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-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
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—…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
was at his highest pitch of power when it was beleevd that the Pope might dispense with the Writings of the Apostles and Sanctions of Generall Councells And this seasonable Champion made such a progresse that not only whole Townes Citties and Provinces fell from the Roman Church but Common-wealths and whole Kingdoms abandond Her and among other Pasquills this Epigram was compos'd Roma Orbem domuit Romam sibi Papa subegit Viribus Illa suis frauâ—…ibus iste tuis Quanto isto major Lutherus major Illa Illum Illamque uno qui domuit Calamo I nunâ—… Alcidem memorato Graecia mendax Lutheri ad Calamum ferrea clava nihil Rome orecame the World the Pope orecame Rome Shee by strength He by cunning but Luther is greater then either for with his Pen he subdued both Let lying Greece bragg no more of her Hercules the Quill did more atchievments then the Club The one knockd down the Nemaean Lyon and the other ill-favouredly knock'd Leo the tenth In this large field of matter if I should hunt for arguments to set forth the glory of Germany I shold find innumerable let the testimony of Bodin himself who was known to be no freind to Germany serve for one when he saith Nullum illustrius est exemplum There is not on earth so illustrious an example as that of the Germans who but diffring little from the wildnesse of Beasts who wandring as it were in Marshes and Moores and being averse to all kinde of civility and literature are becom now such great proficients in both that in humanity they bee said to surpasse the Asians in Philosophy the Graecians in military Discipline the Romans in geometry the Egyptians in Astronomy the Chaldaeans in Arithmetic the Phenicians in Religion the Hebrews and in variety of Manufactures all other Nations whatsoever Here what Paulus Iovius saith a man not very well affected otherwise to us litterae non latinae modo not onely the Latine but the Greek and Hebrew letters have by a fatal comigration pas'd over to Germany who now being not content with their old way of military Discipline whereby they took away from Rome her Martiall Glory invents new ones every day besides she may be said to have bereft languishing Greece and drowsie wanton Italy not onely of the Ornaments of Peace but also of Arts and literature which makes Machiavill rebuke his Country-men in regard they made use of Germans to survay their Land It is acknowledg'd by all people that Regiomontanus might be compared to Tâ—…ales Eudoxus Calippus or Ptolomâ—…y himselfe Nor could the Pope correct the yeer and bring it from the old Intercalation for reducing of the Paschall Ceremonies to set courses of the Moon without him being sent for to Rome of purpose for that end It is incredible since the Councell of Constance how Schooles and Academies have multiplied in Germany Witnesse Vienna Prague Frankford Heydelberg Erford Basil Triers Witeburg Gripswald Mentz Râ—…stoch Regiomontana Dillingham Lovain Helmstad Leyden Franiker Tubingen with divers other Universities nor is there any German Gentleman be he never of so mean extraction but he hath his Education in one of these otherwise it will be cast in his teeth as an opprobry The Emperour Lotharius a Saxon born when he found the Schooles in a squalid kind of condition cover'd over with Barbarism from the time of Charlemain a German born he causâ—…d the dust to be swept off and restor'd them to their former lustre with restauration of publique Lectures and Chaires for all Sciences which did so augment the nomber of knowing men that in one University alone there were 4435. that had the Magisteriall Laurell given them within the compasse of a few yeers Besides these Academies there be divers Monasteries that have Schooles to train up youth as amongst the rest I will instance in the Abbacy of Fuldo where 600. Gentlemens Sons in Sturmius his time were bred and 30. Doctors reading to them in one yeer What do I speak of Noble men there are soverain Princes which daily becom graduats in one Academy or other Iohn Duke of Megalopolis would not return to the Government of his Country till he had studied 20. yeers in Paris Harman Prince of Hassia took the degrees of Mastership in Prague and was congratulated by the Emperour himselfe and the chiefest Nobles of the Kingdome of Bohâ—…miah Richwinces Duke of Lorain did the like Albert Count of 〈◊〉 took the degree of Doctor of the civill Law with others â—…ut the examples of the Duke of Geldres is admirable Aâ—…nold and William were Brothers whereof the one was learned the other illiterat The one was in favour with the Pope and all other Princes the other was neglected for his ignorance which disgrace least it might be transmitted to his Posterity William his Brother sent his Sons to be educated in Paris whence they return'd not till they were both Masters of Art Albert the 6th Duke of Bavaria the Founder of Ingolstad University did dignifie Learning with so much honor that he himselfe took the degree of Batchillor of Arts and publiquely woare the formalities of the order up and down the Streets But what shall we say Charlemagne our Compatriot whereof Sigebert a French Author writes that Charlemagne was not onely excellently vers'd in his own maternall Toung but in other â—…orreigne Languages He put old barbarous Verses which spoak of the Acts of Kings in a more refined stile he also caus'd the Grammar to be rendred in the vulgar Toung He commanded Teutonique or German names to be impos'd upon the months of the yeer as also all the winds which he divided to twelv being afore but fower He us'd to be present at School-exercises encouragâ—…d the Commons to learning and threatned a degradation to Noble men that were illiterat What shall I say of Otho the second who being overcom in Greece and left alone escaped because he spoak Greek so well Frederique the second was excellently vers'd in sundry Languages and caus'd Aristotles works to be translated out of Greek and Arabique into the common Toung Charles the fourth fed the Imperiall Eagle in the Muses Garden and made a firm League twixt Mercury and Mars Charles the fifth had Thuâ—…idides alwaies with him as his Companion in the field He much favourâ—…d Doctor Seldius who after he had voluntarily resign'd the Empire to his Brother and the rest of his Domimon to his Son was his individuall Companion and attending him to Flushing where he was to embark for Spain and the Emperour discoursing with him very late at night he at last toll'd a little Bell to call up some of his Servants who were all asleep whereupon he lighted down the Doctor himselfe saying now Seldius forget not this that Caesar Charles the first who was used to be guarded with whole Armies hath not now a Servant to wayt on him and he who thou hast attended so many yeers doth now serve thee and light thee down How many most
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
meet and upon the River of Skeld before the Citty two thousand five hundred Vessells have rid at anchor at one time one tide bringing in sometimes four hundred sayles and two hundred Waggons going out and coming in Nor do we include in this nomber the Countrey Carmen which were reckond in one week to have been ten thousand So that by this vicissitude and perpetuall exercise of Comerce five hundred millions of Crownes were computed to have been received and payed by buying and selling at home and abroad upon the account of this sole Citty And when the Spaniards fell one time to pillage that City the booty they made was estimated at two millions of Crowns I do not put in this account the plate and Jewells they took nor the brave houses which were burnt The common Gregarian Souldiers were so much enrichd hereby that it was observd one of them lost in one day neer upon ten thousand Crowns in the exchange where publique tables were erected of purpose for gaming They made hilts for their Swords and Daggers som of massy Gold som of Silver yea Corslets and Helmets were made of the same mettall but because they would not have it discovered when they went out of Town they causd them to be varnishd over with some other colour but therein the Artificers and Gold Smiths were too hard for them for they mingled copper with the Gold and Tin with the Silver whereby they redeemed som of their Wealth again from Free-booters Yet Negotiation did not quite depart from this glorious City but she flourisht awhile afterward in the midst of the furies of Mars Insomuch that at one time ther were a great many valued at millions of Crownes a peece and some worth three millions some more But I will make a step hence to high Germany how many famous Mercantile Cities have you there besides the sixty and odd Hans Townes Ther is Frankfort upon the Main the Mistresse of all the Marts of Europe where one may meet with all sorts of Nations and any kind of imaginable Comodity And ther is such excellent order usd to secure their passage that it is a most rare thing to heare of a Robbery And as most Illustrious Duke your renowned Ancestor Everard the first Duke of Wirtemberg calld Barbatus because going young and beardlesse to the Holy-land against the common Enemy of Christ he after many exploits came back with a great Beard which he had got there and never cut it off afterward was usd to say that when he went amongst his Cittizens or Tenants abroad he might sleep securely in any one of their lapps and his men might carry home his Rents in the palmes of their hands So is it universally up and down Germany where ther are fewer Robbers then any where else For innated probity and down-right dealing the German is cryed up more then any as also for his fidelity and trust which hath causd divers great Emperours and Kings to put their lives in their Custody Augustus Caesar Tiberius and other Emperours till Galba's time had a Guard of Germans next their persons but Galba as Suetonius recordeth dissolved this most faithfull and valiant Guard whose fidelity had bin tryed so many yeers yet other Emperours took them afterwards nay Herodes King of Iudaea sent for a Guard of them And they continue to have this high honour to this very day for not onely the late Caesars but the Pope the Kings of Spain France and Sarmatia together with the Gran Duke of Toscany with divers other soveraign Princes committ the custody of their lives and persons to this stout and honest Nation insomuch that we may glory with the Frizland Legions not onely in Pompeys Theater as Tacitus hath it but all the World over Nullos mortalium armis aut fide ante Germanos esse There are no kind of Mortals superiour to the Dutch in Armes and trust nor shall you seee a tru German ever beat his Servant or clap in Prison any of his Tenants for non payment of Rent but either defalk something out of the wages of the one and amercing the other to some small Heriot And as the probity of our Nation is like a great flourishing Tree whose branches shoot every where so the German Chastity is very remarkable which as Egidius the Fraciscan sayed is like a cleer crystall Glasse which may be darkened by the breath onely And where doth this Chastity look more cleer and shine more bright then in Germany For one to have knowledg of a woman there before yeer twenty is held a great turpitude and a disgracefull thing Let Caesar be heard herein The German lust is care every one is contented with his own wife so that adultery is rare among them and it is not as much the punishment as the publique shame that deterrs them from it And Thuanus sayeth that no Nation observes the honests of conjugall honesty according to Gods holy Praecept more then they Insomuch that the Verses of the Lirique may be applyed to them Nullis polluitur casta domus stupris Mos lex maculosum edomuit nefas Laudantur simili prole puerperae Culpam poe na premit comes Which causes a strict Law against Bastards which are rendred incapable of all Promotions which was the reason that Mary Queen of Hungary Sister to Charles the 5th could never be entreated by the Emperour to pardon one of her prime Noble-men who had deflower'd one of her Maydes of honour though much importun'd thereto To this vertu of Chastity we may add the strength of conjugall love which is found in Germany and hereof there be many signall examples Among other let that in the reigne of the Emperour Conradus the third take place here who having in your Town of Writsberg in Writemberg streightly block'd up Guelpho of Bavaria and reduc'd the place to extreme Exigents at the cryes and importunity of the women of the Town he publish'd a Diploma or imperiall Placart wherein he indulg'd all women this priviledg that they might freely depart from the Town but not carry any luggage with them but what they could bear upon their own backs Hereupon the Dutchesse took Guelpho her Husband on her sholders and all the women else following her example came out of the Gates laden with men and youths The Emperour being much taken with this witty Stratageme forgave Guelpho the Duke with all his Adherents Lorenzo de Medicis Duke of Toscany reading this Story was transported with so much joy and plesure that being sick of an indisposition whereof all his Physitions could not cure him recovered his health hereby as Bodin relates Let us proceed now to another Vertu which is signal and shining in the German and that is Modesty Can there be a greater example then that of Charles the fifth who being yet in a vigorous state of body voluntarily resignd the German Empire to his Brother Ferdinand and all his spacious Dominions to his Son Philip though as
some malevolent spirits reported afterwards that the next after his resignments was the first day of his repentance But now I will speak something of the heroik Valour and Fortitude of our Nation whereby Europe hath stood unshaken so many ages And truely to dilate this my words must needs com short of the matter and herein it was the disadvantage of Germany to be destitute of Writers for our Progenitors were more for the Pike then the Pen bipennem non pennam tractabant And it was enough for other Nations to extoll their own feats not ours so that it may be sayed of the Children of this Noble Continent Vixere Fortes ante Agamemnona Multi sed omnes illachrymabiles Urgentur ignotique longa Nocte Carent quia Vate sacro The memory of Dido had rotted with her body in her Grave had not Maro preservd it so had Ulisses without Homer Mecaenas had it not bin for Horace Lucilius without Seneca and divers other Heros whose names were made indelible and immortal by the quil Therefore as Bodin sayeth one of the greatest motives that inducd the Scythians and Goths to burn Libraries was because the fame of other Nations as well as their own reproaches might perish Yet those fragments of stones which are found up and down in our Archives shew well what heroique Spirits this Clime hath bredd and what Martiall men in comparison of whose Preliations and Fights those of the Greeks were but Combats twixt Froggs and Mice I will not go so far as Tuisco Mannus Ingavo Istaevon Hermion Marsus Gambrivius Suevus and Vandalus But I will come neerer our times it is enough we are Germans ergo All men and manfull according to the etymon of the word Tacitus sayeth it was an infamous Crime among us to leave our Colours behind in the field or to com thence alive the Prince being killd For it was held a kind of Religion to protect and defend his Person as also to assign the glory of all exploits to him So terrible we were to our Neighbours the Gaules that the very name of a German was a Scarecrow unto them for Gallia lay alwaies open to us though they never took foot of ground in Germany How did Andirestus trounce them making them flye to Iulius Caesar and implore ayd so pittifully or at least his intercession to make peace twixt them and the Teutoniques Hereupon Iulius Caesar employing some Ambassadours to Ariovistus then in Suabland that he would appoint an indifferent place for a Parley He answerd that if Caesar had any businesse with him he might com to him accordingly at he wold do if he had any businesse with Caesar Hereupon a War was denouncd but certain Travellers and Merchants telling the Gaules what huge mighty men both for stature and spirit the Germans were and how habituated to Armes being abroad in the fields without houses such apprehensions of fear and terror did seize upon that Army of Gaules which Caesar had levied against Ariovistus that they durst advance no further but retire such was the high valour of the Suevians at that time which made Caesar himself break out into this confession Suevis ne Deos quidem immortales pares esse posse reliquum quidem in Terris esse neminem quem non superare possint Galli vero paulatim assuefacti superari multisque victi praelijs ne se quidem ipsi cum Germanis virtute comparabant The immortall Gods are not like the Swablanders there are none upon earth but they are able to overcom them but the Gaules being accustomed to be beaten and discomfited in many Encounters did not hold themselfs by their own confession equall to the Germans When Iccius and Ambrogius came Ambassadors to Caesar among other things they told him that the Belgians were the valiantst of all the Gaules who were descended of the Germans who had crossd the Rhine to settle themselfs there for more commodiousnesse by the expulsion of the Gaules which Countrey was calld for distinction sake Ciâ—…-Rhenana Germania which is now calld the Netherlands or Belgium the Inhabitants wherof have Dutch for their naturall language therfore they were usd to call Germany Magnam patriam their Great Countrey Now as Cities use by degrees to grow greater and have outwalls and Suburbs and as great Rivers do not tie themselfs to one direct even Channell but oftentimes inound and gain ground so Kingdoms have their fate It is not therfore the Rhin the Danube and Vistula that confines Germany though they run like great veines of bloud through her body but beyond them she hath Belgium the Swisserland the Grisons and Alpes Styria Carniola Carinthia Austria a great part of Sarmatia Denmark Swethland Norway Finmark with other most potent and patent Regions who glory in the name and language of Germans Moreover touching the Gaules the Germans may be termd their Fathers as well as their Conquerors for Ammianus Marcellinus sayeth In Galliam vacuam populos quosdam ab insulis extremis tractibus trans-Rhenanis crebritate bellorum alluvione fervidi maris sedibus expulsos Som peeple from the outward Islands and Territories beyond the Rhin by the fury of Warr and the encroachments of the tumbling Sea were driven to Gallia and whence can this be but from Germany Nor was a great part of Gallia alone but Great Britany also was Colonizd by Germans wittnesse the words of Caesar who sayeth Germanos si non patres tamen Britannorum Avos esse The Germans if they were not the Fathers yet they were Grandfathers to the Britains And as the hither parts of Gallia so the southerly parts also towards the Pyreneys and Spain were Colonizd by Germans I mean Languedoc and this is plain argumento ducto ab Etymologia the word Languedoc being derivd from Langue de Goth though som would foolishly draw it from Langue d' ovg or Languedoc But let us go neerer to work and with more certainty I pray whence hath France her last and present appellation but from the Franconians in Germany Hear what a famous Author writes Francos Francos nostros sequamur Gentem omnium quotquot magna illa vasta Germania tulit generosissimam acerrimos libertatis propugnatores Let us follow the French the French one of the most generous peeple that huge Germany ever bore and the greatest propugnators of their liberties And this revolution or transmigration happend upon the decay of the Roman Empire in the time of Valerianus and Gallienus the one being taken Captif by the Persian the other eclipsing the Empire with Luxury and sloth so Pharamond the German rushd into France then Gallia and his Successor establishd there a Monarchy which hath continued in three races of Kings above these twelve hundred yeers T is tru the whole Countrey was not all reducd at once by the Franks but by degrees and being once settled nothing could resist their valour but they still got more ground Whence that Proverb hath its rise from Valentinianus Augustus
for a Ghostly Father to confesse him he causd him to be presently strangled The Lorrainers Burgundians and Belgians I mean the united Provinces are also revolted who in regard they have by their Armes shaken off the Spaniard alledg they have also at the same time freed themselfs from any Homage to Caesar So have also the Helvetians or Swisses whom Aeneas Sylvius calls Flagellum principum ac nobilium Homines naturâ superbos qui ipsam sibi Iustitiam famulari volunt justumque id putant quod eorum phantasticis est conforme capitibus The Swisses are a scourge of Princes and Nobles men naturally proud and who wold make Justice her self to attend them in quality of a servile handmaid thinking that onely to be just which conformes with their caprichious heads Hereof ther was a late example for being summond upon a Processe of a high nature to the Imperiall Chamber at Spire they sent their rough-hewn Ambassadors who told the Councell Domini confaederati Helvetij vos vicinos suos salvere jubent mirantur vero quod tam crebris citationibus c. The Lords Confederats of Swisserland do greet you their Neighbours but they wonder that by your so often Citations you wold disquiet them therfore they pray and exhort you that you wold no longer molest them So also ther are very spacious Countreys Northward who have fallen quite away from our German Emperour among others som part of the Livonians Countrey who when they were summond to obedience by Charles the fifth otherwise he would reduce them by force they answerd in a geering manner That they knew his Horse wold be tyred before he could reach the skirts of Livonia as Thuanus hath it Good Lord whersoever I turn my eyes I behold Nations revolted from Caesar which makes the Imperiall Eagle so thinn of Feathers and almost stark naked From the raign of Rodolph the first which is not much beyond the memory of man I could instance in two hundred States and Princes who have unmembred and emancipated themselfs from our German Emperour who were usd to obey his summons and make apparance accordingly All the Hansiatique Townes are now grown petty Republiques whereas they did once owe Vassallage to the Empire The Emperour Charles the fifth though a glorious Prince yet he made in his time such a pittifull complaint to Pope Adrian that Germany was reducd to that penury and indigence that she was not onely not able to bear up against the incursions of the common Enemy but she was not able to suppresse Domestique insolencies and maintain Peace and Justice within her own dores This Goldustus hath upon Record nay Scioppius goes further that Germany was grown so beggerly that ther were some of her best born Children som of Regall extraction who had not three hundred Crownes a yeer for their whole subsistence insomuch that many of them went habited rather like Poets then Princes but this indeed is too much it is a meer Scioppian Chymera and indeed there was not since the creation of man a more lying and base licentious toungd fellow then Scioppius Now our very Foes can tell us our defects in Government and in what a deplorable condition Germany stands as will appeer by this example When Maximilian the second was chosen Emperour it chanced that Ibraim Solimans Ambassador was then at Frankefort who having bin a spectator of the Shew and observd what great Princes did attend the Emperour that day and being told that som of them could raise an Army of themselfs against the Turk the Ambassador smiling sayed That he doubted not of the strength of Germany but that the minds the counsells and actions of the Germans were like a Beast with many Heads and tayles who being in case of necessity to passe through a Hedge and every head seeking to finde a particular hole to passe through they were a hindrance one to another every head drawing after his own fancy and so hazarded the destruction both of all the heads and tayles but the Empire of Solyman his great Master was like a Beast with many tayles yet she had but one head which head getting through or over any passage withour confusion of fancy and dispute of any other all the tayles and the whole body followed him accordingly well sayed the Turk and very wisely and I am sorry that we find it so by wofull experience Ther is another mighty soloecism in the German Government which is the confusion and differences that useth to be in Diets which made Aeneas Sylvius to give us a tart reprehension when he saith Omnes Germanorum Dietas esse faecundas et quamlibet in ventre habere alteram Ac credibile est quia faemineum sit nomen libenter impraegnari Pietas est parturire All the German Diets or Assemblies are fruitfull so that every one hath another commonly in her belly And it is credible that Diets because they are of the Faeminine Gender are willing to become pregnant and bring forth The Emperour Charles the fifth could also say to the same purpose That the German Iuntas and Iudicatories and Diets were like Vipers for as these destroy their Dam so the latter decrees of Diets destroy the former Now what a lame imperfect power the Emperour himself hath in these Imperiall Chambers or Diets we well know Indeed as one said the name of Caesar remaines but the Majesty is gone The thing it self is vanishd and the shadow remaines O degenerous times O deplorable poor Germany In former times the greatest Kings of Europ and Asia and Afrique thought it no disparagement to submit to Caesar and now not only Kings but every meane Count doth scorn to stoop to him And indeed it doth not tend much to the reputation of our Ancestors that in lesse then three hundred yeers nine German Emperours should be destroyed besides those that were deposed and abdicated It grieves me to remember here the improbous saying of Gerardus Bishop of Mentz who having with divers others conspird against Albert the first and intending to elect another the said Gerardus having a hunting horn about him and being a potent popular man in so much that he was calld propola imperij the Huckster of the Empire he belchd out these words In hoc Cornu complures gesto Caesares I carry many Caesars in this Horn But the Albert by the speciall benedictions of Heaven was quit with them all at last that he made them carry Doggs so many miles which is accounted in Germany the most opprobrious and disgracefullest punishment that can be inflicted upon a Nobleman or Gentleman whereas a Plebean is bound according to the quality of the offence to carry a Chair from one County to another So we read that Frederique Barbarossa made Hermannus Count Palatin of the Rhin and ten Counts more to carry Doggs above a whole German mile for the praedations and insolencies they had committed while he was in Italy But whereas this kind of punishment is grown obsolet
Emperours And when Zenobia was Empresse ther were reckon'd 30. at one time In our Germany how many Interregnums have we had by this way of Election How many yeers did she appeer as a Monster without a head after the death of Frederic the second What a world of confusion and exorbitances of fraud and depraedations did she fall into What a base plot had Charles the fourth as also Vuenceslaus who would have prostituted the Empire for money They did so deplume the Eagle that she became contemptible to all other Creatures These were they whom Maximilian the first call'd the stepfathers or rather the two pests of the Empire The same Maximilian also in the Councel of Constance protested that he had rais'd 100. tonnes of gold out of his own patrimonial demeanes to support the sacred Roman Empire and all that while he had not receiv'd from the States of the Empire 40000. florins Now because my discourse hath transported me so far I cannot but extremely groan and deplore the state of the Empire and to what a pitiful low ebb 't is fallen unto For wheras in the time of Frederic the first and the strength of the Empire was then much attenuated the annual revenues came to 60000. tonnes of gold which amounts to about 6. millions sterling the exility of the rents of Caesar which he gets by the Empire are scarce able as Schneiderin a famous Civil Lawyer doth assert to maintain the domestic expences of the Imperial Court nor those neither unlesse Caesar did contribut much therunto out of his own patrimonial inheritances which made Cardinal Granvil to affirm aloud in the time of Charles the 5. ex Imperio ne tantillum Emolumenti habere Caesarem that Caesar had no Emolument at all from the Empire and we know no King in Christendom was reduc'd to that tenuity But France is not subject to those Comitial diseases or Diets of the Empire being secure by the succession and prerogatives of her Kings who have a transcendent and absolut authority not derived at all from their subjects wherby Caesar himself may be sayed to be inferior in point of power though not in precedence to Caesar himself though as Bartolus averrs Haeretici sunt pronunciandi quicunque Imperatorem Germanicum universi terrarum Orbis Dominum esse negant They are to be pronounc'd Heretiques who deny the Rom. German Emperour to be Lord Paramount of all the Univers And he grounds this right upon the answer of the Emperour Antoninus to Eudaemon of Nicodemia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ego quidem Mundi Dominus lex autem maris I am Lord of the World and the Law of the Sea He urgeth also another argument from the words of the holy Evangelist when he sayeth Ther issued forth a Decree from Augustus that the whole world shold be taxed But France acknowledgeth no such superiority for when L. Madrutius was employed by Ferdinand the Emperour to Francis the second for the restitution of Toul and Verdun with other feathers which he had pluck'd from the Eagle Franciscus Olivarius the Chancelor answer'd that they deserv'd capital punishment who wold advise the King to such a surrendry or held that the most Christian King and first son of the Church was any wayes inferior to Caesar Herupon we know that the doctrine of the Imperial Lawes are prohibited in Paris by this Edict and Caveat Ne quis publicè profiteretur Romanas leges in Academia Parisiensi neve quem Scholasticos ejus disciplinâ ad gradus auderet provehere That none shold make profession of the Roman Lawes in the University of Paris or dare to advance the Students therof to any degree of dignity Herupon Hospitalius Charles the ninth's Chancelor in presence of the King himself and the assembly of the three Estates procur'd it to be enacted that the Kings of France the very same moment that they entred into the 14th yeer of their age shold be pronounc'd capable to raign and to be out of his minority and so govern inchoativè Now for the Imperial Lawes their reason and equity may be haply made use of in other Dominions but not their authority and sanction No more could the Romans in times past be sayed to be any way under the Greeks because they borrowed and made use of som Lawes of theirs No more can the Turks be sayed to be any way subject to the Romans because they have the Iustinian Code translated into their vulgar language and that their Cadies make use of them to rectifie somtimes natural reason Furthermore the supereminent royalties of the Kings of France appeer manifestly in that they have the sole power to indict war or establish peace to make leagues and confederacies to enact Lawes to creat Magistrates of the gown and the sword to give pardon for lives to stamp money to give letters of denization to impose taxes and make pecuniary levies at pleasure Now the Kingdom of France is like a most fertile and florishing medow wheron infinit flocks of sheep do feed and bear golden fleeces which may be shorn when the shepherd pleaseth yet I will except here the province of Languedoc wher the King cannot exact any subsidiary contributions without the expresse consentment of the three Estates of that Countrey For administration of Civil Justice France comes short of no other Region whose charge it is to preserve the Kings prerogatives as well as the priviledg of the subject To which end ther be 8. Courts of Parlement whose names are known to any that have travel'd France Among these that of Paris is the most praedominant in regard the Parlament of Peers is alwayes there residing which high Court useth to verifie not confirm all the Kings Edicts to make them the more plausible and for form sake only Now as France is the beauty of Europe so that Parlement is the eye of France and the Parlement of Peers is the apple of that eye Nor do ther want examples how other Forren Kings and Princes have refer'd themselves to this Court of Parlement as a high consistory of reason and Justice as being Astrea's noblest tribunal The Emperour Frederick the second refer'd the controversies 'twixt him and Pope Innocent the fourth touching the Kingdom of Naples to the decision of this Court So the Count of Namur in a difference 'twixt Charles of Valois and him touching the County of Namur put himself upon the verdict of this Court and he therby carried his businesse Philip Prince of Tarentum overcame the Duke of Burgundy in this Court touching som expences made in recovering the Greek Empire The Dukes of Lorain have in divers things refer'd themselves to the judgment of this Court They of Cambray who are a free peeple have bin willing to be tryed by it The confederacy also 'twixt the Kingdom of Castile and Portugal were confirm'd by this Court Nor is ther any admitted to this Soverain Court but persons either priviledg'd by their birth or men of exquisit knowledg
word It being the principle of that King that he could not be a good man who return'd not the lye with his sword But most noble and highborn Cosens som may haply admire that I shold perstringe the French peeple thus sharply considering that they are extracted from Us and branches of the great German Tree 'T is tru they are so but as the Poets sing of Circe that she transform'd men to beasts so the clime of that Countrey hath quite metamorphos'd perverted and quite alienated their primitive natures dispositions Gallia hath prov'd a Circe to Germany herin Or as ther be som Fountains in Italy and elswhere which have that quality as to turn stone to iron so have the Germans which went to France degenerated from themselves by a strange kind of transmutation of nature You may please to hear what one of themselves confesseth in these words Les Francois passans le Rhin ne cesserent de tourmenter les Gaules jusques a ce que les Francois les ayans tous sinon chessé du moins appaisé les vns et forcer les autres a faire joâ—…g y establirent en fin leur domination lesquels reprenans comme par droit de legitime succession avec les Commoditez du pays le bien et le mal tant de l'insuffifance que de la pen discrete legereté de ces peuples anciens n'ont esté moins signatez pour vn semblable naturel guerrier que pour les grands troubles et trop animeuses divisions les quelles ont assez souuent approché l'estat de sa ruine This a pure Frenchman acknowledgeth The French passing the Rhin did not cease to torment the Gaules untill the French having if not chac'd away yet at least induc'd som and forc'd others to the German yoke they establish'd ther at last their domination To travel a little further in France they say Se Clementissimo aere frui neâ—… ulla caeli gravitate flagellari they say that they enjoy a most mild air nor are beaten by any inclemency of heaven Sure this cannot be tru for Claudian saith that Gallia is nive ferox that France hath fierce snowes Petronius hath a proverb gallica nive frigidior colder then French snow Diodorus saith that the French frost is so strong and contumacious that Rivers have bin pervious for whole Armies to passe over dry foot both for Cavalry and Infantry Nay of late yeers in the siege hefore Amiens it was so bitterly cold that the wines did freeze in the cask and was sold in cakes and by weight unto the Soldiers And for the wholsomnesse of that clime sure it cannot be so far it is found by experience that the French both men and women are more subject to vermin to the itch and scabs then any other peeple But the greatest thing they glory of is that France is so fertile and exuberant a soyle that it may be call'd a Copia Cornu of all things I confesse indeed ther are in France of horns and that ther is not any part that is altogether barren but in point of fertility This cannot be so generally tru for in Burgundy not far off ther is a Town call'd Orgelet wherof ther is a proverb that ther are there fields without grasse rivers without fish and hills without groves betwixt Bourdeaux and Bayon you traverse such a tract of sandy ground that one wold think he passeth through the deserts of Arabia when he goeth over les landes de Gascoigne for so they are call'd vulgarly ther are divers large tracts of gronnd which are as bad In so much that Bodin ingenuously confesseth Exploratum est deserta et inculta loca si aquas et vias iis adjungamus duos Galliae trientes auferre It is is found and explor'd that the desert and untill'd places if we add to them waters and wayes make up two thirds of France Then he confesseth that ther is such a scarcity of great timber trees that not only for building of Ships but for erecting of ordinary houses they must be beholden to other Nations Is this that incomparable fertility of France you speak of Cosen is this that land of promise what a bragging do the Bourdelois keep of their grove of Cypres for the honor of which it was a custome that no ship shold go out of the Port with wine till the Magistrat had given him a branch of Cypres tree for which he was to pay such a gabel yet this Grove wherof they vaunt is scarce seven acres in all But Salt is the great staple Commodity of France yet I pray be pleas'd to hear what Lemnius speaks thereof Majores nostri salem confecerunt uberrimo sanè questu non ex aqua marina solis ardore in salem concreta atque indurata qualem ex Hispaniis Galliis ad nos perfertur sed ex maritimis glebis exusti atque in cinerem redactis quem infusâ aqua minutatim in salem reducebant splendidum ac nitentem nec alio salis genere tota Belgica ad nostram usque memoriam usa est Qui conficiendi salis modus cum inducto externo inolesceret excogitatus est alius non minus quaestuosus scilicet advecto ex Hispaniis atque Aquitanico sinâ—… rudi ac nigricante sordidoque sale exempto limo excoctisque sordibus candidissimum id nostrates efficiunt rebus conservandis apâ—…issimum Sed alter ille modus facilè in usum revocari potest si externus sal hostili odio denegetur aut ex quavis alia causa copiam nobis deesse contingat Our Ancestors made Salt with much profit not of Sea water crusted by the heat of the Sun and so obdurated such as is brought us from Spain and France but out of maritime glebes burnt and reduc'd to Cindres which powring therinto a small portion of water by drops they brought to be splendid and pure Salt nor did all Belgium use any other Salt until our memory Which mode of making when it grew out of use a new extern way being introduc'd ther was another no lesse gainful way invented Which was that a rude and blackish sordid kind of salt being brought over from Spain or Aquitane Coasts the dreggs and filth being excocted we brought it by our art and industry to be candid and beautiful and most fit to conserve things but the t'other way may be revived again very easily if forren salt shold be denied us in case of enmity or otherwise Now although 't is confess'd that France abounds with Salt and in that point may be sayed to be a sweet Countrey yet the Inhabitants pay dear for it for the King makes neer upon 20. millions of Franks ev'ry yeer of the gabel of salt as it was spoken before which are two millions sterling In so much that although France have such plenty of Salt yet it is cheaper in any other Countrey For it is found that the Marchant hath it at lower rates on the Sea
then that of Granada and Valentia What Flax so good as that of Murcia What wool primer then that of Segovia witnes the testimony of Martial Vellera nativo pallent ibi flava metallo Et linit Hesperium bractea viva pecus The Pasture and soyl in som places is so exuberant that the milk cannot turn to whey nor can Cheese be made unless you intermingle water with the milk 't is so creamy and thick and this is observ'd about Cales and other parts Now for Horses that generous animall Spain is well known to excell all other Countries read Boterus or Quinqueranus and they will tell you that the Cordovan Ginetts in fierceness surpasse those of Turky in swiftness those of Barbary in bewty those of Italy som of those Ginets are sold for above 1000. Duckets a peece they are so daintily limm'd as if they were made of wax The Ginets of Asturia called Asturcones are also brave mettall'd animals They go so wantonly as if they danced all the way their feet moving in a kind of regular glomeration as Martiall hath it Hic brevis ad numerum rapidos qui colligit ungues Venit ab Auriferis gentibus Astur equus For Marble and other curious Stones for Architecture Spain is known to have Variety and what may seem miraculous Not far from Barcelona ther is a Mountain call'd Mondivi and by the antients Mons Iovis wherein there is an inexhausted quarrey of usefull stones for structure for although great quantities are hewn out of the body of the hill every day yet let the place rest but a while and nature will quickly heale the Ulcers and fill the place again as if it had never biâ—… touch'd The Monastery of Saint Laurence nere the Escurial can witnes what dainty Marble and Free stone Spain abounds withall a stupendous fabrique an egregious and Imperiall peece which stood Philip the 2. in more then 20. millions of Gold Let Aegypt bragg as long as she will of her Pyramids Greece of her Fanes and Temples Rome of her Amphitheaters and Palaces Babilon of her Walls France of her Louvre Venice of her Arsenal Milan of her Cittadel Turkey of her Baths This Monastery and Royall Pallace doth exceed them all far for matter and form It harbors and maintains 100. Fryers wherof every one is allowed his Man and his Mule with great nombers of Officers besides ther is a stately Edifice annexed homogeneous to the rest which is part of Saint Laurence's Grideiron that may lodg four Kings and every one have a capacious quarter 'T is incredible to think how many hundred weight the very keyes of the Monastery weigh For delicate Orchyards curious Aqueducts and Fountains for Grotts and Groves for Galleries and Ambulatories for neatnes and amaenity of all things you wold be so transported that you wold think your self to be in som earthly Paradis And if Hee who will take an exact survay of this stately structure must goe above 33. miles passing from roome to roome from quadrangle to quadrangle with other places annexed judg you therby of the magnitude and vastnes of the whole He may be said to carrie a Pompion in his breast in lieu of a Heart that wold not be inflamed with a desire to see this eighth wonder of the world Now for Cities I pray who will dare to make any comparison with Sevill in point of Wealth where divers Fleets com yeerly from the Indies laden with ingots of Gold and balasted with barrs of Silver as also with Gemms and other rich Commodities in so much that Sevill alone payes the King in duties and imports above a Million every yeer therfor that proverb is not ill grounded which saith Quien no ha visto Sevilla non ha visto Mar avilla Qui no ha visto Lisbâ—…a no ha visto cosa boa I will now passe from Sevill to Ulissipolis the Citty of Ulissis or Leisbon the very name tells her antiquity for largenes and commerce she vayles to no Citty under the Sun she was the first happy discoveresse of the East Indies whence she hath a world of Spices and Jewels that her Caraks bring yeerly and which she dispenseth up and down the world What a delicat Citty is Granada what a glorious peece is her Allhambra which may be called a Citty of it selfe rather then a royall Castle or Pallace for it is of such an amplitud that it will hold 40. thousand Men What Town is more renowned then Toledo where 17. Generall Councells have bin kept and no Citty can say so much what a Heavenly Temple is there What a stately antient Palace where the Gothic Kings resided What a rich Archbishoprick hath she worth 300. thousand Crownes in annuall rent What a Noble Aqueduct will you find there of the workmanship of Ianelli Turiano of Cremona who was so famous for invention of hidraulique fabriques In this antient Citty ther be above 10000. Soules that earn their living by spinning twisting and weaving of Wool and Silk What place can compare with Vallodolid for a large Market place 700. paces compasse The Royal City of Leon hath the Sepulchers of â—…7 Kings Where can you find a more industrious people then in Segovia where a beggar is held a Monster For salubrity of air what town is like Madrid the greatest Village in the World and the most Populous made so by the residence meerly of his Catholique Majestie and his Councells in so much that at one time there was a cense made there of neer upon a Million of soules Charles the Emperour removed hither of purpose to be cur'd of a quartan Ague and he recovered which made it first so famous What a beuteous brave built Citty is Valentia where there is a kind of spring all the yeer long The only place to make a stranger forget his own Countrey The brute Animalls there make themselfs beds of Rosemary and other Aromatique flowers This Citty affoorded lately two Popes of the Family of Borgia Calixtus the 3. and Alexander the 6. When Queen Margaret Philip the 3. wife passed through that City the pomp of her entertainment amounted to 300. thousand Crowns What a commodious place for negotiation is Bilbo or Flaviobriga whence above 50. Shipps are laden with Wools every yeer and transported to other Regions What a stately thing is Barcelona situated so commodiously upon the Mediterranean and to be an Arsenall for the Kings gallies What a Rendevous for Devotion is Compostella where ther is such a frequency of Pilgrims to visit the body of Saint Iames the Apostle Pompey the Great in his Trophyes which he erected on the Pyrenean Hills makes mention of 946. Towns thence to the furthest part of Spain Ther is nere Antiquera a choice kind of Morter call'd Tarra which is far more solid and lasting then the playster of Paris and makes a more firm incrustation upon walls Nere Corunna ther be quarrys whence Jaspers are hewn out But I will passe now to Minneralls Pliny in his natural History
Earth to Mount Adrian Nor doth this huge Mote give security alone to the Inhabitants but it brings them many other inestimable benefits it animates by vertue of the salt-waters the heat of the contiguous Earth it nourisheth the air with pregnant vapours to make wholsom showres for the irrigation and refreshment of the Earth it takes in and lets out many brave Rivers for navigation which are replenished with all store of Fish Among other kind the benefit that is made of Herrings is beyond belief which swimme in huge shoales like Mountains about the Iland Towards the Summer Solstice they seek the Coasts of Scotland then towards Autumne they retire to the English and it is incredible what huge quantities are taken twixt Scarborough and the Thames mouth from the month of August to September then they move more Southward to the British Sea and find matter for fishing till Christmas then having as it were fetch'd a compasse about Britain they seek the Western Sea and the Irish Coast where they keep till Iune and then set forward for Britain again when they are grown fat and numerous by multiplication Thus Britany like a Microcosm of her selfe is seated in the midst of a turbulent and working Sea yet she within is still quiet serene and safe And now I will take a survay of this Noble Iland as one would doe of some stately Castle and to do that exactly one must not onely view the Trenches and outworks which are about but pry into the recesses and roomes within and observe what fashion of men they are that keep it therefore I will make a progresse into the Center and bowells of Britain Touching the people who inhabit Her they are the wellfavourdest and best complexion'd people of any upon the surface of the Earth they have excellent Intellectuals sucking Capacities and spacious Understandings they add unto and perfect any invention that is brought them And truly wee Germans should be very ingrateful unlesse we should acknowledge to have receiv'd great benefit by them for in point of Religion and literature they have been Doctors and Parents unto us They brought Christ and the Standard of the Crosse first amongst us they dispell'd the black clouds of Faganism and ignorance from amongst us and let in the sweet raies of piety and knowledge to enlighten us This unlesse wee brand our selfs with the ugly mark of ingratitude we must ingeniously confesse Now it is observ'd that the Britans were alwaies by a special instinct very much addicted to Religion And as in the Discipline of the Druyds whose founders they are held to be they antecell'd all others for Caesar records that the Gaules went over to be instructed by the British Druyds so when the name of Christ was known among them with flagrant desires and fervent affections they embrac'd that beliefe with a wonderful ready devotion and as the glorious Sun when he culminates and appears in the East doth as it were in a moment illustrate the whole Hemisphear so the beames of Christianity displayed themselves with marvellous celerity all the Hand over But this had very good helps to advance this work for in the infancy of the Church as Baronius doth assert Ioseph of Arimathea a Noble Decurion arrived there and Claudia Rufina Wife to Aulus Pudens the Roman of whom the Poet Martial nay Saint Paul himself makes honorable mention Simon Zelotes having made a hot progresse through Barbary died in Britain Nay some say that Saint Paul being freed from Nero's shackles encreas'd the propagation of grace there Hereupon the Britains having had the advantage of such great lights applyed themselves to erect Oratories and Churches for the publique exercise of devotion wherein they grew so zealous that Lucius a British King left his Crown with all earthly pomp and made a spontaneous pilgrimage to Rome in the time of Eleutherius the year 150. after the Incarnation and spent the rest of his life in holy Meditations and practices of piety Now what a glory it is for Britain to have had the first Christian King that ever was Nay the first Christian Emperor Constantine the Great And to speak truth no Region produc'd more constant professors of Christianity then Britain did and more fincere Propagators thereof which will appear if we look into the Catologe of Saints Martyrs and Confessors In so much that in lieu of that malitious character which Porphyrie gives of her who hated her for being such a zealous Christian by calling her feracem tyrannorum provinciam a Country fruitful for Tyrants she may more deservedly be call'd Regio sanctorum faecundissima a Region most abounding with Saints Nor were the Britans such Zelots only at home but they cross'd the Seas to disperse the beams of Christian Knowledge abroad and their paines prov'd very successful herein Germany was beholden to Winfridus and Willebrod that she was converted France was beholden to Alcuin for establishing the Academy of Paris though Paschasius a cavilling Author denies it Touching us Germans among other testimonies of gratitude to Britain let this of an excellent Almain Poet serve for one Haec tamen Arctois laus est eterna Britannis Quod post Pannonicis vastatum incursibus Orbem Illa bonas Artes Graiae munera linguae Stellarumque vias magni sidera caeli Observans iterum turbatis intulit oris Quin se Relligio multùm debere Britannis Servata latè circum dispersa fatetur Quis nomen Winfride tuum quis munera nesâ—…cit Te Duce Germanis pietas se vera Fidesque Infinuans caepit ritus abolere prophanos Quid non Alcuino facunda Lutetia debet Instaurare bonas ibi qui faeliciter Artes Barbariemque procul solus dispellere caepit To these British Champions of Christianity we may add Bede who hath the Epithet by the consent of the universall Christian Church of Venerable given him I will bring upon the stage next Io. Dunscotus who was so supereminent in Divinity and the spiny art of Logique that he was call'd by the whole commonwealth of learning Subtilis Doctor and he was a man of such large esteem that he founded a sect who are call'd Scotistae to this day he also was call'd lima veritatis the file of truth He was so great a man that as many Cities contended for the Nativity of Homer so did many Kingdoms strive for him Ireland Scotland England and France yet what a strange destiny befell this famous Doctor for being surpriz'd by an apoplexy and given for dead he was buried alive for it was found that he breath'd his last in the Grave After him I may instance in Iohn Wicklif a great Artist and Theolog next to him I rank William Ockam patrem Nominalium who establishd a sect calld the Nominalls but both these were strong enemies to Rome as appeers yet by their penns There was another great Doctor calld Doctor Resolutus by the Italians for his acute way of disputation and he was Io Baconthorp
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
sway'd the Scepter as politiquely prudently and stoutly as any of those Kings which wore swords before her or after her she raigned four and forty years in a marvellous course of prosperity and all the world yea her enemies did confesse that there was never such a Virgin and a Virago upon earth Her subjects lov'd her as their most indulgent Mother her foes fear'd her as a just Revengresse her Neighbour Princes and States did attribute their safety to her and all Europe yea the great Turk and the Emperour of Russia to whom she first open'd the way of commerce did behold her though a far off with the eyes of admiration They esteem'd her as a great Heroina and the Arbitresse of Christendome for she might as well as her Father have taken that Motto cui adhaereo praeest He whom I sti◅k to prevailes Nay she did more truly verifie that saying of her Father's Galliam Hispaniam esse quasi lances in Europae libra Angliam esse lingulā sive libripendem That France and Spain were like the Beams of the great balance of Christendom and England was the handle of that balance Touching the observance and fidelity which the English us'd to bear towards their Soveraign Prince it hath been us'd to be rare and exemplary They reverence him in his absence as wel as when he is present for whersoever the Chaire of State stands all goe uncover'd they honour his very shadow they serve him upon the knee The Preacher makes three profound reverences in the Pulpit before he beginnes his Sermon They pray for him five times in the publique Liturgy and for his Queen the Heir apparent by name with the rest of his children which I beleeve is not done so often to any Christian Prince Their fidelity and affectionate Allegiance is also very remarkable and may serve for a pattern to all subjects when the Spaniard by internunciall negotiation and secret practises did treat with the Duke of Norfolk and the Earle of Ormond that the one in England the other in Ireland should rise against Queen Elizabeth the people were so eager in the cause especially on the Sea side that it is wonderfull how they flocked to all the Ports voluntarily of themselves to prevent an Invasion insomuch that there came a command to restrain such confluences of people and that every one should retire home to his dwelling and business till there were occasion When Prince Charles return'd from Spain in safety what exultations of joy was in every corner of the Kingdome specially in the great City of London what huge Bonefires some of big massy timber were up and down streets which made them as lightsome in the night as if it had been noon insomuch as one said the flames of the fires might be seen as far as Spain what barrels of Beer Ale and Wine were brought out to drink carouses to his health But most Illustrious Princes in regard this Iland is so delicate a peece of Earth I 'le take her into parcels and present her to your view I will beginne with the Southernst part with Cornwall a Province which abounds with diversity of necessary commodities whereof Spain hath every year a good share being the nearest part of the Iland towards Her here besides Gold and Silver and Marble there is great store of Tinne digg'd out which is so pure and white that it may passe for Silver when it is hammer'd into Vessells This commodity is transported and dispers'd into all parts of the World rich returnes made of it Then they have a savory Fish call'd Pilchards which Spaniards call Sardinas which is found in incredible quantities in the Sea near that Coast whereof there be huge Cargasars carried to Spain and Italy every year and for barter they will give you Silke Wine Oyle Cotton and the best Commodities they have About November this Fish is taken and they shape the course of their Voyages so that they may be in Spain Italie a little before Lent which is the convenientest for their Market because in those Catholick Countries that season is observ'd so strictly There is in this Province of Cornwall a wonderfull thing and it is a great famous Stone call'd Mainamber a little distant from a small Market Town call'd Pensans That stone though it be as bigg as a little Rock and that a multitude of men cannot carry it away yet you may stirre and move it sensibly with your little finger Prince Arthur one of the 9. Worthies was born there who is so much celebrated through the World and by such a number of Authors among other things for his round Table which was made of stone about which a selected number of Chivalrous Kinghts were us'd to sit with him and they had special Orders and Lawes made among themselves which they were bound to observe punctually Good Lord what a Heroe was this Arthur being an old Britain born he overcame the Saxons in twelve several battells In so much that an ingenious Poet sung of him thus Prisca parem nescit aequalem postera nullum Exhibitura dies Reges supereminet omnes Solus praeteritis melior majorque futuris From Cornwall I passe to Devonshire where there is also quantity of choice Tinne not inferior in purity to that of Cornwall there is a place there also where Loadstone is found Winfrid who was the Apostle of the Germans was borne there at Kirton who converted the Thuringians and Friselanders to Christianity I will leave Exeter the Provincial Town Neat Rich and large and wil go to Plimouth a most comodious and safe well frequented Port. Here Sir Francis Drake was born for Naval glory and skill the ablest that any age hath afforded he did circumnavigate and compasse the World I mean the Globe of the Earth he saild further into the Southern Seas into mare pacificum then any other where starres are so scant to guide one's course by for there are but three of the first magnitude to be seen there He gave part of America a new name call'd new Albion Among other prizes he tooke from the Spaniard the Shippe Caga fuego was one which had seventy pound weight of Gold in her thirteen great Chests cramm'd with Patacoons and a huge quantity of barrs and sowes of silver which serv'd for Ballast This rich ship this English Iason brought with him to England with his own ship the Publican in safety But the Spanish Captain broke this jest for all the losse of his treasure that his ship and Drakes ship should change their names and that his should be call'd Caga plata and Drakes Caga fuego Thus this English Drake swom like the great Leviathan to the new and old World of whom that most ingenious Epigrammatist Owen hath this Hexastic Drake pererrati quem novit terminus Orbis Quemque semel mundi vidit utrumque latus Si taceant homines facient Te sidera notum Atque loqui de Te discet uterque polus Plus
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
his hunting venery and pleasure But the judgements of Heaven fell visibly upon his Children for Richard his second Son died of a Pestilential air in the same Forest. William Rufus another Son of his succeeding him in the Kingdome was kill'd there also by the glance of an arrow from Sir Walter Terrell Henry also his Granchild Sonne to Robert his first begotten breath'd his last there like Absolon hanging at a bow while he was a hunting 'T is true that Barkshire hath one goodly structure which is Winsor Castle but most of the Country about is inhabited by savage beasts who may be said to live better then the people thereabouts For Surrey you should have remembred what a perfidious act Godwin Earl of Kent perform'd at Guilford who betraying to Harald the Dane a young Prince that was sent from Normandy to receive the Crown of England was delivered to Harald the Dane Sussex is infamous for the murther of King Sigebert by a Swineheard And the Province of Kent will never wash away the foul stain she received for the sacrilegious murther of Thomas Becket a Saintlike man which assassinate was perpetrated in the very Church near the high Altar for which crying and flagitious deed they say that the race of the murtherers have ever have since a white tuffe of hair in their heads and the wind blowing in their faces whersoever they go For Glocestershire her inhabitants there are worthy of reproach that by idlenesse and ignorance they would suffer the Vineyards there to decay utterly and in lieu of Wine be content with windy Sider In Oxfordshire was that lustful Labarynth made at Woodstock where Henry the second kept Rosamond his Concubine whom the revengful Queen poysoned Now touching the City of London the Metropolis of Great Britain she may be well call'd a Monster for she being the head bears no proportion with the rest of the body but is farre too bigge for it and might serve a Kingdom thrice as bigge but what Saint Hierom spoake of Constantinople Eam nuditate omnium civitatum constructam fuisse that she was made up of the nakednesse and ruine of other Cities so may London be said to grow rich out of the poverty of other Towns She is like the Spleen in the natural body by whose swelling the rest of the members pine away And herein let me observe the poor policy of the fatheaded English who suffer this one Town to be pamperd up while other places though situated in as convenient places for Navigation are ready to starve for want of trade 'T is true that Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles his Son did put forth Proclamations for restraint of building in London and that all the gentry should retire to their Country dwellings in the Vacation time and at Christmas but these Proclamations were like a fire put under a green wood which did flash a little but suffer'd presently to go again so those Royal Proclamations were put in hot execution for a while yet they quickly grew cold again But indeed such is the crossgrain'd and contumacious perverse nature of the Londoners specially the schismatical part that they suspect or repine at any new command that comes from authority For whereas there was a secure and comely durable way of structure inordred them that every one should build for the future with stone or brick and not with lath and wood and that they should build regularly for the beauty prospect and evennesse of the streets as also that the Houses might not be subject to firing Yet this obstinate selfwitted people do stand still in their own light and fall againe to build with lath and lime notwithstanding that they know well enough the great advantages that would redound to the City by the other mode of Edifice In so much that in England ther 's not near that Elegance of building generally as in other Cities nor are their streetes so streight and lightsome by reason the Houses paunch out and are not so uniform as else where I could condescend to the praises you give of Essex Suffolk were it not that in the one at Saint Edmunds Berry there have happened so many popular tumults twixt the Monks and Citizens And were it not for a sordid tenure that lands are held by them of Hemingstone where Baldwin call'd le Petteur held lands from the Crown by sarieanty pro quibus debuit Die Natali Domini singulis annis coram Domino Rege Angliae unum saltum unum suflatum unum bumbulum for which lands he was to pay one leap one puff and one crack of the taile before the King upon Christmas day every yeare under paine of forfeiting his Tenure O brave Knight service O Noble homage O brave devotion upon the birth day of Christ. Touching the Norfolk men they are naturally wranglers and Cavillers The Fenny situation of Cambridge is such that I cannot wonder sufficiently how that place should be chosen out to be made a seat for the Muses Huntingtonshire Countrymen have such a rustiquenesse that hardly admits any civility Northhampton and Leicestershire are so bald that you can hardly see a tree as you passe through them The people of Lincolnshire are infested with the affrightments of Crowlands Daemonical spirits Notinghamshire doth delude the labour of the husbandman with the Sandinesse of their soyl God deliver us from the Devills Posteriors at the Peak in Darbishire Warwik is choaked up with wood there as well as in Lincolnshire The Ordure of the Sow and Cow Doth make them fire and Sope enough I should like Worcester but for cold flatulent Perry Stafford relates many odde fables of her Lake and the River of Trent In Shropshire the sweating sicknesse took its first rise which dispers'd it self not onely all England over but cross'd the Seas found out and infested English bodies in other Regions Chester complaines for want of corn to make her bread In Herefordshire there are walking Mountains for in the year 1571. about 6. of the clock in the evening there was a hill with a Rock underneath did rise up as if she were awaken out of a long sleep and changing her old bed did remove herself to a higher place carrying with her trees and folds of sheep she left a gap behinde of forty foot broad and eighty ells long the whole peece of earth was above twenty Acres and the motion lasted above a natural day that the sayd Moantain was in travell Radnor with her crags would frighten one for the rest of Wales though the inhabitants be courteous and antient yet the country swels with such a conglobation of Mountains that strangers would be hardly invited to visit her which Mountaines in some places are so high and yet so near one to another that Shepheards may talk one to another from the tops of them and not be able to meet one another in a whole day by traversing from one Mountain to the other through the valley and precipices
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
For the Pole is naturally a stout man that will neither be softned with pleasure nor dismay'd by danger a death bravely purchas'd he holds to be an immortality and a life disgracefully preserv'd to be worse then any death He is more careful to keep his Honor then life as according to Cromers testimony near the Town of Streme there is a hill where Pots Caudrons and other Vessells are found naturally so shapen though they be soft within the Earth but being digged out they quickly incrustrate and grow hard when they are expos'd to the cold air so the Pole is naturally shap'd for a soldier in his Mothers womb but confirm'd afterwards by the severe discipline of his Parents He feares the clashing of armes no more then the wagging of oken leaves or the bubbling of waters And herein they retain still the genius of the Great Piastus who as by probity and justice he got the Kingdom at first so his Ospring conserv'd it by succession for 500. years The women there also are indued with a masculine courage for by the old constitution of Poland no maiden was to marry till she had kill'd three enemies in the field but Piastus abolished this custom and commanded women to exercise themselves in matters more consentaneous to their sex We read that Augustus Caesar gave in command to Lentulus his Ambassador that he should not disquiet the Sarmatian for if he were once provoked he would not understand what peace was afterwards so the Danube did put limits to the so prosperous Augustus and the Pole did terminate his progresse All this is confirm'd by that disticke of Ovid who was banished thither Maxima pars hominum nec te pulcherrima curat Roma nec Ausonij militis armatimet Good Lord what Victorious Kings hath Poland had Ziemovit did debell the Hungarians Bohemians Pomeranians and made them all tributary Boleslaus Chrobri subdued the Russe bridled the Prusse chastised the Saxons and upon the frontires of his Dominions erected brazen Pillars after his death all Poland mourned a whole year all which time there was neither feasting nor dancing What shall I say of Boleslaus the third who fought 50. battailes and was Victor in all In his time the Emperor Otto the third made a Pilgrimage to Poland to visit the body of Saint Adalbertus which Boleslaus had redeem'd from Prusse Pagans and it was to expiate a crying sin that he had committed which was thus The Empresse being light she caressed an Italian Count so farre that she offered him the use of her body which he refusing out of a malitious indignation like Pharo's Wife she accus'd the said Count that he would have forc'd her whereupon he was arraigned condemned and executed but before his death he discoverd the whole series of the businesse to his Wife A little after a great Sessions in Roncalias appointed to right Orphans and Widdows the Countess came before the tribunal and brought her husbands head under her vest so desiring leave of Caesar to speak she ask'd what punishment did he deserve that took away another mans life Otto answered no lesse then death Then O Emperor you have condemned your self who have taken away my guiltlesse husband and behold here his head and because there wants proof in so private a cause I will undergoe the Ordeal the fyrie tryal which the Countesse having perform'd without any hurt the Empresse Maria Augusta who had accus'd the Count was brought and condemned to be burnt which was done accordingly And the Emperor gave the Countesse Dowager 4. Castles in fuller satisfaction To make further atonement for this offence the said Emperor Otto came to Poland upon a Pilgrimage and Boleslaus came 7. miles to meet him the way being cover'd with cloth of divers colours all along Hereupon the Emperor for so Signal a favour did solemnly create Boleslaus King and his Companion and a friend of the Roman Empire declaring him free from all tribute and jurisdiction for ever But to come to more Modern times What a man of men was Sigismund the first you know most noble Princes that the Persians doe cry up Cyrus the Macedonians Alexander the Great The Germans Charlemagne for heroique and valiant Kings The Athenians cry up Miltiades Cimon Alcibiades Thrasybulus Phocio and others The Lacedemonians their Pausanias Lysander and Agesilaus The Thebans Epaminondas and Pelopidas The Carthaginians cry up Hamilcar Hannibal and Asdrubal The Romans do celebrate their Fabios their Scipios Lucullus and Caesar for strenuous and incomparable Captaines 'T is true they might be so but they had to deal with soft effeminate people But the Polonian Sigismund had to doe with the toughest the most intrepid and fiercest Nations of the Earth and a most favourable gale of fortune did blow upon him throughout the whole Progresse of his life and actions He tugg'd with Mechmet the Moscovian Emperor whom Amurath the 3. acknowledg'd to be one of the greatest Warriers in the World and got the better of him He wrastled with the grim Tartars with the furious Valachians and layed them on their backs He cop'd with the Great Turk who glories in a perpetuity of Victorship and foild him more then once Nay he had divers Praeliations with us Germans and took from us the spacious Provinces of Livonia and Prussia which not without a foule blemish to Germany he added to the Crown of Poland And although the people of those Countries have often solicited our Diets and put the German Emperors in mind of the avulsion and losse of those Countries yet we have thought it better to leave the quarrel alone because there is nothing to be got by the Pole but knocks for the Poleax is a terrible weapon Now touching the strength of the King of Poland you know that for Cavalry he is the potentest Prince of Europe Thuanus the Frenchman confesseth that the King of Poland can bring to the field in Noble men and Gentry alone which are bound to serve him so long time upon their own charge above a hundred and fifty thousand men of all sorts of Arms. The name of Cosacks is formidable all the World over And although they are cryed up to be freebooters fighting onely for plunder I will rectifie your opinion in that by a late pregnant example in the Ivonic War for having taken the General of the Enemie Prisoner although there was offer'd 6. times his weight twice in Gold thrice in Silver and once in Jewells yet this would nothing at all move the valiant Cosacks Now for the Nobility of Poland it is numerous and antient nay there be good Authors affirm that the great families of Italy the Ursins the Colonni the Ialians the Gastaldi are originally of a Lituanian race There are in Poland the Radivils the Ostrogians the Starasians the Tarlons the Herburtons with 30. princely families more All this considered most noble Princes Poland may well come in and stand in competition for the principality of Europe but verbum non
few dayes by us And this we have don without incurring any inconveniences or hazards at all either of difficult wayes incursion of theeves stumbling of horses hard fare illfavour'd lodgings or crossing of Seas with those nomberles incommodities which we know are incident to perigrination and journeying in forrein Countries And now me thinks you expect with earnestnes and a kind of impatience that I shold deliver my opinion touching the question which hath bin controverted so many dayes and canvas'd to an fro with such high straines of Rhetoric and Energie of wit in so many fluent Orations swelling with such high tides of Eloquence and learning But I humbly desire to be excus'd herein you know 't is a rule of morallity all the world over that Comparisons are odious Besides under favour neither the place nor persons of this Assembly are fit to passe a definitive sentence hereof We are all Germans and do what we can we must be a little indulgent to our own Countrey by an irresistible instinct of Nature All Regions have som advantage or other to make them lift up their crests Let Germany glory that she hath the Prince Paramount of Christendom for her perpetuall guest that Caesar keeps his Court in her Let Spain be the Queen of Mines France of Men let Great Britain be the Queen of Iles Italy the Queen of Policy with all sorts of Elegancies let it be granted that the French and Pole are best a Horseback the Englishman and Hollander upon a deck the Spaniard at a siege the Italian in a Treaty the Hungarian upon a rampart c. Every Nation hath a particular aptitude to somthing more then another and this by the common decree of Nature who useth to disperse her benefits and not powre them all together upon any one peeple And now most splendid and magnificent Princes my most dear Cosens and Compatriots how shall I pay that due tribut of gratitude which I confesse to have made my self liable unto for this noble and vertuous Congress truly no words are strong enough to expresse my self herin unlesse they were couch'd in such patheticall and gallant Orations which have bin formerly framd All that I can say and desire for the present is that you would please to accept of a lipp-payment only which yet is cordiall untill som happy encounter may afford me an opportunity to return som reall acknowledgment In the interim most noble and hopefull Princes well may your Soules fare may your Vertues encrease and your Fame flourish to all posterity FINIS A particular of such matters as were debated in this German Diet. A A Buse of forren Travell 3. in the pro. sage advise to a Traveller 4. fol. ibid. Abbot of Fuldo the greatest of Christendom he furnish'd the Emperour with 60000 fighting men 9. In that Abbacy 600. Gentlemen were usd to be bred and 30. Doctors to teach them 10. Auspurg famous for Goldsmiths 13. The admirable wooden Eagle made by Regiomontanus to the life 14 All the old famous Artists musterd up among the Greeks and Romans 14 A notable passage 'twixt Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas 14 All the famous Printers numbred 15 Antwerp characteriz'd 16 Acostas opinion of the Torrid Zone 17 One of Aristotles Errors 17 Augustus Caesar and Tiberius drank most commonly German wines 18 Annwerp erected the first Burse 20 Of Ariovistus the valiant German his stout answer to Caesar 22 Above 19 millions of soules in Germany not counting Denmark and Bohemia as Boterus affirms 25 A notable passage of Babo Count of Aheneberg 25 Andaluzia from Vandales 26 Augustus Caesar twise defeated by the Germans call'd Lolliana and Variana clades 25 A memorable passage in Constantinople touching one of the Emperours Ambassadors 26 The ancientest race of Noblemen is in Germany 26 of Artemisia and her wonderfull love to her husband 2 The answer of a Pole why he held the plough on Sunday 7 A notable example of poysning us'd in Poland and the fearfull judgment that ensued thereupon 8 Aurelianus the Emperour kill'd 48. men in one day in the field 12 Attila characteriz'd 18 his death 19 A wise Answer of an Archbishop of Colen to the Abbot of Fuldo 19 S. Augustins wish 28 A Calabrian hath nothing but the shape of a man in him 36 A shrewd judgment of a learned Frenchman touching Italy 42 Aquitaine daintily describ'd by Salvianus and Province by Boterus 38 Aristotle fouly err'd when he writes that there are no Asses in France 53 The Duke of Anjous miscarriage in the Netherlands he was made Governor by Queen Eliz letters 59 Of the French disease 59 The French Nation censur'd They have whirlwinds in their brains quicksands in their breasts characters given of them by the Ancients 59 French Kings not liable to pay the debts of their predecessors examples produc'd 59 A nasty leprous French peeple call'd Capotts dwelling in Bearn 59 The Invincible Armada in the yeere 88 describ'd 39 Of Prince Arthur his character in verse 41 Mr. Arondel of Warder how he came to be Count of the Empire his patent 42 Ausonius his character of a salmon 46 His opinion of the Britains 53 Adrian the fourth an Englishman his haughtines 55 Anne of Bullen taunted in France 56 Of the Abuse of Tobacco 56 An Apologie for human infirmities 45 The advantages of divers Countreys 51 An Apologie for the Popes and the Cardinalls 49 Another for Italy 50 The Atheisticall life and saying of a German Prince 36 Of Amsterdam 35 Of the Austrian Family 29 B BOdins notable description of Germany 10 Berchtoldus Swartzius a Franciscan first Inventor of gunpowder 14 Bezas Epigram of Aldus Manutius the Printer 15 Boterus his opinion of the German Cities 16 Of Bachrag wines 18 The benefit Holland makes of her milk may compare with Bourdeaux wines or Lisbons spices 19 Biscopius a Welch Monk made five pilgrimages to Rome and us'd to bring with him some choice Artists 23 Bonâ—…inius preferrs Austria before Italy 35 The bad Popes censur'd 37 Bembo's prophanesse 38 Of a Bishop that died by keeping in his wind backward at a feast 41 Beatrix Emp Barbarossa's wife barbarously usd in Milan the Emperor had his full re venge 42 The Britains of the Gallic or Wallic race 42 Bodin censur'd 60 Great Britain characteriz'd 33 Her advantagâ—…ous situation 33 Her seas as fruitfull as her shores 33 Her character in verse 33 Her character by Eumenius to Constantin the Great 33 The progresse that her Fish makes about her throughout the yeer with her severall seasons of fishing 34 Britain a microcosm of herself 34 Of the Inhabâ—…tants of Britain 34 Britain had the first Christian King and Emperour 36 Britain branded by Porphyry 36 The old Britons or Welsh the greatest planters of Christianity 36 Most of the famous men of Britain ancient and modern musterd up 37 Boniface his ill report of the English 50 Britain hath the best Cocks and Doggs 51 The Baths of Germany 36 Bartolus saying