dwelleth whom we call in Latine Vicecomitem as one would say the Deputy of the Comes or Earl and in our tongue Sheriff It is his duty to gather the common moneys of the Prince in his County to collect and bring into the Exchequer all fines imposed even by distreining to be attendant upon the Judges and to execute their commandments to assemble and empanel the twelve men which in causes do enquire of the Fact and make relation thereof and give in their Verdict to the Judges for Judges with us sit upon the right onely of a cause and not upon the fact to see condemned persons executèd and to examine and determine certain smaller actions OF THE Several Counties IN ENGLAND CAmden begins with Cornwall and ends with Northumberland I shall mention the Counties of England rather according to the Letters of the Alphabet Barkshire IT is called in Latine Berkeria It is bounded upon the East with Surrey upon the North with the River of Thames from Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire upon the West with Wiltshire and upon the South with Hantshire Abbendune or Abington so called of the Abbay rather than of one Abben an Irish Eremite of the Abby there See Monasticon Anglicanum pag. 97. Farendon famous now for a Mercate there kept Wadley It is situate in a vale though not so fertile a soil as some vales afford yet a most commodious site wholsome in a delicious air a rich and pleasant seat Newbury as much as the Newburgh a fair Town well seated in a Champion plain Reading of the Brittish word Redin which signifieth Fearn that growing here plentifully excelleth all other Towns of this Shire in fair streets and goodly houses for wealth also of the Townsmen and their name in making of Cloath There is a very great Market Maidenhead so named of the superstitious worshipping of I wot not what British Maidens-Head Camd. Brit. Maidenhead or Maidenhith Hith in the old Saxon did signifie a Wharf Haven or Landing-place It had its name from the Wharf or Ferry belonging at that time to some neighbouring Nunnery or to some private Maidens dwelling thereabout who then received the profits of it So Queen-Hith in London took that appellation because the profits of the Wharf were anciently accounted for to the Queens of England Dr. Heylins Animadvers on the Church Hist. of Brit. lib. 1. p. 20. See Camden of Maiden-bradly in Wiltshire fol. 243. Windesore A Royal Castle and House of the Kings with the Town adjoyning A Princes Seat cannot have a more pleasant situation For from a high Hill that riseth with a gentle ascent it enjoyeth a most delightfull Prospect round about With the pleasantnesse of this place Princes were allured very often to retire themselves hither and here was Edward the Third that most puissant King borne who here built new out of the ground a most strong Castle in bignesse equal to a pretty City fortified with Ditches and Bulwarks made of stone and forthwith after he had subdued the French and Scots held at one and the self same time John King of France and David King of Scotland prisoners together in the same In this place King Edward the Third for to adorn Martial Prowesse with Honours the Guerdon of Vertue ordained the most Noble Order and Society of Knights whom he called Knights of the Garter who wear on their left Legge somewhat under the knee a Blew Garter with these golden Letters in French HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENS'E Shame to him that evil thinks and fasten the same with a Buckle of Gold as with the Band of a most inward Society in token of Concord and Unity that there might be among them a certain Consociation and Communion of Vertues Some attribute the original of it unto the Garter of the Queen or rather Joan Countesse of Salisbury a Lady of incomparable beauty which fell from her as she danced and the King took up from the floor for when a number of Nobles and Gentlemen standing by laughed thereat he made answer again That shortly it would come to passe that Garter should be in high honour and estimation This is the most common and most received report There is a Book entituled Catechismus ordinis Equitum Perifcelidis written long since by Belvaleti the Popes Nuncio here and published in the year 1631. by Bosquierus wherein the Authour makes an Allegory on the whole habit of the Order the Matter Colour Fashion Wearing to the very Girdle Dr. Heylins Antidotum Lincolniense Sect. 3. ch. 10. The mightiest Princes in Christendome reputed it amongst their greatest honour to be chosen and admitted into this Company and since the first Institution thereof there have been already received and enrolled into this Order which consisteth of six and twenty Knights two and twenty Kings or thereabout besides our Kings of England who are named Sovereigns thereof to speak nothing of Dukes and others of most high calling very many The Founders of the Order which in those dayes for stout courage and warlike Prowesse had few or no Peers and were in that regard advanced to that honour Edward the Third King of England Edward his eldest Sonne and Prince of Wales Henry Duke of Lancaster Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick Peter Copit de la Bouche Ralph Earl of Stafford William de Montacute Earl of Sarisbury Roger Mortimer Earl of March John Lord Lisle Sir Bartholomew de Burgherst Sir John Beauchamp John Lord Mohun of Dunstere Sir Hugh Courtne Sir Thomas and Sir Otho Holland Sir John Gray of Codnor Sir Richard Fitz Simon Sir Miles Stapleton Sir Thomas Walle Sir Hugh Wrothesly Sir Neel Lorenge Sir John Chandos Sir James Audley Sir Henry Eswi◠Sir Sanchio Dampredicourt Sir Walter Pavely There is an honourable Family of Barons surnamed of Windsore Eaton is hereto adjoyned by a wooden Bridge over the Thames and in it a fair Colledge and a famous School of good literature founded and built by King Henry the Sixth wherein besides the Provost eight Fellows and the singing Choristers there are threescore Scholars instructed in Grammar and in due time preferred to the University of Cambridge It containeth twenty Hundreds twelve Market Towns and an hundred and forty Parishes Bedfordshire BEdford is the principal Town whereof the Shire also taketh name A Town to be commended more for the pleasant situation and antiquity thereof then for beauty or largenesse although a man may tell five Churches in it Hockley in the Hole so named of the miry way in Winter time very troublesome to travellers for the old Englishmen our Progenitors called deep mire Hock and Hocks Dunstable This Town seated in a Chalky ground well inhabited and full of Innes hath four streets answering to the four quarters of the world in every one of which there is a large Pond of standing water for the publique use of the Inhabitants It contains ten Market Towns an hundred and sixteen
in a manner scalding hot and do work and being thus troubled cast up from the bottom certain filth during which time they are shut neither may any body go into them untill by their fluces they cleanse themselves and rid away that filthinesse Of these three the Crosse-Bath so called of a Crosse standing upright in old time in the midst of it is of a very mild and temperate warmth and hath twelve seats of stone about the brink or border thereof and is enclosed within a wall The second distant from this not fully two hundred foot is much hotter whence it is termed hot Bath These two are in the midst of a street on the West-side of the City The third which is the greatest and after a sort in the very bosom and heart of the City is called the Kings Bath neer unto the Cathedral Church walled also round about and fitted with two and thirty seats of arched work wherein men and women may sit apart who when they enter in put upon their bodies linnen garments and have their guides This City hath flourished as well by cloathing as by reason of usual concourse thither for health twice every yeer Bristow This City standing partly in Somerset and partly in Glocestershires is not to be reputed belonging to this or that having Magistrates of its own and being of it self entire and a County incorporate It is situate somewhat high between Avon and the little River Frome sufficiently defended with Rivers and Forfications together So fair to behold by reason of buildings as well publick as private that it is fully correspondent to the name of Brightstow With common Sews or Sinks they call them Goutes so made to runne under the ground for the conveyance and washing away of all filth that for cleanlinesse and wholsomnesse a man would not desire more whereupon there is no use here of carts so well furnished with all things necessary for mans life so populous and well inhabited withall that next after London and York it may of all Cities in England justly challenge the chief place For the mutual intercourse of traffick and the commodious Haven which admitteth in Ships under sail into the very bosom of the City hath drawn people of many countreys thither The Citizens themselves are rich Merchants and traffick all over Europe yea and make Voyages at Sea so farre as into the most remote parts of America The most beautifull Church there is S. Maries of Radcliff without the Wals into which there is a stately ascent upon many stairs so large withall so finely and curiously wrought with an arched roof over head of stone artificially embowed a steeple also of an exceeding height that it surpasseth in many degrees all the Parish-churches in England There is hard by another Church also which they call the Temple the Tower whereof when the Bell rings shaketh to and fro so as it hath cloven and divided it self from the rest of the building and made such a chink from the bottom to the top as that it gapeth the breadth of three fingers and both shutteth and openeth whensoever the Bell is rung S. Vincents Rock so full of Diamonds that a man may fill whole strikes or bushels of them They are not so much set by because they are plenteous in bright and transparent colour they match the Indian-Diamonds if they passe them not in hardnesse only they are inferiour to them In this County are numbered three hundred eighty five Parishes Staffordshire IT hath on the East Warwickshire and Darbyshire on the South-side Worcestershire and Westward Shropshire bordering upon it reacheth from South to North in form of a Lozeng broader in the middest and growing narrower at ends The North part is full of Hils and so lesse fruitfull the middle being watered with the River Trent is most plentifull clad with woods and embrodered gallantly with Corn-fields and Medows as is the South port likewise which hath Coals also digged out of the earth and Mines of Iron There are these Rivers in Staffordshire Sow which runneth by Stafford Dove Peru a little River by Pencridge Charnet Blith Tame The River Trent ariseth in Collonel Boyers Park and Dove passeth thorow part of it Severn passeth thorow some part of the Shire Stourton Castle stands upon the River Stour in the very confines with Worcestershire Dudley-Castle did stand upon an Hill named so of one Dudo or Dodo ah English Saxon. It is now demolished Under this lieth Pensneth-Chace wherein are many Cole-pits Pateshall a seat of the Astleys descended from honourable Progenitors Wrotestley the habitation of Sir Walter Wrotesly whose Father was Sir Hugh Wrotesly In the Parlour window among divers of the Arms of the Ancestours of that Family there is one Sir Hugh Wrotesley mentioned who for his approved valour was made by King Edward the Third Knight of the Garter at the first Institution and so accounted one of the Founders of the said honourable Order Chellington a fair House and Mannor of the ancient Family of the Giffards Brewood a Mercat Town Weston Theoten-Hall by interpretation the habitation of Heathens or Pagans at this day Tetnal Ulfrunes-Hampton so called of Wulfruna a most devout woman who enriched the Town called before simply Hampton with a religious House it is now corruptly called Wulver Hampton For an In-land Town there is a famous Market for Cattel and Corn Weddsborow there is Sea-coal Walsal a little Mercat Town a mile by North from Weddesbury There are many Smiths Peuterers and Bit-makers There is a Park of that name half a mile from the Town There are many Lime-pits neer the Town Draiton-Basset the seat of the Bassets Tamworth a Town so placed in the confines of the two Shires that the one part which belonged sometime to the Mirmions is counted of Warwickshire the other which pertained to the Hastings of Staffordshire Here is a fair Castle At Falkesley-Bridg that Roman High-way Watlingstreet entereth into this Shire and cutting it through as it were by a strait line goeth Westward into Shropshire Wall so called of the reliques of an old Wall there remaining and taking up much about two acres of ground Penck-ridge so named of the River Penck famous for an Horse-Fair which the Lord of the place Hugh Blunt obtained of King Edward the Second New-Castle under Lyme Trentham Stone a Mercat Town which having the beginning in the Saxons time took the name of the Stones which our Ancestours after a solemn sort had cast on a heap to notifie the place where Wolpher the Heathenish King of the Mercians most cruelly slew his two Sonnes Wulfald and Rufin because they had taken upon them the profession of Christianity Sandon Cankwood or Forest Gerards-Bromley an House Chebsey Eccleshall Raunton a Monastery Stafford neer unto which there was a Castle upon an Hill now demolisht It is the head Town of the whole Shire Ticks-Hall the dwelling place of the Astons a Family which for Antiquity Kinred and
once was a City of Truth a holy Mountain in regard of the Doctrine of truth and holinesse preached therein then certainly London may Insomuch that Foraigners Hungarians Germans Batavians others learn our Language and come over to this City that they may hear our Preachers and read our English Divines London-Bridge is an admirable Workmanship of stone hewen out of the Quarry upon nineteen Arches besides the Draw-bridge and is furnished on both sides with passing fair houses joyning one to another in manner of a street that for bignesse and beauty it may worthily carry away the prize from all the Bridges in Europe The whole City is divided into six and twenty Wards and the Councel of the City consisted of as many ancient men named of their age in our tongue Aldermen as one would say Senatours who each one have the over-seeing and rule of his several Ward The chief Magistrate is the Lord Maior and two Sheriffs whereof the one is called the Kings the other the Cities Sheriff In Henry the Sixths Reign Godfrey Bolein was Lord Maior of London being the Ancestor of two renowned and virtuous Queens of England Anne second wife to King Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth their Daughter through whose great vigilancy and providence the City stood so well guarded that the Kings peace was dutifully kept notwithstanding the great Lords of both the Factions Yorkists and Lancastrians were with so great Troops of followers lodged within and about the same In Edward the Thirds Reign Henry Picard Maior of London in one day sumptuously feasted four Kings Edward the Third King of England John King of France the King of Cyprus then arrived in England David King of Scots See the courage and piety of a Lord Maior in King James his time in Wilsons History of Great-Britain p. 106. The Merchants meeting place standing upon Pillars which the common people call the Burse and Queen Elizabeth with a solemn Ceremony named The Royal Exchange was set up by Sir Thomas Gresham Citizen and Knight a magnificent work whether you respect the Model of the building the resort of Merchants from all Nations thither or the store of wares there Which Sir Thomas Gresham being withall an exceeding great lover of Learning consecrated a most spacious house his own habitation to the furtherance of Learning and instituted the Professours of Divinity Law Physick Astronomy Geometry and Musick with liberal Salaries and Stipends to the end that London might be a place not only furnished with all kind of Traffick but also with the Liberal Arts and Sciences There is also a fair and goodly Library in Sion-Colledge containing an hundred twenty and one foot in length and above five and twenty foot in breadth In the Reign of King James Robert Earl of Salisbury caused to be erected a stately building in the Strand which upon Tuesday the tenth of April in the yeer 1609. was begun to be richly furnished with Wares and the next day after the King the Queen and Prince with many great Lords and Ladies came to see and then the King gave it the name of Britains Burse Westminster was called in times past Thorney of Thorns now Westminster of the West situation and the Monastery A City of it self having its peculiar Magistrates and Priviledges It is renowned for the Abbey Church the Hall of Justice and the Kings Palace This Church is famous especially by reason of the Inauguration and Sepulture of the Kings of England William the Conquerour and Matilda his wife were first crowned at Westminster and since them all other Kings and Queens of this Realm have been there crowned Stows Surveigh of London It is a Church of very fair Workmanship supported with sundry rows of Marble Pillars a peece of work that cost fifty yeers labour in building It was founded by King Edward the Confessour King Henry the Seventh for the Burial of himself and his children adjoyned thereto in the East end a Chappel of admirable elegancy Leland calleth it The wonder of the world all the curious and exquisite work that can be devised is there compacted It is reported That the Chappel cost ten thousand pound or as others say fourteen thousand pound There is a Collegiate Church and famous School Forty Scholars in their due time are preferred to the Universities Here are buried the Prince of English Poets Geffrey Chaucer as also he that for pregnant wit and an excellent gift in Poetry of all English Poets came neerest unto him Edmund Spenser Isaac Casaubone William Camden Clarenceux King of Arms Westminster-Hall is the greatest Hall in England and the very Praetorium or Hall of Justice In this are the Judicial Courts the Upper-Bench the Common-Pleas and the Chancery and in places neer thereabout the Starre-Chamber the Exchequer Court of Wards and Court of the Dutchy of Lancaster In which at certain set times we call them Terms Causes are yeerly heard and tried This Judgement Hall King Richard the Second built out of the ground as appeareth by his Arms engraven in the stone-work and many arched beams There are a hundred twenty and one Churches more than Rome it self can shew Redcliff so called of the Red cliff a pretty fine Town and dwelling place of Sailers Enfield-Chase a place much renowned for hunting In this County without the City of London are reckoned Parishes much about seventy three with the City Liberties and Suburbs an hundred twenty and one Monmouthshire IT is enclosed on the North-side with the River Munow that separateth it from Herefordshire on the East-side with Wye running between it and Glocestershire on the West with the River Remmey which severeth it from Glamorganshire and on the South with the Severn The East part is full of Grasse and Woods the West is somewhat hilly and stony yet not unthankfull to the Husbandman Monmouth the chief Town of the Shire Munow and Wye at their confluence do compasse it almost round about and give it the name On the North-side where it is not defended with the Rivers it was fortified with a wall and ditch In the midst of the Town hard by the Mercat place standeth a Castle which as it is thought John Baron of Monmouth built It was the Birth place of Henry the Fifth that triumpher over France and the second Ornament of the English Nation It glorieth also that Geffrey Ap Arthur or of Munmouth Compiler of the British History was born and bred there a man well skilled in Antiquities but as it seemeth not of antique credit so many toyes and tales he every where enterlaceth out of his owne brain as he was charged while he lived Chepstow a famous Town and of good resort situate upon the side of an Hill rising from the very River fortified round about with a Wall of a large circuit which includes within it both Fields and Orchards It hath a very spacious Castle situate over the River Strighall Castle it belongs to the
and the strongest hold in all Britain It is well neer compassed about with the Sea and Twede together Upon the West parts of Northumberland the Picts-Wall is in some of the waste ground the Wall is to be seen of great height and almost whole The Roman Britains being continually molested by the often incursions of the barbarous people called Picts The Emperour Severus built a Wall of stone with great wisdome and industry to strengthen the Northern parts of Britain against the many inrodes of the Picts At every miles end of this Wall was a Tower and in the Wall a Pipe of Mettal betwixt the Tower or Sentinel-houses that so soon as a man had set his mouth to this Pipe they might hear through all the Sentinels where the enemy was and so in a short time giving warning from one end of the Wall to the other There are about fourty six Parishes in Northumberland Oxfordshire ON the West-side it joyneth upon Glocestershire on the South which way it runneth out farthest in breadth it is dissevered from Barkshire by the River Isis or Tamis Eastward it bordereth upon Buckinghamshire and Northward where it endeth pointed in manner of a Cone or Pineapple hath Northamtonshire of one side and Warwickshire on the otherside confining with it It is a fertile Countrey and plentifull wherein the plains are garnished with Corn-fields and Medows the Hils beset with Woods stored in every place not only with Corn and Fruits but also with all kind of Game for Hound or Hawk and well watered with fish-full Rivers Hoch-Norton for the rustical behaviour of the Inhabitants in the age afore-going it grew to be a Proverb when folk would say of one rudely demeaning himself and unmannerly after an Hoggish kind That he was born at Hocknorton Woodstock a woody place Here is one of the Kings Houses full of state and magnificence built by King Henry the First who adjoyned also thereunto a very large Park compassed round about with a stone wall which John Rosse writeth to have been the first Park in England Our Historians report that King Henry the Second being enamoured upon Rosamond Clifford a Damsel so fair so comely and well-favoured without comparison that her beauty did put all other women out of the Princes mind insomuch as she was termed Rosa mundi the Rose of the world and to hide her out of the sight of his jealous Juno the Queen he built a Labyrinth in this House with many inextricable windings backward and forward which notwithstanding is no where to be seen at this day She was buried at Godstow with this Epitaph in Rhyme Hic jacet in tumba Rosa mundi non Rosa munda Non redolet sed olet quae redolere solet The Town it self having nothing at all to shew glorieth yet in this that Jeffrey Chaucer our English Homer was there bred and brought up Banbury a fair large Town It is famous for Cheese and Cakes Hanwell where the Family of Cope hath flourished many yeers in great and good esteem Broughton the seat of my Lord Say and Sele Islip the native place of that King Edward whom for his religious piety and continency our Ancestours and the Popes vouchsafed the name of Edward the Confessor Oxford a fair and goodly City whether a man respect the seemly beauty of private houses or the stately magnificence of publick buildings together with the wholsome site or pleasant prospect thereof It was from its situation in ancient times called Bello situm Isidis vadum Saxonice Ouseford Ousenford corrupte Oxford Historia circumfertur adfirmans hanc urbem olim ab amaenitate sitûs Bellositum dictum fuisse Joannes Rossus hinc edoctus hoc idem affirmat Let. Comment in Cygn. Cant. Oxoniensis Universitas Schola secunda Ecclesiae imo Ecclesiae fundamentum Matthew Paris Hist. Angl. pag. 945. In the Councel of Vienna it was ordained that there should be erected Schools for the Hebrew Greek Arabick and Chaldaean Tongues in the studies of Paris Oxford Bonony and Salamanca as the most famous of all others to the end that the knowledge of these Tongues might by effectual instruction be throughly learned Here are 17 Colledges and 7 Hals Dorchester a Town known in times past to the Romans Vide Lel. Commentin Cygn. Cant. Henley upon Tamis The Inhabitants of it for the most part are watermen This County containeth two hundred and eighty Parish Churches Richmondshire IT takes the name from a Castle Most of it lieth very high with ragged Rocks and swelling Mountains whose sloping sides in some places bear good Grasse the bottom and Valleys are not altogether unfruitfull The Hils themselves within are stored with Lead Pit-coal and Copper Nappa an house built with Turrets and the chief seat of the Medcalfs thought to be not long since the greatest Family for multitude of the same name in all England For I have heard that Sir Christopher Medcalf Knight and the top of this kindred being of late High-Sheriff of the Shire accompanied with three hundred men of the same House all on Horse-back and in a Livery met and received the Justices of Assizes and so brought them to York So Camden Bolton-Castle a stately Castle Richmond the chief Town of the Countrey well peopled and frequented Hourby-Castle There are contained in this Shire an hundred and four Parishes besides Chappels Rutlandshire IT is the least County of all England Lying in form almost round like a circle it is in compasse so farre about as a Light-horsman will ride in one day It was called Rutland as one would say Red-land the Earth in this Shire is every where red and so red that even the Sheeps fleeces are thereby coloured red the English-Saxons called Red in their tongue Roet and Rud. Uppingham a place upon an high ascent whence that name was imposed a well frequented Mercat Town The Vale of Catmose a field full of Woods Okeham is in the midst of it so called from Oaks This small Shire hath Parish Churches fourty eight Shropshire ON the East-side it hath Staffordshire on the West Mongomeryshire and Denbighshire on the South-side Worcester Hereford and Radnorshires and on the North Cheshire It is replenished with Towns and Castles standing thick on every side in regard of repelling and repressing the Welshmen in the Marches bordering hereupon Whence our Ancestours by an ancient word named the Confines of this Shire toward Wales the Marches because they were Bounds and Limits between the Welsh and English and divers Noblemen in this Tract were called Barons of the March and Lords Marchers who had every one in their Territory a certain peculiar jurisdiction and in their own Courts ministred Law unto the Inhabitants with sundry Priviledges and Immunities Bishops-Castle so called because it belonged to the Bishops of Hereford whose Diocesse and Jurisdiction was large in this Shire Clun-Castle so called from the River Clun Ludlow it standeth upon an Hill a Town