Reign of Charles the Great that then Classis Normannorum Hiberniam Scotorum Insulam aggressa commisso praelio cum Scotis innumerabilis multitudo Normannorum extincta est turpiter fugiendo domum reversa est the Norman Fleet having attack'd Ireland the Island of the Scots and given them Battel and an innumerable multitude of the Normans being kill'd in that Fight was forc'd at last to run away shamefully and return home See Gratianus Lucius in his Cambrens Evers page 13. 47. I have insinuated page 57. that they were the Irish who gave a beginning abroad even to the Schools at Oxford And now I add that as Polidore Virgil says King Alfred having in the year of Christ 895. by his Royal Authority approved of Oxford for a place of general studies sent Joannes Scotus Erigena thither ut omnium primus ibi bonas literas doceret the very first publick Professor and Teacher of good Letters there says Pitsius page 162 who further gives this Encomium to Erigena that in Learning or knowledg of the Learned Arts he had scarce his match throughout the World in that Age qui in omni meliori doctrina vix sui similem quenquam in illa Aetate per terrarum orbem habuerit Now it is clearly demonstrable both out of History and the surname Erigena that this very Joannes Scotus Erigena was an Irish man and that not only by Education and breeding as Harpsfield grants he was but by extraction and birth The proofs at large may be seen in Lucius page 148. where he quotes Nicolaus I. the Pope Anastasius Malmsbury Hoveden Westmonasteriensis Vsher and last of all Edward Matthews de Scriptor Angl. Bened. page 166. who particularly notes That this Joannes Scotus was in Latin surnamed Erigena because of his birth in Eriâ— For so Ireland has been always call'd by the Natives to this very day and was then by others too Erigena therefore being the same with Hibernigena you may conclude that if Angligena and Francigena import the one an English man the other a French man born so must Erigena an Irish man by birth Nor is any thing said here of Erigena in any wise inconsistent with Cambden's relation out of the old Annals of the Abbey of Winchester Wherein after telling how King Alfred had recall'd the Muses to Oxford and built three Colledges there one for Grammarians another for Philosophers and a third for Divines 't is further said that in the year of Christs Incarnation 806 being the second year of St. Grimbald ' s coming into England the first Regents and Professors in the Divinity Colledg were St. Naoth an Abbot and holy Cambden translated by Hol. page 378. Grimald a right excellent Professour of the most sweet written Word of holy Scripture All this might be true and yet Erigena be and continue still the first Professour of the Learned Arts and good Letters at Oxford Where I relate page 34. the famous Battel fought at Clantarff by the brave Brian Boraimh I Hanmer pag. 91. pass by Hanmers relation of it Even as I have all along pass'd by many ther of his stories concerning Ireland As for Example 1. That of Gurguntius the son of Belinus King of Great Brittain to have met at Sea about the Isle of Orkney as he return'd from the Conquest of Denmark a Fleet of sixty Sail of Spaniards with Men and Women commanded by the Governour of Baiona seeking some Countrey to inhabit or live in and to have assign'd them Ireland c. 2. That other yet more ridiculous one out of Harding and Mewinus a Brittish Chronieler quoted by Harding * Harding lived in the Reigns of Henry V. Henry VI. and Edward IV. How Gathelus and Scota came to these Northern parts anno Christi 75. 3. That of Fredelenus King of Denmark in the Reign of Augustus Caesar to have invaded Ireland and taken Dublin though not by force but by the help of Swallows firing the City with fire tied to their wings though himself was presently forc'd by the Kiâ—g of Leinster to depart and run away to his Fleet. 4. That of Frotho III. King of Denmark when our Saviour was born to have made all Ireland tributary and been Monarch thereof As also that other in him out of Saxo Grammaticus and Albertus Krantzius concerning Frotho IV. thirty years after the former his having sent the Giants and the huge Monster Startucerus to invade the same Kingdom 5. That of King Arthur of Great Brittain and Gillomar King Hanmer page 50 51 and 52. of Ireland Mark King of Cornwall Sir Tristram and La Bel Isod c. though besides the Books of Houth he quotes also Florilegus and Fabian Caxton Holinghed Flemming and Harding for 'em 6. That of his genealogy of Fionn mhac Cuuail and his making this Fionn and his Associats both to have been Giants and of Danish birth whereof I have spoken before page and therefore need not say any more in this place 7. That of his three vast Armies of Foreigners invading Ireland by combination in several Provinces at one time and this to have been the time of Constantine the Great 's Empire at Rome The first of thirty thousand landed at Derry in Vlster and their Navy fired and themselves too in one Battel slain by Conn Ceadchathach one of the Princes of that Province as he calls him The second of a greater number landed at Skerries not far from Dublin but destroy'd in one other Battel by Diarmuid Lambdhearg King of Leinster who says he kill'd six and thirty thousand of them on the spot The third and it much more numerous yet landed in Mounster and utterly destroy'd at Fentra when the Forces of all Ireland encountring them slew seven score thousand of them in that one Field 8. That where ever he had it for he tells not where of the Battel of Garistown and Arcath or as the Irish call it Ardchath fought as he says in the reign of Cairbre Liffor Monarch of Ireland by the seven Kings of that Nation and their Army 65000 Horse and Foot against the Danish Bownies who had been formerly entertain'd by those Princes to defend their Coasts but now rebell'd being 28700 hardy resolute Warriours and fought well-nigh a whole day with equal Fortune so mortally that Horses were up to their bellies in blood until at last Fortune favouring the righteous Cause of the Princes they put these rebellious forein Bownies to a total rout and edg of the Sword all of them although it cost their side also very dear even the lives of four of their Kings and nineteen thousand seven hundred and sixty others All these Relations though given as true ones by Hanmer at large I have pass'd by First because of their manifest repugnancy to all the Irish Chronicles Nay because there is not one word or syllable of any of them in Doctor Ketings Irish Chronicle which yet is an ample Summary of all the Authentick or esteemed Chronicles and Histories of
improving by a fervent zeal for truth and generous love to his Countrey made Father Keting undergo the laborious task of writing the History of Ireland at large from the very first Plantation of it after the Deluge to Hen. II's time and 17th year of his Reign being the year of Christ 1152. And this History besides which there is no other full compleat or methodical one extant of all the Ages Invasions Conquests Changes Monarchs Wars and other considerable matters of that truly ancient Kingdom be lived to finish in his old Age that is a little after Charles I. of glorious memory had been proclaimed King Nor did he only finish it but prefix unto it a very judicious large and learned Preface to the Reader It is in this Preface he declares those two special motives of his writing which you have seen already Where also he declares who those Authors are that gave him the occasion and refutes them one after another at large namely Strabo Solinus Pomponius Mela S. Hierom against Jovinian Cambrensis Stanihurst Campion Hanmer Cambden Hector Boethius John Barclay Morison Davies Buchanan All these in particular as to some passages of theirs he disputes against in the same Preface with the clearest evidence of Authority matter of Fact and Reason grounded on both As likewise he does in the Body of his Work against other passages not only of some of these same Authors especially Cambrensis Hector Boethius and Buchanan but Nicholas Sanders too in his First Book de Schismate Anglicano Besides in the same Preface he discourses five or six other Particulars which I think worth the while not to pass over wholly in silence The first is That although in his History he has not seldom made use of some Collections out of Foreign Writers yet the main Body of it all along is compos'd out of the most undoubtedly ancient and authentick Monuments of Ireland viz. Psaltuir Ardemach Psaltuir Chaâ—sil Psaltuir na Rann written by Aonghuis Ceile De and then Leabhar na Huacongmhala Leabhar Chluaino Huighnioch Leabhar Fiontain in Leix Leabhar Ghlinne Da-Loch Leabhar Bâ—idhe Mholing Leabhar Dubh Mholaige Leabhar na Gceart written by S. Benignus and Ubhdir Chiarrain writ at Cluain-mhac-Noise in all Thirteen Books For you are to understand here not only that Leabhar signifies a Book and Psaltuir we call it Psaltor a Book in Verse but as he says That from the beginning it was the custom of the Irish to have their Chief Antiquities done into the choisest severest strictest Meeter without any redundance or want as to sense and point of truth and this as well for the more safe preserving of them from corruption as the more easie getting them by heart And consequently you see the true reason why their chief Records of Tarach Cashel Ardmagh c. are called Psalters But if you would further know the heads of these thirteen Books he answers in the same place They are these 1. The several Invasions and Conquests of Ireland 2. The Division of its Provinces and lesser Countreys 3. The Reigns of their Kings 4. Their Annals 5. Their Computations and Concordances of Times 6. The Genealogy of their Male Gentry 7. The Pedigree of their Females 8. Their Vocabulary Where also is a large account of the great School in the Plain of Sennaar and three first Teachers of it soon after the Confusion of Tongues at Nimrod's Tower 9. The Visions of Columb-Cille with sundry other Antiquities of Ireland The Second Particular gives in effect four Reasons or at least one compos'd of so many Heads to persuade the credibility and truth of these Irish Books It tells us of above two hundred chief Chronologers together from very early times conttinuing a Succession in the same Families and all Ages in that Nation while their Kingdom stood whose peculiar and only Office it was to record faithfully all memorable Concerns It tells us how these Antiquaries had sufficient Estates in Land entail'd on themselves and Issue for ever on that Condition It tells us of the publick Schools they had purposely and continually kept for the Education of their Youth in the knowledge of their Antiquities and how these Schools were kept in the Countrey of Breifthne as they call in Irish That which now we call the County of Letrim It tells us of a Triennial search into and Revision of all their Records by a select Committee in the Publick Assembly of all the Estates of that Kingdom And lastly it tells us of the Deposition of fair Copies of the same Records in the hands of the Bishops from time to time ever since the Nation believed in Christ 1200 years since Whereof you may see more at large in my 46. page following in this Former Part. A third Particular answers the Objection of some discordance among the Irish Books concerning the number of years from the Creation of the World to the Birth of our Saviour It desires the Objectors to consider the far greater discordance * Because I was not sure that my Copy of Keting was right in every of the particulars or Discordances noted here I consulted of purpose the most learned Sixtus Senensis l. 5. Bibl. S. pag. 440. Imp. Colon. an 1626. whither I remit you to see many more discordances that is Six and Twenty in all in stead of these 15 here given by Keting though most of these are among ' em betâ—ixt as well the Hebrews as the Greek and Latin Chronologers each apart on the same Subject How for Example 1. among the Hebrews Paul Sedecholim counts 3518. years the Talmudists 3784. the New Rabbins 3760. Rabbi Naasson 3740. Rabbi Moses Germidisi 4058. Josephus 4192. Among the Greek Authors Metrodorus 5000. Eusebius 5199. Theophilus 5476. And among the Latins S. Hierom 3941. S. Augustin 5351. Isidorus 5270. Orolius 5190. Beda 3952. Alphonsus 5984. Now says Keting if so great a discordance on this very Subject impair not in other matters the credit of either Greek Hebrew or Latin Authors why should it the Irish Where also he acquaints his Reader that because himself is of opinion that such Irish Antiquaries or Books as count for this Period from the Creation to the Incarnation 4052. * This is the Computation follow'd by Augustinus Tornlellius in his Annales Sacri ab Orbe Condito ad Christum passum Sext. M. Aetat ad an 4052. whether Keting had him for his Master though I know not yet I know he might because Torniellius came out in Print at Francford an 1611. come nearest the Truth he follows them in his History or computation of times therein either precedent or subsequent to the Birth of Christ And farther in the some place he acquaints us with his purpose to give at the end of his History an Appendix or a Table of Synchronism shewing what Monarchies Monarchs Great Kings of the World in other parts and since Christianity what Popes and general Councils were contemporary with the various Revolutions and Kings of Ireland Whether
Records if no knowledg at least of two Thirds of their Countrey if hunting collecting and hudling together the vainest and falsest and most ridiculous hear-say stories and this forsooth of purpose to gain immortal fame by telling stupendious things not heard before if Satyrs of the people in general so virulent and frequent that in very deed the publishing of 'em may be justly suspected to have been at least a great part of the Authors chief design if a licentious humour and immoderate passion transporting him to the strangest exorbitancy either of praises or dispraises or flatteries or injuries as he stood affected in writing even of his own Party and his own King for company among 'em if his acknowledgment in Usher and the Censure of him by Sir James Ware in a word if so many excellent Qualifications as are enumerated here can render him an Author of Credit or to be follow'd or believ'd in any passage of his foresaid Books that is to any degree of prejudice either against the Irish Nation or contrary to their Chronicles or vain or exotick in it self and not warranted by better authority than his only word I say that if the matter be so indeed then for my own part I must be of opinion that no Author at all how idle or vain or unwarrantable or incredible or false or injurious reproachful and satyrical soever his Relations of any People or Countrey are is to be rejected Tho in all contingencies it must be also confess'd that wherever Cambrensis has delivered any thing to the advantage renown or credit of the Irish Nation his testimony is doubtless above all exception for so much For the confession of an Adversary is valid in all Tribunals and both Bodin and Reason requires it should be so in History Thus having sufficiently inform'd you both of Cambrensis and the true original grounds of the Quarrel of Gratianus Lucius to him I return to the finishing my account of Lucius himself And this I shall dispatch by a little farther addition first of those more special considerations that put him on writing his Cambrensis Eversus and then of his performance therein Those himself gives at large but I shall contract ' em 1. He had often consider'd that altho soon after the coming out of Cambrensis in Germany from the Press two Learned Irish Gentlemen Richard White a Jesuit and Philip O Suillevan a Soldier to undeceive the World and right their injur'd Nation had most exactly and convincingly written each of them at large against his impostures yet through ill fortune their several Books on that subject were lost and no body since had put Pen to paper to retrive this loss 2. By daily conversation among Foreigners he had found That because in so many years since that Francford Edition of Cambrensis nothing appear'd against him in Print his very vilest Relations of Ireland were taken for confessedly true 3. Having read a great number of Books and he thinks all whatsoever written of that Kingdom by English other Brittish Authors and observing how as many of 'em at least as came out since the change of Religion were so unjust to the Irish Nation that amongst all there was not so much as any one Individual who does not either report Fictions or conceal Truths or exaggerate the bad or extenuate the good Things of that People he considered at last that Giraldus Cambrensis was their first pattern 4. And which to him was more grievous yet he considered that ever since the aforesaid German Edition there was not a Book written nor a Cosmographical or Geographical Table drawn there was not I mean a Map or a Card as they are call'd describing the customs or manners of Nations come forth in any part of Europe which was not replenish'd with ugly base reflections on the Irish In so much that in all Countreys and Languages they were on all occasions become a Fable to the Vulgar and object of scorn to others These were the considerations that prevail'd with Lucius to exert his zeal for Truth and Love to his Countrey in taking all the foresaid Books of Cambrensis to pieces laying open the most material of his Errors and Calumnies for it had been endless to pursue him in the more immaterial convincing him every where and therefore when he had finish'd his Work publishing it for the satisfaction of Europe in Latin under the Title of Cambrensis Eversus which may be English'd The Cambrian overthrown How justly it deserves this name others may judg seeing the Book is extant and has been since the year 1622. when it was printed For my own part I can do no less than acknowledg what I think of it my self which is That the Author shews himself very conversant in those Letters we call Polite That above all for knowledg in History both Domestic Forein Sacred and Profane he appears excellently well qualified to write on the Subject he undertook That every where and whatever matter is treated he is very exact in quoting his Authors and where the allegation must depend on Irish Books or Writers he never omits to give 'em by name in the Margin among which are the Annals of Inis Fail the Common Annals the Annals of Anonimus the Annals of Tigernacus the Continuer of Tigernacus the Books of Reigns O Duuegan O Donel Colgan Philip O Suillevan Peter Lombard Archb. of Ardmagh Keting Primat Usher Sir James Ware That in a word his performances in this Book against Cambrensis are accurate absolute full and therefore not unworthy the Dedication they bear prefix'd to the Sacred Majesty of Charles II. of Great Brittain our gracious King I say against Cambrensis Because I do abstract wholly from his occasional or incidental Reflections any where on the State of Ireland since the Year 1640. To deliver my thoughts of them is no part of my business here What more concerning Lucius must be directly to the purpose of this place is to let you understand that although Cambrensis Eversus be not a History of Ireland yet because it is in many places fraught with choice Collections out of the Irish Antiquities and in the VIII Chapter occasionally gives together with a Catalogue of all the Monarchs of Ireland under the several Conquests even from Slanius the first of them a brief account of their Reigns and Years of the World or Christ respectively when each King began finish'd his Reign therefore next to Keting I have made the greatest use of him in the Former Part tho no where before page 130. for till I came so far I had him not And out of him particularly it is That in some places I add to such or such Monarchs the Year of the World or of our Saviour Christ's Incarnation Now what Computation is follow'd by him in giving the former Years I mean those of the World albeit he does not himself expresly inform us we may notwithstanding most certainly know by his fixing
what I had almost forgotten That I have more than once or twice either quoted Geoffrey of Monmouth himself I hope no man will be scandalized that considers besides the occasion what use I make of him Nay I do persuade my self That to see * Former Part from page 3 5. to pag. 347. And again p. 363 364 369. in five or six leaves of this little Form a pretty just Abridgment of his famed Work i. e. his Seven Books of the ancient History of Great Brittain or supposed Posterity of Brutus cannot be displeasing to those who never saw nor knew where to find the Author himself or his History at large nor perhaps were it lying by them and in their own Language too would have the patience to read it over And now That I gave given what I would say in this Place concerning any of those other Authors whom besides Keting and Lucius I either follow or examine or e'en utterly reject in the Former Part of my Prospect there remains but little more to be Prefac'd to it For to the Latter Part I shall therefore prefix an other Preface but one by so much the shorter by how much it must be proper to that Part alone In which other Preface I mean to observe the same Method I have in this by giving an account of the Writers who shall direct me in that Later Part and how and the reasons why I must therein be guided partly by some of those very men whose testimonials in other matters I slight in the Former What more I would give for Preface here to the same Former Part only are these Particulars 1. That wheresoever I annex to any of those Irish Monarchs treated of by me Capital or other Letters or Figures of Numbers whereby I would signifie what rank they held in their Catalogue for example whether of the Tenth or Twentieth or so forth there I related only to the Catalogue of Milesian Monarchs not to any other containing both Milesian and the other 18. Monarchs of the several Conquests that preceded theirs 2. That although I have endeavoured with all diligence to extract in order those Milesian Monarchs out of Ketings voluminous History which no where adds to any of 'em the number i. e. any such Letters Figures or Words importing it after all I cannot be sure I have not mistaken and this perhaps more than once in adding my numbers But the best on 't is that the errour if any such be is not material 3. That where I speak of 2988 years or sometimes of a year or a few years more or less from the first of the Milesian Conquest in all such places I follow the Account of Keting Who to reduce the Irish Chronology to an agreement not only with his own Computation of the years of the World but with the Relation also of Cambrensis and Polychronicon where they tell us of the Milesians having conquer'd that Kingdom 1800 years before S. Patric's death purposely cut off of the Reigns of several of their Kings so many years as make in all 491. But elsewhere that is p. 496 c. and in the Catalogue I have strictly follow'd Gratianus Lucius and consequently the Irish Book of Reigns as to the number of years the Milesian Kings reigned or Kingdom lasted 4. That for want of Irish Books or Antiquaries to consult with I confess it remains a difficulty with me still How the six Sons of the Ulster K. Muredus as Cambrensis calls him in Latin who in Irish is call'd Muiridhach by Keting even those very six famous Brothers that invaded Tâ—ath-Chruthnigh for so the Irish by a proper name in their Language call'd the Countrey of the Picts which now we call Scotland How I say those very six Brothers go sometimes by the name of the Six Sons of Muiridhach and sometimes again by that of the Six Sons of Eirck Vnless peradventure the same person had those two names of Muiridhach Eirck or that Keting derived their being the Sons of Muredus from Girald of Wales only 5. That if any where in these Discourses of Ireland you meet with some Relations either of Miracles above Nature or Antiquities hard to believe I must beg that you will notwithstanding be so just as at least to believe I have no design to impose either upon your reason or upon your freedom 6. That besides it will be no more than Justice requires of you to persuade your self That no Relatour of matters so far beyond our ken is accountable for his own belief or disbelief of them much less for their objective truth or untruth being or not being in themselves Provided he relates no impossibilities nor absurdities nor contradictions of all other Histories that are esteemed true nor any thing whatsoever out of other Records than Authentick or other Authors than Classick or at least other than such as have been among their own People reputed men of Probity and Reason and acknowledg'd so in such matters as they write of 7. That I have commonly chosen to give the Irish proper Names and Surnames though not in Irish Characters yet in such Italick Letters as answer them because by having them so the Reader may be much better assured that he sees before him the true genuine names whether he can pronounce them rightly or not than he could be if according to the custom of others I had transform'd 'em into the English or Latin either syllables or terminations And yet withal my Copy of Keting being very bad in many places and which I do willingly acknowledg my own skill to correct the Irish Orthography of it very small I must in reason suspect my performance in this matter But neither can the Errours herein be either material or any way considerable 8. That I confess I have taken a quite contrary course to the late Brittish Writers in magnifying so far as good Authority did warrant me the Ancient Irish Nation which they a man would think made it their business to lessen and vilifie all they could But nevertheless I doubt not all judicious impartial men will acknowledg how much more it must redound to the honour of the English Nation to have conquered an ancient civil warlike brave People in the days of Yore than such an obscure barbarous vile hideous generation of men as partly the Cambrian Author partly others that follow'd the pattern left by him represent those Old Inhabitants of Ireland in their time Besides if without any relation to others but on the naked sole contemplation of some excellencies in that ancient People I have suffer'd some transport who can blame me None I believe that considers attentively the import and consequence of this Saying of the Roman Sage though delivered by him on an other subject Some acts of Liberality some of Humanity some of Fortitude had astonish'd us and we began to admire them as perfect Under 'em lay many vices which the appearance splendor of some conspicuous Fact did
Year of Christ 743. not as Cambrensis has it biâ—nnio ante Topog. dist 2. c. 10. adventum Anglorum two Years only but 424 Years before the first landing of Fitz Stephens in Ireland So far is Cambrensis out in his relation of the very time of this matter it happening that a prodigious Whale with three golden Teeth stianded at Carlingford within his jurisdiction each Tooth weighing fifty ounces of Gold he gave one of them to the chief workman-builder of the foresaid Bridges the other two he dedicated to the making of Shrines in the Monastery of Beannchuir for those holy relicks there on which the Countrey people did use to take their most solemn Oaths for ending all Controversies arisen Felim mhac Criomthain alias in Latin Feidlimidius that most famous King though not of Ireland wherein also Cambrensis as in most his other Relations concerning Ireland has most grosly err'd but of Mounster having prosperously reigned 27 years and within that time what by harrassing what by fighting Leath-Cuinn humbled them mightily at last resign'd his Crown retired from all secular Employments all earthly joys pleasures vanities withdrew to a Wilderness turn'd a poor Hermit there continued so the rest of his life devoting himself wholly to God till death call'd him away under the Monarchy of Niall Caille in the Year of Christ 845. For then it was that he departed hence with the Opinion both of a great Saint and of as excellent a Writer too as that Age might have says Lucius The Irish Book call'd an Leabhar Irsi or as Keting expounds it the Book of their Annals has in short this Elogy of him Optimus Sâ—piens Anachoreta Scotorum quievit Contemporary to him was Fionachta-Luibhne King of Connaght who in the same manner exchang'd his Royal Robe for an Hermits Coat and all the attendance wealth delights pomp gayety of a Palace for the laonliness poverty silence obscurity of an uncouth naked solitude to prepare himself for the last day of his life which he ended there Anno 846. Next to this Fionachta in order of time the King of Leinster Dunling mhac Muireadhach retired both from his Kingdom and all worldly things else into the Monastery of Kildare professing Monk and continuing there in the exercises first of an Underling then of an Abbot till in the Year 867. he finish'd happily his course And after him Domhnal son to the Monarch of Ireland Aodh Fionnliach devoted himself to the service of God in the habit and profession of a most godly mortified Ecclesiastick In which condition he received without any fear at all the King of terrours Death in the Year of our Saviour 911. Him although at a great distance of time followed Ruaruidh O Conchabhair King of Connaght I mean the Father of Toirghialiach mor O Conchabhair Monarch of Ireland who in the 20th year after that O Flaithâ—â—iortach had put out his eyes enter'd the Order of Canon-Regulars and among them rendred his Soul to his Redeemer An. 1118. And so did the King of the Dublinian Danes and Leinster Irish Domhnal O Brien son to Muirchiortach O Brien King of Ireland renounce his Kingdom profess Clerk at Lismore and accordingly there continue a life of pennance to his death which happened Anno Dom. 1135. Lastly the religious Devotion of Cathal Cruddhearg King of Connaght Lucius calls him in Latin Cathaldus à rubro Carpo is very much celebrated amongst his Countrymen in all their Histories He after the death of his Wife gave up his Kingdom profess'd Cistercian Monk in the Monastery built by himself at a place in Connaght call'd the Hill of Victory and in the Year of Christ 1224. breath'd out his last in the same religious Cloister The great liberality of this Provincial King to the Church and particularly the large extent of Lands bestowed for ever by him upon that Cistercian Abbey de Colle Victoriae when he built it may perhaps be elsewhere in this Treatise reflected on At present and because I have now done with all the most singular patterns of Piety recorded among the Provincial Kings of that Nation I proceed to those of the most celebrated memory in that respect among their Lesser Kings Such were Damhin mhac Dambinghoirt King of Orghillae departed this life Anno Dom. 560. and Ferrhadhach mhac Duacha parted in the Year 582. whose Souls are said by the Irish Writers to have been shew'd to Columb-Cille ascending to Heaven absque poenis purgatoriis Such was Brian Boraimh's Ancestor in the seventh degree of ascent by name Toirrghiallach by Title or Dignity King of Dal-Gheass or rather indeed says Keting of North-Mounster who in the Year 690. or thereabouts after he had bestow'd all the Islands in his Kingdom on poor strangers to be inhabitâ—d and cultivated by them put on a Monks Cowl at Lismore and for his daily employment either polish'd stones for the building of Churches there or mended High-ways So that he was never idle but discharging continually with his own hands the part sometime of a Stone-cutter at other times that of a poor ordinary Mason or meanest Day-labourer Such Maol-bressal mhac Cearnaigh King of Mogh dornuigh who after quitting the World professing Monk and living in that profession many years like a Saint was kill'd at last by the Danes Anno 847. Such Maolduin King of Oiligh son to Aodgh Ordnigh the Monarch that forsook all whatever was desireable on earth took the same course of a profess'd religious Life in a Monastery for many years never look'd back never took his hand off the Plough till death seiz'd him in the Year of Christ 865. Such also were Maolbride King of Cineal-Gonail and Domhnal King of Cineal-Laoghaire who trampling underfoot all worldly temptations assumed the Monastic habit retired into Cloister'd Cells and for the remainder of their lives which was of many years continued their station there practising only the methods of dying to themselves and living to Christ till the blessed hour came when he call'd them to himself the former Anno 897. the later Anno 882. And after them Donochadh the son of Ceallach and Son-in-law to Donochadh mhac Floinn the Monarch King of Ossory is next recorded as a man of exceeding piety and godliness though never so profess'd Monk nor at all retir'd in outward appearance from the duties of his secular Employment His care of the poor was such that in his time every house in Ossory had three several Bags for daily Collections of Victuals to feed them One that receiv'd the tenth part of every persons meal none at all of the Family no not even of the servants excepted Another design'd for the portion of Saint Michael the Archangel as they call'd it And a third was under the peculiar charge of the good Wife to see all the scraps gathered into it Besides he was himself exceeding bountiful to them And then his devotion at Church frequentation of the Sacrament watch over his own senses delight in all
makes use of the same reason against the derivation of Britannia from Brutus yet having since consulted the learned Cambden's most accurat search into these matters though he has not a word of the Irish History of Briotan nor seems ever to have heard thereof I find nevertheless there may be very probable answers given out of him to that question put by me after Polydore and Keting And therefore I now decline it tho not the History it self of that Scythic Briotan's giving the denomination of Brittain to this whole Island otherwise and whether before or after his time first of all it matters not called Albion As for Abraham Wheloc's Saxon Annotations on Bedes Ecclesiastical History l. 〈◊〉 c. 1. pag. 25. where it is observed that this Island was called Brutaine and Brutannia from the name of Brutus I am not moved thereby because the Saxons had that name from the Britons themselves and the Britons though they write it Brutaine with u yet pronounce it Brittain with an i. as I am told by men skilful in their Tongue they commonly do in other words written with u. pronounce i. However I am content to acknowledg here that in putting the foresaid question I suppos'd more than I ought and that I pass'd over in silence for a worse the far better and more probable reasons nay the convincing reasons indeed What these are you may see at large in Buchanan and before him sufficiently enough for some part of them in Polydore who both the one and the other demonstrate the whole story of Brutus to be a meer Fiction though Henry of Huntingdon and the Author of Polychronicon otherwise reputed good Historians thought fit to recommend to all posterity the Fable out of Gâ—ffrey of Monmouth as an undoubted Truth However we are told I am sure by Geffrey for I have him by me That rutus was son to Silvius the son of Ascanius whom undoubted Monuments of Antiquity assure us to have been son to Aeneas and Founder of Alba on Tiber and Third King of the Latius That this very Brutus at the Age of sixteen having by chance in hunting the Deer kill'd his said Father King Ascanius and being therefore banish'd Italy went to Greece That here assembling together seven thousand Trojans descended from those who had been brought prisoners thither when Troy was burn'd and heading them he made War on Pandrasus the King of Greece defeated his Armies forc'd his Towns and took himself Prisoner and kept him so till by mutual agreement Ignoge the Princess Daughter to this King was given him to Wife and for a Portion with her besides a great mass of Gold and Silver a strong Fleet of three hundred and four and twenty sail well provided of all kind of necessaries That now putting to Sea with his Trojans and so great a Fleet to seek his Fortune elsewhere and coming to a desert Island by name Largecia the Oracle of Diana there admonish'd him to steer his course for Albion That in his way thither besides destroying a Fleet of Pirats that set on him at Sea and spoiling all Mauritania in Afric from end to end landing in France he first overthrew in Battel Groffarius the Pictish King of Aquitain plunder'd his Towns over-run his whole Countrey and theâ— again in a second mighty Battel defeated both the same Groffarius and all the other eleven Kings of France with their Forces That having perform'd these Wonders there he set sail for Albion which was inhabited then by Giants These were a prodigious Race of See Buchanan l. 2. page 43. Impres Amsterd anno 1643. where he gives an account of this no less ill-contrived than Monstrous Fable added by some later Author than Geoffrey of Monmouth as if Geoffrey himself had not store enough of indeed very stupendious Lyes Monsters some of them twelve Cubits high and all of them or at least their Predecessours before 'em begot by Incubi i. e. Fayery Devils on the thirty Daughters of Dioclesian King of Syria and his Wife Labana who the first night of their marriage kill'd their thirty Husbands and for that cause being forc'd to Sea by their said Father in a ship without Mariners or Pilot after long wandring and hovering arrived at last in Albion a meer Desart then Where it seems notwithstanding they were provided for by those wicked Aery Daemons that lay with them and procreated of them this horrible Race of Giants That upon his landing here at a place called Totnes where all the Giants were in a body to hinder his descent he fought them overthrew them pursued 'em all over the Island destroyed them utterly every where That having done so he divided the whole Countrey among his Followers gave them the name of Britons and to it that of Brittain from his own name both then begot Children especially three by name Locrinus Albanactus and Camber then built the famous City of new Troy since called London by corruption of the word Luds Town because one of his posterity King Lud not only repair'd it but strengthened it with a Wall and Towers and Bulwarks and then last of all before his death making three Royal Divisions of Brittain and erecting each into a Kingdom bestow'd the first of them together with the supreme sovereignty of the other two in some cases on his eldest son Locrinus called then from his name Loegria by us now England the second on his second son Albanactus from whose name 't was called Albania though Scotland after and on his third son Camber the third of those Divisions termed likewise from his name Cambria comprehending at that time not only the Countrey now called Wales but whatever is on that side of the Severn That by these brave Princes and their issue after 'em the Noble Cities of York Edenburg Carlisle Canterbury Winchester Shaftsbury Bath Leicester the Tower of London Westchester and Caer-Leon upon Vsk were from the foundations built and finish'd and the Brittish Nation and Kingdom most gloriously maintained at home and enlarg'd abroad even in the very Continent well-nigh all over Europe That not only Ebrancus the V. King of Great Brittain after Brutus and Builder of York with a numerous Fleet invaded France ransack'd it all over and return'd home triumphantly with the richest spoils thereof nor only his twenty sons which he had by twenty several Wives conquer'd all Germany under the command of one of themselves called Assaracus and possess'd it a long time after but Belinus and Brennus sons to Dunvallo Mulmutius the Nineteenth King as Belinus himself was the XX. made an absolute Conquest first of all the Kingdom of Gaul now called France and soon after of all Italy not Rome it self excepted which they took and burnt to ashes That Cassibellanus the Lxv. of the Brittish Monarchs when Julius Caesar invaded them at two several times fought him defeated him both times and the second time made him fly to France in such despair that he never more return'd That
in like manner Claudius the Roman Emperour though come in person with a mighty power of Legions and Auxiliaries into Brittain found it his safest way to run away in two great Battels from the victorious Army of Guiderius and Arviragus the Lxvii and Lxviii Brittish Monarchs one after another in so much that Claudius was content at last ' een fairly to capitulate for Peace with Arviragus by sending to Rome for his own Daughter Gennissa and giving her in marriage to him nay and leaving him too the Government wholly of all these Provincial Islands for so Geoffrey calls them in this place That Severus how great soever both a Souldier and Emperour he was found it a desperate business to fight in Great Brittain against the Brittons when he saw himself receiving his death's wound from Fulgenius in that Battel whence he was carried dead and buried in York That under Vortigern their Lxxxvi Monarch Hengistus the Saxon invited in by him landed the second time in Great Brittain with an Army of three hundred thousand Heathen Foreigners and yet Aurelius Ambrosius the next Brittish King after Vortigern fought him in the head of all his formidable Forces and in a plain Field overthrew both him and them all nay pursued them in their Flight till he reduced them to nothing and the whole Island of Brittain to its native liberty from any Foreign Yoak Nor had his Victories a period here but over-run Ireland also where he took Prisoner in a great Battel the Monarch of that Countrey Gillomar and then brought away Choream Gigantum the Giants Monument of stones from the Plains of Kildare in that Kingdom which he set up on Salisbury Plains in England That Arthur who was likewise save one the next King of Great Brittain for he was son to Vter Pendragon that Reign'd immediately before him subdued all England Scotland Ireland the Isles of Orkney Denmark Norway Gothland along to Livonia France and as many Kingdoms in all as made up XXX Yea moreover i. e. after so many great and mighty Conquests and besides the killing too of Monsters and Giants fought even Flollo and Lucius the two Lieutenant Generals of the Roman Emperour Leo kill'd them both in France and the later of them I mean Lucius in the head of a dreadful Army consisting of four hundred thousand men all which he overthrew and ruin'd That although by occasion of some unhappy quarrels among the Britons themselves under Catericus their Lxxxxvi King a bad man the Saxons to be reveng'd on them wrought King Gurmundus the late African Conqueror of Ireland to come from thence into Great Britain with an Army of a hundred sixty six thousand Heathen Africans and burn spoil and destroy the better parts thereof and after put and leave the Saxons in possession of all he could which was that whole Countrey then called Loegria now England as distinguish'd both from Scotland and Wales meaning by Wales the ancient Kingdom of Cambria which comprehended all beyond the Savern and that notwithstanding the Saxons had by such means got possession of all Loegria and held it for several years they were beat out again so soon as the Britons agreed amongst themselves meeting at Westchester and chusing there Caduallo for their King who bravely recovered the whole Island every way round even to the four Seas and kept both Picts and Scots and such of the Saxons as were left alive or permitted to stay in perfect obedience to the British Crown during his own Reign which lasted forty years in all and that so did Cadwallador after him during his In short that as the progeny of Frute continued free independent successful glorious in the first period of their Monarchy under sixty six Kings of their own during at least a thousand years and forty from the landing of Brute till the Invasion of Julius Caesar and as for the next period which took up five hundred and nine years more till the landing of Hengistus the Saxon albeit the Roman power and glory did sometimes lessen sometime ecclipse theirs yet they preserved still their freedom and Laws and Government under twenty other Kings of their British Nation successively reigning over them and paying only a slight acknowledgment of some little tribute to the Roman Emperours nay and this same but now and then very seldom so in the third or last period of it containing somewhat above two hundred and fifty years from the said landing of Hengistus to the twelfth year of Cadwallador they upon the Romans quitting them not only restor'd themselves under Aurelius and Arthur by their own sole valour to the ancient glory of their Dominion but maugre all the opposition of the Confederated Saxons Picts and Scots now and then rebelling against them enjoyed it under the succession of seven Brittish Kings more from Arthur to Cadwallador yea Malgo the fourth of this very last number when the six foreign Provincial Countreys as Geoffrey calls them viz. Ireland Island the Orcades Norway Denmark and Gothia had rebell'd anew was so fortunately brave as by dint of Sword to have reduced them all again to their old subjection under Great Brittains Empire Add moreover that Cadwallador himself albeit the last of this Trojan Race wielding the Sâ—â—pter of Great Brutus enjoyed the same Glorious Power that his Predecessours had before him over the whole extent of this Noble Island That the total change and utter downfal of the Brittish Government happening after in his days proceeded only from an absolute Decree of Heaven and mighty Anger of God incensed against the Brittons for their sins but neither in the whole nor in part from any Power of the Saxons or other Enemies or men upon Earth That the immediate visible means which God made use of to destroy them irrecoverably were 1. A most bloody fatal Division after some years of this Cadwallador's reign happening among them yea continuing so long and to such a degree that between both sides all the fruitful Fields were laid waste no man caring to till the ground 2. The consequence of this waste a cruel Famine over all the Land 3. A Plague so prodigiously raging that the number of the Living was not sufficient to bury the Dead That the Almighty's hand lying so heavy on them by so dreadful a Pestilence was it alone that forc'd Cadwallador in the twelfth year of his Reign to retire for some time into Little Britanny in France That after ten years more when this Epidemical Plague had been wholly over and Cadwallador prepared to ship his Army and return a voice of Thunder by Angelical Ministery spake to him from Heaven commanding him aloud to desist from his Enterprize and telling him in plain terms it was decreed above unalterably The Race of Brutus should bear no more sway in Great Brittain till the time were come which Merlin had prophecied of to King Arthur And to conclude all That in pure obedience to this Voice of God it was that Cadwallador giving
in among so many other mostly too bare names of other pretended Brittish Kings Neither has he any more of the very Second Coilus than that he was the son of King Marius and the Father of King Lucius the First Christian King of Great Brittain and that having in his youth been bred at Rome he continued after e'en all along his Reign both devoted to the Roman State and in Peace with all his Neighbours And therefore the rest of the story in Buchanan either of this or any other Coilus must be a later additional Invention and in reference to the real true Records of Antiquity as ill contrived as might be though answerably enough to the foundation laid for such a superstructure of the new History of Brute and his Descendants But since we are occasionally return'd again to this famed Work of Galfridus Monumetensis whereof you have elsewhere so lately had from my own reading it over a pretty just Summary give me leave here to let you see out of others as just a censure of it Give me leave to tell you that Alanus Copus has compared it with Ovids Metamorphosis and Lucians Tales That William Neubrigensis has spent even three whole Leaves in Prooem Hist to demonstrate by instance of particulars how it is wholly compos'd of the most improbable incredible and ungrounded Lyes that ever were invented That Cambden also in his Britannia relates to others who stick not to say it is all patch'd up of untunable discords and jarring absurdities yea compos'd of such Milesian Fables such intolerable meer inventions of the Authors own brain that the Roman Church at last thought fit to enroll it in the Index of Prohibited Books Yea that Cambrensis himself though a Britton by birth and blood and as desirous of the glory of his Countrey-men as any could be gives it nevertheless the Character of a fabulous History as you may see in his Description of Wales cap. 7. Nay that in his Itinerary of Wales l. 1. c. 5. he tells us that and the occasion and manner how the Devils were seen leaping and skipping and dancing on it However and though it be manifest that as well these Censures as the Summary aforesaid are sufficient even each of them apart to ruin the story of Coilus and Fergus in Buchanan which derives originally from Galfridus and ultimately relies on his invention I shall nevertheless give now another Argument shewing more peculiarly how little Faith ought to be given him in his Catalogue of Brittish Kings and consequently none at all to his naming of Coilus among them In his Seventh Book Chap. V. where he so confidently relates the mighty Battel fought and overthrow given by King Arthur in France to those four hundred thousand Romans and their Auxiliaries mentioned before part Europeans part Asians and the rest Affricans under many Kings come to assist the Roman Emperour against Arthur he has also the brazen brow to invent not only those three names of the Emperour himself and his two Lieutenant Generals which we have seen before but many more of the Auxiliary Kings viz. Epistrephus King of Greece Mustemphar King of Parthia Aliafatina King of Spain Hirtacus King of Affric Boetus King of the Medes Sextorius King of Libya Teucer King of Phrygia Xerxes King of the Itureans Pandrasus King of Egypt Misipsa King of Babylon Politetes Duke of Bithynia Teucer Duke of Phrygia Evander of Syria Ethion of Boetia sure it should be Beotia Hippolitus of Creet c. whereas indeed there were no such names or men and most of these Countreys named by him in the last place were but Provinces then under the Roman or Constantinopolitan Empire and no Kings nor Dukes but only Presidents ruling them under the Emperour Wherefore if he could so boldly invent such a list of Kings abroad in the World for the sixth Age of Christianity wherein he could be so easily disproved by a thousand arguments we have no reason to think that for home and those early Ages of the World wherein he could not be disproved by any Records he did otherwise than meerly forge his Catalogue of Brittish Kings And these are the Reasons that moved me to this Reflection upon that story of Coilus and Fergus in Buchanan as related out of him in my foresaid 19th page And the same reasons or at least a sufficient part of them makes me likewise not insist now upon the name of Notium which you have seen before page 13. given to Breoghuin's Tower in Gallicia It was I doubt not borrowed by Keting from Hector Boethius who says in express terms that place was called first Brigantia but after Notium and last of all Compostella I know there is a Promontory in Dâ—smond the South of Mounster which is by Cambden in his Map of Ireland called Notium but whether from any of that name in North Spain or elsewhere I know not 54. But what is more material to be noted occasioually in this place is Buchanans account of Fergus and the rather because he seems to give it from the Scottish Historians in general He says that this very Fergus pretended by him to have been the over-thrower of Coilus and by Hector Boethius to have also been the son of Ferchardus King of Ireland was the Founder of the Scottish Kingdom in Albania and first of all the Kings of the Scots inhabiting Great Brittain That he came to Albania or Scotland about the time of Alexander the Great 's taking Babylon almost 331. years before the Birth of Christ And that within twenty four years more having reign'd in all so long in his return from Ireland whither he had gone back from Scotland to quiet some disturbances there he perish'd at Sea in a Tempest near that Rock in the North of Ireland which from his wrack hard by is ever since call'd in Latin Rupes Fergusii in Irish Carrig-Fhearuis by us Knock-Fergus So says Buchanan and so said before him Hector Boethius and some others of his Countreymen Historians both he and they either seeming to know nothing at all of those Annals and Books whence only the real true History of their Antiquities could be known or else wittingly and willingly to have taken up a fabulous story of purpose to establish a glorious succession of a hundred and seven Kings of the same Nation reigning one after another from that Fergus I. to James VI. even for above 1900 years Whatever the cause might be the one or the other or perhaps which is likely enough both together it is plain out of the antient Annals and other Histories of Ireland which are indeed the only Fountain of all such truly real Scottish Antiquities as concern at least the Irish Invaders and time of their Invasion of any part of Great Brittain that Buchanan and those follow'd by him have created the said Fergus I. King of the Scots in Albania even 819 years before he landed from Ireland in Brittain For those Irish Monuments fix on the year of
Title of Gregory the Great which he says was deservedly given him by his own People 5. That although in Buchanan's account this very Gregory began his Regn an Christi 870. and finish'd it by his death anno 892. and consequently was not only King of Scots but of Scotland being the Pictish Kingdom there at least as 't is commonly suppos'd had been utterly destroy'd full thirty years before the very first of his Reign yet if his being either King of Scotland or King of Scots be no truer than Buchanan's Relation of his invading Ireland fighting a great Battel victoriously there against the two Protectors or Tutors of the young King Duncanus a Minor and then visiting this young King at Dublin where he resided and then appointing new Tutors for him and last of all taking with him to Scotland threescore Irish Hostages out of the several Provinces of Ireland I dare say there was never any such thing or Person or Prince as Gregory King of Scots For besides what I have given before page 23 24. to disprove this great fiction of Gregory the Great either conquering or at all invading Ireland 't is clear out of all the Irish Antiquities recording the Danish Wars that not the Irish nor any Irish King Minor or not Minor did possess Dublin at that time but the Danes And indeed to confirm this truth the Annals of Vlster tell us that in the year of our Lord 871. two great Danish Captains viz. Ainlaph and Juor came from Albania to Ath-Cliath alias Dublin with two hundred sail and an exceeding great Prey of English and Brittons and Picts whom they brought Captives to Ireland So that Dublin most certainly was in the Reign of that Gregory of Scotland not under any Monarch or other Irish King as no more was it in a hundred and fifty years following but in the power of the Danes who were at least the first Re-builders of it much about the same time that Buchanan supposes it to have been the Metropolitan City of Ireland tho it came not to be so till Henry the Second's Reign For he indeed was the first King or Lord of Ireland that ever kept his Court there and by appointing it the Residence of his Vice-Roys gave it in a little time so great splendor that the Forger seeing it so in his own time thought fit in much earlier times to place his forged Irish Monarch of Gregory of Scotlands story Duncanus in it as in the Royal Mansion of the Kings of Ireland Whereas to the contrary nothing is more known in the Irish Histories than that the City of Tarach full twenty miles from Dublin was the Royal Seat of the Kings of Ireland till its destruction by the first Danish War and in the same days Dublin at best but a very mean place respectively 6. That nevertheless as I am apt enough to believe that allowing Cambden the liberty of an hyperbolical expression he has upon sufficient grounds told us that the Earls of Argile derive their Race from the ancient Princes and Potentates of Argile by an infinite descent of Ancestors so I am verily persuaded that by how much the Genealogy of Kings must be more narrowly sifted than that of any Subjects by so much Gratianus Lucius has upon surer grounds exactly derived in a direct Line the descent of James the sixth of Scotland and first of Great Brittain not only through so many Kings his Predecessors of Scotland from the ancient Kings of Argile up along to Fergus I. nor only from those before that very Fergus through fourteen Generations up to Reuda but even before this Reuda through fifty three Generations whereof Twenty four were Monarchs of Ireland up along to Herimon the first sole absolute Monarch of the Milesian blood in that Kingdom even so long since as Three thousand years wanting only seven Nay I am likewise persuaded that he has also very exactly in two other Lines carried up the descent of the same King James through thirty one other Monarchs of Ireland to the said Herimon as also in a fourth and fifth Line through four and twenty more of the Irish Monarchs and here I mean twenty four more wholly different from all those fifty six already given of Herimons Race up along to Heber who being the stock in these two last Lines makes the 25th King of Ireland in this number ascending upwards for so he was during his short life in a joynt Sovereignty with his foresaid Brother Herimon 7. That undoubtedly this derivation of King James through so many Lines for three thousand years and from the Loins of eighty one Irish Monarchs besides all the truly real both Kings of Scotland and Kings of Scots or Dal-Riada and Argathelia in Scotland given us at large by Gratianus Lucius in his Camb. Evers page 242. 243 and 244. as it is by many degrees a much more ancient so it is a much more glorious derivation of the Royal Pedigree than either Buchanan or Boethius or Major or indeed any other Scottish Historian nay or even any Scottish Herald whatsoever among those called English Scots was capable to make even so much as in any manner well or ill as being wholly ignorant of the Irish Antiquities which they could neither understand nor read if they had had ' em And these are the Animadversions I desire them take to thought who shall either persuade themselves they can reconcile the difference 'twixt the Scottish and Irish Histories concerning Fergus or except against me for laying it open how justly soever the story of Him and Coilus given by me page 20 out of Buchanan has put a necessity on me to do so here There is a passage in my 21 page that says The Romans built Towers and Bulwarks all along the Southern Coast of Brittain at convenient distances against the landing of the Irish on that side out of their plundering Fleets Herein also I followed my Author Keting if I understand him rightly But having since consulted Cambden I found that either Keting had mistaken the matter or I him For the truth is that albeit in relation to the Caledonians or Picts and Scots inhabiting or those driven at that time to the Countreys lying North of Grahams Dyke the foresaid Towers or Castles must be acknowledg'd built in the South yet in relation to the whole Island of Great Brittain or to us now in England they were not so Which and whatever else concerning either that Dyke or Wall of the Romans that you may the more fully understand take this following Extract out of Cambden according to Hollands translation of him Camden in his Scotia and Sterling Sheriffdom Julius Agricola observing the narrow land or Streight by which Dunbritton Frith and Edenborough Frith are held from commixing fortined this space between with Garrisons So as all the part this side was then in possession of the Romans the Enemies remov'd and as it were driven into another Island In so much as Tacitus judg'd
of Wales 56. Of Aonach Tailltinn the most celebrated Irish Fair both for Antiquity and resemblance of the Olympic Games of Greece exhibited therein which I only mention'd in my foresaid 95 page the Author was Lugha Lambfhada the Twelfth King of Ireland after Slanius but Third of the Nation called Fir-bholg e'en so long since as betwixt two and three hundred years before the Milesians conquer'd that Kingdom The occasion this When the Ninth and last Fir-bholgian King of the Posterity of Dela by name Eoghan was kill'd in Battel and the Kingdom seiz'd by new Invaders the Nation of Tuadedainin it happen'd that Tailtinn Daughter to Madhmor King of South-Spain but Widow and Queen to the said Eoghan having married Eochadh Garbb a Nobleman of the new Conquerors bred the foresaid Lugha with great care and kindness in his youth Wherefore he when he came to the Crown retaining thereof a most grateful remembrance and holding himself bound to requite her love in the best manner he could thought fit to ordain as accordingly he did for a perpetual memory of her one and thirty days in all viz. the fifteen immediately preceding our first day of August and the other fifteen next following it to be solemnly kept in all Ages both by a general concourse of the bravest men out of all parts of the Kingdom at a place in Meath called Tailtinn from her name and by all sorts of manly Games and Exercises there as those of Running Hunting Wrestling Leaping Vaulting Tilting c. and by prizes also given to the Victors That so lately before the English Conquest as the year 1168. Ruaruidh O Conchavair the last Irish Monarch held this great Fair of Tailtinn and exhibited those Olympick Games with much solemnity For so Gratianus Lucius has told us in his Roman phrase Ludos Taltinos dedit as we have seen elsewhere And the same Author adds That the Calends or first day of August though in after-times among Christians at least those of the Roman Church dedicated to the Chains of St. Peter and therefore in the Roman Calendar call'd Petri ad Vincula has nevertheless in all Ages been as it is at present in memory of the foresaid King by all the Irish Nation call'd in their Language Lugh-Nasa which imports in English the Remembrance of Lewis for Nasa is remembrance and Lugh the same with Lewis or Luis But Keting says that Queen Tailtinn whom he honour'd so much had been his own Wife though whether in a third Venture or no he does not say 57. There is mention made page 122 and 213 of the Monarch Ollamh Fodhlas's having ordain'd in every Town a Receiver and Entertainer of Strangers But the particulars of that Ordinance and practice of it as I find them in Keting and Lucius being very singular I thought fit to give here the rather because the Character of Gens inhospita that is an inhospitable Nation is given the Irish by Gerald of Wales Top. dist 3. cap. 10. so much against Truth And certainly for what concerns the more ancient times it will appear out of what here follows of their extraordinary care to provide entertainment for all Comers that their Hospitality in those days of yore was unmatchable in Europe I am sure it was so in any place or Countrey that ever I have read of The dignity of an Entertainer says Lucius no where else used was among the Irish bestow'd only on those descended of Noble Families Nor was any capable of it that was not Lord Proprietary of seven Towns I mean Feeding Towns as Keting says the Irish call in their Language all towns whatsoever properly such Bailte Biatha each Town consisting of twelve Plow-lands of Irish Measure which is three or four times twelve of English He must besides have had seven Ploughs continually going and withal been Master of seven Herds of Cows each Herd consisting of a hundred and twenty full His Mansion House so seated as to have been accessible by four several ways A Hog a Sheep a Beef always ready in the Pot or on the Spit to the end that every hour without delay whoever came might be instantly fed The like number of Beasts ready kill'd and fley'd to be put to the fire as the former was taken up Every order and degree of men according to their quality had their Entertainment both meat and drink assign'd by Rule so as the Entertainer if he defrauded any was certain to be fined for it by the proportionable lessening of his immunities and other Priviledges Sundry sorts of drinks were serv'd in sundry sorts of Cups In Glass Wine in Brass Water in Silver Whey in white Cups of Ash Beer and in brown ones made of Fig-tree Milk Hitherto Lucius in his Camb. Evers page 130. Who yet farther adds in the same place out of Keting what you will peradventure no less if not much more wonder at the exceeding great number of those Free-cost entertaining Towns or Houses deputed in such Towns by the publick throughout Ireland In Connaght 900. in Vlster the like number in Leinster 930. in Mounster a 1030. 58. In my 217 page there is likewise upon a far other occasion some little mention made of the victorious Monarch Tuathal Teatchtmhor though much more elsewhere before in one or two places However this place is that which as I was reviewing it has brought to my remembrance what follows here out of Keting As 1. That before his time Ireland was equally divided into Mounster Leinster Connaght and Vlster each of these Divisions meeting at a place and of the sides of a great stone fix'd in that place called Visneach which is in the Countrey that goes now by the name of West Meath 2. That when he had after twenty five years war totally subdued the Plebeian Rebels and restor'd both the Gentry to their Estates and the true Royal Blood and Heirs to their respective Provincial Kingdoms he thought fit to take as he accordingly did with their consent from each of those Divisions a considerable Tract of ground which was the next adjoyning to Visneach one East an other West a third South and the fourth on the North of it and appointed all four under the name of Meath but as comprehending our Counties now of East and West Meath to belong for evermore to the Monarchs own peculiar Demain for the maintenance of his Table 3. That on those four several portions he built four several Kingly Pallaces for himself and his Heirs viz. Tleaghtghae on that of Mounster side Tailltin House on Vlster's an other at Tarach on Leinster's portion and the fourth on the West of Visneach taken from Connaght ordaining withal great Solemnities at each of them to be kept on certain days yearly for ever At Tlaghtghae the sacred but Idolatrous Fire to be kindled on our All Hallows Eve All Magitians of the Kingdom to come thither that night and sacrifice to their Deities in that Fire All the other Fires throughout the Kingdom to be
put out then and under great penalties not kindled again but from or out of this holy Fire of Tlaghtghae And every house in the Kingdom as receiving from this new consecrated Fire and because the ground of Tleaghthae had been formerly the Mounster King's Dominion to pay him yearly three pence for ever At Visneach House or that which he had built hard by and West of it on the ground taken from the Connaght King he ordained That each May day for ever a general Meeting of all the Nobility should be held which Meeting they call'd in their Language Morhail Visneach and it may be English'd the Magnificence of Visneach That two great Fires should be made at this Meeting and betwixt them both all beasts sacrific'd to their great God Beile which Keting conceives to have been the same with Belus for expiating their sins appeasing his wrath and obtaining from him favour for the following year That the same day and hour in every District or Territory of the whole Kingdom two such other Fires should be made for the like purpose that is for all the respective Inhabitants to resort unto them with their Heathen Priests and sacrifices In fine that every Chieftain and person of Quality come to the said great Meeting at Visneach should present the Connaght King with a Horse and compleat harness for a Horseman as a Chiefry reserv'd to him for that ground Where Keting adds that from these yearly Paganical Fires at Visneach and elsewhere made in those days of Idolatry to honour Beall it is that ever since even along to this very day the Irish call the first of May Lae Beall-tine which imports in English Beali's Fire day for in their Tongue Lae is day and Tine is Fire At or near the Palace of Tailltionn he by a new Ordinance of his own commanded the ancient Fair called Aonach Tailltinn whereof we have spoke before to be kept yearly on Lammas day with much more solemnity and a far greater conflux of people than ever And there it was that Wedding-matches were usually treated agreed upon concluded betwixt the Parents of young Folks And by this Monarchs new Law every couple marrying there paid six shillings eight pence which the Irish then did call Vinghe Airgiod an ounce of Silver to the King of Vlster as an acknowledgment of his having formerly been Lord of that portion But for Tarach alias Teambhuir where he had built his fourth Royal Palace I find nothing ordained by him concerning any solemnity or Assembly there And the reason I suppose might be that even the very greatest and most solemn Assembly of all the Estates in Parliament either to make new Laws and repeal the old or to exercise any other Acts of Supream Jurisdiction had been already both by Law and Custom fix'd in that place ever since Ollamh Fodhlas's Reign that is full 1200. years wanting only seventeen before Tuathal Teachtmhor came to be King No more do I find any duty or Chiefry payable to the K. of Leinster Whereof I conceive also the reason might have been That indeed as Keting elsewhere and upon an other occasion than this here observes Cairbre Niafearr the very first King of Leinster had full two hundred and six years before Tuathal Teachtmor's time pass'd away both his own right and that of his Successors after him in the foresaid portion of Land wherein Tarach was built and for ever made it over by way of sale and bargain to Connor the first King of Vlster and his Successours after him in lieu of his beloved Daughter by name Feilim Nua Chrothach or Felicia the Beautiful whom Cairbre had bought so dear to be his Wife So dear I say because that fourth portion from Visneach to the Eastern Sea being in his time and until this bargain made part of Leinster contain'd three Cantreds of Land of the very best in Ireland even all the Land which now goes under the name of the County of Meath I mean East-Meath along to Droghedagh besides Fingale and all the other Lands too on that side of the River Liffy to Dublin But if you desire to know what or how much Land a Cantred means being I have told but now of three Cantreds in this Fourth portion Cambrensis in his Hiber expug l. 2. c. 18. answers that as well in the Irish as Brittish Tongue by a Cantred is meant that proportion or quantity of Land which usually contains a hundred Villages And whether Keting disagree in this signification of that word I know not certainly because I know not how much Land Cambrensis would assign to a Village or Villa his Latin term Of this I am certain that Keting assigns according to the Irish account but thirty Feeding Towns or Bailite â—iath as he calls ' â—m to a Cantred every one of them containing twelve Plow-lands and every Plowland a hundred and twenty acres of Irish measure which is commonly three or four times greater than the English And this is both reflection and digression enough occasion'd by the mention made of Tuathal Teachtmhor the Irish Monarch in my foresaid 217. page 59. My next Reflection is to correct an Error which I observe in my 229. page For there and whether through my own mistake or the Printers I know not it is said That Connor the first Provincial King of Vlster was made so by Eochuidh Feileach the Monarch and Author of the Pentarchy about 400 years before the Birth of Christ whereas indeed it could not be so much by at least two hundred and eighteen years Because this Monarch Eochadh Feileach who made that Connor King of Vlster could not make him King before himself was Monarch and this he was not before the year of the World 5057. in which he kill'd his Predecessor and possess'd his Throne Now according to the Chronology of Lucius that year of the World was just one hundred forty two years before the Birth of our Lord because says he this Birth hapned in the year of the World 5199. after the deluge 2957. and in the 8th year as some say or as others in the 12th year of the Monarch of Ireland Criomthain Niadnairs Reign Now 't is plain that from the year 5057 to the year 5099. no more efflux'd but 142 years 60. The review of my 229. page and what is given there of that happy King of Mounster Feilim mhac Criomthain brings to my thoughts here a passage in Keting that is very lingular both for the Author and matter of it The Author is holy Bennin as the Irish call him in their Language whom the Latins call St. Benignus even that very beloved Disciple of St. Patrick their great Apostle who was consecrated and install'd by him in his own days and in his own stead Arch-bishop of Ardmagh And the matter is the magnificent and costly progress of the Kings of Cashel in former times about Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogh throughout all Ireland And says Keting it is in the Irish Book
call'd Leabhar na Geart i. e. the Book of Rights or Dues a Book beginning with these words Dligh gach Riogh O Riogh Cassil and a Book written wholly by S. Benignus himself 1200 years since that the particulars of that stately Progress are set down as here they follow Bestow'd by him that is by the King of Cashel when he went that Progress on the King of Cruachain a hundred Swords a hundred Cups of Plate a hundred Horses and a hundred Mantles Receiv'd from this Cruachain or Connaght King half a years entertainment and the Rising out as they call it of all the Countrey waiting on him to Tirconail Bestow'd by him on the King of Cineal Gonuill twenty Rings twenty pair of Tables which they call'd Fithchioll and twenty Horses Received a months entertainment and the rising out of that Countrey along with him to Tir-oghain Bestow'd by him on the King of Oileach fifty Silver Cups and fifty Swords Receiv'd a months entertainment and the waiting of the Countrey on him to Tullenoge Bestow'd by him on the Lord or Chieftain of Tullenoge thirty Silver Bowls and thirty Swords or Lances Receiv'd twelve days entertainment and waiting on as elsewhere to Oirgialluibh Bestow'd by him on this King I mean of Oirghialluibh eight shirts of Mayle sixty Coats and sixty Horses Receiv'd a months entertainment at Eambaine with the rising out into Vlster against Clanna Ruidhruidh Bestow'd by him on the King of Tarach 30 shirts of Mayle thirty Rings a hundred Horse and thirty Harpers Receiv'd there a months entertainment and the four chief Families accompanying him thence to Dublin Bestow'd by him on the King of Dublin ten Women ten Ships and ten Horses Receiv'd a months entertainment and this Kings Company into Leinster Bestow'd by him on the Leinster King thirty Cows thirty Ships thirty Horses and thirty young Maids which they termed Cumbhall Receiv'd two months entertainment i. e. one months from Vpper Leinster and another from the Lower which they call Jachter Laighion Finally to the Tanist of the same Low-Leinster thirty Horses thirty shirts of Mayle and 30 Swords And this was the costly splendour of that general Progress of the Mounster Kings over Ireland in former Ages when they thought fit to make or undertake it Which Feidlimidius alias Felim mhac Criomthain King of that Province did in his Reign and this no longer since then the 845 year of Christ for he enter'd upon that Kingdom An. Dom. 818. and retir'd from it to lead an Eremitical Life in the 27th yearafter What the Original or Rise of it was or what right a Provincial King of Mounster could pretend to such a Progress I do not find Nor do I know what moved Keting to desire the Reader not to account him the Author of the Relation Or why so contrary to his custome elsewhere generally throughout his whole Chronicle he quotes here the Author It had been indeed very well and much to be wish'd that he had done so all along for his other Relations But here perhaps he thought fit to do it of purpose to decline the invidious Censure of those of other Provinces for magnifying so much his own Province of Mounster without so good a warrant as Benuin's Book Whatever his motive was the Relation it self puts me upon some occasional observations here which shall be in all three First Observation That Dublin must have been a considerable place in the days of Benuinn seeing it had then or at least before his time a King and was a Kingdom of it self different from that of Leinster And therefore that however or whenever it was first after that time destroy'd yet surely none of those three Norvegian Brethren Amelacus Sitaracus Juor was the first Founder but only the Repairer and Fortifyer of it a little before the second Danish War In which persuasion I 'am fix'd by considering that in the Chorographical Tables of Ptolomy who flourish'd under the Emperour T. Aurelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius in the year of Christ 153. the People Eblani and the City Eblana is placed where Dublin has always been And therefore Eblana in Ptolomy is the very self-same Town we now call Dublin the Latin Writers Dublinium and Dublinia the Welsh Britons Dinas Dulin the English Saxons in times past Duplin and all from one of the two original Irish names of it The first of them was Dubh-linn which imports a black Depth of Water that was there And the second not only was but is still among all sorts of Irish not as Cambden has it Bala-Cleigh but Bala-Ath-Cliath importing not the Town upon Hurdles but the Town of the Ford of Hurdles Which nevertheless is consistent enough with the Tradition that when Dublin was first built the foundation was laid upon Hurdles by reason the place had been deeply moorish I could here add out of Cambden not only that Saxo Grammaticus writes how it was pitifully rent and dismembred in the Danish Wars but also that in the Life of Griffith ap Synan Prince of Wales 't is read that Harald of Norway when he had subdued the greatest part of Ireland built Deuelin I could likewise add my own animadversions on both the one other passage viz. That the Irish Chronicles make no mention of any Harald either conquering any part of Ireland or building or so much as repairing Dublin That neither does the Author of Polichronicon agree in the one or other point deriv'd from that Life Nay that according to him Sitaracus or Sitric was the Noruegian Builder of Dublin And yet I could further add that what Cambden has next out of the foresaid Life may be very true For after telling us his own opinion of the above Harald to be That he was Harald surnamed Harfager i. e. of the Fair Locks or Tresses who was the first King of Norway he adds that his Lineal descent goes thus in that Life Harald begat a Son named Auloed alias Abloicus Aulafus and Olauus Auloed begat another Auloed this had a Son by name Sitric King of Dublin Sitric begat Auloed whose Daughter Racuella was Mother to Griffith ap Synan born at Dublin whilest Tirlough reign'd in Ireland And all these matters and much more relating to them I could dilate upon were they to my purpose here But they are not because my purpose here is only to trace up the antiquity of Dublin as far as I can And this I have done before out of Ptolomy by shewing that City to have been famous in his time which was above 1510 years since But how long before is a thing wholly buried in oblivion for want of Records And therefore I pass to my Second Observation Which is to give the original of those Clanna Ruidhruidgh against whom the King of Oirghillaedh alias Vriel with his People was bound to wait on the Mounster Kings in their Progress And this I do because their name is very frequent both in the Irish Histories and in all the Provinces of Ireland among the
That upon this success at least not long after it the Picts looking big growing unruly and even aspiring to the Command of that whole Province of Leinster but the Monarch Herimon made acquainted with it drawing together a greater Power then they dared fight they were compell'd to accept of his Terms and hye them away out of hand with his directions and assistance for the Northern parts of Great Brittain 6. That nevertheless before their departure they obtain'd of Herimon three Irish Ladies by name Beanbhreasi Beanbhuais and Beanbhuaisdhne who had been the Widows of three of Herimons Commanders and taken these names from 'em kill'd in the late War with Tuath-De-Danann and these were all the Women they could obtain at least then though upon that very condition told us by Bede The first of 'em married to Cathluan the chief Commander now of the Picts for it seems his Father Gud was before this time departed the World the other two married to two more of their Nobles Nor could any of them obtain leave to stay in Ireland but only six viz. Trosdan the foresaid Magitian Soilean Vlpre Neachtan Nar Aongus and Leatan who had possessions given them for ever by Herimon in the Countrey of Breagh Mhoigh now call'd by us East and West Meath 6. That the foresaid Cathluan was the first King of the Picts in Cruithin-Tuath or Tuath Chruinigh for by both these compound names indifferently the Irish Books call that Countrey in the North of Brittain which the Picts erected to a Kingdom and call it so properly enough as importing in English the Lordship Lordship or Dominion of the Picts the simple word Tuath signifying in Irish a Lordship and Cruinigh the Picts themselves 7. That after him in a succession reign'd in the same Countrey at least in some part of it and of the same Pictish Nation Threescore and Ten Kings more to Constantine the last of ' em And these being the Heads of those particulars that concern them in the Psalter of Cashel written by the Holy Cormock O Cuilenain Arch Bishop and King of Mounster eight hundred years since and by consequence written either immediately before or immediately after I am sure much about the time of their last fatal overthrow by his Countrey men the Irish and their Issue in Scotland we need no longer question either the time of that Pictish Nation 's first appearance or the Countrey they came from to the Western parts of Europe As neither indeed whence they deriv'd the custom of painting themselves They might have learn'd this from the Agathyrsi in Thracia if themselves had it not before yea they might be the first that us'd it in Great Brittain and the Brittons might have only had it from them for any thing said to the contrary And they came as early to Ireland and Scotland both as the Reign of Herinton the first Milesian Monarch of Ireland after he had kill'd his elder Brother Heber to whom he was but joyn'd in Sovereignty while Heber lived Nay we need not question how long this Pictish Kingdom lasted For seeing it began at least as early as Herimon's death I mean by this account in the Psalter of Cashel and that by Primat Vshers account it continued to the year of Christ 840. then we must conclude that according to Gratianus Lucius's computation of the years of the World and years also of all the several Irish Monarchs Reigns the Pictish Kingdom lasted 2623 years in all For this Author fixes the death of Herimon in the year of the World 3516. and the Birth of Christ in the year 5199. as Eusebius Caesariensis one of the Fathers of the first General Council of Nice did long before him What more I have to say in reference to the Picts their Kingdom or Kings is That as I was writing this Reflection Mr. Langhorn's Introduction to the History of England being brought me by chance and looking it over I observ'd That altho the ingenious Author gives no more light therein concerning the Countrey whence those Picts came first to Ireland and thence to Scotland nor of their Leaders name nor of the time of their arrival amongst us than other late Writers especially Campion and Hanmer did before him who call that Leader King Roderick and say this Roderick came to Ireland from Scandia alias Scandinavia which goes under the name of Scythia Germanica or the German Scythia yet he gives therein page 197 a Catalogue of the Brittish Kings and years of their several Reigns partly out of John Fordon's M. S. Scoto-Chronicon and partly out of Hector Boethius who adds to the 76 Kings in Fordon five more So that both numbers put together make just the very same number of Pictish Kings which the Psalter of Cashel has Though I must confess there is no other agreement in any point between that Psalter these Authors either as to the names of those Kings or years of their Reigns or total sum of these years Neither is there in that whole Catalogue any Roderick either as first or last or any at all of them nor any thing near his name The very same you may assure your self of Cathluan whom nevertheless you have seen before out of the Psalter of Cashel to have been the first Pictish King As for the total sum of the years of their Reign which by casting it up out of the several Reigns every body may see is 1165. it plainly comes short by 1452 years of the former account derivable from the Psalter of Cashel and Vsher Lucius Besides it necessarily must suppose the Pictish Kingdom began in Scotland e'en four hundred years full before any Picts landed in Scotland or came from Scandinavia to Scotland or Ireland which does not stand with the time of their coming set down by our new Historians and last of all by Langhorn himself As for the names express'd in that Catalogue all I can say is that if we give credit to Nennius a Brittish Author that liv'd as himself writes an Christi 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech if besides we suppose his Book rightly translated into Irish in O Duvegans Miscellanies and if withal we believe that Gratianus Lucius quoting both would not impose upon us nor I on you or my self what follows must be That we give no kind of credit to the foresaid Catalogue drawn out of Fordon and Boethius not even I mean as to those names of the Pictish Kings contain'd therein For the same Gratianus Lucius after letting us know in his Cambr. Evers page 93. That himself had a Copy of those Miscellanies and among 'em the Catalogue of all the Pictish Kings written by the said Nennius then presently though upon another occasion names five and forty of 'em and I am sure that of this very number tho only a part of Nennius's Catalogue there are at least six and twenty names that have no affinity with no resemblance at all nor imitation of any in the whole Bedâ—oll
Fictions For so himself expresly says Adding withal that such only and no other was the repute they had in the very days of Yore among the best Irish Antiquaries And for this he brings sufficient proofs by alledging their own words Gratianus Lucius is the next Author I make frequent use of to lead me in several remote affairs of the more Ancient Irish And he likewise an Irish man by birth but of the Province of Connaght and as himself professes by name and blood of English Extraction His own proper name and surname John Lynch his Function Sacerdotal and of the Secular Clergy too His employ besides at Galway for some years in our own time was Teaching a School of Humanity as they call it wherein he was excellent In the differences between the Roman Catholic Confederates in the late unhappy War of that Nation he join'd with those of them that were against the Nuncio Rinuccini's Censures for the Cessation with Inchiquin submission to the King and the two Peaces After the surrender of Galway to the English Parliament Army he went to France Where employing his time as became a good Patriot Loyal Subject he wrote printed and publish'd two Latin Books in Quarto with a Dedicatory Epistle to the Congregation of Cardinals de Propaganda Fide against a Factious disloyal Manuscript which one Richard Ferral an Irish Capuccin had some years before written and presented to the same Congregation as a Direction for them in their government of the Church affairs of Ireland the former entitled Alithinologia the Later Supplementum Alithinologiae Some years after that is an 1662. he publish'd under the name of Gratianus Lucius an other Latin Work in Folio intitled Cambrensis Eversus as being a full confutation of the Author that goes by the name of Cambrensis Who this Cambrensis and what the Quarrel was to let you know if I digress a little it may peradventure be worth the while His proper name and surname in English being Gerald Barry that Additional of Cambrensis he had from his native Countrey in Latin Cambria in English Wales His education of a Scholar profession of a Divine Function of a Priest and as I must suppose merits in all brought him in time to be not only Arch-deacon of S. Davids but Tutor to the young Earl of Mortaign Fifth Son to Henry II. Vnder which Qualifications first his zeal for the old Archiepiscopal privileges of that See engag'd him in a long Contest with the See of Canterbury and then his Election to the same See of S. Davids involv'd him in another In so much that however he came to be worsted in both for so he was yet his name has ever since remain'd on Record in the Papal Canons His extraction made him Nephew to Robert fitz Stephens and Maurice fitz Gerald Cousin to Meylerus and Brother to Philip Barry and Robert Barry five of the first chief men that adventured to Ireland of purpose to advance their own fortune by helping on the Restauration of Diarmuid na Ngall King of Leinster His own Genius once and once more his Place carried him to Ireland For twice he was there first to see his kinsmen daily acquiring large possessions by their valour and next to wait on his young Prince Earl John when created Lord of Ireland and sent thither by the King And now as himself confesses being desirous of glory and immortal fame by describing Ireland and informing the World not only of what he knew of the State of that Kingdom then under the English Conquerors but of all former Conquests and State thereof from the beginning he wrote to this purpose five Books in Latin The first three of 'em under the Title of The Topography of Ireland and the other two under that of The Conquest of Ireland by Henry II. Indeed more specious Titles both than his Relations under them do so much as meanly answer Besides that the Title at least of Topography must be very strangely applyed to signifie the Description of a whole Kingdom And yet notwitstanding This together with the History of all former Conquests and other Antiquities of Ireland is that which he promises to give under the same Title That he has very ill perform'd that he has given his Reader 's nothing less than such a History or such a Description we must not wonder He neither could understand the Language nor so much as read the Books whether of History or Chorography written at large by the Natives themselves in their own Character He saw not in any manner nor travel'd nor view'd e'en at a distance above one Third of the Kingdom nor dar'd for his Life venture into either of the other two parts His whole stay in Ireland being the whole extent of Yime employ'd by him in gathering materials for his intended Work was but a year and a half besides an other half years task which he had left to his Companion Bertram Verdon who therefore stay'd so long behind him His Collections at least for such part of 'em as any way pertinently related to his foresaid promise or Titles were certainly extream little but the rest of them no less extream bad and commonly false to boot They were so little that he describes not so much as one County or Tract or Town no not of that very third Part of the Kingdom which he might have seen Vnless peradventure you take for a Description of all Ireland his Fabulous Narrations of four Wells three Islands three Lakes the Fountain head of four great Rivers and the Fall of the greatest of them all by name the River of Shannon into the Northern Sea Tho it be well known That as all these Narrations are such i. â— meer Fables so the one moiety of these Lakes Wells Islands besides the Head-spring of Shannon are within those other parts of Ireland which he never saw nor durst enter As for the History of the former Inhabitants Conquests and other Antiquities of that Kingdom promised by him it is in like manner not only so imperfect but so little in all respects That 1. he has not the least mention of Tuatha-De-Danainn though a powerful People that by a bloody War entirely won it from Feara-Bolg and were possessors of it for a hundred ninty seven Years under the successive Reigns of seven or rather indeed Nine Kings of their own that is until they also in their turn were conquer'd by the Clanna Mileadh about Thirteen hundred years before the Birth of Christ 2. Of those Clanna Mileadh or Descendents from Milesius though they were the People that continued the Possession and Government of Ireland ever since about 2500 years to this very Authors days yet all the account he gives is only in short that they had a hundred eighty one Monarchs ruling successively over that Kingdom but not a word more of their History Polity Laws Conquests abroad Militia or Wars at home may not so much as a bare Catalogue of
those very Monarchs for he names only the first and last of 〈◊〉 being Feidlimidius whom he mistakes for one more was not King of Ireland but of Mounster only So little he has of the very Milesians or their Antiquities or Actions Except only 1. A few words of the six Sons of Muredus Provincial King of Ulster entring Scotland 2. A slender touch upon the Danish Invasions of Ireland In which notwithstanding he is mightily out both as to the Year of Christ he fixes on for the first of those Invasions viz. 838. and as to the name person feats yea and Nation too of Gurmundus all being meer Fictions borrow'd mostly from Galfridus Monumethensis However with such and many more idle stories in other matters not only impertinent to the Title of his Books or discharge of his Promise nor only not had from any Records or Writings whatsoever as neither from the oral Testimony of men of knowledg or integrity but wholly deriv'd from old Wive's Tales and pastime of Ferry-men and random reports of Soldiers and imposture of some Knaves who fain'd things of purpose to impose on his vain credulity and besides with most vile reflections Invectives Satyrs almost every where against the Irish Nation of his own time their Princes Priests and People generally without sparing any degree not even the very Monks nor even the very Bishops excepted he patch'd up finish'd at last after five years study all his foresaid five Books of Ireland prefixing Dedicatories of some to the King as of other of 'em to Richard Earl of Poictou who soon after was Richard I. of England And now putting an extraordinary value on these Works of his own and no longer able to conceal his ambitious design of glory by 'em he goes to Oxford renews the ancient Roman Rehearsals there in the most publick Audience could be had continues 'em three days together from morning till night allowing a day for each of his Topographical Books And to make his Comedy the more solemn feasts all the meaner sort of that whole City on the firstday on the second all the Doctors Masters and chief Scholars of the Vniversity on the third day the rest of the Scholars the Soldiers too and all the Burgesses of that Place A sumptuous and noble act says Gerald himself glorying of it whereby the ancient Custom of Poets was renewed which neither the present Age nor any former could shew in England But after all he came short of his expectation of glory His little performance and great ignorance his many Fables and evil choice of other materials toâ— yea and his mortal enmity hatred malevolence to the Irish Nation were seen through especially at Court where as himself complains he had too many back Friends to malign him Above all his Satyrs and spleen against the very name of the Irish lai'd him open Nor were the true causes thereof unknown Besides the common concern he had in the destruction of that People for the sake of his Kinsmen there was another more peculiar to himself that continually egg'd him to the greatest violence against them He had even for his own sake very deeply engag'd in a particular controversie with Albinus O Molloy a Cistercian Irish Monk and Abbot of Baltinglass wherein he was worsted Whether any other causes mov'd him I do not know But this I know that in his Second Book of the Conquest of Ireland he desir'd that whole Nation might either be throughly weakned or totally destroy'd yea notwithstanding the Peace but lately concluded and still observ'd by them And that besides in the same Book cap. 36. he prescrib'd the ways to do it I see also that on every occasion as he is perpetually in the greatest extreams even of Romantic praises of his own Relatives Fitz Stephens Fitz Gerald Meyler the two Barrys and all their Brittish Soldiers too his own Countrey-men so of the other side upon the least pique he is no less passionately excessive in charging with and exaggerating the vilest things against the very Normans and English in Ireland tho embarqu'd in the save public quarrel with them against the Irish Nation Witness among others Herveus de Monte Marisco and William Fitz Adelm the King's Lieutenant and Progenitor of the noble Family of Bourks in that Kingdom Nay witness the King himself Henry II. Whom altho during his Life this Author made the Occidental Alexander the Invincible the Salomon of his own Time the most Pious of Princes and his only Fame tho far short of his Merits to have repress'd the fury of all the very Gentils of Europe and Asia too beyond the Mediterranean Sea adding many more Hyperbolical expressions to magnifie him above all truth and reason as for example That his Victoâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 with the Circumference of the Earth and That if you seek after the Limits of his Conquests you shall sooner come to the end of the World than of them yet after this Great Prince's death as David Powel very particularly observes he the same Author Gerald of Wales most bitterly invey'd against him in his Book de Instructione Principis where he so belâ—bed forth the venom of his malevolence that he manifestly discover'd his old inveterate hatred of this King Henry So says Powell Moreover and in reference particularly to his stories of Ireland you may find in Primat Ushers Sylloge pag. 155. how the expostulations of other men and evidence of Truth compell'd him at last to several Retractations among which he confesses that altho he had some of his Relations from persons of credit in that Countrey yet for the rest he had only common report and fame Which if I be not mistaken is in effect to acknowledg that he had common Lyes and Forgeries to authorize them Nay further You may read Sir James Wares Censure of them in his own Antiquities of Ireland cap. 23. where in express terms he says in Latin That Gerald of Wales in his Topography of Ireland has heap'd together so many Fabulous Relations that to discuss them exactly would require a just Treatise And then adds in the same place his own wonder How it should come to pass that some of this very Age tho otherwise grave and learned men have again for Truths obtruded on the World those Fictions of Girald Besides You are to know that notwithstanding so many just exceptions against those Books of Cambrensis yea notwithstanding they had therefore lyen after his death 400 years neglected obscure unknown till Cambden had them printed at Francford an 1602. yet ever since that year they have proved the only chief warrant to all such men of little reading as were delighted in writing ill of the ancient Irish To conclude what I would say on the whole is That if hatred enmity open profess'd hostility and special interest and actual engagement too in the destruction of that ancient Irish Nation if ignorance of their Language and wilful passing by their History even the most authentick of their
108 Fearghus II. Dubhdheadach 109 Cormuc Ulfhada 210 Eochodh XI Gunnat 111 Cairbre II. Lithfiochair 112 Fothach I. Airgtheach and Fothach II. Cairb theach two Brothers 1â—3 Fiacha VII Sraibhtine 114 Colla Vais 115 Muireadhach Tireach 116 Calbhach 117 Eochodh XII Muighmheadhion 118 Criomthann III. mhac Eochuigh 119 Niall I. Naoighiallach 120 Fearadhach II. alias Dathi Hitherto the Pagan Kings For according to Gratianus Lucius all that follow were Christians 121 Laoghaire II. mhac Neill Naoighialluidh 122 Oillioll IV. Molt 123 Lughadh IV. mhac Laoghaire 124 Muirchiortach I. mhac Ercha 125 Tuathal II. Maolgharbh 126 Diarmuidh I. mhac Fearghussa Ceirbheoil 127 Fearghus the III. and Domhnall the I two Brothers 128 Eochodh XIII and Baothan I. the former being Nephew and the later Uncle 129 Ainmhire 130 Baothan II. mhac Ninnede 131 Aodh II. mhac Ainmhire 132 Aodh III. Slaine and Colman Rimhigh two Brothers 133 Aodh IV. Vairidhneach 134 Maolchoha 135 Suibhne I. Meann 136 Domhnall II. mhac Aodh 137 Conall III. Ceile and Ceallach two Brothers 138 Blaithmbae and Diarmuid II. Ruainnigh two Brothers 149 Seachnasach 140 Ceannfodlâ— 141 Fionneachta II. Fleadhach 142 Loinnsioch 143 Conghall IV. Kinnmhaghair 144 Fearghal I. mhac Mhaoilduin 145 Foghortach 146 Kinaoth 147 Flaithbhiortach 148 Aodh V. Ollan 149 Domhnall 3. mhac Murchaidh 150 Niall II. Frassach 151 Donnchadh I. mhac Domhnaill 152 Aodh VI. Oirnigh 153 Conchabhar II. mhac Donnchaidh 154 Niall III. Caille 155 Maolseachluinn I. mhac Mhaoilruanuidh 156 Aodh VII Finnliath 157 Flann mhac Sionna 158 Niall IV. Glundubh 159 Donnchadh II. mhac Floinn 160 Conghallach mhac Mhaoilmhidhe 161 Dombnall IV. mhac Muirchiortuidh 162 Maolseachluinn II. mhac Domhnaill 163 Brian Boraimh 164 Maolseachluinn II. restor'd 165 Donnchadh III. mhac Briain Bhora imh 166 Diarmuid III. Mhaoil-na-mbho 167 Toirrdhealbhach I. mhac Taidhg 168 Muirchiortach II. mhac Toirrdhealbhuidh and Domhnal V. mhac Ardghair 169 Toirrdhealbhach II. Mor O Conchabhair 170 Muirchiortach III. mhac Neill 171 Ruairidh II. O Conchabhair In the sixth year of this Monarch's Reign being the year of Christ 1172. Henry II. of England with a Fleet of 400 Sail invaded and landed in Ireland at Waterford Some Observations on and Inferences from this Catalogue TO understand this Catalogue which I have drawn with all the care and exactness I could out of Ketings History at large and Gratianus Lucius's VIII Chapter of his Cambrensis Eversus be pleas'd to observe 1. That the Surnames of such Kings as had any are given here in a different Character from that of their first and proper Names 2. That to all Kings of the same Proper Name who had no Surname I mean any other second Name derived from some peculiar quality of Mind or Body or Fortune as all their Surnames were I have likewise for distinction's sake in a different Character besides Figures signifying what place each of 'em held among the rest for Example whither the First or Second or so forth among those of the same Name I have I say added their Fathers Name also with the word Mac which im ports a Son before ' em 3. That the Marginal or First Figures in the head of the Lines rather signifie the order of Succession than the number of Kings because many of the Lines have two one of 'em three and an other four Kings ruling together in a joint Sovereignty at least for some time 4. That although both Keting and Lucius concur in telling us how the four Brothers of the Milesian Conquest numb 5. Ear Orba Fearon and Feargna sons to Eibhir Fionn we call him Heber had in the Third year of the former joint Sovereignty of the Three sons of Erimhon after the death of the First of these Three kill'd in Battel the two surviving Kings Luighne and Laighne yet Lucius only not Keting has rank'd 'em in the Catalogue of Kings who notwithstanding confesses their Reign was but Three months in all when their own Cosin German Iriall Faidh the fourth and youngest son of Erimhon gave them Battel at Cuile-Mertha vanquish'd and kill'd 'em all four in that Field 5. That neither Buchadh N. 62. tho told us by Keting to have been the Man that kil'd the Monarch Eoghun Mor is counted by him among the Kings as who had had the Sovereign Power only 36 hours or a day and a half in all But Lucius nevertheless inserts him as one of 'em adding however to his memory this Motto of the Poet Vnusque Titan vidit atque unus dies stantem cadentem 6. That in the same manner Diarmuid-Mhaoil na-mo N. 167. is laid aside by Keting tho not only Lancarnaruensis and Gemiticensis call him King of Ireland but Sir James Ware places him in his Catalogue as such And this very justly too a man would think as in the Prospect Form P. p. 180. you may see at large 7. That Domhnal mhac Ardghair N. 169. is likewise pass'd over by Keting yet not so by Lucius nor Colganus neither See the Prospect F. P. p. 178 c. 8. That Erimhon Conn-Begeaglach and Maolseachluinn II. are each of 'em twice inserted The first Num. 1 2. the second Num. 46 48. the last N. 193 195. whereof the reasons are these Erimhon had been first only join'd in the Sovereignty with his elder Brother Eibhir Fionn but after Eibhir had been kill'd by him in the Battel of Geassil he was absolute as ruling alone Conn Bâ—geaglach though when his Brother and Colleague in the Sovereign Power was kill'd he had been forc'd to â—ly leave the Kingdom to the Victor yet after some few years he recover'd it again by killing him And Maolseachluinn II. who had been depos'd to give place to Briain Boraimh came to be the second time King of Ireland after Clantarff Field 9. That the Irish Historians differ about giving the Title of King of Ireland to Maolseachluinn II's Successors some giving it to one and others to another and some sometimes to more than one but all of 'em generally calling those Kings that succeeded him Gafra Sabhrach as who had assum'd the said Title against the consent of some Provinces For so Lucius pag. 80. has observ'd And now that for your better and easier understanding of this Catalogue you have the necessary Observations I 'll only add one more which tho unnâ—cessary for that end may notwithstanding give you cause enough towonder by considering the general Fate of about Nine Parts of Ten of so many Sovereign Princes as you see in this whole Catalogue from Slainghe the First of the Fir-bholgian to Ruaridh the Last of the Milesian Conquest For I can assure you here that after the greatest diligence I could use to satisfie my self by taking Notes out of Keting and Lucius both I find That of so vast a number of Milesian Kings not above six and twenty in all had other then violent ends Which is three less than what I have elswhere insinuated the number of such of them
as had natural ends to have been As for the Fir-bholgian Tuath-De-Danann Kings tho proportionably fewer e'en of either died violent deaths yet of their 18. which was their whole number fourteen lost their Lives by the Sword But how many or how few soever you please of all these and those Kings of all the Former Conquests ended their days either by the hands of other men or some prodigious judgment of Heaven or means of other extrinsick secondary Causes in such manner as rendred their deaths properly violent the Inferences out of this Catalogue are plain 1. That if we count severally each of those Milesian Princes who jointly or in Association with any other govern'd as Kings of Ireland and withal not count the same Person twice nor count among 'em either Cairbre I. surnamed Ccann-cheit or Feilim I. mhac Conruidh see Numb 98. 99. as indeed we ought not being these Two are the only noted for meer Usurpers because both were chosen one after another by the Plebeians only nay and only too to head their most hideous bloody Rebellion of 25 years continuance against all the Royal Line and as for the former of 'em viz. Cairbre he had not so much pretence of right as to have been either of the Milesian or e'en Gathelian Race but originally a meer Dane I say that if we count so we shall find the whole number of those Milesian Kings as it is in this Catalogue to agree exactly with that which Cambrensis himself 500 years since reported it to have been That is just 181 in all 2. That counting together with these Milesians those â—8 Fir-bholgian and Tuatha-De-Donann Kings who preceded them and withal admitting both Cairbre Ceann-cheit Feilim mhac Conruidh as Kings of Ireland for so they really tho illegally were in their time the Former 5 years till he died a natural death and the Later 20. at the expiration of which he was kill'd in Battel by Tuathal Teachtmhur it must follow that they make in all 201 Kings of Ireland while the Former Three Conquests held one after another 3. That hereunto adding 22 more of the Fourth and Last i. e. our English Conquest the whole Number of the Sovereign Princes of Ireland from Slainghe to Charles II. must be 223. whereof Three were Queens Macha Mary and Elizabeth A PROSPECT OF The State of Ireland c. The Former PART SECTION I. First Planter of Ireland Ciocal First Invader Partholan then Neimh and his four Sons then Fir-bholg then Tuatha-De-Danann and last of all the Eight Sons of Mileadh Fights of the former Invaders Nine of Ferramh Bolg and Nine more of Tuatha-De-Danann ruled as Kings of Ireland Fir-Bholg divide it into two parts Three Septs of these remaining still The adventures of Mileadh His eight Sons conquer Tuatha-De-Danann How Erimhon came to be sole Monarch of Ireland He was the first of 181 Kings of the Milesian Conquest Eoghun Mor 620 years after Erimhon set up the Provincial Kings Picts first appearing They are the first time and together with them all the Islands of Scotland Conquered by Aonghus Ollbuadhach Many Plantations of the Irish in Scotland Niall Naoighiallach's Invasion of that Countrey and an other by the six Sons of Muireadhach Fergus Mor mhac Ercha made the first-King of Scots that is of the Irish in Scotland Coilus King of Great Brittain destroy'd by him Three Walls built by the Romans against the Irish Kingdom of the Picts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by these Danish Wars in Ireland Bad success of Roderic the King of Britain's Son The Danes various success They are at the same time plagued as by others so by Ceallaghane King of Mounster most singularly The Monarch Conghallach Mhac Mhaoil Mhithe routs ' emâ— and kills 7000 of them in Battel What of his two next Successors in the Monarchy Briain Boraimh does Wonders in 25 Battels and last of all in that of Clantarff Field Maolseachluin that succeeded him and Hughaire mhac Tuathail King of Leinster destroy the Reliqnes of the Danes The vain attempt of Magnus King of Norvegia to revenge their Fate IReland before that fatal War broke out in the year 1641. had two different Nations like the Twins of Rebecca strugling in its Womb perpetually almost five hundred years the one called by themselves the Ancient Irish the other the Old English or English Irish And indeed the former may justly glory in the Epithet of Ancient since as Cambden himself confesses they fetch Britannia translated by Philemon Holland Edit Lond. Tit. Ireland pag. 64. the beginning of their Histories from the most profound and remote Records of Antiquity so that in comparison of them the Ancientness of all other Nations is but Novelty and as it were a matter of yesterday It is now at least 2988 years since their Fore-fathers the Sons of Mileadh alias Milesius the Spaniard in a Fleet of threescore Sail arrived in Ireland from Gallicia in Spain conquer'd it and left it to their Posterity I say at least Because although Polychronicon and Cambrensis Topog. Dist 3. c. 17. by their saying That from the Arrival of those Milesians in Ireland till the death of S. Patrick their Apostle were efflux'd 1800 years See Jocelin Vit. Saucti Patricii c. 196. agree exactly with Ketings Epocha here yet the Irish Book of Reigns makes the Arrival of those Milesians much earlier that is to this present year of Christ 1680. e'en as long since as 3480 years compleat But I follow Keting's Reformation of that Book and his Account in his Mss History l. 1. whereby he places the Milesian Conquest in the year of the World 2736. after the Floud 1086 after Moses's passing the Red Sea 192. and before the Birth of Christ 〈◊〉 308. Were it to my main purpose which is or only or at least mostly concern'd in those Milesians I could insert here out of Keting the several Plantations and Conquests of that Countrey before they knew it How one Ciocal about a hundred years after the Deluge in a small Fleet of Vessels each Vessel having fifty Men and fifty Women aboard arriving there was the First that planted it How Bartholanus and his three Sons Languinus Salanus and Reterugus with their Wives and as This Author lived as himself writes An 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech or North-Wales Nennius writes a thousand Fighting Men about 300 years after the Flood Anno Mundi 1956. before the Birth of Abraham 95 years invaded it had many doughty Battels therein with those Aborigines the Issue of Ciocal and Progeny of Cham who come thither from Afric were called Gyants because partly of their stature or corpulency which yet was no way exceeding the tallest growth of other men and partly of their wickedness endeavouring to destroy every where the Descendants or Progeny of Japhet And how this Bartholanus alias Partholan having Conquer'd at last those Aborigines and Affricans his Issue after him were at the end of three hundred
years consumed by a Pestilence not one remaining of them A just judgment from Heaven without peradventure on him who had fled thither as it were from Heaven for having in his own Countrey in Scythia kill'd both his Father and Mother to make way for a Brother of his and their Son to come to the Royal Throne How in the end of 30 years more Nemedus another Scythian some of the Irish Chronologists say he was a son to Bartholanus left by him in Scythia when himself had departed thence with his four Sons Starius Gervale Annin and Fergus in a Fleet of 34 Ships and 30 Marriners in each of them arriving in Ireland overthrew in three Battels the remainder of those Affrican Gyants but was overcome in the fourth And how soon after this defeat Nemedus being dead his People rousing themselves put it to the issue of one great Battel sought at the same time both by Sea and by Land they having 30 thousand at Land and so many more at Sea and the Fight proved so mortal that albeit they had the victory yet they could reap no benefit by it the very Air being so corrupted by the stench of the Carcasses which lay unburied every where for they kill'd promiscuously in every place after that Victory Man Woman and Child of their Enemies that all over the Land there was an universal Pestilence which after seven years more made 'em depart and quit the whole Country leaving only ten Captains to defend those of their People that could not have Shipping against the remainder of the Gygantick Affricans How these Children or Posterity of Nemedus Clanna Neimheadh the Irish call 'em to avoid that dreadful and continual Pestilence departing in a thousand Vessels great and small under the Conduct of three Chieftains Simeon Breac Ibaath and Briotan the other two sailing to Greece Briotan with his adherents Landed in the North of that Countrey which we now call Scotland and with his and their Posterity remaining there gave the denomination of Brittain to this whole Island which is now called Great Brittain as holy Cormac the K. of Mounster and Bishop of Cashel in his Psalter of Cashel together with all the Chronologers of Ireland affirm Wherein surely they have at least much more probability of their side than any late Authors have that derive that name from Brutus or his Romantick History either in Galfridus or in any other For if from Brutus besides other reasons why not Brutannia rather than Britannia How the five sons of Dela viz. Gandius Genandius Segandius Rutheragus and Slanius being the 8th Generation from Simeon Breac and calied in Irish Fir-bholg after 217 years compleat from the former arrival of Nemedus there invaded Ireland with 5000 men of all sorts in their company and studing no great resistance won it entirely routed utterly out of it the remainder of that cursed Generation of Cham the Affrican Giants and divided it into five Provinces or Portions which Division continues till this day How they and four of their Children after them were in succession Monarchs of all Ireland after that Slanius who was the youngest of them all had by force and War upon the rest erected it to a Monarchy though he enjoy'd it but one year Death having given him no longer joy of his Conquest over his Brethren How none before them i. e. none of the former Invaders called themselves Kings they being the first Kings and Slanius among them too as I have now said the first Monarch that Ireland ever had Yet the Reigns of all the nine made not above 36 years in the whole How Eugenius or Eoghun as the Irish Books call him and so they have quite other terminations both for all these and all other Names too expressed by us with Latin terminations being the last of them and prosperously Reigning in peace and plenty over Ireland the Nation whom the Irish call Tuath-De-Danann under their King Nuathad Airgidlaimh as descending from the foresaid Nemedus or Nemeus or Neimh which you please to call him and therefore claiming that Kingdom as their right invaded it fought a great Battel in Connaught with Feramh-Bolg the Generation of Simeon Breac and Neimheadh or Nemedus kill'd a hundred thousand of them and thereby and without much loss to themselves conquer'd the whole kingdom the Reliques of Ferramh-Bolg retiring to the small Islands of Arrain I le Rachluinn and many other about Ireland and Scotland where they continued till such time as Ireland came to be govern'd by Provincial Kings under the Milesians How the Posterity of those Reliques of Ferraimb Bolg being forced away by the Picts had their refuge back again to Ireland and first to the King of Leinster turning Tenants to him for such Lands as he was pleased to lett unto them and next from Leinster because of the heavy rent there to Connaught shifting so in the best manner they could for themselves until by Co-Chulain and Connall Cearnach and the Inhabitants of Vlster they were wholly driven away the second time and quite Banish'd for ever only three Families Sur-names or Septs of them excepted which according to the judgment of some Irish Antiqnaries remain still in Connaght and Leinster as Dr. Keting who also names these Septs does write Adding thereunto this further animadversion as a necessary consequence that these three Families are not of Clanna Gaoidhel or Posterity of Gathelus from whom all the Milesians descended long before either Milesius himself or his Predecessors came into Spain Lastly how according to the Book called Psaltuir Chassil the aforesaid Colony or Nation of Tuatha-De-Danann held the Sovereignty of Ireland for 197 years under seven or rather indeed nine Kings for after Fiacha who was the 6th of them reigned the three Sons of Cearmada by turns yearly But neither to prosecute nor so much as to insert any of these Plantations or Conquests of Ireland by Ciocal or Partholan or Neimhe or Feara Bolg or Tuatha Dee Danann as the Irish names of them are can be much if any thing at all to my main purpose here And though perhaps it might be in some sort material to tell you what a famous man in his Generation nay in a great part of the World Milesius himself otherwise called Galathus in Latin but in Irish Galamh had been Or to tell you 1. Of his first adventuring from Spain to Scythia and serving there as General of the Army under his Kinsman Refloir the great Monarch of that Countrey 2. Of his marrying this Refloir's Daughter and Refloir's growing jealous of his greatness and preparing therefore to dispatch him and his preventing the King by taking away his life and then his quitting Scythia and passing to Egypt by Sea with a Fleet of sixty Sail and his being there employ'd by Pharaoh as General against the King of Ethiopia's Forces warring at that time on Egypt 3. Of the many over-throws given by him to them and Pharaoh's so great favour to him thereupon that
Dr. Keting they would surpass all belief we see how at last and for that present the Irish Nation were by the wisdom of this Maolseachluin King of Meath and by the great Valour and resolution of the rest of their Princes and People delivered I say for that present For pursuant to what has been said before you are to understand now 10. That but a very few years after because in the Keting Polychronicon Reign of the same Maolseachluin mhic Mhaolruanuidh King of Meath who deservedly upon the aforesaid expulsion of the Danes was by the Princes and Nobility made King of all Ireland and continued so until his death i. e. full sixteen years and no more three Norvegian Brothers Amelanus Cytaracus and Ivorus as Polychronicon calls 'em with their Train being come to Ireland in a peaceable manner and under pretence of Trafficking got leave of the Princes of the Land to build three Cities paying Tribute for them Dublin Waterford and Limeric Which they had no sooner finished and strongly fortified than the Irish found Keting themselves engaged in as great a War as the former by new and numerous Fleets both of Norvegians Danes and Oostmans as they call'd 'em then arriving continually from time to time in all the Quarters of the Kingdom The difference only was that the former continued forty years or thereabouts but this War now off and on a hundred and fifty years compleat And when the former began the Irish had no strangers in pay whose Revolt might endanger them but when this began they had a great number even of Danish or other Easterling Foreigners whom immediately upon ending the former War they entertain'd in pay and therefore call'd 'em Bownies to guard their Coasts all round the Kingdom and these every one turned against them now Besides in the former the Irish were all of a mind against the common Enemy but in this they were often divided some of them confederating openly and fighting in conjunction with those forein Enemies against their Native Soil especially the little King of Desies in Mounster and the King of Leinster too not seldom Moreover to end the former War and redeem them from their bondage under Turgesius the stratagem of Maolseachluin was necessary but in this later all along both in the procedure and final issue of it they owed their great and frequent Victories not to any stratagem but under God to pure Valour and manly Resolution But that I may at last come to an issue on this point I will pass over all those Victorious Battels fought by the Irish in the procedure of this second Danish War made upon them As first the Battel of Dromma Damhaigha fought by the foresaid King of Ireland Maolseachluin himself 2. The Battel of Loughfoill by his Successor Aoth Finliath 3. The many Battels in the Reign of Donnchoe mhic Floinn fought by Ceallaghane King of Mounster whereby he not only took Limmerick Cashel Cork and Waterford from the Danes but quite extirpated them at least in his days out of that Province His Sea-fight also with their Fleet before Dundalk which proved extreamly fatal to them Likewise the great slaughter of their fellows in Connaught by the Conacians about the same time Moreover and which was somewhat extraordinary and before Ceallaghane had taken Limmerick the Battel of Roscrea where the Merchants and Townsmen at a great Fair held in that place on Saint Peters day understanding of an Army of Danes coming on them from Connaught and Limmerick under a Danish Earl called Oilsin set forth against them in the best order they could fought them defeated them and kill'd three or four thousand of them in that Field Besides Muirchiortach mhac Neill King of Vlster his killing 800 with their chief Commanders Abilaine Aufer and Roilt and soon after Conuing mhac Neill 1200 more of their Heathen wicked Crue And further yet the Defeat given to Rodoricus the King of Britains Son who Anno Christi 966. as Hanmer says invaded Ireland with a puissant Army but lost both Army and Life by those he invaded 4. The Battel of Muine Broghaine fought by the Monarch Conghallach mhac Maoil Mhithe with the slaughter of 7000 Danes on the spot though with great loss of his own side too 5. and lastly even all those four twenty bloudy Battels fought against the Danes and their Confederats before the Battel of Cluain-Tairbh and fought I say every one of them by that happy victorious Prince until his death Brien mhac Kinedie alias Boraimhe who in the fourth year of the foresaid Monarch Conghallach's Reign came to be King of Mounster and within eight years next following made all Leath Mogha i. e. the Southern half of Ireland acknowledg him their Sovereign and ruled so for seven and thirty years until he was chosen at last Monarch of all Ireland in which last Supremacy he continued flourishing the remainder of his life which after twelve years more he ended victoriously at Cluain-tairf Field And as I do pass over so many former Battels wherein the Irish were victorious in this second War so I shall those many other too wherein they were to some purpose foiled in the same War tho Martial courage tho true Valour may sometimes exert it self no less in the Foil than in the Victory I 'le take no notice neither of the stoning to death Maolguala King of Mounster by those barbarous heathen Foes in the Reign of Aodh Finliath nor of the mighty overthrow given the Leinster men by Jomhar one of their Generals in the reign of Niall Gluindubh nor of Sitric another General of theirs both defeating and killing and that in a more considerable fight also the said Monarch Niall Gluindubb himself nor of the Battel of Biothlane against the Leinster men again under the Reign of Domhnal mhac Muirchirtae nor finally of the Battel of Cille mhoane fought by the Danes and Lagenians both joyn'd together now against their Monarch Domhnal mhac Muirchirtae wherein the King of Vlster Ardgall and Dombnal King of Oirghiellae and many others of great quality were kill'd of the Monarch's side As well every one of these unsuccessful Battels as all the former ten times both in number and weight more successful to the Irish in the second War I willingly pass over to come unto and give you the famous Fight of Cluain-Tairbh at last It was the five and twentieth and last of all the Battels fought so bravely by that victorious King of Ireland Brian Boraimhe himself It was indeed the Battel that put an end to all the Danish hopes in that Kingdom Besides it was if ever any was by mutual consent of both sides a pitch'd Battel and the Field whereon it was fought some weeks before agreed upon between them So that there was no place at all for Ambuscadoes Tricks or stratagems in it but pure Valour must decide the quarrel and win the day The occasion manner and issue of it take thus in short
extraordinary great veneration both in his life and after his death that as Venerable Bede records it not only all In quibus omnibus scilicet Monasteriis per Hiberniam Britanniam propagatis ex utroque Monasterio idem Monasterium Insulanum in quo ipse requiâ—scit corpore principatum tenat Habere autem solet ipsa Irsula Rectorem semper Abbatem presbyterum cujus juri omnis Provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitato debeant esse subjecti juxta exemplum primi Doctoris illius qui non Episcopus sed presbyter extitit Monachus Beda ibid. the Monasteries propagated in Ireland or Britain from either of those two Abbeys founded by himself were subordinate to this latter of Hy wherein he lived longest and died at last being 77 years aged nor only all the whole Province but even the very Bishops themselves contrary to the custom of the Church in other Countreys were subject to the jurisdiction of all the succeeding Abbots thereof tho Presbyters only by ordination to wit according to the primitive pattern of their first Doctor who was himself no Bishop but only a Priest and Monk In fine he most justly deserved the title which Posterity gave him of the first Converter of the North of Scotland and great Apostle of the Picts as Cambden himself calls him And so he might have call'd him too the great and chief if not the first Instructor in Christianity of all the Irish Scots 4. That although I cannot tell certainly what Venerable Bede means here in the Marginal Note by his omnis Provincia whole Province that is whether he mean all the Kingdom of Scotland as it lies now extended and as then comprehending all the several petty Kingdoms both of Scots and Picts for by the Battel fought in Scotland at Monadoire in the Reign of Diarmuid mhic Cearbheoil King of Ireland by the Family of the Neals against the Picts we understand this Nation of Picts had several petty Kings at that time being they lost in this one Battel together with the Victory seven of them kill'd in the place by those Irish formerly planted there or whether he mean the Kingdom of the Irish in Scotland or which is the same thing of the Scots or Dal-Rheudans only all three signifying the same People or whether only the Dominions of those Northern Picts converted by Columb and there can be no other to be meant by omnis provincia since the Island it self wherein that Monastery was exceeded not five English miles in length yet thus much I can certainly say that Keting tells us in his Reign of Aodh or Hugh Ainmhirioch Monarch of Ireland that Columb-Cille in his Voyages and Journey to the Parliament held by this Monarch at Drom-Ceath in that Kingdom was all along out of Scotland attended not only by 30 Sub-deacons 50 Deacons and 40 Priests but 20 Bishops also to praise God continually and officiate in divine Offices in his company whereby we may somewhat guess at the largeness of that Province whereof Venerable Bede does speak here SECT III. The Scene altered Cause of admiration Bloody horrible feuds begun encreas'd multiplied continued 2600 years No People on earth so implacably set upon the destruction of one another as the Milesian Irish were Above 600 Battels fought between themselves A hundred and eighteen Monarchs slaughter'd Fourscore and six of those very men that kill'd them succeeded immediatly in their Thrones Other strange deaths of several of them Of the whole number of 181 Monarchs not above 29 came to a natural end The Author of this account Battels fought by the Monarchs Caomhaol Tighearnmhuir Tuathal Teachtvair where somewhat of the Plebeians 25 years War Conn Ceadchathach alias Constantinus Centibellis and Mogha Nuadhat King of Mounster What Leath Cuinn and Leatha Mogh import The feuds rather inflam'd than allaid under Christianity Number of main Battels fought and Monarchs kill'd the first 400 years after their Conversion by S. Patrick By two of them the one betwixt the Monarch Fearghall and Murcho O Bruin King of Leinster the other between the Monarch Aodlâ— Ollan and Aodha mhac Colgan King also of Leinster may be guess'd how bloody the rest were Foreign Conquests and Plantations neglected all that while Occasionally somewhat of the Heathen Monarch Dathi's Landing in France with an Army to pursue Niall the Great 's example and of his being kill'd by a Thunderbolt near the Alps and of the ten several Invasions of Scotland by the Irish Pagans and but one if one by the Christian Irish The Families descended from those Irish remaining to this day in that Country A word of those call'd English Scots Columb-Cille himself Author of fighting three of the foresaid Battels in Ireland The heavy pennance during life enjoin'd him therefore by S. Molaisse and his humble performance of it and much greater wonders of him Why the particular of those Battels of Columb-Cille mentioned here The Parliament of Dromceathe in his time Banishment of the Poets one of the three ends it was called for Great Injustice Cruelty Pride c. instanc'd severally in their Monarchs Tuathal Teuchtvar c. Nial Naoighiallach Diarmuid mhac Ceirrbheoil and Aodh mhac Ainmhiriogh Some of the Murders and Battels that happened about the end of their fourth Century of Christian Religion particulariz'd HItherto I have briefly run over the Antiquity Martial Exploits Political Government or Grand Councils ordinary Militia and after their Conversion to Christianity the Learning also and Sanctity of the Ancient Irish And so have I think delivered in short all the most glorious Excellencies recorded of that Nation eitheir in their own Monuments or any foreign Histories that I have seen 16. What follows next is on the other side of the Medal to represent unto you not only a mixture of great imperfections with so many excellencies nor only the prevalency of downright evil men against so many good against so prodigiously numerous and great exemplars of virtue living among them after their being enlightned with the doctrine of salvation but according to the vicissitude of all things on earth the change and wane and strange decay and utter fall at last of that People in general from all the glory of their Ancestors And this whether we regard the greatness of their former dominion and power abroad or the more ancient policy of their Government at home or the stupendious fame of their Letters and Holiness every where in those days of old Nay and this alteration too in every point as happening to them even before the English had set one foot in their Country under Henry II. All which I am to represent unto you now because the order of things and both title and nature of this Tract require I should Though I shall nevertheless do it by so much the more briefly by how much I am less inclined to dwell on this subject However I must confess that when I reflect on the most authentick Monuments of
enjoyed the Sovereign Power of Albain The other two were Mac Con otherwise called Lughae and Criomthan mhac Fiodaigh 4. There went also thither about the year of Christ 150. on his own account with considerable Forces Cairbre Riadfadae Son to the 106. Monarch of Ireland by name Conaire mhac Mogha Lauae who Conquer'd large Dominions for himself in the more Northern parts of that Kingdom and left his Posterity after him there who are those or at least a great and the more ancient part of those called by â—â—da Nistor Eccles l. 1. c. 1. Venerable Bede Dal-Rheudini as being the Inhabitants and first Irish Planters of Dal-Rheuda or as the Irish call it Dal-Riada in Scotland Whether it be not called so from that Cairbre Riadbfadae that is from this surname of his Riadfadae being changed by V. Bede to Rheuda as it might easily be I know not But this I know that Dal which is prepos'd in the composition signifies Part or Lot And so the whole word Dal-Rheuda or Dal-Riada signifies the Part of such a man who was the chief in Conquering it 5. The foresaid Mac Con alias Lughae within a few years more at least within less than thirty purfuing the same examples Landed in Scotland with a power of his Country-men Adventurers For it was from thence he returned back into Ireland to fight the Battel called Maigh Mhuchruimhe wherein being Victorious and killing the Monarch Art Aoinfir he made himself Sovereign in his place 6. This Mac Con's Grand-Son Fiachae Ceanann entring likewise Scotland not only gain'd large possessions but left his Posterity after him to give a beginning to Mac Allin and his Family there who are all descended from him 7. Colla Vais who had been four years tho by Usurpation the 115. Monarch of Ireland when he was by the lawful Heir his own Cousin German Muireadhach Tiriogh defeated in Battel and forc'd to flie adventuring over to Scotland with the two other Collaes his Brethren and rest of his adherents and acquiring great scopes of ground there became the Grandsire of the Clan Ndomnaills both in Scotland and Ireland For all of this Surname in either Kingdom in their several generations or branches derive their extraction in a direct line from this Colla Vais and consequently neither from Herimon or Heber but from i the a Cousin of theirs who was the Son of Breoghuin mhic Bratha of the same stock with Milesius 8. Next after that Colla did Criamhthan mhac Fioda the 120. King of Ireland with a Royal Army invade Albain I mean Scotland He had in his company another very powerful Noble man called Earc mhac Eocha Muingreahar mhic Aongussa And from him the Septs not only of Clann Eirc and Cineall Gabhrain but those of Cineall Conghvill Cineall Naonghussa and Cineall Conriche Anile with their distinct propagations and Families in Scotland ever since to this present are descended 9. Corck mhac Luighdhioch is the next in order that deserves mention Because that by the false and wicked surmises of his Step-mother upon his refusal to consent to her incestuous Lust she was Daughter to Fiachac mhac Reill King of Ely falling into his Fathers displeasure and thereupon forced to seek his fortune in Scotland and arriving there accompanied with such armed Troops as he could raise and then by his own deserts coming into such extraordinary favour with the Scottish King Fearradhach Fionn otherwise called Fionn Chormac that he obtain'd his Daughter call'd Muingfionn to Wife he had issue by her besides other Sons Manie Leambna from whom the Sept of Leambnuidh in Scotland and Cairbre Cruithnioch from whom the Families of Eoghanacht Muighe Geirghin in the same Kingdom were propagated 10. Soon after him Niall Naoighiallach the 121. and most powerful indeed of all the Irish Monarchs that were at any time before or since entred Scotland with so great a force that there was no resisting him But having said enough of him before I need not add to it here 11. In the last place and year of Christ 493. much about ninety three years after the said War-like Prince Niall the Great surnamed also Naoighiallach had been kill'd in France and in the 20. year of Lugha the 125 Monarch Son to Laogirius his Reign the six Sons of Muireadhach * So says Keting in the Reign of Niall Naoighiallach yet formerly in the Reign of Oilioll Molâ— he calls them the six Sons of Eirc mhic Eachae Muinreamhair mhic Eoghuin Mhic Neill King of Vlster being six Brothers of Mairchiartach Mor that soon after came to be Monarch of Ireland namely to the two Fergusses the two Aongussaes and the two Loarns together with other Septs or Families of Dal-Riada in the same Province of Vlster adventur'd for Albain and whether or no they gave the denomination of Dal-Rheuda or Dal-Riada to the Country there mostly possessed by them tho at least for a great part of it planted before as we have seen by the Progeny of Cairbre Rioghfadae †Eochae Muinreamhar of the Progeny of Cairbre Ridhfadae had two Sons Earcha and Elchon From the former the the Families of Dal-Riada in Scotland were descended From the later those of Dal-Riada in Ulster So Keting soys in the Reign of Art Aonsir where he further says that the two Dal-Riades or Families of them have been distinguished by the surname or nick-name of Russach given those of Dal Riada in Ulster the Irish Chronicles are plain and positive herein that they gave to themselves and all their Country-men the Scots of Albion the first King that ever they had of the name of Fergus who was one of those six Brothers And it is he that both the Irish and English Scots have since for his honor surnamed the Great as likewise Fergus I. Not that he was indeed the first Irish or Scottish King of Dal-Rheuda wherein Buchanan and all the rest of his Fellow-Historians that were English Scots are extreamly out for long before that very Fergus there have been many Scottish Kings of Irish descent in Dal-Rheuda but that he was greater than any of the former and the first of his own name that ruled there To conclude so many were the Invasions and so great the Plantations made in that Country by the Irish Milesians and other Gathelians in their time of Paganism that as they Conquer'd so they planted it throughly at last having quite expell'd the Picts And so they kept it possess'd intirely by themselves as Lords thereof for some Ages That is until after the Norman Conquest of England very many of the Saxons retiring thither under their protection others invited in and accompanying William the Scottish King and both of them multiplying mightily they not only made the other Nations which are now called English Scots but by degrees gained from them as we see even all other the better parts of that Kingdom besides the Lowlands I say accompanying William the Scottish King For Stow in his Chronicle tells That
in Ashes during this first Danish War before they were totally subdued give us to understand sufficiently to what degree their everlasting feuds and obstinacy had incensed Heaven An obstinacy it was indeed so strangely so inveterately and unreclaimably fix'd that not even all the present terrors of so many mighty Fleets of those Heathenish cruel Barbarians pouring in Armies and new Supplies continually for so many years together from all the four winds into all their Provinces could remove it or make them relent For 1. Aodh Ordnighe himself the Monarch in whose Reign the Danes begun their first Invasion of Ireland after he had twice in one month prey'd and spoil'd Leinster was by one Maolcannaid in the Battel of Fearta fighting against his own Rebellious Irish Subjects kill'd 2. The next succeeding him namely Conchabhar mhac Donchadha who Reigned 14. years though he had the fortune to die in his Bed and for ought I can find never once in his life to have fought the Danes notwithstanding their sore incursions often made upon his Subjects within that extent of time yet he had the good leisure and took the opportunity of giving Battel to the Galleanguibh his own Country-men at the Fair of Tailtean 3. Again his immediate Successor Niall Caille who was sur-named Caille from his being drown'd in the River of Callon but drown'd as he was attempting to perform a very charitable deed For being to pass this River and seeing it high and therefore having commanded a young man to try it and then observing this youth presently in danger and all others refusing to hazard themselves to rescue him from the violence of the flood he spur'd on his own Horse to do it himself But it pleas'd God that the bank breaking under the fore-feet of the Horse he tumbled down and so was lost This Niall Caille I say Reigning likewise 14 years more and consequently in the very mightiest heat of this former Danish War and therefore a man would think having need enough to employ all his power that way as he did indeed when he gave the Danes Battel at Magh-Ith and worsted 'em too yet withal was so unfortunate as to have whether justly or unjustly I know not at two several times during his Reign and the last of them but a little before that Battel made War on his own Country-men that is with a great Army wasted Leath Cuinn first from Biorrha to Teambhuir and then again Fercaill and Deallbhna Ethra So that I think by these Instances of the only three Monarchs that Reign'd while the first Danish War continued it appears how little Reformation of their bloody Feuds all the terrors of so many mighty Fleets pouring in foreign Enemies continually had wrought in that People at least in their Princes Nobles and other Men of War Which undoubtedly we may justly think to have been it or at least a most extreamly provoking addition to it that by this time exasperated Heaven and even forc'd the Almighty to pour without further delay the very utmost of those evils design'd either by his justice or mercy to punish them For now that is upon the death of Niall Caille in the River of Callainn their Monarchy Kingdom Dominion ceased e'en as intirely at home as it had long before abroad There was no more Monarch in Ireland now but the saddest Interregnum that ever Christian People had or Heathen Enemies could wish 'em None I am sure either of the Milesian or other Gathelian Race No more King henceforth over that People but that barbarous Heathen Tungesius who assumed that title to himself till the days of their bondage which I have before tho only in part describ'd No more now the Island of Saints nor the Mart of Literature in Ireland No more Beannchuir to be seen but in Ashes now a second time and all the Learned holy Monks thereof Murder'd by those cruel Danes and buried under its rubbish No more the Monastery of Fionbhar at Corck which had 700 Conventual Monks and together with them 17 Bishops at one time wholly devoting themselves to a contemplative life No more now the most wonderful Cloister of all for Angelical Visions and Communications under S. Mochada at Ratha first and then at Lismore containing no fewer hundreds of the most stupendious Monks for Sanctity that everhave been in any Age or Nation No more the celebrated Cells of Magh-Bile or any at all of so many other holy places ecchoing forth continually the praises of God No more the renowned Schools of Dun-da-Leathghlaiss Ardmagh Lismore or Cashell No more University nor Academy nor Colledge of Learning in all the Land nor Foregners coming to admire and study in them nor so much as the Natives to enter them but only to stand aloof and weep over their ruins as the Jews did over Jerusalem in the Emperor Adrians time This was the deplorable condition of the Gathelian off-spring in Ireland which the heynous enormity of their no less National than peculiar sins and among the rest their strange contempt of so many fair warnings from God given them continually from time to time above 300 years brought them to at last and kept them in until his Justice was in some measure satisfied For so long he continued the Interregnum of their Monarchs and slavery of all their People under that Heathen Tyrant Turgesius And though I cannot exactly tell at least be positive in it how many years in all this miserable condition of theirs lasted I mean as to the general Bondage of the whole Nation universally in every Province and Part because we do not certainly know in what year of Aodh Ordnighs Reign the Danes first entr'd yet I can say out of Keting that under other Commanders they Warred 12 years on the Irish before Turghesius Landed in Ireland out of Norway with a much mightier Fleet than any of the former That he continued his joynt endeavours with the rest of the Heathen Invaders in carrying on and prosecuting the most cruel War could be against the Natives for 17 years more before he was chosen Captain General of all the Invaders both White Danes Black Danes * So the Irish distinguish 'em calling the Norvegians the White Danes and those arrived from Denmark it self the Black Danes though in their own Language the general or common name they give them and the Easterlings too is Loghlonnuidh which says Keting imports Great Robustious Scourers of the â—ea For Lon in old Irish is a strong man and Loch the Seas and Easterlings which consequently he was in the 29th year of this former Danish War That now he went on furiously spoiling ransacking destroying all before him every where but particularly with several â—leets of small Vessels and Boats all the Islands in Loch Neachach Loch Erna Loch Riogh and other great Lakes of Ireland And that being at last wholly Master of the Field and taking advantage of the Interregnum after Nial Caille's death for none of the
in the beginning nor progress nor issue of it did they amend So that Almighty God the great Justicier the great Striker of them from above might justly say to them at this time what he had formerly said to the Jews by the mouth of his Prophet Jeremy In vain have Frustra percussi filios vestros disciplinaâ— non receperunt Jerem. 2. 30. I stricken your children they received no correction And the pious Observer of this continual recidivation this fatal contumacy of theirs Dr. Keting might have no less truly either complain'd or acknowledg'd it of them to God than Jeremy did the like of his own People Lord thine Eyes Domine oculi tui respiciunt fidem Percussisti eos non doluerunt attrivisti eos renuerunt accipere disciplinam induraverunt facies suas supra petram noluerunt reverti 5. 3. are upon the truth Thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refus'd to receive correction They have made their faces harder than a Rock they have refus'd to return To satisfie the Reader that I speak not hyperbolically or at random in this matter I give here in short a sufficient number of instances that may serve for proofs thereof as I find them in Ketings History Indeed they are there I confess as little intentionally for this purpose as much more to his purpose dispersedly given as they happen'd That is the former part of them in the several Reigns of eight of those eleven Monarchs that by the unanimous consent of the Irish Annals and Historians were undoubtedly such over all Ireland from Maolseachluinn 1. in whose Reign the second Danish War begun to Maolseachluinn II. being the second time elected or submitted to as the Monarch some few years before this long War ended and the latter part of them likewise in the several Reigns of those other six that pretended to be such after this Maolseachluinn II. whereof Ruaruidh O Conchabhar was the last and consequently of all the Irish that were any way such But for saving you a labour I have collected all those instances together and so give 'em now that if you please you may read 'em over in a continual series without interposition of any thing else Where I doubt not you will admire how notwithstanding all the heavy pressures in every Province of Ireland by so many powerful foreign Enemies and so many Battels fought and so much blood lost in the same War by the Irish defending their Countrey against those Pagans they could nevertheless have time and men and blood to spare for so mischievous a work as the fighting and destroying one another so cruelly And yet it seems they wanted none of all not even so early as the third Battel fought by them against the Danes in this very second War For Maolseachluinn I. who had so Victoriously fought the first of these Battels being dead in the 16th year of his Reign and Aodh Fionnleath who had no less bravely fought the second of them departing this life within or immediatly after the next 16 years Flann mhac Sionnadh who then succeeded in the Monarchy and Reigned 38 years gave the fatal beginning to that new series of intestine Broils Depredations Battels Slaughters Murders among the Natives themselves that follow'd Certainly the very first Act of this Monarch I mean the first recorded of him in his Reign by Keting is that he enter'd in hostile manner Plunder'd Ransack'd Preyd the whole Province of Mounster and brought away Captives and Pledges thence And after this though I cannot say how long after the great Battel of Beallach Muidh Mughna was fought between him and holy Cormock the good King of Mounster and Archbishop of Cashel For this vertuous Prince who was both King and Priest together though much contrary to his own judgment and inclination yet by the great importunity of his Mounster Noble-men but chiefly by the advice of Flaithbhiortach mhac Joâ—â—haincine Abbot of Inche-Cathaigh march'd with an Army towards Leinster pretending that this Province ow'd him chiefry as being lawful King of Leath-Mogh But in his entring it he was met and fought and defeated and kill'd both himself and seven lesser Kings with him besides other Nobles by the said Monarch who had of the other side in his Army Cearrbhall mhac Muirregin King of Leinster and ten petty Kings more Besides in this Monarch's Reign Aidheith mhac Laighnigh King of Vlster was murder'd by his own Associates And tho in the Reign of Niall Gluindubh who after the said Flann was the next Monarch for three years only there be nothing recorded of action among the Irish themselves but all against the Danes and this Monarch Niall to have bravely in his own person fought 'em twice though he was kill'd in the second Fight and together with him Donchubhar mhac Maolseachluinn called Riogh Damhna or Tanist to the Monarch of Ireland Aodh mhac Eoghagain King of Vlster Maolmhithe mhac Flannegain King of Breag and Maolchraoibâ—e O Duibh seanaigh King of Oirghiall besides others of chief note and estimation we shall find it otherwise in all and every one of the succeeding Reigns at least until this Danish War is wholly over Donachadh mhac Floinn immediat Successor to Niall for twenty years more in the Soveraignty enter'd as an Enemy the Countries about Athlone where many of his Army were kill'd and among others the petty King of Ibh Failghe In his Reign Fearrghraidh succeeding Ceallaghan for two years in the Kingdom of Mounster was treacherously murder'd by his own followers And in the same Reign Mathgamhain mhac Kinedy Successor to Fearghraidh and a brave constant successful Warrier against the Danes was betrayed in his own House by one Donomhan thence convey'd to Mac Brain King of Eoghanach a Confederate of the Danes shut up in Prison by him and there soon after murder'd by his People Conghallach mhac Mhaolmhithe the next Monarch notwithstanding his bravery against the Danes invaded Mounster with a main Army against his own Countrey-men upon what quarrel I know not Though I find special notice taken of his killing in that expedition the two Sons of Kinede mhac Lorcaine In his Reign also Damhnal Claon King of Leinster and Domhnal O Faolain King of the Desies in Mounster joynd with the Danes From which conjunction follow'd not only many bloody Battels between them and Brien mhac Kinede after surnam'd Boraimh younger Brother and Successor in the Kingdom of Mounster to the foresaid Mathgamhain but the destroying of this Monarch Conghallach himself in the Town of Ardmagh where he was by an Army composed partly of Danes and partly of Leinster-men set upon fought defeated kill'd ending so his ten years troublesome vexatious Reign Domhnal mhac Mairchiortae succeeding him for ten years more in this fatal Soveraignty could be at leisure to make War on Fearrghallach O Ruairck King of Connaght prey all that Province and bring away thence a great number
of Captives And so could one Conghallach some time after this but in the same Monarch's Reign make it either his interest or his revenge to murder that very same Connaght King Besides it was against this Monarch Domhnal mhac Muirchiortac that another Domhnal the Son of Conghallach had the prefidious hard unnatural heart to joyn with the Danes of Dublin and fight him in the great Battel which the Irish call in their Language Cath Chille Monae wherein Ardghall mhac Madagain King of Oirghillac and many other illustrious persons of the Monarch s side were lost although himself after this and many other Battels fought in his Reign had the good luck to die a natural death at Ardmagh Maolseachluinn the II. who appears next for 20 years as Monarch on the stage of Ireland notwithstanding that he had known very well how one Gluneran had lately assum'd the Title of King of the Danes in Ireland that he had fought them victoriously in the Battle of Taragh that he had from thence directly march'd to Dublin forc'd it enter'd it enrich'd himself with all the spoils of that City and that he could not but see work enough remaining still among so many several sorts of Enemies Danes Normans Easterlings and their Irish Confederates yet he found leasure and pick'd some quarrel to march his Army to Mounster against Dal-Gheass and prey and spoil them too albeit they were the bravest Warriours there against the common Enemy In his Reign the three sons of Gearbheoill mhac Lorcain sacrilegiously spoil'd the Sanctuary of Glean-da-Logh For which impiety they were all three kill'd the very next following night And in his Reign Muirchiortach va Conghalla heading or at least assisting the Danes of Dublin plunder'd the Sanctuary of Domhnach-Padruig though to all their cost for they all every one died within a month after this wickedness committed by them Now Brien mhac Kinede surnam'd Boraimh succeeding his murder'd Brother in the Kingdom of Mounster which happen'd in the fourth year of the Monarch Conghallach mhic Mhaolmhithe after he had in the second year of his reign over that Province only and in revenge of his foresaid Brother's most barbarous death challeng'd Maolmodh mhac Brain King of Eonachta to a set Battel sought it accordingly at Bealach Leachta kill'd the greater part of Mac Brains Army and taken all the rest prisoners an Army consisting of a numerous Body of Irish and 1500 Danes that join'd them and when this Battel was over upon intelligence brought him that during his diversion by it Domhnal O Faolan King of the Desies over-ran the greatest part of Mounster preying and spoiling all before him after Brien hereupon had immediately march'd towards him overtaken him fought him at a place called Fane mhich Conrach routed him pursued him kill'd him in his flight and together with him the most part of the Danes of Waterford that join'd with him then forc'd that Town plunder'd it burn'd it and enrich'd his Army the brave Dal-Gheass with the spoils of it and preys of all the parts about it after that within the 8th year of his reign over Mounster he had brought the whole Division of Leathmogh to acknowledg his Sovereignty with perfect obedience and that nevertheless upon the death of Domhnal Claon King of Leinster which soon follow'd that Province withdrawing their obedience and joyning anew with the Danes he had with the whole power of Mounster enter'd it and given both the Leinster-men and their Danish Confederats join'd together the memorable overthrow at Gleannmhama killing 4000 of them in that place I say that after all these and many other bloudy Fights against the Danes only fought by him during his Reign over the Provinces of Mounster and Leath-Mogh under the successive Reigns of three Monarchs or Kings of Ireland Conghallach mhac Mhaolmhthe Domhnal mhac Mairchiortae and Maolseachluinn the Second yet when he was chosen by the far greater part of Ireland in the 23d year of this Maolseachluinn to be Monarch he was nevertheless necessitated to make that choice good and establish himself by fighting on still against some other Irish Lords that opposed him till he had subdued all at last by main force and dint of Sword For to this end it was That with the flower of his Army he march'd to Cineall Laigthagh prey'd it spoil'd it and brought thence 300 Hostages That in like manner he enter'd the Countrey call'd Magh Coruinn seiz'd there Maolruanuidh King of Cineal Gonuill and brought him prisoner along with himself to Ceann Chorah in Tuath Mhumhan In fine That Leinster was wholly over-run and burn'd by him even to the Valley of Gleann-da-Logh and from thence again cross to Cill-Mhuighnionn we call it now Killmainam within a small English mile of the walls of Dublin Westward And yet that also may be true which Keting here observes viz. that Brien was mightily moved to this destruction of Leinster because they were Leinster-men that join'd with the Danes in â—ansacking spoiling and leading away a great number of Cap tives from the Sanctuary of Termon Feichin in Meath I say nothing more of any part of those 21 Battels in all fought as you have elsewhere seen by this Brian Boraimh a great part of them while he was only King of Mounster and the rest after he was Monarch only that in 'em all taking one with another especially counting among 'em as I should the greatest last Battel of them which was that of Clantarff I doubt not there was much more Irish bloud spilt by the Irish themselves on both sides than there was of Danish or by the Danes on either Besides I observe it as worthy of special remark here That immediately after this Battel of Clantarff had been over and the Victorious Army of Brian Boraimh had buried their dead especially this Monarch himself and Murchoe the Prince his oldest Son with the rest of greatest quality of their side that were lost in the Battel and interr'd 'em all at Cill-mhuinionn after those funeral rites perform'd by the whole Army before they separated after the Conacians had then parted and return'd the shortest way home to their own Countrey of Connaght and the Momonians likewise in one body taking another as the nearest way to Mounster these being in all but 4000 men and marching through an Enemies Country were no sooner come to Mullach Mastion about some 20 miles from Dublin in their way to Mounster than those of them who were of West-Mounster and they were three parts of the whole i. e. 3000 men withdrew themselves mutinously apart from the rest who were only a thousand North Mounster men but Dal-Gheass the survivors of those other brave Dal Gheass their Companions that with the loss of their own lives made all their Army Victorious That the Westmounster men being so withdrawn a little distance of ground immediatey sent defiance to Donochadh the Leader till then of both parties as being one of the sons of Brien Boraimh and heading
procured by the Primats of Ireland even then when both their Armies stood ready in the Field to fall on they came at last to the old Division of Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogh that is Domhnall to govern absolutely in all the North side of Eisker-Riada and Muirchiortach in all the South of it each stiling himself King of Ireland How this agreement made Muirchiortach falling into a heavy Disease that continued five years his own Brother Diarmuid O Brien seiz'd the Kingdom of Mounster and both he and other Provincial Kings divided among them all Muirchiortach's wealth and possessions while he was yet alive tho extreamly sick but he afterwards unexpectedly recovering made so sharp a War on them all that they were forc'd to quit and restore whatsoever they had so unjustly got In fine how piously both Muirchiortach and Diarmuid ended their days notwithstanding their almost continual Wars during life and health the former at Lismore in the 20th year of his Reign and of Christ 1119. but having first devested himself of all worldly power and care by turning Clerk in that holy place and the later being 73 years old in the Menastery of Columb-cille at Doire now by us called London-derry 27 of his Reign which was of Christ 1121. For so many years I find given him by Colganus in this Elogy of him Donaldus Loghleni ex Ardgaro filio nepos Rex Hiberniae Hibernorumque excellentissimus formae praestantia generis nobilitate animi indole in rebus agendis prosperitate postquam multa munera egenis clementer potentibus liberaliter elargitus fuerat in Roboreto Divi Columbae hoc est in Dorensi Monasterio decessit anno aetatis suae 73. principatus in Hibernia 27. Christi nati 1121. Where I must occasionally reflect on my own mistake in the foregoing 75 page of this little Book and desire the Reader to account it such Indeed there I suppos'd that that Dearmach where Beda says Columbe-Cille had built his famous Irish Monastery was the same with Ardmach But now I see by Colgan's explication of Roboretum D. Columbae that without question that Dear-mach in Latin Roboretum or Campus Roborum for Dair or Doir signifies an Oak in the Irish and Mach or Magh a Field which Beda meant was at the place ever since called by the Irish Doire Columb-Cille as it is of late by the English London-derry and by no means at Ardmagh But to pass over as well that errour of my own as the brief account immediately before this reflection on it given of the pious end those two great Contenders made for peradventure you will say and I confess it freely that neither the one nor the other is to my main purpose here and therefore to return and prosecute only that which is my Province I will now let you see all the glory of the Monarchical or at least pretended Monarchical Power of Ireland which never lasted long not even from Heber's days in any one Family or Sept removing from Mounster to Cannaght and from the O Brians there to the O Connors here Yet leaving still for my part the Question undetermined whether the same Monarchy did not continue for two years longer in Tirconel after it had ended in Tomond and so pass'd immediatly not from Muirchiortach O Brian but from Dombnall mhac Ardghar mhac Loghlin However that was Toirrghiallach mor mhac Ruidhruigh vibh Chonchabhair i. e. Terence the Great Son of Roderick descended of Connor King of Connaght is now possess'd of the Sovereignty of Leath-Cuinn and greater part of Ireland and thereby of the Title of Monarch for 20 years more says Keting For so at least his his own Subjects and followers call'd him I am sure his Reign has furnish'd History with Instances enough on the Subject I treat of At three several times he enter'd the Province 〈◊〉 Mounster with a great and Hostile power of men though the first time having prey'd and spoil'd not only Ard-feanan but Cashel he was set upon in the Rear by part of the Mounster Army and lost Aodh O Heidin King of Biorradh and Muirriadhach O Flacthiorta King of Lower Connaght with a great number of other prime Gentlemen The second time he invaded it both by Land and Sea himself marching by Land in the head of a strong Army and laying all waste about him till he came to Cork where a goodly Fleet says Keting well provided of Seamen and Souldiers which he had sent about to destroy all the Coasts having done their work met him And now this imperious Monarch Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhair glutted with revenge divides Mounster in two equal parts the Southern and Northern Mounster so called Whereof he commits the Southern to Donochadh mhac Cartha's government the Northern to Conchabbar O Brien and so returns home triumphantly to Connaght with 30 Hostages of the best in Mounster But soon after Cormock mhac Cartha King of West-mounster being treacherously kill'd by Toirrghiallach O Brien his own Son-in-law and Gossip and the whole Province of Mounster that is all the parts and power and Title too of it seiz'd by him as the lawful King of it Toirrghiallach mor O Concbabhar the pretended Monarch draws together all the Forces of Connaght Breithfne Meath and Leinster puts himself in the head of them and marches now again the third time into Mounster Where being advanced in so far as Gleann Mhachair and to a place there called Moinmhoir in English the Great Moor Toirrghiallach O Brien the new Mounster King in the head of 9000 men the flower of all that Province meets him and fights him but is so intirely and mightily defeated that Dal-Gheass the chief strength of his Army never before nor after had the like overthrow as being for the matter all destroyed therein And the issue was the banishment of this new unfortunate King to Tir-Eoghuin in Vlster and the division of Mounster the second time between Diarmuid mhac Cormuick mhic Cartha and Teadhg O Brien by the Monarch Such is the account of this Monarch and no more I mean of his Warlike Actions and Exploits delivered by Keting in his Reign But Gratianus Lucius in his Cambrensis Euersus says further of him that he prey'd all the Provinces of Ireland every one That he made his own Son Conchabhar actually and really King of the Dublinians Lagenians and Methians That with his Land Army he destroy'd Tirconel and with his Navy consisting of 190 Ships wasted Tir-Oen and with both reduced both these warlike Countreys of the North. That nevertheless before the end of his Reign his Glory was obscur'd and power humbled by him who came next to succeed in the Monarchy and who begun early it seems to lay the foundation of his own future greatness by making War on this very Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhar himself the Monarch and forcing Hostages from him in the year of Christ 1150. that is full six years before this Monarch's death And that
a single Person must evince the same truth So for Spain Alphonsus III. by putting out the eyes of all his Brethren save one that was kill'd Alfonsus IV. with the like cruelty us'd by his own Brother â—aymirus Peter the Legitimat Son of Alphonsus XI depos'd and kill'd by his Bastard Brother Henry Garzias by Sanctius then Sanctius by Vellidus and after so many retaliations all Spain under King Roderic betray'd to the Moors by a natural Spaniard a Subject to that King Count Julian Prince of Celtiberia as Bodin calls him yea seven hundred thousand Spaniards kill'd in the short space of fourteen months next following that hideous treachery must evince mightily the self-same truth So for France those horrible Feuds Combustions Devastations cruelties inhumanities barbarous sacriledges of the late Civil Wars there continued 40 years against four Kings whereof you may read at large in D'Avila and the Holy Ligue and both Henry III. and Henry IV. one after another so vilely murder'd by those devoted Assassins of Hell Jacques Clement and Ravilliac evince it still Lastly and to come nearer home tho in an earlier time even so for England 1. Those eight and twenty Saxon Kings of the Heptarchy part by one another kill'd part by their own Subjects murder'd besides many other depos'd and forc'd to fly away for their lives For as Matthew of Westminster l. 1. c. 3. writes of the very Northumbrian Kings alone four were murder'd and three more deposed within the little time of one and forty years only And therefore it was that Charles the Great of France when the news of the last of them by name Ethelbert being murdered came to his hearing not only resolv'd to stop the presents he was before on sending to England nor only to do the English in lieu of sending them gifts all the mischiefs he could but said to Alcuinus an English man his own Instructor in Rhetorick Logick and Astronomy that indeed That was a perfidious and perverse Nation a murderer of their Lords and worse than Pagans Nay therefore also it was that many of the Bishops and Nobles fled out of this Northumbrian Kingdom and no man dared for 30 years next following venture on being their King but all men declined it and so left them a prey to the Irish Scâ—ts and Danes who by the just judgment of God over-run them and destroy'd them at last on that very occasion principally 2. Since the Norman Conquest besides the horrible rebellion of Henry the 2d's own Children against him and many other particulars which I pass over not only all the calamities miseries cruelties unspeakable evils of the Barons Wars on both sides under King John Henry III. and Edward II. nor only the deposition and murder too of this poor Edward even his own Wife Queen Eleanor and his own very Soâ—thâ—e Prince of Wales having both of them concurr'd in the deposing him and usurping his Crown but the most prodigiously mortal dissentions of Lancaster and York began with the rebellion against deposition and murder of Richard the II. and so bloodily prosecuted for thirty years under Henry VI. and Edw. IV. that besides eleven main Battels fought with infinite slaughter of English men on either side nay even twenty thousand men kill'd besides the wounded in one of them which Polydore calls the Battel of Touton a Village of Yorkshire the excellent Historian Philip Comines tells us of 80 of the Blood Royal destroyed in them and among this number Henry VI. a most vertuous innocent holy King most barbarously murder'd To say nothing of Richard the Third that Usurping Tyrant so justly dispatch'd in the Battel of Bosworth by the Earl of Richmond who thereupon succeeded King by the name of Henry VII and by marrying the Daughter of Edward IV. and thereby most happily uniting in himself and his Queen and Issue the right of the two Houses ended those fatal dissentions of Lancaster and York Dissentions indeed so fatal to England that besides all her best blood at home as we have seen by their long continuance from the year of Christ 1393. to the year 1486. lost Her not only the Kingdom of France but even the more ancient Inheritance of our Kings in the Dukedoms of Normandy Aquitane and whatever else belong'd to the English Crown on that side of the Sea only the Town of Calais with its little Appendages excepted Were it necessary Buchanan could furnish out of the neighbouring Kingdom of Scotland a very large addition of more examples to the purpose of this place But more than enough has been already said to conclude that notwithstanding any thing or expression in either of the two former Sections my meaning could not be to make those bloody Feuds in Ireland or consequents of them so peculiar to the Milesian Race or Irish Nation as if no other People on Earth had been at any time guilty of the like or as horrid The truth is I mean'd only to say That in respect of their long duration perpetual return from time to time for almost five and twenty hundred years compleat and their excessive degree at very many times within that long Succession of Ages especially considering the small extent of Ireland those cruel bloody Feuds were both National and peculiar to that People only Which I think is true notwithstanding that other Nations either much greater or much lesser might have been in some few Instances of time as high nay peradventure much more horrible transgressors in the very same kind than those antient Milesians were at any one time since their Conquest of Ireland from Tuath-Dee-Danan 33. The second point is to do those ancient Milesians the right as to acknowledg what their Histories have at large That amidst all the Feuds and fury of their Arms how bloody or how lasting soever they had several both Monarchs and after the Pentarchy was set up lesser Kings yea some of those too in their time of Paganism and many more as well of those as these after Christianity establish'd that were of great renown among them for other excellent Qualifications becoming their dignity than those only of Martial Vertue and Fortitude In time of Paganism they had their XXII Monarch Ollamh Fodhla so called from his great Knowledg that very name given him importing in Irish as Gratianus Lucius hath observ'd a great master in Sciences and Teacher of all Knowledg to his People It was he that divided the Lands of Ireland into Hundreds call'd by them Triochae-chead and placed a Lord over each Hundred and over each Town of the Hundred a Bailiff an Applotter of Duties and receiver of Strangers to provide Entertainment for them They had their XCI Monarch Conair mor mhac Eidirsgceoil so great a Justiciar so zealous a Prosecutor of all Malefactors that although with great pains industry hazard to himself yet he forc'd at last all kind of Robbers Thieves Vagabonds and Idlers to fly the whole Kingdom and after this during his Reign
the Cattel throughout all parts and Provinces wandred safely in the Fields without any Keeper Besides the magnificent Hospitality of this Monarch is wonderfully celebrated in that Nation Add hereunto this farther happiness of his Reign That in it the weather was so mild from mid-harvest to mid-spring that both Kine and Sheep and other Beasts lay continually abroad in the open air without feeling one sharp breath of wind the Sea covered the very shores at Imbhercholptha then so called after Droichid ath by us now corruptly Droghedae or Tredath with a most prodigious ejection of all sorts of Fish and the fruit-bearing Trees were so laden that they hung down their branches to the very earth They had their CIV Monarch Conn surnamed Ceadchatach whose Reign notwithstanding that prodigious number of Battels sought by him as we have seen before was so wonderfully abounding in all earthly blessings throughout Ireland that when the Writers of after-Ages were minded to express any time of extraordinary abundance or plenty they said it was the Reign of Conn Ceadchatach or Conair Mor return'd again on Earth Now doubtless it could not be otherwise than morally impossible that considering all his Battels there should be so much plenty in every part of the Kingdom had not he as well as Conair Mor before him been as good a Governour as he was a great Warrior And yet on this occasion let me tell you that neither the one nor other excellency could save him from being murther'd Whereof because of the extraordinary contrivance and manner of it I take that notice here which I find in Gratianus Lucius though otherwise it may seem forein to this place and Keting has not a syllable how or where or whether at all this Monarch died either of a natural or violent death But thus in short it happen'd In the 35th year of his Reign which was of Christ 157. being retired without Guards or much attendance at a place then called Tuaihamâ—rois the King of Vlster by name Tibraid Tirigh employed 50 young striplings clad like Maiden Ladies to dispatch him and they did it says Lucius For it is only to him we are beholden as for many other particulars so for this very singular one indeed And if I may conjecture it was or at least might well be thought the pattern whence Maolseachluinn I. when he was yet but King of Meath derived his own stratagem whereby he destroyed the Danish Tyrant Turghesius They had their IVC Monarch Fearrhadhach Fachiuach a Prince of so much Truth in hâ—s words and such integrity in his Life and Actions that from thence he was surnamed Fachtuach signifying in Irish Truth and Integritâ— says the same Author Lucius And it is observable what both he and Keting write of one Moran chief Justice under this King that he had a ring or hoop of such Vertue that when it was put about the Neck of any Judg or any Witness whatsoever at the time the one was to give Sentence or the other to depose upon Oath if either did swerve a title from the right then presently it clasp'd and pinch'd and wrung them so close that to avoid present death by strangling they retracted openly before all the Spectators what they had so wickedly done amiss Whence proceeded that Proverbial wish among the Irish O That he had Moran's Ring about his Neck when they suspect the truth or integrity of any person But to proceed with their Kings They had their CII Monarch Felim surnamed Rachtmhor from his being a Great Maker of excellent wholsome Laws Among which he establish'd with all firmness that of Retaliation kept to it most inviolably and by that means preserv'd the people in peace quiet plenty and security during his Time They had their CIX Monarch Cormock mhac Airt who says Lucius in making good Laws for the Commonwealth and observing them exceeded by much all his Predecessors He wrote a Book of the Institution of a Prince to his Son Cairbre He had the Psalter of Taragh composed In this he gives an account at large 1. of all the noble Irish Families their propagation and relation by blood one to another 2. Of the limits not only of every Province of Ireland but of every Countrey both great and small in each of them 3. Of the Duties Rents Tributes paid usually out of each Province to the Monarch or King of Ireland 4. Of the Duties paid unto the Provincial Kings by the Lords their Vassals 5. And finally of the Rents accrewing to every such Lord from his Tenants any where in the Kingdom The Book also which they call in Irish Sanasan Chormaic and we in English may call the Etymological Dictionary of Cormock is by most ascribed to him though by some to Cormock O Cuillenan the holy King and Archshop of Mounster I pass over his Martial Spirit his Fortune and success in Arms. Tho it was he that when by the surprisal force and rebellious usurpation of Ferghussa Dubhdeadach King of Vlster he had been first dispossess'd of his Royal Mansion of Teamhuir alias Tarach and then affronted with the burning of his Beard as well by the command or direction as by the servant of the same Vlster King Fearghussa for so Gratianus Lucius calls this Northern King tho Keting names him Giolla as I have done before and then after this affront had been banish'd into Connaght yet within a twelve month accompanied with 30 great Lords 50 other Chieftains and fifty thousand men gave Battel at Criombreag to this Usurper kill'd him destroy'd his Army and for the rest of his Vlster adherents banish'd them for ever to the Isle of Man Yea it was he that after this Field was further yet Conqueror of all his other Enemies in 36 Battels more and thereby gave perfect peace to the whole Kingdom for the remainder of his long reign which lasted in the whole forty years And further also it was he that with the Sword of Justice took revenge on the more than savage cruelty of Dunling the Son of Eudeus that murdered those 30 celebrated Virgins living collegially as in the Temple of Vesta at Cluain-fearâ— in Teamhuir all of them of such Royal extraction and quality that each had 30 Virgins more in retinue which made in all Nine Hundred For that unparallel'd Savageness of Dunling this Monarch destroy'd the twelve Tyrants of Leinster who either by approbation of it or defence of him were guilty of it Lastly It was he that whether on this occasion or no I know not But this I know that Lucius writes how it was he that even to a farthing's worth made the Province of Leinster pay the old Boarian Fine impos'd upon them by Tuathal Teachâ—mhor Which this Author says consisted not of 3000 but of 15000 Cows and so many Hogs Mantles Silver Chains Cauldrons of Brass or Coppers that is 15000 of each and each Cauldron as large as that in the Monarch's Kitchin at Tarach which boil'd together at one boyling twelve
and personal nay and of their Subjects also both men and women by the dedication of all in a peculiar way to God as hath been said before but were so fervently Zealous even to a degree of excess in this kind that as both Keting and Lucius relate it if St. Patrick would have receiv'd what they offer'd more their Successors should have scarce been left the grazing of four Beasts to bestow on the Church Secondly in particular the great number of those Princes one after another in the succession of so many Ages that notwithstanding all the bloody Feuds and warlike humor of their Nation withdrew themselves in time from sin yea from all the pleasures vanity pomp earthly glory of their condition and by contemning the world for the sake of God made themselves greater than the World A large list of them you may find partly in Keting but more amply and exactly in Lucius And they were those that stripping themselves naked to follow Christ and shutting themselves up in Cloysters made choice of the better part with Mary at the feet of out Lord. Such were the Monarchs 1. Maâ—â—â—hoba who by the prayers of Columbe-Cille recovering from death to life thereupon without delay Anno 610. renounc'd the World enter'd a Monastery profess'd himself a Monk and was after in regard of his holiness made Bishop of Kildare 2. Flaithiortach who likewise though without any such inducement as Maolchoba had in perfect health vigour streingth deliberately chose to dispoil himself of all earthly greatness Goods Employments and exchange them all for a poor monastick Weed in the Monastery of Ardmagh for a penitential course of life within the walls of that enclosure and for a Christian happy death which he found in that same place after nine years more had been over in his holy exercises there 3. Niall Frassach that not only quitted the Crown and Power but the very Soil of Ireland by retiring to the Scottish Isle of Hy and there in Columb Cille's Monastery devoting himself wholly to works of Christian repentance after eight years continual preparation by them for his passage to immortality had it in the year 773. of our Saviour's Incarnation 4. Muirchiortach great Grandchild to Brion Buraimh and one of Ketings Monarchs of Ireland who having resign'd his Royal Authority and together with it whatever else he possess'd or loved on earth put on the habit of a pooor religious man at Lismore where without looking back he ended happily his days 5. Domhnal mhac â—rdghair who according to Colgan as we have seen before was also King of Ireland though in his declining years yet amidst his prosperity retiring to the Abbey of Doire Cholumb-Cilie employing the remainder of his life there in exercises of piety holiness and mortification and lamenting the sins of his former days prepared for encountred and receiv'd death with a serene countenance full of hopes of a glorious Immortality But whether he took upon him the outward profession of a Monk in those exercises there or did not I can say nothing on either side Nor is it very material to know seeing the inward habit of his Soul yielded fruits worthy of true repentance and the severest outward profession of it 6. Ruaruidh O Conchabhair the very last Irish Monarch we have shewn likewise before to have made a religious life under the Habit and in a Cloister of Augustinian Chanon Regulars his last refuge in this World from so many vicissitudes of Fortune There it was he became so truly wise indeed as to prepare only for that other World which being planted far above all the glory of the Sun and all the Circles of time expects only Souls either never tainted with sin at any time or by perfect repentance at least before death throughly purified from its deadly sting And such indeed for making choice either sooner or later of the better part with Mary were those now enumerated Monarchs of Ireland And yet I know not why I might not add to their number Maolseachluinn I. and Brian Boraimh For albeit they never had been either profess'd Monks Anchorites or Clerks nor divested of their Authority Royal nor at all outwardly retired from the cares of the Publick or management of their own domestick affairs or comfort of their Wives and Children yet their piety of life was such as purchas'd for them after death the reputation of holy men Yea S. Cairbre Bishop of Cluan-mhac-Noise when the former died Anno 860. being in extasy beheld his Soul ascending to glory says Lucius And the later has been inserted not only by John Wilson in his Martyrologe but by Henry Fitz Simons in his Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland both these Authors having in this particular followed Marianus Scotus Of the Provincial Kings a far greater number and some of them very early that is in their very youth made the same prudential wise divine choice Aillill Anmbanna King of Connaght led so wonderfully strict a life according to the exactest Rules of Christianity that upon his death it pleased God to shew his Soul to Columb-Cille ascending to Heaven Anno 544. Cormac King of South Leinster about the Year of Christ 567. quitting voluntarily his Kingdom went to Beannchuir profess'd himself there a Monk continued in the same place leading a life truly answerable to his profession till death translated him to happiness Anno 567. which the Irish Church believing has placed him in her Calendar of Saints Aodh Dubh King of Leinster forsaking in the same manner both his Kingdom and whatever else he might enjoy on earth took the Monastical habit and Vows upon him lived accordingly some years in the Monastery of Kildare an underling was after made Abbot then Bishop of the same Cloister and See deceased Anno Christi 638. and in fine was recorded in the Register of Saints Ceallach mhac Reghal King of Connaght made the like exchange of a Kingdom for a Cloister died in the Year of our Lord 703. and is invoked particularly at Lochkinne as their tutelary Patron Ardghal mhac Cathail King of Connaght the very same only that to be further off from all noise of the World he retired out of Ireland to the Monastery of Columb-Cille in the Island of Hy where in the seventh year of his peregrination which was of Christ 786 he ended his mortal course Before him a little that is Anno Christi 739. flourished the good King of Vlster Fiacha mhac Aodh Roin surnamed In Droiched from his continual care of building Bridges every-where throughout his Kingdom to make the ways more passable for Droiched in their Tongue signities a Bridge He was even to admiration vertuously just and equitable to all persons whatsoever Only one Cow taken away by stealth within his Dominion and because peradventure says Gratianus Lucius the Author of this stealth had not been with due severity punish'd he inflicted the remainder on his own person by going a Pilgrimage to Beannchuir In his Reign and
known and his name celebrated among all the Clergy and People and Princes of that Province too Then by his returning back to his own Province of Vlster upon the commands of Celsus and Imarius and there presently repairing the old ruins of the famous Beannchuir which till this time lay in rubbish for so many years ever since the destruction of it by the Danes though not without a Titular Lay-Abbot made still by Election of the Lay-Natives who possess'd all the Revenues nor at this very time neither with-such an Incumbent and he both a very powerful man and Uncle also to Malachias himself but on the return of Malachias from Mounster suddenly chang'd and as it were by a powerful touch of the very finger of God himself so mightily chang'd that without delay he resign'd both the place and whole Estate belonging to it yea and his own person also to this holy Nephew's disposition Then by his refusing the Estate building nevertheless the place planting it with some of his own blessed condisciples under Imarius and in obedience to Celsus and Imarius both taking upon him now as well the true Office as the title of Abbot of Beannchuir imitating so in all respects the sanctity of his great Predecessor Congellus though not equalling his number of Monks Then by the glory of Miracles beginning first to appear wrought by him to the astonishment of the beholders as he was at work with his own hands among the Carpenters that were building this Monastery Then by the Election made of him in the thirtieth year of his Age for the See of Conner and his reluctance for a long time and the perseverance of the other side and his submission at last to the positive commands of Celsus and Imarius Then by his entring upon his Episcopal Function there but withal his finding presently as St. Bernard expresly writes He was not sent to men but Beasts That he had never before not even amongst the most barbarous any where observ'd the like No where the People so stubborn as to Manners so bestial as to Rites so impious as to Faith so barbarous as to Laws so headstrong as to Discipline so filthy as to Life Christians by Name but in very deed Pagans not paying Tithes not offering First-fruits not joyning in lawful Marriages not confessing their sins None among them found either to receive or to enjoin penance The Ministers of the Altar few and yet no work among the Laity for those same few no opportunity given them to make use of their Ministery among a wicked generation of people nor they endeavouring it much if not rather scarce any way at all for in their Churches the voice neither of a Preacher nor Singer was heard Then by his Divine Sermons Exhortations Entreaties Visits Prayers Tears Mortification austerity of Life both in publick and private together with the assistance of his 150 Monks that were never from his side overcoming though with great labour yet in a little time all opposition and working so wonderful either a conversion or Reformation which you please to call it of all that Diocess that they are all now become a new people i. e. the People of God now who had been nothing less before and every where now to be seen the repairing of Churches adorning of Altars and Choires resounding now the praises of God and wicked Laws abolish'd and Christian Institutions receiv'd in their place the Churches thronging from every side with people greedy of hearing the Word and Sacraments frequented and confession of sins made and Concubinage yielding to lawful marriage Then by his necessary migration to Mounster when the King of Vlster had on some pretence destroy'd the City of Conner and by the reception he found there from his former Disciple King Cormac who came to meet him now and withal to entertain both him and his 150 Monks of Beannchuir come along with him out of the North. Then by his building here in Mounster the Abbey of Ibrac Monasterium Ibracense St. Bernard calls it King Cormac with Royal munificence abundantly furnishing Gold and Silver and all other necessaries both to finish the building and maintain the Convent after Then by his living there so exemplarily mortifiedly humbly among them as he had elsewhere perpetually even from the first day of his Episcopal Charge at Conner done taking his turn like an other Monk both in reading and serving in the Refectory at meals yea in all the very meanest Offices of the Cloister even that of Cook to dress their meat in the Kitchin not excepted Then by the last sickness of Celsus who had successively ordain'd him Deacon Priest and Bishop and by the choice made by him of Malachias for his Successor and his Letters to all the Princes of the Kingdom especially the two Mounster Kings * Cormack was one of them his Kingdom South-Mounster his name and surname Cormack mhac Cartha his end by a soul murther committed on him by his own Son in Law All which and the revenge of this murder you may see in the former â—ection page 183. to see after his death Malachias install'd in the Metropolitical See of Ardmagh Which for the memory of their great Apostle St. Patrick who living govern'd it and dying chose it for his place of rest was held in such veneration that all the people of Ireland Clergy and Laiety Nobles Bishops Princes and Kings were subject in all obedience to the Metropolitan thereof Then by the Vision about this time but before any notice had of Ceallach's being sick the Vision I say of a Tall ancient venerable Woman appearing to Malachias and upon his demand what she was answering him she was the Wife of Celsus but withal delivering him a Pastoral Staff Then by a real Messenger come from Celsus as he was yet on his death bed alive with his real Staff indeed and by the real delivery thereof by him as he was commanded by Celsus to this man of God Then by the unanimous application of all the Kingdon from all parts made unto him to accept of this Election and by his declining it nevertheless a very long time alledging now his own unworthiness now his poverty and meanness and inability to contend with the powerful Family that hitherto well nigh two hundred years had possess'd that See besides that not even with the death of men their stubbornness could be overcome moreover that to see blood spilt in his behalf or by his occasion did not become him or his calling finally that he was already join'd to an other Spouse the Church of Conner Then after three years continual reluctance by the National Synods meeting on purpose wherein the Pope's Legat Gillaspuic alias Gilbertus Bishop of Limmeric and Malchus Bishop of Lismore were the chief and by their laying their commands upon him adding threats withal to excommunicate him if he resisted any longer and his own reflecting at the same time on the Vision he had formerly had in
or his invoking the name of God on three Apples and sending them to a Lady in the last agonies of death be reputed a Diabolical Charm And yet after all I am of Bernard's opinion that the first and greatest Miracle wrought by Malachias was himself From the first day of his conversion to the last of his Life sine proprio vixit he lived without property in any kind of thing Even when he was Bishop he had neither man-servant nor maid-servant nor Town nor Village nor Land nor one farthing either of Ecclesiastical or Temporal Revenue no not for allowance to his Episcopal Table He had not so much as a House of his own He almost incessantly went about the Parishes preaching the Gospel and living on the Gospel as our Lord had shew'd him the Example save only that for most part he preach'd it without putting his Auditory to the charge of entertaining him but maintain'd himself and his Religious Train by the labour of his own hands and theirs When he found it necessary to take a little rest he took it in some of the holy places founded by himself in all Countreys of the Kingdom For it was he that was the great Restorer of the Monastick Life and Cloisters in Ireland where for so many Ages before i. e. ever since the Universal desolation by the Danes the people generally though they had heard of the name yet they never saw any such thing as a Monk till he begun A diebus antiquis Monachi quidem nomen audierunt monachum non viderunt says Malachias himself Vit. cap. xi And wheresoever he rested how shor tor how long soever his abode was he conform'd to all their observances their Habit their Table their Diet. Insomuch that as to the exteriour man he could not be discovered from the meanest Brother of the House Lastly in his going about the Parishes or Countreys either to preach or to visit he never made use of Horse or Coach or Waggon he went a foot constantly as likewise did all his Train though now both Bishop and Legat. And was not all this trow you to be a true Heir indeed a true Successor to the Apostles or was it not in Malachias to be himself the first and last and greatest of his Miracles O virum Apostolicum quem tot talia nobilitant signa Apostolatus sui Quid ergo mirum si mira operatus est sic mirabilis ipso Imo verò non ipse sed Deus in ipso Alioquin tu es Deus inquit qui facis mirabilia says Bernard exclaiming here with admiration of this wonderful man However this Life he led for about a dozen years perpetually going about all the Provinces reforming all the abuses doing good to all mortals and working those other prodigious signs every where that I have touch'd upon before At last understanding that Innocent II. was dead and after him within sixteen months more Celestin II. and Luoius the second too and that Eugenius III. a Disciple of Saint Bernards being chosen to succeed them was come so near as France he calls a National Synod holds it dispatches in the three first days of it what was thought expedient as to Reformation on the fourth proposes that of sending to the See Apostolick for the Archiepiscopal Ensigns called Pallia offers himself to be the Solicitor of it in person and tho with great difficulty to part with him at all for any time yet obtains their consent the rather that the Pope was so near And now he takes his Journey again through Scotland where being receiv d with all veneration by King David he founds the last of his Monasteries at a place call'd stagnum viride the Green Lake haviug to that purpose brought with him out of Ireland a sufficient number of Cistercian Monks And then he goes forward the second time to Claravallis in France taking that in his way to Rome whither the Pope before his arrival on that side of the Sea was returned And finally now and from hence i. e. from Claravallis but after a few days of sickness and by a death answerable in all respects to his life he is call'd to glory on that very day which himself had both desired and foretold the day of the Commemoration of all faithful souls departed which as I have noted before was in the Year of Christ 1148. More particulars either of his life or death or miracles whoever desires may find them at large in the funeral Sermon preach'd and Life also most exactly and divinely written of him even by St. Bernard himself Who besides many other Abbots and the whole Cistercian Convent of Claravallis was present with him at his death as they all ministred to him all along in his sickness And it is even this very Bernard that with his own Eyes beheld the great Miracle which he tells wrought on a Paralitick by touching the hand of Malachias while after his death he was yet expos'd in publick before Burial But it is not for the sake of this or any other Miracle wrought by him that I have dilated so much upon him but to shew the state of the Church of Ireland in those days out of so good an Author as St. Bernard is For in that Life of Malachias written by him besides many other points relating directly to the most healthful use of Confession saluberrimum usum confessionis are Bernards own words and the Sacrament of extream Unction and the real presence of Christ in the consecrated Host and Prayers for the Dead all which I pass over as not to the purpose of this Historical Discourse it is very observable That so blessed a Man as Ceallach was even by the character of a Saint Sanctus Celsus given him by Colganus and so learned withal as Sir James Ware represents him to have been did without consulting the See Apostolick of Rome and did I say by his own authority alone as Primat of Ardmagh erect another Metropolitical See in Ireland That not even at any time from the beginning the Irish Church or Metropolitans thereof until this time of Malachias either had or for ought we know ever desired the Pallium but without it exercis'd all plenitude of Archiepiscopal and Primatial jurisdiction all over Ireland Besides we may plainly see by whose solicitation at first the Court of Rome was moved in the concern of Palls of Ireland And that Cardinal John Papiron's bringing them to Ireland about four years after the death of Malachias was undoubtedly an effect of those two Journeys made by him out of Ireland to obtain them Albeit we know not certainly whether it was Malachias that desired so many as were brought by Papiron Or whether after his death others did suggest for the reasonableness and expediency of so many that in Ireland were chiefly four Partiâ—ions Governments or Provincial Kingdoms of very different natures manners interests Feuds and Kings too that would not yield any of them to the other willingly and by
had so unchristianly used it was therefore in the last place unanimously decreed That immediately all English slaves wheresoever throughout the whole Kingdom should be manumised and set at full Liberty So says Cambrensis in his First Book de Expug Hibern c. 28. Where he further says That the People of England i. e. the Saxons while their Kingdom flourish'd before the Norman Conquest had this vitious custom among them generally That rather than suffer any the least want they set their children to publick sale and sent both children and Cousins too over Seas to be sold in Ireland And then he gives his own judgment on the whole concluding It may be probably believed That as God in his Justice had already punish'd with servitude under a forein Yoak the Saxon Sellers so the Irish Buyers were justly fallen at this time into the like severity of Gods avenging wrath But whether also that horrible violation of the Sanctuary of God for fifteen Generations and the most hideous corruption of Manners flowing thence and overflowing well nigh the whole Kingdom whereof we have seen before so much out of St. Bernard might not be another special and peradventure more exaspâ—rating cause Or whether the exemplary punishment fallen so suddenly under Malachias upon the whole Race of those nesarious men that for so long were the chief Authors of that sacriledg and corruption did or did not satisfie the Justice of God as to that matter And whether the Reformation wrought by Malachias in his own days continued any while after his death Nay whether so great a number of incontinent Priests within so little a time of his death and under the superintendency of so blessed a man as St. Laurence was might not argue a third or fourth special motive Or whether at least it might not evince a very just ground to suspect e'en a very great Apostacy among the Clergy themselves in some places and by consequence a much greater a-mong thepeople in the same places from that holy Reform of them by Malachias I must confess I know not what to answer these Queres as being for one part of them enveloped in the darkness of God's secret determinations and for the rest or matter of Fact observable by man past over without any mention of it in History Only this I can with much probability aver That they are much out who grounding themselves on that number of Priests convict of Incontinency by St. Laurence would thence conclude this of Incontinency to have been a general Vice infecting the Irish Clergy and People of Ireland at this time and consequently one of the special causes that brought the heaviest of their judgments The English Conquest upon them 1. Gratianus Lucius p. 319. tells us That Albinus O Moliny Abbot first of Baltinglass then Bishop of Ferns under Henry II. when Laurence was Archbishop of Dublin and those Priests convict in a Midlent Sermon of his treating at large of the continency of Clerks and inveighing bitterly as to that point against the wicked Example given by those Welsh and English Ecclesiasticks come to Ireland with Fitz-Steven Strongbow c. declared in very ample manner how extraordinary pure the Chastity of the Irish Clergy had been before they mix'd with those Foreiners and were corrupted by their Example 2. Cambrensis himself how unfavourable soever he be in other matters to that Nation is in his Topography dist 3. c. xxvii a witness beyond exception as of other great Virtues so in particular of the Chastity of their Ecclesiasticks Est autem terrae istius Clerus satis Religione commendabilis inter varias quibus pollet virtutes castitatis praerogativa praeeminet atque praecellit The Clergy of that Land says he as to Religion are commendable enough and among their many Virtues Chastity has in an excellent degree the prerogative of all And then he goes on telling their assiduity in reading and praying and singing Psalms and keeping within the precincts of their Churches and Abbeys and never tasting any thing all day until they had ended Completorium or Complin as they call it the very last of the canonical Hours in the dusk of the Evening 'T is true he censures their indulging themselves at night more freely both in meat and drink But it is withal no less true That therefore he wonders at their Chastity holding it for a Miracle that Wine and Venus should not meet And yet after all I know not what to think of his charging them so grievously in these two particulars 1. That inter tot millia vix unum invenies c. among so many Thousands scarce one might be found that notwithstanding their continual instance in praying and fasting all day did not at night enormously exceed in Wine and other drinks 2d That albeit their Bishops as having been generally assumed out of Monasteries perform'd most diligently all the duties of Religious Monks for according to the ancient custom they even after their assumption to the Episcopal Order continued still their abode within the precincts of their Abbeys wholly given to Prayer and contemplation yet withal they no less wholly neglected preaching to their people or inveighing against their wickedness or using the severity of Episcopal disciplin to extirpate their Vices and plant those Virtues in their stead which became Christian Professors And indeed if Cambrensis as he is often in other matters of Ireland be not extreamly out or extreamly byassed in these particulars especially the second of them we may peradventure justly conceive that here is an other special cause of that very heaviest of Gods judgments impending at this time over the Irish Nation But whatever may be thought to have either been or not been any of the special causes and although as I ought so I do acknowledg that not even my own supposition all along hitherto viz. of their mortal Feuds and bloodshed among themselves to have been their greatest most special and most peculiar provocation of Heaven must be obtruded on the Reader as a certainty but only represented to him as the most probable and pious conjecture that may be grounded as well on the Prophetical predictions of the Irish Saints as upon the nature and merit of things in themselves taken as they are recorded so fully and particularly in Doctor Ketings History yet I may confidently affirm they were in general very great and very grievous and enormous sins without question either of the Clergy or People or their Bishops or of their Kings Princes Nobles and other men of War or of all together that brought so heavy so everlasting a judgment on that Nation as to their Being in this World For although particular persons have been sometimes grievously afflicted only for the trial of their Virtue as Job and Tobias sometimes only for the manifestation of the Power and Works of God without any demerit of theirs or their Parents either as the Blind Man in the Gospel never has a whole Nation or
Kingdom been destroy'd but for the enormity of their sins Whereof whoever pleases may see proofs at large in Fitz-Herberts Policy and Religion Part 1. chap. 21. 22. 23 c. yea Jesus the son of Syrach for he may be more easily consulted in every Bible at hand may give to a sober man assurance enough where he says First cap. 10. 8. that the Kingdom is translated from Nation to Nation because of unjust dealings injuries calumnies and various deceits Secondly c. 40. 10. that death and bloodshed strife and the sword oppression famine contrition and scourges were all of them created for the wicked and for them the deluge was made Nay if we consult the Books of Kings read the Prophets run over the Books of Josuah Judges Deuteronomy Chronicles and the rest of the old Testament examine all the Histories of Christendom we shall not find any whole Kingdom or Nation destroy'd but for grievous and horrible sins either of the Rulers or People or Priests or all together Yea we shall commonly find the very quality and species of those transgressions mentioned that brought the vengeance on them However and notwithstanding that further yet we know that bloodshed is one of those four sins that cry to Heaven Gen. X. 11. for vengeance the Voice of thy brothers blood cries to me from the earth said God himself to Cain and that the very second of the Gen. IX 6. Laws he gave to Noe was that whosoever did shed the blood of man his also should be shed after all I dare not affirm positively that either those very Feuds of the Irish how unparallel'd soever in blood or those other transgressions in specie be they what you please were the sins that moved God to pronounce this final doom against them but only in general That their great sins compell'd him to it And how should I indeed For who was the Counsellor Esay XL. 13. Rom. XI 39. of God or who knows any thing of the secrets of his Providence except only those to whom himself was pleased to reveal them Nevertheless I dare acquaint the Reader that although I give but little credit generally and sometimes none at all to the Relations of Cambrensis where he seems rather to vent his passion and write a Satyr against that People than regard either Modesty or Truth yet I will not call in question what he relates l. 2. de Expug Hib. c. 33. of the Prophetical predictions made so many Ages before by the four Prophetical Saints of that Nation Moling Brachan Patrick and Columb-Cille and written by themselves says he in their own Irish Books extant yet in Ireland concerning the final Fate of their Countreymen the old Milesian Race viz. That the people of Great Brittain shall not only invade them but for many Ages continue a sharp cruel and yet doubtful War upon them at home in Ireland sometimes the one and sometimes the other side prevailing That although those Invaders shall be often disturb'd worsted weakned especially and according to the prophecy of Brachan by a certain King that shall come from the desert Mountains of Patrick and on a Sunday-night seize a Castle in the Woody parts of Ibh Faohlain and besides force them almost all away out of Ireland yet they shall continually maintain the Eastern Sea-Coast in their possession That in fine it will be no sooner than a little before the day of judgment and then it will be when they shall be throughly and universally victorious over all Ireland erect Castles every where among the Irish and reduce the whole Island from Sea to Sea under the English Yoak And verily those Prophetical predictions five hundred years since delivered us by Cambrensis as he received 'em from the Irish themselves are the more observable That by consulting the History of after-Ages from Henry II. of England to the last of Queen Elizabeth and first of King James we may see them to a tittle accomplish'd Unless peradventure some will unreasonably boggle at the circumstance of time express'd in these words Paulò ante diem Judicii a little before the day of Judgment Which yet no man has reason to do Because we know not how near this great day which shall end the World may be to us at this very present As for that King foretold as coming from the desâ—rt Mountains of Patric there may be occasion and place enough to speak of him again that is hereafter in the Second Part of this Treatise But whether from this Irish Prophesie either had as for the substance not the exact words of it from Cambrensis for he pretends not to give to us the exact words or had perhaps at least for some part of it from the Irish themselves resorting to Rome in those days the famous Italian Prophet of Calabria Joachimus Abbot of Flore did foretell in his time the utter destruction and eternal desolation that Joachimus Ab. post Tract super cap. X. Isaiae Part 1. de Oneribus sexti Temporis was to come upon the Irish Nation I cannot say This I know 1. That in all his predictions all along in his several Commentaries on Jeremy Esay the Apocalyps c. he pretends to divine Revelation 2. That he lived several years after the Writings of Cambrensis on Ireland had been publick For Cambrensis dedicated one part of them to Henry II. himself who died in the Year of Christ 1189. and the rest to his Son Richard when yet but Earl of Poicton And Joachim was in Sicily with Richard now King of England and Philip Polydore Virgil. in Ricardo primo King of France both wintring there with their Fleets An. 1190. in their way to the Invasion of the holy Land Nay I have my self read his submission of his Works to the See Apostolick dated by himself ten years after which was the Year 1200. of our Saviours Incarnation 3. That being ask'd what the success of this great expedition to the holy Land against Saladine should be his Answer was it should prove unsuccessful and that the time of recovering Hierusalem was not yet come 4. That this prediction of his was punctually true as appear'd ere long 5. That his Prophecy of the old Irish Nation is in these genuin words you read in the Margin * Ex rigoribus horribilis hyemis glacialis flatibus Aquilonis parit Hibernia Incolas furibundos Sed si sequentium temporum terrores praenoscerent internos impetus cogitarene à facie spiritus Domini ferreum pectus averterent se à sempiternis opprobriis liberarent Sed ex quo invicem vertitur furor aspideus involvit tam Clerum quam populum par insultus non video quod superna Clementia ulterius differat quin in â—os exactissimum judicium acuat in stuporem perpetuae desolationis impellat Omnes istos populos Cathedra Dubliniensis astringit Sed Darensium enormis iniquit as totum defaedat ordinem charitatis Et ideo
Conchabhar Abhraruadh was King before him for one year only but before him Lughadh Sriabhndearg had continued Monarch six and twenty years compleat That this same Lughadh married the King of Denmarks Daughter and before his Reign immediately an Interregnum of five years had been which followed upon the murder of Conair Mor mhic Eidirsceoil and before this Interregnum the same Conair Mor had reigned full seventy years in great prosperity That after the foresaid Crioffan Niadnair those who immediately succeeded in the Sovereign power of Ireland were Fearrhadlach for twenty years then Fiacha Fionn for three and after him Fiocha Fionnolladh for twenty seven years more That these those in all seven Monarchs were every one of them kill'd in such and such manner and by such and such men of their own very Nation That after the seventh of them had been slaughtered by the Athaghtuachi or Countrey Boors and Plebeians in their General conspiracy against all the Royal and noble Blood the same Athatchtuachi set up for King of Ireland one Cairbre surnamed Ceannchait or Caitcheann from his Cats face an Irish man indeed by birth but by descent originally that is in the Ninth generation before come out of Denmark as one of the King of Denmark's sons who had accompanied Lauradh Loinnsioch returning with Anxiliaries from France to recover his inheritance the Monarchy of Ireland which Lauradh did Anno 3727. according to the computation followed by Gratianus Lucius Lastly that this Usurper Cairbre Caitcheann was at the end of five years kill'd and all his rebellious rout of Peasants and their partakers overthrown by the Nobles headed then by the rightful Heir of the Monarchy Tuathal Teachtmhor who thereupon was received as such being now the C. Monarch of the Milesian Race And all these matters together with so many other particular appendants on them within the Reigns of those eight or nine Monarchs which Reigns compriz'd the whole Reign and Life too nay much more time before and after than the whole Reign or Life either of Augustus in the Roman Empire the Irish Antiquaries give us most exactly at large And yet not a syllable of Fredelenus nor of either of the Frotho's no nor indeed of any other forein King or Prince or Adventurer so much as invading Ireland within or near that time though they wanted not occasion in Lughad's Reign and in Caibre Ceannchaits as we have seen to reflect on such matters if any such had really been The same or like argument though but a Negative one yet founded on the general silence of all the Irish Annals Chronicles Histories in the greatest concern of their Nation must be to every indifferent person a clear proof and conviction enough against the vain relations of Hanmer and Campion c. borrowed by them out of Cambrensis as by him from Geffrey of Monmouth I mean at present only those Fables of their great Brittish Heroe King Arthur's forcing the Irish Kings to pay him Tribute and their appearing at his great Court and City of Caer Leon upon Vsk and the Irish Monarch that as they idly fain was contemporary and tributary to him to have been called Gillemer In any of the Irish Annals Chronicles Histories there is not a syllable of any part of these matters no not so much as of Arthur's attempting once at any time on Ireland or picking or having any quarrel with any of the Kings or Lords there Nay Keting does quote Speed himself though a late English Auhor asserting in effect the whole to be a meer fiction and that Ireland was neither subject nor tributary to Arthur And the Keting in his Preface same Keting is positive herein that there was never any King of Ireland by name Gillemer Besides that Muirchiortach Mor mhac Ercha was not only Monarch of Ireland when Arthur was King of Great Brittain but in peace and amity all his life with him Where it may be added that if Arthur was created King of Great â—rittain in the 18th year of his age and was kill'd Anno 542. as Buchanan says he was then Buchanan l. 5. Rer. Scot. in Goran Rege XLV certainly the said Muirchiortarch Mor and his two next Successours immediately following one another Tuathal Maolgharbh and Diarmuid mhac Cearbheoil were those three Kings or Monarchs of Ireland that by succession were contemporary to the whole Reign of Arthur which if Buchanan be judg consisted of 24 years And yet there was no quarrel at all by any of them with Arthur much less subjection to him Also it may be added That as Keting says Fergusius the First of Scotland was Brother to the foresaid Muirchiortach King of Ireland And consequently that the Subjects of Muirchiortach were great Conquerors in the Northern parts of Great Brittain at that very time Yea that as Buchanan himself in the Reign of Goranus the XLV King of Scotland in his Computation and History relates it The great Battel of Humber wherein Arthur was not only defeated but mortally wounded nay in effect lost both Kingdom and life was fought against him by an Army of Irish Scots however in confederacy and conjunction with the Picts and some Brittons led in the same Field by Modrocdus against him Out of all which may be seen how unlikely the stories of King Arthur in Polychronicon Hanmer Campion c. which relate to Ireland are How improbable that must be of Westmonasteriensis in his years of Christ 497. and 592. which attributing the Monarchical power of Ireland to one Gillamurius alias Gillimer one that was never heard of in Ireland represents him notwithstanding as taken there by King Arthur and thereupon the rest of the Irish Princes e'en plainly forc'd to yield themselves all and do homage to Arthur How vain also is that of Cambrensis to the same purpose written before telling us It is read that the famous King of the Brittons Arthur had the Kings of Ireland his Tributaries and that some of them waited on him in his great Court of Caer Leon. But above all the candor and ingenuity of honest Galfridus the first forger of these among so many other Fables appears in grain however Cambrensis had not the confidence either to quote him for it or to mention at all Gillamurius though a part of it And yet notwithstanding any thing hitherto either in this place or elsewhere said I doubt not the posterity of the ancient Brittons have just reason if not to glory of King Arthurs Trophies at least to be sorry for his untimely Death and heartily wish their Ancestours had not deserv'd to see their blooming hopes in him so suddenly vanish Though at the same time I must ingenuously confess there are but too too many reasons able to suspend any judicious knowing man's belief of what even Buchanan himself has in our own days transmitted to Posterity for authentick Truths of this famous Kings renowned glorious performances viz. That he had continually been for many years but most particularly
ancient Irish Septs even at this very time In short as their name turn'd English must be the Children or descendents of Roderick for thus we render the Irish name Ruadruidh so they had that name as they lineally derive their descent not from either of the two Irish Monarchs call'd by that name though to pass by the later who was the very last of all the Milesian Kings of Ireland yet the former of them was so long before as the LXX Monarch in order of the same Milesian Race who came to the Sovereignty of Ireland in the year of the World 4907 that is before the birth of Christ 392 years but much earlier from Ruadhruidh mhac Sithghe that descended from Ir one of the eight Sons of Milesius Which Ir being dead before or at least upon the first partition of Ireland betwixt the two surviving Brothers Heber and Herimon and their Cosins and the foresaid Ruidhruidh mhac Sitghe succeeding in the Lot of Ir which was in the North he establish'd both himself and his posterity there and in process of time became the great stock of a most numerous warlike stubborn People and among 'em Lords and Princes and Kings too whereof such as continued still within that portion of Ir Northern Division are by the rest of the Irish call'd Na Faoir Vlltaigh which words import in our Language the right Vlster men And not only they that so remain'd within that Vlster Lot but those that issued from them into the other Provinces of Ireland where many of 'em acquir'd large Territories have always gone under the name of Clanna Ruidhruidh and by it are distinguish'd still from all other Families descended either from Herimon or Heber or Ith or any else whatsoever of those very first Milesian Conquerours Of those of them who had so issued forth into other Provinces are the progeny of Connall Cearnach in Lease a Territory of Leinster and those Septs in Connaght which go by the peculiar name of Comhaicne Chonnacht besides other Families in Corcaigh Moruadh and Kiarruigh parts of Mounster Third Observation is That so many rich Presents made in one Progress by a Provincial King must argue Ireland to have been at least in those days of Paganism whereof Benuinn writes for he himself flourish'd about 1200 years since a Countrey fraught with exceeding great Riches And verily there are several other strong arguments to persuade us it was so 1. The golden Mines discover'd there under the X. Monarch of the Milesian Conquest by name Tighernmhais and a long time after made use of In so much that the Countrey abounding with gold the next Monarch after him viz. Munemhon who died in the year of the World 3872. ordain'd that all the Gentry should wear golden chains about their Necks And his next Successor Allerghoid's reign is noted in the Irish Chronicles for golden Rings therein first used in that Nation 2. The great number of Silver shields made by the command of Euno Airgtheach the Xvii Monarch of the Milesian Conquest and together with Caroches and Horses bestow'd by him on persons of Worth He reign'd seven years and in the year of the world 3882. was kill'd in Battel by his successour having first derived from those Silver Targets the surname of Airgtheach which imports Silver'd 3. The numerous company of Goldsmiths every where in that Kingdom I am sure that as Keting in Tighernmhais's reign takes special notice of his name who was the very first Master Goldsmith in those days so does Gratianus Lucius enough of latter days I mean as to that matter of the great number of Goldsmiths in 'em among the Irish For in his 118. p. he observes out of O Duuegan that even S. Patric had in his own private Family of them at work three namely Essuus Bidus and Tassachus He further adds that scarce in the Irish Histories may be found an instance of any Chalices Vials or Utensils whatsoever dedicated to holy uses at the Altar or in the Church other than of pure Gold or Silver Besides that the very coverings not only of Reliques but of Books all of Silver and Gold were so many throughout that Kingdom since it became Christian as might easily persuade any indifferent man that of necessity their number of Goldsmiths must have been very great 5. The spoils of foreign Countreys which for so many long Ages the Irish gather'd home to Ireland as elsewhere in this Treatise has been said 5. Their being so excellently seated for Trading that in those days of old they were mightily frequented by Merchants out of Spain France Great Brittain c. but without question much more than Great Brittain was For proof we have the testimony of so knowing and sure a Writer as Cornelius Tacitus in his Life of Agricola where speaking of Ireland in reference to Brittain he has these words Melius aditus portusque per commercia negotiatores cogniti signifying That the Havens and Ports of Ireland were better known by Commerce and Merchants than those of Brittain 6. The ounce of Gold yearly paid for every Nose in Ireland to the Danish Victors whilst their Dominion lasted there which also we have seen before out of Keting 7. The acknowledgment of Gerald of Wales himself even for his own time that is for the time following the horrible desolation of that Countrey by the long and cruel Danish Wars and the frequent continual plundering of it by the Norvegians and other Easterlings for about a hundred and fifty years at least Yet Gerald who in the second or third Age after so much Riches had been carried away thence by those plundering Heathens was an Eye-witness himself of what remain'd still even in King Hen. II. reign professes that Ireland at this very time abounded with Gold For Aurum quoque quo abundat Insula are his own words Expug Hib. l. 2. c. 15. where if you joyn with it his seventeenth Chapter you may observe him not only in three several places referring to and exaggerating this very subject of the Irish Gold but withal supposing in the last of them that without Irish Commodities Commerce our Island of Great Brittain could not subsist Besides I might peradventure to the same purpose of shewing the plenty of Treasure among the Irish and that even but a very little time before the days of Cambrensis I am sure I might pertinently enough for shewing their liberality and Piety both extended even to Forein Parts alleadg out of the Chronicle of St. James's Benedictin Cloister seated at the West-gate of Reinsburg alias Ratisbona in Germany those vast sums of Gold and Silver besides the great proportion of other rich Donaries bestow'd by the Mounster King Conchabhar O Brien surnamed Slapparsalach and other Irish Princes upon Dionysius Christianus and Gregorius three successive Irish Abbots of that Cloister and sent unto them by their own Irish Messengers come of purpose out of Germany at three several times and with the Emperour Conrad's Letters
a Roman Council Much less would their fierceness and resolution in that matter have been so unalterable as to occasion the slaughter of eleven hundred and fifty of their Brethren Monks of the very same Bangor Abbey at one time and place Whereof you may see the particulars in Venerable Bede l. 2. Eccl. Histor c. 2. and in Whelock's Notes upon this Chapter So that Yepez in making Beannchuir a Benedictin Abbey knew not what he said or at least what could be objected against him 65. Why the Staff of Jesus mention'd in my 273. page was so called you may read in Jocelinus an English Monk that five hundred years since at the instance of two Irish Bishops and Sir John Curcy whom he calls Prince of Vlster because as I suppose he was the first Conqueror of it under the English Crown digested the Life of St. Patrick out of many former Lives written of Him by several Authors but written by them in such manner and stile as did not invite Readers It is therefore this Jocelinus that in his Life of St. Patrick cap. 24. gives a pretty large account of that Staff of Jesus Which is in substance That when St. Patrick after a long abode of many years with St. German Bishop of Altissiodorum in France had with his leave at last departed towards Rome in his journey thither he either by divine instinct or Angelical instruction diverted to a certain Island in the Tirrhene Sea of purpose to visit a certain holy Anchoret of great same living there whose name was Justus 2. That upon his arrival after holy salutes and spiritual conference Justus gave him a Staff saying he had receiv'd it from the very hand of our Lord Jesus Christ himself but to be given him 3. That after this St. Patrick discoursing with other men who lived in the same Island at some little distance from the Cell of Justus whereof some appeared brisk and young others old even to decrepit age and understanding that those extream old men he saw were the very genuin sons of those other that appear'd young and enquiring how that could be One of the same young men both to remove his admiration which was great and to satisfie his demand gave him this answer We says he from our childhood through the mercy of God have been always given to works of mercy and our door was open to every Traveller that for Christ's sake desired either Victuals or Lodging On a certain Night we received a stranger with a Staff in his hand and according to our best ability treated him with all necessaries and kindness Next Morning upon his departure he blessed us nor only blessed us but moreover spake these words unto us viz. I am Jesus Christ whom in person you have this Night receiv'd into your House who so often before have receiv'd me in my servants And then he delivered the Staff he had in his hand to the man of God our spiritual Father commanding him to keep it for a certain Pilgrim by name Patrick who after many days should arrive here and upon him to bestow it Which command given he presently ascended into Heaven and we have ever since remained in the same state of youthful countenance briskness and vigour of body we were in at that time But our sons that were but little children then are now according to their age come to be decrepit as you see them 4. That when St. Patrick had heard all he gave God thanks and after a few days longer conversation with Justus proceeded on his Journey carrying in his hand that holy Staff appointed by God himself to be an instrument for his servant Patrick to work therewith prodigious things in Ireland as the Rod of Moses had formerly been for effecting the famed Wonders in Egypt the greatest difference betwixt them being that this of Jesus brought health and life to the Irish Nation but that of Moses death upon the Egyptian So in effect Jocelinus mostly concerning the original of that Staff Unto which he addeth cap. 170. concerning also the powerful Virtue of it That by lifting it up on high and threatning with it St. Patrick after a long Fast of forty days and forty nights join'd with continual fervent Prayer forc'd together out of all parts of Ireland all venomous Animals whatsoever to the Mountain call'd in Irish Cruachain Ailge in the West of Conaght and from thence precipitated them into the Western Ocean lying under this Mountain and this with such a blessed riddance to the whole Island as to have left or have rendred it ever since incapable of harbouring any creature alive that were Poisonous though brought into it from other Countreys How Keting understands this later point we have seen before And for Gerald of Wales though he acknowledg both the Vertue and name of that Staff calling it Virtuosissimum baculum Jesu the most powerful Staff of Jesus yet he says withal that the Origin of it is as uncertain as the Virtue is most certain Adding immediately in the same place That in his own time and by his own Countrey men the Brittish Conquerours that noble Treasure for so he calls it was translated from Ardmagh to Dublin What became of it since I cannot tell But this I find in St. Bernards Life of Malachias that this Staff of Jesus and the Text of the Gospel that was St. Patrick's own Book or that used by himself were the two most precious Jewels not only of the Church of Ardmagh but of any in the whole Kingdom of Ireland That they were held by all the Irish in the greatest veneration above all other holy Reliques whatsoever but more especially the Staff as being that which our Saviour Christ himself had both carried in his own divine hand fram'd by his own peculiar workmanship and recommended in such a special manner to be given to his Apostolical servant Patrick I find moreover in David Rooth the late Roman Catholick Bishop of Ossory's Elucidations upon Jocelin whatever may be objected by Criticks against this History of the Staff of Jesus answer'd For if their Exception be against our Saviour's appearing on Earth after his Ascension to Heaven from Mount Olivet he remits then to St. Ambrose where he tells in his Oration against Auxentius how very long after that time our Lord appeared to S. Peter at a Gate in Rome entring that City And if it be against any such Wonder-working power in the Staff it self though by divine Ordinance or consecration of it for such uses he desires them to consider not only the Rod of Moses in Egypt and brazen Serpent in the Desart nor only the brazen Statue of our Saviour erected at Caesarea Eusebius l. 7. Hist c. 18. and Sozomen l. 5. c. 21. Philippi otherwise called Paneas by the Woman in the Gospel cur'd by our Saviour of an Issue of blood but also the torn Cloak and poor Staff of the Egyptian Anchoret Senuphius wherewith Theodosius the Great arming himself
it be not the greatest of them all I am sure that as it was very great indeed so the Irish Nation is beholden to a Foreiner namely Adolphus Cypreus for transmitting the remembrance of it to Posterity in his Annals of the Bishops of Sleswick a City in Denmark For these are his own Latin words in the sixth page of that Work Reynerus Rex Danorum LVI potentissimus qui tamen ab excitata fortuna quae ipsi in subjugandis Regnis Sueciae Russiae Angliae Scotiae Norvegiae Hiberniae plurimum favit ad inclinatam pene jacentem descivit Namque ab Hella Hiberniae Rege captus in carcere expiravit sub an 841. In English these Reyner the LVI most powerful King of the Danes who nevertheless from the height of Fortune that favour'd him so mightily in subduing the Kingdoms of Swedland Russia England Scotland Norway Ireland was thrown down as low For being taken by Hella King of Ireland he died there in prison about the year 841. And yet I must observe here with Gratianus Lucius 1. That Cypreus mistook both the name and quality of him that took Prisoner this great Danish King 2. That no King of Ireland nor Provincial nor even other lesser King in Ireland was ever call'd by the name of Hella nor was that name of any body at all known among the Irish 3. That the right Irish name in all likelihood was Oillioll which because hard of pronuntiation Foreiners mistook or chang'd it to Hella 4. That since Christianity planted in that Countrey not even any Oillioll was King among 'em save only the Monarch Oillioll surnamed Molt who was next successour to Laoghaire mhac Neill in the year 458. and was killed in Battel An. 478. And lastly therefore that he must have been some great General of an Army and his name Oillioll that took this great Reynerus and kept him in Prison till he died 68. Another is of the Fatal Stone as they call it and refers to page 378. where I ended my Animadversions on the Scottish Histories concerning Fergus I. Of that famed Stone Keting in his Relations of the People call'd Tuath De Dainainn gives this account 1. That this Nation who were the last possessors of Ireland immediately before the Milesian Race had on their arrival there from Norway brought with them four special Jewels of extraordinary use namely a Sword Lance Pot and the Enchanted Stone which in Irish they call by one name Liath Fail by an other Cloch na Cineamhna this later importing in English the Stone of Destiny or Fortune 2. That after the Milesiaus had conquer'd those Tuath-Da-Danan and consequently got possession of this Stone and after they had not only plac'd it at Teambhuir our Tarach where all their Nobles and people did usually meet to chuse the King of Ireland but ordain'd that the new Elect should sit thereon as son as he did so the Stone under him by vertue of some Magical or Diabolical Charm gave such a mighty loud ecchoing astonishing sound that presently the Election was known thereby far and near 3. That this Oraculous Vertue of it ceased as some say when the Pentarchy was set up in that Kingdom by the Monarch Eochadh Feilioch or as others say about the time of our Saviours birth when throughout the World all the sallacious Oracles of the Gentiles became mute 4. That for its name of Cloch na Cineamhne or Stone of Destiny or Fatal Stone the reason was an old Prophesie deliliver'd of it by Tradition which Hector Boethius rendred thus in Latin Verse Ni fallat Fatum Scoti hunc quocumque locatum invenient Lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem But in Irish Meeter it is in Keting thus Ciniodh Scoâ—t saor an Fine man baâ—breag an Faisdine mar a bhfulghid an Liath Fail dlighid flaitheas do ghabhail Importing in both that where-ever the Seottish Nation did find that Stone they should have Dominion Power and Regal Majesty 5. That because of this prophetical Prediction and reputation of it when Fergus that famous Invader of the Picts I mean Fergus Mor mhac Ercho mhic Eochadh muin reamhair as the Irish call and genealogize him from his Father and Grandfather whom the Scottish Historians call Fergus I. would be created K. over hisown conquering Nation the Scots of Pictavia or Albania in Great Brittain he sent to his Brother Mairchiortach Mor mhac Ercha then Monarch of Ireland for this fatal Stone and had it over into Scotland of purpose that by sitting on it when he was created King he might assure the establishment of his Crown and power of his own People in his new conquer'd Kingdom 6. That for many ensuing Ages it remain'd there for a monument either of Religion or Superstition being in the same manner and to the same purpose sate upon by the succeeding Kings of Scotland till Edward I. of England in the current of his Victories had it brought away out of the Abbey of Scone to the Abbey of Westminster Where ever since it has been kept placed under the Royal Chair which the Kings of England usually sit in at their Coronation 7. That in the memory of our Fathers that prophetical Prediction of it and the ancient Scots which you have but now seen was fulfill'd in England too when James VI. of Scotland was crowned King of England at Westminster and has ever since continued to be more and more verified in the succession of Charles I. of glorious memory and Charles II. our present most gracious King For by the line of Maine mhic Cuirek mhic Luighc they are descended through a World of Generations of ancient Scots the Milesian Irish from Heber who as has been already noted elsewhere being the son of Milesius and in a joint Sovereignty ruling with his Brother Herimon was three thousand years since King of all Ireland And this is the account which Keting where he treats of Tuath-De-Danainn gives of that fatal Stone Save only that he makes no express mention of Charles II. nor could indeed as who died himself in the Reign of Charles I. But nevertheless he express'd his mind sufficiently as to the purpose of that Fatal Prediction by naming his Father and Grandfather both I am sure his expression of joy in the same place for their having successively come to be Kings of England Scotland France and Ireland must have involv'd the concomitant wishes of his heart for their posterity after them to attain and continue the same glory while time shall be And therein he has me to join with all my very Soul 69. The Fifth may be referr'd to page 155. where I treated briefly somewhat of Cormock O Cuillenain that excellent pious holy man who was at the same time both Arch-Bishop and King of Mounster and continued so for seven years together that is even all along till he lost his life in the Battel of Mughna For to this rare Example of the same man's being both King and Priest may be added
one more of the same Nature and in the very same Kingdom of Mounster too Where as Keting acquaints us upon the Death of Duibh Lachne next Successour in that Provincial Kingdom to Cormock O Cuilleinan for seven years more the Princes and Gentry meeting chose another Priest nay a Monk to be their King even the Abbot of Inis Catha by name Flaithhiortach mhac Jonmâ—uinein who reigned thirteen years over them And they chose him notwithstanding he had been the chief Adviser of Cormock O Cuillenain so lately that is but seven years before to venture that Battel against Flann mhac Sionnadh the Monarch and the Leinster King Cearbhall mhac Muaregein which prov'd so fatal to that good King and his whole Kingdom of Mounster and to this very Abbot himself troublesom For he was taken Prisoner in it and as such detain'd some time at Kildare by that Leinster King until at the intercession of the Abbess of Saint Bridgets Monastery in that Town he was released and return'd to his own Abbey of Inis-Catha in Mounster Whence after some few years wholly employ'd there in rigid ascetical exercises he was call'd upon and e'en compell'd to take the Royal State of a King So says Keting in his Reign of the said Monarch Flann Where also he notes occasionally an other great Errour of Hanmer in his Chronicle For Hanmer page 88. says that both the foresaid Cormock O Cuillenain King of Mounster but he makes him King of Ireland and Cearbhall O Muirreigein King of Leinster were kill'd by the Danes in the year of our Lord 905. Whereas on the contrary neither was Cearbhall kill'd in that year nor that Battel fought of either side by the Danes but of one side by the Monarch and of the other by Cormock who perish'd therein All which is abundantly testified by the Authentick Irish Book of that very Battel which Book has for Title Catha Bheala Mughna Besides as Keting observes in the same place the Danes attempted nothing at all no not once against the Irish during the seven years Reign of Cormock O Cuillenain over Mounster Nay there was so general a peace over all Ireland for this time so great plenty of all earthly blessings so universal a Reformation of manners and so much devotion and zeal in all sorts of people for restoring what had been destroy'd by the first Danish Wars and other attempts following it that nothing was to be seen more frequent now than every where repairing the old and building new Churches Colledges Hospitals Monasteries Yea the numbers of men dedicated only to a religious life was such at this time that Cormock O Cuillenainn tells in his Psalter of Cashel that in Muingharid formerly call'd the City of Deochaine-assain there was a Monastery with six Churches belonging to it in the same Town wherein the number of Conventual Monks was 1500. whereof five hundred were learnned Preachers five hundred Psalmists to serve constantly in the Choire and four hundred old Fathers applied wholly to Contemplation Such was the happy state of Ireland in the short Reign of the same Cormock over Mounster which must have been at or a little before the year of Christ 914. because this year ended the thirty eight years long Reign of the Monarch Flann mhac Sionna who kill'd in Battel that good King Cormock as we have seen before 70. The Sixth being an addition to what has been said before against Hanmer page 403. gives you to understand How Dionbhuillach son to the King of Denmark invading Ireland with a mighty Force landed in the North and march'd his Army so far as Ardmach How Conchabhar the first Provincial King of Vlster with his own people the Sept of Clanna Ruadhruidh i. e. the Children or Descendants from one Ruadhruidh whom they call Ruadhruidh Mor and with them alone nay with tumultuary small Forces rais'd out of them found himself necessitated to attack these Danes How by the advice of one Geanann Gruadhollas lest the Irish Youth should be contemn'd by the Danish old experienc'd Soldiers Conchabhar used the stratagem of tying Locks of grey wool in form of beards to their cheeks and chins whereby having made 'em seem the more considerable to the Enemy as if they also had been Veterans and then giving a furious charge on Dionbhuillach he defeated utterly all his Danes How these ascititious woollen beards were call'd in their Language Vlladh and from them it was that ever since the Northern Province of Ireland has been call'd in the same Irish Language Vlladh which we in ours call Vlster How that which we have here observed having been the issue of Dionbhuillach's Invasion and the time when it happen'd as Keting writes having also been the Reign of Eochadh Feilioch the Irish Monarch and Author of the Pentarchy who died in the year of the World 5069. that is just a hundred and forty years before the birth of Christ according to the computation follow'd by Lucius nothing can be desired clearer to evict Hanmer's little skill in the Irish History and his manifold Errours in delivering as you have seen before page 386. so many other Invasions of the Danes on Ireland and Conquests therein long before the year of Christ 800. 71. My seventh Note being likewise an addition is to supply what I purposely omitted in my 17th Page There I mention'd occasionally the Picts arriving in Ireland out of Scythia so long since as the Reign of Herimon the first Milesian Monarch of that Kingdom but little more of 'em save only their being made Tributary some Ages after in Scotland by the Irish Indeed when I writ and printed that Page I did not think of enlarging as I have done since And therefore partly for haste and partly for compendiousness I pass'd then over several particulars which I had before me that very time in Keting and he has at large in the foresaid Reign concerning those Picts But seeing I have since though contrary to my first design dilated on other matters I think it not amiss to add somewhat more of that Pictish Nation And this for two reasons The first is because 't is not only of all hands confess'd the Picts had been a warlike ancient People but Venerable Bede represents them as most powerful too in the year of Christ 569. In which year speaking of Columb Cille's landing in their Country from Ireland to convert 'em he has these very words Regnante Pictis Bridio filio Meilochon Rege potentissimo c. The second Because both the time of their first appearing in these parts and their very Original i. e. what Country-men they were or whence they came have continued for many Ages hitherto at least of late they are vexatious Questions As may be seen in Cambden's Britannia where he has given a Title of the Picts and four pages in Holland's Translation of him to resolvethese Questions Though after all he seems to me no nearer the Truth in his conjectural decision of either the one or
the other then Buchanan has before him nay wider from it as to the later Question than either Campion or Hanmer or any other follow'd by them These for so much had the good luck to yield to the Authority of V. Bede in his Eccles Histor l. 1. c. 1. where he expresly tells us to this purpose 1. That when the ancient Britons had possess'd themselves of the Southern Parts of this Noble Island which derives its name from them it happen'd that the Nation of Picts departing from Scythia entring the Ocean wind-driven to Ireland landing there desiring the Inhabitants the Scots to afford 'em Elbow-room for Cohabitation and being denied this but nevertheless directed by 'em to the Northern Tract of Great Brittain and withal promis'd their assistance if need should be to conquer it by force they by this direction and promise encourag'd put to Sea presently for that same Northern Tract and landing therein made it their habitation 2. That wanting Women and desiring Wives of the Scots they had 'em on this condition That whenever the succession to the Crown amongst their People should chance to be controverted the Female's line Royal should prevail and the King be chosen thence Which is even to this day observ'd among the Picts says Bede speaking of his own time 3. That they had a peculiar Language of their own For in the same Chapter he notes particularly how according to the number of the Five Books of Moses wherein the Divine Law had been written Brittain in his time praised God in five divers Languages viz. those of the English Britons Scots Picts and Latins this last made common to them all by their studying the Holy Scriptures Yet notwithstanding this plain account of the Picts given by V. Bede as to their great Antiquity or Time of their first appearance in these Western Islands and the Countrey whence they came to them being that of Scythia not only Buchanan but Cambden by little Criticisms and other weak conjectures would fain persuade us they had only been a part of the ancient Britons retired from the South and power of the Roman Legions in the same Island of Great Brittain c. into the more uncouth inaccessible Northern parts thereof That they were no earlier known by the name of Picts than the Reign of the Roman Emperours Diocletian and Maximian Herculeus And that their Language differ'd not in substance but only in a certain kind of Dialect from the Brittish Tongue spoken by the rest of their Countrey-men the other Brittons But the words of Bede are clearer and his authority greater than the arguments they bring are able to elude or impeach Nor indeed can any thing more be desired to end these two vexatious Questions concerning that Pictish Nation save only the particulars given by Keting out of the most ancient authentick Records of Ireland These are of such irrefragable authority that I am persuaded were they known to Cambden he had never disputed the matter At least I believe he should not if he had well consider'd of it The Irish were the Nation that by the confession of all sides from the beginning press'd longest and hardest of any upon that Northern Countrey inhabited by the Picts in Great Brittain They were the Nation that by degrees conquer'd so many of their Provinces planted so many Colonies in 'em establish'd a King of their own over the same Provinces long before the Romans attack'd either Yea they were the Nation that utterly subdued at last the whole Pictish Kingdom and extinguish'd in it the very name of Picts Wherefore it is plain that as the Irish were most concern'd so they had the best means of any to know both the time of their first appearance and Countrey too from whence they came as the Picts themselves were pleas'd to tell ' em And seeing it is no less plain out of what has been said elsewhere in these Discourses that the Irish Nation in all times had their publick Registers wherein with the greatest care and certainty could be all the Concerns of their People both at home and abroad together with all other matters they thought fit were recorded it must follow that their account of the Pictish Nation as to those two controverted points ought in reason to silence any other fancied by men of later days Now in that Irish account besides what you have seen already out of Venerable Bede there are many more particulars given at large by Keting out of the Psalter of Cashel whereof the chief heads are these 1. That in Thracia this People we call Picts serving Policornus the King of that Countrey in his Wars for pay but under a General and other Commanders of their own it happen'd that their General whose name was Gud understanding for certain how the King had design'd to ravish his beautiful Daughter if he could not otherwise make her his Whore prevented him by taking away his Life 2. That thereupon this Gud flying immediately with those of his Soldiery who were resolv'd to run his fortune put to Sea where he found convenience and roam'd up and down till he arriv'd in Gaule where being well entertain'd by the King of that Kingdom his Daughter's beauty prov'd the second time his bane after he had built or at least began the building of Pictavis from his People so called we call it now Poictiers For then observing that this Gaulish King also had the same design upon her that the Thracian had he saw there was no abiding there without sacrificing her honour to his Lust And therefore in all haste but as privately as he could he put to Sea again with his own People where he was toss'd so long till the occasion of all his woe his beautiful Daughter died and soon after he and his People arriv'd safe in Ireland at a place call'd in the Irish Tongue Inbher Slaine or the Mouth of the River Slane in Leinster which now we call the Haven of Weixford 3. That one by name Criomthann Sciatbheal being then Commander of Leinster under Herimon the First Milesian Monarch of Ireland hearing of their landing came to them and seeing them brave men entertain'd 'em willingly of purpose to assist him in fighting some Brittish Troops whom the Irish Books call Tuath Fiodhgha whose Lances and Arrows were poison'd to such degree that whoever was wounded by 'em could have no cure but Death 4. That after this League of Friendship made one of the Picts called Trosdan a great Magitian understanding of the common danger from those poison'd Weapons advis'd the said Leinster Commander to provide against the day of Battel a 150 white milch crumple-horn'd Cows to be milk'd all together when the Fight began the Milk put into a Hole prepar'd of purpose hard by and the wounded men to run presently and bath therein which being observ'd the effect prov'd answerable to expectation and the Brittains were quite overthrown with the loss of most of their Lives upon the spot 5.
in the World before the loss of their freedom or their subjection to a forein Power Nor had I any farther if it be a farther end in the matter then That of your understanding throughly at least sufficiently who or what kind of People were the former of those two Nations whose Posterities I have before i. e. in the very beginning of the first Section page 5. observ'd like the Twins of Rebecca contending these last five hundred years in the bowels of Ireland But who the later Nation were and how and by what degrees and means they not only for many Ages got the better of the former but subdued them utterly at last in the memory of our Fathers and what besides happen'd in our own days to the Issue as well of these Conquerours as of those conquer'd by 'em in that Country will be the subject of the Second Part. FINIS Additions 1. AFTER the Fourth Observation on the Catalogue of Kings add what follows here viz. That although it be no part of my business in this Place to speak in particular of any of those Kings other than what I have already of a few of 'em and that only for thy better understanding the said Catalogue yet because I considered that peradventure the Relation of Siorna Saoghall-ach's See the Catalogue Numb 27. long extent of Life and Beign is the only extraordinary of all whatsoever delivered anywhere in the whole Irish History concerning any of so great a number of Monarchs or Kings and Sovereign Princes of Ireland some Readers will boggle at or scruple the truth thereof by objecting How it seems at least improbable that he should be a hundred years old when he came to be Monarch or should reign a hundred and fifty years after or should be in all two hundred and fifty years of Age when he was kill'd by Roitheachtsigh alias Roithsigh mhac Roain therefore to shew that this Relation of him is not improbable I give here those arguments that convince my self And to say nothing of his Surname Saoghalach which attributed to him alone among all other Irish Kings whereof notwithstanding some had reigned 60. others 70 years must import him to have been of extraordinary Long Life and even a man of Ages what convinces me is 1. That not only the Irish Book of Reigns besides many other ancient Monuments and Historians of that Nation who speak of this Subject and after them Gratianus Lucius in our own time have deliver'd it so but Keting himself though he be the chiefest of all the Historians of later days that to reduce the Irish Chronology to an agreement with his own Computation of the years of the World would consequently needs reduce those hundred and fifty years of Siorna's Reign to 21. confesses they did so 2. That very good Historians both ancient and modern of other Countreys tell us how in later Times then Siorna Saoghallach's Reign there have been many that lived as long and some longer then he And yet I 'le lay no stress on Xenophon's writing That a certain Maritim King lived 800. and his son 600 years Nor on Ravisius giving the very same or at least the like Relation of one Impetris King of the Plutinian Islanders and his Son Nor on Pliny recording the five hundred years life of Dondonius a Sclavonian Nor on Homer or his Followers speaking Nestors age to have been 300 years Neither on Hellanicus a most ancient Writer saying That in the Province of Aetholia some lived 200. others 300 years Nor on Onesicritus neither though attesting the same age of two and three hundred years even as very ordinary in the Island of Pandora All these I pass over because I am not certain of the Age of the World they lived in that is whether it was not of earlier Date than Siorna Saoghalach's reign who was kill'd An. M. 4â— 69. according to Lucius My instances are in Servatius Bishop of Tongres and Joannes de Temporibus and Xequipir an Ethiopian and the Nameless Indian living in the same Time and Kingdom of Bengala with Xequipir The first of these four died in the year of Christ 403. after he had lived 300 years as Sigebert in his Chronicle and others write The second took his denomination or surname de Temporibus from those 336 years he had lived under many Emperours whereof one was Charles the Great of whose Life-guard he had sometimes been and another was Conrad III. in whose Reign he died in France An. D. 1139. as not only Petrus Messias in the said Conrad's Life but the Author of Fasciculus Temporum and many more Writers affirm The third I mean Xequipir was yet alive so near our own time as the year of Christ 1536. after having lived till then 300 years For so Hernandus Lopez à Castagneda â— 8 Chronici has written of him The Last or the Nameless Indian had in the foresaid year of Christ 1536 come to the year of his own age 335. says Joannes Petrus Maffeius â— XI Histor Indic and before him the above Lopez both the one and the other telling us many more particulars of Xequipir and Lopez som of this Anonimus Indian but neither being able to recount or give us any light to see how many years more either of 'em lived nor when they died Of all which you may read more at large in Augustinus Torniellius's Annales Sacri c. ad an M. 1556. n. 4. 5. And so I have given the two arguments which convince my self that from the Relation of Siorna Saoghalach's Life of 250 years c. nothing can be derived to make any Reader at all scruple the truth of the Irish History of that Kingdoms Monarchs or Kings Nor by consequence any thing against the Catalogue of them which you have in the beginning of this Book or the long extent of Time which in all they reign'd according to the Title of that Catalogue 2. After the Last Inference from the same Catalogue add this here as an other viz. That notwithstanding any thing said hitherto as it is confess'd that the former sixteen of those 23 of the English or Fourth and Last Conquest of Ireland never assum'd the Stile or Title of Kings of Ireland for Henry VIII was the First of this Conquest that assum'd it altho nevertheless all the same former sixteen Kings of England were Sovereign Lords of Ireland too at least by Title every one in his turn since the 17th year of Henry the II's reign over England so it must be confess'd That properly speaking none of those Irish Kings who rul'd in Association with any other could be called Monarchs while their Association lasted And we see by this Catalogue that such were in all at least for some time 29 among those of the former Three Conquests whereof One and Twenty were Milesians Which is the reason that Cambrensis where he tells us of 181 Monarchs of the Milesians must be corrected as to that appellation or Title of Monarch attributed so indistinctly by him to them all and so must I wheresoever in this Former Part of my Prospect I have in this particular follow'd him The Irish Historians in their own Language speak more properly giving 'em all the Title of Kings of Ireland Errors in the Matter where and where they are corrected THE First in Page 4. and 16. concerning Eoghun Mor and Aonghus Ollbhuodhach but corrected p. 89. and 435. The second p. 67. about Dearmach corrected p. 181. Third in p. 18. concerning Muâ—rieadhach's Six sons c. and corrected p. 93. Fourth p. 19. about the nine Hostages corrected p. 359. Errors in Words and Letters to be corrected by this following Table wherein the first Number signifies the Page the second the Line a add d dele and r read First in the Dedicatory 2. 7. d. as Secondly in the Preface 7. 18. d. his 35. 16. r. 1662. p. 39. 31. r. 1604. Thirdly in the Former Part 35. 5. d. the Monarch 71. r. Tighernmhais 99. 16. d. to 107. 29. d. of 137. 6. r. theâ— and again 8. r. the. 180. 14. for Diarmuid r. Dombnall 221. 7. Taumaturga 272. 5. for him r. bâ— and 24. r. or any 317. 13. d. to 319. â— a. as 351. 14. r. Monmouth 354. 13. r. understood 382. 21. r. Aetius 385. 26. r. other 387. 8. r. 51. 389. 19. r. Language and 29. r. Niull 395. 7. d. was and for kill'd r. died 413. 9. r. Trouts 414. 1. r. Leap and 8. for though r. the. 434. â— 26. r. 219. 459. 2. r. Notkerus 461. 26. r. To and in the Note â— penvâ—t r. Books Lastly observe that the Orthography of all the proper Irish Names and Surnames of the Kings throughout this whole Book must be corrected by that in the Catalogue where any variation appears