before was a Garment wore by the Gauls and Britains of which Martial thus writes Lassi Bardiacus quod evocati Malles quà m quod oles olere Bassa This Garment was of divers Colours woven together and made a gaudy shew without doubt very pleasant to the Britains in those daies as we find the Indians to be much taken with the like It is called Bardes in the Phoenician Dialect and Bord or Borda by the Arabians and no doubt by the Phoenicians was brought into these parts which words are very sufficient also to prove from whence the Bardi received their Name The Arabians wore it mixt only with black and yellow but generally it was made up of some colours in the nature of our Fools Coats Hence it is that St. Augustine in his 68th Epistle of the Circumcelliones saith Presbyterum burdâ vestitum c. they cloathed a Priest in this habit and shewed him as a ridiculous spectacle But however odd this Garment seems in our daies certainly it was worn by the chief Nobility and greatest Princes of the Britains If Mr. Cambden from the divers Colours which he finds out in the Names of the British Princes would make them to be diversly Painted he had better have looke for it in these Coats than in their Skins for as for their Bodies they used but one Colour in the dying of them Mr. Speed with whom Mr. Cambdens Derivation of Britannia from Brith is all Gospel in confirmation of it has exposed two Naked Britains to view not considering the Circumstances of time how that it was long after they were called BRITAINS they took up that Custome To Answer him Since I suppose Britain to be truly and rightly derived from Bratanac in the Phoenician Tongue signifying a Country of Tynn and upon the account that from hence that useful Commodity was dispersed by them through the whole World upon the very same account are these Islands called by the Greeks the same as Bratanac namely Cassiterides the Tynn Islands I will represent one Person of the Bretanick Islanders who lived I suppose in the Forelings or Scyllies in which Islands together with Cornwal and Devonshire Mettal most abounded The description of which is given by Strabo They are Inhabited saies he by Men wearing black Garments clad in side Coats descending to their Ankles going with Staves like the Furies in Tragedies Mines they have of Tynn and Lead which they exchange for Earthen-Pots Salt and Brazen ware Megens Phoenicum condemnavere metallis Polluit hinò yultus eruta terra meos Quamvis ore niger yidearg inyestibus atrox Candidus intereà moribus esse feror These are the Silures of whom Tacitus writes That their Hair was black and curled differing from the rest of the Britains in their swarthy Countenances by which he reckons them to be of a Spanish Original namely the Off-spring of the Iberi who were great Miners but we have shewn treating in the Chapter of the Phoenicians that in all probabillity they were called Silures from some Colony of the Phoenicians Trading with them as their Name in the Phoenician Tongue importeth And we may observe that as the adjacent Islands the Sorelings especially were called Bretanick upon the account of their Tynn Mines when this was known by the name of Albion only so there was an Island called Silura lying off of Cornwal which I believe gave the Name to the Silures in South Wales So that Britannia in general and the Silures in particular both took their Names from Bretannick or Tynn Islands which we have proved to be first discovered by the Phoenicians The Habits of these Western Britains were remarkable for their Length and Colour the former of which together with the Staff they used to carry argues that some Eastern Colonies and especially the Phoenicians traded with them and although by the Black colour of their Hair and Garments their Swarthy complexions and their Staves they seem'd like Furies in Tragedies yet are they described by the same Author to be of a gentle and kind Disposition of a fair and honest Behaviour simple and sincere in their Conversation and generally the Britains by most Authors are so set out They have not saies Diodorus Siculus the craft and subtilty of other Nations but are fair Condition'd People of a plain and upright Dealing They had all things in Common amongst them and would not admit of any Propriety at all after the manner of the Germans described by Caesar from whom in all probability they descended insomuch that the same Author reports That ten or twelve of them agreed together in the promiscuous use of one Woman Brethren with Brethren nay Parents with their own Children The Issue they had by them they nurtured and brought up by a Common-stock though they were reputed his in a more especial manner who married the Mother in her Virginity This incestuous Custome was frequent among the Athenians before Cecrops daies as Mr. Selden notes and I conjecture was only used by the wilder sort of Britains and continued it was a long while after the Romans had subdued this Island For we read that Julia the Empress of Severus twitted the Wife of Argentocorus with it who replied in this manner We British Women do truly differ herein from you Roman Ladies for we satisfie our selves with the accompanying with the Worthiest men openly but you with every Base fellow in a corner These are the most memorable Customes used by the Britains in which they agreed sometimes with the Gauls sometimes with the Germans according as they were derived from either and some Customes we have shewn they had particular to themselves of which no account can be given and others also which could have no other Original but from the Phoenicians or Graecians which Originals besides the congruity the Britains had with no other Western Nation their Neighbours is evidently shewn out of the very Names of the Customes themselves Certainly it would take up a Volume if any one better skill'd in the Phoenician Greek and British Tongues and in the customes of these three Nations would sit himself down seriously and fully to compare their respective waies and manner of Living their Habits Coyns Laws and other Circumstances In all which as likewise in their manner of Warring there seems such an apparent similitude between the aforesaid Nations that they seem rather Neighbours than to be so far disjoyned as they are But it will suffice if by this small account given of them a way may be opened to an ingenious Undertaker to search deeper into the matter and so I shall pass on to their Customes in War CHAP. VIII The Custome of the BRITAINS in their Wars and Manner of Fighting BRITAIN at the first entrance of it by Julius Caesar was divided into a great many petty States and Governments insomuch that the different Interest of Princes was the cause of continual Wars and Dissensions
6 minutes in the beginning of the sixteenth Parallel and eighth Clymate and the most Northwardly in 60 degrees 30 minutes in the six and twentieth Parallel or thirteenth Clime So that the longest Day in the South parts will be 16 hours in the Northern 18 and a half Upon the North and South it pointeth to the Ocean on the West it hath Ireland on the East we may measure its extent by the Continent for it lieth in the same Latitude with part of France Flanders Zealand Holland Lower Saxony and Denmark so that there can be no certain Rule given as in lesser Kingdoms of the temperature of the Air the nature of the Soyl the strength growth or proportion of the Inhabitants It is now as it was when the Romans first discovered it that there seems to be many Nations in it differing in the make and proportions of their Bodies The more Northward we go the People seem to be sturdier bigger made and in their Limbs more resembling the Germans hardy and stout and enured to Labour and Cold and to be of the same nature with the Daues and Saxons in the latitude of which Kingdoms they lie The Southwardly parts contain Men of neater strength and more compact Limbs and what they want of the proportion of the others they make out in their quickness and agility being hardy and not unweildy having not less strength but a better management of it In a word they seem to joyn the quick and brisk temper of the French with the staid and more fixed Humour of the Germans and as the People differ in the temperaments of their Bodies so in this vast Kingdom are many Countries Cities Towns Villages Colleges and Free-Schools for the promoting of Learning Hospitals and Alms-houses for the Relief of the Poor and Maimed not inferiourto any in any other part of the World beside Divers Languages Customes and Usages which are not contrary one to the other but by the mixture of the Gentry and the happy union of this Nation under one Monarch do meet together in the making up of the best compacted Kingdom in the World The Languages in Britain are these 1. THE first is the ENGLISH which is most purely and elegantly spoken in the Southern parts and especially at London and it extends thorough all the hither parts of Scotland being the General Language of the most refined sort of that Nation who are called by the more Northern People Sassons as we are by the Welch 2. The second is the BRITISH Language and is spoken by the Inhabitants of North and South Wales although with great difference of Dialect 3. The third is the CORNISH and DEVONSHIRE Tongue differing both from the British and English and not to be understood by either but it agrees most with the British but especially of the Britains of Armorica or Britain in France and those Words they preserve common with both those Nations seem to retain in them the foot-steps of the most Ancient British Language and have in them the very Idiom's of the Phoenician and Greek Nations 4. The fourth is the Language of the Wild SCOTS and differs very little from the Irish in the common Appellative Names it agrees very much with the Welch as doth likewise the Irish which argues that before the Romans and afterwards the Saxons had incorporated themselves in this Island the Language of all the Inhabitants was much the same and that Ireland was rather peopled from Britain than from Spain as some have imagined 5. The fifth is the Language of the ORCADES or ORKNEY Isles with those parts of Britain that shoot out upon them there is spoken the Gothic or Danish Speech which argues them to have been formerly subjected to the Princes of Norway It is a rough and unhew'd Language and is the root of the Dialect spoken more refined by the English more roughly by the Dutch and the Inhabitants of Upper Saxony and Denmark It is the very husk of the Teutonick The whole Island divided into Britannia Major as ENGLAND and Minor as SCOTLAND England being the Greater and of more particular concern to our present discourse is in Length by the computation of some CCC LXXXVI miles Cluverius reckons from Weymouth to Berwick upon Tweed CCC XX or LXXX German miles So that in Compass it is about MCCC miles reckoning the Creeks and windings of Promontories By computation it contains thirty Millions of Acres and is the Three hundred thirty third part of the Habitable World almost Ten times as big as the United Netherlands and is to France as 30 to 82. And thus much for the Extent of this ISLAND upon which account it was called by the Ancients a NEW WORLD and upon a better survey of it The Great Island As for the temperature of the Air as I said before it is different according to the many Clymates it runs thorough But concerning the Southwardly parts of it or Britannia Major I will only Cite some Impartial Judges First Caesar who was well experienced in the nature and climate of Gaul writes That BRITAIN is a more Temperate Country and is not subject to the sharp and nipping colds of the Continent The Reason is given by Minutius Foelix namely That it is refreshed by the warmth of the Sea flowing round about it Experience teacheth us that the extremity of cold in this Country is blown off from the Continent and proceeds not from the North but Northeast-winds and as it hath not those Colds in Winter it is not burnt up with immoderate Heats in Summer Here are none of those violent Thunders and Lightnings which are so frequent on the Continent nor do we ever hear of Serenes wherewith those hotter Climates are infested The heat of the Weather is allayed by gentle Winds and continual Breezes and the Earth cooled and nourished with mild and moderate showers Tacitus speaketh very much of the temperate and happy scituation of it for he saies There is nothing deficient in it but the Olive and the Vine which only grow in hotter Countries But they that shall consider it more truly namely that there are many places at this day called Vineyards in ENGLAND where in all probability has been made Wine will have small cause to complain of the Country in this particular but will rather attribute it to the cheap and easie importation of that Commodity and better improvement of the Ground But it is a great wonder to hear what one Brietius of late hath written concerning the Temperature of the Air in BRITAIN which because it is the production of his own Brain and never heard of before in the World it will not be amiss to mention it Every One and twenty year saith he the Plague rageth in BRITAIN which proceedeth from the extream Heat of every Seventh year which Heat is far greater the Third seventh for then the Waters lying in holes putrifie and corrupt and certainly cause a Pestilence This Cycle of One
do conclude that those Promontories and Cliffs were alwaies so and that they were never joyned by any neck or bridge of Land whatsoever Richardus Vitus in his History Lib. 1. saith That the Morini who lived on the French side of these Streights were called so in the Ancient Celtick Language for Mor signifies the SEA Now the great Antiquity of the Celtick Tongue shall be shewn hereafter in a more proper place however thus much appears That from any Name there can be nothing gathered of this Isthmus for these Morini lived on the Sea-coast and not upon the end of the Isthmus Thus much as to the Name of these Streights that they have nothing in them or contiguous to them that can preserve the Memory of any such conjunction of Shoars or violent Separation made by the Sea or dug by the labour of Man a thing easily to be expected considering that less mutations in the World have left some Tradition behind them Certainly such a Breach as this between two such considerable Countries must make more noise in the World when ever it happened than either Sicily or the Isle of Wight which to this day do retain some Memory of being cut off from their Neighbours Let us now consider whether in the Reason of the thing the nature of the Streights themselves the position and similitude of the opposite Soyls themselves and such Arguments are sufficient Inducements to engage any Rational man to believe that Britain was once joyned to Gallia And it is not to be doubted but there has been several mutations and changes in the World before and since Noahs Flood Countries in some parts being swallowed up by Earth-quakes which in these Colder parts of the World are never so violent as to be able to subvert twenty miles of dry Land together and to cast it into the Sea by that force In the Northern Countries we have only experience of some general Tremblings of the Earth and where they extend to any length of Ground bring only fear not distraction on the minds of the Inhabitants For when any Earthquake is united and contracted the most that we experience is the removal of some Church or the walking of some little Hill as it hath been seen often in England when as in Hotter Countries whole Cities have been overturned nay swallowed up and for many miles together Houses shattered and demolished This is very easie to be imagined if we consider the nature of Earth-quakes and from what Cause they proceed being very obvious to any that know and consider the AEolopylae how by heat the Wind and Vapours rarified are forced out in great violence for the force is augmented by the strength of the Heat in its several Sallys So likewise must it be with the Earth which in the Bowels of it having many Concavities that contain Vapours the greater the external Heats are that rarifie those Vapours the stronger force will they have if they can find no vent and passage for as the heat is greater so must the passages likewise be more suffocated stopt and choaked up in dry Countries when as in cold Climates the moisture of the Earth keeps open its pores and admits passages for the Vapours agreeable to its proper nature and natural Constitution From hence it may be concluded that such a Neck of Ground that is presumed to have been between Britain and Gaul of that length and breadth could not by any Earthquake be thrown into the Sea What is alleadged out of Ovid will make nothing material to our purpose He brings Pythagoras whose Soul for many years by Transinigration had passed from one to another and therefore must be wondrous well fraught with the Ocular experience of things we only hear of to speak these words Vidi Ego quod quondam fuerat solidissima tellus Esse fretum vidi factas ex aequore terras I saw what once was solid Earth made Sea And dry Land there where Waters us'd to be This I suppose must have been in those daies of Yore in which he saies of himself Panthoides Euphorbus eram May not a very material Objection be offered and say That he did not really distinguish the times of his Transmigrating to Fish and Flesh and so mistook Earth and Water as he was longer or shorter in the Element But to come to the purpose Verstegan to make way for this Opinion quotes Genesis cap. 14. Omnes hi convenerunt in Vallem sylvestrem quae nunc est Mare Salis All these met together in the Wood Valley which is now the Salt Sea So that saies he many places are now Sea which have been formerly dry Land This may be easily granted where there are Reasons to induce one to believe it As the shallowness of the Sea the position of the Ground as we find to be in the Red Sea part of which to this day and a considerable part too at Low Water lieth like a great Vally and Plain of Sand so that it is made a publick Road for Passengers the Waters lying on both sides of them and this I have heard from one who passed through it himself when he Travelled in those parts And this part might be that Wood Vally Moses speaks of which lying so low might easily by degrees be turned into Sea but that all the Red Sea should once be a Wood Vally the depth of it in many places and the steepness of the Shoars do manifestly contradict it Not to say any thing that this very Text may be understood otherwise viz. Quae nunc est Mare salis may in the Hebrew bear Quae nunc est ad Mare salis It is not to be denied there has been several Changes in the World as Sea turned into Land and Land into Sea although I am perswaded this latter to have happened more rarely as will be shewn hereafter As briefly as I can I shall Answer now Verstegan's Reasons and take them in order as they lie The first Reason he gives for the liklyhood of it Is the nearness of the Land between England and France not exceeding Twenty four miles and how one Shoar is exactly answered with a Shoar of like nature as for Example Dover Clyffs are of Flints and Chalk the opposite shoar between Bullen and Calais is of the same substance I suppose he means Vitsan Dover Clyffs are broken and so are they Again Calais lies upon a Flat and an Eaven shoar so does Sandwich which exactly answers it from England therefore it seems very probable saies he that they were once joyned To Answer this I will not question how and by what Rule he makes his Opposites nor enquire so strictly how the Clyffs correspond one with another for it will happen as the line is laid and places at a distance may be thought to be one against another as fancy leads the string I say that neither the nearness of position of the two Promontories nor the similitude of Soyl are sufficient Arguments to
defaced could read no one Sentence through yet could I well perceive in several places the word Prytania If this Book be admitted of any considerable Antiquity as that Humphry Lloyd speaks true that there is no first Radical Letter B in the Welch Tongue but that they were called Prydayns by themselves I believe without doubt the Greeks from this way of the Islanders derived them from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prytania signifying Mettals in their own Language for they knowing that the first Original Name Bretanica came from the Phoenicians in which name the Commodity of the Country Tynn was expressed and finding it corrupted by the Natives into Pretan Prytan or something like it easily making 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wittingly embraced this occasion to derive the Country from a word from their own Language signifying Mettals so that if there be any truth in the Derivation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must of necessity proceed from this Fountain The like may be said of Bretta the Spanish word Earth from whence some have derived it For if there be any kind of Truth delivered by Tradition of such a thing among the Spaniards then it must come from those Spaniards which in former times were called Iberi that is Diggers in Mines and as the word importeth it was derived from the Phoenicians That these Iberi might be employed by the Phoenicians in the Tynn Mines in BRITAIN is not unlike for Tacitus saies That the Complexion of the South part of Britain differs much from the Northern and both from those parts that lie upon France and therefore he is of Opinion that the North parts were Peopled by the Germans the Eastern Coast by the opposite Neighbours the Gauls and the South parts by the Iberi This he gathers by the different Complexion of the People the North Britains being Fair having large Limbs long Yellow hair as the Germans have the South Britains being Swarthy and Curled hair like the Spaniards the Coast lying upon France agreeing in Language Customes and in every thing with the Gauls It is difficult to perswade me that Primitively any part of Britain could be Peopled out of Spain by entire Colonies but rather that it is more natural that this Island being peopled by Colonies descending down the Rhine and filling France Belgium and all that Tract of Ground the Spaniards came to the South part as Miners only being very active and expert in that Trade having plenty of Mines in their own Country as the Roman Histories witness continued unexhausted even to Hannibals daies According to this account it must certainly be vainly supposed of the derivation of Britain from Bretta signifying Earth in Spanish especially when considered this Island once in conjunction with the Continent but from the Spanish Mariners who took Bretta from the Phoenician Brat the first syllable in Bratanac signifying Earth For it will frequently happen that the Truth of things is delivered down though the Reason by which men would evidence them are often vain and frivolous according to the divers apprehensions and conceptions of Men. The time when the Phoenicians came from Tyre and Zidon their own Native Country to discover BRITAIN THE next thing I shall shew is about what time the Phoenicians from Tyre came into the Western Seas and when in all reason it may be supposed they discovered and named this Island for from the Certainty and Antiquity of their Navigations will depend the evidence of our Derivation And I shall also make it appear that the Tyrians before the Trojan War under their Captain and Country man Hercules having Trafficked to all the parts of the Inland Sea at last passed the Streights of Gibraltar having first built several Cities on the Streights and possessed Tartessus Erythea and Gades Islands with great part of the Continent of Spain and Africk lying on the Sea Coasts as many Monuments of their Language and Customes do evidence And that the Western Sea was discovered before the Trojan War we learn from the Ancient Poets Orpheus and Homer with whom nothing is more frequent than those sayings That the EARTH was an Island and encompassed round with the SEA And first Orpheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Sea around the Earth her Water throws And in that Circle does it all inclose Upon this very account was it called AMPHITRITE by Homer its going round the Earth as Herodotus speaks in his fourth Book Homer makes the Sun to arise and set in the Ocean and in the first Mapp of the World as I may call it the Shield of Achilles which Vulcan makes him we find that the Earth was in the midst of the Waters for the SEA was placed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpon the extream borders of the Shield From whence could Orpheus and Homer have this if not by Tradition from the Phoentcians for Colaeus Samius was the first of the Greeks that discovered the Western Ocean and he lived four hundred years after Homer besides he never went farther than Tartessus but contented himself with the discovery of the Streights mouth only and to have seen that Ocean so that we must suppose Homer had it by Tradition from the Phoenicians as Bochartus proves him to have had many Names of Places particularly the ELYSIAN FIELDS in Hispania BETICA Let us hearken also what Strabo saith to this business speaking of the Phoenicians They saies he went beyond HERCULES Pillars and there built Cities even to the middle of Lybia on the Sea Coast a little while after the TROJAN War and Mr. Milton saies that he thinks that ALBION has some relation to these Actions in Lybia quasi Alebion so called by the Phoenicians which in my opinion is the most probable Derivation I ever read of ALBION However we see that the Navigations of the Phoenicians into these Seas were Ancient Herodotus makes mention with wonder of some Phoenicians sent by Nero how they failed round Africa and returned through the Streights of Gibraltar having in their Voyage the Sun on their Right hand part of which story Herodotus will not believe It must needs be true for after they had passed the Tropick of Cancer beyond which Africk runs out many degrees Now this story so innocently told by Herodotus as a Wonder argues the Ignorance of the Greeks and the great Experience the Phoenicians had in those Seas all along the Coast of Africk This I conjecture is the cause why men beyond Reason have drawn their Voyages even to the East Indies under King Solomon and to the West under Hanno and Himilco a Fate we often see that attends Great Actions when over-fond men out of a desire to magnisie things Famous beyond their true proportions inconsiderately stretch them beyond the bounds of Truth and Modesty Having said thus much of the Derivation of BRITANNIA that it came from the Phoenicians Bratanac let us see whether the Graecians might not take the name
Mis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mouth Moccio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Mock Ni 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We. Nyddu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Spin or Weave Porthwys 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Ferry-man Rhechayn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Sneeze or Snort Rhyn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Hill Seban 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soap Sirig 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Silk And thus ad infinitum but let these few Examples suffice to shew the Agreement of the British Language with the Greek which could proceed from no other cause than some Plantation of Greeks in this Island If any object that in the Saxons Language there are many Words likewise which may be referred to the same Original as appears in Mr. Cambden's Remains let them consider first that their Number is not so great also that the Idioms of the two Languages are very different which is not so with the British and Greeks as is visibly seen in their Flexion of words and Aspirations by which Letters they are easily resolvable into others of the same kind Lastly It is to be supposed that the Germans bordering upon the Gauls and alwaies infesting and incroaching upon them even unto Caesars daies when scarcely they could be quieted might either take some Druids in War or else entertain them in times of Peace to learn those Religions and Rites for which they were in much esteem among their Enemies And that which induces me to believe this is because the Saxons a People of Germany in their Tongue as Alfricus writes called a Wise man or Diviner 〈◊〉 which carries with it the very Name and Profession of the Druids they being very much given to the Art of Magick of which the fore-telling of things to come was alwaies an inseparable Companion Besides the Names of things common to all Nations as Fire Air Earth Water Hills Rivers and Vallies the use of which is understood by all Nations and so cannot be supposed to want Appellations in any There are other words which depend upon skill either in Physick Astronomy Geometry Agriculture Architecture Habits Wars Customes and Religions c. which cannot be supposed in any Nation before the use of the thing it self and that particular Science be introduced Where we see two or more Nations agreeing in these Circumstances we may rationally think that the more Learned Nations did not only communicate the things themselves but the Names also with them as we see to this day the Inventions of Arts and Sciences to the great honour of Industrious people preserved entire in the Language of the first Inventors In regard to treat of this Subject fully would be endless we will confine our selves to some particular Words that Mr. Cambden has brought to prove the Gauls and Britains one and the same Nation and will shew that in all probability those very words were introduced by the Greeks as we have shewn in others by the Phoenicians and that in all likelyhood the things themselves as well as Names were brought in by them and therefore the promiscuous use of them in Gaul and Britain argues no more the Nations to have the same Original than the word Astronomy or Geography used by both will prove them Graecians or the word Admiral Turks or Saracens The first I shall instance is Thireos which he collects out of Pausanias by which word the Gauls call their Country Shields and the Britains to this day Carian but I pass over the similitude of these two words which I doubt not but some will count very little Let us consider Thireos without the Termination Pausanias puts upon it and we shall find it to have a far greater relation to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Breast-plate amongst the Greeks and if some shall say that Thireos signifies not a Breast-plate but a Shield let him consider that in the nature of a defence they are the same and although the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Breast-plate might be brought in by the Greeks yet the Gauls and Britains accompanying themselves in Skirmishing and sudden On-sets rather than to set or fixt Battles that which was fastned to their Breasts they thought more convenient to wear loose before than in the nature of a Shield from the weight of which they could easier disengage themselves upon any sudden occasion of retreat and served better or at least as well to desend their Bodies And this I think is the true Original of their Thireos the shape and make of which was without any doubt different from their Neighbours As for the word Carian by which the Britains in our Island and Armorica called their Shields I think it may have more relation to Caran Thunder by reason of the flames on all sides painted on their Shields issuing out like Lightning from Thunder or else from a God much of that name who with their Shields preserved them in War and affrighted their Enemies For the Britains had on their Shields a terrible visage painted like a Gorgon to amaze their Enemies which according to the horrid manner of those Times represented their Deities may very easily be supposed some Tutelar God under whose protection they thought themselves secured in the day of Battle Others there be that derive it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was long in the manner of a Door Circius a vehement Wind so called by the Gauls from its force and violence is derived by Mr. Cambden from Cyroch signifying Violence and doth suppose this Wind was so called by the Gauls and Britains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek signifies to exasperate or make violent The Galathians who spake the same language with the Gauls had a little Shrub which they called Coceus by which they dyed Scarlet and the Britains called this Colour Coch Now as I believe the use of Dying so this colour also of highest estimation among the Greeks was brought by them into these Parts for it is manifest they called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is very easie to imagine that when the Britains and Gauls found the use of this Herb they might give it the name of Coch from the tincture it produced Petoritum Festus saies was a Chariot used in Gaul so called from its four Wheels the name whereof is manifestly Greek for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Four in the AEolick Dialect And no doubt but the Britains and Gauls as they had the use of these Chariots from Greece so did they retain their Names in the Language of the Inventors The same I have shewn before in another place of Pempedula dercom a Ratis to which may be added the Gauls Glico marga and the Britains Gluys marl White Marble from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 white Tripitia of the Gauls and Tribet of the Britains a three-foot Stool from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gaulish Phanarat and Arat of the Britains a Plow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Greeks the same thing Rodanus a swift
more I could name had I time besides many Usages and Customes in England which participate of both Languages alike To instance in the Compounds of Iavel a British word signifying a Tenure among the Welch we find Gavel-kind Sand-Gavel Gavel Oat Swine-Gavel and many others Why therefore may not Ludgate be Luds-Gate although it hath both Languages mixt in it Let us hear therefore Verstegan's ingenious Derivation Ludgate saith he is as much as to say Leodgate or the Peoples-Gate Leod signifying People Here Mr. Sheringham asks him but a reasonable question What did the People pass only through this Gate and the Bards and Druids through the other only And I may demand of him also upon what grounds he supposeth the Concourse of People to have been greater through this Gate than any other Indeed since the Suburbs have been built and increased above the greatness of the City and since his MAJESTY and the late Kings of England for many successions have been pleased to live in the Western parts of them the Trade by necessity hath been drawn into these quarters and so Ludgate hath been made the greatest Thorow-fare but before the Suburbs were built or before they were brought into Credit by his MAJESTIES Royal Person and Court or when the Kings of England lived in the City it self How came Ludgate to be the Gate of the People more than of the rest Neither is Lelands Opinion any thing more to be embraced who calleth it Fludgate from the little Rivolet running beneath it It is a thousand pities for the sake of this invention that the Gate was not built upon the Rivulet but now as the case standeth this most miserable Derivation is not to be helped out but by a faith that is able to remove Mountains Let therefore King Lud enjoy the Honour of that Structure whose very mute Statue as Mr. Sheringham saith seems to call out against those who would deprive him of it But besides these two Magnificent Works the Wall and the Gate this Prince is said to have taken such exceeding delight in this City that he built himself a Palace not far from Ludgate supposed by some to have been in the place where the Bishop of Londons Palace stood Others think at Bernards Castle he is thought to have built a Temple also not far from his Court where St. Pauls Cathedral afterwards stood and by these great Works and his continual residence in that City the name of Troy-novant was changed into London or Lundain that is the residency of King Lud. The British Histories write that the changing the name from Troy-novant into Lundain was the cause of great dissension between King Lud and a bold Commander of those times Nennius who eagerly opposed this Innovation whereby the Memory of Troy which so long bad been preserved would be utterly abolished But this story is very much suspected of late to have been altogether Fabulous and there are other Derivations given of the Name of that most Famous City Erasmus brings it from a City in Rhodes called Lindus but this is rejected by Mr. Cambden who in the place of it puts down two Conjectures The first is That seeing the Britains called any place fenced with Trees a Town or City which they expressed by the word Lihwn that this City by way of Excellence might be named the Lihwn and afterwards by corruption London But the second is more probable That it was called London from Lihong signifying in the British Tongue a Ship and Dinas in the same Language a City so that it is as much as the City of Ships And to confirm this Opinion he proves that it was called Anciently Longidinium and by an Old British Bard Lihong-Porth that is a Harbour of Ships In my thoughts this seems to be the truest Etymologie of that most honourable City which in all Ages hath been a place of great Traffick and Commerce with the whole World and by the convenience of its Scituation upon so Navigable a River can receive Ships of great Burthen and in great Multitudes so that the Masts of them appear to be what the Britains called Llhwun namely Woods and Forrests As concerning the Name of TROY-Novant by which this City is supposed to have formerly been called because I am now taking my leave of the British History and am come to the time of the Romans I will freely put down my Conjecture Nant in the British Tongue or Novant for they are both one as Mr. Cambden shews signifies a Valley and Cre Cri or Cra a City and both taken from the Phoenicians as I have shewn by several Places in Cornwal Crinovant therefore is as much as the City of the Vallies for the People who were under the subjection of this City lived Low upon the River Thames and the whole Region in a manner lay in a Valley so that they may be supposed to have been called as other places have been upon the same account Noantes Novantes or Nantuates and this City Crinovant or the City of the Novantes the similitude of which Name as I have shewn in another place gave occasion to those who began the Trojan Original to call it Troy-novant or the New-Troy King LUD after he had Reigned eleven years and was Interr'd in his Temple near Ludgate left behind him two Sons Androgeus and Theomantius Com. Pal. saith that this Lud was Sir-named Immanuentius and was slain by his Brother Cassibelan at Troy-novant and that his eldest Son Androgeus was Sir-named Mandubratius and was the same Prince of the Trinobantes whom we find in Caesar's Commentaries to have sled into Gallia and to have put himself under the protection of Caesar. Of this Mandubratius I shall have occasion to speak in the History of the Romans in this Island whom we shall find Invading it in the next Kings Reign called cassibelanus And seeing now we are come to the Times of the Roman Histories the Authority of which is unquestionable I shall faithfully Collect the Government of Britain under their Emperours from the Latin Writers themselves yet not altogether so as to neglect absolutely the British Histories in the Lives of their Kings and the Circumstances of their Government This I do because that the Histories of the Romans concerning this Island as their Government in it is often broke off and interrupted and those Breaches are supplied by the continuance of the British Succession but I shall place the Roman History in the first place as infinitely surpassing the British in its Authority and all along the British History shall be set under it as attending only and subservient to it THE NAMES OF THE Roman Emperours WHO GOVERNED THIS ISLAND FROM The first Invasion thereof by Julius Caesar until it was quitted of the Roman Jurisdiction by Honorius immediately before the Entrance of the Saxons AND A Catalogue of the Lieutenants employed by them JULIUS CAESAR The first Invader of the Britains after whose Second
all taken Prisoners The Silures made good use of this good success and in scornful manner sent about the Captives to the Neighbouring States as Presents at once revenging themselves on the Romans and encouraging others to assist them in their Revolt by making them partake of the guilt And that these Captives might be more acceptable they sent along with them much spoil by all which Arts they procured many to declare for them Ostorius now tired out with so vexatious an Enemy and sensible how he lost daily in his Reputation died for very anguish and grief the Britains triumphing that although no particular Fight yet the adverse War had taken off so considerable a Commander Caesar hearing of the death of his Lieutenant immediately chooses AULUS DIDIUS to succeed him giving him Orders to hasten to his Command the Affairs of Britain being in that tottering condition that they wanted a speedy Governour He came not so soon hither but that before his Arrival a Legion under Manlius Valens met with an unlucky and disasterous Fight The losses on the Roman side though great enough yet were higher reported by the Silures partly to hearten their new Allies and partly to discourage the new Governour But he made better use of it and in his Letters to Rome raising the Defeat much higher thinking thereby that if he should quell the Britains the Honour would be greater and the Disgrace less if he failed THE LIFE OF CLAUDIUS ABOUT this time died CLAUDIUS the first Emperour that subdued this Island and reduced it into the nature of a Province much celebrated for his British Conquests the only honour of his Reign but far happier in the choice of worthy Commanders than his own Conduct The calamity of Britain was so much the more to be lamented in that it stooped to a Prince of very small Endowments and yet worshipped him as a God whom Historians can scarce allow to be a Man For as he was desirous of Glory which in him could rather be called Instinct than Vertue so was he withal so dull and stupid that in his Child-hood he was the grief of all his Parents and in his riper years the Laughing-stock of Galigula and the sport of the whole Court. After his Inauguration which was attended with odd circumstances of folly although Majesty covered his face yet through all even then were his defects visible They adored him most whose approaches were at greater distance and though he awed the World yet was he made a Property to his Wives and Domesticks After thirteen years swaying rather holding the Scepter he was poysoned by his Wife Agrippina and whilest the Romans were employed in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or making him a God there were others no less busie in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or conversion into a Mushrome her beloved but fatal Diet. But one Action of his is not to be omitted He abolished the Religion of the Druids throughout all Gallia the exercise whereof for its bloody Rites and Ceremonies had been only banished the City by Augustus And no doubt he would have done the same through Britain had the success of his Arms been as great here towards the end of his Reign as the beginning In the time of this Emperour there served in Britain three Legions viz. the second Legion Augusta the ninth Legion Hispaniensis and the fourteenth named Gemina Martia Victrix NERO. NERO succeeded in the Empire a Prince idle and dissolute he continued Didius in his employment but afterwards was minded to withdraw all his Forces from Britain and to dismantle the Country but shame deterred him and a fear least by that means he should seem to dislike the Counsels of Claudius which at that time were very popular Didius was well stricken in years and therefore better fitted for the present Affairs which required rather a Cautious than an Active Commander and so we find him for having in some measure put a stop to the Incursions of the Silures and cooped them up within their bounds he set himself altogether to secure what his Predecessors Plautius and Ostorius had gained But least it might be said he did nothing in the Island he built here and there a few Garrisons higher in the Country And now there brake out a dissension among the Britains which continued for many years for it seemeth by Tacitus who relateth it entirely in two distinct places that it began under this Didius and lasted to the daies of Vespasian and was the occasion of much vexation to the Romans during their Civil Wars with Galba Otho and Vitellius The occasion and progress of it I will set down together although it was the business of many years following with the same Reasons for so doing that Tacitus gives for fear least if told in parcels it would not be so well fitted for memory After Caratacus had been taken there was none in the whole Island that was thought equal in Arms to VENUTIUS a Prince of the Brigantes He was by nature fierce and by inclination a most mortal hater even of the name of a Roman But this his Austereness to them was something allayed by his marriage with Cartismandua a Queen of great power and authority and a constant Favouress of the Roman Interest not only to oblige her the more he dissembled his hatred to the Romans totally closed with them and so submitted to their Protection But nothing could engage the heart of treacherous Cartismandua but she who had betrayed her Country proved false to her Lord and Husband forsaking him and descending to the embraces of of Vellocatus his Groom whom afterwards she made Partner of her Bed and Kingdom Venutius deeply touched with this open Injury raised Forces against her and her Paramour and first the War continued between them only the Good will of the Country being on Venutius his side and on hers Lust treachery and deceit This one would have thought was a very unequal match and yet it held up long on both sides for Cartismandua by usual arts and practices had trained and got into her possession the Brother and near Relations of Venutius which for some time strengthned her Party having so many of the Royal Family at her disposal But the People fearing the cruelty of her nature that in time she might do Violence to them and jealous to be brought under the uncomely subjection of a Woman the Male Issue being extinct unanimously declared in favour of Venutius and for the liberty of his Brother and Relations And now there seemed nothing could hinder the punishment of her Adulteries but the Interposition of the Romans And Venutius perceiving them to draw together and knowing well the Obligations that Queen had done them in betraying Caratacus and adorning the Triumph of Claudius kept a jealous eye over them and found that they held secret Intelligence with her and seemed to defer the owning of her Cause only till greater strength should arrive This
he resolves to prevent in time and therefore with what Forces he had he set furiously on those Cohorts who were already assembled and at the first charge made great slaughter of them and so presently with some losses retired There was a Legion coming to joyn with them under the Conduct of Caesius Nasica for Didius was old and did all by Deputies Venutius advised of this resolves to be before hand with him meets them in their Journey sets upon them and with the like success retreated Cartismandua now reduced to the greatest extremities thought of nothing but securing her Person by escape to that end she sent to the Romans for a Guard which being granted to her through many Skirmishes and great difficulties got up to her and with much adoe rescued her but the Kingdom was left to Venutius and the War to the Romans to manage Cartismandua as appeareth by Tacitus sheltered her self for a long time under the protection of the Romans bereaft of her Kingdom and in vain expecting assistance from them who either could not or were unwilling to engage too deeply in her Quarrel for it may be more than conjectured out of the same Author that the Romans did yield to Venutius the quiet possession of the Kingdom and would never have molested him could he have but have forgotten that sensible Injury of theirs in interposing their Authority in his domestick Affairs the maintaining the Rebellion of an Adulteress and the open protecting of her Such little favour found she with those persons whom she thought she had so infinitely engaged so that we may leave her like a Strumpet following of the Camp hated by the Britains and without question derided and despised by the generous Romans And no doubt she proved the burthen and clog of their Affairs for in their difficulties during the Civil Wars of Rome under the three succeeding Emperours she was the hated cause that drew the Arms of Venutius upon them VERANIUS a Propetor succeeded Didius a rigid and strict Commander nd perhaps the loose discipline of the Romans under his Aged Predecessor required in him more than ordinary Severity He found at his arrival things in no good posture great slaughter had been made of the Romans which he endeavoured to revenge on the Silures but having made a few inroads into their Country he was prevented by death from proceeding any further leaving this behind him either out of flattery to his Master Nero or insight into the Country that in two years had he lived he would have conquered it all PAULINUS SUETONIUS next obtained the Province who was esteemed a Souldier inferiour to none of his time for two years together he reigned prosperously subduing many Nations and fortifying what he had got with new Garrisons Encouraged with this success and having no small thoughts within him for he was emulous of the glory of Corbalo a Souldier of great reputation in that Age he began to think of new Islands to Conquer Mona or Anglesey at that time was very populous from the concourse of people that fled thither for security and a place of no small annoyance to the Romans for it administred great assistance to the Britains upon all their occasions in their Revolts To Invade this he first built flat-bottomed Boats to carry over his Foot the Horse followed either upon the flats and shallows or else where it was deeper swam it Upon the Shoar slood ready to receive them a strange medly of an Army supposed of Men Women and Priests the Men were well Armed and stood thick the Women and Priests ran up and down after the manner of Furies the former with their Hair ruffled about their ears and in black Garments and the Druids carried Torches before them and with their hands lifted up to heavan poured forth direful Execrations The Romans astonisht at the novelty of the sight stood still as Stocks not being able to stir a foot though receiving many wounds At last a wakened and encouraged by their General and animating one another not to fear a rout of Mad-women and Lunaticks they bore on the Standards trampled down all before them and ran Men and Torches on a heap together Then he placed Garrisons on the Conquered cutting down the Groves consecrated to their bloody Superstition for they held it lawful to sacrifice Captives and to consult their Gods by prying into the Entrails of men But whilst he was busie in this Island his absenoe gave occasion to a general Revolt of the Britains many sore grievances were complained of among which these were reckoned as the chief Prasutagus King of the lceni having for many years hoorded up great store of Wealth to secure it to his two Daughters at his death made Caesar Co-heir with them not doubting but by that signal Testimony of his good will to the Emperour he should preserve his Family from Oppression and his Daughters from dishonour It fell out quite contrary for under pretence of taking possession of the Emperours share his Kingdom was laid waste and robbed by the Centurions and his House ransackt throughout by the ravenous Collectors who behaved themselves with all the licentiousness of Conquerors his Wife Boadicia they whipt her two Daughters ravished c. as if the whole Kingdom by Testament had been left to them The Chiefest of the lceni were dispossest of their ancient Inheritances and the Royal Family turned out and used as Slaves As these unsufferable Insolencies were the cause of the Revolt of the Iceni so the Trinobantes wanted not matter of complaint especially against the Veterans whom they hated with a mortal hatred For they being made a new Colony at Camalodunum now Malden in Essex they violently thrust out the Inhabitants from their Houses seized their Lands and Estates insulting over them as Captives and Slaves anddomineering like Lords in their lawful Possessions The other Souldiers likewise complied with the Veterans and encouraged them in their Licentious proceedings being of the fame Gang and out of hopes hereafter to enjoy the same Liberty The Temple dedicated to Claudius was cause also of great heart-burnings they lookt upon it as the monument and badge of their eternal Servitude and the Priests therein officiating under the pretence of Religious offerings and dues grievously extorted from the People and Catus Decianus the Procurator or Receiver of Tribute renewed the consiscation of their Goods and though they pleaded the remitment thereof by Claudius and a Temple for that purpose erected to his Clemency yet with great Injustice he over-ruled them And which was a more general Oppression Seneca whom one would think a Saint in his Writings having drawn in the Britains to take of him vast sums of mony to the value of 1000000 l. sterling upon promise of easie Loan and to take their own time for the payment on a sudden called it all in at once and that with great violence and extortion The Britains therefore meeting together discoursed their
called in the British and Scotch Tongue Phightiaid a Warlike and fierce Nation and to make up their terrible Character they were Scythians by descent and near Kinsmen at least to the Gothes and as some think the Off-spring of the Nation of the Agathyrses a Race of painted Cannibals setting forth from their Native Country or as some write from Sweden or Norway With these most excellent endowments as Pirates and Rovers they arrived on the Coast of Ireland where they met with their Brethren the Scots who then inhabited that Island who easily understood their Language as being themselves of Scythian extraction Having scarce landed their Forces they required Places to inhabit but the Scots who well understood the stomach of their Country-men and had but just now given over themselves to eat one another so diverted and shifted themoff with telling them the pleasures of Britain and the plenty thereof I wonder they should omit their Painting also The Picts hoysting up Sail made for this blessed Island little dreaming of the warm entertainment they were to receive for the Scots had laid the sairest side outwards and concealed the Courage and Numbers of the Britains When they had arrived upon the North of this Island finding there but few Inhabitants they began to waste wide and forrage all those Tracts which Nature it self had sufficiently laid desolate King Marius informed of the insolent Behaviour of these Strangers levies Forces and with speedy Marches hastned into the North and there gave them Battle The success was so great on the Britains side that the Picts were totally discomfited many slain among whom was their Leader Rodorick and the rest all taken Prisoners to whom King Marius gave license to inhabit the Northern part of Scotland called Cattness a cold and Mountainous Country They had not long lived there but they began to think of warm Bed-fellows and to that purpose sent unto the Britains for Wives but their Suit being there entertained with scorn they applied themselves to the Scots who granted them their Daughters upon this condition That if the Male Issue of the King should fail then the next Heir on the Womans side should succeed in the Kingdom which Ordinance ever after was observed among them and this was the cause of the great Union of both these Nations This Victory of King Marius against the Picts was obtained at Stanes-moor in Westmoreland and from his name was the Country called Westmaria But that which seemeth to give some credit to this Relation was this Inscription found in Carlile MARII VICTORIAE of which the Reverend Bishop Usher writes thus Although the British History in many things is found faulty yet the testimony of the Inscription of Marius his Victory is not altogether to be slighted For before Jeofferies Translation an Author much Graver William of Malmsbury writeth of it in this manner In the City Luguballia commonly called Carlile there is seen a Dining Room built of Stone and arched with Vaults which neither the force of Weather nor Fire on purpose set to it could scatter or destroy And on the Fore-front of it was this Inscription MARII VICTORIAE that is To the Victory of Marius Mr. Cambden who draws all Antiquities to the Romans saith That another making mention of this Stone who that other is he tells us not saith It was not inscribed Marii Victoriae but Marti Victori and this he saith may better content some and seemeth to come nearer to Truth But however it may please some vet it is absolutely against the meaning of Malmsbury who immediately adds What this Inscription should mean I know not unless part of the Cimbri should inhabit these Places after they were driven out of Italy by Marius the Consul of whom Ranulphus maketh mention in his Polycronicon This is Malmsbury's guess as being certain it was Marii Victoriae not Marti Victori and having never seen the British History he gave it to that Consul rather than no body little thinking how improbable it was that a Nation driven from its Country should raise Trophies to their Conquerour But if it must be Marii Victoriae Mr. Cambden hath a Roman of that name to fix it upon namely MARIUS who was proclaimed Emperour against Gallienus a Man of wonderful strength insomuch that it was written of him That he had no Veins in his Fingers but all Sinews saith Mr. Cambden but who they are he again nameth not and attributes this Inscription to him and so let it be for what Victory could ever slip from the hands of so nervous a Person King Marius died in the year of Grace 132 and was Interr'd at Carlile he left the Kingdom to his Son Coyll COYLL in his youth had been educated at Rome where he employed his time in learning the Sciences and the discipline of War He loved the Romans and was by them highly esteemed and honoured so that paying his Tribute and receiving their Protection he filled out a long just and peaceable Reign governing Britain 54 years to the fifth year of Commodus the Emperour when we shall hear of his Son LUCIUS the first Christian Prince of the British Line till whose daies the British Histories are silent there being nothing else memorable in the life of this Coyll save that some ascribe to him the building of Colchester in Essex which work others give to a later Coyll which reigned next after Asclepeodotuis THE Roman History HADRIAN having called away Julius Severus as likewise Priscus Licinius both Governours in Britain to subdue the Jews who were then in Rebellion it will not be amiss to fill out the remainder of this Emperours Reign with a short account of his Atchievments against that Nation seeing they were performed by Men whose experience in War was gained in our British Island The Jews a stubborn People and sick of the Roman yoak as who daily expected a glorious Messiah and were impatient of his coming at last of themselves took Arms in the Eighteenth year of Hadrian and began a dangerous Rebellion But Hadrian raising great Forces and electing his choicest Generals to Command them soon put a stop to their Fury who in the heat of the Revolt spared neither Roman nor Christian. And to revenge their Insolence besides an infinite number of them slain and tortured their City Jerusalem was razed to the ground themselves utterly banisht and made unlawful for them to look towards that City or their Native Soyl. Besides where Jerusalem had stood although not upon the same Foundations he built a new City calling it after his own name AELIA upon the Gate whereof that leadeth to Bethlehem that the Jews even in disguise might be kept as much as might be from visiting it he caused a Swine to be engraven a Beast which he had learnt by their Law was accounted the most unclean and of all others most abominable He was favourable to the Christians forbidding by Publick Edict the Persecution against them moved as some
extendeth or the Mediterranean Gulf doth reach Neither are we ignorant although through fear of You that Infection spread through the bowels of Britain only and proceeded no farther with what rage it might have advanced it self elsewhere if it could have been assured of means to have ranged abroad so far as it desired for it was bounded in by no border of Mountain or River which by Garrisons appointed may be guarded and defended but was as free as the Ships themselves and might notwithstanding we have your Valour and Fortune to relieve us be continually at our elbows to affright us so far as either Sea reacheth or Wind bloweth For that incredible boldness and undeserved success of a few silly Captive Franks in the daies of PROBUS the Emperour came to our remembrance who conveying away certain Vessels from the Coast of Pontus wasted both Greece and Asia and not without great hurt and damage coasting upon Lybia at length took the City Saragose in Sicily a Port-Town in times past highly renowned for Victories at Sea and afterwards passing the Streights of Gibraltar came into the Ocean and so with the Fortunate success of many rash and presumptuous Attempts plainly shewed that nothing can be safe from the desperate boldness of Pirates wherever Ships can touch and have success So therefore by this Your Victory not Britain alone is delivered from Bondage but to all Nations safety is restored which might by the use of the Seas come to as great Perils in time of War as to gain of Commodities in time of Peace Now Spain to pass over the Coast of Gallia with her shoars almost in sight is in security Now Italy now Africk now all Nations even to the Fens of Maeotis are void of perpetual Cares neither are they less joyful the fear of Danger being taken away which to feel as yet necessity had not brought them but they rejoyce so much the more for this that by the direction of Your providence and the powerful concurrence of Your fortune so great a combination of Sea-men is broken their quarters beat up and Britain it self which had given harbour and protection to so long a Conspiracy was made sensible at last of your Victory by her restitution to peace and quietness Not without good cause therefore immediately when You her long wished Revenger and Deliverer was arrived Your Majesty was met with great Triumph and the Britains full of unspeakable Joy ran forth and presented themselves before you with their Wives and Children adoring not only your self whom they esteemed as one descended from Heaven but even the sails and tacklings of that Ship which had brought your Divine Presence on their Shoars And as soon as You had set foot on Land they were ready to prostrate themselves before you that you might as it were walk over the Necks of them who desired you above all things to do it Nor was it a wonder they were so Joyful seeing after their miserable Captivity so many years continued after so long abusing their Wives and the enslaving of their Children at length were they reitored to Liberty at length made Romans at length refreshed with the true light of the Imperial Rule and Government For besides the same of your Clemency and Goodness which was sounded forth by all Nations in Your Countenance Caesar they visibly read the Characters of all Vertues in your Face Gravity in your Eyes Mildness in your Ruddy complexion Bashfulness in your words Justice all which things as by Regard they acknowledged so with shouts of Joy they signified aloud To You they bound themselves by Vow to You they bound their Children yea and to your Children they devoted all the posterity of their Race and Off-spring We truly O perpetual Parents and Lords of Mankind implore this of the Immortal Gods with most earnest supplication and hearty prayer That our Children and their Children and such as shall spring from their Loyns for ever may be dedicated unto You and to those whom you now bring up or shall bring up bereafter For what greater happiness can we wish to them that shall succeed us than to be made partakers of that Felicity which at present we our selves enjoy The Roman Common-wealth doth now intirely possess in Peace and Union whatever formerly at sundry times and in scattered parcels belonged to it and that huge and vast Power which with its own burthen was sunk and riven asunder is now again closely compacted and joyned together by the sure ligaments of the Imperial Government For there is no part of the Earth or Region under Heaven but is either quieted by Fear subdued by Force or else won by Clemency Is there any thing else remaining behind to which the power and ambition of Man can extend beyond the Ocean what is there more than Britain which is so recovered by You that those Nations also adjoyning to it are subject to your Commands There is no occasion to invite you further except the ends of the Ocean which Nature forbiddeth should be sought for All is Yours Most Invincible Princes that is accounted worthy of you hence it proceedeth that you may equally provide for all since all is in your Majesties possession And therefore as heretofore Most Excellent Emperour DIOCLESIAN by Your appointment Asia supplied the Desert places of Thracia with Inhabitants transplanted thither as afterwards Most Excellent Emperour MAXIMIAN by Your orders the Franks at length brought to a pleasant subjection and reduced to Laws have Peopled and manured the empty possessions of the Nervians and the Neighbourhood of Trier so now by your Victories Invincible Constantius Caesar whatsoever lay vacant about Amiens Beavois Trois and Langres begins to flourish with Inhabitants of sundry Nations Moreover Your most loyal City of Autun for whose sake I have a peculiar cause to rejoyce by means of this glorious Victory in Britain hath received many and divers Artificers of whom these Provinces abounded and now by their Workmanship the same City riseth up by repairing her ancient Houses and restoring her publick Buildings and Temples so that now she accounteth her Ancient and friendly Incorporation with Rome renewed with advantage and that she hath You for her Founder SOME OBSERVATIONS Out of the fore-going PANEGYRICK THis is the sum and substance of that Panegyrick inticuled to MAXIMIAN out of which the History of the Wars against Carausius and Alectus is gathered I need not repeat those several Expressions therein which evidently set forth the considerable Power of this Nation united together though under Usurpers their dreadful Preparations by Sea which not only gave Alarums to Spain Gallia and Africk but even to Italy it self and as far as the Mediterranean extended The subduing of these Rebels was esteemed a Victory in which the power and strength of the whole Empire was engaged and that action of Constantius in firing of his Ships at his landing plainly shewed that he reckoned himself fighting for the last stake So
reported to have been kill'd by a Captain of his Brother Constans near to the City Aquileia in Italy CONSTANS CONSTANS the second Son of Constantine the Great after the death of his Brother puffed up with the Victory seized Britain and the rest of the Provinces into his own hands and with his younger Brother Constantius came into the Island in the dead of Winter Hereupon Julius Firmicus not that Pagan Astrologer but the Christian speaketh in this wise to them Ye have in the Winter time a thing that never was done before nor shall be again subdued under your Oars the swelling and raging Billows of the British Ocean The Waves now of the Sea unto this time well near unknown to us have trembled and the Britains were sore afraid to see the unexpected face of the Emperour What would ye more The very Elements as vanquisht have given place to your Vertues This Constans was he who called a Counsel to Sardica against the Arrians at which were assembled three hundred Bishops and among them the Bishops of Britain who having condemned the Hereticks and establisht the Nicene Creed by their Voices and Judgment approved the Innocency of Athanasius But this Prince being youthful and casting away all care of the Empire and drowned in Pleasures became grievous to the Provincials and nothing acceptable to his Souldiers insomuch that Maxentius Captain of the Jovi and Herculii beset him in a Town called St. Helens as he was hunting and there slew him whereby the Prophesie was fulfilled That he should end his daies in his Grandmothers lap of whom that Town indeed took its name This Castle of St. Helens saith Mr. Speed was scituated among the Taporis a Spanish People under the Pyrenean Mountains and from this murther of his Soveraign Maxentius was therefore called Taporus as his name is found in an old Antiquity of Stone digged up long since at Rome He had a Britain to his Father although born among the Lati a People in France and after the death of Constans usurped the Kingdom of whose fall we shall read in the following Emperour Basingstoak giveth a particular account of the life and death of Constans after this manner He was at first a good Prince and Ruled well but afterwards either through the weakness of Nature or corruptions of his Flatterers of whom I add that all good and well-meaning Princes ought to take care to beware he gave himself over to all Pleasures and Luxury which drawing the Gout upon him made him uneasie morose and peevish by which means he lost the affections of his Souldiers and the love of his Provincials Maxentius was then in the Army a Count of a City in Germany called Augusta Vindelicorum he by the incitement of one Chrestus and Marcellinus when the day was appointed makes a feast to the Souldiers Marcellinus seigning that his Sons Birth-day was to be solemnized when the Company was warm with Wine Maxentius withdraws and putting on the Purple Robe returned again to the Company They who were not privy to this design were nevertheless by the suddenness of the Stratagem forced to comply insomuch that having a good Party about him as he was Robed he hastned to the Palace The Emperour wearied by Hunting his usual diversion was laid upon the Bed but not asleep as they expected so that hearing them enter he escaped to the Temple but in vain for Gaison one of the chief Conspiratours haling him from the Altar slew him The Ingratitude of this Maxentius to his Master is more remarkable in that he was not only his bountiful Prince but had been once his Deliverer For in a Mutiny in Illyricum wherein the Souldiers would have killed him he fled into Constans his arms for refuge and was protected under his Royal Vesture This Maxentius by the British History is made King of this Island and by Basingstoak the successour of Constans although Constantius the younger Brother of Constans succeeded in the West and out-lived this Maxentius Flav. Val. Constantius CONSTANS thus treacherously made away by Maxentius the Western Empire by Right fell unto CONSTANTIUS his younger Brother but Maxentius had possest himself of France and drawn the Britains to side with him and so for three years bore up stiffly against Constantius The success at first was various on both sides but at last the heat of the Revolt being qualified and the Spirit spent and Constantius still growing faster upon him was no longer able to hold up his head that he slew himself at Lions so that the peacable possession of the Province was left to CONSTANTIUS At this time the General of all the War-Forces throughout Britain was Gratianus Sirnamed FUNARIUS so called either from his Trade formerly exercised being a Rope-seller or as others say from his exceeding strength five Souldiers being not able with all their force to wrench a Rope from him he being out of favour with the Emperour because reported to have given entertainment to Maxentius was not only constrained to return home being cashier'd of his Military employment but was also fined by Constantius in the confiscation and loss of his Goods And now a severe Inquisition fell upon Britain to detect those who had adhered to the Party of Maxentius and the Inquisitor sent by Constantius was Paulus a Spaniard Sirnamed CATENA for his severe inflicting of Chains and Manacles upon the accused or as Basingstoak reporteth for his cunning linking his Plots and Devices together Martinus an Aged and worthy Commander was then Vicar of Britain who was much concerned and grieved at the rigid way of his proceedings but whilest he endeavoured to protect others by the cunning of Paulus was himself taken in the snare For this PAULUS having a crafty and subtle head was sent hither to search out such Persons who had sided in the Conspiracy with Maxentius insomuch for the desire of gain after he had patched and pieced many faults of some together whether the Persons were guilty or not he regarded not he seized all their Estates and Fortunes and so vigorously proceeded to spoil and undoe many imprisoning the Free-born and tormenting them with Chains and Fetters such base and unworthy Acts being committed by him in the daies of Constantius as these branded the whole Emperours Reign with disgrace and scandal Paulus perceiving his trade decayed by means of the Vicar MARTINUS endeavoured to carry him away Prisoner with divers others before the Emperours Counsel for which cause Martinus endeavoured to stab him but missing his pass immediately with the same weapon became his own Executioner which loss by many was much commiserated for as he was a Man honest he deserved great Reputation Paulus after he had sufficiently stained himself with Innocent blood returned to the Princes Court against whose coming with Prisoners Racks Drags Tortures and Executioners were prepared so that many of them were proscribed and outlawed some banished and others died by the Sword Did not
assistance of the Romans first having tried what they could do by freeing themselves from Forreign Yoak grown as weary of their Liberty as they had been formerly of Bondage sent unto Honorius humbly craving his Protection to which Message they received no other answer but in Words by which he exhorted them to stand upon their own Guard and so quitted them of the Roman Jurisdiction Thus ended this famous Empire of the Romans first in Britain and not long after in Italy it self having born chief sway in this Island though never wholly conquered nor at one time intirely possest for the space of four hundred sixty two years if we account from the first arrival of Julius Caesar to the taking of Rome by Alarick in which year Honorius wrote those Letters of Discharge Britain thus deserted by the Romans was left unable to defend it self having all the flower and choice of her Youth drawn out to serve in the Roman Garrisons abroad whilest others had forsaken their Country to follow the Ambition of such Tyrants whom they had headily advanced to the Purple Robe and having Possessions given them in Gaul never returned so that before I proceed to set down the Calamities of the Britains when left to themselves and their own Counsels it will not be amiss to shew how from time to time the Romans drew out their Youth and what numbers attended the Tyrants which were so frequently advanced in the latter daies of the Empire when there was no end of their Levies out of Britain To begin with the Romans first Trebellius Maximus transported into Germany a great number of British Souldiers to make good the Faction of Vitellius against Otho Honorius Flaccus in the same cause sent out eight thousand chosen Souldiers Albinus in the bloody Battle at Lyons against Severus the Emperour lost fifty thousand Men most of which were of the British Cavalry This loss laid the Province naked and left it open to the Insolence and Violence of Forreign Invaders and Constantine the Great as Malmsbury reporteth carried out such numbers with him that to their Assistance especially he owed his Victories and the Empire of the whole World Afterwards he planted them on the West-coast of France called Armorica next drawing out those Souldiers who lay for the defence of the Marshes and Fronteirs he seated them in other parts of the Continent carried some into the East and instead of those Living-strengths he built Castles and Forts which seized by the Enemy proved continual annoyances to the Britains Maximus the Tyrant who slew Gratian the Emperour levied vast numbers of Britains and transported them into Gaul and Ninnius writeth that he would not send them home again but gave unto them many Countries even from the Pool or Meer which lieth above Mount Jovis unto the City that is called Cantguic and unto Curcocchidient And he that annexed brief Notes unto Ninnius reporteth how truly I cannot tel the Armorican Britains which are beyond Sea attending Maximus in his Expedition when they could not return wasted the Western-coasts of Gaul and when they had married their Wives and Daughters cut out all their Tongues for fear lest the succeeding Progeny should learn their Mother Language whereupon we call them in our Tongue Lhet vydion that is Half-silent or Tongue-ty'd because they speak confusedly Constantius who was elected only for his Name transported most of the flower and strength of the Britains into Gallia and Spain where in his Quarrel many of them perished and the rest never returned having Seats allotted them in the West of Gaul or else followed the Emperour in his Wars Hence it is that Prosper Aquitanus wrote thus At this instant of time in respect of the decay of the Roman Forces the power and strength also of the Britains was brought low and unable to make resistance For which cause and occasion our Historiographer of Malmsbury speaks thus When the Tyrants had rid the Country of all save half Barbarians none were there either in Towns or Cities but who gave themselves upto Epicurism Britain now forgetting the use and practice of good Arts and wanting assistance of vigorous Youth for a long time lay open to the Mercy of Ravening mouths that confin'd upon her which was evidenced by the Incursions of the Picts and Scots many lost their lives Cities were subverted Villages fired insomuch as all lay naked and low to express the Rage and Fury of merciless Invaders The Islanders in this streight after they had buryed their Wealth much of which hath been since found chose rather to flie unto the Mountain-Country than to stand the hazard of a set Battle purposing after that to go to Rome to request assistance But to little purpose for Valentinian the Third as he was not able to recover either Spain France or Asrick Provinces rent by violence from him so could he not be able to answer their expectation And Gildas for this very cause much pities the dejected case of the Britains For saith he Britain was despoyled of all their Armed-men her Military Forces Governours although cruel they were and of a mighty number of her stout hard-hearted Youths For besides those whom the Tyrant and Usurper Maximus and the last Constantine carried with them it appeareth by ancient inscriptions and the Book called Notitia Provinciarum that these Companies here-under written were employed by the Romans in War dispersed in Parties over their Provinces which exhausted very much the principal fighting men in Britain it self Ala Britannica Milliaria Ala quarta Britonum in AEgypto Cohors prima AElia Britonum Cohors tertia Britonum Cohors septima Britonum Cohors 26 Britonum in Armenia Britanniciani sub Magistro peditum Invicti juniores Britanniciani inter Auxilia Palatina Exculcatores Jun. Britan. Britones cum Magistro Equitum Galliarum Invicti Juniores Britones intra Hispanias Britones Seniores in Illyrico So that it will be no wonder when we shall read the following Calamities and downfall of the Britains that being reduced to so small a number and worn out with the continual Incursions of their Enemies the Picts and Scots deserted by their Ancient Protectours the Romans they were constrained to call in another Nation to their assistance who quickly imposed a Yoak upon them so much the more heavy and grievous than the former inasmuch as the Roman Civility exceeded the Rudeness of the Primitive Saxons But before we proceed to these Relations let us see the British History in the daies of this Honorius THE British History In the Daies of HONORIUS UNTO VORTIGERN Who brought in the SAXONS THE Britains upon dislike to Honorius for that he had slain Stilico who by the report of our Histories did great Service for them chose Marcus for their King but him not found agreeable to their humour they slew and set up Gratianus Municeps in his stead a Britain born but a great Tyrant so that not enduring him above four months they kill'd
have been a mixture of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy therefore they were divided accordingly under the Government of a King Senate and Commonalty the power and prerogative of their KING was First Jus rerum Sacrarum a Right over all Ecclesiastical Affairs to constitute what Religious Orders he pleased and to see that all Sacrifices and their Ceremonies were rightly performed and to offer up in his own Person as being their Pontifex Maximus in case their Wars did not call him aside all Propitiatory Oblations for the appeasing and averting the Anger of the Gods Secondly Legum morumque Patriarum custodiam the preservation and interpretation of all Laws and Customes whatsoever the determining of all Controversies of weight referring all business of smaller consequence to the decision of the Senate yet in case of wrong Judgment reserved to himself a power of otherwise adjudging the Matter as the cause required Thirdly Jus Senatus Comitiorum a power of assembling Senate and People propounding what he thought convenient but first giving his Opinion of it again yet that constantly took place and prevailed most which was confirmed by the Suffrages of the greatest number In the dispose of the Senate or Great Councel of the City was the Publick Treasury and consequently the ordering of the Revenues and Expences of the State the Treasurers themselves having no power unless for the use of the Kings and that of the Consuls afterwards to expend upon any Publick account whatsoever without an especial Order and Decree of Senate Under their cognizance also fell enormous and heinous Crimes committed within the Confines of Italy likewise of protecting and taking into favour any private Person or City of Italy that implored the favour of their assistance Fourthly That Great and Royal Prerogative of sending Embassadours and giving Audience to those of Forreign Princes was solely in the Power of the Senate These Senatours at the sacking of Rome by the Gauls were singly taken for Gods and together by Pyrrhus his Embassadours for so many Kings at an interview Tarquin Sirnamed the Elder was so tender of displeasing them that being presented by the Hetrurians with a Golden Crown and an Ivory Scepter with an Eagle on the top he refused to appear in publick with those Ensigns of Majesty till he had leave from the Senate and People which Custome the succeeding Kings afterwards retained The Election of their Kings and afterwards of the chief Ministers of State the making of Laws concluding on War or Peace was altogether in the Jurisdiction of the People By such Polity these Kings secured themselves from danger of the suspicion of Tyranny and consequently assured and confirmed themselves in the love of their Subjects Neither could the People reasonably desire innovation or change where they were governed by no other Magistrates than of their own choosing where they were obliged to live under no other Laws than of their own making or forced to be engaged to any other Wars than of their own concluding By this kind of Equilibrium of Power was Rome peaceably and happily governed by its first Kings the Royal Prerogative seldom interfering with the Peoples priviledge But Tarquin Sirnamed the Proud overstraining his Prerogative spoiled the harmony and concord of the whole Government the King and People being before like a fifth and eighth that are Unisons strike one and the other shakes that is they were highly concerned in the honour of their King and the King in the loss and sufferings of his people But Tarquin who had seized on the Throne by Violence and Usurpation was resolved to defend it by Rapine and Murther and justifie them too by Insolence though as insupportable as both At his receiving the Title of MAJESTY he seemed to have laid down all his Humanity for after the murthering his Father-in-law over whose dead Corps Tarquinius his Wife commanded her Coach-man to drive at her return from proclaiming her Husband KING he trampled on both Priviledges and People Some he banisht by his Cruelty others through the insupportableness of his Behaviour he committed continual Mafsacres and Butcheries on the Senate and People So that while this Feaver lasted Rome was like the Torrid Zone supposed by the Ancients too hot to be inhabited But the People by the disposition and vertue of their Primitive Laws being too well acquainted with Majesty to be made any longer Slaves finding the Kings resolutenets and violent Nature not at all to be moved by their Complaints which were constantly blasted with the odious Name of Rebellion and Treason upon the ravishing the beautiful Lucretia by Tarquin's Son Sextus being animated and headed by Brutus and Collatinus were inraged to that degree of Courage that they began to expostulate their Liberty with their Swords in their hands driving the Tyrant taught by his own Example from the Throne into perpetual banishment teaching Governours what it is to out-live the Affections of their well-meaning Subjects After this they stood up so stiffly for Liberty that though Porsenna King of Hetruria commiserating Tarquin's condition came with a puissant Army to re-instate him in the Roman Throne yet they maintained their cause so gallantly and gave so many signal Testimonies nay miracles of their Valour witness the Actions of Horatius Cocles Mutius Scaevola that Porsenna of a terrible Enemy became a generous Friend and chose rather to make Peace with them although the Victory was well nigh assuredly his own than unjustly oppress so much an injured Vertue That they might the better hereafter stop the Precipice of their future ruine and free themselves from the like Jealousies and Fears they first made it their business to render the word KING as detestable and odious as the power of a Tyrant And the People taking a solemn Oath never to admit Monarchy among them for the future they erected a Government consisting of two Officers chosen out of the Patrioii whom they called CONSULS named so from their Duty not their Power They were two that one might be a stop and check to the Ambition of the other Their Government was Annual that through shortness of time and multiplicity of business they might not have leisure enough to fall in love with the Majesty and Grandeur of their Office supposing they would govern the better when they knew that afterwards they were to live private Men under the Commands of others But Brutus and Collatinus who had been the chief Authors and sticklers in expelling Tarquin were chosen Consuls by the People yet they fearing Tyranny might run in a Blood deposed Collatinus in a short time after for being a kin to Tarquinius Superbus though he was Husband to Lucretia who had been so lately ravisht substituting Valerius Publicola in his place who to oblige and secure the Fears of the People caused his own House to be pulled down because it looked so like a Castle and place of Defence Brute on the other side hearing that there was a plot on foot among the young
agree about the Bargain alledging that the impossibility of Appius his marrying with Verginia the one a Peer the other a Plebeian was the chiefest Cause that put him upon so horrid a piece of Villany The Senate gratiously condescended to a grant of their requests but the People finding that the Nobles scarce would match themselves with the Plebeians and no great probability of the Plebeians mixing their Blood with the Nobles unless by a Decree of Senate they were in as great a possibility of obtaining the great Offices of State as the Nobles thought it convenient now their hand was in to prefer a Bill of being made capable of the Consulship also The Senate at first look'd upon the Demands as too saucy and confident yet found the Denyal to be altogether as dangerous fearing lest they would have recourse to their old refuge of forsaking the City leaving the Senate to be Princes without Subjects by the advice of Claudius took a middle course enacting that there should be six persons appointed to steer the Commonwealth three to be chosen out of the Nobility and three out of the Commonalty whom they termed Tribuni militum Consularis Potestatis allowing them the power of Consuls but at the same time checking their Insolence by denying them the Majesty and Greatness of the Title This form of Government lasted not above seventy eight years the Senate at last decreeing that one Consul should be chosen out of the Nobility another out of the People nay a Citizen whose Vertues could entitle him to it should obtein the Dictatourship making Merits equal with Nobility The People thus sharing with the Nobility in the Government now was the time for busy Heads to lay their ambitious designs and shew the utmost of their skill in feeding the humours of the People Now the Tribunes who at first were chosen as Protectours of the People to preserve their Liberties free from Encroachments and Insolencies of the Nobility did not only justifie their Affronts and Indignities towards the Senate under the notion of upholding the Priviledges of the People but turned the Government quite into a perfect Democracy The affections of the Common People were sway'd now more by flattery and corruption than desert and the Commonwealth lay like a Vessel driven too and fro by the wind of Ambition all good men fearing and the bad wishing when it would split it self on the Rock of a Civil War having nothing to loose expecting to be gainers by the wreck In this juncture up-start Marius and Sylla contending sor the management non aliud discordantis Patriae remedium est quà m ut ab uno regeretur there was no other way of saving a male-contented and seditious Commonwealth than by the committing the Government of it to the unlimited Power of one Person But these men as they were extraordinary valiant so were they beyond all measure cruel delighting rather in blood than in War yet neither it seems thought fit to be Rulers of so large an Empire who took more pleasure in the slaughter and banishment of their fellow-Citizens than in their security unity and welfare at home Marius soon after submitted himself to the forces of Sylla and Fate leaving the world in as great obscurity as he came into it for although afterwards Sylla by decree of Senate was made perpetual Dictator yet of his own accord mildly and weakly resigned it which was the occasion of Caesar's expression Sylla dictare nesciit That Sylla did not understand what it was to be a Dictator The two next that appeared on the Stage were the two greatest Captains in the world i. e. POMPEY and CAESAR who as they had formerly been of the abovesaid Factions so they now began to take up the same Pretences The ground of their Quarrel as is reported was that POMPEY would endure no equal nor CAESAR allow of any superiour i. e. The one would brook no Copartner in the Government the other none to leap into the Saddle before himself Pompey was the Favourite of the Nobility Caesar the peoples Darling the one valued himself by the number of his Conquests the other by the difficulties of his Victories In fine they were Men whom Courage never failed or Fortune frown'd on or deserted They began now to be jealous of one anothers Actions endeavouring the suppression of the contrary Faction as an increase and accomplishment of their happiness Pompey and his Faction made it their business whilest Caesar was employed in the conquest of Transalpine Gaul and Britain to cross all his designs and projects at Rome reflecting on the Counsel given by his Kinsman Sulla He began now vigorously to oppose and obviate the daily increasing Greatness of Caesar who proved too great a Politician and of too resolute a nature to let pass Opportunities which of themselves were apt enough to slip away therefore marching with his Army into Italy he resolved to set his own Forces against Pompey's Power where by his old Success and good Conduct confirming his Reputation Pompey was forced to leave Italy and pass over with his Army into Greece Caesar after he had setled his Affairs in Italy soon after followed him thinking that the shortness of time he allowed him to reinforce his Army would be the surest way of facilitating his Conquest But had Pompey continued his first Resolution of playing the Fabius Cunctator and forbore longer engaging with him Caesars good Fortune could scarce have preserved him and his Army from an absolute Overthrow But Pompey being perswaded more by the importunities and rash Counsels of some of his Followers than by his own Judgment to a resolution of fighting not at all becoming the Age and Wisdom of so great a Captain was totally routed at the Battle of Pharsalia in Thessaly from thence Pompey escaped into AEgypt to his old Friend Ptolomy who instead of repairing his Fortune for some private Reasons of State struck off his Head preferring the favour of the Conquerour before either Generosity or Friendship Caesar as a reward of his Valour seized on the Empire being made by Decree of Senate perpetual Dictator yet at last he was paid home for his bold Attempt receiving in the Senate-house no less than twenty three wounds as a reward of his five years Usurpation For it seems the Romans had enjoyed their Liberty over long and lost it too late to forget it so soon 'T is to be admired that Great Men although they are sometimes fore-told of their destruction by previous signs yet think it a great weakness to credit it and a signal injury to be put in mind of their own Mortality Alexander was forbidden entring Babylon and Caesar fore-warned of coming to the Senate yet the Admonishers by both thought frivolous and vain for having been so long above Fortune in the frequent successes in their Wars they verily thought themselves beyond the reach and malice of Fate But Fortune who had been his good Friend in his life time made
Sacrifice The next was Ara not very high from the ground and this was for the Terrestrial Gods and Coelestial also the Altare only to the Coelestial and these were commonly placed near the Tombs and Sepulchres of the deceased stant manibus Arae When they acted their Comedies they also erected two Ara's that on the right hand being sacred to Apollo that on the left to some Hero or one God or other in whose honour the Play was celebrated in a Tragedy that on the right was consecrated to Bacchus They used when they Sacrificed or solemnly Swore to any thing to hold by those Altars whosoever also on what account soever made his escape hither could not without great impiety be drag'd thence but if it was any great Villany it was lawful to apply fire and so to make him voluntarily to depart or else by shutting the Doors starve him to death and this priviledge was allowed to the Statues of their Princes also Scrobiculus was a furrow or ditch containing an Altar sacred to the Infernal Gods in which they poured the blood of the Beast together with Milk Hony and Wine Of their Military Discipline THE Romans were ever backward or else would fain seem so in bringing an unjust War upon any of their Neighbours many of their Writers affirming all Wars whatsoever if not justly and upon good grounds undertaken to be unlawful By Numa Pompilius therefore were certain Priests constituted whom they called Feciales whose duty it was to put the Senate in mind before they made War with any Confederate Nation seriously to consider Ambition and Interest being laid aside whether the cause of their Quarrel was founded upon Justice and Reason Neither would the Romans although the Injuries they suffered were great and the affronts insupportable do as the French lately in Flanders appear in an hostile manner in the Enemies Country before they had given out some Reason concerning the grounds and occasion of the War they esteeming it neither Honourable nor Just to bring a War with all its sad consequences on a sudden into an Enemies Country before they had tried milder waies for obtaining satisfaction Therefore upon any wrong done them they sent their Feciales or Spiritual Embassadours to the Country of their Oppressours who when they arrived invoked Jupiter and all the Gods to be witness of the Justice of their Cause cursing both themselves and the People of Rome if they came to desire any thing but their Right Whomsoever they met in the Fields or at the Gate of the City they called them as witnesses of the justness of their Complaints then going to the Market-place they declared to the Magistrates the Cause of their Embassie demanding in the name of the Senate and People restitution for Wrongs and Injuries offered to the People of Rome or else a delivery of the Persons that had been the cause of them shewing the unwillingness of the Roman People though for regaining their own to enter into a War with any Nation allowing them thirty three daies to consider the Proposals to which if they received no satisfactory Answer they returned to the Senate telling how they had duly performed their office and their Adversaries obstinately refuseing to deliver up their Right then if they pleased they might lawfully engage themselves in a War against a People that were detested by Mankind for their Insolence and odious for their Perjury to the Gods If the Senate consented to it they returned with a Dart to the borders of their Enemies where in the presence of Three at the least naming the name of the People they were sent against declared in what manner they had exasperated and offended the Romans and therefore the Senate and People of Rome had commanded them to proclaim War against them which here they did having so said they flung a Dart into their Territories which was a sign that War was denounced Peace alwaies was proclaimed by the usual form and Ceremony that followeth One of the Embassadours commissionated by the Senate both sides having concluded on Peace took up a Stone using this form of words If uprightly and without any Mental reservation and deceit I enter into this League let all things prove prosperous and successful to me but if I do or think otherwise I wish I may wheresoever I am all other being safe fall down dead as this Stone falls out of my band and thereupon he cast out of his hand the Stone This manner of Swearing was termed Jurare Jovem lapidem War being proclaimed they generally appointed a sett day place and time for a Muster whither all the Romans that were by reason of their Age fit to bear Arms punctually repaired all above seventeen and under forty six being liable to an Impress The General the better to secure himself of the sidelity Allegiance and love of his Souldiers obliged them singly to an Oath whereby they solemnly swore That in the greatest dangers they would never for sake their Captain or in time of distress desert their Country They swore likewise That they would readily obey and put in execution the Command of their General if the performance of it was not impossible This Oath was termed Sacramentum Militare This publick Muster of the Roman Citizens was yearly appointed and the Souldiers were elected by the Military Tribunes under the Consuls If any Souldier for fear had withdrawn himself and did not appear at the day appointed by the Consul they either imprisoned him or confiscated his Goods or sold him for a Slave intending to deprive him of the Name and priviledges of a Roman for as he had not Courage so was he not accounted worthy to be owned of the Roman Blood If any sudden Uproar or Confusion happened in Italy or Gaul the chief Leader of the Army went to the Capitol bringing from thence two Banners one Red to which the Footmen repaired the other Sea-colour which the Horsemen followed and that the remedy might be as sudden as the disease the Expedition at the uprising one of the eminentest Souldiers in a whole Legion took the Oath as large the rest crying out in order one by one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he swore the same with the first These were called Milites Subitarii or per conjurationem yet if the Tribune suspected the Fidelity of his Souldiers he swore them severally notwithstanding the nearness of the danger and hazard was like to besal them Their Army consisted of Legionary Souldiers and Auxiliaries It was lawful for none to fight in these Legions unless they were Roman Citizens born free by Father and Mother and was inrolled in one of their five Classes Slaves Libertines Old men Boyes and Stage-players c. were never suffered to fight unless some urgent necessity required as for want of number and more speedy expedition At first they received no pay but every one at his own Charges moved thereunto by the love of his Country served the Common-wealth Anno 347
he takes up the Lot which hath the sign of the Cross they shall be innocent that have sworn but if he take up the other then every one of the seven shall make his own Lot that is a Taene made of a Twig and shall sign it with his own mark so distinctly that he and the rest that stand about may know it again to be his This done they shall wrap them all up in a clean Cloth and then lay them on the Altar or Relicks then the Priest if any be present or if not as was said before some innocent Child shall take them one by one from the Altar and as they come demanding at every one whose Lot it is shall deliver it to the true party that knoweth it to be his own he whose Letter is last of all drawn shall be forced to make composition for the Man-slaughter the rest whose Lots came before shall go free Had not this custome by deciding Controversies by Lot been used in a Religious way by the Heathen Saxons the Christians had never brought it into the Church who though they thought it necessary to comply with some Customes which the headiness of those times would not be weaned from yet they never thought fit to advance them to a higher nature so that what was here performed on the Christian Altars was no more than what had been done on the Heathen before the Object only of the worship being changed from Tanfana their God of Lots to the true GOD who knoweth all things Alfur by this name they called their Elves inhabiting Rocks and Caves and the Sacrifices to them were called Alfblot they were supposed not above a cubit long the Goths called them Dwergh and the Saxons Dpeng and Dpeonh from hence we call a little Man a Durgin at this day The chief of these Elves or Fairy's was Mod Sognor the second Durin c. their Nation was divided into Guttels or Trulls and Coballs good and evil Spirits but of this enough We read of another famous Idol among the Saxons named Irman-saul the Original of its name is variously guessed at some would have it written Metmes saul i. e. the Pillar of Hermes or Mercury who appears was worshipped by the Germans Verstegan calls him Ermensewl and as he thinks more rightly Ermesewl as much as to say the Pillar or Stay of the Poor from Saul or Sewl a Pillar and Earm with the Netherlands Arm signifying Poor but this is a more Novel opinion and grounded upon no foundation much like them who will needs have him Mars and Ermensaul to be nothing but Arms-Sawl or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saul Mars his Pillar or the Pillar of Arms. His Effigies represented a Man in Armour in his right hand a Military Engine or Standard bearing a Rose to signifie that as that flower was but of short continuance and no sooner blown than withered so was the event of Battles In his left hand he held a pair of Scales the emblem of War to shew that as one side riseth so the other falleth Upon his Breast he carried a Bear to intimate the inward Courage of mind and on his Shield a Lion to set forth how Valour should be invincible in Onset He was placed in a field of Flowers to intimate that nothing is sweeter to a Souldier than the field strowed with Enemies His Statue was found at Mersburge with this Inscription DUX EGO GENTIS SAXONUM VICTORIAM CER TAM POLLICEOR M E VENERANTIBUS The Inscription being Latin it should seem that it was the Statue of some Hero set up by the Saxons after their acquaintance with the Romans And because the proper name of it is Irmen Saul not Hermes Saul for how came the Germans to be acquainted with the Greek name of Mercury Schedius with great reason guesseth it was the Effigles of Harminius Captain of the Cherusti a Saxon Nation in the daies of Augustus Caesar and that by corruption of time for Harmans Saul it came to be pronounced Irman Saul which alteration is so small and the divise of the Statue agreeth so exactly with the History of Harminius that his opinion seemeth more than probable For never man deserved more to be placed in the number of the Gods than this HARMINIUS who by Roman Writers themselves is stiled The Deliverer of Germany and is confessed to have given the Roman Empire then in its full strength such a blow as made the foundation of it shake for a long time after His History therefore I shall not think impertinent or tedious to deliver because it condubeth to the Illustration of this Monument and to the Honour of our Ancestors who at the first grapling with the Roman Eagles under the Conduct of this Harminius gave them such sensible marks of their power and policy as their Emperour himself at that time nor their Writers after could never dissemble Quinctilius Varus a man of a quiet disposition and easy parts more accustomed to the slow method of Camps than the quick motions of War dull and covetous was Commander of the German Army who thinking the Germans had nothing of Man in them but voice and figure began to cast with himself that whom the Sword could not tame Laws and Jurisdiction might allure and temper With this design having entered the midst of Germany he set up his Courts and Tribunals and drew out the Summer in hearing and determining Causes But they who in the midst of their fierceness had secret reserves of cunning and craft a Nation full of subtilty and deceit now with feigned processes and seeming hot accusations of one another then when the Cause was decided with high prayers of the Roman Justice which ended those Controversies by Hearing which used to be determined by the Sword drew Quinctilius into so great security that he thought himself rather a Judge in the Roman Courts than a General in the midst of Germany Whereupon a young Gentleman of a sudden apprehension and quick wit by name HARMINIUS the Son of Sigimer a Prince of that Country of a lively Countenance and carrying the sparkes of disdain in his eyes who had served formerly under the Romans and attained to the Equestral Order seeing the pride of Quinctilius increase with his security entered into thoughts how he might ease his Nation from that growing Insolence For now the Germans generally began to be weary of Quinctilius who with his Rods and Axes exercised a too arbitrary and lordly power over them wherefore taking into his Conspiracy a few of the chief of his Country namely Liber a Priest of the Catti Segimund the Son of Segestus a Priest of the Cherusci Veromarus Egmarus and his Son Sosithacus Berthorites Theodoricus all Saxon Princes he began to put his designs in execution but he could not carry it so privately but that intelligence was brought to Quinctilius of the design by Segestes the Father of Segimund one of the Conspirators but Quinctilius not
lessened and judging withal that Superiority was due to him not only from that but other Kingdoms from the priority of time wherein Kent was settled taking up Arms began to invade his Neighbours and by open claim to assert the Right of an universal Monarchy But not well weighing the strength of his Neighbours and measuring his own Power rather by the number of his Levies than the goodness of his Men by long peace unaccustomed to War he was miserably baffled by Keaulin King of the West-Saxons an old experienced Souldier who with Cutha his Son leading an Army trained up in Wars and well fledged with Victories obtained against the Britains twice defeated him and at last drove him into his own Territories The first place of Battel is not mentioned that which seemeth to be the last was at Wiphandun wherein two Kentish Earls Oslave and Cnebban lost their lives And this is the first War the Saxons had among themselves since their entring the Island Ethelbert taught by these defeats that the success of War depends not on the eagerness of desire to conquer but the steady management of the means referred the repairing of his losses to a more convenient time and the event proved accordingly for being come to riper years and Keaulin his grand Opposer removed by death in a short time he stretched his Empire over the most considerable parts of the Island all the Kingdoms on this side Humber either by force or composition being brought entire under his obedience And he is worthily reckoned the sixth Monarch of the English men Thus grown great he takes to wife Bertha the French King Chilperick's Daughter whom St. Gregory as will appear in his Epistle writ to her calls Adelberga she was a Christian and by Covenant of Marriage was to enjoy the exercise of her Religion to that end she brought over with her Letard a Bishop under whose care and instructions he daily exercised the Christian Profession The King as yet and all his People continued in the worship of the Saxon Idolatry and whether by the negligence of Letard who perhaps contented himself in the freedom of private devotion or that the King taken up in Wars had not the leasure to examine into their Faith or lastly that God in his infinite wisdom reserved the Conversion of our Nation to other hands certain it is that neither the example of the Queen nor the preaching of Letard have left any tokens or Records of effects proportionable to such advantages as might be expected from an open and sincere Profession St. Gregory in one of his Epistles following highly taxes the negligence of the French Clergy in not taking care of the Saxons Cenversion and Bede out of Gildas laies it to the charge of the British But in what capacity as to Life and Manners they were in to perform so charitable an office take out of Gildas himself as it is most elegantly translated by Mr. Milton Nothing better were the Clergy but at the same pass or rather worse than when the Saxons came first in unlearned unapprehensive yet impudent subtle Prowlers Pastors in name but indeed Wolves intent upon all occasions not to feed the flock but to pamper and well line themselves not called but seizing on the Ministry as a Trade not as a Spiritual charge teaching the People not by sound Doctrine but by evil Example usurping the Chair of Peter but through the blindness of their own Worldly lusts they stumble upon the Seat of Judas deadly haters of truth broachers of lies looking on the poor Christian with eyes of pride and contempt but sawning on the wickedest Rich men without shame great promoters of other mens Alms with their set exhortations but themselves contributing ever least slightly touching the many vices of the Age but preaching without end their own grievances as done to Christ seeking after preferments and degrees in the Church more than after heaven and so gained make it their whole study how to keep them by any tyranny Yet lest they should be thought things of no use in their eminent places they have their nicities and trivial points to keep in awe the superstitious Multitude But in true saving knowledge leave them still as gross and stupid as themselves bunglers at the Scripture nay forbidding and silencing them that know but in Worldly matters practiced Cunning jhisters in that only art and symony Great Clerks and Masters bearing their heads high but their thoughts object and low He taxes them also as gluttonous incontinent and daily drunkards And what shouldst thou expect from these poor Laity So he goes on These beasts all belly shall these amend thee who are themselves laborious in evil doings shalt thou see with their eyes who see right forward nothing but gain leave them rather as bids our Saviour left ye fall both blindfold into the same perdition Are all thus Perhaps not all or not so grossly But what availed it Eli to be himself blameless while he connived at others that were abominable Who of them hath been envied for his better life who of them hath hated to consort with these or withstood their entring the Ministery or endeavoured zealously their casting out Yet some of these perhaps by others are legended for great Saints This was the state of the Church among the Britains scarce likely to convert others who were so much perverted among themselves but whether or no they were in a condition among so much hostility to preach the Gospel of Peace supposing they had men well-meaning thereunto amongst them in a thing so far distant is not easily determinable Certain it is that the Conqueror with less prejudice receives Religion from any than the persons conquered And this might be the cause that notwithstanding the Christian Faith shone round about yet the intire Conversion of the Saxons is owing to the See of Rome which at that time was possessed by GREGORY afterwards Sirnamed the Great and for his upright behaviour in this and other like occasions worthily Cannoniz'd for a Saint Now the first occasions of this great work and the methods by which it proceeded because it hath been of so high concern to our Nation as which still bears influence among us I shall not stick more particularly to relate out of faithful Historians and Ancient Records yet extant The Original motives which induced Gregory to this great undertaking Venerable Bede thus relates as he received it down by tradition The Report goeth that on a certain day when upon the coming of Merchants lately arrived great store of Wares was brought together into the Market-place at Rome for to be sold and many Chapinen flocked together for to buy Gregory also himself among others came thither and saw with other things Boyes set to sale for Bodies fair and white of Countenance sweet and amiable having the Hair also of their head as lovely and beautiful whom when he wistly beheld he demanded as they say from what Country or Land they
were brought Answer was made that they came out of the Isle of Britain the People whereof were as well-favoured to see unto Then he asked again whether those Islanders were Christians or enshared still with the Errors of Paganisin To which it was answered they were Painims but he fetching a long deep sigh from his very heart root Alas for pity quoth he that the foul Fiend and Father of Darkness should be Lord of so bright and lightsom faces and that they who carried such grace in their Countenances should be void of the inward Grace in their hearts and souls Once again he desired to understand by what name their Nation was known They made answer that they were called Angli And well may they be so named quoth he for Angel-like faces they have and meet it is that such should be fellow-heirs with Angels in Heaven But what is the name of that Province from whence these were brought Answer was made that the Inhabitants of the said Province were called DEIRI Deiri quoth he they are indeed De irâ eruti that is delivered from anger and wrath and called to the mercy of Christ. How call you the King of that Province saith he Answer was made that his name was Aelle Then he alluding to the name said that Allelu-jah should be sung in those Parts to the praise of GOD the Creator Coming therefore to the Bishop of the Roman and Apostolical See for himself as yet was not made Bishop he intreated that some Ministers of the Word should be sent into the English Nation by whose means it might be Converted to Christ and even himself was ready to undertake the performance of this work with the help of God in case it would please the Apostolical Pope that it should be so BENEDICT who then sate in the Chair of Rome readily heard and joyfully embraced so charitable a motion and Gregory encouraged by the leave of that Pope undertakes the Journey himself but he was not gone far but the Roman Citizens who for his holiness of Life and sincerity of Doctrine looked on him as their chiefest stay and comfort by earnest supplications and passionate requests obtained his Revocation who thus put by his so much desired enterprize nevertheless continued his ardent endeavors for this great work of Conversion which he had means to perfect afterwards when for his great Merit he was advanced to a higher capacity of acting For after the death of BONIFACE being chosen his Successor he pitcht upon Augustine for his chief Instrument in this work a Man of whose endowments for such a Ministry he was sufficiently satisfied as having together with an Austere sanctity of life the spirit and courage of an Apostle and whom by preferment he had nearly engaged to himself having made him Provost of his own Monastery at Rome Augustine thus qualified sets on for his Journey but the Monks who were to attend him and over whom he was created Abbot whether by the disswasions of others who represented the danger of their Journey or discouraged by their own Fears draw off from the enterprize and send back Augustine in the name of all to desire Gregory to release them from a Mission which was likely to be not only dangerous but ineffectual as to a Nation fierce and barbarous and a Language they understood not And this is the occasion of the following Epistle wherein Gregory encourages them to proceed in the work of Conversion which I have set down and many others because they shew the unwearied diligence and vigilant care of that great Pastor to remove all Obstacles that might hinder and to improve all Advantages to help on so necessary and charitable an undertaking THE British EPISTLES OF GREGORY the GREAT GREGORY Bishop servant of the Servants of GOD To the Servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. He exhorts those that go from Britain to be terrified with no difficulties whatsoever but bring to perfection what they had happily begun BEcause it is better not to begin good things than after they are begun negligently to give them over it concerns you my Dearest Children with God's assistance to endeavour an accomplishing that Good work which lately you have undertaken neither let the tediousness of your Journey or the tongues of Evil men any waies affright you but with all vehemency and zeal put an end to those things God being your guide which you have already begun knowing that the greatness of your Labours shall be attended with eternal glory In all things humbly obey Augustine your Governour at his return whom we have made Abbot over you knowing how abundantly it will profit your own Souls If any thing shall be compleated by you according to his advice Almighty GOD protect you with his Grace and grant that I may see the fruits of our labour in an Eternal Country And although I cannot labour with you yet I hope I shall be rewarded together with you because I am willing to labour * God have you safe in his keeping my Beloved Children Given the tenth of the Kalends of August our Lord Mauritius Tiberius Augustus being Emperour in the fourteenth year after the Consulship of the said Lord the thirteenth year Indiction the fourteenth i. e. in the year of our Lord 596. Observations upon this Epistle Those things in the preceding Epistle which follow this mark * I find not in the old Gregorian Register but are annexed here by us according to the Copy of that Epistle in Bedes Eccl. Hist. lib. 1. cap. 23. The Author of the Register hath every where omitted the Inscription of these Dates to the great damage and injury of the Curious Searchers of Antiquity In Bede there follows another Epistle of Gregory the Great not found in the Register The Reverend Pope sent Letters saies he by the same Persons meaning Augustine and his Companions to Etherius Archbishop of Arles that he would courtcously entertain Augustine going for Britain of which this is the stile GREGORY servant of the Servants of GOD To our most Reverend and Holy Brother and fellow Bishop Etherius That he would courteously receive Augustine and his Companions ALthough Priests having Charity pleasing to God need not the commendation of any other Religious person yet because time hath fitly presented it self we have taken care to send our Letters to your Brotherhood signifying that we have sent thither Augustine the servant of God and Bearer of these Presents with other servants of God for the benefit of Souls whom 't is very necessary your Holiness should readily assist with a Sacerdotal care and speedily afford him what comforts you can and that you may the willinglier favour him we have enjoyned him particularly to declare the cause of his Journey hoping that that being known you would for God's sake seriously endeavour the business requiring it their benefit and welfare Gregory the Great To Candidus the Priest going to the Patrimony of Gaul To whose care he commends the Patrimony
of St. Peter in Gaul and that out of it he should buy English Boys and clothes for the Poor GOing forward with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ to the government of the Patrimony which is in Gaul we would that your charity out of the mony it shall receive provide clothes for the Poor and English Boys that are about seventeen or eighteen years old who being put into Monasteries may do God good service in regard the mony of Gaul which in our Land cannot justly be expended may be laid out to advantage in its proper place But if you shall receive any thing out of the Revenues which are said to be taken away we will also that out of those clothes be provided for the Poor or as we said before Boys who may be instrumental in the service of Almighty God But because they are all Pagans that are found thereabouts I will that a Priest be sent over with them lest any sickness happen to them on the way that they may be Baptized when he finds them ready to die So let your Charity act and make hast to fulfil these things Gregory the Great To Palladius Bishop of Xanton To Pelagius of Tours and To Serenus of Marseilles Fellow Bishops of Gaul To whom he commends Augustine whom he had sent into England ALthough Priests having charity pleasing to God need not the commendations of any other Religious person yet because time has fitly presented it self we have taken care to send our Letters to your Fraternity signifying that we have sent thither Augustine the Servant of God and Bearer of these presents with other Servants of God for the benefit of Souls whom 't is very necessary your Holiness should readily assist with a Sacerdotal care and speedily afford him what comforts you can and that you may the willinglier favour him we have enjoyned him particularly to declare the cause of his Journey hoping that that being known you would for God's sake seriously endeavour the business requiring it their benefit and welfare Gregory the Great To Virgilius Bishop of Arles and Metropolitan of Gaul He commends Augustine to him whom he had sent into England to propagate the Gospel ALthough we are confidently assured that your Brotherhood is alwaies intent upon good works and ready at any time of its own accord to interest it self in causes pleasing to God yet we thought it not altogether unprofitable to speak to you out of a Brotherly charity that the comforts which ye ought out of your own good natures freely to have afforded stirred up by these our Epistles might be increased in a greater measure We therefore declare to your Holiness that we have dispatched hither Augustine the servant of God and Bearer of these presents whose zeal and diligence is well known to us with other Servants of God for the welfare of Souls as he when he comes into your presence can testifie in which business it is necessary that you assist him with both Counsel and Supplies and cherish him as it behoves you with your Paternal and Sacerdotal consolations For when he shall have obtained those comforts from your Holiness if it is any thing available as we doubt not to promote the cause of God you also shall receive your reward who so piously afforded the benefit of your assistance for the promoting of good works Gregory the Great To Desiderius of Vienna and Syagrius of Augustodunum Fellow Bishop of Gaul He commends Augustine to them WE shall entertain a good opinion of the sincere charity of your Brotherhood if out of love to St. Peter Prince of the Apostles you bestow it in relieving our Servants since the nature of the cause requires it in which of your own accord ye ought rather to wish to be fellow-labourers and partakers We therefore declare to your Holiness that we have sent hither God so ordering it Augustine the servant of God Bearer of these presents whose zeal and diligence is well known to us with other Servants of God for the cure of Souls when you shall understand exactly from his own Relation what is enjoyned him your Brotherhood may in every thing the business shall require with more readiness assist him that you may be counted as is meet the furtherers of good works therefore in this thing let your Brotherhood study to manifest the demonstrations of its affection that the good opinion we have already entertained of you by hearsay may receive a further confirmation in us of you by your works Gregory the Great To Arigius a Noble man of Gaul To whom he commends Augustine HOw much goodness and how much meekness with charity pleasing unto Christ is shining in you we are certainly informed from Augustine Servant of God Bearer of these presents and we give Almighty God thanks that hath given you these gifts of his grace by which you may appear praise-worthy amongst men and in his sight which is truly profitable glorious We beseech therefore Almighty God that these gifts which he has so freely granted you he would multiply and take you and all yours into his protection and that he may so order the manner of your glory in this life that it may be beneficial to you here and what is more to be wished in the life to come Greeting therefore your Honour we desire with a Fatherly tenderness that the Bearer of these presents and the Servants of God that are with him may find in those things that are necessary your assistance since they will be the better able through God's help and the benefit of your favour to perform those things that are commanded them Gregory the Great To Theoderick and Theodebert Kings of the Frankes concerning Augustine Servant of God sent to the English Nation AFter that Almighty God had adorned your Kingdom with a pure and upright Faith and by the integrity of the Christian Religion had made it eminent above other Nations we conceived great grounds of presuming that you would especially have desired that your Subjects should be converted to that Faith in which you are Kings and Lords over them And indeed there came to our hands the earnest Petition of the English Nation God commiserating their condition to be converted to the Christian Faith but your Priests their Neighbours wholly neglect it and are much wanting by their Exhortations in seconding their desires For this cause therefore we have carefully sent thither Augustine servant of God Bearer of these presents whose zeal and diligence is well known unto us with other Servants of God whom we have enjoyned to take some of the neighbouring Clergy along with them to know their minds and with their Admonitions as much as in them lies further their willingness in which thing that they may prove effectually able with a Fatherly charity saluting your Highnesses we desire that these whom we have sent may merit your favour and because 't is a business of Souls may your Power protect and
my Honour is the same honour of the whole Church my Honour is the full vigor of my Brethren then therefore I am truly honoured when no body is denied the honour due to him For if your Holiness calls me Universal Bishop it denies it self to be at all what it confesses me to be only that is Universal but God forbid this Away with those words stir up Pride and wound charity and indeed your Holiness well knows that this Title was offered my Predecessor in the holy Counsel of Chalcedonia and afterwards by succeeding Fathers but none of them would ever accept of this Title that whilst carefully in this World they respected the honour of all the Clergy in general they might preserve their own entire with God Almighty Wherefore paying you due custome of Greeting I desire you would be pleased to be mindful of us in your Prayers that from the chains of my sins because of mine own merits I am not able through your intercession God would deliver me Observations upon this Epistle The Annexer of the Title has not done ingeniously in this Epistle for he saies that in the Councel of Chaleedon the Pope was stiled UNIVERSAL not making any mention how that Title was rejected by the Pope and all his Successors as Gregory shews but was also vehemently exploded and cast off by Gregory himself in this Epistle of which he has not taken the least notice in the Title Gregory To Menna of Tolouse To Serenus of Marseilles To Lupus of Cavation To Agilius of Meris To Simplicius of Paris To Melantius of Roan and To Licinius Fellow Bishops of the Frankes ALthough the care of the office ye have undertaken might sufficiently admonish your Brotherhood with your utmost endeavours to assist Religious persons and especially those that labour in the cure of Souls yet it will not be amiss if with this our Epistle we stir up your vigilancy For as the fire by the fanning of the wind is made greater so the affections of a good mind are embettered by commendation Because therefore the grace of our Redeemer cooperating so great a multitude of the English are converted to the Christian faith that our most Reverend and Common Brother and Fellow Bishop Augustine affirms that those that are with him are not sufficient for the execution of this work in divers Places We have provided that some Monks should be sent over to him with our beloved and common Sons Laurentius the Priest and Miletus the Abbot and therefore let your Brotherhood afford them that charity it ought and speedily help them with those succours that are necessary for as much as by your assistance all obstructions and causes of delaies will be removed So that they being relieved by your charity may rejoyce together with you and you by freely bestowing it may be found partakers with them in the work they are intended for Gregory the Great To Clotharius King of the Frankes AMongst the many troubles and cares you daily meet with in governing those Nations under you it is the highest honour and greatest advantage to appear in the Patronage of those that labour in the cause of God and because by many good Presidents you have shewn your self to be such that now we may presume better things of you we are the willinglier invited to desire those things of you which at last will return to your own benefit Some of those who went into England with our most Reverend Brother and Fellow-Bishop Augustine at their return have related with how great humanity and charity your Excellence entertained him in your own Court and with what succours you assisted him setting forward on his Journey But because those actions are most acceptable to God alwaies which recede not from good beginnings We salute You with a Fatherly affection desiring that the Monks the Bearers of these presents whom we have sent over to our foresaid Brother together with our beloved Sons Laurentius the Priest and Melitus the Abbot might be particularly respected by you and whatsoever it was you bestowed on those before for the plentiful increase of your Honour continue likewise to these that through your assistance they may without any delaies perform the Journey they have begun that God the Recompencer of all good works may be to you in prosperity a guardian and in adversity an helper Gregory To Brunichild Queen of the Frankes He returns Her thanks for assisting Augustine and exhorts her courteously to entertain the Monks that were sent unto him WE give thanks unto Almighty God who among the rest of the gifts of his grace bestowed on your Highness has so filled your breast with the love of Christian Religion that if you should know any thing tending to the benefit of Soula or the increase of your Faith you would never cease with a devout mind and pious endeavour to bring it to perfection With how great favour and courtesie your Highness assisted our most Reverend Brother and Fellow Bishop Augustine going for England Fame before hath not been silent and since the Monks that returned from him have more particularly related Your Christianity may be admired at by those that know but little of your favours but we that are experimentally acquainted with them have more reason to rejoyce than wonder because by charitably obliging others ye advantage your selves How great and what manner of Miracles our Redeemer has wrought in the Conversion of the aforesaid Nation is well known to your Highness for which reason ye ought exceedingly to rejoyce because your charity in this thing may claim to it self the greatest part by whose assistance next after God the word of Preaching became there manifest for he that furthers another's good consults his own And that the fruits of your reward may be the larger we desire that to the Monks Bearers of these presents whom with our beloved Sons Laurentius the Priest and Melitus the Abbot we have sent over to our foresaid most Reverend Brother and Fellow Bishop forasmuch as those that are with him are not sufficient for the work you would courteously grant the favour of your Patronage and vouchsafe to assist them in all things that the good beginnings of your Highness may still proceed unto better and that they meet with no delaies or difficulties in their Journey May you in as great a measure stir up God's mercy to be favourable to you and your posterity most Dear unto us as you for his love shall behave your selves with compassion in causes of this nature Gregory To Augustine Bishop of the English Of the Conversion of that Nation and that he should not glory in the power of Miracles which oftentimes wicked Men have performed GLory be to God on high and on earth peace good-will towards Men because a grain of corn falling dead upon the earth hath brought forth much fruit that it might not alone reign in heaven by whose Death we live by whose Infirmity we are
twelve daies this murther dying as some report for grief having not long before foretold the death of that Prince upon this account because he was a man the World was not worthy of being an Humble King Aidan was buried in the Isle of Lindesfarn and Finan succeeded him in that See This fact of King Oswy was odious to all and therefore to explate the guilt a Monastery was erected upon the place where the murther was committed and prayers daily offered for the Souls of both Kings the slayer and the slain But notwithstanding Oswyn was thus removed the Kingdom of Deira or part of it was seized by Ethelwald the Son of King Oswald But Oswy was still infested with the incursions of King Penda and had long endured many sore devastations Once he had almost lost his strongest City Bebanburge now Bamborow Castle which Penda with fire and sword had assaulted And now weary of continual standing on his defence he resolves if possible by any means to buy his Peace and to that end sends large gifts and presents to Penda with humble suit desiring League and Amity But these being with scorn refused he prepares for War and first imploring divine assistance if God would grant him Victory he vows his Daughter a Nun and twelve Lordships for the building of Monasteries which done he raises an Army and meets Penda at a place called Loyden now Leeds in Yorkshire The Army of Penda as is reported exceeded Oswy's thirty times over and was commanded by expert Captains nevertheless they were utterly routed and put to flight and many of them swallowed up in the River Winwed which at that time was unusually swelled with Rains Penda himself was slain in the battel and Ethelhere King of the East-Angles the contriver of the War Ethelwald the Son of Oswald was in the field upon the Mercian side and is said to have been the cause of their desear for withdrawing his Forces at the first Onset and meaning to expect the event he discouraged the Mercians who misdoubted there was treachery in it The death of Penda was received with great joy through all the neighbouring Provinces as the Song witnesseth At the River Winwed Anna was Avenged Oswy after this Victory enters Mercia with an Army which he presently reduced to his obedience but unto Peada the Son of Penda as his near Kinsman he gave the Principality of the South Mercians containing five thousand Families and separate from the 〈◊〉 Mercians by the River Trent 〈◊〉 But him slain by the treachery of his wife 〈◊〉 and Eadbert three Mercian Earls set up Vulfer and fling off the Government of Oswy who was now employed in a Pictish War and had subdued the greatest part of that Nation This Oswy had in him a strange mixture of Vertues and Vices in his beginning bloody and tyrannous towards his latter end just and moderate Highly addicted he was to Roman Superstitions and resolved a Pilgrimage thither had not he been taken off by death for in the twenty eighth year of his Reign and fifty eighth of his Age he departed this life having vowed that Journey as some write to expiate the murther of King Oswyn Under this Oswy was held a Councel about the observation of Easter which because it is much celebrated by all our Writers I shall put it down as it is originally related The Synod of Streanshalch now Whitby at the request of Hilda Abbess of that place under Oswy the Father and Alchfrid the Son Kings of Northumberland in the year of Christ 664. In which is controverted the Celebration of Easter and other Ecclesiastical Rites There being present on the side of the Romans and English King Alchfrid the Son Agilbert Bishop of the West-Saxons Abbot Wilfrid Agatho Presbyter James a Deacon and Romanus On the side of the Scots and Britains King Oswy the Father Colmanne Bishop of Lindisfarne with other Scottish Bishops Cedda Bishop of the East Saxons Hilda Abbess of Streanshalch with a great many others of the Clergy on both sides Bede's Preface to this Synod IN these times was startled a common and great question concerning the observation of Easter Those that came from Kent or Gaul affirming that the Scots keep the Lord's day of Easter contrary to the custom of the Catholick Church Among these was one Romanus by name a stiff defender of the true Easter by Nation a Scot but had learned the true rules Ecclesiastick in Gaul or the Confines of Italy who disputing with one Finan made many sensible of their errour or at least perswaded them to a deeper search into the truth but he could not in the least stir Finan who being of a fiery nature was rather made worse by his instructions and an open enemy to truth But James formerly Deacon under the worshipful Archbishop Paulinus observed the true and Catholick Easter with those whom he had taught the true and correct way Queen Eanfeld also observed it with her houshold according to what she had seen performed in Kent having with her a Priest from Kent named Romanus of the Catholick opinion from whence they report in those daies it sometimes happened that Easter should be kept twice in one year For when the King 's Lent being done was keeping Easter then the Queen with hers Lent with them not being yet ended was celebrating Palm-Sunday But this different observancy of Easter Aidan living was patiently born with by all men who understood thus much That though he could not celebrate Easter contrary to the custom of those that had sent him yet he took care that the works of faith charity and love in which all Saints agree should be diligently performed so that he was deservedly beloved by all men nay even of those that thought otherwise of Easter and was not only respected by the meaner sort but by Bishops themselves Honorius of Canterbury and Foelix of the East-Angles But Finan being dead who succeeded Aidan when Colman came into the Bishoprick for he also was sent from Scotland there arose a more solemn controversie concerning the observing of Easter and other Precepts relating to an Ecclesiastical life so that this question justly moved the hearts of many lest peradventure the name of Christianity being only retained they should run or had run in vain It came at last to the ears of the Court to wit of King Oswy and his Son Alchfrid for Oswy was taught and baptized by the Scots and was well skilled in their Language and esteemed nothing truer than what they had taught him But Alchfrid had for his Instructour in Christianity Wilfrid a right learned man who had made a Journy to Rome on purpose to learn of the Law Ecclesiastick and had lived many years with Dalphin Archbishop of Lions in Gaul from whom he had received the right custom of Church-shaving He therefore thought this Man's Doctrine to be preferred before all the Traditions of the Scots for which reason he had lately given him a Monastery of
among them Sometimes Ambition only to encrease their Rule and Soveraignty prompted some to make Incursions on their Neighbours so that they who had the greatest desire to sit quiet were obliged to stand in a posture of Defence and to be alwaies ready against such Invasions whose greatest strength and force lay in their being swift and sudden Sometimes the Druid Interest engaged the Secular Power in its Quarrels every Prince desiring to advance a Creature of his own to the Primacy and Superintendency over the whole Island The whole Nation being alwaies in a Warlike posture it is no wonder to hear what some ancient Authors write of them That every one delighted in picking Quarrels that it was their daily exercise and pleasure to be Skirmishing that they were continually going out in Parties Fortisying and Intrenching many times rather out of delight than any necessity For being constrained to keep standing Forces it was absolutely requisite they should be kept in Exercise for it was impossible in the circumstances this Country was then in for any Prince though desirous of Peace to keep his Souldiers in Order and Discipline unless they were sometimes let loose and afforded those liberties and advantages which other men of Fortune had under more Ambitious and turbulent Governours But the greatest bone of Contention among them which never suffered these Dissensions to heal and close up was the eternal fewd as I suppose between the Inland Britains the first Possessours of the Island and those that came over from Gaul and Belgium These drave all the Ancient Inhabitants from all the Sea-Coasts seizing their Estates and securing the Trade of the Island into their own hands And although in process of time these different forts of People might mix very much in their Allyances Language Customes and Religions yet the first Injuries of the Invaders was no doubt upon occasion very often severely resented by the Inlanders and I believe in their common Union against Caesar and the Romans never heartily forgotten This being the condition of Affairs in Britain at that time it is no wonder that Caesar at his Arrival was much deceived in his expectations for by the small preparations he made at his first Invasion we may guess what a low opinion he had of the Temper Courage and Conduct of the Britains and at his second Attempt by the increase of his Levies and number of Ships being in all Eight hundred we may on the other side judge what warm entertainment he received the first time from them So that the Courage of the Britains and their skill in War is not to be questioned in respect they lived among themselves in the continual exercise of it It remains only that their Manner of Fighting with the several Customes they used differing from other Nations their Neighbours be described and explained The first and most memorable thing that occurs is their Fighting in Chariots after the manner of the Ancient Greeks as Diodorus Siculus expresses at the Trojan War Of this Custome of theirs I have treated in the Chapter of the Greeks and I doubt not since it was peculiar to the Britains and a few adjacent parts in Gaul that Coesar relates it for a wonder in the Western parts but that will be thought to proceed either immediately from that Nation or else from the Phoenicians As for the Names of the Charriots they fought in are clearly Phoenician as Benna Carrus or Carrum Covinus Essedum Rheda and so it is but reason to think primitively were introduced by them The Gracians added and altered them according to the Custome of their Country for one sort they called Petoritum from its four Wheels and of the ordinary Rheda they made their Epireda I suppose with two stories in it to carry the more Men. The Waggons and Chariots they thus fought in were exceedingly well Harnassed and Armed for at both ends of the Axeltrees they fastned Hooks and Scyths so that driving furiously into the Enemies battle they made whole Lanes of slaughtered Men the Scyths cutting them off in the middle who did not give speedy way and such as escaped them were caught up with the Hooks which were placed for that purpose so that hanging upon them they were miserable Spectacles and suffering intollerable pains and torments were constrained to write upon the Triumphs of their Conquerours being drag'd along before and behind their Chariot Wheels These sort of Chariots were called Covini and in the British Tongue at this day Cowain signifies to carry in a Wagon Lucan calls it constratus Covinus being possibly of an evener and broader make more open than their other sorts of Chariots and probably it carried no men at all but only him that guided it For we read in Tacitus that Covinarius is as much as to say Auriga And this they did that the Chariot might be more expedit and the Horses with more ease might draw the Scyths and Hooks through any opposition The Essedum called by the Phoenicians Dassedan by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was another sort of Chariots which I believe carried no Scyths or Hooks in which were only Armed men How the Britains used these we read in Caesar The Charioteers called Essedarii ride through all the parts of the Battle and bestowed their Darts with the terrible appearance of their Horses and the noise of their Wheels usually break their Ranks And when they have wrought themselves into the Enemies Horse they fling themselves from their Chariots and fight on foot the Chariot Guiders in the mean time withdraw a little way out of the Battle and place themselves so that if their Party were over-powered with the number of Enemies they might retreat with more ease and security By this means in their fighting they perform the nimbleness of Horse and the steadiness of Foot By daily use and exercise they arrived to that perfection that in the steepest descent of a Hill they could hold their Horses to a full Careere stop of a sudden turn short run upon the Spire-pole and Beam of the Chariot stand upright on the Yoak and Harness of their Steeds and immediately again whip into their Chariots This exceeding nimbleness and dexterity in the management of their Esseds oftentimes foiled Caesar and his heavy Legions Sometimes they would feign themselves to flie by that means to draw his light Souldiers to follow them and immediately turning again and skipping off their Chariots they often gave them notable Repulses driving them to their main Body where they were forced to shelter themselves Upon this very account they never fought thick or in clusters but dispersed themselves into diverse and distant stations which before hand was for the most part agreed upon relieving one another as they saw occasion and retiring when weary so came on again as they had refresht or relieved their Horses By this their scattered way of Fighting the Romans knew not which way to bend their main strength besides