them have very goodly houses also adjoyning to the Church and all these buildings stand within the close wall severed from the Citie As the Bishop was busied about erecting of Gods house the Citizens likewise for their parts did their best to found the Citie they established their civill government derived rilles and servers of waters into every street and cast a deepe ditch all along that side on which it is not fenced with the running river having obtained licence of Simon the Bishop thus to strengthen and fortifie the same And in such sort grew up this new Salisburie by little an little out of the ruines of old Sorbiodunum that so soone as they by the Kings warrant had turned hither the high-way that leadeth into the West parts it became the second Citie in all this tract passing well inhabited and frequented plentifull of all things especially of fish adorned with a very stately market place wherein standeth their common Hall of timber worke a very beautifull edifice But nothing is there whereof it may so much boast as of Iohn Iowell not long since Bishop there a wonderfull great and deepe Divine a most stout and earnest maintainer of our reformed religion against the adversaries by his learned books Old Sorbiodunum from thence forward decaied more and more and in the raigne of King Henrie the Seventh became utterly desolate so as at this day there remaineth onely a towre or two of the Castle which notwithstanding a long time after the departure of the townesmen from thence was the dwelling house of the Earles of Salisburie and about which in King Edward the Thirds time there arose a memorable controversie and suite For Robert Bishop of Salisburie stirred Milliam Mont acute Earle of Salisburie by vertue of a processe which our Lawyers terme Breve de Recto that is A writ of right for this Castle and hee made answer that hee would defend his right by combat Whereupon at a day appointed the Bishop â—rought forth his champion to the railes or bars of the Lists clâ—d in a white garment reaching downe to his mid-leg upon which he had a mandilian or cassocke garnished with the Bishops Armes at whose heeles followed a Knight carrying a staffe and a page with a shield Immediately after the Earle brought in by the hand his owne champion also arraied in the like apparell accompanied with two Knights bearing white staves Now when these Champions were to enter the Lists commanded they were to withdraw themselves aside that their weapons of both parts might be viewed and they searched whether they had any Amulers or Enchantments about them But all on a suddaine unlooked for came the Kings precept to reprive and defer the matter to a further day that the King might loose thereby none of his right Meane while they grew to this composition That the Earle for the summe of 2500. markes paied and received should yield up all his title and interest in the Castle to the Bishop and his successors for ever This Salisburie had long agoe Earles of that name whose pedigree I will derive somewhat farther off and more truly out of the short reports of Lacock Historie William Conqueror of his bounty liberalitie assigned unto Gualter de Evereaux Earle of Rosmar in Normandie faire lands and large possessions in this shire which he left unto Edward named de Sarisburia a younger sonne borne in England like as to Walter his eldest sonne other lands in Normandie with the Title of Earle of Rosmar whose issue within a while after was extinct That Edward of Sarisburie aforesaid flourished in the twentieth yeere of the Conquerours reigne and is often times barely named in the Indiciarie booke of England without the title of Earle His sonne Walter built a a little monasterie at Bradenstocke and there in his old age tooke him to the habit of a Canon or Regular priest after he had first begotten his sonne Patricke the first Earle of Salisburie upon Sibil de Cadurcis This Patricke I say the first Earle in his returne from his pilgrimage at S. Iames of compostella in Spain in the yeere of our Lord 1169. being slaine by one Guy of Lusigniam left William his sonne to succeede who died in King Richard the first his time His onely daughter Ela through the favour of the said King Richard was married to William Long Espee surnamed so of a long sword that he did usually weare a base sonne of King Henrie the second and her marriage honoured him with the title of Earle and her owne coat of Armes be Azur adorned with sixe Lions Ceux This William had a sonne named likewise William Long-Espee against whom King Henrie the Third conceiving great displeasure for that without licence obtained he was gone to serve in the holy land taking the crosse as they termed it upon him took from him both the title of Earle and also the Castle of Salisburie But he holding still his purpose went into Egypt with S. Lewis King of France and neere unto Damiata which the Christians had wonne carrying a brave and valorous minde fighting manfully among the thickkest troops of his enemies died an honorable and glorious death a little before that holy King was unfortunately taken prisoner His sonne named likewise William lived without the title of Earle and begat one onely daughter Margaret who neverthelesse being reputed Countresse of Salisburie became the wife of Henry Lacy Earle of Lincoln unto whom she bare one only daughter Alice wedded to Thomas Earle of Lancaster Who being attainted King Edward the Second seized upon those possessions which she had granted and demised unto her husband out of which King Edward the Third gave way unto Willam Mont-acute Trowbridg Winterbourn Ambresburie and other Lordships in these words So fully and wholly as the Progenitours of Margaret Countesse of Salisbury at any time held the same And even then hee preferred the said William Mont-acute to be Earle of Salisburie and by the cincture of a sword invested him in the said Earledome This William became Lord of the Isle of Mann and begat two sonnes William who succeeded in his Fathers honour and died without issue having unhappily slaine his onely sonne while he trained him at Tilting and Iohn a Knight who died before his brother leaving behind him a sonne named Iohn Earle of Salisburie whom hee had by Margaret daughter and heire of Thomas de Mont-Hermer who being of an unconstant and changeable nature and plotting the destruction of King Henrie the Fourth was in the yeare of our Lord 1400. killed at Chichester and attainted afterwards of high treason Howbeit his sonne Thomas was fully restored a man worthy to be ranged with the bravest Captaines and Commanders whether you respect paines taking in his affaires industrie in action or expedition in dispatch who lying at the siege before Orleance in France was with a bullet levelled out of a great piece of Ordnance wounded in the yeare 1428. and thereof died
Alice his onely daughter being wedded unto Richard Nevill augmented his honour with the title of Earle of Salisburie who siding with the house of Yorke was in the battell fought at Wakefield taken prisoner and beheaded leaving to succeede him Richard his sonne Earle of Warwicke and Salisburie who delighting in dangers and troubles enwrapped his native countrey within new broiles of Civill warre wherein himselfe also left his life The one of his daughters named Isabell was married unto George Duke of Clarence brother to King Edward the Fourth and shee bare him a sonne called Edward Earle of Warwicke who being a very child and innocent was by King Henrie the Seventh beheaded like as his sister Margaret suffered the same death under King Henrie the Eighth An usuall pollicie and practise among suspicious Princes For the securitie of their own persons and their posteritie by one occasion or other that evermore are soone offered and as quickly pickt to make away or keepe under the next of their bloud Anne the other daughter of Richard Nevill Earle of Warwick and Salisburie became wife to Richard Duke of Glocester brother to King Edward the Fourth and brought him a sonne whom his uncle King Edward in the 17. of his reigne created Earle of Salisburie and Richard his father usurping the kingdome made Prince of Wales But he departed this life in his tender yeares about that time that his mother also died not without suspition of poison King Henry the Eighth afterward about the fifth yeare of his raigne in a full Parliament restored and enabled in bloud Margaret daughter to George Duke of Clarence to the name stile title honour and dignitie of Countesse of Salisburie as sister and heire to Edward late Earle of Warwick and Salisburie And about the 31. yeare of the said King she was attainted in Parliament with divers others and beheaded when she was 70. yeares old Since which time that title of honour was discontinued untill in the yeare of our Lord 1605. our Soveraigne Lord King Iames honored therewith S. Robert Cecill second sonne of that Nestor of ours William Cecill upon whom for his singular wisedome great employments in the affaires of State to the good of Prince and Countrey he had bestowed the honorable titles of Baron Cecill of Essendon and Vicount Cranburn Thus much of the Earles of Salisburie Lower still and not far from this Citie is scituate upon Avon Dunctone or Donketon a burrough as they say of great antiquitie and well knowne by reason of the house therein of Beavois of Southampton whom the people have enrolled in the number of their brave worthies for his valour commended so much in rhyme to posteritie This Salisburie is environed round about with open fields and plaines unlesse it be Eastward where lieth hard unto it Clarindon a very large and goodly parke passing fit for the keeping and feeding of wild beasts and adorned in times past with an house of the Kings Of which parke and of the twentie groves inclosed therein Master Michael Maschert Doctor of the Civill lawes hath prettily versified in this wise Nobilis est lucus cervis clausura saronam Propter a claro vertice nomen habet Viginti hinc nemorum partito limite boscis Ambitus est passus mille cuique suus A famous Parke for Stag and Hind neere Salisbury doth lie The name it hath of one faire downe or hill that mounts on hie Within the same stand xx groves enclos'd with severall bound Of which in compasse every one a mile containes in ground Famous is this Clarindon for that heere in the yeare 1164. was made a certaine recognition and record of the customes and liberties of the Kings of England before the Prelates and Peeres of the Kingdome for the avoiding discentions betweene the Clergie Iudges and Barons of the Realme which were called The Constitutions of Clarnidon Of the which so many as the Pope approved have beene set downe in the Tomes of the Councels the rest omitted albeit Thomas Becket then Archbishop of Canterburie and the rest of the Bishops approved them all Heereby is Jvy Church sometime a small Priory where as tradition runneth in our grandfathers remembrance was found a grave and therein a corps of twelve foote and not farre of a stocke of wood hollowed and the concave lined with lead with a booke therein of very thicke parchment all written with Capitall Roman letters But it had lien so long that when the leaves were touched they fouldred to dust S. Thomas Eliot who saw it judged it to be an Historie No doubt hee that so carefully laied it up hoped it should be found and discover somethings memorable to posteritie Toward the North about sixe miles from Salisburie in these plaines before named is to bee seeene a huge and monstrous piece of worke such as Cicero termeth Insanam substructionem For within the circuit of a Ditch there are erected in manner of a Crowne in three rankes or courses one within another certaine mightie and unwrought stones whereof some are 28. foote high and seven foote broad upon the heads of which others like overthwart pieces doe beare and rest crosse-wise with a small tenents and mortescis so as 〈◊〉 le frame seemeth to hang whereof wee call it Stonehenge like as our old 〈◊〉 â—â—rmed it for the greatnesse Chorea Gigantum The Giants Daunce The 〈…〉 whereof such as it is because it could not be so fitly expressed in 〈…〉 caused by the gravers helpe to bee portraied heere underneath as it 〈…〉 weatherbeaten and decaied A. Stones called Corsestones Weighing 12. tunne carrying in height 24. foote in breadth 7. foote in compasse 16. B. Stones named Cronetts of 6. or 7. tunne weight C. A place where mens bones are digged up Our countrie-men reckon this for one of our wonders and miracles And much they marvaile from whence such huge stones were brought considering that in all those quarters bordering thereupon there is hardly to be found any common stone at all for building as also by what meanes they were set up For mine owne part about these points I am not curiously to argue and dispute but rather to lament with much griefe that the Authors of so notable a monument are thus buried in oblivion Yet some there are that thinke them to bee no naturall stones hewne out of the rocke but artificially made of pure sand and by some glewie and unctuous matter knit and incorporate together like as those ancient Trophies or monuments of victorie which I have seene in Yorkshire And what marvaile Read we nor I pray you in Plinie that the sand or dust of Puteoli being covered over with water becommeth forthwith a very stone that the cesternes in Rome of sand digged out of the ground and the strongest kind of lime wrought together grow so hard that they seeme stones indeed and that Statues and images of marble chippings and small grit grow together so compact and firme
This Hubert was a man who unfainedly loved his Countrie amidst the stormes of frowning Fortune performed all duties to the utmost that his Countrey could require of a right good patriot Yet at length he fell in disgrace and was dispoyled of his dignities whereby this title slept and lay as dead untill the time of King Edward the Second Who bestowed it upon his younger brother Edmund of Woodstocke who being Tutor of his nephew Edward the Third falling into the tempest of false injurious and malignant envie was beheaded for that he never dissembled his naturall brotherly affection toward his brother deposed and went about when hee was God wot murthered before not knowing so much to enlarge him out of prison perswaded thereunto by such as covertly practised his destruction Hee had two sonnes Edmund and Iohn who were restored by Parliament to bloud and land shortly after And with all it was inacted that no Peere of the land or other that procured the death of the said Earle should bee empeached therefore than Mortimer Earle of March Sir Simon Beresford Iohn Matravers Baious and Iohn Devoroil So these his two sonnes succeeded in order and when they were both dead without issue their sister Ioane who survived them for her lovely beautie called The Faire maid of Kent brought this honour unto the house of the Hollands For Sir Thomas Holland her husband was stiled Earle of Kent and shee after married by dispensation to the Black Prince heire to him King Richard the Second Her sonne Sir Thomas Holland succeeded in that honourable title who died in the twentieth yeare of King Richard the Second Him againe there succeeded his two sonnes Thomas and Edmund Thomas who also was created Duke of Surry and forthwith for complotting a conspiracie against King Henry the Fourth lost his head leaving no child Edmunds his brother being Lord High Admirall of England was wounded at the assault of Saint Brieu in little Britan and died thereof in the yeare of Salvation 1408. leaving likewise no issue Now when this dignitie was expired in this family of the Hollands their glasse being runne out and the Patrimony parted among Edmund sisters King Edward the Fourth honoured with the title of the Earldome of Kent First Sir William Nevill Lord Fauconberg and after his death Edmund Lord Grey of Ruthin Hastings and Weisford and who had to succeed him George his sonne Hee of Anne Widevile his first wife begat Richard Earle of Kent who having wasted his inheritance ended therewith his daies issuelesse 1523. But the said George by his second wife Katherine daughter to William Herbert Earle of Pembrooke was father of Sir Henry Grey of Wrest knight whose grand-sonne Reginald by his sonne Henrie Queene Elizabeth in the yeare 1571. advanced to the Earledom of Kent And after his decease without issue his brother Henrie succeeded a right honourable personage and endued with the ornaments of true nobility This province hath parishes 398. DOBVNI HItherto we have walked over all those Countries that lie betweene the British Ocean of the one side and the Severne sea and river Thames on the other Now according to the order which wee have begun let us survey the rest throughout and passing over the said river returne to the head of Thames and the salt water of Severne and there view the DOBVNI who in ancient times inhabited those parts which now are termed Oxford-shire and Glocester-shire This their name I verily suppose came of Duffen a British word because the places where they planted themselves were for the most part low and lying under the hils whereupon the name became common to them all and verily from such a kind of site Bathieia in Troas Catabathmos in Africk and Deep-Dale in Britan tooke their names I am the more easily induced to believe this because I see that Dio in the very same signification hath named certaine people BODVNNI if the letters be not misplaced For Bodo or BODVN as Plinie saith in the ancient French tongue which I have proved before was the same that in the British language betokeneth Deepe Hence was it that the City Bodincomagus as he writeth became so called for that it stood where the river Po was deepest hence had the people Bodiontij that name who inhabited a deepe vale by the Lake of Lozanne and Geneva now called Val de Fontenay to say nothing of Bodotria the deepest Frith in all Britan. Concerning these Bodunj I have found in all my reading no matter of great antiquity save only that A. Plautius sent as Propraetor by Claudius into Britan received part of them upon their submission into his protection to wit those that were under Cattuellani for they held the region bordering upon them and as Dio hath recorded about the forty and foure yeare after Christ was borne placed a garrison over them But when the English Saxons reigned in Britan and the name of Dobuni was worne out some of these as also the people dwelling round about them were by a new English Saxons name called Wiccij but whereupon I dare scarce venture to guesse without craving leave of the Reader Yet if Wic in the Saxons tongue soundeth as much as the creeke or reach of a river and the Viguones a nation in Germanie are so called because they dwell neere unto the creekes or baies of the Sea and of rivers for so doth Beatus Rhenanus constantly affirme It will bee no absurditie if I derive our Wiccii from thence who inhabited round about the mouth of Severne which is very full of such Coves and small creekes and reaches GLOCESTRLAE Comitatus olim sedes DOBVNORUM GLOCESTER-SHIRE GLocester-shire in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was the chiefe seat of the Dobuni on the West-side butteth upon on Monmouth-shire and Hereford-shire on the North upon Worcester-shire on the East upon Warwick-shire Oxford-shire and Barck-shire on the South upon Wilt-shire and Somerset-shire both A pleasant countrey and a fruitfull stretching out in length from North-east unto South-west The part that lyeth more East-ward rising up in height with hils and wolds is called Cotteswold the middle part settleth downe low to a most fertile plaine and is watered with Severne that noble river which doth infuse life as it were into the soile That part which bendeth more Westward on the further side of Severne is all over be spread with woods But what meane I to busie my selfe herein William of Malmesbury will ease mee of this labour who fully gives high commendations to this countrey Have therefore what he writeth in his booke of Bishop The countrey saith he is called of the principall Citie The vale of Glocester the ground throughout yieldeth plentie of corne and bringeth forth abundance of fruits the one through the naturall goodnesse onely of the ground the other through diligent manuring and tillage in so much as it would provoke the laziest body that is to take paines
William who enjoyed it a short time dying also without issue So by Amice the second daughter of the forenamed Earle William married to Richard de Clare Earle of Hertford this Earledome descended to Gilbert her sonne who was stiled Earle of Glocester and Hertford and mightily enriched his house by marrying one of the heires of William Marshall Earle of Pembroch His sonne and successour Richard in the beginning of the Barons warres against king Henry the Third ended his life leaving Gilbert his sonne to succeed him who powerfully and prudently swaied much in the said wars as he inclined to them or the king He obnoxious to King Edward the First surrendred his lands unto him and received them againe by marrying Joane the Kings Daughter sirnamed of Acres in the Holy-land because shee was there borne to his second Wife who bare unto him Gilbert Clare last Earle of Glocester of this sirname slaine in the flower of his youth in Scotland at the battaile of Sterling in the 6. yeare of K. Edward the second Howbeit while this Gilbert the third was in minority Sir Ralph de Mont-hermer who by a secret contract had espoused his mother the Kings daughter for which he incurred the kings high displeasure and a short imprisonment but after reconciled was summoned to Parliaments by the name of Earle of Glocester and Hertford But when Gilbert was out of his minority he was summoned amongst the Barons by the name of Sir Ralph de Mont-hermer as long as he lived which I note more willingly for the rarenesse of the example After the death of Gilbert the third without children Sir Hugh Le De-Spenser commonly named Spenser the younger was by writers called Earle of Glocester because he had married the eldest sister of the said Gilbert the third But after that he was by the Queene and Nobles of the Realme hanged for hatred they bare to K. Edward the 2. whose minion he was Sir Hugh Audley who had matched in marriage with the second sister through the favour of King Edward the Third received this honour After his death King Richard the Second erected this Earledome into a Dukedome and so it had three Dukes and one Earle betweene and unto them all it prooved Equus Sejanus that is Fatall to give them their fall Thomas of Woodstocke youngest sonne to King Edward the Third was the first Duke of Glocester advanced to that high honour by the said King Richard the Second and shortly after by him subverted For when he busily plotted great matters the King tooke order that he should be conveyed secretly in all haste to Calis where with a featherbed cast upon him he was smouthered having before under his owne band confessed as it stands upon Record in the Parliament Rols that he by vertue of a Patent which hee had wrested from the King tooke upon him the Kings regall authority that he came armed into the Kings presence reviled him consulted with learned about renouncing his allegiance and devised to depose the King for which being now dead he was by authority of Parliament attainted and condemned of high Treason When hee was thus dispatched the same King conferred the Title of Earle of Glocester upon Thomas Le De-Spenser in the right of his Great Grand-mother who within a while after sped no better than his great Grand-father Sir Hugh For by King Henry the fourth he was violently displaced shamefully degraded and at Briston by the peoples fury beheaded After some yeares King Henry the Fifth created his brother Humfrey the second Duke of Glocester who stiled himselfe the first yeare of King Henry the Sixth as I have seene in an Instrument of his Humfrey by the Grace of God sonne brother and Uncle to Kings Duke of Glocester Earle of Henault Holland Zeland and Penbroch Lord of Friesland Great Chamberlaine of the Kingdome of England Protector and Defender of the same Kingdome and Church of England A man that had right well deserved of the common wealth and of learning but through the fraudulent practise and malignant envie of the Queene brought to his end at Saint Edmunds Bury The third and last Duke was Richard brother to King Edward the Fourth who afterwards having most wickedly murdred his Nephewes usurped the Kingdome by the name of King Richard the third and after two yeares lost both it and his life in a pitched field finding by experience that power gotten by wicked meanes is never long lasting Concerning this last Duke of Glocester and his first entry to the Crowne give me leave for a while to play the part of an Historiographer which I will speedily give over againe as not well able to act it When this Richard Duke of Glocester being now proclaimed Protector of the Kingdome had under his command his tender two Nephewes Edward the Fifth King of England and Richard Duke of Yorke he retriving after the Kingdome for himselfe by profuse liberality and bounty to very many by passing great gravitie tempered with singular affabilitie by deepe wisdome by ministring justice indifferently and by close devises wonne wholly to him all mens hearts but the Lawyers especially to serve his turne So shortly he effected that in the name of all the States of the Realme there should be exhibited unto him a supplication wherein they most earnestly besought him for the publike Weale of the Kingdome to take upon him the Crowne to uphold his Countrey and the common-weale now shrinking and downe falling not to suffer it to runne headlong into utter desolation by reason that both lawes of nature and the authority of positive lawes and the laudable customes and liberties of England wherein every Englishman is an inheritor were subverted and trampled under foote through civill wars rapines murthers extortions oppressions and all sorts of misery But especially ever since that King Edward the fourth his brother bewitched by sorcerie and amorous potions fell in fancie with Dame Elizabeth Greie widdow whom he married without the assent of his Nobles without solemne publication of Banes secretly in a profane place and not in the face of the Church contrary to the law of Gods Church and commendable custome of the Church of England and which was worse having before time by a precontract espoused Dame Aeleanor Butler daughter to the old Earle of Shrewsburie whereby most sure and certaine it was that the foresaid matrimony was unlawfull and therewith the children of them begotten illegitimate and so unable to inherite or claime the Crowne Moreover considering that George Duke of Clarence the second brother of King Edward the Fourth was by authority of Parliament convicted and attainted of high treason thereupon his children disabled and debarred from all right succession evident it was to every man that Richard himselfe remained the sole and undoubted heire to the Crowne Of whom they assured themselves that being borne in England he would seriously provide for the good of England neither could they make any doubt of his
which King Henry the First gave unto the Church of Lincolne for amends of a losse when hee erected the Bishopricke of Ely taken out of the Diocesse of Lincolne as I have before shewed But where the River Nen entreth into this Shire it runneth fast by Elton the seat of the ancient Family of the Sapcots where is a private Chappell of singular workemanship and most artificiall glasse windowes erected by Lady Elizabeth Dinham the widow of Baron Fitz-warin married into the said Family But a little higher there stood a little City more ancient than all these neere unto Walmsford which Henry of Huntingdon calleth Caer Dorm and Dormeceaster upon the River Nen and reporteth to have beene utterly rased before his time This was doubtlesse that DUROBRIVAE that is The River passage that Antonine the Emperour speaketh of and now in the very same sense is called Dornford neere unto Chesterton which beside peeces of ancient Coine daily found in it sheweth apparant tokens of a City overthrowne For to it there leadeth directly from Huntingdon a Roman Portway and a little above Stilton which in times past was called Stichilton it is seene with an high banke and in an ancient Saxon Charter termed Ermingstreat This Street now runneth here through the middest of a foure square Fort the North side whereof was fensed with Wals all the other sides with a Rampire of earth onely Neere unto which were digged up not long since Cofins or Sepulchres of stone in the ground of R. Bevill of an ancient house in this Shire Some verily thinke that this City tooke up both bankes of the River and there bee of opinion that the little Village Câ—ster standing upon the other banke was parcell thereof Surely to this opinion of theirs maketh much the testimony of an ancient story which sheweth that there was a place by Nen called Dormund-caster in which when Kinneburga had built a little Monastery it began to be called first Kinneburge-caster and afterwards short Caster This Kinneburga the most Christian daughter of the Pagan King Penda and wife to Alfred King of the Northumbrians changed her Princely State into the service of Christ if I may use the words of an ancient Writer and governed this Monastery of her owne as Prioresse or mother of the Nunnes there Which afterwards about the yeare of Salvation 1010. by the furious Danes was made levell with the ground But where this River is ready to leave this County it passeth hard by an ancient house called Bottle-bridge so is it now termed short for Botolph-bridge which the Draitons and Lovets brought from R. Gimels by hereditary succession into the Family of the Shirleies And to this house adjoyneth Overton now corruptly called Orton which being by felony forfait and confiscate Neele Lovetoft redeemed againe of King John and the said Noeles sister and coheire being wedded unto Hubert alià s Robert de Brounford brought him children who assumed unto them the sirname of Lovetoft This County of Huntingdon when the English-Saxons Empire began now to decline had Siward an Earle by Office and not inheritance For as yet there were no Earles in England by inheritance but the Rulers of Provinces after the custome of that age were termed Earles with addition of the Earledome of this or that Province whereof they had the rule for the time as this Siward whiles he governed this County was called Earle of Huntingdon whereas afterwards being Ruler of Northumberland they named him Earle of Northumberland He had a sonne named Waldeof who under the Title of Earle had likewise the government of this Province standing in favour as he did with William the Conquerour whose Niece Judith by his sister of the mothers side hee had married but by him beheaded for entring into a conspiracy against him The eldest daughter of this Waldeof as William Gemiticensis reporteth Simon de Senlys or S. Liz tooke to wife together with the Earldome of Huntingdon and of her begat a sonne named Simon But after that the said Simon was dead David brother to Maud the Holy Queene of England who afterwards became King of Scots married his wife by whom hee had a sonne named Henry But in processe of time as fortune and Princes favour varied one while the Scots another while the Sent Lizes enjoyed this dignity First Henry the sonne of David aforesaid then Simon S. Liz sonne of Simon the first after him Malcolm King of Scots sonne to Earle Henry and after his death Simon Sent Liz the third who dying without issue William King of Scots and brother to Malcolm succeeded for so wrote he that then lived Raphe de Diceto in the yeare 1185. When Simon saith hee the sonne of Earle Simon was departed without children the King restored the Earldome of Huntingdon with the Pertinences unto William King of the Scots Then his brother David and Davids sonne John sirnamed Scot Earle of Chester who dying without issue and Alexander the third that had married the daughter of our King Henry the Third having for a time borne this Title the Scots by occasion of incident warres lost that honour and with it a very faire inheritance in England A good while after King Edward the Third created Sir William Clinton Earle of Huntingdon who dyed issuelesse And in his roome there was placed by King Richard the Second Guiseard of Engolisme a Gascoine who was his Governour in his minority and after his death succeeded Iohn Holland Iohn his sonne who was stiled Duke of Excester Earle of Huntingdon and Ivory Lord of Sparre Admirall of England and Ireland Lieutenant of Aquitane and Constable of the Towre of London and his sonne likewise Henry successively who were Dukes also of Excester This is that very same Henry Duke of Excester whom Philip Comines as himselfe witnesseth saw begging bare foote in the Low Countries whiles he stood firme and fast unto the house of Lancaster albeit he had married King Edward the Fourth his owne sister Then Thomas Grey who became afterward Marquesse Dorset a little while enjoyed that honour Also it is evident out of the Records that William Herbert Earle of Pembroch brought in againe the Charter of creation whereby his father was made Earle of Pembroch into the Chancery for to be cancelled and that King Edward the Fourth in the seventeenth of his Raigne created him Earle of Huntingdon at such time as he granted the Title of Pembroch to the Prince his sonne Afterward King Henry the Eighth conferred that honour upon George Lord Hastings after whom succeeded his sonne Francis and after him likewise his sonne Henry a right honourable Personage commended both for true Nobility and Piety But whereas hee dyed without issue his brother Sir George Hastings succeeded and after him his Grandchilde Henry by his sonne who at this day enjoyeth the said honour In this little Shire are numbered Parishes 78. CORITANI NOw must wee passe on to
thereof For in this tenour runne the very words of the Charter She likewise bestowed it upon John de Lacy Constable of Chester and the heires whom hee should beget of the body of Margaret her daughter This John had issue Edmund who dying before his mother left this honour for Henry his sonne to enjoy who was the last Earle of that line For when his sonnes were taken away by untimely death and he had but one little daughter onely remaining alive named Alice hee affianced her being but nine yeeres old to Thomas the sonne of Edmund Earle of Lancaster with this condition That if he should fortune to dye without heires of her body or if they happened to dye without heires of their bodies his Castles Lordships c. should in Remainder come to the heires of Edmund Earle of Lancaster for ever But the said Alice had no childe at all by her husband Thomas But when Thomas her husband was beheaded shee that by her light behaviour had not a little steined her good name tooke Sir Eubul le Strange with whom she had lived before time too familiarly for her husband without the assent and privity of her Soveraigne who being hereat highly offended seised her possessions into his owne hands Yet both Sir Eubul Strange and Sir Hugh Frene her third husband are in some Records named Earles of Lincolne After Alice now very aged was departed this life without issue Henry Earle of Lancaster Nephew to Edmund aforesaid by his second sonne entred upon her large and faire patrimony by vertue of that conveiance which I spake of before and from that time it accrued to the House of Lancaster Howbeit the Kings of England at their pleasure have bestowed the name and honour of Earles of Lincolne as King Edward the Fourth gave it to Sir John De la Pole and King Henry the Eighth to Henry Brandon both the Sonnes of the Dukes of Suffolke who both ended this life without Issue the first slaine in the battaile at Stoke and the other taken away by the sweating sicknesse Afterward Queene Elizabeth promoted Edward Baron Clinton Lord high Admirall of England to the said honour which his sonne Henry enjoyeth at this day There are in this Shire Parishes much about 630. NOTINGAMIAE Comitatus olim pars CORITANORVM NOTTINGHAM-SHIRE VPon the West side of Lincolne-shire confineth the County of NOTTINGHAM in the English Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in English Nottingham-shire being farre lesse in quantity limited Northward with York-shire Westward with Darby-shire and in some parts with York-shire and on the South side with Leicester-shire The South and East part thereof are made more fruitfull by the noble and famous River Trent with other Riverets resorting unto it The West part is taken up with the Forest of Shirewood which stretcheth out a great way This part because it is sandy the Inhabitants tearme The Sand the other for that it is Clayish they call the Clay and so have divided their Country into these two parts The River Trent in the old English Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some Antiquaries of small note and account have called Triginta in Latine for the affinity of the French word Trent that signifieth that number Triginta that is thirty having gone a long journey so soone as hee is entred into this Shire and hath recepto Souro flumine ex agro Leicestrensi taking in the River Soure from the field of Leicester runne by Steanford where I have learned there be many tokens remaining of old antiquity and peeces of Roman money oftentimes found and then by Clifton which hath given both habitation and sirname also to the ancient family of the Cliftons much enriched by one of the heires of Cressy taketh in from the West the little River Lin which rising neere unto Newsted that is New place where sometime King Henry the Second founded a small Abbay and which is now the dwelling house of the ancient Family of the Burons descended from Ralph de Buron who at the first comming in of the Normans flourished in great state both in this Countrey and also in Lancashire runneth hard by Wallaton rich in veines of cole where Sir Francis Willoughby a Knight nobly descended from the Greis Marquesse Dorset in our daies built out of the ground with great charges upon a vaine ostentation of his wealth a stately house with artificiall workemanship standing bleakely but offering a very goodly prospect to the beholders farre and neere Then runneth it by Linton or Lenton much frequented and famous in old time for the Abbay there of the Holy Trinity founded by William Peverell the base sonne of King William the Conquerour but now all the fame is onely for a Faire there kept Where on the other banke at the very meeting well neere of Lin and Trent the principall Towne that hath given name unto the Shire is seated upon the side of an hill now called Nottingham by softning the old name a little for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so the English Saxons named it of certaine caves and passages under the ground which in old time they hewed and wrought hollow under those huge and steepe cliffes which are on the South side hanging over the little River Lin for places of receit and refuge yea and for habitations And thereupon Asserius interpreteth this Saxon word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Speluncarum domum that is An house of Dennes or Caves and in the British Tui ogo bauc which signifieth the very selfe same The Towne for the naturall site thereof is right pleasant as where on the one hand lye faire and large Medowes by the Rivers side on the other rise hils with a gentle and easie ascent and is plentifully provided of all things beside necessary for mans life On the one side Shirewood yeeldeth store of wood to maintaine fire although many use for that purpose stinking pit cole digged forth of the ground on the other Trent serveth it aboundantly with fish And hence hath beene taken up this od barbarous Verse Limpida sylva focum Triginta dat mihi piscem Shire-wood yeelds me fuell for fire As Trent yeelds fish what I require At a word for largenesse for building for three faire Churches a passing spacious and beautifull Mercat place and a most strong Castle it maketh a goodly shew The said Castle is mounted upon an huge and steepe worke on the West side of the City in which place it is thought that Castle stood in times past upon whose strength the Danes presuming held out against the Siege of Aethered and Aelfrid so long untill they frustrate of their purpose brake up their Siege trussed up bagge and baggage and dislodged For when the Danes had taken this Castle Burthred King of the Mercians as mine Authour Asserius writeth and the Mercians addresse their messengers to Aethered King of the West Saxons and to
Romanists But this See few yeeres after was removed againe to Lichfield yet so as that one and the selfe same Bishop carried the name both of Lichfield and of Coventry The first Lord of this City so farre as I can learne was this Leofricke who being very much offended and angry with the Citizens oppressed them with most heavie tributes which he would remit upon no other condition at the earnest suite of his wife Godiva unlesse she would herselfe ride on horse-backe naked through the greatest and most inhabited street of the City which she did in deed and was so covered with her faire long haire that if we may beleeve the common sort shee was seene of no body and thus shee did set free her Citizens of Coventry from many payments for ever From Leofricke it came into the hands of the Earles of Chester by Lucie his sonne Algars daughter for shee had beene married to Ranulph the first of that name and the third Earle of Chester out of this line who granted unto Coventrey the same liberties that Lincolne had and gave a great part of the City unto the Monkes the rest and Chilmore which is the Lords Manour hard by the City hee reserved to himselfe and to his heires After whose death when for want of issue male the inheritance was divided betweene the sisters Coventry came at length mediately by the Earles of Arundell unto Roger Mont-hault whose grand sonne Robert passed over all his right for default of issue male of his body begotten unto Queene Isabel mother to King Edward the Third To have and to hold during the whole life of the Queene herselfe and after her decease to remaine unto Iohn of Eltham the said Kings brother and to the heires of his body begotten and for default the remainder to Edward King of England c. For thus is it to be seene in the Fine in the second yeere of King Edward the Third Now the said John of Eltham was afterwards created Earle of Cornwall and this place became annexed to the Earldome of Cornwall From which time it hath flourished in great state Kings have bestowed sundry immunities upon it and King Edward the Third especially who permitted them to chuse a Major and two Bailiffes and to build and embattle a Wall about it also king Henry the Sixth who laying unto it certaine small Townes adjoyning granted That it should bee an entire County corporate by it selfe the very words of the Charter runne in that sort in deed and name and distinct from the County of Warwicke At which time in lieu of Bailiffes he ordained two Sheriffes and the Citizens beganne to fortifie their City with a most strong Wall wherein are beautifull Gates and at one of them called Gosford Gate there hangeth to bee seene a mighty great Shield bone of a wilde Bore which any man would thinke that either Guy of Warwicke or else Diana of the Forest Arden slew in hunting when he had turned up with his snout that great pit or pond which at this day is called Swansewell but Swinsewell in times past as the authority of ancient Charters doe proove As touching the Longitude of this City it is 25. Degrees and 52. Scruples and for the Latitude it is 52. Degrees and 25. Scruples Thus much of Coventrey yet have you not all this of me but willingly to acknowledge by whom I have profited of Henry Ferrars of Baddesley a man both for parentage and for knowledge of antiquity very commendable and my especiall friend who both in this place and also elsewhere hath at all times courteously shewed me the right way when I was out and from his candle as it were hath lightned mine Neere unto Coventrey North-west ward are placed Ausley Castle the habitation in times past of the Hastings who were Lords of Abergavenney and Brand the dwelling place in old time of the Verdons Eastward standeth Caloughdon commonly Caledon the ancient seat of the Lords Segrave from whom it descended to the Barons of Berkley by one of the daughters of Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolke These Segraves since the time that Stephen was Lord chiefe Justice of England flourished in the honorable estate of Barons became possessed of the Chaucombes Inheritance whose Armes also they bare viz. A Lion rampant Argent crowned Or in a Shield Sable But John the last of them married Margaret Dutchesse of Northfolke Daughter of Thomas Brotherton and begat Elizabeth a daughter who brought into the Family of the Mowbraies the Dignity of Marshall of England and Title of Duke of Norfolke Brinklâ— also is not farre from hence where stood an ancient Castle of the Mowbraies to which many possessions and faire lands thereabout belonged But the very rubbish of this Castle time hath quite consumed as Combe Abbay is scant now apparent which the Camvills and Mowbraies endowed with possessions and out of the ruines and reliques whereof a faire house of the Lord Haringtons in this very place is now raised As you goe East-ward you meet anon with Cester-Over whereof I spake incidently before belonging to the Grevills neere unto which the High port-way Watling-street dividing this shire Northward from Leicester-shire runneth on forward by High-crosse whereof also I have already written neere unto Nun-Eaton which in ancient time was named Eaton But when Amice wife to Robert Bossu Earle of Leicester as Henry Knighton writeth had founded a Monastery of Nunnes wherein her selfe also became professed it began of those Nunnes to be called Nun-Eaton And famous it was in the former ages by reason of those religious Virgines holinesse who devoting themselves continually to prayers gave example of good life A little from this there flourished sometimes Astley-Castle the principall seate of the Familie of Astley out of which flourished Barons in the time of King Edward the First Second and Third the heire whereof in the end was the second wedded Wife of Reginald Lord Grey of Ruthin from whom came the Greies Marquesses of Dorset some of whom were enterred in a most fine and faire Collegiat Church which Thomas Lord Astley founded with a Deane and Secular Chanons Somewhat higher hard by Watling street for so with the common people wee call the High-way made by the Romanes where as the riuer Anker hath a stone bridge over it stood MANDVESSEDUM a very ancient towne mentioned by Antonine the Emperour which being not altogether deprived of that name is now called Mancester and in Ninnius his Catalogue Caer Mancegued Which name considering there is a stone-quarry hard by I may ghesse was imposed upon it of the stones digged forth and hewed out of it For out of the Glossaries of the British tongue we finde that Main in the British language signified a Stone and Fosswad in the Provinciall tongue to digge out which being joyned together may seeme very expressely to import that ancient name MANDVESSEDUM But what how great or how faire soever it hath been
in old time a very small village it is at this day containing in it scarce foureteene dwelling houses and those but little ones and hath no monument of antiquitie to shew beside an ancient mount which they call Old-burie For on the one side Atherstone a mercate towne of good resort where there stood a Church of Augustine Friers now turned into a Chappell which neverthelesse acknowledgeth Mancester Church for her mother and Nun-Eaton on the other side by their vicinity have left it bare and empty Close unto Atherstone standeth Mery-Vale where Robert Ferrars erected a Monastery to God and the blessed Virgin Mary wherein himselfe enwrapped in an Oxe-hide for a shrouding sheet was interred Beyond these Northeastward is Pollesworth where Modwena an Irish Virgin of whom there went so great a fame for her holy life built a religious house for Nuns which R. Marmion a Noble man repaired who had his Castle hard by at Stippershull Neere unto this place also there flourished in the Saxons daies a towne that now is almost quite gone called then SECANDUNUM and at this day Seckinton where Aethelbald King of the Mercians in civill warre about the yeere of our Lord 749. was stabbed to death by Beared and soone after Offa slew Beared so that as by bloudy meanes he invaded the Kingdome of Mercia he likewise lost the same suddainely It remaineth now that we reckon up the Earles of Warwick for to passe over Guare Morind Guy of Warwick of whose actes all England resoundeth and others of that stampe whom pregnant wits have at one birth bred and brought forth into the world Henry the sonne of Roger de Beau-mont and brother to Robert Earle of Mellent was the first Earle descended of Normans bloud who had married Margaret the daughter of Ernulph de Hesdin Earle of Perch a most mighty and puissant man Out of this Family there bare this Honourable title Roger the sonne of Henry William the sonne of Roger who died in the thirtieth yeere of King Henry the Second Walleran his brother Henry the sonne of Walleran Thomas his sonne who deceased without issue in the sixe and twentieth yeere of King Henry the Third leaving behinde him Margery his sister who being Countesse of Warwicke and barraine departed this life yet her two husbands first Iohn Mareschal then John de Plessetis or Plessey in their wives right and through their Princes favour mounted up to the Honourable dignitie of Earles of Warwicke Now when these were departed without any issue by that Margery Waller and Uncle unto the said Margery succeeded them After whom dying also childlesse his sister Alice enjoyed the inheritance Afterwards her sonne William called Malduit and Manduit of Hanslap who left this world and had no children Then Isabell the said William Malduits sister being bestowed in marriage upon William de Beauchamp Lord of Elmesly brought the Earledome of Warwicke into the Familie of the Beauchamps who if I deceive not my selfe for that they came of a daughter of Ursus de Abtot gave the Beare for their cognisance and left it to their posteritie Out of this house there flourished sixe Earles and one Duke William the sonne of Isabell John Guy Thomas Thomas the younger Richard and Henry unto whom King Henry the Sixth graunted this preheminence and prerogative without any precedent to be the first and chiefe Earle of England and to carry this stile Henricus Praecomes totius Anglia Comes Warwici that is Henry chiefe Earle of all England and Earle of Warwicke he nominated him also King of the Isle of Wight and afterwards created him Duke of Warwicke and by these expresse words of his Parent graunted That he should take his place in Parliaments and elsewhere next unto the Duke of Norfolke and before the Duke of Buckingham One onely daughter he had named Anne whom in the Inquisitions wee finde entituled Countesse of Warwicke and shee died a child After her succeeded Richard Nevill who had married Anne sister to the said Duke of Warwicke a man of an undaunted courage but wavering and untrustie the very tennisse-ball in some sort of fortune who although he were no King was above Kings as who deposed King Henry the Sixth a most bountifull Prince to him from his regall dignitie placed Edward the Fourth in the royall throne and afterwards put him downe too restored Henry the Sixth againe to the Kingdome enwrapped England within the most wofull and lamentable flames of civill warre which himselfe at the length hardly quenched with his owne bloud After his death Anne his Wife by Act of Parliament was excluded and debarred from all her lands for ever and his two daughters heires to him and heires apparant to their mother being married to George Duke of Clarence and Richard Duke of Glocester were enabled to enjoy all the said lands in such wise as if the said Anne their mother were naturally dead Whereupon the name stile and title of Earle of Warwicke and Sarisbury was graunted to George Duke of Clarence who soone after was unnaturally dispatched by a sweet death in a Butte of Malvesey by his suspicious brother King Edward the Fourth His young sonne Edward was stiled Earle of Warwicke and being but a very child was beheaded by King Henry the Seventh to secure himselfe and his posteritie The death of this Edward our Ancestors accounted to be the full period and finall end of the long lasting warre betweene the two royall houses of Lancaster and Yorke Wherein as they reckoned from the twenty eight yeere of Henry the Sixth unto this being the fifteenth of Henry the Seventh there were thirteene fields fought three Kings of England one Prince of Wales twelve Dukes one Marques eighteene Earles with one Vicont and twenty three Barons besides Knights and Gentlemen lost their lives From the death of this young Earle of Warwicke this title lay asleepe which King Henry the Eighth feared as a fire-brand of the State by reason of the combustion which that Richard Nevill that whip-king as some tearmed him had raised untill that King Edward the Sixth conferred it upon Iohn Dudley that derived his pedigree from the Beauchamps who like unto that Richard abovesaid going about in Queene Maries daies to turne and translate Scepters at his pleasure for his Traiterous deepe ambition lost his head But his sonnes first Iohn when his father was now Duke of Northumberland by a courteous custome usually received held this title for a while and afterwards Ambrose a most worthy personage both for warlike prowesse and sweetnesse of nature through the fauour of Queene Elizabeth received in our remembrance the Honour of Earle of Warwick to him and his heires males and for defect of them to Robert his brother and the heires males of his body lawfully begotten This Honour Ambrose bare with great commendation and died without children in the yeere one thousand five hundred eighty nine shortly after his brother Robert Earle of Leicester
or Band of the Exploratores with their Captaine kept their station heere under the dispose of the Generall of Britaine as appeareth for certaine out of the NOTICE of Provinces where it is named LAVATRES But whereas such Bathes as these were called also in Latine Lavacra some Criticke no doubt will pronounce that this place was named LAVATRAE in stead of LAVACRA yet would I rather have it take the name of a little river running neere by which as I heare say is called Laver. As for the later name Bowes considering the old Towne was heere burnt downe to the ground as the inhabitants with one voice doe report I would thinke it grew upon that occasion For that which is burnt with fire the Britans still at this day doe terme Boeth and by the same word the Suburbes of Chester beyond the River Dee which the Englishmen call Hanbridge the Britans or Welshmen name Treboeth that is The burnt Towne because in a tumult of the Welshmen it was consumed with fire Heere beginneth to rise that high hilly and solitary Country exposed to winde and raine which because it is stony is called in our native language Stane more All heere round about is nothing but a wilde Desert unlesse it bee an homely Hostelry or Inne in the very middest thereof called The Spitle on Stane more for to entertaine waifaring persons and neere to it is a fragment of a Crosse which wee call Rerecrosse the Scots Reicrosse as one would say The Kings Crosse. Which Crosse Hector Boetius the Scottish Writer recordeth to have beene erected as a meere stone confining England and Scotland what time as King William the Conquerour granted Cumberland unto the Scots on this condition that they should hold it of him as his Tenants and not attempt any thing prejudiciall or hurtfull to the Crowne of England And a little lower upon the Romanes high street there stood a little Fort of the Romans built foure square which at this day they call Maiden-Castle From whence as the borderers reported the said High way went with many windings in and out as farre as to Caer Vorran in Northumberland There have beene divers Earles of Richmond according as the Princes favour enclined and those out of divers families whom I will notwithstanding set downe as exactly and truely as I can in their right order The first Earles were out of the house of little Britaine in France whose descent is confusedly intricate amongst their owne Writers for that there were two principall Earles at once one of Haulte Britaine and another of Base Britaine for many yeeres and every one of their children had their part in Gavell kinde and were stiled Earles of Britaine without distinction But of these the first Earle of Richmond according to our Writers and Records was Alane sirnamed Feregaunt that is The Red sonne of Hoel Earle of Britaine descended from Hawise great Aunt to William Conquerour who gave this Country unto him by name of the lands of Earle Eadwin in Yorke-shire and withall bestowed his daughter upon him by whom he had no issue He built Richmond Castle as is before specified to defend himselfe from disinherited and outlawed Englishmen in those parts and dying left Britaine to his sonne Conan Le Grosse by a second wife But Alane the Blacke sonne of Eudo sonne of Geffrey Earle of Britaine and Hawise aforesaid succeeded in Richmond and he having no childe lest it to Stephen his brother This Stephen begat Alan sirnamed Le Savage his sonne and successour who assisted king Stephen against Maude the Empresse in the battaile at Lincolne and married Bertha one of the heires of Conan Le Grosse Earle of Hault Britaine by whom hee had Conan Le Petit Earle of both Britaine 's by hereditary right as well as of Richmond Hee by the assistance of King Henrie the Second of England dispossessed Endo Vicount of Porhoet his Father in Lawe who usurped the Title of Britaine in right of the said Bertha his Wife and ended his life leaving onely one daughter Constance by Margaret sister to Malcolne king of the Scots Geffrey third Sonne to King Henry the Second of England was advanced by his Father to the marriage of the said Constance whereby hee was Earle of Britaine and Richmond and begat of her Arthur who succeeded him and as the French write was made away by King Iohn his Unkle True it is indeed that for this cause the French called King Iohn into question as Duke of Normandy And notwithstanding he was absent and not heard once to plead neither confessing ought nor convicted yet by a definitive sentence they condemned him and awarded from him Normandy and his hereditary possessions in France Albeit himselfe had promised under safe conduct to appeare in personally at Paris there to make answere as touching the death of Arthur who as a Liege subject had bound himselfe by oath to bee true and loyall unto him and yet started backe from his allegeance raised a rebellion and was taken prisoner in battaile At which time this question was debated whether the Peeres of France might give judgement of a King annointed and therefore superiour considering that a greater dignity drowneth the lesser and now one and the same person was both King of England and Duke of Normandy But whither doe I digresse After Arthur these succeeded orderly in the Earldome of Richmond Guy Vicount of Thovars unto whom the foresaid Constance was secondly married Ranulph the third Earle of Chester the third husband of the said Constance Peter of Dreux descended from the bloud royall of France who wedded Alice the onely daughter of Constance by her husband abovenamed Guy Then upon dislike of the house of Britaine Peter of Savoy Unkle by the mothers side unto Eleonor the wife of king Henry the Third was made Earle of Richmond who for feare of the Nobles and Commons of England that murmured against strangers preferred to honours in England voluntarily surrendred up this Honour which was restored to Iohn Earle of Britaine sonne to Peter of Dreux After whom succeeded Iohn his sonne the first Duke of Britaine who wedded Beatrice daughter to Henry the Third King of England Whose sonne Arthur was Duke of Britaine and as some write Earle of Richmond Certes John of Britaine his younger brother immediately after the fathers death bare this honourable Title And he added unto the ancient Armes of Drewx with the Canton of Britaine the Lions of England in Bordeur Hee was Guardian of Scotland under King Edward the Second and there taken and detained prisoner for three yeeres space and dyed at length without issue in the Raigne of Edward the Third And John Duke of Britaine his nephew the sonne of Arthur succeeded in this Earledome After his decease without children when there was hote contention about the Dutchy of Britaine betweene John Earle of Montfort of the halfe bloud and Joane his brothers daughter and heire
mother to Edward Courtney the last Earle of Devonshire of that house and on the other side of the quier Iohn de Beaufort Duke of Somerset with his wife Margaret daughter and heire to Sir Iohn Beauchamp of Bletneshoe whose daughter Margaret Countesse of Richmond and mother of King Henry the Seventh a most godly and vertuous Princesse erected a Schoole heere for the training up of youth But now will I turne my pen from the Church to the Towne when the Danes by their crafty devices went about to set the Englishmen together by the eares and would have broken that league and unitie which was betweene King Edward the Elder and his cosen Aethelwald Aethelwald then lusting after the Kingdome and wholly set against his liege Prince fortified this towne as strongly as possibly he could But so soone as Edward came towards him with his forces and pitched his tents at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now called Badbury he fled and conveied himselfe to his confederates the Danes This Badbury is a little hill upon a faire doune scarce two miles off environed about with a triple trench and rampier and had by report in times past a Castle which was the seate of the West-Saxon Kings But now if ever there were any such it lieth so buried in the owne ruines and rubbish that I could see not so much as one token thereof But hard by a sight I had of a village or mannour called Kingston Lacy because together with Winburne it appurtained to the Lacies Earles of Lincolne unto whom by covenant it came from the Earles of Leicester by the meanes of Quincie Earle of Winchester For King Henry the first had given it to Robert Earle of Mellent and of Leicester and at the last both places from the Lacies fell unto the house of Lancaster whose bountie and liberalitie Winburne had good triall of From this Winburne Stoure as it passeth admitteth Alen a little brook over which standeth S. Giles Winburne the habitation of the worshipfull and ancient house of Astleys Knights also Wickhampton the inheritance sometime of the Barons de Maltravers of whom the last in the raigne of Edward the Third left behind him two daughters onely the one wedded unto Iohn de Arundell grandfather to Iohn Earle of Arundell who left unto his posteritie the title of Barons de Maltravers the other wife of Robert Le-Rous and afterwards of Sir Iohn Keines Knight From hence the Stoure passeth on by Canford under which not long ago Iames Lord Montjoy studious in Minerall matters began to make Calcanthum or Vitriol we call it Coperas and to boile Alome And out of which in old time Iohn Earle of Warren to the great disteining of his owne good name and the damage of England tooke as it were by strong hand and carried away as it is to be seene in our Chronicles Dame Alice Lacey the wife of Thomas Earle of Lancaster And now by this time Stoure leaveth Dorsetshire behind him and after hee hath travelled through some part of Hantshire at length taketh up his lodging in the Ocean and yet not before hee hath entertained a pretty river that runneth to Cranburne a place well watered Where in the yeare of Salvation 930. Aelward a noble Gentleman surnamed for his whitenesse Meaw founded a little monasterie which Robert Fitz-Haimon a Norman unto whom fell the possessions of the said Aelward leaving heere one or two Monkes in a cell translated to Theoksbury From whom in order of succession by the Clares Earles of Glocester and Burghs Earles of Ulster it came to Lionell Duke of Clarence and by him to the Crowne But now Cranborne hath his Uicount now Earle of Salisburie whom King Iames for his approved wisedome and worth honored first with the title of Baron or Lord Cecil of Essendon and the next yeare after of Vicount Cranborne South from hence lieth Woodland emparked sometime the seat of the worshipfull family of Filioll the heires whereof were married to Edward Seimor after Duke of Somerset and Willoughby of Wallaton As touching the Earles and Marquesses of this shire King William the Conqueror having now by conquest attained to the Kingdome of England made Osmund that was Earle of Seez in Normandie both Bishop of Sarisbury and afterward also the first Earle of Dorset and his Chancellor highly admiring the godly wisedome of the man and his notable good parts Long after that King Richard the Second in the one and twentieth yeare of his raigne advanced Iohn de Beaufort Iohn of Gaunt his sonne and Earle of Sommerset to be Marquesse Dorset of which dignitie King Henry the Fourth in hatred of Richard the Second deprived him And when as in the high Court of Parliament the Commons of England there assembled who loved him very dearely made earnest intercession that the said dignitie of Marquesse might bee restored unto him hee himselfe distasting this new title and never heard of before those daies utterly refused it And then his younger brother named Thomas Beaufort was created Earle of Dorset who afterward for his warlike prowesse and valour was by King Henrie the Fifth adorned with the title of Duke of Excester and with the Earledome of Harcourt For he valiantly defended Harflew in Normandie against the Frenchmen and in a pitched field encountring the Earle of Armignac put him to flight After he was dead without issue King Henry the Sixth nominated out of the same house of Lancaster Edmund first Earle afterwards Marquesse Dorset and lastly Duke of Somerset whose sonnes being slaine in the civill wars Edward the Fourth when as now the family of Lancaster lay as it were over troden in the dust created Thomas Grey out of the house of Ruthin who was his sonne in law for the King had espoused the mother of the said Grey Marquesse Dorset when in right of his wife he had entred upon a great state and inheritance of the Bonvilles in this country and the territories adjoyning After him succeeded in the same honour Thomas his sonne and Henrie his nephew by the said Thomas who also was created by King Edward the Sixth Duke of Suffolk having wedded Lady Frances daughter of Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk and Neece unto King Henry the Eighth by his sister This Duke in Queene Maries daies being put to death for high treason learned too late how dangerous a thing it is to marrie into the bloud royall and to feed ambitious hopes both in himselfe and in others From that time the title of Dorset was bestowed upon none untill King Iames at his first entrance into this Kingdome exalted Thomas Sackvill Baron of Buckhurst and Lord high Treasurer of England a man of rare wisedome and most carefull providence to the honour of Earle of Dorset who ended his life with suddaine death 1608. and left Robert his sonne his successor who deceasing within the yeare left the said honour againe to Richard his hopefull sonne whom he
elsewhere is called Cangton But of these matters let the reader be judge my selfe as I said doth no more but conjecture whiles I seeke to trace out these their footsteps and hope to find them out some where-else Among these hils standeth Chuton which was the habitation if I take not my markes amisse of William Bonvill whom King Henrie the Sixth called by his writ of Summons to the Parliament by the name William de Bonvill and Chuton among other Barons of the Realme made him Knight of the Garter and richly matched his sonne in marriage with the sole daughter of Lord Harington But when he unthankefull man that he was in the heate of civill warre revolted and tooke part with the house of Yorke as if vengeance had pursued him hard at heeles that onely sonne of his he saw taken from him by untimely death and his nephew by the same sonne Baron of Harington slaine at the battell of Wakefield and immediately after that his old age might want no kind of miserie whiles he waited still and long looked for better daies was himselfe taken prisoner in the second battell of Saint Albans and having now run through his full time by course of nature lost his head leaving behind him for his heire his Grand-childs daughter Cecilie a Damsel of tender yeares who afterwards with a great inheritance was wedded to Thomas Greie Marquesse Dorset But his bloud after his death was by authoritie of Parliament restored Under Mendip hills northward there is a little village called Congersburie so named of one Congar a man of singular holinesse Capgrave hath written that hee was the Emperours sonne of Constantinople who lived there an Eremite also Harpetre a Castle by right of inheritance fell to the Gornaies and from them descended to the Ab-Adams who as I have read restored it to the Gornaies again Southward not farre from the foresaid hole where Mendip slopeth downe with a stony descent a little citie with an Episcopall See is scituate beneath at the hill foot sometime called as saith Leland but whence he had it I wot not Theodorodunum now Welles so named of the Springs or Wels which boile and walme up there like as Susa in Persia Croia in Dalmatia and Pagase in Macedonia were named of the like fountaines in their countrey speech whereupon this also in Latin is called Fontanensis Ecclesia as one would say Fountain-Church Fot multitude of Inhabitants for faire and stately buildings it may well and truely chalenge the preheminence of all this Province A goodly Church it hath and a Colledge founded by King Ina in honour of Saint Andrew and soone after endowed by Princes and great men with rich livings and revenewes among whom King Kinewolph by name in the yeare of our Lord 766. granted unto it very many places lying thereabout For in a Charter of his wee reade thus I Kinewolph King of the West-Saxons for the love of God and that which is not openly to be spoken for some vexation of our enemies those of the Cornish Nation with the consent of my Bishops and Nobles will most humbly give and consecrate some parcell of Land to Saint Andrew the Apostle and servant of God that is to say as much as commeth to Eleven Hides neere to the River called Welwe for the augmentation of that Monasterie which standeth neere the great fountaine that they call Wiclea This Charter have I set downe both for the antiquitie and because some have supposed that the place tooke name of this River verily neere the Church there is a Spring called Saint Andrewes Well the fairest deepest and most plentifull that I have seene by and by making a swift Brooke The Church it selfe all throughout is very beautifull but the Frontispiece thereof in the West end is a most excellent and goodly piece of worke indeede for it ariseth up still from the foot to the top all of imagerie in curious and antike wise wrought of stone carved and embowed right artificially and the Cloisters adjoyning very faire and spacious A gorgeous pallace of the Bishops built in manner of a Castle fortified with walles and a moate standeth hard by Southward and on the other side faire houses of the Prebendaries For Seven and Twenty Prebends with nineteene other petty Prebends beside a Deane a Chaunter a Chancellour and three Archdeacons belong to this Church In the time of K. Edward the elder a Bishops See was here placed For when the Pope had suspended him because the Ecclesiasticall discipline and jurisdiction in these westerne parts of the Realme began openly to decay then he knowing himselfe to be a maintainer and Nurse-father of the Church ordained three new Bishopricks to wit of Cridie Cornwall and this of Welles where hee made Eadulph the first Bishop But many yeares after when Giso sate Bishop there Harold Earle of the West-Saxons and of Kent who gaped so greedily for the goods of the Church so disquieted and vexed him that hee went within a little off quite abolishing the dignitie thereof But King William the Conquerour after hee had overthrowne Harold stretched out his helping hand to the succour of banished Giso and reliefe of his afflicted Church At what time as witnesseth Doomesday booke the Bishop held the whole towne in his owne hands which paid tribute after the proportion of fiftie Hides Afterwards in the raigne of Henry the First Iohannes de Villula of Tours in France being now elected Bishop translated his See to Bathe since which time the two Sees growing into one the Bishop beareth the title of both so that hee is called The Bishop of Bathe and Welles Whereupon the Monkes of Bathe and Canons of Welles entred into a great quarrell and skuffled as it were each with the other about the choosing of their Bishops Meane while Savanaricus Bishop of Bathe being also Abbat of Glastenbury translated the See of Glastenbury and was called Bishop thereof but when hee died this title died with him and the Monkes and Canons aforesaid were at length brought to accord by that Robert who divided the Patrimonie of Welles Church into Prebends instituting a Deane Sub-deane c. Joceline also the Bishop about the same time repaired the Church with new buildings and within remembrance of our Grand-fathers Raulph of Shrewsburie so some call him built a very fine Colledge for the Vicars and singing-men fast by the North side of the Church and walled in the Bishops Palace But this rich Church was dispoiled of many faire possessions in the time of King Edward the Sixth when England felt all miseries which happen under a Child-King As ye goe from the Palace to the market-place of the towne Thomas Beckington the Bishop built a most beautifull gate who also adjoyned thereto passing faire houses all of uniforme height neere the Market-place in the middest whereof is to be seene a Market-place supported with seven Columnes or pillar without arched
fought with good successe and slew all the valiantest men amongst them Yet did hee little or no good to his native country the Danes evermore renewing their forces still as they were overthrowne like unto that serpent Hydra A little from the fountaines where this river springeth standeth Gatton which now is scarce a small village though in times past it hath beene a famous towne To prove the antiquitie thereof it sheweth Roman coines digged forth of the ground and sendeth unto the Parliament two Burgesses Lower than it is seated Rhie-gat which if a man interpret according to our ancient language is as much as the Rivers course in a vale running out farre into the East called Holmesdale the Inhabitants whereof for that once or twice they vanquished the Danes as they wasted the country are wont in their owne praise to chaunt this Rythme The vale of Holmesdall Never wonne ne never shall This Rhie-gate carrying a greater shew for largenesse than faire buildings hath on the South-side a Parke thicke sette with faire groves wherein the right Noble Charles Earle of Nottingham Baron of Effingham and Lord Admirall of England hath a house where the Earles of Warren and Southrey had founded a prety Monasterie On the East side standeth a Castle mounted aloft now forlorne and for age ready to fall built by the same Earles and of the vale wherein it standeth commonly called Holmecastle under which I saw a wonderfull vault carried under the ground of arch-worke over head hollowed with great labour out of a soft gritte and crombling stone such as the whole hill standeth of These Earles of Warren as wee finde in the Offices or inquisitions held it in chiefe of the King in their Baronie from the conquest of England Hence runneth this river downe by Bechworth Castle for which Sir Thomas Browne obtained of King Henry the Sixth the libertie of holding a Faire For it is the habitation of the Brownes Knights out of which family since our grand-father can remember when Sir Anthony Browne had married Lady Lucie the fourth daughter of Iohn Nevil Marquesse Mont-a-cute Queene Mary honoured his sonnes sonne with the title of Vicount Mont-a-cute Some few miles from hence Westward Effingham sheweth it selfe the possession not long since of William Howard son to that Noble Thomas Duke of Norfolke that triumphed over the Scots who being created by Queene Mary Baron Howard of Effingham made Lord High-Admirall of England was first Lord Chamberlain unto Queene Elizabeth of most happy memorie and then Lord privie Seale whose sonne Charles now flourisheth Lord great Admirall of England whom in the yeare of our Lord 1597. the same Queene Elizabeth honoured also with the title of Earle of Nottingham of whom more in my Annales but now returne we to the river The Mole now being come as farre as Whitehill whereon the Box tree groweth in great plenty at the foote thereof hideth himselfe or rather is swallowed up and thereof the place is called the Swallow but after a mile or two neere unto Letherhed bridge boyling up and breaking forth taketh joy to spring out againe So that the Inhabitants of this tract may boast as well as the Spaniards that they have a bridge which feedeth many flockes of sheepe For this is a common by-word most rife in the Spaniards mouthes as touching the place where their river Anas now called Guadiana hideth himselfe for ten miles together Thus our Mole rising up a fresh hasteneth faire and softly by Stoke Dabernoun so named of the ancient possessors the Dabernouns gentlemen of great good note afterward by inheritance from them the possession of the Lord Bray and by Aesher sometimes a retyring place belonging to the Bishops of Winchester And then very neare Molesey whereunto it giveth name sheddeth himselfe into the Tamis After Tamis hath taken unto him the Mole hee carrieth his streame Northwardly and runneth fast by Kingstone called in times past Moreford as some will have it a very good mercate towne for the bignesse and well frequented well knowne also in old time by reason of a Castle there belonging to the Clares Earles of Glocester Which towne had beginning from a little towne more ancient then it of the same name standing upon a flat ground and subject to the inundation of Tamis In which when England was almost ruinated by the Danish warres Athelstan Edwin and Etheldred were crowned Kings upon an open stage in the Market place and of these Kings heere crowned it came to be named Kingstone as one would say The Kings Towne Tamis now turning his course directly Northward visiteth another place which the Kings chose for themselves sometimes to sojourne at which of the shining brightnesse they call Shene but now it is named Richmond wherein the most mighty Prince King Edward the Third when he had lived sufficiently both to glory and nature died with sorrow that hee conceived for the death of that most valiant and Martiall prince his sonne which sorrow pierced so deepe and stucke so neere him and all England beside that it farre exceeded all comfort And verily at this time if ever else England had a good cause to grieve For within one yeare after it lost the true praise of military prowesse and of accomplished vertue For both of them by bearing their victorious armes throughout all France struke so great a terrour wheresoever they came that as the father might most worthily with King Antiochus carrie the name of Thunder-bolt so his sonne with Pyrrhus deserved to bee named the Eagle Heere also departed Anne wife to King Richard the Second sister of the Emperour Wenzelaus and daughter to the Emperour Charles the fourth who first taught English women the manner of sitting on horsebacke which now is used whereas before time they rode very unseemely astride like as men doe Whose death also her passionate husband tooke so to the heart that he altogether neglected the said house and could not abide it Howbeit King Henry the Fifth readorned it with new buildings and in Shene a pretty village hard by he joyned thereto a little religious house of Carthusian Monks which he called The house of Iesu of Bethelem But in the raigne of Henry the seventh this Princely place was with a woefull sudden fire consumed almost to ashes Howbeit rising up againe forthwith farre more beautifull and glorious as it were a Phaenix out of her owne ashes by the meanes of the same King Henry it tooke this new name Richmond of the title hee bare being Earle of Richmond before he obtained the Crowne of England Scarce had that Noble King Henry the Seventh finished this new worke when in this place he yeilded unto nature and ended his life through whose care vigilancy policy and forecasting wisedome for time to come the State and common-weale of England hath to this day stood established and invincible From hence likewise his sonnes daughter Queene
seeing that it answereth backe againe with the encrease of an hundred fold that which is sowne Here may you see the high wayes and common lanes clad with apple-trees and peare-trees not set nor graffed by the industry of mans hand but growing naturally of their owne accord The ground of it selfe is enclined to beare fruits and those both in taste and beautie farre exceeding others whereof some will last a whole yeare and not wither and rivell so that they are serviceable untill new come againe for supply There is no countrey in all England so thicke set as this Province with Vine-yards so plentifull in encrease and so pleasant in taste The very wines thereof made affect not their mouthes that drinke of them with any unpleasing tartnesse as being little inferiour in sweetnesse and odour to the French wines The houses in it are almost innumerable the Churches passing faire and the townes standing very thicke But that which addeth unto all these good gifts a speciall glory is the river Severne than which there is not any one in this land for channell broader for streame swifter for fish better stored There is in it a daily rage and fury of the waters which I know not whether I may call a gulfe or whirle poole of waves and the same raising up the sands from the bothome winding and driving the same upon heapes commeth with a forcible violence and reacheth no further then to the bridge Sometimes also it overfloweth the bankes and when it hath roved about a great way it retireth backe as a conquerour of the land Vnhappy is that vessell which it taketh full upon the side The Water-men well ware hereof when they see that Higra comming for so they call it in English turne the vessell affront upon it and so cutting through the middest of it checke and avoide the violence thereof But that which hee saith of the hundred fold increase and yeeld of the ground doth not hold true Neither for all that would I thinke with these whining and sloathfull husbandmen whom Columella taketh up for it that the soile is now wearied and become barren with too much fruitfulnesse and over-free bearing in former ages Howbeit hereby if I should say nothing of other things it is to bee seene that wee have no cause to wonder why many places in this countrey and else-where in England are called Vine-yards seeing it hath affoorded wine and surely it may seeme to proceed rather of the Inhabitants idlenesse than any distemperature and indisposition of the ayre that it yeeldeth none at this day But why in some places within this Countrey as wee reade in our Statutes by a private custome which now is become of strong validitie as a law the goods and lands of condemned persons fall into the Kings hands for a yeare onely and a day and after that terme expired contrary to the custome of all England beside returne to the next heires let law-students and Statesmen looke to that for no part it is of my purpose to search thereinto Now I will take a superfiall survey such as I can of those three parts whereof I spake orderly one after another The part that lyeth more West beyond Severne which the Silures in old time possessed along the river Vaga or Wye that parteth England and Wales was wholy bespred with thicke tall woods we call it at this day Deane-forrest The Latine writers some name it of the Danes Danica Sylva the Danes wood others with Girald the Wood of Danubia But I would thinke if it had not this name of Dean a little towne adjoyning that by short cutting the word it was called Deane for Arden Which terme both Gauls and Britans in ancient times may seeme to have used for a wood considering that two mighty great woods the one in that part of Gaule called Gallia Belgica and the other among us in Warwick-shire are by one and the selfe same name termed Arden For this was a wonderfull thicke Forrest and in former ages so darke and terrible by reason of crooked and winding wayes as also the grisly shade therein that it made the inhabitants more fierce and bolder to commit robberies For in the reigne of Henry the sixt they so infested all Severne side with robbing and spoiling that there were lawes made by authority of the Parliament for to restraine them But since that rich Mines of Iron were heere found out those thicke woods began to wax thin by little and little In this Forrest upon the foresaid river stood Tudenham and Wollaston two townes of good antiquity which Walter and Roger the brethren of Gislebert Lord of Clare wrested out of the Welch-mens hands about the yeare 1160. As also Lidney is adjoyning to them where Sir William Winter Viceadmirall of England a renowned Knight for Sea-services as his brother Arthur slaine in Orkeney-Isles built a faire house But the most ancient towne of all others is ABONE or AVONE mentioned by Antonine the Emperour in his Iourney-booke which having not lost that name altogether is at this day called Aventon a small towne indeed but standing upon Severne just nine miles as hee writeth from VENTASILVRVM or Caer-went And seeing that Avon in the Brittish tongue importeth A River it shall be no strange thing if we thinke it so called of the river for in the very same signification that I may omit the rest we have Waterton Bourne and Riverton as the Latines had Aquinum and Fluentium And I suppose the rather that it tooke name of the river because people were wont at this place to ferry over the river whereupon the towne standing over against it is by Antonine called TRAIECTVS that is a passage or ferry but without doubt the number in that place set downe is corrupted For he maketh it nine miles betweene TRAIECTVS and ABONE whereas the river is scarce three miles broad It may seeme then to have beene utterly decaied or turned rather into a village either when as passengers began to ferry over below or when Athelstane thrust out the Welsh Britans from hence For hee was the first that drave them as William of Malmesbury witnesseth beyond the river Wye And where as before his time Severne was the bound betweene the English and Welshmen hee appointed Wye to be the limit confining them both Whence our Necham writeth thus Inde vagos vaga Cambrenses hinc respicit Anglos To Wales on this side looketh Wie On that againe our England he doth eye Not farre from Wye amongst blind by-wayes beset with thicke plumps of trees appeareth Breulis Castle more than halfe fallen downe remarkable for the death of Mahel youngest sonne of Miles Earle of Hereford For there his greedy devises bloody crueltie and covetousnesse ready to pray upon other mens estates for which vices hee is much blamed in Writers were overtaken with a just revenge from heaven For as Girald hath written being entertained guest-wise by
he fetcheth almost a round compasse with a great winding reach taketh into him the River Lea at the east bound of this Countie when it hath collected his divided streame and cherished fruitfull Marish-medowes Upon which there standeth nothing in this side worth the speaking of For neither Aedelmton hath ought to shew but the name derived of Nobility nor Waltham unlesse it be the Crosse erected there for the funerall pompe of Queene Aeleonor Wife to King Edward the First whereof also it tooke name Onely Enfeld a house of the Kings is here to be seene built by Sir Thomas Lovel knight of the order of the Garter and one of King Henry the Seventh his Privy Counsell and Durance neighbour thereunto a house of the Wrothes of ancient name in this Countie To Enfeld-house Enfeld-chace is hard adjoyning a place much renowned for hunting the possession in times past of the Magnavils Earles of Essex afterwards of the Bohuns who succeeded them and now it belongeth to the Duchie of Lancaster since the time that Henry the Fourth King of England espoused one of the daughters and coheires of Humfrey Bohun Earle of Hereford and Essex of that surname And there are yet to be seene in the middest well nere of this Chase the rubbish and ruines of an old house which the vulgar sort saith was the dwelling place of the Magnavils Earles of Essex As for the title of Midlesex the Kings of England have vouchsafed it to none neither Duke Marquis Earle or Baron In this County without the City of London are reckoned Parishes much about 73. Within the City Liberties and Suburbes 121. ESSEXIA COMITATVS QVEM olim TRINOBANTES tenuerunt Continens in se opida marcatoria xx Pagos et Villas ccccxiiii vna Cunt singulis hundredis et flu minibus in â—odem ESSEX THE other part of the Trinobantes toward the East called in the English Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Norman language Exssesa of the situation toward the East and the Saxons which inhabited it and commonly Essex is a Country large in compasse fruitfull full of Woods plentifull of Saffron and very wealthy encircled as it were on the one side with the maine Sea on the other with fishfull Rivers which also doe affoord their peculiar commodities in great abundance On the North side the River Stour divideth it from Suffolke on the East the Ocean windeth it selfe into it On the South part the Tamis being now growne great secludeth it from Kent like as in the West part the little River Ley from Midlesex and Stort or Stour the lesse which runneth into it from Hertfordshire In describing of this Country according to my methode begunne first I will speake of the memorable places by Ley and the Tamis afterwards of those that bee further within and upon the Sea-coast By Ley in the English Saxon Tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there stretcheth out a great way in length and breadth a Forest serving for game stored very full with Deere that for their bignesse and fatnesse withall have the name above all other In times past called it was by way of excellency Foresta de Essex now Waltham Forest of the towne Waltham in the Saxons speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A wilde or wooddy habitation This standeth upon Ley where by dividing his Chanell hee maketh divers Eights or Islands and is not of any great Antiquity to make boast of For when the Kingdome of the Saxons beganne to decay one Tovie a man of great wealth and authority as wee reade in the private History of the place The Kings Staller that is Standerd bearer for the abundance of wilde beasts there first founded it and planted threescore and sixe indwellers therein After his death Athelstane his sonne quickly made a hand of all his goods and great estate and King Edward the Confessour gave this Towne to Harold Earle Goodwins sonne and streight wayes an Abbay was erected there the worke and Tombe both of the said Harold For he being crept up by the errour of men and his owne ambition to regall Dignity built this Abbay in honour of an Holy Crosse found farre Westward and brought hither as they write by miracle Heerein made he his prayers and vowes for victory when hee marched against Normans and being soone after slaine by them was by his mother who had with most suppliant suite craved and obtained at the Conquerours hands his Corps here entombed But now it hath a Baron namely Sir Edward Deny called lately unto that honour by King Iames his Writ Over this Towne upon the rising of an Hill standeth Copthall and yeeldeth a great way off a faire sight to seed mens eyes This was the habitation in times past of Fitz-Aucher and lately of Sir Thomas Heneage Knight who made it a very goodly and beautifull house Neere unto this River also was seated no doubt DUROLITUM a Towne of antique memory which the Emperour Antonine maketh mention of but in what place precisely I am not able to shew For the ancient places of this County I tell you once for all before hand lye hidden so enwrapped in obscurity that I who elsewhere could see somewhat heerein am heere more than dim-sighted But if I may give my guesse I would thinke that to have beene DUROLITUM which retaining still some marke of the old name is called at this day Leyton that is The Towne upon Ley like as Durolitum in the British Tongue signifieth The water Ley. A small Village it is in these daies inhabited in scattering wise five miles from London for which five through the carelesse negligence of transcribers is crept into Antonine xv That there was a common passage heere in times past over the River a place nigh unto it called Ouldfourd seemeth to proove in which when Queene Mawd wife to King Henry the First hardly escaped danger of drowning shee gave order that a little beneath at Stretford there should bee a Bridge made over the water There the River brancheth into three severall streames and most pleasantly watereth on every side the greene medowes wherein I saw the remaines of a little Monasterie which William Montfichet a Lord of great name of the Normans race built in the yeere of our Lord 1140. and forthwith Ley gathering it selfe againe into one chanell mildely dischargeth it selfe in the Tamis whereupon the place is called Leymouth The Tamis which is mightily by this time encreased doth violently carry away with him the streames of many waters hath a sight to speake onely of what is worth remembrance of Berking which Bede nameth Berecing a Nunnery founded by Erkenwald Bishop of London where Roding a little River entreth into the Tamis This running hard by many Villages imparteth his name unto them as Heigh Roding Eithorp Roding Leaden Roding c. of the which Leofwin a Nobleman gave one or two in times past to
whose sake also when Iohn was revolted from him and tooke part with the French hee honoured with the same title William Marquesse of Iuliers the said Queene Philips sisters son After the death of these two Forainers King Edward the Third translated this dignity to his fifth sonne Edmund of Langley which after he had held foure yeeres my warrant I have out of an old manuscript being in the hands of that skilfull Antiquary Francis Thinn the Earle of Henault cosin to Queene Philip came into Parliament house put in a claime for his right and returned backe well contented The said Edmund of Langly afterwards Duke of Yorke had two sonnes Edward Duke of Yorke who for a certaine time held the Earldome of Cambridge and was slaine in the battell of Agin-court and Richard by the grace and favour of King Henry the Fifth and consent of his brother Edward was created Earle of Cambridge But when he ungratefull and ambitious man that hee was contrived the destruction of that good and noble Prince and so lost his head the title of Cambridge died the same day that he did or lurked at least wise among other titles of his sonne Richard who was afterwards Duke of Yorke and restored to his blood and estate as being cosin and heire to his Unkle Edward Duke of Yorke This Shire containeth Parishes 163. HVNTINGDON Comitatus qui pars fuir ICENORVM HUNTINGDON-SHIRE NExt unto Cambridge-shire lyeth HUNTINGDON-SHIRE in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so situate that Southward it confineth upon Bedford-shire Westward upon Northamptonshire like as Northwards where by the River Avon it is parted and Eastward upon Cambridge-shire a Country good for corne and tillage and toward the East where it is fenny very rich and plentifull for the feeding of Cattaile elsewhere right pleasant by reason of rising hils and shady groves For the Inhabitants report that in ancient times it was throughout beset with woods and certaine it is that it was a Forest untill that king Henry the Second in the beginning of his raign disforested it as we find in an old perambulation all save Waybridge Sapple and Herthei which were Woods of the Lords demaine and remaine still forests The South part thereof the River Ouse that I have so often spoken of runneth by and bedecketh with flowers On which River among other of lesse note there stand some Townes of good note First after it hath left Bedford-shire and is entred into this County it visiteth Saint Neots commonly called Saint Needs so named of one Neotus a man both learned and holy who travailed all his life time in propagating of Christian Religion whose body was translated from Neotstok in Cornwall hither and in honour of him Alfrick converted the Palace of Earle Elfride unto a Monastery The which Dame Roisia Wife to Richard Lord of Clare shortly after the comming in of the Normas enriched with many faire Possessions But before it was named Ainulphsbury of one Ainulph likewise an holy and devout man which name continueth still also in one part of it A little beneath this at Aileweston a very small Village there are two little Springs the one fresh the other somewhat brackish of which the neighbours give out that this is good against scabs and leprosie the other against the dimnesse of the eye-sight From thence not farre Ouse passeth to Bugden a proper faire house of the Bishops of Lincolne and so by Hinchingbrok a religious house sometimes of Nuns whom King William the Conquerour translated hither from Eltesley in Cambridge-shire and now the dwelling house of the Cromwels knights commeth to Huntingdon in the English-Saxon tongue as Marianus reporteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the publique seale Huntersdune that is the hill or downe of hunters as Henry Archdeacon of this place who flourished 400. yeares since interpreteth it whence it used in their seale an hunter and Leland our Countriman alluding thereunto hath coined a new Latine word for it namely Venantodunum This is the chiefe Towne of all this Shire to which it hath given also the name farre excelling all the Townes about it the same Archdeacon saith as well for lightsome and pleasant situation as for the beauty and faire shew that it hath it selfe as well also for the vicinity of the Fennes as for great store of Deere and Fish In King Edward the Confessors time that I may note so much out of Domesday booke There were in this Borrough foure Ferlings that is Quarters or Wards In two of them were 116. Burgesses paying custome and gelt and under them 100. Bordarij in the other two 111. Burgesses for all customes and the Kings gelt It is seated upon the North-banke of Ouse somewhat high stretching out in length Northward adorned with foure Churches and it had a little Abbay founded by Maude the Empresse and Eustace Lovetoft the ruines whereof Eastward I have seene hard under the Towne By the River neere unto the Bridge which is faire built of stone the Mount and Plot of a Castle is to bee seene which in the yeare of our Redemption 917. King Edward the Elder built anew and David the Scotishman unto whom as an ancient Historiographer writeth King Stephen had given the Burrough of Huntingdon for an augmentation of his estate enlarged with many new buildings and Bulwarkes but in the end King Henry the Second both because it was a place of refuge for seditious Rebels and for that the Scots and the Saint Lizes had oftentimes raised quarrels and contention about it to cut off all occasions of strife laid it even with the ground when as hee provoked with their unreasonable variance swore an oath that neither they of Saint Lizes nor the Scottishmen should quarrell any more for it From these Castle hils where there is a goodly prospect a great way off a man may behold below a medow which they call Portsholme environed round about with the River Ouse the same very exceeding large and of all others that the Sunne ever shone upon most fresh and beautifull whereof in the Spring time this may be truly said Ver pingit vario gemmantia prata colore The pleasant Spring faire flowers doe yeeld Of divers colours in this field With such a delectable variety of gaye colours it pleaseth and contenteth the eye On the hither banke over against Huntingdon standeth the mother as it were thereof from whence it had his Originall called in Domesday booke Godmundcester and at this day Good-man-chester for Gormonchester A very great country Towne and of as great name for tillage situate in an open ground of a light mould and bending to the Sun Neither is there a Towne againe in all England that hath more stout and lusty husbandmen or more ploughs agoing For they make their boast that they have in former time received the Kings of England as they passed in their progresse this way with nine score ploughs brought forth in a rusticall kind
with his streame at Buldewas commonly Bildas there flourished a faire Abbay the Sepulture in times past of the noble Family of the Burnels Patrons thereof Higher into the Country there is a Mansion or Baiting Towne named Watling street of the situation upon the foresaid Rode way or street And hard by it are seene the Reliques of Castle Dalaley which after that Richard Earle of Arundell was attainted King Richard the Second by authority of the Parliament annexed to the Principality of Chester which hee had then erected And not farre from the foote of the foresaid Wreken in an hollow Valley by that high street before mentioned Oken-yate a little Village well knowne for the plentifull delfe there of pit-cole lieth so beneath and just at the same distance as Antonine placeth VSOCONA both from URICONIUM and also from PENNOCRUCIUM that no man need to doubt but that this Oken-yate was that USOCONA Neither doth the name it selfe gainesay it for this word Ys which in the British tongue signifieth Lowe may seeme added for to note the low situation thereof On the other side beneath this Hill appeareth Charleton Castle in ancient times belonging to the Charletons Lords of Powis and more Eastward next of all unto Staffordshire Tong-Castle called in old time Toang which the Vernons not long since repaired as also the College within the Towne which the Pembridges as I have read first founded Neither have the Inhabitants any thing heere more worth shewing than a Bell for the bignesse thereof very famous in all those parts adjoyning Hard to this lieth Albrighton which in the Raigne of King Edward the First was the seat of Sir Raulph de Pichford but now of the Talbotts branched from the Family of the Earles of Shrewesbury But above Tong was Lilleshul Abbay in a woodland Country founded by the family of Beaumeis whose heire was marryed into the house of De La Zouch But seeing there is little left but ruines I will leave it and proceed forward Beyond the river Terne on the brinke thereof standeth Draiton where in the civill warres between the houses of Lancaster and Yorke a field was fought that cost many a Gentleman of Cheshire his life For they although the battaile was given up almost on even hand when they could not agree among themselves but tooke part with both sides were slaine by heapes and numbers on either side Beneath this Draiton and nere enough to Terne lieth Hodnet wherein dwelt sometimes Gentlemen of the same name from whom hereditarily it is come by the Ludlows unto the Vernons It was held in times past of the Honour of Mont-Gomery by service to bee Seneschall or Steward of the same Honour After this Terne having passed haâ—d by certaine little rurall Townes taketh in unto him the Riveret Roden and when hee hath gone a few miles further neere unto Uriconium of which I spake even now falleth into the Severn Upon this Roden whiles hee is but new come from his spring head standeth Wem where are to be seene the tokens of a Castle long since begun there to be built This was the Barony after the first entry of the Normans of William Pantulph from whose Posterity it came at length to the Butlers and from them by the Ferrars of Ousley and the Barons of Greystock unto the Barons D'acre of Gillesland Within a little of this upon an high hill well wooded or upon a cliffe rather which sometime was called Radcliffe stood a Castle mounted aloft called of the reddish stone Red-Castle and in the Normans language Castle Rous the seat in old time of the Audleies through the liberall bounty of Lady Maude Le Strange But now there remaineth no more but desolate walles which yet make a faire shew Scarce a mile from hence lyeth all along the dead carcasse as it were of a small City now well neere consumed But the peeces of Romane money and those brickes which the Romans used in building there found doe testifie the antiquity and founders thereof The neighbour Inhabitants use to call it Bery as one would say Burgh and they report that it was a most famous place in King Arthurs daies as the common sort ascribe whatsoever is ancient and strange to King Arthurs glory Then upon the same River Morton Corbet anciently an house of the Family of Turet afterward a Castle of the Corbets sheweth it selfe where within our remembrance Robert Corbet carryed away with the affectionate delight of Architecture began to build in a barraine place a most gorgeous and stately house after the Italians modell But death prevented him so that he left the new worke unfinished and the old Castle defaced These Corbets are of ancient Nobility in this Shire and held Lordships by service of Roger Montgomery Earle of this County about the comming in of the Normans for Roger the son of Corbet held Huelebec Hundeslit Acton Fern-leg c. Robert the sonne of Corbet held land in Ulestanton Rotlinghop Branten and Udecot And in later ages this family farre and fairely propagated received encrease both of revenew and great alliance by the marriage of an heire of Hopton More Southward standeth Arcoll the habitation of the Newports knights of great worship descended from the Barons Grey of Codnor and the Lords of Mothwy and neere unto it is Hagmond Abbay which the Lords Fitz Alanes if they did not found yet they most especially endowed Not much lower upon Severn standeth most pleasantly the famousest City for so it was called in Domesday booke of this Shire risen by the ruine of Old Uriconium which wee at this day call Shrewsbury and Shrowsbury having mollified the name whereas our Ancestours called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that it was anciently a very thicket of shrobs upon an hill In which sense both the Greekes tearmed their Bessa and our Welsh Britans named this also Pengwerne that is The high plot planted with Alders and a Palace so named continued heere a long time But whence it is that it is called now in the British tongue Ymwithig and by the Normans Scropesbery Sloppesbery and Salop and in the Latin tongue Salopia I am altogether ignorant unlesse it should bee the ancient name Scobbes-beng diversely distorted and dis-jointed Yet some skilfull in the British tongue thinke verily it is called Ymwithig as one would say Placentia or Plaisance of a British word Mewithau and that their Poets the Bardi so named it because of all others it best pleased the Princes of Wales in times past It is seated upon an Hill of a reddish earth and Severn having two very faire Bridges upon it gathering himselfe in manner round in forme of a circle so compasseth it that were it not for a small banke of firme land it might goe for an Island And thence it is that Leland the Antiquarian Poet wrote thus Edita Penguerni latè fastigia splendent Urbs sita lunatâ— veluti
in old time called Guarthenion as Ninnius restifieth who wrote that the said wicked Vortigern when he was plainely and sharply reprooved by that godly Saint German did not onely not turne from his lewd and licentious life to the worship and service of God but also let flie slanderous speeches against that most holy man Wherefore Vortimer the sonne of Vortigern as Ninnius saith for the slander which his Father had raised of Saint German decreed that he should have the land as his owne for ever wherein he had suffered so reprochfull an abuse whereupon and to the ened that Saint German might be had in memory it was called Guarthenion which signifieth in English A slander justly retorted The Mortimers descended from the Niece of Gonora Wife of Richard the First Duke of Normandie were the first Normans that having discomfited the English Saxon Edricke Sylvaticus that is The wild wonne a great part of this little Country to themselves And after they had a long time been eminent above all others in these parts at length King Edward the Third about the yeere of Salvation 1328. Created Roger Mortimer Lord of Wigmore Earle of this Welsh limit or according to the common speech Earle of March who soone after was sentenced to death because he had insulted upon the Common-wealth favoured the Scots to the prejudice of England conversed over familiarly with the â—ings mother and contrived the destruction and death of King Edward the Second the Kings Father He by his Wife Joan Jenevell who brought him rich revenewes as well in Ireland as in England had Edmund his Sonne who felt the smart of his Fathers wickednesse and lost both patrimonie and title of Earle Howbeit his Sonne Roger was fully restored recovered the title of Earle of March and was chosen a fellow of the order of the Garter at the first institution thereof This Roger begat of Philip Montacute Edmund Earle of March and he tooke to Wife Philip the only daughter of Leonell Duke of Clarence the third sonne of King Edward the Third whereby came unto him the Earldome of Vlster in Ireland and the Lordship of Clare After he had ended his life in Ireland where he governed with great commendation his sonne Roger succeeded being both Earle of March and Vlster whom King Richard the Second declared heire apparent and his successour to the Crowne as being in right of his Mother the next and undoubted heire But he dying before king Richard left issue Edmund and Anne Edmund in regard of his Royall bloud and right to the Crowne stood greatly suspected to Henrie the Fourth who had usurped the kingdome and by him was first exposed unto dangers in so much as he was taken by Owen Glendour a Rebell and afterward whereas the Percies purposed to advance his right he was conveyed into Ireland kept almost twenty yeeres prisoner in the Castle of Trim suffering all miseries incident to Princes of the bloud while they lie open to every suspition and there through extreame griefe ended his daies leaving his sister Anne his heire She was married to Richard Earle of Cambridge in whose right his heires and posterity were Earles of March and made claime to the kingdome which in the end also they obtained as wee will shew in another place In which respect King Edward the Fourth created his eldest Sonne being Prince of Wales Duke of Cornwall c. Earle of March also for a further augmentation of his Honour As for the title of Rad-nor no man ever bare it to my knowledge In this are Parishes 52. BRECKNOC Comitaus pars Osim SILVRVM BRECHNOCK-SHIRE BEneath Radnor-shire Southward lyeth BRECHNOCK-SHIRE in the British Brechineau so named as the Welshmen relate of a Prince named Brechanius whom they report to have had a great and an holy Offspring to wit twenty foure Daughters all Saints Farre greater this is than Radnor-shire but thicker set with high Hilles yet are the valleies fruitfull every where On the East side it is bounded with Hereford-shire On the South with Monmoâ—th and Glamorgan-shires ond on the West with Caermarden-shire But seeing there is nothing memorable or materiall to the description of this small Province which is not set downe by the curious diligence of Giraldus Cambrensis who was an Archdeacon heereof above foure hundred yeeres since I thinke I may doe well for my selfe to hold my peace a while and to admit him with his stile into the fellowship of this labour Brecknocke saith hee in his Booke called Itinerarium Cambriae is a Country having sufficient store of Corne and if there bee any defect thereof it is plentifully supplied out of the fruitefulnesse of England bordering so neere upon it a Country likewise well stored with pastures and Woods with wilde Déere and heards of Cattaile having abundance beside of fresh water fish wherewith Vske on the one side and Wy on the other serveth it For both these Rivers are full of Salmons and Trouts but Wy of the twaine is the better affording the best kinde of them which they call Vmbras Enclosed it is on every side with high hilles unlesse it be on the North part In the West it hath the mountaines of Canterbochan On the South-side likewise the Southern mountaines the chiefe whereof is called Cadier Arthur that is Arthurs chaire of the two toppes of the same for it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is shaped with two capes resembling the forme of a Chaire And for that the Chaire standeth very high and upon a steepe downefall by a common tearme it was assigned to Arthur the greatest and mightiest King of the Britans In the very pitch and top of this hill there walmeth forth a spring of water And this fountaine in manner of a Well is deepe but foure square having no brooke or Riveret issuing from it yet are there Trouts found therein And therefore having these barres on the South side the aire is the colder defendeth the Country from the excessive heat of the Sunne and by a certaine naturall wholsomnesse of the aire maketh it most temperate But on the East side the mountaines of Talgar and Ewias doe as it were foresense it On the North side as he said it is more open and plaine namely where the River Wy severeth it from Radnor-shire by which stand two Townes well knowne for their antiquity Buelth and Hay Buelth is pleasantly situate with Woods about it fortified also with a Castle but of a later building by the Breoses and Mortimers when as Rhese ap Gruffin had rased the ancient Castle Now the Mercate much resorted unto maketh it more famous thereabout but in times past it seemeth to have beene for the owne worth of great name because Ptolomee observed the position therof according to the Longitude and Latitude who called it BULLEUM Silurum Of this towne the country lying round about it being rough and full of hils is named Buelth wherein when as the Saxons were
Penbroke by vertue of King Edward the Third his Brieffe The Copie whereof I thinke good to set downe heere that wee may see what was the right by heires generall in these honorary Titles Rex omnibus ad quos c. salutem The King to all unto whom c. Greeting Know yee that the good presage of circumspection and vertue which wee have conceived by the towardly youth and happy beginnings of our most welbeloved cozin Laurence Hastings induce us worthily to countenance him with our especiall grace and favour in those things which concerne the due preservation and maintenance of his honour Whereas therefore the inheritance of Aimar of Valence sometime Earle of Penbroke as hee was stiled deceased long since without heire begotten of his body hath beene devolved unto his sisters proportionably to be divided among them and their heires because we know for certaine that the foresaid Laurence who succeedeth the said Aimar in part of the inheritance is descended from the elder sister of Aimar aforesaid and so by the avouching of the learned with whom wee consulted about this matter the prerogative both of name and honour is due unto him We deeme it just and due that the same Laurence claiming his Title from the elder sister assume and have the name of Earle of Penbroke which the said Aimar had whiles he lived Which verily we as much as lyeth in us confirme ratifie and also approve unto him willing and granting that the said Laurence have and hold the prerogative and honour of Earle Palatine in those lands which hee holdeth of the said Aimars inheritance so fully and after the same manner as the same Aimar had and held them at the time of his death In witnesse the King at Mont-Martin the thirteenth day of October and in the thirteenth of our Raigne After Laurence succeeded his sonne John who being taken prisoner by the Spaniards in a battaile at sea and in the end ransomed died in France in the yeere 1375. After him followed his sonne John who in a running at Tilt at Woodstocke was slaine by Sir Iohn Saint Iohn casually in the yeere 1391. And it was observed that for five generations together in this Family I know not by what destiny the father never saw his sonne Now for default of his issue there fell very many possessions and faire revenewes into the Kings hands as our Lawyers use to speake and the Castle of Penbroke was granted unto Francis At-Court a Courtier in especiall great favour who thereupon was commonly called Lord of Pembroke Not long after Humfrey sonne to King Henry the Fourth before he was Duke of Glocester received this title of his brother King Henry the Fifth and before his death King Henry the Sixth granted the same in reversion a thing not before heard of to William de la Pole Earle of Suffolke after whose downefall the said King when hee had enabled Edmund of Hadham and Iasper of Hatfield the sonnes of Queene Katharin his mother to bee his lawfull halfe brethren created Iasper Earle of Penbroke and Edmund Earle of Richmond with preheminence to take place above all Earles For Kings have absolute authority in dispensing honours But King Edward the Fourth depriving Iasper of all his honours by attaindour and forfeiture gave the Title of Pembroke to Sir William Herbert for his good service against Iasper in Wales but hee shortly after lost his life at the battaile of Banbury Then succeeded his sonne bearing the same name whom King Edward the Fourth when hee had recovered the Kingdome invested in the Earledome of Huntingdon and bestowed the Title of Penbroke being surrendred upon his eldest sonne and heire Edward Prince of Wales A long time after King Henry the Eighth invested Anne Bollen to whom he was affianced Marchionesse of Pembroke with a mantle and Coronet in regard both of her Nobility and also her vertues for so runne the words of the Patent At length king Edward the Sixth adorned Sir William Herbert Lord of Caerdiffe with the Title of Earle of Penbroke after whom succeeded his sonne Henry who was Lord President of Wales under Queene Elizabeth And now his sonne William richly accomplished with all laudable endowments of body and minde enjoyeth the same Title This Family of the Herberts in these parts of Wales is honourable and of great antiquity As lineally propagated from Henry Fitz Herbert Chamberlaine to king Henry the First who married the said kings Paramor the mother of Reginald Earle of Cornwall as I was first enformed by Robert Glover a man passing skilfull in the study of Genealogies by whose untimely death that knowledge hath sustained a great losse There are in this Shire Parishes 145. CARDIGAN-SHIRE FRom Saint Davids Promontory the shore being driven backe aslope Eastward letteth in the Sea within a vast and crooked Bay upon which lyeth the third Region of the Dimetae in English called CARDIGAN-SHIRE in British Sire Aber-Tivi by old Latine Writers Ceretica if any man thinke of King Caratacus this may seeme a conjecture proceeding out of his owne braine and not grounded upon any certaine authority and yet wee reade that the worthy Caratacus so worthily renowned was the Soveraigne Ruler in these parts A plaine and champion Country it is Westward where it lyeth to the Sea as also on the South side where the River Tivie separateth it from Caermarden-shire But in the East and North sides which bound upon Brechnock and Montgomery-shires there is a continued range or ridge of hils that shoot along yeelding goodly pasture ground under which there be spread sundry large Pooles That in ancient times this Shire as the rest also of Wales was not planted and garnished with Cities but with little cottages it may bee gathered by that speech of their Prince Caratacus who being taken Prisoner when he had throughly viewed the glorious magnificence of Rome What meane you saith he when yee have these and such like stately buildings of your owne to covet our small cottages Howbeit the places heere of most Antiquity let us breifly view over The River Tivie which Ptolomee calleth TUEROBIUS but corruptly in stead of Dwr-Tivius that is The River Tivie issueth out of the Poole Lin-Tivy beneath the hils whereof I spake before first cumbred as it were with stones in the way and rumbling with a great noise without any chanell and so passeth through a very stony tract neere unto which at Rosse the Mountainers keepe the greatest Faire for cattaile in all those parts untill it come to Strat-fleur a Monastery long since of the Cluniack Monkes compassed about with hilles From thence being received within a chanell it runneth downe by Tregaron and Lhan-Devi-brevi built and so named in memoriall of David Bishop of Menevia where he in a frequent Synode refuted the Pelagian Heresie springing up againe in Britaine both by the holy Scriptures and also by a miracle while the earth whereon he stood as he preached arose
heads are sound and of a firme constitution their eye-sight continuing and never dimme and their age long lasting and very cheerefull The Vale it selfe with his greene meddowes yellow Corne-fields Villages and faire houses standing thicke and many beautifull Churches giveth wonderfull great contentment to such as behold it from above The river Cluid encreased with beckes and brookes resorting unto it from the hils on each side doth from the very spring-head part it in twaine running through the midst of it whence in ancient time it was named Strat Cluid For Marianus maketh mention of a King of the Strat-Clud of the Welsh and at this day it is commonly called Diffryn Cluid that is The Vale of Cluid wherein as some have recorded certaine Britans which came out of Scotland after they had driven forth the English erected a petty Kingdome On the East banke of Cluid in the South part of the vale standeth Ruthin in Latin writers Ruthunia in British Ruthun the greatest mercat towne in all the Vale full of Inhabitants and well replenished with buildings famous also not long since by reason of a large and very faire Castle able to receive and entertaine a great houshold Which with the Towne Reginald Grey to whom King Edward the First granted it and Roger Grey built having obtained licence of the King the Bishop of Saint Asaph and the Parson of the Church of Lhan-Ruth in whose Parish the place is sited Unto him in recompense for his part of the good service performed against the Welsh King Edward the First had given in manner the whole Vale and it was the seat of his heires men of great honour and at length stiled with the Title of Earle of Kent untill that Richard Grey Earle of Kent and Lord of Ruthin having no issue nor care of his brother Henry passed away for a summe of money this his ancient inheritance unto King Henry the Seventh But of late daies the bounteous magnificence of Queene Elizabeth bestowed it upon Ambrose Dudley Earle of Warwicke together with rich revenewes in the Vale. When you ascend out of the vale Eastward you come to Yale a little hilly country and in comparison of the Regions beneath and round about it passing high so that no river from elsewhere commeth into it and it sendeth forth some from it By reason of this high situation it is bleake as exposed to the windes on all sides Whether it tooke that name of the riveret Alen which rising first in it undermineth the ground and once or twice hideth himselfe I know not The Mountaines are full of Neat sheepe and Goates the vallies in some plenteous enough of Corne especially East on this side of Alen. But the more Westerly part is not so fruitfull and in some places is a very heath and altogether barraine Neither hath it any thing memorable save onely a little Abbay now wholly decaied but standing most richly and pleasantly in a Vale which among the woody hilles cutteth it selfe overthwart in manner of a crosse whereupon it was called in Latine Vallis Crucis that is The Vale of the Crosse and in British Lhane-Gwest From hence more Eastward the Territory called in Welsh Mailor Gymraig that is Welsh Mailor in English Bromfield reacheth as farre as to the river Dee A small Territory but very rich and pleasant plentifull withall of Lead especially neere unto Moinglath a little Towne which tooke the name of Mines Heere is Wrexham to be seene in the Saxons tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much spoken of for a passing faire towre Steeple that the Church hath and the musicall Organs that bee therein And neere unto it is Leonis Castrum happily so called of the twenty Legion denominated Victrix which a little higher on the other banke of Dee lay garrisoned now it goeth commonly under the name of Holt and is thought to have beene re-edified of late by Sir William Stanley and long since by John Earle of Warren who being a Guardian of trust unto Madock a Welsh Lord conveighed falsly from his Ward this Lordship together with Yale unto himselfe But from the Earles of Warren it came unto the Fitz-Alans Earles of Arundell and from them to Sir William Beauchamp Baron of Abergevenney and afterward to Sir William Stanley Chamberlaine to King Henry the Seventh who contesting with his Soveraigne about his good services when hee was honourably recompensed lost his head forgetting that Soveraignes must not bee beholding to Subjects howsoever Subjects fancy their owne good services Beneath Bromfield Southward lyeth Chirke in Welsh Gwain being also very hilly but well knowne in elder ages for two Castles Chirke which gave it the name built by Roger Mortimer and Castle Dinas Bran situate in the hanging of a mighty high hill pointed in the top where of note there remaineth nothing but the very ruines The common sort affirme that Brennius the Generall of the Galles both built and so named it others interpret the name to this sense The Castle of the Kings Palace For Bren in British signifieth a King whence perhaps that most puissant King of Gaules and Britans both was by way of excellency called Brennus But others againe draw this name from the high situation upon an hill which the Britans tearme Bren and in mine opinion this their conjecture carryeth with it more probability In the time of King Henry the Third it was the mansion place of Gruffith Ap Madoc who when he tooke part with the English against the Welsh was wont heere to make his abode but after his death Roger Mortimer who had the charge and tuition of his sonne Lhewellin like as Iohn Earle of Warren of whom I spake seized Bromfield so hee seized also this Chirck into his possession When the State of the Welsh by reason of their owne civill dissensions and the invasions of English now ready to ruine could not well subsist the Earles of Chester and of Warren the Mortimers Lacy and the Greies that I spake of first of all the Normans brought this little Country of Denbigh by little and little into their owne hands and left possession thereof to their heires Neither was it made a Shire before King Henry the Eighth his daies at which time Radnor Brechnock and Montgomery by authority of the Parliament were ordained to be Shires In this Shire there be Parishes 57 FLINT Comitatus quem ORDOVICES Olim Incosuerunt FLINT-SHIRE RIGHT over against Denbigh-shire North-East-ward lyeth FLINT-SHIRE a small Territory more in length than in breadth hemmed in on the North side with the Irish Sea or rather with an Arme of the same on the East with Cheshire on other parts with Denbigh-shire It is no mountaine Country to speake of yet rising somewhat with the bearing up of Hilles and gently falleth and sloopeth it selfe downe with fruitfull fields which towards Dee an Arme of the Sea especially every first Yeere that they bee new broken uppe and sowne beare in
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
were slaine about foure hundred whose heads were sent to Dublin and wonders were afterwards seene there The dead as it were arose and fought one with another and cried out Fennokabo which was their signal And afterward about the feast of the translation of S. Thomas there were rigged and made ready eight ships and set out from Tredagh to Crag-fergus with victuals Which were by the Earle of Ulster much troubled for the delivery of William Burk who had been taken with the Scots and the Saturday following there were made friends and united at Dublin the Earle of Ulster and the Lord John Fitz-Thomas and many of the Nobles sworne and confederate to live and die for the maintenance of the peace of Ireland The same yeere newes came out of Connaght that O-Conghir slew many of the English to wit Lord Stephen of Excester Miles Cogan and many of the Barries and of the Lawlies about fourescore Item the weeke after Saint Laurence feast there arose in Connaght foure Irish Princes to make warre against the English against whom came the Lord William Burk the Lord Richard Bermingham the Lord of Anry with his retinue of the country and of the same Irish about eleven thousand fell upon the edge of the sword neere unto Anry which town was walled afterwards with the mony raised of armor and spoile gotten from the Irish because every one of the English that had double armours of the Irish gave the one halfe deale toward the walls of the towne Anry Slaine were there Fidelmic O-Conghir a petty King or Prince of Connaght O-Kelley and many other Princes or Potentates John Husee a butcher of Anry fought there who the same night at the request of his Lord of Anry stood among the dead to seek out and discover O-Kelley which O-Kelley with his Costrell or esquire rose out of their lurking holes and cried unto the foresaid man to wit Husee come with mee and I will make thee a great Lord in my countrey And Husee answered I will not goe with thee but thou shalt goe to my Lord Richard Bermingham Then said O-Kelley Thou hast but one servant with thee and I have a doughtie esquire therefore come with mee that thou maist bee safe unto whom his owne man also said Agree and goe away with O-Kelley that wee may be saved and inriched because they are stronger than we But the said John Husee first killed his owne servant and O-Kelley and his Esquire and cut off all their three heads and carried them to his Lord Richard Bermingham and that Bermingham gave unto the said John Hussee faire lands and dubbed him Knight as he well deserved The same yeere about the feast of S. Laurence came O-Hanlan to Dundalk for to destreine and the Dundalkers with their men killed a number Item on Monday next before the feast of the nativitie of Saint Mary came David O-Tothill with foure more and hid himselfe secretly all night long in Coleyn wood which the Dublinians and Sir William Comyn perceiving went forth and manfully pursued them for sixe leagues and slew of them about seventeen and wounded many to death Also there ran rumors to Dublin that the Lord Robert Brus King of Scotland entred Ireland to aid Edward Brus his brother and the Castle of Crag-fergus in Ulster was besieged by the foresaid Scots The Monasteries of St. Patrick of Dune and of Seball and many other houses as well of Monkes as of regular preaching Friers and Minors were spoiled in Ulster by the Scots Item the Lord William Burk leaving his son for an hostage in Scotland is set free The Church of Brught in Ulster being in manner full of folke of both sexes is burnt by the Scots and Irish of Ulster At the same time newes came from Crag-fergus that those which kept the Castle for default of victuals did eat hides and leather yea and eight Scots who before were taken prisoners great pity and griefe that no man relieved such And the Friday following newes were brought that Thomas the sonne of the Earle of Ulster was dead Also the Sunday following the feast of the nativitie of the blessed Virgin died Lord Iohn Fitz-Thomas at Laraghbrine neere unto Mayneth and he was buried at Kildare among the Friers Minors Of which Lord John Fitz-Thomas it is said that a little before his death he was created Earle of Kildare after whom succeeded his sonne and heire the Lord Thomas Fitz-Iohn a prudent and wise personage And afterwards newes came that the Castle of Crag-fergus was rendred to the Scots and granted there was to the keepers of it life and limbe Also upon the day of the exaltation of the holy Crosse Conghar and Mac-keley were slaine with five hundred of the Irish by the Lord William Burke and Richard Bermingham in Connaght Item on Munday before Holloughmas happened a great slaughter of the Scots in Ulster by John Loggan and Hugh Bisset to wit one hundred with double armour and two hundred with single armour The number of those men of armes that were slaine in all was three hundred beside footmen And afterward in the Vigill of Saint Edmund King there fell a great tempest of winde and raine which overthrew many houses and the Steeple of Saint Trinitie Church in Dublin and did much harme on land and sea Also in the Vigill of S. Nicholas Sir Alan Stewart taken prisoner in Ulster by John Loggan and Sir John Sandale was brought unto the Castle of Dublin In the same yeere newes arrived out of England that the Lord King of England and the Earle of Lancaster were at variance and that they were desirous one to surprize the other for which cause the whole land was in great trouble Item in the same yeere about the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle sent there were to the Court of Rome the Lord Hugh Despencer the Lord Bartholmew Baldesmere the Bishop of Worcester and the Bishop of Ely about important affaires of the Lord King of England for Scotland who returned into England about the feast of the purification of the blessed Virgin Mary Also after the said feast the Lacies came to Dublin and procured an inquisition to prove that the Scots by their meanes came not into Ireland which inquisition acquitted them Whereupon they had a charter of the Lord the King of peace and upon the Sacrament given unto them they tooke an oath to keepe the peace of the Lord King of England and to their power to destroy the Scots And afterwards even in the same yeere after the feast of Shrovetide the Scots came secretly as farre as to Slane with twenty thousand armed men and the armie of Ulster joyned with them who spoiled the whole countrey before them And after this on munday next before the feast of S. Matthias the Apostle the Earle of Ulster was taken in the Abbey of St. Mary by the Maior of the Citie of Dublin to wit Robert Notingham and brought to the castle of Dublin where
in part is newly erected Also the Lord Antony Lucy Justice of Ireland is put out of his office and returneth into England with his wife and children in the month of November In whose place also is set Iohn Lord Darcy Justice of Ireland and he entred Ireland the thirteenth day of February Item the English of the pale gave a great overthrow to Briene O-Brene and Mac-Karthy and slew many Irish in the parts of Munster Item there deceased John Decer a citizen of Dublin and lieth buried in the Church of the Friers Minors a man that did many good deeds Also a certain maladie named Mauses reigned all over Ireland as well in old men and women as in young and little ones Item the hostages abiding in the castle of Lymericke slew the Constable of the same castle and seized the castle into their owne hands but after that the castle was recovered by the citizens the same hostages were put to the sword and killed Likewise the hostages tooke the castle of Nenagh and when part of it was burnt recovered it was againe and the hostages were reserved Also one P ... of wheat about Christmas was commonly sold for 22. shillings and straight after Easter and so forward for twelve pence Item the towne of New-castle of Lions was burnt and sacked by the O-Tothiles MCCCXXXIII The L. John Darcy arrived Lord Justice of Ireland at Dublin Item O Conghirs lost a great bootie two thousand cowes and above by the Berminghams of Carbery Item the Lord John Darcy Justice of Ireland caused the Pas at Ethergovil in Offaly to be cut downe against O-Conghir Item the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmond is taken forth of the prison of Dublin after he had beene imprisoned one yeere and a halfe having gotten many mainprisers first even the greatest and noblest personages of the land to be bound for him in the forfeiture of life losse of all their goods if then the said Lord Moris attempted ought against the King and if those Nobles abovesaid presented not his person unto the King for his demerits Also William Burk Earle of Ulster betweene the New-towne and Cragfergus in Ulster was traiterously the more pitty slaine by his owne company in the twentieth yeere of his age and the sixth day of the month Iune Robert the sonne of Mauriton Maundevil was hee that gave him his first wound Upon the hearing of which rumours the Earles wife being then in the parts of Ulster with her daughter and heire presently embarked and went over into England After whose murdering John L. Darcy Lord chiefe Justice of Ireland to revenge the Earles death by advice of all the States of the land assembled in the said Parliament forthwith with his army took his journy and by ship arrived at Cragfergus upon the first day of July Now the people of the country rejoicing at the Lord Justice his comming and thereby taking heart unto them against the murderers of the said Earle of Ulster with one assent rose up to revenge the killing of him and in a pitched field obtained victory some they tooke prisoners others they put to the sword The things thus dispatched the said Justice with his said army went into Scotland leaving in his place M. Thomas Burgh Treasurer at that time of Ireland Item many Nobles of the land and the Earle of Ormond with their retinue and followers assembled together at the house of the Carmelite Friers in Dublin the 11. day of June and during this said Parliament whereas they were going out of the Court yard of the said Friers sodainly within the presse of the people Murchard or Moris the sonne of Nicolas O-Tothil was there murdered At whose sodaine killing all the Elders of the land fearing and supposing there was some treason were strucken with an extraordinary and strange affright and much troubled And he that killed the same Murchard stoutly escaped all their hands but neither the party himselfe nor his name they ever knew Also John Lord Darcy returned Justice of Ireland Item Sir Walter Bermingham sonne to the Lord William Bermingham is delivered out of the castle of Dublin in the month of February More the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmond by a fall off his Palfrey brake his legge Item it fell out to be a faire and dry summer in so much as at the feast of St. Peter advincula bread made of new wheat was eaten and a peck of wheat was sold for sixpence in Dublin Also Sir Reimund Archdekon Knight and many others of the same kinred were slaine in Leinster MCCCXXXVII In the Vigill of S. Kalixt Pope seven partridges and unknown it is what spirit moved them leaving the plaine field made way directly unto the City of Dublin and flying most swiftly over the mercate places setled on the top of the Brew-house belonging to the Canons of holy Trinity in Dublin To which sight some Citizens came running and wondered much at so strange a prodigie But the boyes of the city caught two of them alive a third they killed and the rest scared therewith mounting up higher took their swift flight and escaped into the fields over against them Now what this accident not heard of in the ages before did portend I leave to the judgement of those that are cunning and skilfull Also Sir John Charleton Knight and a Baron with his wife sonnes and daughters and his whole family came at the feast of S. Calixtus Pope as chiefe Justice of Ireland and of his sonnes and houshold some died Also Lord Thomas Charleton Bishop of Hereford brother in the whole blood unto the said Justice came the same day with his brother as Chancellour of Ireland together with Master John Rees Treasurer of Ireland and Doctor in the Decretals bringing with them many Welshmen to the number of two hundred and arrived in the haven of Dublin Also whiles John Charleton was Lord Justice and held a Parliament at Dublin Doctor David O-Hirraghey Archbishop of Ardmagh being called to the Parliament made his provision for housekeeping in the Monastery of S. Mary neere unto Dublin but because hee would have had his Crosier before him hee was impeached by the Archbishop and his Clerkes and permit him they would not Item the same yeere died the same David Archbishop of Ardmagh after whom succeeded Doctor Richard Fitz-Ralfe Deane of Lichfield a notable Clerke who was borne in the towne of Dundalke Item James Botiller the first Earle of Ormond departed this life the sixth day of January and lieth buried at Balygaveran MCCCXXXVIII Lord Iohn Charleton at the instigation of his whole brother to wit Thomas Bishop of Hereford is by the King discharged of his office and returneth with his whole houshold into England and Thomas Bishop of Hereford is by the King ordained Custos and Justice of Ireland Item Sir Eustace Pover and Sir John Pover his Unkle are by the said Justice brought out of Mounster to Dublin and committed to prison in the castle the
Trojane King Priams sonne was the founder of the French Nation Hence they collect that when our country-men heard once how the French-men their neighbours drew their line from the Trojanes they thought it a foule dishonour that those should out-goe them in nobilitie of Stocke whom they matched every way in manhood and proesse Therfore that Geffrey Ap Arthur of Monmouth foure hundred yeares ago was the first as they thinke that to gratifie our Britans produced unto them this Brutus descended from the gods by birth also a Trojane to bee the author of the British Nation And before that time verily not one man as they say made any mention at all of the said Brutus They adde thus much moreover that about the same time the Scotish writers falsely devised Scota the Egyptian Pharaoes daughter to bee the Foundresse of their nation Then also it was that some misspending their wit and time yea and offring violent abuse unto the truth forged out of their owne braines for the Irish their Hiberus for the Danes their Danus for the Brabanders their Brabo for the Goths their Gothus and for the Saxons their Saxo as it were the Stock-fathers of the said nations But seeing that in this our age which hath escaped out of those darke mists of fatall ignorance the French have renounced their Francio as a counterfeit Progenitor Whereas the Frenchmen quoth Turnibus a right learned man stand highly upon their descent from the Trojanes they doe it in emulation of the Romans whom they seeing to beare themselves proud of that Pedigree and noble stocke would needs take unto themselves also the like reputation And for that the Scots such as be of the wiser sort have cast off their Scota and truth it selfe hath chased away Hiberus Danus Brabo and the rest of these counterfeit Demi-gods and Worthies of the same stampe Why the Britans should so much sticke unto their Brutus as the name-giver of their Island and to the Trojane originall they greatly wonder as who would say before the destruction of Troy which happened in the thousand yeare or there about after Noahs floud there had beene no Britaines heere and as if there had not lived many valorous men before Agamemnon Furthermore they avouch that very many out of the grave Senate of great Clerks by name Boccace Vives Hadr. Jâ—nius Polydore Buchanan Vigneier Genebrard Molinaeus Bodine and other men of deepe judgement agree joyntly in one verdict and denie that ever there was any such in the world as this Brutus also that learned men of our owne country as many acknowledge him not but reject him as a meere counterfet Among whom they produce first John of Weathamsted Abbat of S. Albanes a most judicious man who in his Granarie wrote of this point long since in this manner According to other histories which in the judgment of some are of more credit the whole Discourse of this Brutus is rather Poeticall than historicall and for divers reasons built upon opinion more than truth indeede First because their is no where mention made in the Roman stories either of killing the father or of the said birth or yet of putting away the sonne Secondly for that after sundry authors Ascanius begat no such sonne who had for his proper name Sylvius for according unto them he begat but one onely sonne and that was Iulus from whom the house of Iulii afterwards tooke their beginning c. And thirdly Sylvius Posthumus whom perhaps Geffrey meaneth was the sonne of Aeneas by his wife Lavinia and hee begetting his sonne Aeneas in the eight and thirtieeh yeare of his reigne ended the course of his life by naturall death The Kingdome therefore now called England was not heeretofore as many will have it named Britaine of Brutus the sonne of Sylvius Wherefore it is in their opinion a vaine peice of worke and ridiculous enough to challenge noble bloud and yet to want a probable ground of their challenge For it is not manhood only that ennobleth a nation the mind it is also with perfect understanding and nothing else that gaineth gentilitie to a man And therefore Seneca writeth thus in his Epistles out of Plato That there is no King but hee came from slaves and no slave but hee descended of Kings Wherefore to conclude let this suffice the Britaines from the beginning of their Nobilitie that they bee couragious and valiant in fight that they subdue their enemies on every side and that they utterly refuse the yoke of servitude In a second rancke they place William of Newborough a writer of much greater authoritie who too too sharply charged Geffrey the Compiler of the British history for his untruth so soone as ever it came forth in these words A certaine writer quoth he in these our daies hath risen up who deviseth foolish fictions and tales of the Britaines and in a vaine humour of his owne extolleth them farre above the valorous Macedonians and Romans both he hath to name Geffrey and is surnamed Arthurius for that the tales of Arthur taken out of the Britaines old fables and augmented by inventions of his owne with a new colour of Latine speech laid over them hee hath invested into the goodly title of an Historie who also hath adventured farther and divulged under the name of authentike prophesies grounded upon an undoubted truth the deceitfull conjectures and foredeemings of one Merline whereunto hee added verily a great deale of his owne whiles hee did the same into Latine And a little after Moreover in his booke which he entituleth The Britans Historie how malapertly and shamelesly hee doth in manner nothing but lie there is no man that readeth the said booke can doubt unlesse hee have no knowledge at all of ancient histories For hee that hath not learned the truth of things indeede admitteth without discretion and judgement the vanitie of fables I forbeare to speake what great matter thaâ— fellow hath forged of the Britans acts before the Empire and comming in of Julius Caesar or else being by others invented hath put them downe as authentike In somuch as Giraldus Cambrensis who both lived and wrote at the same time made no doubt to terme it The fabulous story of Geffrey Others there bee who in this narration of Brutus laugh at the foolish Topographie set downe by this Geffrey as also how falsly hee hath produced Homer as a witnesse yea and they would perswade us that it is wholly patched up of untunable discords and jarring absurdities They note besides that his writings together with his Merlins prophesies are among other books prohibited forbidden by the church of Rome to be published Some againe doe observe thus much how these thaâ— most of all admire Brutus are very doubtfull and waver to and fro about their 〈◊〉 He say they that taketh upon him the name and person of Gildas and 〈…〉 briefe glosâ—es to Ninius deviseth first that this Brutus was a Consul of Rome then that hee was
time as hee served in Britaine under Aurelian tooke to wife Helena daughter of Coelus or Coelius a British Prince on whom he begat that noble Constantine the Great in Britaine For so together with that great Historiographer Baronius the common opinion of all other writers with one consent beareth witnesse unlesse it be one or two Greeke authors of late time and those dissenting one from the other and a right learned man grounding upon a corrupt place of Iul. Firmicus Howbeit compelled he was by Maximian to put her away for to mary Theodora his daughter This is that Helena which in antike Inscription is called VENERABILIS and PIISSIMA AVGVSTA and for Christian piety for clensing Ierusalem of Idols for building a goodly Church in the place where our Lord suffered and for finding the Saving Crosse of Christ is so highly commended of Ecclesiasticall writers And yet both Iewes and Gentiles termed her by way of ignominy and reproach Stabularia because shee a most godly Princesse sought out the crib or manger wherein Christ was borne and in the place where stood that hostelry founded a Church Hereupon S. Ambrose They say that this Lady was at first an Inholder or Hostesse c. Well this good hostesse Helena hastned to Ierusalem and sought out the place of our Lords passion and made so diligent search for the Lords crib This good hostesse was not ignorant of that host which cured the wayfaring mans hurts that was wounded by theeves This good hostesse chose to be reputed a dung-farmer that she might thereby gâ—ine Christ. And verily no lesse praise and commendation goeth of her husband Constantius for his piety and moderation A man who having utterly rejected the superstition of the ungodly in worshipping divers gods willingly of himselfe acknowledged one God the Ruler of all things Whereupon to try the faith and beleefe in God of his owne Courtiers hee put it to their free choice either to sacrifice unto those gods and so to stay with him or els to refuse and depart But those that would depart rather than renounce and forsake their faith to God hee kept with him still casting off all the rest who he supposed would prove disloiall unto him seeing they had abandoned their beleefe in the true God This most noble and worthy Emperor in his last British expedition against the Caledonians and the Picts died at Yorke leaving behind him his sonne Constantine Emperor his successor and Caesar elect Some few daies before the death of Constantius his sonne Constantius rode from Rome to Yorke on post horses and the rest which were kept at the charges of the State hee maimed and lamed all the way as hee went because no man should pursue him and there he received his fathers last breath Whereupon an ancient Orator spake thus unto him Thou entredst this sacred place not as a competitor of the Empire but as heire apparant and ordained already and forthwith that fathers house of thine saw thee the lawfull successor For there was no doubt but that the inheritance duly belonged unto him whom the destinies had ordained the first begotten sonne unto the Emperor Yet for all that constrained in maner by the souldiers and especially by the meanes of Erocus King of the Almanes who by way of aid accompanied him advanced hee was to the Imperiall dignity The souldiers regarding rather the publike good of the common-wealth than following his affections invested him in the purple roabe weeping and setting spurs to his horse because hee would avoid the endeavor of the armie that called so instantly upon him c but the felicity of the common-wealth overcame his modesty And hereof it is that the Panegyrist crieth out in these words O fortunate Britaine and more happy now than all other lands that hast the first sight of Constantine Caesar And now Caesar at his very entrance having first pursued the reliques of that war which his father had begun against the Caledonians and other Picts and set upon those Britans more remote and the Inhabitants of the Ilands lying there the witnesses as one said of the Suns setting some of them hee subdued by force and armes others for you must thinke he aspired to Rome and higher matters by offering fees and stipends he allured and drew to be associates and there were besides of them whom of open enemies he made his friends and of old adversaries his very familiars Afterwards having vanquished the Frankners in Batavia and that with so great glory that he stamped certaine golden pieces of coine whereof I have seene one with the Image of a woman sitting under a Trophee and leaning with one hand upon a crossebow or a brake with this subscription FRANCIA and this writing about it GAVDIVM ROMANORVM Having also overthrowne the Barbarians in Germany won unto him the German and French Nations and levied souldiers out of Britaine France and Germany to the number in all of 90000. foot and 8000. horsemen hee departed into Italie overcame Maxentius who at Rome had challenged to himselfe the Empire and having conquered Italy and vanquished the Tyrant he restored unto the whole world the blessed gifts of secure libertie and as we find in the Inscription of an Antiquitie INSTINCTV DIVINITATIS MENTIS MAGNITVDINE CVM EXERCITV SVO TAM DE TYRANNO QVAM DE OMNI EIVS FACTIONE UNO TEMPORE IVSTIS REMP. ULTVS EST ARMIS that is By instinct of the divine power with great magnanimitie and the helpe of his owne armie at one time in the behalfe of the Common wealth he was by lawfull warre revenged as well of the Tyrant himselfe as of his whole faction Howbeit that he returned againe into Italy Eusebius implieth in these words Constantine quoth he passed over to the Britans enclosed on every side within the bankes of the Ocean whom when hee had overcome hee began to compasse in his mind other parts of the world to the end he might come in time to succour those that wanted helpe And in another place After he had furnished his armie with mild and modest instructions of pietie he invaded Britaine that he might likewise instruct those who dwell environed round about with the waves of the Ocean bounding the Suns setting as it were with his coasts And of Britan are these verses of Optatianus Porphyrius unto Constantine to be understood Omnis ab Arctois plaga finibus horrida Cauro Pacis amat cana comperta perennia jura Et tibi fida tuis semper bene militat armis Resque gerit virtute tuas populosque feroces Propellit ceditque lubens tibi debita rata Et tua victores sors accipit hinc tibi fortes Teque duce invictae sustollunt signa cohortes From Northern bounds the land throughout where bleak North-west winds blowen Lov 's lawes of peace right ancient and ever during knowen Prest alwaies in their loyaltie for service in thy right With valiant and
Poictou encountred them and were a barre that the Gothes possessed not themselves of all France For they sided with Anthemius the Roman Emperour against the Gothes so far forth that Aruandus was condemned for treason because in his letters sent unto the King of the Gothes he had given counsell to set upon the Britans dwelling over the river Loire and to divide France betweene the Gothes and Burgundians These Britans were a kind of people witty and subtile warlike tumultuous and in regard of their valour number and association stubborne in which termes Sidonius Apollinaris complaineth of them unto Riothimus his friend for so himselfe calleth him but Jornandes nameth him King of the Britans who afterward being sent for by Anthemius came with a power of 12. thousand men to aid the Romans but before that they joyned with them being with his owne forces vanquished in open field by the Gothes hee fled unto the Burgundians confederate with the Romans From that time the native Armoricans being by little and little subdued the name of the Britans in these parts where they were newly seated grew so great that generally all the Inhabitants there passed by little and little into the name of Britans like as this whole tract was called Britannia Armorica and of the Frankners Britannia Cismarina that is Britan on this side the sea and thereupon I. Scaliger versified thus Vicit Aremoricas animosa Britannia gentes Et dedit imposito nomina prisca jugo The nations Aremorican stout Britan overcame And with the yoke of servitude gave them her ancient name For they turned the edge of their weapons upon those their friends that gave them entertainement as appeareth evidently both by other testimonies and also by these words of Regalis Bishop of Vennes as touching himself and his We living saith he in captivitie under the Britans are subject to a grievous and heavie yoke Moreover in the times succeeding they couragiously maintained themselves and their estates First under petty Kings afterwards under Counts and Dukes against the French albeit as Glaber Rodolphus writeth Their only wealth was immunitie from paiments to the publique Treasurie and plentie of milke Also 500. yeares since William of Malmesbury wrote thus of them A kind of people they are needy and poore in their owne country otherwise also with foraine mony waged and purchasing a laborious and painfull life If they be well paid they refuse not so much as to serve in civill war one against another without all regard of right or kindred but according to the quantitie of mony readie with their service for what part soever you would have them BRITANS OF VVALES AND CORNWALES THe rest of the Britans who pitifully distressed in their own native countrey were put to seeke for their countrey were overlaied with so great calamities as no man is able sufficiently to expresse acccording to the nature of such horrible particulars as being not only molested grievously by the Saxons Picts Scots who made cruel war upon them far neere but also oppressed under the proud and intollerable rule of wicked tyrants in all places Now who those tyrants were and of what quality about the yeare of our Lord 500. have here in few words out of Gildas who then lived and was an eie witnesse Constantine a Tyrant among the Danmonij albeit he had sworne in expresse words before God and the companie of holy Saints that he would performe the office of a good Prince yet in two Churches under the sacred vesture of an Abbat flew two children of the bloud royall together with their Fosters two right valiant men and many yeares before having put away his lawfull wife was foulie defiled with a number of foule filthie adulteries Aurelius Conanus wallowing in the mire of Parricidies and adulteries hating the peace of his countrie is left alone as a tree withering in the open field whose father and brethren were with a wild youthfull and overweening phantasie carried away and by untimely death surprized Vortiporius tyrant of the Dimetae the ungratious sonne of a good father like to a Panther in manners so variably spotted with vices of divers sorts when his head was now waxen hoary and gray sitting in his throne full of craft and guile and the same defiled with Paricidies or murthers of his owne kinred and with adulteries beside cast off his owne wife and filthily abused her daughter unawares and unwitting yea and he tooke also her life away Cuneglasus in the Roman tongue Lanio fulvus that is the Lyon tawney Butcher a Beare sitting and riding upon many the driver of that chariot which holdeth the Beare a contemner of God an oppressor of the Clergie fighting against God with grievous sinnes and warring upon man with materiall armour and weapons turned away his wife provoked the Saints and holy men with manifold injuries proudly conceited of his owne wisedome and setting his hope in the uncertaintie of riches Maglocunus Dragon of the Isles the deposer of many Tyrants out of Kingdome and life both the most forward in all mischiefe for power and malicious wickednesse together greater then many more a large giver but a more prodigall and profuse sinner stronger in armes higher also than all the Potentates of Britaine as well in royall dominion as in the stature and lineaments of his person In his youthfull daies with sword and fire he brought to destruction his Vncle by the mothers side being then King together with many right hardy and redoubted servitours After that phantasie of a violent course of rule according to his desire was gone upon a remorse of conscience for his sinnes vowed to bee a professed Monke but soone after returning to his vomit breaking the said vow of Monkes profession he despised his first marriage and became enamoured upon the wife of his brothers sonne whiles he was living the said brothers sonne and his owne wife after hee had kept her for a certaine time hee murthered and then maried that brothers sonnes wife whom hee before had loved But I must leave the report of these things to History writers who hitherto have falsly set downe that these Tyrants succeeded one after another whereas in truth as we may perceive by Gildas who speaketh unto them severally and personally one by one they all at once and the very same time usurped tyranny in divers quarters of the Island And now to returne The residue of Britans remaining alive withdrew themselves into the westerne parts of the Island naturally fenced with mountaines and inlets of the sea to those parts I meane which now we call Wales and Cornwall The Inhabitants of the one the Saxons named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like as those in Gaule Galweales For Walsh with them signifieth strange and forraine whence also the Wallons in the low Countries and the Vallachians upon the river Dunow had their
how hard it was for a new Prince and an usurper to maintaine his royall place and dignitie without an opinion of pietie and vertue for to blot out that his offence given and to establish his Scepter did all he possibly could for the promoting of religion and preferment of Churchmen and to beautifie and adorne Monasteries and religious houses Edgar Aetheling Earle of Oxford and all the nobles he entertained with all love and favour the people he eased of theire tributes he gave bountifully a great largesse of mony to poore people and in one word with faire speech and affable language with mild hearing of causes and equitie in deciding the same he wonn to himselfe singular love and no lesse authoritie and reputation So soone as William Duke of Normandie was truly advertised of these newes he seemed to take the death of King Edward very heavily whiles in the meane time he was vexed at the heart that England which hee had in conceit and hope already swallowed and devoured was thus caught away out of his very chawes Forthwith therefore by advice of his counsell and friends he dispatcheth Embassadors to Harold with instructions to put him in mind of the promises and stipulation past but withall in his name to make claime to the Crowne Harold after some pause and deliberation upon the point returneth this answer As touching the promises of King Edward William was to understand that the Realme of England could not be given by promise neither ought he to bee tied unto the said promise seeing the kingdome was fallen unto him by election and not by right of Inheritance And as for his owne stipulation extorted and wrung it was from him then a prisoner by force and by guile in feare of perpetuall imprisonment to the hinderance of the English common-wealth and prejudice of the State and therefore void which neither ought hee if he could nor might if he would make good since it was done without the Kings privitie and consent of the people And a very hard and unreasonable demand it was of his that hee should renounce and surrender unto a Norman Prince a meere stranger and of forrein linage that kingdome wherein hee was invested with so great assent of all sorts With this answere William was not well pleased and he thought that Harold thereby sought starting holes for to hide his perjurie Others therefore he sent out of hand in Embassage about the same matter who should admonish him how religiously hee had bound himselfe by oath and that forsworne persons should be sure of finall perdition at Gods hands and reproachfull shame among men But when as now the daughter of William affianced unto Harold in the covenant the very strength and knot of the foresaid stipulation was by Gods appoinment taken away by death the Embassadours were with lesse courtesie entertained and received none other answere than before So that now by this time there was nothing like to follow but open warre Harold riggeth and prepareth his navie mâ—sters and presseth souldiers and placeth strong garrisons along the sea coasts in convenient places and provideth all things in readinesse which were thought needefull and meet for to beat backe the Normans forces Howbeit the first tempest of warre beside the expectation of all men arose from Tosto the brother in whole bloud of Harold He being a man of a proud hautie and fell heart ruled in great authority a good while over Northumberland but growing outragious in cruelty to his inferiors in pride towards his Soveraigne and in hatred to his brethren was outlawed by Edward the Confessor and so withdrew himselfe into France and now by the advice of Baldwine Earle of Flanders and perswasion of William Duke of Normandie as it seemeth probable For Tosto and William married two daughters of Baldwine Earle of Flanders beginneth to trouble his brother with open warre whom a long time he deadly hated From Flanders hee tooke sea with a fleet of 60. rovers-ships wasteth the Isle of Wight and annoyeth the sea-coast of Kent but terrified at the comming of the Kings navie hee set up saile and directing his course toward the more remote parts of England landeth in Lincolneshire and there harrieth the Countrey where Edwin and Morcar give him battell but beeing discomfited and put to flight into Scotland hee goes from thence to renew his forces and so to warre afresh Now were all mens minds held in suspense with the expectation of a twofold warre of the one side out of Scotland of the other out of Normandie and so much the more because at the feast of Easter there was seene about a sevennight together a blazing starre of an hideous and fearefull forme which turned mens minds already troubled and perplexed as it falleth out in a turbulent time to the forefeeling of some unluckie events But Harold carried an heedfull eie to all parts of his kingdome and the south coast hee fortified with garrisons Lesse feare hee had from Scotland and Tosto because Malcolme King of the Scots was more disquieted with civill dissensions Meane while William much busted in his mind about England casting about what course to take ever and anon communicated with his Captaines about the point whom hee saw cheerefull and full of forward hopes But all the difficulty was how to make money for defraying the charges of so great a warre For when in a publike assembly of all the states of Normandie it was propounded as touching a subsidie answere was made That in the former warre against the French their wealth was so much empaired that if a new warre should come upon them they were hardly able to hold and defend their owne That they were to looke rather unto the defence of their proper possessions than to invade the territories of others and this warre intended just though it were yet seemed it not so necessary but exceeding dangerous beside the Normans were not by their allegeance bound to military service in forain parts Neither could they by any meanes be brought to grant a levie of money although William Fitzosbern a man in high favour with the Duke and as gracious among the people endeavoured what he could to effect it yea and to drawe others by his owne example promised to set out fortie tall ships of his owne proper charges towards this warre Duke William then seeing he could not bring this about in a publike meeting goeth another way to worke The wealthiest men that were he sendeth for severally one by one to repaire unto him he speaks them faire and requireth them to contribute somewhat toward this warre They then as if they had strived avie who should helpe their Prince most promise largely and when that which they promised was presently registred in a booke there was a huge masse of money quickly raised and more than men would ever have thought These matters thus dispatched he craveth aid and helpe of the Princes his neighbours to wit the
by word of it Hengston downe well ywrought Is worth London deere ybought And it was an ordinarie place where every seven or eight yeere the Stannarie men of Cornwall and Denshire were wont in great frequencie to assemble together and to consult about their affaires At this hill in the yeere of savation DCCCXXXI the British Danmonij who calling the Danes to aid them of purpose to break into Devonshire that they might drive out the English from thence who alreadie possessed themselves of the countrey were pitiously defeated by King Egbert and slaine almost to the very last man Beneath it Tamar leaveth Halton the habitation of the Rouses anciently Lords of Little Modbery in Devonshire and running nigh unto Salt-Esse a prettie market Towne seated in the descent of an hill which hath a Major and certaine priviledges of their owne as I said erewhile it entertaineth the river Liver on which standeth that same Towne of Saint Germans whereof I spake before And now by this time spreading broader dischargeth it selfe into the Ocean making the haven which in the life of Saint Indractus is called Tamerworth after it hath severed Cornwall from Denshire For Athelstane the first English King that brought this countrey absolute under his dominion appointed this river to be the bound or limit between the Britans of Cornwal and his Englishmen after he had remooved the Britans out of Denshire as witnesseth William of Malmsburie who calleth it Tambra Whereupon Alexander Necham in his Praises of divine wisedome writeth thus Loegriae Tamaris divisor Cornubiaeque Indigenas ditat pinguibus Isiciis Tamar that Lhoegres doth divide from Cornwall in the west The neighbour-dwellers richly serves with Salmons of the best The place requireth here that I should say somewhat of the holy and devout virgin Ursula descended from hence as also of the eleven thousand British Virgins But such is the varietie of Writers whiles some report they suffered martyrdome under Gratian the Emperour about the yeare of our Lord CCCLXXXIII upon the coast of Germanie as they sailed to Armorica others by Attlia the Hun that scourge of God in the yeare CCCCL at Coline upon Rhene as they returned from Rome that with some it hath brought the truth of the History into suspition of a vaine fable And as touching that Constantine whom Gildas termeth a tyrannous whelpe of the uncleane Danmonian Lionesse as also of the Disforresting of all this country for before time it was reputed a Forrest let Historians speake for it is no part of my purpose As for the Earles none of British bloud are mentioned but onely Candorus called by others Cadocus who is accounted by late writers the last Earle of Cornwall of British race and as they which are skilfull in Heraldry have a tradition bare XV. Besaunts V. IIII. III. II. and I. in a shield Sable But of the Normans bloud the first Earle was Robert of Moriton halfe brother to William Conqueror by Herlotta their mother after whom succeeded William his sonne who when hee had sided with Robert of Normandie against Henry the First King of England being taken prisoner in battell lost both his libertie and his honours and at last turned Monke at Bermondsey Then Reginald a base sonne of Henrie the First by the daughter of Sir Robert Corber for that King plied getting children so lustfully as that hee was father of thirteene Bastards was placed in his roome This Reginald dying without issue male legitimate King Henry the Second having assigned unto his daughters certaine lands and Lordships reserved this Earledome to himselfe for the â—ehoore of his owne youngest sonne Iohn a child of nine yeares old upon whom his brother Richard the First conferred it afterwards with other Earledomes This Iohn afterward was crowned King of England and his second sonne Richard was by his brother King Henry the Third endowed with this honour and the Earledome of Poictou a Prince verily in those daies puissant in Gods service devout and religious in war right valiant for counsell sage and prudent who in Aquitaine fought battels with fortunate successe and shewed much valour and having made a voyage into the Holy Land enforced the Sarazens to make truce with him the Kingdome of Apulia offered unto him by the Pope he refused the troubles and tumults in England he often times composed and in the yeare of our Lord MCCLVIL by some of the Princes Electours of Germany was chosen King of the Romans and crowned at Aquisgrane whereupon as if he had made meanes thereto by money this verse was so riâ—e and currant every where Nummus ait pro me nubit Cornubia Romae For me my money saieth this Cornwall to Rome now wedded is For so well monied he was before that one who then lived hath put downe in writing that for ten yeares together hee might dispend one hundred markes a day But when as Germanie was all on a light fire with civil warres among competitors of the Empire he returned quickly into England where he departed this life and was interred in the famous Monastery of Hales which he had built a little after that his first begotten son Henry newly in his return from the Holy Land whiles he was at divine service devoutly occupied within a church at Viterbium in Italy was by Guy de Montfort son of Simon Montfort Earle of Leceister in revenge of his fathers death wickedly slaine Edmund therefore his second son succeeded in the Earledome of Cornwall who died without any lawfull issue and so his high and great estate of inheritance returned to King Edward the First as who was the next unto him in bloud and found as our Lawyers say his heire Whereas that Richard and Edmund his sonne Princes of the bloud Royall of England bare divers Armes from the Armes Royall of England to wit in a shield argent a Lyon rampant gules crowned or within a border sables Bezante I have with others oftentimes much marvelled at neither I assure you can I alleage any other reason but that they in this point imitated the house Royall of France for the manner of bearing Armes came from the French men unto us For the younger sonnes of the Kings of France even to the time wee now speake of bare other coats than the Kings themselves did as we may see in the family of Vermandois Dreux and Courtney and as Robert Duke of Burgundy brother to Henrie the First King of France tooke unto him the ancient shield of the Dukes of Burgundie so we may well thinke that this Richard having received the Earledome of Poictou from Henry the Third his brother assumed unto him that Lyon gules crowned which belonged to the Earles of Poictou before him as the French writers doe record and added thereto the border garnished with Besaunts out of the ancient coat of the Earles of Cornwall For so soone as the younger sonnes of the Kings of France began to beare the Armes of France with
was built by the Danes but I should rather judge that something was here erected by the Romans and afterwards rased by Saxons and Danes what time as Sueno the Dane ranging and roving this way spoiled and harried the countrey That it was at length reedified under King William the first we know assuredly by Domesday book seeing that it yeeldeth record as even now I noted of eight Hages or Houses destroyed for the Castle Yet William Gemeticensis makes no mention of this Castle when he writeth that William of Normandie having defeited Harold led his armie forthwith to this citie so he termeth it and after he had passed over the Tamis at the ford pitched his tents heere before hee came to London At which time Wigod an Englishman was Lord of Wallengford who had one onely daughter given in marriage to Robert D'Oyley of whom he begat Mawd his sole heire first wedded to Miles Crispin and after his death through the goodnesse and favour of K. Henrie the first married unto Brient called Fitz Count Who being brought up in warlike feates and taking part with Mawde the Empresse most manfully defended this Castle against King Stephen who had raised a fort just over against it at Craumesh and he made it good untill that peace so much wished of all England was concluded in this place and that most grievous dissention about the Crowne betweene K. Stephen and Henrie the Second ended For then the love of God tooke such place in the hearts of the said Brient and his wife that they cast of this fraile and transitorie world and devoted themselves in religious life unto Christ so was this Honour of Wallengford escheated into the Kings hand Which appeareth out of an old Inquisition in the Exchequer by these words To his most beloved Lords the King our soveraigne Lord his Iustices and Barons of the Exchequer the Constable of Wallengford sendeth greeting Know ye that I have made diligent enquiry by the Knights of my Bayliwicke according to a commandement of my Lord the King directed unto me by the Sheriffe and of the Inquisition thus made this is the summe Wigod of Wallengford held the honour of Wallengford in King Harolds time and afterwards in the daies of King William the First He had by his wife a certaine daughter whom he gave in marriage to Robert D'Oyly This Robert begat of her a daughter named Mawd who was his heire Miles Crispin espoused her and had with her the honour aforesaid of Wallengford After the decease of Miles our soveraigne Lord King Henrie the first bestowed the aforesaid Mawd upon Brient Fitz Count who both tooke themselves to a religious life and King Henrie the Second seized the honour into his hand c. Yet afterwards in the time of King Henrie the Third it belonged to the Earles of Chester and then to Richard King of the Romans and Earle of Cornwall who repaired it and unto his sonne Edmond who within the inner Court founded a Collegiate Chappell who dying without issue it fell againe to the Crowne and was annexed to the Dukedome of Cornwall since which time it hath by little and little decaied And verily about the time when that most mortall Plague which followed the conjunction of Saturne and Mars in Capricorne reigned hotely throughout all Europe in the yeare of our Lord 1348. This towne was so dispeopled by reason of continuall mortalitie there that whereas before time it was passing well Inhabited and had twelve Churches in it it can shew now no more than one or two But the cause of this desolation the Inhabitants lay rather upon the bridges of Abbindon and Dorchester whereby London portway was turned from thence From hence Southward the Tamis passeth most mildly betweene very rich and fertile fields on both sides by Moules-ford which K. Henrie the first gave unto Girald Fitz-Walter from whence the Noble family of the Carewes is descended To this house much lands honour and reputation accrewed in Ireland by descent and in England by matching in marriage with right noble families of the Mohuns Dinhams and others Not farre from hence is Aldworth where be certaine tombes and portraictures bigger than the ordinary proportion of men which thereupon the unlearned multitude keepes a wondering at as if they had been Giants whereas indeed they were but of certaine Knights of the Family de la Beche which heere had a Castle and is thought in the raigne of King Edward the Third to have beene extinguished for default of issue male And now at length Tamis meeteth with Kenet which River as I said ere-while watering the South part of this shire at his first entry when he hath left Wiltshire behind him runneth under Hungerford named in old time Ingleford Charnam-street a very small towne and seated in a moist place howbeit it hath given name and title to the honorable family of the Barons of Hungerford which was first raised to greatnesse by Walter Hungerford who under King Henrie the Fifth being Seneschall or Steward of the Kings house was for his warlike prowesse liberally rewarded by the said king and infeoffed in the Castle and Barony of Homet in Normandie To have and to hold unto him and his heires males by homage and service to find the Kings and his heires at the Castle of Roan one Launce with a Fox taile hanging downe thereat which pleasant conceit I thought not a misse to insert here among serious matters The same Walter in the raigne of Henrie the Sixth being high Treasurer of England and created withall Baron Hungerford as well by his singular wisedome as his marriage mith Katherine Peverell descended from the Moels and Courtneys mightily augmented his state His sonne Robert who wedded the daughter and heire of the Lord Botereaux enriched the same house verie much Sir Robert likewise his sonne who matched with Eleanor the daughter and heire of William Molines whereupon he was summoned among the Barons of the Realme by the name of Lord Molines and during the civill warre betweene the two houses of Lancaster and Yorke was beheaded at Newcastle advanced the name not a little His sonne Thomas slaine at Salisbury while his father was living left his onely daughter named Marie whom Edward Lord Hastings tooke to wife with a great and rich Inheritance But Walter brother to the said Thomas begat Edward Hungerford father of that Walter whom King Henrie the Eighth created Baron Hungerford of Heitesbury and condemned him afterwards for a crime not to be spoken of howbeit Queene Marie restored his children unto all his estate save onely the name and title of Barons Not farre from hence Southward is Widehay the seat for a long time of the Baron Saint Amand whose inheritance Gerard Braybrooke entred upon in right of his wife whose eldest Niece by his sonne Gerard named Elizabeth by her marriage brought the same unto William de Beauchamp who being summoned to
puissance about the river Garumna and laying siege to Tolose with fortunate successe terrified not onely those of Province as farre as to Rhosne and the Alpes but also by raising fortresses subduing nations he made the princes of Spaine and France to quake for feare as if he had beene ever more at the point to set upon them all I will also if it please you adjoyne heereto a word or two concerning the same King out of Giraldus Combrensis From the Pyrenean mountaines saith hee unto the Westerne bounds and furthest limits of the North Ocean This our Alexander of the West hath stretched forth his arme As farre therefore as nature in these our parts hath enlarged the land so farre hath hee marched with Victories If the bounds of his expeditions were sought for sooner would the globe of earth faile than they end For where there is a valiant and courageous minde howsoever earth and land faile victories cannot faile well may there bee wanting matter of triumph but triumphs will never bee wanting How great an addition to his glorious titles and triumphs was Ireland with how great valour and praise-worthy prowesse pearced he through the very secrets and hidden places of the Ocean But lo heere an old verse of his death which briefely in one word containeth fully both all this and also the renowne of his sonne King Richard the first Mira cano Sol occubuit nox nulla sequuta est A wonder great the Sunne was set and night there followed none For so farre was King Richard his sonne from bringing darknesse with him that with the beames of his victories atchieved in Cypres and Syria he made our countrey of England most famous and renowned through the world But these are things without our Element Let us returne againe from persons to places This Monastery wherein that noble King Henrie the first was buried is now converted to bee the Kings house which hath adjoyning unto it a very goodly stable stored to the full with princelike and most generous steeds But as touching this place listen also to the Poet describing the Tamis as he passeth heereby Hinc videt exiguam Chawsey properatque videre Redingum nitidum texendis nobile pannis Hoc docet Aelfredi nostri victricia signa Begscegi caedem calcata cadavera Dani Vtque superfuso maduerunt sanguine campi Principis hîc Zephiro Cauroque parentibus ort Cornipides crebris implent binnitibus auras Et gyros ducunt gressus glomerantque superbos Dum cupiunt nostri Martis servire lupatis Haeccine sed pietas heu dira piacula primum Neustrius Henricus situs hîc inglorius urna Nunc jacet erectus tumulum novus advena quaerit Frustra nam regi tenues invidit arenas Auri sacra fames Regum metuenda sepulchris From hence he little Chawsey seeth and hastneth for to see Faire Reading towne a place of name where Cloth's ywoven be This shewes our Aelfrids victorie what time Begsceg was slaine With other Danes whose carcasses lay trampled on the plaine And how the fields ydrenched were with bloud upon them shed Where as the Prince in Stable now hath standing many a steed Of noblest kind that neigh and snort into the aire a lowd Tracing the ring and keeping pace that stately is and prowd Whiles they desire to learne with all in our warres for to serve But where alas is piety Such cursed deeds deserve Purged to be by sacrifice A King of Normans race Henry the first enterred heere now turn'd out of his place An out cast lies dishonoured Who seekes his tombe shall misse For Covetise envied that King the small mould which was his See see how Princes monuments it ransacks where it is Scarce halfe a mile from Reading betwixt most greene and flowring medowes the Kenet is coupled with the Tamis who now runneth with a broader streame by a small village called Sunning which a man would mervaile to have beene the See of eight Bishops who had this shire Wiltshire for their Diocesse yet our Histories report as much the same afterwards by Herman was translated to Shirburne and in the end to Salisburie unto which Bishopricke this place still belongeth Heereby falleth Ladden a small water into the Tamis and not farre off standeth Laurents Waltham where are to be seene the foote foundations of an old fort and divers Romane coines often times digged up and next to it Billingsbere the inhabitation of Sir Henry Nevill issued from the Lords Abergevenny From Sunning the Tamis passeth by Bistleham now called short Bisham at first a Lordship of the Knights Templars then of the Montacutes and amongst them William the first Earle of Salisburie of his familie founded a Priory wherein some say hee was buried Certes his wife the daughter of the Lord Grandison was buried there and in the Inscription of her tombe it was specified that her father was descended out of Burgundie cosin-german to the Emperour of Constantinople the King of Hungary and Duke of Baveire and brought into England by Edmund Earle of Lancaster Now is the possession of Sir Edward Hoby Knight of me especially to be observed whose singular kindnesse toward me the often consideration thereof shall keepe so fresh that it shall never vanish out of my remembrance Tamis having now left Bisham behind it fetcheth it selfe with a compasse about to a little towne named in the former ages Southe-alington afterward Maiden-hith and at this day Maindenhead of the superstitious worshipping of I wote not what British Maidens head one of those eleven thousand Virgins who as they returned from Rome into their country with Vrsula their leader suffered as Martyrs at Colein in Germanie under that scourge of God Attila Neither is this towne of any antiquity for no longer agoe then in our great Grandfathers daies there was a Ferry in a place somewhat higher at Babhams end But after they had built heere a bridge of timber piles it beganne to flourish with Innes and goe beyond her mother Bray hard by which notwithstanding is farre more ancient as having given name to the whole Hundred This parcell of the shire I have beene of opinion that the BIBROCI who yeelded themselves under Cesars protection inhabited in times past And why should I thinke otherwise The reliques of them remaine yet most evidently in the name For BIBRACTE in France is now also drawen shorter into Bray and not far from hence Caesar passed over the Tamis with his armie as I will shew in due place what time as the people of that small Canton put themselves to the devotion of Caesar. Certes If a man should hunt for these Bibroci elsewhere he should I beleeve hardly find them Within this Hundred of the Bibroci Windesore beareth a goodly shew in the Saxon tongue haply of the winding shore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so it is named downe in the Charter of King Edward the Confessour who in this
pulcherrima quid tibi gemma Pallet gemma tibi nec diadema nitet Deme tibi cultus cultum natura ministrat Non exornari forma beata potest Ornamenta cave nec quicquam luminis inde Accipis illa micant lumine clara tuo Non puduit modicas de magnis dicere laudes Nec pudeat Dominam te precor esse meam When Muses mine thy beauties rare faire Adeliza Queene Of England readie are to tell they starke astonied beene What booteth thee so beautifull gold-crowne or pretious stone Dimne is the Diademe to thee the gemne hath beautie none Away with trimme and gay attire nature attireth thee Thy lovely beautie naturall can never bett'red be All Ornaments beware from them no favour thou do'st take But they from thee their lustre have thou doest them lightsome make I shamed not on matters great to set small praises heere Bash not but deigne I pray to be my Soveraigne Ladie deere She after the Kings death matched in marriage with William de Albeney who taking part with Maud the Empresse against King Stephen and defending this Castle against him was in recompence of his good service by the saide Maude the Empresse and Ladie of Englishmen for this title she used created Earle of Arundell and her sonne King Henrie the Second gave the whole Rape of Arundell to that William To hold of him by the service of fourescore and foure Knights fees and one-halfe And to his sonne William King Richard the first granted in such words as these The Castle of Arundell with the whole Honor of Arundell and the Third penny of the Plees out of Sussex whereof he is Earle And when after the fifth Earle of this surname the issue male failed one of the sisters and heires of Hugh the fifth Earle was married to Sir Iohn Fitz-Alan Lord of Clun whose great grand sonne Richard For that he stood seised of the Castle Honour and Lordship of Arundell in his owne demesne as of Fee in regard of this his possession of the same Castle Honour and Seignorie without any other consideration or Creation to be an Earle was Earle of Arundell and the name state and honor of the Earle of Arundell c. Peaceably he enjoied as appeareth by a definitive judgement given in Parliament in the behalfe of Sir Iohn Fitz-Alan chalenging the Castle and tittle of Arundell by force of an entaile against Iohn Mowbray Duke of Norfolke the right Heire in the neerest degree Whereby it was gathered that the name state and dignitie of Earle was annexed to the Castle Honour and Seignorie of Arundell as it is to be seene in the Parliament Rolls of King Henry the Sixth out of which I have copied forth these notes word for word Of these Fitz-Alans Edmund second Earle sonne to Richard married the heire of the Earle of Surry and was beheaded through the malicious furie of Queene Isabell not lawfully convicted for that hee opposed himselfe in King Edward the Seconds behalfe against her wicked practises His sonne Richard petitioned in Parliament to be restored to bloud lands and goods for that his father was put to death not tried by his Peeres according to the law and great Charter of England neverthelesse whereas the attaindor of him was confirmed by Parliament hee was forced to amend his petition and upon the amendment thereof hee was restored by the Kings meere grace Richard his sonne as his grandfather died for his Soveraigne lost his life for banding against his Soveraigne King Richard the Second But Tho. his sonne more honourably ended his life serving King Henrie the Fifth valerously in France and leaving his sisters his heires generall Sir Iohn of Arundell Lord Maltravers his next cosin and heire male obtained of King Henrie the sixt the Earldome of Arundell as we even now declared and also was by the said King for his good service created Duke of Touraine Of the succeeding Earles I find nothing memorable Henrie Fitz Alan the eleventh and last Earle of that surname lived in our daies in great honor as you shall see After whom leaving no issue male Philip Howard his daughters sonne succeeded who not able to digest wrongs and hard measure offered unto him by the cunning sleights of some envious persons fell into the toile and net pitched for him and being brought into extreame perill of his life yeelded up his vitall breath in the Tower But his sonne Thomas a most honorable young man in whom a forward spirit and fervent love of vertue and glorie most beseeming his nobility and the same tempered with true courtesie shineth very apparently recovered his fathers dignities being restored by King Iames and Parliament authoritie Besides the Castle and the Earles Arundell hath nothing memorable For the Colledge built by the Earles which there flourished because the revenue or living is alienated and gone now falleth to decay Howbeit in the Church are some monuments of Earles there enterred but one above the rest right beautifull of Alabaster in which lieth in the mids of the Quire Earle Thomas and Beatrice his wife the daughter of Iohn King of Portugall Neither must I overpasse this Inscription so faire guilt set up heere in the Honor of Henrie Fitz-Alan the last Earle of this line because some there be whom liketh it well CONSECRATED TO VERTVE AND HONOVR THE MAGNANIMOVS AND VVORTHY KNIGHT VVHOSE PERSONAGE IS HERE SEENE AND VVHOSE BONES HERE VNDERNEATHLY ENTERRED VVAS BARLE OF THIS TERRITORIE ACCORDING TO HIS HOVSE AND LINAGE SVRNAMED FITZ ALAN LOKD MALTRAVERS CLVN AND OSVVALDESTRE PRINCIPAL HONOVRS STILED ALSO LORD AND BARON OF THAT MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER THE AVNCIENTEST COMPANION VVHILES HE LIVED OF WILLIAM EARLE OF ARVNDELL THE ONELY SONNE AND SVCCESSOR COMPARTNER ALSO OF ALL HIS VERTVES VVHO BEING OF THE PRIVY COVNSEL TO KING HENRIE THE EIGHT KING EDVVARD THE SIXT MARIE AND ELIZABETH KINGS AND QVEENES OF ENGLAND VVAS GOVERNOR ALSO OF THE TOVVNE OF CALES AND VVHAT TIME AS THE SAID KING HENRIE BESIEGED BVLLEN VVAS HIGH MARESCHAL OF HIS ARMY AND AFTER THAT LORD CHAMBERLAIN TO THE KING ALSO VVHEN EDVVARD HIS SONNE VVAS CROVVNED KING HE BARE THE OFFICE OF L. MARESCHAL OF THE KINGDOME AND VNTO HIM LIKE AS BEFORE VNTO HIS FATHER BECAME LORD CHAMBERLAINE MOREOVER IN THE REIGNE OF QVEENE MARIE DVRING THE TIME OF HER SOLEMNE CORONATION HE VVAS MADE LORD HIGH CONSTABLE AFTERVVARD STEVVARD OF HER ROIAL HOVSE AND PRESIDENT OF THE COVNCEL EVEN AS TO QVEENE ELIZABETH ALSO HE VVAS LIKEVVISE LORD HIGH STEVVARD OF HER HOVSHOLD THVS THIS MAN NOBLE BY HIS HIGH PARENTAGE MORE NOBLE FOR VVEL PERFORMING THE PVBLICKE OFFICES OF STATE â—OST NOBLE AND RENOVNED BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD FLOVRISHING STIL IN HONOVR BROKEN VVITH TRAVEL MVCH VVORNE VVITH YEERES AFTER HE VVAS COME TO THE LXVIII OF HIS AGE AT LONDON THE XXV DAY OF FEBRVARY IN THE YEERE OF OVâ— SALVATION BY CHRIST M. D. LXXIX GODLY AND SVVEETLY SLEPT IN THE LORD IOHN LVMLEY BARON OF LVMLEY HIS MOST
Surrey Iohn Holland Earle of Huntingdon late Duke of Excester Iohn Montacute Earle of Salisbury Thomas de Spenser Earle of Glocester and others who being by him dispoiled of their honors and maligning his usurpation conspired to take away his life and here by the townesmen intercepted were some of them slaine outright and others beheaded The river Churne when it hath left Circester behinde him six miles neere to Dounamveny an ancient seate of the Hungerfords joyneth with Isis. For ISIS commonly called Ouse that it might bee by originall of Glocester-shire hath his head there and with lively springs floweth out of the South border of this shire nere unto Torleton an upland Village not farre from that famous Port-way called the Fosse This is that Isis which afterwards entertaineth Tame and by a compound word is called Tamisis Soveraigne as it were of all the Britain Rivers in Britaine of which a man may well and truely say as ancient Writers did of Euphrates in the East part of the World that it doth both Sow and Water the best part of Britaine The poeticall description of whose Source or first head I have heere put downe out of a Poem entituled The Marriage of Tame and Isis which whether you admit or omit it skilleth but little Lanigeros quà lata greges Cotswaldia pascit Crescit in colles faciles visura Dobunos Haud procul à Fossa longo spelunca recessu Cernitur abrupti surgente crepidine clivi Cujus inauratis resplendent limina tophis Atria tegit ebur tectúmque Gagate Britanno Emicat alterno solidantur pumice postes Materiam sed vincit opus cedúntque labori Artifici tophus pumex ebur atque Gagates Pingitur hinc vitrei moder atrix Cynthia regni Passibus obliquis volventia sydera lustrans Oceano tellus conjuncta marita marito Illinc caelatur fraternáque flumina Ganges Nilus Amazonius tractúsque binominis Istri Vicini Rheni sed his intermicat auro Vellere Phrixaeâ— dives redimitáque spicis Clara triumphatis erecta BRITANNIA Gallis c. Vndoso hîc solio residet regnator aquarum ISIS fluminea qui majestate verendus Caeruleo gremio â—esupinat prodigus urnam Intonsos crines iâ—vis arundine cinctus Cornua cana liquâ—nt fluitantia lumina lymphis Dispergunt lucem propexa in pectore barba Tota madet toto distillant corpore guttae Et salientis aquae prorumpunt undique venae Pisciculi liquidis penetralibus undique ludunt Plurimus cygnus niveis argenteus alis Pervolitat circum c. Where Cotswald spred abroad doth lie and feed faire flocks of sheepe And Dobunes for to see in downes ariseth nothing steepe Within a nouke along not much the Fosse and it betweene Just at the rising of a banke upright a Cave is seene Whereof the entry glistereth with soft stones richly guilt The Haull is seel'd with Ivory the roufe aloft ybuilt Of Geat the best that Britaine yeelds The pillers very strong With Pumish laid each other course are raised all along The stuffe full faire yet Art doth it surpasse and to the feate Of Artisan give place the gold stones Yv'ry and Geat Heere painted is the Moone that rules the Sea like Chrystall Glasse As she through rolling Signes above with traverse course doth passe And there againe enchaced are both land and Ocean wide Conjoyn'd as man and wife in one with Rivers great beside Like brethren all as Ganges rich strange Nilus Tanais Yea and the course of Ister large which double named is Of Rhene also a neighbour streame And heere bedight in gold Among them glitt'reth Britanny with riches manifold Of golden fleece a Coronet of Wheat-eares she doth weare And for her triumph over France her head aloft doth reare c. In waving Throne heere sits the King of waters all and some ISIS who in that Majestie which Rivers doth become All rev'rend from his watchet lap powr's forth his streame amaine With weed and reed his haires tuckt up that grow both long and plaine His hoary hornes distilling runne with water stand his eyes And shoot from them a lustre farre his kembed beard likewise Downe to the brest wet-through doth reach his body drops againe All over and on every side breakes out some water veine In secret watrish room 's within the little fishes play And many a silver Swan besides his white wings doth display And flutter round about c. As touching the Earles of Glocester some there be who have thrust upon us one William Fitz-Eustace for the first Earle who this was I have not yet found and I verily beleeve hee is yet unborne But that which I have found I will not conceale from the Reader About the comming in of the Normans wee reade that one Bithricke an English Saxon was Lord of Glocester whom Maud wife to William Conquerour upon a secret rankor and hatred conceived against him for his contempt of her beauty for Bithrick had before time refused to marry her troubled and molested most maliciously And when shee had at length cast him in Prison Robert Fitz-Haimon Lord of Corboile in Normandy was by the King endowed with his possessions who in a battaile having received a wound with the push of a pike upon the temples of his head had his wits crackt therewith and survived a good while after as a man bestraught and madde His daughter Mabil whom others name Sibill Robert the base sonne of King Henry the First by the intercession of his father obtained for his wife but not before he had made him Earle of Glocester This is hee who is called commonly by Writers The Consull of Glocester A man of an haughty valorous minde and undaunted heart as any one in that age and who being never dejected with any adversity wanne great praise for his fidelity and worthy exploits in the behalfe of his sister Maude the Empresse against Stephen then usurping the Crowne of England This honourable Title left he unto his son William who dejected with comfortlesse griefe when death had deprived him of his onely son and heire assured his estate with his eldest daughter to Iohn son to King Henry the Second with certaine provisoes for his other daughters Yet his three daughters brought this Earldome into as many families For Iohn when he had obtained the Kingdome repudiated her upon pretenses as well that she was barren as that they were within prohibited degrees of consanguinity and reserving the Castle of Bristow to himselfe after some time passed over his repudiated wife with the Honor of Glocester to Geffrey Mandevil son of Geffrey Fitz Peter Earle of Essex for 20000. markes who thus over-marrying himselfe was greatly impoverished and wounded in Tournament died soone after issuelesse and she being remarried to Hubert of Burgh died immediately Then K. Iohn upon an exchange granted the Earldome of Glocester to Almary Earle of Eureux son to the eldest daughter of the foresaid E.
painted windowes asked them what was Latin for a Fetter-locke They studying and looking silently one upon another not able to answer If you cannot tell me saith he I will tell you Hic haec hoc Taceatis that is Hic haec hoc be silent and quiet and therewithall added God knoweth what may happen heereafter This King Edward the Fourth his great Grand-childe reported publiquely when he having attained the Crowne created Richard his younger sonne Duke of Yorke and then commanding that hee should use for his Badge the Fetter-locke open to verifie the presage of his great Grand-father But this by the way The said Cecily mother to King Edward the Fourth saw plainly within the compasse of a few yeeres what disports unruly and powerfull Fortune pardon the word for I acknowledge that God ruleth all maketh herselfe out of the miseries of the mighty For she saw Richard Duke of Yorke her husband even then when he thought himselfe sure of the Kingdome and her sonne the Earle of Rutland slaine together in a bloudy fought field and some few yeeres after her eldest sonne Edward the Fourth enjoying the regall Crowne deprived of the same recovering it againe and taken away by untimely death when hee had before made away her second sonne and his owne brother George Duke of Clarence After that she saw her other sonne Richard Duke of Glocester aspiring to the Crowne and making way to it by that lamentable murdering of his Nephewes and slandering of her his owne Mother for he charged her openly with the greatest dishonor incident to a Lady and afterward she saw him when he was possessed of the Kingdome within a while slaine in battaile And these her miseries were so linked together that the longer she lived the greater sorrow she felt and every day was more dolefull than other As for that disastre which even heere befell unto another most mighty Prince Mary Queene of Scots I had leifer it should be enwrapped up in silence than once spoken of Let it be forgotten quite if it be possible if not yet be it hidden as it may in silence Under the best Princes some there are who being once armed with authority know how by secret slights to set a goodly shew and faire pretense of conscience and Religion thereby to cloke their owne private designes And there be againe that sincerely and from the heart tender true Religion their Princes security yea and which is the highest rule and law of all the publique safety Neither can it bee denied but that even the best Princes themselves are otherwhiles violently carried away as good Pilotes with tempests against their wils whither they would not But what they doe as Princes and Kings let us leave to God who onely hath power over Kings Nen being now come unto the skirts of Huntingdon-shire running under a faire stone Bridge at Walmesford passeth by DUROBRIVAE a right ancient City which being called in the English Saxon Tongue Dormancester as I said before tooke up a great space of ground on both bankes of the River in both Counties For the little Village Caster which stands a mile off from the River may seeme to have beene a part of it by the pavements there found wrought checker wise with small square quarels although on the Church wall we reade this inscription bearing date of a later time XV. KL MAII DEDICATIO HUJUS ECCLESIAE MCXXIIII THE FIFTEENTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF MAY IN THE YEERE ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FOURE WAS THE DEDICATION OF THIS CHURCH And doubtlesse of greater name and note it was for in the corne fields adjoyning which in steade of Dormanton they call Normanton Fields so many peeces of Romane Coine are turned out of the ground that a man would verily thinke they had beene sowed there and two Rode-wayes whereof the Causeys are yet evident to bee seene went from hence the one called Forty-foot-way because it was forty foot broade unto Stanford the other named Long-ditch and High-streat by Lollham-bridges bridges I assure you of great antiquity whereof eleven arches are in sight now chinking and chawning for age through West Deeping into Lincoln-shire At the very division and parting of these two Port-waies standeth Upton highly situate whereupon it tooke also that name where Sir Robert Wingfield Knight descended from that ancient Family of the Wingfields which hath brought forth so many worshipfull and worthy Knights hath a faire house with most lovely walkes From DUROBRIVAE the River Aufon or Nen passeth on to Peterburgh seated in the very angle or nouke of this Shire where Writers report there hath beene a gulfe or whirlpole in the River of exceeding great depth called Medeswell and a Towne hard by it named thereupon Medeswelhamsted and Medeshamsted which Towne as wee reade in Robert de Swapham was built in an excellent fine place having of the one side fennes and passing good waters and of the other many goodly woods medowes and pastures faire and beautifull to the eye every way and not accessable by land save onely on the West side The River Nen runneth by at the South side of the Burrough in the middle of which River there is a place as it were a gulfe so deepe and cold withall that even in Summer no swimmer is able to ducke or dive unto the bothom Yet is it never for all that frozen over in Winter for there is a spring there whence the water welleth out This place they called in old time Meddeswell untill that Wolpher King of the Mercians built there a Monastery in honour of Saint Peter And seeing the place was all a marish ground he laied the foundation as that Robert writeth with mighty huge stones such as eight yoke of Oxen would hardly draw one of them which I saw with mine owne eyes saith he when this Monastery was destroyed Afterward of this Monastery dedicated to Saint Peter it began to bee called PETRIBURGUS or PETROPOLIS that is Peterborow or Burgh and the said Monastery was very famous and renowned The originall occasion and the building whereof I have thought it worth my labour briefly to put downe out of the said Robert de Swapham a Writer of good antiquity Peada the sonne of Penda who was the first Christian King of the Mercians in the yeere of grace 546. for the propagation of Christian Religion laid the foundation of a Monastery at Medeshamsted in the Girvians or Fen-country which hee could not finish for that by the wicked practise of his mother he was made away After Peada succeeded his brother Wolpher who being most averse from Christian Religion murdered Wolphald and Rufin his owne sonnes with cruell and barbarous immanitie because they had devoted themselves unto Christ and embraced his Religion But himselfe some few yeeres after embracing Christian Religion for to expiate and wash away the staine of that his impiety with some good and godly worke set in hand to build up this Monastery
Saint Peter and be yeelded up without delay for ever unto the Abbot and to the Monkes there serving God yet King William the Conquerour cancelled and made voide this Testament who reserving a great part of it to himselfe divided the rest betweene Countesse Iudith whose daughter was married to David King of Scots Robert Mallet Oger Gislebert of Gaunt Earle Hugh Aubrey the Clerk and others And unto Westminster first he left the Tithes afterwards the Church onely of Okeham and parcels thereunto appertaining This County hath not had many Earles The first Earle of Rutland was Edward the first begotten Sonne of Edmund of Langley Duke of Yorke created by King Richard the Second upon a singular favour that he cast unto him during his Fathers life and afterwards by the same King advanced to the honour of Duke of Aumarle This young man wickedly projected with others a practise to make away King Henry the Fourth and streight waies with like levity discovered the same But after his Fathers death being Duke of Yorke lost his life fighting couragiously amid the thickest troupes of his enemies in the battaile of Agincourt Long time after there succeeded in this Honour Edward the little young Sonne of Richard Duke of Yorke and he together with his Father during those deadly broiles of civill warre was slaine in the battaile fought at Wakefield Many yeeres after King Henry the Eighth raised up Sir Thomas Mannours to be Earle of Rutland who in right of his Grand-mother Aeleonor was possessed of a goodly and faire inheritance of the Barons Roos lying in the countries round about and elsewhere In his roome succeeded his Sonne Henry and after him likewise Edward his Sonne unto whom if I should say nothing else that commendation of the Poet was most aptly and truly appliable Nomen virtutibus aequat Nec sinit ingenium nobilitate premi His name so great with vertues good he matcheth equally Nor suffreth wit smuthring to lie under Nobility But he by over hasty and untimely death being received into Heaven left this dignity unto John his Brother who also departing this life within a while hath for his successor Roger his Sonne answerable in all points to his ancient and right noble parentage This small Shire hath Parish Churches 48. LINCOLNIAE Comitatus vbi olim insederunt CORITANI LINCOLNE-SHIRE VPon Rutland on the East side confineth the County of LINCOLNE called by the English-Saxons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Normans Nicol-shire after their comming into the Land with some transposition of letters but usually LINCOLNE-SHIRE A very large Country as reaching almost threescore miles in length and carrying in some places above thirty miles in bredth passing kinde for yeeld of Corne and feeding of Cattaile well furnished and set out with a great number of Townes and watered with many Rivers Upon the Eastside where it bendeth outward with a brow fetching a great compasse the German Ocean beateth on the shore Northward it recheth to Humber an arme of the sea on the West side it butteth upon Nottingham-shire and on the South it is severed from Northampton-shire by the River Welland This whole Shire is divided into three parts whereof one is called Holland a second Kesteven and the third Lindsey Holland which Ingulph termeth Holland lyeth to the sea and like unto that Holland in Germanie it is so throughly wet in most places with waters that a mans foote is ready to sinke into it and as one standeth upon it the ground will shake and quake under his feet and thence it may seeme to have taken the name unlesse a man would with Ingulph say that Holland is the right name and the same imposed upon it of Hay which our Progenitours broadly called Hoy. This part throughout beareth upon that ebbing and flowing arme of the Sea which Ptolomee calleth METARIS instead of Maltraith and wee at this day The Washes A very large arme this is and passing well knowne at every tide and high sea covered all over with water but when the sea ebbeth and the tide is past a man may passe over it as on dry land but yet not without danger Which King John learned with his losse For whilest he journied this way when he warred upon the rebellious Barons the waters suddenly brake in upon him so that at Fosse-dyke and Welstream he lost all his carriage and princely furniture as Matthew of Westminster writeth This Country which the Ocean hath laied to the land as the Inhabitants beleeve by sands heaped and cast together they it terme Silt is assailed on the one side with the said Ocean sea and in the other with a mighty confluence of waters from out of the higher countries in such sort that all the Winter quarter the people of the country are faine to keepe watch and ward continually and hardly with all the bankes and dammes that they make against the waters are able to defend themselves from the great violence and outrage thereof The ground bringeth forth but small store of corne but plenty of grasse and is replenished abundantly with fish and water-fowle The Soile throughout is so soft that they use their Horses unshod neither shall you meet so much as with a little stone there that hath not beene brought thither from other places neverthelesse there bee most beautifull Churches standing there built of foure square stone Certaine it is that the sea aforetime had entred farther up into the Country and that appeareth by those bankes formerly raised against the waterwaves then in-rushing which are now two miles off from the shore as also by the hils neere Sutterton which they call Salt-Hils But of fresh water there is exceeding great want in all places neither have they any at all but raine water and that in pits which if they be of any great depth presently become brackish if shallow they dry up as soone Neither are there Quicksands wanting which have a wonderfull force to draw to them and to hold fast as both Shepheards and their poore Sheepe also finde other whiles not without danger This Holland or Hoiland whether you will is divided into two parts The Lower and the Higher The Lower hath in it soule and slabby quavemires yea and most troublesome Fennes which the very Inhabitants themselves for all their stilts cannot stalke through And considering that it lieth very low and flat fenced it is of the one side against the Ocean on the other from those waters which overwhelme the upper part of the Isle of Ely with mighty piles and huge bankes opposed against the same Of which Southybanke is of greatest name which least it should have a breach made through it with that infinite masse of water that falleth from the South part when the Rivers swell and all is overflowne by inundation the people watch with great care and much feare as against a dangerous enemy And yet for the draining away of this water the neighbour Inhabitants at the common charges
Burbon taken prisoner in the battaile of Agincourt was detained nineteene yeeres under the custody of Sir Nicholas Montgomery the younger Scarce five miles hence Northward the River Derwent hath his walke who in the utmost limit as I said before of this Shire Northward deriving his head out of the Peak hils being one while streitned betweene crags and sometimes another while watering and cherishing the fresh greene medowes by mossie and morish grounds holdeth on his course for thirty miles or thereabout directly as it were into the South Howbeit in so long a course hee passeth by nothing worth looking on except Chattesworth a very large faire and stately house which Sir William Candish or Cavendish descended out of that ancient house of Gernon in Suffolke beganne and which his Wife Elizabeth and after Countesse of Shrewesbury hath of late with great charges fully finished But where Derwent turneth somewhat Eastward when it is once past Little Chester that is Little City where old peeces of Roman money are often times gotten out of the ground Darby sheweth it selfe in the English-Saxon Tongue named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Danes as Athelward that ancient Writer witnesseth Deoraby the chiefe Towne of all this Shire which name being taken from the River Derwent and contracted from Derwentby it hath bestowed upon the whole County A proper Towne it is none of the least not without good trade and resort unto it On the East side of it the River Derwent making a very faire shew runneth downe carrying a full and lofty streame under a beautifull stone Bridge upon which our devout forefathers erected a faire Chappell which now is neglected and goeth to decay Through the South part thereof runneth a prety cleere Riveret which they call Mertenbrooke Five Churches there be in it Of which the greatest named All Hallowes dedicated to the memory of All-Saints hath a Towre Steeple that for height and singular fine Workemanship excelleth In which Church the Countesse of Shrewesbury of whom erewhile I spake trusting her selfe better than her heires providently erected a Sepulture for her selfe and as religiously founded an Hospitall hard by for the maintenance of twelve poore folke eight men and foure women Memorable in old time was this place because it had beene a lurking hole and a Rendevous for the Danes untill Ethelfleda that victorious Lady of the Mercians by a suddaine forceable surprise made a slaughter of the Danes and became Mistresse of it In the time of King Edward the Confessour as wee finde in Domesday booke it had 143. Burgesses whose number notwithstanding decreased so that in William the Conquerours Raigne there remained onely an hundred And these paid unto the King at the feast of Saint Martin 12. Trabes of Corne. But now all the name and credit that it hath ariseth of the Assisses there kept for the whole shire and by the best â—appy ale that is brewed there a drinke so called of the Danish word Oela somewhat wrested and not of Alica as Ruellius deriveth it the Britans termed it by an old word Kwrw in steade whereof Curmi is read amisse in Dioscorides where hee saith that the Hiberi perchance he would have said Hiberni that is The Irishmen in lieu of wine use Curmi a kinde of drinke made of Barly For this is that Barly-wine of ours which Julian the Emperour that Apostata calleth merrily in an Epigramme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the ancient and peculiar drinke of the Englishmen and Britans yea and the same very wholsome howsoever Henry of Aurenches the Norman Arch-poet to King Henry the Third did in his pleasant wit merrily jest upon it in these Verses Nescio quod Stygiae monstrum conforme paludi Cervisiam plerique vocant nil spissius illa Dum bibitur nil clarius est dum mingitur unde Constat quòd multas faeces in ventre relinquit Of this strange drinke so like to Stygian lake Most tearme it Ale I wote not what to make Folke drinke it thicke and pisse it passing thin Much dregges therefore must needs remaine within Howbeit Turnebus that most learned Frenchman maketh no doubt but that men using to drinke heereof if they could avoid surfetting would live longer than those that drinke wine and that from hence it is that many of us drinking Ale live an hundred yeeres And yet Asclepiades in Plutarch ascribeth this long life to the coldnesse of the aire which keepeth in and preserveth the naturall heat in bodies when he made report that the Britans lived untill they were an hundred and twenty yeeres old But the wealth of this Towne consisteth much in buying of corne and selling it againe to the mountaines for all the Inhabitants be as it were a kinde of hucksters or badgers Not farre from hence doth Derwent carry his streame where by Elwaston Sir Raulph Montjoye had lands in the time of Edward the First from whence came Sir Walter Blunt whom King Edward the Fourth advanced to the honour of Baron Montjoye with a pension whose posterity have equalled the nobility of their birth with the ornaments of learning and principally among them Charles late Earle of Devonshire Baron Montjoy Lord Lieutenant Generall of Ireland and Knight of the Order of the Garter Beneath this Elwaston Derwent disburdeneth himselfe into the chanell of Trent which within a while admitteth into it the River Erewash that in this part serveth as a limit to divide this country from Nottingham-shire Neere unto this River standeth Riseley a possession of the Willoughbeies of which family was that Sir Hugh Willoughby as I have heard say who whiles hee endevoured to discover the Frozen Sea neere unto Wardhous in Scandia was frozen to death together with his company in the same ship Hard by it also is Sandiacre or as others will have it Sainct Diacre the seat of the Family of the Greies of Sandiacre whose inheritance Sir Edward Hilary in right of his wife was first possessed of and whose sonne became adopted into the name of the Greies and a few yeeres after the one of his daughters and heires wedded to Sir John Leake and the other to John Welsh On the East side of this Shire there follow in order Northward these places Codenor in old time Coutenoure Castle which belonged to the Barons Grey called thereupon Lords Grey of Codenor whose inheritance in the foregoing age came to the Zouches by the marriage that Sir John de la Zouch the second sonne of William Lord de la Zouch of Haringworth contracted with Elizabeth the heire of Henry Grey the last Lord of Codenor Then Winfeld a very great and goodly Manour where Raulph Lord Cromwell in the Raigne of Henry the Sixth built a sumptuous and stately house for those daies After it you see Alffreton which men thinke to have beene built by King Alfred and of him to have taken that name which Towne had also Lords entituled
last Baron of this race made it over as I have said already to Isabell Queene of England wife to King Edward the Second Howbeit the possession of the Castle was transferred afterward to the Stanleys now Earles of Darby Through the South part of this Shire lying beneath these places above named wandereth Aleâ— a little River neere unto which in an hill hard by Kilken a small village there is a Well The water whereof at certaine set times riseth and falleth after the manner of the Sea-tides Upon this Alen standeth Hope Castle in Welsh Caer-Gurle in which King Edward the First retired himselfe when the Welshmen had upon the sudden set upon his souldiers being out of array and where good milstones are wrought out of the rocke also Mold in Welsh Guid Cruc a Castle belonging in ancient time to the Barons of Monthault both which places shew many tokens of Antiquity Neere unto Hope a certaine Gardiner when I was first writing this worke digging somewhat deepe into the ground happened upon a very ancient peece of worke concerning which there grew many divers opinions of sundry men But hee that will with any diligence reade M. Vitruvius Pollio shall very well perceive it was nothing else but a Stouph or hote house begunne by the Romanes who as their riotous excesse grew together with their wealth used Bathes exceeding much In length it was five elns in breadth foure and about halfe an eln deepe enclosed with Walles of hard stone the paving layed with bricke pargetted with lime morter the arched roofe over it supported with small pillars made of bricke which roofe was of tiles pargetted over likewise very smoothe having holes heere and there through it wherein were placed certaine earthen pipes of Potters worke by which the heate was conveyed and so as hee saith Volvebant hypocausta vaporem that is the Stuples did send away a waulming hote vapour And who would not thinke this was one of these kindes of worke which Giraldus wondered at especially in Isca writing thus as he did of the Romanes workes That saith hee which a man would judge among other things notable there may you see on every side Stouphs made with marveilous great skill breathing out heate closely at certaine holes in the sides and narrow tunnels Whose worke this was the tiles there did declare being imprinted with these words LEGIO XX. that is The twentieth Legion which as I have shewed already before abode at Chester scarce sixe miles a side from hence Neere unto this River Alen in a certaine streight set about with woods standeth Coles-hull Giraldus tearmeth it Carbonarium collem that is Coles Hill where when King Henry the Second had made preparation with as great care as ever any did to give Battaile unto the Welsh the English by reason of their disordered multitude drawing out their Battalions in their rankes and not ranged close in good array lost the Field and were defeited yea and the very Kings standerd was forsaken by Henry of Essex who in right of inheritance was Standerd-bearer to the Kings of England For which cause he being afterwards charged with treason and by his challenger overcome in combate had his goods confiscate and seized into the Kings hands and he displeased with himselfe for his cowardise put on a coule and became a Monke Another little parcell there is of this Shire on this side the River Dee dismembred as it were from this which the English call English Mailor Of this I treated in the County of Chester whiles I spake of Bangor and there is no reason to iterate the same heere which hath beene already spoken of before Neither doth it afford any thing in it worth the reporting unlesse it be Han-meere by ae Meres side whereof a right ancient and worshipfull Family there dwelling tooke their sirname The Earles of Chester as they skirmished by occasions and advantage of opportunity with the Welsh were the first Normans that brought this Country under their subjection whereupon wee reade in ancient Records The County of Flint appertaineth to the Dignity of the sword of Chester and the eldest sonnes of the K.K. of England were in old time stiled by the Title of Earles of Chester and of Flint But notwithstanding King Edward the First supposing it would bee very commodious both for the maintenance of his owne power and also to keepe under the Welsh held in his owne hands both this and all the sea Coast of Wales As for the in-land Countries he gave them to his Nobles as he thought good following herein the policie of the Emperour Augustus who undertooke himselfe to governe the Provinces that were strongest and lay outmost but permitted Proconsuls by lot to rule the rest Which he did in shew to defend the Empire but in very deed to have all the armes and martiall men under his owne command In this County of Flint there be Parishes in all 28. PRINCES OF WALES AS concerning the Princes of Wales of British bloud in ancient times you may reade in the Historie of Wales published in print For my part I thinke it requisite and pertinent to my intended purpose to set downe summarily those of latter daies descended from the Roiall line of England King Edward the First unto whom his Father King Henry the Third had graunted the Principalitie of Wales when hee had obtained the Crowne and Lhewellin Ap. Gryffith the last Prince of the British race was slaine and thereby the sinnewes as it were of the Principalitie were cut in the twelfth yeere of his Reigne united the same unto the Kingdome of England And the whole Province sware fealty and allegeance unto Edward of Caernarvon his Sonne whom he made Prince of Wales But King Edward the Second conferred not upon his Sonne Edward the title of Prince of Wales but onely the name of Earle of Chester and of Flint so farre as I ever could learne out of the Records and by that title summoned him to Parliament being then nine yeeres old King Edward the Third first Created his eldest Sonne Edward surnamed the Blacke Prince the Mirour of Chivalry being then Duke of Cornwall and Earle of Chester Prince of Wales by solemne investure with a cap of estate and Coronet set on his head a gold ring put upon his finger and a silver vierge delivered into his hand with the assent of the Parliament who in the very floure of his martiall glory was taken away by untimely death too too soone to the universall griefe of all England Afterwards King Edward the Third invested with the said honour Richard of Burdeaux the said Princes Sonne as heire apparent to the Crowne who was deposed from his Kingdome by King Henry the Fourth and having no issue was cruelly dispatched by violent death The said King Henry the Fourth at the formall request of the Lords and Commons bestowed this Principalitie with the title of Chester and Flint with
solemne investure and a kisse in full Parliament upon his eldest Sonne who gloriously bare the name of King Henry the Fifth His Sonne King Henry the Sixth who at his Fathers death was an Infant in the cradle conferred likewise this honour which he never had himselfe upon his young Sonne Edward whose unhappie fortune it was to have his braines dashed out cruelly by the faction of Yorke being taken prisoner at Tewkesbury field Not long after King Edward the Fourth having obtained the Crowne created Edward his young Sonne Prince of Wales who was afterwards in the lineall succession of Kings Edward the Fifth of that name And within a while after his Unkle King Richard the Third who made him away ordained in his roome Edward his owne Sonne whom King Edward the Fourth had before made Earle of Salisburie but he died quickly after Then King Henrie the Seventh created his eldest sonne Arthur Prince of Wales and when he was dead Henrie his other Sonne well knowne in the world by the name of King Henrie the Eighth Every one of these had the Principality of Wales given unto them by the foresaid solemne investure and delivery of a Patent To hold to themselves and their Heires Kings of England For Kings would not bereave themselves of so excellent an occasion to doe well by their Eldest Sonnes but thought it very good policie by so great a benefit to oblige them when they pleased Queene Mary Queene Elizabeth and King Edward the Children of King Henrie the Eighth although they never had investure nor Patent yet were commonly named in their order Princes of Wales For at that time Wales was by authoritie of Parliament so annexed and united to the Kingdome of England that both of them were governed vnder the same Law or that you may reade it abridged out of the Act of Parliament The Kings Country or dominion of Wales shall stand and continue for ever incorporated united and annexed to and with the Realme of England and all and singular person and persons borne and to be borne in the said Principalitie Country or Dominion of Wales shall have enioy and inherit all and singular freedomes liberties rights priviledges and Lawes within this Realme and other the Kings Dominions as other the Kings Subiects naturally borne within the same have enioy and inherit and the Lawes Ordinances and Statutes of the Realme of England for ever and none other shall he had used practised and executed in the said Country or Dominion of Wales and every part thereof in like manner forme and order as they be and shall be in this Realme and in such like manner and forme as heereafter shall be further established and ordained This Act and the calme command of King Henrie the Seventh preparing way for it effected that in a short time which the violent power of other Kings armes and especially of Henrie the Fourth with extreame rigour also of Lawes could not draw on in many yeeres For ever sithence the British Nation hath continued as faithfully and dutifully in their Loyall Allegiance to the Crowne of England as any other part of the Realme whatsoever Now am I to returne out of Wales into England and must goe unto the Brigantes BRIGANTES BRITAINE which hitherto hath as it were launched out with huge Promontories looking on the one side toward Germanie on the other side toward Ireland now as if it were afraid of the Sea violently inrushing upon it withdraweth it selfe farther in and by making larger separations of lands retireth backe gathered into a farre narrower breadth For it is not past one hundred miles broad from coast to coast which on both sides passe on in a maner with straight and direct shores Northward as farre as to Scotland All this part well neere of the Island while the Romane Empire stood upright and flourished in Britaine was inhabited by the BRIGANTES For Plinie writeth that they dwelt from the East Sea to the West A nation this was right valiant populous withall and of especiall note among ancient Authors who all doe name them BRIGANTES unlesse it be Stephanus onely in his booke Of Cities who called them BRIGAE in which place that which he wrote of them is defective at this day in the bookes by reason that the sentence is imperfect If I should thinke that these were called Brigantes of Briga which in the ancient Spanish tongue signified A Citie I should not satisfie my selfe seeing it appeareth for certaine out of Strabo that it is a meere Spanish word If I were of opinion with Goropius that out of the Low Dutch tongue they were termed Brigantes as one would say Free-hands should I not obtrude upon you his dreames for dainties Howsoever the case standeth our Britanes or Welsh-men if they see any of a bad disposition and audaciously playing lawlesse and lewde parts use to say of them by way of a common merry quippe Wharret Brigans that is They play the Brigants And the French-men at this day alluding as it seemeth to the ancient language of the Gaules usually terme such lewde fellowes Brigans like as Pirats Ships Brigantins But whether the force of the word was such in old time in the Gaules or Britanes language or whether our Brigantes were such like men I dare not determine Yet if my memory faile me not Strabo calleth the Brigantes a people about Alpes Grassatores that is Robbers and Iulius a Belgian a young man of desperate boldnesse who counted power authority honestie and vertue to be nothing but naked names is in Tacitus surnamed Briganticus With which kinde of vice our old Brigantes may seeme to have been tainted when they so robbed and spoiled the neighbour inhabitants that the Emperour Antoninus Pius for this cause tooke away a great part of their Country from them as Pausanias witnesseth who writeth thus of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Antoninus Pius cut the Brigantes in Britaine short of a great part of their Country because they began to take armes and in hostile maner to invade Genunia a Region subject to the Romanes Neither will any I hope take this as a reproach Surely I should seeme farre unlike my selfe if I fell now to taxe ignominiously any private person much lesse a Nation Neither was this counted a reproachfull imputation in that warlike age when all Nations reckoned that their right which they could winne or hold by might and dint of sword Roberies saith Caesar among the Germans are not noted with infamie such I meane as are committed without the borders of every State and they allow the practise thereof to exercise their youth withall and to keepe them from idlenesse And for a reason not unlike the Paeones among the Greekes are so called quia Percussores that is because they were cutters The Quadi among the Germans and the Chaldaei likewise are reported to have gotten those names because they used to robbe and kill Now in that Florianus Del-Campe a Spaniard hath
the country lyeth the Barony of Gillesland a little region so encombred by reason of sudden rising brookes which they call Gilles that I would have deemed it tooke the name of them had I not read in a booke belonging to the Abbey of Lanercost that one Gill Fitz-Bueth who is called also Gilbert in a Charter of King Henry the second held it as Lord in old time of whom it is probable this name was rather given to it Through this Gillesland the wall of Severus that most famous monument of all Britaine runneth streight as it were by a line from Carlile Eastward by Stanwicks a little village by Scalby castle belonging in times past to the Tilliols sometimes a name in this tract of good worship and reputation from whom it came to the Pickerings then Cambec a small brooke runneth under the wall Neere unto which the Barons of Dacre built Askerton castle a little pile where the Governour of Gillesland whom they call Land-Sergeant had a ward Beneath the wall it conjoyneth it selfe with the river Irthing where standeth Irthington a chiefe Manour as they tearme it of this Barony of Gillesland And great ruins are here to be seen at Castle-steed Neere unto it is Brampton a little mercate towne which we suppose to bee BREMETURACUM at the very line and range of the wall for it is scarce a mile from the said wall where in times past lay the first Band of the Tungri out of Germanie in the declining state of the Romane Empire and a company of Armaturae under the generall of Britaine These were horsemen armed at all peeces But whether these Armatures were Duplar or Simplar it is doubtfull Duplar or Duple Armaturae they were called in those daies who had double allowances of corne Simplar that had but single Neither verily must I overpasse in silence that hard by Brampton there mounteth up an high hill fortified in the verie top with a trench they call it the Mote from which there is a faire prospect every way into the country Beneath this and by Castle-steeds like as at Trederman joining unto it were found these inscriptions exemplified for me by the hand of the right honourable Lord William Howard of Naworth third sonne unto Thomas late Duke of Norfolke a singular lover of venerable antiquitie and learned withall who in these parts in right of his wife a sister and one of the heires of the last Lord Dacre enjoieth faire possessions This stone also was found there in an old Hot-house wherein by ill fortune the name of the Emperours Lievtenant and Propretour of Britaine is worne out Neere to Brampton Gelt a riveret runneth downe by the banke whereof in a crag called Helbecke are read these antiquities wherein the words hang not well together erected as it seemeth by a Lievtenant of the second Legion Augusta under Agricola the Propraetour and others beside which the injurie of time hath envied us In the same rocke these words also are read written in a more moderne and newer letter OFFICIUM ROMANORUM This Gelt emptieth himselfe into the river Irthing which with a swift and angry streame holdeth his course by Naworth Castle belonging unto the Lord William Howard aforesaid who now repaireth it but lately to the Barons of Dacre of whom when the last died in his tender yeeres Leonard Dacre his Unkle who chose rather to try the title of inheritance with his Prince by force of armes than with his Nieces by wager of law seized into his hands this Castle and levied a band of rebels against his Prince whom the Lord of Hunsdon with the garrison souldiers of Berwick soone discomfited and put to flight in which conflict many were slaine but more ranne away amongst whom Leonard himselfe escaped But of him more in my Annales Neerer unto the wall beyond the river Irthing was lately found this faire votive altar erected to the Goddesse Nymphe of the Brigantes for the health of the Empresse Plautilla wife to M. Aurelius Antoninus Severus and the whole Imperiall family by M. Cocceius Nigrinus a Treasurer to the Emperour when Laetus was second time Consull with intricate connexion of letters which I read thus DEAE NYMPHAE BRIGantum QUOD VOVERAT PRO SALUTE PLAUTILIAE COnjugis INVICTAE DO Mini NOSTRI INVICTI IMP. M. AURE Lii SEVERI ANTONINI PII. FE Licis C AE Saris AU Gusti TOTIUSQUEDO MUS DIVINAE EJUS M. COCCEIUS NIGRINUS Questor AU Gusti Numini DEVOTUS LIBENS SUSCEPTUM Solvit LAETO II. Here by was the Priory of Lanercost founded by R. de Vaulx Lord of Gillesland and hard by the wall Burd Oswald Beneath which where that Picts wall passed over the river Irthing by an arched bridge was the station of the first band Aelia Dacica or of the Dacians the place is now named Willoford which the booke of Notice of Provinces and many altars bearing inscriptions to Iupiter Optimus Maximus reared by that Cohort here doe plentifully prove Of which I thought good to adde these unto the rest although time hath almost worne them out I. O. M. OH I. AEL DA C. C. A. GETA IRELSAVRNES I. O. M. CoH. I. AEL DAC C. P. STATU LoN GINUS TRIB PRO SALUTE D. N MAXjMIANO FOR CAE VA OAED LEG VI VIC P.F F. I. O. M. COHIAEL DAC TETRICIANORO C. P. LUTIC V S. DESIG NATUS TRIB I.O.M. COH I. AEL DAC GORD ANA. C. P EST I. O. M. H. I. AEL DAC C. PRAEE SI FLIUS FA S TRIB PETUO COS. The first Lord of Gillesland that hitherto I have read of was William Meschines the brother of Ralph Lord of Cumberland I meane not that William brother to Ranulph Earle of Chester from whom came Ranulph de Ruelent but the brother of Ralph yet could hee never wrest it wholly out of the Scots hands for Gill the sonne of Bueth held the greatest part of it by force and armes After his death King Henry the second gave it to Hubert de Vaulx or de Vallibus whose shield of Armes was Chequy Or Gueles His sonne Robert founded and endowed the Priory of Lanercost But the inheritance after a few yeeres was by marriage translated to the Moltons and from them by a daughter to Ranulph Lord Dacre whose line hath flourished unto our daies in very great honour Having now in some sort surveied the maritime coasts and more inward parts of Cumberland the side that lieth more Easterly being leane hungry and a wast remaineth to bee viewed and yet it sheweth nothing but the spring-head of South-Tine in a moorish place and an ancient Romane high-way eight ells broad paved with great stone commonly called Mayden Way which leadeth out of Westmorland and where the riveret Alon and the aforesaid South Tine meet together in one channell by the side of an hill of gentle descent there remaine yet the footings of a very great and ancient towne which was toward the North enclosed within a fourefold rampier
was Robert Boide whose wife and Earldome together when Boide was banished the realme James L. Hamilton as I said erewhile obtained and his posteritie enjoyed the same Earldome saving that of late Sir James Steward appointed guardian to James Hamilton Earle of Arran when hee was so defective in understanding that he could not manage his estate tooke this title in the right of being guardian Neere unto this standeth Buthe so called of a little religious Cell which Brendanus founded for so is a little Cell tearmed in the Scottish tongue In this Iland is Rothsay Castle which giveth the title of Dukedome unto the King of Scots eldest sonne who is borne Prince of Scotland Duke of Rothsay and Seneschall of Scotland since time that King Robert the third invested Robert his eldest sonne Duke of Rothsay the first in Scotland that ever was created Duke With which title also Queene Marie honoured Henrie Lord Darly before she tooke him to be her husband Then shew themselves Hellan sometimes called Hellan Leneow that it as Iohn Fordon interpreteth it The Saints Ilands and Hellan Tinoc that is The Swines Iland with a great number of other Ilands of lesse note and reckoning in the same Forth DAMNII CLUYDSDALE c. BEyond the NOVANTES more inward by the river Glotta or Cluyd and farther still even to the verie East sea dwelt in times past the DAMNII in those countries if I have any judgement for in things so farre remote from our remembrance and in so thick a mist of obscuritie who can speake of certaintie which are now callled Cluydsdale the Baronie of Renfraw Lennox Strivelinshire Menteth and Fife Neere unto the head of Cluyd in Crawford Moore among the wilde wasts certaine husbandmen of the countrey after great store of violent raine happened to finde certaine small peeces like scrapings of gold which have this long time given great hope of much riches but most of all in our dayes since that Sir Beamis Bulmer undertooke with great endevour to finde out here a Mine of gold Certes there is Azur gotten forth everie day without any paines in manner at all Now the Castle of Crawford together with the title of the Earle of Crawford was by Robert the second King of Scots given unto Sir James Lindesey who by a single combate performed with Baron Welles an Englishman won high commendation for his valour These Lindeseyes have deserved passing well of their country and are of ancient nobilitie ever since that Sir William Lindesey married one of the heires of William of Lancaster Lord of Kandale in England whose neice in the third degree of lineall descent was married into the most honourable family of Coucy in France Cluyd after hee hath from his spring head with much struggling got out Northward by Baron Somervils house receiveth unto him from out of the West the river Duglasse or Douglasse so called of a blackish or greenish water that it hath which river communicateth his name both to have the vale through which hee runneth called Douglasdale and also to Douglasse castle therein which name that castle likewise hath imparted unto the family of the Douglasses Which I assure you is very ancient but most famous ever since that Sir James Douglasse stucke verie close at all times as a most fast friend unto King Robert Brus and was readie alwaies with singular courage resolution and wisdome to assist him claiming the kingdome in most troublesome and dangerous times and whom the said King Robert charged at his death to carrie his heart to Jerusalem that hee might bee discharged of his vow made to goe to the Holy-land In memoriall whereof the Douglasses have inserted in their Coat of Armes a mans heart From which time this family grew up to that power and greatnesse and namely after that King David the second had created William Earle of Douglasse that they after a sort awed the Kings themselves For at one time well neere there were sixe Earles of them namely of this Douglasse of Angus of Ormund of Wigton of Murray and of Morton among whom the Earle of Wigton through his martiall prowesse and desert obtained at the hands of Charles the seventh king of France the title of Duke of Tourain and left the same to two Earles of Douglasse his heires after him Above the confluence of Douglasse and Cluyd is Lanric the hereditarie Sheriffdom of the Hamiltons who for their name are beholden unto Hamilton castle which standeth somewhat higher upon Cluyds banke in a fruitfull and passing pleasant place but they referre their originall as they have a tradition to a certaine Englishman surnamed Hampton who having taken part with Robert Brus received from him faire lands in this tract Much increase of their wealth and estate came by the bounteous hand of King James the third who bestowed in marriage upon Sir James Hamilton his own eldest sister whom he had taken perforce from the Lord Boide her husband together with the Earledome of Arran but of honours and dignities by the States of the kingdome who after the death of King James the fifth ordained James Hamilton grandsonne to the former James Regent of Scotland whom Henrie also the second King of France advanced to be Duke of Chasteau Herald in Poictou as also by King James the sixth who honoured his son John with the title of Marquesse of Hamilton which honourable title was then first brought into Scotland The river Glotta or Cluyd runneth from Hamilton by Bothwell which glorieth in the Earles thereof namely John Ramsey whose greatnesse with King James the third was excessive but pernicious both to himselfe and the King and the Hepburns whom I have already spoken of so streight forward with a readie stream through Glascow in ancient times past a Bishops seat but discontinued a great while untill that King William restored it up againe but now it is an Archbishops See and an Universitie which Bishop Turnbull after hee had in a pious and religious intent built a colledge in the yeere 1554. first founded This Glascow is the most famous town of merchandise in this tract for pleasant site and apple trees and other like fruit trees much commended having also a verie faire bridge supported with eight arches Of which towne I. Ionstoun thus versified Non te Pontificum luxus non Insula tantùm Ornavit diri quae tibi caussa mali Glottiadae quantùm decorant te Glascua Musae Quae celsum attollunt clara sub astra caput GLOTTA decus rerum piscosis nobilis undis Finitimi recreat jugera laeta soli Ast Glottae decus vicinis gloria terris Glascua foe cundat flumine cuncta suo The sumptuous port of Bishops great hath not adorn'd thee so Nor mitre rich that hath beene cause of thine accursed woe As Cluyds Muses grace thee now O Glascow towne for why They make thee beare thy head aloft up to the starrie skie Cluyd the beautie of the
stranger chance Here haply may he thinke he hath a sight againe of France What drew this place from thence their wit and spirit hot trow yee Or rather had the same at first by native propertie Now where the shore turneth inward a front Northward hard by the salt water of Tau there flourished in old time two goodly Abbyes Balmerinoch built by Queene Ermengard wife to King William daughter of Vicount Beaumont in France But lately King James of great Britaine advanced Sir Iames Elphinston to the honour of Baron Balmerinoch and Lundoris founded among the woods by David Earle of Huntington and at this day the Baronie of Sir Patrick Lesley betweene which standeth Banbrich the habitation of the Earle of Rothes strongly built castle wise But as touching the townes of Fife planted along the sea side have here now if it please you these verses of Master Ionston Oppida sic toto sunt sparsa in littore ut unum Dixeris inque uno plurima juncta eadem Littore quot curvo Forthae volvuntur arenae Quotque undis refluo tunditur orasalo Penè tot hîc cernas instratum puppibus aequor Urbibus crebris penè tot ora hominum Cuncta operis intenta domus foeda otia nescit Sedula cura domi sedula curaforis Quae maria quas non terras animosa juventus Ah! fragili fidens audet adire trabe Auxit opes virtus virtuti dura pericla Iuncta etiam lucro damna fuere suo Quae fecêre viris animos cultumque dedêre Magnanimis prosunt damna pericla labor Who sees how thicke townes stand upon this coast will say anone They are but one and yet the same all joyned in that one How many sands on crooked shore of Forth are cast by tides Or billowes at the seas returne beat hard upon bankes sides So many ships well neere you may here see to saile or ride And in those townes so thicke almost as many folke abide In everie house they ply their worke no idle drones they are Busie at home with diligence busie abroad with care What seas or lands are there to which a voiage for to make In brittle barkes will not their youth courageous undertake By valour be they growne to wealth yet valour meet with paines And perils too some losses too have they had with their gaines These things have made them valiant civill withall and courteous Losse perill painfull toile availe all such as be magnanimous The Governour of this province like as of all the rest in this Kingdome was in times past a Thane that is in the old English tongue The Kings Minister as it is also at this day in the Danish language but Malcolm Canmore made Macduffe who before was Thane of Fife the first hereditarie Earle of Fife and in consideration of his good desert and singular service done unto him granted that his posteritie should have the honour to place the King when hee is to be crowned in his chaire to lead the Vant-guard in the Kings armie and if any of them should happen by casualty to kill either Gentleman or Commoner to buy it out with a peece of money And not farre from Lundoris there is to bee seene a Crosse of stone which standing for a limit betweene Fife and Strathern had an inscription of barbarous verses and a certain priviledge of Sanctuarie that any Man-slaier allied to Macduffe Earle of Fife within the ninth degree if he came unto this Crosse and gave nine kine with an heiâ—er should bee quit of manslaughter When his posteritie lost this title I could never yet find but it appeareth out of the Records of the kingdome that K. David the second gave unto William Ramsey this Earldome with all and everie the immunities and law which is called Clan-Mac-Duffe and received it is for certaine that the linage of the Wemesies and Douglasse yea and that great kinred Clan-Hatan the chiefe whereof is Mac-Intoskech descended from them And the most learned I. Skerne Clerke of the Kings Register of Scotland hath taught mee in his significations of words that Isabel daughter and heire to Duncane Earle of Fife granted upon certaine conditions unto Robert the third King of the Scots for the use and behoofe of Robert Stewart Earle of Menteith the Earldome of Fife who being afterwards Duke of Albanie and affecting the Kingdome with cruell ambition caused David the Kings eldest son to be most pitifully famished to death which is highest extremitie of all miserie But his son Murdac suffered due punishment for the wickednesse both of his father and his owne sonnes being put to death by King James the first for their violent oppressions and a decree passed that the Earldome of Fife should be united unto the Crown for ever But the authoritie of the Sheriffe of Fife belongeth in right of inheritance to the Earle of Rothes STRATHERN AS farre as to the river Tau which boundeth Fife on the North-side Iulius Agricola the best Propretour of Britaine under Domitian the worst Emperour marched with victorious armes in the third yeere of his warlike expeditions having wasted and spoiled the nations hitherto Neere the out-let of Tau the notable river Ern intermingleth his waters with Tau which river beginning out of a Lake or Loch of the same name bestoweth his owne name upon the countrey through which he runneth For it is called Straith Ern which in the ancient tongue of the Britans signifieth the Vale along Ern. The banke of this Ern is beautified with Drimein Castle belonging to the family of the Barons of Dromund advanced to highest honours ever since that King Robert Stewart the third took to him a wife out of that linage For the women of this race have for their singular beautie and well favoured sweet countenance won the prize from all others insomuch as they have beene the Kings most amiable paramours Upon the same banke Tulibardin Castle sheweth it selfe aloft but with greater jollitie since that by the propitious favour of King James the sixth Sir Iohn Murray Baron of Tulibardin was raised to the honour and estate of Earle of Tulibardin Upon the other bank more beneath Duplin Castle the habitation of the Barons Oliphant reporteth yet what an overthrow the like to which was never before the Englishmen that came to aide King Edward Balliol gave there unto the Scots insomuch as the English writers in that time doe write that they won this victorie not by mans hand but by the power of God and the Scottish writers relate how that out of the family of the Lindeseies there were slaine in the field fourescore persons and that the name of the Haies had bin quite extinguished but that the chiefe of that house left his wife behind him great with child Not farre from it standeth Innermeth well knowne by reason of the Lords thereof the Stewarts out of the family of Lorn Inch-Chafra that is in the old Scottish
way to convey their small vessels over it by land Which I hope a man may sooner beleeve than that the Argonauts laid their great ship Argos upon their shoulders and so carried it along with them five hundred miles from Aemonia unto the shores of Thessalia LORN SOmewhat higher toward the North lyeth LORN bearing the best kinde of barley in great plentie and divided with Leaue a vast and huge lake by which standeth Berogomum a castle in which sometime was kept the Court of Justice or Session and not farre from it Dunstafag that is Stephens Mount the Kings house in times past above which Logh Aber a Lake insinuating it selfe from out of the Westerne sea windeth it selfe so farre within land that it had conflowed together with Nesse another Lake running into the East sea but that certaine mountaines betweene kept them with a verie little partition asunder The chiefest place of name in this tract is Tarbar in Logh Kinkeran where King James the fourth ordained a Justice and Sheriffe to administer justice unto the Inhabitants of the out Islands These countries and those beyond them in the yeere of our Lords Incarnation 655. the Picts held whom Bede calleth the Northern Picts where hee reporteth that in the said yeere Columbane a Priest and Abbat famous for his Monkish profession and life came out of Ireland into Britaine to instruct these in Christian religion that by meanes of the high rough ridges of the mountaines were sequestred from the Southerne countries of the Picts and that they in lieu of a reward allowed unto him the Iland Hii over against them now called I-Comb-Kill of which more in place convenient The Lords of Lorna in the age aforegoing were the Stewarts but now by reason of a female their heire the Earles of Argile who use this title in their honourable stile BRAID ALBIN or ALBANY MOre inwardly where the uninhabitable loftie and rugged ridges of the Mountaine Grampius begin a little to slope and settle downeward is seated BRAID-ALBIN that is The highest part of Scotland for they that are the true and right Scots indeed call Scotland in their mother tongue Albin like as that part where it mounteth up highest Drum Albin that is the Ridge of Scotland But in an old booke it is read Brun Albin where wee finde this written Fergus filius Eric c. that is Fergus the sonne of Eric was the first of the seed or line of Chonare that entred upon the Kingdome of Albanie from Brun-Albain unto the Irish sea and Inch-Gall And after him the Kings descended from the seed or race of Fergus reigned in Brun-Albain or Brunhere unto Alpin the sonne of Eochall But this Albanie is better knowne for the Dukes thereof than for any good gifts that the soile yeeldeth The first Duke of Albanie that I read of was Robert Earle of Fife whom his brother King Robert the third of that name advanced to that honour yet he ungratefull person that he was pricked on with the spirit of ambition famished to death his sonne David that was heire to the crown But the punishment due for this wicked fact which himselfe by the long-sufferance of God felt not his son Mordac the second Duke of Albanie suffered most grievously being condemned for treason and beheaded when hee had seene his two sonnes the day before executed in the same manner The third Duke of Albanie was Alexander second sonne to King James the second who being Regent of the Kingdome Earle of March Marr and Garioth Lord of Annandale and of Man was by his own brother King James the third outlawed and after hee had beene turmoiled with many troubles in the end as hee stood by to behold a Justs and Tourneament in Paris chanced to bee wounded with a peece of a shattered launce and so died His sonne John the fourth Duke of Albanie Regent likewise and made Tutour to King James the fifth taking contentment in the pleasant delights of the French Court after hee had wedded there the daughter and one of the heires of John Earle of Auverne and Lauragveze died there without issue Whom in a respective reverence to the bloud royall of the Scots Francis the first King of France gave thus much honour unto as that hee allowed him place betweene the Archbishop of Langres and the Duke of Alenson Peeres of France After his death there was no Duke of Albanie untill that Queene Marie in our memorie conferred this title upon Henrie Lord Darly whom within some few daies after shee made her husband like as King James the sixth granted the same unto his owne second sonne Charles being an Infant who is now Duke of Yorke There inhabite these regions a kinde of people rude warlike readie to fight querulous and mischievous they bee commonly tearmed High-landmen who being in deed the right progenie of the ancient Scots speak Irish call themselves Albinich their bodies be firmely made and well compact able withall and strong nimble of foot high minded inbread and nuzzeled in warlike exercises or robberies rather and upon a deadly feud and hatred most forward and desperate to take revenge They goe attired Irish-like in stript or streaked mantles of divers colours wearing thicke and long glibbes of haire living by hunting fishing fowling and stealing In the warre their armour is an head-peece or Morion of iron and an habergeon or coat of maile their weapons bee bowes barbed or hooked arrowes and broad backe-swords and being divided by certaine families or kinreds which they terme Clannes they commit such cruell outrages what with robbing spoiling and killing that their savage crueltie hath forced a law to bee enacted whereby it is lawfull That if any person out of any one Clanne or kinred of theirs hath trespassed ought and done harme whosoever of that Clanne or linage chance to bee taken he shall either make amends for the harmes or else suffer death for it when as the whole Clan commonly beareth feud for any hurt received by any one member thereof by execution of lawes order of justice or otherwise PERTHIA OR PERTH Sheriffdome OUt of the very bosome of Mountaines of Albany Tau the greatest river of all Scotland issueth and first runneth amaine through the fields untill that spreading broad into a lake full of Islands hee restraineth and keepeth in his course Then gathering himselfe narrow within his bankes into a channell and watering Perth a large plentifull and rich countrey he taketh in unto him Amund a small river comming out of Athol This Athol that I may digresse a little out of my way is infamous for witches and wicked women the countrey otherwise fertile enough hath vallies bespread with forrests namely where that WOOD CALEDONIA dreadfull to see to for the sundrie turnings and windings in and out therein for the hideous horrour of dark shades for the burrowes and dennes of wild bulls with thicke manes whereof I made mention heretofore
extended it selfe in old time farre and wide everie way in these parts As for the places herein they are of no great account but the Earles thereof are very memorable Thomas a younger sonne of Rolland of Galloway was in his wives right Earle of Athol whose sonne Patricke was by the Bissets his concurrents murdered in feud at Hadington in his bed-chamber and forthwith the whole house wherein hee lodged burnt that it might be supposed he perished by casualtie of fire In the Earldome there succeeded David Hastings who had married the aunt by the mothers side of Patricke whose sonne that David surnamed of Strathbogie may seeme to be who a little after in the reigne of Henrie the third King of England being Earle of Athol married one of the daughters and heires of Richard base sonne to John King of England and had with her a verie goodly inheritance in England She bare unto him two sonnes John Earle of Athol who being of a variable disposition and untrustie was hanged up aloft on a gallowes fiftie foot high and David Earle of Athol unto whom by marriage with one of the daughters and heires of John Comin of Badzenoth by one of the heires of Aumar de Valence Earle of Penbroch there fell great lands and possessions His sonne David who under King Edward the second was otherwhiles amongst English Earles summoned to the Parliaments in England and under King Edward Balliol made Lord Lievtenant Generall of Scotland was vanquished by the valerous prowesse of Andrew de Murray and slaine in battaile within the Forrest of Kelblen in the yeere of our Lord 1335. And his sonne David left two young daughters only Elizabeth wedded unto Sir Thomas Percie from whom the Barons of Burrough are descended and Philip married to Sir Thomas Halsham an English Knight Then fell the title of Athol unto that Walter Stewart sonne to King Robert the second who cruelly murdered James the first King of Scotland and for this execrable crueltie suffered most condigne punishment accordingly in so much as Aeneas Sylvius Embassadour at that time in Scotland from Pope Eugenius the fourth gave out this speech That hee could not tell whether hee should give them greater commendations that revenged the Kings death or brand them with sharper censure of condemnation that distained themselves with so hainous a parricide After some few yeeres passed betweene this honour was granted unto John Stewart of the family of Lorne the sonne of James surnamed The Black Knight by Joan the widow of King James the first daughter to John Earle of Somerset and Niece to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster whose posteritie at this day enjoy the same Tau bearing now a bigger streame by receiving Almund unto him holdeth on his course to Dunkelden adorned by King David with an Episcopall See Most writers grounding upon the signification of that word suppose it to be a towne of the Caledonians and interpret it The Mount or hill of Hazeles as who would have that name given unto it of the Hazel trees in the wood Caledonia From hence the Tau goeth forward by the carkasse of Berth a little desolate Citie remembring well enough what a great losse and calamitie hee brought upon it in times past when with an extraordinarie swelling flood hee surrounded all the fields layed the goodly standing corne along on the ground and carried headlong away with him this poore Citie with the Kings childe and infant in his cradle and the inhabitants therein In steed whereof in a more commodious place King William builded Perth which straightwaies became so wealthy that Necham who lived in that age versified of it in this manner Transis ample Tai per rura per oppida per Perth Regnum sustentant istius urbis opes By villages by townes by Perth thou runn'st great Tay amaine The riches of this Citie Perth doth all the realme sustaine But the posteritie ensuing called it of a Church founded in honour of Saint John Saint Iohns towne and the English whiles the warres were hot betweene the Bruses and the Balliols fortified it with great bulwarks which the Scots afterwards for the most part overthrew and dismantled it themselves Howbeit it is a proper pretie Citie pleasantly seated betweene two Greenes and for all that some of the Churches be destroyed yet a goodly shew it maketh ranged and set out in such an uniforme maner that in everie severall street almost there dwell severall artificers by themselves and the river Tau bringeth up with the tide sea commodities by lighters whereupon J. Jonston so often now by me cited writeth thus PERTHUM Propter aquas Tai liquidas amoena vineta Obtinet in medio regna superba solo Nobilium quondam regum clarissima sedes Pulchra situ pinguis germine dives agri Finitimis dat jura locis moremque modumque Huic dare laus illis haec meruisse dari Sola inter patrias incincta est moenibus urbes Hostibus assiduis ne vaga praeda foret Quanta virûm virtus dextrae quae praemia nôrunt Cimber Saxo ferox genus Hectoridum Felix laude novâ felix quoque laude vetustâ Perge recens priscum perpetuare decus PERTH Neere to the waters cleere of Tay and pleasant plaines all greene In middle ground betweene them stands Perth proudly like a Queene Of noble Kings the stately seat and palace once it was Faire for the site and rich with all for spring of corne and grasse To neighbour places all it doth lawes customes fashions give Her praise to give theirs to deserve the same for to receive Of all the Cities in these parts walled alone is she Lest she to foes continuall a scambling prey might be What Knights she bred and what rewards they won to knighthood due Danes Saxons fierce bold Britans eke the Trojans off-spring knew Happie for praises old happie for praises new of late New as thou art thine honour old strive to perpetuate And now of late King James the sixth hath erected it to the title of an Earldome having created James Baron Dromund Earle of Perth Unto Perth these places are neere neighbours Methven which Margaret an English Ladie widow unto King James the fourth purchased with readie money for her third husband Henrie Steward descended of the royall blood and for his heires and withall obtained of her sonne King James the fifth for him the dignitie of a Baron More beneath is Rethuen a castle of the Rethuens whose name is of damned memorie considering that the three states of the kingdome hath ordained that whosoever were of that name should forgoe the same and take unto them a new after that the Rethuens brethren in a most cursed and horrible conspiracie had complotted to murder their soveraigne King James the sixth who had created William their father Earle of Gourie and afterward beheaded him being lawfully convicted when he would insolently prescribe lawes to his soveraigne But of men
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
Kingdome The Brehons assisted by certaine Scholars who had learned many rules of the civill and Canon law rather by tradition then by reading gave judgement in all causes and had the eleventh part of the thing adjudged for their fee and the chiefe Lords Marshall did execution These are the principall rules and grounds of the Brehon law which the makers of the Statutes of Kilkenny did not without cause call a lewd custome for it was the cause of much lewdnesse and barbarisme It gave countenance and encouragement to theft rape and murther it made all possessions uncertaine whereby it came to passe that there was no building of houses and townes nor education of children in learning or civility no exercise of trades or handicrafts no improvement or manuring of lands no industry or vertue in use among them but the people were bred in loosenesse and idlenesse which hath beene the true cause of all the mischeifes and miseries in that Kingdome Now forward take with you the observations of the said Good and thus much will I speake before hand for the man that in nothing he shooteth at reproach but aimeth all at truth and speaketh onely of those uncivill and meere Irish that lie shrowded in the utmost coasts and have not as yet suited themselves with civill qualities and conditions And to speake in generall of them all this Nation is strong of bodie and passing nimble stout and haughty in heart for wit quicke martiall prodigall and carelesse of their lives enduring travell cold and hunger given to fleshly lust kind and curteous to strangers constant in love in enmitie implacable light of beliefe greedie of glorie impatient of abuse and injurie and as hee said in old time in all affections most vehement and passionate If they be bad you shall no where meet with worse if they be good you can hardly find better Generally they give unto their children when they come to holy baptisme profane names adding alwaies somewhat to the name taken either from some event or an old wife or else some colour as red white blacke or else from a disease scab and peeldnesse or from one vice or other as theefe proud c. and albeit they be of all men most impatient of reproach yet these noble men of theirs even they that have the letter O prefixed to their names disdaine not those additions The name of the Parent or any of the same kinred then living it is not lawfull to give unto children for they are perswaded that their death is hastened thereby But when the father is dead then the sonne assumeth his name left the name should be lost and if any Ancestour of that name were a redoubted warriour the like prowesse and valour is expected from him This opinion is encreased by their Poets Bardes or Rimers who keepe the exploits of those ancient Progenitours recorded in writing which they peece out with many high praises and fables devised of their owne braine whereby these Rimers or Bards grow rich For new wedded brides and women in childbed thinke themselves discredited if they bestow not upon one of these Praise-praters the best garments they have Mothers after six daies that they be brought a bed companie with their husbands afresh and put forth their young babes to nource They that be of the more noble parentage shall have a number of nources repaire unto them streight waies from far which make suit for the nourcing of the infant and of these foster children they make more account than of their own which they beare And although they are most intemperate by reason of the distemperature of the aire and the moisture both of the ground and of their meates in regard also that all law is exiled and albeit they thinke it is a shame for themselves to give their owne children the breast yet for this their nurcelings sake both man and wife abstaine from carnall company together And if they doe otherwise they entertaine another nource under them at their owne charges And nources there be among them as many well neere as there are young wenches for their servants and to have the suckling of the little child they count a sufficient reward for being naught of their bodies Now if this infant fortune to bee sicke they all to besprinckle it with the stalest urine they can get and for a preservative against all misfortunes they hang about the childrens neckes not onely the beginning of Saint Iohns Gospell but also a crooked naile taken out of an horses shooe or else a piece of a Wolves skin And for that purpose as well nources as infants weare girdles platted of womens haire To their lovers also it is knowne they send bracelets finely wrought of these haires whether their minde is herein of Venus girdle called Cestos I wote not The Foster-fathers take much more paines bestow more goods by farre and shew greater love unto their foster children than they doe to their owne children From them these children not so much by due claime of right receive as by force wrest even with taking stresses and driving away booties apparell maintenance for their pleasures mony wherwith to buy them armour yea and to spend in all kind of their lewdnesse their dowries also and stockes of cattell All those that have been nourced by the same woman love one another more deerely repose greater trust in them than if they were their naturall whole brethren and sisters insomuch as in comparison of these and for their sakes they even hate their naturall brethren and sisters Be they reproved at any time by their own parents they flie to these their foster-fathers and being heartened by them breake out oftentimes even unto open war against their said parents taking instructions from them to all lewd and villanous prankes they become most ungracious and desperate Semblably the nources traine up those maidens which they reare to all obscenity and filthinesse If any of these foster children chance to fall sicke a man would not beleeve how quickly their nources heare of it yea though they dwell many a mile off how pensively they attend and watch by the sicke body night and day To conclude the greatest corruptions of Ireland are thought to spring from these foster-fathers and nources and from nought else That these Irish people are both of an hotter and moisture nature than other nations we may well conjecture And this we gather by their wonderfull soft skin which doubtlesse commeth as well by the nature of the soile as by certaine artificiall bathings and exercise that they use By reason also of the same tendernesse of their muscles they so excell in nimblenesse and flexibility of all parts of the body as it is incredible Given they are to idlenes above all things they reckon it the greatest riches to take no paine and count it the most pleasure to enjoy liberty Delighted they are above measure in musick but especially in the harpe with wire-strings which they
unto the said place and there she saith on this wise I call thee P. from the East and West South and North from the forrests woods rivers meeres the wilde wood-fayries white red black c. and withall bolteth out certaine short praiers then returneth she home unto the sicke party to try whether it be the disease called Esane which they are of opinion is sent by the Fairies and whistereth a certaine odde praier with a Pater Noster into his eare putteth some coals into a pot full of fair water and so giveth more certain judgment of the disease than many of our Physicians can Their warre-fare consisteth of horsemen of souldiours set in the rere-guard whom they terme Galloglasses who fight with most keen hatchets and of light armed footmen called Kernes whose service is with darts and skeanes To give an acclamation and shout unto every footman or horseman as he goeth out of the gate is counted lucky and fortunate he who hath no such applause is thought to have some mischeife portended unto him In war they use the bagpipe in stead of a trumpet they carry about them Amulets they recite certain praiers in joining battel they crie as loud as possible they can Pharroh I suppose this to be that military Barritus which Ammianus speaketh of with this perswasion that he who crieth not as loud as the rest shall have this accident befall unto him suddenly to bee taken up from the ground and carried as it were flying in the aire avoiding ever after the sight of men into a certaine vale in Kerry as I have said before Such as visite and sit by one that lieth sicke in bed never speake word of God nor of the salvation of his soul ne yet of making his will but all to put him in hope of his recovering If any one call for the sacrament him they count past hope and recovery The wives passe not for any will-making because it is grown now to be a common custome that a third part of the goods shall bee given unto them and the rest to bee divided by even portions among the children saving that when they come to enter upon the inheritance be that is mightiest carrieth away the best share For he that is strongest be he unkle or nephew most times seizeth upon the inheritance and shutteth the children out of all When one lieth ready to die before he is quite gone certaine women hired of purpose to lament standing in the meeting of crosse high-wayes and holding their hands all abroad call unto him with certain out-cries fitted for the nonce and goe about to stay his soule as it laboureth to get forth of the bodie by reckoning up the commodities that he enjoyeth of wordly goods of wives of beauty fame kinsfolke friends and horses and demanding of him why he will depart and whither and to whom yea they expostulate with his soule objecting that she is unthankfull At length they piteously make moane and say that the soule now ready to leave the body is going away to these kinde of haggish women that appeare by night and in darknesse but after it is departed once out of the body they keepe a mourning and wailing for it with loud howling and clapping of their hands together Now they follow the corps when it goes to buriall with such a peale of out-cries that a man would thinke the quicke as well as the dead past all recoverie In these wailings and lamentations the nurses daughters and concubines make the greatest adoe and are most vehement Neither doe they mourne with lesse sorrow and heavinesse for those that are slaine in battaile than such as die of sicknesse although they affirme that they have an easier death who lose their lives in fighting in the field or in robbing Yet notwithstanding they raile upon their enemies with most spitefull words and continue for a long time deadly hatred against all of that sept and kinred They suppose that the soules of such as are deceased goe into the company of certaine men famous in those places touching whom they retaine still fables and songs as of Giants Fin-Mac-Huyle Osker Mac-Oshin and they say that by illusion they often times doe see such As for their meats they feed willingly upon herbs and watercresses especially upon mushromes shamroots and roots so that Strabo not without good cause said they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Eaters of herbes for which in some copies is falsly read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Great Eaters They delight also in butter tempered with oate-meale in milke whey beefe-broth and flesh oftentimes without any bread at all As for the corne that they have they lay it up for their horses provender for whom verily they are especially carefull When they be hunger bitten in time of dearth they disdaine not to devoure raw flesh after they have pressed out the blood thereof and for to concoct and digest it they swill in and poure down the throat Uskebah draught after draught They let their kine blood also which when it is growne to a gelly and strewed over with butter they eat with good appetite They goe for the most part bare headed unlesse it bee when they put on an head-piece The haire of their head they weare long and nothing set they greater store by than the glibbes or tresses of their haires and to have the same plucked or twitched they take it for a contumelious indignitie They use linnen shirts and those verily exceeding large with wide sleeves and hanging side downe to their very knees which they were wont to staine with saffron Little Jackets they have of woollen and those very short breeches most plaine and close to their thighes But they cast over these their mantles or shagge rugges which Isidore seemeth to call Heteromallae with a deepe fringed purâ—le and the same daintily set out with sundrie colours within which they lappe themselves in the night and sweetly sleepe on the very ground Such also doe the women cast over the side garment that they weare downe to the foot and with elnes as I said of Sendall rolled up in wreathes they rather load than adorne their heads like as they doe their neckes with chaines and carkaneth their armes also with bracelets These are the manners of the wild Irish out of our Author In the rest for the most part all that inhabite the English Pale as they tearme it there is no point of curtesie and civilitie wanting for which they are beholden to the English conquest and for much more might the whole Island bee beholden unto it in case upon a certaine peevish and obstinate love they beare unto their owne country fashions they had not stopped up their eares and shut up their hearts against better governance For the Irishry are so stifly settled in observing of the old rites of their country that not onely they cannot be withdrawne from them but also are able easily to draw the English unto
the Irish. Item the Lord William Burgh Earle of Ulster led forth an army out of Ulster into Mounster against Briene O-Brene Also the Lady Joan Countesse of Kildare was at Maynoth delivered of William her first sonne that the Lord John Darcy had by her whiles the Lord John abode in England Item Reymund Lawles is slaine treacherously at Wickelow More a Parliament was holden at Kilkenny by Frier Roger Utlaw the Prior of Kylmainon then Lievtenant under the Lord Justice at which were present Alexander Archbishop of Dublin the Lord William Earle of Ulster the Lord James Earle of Ormond the Lord William Bermingham and Walter Burk of Conaght and every of them with a great power set forward to expell Brien O-Brene out of Urkiff neere Cashill Also Walter Burk with his army of Connaght harried the lands of the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas bringing back with him the booty to Urkiff Item the Lord Earle of Ulster and the Earle of Desmund namely the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas for this is the first time that I call him Earle are appointed to the safe keeping of the Marshall at Lymeric by Frier Roger Utlaw Justice of Ireland But the Earle of Desmond by a wile escaped out of the custody of the said Marshall and went his way MCCCXXXI The Lord Hugh Lacy with the Kings pardon and peace entred Ireland Also the Earle of Ulster entred England Also there was given an overthrow to the Irish in Okenseley by the English the one and twenty day of April Item the same day on the Vigill of Saint Marke the Evangelist the O-Tothely came to Tanelagh and robbed Alexander Archbishop of Dublin tooke away three hundred sheepe and slew Richard White and other honest men of his company Then ran rumours to Dublin of that depredation and slaughter and Sir Philip Bryt knight and Frier Moris Fitz-Gerald Knight of the order of Knights Hospitalers Hamnud Archdekyn Iohn Chamberlane Robert Tyrell and the two sons of Reginald Bernewall and many others but especially of the retinew of the Lord Archbishop of Dublin were by a traine or ambush slaine by David O-Tothill in Culiagh Also the Lord William Bermingham led forth a great army against the foresaid Irish and did much harme unto them but more would have done had he not beene empeached by the false promises of the Irish. Item those of the English pale at Thurles gave a great overthrow unto Briene O-Brene and slew many of the Irish in the moneth of May. Item at Finnagh in Meth the English of the said pale defeated the Irish upon the eleventh day of June Also when famine encreased much in Ireland the mercy of God so disposed that upon the seven and twenty day of June there came to land a mighty multitude of great sea fishes to wit Thurlhedis such as in many ages past had never beene seene which by the estimation of many men amounted to the number of five hundred and this hapned neere unto Connyng and the water called Dodyz in the haven of Dublin about evening and Anthony Lord Lucy then Justice of Ireland with his owne people and certain citizens of Dublin amongst whom was Philip Cradock killed of the foresaid fishes above 200. and no man was forbidden to carry away the same Justice giving order therefore Item Antony Lord Lucy Justice of Ireland ordained a common Parliament at Dublin in the Utas of Saint Iohn Baptist unto which certaine of the Ancients of the land came not Then the said Justice removed to Kilkenny proroging the said Parliament from the foresaid Octaves unto the feast of Saint Peter ad Vincula Unto which place there repaired the Lord Thomas Fitz-Thomas and many other Nobles of the land who came not in before submitting themselves to the Kings grace and mercy And the King for his part as much as concerned himselfe under a certaine forme of pardon gratiously forgave all the mischiefes committed by the foresaid persons in the land Also the castle of Fernis is taken by the Irish perfidiously and burned in the month of August Item the said Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas of Desmund is taken by order from the counsell at Lymerick by the said Lord Justice the morrow after the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary and with the Justice brought to the castle of Dublin the seventh day of October Item Henry Mandevile is apprehended in the month of September and led to the castle of Dublin by vertue of a warrant from Simon Fitz-Richard Justice in the Kings Bench. Item Walter Burck who with his two brethren of whole blood are taken in Connaght by the Earle of Ulster in November and conveied by the same Earle unto the castle of North-burg in the month of Februarie Also the Lord William Bermingham with his son Walter Bermingham are attached at Clomell by the said Justice in the moneth of February notwithstanding the Kings charter or pardon given unto them before by the Justice above named and are brought unto the Castle of Dublin the nineteenth day of Aprill Item the Irish of Leinster made spoile of the English and burnt Churches and in the Church of Freineston they burnt about fourescore men and women and a certain Chaplain of the said Church arraied in his sacred vestiments and with the body of our Lord they repelled backe with their javelins when he would have gone forth and burnt him with the rest in the Church These newes came unto the eares of the Lord Pope who sent his Bull or briefe unto the Archbishop of Dublin commanding him to excommunicate the said Irish and all their adherents together with their retinue and followers and to interdict their lands Now the Archbishop fulfilled the commandement of the Lord Pope but the said Irish contemning the said Bull excommunication interdiction and chastisement of the Church and continuing still in their wickednesse drew themselves againe together and invaded all the county of Weis ford as farre as to Carcarne and spoiled the whole country Whom the English made head against to wit Richard White and Richard Fitz Henry with the Burgesses of Weisford and other English slew of the Irish about 400. and many others of them as they fled were drowned in the river which is called Slane MCCCXXXII William Bermingham is put to death and hanged at Dublin by the said Lord Justice the eleventh day of July and Walter his sonne is set free The foresaid Sir William was a noble Knight and among many thousand knights most renowned and excellent for feats of armes Alas the day great pity it was of him for who relating his death can forbeare teares But at length enterred hee was in Dublin among the preaching Friers Also the castle of Bonraty was forced and rased to the very ground by the Irish of Totomon in July Also the castle of Arclo by the said Justice with the citizens of Dublin and the help of the English within the pale was won from the Irish and in the Kings hand on the eighth day of August
was fiercely set upon by Mac-Carton the which Mac-Carton verily having encountred with the said Justice spoiled him of his clothes mony utensils silver plate and horses yea and slew some of his men But in the end the foresaid Justice with the helpe of the men of Ergale got the victory and entred into the parts of Ulster MCCCXLV The seventh of Iune a common Parliament was holden at Dublin unto which the Lord Moris Fitz Thomas came not Item the Lord Ralph Ufford Justice of Ireland after the feast of S. John Baptist with the Kings standard raised yet without the assent of the Elders of the land against the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmond marcheth forthwith into Mounster and there seized into the Kings hands the Earles lands and these lands so seized letteth out to farme unto others for a certain yeerly rent to be carried unto the King Item the said Justice being in the parts of Mounster delivered unto Sir William Burton Knight two writs the one whereof the said William should deliver unto the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Kildare the contents of which was this That upon paine of forfeiting all his lands he should with all speed repaire unto him to aid the King and him with a strong power Now in the other writ contained it was that the said Sir William should apprehend the said Earle of Kildare and so apprehended commit him to prison But Sir William seeing that this could not possibly be brought about and effected accordingly by himselfe with colourable words framed for the nonce perswaded the said Earle whiles he was preparing himselfe with his army and levying a power unto the foresaid Justice that before his departure out of the countrey hee should repaire unto the Kings Counsell at Dublin and that by the unanimity and joint counsell of the same so deale as to provide for the safe keeping of his owne lands in his absence and if after that any hurt should befall unto his lands whiles he was absent it should be imputed unto the Kings counsell and not to him The Earle therefore giving credit unto the Knights words and thinking of no treacherous practice in this behalfe disposed and addressed himself to come unto Dublin When he was come altogether ignorant of any treachery toward whiles himselfe sat in consultation with others of the King Councell in the Exchequer-court sodainly he was by the said Sir William betraied attached or arrested and apprehended and brought to the castle of the said city and there clapt up in prison Item the said Justice entred with his army the parts of O. Comill in Mounster and by a treacherous device taketh two castles of the Earle of Desmonds to wit the castle of Yniskisty and the castle of the Iland in which castle of the Iland thus taken the Knights being within the said castle namely Sir Eustacele Bâ—re Sir William Graunt and Sir Iohn Cotterell were first drawne and afterward in October openly hanged untill they were dead Also the said Earle of Desmond with some other of his Knights were by the said Justice banished The foresaid Justice having attchieved these exploits in Mounster returned in the moneth of November with his company unto his wife then great with child remaining at Kilmaynon which is neere to Dublin over and beside those things which had beene done against the Laity by inditing and emprisoning some of them and turning them out of their goods he also caused the Ecclesiasticall persons as well Priests as Clerkes to be endited and standing endited attached and imprisoned them and fetched no small summes of money out of their purses Item as touching the grants and demises of their lands to wit whom before hee had deprived of their lands he bestowed the same upon divers tenants as hath beene said as also the very writings concerning those grants so sealed as they were by him and with the Kings seale he revoked tooke the same from them cancelled defaced and wholly annulled them Item all the mainpernours of the said Earle of Desmond in number twenty sixe as well Earles as Barons Knights and others of the countrey whose names be these to wit Lord William Burke Earle of Ulster Lord Iames Botiller Earle of Ormond Sir Richard Tuit Knight Sir Eustace Le Poer Knight Sir Gerald De Rochfort Knight Sir Iohn Fitz-Robert Poer Knight Sir Robert Barry Knight Sir Moris Fitz-Gerald Knight Sir Iohn Wellesley Knight Sir Walter Lenfaunt Knight Sir Roger de la Rokell Knight Sir Henry Traharn Knight Sir Roger Pover Knight Sir Iohn Lenfaunt Knight Sir Roger Pover Knight Sir Matthew Fitz-Henry Knight Sir Richard Wallis Knight Sir Edward Burk Knight the sonne of the Earle of Ulster David Barry William Fitz-Gerald Fulke Ash Robert Fitz-Moris Henry Barkley Iohn Fitz-George Roch and Thomas de Lees de Burgh their own travels and proper expences which some of them with the said Justice in his warre had beene at and in pursuing the said Earle of Desmond notwithstanding he by definitive sentence deprived of their lands and dis-inherited and awarded their bodies to the Kings pleasure excepting foure persons only of all the foresaid sureties whose names be these William Burk Earle of Ulster Iames Botiller Earle of Ormond c. MCCCXLVI Upon Palme-Sunday which fell out to be the ninth day of Aprill the above named Lord Ralph Ufford Justice of Ireland went the way of all flesh for whose death his owne dependants together with his wife sorrowed not a little for whose death also the loiall subjects of Ireland rejoice no lesse The Clergy and people both of the land for joy of his departure out of this life with merry hearts doe leap and celebrate a solemn feast of Easter At whose death the floods ceased and the distemperature of the aire had an end and in one word the common sort truely and heartily praise the onely Son of God Well when this Justice now dead was once fast folded within a sheet and a coffin of lead the foresaid Countesse with his treasure not worthy to be bestowed among such holy reliques in horrible griefe of heart conveied his bowels over into England there to be enterred And againe in the month of May and on the second day of the same month behold a prodigious wonder sent no doubt miraculously from God above For lo she that before at her comming entred the city of Dublin so gloriously with the Kings armes and ensignes attended upon with a number of souldiers in her guard and traine along the streets of the said city and so from that time forward a small while though it were living royally with her friends about her like a Queen in the Iland of Ireland now at her going forth of the same city privily by a posternegate of the castle to avoid the clamour of the common people calling upon her for debts in her retire homeward to her owne countrey departed in disgrace sad and mournfull with the dolefull badges of death sorrow and heavinesse Item after the
by all But when the Nations from the North like violent tempests overflowed these South parts it became subject to the Scots For under the Emperours Honorius and Arcadius as wee read in Orosius it was inhabited as well as Ireland by the Scottish Nations and Ninnius hath written that one Biule a Scot was Lord of it But as the same writer recordeth the Scots were driven out of all the British countries and Ilands by Cuneda Grandfather of Maglocunus whom Gildas for the foule work that he made in these Ilands tearmed the Dragon of the Iles. After this Edwin King of Northumberland brought this Iland like as the foresaid Anglesey under the subjection of the English if we understand them both by the name of Menaviae as writers perswade us at which time it was reckoned an Iland of the Britans But when the North had sent abroad his brood the second time I meane the Normans Danes and Norwegians these Norwegians who with their manifold robberies and roveries did most hurt from the Northren sea tooke up their haunt into this Iland and the Hebrides and therein erected Lords and Petty Kings whose briefe history I will here put downe word for word out of an old Manuscript lest it should be utterly lost which is intituled The Chronicle of Man seeming to have been written by the Monks of the Abbey of Russin which was the principall place of religion in this Isle A CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF MAN ANno Domini MLXV Edward of blessed memory King of England departed this life after whom succeeded in the kingdome Harald the son of Godwin against whom Harald Harfager King of Norway came into the field and fought a battell at Stainford-bridge and the English obtaining the victory put them all to flight out of which chace Godred surnamed Crovan the son of Harald the black of Iseland came unto Godred the sonne of Syrric who then reigned in Man and by him was honourably received The same yeere William the BASTARD conquered England and Godred the sonne of Syrric died after whom succeeded his sonne Fingal MLXVI Godred Crovan assembled a great fleet and came to Man fought with the people of the land but was overcome and put to rout A second time hee rallied his forces and his fleet sailed into Man joined battell with the Manksmen was vanquished and driven out of the field A third time he gathered a great multitude together and by night arrived in the haven called Ramsa and hid three hundred men within a wood which stood upon the hanging hollow brow of an hill called Scacafel Now when the sunne was risen the Manksmen put their people in order of battell and with a violent charge encountred with Godred And when the fight was hot those three hundred men starting out of the ambush behind their backes began to foile the Manksmen and put them to the worst yea and forced them to flye Now when they saw themselves discomfited and no place for them of refuge to escape for the sea water comming in with the tide had filled the channell of Ramsa river and the enemies on the other side followed the chace hard they that then remained alive tooke up a pitifull cry and besought Godred to save their lives And he moved with compassion pittying their wofull calamity as who for a certain time had beene nursed and brought up among them sounded the retrait and forbad his hoast to pursue them any longer Goared the morrow after proposed this choice unto his owne army whether they would rather divide Man among themselves and therein dwell or only take the substance and pillage of the countrey and so returne unto their owne homes But they chose rather to wast and spoile the whole Iland and with the goods thereof to enrich themselves and so returne home But Godred himselfe with those few Ilanders that remained with him inhabited the South part of the Iland and granted to the remaines of the Manksmen the North part with this covenant and condition That none of them should at any time venture and presume to challenge any part of the land by right of inheritance Whereby it came to passe that even unto this day the whole Isle is the Kings domain alone and all the revenues thereof belonging unto the crown Godred then reduced Dublin and a great part of Leymistir under his subjection As for the Western Scottish he so over-awed them as that no man who built ship or cog-boat durst drive into it above three nailes Now he reigned 16. yeeres and died in the Iland that is called Yle He left behind him verily three sons Lagman Harald and Olave Lagman the eldest taking upon him the kingdome reigned seven yeeres And Harald his brother a great while rebelled against him but at length being taken prisoner by Lagman he had his members of generation cut off and his eyes plucked out of his head After this Lagman repenting himselfe that he had pulled out his brothers eyes gave over the kingdome of his owne accord and wearing the badge of the Lords Crosse took a journey to Jerusalem in which he died MLXXV. All the Nobles and Lords of the Islands hearing of the death of Lagman dispatched their Embassadors to Murecard O-Brien King of Ireland requesting that hee would send some industrious and worthy man of the blood royall to be their King untill Olave Godreds sonne came to full age The King very willingly yeelded to their requests and sent unto them one Dopnald the sonne of Tade warning and charging him to govern the kingdome which by right belonged unto another with all gentlenesse and modesty But he after he was come to the Crowne not weighing of the charge that his Lord and M. gave him abused his place and lorded with great tyranny and so committing many outrages and villanies reigned cruelly three yeers Then all the Princes of the Ilands agreed together in one conspiracy rose up against him and expelled him out of their coasts Who fled into Ireland and never looked them in the face after MLXXVII One Ingemund was sent from the King of Norway to take upon him the dominion of the Ilands and when he was come to the Isle Leodus he sent messengers to all the Nobles of the Ilands with a commandement that they should meet together and ordain him their King Mean while himselfe with his companions did nothing else but rob spoile make good cheere and banquet dishonour and abuse married wives defloure young maidens yea and give himselfe over to filthy pleasures and fleshly lusts But when tidings hereof came to the Nobles of the Ilands now assembled to make him King they were set on fire with furious wrath and sped themselves in all hast toward him and surprising him in the night burnt the house wherein hee was and with fire and sword made a quick dispatch of him and his company MXCVIII The Abbey of S. Mary at Cistertium or Cisteaux was founded Antioch was won by the Christians and a
Comet or blazing star appeared The same yeere there was a field fought between those of the Isle of Man at Sâ—antwas and the Northren men got the victorie In which battell were slaine Earle Oiher and Mac-Moras Generals of both the sides In the same yeere Magnus King of Norway the son of Olave son of Harald Harfager desirous to try whether the corps of S. Olave King and Martyr remained uncorrupt commanded that his tombe should be opened and notwithstanding the Bishop and Clergy withstood it the King himselfe came boldly thither and by force that he brought with him caused the coffin to be opened Now when he had both seene and handled the body uncorrupt and nothing perished sodainly there was a great feare fell upon him and in all haste he departed thence The next night following Olave King and Martyr appeared unto him in a dreame saying thus Chuse thou one of these two things either to lose thy life and kingdome both within thirty daies or to depart from Norway and never see it againe When the King awakened he called unto him his Princes and Elders and declared unto them his dreame and vision and they being sore affraid gave him this counsell to depart with all speed out of Norway He without delay caused a fleet to be rigged and put in readinesse of an hundred and threescore saile and cutteth over to the Isles of Orkney which he forthwith subdued making way by dint of sword thorowout all the Iles and bringing them to his subjection went forward still as far as to Man and when he was arrived and landed he came unto St. Patrickes Isle to see the place wherein the field had beene fought a little before betweene the Manksmen because as yet many of their bodies that were slaine lay there unburied Now when he saw this most goodly and beautifull Iland it pleased his eye and he chose it to seat himselfe therein built fortresses in it which unto this day carry his name And those of Galway he held in so great awe that he compelled them to cut downe wood for timber and to bring it unto the shore that therewith he might build his Forts and Bulwarkes To Anglesey then called Mona an Iland in Wales hee sailed and found in it two Earles by the name of Hughes the one he slew the other he put to flight and subdued the Iland But the Welshmen presented him with many gifts and so he bad them farwell and returned unto Man Unto Murcard King of Ireland he sent his shooes and commanded him to carry them on his shoulders through the middest of his house on Christmas day that he might thereby understand he was subject unto King Magnus Which the Irishmen as soone as they heard of it took grievously and disdained exceeding much But the King following a wiser course I had rather saith he not onely carry his shooes but also eat them than King Magnus should destroy one Province in Ireland Hee fulfilled therefore his commandement and honourably entreated his messengers Many presents also hee sent over by them unto King Magnus and entred into league with him These messengers being returned unto their Lord related unto him many things touching the situation of Ireland the pleasantnesse thereof the abundance of corne and wholsomnesse of aire When Magnus heard this straightwaies he thought of nothing else but to conquer Ireland and bring it wholly under his dominion He commanded therefore his men to prepare a navie and himselfe in person setting forward with sixteene ships desirous to take a view of the countrey as he unwarily departed aside from his shipping was suddenly compassed about by the Irish and so lost his life together with all those in manner that were with him And he was buried hard by S. Patricks Church in Doun Hee reigned sixe yeeres after whose death the Princes of the Ilands sent for Olave the son of Godred surnamed Crovan who lived in the Court of Henry King of England son of King William MCII. Olave the sonne of Godred Crovan aforesaid beganne his reigne and reigned forty yeeres a peaceable Prince having all the Kings of Ireland and Scotland to be his confederates Hee tooke to wife Affrica the daughter of Ferguse of Gallway of whom he begat Gadred By his concubines he had Regnald Lagman and Harald beside many daughters whereof one was wedded to Summerled Prince of Herergaidel who was the cause of the ruine of the whole Kings of the Ilands On her he begat foure sonnes Dulgall Raignald Engus and Olave MCXXXIII There hapned so great an Eclipse of the Sun upon the fourth Nones of August that the day was turned into night MCXXXIV Olave gave unto Yuo Abbat of Furnes a plot of his land in Man to build an Abbay in a place called Russin and both enriched with revenues and endowed with priviledges the estate of the Church in the Ilands MCXLII Godred Olaves son saileth over sea to the King of Norway whose name was Hinge and did his homage unto him and staied there being honourably entertained of him The same yeere three sonnes of Harald Olaves brother who had been brought up in Dublin raising a great number of men together and all those who were fled from the King came to Man demanding of the same King to have the one moity of the whole kingdome of the Ilands to bee given unto them But the King when he had heard their demand being willing to pacifie them answered That hee would take counsell of the matter Now when they had appointed the time and place where the counsell should bee held in the meane while those most leud and wicked villaines complotted among themselves the Kings death At the day appointed both parts met at the haven which is called Ramsa and sat in order by rowes the King with his counsell on the one side and they together with their company on the other and Reginald who was to dispatch him was in the midst between and stood talking apart with one of the Peeres of the land But when the King had called him and he was come unto him he turned toward the King as though hee would salute him and therewith lifting up a glittering axe a great height at one blow cut off the Kings head And forthwith as soone as they had committed such a bloody murder they divided the land among themselves and after some few daies having gathered a navie together failed over to Galway desirous to bring it also under their subjection But those of Galway sticking close and round together gave a faire onset and joined battell with them They by and by turning their backes fled in great disorder to Man And as for all the Galwaymen that dwelt therein some of them they slew others they expelled MCXLIII Godred Olaves son returning out of Norway was created King of Man and to avenge his fathers death he caused two of Haralds sons to have their eies pulled out and slew the third MCXLIV Godred begun his reigne
Isle Lodhus So obtained Olave the kindgome of the Isles MCCXXXVII On the twelfth Calends of June died Olave the sonne of Godred King of Man in S. Patricks Iland and was buried in the Abbey of Russin He reigned eleven yeeres two by his brothers life and nine after his death Harold his sonne succeeded him being 14. yeeres of age and reigned 12. yeeres In the first yeere of his reigne he made a journey to the Ilands and appointed Loglen his cousin Custos of Man In the Autumne following Harald sent three sonnes of Nell namely Dufgald Thorquill Mormore and his friend Ioseph to Man for to consult about affaires On the 25. day therefore they meet at Tingull and by occasion of a certaine envious quarrell that arose between the sonnes of Nell and Loglen there was a sore fight on both sides wherein were slaine Dufgald Mormore and the foresaid Joseph In the spring ensuing King Harald came to the Isle of Man and Loglen as he fled toward Wales perished by Shipwracke with Godred Olaves sonne his foster child and pupill with 40. others MCCXXXVIII Gospatricke and Gillescrist the sonne of Mac-Kerthac came from the King of Norway into Man who by force kept Harald out of Man and tooke tributes to the Kings behoofe of Norway because he refused to come unto the King of Norwaies Court. MCCXL Gospatric died and is buried in the Abbey of Russin MCCXXXIX Harald went unto the King of Norway who after two yeeres confirmed unto him his heires and successours under his seale all the Ilands which his predecessours had possessed MCCXLII Harald returned out of Norway to Man and being by the inhabitants honourably received had peace with the Kings of England and of Scotland Harald like as his father before him was by the King of England dubbed Knight and after he had been rewarded with many gifts returned home The same yeere he was sent for by the King of Norway and married his daughter And in the yeere 1249. as he returned homeward with his wife and Laurence King elect of Man and many other Nobles and Gentlemen he was drowned in a tempest neere unto the coasts of Radland MCCXLIX Reginald the sonne of Olave and brother to Harald began his reigne the day before the Nones of May and on the thirtieth day thereof was slaine by one Yvar a Knight and his company in a medow neere unto the Holy Trinity Church on the South side and lieth buried in the Church of Saint Mary of Russin At that time Alexander King of Scots rigged and brought together many ships meaning to subdue the Iland and in the I le Kerwaray he died of an ague Harald the sonne of Godred Don usurped the name of King in the Ilands all the Nobles of Harald King Olaves sonne hee banished and placed in their stead all the Princes and Peeres that were fled from the said Harald MCCL. Harald the sonne of Godred Don being by missives sent for went unto the King of Norway who kept him in prison because he had unjustly intruded himselfe into the kingdome The same yeere there arrived at Roghalwaght Magnus the son of Olave and John the sonne of Dugald who named himselfe King but the people of Man taking it to the heart that Magnus was not nominated would not suffer them to land there many of them therefore were cast away and perished by shipwracke MCCLII Magnus the sonne of Olave came to Man and was made King The next yeere he went to the King of Norway and stayed there a yeere MCCLIV Haco King of Norway ordained Magnus Olaves sonne King of the Isles and confirmed the same unto him and his heires and by name unto his brother Harald MCCLVI. Magnus King of Man went into England and was knighted by the King of England MCCLVII The church of S. Maries of Russin was dedicated by Richard of Sodore MCCLX Haco King of Norway came unto the parts of Scotland and without any exploit done turned to the Orkneys where at Kirwas he ended his daies and lyeth enterred at Bergh MCCLXV Magnus Olaves sonne King of Man and of the Ilands departed this life at the Castle of Russin and was buried in the Church of S. Mary de Russin MCCLXVI The kingdome of the Ilands was translated by reason of Alexander King of Scots That which followeth was written in another hand and of a later character MCCLXX The seventh day of October a navy set out by Alexander King of Scots arrived at Roghalwath and the next morrow before sun rising a battaile was fought between the people of Man and the Scots in which were slain of the Manksmen 537. whereupon a certaine versifier played thus upon the number L. decies X. ter penta duo cecidere Mannica gens de te damna futura cave L. Ten times told X. thrice with five beside and twaine Ware future harmes I reed of thy folke Man were slaine MCCCXIII Robert King of Scots besieged the Castle of Russin which Dingawy Dowyll held against him but in the end the King won the castle MCCCXVI On the Ascension day Richard le Mandevile and his brethren with other Potentates of Ireland arrived at Ramaldwath requesting to be furnished with victuals and silver for that they had been robbed by the enemies warring upon them continually Now when the commonality of the country had made answer that they would not give them any they advanced forward against those of Man with two troops or squadrons untill they were come as far as to the side of Warthfell hill in a field wherein John Mandevile remained and there in a fought battell the Irish vanquished the Manksmen spoiled the Iland and rifled the Abbey of Russin and after they had continued in the Iland one whole moneth they returned home with their ships fraught with pillage Thus endeth the Chronicle of the K.K. of Man The Processe or course of the Historie following I will now continue summarily out of other Writers WHen Alexander the third King of Scots had gotten into his hands the Westerne Ilands partly by way of conquest and in part for ready money paid unto the King of Norway hee attempted the I le of Man also as one of that number and through the valiant prowesse of Alexander Stewart brought it under his dominion yea and placed there a petty King or Prince with this condition that hee should be ready alwaies at his command to serve with ten ships in his warres at sea Howbeit Mary the daughter of Reginald King of Man who was become the Liege-man of John King of England entred her suit for the Iland before the King of England but answer was made unto her that shee should demand it of the King of Scots for that he then held it in possession And yet her grand-child John Waldebeof for the said Mary married into the house of Waldebeofe sued for his ancient right in Parliament holden in the 33. yeere of King Edward the first before the K. of England as the superiour
family 450 d Bowes or Bough a worshipfull family 731 c. 737 a. why so called 732 e Bowland forest 750 b Bowtetorts a family 465 b Boxley 332 c Brachae 19 Bradenham 393. e Brance 19 Briti ibid. Bridburn a place and family 553 Bradford 244 f Bradewardin a place 6â—8 c Bradwardin the profound Doctor 618 c Bradstons Ancestors of Vicount Montacute and Barons Wentworth 364 a Braibrooke castle 1513 e Braibrookes Barons ibid. e Brackley 505 d Braibrook 329 c Brakenbake 724 e Brackenburies a family of good note 737 c Brambles 274 c Brampton 783 a Bramton 815 b Bramton Brian castle 619 c Bramish a river 815 b Bancaster 408 a Brian de Brampton 619 c Brand 568 e Brandons a family Suffolke 465 e Branspeth castle 739 Branonium 575 a Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolke 470 c Brannodunum 480 a Bransford or Bensford-bridge 517 e Brasen weapons 188 Brasen nose Colledge in Oxford 383 a Brasmatias a kinde of Earthquake 620 c Bray 286 d. Lord Bray 297 b. The breach by Greenwich 328 a Nicolas Breakspeare That is Pope Adrian the forth 414 f Breakspeare a place and family 419 b Brechanius his 24. daughters all Saints 627 a Breden forest 224 a Breedon hils 577 e Breedon a village ibid. Breertons a family 608 f. their death foreshewed 609 b Breerton a place 609 Brechnockshire 627 Brechnock towne 628 a Brechnock meere ibid. Brechnock Lords ibid. Brechnock made a shire 677 e Bremenium 803 Brember castle 313 c Bremetonacum 753 c Bremicham or Bermingham a town and familie 567 Bren what it signifieth 677 Bremin what it is 33 Brennus 677 Brennus a renowmed King 33 Bretenham 463 b Breton a river ibid. Brent a river 421 Brent See Falkes de Brent Brentmarsh 230 e Brentford 421 Brentwood 442 a Brentwell or Brounswell 421 Broses Barons 113 c. 201 f Breoses a family 553 d Will. de Breos or Braus a strong Rebell 629 b Breoses Lords of Brechnock 623 Bretons a family 556 b Bretts 128 f Breusais 138 f Brian who so called 117 Bridlington 714 d Iohn of Bridlington ibid. Brewood 583 a Bricols 400 e Bridge Casterton 534 b Bridgford by Nottingham 548 Brig for Glansford 543 a Brigantes in Britaine rebelled 43 Brigantes 685. whereof they took name ibid. Brill for Burihill 395 b Breint Fitz Conty 282 a Brients 202 c d Brients Barons 215 d Brinlo 568 f Brienston 215 e Brimsfeild 365 f Bridgewater 225 a Earle of Bridgewater 225 c Bridkirk 768 b Briewer Baron 222 e Bristoll or Bristow a Citie 237 a the reason of the name ibid. b Bret the Primitive of the Britains 26 Brit or Brith the first name of the Britains 25 Brith what it signifieth 26 Britaine or Britannie whence it tooke name 27. why late discovered and knowne 33. mentioned by Lucretius first of any Latin writer ib. twice Schoole-Mistres to France 138 Britaine the great that is England 155 Britaine the lesse that is Scotland ibid. Britaine how divided 154.155 Britaine what names it hath 1. the site thereof 1. the forme of it ibid. why called another world 24. the division and compasse of it 2.4 Britaine hath sundry names 23 the position thereof in respect of the Heavens 4. how fruitfull and commodious 3. her first inhabitants 4. the name 5 Britaine under what signe or Planet 182 Britain portracted in womans habite 24. the Roman world 45 discovered to be an Iland 61 a province Presidial 62. How it was governed under and after Constantine the Great 62 76. how it became subject to the Romans 62. infected by Barbarians 79. brought to civilitie 63. called Romania and Romaine Ile 88 Britains ruin and downfall 107 Britaine and France whether ever conjoyned 346 a Britains came first out of Gaule 11.12 Britans in Religion language and maners agree with the Gauls 13.14.15.16.17 Britans emploied by Caesar in base services 38 Britans generally rebell 49. their grievances ibid. Britains cast off the Romans yoke 86 Britains how they may derive their descent from the Troians 88 Britans in Armorica 110 Britans of Wales and Cornewale 112.113 Britans send Embassadours to the Saxons 128 Britans retaine their ancient language 23 Britans long lived 555 b Britans painted themselves blue with wood 20 Britans maners and customes out of Iulius Caesar 29. out of Strabo ibid. out of Diodorus Siculus 29. out of Pomponius Mela ibid. out of Cernelius Tacitus 30. out of Dio Nicaus ibid. out of Herodian ibid. out of Pliny 3â— out of Solinus ibid. Britaine Burse 428 d Britannica the herbe See Scorby or Scurvigrasse Britanniciani what they were 111 Briten huis 40 Brithin a kind of drinke 5 British tongue full of Greeke words 28 British States submit to Caesar 37 British Iles mentiond by Polibius 33 Of British Perle a brestplate 38 British names import colours 26 British townes what they were 29 Britwales or Welshmen 113 Briva what it signifieth 414 Brockets knights 406 f Brocovum 762 d Broge 19 Brokes by a place 522 f. a family 523 a Brome 467 f Bromesgrave 574 â— Bromefield 677 a Wolter Bronscorn Bishop of Excester 190 Brookes a family of ancient descent 611 a Brooke L. Cobham 329 c Barons Brooke 244 c Bronholme 478 e Brougham 762 d Brotherton 695 b Sir Anthonie Browne first Vicount Montacute 482 b Sir Ant. Browne Marquesse Montacute 222 d Broughton 376 e Broughton in Hantshire 262 c Brundenels a family 514 b Bruges Baron Chandos 365 b Bruin a family 442 b Burg-morfe or Bridg-North 591 b Robert Brus the noble 500 e Baron Brus of Skelton 720 c Bruses a noble family 526 b Brutus 5. why so called 8 Bucken that is Beech trees 393 George Buck 22 d Buchonia and Buckenham 393 a Buckinghamshire 393 Buers a family 463 b Walter Buc and his race 812 b Buckingham town 396 c. Earles 397 d Buckhurst Baron 320 Buelth 627 e Bugden 497 d Bulchobaudes 79 Buldewas or Bildas 593 e Bulkley a towne and family 607 Anne Bullen or Bollen Marchianesse of Penbroch 655 e Bullen or Bollen Earle of Wiltshire 256 e Bullen or Bollogne in France the same that Gessoriacum and Bonoia 348 d Th. Bullen Earle of Wiltshire died for sorrow 257 Bulleum Silurum 627 e Bulley or Busley a noble Norman 551 a Bulverith 316 e Buly castle 76â— c Bulnesse 775 c Bumsted Helion 452 a Bungey 468 b Burdos or Burdelois 473 a Burford in Shropshire 590 f Burnt Elly 463 d Burgesses 177 Burgh under Stanemore 760 Burgh castle 468 e Burgh Clere 72 c Burgi what they were 760 f Burly a faire place 526 b Burons an ancient family Burrium 636 c S. Buriens in Cornwal 188. why so called ibid. Burnel Baron 330 c Burcester 337 b Burdet 566 c Bunbury for Boniface burry 607 Burghersh alias Burgwash 320 Bartholomew Burgwash a Baron 320 b Burghley 514 â— Burgh 727 f Burghsted 442 e Burgh or Burrow Barons 543 f Burne a Barony ibid. Burnels a family 591 f Burrowes what they are 515 e Burrow banke 452 e Burrow hill
20 Ratcliffs Earles of Sussex 321 a Ravenglasse 765 Ravensburne river 326 Ravenswath castle 730 b Reads a family 577 b Reading 284 Readsquire a mountaine 802 a Reafan the Danes Baner 195 Reche a towne 490 c Recall a river 722 d Rech dike ib. Reculver 335 b Redcastle or Castle Rous 594 d Redin 20 Redhorse vale 561 c Red colour giveth name to many places 525 d Redbourne 413 d Redbridge 262 d Red rose and white for Lancaster and Yorke 725 e Redshankes 126 Redvers or Rivers Earles of Denshire 207 d Redverses or de Ripariis 201 c Redwald King of the East Saxons 465 c Reforming errours a Court 180 Reginald Pole his commendation 216 b Religious houses dissolved 163 Remney ariver 631 b. 642 a Remni what it signifieth 642 a Remigius Bishop of Dorchester 539 c Rendlesham 465 c Renimed 419 e Reptacester or Richborow 341 a Repton 553 f Requests Court 181 Rerecrosse 732 f Reuda 126 Rheda 18 Rheder ibid. Rhedec ibid. Rhedecfa ibid. Rhead a river 802 a Rheadsdale ibid. c Rhediad 18 Rhegium why so called 347 d Rhese ap Gruffin 623 a Rhese ap Thomas a valiant knight 650 e Rhie a river 722 d Rhidale ibid. Rhia Baron 472 Rhre whereof so called 319 d Rhodanus 21 Rutupina littora what they bee 342 Ribel a river 749 d Ribelchester 750 b Ribald L'isle 485 f Ricall 707 d Richard the Second renounceth the crowne 680 d Richard Duke of Yorke claimeth the crowne 725 b Richard a renowned Earle of Cornwal 197 d. his death and sepulchre his sonne Henry murdred 197 f Richard Coeur de Lion 380 a Richard the Third a bad man and a good Prince 212 a Richard Duke of Glocester an usurper 369 f. his practises to win the crowne 370 Richard the First his praises 285 Richard the Second his Reliques translated to Westminster 414 f Richard King of Romans c. 414 Richborow 341 a Richborow decayed ibid f Riches Barons 441 d Richard Lord Chancellour of England 445 Richards Castle 619 e Richmond shire 727 Richmond towne 729 f Richmond Earles 733 Richmond the Kings house 297 Richmonds a family 778 a Rickmansworth 415 c Rising Castle 481 c Risingham 803 d Rith what it signifieth 486 a Rivers had Divine honours 602 heaped upon them 698 a Robert bridge 320 c Robert Earle of Leicester 466 c Robert Crouchbacke Earle of Leicester 519 f Robert Consul or Earle of Glocester 368 d Robert Fitz Haimon 359 d Robin Hood 693 a Robin Hoods bay 718 c Roch a river 745 f Roch Dale a towne ibid. Rochester a castle 802 c Rochester city 332 c Rochester or Roffes a family 405 d Rochford towne and Hundred Rochford Barons ibid. Rochford Vicount ibid. Rockingham Castle and Forest 513 Rock-Savage 610 a Roden a river 594 c Roding a river 440 b Roger the magnificent Bishop of Salisbury 243 a Rogerses Knight 215. ibid. Roise a Lady 405 b Roiston ibid. Roises Crosse ibid. Rolrich stones 374 c Rollo the Norman 144 his dream and conversion 144 The Roll of Winchester 153 Rome called Constantina 85 Romania 24 Romeswork 343 f Romans foiled and massacred in Britaine 51 Roman Empire in Britaine at an end 87 Romans in Britaine 34 Romescot 411 a Romara a Norman Earle of Lincoln 544 e Roos Barons 532 f Rosamund Clifford King Henry the Second his paramor 375 Rosamunds bones translated and afterwards reduced againe 376 c Rose red and white for Lancaster and York 725 e Rosse 190.714 a Rosseland 190 Rosse in Penbrochshire 652 d Rosse in Cardiganshire 657 c Rosse Barons 714 a Rosebery Topping 721 d Rose Castle 778 c Rota temporum that is The wheele of Times an History 790 b Rother a river 320 a Rotherfield ibid. Rotherham 689 e Rotherham Archbishop of Canterbury 689 e Rowcliff Castle 781 c Rouchester 809 e Round table 265 b Rowles in London 428 c Rousses a family 467 c Routon Castle 592 e. 662 Rugby 562 Rudheath Sanctuary 609 a Ruffes fishes 476 c Rugemond or Richmont Greies in Bedfordshire 734 d Rugemont 204 c Rumalds shrine 396 d Rumford 441 f Rumon 199 e Rumney Marsh 350 b Rumney towne ibid. Runkhorne 510 d Rushbrooke 461 d Rushton 509 f Russel Lord Russel of Thornaugh 514 c Russels Knights 578 e Russels Earles of Bedford 394 e 403 Ruthin 676. Ruthlan 679 f Rutlandshire 525. why so called 525 b c d Rutland Earles 426 f Rutters what they were 812 b S SAbridgeworth 408 c Sacae 129. Sacasones ibid. Sadlier 408 a Sacvil Earle of Dorset and Chancellour of Oxford 382 Saer de Quincy Earle of Winchester 521 a Salisbury Church 248 a b Saffron 453 a Salisbury Earles 249 c Salarin a custome or Impost for salt 608 a Salisbury for Sarisbury 246 f Salisbury Hall 750 c Salkelds townes 777 e. and a family 778 a Salmons the best called Umbrae 627 Salmon leape in Penbrochshire 6â—4 e Salndie or Sandie 401 b Salston 48 e Salt made 268 b e Salt Esse 196 Salt hilles 529 e Salt artificially made 753 b Salt stones 739 d Saltpits 573 b c Saltry Abbey 500 b Salt pits in Cheshire 608 a b Salustius Lucullus in Britaine 62 Saltwood Castle 349 c Salwarp a river 574 d Salmonds or S. Amands 283 c Samonds or S. Amands Barons 244 a. 366 e Samothea 24 Sampier growing aboundantly 434 a Sandal Castle 693 d The Sand part of Notinghamshire 550 a Sandalum 19 Sandgate Castle 349 e Sandiacre or S. Diacre 555 d Sands Barons 269 b e Sandon 343 a Sandy See Saludica Sanctuaries 260 Sandwich 342 Sanguelac 317 e Sapcots a family 501 e Sarasins-heads 695 a Sarmatians are Scythians 121 Sarn Helen a Portway in Wales 666 a Sasson 23 Saxon language maintained by Lectures 200 a English-Saxons called into Britain 100.127 Saxons 119. their valour and cruelty 134 Saturn well affected to Britaine 556 e Savages a great family 610 a Saulden 396 c Scarborough Castle 717 Scardale 556 a Schilpor See Esquires 176 Scaeva his valour and advancement 37 Scalbie Castle 782 e Scilicester in the wall 806 b Scipio Africanus where buried 340 a Sclate-stones digged 514 d Scorby or Scurvie-grasse 328 b Scordium an herbe growing plenteously 491 f Scoteney a Barony 542 c Scottishmen of East-Scotland right English-Saxons 129 their fashions 133 Scots wild or Highlandmens habit sort well with the Gothes 123 Scots whence they tooke name 119 Scots of West Scotland are Highland men ibid. Scots came first out of Ireland 120 Scots when they came to be of name 125 Scot what it signifieth 124 Scots a family 349 Scotus aliâs Duns 814 b his pitifull death ibid. Scovies 20 Screking ham 535 c Screven a place and family 700 Scroby 551 b Scropes Barons 729 b Scruffel hill 767 e Scudamores a family 621 a Sculton 473 a Scutary 176 Scythica vallis 120 Scythians in Spaine 121 Scythicum a promentory in Spain 121 Seaton 206 e Sea Holly See Eryngium Sea heard to grone 720 c Sea sand good for ground 199 c