all things in France besides which you insist upon my Noble Cosen it may be so but then surely ther is the worst kind of government there upon earth and the most unproportionablest divident made of that plenty for I dare avouch France doth abound with beggars more then any Countrey under the Sun One cannot ride upon the high way but he shall have swarmes of little mendicants sing before his horse head as also when he remounts the next day The poor Vigneron and Husbandman go in their wooden shooes and canvas breeches to Church upon Sundayes and if their wifes have a buckram petticot she is brave Therfore wheras you say that France is the freest and frankest Countrey in the World and that she draws her etymology thence she may be so to strangers and passengers but for the Natives I beleeve they are the arrand'st slaves upon earth they are of a meer asinin condition not only in relation to the King who so grinds their faces with taxes but they are villains also to their Lords I will produce one example for all The Lord of Chasteauroux or red Castle in Berry had a Tenant that by his industry became Bourgesse of Paris Le seigneur vendica son serf qui s'estoiâ—… retiré et obtint la provision the Lord in open Court demands his slave which the Court could not deny and so pass'd sentence accordingly You say noble Cosen that France is adorn'd with all vertues truly I do not see how vertue can cohabit where such furies do tyrannize I am sure that Scaliger speaks of som parts of France quae ab omni humanitaâ—…e et literis vasta est ubi librorum et bonorum hominum maxima solitudo est Som parts which are void of all humanity and literature where ther is a kind of solitude and wildernesse both of books and good men Touching the magnanimity and prwoesse of the French 't is tru they did achieve som brave things while the German bloud continued fresh in them and untainted Cicero saith that Caius Marius by his divine vertu and valour influentes in Italiam Gallorum Copias repressit that he repress'd those swarmes of French who rush'd into Italie but Caesar who was a better Historian then Cicero saith they were Cimbri and Teutones both which are High Dutch as also those which Brennus brought to sack Rome and afterwards took Delphos from the Greeks Touching the French courage we know the trite proverb that the French are at the first onset more then men and afterwards les then women Indeed Florus sayeth Habent eorum corpora quiddam simile cum suis nivibus quae mox vt caluêrs pugnâ statim in sudorem eunt et levi motu quasi sole laxantur The French bodies bear some analogy with their snowes for as soon as they are heated in fight they vapour into sweat and they are as it were thaw'd by the Sun at the least motion But your Highnesse seems to extol mightily the power of the French King indeed 't is an old saying that Gallum in suo sterquilinio plurimum posse The cock Gallus can do much upon his own dunghill But this power is not so superlatif if we descend into the truth of things for touching the demeanes of the Crown the King cannot alienat one acre therof without the consent of the three Estates as ther is a pregnant example herof in the Assembly of Blois where Bodin lost the favour of Henry the third about this debate For the French King is by the law but an Usufructuary of the Crown possession nor could any of them be sold for the redemption of King Iohn in England though it was then propos'd nor of King Francis in Spain though this was the greatest necessity that could be We well know how often the Parlement of Paris hath clash'd with the King and rejected his Edicts Nor is the single testimony of the King valid enough in France to take away any ones life ther was a notable example herof in Henry the seconds raign who when he had commanded an Italian servant to be clap'd in prison and had solemnly sworn that he had found him in a most foul offence yet the Kings affidavit could not prevail with the Judges but they releas'd the prisoner But now the integrity and stoutnesse of those brave ancient Legislators and Judges in times past is much diminish'd because Kings do use to lend their eares to Parasits Sycophants and Buffons rather then to Helvidius Priscus Monsieur Lavacre or such Sages Ther is a tale of Bajazet the first that he had an Ethiop born in India about him and having upon a march one day his tent pitch'd nere a high tree he call'd the Ethiop and sayed Dre Areb if thou lov'st me go up to the top of that tree the Indian scambled up presently so the Emperour sent presently for som to hew down the tree the poor Ethiop begging his life all the while and that his Counsellors wold intercede for him but nothing prevailing the Ethiop pull'd down his breeches and with his Excrements and Urine did so beray the hewers that they gave over work and in the interim the Ethiop gets down telling the Turks Counsellors Wold all such Privy Counsellors as you were so beray'd whose oouncel cannot do as much as my Excrements The French Kings use to have many such weak Councellors Touching the unlimited power the French Kings have to make pecuniary Levies and lay taxes I pray hear what Philip Comines sayeth one of Lewis the xi chiefest Councellors of State and whom he employ'd in the most intricat and arduous ocasions Nemo omnium est Principum qui jus habeat vel teruncium vnum exigendi a suis praeter constitutum annuum censum nisi populus assentiatur sunt quidem principes quibus hoc frequens est in Sermone vt dicant habere se privilegia vt quantum velint exigant a populo Galliarum vero Rex omnium minimè causam habet vt istud de se jactet nec enim vel ipsi vel cui vis alii licet Ther is no Prince that hath right to raise the least farthing of his subjects besides his settled revenues without the peeples consent 'T is tru ther are som Kings who have it frequently in their mouthes that they have such praerogatives to impose what they please but the King of France hath the least cause to vaunt thus of himself The Exorbitancies of the French Kings this way hath bin the ground of all the warrs that were wag'd pour le Bien public for the common good which have harass'd France so often Charles the
about him and worship him for so he may command the Spaniards not to be â—…oruell unto us Ther is not far from Conimbria in Spain a Well call'd 〈◊〉 which swallowes any thing that 's cast into it and yet she is never full as 't is found by experience it seems the Spaniards have an Analogie with that Well in reference to Gold which they have swallow'd in the Indies and yet are never satisfied And as the Spaniard is covetous so is he extreamly cruell for how many millions of men hath he made away in America Bartholome de Casa affirmes that in 45. yeers there were above ten millions of humane soules though Savage kill'd in the new world as they call it in so much that the Indian Husbands forbore to lye with their wives for fear they should prove with child and bring more slaves for the Spaniards These millions before mention'd were kill'd out right and if we add to them those who have died of working in the mines of doing the offices of Asses Oxen and Mules to what a number do you thinke will they accrew som of them carry burdens upon their back of 160. pound weight and that above 300. Miles How many of these poor wretches have perished by water as well as by land being forc'd to dive so many fadomes deep for the fishing of Perl and to stay there somtimes halfe an houre under water panting and drawing in the same breath all the while and being fed of purpose with corse bisket and dry things to be long-winded for that work And if what is reported be tru they hunt the poor Indians with doggs to find them sport wherupon ther goes a tale of a Spaniard who to exercise his dog and make himself some sport with an old Woman made shew as if he sent her with a letter to the Governor of the next town hard by the poor woman being gone a flight shot off he let slip his dog after her which being com neer she fell down on her knees saying Senior dog Senior dog do not kill me for I am going with letters from your Master to the Governour the dog it seems was mov'd with compassion and so only lift up his legg and piss'd upon her One may easily imagine how detestable the Spaniards became to these poor Pagans for these cruelties there is a tale of Hathu Cacico a stout Indian who being to dye was perswaded by a Franciscan Fryer to turn Christian then he shold go to Heaven Cacico ask'd whether ther were any Spaniards in Heaven yes said the Fryer 't is full of them Nay then said he I had rather go to Hell then have their company But how hath the Indian discovery prosper'd or what profit hath it brought to Europe It cannot be denyed but we brought among them all slavery and cruelty and I beleeve more vices and infirmities then we found we brought them the small Pox the gastliest disease that can befall a humane body and in exchange they gave us the Venerean Pox Touching the tresure that hath been transported thence it hath fomented all the Warrs of Europe ever since upon this a French Poet descants wittily Par Toy superbe Espagne lo'r de tes doublons Toute la pouvre France insensez nous troublons Et si de tes doublons qui causent tant de troubles Il ne nous reste rien a la fin que de doubles Plutarch speakes of Attinius Asiaticus who brought Gold first into Peloponnesus but it was found that it became an instrument of corruption therfore Attinius was accounted a publick enemy to his Countrey the Indian Gold in Europe hath not bin only the cause of corruption but of the effusion of an Ocean of bloud Nor hath it much prosper'd with the Spaniard for although such a Masse of tresure hath been transported from time to time yet Spain hath the least of it for the common coyn there is copper and no countrey fuller of it Moreover Spain may be said to furnish all the world yea the great Turk with tresure to fight against her self and the rest of Christendom This Indian tresure hath wrought another disadvantage to the Spanish King for it hath puff'd him up with a pride and an ambition that hath no horizon it makes him flatter himself that he shall be at last Monark of the Western world which drawes upon him not onely the Emulation but the hatred of all his Neighbours who are ready ever and anon to confederat and bandy against him for fear he shold swallow them up one after another to satiat his ambition It was a witty saying of King Iames when he was only King of Scotland when he receav'd a caveat from his Godmother Queen Elizabeth of England to take heed of the Spanish fleet He answer'd Se non aliud ab Hispano beneficium expectare quam quod Ulyssi Polyphemus promiserat scilicit ut aliis devoratis postremus degluriretur For his part he desir'd but one request of the Spaniard such a one that Polyphemus had promis'd Ulysses that when he had devour'd others he wold swallow him last of all Now as among those poor Pagan Indians the cruelty of the Spaniard was so much discover'd so was it here in Europe among Christians witnes els the Tyranny of the Duke of Alva who may be call'd the sponge of Belgian bloud for he bragg'd that he had dispatch'd to the other world above 18000. Belgians either by Fire Water the Rack or the Axe his principles being that a Rebell must be us'd like a madd dogg for whom ther is no cure but to be knock'd in the head and we know mortui non mordent Now touching the Gigantik power of the Catholique King if it be well weighed in the ballance of a knowing judgment is not so great as we conceive it to be the unsociable distance of his territories the infinit sommes he owes to the Genowayes and others the vigilance and Emulation with the apprehensions they have of his still growing greatnes the Universall dis-affection and a kind of antipathy that all Nations have to the peeple themselfs is a great weaknes to him one way as his riches and power another way For matter of Justice who is the Queen of Vertues I beleeve she raigns as little in Spain as among any peeple unlesse it be among themselfs nor universally among themselfs but only the Castilians may have her with more ease and lesse expences then their Conterraneans and the rest of their Fellow-subjects I will produce an example of an Arragonez who having a sute there long depending which put him to mighty expence and attendance at last he came to the King himself Philip the second who opening his businesse unto him gave him this absolute Answer Ther 's nothing that you have propos'd can be granted Sir answer'd the Aragones I thank you that you have refuted the lies of threescore Ministers of yours in so few words who with much expence
pray what can he want who hath Money unlesse he make such a foolish wish as Mydas did that whatsoever he touch'd might turn to gold for so he might starve medias inter opes inops Ther is a proverb in Spain that Don sin dinero no es Don si no Donayre A man without money is no man but a bable but a man with money commands the world according to those witty verses of Petronius Arbiter Quisquis habet nummos securâ naviget Aurâ Fortunamque suo temperet arbitrio Uxorem ducat Danaen ipsumque licebit Arisium jubeat credere quod Danaen Carmina componat declamet concremet omnes Et peragat causas sitque Catone prior Iurisconsultus paret non paret habeto Atque esto quicquid Servius Labeo Multa loquor quidvis nummis praesentibus opta Et Veniet Clausum possidet Arca Iovem I confesse it may be the Catholick King may be plung'd in a gulph of debt having allwayes his Sword drawn and being in perpetuall hostility with the common enemy of Christendom to his great glory as also in actuall Warr with some of the Princes of Europe who if they wold let him be quiet he might quickly subdue all Mauritania the opposit shore to Spain yet for all ther is never any the least appearance of want in the Catholique Court nor the least shew that Spain is in warr or want but all things flourish as if he did not ow peny or as if he were in peace with all the world It makes me think upon Glareanus a great learned man but much in debt who being asked by a friend of his how he liv'd He answer'd I lead the life of Kings and Princes for I drink I eet and indulge my genius I game and have money always in my purse yet I am in arrears to all so it may be said of the King of Spain But it is brave security the Spanish King gives to his Creditors no lesse then assignments upon his occidentall Fleet which weigh all circumstances well is one of the greatest glories that ever Monarch had Fortune her self may be call'd the King of Spaines wife who hath brought with her such a bottomles tresure for her dowry His closet is that punctum so often wish'd by Archimedes whence he moves the whole Globe of the Earth He hath more Kingdoms then the French King hath Provinces more Fleets then the French hath Shipps more Nations then the French hath Citties more Viceroys then he hath Marshals and more Captains by Land and Sea then he hath Common-Soldiers It is day It is Spring perpetually with him in one part or other of his dominions Strabo writes of one who had such a strong and piercing perspicuity of sight that he could discern an object 135. miles off for from Lilybaeum a promontory in Sicily he could discern and dinumerat the Shipps that went out of Carthage road But the Catholique King hath stronger Optiques for from his Councell Chamber he can see what is a doing in the Seralio at Constantinople in the Louvre in France at White-hall in England at Vienna in Austria in the Consistory at Rome his sight is so sharp that he can penetrat the very Cabinet-Chambers of Kings far and neer and pry into their intrinsecallst and secretst Councells All other Princes and States stand to him in the light and he in the dark to them But wheras you say that the Spaniard is irreconcilable unto the Reformed Religion let me tell you although the Theologues there do sometimes inveigh against Luther and Calvin alledging that the God of the Calvinists is the Author of sin Deum Calvinistarum esse Authorem peccati as may be infer'd out of Iohn Calvins own words yet you must not count the Spaniard an Antichrist for this Nor although he will rant it out sometimes that he will go arm'd to Paradis and rapp out other Rodomontado's 'T is tru the Spanish Soldiers are great Libertines but not Atheists nay som of them have good Consciences and capable of Repentance As ther is a true and memorable story of a Spanish Captain who wold have ravish'd a Lawyers daughter in Flanders 1578. who was of an alluring beauty but strugling with her she took his own dagger and mortally wounded him to preserve her pudicity The Spaniard thus wounded was taken away and he sending for a Surgeon 't was told him he could not escape death many howers therupon he call'd for his ghostly father to whom having confess'd and shewed great Evidences of repentance he was absolv'd from the attempt but this is not sufficient sayed he the party whom I wold have wrong'd must pardon me hereupon the yong Virgin came to whom he sayd in rathfull termes I am here upon my deaths bed therefore I desire you wold pardon my rash attempt and for your pardon and the expiation of the offence I bequeath unto you all my Estate provided that you will give me rites of buriall and assume hereafter the name of my wife The yong maid melting into teares did do all the Testator desir'd accordingly But my noble Cousin George Frederique I find 't was not enough for you to bespatter the Spaniard and tax him of pride prophanes and many other Vices but you bereave him of the glory for discovering the new World and of the right of that Discovery Seneca the Spanish Tragaedian was as much Prophet as Poet he was a tru Vates when he sung Venient annis Saecula seris quibus Oceanus Vincula Rerum laxet ingens Pateat Tellus Typhisque novos Detegat Orbes nec sit terris Ultima Thule Late yeers shall bring an Age wherin the Ocean shall slacken the ligaments of nature a mighty tract of Earth shall appeare and Neptune shall discover new Worlds so that Thule or Island will not be the furthest part of the Earth Now his Countreymen made Scneca a tru Prophet herein to whom that mighty blessing of discovery and dominion was reserv'd In so much that both the Prophet of this new tract of Earth and the propagators thereof were Spaniards So most humbly thanking this noble Auditory for this priviledg of reply I desire you most noble Cosen and illustrious Baron of Limburg to have a more charitable and just opinion of Spain DIXI THE ORATION OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD EUBESWALD c. FOR GREAT BRITAIN Most Honorable and Heroique Princes IF any one of this Illustrious convention would set forth the glory of some great City which flow'd with plenty of all things that were requisit either for necessity or pleasure exceeding therein the very wishes of the Inhabitants a City which had also impregnable fortifications and strength both by art and nature with armes of all kinds such propugnacles such advantages by land and water both to defend her self and destroy the enemy Who had a grave way of administration of Justice whose Inhabitants did florish with all sorts of manufactures with all kind of vertu invention and
account others will have that River called so because that thirty other Rivers do pay her tribute and disemboke into her There is in this County a Lake of an admirable nature that no beast will enter into though pursued never so close by dogges for they will rather dye than goe in and as Necham hath it this Lake is Prophetique for when her waters roare it is a presage of some ill Rugitu lacus est eventus praeco futuri Cujus aquis fera se credere nulla solet Instet odora canum virtus mors instet acerba Non tamen intrabit exagitata lacum Shropshire for amenity of soyl and neatnesse of well pav'd streets yeelds to none She is a Peninsula compassed about every where with the Severn except one little neck of land so that she beares the form of a horshooe Cheshire her neighbour is the Shire of men she affords also good store of salt there is no Shire that is fuller of Gentry Hereford is a delicate little County very frugiferous for passengers as they goe along the highwayes may pluck Apples Peares and Plums off the trees without offence she hath good store of Marble and her Lemsters ore or wool yeelds nothing in finess to the Spanish or that of Apulia and Tarentum and judge you of the salubrity and wholsomnesse of this County when in the Town of Hereford there was a Morris-dance of tenne men taken up on the Welsh side that made above a thousand years betwixt them the one supplying what the other wanted of a hundred and one Philip Squire the Tabourer and Bess Gwin the Maidmarian were above a hundred a peece Caermarthan old Maridunum the Court of the British Kings is a gentile County Giraldus speakes of a Well there that in imitation of the sea doth ebbe and flow every four and twenty houres Then you have Pembrockshire where there are many Families of the Flemish race that were sent to colonize there by King Henry for bridling of the Welsh This Country is call'd little England beyond Wales because the English tongue is so frequent among them This County is also celebrous for Milford Haven the most comodious and capacious Port in the world for a thousand sayles of Ships may ride at Anchor there in severall Creeks and one not in sight of the other and from hence she takes her denomination She hath also an ancient stately Temple at Saint Davids call'd Menevia the seat of an Archbishop in times past it stands in a solitary by-corner of the whole Isle a place fittest for contemplation and for sequestring the spirits for holy exercises of any upon the earth Next is Cardiganshire which hath the River Towy that affords rare Salmon which fish thirsting after fresh water doth use to put himself in a circle and by a naturall slight taking his tayle in his mouth will spring and leap up three cubits high over Wears into the fresh water whence he cannot goe back as Ausonius hath very elegantly Nec te puniceo rutilantem visâ—…cre salmo Transierim latae cujus vaga verbera caudae Gurgite de medio summas referuntur in undas Mâ—…n gomery shire hath good Horses Merioneth shire hath a famous Lake call'd Pimble meare which the River Deva runnes through and goes out of the same bignesse as she enters but that which is wonderfull is that there is a Fish call'd Guiniad which the Lake breeds and cannot abide the river and the river hath Salmons that cannot abide the Lake water which Leland describes very hansomly Illud habet certè lacus admirabile dictu Quantumvis magna pluvia non aestuat atqui Aere turbato si ventus murmura tollat Excrescit subitò rapidis violentior undis Et tumido superat contemptas flumine ripas The River Conow makes Arvon pretious where there are Musles bred wherin there are plenty of pearl found insomuch that I had it from a good hand that one of those pearles was sold for two hundred and fifty Crownes Denbigh and Flintshire are wholsome high crested Countreyes Now for the County of York it may be called a little Kingdome of it self for the spaciousness of it being halfe as bigge as all the fix United Provinces in the Netherlands There is a famous Quarrey there whence is digged a Free-stone which is soft at first but receives hardness and incrustation by the air There is also a rare Well called Dropping Well which transmutes wood into stone there is Mougrave Castle where there is good store of Rozin with Jet and Agat stones which is ranked among Jewels as Marbodaeus sings wittily Nascitur in Lycia lapis prope gemma Gagates Sed genus eximium faecunda Britannia mittit Lucidus niger est levis levissimus idem Vicinas paleas tâ—…ahit attritu calefactus Ardet aqua lotus restinguitur unctus olivo Among other properties of this Stone it burns in water and that burning is extinguished onely by oyl In this Province stands Scarborough Castle highly mounted the Sea underneath is almost as full of fish as of water and this the Hollanders know well when they fish there for Herring with the leave of the Castle not otherwise so that it may be said the English doe reserve the honour to themselves but pass over the profit to others There is Rippon Temple famous for Saint VVilfrids Needle which is a hole to try the chastity of woemen and onely the honest can passe through it There is Halifax who hath a peculiar mode of punishment which is an axe tied to a pulley which falls down upon the neck of the Malefactor and chops it off in a trice and heretofore they were us'd to punish first and examine the cause afterward In this County there is a jolley Port Town call'd Kingston upon Hull which hath the true resemblance of a Low-country Town for she lies so low and flat that she can inound and overwhelm the Country four miles land-ward The Metropolis of this County is Eboracum called York where a high Provinciall Magistrate was used to keep Court to determine all causes from Trent to Tweed This City hath been famous for the residence of Emperours for Severus had his Palace here Antoninus Augustus died here and breathing his last he sayd Turbatam Rempublicam ubique accepi pacatam Britannis relinquo I found the Commonwealth full of troubles I leave it peaceable A hundred yeares after Severus Flavius Valerius Constantinus having got Constantin the Great by his former Wife Helene a British Lady kept his Court here I will now to Richmondshire whose Mountaines swell with three severall Commodities with Brasse Lead and Cole The River Swale runnes hard by celebrous and sacred in regard the story speakes of ten thousand Pagans that were baptised and regenerated there in one day by Paulinus Here dwels the fruitful race of the Metcalfs whereof one of them being Sherif brought three hundred of his own name in Blew-coats to wait on the Itinerant Judges at the Grand
Sessions There confines to the Province of York the Bishoprick of Durham a County Palatine whereof the Bishop is perpetuall Sherif there is a sumptuous antient Cathedrall Church belongs to it and the soyl is so fat that the fertility thereof doth contend with the labour of the Tiller Then there is Lancashire that brings forth goodly Oxen with larger hornes than ordinary besides that Country produceth the handsomest and best favour'dst women of any in the whole Iland VVestmerland excells in the Town of Kendall for curious Artists in all sorts of Wooll Cumberland is singular for abundance of Fish and doth upbrayd the negligence of the Inhabitants who might make a farre greater emolument of them there runnes there the precious River of Irt which affords plenty of Pearle This County also hath Mines of Copper amongst which is found some Gold ore which Mines were first discovered by a Countryman of ours Gemanus Augustan insomuch that Caesar Cicero were in the wrong when one saith that he was forc'd to bring brasse to Britany for Coining of Money the other saith neque Argenti scrupulum ullum esse in Insula Britannica for in Cardigan in Wales there is both a Silver Mine and a Mint which emploies about three hundred men every day in the week and makes them rich returnes And for other Minerals there is not onely enough to satisfie the Natives but to furnish other parts of the World besides which is done by frequent transportation The most Northern County of England is Northumberland which is full of Warlike stout people for every Gentlemans house there is built Castlewise with Turrets and Motes I have hitherto most noble Princes spoken of the best part of Great Britain which is England I will now crosse Offa's Dike which is a continued Mount of Earth that extends from Sea to Sea which the Romans did cast up to make a partition twixt England and Scotland there is another Water-partition that Nature hath put betwixt them which is the Tweed but before I part with England I will give you that Character which Pope Innocent the 4th gave of her Anglia est verè hortus deliciarum puteus inexhaustus England saith he is a true Garden of delicacies and an inexhaustible Well But there is not any who can make a true estimate of England but he who hath seen her auget praesentia famam Touching this Elogium of mine I confesse it too barren to set forth her fertility I will now to Scotland which by King Iames was united to England he was the first who may be said to break down the partition-wall by way of descent Henricus Rosas Regna Iacobus Henry the eighth joyn'd the two Roses and King Iames joyn'd the two Kingdomes And here it is worth the observing how Keneth the Pict being utterly destroyed carried with him a fatal stone out of Ireland and placed it in a woodden chaire in Scone-Monastery with this inscription engraven upon it Ni fallat Fatum Scoti quocunque locatum Invenient lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem If Fate failes not The Scots where e're they find This stone there they shall raign and rule mankind This Northern Kingdome is fenc'd with the same salt ditch as England is It is much longer then it is in latitude in so much that there is never a house there that is much above twenty miles distant from the Sea There is plenty of Fish Foule and Flesh there In Sutherland there are Mountaines that afford fair white Marble and among the craggs of Craford there was a Gold Mine discover'd in the time of Iames the fourth But that which redounds most to the glory of Scotland is that they can shew a cataloge of Kings for above twenty ages which come to the number of 109. from Fergusius to Charles the first There hath a strong antient league been struck betwixt this Nation and the French who confederated alwaies with them against England upon all occasions In so much that the French King hath a gard of Scots ever about his person call'd la Garde de la manche then there is a gard of Swisse and the French is last I passe now from Scotland to Ireland which is no long voyage it is but twelve leagues distance over a working and angry Sea full of Rocks and little Ilands whereof there are hundreds about the two Iles call'd the Orcades and Hebrides Ireland is a Noble and very considerable Region if you explore either the fatnesse of the soyl the conveniency of Ports and Creekes the multitudes of fresh Rivers and huge loughs as also the Inhabitants who are a robustâ—… nimble and well timbred people In so much that Giraldus saith Naturam hoc Zephyri regnum benigniori oculo respexisse Nature did look upon this Western Kingdom with a more benign aspect then ordinary The temper of the air is such that neither the summer solstice forceth them to seek shades or Caves against the violence of the heat and in the Winter solstice they may make a shift to be without fire against the rigor of the cold There are cattle there in an incredible abundance In so much that in one of the four Provinces alone there were reckon'd there hundred and twenty thousand head of cattle at one time Bees do thrive and swarm there infinitely in hollow trees up and downe as well as in hives They were Christians with the first for Saint Patrik a Britain born did convert them where he did many miracles They so adore the memory of him that it is a common saying among them That if Christ had not been Christ when he was Christ Saint Patrik had been Christ. Hereupon many famous men flourished in Ireland both for sanctitie of the life and Doctrine which the Roman Ecclesiastic history speakes of as Caelius Sedulius the Priest Columba Colmannus Aidanus Gallus Kilianus Maydulphus Brendanus and divers of a holy and austere Monastique life who contemned the World with the vanity and riches thereof For it is recorded of Columbanus who being offered great matters by one of the Kings of France if he would not depart the Country as Eusebius writes also of Thaddeus he answer'd non decere videlicet ut alienas divitias amplecterentur qui Christi nomine suas dereliquissent It was not fitting that any should embrace other mens riches who for Christ's sake had abandoned their own Nay it is recorded in good story that the Saxons now English cross'd over those stormy Seas to the mart of learning which was then famous in Ireland so that you shall find it often mentioned in the English Annalls how such a one amandatus est in Hyberniam ad disciplinam he was sent to Ireland to be taught and in the life of Sulgenus who lived neere upon 700. years since these verses are found Exemplo patrum commotus amore legendi Ivit ad Hybernos sophiâ mirabile claros According to the example of his Ancestors he went to Ireland for love
of them 'T is incredible how many hundreds of Busses they of Holland put forth every yeer and what infinit benefit they make thereof Therefore Gount Gondamar the Spanish Ambassador had some reason to say that the King of Great Britain had a richer mine upon his coasts meaning fishing then his Master had either at Mexico or Peru if he knew how to make right use of them some of the Charibbi Ilands also which the English have as Antego Mevis and others which have not neer the number of men which should colonize them shew the scarcity of the peeple of Britain or which is worse their sloth Now touching the Inhabitants of Great Britain 't is well known as the sea tumbleth perpetually about the Countrey so their braines do fluctuat in their noddles which makes them so variable and unsteady And herein they are little inferior to their next transmarin neighbours the French only they use to come short of them in point of counsell and policy wherein the French hath been too hard for them in all Treaties But they exceed the French in superstitious kinds of vanities specially as many writers brand them with prophecies and old Milesian tales being very apt in arduous important businesses to suffer their belief to be transported that way and as Tages was to the Hetruscans Indigenae dixere Tagen qui primus Hetruscam Edocuit gentem casus aperire futuros So Merlin of Caermarthen the son of an Incubus left behind him some things which they believe as Oracles though they be meere Orestes dreames To this Merlin I may add that Arch-Heretick Pelagius whose true name was Morgan an old British name who in Europe Afrique and Asia belchd out such pernicious opinions as Prosper sayed Pestifero vomuit Coluber sermone Britannus Like a poysonous Viper he vomited much venome But in point of solid learning the English are much degenerated from what they were they are grown more flashy and superficiall and nothing so pious as they us'd to be where shall we find now among them a Winfred an Alcuin a Bede men that converted whole Nations Yet this must be imputed to their supinesse and sloth rather then to decay of Nature in their intellectualls Now in point of idlenes the women sympathize with their men who have not onely their faces but their hands mask'd with leather for fear their skin should be too much hardned with working And for their femalls they seem to be Hermaphrodits at first appearance for they use to weare hatts as men do with toting feathers in them There cannot be found now among them such a woman as Queen Anne was daughter to the Emperour Charles the fourth married to Richard the second who first reform'd that wanton unseemly fashion of riding astride on horseback Their men of late yeers are arrand pirats one of them call'd captain Ward did do Christendom one of the greatest mischiefs that ever was done by teaching the Art of piracy and a better way of building shipps to the picaroons of Algier and Tunis They go roving abroad to other seas when their own might find them work enough if they would make use of the comodities they affoord They are but dull for invention whereas 't is true they use to add something when they have seene a thing For matter of manufactures of cloth and Kersies with other woollen stuffs they were Flemmins that taught them first as also all goldsmiths work and argentry with judgment in Jewells Add hereunto that it is the proper humor of the English to be arrogant high minded and proud yea in forren Countreys where if they have a little language they will keep such a magnifying of their own Iland that it is fastidious to hear them Nor of any other Nation can they agree among themselves when they are abroad specially the Marchants who are envious and repine at one anothers profit and so ready to cut one anothers throat When the Prince of Wales was in Spain thinking to have the Infanta for his wife it was observ'd that the cariage of the English was very insolent there for some of them being dieted in the Kings House they would fall a vilifying the Spanish fare extolling ever and anon the good beef of England which was so much taken notice of that it did much hurt to the treaty of the match There is a saying and 't is a true one That England may be call'd the Hell of Horses the Purgatory of servánts and the Paradis of Women Touching the first the English take a great pride in galloping and post it on the high way as if they were going for a ghostly father a midwife or a physician for one mortally sick though indeed there be no cause of any hast at all and then the poor beast is thrust into some cold corner all in a water where he commonly contracts some distemper Then have you huge long Races whereof there are many hundreds in England wherein a poor sprightfull horse is rid off his legges and made to spend his very lungs having holes in his flank that will hide rowell and beame And in this kinde of pastime there is more cunning and rooking then in Cardes and Dice or any other sport Then for their Carrs and Carts they are so unmeasurably loaden that the track doth not only spoil the pavements of the streets and highwaies as they passe but oftentimes it seems to break the very heart-strings of the poor passive animall insomuch that of any Nation that holy Text is least observed by the English A good man is mercifull to his beast England is the Purgatory of Servants for they live no where in so much slavery the poor Footman must keep pace with his Master when he gallops in Hunting they are sent upon arrands forty fifty miles a day The Apprentices though Gentlemens sonnes of good extraction sometimes are put to fetch tankards of water carry coales to sweep the gutters and doe other as servile offices as slaves doe in other Countries and Servingmen must not offer to put on their hats though it rain or the weather be never so cold standing before their Master which makes me think on a facetious tale of a German Gentleman who having entertain'd an English servant and riding before him through a rough foard where the horses stayed to drink and the servant keeping his hat in his hand though the winde blew hard his Master smil'd upon him saying Put on thy hat fool for our horses drink no healths But you will say that England is the Paradise of Women then it is either for the extraordinary respect the husbands bear them by permitting them to be alwayes at the upper end of the Table whither their lightnesse carries them sometimes or for their extraordinary beauty To the first I have nothing to say but for the second 't is true they are moulded commonly of good flesh and blood and have sanguine clear complexions but they are withall flegmatick and dull
whereof the noble Baron hath spoken so much they were very valiant indeed when a silly Shepheardesse Anne d' Arc did beat them away from before Orleans pursued them to Paris and so drive them over the Seine to Normandy and when they could not be reveng'd of this Mayd in the Field being taken by a Stratageme they cut her off by a forged accusation that she was a Sorceresse forsooth Then was the time if the English had comported themselves like men of prowesse and policy to have reduc'd all France under a perpetuall subjection King Charles the seventh being driven to such streights that he was constrain'd to fly to Bourges and so for the time was in a jeering way call'd King of Berry But that notable mayd at her execution being tied to the stake was nothing daunted but left prosperity and victory for a legacy to her Countrey men till the English should be beaten quite out of France as they were afterwards for being driven and dogg'd as far as Calais they kept that a while but afterwards they were by a writ of ejectment publish'd by sound of drum and trumpet as also by the Canon Musket of the Duke of Guise thrust out of Calais and so casheer'd quite out of France which sunck so deep and made such black impressions of sorrow upon the heart of Queen Mary of England that she would often say if she were open'd after death the town of Calais would be found Engraven in her heart Now for the piety goodnes and vertu of the English which the noble Baron did so much magnifie you may judge what it was in those dayes by the ingenuous confession of an English Captain who when he had truss'd up his bagg and bagage to go for England as he was going out of the gate he in a geering way was ask'd O Englishmen when will you back again to France The Captain with a sad serious countenance answer'd When the sinns of France are greater then the sinns of England then will the English return to France Nor indeed had the French much cause to affect the English in regard of their insolence and cruelty wherof there be divers examples for in some good successes they had the victory was more bloody then the battaill cutting of prisoners off in cold blood for their greater security But the English must needs be cruell in a Forren Countrey when they use to be so in their own What a barbarous act was that of Edward the fourth to clapp up his own brother George Duke of Clarence in prison and afterwards to drown him in a butt of Muscadin by a new invention of death But to descend to neerer times what an act of immanity and ignoblenes was that in Queen Elizabeth when she promis'd safety welcom to Mary Queen of Scotts and Dowager of France if she came to England for preventing the machinations of her rebellious subjects against her and afterwards to suffer her to be hurried from one prison to another for twenty yeares and then to suffer her head to be chop'd off and by a cunning kind of dissimulation to lay the fault upon Davison her secretary and throw the bloud into his face under pretence that he sent the warrant for her execution without her knowledge Truly this was a most inglorious act and the reproach of it will never be worn out but will stick as a black spot to England while she is an Iland nor can all the water of the Sea about her wash off the stain but it wil continue still indelible But 't is the more strange that Queen Elizabeth should doe this a Queen that had been herself bred up a good while in the school of affliction and might be said to have come from the Scaffold to the Throne I say 't is strange that she should not be more sensible of anothers calamity Dido the Pagan Queen out of a sweet tendernes could say Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco and it had more becom'd Queen Elizabeth to have said so being a Christian Queen That Queen Elizabeth should do this to her own Cosen and sister Queen one as good as herself who after an invitation to England would never suffer her to have the comfort of her presence all the while That Queen Elizabeth who was cryed up and down the world to be so just so vertuous so full of clemency should do this it doth aggravat the fact much more then if another had done it I must confesse she lost much repute abroad for it Satyres pasquills and invectives being made in every corner of Christendom among others I will recite unto you one that was belch'd out in France which was thus Anglois vous dites qu'entre vous Un seul loup vivant on ne trouve Non mais vous avez une Louve Pire qu'un million de loups No Wolfs ye Englishmen do say Live in your Ile or beasts of prey No but a Wolfesse you have one Worse then a thousand Wolfs alone Among other Kings and Queens of England the example of this Queen and her Father may serve to verifie the saying of Porphyrius which you alledg'd most noble Baron Britannia fertilis Provincia Tyrannorum That Great Britanny is a province fruitfull for Tyrants Now Nimrod was call'd the Robustus Venator the strong Hunter which the Divines do interpret to be a mighty Tyrant And certainly the chasing and hunting of beasts the killing of them the washing of the Kings hands in their blood and feasting with them afterwards must needs make the minds of princes more ferocious and lesse inclinable to clemency wherefore they have a wholsom law in England that no Butcher who is habituated to blood may be capable to be a Juryman to give verdit upon any mans life The Nobles of England may in some kind be call'd Carnificers of some sorts of beasts as the buck and the doe with other such poor harmeles creatures whereof some have no gall in them for having wounded them first and then worried them down with their doggs at last as a signall of victory they bath their fingers in the blood of the poor animall which they call to take the essay but certainly this must conduce to obdurat human hearts and as it were flesh them in blood Now 't is well known there are no Kings on earth such great hunters as the English and who have more of variety of sport in that kind then any for there are more Forests Chaces and Parks besides variety of Royall palaces annexed to the Crown of England then to any other of Europe which might make the Countrey far more copious of corn fuller of cattle and have fewer beggars if they were made arable grounds or turn'd to pasturage Moreover the English Kings may not improperly be call'd Nimrods as Bodin hath it herein considering what rigorous punishments use to be inflicted upon the poor peeple by vertu of the Forest lawes In the book call'd Liber Rufus there
Country is full of boggs of squalid and unfrequented places of loughs and rude Fenns of huge craggs and stony fruitlesse hills the air is rhumatique and the Inhabitants odiously nasty sluggish and lowsie Nay some of them are Pagans to this day and worship the new moon for the kerns will pray unto her that she would be pleas'd to leave them in as good health as she found them For all the paines the English have taken to civilize them yet they have many savage customes among them to this day they plow their ground by tying their tacklings to â—…he horses taile which is much more painful to the poor beast then if they were before his breast and on his back They burn their corn in the husk in stead of threshing it which out of meer sloth they will not do for preserving the Straw But to set forth the Irish in their own colours I pray hear how Saint Barnard describeth them when he speakes of Saint Malachias a holy Irish Bishop of a place call'd then Conereth a man that had no more of his Country rudenesse in him then a fish hath saltnesse of the Sea Malachias inquit Barnardus tricesimo ferme aetatis suae anno consecratus Episcopus introducitur Conereth hoc enim nomen Civitatis Cum autem caepisset pro officio suo agere tunâ—… intellexit homo Dei non ad homines se sed ad bestias destinatum Nusquam adhuc tales expertus fuer at in quantacunque barbarie nusquam repererat sic protervos ad mores sic ferales ad ritus sic ad fidem impios ad leges barbaros cervicosos ad disciplinam spurcos ad vitam Christiani erant nomine Re Pagani Non decimas non primitias dare nec legitima inire conjugia non facere confessiones paenitentias nec qni peteret neâ—… qui daret penitus inveniri Ministri altaris pauci admodum erant sed enim quid opus pluribus ubi ipsa paucitas inter Laicos propemodum otiosa vacaret Non erat quod de suis frâ—…ctificarent officiis in populo nequam Nec enim in Ecolesâ—…iis aut praeâ—…icantis vox aut cantant is audiebatur Quid faceret Athleta Domini aut turpiter cedendum an t periculosè certandum sed qui se pastorem non mercenarium agnoscebat elegit stare potius quam fugere paratus animam suam dare pro ovibus si oportuerit Et quanquam omnes lupi Oves nullae stetit in medio luporum pastor intrepidus omnimodo argumentosus quomodo faceret oves de lupis Malachias saith Saint Barnard in the 33. year of his age was consecrated Bishop of Conereth but when he began to officiate and to exercise his holy function he found that he had to deal with beasts rather then with men for he never met with the like among any Barbarians He never found any so indocil for manners so savage in customes so impious in their faith so barbarous in their lawes so stiffnecked for discipline so sordid in their carriage They were Christians in name but Pagans in deed There were none found that would pay tiths or first fruits that would confine themselves to lawfull wedlock that would confesse or doe any acts of penitence For there were very few Ministers of the altar and those few did live licentiously among the Laiques Neither the voice of the Preacher or singing man was heard in the Church Now what should the Champion of God do He must recede with shame or strive with danger but knowing that he was a true Pastor and not a hireling he chose to stay rather then flye being ready to sacrifice his life for his sheep And though they were all Wolfs and no sheep yet the faithful shepheard stood fearlesse in the midst of them debating with himself how he might turn them from Wolfes to sheep It seems this holy Father S. Bernard was well acquainted with Ireland by this relation for ther 's no Countrey so wolvish they are in up and down heards in some places and devoure multitudes not only of cattle but men In deed of late yeers Ireland I must confesse was much improv'd both in point of civility as also in wealth and commerce Their mud cottages up and down specially in Dublin where the Court was turnd to fair brick or free-stone-houses Ireland was made to stand upon her own leggs and not onely to pay the standing English army which was there and us'd to be payd out of the Exchequer at Westminster but to maintain the Vice-Roy with all the Officers besides of her self and to affoord the King of England a considerable revenu every yeer and this was done by the management and activity of the last Lord Deputy after whose arrivall the Countrey did thrive wonderfully in traffic which is the great artery of every â—…land and in all bravery besides In so much that the Court of Dublin in point of splendidnes might compare with that of England But that refractory haf-witted peeple did not know when they were well But now I will leave the Irish to his Bony clabber and the Scot to his long Keall and short Keall being loth to make your eares do penance in listning to so harsh discourses Therefore to conclude most noble Princes I conceave it a high presumption in Great Britain to stand for the principality of Europe considering how many inconveniences attend her for first though she be most of all potent at sea yet she cannot set a ship under sayle in perfect equipage without the help of other Countreys she hath her cordage pitch and tarr she hath her masts and brasse Canons from abroad onely she hath indeed incomparable Oke and knee timber of her own she abounds 't is true with many commodities but they are rustic and coorse things in comparison of other Kingdoms who have silk for her wooll wine for her beer gold and silver for lead and tinne For arts and sciences for invention and all kind of civilities she hath it from the Continent Nay the language she speaks her very accents and words she borroweth els where being but a dialect of ours She hath a vast quantity of wast grounds she hath barren bad mountains uncouth uncomfortable heaths she hath many places subject to Agues and diseases witnes your Kentish and Essex Agues what a base jeer as their own Poet Skelton hath it have other Nations of the English by calling them Stert men with long tailes according to the verse Anglicus a tergo caudam gerit ergo caveto What huge proportions of good ground lieth untill'd in regard of the sloth of her Inhabitants she suffers her neighbours to eat her out of trade in her own commodities she buyeth her own fish of them They carry away her gammons of bacon and by their art having made it harder and blacker they sell it her againe for Westphalia at thrice the rate she hath affronted imprisond deposd and destroyd many of her Kings of late yeers
contented only that the Vassall kisse their hands or hem of their Garment Nor doth the Pope return reverence to any other potentate by rising up bowing his head or uncovering his head to any onely to the Emperor after he hath kiss'd his feet he is afterwards admitted to kisse his hand and then he riseth a little and giveth him a mutuall kisse of Charity with an Embracement There is a cloud of examples how diver Emperors and Kings came to Rome to do their filial duty to the Holy Father and to have their Coronations confirm'd by him Iustinian did so to Constantine Pipin to Stephen the second Charles the Great to Leo the 3. Lodovicus pins of France to Sergius the 2. the Emperor Henry the forth to Paschall the 2. Frederic the first to Adrian the 4. But that was a notable Signal reverence which Lewis of France and Henry the second of England did to Alexander the 3. Who came both together and jointly attended the Pope a good way to his lodging he being on horsback and they both a foot Now it is one of the high Tenets of the Catholiques That the Pope is the only Free independent Prince upon Earth not accountable to any for his actions but unto Christ himself whose Vicegerent he is He cannot onely command but make Kings at least confirm them The King of Spain did not hold himself perfectly established King of the West-Indies till the Holy Father pleas'd to allow of it and confirm him Now touching the Title of Emperor there is a notable letter upon record which Adrian the 4. writ to the three Ecclesiastic Electors of Germany Romanum Imperium a Graecis translatum est ad Alemannos ut Rex Teutonicorum non ante quam ab Apostolica manu coronaretur Imperator vocaretur ante consecrationem Rex post Imperator Unde igitur habet Imperium nisi a nobis ex electione principum suorum habet nomen Regis ex consecratione nostra habet nomen Imperatoris Augusti Caesaris Ergo per nos imperat c. Imperator quod habet totum a nobis habet Ecce in potestate nostra est ut demâ—…s illud cui volumus propterea constituti a deo super gentes Regna ut destruamus evellamus ut aedificemus plantemus The Roman Empire saith Adrian the 4. was transferr'd from Greece to Germany therefore the King of the Teutons cannot be call'd Emperor till he be apostolically Crown'd before his consecration he is but King and Emperor afterward Whence therefore hath he the Empire but from us by the Election of his Princes he hath the name of King but he hath the Title of Emperor of Augustus and Caesar by our consecration Therefore he is Imperial by us c. that which he hath of Emperor he hath wholly from us behold it is in our power to give the Title to whom we please therefore are we constituted by God himself over Nations and Kings that we may destroy and pluck up build and plant c. Nor doth the Papall power extend to give Titles to Emperors but to make Kings It is upon record how Pope Leo made Pipin King of Italy Sergius made Stephen King of Hungary Pope Iohn made Wenceslaus King of Poland Alphonso King of Portugal was made by Eugenius the 3d. Edgar was made King of Scotland by Urban the 2d. Iohn de Brenna was made King of Ierusalem by Innocent the third Pope Pius the 5. gave Cosmo de Medici the Title of Gran-Duke of Tâ—…scany notwithstanding the opposition of Maximilian the 2d. and Philip the 2d. of Spain I saw in the Archives of Rome the names of those Kings who are Vassalls to the Pope and they are rank'd in this order and Bodins Cataloge agrees with it Reges Neapolis Siciliae Arragoniae Sardiniae Hierolosymorum Angliae Hiberniae Hungariae all these are or should be at least feudetary and hommageable to the Bishop of Rome Nor can the Holy Father entitle Emperors and make Kings and Gran-Dukes but he can as he alledgeth depose them if they degenerate to Tyrants or Heretiques he can absolve their subjects from all ties of allegeance As among other examples Innocent the 3. did to Iohn King of England and Sixtus quintus did to Queen Elizabeth Innocent the 1. did not onely thrust Arcadius out of his Throne but out of the society of Christians Anastasius the Emperor was excommunicated by Anastasius the 2. Pope Constantine anathematiz'd the Emperor Philippicus Gregory the third delivered over to Satan Pope Leo Isaurus and took from him all Italy Gregory the 7. excommunicated the Emperor Henry the 3. and Boleslaus King of Poland The Emperor Lewis the 4. was barr'd to come to Church by Benedict the 12. Otho by Innocent the 3. Frederic the 2. by Innocent the 4. and Peter King of Castile was quite thrust out both of his Throne and the holy Church by Vrban the 5. who made Henry the bastard capable to succeed him by a bull of legitimation and indeed that Peter was a hatefull Tyrant having murtherd many of his own Subjects and his Queen or the house of Bourbon with his own hands There is another high prerogative which the Roman Bishop claimes which is to summon Generall Councells which Montanus who was president of the Councell of Trent from the Pope did avouch in open assembly upon a design of removing the Councell to Bolonia where he among other things did positively assert and pronounce Caesarem nempe non Dominum aâ—…t Magistrum esse sed Ecclesiae filium esse se verò Collegas qui adsint Romane sedis Legatos esse penes quos ordinandi transferendi concilii jus erat Caesar was not Lord nor Master but Sonne of the Holy Church But he and his Colleagues there present were Legats of the Roman See whose right it was to ordain and transferre General Councells Moreover the Bishop of Rome hath a great stroake in preserving the Universal peace of Christendom and keeping Earthly Potentates from clashing one with another In so much that the Pope may be compar'd to that Isthmos of land which runns twixt the Ionian and Aegaean Seas keeping their waters from jusling one with another Nor is the Bishop of Rome thus powerfull only by his spirituall Authority by vertue whereof besides Patriarkâ—… Archbishops and a world of Bishops he hath 70. Cardinalls who are accounted equal to Princes and who as they are all of his making so are they at his devotion which number of 70. was limited by a solomn diploma or Bull of Sixtus Quintus and the election to be alwaies in December so many daies before Christmas which is a general Jubile of rejoycing for the Nativity of our Saviour And as these Cardinals are Princes Companions so have they revenues accordingly from the Common aerarium or Treasury of the Church which is an unknown thing and inexhaustible For as long as men have soules within them and believe there is a Heaven or Hell the
that tall men are seldoâ—… wise 30 S. Bernards description of Ireland 6â—… A bitter satyre against the Queen of Scot land 64 Buchanan and Knocks censur'd 64 C THey of China an Eagle-eyd pâ—…eple next neighbours to the Rising Sun They disdain all other Nations Their proverb The true appellation of China 8. times bigger then France They are good Artists They have generally flat noses They restrain strangers to come into their Countrey They inhibit the Natives to travell abroad c. 2 in the proeme The character of man 2 in the pro. The Chino is enemies to humanity to the law of Nature 2 in the pro. Cybeles priests were Hermaphrodites 4 in the pro. Charlemain vers'd in many languages a good Poet he caus'd the Grammar to be put in the vulgar toung and German names to be impos'd upon the months in the yeer he divided the winds into twelve he was us'd to be present in the schooles and threatned a degradation to all Nobles that were illiterat 11 Charls the V. had Thucydides alwaies with him in the field 11 A comparison touching Italy 35 Another comparison 36 A comparison of the French Wines 39 A comparison of the French Kings 50 A comparison of Monsieur de la Nove 54 Two comparisons wittily us'd 7 A fit comparison 6 A comparison 'twixt the Germans and Italians 8 Caesar saluted onely the skirts of Germany 8 A comparison of Rivers 9 A comparison of Weeds 9 Ciceroâ—…s complaint of false writing 15 A comparison of Tacitus 17 Caesars saying of the Swablanders 23 A comparison touching Kingdoms 23 Of the Cosacks 23 A high comparison about the praises of Italie 21 A comparison 41 The Italian Wheat is the first the Boetian next the Sicilian the third and the African next that 21 Of Cosmo de Medici and his rare abilities his admirable pietie his golden speech his Epitaph 27 D. THe duty of a Traveller 3. in the pro. Duke of Saxony Orator for Germany 5 His curious Proeme 5 Disswasions from forren Travell 7 Danzick Delph in Low Germany and Rostock Paderborn Brunswick and Breslaw in High Germany the most famous for Beer 18 The Duke of Holyiein had at one time 1000. Maâ—…es and 160 Stallions 19 Of the Danube that watereth a hundred people 19 The Dutch were Grandfathers if not Fathers of the Britains as Caesar writes 23 Of divers that writ upon bald petty subjects as Archippusâ—…ell â—…ell upon the praise of an Asse Passeratius upon his shadow Lucian of a fly Erasmus of folly c. 6 The defects of Italy in not having Navigable Rivers with others 35 Divers places in Italy subject to ill aires 35 Of Duke Godfâ—…ey of Bullen 43 A Discouâ—…se against Elective Kingdomes and what confusions come by Interregnums 47 Dirt of Paris indelible 63 Montague his saying of his Countrymen 64 A Discourse of Forren Travell by the Duke of Saxony 5 Of Duels so much us'd by the French 64 The dangerous opinions of the Jesuits and the various wayes they have to oblige the Gentry 17 Of Sir Francis Drake and his exploits 42 E. The English taunted wittily fol. 6 Eudoxus his Extravagant wish to go near the Sun 6 English sweat 6 Eckius first found found the way of mingling Oyl with Colours 14 An Encomium of Printing 16 The Excellencies of the German Cities 17 England call'd Transmarina Saxonia 24 Entringh Castle a memorable passage that happen'd in it 24 The Encouragement the Pope gives Merchants to buy his Allum 22 Aeneas Sylvius his witty Distic to the Poets 37 Extravagant wishes of two Brothers in Padoa whereby they both perished 42 The Excesse of speech that Maximilian us'd touching France 37 A notable example of a drunken woman in France 62 Of the English Kings 39 The English made Trade to flourish first in Flanders 40 Of Queen Elizabeth 40 The English great Reverencers of their Kings 40 The Earth is the Native Country of all men she is but one Mansion 3. in the Pro. The marvellous Eccho of Charenton bridge in France that reverberates 13 times 4. in the Pro. Of the Escurial in Spain the eighth wonder of the world 3 Notable Examples of the Spanish constancy 6 Edgar row'd by four Kings 38 The Exploits of the English in France 38 The English formidable in France as by example 38 The English King pray'd for more often than any other 41 Queen Elizabeth caused the Great Turk to expell the Jesuits out of Pera 19 The English censur'd 67 Englands Inconveniencies 61 The English and Dutch compar'd in point of drinking 37 Examples of Drunkards 37 F. A Fantastick Traveller 3. fol. in the Pro. Set forth by Sir Thomas More in the person of Lalus a meer Ape or Mimick c. 3. in the Pro. He turns a Sprat to a Whale 4. in the Pro. France taunted 6 Forren Travel the best Academy 7 The famous Divines of Germany muster'd up the famous Politicians the famous Physitians and Philosophers 12 Germany the first Correctresse of the Kalender 12 The Fantastick humour of Petrus Bembus touching the Latin tongue 13 France the center of Europe she enjoyes a delicate temper able to unite or hinder the conjunction of the forces of Europe her comodious situation 38 The four Loadstones of France according to Boterus 38 Without France Spain might starve for Bread 39 Of the French Wines 39 Of the French Hemp 39 Of the French Salt compar'd with that of other Countries 39 Of divers other French comodities wherewith the Country abounds 39 The bad fruits of forren Travell 6 Friburg famous for Crystal work 13 Florence a City to be seen on Holydaies as Charls the Emperour sayd 16 Of the French Mines 40 A Fish in France that changes with the Moon 4 Of the French Rivers and how commodiously they lie for Navigation 40 France the eye and pearl of the world 41 France hath 102 Episcopal Cities whereof four are Metropolitan she hath 30000. Parishes 41 Of the French Towne and of Paris in particular 42 France the freest Country upon earth and the reasons 42 The Freedome of France exemplified by two notable instances 42 Of the French Martial Kings 43 Of the French Church and the vast Revenue thereof 43 A Frenchman the first Latin Lecturer in Rome when Cicero was a boy 43 Of the great Learned men of France and the Colledge of Sorbon 44 Of the French Academies 44 Of the French Tongue and of Ioseph Scaliger the Dictator of Literature 46 The best French spoken upon the banks of Loire 46 Of the French Kings and their excellencies 46 The French Crown not tied to a Distaffe and the reason alledged 46 French Kings never die example thereof 47 France prohibits the Imperial Law 48 French Kings beginne to raign inchoativâ—… at 14 48 Their high Prerogatives and of the Parliament of Paris 49 French King more glorious than the Emperor in gards c. 50 The French King cures the Struma and the manner of it 50 Of the late French Kings and
she hath been bafled at Amboyna she made a dishonorable return from Cales she was fowly beaten at the I le of Rè the small handfulls of men she sent hither to Germany in the behalfe of the Daughter of England did her more discredit then honor And her two lasts Kings were overreach'd in the Treaty touching the match with Spain and the restitution of the Palatinate She hath been a long time in a declining condition her common people are grown insolent her Nobility degenerous her Gentry effeminate and fantasticall they have brought down their wasts to the knees where the points hang dangling which were us'd to tie the middle they weare Episcopal sleeves upon their leggs and though they are farre from observing any rites of the Roman Church yet they seem to keep Asâ—…wensday all the year long by powdring not onely their locks and haire but the upper parts of their doubletts with the capes of their cloakes and the time was not many yeers since that they made themselves ridiculous to all the world by a sluttish yellow kind of starch which was a pure invention of their own and not an imitation of others whereunto they are very subject specially of the French in so much that they may be said to be scarce men of themselves but other mens Apes Therefore most excellent President and Princes I see no reason why Great Britain should compare with the other noble Continents of Europe yet I allow Her to be Great within herself if she had the wit to make use of her Greatnes and to be the Queen of Iles. Dixi. THE ORATION OF THE Lord MAXIMILIAN A Mosch For POLAND Most Excellent President and Prince TWo Perusian Ambassadors were imployed to Pope Urban the fifth residing then at Avignon who being admitted and desir'd to deliver their Ambassage as succinctly as they could in regard of the Popes indisposition yet they made a long tedious Oration which did disquiet his Holinesse as it was observ'd by the Auditors The first Ambassador having at last concluded the second subjoyn'd very wittily saying We have this moreover given to us in Charge that if you will not condescend to our demands this my Colleague must repeat his speech again and make some additions to it The Pope was so much taken with this that he presently dismissed both of them very well satisfied for the businesse they came about But I being to speak for the Noble Kingdom of Poland need no such trick of wit to procure your consent that it may have the Principality of the rest of the Provinces of Europe Nor confiding so much in your judgements need I any Rhetorical florishes or force of Eloquence to induce you thereunto for the argument hath strength enough of it self to do the businesse Poland needs no artifice she needs no Mountibank to set forth her riches which nature hath scattered in every corner with a liberal hand It is a high and very Noble peece of the Continent she abounds with Mines of Iron Lead and Sulphureous Mettals and with Lazurium a kinde of stone of a blew caerulean colour which God himself pleas'd to make use of for the Adorning of his own Palace Lituania may be said to be Ceres Barn and Russia her Haggard for there if a field be sowd it will be the year following without necessity of throwing any new seed In Podolia there be grounds that return 100. graines for one besides there be Pasturages there that the horns of the Oxen feeding therein can hardly be seen The salt pits of Cracovia may compare with any on Earth there are such concamerations in them that make a little Town supported by great Pillars of Salt and the entrance is so high that you need not stoop your head to go in There is no where better Hony and mix'd with lesser Wax or whiter then that which is found in Samogitia The trunks of trees are full of their hives There is such abundance of Pears Apples Plumms Cherries and Nuts and these in such variety that no Country can produce more in every one of the 32 County Palatines of Poland whence huge quantities of Wheat Barley and Oates with other Grains as also Hopps Hides Tallow Allum Hony Wax Pitch Taâ—… Pot-ashes Masts and Hemp are exported to other Countries The number of Oxen and Horses are infinite Now for the Wealth of the Subject and private men I will produce you one stupendous Example In the year 1363. about the season of Shrovetide the Emperor Charles the 4th his Nuptials were to be celebrated at Cracovia w th the Neece of Casimir the Great King of Poland the Kings of Hungary and Denmark Peter King of Cyprus and a great number of the Imperial Princes were present Vernicus Germanus being then Consul of Cracovia entertain'd all these Kings and Princes in his own Houses and feasted them for many daies dismissing them with presents whereof that which he bestowed upon Casimir was valued at 100 thousand Florins This Vernicus being infinitely rich exhausted his wealth in such publique Gallantries yet he looked to the main chance that he left himself a competence to live well and honestly a small pittance will suffice nature when immense possessions cannot satisfie opinion The Pole doth not glory much in high ostentous buildings measuring the vanities thereof by the frailty of his own body which is subject to decay in so short a time So he falls into contemplation that the proudest Fabriques will dissolve and crumble to dust at last What shall wee think of the Pyramides of Egipt towards the rearing thereof there were ninescore Talents erogated out of Garlike Leeks and Onions alone there were three hundred and sixty thousand opificers and labourers imployed for twenty years together in the work but what 's become now of those 4. Pyramids They are all turn'd to rubbish But observable it is that one of them was reard by Rhodope a Courtisan who was grown so infinitly rich by the publique use of her own The Temple of Ephesus was no lesse then 220. years a building to which all Asia did contribute the stupendous length whereof was 425 paces the Latitude 220. It had 120 columnes 60. foot in Altitude The Tomb of King Mausolus was an admirable thing and the love of Artemisia his Wife was more admirable in erecting such a Tomb and not onely so but taking some of the powder of her husbands body and drinking it in little doses next her heart saying that her body was the fittest Tomb for her dear Husband Now come in the Walls of Babylon 200 foot high and 60 miles compasse to finish which there came three Millions of people together I will now fix my eyes upon the Rhodian Colosse which did bear the image of the Sun in that glory It was 70 Cubits high the thumb of the Image could not be embrac'd with both the armes and so you may guesse at the vast proportion of the rest The statue of Iupiter Olympius compos'd of