or fifty Rats and other means they used to destroy them but could not prevail finding them still to increase against them and continued with them till almost to the end of Captain Tuckers time who was then Governour but towards the end of his time it pleased God by what means it is not well known to take them away insomuch that Wild Cats and many Dogs that lived on them were famished Some have attributed this destruction of them to the encrease of Wild Cats some to one thing some to another though none could positively conclude this or that It remaineth then as we know God doth sometimes effect his will without subordinate and secondary causes and sometimes against them So we need not doubt but that in the speedy increase and spreading of these Vermine as also in the preservation of so many of them by such weak means as they then enjoyed and especially in the suddain removal of this great annoyance there was joyned with and besides the ordinary and manifest means a more immediate and secret work of God In the Sommer Islands THere is the Tortoys which they call a Turckle which having some affinity and resemblance with Fishes Beasts and Fowls They are in the shape of their body like a Crab-fish and have four fins they are as great as three or four men can carry the upper part of them is covered with a great shell which they call a Galley patch weighing about half a hundred weight the Flesh that cleaveth to the inside of this being Roasted against the Fier is excellent Meat almost like the Marrow of Beef but the shell it self harder then horn she hath also a shell on her belly not so hard but being boyled it becometh soft like the sinews or gristle of Beef and good Meat These live in the Sea spending the Spring time and part of Sommer about these Islands but the residue of the year is not known where They are like to Fowl in respect of smallness and fashion of their heads and necks which are wrinckled like a Turkies but white and not so sharp Billed They also breed their young of Eggs which thâ—y lay They resemble Beasts in that their flesh is like Veal but more hard and solid and they feed always upon grass growing at the bottom of the water neither can they abide any longer under water then they hold their breath which the old ones will do long but the young ones being chased to and fro cannot continue two Minutes without coming up to breathe Shortly after their first coming in the Male and Female couple which is there called Cooting this they continue some three days together during which time they will scarce separate though a Boat come to them nor hardly when they are smitten Not long after the she Turckle comes up by night upon some sandy Bay and further up then the water useth to flow she digs a hole with her Fin in the sand some two foot deep and there coming up several nights lays her Eggs some half a bushel which are about the bigness of a Hens Egg and round as a Ball and â—â—ch time covers them with sand very curiously so that a Man shall hardly find the place These Eggs as it seems are afterwards hatched by the heat of the Sun and then by the providence of God the means as yet unknown are brought out of the Earth for they could never perceive that she returns any more to them and yet in likelihood they remain not long in the Earth after they are hatched because as is before said they cannot live without breathing Sometimes is seen the young ones no bigger then a Mans hand which some Fish will devour They grow slowly and seem to have a very long life they 'l sleep on the top of the Water and were wont to sleep often on the Land till the Country was peopled they will also live out of the Water some three weeks and that without Meat but mourn and pine away they are very witty Being on the Land turned upon their backs they can no more without some help or advantage recover themselves by which means when they come on shore to lay their Eggs they are easily taken as also they are when they are Cooting But otherwise they take them for the most part by night making a great light in a Boat to which they will sometimes swim and seldom shun so that a Man standing ready with a staffe in his hand at one end of which he hath a Socket wherein is an Iron less then a Mans finger four-square and sharp with a line fastned to it he striketh this Iron into the upper shell of the Turckle it strikes so fast that after she hath a little tyred her self by swimming to and fro she is taken by it They will live the head being cut off four and twenty hours so that if you cut the flesh with a knife or touch it it will tremble and shrink away There is no meat will keep longer either fresh or salt Out of the Description of Great Britain these Stories following are Remarkable and Pleasant BRitain seated in the Ocean hath her praises in honourable Eulogies That Britain is the Seas High Admiral and the Fortunate Island whose Air is more temperate then France whose Soil bringeth forth all Grain in abundance whose Seas produce Orient Pearl whose Fields are the seat of a Summer Queen her wildest parts free from wild Beasts and her chief City worthily named Augusta So as we may truly say with the Psalmist Our Lives are fallen in pleasant places Yea we have a fair Inheritance To the Praise of this Island are these following Verses England fierce Land Worlds Angle fertile Art Rich Isle thou needst no other Countries Mart Each other Country yet thy succour needs England Joyes Land be free and Joyous long Free Race free Grace free kind free Mind and Tongue Tet hands pass tongues for free and Glorious Deeds KENT DOver with the Castle is accounted by Mathew Paris the Monk the Lock and Key to the whole Realm of England fatal for the death of King Stephen and surrender of King John therein hapning An accident hapned in the year 1586. the fourth day of August in this County at Mottingham a Town 8 miles distant from London suddenly the ground began to sink and three great Elms thereon growing were carryed so deep into the bowels of the Earth that no part of them could any more be seen the hole left in compass fourscore yards about and a line of 50 fathams plummed into it doth find no bottom The City of Canterbury hath been honoured with the Presence and Coronations of King John and Queen Isabel his Wife with the Marriages of King Henry the third and of King Edward the first and with the Interments of Edward the Black Prince King Henry the fourth and of Queen Joan his Wife King Stephen and Maud his Queen was buryed at Feversham SUSSEX A Battel was fought
at Battle when the hazard of England was tryed in one days fight and Harold the King gave place to his Conqueror by losing his life among sixty seven thousand nine hundred seventy four English men besides whose bloud so spilt gave name to the place in French Sangue Lac. And the Soil after Rain becoming of a reddish colour caused William of Newbery to write that if there fell any small sweet showers in the place where so great a slaughter of the English was made presently sweateth forth very fresh bloud out of the Earth as if the evidence thereof did plainly declare the voice of bloud there shed and cryed still from the Earth unto the Lord. William the Bastard Duke of Normandy making his claim to the Crown of England by Affinity Adoption and Promise arrived at a Port in Sussex called Pensey with 896 ships furnished for War the 28 th of September in the year 1066. And the 14th of October following being Saturday near Hastings in the same County joyned Battel with Harold King of England who in the Field Valiantly fighting was there slain by the shot of an Arrow into his brains and with him dyed his two Brethren and 67974 men besides The place where they fought ever since doth in Memory thereof bear the name of Battel where the Heptarchy of the Saxons was brought to their last Period Having all their Laws altered their Nobles displaced and all men disherited all seized into the Normans hand who made himself Lord of all and on the day of Christ his Nativity in the same year was Crowned at Westminster King of England which he governed the space of 20 years 8 Months and 16 days But Places of other Note in this County is that from Basham Earl Harold taking the Sea for his delight in a small Boat was driven upon the Coast of Normandy where by Duke William he was retained till he had sworn to make him King after Edward Confessors Death which Oath being broken the Bastard arrived at Pensey and with his Sword revenged that perjury SURREY THis County is stored with many Princely Houses yea and five of His Majesties so Magnificently built that of some she may well say no Shire hath none such as is None-such indeed And were not Richmond a fatal place of Englands best Princes it might in Esteem be ranked with the Richest For therein dyed the great Conqueror of France King Edward the third the beautiful Anne Daughter to Charls the Fourth Emperour and intirely beloved Wife to King Richard the second the most wise Prince King Henry the seventh and the Barest of her Sex the Mirrour of Princes Queen Elizabeth the Worlds Love and Subjects Joy In Chertsey Abbey King Henry the sixth who was deposed and made away in the Tower of London was first Interred without all Funeral Pomp but for his holy life was imputed a Saint and lastly translated and Intombed at Windsor Hant-shire NEar Ringwood from God and peoples service to Beast and Luxury thirty six Parish Churches were converted and pulled down by the Conqueror and thirty miles of circuit inforrested for his Game of Hunting Wherein his Sons Richard and Rufus with Henry the second son to Duke Robert his first felt by hasty death the hand of Justice and Revenge For in the same Forrest Richard by a blasting of a pestilent Air Rufus by a shot taken for a Beast and Henry as Absalom hanged by a bough came to their untimely ends At so dear a rate the pleasure of Dogs and harbour for Beasts were bought in the bloud of these Princes In the City of Winchester was Richard and Rufus Interred their bones by Bishop Fox were gathered and shrined in little gilt Coffers fixed upon a wall in the Quire where still they remain carefully preserved The Wars betwixt Maud the Empress intituled Lady of England unto whom all the Nobility had sworn Allegiance And King Stephen Earl of Bolloign her Cousin German was prosecuted with such variable Fortunes in many conflicts on both parts that Stephen himself was by her taken Prisoner and retained in Irons with other extremities used But the success of War altering Maud the Empress to save her own life adventured through the Host of her Enemy laid in a Coffin fained to be dead and so was carryed in a Horse-Litter from Winchester to Lutegershall Vices and Glocester and thence to Oxford whence the year following she escaped as dangerously by deceiving the Scout Watch in a deep Snow Anno 1141. Wight Island IT is reported that in the year 1176. and twenty three of King Henry the second that in this Island it rained a shower of bloud which continued for the space of two hours together to the great wonder and amazement of the people that beheld it with fear Devonshire FRom the Port of Plymouth Sir Francis Drake that potent Man at Sea setting forth in the year 1577. In the space of two years and ten Months did compass the circle of the Earth by Sea Henry Holland Grand-Child to John Holland half Brother to King Richard the second siding with Lancaster against Edward the fourth whose Sister was his Wife was driven to such misery as it is reported that he was seen all torn and bare-footed to beg his living in the Low-Countries and lastly his body was cast upon the shore of Kent as if he had perished by shipwrack so uncertain is Fortune in her endowments and the state of Man notwithstanding his great Birth Cornwall BEsides the abundance of Fish that do suffice the Inhabitants the Pilchard is taken who in great Skuls swarm about the Coast whence being transported to France Spain and Italy yield a yearly Revenue of gain unto Cornwall There are Rocks that are not destitute of Gold nor Silver yea and Diamonds shaped and pointed Angle-wise and smoothed by nature her self whereof some are as big as Walnuts inferiour to the Orient only in blackness and hardness Memorable matters for Antiquity and strangeness of sight are these at Boskenna is a Trophy erected which are eighteen stones placed round in compass and pitched twelve foot each from others with another far bigger in the very center These do shew some Victory there attained either by the Romans or else King Athelstone At the foot of the Rocks near unto St. Michaels Mount in the Memory of our Fathers were digged up Spear-heads Axes and Swords of Brass wrapped in Linne the Weapons that the Cimbrians and ancient Britains anciently used There also the Wring-Cheese doth shew it self which are huge Rocks heaped one upon another and the lowest of them the least fashioned like a Cheese lying pressed under the rest of those Hills which seemeth very dangerous to be passed under But near to Pensans and unto Mounts-bay a far more strange Rock standeth namely Main-Amber which lyeth mounted upon others of meaner size with so equal a counterpoize that a Man may move it with the push of his finger but no strength remove it out of his
totwards seventy miles Out of Scotlands General Description THis Nations Original by some hath been derived from Scota the supposed Daughter of the Egyptian King Pharaoh that nourished Moses who having marryed Gaithelus the son of Cecrops the Founder of Athens who first seating in Spain passed thence into Ireland and lastly into Scotland where his Wife Scota gave name to the Nation In this Country is the dark Wood Caledonia famous for the Wild White Bulls that therein were bred whose Manes were Lion-like thick and curled of nature fierce and cruel and so hateful to Mankind that they abhorred whatsoever was by them handled or breathed upon but because the flesh was pleasant and dainty to the mouth the whole race of them is extinguished It is Admirable the report that is given of this Country as to the plenty of Cattel Fish and Fowl there abiding fish so plentiful that men in some places for delight on Horse-back hunt Salmons with Spears and a certain Fowl which some call Soland-Geese spreading so thick in the Air that they even darken the Suns-light of whose flesh feathers and Oil the Inhabitants in some parts make great use and gain yea and even of fishes brought by them abundant provision for Diet as also of the sticks brought to make their Nests plentiful provision for fewel With these of Wonders might be spoken of the Natures of those two famous Loughs Lomand and Nessa the latter whereof never freezeth in Winter though never so extream and the Waters of the other most raging in the fairest and calmest weather wherein also floteth an Island that removeth from place to place as the wind forceth her spongeous and unfastned body In Buquhan upon the banks of Ratra is a Well whose trickling drops turn in Piramidy wise into hard stone and another near Edenbrough that floteth with Bitumen In Dee and Done besides the admired plenty of Salmons is found a Shell-fish called the Horse-Muscle where Pearls are engendred most precious for Physick and some of them so Orient that they give no place to the choicest The Western Islands lying scattered in the Deucalidonia Sea were anciently ruled by a King of their own whose maintenance was out of their common Coffers and the Regal Authority never continued in lineal succession for to prevent that their Kings were not permitted to have Wives of their own but might by their Laws accompany with other mens as the like Law was in the other parts of Scotland that the Virginity of all new Wives should be the Land-Lords prey till King Malcolme enacted that half a Mark should be paid for Redemption More North lie the Isles of Shetland where as Tzetzes fableth the Souls of good men are ferryed into those Elizian Fields that ever grow green but their fictions intended only that the vertuous Souls of the dead passed the uttermost bounds of earthly abode and attained to an over-pleasing repose and ever flourishing happiness which whether they borrowed from the Description of Paradise taken both for a fair Garden and the Souls happy rest is hard to define Out of the Description of Ireland THe Manners and Customs of the Wild Irish are thus set forth by Strabo The Inhabitants saith he of Ireland are more rude then the Britains they feed upon the flesh of men yea and think it a point of worth to eat their dead Parents wantonly they accompany with Women making no difference of other mens wives their own Sisters nor of their natural Mothers but of these things saith he we have no certain witness of sufficient credit Pomponius Mela recordeth that the Irish are uncivil ignorant of Vertues and void of Religion And Solinus affirmeth that after Victory they drink the bloud of the slain and besmear their own Faces therewith so given to War that the mother at the birth of a man-child feedeth the first meat into her Infants mouth upon the point of her Husbands sword and with heathenish imprecations wisheth that it may dye no otherwise then in War or by sword But from these ancient and barbarous manners we will come to the conditions of their middle time whom Giraldus Cambrensis describeth as followeth The Irish saith he are a strong and bold people Martial and Prodigal in War nimble stout and haughty of heart careless of life but greedy of glory courteous to strangers constant in Love light of belief impatient of injury given to fleshly lusts and in enmity implacable At the baptizing of their Infants their manner was not to dip their right arms into the water that so as they thought they might give a more deep and uncurable blow never calling them by the name of their Parents whilest they lived together but at their death took it upon them Their Women nursed not their Children they bare and they that nursed others did affect and love them much more than their own So much were they given to Fantastical conceits that they held it very ominous to give their Neighbours Fire upon may-May-day to eat an odd Egg endangered the death of their Horse And before they cast in their seed they sent salt into the field to hang up the shells in the roof was a preservative of the Chickens from the Kite to set up green boughs at their doors in the month of May increased their Kines Milk and to spit upon Cattel they held it good against Witchery whereof Ireland was full Superstitious Idolatry among the Wild Irish was common yielding divine honour unto the Moon after the change unto whom they both bowed their knees and made supplications and with a Loud Voice would thus speak unto that Planet We pray thee leave us in as good Estate as thou foundst us Wolves they did make as their God-sis terming them Chari Christ and so thought themselves preserved from their hurts the hoofs of dead Horses they accounted and held Sacred About childrens necks they hung the beginning of St. Johns Gospel a crooked nail of an Horse shooe or a piece of a wolves-skin and both the sucking Child and Nurse were girt with Girdles finely plated with Womans hair so far they wandred into the ways of errour in making these arms the strength of their healths Their Wives were many by reason of Divorcements and their Maids marryed at twelve years of Age whose Customs were to send to their lovers bracelets plated and curiously wrought of their own hair so far following Venus in the knots of these allurements The men wore Linnen shirts exceedingly large stained with Saffron the sleeves wide and hanging to their knees strait and short Trusses plated thick in the skirts their Breeches close to the thighs a short skeine hanging point down before and a Mantle most times cast over their heads The women wore their hair plated in curious manner hanging down their backs and shoulders from under foulden wreaths of fine Linnen rolled about their heads rather loding the wearer then delighting the beholder for as the one was most seemly so the other
the Son is bound to exercise his Parents occupation so that no pretense almost is left for Wonderers and briefly as far as humane Laws can provide all other vain occasions for mis-expence of time are taken off for within the Cities no stews are allow'd or lewd persons to withdraw them Adultery is punished with death but yet they have liberty to take many Wives one they keep at home the rest are disposed of abroad where they best please Their Marriages they chiefly solemnize at the New Moon and for the most part in March which begins their year For their Religion they are Gentiles but have a confused knowledge of God Heaven and the Creation When they would decipher their great God they express him by the first Letter in their Alphabet and in their Devotions they worship him as their chief but not only preserver for they have their prayers to the Sun Moon Stars and to the Devil himself that he would not hurt them Their Priests are distinguished into the black and White Friers as we call them for they much resemble Friers in their course of life some are cloathed in White their heads shorn and their Victuals in common others in black long hair and live apart neither are marryed but both take their liberty to live obscurely as the debauchest swaggerers The chief of the Cities is Paquin where the King hath his continual Residence his Pallace here is compassed with a Triple wall carrys the bulk and face of a fair Town for indeed his retinue are no fewer then might well people a large City among the rest he hath 16000 Eunuchs daily attending such as their own Parents have emascul'd in their Infancy to make them capable of this Court preferment The seat Imperial was heretofore at Nanquin where still remains a Golden testimony of her past glory It is a fair City thirty miles in compass seated nine leagues from the Sea upon a fair Navigable River where there Rides commonly at least 10000. of the Kings ships besides Merchants it hath three brick walls the streets are six miles in length of a proportionable breadth and trimly paved The Metropolis is Quinsay or Suntien the largest City in the world for it contains 100 miles in compass it is seated in a low and Fenny ground is subject to floods and hath been forced in very many places to erect bridges for free passage from one street to another there are in all 12000. built of stone and most of them so high that a good ship may strike under them with full sail each of them hath its ten for a night guard The Inhabitants of this City live luxuriously especially their Women who are much more comely then their men yet all of them almost eat both Horse and Dogs flesh Toward the South part of the City there is a great lake about 24 miles in circuit in the midst stand two Islands whither the chief Nobilty repair and invite their friends to Solemnize their Marriage and have in each a stately Pallace erected furnished sufficiently with all fitting Ornaments for a Wedding jollity In many parts of the City there are publick places of Receipt for such as sustain any misfortune by fire there they may lodge their Goods safe upon a suddain casualty till they can make better provision In each Province the Cities stand so thick and are so populous that they all seem to be as one one as well for their continued building almost as their fashion of building for they all observe the same form and dispose their streets alike two broad crossing each other in the middle in so strait a line that the eye may reach clean from one end to the other The Revenues of the whole Empire and number of Inhabitants are not easily to be reckoned Yet this in brief he hath subject under him 70 Crowned Kings gathers up yearly 120 Millions of Crowns stirs not into the field without 300000 foot and 200000 horse Out of the Description of the Kingdom of TARTARY THese Tartaryans for brutish Customs were grown odious to the more civil parts of the World and as Herod in his fourth Book of Histories delivers were wont to sing their Parents to the Grave invite their best Friends to Feast with their Fathers flesh and use his Scull as a cup to drink in at their lascivious banquets Who more the Axiaca who quenched their thirst with the bloud of him whom they first slew as it gushed warm from his wounds who more foolish proud than the Agathyrst who were used to mend their beauty by a deformed painting and ugly staining of their bodies with motly colours You shall have here their Character which is given by most that describe them to have ill fashioned bodies answerable to their rude minds fit houses for so unclean guests Their Stature is different The most part have large shoulders a broad face with a crooked nose deformed countenance swarthy colour hollow eyes hairy and untrimmed beard and head close shaved Their speech is boisterous and clamorous their noise in singing like the yell of Wolves and endurance of hunger thirst heat cold and watching equals them in strength of body to the most able beast for it exceeds the common power of a man Their lust is without Law for they except no kindred but their own Mothers Daughters and Sisters No species for they mix with beasts nor sex for they are unsatiate Sodomites and yet take liberty for as many Wives which they can maintain which contrary to our civil courses they buy of their Parents instead of receiving Dowries Their meat is the raw flesh of horses without regard how they were killed or what diseases they dyed sometimes they suck bloud from the living to appease their hunger and thirst if in a journey they be distressed for want of food Cities they have but few nor houses other then moveable Tents made of Beasts skins which they pitch up by great multitudes in the form of a Town and those are called hordes when the Grass is once eaten bare and the ground yields not meat for their Cattel they trudge with bag and baggage to another quarter and so in course they wander through the vast Desarts unsetled and indeed impatient to be setled or rather imprisoned as they take it within any bounded compass having the wide world to roam in Their chief Arms are Bow and Arrows which they use most on Horse-back for their most speedy flight and have them commonly strongly poysoned for the more sure mischief to the foe their stratagems are downright fraud and breach of truce for they keep no faith with an Enemy regard not any compact made upon terms of peace but follow their own sense and commit what out-rages they can with least danger to themselves Their Religion is answerable to their vile customs Some are Pagans others Mahometans yet will not be called Turks but Bersemany and their chief Priest Seyd whom they reverence more then their Maker and
then the hangman having a pan of Coals near him with red hot pincers nip'd of the nipple of one breast then he took a knife and gives him a slash or cut down the back on one side from the shoulder to the waste and presently gave him such another slash three inches from the first then on the top he cut the slashes into one and presently taking pincers took hold of the cross cut and tore him down like a Girse below the middle letting it hang down behind him like a belt after which he took his burning pincers and pluck'd off the tops of his fingers of one hand then passing to another place of the Town his other nipple was plucked off the other side of his back so cut and mangled which they call by the name of rimming his other fingers nip'd off then passing further all his Toes were nip'd off with the burning pincers after which he was inforced to come out of the Cart and go on foot up a steep hill to the Gallows where he was broken with a wheel alive one bone after another beginning at his leggs and ending with his neck and last of all quartered and laid on the Wheel on a high post till Crows Ravens or consuming time consume him This was the manner of both their executions but I speak of the greatest murther particularly because it is reported that all these torments never made him once to change countenance or to make any sign or action of grief to call to God for mercy or to intreat the people to pray for him but as if he had been a sensless stock or stone he did most scornfully and as it were in disdain abide it whilst the other Villain did cry rore and make lamentation calling upon God often The difference was not much in their lives and manner of their deaths but the odds may be great in their dying In the City of Prague is said to be of Churches and Chappels 150. I was there at four several sorts of divine exercise viz. at good Sermons with the Protestants at Mass with the Papists at a Lutherans preaching and at the Jews Synagogue three of which I saw and heard for curiosity and the other for Edification The Jews in Prague are in such great numbers that they are thought to be of Men Women and Children betwixt 50 or 60000. who do all live by Brokage and Usury upon the Christians and are very rich in Money and Jewels so that a man may see 10 or 12 together of them that are accounted worth 20 30 or 40000 l. a piece and yet the slaves go so miserably attired that 15 of them are not worth the hanging for their whole ward-ropes The City of Hamburgh The priviledges of their grand hang-man YOu must understand that this fellow is a Subsidy Hangman to whom our Tyburn Tatterdemallion or our Wapping winde-pipe stretcher is but a Raggamuffin not worth the hanging The priviledges of this Grand haulter-master are many as he hath the emptying of all the Vaults or draughts in the City which no doubt he gains some favour by Besides all Oxen Kine Horses Dogs or any such beasts if they dye themselves or if they be not like to live the hang man must knock them on the head and have their skins and whatsoever Inhabitant in his jurisdiction doth any of these things aforesaid himself is abhorred and accounted as a Villain without Redemption So that with hangings headings breakings pardoning and killing of Dogs flaying of Beasts emptying of Vaults and such privy Commodities his whole Revenue sometimes amounts to four or five hundred pounds a year And he is held in that regard and estimation that any man will converse and drink with nay sometimes the Lords of the Town will feast with him and it is accounted no impeachment to their honours for he is held in the rank of a Gentleman or a rank Gentleman and he scorns to be clad in the cast weeds of executed offenders no he goes to the Mercers and hath his Sattin his Velvet or what stuffe he pleases measured out by the Yard or the Ell with his Gold and Silver Lace his silk Stockings laced spangled Garters and Roses Hat and Feather with four or five brave Villains attending him in Livery Cloaks who have stipendary means from his ignominious bounty Their manner of executing Thieves and Murtherers upon the Wheel I shall name one for a president A Poor Carpenter dwelling in the Town who having stoln a Goose and plucking it within his doors a little Girl his Daughter-in-law went out of his house and left the door open by which means the owner of the Goose passing by espyed the wretched thief very diligently picking what he before had been stealing to whom the owner said Neighbour I now perceive which way my Geese use to go but I will have you in Question for them and so away he went the Caitiff being thus reproved grew desperate and his Child coming into his house ye young whore quoth he must ye leave my door open for folks to look in upon me and with that word he took a hatchet and with a cursed stroak he clove the Childs head for the which murther he was condemned and judged to be broken alive upon the wheel Upon the day of Execution about the hour of 12 at Noon the people of the Town in great multitudes flocked to the place of Execution which is half a mile English without the Gates the Prisoner came on foot with a Divine with him all the way exhorting him to repentance and because death should not terrifie him they had given him many Rowses and Carowses of Wine and Beer for it is a custom there to make such poor wretches drunk whereby they be made sensless either of Gods mercy or their own misery but being pray'd for by others they themselves may die resolutely or to be feared desperately But the Prisoner being come to the place of death he was by the Officers delivered to the hang-man who entring his strangling fortification with two grand hang-men more and their men to assist their Hamburghian brother in this great and weighty work the Prisoner mounted on a mount of Earth built high on purpose that the people about may see the execution a quarter of a mile round about four of the hang-mens men takes each of them a small halter and by the hands and the feet they hold the prisoner extended all abroad lying on his back then the Arch-hang-man or the great Master of this mighty business took up a wheel much about the bigness of one of the fore wheels of a Coach and first having put off his Doublet his Hat and being in his shirt as if he meant to play at Tennis he took the wheel and set it on the edge and turn'd it with one hand like a Top or Whirly-gig then he took it by the Spoaks and lifting it up with a mighty stroke he beat one of the poor wretches legs in