after many losses and calamities sustained to represse the sudden rodes and assaults made by the enemies of necessitie hee sent for Severus himselfe who gladly and thankefully taking hold of this good occasion to withdraw and weane his sonnes given to licentious rioting from the delightsome pleasures of Rome-Citie and therewith to augment his owne stile with the addition of Britannicus albeit he was above threescore yeares of age and gowtie besides fully resolveth with his two sons Bassianus whom he had named Antoninus Augustus Geta Caesar and the Legions to enter Britaine The Britans forthwith sent Embassadours unto him for peace Whom after he had of purpose detained with him a good while till he might prepare all things meet for warre hee sent away as they came without obtaining their suit and leaving his sonne Geta whom hee created Augustus at his first arrivall in Britaine in the hither part of the Province which continued in obedience to the Romans for the civill jurisdiction and administration of the affaires there himselfe with Antoninus went into the farther parts where being occupied in cutting down woods making bridges and drying up the meres he fought no battell howbeit what with the ambuscadoes of enemies and what with sicknesse hee lost fiftie thousand of his men Thus writeth Dio. But Herodian hath recorded that in certaine light skirmishes whiles the barbarous Britaines kept the fennie bogs and most thick woods out of which they might more safely assaile the Romans he had the upper-hand Yet he enforced them in the end to a league with this condition that they should yield unto him a good part of their Countrey And that which is the greatest honour and ornament of his Empire he fensed it with a wall over thwart the Island from one coast of the Ocean to another For these victories he stamped certaine pieces of money with this Inscription VICTORIA BRITANNICA assumed the surname of BRITANNICVS MAXIMVS and his sonne Geta named Britannicus bare it as appeareth by his coines Howbeit the Britans afterward having broken covenant began to rebell and make alteration in the State whereupon his wrathfull indignation against them brake out into such termes as that in an assembly of his souldiers he gave them in charge to make a generall massacre of them all using these verses out of Homer to this effect Let none escape your bloudy hands but be they sure to die Spare not the very babes unborne in mothers wombe that lie These rebels when he had in some sort repressed by the helpe of his own forces he sickned not so much upon any bodily disease as for griefe and sorrow of mind occasioned by the desperate and unreclaimable misdemeanour of his Sonne Antoninus who once or twice gave the attempt to kill him with his owne hand and so hee yielded up his vitall breath at Yorke uttering at the point of death these his last words A troubled state of Common weale I found in every place but I leave it now in peace and quietnesse even among the Britans His body here was in militarie sort carried forth by his souldiers bestowed in a funerall fire and honoured with a solemne justing and running at Tilt performed by his owne souldiers and sonnes I might peradventure be censured for my vanitie if I should relate in this place the prodigies that went before his death and namely as touching the sootie and black hostes or Sacrifices as also the coronet made of the deadly and mournefull cypresse which a scurrile Buffon and jester presented unto him with these words Thou hast beene all now be a God but after what manner he was canonized a God I will not thinke much of mine owne paine to annex hereunto considering that the knowledge thereof may delight the reader also A Custome the Romanes have to consecrate those Emperours that die their Sonnes or Successours surviving And whosoever are in this wise honoured be canonized and registred in the Rolle of their Divi that is Gods Now during this complement they hold a generall mourning thorow the whole citie and the same mixed with a festivall solemnitie For after the Princes death they burie the bodie honourably and with sumptuous funerals according to the manner of other men But withall they frame an image of waxe resembling in all points the party deceased and lay the same openly at the entry of the palace upon a most ample and stately bed of Ivorie erected on high and covered with cloth of gold And verily that image lieth with a palish and wan colour like unto a sicke man About the bed on both sides there sit a great part of the day the whole bodie of the Senate on the right hand arraied in their blacks and on the left hand certaine Dames and Ladies who are by the place and dignity of the husbands or parents worshipfull And there is not one of them seene to weare any gold about them nor to be adorned with jewels but clad in white and slender garments they represent mourners This do they for seven daies together during which time the Physitians resort daily into him to touch his pulse and consider of his disease and thereupon as of their patient judicially pronounce that he groweth worse and worse Thus after a sevenight when it seemed that he was departed certaine of the noblest and most choice young gentlemen as wel of the Senators as Knights degree take up the foresaid bed upon their shoulders and carrie it thorow the high street called Sacra into the old Forum where the Roman Magistrates had wont to lay down their rule and government Here on both sides were certaine greeses or steps in maner of staires raised upon which on the one hand was placed a quire of boies of noblest birth and of the Patritian degree and on the other a company of women likewise of noble parentage singing in commendation of the dead Prince hymmes and sonets entuned in a solemne and mournfull note Which done they take up the said bed or hearse againe and carrie it out of the Citie into Campus Martius where in the broadest place of the said field a frame or turret foure square with equall sides was raised and the same made in manner of a tabernacle of no other matter than main great pieces of timber And verily within it was all over filled with dry fewell but without adorned with rich hangings woven with gold wire between with divers jvory portraicts of imagerie and sundry curious pictures Over this frame there stood another somewhat lesse howbeit in forme and furniture very like unto the former with windowes and dores standing open And so a third and fourth turret smaller every one than that next beneath it and others likewise still one after another untill you come to the last and utmost which is the least and highest of all the rest The manner of this whole building a man may well compare to these lanternes or light-towers standing by haven â—ides and
of verses And so they continue still schollars for certaine yeares together neither doe they thinke it lawfull to commit what they learne to writing whereas otherwise in every thing almost in publike also and private dealings they use Greeke letters This order they have taken I suppose for two reasons because they would not have their doctrine divulged nor their scholars by trusting to their written bookes to neglect their owne memorie a thing incident lightly to most schollars who presuming upon the helpe of writings uselesse diligence in learning without booke and as little in exercising their memorie This one point principally they are desirous to perswade their scholars That our soules are immortall and after death passe out of one man into another and by this meanes they suppose men setting behind them all feare of death are most of all stirred up unto vertue Furthermore concerning the starres and their motion touching the greatnesse of heaven and earth of the Nature of things of the power and might of the immortall Gods much dispute they make and as many precepts they give to youth Whereupon Lucan in this wise speaketh unto them Et vos barbaricos ritus morémque sinistrum Sacrorum Druidae positis repetistîs ab armis Solis nosse Deos Caeli sydera vobis Aut solis nescire datum Nemora alta remotis Incolitis lucis Vobis autoribus umbras Non tacitas Erebi sedes Ditisque profundi Pallida regna petunt regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio longae canitis si cognita vitae Mors media est Certè populi quos despicit Arctos Foelices errore suo quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget laethi metus inde ruendi Inferrum mens prona viris animaeque capaces Mortis ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae Yee Priests also hight Druidae your sacrifices leaw'd And barb'rous rites which were forlet in wars surceasse renew'd Yee onely know or yee alone know not the gods above And heavenly wights Among high trees in groves remote yee love To dwell and teach that soules of men their bodies parted fro Passe not to silent Erebus where Pluto reign 's below Among the pale and grisly ghosts but spirit still the same Rul's limbs and joynts in other world And death if that yee frame Your precepts grounded sure on truth and knowledge is no more Than middle point twixt future life and that which went before Certes those Northerne people are right happie whom we see Perswaded of such vaine conceits wherein they nuzzeled be No feare of death which men most dread can once their stomacks dant This maketh them so resolute so bold and valiant Vpon the pike and sword they runne they passe not to be slaine T' is cowardise to spare that life which will returne againe By what name soever these were knowne to their Celts or Britaines it may seeme that this name of Druides came from a Greeke primitive head to wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is an Oke for that they held nothing more sacred than the Misselto of the Oke whereupon Ovid writeth thus Adviscum Druidae Druidae cantare solebant To Misselto goe Druidae goe Druidae they did sing as who commonly dwelt within Oke-groves and celebrated no sacrifice and divine service without the branches and leaves thereof But this will Plinie more amply declare in these words of his The Druidae for so they call their Diviners Wisemen and estate of Clergie esteeme nothing in the world more sacred then Misselto and the tree whereupon it groweth so it bee an Oke Now this you must take by the way These Priests or Clergie men chuse of purpose such groves for their divine service as stood onely upon Okes Nay they solemnize no sacrifice nor celebrate any sacred ceremonies without branches and leaves thereof so as they may seeme well enough to bee thereupon named Dryidae in Greeke And in very deed whatsoever they find growing to that tree beside the owne fruit they esteeme it as a gift sent from heaven and a sure signe that the God himselfe whom they serve hath chosen that peculiar tree And no marvell for Misselto is passing geason and hard to be found upon the Oke But when they meet with it they gather it very devoutly and with many ceremonies First they principally observe that the Moone bee just six daies old for upon that day begin they their moneths and new yeares yea and their severall ages which have their revolutions every thirtie yeares because shee is thought then to bee of great power and force sufficient and is not come to her halfe light or end of her first quarter It they call in their Language All-heale for they have an opinion that it healeth all maladies whatsoever Now when they are about to gather it after they have duely prepared their sacrifices and festivall cheere under the said tree they bring thither two young bullocks milke-white whose hornes are then and not before bound up This done the Priest arraied in a surplise or white vesture climeth the tree and with a golden bill cutteth off the Misselto and they beneath receive the same in a white souldiers cassock Then fall they to kill the beasts aforesaid for sacrifice mumbling many oraisons and praying That it would please God to blesse this gift of his to their good unto whom hee had vouchsafed to give it Now this conceite they have of Misselto thus gathered that what living creature soever otherwise barren drinketh thereof it will presently thereupon become fruitfull also that it is a soveraigne counterpoison and remedie against all venom So superstitious are people oftentimes in such frivolous and foolish toies as these Heereto accordeth well that Diodorus Siculus in the same sense hath termed these Priests of the Gaules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which word as they all know who have skill in the Greeke tongue betokeneth Okes. And Maximus Tyrius writeth thus of the Celts i. the Gaules That they worship Iupiter whose symbole or signe it the highest Oke Furthermore it may seeme to proceede from these Druides that our Saxons as we reade in Alfricus called a Diviner or wise man in their language Dry. Of these if you bee willing to learne more I referre you to Mela Lactantius Eusebius De Praeparatione Evangelica and the Comedie Aulularia of Pseudo-Plautus The Frenchmen or Gaules had likewise among their religious persons the Bardi who to the tune of the Harpe sung Dities in verse conteining the famous exploits of brave and noble men From whence it is that the same Lucan before cited speaketh thus unto them Vos quoque qui fortes animas bellóque peremptas Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis avum Plurima securi fudistis carmina Bardi And yee the Poets Bardi call'd who knights redoubted prise Praise-worthie most that died in the field and them doe eternise Pour'd foorth now many a verse in song and that in carelesse wise And even those also
the Arians their heresie crept into Britaine wherein from the first yeares of the great Constantine a sweete concent and harmonie of Christ the head and his members had continued untill such time as that deadly and perfidious Arianisme like to a pestiferous Serpent from the other side of the sea casting up her venom upon us caused brethren dwelling together to be dis-joyned piteously one from another and thus the way as it were being made over the Ocean all other cruell and fell beasts wheresoever shaking out of their horrible mouthes the mortiferous poison of every heresie inflicted the deadly stings and wounds of their teeth upon this our countrey desirous evermore to heare some noveltie but holding nought at all stedfastly In favour of these Arians Constantius summoned foure hundred Bishops of the West Church to Ariminum for whom the Emperour by his commandement allowed corne and victuals But that was thought of the Aquitanes French and Britaines an unseemely thing refusing therefore that allowance out of the Emperours coffers they chose rather to live at their owne proper charges Three onely out of Britaine for want of their owne had maintenance from the State refusing the contribution offered unto them from the rest reputing it more safe and void of corruption to charge the common treasure than the private state of any person After this when Constantius was departed this world Julianus that Apostata who had taken upon him the title of Augustus against Constantius first drave out Palladius who had been master of Offices into Britaine and sent away Alphius who had governed Britan as Deputy Lieutenant to reedifie Jerusalem but fearefull round balles of flaming fire breaking forth neere unto the foundations skarred him from that enterprize and many a thousand of Jewes who wrestled in vaine against the decree of God were overwhelmed with the ruines This dissolute Augustus and in his beard onely a Philosopher feared as hath erewhile been said to come and aid the poore distressed Britans and yet from hence he carried out every yeare great store of corne to maintaine the Roman garrisons in Germany When Valentinian the Emperour steered the helme of the Roman Empire what time as through the whole world the trumpets resounded nothing but the warlike Al Arme the Picts Saxons Scots and Attacots vexed the Britans with continuall troubles and annoyances Fraomarius then King of the Almanes was translated hither and by commission made Tribune or Marshall over a band of the Almanes for number and power in those daies highly renowned to represse the incursions of those barbarous nations Neverthelesse Britaine was through the generall conspiracie of those Barbarians afflicted and brought to extreme distresse Nectaridius Comes or Lieutenant of the maritime tract slaine and Bucholbaudes the Generall by an ambush of the enemies circumvented The intelligence of which occurrences when it was brought unto Rome with great horror the Emperour sent Severus being even then Lord High Steward of his houshold to redresse what was done amisse in case his hap had beene to have seene the wished end who being within a while after called away Iovinius went to the same parts sent backe Proventusides in post minding to crave the puissant helpe of an armie For they avouched than the urgent necessary occasions required so much At the last so many and so fearefull calamities were by daily rumors reported as touching the same Iland that Theodosius was elected and appointed to make speed thither a man of approved skill in warlike affaires most fortunatelie atchieved who having levied and gotten unto him a couragious company of young gallants to furnish as well Legions as cohorts put himselfe in his journey with a brave shew of confidence leading the way At the same time the Picts divided into two nations the Dicalidones and Vecturiones the Attacots likewise a warlike people and the Scots ranging in divers parts did much mischiefe where they went As for the cohorts of Gaule the Frankners and Saxons confining upon them brake out and made rodes where ever they could either by land or sea and what with driving booties with firing towns and killing poore captives made foule worke there To stay these wofull miseries if prosperous fortune would have given leave this most vigorous and valiant Captaine intending a voiage to the utmost bounds of the earth when he was come to the sea side at Boloigne which lieth divided from the opposite tract of land by a narrow streit ebbing and flowing where the water is wont to swell on high with terrible tides and againe to fall downe flat and lie like even plains without any harme of sailer or passenger from thence having sailed and leasurely crossed the said sea he arrived as Rhutupiae a quiet rode and harbour over against it From whence after that the Batavians Heruli Iovij and Victores companies confident of their strength and power who followed were come hee departed and marching toward London an old towne which the posteritie called Augusta having divided his troopes into sundry parts hee set upon those companies of roving and robbing enemies even when they were heavy loaden with bootie and pillage And having quickly discomfited those that drave before them their prisoners bound and cattell he forced them to forgoe the prey which the most miserable tributaries had lost In the end after full restitution made of all save onely some small parcels bestowed upon his wearied souldiers he entred most joyfully into the citie over set before with distresses and calamities but now suddenly refreshed so far forth as hope of recovery and safetie might effect and there being raised up with this luckie hand to adventure greater exploits and yet casting with himselfe projects promising securitie he staied doubtfull of the future event as having learned by the information of revolting fugitives and confession of captives that so great a multitude of sundry nations and a stiffe-necked people of so fell and fierce a disposition could not possibly be vanquished but by secret wiles and sudden excursions Finally after proclamations published and promises made of impunitie he summoned as well the traiterous runagates as many others that went with free pasport dispersed sundry waies to present themselves ready for service Vpon which summons given so soone as most of them were returned he as one pricked forward with so good a motive and yet held backe by heavie cares called for Civilis by name who was to rule Britaine as Deputie to bee sent unto him a man of a very quicke hastie nature but a precise keeper of Iustice and righteousnesse likewise for Dulcitius a redoubted Captaine and right skilfull in feates of armes Afterwards having gotten heart and courage to him he went from Augusta which in old time they called Londinum well appointed with industrious and considerate souldiers and so brought exceeding great succour to the ruinate and troubled estate of the Britaines gaining
see And on the other Hoc Anglis signo Regem fatearis eundem By this a King to Englishmen acknowledge him to be Moreover as William of Malmesburie doth report In imitation of Caesars policy who expelled the Germans lying hidden within that huge forrest Ardenna and by many asallie from thence annoying his armie not by the helpe of his owne Romans but by the Gaules his confederates to this end that whiles strangers and aliens killed one another himselfe might triumph with their bloud-shed the very same course I say did William take with the English men For against certaine of them who upon the first battell of that infortunate man Harold were fled into Denmarke and Ireland and returned with a puissant armie in the third yeere after he opposed meere English forces and an English generall permitting the Normans to sit still and keepe holiday foreseeing heereby and providing for his owne great easement whether of them soever should have the better Neither was he in this point frustrate of his purpose For the English having thus a prettie while skuffeled and skirmished one with another in the end rendred up the entire Victorie to the King without his paines taking And in another place Having undermined and quite overthrowne the power of the Laimen he provided by a sure and irrevocable edict to suffer no Monke or Clerke of the English Nation to endevour for to get any dignitie much disagreeing herein from the clemencie and gentlenesse of King Cnuto in times past who gave unto those that he conquered all their honours entire And hence it came to passe that when hee was once dead the naturall Inhabitants of the countrey upon light occasions fell to driving out of strangers and recovered unto themselves their ancient right and freedome When he had brought this to passe above all things hee laboured to turne away the storme of the Danish wars that hung over his head and to purchase peace though it were with round sums of mony Wherein he used Adelbert Archbishop of Hamburgh as his Instrument For Adam Bremensis writeth thus Betweene Suen and the Bastard there was continuall strife about England although our Bishop being greased in the hand with Williams bribes would have concluded a firme peace betwixt the Kings Which may seeme also to have beene established for since that time England was never any whit afraid of the Danes And William verily betooke himselfe wholly to the defence and maintenance of his Imperiall dignitie and to governe the state by excellent lawes For as Gervase of Tilburie writeth When the renowned Conqueror of England King William had subdued the farther coasts of this Island under his dominion and throughly tamed the stomacks and hearts of rebels by terrible examples lest that from thenceforth they should licentiously run into errour and commit trespasse he determined to reduce his subjects under the obedience of positive and written Lawes Having therefore all the lawes of England laid before him according to the Tripartite Division whereby they were distinguished that is to say Merchenlag Denelag and Westsex-enlag when hee had rejected some of them and allowed of others he adjoyned thereto those Lawes of Neustria beyond the seas which seemed most effectuall to preserve the peace of his Kingdome Afterwards as mine Author Ingulphus saith who flourished in those daies He commanded every Inhabitant of England to doe him homage and to sweare fealtie to him against all men He tooke the survey and description of the whole Land neither was there an Hide of England through but he knew both the value and the owner thereof there was neither plash nor place but set it was in the Kings Roll and the rent revenue and profit thereof the very tenure of possession and possessour himselfe was made knowne to the King according to the credit and true relation of certaine Taxers who being chosen out of every country did put downe in writing the territorie properly belonging thereto And this Roll was called the Roll of Winchester and by the Englishmen for the generalitie thereof because it contained fully and exactly all the tenements of the whole Land named Domesday I have beene more willing to make mention of this booke because it is to be cited alleaged often times hereafter which booke also it pleaseth me to name Gulielmi librum Censualem that is The Tax-booke of William Angliae Notitiam that is The Notice of England Angliae commentarios Censuales that is The Taxe Register or Sessing booke of England and Angliae Lustrum that is the Survey of England But whereas Polydore Virgill writeth how William that Conqueror first brought in the Triall or Iudgement of twelve men there is nothing more untrue For most certaine it is and apparant by the lawes of Etheldred that it was in use many yeares before Neither hath he any cause to terme it a terrible Iudgement For these 12. free-borne and lawfull men are duely by order empannelled and called forth of the Neighbourhood these are bound by oath to pronounce and deliver up their Verdict de facto they heare the counsell pleading in courts on both sides before the Bench or Tribunall and the disposition of witnesses then taking with them the evidences of both parties they are shut up together and kept from meat drinke and fire unlesse haply some one of them be in danger of death thereby so long untill they be all agreed of the fact which when they have pronounced before the Judge hee according to right and law giveth his definitive sentence For this manner of triall our most sage and wise Ancestours have thought the best to finde out the truth to avoid corruption and cut off all partialitie and affections Now as touching martiall prowesse how much the Normans excelled therein let others tell this may suffice for me to have said thus much that being planted among most warlike nations they alwaies saved themseves not by obsequious basenesse but by force of armes and founded most noble Kingdomes in England and Sicilie For Tancrede nephew unto Richard the second of that name Duke of Normandie and his posteritie atchieved brave exploits in Italie and having compelled the Sarazens to flie out of Sicilie erected a Kingdome there Whereupon the Sicilian Historiographer doth freely acknowledge that the Sicilians are beholden unto the Normans for that themselves remaine still in their native soile live in freedome and continue Christians Likewise in the holy Land their martiall prowesse hath been seen with singular commendation Hence it is also that Roger Hoveden writeth in these termes Bold France having made triall once of the Normans warfare durst not peepe out Fierce England being conquered yielded as captive unto them Rich Apulia falling to the lot of their possession flourished a fresh Famous Ierusalem and renowned Antioch were both subdued by them And ever since their comming England as well for martiall honour as civill behaviour hath among the most flourishing Kingdomes of
and the most Noble so with our Ancestors the English-Saxons hee was named in their tongue Aetheling that is Noble and in Latine Clito of the Greeke word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Glorious or Excellent see how that age affected the Greeke Language And hereupon of that Eadgar the last heire male of the English bloud royall this old said saw is yet rife in every mans mouth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in the ancient latine Patents and Charters of the Kings wee read often times Ego E. vel Ae. Clyto Regis filius But this addition Clyto I have observed to be given even to all the Kings sonnes After the Norman conquest no certaine or speciall title of honour was assigned unto him nor any other to my knowledge than singly thus The Kings sonne and The first begotten of the King of England untill that Edward the first summoned unto the high Court of Parliament his sonne Edward by the name of Prince of Wales and Earle of Chester unto whom he granted afterwards the Dukedome also of Aquitain like as the same Prince being now King Edward the Second called unto the Parliament his young sonne Edward not full ten yeeres old by the title of Earle of Chester and of Flint But the said Edward having now attained to the Crowne and being Edward the Third created Edward his sonne a most valiant and renowned man of warre Duke of Cornwall Since which time the Kings first begotten sonne is reputed Duke of Cornewall at the houre of his birth And soone after he adorned the same sonne by solemne investure and creation with the title of Prince of Wales And gave the Principality of Wales in these words To be held of him and his heires Kings of England And as the declared or elect Successours of the Roman Empire as I said even now were named Caesares of the Greekish Empire Despotae of the Kingdome of France Dolphins and of Spaine Infants so from thence forward the Heires apparant of the Kingdome of England were entituled Princes of Wales And this title continued unto the daies of Henrie the Eight when Wales was fully united to the Kingdome of England But now whereas the Kingdomes of Britaine formerly divided are by the happy good luck and rightfull title of the most mighty Prince King Iames growen into one his Eldest sonne Henrie the Lovely Ioy and Dearling of Britaine is stiled PRINCE OF GREAT BRITAINE who as he is borne thus to the greatest hopes so all Britaine from one end to the other prayeth uncessantly from the very heart that God would vouchsafe to blesse him with the greatest vertues and continuance of honour that hee may by many degrees and that most happily exceede our hope surpasse the noble Acts of his Progenitours yea and outlive their yeeres As for our Nobilitie or Gentry it is divided into Superiour and Inferiour The Superiour or chiefe Noblemen we call Dukes Marquesses Earles and Barons which have received these titles from the Kings of this Realme for their Vertue and Prowesse DVKE is the chiefe title of honour among us next after PRINCE This was a name at first of charge and office and not of dignitie About the time of Aelius Verus the Emperour those who governed the Limits and Borders were first named Duces and this degree in the daies of Constantine was inferiour to that of Comites After the Romane government was heere in this Iland abolished this title also remained as a name of office and those among us who in old Charters during the Saxons time are so many of them called Duces were named in the English tongue onely Ealdermen and the verie same that were named Duces they called also Comites As for example that William the Conquerour of England whom most call Duke of Normandie William of Malmsburie termeth Comes or Earle of Normandie But as well Duke as Earle were names of charge and office as appeareth by this Briefe or Instrument of creating a Duke or Earle out of Marculphus an ancient Writer In this point especially is a Princes regall Clemencie fully commended that thorowout the whole people there bee sought out honest and vigilant persons neither is it meete to commit hand over head unto every man a judiciarie Dignity unlesse his faithfulnesse and valour seeme to have beene tried before seeing then therefore we suppose that we have had good proofe of your trustie and profitable service unto us wee have committed unto you the government of that Earledome Dukedome Senatourship or Eldership in that Shire or Province which your Predecessor untill this time seemed to have exercised for to manage and rule the same accordingly Provided alwaies that you evermore keepe your faith untouched and untainted toward our Royall governance and that all people there abiding may live and be ruled under your regiment and governance and that you order and direct them in the right course according to law and their owne customes That you shew your selfe a Protector to widowes and Guardian to Orphans that the wickednesse of theeves and malefactors be most severely by you punished that the people living well under your regiment may with joy continue in peace quietly and whatsoever by this very execution is looked for to arise in profit due to the Exchequer bee brought yeerely by your selfe into our Coffers and Treasurie This title of Duke began to be a title of honour under Otho the Great about the yeere 970. For hee to bind more streitly and neerer unto him martiall and politike men endowed them with Regalities and Roialties as hee termed them And these Roialties were either Dignities or Lands in fee. Dignities were these Dukes Marquesses Earles Capitaines Valvasors Valvasines Later it was ere it came to bee an Hereditarie title in France and not before the time of Philip the third King of France who granted that from thence forth they should bee called Dukes of Britaine who before time were indifferently stiled both Dukes and Earles But in England in the time of the Normans seeing the Norman Kings themselves were Dukes of Normandie for a great while they adorned none with this honour nor before that Edward the Third created Edward his sonne Duke of Cornwall by a wreath upon his head a ring on his finger and a silver verge or rod like as the Dukes of Normandie were in times past created by a Sword and Banner delivered unto them afterwards by girding the Sword of the Dutchie and a circlet of gold garnished with little golden Roses in the top And the same King Edward the Third created in a Parliament his two sonnes Lionel Duke of Clarence and Iohn Duke of Lancaster by the girding of a Sword and setting upon their heads a furred chapeau or cap with a circlet or Coronet of gold pearle and a Charter delivered unto them From which time there have beene many hereditary Dukes among us created one after another with these or such like words in
any expedition set out either by sea or land it served in proportion to five hides It hath beene likewise from time to time much afflicted once spoiled and sore shaken by the furious outrages of the Danes in the yeare of our redemption 875. but most grievously by Suen the Dane in the yeare 1003. at which time by the treacherie of one Hugh a Norman Governor of the citie it was raced and ruined along from the East gate to the West And scarcely began it to flourish againe when William the Conquerour most straightly beleaguered it when the Citizens in the meane while thought it not sufficient to shut their gates against him but malapartly let flie taunts and flouts at him but when a piece of their wall fell downe by the speciall hand of God as the Historians of that age report they yielded immediatly thereupon At which time as we find in the said survey-booke of his The King had in this Citie three hundred houses it paid fifteene pounds by the yeare and fortie houses were destroyed after that the King came into England After this it was thrice besieged and yet it easily avoided all First by Hugh Courtney Earle of Denshire in that civill warre betweene the two houses of Lancaster and Yorke then by Perkin Warbecke that imaginarie counterfeit and pretended Prince who being a young man of a very base condition faining himselfe to be Richard Duke of Yorke the second sonne of King Edward the Fourth stirred up dangerous stirres against Henrie the Seventh thirdly by seditious Rebels of Cornwall in the yeare of Christ 1549 at which time the Citizens most grievously pinched though they were with scarcitie of all things continued neverthelesse in their faith and allegeance untill that Iohn Lord Russell raised the siege and delivered them But Excester received not so great damage at these enemies hands as it did by certaine dammes which they call Weares that Edward Courtney Earle of Denshire taking high displeasure against the Citizens made in the river Ex which stop the passage so that no vessell can come up to the Citie but since that time all merchandize is carried by land from Topesham three miles off And albeit it hath beene decreed by Act of Parliament to take away these Weares yet they continue there still Hereupon the little Towne adjoyning is call Weare being aforetime named Heneaton which was sometime the possession of Augustine de Baa from whom in right of inheritance it descended to Iohn Holland who in his signet which my selfe have seene bare a Lion rampant gardant among flowers de Lys. The civill government of this Citie is in the power of foure and twenty persons out of whom there is from yeare to yeare a Major elected who with foure Bailiffes ruleth heere the State As touching the Geographicall description of this place the old tables of Oxford have set downe the longitude thereof to bee nineteene degrees and eleven scruples the latitude fiftie degrees and fortie scruples or minutes This Citie that I may not omit so much hath had three Dukes For Richard the Second of that name King of England created Iohn Holland Earle of Huntingdon and his brother by the mothers side the first Duke of Excester whom Henrie the Fourth deposed from this dignitie and left unto him the name onely of Earle of Huntingdon and soone after for conspiracie against the King he lost both it and his life by the hatchet Some few yeares after Henry the Fifth set in his place Thomas Beaufort of the house of Lancaster and Earle of Dorset a right noble and worthy warriour When he was dead leaving no issue behind him John Holland sonne of that aforesaid John as heire unto his brother Richard who died without children and to his father both being restored to his bloud by the favour and bounty of King Henry the Sixth recovered his fathers honor and left the same to Henry his sonne who so long as the Lancastrians stood upright flourished in very much honor but afterwards when the family of Yorke was a float and had rule of all gave an example to teach men how ill trusting it is to great Fortunes For this was that same Henry Duke of Excester who albeit he had wedded King Edward the Fourth his sister was driven to such miserie that he was seene all tottered torne and barefooted to begge for his living in the Low countries And in the end after Barnet field fought wherein he bare himselfe valiantly against Edward the Fourth was no more seene untill his dead bodie as if he had perished by Shipwracke was cast upon the shore of Kent A good while after this Henry Courtney Earle of Denshire the sonne of Katharine daughter to King Edward the Fourth was advanced to the honour of Marquesse of Excester by Henry the Eighth and designed heire apparant But this Marquesse as well as the first Duke was by his high parentage cast into a great tempest of troubles wherein as a man subject to suspitions and desirous of a change in the State he was quickly overthrowne And among other matters because he had with money and counsell assisted Reginald Poole afterwards Cardinall then a fugitive practising with the Emperour and the Pope against his owne Country and the King who had now abrogated the Popes authoritie he was judicially arraigned and being condemned with some others lost his head But now of late by the favour of King Iames Thomas Cecill Lord Burleigh enjoyeth the title of Earle of Excester a right good man and the worthy sonne of so excellent a father being the eldest sonne of William Cecill Lord Burleigh high Treasurer of England whose wisedome for a long time was the support of peace and Englands happy quietnesse From Excester going to the very mouth of the River I find no monument of Antiquitie but Exminster sometime called Exanminster bequeathed by King Elfred to his younger sonne and Pouderham Castle built by Isabell de Ripariis the seat long time of that most noble family of the Courtneys Knights who being lineally descended from the stocke of the Earles of Denshire and allied by affinitie to most honorable houses flourish still at this day most worthy of their descent from so high Ancestors Under Pouderham Ken a pretty brooke entreth into Ex which riseth neere Holcombe where in a Parke is a faire place built by Sir Thomas Denis whose family fetcheth their first off-spring and surname from the Danes and were anciently written Le Dan Denis by which name the Cornish called the Danes But lower upon the very mouth of the river on the other banke side as the name it selfe doth testifie standeth Exanmouth knowne by nothing else but the name and for that some fishermen dwelt therein More Eastward Otterey that is The River of Otters or River-Dogs which we call Otters as may appeare by the signification of the word falleth into the sea which runneth hard under
sitten since Wina whom the said Kenelwalch ordained the first Bishop there Many Bishops some renowned for their wealth and honourable port and some for holinesse of life But among other Saint Swithin continueth yet of greatest fame not so much for his sanctitie as for the raine which usually falleth about the Feast of his translation in Iuly by reason the Sunne then Cosmically with Praesepe and Aselli noted by ancient writers to be rainie constellations and not for his weeping or other weeping Saints Margaret the Virgine and Mary Magdalen whose feasts are shortly after as some superstitiously-credulous have believed This by the way pardon me I pray you for I digresse licentiously Thus Bishops of Winchester have beene anciently by a certaine peculiar prerogative that they have Chancellours to the Archbishop of Canterbury and for long time now Prelates to the order of the Garter and they have from time to time to their great cost reedified the Church and by name Edington and Walkelin but Wickham especially who built all the West part thereof downe from the quire after a new kind of worke I assure you most sumptuously In the midst of which building is to be seene his owne tombe of decent modestie betweene two pillars And these Bishops have ever and anon consecrated it to new Patrons and Saints as to Saint Amphibalus Saint Peter Saint Swithin and last of all to the holy Trinitie by which name it is knowne at this day The English Saxons also had this Church in great honour for the sepulture of certaine Saints and Kings there whose bones Richard Fox the Bishop gathered and shrining them in certaine little gilded coffers placed them orderly with their severall Inscriptions in the top of that wall which encloseth the upper part of the quire and they called it in times past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The old Minster for difference from another more lately built which was named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The new Minster which Elfred founded and for the building of houses of office belonging to the same purchase of the Bishop a plot of ground and for every foot of it paid him downe a marke after the publike weight This monasterie as also that other the older was built for married Priests who afterwards upon I know not what miracle of a Crosse that spoke and disliked their marriage were thrust out by Dunstane Archbishop of Canterbury and Monkes put in their place The walls of these two monasteries stood so neere and close together that the voices of those that sung in the one troubled the chaunting of the other whereupon there arose grudge and heart-burning betweene these Monkes which afterwards brake out into open enmities By occasion whereof and because at this new monasterie there gathered and stood much water which from the Westerne gate came downe thither along the current of the streets and cast forth from it an unwholsome aire the Minster Church two hundred yeares after the first foundation of it was removed into the Suburbs of the citie on the North part which they call Hide Where by the permission of King Henry the First the Monks built a most stately and beautifull monasterie which a few yeares after by the craftie practice of Henrie de Blois Bishoppe of Winchester as the private historie of this place witnesseth was pitiously burnt In which fire that Crosse also was consumed which Canutus the Dane gave and upon which as old writings beare record he bestowed as much as his owne yeares revenewes of all England came unto The monasterie neverthelesse was raised up againe and grew by little and little to wonderfull greatnesse as the very ruines thereof even at this day doe shew untill that generall subversion and finall period of our monasteries For then was this monasterie demolished and into that other of the holy Trinitie which is the Cathedrall Church when the monkes were thrust out were brought in their stead a Deane twelve Prebendaries and there placed At the East side of this Cathedrall Church standeth the Bishops palace called Wolvesey a right goodly thing and sumptuous which being towred and compassed almost round with the streame of a prety river reacheth even to the Citie walls and in the South-suburbes just over against it beholdeth a faire Colledge which William Wickham Bishop of this See the greatest father and Patron of all Englishmen of good literature and whose praise for ever to the worlds end will continue built for a Schoole and thereto dedicated it out of which both for Church and Common-wealth there riseth a most plentiful increase of right learned men For in this Colledge one warden ten fellowes two Schoole-masters and threescore and ten schollers with divers others are plentifully maintained There have beene also in this Citie other faire and goodly buildings for very many were here consecrated to religion which I list not now to recount since time and avarice hath made an end of them Onely that Nunnery or monasterie of vailed Virgins which Elfwida the wife of King Elfred founded I will not overpasse seeing it was a most famous thing as the remainder of it now doth shew and for that out of it King Henrie the First tooke to wife Mawde the daughter of Malcolne King of Scots by whom the Royall bloud of the ancient Kings of England became united to the Normans and he therefore wonne much love of the English nation For neiphew shee was in the second degree of descent unto Edmund Iron-side by his sonne Edward the Banished A woman as adorned with all other vertues meet for a Queene so especially inflamed with an incredible love of true pietie and godlinesse Whereupon was this Tetrastich made in her commendation Prospera non laetam fecêre nec asperae tristem Aspera risus ei prospera terror erant Non decor effecit fragilem non sceptra superbam Sola potens humilis sola pudica decens No prosp'rous state did make her glad Nor adverse chances made her sad If fortune frown'd she then did smile If fortune frown'd she feard the while If beauty tempted she yet said nay No pride she tooke in scepters sway Shee onely high her selfe debas'd A lady onely faire and chast Concerning Sir Guy of Warwick of whom there goe so many prety tales who in single fight overcame here that Danish giant and Golias Colbrand and of Waltheof Earle of Huntingdon that was here beheaded where afterwards stood Saint Giles chappell as also of that excellent Hospital of Saint Crosse there adjoyning founded by Henry of Blois bother to King Stephen and Bishop of this City and augmented by Henry Beauford Cardinall I need not to speake seeing every man may read of them in the common Chronicles As touching the Earles of Winchester to say nothing of Clyto the Saxon whom the Normans deprived of his ancient honour King Iohn created Saier Quincy Earle of Winchester who used for his armes a military belt
they call it a Fesse with a labell of seven as I have seene upon his seales After him succeeded Roger his sonne who bare Gules seven Mascles voided Or but with him that honour vanished and went away seeing he died without issue male For he married the eldest daughter and one of the coheires of Alan Lord of Galloway in Scotland by a former wife in right of whom he was Constable of Scotland He had by her three onely daughters the first married to William de Ferrariis Earle of Derbie the second to Alan de la Zouch the third to Comine Earle of Bucqhanan in Scotland A long time after Hugh le Dispencer having that title bestowed upon him for terme of his life by King Edward the second whose minion he was and only beloved felt together with his sonne what is the consequence of Princes extraordinary favours For both of them envied by most were by the furious rage of the people put cruelly to shamefull death And long it was after this that through the bounty of King Edward the Fourth Lewis of Bruges a Netherland Lord of Gruthuse Prince of Steinhuse c. Who had given him comfort and succour in the Netherlands when hee was fled his native countrey received this honour with Armes resembling those of Roger Quincy in these words Azur a dix Mascles D'or en orm d'un Canton de nostie propre Armes d' Engleterre cestsavour de Goul un Leopard passant d' or armeè d' azur All which after King Edwards death he yeilded up into the hands of Henrie the seventh But lately within our memorie King Edward the sixth honoured Sir William Pawlet Lord Treasurer of England Earle of Wilshire and Lord Saint Iohn of Basing with a new title of Marquesse of Winchester A man prudently pliable to times raised not sodainely but by degrees in Court excessive in vaste informous buildings temperate in all other things full of yeares for he lived nintie seven years and fruitfull in his generation for he saw one hundred and three issued from him by Elizabeth his wife daughter to Sir William Capell Knight And now his grand-child William enjoyeth the said honours For the Geographicall position of Winchester it hath beene observed by former ages to be in longitude two and twenty degrees and in latitude fiftie one From Winchester more Eastward the river Hamble at a great mouth emptieth it selfe into the Ocean Beda calleth it Homelea which as he writeth by the lands of the Intae entreth into Solente for so termeth he that frith our narrow sea that runneth betweene the Isle of Wight and the main land of Britain in which the tides at set houres rushing in with great violence out of the Ocean at both ends and so meeting one another in the midst seemed so strange a matter to our men in old time that they reckoned it among the wonders of Britaine Whereof read heere the very words of Beda The two tides of the Ocean which about Britaine breake out of the vast Northern Ocean daily encounter and fight one against another beyond the mouth of the river Homelea and when they have ended their conflict returne backe from whence they came and runne into the Ocean Into this Frith that little river also sheadeth it selfe which having his head neere Warnford passeth betweene the Forrests of Waltham where the Bishop of Winchester hath a goodly house and of Bere whereby is Wickham a mansion of that ancient family of Vuedal and then by Tichfield sometime a little monasterie founded by Petre de Rupibus Bishop of Winchester where the marriage was solemnized betweene King Henry the sixth and Margaret of Anjou and now the principall seate of the Lord Writheosleies Earles of South-hampton From thence forthwith the shore with curving crookes draweth it selfe in and the Island named Portesey maketh a great creeke within the more inward nooke or corner whereof sometimes flourished Port peris where by report Vespasian landed An haven towne which our Ancestours by a new name called Port-chester not of Porto the Saxon but of the port or haven For Ptolomee tearmeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is THE GREAT HAVEN for the widenesse of it like as that Portus Magnus also in Africk as Plinie witnesseth And verily there remaineth yet a great Castle which hath a faire and spacious prospect into the haven underneath But when as the Ocean by with-drawing it selfe tooke away by little and little the commoditie of the haven the Inhabitants flitted from thence into the Island Portsey adjoyning which taketh in circuit much about fourteene miles being at every full sea floated round about with salt-waters out of which they boile salt and by a bridge that hath a fortresse adjoyning unto it is united to the Continent This Island Athelflede King Eadgars wife had given to the New monasterie of Winchester And in it at the very gullet or mouth where the sea entreth in our fore-fathers built a towne and thereupon named it Portsmouth that is the mouth of the haven A place alwaies in time of warre well frequented otherwise little resort there is to it as beeing more favourable and better affected to Mars and Neptune than to Mercurie that is to warre rather than to traffique A Church it hath of the old building and an Hospitall Gods house they call it founded by Peter de Rupibus Bishop of Winchester Fortified it was with a wall made of timber and the same well covered over with thicke bankes of earth fenced with a platforme also or mount of earth in times past on the North-east nere to the gate and two block-houses at the entry of the haven made of new hewen stone Which being by King Edward the fourth begunne King Henrie the seventh as the Inhabitants report did finish and strengthned the towne with a garrison But in our remembrance Queene ELIZABETH at her great cost and charges so armed it as one would say with new fortifications as that now there is nothing wanting that a man would require in a most strong and fenced place And of the garrison-souldiers some keepe watch and ward both night and day at the gates others upon the towre of the Church who by the ringing or sound of a bell give warning how many horse or foote are comming and by putting forth a banner shew from what quarter they come From hence as the shore fetcheth a compasse and windeth from Portes-bridge wee had the sight of Havant a little mercate towne and hard by it of Wablington a goodly faire house belonging some-times to the Earles of Salisbury but now to the family of the Cottons Knights Before which there lie two Islands the one greater named Haling the other lesse called Thorney of thornes there growing and both of them have their severall parish Church In many places along this shore of the sea-waters flowing up thither is made salt of a palish or greene colour the which by a certaine artificious devise
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
gartrisht faire with cockles sets no store Nor Rhodes with Alcal and Elba regard the robes with Crosse Sightly beset so that they count their Orders all but drosse Compar'd with Knighthood this of thine which onely beares the name Cease now to joy cease now at length to wonder at the same All yeeld to one what ev'r thou hast in one is drowned all For greater glorie grow's to thee and honour more doth fall In that there dwels upon my banke and seated is in thee Elizabeth and therewith Tamis seeming to bow his knee And gently crouch obeisance made and then he thus went on Elizabeth of Englishmen sole Goddesse Saint alone Whose praise-worth vertues if in verse I now should take in hand For to comprize on Meliboc an hill that high doth stand I might as easily set the Alps or number all my sand If some I would in silence passe what ever I suppresse Will greater proove than all the rest If I my selfe addresse Her formost acts and travailes old to count I then shall find That those of present times to them will draw away my mind Say that of justice I relate more shin's her mercies lore Speake I of her victorious armes unarm'd she gained more That piety now flourisheth that England feares no warre That none rules law but unto law all men obedient are That neighbour Scots be not enthral'd to Frenchmen rigorous That Irish wild doe now cast of their fashions barbarous That shag-hai'rd Ulster Kern doth learne civility anew The praise and thanks is hers alone What is not to her due Those Goddesses that vices chase and are beseeming best A Prince so rare are seated all and shrined in her brest Religion First puts her in mind to worship God aright And Iustice teacheth to preferre before all gaine the right Prudence adviseth naught to doe rashly without fore-cast Then Temperance perswades to love all things both pure and chast And Constancie her resolute mind doth settle firme and fast Hence justly she ALVVAYS THE SAME claimes and keepes to the last Who can discribe in in waving verse such noble vertues all Praise-worthy parts she hath alone what all ye reckon shall Then happinesse long life and health praise love may her betide So long as waves of mine shall last or streame and bankes abide So long may shee most blessed Prince all Englands scepter sway Let both my course and her life end in one and selfe-same day The rest of Barkshire which lieth Southward from Windsor is shadowed with woods and thickets commonly called the Forrest of Windlesor in which the townes and villages stand but thinne whereof Ockingham is of greatest name by reason of the bignesse thereof and trade of clothing but very full it is of game in everie place Now for as much as we have oftentimes made mention and shall still of the Forrests what a Forrest is and the reason of that name if you desire to know but see you laugh not thereat take it heere out of the blacke booke of the Exchequer A Forrest is a safe harbor and abiding place of deere or beasts not of any whatsoever but of wilde and such as delight in woods not in every place but in some certaine and meet for that purpose and hereupon a forrest hath the name as one would say Feresta that is a station of wild beasts And incredible it is how much ground the kings of England have â—uffered every where to lie untilled and set a part for to empale enclose such deere or as they use to say have afforested Neither can I think that any thing else was the cause thereof but onely the overmuch delight in hunting or to maintaine the Kings houshold although some attribute it to the infrequencie of the people to inhabit the countrey seeing that since the Danes were heere they for a long time afforested more and more and for the maintenance and keeping of such places ordained most straight lawes and an overseer whom they cal Protoforestarius that is Chiefe forrester or Master of the Forrests who should heare causes belonging unto Forrests and punish either by death or losse of limb whosoever killed Deere within any parke or chase But Iohn of Sarisburie shal in his own words tell you these things briefely out of his Polycraticon that which you may marvell more at to lay grins for birds to set snares to allure them with nooze or pipe or by any waies laying whatsoever to entrap or take them is oftentimes by vertue of an Edict made a crime and either amerced with forfeiture of goods or punished with losse of limbe and life You have heard that the fowles of the aire and fishes of the sea are common But these ywis belong unto the King which the Forrest Law taketh hold of and claimeth wheresoever they flie With-hold thy hand forbeare and abstaine lest thou also bee punished for treason fall into the hunters hand as a prey Husbandmen are debarred their fallow fields whiles Deere have libertie to stray abroad and that their pasture may bee augmented the poore farmer is abridged and cut short of his grounds What is sowne planted or graffed they keepe from the husbandmen that bee tenants both pasturage from heardmen drovers and graziers and Bee-hives they exclude from floury plots yea the very Bees themselves are scarcely permitted to use their naturall libertie Which courses seeming too inhumane were the occasion otherwhiles of great troubles and uproares so long untill in the end by the rising and revolt of the Barons there was wrested from King Henry the third the Charter de Foresta wherin those rigorous laws being made void he granted others more indifferent whereunto they are bound even at this day who dwell within compasse of the Forrests And from that time two Justices were appointed for these causes whereof the one overseeth all Forrests on this side the river Trent the other all the rest beyond Trent as farre as Scotland with great authoritie Throughout all this Province or county as wee find in the Survey booke of England The Taine or Kings Knight holding of him as Lord whensoever he died left unto the King for a reliefe all his armour one horse with a saddle and another without a saddle And if he had either hounds or hawkes they were tendred and presented unto the King that hee might take them if he would When Gelt was given in the time of King Edward the Confessour generally throughout all Barkshire an Hide of Land yeilded three-pence halfe-penny before Christmas and as much at Whitsontide Thus much of Barkshire which as yet hath given the title of Earle to no man Within the compasse of this shire are parishes 140. THese Regions which hitherto we have travailed thorow that is to say of the Danmonij Durotriges Belgae and Attrebatij what time as the Saxons bare Soveraigne rule in Britaine fell to the Kingdome of the West-Saxons which they in their language
it with King Henrie the Eighth Somewhat lower hard by Darent standeth Lullingstone where there was sometime a Castle the seat of a family of the same name but now of Sir Percival Hart descended from one of the coheires of the Lord Bray Then Darent giveth name unto Darentford commonly Dartford a great mercat towne well frequented and well watered where King Edward the Third built a Nunnery which King Henry the Eighth converted into a house for himselfe and his successours Heere the rivelet Crey anciently called Crecan intermingleth it selfe with Darent when in his short course hee hath imparted his name to five townelets which hee watereth as Saint Mary Crey Pauls Crey Votes-Crey North Crey and Crey-ford in former ages Crecanford where Hengist the Saxon the eighth yeare after his arrivall joyned battaile with the Brittaines and after he had slaine their captaines brought them under with so great a slaughter that afterwards hee never stood in feare of them but established his kingdome quietly in Kent From the river Darent or Dart unto the mouth of Medway the Thames seeth nothing above him but little townes pleasantly seated which to passe over in silence were no prejudice either of their fame or any thing els Yet amongst them is Swans-combe of which I have heretofore spoken of honorable memorie among the Kentish men for obtaining their the continuance of their ancient franchises afterward it was well knowne by the Montceusies men of great Nobility the owners therof who had there Barony here-about And by it Graves-end so called as Master Lambert is my author as the gereves-Gereves-end that is the limit of the Gereve or Reve. A towne as well knowne as any other in England for the usuall passage by water betweene it and London since the Abbat of Grace by the tower of London to which it appertained obtained of King Richard the second that the inhabitants of it and Milton onely should transport passengers from thence to London King Henrie the Eighth when he fortified the sea coast raised two Platformes or Block-houses here and two other opposite on Essex side Beyond Graves-end is Shorn held anciently by Sir Roger Northwood by service to carry with other the kings tennants a white ensigne fortie daies at his owne charges when the King warred in Scotland Somewhat more within the land lieth Cobham the habitation for a long time of the Barons of Cobham of whom Iohn Cobham the last of that name founded a Colledge here and a castle at Cowling who left one onely daughter wife to Sir Iohn de la Pole Knight Shee likewise bare but one daughter though married in her time to many husbands But by Sir Reginald Braibrooke onely had shee issue As for her husband Sir Iohn Old Castle whiles hee endeavoured to bring in innovation in religion was both hanged and burnt Ioane her onely daughter by Sir Reginald Braybrooke was wedded unto Thomas Broke of Somersetshire from whom six Lord Cobhams have lineally descended and flourished in honorable reputation untill our time From Graves-end a little country called Ho lying as a demy Island between rivers Thames and Medway stretcheth it selfe into the East and is for situation but unholsome At the entry hereof is Cowling Castle built by Iohn Lord Cobham in a moorish ground and Cliffe a good bigge towne so called of a cliffe upon which it standeth But whether it bee that Clives at Ho so famous in the tender age and infancie of our English Church by reason of a Synode there holden I dare not as others doe affirme considering that in regard of the site it is a place inconvenient for such an assembly and besides that Clives at Hoo seemeth to have beene within the Kingdome of the Mercians As for the river Medweg now called Medway and in the British tongue unlesse I misse of the truth Vaga whereunto afterward was added Med hath his spring head in the wood Anderida which is termed the Weald that is a Wood-land country and taketh up the South-part of this region farre and wide At first whiles it carrieth but a slender streame it receiveth the Eden by Penshurst the seat anciently as it seemeth by the name of Sir Stephen de Penherst who also was called de Penshester a famous Warden of the Cinque ports but now the house of the Sidneies who derive their race from William de Sidney Chamberlaine to King Henrie the second out of which came Sir Henrie Sidney that renowned Lord deputy of Ireland who of the daughter of Iohn Dudley Duke of Northumberland and Earle of Warwicke begat Philip and Robert This Robert Iames our soveraigne King made right honorable first by the title of Baron Sidney of Penshurst and afterwards of Vicount Lisle But Sir Philip whom I cannot passe over in silence beeing the glorious starre of this familie a lively patterne of vertue and the lovely joy of all the learned sort fighting valerously with the enemy before Zutphen in Gelderland died manfully This is that Sidney whom as Gods will was he should be therefore borne into the world even to shew unto our age a sample of ancient vertues so his good pleasure was before any man looked for it to call for him againe and take him out of the world as beeing more worthy of heaven then earth Thus wee may see Perfect vertue sodainely vanisheth out of sight and the best men continue not long Then the river Medway branching it selfe into five streamlets is joyned with as many stone Bridges and thereof giveth the name of Tunbridge to the towne there situate as the towne of Bridges This about King William Rufus his time Richard sonne of Count Gilbert Grandchild to Godfrey Earle of Ewe Lord of Briony obtained in requitall for Briony in Normandie when there had bin long debate about Briony This Richard as William Gemeticensis writeth in recompence for the same castle received in England the towne of Tunbridge for it And the report goeth that the Lowy of Briony was measured round about with a line and with the same line brought into England hee received so much groūd measured out at Tunbridge Shortly after he built here a faire large castle fenced with the river a deepe ditch and strong walles and albeit it is now ruinous and 〈◊〉 Keepe attired with Ivie yet it manifestly sheweth what it was His posteritie who were Earles of Glocester and surnamed De Clare for that they were Lords of Clare in Suffolke built here a priorie for Chanons of Saint Augustines order founded the parish Church which was impropriated to the Knights of Saint Iohn of Hierusalem and compounded about the tenure of the Mannour for which there had beene long suit to hold it of the Archbishop of Canterburie by Knights fee and to be their high Stewards at their inthronizations From these Clares Earles of Glocester it came by an heire generall to Sir Hugh Audley Earle of Glocester and
Rochester would give unto the King an hundred pound of deniers At last by the intercession of Sir Robert Fitz Hamon and Henry Earle of Warwick the King granted it thus farre forth in lieu for the money which hee demanded for grant of the Manour that Bishop Gundulph because he was very skilfull and well experienced in architecture and masonrie should build for the King at his owne proper charges a Castle of stone In the end when as the Bishops were hardly brought to give their consent unto it before the King Bishop Gundulph built up the Castle full and whole at his owne cost And a little after King Henrie the first granted unto the Church of Canterbury and to the Archbishops the keeping thereof and the Constableship to hold ever after as Florentius of Worcester saith yea and licence withall to build in the same a towre for themselves Since which time it was belaied with with one or two great sieges but then especially when the Barons with their Al'armes made all England to shake and Simon Montford Earle of Leicester assaulted it most fiercely though in vaine and cut downe the wooden bridge which was after repaired But in the time of King Richard the Second Sir Robert Knowles by warlike prowes raised from low estate to high reputation and great riches built a very goodly stone bridge of arch-work with money levied out of French spoiles At the end of the said bridge Sir Iohn Cobham who much furthered the worke erected a Chapell for our elders built no notable bridge without a chapell upon which besides armes of Saints are seen the armes of the King and his three uncles then living And long after Archbishop Watham coped a great part of the said bridge with iron bars Vnder this Medway swelling with a violent and swift streame strugleth and breaketh through roaring and loud but forthwith running more still and calme becommeth a road at Gillingham and Chetham for a most royall and warlike navy of strong and serviceable ships and the same most ready alwaies at a short warning which our late gracious Ladie Queene Elizabeth with exceeding great cost built for the safegard of her subjects and terror of her enemies and for the defence thereof raised a castelet at Vpnore upon the river side Now Medway growne more full and carying a greater breadth with his curling waves right goodly and pleasant to behold runneth a long by the fruitfull fields untill that being divided by meeting with Iland Shepey which wee supposed to bee Ptolemeis TOLIATIS maketh his issue into the Aestuarie or Frith of Thames at two mouthes Of which twaine the Westerne is called West-Swale the Easterne that seemeth to have severed Sheppey from the firme land is named East-Swale but by Bede termed Genlad and Yenlet This Isle of the sheepe whereof it feedeth mighty great flockes being called by our ancestours Shepey that is The Isle of Sheep passing plentifull in corne but scarse of woods containeth twentie one miles in compasse Vpon the North-shore it had a little Monasterie now they call it Minster built by Sexburga wife of Ercombert the King of Kent in the yeare of 710. Vnder which a certaine Brabander of late beganne to trie by the furnace out of stones found upon the shore both Brimstone and Coperas It hath Westward in the Front thereof a very fine and strong Castle which King Edward the third built as himselfe writeth Pleasant for site to the terrour of his enemies and solace of his people unto which hee adjoyned a Burgh and in the honour of Philip the Queene his wife called it Queene-borough as one would say The Queens Burgh The Constable whereof at this day is Sir Edward Hoby who hath polished his excellent wit with learned studies Eastward is Shurland seated which belonged in late times to the Cheineies and now to Sir Philip Herbert second sonne to Henry Earle of Pembroch whom King Iames in one and the same day created Baron Herbert of Shurland and Earle of Mont-Gomerie This Isle appertaineth to the Hundred of Middleton so named of Middleton the towne now Milton This was some time a towne of the Kings aboade and of greater name by farre than at this day although Hasting the Danish pirate for to annoy it fortified a Castle hard by in the yeare 893. Neere adjoyning heereto Sittingburn a towne furnished with Innes sheweth it selfe with hiw new Major and corporation the remaines also of Thong Castle which as some write was so called for that Hengist built it by a measure of thongs cut out of a beasts hide when Vortigern gave so much land to fortifie upon as hee could encompasse with a beasts hide cut into thongs Since the conquest it was the seat of Guncelline of Baldismer of noble parentage whose sonne Bartholomew begat Guncelline and hee by the Inheretrie of Raulph Fitz-Barnard Lord of Kings-Downe was father to that seditious Sir Bartholomew Lord Baldismer of whom I spake he againe of Margaret Clare begat Sir Giles Lord Baldismer that died without issue also Margerie wife to William Roos of Hamlake Maude the wife of Iohn Vere Earle of Oxford Elizabeth espoused to William Bohun Earle of Northampton and afterward to Edmund Mortimer and Margaret whom Sir Iohn Tiptoft wedded from whom descended a goodly of-spring and faire race of great nobilitie Then saw I Tenham not commended for health but the parent as it were of all the choise fruit gardens and Orchards of Kent and the most large and delightsome of them all planted in the time of King Henrie the Eighth by Rich. Harris his fruterer to the publike good For thirty Parishes thereabout are replenished with Cherie-gardens and Orchards beautifully disposed in direct lines Amongst these is Feversham very commodiously situate For the most plentifull part of this countrey lieth round about it and it hath a creeke fit for bringing in and carrying forth commodities whereby at this day it flourisheth amongst all the neighbour townes It seemeth also in former times to have flourished considering that King Aethelstane assembled hither an assembly the Sages of his Kingdome and made lawes heere in the yeare of our redemption 903. King Stephen also he that usurped the Kingdome of England founded an Abbey heere for the Monkes of Clugny In which himselfe Maude his wife and Eustach his sonne were entombed Nigh thereto like as else where through this Countie are found pits of great depth which being narrow in the mouth and very spatious beneath have their certaine distinct roomes or chambers as it were with their severall supporting pillers of chalke Concerning these there are divers opinions I for my part cannot tell what to thinke of them unlesse they were those pits out of which the Britaines in old time digged forth chalke or white marle to dung their grounds withall as Plinie writeth For they sound pits saith hee An hundred foote deepe streight at the mouth but of great capacitie within like unto
of a sumptuous and stately house which Edward the last Duke of Buckingham was in hand to build in the yeare of our Lord as the engraving doth purport 1511. when he had taken downe an ancient house which Hugh Audeley E. of Glocester had formerly built seven miles from hence Avon sheading it selfe into Severn running crosse before it maketh a division betweene Glocestershire and Sommersetshire and not farre from the banke thereof Pucle-Church appeareth being in times past a towne or Manour of the Kings called Pucle-Kerkes wherein Edmund King of England whiles he interposed himselfe betweene his Sewer and one Leove a most vilanous wretch for to part and end certaine quarrels betweene them was thrust through the body and so lost his life Nere bordering upon this place are two townes Winterburne which had for their Lords the Bradstons amongst whom S. Thomas was summoned amongst the Barons in the time of King Edward the Third From whom the Vicounts Montacute the Barons of Wentworth c. fetch their descent Acton which gave name to the house of the Actons Knights whose heire being married unto Nicolas Points Knight in K. Edward the second his daies left the same to their off-spring Derham a little towne in the Saxons tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where Ceaulin the Saxon slew three Princes or chiefe Lords of the Britans Commeail Condidan and Fariemeiol with others whom he likewise put to the sword and dispossessed the Britans of that countrie for ever There remaine yet in that place huge rampieâ—s and trenches as fortifications of their campes and other most apparent monuments here and there of so great a war This was the chiefe seat of the Barony of Iames de novo Mercatu who begat three daughters wedded to Nicholas de Moelis Iohn de Boteraux and Ralph Russell one of whose posterity enriched by matching with the heire of the ancient family of Gorges assumed unto them the name of Gorges But from Ralph Russell the heire this Deorham descended to the family of Venis Above these is Sodbury knowne by the familie of Walsh and neighbours thereunto are Wike-ware the ancient seat of the familie De-la-ware Woton under Edge which yet remembreth the slaughter of Sir Thomas Talbot Vicount Lisle heere slaine in the time of King Edward the Fourth in an encounter with the Lord Barkley about possessions since which time have continued suites betweene their posterity untill now lately they were finally compounded More Northward I had sight of Durisley reputed the ancientest habitation of the Barkleyes hereupon stiled Barkleis of Duresley who built here a Castle now more than ruinous and were accounted founders of the Abbey of Kings-wood thereby for Cistertian Monkes derived from Tintern whom Maud the Empresse greatly enriched The males of this house failed in the time of King Richard the Second and the heire generall was married to Cantelow Within one mile of this where the river Cam lately spoken of springeth is Vleigh a seat also of the Barkeleis descended from the Barons Barkeley stiled of Vleigh and Stoke Giffard who were found coheires to I. Baron Boutetort descended from the Baron Zouch of Richards Castles alias Mortimer and the Somerus Lords of Dueley Beverston Castle not farre of Eastward appertained also to the name of Barkeleies but in former times to the Gournois and Ab-Adam a Baron in the time of King Edward the First Hitherto have we cursorily passed over the principall places in this Shire situate beyond and upon Severn and not far from his banke Now proceede we forward to the East part which I said riseth up with hilles to wit Cotteswold which of woulds and Cotes that is hils and Sheepfolds tooke that name For mountaines and hils without woods the Englishmen in old time termed Woulds whence it is that an Old Glossary interpreteth Alpes Italie The Woulds of Italie In these Woulds there feed in great numbers flockes of sheepe long necked and square of bulke and bone by reason as it is commonly thought of the weally and hilly situation of their pasturage whose wool being most fine and soft is had in passing great account among all nations Vnder the side of these hils and among them are to be seene as it were in a row neighbouring together these places following of more antiquity than the rest beginning at the North-east end of them Campden commonly Camden a mercat towne well peopled and of good resort where as Iohn Castoreus writeth all the Kings of Saxon bloud assembled in the yeare of Salvation 689. and consulted in common about making war upon the Britans In William the Conquerours time this Weston and Biselay were in the possession of Hugh Earle of Chester and from his posterity came at last by Nicolaa de Albeniaco an inherice to the ancient Earles of Arundel unto Roger de Somery Neere unto it standeth the said Weston a place now to bee remembred in regard of a faire house which maketh a goodly shew a farre off built by Ralph Sheldon for him and his Posterity Hales in late time a most flourishing Abbay built by Richard Earle of Cornwall and King of Romanes who was there buried with his Wife Sanchia daughter to the Earle of Province and deserving commendation for breeding up of Alexander of Hales a great Clerke and so deepely learned above all others in that subtile and deepe Divinity of the Schoole men as he carryed away the sirname of Doctor Irrefragabilis that is the Doctor ungain-said as he that could not be gain-said Sudley in times past Sudlengh a very faire Castle the seat not long since of Sir Thomas Seimor Baron Seimor of Sudley and Admirall of England attainted in the time of king Edward the Sixth and afterward of Sir John Bruges whom Queene Mary created Baron Chandos of Sudley because he derived his pedegree from the ancient family of Chandos out of which there flourished in the raigne of Edward the third Sir John Chandos a famous Baneret Vicount of Saint Saviours L of Caumont and Kerkitoâ— in France a martiall man and for military Prowesse every way most renowned But in old time certaine Noblemen here dwelt and of it had their addition de Sudley descended of a right ancient English Race to wit from Gorda K. Aetheldreds daughter whose son Ralph Medantinus Earle of Hereford begat Harold L. of Sudley whose progeny flourished here a long time untill for default of issue male the daughter and heire matched in marriage with Sir William Butler of the family of Wem and brought him a sonne named Thomas and he begat Ralph Lord Treasurer of England created by king Henry the Sixth Baron of Sudley with a fee of 200. markes yearely who repaired this castle and enlarged it with new buildings His sisters and coheires were married unto the houses of Northbury and Belkâ—ape and by their posterity the possessions in short time were divided into
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
erected and whose immortall soules in them doe speake to the end that Time might not have power and prevaile against men of worth and the desires of mortall men might be satisfied who do all long to know what their persons and presence were The Earle of Dorset late Chancellor of this Vniversity that he might also leave some memoriall of himselfe hath in the very place dedicated unto Sir Thomas Bodley so passing well deserving of the Learned Common-wealth his representation with this inscription THOMAS SACKUILLUS DORSETTIAE COMES SUMMUS ANGLIAE THESAURARIUS ET HUJUS ACADEMIAE CANCELLARIUS THOMAE BODLEIO EQUITI AURATO QUI BIBLIO THE CAM HANC INSTITUIT HONORIS CAUSSA PIE POSUIT That is THOMAS SACKUIL EARLE OF DORSET LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND AND CHANCELOR OF THIS UNIVERSITIE UNTO SIR THOMAS BODLEY KNIGHT WHO INSTITUTED THIS LIBRARY OF A PIOUS MIND ERECTED THIS MONUMENT TO DO HIM HONOUR In the Raigne of Henry the Seventh for the better advancement of learning William Smith Bishop of Lincolne built new out of the ground Brasen Nose College which that good and godly old man Master Alexander Nowell Deane of Saint Paules in London lately augmented with Revenewes and Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester erected likewise that which is named Corpus Christi College and Thomas Wolsey Cardinall of Yorke following their example beganne another where the Monastery of Frideswide stood the most stately and fairest of them all for Professors and 200. Students which Henry the Eighth joyning unto it Canterbury College assigned to a Deane Prebends and Students endowed it with livings and named it Christs Church And the same most puissant Prince with money disbursed out of his owne Treasury ordained both for the Dignity of the City a Bishop and for the ornament and advancement of the University publique Professours Likewise within our remembrance for the furtherance of learning with new and fresh benefits Sir Thomas Pope Knight reared a new Durrham College and Sir Thomas White Knight Citizen and Alderman of London raised Bernard College both which lay buryed in the rubbish They reedified them repaired them with new buildings enriched them with faire lands and gave them new names For the one of them they dedicated to Saint Iohn Baptist and that other to the holy and sacred Trinity Queene Mary also built the common Schooles And now of late Hugh Prise Doctor of the Lawes hath begunne a new College with good speede and happy successe as I wish to the honor of Iesus With these Colleges which are in number 16. and eight Haulls beside all faire and decently built richly endowed and furnished with good Libraries Oxford at this day so flourisheth that it farre surmounteth all other Universities of Christendome And for Living Libraries for so may I well and truely with Eunapius terme great Scholers and learned men for the discipline and teaching of the best Arts and for the politique government of this their republicke of Literature it may give place to none But to what end is all this Oxford needeth no mans commendation the excellency thereof doth so much exceede and if I may use Plinies word superfluit that is Surmounteth Let this suffice to say of Oxford as Pomponius Mela did of Athens Clarior est quà m ut indicari egeat that is More glorious it is of it selfe than that it needeth to bee out shewed But have heere for an upshot and farewell the beginning of Oxford story out of the Proctors booke By the joint testimony of most Chronicles many places in divers Coasts and Climats of the world we read to have flourished at sundry times in the studies of divers sciences But the Vniversity of Oxford is found to be for foundation more ancient for plurality of sciences more generall in profession of the Catholike truth more constant and in multiplicity of Privileges more excellent than all other Schooles that are knowne among the Latines The Mathematicians of this University have observed that this their City is from the Fortunate Islands 22. Degrees and the Arcticke or North Pole elevated 51. Degrees and 50. Scruples high And thus much briefly of my deare Nurse-mother Oxford But when a little beneath Oxford Isis and Cherwell have consociated their waters together within one Chanell Isis then entire of himselfe and with a swifter current runneth Southward to finde Tame whom so long he had sought for And gone he is not forward many miles but behold Tame streaming out of Buckinghamshire meeteth with him who is no sooner entred into this Shire but he giveth name to Tame a Mercate Towne situate very pleasantly among Rivers For Tame passeth hard by the Northside and two Riverers shedding themselves into it compasse the same the one on the East and the other on the West Alexander that liberall Bishop of Lincolne Lord of the place when his prodigall humor in sumptuous building of Castles was of every body privily misliked to wash out that staine as Newbrigensis saith built a little Abbay neere unto the Towne and many yeares after the Quatremans who in the age foregoing were men of great reputation in these parts founded an Hospitall for the sustentation of poore people But both of these are now decayed and quite gone and in stead thereof Sir Iohn Williams Knight whom Queene Mary advanced to the Dignity of a Baron by the Title of Lord William of Tame erected a very faire Schoole and a small Hospitall But this Title soone determined when he left but daughters marryed into the Families of Norris and Wenman From hence Tame runneth downe neere unto Ricot a goodly house which in times past belonged to those Quatremans whose stocke failing to bring forth Males it was devolved at length after many sailes and alienations passed by the Foulers and Herons unto the said Lord Williams and so by his daughter fell to Sir Henry Lord Norris whom Queene Elizabeth made Baron Norris of Ricot a man of good marke in regard of his noble birth and parentage for he descended from the Lovells who were neere allied by kinred unto the greatest houses in England but most renowned for that right valiant and warlike Progeny of his as the Netherlands Portugall little Bretagne and Ireland can witnesse At the length Tame by Haseley where sometimes the names of Barentines flourished as at Cholgrave commeth to Dorchester by Bede termed Civitas Dorcinia by Leland Hydropolis a name devised by his owne conceit yet fit enough considering that Dour in the British tongue signifieth water That this Towne was in old time inhabited by Romanes their coined peeces of money oftentimes turned up doe imply and our Chronicles record that it was for a long time much frequented by reason of a Bishops See which Birinus the Apostle of the West-Saxons appointed to be there For when hee had baptised Cinigilse a pety King of the West-Saxons unto whom Oswald King of Northumberland was Godfather both these Kings as saith Bede gave this City unto the same Bishop
ceciderunt lumina saevo Thousands of torments when he had endur'd for Christ his sake At length he dyed by dome thus given his head away to take The Tortor proudly did the feat but cleere he went not quite That holy Martyr lost his head this cruell wretch his sight In reproch of this Martyr and for the terrour of Christians as wee finde in an old Agon of his the Citizens of Verulam engraved his Martyrdome in a Marble stone and inserted the same in their walles But afterwards when the bloud of Martyrs had conquered Tyrants cruelty the Christians built a Church as Bede saith of wondrous workmanship in memoriall of him and Verulam carried with it so great an opinion of Religion that there in was holden a Synode or Councell in the yeere of the worlds Redemption 429. when as the Pelagian Heresie by meanes of Agricola sonne to the Bishop Severianus had budded forth a fresh into this Island and polluted the British Churches so as that to averre and maintaine the truth they sent for German Bishop of Auxerre and Lupus Bishop of Troies out of France who by refuting this heresie gained unto themselves a reverend account among the Britans but chiefly German who hath thorowout this Island many Churches dedicated to his memory And nere unto the ruined wals of this rased city there remaineth yet a Chappell bearing S. Germans name still although it be put to a prophane use in which place he openly out of the Pulpit preached Gods word as the ancient records of S. Albans church do testifie Which German as Constantius flourishing in that time writeth in his life commanded the Sepulchre of Saint Albane to bee opened and therein bestowed certaine Reliques of Saints that whom one heaven had received should also in one Sepulchre bee together lodged Thus much I note by the way that yee may observe and consider the fashions of that age Not long after the English Saxons wonne it but Uther the Britan firnamed for his serpentine wisedome Pendragon by a sore siege and a long recovered it After whose death it fell againe into their hands For we may easily gather out of Gildas words that the Saxons in his daies were possessed of this City God saith hee hath lighted unto us the most cleere Lamps of holy Saints the Sepulchres of whose bodies and places of their Martyrdome at this day were they not taken away by the woefull disseverance which the barbarous enemy hath wrought amongst us for our many grievous sinnes might kindle no small heat of divine charity in the mindes of the beholders Saint Albane of Verulam I meane c. When Verulam by these warres was utterly decaied Offa the most mighty King of the Mercians built just over against it about the yeere of our Lord 795. in a place which they called Holmehurst a very goodly and large Monastery in memory of Saint Alban or as wee reade in the very Charter thereof Unto our Lord Iesus Christ and S. Alban Martyr whose Reliques Gods grace hath revealed in hope of present prosperity and future happinesse and forthwith with the Monastery there rose a Towne which of him they call Saint Albans This King Offa and the succeeding Kings of England assigned unto it very faire and large possessions and obtained for it at the hands of the Bishops of Rome as ample priviledges which I will relate out of our Florilegus that yee may see the profuse liberality of Princes toward the Church Thus therefore writeth he Offa the most puissant King gave unto Saint Alban the Protomartyr that Towne of his ancient Demesne which standeth almost twenty miles from Verulam and is named Uneslaw with as much round about as the Kings written Deedes at this day doe witnesse that are to bee seene in the foresaid Monastery which Monastery is priviledged with so great liberty that it alone is quite from paying that Apostolicall custome and rent which is called Rom-scot whereas neither King nor Archbishop Bishop Abbat Prior nor any one in the Kingdome is freed from the payment thereof The Abbat also or monke appointed Archdeacon under him hath pontificall Jurisdiction over the Priests and Lay-men of all the possessions belonging to this Church so as he yeeldeth subjection to no Archbishop Bishop or Legate save only to the Pope of Rome This likewise is to be knowne that Offa the Magnificent King granted out of his Kingdome a set rent or imposition called Rom-scot to Saint Peters Vicar the Bishop of Rome and himselfe obtained of the said Bishop of Rome that the Church of Saint Alban the Protomartyr of the English nation might faithfully collect and being so collected reserve to their proper use the same Rom-scot throughout all the Province of Hertford in which the said Church standeth Whence it is that as the Church it selfe hath from the King all royall priviledges so the Abbot of that place for the time being hath all Pontificall ornaments Pope Hadrian also the fourth who was borne hard by Verulam granted this indulgence unto the Abbats of this Monasterie I speake the very words out of the Priviledge that as Saint Alban is distinctly knowne to be the Protomartyr of the English nation so the Abbat of this Monastery should at all times among other Abbats of England in degree of dignitie be reputed first and principall Neither left the Abbats ought undone that might serve either for use or ornament who filled up with earth a mighty large poole under Verulam which I spake of The name whereof yet remaineth still heere in a certaine street of the towne named Fish-poole-streete Neere unto which streete because certaine ankers were in our remembrance digged up divers have verily thought induced thereunto by a corrupt place in Gildas that the river Tamis sometimes had his course and chanell this way But of this Meere or Fish-poole have heere what an old Historian hath written Abbot Alfrike for a great peece of money purchased a large and deepe pond an evill neighbour and hurtfull to Saint Albans Church which was called Fish-poole appertaining to the Kings And the Kings officers and fishers molested the Abbay and burdened the Monkes thereby Out of which poole he the said Abbot in the end drained and derived the water and made it dry ground If I were disposed upon the report of the common people to reckon up what great store of Romane peeces of coine how many cast images of gold and silver how many vessels what a sort of modules or Chapiters of pillars and how many wonderfull things of antique worke have been digged up my words would not carry credit The thing is so incredible Yet take with you some few particulars thereof upon the credite of an ancient Historiographer Ealred the Abbot in the reigne of King Eadgar having searched for the ancient vaults under ground at Verulam overthrew all About the yeere of Christ 960. and stopped up all the waies with passages under ground which were strongly and
againe forsaken by reason that another way through licence of the Bishops of London was laied open through High-gate and Bernet This Bernet for the beast mercat there kept beginneth now to be famous but it was more renowned for a field there fought when in the warre betweene the two Families of Lancaster and Yorke England dared to doe against her owne bowells whatsoever ambitious treachery and disloyaltie would command For upon Gledesmore hard by even on Easter day in the morning there was a bloudy battaile most fiercely fought and that with variable fortune for a great while by reason that a most thicke mist covered the face of the ground But in the end the victorie fell happily unto King Edward the Fourth by occasion that Richard Nevil Earle of Warwicke was there slaine whom as the favourable indulgence of Fortune made over-stout and bold yea and dangerous unto Kings so his death freed England from all feare of ciuill Warres Bernet hath for his neighbours Mimmes a seat of a Worshipfull Family of the Coningesbies descended to them by Frowick from the Knolles ancient possessours thereof and North-hall where Ambrose Dudley last Earle of Warwicke raised a stately house from the foundations This County of Hertford had Earles out of the Familie de Clare who notwithstanding were oftener called Earles of Clare from Clare in Suffolke their principall seate The first to my knowledge was Gilbert who under the title of Earle of Hertford is put downe as a witnesse in a Charter of King Stephens Likewise Roger de Clare in the time of King Henry the Second is in the Red-booke of the Exchequer named Earle of Hertford Likewise his successors whom you may see in their places But seeing both by right of inheritance and also through the Princes favour they attained to the Earledome of Glocester they bare both titles joyntly and were called unto Parliaments by the name of Earles of Glocester and Hertford And Richard de Clare who died in the yeere of our Lord 1262. is in plaine termes by Florilegus of Westminster called Earle of Glocester and of Hertford where he reporteth this Epitaph composed for him in that age to his great commendation Hic pâ—dâ—r Hippolyti Paridis gena sensus Vlyssis Aeneae pietas Hectoris ira jacet Chast Hyppolite and Paris faire Ulysses wife and slie Aeneas kinde fierce Hector here jointly entombed lie But not long since King Henry the Eighth honoured Sir Edward de Saint Maur or Seymâ—r with the title of Earle of Hertford who also was created Duke of Somerseâ— by King Edward the Sixth After whom succeeded in this Earledome his Sonne bearing the same name a right Honourable personage and a singular lover of Learning This Countiâ— hath Parishes 120. TRINOBANTES THey whom Caesar calleth TRINOBANTES Ptolomee and Tacitus TRINOANTES were next neighbours to the Cattieuchlani inhabiting in those countries which now having changed their names are commonly termed Middlesex and Essex Whence that ancient name sprung I dare not verily so much as guesse unlesse it come of the British word Tre-Nant which is as much as Townes in a vale For this whole region in a maner lieth low in a valley upon the Tamis But I doe not greatly please my selfe in this my conjecture And yet they that inhabited Galloway in Scotland lying altogether lowe in vallies were of old time in the British tongue called Noantes and Novantes and in the Vaile of Rhine in French named Le Vaule the people in old time called Nantuates had both their abode and their name thence so that this conjecture of mine may seeme as probable as that of others who over curiously have derived Trinobantes of Troy as a man would say Troia Nova that is New Troy But I wish them well and that heerein they may please themselves These were in Caesars time of all these countries well neere the strongest City or State for evermore he termeth by the name of Civitas a whole people living under the same lawe and their King in those daies was Immanuentius who being slaine by Cassibelinus his sonne Mandubratius saving his life by flight went into Gaule to Caesar and putting himselfe under his protection returned with him into Britaine At which time these Arinobantes petitioned Caesar by their Ambassadors that he would defend Mandubratius from the injuries of Cassibelinus and resend him to the State that he might be Governour and beare rule over them which being done they gave forty Hostages and were the first of all the Britanes that yeelded themselves under his allegeance This Mandubratius that I may note so much by the way is evermore called by Eutropius Bede and the later writers Androgeus But whence this diversitie of the name should arise I am altogether ignorant unlesse that be true which I have learned from a very skilfull man in the British history and language both that this name Androgeus was given unto him for his lewdnesse and perfidious treason For the signification of wickednesse doth most plainely shew it selfe in it And in the Booke of Triades among the three Traitors of Britaine he is counted the most villanous in that he was the first that made way to bring the forraine Romanes into Britaine and betraied his Country After Mandubratius when as now by reason of hote ciuill warres Britaine was neglected of the Romanes and left unto his owne Princes and lawes certaine it is that Cunobeline ruled as King in these parts of whose coine I exhibit heere unto you one or two peeces although I have already shewed the very same and others heeretofore Admimus this mans Sonne banished by his Father fled with a small retinue about him to the Romane Emperour Cajus Caligula and yeelded himselfe Which so puffed up the young Emperours minde that as if all the Island had absolutely and wholly yeelded into his hands he sent glorious letters to Rome admonishing oftentimes the bearers thereof not to deliver them unto the Consuls but in the Temple of Mars and in a frequent assembly of the Senate When Cunobelinus was dead Aulius Plautius by commission from Claudius the Emperour set upon this Country One of Cunobilinus his Sonnes named Togodumnus he slew and another called Catacratus he overthrew in the field over whom also as we finde in the Capitollin Record of the Romane Triumphes he rode Ovant in triumph and that with so great honour as Suetonius writeth that Claudius the Emperour went side by side with him both in his going to the Capitoll and also in his returne from thence And he himselfe shortly after transporting his forces hither brought these parts within few Moneths into the forme of a Province Thence-forth the Trinobantes rested a while in peace but that under the Empire of Nero they privily entered into a conspiracy with the Iceni to shake off the Romanes yoke But Suetonius Paulinus as Tacitus recordeth quickly quenched this flame of sedition with a great
thing recorded to posterity by an inscription which continued there a long time engraven in Brasse On this North-West side likewise London hath other great Suburbs and there stood in old time a Watchtowre or military Forefense whence the place was of an Arabicke word called Barbacan and by the gift of King Edward the Third became the dwelling house of the Vffords from whom by the Willoughbies it came to Sir Pengrine Bertey Lord Willoughbey of Eresby a man noble and generous and one of Mars his broode Neither lesse Suburbs runne out on the North-East and East In the fields of which Suburbs whiles I was first writing these matters there were gotten out of the ground many urnes funerall vessels little Images and earthen pots wherein were small peeces of money coined by Claudius Nero Vespasian c. Glasse vials also and sundry small earthen vessels wherein some liquid substance remained which I would thinke to bee either of that sacred oblation of Wine and Milke which the ancient Romanes used when they burnt the dead or else those odoriferous liquours that Statius mentioneth Pharijque liquores Arsuram lavere comam And liquid baulmes from Aegypt-land that came Did wash his haire that ready was for flame This place the Romanes appointed to burne and bury dead bodies who according to the law of the xij Tables carried Coarses out of their Cities and enterred them by the high waies sides to put Passengers in minde that they are as those were subject to mortality Thus much of that part of the City which lieth to the Land Now for that side where the River runneth toward the South banke thereof the Citizens made a Bridge also over the Water reaching to that large Burrough of Southwarke whereof I have already spoken First of wood in that place where before time they used for passage a ferry boat in stead of a Bridge Afterwards under the Raigne of King John they built a new Bridge with admirable workmanship of stone hewen out of the Quarry upon 19. Arches beside the draw-bridge and so furnished it on both sides with passing faire houses joyning one to another in manner of a Street that for bignesse and beauty it may worthily carry away the prise from all the Bridges in Europe In this Burgh of Southwarke to speake onely of things memorable there stood sometime a famous Abbay of Monkes of Saint Benets Order called Bermondsey consecrated in times past unto our Saviour by Aldwin Childe Citizen of London also a stately house built by Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolke which having served his turne but a small time was shortly after pulled downe These are extant Saint Thomas Hospitall reedified or founded rather by the City of London for the sustenance of feeble and impotent persons The Priory of the blessed Virgin Mary called Saint Mary Over Rhe because it standeth beyond the River of Tamis in regard of London erected by William Pont del Arche a Norman for blacke Chanons The Bishops house of Winchester built by William Giffard Bishop for his Successours about the yeare of our Lord 1107. From which along the Tamis banke there runneth Westward a continued raunge of dwelling houses where within our fathers remembrance was the Bordello or Lupanarie for so the Latines terme those little roomes or secret chambers of harlots wherein they filthily prostituted their bodies to sale because they after the manner of ravening she-wolves catch hold of silly wretched men and plucke them into their holes But these were prohibited by King Henry the Eighth at which time England was growne to excessive lasciviousnesse and riot which in other Nations are continued for gaine under a specious shew of helping mans infirmity Neither of these Strumpets and brothel-houses doe I thinke that this place in our tongue tooke the name Stewes but of those Ponds or Stewes which are heere to feed Pikes and Tenches fat and to scowre them from the strong and muddy fennish taste Heere have I seene Pikes panches opened with a knife to shew their fatnesse and presently the wide gashes and wounds come together againe by the touch of Tenches and with their glutinous slime perfectly healed up Among these buildings there is a place in manner of a Theater for baiting of Beares and Buls with Dogges and certaine kenels appointed severally for Band-Dogges or Mastives which are of that strength and so sure of bit that three of them are able to take and hold downe a Beare and foure a Lion so that the Poet in old time reported truely of our Dogges in these words Taurorum fracturi colla Britanni The British Dogges are able well To breake the neckes of Buls so fell Like as he that said they were more fierce than the Dogges of Arcadian kinde which are thought to be engendred of Lions What time as the Bridge was thus made betweene London and this Burrough the City was not onely enlarged but also an excellent forme of Common wealth was therein ordained and the Citizens reduced into certaine distinct Corporations and Companies The whole City divided into six and twenty Wards and the Counsell of the City consisted of as many ancient men named of their age in our tongue Aldermen as one would say Senatours who each one have the overseeing and rule of his severall Ward and whereas in ancient time they had for their Head-Magistrate a Portreve that is a Governour of the City King Richard the First ordained two Ballives in stead of whom soone after King John granted them liberty to chuse by their voices yearely out of the twelve principall Companies a Major for their chiefe Magistrate also two Sheriffes whereof the one is called the Kings the other the Cities Sheriffe This forme of Common wealth being thus established it is incredible to tell how much London grew and groweth still in publike and also private buildings whiles all the Cities of England besides decrease For to say nothing of that beautifull peece of worke the Senatâ— house named Guild Hall built by Sir Thomas Knowles Major Leaden Hall a large and goodly building erected by Simon Eire to bee a common Garner in time of dearth to pull downe the price of Corne the Merchants meeting place standing upon Pillars which the common people call the Burse and Queene Elizabeth with a solemne ceremony named The Royall Exchange for the use of Merchants and an ornament to the City set up by Sir Thomas Gresham Citizen and knight a magnificent worke verily whether you respect the modull of the building the resort of Merchants from all Nations thâ—ther or the store of wares there Which Sir Thomas Gresham being withall an exceeding great lover of learning consecrated a most spacious house his owne habitation to the furtherance of learning and instituted there Professours of Divinity Law Physicke Astronomy Geometry and Musicke with liberall salaries and stipends to the end that London might be a place
Afterwards Herveie the Abbot comming of the Norman bloud compassed it round about with a wall whereof there remaine still some few Reliques and Abbot Newport walled the Abbay The Bishop of Rome endowed it with very great immunities and among other things granted That the said place should bee subject to no Bishop in any matter and in matters lawfull depend upon the pleasure and direction of the Archbishop Which is yet observed at this day And now by this time the Monkes abounding in wealth erected a new Church of a sumptuous and stately building enlarging it every day more than other with new workes and whiles they laid the foundation of a new Chappell in the Reigne of Edward the First There were found as Eversden a Monke of this place writeth The walles of a certaine old Church built round so as that the Altar stood as it were in the mids and we verily thinke saith he it was that which was first built to Saint Edmunds service But what manner of Towne this was and how great the Abbay also was while it stood heare Leland speake who saw it standing The Sunne saith hee hath not seene either a City more finely seated so delicately standeth it upon the easie ascent or hanging of an hill and a little River runneth downe on the East side thereof or a goodlier Abbay whether a man indifferently consider either the endowment with Revenewes or the largenesse or the incomparable magnificence thereof A man that saw the Abbay would say verily it were a Citie so many Gates there are in it and some of brasse so many Towres and a most stately Church Upon which attend three others also standing gloriously in one and the same Churchyard all of passing fine and curious Workmanship If you demand how great the wealth of this Abbay was a man could hardly tell and namely how many gifts and oblations were hung upon the Tombe alone of Saint Edmund and besides there came in out of lands and Revenewes a thousand five hundered and three score pounds of old rent by the yeare If I should relate the broiles severally that from time to time arose betweene the Townesmen and the Monkes who by their Steward governed the Townesmen and with how great rage they fell together by the eares purposedly to kill one another my relation would seeme incredible But as great a peece of worke as this was so long in building and still encreasing and as much riches as they gathered together for so many yeares with S. Edmunds shrine and the monuments of Alan Rufus Earle of Britaine and Richmond Sir Thomas of Brotherton sonne to King Edward the first Earle of Norfolke and Marshall of England Thomas of Beaufor Duke of Excester W. Earle of Stafford Marie Queene Dowager of France Daughter to King Henry the Seaventh and many other worthie personages there Entombed were by King Henry the Eighth utterly overthrowne What time as at one clappe hee suppressed all Monasteries perswaded thereto by such as under a goodly pretense of reforming religion preferred their private respects and their owne enriching before the honour of Prince and Country yea and before the Glory of God himselfe And yet there remaineth still lying along the carcasse as one would say of that auncient monument altogether deformed but for ruines I assure you they make a faire and goodly shew which who soever beholdeth hee may both wonder thereat and withall take pity thereof England also that I may note this also by the way if ever else it had losse by the death of any Man sustained here one of the greatest For that father in deede of his Country Humfrey Duke of Glocester a due observer of Iustice and who had furnished his noble witte with the better and deeper kinde of studies after hee had under King Henry the Sixth governed the Kingdome five and twenty yeares with great commendation so that neither good men had cause to complaine of nor evill to finde fault with was here in Saint Saviours Hospitall brought to his end by the spightfull envy of Margaret of Lorain Who seeing her husband King Henry the Sixth to bee a man of a silly simple minde and faint hearted to the end shee might draw into her owne hands the managing of the State devised and plotted this wicked deed but to her owne losse and this Realme in the highest degree For Normandy and Aquitane were thereby shortly after lost and Warres more then civill enkindled in England Nere unto this Saint Edmunds Bury is Rushbroke to be seene the habitation of the worshipfull Family of the Iermins Knights and not farre from thence Ikesworth where there stood an auncient Priory founded by Gilbert Blund a man of great nobility and Lord of Ikesworth whose issue male by the right line ended in William that in King Henry the Third his dayes was slaine in the battell at Lewis and left two sisters his Heires Agnes wife to William de Creketot and Roise wedded to Robert de Valoniis Afterward both here at Haulsted neere by Rougham and else-where the Family of Drury which signifieth in old English A Pretious jewell hath beene of great respect and good note especially since they married with the heires of Fressil and Saxham More Northward is Saint Genovefs Fernham in this regard memorable for that Richard Lucy Lord chiefe Justice of England tooke Prisoner there in a pight fielde Robert Earle of Leicester making foule worke and havocke here and withall put to the sword above ten thousand Flemings whom hee had levied and sent forth to the depopulation of his Country Here hard by I had the sight of two very faire houses the one built by the Kitsons Knights at Hengrave the possession in times past of Edmund de Hengrave a most renowned Lawyer under King Edward the First the other at Culfurth erected by Sir Nicolas Bacon Knight sonne unto that Sir Nicolas Bacon Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England who for his singular wisedome and most sound judgement was right worthily esteemed one of the two Supporters of this Kingdome in his time And not farre off standeth Lidgate a small Village yet in this respect not to be passed over in silence because it brought into the World Iohn Lidgate the Monke whose witte may seeme to have beene framed and shapen by the very Muses themselves so brightly re-shine in his English verses all the pleasant graces and elegancies of speech according to that age Thus much for the more memorable places on the West side of Suffolke On the South side wee saw the river Stour which immediately from the very spring head spreadeth a great Mere called Stourmeer but soone after drawing it selfe within the bankes runneth first by Clare a noble Village which had a Castle but now decayed and gave name to the right noble Family of the Clares descended from Earle Gislebert the Norman and the title of Dukedome unto Leonel King
Picot Sheriffe of this Shire and of the Peverels from whom by one of the daughters this and other Possessions came unto Sir Gilbert Pech the last of whose house after he had otherwise advanced his children by his second wife ordained King Edward the First to be his Heire For in those dayes the Noble men of England brought into use againe the custome of the Romanes under their Emperours which was to nominate them their heires if they were in any disfavour with their Soveraignes But in the Barons warre in King Henrie the Third his dayes this Castle was burnt downe being set on fire by Ribald L' Isle At which time Walter de Cottenham a respective person was hanged for Rebellion By what name writers termed this River it is a question some call it Granta others Camus And unto these I rather incline both for that the course thereof is somewhat crooked for so much doth Cam in the British tongue signifie whence a certaine crooked river in Cornwall is named Camel and also because that ancient towne CAMBORITUM which Antonine the Emperour mentioneth in his third journey of Britaine stood upon this river as I am well neere induced to beleeve by the distance by the name and also by the peeces of Romane mony found here nigh unto the bridge in great store For CAMBORITUM signifieth A Fourd at Camus or a Fourd with crooked windings For Rith in our British or Welsh tongue betokeneth A Fourd which I note to this end that the Frenchmen may more easily perceive and see what is the meaning of Augustoritum Darioritum Rithomagus and other such like in France Howbeit the Saxons chuse rather to call our Camboritum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which name it keepeth still but whence it was derived I cannot yet see If I should fetch it from Gron a Saxon word that signifieth a Fenny place I might perhaps goe wide And yet Asserius termed once or twice certaine fennish and marish grounds in Somersetshire by a mungrell name halfe Saxon and halfe Latine Gronnas paludosissimas and very well knowne it is that a City in West Frisland which is situate in such a ground is named Groningen But let other hunt after the derivation of this name About the yeere of Christ 700. this was a little desolate Citty as saith Bede whiles hee reporteth that neere unto the walles there was found a little trough or coffin very cunningly and finely wrought of Marble and covered most fitly with a lidde of the like stone But now a small Village it is one part whereof Henry Lacie Earle of Lincolne gave unto his base sonne Henry with this condition that his sonnes and their posterity which a good while since be cleane worne out should have no other Christian name but Henry the other part Henry the Sixth King of England comming out of the house of Lancaster into whose hands the Patrimony of Earle Lacie fell graunted unto the Kings Colledge in Cambridge which was either a part or else a plant of that ancient Camboritum so neere it commeth unto it both in situation and name Neither can I easily beleeve that Grant was turned into Cam for this might seeme a deflexion some what too hardly streined wherein all the letters but one are quite swallowed up I would rather thinke that the common people reteined the terme of the ancient name of Camboritum or of the river Cam although writers used more often the Saxon name Grantbridge This Citty which being the other University of England the other eye the other strong-stay as it were thereof and a most famous Mart and store-house of good Literature and Godlines standeth upon the river Cam which after it hath in sporting wise besprinkled the West side thereof with many Islets turning into the East divideth it into two parts and hath a Bridge over it whence arose this latter name Cambridge Beyond the bridge is seene a large and ancient Castle which seemeth now to have lived out his full time nigh Maudlen Colledge On this side the Bridge where standeth the greatest part by farre of the City you have a pleasant sight every where to the eye what of fair streets orderly raunged what of a number of Churches and of sixteene Colledges sacred mansions of the Muses wherein a number of great learned men are maintained and wherein the knowledge of the best Arts and the skill in tongues so flourish that they may be rightly counted the fountaines of Literature Religion and all Knowledge whatsoever who right sweetly bedew and sprinkle with most holesom waters the gardens of the Church and Common-wealth through England Neither is there wanting any thing here that a man may require in a most flourishing Vniversity were it not that the ayre is somewhat unhealthfull arising as it doth out of a fenny ground hard by And yet peradventure they that first founded an University in that place allowed of Platoes judgement For he being of a very excellent and strong constitution of body chose out the Academia an unwholsome place of Attica for to study in that so the superfluous ranknesse of body which might overlay the minde might be kept under by the distemperature of the place Neverthelesse for all this our forefathers men of singular wisedome dedicated this place and not without divine direction unto learned Studies and beautified it with notable workes and buildings And least we should seeme in the worst-kinde unthankefull to those singular Patrons of learning or rather that I may use the words of Eumenius toward the Parents of our Children let us summarily rehearse both themselves and the Colledges also which they founded and consecrated to good Literature to their honourable memory and that out of the Cambridge Story The report goeth that Cantaber a Spaniard 375. yeeres before the Nativity of Christ first began and founded this University Also that Sebert King of the East-Angles restored it againe in the yeere after Christs birth 630. Afterwards being other whiles overthrowne and destroyed with the Danish stormes it lay a long time forlorne and of no account untill all began to revive under the Normans governement And not long after Innes Hostels and Halles were built for Scholers howbeit endowed with no possessions But Hugh Balsham Bishop of Ely in the yeere 1284. built the first Colledge called Peter-house and endowed it with Lands whose example these ensuing did imitate and follow Richard Badew with the good helpe and furtherance of Lady Elizabeth Clare Countesse of Vlster in the yeere 1340. founded Clare Hall Lady Mary S. Paul Countesse of Pembroch in the yeere 1347. Pembroch Hall The Guild or Society of Corpus Christi Brethren Corpus Christi Colledge which is called also S. Bennet Colledge William Bateman Bishop of Norwich about the yeere 1353. Trinity Hall Edmund Gonevil in the yeere 1348. and Iohn Caius Doctor of Physicke in our time Gonevil and Caius Colledge Henry the Sixth King
our Historians call Kings-delfe not farre from that great Lake Wittlesmere And as this Abbay did adorne the East side of the Shire so the middle thereof was beautified by Salâ—rie which the second Simon de Sancto Lizio Earle of Huntingdon built From which not farre is Cunnington holden anciently of the Honour of Huntingdon where within a foure square Trench are to be seene expresse remaines of an ancient Castle which as also Saltrie was by the gift of Canutus the seat of Turkill that Dane who abode heere among the East English and sent for Sueno King of Denmarke to make spoile of England After whose departure Waldeof the sonne of Siward Earle of Northumberland enjoyed it who married Judith Niece to William the Conquerour by his sister on the mothers side by whose eldest daughter it came to the royall family of Scotland For she by a second marriage matched with David Earle of Huntingdon who afterwards obtained the Kingdome of Scotland being the younger sonne of Malcolm Can-mor King of Scots and of Margaret his wife descended of the royall line of the English-Saxons For shee was Niece to King Edmund Iron-side by his sonne Edward sirnamed The Banished David had a sonne named Henry and Henry had another named David Earle of Huntingdon by one of whose daughters Isabel Cunnington and other lands by right of marriage descended to Sir Robert Bruse from whose eldest sonne Robert sirnamed the Noble James King of Great Britaine lineally deriveth his Descent and from Bernard his younger sonne unto whom this Cunnington with Exton fell Sir Robert Cotton Knight is lineally descended who over and beside other vertues being a singular lover and searcher of Antiquities having gathered with great charges from all places the Monuments of venerable Antiquity hath heere begunne a famous Cabinet whence of his singular courtesie hee hath oftentimes given me great light in these darksome obscurities But these Quarters considering the ground lying so low and for many moneths in the yeare surrounded and drowned in some places also floting as it were and hoven up with the waters are not free from the offensive noisomnesse of Meres and the unwholesome aire of the Fennes Here for sixe miles in length and three in breadth that cleare deepe and fishfull Mere named Wittles-mere spreadeth it selfe which as other Meres in this Tract doth sometimes in Calmes and faire weather sodainly rise tempestuously as it were into violent water-quakes to the danger of the poore fishermen by reason as some thinke of evaporations breaking violently out of the bowels of the earth As for the unhealthinesse of the place whereunto onely strangers and not the natives there are subject who live long and healthfully there is amends made as they account it by the commodity of fishing the plentifull feeding and the abundance of turfe gotten for fewell For King Cnut gave commandement by Turkill the Dane of whom ere while I spake That to every Village standing about the Fennes there should bee set out a severall Marsh who so divided the ground that each Village by it selfe should have in proper use and occupation so much of the very maine Marsh as the firme ground of every such Village touched the Marsh lying just against it And be ordained that no Village might either digge or mow in the Marsh of another without licence but that the pasture therein should lye all in common that is Horne under horne for the preservation of peace and concord among them But thus much of this matter When the sonnes and servants of the said King Cnut sent for from Peterborough to Ramsey were in passing over that Lake There fell upon them as they were cheerefull under saile and lifting up their voices with joyfull shoutings most untoward and unhappy windes wherewith a turbulent and tempestuous storme arose that enclosed them on every side so that laying aside all hope they were in utter despaire of their life security or any helpe at all But such was the mercifull clemency of Almighty God that it forsooke them not wholy nor suffered the most cruell Gulfe of the waters to swallow them up all quite but by his providence some of them he delivered mercifully out of those furious and raging waves but others againe according to his just and secret judgement he permitted amiddest those billowes to passe out of this fraile and mortall life And when the fame of so fearefull a danger was noised abroad and come to the Kings eares there fell a mighty trembling and quaking upon him but being comforted and releeved by the counsaile of his Nobles and freinds for to prevent in time to come all future mishaps by occasion of that outragious monster hee ordained that his souldiers and servants with their swords and skeins should set out and marke a certaine Ditch in the Marishes lying thereby betweene Ramsey and Whittlesey and afterwards that workemen and labourers should skoure and clense them whereupon as I have learned of ancient predecessours of good credite the said Ditch by some of the neighbour Inhabitants tooke the name Swerdesdelfe upon that marking out by swords and some would have it to bee termed Cnouts-delfe according to the name of the same King Yet commonly at this day they call it Steeds dike and it is counted the limit and bound between this County and Cambridge-shire In the East side of this Shire Kinnibantum Castle now called Kimbolton the habitation in times past of the Mandevilles afterwards of the Boâ—uns and Staffords and at this day of the Wingfields doth make a faire shew Under which was Stoneley a prety Abbay founded by the Bigrames A little from hence is Awkenbury which King John gave to David Earle of Huntingdon and John sirnamed the Scot his sonne unto Sir Stephen Segrave of whom I am the more willing to make mention for that he was one of those Courtiers who hath taught us That there is no power alwaies powerfull Hardly and with much adoe hee climbed to an eminent and high estate with great thought and care hee kept it and as sodainely hee was dejected from it For in his youth of a Clerke he became a Knight and albeit hee was but of meane parentage yet through his industry toward his later dayes so enriched and advanced that being ranged with the great Peeres of the Realme hee was reputed chiefe Justice of England and managed at his pleasure after a sort all the affaires of State But in the end he lost the Kings favour quite and to his dying day lay close in a Cloyster and who before time from a Clerkship betooke himselfe through arrogancy to secular service returning againe to the office of a Clerke resumed the shaven crowne which hee had forsaken without the counsell and advise of the Bishop Not farre from hence is Leighton where Sir Gervase Clifton knight lately made Baron Clifton beganne to build a goodly house and close to it lyeth Spaldwicke
another place this Dignity had an end and therewith the stately part of the Towne by little and little was empaired untill that Edelfleda a most vertuous and noble Lady in the yeere after our Saviours Nativity 914. repaired and strongly walled it new about in so much as Matthew of Paris in his lesser Story wrote thus Legecester is a right wealthy City and notably well fenced with an indissoluble Wall which if it had a strong foundation were inferiour to no City whatsoever About the Normans entring into this Land it was well peopled and frequented yea and had very many Burgesses in it out of whom they were bound by an ancient custome as we reade in William the Conquerours booke To send twelve with the King so often as he â—ent in person to the warres But if hee made a voyage by sea against his enemies they sent foure horses to carry armour as farre as to London This City paid yeerely to the King 30. pounds by tale and twenty in ora that is by weight also 25. measures called Sextaries of hony But in the time of King Henry the Seconds Raigne it was sore overpressed with a world of great and grievous calamities and the wals throwne downe what time as Robert sirnamed Bossu that is Crouch backe Earle of Leicester conspired and rebelled against the King Which Matthew of Paris sheweth in these words For the obstinate stubbornesse of Earle Robert spurning against the King the noble City of Leicester was besieged and overthrowne by King Henry and the Wall which seemed indissoluble was utterly cast downe all round about For that I may adde thus much out of the lesser History abovesaid when the Wall of the City wanting a good foundation was undermined and the props that sustained it at length burnt the peeces and fragments of the Wall fell downe which even to this day such is the indissoluble tenacity and stifnesse of the morter remaine fast and retaine the bignesse of sound rockes Miserable also was the imposition of a fine upon the Citizens at that time and their banishment as lamentable who having obtained by paying summes of money licence to depart tooke Sanctuary for extreame feare in Saint Albans and Saint Edmundsbury The Castle likewise was dismantled of all Fortifications which verily was a large and strong peece Beneath which there is a very faire Hospitall or house for receit of poore people and a Collegiat Church wherein Henry Earle of Lancaster and Henry of Lancaster his sonne who was the first Duke of Lancaster lie buried For the said Duke when he was now stepped farre in yeeres of a pious minde built this Hospitall for the maintenance of poore folke and to that end dedicated it Concerning which Henry Knighton of Leicester who lived in that age writeth thus in his story Henry the first Duke of Lancaster built a Collegiat Church and an Hospitall without the South Gate of Leicester wherein hee ordained a Deane with 12. Canons Prebendaries as many Vicars and other Officers an hundred poore and feeble people and ten poore able women to give attendance upon the said feeble folke and this Hospitall hee endowed with sufficient revenewes As for this Hospitall it continueth in some good state as an other Bede-house in the Towne built by W. Wigeston But the Collegiat Church which was a magnificent worke and the greatest ornament of Leicester was demolished when religious houses were granted to the King At the other side of the City among most goodly and pleasant medowes which the River Soar watereth there was an Abbay called of that place De Pree of which the said Knighton hath written thus Robert de Bossu Earle of Leicester when he begun Gerondon Abbay for Cistertians founded the Monastery of S. Mary De Pratis at Leicester endowed it richly with Lands Possessions and Revenewes and himselfe with the consent of Amice his Wife became a Chanon Regular in the same and for the space of fifteene yeeres in habite of a Chanon served God there and so slept in the Lord That thus forsooth he might make amends by repentance in a Chanons weed of that offence which beforetime hee had committed by rebelling with a traiterous minde against his Liege Prince What name Leicester had in the Romans time it is not knowne In the Catalogue of Ninnius I thinke it to bee that which is called Caer Lerion But that Leir a King of whom there goe many tales built it they that will may beleeve it for mee But the situation thereof upon the Foss-way and the distance both from BENNONES and VEROMETUM agreeth so just with the description of Antonine that I cannot but thinke it to be that RATAE which Ptolomee nameth RAGAE although there is neither tippe nor toe remaining in it of the name RATAE unlesse peradventure it be in that old long Ditch and Rampire which they call Rawdikes scarce halfe a mile without the South Gate Heere am I at a stand and looke about me what way to follow for the seeking out of ancient Townes Ranulph a Monke of Chester recordeth that the ancient street way went through the wasts from hence to Lincolne but hee telleth us not through what Wasts The common voice goeth that it went on still full North through Nottingham-shire Antonine the Emperour if I have any insight at all seemeth to insinuate that it passed North-Eastward through this County into Lincoln-shire And verily this way there are places of antique memory that by some of their remaines and tokens shew themselves but the other way I could not my selfe ever yet meete with any what others have done I know not and would willingly learne North-West from Leicester and not farre off is Grooby a large Lordship and Manor which from Hugh Grantmaismill whom King William the Conquerour had enriched with great possessions and revenewes came by the Earles of Leicester and the Quincies unto the house of the Ferrers out of which the Lord Ferrers of Grooby flourished a long time in the honorable state of Barons and in the end Isabel the only daughter remaining of the right line brought it by her marriage into the name of the Greies from whence it fell againe at the last by Attainder into the Kings hands But whiles I was revising of this Worke our Soveraigne Lord King James restored Sir Henry Grey a worthy Knight to the ancient honour of his noble Progenitors creating him Baron Grey of Grooby in the first yeare of his Raigne Now let us returne to the River Soar which being past Leicester first giveth name to Montsorell or rather Mont-Soar-hill a name compounded of Norman and English both which now is famous onely for a Mercate there kept but in old time most renowned for the Castle seated upon a steepe and craggy Hill hanging over the River which before time belonged to the Earles of Leicester but afterwards to Saer de Quincy Earle of Winchester in the Barons warre at this day nothing
of the same name not farre from the ruines of Bitham Castle which as we find in an old Pedigree King William the first gave to Stephen Earle of Albemarle and Holdernesse that he might from thence have wherewith to feed his sonne as yet a little infant with fine wheat bread considering that in Holdernesse they did eate in those daies oten bread onely although they use now such kind of bread little or nothing at all But in the reigne of King Henry the Third when William de Fortibus Earle of Aumarle rebelliously kept this Castle and thence forraged and wasted the country about it it was laid well neere even with the ground Afterward this was the capitall seat as it were of the Barony of the Colvils who along time flourished in very great honour but the right line had an end under King Edward the Third and then the Gernons and those notable Bassets of Sapcot in right of their wives entred upon the inheritance This river Witham presently beneath his head hath a towne seated hard by it named Paunton which standeth much upon the antiquity thereof where are digged up oftentimes pavements of the Romanes wrought with checker worke and heere had the river a bridge over it in old time For that this is the towne AD PONTEM which Antonine the Emperor placed seven miles distant from MARGIDUNUM the name Paunton together with the distance not onely from Margidunum but also from Crococalana doth easily convince for in Antonine that towne was called CROCOCALANA which at this day is named Ancaster and is no more but a long streete through which the High-way passeth whereof the one part not long since belonged to the Veseies the other to the Cromwells At the entry into it on the South part we saw a rampier with a ditch and certaine it is that aforetime it had been a Castle like as on the other side Westward is to be seene a certaine summer standing campe of the Romanes And it may seeme that it tooke a British name from the situation thereof For it lieth under an hill and Cruc-maur in British signifieth a Great hill like as Cruc-occhidient a mount in the West as we read in Giraldus Cambrensis and Ninnius But what should be the meaning of that Calana let others looke The memory of antiquity in this towne is continued and maintained by the Romane Coines by the vaults under ground oftentimes discovered by the site upon the High-street and by those fourteene miles that are betweene it and Lincolne through a greene plaine which we call Ancaster-Heath for just so many doth Antonine reckon betweene Croco-calana and Lindum But now returne we to the river After Paunton wee come to Grantham a towne of good resort adorned and set out with a Schoole built by Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester and with a faire Church having a spire-steeple of a mighty heigth whereof there goe many fabulous tales Beneath it neere unto Herlaxton a little village a brasen vessell in our fathers time was turned up with a plough wherein a golden Helmet of a most antique fashion was found set with precious stones which was given as a present to Catherine of Spaine wife and Dowager to King Henry the Eighth From hence Witham passeth with a long course North-ward not farre from Somerton Castle which Antonine Becc Bishop of Durham built and gave to King Edward the First but a little after it was bestowed upon Sir Henry de Beaumont who about that time came into England and began the family of the Lords Beaumont which in the foregoing age in some sort failed when as the sister and heire of the last Vicount was married to John Lord Lovel de Tichmersh But of this house I have spoken before in Leicester-shire From thence the river bending by little and little to the South-East and passing through a Fenny Country dischargeth it selfe into the German Sea beneath Boston after it hath closed in Kesteven on the North. On the other side of Witham lieth the third part of this shire named Lindsey which of the chiefe Citie of the Shire Bede called Lindissi and being greater than Hoiland and Kesteven butteth with a huge bowing front upon the Ocean beating upon the East and North sides thereof On the West part it hath the river Trent and is severed from Kesteven on the South by that Witham aforesaid and the Fosse Dike anciently cast and scoured by King Henry the First for seven miles in length from Witham into Trent that it might serve the Citizens of Lincolne for carriage of necessaries by water Where this Dike entreth into Trent standeth Torksey in the Saxon language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little towne and in these daies of small account but in ancient times very famous For before the Normans comming in as we finde in that booke wherein King William the first set downe his survey of England there were numbered in it two hundred Burgesses who enjoyed many priviledges on this condition that they should transport the Kings Embassadours whensoever they came this way in their owne Barges along the Trent and conduct them as farre as YORKE But where this Dike joyneth to Witham there is the principall City of this Shire placed which Ptolomee and Antonine the Emperour called LINDUM the Britans LINDCOIT of the woods for which we finde it elsewhere written amisse Luit-coit Bede LINDE-COLLINUM and LINDE COLLINA CIVITAS whether it were of the situation upon an hill or because it hath been a Colonie I am not able to avouch The Saxons termed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Normans most corruptly Nichol we Lincolne and the Latine writers Lincolnia whereupon Alexander Necham in his booke intituled Divine wisdome writeth thus Lindisiae columen Lincolnia sive columna Munificâ foelix gente repleta bonis Lincolne the stay or piller sure of Lindsey thou maist bee Blest for thy people bounteous and goods that are in thee Others will have it to take that name of the river Witham which they say was called by a more ancient name Lindis but they have no authority to warrant them Neither am I of their judgement For Necham is against it who foure hundred yeeres agoe called the said river Witham in this verse Trenta tibi pisces mittit Lincolnia sed te Nec dedigneris Withama parvus adit The Trent unto thee sendeth fish O Lincoln well we see Yet little Witham scorne it not a riveret comes to thee I for my part would rather derive it from the British word Lhin which with the Britans signifieth a Lake For I have been enformed of the Citizens that Witham below the Citie by Swanpole was broader than now it is and yet is it at this day of a good breadth and to say nothing of Lindaw in Germanie by the Lake Acronius and of Linternum in Italie standing by a Lake I see
married to Edward Conway brother to Sir Hugh Conway of Wales a gracious favourite of King Henry the Seventh the knightly Family of the Conwaies have ever since flourished and laudably followed the profession of Armes But East from the river and higher among the Woods which now begin to grow thin stand these townes under named Wroxhall where Hugh de Hatton founded a little Priory Badesley belonging in times past to the Clintons now to the Ferrars Also Balshall sometimes a Commandery of the Templars which Roger de Mowbray gave unto them whose liberality to the order of Templars was so great that by a common consent in their Chapiter they made a decree that himselfe might remit and pardon any of the brotherhood whomsoever in case hee had trespassed against the statutes and ordinances of that Order and did withall before him acknowledge the crime yea and the Knights of the Order of Saint Iohn of Ierusalem unto whom the Templars possessions in England were assigned over for our Ancestours in those daies held it a deadly sinne to prophane things consecrated to God granted in token of thankfulnesse unto Iohn Mowbray of Axholme the successour of the foresaid Roger that himselfe and his successours in every of their Covents and assemblies should be received and entertained alwaies in the second place next unto the King More North-east where wilde Brookes meeting together make a broad poole among the Parkes and so soone as they are kept in with bankes runne in a Chanell is seated Kenelworth in times past commonly called Kenelworde but corruptly Killingworth and of it taketh name a most ample beautifull and strong Castle encompassed all about with Parkes which neither Kenulph nor Kenelm ne yet Keneglise built as some doe dreame but Geffrey Clinton Chamberlaine unto King Henry the First and his sonne with him as may be shewed by good evidences when he had founded there before a Church for Chanons Regular But Henry his Nephew in the second degree having no issue sold it unto King Henry the Third who gave it in franke marriage to Simon Montfort Earle of Leicester together with his sister Aeleonor And soone after when enmity was kindled betweene the King and Earle Simon and hee slaine in the bloody warres which he had raised upon faire pretexts against his Soveraigne it endured six moneths fiege and in the end was surrendred up to the king aforesaid who annexed this Castle as an inheritance to Edmund his sonne Earle of Lancaster At which time there went out and was proclaimed from hence an Edict which our Lawyers use to call Dictum de Kenelworth whereby it was enacted That whosoever had tooke Armes against the King should pay every one of them five yeeres rent of their lands c. A severe yet a good and wholsome course without effusion of bloud against rebellious subjects who compassing the destruction of the State built all their hopes upon nothing else but dissentions But this Castle through the bountifull munificence of Queene Elizabeth was given and granted to Robert Dudleie Earle of Leicester who to repaire and adorne it spared for no coste in so much as if a man consider either the gallant building or the large Parkes it would scorne as it were to be ranged in a third place amongst the Castles in England Next after this to keepe on the journey that my selfe made I saw Solyhill but in it setting aside the Church there is nothing worth sight Then Bremicham full of Inhabitants and resounding with hammers and anvils for the most of them are Smiths The lower part thereof standeth very waterish the upper riseth with faire buildings for the credite and praise whereof I may not reckon this in the last place that the Noble and martiall Family of the Bremichams Earles of Louth c. in Ireland fetched their originall and name from hence Then in the utmost skirt of this Shire North-westward Sutton Colfield standing in a woody and on a churlish hard Soile glorieth of John Voisy Bishop of Excester there borne and bred who in the Raigne of king Henry the Eighth when this little Towne had lien a great while as dead raised it up againe with buildings priviledges and a Grammar Schoole As I went downe from hence Southward I came to Coleshull a Towne sometime of the Clintons and to Maxstocke Castle neighbouring to it which acknowledged by a continuall line of hereditary succession for his Lords the Limseies who were also Lords of Wolverley the Odingsells that came out of Flanders and the Clitons men of greatest worth and worship in their times Lower yet in the mids of this Woodland standeth Coventrey so called as we take it of a Covent of Monkes considering that we terme in our tongue such a brotherhood a Covent and Coven and it is oftentimes in our Histories and Pontificall Decrees named Coventria as for example in this one passage Vel non est compos sui Episcopus Conventrensis vel nimis videtur à se scientiam repulisse Yet there be that would have this name to be taken from that little Brooke that runneth within the City at this day called Shirburn and in an ancient Charter of the Priory is written Cuentford Well whence so ever it was so called in the foregoing age growing wealthy by clothing and making of Caps it was the onely Mart and City of trade in all these parts frequented also and peopled more than ordinarily a midland place as being a City very commodiously seated large sweet and neat fortified with strong Walles and set out with right goodly houses among which there rise up on high two Churches of rare workmanship standing one hard by the other and matched as it were as concurrents the one consecrated to the Holy Trinity the other to Saint Michael Yet hath it nothing within it that one would say is of great antiquity And the most ancient monument of all as it may seeme was the Monastery or Priory the ruines whereof I saw neere unto those Churches which Priory king Canutus founded first for religious Nunnes who when they were within a while after throwne out in the yeere 1043 Leofricke Earle of the Mercians enlarged and in manner built anew with so great a shew and bravery of gold and silver these be the very words of William Malmesbury that the wals seemed too narrow for to receive the treasure of the Church and the coste bestowed there was wonderfull to as many as beheld it for out of one beame were scraped 50. Markes of silver And he endowed it with so great livings that Robert de Limseie Bishop of Lichfield and Chester translated his See hither as it were to the golden sand of Lydia to the end for so writeth the said Malmesbury that out of the very treasure of the Church hee might by stealth convey wherewith to fill the Kings hand wherewith to avoid the Popes businesse and wherewith to satisfie the greedinesse of the
watereth Eovesham so called as the Monkes write of one Eoves Swinheard to Egwin Bishop of Worcester whereas before time the name of it was Eâ—th-home and Heath-field A very proper Towne situate upon an hill arising from the River in the Suburb as it were whereof was sometime Bengeworth Castle at the Bridge head which Castle William de Audevill the Abbot recovered by law against William Beauchamp utterly rased it and caused the place to be hallowed for a Church-yard A Towne this is well knowne by reason of the Abbay which that noble Egwin with the helpe of King Kenred the sonne of Wolpher King of the Mercians founded about the yeere of our Lord 700. knowne likewise for the vale under it named thereof The Vale of Evesham which for plentifull fertility hath well deserved to be called the Garnary of all these countries so good and plentifull is the ground in yeelding the best corne aboundantly But most knowne in elder time by occasion of the great overthrow of the Barons and our Catiline Simon Montfort Earle of Leicester For this man being of a lewd disposition and profound perfidiousnesse hath taught us that which another truly said That good turnes are so long acceptable as they may be requitable For when King Henry the Third had with full hand heaped upon him all the benefits he could yea and given him his owne sister in marriage what other fruit reaped he of his so great bounty but most bitter and deadly hatred For he raised a most dangerous Warre hee spoiled shamefully a great part of England under pretense of restoring the common wealth and maintaining liberty neither left he any thing undone to bring the King under to change the State and of a Monarchy to bring in an Oligarchy But in the end after that fortune had for a good while favourably smiled upon him he was slaine at this place with many others of his complices by the prowesse of Prince Edward and forthwith the sinke of lawlesse rebels being as it were pumped and emptied out of the common weale joyfull peace which hee had banished shone againe most comfortably on every side Upon the same River hard by standeth Charleton the possession sometime of the ancient family of Hansacres Knights but now of the Dinleies or Dingleies who being descended from that ancient stocke of the Dinleies in Lancashire came unto this by hereditary succession More beneath in the primitive Church of our English Nation there was another place wherein religious men lived to God then called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now Flatbury and neere unto it Pershor in the English Saxons language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking the name from Peares which as we reade in that worthy Historiographer William of Malmesbury Egelward Duke of Dorset a man bearing no nigardly minde but exceeding liberall founded and finished in King Eadgars time But what detriment hath it sustained one part of it the ambition of the rich seized upon another part oblivion hath buried but the greatest portion King Edward the Confessour and King William bestowed upon the Church of Westminster Then receiveth Avon a Riveret from the North upon which standeth Hodington a seat of the Winters out of which were Robert Winter and his brother Thomas who when as they were of the hellish damned crew in the Gunpowder Treason let their memory lie damned From thence Avon running gently downe by Strensham the habitation of the Russels Knights by degree of ancient descent in the end out-ladeth his owne streame into Severn Neere to these places on this South side is Oswaldslaw Hundred so called of Oswald Bishop of Worcester who obtained it for himselfe of King Eadgar The immunity whereof when William Conquerour made a Survey and taxation of all England was registred in the Domesday booke after this manner The Church of Saint Mary of Worcester hath the Hundred called Oswaldslaw wherein lye 300. Hides out of which the Bishop of the same Church by ancient order and custome hath all the revenewes of Soches and all customes or duties there appertaining to the Lords victuall and the Kings service and his owne so that no Sheriffe may hold there any action or suit neither in any plea nor in any other cause whatsoever This witnesseth the whole County A place there is about this Shire but precisely where it should be is not certainly knowne called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Augustines Oke at which Augustine the Apostle of the Englishmen and the Bishops of Britaine met and after they had disputed and debated the matter hotely for a good while touching the celebration of Easter preaching Godâ— Word also to the English Nation and of administring Baptisme according to the rites of the Roman Church in the end when they could not agree they departed on both sides with discontented mindes upon their dissenting opinions This Province since the Normans comming in had for the first Sheriffe Vrsus or Vrso de Abtot unto whom and his heires King William the Conquerour granted that office together with faire and large possessions After him succeeded his sonne Roger who as William of Malmesbury the Historiographer reporteth enjoying his fathers possessions through the high displeasure and indignation of King Henry the first was disseized thereof because in a furious fit of anger hee had commanded one of the Kings Officers to be killed But this Sheriffedome was by Emeline this Rogers sister translated hereditarily into the Family of the Beauchamps For she was married to Walter Beauchamp whom king Stephen after he had put downe Miles of Glocester ordained Constable of England Within some few yeeres king Stephen created Walleran Earle of Mellent twin-brother to Robert Bossu Earle of Leicester the first Earle of Worcester having given unto him the Citie of Worcester who afterwards became a Monke and died at Pratellae in Normandie in the yeere 1166. As for his sonne Robert who had wedded the daughter of Reginald Earle of Cornwall and advanced the Standard of rebellion against King Henry the Second and Peter his sonne who in the yeere 1203. revolted to the French neither of them used the title of Worcester but onely of Mellent so farre as ever I could yet read For King Henry the Second who succeeded Stephen would not easily suffer that any under him should enjoy the honors received from Stephen an usurper and his enemy For as I finde in the Annales of Waverley Abbay he put downe those imaginary and counterfeit Earles among whom King Stephen had inconsideratly distributed and given away all the revenewes pertaining to the Exchequer Neither to my knowledge was there any one that bare the title of the Earldome of Worcester untill the daies of King Richard the Second For he bestowed it upon Sir Thomas Percy who when he conspired against King Henry the Fourth was taken at the battaile of Shrewsbury and there beheaded Then Sir Richard Beauchamp descended from the Abtots received
Vale underneath along Corve which commonly is called Corves-dale to Sir Foulque of Dinan Afterwards it belonged to the Lacies of Ireland and by a daughter fell to Sir Geffrey de Ienevile a Poictevin or as some will have it of the house of Lorain from whose heires it descended againe by a daughter to the Mortimers and from thence hereditarily to the Crowne Then the Inhabitants in processe of time built in the very bosome of the Towne and on the highest ground a very faire Church and the onely Church they have And so it beganne to be of great account and to excell other neighbour Townes adjoyning And although by King Stephen Simon Montfort and King Henry the Sixth it suffered much damage in the civill Warres yet it alwayes flourished againe and now especially ever since that King Henry the Eighth ordained the Councell of the Marches not unlike to those Parliaments in France the Lord President whereof doth for the most part keepe Courts and Terme here which a man could hardly have seene at any time without Suites whether it were for the great state and authority that it carryed or because the Welshmen are so forward and hote to goe to Law This Councell consisteth of the Lord President so many Counsellers as it shall please the Prince to appoint a Secretary an Attorney a Sollicitour and the foure Iustices of the Counties in Wales Somewhat lower upon the River Temd is seene Burford which from Theodoricke Saie and his Posterity came unto Robert Mortimer and from his posterity likewise unto Sir Geffrey Cornwaile who derived his Descent from Richard Earle of Cornwall and King of the Alemans and his Race even unto these daies hath flourished under the name of Barons of Burford but not in the dignity of Parliamentary Barons whereas it is holden as we reade in the Inquisition of the King for to finde five men for the Army of Wales and by service of a Baronie As for those that I may note thus much by the way who held an entire and whole Barony they were commonly in times past reputed Barons and as some learned in our common lawes are of opinion Baron and Barony like as Earle and Earledome Duke and Dukedome King and Kingdome were Conjugata that is Originally yoke-fellowes When Temd now is leaving Shropp-shire behinde it not farre from the bankes thereof there raise themselves up Northward certaine hils of easie ascent Cleehill they call them much commended for yeelding the best Barly in great plenty neither are they without iron mines at the descent whereof in a Village called Cleybury Hugh Mortimer built a Castle which King Henry the Second forthwith so rased because it was a noursery of sedition that scarce there remaine any tokens thereof at this day also hard by standeth Kinlet where the Blunts flourished Their name in this Tract is very great so sirnamed at first of their yellow haire the Family noble and ancient and the branches thereof farre spread Then saw we on the right hand banke of Severn Brug Morfe commonly but corruptly called Bridg-North so called of Burg or Burrbugh and Morfe a Forest adjoyning whereas before time it was named simply Burgh A Towne fortified with wals a ditch a stately Castle and the Severn which betweene the Rockes runneth downe with a great fall seated also upon a Rocke out of which the waies leading into the upper part of the Towne were wrought out Achelfleda Lady of the Mercians first built it and Robert de Belesme Earle of Shrewesbury walled it who trusting to the naturall strength of the place rebelled against King Henry the First like as afterward Roger Mortimer against King Henry the the Second but both of them with ill successe for they were both forced to yeeld and submit themselves absolutely to the Kings command At the Siege of this Castle as we reade in our Annales King Henry the Second being levelled at with an arrow had beene shot therewith quite through the body had not Sir Hubert Syncter a noble and trusty Servitour to the King interposed himselfe and to save the King received both the arrow and his deaths wound withall Before time also Sir Raulph de Pichford bare himselfe so valiantly heere that king Henry the First gave unto him the little Burgh hard by To hold by service for to finde dry wood for the great chamber of the Castle of Burgh against the comming of his Soveraigne Lord the King Willeley or Willey is not farre from hence the habitation in old time of Sir Warner De Willeley from whose Posterity by the Harleis and Peshall it came to the notable Family of Lacon advanced by marriage long since with the heire of Passelew and of late by the Possession of Sir I. Blunt of Kinlet There be in like manner other Townes and Castles heere and there in this Tract as Newcastle Hopton Castle Shipton and upon the River Corve Corvesham which Walter Clifford had by the gift of king Henry the Second also Brancroft and Holgot commonly Howgate which belonged sometime to the Manduits then to Robert Blunt Bishop of Bath and afterwards to the Lovells More higher are Wenlocke now knowne for the lime but in king Richard the Seconds time for a mine of Copper there But much more knowne in the Saxons dayes for a most ancient Nunnery where Milburga that most holy virgin lived in great devotion and was entombed the which Nunnery Earle Roger de Montgomerie repaired and replenished with Monkes In later times Sir Iohn Winell called also Wenlocke because he heere inhabited for his faithfull service to king Henry the Sixth was by him advanced to the state and honor of Baron Wenlocke and elected knight of the Garter in whose cause he manfully lost his life in the Battaile of Tewkesbury leaving no issue but from his cozin and heire generall the Lawleys of this County are lineally descended A little more West is Acton Burnell a Castle of the Burnels and after of the Lovels made famous by the Court of Parliament there held in the time of king Edward the First This Family of the Burnells was in old time of great name and antiquity very much enriched also by that Bishop aforenamed But it failed and had an end in the Raigne of Edward the Second when Mawde the heire was married unto John Lovell first and secondly to John Haudlow whose sonne Nicholas assumed to himselfe the name of Burnell from whom the Ratcliffes Earles of Sussex and others draw their pedegree Scarce a mile from hence standeth Langley seated very flat and low in a Parke full of Woods the dwelling place of the Leas which may well challenge to be ranged among the Families that are of the better worth and greater Antiquity in this Tract Next unto these is Condover a Manour sometimes of the Lovells but of late the possession of Thomas Owen
the Catalogue of Martyrs had a Church here built and dedicated unto him by Milfrid a pety K. of the country wherein when a Bishops See was established it grew to great wealth first through the devout liberality of the Mercians and then of the West Saxons kings for they at length were possessed of this City as may be gathered out of William of Malmesbury where he writeth That Athelistan the West Saxon brought the Lords of Wales in this City of so hard passe that by way of Tribute they were to pay every yeere besides Hounds and Haukes twenty pounds of gold and three hundred pound of silver by weight This Citie as farre as I can reade had never any misfortune unlesse it were in the yeere of our Lord 1055. wherein Gruffith Prince of South Wales and Algar an English man rebelling against King Edward the Confessour after they had put to flight Earle Ralph sacked the Citie destroyed the Cathedrall Church and led away captive Leofgar the Bishop But Harold straightwaies after that hee and daunted their audacious courage fensed it as Floriacensis saith with a broade and high Rampier Hence it is that Malmesbury writeth thus in his treatise of Bishops Hereford is no great Citie and yet by the height of those steepe and upright bankes cast up it sheweth that it hath beene some great thing and as wee reade in the Domesday booke of King William the Conquerour there were in all but an hundered and three men within the Walles and without The Normans afterwards neere the East end of the Church along the side of Wy built a mighty great and strong Castle the worke as some report of Earle Miles which now yeeldeth to Time and runneth to ruine After this they walled the Citie about Bishop Reinelm in the reigne of Henry the First founded that beautifull Cathedrall Church which now we see there whose successours enlarged it by adioyning thereto a proper Colledge for Priests and faire houses for the Prebendaries For besides the Bishop who hath 302. Churches in his Dioecese there are in this Church a Deane two Archdeacons a Chaunter a Chauncellour 2 Treasurer and eight and twenty Prebendaries In the Church I saw in manner no Monuments but the Bishops Tombes And I have heard that Thomas Cantlow the Bishop a man of Noble birth had here a very stately and sumptuous Sepulcher who for his holinesse being canonized a Saint went within a little of surmounting that princely Martyr King Ethelbert such was the opinion of singular pietie and devotion Geographers measure the position or site of this Citie by the Longitude of twenty degrees and foure and twenty scruples and by the Latitude of two and fifty degrees and sixe scruples Wy is not gone full three miles from hence but he intercepteth by the way the river Lug who running downe a maine out of Radnor hils with a still course passeth through the mids of this country from the North-west of the South-east At the first entrance it seeth a farre off Brampton Brian Castle which a famous family named hereof de Brampton wherein the forname was usually Brian held by continuall succession unto the time of King Edward the First but now by the female heires it is come to R. Harleie neere at hand it beholdeth Wigmore in the English Saxons tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repaired in elder times by King Edward the elder afterward fortified by William Earle of Hereford with a Castle in the wast of a ground for so reade we in Domesday booke which was called Marestun in the tenure of Radulph de Mortimer from whom those Mortimers that were afterwards Earles of March lineally descended of whom you may reade more in Radnor-shire Three miles off there is another neighbour Castle called Richards Castle the possession first of the Sayes then of the Mortimers and afterwards of the Talbots by hereditarie succession At length by the heires of Sir Iohn Talbot the inheritance was divided betweene Sir Guarin Archdeacon and Sir Matthew Gurnay Beneath this Castle Nature who no where disporteth her selfe more in shewing wonders then in waters hath brought forth a pretty well which is alwaies full of little bones or as some thinke of small frog-bones although they be from time to time drawne quite out of it whence it is commonly called Bone well And not farre off is placed Croft Castle the possession of that very ancient family of the Crofts Knights who have there now a long time flourished in great and good esteeme Thence passeth Wy to Lemster which also was called Leon Minister and Lions Monastery of a Lyon that appeared to a religious man in a vision as some have dreamed But whereas the Britans call it Lhan Lieni which signifieth a Church of Nunnes and that it is certainely knowne that Merewalc a King of the Mercians built here a Church for Nunnes that afterwards became a Cell belonging to the Monastery of Reading to seeke any other originall of the name than from those Nunnes what were it else but to hunt after the windes Yet there want not some who derive it from Line whereof the best kinde groweth here The greatest name and same that it hath at this day is of the wooll in the territories round about Lemister Ore they call it which setting aside that of Apulia and Tarentum all Europe counteth to be the very best so renowned also it is for Wheat and bread of the Finest floure that Lemster bread and Weabley Ale a towne belonging to the noble Familie D'Eureux are growne unto a common proverbe By reason of these commodities the mercates at Lemster were so frequented that they of Hereford and Worcester complaining that the confluence of people thither impaired their mercates procured that by Royall authoritie the mercat day was changed Now have I nothing more concerning Lemster but that William Breosa Lord of Brecknock when hee revolted from King John did set it on fire and defaced it As for that Webley aforesaid it is situate more within the Country and was the Baronie of the Verdons the first of which house named Bertram de Verdon came into England with the Normans whose posteritie by marriage with an inheretrice of Laceies of Trim in Ireland were for a good while hereditary Constables of Ireland and at last the possessions were by the daughters devolved to the Furnivalls Burghersh Ferrars of Groby Crop-hulls and from the Crop-hulls by the Ferrars of Chartly unto D'Eureux Earles of Essex Neere neighbours unto Webley more Westward are these places Huntingdon Castle the possession in times past of the Bohuns Earles of Hereford and of Essex Kinnersley belonging to the auncient Family De la-bere and Erdsley where the auncient Family of the Baskervills have long inhabited which bred in old time so many worthie Knights who deduce their pedigree from a Neice of Dame Gunora that most famous Lady in Normandy and long agoe flourished in this Country and
in France As for his wife being taken prisoner and famished in prison the extremest misery that can befall unto man or woman she paied most deerely for her wicked and malapert tongue His sonne Giles Bishop of Hereford by the favour and consent of King John having recovered his fathers inheritance neglecting his nephew the right heire left it unto his brother Reginald whose sonne William Lhelin Prince of Wales having taken him in bed with his wife hanged But by the daughters of that William the Mortimers Cantelows and Bohuns Earles of Hereford entred upon a great and goodly inheritance And this Brechnock fell in partition unto the Bohuns and in the end by them unto the Staffords and when Edward Stafford Duke of Buckingham was attainted many very goodly revenewes fell unto the King in this Shire and elsewhere It reckoneth Parishes 61. MONMOUTH-SHIRE BEneath Brechnock and Hereford-shire Southward lyeth the County of Monmouth commonly called in English MONMOUTH-SHIRE in times past Went-set and Wents-land in British Guent of an ancient City so called It is inclosed on the North side with the River Munow that separateth it from Hereford-shire on the East side with Wye running betweene it and Glocester-shire on the West with the River Remney which severeth it from Glamorgan-shire and on the South with the Severn sea whereinto the said Rivers together with Vske that cutteth through the middest of the Country are discharged As for commodities necessary to mans life it hath not onely sufficient for it selfe but also affoordeth them in plentifull manner to the neighbours adjoyning The East part is full of grasse and woods the West is somewhat hilly and stony yet not unthankefull to the Husbandman The people as saith Giraldus writing of his owne age most inured to martiall conflicts is in feates of strength and valour right commendable and for skill of archery and shooting farre surpassing any Country in Wales In the utmost angle called Ewias toward the North-West not farre from the River Munow among Hatterell hills which because they rise up in heigth like a chaire they call Munith Cader there stood Lanthony a little ancient Abbay which Walter Lacy founded unto whom William Earle of Hereford gave faire lands heere and from whom are descended those renowned Lacies worthily reputed among the most noble Conquerours of Ireland The situation of which Abbay Giraldus Cambrensis who knew it better than I shall pensile it out unto you for mee In the most deepe Valley of Ewias saith hee which is about an arrow-shoote over standeth a Church of Saint Iohn Baptist enclosed on every side in a round compasse with hilles mounting up into the aire covered with lead and built sightly as the nature of the place would permit with an arched roofe of stone in a place where had stood aforetime a poore Chappell of Saint David the Archbishop adorned onely with wilde mosse and wreathes of clasping ivie A fit place for true Religion and of all the Monasteries in the Island of Britaine most convenient for Canonicall Discipline being founded first by two Eremits in the honour of an Eremite farre remooved from all stirres and noise of people in a certaine desert and solitary nouke seated upon the River Hodney running along the botome of the Vale whereof and of Hodney together it is called Lanhodeny For Lhan signifieth a Church or Ecclesiasticall place But if we will speake more exquisitely it may be said that the proper name of that place is in Welsh Nanthodeny For even to this day they that dwell thereabout call it Lhan Devi Nanthodeny That is Davids Church upon the River Hodeney Now the raine which mountaines breed falleth heere very often the windes blow strong and all Winter time almost it is continually cloudy and misty weather And yet notwithstanding such is the healthfull temperature of the aire which the grosser it is the gentler and milder it is very seldome there are any diseases heere The Cloisterers sitting heere in their Cloistures when to refresh and breathe themselves they chance to looke up they see on every side of them over the high roofes and ridges of their houses the tops of the hils touching as it were the skie and the very wilde Deere for the most part whereof there is heere great store feeding aloft as one would say in the farthest Horizon or kenning of their sight And it is betweene one and three of the clocke or thereabout in a faire cleere day ere they can see heere the body of the Sunne so much adoe he hath to get above the hill tops by that time And a little after The fame that went of this place drew Roger Bishop of Salisbury hither being then the chiefe Governour of the Realme under the King who when hee had a good while considered with admiration the nature of the place the desert solitarinesse the Eremeticall state and condition of the religious men there serving God without complaining together with their conversation in every respect without murmuring and grudging returned home to the King and making report unto him of such things there as were worth relation when he had spent the most part of the day in commendation of the foresaid place at length knit up all the praises thereof in this one word What should I say more quoth hee All the treasure both of King and Kingdome will not suffice to build this Cloisture when as therefore he had held a good while as well the King as the whole Court in suspense wondering as they did at this speech at length he expounded the darke riddle of his words by meaning the Cloistures of those hilles wherewith it is enclosed on every side But heereof enough if not too much By the River Munow are to bee seene Grossemont and Skinffrith Castles belonging in times past by the grant of King John to the Breoses afterwards to Hubert de Burgh Earle of Kent who that he might calme the Court-tempests of displeasure and for the renewing of peace and recovering former favour resigned both these and withall Blanc-castle and Hanfield into the hands of King Henry the Third In the other corner North-Eastward Munow and Wye at their confluence doe compasse almost round about the chiefe Towne of the Shire and give it the name For in the British tongue it is called Mongwy and in ours Monmouth On the North-side where it is not defended with the Rivers it was fortified with a wall and ditch In the middest of the Towne hard by the Mercate place standeth a Castle which as it is thought John Baron of Monmouth built from whom it came to the house of Lancaster after that King Henry the Third had taken from him all his inheritance for that he had sided with the Barons and stood rebelliously against him or rather as wee reade in the Kings Prerogative because his heires had given their faith and allegeance to the Earle of Britaine in France And ever since that time the
the West twenty degrees and forty eight minutes in Longitude Whiles I looked round about from the top of the said castle hill to see the mouth of Lone that issueth it selfe into the sea a little lower Fornesse the other part of this shire appeared in sight which the sea hath after a sort violently rent apart from the rest For when as the shore did from hence shoote out a maine way into the West the Ocean as it were much displeased and angry hereat obstinately ceased not to flash and mangle it nay which is more hath with his fell flowing at boisterous tides devoured the shore and thereby maketh three wide creâ—kes or bayes namely Kent-sand at which the river Ken powreth it selfe forth Leven-sand and Dudden-sand betweene which two the land beareth out so much that thereupon it tooke the name For with us in our language For-nesse Foreland is all one with the Latine Promontorium anterius that is a Fore-promontory All this part unlesse it be hard by the sea side mounteth up aloft with high topped hils and huge fels standing thicke together which they tearme Forness-fells Among which the Britans lived safe a great while trusting upon these strong naturall fenses although the victorious English Saxons made way through all in the end For in the yeere 228. after there comming in I gather that the Britans had their abode here because Egfride King of Northumberland gave unto Holy Saint Cuthbert the land called Carthmell and all the Britans in it thus we finde written in his life and it is very well knowne that Carthmell is a part of this shire by Kentsand and a little towne in it retaineth yet the same name Wherein William Mareschall the elder Earle of Pembroch built a Priory and endowed it with living If you read in Ptolomee SETANTIORUM 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The Setantians Mere as some Copies have and not Setantiorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The Setantians Haven I durst boldly avouch that these Britans here were called SETANTII For among these mountaines the greatest standing water in all England now called Winander-mere in the English Saxon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haply of his winding and turning in and out lieth stretched out for the space of ten miles or thereabout with crooked bankes and is all paved as it were with stone in the bottome in some places of wonderfull depth and breeding a peculiar kinde of fish found no where else which the inhabitants there by call A Chare And a little village standing hard by carrieth the name thereof In which Eathred King of Northumberland in the yeer of Christ 792. when he had by force fetched King Elfwolds sonnes out of Yorke flue them that by his owne wickednesse and their blood hee might secure the Kingdome to himselfe and his Betwixt this Mere and the river Dudden the promontory runneth out which wee commonly call Fornesse and hath the Iland Walney as a fore-fence or countremure lying along by it with a small arme of the sea betweene The gullet or entry into which is defended with a fort called the Pile of Fouldrey standing in the midst of the waves upon a rocke erected there by the Abbot of Fornesse in the first yeere of King Edward the third As for the Promontory it selfe there is nothing worth the sight in it unlesse it be the ruines of a monastery of Cistertian Monkes called Fornesse Abbey which Stephen Earle of Bullen afterwards King of England in the yeere of our redemption 1127. built in a place called sometimes Bekensgill or translated rather from Tulket in Andernesse Out of the Monkes whereof and from no place else as they themselves have reported the Bishops of the Isle of Man that lieth just over against were by an ancient custome wont to bee elected as having beene the mother as it were of many Monasteries in the said Man and in Ireland More Eastward standeth Aldingham an ancient hereditament belonging to the family of the Haveringtons or Harringtons unto whom it came from the Flemmings by the Cancefelds and whose inheritance descended by a daughter unto William Bonvill of Somersetshire and at last by him unto the Greies Marquesses of Dorset And somwhat higher is Ulverston in this regard not to bee passed over in silence for that King Edward the third gave a moity thereof unto Sir John Coupland a most brave warriour whom also he advanced to the dignity of a Banaret because in the battaile at Durham he took David the second King of the Scots prisoner But after his decease the same King granted it with other faire lands in this tract and the title also of Earle of Bedford unto Ingelram Lord Coucy of France as who had married his daughter Isabel and whose ancestours in right of Christiana Lindsey had great revenewes in England Touching the noble men which have borne the title of Lancaster there were in the first infancy of the Norman Empire three stiled Lords of the Honour of Lancaster namely Roger of Poictou the sonne of Roger Mont-gomery who was surnamed Pictavensis as William of Malmesbury writeth because hee had married a wife from out of Poictou in France But when he had by his perfidious disloyalty lost this honour William the sonne of King Stephen and Earle of Moriton and Warren had the same given unto him by his Father After whose death King Richard the first bestowed it upon his brother John who was afterward King of England For thus we read in an old History King Richard declared his singular love to his brother Iohn For beside Ireland and the Earledome of Moriton in Normandy he heaped upon him so many dignities in England that he was in maner a Tetrarch there Finally he conferred upon him Cornwall Lancaster Notingham Derby with the country adjoining and many more beside A good while after King Henry the third the sonne of John first advanced Edmund his second sonne called by some Crouth-backe to the title of Earle of Lancaster unto whom hee conveyed and made over the inheritances and honours of Simon Montfort Earle of Leicester Robert Ferrars Earle of Derby and John of Monmouth because they had risen and rebelliously born armes against him and he gave this Honor of Lancaster unto him in these words The Honour County Castle and Town of Lancaster with the Cow-pastures forrests of Wiresdale Lownsdale New castle under Lime the manour forrest and Castle of Pickering the manor of Scaleby the towne of Gomicester and the rents of the towne of Huntendon c. After hee the said Edmund had missed the kingdome of Sicily in which the Pope had invested him in vaine by a ring and not without ridiculous disgrace to the English nation caused in honour of him certaine peeces of gold to bee stamped with this title AIMUNDUS REX SICILIAE having first cunningly suckt a great masse of money from the credulous King in this regard This Edmund
Britaine NOVUM CASTRUM Rupe sedens celsa rerum aut miracula spectat Naturae aut solers distrahit illa aliis Sedibus aethereis quid frustra quaeritis ignem Hunc alit hunc terrae suscitatista sinu Non illum torvo terras qui turbine terret Sed qui animam terris datque animos animis Eliquat hic ferrum as hic aurum ductile fundit Quos non auri illex conciet umbra animos Quin aiunt auro permutat bruta metalla Alchimus hunc igitur praedicat esse deum Si deus est ceu tu dictas divine Magister Haec quot alit quot alit Scotia nostra deos NEVV-CASTLE Seated upon high rocke shee sees dame Natures wonders strange Or else to others wittily doth vent them for exchange In vaine why seeke yee fire to fetch from heaven to serve your turne The ground here either keeps it close or quickly makes it burne Not that which folke with stony flash or whirlewind grim affrights But giveth life to earthly things and mindes to living wights This melteth iron brasse and gold so pliable and soft What mindes th'allective shade of gold stirres not nor sets aloft Nay more than so men say it doth dull metals change to gold To say therefore he is a God our Alchymists are bold If God he be as thou giv'st out Great Master of thy word How many Gods then doth this place and our Scotland afford Scarce three miles hence for I over passe Gosseford which was the Barony in old time of Richard Sur-Teis who came up under King Henry the first and lived in great honour standeth a village named walls-Walls-end The very signification of the name sheweth that this was a station of the second Cohort of Thraciens which in the booke of Notices is called VINDOBALA in Antonine VINDOMORA for it may seeme that in the provinciall language of the Britans as the latter of them betokened The Walls-end so the former the Rampiers-end considering that long since they tearmed a Wall Mur and a Rampire Bal Val and Gual Neither is it credible that the Rampire or Wall reached any farther seeing that beyond this place there are no tokens thereof and Tine being now very neere unto the Ocean with his exceeding deepe channell ferveth in stead of a most strong sense Yet some there be who thinke that the rampire and not the wall went as farre as to the very mouth of Tine which is called Tinmouth and stifly affirm that it was termed Pen-bal-crag that is the head of the rampire in the rocke whom I will not contradict But I durst almost avouch that this was in the Romanes time TUNNOCâ—LLUM seeing that Tunnocellum soundeth as much as the Promontory of Tunn or Tine where the first Cohort Aelia Classica enrolled as it is probable by the very name by Aelius Hadrianus the Emperour was in pay for sea service For the Romans had certaine light Foists or Pinnaces tearmed Lusoria upon the rivers in the marches as well to represse the outrodes of them that dwelt there by as to quit them with like inrodes as we may see in the books of Theodosius his Code under the title de Lusoriis Danubii that is touching The pinnaces of the river Danow Under the Saxons Heptarchy it was called Tunna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not of Tunna the Abbot as Bede writeth but doubtlesse of the river and a little Monastery it had which was oftentimes risted by the Danes But now it is called Tinmouth Castle and takes great glory in a stately and strong castle which as an ancient writer saith on the East and North side iâ— unpossible to be entered by reason of a mighty high rocke over the sea and in other places such is the height of it that it needs but small defence Whereupon Robert Mowbray Earle of Northumberland made choice of it for his strongest hold when hee rebelled against King William Rufus But as commonly it falleth out with rebels he had but ill successe who being forthwith very streightly besieged withdrew himselfe into a monastery hard by which was counted a Sanctuary and therefore not to bee forced and broken neverthelesse he was drawne out thence and kept a long time close prisoner in misery a just reward for his so perfidious treachery Now must I coast along the shore On the back side of the Promontory on which Tinmouth is situate next unto Seton which under King Henry the third was part of the Barony Dela-vall Seghill sheweth it selfe called in old time SEGEDUNUM a station of the third Cohort of the Lergi by the wall or Rampire and verily SEGEDUNUM in British is all one with Seghill in English Some few miles from hence the shore maketh roome for the river Blith to fall into the sea which river watering Belsey belonging in times past to the Midletons and Ogle a Castle of the Barons Ogle is here together with the river Pont discharged into the sea These Ogles from the very beginning of Edward the fourth his reigne flourished in the dignity of Barons enriched by marrying the heires of Sir Berthram Bothall of Alan Heton and of Alexander Kirkby The issue male of these Barons went out lately and expired in Cuthbert the seventh Baron of that house who begat two daughters Joan married to Edward Talbot a younger sonne of George Earle of Shrewsbury and Katharine wife to Sir Charles Cavendish Knight A little higher the river Wents-beck is swallowed up of the Ocean it runneth beside Mitford which King John and his Rutars set on fire when in most grievous manner they over-ranne these Countries That age called forraine and willing souldiers Rutars whom Falques de Brent and Walter Buc brought out of the Low-Countries and from other parts to aide King John Brent a wilde madbraine was at length banished out of the Realme But Buc a more staid man after hee had done the King stout service had given unto him by the King possessions in Yorkeshire and Northamptonshire and his race flourished there untill that John Buc was attainted under King Henry the seventh whose great grand-son is Sir George Buc knight a man well learned of great reading and Master of the Kings Revels who for I take pleasure to professe by whom I have profited hath observed many things in history and gently imparted the same to me This was sometimes the Barony of William Berthram whose issue male soone had an end in Roger his grand-sonne and his three daughters inheritrices were bestowed in marriage upon Sir Norman Darcy T. Penbury and William of Elmeley From thence Wents-beck passeth through Morpeth a famous little towne For on the North banke of the river is the towne situate and on the South banke standeth the Church and the Castle by it upon a shady hill beset with trees which together with the town came from Sir Roger Mâ—rley whose Barony it was unto the Lords of Greistock and so from them
and neere yea and triumphantly described by the Historians and Poets of that time in the highest degree with stately stile and lofty verse in the language of that age in barbarous Latin Here Bramish losing his owne name comes to bee called Till and first saluteth Ford Castle belonging sometimes to the warlike and valiant house of the Herons now to the family of the Carrs then Etall where the family surnamed De Maneriis or Manours sometimes inhabited reckoned in the ranke of worshipfull Knights out of which flourish the right honourable Earles of Rutland at this day Many small castles and piles in this tract I wittingly let passe For an endlesse peece of worke it were to goe through them all one by one considering it is certaine that in King Henry the second his time there were eleven hundred and fifteene Castles in England Right over against this Ford westward there mounteth aloft an high hill called Floddon neere Bramton memorable in regard of James the fourth King of Scots who was there slaine and his army overthrowne who whiles King Henry the eighth lay at the siege of Tournay in France marched forward in great courage and greater hope with Banner displayed against England But Thomas Howard Earle of Surry arraunged in good order of battaile valiantly in this place received him where the fight continued sharpe and hot on both parts untill the night came upon them uncertaine as then whether side had the victory But the day ensuing manifested both the Conquerour and conquered and the King of Scots himselfe with many a mortall wound was found among the heapes of dead bodies And hereupon was granted a new augmentation unto the Armes of the Howards as I have formerly specified Twede having now entertained Till runneth downe with a fuller streame by Norâ—ham or Northam in old time called Ubbanford a towne belonging to the Bishops of Durham For Egfrid the Bishop built it and Raulph his successour erected a Castle upon the top of an high steepe rocke and fortified it with a trench in the utmore wall whereof which is of greater circuit are placed sundry turrets in a Canton toward the river within there is another enclosure or wall much stronger in the midst of which there riseth up the Keepe of great heigth But the secure peace of our age hath now a long time neglected these fortifications albeit they stand in the borders Under it lieth the towne in a plaine Westward and hath in it a Church wherein was enterred Ceolwulph King of Northumberland unto whom Venerable Bede dedicated his booke of the Ecclesiasticall history of England and who afterwards renouncing the world became a Monke in Lindiffarn Church and served as a Christian souldier for the Kingdome of heaven and his body was conveyed after that into the Church of Norham Also when the Danes harried and spoiled the Holy Iland where Saint Cuthbert whom Bede so highly extolleth both sate as Bishop and lay buried and some went about by a devout and religious kind of stealth to transport his body over by occasion that the winds were against them They laid the sacred body downe with due honour at Ubbanford whether it were an Episcopall See or no it is uncertaine hard by the river Twede and there it lay for many yeeres together untill the comming of K. Etheldred Of this and of other things I had information for I will never conceale by whom I have found any good by George Carleton borne here as who was the Castellanes sonne of this place whom for that I have loved in regard of his singular knowledge in Divinity which hee professeth and in other more delightfull literature and am loved againe of him I were not worthy I assure you of love if I did not acknowledge thus much Beneath Norham at Killey a little village hard by were found as I have heard old men say in our grandfathers remembrance the ornaments or Harnish of a Knights belt and the hilt of a sword of massie gold which were presented unto Thomas Ruthall then Bishop of Durham A little lower appeareth the Mouth of Twede upon the farther side whereof standeth Berwicke the utmost towne in England and the strongest hold in all Britaine Which name some derive from one Berengarius a Duke whom they never heard of unlesse it were in a dreame Leland fetcheth it from Aber which in the British tongue signifieth the mouth of a river so that Aberwic should sound as much as The towne by the rivers mouth But he that knowes what Berwic in the Charters of our Kings signifieth wherein nothing is more common than these words I give C. and D. that is such and such townes cum suis Berwicis surely he must needs understand the true Etymologie of this Berwicke For mine owne part I cannot conjecture what it meaneth unlesse it be a Village or Hamlet annexed as it were a parcell of the Demesne unto some place of greater reckoning For in the donations of Edward the Confessour Totthill is called the Berwicke of Westminster and Wandlesworth the Berwicke of Patricseie and a hundred such But to what end is all this Surely we doe but lose this labour if as some will have it the name thereof were in old time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the English Saxon tongue that is The towne or village of the Bernicians Now that these countries were named Bernicia it is better knowne than can bee said and I have already notified as much But whence soever it hath the name it is so situate that it shooteth farre into the sea in so much as it is well neere compassed about with the sea and Twede together and seated betwixt two most mighty Kingdomes as Pliny hath reported of Palmyra in Syria It was the first thing alwayes that both nations tooke care of whensoever they were at any discord so that since the time that King Edward the first of that name first wrested it perforce out of the Scots hands the Scots have oftentimes repossessed it and the Englishmen as often recovered it from them againe But let us here if you please abridge the History thereof Of this Berwicke I have read nothing of greater antiquity than this that William King of Scots being taken Prisoner in the field by the English delivered it up unto our King Henry the second for his enlargement out of prison on this condition that unlesse by a certaine day appointed hee payd a summe of money for his ransome it should belong unto the Crowne of England for ever and presently as it is in the Polychronicon of Durham the said King Henry fortified it with a Castle Howbeit King Richard the first upon payment of the money released it againe unto the Scotish Afterwards King John as we read in the history of Melrosse wonne both the towne and Castle of Berwick what time as he with his Rutars burnt Werke Roxburgh Mitford and Morpath yea and laid all Northumberland most because the
honour of Earle of Louth to have unto him and his heires males and withall the dignity of Baron of Athenry to him and his heires But this honourable title as it began so it ended in him for he that in warre vanquished his enemies was soone after in a tumult of rebellious people vanquished and slaine by his owne men in this territory with many other of his sirname leaving no issue behinde him But in our fathers remembrance King Henry the eighth honoured Sir Oliver Plonket with the title of Baron of Louth There remaine in this county the Verdons Tates Clintons Bellews Dowdals Gernons Hadsors Wottons Brandons Mores Warrens Chamberlanes and very many besides of English blood and of the Irish the Mac-Mathons c. THE COUNTY OF CAVON THe county of CAVON lieth next unto Louth to the West called in times past East Breanny the habitation of the O-Reilyes who vaunt themselves to have had their beginning of the Ridleys in England whereas in their whole course and maner of life they be meere Irish. These O-Reileys not long since were of great power in horsemen but to the end they might be that way lesse powerfull Sir Henry Sidney in his policy divided their county into seven Baronies whereof the Lords out of that family should immediately hold the same by service in fee from the Crowne of England They dwell scattering in piles and forts not in towns A Bishop they have of their own and him a poore one God he knoweth whose See is at Kilmore and yet is not he so poore as those Irish Bishops were who had no other rents and revenues than three milch kine which the parishioners exchanged for others new milch when they went dry according as Adam Bremensis from their owne relation when they returned by Germany out of Italy learned and put downe in writing THE COUNTY OF FERMANAGH BEyond Cavan West and North FERMANAGH presenteth it selfe where sometimes the ERDINI dwelt a country full of woods and very boggish In the midst whereof is that most famous and the greatest Meere of all Ireland Logh Erne stretching out 40. miles bordred about with shady woods and passing full of inhabited Ilands whereof some containe an hundred two hundred and three hundred Acres of ground having besides such store of Pikes Trouts and Salmons that the fishermen complain oftner of too great plenty of fishes and of the breaking of their nets than they doe for want of draught This Lake spreadeth not from East to West as it is described in the common Maps but as I have heard those say who have taken a long and good survey thereof first at Bal-Tarbet which is a little towne farthest North of any in this county of Cavon it stretcheth from South to North foureteene miles in length and foure in bredth Anon it draweth in narrow to the bignesse of a good river for six miles in the chanell whereof standeth Inis Killin the principall castle in this tract which in the yeere 1593. was defended by the rebels and by Dowdall a most valiant Captaine won Then turning Westward it enlargeth it selfe most of all twenty miles long and ten broad as far as to Belek neere unto which is a great downefall of water and as they terme it that most renowned Salmons Leape A common speech is currant among the inhabitants there by that this Lake was once firme ground passing well husbanded with tillage and replenished with inhabitants but suddenly for their abominable buggery committed with beasts overflowne with waters and turned into a Lake The Almighty God saith Giraldus Creator of Nature judged this land privie to so filthy acts against Nature unworthy to hold not only the first inhabitants but any others for the time to come Howbeit this wickednesse the Irish Annales lay upon certaine Ilanders out of the Hebrides who being fled out of their owne Countrey lurked there Among the Lords in this tract Mac-Gwir was most noble and powerfull untill he overthrew himselfe and his state in the late rebellion And they that be of that Sept dwell on both sides yet so as that those beyond the Lake are reckoned of Ulster and they on this side of Conaght THE COUNTY MONAGHAN ALong the Lough-Erne on the East side stretcheth out the Countie Monaghan mounting aloft with hills well attired with woods but knowne by no towne at all unlesse it be Monaghan which imparted the name unto the whole country It is divided into five Baronies containeth Iriel Dartre Ferey Loughty which by authority of Parliament were for rebellion given away from the Mac-Mahons with the little territory Donemain which Queen Elizabeth bestowed upon Walter D'Evereux Earle of Essex Those Mac-Mahons that is if we interpret it out of the Irish language The Sons of Ursus or the Beare ruled here as tyrannicall Lords a long time and derive their Genealogy from Walter Fitz-Urse who imbrued his hands with the bloody murdering of Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury The most puissant of these after the manner of that nation tooke upon him to Lord it over the rest and by way of excellency was termed Mac-Mahon About which preheminence when as of late daies they of that Sept or Family were at most bitter debate by way of hard words open armes foule practises yea and close corruptions Sir William Fitz-William the Lord Deputy came hither among them and judicially convented Hugh-Roe Mac-Mahon whom he by his authority had set up in this Seigniory and being upon his triall condemned of treason caused him to be hanged and to the end that he might suppresse for ever both the name and soveraignty of Mac-Mahon he divided the territory betweene the kinred of the said Hugh and certaine Englishmen to have and to hold after the English tenure to them and theirs THE COUNTY ARMAGH ON the East side again lieth out in length the county of Armagh so as that it is compassed as it were about with the river Neury by East with the county of Louth by South and with the Black-water by North. A County as I have sundry times heard the Earle of Denshire Lord Lievtenant Generall say that for a most rich and battle soile passeth all other parts of Ireland insomuch as if any compost be laid upon it to make it more fruitfull it scorneth and disdaineth as one would say the same and becommeth barren The first place in it that we meet with is Fewes a little territory belonging to Turlogh Mac-Henry one of the family of O-Neale thicke set with woods and by reason of loughs and bogs unpassable Then have you Orry as scarce of woods where dwelleth O-Hanlan and the fort Mont-Norris built by Charles Baron Mont-joy when he was Lord Deputy and so named in honour of Sir Iohn Norris under whom he had served first and was trained in military discipline Eight miles from hence neere unto the river Kalin Armach maketh a poore shew
certaine number of cowes and hawkes yeerely c. THE COUNTIE OF COLRAN BEyond the Glynnes West standeth Krine which now they call the county COLRAN of the principall towne therein It lieth between the river Ban and Lough-foile and confineth South upon the county of Tir-Oen This Ban a passing faire river as Giraldus saith which the name also witnesseth rising out of the mountaines of Mourn in the county of Downe carrieth himselfe and his name into Lough Eaugh or Lough-Sidney a large Lake which name for all that after thirty miles or thereabout for of so great length that Lake is esteemed to be at his going forth in the end he resumeth againe at Tome castle and being beset and shadowed along the sides with woods by Glancolkein where by reason of thick woods and unpassable bogges there is the safest place of refuge for the Scottish Ilanders and the rebels and which the English felt who pursued Surley Boy whiles hee lurked here carrying a proud streame entreth into the sea breeding Salmons in abundance above any other river in all Europe because as some think it passeth all the rest for cleerenesse in the which kinde of water Salmons take speciall delight In this part the O Cahans were of greatest authoritie the principall person of which family O Cahan is thought to be one of the greatest of those Potentates or Uraights as they terme them that ought service unto O Neal the Tyrant of Ulster as who in that barbarous election of O Neal which with as barbarous ceremonies is solemnized in the open aire upon an high hill performeth this honourable service forsooth as to fling a shooe over the head of the elected O Neal. Howbeit he is not of power sufficient to restrain the Scottish Ilanders who to save charges at home every yeere in Summer time flocke hither out of those hungry and barren Ilands where is nothing but beggery to get their living ready upon every occasion and opportunity to maintain rebellions insomuch as provided it hath been by law under paine of high treason that no person call them into Ireland nor give them lodging or entertainment But this county with other confining is escheated to the King who gratiously purposing a civill plantation of those unreformed and waste parts is pleased to distribute the said lands to his civill subjects and the city of London hath undertaken to plant Colonies here THE COUNTIE OF TIR-OEN BEneath Colran lieth Southward the county of TIR-OEN in old books named also Tir-Eogain that is if a man interpret it The land of Eugenius which name the Irish have contracted into Eogain and Oen. This is altogether upland from the sea divided towards the sunnes setting by the river Liffer from Tir-Conell toward the rising with the Logh Eaugh from the county of Antrim and Southward with the Blackwater which in Irish they call Aven More that is The great water from the county of Armagh A country though rough and rugged yet fruitfull and very large as which lieth out threescore miles in length and thirty in bredth divided by the mountaines called Sliew Gallen into the Upper Tir-Oen Northward and the Nether Southward In it are first Cloghar a Bishopricke and that a slender one then Dunganon the chiefe habitation of the Earles which through the favour of King Henry the eighth gave the title of Baron unto Matthew sonne to the first Earle of Tir-Oen And verily this is an house fairer built than commonly they bee in this county but hath beene oftentimes by the Lords themselves defaced with fire because it should not be burnt by the enemy also Ublogahell where O-Neal that most proudly ruleth and oppresseth Ulster was wont to be inaugurated after that barbarous manner and tradition of the countrey and the fort at Black-water on the river More which hath sustained the variable changes and chances of warre whiles there was no other way into this countrey being the place of refuge for the rebels but now it is neglect ever since there was found another Ford more below at which on both sides of the river Charles Lord Mount-joy Deputy erected new Sconces when with hot warre hee pursued the rebels in these parts Who likewise at the same time raised another garrison for t called by his owne name Mont-joy at the Lake Eaugh Logh Sidney in honour of Henry Sidney souldiers now terme it which encloseth the West side of this shire and is made or much encreased by the river Bann as I have said Surely this is a goodly and beautifull Lake passing fishfull and very large as stretching out thirty miles or thereabout as the Poet saith Dulci mentitur Nâ—rea fluctu Fresh water though it bee A sea folke thinke they see And considering the variety of shew upon the bankes the shady groves the meadowes alwaies greene the fertile corne fields if they be well manured the bending and hanging hills and the rills running into it fashioned and shaped for pleasure and profit even by Nature her selfe who seemeth as it were to be very angry with the inhabitants there by for suffering all to grow wild and barbarous through their lazie lithernesse In the upper Tir-Oen stands Straban a Castle well knowne wherein dwelt in our daies Turlogh Leinigh of the sept of O-Neals who after the death of Shan O-Neal as I shall shew anon by election of the people attained to the dignity of O-Neal also some other Piles and fortresses of smaller reckoning the which like as else where in this Iland be no more but towers with narrow loope-holes rather than windowes unto which adjoine Hauls made of turfes and roofed over head with thatch having unto them belonging large Courts or yards fensed round about with ditches and hedges of rough bushes for defence of their cattell against Cow-stealers But if this county have any name or glory at all it is wholly from the Lords thereof who have ruled here as Kings or Tyrants rather of whom there were two Earles of Tir-Oen namely Con O-Neale and Hugh his nephew by his son Matthew But of these I will speake more at large by and by when I am to treat of the Earles and Lords of Ulster THE COUNTIE OF DONEGALL OR TIR-CONELL ALL that remaineth now behind in Ulster toward the North and South was possessed in ancient times by the ROBOGDII and VENNICNII but at this day it is called the County of DONEGALL or TIR-CONELL that is as some interpret it The land of Cornelius or as others The Land of Conall and in truth Marianus plainly nameth it Conallea The county is all in a maner champian and full of havens as bounded with the sea on the North and West sides beating upon it and dis-joined on the East from Tir-Oen with the river Liffer and from Conaght with the Lake Erne Liffer neere unto his spring head enlargeth his stream and spreadeth abroad into a Lake wherein appeareth above the water an Island and in
William Vescy fled into France and would not fight Then the King of England gave all the Seigniories and Lordships which were the Lord William Vescies unto Sir John Fitz-Thomas to wit Kildare Rathemgan and many others The same yeere Gilbert Clare Earle of Glocester returned out of Ireland into England likewise Richard Earle of Ulster soon after the feast of S. Nicholas was taâ—en prisoner by Sir John Fitz-Thomas and kept in ward within the Castle of Ley unto the feast of Saint Gregorie the Pope whose enlargement was then made by the counsell of the Lord the King in a Parliament at Kilkenny for the taking of whom the foresaid Sir Iohn Fitz-Thomas gave all his lands to wit Slygah with the pertenances which he had in Connaght Item the Castle of Kildare was won Kildare and the country round about it is spoiled by the English and Irish. Caluagh burnt all the Rolls and Tallies of the said Earle Great dearth and pestilence there was throughout Ireland this yeere and the two next ensuing Item Lord William Odyngzele is made Justice of Ireland MCCXCV Edward King of England built the Castle de Bello-Marisco that is Beaumaris in Venedocia which is called mother of Cambria and of the common sort Anglesey entring unto the said Anglesey straight after Easter and subduing the Venodotes that is the able men of Anglesey under his dominion and soone after this time namely after the feast of St. Margaret Madock at that time the elect Prince of Wales submitting himselfe to the Kings grace and favour was brought by Iohn Haverings to London and there shut up prisoner in the towre expecting the Kings grace and benevolence This yeere died Lord William Odingzele Justice of Ireland the morrow after S. Mary of Aegypt whom succeeded Sir Thomas Fitz-Maurice in the Justiceship Item about the same time the Irish of Leinster wasted Leinster burning New-castle with other townes Item Thomas Torbevile a traitor of the King and the realm being convicted was drawne through the middest of London lying along prostrate guarded with foure tormentors disguised under vizzards taunting and reviling him and thus in the end was hanged upon a jibbet in chaines so as his carcase might not be committed to sepulture but kites carrion crowes and ravens celebrated his funerals This Thomas was one of them which at the siege of the Castle of Rions were taken prisoners and brought to Paris Who spake unto the Peeres of France and said that he would betray the King of England into their hands and leaving there his two sonnes for hostages returned from the parts beyond-sea joining himself unto the King of England and his counsell relating unto them all how craftily he escaped out of prison and when hee had gotten intelligence of the Kings designement and the ordering of the kingdome hee put all in writing and directed the same unto the Provost of Paris For which being in the end convicted he received the sentence of judgement aforesaid Item about the same time the Scots having broken the bond of peace which they had covenanted with the Lord Edward King of England made a new league with the King of France and conspiring together rose up in armes against their owne soveraigne Lord and King Iohn Balliol and enclosed him within the inland parts of Scotland in a castle environed and fensed round about with mountaines They elected unto themselves after the manner of France twelve Peeres to wit foure Bishops foure Earles and foure Lords of the Nobilitie by whose will and direction all the affaires of the kingdome should be managed And this was done in despite and to disgrace the King of England for that against the will and consent of the Scots the said John was by the King of England set over them to be their Soveraigne Item the King of England brought an armie againe toward Scotland in Lent following to represse the rash arrogancie and presumption of the Scots against their owne father and King Item Sir Iohn Wogan was made Justice of Ireland and the Lord Thomas Fitz-Maurice gave place unto him Item the said John Wogan Justice of Ireland made peace and truce to last for two yeeres betweene the Earle of Ulster and Iohn Fitz-Thomas and the Geraldines Item in these dayes about the feast of Christ his Nativitie Gilbert Clare Earle of Glocester finished this life Item the King of England sendeth his brother Edmund with an armie into Gascoigne MCCXCVI The Lord Edward King of England the third day before the Calends of Aprill to wit upon Friday that fell out then to be in Easter weeke wonne Berwicke wherein were slaine about 7000. Scots and of the English one onely Knight to wit Sir Richard Cornwall with seven footmen and no more Item shortly after namely upon the fourth of May he entred the Castle of Dunbar and tooke prisoners of the enemies about fortie men alive who all submitted themselves to the Kings grace and mercie having before defeated the whole armie of the Scots that is to say slaine seven hundred men of armes neither were there slaine of the English men in that service as well of horsemen as of footmen but ... footmen onely Item upon the day of Saint John before Port-Latin no small number of Welshmen even about fifteene thousand by commandement of the King went into Scotland to invade and conquer it And the same time the great Lords of Ireland to wit Iohn Wogan Justice of Ireland Richard Bourk Earle of Ulster Theobald Butler and Iohn Fitz-Thomas with others came to aide and sailed over sea into Scotland The King of England also entertaining them upon the third day before the Ides of May to wit on Whitsunday made a great and solemne feast in the Castle of Rokesburgh to them and other Knights of England Item upon the next Wednesday before the feast of Saint Barnabe the Apostle hee entred the towne of Edeâ—burgh and wonne the Castle before the feast of Saint John Baptist and shortly after even in the same summer were all the Castles within the compasse of Scotland rendred up into his hands Item the same Lord John Balliol King of Scotland came though unwilling upon the Sunday next after the feast of the translation of Saint Thomas the Archbishop to the King of England with Earles Bishops and a great number of Knights beside and submitted themselves unto the Kings grace and will saving life and limbe and the Lord John Balliol resigned up all his right of Scotland into the King of England his hand whom the Lord the King sent toward the parts about London under safe conduct Item Edmund the King of Englands brother died in Gascoigne MCCXCVII Lord Edward King of England sailed over into Flanders with a power of armed men against the King of France for the warre that was raised betweene them where after great expences and much altercation a certaine forme of peace was concluded betweene them with this condition that they should submit themselves unto the ordinance of
death of the said Justice of Ireland the Lord Roger Darcy with the assent of the Kings Ministers and others of the same land is placed in the office of Justice for the time Also the castles of Ley and Kylmehede are taken by the Irish and burnt in the moneth of April Item Lord Iohn Moris commeth chiefe Justice of Ireland the fifteenth day of May. Also the Irish of Ulster gave a great overthrow unto the English of Urgale wherin were slaine three hundred at the least in the moneth of June Also the said Lord Iohn Moris Justice of Ireland is discharged by the King of England from that office of Justiceship and the Lord Walter Bermingham set in the same office by the foresaid King and a little after the foresaid slaughter committed entreth with Commission into Ireland in the month of June Item unto the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmond the maintenance of peace for a certain time is granted by the King of England Which being granted upon the Vigill of the exaltation of the holy Crosse hee together with his wife and two sonnes take sea at the haven of Yoghal and crosseth over into England where he followeth the law hard and requireth instantly to have justice for the wrongs done unto him by Raulph Ufford late Lord Justice of Ireland above named Item unto the said Earle by commandement and order from the Lord King of England there are granted from his entrance into England twenty shillings a day and so day by day still is allowed for his expences Also the Lord Walter Bermingham Justice of Ireland and the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Kildare rose up in armes against O-Merda and his complices who burnt the Castle of Ley and Kilmehed and they with their forces valiantly set upon and invade him and his complices spoiling killing and burning in so much as the said O-Morda and his complices although at the first they had manfully and resolutely made resistance there with many thousands of the Irish after many wounds and a great slaughter committed were constrained in the end to yeeld and so they submitted to the Kings grace and mercy and betake themselves full and whole unto the said Earles devotion MCCCXLVII The Earle of Kildare with his Barons and Knights goeth unto the King of England in the moneth of May to aide him lying then at the siege of Caleys Also the towne of Caleys was by the inhabitants upon the fourth day of June rendred up into the King of Englands hands Item Walter Bonevile William Calfe William Welesley and many other noble Gentlemen and valiant Knights as well of England as of Ireland died of the sicknesse in Caleys Also Mac-Murgh to wit Donald Mac-Murgh the sonne of Donald Art Mac-Murgh King of Leinster upon the fifth day of June is treacherously slain by his own people More Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Kildare is by the King of England made Knight Also the towne called Monaghan with all the territorie adjoining is by the Irish burnt on the feast day of S. Stephen Martyr Item Dame Joane Fitz-Leoues sometime wife to the Lord Simon Genevile departed this life and is buried in the Covent Church of the Friers Preachers of Trim the second day of Aprill MCCCXLVIII And in the 22. yeere of King Edward the third reigned the first pestilence and most of all in Ireland which had begunne afore in other Countries Item in this yeere Walter Lord Bermingham Lord Justice of Ireland came into England and left Iohn Archer Prior of Kylmainon his Lievtenant in his roome And he returneth againe in the same yeere Justice as before and the King conferred upon the same Walter the Barony of Kenlys which is in Osserie because he led a great army against the Earle of Desmond with Raulfe Ufford as before is said which Barony belonged in times past unto the Lord Eustace Pover who was attainted and hanged at the castle of the Isle MCCCXLIX Lord Walter Bermingham the best Justice of Ireland that ever was gave up his office of Justiceship after whom succeeded the Lord Carew Knight and Baron both MCCCL. And in the 25. yeere of the foresaid King Edward Sir Thomas Rokesby Knight was made Lord Justice of Ireland Item Sir Walter Bermingham Knight Lord Bermingham that right good Justice sometime of Ireland died in the Even of S. Margaret Virgin in England MCCCLI Kenwrick Sherman sometime Maior of the Citie of Dublin died and was buried under the Belfray of the preaching Friers of the same City which Belfray and Steeple himselfe erected and glazed a window at the head of the Quire and caused the roofe of the Church to be made with many more good deeds In the same Covent he departed I say the sixth day of March and at his end he made his Will or Testament amounting to the value of three thousand Marks and bequeathed many good Legacies unto the Priests of the Church both religious and secular that were within twenty miles about the City MCCCLII Sir Robert Savage Knight began in Ulster to build new castles in divers places and upon his owne Manours who while he was a building said unto his sonne and heire Sir Henry Savage let us make strong walls about us lest happily the Irish come and take away our place destroy our kinred and people and so we shall be reproached of all Nations Then answered his sonne where ever there shall be valiant men there is a Castle and Fortresse too according to that saying The sonnes encamped that is to say valiant men are ordained for warre and therefore will I be among such hardy men and so shall I be in a castle and therewith said in his vulgar speech A castle of Bones is better than a castle of Stones Then his father in a fume and chafe gave over his worke and swore an oath that he would never build with stone and morter but keepe a good house and a very great family and retinew of servants about him but he prophesied withall that hereafter his sonnes and posterity should grieve and waile for it which indeed came to passe for the Irish destroyed all that country for default of castles MCCCLV And in the thirty yeere of the same King Sir Thomas Rokesby Knight went out of his office of Justice the sixe and twenty day of July after whom succeeded Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Desmund and continued in the office untill his death Item on the day of Saint Pauls conversion the same Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas died Justice of Ireland in the castle of Dublin not without great sorrow of his friends and kinsfolke and no lesse feare and trembling of all other Irish that loved peace First he was buried in the quire of the preaching Friers of Dublin and at last enterred in the Covent Church of the Friers Preachers of Traly This man was a righteous Justicer in that hee stucke not to hang up those of his owne blood for theft and rapine and misdemeanours even as soone as strangers
and chastised the Irish very well MCCCLVI And in the one and thirty yeere of the foresaid King Sir Thomas Rokesby was made the second time Justice of Ireland who tamed the Irish very well and paied as well for the victuals he tooke saying I will eat and drinke out of Treen vessels and yet pay both gold and silver for my food and apparel yea and for my pensioners about me The same yeere died that Sir Thomas Justice of Ireland within the Castle of Kilka MCCCLVII Also in the two and thirty yeere of the same Kings raigne Sir Almarick de Saint Aimund was made chiefe Justice of Ireland and entred into it At this very time began a great controversie between Master Richard Fitz-Ralfe Archbishop of Armagh and the foure Orders of the begging Friers but in the end the Friers got the mastery and by the Popes meanes caused the Archbishop of Armagh to hold his peace MCCCLVIII In the 33. yeere of the same King Sir Almarick Sir Amund chiefe Justice of Ireland passed over into England MCCCLIX In the 34. yeere of the same King Iames Botiller Earle of Ormond was made chiefe Justice of Ireland Item the Lady Ioan Burke Countesse of Kildare departed this life on St. Georges day and was buried in the Church of the Friers Minors of Kildare neere unto her husband the Lord Thomas Fitz-Iohn Earle of Kildare MCCCLX And in the 35. of the foresaid King died Master Richard Fitz-Ralfe Archbishop of Armagh in Hanault the sixteenth day of December whose bones were conveied into Ireland by the reverend father Stephen Bishop of Meth to be bestowed in S. Nicolas Church at Dundalk where he was born But doubted it is whether they were his bones or some other mans Item Sir Robert Savage a doughty knight dwelling in Ulster departed this life who with a few Englishmen slew of the Irish three thousand neere unto Antrim but before that he went forth to that battell he tooke order that there should be given unto every Englishman one good draught or pot of wine or ale whereof hee had a number of hogsheads and barrels full and the rest he saved against the comming of his friends he caused also to be killed sheepe oxen tame foule crammed fat wilde foule and for venison red Deere that they might bee dressed and made ready for such as returned winners out of the field whosoever they were And he was wont to say a shame it were if guests should come and not finde what to eate and drinke But when it pleased God to give the English victorie he invited them all to supper and they rejoiced with thanksgiving and himselfe said I give God thanks For better it is thus to keep it than to let it run forth upon the ground as some gave me counsell Buried he was in the covent Church of the preaching Friers of Coulrath neere to the river of Banne Also the Earle of Ormond Lord Justice of Ireland entred England in whose place Moris Fitz-Thomas Earle of Kildare was made Lord Justice of Ireland by this Charter and Commission as appeareth Omnibus ad quos c. that is To all whom these letters shall come unto Greeting Know ye that we have committed to our sweet and faithfull subject Moris Earle of Kildare the office of our L. Justice of our land of Ireland and our land of Ireland with the Castle and all pertenances thereto to keep and governe so long as it shall please us and to receive at our Exchequer in Dublin yeerely so long as hee shall remaine in that office five hundred pounds for which he shall keep that office and land and he shall be himselfe one of the twenty men in armes whom he shall finde with as many horses armed continually during our foresaid commission In witnesse whereof c. Given by the hands of our beloved in Christ Frier Thomas Burgey Prior of the Hospitall of S. John of Ierusalem in Ireland our Chancellour of Ireland at Dublin the thirtieth day of March and of our reigne the thirty five yeere Also Iames Botiller Earle of Ormond came again out of England Lord Justice of Ireland as before unto whom the Earle of Kildare resigned up the office of Justiceship MCCCLXI Leonell Earle of Ulster in right of his wives inheritance and being the Kings sonne of England came into Ireland as the Kings Lievtenant and arrived at Dublin the eighth day of September being the feast of the blessed Virgins nativitie bringing his second wife Elizabeth daughter and heire of the Lord William Burke Earle of Ulster In the same yeere was the second pestilence There died in England Henry Duke of Lancaster the Earle of March the Earle of Northampton Also on the sixth day of January Mons Doncref a Citizen of Dublin was buried in the Churchyard of the Friers Preachers of the same City unto which covent or brotherhood he gave forty pounds toward the glazing of their Church Item there departed out of this life the Lady Ioan Fleming wife to the Lord Geffery Trevers and the Lady Margaret Bermingham wife to the Lord Robert Preston on the Vigill of St. Margaret and were buried in the Covent Church of the preaching Friers of Tredagh Also the Lord Walter Bermingham the younger died on S. Laurence day who divided his inheritance between his sisters the one part thereof the foresaid Preston had for his share Item the foresaid Lord Leonell after hee was entred into Ireland and had rested some few daies made warre upon O-Brynne and proclaimed throughout his army that no man borne in Ireland should come neere unto his campe and an hundred of his owne Pensioners were slaine Leonell seeing this forthwith reduced the whole people as well of England as of Ireland into one and so hee prospered and strucke many battailes round about in all places with the Irish by the helpe of God and the people of Ireland Hee made also many Knights of English and Irish and among them Robert Preston Robert Holiwood Thomas Talbot Walter Cusacke Iames de La Hide Iohn Ash or de Fraxius Patricke and Robert Ash or de Fraxius and many besides Also he removed the Exchequer from Dublin to Carlagh and gave five hundred pounds to the walling of that towne Item on the feast of Saint Maur Abbat there rose a mighty wind that shooke and overthrew pinnacles battlements chimneys and other things higher than the rest trees without number divers Steeples and namely the Steeple of the Preaching Friers MCCCLXII Also in the 36. yeere of the same King the Church of St. Patricke in Dublin through negligence was set on fire and burnt the eighth of Aprill MCCCLXIV And in the 38. yeere of the foresaid King the Lord Leonel Earle of Ulster entred England the 22. of Aprill and left his Deputy-Justice of Ireland the Earle of Ormond and the same Leonell Duke of Clarence returned the eighth of December MCCCLXV Also in the 39. yeere of the said King the same Leonell Duke of Clarence
same Avienus wrote thus Tartesiisque in terminos Oestrymnidum Negotiandi mos erat Carthaginiâ— Etiam colonis Those of Tartessus eke as well As they in Carthage towne that dwell Were wont to trade for merchandise To skirts of Isles Oestrymnides Other Greeke writers tearmed these Cassiterides of Tinne like as Strabo nameth a certaine place among the Drangi in Asia CASSITERON of Tinn and Stephanus in his booke of Cities reporteth out of Dionysius that a certaine Iland in the Indian sea was called CASSITERIA of Tinne As for that MICTIS which Pliny citeth out of Timaeus to bee sixe dayes sailing inward from Britaine and to yeeld Mines of white lead that it should be one of these I dare scarcely affirme Yet am I not igrant that the most learned Hermolaus Barbarus read it in manuscript books Mitteris for Mictis and doth read for Mitteris Cartiteris But that I should avouch these to be those CASSITERIDES so often sought for the authority of the ancient writers their site and the mines of Tinne are motives to perswade me Full opposite unto the Artabri saith Strabo over against which the West parts of Britain doe lye appeare those Ilands Northward which they call Cassiterides placed after a sort in the same clime with Britaine And in another place The sea between Spaine and the Cassiterides is broader than that which lieth between the Cassiterides and Britain The Cassiterides look toward the coast of Celtiberia saith Solinus And Diodorus Siculus in the Ilands next unto the Spanish sea which of Tinne are called Cassiterides Also Eustathius There be ten Islands called Cassiterides lying close together Northward Now seeing these Isles of Silly are opposite unto the Artabri that is Gallitia in Spaine seeing they bend directly North from them seeing they are placed in the same clime with Britaine seeing they looke toward the coast of Celtiberia seeing they are dis-joined by a farre broader sea from Spaine than from Britaine seeing they are next unto the Spanish sea seeing they lye hard one by another toward the North and ten onely of them bee of any good account namely Saint Maries Annoth Agnes Sampson Silly Brefer Rusco or Trescaw Saint Helens Saint Martins and Arthur and that which is most materiall seeing they have veines of Tinne as no other Iland hath beside them in this tract and considering that two of the lesse sort to wit Minan Witham and Minuisisand may seeme to have taken their names of Mines I would rather think these to be CASSITERIDES than either the Azores which beare too far West or Cisarga with Olivarius that lieth in maner close unto Spaine or even Britain it selfe with Ortelius considering there were many Cassiterides and Dionysius Alexandrinus after he had treated of the Cassiterides writeth of Britaine apart by it selfe If any man by reason of the number deny these to be CASSITERIDES for that they be more than ten let him also number the Haebudes and the Orcades and if after the account taken he finde neither more nor fewer with Ptolomee than five Haebudes and 30. Orcades let him search in any other place but where they are now extant and with all his searching by reckoning of the numbers I know for certaine he shall not easily finde them But the ancient writers had no certaine knowledge of these most remote parts and Ilands of the earth in that age no more than wee in these daies of the Isles in the Streights of Magellane and the whole tract of New Guiney And that Herodotus had no knowledge of these it is no marvell for himselfe confesseth that hee knew nothing for certaine to make report of the farthest parts of Europe But lead was brought first from hence into Greece Lead saith Plinie in his eight Booke and in the Chapter of the first Inventours of things Midacritus first brought out of the Island Cassitiris But as touching these Islands listen what Strabo saith in his third Booke of Geography toward the end The Ilands Cassiterides be in number ten neere one unto another situate in the deepe sea Northward from the haven of the Artabri One of them is desert the rest are inhabited by men wearing blacke garments clad in side-coats reaching downe to their ankles girt about the breast and going with staves like unto the Furies in Tragedies They live of their cattell straggling and wandring after a sort as having no certaine abiding place Metall mines they have of tinne and of lead in lieu whereof and of skins and furres they receive by exchange from the Merchants earthen vessels salt and brasen workes At the beginning the Phoenicians only traded thither from Gades and concealed from others this their navigation But when the Romanes followed a certaine Master of a shippe that they themselves might learne this trafficke of merchandise he upon a spitefull envie ran his ship for the nonce upon the sands and after hee had brought them that followed after into the same danger of destruction himselfe escaped the shipwracke and out of the common Treasury received the worth of the commodities and wares that he lost Howbeit the Romans after they had tryed many times learned at length the voiage hither Afterwards Publius Crassus when hee had sailed thither and seene how they digged not very deepe in these Mines and that the people were lovers of peace and lived quietly desirous also to saile upon the sea he shewed the feat thereof to as many as were willing to learne although they were to saile a greater sea than that which reacheth from thence to Britain But to discourse no farther whether these were the ancient Cassiterides or no and to returne to Silly There bee about an hundred forty and five Ilands carrying this name all clad with grasse or covered with a greenish mosse besides many hideous rockes and great craggy stones raising head above water situate as it were in a circle round eight leagues from the lands end or utmost point of Cornewall West-South-West Some of them yeeld sufficient store of corne but all of them have abundance of conies cranes swannes herons and other sea-foule The greatest of them all is that which tooke the name of Saint Marie having a towne so named and is about eight miles in compasse offereth a good harbour to Saylers in a sandie Bay wherein they may anchor at sixe seven and eight fathom but in the entry lye some rockes on either side It hath had anciently a castle which hath yeelded to the force of time But for the same Queene Elizabeth in the yeere 1593. when the Spaniards called in by the Leaguers of France began to nestle in little Britain built a new castle with faire and strong ravelines and named the same Stella Maria in respect both of the ravelines which resemble the raies of a starre and the name of the Isle for defence whereof shee there placed a garrison under the command of Sir Francis Godolphin Doubtlesse these are those Ilands which as Solinus writeth a
effusion of Britanes bloud When the Romane Empire was at length come to an end in Britane Vortigern the Britane gave to the Saxons who kept him prisoner for his ransome this Country with others as Ninnius writeth and it had his peculiar Kings for a long time together but such as held by homage sometimes of the Kentish Kings sometimes of the Mercians Among whom Sebert in the yeere 603. was the first that became a Christian and Suthred the last King who being vanquished by Egbert in the yeere 804. left the Kingdome unto the West-Saxons But heereof elsewhere more largely Now let us survey the very Country MIDDLE SEX OLIMA TRINOBANTIBVS habitata MIDLE-SEX MIDLE-SEX taketh name of the Middle-Saxons because the Inhabitants thereof were in the middest betweene East-Saxons West-Saxons South-Saxons and those whom that age called Mercians It is severed from Buckingham-shire by the River Cole which the Britans called Co on the West-side from Hertford-shire on the North-side by a knowne crooked limite from Essex on the East with the River Lea from Surrey and Kent on the South by the Tamis It being comprised within short Bounds lyeth out in length where it is longest twenty miles and in the narrowest place it is scant twelve miles over For aire passing temperate and for Soile fertile with sumptuous houses and prety Townes on all sides pleasantly beautified and every where offereth to the view many things memorable By the River Cole where it entreth first into this Shire wee saw Breakespeare an ancient house belonging to a Family so sirnamed out of which came Pope Hadrian the Fourth of whom erewhile I spake then Haresfeld in old time Herefelle the possession in King William the Conquerours daies of Richard the sonne of Counte Gislebert More Southward Vxbridge anciently Woxbridge a Towne of later time built and full of Innes stretcheth out in length Beneath which is Draiton reedified by the Barons Paget Colham which from the Barons Le Strange came to the Earles of Darby and Stanwell ever since the Normans comming in unto our fathers dayes the habitation of the Family of Windesore And not farre from hence Cole after it hath made certaine scattering medow Islands at two small mouthes falleth into Tamis Along the side whereof as a Germane Poet in this our age pretily versified Tot campos Sylvas tot regia tecta tot hortos Artifici dextrâ excultos tot vidimus arces Ut nunc Ausonio Tamisis cum Tybride certet So many fields and pleasant woods so many princely Bowres And Palaces we saw besides so many stately Towres So many gardens trimly dress'd by curious hand which are That now with Romane Tyberis the Tamis may well compare At the very first entrance Stanes in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 offereth it selfe to our sight where Tamis hath a woodden Bridge over it This name it tooke of a meere-stone heere in times past set up to marke out the jurisdiction that the City of London hath in the River Neere unto this stone is that most famous Medow Runingmead commonly called Renimed in which the Baronage of England assembled in great number in the yeere 1215. to exact their Liberties of King John Whereof in the marriage of Tame and Isis the Poet wrote thus speaking of the Tamis that runneth hard by Subluit hic pratum quod dixit Renimed Anglus Quo sedere duces armis annÃsque verendi Regis Joannis cuperent qui vertere sceptrum Edwardi Sancti dum leges juráque vellent Principe contempto tenebroso è carcere duci Hinc sonnere tubae plusquam civilia bella Venit hinc refugus nostras Lodovicus in orat Hence runnes it hard by Medow greene in English RENIMED Where close in counsell sat the Lords as well for armour dred As ancient yeeres right reverend who sought their soveraigne King John to depose from regall Throne Whiles that they ment to bring Contemning Prince S. Edwards lawes and liberties againe Inure which had long time forlet a quite forgotten laine Hence more than civill Warres aloud the trumpets ganne to sound Hence Lewis of France who soone retir'd set foot on English ground From thence it passeth by Coway-stakes at Lalam where we said that Caesar crossed over the Tamis and the Britans fensed the banke and Fourd against him with stakes whereof it had the name Tamis passing downe from thence seeth above it Harrow the highest hill of all this Country under which Southward there lie for a long way together exceeding rich and fruitfull fields especially about Heston a small Village that yeeldeth so fine floure for manchet that a long time it hath served for the Kings mouth Within a little of it is Hanworth where stands a prety house of the Kings which King Henry the Eighth tooke exceeding delight in as being a retiring place for his solace and voluptuous pleasure Afterwards it runneth hard by Hampton Court a royall Palace of the Kings a worke in truth of admirable magnificence built out of the ground by Thomas Wolsey Cardinall in ostentation of his riches when for very pride being otherwise a most prudent man hee was not able to mannage his minde But it was made an Honour enlarged and finished by King Henry the Eighth so amply as it containeth within it five severall inner Courts passing large environed with very faire buildings wrought right curiously and goodly to behold Of which Leland writeth thus Est locus insolito rerum splendore superbus Alluitúrque vaga Tamisini fluminis unda Nomine ab antiquo jam tempore dictus Avona Hîc Rex Henricus taleis Octavius aedes Erexit qualeis toto Sol aureus orbe Non vidit A stately place for rare and glorious shew There is which Tamis with wandring streame doth dowsse Times past by name of Avon men it knew Heere Henry the Eigth of that name built an house So sumptuous as that on such an one Seeke through the World the bright Sunne never shone And another in the Nuptiall Poeme of Tame and Isis. Alluit Hamptonam celebrem quae laxior urbis Mentitur formam spacijs hanc condidit aulam Purpureus pater ille gravis gravis ille sacerdos Wolsaeus fortuna favos cui â—elle repletos Obtulit heu tandem foriunae dona dolores He runnes by HAMPTON which for spacious seat Seemes City-like Of this faire Courtly Hall First founder was a Priest and Prelate great Wolsey that grave and glorious Cardinall Fortune on him had pour'd her gifts full fast But Fortunes Blisse Alas prov'd Bale at last And now with a winding reach the River bendeth his course Northward by Gistleworth for so was that called in old time which now is Thistleworth Where sometime stood the Palace of Richard King of Romans and Earle of Cornwall which the Londoners in a tumultuous broile burnt to the ground From hence Sion sheweth it selfe a little Monastery so named of the most holy Mount Sion