faithfull Knights or upon the faith of a Knight how far they were from base gaine and lucre and what manner of paiment or Aid is to be levied for Knights fees when as the Prince the Kings eldest son should be invested in this honour c. I leave it for others to write as also when they had so far offended that being to suffer death therfore they were first dispoiled of their ensignes and of their degree to wit their militarie Girdle ungirted the Sword taken away their Spurs cut off with an hatchet their Gantlets or Gloves plucked from them and the Escutcheon of their Armes reversed like as in the degrading Ecclesiasticall order all the Ecclesiasticall ornaments booke chalice such like are taken away Let the curious also enquire whether those knights were truly by some termed Knights Bachelars or whether Bachelars were of a middle degree between these Knights and Esquires For in the Kings Record are read The names of Knights of Bachelars and of Valects of the Earle of Gocester and of others Whereupon there be that would have Bachelars so called as one would say Bas-Chevaliers that is knights of low degree although other derive that name from the French verbe Battailer which signifieth to combate or fight it out Withall let them weigh and consider whether these dignities of knighthood in times past so glorious as long as they were more rare and bestowed onely as the reward of vertue may not be vilified when it becommeth common and lieth prostitute as it were to the ambitious humour of every one Whereof in the like case Aemilius Probus complained long since among the Romans Next in degree after these Knights are Esquires termed in Latine Armigeri that is Costrels or Bearers of Armes the same that Scutiferi that is Shield-bearers and Homines ad arma that is Men at Armes the Goths called them Schilpor all of carrying the shield as in old time among the Romans such as were named Scutarii who tooke that name either of their Escutcheons of armes which they bare as Ensignes of their descent or because they were armour-bearers to Princes or to the better sort of the Nobilitie For in times past every Knight had two of these waighting upon him they carried his Morrion and shield as inseparable companions they stuck close unto him because of the said Knight their Lord they held certaine lands in Escutage like as the knight himselfe of the King by knights service But now a daies there be five distinct sorts of these for those whom I have spoken of already be now no more in any request The principall Esquires at this day those are accounted that are select Esquires for the Princes bodie the next unto them be knights eldest sonnes and their eldest sonnes likewise successively In a third place are reputed younger sonnes of the eldest sonnes of Barons and of other Nobles in higher estate and when such heires male faile togither with them the title also faileth In a fourth ranke are reckoned those unto whom the King himselfe together with a title giveth armes or createth Esquires by putting about their necke a silver colar of SS and in former times upon their heeles a paire of white spurres silvered whereupon at this day in the West part of the Kingdome they be called White-spurres for distinction from Knights who are wont to weare gilt spurres and to the first begotten sonnes onely of these doth the title belong In the fifth and last place bee those ranged and taken for Esquires whosoever have any superiour publike office in the Common-weale or serve the Prince in any Worshipfull calling But this name of Esquire which in ancient time was a name of charge and office onely crept first among other titles of dignitie and worship so farre as ever I could observe in the raigne of Richard the Second Gentlemen or the common sort of Nobilitie bee they that either are descended of worshipfull parentage or raised up from the base condition of people for their vertue or wealth Citizens or Burgesses be such as in their owne severall citie execute any publike office and by election have a roome in our High Court of Parliament Yeomen are they whom some call Free-borne or Free-holders and our law termeth Homines Legales that is Lawfull men and who of Free-hands may dispend fortie shillings at least by the yeare Lastly Craftsmen Artisans or Workemen be they that labour for hire and namely such as sit at worke Mechanicke Artificers Smiths Carpenters c. Which were termed of the Romans Capite censi as one would say Taxed or reckoned by the poll and Proletarii LAVV COVRTS OF ENGLAND AS touching the Tribunals or Courts of Justice of England there are three sorts of them among us for some bee Ecclesiasticall others Temporall and one mixt of both which being the greatest and most honourable of all is called by a name of no great antiquitie and the same borrowed out of French The Parliament The Anglo-Saxons our ancestours termed it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is An assembly of the wise and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A Counsell and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Greeke word Synodus that is A great Synod or meeting The Latine writers of that and the ensuing age called it Commune Concilium Curiam altissimam Generale placitum Curiam magnam Magnatum Conventum Praesentiam Regis Praelatorum Procerumque collectorum Commune totius Regni Concilium c. That is The Common councell The Highest court The Generall Plea The Great court The meeting of States The Presence of the King Prelates and Peeres assembled together The Publike Councell of the whole Kingdome c. And like as the Generall Councell of all Etolia is named by Livie PANAETOLIUM so this may well be termed PANANGLIUM For it consisteth of the King the Clergie the superior Nobles the elect Knights and Burgesses or to speake more significantly after the Lawyers phrase of the King the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the Commons which States represent the body of all England It is not held at set and certaine times but summoned by the King at his pleasure so often as consultation is to be had of high affaires and urgent matters that the Common weale may sustaine no damage at his will alone it is dissolved Now this Court hath soveraigne and sacred authoritie in making confirming repealing and expounding Lawes in restoring such as be attainted or outlawed to their former estates in deciding of the hardest controversies betweene private persons and to speake at a word in all causes which may concerne either the safetie of the State or any private person whatsoever The next Court after this in the daies presently following the Normans comming and some good while after was The Court of the King himselfe and the same kept in the Kings house or Palace accompanying the King whither so ever he retired or went in progresse
For in the Kings Palace a place there was for the Chancellor and clerks such as were imployed about writs or processes and the seale for Judges also that handled as well Pleas as they terme them pertaining unto the Kings Crown as between one Subject and another There was also the Exchequer wherein the Lord Treasurer Auditours and Receivers sat who had the charge of the Kings revenues treasure and coffers Every of these being counted of the Kings houshold in ordinary had allowed them from the King both dier and apparell Whereupon Gotzelinus in the life of S. Edward calleth them The Lawyers of the Palace John of Salisburie The Court Lawyers But beside these and above them all was one appointed for administration of Justice named Iustitia Angliae The Iustice of England Prima Iustitia The principall Iustice The Iusticer of England and chiefe Iusticer of England who with a yearely pension of a thousand Marks was ordained by a Commission or Charter running in these termes The King to all Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors Earles Barons Sheriffes Forresters and all other liege and faithfull people of England greeting Whereas for the preservation of our selves and the peace of our Kingdome and for the ministring of Iustice to all and every person of our Realme we have ordained our beloved and trustie Philip Basset Chiefe Iusticer of England so long as it shall please us wee charge you upon the faith and allegiance that yee owe unto us and doe straightly enjoyne you that in all things which concerne the office of our foresaid Iusticeship and the preservation of our peace and Kingdome yee be fully attendant and assistant unto him so long as be shall continue in the said Office Witnesse the King c. But when as in the raigne of Henry the Third enacted it was that the Common Pleas of the Subjects should not follow the Kings Court but be held in some certain place within a while after the Chancerie and the Court of the Pleas of the Crowne together with the Exchequer were translated from the Kings Court and established in certaine places apart by themselves as some I know not how truely have reported Having premised by way of Preface thus much I will proceede to write briefly somewhat of these Courts and others that arise from them according as they are kept at this day And whereas some of them bee Courts of Law to wit the Kings Bench The common Bench or Pleas the Exchequer the Assises the Star-Chamber the Court of Wards and the Admirals Court others of Equitie namely The Chauncerie the Court of Requests The Counsels in the Marches of Wales and in the North parts of every of these in due order somewhat as I have learned of others The Kings Bench so called because the Kings were wont there to sit as Presidents in proper person handleth the pleas of the Crowne and many other matters which pertaine to the King and the Weale publique and withall it sifteth and examineth the errors of the Common Pleas. The Judges there beside the King when it pleaseth him to be present are the Lord chiefe Justice of England and other Justices foure or more as the King shall thinke good The common Pleas hath that name because in it are debated the common Pleas betweene Subject and Subject according to our law which they call common Heerein give judgement The chiefe Iustice of the common Pleas with foure Justices assistants or more Officers attendant there be The Keeper of the Brieffes or writs Three Protonotaries and inferiour Ministers very many The Exchequer tooke that name of a boord or table whereat they sat For thus writeth Gervase of Tilburie who lived in the yeere 1160. The Exchequer is a foure cornered boord about ten foote long and five foote broad fitted in manner of a table for men to sit round about it On every side a standing ledge or border it hath of the bredth of foure fingers Vpon this Exchequer boord is laid a cloth bought in Easter terme and the same of black colour and rewed with strikes distant one from another a foote or a span And a little after This Court by report began from the very Conquest of the Realme and was erected by King William howbeit the reason and proportion thereof taken from the Exchequer beyond Sea In this are all causes heard which belong unto the Kings treasury Judges therein be The Lord Treasurer of England The Chancellor of the Exchequer The Lord chiefe Baron with three or foure other Barons of the Exchequer The servitours and Ministers to this Court are The Kings Remembrancer The Lord Treasurers Remembrancer The Clerke of the Pipe The Controller of the Pipe Auditours of the old revenues five The Forrein Opposer The Clerke of the Estreights The Clerke of the Pleas The Mareschall The Clerke of the Summons The Deputie Chamberlaines Secondaries in the office of the Kings Remembrancer two Secondaries in the office of the Lord Treasurers Remembrancer two Secondaries of the Pipe two Clerkes in divers offices foure c. In the other part of the Exchequer called the Receipt these bee the Officers Two Chamberlains a vice Treasurer Clerke of the Tallies Clerke of the Pels Tellers foure Ioyners of Tallies two Deputie Chamberlaines two The Clerke for Tallies The Keeper of the Treasurie Messengers or Pursevants ordinarie foure Scribes two c. The Officers likewise of the Tenths and first Fruits belong to this Court who were ordained when as the Popes authoritie was banished and abolished and an act passed by which it was provided that the Tenths and First fruits of Churchmens Benefices should be paid unto the King Beside these three Kings Courts for law to cut off delaies to ease the subject also of travell and charges King Henrie the Second sent some of these Judges and others yearely into every Shire or Countie of the Realme who were called Iustices Itinerant and commonly Iustices in Eyre These determined and gave judgement as well of the Pleas of the Crowne as the Common Pleas within those Counties whereunto they were assigned For the said King as Matthew Paris saith By the counsell of his sonne and the Bishops together appointed Iustices to sixe parts of the Kingdome in every part three who should sweare to keepe and maintaine the right belonging to every man sincerely and uncorruptly But this ordinance vanished at length under Edward the Third Howbeit within a while after by Parliamentary authoritie it was in some sort revived For the Counties being divided into certaine Circuits as wee terme them two of the Kings Justices together twice in the yeare ride about and keepe their Circuits for to give definitive sentence of the Prisoners and as we use to speake to deliver the Goales or Prisons Whereupon in our Lawyers Latin they bee called Iusticiarii Gaolae deliberandae that is Justices for Goale deliverie as also to take Recognisances of Assises of new Deseisine c. whereof they be named
gartrisht faire with cockles sets no store Nor Rhodes with Alcal and Elba regard the robes with Crosse Sightly beset so that they count their Orders all but drosse Compar'd with Knighthood this of thine which onely beares the name Cease now to joy cease now at length to wonder at the same All yeeld to one what ev'r thou hast in one is drowned all For greater glorie grow's to thee and honour more doth fall In that there dwels upon my banke and seated is in thee Elizabeth and therewith Tamis seeming to bow his knee And gently crouch obeisance made and then he thus went on Elizabeth of Englishmen sole Goddesse Saint alone Whose praise-worth vertues if in verse I now should take in hand For to comprize on Meliboc an hill that high doth stand I might as easily set the Alps or number all my sand If some I would in silence passe what ever I suppresse Will greater proove than all the rest If I my selfe addresse Her formost acts and travailes old to count I then shall find That those of present times to them will draw away my mind Say that of justice I relate more shin's her mercies lore Speake I of her victorious armes unarm'd she gained more That piety now flourisheth that England feares no warre That none rules law but unto law all men obedient are That neighbour Scots be not enthral'd to Frenchmen rigorous That Irish wild doe now cast of their fashions barbarous That shag-hai'rd Ulster Kern doth learne civility anew The praise and thanks is hers alone What is not to her due Those Goddesses that vices chase and are beseeming best A Prince so rare are seated all and shrined in her brest Religion First puts her in mind to worship God aright And Iustice teacheth to preferre before all gaine the right Prudence adviseth naught to doe rashly without fore-cast Then Temperance perswades to love all things both pure and chast And Constancie her resolute mind doth settle firme and fast Hence justly she ALVVAYS THE SAME claimes and keepes to the last Who can discribe in in waving verse such noble vertues all Praise-worthy parts she hath alone what all ye reckon shall Then happinesse long life and health praise love may her betide So long as waves of mine shall last or streame and bankes abide So long may shee most blessed Prince all Englands scepter sway Let both my course and her life end in one and selfe-same day The rest of Barkshire which lieth Southward from Windsor is shadowed with woods and thickets commonly called the Forrest of Windlesor in which the townes and villages stand but thinne whereof Ockingham is of greatest name by reason of the bignesse thereof and trade of clothing but very full it is of game in everie place Now for as much as we have oftentimes made mention and shall still of the Forrests what a Forrest is and the reason of that name if you desire to know but see you laugh not thereat take it heere out of the blacke booke of the Exchequer A Forrest is a safe harbor and abiding place of deere or beasts not of any whatsoever but of wilde and such as delight in woods not in every place but in some certaine and meet for that purpose and hereupon a forrest hath the name as one would say Feresta that is a station of wild beasts And incredible it is how much ground the kings of England have â—uffered every where to lie untilled and set a part for to empale enclose such deere or as they use to say have afforested Neither can I think that any thing else was the cause thereof but onely the overmuch delight in hunting or to maintaine the Kings houshold although some attribute it to the infrequencie of the people to inhabit the countrey seeing that since the Danes were heere they for a long time afforested more and more and for the maintenance and keeping of such places ordained most straight lawes and an overseer whom they cal Protoforestarius that is Chiefe forrester or Master of the Forrests who should heare causes belonging unto Forrests and punish either by death or losse of limb whosoever killed Deere within any parke or chase But Iohn of Sarisburie shal in his own words tell you these things briefely out of his Polycraticon that which you may marvell more at to lay grins for birds to set snares to allure them with nooze or pipe or by any waies laying whatsoever to entrap or take them is oftentimes by vertue of an Edict made a crime and either amerced with forfeiture of goods or punished with losse of limbe and life You have heard that the fowles of the aire and fishes of the sea are common But these ywis belong unto the King which the Forrest Law taketh hold of and claimeth wheresoever they flie With-hold thy hand forbeare and abstaine lest thou also bee punished for treason fall into the hunters hand as a prey Husbandmen are debarred their fallow fields whiles Deere have libertie to stray abroad and that their pasture may bee augmented the poore farmer is abridged and cut short of his grounds What is sowne planted or graffed they keepe from the husbandmen that bee tenants both pasturage from heardmen drovers and graziers and Bee-hives they exclude from floury plots yea the very Bees themselves are scarcely permitted to use their naturall libertie Which courses seeming too inhumane were the occasion otherwhiles of great troubles and uproares so long untill in the end by the rising and revolt of the Barons there was wrested from King Henry the third the Charter de Foresta wherin those rigorous laws being made void he granted others more indifferent whereunto they are bound even at this day who dwell within compasse of the Forrests And from that time two Justices were appointed for these causes whereof the one overseeth all Forrests on this side the river Trent the other all the rest beyond Trent as farre as Scotland with great authoritie Throughout all this Province or county as wee find in the Survey booke of England The Taine or Kings Knight holding of him as Lord whensoever he died left unto the King for a reliefe all his armour one horse with a saddle and another without a saddle And if he had either hounds or hawkes they were tendred and presented unto the King that hee might take them if he would When Gelt was given in the time of King Edward the Confessour generally throughout all Barkshire an Hide of Land yeilded three-pence halfe-penny before Christmas and as much at Whitsontide Thus much of Barkshire which as yet hath given the title of Earle to no man Within the compasse of this shire are parishes 140. THese Regions which hitherto we have travailed thorow that is to say of the Danmonij Durotriges Belgae and Attrebatij what time as the Saxons bare Soveraigne rule in Britaine fell to the Kingdome of the West-Saxons which they in their language
Chamberlaine to King Richard the Third attainted by King Henry the Seventh and slaine in the battaile at Stoke in the quarrell of Lambert that Counterfeit Prince whose sister Fridiswid was Grandmother to Henry the first Lord Norris Hence Windrush hodling on his course watereth Whitney an ancient Towne and before the Normans daies belonging to the Bishops of Winchester to which adjoyneth Coges the chiefe place of the Barony of Arsic the Lords whereof branched out of the family of the Earles of Oxford are utterly extinguished many yeeres agoe Neere unto this the Forest of Witchwood beareth a great breadth and in time past spread farre wider For King Richard the Third disforested the great Territory of Witchwood betweene Woodstocke and Brightstow which Edward the Fourth made to be a Forest as Iohn Rosse of Warwicke witnesseth Isis having received Windrush passeth downe to Einsham in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Manour in times past of the Kings seated among most pleasant medowes which Cuthwulfe the Saxon was the first that tooke from the Britans whom he had hereabout vanquished and long after Aethelmar a Nobleman beautified it with an Abbay the which Aethelred King of England in the yeere of Salvation 1005. confirmed to the Benedictine Monkes and in his confirmation signed the priviledge of the liberty thereof I speake out of the very originall grant as it was written with the signe of the sacred Crosse but now is turned into a private dwelling house and acknowledgeth the Earle of Derby Lord thereof Beneath this Evenlode a little river arising likewise out of Cotteswald speedeth him into Isis which riveret in the very border of the Shire passeth by an ancient Monument standing not farre from his banke to wit certaine huge stones placed in a round circle the common people usually call them Rolle-rich-stones and dreameth that they were sometimes men by a wonderfull Metamorphosis turned into hard stones The draught of them such as it is portrayed long since heere I represent unto your view For without all forme and shape they bee unequall and by long continuance of time much impaired The highest of them all which without the circle looketh into the earth they use to call The King because hee should have beene King of England forsooth if hee had once seene Long Compton a little Towne so called lying beneath and which a man if he goe some few paces forward may see other five standing at the other side touching as it were one another they imagine to have been knights mounted on horse backe and the rest the Army But loe the foresaid Portraiture These would I verily thinke to have beene the Monument of some Victory and haply erected by Rollo the Dane who afterwards conquered Normandie For what time as he with his Danes and Normans troubled England with depredations we read that the Danes joined battaile with the English thereby at Hoche Norton and afterwards fought a second time at Scier stane in Huiccia which also I would deeme to be that Mere-stone standing hard by for a land Marke and parting foure shires For so much doth that Saxon word Scier-stane most plainly import Certainly in an Exchequer booke the Towne adjacent is called Rollen-drich where as it is there specified Turstan le Dispenser held land by Serjeanty of the Kings Dispensary that is to be the Kings Steward As for that Hoch-Norton which I spake of before for the rusticall behaviour of the Inhabitants in the age afore going it grew to be a proverbe when folke would say of one rudely demeaning himselfe and unmaneâ—ly after an Hoggish kinde that hee was borne at Hocknorton This place for no one thing was more famous in old time than for the woefull slaughter of the Englishmen in a foughten field against the Danes under the Raigne of King Edward the Elder Afterwards it became the seat of the Barony of the D' Oilies an honourable and ancient Family of the Norman race of whom the first that came into England was Robert de Oily who for his good and valiant service received of William Conquerour this Towne and many faire possessions whereof hee gave certaine to his sworne brother Roger Ivery which were called the Barony of Saint Valeric But when the said Robert departed this life without issue male his brother Niele succeeded him therein whose sonne Robert the second was founder of Osney Abbay But at length the daughter and heire generall of this house D' Oily was married to Henry Earle of Warwicke and she bare unto him Thomas Earle of Warwicke who dyed without issue in the Raigne of Henry the Third and Margaret who deceased likewise without children abeit shee had two husbands John Marescall and John de Plessetis both of them Earles of Warwicke But then that I may speake in the very words of the Charter of the Grant King Henry the Third granted Hoch-norton and Cudlington unto John de Plessetis which were in times past the possessions of Henry D'Oily and which after the decease of Margaret wife sometime to the foresaid John Earle of Warwicke fell into the kings hand as an Escheat of Normans lands To have and to hold untill the lands of England and Normandy were common Howbeit out of this ancient and famous stocke there remaineth at this day a family of D' Oilies in this shire Evenlode passeth by no memorable thing else but La Bruer now Bruern sometime an Abbay of white Monks and after he hath runne a good long course taketh to him a Brooke neere unto which standeth Woodstocke in the English Saxon language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is A woody place where King Etheldred in times past held an assembly of the States of the Kingdome and enacted Lawes Heere is one of the Kings houses full of State and magnificence built by King Henry the First who adjoyned also thereunto a very large Parke compassed round about with a stone wall which John Rosse writeth to have beene the first Parke in England although we read once or twise even in Doomesday Booke these words Parcus silvestris bestiarum in other places In which sense old Varro useth the word Parcus which some thinke to be but a new word But since that Parkes are growne to such a number that there bee more of them in England than are to be found in all Christendome beside so much were our Ancestours ravished with an extraordinary delight of hunting Our Historians report that King Henry the Second being enamoured upon Rosamund Clifford a Damosell so faire so comely and well favoured without comparison that her beauty did put all other women out of the Princes minde in so much as now shee was termed Rosa mundi that is The Rose of the World and for to hide her out of the sight of his jealous Juno the Queene he built a Labyrinth in this house with many inexplicable windings backward and forward Which notwithstanding is no where to be seene at this day The Towne
the East with Essex and the North with Cambridge-shire A rich country in corne fields pastures medows woods groves and cleere riverets And for ancient townes it may contend with the neighbours even for the best For there is scarsely another shire in all England that can shew more places of Antiquities in so small a compasse In the very limit thereof Northward where it boundeth upon Cambridge-shire standeth Roiston a towne well knowne but of no antiquity as being risen since the Normans daies For one Dame Roise a woman in that age of right great name whom some thinke to have been Countesse of Norfolke erected there about a Crosse in the high way which was thought in that age a pious worke to put passengers in minde of Christs passion whereupon this place was for many yeeres called Roises-Crosse untill that Eustach de Marc adjoined thereto a little Monastery in the honour of Thomas of Canterbury for then were Innes built and by little and little it grew to be a towne which in stead of Roises Crosse was called Roiston that is Roises towne unto which King Richard the First granted a Faire at certaine set times and a mercat Now it is very famous and passing much frequented for Malt For it is almost incredible how many buyers and sellers of corne how many Badgers yea and Corne-mongers or Regraters flocke hither weekely every mercat day and what a number of horses loden doe then fill the high waies on every side Over Roiston Southward is mounted Tharfield among the high hils an ancient habitation of the familie of Berners descended from Hugh de Berners unto whom in recompence of his valiant service in the Normans Conquest King William the Conquerour granted faire lands in Eversdon within the county of Cambridge And in so great worship and reputation flourished his posterity that Sir John Bourchier who married the right heire at common law of that familie being promoted by King Edward the Fourth to the honour of Baron tooke his addition thereof and was stiled Baron Bourchier of Berners and usually Lord Berners Upon this confineth Nucelles belonging in times past to the house of the Rochesters or Roffes but all the repute and glory that it hath arose from the inhabitants thereof afterwards namely the Barons of Scales descended out of Norfolke but yet the heires of Roffe For King Edward the First gave unto Sir Robert de Scales in regard of his valourous service in the Scotish warres certaine lands to the value in those daies of three hundred markes by the yeare and called him among the Barons to the Parliament Their Eschocheon Gules with sixe escallops argent is seene in many places They flourished unto King Edward the Fourth his daies at what time the only daughter and heire of this family was wedded vnto Sir Anthonie Widevile Earle Rivers whom being advanced by his owne glorious prowesse and the kings marriage with his sister the malicious hatred and envie of his enemies most vilanouslie overwrought and brought to utter destruction For King Richard the Third beheaded him innocent man as he was And when as she died without issue the inheritance was parted in King Henry the Sevenths time betweene Iohn Earle of Oxford who by the Howards and Sir William Tindale knight who by the Bigods of Felbridge were found next cousens and coheires The Manour of Barkway hereby appertained also to those Lords Scales a well knowne throughfare Beyond which is Barley that imparted surname to the ancient and well allied family of the Barleies and on this side Anestie which was not long since the inheritance of the house of Yorke and in elder times the Castle there was a nest of rebels wherefore Nicholas of Anesty Lord thereof was expresly commanded by King Henry the Third to demolish so much of it as was raised since the Barons warres against his Father King John But now time hath wholy rased it all To returne though disorderly East-ward is Ashwell as one would say The well or fountaine among the Ashes a Country towne of good bignesse and full of houses situate on a low ground in the very North edge of the shire where there is a source of springs bubling out of a stony banke overshadowed on every side with tall ashes from whence there floweth at certaine veines continually running such store of water that forthwith being gathered within banks it carrieth a streame able to drive a Mill and all of a sudden as it were groweth to a good big river Of these wels and ashes together as most certaine it is that the English-Saxons imposed this new name Ashwell so I have been sometime of this opinion that the ancient Britans who as Gildas witnesseth heaped divine honours upon hils rivers fountaines and groves from the very same thing and in the same sense called it Magiovinium and that it was the same which Antonine named MAGIONINIVM But time hath now discovered a more certaine truth neither am I ashamed to change mine opinion in this point seeing I take no pleasure at all in mine owne error And yet to prove the ancientnesse of this towne the large quadrant adjoyning enclosed with a trench and rampire maketh much which by the Romane peeces of coyne digged up there oftentimes sheweth whose worke it was and in that booke wherein above 500. yeeres since King William the Conquerour tooke the review and account of all the townes in England it is in plaine words tearmed a Burgh Southward we saw Merkat-Baldock situate upon a whitish soile wherein as also in Hitching hard by we read of no antiquity Then is there seated in a well-husbanded and good ground Wimondley an ancient and famous Lordship held by the most honourable tenure with us which our Lawyers terme Grand-Sergeanty namely that the Lord thereof should serve unto the Kings of England upon their Coronation day the first cup and be as it were the Kings Cup-bearer Which honorable office in regard of this Lordship certaine Noble Gentlemen called Fitz-Tek held in the beginning of the Normans reigne from whom by a daughter it came unto the Argentons These fetched their name and pedegree from David de Argenton a Norman and a martiall knight who under King William the Conquerour served in the wars and they in remembrance heereof gave for their armes Three Cups Argent in a shield Gueules But at last for want of issue male in King Henry the Sixth his daies Elizabeth Argenton the sole and entier inheritrice brought it unto her husband Sir William Allington knight with faire lands thereby and this dignity from whom Sir Giles Allington now the heire of this family is the seventh a young Gentleman right courteous and of a generous nature who I hope will give some new lustre by his vertues unto the ancient worship of his house Hard by and neere unto the roade high-way betweene Stevenhaugh and Knebworth the seat of the worshipfull house of the
Lancaster second son of K. Henry the third and his wife Aveline de fortibus Countesse of Albemarle William and Audomar of Valence of the family of Lusignian Earles of Pembroch Alphonsus Iohn and other children of King Edward the First Iohn of Eltham Earle of Cornwall son to K. Edward the second Thomas of Woodstocke Duke of Glocester the yongest son of K. Edward the third with other of his children Aeleanor daughter and heire of Humfrey Bohun Earle of Hereford and of Essex wife to Thomas of Woodstocke the yong daughter of Edward the fourth and K. Henry the seventh Henry a childe two months old son of K. Henry the eight Sophia the daughter of K. Iames who died as it were in the very first day-dawning of her age Phillippa Mohun Dutches of Yorke Lewis Vicount Robsert of Henault in right of his wife Lord Bourchier Anne the yong daughter and heire of Iohn Mowbray Duke of Norfolke promised in marriage unto Richard Duke of Yorke yonger son to K. Edward the fourth Sir Giles Daubency Lord Chamberlaine to king Henry the Seventh and his wife of the house of the Arundels in Cornwall I. Vicount Wells Francis Brandon Dutches of Suffolke Mary her daughter Margaret Douglasse Countesse of Lennox grandmother to Iames King of Britaine with Charles her son Winifrid Bruges Marchionesse of Winchester Anne Stanhop Dutches of Somerset and Iane her daughter Anne Cecill Countesse of Oxford daughter to the L. Burghley Lord high Treasurer of England with Mildred Burghley her mother Elizabeth Berkeley Countesse of Ormund Francis Sidney Countesse of Sussex Iames Butler Vicount Thurles son and heire to the Earle of Ormond Besides these Humfrey Lord Bourchier of Cromwall Sir Humfrey Bourchier son and heire to the Lord Bourchier of Berners both slaine at Bernet field Sir Nicholas Carew Baron Carew Baronesse Powisse T. Lord Wentworth Thomas Lord Wharton Iohn Lord Russell Sir T. Bromley Lord Chancellour of England Douglas Howard daughter and heire generall of H. Vicount Howard of Bindon wife to Sir Arthur Gorges Elizabeth daughter and heire of Edward Earle of Rutland wife to William Cecill Sir Iohn Puckering Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England Francis Howard Countesse of Hertford Henrie and George Cary the father and sonne Barons of Hunsdon both Lords Chamberlaines to Queene Elizabeth the heart of Anne Sophia the tender daughter of Christopher Harley Count Beaumont Embassadour from the king of France in England bestowed within a small guilt Urne over a Pyramid Sir Charles Blunt Earle of Devonshire Lord Lieutenant Generall of Ireland And whom in no wise wee must forget the Prince of English Poets Geoffry Chauer as also he that for pregnant wit and an excellent gift in Poetry of all English Poets came neerest unto him Edmund Spencer Beside many others of the Clergy and Gentlemen of quality There was also another College or Free-chapell hard by consisting of a Deane and twelve Chanons dedicated to Saint Stephen which King Edward the Third in his princely Magnificence repaired with curious workmanship and endowed with faire possessions so as he may seeme to have built it new what time as he had with his victories overrun and subdued al France recalling to minde as we read the Charter of the foundation and pondering in a due weight of devout consideration the exceeding benefits of Christ whereby of his owne sweet mercy and pity he preventeth us in all occasions delivering us although without all desert from sundry perils and defending us gloriously with his powerfull right hand against the violent assaults of our adversaries with victorious successes and in other tribulations and perplexities wherein wee have exceeding much beene encombred by comforting us and by applying and in-powering remedies upon us beyond all hope and expectation There was adjoyning hereto a Palace the ancient habitation of the Kings of England from the time of King Edward the Confessor which in the Raigne of king Henry the Eighth was burnt by casuall fire to the ground A very large stately and sumptuous Palace this was and in that age for building incomparable with a vawmurâ— and bulwarks for defence The remaines whereof are the Chamber wherein the King the Nobles with the Counsellers and Officers of State doe assemble at the high Court of Parliament and the next unto it wherein anciently they were wont to beginne the Parliaments knowne by the name of Saint Edwards painted chamber because the tradition holdeth that the said king Edward therein dyed But how sinfull an Act how bloudy how foule how hainous horrible hideous and odious both to God and man certaine brute and savage beasts in mens shape enterprised of late by the device of that Arch Traitour Robert Catesby with undermining and placing a mighty deale of gunpowder under these Edifices against their Prince their Country and all the States of the Kingdome and that under an abominable pretence of Religion my very heart quaketh to remember and mention nay amazed it is and astonied but to thinke onely into what inevitable darknesse confusion and wofull miseries they had suddenly in the twinckling of an eye plunged this most flourishing Realme and Common wealth But that which an ancient Poet in a smaller matter wrote we may in this with griefe of minde utter Excidat illa dies aevo nè postera credant Secula nos certè taceamus obruta multa Nocte tegi propriae patiamur crimina gentis That cursed day forgotten be no future age beleeve That this was true let us also at least wise now that live Conceale the same and suffer such Designes of our owne Nation Hidden to be and buried quite in darknesse of oblivion Adjoyning unto this is the Whitehall wherein at this day the Court of Requests is kept Beneath this is that Hall which of all other is the greatest and the very Praetorium or Hall of Justice for all England In this are the Judiciall Courts namely The Kings Bench the Common Pleas and The Chancery And in places neere thereabout The Star-Chamber the Exchequer Court of Ward and Court of the Dâ—teby of Lancaster c. In which at certaine set times wee call them Tearmes yearely causes are heard and tryed whereas before king Henry the Third his dayes the Court of common Law and principall Justice was unsetled and alwaies followed the kings Court But he in the Magna Charta made a law in these words Let not the Common Pleas folâ—ow our Court but bee holden in some certaine place Which notwithstanding some expound thus That the Common Pleas from thenceforth bee handled in a Court of the owne by it selfe a part and not in the Kings Bench as before This Judgement Hall which we now have king Richard the Second built out of the ground as appeareth by his Armes engraven in the stone-worke and many arched beames when he had plucked downe the former old Hall that king William Rufus in the same place had built before and made it his
Vale underneath along Corve which commonly is called Corves-dale to Sir Foulque of Dinan Afterwards it belonged to the Lacies of Ireland and by a daughter fell to Sir Geffrey de Ienevile a Poictevin or as some will have it of the house of Lorain from whose heires it descended againe by a daughter to the Mortimers and from thence hereditarily to the Crowne Then the Inhabitants in processe of time built in the very bosome of the Towne and on the highest ground a very faire Church and the onely Church they have And so it beganne to be of great account and to excell other neighbour Townes adjoyning And although by King Stephen Simon Montfort and King Henry the Sixth it suffered much damage in the civill Warres yet it alwayes flourished againe and now especially ever since that King Henry the Eighth ordained the Councell of the Marches not unlike to those Parliaments in France the Lord President whereof doth for the most part keepe Courts and Terme here which a man could hardly have seene at any time without Suites whether it were for the great state and authority that it carryed or because the Welshmen are so forward and hote to goe to Law This Councell consisteth of the Lord President so many Counsellers as it shall please the Prince to appoint a Secretary an Attorney a Sollicitour and the foure Iustices of the Counties in Wales Somewhat lower upon the River Temd is seene Burford which from Theodoricke Saie and his Posterity came unto Robert Mortimer and from his posterity likewise unto Sir Geffrey Cornwaile who derived his Descent from Richard Earle of Cornwall and King of the Alemans and his Race even unto these daies hath flourished under the name of Barons of Burford but not in the dignity of Parliamentary Barons whereas it is holden as we reade in the Inquisition of the King for to finde five men for the Army of Wales and by service of a Baronie As for those that I may note thus much by the way who held an entire and whole Barony they were commonly in times past reputed Barons and as some learned in our common lawes are of opinion Baron and Barony like as Earle and Earledome Duke and Dukedome King and Kingdome were Conjugata that is Originally yoke-fellowes When Temd now is leaving Shropp-shire behinde it not farre from the bankes thereof there raise themselves up Northward certaine hils of easie ascent Cleehill they call them much commended for yeelding the best Barly in great plenty neither are they without iron mines at the descent whereof in a Village called Cleybury Hugh Mortimer built a Castle which King Henry the Second forthwith so rased because it was a noursery of sedition that scarce there remaine any tokens thereof at this day also hard by standeth Kinlet where the Blunts flourished Their name in this Tract is very great so sirnamed at first of their yellow haire the Family noble and ancient and the branches thereof farre spread Then saw we on the right hand banke of Severn Brug Morfe commonly but corruptly called Bridg-North so called of Burg or Burrbugh and Morfe a Forest adjoyning whereas before time it was named simply Burgh A Towne fortified with wals a ditch a stately Castle and the Severn which betweene the Rockes runneth downe with a great fall seated also upon a Rocke out of which the waies leading into the upper part of the Towne were wrought out Achelfleda Lady of the Mercians first built it and Robert de Belesme Earle of Shrewesbury walled it who trusting to the naturall strength of the place rebelled against King Henry the First like as afterward Roger Mortimer against King Henry the the Second but both of them with ill successe for they were both forced to yeeld and submit themselves absolutely to the Kings command At the Siege of this Castle as we reade in our Annales King Henry the Second being levelled at with an arrow had beene shot therewith quite through the body had not Sir Hubert Syncter a noble and trusty Servitour to the King interposed himselfe and to save the King received both the arrow and his deaths wound withall Before time also Sir Raulph de Pichford bare himselfe so valiantly heere that king Henry the First gave unto him the little Burgh hard by To hold by service for to finde dry wood for the great chamber of the Castle of Burgh against the comming of his Soveraigne Lord the King Willeley or Willey is not farre from hence the habitation in old time of Sir Warner De Willeley from whose Posterity by the Harleis and Peshall it came to the notable Family of Lacon advanced by marriage long since with the heire of Passelew and of late by the Possession of Sir I. Blunt of Kinlet There be in like manner other Townes and Castles heere and there in this Tract as Newcastle Hopton Castle Shipton and upon the River Corve Corvesham which Walter Clifford had by the gift of king Henry the Second also Brancroft and Holgot commonly Howgate which belonged sometime to the Manduits then to Robert Blunt Bishop of Bath and afterwards to the Lovells More higher are Wenlocke now knowne for the lime but in king Richard the Seconds time for a mine of Copper there But much more knowne in the Saxons dayes for a most ancient Nunnery where Milburga that most holy virgin lived in great devotion and was entombed the which Nunnery Earle Roger de Montgomerie repaired and replenished with Monkes In later times Sir Iohn Winell called also Wenlocke because he heere inhabited for his faithfull service to king Henry the Sixth was by him advanced to the state and honor of Baron Wenlocke and elected knight of the Garter in whose cause he manfully lost his life in the Battaile of Tewkesbury leaving no issue but from his cozin and heire generall the Lawleys of this County are lineally descended A little more West is Acton Burnell a Castle of the Burnels and after of the Lovels made famous by the Court of Parliament there held in the time of king Edward the First This Family of the Burnells was in old time of great name and antiquity very much enriched also by that Bishop aforenamed But it failed and had an end in the Raigne of Edward the Second when Mawde the heire was married unto John Lovell first and secondly to John Haudlow whose sonne Nicholas assumed to himselfe the name of Burnell from whom the Ratcliffes Earles of Sussex and others draw their pedegree Scarce a mile from hence standeth Langley seated very flat and low in a Parke full of Woods the dwelling place of the Leas which may well challenge to be ranged among the Families that are of the better worth and greater Antiquity in this Tract Next unto these is Condover a Manour sometimes of the Lovells but of late the possession of Thomas Owen
Esquires c. The Courts of Justice or Tribunals of Ireland THe supreme Court of the Kingdome of Ireland is the Parliament which at the pleasure of the Kings of England is usually called by the Deputie and by him dissolved although in the reigne of King Edward the second a Law was enacted That every yeer there should be Parliaments holden in Ireland which seemeth yet not to have been effected There be likewise foure Tearmes kept as in England yeerely and there are five Courts of Justice The Star-chamber the Chancerie the Kings Bench the common Pleas and the Exchequer There are also Iustices of Assises of Nisi prius and of Oyer and Determiner according as in England yea and Iustices of Peace in every countie for the keeping of peace Moreover the King hath his Serjeant at law his Atturney Generall his Sollicitour c. Over and besides in the more remote Provinces there be Governours to minister Justice as a principall Commissioner in Connaught and a President in Mounster who have to assist them in Commission certaine Gentlemen and Lawyers and yet every of them are directed by the Kings Lievtenant Deputie As for the common lawes Ireland is governed by the same that England hath For we read in the Records of the Kingdome thus King Henry the third in the 12. yeere of his reigne gave commandement to his Iustice of Ireland that calling together the Archbishops Bishops Barons and Knights he should cause there before them to be read the Charter of King Iohn which he caused to be read accordingly and the Nobles of Ireland to be sworn as touching the observation of the lawes and customes of England and that they should hold and keepe the same Neverthelesse the meere Irish did not admit them but retained their owne Brehon lawes and leud customes And the Kings of England used a connivence therein upon some deepe consideration not vouchsafing to communicate the benefit of the English lawes but upon especiall grace to especiall families or sects namely the O Neales O Conors O Brien O Maloghlins and Mac Murough which were reputed of the blood roiall among them The Parliamentary or Statute lawes also of England being transmitted were usually in force in Ireland unto the time of K. Henrie the seventh For in the tenth yeere of his reign those were ratified confirmed by authoritie of Parliament in Ireland in the time of Sir Edw. Poinings government but ever since they have had their Statutes enacted in their owne Parliaments Besides these civill Magistrates they have also one militarie officer named the Mareshal who standeth here in great stead to restrain as well the insolencie of souldiers as of rebels who otherwhiles commit many great insolencies This office the Barons de Morley of England bare in times past by inheritance as appeareth by Records for King John gave it to bee held by right of inheritance in these very expresse words We have given and granted unto Iohn Mareschal for his homage and service our Mareshalship of Ireland with all appurtenances We have given also unto him for his homage and service the Cantred in which standeth the towne of Kilbunny to have and to hold unto him and his heires of us and our heires From whom it descended in the right line to the Barons of Morley This Mareshall hath under him his Provost Marshall and sometime more than one according to the occasions and troubles of the time who exercise their authoritie by limitation under the great seale of Ireland with instructions But these and such like matters I will leave to the curious diligence of others Touching the order of justice and government among those more uncivill and wilde Irish I will write somewhat in place convenient when I shall treat of their manners THE DIVISION OF IRELAND IRELAND according to the maners of the inhabitants is divided into two parts for they that refuse to be under lawes and do live without civilitie are termed the Irishry and commonly the Wild Irish but such as being more civill do reverence the authoritie of lawes and are willing to appeare in Court and judicially to be tried are named English-Irish and their country goeth under the tearm of The English Pale because the first Englishmen that came thither did empale for themselves certaine limits in the East part of the Iland and that which was most fruitfull Within which there bee even at this day those also that live uncivilly enough and are not very obedient unto the lawes like as others without the pale are as courteous and civill as a man would desire But if we look into higher times according to the situation of the country or the number rather of governors in old time it containeth five portions for it was sometimes a Pentarchie namely Mounster Southward Leinster Eastward Connacht in the West Ulster in the North and Meth well neere in the very middest In Mounster are these Counties Kerry Desmond Cork Waterford Limiricke Tipperary with the county of holy Crosse in Tipperarie In Leinster be these Counties Kilkenny Caterlough Queenes County Kings Countie Kildare Weishford Dublin In Meth are these Counties East Meath West Meath Longford In Connaght are these Counties Clare Galloway Majo Slego Letrim Roscoman In Ulster be these Counties Louth Cauon Fermanagh Monaghan Armagh Doun Antrim London-Derry Tir-Oen Tir-Conell or Donegall The Ecclesiasticall State of Ireland was ordered anciently by Bishops whom either the Archbishop of Canterburie consecrated or they themselves one another But in the yeere 1152. as we read in Philip Flatesburie Christianus Bishop of Lismore Legate of all Ireland held a most frequent and honourable Councell at Mell whereat were present the Bishops Abbats Kings Captaines and Elders of Ireland In which by authoritie Apostolicall and by the counsell of Cardinals with the consent of Bishops Abbats and others there in Consistorie he ordained foure Archbishopricks in Ireland Armach Dublin Cassile and Tuem or Toam The Bishopricks which were Diocessans under these seeing that now some of them are by the covetous iniquitie of the times abolished others confounded and conjoined others againe translated another way I am disposed here to put downe according as they were in old time out of an ancient Roman PROVINCIALL faithfully exemplified out of the originall Under the Arch-Bishop of Armagh Primate of all Ireland are the Bishops of Meath or Elnamirand Dune alias Dundalethglas Chlocor otherwise Lugundun Conner Ardachad Rathbot Rathluc Daln-Liquir Dearrih or Derriâ— Cloâ—macnois Dromor Brefem To the Archbishop of Dublin are subject the Bishops of Glendelach Fern. Ossery alias De Canic Lechlin Kil-dare or Dare. Under the Archbishop of Cassile are the Bishops of Laonie or De Kendalnan Limric The Isle Gathay Cellumabrath Melite or of Emileth Rossi alias Roscree Waterford alias De Baltifordian Lismore Clon alias De Cluanan Corcage that is Cork De Rosalither Ardefert or Kerry Unto the Archbishop of Tuam or Toam are subject the Bishops of Duac alias
Lord of the kingdome of Scotland But none other answer could he have than this if I may speake the words out of the very authenticall Records Sequatur coram Iustitiariis de Banco Regis c. that is Let him sue before the Iustices of the K. Bench let him be heard and let justice be done But that which he could not obtaine by right Sir William Montacute his kinsman for come he was of the race of the Kings of Man wonne by his sword For with a band of English mustered up in hast he drave all the Scots out of the Iland But being by this warre plunged deeply in debt and not having wherewith to make some paiment thereof he mortgaged it for seven yeeres to Antonie Bec Bishop of Durham and Patriarch of Jerusalem and made over the profits and revenues thereof unto him yea and soone after the King granted it unto the said Antonie for tearme of life Afterwards King Edward the second passed a grant thereof unto his minion Piers Gaveston what time as he created him Earle of Cornwall and when the said Piers was rid out of the way hee gave it unto Henry Beaumont with all the domaine and regall jurisdiction thereto belonging But shortly after the Scots under Robert Brus recovered it and Robert Randulph that right warlike Scot like as a long time after Alexander Duke of Albany used to stile themselves Lords of Man and bare the same coat of Armes as did the later Kings of Man namely three armed legges of a man linked together and bending in the hammes such for all the world as the Isle Sicilia gave the three legges naked in like forme in her coines of money in old time to signifie three Promontories Notwithstanding before time the Kings of Man used for their armes as we have seene in their Seales a ship with the saile hoised up with this title in the circumference Rex Manniae insularum that is King of Man and of the Islands Afterward about the yeere 1340. William Montacute the younger Earle of Salisbury wrested it by strong hand and force of armes from the Scottish who in the yeere of our Lord 1393. as Thomas Walsingham saith sold for a great summe of money Man with the crowne thereof unto William Scrope Who being for high treason beheaded and his goods confiscate it came unto the hands of Henry the fourth King of England who granted this Iland unto Henry Percy Earle of Northumberland as a conqueror triumphing over William Scrope whom he as yet a private person had intercepted and beheaded when he aspired to the crowne with this condition that himselfe and his heires should when the Kings of England were enstalled and crowned carry before them that sword which the said Henry wore by his side what time he came backe againe out of exile into England commonly called Lancaster sword But I think it good to set this down out of the Record in the very words of the K. himself De nostra gratia speciali dedimus that is Of our speciall grace we have given and granted unto Henry Earle of Northumberland the Isle Castle Pile and Seigniory of Man and all the Ilands and Lordships to the said Isle belonging which were Sir William le Scropes Knight now deceased whom in his life time we conquered and have decreed him so to be conquered and which by reason of our conquest of him we tooke into our hand as conquered which conquest verily and decree in our present Parliament with the assent of the Lords Temporall in the same Parliament being as touching the person of the foresaid William and all the lands tenements goods and chattels of his as well within our kingdome as without at the petition of the Communalty of our kingdome stand confirmed c. To have and to hold unto the said Earle and his heires c. by service of carrying at the daies of our coronation and of our heires at the left shoulder and the left shoulder of our heires either by himself or a sufficient and honourable Deputy of his that sword naked which we ware and were girt with when we arrived in the parts of Holdernesse called Lancaster sword c. But in the fifth yeere following the said Henry Percie entred into open rebellion and the King sent Sir Iohn Stanley and William Stanley to seize the Isle and castle of Man the inheritance whereof he granted afterward to Sir Iohn Stanley and his heires by letters Patents with the patronage of the Bishopricke c. And so his heires and successours who were honoured with the title of Earles of Derby were commonly called Kings of Man From Man untill we come to the Mull of Gallaway we meet with none but very small Ilands But after we be once past it in the salt water of GLOTTA or Dunbritton Frith appeareth the Iland GLOTTA whereof Antoninus maketh mention which the Scots now call Arran whereof the Earles of Arran in Scotland were stiled and neighbouring unto it is that which was in times past named Rothesia now Buthe of a sacred Cell which Brendan erected for so they terme a little Cell in Scottish thence come we to Hellan in times past called Hellan Leneaw that is as Iohn Fordon interpreteth it The Isle of Saints and to Hellan Tinoc that is The Isle of Swine and these Ilands are seen in the same Frith or Forth But of these I have spoken before Without this Bay or Frith lye a number of Ilands very thicke together which the Scots themselves that inhabite them call Inch-Gall that is haply The Isles of the Gallicians the English and the rest of the Scots The Western Isles the writers of the former age HEBRIDES but the ancient Ethnickes Bettoricae and Giraldus other where Inchades and Leucades Pliny Solinus and Ptolomee name them EBUDAS HEBUDAS and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which names have some consonant affinity with Epidium the promontory of Britain opposite unto them and an Isle among these so named The reason of the name I cannot picke out unlesse I should thinke they were so called because there groweth here no corne or graine For Solinus writeth that the inhabitants of these Ilands are not acquainted with corne and live onely upon fish and milke and Eb eid in British soundeth as much as without corne The inhabitants as saith the same Solinus have no skill or knowledge of corne they live of fish and milke onely They all have but one King For how many soever they be they are severed one from another by a narrow enterflow of the Sea betweene The King hath nothing that hee may say is his owne all things are common to them all and held hee is to equity by certaine lawes and lest hee should for covetousnesse swarve aside from the truth by his poore estate he learneth justice as who hath no house furniture and provision of his owne but all his maintenance is from the common coffer No woman is he allowed to have in
Carleil containeth within it part of Cumberland and the Country of Westmerland To these you may adde the Bishopricke of Sodor in the Isle of Mona which commonly is called Man Among these the Archbishop of Canterburie hath the first place the Archbishop of Yorke the second the Bishop of London the third the Bishop of Durham the fourth the Bishop of Winchester the fifth the rest as they are consecrated or enstalled first so in prioritie they take the place Howbeit if any of the other Bishops happen to be Secretary to the King hee challengeth by his right the fift place Besides there are in England Deaneries xxvj whereof thirteene were ordained by Henrie the Eighth in the greater Cathedrall Churches after the Monks were thrust out Archdeaconries three skore Dignities and Prebends five hundred fortie foure Numbred also there are parish-churches under Bishops 9284 of which 3845 be Appropriat as I find in a Catalogue exhibited unto King Iames which here I have put downe underneath Now Appropriat Churches those are called which by the Popes authority comming betweene with consent of the King and the Bishop of the Diocesse were upon certaine conditions tied or as the forme runneth of our Law united annexed and incorporate for ever unto Monasteries Bishopricks Colledges and Hospitals endowed with small lands either for that the said Churches were built with in their Lordships and lands or granted by the Lords of the said lands Which Churches afterwards when the Abbaies and Monasteries were suppressed became Laye Fees to the great dammage of the Church  DIOECESES Parish-Churches Churches appropriated  Of Canterburie 257 140  Of London 623 189  Of Winchester 362 131  Of Coventrie and Lichfield 557 250  Of Sarisburie 248 109  Of Bath and Wels. 388 160  Of Lincoln 1255 577  Of Peter-burgh 293 91  Of Exceter 604 239  Of Glocester 267 125 In the Province of Canterburie in the Diocesse Of Hereford 313 166  Of Norwich 1121 385  Of Elie. 141 75  Of Rochester 98 36  Of Chichester 250 112  Of Oxford 195 88  Of Worcester 241 76  Of Bristoll 236 64  Of S. Davids 308 120  Of Bangor 107 36  Of Lhandaffe 177 98  Of S. Asaph 121 19  Peculiar in the Province of Canterburie 57 14  The summe of the Province of Canterburie 8â—19 3303  Of Yorke 581 336  Of Durham 135 87 In the Province of Yorke Of Chester 256 101 Of Carlile 93 18  The summe of the Province of Yorke 1065 592  The totall Summe in both Provinces 9284 3845 Howbeit in the booke of Thomas Wolsey Cardinall digested and written in The yeere 1520. by Counties are reckoned 9407. Churches How this varietie should come I cannot say unlesse that in the former age some Churches were pulled downe and the Chappels which belong unto Parishes be omitted and others that are but bare Chappels counted in the number of Parish-churches Yet out of this booke of Wolsey have I put downe the number of Parish-churches to every Shire There were also in the reigne of Henrie the Eight I hope without offence I may speake the truth many religious places Monuments of our fore-fathers pietie and devotion to the honor of God the propagation of Christian faith and good learning and also for the reliefe and maintenance of the poore and impotent to wit Monasteries or Abbaies and Priories to the number of 645 of which when by permission of Pope Clement the seventh fortie were suppressed by Cardinall Wolseies meanes who then had begun to found two Colledges one at Oxenford the other at Ipswich straight waies about the xxxvj yeere of the reigne of the said Henrie the Eight a sudden floud as it were breaking thorow the banks with a maine streame fell upon the Ecclesiasticall State of England which whiles the world stood amazed and England groned thereat bare downe and utterly overthrew the greatest part of the Clergie together with their most goodly and beautifull houses For that leave which the Pope granted to the Cardinall the King with assent of the Parliament tooke to himselfe Whereupon in the yeere of our Lord 1536. all religious houses every one together with all their livings and revenewes as many I meane as might dispend by yeerely rent 200. pound or under and those amounted to the number of 376 were granted to the King And in the yeere next following under a faire pretence and shew of rooting out superstition all the rest together with Colledges Chanteries and Hospitals were left to the dispose and pleasure of the King At which time the religious houses remaining in number 605. were surveied valued or taxed Colledges there were besides those in the Vniversities 90. Hospitals 110. Chanâ—eries and free Chappels 2374. All which for the most part shortly after were every where pulled downe their revenues sold and made away those goods riches which the Christian pietie of the English nation had consecrated unto God since they first professed Christianity were in a moment as it were dispersed and to the displeasure of no man be it spoken prophaned THE STATES AND DEGREES of England AS touching the division of our Common-wealth it consisteth of a King or Monarch Noblemen or Gentry Citizens Free-borne whom we call Yeomen and Artisans or Handicraftsmen THE KING whom our ancestors the English-Saxons called Coning and Gyninâ— in which name is implied a signification both of power and skill and wee name contractly King hath soveraigne power and absolute command among us neither holdeth he his Empire in vassalage not receiveth his investure or câ—stalling of another â—e yet acknowledgeth any superiour but God alone and as one said All verily are under him and himselfe under none but God onely Also he hath very many rights of Majestie peculiar to himselfe the learned Lawyers terme them Sacra sacrorum that is Sacred and Individua that is inseparable because they cannot be severed and the common sort Royall prerogatives which they to me The flowers of his Crowne in which respect they affirme that the regall materiall Crowne is adorned with flowers Some of these are by positive or written law others by right of custome which by a silent consent of all men without law prescription of â—ime hath allowed the King justly enjoieth and most deservedly considering that His watchfull care defendeth the state of all his painfull labour maintaineth the rest of all his spadious industry upholdeth the deâ—ights of all and his busie employment affordeth case to all But these are points of a loâ—â—ier discourse and not of the argument now in hand The second or next to the King is his first begotten sonne who like as among the Romans the heire apparant and assigned successour to the Empire was first entituled Princeps Iuventutis that is Prince of the youth and afterwards as flatterie did increase stiled by the name of Caesar Noble Caesar
Canutus are in the Normans tongue translated under the name of Baro and loe what the very words are Exercitualia verò c. That is Let the Heriots or Relevies be so moderate as that they may bee tolerable Of an Earle as decent it is eight horses foure with saddles and foure without saddles foure Helmets and foure shirts of male eight launces or speares and as many shields foure swords and withall 200. mauces of gold Of a Viron or Baron to the King who is next unto him foure horses two with saddles and two without saddles two swords foure speares and as many targets one helmet and one coate of mauile and with fifty mauces of gold Also in the first time of the Normans Valvasores and Thani were ranged in degree of honour next after Earles and Barons and the Valvasores of the better sort if wee may beleeve those that write de Feudis were the very same that now Barons are So that the name Baro may seeme to bee one of those which time by little and little hath mollified and made of better esteeme Neither was it as yet a terme of great honor For in those daies some Earles had their Barons under them and I remember that I read in the ancient Constitutions and ordinances of the Frenchmen how there were under an Earle twelve Barons and as many Capitaines under a Baron And certaine it is that there be ancient Charters extant in which Earles since the comming in of the Normans wrote thus To all my Barons as well French as English Greeting c. Yea even Citizens of better note were called Barons For the Citizens of Warwick in Doomesday book were named Barones likewise Citizens of London and the Inhabitants of the Cinque-ports enjoyed the same name But some few yeares after like as at Rome in times past they chose Senators for their worth in wealth so were they with us counted Barons who held lands of their own by a whole Baronie that is 13. Knights Fees and a third part of one Knights Fee reckoning every fee as an old book witnesseth at 20. li. which make in all 400. marks For that was the value of one entire Baronie and they that had lands and revenues to this worth were wont to be summoned unto the Parliament And it seemed to bee a dignitie with a jurisdiction which the Court Barons as they terme them in some sort doe prove yea and the very multitude that was of these Barons perswaded me to thinke them to be Lords of this nature as that they might in some sort minister and execute justice within their circuit and seigniorie such as the Germans call Free-heires and especially if they had Castles of their owne For then they Jumped Just with the definition of that most famous Civilian Baldus who defineth him to be a Baron whosoever had a meere and subordinate rule in some castle by the grant of the Prince And all they as some would have it that held Baronies seeme to have claimed unto themselves this honor so that as divers learned in our lawes are of opinion a Baron and a Baronie a Count or Earle and a Countie a Duke and a Dutchie were Conjugata that is termes as one would say yoked together Certes in those daies Henrie the Third reckoned in England 150. Baronies And hereupon it is that in all the Charters and Histories of that age all noble men in manner be called Barons and verily that title then was right honorable and under the terme of Baronage all the superiour states of the kingdome as Dukes Marquesses Earles and Barons in some sort were comprised But it attained to the highest pitch of honor ever since that King Henrie the Third out of so great a number which was seditious and turbulent called the very best by writ or summon unto the high Court of Parliament For he out of a writer I speake of good antiquity after many troubles and enormous vexations betweene the King himselfe Simon of Mont-fort with other Barons raised after appeased did decree and ordaine that all those Earles and Barons of the Realme of England unto whom the King himselfe vouchsafed to direct his writs of Summons should come unto his Parliament and none others But that which he began a little before his death Edward the First and his successour constantly observed and continued Hereupon they onely were accounted Barons of the kingdom whom the Kings had cited by vertue of such writs of Summons as they terme them unto the Parliament And it is noted that the said prudent King Edward the First summoned alwaies those of ancient families that were most wise to his Parliaments but omitted their sonnes after their death if they were not answerable to their parents in understanding Barons were not created by Patent untill such time as King Richard the Second created Iohn Beauchamp de Holt Baron of Kiderminster by his letters Patent bearing date the eighth day of October in the eleventh yeare of his raigne Since that time the Kings by their Patâ—ents and the putting on of the mantle or roabe of honour have given this honour And at this day this order of creating a Baron by letters Patent as also that other by writs of Summons are in use in which notwithstanding they are not stiled by the name of Baron but of Chevalier for the Common law doth not acknowledge Baron to be a name of dignity And they that be in this wise created are called Barons of the Parliament Barons of the Realme and Barons of honor for difference of them who yet according to that old forme of Barons be commonly called Barons as those of Burford of Walton and those who were Barons unto the Count-Palatines of Chester and Pembroch who were Barons in fee and by tenure These our Parliamentarie Barons carie not the bare name onely as those of France and Germanie but be all borne Peeres of the Realme of England Nobles Great States and Counsellors and called they are by the King in these words To treat of the high affaires of the kingdome and thereof to give their counsell They have also immunities and priviledges of their owne namely that in criminall causes they are not to have their triall but by a Iurie of their Peeres that they be not put to their oath but their protestation upon their Honor is sufficient that they be not empanelled upon a Iurie of twelve men for enquest de facto No supplicavit can be granted against them A Capias cannot be sued out against them Neither doth an Essoine lie against them with very many other which I leave unto Lawyers who are to handle these and such like Besides these the two Archbishops and all the Bishops of England be Barons also of the kingdome and Parliament even as in our Grandfathers daies these Abbats and Priors following The Abbat of Glastenburie The Abbat of S. Augustines in Canterbury The Abbat of S. Peter in
Iustices of the Assises to end and dispatch controversies depending and growne to an issue in the foresaid principall Kings Courts betweene plaintiffes and defendants and that by their Peeres as the custome is whence they are commonly called Iustices of Nisi prius which name they tooke of the writs sent unto the Sheriffe which have in them these two words Nisi Prius that is Vnlesse before c. The Star-Chamber or the Court rather of Kings Counsell wherein are discussed and handled criminall matters perjuries cousenages fraud deceit riots or excesse c. This Court in regard of time is right ancient and for dignitie most honourable For it seemes that it may claime antiquitie ever since the first time that Subject appealed unto their Soveraignes and the Kings Councell was erected Now the Judges of this Court are persons right Honourable and of greatest reputation even the Kings Privie Counsellors As for the name of Star-Chamber it tooke it from the time that this Counsell was appointed at Westminster in a Chamber there anciently garnished and beautified with Starres For we read in the Records of Edward the Third Counseil en la Chambre des Estoilles pres de la Receipt al Westminster that is The Counsell in the Chamber of Starres neere unto the Receit at Westminster But the Authoritie thereof that most sage and wise Prince Henry the Seventh by authoritie of Parliament so augmented and established that some are of opinion though untruely hee was the first founder of it The Judges heere are The Lord Chancellor of England The Lord Treasurer of England The Lord President of the Kings Counsell The Lord Keeper of the Privy Seale and all Counselors of the State as wel Ecclesiasticall as Temporall and out of the Barons of the Parliament those whom the King will call The two chiefe Iustices of the Benches or in their absence two other Iudges The Officers heerein are these The Clerke of the Counsell The Clerke of writs and processe of the Counsell in the Star-Chamber c. And causes here are debated and decided not by Peeres according to our common Law but after the course of Civill Law The Court of Wards and Liveries hath the name of Pupils or Wards whose causes it handleth was first instituted by Henrie the Eighth whereas in former times their causes were heard in the Chancerie and Exchequer For by an old Ordinance derived out of Normandie and not from Henry the Third as some doe write when a man is deceased Who holdeth possessions or Lands of the King in chiefe by Knights service as well the heire as his whole patrimonie and revenues are in the Kings power tuition and protection untill he be full one and twentie yeares of age and untill by vertue of the Kings briefe or letter restitution and re-delivery be made unto him thereof In this Court the Generall Master sitteth as Judge under whom are these The Supravisor or Surveior of Liveries The Atturney generall of the Court The generall Receiver The Auditour The Clerke of the Liveries The Clerke of the Court Fortie Fedaries and a Messenger There have sprung up also in these later times two other Courts to wit Of reforming Errours whereof the first is to correct Errours in the Exchequer the other to amend errours committed in the Kings Bench. The Judges in the former of these twaine are the Lord Chancellor and Lord Treasurer of England with others of the Kings Justices whom they are disposed to take unto them In the later The Iustices of the Common Pleas and the Barons of the Exchequer The Admirals Court handleth Sea matters In this are reckoned the Lord Admirall of England his Lieutenant and a Iudge two Scribes a Serjeant of the Court and the Vice-Admirals of England Now proceede we to the Courts of Equitie The Chancerie drew that name from a Chancellor which name under the ancient Roman Emperours was not of so greate esteeme and dignitie as wee learne out of Vopiscus But now adaies a name it is of highest honour and Chancellors are advanced to the highest pitch of civill Dignitie Whose name Cassiodorus fetcheth from crosse grates or lattesses because they examined matters within places severed apart enclosed with partitions of such crosse bars which the Latins call Cancelli Regard saith hee to a Chancellor what name you beare It cannot bee hidden which you doe within Lattesses For you keepe your gates lightsome your barres open and your dores transparent as windows Whereby it is very evident that he sate within grates where he was to be seene on every side and thereof it may be thought he tooke that name But considering it was his part being as it were the Princes mouth eie and eare to strike and dash out with crosse-lines lattise like those letters Commissions Warrants and Decrees passed against law and right or prejudiciall to the comon-wealth which not improperly they termed to cancell some thinke the name of Chancellor came from this Cancelling and in a Glossarie of latter time thus we read A Chancellor is he whose Office is to looke into and peruse the writings and answers of the Emperour to cancell what is written amisse and to signe that which is well Neither is that true which Polydore Virgil writeth namely that William the Conquerour instituted a Colledge or fellowship of Scribes to write letters pattents c. and named the Master of that Societie Chancellor considering it is plaine and manifest that Chancellors were in England before the Normans Conquest How great the dignitie and authoritie of the Chancellor is at this day it is better knowne than I can declare but of what credit it was in old time have heere in a word or two out of a writer of good antiquitie The dignitie of the Chancellor of England is this He is reputed the second person in the Realme and next unto the King with the one side of the Kings Seale whereof by his Office he hath the Keeping he may signe his owne injunctions to dispose and order the Kings Chappell as hee liketh to receive and keepe all Archbishopricks Bishopricks Abbeies and Baronies void and falling into the Kings hand to be present at all the Kings Counsels and thither to repaire uncalled also that all things be signed by the hand of his Clerke who carrieth the Kings Seale and that all things be directed and disposed by advise of the Chancellor Item that by the helpfull merits of his good life through Gods grace he need not die if he will himselfe but Archbishop or Bishop And heereof it is that the Chancellor-ship is not to be bought The forme and manner of ordaining a Chancellor for that also I will note was in the time of King Henrie the Second by hanging the great Seale of England about the necke of the Chancellor elect But in King Henry the Sixth daies this was the order of it according to the notes I tooke out of the Records When the place of the Lord
Chancellor of England is void by death the Kings three great Seales to wit one of gold and other two of silver which remained in the custodie of the Chancellor presently after his death are shut up in a wooden chest fast locked and signed with the Seales of the Lords then present and so conveied into the Treasurie From thence brought they are to the King who in the presence of many Noblemen delivereth them into the hands of him that shall be Chancellor and undertaketh the charge of executing the Office of Chancellorship taking before an oath of him well and truely to exercise the same first he delivereth the great Seale of silver then that of gold and so the other of silver who receiving the same bestoweth them againe in the chest and being signed with his owne Seale conveieth it home to his owne house and before certaine of the Nobilitie causeth the Kings Patents and writs to be Sealed When a Chancellor is discharged of his place he delivereth up into the Kings hands in the presence of the Lords and Nobles those three Seales first the Seale of gold then one broad Seale of silver and so another of a lesse forme Howbeit at this day one Seale and no more is delivered unto the Chanchellor neither is there mention any where made of these three Seales but in the raigne of Henry the Sixth To this Chancellors Office in processe of time much authoritie and dignitie hath been adjoyned by authoritie of Parliament especially ever since that Lawyers stood so precisely upon the strict points of Law and caught men with the traps and snares of their law termes that of necessitie there was a Court of equitie to be erected and the same committed to the Chancellor who might give judgement according to equitie and reason and moderate the extremitie of law which was wont to bee thought extreme wrong In this Court there sitteth as President the Lord Chancellor of England and as assessors or assistants to him twelve Masters of the Chancerie whereof the chiefe and principall is the Keeper of the Rolls belonging to the same Court and thereupon he is called Master of the Rolles There belong also to this Court very many Officers of whom some attend especially upon the Kings Seale namely The Clerke of the Crown The Clerke of the Hanaper The Sealer The Chauff-wax The Controller of the Hanaper Cursitours twenty foure A Clerke for the writs of Sub-poena Others are attendant upon Bils of complaint there exhibited to wit A Protonotarie sixe Clerkes or Atturnies of the Court and a Register There belong also thereto the Clekes of the Petty Bag The Clerke of Presentations The Clerke of Faculties The Clerke for examination of Letters Patents The Clerke for dimissions c. There is another Court also derived out of the Kings Privie Counsell called The Court of Requests which giveth hearing likewise as in the Chancerie to causes betweene private persons but such as before are presented unto the Prince or his Privie Counsell as also to others In this are employed certaine Masters of the Requests and a Clerke or Register with two Atturneys or three But as touching those Counsels held in the Marches of Wales and in the North parts wee will speake with the leave of God in their due place As for Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall Courts there be two principall to wit The Synode which is called The Convocation of the Clergie and is alwaies kept with the Parliament and the Provinciall Synods in both Provinces After these are reckoned the Archbishop of Canterburies Courts to wit The Court of the Arches wherein sitteth as Judge the Deane of the Arches He is called Deane for that he hath jurisdiction in xiij Parishes of London exempt from the Bishop of London which number maketh a Deanrie and Deane of the Arches because the principall of his Churches is S. Maries Church in London the tower steeple or lanterne whereof is beautifully built of arched worke He hath to doe with appeales of all men within the Province of Canterburie Advocates there bee in this Court xvj or more at the pleasure of the Archbishop all Doctors of the Law two Registers and ten Proctours The Court of Audience which entertaineth the complaints causes and appeales of them in that Province The Prerogative Court in which the Commissarie sitteth upon Inheritances fallen either by the Intestate or by will and testament The Court of Faculties wherein there is appointed a chiefe President who heareth and considereth of their grievances and requests that are petitioners for some moderation and easement of the Ecclesiasticall law sometimes over-strict and rigorous and a Register beside who recordeth the Dispensations granted The Court of Peculiars which dealeth in certaine Parishes exempt from the Bishops jurisdiction in some Diocesses and are peculiarly belonging to the Archbishop of Canterburie Other Courts of meaner account I willingly overpasse Neither doe I wisely I assure you thus to entermeddle heerein and yet Guicciardine in his Description of the Neatherlands hath given me a precedent hereof to follow Heere in this place my purpose was to have interserted somewhat so farre forth especially as concerned antiquitie as touching the chiefe Magistrates and highest Offices of England as namely The Lord Chancellor aforesaid The Lord Treasurer The President of the Counsell The Lord Keeper of the Privie Seale The Lord high Chamberlain The Lord high Constable The Mareschall and Seneschal or Steward of the Kings houshold c. But understanding that others were in hand with these matters so farre am I from preventing them that right willingly I shall impart even to them whatsoever in this behalfe I have observed Some man perhaps heere looketh that I should out of Astrologicall rules adde to to the rest under what Signe and Planet our Britaine is seated And verily I will say somewhat to satisfie the Curious for in those learned errors I have I may tell you in my youth taken some paines although the Conjecturers of Astrologers touching this point are so divers that the very diversitie may seeme to weaken the thing it selfe and leave no place for the truth M. Manilius an ancient Poet in this verse of his seemeth to intimate that Capricorne heere beareth rule in Britaine Tu Capricorne regis quicquid sub Sole cadente Expositum Thou Capricorne doest governe all That lies to Sun at his down-fall Ptolomee Albumazar and Cardane doe make Aries our Tutelar Signe Iohannes de Muris the Planet Saturne The Frier Perscrutator Esquidus and Henrie Silen the Moone for that as they say it is in the seventh Climate Roger of Hereford Thomas of Ravenna Philologus and Hispalensis are of opinion Pisces governe us and last of all Schonerus and Pitatus see how they all disagree have with no better reason than the rest subjected us unto Gemini Now will I by Gods assistance make my perambulation through the Provinces or Shires of Britaine wherein according to the Preface that they
Townes able to set out a great fleet of Ships the inland parts have rich and plenteous mines of tinne For there is digged out of them wonderfull store of tinne yielding exceeding much profit and commoditie where are made houshold pewter vessels which are used throughout many parts of Europe in service of the table and for their glittering brightnesse compared with silver plate The Inhabitants doe discover these mines by certaine tinne-stones lying on the face of the ground which they call Shoad being somewhat smooth and round Of these Mines or tinne-workes there be two kinds the one they call Lode-workes the other Stream-workes This lieth in lower grounds when by trenching they follow the veines of tinne and turne aside now and then the streames of water comming in their way that other is in higher places when as upon the hils they dig very deepe pits which they call Shafts and doe undermine In working both waies there is seen wonderfull wit and skill as well in draining of waters aside and reducing them into one streame as in the underbuilding pinning and propping up of their pits to passe over with silence their devices of breaking stamping drying crasing washing melting and fining the mettall than which there cannot be more cunning shewed There are also two sorts of Tinne Blacke tinne which is tinne-ore broken and washed but not yet founded into mettall and white tinne that is molten into mettall and that is either soft tinne which is best merchantable or hard tinne lesse merchantable That the ancient Britans practised these tinne-works to omit Timaeus the Historian in Plinie who reporteth That the Britans fetched tinne out of the Isle Icta in wicker boats covered and stitched about with leather appeareth for certaine out of Diodorus Siculus who flourished under Augustus Caesar. For hee writeth that the Britans who Inhabited this part digged tinne out of stonie ground and at a low water carried the same in carts to certaine Ilands adjoyning From whence Merchants transported it by ships into Gaule and from thence conveied the same upon horses within thirtie daies unto the spring-heads of the river Eridanus or else to the citie Narbone as it were to a Mart. Aethicus also who ever hee was that unworthily beareth title to be interpreted by S. Hierome out of the Sclavonian tongue insinuateth the very same and saith That hee delivered rules and precepts to these Tinne-workers But it seemeth that the English-Saxons neglected it altogether or to have used the workmanship and labour of Arabians or Saracens For the Inhabitants in their language terme the mines forlet and given over Attal Sarisin that is the leavings of the Saracens if they did meane by that name the ancient Panims After the comming in of the Normans the Earles of Cornwal gathered great riches out of these mines and especially Richard brother to King Henrie the Third and no marvell sith that in those daies Europe had tinne from no other place For the incursions of the Mores had stopped up the tinne mines of Spaine and as for the tinne veines in Germanie which are in Misnia and Bohemia they were not as yet knowen and those verily not discovered before the yeere after Christs nativitie 1240. For then as a writer of that age recordeth was tinne mett all found in Germanie by a certain Cornishman driven out of his native soile to the great losse and hindrance of Richard Earle of Cornwal This Richard began to make ordinances for these tin-works and afterward Edmund his sonne granted a Charter and certain liberties and withall prescribed certaine Lawes concerning the same which hee ratified or strengthened under his seale and imposed a tribute or rent upon tin to be answered unto the Earls These liberties priviledges and lawes King Edward the Third did afterwards confirme and augment The whole common-wealth of those Tinners and workmen as it were one bodie hee divided into foure quarters which of the places they call Foy-more Black-more Trewarnaile and Penwith Over them all hee ordained a Warden called L. Warden of the Stanniers of Stannum that is Tinne who giveth judgement as well according to equitie and conscience as Law and appointed to every quarter their Stewards who once every iij. weeks every one in his severall quarter minister justice in causes personall betweene Tinner and Tinner and betweene Tinner and Forrainer except in causes of land life or member From whom there lieth an appeale to the Lord Warden from him to the Duke from the Duke to the King In matters of moment there are by the Warden generall Parliaments or severall assemblies summoned whereunto Iurats are sent out of every Stannarie whose constitutions do bind them As for those that deale with tinne they are of foure sorts the owners of the soile the adventurers the merchants or regraters and the labourers called the Spadiards of their Spade who poore men are pitifully out-eaten by usurious contracts But the Kings of England and Dukes of Cornwall in their times have reserved to themselves a praeemption of tin by the opinion of the learned in the Law as well in regard of the proprietie as being chiefe Lords and Proprietaries as of their royall prerogative Lest the tribute or rent imposed should be embezelled and the Dukes of Cornwall defrauded unto whom by the old custome for every thousand pound waight of tinne there is paid forty shillings it is by a Law provided that all the tin which is cast wrought be brought to one of the foure appointed townes where twice in the yeere it is weighed and signed with a stampe they call it Coinage and the said impost according paid neither is it lawfull for any man before that to sell or send it abroad under forfeiture of their tin And now only tin is here found but therewith also gold and silver yea and Diamonds shaped and pointed anglewise smoothed also by nature it selfe whereof some are as big as walnuts and inferiour to the Orient Diamonds in blacknesse and hardnesse only Moreover there is found Eryngium that is Sea Holly growing most abundantly every where along the shore Furthermore so plentifull is this countrey of graine although not without great toile of the husbandman that it hath not onely sufficient to maintaine it selfe but also affoordeth often times great store of corne into Spaine Besides a most rich revenue and commoditie they have by those little fishes that they call Pilchards which swarming as one would say in mighty great skuls about the shores from Iuly unto November are there taken garbaged salted hanged in the smoake laied up pressed and by infinite numbers carried over into France Spaine and Italie unto which countreys they be very good chaffer and right welcome merchandise and are there named Fumados Whereupon Michael a Cornish Poet and of Rhymers in his time the chiefe in his Satyre against Henrie of Aurenches Archpoet to King Henrie the Third because he had unreverently plaied upon Cornishmen as if
PONTIFICE DIRECTVS ET A DEO OPERATIONE MIRACVLORVM SVFFVLTVS ET ETHELBERTHVM REGEM AC GENTEM ILLIVS AB IDOLORVM CVLTV AD FIDEM CHRISTI PERDVXIT ET COMPLETIS IN PACE DIEBVS OFFICII SVI DEFVNCTVS EST SEPTIMO KALENDAS IVNIAS EODEM REGE REGNANTE HERE RESTETH DAN AVGVSTINE THE FIRST ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY VVHO BEING IN TIMES PAST DIRECTED HITHER FROM BLESSED GREGORIE THE BISHOP OF ROME AND THROVGH THE VVORKING OF MIRACLES SVPPORTED BY GOD BOTH BROVGHT KING ETHELBERT AND HIS PEOPLE FROM IDOLATRY TO THE FAITH OF CHRIST AND ALSO AFTER THE DAIES OF HIS FVNCTION ACCOMPLISHED IN PEACE DIED THE SEVENTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF IVNE IN THE SAME KINGS REIGNE Together with him in the same porch were buried sixe Archbishops next succeeding and in memoriall of these seven namely Austen Laurence Mellitus Iustus Honorius Deus-dedit and Theodosius were these verses such as they are engraven there in marble SEPTEM SVNT ANGLIS PRIMATES ET PROTO PATRES SEPTEM RECTORES SEPTEM COELOQVE TRIONES SEPTEM CISTERNAE VITAE SEPTEMQVE LVCERNAE ET SEPTEM PALMAE REGNI SEPTEMQVE CORONAE SEPTEM SVNT STELLAE QUAS HAEC TENET AREA CELLAE Seven Patriarchs of England Primates seven Seven Rectors and seven Labourers in heaven Seven Cesternes pure of life seven Lamps of light Seven Palmes and of this Realme seven Crownes full bright Seven Starres are heere bestow'd in vault below I may not forget another Church neere unto this built as Bede saith by the Romans and consecrated to Saint Martin wherein before Austens comming Bertha wife to King Ethelbert descended from the bloud Royall of France was wont to frequent divine Christian service Concerning the Castle on the South side of the Citie the Bulwarks whereof now are decaied it maketh no shew of any great antiquity and there is no memorable thing thereof come to my knowledge but only that it was built by the Normans as touching the dignitie of the See of Canterburie which in times past carried a great State I will say nothing but this that as in former ages during the Roman Hierarchie the Archbishops of Canterbury were Primates of all Britaine Legates to the Pope and as Vrbane the second said The Patriarches as it were of another world so when the Popes authoritie was abrogated a decree passed in the Synode Anno 1534. that laying aside the said title they should bee stiled Primates and Metropolitanes of all England Which dignitie the right reverend Father in Christ D. Iohn Whitgift lately held who devoutly consecrated both his whole life to God all his painefull labours to the Church and in the yeare 1604. slept in the Lord a Prelate much missed of all good men After whom succeeded Doctor Richard Bancroft a man of singular courage and counsaile in establishing and supporting the state Ecclesiasticall For the Latitude of Canterbury the Pole Artick is elevated above the Horizon there fifty one degrees and sixteene minutes and the Longitude is reckoned to be foure and twenty degrees and fiftie one minutes Stour by this time having gathered his waters all into one streame runneth beside Hackington where Dame Lora Countesse of Leicester a most honourable Lady in those daies having abandoned all worldly pleasures sequestred her selfe from the world devoutly to serve God wholy Afore which time Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury began a Church there in the honour of Saint Stephen and Thomas of Canterbury But being inhabited by the Bishop of Rome his authoritie for feare the same might prejudice the Monkes of Canterbury hee gave over the workes Howbeit ever since the name remained and the place is called Saint Stephens of which Sir Roger Manwood Knight L. cheife Baron of the Exchequer a man of exquisite knowledge in our common lawes unto whom for his bounteous liberalitie the poore inhabitants are much beholding was of late time a right great ornament and even so is his sonne at this day Sir Peter Manwood Knight of the Bath whom I cannot but mention when as he is a favourer of vertue and learning From thence Stour passeth by Fordich called the little Burough of Forewich in King William the Conquerours booke a place of note for excellent good trouts and so in former time to Stoure-mouth which it hath now forsaken a mile and more yet left and bequeathed his name to it But now by Stoure-mouth runneth a brooke which issuing our of Saint Eadburghs well at Liming where the daughter to King Ethelbert first of our nation tooke the veile while it seeketh the sea seeth Elham a mercate towne of which I have read nothing but that the Mannour was the inheritance of Iulian Leibourn a Ladie of great honour in her time who was mother of Laurence Hastings first Earle of Penbrooke of that surname and after wife to William Clinton Earle of Huntingdon Then it holdeth his course by divers villages which thereof receive the addition of Bourn as Bishops-bourn Hawles-bourn Patricks-bourn and Beakes-bourn This bourne is that river Stoure as Caesar calleth it as I have observed travailing lately in these parts which Caesar came unto when he had marched by night almost twelve Italian miles from the sea-coast and where hee had the first encounter in his second expedition into Britaine with the Britaines whom he drave into the woods where they had a place fortified both by nature and mens labour with a number of trees hewen downe and plashed to fore-close the entries But yet the Romans forced an entrie drave them out and there about encamped The place of campe as I heare is neare Hâ—rdes a place of ancien Gentlement of that surname descended from Esten grave Herengod and the Fitz-Bernards Belowe Stoure-mouth Stoure dividing his streame taketh two severall waies and leaving that name is called In-lade and Wantsume making the Isle of Tenet on the West and South side for on all other sides it is washed with the maine Sea This Iland Solinus named ATHANATON and in other copies THANATON the Britaines Iuis Ruhin as witnesseth Asserius happily for Rhutupin of Rhutupinae a Citie adjoining The English Saxons called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we Tenet All the Isle standeth upon a whitish maile full of goodly corne fields and being a right fertile soile carrieth in length eight miles and foure in breadth reckoned in old time to containe 600. Families in stead whereof it is corruptly read in Bede Milliarium Sexcentarum for Familiarum Sexcentarum But whereas Solinus writeth that there is not a snake creeping in this Isle and that the mould or earth carried from hence killeth snakes it is now proved to bee untrue That Etymologie therefore derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is from the death of snakes falleth quite to the ground Here the English Saxons landed first here by the permission of Guortigern they first seated themselves here was their place of refuge and here Guortimor the Britaine made a great
Sir Walter Clifford in this Castle when the house was all on a light fire hee was killed with a stone that from the top of an high Turret fell upon his head and brained him Neither have I any thing else to be recounted in this wood-countrey beside Newnham a pretty mercate and Westbury thereby a seate of the Bainhams of ancient descent But that Herbert who had wedded the sister of the said Mahel Earle of Hereford in her right was called Lord of Deane froÌ„ whom that Noble house of the Herberts fetcheth their pedigree out of which family came the Lords of Blanleveney and of late daies the Herberts Earles of Huntingdon and Pembroch with others From hence also if wee may believe David Powell in his historie of Wales was descended Antonie Fitz-Herbert whose great learning and industrie in the wisedome of our law both the judiciall Court of Flees wherein he sate Iustice a long time and also those exact bookes of our common law by him exquisitely penned and published doe sufficiently witnesse But other have drawne his descent and that more truly if I have insight therein from the race of the Fitz-Herberts Knights in Derby shire The river Severn called by the Britains HAFFREN after it hath run a long course with a channell somewhat narrow no sooner entereth into this shire but entertaineth the river Avon and another brooke comming from the East Betwixt which is seated Tewkesbury in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by others Theoci Curia taking the name from one Theocus who there did lead an Eremites life It is a great and faire towne having three bridges to passe over standing upon three rivers famous for making of Wollen cloath and the best mustard which for the quicke heate that it hath biteth most and pierceth deepest but most famous in times past by reason of an ancient Monastery which Dodo a man of great power in Mercia founded in the yeare 715 where before time he kept his royall court as is testified by this inscription which there remained long after HANC AVLAM REGIAM DODO DVX CONSECRARI FECIT IN ECCLESIAM THIS ROIAL PALACE DVKE DODO CAVSED TO BE CONSECRATED FOR A CHVRCH And Odo his brother endowed the same which being by continuance of time and the fury of enemies ruinated Robert FITZ-HAIMON the Norman Lord of Corboile and Thorigny in Normandie reedified translating monks from Cranborn in Dorsetshire hither upon a devout mind verily and a religious that he might make some amends to the Church for the losse that the Church of Baieux in Normandie had sustained which K. Henry the first for to free him from his enemies had set on fire and burned and afterwards repenting that which he had done built againe It cannot writeth William of Malmesbury be easily reported how highly Robert Fitz-hamon exalted this Monastery wherin the beauty of the buildings ravished the eies and the charity of the Monks allured the hearts of such folke as used to come thither Within this both himselfe and his successours Earles of Glocester were buried who had a Castle of their owne called Holmes hard by which now is almost vanished out of sight Neither is this towne lesse memorable for that battell whereby the house of Lancaster received a mortal wound as wherein very many of their side in the yeere 1471. were slaine more taken prisoners and divers beheaded their power so weakened and their hopes abated especially because young Prince Edward the only sonne of King Henry the sixt a very child was there put to death and in most shamefull and villanous manner his braines dashed out as that never after they came unto the field against King Edward the Fourth In which respect Iohn Leland wrote of this towne in this wise Ampla foro partis spoliis praeclara Theoci Curia sabrinae quà se committit Avona Fulget nobilium sacrÃsque recondit in antris Multorum cineres quondam inclyta corpora bello Where Av'n and Severn meete in one there stands a goodly towne For mercat great and pillage rich there wonne of much renowne Hight Tewkesburie where noble men entombed many are Now gone to mould who sometimes were redoubted Knights in warre From thence we come to Deorhirst which Bede speaketh of scituate somewhat low upon the banke of Severn wherby it hath great losses many times when he over-floweth his bounds It had in it sometimes a little Monasterie which being by the Danes overthrowne flourished againe at length under Edward the Confessor who as we read in his Testament assigned The religious place at Deorhirst and the government thereof to Saint Denis neere unto Paris Yet a little while after as William of Malmesbury saith It was but a vaine and void representation of antiquitie Over against it lieth a place halfe incompassed in with Severne called in the Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Alney now the Eight that is The Iland Famous by the reason of this occurrence that when both the Englishmen and the Danes were much weakened with continuall encounters to make a finall dispatch at once of all quarrels the Fortune and destinie of both nations was committed to Edmund King of the English and to Canutus King of the Danes who in this Iland by a single combate tried it out unto whether of them the right of this Realme should belong But after they had fought and given over on even hand a peace was concluded and the kingdome divided betweene them But when streight upon it Edmund was dispatched out of the way not without suspicion of poison Canutus seized into his owne hands all England From Deorhirst Severne runneth downe by Haesfield which King Henry the Third gave to Rich. Pauncefote whose successours built a faire house heere and whose predecessours were possessed of faire lands in this Countrey before and in the Conquerours time in Wiltshire making many reaches winding in and out and forthwith dividing himselfe to make a river Iland most rich and beautifull in greene meddowes he passeth along by the head Citie of this Shire which Antonine the Emperour called CLEVVM and GLEVVM the Britans terme Caer Gloviè the English Saxons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we Glocester the Vulgar sort of Latinists Glovernia others Claudiocestria of the Emperour Claudius as they imagine who forsooth should give it this name when hee had bestowed heere his daughter Genissa in marriage upon Arviragus the Britan. Touching whom Iuvenall writeth thus Regem aliquem capies vel de temone Britanno Excidet Arviragus Some King sure thou shalt prisoner take in chase or battaile heat Or else Arviragus shall loose his British royall seate As though hee had begat any other daughters of his three wives besides Claudia Antonia and Octavia or as if Arviragus had beene knowne in that age whose name was never heard of before Domitians time and scarce then But let them goe that seeke to build antiquitie upon a frame grounded on lies Rather yet would I
erected and whose immortall soules in them doe speake to the end that Time might not have power and prevaile against men of worth and the desires of mortall men might be satisfied who do all long to know what their persons and presence were The Earle of Dorset late Chancellor of this Vniversity that he might also leave some memoriall of himselfe hath in the very place dedicated unto Sir Thomas Bodley so passing well deserving of the Learned Common-wealth his representation with this inscription THOMAS SACKUILLUS DORSETTIAE COMES SUMMUS ANGLIAE THESAURARIUS ET HUJUS ACADEMIAE CANCELLARIUS THOMAE BODLEIO EQUITI AURATO QUI BIBLIO THE CAM HANC INSTITUIT HONORIS CAUSSA PIE POSUIT That is THOMAS SACKUIL EARLE OF DORSET LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND AND CHANCELOR OF THIS UNIVERSITIE UNTO SIR THOMAS BODLEY KNIGHT WHO INSTITUTED THIS LIBRARY OF A PIOUS MIND ERECTED THIS MONUMENT TO DO HIM HONOUR In the Raigne of Henry the Seventh for the better advancement of learning William Smith Bishop of Lincolne built new out of the ground Brasen Nose College which that good and godly old man Master Alexander Nowell Deane of Saint Paules in London lately augmented with Revenewes and Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester erected likewise that which is named Corpus Christi College and Thomas Wolsey Cardinall of Yorke following their example beganne another where the Monastery of Frideswide stood the most stately and fairest of them all for Professors and 200. Students which Henry the Eighth joyning unto it Canterbury College assigned to a Deane Prebends and Students endowed it with livings and named it Christs Church And the same most puissant Prince with money disbursed out of his owne Treasury ordained both for the Dignity of the City a Bishop and for the ornament and advancement of the University publique Professours Likewise within our remembrance for the furtherance of learning with new and fresh benefits Sir Thomas Pope Knight reared a new Durrham College and Sir Thomas White Knight Citizen and Alderman of London raised Bernard College both which lay buryed in the rubbish They reedified them repaired them with new buildings enriched them with faire lands and gave them new names For the one of them they dedicated to Saint Iohn Baptist and that other to the holy and sacred Trinity Queene Mary also built the common Schooles And now of late Hugh Prise Doctor of the Lawes hath begunne a new College with good speede and happy successe as I wish to the honor of Iesus With these Colleges which are in number 16. and eight Haulls beside all faire and decently built richly endowed and furnished with good Libraries Oxford at this day so flourisheth that it farre surmounteth all other Universities of Christendome And for Living Libraries for so may I well and truely with Eunapius terme great Scholers and learned men for the discipline and teaching of the best Arts and for the politique government of this their republicke of Literature it may give place to none But to what end is all this Oxford needeth no mans commendation the excellency thereof doth so much exceede and if I may use Plinies word superfluit that is Surmounteth Let this suffice to say of Oxford as Pomponius Mela did of Athens Clarior est quà m ut indicari egeat that is More glorious it is of it selfe than that it needeth to bee out shewed But have heere for an upshot and farewell the beginning of Oxford story out of the Proctors booke By the joint testimony of most Chronicles many places in divers Coasts and Climats of the world we read to have flourished at sundry times in the studies of divers sciences But the Vniversity of Oxford is found to be for foundation more ancient for plurality of sciences more generall in profession of the Catholike truth more constant and in multiplicity of Privileges more excellent than all other Schooles that are knowne among the Latines The Mathematicians of this University have observed that this their City is from the Fortunate Islands 22. Degrees and the Arcticke or North Pole elevated 51. Degrees and 50. Scruples high And thus much briefly of my deare Nurse-mother Oxford But when a little beneath Oxford Isis and Cherwell have consociated their waters together within one Chanell Isis then entire of himselfe and with a swifter current runneth Southward to finde Tame whom so long he had sought for And gone he is not forward many miles but behold Tame streaming out of Buckinghamshire meeteth with him who is no sooner entred into this Shire but he giveth name to Tame a Mercate Towne situate very pleasantly among Rivers For Tame passeth hard by the Northside and two Riverers shedding themselves into it compasse the same the one on the East and the other on the West Alexander that liberall Bishop of Lincolne Lord of the place when his prodigall humor in sumptuous building of Castles was of every body privily misliked to wash out that staine as Newbrigensis saith built a little Abbay neere unto the Towne and many yeares after the Quatremans who in the age foregoing were men of great reputation in these parts founded an Hospitall for the sustentation of poore people But both of these are now decayed and quite gone and in stead thereof Sir Iohn Williams Knight whom Queene Mary advanced to the Dignity of a Baron by the Title of Lord William of Tame erected a very faire Schoole and a small Hospitall But this Title soone determined when he left but daughters marryed into the Families of Norris and Wenman From hence Tame runneth downe neere unto Ricot a goodly house which in times past belonged to those Quatremans whose stocke failing to bring forth Males it was devolved at length after many sailes and alienations passed by the Foulers and Herons unto the said Lord Williams and so by his daughter fell to Sir Henry Lord Norris whom Queene Elizabeth made Baron Norris of Ricot a man of good marke in regard of his noble birth and parentage for he descended from the Lovells who were neere allied by kinred unto the greatest houses in England but most renowned for that right valiant and warlike Progeny of his as the Netherlands Portugall little Bretagne and Ireland can witnesse At the length Tame by Haseley where sometimes the names of Barentines flourished as at Cholgrave commeth to Dorchester by Bede termed Civitas Dorcinia by Leland Hydropolis a name devised by his owne conceit yet fit enough considering that Dour in the British tongue signifieth water That this Towne was in old time inhabited by Romanes their coined peeces of money oftentimes turned up doe imply and our Chronicles record that it was for a long time much frequented by reason of a Bishops See which Birinus the Apostle of the West-Saxons appointed to be there For when hee had baptised Cinigilse a pety King of the West-Saxons unto whom Oswald King of Northumberland was Godfather both these Kings as saith Bede gave this City unto the same Bishop
the clouds disparcled and golden dayes in deed shone upon it Since when it never sustained any great calamity to speake of but through the speciall favour and indulgence of Princes obtained very large and great Immunities beganne to bee called The Kings Chamber and so flourished a new with fresh trade and traffique of Merchants that William of Malmesbury who lived well neere about that time termed it A noble and wealthy City replenished with rich Citizens and frequented with the commerce of Occupiers and Factours comming out of all lands And Fitz-Stephen living also in those dayes hath left in writing that London at that time counted an hundred and twenty two Parish Churches and thirteene Covents of religious Orders also that when a Muster and shew was made of able men to beare Armes they brought into the Field under their Collours forty thousand footemen and twenty thousand horsemen Then was it enlarged with new buildings and the spacious Suburbs stretched forth from the gates a great length on every side but Westward especially which are the greatest and best peopled In which are twelve Innes ordained for Students of our Common law whereof foure being very faire and large belong to the judiciall Courts the rest to the Chauncery besides two Innes moreover for the Serjeants at Law Herein such a number of young Gentlemen doe so painefully ply their bookes and study the Law that for frequency of Students it is not inferiour either to Angiers Cane or Orleance it selfe as Sir Iohn Fortescue in his small Treatise of the Lawes of England doth witnesse The said foure principall houses are The Inner Temple the Middle Temple Graies Inne and Lincolns Inne Those two former named stand in the very place where in times past during the Raigne of King Henry the Second Heraclius Patriarch of Jerusalem consecrated a Church for Knights Templars which they had newly built according to the forme of the Temple neere unto the Sepulchre of our Lord at Hierusalem For at their first institution about the yeare of our Lord 1113. they dwelt in part of the Temple hard by the Sepulchre whereof they were so named and vowed to defend Christian Religion the Holy Land and Pilgrimes going to visite the Lords Sepulchre against all Mahometans and Infidels professing to live in chastity and obedience whereupon all men most willingly and with right loving hearts embraced them so that through the bounteous liberality of Princes and devout people having gotten in all places very faire Possessions and exceeding great wealth they flourished in high reputation for Piety and Devotion yea and in the opinion both of the holinesse of the men and of the place King Henry the Third and many Noble men desired much to bee buryed in their Church among them Some of whose Images are there to bee seene with their legges acrosse For so they were buryed in that Age that had Taken upon them the Crosse as they then termed it to serve in the Holy Land or had vowed the same Among whom was William Marshall the elder a most powerfull man in his time William and Gilbert his sonnes Marshalles of England and Earles of Penbroch Upon William the elder his Tombe I some yeares since read in the upper part Comes Penbrochiae and upon side this Verse Miles eram Martis Mars multos vicerat armis Of Mars I was a doughty Knight Mars vanquished many a man in fight But in processe of time when with insatiable greedinesse they had hoorded great wealth by withdrawing tith's from churches appropriating spiritual livings to themselves and other hard meanes their riches turned to their ruine For thereby their former piety was after a manner stifled they fell at jarre with other religious orders their professed obedience to the Patriarch of Ierusalem was rejected envy among the common sort was procured which hope of gain among the better sort so enkindled that in the yeere of our salvation 1312. this order was condemned of impiety and by the Popes authority utterly abolished Howbeit their possessions were by authority of the Parliament assigned to the Hospitalier Knights of S. Iohn of Ierusalem least that such Lands given to pious and good uses against the Donours will should bee alienated to other uses And yet it is apparent out of ancient writings that this place after the expulsion of the Templers was the seat and habitation of Thomas Earle of Lancaster and of Sir Hugh Spenser King Edward the Second his minion afterwards of Sir Aimer de Valence Earle of Pembroch and in the end turned into two Colledges or Innes of Lawyers Of the rest of these Innes I have found nothing at all by reading But the generall voyce goeth that the one was the dwelling house of the Lord Greies of Wilton and the other of the Earles of Lincolne Nere unto this K. Henry the third erected betweene the New and the Old Temple an house of Converts for the maintenance of those that were converted from Iudaisme to the Christian Truth which King Edward the Third appointed afterwards for rolls and records to be kept therein and thereof at this day it is called The Rowls These Suburbs with houses standing close together and stately habitations of the Nobles and great Men of the Land along the Tamis side reach out as farre as to Westminster Among which these are the most memorable here Bride-well where King Henry the Eighth built a royall house for the entertainment of Charles the Fifth Emperour but now it is an House of Correction Buckhurst house or Salisbury Court belonging sometimes to the Bishops of Salisbury the White Freers or Carmelite Freers The Temples whereof I speake Then without the Bars Essex house built by the Lord Paget Arondel house before called Hampton place and Somerset house built by Edward Semer Duke of Somerset The Savoy so named of Peter Earle of Savoy who there dwelt which Queene Aeleonor wife to King Henry the Third purchased of the fraternity of Mont-joy and gave it to her Sonne Edmund Earle of Lancaster Whose Posterity dwelt in it a long time untill that King Henry the Seaventh dedicated it as an Hospitall for the Poore Worcester-house late Bedford-house Salisbury-house Durham-house built by Antony Becke Bishop of Durham and Patriarch of Jerusalem and thereby the onely ornament of this part the Britain-Burse built by the Earle of Salisbury and so named by King Iames Yorke-house in times past Bath-house and Northampton-house now begunne by Henry Earle of Northampton But what meane I to name these places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 None claime them wholy for their owne Fortune disposeth them every one By this Suburbs Westminster which sometime was more than a mile distant is conjoyned so close unto the Citty of London that it seemeth a member thereof whereas it is a Citty of it selfe having their peculiar Magistrates and Priviledges It was called in times past Thorney of Thornes but now Westminster of the West situation
owne habitation For kings in those daies sat in Judgement place in their owne persons And they are indeed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Judges Whose mouth as that Royall Writer saith shall not erre in Judgement But the foresaid Palace after it was burnt downe in the yeare of our Lord 1512. lay desolate and king Henry the Eighth translated shortly after the kings Seat from thence to an house not farre off which belonged but a while before to Cardinall Wolsey and is called White Hall This house is a Princely thing enclosed of the one side with a Parke that reacheth also to another house of the kings named S. James where anciently was a Spittle for Maiden Lepres built by king Henry the Eighth on the other side with the Tamis A certaine Poet termed the foresaid House according to the English name thereof Leucaeum in Latine as appeareth in these Verses Regale subintrant Leucaeum Reges dederant memorabile quondam Atria quae niveo candebant marmore nomen Quod Tamisis prima est cui gloria pascere cygnos Ledaeos ranco pronus subterluit aestu To Royall Palace Kings enter in sometime LEUCEUM hight This famous name those Courts it gave that shone with marble white Hard under it with low-sound streame Tamis downe apace doth glide A River feeding Swannes wherein he takes especiall pride Hard by neere unto the Mues so called for that it served to keepe Hawkes and now is become a most faire Stable for the kings horses there remaineth a monument in memoriall of that most pious and kinde Queene Aeleonor erected by the king Edward the First her most dearely beloved husband and certes the memory of her loving kindnesse shall remaine worthy to be consecrated to aeternity For shee the daughter of Ferdinand the Third king of Castile being given in marriage to Edward the first king of England accompanied him into the Holy Land where when as he was secretly forelaid and by a certaine Moore wounded with an envenomed sword and by all the remedies that Physitians could devise was not so much eased as afflicted shee tooke her to a cure strange I must needs say and never heard of before howbeit full of love and kinde affection For her Husbands wounds infected with the poison and which by reason of the malignity thereof could not bee closed and healed shee day by day licked with her tongue and sucked out the venemous humour which to her was a most sweet liquour By the vigour and strength whereof or to say more truely by vertue of a wives lovely fidelity she so drew unto her all the substance of the poison that the wounds being closed and cicatrized hee became perfectly healed and shee caught no harme at all What then can bee heard more rare what more admirable than this womans faithfull love That a wives tongue thus annointed as I may so say with faith and love to her Husband should from her well beloved draw those poisons which by an approved Physitian could not bee drawne and that which many and those right exquisite medicines effected not the love onely and piety of a Wife performed Thus much of Westminster joyntly with London although as I have said it is a City by it selfe and hath a severall jurisdiction from it because with continued buildings it so joyneth thereto that it may seeme to be one and the same City Moreover at the West end of the City other Suburbs runne a great way in length with goodly rowes of houses orderly ranged as namely Holborne or rather more truely Oldborne wherein stood anciently the first house of the Templers onely in the place now called Southampton house But now there stand certaine Innes or Colleges of Students in the Common Law and a City-habitation of the Bishops of Ely well beseeming Bishops to dwell in for which they are beholden to John de Hotham Bishop of Ely under king Edward the Third At the North side likewise there be Suburbs annexed to the City wherein Iordan Briset a man very wealthy and devout built an house for the Knights Hospitalers of Saint Iohn of Ierusalem which grew in time so great that it resembled a Palace and had in it a very faire Church and a Towre-steeple raised to a great height with so fine workemanship that while it stood it was a singular beauty and ornament to the City These Knights Hospitalers at their first institution about the yeare 1124. and long after were so lowly all the while they continued poore that their Governour was stiled Servant to the poore Servitours of the hospitall of Ierusalem like as the Master of the Templars who shortly after arose was termed The humble Minister of the poore Knights of the Temple This religious Order was instituted shortly after Geffery of Bollen had recovered Hierusalem The Brethren whereof ware a white Crosse upon their upper blacke Garment and by solemne Profession were bound to serve Pilgrimes and poore people in the Hospitall of Saint Iohn at Hierusalem and to secure the passages thither they charitably buried the dead they were continuall in prayer mortified themselves with watchings and fastings they were courteous and kinde to the poore whom they called their Masters and fed with white bread while themselves lived with browne and carried themselves with great austerity Whereby they purchased to themselves the love and liking of all sorts and through the bounty of good Princes and private persons admiring their piety and prowesse they rose from this low degree to so high an estate and great riches that after a sort they wallowed in wealth For they had about the yeare of our Lord 1240. within Christendome nineteene thousand Lordships or Manours like as the Templars nine thousand the Revenewes and rents whereof in England fell afterwards also to these Hospitalers And this Estate of theirs growne to so great an height made way for them to as great honours so as their Prior in England was reputed the Prime Baron of the Land and able with fulnesse and aboundance of all things to maintaine an honourable Port untill that King Henry the Eighth advised by them which respected their private profit gat their lands and livings into his owne hands like as hee did of the Monasteries also Albeit it was then declared that such religious places being of most pious intent consecrated to the Glory of God might have beene according to the Canons of the Church bestowed in exhibition and Almes for Gods Ministers releefe of the poore redemption of Captives and repairing of Churches Neere unto it where now is to be seene a sightly circuit of faire houses was the Charter-house founded by Sir Walter Many of Henault who with singular commendation served under King Edward the Third in the French warres and in that place heretofore was a most famous Cemitery or buriall place in which in a plague time at London were buried in the yeare 1349. more than 50000. persons a
against King Henry the Seaventh to his owne destruction for in the battell at Stoke he was quickly slaine to his fathers death also who for very griefe of heart ended his dayes and to the utter ruine of the whole family which together with them was in a sort extinguished and brought to nothing For his brother Edmund being Earle of Suffolke fled into Flanders began there to conspire and stir up rebellion against King Henry the Seaventh who albeit he feared him would seeme to favour him and as a Prince better contented with repentance than punishment freely pardoned him for sundry offences that he might winne him But after he was thus fled his estate was forfeited and the King never thought himselfe secure from his practises untill he had so farre prevailed with Philip Duke of Burgundy that he was delivered into his hands against the Law of hospitality toward strangers as some then gave out upon solemne promise in the word of a Prince that his life should be spared Neverthelesse he was kept close prisoner and after executed by King Henry the Eighth who thought himselfe not tied to his fathers promise what time as hee first minded to make warre upon France for feare least in his absence some troubles might bee raised at home in his behalfe yet his yonger brother S. Richard de la Pole a banished man in France usurped the title of Duke of Suffolke who being the last male to my knowledge of this house was slaine in the battell of Pavie wherein Francis the first king of France was taken prisoner in the yeer of our Lord 1524. fighting manfully among the thickest of his enemies For whom in consideration of his singular valour and high parentage the Duke of Burbon himselfe although hee was his enemy made a sumptuous funerall and honored the same with his presence in mourning blacke In the meane time king Henry the Eighth adorned Sir Charles Brandon unto whom he had given in marriage his owne sister Marie widdow and Dowager to Lewis the twelfth king of France with the title of Duke of Suffolke and granted to him all the Honours and Manours which Edmund Earle of Suffolke had forfeited After whom succeeded Henry his sonne a childe and after him his brother Charles who both died of the English swet upon one day in the yeere 1551. Then king Edward the Sixth honoured with that title Henry Grey Marquesse Dorset who had married Francis their sister but he enjoying the same but a small time lost his head in Queene Maryes dayes for complotting to make his daughter queen and was the last Duke of Suffolk From that time lay this title of Suffolke void untill that very lately king James advanced to that honour Thomas Lord Howard of Walden the second sonne of Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolke whom for his approved fidelity and vertue he also made his Lord Chamberlaine in his first entrie into the kingdome The Parishes in this County amount to the number of 575. NORFOLCIAE comitatus quem oliÌ„ ICENI Insederunt Centinens in Sc ovida Mercatoria XXVI Pagos et villas DCXXV â—na Cum Singulis hundrediâ—â—t fluminibus in codem Anâ—â—eri Christophere Saylon NORTH-FOLKE NORTH-FOLKE commonly Norfolke which is by interpretation people of the North lieth Norward of Suffolke from which it is divided by those two little Rivers which I spake of Ouse the least and Waveney running divers wayes on the East and North side the German Ocean which is plentifull of Fish beateth upon the shores with a mighty noise On the West the greater Ouse a River disporting himselfe with his manifold branches and divisions secludeth it from Cambridge-Shire It is a Region large and spacious and in manner all throughout a plaine champion unlesse it bee where there rise gently some pretty Hills passing rich exceeding full of Sheepe and stored with Conyes replenished likewise with a great number of populous Villages for beside twenty seven Mercat townes it is able to shew Villages and Country Townes 625 Watered with divers Rivers and Brookes and not altogether destitute of Woods The soyle according to the variety of places is of a divers nature Some where fat ranke and full of moisture as in Mershland and Flegg otherwhere but Westward especially leane light and sandy elsewhere standing upon clay and chalke But the goodnesse of the ground a man may collect by this whence Varro willeth us to gather it that the Inhabitants are of a passing good complexion to say nothing of their exceeding wily wits and the same right quicke in the insight of our common lawes in so much as it is counted as well now as in times past the onely Country for best breed of Lawyers so that even out of the meanest sort of the common people there may be found not a few who if there were nothing else to beare action or able to fetch matter enough of wrangling controversies even out of the very prickes titles and accents of the Law But least whiles I desire brevity I become long by these digressions which may distaste I will turne my penne from the people to the places and beginning at the South side runne over briefly those which are more memorable and of greater antiquity Upon the least Ouse where Thet a small brooke breaking out of Suffolke meeteth and runneth with him in a low ground was seated that ancient City SITOMAGUS which Antonine the Emperour maketh mention of corruptly in the Fragments of an old Choragraphicall table called SIMOMAGUS and SINOMAGUS now Thetford in the Saxon language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which remaineth part of the former name with the addition of the English word Ford. For like as Sitomagus in the Brittish tongue implieth a Citie by the river Sit which now is Thet for Magus as Plinie sheweth signified a City so Thetford in English betokeneth the Ford of Thet neither are these two names Sit and Thet much unlike in sound There are in it at this day but few Inhabitants although it be of a good bignesse but in times past it was very populous and beside other tokens of antiquity it hath still to bee seene a great Mount raised to a good height by mens hands fensed with a double rampier and as the report goeth fortified in ancient time with walles which was a Romane worke as some thinke or rather of the English Saxon Kings as others would have it under whom it flourished a long time But after it was sacked first by Suenus the Dane who in a rage set it on fire in the yeere 1004 and sixe yeers after being spoyled againe by the furious Danes it lost all the beauty and dignity that it had For the recovery whereof Bishop Arfast removed his Episcopall See from Elmham hither and Bishop William his successor did all he could to adorne and set it out so that under King Edward the Confessour there were counted in it 947. Burgesses and in William the Conquerours time 720. Mansions whereof 224. stood void
memory I will briefly runne them over Neere to Linne upon an high hill standeth Rising-castle almost marchable to the Castle of Norwich the seat in times past of the Albineys afterwards of Robert de Monthault by one of the sisters and coheires of Hugh Albiney Earle of Arundell and at last the mansion place of the Mowbrays who as I have learned came out of the same house that the Albineys did But now after long languishings as it were by reason of old age the said Castle hath given up the ghost Below it is Castle-acre where was sometimes the habitation of the Earles of Warren in a Castle now halfe downe on a little Rivers side which carrying no name ariseth not farre from Godwicke a lucky good name where there stands a small house but greatly graced by the Lord thereof Sir Edward Coke Knight a man of rare endowments of nature and as in the Common lawes much practised so of deepe insight therein which all England both tooke knowledge of whiles hee discharged the function of Atturney Generall many yeares most learnedly and now acknowledgeth whiles being Lord Chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas he administreth justice as uprightly and judiciously Neither is he lesse to be remembred for that he loveth learning and hath well deserved of the present and succeeding ages by his learned labours This Riveret or brooke with a small streame and shallow water runneth Westward to Linne by Neirford that gave name to the Family of the Neirfords famous in times past and by Neirborrough where neere unto the house of the Spilmans knights upon a very high hill is to be seene a warlike Fort of passing great strength and of ancient worke so situated as it hath a very faire prospect into the Country about it After upon the said Brooke is seated Penteney a prety Abbay the ordinary buriall place in ancient time of the Noblemen and Gentlemen in this Tract Neere unto it lieth Wormegay commonly Wrongey which Reginald de Warren brother of William de Warren the second Earle of Surry had with his wife of whom as I have read the said Earle had the donation or Maritagium as they use to speake in the law phrase and by his sonnes daughter streightwayes it was transferred to the Bardolphs who being Barons of great nobility flourished a long time in honorable state and bare for their Armes Three Cinque-foiles or in a Shield Azâ—r The greatest part of whose Inheritance together with the Title came to Sir William Phellips and by his daughter passed away to the Vicount Beaumont More Eastward are seated Swaffham a Mercat Towne of good note sometime the Possession of the Earle of Richmond Ashele Manour by Tenure whereof the Hastings and Greies Lords of Ruthin had the charge of table clothes and linnen used at the solemne Coronation of the Kings of England North Elmham the Bishops See for a good time when as this Province was divided into two Dioceses Dereham wherein Withburga King Annas daughter was buried whom because shee was piously affected farre from all riotous excesse and wanton lightnesse our Ancestours accounted for a Saint Next unto which is Greshenhall and adjoyning thereto Elsing the possessions in ancient time of the Folliots men of great worth and Dignity which in right of dowry came by a daughter of Richard Folliot to Sir Hugh de Hastings descended out of the Family of Abergevenny and at length by the daughters and heires of Hastings the last Greshenhall aforesaid fell unto Sir Hamon le Strange of Hunstanton and Elsing unto William Browne the brother of Sir Antonie Browne the first Vicount Mount-acute In this quarter also is Ick-borrough which Talbot supposeth to have beene that ICIANI whereof Antonine speaketh Neither have I cause to write any more of these places And now I thinke it is good time to set downe the Earles and Dukes of Northfolke that I may proceed to Cambridgeshire William the Conquerour made one Raulph Governour of East-England that is to say of Norfolke Suffolke and Cambridgeshire who forthwith gaping as I said after an alteration and change in the State was dispossessed of that place After certaine yeares in the Raigne of Stephen Hugh Bigod was Earle of Norfolke For when peace was concluded betweene Stephen and Henry Duke of Anjou who became afterwards King Henry the second by expresse words it was provided that William King Stephens sonne should have the whole Earledome of Norfolke excepting among other things The third peny of that County whereof Hugh Bigod was Earle Whom notwithstanding King Henry the Second created Earle againe of the third peny of Norfolke and Norwich Who dying about the 27. yeare of Henry the Second Roger his sonne succeeded who for what cause I know not obtained at the hands of King Richard the first a new Charter of his creation Him succeeded his sonne Hugh who tooke to his wife Mawde the eldest daughter and one of the heires of William Marescall Earle of Pembroch By whom he had issue one sonne named Roger Earle of Norfolke and Marescall of England who at Tournament having his bones put out of joint died without issue and another called Hugh Bigod Lord chiefe Justice of England slaine in the battaile of Lewis whose sonne Roger succeeded his Uncle in the Earldome of Norfolke and dignity of Marescall but having incurred through his insolent contumacy the high displeasure of King Edward the First was compelled to passe away his honors and well neere his whole inheritance into the Kings hands to the use of Thomas of Brâ—therton the Kings son whom he had begotten of his second wife Margaret sister to Philip the Faire King of France For thus reporteth the History out of the Library of Saint Austens in Canterbury In the yeare 1301. Roger Bigod Earle of Norfolke ordained King Edward to bee his heire and hee delivered into his hands the rod of the Marshals Office with this condition that if his wife brought him any children he should without all contradiction receive againe all from the King and hold it peaceably as before and the King gave unto him a 1000. pounds in money and a thousand pound land during his life together with the Marshalship and the Earldome But when he was departed this life without issue King Edward the Second honoured the said Thomas of Brotherton his brother according to the conveiance aforesaid with the Titles of Marshall and Earle of Norfolke Whose daughter Margaret called Marshallesse and Countesse of Norfolke wife to Iohn Lord Segrave king Richard the Second created in her absence Dutchesse of Norfolke for terme of life and the same day created Thomas Mowbray the daughters sonne of the said Margaret then Earle of Notingham the first Duke of Norfolke To him and his heires males unto whom he had likewise granted before the State and stile of Earle Marshall of England This is hee that before the king was challenged and accused by Henry of Lancaster Duke
of the aforesaid came another Gilbert his sonne and heire who gave the Manour of Folkingham with the Appertenances to Edward the sonne of Henry King of England This Gilbert as wee finde in the Plees out of which this Pedegree is prooved claimed service against Wil. de Scremby And at length it came by gift of the Prince to Sir Henry Beaumont For most certaine it is that he held it in the Raigne of Edward the Second Neere unto this is Screkingham remarkable for the death of Alfrick the second Earle of Leicester whom Hubba a Dane slew Of which place it seemeth that Ingulph spake writing thus In Kesteven were slaine three great Lords or petty Kings of the Danes whom they buryed in a Village which was called before Laundon but now for the Sepulture of three Kings Tre-King-ham And more into the East is Hather in this regard onely to be mentioned that the Busseis or Busleis heere dwell who deduce their Race from Roger de Busly in the Conquerours time Then Sleford a Castle of the Bishops of Lincolne built by Alexander the Bishop where Sir John Hussy the first and last Baron of that name created by King Henry the Eighth built himselfe an house who having unwittingly and unadvisedly in the yeere 1537. engaged himselfe with the common people in a tumultuous commotion what time as the first dissention brake out in England about Religion lost his head Not many miles from hence standeth Kime which gave name to a noble family called De Kime but the possession of the place came at length to the Umfranvils of whom three were called to the Parliament by the name of the Earles of Anguse in Scotland But the first of them the learned in our common lawes would not acknowledge to be Earle for that Anguse was not within the limits of the Realme of England untill hee produced openly in Court the Kings Writ by vertue whereof he had been summoned by the King to the Parliament under the Title of Earle of Anguse From the Umfravils this came unto the family of Talbois of whom Gilbert was created by King Henry the Eighth Baron Talbois whose two sonnes dying without issue the inheritance was by the females transferred to the Dimocks Inglebeies and others More Westward wee saw Temple Bruer that is as I interprete it Temple in the Heath For it seemeth to have beene a Commaundery of the Templers considering that the decayed broken Walles of the Church there are seene in forme of the New Temple at London Hard to it lyeth Blankenay the Barony in times past of the D'incourts who flourished successively a long time one after another from the Normans comming in unto King Henry the Sixth his time For then their male line determined in one William who had two sisters for his heires the one married to Sir William Lovell the other to Sir Ralph Cromwell The more willingly have I made mention of this Family to give satisfaction in some measure unto the longing desire of Edmond Baron D'eincourt who long since being carefull and earnest about the preservation of the memory of his name as having no male Issue put up an humble Petition to King Edward the Second Whereas hee foresaw that his sirname and Armes after his death would bee quite forgotten and yet heartily desired that after his decease they might bee still remembred that hee might bee permitted to enfeoffe whomsoever it pleased him both in his Manours and Armes also Which request hee obtained and it was graunted under the Kings Letters Patents yet for all that is this sirname now quite gone to my knowledge and had it not beene continued by the light of learning might have beene cleane forgotten for ever In the West part of Kesteven and the very confines of this Shire and Leicestershire standeth Belvoir or Beauvoir Castle so called of the faire prospect what name soever it had in old time mounted upon the top of a good steepe hill built by Robert De Todeneie a Norman Nobleman who also beganne the little Monastery adjoyning from whom by the Albeneies out of little Britaine and the Barons Roos it came by inheritance to the Mannors Earles of Rutland of whom the first that is to say Thomas as I have beene enformed raised it up againe with newbuildings from the ground when as it had for many yeeres lien buryed as it were in his owne ruines For in despite of Thomas Lord Roos who tooke part with King Henry the Sixth it was much defaced by William Lord Hastings unto whom after that the said Baron Roos was attainted King Edward the Fourth had graunted it with very faire Lands But Edmond Baron Roos sonne of the said Thomas by the gracious favour of king Henry the seventh recovered this ancient Inheritance againe About this Castle are found the Stones called Astroites which resemble little Starres joyned one with another wherein are to bee seene at every corner five Beames or Rayes and in every Ray in the middest is small hollownesse This Stone among the Germanes got his name of Victorie for that as George Agricola writeth in his Sixth Booke of Mineralls they are of opinion that whosoever carryeth it about him shall winne his suite and get victory of his enemies But whether this Stone of ours as that in Germany being put in vineger will stirre out of his place and turne it selfe some-what round I could never yet make tryall Under this Castle lyeth a Vale and presenteth a most pleasant prospect thereunto whereupon it is commonly called the Vale of Belver which is very large and passing pleasantly beautified with Corne fields and no lesse rich in pastures lying stretched out in three Shires of Leicester Nottingham and Lincolne If not in this very place yet hard by it in all probability stood that MARGIDUNUM which Antonine the Emperour placeth next after VERNOMETUM as both the name and the distance also from VERNOMETUM and the Towne PONT or Paunton betweene which Antonine placeth it may most plainly shew It should seeme that ancient name Margidunum was borowed from Marga and the situation of it For Marga among the Britans is a kinde of earth named Marle wherewith they nourished and kept their grounds in heart and DUNUM which signifieth an Hill agreeth onely to places higher mounted than others And yet in this Etymology of the name I am in a doubt seeing that Marle in this place is very geason or skant happily because no man seeketh for it unlesse the Britans by the name of Marga tearmed Plaister-stone which is digged uppe hard by as I have learned the use whereof in white pargetting and in making of Images was of especiall request among the Romans as Plinie witnesseth in his Naturall History Witham a River plentifull in Pikes but carrying a small streame watereth this part of the Shire and on the North-side encloseth it It hath his beginning by a little towne
fourth to whose Treatise of Tenures the students of our Common Law are no lesse beholden than the Civilians to Iustinians Institutes But to returne This Salwarp which we speake of runneth downe by Bromesgrove a mercate towne not of the meanest reckoning and not far from Grafton the seat of a yonger family of the Talbots since King Henry the Seventh gave it to Sir Gilbert Talbot a yonger sonne of John the second Earle of Shrewsbury whom also for his martiall valour and singular wisdome he admitted into the society of the Order of the Garter and made Governor of Callis Then runneth Salwarp downe to Droitwich Durt-wich some terme it of the Salt pits and the wettish ground on which it standeth like as Hyetus in Bâ—etia tooke name of the durty situation where three fountaines yeelding plenty of water to make Salt of divided a sunder by a little brooke of fresh water passing betweene by a peculiar giâ—t of nature spring out out of which most pure white Salt is boiled for sixe moneths every yeere to wit from Midsommer to Midwinter in many set fornaces round about Wherewith what a mighty deale of wood is consumed Fekenham Forest where trees grew sometime thicker and the woods round about if men hold their peace will by their thinnesse make manifest more and more But if I should write that the learned Canonist Richard de la Wich Bishop of Chichester here borne obtained with his fervent prayers these Salt springs out of the bowels of the earth I feare me least some might thinke me both over injurious to the providence of God and also too credulous of old wives traditions Yet were our ancestours in their pious devotion so hasty of beleefe that they did not onely give credit hereto yea and recorde it in their writings but in consideration heereof yeelded unto that Prelate in some sort divine honour when Pope Urban the Fourth had for his sanctity and sincere integrity of life canonized him a Saint But before that ever this Richard was borne Gervase of Tilbury wrote thus of these Salt springs though not altogether truely In the Bishopricke of Worcester there is a country towne not farre from the City named Wich in which at the foote of a certaine little hill there runneth a most fresh water in the banke whereof are seene a few pits or wels of a reasonable depth and their water is most salt When this water is boyled in Caudrons it becommeth thicke and turneth into passing white Salt and all the Province fetcheth and carrieth it for that betweene Christmas and the feast of S. Iohn Baptists Nativitie good the water floweth most Salt The rest of the yeere it runneth somewhat fresh and nothing good to make Salt and that which I take to be more wonderfull when this salt water is run sufficiently for the use of the Country scarcely overfloweth it to any waste Also when the time is once come of the saltnesse the same is nothing at all allaid for all the vicinity of the fresh river water neither is it found in any place neere unto the Sea Moreover in the very Kings booke which we call Domesday we read thus In Wich the King and Earle have eight salt pits which in the whole weeke wherein they boiled and wrought yeelded on the Friday sixteene Bullions Salwarp having now entertained a small brooke descending from Chedesley where anciently the family of Foliot flourished as afterward at Longdon maketh hast to Severne which hath not passed foure miles farther before he runs hard by WORCESTER the principall City of this Shire where he seemeth to passe with a flower streame as it were admiring and wondering thereat all the while he passeth by and worthy it is I assure you of admiration whether you respect either the antiquity or the beauty thereof Certes for antiquity the Emperour Antonine hath made mention of it under the name of BRANONIUM and Ptolomee in whom through the negligence of the transcribers it is misplaced under the name of BRANOGENIUM after which name the Britans call it yet Care Wrangon In the Catalogue of Ninnius it is named Caer Guorangon and Caer Guorcon the old English-Saxons afterward called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I dare not say of Wire that woody Forest which in old time stretched farre Since the Conquest the Latine writers named it Vigornia and Wigornia Which name Ioseph the Monke of Excester a right elegant Poet in those daies was one of the first that used if my memory faile me not I meane him that is published under the name of Cornelius Nepos in these his elegant verses unto Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury In numerum jam crescit honor te tertia poscit Insula jam meminit Wigornia Cantia discit Romanus meditatur apex naufraga Petri Ductorem in mediis expectat cymba procellis A mitre third now waits for thee for still thine honour growes Thee Wigorne still remembereth now Canterbury knowes The See of Rome doth thinke of thee and Peters ship in feare Of wracke amid the boistrous stormes expects thee for to steare Probable it is that the Romanes built it what time as they planted cities at certaine spaces and distances along the East banke of Severne to keepe in the Britans beyond Severne like as they did in Germany on the South banke of Rhene to represse the incursions of the Germans It standeth in a place rising somewhat with a gentle ascent by the rivers side that hath a faire bridge with a tower over it proudly bearing it selfe in old time as I finde it written in an ancient Manuscript roule of the Romanes wall and even now also it is well and strongly walled But the fame and reputation that it now hath ariseth from the Inhabitants who are many in number courteous and wealthy by the trade of clothing from their faire and neat houses from the number also of Churches but most of all from the Bishops See which Sexwulph Bishop of the Mercians erected there in the yeere of Christ 680. having built a Cathedrall Church at the South side of the City which hath been often repaired and which the Bishops and Monkes by little and little have drawne out in length Westward almost to the very brinke of Severn Truly it is a passing faire and stately building adorned with the Monuments and Tombes of King Iohn Arthur Prince of Wales and divers of the Beauchamps and in these daies it is no lesse notable by the Deane and Chapter whom they call Prebendaries placed therein than it was in times past for the Monkes or the Cloister Priests For presently upon the first foundation like as in other religious houses of England married Priests were placed heere who carrying a long time a great opinion of holinesse governed the Churches untill that Danstane Archbishop of Canterbury had decreed in a Synode That from thence forward the religious men in England should live a
when his first wife Avelina daughter and heire to William de Fortibus Earle of Albemarle was dead issuelesse who neverthelesse in her Will had made him her heire married Blanch of Artois of the roiall family of France to his second wife and by her had Thomas Henry and John that died an infant Thomas was the second Earle of Lancaster who tooke to wife Alice the onely daughter and heire of Henry Lacy Earle of Lincolne who by her deed passed over unto the house of Lancaster her owne inheritance and her mothers that which belonged to the family of Long Espee who were Earles of Salisbury like as her father the said Henry Lacy had made the like conveiance before of his owne lands in case Alice should dye without issue as it afterward happened But this Thomas for behaving himselfe insolently toward his soveraigne Edward the second and still supplying fewell to civill warres being taken prisoner in the field lost his head leaving no issue Howbeit when this sentence of death pronounced against him was afterwards by authority of Parliament reversed because hee had not his tryall by his Peeres according to the Law and great Charter his brother Henry succeeded after him in all his possessions and honours Hee also was advanced in estate by his wife Maude daughter and sole heire of Sir Patricke Chaworth who brought unto him not onely her owne patrimony but also great inheritances in Wales of Mauric of London and of Siward from whom she descended This Henry left behind him Henry his onely sonne whom King Edward the third from an Earle raised unto the honour of a Duke and he was second man of all our Nobility which received the name of Duke But hee having no issue male departed this life leaving behind him two daughters Maude and Blanch betweene whom the inheritance was divided Maud was married to William of Bavaria who was Earle of Holland Zeland Frisland Henault and in his wives right of Leicester And when as she deceased without children John of Gaunt so called because hee was borne at Gaunt in Flanders fourth sonne of King Edward the third who had married Blanch the other daughter of Henry aforesaid entred upon the whole inheritance and now being for wealth equivalent to many Kings and created withall by his father Duke of Lancaster he obtained also at his hands great roialties for hee having related what noble service he had performed to his countrey at home and abroad in the warres preferred the County of Lancaster to the dignity of a County Palatine by his letters Patent the tenour whereof runneth in this wise Wee have granted for us and our heires unto our foresaid sonne that he may have for tearme of his life his Chancery within the County of Lancaster and his writs to be sealed under his own seale to be appointed for the office of the Chancellour also Iustices of his owne as well to hold Plees of the Crowne as also other plees whatsoever touching common Law also the hearing and deciding of the same yea and the making of all executions whatsoever by vertue of their owne writs and officers there Moreover all other liberties and Roialties whatsoever to a County Palatine belonging as freely and in as ample maner as the Earle of Chester within the same County of Chester is known to have c. Neither was he Duke of Lancaster onely but also by his marriage with Constance the daughter of Peter King of Leon and Castile hee for a time was stiled by the name of King of Leon and of Castile But by a composition he gave this over and in the thirteenth yeere of King Richard the Second by consent of Parliament was created Duke of Aquitaine to have and hold the same for tearme of life of the King of England as King of France but to the universall dislike of Aquitaine repining and affirming that their Seigniory was inseparably annexed to the Crowne of England At which time his stile ranne thus Iohn sonne to the King of England Duke of Aquitaine and of Lancaster Earle of Derby Lincolne and Leicester and high Steward of England After him Henry of Bollinbroke his sonne succeeded in the Dukedome of Lancaster who when hee had dispossessed Richard the second and obtained the Kingdom of England he considering that being now King he could not beare the title of Duke of Lancaster and unwilling that the said title should be discontinued ordained by assent of Parliament that Henry his eldest sonne should enjoy the same and be stiled Prince of Wales Duke of Aquitain Lancaster and Cornwall and Earle of Chester and also that the liberties and franchises of the Dutchy of Lancaster should remaine to his said sonne severed from the Crowne of England and to make better assurance to himselfe his heires and successours in these inheritances by authority of Parliament he ordained in these words We not willing that our said inheritance or the liberties of the same by occasion of this present assumption upon us of our regall state dignity should be in any thing changed transferred diminished or impaired will that the same our inheritance with the foresaid rights and liberties thereof be kept continued and held fully and wholly to us our said heires in the said Charters specified in the same maner and forme condition and state as they descended and came unto us and also with all and every such liberties and franchises and other priviledges commodities and profits whatsoever in which our Lord and father whiles he lived had and held it for terme of his own life by the grant of Richard late King And by the tenour of these presents of our own certaine knowledge with the consent of this our present Parliament we grant declare decree and ordaine for us and our heires that as well our Dutchy of Lancaster as all other things and every one Counties Honours Castles Manours Fees or Inheritances Advocations Possessions Annuities and Seignories whatsoever descended unto us before the obtaining of our Regall dignity howsoever wheresoever by right of inheritance in service or in reversion or any way whatsoever remaine for ever to us and our said heires specified in the Charters abovesaid in forme aforesaid After this K. Henry the fifth by authority of Parliament dissevered from the crown and annexed unto this Dutchy a very great and large inheritance which had descended unto him in right of his mother Dame Mary who was daughter and one of the heires of Humfrey Bohun Earle of Hereford In this forme and estate it remained under Henry the fifth and Henry the sixth but King Edward the fourth in the first yeere of his reigne when hee had in Parliament attainted and forfeited Henry the sixth appropriated it as they use to speake unto the Crowne that is to say unto himselfe and his heires Kings of England From which King Henry the seventh notwithstanding forthwith separated And so it continueth having severall officers namely A Chancellor
Somewhat higher Irt a little river maketh way toward the sea wherein the muscles and cochles after they have with a kinde of yawning or gaping sucked in dew which they lust after to conceive by bring forth pearles or to speake as the Poet doth Shell-berries which the inhabitants there by search after at a low water and our Lapidaries and Jewellers buy of the poore needie people for a little but sell again at an high rate of these and such like Marbodaeus seemeth to speake in this verse Gignis insignes antiqua Britannia baccas And Britanie of ancient fame Breeds and brings forth pearles of great name Now by this time the shore extendeth out more and more and encloseth Westward where it maketh a little promontorie which the common sort for Saint Bega call St. Bees For Bega a devout and religious Irish woman led there a solitarie life unto whose holinesse are ascribed certain vain miracles as the taming of a wild bull and the procuring of a mightie deep snow which in the longest summers day by her praiers fell and lay thicke upon the vallies and tops of hills Scarce a mile hence standeth Egremont Castle on the top of an hill the seat in times past of William de Meschines unto whom King Henrie the first gave it to hold by one knights service and that he should serve at the Kings commandement in the army for Wales and Scotland Who left behind him a daughter the wife of William Fitz-Duncan of the blood roiall of Scotland by whose daughter also the inheritance came into the family of the Lucies from them likewise by the Moltons and Fitz-waters the title of Egremont descended unto the Ratcliffes Earles of Sussex And yet Sir Thomas Percie through the favour of King Henrie the sixth enjoyed it for a time being summoned to the Parliament by the name of Th. Percie of Egremont From hence the shore drawing it selfe backe by little and little and as it appeareth by the heapes of rubbish it hath beene fortified all along by the Romanes wheresoever there was easie landing For it was the outmost bound of the Roman Empire and the Scots lay sorest upon this coast and infested it most when as it were with continuall surges of warre they flowed and flocked hither by heapes out of Ireland and certaine it is that Moresby a little village where is a roade for ships was one of these fortifications For there are many monuments of antiquitie as vaults under the ground great foundations many caves which they use to tearme Picts-Holes many fragments of stones with inscriptions engraven in them are there often times found in the ground of which upon one I read this LUCIUS SEVERINUS ORDINATUS on another COH VII And this Altar I saw lately digged out there with a little horned image representing Sylvanus erected to his honour by the second Cohort of the Lingones DEO SILVAN COH II. LING CVI PRAEES G. POMPEIVS M SATVRNIN As also this fragment which I. Fletcher Lord of the place transcribed out for me and sent unto mee OB PROSPE RITATEM CVLMINIS INSTITVTI But no stone hitherto hath beene found that assureth us that it was MORBIUM where the Cataphractarii horsemen or men at armes served notwithstanding the name in some sort implieth as much Neither is Hay-castle which I saw hard by to be passed over with silence a place verily to be regarded for antiquity sake which by report of the inhabitants belonged successively in elder time to Gentlemen surnamed Moresby and Distinton After this the river Derwent hideth himselfe in the Ocean which having his first beginning in Borrodale a valley hemmed in with crooked hills creepeth betweene the mountains called Derwent Fels wherein at Newlands elsewhere copper mines were discovered by Thomas Shurland and Daniel Hotchstatâ—er a German of Auspurge in our daies and yet the same were knowne before as appeareth by closse rowles of King Henrie the third n. 18. Upon the discoverie of these mines there was a memorable case in law between the late QUEEN ELIZABETH of sacred memorie and Thomas Percie Earl of Northumberland in whose Lordship they were found but in regard of the Queenes royall prerogative and for that there were in them veins of gold and silver they were adjudged to the Queen But hereby it is well seene how untrue it was that Cicero wrote in his Epistles unto Atticus This is for certaine knowne saith he that there is not in the Iland Britaine so much as one scruple of silver Neither would Caesar if he had known of these mines have written That the Britans had use of copper brought in to them from other parts beyond sea seeing that the mines not onely serve all England over but also affoord great plentie beside that is carried yeerly forth of the realme Here also is commonly found that minerall kind of earth or hardned glittering stone we call it Black-lead with which Painters use to draw their lines and make pictures of one colour in their first draughts which whether it bee Pnigitis or Melanteria spoken of by Dioscorides or Ochre a kind of earth so burnt with heat that it becommeth blacke or whether it were unknowne unto the old writers I cannot certainly averre and let others for me search it out Derwent after it hath passed through these hills spreadeth abroad into a large lake Bede termeth it praegrande stagnum that is a very great poole wherein are three Ilands eminent above the water The one hath an house in it of the Ratcliffes a family of Knights degree the second is inhabited by the Dutch Minerall men the third is thought to be that wherein as Bede writeth Saint Herbert lived an Heremeticall life On the very skirt of this bottome in a pleasant soile compassed about with deawie hills and fensed on the North side with that high mountaine Skiddaw lieth Keswike a little towne which King Edward the first made a mercate by the procurement of S. Thomas of Derwentwater Lord of the place from whom it lineally descended to the family of the Ratcliffs It was well knowne many yeeres agoe by reason of the mines of copper as we may see in a certaine Charter of King Edward the fourth and is at this day much inhabited by Minerall men who have here their smelting house by Derwent side which with his forcible streame and their ingenuous inventions serveth them in notable steed for easie bellowes workes hammer workes forge workes and sawing of boords not without admiration of such as behold it As for that mountain Skiddaw aforesaid it riseth up to such an height with two heads like unto Parnassus and with a kind of emulation beholdeth Scruffel hill before it in Anandale within Scotland that from these two mountaines according as the mistie clouds arise or fall the people there by dwelling make their prognostication of the change of weather and commonly sing this note If
a peace was renewed there betweene the Earle of Ulster and the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas the said Lords with the Kings Counsel ordained there that the Kings peace should be fully kept so that every Nobleman and Chieftaine should keep in his owne sept retinew and servants and the said Earle of Ulster made a great feast in the Castle of Dublin and the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas the morrow after kept a great feast within the Church of St. Patrick in Dublin and Frier Roger Outlaw Justice of Ireland feasted likewise upon the third day at Kylmaynon and so they departed The same yeere on the Virgill of St. Barnabee the Apostle Sir John Bermingham Earle of Louth was slaine at Balybragan in Urgal by those of Urgal and with him Peter Bermingham the said Earles legitimate and whole brother also Robert Bermingham the same Earles putative brother Sir John Bermingham the son of his brother Richard Lord of Anry William Finne Bermingham the Unkles sonne by the mothers side of the foresaid Lord of Anry Simon Bermingham the same Williams sonne Thomas Bermingham the son of Robert of Conaght Peter Bermingham the sonne of Iames of Conaght Henry Bermingham of Conaght and Richard Talbot of Malaghide a valiant man at armes and two hundred with them whose names are not knowne Item after the foresaid slaughter the Lord Simon Genevile his men invaded the country of Carbry for to spoile and harry them in regard of their robberies and manslaughters committed many times in Meth but before the said invasion they of Carbry arose and slew of the said Simons men threescore and sixteen Also the same yeere on the morrow after holy Trinitie Sunday there came to Dublin John Gernon and Roger Gernon his brother in the behalfe of those of Urgal and made humble request that they might stand to be tried at the Common Law And on Tuesday which was the morrow after the feast of St. John Baptist John and Roger hearing that the Lord William Bermingham was comming departed out of Dublin The same yeere on the Vigill of St. Laurence the Lord Thomas Botiller went with a great power into the parts of Ardnorwith and there encountred the said Lord Thomas Williams Mac-Goghgan with his forces and there was the said L. Thomas to the great losse of the land of Ireland with him were killed the Lord John Ledewich Roger Ledewich Thomas Ledewich John Nangle Meiler Petit Simon Petit David Nangle Sir John Waringer James Terel Nicholas White William Freines Peter Kent John White and together with them one hundred and forty men whose names are unknowne And on the tuesday next before the feast of St. Bartholomew the body of the said Lord Thomas Botiller was conveied to Dublin and bestowed in the house of the preaching Friers but as yet not buried and the sunday next ensuing the feast of the beheading of St. Iohn Baptist the said Lord Thomas his corps was very honourably carried through the city and enterred in the Church of the preaching Friers and the wife of the said Lord John that day made a feast In the same yeere John Lord Dracy came Justice of Ireland the second time and the said Lord John espoused the Lady Joan de Burk Countesse of Kildare the third day of July at Maynoth Item Philip Stanton is slaine Also Henry Lord Traham is treacherously taken in his owne house at Kilbego by Richard the sonne of Philip Onolan More the Lord Iames Botiller Earle of Ormond burnt Foghird against Onolan for the foresaid Henries sake brother of Botiller The same yeere on wednesday next after the feast of the Ascension of the blessed Virgin Mary John Lord Darcy Justice of Ireland went toward the parts of Newcastle of Mac-Kingham and Wikelow against the O-Brynns and the monday following certain of Lawles were slaine and many wounded and namely Robert Locam was hurt and of the Irish the better sort were slaine many likewise wounded and the rest fled But Murkad O-Brynne yeelded himselfe an hostage together with his son unkle and unkles sonne and they were brought to the castle of Dublin But afterwards delivered for other hostages the better sort of their sept and kin The same yeere the Lord Justice namely the Lord John Darcy and those of the Kings Counsell in Ireland about the feast of the Circumcision of our Lord charged the Lord Moris Fitz-Thomas of Desmund that himselfe should come into the field with his forces for to vanquish the Kings enemies giving him to understand that their soveraigne Lord the King would provide for to defray the charges of him and of his army and the said Moris came with his power and Briene O-Brene was in his company and their army consisted of ten thousand men and the said Lord Moris advanced with his army first against the O-Nolanes vanquished them gat a great bootie and wasted their lands with fire and the O-Nolanes fled and afterwards delivered hostages who were sent unto the castle of Dublin And afterwards the said Lord Moris made a journy against the O-Morches who did put in their hostages for to keepe the Kings peace The same time the castle of Ley which O-dympcy had won and kept was rendred up to the said Moris The same yeere after the Epiphany of our Lord Donald Arts Mac-Murgh made an escape out of the castle of Dublin by a cord which one Adam Nangle had bought for him which Adam afterwards was drawne and hanged MCCCXXX Mighty winds were up in divers places about the feast daies of St. Katherine S. Nicolas and of the Nativitie of our Lord by which wind part of the wall of a certain house fell downe and killed the wife of Sir Miles Verdon with his daughter on S. Nicolas even such winds as the like were never seene in Ireland Item there was such an inundation of the water of Boyn as never had been known before by which flood all the bridges as well of stone as of timber standing over the said water were utterly cast downe unlesse it were Babe bridge The water also carried away divers mills and did much hurt to the Friers Minors of Trym and Tredagh in breaking down their houses The same yeere about the feast of S. John Baptist there began a great dearth of corne in Ireland and continued untill Michaelmas Item a cranoc of wheat was sold for 20. shillings also a cranoc of oats for eight shillings and one cranoc of peason beanes and of barly for 8. shillings And this dearth hapned by occasion of abundance of raine so that much of the standing corne could not be reaped before the feast of St. Michael The same yeere the English of Meth made a slaughter of the Irish to wit of Mac-Goghigans people about Lent neere unto Loghynerthy whereupon the said Mac-Goghigan in anger burnt in those parts 25. small villages and sacked them which the English seeing gathered themselves together against him and of his men slew one hundred and among whom were slaine three Lords sons of
In this County there be Parish Churches 158. WORCESTER-SHIRE THe second region of the ancient CORNAVII having now changed the name is called in Latine Wigorniensis Comitatus in the English Saxon tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and now commonly of the principall Towne in it WORCESTER-SHIRE the inhabitants whereof together with those who joyning unto them round about in Bedes daies before that England was divided into Shires were termed Wiccii Which name if it were not given them of the river having so many windings which they dwell by for such turnings and curving reaches of a river the English Saxons as I have already said called Wic may seeme to have been derived of those Salt-pits that the old English-men in their language named Wiches For there be here very notable Salt-pits and many salt springs often times have been found which notwithstanding are stopped up because it was provided as we read that for the saving of woods salt should not be boyled but in certaine places Neither let it seeme strange that places have their names given them from Salt-pits considering that wee may meet with many such here and there in every Country and our Ancestors the Germans as Tacitus writeth had a religious perswasion and beliefe that such places approach neerest to Heaven and that mens prayers were no where sooner heard of the gods This County on which Warwick-shire confineth on the East Glocester-shire on the South bounded West-ward with Hereford-shire and Shrop-shire Northeast with Stafford shire to say all in one word hath so temperate an ayre and soile so favourable that for healthfulnesse and plenty it is not inferiour to their neighbour Countries and in one part for deinty Cheese surpasseth them yeelding such store of Peares as none other the like and albeit they are not so pleasing to these deinty and delicate mouthes yet out of their winish juice they make a bastard kinde of wine called Pyrry which they drinke very much although it be as other drinks of that kinde both cold and full of winde Neither is it if you respect waters lesse pleasant and commodious for in every place there be passing sweet rivers which affoord in great abundance the most delicate kinde of Fishes And to let those runne by that are of lesse account Severne that noble and renowned river carrieth his streame along through the middest of the shire from North to South and Avon that commeth downe out of Warwick-shire to meet with Severne watereth the South part thereof Severn first of all at his very entry passeth betweene Kidderminster and Beawdley This Beawdley worthily so called for the beautifull site thereof standeth most pleasantly upon the hanging of an hill and hovereth over the river on the West side of late daies well knowne for the admirable tallnesse of trees growing in the Forrest of Wyre adjoyning which now in a manner be all gone Whence our Poet and Antiquary Leland wrote thus Delicium rerum Bellus Locus undique floret Fronde coronatus Virianae tempora Sylvae Beawdley a fine and deinty thing is goodly to be seene All dight about with guirland fresh of Wire that Forest greene But now is this little Towne in speech and request onely for the pleasantnesse and beautie of it selfe and withall for the Kings house Tiken-hall which King Henry the Seventh built to be a retyring place for Prince Arthur at which time he graunted some liberties to Beawdley But farther from the river banke Eastward is Kidderminster over against it called also Kidelminster a faire Towne and hath a great Mercate of all commodities well frequented parted in twaine by the little River Stowre that runneth through it and the greatest ornaments now belonging thereto are first a passing beautifull Church wherein some of the worshipfull family of the Corkeseis lie buried and the goodly gallant house of the Blounts of knights degree descended from those of Kinlet but in old time this place was of most note for the Lords thereof the Bissets men in their time right honorable whose rich possessions being at length dismembred and divided among sisters came partly to the Barons of Abergevenny and in part to a Lazarhouse of women in Wilt-shire which one of the said sisters being her selfe infected with the Leprosie built for them that had the same disease and enriched it with her owne patrimony and childs part Afterwards it came to have a Baron for King Richard the Second created Sir Iohn Beauchamp Steward of his household Baron Beauchamp of Kidderminster by letters Patents and is accounted the first Baron so created But he soone after by the Barons who together with the Commons rose and contemning the Kings authority called as many as were most deere unto the King to give an account for their misgovernement of the Common-weale was with other right worthy persons in malice to the King condemned and beheaded Severne turning his course somewhat awry from thence saluteth Hertlebury a Castle of the Bishops of Worcester not far distant and goeth amaine to Holt Castle so called of a very thick wood there belonging sometime to the Abtots after to the Beauchamps who springing from William Beauchamp surnamed the Blinde Baron grew up afterwards to be a most honorable family the inheritance whereof descended at length to Gyse and Penyston from hence runneth Severne downe feeding such a number of fresh-water Lampries as that Nature may seeme in this place to have made a very pond or Stew for them such as the Romanes devised in ancient times when they grew lavish in riotous excesse These fishes we call Lampries of the Latin word Lampetra as one would say of licking the rocks are like to Eeles slippery and blackish howbeit beneath on their bellies somewhat blew on either side of their throates they receive and let in water at seven holes for that they want gils altogether Most commendable they are in the spring time as being then very sweet for in Summer the inner nerve or string which stands them insteed of a backe bone waxeth hard The Italians make them more delicate in tast by a speciall and peculiar seasoning For they take a Lamprie and in Malvesy kill it the mouth they close up with a nutmeg fill all the holes with as many cloves and when it is rolled up round putting thereto fillbard-nut kernels stamped crums of bread oile malvesey and spices they boyle it with great care and certaine turnings over a soft and temperate fire of coles in a frying pan But what have I to doe with such cookery and Apicius Beneath Holt Severne openeth his East banke to let in the river Salwarp comming a pace toward him This hath his first veines out of Lickey hill most eminent in the North part of this Shire neare unto which at Frankeley the family of the Litletons was planted by Iohn Litleton aliàs Westcote the famous Lawyer Justice in the Kings Bench in the time of King Edward the
inscription IMP. DOMIT. AUG GER DE CEANG. But on the other IMP. VESP. VII T. IMP. V. COSS. Which Monument seemeth to have beene erected for a Victory over the Cangi Heereto maketh also the very site upon the Irish sea For thus writeth Tacitus in the 12. booke of his Annales Whiles Nero was Emperour There was an Army led by Ostorius against the Cangi the fields were wasted booties raised every where for that the enemies durst not come into the field but if they attempted closely and by stealth to cut off the Army as it marched they paid for their deceitfull cunning Now were they no sooner come neere unto the Sea-Coast toward Ireland but certaine tumults and insurrections among the Brigantes brought the Generall backe But by the inscription abovesaid it should seeme that they were not subdued before Domitians time and then by computation of the times when as that most warlicke Julius Agricola was Propretour in Britaine Ptolomee likewise placed the Promontory KARRANâ—N that is of the Cangi on this shore Neither dare I seeke elsewhere than in this tract that Station CONGANII where in the declining estate of the Roman Empire a Company or Band called Vigiles that is Watchmen with their Captaine under the Dux Britanniae kept watch and ward Notwithstanding I leave to every man for mee his owne judgement heerein as in all things else of this nature Touching the Earles that I may passe over the English Saxons Earles only by office and not by inheritance king William the first created Hugh sirnamed Lupus son to the Vicount of Auranches in Normandy the first hereditary Earle of Chester and Count Palatine and gave unto him and his heires all this County to be holden as freely by his sword as the King himselfe held England by his Crowne For these are the words of the Donation who forthwith appointed under him these Barons viz. Niele Baron of Haulton whose posterity afterwards tooke the name of Lacies for that the Lacies inheritance had fallen unto them and were Earles of Lincolne Robert Baron of Mont-hault Seneschall of the County of Chester the last of whose line having no issue ordained by his last Will Isabel Queene of England and John of Eltham Earle of Cornwall his heires William Malbedeng Baron of Malbanc whose nephewes daughters by marriage brought the inheritance to the Vernons and Bassets Richard Vernon Baron of Shipbroke whose inheritance for default of heires males in the end came by the sisters unto the Wilburbams Staffords and Littleburies Robert Fitz-Hugh Baron of Malpas who as it seemeth dyed as I said before without issue Hamon de Masey whose possessions descended to the Fittons of Bollin Gilbert Venables Baron of Kinderton whose posterity in the right line have continued and flourished unto these our dayes N. Baron of Stockeport to whom at length the Warrens of Pointon budded out of the honorable family of the Earles of Warren and Surry in right of marriage succeeded And these were all the Barons of the Earles of Chester that ever I could hitherto finde Who as it is written in an old Booke Had their free Courts of all Plees and Suits or Complaints except those Plees which belong unto the Earles sword And their Office was To assist the Earle in Councell to yeeld him dutifull attendance and oftentimes to repaire unto his Court for to doe him honor and as we finde in old parchment Records Bound they were in time of warre in Wales to finde for every Knights fee one horse with caparison and furniture or else two without within the Divisions of Ches-shire Also that their Knights and Freeholders should have Corslets and Haubergeons and defend their Foces by their owne bodies After Hugh the first Earle beforesaid succeeded Richard his sonne who is his tender yeeres perished by shipwracke together with William the onely sonne of King Henry the First and other Noblemen betweene Normandy and England in the yeere 1120. After Richard succeeded Ranulph de Meschines the third Earle sonne to the sister of Earle Hugh and left behinde him his sonne Ranulph named de Gernonijs the fourth Earle of Chester a Warlike man and who at the Siege of Lincolne tooke King Stephen Prisoner Hugh sirnamed Keveltoc his sonne was the Fifth Earle who died in the yeere 1181. and left his sonne Ranulph named de Blundevill the sixth Earle who after he had built the Castles of Chartley and Beeston and the Abbay also De la Cresse died without children and left foure sisters to be his heires Maude the wife of David Earle of Huntingdon Mabile espoused to William D' Albeney Earle of Arundell Agnes married to William Ferrars Earle of Darby and Avis wedded to Robert de Quincy After Ranulph the sixth Earle there succeeded in the Earledome John sirnamed the Scot the sonne of Earle David by the said Maude the eldest daughter Who being deceased likewise without any issue King Henry the Third casting his eye upon so faire and large an inheritance laid it unto the Domaine of the Crowne and assigned other revenewes elsewhere to the heires not willing as the King himselfe was wont to say that so great an estate should be divided among distaves And the Kings themselves in person after that this Earledome came unto their hands for to maintaine the honor of the Palatineship continued here the ancient rights and Palatine priviledges and Courts like as the Kings of France did in the County of Champan Afterward this honour of Chester was deferred upon the Kings eldest sonnes and first unto to Edward King Henry the Third his sonne who being taken prisoner by the Barons and kept in ward delivered it up for his ransome unto Simon Montford Earle of Leicester But when Simon was soone after slaine it returned quickly againe unto the bloud Royall and King Edward the Second summoned his eldest sonne being but a childe unto the Parliament by the Titles of Earles of Chester and Flint Afterwards King Richard the Secondary by authority of the Parliament made it of an Earldome a Principality and to the same Principality annexed the Castle of Leon with the territories of Bromfield and Yale Chircke Castle with Chircke land Oswalds-street Castle the whole hundred and eleven townes belonging to that Castle with the Castles of Isabell and Delaley and other goodly lands which by reason that Richard Earle of Arundell stood then proscript and outlawed had beene confiscate to the Kings Exchequer and King Richard himselfe was stiled Prince of Chester but within few yeeres after that Title vanished away after that King Henry the Fourth had once repealed the Lawes of the said Parliament and it became againe a County or Earledome Palatine and at this day retaineth the jurisdiction Palatine and for the administration thereof it hath a Chamberlaine who hath all jurisdiction of a Chancellour within the said County Palatine a Justice for matters in Common Plees and Plees of the Crowne to bee heard and determined in the said
Country two Barons of the Exchequer Sergeants at Law a Sheriffe and Attourney an Eschetour c. And the Inhabitants of the said County for the enjoying of their liberties were to pay at the change of every Owner of the said Earledome a summe of money about 3000. markes by the name of a Mize as the County of Flint being a parcell thereof about 2000. markes if I have not bin mis-informed This County containeth about 68. Parishes NOw have I superficially surveyed the Regions of the CORNAVII which together with the CORITANI DOBUNI and CATVELLANI made that Kingdome in the Saxons Heptarchie which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latine Writers Mercia of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an old English word that signified a Limite for all the other Kingdomes bordered and confined upon it This was the largest Kingdome by farre of all the rest begunne by Crida the Saxon about the yeere of our Lord 586. augmented by Penda who extended the Marches there of every way and within a while after instructed in Christian Religion But having come to the full period within the revolution of 250. yeeres fell at last into the Dominion of the West-Saxons after that the Danes had spoiled weakned and wasted it many yeeres in all manner of barbarous hostility SILURES I Thinke it now my best way before I treat of the other parts of England to digresse a while and turne a little aside toward Wales called in Latin Cambria or Wallia where the ancient Britans have yet their seat and abode neither shall I in so doing as I thinke digresse but directly follow the order of nature For it lieth adjacent to the CORNAVII and seemeth as it were of right and equity to demand that it may be spoken of in due course and place especially seeing the Britans or Welsh the inhabitants thereof enioy the same lawes and rights that we doe and have long since beene engraffed and incorporate with us into our Common-wealth WALES therefore which name comprised in times past before the Conquest the whole Countrey beyond Severn but afterward reached not so farre was when the Romanes ruled in Britaine inhabited by three sorts of people the SILURES DIMETAE and ORDOVICES For these held not onely the twelve Shires as they call them of Wales but those two also beyond Severn Hereford-shire and Monmouth-shire which have beene now long reckoned among the Counties of England And to beginne first with those that we first come unto and which lye next unto us the SILURES according to Ptolomees description inhabited those Regions which in Welsh are called by one name Deheubarth that is the Southpart and at this day by new names Hereford-shire Radnor-shire Brecknock-shire Monmouth-shire and Glamorgan-shire wherein are as yet some remaines also of the name SILURES As for the derivation of that name I have nothing that sorteth with the nature of the Nation But touching the originall of the people Tacitus ghesseth by their coloured faces their countenances their curled haire and their situation over against Spaine that they had their originall from the Spaniards But Florianus del campo a Spaniard flatly affirmeth it who troubleth and toileth himselfe exceedingly to finde the Silures in Spaine and thrusts upon us I know not what of Soloria and Siloria in Biscaie But to speake of the nature of these Silures they were a Nation very great for as wee may gather out of Plinie and Tacitus they seeme to have possessed all South-Wales fierce valiant given to warre impatient of servitude forward to adventure with a resolution the Romanes call it Pervicacia and who would not bee brought in either with faire meanes or soule in all and every of which qualities their Posterity have in no point as yet degenerated from their Ancestours When the Romanes upon an ambitious desire of rule did set upon them they trusting to the strength and prowesse of King Caratacus provoked also and exasperated with a word that Claudius the Emperour let fall who had said These were so to bee destroied and their name to bee extinguished as the Sugambri had beene rooted out aforetime annoied the Romanes with so dangerous a Warre by intercepting their Bands of auxiliary forces by putting to flight that Legion over which Marius Valens was Captaine and by wasting the lands of their Associates that P. Ostorious Propraetor of Britaine being tired with travaile and with the sense of these griefes and troubles gave up his ghost Veranius also Governour under Nero assailed them in vaine For whereas we reade in Tacitus illum modicis excursibus sylvas populatum esse that is That he made spoile and forraied the woods with small outrodes reade in lieu of Sylvas that is woods Siluras that is The Silures as our friend that most learned Lipsius doth and you shall reade aright Yet was not this Warre husht and finished before the time of Vespasian For then Iulius Frontinus subdued them by force and kept them under with Bands of Legionary Souldiers But whereas a Countriman of ours hath wrested this Verse of Iuvenal against Crispine to these SILURES magnâ qui voce solebat Vendere municipes fractâ de merce Siluros who with lowd voice was wont and knew full well Of broken ware his country fish the Sturgions for to sell. As though our Silures being taken prisoners were set to sale at Rome upon my credite he hath not attained to the right and proper sense of the Poet For by that word Siluros he that will reade the place and weigh it well shall easily perceive he spake of fishes and not of men HEREFORD-SHIRE THE County which we call HEREFORD-SHIRE and the Britans name Ereiâ—uc lying in compasse round as it were a Circle is bounded on the East side with Worcester and Glocester-shires on the South with Monmouth-shire on the West side with Radnor and Brecknor-shires and on the North with Shropshire This Country besides that it is right pleasant is for yeelding of Corne and feeding of Cattaile in all places most fruitfull and therewith passing well furnished with all things necessary for mans life In so much as it would scorne to come behinde any one Country throughout all England for fertility of Soile and therefore say that for three W.W.W. wheat wooll and water it yeeldeth to no Shire of England And verily it hath also diverse notable rivers namely Wye-Lug and Munow which after they have watered the most flowring meddowes and fruitfull corne fields at length meet together and in one chanell passe on to the Severn sea Munow springing out of Hatterell hilles which resembling a chaire doe rise aloft and sense this shire on the South-West as it descendeth downe first strugleth to passe through by the foote of the said hilles to BLESTIUM a towne which Antonine the Emperour so placeth that for situation and distance it can bee no other than that which standing by the side of this River is