publick view 3. That notwithstanding I had on this emergent occasion thought my self eas'd of any further study on a Subject I had no liking to it prov'd much otherwise For his Lordship nevertheless continued his desires that I should prosecute and finish what I had begun and to oblige me to it without hopes of any change in him gave notice in his Preface to the Reader of his Memoir's how the Appendix he had first intended and promis'd of the State of Ireland was grown to such a Bulk as would require its coming out in a Book by its self And therefore I found my self more deeply engag'd 4. That however seeing I was now at more liberty as for Time so for Matter and for Title both I resolv'd to change my first design of so few sheets and write under the Title of a Prospect c. about threescore sheets in all but in the same method and Stile I had already begun with as more agreeable to my purpose of giving though not a strict much less a full History yet the choicest Collections and freest observations too I could derive from or in my way i. e. in several easie plain Discourses make upon the History of Ireland Thirty sheets representing in short the state of that Kingdom from the first Plantation of it after the Flood till the English Conquest and the other thirty what follow'd since for the last five hundred years 5. That because I considered the Form as Printers call it which I had also begun with already and therefore must have continued the same would be too narrow and little for a Volume of sixty sheets not rendred unproportinoably thick I give them divided as in two Parts which I call the Former and Later so in two Volums each apart So much for the Occasion Title Method Form Division of this Treatise As for those matters of Irish Antiquity so strangely far out of our ken discours'd in this Former Part I doubt not some at least or peradventure many of 'em will be excepted against by Criticks in this censorious Age. And that where nothing else can be objected Varro's Three Differences of Time must serve the turn We shall be told How the First having been That which extended from the Creation to the Flood is call'd Obscure and uncertain because we are wholly ignorant of all things happen'd in it The Second which was That from the Flood to the first Olympiad is termed Fabulous by reason of a world of Fables reported thereof But the Third extending frem the said Olympiad to our days is called Historical because the Acts of it are delivered in Histories that are true And indeed I must confess that so said Varro the most learned of the Romans 1700 years ago following herein the Greeks and after him of late our English Cambden who lays so much stress upon this observation of Varro that page 17. Hol. Translat he makes it his only argument to ruin the credit of Geoffrey of Monmouth's new History of Brute But withal I do profess that for my own part I see nothing in it that stresses My reasons are 1. The sayings of Varro how learned soever he was are no Oracles 2. The Histories of the Jewish Nation at least the Books of Moses and several more of the Old Testament Record a great variety of Matters hapned some before the Flood many more after it both the one and the other with all certainty and truth imaginable and yet all of 'em before the First Olympiad which according to Cambden himself was no earlier than the year of the World 3189. though others make it earlier by fifteen years 3. And to wave all kind of advantages from those holy Books which both Jews and Christians repute infallible as being the Oracles of God Josephus in his first Book against Appion a Book written by him 1600. years ago assures us that even the Histories of the Phenicians Egyptians and Chaldeans have recorded likewise with great truth and certainty the Reigns of their own Kings and other memorable things happen'd in their Countreys many hundred years before the first Olympiad yea not a few of them happen'd even long before either Moses or Abraham himself was born 4. There have been several Books written for true History of matters that as the Authors would make us believe happen'd since the first Olympiad nay written partly of some things reported in them to have happen'd fourteen hundred years after that Olympiad which yet we know to be most faculous Witness among so many other the foresaid Geoffrey of Monmouth's seven Books of History to say nothing at all of Annius Viterbiensis But to return back to Josephus it is also remarkable how in the same Book against Appion he wonders not a little at those who as to matters of Antiquity suppose the truth ought only to be gather'd from the Greeks Whereas indeed says he whatever is written by the Greeks is new and of late memory and has been done in the World in a manner but yesterday And this he proves in the same place at large Besides he shews that albeit their knowledg or practice not only of other Arts and Sciences but of any kind of Letters had been very late yet the latest of all among 'em was that of History That herein even after they had given themselves industriously to it they were notwithstanding very imperfect uncertain short their chiefest Authors contradicting one another in what they wrote as knowing there were no ancient Records not even in Athens it self to check their falsity nor Laws to curb their Liberty of writing what they pleas'd at random and what they wrote being so little as to other Countreys of the World that of Rome it self though very powerful within Italy in those times and so near home they seem'd for some Ages wholly ignorant That even their most curious Writers and among 'em Ephorus by name were so ignorant of the Gauls and Spaniards as to have thought the later a People denominated of one only City and related the manners both of the one and the other to be such as neither are nor at any time were among either Finally that their knowledg of other Nations was a long time so extream little as to have extended only to the bordering Thracians and the Inhabitants of the Sea Coasts lying Easterly and Westerly not far from Greece all other Inland or untraffiquing nay and all trassiquing too so they were far remote Countreys being utterly unknown to them Moreover and more nearly to our present purpose it is observable how so excellent so unbyass'd a Writer as Josephus undoubtedly is not only has in the same Book this very expression That he presumes not for matter of Antiquity to compare his own Jewish Nation with the Chaldeans Egyptians or Phaenicians but for certainty and truth highly celebrates in particular the Phenician Historian Dius and the Chaldean Berosus And yet we know from him that as well the one as the other
seeing him a Widower his former Wife the Scythian Kings Daughter having died before he came to Egypt the gave him one of his own Daughters to Wife 4. Of his departure from Egypt by Sea and various adventures for some years roaming about all the Northern Seas and Isles of Europe 5. Of his return at last to his own Countrey of Spain and the five and forty Battels fought there victoriously by him and under his conduct by his near Cosins the Children of Breoghuin the Son of Bratha who founded Braganza in Portugal against the forein Enemies that invaded that Kingdom then 6. Of the destruction and utter extirpation at least for a good while of all those Foreiners out of Spain by his Valour and Wisdom and which was consequent of his possessing by himself and his foresaid Kinsmen the greater Part of this Kingdom 7. Of his two and thirty Sons part Legitimat but the most part Illegitimat 8. Of the great Dearth in his time all over Spain continuing six and twenty years thro want of Rain 9. And lastly how this Dearth together with several other reasons but particularly that of his minding now the Prophetical Prediction of him by his own Magitian Cathoir some years before That his Posterity should settle in Ireland made him and soon after his death eight of his Sons think upon invading Ireland Tho I say these are matters not wholly foreign to my purpose yet because they are unnecessary it sufficeth to have touch'd 'em lightly And so I proceed to what I intended as more material here to let you know Which is 1. That of those 8. Sons of that Great Milesius for no more of his two and thirty Sons ventured to Ireland who presently after their Fathers death setting forth from Breoghuin's Tower a place in Gallicia long after called Notium but of later years Compostella and putting to Sea with the first convenience and landing in Ireland then when the three Sons of Cearmada ruled there by turns and by their great Valour destroying all three at last in the Battel of Tailtinn and thereby subduing thorowly the whole Nation of Tuatha-De-Danann two only I mean of those eight Brothers survived to rejoyce in their Conquest finish'd by that Battel Eibhir and Erimhon alias Heber and Herimon as the Latins call them the other six being lost by various Chances 2. That Eibhir and Erimhon assuming now the sovereign power of the whole Island after partition made first to themselves then to their Cousins German then to their other Captains and last of all to the common Soldiers of convenient proportions of Land ruling severally over all that is Eibhir in the Southern and Erimhon in the Northern Division the first year in perfect peace together and then falling at odds through the Pride and instigation of Heber's Wife that put her Husband upon having all in both Divisions to himself alone to the end forsooth she might sit and strut upon the three chief Ardes or Heights of Ireland as the only Queen thereof and then coming to a pitch'd Battel and Heber kill'd in it and then Herimon remaining the only King without any Competitor until his death which hapned fourteen years after He was the first of a hundred fourscore and one that as Monarchs of all Ireland successively governed it and the Milesian or Irish Nation the only possessors of it for two thousand four hundred eighty eight years until the landing of Henry the second there in the year of Christ 1172. 3. Cambrensis himself tho Giraldus Camb. Topog. Hiber dist 3. c. xv 17. 36 37 44. otherwise no great favourer of the Irish does certifie so much by computing from Herimon the first King to Laogirius who was King when St. Patrick landed there Anâ— Christi 432. to preach the Gospel a hundred thirty and one from Laogirius to King Fedlimidius which contain'd 400 years of the flourishing state of Christianity among the Irish three and thirty more and from that period to Ruaridh O Conchabhair who was the Monarch when Henry II. landed as before the whole remainder of that number of a hundred fourscore and one who besides a far greater number of the Provincial Kings under them governed as Sovereign Monarchs of all that Island for so many Ages from the year of the World 2736. Argument enough I think for the Antiquity of the Irish Nation to be no where parallel'd if not peradventure by the Chineses only in the late History written of them by Martinus à Martinâ—s 4. That for their bravery in Martial Exploits to say nothing now of a thousand bloody proofs thereof given by them at home for much above 2000 years fighting almost continually either the Progeny of Heber in general against Herimon's for the Sovereignty or one Province or greater Division Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogh invading the other especially after the Provincial Kings had set up by the Authority of Eoghun Mor or Eugenius Magnus the Monarch about 600 years after the death of Herimon so that very few of their Monarchs in so large an extent of time died other than violent deaths and this in Battel commonly but to say nothing of these proofs given by them at home their manifest Invasions abroad their Plantations and at last even total Conquest of the Kingdom of Albain that part of Great Britain which in after Ages came to be called Scotland from their conquering and planting of it with Colonies of their Children for they themselves were in this part of the World the original Scots as their Countrey now called Ireland or in Latin Hibernia was then the only Countrey named Scotia is an argument which cannot be refuted 5. That the Nation which we call Picts but the Irish in their Language Cruinith having in the reign of Herimon the first Irish Monarch roam'd about by Sea from Scythia till they arrived at last in Ireland and there desiring to inhabit and being denied this request but however directed by Herimon to that part of the now Great Britain which lying Northeast of Ireland was called Albain then and is so still by the Irish and here seated themselves and then multiplying exceedingly for two hundred and fifty years at the expiration of this time upon some difference hapned Aonghus or Aenaeas Ollbhuadhach the VII Monarch of Ireland succeeding Herimon made so sharp and long a War upon them and not on them only but as well on the Northern Britains remaining still their Neighbours as upon the Inhabitants of the barren Orcades the Race of Fir Bholg long before expelled Ireland that in fifty fierce Battels given them he utterly broke their whole strength and made them Tributaries Nor was this the only Conquest made by the Milesian Irish either on the Heathen or Christian Picts and their Associats in Albain For to pass over those six or seven Invasions more of the Irish into Albain under several of their Monarchs from the Reign of the foresaid Aonghus or Enaeas to the
only pursued but exceeded them as being wholly intent upon destroying one another at home he thought it now high time to warn them as his Children And that he did so both early and loudly and often by laying his hand upon them wâ—th smart enough though not to their extermination or destruction as yet 25. It was within the first Century of Christian Religion among them he warn'd 'em with the loss of all their Dominions abroad The Orcades and the Hebrides and all the Islands not Mannuinn â—or Isle of Man it self excepted nay the Terra Firma of Scotland and all their Conquests and Plantations there both ancient and late those very Descendants of their own loyns renounced utterly in that very Age any further payment of Tribute or Chiefry or other duty of Allegiance or subjection to them And I think any indifferent looker on would esteem so great a loss then both an early and loud warning indeed given them to amend But they did not regard it as not touching them yet in their sensible Being at home And therefore God proceeds thenceforwards by other i. e. by nearer and keener methods touching 'em to the quick where they should have more feeling Such undoubtedly were those two dreadful Plagues the one in the Reign of Diarmuid mhic Ferghussa mhic Ceirrbheoil which they call'd Crom-Choinnioll in English the Fading or Falling Candle that swept away infinit numbers of them yea very many of their most admired Saints and among others Mac Dail the Patron of Kilcullin the other call'd by them an Bhuidh Choinnioll or the Yellow Candle no less contagiously mortal whereof even their very Sovereigns in whose Reigns it happen'd the two Brothers Blaithmhac and Diarmuid Ruannigh died Such also were those three or four several Invasions and inroads made into their Country by the Saxons and Brittons either in conjunction or apart close one after another The first of them in the joynt Sovereignty of the foresaid two Brothers when the Irish who had so long and so unnaturally fought one another were now constrain'd to fight a forein and common Enemy at their own doors at home and give them Battel at a place call'd Pancti The second in the Reign of Fionachta Fleadhach when Egfrid King of Northumberland sent an Army under the conduct of one Brit or Berthus to Invade ' em Who as Venerable Beda * Anno Dominicae Incarnationis 684. Egfridus Rex Northanhymbrorum misso in Hiberniam Scotorum Insulam cum exercitu Duce Bertho vastauit misere Gentem innoxiam Nationi Anglorum semper amicissimam ita ut nec Ecclesiis quidem aut Monasteriis manus parceret hostilis l. 4. c. 26. relates it in the year of Christ 684. so miserably wasted the Irish Nation though a Nation most harmless to others and always most friendly in particular to the English that he spared neither Church nor Chappel nor Monastery His Army says Keâ—ing in the Reign of the foresaid Firnachta spoil'd and burn'd all the Sea-coasts of Leinster without any difference put between sacred and profane And either a little before or after this devastation it was that in the same Reign they or some other Forces Landing out of Great Britain fought the Irish in the Battel named Cath Rath Moire in Moghlinne where besides a great many of the latter Comhusgach a Pictish King was lost Lastly in the Reign of Loinnsioch mhic Aonghussa the Brittons prey'd harras'd ransack'd the whole Country call'd Magh-Mhuir Theimhne until the fortune of a Battel I mean that of Cullinn or Muigh Cullinn which the Vltonians were compell'd to at last made them retire Besides these several Inroads touching them pretty near the quick at home in divers parts of their Country the mercy of God seeing not their amendment yet was pleas'd in this very Loinnsioch's Reign to try other means more general to the whole Nation of Ireland by afflicting them all with such a Mortality of their Kine and Famin thence ensuing and continuing for three years in such extremity that men ate one another as Keting writes But neither was this kind of warning any whit more effectual to work a Reformation For Loinnsioch himself their Monarch was kill'd in Battel by Ceallach King of Connaght And after his immediate Successor Conghall Kinn who most sacrilegiously rob'd and burn'd as well all the Churches and Sanctuaries as all the rest of the Town of Kildare before he was seiz'd upon by a sudden death the just reward of his Sacriledge as all men thought in those days the very next three Monarchs Fearrghall Foghartach and Kionaoth were all of 'em one after another kill'd in three Battels fought by their own Coutrey-men and Subjects against them And though Flaithiortoch immediate Successor to the last of these three escaped violent death by making himself the only happy man of all the Irish Monarchs at least of all until his time except Maolchoba in putting off voluntarily his Royal Robe changing it for a Religious Weed and both living and dying in peace a profess'd Monk in the Monastery of Ardmagh yet he that succeeded him next in the Sovereignty Aodh Ollan was kill'd in Battel by Domhnal mhac Murchadha as we have seen before All which notwithstanding the patience and goodness of God to them still was such that he would warn them yet and warn 'em indeed now even by prodigies and wonders both in Heaven above and in the Earth below In the Reign of this Domhnal mhac Marchadha who both kill'd and succeeded Aodh Ollan the form of a hideous horrible Serpent appear'd a long time moving over their heads in the Firmament And in his next Successor Niall Frassach's Reign the Earth under 'em throughout Ireland shut up her fruitful Womb in such extraordinary manner that she deign'd them no return at all of their Seed but instead thereof brought upon them a second and it a most cruel most universal Famin through all their Quarters Then follow'd in the Monarch Aodh Ordnighe's Reign that Prodigious Thunder and Lightning which in one little nook of the Land between Corca Bhaisgin and the Sea kill'd in a trice a thousand and seven persons dead What shall I say of that wonderful threefold and peradventure greatest prodigy of all pour'd down from Heaven in a tripartite division at the Birth of the foresaid Niall Frassach I mean those three stupendious showers fallen at that time on three several Fields in Ireland the one of Honey on Fothanbeg the other of Silver on Fothain mhor and the third of blood on Maigh-Laightonn Indeed according to Keting they fell in the Reign of the above Fearrghall the seventh Monarch in order ascending up from this Niall surnamed Frassach in Irish in Latin Nimbosus or Imbricus from those wonderful showers happening at his Nativity And though I am no Diviner to interpret what they portended for certain yet taking the shower of blood in conjunction with those other Prodigies that one after another so closely follow'd in
however he continued in the whole his Reign over Connaght 50 years and according to all the Irish Annals and Historians over Ireland 20. Though says Gratianus according to a more exact severe discussion of the truth if the date of his Monarchy be taken from the death of his Predecessor Mairchiortach O Brien to his own he must have reigned over Ireland 34 years in all or at least 28 if it be continued only till the foresaid Hostages were forc'd from him But I range again For as well this calculation of his years or Reign as his religious preparation for death and his burial and rest close by the high Altar of St. Cieran in the Cathedral Church of Cluan-mhac-Noise is forein to my purpose here And therefore I return again Muirchiortach commonly call'd Mac Loghlenn but immediate Son to Niall and by him Nephew to that Domhnal whom we have so lately seen to have so long contended for the Sovereignty of Ireland and therefore stilâ—d by Colganus King of Ireland upon the death of Toirghiallach mor O Conchabhar assumes that Title of the Irish Monarchy which he had so venturously and early prepar'd for while Toirrghiallach was yet alive and in health Of him at least of any warlike action either of his or indeed of any others in his Reign tho Keting has not a word save only those very few that on an other occasion I have given before page 73. viz. that Mairchiortach mhac Neill the Monarch that succeeded Toirghiallach mor O Conchabhar was in the 18th year of his Reign kill'd by Fearnibh Fearrmhaighe and O Brian yet the diligence and accurateness of Gratianus Lucius makes abundant compensation For this Author p. 86. says of the present Muirchiartach first in general That his humour having been wholly Martial and his fortune answerable he over-run all the Provinces of Ireland in a continual course of Victories obtained partly by Battels and partly by the sole terrour of his Name That he subdued them all and forced them every one to give him Hostages That therefore at least He without any contradiction may be admitted next after Maolseachluinn II. for the undoubted King of all Ireland And then after letting us know that this Prince's great Vertues were much eclipsed by the Precipitancy of his anger and that whom prosperity had rais'd to such a heighth adversity at last did throw down as low even to the very earth he particularly recounts how Eochadh King of Vlster not only refus'd to pay any more Tribute or other dues to him but even without any other provocation made War upon him That he being thereupon enraged enters the Territories of Eochadh routs his Forces burns his Lands takes his Vassals and puts them in Fetters Eochadh himself by good luck escaping That after this yea notwithstanding a reconciliation made between them by the intercession and upon the Engagement of the Primat of Ardmagh and Donochadh King of Oirghllae for performance of Covenants on both sides and Eochadh's consequential pardon and reception to grace which to assure him Muirchiortach took the most solemn Oath he could for such it was accounted then in that Kingdom on the Staff of Jesus what this was S. Bernard tells in the Life of Malachias yet ere long whether out of the former cause or any other new one enraging him he had Eochadh's eyes pull'd out of his head and three of his Nobles duos Olingsios Cathasachi O Flahry nepotem most cruelly put to death without any regard to the engagement of the Sureties And to conclude that Donochadh O Cearrbhaoil the foresaid King of Oirghillae one of the Sureties taking to heart so heinous a breach of Faith Oath Covenants and assurance given by himself and therefore resolving to be reveng'd draws to his association the People of Vibhruinne and Comhaicne marches with an Army of 9000 men into Cineal-Eoghain otherwise call'd by them Tir-Eoghain but by us Tir-oen where the Monarch then resided surprizes him unprovided fights the few tumultuary Forces led forth by him routs them and kills him in that Field a man ever before Victorious in all his Encounters whatsoever Yet such was his end in the 10th of his reign Anno Christi 1166 says Gratianus Lucius though Keting says he was kill'd in the eighteenth of his Reign by Fearrnibh Fearrmhaighe and O Brien as I have noted before But as their difference in computing the years of the Reign is not material the one beginning it when this Muirchiortach mhac Neill had forc'd his predecessor Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhar to give him Hostages and the other when Toirrghiallach died so neither is it material to know whether any such persons call'd Fearrnibh Fearrmhaighe and O Brien were or were not in that Battel to kill him What is to our present purpose you have it very particularly delivered by the one and not gainsaid by the other And yet upon reflection I must confess I find that I have not delivered all the material things written by Gratianus Lucius in this Reign of Muirchiortach mhac Neill He further writes page 87. that in the Year 1156. even the very first year of it presently after Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhar's death his Son and Heir and King of Connaght Ruidhruigh O Conchabhar did receive twelve Hostages from Muirchiortach O Brien even that very Mounster King so lately before deprived and banish'd to Tir-Eoghain by the said Toirrghiallach Father to this Ruidhruigh as we have seen already That in the Year 1157. he rush'd into Muirchiortach mhac Neill the Monarch's own peculiar Countrey Tir-Eoghain burnt the fruitful Peninsula there call'd Inis-Eoghain destroy'd all the delicate Gardens Orchards Plantations wasted the whole Region to Cianachty That after this he turn'd his Arms on Mounster Where having first setled the foresaid Muirchiortach O Brien in possession of North Mounster he forc'd Hostages from Diarmuid mhac Cormuic mhic Cartha King of South Mounster to remain with him till Muirchiortach mhac Neill the Monarch did relieve the said Diarmuid That Anno 1158. he enter'd Leinster in like hostile manner with great Force marcht through it to Leiglin being encamp'd there had Hostages brought him from Ossory and Luighis and in the close of all loaded Mac Craih O Morrdha the little King of Luighis with Irons That in the next place he made Inroads into Teabhan driving away thence from the Kerins an exceeding great prey of Cows and with his Fleet afflicted all the Coasts of Tir-Eoghain mightily That in the Year 1161. falling violently on Meath he both compelled the Countreys call'd Vibh Falain and Vibh Faoilghe to give him pledges and then plac'd Governours in them viz. Faolan O Faoelain in the one and Mlaghlin O Conchabhair in the other That after all he made his Conditions of peace with the Monarch deliver'd him four Hostages receiv'd from him in gift the entire Province of Connaght with the one half of Meath and from Diarmuid O Maolseachluinn a hundred ounces of Gold for that
a single Person must evince the same truth So for Spain Alphonsus III. by putting out the eyes of all his Brethren save one that was kill'd Alfonsus IV. with the like cruelty us'd by his own Brother â—aymirus Peter the Legitimat Son of Alphonsus XI depos'd and kill'd by his Bastard Brother Henry Garzias by Sanctius then Sanctius by Vellidus and after so many retaliations all Spain under King Roderic betray'd to the Moors by a natural Spaniard a Subject to that King Count Julian Prince of Celtiberia as Bodin calls him yea seven hundred thousand Spaniards kill'd in the short space of fourteen months next following that hideous treachery must evince mightily the self-same truth So for France those horrible Feuds Combustions Devastations cruelties inhumanities barbarous sacriledges of the late Civil Wars there continued 40 years against four Kings whereof you may read at large in D'Avila and the Holy Ligue and both Henry III. and Henry IV. one after another so vilely murder'd by those devoted Assassins of Hell Jacques Clement and Ravilliac evince it still Lastly and to come nearer home tho in an earlier time even so for England 1. Those eight and twenty Saxon Kings of the Heptarchy part by one another kill'd part by their own Subjects murder'd besides many other depos'd and forc'd to fly away for their lives For as Matthew of Westminster l. 1. c. 3. writes of the very Northumbrian Kings alone four were murder'd and three more deposed within the little time of one and forty years only And therefore it was that Charles the Great of France when the news of the last of them by name Ethelbert being murdered came to his hearing not only resolv'd to stop the presents he was before on sending to England nor only to do the English in lieu of sending them gifts all the mischiefs he could but said to Alcuinus an English man his own Instructor in Rhetorick Logick and Astronomy that indeed That was a perfidious and perverse Nation a murderer of their Lords and worse than Pagans Nay therefore also it was that many of the Bishops and Nobles fled out of this Northumbrian Kingdom and no man dared for 30 years next following venture on being their King but all men declined it and so left them a prey to the Irish Scâ—ts and Danes who by the just judgment of God over-run them and destroy'd them at last on that very occasion principally 2. Since the Norman Conquest besides the horrible rebellion of Henry the 2d's own Children against him and many other particulars which I pass over not only all the calamities miseries cruelties unspeakable evils of the Barons Wars on both sides under King John Henry III. and Edward II. nor only the deposition and murder too of this poor Edward even his own Wife Queen Eleanor and his own very Soâ—thâ—e Prince of Wales having both of them concurr'd in the deposing him and usurping his Crown but the most prodigiously mortal dissentions of Lancaster and York began with the rebellion against deposition and murder of Richard the II. and so bloodily prosecuted for thirty years under Henry VI. and Edw. IV. that besides eleven main Battels fought with infinite slaughter of English men on either side nay even twenty thousand men kill'd besides the wounded in one of them which Polydore calls the Battel of Touton a Village of Yorkshire the excellent Historian Philip Comines tells us of 80 of the Blood Royal destroyed in them and among this number Henry VI. a most vertuous innocent holy King most barbarously murder'd To say nothing of Richard the Third that Usurping Tyrant so justly dispatch'd in the Battel of Bosworth by the Earl of Richmond who thereupon succeeded King by the name of Henry VII and by marrying the Daughter of Edward IV. and thereby most happily uniting in himself and his Queen and Issue the right of the two Houses ended those fatal dissentions of Lancaster and York Dissentions indeed so fatal to England that besides all her best blood at home as we have seen by their long continuance from the year of Christ 1393. to the year 1486. lost Her not only the Kingdom of France but even the more ancient Inheritance of our Kings in the Dukedoms of Normandy Aquitane and whatever else belong'd to the English Crown on that side of the Sea only the Town of Calais with its little Appendages excepted Were it necessary Buchanan could furnish out of the neighbouring Kingdom of Scotland a very large addition of more examples to the purpose of this place But more than enough has been already said to conclude that notwithstanding any thing or expression in either of the two former Sections my meaning could not be to make those bloody Feuds in Ireland or consequents of them so peculiar to the Milesian Race or Irish Nation as if no other People on Earth had been at any time guilty of the like or as horrid The truth is I mean'd only to say That in respect of their long duration perpetual return from time to time for almost five and twenty hundred years compleat and their excessive degree at very many times within that long Succession of Ages especially considering the small extent of Ireland those cruel bloody Feuds were both National and peculiar to that People only Which I think is true notwithstanding that other Nations either much greater or much lesser might have been in some few Instances of time as high nay peradventure much more horrible transgressors in the very same kind than those antient Milesians were at any one time since their Conquest of Ireland from Tuath-Dee-Danan 33. The second point is to do those ancient Milesians the right as to acknowledg what their Histories have at large That amidst all the Feuds and fury of their Arms how bloody or how lasting soever they had several both Monarchs and after the Pentarchy was set up lesser Kings yea some of those too in their time of Paganism and many more as well of those as these after Christianity establish'd that were of great renown among them for other excellent Qualifications becoming their dignity than those only of Martial Vertue and Fortitude In time of Paganism they had their XXII Monarch Ollamh Fodhla so called from his great Knowledg that very name given him importing in Irish as Gratianus Lucius hath observ'd a great master in Sciences and Teacher of all Knowledg to his People It was he that divided the Lands of Ireland into Hundreds call'd by them Triochae-chead and placed a Lord over each Hundred and over each Town of the Hundred a Bailiff an Applotter of Duties and receiver of Strangers to provide Entertainment for them They had their XCI Monarch Conair mor mhac Eidirsgceoil so great a Justiciar so zealous a Prosecutor of all Malefactors that although with great pains industry hazard to himself yet he forc'd at last all kind of Robbers Thieves Vagabonds and Idlers to fly the whole Kingdom and after this during his Reign
over his designed return and instead thereof going to Rome and soon after dying there upon the 12th of the Calends of May in the Year of our Lord 689 left his Countrey a prey to the Saxons who till then could never subdue it nor prevail against the Brittons but were themselves always overthrown and forc'd all along e'n by so many Brittish Kings in succession from Aurelius and Arthur to Caduallo either to fly the Land or submit to their mercy All which in substance and much more at large we are told by Geoffrey * Galfridus Monumetensis in his Latin History de Origine Gestis Britannorum printed at Paris by Ascensius Badius Anno 1517. But the fourth Book of this Romantick story iâ— wholly taken up with the deceitful Propâ—ecies of Merlin though Prophecles much augmented says Neubrigensis by additions of Geoffrey's own inventive Brain which he foisted in as Merlin's Nor has been ashamed to endeavour to make us believe that Merlin was a great and wonderful and true Prophet indeed yea notwithstanding that Merlin's own Mother confessed him to be the Son of an Incubus Devil See Galfridus himself l. 3. c. 3. of Monmouth in his seven Books of History and out of him by others Only besides my summing up the number of Kings and fixing the period of times and contracting the whole story and digesting it into this order and Method give me leave to except the particular of Dioclesian the Syrian King 's thirty Daughters and the Incubi Devils with their Gigantic procreation For this I had from Buchanan's relation of it l. 2. Rer. Scot. as added by some others to supply a defect of so much in the new History of Galfridus 45. But as William of Newbery commonly called in Latin Neubrigensis this Geoffrey's own Contemporary in England has in Proemio Histor five hundred years since reflected with much freedom and tartness on the Vanity incredibility and falsity of his History in general and more particularly on that part of it which represents King Arthur such a wonderful Heroe so has in later times Polydore Virgil first and after him George Buchanan ruin'd the very foundation of the whole Fabrick I mean the very Being or Existence of Brute himself at any time on Earth And certainly in my opinion the reasons of Polydore seem convincing enough to any unbyass'd man For says he l. 2. Histor Anglic neither Titus Livius nor Dionysius Halicarnasseus nor any of those other Authors that most diligently write of Roman Antiquities have one syllable of this Brutus Nor could any thing concerning so much as either his Name or Existence be fetch'd from the ancient Annals of Great Brittain seeing that five hundred years or thereabouts before this new History of Galfridus had been contriv'd Gildas I mean the true and not the supposititious one complain'd that if ever the ancient Britons his Countrey-men had any such or other Annals at all they were undoubtedly either perish'd in the War at home or carried away so far abroad as no news could be had of them Besides the particular of the taking of Rome by Belinus and Brennus quite over-throws all both Fabrick and foundation of this New History if we compute the times set down in it and compare them with those in the Greek and Roman Chronicles For in this New History not only Brute is said to have conquer'd Albion about the tenth year after his Father Silvius had been kill'd which was the year of the World 4100 but the two Brothers Belinus and Brennus sons to Molmutius the XX. King and they the XXI Generation from Brute are said to have taken Rome about four hundred years after the same Brute had conquer'd this Island And yet according to the Epitome or account of times both in Eusebius and all other as well Greek as Latin Histories Rome was taken by Brennus and his Gauls even after full seven hundred years and ten had been over from the foresaid year wherein Brute is said by the new History to have enter'd Albion So that by this new History Brennus must have taken Rome three hundred and ten years before it was really taken at all Then which I think nothing can be desired more convincing to ruin both the Fabrick and foundation of this Romance of Brute And so in effect has Polydors thought before me But if you would have more yea many more unanswerable arguments on this Subject you may consult George Buchanan where he has them at large L. 2. Histor Scot. For as it ought to be no part of my purpose here to compare or confront so many or indeed any of those vain particulars in the new History of Brute either with the Commentaries of Caesar or Annals and History of Tacitus or his Life of Agricola or Venerable Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English or the Saxon Chronology publish'd by Wheloc or the most ancient Monuments of the Irish or any other sacred or profane of so many other Kingdoms of Europe or with Reason it self so it is neither any part of it to dilate or give those manifold arguments of Buchanan though they be directly home against the very foundation of the same new History or the Being or Existence at any time of Brute It sufficeth me in this place to have given the reasons of Polydore against it My purpose here being no other than in relation to the above passage in my eighth and ninth page to conclude out of all That the Irish Cronologers and Historians have at least much more probability on their side in asserting unanimously that their true Briotan who descended of Nemedus and planted a Colony in the North part of this great Island so early was he that gave the whole Island the denomination of Brittain from his own name than they on the other side have who if the arguments hitherto be conclusive tell us in effect that a false and forged Brutus one that never was in Being should have given it And indeed the Authority of the Irish Monuments in the Psalter of Cashel an authentick Book of Irish Histories written above eight hundred years since by so great and knowing and holy a man as Cormack who was at the same time both King and Bishop of Mounster and the further derivation of the more remote Antiquities inserted in it from that other Book much more ancient yet which above one thousand two hundred years since in the composing or collecting of it out of all the former Chronicles of that Nation from the very first Plantations of it had been in the Parliament or National Assembly of all the Estates at Tarach under Laogirius the Monarch supervised and agreed upon by the choicest Committee they could appoint of three Antiquaries three Kings and three Bishops whereof S. Patrick himself was one over-ballances by much the credit of Geoffrey of Menmouth in his new History of Brutus written by him no earlier than Henry II. Reign and opposed nay quite run down by his own
Conchabhar Abhraruadh was King before him for one year only but before him Lughadh Sriabhndearg had continued Monarch six and twenty years compleat That this same Lughadh married the King of Denmarks Daughter and before his Reign immediately an Interregnum of five years had been which followed upon the murder of Conair Mor mhic Eidirsceoil and before this Interregnum the same Conair Mor had reigned full seventy years in great prosperity That after the foresaid Crioffan Niadnair those who immediately succeeded in the Sovereign power of Ireland were Fearrhadlach for twenty years then Fiacha Fionn for three and after him Fiocha Fionnolladh for twenty seven years more That these those in all seven Monarchs were every one of them kill'd in such and such manner and by such and such men of their own very Nation That after the seventh of them had been slaughtered by the Athaghtuachi or Countrey Boors and Plebeians in their General conspiracy against all the Royal and noble Blood the same Athatchtuachi set up for King of Ireland one Cairbre surnamed Ceannchait or Caitcheann from his Cats face an Irish man indeed by birth but by descent originally that is in the Ninth generation before come out of Denmark as one of the King of Denmark's sons who had accompanied Lauradh Loinnsioch returning with Anxiliaries from France to recover his inheritance the Monarchy of Ireland which Lauradh did Anno 3727. according to the computation followed by Gratianus Lucius Lastly that this Usurper Cairbre Caitcheann was at the end of five years kill'd and all his rebellious rout of Peasants and their partakers overthrown by the Nobles headed then by the rightful Heir of the Monarchy Tuathal Teachtmhor who thereupon was received as such being now the C. Monarch of the Milesian Race And all these matters together with so many other particular appendants on them within the Reigns of those eight or nine Monarchs which Reigns compriz'd the whole Reign and Life too nay much more time before and after than the whole Reign or Life either of Augustus in the Roman Empire the Irish Antiquaries give us most exactly at large And yet not a syllable of Fredelenus nor of either of the Frotho's no nor indeed of any other forein King or Prince or Adventurer so much as invading Ireland within or near that time though they wanted not occasion in Lughad's Reign and in Caibre Ceannchaits as we have seen to reflect on such matters if any such had really been The same or like argument though but a Negative one yet founded on the general silence of all the Irish Annals Chronicles Histories in the greatest concern of their Nation must be to every indifferent person a clear proof and conviction enough against the vain relations of Hanmer and Campion c. borrowed by them out of Cambrensis as by him from Geffrey of Monmouth I mean at present only those Fables of their great Brittish Heroe King Arthur's forcing the Irish Kings to pay him Tribute and their appearing at his great Court and City of Caer Leon upon Vsk and the Irish Monarch that as they idly fain was contemporary and tributary to him to have been called Gillemer In any of the Irish Annals Chronicles Histories there is not a syllable of any part of these matters no not so much as of Arthur's attempting once at any time on Ireland or picking or having any quarrel with any of the Kings or Lords there Nay Keting does quote Speed himself though a late English Auhor asserting in effect the whole to be a meer fiction and that Ireland was neither subject nor tributary to Arthur And the Keting in his Preface same Keting is positive herein that there was never any King of Ireland by name Gillemer Besides that Muirchiortach Mor mhac Ercha was not only Monarch of Ireland when Arthur was King of Great Brittain but in peace and amity all his life with him Where it may be added that if Arthur was created King of Great â—rittain in the 18th year of his age and was kill'd Anno 542. as Buchanan says he was then Buchanan l. 5. Rer. Scot. in Goran Rege XLV certainly the said Muirchiortarch Mor and his two next Successours immediately following one another Tuathal Maolgharbh and Diarmuid mhac Cearbheoil were those three Kings or Monarchs of Ireland that by succession were contemporary to the whole Reign of Arthur which if Buchanan be judg consisted of 24 years And yet there was no quarrel at all by any of them with Arthur much less subjection to him Also it may be added That as Keting says Fergusius the First of Scotland was Brother to the foresaid Muirchiortach King of Ireland And consequently that the Subjects of Muirchiortach were great Conquerors in the Northern parts of Great Brittain at that very time Yea that as Buchanan himself in the Reign of Goranus the XLV King of Scotland in his Computation and History relates it The great Battel of Humber wherein Arthur was not only defeated but mortally wounded nay in effect lost both Kingdom and life was fought against him by an Army of Irish Scots however in confederacy and conjunction with the Picts and some Brittons led in the same Field by Modrocdus against him Out of all which may be seen how unlikely the stories of King Arthur in Polychronicon Hanmer Campion c. which relate to Ireland are How improbable that must be of Westmonasteriensis in his years of Christ 497. and 592. which attributing the Monarchical power of Ireland to one Gillamurius alias Gillimer one that was never heard of in Ireland represents him notwithstanding as taken there by King Arthur and thereupon the rest of the Irish Princes e'en plainly forc'd to yield themselves all and do homage to Arthur How vain also is that of Cambrensis to the same purpose written before telling us It is read that the famous King of the Brittons Arthur had the Kings of Ireland his Tributaries and that some of them waited on him in his great Court of Caer Leon. But above all the candor and ingenuity of honest Galfridus the first forger of these among so many other Fables appears in grain however Cambrensis had not the confidence either to quote him for it or to mention at all Gillamurius though a part of it And yet notwithstanding any thing hitherto either in this place or elsewhere said I doubt not the posterity of the ancient Brittons have just reason if not to glory of King Arthurs Trophies at least to be sorry for his untimely Death and heartily wish their Ancestours had not deserv'd to see their blooming hopes in him so suddenly vanish Though at the same time I must ingenuously confess there are but too too many reasons able to suspend any judicious knowing man's belief of what even Buchanan himself has in our own days transmitted to Posterity for authentick Truths of this famous Kings renowned glorious performances viz. That he had continually been for many years but most particularly
and gloriously in twelve great Battels victorious over the Saxons That he took at last even York and London from them and after this again overthrew them in very Essex and Kent where they were strongest and placed their last reserve That he forc'd the remainders of them either to fly the Kingdom or submit to his pleasure In a word That he restored his whole Countrey and perfect peace unto it And that this happy effect of his pious and victorious Armes continued until the ambition anger and which you please to call it either treacherous rebellion or just indignation and resentment of his Nephew Modroedus for being put by the right of Succession gave too great a turn to his fortunate successes chiefly by the Scottish i. e. Irish Army's falling from him and their conjunction with Modroedus against him For this also I must here particularly note that during their confederacy and sideing with him which had early begun and always continued from the very beginning of his Wars until this unlucky difference about the succession and second unlucky Battel of Humber that followed thereupon he also continued perpetually successful But so soon as they joyn'd against him fortune deserted him and together with him his Countrey But whether so or no or whether indeed any of those other particulars related of K. Arthur by Buchanan himself as true History be or be not such as he would have us believe I think enough return'd in answer to Hanmer and Campion's making the Kings of Ireland Tributary to King Arthur of Great Brittain However because I believe it not very forrein nor much beside the matter I do on this occasion add That Polidore Virgil found so little satisfaction to his mind nay so great certainty of untruth in the relations written of this so much celebrated King Arthur that although in his History l. 3 he sums up in brief that is in seven or eight lines all the Wonders of them yet as he calls them so he reputes them no other than Vulgar stories Which to have been his inward sentiment of those relations may be further seen by his telling us That although King Arthur died in the very flower of his youth yet because of his exceeding great strength of body and no less vigorous heroick bravery of Soul Posterity has reported almost the very same Wonders of him which in our own time are among the Italians Romantickly sung of Rowland Nephew to Charles the Great And this without so much as mentioning any years at all of his Reign is all that Polidore has of this great Brittish Heroe Save only that he was the son of King Vter-pendragon That if he had lived a while i. e. his just age longer he had at last restored his perishing Countrey And that but a few years before the Reign of Henry VIII there was in Glastenbury Cloyster a very magnificent Tomb erected to his memory of purpose that after Ages might be thereby persuaded he had been a Prince adorned with all whatever ought be reputed most excellently great and stupendious and that this Tomb as if it had been erected soon after his death had certainly been design'd a memorial of his glory whereas indeed the Cloister it self wherein it stood was not in being then So this Author Polydore Virgil. And yet after all I cannot but acknowledg that so great a concurrence of other Authors together with the general vogue of King Arthur even all along to our time in these Nations of England Scotland and Ireland especially considering that all sides are agreed about his having existed or been and been also about the year of Christ five hundred King of Great Brittain must argue of necessity some great extraordinary exploits of his against the Saxons Nor truly do I see how otherwise Polydore himself cou'd say That if he had lived longer a while he had enfranchiz'd his Countrey Neither is it a valuable argument to the contrary at least if we believe the judicious impartial Cambden That the Saxon Chronologie or other Saxon Authors have nothing of him and his brave atchievements against them I am sure I have my self read in Cambden this very day to this purpose That he has observ'd the Saxon Writers defective in this particular viz. That they pass over in silence what was bravely done against their own Nation and only care the recording what redounded to their glory or concern'd their own People The conclusion of all is That the Romantick stories made of King Arthur by idle Wits in part and part by others who as they were equally ambitious to magnifie their Nation and ignorant or heedless how easily they might be disprov'd out of the known undoubted Histories of the times brought his true deeds into question so far that no man knows which or what to believe of them 51. To ruin the Romantick Fable indeed of Hanmer's three incredible Armies * In my 26 page my memory fail'd me when relying upon it as having not had the Hiâ—â—ory of Hanmer by me then or at hand I suppos'd those truly incredible and false numbers of men related by him to have been really poured into Ireland by the Danes in the first true War made by them on that Countrey Whereas indeed upon review of Hanmer himself I found he related those very incredible Numbers as landed there long before that is when truly there was neither Invasion nor any kind of Number either of Danes or any other forein Enemies troubling that Kingdom invading Ireland by combination at the same time and this the very time when Constantine the Great was Emperour of Rome Cairbre Laoffachair Monarch of Ireland and Conn Ceadchathach one of the Princes of Vlster c the Irish Analists are unanimous in furnishing us abundantly with particulars Out of them it is clear and manifest that Conn Ceadehathach was not one of the Princes of Vlster as Hanmer says he was but Monarch of Ireland That he came to the Monarchy in the year of the World 5324. of Christ 122 and continued Monarch thirty five years till he was murthered by Assassines employ'd on that Errand by Tibraid Tiriogh King of Vlster which happened at least a hundred and twenty years before Constantine the Great was Emperour of Rome That as he was called or surnamed in Irish Ceadchatach in Latin Centimachus from the hundred Battels which he had fought so he fought not any of them or other soever against any Foreiner but all against his own Countrey-men the native Irish nor in all his Reign as neither indeed for some Ages before and after it did any Foreigners invade the Irish That although Cairbre Lissechaire was Monarch of that Kingdom begun his Reign Anno Mundi 5456 Christi 267. and continued it twenty seven years and so perhaps might have been contemporary for some part of his Reign with Constantine the Great of Rome yet during his Reign there was no other Battel fought in Ireland but the Battel of Gowra I am sure
call'd Leabhar na Geart i. e. the Book of Rights or Dues a Book beginning with these words Dligh gach Riogh O Riogh Cassil and a Book written wholly by S. Benignus himself 1200 years since that the particulars of that stately Progress are set down as here they follow Bestow'd by him that is by the King of Cashel when he went that Progress on the King of Cruachain a hundred Swords a hundred Cups of Plate a hundred Horses and a hundred Mantles Receiv'd from this Cruachain or Connaght King half a years entertainment and the Rising out as they call it of all the Countrey waiting on him to Tirconail Bestow'd by him on the King of Cineal Gonuill twenty Rings twenty pair of Tables which they call'd Fithchioll and twenty Horses Received a months entertainment and the rising out of that Countrey along with him to Tir-oghain Bestow'd by him on the King of Oileach fifty Silver Cups and fifty Swords Receiv'd a months entertainment and the waiting of the Countrey on him to Tullenoge Bestow'd by him on the Lord or Chieftain of Tullenoge thirty Silver Bowls and thirty Swords or Lances Receiv'd twelve days entertainment and waiting on as elsewhere to Oirgialluibh Bestow'd by him on this King I mean of Oirghialluibh eight shirts of Mayle sixty Coats and sixty Horses Receiv'd a months entertainment at Eambaine with the rising out into Vlster against Clanna Ruidhruidh Bestow'd by him on the King of Tarach 30 shirts of Mayle thirty Rings a hundred Horse and thirty Harpers Receiv'd there a months entertainment and the four chief Families accompanying him thence to Dublin Bestow'd by him on the King of Dublin ten Women ten Ships and ten Horses Receiv'd a months entertainment and this Kings Company into Leinster Bestow'd by him on the Leinster King thirty Cows thirty Ships thirty Horses and thirty young Maids which they termed Cumbhall Receiv'd two months entertainment i. e. one months from Vpper Leinster and another from the Lower which they call Jachter Laighion Finally to the Tanist of the same Low-Leinster thirty Horses thirty shirts of Mayle and 30 Swords And this was the costly splendour of that general Progress of the Mounster Kings over Ireland in former Ages when they thought fit to make or undertake it Which Feidlimidius alias Felim mhac Criomthain King of that Province did in his Reign and this no longer since then the 845 year of Christ for he enter'd upon that Kingdom An. Dom. 818. and retir'd from it to lead an Eremitical Life in the 27th yearafter What the Original or Rise of it was or what right a Provincial King of Mounster could pretend to such a Progress I do not find Nor do I know what moved Keting to desire the Reader not to account him the Author of the Relation Or why so contrary to his custome elsewhere generally throughout his whole Chronicle he quotes here the Author It had been indeed very well and much to be wish'd that he had done so all along for his other Relations But here perhaps he thought fit to do it of purpose to decline the invidious Censure of those of other Provinces for magnifying so much his own Province of Mounster without so good a warrant as Benuin's Book Whatever his motive was the Relation it self puts me upon some occasional observations here which shall be in all three First Observation That Dublin must have been a considerable place in the days of Benuinn seeing it had then or at least before his time a King and was a Kingdom of it self different from that of Leinster And therefore that however or whenever it was first after that time destroy'd yet surely none of those three Norvegian Brethren Amelacus Sitaracus Juor was the first Founder but only the Repairer and Fortifyer of it a little before the second Danish War In which persuasion I 'am fix'd by considering that in the Chorographical Tables of Ptolomy who flourish'd under the Emperour T. Aurelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius in the year of Christ 153. the People Eblani and the City Eblana is placed where Dublin has always been And therefore Eblana in Ptolomy is the very self-same Town we now call Dublin the Latin Writers Dublinium and Dublinia the Welsh Britons Dinas Dulin the English Saxons in times past Duplin and all from one of the two original Irish names of it The first of them was Dubh-linn which imports a black Depth of Water that was there And the second not only was but is still among all sorts of Irish not as Cambden has it Bala-Cleigh but Bala-Ath-Cliath importing not the Town upon Hurdles but the Town of the Ford of Hurdles Which nevertheless is consistent enough with the Tradition that when Dublin was first built the foundation was laid upon Hurdles by reason the place had been deeply moorish I could here add out of Cambden not only that Saxo Grammaticus writes how it was pitifully rent and dismembred in the Danish Wars but also that in the Life of Griffith ap Synan Prince of Wales 't is read that Harald of Norway when he had subdued the greatest part of Ireland built Deuelin I could likewise add my own animadversions on both the one other passage viz. That the Irish Chronicles make no mention of any Harald either conquering any part of Ireland or building or so much as repairing Dublin That neither does the Author of Polichronicon agree in the one or other point deriv'd from that Life Nay that according to him Sitaracus or Sitric was the Noruegian Builder of Dublin And yet I could further add that what Cambden has next out of the foresaid Life may be very true For after telling us his own opinion of the above Harald to be That he was Harald surnamed Harfager i. e. of the Fair Locks or Tresses who was the first King of Norway he adds that his Lineal descent goes thus in that Life Harald begat a Son named Auloed alias Abloicus Aulafus and Olauus Auloed begat another Auloed this had a Son by name Sitric King of Dublin Sitric begat Auloed whose Daughter Racuella was Mother to Griffith ap Synan born at Dublin whilest Tirlough reign'd in Ireland And all these matters and much more relating to them I could dilate upon were they to my purpose here But they are not because my purpose here is only to trace up the antiquity of Dublin as far as I can And this I have done before out of Ptolomy by shewing that City to have been famous in his time which was above 1510 years since But how long before is a thing wholly buried in oblivion for want of Records And therefore I pass to my Second Observation Which is to give the original of those Clanna Ruidhruidgh against whom the King of Oirghillaedh alias Vriel with his People was bound to wait on the Mounster Kings in their Progress And this I do because their name is very frequent both in the Irish Histories and in all the Provinces of Ireland among the
Records if no knowledg at least of two Thirds of their Countrey if hunting collecting and hudling together the vainest and falsest and most ridiculous hear-say stories and this forsooth of purpose to gain immortal fame by telling stupendious things not heard before if Satyrs of the people in general so virulent and frequent that in very deed the publishing of 'em may be justly suspected to have been at least a great part of the Authors chief design if a licentious humour and immoderate passion transporting him to the strangest exorbitancy either of praises or dispraises or flatteries or injuries as he stood affected in writing even of his own Party and his own King for company among 'em if his acknowledgment in Usher and the Censure of him by Sir James Ware in a word if so many excellent Qualifications as are enumerated here can render him an Author of Credit or to be follow'd or believ'd in any passage of his foresaid Books that is to any degree of prejudice either against the Irish Nation or contrary to their Chronicles or vain or exotick in it self and not warranted by better authority than his only word I say that if the matter be so indeed then for my own part I must be of opinion that no Author at all how idle or vain or unwarrantable or incredible or false or injurious reproachful and satyrical soever his Relations of any People or Countrey are is to be rejected Tho in all contingencies it must be also confess'd that wherever Cambrensis has delivered any thing to the advantage renown or credit of the Irish Nation his testimony is doubtless above all exception for so much For the confession of an Adversary is valid in all Tribunals and both Bodin and Reason requires it should be so in History Thus having sufficiently inform'd you both of Cambrensis and the true original grounds of the Quarrel of Gratianus Lucius to him I return to the finishing my account of Lucius himself And this I shall dispatch by a little farther addition first of those more special considerations that put him on writing his Cambrensis Eversus and then of his performance therein Those himself gives at large but I shall contract ' em 1. He had often consider'd that altho soon after the coming out of Cambrensis in Germany from the Press two Learned Irish Gentlemen Richard White a Jesuit and Philip O Suillevan a Soldier to undeceive the World and right their injur'd Nation had most exactly and convincingly written each of them at large against his impostures yet through ill fortune their several Books on that subject were lost and no body since had put Pen to paper to retrive this loss 2. By daily conversation among Foreigners he had found That because in so many years since that Francford Edition of Cambrensis nothing appear'd against him in Print his very vilest Relations of Ireland were taken for confessedly true 3. Having read a great number of Books and he thinks all whatsoever written of that Kingdom by English other Brittish Authors and observing how as many of 'em at least as came out since the change of Religion were so unjust to the Irish Nation that amongst all there was not so much as any one Individual who does not either report Fictions or conceal Truths or exaggerate the bad or extenuate the good Things of that People he considered at last that Giraldus Cambrensis was their first pattern 4. And which to him was more grievous yet he considered that ever since the aforesaid German Edition there was not a Book written nor a Cosmographical or Geographical Table drawn there was not I mean a Map or a Card as they are call'd describing the customs or manners of Nations come forth in any part of Europe which was not replenish'd with ugly base reflections on the Irish In so much that in all Countreys and Languages they were on all occasions become a Fable to the Vulgar and object of scorn to others These were the considerations that prevail'd with Lucius to exert his zeal for Truth and Love to his Countrey in taking all the foresaid Books of Cambrensis to pieces laying open the most material of his Errors and Calumnies for it had been endless to pursue him in the more immaterial convincing him every where and therefore when he had finish'd his Work publishing it for the satisfaction of Europe in Latin under the Title of Cambrensis Eversus which may be English'd The Cambrian overthrown How justly it deserves this name others may judg seeing the Book is extant and has been since the year 1622. when it was printed For my own part I can do no less than acknowledg what I think of it my self which is That the Author shews himself very conversant in those Letters we call Polite That above all for knowledg in History both Domestic Forein Sacred and Profane he appears excellently well qualified to write on the Subject he undertook That every where and whatever matter is treated he is very exact in quoting his Authors and where the allegation must depend on Irish Books or Writers he never omits to give 'em by name in the Margin among which are the Annals of Inis Fail the Common Annals the Annals of Anonimus the Annals of Tigernacus the Continuer of Tigernacus the Books of Reigns O Duuegan O Donel Colgan Philip O Suillevan Peter Lombard Archb. of Ardmagh Keting Primat Usher Sir James Ware That in a word his performances in this Book against Cambrensis are accurate absolute full and therefore not unworthy the Dedication they bear prefix'd to the Sacred Majesty of Charles II. of Great Brittain our gracious King I say against Cambrensis Because I do abstract wholly from his occasional or incidental Reflections any where on the State of Ireland since the Year 1640. To deliver my thoughts of them is no part of my business here What more concerning Lucius must be directly to the purpose of this place is to let you understand that although Cambrensis Eversus be not a History of Ireland yet because it is in many places fraught with choice Collections out of the Irish Antiquities and in the VIII Chapter occasionally gives together with a Catalogue of all the Monarchs of Ireland under the several Conquests even from Slanius the first of them a brief account of their Reigns and Years of the World or Christ respectively when each King began finish'd his Reign therefore next to Keting I have made the greatest use of him in the Former Part tho no where before page 130. for till I came so far I had him not And out of him particularly it is That in some places I add to such or such Monarchs the Year of the World or of our Saviour Christ's Incarnation Now what Computation is follow'd by him in giving the former Years I mean those of the World albeit he does not himself expresly inform us we may notwithstanding most certainly know by his fixing
as had natural ends to have been As for the Fir-bholgian Tuath-De-Danann Kings tho proportionably fewer e'en of either died violent deaths yet of their 18. which was their whole number fourteen lost their Lives by the Sword But how many or how few soever you please of all these and those Kings of all the Former Conquests ended their days either by the hands of other men or some prodigious judgment of Heaven or means of other extrinsick secondary Causes in such manner as rendred their deaths properly violent the Inferences out of this Catalogue are plain 1. That if we count severally each of those Milesian Princes who jointly or in Association with any other govern'd as Kings of Ireland and withal not count the same Person twice nor count among 'em either Cairbre I. surnamed Ccann-cheit or Feilim I. mhac Conruidh see Numb 98. 99. as indeed we ought not being these Two are the only noted for meer Usurpers because both were chosen one after another by the Plebeians only nay and only too to head their most hideous bloody Rebellion of 25 years continuance against all the Royal Line and as for the former of 'em viz. Cairbre he had not so much pretence of right as to have been either of the Milesian or e'en Gathelian Race but originally a meer Dane I say that if we count so we shall find the whole number of those Milesian Kings as it is in this Catalogue to agree exactly with that which Cambrensis himself 500 years since reported it to have been That is just 181 in all 2. That counting together with these Milesians those â—8 Fir-bholgian and Tuatha-De-Donann Kings who preceded them and withal admitting both Cairbre Ceann-cheit Feilim mhac Conruidh as Kings of Ireland for so they really tho illegally were in their time the Former 5 years till he died a natural death and the Later 20. at the expiration of which he was kill'd in Battel by Tuathal Teachtmhur it must follow that they make in all 201 Kings of Ireland while the Former Three Conquests held one after another 3. That hereunto adding 22 more of the Fourth and Last i. e. our English Conquest the whole Number of the Sovereign Princes of Ireland from Slainghe to Charles II. must be 223. whereof Three were Queens Macha Mary and Elizabeth A PROSPECT OF The State of Ireland c. The Former PART SECTION I. First Planter of Ireland Ciocal First Invader Partholan then Neimh and his four Sons then Fir-bholg then Tuatha-De-Danann and last of all the Eight Sons of Mileadh Fights of the former Invaders Nine of Ferramh Bolg and Nine more of Tuatha-De-Danann ruled as Kings of Ireland Fir-Bholg divide it into two parts Three Septs of these remaining still The adventures of Mileadh His eight Sons conquer Tuatha-De-Danann How Erimhon came to be sole Monarch of Ireland He was the first of 181 Kings of the Milesian Conquest Eoghun Mor 620 years after Erimhon set up the Provincial Kings Picts first appearing They are the first time and together with them all the Islands of Scotland Conquered by Aonghus Ollbuadhach Many Plantations of the Irish in Scotland Niall Naoighiallach's Invasion of that Countrey and an other by the six Sons of Muireadhach Fergus Mor mhac Ercha made the first-King of Scots that is of the Irish in Scotland Coilus King of Great Brittain destroy'd by him Three Walls built by the Romans against the Irish Kingdom of the Picts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by these Danish Wars in Ireland Bad success of Roderic the King of Britain's Son The Danes various success They are at the same time plagued as by others so by Ceallaghane King of Mounster most singularly The Monarch Conghallach Mhac Mhaoil Mhithe routs ' emâ— and kills 7000 of them in Battel What of his two next Successors in the Monarchy Briain Boraimh does Wonders in 25 Battels and last of all in that of Clantarff Field Maolseachluin that succeeded him and Hughaire mhac Tuathail King of Leinster destroy the Reliqnes of the Danes The vain attempt of Magnus King of Norvegia to revenge their Fate IReland before that fatal War broke out in the year 1641. had two different Nations like the Twins of Rebecca strugling in its Womb perpetually almost five hundred years the one called by themselves the Ancient Irish the other the Old English or English Irish And indeed the former may justly glory in the Epithet of Ancient since as Cambden himself confesses they fetch Britannia translated by Philemon Holland Edit Lond. Tit. Ireland pag. 64. the beginning of their Histories from the most profound and remote Records of Antiquity so that in comparison of them the Ancientness of all other Nations is but Novelty and as it were a matter of yesterday It is now at least 2988 years since their Fore-fathers the Sons of Mileadh alias Milesius the Spaniard in a Fleet of threescore Sail arrived in Ireland from Gallicia in Spain conquer'd it and left it to their Posterity I say at least Because although Polychronicon and Cambrensis Topog. Dist 3. c. 17. by their saying That from the Arrival of those Milesians in Ireland till the death of S. Patrick their Apostle were efflux'd 1800 years See Jocelin Vit. Saucti Patricii c. 196. agree exactly with Ketings Epocha here yet the Irish Book of Reigns makes the Arrival of those Milesians much earlier that is to this present year of Christ 1680. e'en as long since as 3480 years compleat But I follow Keting's Reformation of that Book and his Account in his Mss History l. 1. whereby he places the Milesian Conquest in the year of the World 2736. after the Floud 1086 after Moses's passing the Red Sea 192. and before the Birth of Christ 〈◊〉 308. Were it to my main purpose which is or only or at least mostly concern'd in those Milesians I could insert here out of Keting the several Plantations and Conquests of that Countrey before they knew it How one Ciocal about a hundred years after the Deluge in a small Fleet of Vessels each Vessel having fifty Men and fifty Women aboard arriving there was the First that planted it How Bartholanus and his three Sons Languinus Salanus and Reterugus with their Wives and as This Author lived as himself writes An 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech or North-Wales Nennius writes a thousand Fighting Men about 300 years after the Flood Anno Mundi 1956. before the Birth of Abraham 95 years invaded it had many doughty Battels therein with those Aborigines the Issue of Ciocal and Progeny of Cham who come thither from Afric were called Gyants because partly of their stature or corpulency which yet was no way exceeding the tallest growth of other men and partly of their wickedness endeavouring to destroy every where the Descendants or Progeny of Japhet And how this Bartholanus alias Partholan having Conquer'd at last those Aborigines and Affricans his Issue after him were at the end of three hundred
signifying much of either side at least as to Ireland in general by any of these Invasions there was nothing more heard of them or of the Invaders Much less was there ever in any Chronicle or Book that I could see either in English Irish or Latin before Cambden's Britannia came forth any mention made of Edgar King of England how puissant soever he was his having conquered a great part of Ireland and Dublin withal or indeed so much as one foot of Land there nay or so much as his having attempted any such thing And therefore I take no notice of Cambden's old Charter of King Edgar wherever he found it And so I do as little of Buchanan's relation where he writes that Gregory the Great King of Scotland who began his Reign Anno Christi 875. and ended it with his life Anno 902. invaded Ireland with a puissant Army during the minority of Donogh King of Ireland and Tutorship of this young King by Brien and Conchuair beat these Tutors in two several great Fights took Dondalk Droghedagh and Dublin visited here the young King assum'd his Tutorage to himself placed Governours in the strong Towns receiv'd threescore Hostages for their fidelity and with them return'd victorious to Scotland Certainly Ireland never had at any time since the very beginning not even since the first Monarch Slanius who reigned above three thousand years ago any King that was a Minor as Doctor Keting well observes and may be seen by any that reads over in his Chronology and History all the Reigns of the several Monarchs who during that vast extent of time successively govern'd Ireland or had the Title to govern as Monarchs there until it came under the English Power in the year of Christ 1172. There was not one of them all that came to the Soveraignty but either by election of the people or power of the Sword as there was not one in seven but came to it by this latter way that is by killing of his Predecessor Keting in the life of Brian Borumha and this commonly too in Battel Besides their very fundamental Law of Tanistry did exclude a Minor What then must we think where so many thousands descended of Heber and Herimon were at hand to claim their Titles rather than a Minor should have it But to say no more to this feigned Invasion from Scotland nor any thing other than what I have already of those former true however inconsiderable ones from elsewhere in Great Britain and to return back where I was to the Invasions both true and terrible and lasting indeed of the Danes what I would say is that notwithstanding those cruel Heathens had from the year of Christ 820. when they first invaded Ireland in the Reign of Hugh in Irish Aodh surnamed Ordnighe Monarch of Ireland and Airtre mhic Caithil Provincial King of Mounster and after that year all along in the Reigns of both that Monarch and his two Successors Conchauar mhac Donchadha and Niall Caille as likewise of Feilimidh mhic Griomthaine the Latins call him Feidlimidius successor to Airtre in the Kingdom of Mounster in several Fleets the two first one after another landing in Mounster the third in the North the fourth in vibh Cinsallach in Leinster fifth in the Harbour of Limmerick sixth of 60 Sail at the River Boyne seventh of forty Sail on the River Liffy eighth and ninth extraordinary great mighty ones at Lough-Foyle in Vlster poured in continually from time to time for above forty years together those almost incredible Numbers of men related by Hanmor yet the Irish fought 'em still and foyl'd 'em too in eight or nine Battels And although being too much overpowred by the continual supplies of new men coming to their Enemies who were absolute masters of the Seas they after a tedious cruel and continual War became at last for some little season Tributary to their Captain General Turgheise for so the Irish call him by us called Turgesius who now stiled himself King of Ireland lived in the middle thereof at Lough Ribh near the place where now Athlone is had both there and all over the whole Kingdom in every Province and Countrey and almost nook of it his Dane-Raths and other Fortifications made and strong Garrisons planted in 'em yet very soon after the generality of their Princes and people I say the generality for some of them held out still in some inaccessible places of Rocks and Bogs ' and Woods had so yielded to him their wisdom valour enfranchiz'd them most wonderfully in little above one Months time by their utter destruction of this Tyrant all his Heathen Crue For upon his lusting after the beautiful Daughter of Maolsechluin King of Meath and his desiring her of her Father to be his Concubine and the Fathers seeming of purpose to consent and then sending her privately at the Night appointed but attended with fifteen resolute Youths in Womens attire with short Swords under their Gowns and instructions what to do and then when it was very late at Night and all the rest of the leacherous Tyrants great Commanders withdrawn each to his own Apartment their seizing him so soon as he began to be rude with her and the Armour too of all the rest laid together in one heap on a Table in the Hall and then her Fathers rushing in at the same time and killing all those Commanders every one when they expected other Company each one of them one of the young beautiful Damsels as the Tyrant had promised them hereupon I say and upon the word given by Messengers who were ready of purpose flying into all parts the Irish to a man throughout the Kingdom are presently in Arms fall upon the astoâ—ish'd Danes attack and carry their Forts fight their Troops wherever they embody rout 'em kill 'em and pursue the remainders of them to their very Ships getting now away out of the Roads as Wind Weather serv'd ' em As for Turgesius himself Maolseachluin reserv'd him in Fetters for a time and then drown'd him at last in Lough-ainme So that after much about forty years bloody continual and general War at home in all the Provinces and several years most miserable and general thraldom under the yoke of such powerful barbarous and fell Tyrants who left not a Monastery or Church or Chappel standing where ever they came who placed a Lay-heathen Abbot in every Cloyster and endowed Church to gather the Revenues who layed so many times all their Countrey in Ashes who no less than four several times in one Month burnt Ardmagh the most holy See and Metropolitan City then of all Ireland who slew indistinctly for so many years both Priests and Clerks and Laicks and mean and great and rich and poor without mercy and who at last having subdued the miserable remainder imposed those burdens of Bondage on them which were such that if as to the particulars they were not attested by all the Irish Chronicles in
monuments of Antiquity their Genealogies Cronicles and Records should have nothing foisted into them nothing at all inserted but what was true and certain by the approbation of a special Committee of the most skilful in such matters That all such and only such National Concerns Annals or other matters which they approv'd after their diligent search and examination of them should be there in publick written in the Kings or Monarchs book of Royal Records called the Psalter of Taragh and whatever was repugnant to that Book should have no credit That in prosecution of this great care of their National Monuments it was that when they became Christians a Parliament of all their Estates both Temporal and Spiritual held under the Monarch Laogirius at the same Royal Habitation of the Monarchs Taragh deputed three Kings three Bishops and three of their most singular Antiquaries even Saint Patrick himself there present being one of these Bishops as the other two were Benuin and Caraioch and the three Kings the foresaid Laogirius Monarch of Ireland tho never converted Daire King of Vlster and Cork mhac Luighioch King of Mounster the Antiquaries also being Dubthach Fergus and Rosse mhac Trichim to review and reduce into order all their National Chronicles That this Committee of Nine having done so with great pains and industry they reduced all into one Book fairly written That the keeping of this original Book was intrusted after by the Estates to the Prelats and those Prelats for its perpetual preservation caused several authentick Copies of it to be fairly engross'd whereof some are extant to this day and several more faithfully transcribed out of them their Names taken from the places where they were for many Ages kept being the Book of Ardmach The Psalter of Casshell The Book of Gleann da Loch c. Whereunto I may add as not very impertinent in this place That the Irish Nation were all along from the beginning so addicted to and had so great an esteem of the knowledg of their own Genealogies Histories that Keting in his Preface anciently there have been in Ireland above two hundred chief Annalists or Historians by place and office such who had Estates in Land set apart and assign'd them and to their Issue after them in perpetuity for attending wholly that Calling and study of it every great Lord having a peculiar Sept of them to record and transmit to Posterity what especially concern'd him and those deriving from him besides what concern'd the Nation in general yet all continually subject to the foresaid Triennial Scrutiny in Parliament A care of Antiquity and History I think not to be match'd by any other Nation in Europe And as they took that care to provide for their Antiquaries so they did also as Cambden Britannia tit Ireland p. 140. hath observed the like for their Poets Physicians and Harpers by assigning them Estates in Land to live independently of others only the duty they owed their great Lords excepted still In the two other Councils of Eumhna and Cruachain the matters principally debated by the Nobility Gentry and other members of them were the concerns of all the Artificers Tradesmen and Handicrafts-men of Ireland Smiths of all sorts Carpenters Masons c. whereof a great number was summon'd to be at each Assembly Out of which number these two Councils did cull out sixty the most eminent in their professions and gave them authority all over the Kingdom allowing them distinct jurisdictions to reform all the abuses of their several Callings and suspend such as they thought fit from exercising them So that none could set up or continue any Mechanical occupation but with their Licence after they had examined and made trial of the sufficiency or insufficiency of the party concern'd These Masters so authorised they call'd in their Language Goldannuigh which imports omniscient or skilful in all Mechanicks So much of their Councils and Government as to Civil Affairs in the more ancient times both of Paganism and Christianity Of their Judicatures and Judges whom they call Brehons he that please may see very singular and wonderful things related of them in D. Keting a Reign of Laoghaire the Monarch in St. Patricks days even when they were Pagans But if you desire to know the several degrees of their Nobility or the different Titles of Honour among those Irish Noblemen who sat in their Parliaments or Councils I can only answer besides what is said already that in Ireland until the English Conquest they had none of our Titles that is not those either of Duke or Marquess Earl Viscount Baron or Knight only such Knights as they called Niadha-Nask and may be called by us in English Knights of the Chain or in Latin Milites Torquati from a certain kind of Chain put about their Necks as no more in truth had Scotland any such Titles before the year of Christ 1074. when Malcolm III. Reigned there and William I. surnamed the Bastard and Conquerour had subdued all intirely here in England Concerning which custom of not using any such Titles of Honour in Scotland particularly as likewise concerning the other of the Language spoken till that time in the very Court of Scotland though as well the one as the other may seem foreign to this place this following Note in Samuel Daniel's words may give you further satisfaction As in the Court of England the French Tongue became more generally spoken viz. in William the Conquerours Reign for of that time this Author speaks here so in that of Scotland did the English by reason of the multitude of this Nation attending both the Queen and her Brother Edgar and daily repairing thither for their safety and combination against the common Enemy Of whom divers abandoning their Native distressed Countrey were by the bounty of that King preferred and there planted spread their off-spring into many Noble Families remaining to this day The Titles for distinguishing degrees of Honour as of Duke Earl Baron Rider or Knight were then as is thought first introduced and the nobler sort began to be called by the title of their Seigneuries according to the French manner which before bare the name of their Father with the addition of Mac after the fashion of Ireland Sam. Dan. in the Reign of William I. pag. 34. Where in the Margin he hath this further observation that Scotland before this time generally spake a kind of Irish 12. As to their constant ordinary Militia what it was in their times of peace we find in the Reign of Cormock Vlfada the Son of Airt King of Ireland a little after the Birth of Christ For then it consisted of three Battalions or Divisions of equal number each in all nine thousand men under several Commanders and Fionn mhac Cuual their General who was neither Gyant nor Dane nor other Foreigner as no more were any of his Commanders Captains or Souldiers He was himself but of the ordinary stature of other men though
lesser note elsewhere And then I think seven thousand Scholars at one time in one of these Universities to wit Ardmagh c Manusc of Keting Reign of Conchuuair Mhic Donochoe is a considerable evidence how Learning did flourish at that time in Ireland To all which may be added that they were the Irish of those days who gave a beginning abroad if not to the Schools of Oxford for I have an Author by me that says they did so even to these yet certainly to those of Paris and Pavia g Monach. Sangal de Gest Car. Mag. c. 1. apud Canis Tom. 1. Antiq. Lect. yea and to many other great Colleges of Learning in foreign parts or the most famous Monasteries of Europe then that is of France and Germany and Italy have not been at any time reputed Colleges of Learning which yet we know and shall presently see they have and have indeed equally both of Learning and Sanctity been reputed the chief Schools in those parts Finally both Camhden d Supra and Spencer e View of Ireland or Dialogue between Irenaeus and Eudoxus pag. 29. acknowledge that from Ireland our Fore-fathers in Great Brittain the Ancient Saxons or English learned the very form and manner of framing their characters for writing 14. But if their Learning was great as in those Ages from the year of Christ 431. or soon after to the year 820. when the Heathen Danes and Norvegians first invaded them it was esteem'd to be the sanctity of those among them who gave themselves to a religious life was yet much more admirable as their numbers were almost beyond belief in these our days And yet Cambden that excellent Antiquary was convinc'd of both Verily Hieric of Auxer otherwise in Latin Henricus Altisiodorensis whom I mentioned before hath 800 years since written f Vit. S. Germani c. 174. Jocel viâ— S. Paâ— c. 174. that S. Patrick having converted Ireland did so prevail with the Princes and People thereof that he obtained a tenth of all the Lands Goods Cattle and Persons of the whole Kingdom to be dedicated by them to God the Men to be Monks and the Women Nuns forsaking all worldly joys most willingly for a religious life and that every where answerably to the Lands and other goods devoted so to God he built Monasteries apart the one half for Men and the other for Women From whence it came to pass within a very little time says another ancient Author of great credit Jocelinus the Monk in his life of S. Patrick 〈◊〉 174. that there was not a Wilderness nor corner nor place so remote any where in the whole Island but was replenished with perfect Monks and Nuns in so much that Ireland came to be called then by a special name The Island of Saints For says he all those religious persons lived according to the rule given them by S. Patrick in perfect contempt of all earthly things desire of celestial only mortification of their flesh and quitting of their own proper will equal to the Monks of Egypt both in merit and number Besides these testimonies tho very many more of the ancient Writers of all Nations in Europe might be quoted it will be sufficient to quote S. Bernard only in the life written by him of S. Malachias cap. v. where he relates that Ireland sent forth whole swarms of Saints into other parts of the world And therefore I need not add but little more upon this subject than the sense of Cambden and that in his own words as m Britannia tit Ireland P. 67. they are given by his Translator Philemon Holland The Irish Scholars of Patrick says he profited so notably in Christianity that in the Age next ensuing Ireland was termed Sanctorum Patria The native Country of Saints and the Soottish * See before how at that time by the name Scottish were understood only the Irish because as yet Ireland was called Scotia Major Monks in Ireland and Brittain highly excell'd for their holiness and learning yea and sent out whole flocks of most devout men into all parts of Europe who were the first Founders of Luxeu Abbey in Burgundy of Bubie Abbey in Italy of Wirtzburg Abbey in Franckland of S. Galius in Sweitzerland of Malmesbury Lindisfern and many other Monasteries in Britain For out of Ireland came Celius Sedulius a Priest Columba Columbane Colman Aidan Gallus â—ithan Maidulph Brendan and many other celebrated for their holy life and learning Of these Monks is Hieric of Auxerres to be understood when he writeth thus to the Emperour Charls the Bald What should I speak of Ireland which setting light by the dangers of the Sea flitteth all of it well near with whole flocks of Philosophers unto our shores Of whom so many as are more skilful and learned than the rest do voluntarily banish themselves to attend dutifully on the wise Solomon and be at his command Then says he I mean Cambden delivering his further judgment and continuing his relation this Monastical profession although but then newly come up was far different in those days from that of our time They desired to be that indeed which they were named to be they were far from colourable dealing or dissembling Erred they in any thing It was through simplicity not through lewdness much less of wilâ—ul obstinacy As for wealth and these worldly things they so so highly contemned them that they did not only not seek after but also refused the same tho they were offered unto them descended by inheritance For a notable Apophthegm was that of Columbane a Monk of Ireland who as the Abbot Walafride writeth When Sigebert King of the Frankners dealt very very earnestly with him and that by way of many large and fair promises that he should not depart out of his Kingdom answered him in the same sort as Eusebius has reported of Thaddeus namely That it became not them to embrace other mens riches who for Christs sake had forsaken their own Hitherto Cambden who elsewhere m p. 144. tells us that we must not wonder at the austerity of those ancient Irish Monks in their generation that is during those primitive ages of Christianity in Ireland tho nothing indeed can be more wonderful than what is written of them in that kind For says he in very late times Such as gave themselves to Religion there did mortifie their flesh even to a miracle by watching praying and fasting And verily Cambdens relation both of the sanctity and prodigious numbers too of the Irish Monks in those first ages of Christianity in Ireland before the Danish Invasion is abundantly confirm'd by the Irish Chronicles in Dr. Keting b Reign of Louis the Son of Laogirius Son to Nial the Great The Irish call him Lugha mhac Laoghaire mhic Neill Naoighiallaoi where he tells us that the holy Abbot Comghall who about the end of the first and beginning of the second century of Christian Religion in
this King William of Scotland Fol. 152. after he had been taken Prisoner by Henry II. of England carried over to Normandy confin'd at Roan until he compounded for his Ransom return'd back to England set free at York upon his paying down 4000 c. and now being on his journey home and seeing the Noble-men his own Subjects would come no nearer than Pembels in Scotland to receive him therefore took with him many younger Sons of such of the English Nobility as shew'd him most kindness in the time of his Imprisonment That he entertain'd them and detain'd them and bestow'd on them great Estates and Possessions in Scotland which he took from such as had rebell'd against him there That this of their waiting on him to Scotland was in the year of Christ 1174. And that their names were Bailliol Brewse Soulley Moubrey St. Clare Hay Giffâ—rd Ramsey Lanudell Biscy Berk Ley Willegen Bâ—ys Montgomery Valx Colenuille Friser Granâ—â— Gâ—â—lay and divers others 20. Yet my meaning is not to assert positively that the foresaid last Invasion or Plantation made by those Vlster Dal-Rheudans and six Sons of Muredus King of Vlster had been made in the time of Irelands Paganism I know it happen'd in the 20th year of the Sovereignty of Lugha mhac Laoghaire Monarch of Ireland which was of Christ 493. and consequently the very next year after Patricks death according to Ketings computation tho according to Jocelinus it must have been the next saving one I know also it is supposed by the Writers of this holy mans life especially Jocelinus c. 191. that even three and thirty years before his death all Ireland together with the Isle of Man and all other Islands then subject to the Irish had been throughly and wholly converted to Christian Religion by him Which makes it indeed very probable that this last expedition of the Irish into Scotland was wholly consisting of Christian Adventurers And yet I am not certain of it for these reasons 1. Because Jocelinus c. 49. and others tell us that notwithstanding all the prodigious wonders done by S. Patrick and many of them in the very presence of Laogirius the Monarch Father to this Lugha he was never converted but died in his Infidelity being kill'd at Greallach a Village near the River Liffy in that Country which we now call the County of Kildare by a Thunder-bolt shot at him from Heaven Tho Keting partly attributes this Vengeance of God fallen on him to his perfidious breach of solemn promise made by him upon Oath invoking the Sun Moon and all the Planets to attest it Which Oath he made to obtain his Liberty when he was foiled and taken Prisoner in the Battel of Ath-Dara by the Lagenians and Criomthan mhac Euno the contents of it being to remit for ever the heavy Borâ—imh as they call it or Fine which he challeng'd from them as due to him and all other Monarchs after him 2. Because this very Monarch Luigha in whose Reign that Expedition of the Vlster Dal-Rheudans and six Sons of Muredus happen'd tho he lived and continued his Sovereignty 15 years longer was nevertheless at last struck likewise dead by a Thunderbolt and the Irish Antiquaries of those times have interpreted this Judgment on him as a just punishment of the great disrespects and dishonour done by him to the same extraordinary wonderful Servant of God And these are my reasons for doubting For it seems not likely that if Lugha had been converted he would after his Conversion have so behaved himself towards that Saint as to incense Heaven to punish him in so dreadful a manner And as unlikely it is that in case he had so mis-behaved himself during his Infidelity he would not after his Conversion have repented so heartily thereof as to merit the Saints prayers for him to God at least for diverting so terrible a judgment And then we know how far the example of a wicked Monarch might have prevail'd with other wicked men to keep them still in their Infidelity But be this conjecture true or false nay be it suppos'd for certain that Lugha and all Ireland every one and consequently those six Sons of Muireadhach King of Vlster with their Dal-Rheudans were Christians then when they enter'd Scotland it appears notwithstanding out of the Irish Chronicles that as they were the first so they were the last and only Adventurers any where abroad out of Ireland since its Conversion to Christianity the War-like humor of its Monarchs Princes and Nobles being always after that wholly imploy'd at home in destroying one another Insomuch that they gave not themselves either opportunity or leisure to look after not so much as the paiment of Chiefries or Tributes due to them from their Dominions abroad in the Islands or Terra Firma it self of Scotland Not one of all their Monarchs for ought appears in their History having at any time since entertain'd no not a thought of employing their Arms that way save only Aodh mhac Aiumhiriogh the 10th undoubted Christian Monarch who propos'd it in his great Parliament at Drom Ceatha and was generously resolv'd upon it ' until by the customary obstacle of a Civil War at home he was not only soon diverted from that resolution but himself kill'd in the Battel of Beluigh Duin Bholg fought against him by Brandubh King of Leinster as this Brandubh also not long after was by his own Lagenian Subjects in the Battel of Cam-Chluana By all which you may perceive that Christian Religion wrought so little on that People towards the abatement of their mortal feuds that under it even in its first four hundred years among them their Princes were much more fatally engaged in pursuing one another with fire and sword and horrid slaughters to the utter undoing of themselves and weakning of their Country and making it an easie prey to Foreiners after than their very Pagan Predecessors had been whereof so many had extended their Dominions far and near and still enlarged and kept them for so many Ages abroad whatever in the mean time their dissentions were at home And this is one of those two things I would especially remark here 12. The other is That not even the greatest holiness of some of their very greatest and most justly celebrated Saints has been exempt from the fatality of this genius of putting their Controversies to the bloody decision of Battels tho they foresaw the death of so many thousands must needs have followed or at least be hazarded to follow Even Columb-Cille himself so religious a Monk Priest Abbot so much a man of God was nevertheless the very Author Adviser Procurer of fighting three several Battels namely those of Cuile-Dreimbne Cuile-Rathan and Cuile Feadha The first on this occasion At a Parliament held at Taragh by the Monarch Diardmuid mhic Fergusse Ceirrbheoil it happened that contrary to the most sacred and severe Laws of that priviledg'd place one Cuornane mhac Aodh had kill'd a Gentleman
hopes and Leagues together of those that did it Though after all the goodness of God put off a little further still that heaviest of his judgments on the Nation in general which they whether by relapsing again the third time into their accursed Feuds or whether by continuing in 'em at all times and particularly at this of their last delivery from all forein Enemies brought on themselves not only at last but ere very long And yet I must confess it was no sooner than 127 years more were over For so long still even after the second Danish War of a hundred and fifty years continuance had been wholly ended by the destruction of all their Northern and Eastern Invaders whatsoever did the wonderful mercy of God to them expect their amendment certainly a longer period of time than he expected the repentance of the old World when he had warn'd them to it by the building of the Ark. At present he was content only to add to the former losses of this Nation that which really was the last disposition to that heaviest doom expecting them as it was indeed the very last symptom of their dying Commonwealth He removed their Candlestick that is he subverted their ancient Monarchical Government The power and majesty of which as it had been for so many long Ages their only firm prop so it was the only National glory they had left after the destruction made by 200 years continual War with Foreiners of all whatsoever else had been great or illustrious in their Nation But this is now departed like all the rest For after this Maolseachluinn the II. had by death ended his second Reign of nine years continuance there was never more in Ireland any Monarch truly such never any at all I mean universally either obey'd or acknowledg'd or accounted such by the Irish in general at least till Henry the II. nay I might say till James I. of glorious memory reign'd over ' em Yet because I must confess there have been six more in Title and pretension such that succeeded this Maolseachluinn in their several periods of time for a hundred and twenty seven years in all and because the later part of my Instances are delivered in their Reigns I give them also now in ororder 29. Donochadh mhac Brien Boraimh succeeded next to Malseachluinn II. for two and fifty years says Keting and was acknowledg'd by Leath Mogh and the greater part of Ireland In his reign Art Cuilioch O Ruairck King of Breithfne violated spoil'd plunder'd the Sanctuary of Cluain Fearta Breanuinn but on the same day after he had committed this horrible sacrilegious villany was met and fought and defeated by the Monarch In his reign besides the sacking of Waterford by Diarmuid Mhaoil-na-mbho King of Leinster which I pass over because they were at least most of them were Danes that lived there at that time the other famed Sanctuary of Cluan mhic-Noise was in the like impious manner spoil'd by those Irish called the Comhacnuibh though ere long severely punish'd says Keting by a general mortality sweeping both themselves and their Cattel away In his reign Carthach mhae Saoirbhreathaigh King of Eoghanachta Casshell and a great many other Gentlemen of Note were burn'd together in a Thatch-house by Mac Longhargain mhac Dunn Chuan And after all this Monarch himself Dononachadh mhac Brian Boraimh was not only depriv'd of his Kingdom but glad to save his life by flying away and going a poor Pilgrim to Rome where he died in St. Stephen's Abbey Which in short being the whole account we find in Keting of what happen'd to our purpose here in the long reign of this Dononachadh what follows now is out of the Gratianus Lucius p. 81. Author of Cambrensis Euersus For this accurate Writer tho he delivers many excellent things of this Donogh yet he tells us That he was an Usurper on the rights of his elder Brother Teadhg the undoubted Heir of the Crown say the Annals of Innis-Faile and put him into the hands of those Ely-O-Carrol-Men who treacherously murder'd him That in the year 1027. which was the next after Maolseachluinn's death he prey'd all Meath Fingall Leinster Ossory and camp'd for two days near the Walls of Dublin without any opposition That An. 1036. with only one Vessel he fought sunk and took 14 Breithfne Ships and sufficiently reveng'd on 'em their plundering of Cluan Feart That in the year 1050 the Ossorians and Lagenians rebelling he broke again their Stubbornness and in the year 1060. having enter ed Connaght with a good Army he compell'd Ruadhruigh the King of that Proviuce to give him Hostages So much indeed Gratianus Lucius tells us consequently in the first place of this Donochadh mhic Brien Boraimhe But then going on he relates in the next of Diarmuid mhic Donochadh surnam'd Maol-na-Moa King of Leinster Nephew to this very Donochadh O Brian the Mounster King by Dearbhrogil his Daughter That he taking into his care and espousing against this Usurping Uncle the quarrel of young Toirrghiallach who was the Son and Heir of the murdered Teidhg and consequently his own Cousin German to the end this injured youth might be restored to his right made sharp War on the said Uncle Keting's pretended Monarch of Ireland That to the end he begun with Waterford in the year 1037. took sack'd and burnt it In this year 1048. he set upon Glanuson turn'd it to ashes kill'd a hundred of its defenders and brought away 400 more Captives In the same year he wasted all the Desies and return'd with an infinite number of their Cattel and very many Prisoners In the year 1058. he burnt Limmerick plunder'd Inis-Ceath fought Donochadh at the Mountain Croth and routed his whole Army In the year 1061. he made a miserable slaughter of the Momonians at Cuamchoill wasted their Countrey and put all both Houses Stacks and standing Corn into a light flame of fire Anno 1063. he burnt Limmerick the second time forc'd the Momonians to give him Hostages out of all parts of their Countrey nay soon after upon a new rebellion or insurrection of theirs plagued them again and compell'd 'em to new submissions and Hostages which Hostages he delivered all every one to the foresaid Toirrghiallach The next year which was 1064. he beat Donochadh out of all his Kingdom made him fly beyond Seas plac'd Tourrghiallach in his Throne at least of Mounster and in the following 1065. upon intelligence of Donochadh's son Murchadh s setting up for himself he march'd the last time into Mounster suppressed that Insurrection chas'd Murchadh into Connaght receiv'd the third time Hostages from all Mounster and as he had done before put them into the hands of Tourrghiallach now King after his Uncle Moreover this Author writes of the same Diarmuid King of Leinster that besides his pulling down and setting up so whom he pleased in that Province of Mounster he made Connaght also yield having marcht into it with a smart Army harrass'd
the Cattel throughout all parts and Provinces wandred safely in the Fields without any Keeper Besides the magnificent Hospitality of this Monarch is wonderfully celebrated in that Nation Add hereunto this farther happiness of his Reign That in it the weather was so mild from mid-harvest to mid-spring that both Kine and Sheep and other Beasts lay continually abroad in the open air without feeling one sharp breath of wind the Sea covered the very shores at Imbhercholptha then so called after Droichid ath by us now corruptly Droghedae or Tredath with a most prodigious ejection of all sorts of Fish and the fruit-bearing Trees were so laden that they hung down their branches to the very earth They had their CIV Monarch Conn surnamed Ceadchatach whose Reign notwithstanding that prodigious number of Battels sought by him as we have seen before was so wonderfully abounding in all earthly blessings throughout Ireland that when the Writers of after-Ages were minded to express any time of extraordinary abundance or plenty they said it was the Reign of Conn Ceadchatach or Conair Mor return'd again on Earth Now doubtless it could not be otherwise than morally impossible that considering all his Battels there should be so much plenty in every part of the Kingdom had not he as well as Conair Mor before him been as good a Governour as he was a great Warrior And yet on this occasion let me tell you that neither the one nor other excellency could save him from being murther'd Whereof because of the extraordinary contrivance and manner of it I take that notice here which I find in Gratianus Lucius though otherwise it may seem forein to this place and Keting has not a syllable how or where or whether at all this Monarch died either of a natural or violent death But thus in short it happen'd In the 35th year of his Reign which was of Christ 157. being retired without Guards or much attendance at a place then called Tuaihamâ—rois the King of Vlster by name Tibraid Tirigh employed 50 young striplings clad like Maiden Ladies to dispatch him and they did it says Lucius For it is only to him we are beholden as for many other particulars so for this very singular one indeed And if I may conjecture it was or at least might well be thought the pattern whence Maolseachluinn I. when he was yet but King of Meath derived his own stratagem whereby he destroyed the Danish Tyrant Turghesius They had their IVC Monarch Fearrhadhach Fachiuach a Prince of so much Truth in hâ—s words and such integrity in his Life and Actions that from thence he was surnamed Fachtuach signifying in Irish Truth and Integritâ— says the same Author Lucius And it is observable what both he and Keting write of one Moran chief Justice under this King that he had a ring or hoop of such Vertue that when it was put about the Neck of any Judg or any Witness whatsoever at the time the one was to give Sentence or the other to depose upon Oath if either did swerve a title from the right then presently it clasp'd and pinch'd and wrung them so close that to avoid present death by strangling they retracted openly before all the Spectators what they had so wickedly done amiss Whence proceeded that Proverbial wish among the Irish O That he had Moran's Ring about his Neck when they suspect the truth or integrity of any person But to proceed with their Kings They had their CII Monarch Felim surnamed Rachtmhor from his being a Great Maker of excellent wholsome Laws Among which he establish'd with all firmness that of Retaliation kept to it most inviolably and by that means preserv'd the people in peace quiet plenty and security during his Time They had their CIX Monarch Cormock mhac Airt who says Lucius in making good Laws for the Commonwealth and observing them exceeded by much all his Predecessors He wrote a Book of the Institution of a Prince to his Son Cairbre He had the Psalter of Taragh composed In this he gives an account at large 1. of all the noble Irish Families their propagation and relation by blood one to another 2. Of the limits not only of every Province of Ireland but of every Countrey both great and small in each of them 3. Of the Duties Rents Tributes paid usually out of each Province to the Monarch or King of Ireland 4. Of the Duties paid unto the Provincial Kings by the Lords their Vassals 5. And finally of the Rents accrewing to every such Lord from his Tenants any where in the Kingdom The Book also which they call in Irish Sanasan Chormaic and we in English may call the Etymological Dictionary of Cormock is by most ascribed to him though by some to Cormock O Cuillenan the holy King and Archshop of Mounster I pass over his Martial Spirit his Fortune and success in Arms. Tho it was he that when by the surprisal force and rebellious usurpation of Ferghussa Dubhdeadach King of Vlster he had been first dispossess'd of his Royal Mansion of Teamhuir alias Tarach and then affronted with the burning of his Beard as well by the command or direction as by the servant of the same Vlster King Fearghussa for so Gratianus Lucius calls this Northern King tho Keting names him Giolla as I have done before and then after this affront had been banish'd into Connaght yet within a twelve month accompanied with 30 great Lords 50 other Chieftains and fifty thousand men gave Battel at Criombreag to this Usurper kill'd him destroy'd his Army and for the rest of his Vlster adherents banish'd them for ever to the Isle of Man Yea it was he that after this Field was further yet Conqueror of all his other Enemies in 36 Battels more and thereby gave perfect peace to the whole Kingdom for the remainder of his long reign which lasted in the whole forty years And further also it was he that with the Sword of Justice took revenge on the more than savage cruelty of Dunling the Son of Eudeus that murdered those 30 celebrated Virgins living collegially as in the Temple of Vesta at Cluain-fearâ— in Teamhuir all of them of such Royal extraction and quality that each had 30 Virgins more in retinue which made in all Nine Hundred For that unparallel'd Savageness of Dunling this Monarch destroy'd the twelve Tyrants of Leinster who either by approbation of it or defence of him were guilty of it Lastly It was he that whether on this occasion or no I know not But this I know that Lucius writes how it was he that even to a farthing's worth made the Province of Leinster pay the old Boarian Fine impos'd upon them by Tuathal Teachâ—mhor Which this Author says consisted not of 3000 but of 15000 Cows and so many Hogs Mantles Silver Chains Cauldrons of Brass or Coppers that is 15000 of each and each Cauldron as large as that in the Monarch's Kitchin at Tarach which boil'd together at one boyling twelve
Beeves and twelve Hogs Add further yet as part of this heavy Leinster Fine says Lucius 30 either white or red Cows with their Calves of the same colour 30 brass Collars for those Cows to keep them quiet in their stabling and 30 other brazen ties for their feet also to keep them gentle at their milking Where nevertheless I must take notice that Lucius in this Account does much vary from Keting and that whatever may be thought of all other particulars of it surely the number of 15000 Cauldrons or Coppers as we call them now of that capacity seems to me somewhat incredible But leaving this to the Readers indifferency what is more proper here may be read in the same Author Lucius where he tells us next of this Monarchs port and magnificence in House-keeping which though very great indeed is however I think credible enough He had eleven hundred and fifty Waiters that serv'd him ordinarily at Table in his great Hall at Tarach And this Hall was by himself built of purpose to answer in its capacity the entertainment and attendance of a great King It was 300 Foot long 30 Cubits high and 50 Cubits broad with fourteen Doors opening into it And the daily service of Plate the Flagous and Cups of Gold Silver and precious stone at his Table there consisted of a hundred and fifty pieces in all What is besides delivered of this Monarch is That which among the truly wise must be more valuable than any worldly magnificence or secular glory whatsoever He was to all mankind very just and in his later days through the mercy of God very pious also religious towards him That so strangely powerful on a sudden were his inward illuminations That in plain terms he now refus'd his Druids any more to worship their Idol Gods That soon after he openly professed he would no more worship any but the only true God of the Universe the Immortal and Invisible King of Ages as the great Apostle calls him And finally that those Priests of the Devil by their Necromantical adjurations and ministery of damned Spirits raised from Hell God permitting it wrought his destruction by choaking him as I have said before For in such manner and for such a cause died this great and happy King of Ireland An. Christi 266. But whether he may or may not therefore be rank'd among the true Christian Martyrs I leave others to judge And the same question might peradventure be rationally put though not I confess with the same advantage of the circumstance of violence from an external cause concerning Connor the first Provincial King of Vlster made by the Monarch Eochuidh Feilioch himself the Author of the Pentarchy about 400 years before the Birth of Christ This Connor's Druyd or Magitian which you please to call him having it seems the spirit of Prophecy as you see in the Book of Judges that Baldam though otherwise a Heathen wicked Idolater had the like on a day speaking his Raptures to Connor and among other things delivering much of the Son of God that was to come down from Heaven to save mankind and was nevertheless to suffer the most cruel death of the Cross from his own beloved Countrymen the Jews whom he came to save before any others Connor says Keting on the hearing of all became so affected first with the stupendious mercy of God to Sinners and then presently so transported against the ungrateful Jews that being in a great Wood at the time of this Discourse he drew his Sword fell a slashing and cutting the Trees about him on every side with the greatest fury could be imagining he had before him still those cruel men that put our Saviour to death and continued so long in this passionate action of transport till by over-heating himself and the opening thereby of some old wounds he had in his shull he died What the Reader may answer to the foresaid Quere in relation to either of these two Kings I know not But think nevertheless what St. John Chrysostom would have answer'd it very consequently at least in reference to the former had the case been debated by him when he wrote his Three Books de Providentia Dei to Stargirius a holy Monk that notwithstanding his holiness was through the permission of God either possess'd or obsess'd or both by the power of the Devil It was also in the time of Ireland's Paganism that Niall the Great surnamed Naoighiollach in Latin Noui-obses in English Niall of the Nine Hostages because says Colgan in his Trias Taumatorge from Vlster Connaght Mounster Leinster the Britons Picts Dal-Rheudans and Morini a People of France in all nine Nations he had Hostages did reign the CXX or CXIX Monarch of the Irish Of whose great cruelty in his judgment given against Eochuidh King of Leinster because I have so particularly spoken before I will not conceal now what I have since observ'd in Gratianus Lucius of the extraordinary favour of God unto him For such we must undoubtedly acknowledg it to have been seeing it was no less than a heavenly illustration of his mind with the beams of Christianity to that degree as turn'd him wholly to a new man of perfect holiness Nor yet less than that above a hundred years after his death his Body on the opening of his Shrine or Tomb which I take to have been on Cruach Phadruig in Connaght whither the Army brought his Body from France was found entire without any corruption Nay nor a jot less than that a Christian Bishop namely St. Cernachus infected with the Leprosie was perfectly cured by visiting and lying down in that very Shrine of this Great Niall Naoighiallach So writeth Gratianus Lucius quoting for his Author Colgan And so I have done with those few of the Kings of Ireland in the time of Paganism that besides many more of that very time and their Catalogue have been for several great Excellencies other than those of warlike bravery or success renown'd in that Nation 34. But after Christianity had been among the people of Ireland universally preach'd and establish'd yea and all along from time to time in the succeeding Ages not even those very Ages following the horrible desolations by the Danish Wars excepted they had questionless notwithstanding all their intestin Feuds many more both Monarchs Provincial Kings and other lesser Kings too famous in their generation as well for other great Vertues especially those peculiar to Religion as for those of Martial fortitude and Valour Yet because I perceive this little Book to swell insensibly beyond my design I pass over much of that which otherwise I would have willingly mention'd in this place And therefore what I can briefly on the present Subject observe is First in general the wonderful Devotion Zeal Religious Liberality of the first Christian Monarchs Provincial Kings and other great Lords of Ireland who upon their first conversion not only parted so readily with the whole Tenths of their Estates real
divine things continual exercise in all good works made his memory pleasant and fragrant and sweet and precious after his death The debt of Nature that open'd for him the passage into a blessed immortality he paid in his Father-in-law's Reign over Ireland that is between the Years 918. when this Monarch Donochadh mhac Floinn be gun his reign and the year 942. when he ended it I might on this occasion peradventure call to mind what Keting has of Scanlan mor mhic Cinfoala a former King of Ossory his grateful devout liberality in applotting and enjoyning three pence a smoak throughout his Countrey to be paid yearly for ever to Columb-Cille's Abbey there at a place call'd Durramh And I might withal remember how great how beneficial yea how wonderful even to this very Scanlan himself the inducement he had to this Devotion was For it was no less than his miraculous delivery from the very extreamest rigours of a most cruel imprisonment and twelve chains of Iron loading him and no drink at all allow'd him to quench his thirst when at Colum-Cille's instance for him in prayer to God he was on a sudden by an Angel of glory from Heaven rescued the Prison at midnight enlightned his chains unloosed his Keepers thrown down the Gates open'd he led forth and then presently as it were in another instant of time both conducted and presented to his Wonder-working Patron Columb-Cille that expected him at that very hour But as I have partly before touch'd upon the extraordinary Obligation laid by this miraculous favour on Scanlan so let it suffice here to have only mention'd so much of his grateful acknowledgment thereof And yet perhaps it may not be amiss to let the Reader know what Lucius on the foresaid occasion hath observ'd of the Kings of Ossory in general or indeed rather of the Irish Historians in relation to them viz. That these Writers do seem all of them to have some peculiar esteem for the Kings of Ossory above any other of the Lesser Kings of Ireland For when they give a Catalogue of those Provincial Kings of the Pentarchy that is of those of South-Mounster North-Mounster Connaght Leinster and Vlster that were contemporary to the Monarchs whose Reigns Lives Acts they principally write it may be seen in all their Books that then also they give a particular account of the Kings of Ossory though on that occasion they take no kind of notice of any other of all the Lesser Kings of Ireland What the reason hereof may be I cannot divine if not that peradventure they valued as Lucius says these Ossory Kings not upon the extent of their Dominion which yet was not contemptible but on their bravery and Martial courage like that of Eumenes in Plutarch who when he had but one Castle remaining in his possession would not otherwise capitulate with Antigonus but upon equal terms of honour as not esteeming any man better than himself whiles he had a Weapon in his hand But be this conjecture as you please I return back to the Subject I was on before I now give the only two remaining of those Lesser Kings that are celebrated for their prudent piety in their abandoning all they had on earth taking up their Cross and following Christ in the poverty habit and mortifications of a religious Life These were Maolmordha Huadomhnail King of Cionsallach who paid his tribute to Nature Anno 1022. and Vadah O Conchanain King of Huadiarmada above a hundred years after for he ended his days Anno 1167. Nor have I any other to add to them but only Conchabhar O Cealla surnamed of the Battles King of Mannech in Connaght whose Christian vertues are wonderfully admired by all the Irish Historians Though he was a man that not only till the last continued in his station of a Prince and Governour of his People but a very notable Warriour too as you see that surname of his imports cui cognomento à Proeliis says Lucius In short they write of him 1. That he maintain'd in Clothes and Diet 3â—0 Clerks Monks and poor Women founded twelve Churches in Moanmaigha endow'd them with Lands render'd them exempt from all publick Duties built the Cathedral Church of St. Brandan at Cluainfert and the other of St. Kieran at Cluain-mhac-Noise gave these two Cathedrals large possessions furnish'd them with Ecclesiastical Books Chalices costly Palls Vestments and all other necessaries for the holy Ministery 2. That he tyth'd his whole Estate three several times bestowed the Tenth of it on the Churches the Ninth on the poor and the Eighth part on the Clerks and others that came for assistance and relief to his House 3. That after all being warr'd upon by Conchabhar Moinmhuigh son to Ruaruidgh the last Irish Monarch by the Mac Teigs also and other great Lords associated against him and an agreement made between both sides to put the quarrel to the issue of a pitch'd Battel with this caution and mutual promise that neither should come unto it nor fight in it with Armour i. e. with breast or back or Habergion or any coat of Maile and he for his part most religiously out of meer conscience of his word keeping to that caution but they on the other side without any regard of theirs having dealt perfidiously by covering themselves with Armour under their Cassocks the issue was the slaughtering of a great number of his Army the routing of the rest and killing of him among others in the Field which they call the Field or Battel of Srugheal fought in the year of our Saviour Christ 1180. 4. That upon the news thosE 360 Pensioners above mention'd of his though not living together in one place but far and wide distant in their several Habitations yet in all the hast they could arriving all of them on the third day where his Body was and there upon the sight of it first giving way to Nature by venting their extream grief in abundance of tears groans and lamentations for him but more especially because he that maintain'd so many Ministers for God had not so much as any one of them or any other such to assoil him or comfort him in the last hour then taking his head for it was cut off and sowing it to his body and this done laying themselves on their knees they prai'd c. crying to God mightily and with wonderful Faith beseech'd him to return back the Soul of their dear Benefactor into his Body while he prepar'd himself by repentance and reconciliation and the Sacraments of Christ for a more quiet and hopeful departure 5. Lastly That their prayers were so efficacious and the mercy of God so extraordinarily propitious to Conchabhar that he revived presently confess'd his sins received the holy Viaticum but then as he told them chose rather to die than live any longer Adding withal that the true cause why God would have him defeated and kill'd in that Battle was that he had not incontinently punish'd some
makes use of the same reason against the derivation of Britannia from Brutus yet having since consulted the learned Cambden's most accurat search into these matters though he has not a word of the Irish History of Briotan nor seems ever to have heard thereof I find nevertheless there may be very probable answers given out of him to that question put by me after Polydore and Keting And therefore I now decline it tho not the History it self of that Scythic Briotan's giving the denomination of Brittain to this whole Island otherwise and whether before or after his time first of all it matters not called Albion As for Abraham Wheloc's Saxon Annotations on Bedes Ecclesiastical History l. 〈◊〉 c. 1. pag. 25. where it is observed that this Island was called Brutaine and Brutannia from the name of Brutus I am not moved thereby because the Saxons had that name from the Britons themselves and the Britons though they write it Brutaine with u yet pronounce it Brittain with an i. as I am told by men skilful in their Tongue they commonly do in other words written with u. pronounce i. However I am content to acknowledg here that in putting the foresaid question I suppos'd more than I ought and that I pass'd over in silence for a worse the far better and more probable reasons nay the convincing reasons indeed What these are you may see at large in Buchanan and before him sufficiently enough for some part of them in Polydore who both the one and the other demonstrate the whole story of Brutus to be a meer Fiction though Henry of Huntingdon and the Author of Polychronicon otherwise reputed good Historians thought fit to recommend to all posterity the Fable out of Gâ—ffrey of Monmouth as an undoubted Truth However we are told I am sure by Geffrey for I have him by me That rutus was son to Silvius the son of Ascanius whom undoubted Monuments of Antiquity assure us to have been son to Aeneas and Founder of Alba on Tiber and Third King of the Latius That this very Brutus at the Age of sixteen having by chance in hunting the Deer kill'd his said Father King Ascanius and being therefore banish'd Italy went to Greece That here assembling together seven thousand Trojans descended from those who had been brought prisoners thither when Troy was burn'd and heading them he made War on Pandrasus the King of Greece defeated his Armies forc'd his Towns and took himself Prisoner and kept him so till by mutual agreement Ignoge the Princess Daughter to this King was given him to Wife and for a Portion with her besides a great mass of Gold and Silver a strong Fleet of three hundred and four and twenty sail well provided of all kind of necessaries That now putting to Sea with his Trojans and so great a Fleet to seek his Fortune elsewhere and coming to a desert Island by name Largecia the Oracle of Diana there admonish'd him to steer his course for Albion That in his way thither besides destroying a Fleet of Pirats that set on him at Sea and spoiling all Mauritania in Afric from end to end landing in France he first overthrew in Battel Groffarius the Pictish King of Aquitain plunder'd his Towns over-run his whole Countrey and theâ— again in a second mighty Battel defeated both the same Groffarius and all the other eleven Kings of France with their Forces That having perform'd these Wonders there he set sail for Albion which was inhabited then by Giants These were a prodigious Race of See Buchanan l. 2. page 43. Impres Amsterd anno 1643. where he gives an account of this no less ill-contrived than Monstrous Fable added by some later Author than Geoffrey of Monmouth as if Geoffrey himself had not store enough of indeed very stupendious Lyes Monsters some of them twelve Cubits high and all of them or at least their Predecessours before 'em begot by Incubi i. e. Fayery Devils on the thirty Daughters of Dioclesian King of Syria and his Wife Labana who the first night of their marriage kill'd their thirty Husbands and for that cause being forc'd to Sea by their said Father in a ship without Mariners or Pilot after long wandring and hovering arrived at last in Albion a meer Desart then Where it seems notwithstanding they were provided for by those wicked Aery Daemons that lay with them and procreated of them this horrible Race of Giants That upon his landing here at a place called Totnes where all the Giants were in a body to hinder his descent he fought them overthrew them pursued 'em all over the Island destroyed them utterly every where That having done so he divided the whole Countrey among his Followers gave them the name of Britons and to it that of Brittain from his own name both then begot Children especially three by name Locrinus Albanactus and Camber then built the famous City of new Troy since called London by corruption of the word Luds Town because one of his posterity King Lud not only repair'd it but strengthened it with a Wall and Towers and Bulwarks and then last of all before his death making three Royal Divisions of Brittain and erecting each into a Kingdom bestow'd the first of them together with the supreme sovereignty of the other two in some cases on his eldest son Locrinus called then from his name Loegria by us now England the second on his second son Albanactus from whose name 't was called Albania though Scotland after and on his third son Camber the third of those Divisions termed likewise from his name Cambria comprehending at that time not only the Countrey now called Wales but whatever is on that side of the Severn That by these brave Princes and their issue after 'em the Noble Cities of York Edenburg Carlisle Canterbury Winchester Shaftsbury Bath Leicester the Tower of London Westchester and Caer-Leon upon Vsk were from the foundations built and finish'd and the Brittish Nation and Kingdom most gloriously maintained at home and enlarg'd abroad even in the very Continent well-nigh all over Europe That not only Ebrancus the V. King of Great Brittain after Brutus and Builder of York with a numerous Fleet invaded France ransack'd it all over and return'd home triumphantly with the richest spoils thereof nor only his twenty sons which he had by twenty several Wives conquer'd all Germany under the command of one of themselves called Assaracus and possess'd it a long time after but Belinus and Brennus sons to Dunvallo Mulmutius the Nineteenth King as Belinus himself was the XX. made an absolute Conquest first of all the Kingdom of Gaul now called France and soon after of all Italy not Rome it self excepted which they took and burnt to ashes That Cassibellanus the Lxv. of the Brittish Monarchs when Julius Caesar invaded them at two several times fought him defeated him both times and the second time made him fly to France in such despair that he never more return'd That
few That in the most famous place call'd Degsestan i. e. the stone of Degsa almost his whole Army was slain That nevertheless in the same Fight Theobaldus Brother to this Ethelfride with all the Force headed by him was in like manner kill'd And that from that time forward to this very day says Bede meaning the day when he writ this none of all the Scottish Kings had been so daring as to give Battel to the English Nation Which being the words of Bede truly rendred in English and the years of his Age being 59. when he ended all his Works and consequently this History as himself says and seeing also that he was born Anno Dom. 677. it follows That so long at least as 136 years after Degsestan Fight the Scots engag'd not against the English But whether after this term expir'd they attack'd them again before they had ruin'd the Pictish Kingdom and at the same time seiz'd so great a part of the Northumbrian I know not 54. What you might have perus'd already page 129 as derived either from Cambrensis or Cambden or both viz. of the original eruption of the great Vlster Lake call'd in Irish Loch Erne and cause thereof is abundantly refuted by Gratianus Lucius in his Book entitled Cambrensis Eversus page 132 and 133. Which having not seen before my own foresaid 127 page had been wrought off the Press makes me give now this other which as it is much fuller so I doubt not a much better and truer account in every respect of that matter The Relation of Cambrensis Topograp Hib. d. 2 c. 9. may be rendred thus in English There is in Vlster a Lake of vast extension thirty miles long and fifteen broad unto which as they say a wonderful chance gave beginning In that Countrey which is now the Lake there was in very ancient times a most vitious Nation but chiefly and incorrigibly above all other People of Ireland given over to that sin we call Bestiality And there was amongst them a Prophetical saying That so soon as a certain Well of that Countrey were at any time left uncovered for out of reverence to it proceeding from barbarous superstition it had both a covering and signature or lock it should presently overflow so prodigiously as to drown the whole Countrey thereabouts Which accordingly happen'd on this occasion One of the Countrey Women having open'd it to bring Water home it chanc'd that before she had throughly done she heard her Child a little distance off crying and going in haste to still him she forgot to cover the Well Whereupon it overflow'd on a sudden so strangely that not only the Woman her self and her Child with her but all the People universally and all the very Cattel too of the whole Countrey for very many miles were as by a particular and Provincial Deluge covered overwhelmed perished utterly in the Waters As if the Author of Nature had judg'd that Land unworthy of Inhabitants which had been conscious of such enormous turpitude against Nature And indeed that such had been the original of this Lake it is no improbable argument that the Fishermen upon it do manifestly in fair serene weather see under them in the Water Church Turrets which according to the fashion of those in that Land are not only narrow and high but round withal and that they often shew them to passengers wasted over this Lake who are strangely astonished at the sight and cause You are also to note That the River which abundantly flows out of the same Lake being one of the nine Principal Rivers of Ireland namely the Ban did even from the beginning that is ever since the time of Bartholanus though in a much smaller stream flow from the foresaid Well all along that Countrey other Waters falling into it still as it went farther off Hitherto Gerald of Wales But to this Relation of his it will not be amiss to add what Cambden says applying it and interpreting and making this nameless Pool to be the famous Loch Erne of so many miles in length and breadth and the People destroy'd to have been some Hebridians got thither Beyond Cavan says he Cambden's Ireland in Hollands Translation of it page 106. West North Fermanach presenteth it self where sometimes the Erdini dwelt a Countrey full of Woods and very boggish In the midst whereof is that famous and greatest Meere of all Ireland Loch Erne stretching out forty miles bordered about with shady Woods and passing full of inhabited Islands whereof some contain a hundred two hundred three hundred acres of ground having besides such store of Pikes Truots and Salmons that the Fishermen complain oftner of too great plenty of Fishes and of the breaking of their Nets than they do for want of draught This Lake spreadeth not from East to West as it is describ'd in the common Maps but as I have heard those say who have taken a long and good survey thereof first at Bel Tarbet which is a little Town farthest North of any in this County of Cavan it stretcheth from South to North fourteen miles in length and four in breadth Anon it draweth in narrow to the bigness of a good River for six miles in the Channel whereof standeth Iniskellin the principal Calste in this Tract which in the year 1593. was defended by the Rebels and by Dowdal a most valiant Captain won Then coming Westward it enlargeth it self most of all twenty miles long and ten broad as far as to Belek near unto which is a great downfal of Water and as they term it that most renowned Salmon's Leapue à common speech among the Inhabitants thereby is That this Lake was once firm ground passing well husbanded with Tillage and replenish'd with Inhabitants but suddenly for their abominable buggery committed with Beasts overflown with Waters and turn'd to a Lake Though Almighty God says Giraldus Creator of Nature judg'd this Land privy to so filthy Acts against Nature unworthy to hold not only the first Inhabitants but any other for the time to come Howbeit this wickedness the Irish Annals lay upon certain Islanders out of the Hebrides who being fled out of their own Countrey lurked there So he Against these Relations the one of Giraldus Cambrensis and the other of Cambden though the later as to the original of this Lake is wholly grounded on the former Gratianus Lucius opposes many Reasons 1. That all the Irish Annals and Histories who treat of Loch Ern attribute the original of it not to the overflowing of any Well or River but to a meer eruption of Waters out of the very entrails of the Earth without any kind of mention of Bestiality or other sin of the Inhabitants which might at all any way deserve it 2. That this Eruption happened in the Reign of Fiacha Lauranne * But Keting says it happen'd under the Reign of Tighermhais alias Tightermhuir forty six years before Fiacha Labhraina came to be King King of Ireland
That upon this success at least not long after it the Picts looking big growing unruly and even aspiring to the Command of that whole Province of Leinster but the Monarch Herimon made acquainted with it drawing together a greater Power then they dared fight they were compell'd to accept of his Terms and hye them away out of hand with his directions and assistance for the Northern parts of Great Brittain 6. That nevertheless before their departure they obtain'd of Herimon three Irish Ladies by name Beanbhreasi Beanbhuais and Beanbhuaisdhne who had been the Widows of three of Herimons Commanders and taken these names from 'em kill'd in the late War with Tuath-De-Danann and these were all the Women they could obtain at least then though upon that very condition told us by Bede The first of 'em married to Cathluan the chief Commander now of the Picts for it seems his Father Gud was before this time departed the World the other two married to two more of their Nobles Nor could any of them obtain leave to stay in Ireland but only six viz. Trosdan the foresaid Magitian Soilean Vlpre Neachtan Nar Aongus and Leatan who had possessions given them for ever by Herimon in the Countrey of Breagh Mhoigh now call'd by us East and West Meath 6. That the foresaid Cathluan was the first King of the Picts in Cruithin-Tuath or Tuath Chruinigh for by both these compound names indifferently the Irish Books call that Countrey in the North of Brittain which the Picts erected to a Kingdom and call it so properly enough as importing in English the Lordship Lordship or Dominion of the Picts the simple word Tuath signifying in Irish a Lordship and Cruinigh the Picts themselves 7. That after him in a succession reign'd in the same Countrey at least in some part of it and of the same Pictish Nation Threescore and Ten Kings more to Constantine the last of ' em And these being the Heads of those particulars that concern them in the Psalter of Cashel written by the Holy Cormock O Cuilenain Arch Bishop and King of Mounster eight hundred years since and by consequence written either immediately before or immediately after I am sure much about the time of their last fatal overthrow by his Countrey men the Irish and their Issue in Scotland we need no longer question either the time of that Pictish Nation 's first appearance or the Countrey they came from to the Western parts of Europe As neither indeed whence they deriv'd the custom of painting themselves They might have learn'd this from the Agathyrsi in Thracia if themselves had it not before yea they might be the first that us'd it in Great Brittain and the Brittons might have only had it from them for any thing said to the contrary And they came as early to Ireland and Scotland both as the Reign of Herinton the first Milesian Monarch of Ireland after he had kill'd his elder Brother Heber to whom he was but joyn'd in Sovereignty while Heber lived Nay we need not question how long this Pictish Kingdom lasted For seeing it began at least as early as Herimon's death I mean by this account in the Psalter of Cashel and that by Primat Vshers account it continued to the year of Christ 840. then we must conclude that according to Gratianus Lucius's computation of the years of the World and years also of all the several Irish Monarchs Reigns the Pictish Kingdom lasted 2623 years in all For this Author fixes the death of Herimon in the year of the World 3516. and the Birth of Christ in the year 5199. as Eusebius Caesariensis one of the Fathers of the first General Council of Nice did long before him What more I have to say in reference to the Picts their Kingdom or Kings is That as I was writing this Reflection Mr. Langhorn's Introduction to the History of England being brought me by chance and looking it over I observ'd That altho the ingenious Author gives no more light therein concerning the Countrey whence those Picts came first to Ireland and thence to Scotland nor of their Leaders name nor of the time of their arrival amongst us than other late Writers especially Campion and Hanmer did before him who call that Leader King Roderick and say this Roderick came to Ireland from Scandia alias Scandinavia which goes under the name of Scythia Germanica or the German Scythia yet he gives therein page 197 a Catalogue of the Brittish Kings and years of their several Reigns partly out of John Fordon's M. S. Scoto-Chronicon and partly out of Hector Boethius who adds to the 76 Kings in Fordon five more So that both numbers put together make just the very same number of Pictish Kings which the Psalter of Cashel has Though I must confess there is no other agreement in any point between that Psalter these Authors either as to the names of those Kings or years of their Reigns or total sum of these years Neither is there in that whole Catalogue any Roderick either as first or last or any at all of them nor any thing near his name The very same you may assure your self of Cathluan whom nevertheless you have seen before out of the Psalter of Cashel to have been the first Pictish King As for the total sum of the years of their Reign which by casting it up out of the several Reigns every body may see is 1165. it plainly comes short by 1452 years of the former account derivable from the Psalter of Cashel and Vsher Lucius Besides it necessarily must suppose the Pictish Kingdom began in Scotland e'en four hundred years full before any Picts landed in Scotland or came from Scandinavia to Scotland or Ireland which does not stand with the time of their coming set down by our new Historians and last of all by Langhorn himself As for the names express'd in that Catalogue all I can say is that if we give credit to Nennius a Brittish Author that liv'd as himself writes an Christi 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech if besides we suppose his Book rightly translated into Irish in O Duvegans Miscellanies and if withal we believe that Gratianus Lucius quoting both would not impose upon us nor I on you or my self what follows must be That we give no kind of credit to the foresaid Catalogue drawn out of Fordon and Boethius not even I mean as to those names of the Pictish Kings contain'd therein For the same Gratianus Lucius after letting us know in his Cambr. Evers page 93. That himself had a Copy of those Miscellanies and among 'em the Catalogue of all the Pictish Kings written by the said Nennius then presently though upon another occasion names five and forty of 'em and I am sure that of this very number tho only a part of Nennius's Catalogue there are at least six and twenty names that have no affinity with no resemblance at all nor imitation of any in the whole Bedâ—oll
enjoyed the Sovereign Power of Albain The other two were Mac Con otherwise called Lughae and Criomthan mhac Fiodaigh 4. There went also thither about the year of Christ 150. on his own account with considerable Forces Cairbre Riadfadae Son to the 106. Monarch of Ireland by name Conaire mhac Mogha Lauae who Conquer'd large Dominions for himself in the more Northern parts of that Kingdom and left his Posterity after him there who are those or at least a great and the more ancient part of those called by â—â—da Nistor Eccles l. 1. c. 1. Venerable Bede Dal-Rheudini as being the Inhabitants and first Irish Planters of Dal-Rheuda or as the Irish call it Dal-Riada in Scotland Whether it be not called so from that Cairbre Riadbfadae that is from this surname of his Riadfadae being changed by V. Bede to Rheuda as it might easily be I know not But this I know that Dal which is prepos'd in the composition signifies Part or Lot And so the whole word Dal-Rheuda or Dal-Riada signifies the Part of such a man who was the chief in Conquering it 5. The foresaid Mac Con alias Lughae within a few years more at least within less than thirty purfuing the same examples Landed in Scotland with a power of his Country-men Adventurers For it was from thence he returned back into Ireland to fight the Battel called Maigh Mhuchruimhe wherein being Victorious and killing the Monarch Art Aoinfir he made himself Sovereign in his place 6. This Mac Con's Grand-Son Fiachae Ceanann entring likewise Scotland not only gain'd large possessions but left his Posterity after him to give a beginning to Mac Allin and his Family there who are all descended from him 7. Colla Vais who had been four years tho by Usurpation the 115. Monarch of Ireland when he was by the lawful Heir his own Cousin German Muireadhach Tiriogh defeated in Battel and forc'd to flie adventuring over to Scotland with the two other Collaes his Brethren and rest of his adherents and acquiring great scopes of ground there became the Grandsire of the Clan Ndomnaills both in Scotland and Ireland For all of this Surname in either Kingdom in their several generations or branches derive their extraction in a direct line from this Colla Vais and consequently neither from Herimon or Heber but from i the a Cousin of theirs who was the Son of Breoghuin mhic Bratha of the same stock with Milesius 8. Next after that Colla did Criamhthan mhac Fioda the 120. King of Ireland with a Royal Army invade Albain I mean Scotland He had in his company another very powerful Noble man called Earc mhac Eocha Muingreahar mhic Aongussa And from him the Septs not only of Clann Eirc and Cineall Gabhrain but those of Cineall Conghvill Cineall Naonghussa and Cineall Conriche Anile with their distinct propagations and Families in Scotland ever since to this present are descended 9. Corck mhac Luighdhioch is the next in order that deserves mention Because that by the false and wicked surmises of his Step-mother upon his refusal to consent to her incestuous Lust she was Daughter to Fiachac mhac Reill King of Ely falling into his Fathers displeasure and thereupon forced to seek his fortune in Scotland and arriving there accompanied with such armed Troops as he could raise and then by his own deserts coming into such extraordinary favour with the Scottish King Fearradhach Fionn otherwise called Fionn Chormac that he obtain'd his Daughter call'd Muingfionn to Wife he had issue by her besides other Sons Manie Leambna from whom the Sept of Leambnuidh in Scotland and Cairbre Cruithnioch from whom the Families of Eoghanacht Muighe Geirghin in the same Kingdom were propagated 10. Soon after him Niall Naoighiallach the 121. and most powerful indeed of all the Irish Monarchs that were at any time before or since entred Scotland with so great a force that there was no resisting him But having said enough of him before I need not add to it here 11. In the last place and year of Christ 493. much about ninety three years after the said War-like Prince Niall the Great surnamed also Naoighiallach had been kill'd in France and in the 20. year of Lugha the 125 Monarch Son to Laogirius his Reign the six Sons of Muireadhach * So says Keting in the Reign of Niall Naoighiallach yet formerly in the Reign of Oilioll Molâ— he calls them the six Sons of Eirc mhic Eachae Muinreamhair mhic Eoghuin Mhic Neill King of Vlster being six Brothers of Mairchiartach Mor that soon after came to be Monarch of Ireland namely to the two Fergusses the two Aongussaes and the two Loarns together with other Septs or Families of Dal-Riada in the same Province of Vlster adventur'd for Albain and whether or no they gave the denomination of Dal-Rheuda or Dal-Riada to the Country there mostly possessed by them tho at least for a great part of it planted before as we have seen by the Progeny of Cairbre Rioghfadae †Eochae Muinreamhar of the Progeny of Cairbre Ridhfadae had two Sons Earcha and Elchon From the former the the Families of Dal-Riada in Scotland were descended From the later those of Dal-Riada in Ulster So Keting soys in the Reign of Art Aonsir where he further says that the two Dal-Riades or Families of them have been distinguished by the surname or nick-name of Russach given those of Dal Riada in Ulster the Irish Chronicles are plain and positive herein that they gave to themselves and all their Country-men the Scots of Albion the first King that ever they had of the name of Fergus who was one of those six Brothers And it is he that both the Irish and English Scots have since for his honor surnamed the Great as likewise Fergus I. Not that he was indeed the first Irish or Scottish King of Dal-Rheuda wherein Buchanan and all the rest of his Fellow-Historians that were English Scots are extreamly out for long before that very Fergus there have been many Scottish Kings of Irish descent in Dal-Rheuda but that he was greater than any of the former and the first of his own name that ruled there To conclude so many were the Invasions and so great the Plantations made in that Country by the Irish Milesians and other Gathelians in their time of Paganism that as they Conquer'd so they planted it throughly at last having quite expell'd the Picts And so they kept it possess'd intirely by themselves as Lords thereof for some Ages That is until after the Norman Conquest of England very many of the Saxons retiring thither under their protection others invited in and accompanying William the Scottish King and both of them multiplying mightily they not only made the other Nations which are now called English Scots but by degrees gained from them as we see even all other the better parts of that Kingdom besides the Lowlands I say accompanying William the Scottish King For Stow in his Chronicle tells That