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A64308
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An introduction to the history of England by Sir William Temple, Baronet.
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Temple, William, Sir, 1628-1699.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing T638; ESTC R14678
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83,602
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334
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between the Accuser and Accused and were usual in Actions both real and criminal where no evident Proof of Fact appeared from Witnesses or other Circumstances The Victor was acquitted and the Vanquished if not killed upon the Field was condemned These were performed with great Solemnities and either in Presence of the King who granted the Combat or of certain Judges by him appointed for that particular Case Both these Sorts of Trials this King abolished as unchristian and unjust and reduced all Causes to the Judgment of Equals or of a Jury of twelve Neighbours and by legal Forms Yet the last was some few times used in succeeding Reigns In the Beginnings of his Reign the Kingdom had been much infested by Outlaws and by Robbers and many Normans were secretly murthered by the Hatred of the English as they passed alone upon the Ways or the Fields especially in the Night To remedy this last Mischief he imposed a heavy Fine upon the Hundred where the Body of any Norman should be found slain whether any Discovery were made or no of the Author or Complices of the Fact For all Rapes and Robberies he caused them to be punished so severely by cruel Mutilations of Members and Hardships of Labour as left them miserable Spectacles or Warnings of their Crimes during the rest of their Lives By the Rigour of these Courses and cutting off the chief Cause of such Offences which grow from Idleness and Expences he reduced the whole Realm to such Security that 't is recorded in his Time how a fair Maiden with a Purse of Gold in her Hand might have travelled through the Realm without any Danger offered to her Honour or her Money Besides to prevent any Crimes that might be committed by Favour or Encouragement of the Night He ordered a Bell to be rung in each Parish at eight a Clock in the Winter and nine in the Summer after which every Man was to cover his Fire and stir no more abroad that Night And this was for that Reason called the Corfew or Couvrefew Bell. For the Safety of his State he erected several Castles in many Places most convenient of the Kingdom among which was the Tower of London and New-Castle upon Tyne either built or by this King much enlarged and garrisoned them by Norman or English Soldiers but all such as he most trusted and who were ready in Arms upon all Occasions Yet these Forts were look'd upon by the English as unnecessary in the Times of Peace and as Bridles upon the Liberties of the People rather than Preventions of Dangers of the Crown After these Institutions he applied himself to the Increase Order and Establishment of his Revenue and having as he believed satisfied the People in general by the Confirmation of their ancient and beloved Laws he thought he might be bolder with the Clergy whom he knew to be generally his Enemies and whose Clamours he the less feared from his own known Piety in frequenting Divine Worship in building and endowing several Monasteries in Presents to many Churches both in England and Normandy but especially in great Treasures which he sent frequently to Rome Therefore upon Pretence of his Enemies in the two last Revolts and such as were designed to be their Complices having conveyed their Plate Money and Jewels into the several Monasteries throughout the Kingdom he caused all the rich Abbies to be searched their Money Plate and Jewels which were not necessary or of common Use in Divine Service to be seized and thereby brought at once a mighty Treasure into his Coffers but an inveterate Hatred of the Clergy upon his Person and Reign and this was the last of those Actions that by the envenomed Pens of the Monkish Writers of that Age left such a Charge upon the Memory of this Prince by the Imputation of Cruelty Oppression Violence Exaction and the Breach or Change of Laws of the Kingdom either Human or Divine though the same Authors little consider how ill this agrees with the high Characters they themselves give of his Personal Qualities and Virtues Nor is it probable that so vicious Actions should proceed from so virtuous Dispositions or that so noble and excellent Qualities of any Prince should be esteemed by the present Age or celebrated to Posterity which had been accompanied by cruel infamous or depraved Actions during his Life Having with these Spoils of the Clergy as well as by the many Forfeitures of the revolted Nobles replenished his Coffers for the present he extended the Care of his Revenue not only to what might arrive in his own Life but also in the Times of succeeding Kings To this End he sent Commissioners into all the several Counties of the whole Realm who took an exact Survey and described in a Censual Roll or Book all the Lands Titles and Tenures throughout the whole Kingdom In this were distinctly set down not only every Barony each Knight's Fee every Plow-land but also what Owners by what Tenures at what Rents or Duties they held and what Stock they were possessed of and how many Villans upon their respective Estates All Lands that held anciently of the Crown or were by this King disposed upon Forfeitures he subjected to the usual Tenures of Baronies or Knight's Fees reserving in all the Dominion in chief to himself some Quitrents or Fines upon Death and Alienation and likewise the Custody of all Heirs of such Lands as were left under Age and the Disposal of their Fortunes besides what was assigned for their Maintenance till they came to Years of disposing their Estates and themselves This Book was composed after two old Examples of the same kind in the Times of Ethelbert and Alfred and was laid up as sacred in the Church of Winchester and for that Reason as graver Authors say was called Liber Domus Dei and by Abbreviation Domesday Book The vulgar Account is that the Name was derived from the Nature and so called because every Man was to receive his Doom by that Book upon any Dispute about the Value Tenure Payments or Services of his Lands upon Collection of the King 's ordinary Revenue or the raising of any extraordinary Taxes or Impositions And to make a President for the future or to satisfie the great Expences the King had been at for the compiling this great Roll of the Kingdom six Shillings was raised upon every Plow-land which made the Design of it less agreeable to the People though every Man's Right thereby received a new Evidence and no Injustice was complained of in the Digestion of so difficult a Work and of so various a Nature By this means the King came to an easie and exact Knowledge of his whole constant Revenue and so proportioned it to his Expences and the necessary Cares of having always a Fond or Reserve of present Treasure in his Coffers that after this Time we never find him plunged in any Difficulties for want of Money to supply many great Occasions that ensued in his
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND BY Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE BARONET Nescio quâ natale solum dulcedine tangit Humanos animos LONDON Printed for Richard Simpson at the Three Trouts and Ralph Simpson at the Harp in St. Paul's Church-yard 1695. THE PREFACE I Have often complained that so ancient and noble a Nation as ours so renowned by the Fame of their Arms and Exploits abroad so applauded and envied for their wise and happy Institutions at home so flourishing in Arts and Learning and so adorned by excellent Writers in other Kinds should not yet have produced one good or approved general History of England That of France has been composed with great Industry by des Serres with Iudgment and Candor by Mezeray That of Spain with great Diligence and eloquent Stile by Mariana That of the Empire with much Pains and good Order as well as Learning by Pedro de Mexia but ours have been written by such mean and vulgar Authors so tedious in their Relations or rather Collections so injudicious in the Choice of what was fit to be told or to be let alone with so little Order and in so wretched a Style that as it is a Shame to be ignorant in the Affairs of our own Country so 't is hardly worth the Time or Pains to be informed since for that End a Man must read over a Library rather than a Book and after all must be content to forget more than he remembers 'T is true some Parcels or short Periods of our History have been left us by Persons of great Worth and Learning much honoured or esteemed in their Times as Part of Edward the fourth and Richard the third by Sir Thomas Moor Henry the soventh by Sir Francis Bacon Henry the eighth by the Lord Herbert Edward the sixth by Sir John Haywood and Queen Elizabeth by Mr. Camden There are besides these many voluminous Authors of ancient Times in Latin and of modern in English with some Forreigners as Froissart and Polidore Virgil out of all which might be framed a full and just Body of our general History if collected with Pains and Care and digested with good Order for the Architect is only wanting and not the Materials for such a Building I will confess I had it in my Thoughts at one Time of my Life and the most proper for such a Work to make an Abridgment of our English Story having observed that Mezeray's Abrege of his own was more esteemed and much more read than his larger Volume but those Thoughts were soon diverted by other Imployments wherein I had the Hopes as well as the Intentions of doing some greater Sevices to my Country I have since endeavoured to engage some of my Friends in the same Design whom I thought capable of atchieving it but have not prevailed some pretending Modesty and others too much valuing Ease Therefore to invite and encourage some worthy Spirit and true Lover of our Country to pursue this Attempt I have consented to the publishing of this Introduction to the History of England wherein I have traced a short Account of this Island the Names the Inhabitants and Constitutions thereof from the first Originals as far as I could find any Ground of probable Story or of fair Conjecture since Philosophers tell us that none can be said to know things well who does not know them in their Beginnings I have further deduced it through the great and memorable Changes of Names People Customs and Laws that passed here until the End of the first Norman Reign which made the last and great Period of this Kingdom leaving the Successions and Constitutions since that Time so fixed and Established as to have lasted for the Space of above six hundred Years withont any considerable Alteration from so long a Course of Time or such Variety of Events as have since arrived in the World I have hereby beaten through all the rough and dark Ways of this Iourney the rest lies fair and easie through a plain and open Country and I should think my self happy to see it well pursued by some abler Hand for the Honour of our Nation and the Satisfaction of our own as well as forreign Readers who shall be curious to know our Story I wish it may be performed with the same good Intentions and with much better Success than this small Endeavour of mine AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND BRitain was by the Ancients accounted the greatest Island of the known World and for ought is yet certain may be so still notwithstanding the later Discoveries of Madagascar and Iapan which are by some brought into Competition It extends from North to South about ten Degrees and about two hundred Miles in the Breadth of its most extended Angles It was anciently called Albion which seems to have been softned from Alpion the word Alp in some of the Original Western Languages signifying generally very high Lands or Hills as this Isle appears to those who approach it from the Continent But of those Times there is no Certainty remains in Story more than that it was so called and very little known to the rest of the World By the Romans and some time before Cesar it was called Britannia concerning which Name very much Debate and no Agreement has been among the modern Learned of our Country or of others After raking into all the Rubbish of those Authors That which seems to me most probable is that the Strangers who came over into this Island upon the score of Traffick from the Coasts of Gaul or Germany called the Inhabitants by one common Name of Briths given them from the Custom among them of painting their naked Bodies and small Shields with an azure Blew which by them was called Brith and distinguish'd them from Strangers who came among them From this Name of the Inhabitants the Romans upon their Invasions Conquests and Colonies establish'd in Gaul which brought them first acquainted with this Island called it Britannia by giving a Latin termination to a barbarous Name and the same which appears to have been usual with them by the Appellations of many other Countries that fell under their Commerce or Conquests as Mauritania Lusitania Aquitania and several others commonly known The curious may observe this Care of the Romans in giving their own Terminations to many barbarous Countries and forming easie and pleasant Sounds out of the harshest and most offensive to such elegant Tongues and Ears as theirs I shall instance only in three among many more that are obvious to such as please themselves with these Speculations The Province of Britain in France was called among the Natives Al Mor which signisied Ad mare or near the Sea from this the Romans called it Armorica The Isle between the Branches of the Rhine which divide for some distance before they fall into the Sea was called by the Old Germans Vat awe which signifies fat or fruitful Earth and from this was framed the Latin word