seas into England out of Ireland the Earle of Ulster Roger Mortimer and Sir Iohn Fitz-Thomas Item Sir Theohald Verdon died MCCCX. King Edward and Sir Piers Gaveston tooke their journey toward Scotland to fight against Robert Bruâ— Item in the said yeere great dearth there was of corn in Ireland an eranc of wheat was sold for 20. shillings and above Also the Bakers of Dublin for their false waight of bread suffered a new kinde of torment which was never seen there before for that on S. Sampson the Bishops day they were drawne upon hurdles through the streets of the Citie at horse-tailes More in the Abbey of S. Thomas Martyr at Dublin died Sir Neile Bruin Knight Escheator to the Lord the King in Ireland whose bodie was committed to the earth at the Friers minors with so great a pompe of tapers and waxe lights as the like was never seene before in Ireland The same yeere a Parliament was holden at Kildare where Sir Arnold Pover was acquit for the death of the Lord Bonevile because he had done this deed in his owne defence Likewise on S. Patricks day by assent of the Chapter M. Alexander Bickenore was elected Archbishop of Dublin Item the Lord Roger Mortimer returned into Ireland within the Octaves of the Nativitie of the blessed Virgin Marie Also the same yeere the Lord Henrie Lacie Earle of Lincolne died MCCCXI In Thomond at Bonnorathie there was a wonderfull and miraculous discomfiture given by the Lord Richard Clare unto the side of the Earle of Ulster Which Lord Richard aforesaid tooke prisoner in the field the Lord William Burke and John the sonne of the Lord Walter Lacie and many others In which battaile verily there were slaine a great number as well of the English as the Irish the 13. day before the Galends of June Item Taslagard and Rathcante were invaded by the robbers to wit the O-Brines and O-Tothiles the morrow after the Nativitie of S. John Baptist. Whereupon soon after in Autumne there was a great armie assembled in Leinster to make head and fight against the said robbers lurking in Glindelory and in other places full of woods Also a Parliament was holden at London in August betweene the King and the Barons to treat about the State of the kingdome and of the Kings houshold according to the ordinance of sixe Bishops sixe Earles and sixe Barons as they might best provide for the good of the Realme Item on the second day before the Ides of November the Lord Richard Clare slew sixe hundred of Galegalaghes More on All-Saints day next going before Piers Gaveston was banished the Realme of England by the Earles and Barons and many good Statutes necessarie for the commonwealth were by the same Lords made Which Piers abjured the Realme of England about the Feast of All-Saints and entred into Flanders foure moneths after the said Piers returned presently upon the Epiphanie and by stealth entred into England keeping close unto the Kings side so that the Barons could not easily come neere unto him And hee went with the King to Yorke making his abode there in the Lent whereupon the Bishops Earles and Barons of England came to London for to treat about the State of the kingdome for feare lest by occasion of Piers his returne the Common wealth should bee troubled with commotions Item Sir John Cogan Sir Walter Faunt and Sir John Fitz-Rerie Knights died and were buried in the Church of the Friers Preachers at Dublin Item John Mac-Goghedan is slaine by O-molmoy Item William Roch died at Dublin with the shot of an arrow by an Irish mountainer Item Sir Eustace Power Knight died Item in the Vigill of Saint Peters Chaire began a riot in Urgaly by Robert Verdon Item Donat O-Brene is traiterously slaine by his owne men in Tothomon MCCCXII Sir Peter or Piers Gaveston entred the castle of Scardeburgh resisting the Barons But soone after the Calends of June hee yeelded himselfe unto Sir Aumare Valence who had besieged him yet upon certaine conditions named before hand who brought him toward London But by the way he was taken prisoner at Dedington by the Earle of Warwicke and brought to Warwicke whereupon after counsell taken by the Earles and Barons he lost his head the thirteenth day before the Calends of July whose bodie lieth buried in the coventuall Church of the Friers Preachers at Langley Item John Wogan Lord Justice of Ireland led forth an armie to bridle the malice of Robert Verdon and his abettors which was miserably defeated the sixth day before the Ides of July in which fight were slain Nicolas Avenel Patrick Roch and many others For this fact the said Robert Verdon and many of his complices yeelded themselves unto the Kings prison at Dublin in expectance of favour and pardon Also on Thursday the morrow after Saint Lucie Virgin in the sixth yeere of King Edward the Moone was wonderfully seene of divers colours on which day determined it was that the order of Templars should be abolished for ever More in Ireland Lord Edmund Botiller was made the Lievtenant of Lord John Wogan Justice of Ireland which Edmund in the Lent following besieged the O-Brynnes in Glindelorie and compelled them to yeeld yea and brought them almost to confusion unlesse they had returned the sooner unto the peace of the Lord the King Item the same yeere on the morrow after Saint Dominickes day Lord Maurice Fitz-Thomas espoused Katherin daughter of the Earle of Ulster at Green-castle And Thomas Fitz-Iohn espoused another daughter of the same Earle the morrow after the Assumption in the same place Also the Sunday after the feast of the exaltation of the holy Crosse the daughter of the Earle of Glocester wife to the Lord Iohn Burke was delivered of a sonne MCCCXIII Frier Roland Joce Primate of Ardmach arrived at the Iland of Houth the morrow after the annuntiation of the blessed Virgin Marie and rising in the night by stealth tooke up his Crosier and advanced it as farre as to the Priorie of Grace Dieu whom there encountred certaine of the Archbishop of Dublins servants debasing and putting downe that Crosier and the Primate himselfe of Ardmagh they chaced with disgrace and confusion out of Leinster Item a Parliament was holden at London wherein little or nothing was done as touching Peace from which Parliament the King departed and tooke his journey into France at the mandate of the King of France and the King of England with many of his Nobles tooke the badge of the Crosse. Also the Lord John Fitz-Thomas knighted Nicolas Fitz-Maurice and Robert Clonhull at Adare in Mounster More on the last day of May Robert Brus sent certaine Gallies to the parts of Ulster with his rovers to make spoile whom the men of Ulster resisted and manfully chased away It is said that the same Robert arrived with the licence of the Earle to take truce Item in the same summer Master John Decer a Citizen of Dublin caused a necessarie bridge to
death of the said Justice of Ireland the Lord Roger Darcy with the assent of the Kings Ministers and others of the same land is placed in the office of Justice for the time Also the castles of Ley and Kylmehede are taken by the Irish and burnt in the moneth of April Item Lord Iohn Moris commeth chiefe Justice of Ireland the fifteenth day of May. Also the Irish of Ulster gave a great overthrow unto the English of Urgale wherin were slaine three hundred at the least in the moneth of June Also the said Lord Iohn Moris Justice of Ireland is discharged by the King of England from that office of Justiceship and the Lord Walter Bermingham set in the same office by the foresaid King and a little after the foresaid slaughter committed entreth with Commission into Ireland in the month of June Item unto the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmond the maintenance of peace for a certain time is granted by the King of England Which being granted upon the Vigill of the exaltation of the holy Crosse hee together with his wife and two sonnes take sea at the haven of Yoghal and crosseth over into England where he followeth the law hard and requireth instantly to have justice for the wrongs done unto him by Raulph Ufford late Lord Justice of Ireland above named Item unto the said Earle by commandement and order from the Lord King of England there are granted from his entrance into England twenty shillings a day and so day by day still is allowed for his expences Also the Lord Walter Bermingham Justice of Ireland and the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Kildare rose up in armes against O-Merda and his complices who burnt the Castle of Ley and Kilmehed and they with their forces valiantly set upon and invade him and his complices spoiling killing and burning in so much as the said O-Morda and his complices although at the first they had manfully and resolutely made resistance there with many thousands of the Irish after many wounds and a great slaughter committed were constrained in the end to yeeld and so they submitted to the Kings grace and mercy and betake themselves full and whole unto the said Earles devotion MCCCXLVII The Earle of Kildare with his Barons and Knights goeth unto the King of England in the moneth of May to aide him lying then at the siege of Caleys Also the towne of Caleys was by the inhabitants upon the fourth day of June rendred up into the King of Englands hands Item Walter Bonevile William Calfe William Welesley and many other noble Gentlemen and valiant Knights as well of England as of Ireland died of the sicknesse in Caleys Also Mac-Murgh to wit Donald Mac-Murgh the sonne of Donald Art Mac-Murgh King of Leinster upon the fifth day of June is treacherously slain by his own people More Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Kildare is by the King of England made Knight Also the towne called Monaghan with all the territorie adjoining is by the Irish burnt on the feast day of S. Stephen Martyr Item Dame Joane Fitz-Leoues sometime wife to the Lord Simon Genevile departed this life and is buried in the Covent Church of the Friers Preachers of Trim the second day of Aprill MCCCXLVIII And in the 22. yeere of King Edward the third reigned the first pestilence and most of all in Ireland which had begunne afore in other Countries Item in this yeere Walter Lord Bermingham Lord Justice of Ireland came into England and left Iohn Archer Prior of Kylmainon his Lievtenant in his roome And he returneth againe in the same yeere Justice as before and the King conferred upon the same Walter the Barony of Kenlys which is in Osserie because he led a great army against the Earle of Desmond with Raulfe Ufford as before is said which Barony belonged in times past unto the Lord Eustace Pover who was attainted and hanged at the castle of the Isle MCCCXLIX Lord Walter Bermingham the best Justice of Ireland that ever was gave up his office of Justiceship after whom succeeded the Lord Carew Knight and Baron both MCCCL. And in the 25. yeere of the foresaid King Edward Sir Thomas Rokesby Knight was made Lord Justice of Ireland Item Sir Walter Bermingham Knight Lord Bermingham that right good Justice sometime of Ireland died in the Even of S. Margaret Virgin in England MCCCLI Kenwrick Sherman sometime Maior of the Citie of Dublin died and was buried under the Belfray of the preaching Friers of the same City which Belfray and Steeple himselfe erected and glazed a window at the head of the Quire and caused the roofe of the Church to be made with many more good deeds In the same Covent he departed I say the sixth day of March and at his end he made his Will or Testament amounting to the value of three thousand Marks and bequeathed many good Legacies unto the Priests of the Church both religious and secular that were within twenty miles about the City MCCCLII Sir Robert Savage Knight began in Ulster to build new castles in divers places and upon his owne Manours who while he was a building said unto his sonne and heire Sir Henry Savage let us make strong walls about us lest happily the Irish come and take away our place destroy our kinred and people and so we shall be reproached of all Nations Then answered his sonne where ever there shall be valiant men there is a Castle and Fortresse too according to that saying The sonnes encamped that is to say valiant men are ordained for warre and therefore will I be among such hardy men and so shall I be in a castle and therewith said in his vulgar speech A castle of Bones is better than a castle of Stones Then his father in a fume and chafe gave over his worke and swore an oath that he would never build with stone and morter but keepe a good house and a very great family and retinew of servants about him but he prophesied withall that hereafter his sonnes and posterity should grieve and waile for it which indeed came to passe for the Irish destroyed all that country for default of castles MCCCLV And in the thirty yeere of the same King Sir Thomas Rokesby Knight went out of his office of Justice the sixe and twenty day of July after whom succeeded Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmund and continued in the office untill his death Item on the day of Saint Pauls conversion the same Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas died Justice of Ireland in the castle of Dublin not without great sorrow of his friends and kinsfolke and no lesse feare and trembling of all other Irish that loved peace First he was buried in the quire of the preaching Friers of Dublin and at last enterred in the Covent Church of the Friers Preachers of Traly This man was a righteous Justicer in that hee stucke not to hang up those of his owne blood for theft and rapine and misdemeanours even as soone as strangers
erected and whose immortall soules in them doe speake to the end that Time might not have power and prevaile against men of worth and the desires of mortall men might be satisfied who do all long to know what their persons and presence were The Earle of Dorset late Chancellor of this Vniversity that he might also leave some memoriall of himselfe hath in the very place dedicated unto Sir Thomas Bodley so passing well deserving of the Learned Common-wealth his representation with this inscription THOMAS SACKUILLUS DORSETTIAE COMES SUMMUS ANGLIAE THESAURARIUS ET HUJUS ACADEMIAE CANCELLARIUS THOMAE BODLEIO EQUITI AURATO QUI BIBLIO THE CAM HANC INSTITUIT HONORIS CAUSSA PIE POSUIT That is THOMAS SACKUIL EARLE OF DORSET LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND AND CHANCELOR OF THIS UNIVERSITIE UNTO SIR THOMAS BODLEY KNIGHT WHO INSTITUTED THIS LIBRARY OF A PIOUS MIND ERECTED THIS MONUMENT TO DO HIM HONOUR In the Raigne of Henry the Seventh for the better advancement of learning William Smith Bishop of Lincolne built new out of the ground Brasen Nose College which that good and godly old man Master Alexander Nowell Deane of Saint Paules in London lately augmented with Revenewes and Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester erected likewise that which is named Corpus Christi College and Thomas Wolsey Cardinall of Yorke following their example beganne another where the Monastery of Frideswide stood the most stately and fairest of them all for Professors and 200. Students which Henry the Eighth joyning unto it Canterbury College assigned to a Deane Prebends and Students endowed it with livings and named it Christs Church And the same most puissant Prince with money disbursed out of his owne Treasury ordained both for the Dignity of the City a Bishop and for the ornament and advancement of the University publique Professours Likewise within our remembrance for the furtherance of learning with new and fresh benefits Sir Thomas Pope Knight reared a new Durrham College and Sir Thomas White Knight Citizen and Alderman of London raised Bernard College both which lay buryed in the rubbish They reedified them repaired them with new buildings enriched them with faire lands and gave them new names For the one of them they dedicated to Saint Iohn Baptist and that other to the holy and sacred Trinity Queene Mary also built the common Schooles And now of late Hugh Prise Doctor of the Lawes hath begunne a new College with good speede and happy successe as I wish to the honor of Iesus With these Colleges which are in number 16. and eight Haulls beside all faire and decently built richly endowed and furnished with good Libraries Oxford at this day so flourisheth that it farre surmounteth all other Universities of Christendome And for Living Libraries for so may I well and truely with Eunapius terme great Scholers and learned men for the discipline and teaching of the best Arts and for the politique government of this their republicke of Literature it may give place to none But to what end is all this Oxford needeth no mans commendation the excellency thereof doth so much exceede and if I may use Plinies word superfluit that is Surmounteth Let this suffice to say of Oxford as Pomponius Mela did of Athens Clarior est quà m ut indicari egeat that is More glorious it is of it selfe than that it needeth to bee out shewed But have heere for an upshot and farewell the beginning of Oxford story out of the Proctors booke By the joint testimony of most Chronicles many places in divers Coasts and Climats of the world we read to have flourished at sundry times in the studies of divers sciences But the Vniversity of Oxford is found to be for foundation more ancient for plurality of sciences more generall in profession of the Catholike truth more constant and in multiplicity of Privileges more excellent than all other Schooles that are knowne among the Latines The Mathematicians of this University have observed that this their City is from the Fortunate Islands 22. Degrees and the Arcticke or North Pole elevated 51. Degrees and 50. Scruples high And thus much briefly of my deare Nurse-mother Oxford But when a little beneath Oxford Isis and Cherwell have consociated their waters together within one Chanell Isis then entire of himselfe and with a swifter current runneth Southward to finde Tame whom so long he had sought for And gone he is not forward many miles but behold Tame streaming out of Buckinghamshire meeteth with him who is no sooner entred into this Shire but he giveth name to Tame a Mercate Towne situate very pleasantly among Rivers For Tame passeth hard by the Northside and two Riverers shedding themselves into it compasse the same the one on the East and the other on the West Alexander that liberall Bishop of Lincolne Lord of the place when his prodigall humor in sumptuous building of Castles was of every body privily misliked to wash out that staine as Newbrigensis saith built a little Abbay neere unto the Towne and many yeares after the Quatremans who in the age foregoing were men of great reputation in these parts founded an Hospitall for the sustentation of poore people But both of these are now decayed and quite gone and in stead thereof Sir Iohn Williams Knight whom Queene Mary advanced to the Dignity of a Baron by the Title of Lord William of Tame erected a very faire Schoole and a small Hospitall But this Title soone determined when he left but daughters marryed into the Families of Norris and Wenman From hence Tame runneth downe neere unto Ricot a goodly house which in times past belonged to those Quatremans whose stocke failing to bring forth Males it was devolved at length after many sailes and alienations passed by the Foulers and Herons unto the said Lord Williams and so by his daughter fell to Sir Henry Lord Norris whom Queene Elizabeth made Baron Norris of Ricot a man of good marke in regard of his noble birth and parentage for he descended from the Lovells who were neere allied by kinred unto the greatest houses in England but most renowned for that right valiant and warlike Progeny of his as the Netherlands Portugall little Bretagne and Ireland can witnesse At the length Tame by Haseley where sometimes the names of Barentines flourished as at Cholgrave commeth to Dorchester by Bede termed Civitas Dorcinia by Leland Hydropolis a name devised by his owne conceit yet fit enough considering that Dour in the British tongue signifieth water That this Towne was in old time inhabited by Romanes their coined peeces of money oftentimes turned up doe imply and our Chronicles record that it was for a long time much frequented by reason of a Bishops See which Birinus the Apostle of the West-Saxons appointed to be there For when hee had baptised Cinigilse a pety King of the West-Saxons unto whom Oswald King of Northumberland was Godfather both these Kings as saith Bede gave this City unto the same Bishop
owne habitation For kings in those daies sat in Judgement place in their owne persons And they are indeed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Judges Whose mouth as that Royall Writer saith shall not erre in Judgement But the foresaid Palace after it was burnt downe in the yeare of our Lord 1512. lay desolate and king Henry the Eighth translated shortly after the kings Seat from thence to an house not farre off which belonged but a while before to Cardinall Wolsey and is called White Hall This house is a Princely thing enclosed of the one side with a Parke that reacheth also to another house of the kings named S. James where anciently was a Spittle for Maiden Lepres built by king Henry the Eighth on the other side with the Tamis A certaine Poet termed the foresaid House according to the English name thereof Leucaeum in Latine as appeareth in these Verses Regale subintrant Leucaeum Reges dederant memorabile quondam Atria quae niveo candebant marmore nomen Quod Tamisis prima est cui gloria pascere cygnos Ledaeos ranco pronus subterluit aestu To Royall Palace Kings enter in sometime LEUCEUM hight This famous name those Courts it gave that shone with marble white Hard under it with low-sound streame Tamis downe apace doth glide A River feeding Swannes wherein he takes especiall pride Hard by neere unto the Mues so called for that it served to keepe Hawkes and now is become a most faire Stable for the kings horses there remaineth a monument in memoriall of that most pious and kinde Queene Aeleonor erected by the king Edward the First her most dearely beloved husband and certes the memory of her loving kindnesse shall remaine worthy to be consecrated to aeternity For shee the daughter of Ferdinand the Third king of Castile being given in marriage to Edward the first king of England accompanied him into the Holy Land where when as he was secretly forelaid and by a certaine Moore wounded with an envenomed sword and by all the remedies that Physitians could devise was not so much eased as afflicted shee tooke her to a cure strange I must needs say and never heard of before howbeit full of love and kinde affection For her Husbands wounds infected with the poison and which by reason of the malignity thereof could not bee closed and healed shee day by day licked with her tongue and sucked out the venemous humour which to her was a most sweet liquour By the vigour and strength whereof or to say more truely by vertue of a wives lovely fidelity she so drew unto her all the substance of the poison that the wounds being closed and cicatrized hee became perfectly healed and shee caught no harme at all What then can bee heard more rare what more admirable than this womans faithfull love That a wives tongue thus annointed as I may so say with faith and love to her Husband should from her well beloved draw those poisons which by an approved Physitian could not bee drawne and that which many and those right exquisite medicines effected not the love onely and piety of a Wife performed Thus much of Westminster joyntly with London although as I have said it is a City by it selfe and hath a severall jurisdiction from it because with continued buildings it so joyneth thereto that it may seeme to be one and the same City Moreover at the West end of the City other Suburbs runne a great way in length with goodly rowes of houses orderly ranged as namely Holborne or rather more truely Oldborne wherein stood anciently the first house of the Templers onely in the place now called Southampton house But now there stand certaine Innes or Colleges of Students in the Common Law and a City-habitation of the Bishops of Ely well beseeming Bishops to dwell in for which they are beholden to John de Hotham Bishop of Ely under king Edward the Third At the North side likewise there be Suburbs annexed to the City wherein Iordan Briset a man very wealthy and devout built an house for the Knights Hospitalers of Saint Iohn of Ierusalem which grew in time so great that it resembled a Palace and had in it a very faire Church and a Towre-steeple raised to a great height with so fine workemanship that while it stood it was a singular beauty and ornament to the City These Knights Hospitalers at their first institution about the yeare 1124. and long after were so lowly all the while they continued poore that their Governour was stiled Servant to the poore Servitours of the hospitall of Ierusalem like as the Master of the Templars who shortly after arose was termed The humble Minister of the poore Knights of the Temple This religious Order was instituted shortly after Geffery of Bollen had recovered Hierusalem The Brethren whereof ware a white Crosse upon their upper blacke Garment and by solemne Profession were bound to serve Pilgrimes and poore people in the Hospitall of Saint Iohn at Hierusalem and to secure the passages thither they charitably buried the dead they were continuall in prayer mortified themselves with watchings and fastings they were courteous and kinde to the poore whom they called their Masters and fed with white bread while themselves lived with browne and carried themselves with great austerity Whereby they purchased to themselves the love and liking of all sorts and through the bounty of good Princes and private persons admiring their piety and prowesse they rose from this low degree to so high an estate and great riches that after a sort they wallowed in wealth For they had about the yeare of our Lord 1240. within Christendome nineteene thousand Lordships or Manours like as the Templars nine thousand the Revenewes and rents whereof in England fell afterwards also to these Hospitalers And this Estate of theirs growne to so great an height made way for them to as great honours so as their Prior in England was reputed the Prime Baron of the Land and able with fulnesse and aboundance of all things to maintaine an honourable Port untill that King Henry the Eighth advised by them which respected their private profit gat their lands and livings into his owne hands like as hee did of the Monasteries also Albeit it was then declared that such religious places being of most pious intent consecrated to the Glory of God might have beene according to the Canons of the Church bestowed in exhibition and Almes for Gods Ministers releefe of the poore redemption of Captives and repairing of Churches Neere unto it where now is to be seene a sightly circuit of faire houses was the Charter-house founded by Sir Walter Many of Henault who with singular commendation served under King Edward the Third in the French warres and in that place heretofore was a most famous Cemitery or buriall place in which in a plague time at London were buried in the yeare 1349. more than 50000. persons a
thing recorded to posterity by an inscription which continued there a long time engraven in Brasse On this North-West side likewise London hath other great Suburbs and there stood in old time a Watchtowre or military Forefense whence the place was of an Arabicke word called Barbacan and by the gift of King Edward the Third became the dwelling house of the Vffords from whom by the Willoughbies it came to Sir Pengrine Bertey Lord Willoughbey of Eresby a man noble and generous and one of Mars his broode Neither lesse Suburbs runne out on the North-East and East In the fields of which Suburbs whiles I was first writing these matters there were gotten out of the ground many urnes funerall vessels little Images and earthen pots wherein were small peeces of money coined by Claudius Nero Vespasian c. Glasse vials also and sundry small earthen vessels wherein some liquid substance remained which I would thinke to bee either of that sacred oblation of Wine and Milke which the ancient Romanes used when they burnt the dead or else those odoriferous liquours that Statius mentioneth Pharijque liquores Arsuram lavere comam And liquid baulmes from Aegypt-land that came Did wash his haire that ready was for flame This place the Romanes appointed to burne and bury dead bodies who according to the law of the xij Tables carried Coarses out of their Cities and enterred them by the high waies sides to put Passengers in minde that they are as those were subject to mortality Thus much of that part of the City which lieth to the Land Now for that side where the River runneth toward the South banke thereof the Citizens made a Bridge also over the Water reaching to that large Burrough of Southwarke whereof I have already spoken First of wood in that place where before time they used for passage a ferry boat in stead of a Bridge Afterwards under the Raigne of King John they built a new Bridge with admirable workmanship of stone hewen out of the Quarry upon 19. Arches beside the draw-bridge and so furnished it on both sides with passing faire houses joyning one to another in manner of a Street that for bignesse and beauty it may worthily carry away the prise from all the Bridges in Europe In this Burgh of Southwarke to speake onely of things memorable there stood sometime a famous Abbay of Monkes of Saint Benets Order called Bermondsey consecrated in times past unto our Saviour by Aldwin Childe Citizen of London also a stately house built by Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolke which having served his turne but a small time was shortly after pulled downe These are extant Saint Thomas Hospitall reedified or founded rather by the City of London for the sustenance of feeble and impotent persons The Priory of the blessed Virgin Mary called Saint Mary Over Rhe because it standeth beyond the River of Tamis in regard of London erected by William Pont del Arche a Norman for blacke Chanons The Bishops house of Winchester built by William Giffard Bishop for his Successours about the yeare of our Lord 1107. From which along the Tamis banke there runneth Westward a continued raunge of dwelling houses where within our fathers remembrance was the Bordello or Lupanarie for so the Latines terme those little roomes or secret chambers of harlots wherein they filthily prostituted their bodies to sale because they after the manner of ravening she-wolves catch hold of silly wretched men and plucke them into their holes But these were prohibited by King Henry the Eighth at which time England was growne to excessive lasciviousnesse and riot which in other Nations are continued for gaine under a specious shew of helping mans infirmity Neither of these Strumpets and brothel-houses doe I thinke that this place in our tongue tooke the name Stewes but of those Ponds or Stewes which are heere to feed Pikes and Tenches fat and to scowre them from the strong and muddy fennish taste Heere have I seene Pikes panches opened with a knife to shew their fatnesse and presently the wide gashes and wounds come together againe by the touch of Tenches and with their glutinous slime perfectly healed up Among these buildings there is a place in manner of a Theater for baiting of Beares and Buls with Dogges and certaine kenels appointed severally for Band-Dogges or Mastives which are of that strength and so sure of bit that three of them are able to take and hold downe a Beare and foure a Lion so that the Poet in old time reported truely of our Dogges in these words Taurorum fracturi colla Britanni The British Dogges are able well To breake the neckes of Buls so fell Like as he that said they were more fierce than the Dogges of Arcadian kinde which are thought to be engendred of Lions What time as the Bridge was thus made betweene London and this Burrough the City was not onely enlarged but also an excellent forme of Common wealth was therein ordained and the Citizens reduced into certaine distinct Corporations and Companies The whole City divided into six and twenty Wards and the Counsell of the City consisted of as many ancient men named of their age in our tongue Aldermen as one would say Senatours who each one have the overseeing and rule of his severall Ward and whereas in ancient time they had for their Head-Magistrate a Portreve that is a Governour of the City King Richard the First ordained two Ballives in stead of whom soone after King John granted them liberty to chuse by their voices yearely out of the twelve principall Companies a Major for their chiefe Magistrate also two Sheriffes whereof the one is called the Kings the other the Cities Sheriffe This forme of Common wealth being thus established it is incredible to tell how much London grew and groweth still in publike and also private buildings whiles all the Cities of England besides decrease For to say nothing of that beautifull peece of worke the Senatâ— house named Guild Hall built by Sir Thomas Knowles Major Leaden Hall a large and goodly building erected by Simon Eire to bee a common Garner in time of dearth to pull downe the price of Corne the Merchants meeting place standing upon Pillars which the common people call the Burse and Queene Elizabeth with a solemne ceremony named The Royall Exchange for the use of Merchants and an ornament to the City set up by Sir Thomas Gresham Citizen and knight a magnificent worke verily whether you respect the modull of the building the resort of Merchants from all Nations thâ—ther or the store of wares there Which Sir Thomas Gresham being withall an exceeding great lover of learning consecrated a most spacious house his owne habitation to the furtherance of learning and instituted there Professours of Divinity Law Physicke Astronomy Geometry and Musicke with liberall salaries and stipends to the end that London might be a place
522 a Burrow bridg 701 a Burrow a town 522 b Baron Burrow or Burgh 303 f Burrough a towne and family 522 Burrough of Southwarke 303 d Burthred the last King of Mercians 554 a Burse of London or Roiall Exchange 439 b Burgh upon Sands 775 e Burgundians brought into Britaine 71 Burton Lazers 522 a Burton upon Trent 586 b Burwell castle 490 Buriall of men with legs a crosse 808 a Bury Abbey 460 e Bustlers a family 489 e Busleys or Busseies a family 535 Busy Gap 800 f Butlers of Wem 592 c Butler of Woodhall ibid. c Butler Earle of Wiltshire 256 d Butlers a family 748 b Butlers or Botelers of Ireland 752 f Butterby 739 Butsiet 20 Buttington 662 Burton well 557 c Byliricay 442 e C CAblu 21 Cadbury 221 c Cadier Arthur or Arthurs chair an hill 627 c Cadocus Earl of Cornwall 197 b Cadugan ap Blethin 658 c. 662 c a renowned Britaine Caerulus Caerulum 24 Caesars entry into Britaine 343 e where hee passed over the Tamis 295 e Caesaromagus 442 b Caesarea the name of manie Cities 442 b Iul. Caesar his temperance and small port 38 his patience ibid. conquered not Britaine 38 he neglected Britaine ibid. Caesares 164 Caer what it signifieth 204 a Caer Caradocke an Hill 590 a Caer Custeineth 668 d Caerdiff 642 d Caerfuse 661 e Caer Gai 666 a Caer Guby 673 a Caer Guortigern ibid. Caerhean ibid. Caer Leon ibid. Caermardenshire 649 Caermarden City 649 e Caernarvonshire 667 Caernarvon-towne 668 e Caer Palladâ—r 270 a Caer Phillicastle 642 a Caer Segonte 270 a Caer Vorran 800 e Caer went 633 d Caer wisk 679 d Caihaignes a family 395 Caius Caesar ment to invade Britaine 40. his vanity his voiage thither 41. his triumph over Britaine 42 Cainsham 236 e Calaterium nemus 723 d Caishoberry 415 a Calc i. lime Calcaria 699 a Calder the river 691 a Caldwell 731 c Caledonians make head against the Romans 56 Caloughdon 568 c Calphurnius Agricola 66 Calshot or Caldshore 260 d Calveley a place and worthy family 608 d Sir Hugh Calveley a valiant knight 608 d Callais no ancient towne 348 b Calthrops a family 463 e Cam a river why so called 486 a Cam 21 Camalet 221 b Camalet townes ibid. c Camalodunum 43. lost 50 Cambodunum 449. Camb-alan-river 194 Camboritum 486 a Camden or Camp den 364 f Camden the Author his opinion of the name of Britannia and the originall of Britans 9 Cambridge in Glocestershire 362 c Cambridgeshire 485 Cambridge defaced and burnt 488 b Cambridge town and Universitie 486 c When it became an Universitie 489 a Camulus a God 446 e Camell a river 194 Camelsford ibid. Candishor Cavendish 554 b Camois Barons 312 e Candocus see Cadocus Cambridge Earles 495 e Camvills a family 569 a Camur 21. Candetum 20 Cangi a people in Britaine 611 b 231 a. subdued 43 Cank-wood 583 e Canterium 19. Cantroed 20 Cantelowes an honorable family 514 a Cantlow 201 f Th. Cantlow a Bishop and Saint 619 c Cantium what cape 1 Canterbury Colledge in Oxford 381 a Canterbury 336 c. Canterbury Archbishops Primates of Britaine 338 e Cantred what it is 650 b Cantred Bitham ibid. Cantred Maur 650 c Can a river 759 c. 445 d Cancefeilds a family 755 d Candale or Kendale a Barony 759 c Canel Cole 735 d Canonium is Chelmesford 445 d Cantabri and Scithians of like manners 121 Canvey Isle 441 a Cantaber a Spaniard founder of Cambridge Universitie 487 a Canutus his Apophth 261 e Canvills a family 515 c Capgrave his legends 646 Capitatio a Tribute 100 Caradauc Urichfas 590 c King Caradock 633 â— f. delivered unto Ostorius 590 a. taken prisoner by Queen Cactismana 44. his undaunted courage ibid. Caratacus Prince of the Dimeiae 657 e. 43 Caranton 220 Cardiganshire 657. Lord thereof 658 c Cardigan a towne 657 e Careg castle 650 Carleton a towne and family 472 d Carews of Surry 302 c Carews a family 652 c Carew castle ibid. Carew of Anthony 198 d Carewes a noble family 202 e 282 d Caries 202 e R. Carew 193 Carew Baron of Clopton 565 b Careston 517 c Carlile 778 d. Old Carlile 773 b. Carlile had one Earle 780 d Carnabies a family 808 f Carthismandua wife to Venusius a stout Lady 48. her loose life and adultery 53 Carmelite Friers 351 e. brought first into England 813 d Carthmell 755 a Caribec 121 Carisbrook 275 c Careswell a castle and family 587 Carausius usurpeth the Empire 72. governeth Britaine well ib. slaine by Allectus 72 Carus and Carinus Emperours 73 Carminow 190 Carrs a family 815 Carr a river 210 c Carmouth 210 b Carram 815 a Carvills a family 481 a Carvilius 37 Henry Cary Baron of Hunsden his high and noble descent 408 409 Sir Edmund Cary knight of high descent 414 e Cassibelinus Generall of the Britaines armie 36 Cassibellinus or Cassiavelanus encountereth Caesar and the Romans 37. is repulsed ibid. treateth about peace with Caesar 37 Cassii 391 c. why so called ibid. f Caster 473 d Caster in Huntingdonshire 502 a Castigand an high hill 501 d Castle in the Peake ib. 502 a Castle Acre 481 c. 557 d Castle Ashby 509 e Castle Camps 488 f. 489 f Castle Cary 696 b Castle Coch 662 b Castle Colwen or of Maud in Colewent 623 b Castle Crest by Lichfeild 582 e Castle Comb 243 e Castle Dinas Bran 677 c Castle Dinas 628 d Castleford 695 a Castle Gard 345 a. 201 c Castle Paine 623 b Castle steeds 783 b. 793 d. 808 Castor 542 d Catadunae or waterfalls 759 f Castellan Denis 194 Catesby a towne 508 b. anancient family ib. tainted by Rob. Catesby of Ashbie Saint Leger ibid. 431 d Catheri Heretickes 84 Catlidge 498 b Catmose a vale 525 f Caterna 18 Caterva ibid. Cattieuch lani 391 Catarick 730 c d Caturactonium 730 c Caturfa 18 Caud a river 778 b Caudbeck ibid. c Sir Will. Cavendish or Candish Baron of Hardwick 556 a Caves a family 515 b A Cave wonderfull in Glamorganshire 643 b Caurse castle 592 e Causeies or highwaies in Britain 63. what names they have in divers authors 64. by whom and how they were made 64. in Italy and else where 64 Cawood 707 d Caxton 485 c Cecily Nevill mother to King Edward the fourth 511 b. an unfortunate Lady ibid. b c. her tomb subverted 510 e Rob. Cecil Baron of Essendon Viscount Cranburn 217 c Rob. Cecil Earle of Salisbury 250 e Thomas Cecil Earle of Excester 206 a Sir Wil. Cecil baron Burghley 514 e Cedos Caesar 18 Centuries see Hundreds Celtae whence derived 20 Cerdick a warlike Saxon 477 d Cerdick sand ibid. Cerdick shore ibid. Cerastis 184 Cerealis vanquished 50. hee conquered the Brigantes 54 Cerne Abbey 212 b Cerygy Drudion 675 c Cester an addition to cities 517 Cester Over ibid. Cley-Cester 518 b Chad a famous Bishop of Lichfield 585 e. 441 a canonized a Saint ibid. Sir Thomas Chaloner a learned knight 721 d
themselves of Holland then called Batavia under Constantius Chlorus Constantine the Great and his sonnes being received as Liege-men and translated from thence to inhabite the waste and desert countries of Gaule either by the swords point making way into more plentifull regions or else as Zosimus writeth driven out by the Saxons departed out of Holland From which time all the people bordering upon that sea coast in Germanie which were men of warre and professed Piracie as before they grew to be Franci so now they became clepid Saxons those Nations I meane which inhabite Iutland Sleswicke Holst Ditmarse the Bishopricke of Breme the countie of Oldenburgh both East and West Frisland and Holland For the nation of the Saxons as Fabius Quaestor Ethelward himselfe descended of the Saxons royall bloud writeth was wholly all that upon the seacoast from the river Rhene unto the citie Donia and which now is commonly called Dane-Marc Which author that I may acknowledge by whom I have profited master Thomas Allen of Oxford an excellent man and one endued with very many singular Arts first found out and of his courtesie imparted the same unto me with many others Out of this Maritime tract the Saxons fleshed now with the slaughter of many Romanes brake many times into the Romans provinces and for a great while annoied this Iland untill Hengist himselfe came Who out of Batavia or Holland sailed into Britaine and built that Castle of Leiden in Holland as not onely the Hollanders Annals doe testifie but also that noble Ianus Dousa a man of excellent wit and learning who of that Castle versifieth thus Quem circinato maenium ut ambitu Sic arcuatis fornicibus novum Putatur Hengistus Britanno Orbe redux posuisse victor Which Hengist by report when he Return'd from Britaine with victorie Built new with walles in compasse round And on vaults arched under ground The Iutae who had that name as many thinke from the Gutes Getes or Gothes for in a manuscript booke we read Geatun did for certaine inhabite the upper part of Cimbrica Chersonesus which still the Danes call Iuitland descended haply of those Guttae whom Ptolomee hath placed in Scandia whose habitation this day is called Gothland But take heede you thinke not with Iornandes that this was the native country of those Gothes who with victorious conquests over-ran all Europe for the most ancient and best approoved writers have recorded unto us that they dwelt beyond the river Ister fast by Pontus Euxinus and were before time called Getae But in what place the Angles were seated it is a question neither are all men of one opinion Most authors place them in Westphalia where Engern standeth and where the Suevians whom Tacitus and Ptolomee make mention of had their abode whom I am willing to beleeve if wee speake of the age of Tacitus but I suppose that from thence they came downe to the tract by the sea side Others seeke for them in Pomerania where the towne Angloen flourisheth But seeing these reach into the more inland parts of Germany far from our seas surely we must seek for some other seat of our Angles or Englishmen which Beda willed me to looke for between the Saxons and Iutes The Angles quoth he came out of that countrey which is called Angulus and is reported from that time to lie waste betweene the Provinces of the Saxons and Iutes Now seeing that between Iuitland and Holsatia the ancient countrey of the Saxons there is a little Province in the Kingdome of Dania named at this day Angel beneath the citie Flemsburg which Lindebergius in his Epistles calleth Little Anglia I dare affirme that now at length I have found the place of our ancestors habitation and that from thence the Angles came into this Iland And to averre this the more confidently I have good warrant from the authoritie of that ancient writer Ethelwardus whose words be these Old Anglia is sited between the Saxons and the Giots they have a capitall towne which in the Saxon tongue is named Sleswic but the Danes call it Haithby In which verie place Ptolomee seemeth to set the Saxons So that a Poet of the middle time sung not untunably in this manner Saxonia protulit Anglos Hoc patet in lingua niveoque colore That Englishmen from Saxons draw descent Their colour white and tongue make evident Of these Angles some part having passed forward into the inmore quarters of Germanie being blended with the Longobards and the Suevians went as farre as Italie and are thought to have left their footing in Engelheim the native countrey of Charles the Great Ingolstad Engleburg Englerute in Germanie and Angleria in Italie But what the reason or Etymologie is of the name I dare not definitively pronounce Away with that Angulus the son of Humblus and with Queene Angela whom foolish folke babble to have beene the founders of our Nation Neither thinke we that their name was imposed of Angulus that is An angle or corner as if it were a corner of the world as some building upon that stale verse seeme to hold Anglia terra ferax fertilis angulus orbis Insula praedives quae toto vix eget orbe England a fruitfull angle is without the world so wide An Iland rich that hath small need of all the world beside Neither doth Goropius his conjecture deserve credit but rather a smile which deriveth Anglos that is Englishmen from Angle that is A fishing rod or a Fish-hooke because saith he they hooked all unto them and were as we say Good Anglers But he that seeth the Etymologie of Engelbert Englehard and such like Dutch names may see perhaps the originall of Angli also Moreover it may seeme out of Procopius that the Frisones likewise came with others into Britaine The text whole as it lieth for that the booke is not commonly extant in print I will not thinke much here to set downe even as Franciscus Pithaeus a singular good man and in all sorts of Antiquitie most skilfull hath exemplified it unto me out of the Kings Library in Paris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is according to my grosse translation thus The Iland Britaine three most populous nations doe inhabite which have everie one their severall King to rule them and these Nations be called Angili Frisones and after the name of the very Iland Britones Now they seeme to be so great a multitude of people that every yeere a mightie number of them with their wives and children flit from thence unto the Franks and they give them entertainment in that part of their Land which seemeth most desert above the rest and hereupon men say they challenge unto themselves the verie Iland And verily not long since when the King of the Franks sent certaine of his people in Embassage to Constantinople unto the Emperour Iustinian he sent withall some English pretending ambitiously that this Iland was under his
any expedition set out either by sea or land it served in proportion to five hides It hath beene likewise from time to time much afflicted once spoiled and sore shaken by the furious outrages of the Danes in the yeare of our redemption 875. but most grievously by Suen the Dane in the yeare 1003. at which time by the treacherie of one Hugh a Norman Governor of the citie it was raced and ruined along from the East gate to the West And scarcely began it to flourish againe when William the Conquerour most straightly beleaguered it when the Citizens in the meane while thought it not sufficient to shut their gates against him but malapartly let flie taunts and flouts at him but when a piece of their wall fell downe by the speciall hand of God as the Historians of that age report they yielded immediatly thereupon At which time as we find in the said survey-booke of his The King had in this Citie three hundred houses it paid fifteene pounds by the yeare and fortie houses were destroyed after that the King came into England After this it was thrice besieged and yet it easily avoided all First by Hugh Courtney Earle of Denshire in that civill warre betweene the two houses of Lancaster and Yorke then by Perkin Warbecke that imaginarie counterfeit and pretended Prince who being a young man of a very base condition faining himselfe to be Richard Duke of Yorke the second sonne of King Edward the Fourth stirred up dangerous stirres against Henrie the Seventh thirdly by seditious Rebels of Cornwall in the yeare of Christ 1549 at which time the Citizens most grievously pinched though they were with scarcitie of all things continued neverthelesse in their faith and allegeance untill that Iohn Lord Russell raised the siege and delivered them But Excester received not so great damage at these enemies hands as it did by certaine dammes which they call Weares that Edward Courtney Earle of Denshire taking high displeasure against the Citizens made in the river Ex which stop the passage so that no vessell can come up to the Citie but since that time all merchandize is carried by land from Topesham three miles off And albeit it hath beene decreed by Act of Parliament to take away these Weares yet they continue there still Hereupon the little Towne adjoyning is call Weare being aforetime named Heneaton which was sometime the possession of Augustine de Baa from whom in right of inheritance it descended to Iohn Holland who in his signet which my selfe have seene bare a Lion rampant gardant among flowers de Lys. The civill government of this Citie is in the power of foure and twenty persons out of whom there is from yeare to yeare a Major elected who with foure Bailiffes ruleth heere the State As touching the Geographicall description of this place the old tables of Oxford have set downe the longitude thereof to bee nineteene degrees and eleven scruples the latitude fiftie degrees and fortie scruples or minutes This Citie that I may not omit so much hath had three Dukes For Richard the Second of that name King of England created Iohn Holland Earle of Huntingdon and his brother by the mothers side the first Duke of Excester whom Henrie the Fourth deposed from this dignitie and left unto him the name onely of Earle of Huntingdon and soone after for conspiracie against the King he lost both it and his life by the hatchet Some few yeares after Henry the Fifth set in his place Thomas Beaufort of the house of Lancaster and Earle of Dorset a right noble and worthy warriour When he was dead leaving no issue behind him John Holland sonne of that aforesaid John as heire unto his brother Richard who died without children and to his father both being restored to his bloud by the favour and bounty of King Henry the Sixth recovered his fathers honor and left the same to Henry his sonne who so long as the Lancastrians stood upright flourished in very much honor but afterwards when the family of Yorke was a float and had rule of all gave an example to teach men how ill trusting it is to great Fortunes For this was that same Henry Duke of Excester who albeit he had wedded King Edward the Fourth his sister was driven to such miserie that he was seene all tottered torne and barefooted to begge for his living in the Low countries And in the end after Barnet field fought wherein he bare himselfe valiantly against Edward the Fourth was no more seene untill his dead bodie as if he had perished by Shipwracke was cast upon the shore of Kent A good while after this Henry Courtney Earle of Denshire the sonne of Katharine daughter to King Edward the Fourth was advanced to the honour of Marquesse of Excester by Henry the Eighth and designed heire apparant But this Marquesse as well as the first Duke was by his high parentage cast into a great tempest of troubles wherein as a man subject to suspitions and desirous of a change in the State he was quickly overthrowne And among other matters because he had with money and counsell assisted Reginald Poole afterwards Cardinall then a fugitive practising with the Emperour and the Pope against his owne Country and the King who had now abrogated the Popes authoritie he was judicially arraigned and being condemned with some others lost his head But now of late by the favour of King Iames Thomas Cecill Lord Burleigh enjoyeth the title of Earle of Excester a right good man and the worthy sonne of so excellent a father being the eldest sonne of William Cecill Lord Burleigh high Treasurer of England whose wisedome for a long time was the support of peace and Englands happy quietnesse From Excester going to the very mouth of the River I find no monument of Antiquitie but Exminster sometime called Exanminster bequeathed by King Elfred to his younger sonne and Pouderham Castle built by Isabell de Ripariis the seat long time of that most noble family of the Courtneys Knights who being lineally descended from the stocke of the Earles of Denshire and allied by affinitie to most honorable houses flourish still at this day most worthy of their descent from so high Ancestors Under Pouderham Ken a pretty brooke entreth into Ex which riseth neere Holcombe where in a Parke is a faire place built by Sir Thomas Denis whose family fetcheth their first off-spring and surname from the Danes and were anciently written Le Dan Denis by which name the Cornish called the Danes But lower upon the very mouth of the river on the other banke side as the name it selfe doth testifie standeth Exanmouth knowne by nothing else but the name and for that some fishermen dwelt therein More Eastward Otterey that is The River of Otters or River-Dogs which we call Otters as may appeare by the signification of the word falleth into the sea which runneth hard under
other publique huntings among the Romans For as the same Strabo writeth they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of a generous kind and framed naturally for hunting Whereupon Nemesianus wrote thus divisa Britannia mittit Veloces nostrique orbis venatibus aptos Though Britaine from this world of ours doth lie secluded farre Swift hounds it sends which for our game most fitly framed are Gratius also of their price and excellencie saith thus Quod freta si Morinûm dubiâ— refluentia ponto Veneris atque ipsos libeat penetrare Britannos O quanta est merces quantum impendia supra If that to Calice-streights you goe Where tides uncertaine ebbe and flow And list to venture further more Crossing the seas to British shore What meede would come to quite your paines What overdeale beside of gaines Yea and that very dog with us which of the old name Agasaeus we call yet at this day a Gasehound those ancient Greekes both knew and also had in great price And this will Oppian in his first booke of his Cynegeticks tell you in these Greeke verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Bodine turned into Latine thes Est etiam catuli species indagine clara Corpus huic breve magnifico sed corpore digna Picta Britannorum gens illos effera bello Nutrit Agasaeosque vocat vilissima forma Corporis ut credas parasitos esse latrantes And may be Englished in this wise Stout hounds there are and those of finders kind Of bodie small but doughtie for their deed The painted folke fierce Britans as we find Them Gasehounds call for they with them doe breed In making like house dogs or at a word To lickerous curs that craven at our bord Claudian also touching our Mastives writeth in this sort Magnaque taurorum fracturi colla Britanni And British mastives downe that puls Or breake the necks of sturdy bulls I have too far digressed about dogges yet hope a favourable pardon In this Citie as our owne Historiographers doe report in the time of the Romans was that Constans the Monke who by his father Constantine was first elect Caesar and afterwards Augustus that Constantine I say who upon hope of this name had assumed the Imperiall purple roabe that is usurped the Empire against Honorius For long since as Zosinus recordeth speaking of those times as well in villages as in Cities there were great colledges peopled as it were with Monks who before time â—â—ying the light lived scattering heere and there among mountaines woods and forrests all solitary by themselues whereof also they were so called Now of this Colledge wherein the said Constans was those old broken walles which are seene of that thicknesse and strength at the West-gate of the Cathedrall Church may seeme to be the ruines and reliques But this imperiall Monke taken out from hence suffered soone after condigne punishment both for his fathers ambition and also for the contempt of his professed religion During the Heptarchie of the Saxons this Citie albeit once or twice it suffered much calamity and miserie yet it revived and recovered againe yea and became the seat royall of the West-Saxons Kings adorned with magnificent Churches and a Bishops See furnished likewise with six mint houses by King Aethelstane In the Normans time also it flourished very much and in it was erected an office for keeping of all publike records and evidences of the Realme In which prosperous estate it continued a long time but that once or twice it was defaced by misfortune of suddaine fires and in the civill war betweene Stephen and Maude about the Kingdome of England lacked by the unruly and insolent souldiers Whereupon Necham our countriman who lived in that age writeth thus Guintoniam titulis claram gazisque repletam Noverunt veterum tempora prisca patrum Sed tam sacra fames auri jam caecus habendi Vrbibus egregiis parcere nescit amor Our ancestours knew Winchester sometimes a goodly Towne In treasure rich and plentifull in name of great renowne But now for hunger after gold our men so greedy are That even such Cities excellent they know not how to spare But of these losses it recovered it selfe by the helpe of Edward the third who heere appointed the Mart for wooll and cloth which we commonly call the Staple What was the face and outward shew of this Citie in these foregoing times a man can hardly tell considering that as the said Necham writeth Flammis toties gens aliena dedit Hinc facies urbis toties mutata dolorem Praetendit casus nuntia vera sui So many times a nation strange Hath fir'd this towne and made such change That now her face and outward hue Her griefe bewray's and tels full true In these daies of ours it is indifferently well peopled and frequented having water plentie by reason of the River turned and conveighed divers waies into it lying somewhat in length from East to West and containeth about a mile and a halfe in circuit within the walls which open at sixe gates and have every one of them their suburbs reaching forth without a good way On the South side of the West gate there mounteth up an old Castle which oftentimes hath beene besieged but most sore and straightly above the rest what time as Mawd the Empresse held it against King Stephen and at length by a rumour given out that she was dead and causing her selfe to be caried out in a coffin like a course deceived the enemie As concerning that round table there hanging up against the wall which the common sort useth to gaze upon with great admiration as if it had beene King Arthurs table I have nothing to say but this That as a man which vieweth it well may easily perceive it is nothing so ancient as King Arthur For in latter times when for the exercise of armes and feates of warlike prowesse those runnings at tilt and martiall justlings or torneaments were much practised they used such tables least any contention or offence for prioritie of place should through ambition arise among Nobles and Knights assembled together And this was a custome of great antiquitie as it may seeme For the ancient Gaules as Athenaeus writeth were wont to sit about round tables and their Esquires stood at their backes holding their shields About the midst of the citie but more inclining to the South Kenelwalch King of the West-Saxons after the subversion of that Colledge of Monkes which flourished in the Romans time as William of Malmesburie saith First founded to the glory of God the fairest Church that was in those daies in which very place the posteritie afterwards in building of a Cathedrall seate for the Bishop although it were more stately than the first yet followed just in the very same steps In this See there have
forme of words made a grant unto the Monks of Westminster To the praise of almighty God I have granted as an endowment and a perpetuall Inheritance to the use and behoofe of those that serve the Lord Windle-shore with the appurtenances And I have read nothing more ancient concerning Windsore But the Monks had not long held it in possession when William of Normandie by making an exchange drew it backe to himselfe For in this tenure goeth his Charter With the consent and favour of the venerable Abbat of Westminster I have made a composition for Windlesor to be the Kings possession because that place seemed profitable and commodious by reason of water hard adjoyning to it and the wood fit for game many other particulars lying there meet necessary for Kings yea and a place very convenient to receive and entertaine the King in lieu whereof I have granted to the Monks Wokendune and Ferings Surely a Princes seat cannot lightly have a more pleasant site For from an high hill that riseth with a gentle ascent it enjoyeth a most delightfull prospect round about Fore-right in the Front it overlooketh a vale lying out farre and wide garnished with corne-fields flourishing greene with medowes decked with groves on either side and watered with the most mild and calme river Tamis Behind it arise hils every where neither rough nor over-high attired as it were with woods and even dedicated as one would say by nature to hunting game With the pleasantnes of this place Princes were allured very often to retire themselves hither and heere was Edward the Third that most puissant King borne to conquer France who heere built new out of the ground a most strong Castle in bignesse equall to a pretie Citie fortified with ditches and bulwarks made of stone and forthwith after he had subdued the French and Scots held at one and the selfe same time Iohn King of France and David King of Scotland prisoners together in the same This Castle is divided into courts the inner more toward the East containeth in it the Kings pallace than which for the order and contriving there can be no building more lightsome nor more magnificent On the north side where it looketh downe to the river Q. Elizabeth adjoyned a most pleasant Terrace or open walking place The utter base court hath at the very first entrance a most stately Church consecrated by King Edward the Third unto the blessed Virgine Marie and to Saint George of Cappadocia but brought unto that sumptuous magnificence which now we see it carrie by King Edward the fourth and Sir Reginald Bray In this place king Edward the third for to adorne martiall prowesse with honors the guerdon of vertue ordained that most noble order and society of Knights whom as some report for his owne garter given forth as signall of a battaile that sped fortunately hee called Knights of the Garter who weare on their left legge somewhat under the knee a blew garter carying this Impresse wrought with golden letters in French HONY SOIT QVI MALYPENSE and fasten the same with a buckle of gold as with the bond of a most inward society in token of concord and unity that there might bee among them a certaine consociation and communion of vertues But others there be that doe attribute it unto the garter of the Queene or rather of Ioan Countesse of Salisburie a Lady of incomparable beauty which fell from her as shee daunced and the King tooke up from the floore for when a number of Nobles and Gentle men standing by laughed thereat he made answere againe that shortly it would come to passe that garter should be in high honour and estimation This is the common and most received report Neither need this seeme to be a base originall thereof considering how as one saith Nobilitas sub amore jacet Nobility lies under love There be also that would have the invention of this order to be much more ancient fathering it upon King Richard the first and are verily perswaded that King Edward at length brought it into use againe but how truely I know not Yet in the verie booke of the first Institution which William Dethicke Garter principall King of armes a Gentleman most studious in all such things as concerne Honour shewed unto me thus we read Richardo cum contra Turcas Agarenos c. that is when K. Richard warred upon the Turkes and Saracens Cypres and Acon and was wearie of so lingring delay whiles the siege continued long in wonderfull care anxiety at length upon a divine inspiration by the comming in apparition as it was thought of S. George it came into his mind to draw upon the legs of certaine choise Knights of his a certaine Garter or tach of leather such onely as he had then readie at hand whereby they being distinguished and put in minde of future glorie promised unto them if they wonne the victorie they might be stirred up and provoked to performe their service bravely and fight more valiantly in imitation of the Romans who had such varietie of Coronets wherewith militarie men for divers and sundry causes were rewarded accordingly to the end that by these instigations as it were cowardise being shaken of the valour of mind and courage of heart might arise and shew it selfe more resolute But upon what occasion soever it beganne the mightiest Princes of Christendome reputed it amongst their greatest honour to be chosen and admitted into this companie and since the first institution thereof there have been alreadie received and enrolled into this order which consisteth of six and twentie Knights two and twentie Kings or thereabout besides our Kings of England who are named Soveraignes thereof to speake nothing of Dukes and others of most high calling verie many And here I am willing to set downe their names that were first chosen into this order and be commonly called the Founders of the Order for their renowne is not to be abolished who in those daies for stowt courage and warlike prowesse had few or no peeres and were in that regard advanced to this honour Edward the Third King of England Edward his eldest Sonne Prince of Wales Henrie Duke of Lancaster Thomas Earle of Warwicke The Capdall de Buch. Ralph Earle of Stafford William de Monteacute Earle of Sarisburie Roger Mortimer Earle of March Sir Iohn Lisle Sir Bartholomew Burgwash Sir Iohn Beauchampe Sir Iohn Mohun Sir Hugh Courtney Sir Thomas Holland Sir Iohn Grey Sir Richard Fitz Simon Sir Miles Stapleton Sir Thomas Walle Sir Hugh Wrothesley Sir Neel Loring Sir Iohn Chandos Sir Iames Awdeley Sir Otes Holland Sir Henrie Eme. Sir Zanchet D'brigecourt Sir Walter Pavely On the left side of the Church are the houses of the Custos or Deane and twelve Prebendaries On the right side standeth an house not unlike to the Graecians Prytaneum wherein twelve aged militarie men Gentlemen borne are maintained who wearing every day a red or skarlet
menaces and censures were sent out from the Bishop of Rome against these Archbishops For these Monkes were in bodily feare least this would bee their utter undoing and a prejudice unto them in the Elections of the Archbishops Neither were these blustering stormes allaied untill the said Church newly begunne was laid levell with the ground Adjoyning hard to this is the most famous mercate towne and place of trade in all this shire which at this day they call The Burrough of Southwarke in Saxon speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Southworke or building because it standeth South over against London the Suburbs whereof it may seeme in some sort to bee but so large it is and populous that it gives place to few Cities of England having beene as it were a corporation by it selfe it had in our fathers daies Bayliffes but in the reigne of King Edward the Sixth it was annexed to the Citie of London and is at this day taken for a member as it were of it and therefore when wee are come to London wee will speake more at large thereof Beneath this Burrough the Tamis forsaketh Surry the East bound whereof passeth in a manner directly downe from hence Southward neere unto Lagham which had their Parliamentarie Barons called Saint Iohn de Lagham in the reigne of Edward the First whose Inheritance came at length by an heire generall to Iohn Leddiard and some-what lower in the very angle well neere where it bendeth to Southsex and Kent stands Streborow Castle the seate in ancient time of Lord Cobham who of it were called of Sterborow where the issue proceeding from the bodies of Iohn Cobham Lord of Cobham and Cowling and the daughter of Hugh Nevil flourished a long time in glory and dignitie For Reginald Cobham in King Edward the thirds daies being created Knight of the Garter was Admirall of the sea-coasts from Tamis mouth West-ward But Thomas the last male of that line wedded the Lady Anne daughter to Humfrey the Duke of Buckingham of whom he begat one onely daughter named Anne married unto Edward Burgh who derived his pedigree from the Percies and Earles of Athole whose sonne Thomas made by King Henry the Eighth Baron Burgh left a sonne behind him named William And his sonne Thomas a great favourer of learning and Lord Governour of Briell Queeene Elizabeth made Knight of the Garter and Lord Deputy of Ireland where hee honourably ended his life pursuing the rebels As touching Dame Eleanor Cobham descended out of this family the wife of Humfrey Duke of Glocester whose reputation had a flawe I referre you to the English Historie if you please Now are wee to reckon up the Earles of this shire William Rufus King of England made William de Warrena who had married his sister the first Earle of Surrey For in that Charter of his by which hee founded the Priory of Lewis thus wee read Donavi c. that is I have given and granted c. For the life and health of my Lord King William who brought mee into England and for the health of my Lady Queene Mawd my wives mother and for the life and health of my Lord King William her sonne after whose comming into England I made this charter who also created me Earle of Surry c. whose sonne William succeeded and married the daughter of Hugh Earle of Vermandois whereupon his posteritie as some suppose used the Armes of Vermandois vz. Chequy Or and Azure His sonne VVilliam dying in the Holy-land about the yeare 1148. had issue a daughter onely who adorned first William King Stephens sonne and afterward Hamelin the base sonne of Gefferey Plantagenet Earle of Anjou both her husbands with the same title But whereas her former husband died without issue William her sonne by Hamelin was Earle of Surry whose posterie assuming unto them the name of Warrens bare the same title This William espoused the eldest daughter and a coheire of William Marescall Earle of Pembroch the widow of Hugh Bigod who bare unto him Iohn who slew Alan de la Zouch in presence of the Judges of the Realme This Iohn of Alice the daughter of Hugh le Brune halfe sister by the mothers side of King Henry the third begat William who died before his father and hee of Ioan Vere the Earle of Oxfords daughter begat Iohn Posthumus borne after his decease and the last Earle of this house who was stiled as I have seene in the circumscription of his seale Earle of Warren of Surry and of Strathern in Scotland Lord of Bromfield and of Yale and Count-palatine But hee dying without lawfull issue in the twelfth yeare of Edward the thirds raigne Alice his sister and heire wedded unto Edmund Earle of Arundell by her marriage brought this honour of Surrey into the house of Arundells For Richard their sonne who married in the house of Lancaster after his father was wickedly beheaded for siding with his Soveraigne King Edward the Second by the malignant envie of the Queene was both Earle of Arundell and Surrey and left both Earledomes to Richard his sonne who contrary-wise lost his head for siding against his soveraigne King Richard the Second But Thomas his sonne to repaire his fathers dishonour lost his life for his Prince and country in France leaving his sisters his heires for the lands not entailed who were married to Thomas Mowbraie Duke of Norfolke c. to Sir Powland Lenthall and Sir William Beauchampe Lord of Abergeveny After by the Mowbraies the title of Surrey came at length to the Howards Howbeit in the meane while after the execution of Richard Earle of Arundell King Richard the Second bestowed the title of Duke of Surry upon Thomas Holland Earle of Kent which honour he enjoyed not long For while hee combined with others by privie conspiracies to restore the same King Richard to his libertie and kingdome the conspiracie was not carried so secretly but contrary to his expectation brake forth and came to light then fled hee and by the people of Cirencester was intercepted and cut shorter by the head After him Thomas Beaufort Chancellour to the King if we give credit to Thomas Walsingham bare this dignity For in the yeare of our Lord as hee saith 1410. The Lord Thomas Beaufort Earle of Surrey left this world Now let Walsingham in this point make good that which he writeth for in the Kings Records there is no such thing found but onely this that Thomas Beaufort about that time was made Lord Chancellour But certaine it is and that out of the Records of the Kingdome that King Henry the Sixth in the nine and twentie yeare of his raigne created Iohn Mowbray the sonne of Iohn Duke of Norfolke Earle Warren and of Surry And Richard second sonne of King Edward the Fourth having married the heire of Mowbray received all the titles due to the Mowbraies by creation from his father Afterward King Richard the Third having dispatched the
give my voice and accord with Ninnius who writeth That it tooke the name from Glovus the great grandfathers father of King Vortigern but that long before it Antonine had named it Glevum which both the Distance from Corinium and the name also may prove But as the Saxon name Gleavecester came from Glevum so Glevum proportionably from the British Caer Glow which I suppose sprong from the word Glow that in the British tongue signifieth Faire and Goodly so that Caer Glow may bee as much as to say a faire Citie In which signification also the Greekes had their Callipolis Callidromos Callistratia the English men their Brightstow and Shirley and in this very Countie Faireford Faire-ley c. This Citie was built by the Romans and set as it were upon the necke of the Silures to yoake them And there also was a Colonie planted to people it which they called COLONIA GLEVVM For I have seene a fragment of antique stone in the walles of Bath neere unto the North-gate with this Inscription DEC COLONIAE GLEV VIXIT ANN. LXXXVI It lieth stretched out in length over Severne on that side where it is not watered with the river it hath in some places a very strong wall for defence A proper and fine Citie I assure you it is both for number of Churches and for the buildings On the South part there was a lofty Castle of square Ashler stone which now for the most part is nothing but a ruine It was built in King William the first his time and sixteene houses there about as wee read in the booke of Englands Survey were plucked downe for the rearing of this Castle About which Roger the sonne of Miles Constable of Glocester went to law with King Henry the second and his brother Walter lost all the right and interest hee had in this City and Castle as Robert de Mont hath written Ceaulin King of the West Saxons was the first that about the yeare of our redemption 570. by force and armes wrested Glocester out of the Britans hands After this the Mercians won it under whom it flourished in great honour and Osricke King of Northumberland by permission of Etheldred the Mercian founded there a very great and stately Monastery for Nunnes over whom Kineburg Eadburg and Eve Queenes of the Mercians were Prioresses successively one after another Edelfled also that most noble Ladie of the Mercians adorned this City with a Church wherein shee her selfe was buried and not long after when the Danes had spoyled and wasted the whole countrey those sacred Virgins were throwne out and The Danes as Aethelward that ancient authour writeth with many a stroake pitched poore cottages into the citie of Glenvcester At which time when those more ancient Churches were subverted Aldred Archbishop of Yorke and Bishop of Worcester erected another for Monkes which is now the chiefe Church in the Citie and hath a Deane and sixe Prebendaries But the same in these late precedent ages was newly beautified For Iohn Hanley and Thomas Farley two Abbats added unto it the Chappel of the blessed Virgin Mary N. Morwent raised from the very foundation the forefront which is an excellent piece of worke G. Horton an Abbat adjoyned to it the crosse North-part Abbat Trowcester a most daintie and fine Cloister and Abbat Sebrok an exceeding high faire steeple As for the South side it was also repaired with the peoples offerings at the Sepulcher of the unhappy King Edward the second who lieth heere enterred under a monument of Alabaster and not farre from him another Prince as unfortunate as hee Robert Curt-hose the eldest sonne of King William the Conquerour Duke of Normandy within a woodden painted tombe in the midest of the quire who was bereft of the Kingdome of England for that he was borne before his father was King deprived of his two sonnes the one by strange death in the New-forrest the other dispoiled of the Earledome of Flanders his inheritance and slaine he himselfe dispossessed of the Dukedome of Normandie by his brother King Henry the first his eies plucked out and kept close prisoner 26. yeares with all contumelious indignities untill through extreame anguish hee ended his life Above the quire in an arch of this church there is a wall built in forme of a semicircle full of corners with such an artificiall device that if a man speake with never so low a voice at the one part thereof and another lay his eare to the other being a good way distant he may most easily heare every sillable In the reigne of William the Conquerour and before it may seeme that the chiefest trade of the Citizens was to make Iron For as we find in the Survey booke of England the King demanded in manner no other tribute than certaine Icres of Iron and Iron barres for the use of the Kings Navy and some few quarts of hony After the comming in of the Normans it suffered divers calamities by the hands of Edward King Henry the third his sonne whiles England was all on a smoake and cumbustion by the Barons warre it was spoiled and afterward by casualty of fire almost wholy consumed to ashes but now cherished with continuance of long peace it flourisheth againe as fresh as ever it was and by laying unto it two Hundreds it is made a County and called the County of the Citie of Glocester Also within the memory of our fathers King Henry the Eighth augmented the state thereof with an Episcopall See with which dignitie in old time it had beene highly endowed as Geffery of Monmouth avoucheth and I will not derogate ought from the credit of his assertion considering that among the Prelates of Britaine the Bishop Cluviensis is reckoned which name derived from Clevum or Glow doth after a sort confirme and strengthen my coniecture that this is that Glevum whereof Antonine maketh mention Severne having now left Glocester behind it and gathered his waters unto one streame againe windeth it selfe by Elmore a Mansion house of the Gises ancient by their owne lineall descent being in elder times owners of Apsely-Gise neere Brickhill and from the Beauchamps of Holt who acknowledge Huber de Burgo Earle of Kent whom I lately mentioned beneficious to them and testifie the same by their Armories Lower upon the same side Stroud a pretty river slideth into Severne out of Coteswold by Stroud a Mercat towne sometimes better peopled with Clothiers and not farre from Minching-Hampton which anciently had a Nunnery or belonged to Nunnes whom our ancestors named Minchings Now Severn waxing broader and deeper by reason of the alternative flowing and ebbing of the sea riseth and swelleth in manner of a rough and troublous sea indeed and so with many windings and turnings in and out speedeth him unto the Ocean But nothing offereth it selfe unto his sight to count of as hee passeth along but Cam-bridge a little country towne where it receiveth Cam a small
cruelty for that some of his followers were slaine there in a fray that there followed thereupon a most heavy banishment of the Students and the University a sorrowfull spectacle lay as it were halfe dead and past all recovery untill the dayes of king William the Conquerour Whom some write falsly to have wonne it by assault but Oxonia written amisse in the Copies for Exonia that is Excester deceived them And that it was at that time a place of Studies and Students may bee understood out of these words of Ingulph who in that age flourished I Ingulph saith hee being first placed in Westminster and afterwards sent to the Study of Oxford when as in learning of Aristotle I had profited above my fellowes of the same time c. For those Schooles of Learning which wee call Academies or Vniversities that Age termed Studia that is Studies as I will shew anone But at this very time it was so empoverished that whereas within the wall and without I speake out of William the Conquerour his Domesday booke there were about seaven hundred and fifty houses besides foure and twenty Mansions upon the Walls five hundred of them were not able to pay their Subsidy or Imposition And to use the very words of that booke This Citty paid pro Theloneo et Gablo and for other Customes by the yeare to the King twenty pounds and sixe quarts of Hony and unto Earle Algar tenne pounds About this time Robert D'oily a noble man of Normandy of whom I have before spoken when hee had received at the hands of William the Conquerour in reward of his Service in the Warres large Possessions in this Shire built a spacious Castle in the West side of the Citty with deepe Ditches Rampiers an high raised Mount and therein a Parish Church to Saint George unto which when as the Parishioners could not have accesse by reason that King Stephen most streightly besieged Maude the Empresse within this Castle Saint Thomas Chappell in the streete hard by was built He also as it is thought fortified the whole Citty with new walls which by little and little time doth force and as it were embreach with his assault Robert likewise Nephew unto him by his brother Neale and Chamberlaine to King Henry the First founded Ousney or Osney a most stately Abbay as the ruines doe yet shew amidst the divided waters not farre from the Castle perswaded thereto by Edith his wife the daughter of Forne who before time had beene one of King Henry the First his sweet hearts and lig-bies About those times as we read in the Chronicle of the said Osney Abbay Robert Pulein beganne to reade in Oxford the Holy Scriptures in England now growne out of request Who afterwards when as by his Doctrine the English and Frenchmen both had much profited was called by Pope Lucius the second and promoted to be Chancellour of the Church of Rome To the same effect also writeth Iohn Rosse of Warwicke By the procurement of King Henry the First the Divinity Lecture which had discontinued a long time in Oxford began againe to flourish and there he built a Palace which King Edward the Second at length converted into a Covent of Carmelits But long before this time in this Palace was borne into the World that Lion-hearted Knight Richard the First King of England commonly called Ceeur de Lion a Prince of a most hauty minde and full of resolution borne for the weale of Christendome the honour of England and the terrour of Infidels Upon whose death a Poet in that age of no meane conceite versified thus for that his remaines were interred in diverse places Viscera Carcelorum Corpus Fons servat Ebrardi Et cor Rhothomagum Magne Richarde tuum In tria dividitur unus qui plus fuit uno Nec superest uno gloria tanta viro Hîc Richarde jaces sed mors si cederet armis Victa timore tui cederet ipsa tuis Thy Bowels keep 's Carceolum thy corps Font Everard And Roan thy valiant Lions heart O noble great Richard Thus one three fold divided is for more he was then one And for that one so great he was such glory is in none Here li'st thou Richard but if death to force of armes could yeeld For feare of thee he would to thee have given as lost the field Thus after the Citty was refreshed againe with these buildings many beganne to flocke hither as it were to a Mart of learning and vertue and by the industrious meanes especially of that Robert Pulein a man borne to promote the Common-wealth of learning who refused no paines but laboured all that he could to set open againe those Well springs of good Literature which had beene stopped up through the favour especially of King Henry the First King Henry the Second and King Richard his sonne of whom I spake ere while And these endeavours of Pulein sped so well and tooke so good effect that in the reigne of King Iohn there were here three thousand Students who all at once every one changed their Habitation to Reding and partly to Cambridge because the Citizens seemed to wrong and abuse overmuch these Students and Professours of Learning but after this tumult was appeased they returned within a short time Then and in the age presently ensuing as God provided this City for good learning so he raised up a number of very good Princes and Prelats to the good thereof who for the adorning and maintenance of learning extended their liberality in the highest degree For when King Henry the Third had by way of Pilgrimage visited Saint Frideswide a thing before-time thought to bee an hainous Offence in a Prince for the dishonour offered to her by Algar a Prince and so removed that superstitious feare wherewith some superstitious Priestes had for a time frighted Princes from once comming to Oxford and had assembled here a very great Parliament for the composing of certaine controversies betweene him and the Barons hee confirmed the priviledges granted by the former Kings and conferred also some other himselfe So that by this time there was so great store of learned men that divers most skilfull in Divinity as well as in Humanitie were in great numbers spread from thence both into the Church and Common-wealth and Mathew Paris in plaine termes called The Vniversity of Oxford The Second Schoole of the Church nay rather a ground worke of the Church next after Paris For with the name of Vniversity the Bishops of Rome had before time honoured Oxford which Title at that time by their Decrees they vouchsafed to none but unto that of Paris this of Oxford unto Bononia in Italy and Salamanca in Spaine And in the Councell of Vienna it was ordained that there should bee erected Schooles for the Hebrew Greeke Arabicke and Chaldaean tongues in the Studies of Paris Oxford Bononie and Salamanca as the most famous of all others to the end
that the knowledge of those tongues might by effectuall instruction be throughly learned And that Catholicke men having sufficient knowledge in those tongues should bee chosen twaine skilfull in every of those tongues For those who were to bee Professours in Oxford The same Councell ordained That the Prelats of England Scotland Ireland and Wales the Monasteries also the Chapters the Covents the Colledges exempt and not exempt and Persons of Churches should provide competent stipends Out of these words may bee observed both that Oxford was the chiefe place of Studies in England Scotland Ireland and Wales and also that those Schooles which we now adayes doe call Academies and Universities were aptly in old time named Studies as S. Hierom tearmed the Schooles of Gaul Studia Florentissima that is most flourishing Studies And as for the name of Vniversity it was taken up about the time of King Henry the Third for a Publike Schoole and if I bee not deceived in mine owne observations it was then in use not for the place but for the very body and society of Students as we reade in bookes of that age Vniversitas Magistrorum Oxoniae Vniversitas Magistrorum Cantabrigiae that is The Vniversity of Masters of Oxford c. But happily this may seeme beside my Text. Now by this time good and bountifull Patrons began to furnish the Citty within and the Suburbs without with most stately Colledges Halls and Schools and to endow them also with large Revenewes For the greatest part of the Vniversity was beforetime in the Suburbs without the North-gate In the reigne of King Henry the third Iohn Balliol of Barnards Castle in the Bishopricke of Durham who died in the yeere 1269. the father of Balliol King of Scots founded Balliol Colledge and so named it and streight after Walter Merton Bishop of Rochester translated the Colledge which hee had built in Surrey to Oxford in the yeere 1274. enriched it with Lands and Possessions naming it The house of Schollers of Merton but now it is called Merton Colledge And these two were the first endowed Colledges for Students in Christendome William Archdeacon of Durham repaired and enlarged with new building that worke of King Aelfred which now they call Vniversity Colledge At which time the Students for that they entertained somewhat coursely Otto the Popes Legate or Horse-leach rather sent out to sucke the English Clergies blood were excommunicate and with all indignities shamefully handled And in those dayes as Armachanus writeth there were counted here thirty thousand Students Under King Edward the Second Walter Stapledon Bishop of Exceter founded Exceter Colledge and Hart Hall and the King himselfe in imitation of him built the Colledge commonly called Oriall and S. Mary Hall At which time a convert Jew read an Hebrew Lecture here unto whom for a Stipend every one of the Clergy of Oxford for every Marke of his Ecclesiasticall living contributed a penny Afterward Queene Philip wife to King Edward the Third built Queenes Colledge and Simon Islip Archbishop of Canterbury Canterbury Colledge The Students then having the world at will and all things falling out to their hearts desire became insolent and being divided into factions under the names of Northren and Southren men strucke up the Alarum to intestine and unreasonable tumults among themselves Whereupon the Northren faction went their wayes to Stanford and beganne there to set up Schooles But some few yeeres after when Gods favour shining more lightsomely had scattered away the clouds of contention they returned from Stanford recalled by Proclamation directed to the High-sheriffe of Lincolneshire upon penalty to forfeit their bookes and the Kings displeasure And then it was ordained that no Oxford man should professe at Stanford to any prejudice or hinderance of Oxford Shortly after William Wickham Bishop of Winchester founded a magnificent Colledge which they call New-Colledge into which out of another Colledge of his at Winchester the best wits are yeerely transplanted And hee about the same by the tract of the Citty wall built a faire high wall embatled and turrited Also Richard Angervill Bishop of Durham surnamed Philobiblos that is Love booke furnished a Library for the publike use of Students His Successour Thomas Hatfield laied the foundation of Durham Colledge for Durham Monkes and Richard Fleming Bishop of Lincolne founded likewise Lincolne Colledge Also at the same time the Monkes of the order of Saint Bennet by a Chapter held among them laid their monies together and encreased Glocester Hall built before by I. Lord Gifford of Brimsfield for Monkes of Glocester wherein one or two Monkes out of every Covent of Benedictine Monkes were maintained at study who afterwards should professe good letters in their Abbaies unto which Glocester Hall Nicholas Wadham of Merifeld in the County of Somerset hath assigned a faire portion of lands and mony for the propagation of Religion and Learning which I note incidently by way of congratulation to our Age that there are yet some who graciously respect the advancement of good Learning About that time not to speake of the Chanons of Saint Frideswide and Osney or the Cistertian Monkes of Reilew there were erected fower faire Frieries and other religious houses where flourished also many profound Learned men In the age ensuing when Henry the Fifth reigned Henry Chicheley Archbishop of Canterbury built two and those very faire Colledges the one dedicated to the memory of All Soules and the other to Saint Bernard And there passed not many yeeres betweene when William Wainflet Bishop of Winchester founded Mary Magdalen Colledge for building rare and excellent for sight commodious and for walkes passing pleasant And at the very same time was built the Divinity Schoole so fine a peece of elegant worke that this of Xeuxis may justly bee ingraven upon it Invisurum facilius aliquem quà m imitaturum that is Sooner will one envy mee then set such another by me And Humfrey that good Duke of Glocester a singular Patron and a respective lover of learning encreased the Library over it with an hundred twenty nine most select Manuscript bookes which at his great charges he procured out of Italy But such was the private avarice of some in the giddy time of K. Edward the Sixt that they for small gaine envied the use thereof to Posterity Yet now againe God blesse and prosper it Sir Thomas Bodley a right worshipfull knight and a most worthy Nource-son of this Vniversity furnished richly in the same place a new Library with the best books of exquisite choice from all parts with great charges and studious care never sufficiently commended Whereby the Vniversity may once againe have a publike Store-house of knowledge and learning and himselfe deserveth the Glory that may flourish freshly in the memory of all Eternity And whereas by an ancient custome of the wisest men those were wont to be dedicated within such Libraries in gold silver or brasse by whose care they were
and a man may truly suppose that those two Castles which Fitz-Stephen recorded to have beene at the East side of this City went both to the making of this one The other Fort was on the West side of the City where Fleete a little Riveret whence Fleete-streete tooke name now of no account but in times past able to beare Vessels as I have read in the Parliament Rolls sheddeth it selfe into the Tamis Fitz-Stephen called this the Palatine Towre or Castle and they write that in the Raigne of William the Conquerour it was consumed by fire Out of the ruines whereof both a great part of Pauls Church was newly built and also in the very plot of ground where it stood Robert Kilwarby Archbishop of Canterbury founded a religious house for Dominican Friers whereupon we call the place Blacke Friers Whereby a man may easily guesse of what bignesse it was Howbeit there stood in that place in the dayes of king Henry the second Gervase of Tilbury in his booke entituled Otia Imperiatia is mine Authour two Forts or Castles built with Wals and Rampiers The one whereof belonged to Bainard the other to the Barons of Montfichet by right of succession But nothing remaineth of them at this day Yet some thinke that Pembroch house was a peece of them which we terme Bainards Castle of William Bainard a Noble man Lord of Dunmow whose possession sometime it was whose successours the Fitz-walters were in right of inheritance the Ensigne Bearers of the City of London and amongst them Robert Fitz-walter had licence of king Edward the First to sell the site of Bainard Castle to the said Archbishop Robert Neither was this City at that time walled onely but also when the Flamin or Pagan Priest was taken away and Christian Religion established under that good Emperour a Bishop was enstalled in his roome For it appeareth that at the Councell of Arles which in the yeare of grace 314. was held under Constantine the Great the Bishop of London was present For he subscribed as is to be seene in the first Tome of the Councels in this manner RESTITUTUS Bishop in the City of London out of the Province of Britaine which Restitutus and his successors had their seat and resiance as some affirme at Saint Peters in Cornhill Heereafter London flourished in such honour that it beganne to bee called AUGUSTA and by that name was famous under the Emperour Valentinian For Amianus Marcellinus in his 27. booke writeth thus And going forward to London an ancient Towne which the posterity called Augusta and in the 28. booke He went from Augusta which men of old time called Lundi whence it came that when after Constantines time there was a Mint appointed therein For we reade in his peeces of money which he stamped in honour of his father Constantius and in others this inscription P. LON. S. that is Pecunia Londini signata that is Money stamped at London he that had the charge and overseeing thereof under the Comes sacrarum largitionum is in the booke of Notice termed Praepositus Thesaurorum Augustensiam in Britannia that is Provost of the Treasury of Augusta or London in Britaine For this name AUGUSTA was a name full of much dignity full of majesty And both founders and repairers of Cities when they either hoped or wished that such Cities would become flourishing and powerfull gave them significative names of good fortune But among the most auspicious names that be none is more magnificent none more auspicate than AUGUSTA For this of AUGUSTUS that most gracious and mighty Emperour Octavianus tooke unto himselfe not without the judgement of the best learned Sirnamed he was saith Dio Augustus as one of great Majesty above the nature of man For what things be most honourable and sacred are called AUGUSTA Neither had London this name for so high an honour without the Licence of the Romane Emperours For that names could not bee imposed to Cities without licence Virgil noteth in that Verse of his Urbem appellabant permisso nomine Acestam The City by permission ACESTA they did name But as continuance of time hath out-worne this so honorable a name of Augusta so it hath confirmed that other more ancient name Londinum Whiles it enjoyed the foresaid name Augusta it scaped faire from destruction by a rebellious rout of Ransackers but Theodosius the father of Theodosius the Emperour did cut them in peeces whiles they were encombred with their spoiles and entred as Marcianus saith with exceeding great joy in triumphant manner into the City distressed before and overwhelmed with grievous calamities And marching with his Army from thence he by his valiant prowesse so freed Britain from those intolerable miseries and dangers wherewith it was beset that the Romans as witnesseth Symmachus honored him among other ancient worthies and men of honourable Renowne with the Statue of a man of Armes Not long after when the Romans Empire in Britaine was come to an end in that publique destiny and fatall fall of the whole State it fell into the English-Saxons hands but in what sort it is not agreed upon among Writers For mine owne part I am of opinion that Vortigern to redeeme himselfe being taken Prisoner delivered it for his ransome unto Hengest the Saxon considering that it belonged to the East-Saxons whose Country as Writers doe record Vortigerne upon that condition made over unto Hengest At which time the State of the Church went to wracke and endured sore afflictions the Pastours were either slaine or forced to flye their flockes driven away and after havocke made of all as well Church goods as others Theon the last Bishop of London of British bloud was faine to hide the holy Reliques of Saints for a memoriall as mine Authour saith and not for any Superstition But although those dayes of the English-Saxons were such as that a man might truely say Mars then brandished and shooke his weapons yet was London never the lesse as Bede testifieth a Towne of Trade and Traffique Frequented with many Nations resorting thither by sea and land But afterwards when a more gracious gale of peace breathed favourably upon this wearied Island and the English-Saxons beganne to professe Christianity it also beganne a fresh to flourish againe For Aethelbert King of Kent under whom Sebert reigned in this Tract as it were his Vassall and by courtesie founded heere a Church and consecrated it to Saint Paul which being eftsoones reedified and repaired became at length most stately and magnificent endowed also with faire Livings and Revenewes wherewith are maintained a Bishop a Deane and Chaunter a Chancellour and a Treasurer five Archdeacons thirty Prebendaries and divers others The East part of this Church which seemeth to bee the newer and curiously wrought having under it a very faire Arched Vault which also is Saint Faithes Church was begunne of the ruines of that Palatine Castle which I speake of by Maurice the Bishop about the
But after that they were thrust out by King Henry the Eight there were substituted for them a Deane sixe Prebendaries and others The Church being thus built and an Episcopall See there placed the Towne now as saith William of Malmesbury became of great name for frequent trade of Merchants and resort of people And in the 17. yeare of King Stephen as we reade in old Annals Norwich was founded a new became a well peopled City and was made a Corporation And most certaine it is out of the kings Records that king Stephen granted it unto his sonne William for his Appennage as they terme it or inheritance Out of whose hands King Henry the Second shortly after wrested it by composition and kept it for himselfe And albeit his Sonne Henry called the younger King when he aspired ambitiously to the kingdome had made a large promise thereof unto Hugh Bigod Earle of Norfolke whom hee had drawne to side with him At which time Bigod taking part with the young King who could not containe his hope of the Kingdome within the bounds of duty and equity most grievously afflicted and oppressed this City and then as it is thought reedified that Castle standing within the very City upon an high hill neere unto the Cathedrall Church which being compassed with a ditch of a wonderfull depth seemed in those daies impregnable Which notwithstanding Lewis the French-man with whom the seditious Barons of England combined against King John won it easily by Siege Now that Bigod reedified this Castle I verily beleeve because I have seen Lions Saliant engraven there in a Stone after the same forme that the Bigods used in times past in their Seales of whom also there was one that in his Seale used a Crosse. These things fell out in the first age we may say of Norwich But in the age next ensuing it encreased mightily and flourished by reason that the Citizens grew to be passing wealthy who exhibited a supplication in the Parliament house unto King Edward the First that they might be permitted to wall their City about which they afterwards performed to the exceeding great strengthning and honor thereof They obtained moreover of King Richard the Second that the Worsted made there might be transported and in the yeare 1403. king Henry the fourth granted that they might choose every yeare a Major in stead of their Bailiffes which before were the principall Magistrates They built likewise a passing faire Towne-house in the very middest of the City neere unto the Mercat-place which on certaine set dayes is furnished exceeding well with all things necessary for mans life And verily much beholden it is unto the Netherlanders that being weary of Duke de Alba his cruelty and hating the bloudy Inquisition repaired hither in great numbers and first brought in the making and trade of saies baies and other stuffes now much in use But why should I stand long upon these things when as Alexander Nevill a Gentleman well borne and very learned hath notably described all these matters together with the story of their Bishops the orderly succession of their Magistrates and the furious outrage of that most villanous Rebell Keâ— against this City This only will I adde that in the yeare 1583. the Citizens conveighed water out of the River through pipes by an artificiall Instrument or water-forcer up into the highest places of the City Heere I may justly commence an action both against Polydor Virgill an Italian and also against Angelus Capellus a Frenchman and put them to their answer before the Tribunal of venerable Antiquity why they have avouched that the ancient ORDOVICES who be seated as it were in another world inhabited this Norwich I would have the same mery action also against our Country man D. Caius but that I know for certaine that the good old man right learned though he were was blinded in this point with the naturall love of this his own native Country Neither have I more to say of Norwich unlesse it may please you to runne over these Verses of Master Iohn Ionston a Scottish-Britan written of the same Vrbs speciosa situ nitidis pulcherrima tectis Grata peregrinis delitiosa suis. Bellorum sedes trepido turbante tumultu Tristia Neustriaco sub duce damna tulit Victis dissidijs postquam caput ardua coelo Extulit immensis crevit opima opibus Cultus vincit opes cultum gratia rerum Quam benè si luxus non comitetur opes Omnia sic adeò sola haec sibi sufficit ut si Fo rs regno desit haec caput esse queat A City seated daintily most faire built she is knowne Pleasing and kinde to Strangers all delightfull to her owne The seat of warre whiles civill sturs and tumults yet remain'd In William the Normans dayes she grievous losse sustain'd These broiles and jarres once past when as her head aloft againe She bare in richnesse infinite and wealth she grew amaine Her Port exceeds that wealth and things all superfine this Port How happy were it if excesse with such wealth did not sort So all sufficient in her selfe and so complete is shee That if neede were of all the Realme the Mistresse shee might bee From Norwich the River Yare having entertained other beackes and brookes as guests yet all under his owne name passeth on still with many winding crookes very full of the fishes called Ruffes which name because in English it soundeth like to Rough D. Caius named it aptly in Latine Aspredo that is Rough. For it is all the body over rough and hath very sharpe and pricky finnes it delighteth in sandy places for shape and bignesse like unto a Perch in colour browne and duskish above but palish yellow beneath marked by the chawes with a double course of half-circles the eye for the upper halfe of it of a darke browne for the nether somewhat yellowish like delayed gold the ball and sight thereof blacke This speciall marke by it selfe it hath that there is a line goeth along the backe and fastened to the body as it were with an overthwart thred all to bespotted ouer the taile and fins with blacke speckes which finnes when the fish is angry stand up and bristle stiffe and strong but when the anger is allayed they fall flat againe The meat of this Ruffe resembleth that of the Perch much commended for holsomnesse and for eating tender and short When Yâ—re is gone past Claxton where there stands a Castlet built round which Sir Thomas Gawdy knight Justice of the Common Pleas of late repaired it receiveth a brooke which passeth by nothing memorable but Halles-hall and that only memorable for his ancient Owner Sir Iames Hobart Atturney Generall and of the Privie Counsell to King Henry the Seventh by him dubbed Knight at such time as he created Henry his sonne Prince of Wales who by building from the ground the faire Church at Loddon being his Parish Church Saint Olaves bridge over
that in our Britaine Tallhin Glan-lhin and Lhinlithquo are townes by lakes sides This Citie it selfe being large well inhabited and frequented standeth upon the side of an hill where Witham bendeth his course Eastward and being divided with three small chanels watereth the lower part of the Citie That the ancient LINDUM of the Britans stood on the very top of the hill which had a very hard ascent up to it and reached out beyond the gate called Newport the expresse tokens of a rampier and deepe ditches which are yet very evident doe plainely shew In this City Vortimer that warlike Britan who many a time discomfited the Saxons and put them to flight ended his daies and was heere contrary to his owne commandement buried For he was in a full and assured hope perswaded that if he were enterred in the sea shore his very ghost was able to protect the Britans from the Saxons as writeth Ninius the disciple of Elvodugus But the English Saxons after they had rased this old Lindum first possessed themselves of the South side of the hill at the foot whereof they built as it seemeth the gate yet standing compiled of vast stones and with the ruines of that more ancient Towne fortified it Afterwards they went downe lower to the river side built in a place that was called Wickanford and walled it about on that side which is not fensed by the River At which time as saith Bede Paulinus preached the Word of God unto the Province of Lindsey and first of all converted unto the Lord the Governour or Provost of Lincolne City whose name was Blecca with his family In which very City hee built also a Church of goodly stone worke the roofe whereof being either fallen for want of repaire or cast downe by the violent hand of enemies the walles are seene standing to this day After this the Danes wonne it by assault once or twice First those troupes of spoiling mates out of whose hands King Edmund Ironside wrested it by force then Canutus from whom Aetheldred regained it when upon his returne out of Normandy he valiantly forced Canutus to abandon the towne and beyond all hope recovered England which before was lost In the Raigne of Edward the Confessour there were in it as Domesday booke recordeth a thousand and seventy Mansions with lodgings to give entertainment and twelve Lage men having Sac and Soc. But in the Normans time as saith William of Malmesbury It was one of the best peopled Cities of England and a place of traffique and merchandise for all commers by sea and land and as the same Domesday booke saith there were at that time counted and taxed in this City 900. Burgesses and many Mansions were laied waste 166. for the Castle and other 74. without the precinct of the Castle not through the oppression of the Sheriffe and his Ministers but by reason of mishap poverty and casualty by fire The said King William the Conqueror for the strengthning of it and terrour of the Citizens raised a passing large and strong Castle upon the brow of the hill and almost at the very same time Remigius Bishop of Dorchester for to give credit and ornament thereto translated hither his Episcopall seat from Dorchester which was in the most remote corner of his Dioecesse and a small Towne And when by this time that Church which Paulinus had built was quite gone to decay the same Remigius having purchased certaine houses with grounds lying unto them in the very highest place of the City neere unto the Castle as Henry of Huntingdon saith mounting up aloft with high and stately towres built in a strong place a strong Church in a faire plot a faire Church and dedicated it to the Virgin of Virgins notwithstanding the Archbishop of Yorke was enraged thereat who chalenged to himselfe the propriety of the soile and in it ordained 44. Prebendaries Which Church afterwards being sorely defaced with fire as he saith Alexander that most bountiful Bishop of Lincolne repaired with skilfull artificiall workemanship Of whom William of Malmesbury reporteth because for his little low stature hee was a dwarfe among men his minde laboured to rise aloft and shew it selfe to the world with outward workes And as concerning his bounty a Poet of that time among other things wrote thus Qui dare festinans gratis ne danda rogentur Quod nondum dederat nondum se credit habere Who hastening frankly for to give for feare that folke should crave He never thought that he had that which yet he never gave Besides these two Bishops already mentioned Robert Bloet who sat there before Alexander R. de Beaumeis Hugh a Burgundian and their Successours by little and little brought this Church which could not bee one Bishops worke to the stately magnificence that now it carryeth Certes as it is built it is all throughout not onely most sumptuous but also passing beautifull and that with rare and singular workmanship but especially that fore-front at the West end which in a sort ravisheth and allureth the eyes of all that come toward it In this Church although there bee divers Monuments of Bishops and others yet these onely seeme memorable That of Copper wherein the bowels of that right noble and vertuous Queene Aeleonor wife to King Edward the First are bestowed who died at Hardby in this Shire as also these following wherein lye interred Sir Nicolas Cantlow one or two of the Family of Burghersh Lady Catherine Swinford the third wife of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster and mother of the house of Somerset with whom lyeth buryed Joan her daughter second wife to Raulph Nevill the first Earle of Westmerland who enriched her husband with many happy children The Bishops Diocesse of Lincolne not content with those streit limits wherewith the Bishops of Sidnacester who had Episcopall jurisdiction over this shire contented themselves in the Primitive Church of the English Nation conteined under it so many countries as that the greatnesse thereof was burdenous unto it And although King Henry the Second tooke out of it the Province of Ely and King Henry the Eighth the Bishopricks of Peterbourgh and of Oxford yet still at this day it is counted the greatest Diocesse by farre of all England both for jurisdiction and number of shires and the Bishop hath in his Diocesse one thousand two hundred forty seven Parish Churches Many and great Bishops since Remigius his time have governed this See whom to reckon up is no part of my purpose For I will not insist either upon Robert Bloet from whom King William Rufus wrung 50000. pounds for securing his title in the very City of Lincolne it selfe which was found defective nor upon that prodigall and profuse Alexander who in exceeding stately buildings was so excessively delighted ne yet upon Hugh the Burgundian Canonized a Saint whose corps King John with his Nobles and friends about him to performe as mine author saith a dutifull service to God and that holy
hidden within the net But these things I leave to their observation who either take pleasure earnestly to hunt after Natures workes or being borne to pamper the belly delight to send their estates downe the throat More Westward the River Trent also after he hath ended his long course is received into the Humber after it hath with his sandy banke bounded this shire from Fossedike hither having runne downe first not farre from Stow where Godive the wife of Earle Leofricke built a Monastery which for the low site that it hath under the hills Henry of Huntingdon saith to have beene founded Vnder the Promontory of Lincolne Then neere unto Knath now the habitation of Baron Willoughy of Parrham in times past of the family of the Barons Darcy who had very much encrease both in honor and also of possessions by the daughter and heire of the Meinills This Family of the Darcyes proceeded from another more ancient to wit from one whose name was Norman de Adrecy or Darcy de Nocton who flourished in high reputation under King Henry the Third and whose successours endowed with lands the little Nunnery at Alvingham in this County But this dignity is as it were extinct for that the last Norman in the right line which is more ancient left behinde him onely two sisters of which the one was married to Roger Pedwardine the other to Peter of Limbergh Then runneth the Trent downe to Gainesborrow a towne ennobled by reason of the Danes ships that lay there at rode and also for the death of Suene Tiugs-Kege a Danish Tyrant who after he had robbed and spoiled the country as Matthew of Westminster writeth being heere stabbed to death by an unknowne man suffered due punishment at length for his wickednesse and villany Many a yeere after this it became the possession of Sir William de Valence Earle of Pembroch who obtained for it of king Edward the First the liberty to keepe a Faire From which Earle by the Scottish Earles of Athol and the Piercies descended the Barons of Bourough who heere dwelt concerning whom I have written already in Surry In this part of the Shire stood long since the City Sidnacester which affoorded a See to the Bishops of this Tract who were called the Bishops of Lindifars But this City is now so farre out of all sight and knowledge that together with the name the very ruines also seeme to have perished for by all my curious enquiry I could learne nothing of it Neither must I overpasse that in this Quarter at Melwood there flourished the family of Saint Paul corruptly called Sampoll Knights which I alwaies thought to have beene of that ancient Castilion race of the Earles of Saint Paul in France But the Coat-Armour of Luxemburgh which they beare implieth that they are come out of France since that the said Castilion stocke of Saint Paul was by marriage implanted into that of Luxemburgh which happened two hundred yeeres since or thereabout Above this place the Rivers of Trent Idell and Dane doe so disport themselves with the division of their streames and Marishes caused by them and other Springs as they enclose within them the River-Island of Axelholme in the Saxon Tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a parcell of Lincolne-shire It carryeth in length from South to North ten miles and in breadth not past halfe so much The flat and lower part of it toward the Rivers is marish ground and bringeth forth an odoriferous kinde of shrub which they tearme Gall. It yeeldeth also Pets in the Mores and dead rootes of fir-wood which in burning give a ranke sweet savour There also have beene found great and long firre-trees while they digged for Pet both within the Isle and also without at Laâ—ghton upon Trent banke the old habitation of the family of D'alanson now contractly called Dalison The middle parts of this Isle where it riseth gently with some ascent is fruitefull and fertile and yeeldeth flax in great aboundance also the Alabaster stone and yet the same being not very solide but brittle is more meet for pargetting and plaister-worke than for other uses The chiefe Towne called in old time Axel is now named Axey whence by putting to the Saxon word Holme which they used for a River-Island the name no doubt was compounded But scarce deserveth it to bee called a Towne it is so scatteringly inhabited and yet it is able to shew the plot of ground where a Castle stood that was rased in the Barons warre and which belonged to the Mowbraies who at that time possessed a great part of the Isle In the yeere 1173. as writeth an old Chronographer Roger de Mowbray forsaking his Allegeance to the Elder King repaired the Castle at Kinard Ferry in the Isle of Axholme which had beene of old time destroyed Against whom a number of Lincoln-shire men making head when they had passed over the water in barges laid siege to the Castle forced the Constable thereof and all the souldiers to yeeld and overthrew the said Castle Somewhat higher is Botterwic the Lord whereof Sir Edmund Sheffeld King Edward the Sixth created the first Baron Sheffeld of Botherwic who for his country spent his life against the Rebels in Norfolke having begotten of Anne Vere the Earle of Oxfords daughter a sonne named John the second Baron and father to Edmund now Lord Sheffeld a right honourable Knight of the Garter President of the Councell established in the North. But more into the North I saw Burton Stather standing upon the other side of Trent whereof I have hetherto read nothing memorable This Shire glorieth in the Earles which have borne Title thereof After Egga who flourished in the yeere 710. and Morcar both Saxons and who were Earles by office onely William de Romara a Norman was the first Earle after the Conquest in whose roome being dead for neither his sonne whereas he died before his father nor his grand-child enjoied this title King Stephen placed Gilbert de Gaunt After whose decease Simon de Saint Lyz the younger the sonne of Earle Simon you reade the very words of Robert Montensis who lived about that time Wanting lands by the gracious gift of King Henry the Second tooke his onely daughter to wife with her his honour also After this Lewis of France who was by the seditious Barons brought into England girt a second Gilbert out of the Family de Gaunt with the sword of the Earldome of Lincolne but when the said Lewis was soone after expelled the land no man acknowledged him for Earle and himselfe of his owne accord relinquished that title Then Raulph the sixth Earle of Chester obtained this honour of King Henry the Third who a little before his death gave unto Hawise or Avis his sister the wife of Robert De Quincy by Charter the Earledome of Lincolne so farre forth as appertained unto him that shee might bee Countesse
the Catalogue of Martyrs had a Church here built and dedicated unto him by Milfrid a pety K. of the country wherein when a Bishops See was established it grew to great wealth first through the devout liberality of the Mercians and then of the West Saxons kings for they at length were possessed of this City as may be gathered out of William of Malmesbury where he writeth That Athelistan the West Saxon brought the Lords of Wales in this City of so hard passe that by way of Tribute they were to pay every yeere besides Hounds and Haukes twenty pounds of gold and three hundred pound of silver by weight This Citie as farre as I can reade had never any misfortune unlesse it were in the yeere of our Lord 1055. wherein Gruffith Prince of South Wales and Algar an English man rebelling against King Edward the Confessour after they had put to flight Earle Ralph sacked the Citie destroyed the Cathedrall Church and led away captive Leofgar the Bishop But Harold straightwaies after that hee and daunted their audacious courage fensed it as Floriacensis saith with a broade and high Rampier Hence it is that Malmesbury writeth thus in his treatise of Bishops Hereford is no great Citie and yet by the height of those steepe and upright bankes cast up it sheweth that it hath beene some great thing and as wee reade in the Domesday booke of King William the Conquerour there were in all but an hundered and three men within the Walles and without The Normans afterwards neere the East end of the Church along the side of Wy built a mighty great and strong Castle the worke as some report of Earle Miles which now yeeldeth to Time and runneth to ruine After this they walled the Citie about Bishop Reinelm in the reigne of Henry the First founded that beautifull Cathedrall Church which now we see there whose successours enlarged it by adioyning thereto a proper Colledge for Priests and faire houses for the Prebendaries For besides the Bishop who hath 302. Churches in his Dioecese there are in this Church a Deane two Archdeacons a Chaunter a Chauncellour 2 Treasurer and eight and twenty Prebendaries In the Church I saw in manner no Monuments but the Bishops Tombes And I have heard that Thomas Cantlow the Bishop a man of Noble birth had here a very stately and sumptuous Sepulcher who for his holinesse being canonized a Saint went within a little of surmounting that princely Martyr King Ethelbert such was the opinion of singular pietie and devotion Geographers measure the position or site of this Citie by the Longitude of twenty degrees and foure and twenty scruples and by the Latitude of two and fifty degrees and sixe scruples Wy is not gone full three miles from hence but he intercepteth by the way the river Lug who running downe a maine out of Radnor hils with a still course passeth through the mids of this country from the North-west of the South-east At the first entrance it seeth a farre off Brampton Brian Castle which a famous family named hereof de Brampton wherein the forname was usually Brian held by continuall succession unto the time of King Edward the First but now by the female heires it is come to R. Harleie neere at hand it beholdeth Wigmore in the English Saxons tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repaired in elder times by King Edward the elder afterward fortified by William Earle of Hereford with a Castle in the wast of a ground for so reade we in Domesday booke which was called Marestun in the tenure of Radulph de Mortimer from whom those Mortimers that were afterwards Earles of March lineally descended of whom you may reade more in Radnor-shire Three miles off there is another neighbour Castle called Richards Castle the possession first of the Sayes then of the Mortimers and afterwards of the Talbots by hereditarie succession At length by the heires of Sir Iohn Talbot the inheritance was divided betweene Sir Guarin Archdeacon and Sir Matthew Gurnay Beneath this Castle Nature who no where disporteth her selfe more in shewing wonders then in waters hath brought forth a pretty well which is alwaies full of little bones or as some thinke of small frog-bones although they be from time to time drawne quite out of it whence it is commonly called Bone well And not farre off is placed Croft Castle the possession of that very ancient family of the Crofts Knights who have there now a long time flourished in great and good esteeme Thence passeth Wy to Lemster which also was called Leon Minister and Lions Monastery of a Lyon that appeared to a religious man in a vision as some have dreamed But whereas the Britans call it Lhan Lieni which signifieth a Church of Nunnes and that it is certainely knowne that Merewalc a King of the Mercians built here a Church for Nunnes that afterwards became a Cell belonging to the Monastery of Reading to seeke any other originall of the name than from those Nunnes what were it else but to hunt after the windes Yet there want not some who derive it from Line whereof the best kinde groweth here The greatest name and same that it hath at this day is of the wooll in the territories round about Lemister Ore they call it which setting aside that of Apulia and Tarentum all Europe counteth to be the very best so renowned also it is for Wheat and bread of the Finest floure that Lemster bread and Weabley Ale a towne belonging to the noble Familie D'Eureux are growne unto a common proverbe By reason of these commodities the mercates at Lemster were so frequented that they of Hereford and Worcester complaining that the confluence of people thither impaired their mercates procured that by Royall authoritie the mercat day was changed Now have I nothing more concerning Lemster but that William Breosa Lord of Brecknock when hee revolted from King John did set it on fire and defaced it As for that Webley aforesaid it is situate more within the Country and was the Baronie of the Verdons the first of which house named Bertram de Verdon came into England with the Normans whose posteritie by marriage with an inheretrice of Laceies of Trim in Ireland were for a good while hereditary Constables of Ireland and at last the possessions were by the daughters devolved to the Furnivalls Burghersh Ferrars of Groby Crop-hulls and from the Crop-hulls by the Ferrars of Chartly unto D'Eureux Earles of Essex Neere neighbours unto Webley more Westward are these places Huntingdon Castle the possession in times past of the Bohuns Earles of Hereford and of Essex Kinnersley belonging to the auncient Family De la-bere and Erdsley where the auncient Family of the Baskervills have long inhabited which bred in old time so many worthie Knights who deduce their pedigree from a Neice of Dame Gunora that most famous Lady in Normandy and long agoe flourished in this Country and
part of the Shire Nature hath loftily areared it up farre and neere with Mountaines standing thicke one by another as if she would here have compacted the joynts of this Island within the bowels of the earth and made this part thereof a most sure place of refuge for the Britans in time of adversitie For there are so many roughes and Rocks so many vales full of Woods with Pooles heere and there crossing over them lying in the way betweene that no Armie nay not so much as those that are lightly appoynted can finde passage A man may truely if he please terme these Mountaines the British Alpes for besides that they are the greatest of the whole Island they are no lesse steepe also with cragged and rent Rockes on every side than the Alpes of Italie yea and all of them compasse one Mountaine round about which over-topping the rest so towreth up with his head aloft in the aire as he may seeme not to threaten the Skie but to thrust his head up into Heaven And yet harbour they the Snow for all the yeere long they be hory with Snow or rather with an hardened crust of many Snowes felted together Whence it is that all these hilles are in British by one name termed Craig Eriry in English Snow-don which in both languages sound as much as Snowie Mountaines like as Niphates in Armenia and Imaus in Scythia tooke their names as Plinie witnesseth of Snow Neverthelesse so ranke are they with grasse that it is a very common speech among the Welsh That the Mountaines Eriry will yeeld sufficient pasture for all the Cattaile in Wales if they were put upon them together Concerning the two Meares on the toppe of these in the one of which floreth a wandring Island and in the other is found great store of Fishes but having all of them but one eye a peece I will say nothing left I might seeme to foster fables although some confident upon the authoritie of Giraldus have beleeved it for a veritie Yet certaine it is that there be in the very toppe of these Mountaines Pooles in deed and standing Waters whereupon Gervase of Tilbury in his Booke entituled Otia Imperialia writeth thus In the Land of Wales within the bounds of great Britain there be high Hilles that haue laied their foundations upon most hard Rockes and in the toppe thereof the earth is crusted over with such a coate of waterish moisture that wheresoever a man doe but lightly set his foote he shall perceive the ground to stirre the length of a stones cast from him whereupon when the enemies came the Welsh with their agility and nimblenesse lightly leaping over the boggy ground either avoide the enemies assaults or to their losse resolutely expect their forces These Mountainers John Salisbury in his Polycraticon by a new forged Latine name termed Nivicollinos that is Snow-down inhabitants of whom in King Henry the Second his daies he wrote thus The Snow-downe Britans make inrodes and being now come out of their Caves and lurking holes of the Woods enlarge their borders possesse the plaines of the Noble men and whiles themselves looke on they assault they winne and overthrow them or else keepe the same to their owne behoofe because our youth which is so daintily brought up and loves to be house-birds and to live lazie in the shade being borne onely to devoure the fruits of the earth and to fill the belly sleepes untill it be broad day light c. But come wee downe now from the Mountaines into the Champion Plaines which because we finde no where else but by the Sea side it may suffice to coast only along the shore The Promontory which I said before shooteth out toward the South-west is in Ptolomee called according to the diversitie of copies CANGANUM JANGANUM and LANGANUM Which is the truest name I know not but LANGANUM it may seeme considering that the inhabitants name it at this day Lhein which runneth forth with a narrow and even by-land having larger and more open fields than the rest of the Country and the same yeelding Barley most plenteously Two little Townes it sheweth and no more that are memorable Farther within upon the Creeke is Pullhely that is that Salt Meare or Poole more outward by the Irish Sea hat beateth upon the other side of the Bi-land is Nevin a Village having a Merket kept in it wherein the Nobility of England in the yeere of our Lord 1284. in a Triumph over the Welsh did celebrate the memory of Arthur the great as Florilegus writeth with Iustes Turnaments and festivall pompe If any other Townes flourished here then were they destroied when Hugh Earle of Chester Robert of Rudland and Guarin of Salop entring into this Country first of all the Normans so wasted this Promontory that for the space of seven whole yeeres it lay dispeopled and desolate From Nevin the shore pointed and endented with one or two elbowes lying out into the sea tendeth Northward and then turning afront North-east by a narrow sea or Frith they call it Menai it serveth the Isle Anglesey from the firme land Upon this straight or narrow sea stood SEGONTIUM a City which Antonine the Emperour maketh mention of some reliques of the walles I saw neere unto a little Church built in honour of Saint Pulblicius It tooke the name of a River running by the side of it which yet at this day is called Seiont and issueth out of the Poole Lin-Peru In which there is a kinde of fish peculiar to that water and seene no where else called by the dwellers there Tor-coch of the belly that is somewhat red Now seeing that in an ancient copie of Ptolomee SETANTIORUM PORTUS is here placed which according to other copies is set farther off if I should reade in stead of it SEGONTIORUM PORTUS that is the Haven of the Segontians and say it stood upon the mouth of this River I should perhaps aime at the truth if not yet should I obtaine pardon for my conjecture of a courteous Reader This Citie Ninnius called Caer Custenith and hee that wrote the life of Gruffin the Sonne of Conan recordeth that Hugh Earle of Chester built a Castle in Hean Caer Custenith that is as the Latine Interpreter translâ—teth it in the auncient Citie of Constantine the Emperour And Matthew of Westminster writeth but let him make it good if he can that the bodie of Constantius Father to Constantine the Great was here found in the yeere of our Lord 1283. and honourably bestowed in the Church of the new Citie by the commandement of King Edward the First Who out of the ruines of this Towne at the same time raised the Citie Caer-narvon somewhat higher upon the Rivers mouth so as that on the West and North-sides it is watered therewith Which as it was called Caer-narvon because it standeth right ouer against the Island Mona for so much
doth the word import so it hath communicated that name unto the whole Country for heereupon the English men call it Caer-narvon-shire This is encompassed with a very small circuit of walles about it and in manner round but the same exceeding strong and to set it the better out sheweth a passing faire Castle which taketh up the whole West side of it The private buildings for the manner of that Countrey are sightly enough and the inhabitants for their courtesie much commended who thinke it a point of their glorie that King Edward the First founded their Citie that his Sonne King Edward the Second was heere borne and surnamed of Caer-narvon who also was of the English line the first Prince of Wales and also the Princes of Wales had heere their Chauncerie their Exchequer and their Iustice for North-Wales About seven miles hence by the same narrow Sea standeth Bangor or Banchor low seated enclosed on the South side with a Mountaine of great heighth on the North with a little hill so called A choro pulchro that is of a faire quire or as some would have it quasi Locus Chori that is as if it were the place of a quire Which being a Bishops See hath within the Diocese thereof 96. Parishes The Church was consecrated unto Daniel sometime Bishop thereof but that which now standeth is of no especiall faire building for Owen Glendoverdwy that most notorious Rebell who had purposed utterly to destroy all the Cities of Wales set it on fire for that they stood for the King of England and defaced the ancient Church which albeit Henry Deney Bishop of the same repaired about the time of King Henry the Seventh yet it scarcely recovered the former dignity Now the Towne is small but in times past so large that for the greatnesse thereof it was called Banchor Vaur that is Great Banchor and Hugh Earle of Chester fortified it with a Castle whereof I could finde no footings at all though I sought them with all diligent inquiry But that Castle was situate upon the very entry of the said narrow Sea Over the Menay or streight hereby King Edward the First that he might transport his Army into Mona or Anglesey whereof I must treat anon in due order went about with great labour to make a bridge but all in vaine Albeit Suctonius Paulinus conveyed over his Romane Souldiers long before into Mona his Horsemen at a Fourd and the Footemen in little flat botomed boates as we reade in Tacitus From hence the shore raising it selfe with a bending ascent runneth on by Penmaen-maur that is The great stony head a very exceeding high and steepe Rocke which hanging over the Sea when it is floud affourdeth a very narrow path way for passengers having on the one side huge stones over their heads as if they were ready to fall upon them on the other side the raging Ocean lying of a wonderfull steepe depth under it But after a man hath passed over this together with Pen-maen bychan that is the lesser stony head he shall come to an open broad plaine that reacheth as farre as to the River Conwey which limiteth this Shire on the East side This River in Ptolomee after a corrupt manner of writing Greeke is called TOISOVIUS for CONOVIUS It issueth out of a Poole of the same name in the South border of the Shire and being pent in and as it were strangled runneth apace within a very narrow chanell as farre almost as to the mouth thereof breeding certaine Shell-fishes which being conceived of an Heavenly deaw bring forth Pearles and there giveth he name unto the Towne CONOVIUM which Antonine mentioneth And although it now lie all along and that name there be utterly extinct yet by a new name it doth covertly implie the antiquity For a very small and poore village standing among the rubbish thereof is called Caer hean that is the ancient City Out of the spoile and ruines whereof King Edward the First built a new Towne at the very mouth of the River which thereupon they call Aber-Conwey that is the mouth of Conwey which place Hugh of Chester had before-time fortified But this New Conovium or Aber-Conwey being strongly situated and fensed both with walls and also with a very proper Castle by the Rivers side deserveth the name rather of a prety Citie than of a Towne but that it is not replenished with Inhabitants Opposite unto this Towne and yet on this side of the River which is passed by ferry and not by bridge reacheth out a huge Promontory with a bending elbow as if nature purposed to make there a road and harbour for Ships which is also counted part of this Shire and is named Gogarth wherein stood Diganwy an ancient City just over the River Conwey where it issueth into the Sea which was burnt many yeeres agoe with lightning And I am of opinion that it was the City DICTUM where under the later Emperours the Captaine over the band of the Nervians Dictenses kept their guard And for that afterwards it was called Diganwy who seeth not that the said Canwey came of Conwey and from thence the English name Ganoc For so was that Castle called which afterwards King Henry the Third built in that place to bridle the Welsh Straight after the Normans comming into this Island Gruffin ap Conan governed this Country who being not able to represse the English troupes who swarmed into Wales yeelded otherwhiles unto the tempest and at length when with his integrity and uprightnesse he had regained the favour of King Henry the First he easily also recovered his owne lands of the English and left them to his heires successively untill the time of Lhewelyn ap Gruffith who when he had provoked his owne Brethren with wrongs and the English men with inrodes was brought to this passe that hee held this hilly Country together with the Isle Anglesey of King Edward the First as Tenant in Fee and paid for it yeerely a thousand Markes Which conditions afterward when hee would not stand unto and following rather his owne and his Brothers stubborne wilfulnesse than any good hope to prevaile would needes put all once againe to the hazard of warre he was slaine and so both ended his owne life and withall the British government in Wales It hath in it Parish Churches 68. ANGLESEY Conitatus olim MONA INSULA Druidum sedes Britannice Tir Mon THE ISLE MONA or of ANGLESEY THe County of Caer-Nar-von which I last ranne through tooke name as I said erewhile of the chiefe Towne therein and the said Towne of the Isle Mona which lieth over against it and requireth as it were of right that I should treat of it in his due place which unwillingly heeretofore I confesse I referred to the out Islands whereas by right it is to be placed among the Shires This Isle called of the Romans MONA of the Britans Mon and Tir-Mon that is the
with too much affectation derived our Brigantes from Spaine into Ireland and from thence into Britaine grounding upon no other conjecture but that he found the Citie Brigantia in his owne country Spaine he hath I feare me swarved from the truth For in case our Brigantes and those in Ireland had not the same name both for one cause I had rather with my friend the right learned Thomas Savil judge that as well diuers of our Brigantes as also other nations of Britaine from the first comming of the Romanes hither departed into Ireland some for desire of quietnesse and ease others that the Lordly dominion of the Romanes might not be an eye-sore unto them and others againe because they would not by their good will loose that libertie in their old age which by nature they were endowed with in their childhood But that Claudius the Emperour was the first of all the Romanes who set upon these our Brigantes and brought them under the Romane dominion Seneca in his Play sheweth by these verses Ille Britannos Ultra noti littora Ponti caerueleos Scuta Brigantes dare Romulaeis colla catenis Jussit ipsum nova Romanae jura securis Tremere Oceanum The Brigants such as seated are beyond the knowne Sea-coast And Brigants with blew painted shields he forced with his hoast To yeeld their necks in Romane chaines as captive to be led And even the Ocean this new power of Romane-ax to dred And yet I have been of this minde that they were not then conquered but committed themselves rather into the tuition and protection of the Romanes For that which he Poetically endited the Historiographers doe not mention And Tacitus recordeth how by occasion at that time of certaine discords risen among the Brigantes Ostorius who now made preparation for new warres was hindered and pulled backe which he with the execution of a few easily appeased At which time the Brigantes had Cartismandua a right noble and puissant Lady for their Queene who intercepted Caratacus and delivered him into the Romanes hands Herevpon ensued wealth of wealth and prosperitie riotous and incontinent life in so much as forsaking her Husband Venutius his bed she joyned her selfe in marriage with Vellocatus his Esquire and made him King Which foule fact was the overthrow shortly after of her house and thereby a bloudy and mortall warre was enkindled The love and affection of the Country went generally with the lawfull Husband but the Queenes untemperate lust and cruelty were peremptory in maintaining the adulterer She by craftie plots and mischievous meanes intercepteth the Brother and kinsfolke of Venutius Venutius againe for his part pricked forward with shamefull disgrace by the helpe of friends whom he procured and the rebellion withall of the Brigantes themselves brought Cartismandua into great extremities Then upon her instant unto the Romanes for aide Garisons were set Cohorts and wings oâ— foot and horse were sent which after sundry skirmishes with variable event delivered her person out of perill yet so as that the Kingdome remained to Venutius and the warre with the Romanes who were not able to subdue the Brigantes before the time of Vespasian For then Petilius Cerealis having invaded this Country fought many battailes and some of them very bloudy and either conquered or else wasted a great part of the Brigantes Whereas Tacitus writeth that this Queene of the Brigantes delivered Caracus prisoner unto Claudius the Emperor there is in that excellent author a manifest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the same noted a good while since by Iustus Lipsius deepely insighted in understanding old authors For neither was this Caratacus Prince of the Silures and Ordevices led in pompe at that triumph of Claudius nor yet Caratacus the Sonne of Cunobelinus for so is he called in the Romane Fasti whom Dio nameth Catacratus Of whom Aulus Plautius if not in the very same yeere yet in the next following triumphed by way of Ovation But let others sift out these matters and thereof I have already said somewhat In the Emperour Hadrians time when as Aelius Spartianus saith The Britaines could not be contained under the Romanes dominion it may seeme that these our Brigantes revoited from the Romanes and made a turbulent insurrection For had it not been so there was no cause why Iuvenall who then lived should thus write Dirue Maurorum attegias castra Brigantum Downe with the Moores sheepe cotes and folds Downe with the Brigantes forts and holds Neither afterward in the time of Antoninus Pius was their courage as it may seeme very much abated when he tooke away part of their territories from them because they had made rodes as I have said before into Genunia or Guinethia a Province confederate with the Romanes If I durst by our Critickes good leave who in these daies presuming so much of their great wits are supercriticall me thinks I could heere cleare Tacitus of a fault or two which sitteth close to him as concerning the Brigantes The one is in the twelfth Booke of his Annales where I would reade for Venutius out of the State of the Iugantes out of the State of the Brigantes which Tacitus himselfe seemeth to insinuate in the third Booke of his Histories The other in the life of Agricola The Brigantes saith he under the leading of a Woman burnt the Colonie c. Where truth would have you reade The Trinobantes For he speaketh of Queene Boadicia who had nothing to doe with the Brigantes But the Trinobantes she stirred indeede to rebellion and burnt the Colonie Camalodunum But this Country of theirs so exceeding large which the further it goeth the narrower it waxeth riseth on high in the mids with continued ridges and edges of hils as Italic is raised up with Apenninus which make a partition betweene those Counties into which it is now divided For beneath those hilles toward the East and the German Sea lieth Yorke-shire and the Bishopricke of Duresme and on the West side Lancashire Westmorland and Cumberland all which Countries in the first infancy of the English-Saxons Empire were contained within the Kingdome of the Deiri For they call these Countries the Kingdome of the Nordanhumbers and divided them in two parts Deira called in that age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is neerer unto us and on this side Tine and Bernicia which lying beyond Tine reached as farre as Edenborrough Frith in Scotland which parts although they had their severall Kings for a long time yet at length grew all to bee one Kingdome And that I may note this one thing by the way whereas in the life of Charles the Great it is read thus Eardulph King of the Nordanhumbers that is De-Irland being driven out of his Country unto Charles the Great c. Wee must reade ioyntly Dierland and understand the place of this Country and not of Ireland as some have misconceived EBORACENSIS Comitatus pars Occidenâ—aâ—is vulgo WEST RIDING YORKE-SHIRE THE
to take any thing that pertained to the Warren without the licence and good will of Henry himselfe and his Successours Which was counted in that age for a speciall favour and I note it once for all that we may see what Free Warren was But the male issue of this Family in the right line ended in Henry Kigheley of Inskip Howbeit the daughters and heires were wedded to William Cavendish now Baron Cavendish of Hardwick and to Thomas Worseley of Boothes From hence Are passeth beside Kirkstall an Abbay in times past of no small reckoning founded by Henry Lacy in the yeere 1147. and at length visiteth Leedes in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which became a house of the Kings when CAMBODUNUM was by the enemy burnt to the ground now a rich Towne by reason of clothing where Oswy king of Northumberland put to flight Penda the Mercian And as Bede saith this was to the great profit of both Nations for he both delivered his owne people from the hostile spoiling of the miscreants and also converted the Mercians themselves to the grace of Christian Faith The very place wherein they joyned battaile the writers call Winwidfield which name I suppose was given it of the Victory like as a place in Westphalia where Quintilius Varus with his legions was slaine is in the Dutch tongue called Winfield that is The fields of victory as that most learned man and my very good friend Abraham Ortelius hath observed The little Region or Territory about it was in times past by an old name called Elmet which Eadwin king of Northumberland the sonne of AElla after hee had expelled Cereticus a British king conquered in the yeere of Christ 620. Herein is digged limestone every where which is burnt at Brotherton and Knottingley and at certaine set times as it were at Faires a mighty quantity thereof is conveied to Wakefield Sandall and Stanbridge and so is sold unto this Westerne Country which is hilly and somewhat cold for to manure and enrich their Corne fields But let us leave these things to Husbandmen as for my selfe I professe my ignorance therein and will goe forward as I beganne At length Are entertaineth Calder aforesaid with his water as his Guest where neere unto the meeting of both Rivers standeth Castleford a little Village Marianus nameth it Casterford who reporteth that the Citizens of Yorke slew many of king Ethelreds Army there whom in their pursuite they set upon and charged heere and there at advantages what time as hee invaded and overranne this Country for breaking the allegeance they had sworne unto him But in Antonine this place is called by a more ancient name LEGEOLIUM and LAGETIUM Wherein beside expresse and notable tokens of Antiquity a mighty number of Roman peeces of money the common people there tearme them Sarasins head were found at Beanfield a place so called now of Beanes hard by the Church The distance also from DAN and YORKE betweene which he placed it doth most cleerely confirme as much to say nothing of the situation thereof hard by the Romanes High Street and last of all for that Roger Hoveden in plaine tearmes calleth it A City From hence Are being now bigger after it hath received Calder unto it leaveth on the left hand Brotherton a little Towne in which Queene Margaret turning thither out of the way as she road on hunting was delivered of childe and brought forth unto her Husband king Edward the First Thomas de Brotherton so named of the place who was afterward Earle of Norfolke and Mareshall of England And not farre beneath Are after it hath received into it Dan looseth himselfe in Ouse On the right hand where a yellower kinde of marke is found which being cast and spred upon the fields maketh them beare Corne for many yeeres together he passeth by Ponttract commonly called Pontfret situate not farre from the river banke which Towne gat life as it were by the death of old Legeolium In the Saxons time it was called Kirkby but the Normans of a broken Bridge named it in French Pontfract Upon this occasion it is commonly thought that the wooden Bridge over Are hard by was broken when a mighty multitude of people accompanied William Archibishop a great number fell into the River and yet by reason that the Archbishop shed many a teare at this accident and called upon God for helpe there was not one of them that perished Seated it is in a very pleasant place that bringeth forth Liquirice and skirworts in great plenty adorned also with faire buildings and hath to shew a stately Castle as a man shall see situate upon a rocke no lesse goodly to the eye than safe for the defence well fortified with ditches and bulwarkes Hildebert Lacy a Norman unto whom king William the First after that Alricke the Saxon was thrust out had given this Towne with the land about it first built this Castle But Henry Lacy his nephew came into the field at the battaile of Trenchbrey I speake out of the Pleas against King Henry the First wherefore hee was disseised of the Barony of Pontfract and the King gave the Honour to Wido de Lavall who held it untill King Stephens dayes at which time the said Henry made an entry into the Barony and by mediation of the King compounded with Wido for an hundred and fifty pounds This Henry had a sonne named Robert who having no issue left Albreda Lizours his sister by the mothers side and not by the father to bee his heire because hee had none other so neere in bloud unto him whereby shee after Roberts death kept both inheritances in her hand namely of her brother Lacies and her father Lizours And these be the very words of the booke of the Monastery of Stanlow This Albreda was marryed to Richard Fitz Eustach Constable of Chester whose Heires assumed unto them the name of Lacies and flourished under the title of Earles of Lincolne By a daughter of the last of these Lacies this goodly inheritance by a deede of conveyance was devolved in the end to the Earles of Lancaster who enlarged the Castle very much and Queene Elizabeth likewise bestowed great cost in repairing it and beganne to build a faire Chappell This place hath beene infamous for the murder and bloudshed of Princes For Thomas Earle of Lancaster the first of Lancastrian House that in right of his wife possessed it stained and embrewed the same with his owne bloud For King Edward the Second to free himselfe from rebellion and contempt shewed upon him a good example of wholsome severity and beheaded him heere Whom notwithstanding standing the common people enrolled in the Beadroll of Saints Heere also was that Richard the Second King of England whom King Henry the Fourth deposed from his Kingdome with hunger cold and strange kindes of torments most wickedly made away And heere King Richard the
them who deserve for their vertue and piety to bee renowned Let it suffice to note in a word that from Paulinus the first Archbishop consecrated in the yeere of our Redemption 625. there have sitten in that See threescore and five Archbishops unto the yeere 1606. in which D. Tobie Matthew a most reverend Prelate for the ornaments of vertue and piety for learned eloquence and continuall exercise of teaching was translated hither from the Bishopricke of Durrham This City for a time flourished very notably under the English Saxons dominion untill the Danes like a mighty storme thundring from out of the North-East defaced it againe with merveilous great ruines and by killing and slaying disteined it with bloud which that Alcuine aforesaid in his Epistle to Egelred King of Northumberland may seeme to have presaged before What signifieth saith he that raining of bloud which in Lent we saw at Yorke the head City of the whole Kingdome in Saint Peters Church to fall downe violently in threatning wise from the top of the roufe in the North part of the house and that in a faire day May it not bee thought that bloud is comming upon the Land from the North parts Verily soone after it was embrued with bloud and did pine away with most miserable calamities when the Danes spoiled wasted and murrhered all where ever they came And verily in the yeere 867. the wals were so battered and shaken by reason of continuall Warres that Osbright and Ella Kings of Northumberland whiles they pursewed the Danes easily brake into the City who being both of them slaine in a most bloudy battaile in the very middest of the City left the victory unto the Danes Whereupon William of Malmesbury writeth in this manner Yorke alwaies exposed first to the rage of the Northren Nations sustained the barbarous assaults of the Danes and groaned being pitteously shaken with manifold ruines But as the very same Authour witnesseth King Athelstone wonne it perforce out of the Danes hands and overthrew the Castle quite which they had heere fortified Neither for all this was it altogether free from warres in the times next ensuing whiles that age ranne fatall for the destruction of Cities But the Normans as they ended these miseries so they made almost a finall hand of Yorke also For when the sonnes of Sueno the Dane had landed in these parts with a Danish Fleete of 240. Saile the Normans lying in Garison who kept two Forts within the City fearing least the houses in the Suburbes might stand the enemy in stead to fill up the Ditches withall set them on fire but by reason the winde rose highly the fire was so carried and spred throughout that City that now it was set a burning when the Danes breaking in upon them made pitifull slaughter in every place having put the Normans to the sword and keeping alive William Mallet and Gilbert Gant two principall persons that they might be tithed with the souldiers For every tenth man of the Normans they chose out by lot to be executed Whereupon King William the Conquerour was so incensed with desire of revenge that he shewed his cruelty upon the Citizens by putting them all to death as if they had taken part with the Danes and upon the City it selfe by setting it on fire afresh and as William of Malmesbury saith Hee so depopulated and defaced the Villages adjoyning and the sinewes of that fertile Region were so cut by the spoiles there committed and booties raised and the ground for the space of threescore miles lay so untilled that if a stranger had then seene the Cities that in times were of high account the Towres which with their lofty toppes threatned the skie and the fields that were rich in pastures hee could not but sigh and lament yea and if an ancient inhabitant had beheld the same hee could not have knowne them How great Yorke had beene aforetime Domesday booke shall tell you in these words In King Edward the Confessours time there were in Yorke City sixe Divisions or Shires besides that of the Archbishops One was laid waste for the Castles or Forts In the five Divisions were 1428. dwelling Mansions to give entertainement And in the Archbishops Shire or Division 200. dwelling Mansions likewise After these woefull overthrowes our countryman Necham thus versified of it Visito quam foelix Ebrancus condidit urbem Petro se debet pontificalis apex Civibus hac toties viduata novÃsque repleta Diruta prospexit moenia saepe sua Quid manus hostilis queat est experta frequenter Sed quid nunc pacis otia longa fovent The City that Great Ebrauk built I come now for to view Whereof the See pontificall is to Saint Peter due This many times laid desolate and peopled new hath beene Her wals cast downe and ruinate full often hath it seene What mischiefe hostile hands could worke not once nor twice it found What then since now long time of peace doth keepe it safe and sound For in his time when after these troublesome stormes a most pleasant calme of peace presently ensued it rose of it selfe againe and flourished afresh although the Scots and Rebels both did oftentimes make full account to destroy it But under the Raigne of King Stephen it caught exceeding great harme by casualty of fire wherein were consumed the Cathedrall Church the Abbay of Saint Mary and other religious houses yea and that noble and most furnished Library as it is thought which Alcuin hath recorded to have been founded by Archbishop Egeldred his Praeceptour As for the Abbay of Saint Mary it quickly recovered the former dignity by new buildings but the Cathedrall Church lay longer ere it held up head againe and not before King Edward the First his time For then John Roman Treasurer of the Church laid the foundation of a new worke which his sonne John William Melton and John Thoresby all of them Archbishops brought by little and little to that perfection and beauty which now it sheweth yet not without the helping hand of the Nobility and Gentry thereabout especially of the Percies and the Vavasours which the armes of their houses standing in the very Church and their images at the West gate of the Church doe shew Percies pourtraied with a peece of timber and Vavasours with a stone in their hands for that the one supplied the stone the other the timber for this new building This Church as he reporteth who wrote the life of Aeneas Sylvius who was Pope Pius the second and that upon the Popes owne relation For workmanship and greatnesse is memorable over all the world and the Chappell most lightsome the glasse-windowes whereof are fast bound betweene pillars that bee most slender in the mids This Chappell is that most dainty and beautifull Chapter-house in which this verse stands painted in golden letters Ut Rosa flos florum sic est Domus ista Domorum The floure of floures a Rose men call So is
as I have often said heeretofore shoote along through the middle of England and interpose themselves as umpires and Bounders betweene divers shires Lanca-shire lyeth toward the West in the English Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly termed Lonka-shire Lanca-shire and The County Palatine of Lancaster because it is notably knowne by the title of a County Palatine It is so enclosed betweene Yorke-shire on the East side and the Irish sea on the West that on the South side where it boundeth upon Cheshire it is broader and by little and little the more Northward it goeth where it confineth upon Westmorland the narrower it groweth And there by an Arme of the sea insinuating it selfe is interrupted and hath a good part of it which butteth upon Cumberland beyond the said Arme. Where the ground is plaine and champion it yeeldeth good store of Barly and Wheat that which lieth at the botom of the hilles is better for Otes The soile every where is meetely good and tolerable unlesse it be in certaine moist places and unwholsome called Mosses which notwithstanding make amends for these their discommodities with more plentifull commodities For if their upper coate bee pared away they yeeld certaine unctuous or fattish Turffes for fewell and some times under-ground trees or which have lien a long time buried there Underneath also in divers places they affourd abundance of marle which serveth in stead of mucke to enrich their grounds Whereby the soile that in mans opinion was held most unapt to beare Corne beginneth now to be so kinde and arable that it may be justly thought mens idlenesse in times past was greater than any naturall barrainesse of the soile But a man may judge of the goodnesse of the soile partly by the constitution and complexion of the Inhabitants who are to see to passing faire and beautifull and in part if you please by the Cattaile For in their Kine and Oxen which have goodly heads and faire spread hornes and are in body well proportionate withall you shall finde in manner no one point wanting that Mago the Carthaginian doth require as Columella specifieth out of him On the South part it is separated from Cheshire with the River Mersey which springing forth of the midland hilles having passed a little from his head becommeth a bound to distinguish the Shires and with a slow current runneth Westward calling as it were other rivers to use the words of the Poet into his skie coloured and azure lappe and forthwith gladly biddeth welcome unto Irwell from the North which river bringeth along with him all the rivers of this Easterne part Among these Roch is of greatest name which hath standing upon it in the Vale Rochdale a Mercate Towne well frequented like as Irwell it selfe hath situate upon it Bury a Mercate Towne nothing inferiour to the other and hard by whiles I carefully sought for COCCIUM mentioned by Antonine the Emperour I saw Cockley a Chapell built of timber beset round about with trees Also Turton Chapell among very steepe downfalls and overgrowne unpleasant places Turton Towre and Entweissoll a proper faire house which had in times past Gentlemen of that name as Turton is the seate at this day of the right ancient family of Orell But where Irke and Irwell meet together on the left hand banke raised of a reddish kinde of stone scarce three miles from Mersey flourished that Towne of right great antiquity which we now call Manchester and Antonine the Emperour called MANCUNIUM and MANUCIUM according to the variety of the Copies This retaining the first part of his ancient name farre excelleth the Townes lying round about it for the beautifull shew it carrieth for resort unto it and for clothing in regard also of the Mercate-place the faire Church and College founded by Thomas Lord De-la-ware a Priest the last heire male of his Family and summoned to the Parliament among the Lords Temporall by the name of Magister Thomas de-la-ware For he descended from the Greleies who were the ancient Lords of this Towne and by Ioane sister of the said Sir Thomas it came to Wests now Lords De-la-ware But in the foregoing age this Towne was of farre greater account both for certaine wollen clothes there wrought and in great request commonly called Manchester Cottons and also for the liberty of a Sanctuary which under King Henry the Eighth was by Parliamentary authority translated to Chester In a Parke of the Earle of Derbies neere adjoyning called Alparke where the Brooke Medlocke entreth into Irwell I saw the plot and ground-worke of an ancient Fortresse built foure square commonly called Mancastle which I will not in any wise say was that ancient MANCUNIUM it is contained in so narrow a peece of ground but rather the Fort of Mancunium and station of the Romanes where they kept watch and ward at which I saw this ancient Inscription in a long stone to the memory of Candidus a Centurion ◠CANDIDI FIDES XX. IIII. As for this other Iohn Dee that most famous Mathematician and Warden of Manchester College who had a sight of the same heere copied it out for me COHO I. FRISIN ◠MASA VONIS P. XXIII Both which may seeme erected in honour of those Centurious for their loyalty and honesty so many yeeres approoved In the yeere of our Salvation 920. King Edward the Elder as Marianus writeth sent an Army of Mercians into Northumberland To reedifie the City of Manchester and to place a Garison there for it belonged formerly unto the Kings of Northumberland and seemeth to have beene quite destroyed in the Danish warre against whom because the inhabitants had borne themselves as valiant men they will have their towne to be called Manchester that is as they expound it The City of Men and in this conceit which implieth their owne commendation they wonderfully please and flatter themselves But full little know the good honest men that MANCUNIUM was the name of it in the Britans time so that the Etymologie thereof out of our English tongue can by no meanes seeme probable I for my part therefore would derive it rather from Main a British word which signifieth a Stone For upon a stony hill it is seated and beneath the very Towne at Colyhurst there are very good and famous quarries of stone But to returne againe Mersey now by this time carrying a fuller streame by reason of Irwell consociating with him holdeth on in his journey toward the Ocean by Trafford from whence the Traffords a Family of great good note tooke their name as they had their habitation also by Chatmosse a low mossie ground lying a great way in length and bredth a good part whereof the Brookes swelling high within our fathers remembrance carried quite away with them not without much danger Whereby the Rivers were corrupted and a number of fresh fish perished In which place now lyeth a Vale somewhat low watered with a little Brooke and trees
England of the Kings Majesties Privie Counsell whom King James the sixth created Baron Brus of Kinlosse Thus much for the shore More inward where now standeth Bean Castle thought to bee BANATIA that Ptolomee mentioneth there was found in the yeere 1460. a vessell of marble artificially engraven and full of Roman coine Hard by is Nardin or Narne an hereditable Sherifdome of the Cambels of Lorne where there stood within a Biland a fortresse of a mightie heighth built with wonderfull bulwarks and in times past defended by the Danish forces against the Scottish A little off is Logh-Nesse a very great Lake as reaching out 23. miles in length the Water whereof is so warme that even in this cold and frozen climate it never freezeth from which by a verie small Isthim or partition of hils the Logh Lutea or Louthea which by Aber letteth it selfe forth into the West sea is divided Neere unto these Loghs there stood in old time two notable fortifications the one named Innernesse the other Innerlothea according to the names of the said Loghs Innernes hath for Sheriffe thereof by right of inheritance the Marquesse Huntly who is of great command hereabout But have here what M. Jonston hath written jointly of these two INNERNESSUS INNERLOTHEA Imperii veteris duo propugnacula quondam Primâ—que regali moenia structa manu Turribus oppositis adverso in limine spectat Haec Zephyrum Solis illa orientis equos Amnibus hinc atque hinc cincta utraque piscibus amnes Faecundi haec portu perpete tuta patet Haec fuit at jacet heu jam nunc sine nomine tellus Hospita quae Regum est hospita facta feris Altera spirat adhuc tenuis sufflamina vitae Quae dabit fati turbine victa manus Dic ubi nunc Carthago potens ubi Martia Roma Trojáque immensae ditis opes Asiae Quid mireris enim mortalia cedere fatis Corpora cùm videas oppida posse mori INNERNESSE AND INNERLOTHEA Two mightie forts and holds these were in ancient kingdomes daies The first wall'd fences as they say that hand of Kings did raise Affront with towres oppos'd they stand for one of them regards The Westerne winde but th' other looks the Sun-rising towards On both sides they their rivers have and rivers full of fish One hath an haven frequented aye and safe as heart can wish Such was it once but now alas to wast and desart fields Is turn'd and that which lodged Kings to wild beasts harbour yeelds The other yet draw's breath though deepe and shewes that it doth live But over match'd to destinie at length doth bucklers give What 's now become of Carthage great where is that martiall Rome Where Troy of wealthie Asia the riches all and some No marvaile now that mortall wights to death be subject why Because you plainly see that Townes and Cities great may dye Under the reigne of Robert Brus Thomas Randolph his sisters sonne who in his Countries behalfe undertooke exceeding great paines and most grievous quarrels was highly renowned by the title of Earle of Murray Under King Robert the Second John of Dunbarre tooke to wife the Kings daughter to make amends for her devirgination received this Earldome of Murray with her in marriage Under King James the second William Creichton Chancelour of the Realme and Archebald Douglas grew to great variance and eagre contention about this Earledome when as against the lawes and ancient customes Douglas who had married the younger daughter of James of Dunbar Earle of Murray was preferred to the Earldom before Creighton who had wedded the elder and that through the powerfull authoritie that William Earle Douglasse had with the King which was so great that he advanced not onely him to the Earldom of Murray but also another brother to the Earldome of Ormund and made two cousins of his Earles the one of Angus and the other of Morton But this greatnesse of his not to be trusted upon because it was excessive turned soone after to his owne confusion Under King James the fifth his own brother whom he appointed his Vicegerent in the government of the Kingdome enjoied this honour and within our remembrance James the base sonne of King James the fifth received this honour of Queene Mary his sister but he requited her basely when conspiring with some few of the Nobilitie he deposed her from her Royall estate and kingdome a foule president and prejudiciall to all Kings and Princes Which notwithstanding was revenged for shortly after hee was shot through with a bullet His onely daughter brought this title unto her husband Sir James Stewart of Downe who was also of the blood royall from the Dukes of Albany who being slain by his concurrents left his sonne James to succeed him in this honour LOQHUABRE WHatsoever beyond the Nesse bendeth to the West coast and adjoineth to the Lake Aber is thereupon called Loghuabre that is in the ancient tongue of the Britans The mouth of the Lakes as what lieth toward the North is commonly called Rosse Loqhuabre is full of fresh pastures and woods neither is without yron mines but not so free in yeeld of corne but for most fishfull pooles and rivers scarce inferiour to any country thereabout At Logh-Lothey Innerlothey fensed with a fort and well frequented with Merchants was of great name and importance in times past but being razed by the piracies and warres of Danes and Norwegians it hath lien for these many ages so forlet that there remaineth scarce any shew of it which those verses that I alledged even now doe imply Loqhuabre hath had so farre as I have read no Earles but about the yeere of our salvation 1050. there was a Thane over it of great fame and much spoken of named Banqhuo whom Macbeth the bastard when with murder bloodshed he had usurped the crowne being fearfull and suspicious caused to bee made away for that he had learned by a Prophesie of certaine wise women that his posteritie when the line of Macbeth was expired and extinct should one day obtaine the Kingdome and by a long successive descent reigne in Scotland Which verily hath fallen out accordingly For Fleanch the sonne of Banqhuo who unknowne in the darke escaped the traines laid for him â—led into Wales where for a time hee kept himselfe close and having taken to wife Nesta the daughter of Griffith ap Lewellin Prince of North-wales begat Walter who returning into Scotland with so great fame of his fortitude repressed the rebellion of the Ilanders and with as great wisdome managed the Kings revenewes in this tract that the King made him Seneschall whom they commonly call Stewart of the whole Kingdome of Scotland Whereupon this name of Office imposed the surname Stewart unto his posteritie who spreading throughout all parts of Scotland into a number of noble branches after many honours heaped upon them have flourished a long
therein bee with the narrowest thrust close and pent together yet such is the convenience and commodiousnesse of the haven that for wealth fresh trading and frequent resort it is the second City in all Ireland and hath alwaies shewed a singular loialty fidelitie and obedience to the Imperiall Crowne of England For ever since that Richard Earle of Pembrok wanne it it hath continued so faithfull and quietly disposed that it performed at all times safe and secure peace unto the English on their backes whiles they went on in the conquering of Ireland Whence it is that the Kings of England have granted unto it very many and those right large Franchises which King Henry the seventh augmented and confirmed because the Citizens had demeaned themselves most valiantly and wisely against that Mock-Prince Perkin Warbeck who being a young man of base condition by hoising up the full sailes of impudence went about to mount up aloft unto the Imperiall diadem whiles he a meer suborned counterfeit tooke upon him to be Richard Duke of Yorke the second sonne of King Edward the fourth This countie of Waterford together with the city King Henry the sixth gave unto Iohn Talbot Earle of Shrewsbury aforesaid by these words which because they testifie the valerous vertue of that most martiall Knight to the end that vertue might have the due honour thereto belonging I thinke it worth my labour and haply any man else would deeme no lesse to put downe out of the Record which may be Englished thus We therefore saith the King after other eloquent termes penned by the Secretaries of that age when there was but simple Latin weighing with due consideration the valiant prowesse of our most deere and faithfull cousin John Earle of Shrewsbury and of Weisford Lord Talbot Furnivall and Le Strange sufficiently tried and approved even unto his old age in the warres aforesaid upon his body no lesse bedewed with sweat many a time than embrued with blood and considering in what sort our Countie and Citie of Waterford in our land of Ireland the Castle Seigniory Honour Land and Baronie of Dungarvan and all the Lordships Lands Honours and Baronies with the pertinences within the same County which by forfeiture of rebels by reversion or decease of any person or persons by escheat or any other title of law ought to come into our hands or our progenitors or in the same to be by reason of the hostile invasions of our enemies and rebells in those parts are become so desolate and lye so much exposed to the spoiles of warre wholly as it were wasted that they turne us to no profit but have and doe redound oftentimes to our detriment in this regard also that by the same our Cousin our foresaid land of Ireland may the more valiantly be defended in those parts against such attempts and invasions of our enemies and rebells doe ordaine promote and create him Earle of Waterford together with the stile title name and honour thereto belonging And because as the highnesse of his state and degree groweth all things consequently of necessity grow withall upon our speciall grace certaine knowledge and meere motion and for the estate of the Earle himselfe our Cousin to be maintained in more decent manner we have given granted and by these our letters confirmed unto the same Earle the County aforesaid together with the foresaid stile title name and honour of Earle of Waterford yea and the foresaid City with the fee ferme of the same the Castles Lordships Honours Lands and Baronies with the pertinences within the County likewise all and every sort the Manors Hundreds Wapentakes c. all along the sea coast from the towne of Yoghall unto Waterford City aforesaid To have and to hold the foresaid County of Waterford the stile title name and honour of Earle of Waterford and the City Waterford aforesaid the Castle Seigniory Honour Land and Barony of Dungarvan and all other Lordships Honours Lands and Baronies within the said county as also all and every the foresaid Manors Hundreds c. unto the above named Earle and the heires males issuing out of his body to have I say and to hold of us and our heires by homage fealty and the service of being and to be our Seneschall or Steward and that his heires be the Seneschals of Ireland to us and our heires throughout our whole land of Ireland to do and that hee doe and ought himselfe to doe in the same his office that which his predecessors Seneschals of England were wont to doe hitherto in that office for ever In witnesse whereof c. But when as whiles the Kings of England and the Nobles who had large and goodly possessions in Ireland were much busied and troubled a long time first with the warres of France and afterward with civill warres at home Ireland lay in manner neglected and the State of English there falling still to decay was now in manner come to nothing but the Irishry by occasion of the others absence grew exceeding mighty for to recover these losses and to abate the power of the Irish it was ordained and enacted by the States of the Realme in Parliament that the Earle of Shrewsbury for his absence and carelesnesse in maintaining of his owne should surrender into the hands of the King and his successors the Earledome and towne of Waterford the Duke of Norfolke likewise the Baron Barkley the heires generall of the Earle of Ormond and all the Abbats Priors c. of England who had any lands should surrender up all their possessions unto the King and his successors for the same absence and neglect THE COUNTY OF LIMERICK HItherto have wee gone over the Maritime counties of Mounster two there remaine yet behind that bee in-lands Limericke and Tipperary which wee are now to goe unto The county of LIMERICK lieth behinde that of Corke Northward betweene Kerry the river Shanon and the county of Tipperary A fertile countrey and well peopled but able to shew very few places of any good account and importance The more Western part of it is called Conilagh wherein among the hills Knock-Patric that is Patricks hill mounteth up of a mighty height and yeelding a pleasant prospect into the sea beholdeth afarre off the river Shanon falling with a wide and wast mouth into the Vergivian or Ocean Under which hill a sept of Fitz-Giralds or Giraldines lived honourably a long time untill that Thomas called the Knight of the Valley or of the Glin when his gracelesse sonne that wicked firebrand suffered death for to set villages and houses a fire is by the lawes of Ireland high treason because himselfe advised his sonne and set him on to enter into these lewd actions by authority of the Parliament was disseized of his goodly and large possessions The head City of this county is Limerick which Shanon a most famous river by parting his chanell compasseth round about The Irish call it Loumeag and
building of the Church and the whole close This was done in the yeere 1012. in which as Lancarvanensis avoucheth Sitric the sonne of Abloie for so he calleth him lived and flourished in great name The worke begun by Donatus Laurence Archbishop of Dublin Richard Strongbow Earle of Penbroch commonly called Earle of Strigulia whose tomb is here to be seen repaired by Sir Henry Sidney Lord Deputy Robert Fitz-Stephen and Reimund Fitz-Girald finished Hard at the South side of this Church there standeth a stately Towne-hall built of foure square stone and called the Tolestale where causes are tried before the Maior of the City and where the Citizens use to hold their Sessions and publike assemblies for it enjoyeth many immunities In times past this Citie had for the chiefe Magistrate a Provost but in the yeere of our redemption 1409. King Henry the fourth granted them licence to chuse every yeere a Maior and two Bailifs also that the Maior should have a gilt sword carried before him for ever But afterwards King Edward the sixth changed the Bailiffes into Sheriffes Neither wanteth any thing here which a man can wish for in a most flourishing City save only that an heape of sand which the ebbing and flowing of the sea casteth up into the mouth of Liffy doth so dam up and bar the haven that it is not able to bring up any great vessels but at high water Thus much of Dublin for the most part of which I acknowledge my selfe beholden unto the diligence and learning of Iames Usher Chancellor of S. Patricks Church whose variety of knowledge and judgement are far above his yeeres As touching Robert Vere Earle of Oxford whom King Richard the second a Prince too too lavish in giving honourable titles made Marquesse of Dublin and afterwards Duke of Ireland I have spoken already and reason I have none to repeat the same here Yet will I note thus much which I have since happened upon in the Records When as King Richard aforesaid had advanced that Robert Vere Earle of Oxford to bee Marquesse of Dublin and had given to him the Seigniory of Ireland during his life hee desirous to augment his honour by more ennoblishing him with honourable Armes granted also that as long as hee should live and hold the said Seigniory he should beare these Armes Azure 3. Crownes Or in a Bordur in his Standards Pennons Coat-armours and other things wherein Armes are to be shewed in all Marshall matters and elsewhere at his pleasure But this grant was soone after recalled and those Armes abolished Where the river Liffy lodgeth himselfe in the Ocean Houth standeth compassed in manner round about with the sea of which the Noblemen sirnamed Saint Laurence and dwelling there become named Barons of Houth men of rare felicity for that in so long a descent of their line for they are able to derive their pedegree from the time of King Henry the second there hath of them by report none beene attainted of high treason none left ward in his minority And within a little of this place is Malchide or Molachid ennobled by the Lords thereof the Talbots English by their first originall More within the country Northward there adjoineth hard to the county of Dublin Fingall that is if you interpret it out of the Irish language a nation of forreiners for they use to nominate the English Gall as one would say strangers and Saissones as it were Saxons a little country but very good and passing well husbanded even the garner and barn of this kingdome so great store of corne it yeeldeth every yeere And here the soile striveth after a sort with the painfull labour of the husbandman which in other places throughout this Iland lying neglected without tillage and manuring seemeth to make a very grievous complaint of the inhabitants sloth and lazinesse There are planted every where throughout this county right worshipfull families nobly descended of English blood and namely besides those which I have already mentioned the Plonkets Barnwels Russels Talbots Dillons Nettervils Holywoods Lutterels Burnels Fitz Williams Gouldings Usshers Cadleys Finglases Sarfelds Blackneys Cruceys Baths c. Thus farre forth summarily of Leinster which in old time reached no farther Now I wot not whether it bee worth the laughing at or the relating that Thomas Stukely when hee had in England and Ireland both made shipwracke of his good name credit and fortunes having wound himselfe out of the danger of the lawes curried such favour with Pope Gregory the thirteenth what with making many faire promises and what with bragging of great matters that hee received at his hands these titles Marquesse of Leinster Earle of Weisford and Caterlogh Vicount Murrough and Baron of Rosse and Ydron With which titles hee being puffed up in pride whiles he thought to conquer Ireland went aside into Africk and there with the three Kings that were slaine in one battell made up the enterlude of his life with an honest close and catastrophe MIDIA OR MEDIAMETH THe rest of the Countrey of the Eblani was in ancient time a kingdome and the fifth part of Ireland which in their owne native language they call Miih the English Meth Giraldus nameth it in Latin Midia and Media perhaps because it is in the very middle of the Iland For they say that Killair a castle in these parts which seemeth to be in Ptolomee LABERUS is as it were the Navill of Ireland And the very name implieth no lesse For Lair in the Irish tongue signifieth The Middle This Meth lieth stretched out from the Irish sea as farre as to the river Shanon For the soile thereof as saith Bartholomaeus Anglicus Fertile it is in corne pasture ground and cattell plentifull in fish flesh and other victualls of white meat as butter cheese and milke watered also with rivers The situation is delectable to the eye and an wholsome aire In regard of woods and marishes in the skirts and borders it hath a very hard accesse and entry unto it And therefore considering the multitude of people the strength of castles and townes is iâ— commonly called for the peace thereof the CHAMBER of IRELAND Within the memorie of our fathers because the country was too large for to be governed by one Sheriffe and to the end that justice might with more facility be ministred it was divided by authority of Parliament in the 38. yeere of King Henry the eighth into two parts namely the county of East Meth and the county of West-Meth THE COUNTY OF EAST-METH THe County of EAST-METH is environed round about with the county of Kildar South with the county of Dublin and the sea East with the territorie of Louth North and with the county of West Meth on the West The whole is divided into 18. Baronies Dueleke Scrine Slane Margallen Navan Kenles halfe the Barony of Fower neer to Kenles Killalou Demore Cloue Moylagh Loghern Oldcastle Luyn Moyfeuraragh Deese Rath-touth and
the same so prone is mans nature to entertain the worst that one would not beleeve in how short a time some English among them degenerate and grow out of kinde A PRAEFACE TO THE ANNALES OF IRELAND THus far forward was the Printers presse a going when the Honourable Lord William Howard of Naworth for the love that he beareth unto the studies of Antiquity willingly imparted unto me the Manuscript Annales of Ireland from the yeere of our Salvation MCLII unto the yeere MCCCLXX Which I thought good to publish considering that after Giraldus Cambrensis there is nothing to my knowledge extant better in this kind and because so noble and worthy a person whose they were by right in private before permitted so much Unto whom the very same thankes in manner are duly to bee yeelded for bringing them to light that were to be given unto the authour himselfe who first recorded them in writing And albeit they are penned in a stile somewhat rude and barrain as those times required yet much matter is therein contained that may illustrate the Irish Historie and would have given good light unto mee if they had not come to my hands so late Take them here therefore truly and faithfully exemplified even as I found them with all their imperfections and faults and if you have any better impart them with semblable courtesie unto us if not make use of these with us untill some one come forth and shew himselfe that will helpe us to a fuller Chronicle and happilie continue the same in length even unto our daies with more elegancie of phrase which verily would be no painfull work to be performed THE ANNALES OF IRELAND ANno Domini MCLXII Gregorie the first Archbishop of Dublin a man praise worthy every way slept in the Lord after whom succeeded holy Laurence O-Thothil who was Abbat of St. Kemnus de Glindelagh Thomas is made Archbishop of Canterburie MCLXVI Rothericke O-Conghir Prince of Connaght was made King and Monarch of Ireland MCLXVII Died Maud the Empresse The same yeere Almaricke King of Jerusalem tooke Babylon And in the same yeere Dermoc Mac-Murrogh Prince of Leinster whiles O-Rorke King of Meth was in a certaine expedition carried away his wife who was willing enough to be ravished For her selfe made meanes to be taken as a prey as we find in Cambrensis MCLXVIII Donate King of Uriel founder of Mellifont Monasterie departed in Christ. In the same yeere Robert Fitz-Stephen neither unmindfull of his promise nor a breaker of his faith came into Ireland with thirtie Knights MCLXIX Earle Richard of Stroghul sent before him into Ireland a certaine young Gentleman of his owne family named Remund with ten Knights about the Calends of May. The same yeere the said Earle Richard accompanied with two hundred Knights or thereabout and others to the number as one would say of a thousand arrived on the even of S. Bartholmew the Apostle Which Richard verily was the sonne of Gilbert Earle of Stroghul that is Chippestow sometime Strogull This Richard also was the sonne of Isabell Aunt by the mothers side of K. Malcome and William King of Scotland and of David the Earle a Gentleman of good hope and the morrow after the same Apostles day they tooke the said Citie and there Eva Dermots daughter was lawfully joined in marriage unto Earle Richard and her father gave her MCLXXI S. Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterburie was slaine In the same yeere the Citie of Dublin was by the Earle and his companie taken And the same yeere was founded the Abbey de Castro Dei that is of Gods Castle MCLXXI Dermot Mac-Morrogh full of dayes was taken out of this world at Fernys about the Calends of May. MCLXXII The courageous King Henrie with 500. Knights arrived at Waterford and among other things gave Meth unto Sir Hugh Lacie The same yeere was founded the Abbey de Fonte vivo MCLXXIV Gelasius Archbishop of Armagh the first Primate of Ireland an holy man aged and full of daies rested in Christ. This Gelasius is said to bee the first Archbishop that wore the first pale but others before him were in name onely called Archbishops and Primates for the reverend regard and honour of St. Patricke as being the Apostle of that nation whose See was from the beginning had of all men in so great reverence that not onely Bishops and Priests and those of the Cleargie but Kings and Princes universally were subject to the Bishop thereof in all obedience After whom succeeded in the Archbishopricke Gilbert a Prelate of good memorie MCLXXV William King of Scotland was taken prisoner at Alnewicke MCLXXVI Bertram Verdon founded the Abbey of Crokisdenne MCLXXVII Earle Richard about the Calends of May died at Dublin and was buried in the Church of the holy Trinitie at Dublin The same yeere Vivian a Priest Cardinall entituled of S. Stephan in Mount Caelius came as Legat of the Apostolicall See into Ireland sent from Pope Alexander MCLXXVIII The ninth day before the Calends of December the Abbey de Samaria was founded The same yeere was founded Rose Vale that is Rosseglasse MCLXXIX Miles Cogan and Ralph the sonne of Fitz-Stephen his daughters husband were slaine betweene Waterford and Lismore c. as we read in Cambrensis The same yeere Hervie Mont-Marish entred the Monasterie of Saint Trinitie in Canterburie who founded the Monasterie of Saint Marie de Portu that is Of Donbroth MCLXXX The Abbey of the Quire of Benet was founded The same yeere was founded the Abbey of Geripount The same yeere Laurence Archbishop of Dublin upon the 18. day before the Calends of December happily slept in the Lord within the Church of Saint Marie of Aux After whom succeeded John Cumin an Englishman borne in England at Evesham chosen with good agreement and accord by the Cleargie of Dublin the King by his industry procuring the same and confirmed by the Pope which John afterwards founded the Church of Saint Patricke in Dublin MCLXXXIII The order of the Templars and Hospitallers is confirmed The same yeere is founded the Abbey de Lege Dei that is Gods Law MCLXXXV John the Kings sonne Lord of Ireland by his fathers gift came into Ireland in the 12. yeere of his age in the thirteenth yeere after his fathers comming after the comming of Fitz-Stephen the fifteenth in the 14. yeere from the comming of Earle Richard and in the same fifteenth yeere returned MCLXXXVI The order of the Cartusians and of the Grandians is confirmed In the same yeere Hugh Lacie was killed at Dervath treacherously by an Irishman because the foresaid Hugh would build a castle there and as he was teaching of an Irishman how to labour with an iron toole to wit a Pykax when Hugh bowed himselfe forward he stroke him to the ground with both hands and as he held down his head the said Irishman with an axe chopt off Hugh Lacie his head and there was an end of the conquest In the same yeere Christian Bishop of
the Lord the Pope From the one side and the other were sent certaine messengers to the Court of Rome but whiles King Edward abode in Flanders William Walleis by the common counsell of the Scots came with a great armie to the bridge of Strivelin and gave battle unto John Earle Warren in which battell on both sides many were slaine and many drowned But the Englishmen were discomfited and defeated Upon which exploit all the Scots at once arose and made an insurrection as well Earls as Barons against the King of England And there fell discord betweene the King of England and Roger Bigod Earle Mareschall but soone after they were agreed And Saint Lewis a Frier minor sonne of the King of Sicily and Archbishop of Colein died Also the sonne and heire of the King de Maliagro that is of the Majoricke Ilands instituted the order of the Friers minors at the information of Saint Lewis who said Goe and doe so Item in Ireland Leghlin with other townes was burnt by the Irish of Slemergi Item Calwagh O-Hanlan and Yneg Mac-Mahon are slaine in Urgale MCCXCVIII Pope Boniface the fourth the morrow after the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul after all tumults were appeased ordained and confirmed a peace betweene the King of England and the King of France with certaine conditions that after followed Item Edward King of England set forth with an armie againe into Scotland for to subdue the Scots under his dominion Item there were slaine in the same expedition about the feast of Saint Marie Maudlen many thousands of the Scots at Fawkirk The sunne the same day appeared as red as bloud over all Ireland so long as the battell continued at Fawkirke aforesaid Item about the same time the Lord King of England feoffed his Knights in the Earldomes and Baronies of the Scots that were slaine More in Ireland peace and concord was concluded between the Earle of Ulster and Lord John Fitz-Thomas about the feast of the Apostles Simon and Iude. Also on the morrow after the feast of the 7. Saints sleepers the sun-beames were changed almost into the colour of bloud even from the morning so that all men that saw it wondred thereat Moreover there died Sir Thomas Fitz-Maurice Knight and Sir Robert Bigod sometime Lord chiefe Justice of the Bench. Item in the Citie Artha as also in Reathe in the parts of Italie whiles Pope Boniface abode there at the same time there happened so great an Earthquake that towres and palaces fell downe to the ground The Pope also with his Cardinals fled from the Citie much affrighted Item upon the feast of the Epiphany that is Twelfe day there was an earthquake though not so violent in England from Canterburie as farre as to Hampton MCCXCIX Lord Theobald Botiller the younger departed this life in the Manour de Turby the second day before the Ides of May whose corps was conveied toward Weydeney that is Weney in the countie of Limeric the sixth day before the Calends of June Item Edward King of England tooke to wife the Ladie Margaret sister to the noble King of France in the Church of the holy Trinitie in Canterburie about the feast of the holy Trinitie Item the Soldan of Babylon was defeated with a great armie of Saracens by Cassian King of the Tartars MCCXCIX The day after the feast of the Purification of the blessed Virgin Marie there was an infinite number of the Saracens horsemen slaine besides the footmen who were likewise innumerable Item in the same yeere there was a battell or fight of dogges in Burgundie at Genelon castle and the number of the dogges was 3000. and everie one killed another so that no dogge escaped alive but one alone Item the same yeere many Irishmen came to trouble and molest the Lord Theobald Verdon to the Castle of Roch before the feast of the Annuntiation MCCC The Pollard money is forbidden in England and Ireland Also in the Autumne Edward King of England entred Scotland with a power of armed men but at the commandement of Pope Boniface hee was stayed and he sent solemne messengers unto the Court of Rome excusing himself of doing any injurie Item Thomas the Kings sonne of England was the last day of May born at Brotherton of Margaret sister to the King of France Item Edward Earle of Cornwall died without leaving behind an heire of his owne bodie and was enterred in the Abbey of Hales MCCCI. Edward King of England entred into Scotland with an armie unto whom failed over sea Sir John Wogan Justice of Ireland and Sir John Fitz-Thomas Peter Bermingham and many others to aide the King of England Also a great part of the Citie Dublin was burnt together with the Church of Saint Warburga on S. Columbs day at night More Sir Geffrey Genevil espoused the daughter of Sir John Montefort and Sir John Mortimer espoused the daughter and heire of Sir Peter Genevil And the Lord Theobald Verdon espoused the daughter of the Lord Roger Mortimer At the same time the men of Leinster made warre in winter burning the towne of Wykynlo and Rathdon with others but they escaped not unpunished because the more part of their sustenance was burnt up and their cattell lost by depredation and the same Irish had beene utterly almost consumed but that the seditious dissention of certaine Englishmen was an hinderance thereto Item a defeature and slaughter was made by the Toolans upon a small companie assembled of the Brenies in which were slaine almost three hundred robbers Item Walter Power wasted a great part of Mounster burning many ferme houses MCCCII There died the ladie Margaret wife to Sir John Wogan Justice of Ireland the third day before the Ides of April and in the week following Maud Lacy wife to Sir Geffery Genevil died also Edward Botiller recovered the manour de S. Bosco with the pertenances from Sir Richard Ferenges Archbishop of Dublin by a concord made between them in the Kings bench after the feast of S. Hilarie Item the Flemings gave an overthrow at Courteray in Flanders unto the army of the French the Wednesday after the feast of the Translation of S. Thomas wherein were slaine the Earle of Arthois the Earle of Aumarle the Earle of Hue Ralph Neel Constable of France Guy Nevil Mareschal of France the sonne of the Earle of Hennaund Godfrey Brabant with his sonne William Fenys and his son Iames S. Paul lost his hand and fortie Baronets lost their lives that day with Knights Esquires and others sans number Item the tenths of all Ecclesiasticall benefices in England and Ireland were exacted by Boniface the Pope for 3. yeeres as a Subsidie to the Church of Rome against the King of Aragon Also upon the day of the Circumcision Sir Hugh Lacie raised booties from Hugh Vernail In the same yeere Robert Brus then Earle of Carrick espoused the daughter of Sir Richard Bourk Earle of Ulster Item Edward Botiller espoused the daughter of Sir Iohn Fitz-Thomas also
brought letters to the Lord Roger Mortimer that he should addresse himselfe to repaire unto the King who did so and substituted the Lord William Archbishop of Cashil Custos of Ireland who at one and the same time was Lord Justice of Ireland Lord Chancellour and Archbishop And afterward at the three weekes end after Easter there came newes to Dublin that the Lord Richard Clare was slaine and with him foure Knights namely Sir Henry Capell Sir Thomas Naas Sir James Cannon and Sir John Caunton also Adam Apilgard with 80. other men by O-Brene and Mac-Carthy on the feast of Saint Gordian and Epimachus And it was reported that the said Lord Richard his body was in despightfull malice cut into small pieces but his reliques were enterred in Limerick among the Friers Minors Item on sunday in Mense Paschae that is a moneth after Easter Iohn Lacy was led forth of the castle of Dublin and brought to Trim for to be arraigned and to heare and receive his judgment there who was adjudged to be strait dieted and so he died in prison Item the sunday before the Lords Ascension Lord Roger Mortimer sailed over into England but paied nothing for his victuals that he had taken up in Dublin and elsewhere which amounted to the value of one thousand pounds Also the same yeere about the feast of S. Iohn Baptist the great grace and mercy of God was shewed in that wheat which before was sold for 15. shillings was now not worth above seven shillings and oates were bought for five shillings great plentie there was of wine salt and fish and that in such sort that about St. Iames day there was new bread to be had of new corne a thing that never or seldome had been seen afore in Ireland and this was a signe of Gods tender mercy and all through the praier of the poore and other faithfull folke Item the Sunday after the feast of Saint Michael newes came to Dublin that Lord Alexander Bykenore then the Kings Justice in Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin was arrived at Yoghall On S. Denis day he came to Dublin and with great procession and honourable pompe of the religious persons and of others as well of the Clergy as the Laity he was received Item on Saturday falling out to be the feast of Pope Calixtus a field was fought betweene the Scots and English of Ireland two leagues from the towne of Dundalk to which battell came of the Scots part the Lord Edward Brus who named himselfe King of Ireland the Lord Philip Mowbray the Lord Walter Soules the Lord Alan Stewart with his three brethren also Sir Walter Lacy Sir Robert and Sir Aumar Lacy John Kermerdyne and Walter White and about 3000. others Against whom came into the field of the English side the Lord John Bermingham Sir Richard Tuit Sir Miles Verdon Sir Hugh Tripton Sir Herbert Sutton Sir Iohn Cusack Sir Edward and Sir William Bermingham and the Primate of Armagh who assoiled them all Sir Walter Larpulk and certain came from Tredagh to the number of twenty well appointed and choice souldiers whom John Maupas accompanied and so they joined the said battell The English were the first that entred with great vigour upon the front and vaward where the said John Maupas manfully and with much honour in this conflict slew the Lord Edward Brus which John also was found slaine upon the body of the said Edward and all the Scots in manner were killed up even to the number of two thousand or thereabout whereby few of the Scots escaped beside the Lord Philip Mowbray who also was wounded to death and Sir Hugh Lacy Sir Walter Lacy with some few others that were with them made shift hardly to save themselves This fortuned between Dundalk and Faghird Now the head of the foresaid Edward the said Lord John Bermingham brought unto the said Lord King of England upon whom the King bestowed at the same time the Earledome of Louth to him and to his heires males and the Barony of Aterith And one quarter with the hands and heart of the foresaid Edward were carried to Dublin and the other quarters divided and sent to other places MCCCXIX The Lord Roger Mortimer returned out of England and is eftsoones made Lord Justice of Ireland The same yeere at the feast of All-Saints came a Bull from the Pope to excommunicate Robert Brus King of Scotland at every Masse Also the towne of Athisell and a great part of the country was burnt by the Lord John Fitz-Thomas whole brother of the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas In this yeere the foresaid Iohn Bermingham was created Earle of Louth Also the Stone bridge of Kil-Coleyn was built by Master Moris Iacke Canon of the Cathedrall Church of Kildare MCCCXX In the time of Pope John the 22. and of the Lord Edward sonne to King Edward which Edward after the comming of Saint Austin into England was the 25. King also under Alexander Bicknore then Archbishop of Dublin beganne the Universitie of the said Citie of Dublin The first that proceeded Master in the same Universitie was Frier William Hardite of the order of preaching Friers which William under the said Archbishop solemnly commenced Doctor in Divinity The second Master that proceeded in the same faculty was Frier Henry Cogry of the order of the Friers Minors the third Master that went forth was William Rodyard Dean of the Cathedrall Church of Saint Patricke in Dublin who solemnly commenced Doctor in the Canon law And this William was made the first Chancellour of the said University The fourth Master in sacred Theologie or Divinity that went out was Frier Edmund Kermerdin Item Roger Mortimer Lord Justice of Ireland returned into England leaving in his place the Lord Thomas Fitz-John then Earle of Kildare Item the Lord Edmund Botiller entred into England and so came to Saint James Also the bridge of the towne of Leghelyn was built by Master Moris Iack Canon of the Cathedrall Church of Kildare MCCCXXI A very great overthrow with much slaughter of the O-Conghors was given at Balibogan the ninth day of May by the men of Leinster and of Meth. Item the Lord Edmund Botiller died in London and lieth buried at Balygaveran in Ireland Also Iohn Bermingham Earle of Louth is made Lord Justice in Ireland Likewise Iohn Wogan departed this life MCCCXXII Andrew Bermingham and Nicolas de La-Lond Knight and many others are slaine by O-Nalan on St. Michaels day MCCCXXIII A truce is taken betweene the King of England and Robert Brus King of Scotland for 14. yeeres Also Iohn Darcie came chiefe Justice of Ireland Item John the first begotten sonne of the Lord Thomas Fitz-Iohn Earle of Kildare in the ninth yeere of his age ended this life MCCCXXIV Nicolas Genevile sonne and heire to the Lord Simon Genevile departed out of this world and was buried in the Church of the Friers Preachers of Trym Item there hapned a great wind on twelfe day at night Item a generall murrain
with their fellowes of the Counsell treat upon this point In the same yeere before Lent the Irish of Leinster gathered themselves together and set up a certain King namely Donald the sonne of Arte Mac-Murgh Who being made King determined to set up his banner two miles from Dublin and afterwards to passe through all the lands of Ireland Whose pride and malice God seeing suffered him to fall into the hands of the Lord Henry Traharn who brought him to the Salmons leaps had of him 200. pound for his lives ransome then led him to Dublin to wait there untill the Kings Counsell could provide and take order what to doe with him and after his taking many infortunities lighted upon the Irish of Leinster to wit the Lord John Wellesley took David O-Thothiel prisoner and many of the Irish were slaine The same yeere Adam Duff the sonne of Walter Duff of Leinster and of the kinred of the O-Tothiles was convicted for that against the Catholike faith hee denied the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and held that there could not bee three persons and one God and hee affirmed that the most blessed Virgin Mary mother of our Lord was an harlot hee denied also the resurrection of the dead and avouched that the sacred Scriptures were fables and nothing else and he imputed falsitie upon the sacred Apostolicall See For which and for every of these articles the same Adam Duff was pronounced an hereticke and blasphemer whereupon the same Adam by a decree of the Church was on the Munday after the Outas of Easter the yeere 1328. burnt at Hoggis Greene by Dublin MCCCXXVIII On Tuesday in Easter week Thomas Fitz-John Earle of Kildare and Justice of Ireland died after whom succeeded in the office of Justice Frier Roger Outlaw Prior of Kilmaynok The same yeere David O-Tothil a strong thiefe and enemy to the King a burner of Churches and destroier of people was brought forth of the Castle of Dublin to the Tolstale of the Citie before Nicolas Fastoll and Elias Ashbourne Justices in the Kings bench which Justices gave him his judgement that he should first be drawne at horses tailes through the midst of the Citie unto the gallowes and afterward be hanged upon a jebbit which was done accordingly Item in the same yeere the Lord Moris fitz-Fitz-Thomas raised a great army to destroy the Bourkeins and the Poers The same yeere also the Lord William Bourk was knighted at London on Whitsunday and the King gave unto him his Seignory Also in the same yeere Iames Botiller in England espoused the daughter of the Earle of Hereford and was created Earle of Ormund who before was called Earle of Tiperary The same yeere a Parliament was holden at Northampton where many of the Lords and Nobles of England assembled and a peace was renewed betweene Scotland England and Ireland by marriages between them and it was ordained that the Earle of Ulster with many Nobles of England should goe to Barwick upon Tweed to the espousals and assurance making The same yeere after the said espousals and contract made at Barwicke the Lord Robert Brus King of Scotland and the Lord William Burk Earle of Ulster the Earle of Meneteth and many of the Scottish nobility arrived at Cragfergus peaceably and sent unto the Justices of Ireland and to the Counsell that they would come to Green Castle to treat about a peace of Scotland and Ireland Now because the said Justices of Counsell failed to come as the said King desired he took his leave of the Earle of Ulster and returned into his owne country after the feast of the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary And the Earle of Ulster came to Dublin unto the Parliament and there stayed sixe dayes and made a great feast and after this went into Connaght The same yeere about the feast of Saint Katherin Virgin the Bishop of Osserie certified the Kings Counsell there that Sir Arnald Pover was convicted before him upon divers articles of perverse heresie Whereupon at the suit of the said Bishop the said Sir Arnald by vertue of the Kings writ was arrested and layed up in the Castle of Dublin and a day was given unto the Bishop for to come unto Dublin to follow the foresaid suit and action against the foresaid Lord Arnald who made his excuse that hee could not then come because his enemies lay in wait for his life in the way whereupon the Kings Counsell knew not how to make an end of this businesse and so the Lord Arnald was kept in duresse within the Castle of Dublin untill the Parliament following which was in Mid-lent where all the Nobles of Ireland were present In the same yeere Frier Roger Utlaw Prior of the Hospitall of St. John of Jerusalem in Ireland Lord Justice and Chancellour of Ireland was disfamed by the said Bishop and slandered to bee a favourer of heresie a Counsellour also and a better of the said Lord Arnold in his hereticall naughtinesse And because his person was thus villanously delamed the said Prior went to the Counsell of the King and put up a petition that hee might purge himselfe Whereupon they of the Kings Counsell tooke advice and upon consultation had granted unto him that he might make his purgation And they caused it to be proclaimed for three dayes That if there were any person who would follow suit and give information against the said Frier Roger he might come in and put in his pursuit But no man was found to follow the matter Whereupon at the procurement of Sir Roger the Frier there went out the Kings writ to summon the Elders of Ireland to wit Bishops Abbots Priors and foure Maiors of foure Cities namely Dublin Corke Limerick and Waterford and of Tredagh also the Sheriffes and Seneschals yea and the Knights of the shire with the Free-holders of the countie that were of the better sort for to repaire unto Dublin And there were chosen sixe examiners in the said cause to wit M. William Rodyard Deane of the Cathedrall Church of St. Patrick in Dublin the Abbat of Saint Thomas the Abbat of St. Maries the Prior of holy Trinitie Church in Dublin M. Elias Lawles and M. Peter Willebey These Inquisitours convented those that were cited and they examined every one severally by himselfe which examinats all upon their oathes deposed that he was honest and faithfull a zealous embracer of the faith and readie to die for the faith and in regard of this great solemnity of his purgation the said Frier Roger made a royall feast to all that would come Also the same yeere in Lent died the said L. Arnald Pover in the Castle of Dublin and lay a long time unburied in the house of the preaching Friers MCCCXXIX After the feast of the Annuntiation of the blessed Virgin Mary the Nobles of Ireland came unto the Parliament at Dublin to wit the Earle of Ulster the Lord Thomas Fitz-Moris the Earle of Louth William Bermingham and the rest of the Lords and
passed over into England leaving behind him Sir Thomas Dale Knight his Deputy-Custos and Justice of Ireland MCCCLXVII Great warre began between the Berminghams of Carbry and the men of Meth because many robberies by the foresaid were committed in Meth. Then Sir Robert Preston Knight and Lord chiefe Baron of the Exchequer set a strong guard in the castle of Carbry and laid forth a great deale of money against the Kings enemies to defend his owne right in regard of his wife Item Gerald Fitz-Moris Earle of Desmond was made Lord Justice of Ireland MCCCLXVIII And in the 42. yeere of the same King in Carbry after a certaine Parliament ended betweene the Irish and English there were taken prisoners Frier Thomas Burley Prior of Kylmaynon the Kings Chancellour in Ireland Iohn Fitz-Reicher Sheriffe of Meth Sir Robert Tirell Baron of Castle-knoke with many besides by the Berminghams and others of Carbry Then James Bermingham who had been kept in the castle of Trim in yron manacles and fetters as a traytour was delivered out of prison in exchange for the foresaid Chancellour the other were put to their ransomes Item the Church of Saint Maries in Trim was burnt with the fire of the same Monastery Also in the Vigill of St. Luke the Evangelist the Lord Leonell Duke of Clarence died at Albe in Pyemont First he was buried in the City of Papie hard by St. Augustin the Doctor and afterward enterred at Clare in the covent Church of Austin Friers in England MCCCLXIX And in the 43. yeere of the foresaid King Sir William Windesore Knight a doughty man in armes and courageous came as the Kings Lievtenant into Ireland the twelfth day of July unto whom gave place in the office of Justice-ship Gerald Fitz-Moris Earle of Desmond MCCCLXX And in the 44. yeere of the same King began the third pestilence and the greatest in Ireland in which died many Noblemen and Gentlemen Citizens also and children innumerable The same yeere Gerald Fitz-Moris Earle of Desmond the Lord Iohn Nicolas and the Lord Thomas Fitz-Iohn and many other noble persons were taken prisoners upon on the sixth of July neere unto the Monastery of Maio in the county of Limerick by O-Breen and Mac-Comar of Thomond and many were slaine in regard of which occurrent the said Lievtenant went over to Limericke to the defence of Mounster leaving the warres against the O-Tothiles and the rest in Leinster In this yeere died Lord Robert Terel Baron of castle Knock the Lady Scolastica his wife and their sonne and heire by reason whereof Joan Terel and Maud Terel sisters of the said Robert parted the inheritance between themselves Item there departed this life Lord Simon Fleming Baron of Slane Lord John Cusake Baron of Colmolyn and Iohn Tailour somtime Maior of Dublin a rich and mighty monied man That which followeth was copied out of the Manuscript Chronicles of Henry Marleburgh MCCCLXXII Sir Robert Asheton came Lord Justice of Ireland MCCCLXXIII Great warring there was between the English of Meth and O-Ferdle in which warre many of both sides were slaine Item in May Lord John Husse Baron of Galtrim John Fitz Richard Sheriffe of Meth and William Dalton in Kynaleagh were killed by the Irish. MCCCLXXV Thomas Archbishop of Dublin died and in the same yeere was Robert of Wickford consecrated Archbishop of Dublin MCCCLXXXI There departed this life Edmund Mortimer the Kings Lievtenant in Ireland Earle of March and Ulster at Cork MCCCLXXXIII There was a great pestilence in Ireland MCCCLXXXV The bridge of the city of Dublin fell downe MCCCXC Robert Wickford Archbishop of Dublin died The same yeere Robert Waldebey Archbishop of Dublin of the order of Austen Friers was translated MCCCXCVII There hapned the translation and death of Frier Richard Northalis Archbishop of Dublin one of the Carmelites order Also in the same yeere Thomas Crauley was consecrated Archbishop of Dublin The same yeere the Lord Thomas Burgh and the Lord Walter Bermingham slew sixe hundred of the Irish and their captain Mac-Con Item Roger Earle of March Lievtenant of Ireland wasted the country of O-Bryn with the help of the Earle of Ormund and dubbed there seven Knights to wit Christopher Preson John Bedeleu Edmund Loundris John Loundris William Nugent Walter de la Hyde and Robert Cadell at the forcing and winning of a most strong Manor house of the said O-Bryn MCCCXCVIII Upon the Ascension day of our Lord the Tothils slew forty English among whom John Fitz-William Thomas Talbot and Thomas Comyn were killed which was a pitifull mishap In the same yeere on St. Margarets day Roger Earle of March the Kings Lievtenant was with many others slaine at Kenlys in Leinster O Bryn and other Irish of Leinster in whose place and office Roger Grey is chosen Justice In the same yeere upon the feast of S. Marke Pope and Confessor came to Dublin the noble Duke of Sutherey as the Kings Lievtenant in Ireland with whom at the same time arrived Master Thomas Crauley Archbishop of Dublin MCCCXCIX And in the 23. yeere of King Richard upon Sunday which fell out to be the morrow after S. Fetronill or Pernill the Virgins day the same glorious King Richard arrived at Waterford with two hundred saile Item the sixth day of the same weeke at Ford in Kenlys within the country of Kilâ—are were slaine of the Irish 200. by Ieâ—icho and other English and the morrow after the Dublinians made a rode in the country of O-Bryn and slew of the Irish 33. and fourescore men and women with their little children they took prisoners The same yeere the said King came to Dublin the fourth day before the Calends of July where hee heard rumours of Henrie the Duke of Lancaster his comming into England whereupon himself passed over with speed into England MCCCC In the first yeere of King Henry the fourth at Whitsontide the Constable of Dublin castle and many others encountred the Scots at sea before Stranford in Ulster whereupon fell out a lamentable accident for that many of the English were slaine and drowned there MCCCCI In the second yeere of King Henry the fourth Sir John Stanley the K. Lievtenant passed over into England in the month of May leaving in his roome Sir William Stanley In the same yeere upon the Vigill of Saint Bartholomew there entred into Ireland Stephen Scroop as deputy to the Lord Thomas of Lancaster the Kings Lievtenant in Ireland The same yeere on the day of S. Brice Bishop and Confessor the Lord Thomas of Lancaster the Kings sonne arrived at Dublin Lievtenant of Ireland MCCCCII On the fifth of July was the Church of the Friers Preachers at Dublin dedicated by the Archbishop of Dublin and the same day John Drake the Maior of Dublin with the citizens and men of the countrey slew in battell of the Irish neere unto Bree 493. and were victorious over the Irish. The same yeere in the moneth of September a Parliament was holden at Dublin at which time in Uriel Sir
the Citie of Burdeaux with other Cities lying round about it which by the sedition of the Frenchmen had been at any time alienated from Edward King of England were restored unto him againe upon St. Andrewes even by the industrie of the L. Hastings MCCCIII The Earle of Ulster to wit Richard Bourk and Sir Eustace Pover entred Scotland with a puissant armie but after that the Earle himselfe had first made thirtie three Knights in the Castle of Dublin hee passed over into Scotland to aide the King of England Item Gerald the sonne and heire of Sir Iohn Fitz-Thomas departed out of this world In the same yeere Pope Boniface excommunicated the King and Queene of France and their children Hee renewed also all the priviledges granted at any time unto the Universitie of Paris and straight after the Pope was taken prisoner and kept as it were in prison three whole daies And soone after the Pope died likewise the Countesse of Ulster deceased Also Wulfrane Wellesly and Sir Robert Percivell were slaine the 11. day before the Calends of November MCCCIIII A great part of Dublin was burnt to wit the Bridge street with a good part of the Key and the Church of the Friers Preachers and the Church of the Monks with no small part of the Monasterie about the Ides of June to wit on the Feast day of S. Medard Also the first stone of the Friers Preachers Quire in Dublin was laid by Eustace Lord Pover on the Feast of S. Agatha Virgin Likewise after the Feast of the Purification of the blessed Virgin Marie the King of France invaded Flanders againe in proper person with a puissant armie Then bare he himselfe bravely in the war and fought manfully so long untill two or three horses of service were slaine under him but at last he lost his cap that under his helmet was put upon his head which the Flemings taking up carried by way of scornfull derision upon a lance as a banner and in all the famous Faires of Flanders put it out at the high window of some place or stately house like the signe of an Inne or Taverne and shewed it in token of victorie MCCCV Jordan Comyn with his complices slew Moritagh O-Conghir King of Offalie and Calwagh his whole brother and certain others in the Court of Sir Piers Brymgeham at Carrick in Carbrey likewise Sir Gilbert Sutton Seneschal of Weisford was slaine by the Irish neere unto a village or House of Haymund Grace which Haymund verily in the said skirmish manfully carried himselfe but stoutly escaped Item in Scotland the Lord Robert Brus Earle of Carricke forgetting his oath made to the King of England slew Sir John Rede Comyn within the cloisture of the Friers Minors of Dunfrese and soone after caused himselfe to be crowned King of Scotland by the hands of two Bishops to wit of S. Andrewes and of Glasco in the towne of Scone to the confusion of himselfe and of many others MCCCVI A great discomfiture was made in Offaly neere unto the Castle of Gesbill on the Ides of Aprill upon O-Conghor by O-Dympcies in which was slaine O-Dympcey Leader of the Regans with a great traine accompanying him Also O-Brene King of Towmond died Item Donald Oge Mac Carthy slew Donald Ruff that is the Red King of Desmund Item a lamentable defeature fell upon the part of Piers Brymegham the fourth day before the Calends of May in the Marches of Meth. Item Balymore in Leinster was burnt by the Irish where at the same time Henry Calfe was slaine and there arose war betweene the English and the Irish in Leinster for which cause there was assembled a great armie from divers parts of Ireland to bridle the malice of the Irish in Leinster in which expedition Sir Tho. Mandevil Knight and a brave warriour had a great conflict with the Irish neere to Clenfell in which conflict he behaved himselfe valiantly untill his horse of service was slaine and won much praise and honour by saving many a man and himselfe also Item M. Thomas Cantock Chancellour of Ireland was consecrated Bishop of Ymelasen in the Church of the holy Trinitie at Dublin with great honour at whose consecration were present the Elders of all Ireland where there was so sumptuous and so great a feast made first unto the rich and afterwards to the poore as the like had never been heard of before in Ireland Item Richard Feringes Archbishop of Dublindied in the Vigile of Saint Luke after whom succeeded Master Richard Haverings who occupied the Archbishoprick almost five yeeres by Apostolicall dispensation Who also resigned up his Archbishoprick after whom succeeded John Leth. The occasion and cause of his giving over as the Arch-deacon of Dublin of good memorie his Nephew hath reported was this for that one night hee dreamed that a certaine Monster heavier than the whole world stood eminently aloft upon his brest from the weight whereof he chose rather to be delivered than alone to have all the goods of the world but when he wakened hee thought with himselfe this was nothing else but the Church of Dublin the fruits whereof hee received and tooke no paines for the same As soone as hee could therefore he came unto the Lord the Pope of whom hee was much beloved and there renounced and gave over the Archbishopricke For hee had as the same Archdeacon avouched fatter benefices and livings than the Archbishopricke came unto Item Edward King of England in the feast of Pentecost that is Whitsontide made Edward his son Knight in London at which feast were dubbed about 400. Knights and the said Edward of Caernarvan newly knighted made threescore Knights of those abovesaid and kept his feast in London at the New Temple and his father gave unto him the Dutchy of Aquitaine Item the same yeere in the feast of Saint Potentiana the Bishop of Winchester and the Bishop of Worcester by commandement from the Lord the Pope excommunicated Robert Brus the pretended King of Scotland and his confederates for the death of Iohn Rede Comyn In the same yeere upon S. Boniface his day Aumarde Valence Earle of Pembroch and Lord Guy Earle ............ slew many Scots and the Lord Robert Brus was defeated without the town of S. Iohns And the same yeere about the feast of the Nativitie of St. Iohn Baptist King Edward went toward Scotland by water from Newarke to Lincolne Item the same yeere the Earle of Asceles and the Lord Simon Freysell and the Countesse of Carricke the pretended Queene of Scotland daughter of the Earle of Ulster were taken prisoners The Earle of Asceles and the Lord Simon Freysell were first torne and mangled As for the Countesse she remained with the King in great honour but the rest died miserably in Scotland Item about the feast of the Purification of the blessed Virgin Marie two brethren of Robert Brus professing pyracie went out of their gallies a land to prey and were taken with sixteen Scots besides and those two themselves