a History yet the whole History for that must not be rejected else no English Historian should be believed more than ours we seeing in our own Age matters of Fact especially relating to our own Countrey very much mis-represented to say no worse at this time And I desire to know what Warrant Luddus ou first Adversary had for asserting the descent from Brutus and for his promising to prove it and yet this Authour passes for a great Critick and Camden states the debate betwixt Buchanan and him as the debate betwixt a great Antiquary and a great Poet Well decided indeed and this is a great proof of Camden's being an impartial Antiquary and since most of the old English Historians who wrote their general History tell of this descent from Brutus we may controvert in the same way the truth even of their latter Histories because they are founded on their old Histories which assert Brutus and so contradict the whole Tract of the Roman story as ours do not 3. The Bishop and the Doctor do both wrong us very much in observing that all our Neighbour Nations have thrown out the old and fabulous beginnings of their History but that we still retain our ancient Fables for any man that reads our History will see that most of our Historians have omitted the old Irish Fables of Gathelus and Scota and all that long line from Iaphet to Fergus the first narrated lately again by Ogygia and much used by our reverend Critick Dr. Stillingfleet in this answer against us It is acknowledged by the Doctor himself that Boethius and Ioannes Major do very ingenuously pass from many later things because they smell of that fabulous age but the Doctor does charitably make these to be the effects not of sincerity but of Craft so nothing can stand in Judgment before such Criticks The first thing I say then for our Historians is that what they say from Rheuda's time is not onely made probable but is undeniably proved by Beda and Eumenius who do clear that we were here before Iulius Caesar's time and if we were certainly we had Kings nor did the Genius of our Nation ever encline to a Common-wealth as others have done Rheuda is made a Scotish King by Beda Galgacus by Tacitus Donald by Baronius and the Ecclesiastick Historians and all this before the Year 300. From Rheuda then to Fergus the first are but by our Computation 130 years and to what purpose should so many honest men have conspired and a whole Nation have concurred so zealously to maintain a Lye so little usefull as the lengthning our Antiquity for so short a time as 130 years And though there were nothing for it but Oral Tradition why might it not be received for so short a Period and since a Father might have told this to his Son in an age wherein men lived so long and especially as to the descent of a Nation and the race of Kings of which men are very carefull to fortifie which I adduced Livius saying Per ea tempora rarae literae fuere una custodia fldelis memoriae rerum gestarum quod etiamsi quae in commentariis Pontificum aliisque publicis privatisque erant monumentis incensâ urbe pleraeque periere But because there is a debate betwixt the Doctor and me concerning the Translation of these words I urge from common Sense that Oral Tradition was to be Livius's best Authority in the beginning of his History and in many things afterwards for though after several years the Romans were exact in preserving their History by keeping publick and distinct Records which the Doctor does needlesly prove since it was never controverted yet certainly in those things which he narrated before the building of Rome he could have no Warrant but Tradition 2. After the building of Rome it 's not to be imagin'd that a Nation onely given to Wars would for many years fall upon the exact keeping of Records 3. These Records might possibly bear the names of Magistrates which is all that is proved and in a Monarchy could have been preserved without these as to their Kings For I will undertake there are few here but know who reigned these 130 years by-past among us though they can neither read nor write And though private Magistrates might be forgot yet hardly Kings and very memorable actions could be so and I dare say that in our own and in most of the considerable Families like ours not onely the Succession but the chief Accidents which befell the Family are remembred for two or three hundred years by many hundreds in the Family though there be no written History of such Families so far does interest and affection prompt and help Memory and Tradition to supply Letters 4. Though these Records might have preserved names of Magistrates and Treaties with the conditions thereof yet what were the occasions of War the considerable exploits and Strategemes done in them and many other such matters of Fact could onely be preserved by Tradition for these were never Recorded in any Nation and could have no Warrant save Oral Tradition without mentioning the Harangues and such like Historical matters so that Livie as well as Boethius must have wanted flesh to fill Nerves to support it and colour to adorn this History 5. Since the City and most of these Records were burnt we have as great reason to doubt of their History as of Ours for albeit we cannot now produce the warrants of them after Vastations as remarkable as their burning was yet we have others who say they saw such Books even as Dionysius Halicarnassius cites Antiochus Syracusanus for whose History no more is said by the said Dionysius but that he took his History out of ancient and undoubted words and he is but one Authour who says so of himself whereas we have many Historians who say that they with their own eyes saw the Records out of which they took the things they have These things being premised I renew the Argument which I proposed in my first Book for proving the truth of our Histories Thus These Histories must be believed and are sufficiently instructed in which the Historians who writ them had sufficient Warrants for what they wrote and we have fiv◠or six Historians men of untainted Reputation who when they wrote their Histories declare that they wrote the same from Authentick Records and Warrants which being a matter of Fact is sufficiently proved from the Testimony of so many honest Witnesses who declared they saw good Warrants for what they wrote and if this be controverted what can be true in humane Affairs or why should we believe Livius Iosephus or others since the Authours which they cite are not now extant This is all the subject can allow and what the learned Bishop Pearson and Heylin think not onely sufficient but all that is possible to be done in such Cases the one proving by my Method and Arguments that St. Ignatius's Epistles are Genuine and
a Nation before Constantine's time because no Authours spoke of us till then For says he the Longobards and Burgundians were established Nations long before they were known by these names And the Nation of which Scaliger speaks is that Nation Quae trajecit ex Hiberniâ in Britanniam And it were ridiculous to apply this to the Scots in Ireland or deny that Scaliger thought we setled here while the Roman Empire flourished Scaliger also there says that after we had troubled Britain by Incursions we were at last forc'd to contain our selves within our own bounds Which shews 1. That we had made Incursions long before Antoninus's time which was about 100 years after Christ contrary to what the Bishop of St. Asaph saith 2. Antoninus forced us to contain our selves within our own bounds and therefore we had bounds and marches of our own before that time and so we were setled long before 503. And all this agrees with Eumenius and Pacatius and proves that what they write relates to us 3. Pausanias whom Scaliger there cites tells us that Antoninus took much Land from them Ergo they had Land before that time for that Land could not be in Ireland for Antoninus never took Land from the Irish. And whoever these Brigantes were yet Scaliger there makes us the Brigantes and the question there is onely concerning Scaliger's opinion of us Nor am I concerned at his calling us Brigantes for I can prove that Brigantes signifies not Robbers but Highlanders from the word Briga which signifies an Hill And I receive kindly the Apology made by the Doctor for the Bishop that his Lordship called us not Robbers but onely produced a Testimony from Gildas whom I excuse for abusing us he being of that Nation which was over-run by us and probably our spoiling of them might be the Ground of his Quarrel The Doctor likewise argues against my Citations from Favin and Paulus Aemilius as speaking onely of an alliance betwixt Achaius and Charles the Great and nothing as to Fergus nor the Succession of Kings for 330. years before Christ's Nativity But alas How trivial is this Reflexion For I never adduced these Authours for proving directly that part of our History relating to Fergus but did justly argue that we must have been setled here much earlier than the Year 503. because about the Year 790. we were a very considerable Nation and entered into a League with Charles the Great which these Authours do fully prove And I likewise produced this Citation to shew how unwarrantably the Bishop of St. Asaph confined us to some few Countries now erected into the Earldom of Argyle As to Sigonius I shall set down some Citations which formerly I forgot to place on the Margin But it is strange that the Doctor could not find them though he uses not to search much for what makes against him His words are Eodem anno qui fuit 360 post Christum Julianus apud Parisios hibernans Scotos Pictósque Britannos incursantes audiens Lupicinum magistrum armorum in Britanniam destinavit And in another place he says Anno verò Christi 449. Britanni namque à Pictis Scotis qui Pictis adjuncti partem Insulae ad Aquilonem tenebant desperato Romanorum auxilio ad Anglo-Saxones Germaniae populos confugerunt From which Citations it is undeniable that Sigonius thought that we were possest of the Northern part of this Isle before the Year 360. and that at that time we were joyned with the Picts in possessing the same I cited also Selden's clear Authority to which nothing is answered And when I said in the first impression of my Book that all Historians had own'd our History I meant all who wrote before Luddus and Camden which I still believe to be true And yet to prevent quibbling I ordered the expunging of the word All in the second Impression before I knew of any censures but my own And now the Doctor produceth onely two who wrote since their time and are not of such weight as these cited by me And if Ubbo Emmius had considered what I now produce he had at least acknowledged our History before the Year 503 whereas he does not so much as allow our History till after the Year 829 which even the Bishop of St. Asaph will think ridiculous and which being after the French League is redargued by unquestionable Proofs neither is Boxhornius special and has been misled by Usher Thus I hope I have again overturned the Bishop of St. Asaph's two chief Positions relating to us viz. That there were no Scots in Britain at all before the Year 300 which is expresly contrary to what is said by Eumenius Tertullian Latinus Pacatius Seneca Spartan and Beda and that other Position viz. That we were onely here by way of Incursion from the Year 300. till the Year 503. which was all that I did chiefly undertake and for which though I needed not to have produced Arguments but onely answered his Citations for according to Dr. Stillingfleet's own Position a received History is not to be overturned but by very convincing Proofs yet because I found that neither the Bishop nor the Doctor could bring any Proofs to overturn our History I have likewise proved the truth of it as to these Periods of time by Authorities which I may modestly say very learned men have thought unanswerable and which the Doctor 's answers being so insufficient after the assistance he has got shew to be so CHAP. III. What the Bishop of St. Asaph and Dr. Stillingfleet say against our Histories from Fergus the first examined THough I was not obliged to maintain our History beyond the Year 503. that being sufficient to overturn the two Positions laid down by the Bishop yet I think it fit and reasonable for me to examine also what our two learned Adversaries say against our Histories in general even as to these dark times in which neither our Neighbours nor we can get such a sequel and chain of Authours as these I have produced to prove our being here before the Year 503. Let us then remember 1. that we are onely obliged to produce Historical not Mathematical nor Legal proofs 2. That we are onely maintaining our Origine to be from a Neighbour Nation and very near to the Age of Letters and that there is nothing in this our Origine either vain or fabulous we neither deriving our selves from Aegyptians Grecians nor Trojans nor contradicting even in these first dawnings of our History the uncontroverted Tract of foreign Historians And so all these long digressions which the Doctor to shew his own learning produces concerning Berosus Manetho Suffridus and others and particularly of their rejecting their own fabulous descent from Brutus is absolutely impertinent there being nothing that can be alledged in our History to contradict foreign Historians which I have not taken off in my first Book without any answer made to it And though there should be some Errours in the Tract of
first Chapter not onely by the assertions of our own Historians but by all the Historians who speak of us both without and within the Isle that we had Kings long before Fergus the second and that we had even Christian Kings and it is almost impossible that our Monasteries could have been mistaken in that or at least that they would not have condescended who was the other Christian King if Donald was not And at least our Adversaries should be put to prove who was our First Christian King or acquiesce in him whom we assign And it is also very strange that not onely we but the Romish Church it self should be mistaken they being very positive in concurring with us whereas no other Nation nor Church condescends as I have said upon any other First Christian King or Authours to prove it And to conclude this Period I must say that it is wonderfull that positive Witnesses that say they saw old Annals fortified by their Histories both at home and abroad Pagan and Christian should be less believed than the Ballads and Traditions of another Nation who have none of these advantages That Beda should be of less credit than Iocelin and Legends in which I dare say the Bishop and Doctor believe but very little if any thing at all save this and why are not the Legends of St. Congall and St. Brendan who mention the settlement of St. Fergus the first as good as Iocelin and others produced to prove that Fergus the second was our first King especially seeing they likewise concur with Beda in his Rheuda Whereas the other contradict him and that our Histories which have rejected Gathelus and Simon Brek because that too great Antiquity is improbable should be overturned by those who positively own a Lineal well proved descent from Iaphet and condescend upon days and months and that our Historians which are many and very much esteemed over all Europe should be overturned by the Authority of Rhimes and rags of History which no Man adventured to form into any Body whatsoever till of late some Specimen is given in which amongst other rare Marks of veracity our League with France was alledged to have been made with their Kings as if France understood as little their own Leagues as they would have Rome to understand their own Conversion or that all the Nations of Europe should have been mistaken as to this palpable Point I reflect not on the Publishers of the Manuscript of the Abbacy of Melros printed at Oxford for I honour every thing that comes from that learn'd Society in a special manner but it is no reflexion on them to say that we have another much fuller in what makes for Scotland though it could not be so exact as the other Monasteries since it was ofttimes of old under the Saxons who would certainly lessen what relates to us and thus the fault lay in the Copy and not in the Publishers for the Authour of that Manuscript calls Beda our Countreyman so he must have been then our enemy but however it begins not with Alpin as the Doctor alledges though I mention that because he is not mentioned in the Oxford Edition for it declares that it is to continue where the Reverend Beda left and so is a proof of our Nation and History from that time and the differences of that from ours shall be printed and I have at present printed these few And though Buchanan had the Books of Pluscardin and Pasley yet it does not follow that therefore the best and most part of the Books of our Monasteries were not carried to Rome or destroyed and so cannot be recovered from Rome and how can it be imagin'd that those who burnt all our Magnificent Churches would have spar'd a few Books written by Monks and which were so little esteem'd in those times amongst our Zealots The Doctor in proving there was no such Authour as Veremund forgets that I have prov'd by two famous Witnesses a Lord of the Session and a Principal of a College both learned and devout men much esteem'd abroad where they travell'd that they had seen the Book and here is no bare probability And I hope it is uncontroverted that the depositions of two Witnesses cannot be taken away by probabilities nor can it be alledged that Chambres followed Boethius's faith in this for he says he had it and he cites many things material out of Veremund nor does the Learned Doctor Pearson prove any other way the truth of St. Ignatius's Epistles than by producing the Testimonies of Origin and others who have cited passages out of those Letters as Letters written by St. Ignatius though none of these Authours liv'd in the age with St. Ignatius and so they did not legally prove that these Letters were written by him which are not in Boethius But however let us a little examine the Doctor 's probabilities The first is that many have forg'd Authours as Annius good Ergo these two learned Men did it à posse ad esse non valet consequentia 2. We have nam'd other Authours who are not now extant Ergo Veremund never was good again and if Fordon had been lost or Elphinstoun whom we have not yet seen such Authours had been both denied and so had that learned Manuscript written by Craig which we have but lately recovered 3. Fordon cites not Veremund though he cites many others This is such another consequence as if I should argue against the Doctor that Boethius cites not Fordon ergo Fordon never was But I chuse rather to argue thus the Bishop and Doctor both think that Boethius did onely transcribe Fordon and yet he never cited him which they think he did that he might have the honour of being thought our first general Historian himself And yet it is prov'd there was such a Book as Fordon then extant and therefore I conclude by the same reason that Fordon transcribed much of Veremund and therefore conceal'd his Authour 4. Bishop Elphinstoun mentions him not but to this I answer that the Manuscript is not ours and so may be gelt but I conceive by the Doctor 's Epitome of it that it is it self but an abridgment of Fordon and therefore he mentions not Veremund because Fordon had not mentioned him and it was very ordinary in those days to write Epitomes of Fordon some whereof are extant with us and Boethius tells us that Elphinstoun never wrote an History but onely prepar'd some materials for one and if he wrote a History here is again another Historian who being a devout and learned Bishop must be thought not to have written without sufficient warrants Though then probabilities could overturn the deposition of Witnesses yet these have no weight but what the Doctor 's Authority gives them And though it were prov'd that Baker Baloeus and the other English Historians whom I cite had not seen Veremund yet surely they thought it not onely probable but certain that there was such an Authour
lest he might thereby wrong the Majesty of the English Nation I admire that any of the Subjects of Great Britain did not think it a degree of lese Majesty to injure and shorten the Royal Line of their Kings By which it may very easily appear that I did take the word Lese Majesty in a Rhetorical and not in a legal sense though I find that Dr. Stilling fleet does not answer my Objections even supposing the word to be there otherwise taken for it seems for ought that 's yet answered that to injure and shorten the Royal Line is a degree of lese Majesty that is to say it tends in Luddus's own words to wrong the Majesty of the British Monarchy Pag. 8. lin 10. Put out these words and this is clear also by the Book of Pasley Pag. 9. lin 17. Instead of these words that the People deposed Kings reade that the People sometimes de facto deposed Kings in those ancient barbarous times ibidem lin 23. Instead of these words till Kenneth the Third's time reade long after Fergus the Second's time Pag. 20. lin 19. For these words and the inquisitive Bede was not able to reach so far back in the year 700. reade that Bede made it not his business to search out secular Antiquities having onely design'd as is clear by his Book to write of us in so far as was necessary for his Ecclesiastical History which needed not the helps of the old Manuscripts in our Monasteries Ibid. l. 14. Put out the words ut fertur as they say a word used in the remotest Antiquity For farther clearing Pag. 22 23 24. Cap 2. Whether the Meatae and Caledonii were Britains distinct from the Scots and Picts whom Dion calls the Unconquered Nations and who the Doctor says were different from the Scots and Picts It 's fit to add to what I said on this subject that our Adversaries differ among themselves and contradict one another in this point for Cambden whom St. Asaph follows makes the Picts Caledonians or Extraprovincial Britains thinking it thereby more easie to make the settlement of one Nation late than to make both so because thus he differs less from received Histories But the Doctor sticks not to make the settlement of the Picts later than that of the Scots because he never finds the name of the Picts mentioned till about the time the Scots are and therefore refutes Cambden whereas Offlaharty rejects this reason contending as we do that it is ridiculous to say that a Nation is no older than from its being mentioned in History under such a name Pag. 29. lin 18. For c. 492. reade c. pag. 492. Pag. 32 lin 3. After the word Piracy add And whereas the Doctor objects that this Wall was unnecessarily built betwixt the two Seas to hinder the incursions of the Scots and Picts seeing I supposed the custome was to cross over the two Firths and to land on this side of the Wall for so they landed on the British side and left the Wall behind them and consequently the expence had been unnecessary and the Romans and Britains very idle in building it To this it is answered that I very justly supposed that the invasions were over the Firths and though they had left the Wall behind them after their landing yet the objection concludes not that therefore the building of the Wall was unnecessary for the Britains being separated and distinguished from the Scots and Picts by two Firths which did meet onely in a short neck of Land they completed this natural fortification of Water by building a Wall on the Land where it was wanting thereby defending themselves against the irruptions of their Enemies so that the Scots and Picts being debarred from entring by this Neck which was the easie and ordinary way before were after necessitated to invade by water formerly the more difficult way And this is not onely a conjecture arising from the clear probability of the thing which were sufficient to answer the Doctor 's Objection that is onely founded on a bare conjecture but it 's the express reason given by Beda who lived so near the time and the place and who speaking of this Wall saith Fecerunt autem eum inter duo freta vel sinus de quibus diximus maris per millia passum plurima ut ubi aquarum munitio deerat ibi praesidio valli fines suas ab hostium irruptione defenderent from which I must also add that the Seas we came over were our own Firths abovemention'd and not the Irish Sea for the Wall is said to be betwixt the two Firths and Bays of the Sea and thereafter in the same Chapter it's said fugavit eos transmaria which are also the words of Gildas All which is appliéd to our Firths and not applicable to the Irish Sea which can neither be called Firth nor Bay in the singular number nor Maria in the plural it being called Mare Hibernicum as our Seas are called Mare Germanicum or Deucaledonicum And that the Irish Sea was not passable nor fit for such Anniversary Invasions in Corroughs is beside all I have said formerly clear from the English Writers themselves Bartholomaeus Anglicus and the English Polychronicon in their descriptions of Ireland But the Sea that is between Britain and Ireland is all the year round full of great waves and uneasie so that men can seldom sail it securely This Sea is sixscore miles broad and Bartholomaeus Anglicus says of it Mare autem Hibernicum versus Britanniam undosum inquietum est toto anno vix navigabile The Doctor to evite the force of our Arguments makes the Caledonii and Meatae to differ from the Scots and Picts and to be Britains dwelling near the Wall who being forced to attend there for the defence of the Wall against the Romans left the more Northern parts of the Isle waste which they formerly inhabited as the Bloud doth the extremities when it runs to the Heart Whereupon the Scots invaded their Possessions from the West out of Ireland and the Picts from Scandanavia But besides the Arguments I urged formerly in my Second Chapter I now add that first Beda makes onely mention of five Nations who inhabited Britain viz. the Britains Romans Picts Scots and Saxons whereas if the Caledonii and Meatae had been different from the Scots and Picts and not the Highlanders and Lowlanders of the Scots and Picts under different names as I have formerly proved them to be then there had not onely been five but seven Nations inhabiting Britain Whereas the Doctor contends that Dion must interpret Beda's words it 's more reasonable that Beda who wrote long after Dion should interpret his words since Beda is so express in describing who were Inhabitants of old and in his time and Dion who was before Beda could not interpret him 2. Either the Scots and Picts came into the Possessions of these Caledonii and Meatae before the Romans or after
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE Royal Line OF SCOTLAND Farther Cleared and Defended Against the Exceptions lately offer'd by Dr. STILLINGFLEET In his Vindication of the Bishop of St. ASAPH By Sir George Mackenzie His Majesty's Advocate for the Kingdom of SCOTLAND LICENSED Nov. 2. 1685. Ro. L'Estrange LONDON Printed for Ioseph Hindmarsh at the Golden-Ball against the Royal Exchange 1686. TO THE KING SIR IT is not my practice to plead any thing for your Majesty with zeal untill I find it a matter of some importance and my self likewise convinced that I cannot answer my own Arguments By this rule when I first saw the Bishop of St. Asaph's Book I took some pains to persuade my self that it contain'd nothing prejudicial to that right of precedency which is due to your Royal Race as the most Ancient Monarchy which we know But finding that there was no way to secure this precedency to the Royal Family against those consequences which necessarily arose from his Positions I thought it my duty at that time to answer his Lordship's Book as I do now Dr. Stillingfleet's especially since they in overturning the ancient settlement of the Royal Line in Scotland destroy one of the great Foundations whereby your Majesty's Grandfather your Father and your Last Parliament have farther engag'd and encourag'd the Loyalty of this your Ancient Kingdom Wherefore Sir these Reverend Divines will now I hope hold me excus'd in regard that I pleaded first for them with my self before I pleaded against them for your Majesty And if I could have found any man to have satisfied me as to the inconveniences arising to the Crown in these Points I had never printed that Book in defence of the Royal Family and of my Native Country But now humbly to satisfy your Majesty as to the dangerousness of these Positions even supposing the Authours innocent of any ill design as I am apt to think they are and to convince them how impartial I am upon any National Account I beg leave to mind your Sacred Majesty that some of our Own Historians having erred with as little ill design as they touching the Succession of King Robert the Second An Argument was drawn from it in favour of Bastards and was much boasted of by the Enemies of the true Royal Line and thereupon I did to the satisfaction of all indifferent men refute our own Historians in that Point as I hope I do now these Gentlemen in the Points controverted Scarce any thing Sir can be thought inconsiderable wherein a Crown is concern'd or any consequence so remote but should be adverted to in a Season when a long Rebellion has so far debaucht the Inclinations of too many of your Majesty's Subjects But certainly nothing can be thought inconsiderable which Kings and Parliaments have judg'd so usefull for establishing the precedence of the Sovereign and for confirming the Affection and Loyalty of the Subject And the Doctor 's way of telling us in place of all other defence that the Irish carry up the Royal Line within six degrees of Japhet and so we shorten it is not serious enough in a Subject we ought to treat of with veneration since the Doctor in the same Book does but make himself merry with Offlahertie the Assertor of this pretended Antiquity Sir the agreement of Men of different Professions almost at the same time against the Royal Line is very remarkable some endeavouring by their Swords to cut it short at that end which lay next to them Whilst others by their Pens have undertaken what derogates from its glory by lopping off its remoter end which I 'm sure lay far out of their way And I wish that as your Majesty has most successfully defeated the one by your Victorious Arms so I may be so happy in your prudent Reign as to contribute somewhat to disappoint the other by what I have said in vindication of its Antiquity Sir The dutifull inclination I have to serve your Majesty is I confess much heightned by the Royal Obligations you have been pleased to lay upon our Nation not onely in your gratious protection of it but in the glory you have added to that Royal Family under which we have been so long happy Your Majesty owes your success next to that mercifull and miraculous providence which still attends your Sacred Person and Family to your own wise Conduct and to the great Iustice of your Cause and not to your Councils or Servants though it is your Majesty's goodness to be as kind to them as if you did And therefore Sir I am so far from valuing my self upon any success I may or can pretend to have in pleading for your Majesty either in Print or at the Bar that I shall still ascribe whatever advantages I may gain that way to the Iustice of your Majesty's Cause without arrogating any part of it to my own Skill or Eloquence And now your Majesty having by your own Royal Influence and the Prudence of your proper Conduct overturn'd in so short a time all the Designs of a Rebellion so deeply rooted And by your gentleness and clemency overcome the obstinacy of your most inveterate Enemies which is by far the more wonderfull Victory thereby contracting into one year the glories of a long Reign I can never have the vanity to imagine your Majesty should yet any way need the mean assistence of Sir Your Majesty's most Dutifull Loyal and Obedient Subject and Servant George Mackenzie THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE King's Advocat in duty bound to defend the Antiquity of the Royal Line This debate as it was unnecessarily started so it 's unwarrantably continued The Authour's Answers to Buchanan's Jus Regni clear'd and defended CHAP. II. That the Scots were placed here before the Tear 503. CHAP. III. What the Bishop of St. Asaph and Dr. Stillingfleet say against our Histories from Fergus the First examined CHAP. IV. Our Authours vindicated in the accounts they give of the Genealogy of our Kings CHAP. V. The Irish Genealogy of our Kings compared with the Accounts given by the Chronicle of Melross and both compared with the Genealogies contained in our Histories with a full proof that our Historians are to be preferred to the Irish Annals as to this point Ogygia examin'd The Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland farther cleared and defended against the Exceptions lately offered by Dr. Stillingfleet in his Vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph CHAP. I. KING Iames having in his Basilicon Doron p. 201. founded his Royal Prerogative upon King Fergus's having made himself King and Lord as well of the whole Lands as of the Inhabitants of Scotland and King Charles the First having in a Letter to his Parliament An. 1641. founded that kindness which he expected from the Scots upon this that they and their Predecessours were Sworn to maintain that Race of their Kings which he now represented after 108 Descents I leave it to all indifferent men if I as King's
Advocate was not in duty oblig'd to answer a Book written by the Reverend and Learned Bishop of St. Asaph to prove that King Fergus and 44 posteriour Kings were merely fabulous and idle inventions since that assertion did not onely give the lye flatly to two of our most just and learned Kings but overturned the foundations on which they had built the duty and kindness of their Subjects And since precedency is one of the chief glories of the Crown and that for this not onely Kings but Subjects fight and debate how could I suffer this right and privilege of our Crown to be stoln from it by this Assertion which did expresly subtract about 830 years from their antiquity and in consequence lessen'd it by other 500 for we can produce no evidences for these also which may not be quarrel'd if our Adversaries be allow'd to reject what is here controverted consequentially to which Ubbo Emmius magnified by the Doctor has brought down their Antiquity to Kenneth the Third and since nothing can be answered to these grounds which I may conclude because Dr. Stillingfleet has answered nothing to them nor to the many reasons whereby I prov'd that Episcopacy was no otherways concerned in this debate than in as far as it was made a pretext for the more secure opposing our Monarchy I admire how Dr. Stillingfleet could adventure to continue the debate especially after a whole Parliament of zealous Episcopal members and wherein there did sit 14 Bishops had unanimously after many of them had read and all had heard of the Bishop's Book thought of new again this Antiquity a solid and necessary Basis for their Loyalty All that the Doctor answers is That our Kings are still ancient by the Irish Race and so were Kings in another place But he should have consider'd that the Conquest of an ancient Kingdom brings not to the Conquerour the antiquity of those he conquers and our Kings succeed onely to the Irish by the Scotish Kings now controverted and if he rejects ours for want of sufficient proofs he must by a stronger consequence reject the proofs that can be produced for them and he does so indeed with much scorn and gayety nor can he prove our Kings to be descended from Fergus the Second if he allow not my proofs for Fergus the First nay which is more I have proved the descent of Fergus the Second from the Irish in their way to be impossible and all the Authours for this opinion to have contradicted one another so that these two Loyal Divines toil much to prove their King to be not onely not the most ancient but one of the last Kings in Christendom and are angry at me though the King's Advocate for daring to say that this was a king of lese Majesty by which I meant onely then a lessening and wronging of the Majesty of our common Kings though I qualified this Rhetorical expression by adding that I was sure the learned Bishop of St. Asaph had written this with a design rather to gratifie his Order and Countrey than Industriously to injure our Kings or us and thus in that matter I have been gentler than my employment could well allow or my present treatment does require The Doctor being resolv'd to found every thing upon his own authority knowing of little other help tells us That such as are to write in matters of Antiquity should be extraordinarily vers'd in the best Authours and should have a deep judgment able to compare them together and this being the Preface of his own Origines Britannicae may be I am afraid so constru'd as if he would have us take his own word for his being a most learned and judicious Antiquary and Critick for else he would not have undertaken this sublime and hard task as also he tells us by the same art that it was not every Advocate us'd to plead eloquently at the Bar and who took citations at second-hand who could manage so weighty matters making it thus great Insolency in me to grapple with him in our own History which a Scotchman and in the Latin Authours which a Civilian should understand best of all others for this debate requires little other learning beside these and the reading of some few passages in others which I have read in the Authours themselves with as great attention as the Doctor without taking any of my Citations at second-hand or using them without considering first their full import and remotest consequences as several learned men here can prove and will better and more convincingly appear from this debate it self in which beside the main positions I hope to prove that either the Doctor has not understood so well or at least has not used them so ingenuously as I have done To reflect somewhat on me and much on our Historians without contributing any thing else to the present debate save what may arise from the weakning our credibility the Doctor asserts that I should have in my answer to Buchanan's Ius Regni deny'd that any respect was due to arguments brought from our Histories to prove his Republican Principles and I should have decry'd our Histories as fabulous and invented merely to sustain those Principles To which my Answer is that I should be glad to find Dr. Stillingfleet as firm a friend to the power and interest of Kings as I have been though I think he gives no great evidence of it in urging unnecessarily all Buchanan's popular arguments with the same exactness that those do who wish them to prevail but none can-lessen the esteem of the Book here in question without reflecting upon the famous University of Oxford whose testimony I have subjoyn'd to this and which I think the next to that of a good Conscience But to the point I must remember our Readers that Buchanan having urged against the absolute power of our Kings that they were limited by a contract betwixt King Fergus and the People my Answers were that first this Contract was deny'd and a History may be true though some points be foisted in upon design else few Histories are true and this is Dr. Heylin's Doctrine as well as mine 2. That Fordon whom they call our first Historian now extant did expresly say that Fergus constituit se regem and this is clear also by the Book of Pasley and I have clear'd that it could not be otherways and if Boethius has onely copied Fordon and Buchanan Boethius as our adversaries contend they must be all regulated by Fordon's Loyalty 3. That if Boethius be urg'd against us we must consider all he says and if so we will find that he derives the Monarchy from Gathelus and he was King without contract before Fergus whose reign I assert not there though I use it justly against such as object that Tradition as Argumentum ad hominem 4. These limitations being found inconsistent with the safety of King and People as indeed all limitations are they were repeal'd by express Laws in
the Reign of King Kenneth the Third and by many and clear posteriour Statutes founded upon sad experience And if such Limitations could be introduc'd they could be abrogated by express consent and so our Kings are now freed from them 5. I clear that these expressions crept into our Histories by the humour which most Churchmen were in at that time of having Kings depend on the Church and so not absolute in which our Historians are less guilty than those of other Nations whom in friendship I will not now name And as to the instance brought from our Histories to prove that the People depos'd Kings That concluded onely that the People were Rebels but not that our Kings were Limited but to have deny'd our Histories in as far as they prov'd this it concerned me to have denyed them till Kenneth the Third's time which had been very ridiculous according to the Bishop of St. Asaph's own opinion and had justly defamed my Book amongst my own Countreymen And how should we acknowledge this to be a peculiar guilt in our Historians except we deny the truth of all English Histories since William the Conquerour's time Because they mention Limitations extorted from their Kings murthers committed upon many of them and the right of Election to be stated in the people as I have prov'd in a Letter to Dr. Stillingfleet unfit to be exposed to publick view for the same Reasons that I think the Doctor should have supprest that undutifull dis-respectfull part of his debate against our Historians who deserve much less to be taxt than his own Friends for their ill founded conceptions of the rights of Monarchs in those days and to reform which I have been somewhat more instrumental than the Doctor But such injurious and national Excursions as this seem to prove to Conviction more partiality than consideration in the Doctor though otherways an honest and learned man in cold bloud But to shew that he is not a dis-interessed Critick I must observe that he ingenuously confesses that he ow'd so much service to so worthy and excellent a Friend as the Bishop of St. Asaph for though he adds that if my Arguments would hold good they would also overthrow several things in his late Book yet this is but a mere Pretext for nothing in my Book relates any way to any part of that Subject which he treats upon except in the second and fifth Chapters wherein he takes also my Book expressly to task in the same Points And therefore I conclude that if he though a Church-man thought himself concerned in honour to own his Friend albeit an Aggressour I as a King's Advocate may be more justly allow'd to own our Kings when attacked unjustly and unnecessarily by their own Subjects and Beneficiaries And though it may be instanced that the antiquity of the Royal-line has been controverted in other Nations yet it cannot be instanced that this has been done by Subjects after their Kings and Parliaments have seriously founded the Loyalty of the Nation upon that antiquity and the Kings have asserted that antiquity under their own hands upon so solemn occasions which is our case and where the antiquity it self is not absolutely fabulous but on the contrary is in it self so reasonable and is warranted by the Testimonies of contemporary Historians and allowed by the most judicious Criticks CHAP. II. That the Scots were placed here before the Year 503. NOW without either vanity or levity or any distracting digressions I must put the Reader in mind that in my Book I did onely undertake to prove against the Bishop of St. Asaph That the Scots did settle in Britain before the Year 503. And after I had prov'd this sufficiently by the clear and positive Testimonies which I adduced and had made it appear by some of the same Testimonies that we settled here before Iulius Caesar's time and particularly that Reuda one of our Kings was expressly acknowledged by Beda one of the Authours I cite I proceeded to prove that our Historians are to be believed as to King Fergus there being onely a hundred and thirty years betwixt these two Kings As to which our Historians being many and men of Reputation they ought to be believed they having narrated nothing that is improbable and having declared that they were sufficiently warranted so to write by the Records delivered to them by Authority out of our ancient Monasteries then extant and that Oral Tradition universally received of a whole Nation is a great Fortification of so short a step as a hundred and thirty years And in the last part of my Book I clear against Archbishop Usher and the Bishop of St. Asaph That this Countrey was called Scotland and We Scots before the Year 1000 a position they were driven to maintain in defence of their former Paradox Dr. Stillingfleet without taking notice of these Points which I treated separately in the method now mentioned would more cunningly than ingenuously make his Reader believe that I have undertaken by every Citation and Reason to prove the truth of all the parts of our History from Fergus downward and therefore when I adduce a Citation for proving that we were settled here before the Year 503 or that this Countrey was called Scotland before the Year 1000 He asks Where is there mention in these Citations of Fergus And takes no care to consider my Citations with relation to the particular Points for which they are produced as in my Citation of Scaliger concerning the Scotobrigantes and in my Citation of Claudian c. To return then to my first Method for the Readers fuller conviction I must put him in mind that I did prove the first of these positions viz. That we were setled in Scotland before the Year 503. 1. By the Authority of the British Historians within the Isle 2. By the Roman Historians who could not but know us well because that Nation fought long with us 3. By Ecclesiastick Writers and Historians who prove that the Scots were acknowledged to have been a Christian Nation here before that time and therefore behov'd to have been setled here 4. I fortifie these Citations by most clear Reasons 5. Because the import of some of these Authorities is controverted I appeal to the best Historians and Criticks as the most competent Judges betwixt the reverend Prelate and my self and these I hope will be found to have asserted the truth of this my Position and the justness of my Citations The first Citations I used were from Gildas and Beda the most ancient and esteemed of all the English Writers And I did begin with Beda because he transcribes and explains Gildas and I shall repeat the Argument as I stated it in my first Book The venerable Beda though a Saxon himself and so an Enemy to us having written an exact Chronology according to the periods of time does in his first chap. de priscis Incolis tell us that God was praised in five Languages
the other that there was such a King in England as Lucius and that he introduced into it the Christian Religion in which the Doctor agrees with him against the Bishop of St. Asaph and I hope our Authours will at least give a deference to the opinion of two such emnent English Divines The Laws also of all Nations allow that when Papers are lost the tenour of them may be proved providing a probable way of losing of them to be instructed which the Lawyers of all Nations call Casus amissionis But so it is we assign two remarkable occasions and sufficient reasons to instruct this Casus amissionis The first in the Reign of Edward the first who industriously did take away our Records Which in the process before the Pope we offered to prove by most famous Witnesses in presence also of the said King who by his not contradicting did acknowledge this matter of Fact The second in the time of our Reformation in which the blind Zeal of some and the interested Avarice of others prevailed with them to destroy the Records of our Monasteries And so far are these accidents true not onely in History but in our sad Experience that we want in matter of private right what might have been furnisht us both from our Records and Monasteries And so it were ridicuous to think that we abstracted those vouchers upon design especially seeing long after that and till Luddus time no Nation nor Authour ever controverted our History and I Challenge the Doctor to produce any such Authour as certainly they would have done if the matters of Fact had been either ridiculous in themselves or inconsistent with the tract of other Histories Of this fundamental Argument the Doctor takes no notice and makes no answer to it but I to fortifie this Argument having insisted upon the probability of what our Historians relate and the Reputation of the relaters he runs out in an answer to both these to which I shall make a Reply But I conceive nothing can take off the strength of my Argument except he either prove that there could have been no such Warrants and that what is related is in it self inconsistent with the History of other Nations or that he had produced to us good Authours contemporary with these things which he denies and we assert and had shewed that these Authours deny these Transactions or deliver things inconsistent with them neiof which he has done nor can doe The first general Ground insisted on by the Doctor is that we have no Historians who wrote in the time in which the things related were alledged to have been acted to which it is answered as formerly that an Authour writing from sufficient Records is as much to be believed as if he had lived in the time and that is our Case And I again renew my Query if the Doctor thinks that Dr. Burnet's Book of the History of the Reformation should not be believed in the next Age though the Warrants of it were burnt which is very possible and had it not been great folly and impudence in five or six honest men to have separately written that they and each of them had the said Records when they wrote from them And though the Doctor insinuates that this has been formerly done by one or two which he cites yet there were not many concurring there as here and it is a very different thing for one Authour to say that he wrote from such a Record a particular passage in which none was concerned and for many worthy Men to say in their Epistles to their Kings and Nation that what they wrote was true from the Records which they had given them from Monasteries and other publick Records and to appeal to them as then extant and certainly many would be very desirous to see these Records in the time of the writing these Histories especially seeing the first Historians who appear in Print have both Rivals and Enemies as well as curious Criticks and the Monasteries themselves and the Keepers of the pretended Records could not but have known the Forgery if any such had been Or durst so many ingenious Men though they had been careless of their Conscience have trusted their Reputation in so nice and quick-sighted an Age as that wherein all of them wrote to the discretion of so many who could have discover'd the Cheat Nor do we find even from what the Doctor himself writes that the single Testimony of these who pretend to have written from Records is rejected except where what they say is redargued as inconsistent with other uncontroverted Histories and Authours or narrate things in themselves incredible as is evident from the instances of Humbald Geoffery Annius and others so that to reject our Histories lest the World should be obliged to believe these is no solid nor just way of reasoning But the Bishop himself to shun this did with a greater shew of reason urge that our Historians were but to be accounted as one since they followed one another in a File But I did fully take off this by proving that each of them saw some few of these Records and Warrants a part and that they differed enough to shew that they were in no Conspiracy and this I hold as acknowledged since the Doctor returns no answer to it That there could be no sufficient Warrants for our History from the Annals of our Monasteries is contended because the Monasteries themselves are much later than Fergus the First who is to be proved by these Annals But to this it is answered that Iona and Abercorn are Monasteries acknowledged by Beda as long prior to Beda's time and though the Monasteries were later yet they might have Records as old as Fergus for this is very probable in it self and consequently ought to be believed since it is proved by famous Witnesses And whereas it is answered that bare Probability is not sufficient to sustain a History but the Annals themselves out of which it is taken must be produced My return to this is that if bare Probability were onelyproposed the answer is good but it is not so when I say the thing is probable of it self and is actually proved by Witnesses beyond all exception And whereas to overturn this it is contended from the Irish Annals that Fergus whom we call the second was our first King To this I need say no more but that I proved in my former Book that all the accounts which the Irish gave of our entry into this Kingdom are inconsistent and contradictory one to another and to which the Doctor has made no answer and therefore they are not to be believed in themselves but much less are they to be believed when contrary to the Annals of all our Monasteries attested by famous Witnesses who saw them and in a matter in which we were more concerned than they and so it is probable we would have been more carefull to preserve it's Memory 2. I have proved in the
our Register durst have adventur'd to print Laws nor would our Governours have suffered this without sufficient warrants And we must be believ'd in what concerns us and us onely Nor does it follow that because the Laws of Alexander the Third were lost therefore the Macalpin Laws might not have been preserv'd they being the foundations of the Rights and Successions of our Kings And therefore as they were preserv'd with more care by us they should have been attack'd with less zeal by the Doctor for his Monarch's sake whose partiality I tax in this and not his disloyalty And to conclude this period in opposition to the Doctor I do think that the most fundamental of all Laws were in all Nations preserv'd by mere Tradition and are not written to this very day save when some accident forces it as in our late Statute for the Succession Which Position since able Lawyers must acknowledge I do not contend for it with a Divine who seems here to be out of his sphere and more dogmatical than his Profession will well allow But why may not our Laws be as old as about 800 years since Selden and Church-hill tells us that there are Laws yet extant in London older than any the Romans had And the Doctor 's Raillery that probably these Laws were in another Chest at Icolmekill with the MSS. which Boeth says Fergus brought from the sacking of Rome in the time of Alaric to be contemn'd for as great Criticks as the Doctor believe this to be true as one may see by Morhosius's learn'd Book de Patavinitate Livianâ From this received Principle also I conclude justly that since Lycurgus's Laws and the old Laws of other Nations have been preserv'd most of them without writing and by mere Tradition why may not the same Tradition be trusted for the Names and for some general and probable actions of our Kings for 130 years viz. from Rheuda to Fergus the First or why might not our Monasteries have received these Traditions from such as lived nearer these times than Gildas did to the first planting of Christianity in Britain And yet his and other Ecclesiastick Traditions are generally receiv'd and acknowledg'd and founded on by our severe Doctor and Churchmen ought to be tender of them because without these Fanaticks and Sectarians might press them very much Another ground whereby I endeavoured to render it probable that there were such Warrants as these declar'd to have been seen by our Historians was that what they declar'd was probable and ordinary for our Countrey and other Northern Countries as Ireland and Domestick Historians call'd Sanachies and Bards who as Poets preserv'd their Histories This Varaeus observes in Ireland and Powell in Wales Bardi custodiebant etiam Nobilium insignia Genealogias And in these were probably the memory of the Names of our Kings and their considerable Actions preserv'd Nor can it be imagin'd that a Family can rise without getting their Lands from some Kings nor could they have done considerable Actions except in their service and so in remembring their own Genealogies and Actions could not omit to record those of their Kings And Livie in the place cited tells us that the Histories of Private Families were us'd as the Warrants of the General History and those Luddus does cry up as the Warrants he us'd Nor does Buchanan decry them except in opposition to Luddus his using them as proofs of these positions onely that are inconsistent with the Roman Contemporary and other Histories And in so far I acknowledge they ought not to be received but that cannot be alledged against us I urg'd also that it was very probable that we had ancient Written Histories because we had the Druids amongst us who were Priests under Paganism and they are acknowledged by Caesar to have had the use of Letters And though Caesar does observe that they were averse from consigning to Letters the Mysteries of their Religion yet it does not follow that therefore they us'd them not in preserving the memory of their Kings and memorable Actions The one proceeded from a design to keep their Mysteries from being subjected to an examination which they knew these Principles could not bear and to conciliate a veneration to their Religion from the ignorance of the Admirers as Varaeus also confesses But without the other Letters had been altogether useless for in what could they have employed them if not in this And since Caesar is positive that they us'd the Graecian Letters in privatis publicisque rationibus what can be meant by publicae rationes save their Historical account of things And this seems the more probable that many of our Towns and Ports especially have Greek names And to the Doctor 's difficulty how the Druids could have preserv'd their Chronology in these Ancient Times I answer from Pliny who tells that they numbred time by the course of the Moon and not of the Sun which proves that very anciently they used Chronology Nor does it follow that because some of the Druids are said to have oppos'd the conversion of their People to Christianity therefore others of them were not zealous for their conversion even as though the Ancient Philosophers were generally severe Opposers of the settlement of Christianity yet many of them when converted were eminent Lights in their time And therefore I may conclude that since it is very probable that our Predecessours would be curious to preserve the Names of their first Kings and the way of their first settlement and since they had Letters wherein these might have been preserved therefore it is probable that they were accordingly preserved And that these Traditions and Records as well as the Histories of Private Families relating these were consigned to the custody of the Monasteries with us as elsewhere So that since four or five Worthy Historians declare They saw these each a-part their Testimonies concurring in a probable matter of fact must be as sufficient as if the Warrants were yet extant for since these would prove and satisfy in a Legal Trial much more ought they to be allowed in an Historical one quod erat probandum CHAP. IV. Our Authours vindicated in the accounts they give of the Genealogy of our Kings THE Doctor being convinced from these undeniable Proofs that neither Fordon nor Boethius did forge the ancient Genealogy of our Kings which the Bishop of St. Asaph did positively assert but that they had Warrants and Authorities before their times He falls upon a new device and contends that Boethius did insert many things contrary to the account of the Genealogy preceding him For as to the particular Genealogy from Fergus the First to Fergus the Second he hath no account of this from Fordon who hath as the Doctor says professed that he could find nothing particular concerning them though he cites several Chronicles and though Fordon mentions an old High Land Gentleman a Genealogist who gives an account of the
Ancientest Geographers and other Writers as inhabited and without any mention of Conquest it necessarily follows that they must have been Aborigines there And by the same reason they having been very ancient and wanting Wars must have eased themselves by Colonies And this Countrey being within 13 Miles of them our settlement must have been very ancient And so the one does necessarily infer the other and should not be made use of to contradict it and the English who have conquer'd them are interested to humble them but we to maintain them Albeit then it is our own Interest to support their Antiquities yet in as far as they are now produc'd to overturn what relates to our Countrey they are not to be preferr'd to ours as the Doctor asserts for who would maintain that the Accounts given by the Saxons Celtae or Spaniards should be preferr'd to the British or English or Irish Histories for the times after the Britains English or Irish were acknowledg'd to be setled And as to the Irish Writers themselves this Poem selected and preferr'd to all other Annals by O-Flahertie as not onely containing an acknowledgment of our settlement but a Genealogy of our Kings we have prov'd that it is not preferable to our Historians in point of Credibility And besides all that I have said of it I must add that O-Flahertie acknowledges that there were several different Copies of it and even this which he follow'd was not intire some Distichs being wanting else he doubted not to make an intire Catalogue And even this such as it is is onely written in Malcolm Canmore's time whom it mentions who reign'd in the 1057 of which lateness all the other Irish Annals allow'd by the Doctor are The main ground insisted on by the Doctor for preferring the Irish in the point of Credibility to us is that we neither had nor could have so ancient Annals as they our Monasteries being onely founded by St. David and after him and so â—osterior to their Annals Which Argument is founded upon a false Supposition for the Doctor himself acknowledges that the Psalter of Naran contains onely matters of Devotion as the Irish Antiquaries cited by him confess This is the eldest and was written in the latter end of the Eighth Century The next is the Psalter of Cashel which he rejects as not well founded and allows none as credible but those which are written after the Year of Christ 1000. And it cannot be deny'd but we might have had well-warranted Annals before that time which the Doctor denies For first We were then fully possess'd not onely of our own first part of Scotland but even of the Pictish part of it and also of the Northern now English Countries confirm'd to Malcolm the First by the English own acknowledgment who reign'd Anno Christi 943. And so we were Masters of Icolmkill Abercorn Abernethie Mailross Lindisfern and other Monasteries which lay within that great extent and which extent Dr. Stillingfleet acknowledges since Severus's Wall is by him confess'd to be built betwixt Tine and Esk. We had also the number of our Bishopricks increased by the subduing of the Picts as is not onely probable in it self but is clear by the acknowledg'd Catalogues of Bishopricks in Fordon Icolmkill is by Beda said to be founded about the 560. and to be the chief of all the Monasteries in Britain or Ireland Abernethie was founded in Garnard's time who was next Pictish King to Brudeus in whose time Columba liv'd and so about the 600. And Fordon relates that this Monastery was founded 200 years before the Church of Dunkeld was founded And here is not onely a Monastery mention'd which might have had Annals higher than the Psalter of Naran suppose it had created History but he cites the Chronicle of Abernethie which the Doctor acknowledges to be an old Chronicle and Beda also acknowledges that there was such a Monastery as Abercorn And though the Doctor cites Buchanan saying that it was so demolish'd that no vestige of it did appear yet the Pictish Kingdom being quite ruin'd the Argument that there was no such Monastery is of no force for the Records of many demolish'd Monasteries are preserv'd And though the Abbacy of Mailross was rebuilt by St. David yet that it was a famous Monastery in Beda's time is clear for he tells that the Abbat of Mailross was translated to Lindisfern and has probably remained long demolish'd by the Wars as Abercorn did and the Writers did thereby express the rebuilding as an original foundation And the reason why I said in my former Book that this Abbacy was before it was rebuilt called Rivallis was because I have seen in a Collection of Foundations made by our Lord Register Skeen a Copy of the Foundation of Mailross wherein the Lands of Mailross and others are given to the Monks of Rivallis But whether Mailross or Rivallis are distinct or not is not material to our point and if they be distinct it is more for our advantage since by that Concession we have two Monasteries doted by St. David It contributes much to the preference of our Histories beyond the Irish in point of Credibility and to the establishment of the Credibility of our Histories against all our Adversaries that in the Debate before the Pope at Rome about the Year 1300. where the Roman Antiquities must certainly be best understood and when the Debate was against the Learn'd English who were very much concerned to contradict us we did own this our settlement before Iulius Caesar his entry into this Isle and that we as a setled Nation and not as a vagrant company of Irishes maintain'd that long series of Wars related by Beda and our own Historians And in that Debate we assert justly that the visible Ruines of the two Walls built by the Romans against us and the Picts are certain proofs of our Antiquity and that we were the People who maintain'd the War As also in a Letter from our Nobility to the Pope about the Year 1320. we again assert our Antiquity and that Haec collegimus ex Antiquorum gestis libris And all this Debate and Letter being yet extant these are surer Warrants for our Antiquity than any thing that can be urg'd against us from the Irish Annals the eldest whereof are in the Year 1100. written by Natives at home without any contradiction or warrant for ought we have yet seen Nor has the Learn'd Dr. Stillingfleet answered the same Objection when urged in my First Book though with less force than it is now urg'd Dr. Stillingfleet answers to all that is urg'd from the Antiquity of our Monasteries That this proves onely that we might have had but not that we had sufficient Warrants since we produce not the Annals of these Monasteries To which my Answer is that 1. This at least overturns his Position that We neither had nor could have sufficient Warrants for a greater Antiquity than the Irish.