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book_n	chief_a	europe_n	great_a	14	3	2.1254	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61047	An epitome of Mr. John Speed's theatre of the empire of Great Britain And of his prospect of the most famous parts of the world. In this new edition are added, the despciptions of His Majesties dominions abroad, viz. New England, New York, 226 Carolina, Florida, 251 Virginia, Maryland, 212 Jamaica, 232 Barbados, 239 as also the empire of the great Mogol, with the rest of the East-Indies, 255 the empire of Russia, 266 with their respective descriptions.	Speed, John, 1552?-1629.	1676 (1676)	Wing S4879; ESTC R221688	361,302	665

Valen-Court Bornies 15 The only ●arony of the Arch-Dukes Province is Mechlen a City in Brabant which stands almost at equal distance betwixt Lovaine Bruxels and Antwerp Before the Spanish wars it was a place of Parliament for the States Since a great part of it was scattered by unfortunate chance of fire which catcht among 800 Barrels of Gunpowder In this stands a Monastery which at some times hath in it 1600 Nuns and within these limits is the power of the Arch-Duke confined And surely by reason of his infinite charge to maintain war and the ticklish terms he stands upon for fear of displeasing his Subjects who as he suspects may be apt enough to revolt he can reap but little clear profit and dare use but as little authority 16 To the States there hold first the Dukedom of Geldria which some will have to take her name from Gelduba once her chief City whether or not there appears not now any monument of such a Town The Province stands on the East of Brabant and North of Limburg It is a very fertile soil especially if it be well tilled it returneth the husbandman a liberal reward for his labour Her pastures are excellent insomuch that they feed up their Cattel to an incredible bigness and weight A report passeth of one Bull which weighed 3200 pounds It was killed at Antwerp 1570. It hath in it 22 walled Towns and about 300 Villages The principal of account are Neomagus or Namm●gen an Imperial City stands at the mouth of Rhene which is called the Vahall It was honoured with the title of a Vice-County had authority to coyn money and was bound to acknowledge subjection to the Emperour only by a small tribute a glove of Gun-powder which they were to tender at Aken once a year Others of note are Ruermund Arnem and Zu●p●en 17 The Earldoms are 1 Zu●phen a Town only in Gelderland at the North of the River Barikel where that valiant Souldier and incomparable Poet Sir Philip Sidney received his last wound It was joyned into the States strength 1590. 2 Zeland it stands in the North tract upon the Seas from whence it hath the name as it were of Zeland And indeed it oft times so falls out that they can hardly say whether they live in a Sea or upon the Land Eight Islands have been utterly lost what remains of this Province is by the water divided into seven Islands Walcheria in which Islands Middleborough and Flushing South Beveland North Develand Wolfors-dick These are the Western The Eastern are Schoven Tolen and Develand They are most of them a fierce people crafty in merchandise good Seamen and great Fishers 3 Holland or Holtland a woody Countrey It is but a small Region such as be a man where he will within her compass he may travel it out in three hours And yet is it of great fame and better known to the common sort of people than any of these parts The Inhabitants heretofore the Batavi on the West it hath the Sea and Isle of Zeland on the North the main Ocean It comprehends about 400 Villages and 29 walled Towns The chief are Dordret or Dort memorable for a Synod held against the Arminians 1618 Harlem a Town which first sent forth a Printed Book into the other parts of Europe Del●t Amsterdam a great place of traffique Rotterdam Lugdunum Batavorum Leyden an University Among the rest the Hague may claim a room here though but a Village yet the fairest in Christendome and sear of the States Council The report l●eth upon this Province of Margare● sister to the Earl of ●loris that she brought at one birth 365 children all living till they were Christned 18 Baronies are 1 Vltrajactense Vtrecht on the East of Gelderland and in part West North and South of Holland It hath the name from her mother City Trajectum and she hers as is supposed from a common Ferry which was there For before it was called Antonina It hath four other good Towns and seventy Villages 2 Overyssell or Transisulana on the North of Gelderland It hath above 100 Villages and 11 Towns of note The chief Deventer won by our Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester from the Spaniards to the States It was once under Government of the Bishop of Vtrech And the first was Wilbrod an Englishman 3 Frizia West Friezland on the North of Overyssall It hath 345 Villages and 5 Towns The chief Lewarden Harlingham a Sea-town and Francker a late University 4 Groyning a Town only of West ●riezland but hath command over 145 Villages hath her proper laws and jurisdiction of a Province 19 These last eight joyn together in an Aristarchical Government weilded by the LL. the states of the Low Countries and their assistants Each Province hath one and his common Councel is elected out of her own principal Towns but the residency of the general Councel of the States is at the Hagua in Holland And to this are admitted with equal priviledge of suffrage their General of their Forces and our English Ambassadour HISPANIA The Description of SPAIN IN our Division of Europe we placed her Regions as they lay from the first Meridian of Longitude in the Azores and so on towards Asia Eastward We will not here vary the course which was there proposed and that gave Spain the precedency as lying most Westward into the Atlantick Ocean And indeed she puts forward as well upon her terms of Antiquity as order of place For if her 〈◊〉 may be heard she derives ●●er Being from Tubal the grand-child of Noah and would be one of the first Nations of the second world Likely enough those parts might be inhabited by his Progeny but I doubt whether so soon after the floud as himself lived and as some would have it who suppose that he then kept Cattel and named the Province Taraconensis from the Hebrew Taraco a possession of Herds This and other the like improbable Relations pass over her original Which as we may not accept for truths so we have no room here to confute them for lies We must be content rather to omit those former ages which give us no light but by Fables and begin with the affairs of Spain which come within the compass of our known and approved Stories As for the exploits of Hercules of Gerion and Cacus and the rest questionless they had some ground from truth it self if we knew how to search it forth and here was their residence men twelve hundred years by compute before the Romans or Carthaginians enjoyed it But by reason that the passage of those times was delivered only in vain fictions we can warrant nothing for certain till the Syrians there planted themselves in the Isle of Gades and of them little till the Carthaginians were called in to aid them against the disturbance of ill neighbours when once they were mingled with so flourishing a Nation they wanted not Writers to record their actions and sundry turns of Fortune 2 The next

half Plough-land And the Bovata or Oxgang presumed in Law for Land in Granary was suited in number of Acres to that Yard-land of which it was a Moity Thus except in the Fens laid out per Leucas quarentenas miles and furlongs stands all ameasurement of Land in this Shire which containeth in Knights Fees 53 one half 2 fifts and a twentieth part And in full estimation of rent and worth rose in the time of the Conquerour to 912 l. 4 s. and now payeth in Fifteen to the King 871 l. 9 s. 7 d. ob and in tenth from the Clergy 142 l. 6 s. q. 4 This County in discision of Titles and administration of Iustice did at the first as the Germans our Ancestors Iura per pagos vicos reddere Every Township by their Friburg● or Tenemental as Triers and the Baron Thain or Head Lord there or the Decanus a good Freeholder his Deputy as Iudge determining all Civil causes a representation of this remaineth still in our Court-Leet Aboue this and held twelve times a year was our Hundred or Wapentake Quae super decem Decanos centem Friburgos judicabat Here the Iudges were the Aldermen and Barons or Freeholders of that Hundred Aegelwinus Aldermannu● tenuit placitum cum ●oto Hundred● saith the Book of Ely This Court had Cognoscence of Causes Ecclesiastical as Temporal therefore the Iudge or Alderman ought to be such as Dei leges hominum jura studebat promovere thus it went although the Conquerour commanded Ne aliquis de legibus Episcopalibus amplius in Hundredo placita teneret The next and highest in this Shire was Generale placitum Comitatus the County or Sheriffs Court to which were proper Placita Civilia ubi Curia Dominorum probantur desecisse Et si placitum exurgat inter Vavasores duorum Dominorum tractetur in Comitatu The Iudge was the Earl or Sheriff The Tryers Barones Comitatus Freeholders Qui liberas in eo terras habent not Civil onely but Probats of Wills Questions of Tithes Et deb●●a vera Christianitatis Iura were heard and first heard in this Court. Therefore Episcopus Presbyter Ecclesiae Quatuor de melioribus villae were adjuncts to the Sheriff Qui dei leges seculi nego●ia justa consideratione definirent The Lay part of this liveth in a sort in the County and Sheriff Turn the Spiritual about the Reign of King Stephen by Soveraign connivence suffered for the most into the quarterly Synode of the Clergy from whence in imitation of the Hundred Court part was remitted to the Rural Deaneries of which this Shire had four And these again have been since swallowed up by a more frequent and superiour jurisdiction as some of our civil Courts have been There being now left in use for the most of this Shire for Causes Criminal View of Frankpleg by grant or prescription A Session of the Peace quarterly and two Goal deliveries by the Soveraigns Commission and for Civil Causes Cou●ts of Mannours or of the County monthly and twice by the Iudges of Assise yearly The Office of Execution and custody of this County is the Sheralfey of old inheritable untill Eustachius who by force and favour of the Conquerour disseised Aluric and his heires forfeited it to the Crown but since it hath passed by annual election and hath united to it the County of Cambridge 5 Having thus far spoken of the Shire in general next in observation falleth the Shire-Town Huntington Hundandun or the Hunters Downe North seated upon a rising bank over the rich meadowing river Ouse interpreted by some Authors the Down of Hunters to which their now common Seal a Hunter seemeth to allude Great and populous was this in the foregoing age the following having here buried of fifteen all but three besides the Mother-Church S. Maries in their own graves At the reign of the Conquerour it was ranged into four Ferlings or Wardes and in them 256 Burgenses or Housholds It answered at all assessments for 50 Hides the fourth part of Hur●tington Hundred in which it standeth The annual rent was then 30 l. of which as of three Minters there kept the King had two parts the Earl the third the power of coy●age then and before not being so privatley in the King but Borows Bishops and Earls enjoyed it on the one side stamping the face and stile of their Soveraign in acknowledgement of subordinacy in that part of absolute power and on the reverse their own name to warrant their integrity in that infinite trust 6 The Castle supposed by some the work of the elder Edward but seemingly by the Book of Doomesday to be built by the Conquerour is now known but by the ruines It was the seat of Woltheof the great Saxon Earl as of his succeeding heirs until to end the question of right between Sentlice and the King of Scots Henry the second laid it as you see yet doth it remain the head of that honour on which in other Shires many Knights Fees and sixteen in this attended Here David Earl of this and Arguise Father of Isabel de Brus founded the Hospital of S. Iohn Baptist And Love●ote here upon the Fee of Eustace the Vicount built to the honour of the blessed Virgin the Priory of Black Cannons valued at the Suppression 232 l. 7 s. ob Here at the North end was a house of Fryers and without the Town at Hinchingbrook a Cloister of Nuns valued at 19 l. 9 s. 2 d. founded by the first William in place of S. Pandonia at Eltesly by him suppressed where near the end of the last Henry the Family of the Cromwells began their Seat To this Shire-Town and benefit of the neighbour Countries this River was Navigable until the power of Gr●y a minion of the time stopt that passage and with it all redress either by Law or Parliament By Charter of King Iohn this Town hath a peculiar Coroner profit by Toll and Custom Recorder Town-Clerks and two Bayliffs elected annually for government as at Parliament two burgesses for advice and as●ent and is the Lord of it self in Fee-farm 7 The rest of the Hundred wherein this Shire Town lieth is the East part of the County and of Hurst a Parish in the center of it named HURSTINGSTON it was the Fee-farm of ●amsey Abbey which on a point of Fertile Land thrust out into the Fens is therein si●uate founded in the year 969 to God our Lady and S. Benedict by Earl Aylwin of the Royal bloud replenished with Monks from Westbury by Oswald of York and dedicated by Dunstan of Canterbury Archbishops By Abbot Reginald 1114 this Church was re-edified by Magnavill Earl of Essex not long after spoiled and by Henry the third first of all the Norman Princes visited when wasted with the Sicilian wars Regalis mensae Hospitalitas ita abbreviata fuit ut cum Abbatibus Clericis viris satis ●umilibus Hospitia quaesivit prandia This Monastery the shrine of two

the Commons who at Hardby near Bullingbrooke his birth-place ended her life 8 Trade and commerce for provision of life is vented thorow thirty one Market-Towns in this Shire whereof Lincoln the Counties Namer is chief by Ptolomy and Antonine called Lindum by Beda Linde-Collina and by the Normans Nichol. Very antient it is and hath been more Magnifical as by her many overturned ruines doth appear and far more populous as by Doomesdayes Book is seen where it is recorded that this City contained a thousand and seven mansions and nine hundred Burgesses with twelve Lage-men having Sac and Soc. And in the Normans time saith Malmesbury it was one of the best Cities of England being a place of traffick of Merchandize for all commerce by Land or Sea Herein King Edward the third ordained his Staple for the Mart of Wools Leather and Lead and no less than fifty Parish-Churches did beautifie the same but now containeth onely fifteen besides the Cathedral Some ruines yet remain both of ●riari●s and Nunneries who lie buried in their own ashes and the City conquered not by war but by time and very age and yet hath she not escaped the calamity of Sword as in the time of the Saxons whence Arthur enforced their Host the like also did Edmund to the destroying Danes and by the Normans it suffered some damage where King Stephen was vanquished and taken prisoner and again by the third Henry that assaulted and wa● it from his rebellious Barons By fire likewise it was for defaced wherein not only the buildings were consumed but wihal many men and women in the violence thereof perished as also by an Earth quake her foundation was much weakened and shaken wherein the fair Cathedral Church dedicated to the Virgin of Virgins was rent in pieces The government of this City is committed yearly to a Mayor two Sheriffs twelve Aldermen in Scarlet a Sword a Hat of Estate a Recorder Sword-bearer and four Serjeants with Maces whose situation on a steep hill standeth for Longitude in the degree 20 10 scruples the Pole elevated for Latitude from the degree 53 and 50 scruples 9 Much hath been the devotion of Princes in building of religious houses in this County as at Crowland Lincoln Markby Leyborn Grenfeld Alvingham Newnersby Grymmysby Newsted Elshaw Stansfeld Syxhill Torkesey Bryggerd Thor●eholme Nuncotten Fosse Hovings Axholme Isle Gokewell S. Michaels near Stamford Swyneshed Spalding Kirkested c. 10 Commotions in this shire were raised the eight and twentieth of King Henry the Eight where twenty thousand making insurrection violently sware certain Lords and Gentlemen to their Articles But no sooner they heard of the Kings power coming but they dispersed themselves and sued for pardon And again in the third year of King Edward the Sixt in ease of Inclosures Lincoln rose in seditious manner as did they of Cornwall Devonshire York-shire and Norfolk but after some slaughters of their chiefest men were reduced to former obedience The Shires division is into three principal parts viz. Lindsey Kesteven and Holland Lindsey is subdivided into seventeen Hundreds Kesteven into eleven and Holland into three containing in all thirty one wherein are situated thirty Market-Towns and six hundred thirty Parish Churches NOTTINGHĀ SHIRE NOTTINGHAM-SHIRE CHAPTER XXXII NOTTINGHAM-SHIRE from Nottingham her chiefest Town hath the Name and that somewhat softned from the Saxons Snoddenzaham for the many Dens or Caves wrought in her Rocks and under ground lyeth bordered upon the North and North-west with York-shire upon the East a good distance by Trent is parted from and with Lincoln-shire altogether confined the South with Leicester-shire and the West by the River Erwash is separated from Darby-shire 2 For Form long and Oval-wise doubling in length twice her breadth whose extreams are thus extended and distance observed From Feningley North of Steanford in the South are thirty eight English miles West part from Teversal to Besthorp in the East are little more than nineteen whose circumference draweth much upon one hundred and ten miles 3 The Air is good wholsome and delectable the Soyl is rich sandy and clayie as by the names of that Counties divisions may appear and surely for Corn and Grass of fruitful that it secondeth any other in the Realm and for Water Words and Canell Coals abundantly stored 4 Therein groweth a Stone softer then Alabaster but being burnt maketh a plaister harder than that of Paris wherewith they floor their upper Rooms for betwixt the Ioysts they lay only long Bulrushes and thereon spread this Plaister which being throughly dry becomes most solid and hard so that it seemeth rather to be firm stone than mortar and is trod upon without all danger In the West near Worksop groweth plenty of Liquo●ice very delicious and good 5 More South in this Shire at Stoke in the Reign of King Henry the seventh a great ba●te was fought by Iohn De-la-Poole Earl of Lincoln which Richard the U●urper had declared his heir apparent but Richard losing his life and De-la-Poole his hopes in seeking here to set up a Lambert fell down himself and at Newark after many troubles King Iohn got his peace with the end of his life 6 Trade and Commerce for the Counties provision is frequented in eight Market-Towns in this Shire whereof Nottingham is both the greatest and best a Town seated most pleasant and delicate upon a high hill for building stately a number of fair streets surpassing and surmounting many other Cities and for a spacious and most fair Market-place doth compare with the best Many strange Vaults ●ewed o●t of the Rocks in this Town are seen and those under the Castle of an especial note one for the story of Christs Passion engr●●en in the Walls and cut by the hand of David the second King of Scots whilst he was therein detained Prisoner Another wherein Lord Mortimer was ●upprized in the non-age of King Edward the Third ever since bearing the name of Mortimers Hole these have their Stairs and several Rooms made artificially even out of the Rocks as also in that Hill are dwelling Houses with Winding-stairs Windows Chimneys and Room above Room wrought all out of the solid Rock The Castle is strong and was kept by the Danes against Burthred Ethelred and Elfred the Mercian and West-Saxon Kings who together laid their siege against it and for the further strenght of the Town King Edward sirnamed the Elder walled it about whereof ●ome part as yet remains from the Castle to the West-gate and thence the foundation may be perceived to the North where in the midst of the way ranging with this bank stands a Gate of Stone and the same Tract passing along the North part may well be perceived the rest to the River and thence to the Castle are built upon and thereby buried from sight whose circuit as I took it extendeth two thousand one hundred twenty paces 7 In the wars betwixt Stephen and Maud the Empress by Robert Earl of Glocester these Walls were cast