Plunder and Spoil But of this we shall speak more in due time and shall now proceed in our History where we left off in our last Book Egbert the only surviving Prince of the Blood-Royal of the West Saxon Kings as great Nephew to Ina by his Brother Inegilds being arrived in England was now ordained King as Ethelwerd expressly terms his Election But since Asser in his Annals places this King 's coming to the Crown under Anno 802. as does Simeon of Durham and also Roger Howden from an Ancient piece of Saxon Chronologie inserted at the beginning of the first Book of his first part and this account being also proved by that great Master in Chronology the now Lord Bishop of Litchfield to be truer then that of the Saxon Annals or Ethelwerd by divers Proofs too long to be here Inserted I have made bold to put this King 's coming to the Crown two Years backwarder then it is in the last Book thô I confess the former Account in the Saxon Annals would have made a more exact Epocha Also about this time as appears from the ancient Register of St. Leonard's Abbey in York cited in Monast. Anglican viz. ' That Anno Dom. 800 Egbert King of all Britain in a Parliament at Winchester by the consent of his People changed the Name of this Kingdom and commanded it to be called England Now thô by the word Parliament here used it is certain that this Register was writ long after the Conquest yet it might be transcribed from some more ancient Monument since Will. of Malmesbury tells us of this King tho' without setting down the time that by the greatness of his Mind he reduced all the Varieties of the English Saxon Kingdoms to one uniform Empire or Dominion which he called England though others perhaps more truly refer it towards the latter end of his Reign as you will find when we come to it This Year Eardulf King of the Northumbers led his Army against Kenwulf King of Mercia for harbouring his Enemies who also gathering together a great Army they approached to each other when by the Advice of the Bishops and Noblemen of England as also by the Intercession of the chief King of the English by whom is meant King Egbert who then passed under that Title They agreed upon a lasting Peace which was also confirmed by Oath on both sides This we find in Simeon of Durham's History of that Church and in no other Authour About this time also St. Alburhe Sister to King Egbert founded a Benedictine Nunnery at Wilton which was long after rebuilt by King Alfred and augmented by King Edgar for Twenty Six Nuns and an Abbess The same Year the Moon was Eclipsed on the 13 Kal. Jan. and ' Beormod was Consecrated Bishop of Rochester About this time in Obedience to a Letter from Pope Leo III. who at the desire of Kenwulf King of the Mercians had Two Years since restored the See of Canterbury to its ancient Primacy was held the Third Synod at Cloveshoe by â—rch bishop Ethelward and 12 Bishops of his Province whereby the See of Canterbury was not only restored to all its ancient Rights and Priviledges but it was also forbid for all times to come upon Pain of Damnation if not repented of for any Man to violate the Rights of that ancient See and thereby to destroy the Unity of Christ's Holy Church then follow the Subscriptions of the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and of 12 other Bishops of his Province together with those of many Abbots and Presbyters who never Subscribed before but without the Subcriptions of the King or any of the Lay Nobility Which plainly shews it to have been a meer Ecclesiastical Synod and no great Council of the Kingdom as you may see at large in Sir H. Spelman's 1 Vol of Councils the Decree of which Synod also shews that the Church of England did not then conceive the Authority of the People alone sufficient to disanul what had been solemnly Decreed in a great Council of the Kingdom as was the Removal of the Primacy from Canterbury to Litchfield The next Year According to our Annals Ethelheard Arch-bishop of Canterbury deceased and Wulfred was consecrated Arch-bishop in his stead and Forther the Abbot dyed The same Year also Deceased Higbald Bishop of Lindisfarne 8 o Kal Julii and Eegbert was Consecrated to that See 3 o Ides Junii ' This Year Wulfred the Arch bishop received his Pall. Cuthred King of Kent deceased as did also Ceolburh the Abbess and Heabyrnt the Ealdorman This Cuthred here mentioned was as Will. of Malmesbury informs us he whom Kenulph King of the Mercians hath made King of Kent instead of Ethelbert called Pren. This Year the Moon was Eclipsed on the Kal. of September and Eardwulf King of the Northumbers was driven from his Kingdom and Eanbryth Bishop of Hagulstad Deceased Also this Year 2 o Non Junii the sign of the Cross was seen in the Moon upon Wednesday in the Morning and the same Year on the Third Kal. Septemb. a wonderful Circle was seen round the Sun This Eardwulf above-mentioned is related by Simeon of Durham to have been the Son of Eardulf the first of that Name King of Northumberland and after Ten Years Reign to have been driven out by one Aelfwold who Reigned Two Years in his stead During these Confusions in the Northumbrian Kingdom Arch-Bishop Usher with great probability supposes in his Antiquitat Britan. Eccles. that the Picts and Scots Conquered the Countries of Galloway and Lothian as also those Countries called the Lowlands of Scotland as far as the Friths of Dunbritain and Edenburgh And that this City was also in the possession of the English Saxons about an Hundred Years after this I shall shew in due order of time and that our Kings did long after maintain their claim to Lothian shall be further shewn when I come to it But that all the Lowlands of Scotland as far as the English Saxon Tongue was spoken were anciently part of the Bernician Kingdom the English Language as well as the Names of places which are all English Saxon and neither Scotish nor Pictish do sufficiently make out The Sun was Eclipsed on the 7th Kal. of August about the Fifth Hour of the Day This Year as Sigebert in his Chronicle relates King Eardulph above-mentioned being expelled his Kingdom and coming for Refuge to the Emperour Charles the Great was by his Assistance restored thereunto but since neither the Saxon Annals nor Florence nor yet any of our English Historians do mention it I much doubt the Truth of this Relation thô it must be also acknowledged that it is inserted in the ancient French Annals of that time and recited that this King's Restitution was procured by the Intercession of the Pope's and Emperour's Legates who were sent into England for that purpose This Year according to Mat. Westminster Egbert King of the West
whereby he converted many of the Britains then Subject to the West-Saxons Id. p. 213. Naitan King of the Picts concerns himself about the Celebration of Easter and it is appointed to be kept on the First Sunday after the First Full Moon that follows the Vernal Equinox l. 4. p. 216. Decreed to be kept after the Custom of Rome in a General Synod of the British Nation Id. p. 229. Ordinances touching the Keeping of Easter made at the Second Council of Pinchinhale Id. p. 242 East-Saxons the beginning of this Kingdom 〈◊〉 Erchenwin the Son of Offa according to H. Huntington l. 3. p. 13â— It had London the Chief City of England under its Dominion Ibid. This Kingdom was divided from that of Kent by the River Thames c. l. 4. p. 159. Upon the Death of Sebert his Three Sons whom he left Heirs to the Kingdom all relapse to Paganism and great part of the Nation with them Id. p. 168. But between Thirty and Forty years after at the Instance of King Oswy they again receive the Christian Faith Id. p. 184. Eatta Bishop of the Province of Bernicia had his Episcopal See at Hagulstad l. 4. p. 197. Reckoned to be a very Holy Man Id. p. 215. Ebba a Queen is Converted and Baptized in the Province of the Wectij but what Queen Bede says not l. 4. p. 197. Ebba Abbess of Coldingham-Nunnery in Yorkshire an Heroine Example of Chastity in her and all her Sisters l. 5. p. 269. Eborius Bishop of the City of Eboracum is sent with others to the Council of Arles in Gallia as one of the Deputies for the rest of the Bishops of Britain l. 2. p. 88. Eclipses of the Sun one from early in the Morning till Nine a Clock another where the Stars shewed themselves for near half an hour after Nine in the Morning l. 3. p. 138. Of the Sun which was so great that it 's whole Orb seemed as it were covered with a black Shield Another of the Moon appearing first as stained with Blood which lasted a whole hour and then a Blackness following it returned to its own Colour l. 4. p. 222. One of the Moon From the Cock Crowing till the morning Id. p. 240. One of the Moon In the Second hour of the night 17. Kal. Feb. Id. p. 242. One of the Moon On the 13th Kal. of January l. 5. p. 248. One of the Moon And on the Kal. of September l. 5. p. 248. Of the Sun on the 7th Kal. of August about the fifth hour of the day Id. p. 249. Of the Moon on Christmas-day at night Id. p. 254. Of the Sun About the sixth hour of the day on the Kal. of October Id. p. 260. Of the Sun For one whole hour Id. p. 283. One of the Moon appeared Id. p. 313. Eddobeccus is dispatched away by Constans to the Germans with an Account of Gerontius his Revolt l. 2. p. 103. Edelwalch King of the West-Saxons when he was baptized l. 4. p. 195. Gives Wilfrid Commission to convert and baptize in his Province Id. p. 197. Edgar Son of Edmund and Elgiva afterwards King his Birth l. 5. p. 344. Is elected by the Mercians and Northumbrians their King and confirmed so by the Common Council of the Kingdom Id. p. 354. On the death of his Brother Edwi is elected by the Clergy and Laity King of the West-Saxons and though he was not the first yet he was the best that deserved the Title of First Monarch of all England l. 6. p. 1. And so he stiles himself in his Charter to the Abbey of Glastenbury Id. p. 9. His great Charity and the Nation 's happiness under him Id. p. 2 11. Seven years Penance is imposed upon him by Archbishop Dunstan part of which was That he should not wear his Crown all that time and that for taking a Nun out of a Cloyster and then debauching her Id. p. 3. Harasses North-Wales with War till he forces a Peace upon this Condition That the Tribute in Money should be turned into that of so many Wolves-Heads yearly Id. p. 3 4 11. Grants a New Charter of Confirmation with divers additional Endowments of Lands and Privileges to the Monastery of Medeshamsted Id. p. 5. Marries Ethelfreda or Elfreda Daughter of Ordgar Earl of Devonshire and his Issue by her Id. p. 5 6. Hath an Elder Son by Elfleda sirnamed The â—air Daughter of Earl Eodmar who is called afterwards Edward the Martyr but doubtful whether he was married to her or not Id. p. 6. Places Nuns in the Monastery of Rumsey in Hampshire commands all the Countrey of Thanet to be laid waste and for what reason Ibid. Causes the Chanons to be driven out of all the greatâ—r Monasteries in Mercia and Monks to be put in their places Id. p. 7. Is crowned King in the ancient City of Ackmanceaster called Bathan by the Inhabitants with Remarks about his Coronation then for he was crowned before And founds a new Church at Bangor dedicating it to the Virgin Mary Id. p. 7 8. Six Kings make League with him promising upon Oath their Assistance both by Sea and Land An Account who they were and of his Fleet at West-Chester where they all met him He is the first that was truly Lord of our Seas Id. p. 8. His Death and Burial at Glastenbury and Character The great Kindnesses he shewed to Ethelfreda's first Husband's Son Id. p. 9 10 11. A mighty Lover of the Fair Sex Id. p. 3 5 6 9 10 11. A Famous Instance of his great Courage and Strength though but little of Stature Id. p. 11. His Charter about having subdued all Ireland c. much suspected to be fictitious With this King fell all the Glory of the English Nation Id. p. 12. The Laws he made with the Council by the Consent of his Wise-Men Id. p. 12 13 14. Great Dissention amongst the Nobility after his Death about the Election of a New King Id. p. 15. Edgar sirnamed Aetheling the Son of Prince Edward by Agatha Id. p. 49. Edgar Aetheling how he was put by from the Throne though the only surviving Male of the Ancient Royal Family l. 6. p. 105 106. Is proposed to be made King upon Harold's Death but his Party were not prevalent enough to carry it Id. p. 115 116. Edgitha Daughter of King Egbert is first bred up under an Irish Abbess and then made Abbess her self of the Nunnery of Polesworth l. 5. p. 257. Another of this Name King Athelstan's Sister her Marriage with Sihtric the Danish King of Northumberland and being afterwards a Widow she became a Nun at Polesworth Her Character and the False Story of the Scots upon her Id. p. 330. Edgitha or Editha Daughter of Earl Godwin married to Edward the Confessor a Lady not only Beautiful and Pious but Learned above her Sex in that Age l. 6. p. 72 73 96. An improbable Story of her causing Gospatrick to be murthered upon the Account of her Brother Tostige l. 6. p. 90.
the Saxons being invited by the Britains over hither ever mention their being sent by any of their Kings but only by the Saxon Nation in general and if it continued thus in Bede's Time it ought reasonably to be concluded that it was likewise so before their coming over unless any Man can shew me some better Authority than ever I have yet met with to the contrary AND that this likewise continued so not only in Bede's Time but many Years after may appear from this Testimony of Johan Pomarius in his Saxon Chronicle which tho written in Latin yet not being able as yet to procure the sight of it I shall give you what he says almost to the same effect out of Verstegan's Restitution of decayed Intelligence As for the General Government of the Countrey they ordained twelve Noble-men chosen from among others for their Worthiness and Sufficiency These in the Time of Peace rode their several Circuits to see Justice and good Customs observed and they often of Course â—t appointed Times met all together to consult and give Order in Publick Affairs but ever in Time of War one of these twelve was chosen to be King and so to remain as long only as the War lasted and that being ended his Name and Dignity of King also ceased and he became as before and this Custom continued among them until the Time of their Wars with the Emperor Charles the Great at which time Wittekind one of the Twelve as aforesaid a Nobleman of Angria in Westphalia bore over the rest the Name and Authority of King and he being afterwards by the means of the said Emperor converted to the Faith of Christ had by him his mutable Title of King turned into the induring Title and Honour of Duke and the eleven others were in like manner by the said Emperor advanced to the honourable Titles of Earls and Lords with Establishment for the continual remaining of these Titles and Dignities unto them and their Heirs of whose Descents are since issued the greatest Princes at this present in Germany FROM what now I have given you I think nothing is more evident than that the Government of the Antient English Saxons was rather Aristocratical than Monarchical and admitting they allowed the King they had set over them somewhat more Power than those Noblemen abovementioned by whom they where governed in their own Countrey in time of Peace yet was this Power of theirs far short of that absolute Dominion which Dr. Howell in his Discourse of the Polity of the English-Saxons supposes tho without any just Ground that these Kings enjoyed and therefore he would have it That the Government was Monarchical and that not only in respect of the particular Kingdoms during the Heptarchy which had their peculiar Kings but even of the whole Body of the Nation which was usually commanded by one of the Seven of all which Bede takes notice in his Time BUT if every one of these Kings were no more a Monarch than he who was sometimes Supream or Chief above the Rest I doubt he will fall very short of that Title which is not found either in Bede or in the Saxon Annals or yet in any other Antient Writer before the Conquest until the Time of King Edred BUT I have said enough to confute this Notion I hope in the Preface THE Doctor 's next Argument is from the Nature of the Monarchy which he says We must believe at the first followed the Condition of the Tenure absolute Conquests and Territories both got and held by the Sword alone usually producing absolute Governments which many times either by reason of the infirm Foundation laid by the Conquerors themselves the Humour of the People not induring such Subjection or other Accidents change into more Moderate and less Arbitrary That Hengest Aella and the other Captains where they first erected their Dominations governed their Souldiers whom now being Kings they called Subjects with as great Authority and as full Command as formerly we little doubt IN answer to this and to shew you that notwithstanding what this Author hath alledged we have still great reason to doubt the Truth of it as being founded on no Authority but rather the quite contrary appears I shall therefore only desire the Reader in the first place to take notice that it is no good Argument at all to say that because the Saxon Princes were Conquerors by the means of their Followers therefore they must have submitted themselves absolutely to their Dominion when the War was over FOR the better Proof of which I would farther intreat the Reader to observe FIRST That those Princes or Generals over the English-Saxons thô all of them were descended from Woden their Common Ancestor knew no such Power as that of Kings of Home according to Bede or if we believe Pomarius the Title of King lasted at the most no longer than the War nor could those Princes be made Kings by their own Nation before they came over since being only meer Souldiers of Fortune they had as yet conquered no Dominions from whence they could receive that Denomination so that then it must fall out that they could only be so by the Election of their Souldiers and Followers that came over along with them which may be also proved from the ensuing Annals themselves FOR first they call Hengest and Horsa the two Brothers who came over hither only Heretogan i.e. Leaders or Captains of the Jutes that accompanied them as you may see An. 449. of these Annals NOR secondly do they begin the Reign of Hengest till the Death of Horsa his Brother Anno 455. six Years after his coming over so that it is plain he could have no other Right to his Kingdom of Kent but the free Election of the People that came over with him or else followed him not long afterwards THE like I might say of all the rest of the Kingdoms of the Heptarchy for the same Reason were there no express Authorities to prove it which yet also are not wanting FOR as to the Kingdom of the West-Saxons which afterwards swallowed up all the rest our Annals Anno 495. tell us Of Cerdic and Cynric his Son their landing in Britain with five Ships and having fought with the Britains they about six Years after their coming over upon their conquering the Countrey of the West-Saxons became their first Kings which is further confirmed under Anno 519. where it is expresly related that Cerdic and Cynric then began their Reigns over the West-Saxon Kingdom So likewise in Anno 547. it is there said that Ida began first to reign from whom is derived the Royal Stock of the Northumbrian Kings AND yet we find from Nennius and Malmesbury and all our other Historians who treat of this Matter that Octa and Ebusa Son and Nephew to Hengest had landed in the Northern Parts of England not long after Hengest himself and having conquered those Countries they and their Descendants ruled there
between King Alfred and Guthrum the Dane together with their Ecclesiastical Laws in a Common Council of the Kingdom l. 5. p. 283 284 285. A great one wherein King Alfred made those Laws that go under his Name Id. p. 291 c. A great one held by King Edward the Elder where Plegmund presided in the Province of the Gewisses about making of Bishops Id. p. 313 314. The Laws made by King Edward the Elder in a Common Council of the Kingdom tho in what or in what year uncertain Id. p. 325 c. A great Council held by King Athelstan at Graetanleage and the Laws past therein Id. p. 339 340 c. King Edmund's great Council where held and the Constitutions of Civil Concernment made therein Id. p. 346 347 348. A great one meets and chuses Prince Edward sirnamed the Martyr for their King l. 6. p. 15. Those at Kirtlingtune Winchester and Calne in Wiltshire called to debate that Great Affair concerning the turning out of the Monks and restoring the Secular Chanons at the last of them the floor of the room failed and killed and hurt abundance there Id. p. 16 17. One called to consult about Pope John's Letters sent to King Ethelred Id. p. 24 25. King Ethelred and his Wise Men in Council ordain to raise an Army both by Sea and Land against the Danes Id. p. 27. Another Council summoned who instead of consulting the Publick Good fall to impeach one another and to spend the whole time in their own private quarrels Id. p. 35. A great one held under King Cnute at Cyrencester wherein Ethelward the Eorlderman is outlaw'd Id. p. 51. Another of his Mycel Synods held at Winchester and what Laws made therein Id. p. 57 58 59 60. In a great Council held at London a Religious Monk of Evesham is chosen Abbot of that Monastery Id. p. 73. A great one held at London in Mid-lent Id. p. 75. Another at Gloucester to determine a Difference between Earl Godwin and the Welshmen Id. p. 77. A great one without London about determining the Quarrel between Edward the Confessor and Eâ—rl Godwin Id. p. 81. One hâ—ld at Westminster to confirm Edward the Confessor's Charter of Endowment of the Church of Westminster Id. p. 94. Counties When England was first thus divided by King Alfred l. 5. p. 291. Countreymen by King Alfred's Law not to be unjustly imprisoned nor any way misused under such and such Penalties l. 5. p. 293 294. Their very Homestalls are secured in Peace and Quietness Id. p. 295. County Court the Antiquity and Power of it held every Month as now l. 5. p. 326. Coway-stakes near Lalam in Middlesex where the Britains placed Piles to hinder Caesar and his Romans Passage to them some of which were lately there to be seen l. 2. p. 34. Crayford in Kent anciently called Crecanford l. 5. p. 313. Creed The Bishops at Ariminun forced by the Emperor to subscribe the New Creed made not long before at the pretended Council of Syrmium wherein the Son of God was declared to be only of like Substance with the Father l. 2. p. 89 90. Priests obliged to learn it and the Lord's Prayer in English l. 4. p. 225. All men in general commanded to learn it and the Lord's Prayer Id. p. 233. Creeklade now a small Town in Wiltshire from whence the Muses are said to be carried to Oxford supposed an Ancient Great School It s Derivation l. 5. p. 290. Creoda or Crida first King of the Mercians one of the lâ—rgest of the English-Saxon Kingdoms and one of the last conquered by the West-Saxons His Death l. 3. p. 147 149. Crimes all redeemable by Fines in Edward the Elder 's time and long after l. 5. p. 326. Punishable rather by Mulcts than by Blood in King Athelstan's time Id. p. 342. For what no satisfaction should be made by way of Compensation l. 6. p. 59. Criminal none knowingly and voluntarily to have Peace with or harbour any one that is condemned and what such forfeit that act contrary to this Law l. 5. p. 326. None to absent themselves from the Gemots or Hundred-Courts and if any do what course shall be taken about him l. 6. p. 14. No petty Offendor to be put to Death by Cnute's Law Id. p. 58. Crown After Cnute had found the weak and bounded Power of Kings by the Tide 's refusing to obey his Majestick Commands he returns home and would wear his Crown no longer but orders it to be hung on the head of the Crucifix at Winchester l. 6. p. 57. Croyland the whole Isle granted by King Ethelbald's Charter to this Monastery l. 4. p. 218. The Lands and Privileges of the Abbey confirmed by King Egbert in a Great Council l. 5. p. 254. The Privileges and Grants of King Withlaff to this Monastery confirmed in a General Council of the whole Kingdom Id. p. 257. The Charter of King Berthwulf to this Abbey confirmed under the Rule of St. Benedict at Kingsbury supposed to be a Great Council of the Kingdom Id. p. 261. The Monastery and Church with a Noble Library of Books and all its Charters burnt and utterly destroyed by the Danes Id. p. 271 272. Is repaired and much enriched by Abbot Turketule who by adding six more to the two Bells there made the first tuneable Ring of Bells in England l. 6. p. 12. Crysanthius sent by Theodosius as his Lieutenant to suppress the Incursions of the Picts and Scots l. 2. p. 97. Cuckamsley-hill in Berkshire by the Saxons called Cwichelmeslaw l. 6. p. 32. Cumbran a most Noble Ealdorman for representing the People's Grievances to cruel King Sigebert at the Request of the Subjects is stain by him l. 4. p. 226 227 Cuneglasus supposed by some Antiquaries to have been King of the Northern or Cambrian Britains l. 3. p. 139 145. Curescot or Cyrescot that is First-Fruits or Money given to the Church l. 6. p. 55 56. Cutha Vid. Cuthwulf Cuthbert ordained Bishop of Lindisfarne His Noble Character and approaching Death l. 4. p. 201 202. Retires after he had resigned his Bishoprick to Farne-Island and there deceases but his Body is translated to Lindisfarne Id. p 204. Called St. Cuthbert and esteemed to have been a very holy man Id. p. 215. l. 5. p. 286. Cuthbryht or Cuthbert upon the Death of Nothelm is consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury l. 4. p. 224. Sate Archbishop eighteen years and then dâ—ceases Id. p. 228. His Body after a hundred years removed by Aldune from Cunecaeaster i.e. Chester to the place where the City of Durham was afterwards built l. 6. p. 26. Cuthred had Three thousand Hides of Land given him by Cenwalc King of the West-Saxons near Aescasdune l. 4. p. 182. He was the Son of Cwichelme Ibid. His Death Id. p. 186. Cuthred Cousin to Ethelred succeeds him in the Kingdom of the West-Saxons Hâ—s War with Ethelbald King of the Mercians with various Successes He and Ethelbald fight against the Britains l. 4. p.
THE General History OF ENGLAND AS WELL Ecclesiastical as Civil From the Earliest Accounts of Time To the Reign of his Present Majesty King WILLIAM Taken from the most ANTIENT RECORDS MANUSCRIPTS and HISTORIANS Containing the LIVES of the KINGS and MEMORIALS of the most EMINENT PERSONS both in CHURCH and STATE With the Foundations of the NOTED MONASTERIES and both the UNIVERSITIES VOL. I. By JAMES TYRRELL Esq LONDON Printed for Henry Rhodes in Fleetstreet Iohn Dunton in 〈◊〉 Iohn Salusbury in Cornhil and Iohn Harris in 〈…〉 MDCXCVI Collegium Emmanuelis Cantabrigiae To the Right Honourable THOMAS Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery Baron Herbert of Caerdiff Lord Rosse Par Marmion St. Quintin and Shurland Lord Privy-Seal Lord Lieutenant of the County of Wilts and South-Wales and One of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council MY LORD IT having been usual to dedicate Works of publick Use and Benefit to great Persons eminent for Vertue Learning and Nobility I think my self happy under the Obligation of that Custom since it somewhat excuses as well as encourages my Presumption to lay this Performance at your Lordship's Feet I am sure it could not be honoured with a more agreeable Name A Name so universally known that all Men acknowledg your Lordship to be signally endued with those excellent Qualities which render you not only a great Master in the most useful Parts of Learning but likewise incline you to a generous Encouragement of all those who have any pretence to them Which Favour your Lordship having been pleased to confer on me among several others of greater Merit gives me the more Confidence to address this first Volume of our English History to your Lordship's Patronage for as no Person hath been more conversant in things of this Nature than your self so I know none more able to make a right Judgment of them And tho I will not affirm this to be an Exact History according to the strict Rules of Art yet if I were conscious to my self that it was wholly unworthy your Acceptance I should derogate very much from that Respect which is so justly due to your Lordship's Character But if the not Writing any thing which I did not believe to be true nor the concealing any thing useful to the World that is so might qualify me for an Historian perhaps then I may have some pretence to that Title However your Lordship will here meet with a faithful Account of all the chief Actions and Revolutions that have happened in this Kingdom down to the Norman William As first the Conquest the Romans made of that part of Britain we now call England then their quitting it after a long Possession in order to secure their Empire at Home from the Insults of so many barbarous Nations after which followed the calling in of the Saxons to assist the Britains And lastly from the formers quarrelling with the latter ensued their total Expulsion out of the best and most fertile parts of this Island As for the Invasions by the Danes under King Cnute and by the Normans under King William commonly called the Conqueror though it must be granted that these Princes were victorious by their Arms yet was not this Nation subdued by either of them so entirely as that its Submissions could properly be stiled Conquests but rather Acquisitions gained by those Princes upon certain Compacts between them and the People of England both Parties standing obliged in solemn Oaths mutually to perform their parts of the Agreement as will be clearly seen in the Sequel of this History Yet I doubt not but in these great Revolutions your Lordship will take notice that the People of this Kingdom were never overcome by Strangers till their Luxury softning their warlike Tempers and producing a careless Administration of their Affairs had made them an easy Prey to their Invaders This I observe not to reproach but to warn our Nation lest by the like Miscarriages they should incur the like Punishments I have now no more but to beg your Lordship's Acceptance of this Dedication as a Tribute justly yours by reason of those great Obligations for your so freely communicating to me some part of your uncommon Knowledg whenever I have had the Happiness of your excellent Conversation An Honour which engages me to own my self with the utmost Respect My LORD Your Lordship 's most humble and most obedient Servant James Tyrrell THE PREFACE TO THE READER THO it hath been a general Complaint of the most Learned and Judicious Men of this Nation that we have extreamly wanted an exact Body of English History in our own Language for the Instruction and Benefit of our Nobility and Gentry together with others who would be glad to understand by it the Original Constitutions and Laws of their own Country yet since perhaps some ordinary Readers may be inclined to think this Work unnecessary because it hath been already performed by so many different Hands I shall therefore in the first Place say somewhat to obviate and remove this seeming Objection THOSE that are any thing conversant in our Historians do know that the Writers in English especially of this Period now publish'd are not many As for Caxton Fabian and others of less Note who are very short and now read but by few I shall pass them by and only mention Grafton and Hollingshead the former of whom lived in the Reign of Henry VIII and the latter in that of Queen Elizabeth And of these I need not say much for tho they contain a great deal of Matter very curious and fit to be known especially relating to the Times wherein they lived yet not only their dry and uncouth way of Writing and dwelling so long on the exploded Fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth but the stuffing of their Histories with divers mean and trivial Relations unworthy the Dignity of their Subject have rendred their Labours tedious and in a great measure unuseful to their Readers BVT as for Stow and Speed who wrote in the time of King James the First 't is true the former of them is not so long and tiresom in Geoffrey's Stories as those abovementioned and it must be confessed that Mr. Speed was the first English Writer who slighting Geoffrey's Tales immediately fell upon more solid Matter giving us a large Account of the History of this Island during the Time of the Roman Emperors and English Saxon Kings and had he not by making his Reader follow those Emperors in all their Foreign Wars and Expeditions wherein Britain was no way concerned he had rendred his Work less Irksome and more Profitable than now it is BVT notwithstanding both these Writers had many choice Collections of Noble Manuscripts relating to our English History and might have had the View of several others if they would have been at the Pains of seeking after them yet it must be owned they did not make that Improvement of those Opportunities as might have been expected from such great Assistances there being not
their own Subjects AND besides this Power owing its Original wholly to Force and not to a Lineal Succession or Election over the rest of those Princes upon whom it was usurped was without any Just or Legal Right and consequently lasted no longer than the Success or at farthest the Life-time of such a Conquering Prince and then it was for a time Extinct until some other of the Seven by the like success of his Arms could set up for the same Power and Greatness SO that at length we found that the best way of Writing this History was to follow the plain and natural Method of our Saxon Annals not only as the most easy for our selves but also for the Reader AND tho perhaps an Objection may be made against this Method viz. That the crowding of so many different Actions done in several Places and under several Kings renders the Work perplexed and difficult to be remembred which I grant is in part true yet to obviate this I have at the end of each of the ensuing Books except the last presented you with exact Chronological Tables not only of the Names of all the Kings contained under each Period but also in what Year of our Lord they began and ended their Reigns so that the Reader by casting his Eye upon any one of them may easily find what Kings lived and reigned together and consequently in which of their Reigns any Action related in the History was performed And now TO come to the fourth Book Bede being the most antient Author that gives us an Account of what was done in this Period and out of whom the Saxon Annals themselves have borrowed almost the greatest part of what they relate concerning those early Times of Christianity I have therefore wholly confined my self to him without having recourse to these Annals or any other unless it be where I find they relate any Action of which he has been wholly silent But in this Period I cannot but mention Stephen Eddi or Heddi a Monk who as Bede tells was one of the first Masters for Singing in the Northumbrian Churches and having been invited by Wilfred Archbishop of York out of Kent for that purpose had so great a Veneration for his Memory that he wrote his Life in Latin in a Stile somewhat better than could be expected from that Age this Treatise having continued in Manuscript in the Library of Sir Jo. Cotton and also of that of Salisbury has lately been published by the Learned Dr. Gale in his last Volume of English Writers and to which I must own my self beholding for many choice Passages relating to the Ecclesiastical as well as Civil State in those Times this Author flourish'd cotemporary with Bede in the Reign of Osric King of Northumberland and died about Anno. Dom. 720. BVT indeed as for the last forty Years or thereabouts viz. from the Time when Bede ceased to write which was Anno Dom. 637. we have been forced to make use of the Annals or else of those of later Writers that have made any Additions to them WHICH Annals since I found them the Store-house or Repository from whence most if not all of our Latin Historians as well those that wrote before as since the Conquest have borrowed the earliest Accounts of our English Saxon Affairs I have by the advice of Persons of much greater Learning and Judgment than my self rather chose to translate and give you them almost entire as I find them in the Edition lately published than to do as most other Writers cite them at second Hand not that I have omitted setting down whatsoever any other Authors have added to these Annals by way of Improvement or Illustration WHEREFORE to avoid stuffing my Margins with unnecessary Quotations I desire my Reader once for all to observe that wheresoever he shall find the Lines Comma'd unless they be before some Speeches or Laws they always denote the Saxon Annals whether expresly mentioned or not as also in all other places tho not Comma'd where no other Writer is cited BVT if some think I have inserted too many Names of Authors into the Body of this History and that it had been better omitted there and put into the Margin or bottom of the Pages to this I answer that intending faithfully to translate these Annals and to make such frequent use of them as I have done there could be no way to distinguish them from other Writers but either by Letters in the Margin or else by setting them in a different Character But as the former would have been a constant and unsightly clog to the Margin so the other would have looked as unhandsome in the Body and especially at the latter end of the Work where these Annals alone take up several whole Pages AND tho in my Citations of Authors I have seldom quoted the Page yet having taken what I write from those who have wrote in a Chronological Method the Reader by turning to the Years of our Lord may easily find what he looks for making some small allowance for different Accounts and where other Authors have not taken that Course I have there quoted the Chapter or Book and in matters of greater Moment the very Page BVT that even the Annals themselves do vary from each other in Account of Time often one and sometimes two or three Years that is to be ascribed either to the fault of the several Amanuenses or else to the different Calculations of those Monks who drew them up in the Form we now have them as any may easily perceive that will give himself the Trouble to compare the various Readings of the several Copies of these Annals lately published at Oxford by the Ingenious Mr. Edmund Gibson IN the fifth and sixth Books as I have endeavoured faithfully to translate the same Annals so I have also used that Liberty as not slavishly to confine my self to the very Words themselves when either the Obscurity or Vncouthness of the Phrase would not bear a literal Translation but I thought I could give them a better turn AND here as also in the two preceding Books I have often added by way of Illustration to the Text the present proper Names of Places in a Parenthesis immediately after the obsolete Saxon ones as also the Titles of the Ealdormen or Earls Bishops and Abbots out of Florence of Worcester and other Authors where the Annals have only given their bare Names without telling us to what Places they belonged and here likewise I would note That in all Saxon words where the Letter C is made use of it is always pronounced like K there being no K in that Language And as for the Saxon Names of Men made use of in the Annals I have as near as I could faithfully kept to the Saxon Original tho they often differ very much in their way and manner of spelling them from that of those Latin Authors that translate them HAVING thus given you a short Account of the several
Books into which I have divided this Volume I will now proceed to acquaint you with the rest of my Authors from whom I have collected it nor will I give you only their Names which has been done by so many already but a brief Censure of them and their Works and in what Time they wrote being such as lived either before or after the Conquest Of the former sort there are but few since from Bede to Asser. Menev. there flourish'd no general Historian for William of Malmsbury himself confesses that after Bede all liberal Studies more and more declining those that followed spent their Lives in Idleness or Silence yet during even that Period there were some Writers of this kind viz. certain Monks in the greater Monasteries whose business it was to set down in short by way of Annals the most remarkable Passages of their own Times in their own Language nay Learning was in that King's Reign fallen to so low an Ebb that even King Alfred tells us in his Preface to the Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral That in the beginning of his Reign there were few on this side Humber who could understand their own Prayers much less turn a piece of Latin into English and where then were our supposed flourishing Vniversities AND I shall here begin with Asserius Menevensis who was so called because he was a Monk of Menevia or St. Davids This was he who being sent for by King Alfred out of Wales assisted him in his Studies and besides taught his Children and others of the Nobility Latin after this King Alfred sent him with others to fetch Grimbald out of Flanders into England and after the Schools were opened at Oxford the latter there professed Divinity and the former Grammar and Rhetorick as you may find in the Annals of Hyde cited in the ensuing History THIS Monk being Learned above the Age in which he lived first wrote the Annals that go under his Name which having long continued in the Cottonian and other Libraries in Manuscript have been lately published by the Learned Dr. Gale in his last Volume of Historians printed at Oxon. After these Annals it is certain Asser also wrote the whole History of King Alfred's Life under the Title of de Gestis Regis Aelfredi which were first published by the Reverend Arch-bishop Parker in Saxon Characters according to the Copy now in the Cottonian Library and was also again put out by Mr. Camden in another Edition at Frankford But it must be confessed there is some difference between these two Copies concerning the Vniversity of Oxford which is taken notice of in this Work in its proper Place but that the Annals abovementioned were written before his History of King Alfred's Life is plain for he there refers you to those Annals which he has also inserted in the Life almost word for word But tho the former of these is continued to the Death of King Alfred and the latter as far as the 14th Year of the Reign of K. Edward the Elder yet it is evident that he himself wrote neither the one nor the other after the Year 893 being the 45th of King Alfred's Age and this appears from the Life it self in which the Author particularly mentions it nor could he extend the Annals any farther because they were written before he wrote the Life This I observe to let the Reader understand that whatever he finds farther in the Annals or Life the Substance of both which I have given him in this Volume were continued by some other Hand and as for the Annals they sufficiently declare it for towards the latter end under Anno Dom. 909. you may meet with this Passage hoc Anno Asserius Episcopus Scireburnensis obiit which was no other than our Author himself yet this must be farther observed of him that he was so extreamly negligent in his Account of Time that he begins the first Year of King Alfred's Reign sometimes at one Year of our Lord and sometimes at another so that no Man can tell by him when it commenced BVT why he left off Writing so many Years before King Alfred died and never finish'd his Life though he survived him nine Years I confess I know not unless being preferred about the Time when he had finish'd it to the Bishoprick of Shireburne he left the King's Service and going to reside at his own See had other Business on his Hands than Writing And that the same Asser who taught King Alfred was also by him made Bishop of Shireburne appears from this King's Preface to the Saxon Translation of St. Gregorie's Pastoral in which he tells you he was assisted by Plegmund his Archbishop and Asser his Bishop to whom the said King in his Will after the Archbishop and some other Bishops bequeathed a 100 Marks by the Title of Asser Bishop of Shireburne from whence it is manifest that the same Person who was King Alfred's Instructor was also Bishop of Shireburne which Bishoprick was certainly bestowed on him after he had done Writing since tho he mentions the Abbeys of Banwell Ambresbury and Exceter to have been bestowed upon him by the King yet he is utterly silent of his being made Bishop which he would not surely have omitted if he had been then so preferred but how long he held this Bishoprick we can say little positively because we do not find when it was first given him but as for the time of his Death not only the Annals that go under his Name but the Saxon Chronicle also places it under Anno 909. So that I think there can be no reasonable cause to doubt of that BVT what should lead such a careful Chronographer as Florence of Worcester into so great a Mistake as to place this Bishop's Death under Anno 883 I know not unless he had some other Copies of the Saxon Annals by him than are now extant but the Fasti of the Saxon Kings and Bishops publish'd by Sir H. Savil at the end of William of Malmesbury and other Writers are guilty of the like Mistake making this Asser to have succeeded Sighelm Bishop of Shireburn and to have died Anno 883 whereas it appears from our Annals that Sighelm whom William of Malmesbury makes to be the same Person with the Bishop abovementioned this very Year carried King Alfred's Alms to Rome and afterwards went himself as far as India however this Mistake of Florence as also the pretended Authority of our Welsh Chronicle hath as I suppose led divers other Learned Men and particularly Bishop Godwin and Arch-bishop Usher into a Belief of two Assers both Bishops the one of whom died Anno 883 and the other to have been Arch-bishop of St. Davids and to have succeeded Novis who according to the Chronicle of that Church publish'd in the 2d Volume of Anglia Sacra died Anno 872 and there immediately follows under Anno 909 Asserius Episcopus Britanniae fit which must certainly be an Errour in
his History of the Church of Durham who has interspersed many excellent Passages concerning the same Northern Story Here likewise we may add the Chronicle of the Abbey of Mailross which tho wrote by the Abbot of Dundraimon was certainly collected out of some much antienter Annals of that Monastery which was then destroyed and these together with the last mentioned Authors have helped us to make up the Succession of the Northumbrian Kings after Eardulf that was expelled his Kingdom Anno 806. from whom our common Writers suppose there was an Interregnum for the space of above sixty Years tho by those above-named it appears to have been otherwise as you may see in the Tables at the end of the last Book AFTER these flourished William of Malmesbury who finished his History in the Reign of King Stephen but certainly he began it long before viz. in the Reign of Henry the First To which Learned Monk being one of the best Writers both for Judgment and Stile of that Age I must own my self obliged for the best and choicest Passages in this Volume TO him succeeded Henry Arch-Deacon of Huntington who wrote a History of the Kings of England as well before as after the Conquest and retiring to Rome lived there for some time for that purpose He deduced his History almost to the end of K. Stephen and writing most commonly by way of Annals transcribed many things out of Florence of Worcester and was of that great Reputation that Geoffrey of Monmouth who was his Cotemporary recommends the English History to be written by his Pen as he does the British to be continued by Caradoc of Lancarvon who wrote a Welsh Chronicle as far as his own Time the Substance whereof I have here likewise given you as it was put out by Dr. Powell to which I have also added several remarkable Passages that were designed in a new Edition of the same Work to be published from the Manuscripts of the Learned Antiquary Mr. Robert Vaughan by Mr. Ellis late of Jesus College in Oxon but which were never finished And I have likewise inserted divers choice Notes that I gathered from another Manuscript of the same Author's relating to the Chronology and Actions of the British Princes which he wrote for the Satisfaction of the Lord Primate Usher and from him is now in my Possession And I suppose no Ingenious British Antiquary will think this Performance unnecessary since he will here find the Substance of all that is contained in Caradoc's Chronicle together with a great many considerable Additions from the Manuscripts abovementioned as also some others gathered from two MS. Copies of the Chronicles of Wales the one in the Cottonian Library the other in the Exchequer written at the end of one of the Volumes of Doomesday for the perusal of which I stand obliged to the Reverend Dr. Gale H. Huntingdon was followed by Rog. Hoveden a secular Priest of Oxford and was Domestick Clerk or Secretary to Henry the Second he seems to have chiefly transcribed from Simeon of Durham as to the Affairs before the Conquest as he does from William of Malmesbury and other Authors as well as his own Observations for those that occur'd afterwards to his own Time continuing his History to the beginning of King John's Reign THE next we come to are those Authors contained in that noble Volume called the Decem-Scriptores such as Ailred Abbot de Rievalle who wrote concerning the Kings of England so far as King Henry the 2d in whose Time he lived as also concerning the Life and Miracles of Edward the Confessor from whom I have taken divers memorable Passages relating to the Life of that King as well as to his Predecessors omitting his Fables and Legends in which he does too much abound AFTER him follows Radulphus de Diceto Dean of St. Pauls London who flourished in the Reign of King John about the Year 1210. he was esteemed a very accomplished Historian and an indefatigable Collector in his Time of things not only before but after the Conquest I have also taken some few Passages from William Thorn a Monk of Canterbury who wrote an entire History of the Affairs of his own Monastery of St. Augustin down to the beginning of King Richard the Second in whose Reign he lived AFTER whom we had for a long time no printed Historians of the Times before the Conquest till that in the Decem-Scriptores which goes under the Name of John Brompton Abbot of Jorvaulx in Richmondshire tho Mr. Selden has shewn us in his Preface to that Volume that he was rather the Purchaser than Author of this Chronicle which he left to his own Abbey he is supposed to have lived in the time of Edward the Third but the History concludes with the Death of Richard the First BVT the said Reverend Dr. Gale farther observes of him That he intended to continue Geoffrey of Monmouth as appears in the Preface and in Col. 1153. as also that he took much from Benedictus Abbas still in Manuscript in the Cottonian Library and not from Roger Hoveden for where a Fault or Omission is found in Benedictus the same is here found also but not so in Hoveden e. g. Benedictus wanted the Seal of the King of Sicily and so did Bromton till it was added from some other Copy and not out of Hoveden for the Seals differ and some Copies of Hoveden have it not at all And tho the Compiler of this History seems to have lived in the Time of Richard I. as himself seems to intimate yet Col. 967. it mentions Richard the Third which must have been added to continue down the Genealogy of our Kings as is often done in antient Chronicles by some later Hand But the Learned Doctor farther supposes this Chronicle to have been written by one John Brompton who as the Doctor found in an old Manuscript Year-Book or Collection of Reports of the Reign of King Edward the First was a Justice Itinerant about that Time which Conjecture is also confirmed by his careful inserting the Antient Saxon Laws into this Chronicle This as it was not done by any before him so neither does it savour of the Monk THIS is the more worthy taking notice of because Sir William Dugdale hath omitted this John Brompton in his Catalogue of Judges Itinerant at the end of his Origines Juridiciales TO this Historian succeeds Henry de Knyghton Canon of Leicester who wrote his History de Eventibus Angliae beginning with King Edgar and ending with the Reign of Richard the Second BVT the Reader may be pleased to take notice that in these two last Authors are found many Passages which are in none of the more Antient Writers and since most of them relate to Customs and Terms that had their Original after the coming in of the Normans therefore they may with good Reason be suspected to have been borrowed from some common Stories or Traditions that then passed up and down for current NOR can
of the Northumbers which contained Lancashire Yorkshire the Bishoprick of Duresme Cumberland Westmorland Northumberland and part of Scotland as far as Edinburgh Frith THIS Kingdom after the Death of Ida was divided into two parts the first whereof containing all the Countries lying on this side the River Tyne was called the Kingdom of Deira and that on the other side of it was called Bernicia and so continued for several Descents till King Oswy about the Year 643. upon the Murder of King Oswin his Cousin again reduced them into one and they continued thus united till such time as the Southern Provinces were overrun by the Danes as the more Northern were by the Scots and have ever since remained part of that Kingdom and hence it is the Low-Lands of Scotland that is all the Countrey from the River Tyne to the Friths of Edinburgh and Dunbritton antiently spoke the English Saxon Tongue which in succeeding Times was changed into that English Dialect they call the Modern Scotch and consists of the old Saxon with no little mixture of the Danish Language this I suppose proceeded from the great Conquests and settling so many of that Nation in those Northern Parts THIS is in great measure confirmed by John of Wallingford publish'd by the Learned Dr. Gale where he relates that Keneth King of Scots received Lothian from King Edgar under the Condition of a Homage from himself and his Successors Kings of Scotland to the King of England as also that the People of that Countrey should enjoy their Laws and Customs as also the use of the English Tongue BUT as for the true and genuine Scotish which they now call the Speech of the Highlanders because by them only spoken at this day it is no other than the antient Irish which the Scots brought over with them from thence when they first came over to inhabit there as you will find in the Beginning of Bede's History THE sixth Kingdom was that of the East-Angles which contained Norfolk Suffolk Cambridgshire with the Isle of Ely THE seventh was that of the Mercians containing Gloucestershire Herefordshire Worcestershire Warwickshire Leicestershire Rutlandshire Northamptonshire Lincolnshire Huntingtonshire Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire Staffordshire Shropshire Nottinghamshire Cheshire and part of Hertfordshire BUT as for the Names of the Kings who reigned in each of these Kingdoms till they were all brought under that of the West-Saxons I shall refer you to the Tables at the end of the third fourth and fifth Books of this Volume wherein you have at one view all the Kings that succeeded in each of those Periods as also those of that part of Britain we now call Wales and for the more exact Chronology of the first British Princes I must own my self obliged to the exact account of the Right Reverend the present Lord Bishop of Bangor who I hope one day will let the World see some of his Learned Labours on that Subject THIS is a short Scheme of the several Kingdoms into which that Part of Britain we now call England was divided in the Saxon Times I should next proceed to the particular Laws and Forms of Government in each respective Kingdom but since we have no Remains of those left us for want of Letters before the Preaching of Christianity here we can only say in the general that without doubt each of these Kingdoms had its own particular Laws and Customs and tho they might perhaps differ one from the other in some Points yet they all agreed in the main as to the most Material and Fundamental Constitutions of their Government and long received Laws and Customs before ever they arrived in England as proceeding from the same Common Ancestors AND tho the English-Saxons were not immediately derived from the Germans but Goths as you will find in the third Book of this Volume yet since even the Germans themselves were derived from the same Gothick Original with all the rest of those Northern People as the Sweeds Danes and Norwegians as appears by the Agreement of their Language Customs and Laws I shall therefore suppose that in the main likewise they agreed with the Antient Germans as they are described by Tacitus in their Laws Manners and Religion and therefore I shall from him give you some of the most considerable of them as they are collected by Mr. Selden in his Learned Treatise called Jani Anglorum Facies altera THE first of which is In conciliis Rex vel Princeps prout Aetas cuique prout Nobilitas prout Decus Bellorum prout Facundia est audiuntur Auctoritate suadendi magis quà m jubendi potestate Si displicuit Sententia fremitu aspernantur sin placuit frameas concutiunt Honoratissimum assensûs Genus est Armis laudare Which for the Benefit of the Common Readers I will take upon me to translate into English viz. IN their Councils the King or some principal Person according to every one's respective Age Nobility Reputation in Arms or Eloquence are heard rather by the Authority of Perswading than the Power of Commanding if their Opinions displeased them they shewed their dislike by their Clamour but if they approved of what was spoken they struck their Launces one against another This was thought the most Honourable way of giving their Assent to approve by Arms. THE second is Eliguntur in iisdem Conciliis Principes qui Jura per pagos vicosque reddunt Centeni singulis ex plebe Comites Consilium simul Auctoritas adsunt viz. IN those Councils such chief Men are Elected as judge Causes in Towns and Villages A hundred Assessors chosen out of the common People are added to each of them as well for Counsel as Authority From whence Mr. Selden here supposes our Hundreds had their Original which antiently consisted of the Masters of one hundred Families THE third goes on thus Nihil publicae vel privatae Rei nisi Armati agunt sed Arma sumere non antè cuiquam moris quam Civitas suffecturum probaverit Tum in ipso Concilio vel Principum aliquis vel pater vel propinquus scuto frameâque Juvenem ornant haec apud illos Toga hic primus juventae honos ante hoc Domus pars videntur mox Reipublicae viz. THEY transact nothing either of Publick or Private Concern without their Arms but it was not a Custom for any to assume those Arms before the Common-Wealth had approved of his Ability Then in this very Council either one of the principal Men or his Father or his near Kinsman adorned the Youth with the Shield and Lance. This served them instead of a Gown and was the first Honour of their Youth before they only seemed as part of the Family but now they became a Member of the Common-Wealth And here Mr. Selden discovers the first Footsteps of Knighthood THE fourth is Insignis Nobilitas aut magna patrûm merita Principis dignationem etià m Adolescentulis assignant viz. EMINENT Nobility or the signal Merits
that there must have been an Original Contract precedent to the entrance of that Religion And it did not commence from the Coronation of our Kings as some have imagined and consequently from their taking an Oath at that Time to observe the Laws of the Kingdom because both the one and the other was much later than the Preaching of the Gospel it self for this Ceremony of a Coronation as Mr. Selden learnedly proves began no earlier in the West than with Charles the Great his receiving his Imperial Crown from the Hands of the Pope and this Ceremony he also shews us was borrowed from the Greek Emperors who about Justinian or his Successor Justin's Time first introduced their Unction and Coronation by the Patriarch of Constantinople as he there makes out from a Passage of the Learned Onuphrius in these words Constantinopoli vel sub Justiniano vel post ejus statìm Obitum Electioni Imperatoris additum ut quam primùm Imperator renuntiatus esset à Patriarchâ Constantinopolitano in magna Bizantii Basilica Oleo Unctus Diademate Aureo redimeretur AND therefore what we find in our Saxon Chronicles or any other Historians concerning the Coronation of our English Saxon Kings must all of them have commenced since that Time NOW the Emperor Charles's Coronation above mentioned falling out in the Year 800 it is plain that the Coronation of our Kings could not be antienter than that Time which was near 450 Years after the Arrival of the Saxons in England and settling Kingly Government here and above 200 Years after the Preaching of Christianity so that this Coronation Oath seems to have been only a constant Renovation or Confirmation of this Original Contract at every new King's first Accession to the Throne and must have had if at all its Original long before that Time AND this also appears from the Instance of King Sigebert above-mentioned who was deprived of his Kingdom for the Breach of this Contract above forty Years before there was either any Emperor or King formally Crowned in these Western parts of Europe TO all which we may farther add that if our Annals and Historians may be credited it does not appear that several of our Danish Kings tho they were solemnly Elected were ever Crowned at all For as for King Cnute whose Election is mentioned in Florence of Worcester and other Authors to have been by many of the Bishops and Nobility at Southampton Anno Dom. 1015. yet are they all except Abbot Brompton's Chronicle which relates that he was Crowned by Living A. Bp of Canterbury silent as to his Coronation only that upon their swearing Fealty to him it is said he likewise swore to them Quod secundùm Deum seculum fidelis esset eis Dominus i.e. that according to the Laws of God and Man he would be a faithful Lord to them So likewise after the Death of Edmund Ironside the Author of Encomium Emmae says expresly that he was Elected King by the whole English Nation but that he was not admitted without a new Compact both Florence and Roger Hovenden inform us in these words viz. That when they had again accepted of him for their King and had sworn Fealty to him he likewise again pledged his Faith to them in this Form Accepto pignore de manu sua nuda cum juramentis à Principibus Danorum i. e. they received a Pledg or Promise from his bare or naked Hand together with the Oaths given by the chief Men of the Danes who it seems swore on the King's behalf that he would observe the Conditions he had made before with them BUT as for the Coronation of his Son Harold Harefoot that is expresly denied by the said Author of Encomium Emmae for he says that Elnoth or Agelnoth Arch-bishop of Canterbury flatly refused to crown him because he said he had taken an Oath not to anoint him King so long as the Children of Queen Emma were alive and that laying down the Crown and Scepter upon the High Altar he straitly forbad all the Bishops to crown Harold which so incensed him that he thenceforth despised his Episcopal Benediction BUT whether this Author who yet lived in that very Time might not write this out of Hatred to Harold's Memory as well as out of Love to Queen Emma and her Children I will not take upon me to determine since no Historian besides himself makes any mention of it for the antient History of Ramsey Abby written some time after the Conquest and now lately publish'd by Dr. Gale says expresly in the Title to Chapt. 94. That Harold was Consecrated i.e. Anointed King BUT that the English Nation before the Conquest believed that their Kings were obliged to govern them by Law i.e. according to the original Compact and that their Allegiance to them was then looked upon as wholly due on that Account our Annals seem to justify Anno Dom. 1014 when the English Wites or Wise Men both of the Clergy and Laity after the Death of Sweyn King of Denmark sent over a Message to King Ethelred being then retired into Normandy whereby they assured him That no Prince was dearer to them than their own natural Lord always provided Gif He hi rihtlicor healdan wolde thonne He aer dyde as it is in the Saxon i.e. if he would govern them more rightly i.e. according to Law for the future than he had done before whereupon he promised to be a faithful Lord to them i.e. a Prince keeping his Oath and Promise and redress all their Grievances if on their parts they would return to their Allegiance And thus by giving mutual Assurances he came Home and contracted a new Friendship or League with his People HAVING now got over these great Points of the manner of Succession and Deprivation of our Saxon Kings I shall next as briefly as I can run through all those Orders and Degrees of Men that did constitute this Common-Weal THE first Degree of Men beneath that of Kings was that of Aetheling or Prince of the Blood Royal being derived from the Saxon word Aethel which signifies Noble and Ing which being added to it signifies one derived from Royal Blood as appears by the Terminations of Names in the Saxon Genealogies set down in our Annals under Anno 449. and in several other Places and was common not only to the King 's Eldest Son but to all others nearly related to the Blood Royal and was a meer honorary Title without any Power or Jurisdiction annexed to it that I know of unless the King was at any time pleased to bestow it Nor can I here omit giving you the Names of two other principal Offices or Dignities of the Kingdom the one of which was Military the other Civil the former in Saxon was called CYNINGS HOLD in Latin Princeps Militiae i.e. General of all the King's Forces in times of War and thus we find King Alfred in his Will bequeaths a Legacy to Earl Ethelred
same Author observes in some Antient Charters I suppose whilst the Ealdorman exercised the whole Power of the County as well Civil as Military the same Title of Ealdorman signified the latter Dignity of which he gives us this Instance from a Charter out of the Antient Book of the Church of Worcester where Earl Aelfhere is stiled Mercna Heretogan BUT in the Time of Edward the Confessor and I suppose also before they were certainly distinguished as appears by the Thirty fifth Auctuary of that King's Laws where after the Offices of the Ealdormen and Greve the Duty of Heretochs is thus described which I will give you here in English And there were other Powers and Dignities constituted through all the Provinces and Counties of the whole Kingdom which were by the English called Heretochs to wit Noble Wise Faithful and Stout Barons These sate our Armies in Battel Array and raised others as they thought fit for the Honour of the Crown and Service of the Kingdom They were elected by the Common-Council for the publick Benefit of the Realm in all Provinces and Counties at a full Folk-mote as the Sheriffs of the same also were and ought to be And in every County there was always one Heretoch thus elected to conduct the Militia of his County according to the King's Orders for the Honour and Profit of the Crown of the said Kingdom whenever there was Occasion FROM whence we may observe That before as well as sometime after the Conquest when this Auctuary was made the King had not the Nomination either of the Heretoch or Sheriff which were then the two Great Officers of the County the one Military the other Civil HAVING thus dispatched the Military I proceed to the Civil Magistrate viz. the Sheriff in Saxon Scire-Gerefa or more contractedly Greve in the Laws of King Edward who is called by Ethelwerd Exactor Regius i.e. the King's Receiver This Officer as Asser shews us in his Life of Alfred before that King made his new Reformation of the Kingdom was appointed by the Ealdorman and therefore called Vice-Dominus and was much what the same with our Vice-Comes or Sheriff at this Day But whether he had the Title of Sheriff before as well as after that Alteration by King Alfred I will not determine BUT it appears by both these Latin Titles that he was the Officer who instead of the Ealdorman or Earl sat as Judge in those we now call the County-Court and Sheriff's Tourn But these being so well known at this Day I shall not further enlarge only that this Officer was also to answer to the King's Exchequer for all Fines Amerciaments and other Duties arising out of the County the third Penny of which the Earl had granted him by the King pro sustentatione Dignitatis AND now I come at last to that great extensive Dignity of a Thane called in Saxon Thegne being derived from the old word Theowian to serve because they that had this Honour conferred on them were at first the King's Officers or Servants and in our Antient Latin Charters subscribed by the Name of Ministri Regis and are called in the Version of our Saxon Annals as also in Florence of Worcester Ministri Regii not that they were really always the King 's Domestick Servants tho they were so originally on whom he likewise bestowed several Lands in lieu of those Services Wages in Money being not then in use which Lands descended to their Heirs if the King pleased THIS Title of Thane was of two sorts the one Spiritual the other Temporal the former were called in Saxon Messe-Thegnes i.e. Mass-Thanes Priests or Parsons of Churches and other dignified Clergy-Men of whom I shall now say nothing but that they were then of so great Note that in our Saxon Laws they are ranged before the Werold-Thegnes i. e. Temporal Thanes and their Weregilds rated at the same Value with them viz. two thousand Thrymsa's AND tho the word denoted a Servant or Minister in general and so divers had the Title as it were meerly Officiary and Personal yet as Mr. Selden informs us those that were the King 's immediate Tenants of fair Possessions which they held by personal Service as of his Person or as we say by Grand-Serjeanty or Knight's Service in chief were I conceive the Thanes that had the Honorary Dignity and were part of the greater Nobility of that Time howsoever those Officiary Dignities of Holde and Highgereue had then precedence of them that is they were all the King 's Feudal Thanes and the Land held so was called Tainland or Thaneland as afterwards the Lands held that made a Baron were called a Barony as also they are called to this day This Title continued all the Saxon times until the coming in of the Normans and it was in some use also after that Time and then was succeeded by that of Barons This Title being of Norman Extraction we rarely meet with it before the Conquest THERE were also besides these Chief Thanes others who were called middle or under Thanes being the same with the less sort of Barons or Lords of Mannors who holding of other great Lords and not of the King were those that after the Conquest were called Vavasors inferior to whom there were likewise a third Sort who seemed to have been made up of the least or meanest Degree of Gentry or Freeholders which were then all one none but the Gentry or less Nobility then enjoying Lands by Freehold Tenure And in this sense is to be understood that Law of King Cnute whereby it is appointed That if the Master of a Family who by that Law was to have all his Houshold under his Pledg were accused of suffering any of them by his Privity to escape being guilty of any Crime he was then to wage Law with five other Thanes i. e. in Latin Nobilibus himself making the sixth Now it was impossible that there should be so many Chief Thanes who held immediately of the King in any one Hundred or Tything out of which those Thanes or Gentlemen that were to make this Purgation were to be taken BUT of all these Thanes or less Nobility I shall speak more at large by and by when I come to consider the Members that composed the Mycel-Gemot or Common-Council of the Kingdom of which these made up the great and principal Part. AND next to them I find another Title tho not commonly used yet as antient as the Laws of King Ina as also mentioned in several other King's Laws viz. a Sithcund Man who if he refused his Service in the Army or a Military Expedition he forfeited his Land THIS Name Mr. Somner in his Glossary derives from Sith or Giseth Comes vel Socius a Ruler or Governour and Cund Kind as it signifies the Condition and Quality of any one and Mon Man that is a sort of Comes Governour Judg or Praefect he was esteemed equal to a Thane by
for want of a better Expression signified the Study of the Law and therefore the word SAPIENTES and WITES where-ever he meets with them in our Saxon Laws or Great Councils must forsooth sigâ—ify Lawyers or Judges And his Design in it is evident that he might thereby confound the Law-makers with the ordinary Counsellors or Advisers whom those Law-makers might often imploy in the drawing of the Laws but he is indeed at last so modest as to tell us That at this day the Judges and King's Counsel and other great Lawyers that sit in the Lord's House are assistant to the Parliament when there is occasion But that he would here as well as elsewhere insinuate that no body else had any more right to appear there than they you may see more plainly in his Notes to his Compleat History of England where upon the words Sapientes or Witen made use of in the Saxon Laws he says That if they only signified Men skilled in the Laws then were none of the Temporal Nobility present at the making of those Laws unless perhaps they were the Lawyers meant by that word as being many of them Judges and Justiciaries at that time But yet he is at last forced with Justice in the same place to acknowledg upon the words that Witan Sapientes or wise Men must be taken for or meant of the Bishops and Nobility or else they were not present at the making of these Laws which no Man can believe that considers how many Ecclesiastical Laws there are amongst them and Laws relating to the Worship of God and a holy Life that were never made without at least the Advice of the Bishops IT is well my Lords the Bishops were concern'd here or else sure he would never have been so free as to make the word Witan signify not only great Lawyers but Divines too and thus by the same liberty of paraphrasing studia Sapientiae may signify the Study of Divinity BUT enough of these Trifles for the Author himself hath some Lines above in the same Notes granted as much as I can desire because he confesses That in our Saxon Laws the Sapientes or Witan were divers times taken for the whole Baronage or Nobility as I may so say And in this sense it is used in the 49 th Chapter of the Preface to Alured's Laws And I desire the Doctor to shew me any Instance out of the Saxon Laws or Annals if he can where the words Witan or Witena-Gemot are used in any other sense But what was the true meaning of that word Baronage we shall reserve to another place it suffices at present to let you see he owns they were somewhat more than great Lawyers and that it comprehended others besides Noble-men by Birth I shall prove by and by IN the mean time I shall shew by what Words and Phrases the Witena Gemot consisting of these Wites is called in the Latin Version of our Annals as also of our Historians who have wrote in the same Language IN the first of these it is rendered Concilium PROCERVM how truly I have said somewhat in the Preface by Florence of Worcester in his Version of the same Annals it is commonly render'd Concilium PRIMATVM and sometimes but more rarely PROCERVM But when this Author would distinguish the Laity from the Clergy at these Assemblies he words it thus ARCHIEPISCOPOS EPISCOPOS ABBATES Angliae OPTIMATES sometimes thus EPISCOPOS DVCES nec non PRINCIPES OPTIMATES Gentis Angliae AS for the Signification of all these Words I shall give it you anon only thus much may be agreed upon that besides the Arch-bishops Bishops and Abbots the chief or best Men of England were present and assisted at these Councils and who as appears by the Subscriptions to several Saxon Councils and Charters were either the Ealdormen who writ themselves in Latin sometimes Sub-Reguli but more often Duces or Comites of whom we have already spoken enough But this I would have remembred that the Office of Ealdormen not being then hereditary it was bestowed for Merit and Nobility by Blood was no necessary Condition to it since their Places in this great Assembly were only ratione Officii and not by Right of Inheritance as at this day THE next Order whose Subscriptions we find at the Conclusion of such Councils and Charters are the Thanes the highest Degree of which was called Thanus Regius the King's Thane because he held immediately of him and tho I grant it answered the Title or Dignity of the greater Barons after the Norman Conquest yet however neither Mr. Selden nor any other Learned Antiquary that I know of does any where exclude the two other Degrees of Thanes viz. the Middle and Lesser from appearing and having places in those great and general Councils as well as the chief Thanes themselves AND besides these we find at the end of several Charters others who write themselves Milites who I suppose ought to be rendered Knights but whether they were Thanes that held by any Military Tenure or such as held their Lands in Allodio that is freely under no Services I will not here take upon me to determine THESE are the only Degrees mentioned at the end of those Councils and Charters above-mentioned BUT perhaps it will now be told me that according to my own shewing there were no Commons summoned to these Assemblies since neither in the Titles before those Councils nor at the Conclusions of them is there any mention made of this Order of Men now called Commons distinct from that of the Bishops and great Noble Men and therefore from hence Dr. Brady in his Answer to Mr. Petyt will have none but Bishops and great Noble-men to have had any thing to do there and to make this seem the more plausible he renders that great Council where Plegmund Arch-bishop of Canterbury together with King Edward the Elder presided viz. CONCILIVM MAGNVM EPISCOPORVM ABBATVM FIDELIVM PROCERVM POPVLORVM IN PROVINCIA GEWISORM c. in these words A great Council of the Bishops Abbots Tenants in Capite or Military Service Noble-men and People in the Province of the West-Saxons AND here before I go any further I would desire the Doctor to answer these two Questions FIRST By what Authority he here translates the word Fideles Tenants in Capite or Military Service since I am sure he is not able to prove from any History or Record that this Tenure had any being in England at that time SECONDLY How he can make it out that the word Proceres always signifies great Noble-men by Birth without which Supposition all he is able to say on this Subject will fall to the Ground BUT the Doctor thinks he has a great Advantage from what Archbishop Parker says in the same Page EDWARDVS REX SYNODVM PRAEDICTAM NOBILIVM ANGLORVM CONGREGAVIT CVI PRESIDEBAT PLEGMVNDVS i. e. King Edward called the foresaid Synod of the English
Nobility wherein Plegmund presided Here he thinks he hath a strong hold and therefore says That this Author tells us the meaning of the long Title of this Synod which just before he had mentioned viz. that the Bishops Abbots FIDELES Proceres POPVLVS were all NOBILES NOBLE-MEN that is the Ecclesiasticks and Laicks or the Bishops and Lay-Nobility and not the Vulgus Commons or ordinary sort of People SO then according to the Doctor 's Construction all the fore-going Relation of the Members of this Council was a jumbled heap of Tautologies of Noble Tenants in Capite Noble-men and Noble People BUT I must needs acknowledg that he is so far in the right that by these words Nobilium Anglorum are not meant the vulgar mean or ordinary sort of People or the Mob as they are now contemptuously term'd for certainly they had never any thing to do in those August Assemblies Nor does Mr. Petyt or my self maintain any such thing and yet for all this I think we may affirm that all the Members that appeared there were not Noble-men or Great Lords only in the sense they are now taken FOR to begin with the word Nobilis which the Doctor so much insists on it is his own too narrow Conception of that Title which has been I think one main Cause of the greatest part of the Quarrel between Mr. Petyt and him for in all the Counties of Europe except England it is very well known that the word Nobilis includes not only Noble-men of Title such as Dukes Marquesses c. but also all Gentlemen of Families who are well born and do not exercise Mechanick Trades Thus Nobilezza in Italian and Noblesse in French comprehends the less as well as the greater Nobility So likewise the word Aedelmen among the Germans comprehends all sorts of Noble-men as well those of Title as others which is owned by Sir H. Spelman in his Glossary in these words Anglorum Legibus Adelingos dici pro Nobilibus in genere qui omnes nobiles Aedelmen vocant à Saxonico Aedel nobilis And so it was here in England long after the Conquest as well as before when Knights and Gentlemen were reckoned inter Nobiles minores before the Title of Noble-men began to be appropriated to the higher Nobility or Peers only which is also owned by Dr. Brady in his Preface to his Compleat History where he tells us of Lands held by Knights Service as well in the Hands of the lower sort of Noblesse as of the greater Noble-men AND this being so I shall easily prove that all the rest of the words insisted upon by the Doctor do not signify only great Lords and Noblemen by Birth To go on therefore to the next word Proceres that neither this does signify only Men Noble by Birth Isidore an antient Spanish Author in his Origines says thus Proceres sunt Principes Civium that is the chiefest of Subjects or Citizens And the Learned Du-Fresne also tells us in his Glossary Proceres appellabantur qui in Civitatibus praecipuos Magistratus gerebant that those were called Proceres who were the chief Magistrates or Rulers in Cities and certainly these could scarce ever be Noble-men by Birth AND as for the word Primates it signifies no more than Principal or Chief Men however born and that it was understood no otherwise among our English-Saxons appears from Aelfric's Glossary above-mentioned at the end of Somner's Saxon Dictionary where he renders the words Primates vel Primores Civitatis seu Burgi by YLDEST BVRHWARA i. e. the Chief Magistrates in a City or Town who were then Persons of very considerable Note in the Nation as I shall prove further by and by I come now to the word Optimates which signifies no more than the better sort of Men and not always Noble-men and great Lords much less as confined to the King's Thanes or Tenants in Capite only since the same Du-Fresne in his Glossary defines Optimates to be Vassalli Barones qui ab ullo Domino ratione Hominii nudè pendent that is the Feudatory Barons that meerly depend on any Superiour Lord by reason of their Homage which tho spoken in relation to France five or six hundred Years ago yet was certainly used in the same sense and no otherwise in England as well before as after that time and did include all the Inferiour as well as Superiour Thanes such as were the only Freeholders in those Ages BUT for the word Principes he that understands any thing of the Latin Tongue knows that it doth not always signify Princes or Men Noble by Birth but any Chief or Principal Man remarkable by Place Office or Dignity and therefore we often read in Livy and other Latin Authors of Principes Civitatis and in the above-cited Laws out of Tacitus de moribus Germanorum it is plain that the word Princeps or Principes in the plural signified no more than chief or considerable Men among the Germans by reason of their Office or present Dignities without any respect to their Birth And in this sense I suppose every Member of Parliament may at this day be reckoned inter Principes among the most considerable or chief Men of the Kingdom BUT the Doctor lays a great stress upon a Passage out of two Manuscript Malmesburies one in the Bodleian Library cited by Sir William Dugdale and the other in the Treasury of the Records of the Church of Canterbury cited by Sir Henry Spelman who both report of this very Council that Edward the Elder Congregavit Synodum Senatorum Gentis Anglorum cui praesidebat Plegmundus c. i. e. convened a Synod of the Senators in Saxon the Aldermen of the English Nation that is such as were usually called to such Councils which were only the Nobiles and Great Men. IN Answer to this I must refer the Doctor again to good old Livy where he will find that the Roman Senators were not all Noble by Birth for they were tà m Patricii quà m Plebeii Ordinis BUT when Mr. Petyt cites William of Malmesbury for calling a Saxon Wittena Gemote Generalis Senatus Populi Conventus to distinguish the lesser Nobility from the greater the Doctor replies There is no heed to be taken how our old Monks and Historians stiled the Saxon Wittena Gemotes or their great and Common-Councils for the same Authors expressed them sometimes one way sometimes another nor were they ever exact and curious in observing and noting the Title or the Constituent Parts or Members of them FROM whence I cannot but observe the Doctor 's great Partiality for his own Opinion for whenever William of Malmesbury in the Manuscript above-cited mentions the word Senatores it must with him immediately signify nothing less than Great Noblemen or what we now call Peers but when the same Author mentions the lower degree of Men whom we now call Commons as a distinct Order from the
Great Lords or Senators then presently he is with the Doctor a trifling old Monk very little curious in observing the Constituent Parts or Members of our Saxon Great Councils HAVING thus shewn some of Dr. Brady's erroneous and inconsiderate Glosses concerning the English-Saxon Nobility before the Conquest which he vainly supposes to have been the same as it is at this day I shall now endeavour to settle some truer Notions relating to those Great Councils which as to the Lay-Members besides the Ealdormen above-mentioned I conceive consisted of the whole Body of Thanes or Free-holders who were then all Gentlemen either by Birth or Estates for I have already proved from the Laws of King Athelstan that a meer Ceorl's Man if he had purchased five Hides of Thane Land did thereby become equal in all respects to a Thane NOW if the word Thane before the Conquest signified the same with the word Baro which came into common use after that time as Sir Henry Spelman and Mr. Selden both grant it did and Mr. Camden in his Introduction to his first Edition of his Britannia in 4 o is yet more express as to this word Baro as you may see by this remarkable Passage Verùm Baro ex illis nominibus videatur quae tempus paulatìm meliora molliora reddidit nam longò post tempore non milites sed qui LIBERI erant DOMINI Thani Saxonibus dicebantur Barones vocari coeperunt nec dum magni honoris erant paulò autem posteà viz. some time after the Conquest eò honoris pervenit ut nomine Baronagii Angliae omnes quodammodo Regni Ordines continuerentur tho it must be confest that Mr. Camden because he found this Passage had given some Offence to the higher Nobility he in his next Edition in Folio restrained it by adding the word Superiores before Ordines as if none but the higher Barons might be thought to have once made part of the Baronage of the Kingdom And likewise Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary under the Title of Barones Comitatus i. e. the Barons of Counties who are frequently mentioned in the Laws of our first Norman Kings has this remarkable Passage and he being so great a Man I shall not offer to abridg it HOC Nomine scilicet Barones Comitatus saith he contineri videtur Antiquis paginis omnis Baronum feodalium species in uno quovis Comitatu degentium Proceres nempè Maneriorum Domini nec non liberè quique Tenentes hoc est fundorum proprietarii Anglicè FREEHOLDERS Notandum autèm est liberè hos Tenentes nec tà m exiles olìm fuisse nec tà m Vulgares ut hodiè deprehenduntur nam Villas Dominia in minutas haereditates nondùm distrahebant Nobiles sed ut vidimus in Hiberniâ penès se retinentes agros per precarios excolebant adscriptitios Vid. LL. Edw. Confess cap. 15. Quod per Hundredum colligerentur 46 Marcae Sigillo alicujus Baronum Comitatus sigillarentur ad Thesaurum Regis deportarentur In Domesd. habiti sun◠Barones Comitatus Magnates Nobiles qui in Curiis praesunt Comitatuum hoc est ipsarum Curiarum Judices quos Hen. 1. LL. suarum cap. 30. esse liberè Tenentes Comitatûs demonstrat Regis inquit Judices sunt Barones Comitatus qui liberas in eis terras habent per quos debent causae singulorum alterna prosecutione tractari Which I shall give you thus in English Under this Title of Barones Comitatus seems to be contained in our antient Writers all sorts of Feudal Barons dwelling in any one County viz. the chief Men and Lords of Mannors as also all free Tenants that is Proprietors of Lands in English FREE-HOLDERS And it is also to be considered that these free Tenants were not antiently so mean and pitiful as they are accounted at this day For Gentlemen had not as yet parcell'd out their Townships and Lordships into small Estates but as we see in Ireland keeping them themselves by their hired Servants and Villains husbanded their own Lands In the Laws of Edward the Confessor cap. 15. it is appointed that 46 Marks should be collected out of the Hundred and sealed up with the Seal of one of the Barons of the County and be lodged in the King's Treasury In Dooms-day Book those Noblemen and Gentlemen are called Barons of the County who presided in County-Courts that is who were Judges of those Courts whom Hen. 1. in the 30 th Chapter of his Laws shews to be the free Tenants of the County The King's Judges says he are the Barons of the County who have Freehold Lands in them by whom the Causes of each of them ought to be tried and adjudged in their respective turns AND there also immediately follows in the same Law of Henry the First another Clause whereby Villains and all such mean and beggarly Fellows called there Cocsetti or Perdingi are not to be reckoned amongst the Judges of the Laws for they neither in the Hundred nor in the County forfeit their own Money nor that of their Masters THIS I think is sufficient to prove that all such base and indigent People such as Dr. Brady calls Tag Rag and Bobtaile were excluded from having any thing to do in these inferior Courts and if so then much more to be sure were they shut out of the most August Assembly of the Kingdom the Wittena-Gemot Mycel-Synoth or what we now call the Parliament AND this I have brought to shew that I do as much disown the Thoughts of introducing any Degrees or Orders of Men less than those of Quality or Estates into the Great Councils of those Times as the Doctor himself does BUT in the first part of his Compleat History he asserts that not only the King's Thanes but also all the Middle and Lesser Thanes were both after as well as before the Conquest Military Men who held their Lands by Military or Knight's Service which he would prove from the Heregeat or Heriots that by the Laws of King Cnute were to be paid to their Lords by their Heirs in Horses and Money and certain Arms. Well let this for once be admitted but I would then have the Doctor never to urge Military or Knight-Service as a Badg of the Norman Conquest any more and in the next Treatise which he shall please to publish I would desire him to make it out that none but the King's Thanes who were all one with his Tenants in Capite after the Conquest had any Place in the Great Council of the Kingdom for without this he does nothing yet thus much I must say for him that in the beginning of his Answer to Mr. Petyt he seems to be somewhat more good-natured making the Saxon Wittena Gemotes more large and diffusive for in them he owns were Arch-Bishops Bishops Masse-Thegnes or Dignified and Great Clergy-Men Aldermen or Comites King's Gereves or Praepositi King 's Thegnes Thanes or Ministers his Counsellors
dicitur convocati i. e. Besides many other very Eminent Persons and Chief Men of the Kingdom of divers Orders being omitted who with most pious Affection were Witnesses and Approvers to this Confirmation and these were summoned at that Time by the Royal Authority from divers Provinces and Cities to the General Synod held at the Famous Abby of Westminster for the hearing and determining of the Causes of each Christian Church THIS is an Authority which seemed so convincing that Sir William Dugdale hath made use of it in his Origines Juridiciales to prove the Antiquity of the Commons of England in Parliament yet Dr. Brady in the Conclusion of his Answer to Mr. Cook 's Argumentum Antinormanicum accuses that Gentleman of being both Ignorant and Mistaken in the meaning of Cities and Provinces and the Persons that came from them whom he indeed would have to be not any Representatives of Counties and Cities but only Deans Arch-Deacons and other dignified Persons and Church-Officers as well of the Laity as Clergy who were summoned by the King to this Synod from Provinces and Cities to advise and inform the King of the Conveniency of the Places whither the Bishops Sees then about to be removed from Villages to Cities were to be transferred BUT since there is not one word in this Charter said of any such Thing and that Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary renders the word Provincia for a County and not a Bishop's See I my self not now having leisure to pursue such Niceties shall refer the Curious for their farther Satisfaction to the eighth Dialogue of Bibliotheca Politica where they may read whatsoever he has said against it sufficiently answered THESE are the only Authorities I shall make use of at this Time to prove that the Cities and Boroughs had then their Delegates or Representatives in the Saxon Witena-Gemotes I will now conclude this Point with the Judgment of that Learned Antiquary Mr. Lambard who certainly understood the Constitution of this Antient Government as well at least if not better than Dr. Brady and he tells us THAT whereas in the beginning of each Law viz. those made by the Saxon Kings he there mentions all the Acts are said to pass from the King and his Wise Men both of the Clergy and Laity in the Body of the Laws each Statute being thus And it is the Advice of our Lord and his Wise-Men So as it appears that it was then a received Form of Speech to signify both the Spirituality and the Laity that is to say the greater Nobility and the less or Commons by this one word Witan i. e. Wise-men NOW as those written Authorities do undoubtedly confirm our Assertion of the Continuance of this manner of Parliament so is there also unwritten Law or Prescription that doth no less infallibly uphold the same For it is well known that in every Quarter of the Realm a great many Boroughs do yet send Burgesses to the Parliament which are nevertheless so antient and so long since decayed and gone to nought that it cannot be shewed that they have been of any Reputation at any time since the Conquest and much less that they have obtained this Privilege by the Grant of any King succeeding the same So that the Interest which they have in Parliament groweth by an antient Usage before the Conquest whereof they cannot shew any beginning which thing is also confirmed by a contrary Usage in the self-same thing for it is likewise known that they of Antient Demesne do prescribe in not sending to the Parliament for which reason also they are neither Contributors to the Wages of the Knights of Shires neither are they bound by sundry Acts of Parliament tho the same be generally penn'd and do make no Exceptions of them But there is no antient Demesne saving that only which is described in the Book of Doomsday under the Title of Terra Regis which of necessity must be such as either was in the Hands of the Conqueror himself who made the Book or of Edward the Confessor that was before him And so again if they of antient Demesnes have ever since the Conquest prescribed not to elect Burgesses to Parliament then no doubt there was a Parliament before the Conquest to the which they of other Places did send their Burgesses I shall here crave leave to add one Record tho after the Conquest in Confirmation of what Mr. Lambard hath here learnedly asserted for that several Boroughs claimed to send Members to Parliament by Prescription in the beginning of the Reign of Edward the Third appears by a Petition put in to that King An. 17 Edw. 3. wherein the Burgesses of the Town of Barnstaple in Devonshire set forth that it being a free Borough had by Charter from King Athelstan among other Privileges a right of sending two Burgesses to all Parliaments for the said Borough upon which the King and his Council ordered a Writ of Inquiry which certainly would never have been done if Dr. Brady's Notion were true that the Cities and Boroughs never sent any Representatives to Parliament but once in the 49 th of Hen. 3. and then no more till the 18 th of Edward the First which was but a little above 50 Years to the time of this Petition which being within the Memory of so many then living the King and his Council would never have ordered a Writ of Inquiry about such a vain and idle Pretence FROM all which I think it may safely be concluded that this Learned Antiquary above-mentioned I mean Mr. Lambard did not without good Authority believe that not only the Great Lords or Peers but also the Inferiour Nobility and Representatives of Cities and Towns were included under the word Witan and likewise that those Places claimed that Privilege by Prescription I shall therefore desire the Doctor that when he writes next upon this Subject he will please to crave in Aid some Gentlemen of the Long Robe of his Opinion to help him to answer this Argument of Mr. Lambard from general Prescription as also what hath been already said concerning this matter in the same Dialogue of Bibliotheca Politica above-mentioned beginning at pag. 483 and ending at pag. 593 inclusively and if he can then with his Assistances prove all our antient Lawyers to have been mistaken in this memorable Point I shall own my self to have been so too But I desire this may be taken notice of that no Prescription whatsoever in Law can be laid of later Date than the first Year of King Richard the First which began almost fourscore Years before the 49 th of Hen. 3. when he fancies the Commons were first summoned to Parliament BUT that I may be as brief as I can I shall reduce what I have further to say upon this Head to a few Queries As FIRST Whether in all the Kingdoms of Europe of the Gothic Model beginning with Sweden and Denmark and ending with Scotland there can
be shewn any of them wherein the Cities and Great Towns either had not or at least not till of Modern Times their particular Representatives in the Common Councils or Assemblies of the Estates in those Kingdoms SECONDLY Why in England alone whose King was not more Absolute than in other Neighbouring Kingdoms and which was framed after the same Gothic Constitution its Cities and antient Boroughs which were in those Times very considerable for Strength Trade and Wealth and guarded by so many Laws made in the Saxon Times should not be thought considerable enough to have any Delegates in the Common Council of the Kingdom till so long after the Conquest as the 49 th of Hen. 3. which if we may believe the Doctor was also intermitted from that time for above the space of twenty Years till the 18 th of King Edward the First BESIDES which I would also propose these farther Queries concerning the Antiquity of the Commons in general As FIRST If Clerus and Populus signify in our Antient Authors the Clergy and Laity which the Doctor asserts and I will not oppose then I would ask him why the same word Clerus including the inferiour Clergy viz. Deans Arch-deacons c. as well as the superiour viz. Arch-bishops and Bishops c. assembled in our Great Councils or Synods the word Populus must not be allowed the same Latitude of Signification and extend to the Gentry or less Nobility together with the chief Citizens and Burgesses by a like Parity of Reason unless he can make it out that Clerus must be understood in a very comprehensive sense and Populus in a very contracted and narrow one only to mean Great Lords and Noblemen of the higher Rank SECONDLY I would desire to know of him what the words Populus and Populi shall signify when put after and distinct from the words Proceres Optimates Senatores or Senatus c. when these words occur in several antient Charters of our English-Saxon Kings as well as Historians that make any mention of the Great Councils unless they mean the People or Commons distinct from the Great Lords Of which I shall here set down a few Instances out of many both from Charters Laws and Historians THE first whereof is found in the Charter of King Ethelred containing a Grant and Confirmation of several great Privileges to the Monastery of Wolverhampton which concludes in these words Haec Decreta sunt Sigerici Archiepiscopi in placito corà m Rege Ethelredo Eboracensi Archiepiscopo omnibus Episcopis Abbatibus Regionis Britanniae seu Senatoribus Ducibus Populo Terrae THE next is the third Charter of King Edward the Confessor to the Abbey of Westminster made in a Great Council of the Kingdom which was held in the last Year of his Reign and concludes thus Hanc igitùr Chartam meae Donationis Libertatis in die Dedicationis praedictae Ecclesiae recitari jussi corà m Episcopis Abbatibus Comitibus omnibus Optimatibus Angliae omnÃabque Populo audiente vidente NOW from both these Charters it seems evident that by the word Populus the Representatives of Cities and Boroughs are here meant and understood who were present at the sealing of them as well as the greater Nobility viz. the Senators Ealdormen and Earls and the lesser Nobility viz. the Thanes or Freeholders included under the Title of Optimates since the meer Vulgar or Mob could never be admitted into the Place of the Great Council as Witnesses to the solemn reading and sealing of those Charters MY third Instance shall be that famous Law concerning the Grant of Tithes by King Ethelwolf Anno Dom. 855. which is cited in the Laws of Edward the Confessor and confirmed by King William the First under the Title de Apibus de aliis minutis Decimis wherein it is thus expressed Haec scilicet these Tithes concessa sunt à Rege Baronibus Populo Here it is plain that the word Populus must signify a distinct Order or Degree of Men from that of the Barones THIS Law of King Edward the Confessor being urged by Mr. Petyt in his Rights of the Commons asserted the Doctor passes over in silence but when the ingenious Author of Argumentum Anti-Normanicum makes use of the same Authority the Doctor can no longer contain himself but in his Answer to that Book tells him after an insulting diminutive Reflection upon his Person that He thinks this Law was made in King Edward's days and was piping-hot when the Conqueror came in but he says it will prove otherwise upon Examination of it and also doubtful whether there was ever such a Law or not made by a Saxon Monarch or King For after the Law hath enumerated the manner of Tithing in very many things both great and small requiring an exact Tenth to be paid for most of them it says That he which detains the Tenth if need be may be forced to Payment by the Justice of the Bishop and King and then immediately follow these words Haec autèm praedicavit Beatus Augustinus concessa sunt à REGE BARONIBVS POPVLO Sed posteà Instinctu Diaboli multi eam viz. decimam detinuerunt c. These things St. Augustine preached up and they were granted by the King Barons and People c. THE rest of the Latin he there cites being not to the Point in Dispute I pass over yet I cannot but observe that from hence the Doctor believes he hath got a notable Advantage over him for he thus proceeds HENCE 't is evident that these Concessions of Tithes were made in the time of St. Augustine Arch-bishop of Canterbury sent hither from Rome in the Reign of Ethelbert King of Kent for the words concessa sunt à REGE BARONIBVS ET POPVLO can relate to no other than the words immediately preceding haec enim praedicavit Beatus Augustinus And the words next following them do also prove the same sed posteà Instinctu Diaboli Multi eam detinuerunt c. which was after they were granted by the King Barons and People so that this was at most but the Confirmation of a Law made by King Ethelbert and how and by what words the Legislators were expressed near 500 Years after the Law made and how they were rendred in Latin after the coming in of the Normans transiently and without Design to give an Account of them cannot be of much Value to prove who they were and that the Laws of King Edward were made or at least translated into Norman Latin after the Conquest appears by the words Comites Barones Milites Servientes Servitium Villanus Catalla manutenere all Norman words and not known here till their coming hither He that will assert any thing from a single uncouth Expression in one Case and upon one Occasion only brings but a slender Proof for what he says THESE are the Doctor 's own words which I have transcribed almost Verbatim that
are no certain or Authentick Histories remaining of any transactions before that time for Gildas who liv'd not long after the Saxons were first call'd into Britain freely owns that as for the Antient monuments of his Country whatever they were being either burnt by Enemies or carried beyond Sea by his banish'd Country men they were not then to be found therefore I shall wholly omit that fabulous Succession of Celtick Kings who are feigned to be derived from Samothes one of the Sons of Japhet whom they suppose to have planted Colonies first on the Continent of Celtica or Gaul and next in this Island and thence to have named it Samothea since they never had any existence but in the brain of Amnius de Viterbo and by him vented in his counterfeit Berosus which is long since exploded by all that are any thing versed in Antiquity But now I could heartily wish that we had any certain monuments of the History of this Kingdom which might justly supply their room but having no Authentick accounts left us of the British Kings that reigned in this Island till Julius Caesar's first Expedition hither I could willingly have excused my self from the drudgery of writing things so uncertain nay in diverse particulars utterly false were it not that most Authors who have already writ our History either in English or Latin have thought those long Successions of Kings not unworthy a particular Recital as supposing it scarce possible that a descent of above Sixty Kings together with so many transactions attended with such particular Circumstances as the making of War and Peace building of Cities and enacting Laws should be wholly Fabulous and Romantick or that the names of so many successive Princes should never have been derived from any real Persons For though it is true that Geoffrey of Monmouth is look'd upon as the chief if not only Author of the Story of Brutus and his Successours yet it is certain that he pretends in the Proem to his History which he dedicated to no less a Man than Robert Earle of Gloucester natural Son to K. Hen. the I. that he received an antient British History from Walter Arch-Deacon of Oxon which as he says he faithfully translated out of the British Tongue into Latin though William Neobrigensis who lived some time after this Geoffrey in the very beginning of his History writes thus of him In thesâ— our days says he a certain Writer is risen who hath devised many foolish Fictions of the Britains he is named Geoffrey And a little after thus with hoâ— little shame and with what great Confidence doth he frame his Lyes So that you may see his History began to be cryed out against almost as soon as it was published And yet for all this it is certain that Geoffrey was not the first Author of this Story of Brutus for Nennius who lived in the 8th Century and is also Intituled Gildas in some Copies in his History makes the Isle of Britain to be first inhabited by one Brito the Son of Hisicion the Son of Japhet or else from one Brutus it seems he did not know which whose Pedegree he derives from Aeneas by his Son Ascanius and who as he supposes reigned in Britain in the time that Eli Judged Israel and under whose Conduct the Britains in the third Age of the World first came into this Island which Calculation falls out right enough with our at present received Chronology But as for Sigebertus Gemblacensis a French Monk who lived about Twenty Years before Geoffrey tho' in some Editions he speaks of Bruâ—e with his Trojans arrival in Gaul and of his passage from thence into Britain yet it is certain they are none of that Author's words there being no such thing to be found in the truest Edition of his Chronicle published by Mirraes An. 1608. as the above cited Lord Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield in his learned Preface to his Historical account of Church Government in great Britain and Ireland hath fully proved But after him Henry Arch-Deacon of Huntington an Author of Credit who lived at the same time with Geoffrey ascribes the first habitation of this Island to Brutus the Son of Sylvius Grandson to Aeneas whom together with his certain Trojans he supposes to have come into Britain in the third Age of the World as the Scots did in the fourth into Ireland which he seems to have taken out of Nennius or some other ancient Author But this must still be confest that the whole relation of the Actions of Brutus and the Succession of all the Princes that followed him do all depend upon the Credit of Geoffrey and the truth of his traÌ„saction and so was looked upon in the Age in which he published his History But to make this Brute to be a Trojan and to give him a Genealogy which is plainly contradicted by all the Roman Authors is that for which his History ought to be condemned Yet thus much may be said in Excuse of him and of all those Authors who have ascribed the Origine of the Britains to Brute that they have imitated the Vanity of the ancient Greeks and Romans who derived their Kings from some God or Heroe And have been followed in it not only by the Britains but the French and almost all other Nations of Europe since they began to write Histories of their Originals But since it is fit that we should give you some account though as short as possible of this Brute and his Successors I shall contract their History from Geoffrey of Monmouth into as narrow a Compass as I can Brutus who is suppos'd to have first Peopled Britain with Inhabitants of the Trojan Race is said to have been the Great Grandson of Aeneas by his Son Ascanius who killing his Father Sylvius King of Alba accidently with an Arrow was forced to fly his Country and going into Greece joyned himself with the remainder of those scattered Trojans he â—ound there and becoming their Leader made War upon Pandrasus the King of that Country to whom he sent this Message viz. That the Trojans holding it unworthy their Ancestors to serve in a Foreign Kingdom had retreated to the Woods choosing rather a Savage than a slavish Life if that displeased him then with his leave they might depart to some other Soile The particulars of which being tedious and fabulous are here needless further to be inserted But at last that King being by them made a Prisoner was forced to accept of terms of Peace the Articles of which were That Brute should Marry Inogena the King's Daughter and in Consideration of her Dower should have a Fleet given him with Liberty to transport all such as would be willing to follow his Fortunes The Marriage being thereupon solemnized Brute and his Trojans with a great Fleet betook themselves to Sea and within a short time landed on a deserted Island where they found a ruin'd City in which was a Temple and an Image of Diana
Army to relieve it and made many assaults upon the Saxons Rear whil'st they lay before the Town who thereupon raising the Siege turned all their Forces against the Britains whil'st they being more nimble presently ran away to the Woods when the Saxons returning again to the Siege they were as soon upon their backs by which means the Saxons being for a time tired out received a great loss till they divided their Army into two bodies so that whil'st the one assaulted the City the other should defend the Assailants whereby at last the Citizens being quite spent with hunger and fatigue could no longer endure the Force of the Besiegers and all perished by the Sword even to the very Women and Children none escaping and the Saxons quite destroyed that City which remained a vast heap of Ruins in his Time thô the Town of Newenden was afterwards built where it stood in the Reign of Edward the I. But news being carried into Germany of the good success of the Saxons it gave occasion for new Commanders together with their Armies to come over hither to try their Fortunes and thus Five Years after began the Kingdom of the West Saxons For now Two Commanders viz. Cerdic and Cynric his Son landing in Britain with Five Ships at a place called Cerdicisora i. e. Cerdic's Shore the same day fought with the Britains this Cerdic was the Tenth in descent from Woden His pedegree which is needless here to be recited I have referred to another place but in Six Years after their coming he and his Sons conquered all the Country of the West Saxons This Cerdic reigned Twenty Five Years to his Son Cynric whom succeeded Then follows in the Saxons Annals the whole Succession of these Kings as far as K. Edward called the Martyr Son of Edgar which I have omitted because it serves for no other use but to let us see about what time these Annals were drawn into the form we now have them but to return to the History H. Huntington further informs us that the same day in which Cerdic landed there assembled a great multitude of Britains to oppose him the Saxons standing in Battel array before their Ships the Britains boldly assaulted them but were forced to return without any great Execution because the Saxons could not be over come though they fought till Night parted them whereupon the Britains finding the Saxons too strong to be dealt with were forced to retreat it proving a drawn Battel but after this Cerdic and his Son seised all the Countries upon the Sea Coast though not without divers Battels But about Six Years after came over to their assistance Porta with his Two Sons Bleda and Megla who landed in Britain with two Ships at a place which from him is still called Portsmouth Here as soon as they landed they slew a Young British Prince or Commander who as H. Huntington relates being then Governour of this Province advancing with a great multitude without any Order they all perished in the twinckling of an Eye so that Port and his Sons obtained a great Victory but in Anno Dom. 500. Aurelius Ambrosius King of the Britains is said by the Welsh Chronicles to have dyed being poysoned as Geoffery relates by the procurement of Pascent Son to Vortigern who had before rebelled against him Thô who succeeded him is uncertain for as to his supposed Brother Uther Pendragon whom Geoffery of Monmouth would here bring in he is looked upon even by the British Antiquaries as a mere imaginary King of his own Therefore this must be owned for the most obscure time of all the Welsh History but this is certain that for about the space of Seven Years there is no mention made of any Wars between the Saxons and the Britains until Cerdic and Cynric slew the great British King Natanleod or Nazaleod together with 5000 Men from which time that Province is called Natanleage as far as Cerdicsford but H. Huntington is more particular in this War and tells us That this Natanleod was the greatest and most powerful King of the Britains who having gathered together his whole Forces Cerdic and his Son were fain to send for aid to Aesc King of Kent and Aella King of the South Saxons as also from Port who came lately over and that before the Battel the Saxon Army was divided into two bodies whereof Cerdic Commanded the one and his Son Cynric the other that the Battle being begun King Nazaleod seeing the Saxons Right Wing to be the strongest fell upon it with all his Forces and immediately routed it whereupon Cerdic being put to flight there happned a great slaughter on that side which when it was perceived by his Son Cynric from the Left Wing he rushed upon the backs of the pursuers So that the Battle being again renewed King Nazaleod was Slain and his Army totally defeated whereby the Saxons obtaining a great Victory remain'd undisturbed for a long time and then came to them some Years after many Valiant assistants out of Germany But to make some Reflections upon this Story before we proceed further it is worth our enquiry who this Nazaleod was some think him to be Ambrosius aboved mentioned but others take him for his pretended Brother Uther Pendragon whil'st others again suppose him not to be any King at all but only the General of the King of the Britains thô what King that was remains as uncertain and since it is so much in the dark I shall not undertake to determine it It is also as uncertain who now succeeded this Nazaleod most of the Welsh Annals here leave an inter-regnum of about Six Years and do not begin the Reign of K. Arthur till the Year 514 or 515. So likewise whether he was sole King of the Britains is much questioned since some ancient Manuscripts Welsh Chronicles and Poems make him to have been only King of Cornwall As to his Father Arch-bishop Usher very well conjectures that this Uther who is said to have been his Father was no other than Nazaleod above mentioned who for his great Actions was called in Welsh Uther which signifies as much as Wonderful or Terrible and thus as Nennius tells us Artur whose name signifies in Welsh an horrible bear was also called Mabuter that is a horrible Son because in his Childhood he was very cruel or rather because he was the Son of this Nazaleod Sirnamed Uther out of which Geoffery of Monmouth forged the Name of Uter Pendragon if this could be proved as it is an ingenious conjecture of the learned Lord Primate it would go a great way to clear the British History of these obscure times But since we are now treating of King Arthur and that it is certain he gained many considerable Victories over the Saxons thô the particular Years are not set down by Nennius or any other Author I shall here set them down altogether as they are found in Nennius his first Battle was
this Table do not always follow the Printed Text of the Saxon Annâ—â— since the Copies often differ sometimes one year and sometimes more and then I have always followed that which I thought to be the best Account The Succession of British Kings is accâ—â—â—ing to the Account I received from the Most Reverend Father in God Humphrey Lord Bishop of Bangor Anno Dom. Kings of Kent Anno Dom. Kings of the South-Saxons Anno Dom. Kings of the West-Saxons Anno Dom. Kings of the East-Saxons Kâ—â—gs of Northumberland in the Provinces called Anno Dom. Kings of the East-Angles Anno Dom. Kings of Mercia Anno Dom. Kings of the Britains         〈…〉 Bernicia Anno Dom. Deira       457 Hengist reigned 31 years               445 Vortiger                 454 Vortimer his Son his Father being Deposed 488 Aesk or Oric his Son 24 years 491 Aella reigned 24 years             458 Vortiger again restored after the Death of his Son 512 Otha or Oisc his Son 20 years               465 Aurelius Ambrosius made General of the Britains Vortiger still living 532 Ermenric his Son 29 years 515 Cissa reigned uncertain how many years 519 Cerdic reigned 15 years 527 Erkenwin or Escwin 〈◊〉 Ida Son of Eoppa reigned over both Kingdoms 12 years       481 Aurelius chosen King after the Death of Vortiger     534 Cynric his Son reigned 26 years  Sigebert 〈◊〉 Adda or Odda his Son reigned 5 years 559 Aella the Son of Yffi reigned near 30 years          After whom reigned divers Kings whose Names are not to be found in our Annals or Historians   535 Swithelm 〈◊〉 Clappa 7 years    Uffa reigned uncertain how long   508 Nazaleod or Nathanleod Chief King of the Britains who whether he was not the same with Aurelius Ambrosius is doubtful 561 Ethelbert his Son   560 Ceawlin his Son 31 years   〈◊〉 Theodwulf 1 year                 〈◊〉 Freothwulf 7 years   578 Titylus or Tytila his Son reigned uncertain too how long           587 Sledda 9 years 〈◊〉 Theodoric 7 years     585 Crida or Creoda how long he reigned is uncertain  Here follows an Inter-regnum of about six years         〈◊〉 Aethelric 2 years                 These two last were Sons of Ida and rul'd here whilst Aella reigned in Deira 589 Edwin his Son who being soon expell'd by Aethelfrid King of Bernicia reigned over both Kingdoms 14 years till Edwin was again restored     515 K. Arthur reigned twenty seven years     591 Ceolric his Kinsman 5 years    This Aethelric last mention'd began also to reign over both these Kingdoms after the death of Aella and reigned in all 5 years      Wippa or Pybba his Son the like 542 After whose Death followed Nine years Interregnum            593 Redwald his Son   551 Mailgwin Gwined was elected King of all the Britains     597 Ceolwulf 14 years 596 Seaber◠〈◊〉 Aethelfred his Son reigned 24 over both Kingdoms      Ceorl the like 586 Mailgwin died after whom was a 17 years Interregnum THE General History OF BRITAIN NOW CALLED ENGLAND As well Ecclesiastical as Civil BOOK IV. From the Preaching of the Christian Religion by AUGUSTINE the Monk to ECBERT the first Chief or Supreme King of ENGLAND containing Two Hundred and Three Years THIS Fourth Period will give us a new and more pleasant Prospect of the Affairs of Britain For as the Gospel of Christ did now dispel that Egyptian Darkness of Paganism under which it had so long laboured so together with Christianity Human Learning and consequently the Art of composing Histories or Annals entred also with it the Monasteries which were not long after founded being then the only Universities in which the Liberal Arts and Sciences were in those times chiefly taught and professed which though it was not without a great mixture of that Gothic Barbarism that had then overspread all Europe and even Italy it self yet was it sufficient in some measure to instruct men not only in Divine but Civil Knowledge the Monks of that Age possessing the greatest share of Learning and being almost the only Historians as well as Divines Therefore we must be beholding to them for what Accounts we have not only of the Ecclesiastical but Civil Affairs of those Times for Bede our first English Historian was himself a Monk And the Saxon Annals which we here give you were first collected and written in divers Monasteries of England and to which is to be ascribed that difference which is found between the Copies of that Chronicle as to the Dates of Years and other Matters for before there was scarce any thing remembred by Tradition but the great Wars and Battels fought by the Saxon Kings against the Britains so after the Monks came to commit things to writing they began to make us understand somewhat of their Civil Constitutions and the Acts of Peace as well as War tho it must be confessed they are not so exact in the former as they might and ought to have been minding more the relating of Visions and Miracles which they supposed to have happen'd and been done in those times for the Confirmation of some new Doctrines then not fully received Yet however I doubt not but from those Remains they have left us both the Constitution of their Governmâ—nt and the manner of the Succession of their Kings may be clearly made out of both which in the former Period we were wholly ignorant But for this we are chiefly beholding to those English-Saxon Laws that are left us which were made by the Sâ—preme Aâ—thority of each Kingdom â—n their Wittenâ— Geâ—ot Myceâ— Gemot or great Counâ—il which we now caâ—â— a Parliament from which times most of the Laws made in those Councils were carefully preserv'd and would have been convey'd to us more entire had it not been for the loss of so many curious Monuments of Antiquity at the suppression of Monasteries in the Reign of King Henry VIII But since it must be confessed that it was to the Learning which Christianity brought in that we owe
Pope as well as the English did afterwards therefore it is most likely according to the Traditions given you in the Second Book that it was first preached and propagated here by some Apostle or Disciple of the Eastern or Asiatick Church And thô a late Romish Writer very much arraigns the Credit of this Manuscript as made since the Days of King Henry the Eighth and cavils at the Welsh thereof as Modern and full of false Spelling yet is not this any material Exception against it since the Welsh used in it is not so Modern as he would make it as I am credibly informed by those who are Criticks in that Language and as for the Spelling that may be the fault of the Transcribers And thô the Archiepiscopal See was then removed from Caer-Leon to St. David's yet it might still retain the former Title as of the first and most famous Place About which time Arch-Bishop Augustine is supposed by the best Chronologers to have departed this Life thô the certain Year of his Death is not to be found either in Bede or the Saxon Chronicle His Body was buried abroad near the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul till that could be finished and dedicated which as soon as that was done was decently buried in the Porch on the North-side of the Church in which were also buried all the succeeding Arch-Bishops except two viz. Theodore and Birthwald who were buried in the Church because the Porch would contain no more but his Epitaph thô it mentions his being sent by the Pope to convert the English Nation and his being the first Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and that he died in the 7th of the Kalends of June in the Reign of King Ethelbert yet omits the Year of that King's Reign as well as that of our Lord in which he died I suppose because the Year of Christ was not then commonly made use of either in the Ecclesiastical or Civil Accounts of that Time but of this we shall treat further hereafter Under this Year Bede also places the Death of Pope Gregory the Great of whose Life and Actions he gives us a long Account to which I refer you but the Saxon Chronicle puts off the Death of this Pope to the next Year but I rather follow Bede as the ancienter and more authentick Author The same Year is also very remarkable for Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Affairs in this Island for now King Ethelbert summoned a Mycel Synod or Great Council as well of the Clergy as Laity wherein by their common Consent and Approbation all the Grants and Charters of this King whereby he had settled great Endowments on Christ-Church and that of St. Pancrace in Canterbury were confirmed which had been before the old ruinous Church of St. Martin without the City already mentioned but the Charters now made and confirmed by King Ethelbert in this Council are almost word for word the same with those he had made by himself before with heavy Imprecations against any who should dare to infringe them as you may see in Sir H. Spelman's First-Volume of British Councils where this Learned Author in his Notes farther shews us that these Charters above-mentioned are very suspicious of being forged in many respects as First That this King there stiles himself King of the English in general whereas indeed he was no more than King of Kent Secondly Because the Year of our Lord is expressed at their Conclusion which was not in use till long after Besides an old Manuscript of the Church of Canterbury says expresly That the Monks of the Monastery had their Lands and Priviledges by a long and peaceable Possession according to Custom until King Wightred Anno Dom. 693 made them a confirmation of all their Priviledges by a Charter under his Soul There are also other Exceptions against the Bull that is there recited to be Arch-Bishop Augustine's which you may see at large in those Learned Notes above-mentioned In this great Council or Synod among many other Secular Laws and Decrees these deserve particularly to be taken notice of the first Law assigns the Penalty of Sacriledge appointing what Amends is to be made for Things taken from a Bishop by a Restitution of nine times the value from a Priest by a Ninth and from a Deacon by a Threefold Restitution The Second Law is That if the King summon'd his People and any Man should presume then to do them Injury he shall make double Amends to the Party and besides shall pay Fifty Shillings to the King The Third Law is That if the King shall drink in a Man's House and there be any Injury done in his Presence the Party so doing it shall make double Satisfaction the rest that follow since they belong only to the Correction of Manners are omitted To these Laws Bede relates when he says That King Ethelbert amongst other good Things which he conferr'd upon his Nation appointed certain Laws concerning Judgments by the Councel of his wise Men according to the Example of the Romans which being written in the English Tongue were yet kept and observed by them to this time and then mentions some of those Laws to the same effect as they are already expressed This Year was fulfilled Arch-Bishop Augustine's Prediction upon the Britains for as Bede and the Saxon Annals relate Ethelfrid King of Northumberland now led his Army to Leger-Ceaster and there killed a great multitude of Britains and so was fulfilled the Prophecy of Augustine above-mentioned and there were then killed 200 Priests or Monks who came thither to prey for the British Army but in Florence of Worcester's Copy it was 2200 but Brockmaile who was to be their Protector escaped with about 50 Men. H. Huntington gives a more particular account of this Action and says That King Ethelfrid having gathered together a powerful Army made a great Slaughter of the Britains near the City of Legions which is called by the English Lege Cestre but more rightly by the Britains Caerlegion so that it is evident it cannot be Leicester as our common Historians write but West-Chester which lay near the Borders of King Ethelfrid's Kingdom where this Battle was fought This Author further adds That when the King saw those Priests or Monks of the Abby of Bangor who came out to pray for the Army ranged by themselves in a place of Safety having one Brockmaile for their Defender and that the King knew for what end they came thither he presently said If these Men pray to their GOD against us though they do not make use of Arms yet do they as â—eally fight against us as if they did And so he commanded his Forces to be first turned upon them who being all cut off he presently defeated the rest of the Army without any great difficulty and he also agrees with Florence of Worcester's Relation of the number of the Monks there slain and accuses their Defender Brockmaile of Cowardice
relates Swebriht King of the East-Saxons died this Year Eadbriht or Egbert the Son of Eatta who was the Son of Leodwald began to Reign in the Kingdom of the Northumbers and held it One and Twenty Years Egbert Arch-Bishop of York was his Brother who were both buried in the City of York in the same Church-Porch But it there is an over-sight in these Annals for this Eadbriht above mentioned must be the same with Eadbriht under the former Year This Year also according to Simeon of Durham Swebright King of the East-Saxons died Ceolwulf late King of Northumberland died this Year according to Mat. Westminster in the Monastery of Lindisfarne Also as Simeon of Durham relates Nothelm Arch-Bishop of Canterbury deceased but the Saxon Annals defer his Death two Years longer This Year Acca Bishop of Hagulstad deceased who as the same Author relates was had in great Reverence not only during his Life but also after his Decease for his great Sanctity and supposed Miracles King Ethelred deceased and Cuthred his Cousin succeeded in the Kingdom of the West Saxons and held it 16 Years This King made sharp War against Ethelbald King of the Mercians and that with various Success as H. Huntington tells us sometimes making Peace and then again renewing the War This Year also Nothelm the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury deceased and Cuthbriht was Consecrated in his stead as was also Dun Bishop of Rochester after the Death of Eadulph ' This Year also the City of York was burnt together with the Monastery as Simeon has it Now was held the great Synod at Cloveshoe where were present Ethelbald King of the Mercians and Cuthbert the Arch-Bishop with many other wise Men. Where this Cloveshoe was is now very uncertain since the Name is wholly lost some suppose it to have been Cliffe in Kent near Gravesend but it is not likely that Ethelbald being now the chief King of England would permit this Council to have been held out of his own Dominions so that others suppose it to have been Abingdon in Berkshire which was anciently called Secvesham where as the old Book of that Abbey tells us was anciently a Royal Seat of the Kings and where there used to be great Assemblies of the People concerning the arduous Affairs of the Mercian Kingdom But thô we are more certain of the Decrees of this Council than of the Place where it was held yet since it was a meer Ecclesiastical Synod and no great Council of that Kingdom and that its Decrees were chiefly made in Confirmation of the Charter of King Withred concerning free Elections to Monasteries in Kent according to the Directions of the Archbishop of Canterbury I shall refer you to the Canons themselves as they are to be found in the Decem Scriptores and Sir H. Spelman's British Councils and shall only take notice of this one that now Bishops were first ordered to visit their Diocesses once a Year This Year Ethelbald King of the Mercians and Cuthred King of the West Saxons fought against the Britains H. Huntington tell us That these two Kings now joyning their Forces brought two great Armies into the Field against the Welsh-men who not being able to defend themselves were forced to flie leaving great Spoils behind them so both the Kings returned home Victorious According to Florence of Worcester Wilfred the second Bishop of York of that Name died after he had fate 30 Years Also this Year according to the Annals Daniel resigned the Bishoprick of Winchester being worn out by Age and Hunferth succeeded him and they say the Stars seemed to fall from Heaven But Simeon of Durham calls them with more probability such Lightnings as those of that Age had never before seen About this time also according to Simeon there happened a great Fight between the Picts and the Britains I suppose he means those of Camberland for no other Britains lay near the Picts This year Bishop Daniel above-mentioned deceased after he had been 43 years Bishop ' This year Selred King of the East-Saxons was slain But by whom or which way is not here said This Selred was Sirnamed The Good and reigned 38 years Switheard King of the East-Angles dying Elfwold succeeded him as the Chronicle of Mailros relates This Year also was held the second Council at Cloveshoe under Cuthbert Arch-Bishop of Canterbury there being present beside the Bishops Abbots and many Ecclesiasticks Ethelbald King of the Mercians with his chief Men and Ealdermen In which besides many Decrees concerning the Unity of the Church and for promoting Peace which you may see at large in Sir H. Spelman's First Volume of Councils and after the reading of Pope Zachary's Letters to the People of England to live more continently These among other Decrees were likewise passed viz. 1. That the Reading of the Holy Scriptures be more constantly used in Monasteries 2. That Priests receive no Reward for baptizing Children or for other Sacraments 3. That they learn the Creed and the Lord's Prayer in English and are likewise to understand and interpret into their own Tongue the Words of Consecration in the Celebration of Mass and also of Baptism c. This year Cynric Aetheling that is Prince of the Blood-Royal of the West Saxons was slain and Eadbriht King of Kent died after six Years Reign and Ethelbryht the Son of King Withred succeeded him This Cynric was he whom H. Huntington relates to be Son of Cuthred King of the West Saxons who thô young in Years was a great Warriour for his time yet perished in a sudden Sedition of his own Souldiers but where he does not say Simeon affirms That Elfwald King of the East Angles now dying Hunbeanna and Albert divided that Kingdom between them but what relation they had to the late King he does not tell us This year Cuthred King of the West Saxons in the 12th Year of his Reign fought against Ethelune that couragious Ealderman H. Huntington calls him a bold Earl who moved Sedition against his Lord and thô he were inferiour in the number of his Souldiers yet maintained the Fight a great while by his sole Courage and Conduct but while he was ready to get the Victory a Wound he then unfortunately received so disabled him and disheartened his Men that the King's being the stronger as well as the juster Side did thereby prevail Also the same Year according to Simeon of Durham and the Chronicle of Mailros Eadbert King of Northumberland led Kynwulf Bishop of Lindisfarne Prisoner to the City of Beban who it seems had some ways rebelled against him for he then also caused the Cathedral Church of Lindisfarne to be besieged The same Year as Bede's Continuator relates Eadbert King of Northumberland made War upon the Picts and subdued all the Country of Kyle with other Territories joyning them to his own Dominions This Year according to the Saxon Annals King
This Year the Northumbrians expelled their King Albred from York about Easter and chose Ethelred the Son of Moll once King for their Lord He reigned 4 Years Of which Transaction Roger Hoveden gives us this particular Relation That King Alhred being deposed by the Common-Council and Consent of his own Subjects and forsaken of all his Great Men was forced to retire first to the City of Bebban afterwards called Banbarough-Castle from whence he betook himself to Cynoth King of the Picts with but very few Followers The same Year also appeared a Red Cross in the Heavens after Sun-set and the Mercians and Kentish-men fought at Ottanford now Otford in Kent But neither the Saxon Annals nor any other vouchsafe to tell us what was the Quarrel nor who were the Commanders on either side nor yet what was the Success Also strange Serpents were seen in the Province of the South Saxons Mat. Westminster places this Prodigy two Years after and says They seemed to creep out of the Earth This Year Cynwulf King of the West Saxons and Offa King of the Mercians fought at Binsington now Bensington in Oxfordshire but Offa took the Town So it seems Cynwulf had the worst of it Here follows in the Peterburgh Copy another Relation concerning that Abbey which is thus That In the Reign of King Offa there was a certain Abbot of Medeshamstead called Beonna who with the Consent of the Monks of his Monastery leased out to Cuthbriht the Ealderman X Bonde-land that is the Ground of ten Bond-men or Villains at Swinesheafde with the Meadows and Pastures and all other Things thereunto belonging upon this Condition That Cuthbriht should pay the Abbot Fifty Pounds and one Night's Entertainment every Year or else Thirty Shillings in Money and that after his Death the Lands should again revert to the Monastery To which Grant King Offa King Egferth Arch Bishop Higebert the Bishop Ceolwulf the Bishop Inwona with Beon the Abbot and many other Bishops Abbots and Great Men were Witnesses I have inserted this Passage thô it does not relate to the Civil History of these Times because it is the First Example of a Lease of this kind and seems to have been done in a great Council of the Kingdom where these Kings were present which was then necessary for such a Grant Also in the time of this King Offa as the Peterburgh Copies relate there was a certain Ealderman called Brordan who desired of the King That for his sake he would free a certain Monastery of his called Wocingas because he intended to give it to St. Peter and to the Church of Medeshamsted one Pusa being then Abbot of it This Pusa succeeded Beonna and the King loved him very well wherefore he freed the Church of Wocingas by the King's consent with that of the Bishop Earls and all other Men's consents so that no body should from thenceforth have any duty or Tribute besides St. Peter and the Abbot this was done in the King's Town called Freoricburne Pehtwin Bishop of Witerne called in Latin Candida Casa deceased XIII Kal. Octob. he was Bishop Fourteen Years and had been bred under Aldhelm that Pious Bishop of Winchester and the same Year Ethelbert was consecrated Bishop of that See at York XVII Kal. Junii This Year according to the Welsh Chronicle the South-Welshmen destroyed great part of Mercia with Fire and Sword As also The Summer following all the Welshmen both of North and South-Wales gathered themselves together and Invading the Kingdom of Mercia made great spoil by burning and plundering the Country whereupon King Offa was forced to make Peace with the other Saxon Kings and to bend his whole Forces against the Welsh Men who not being able to encounter so great a strength as he then brought against them were forced to quit all the plain Country between the Rivers of Severne and Wye and retired into the Mountains whereupon Offa perceiving this seised upon all the Country and planted Saxons in their places and annexing it to his own Kingdom caused that famous Ditch or Trench to be made from Sea to Sea betwixt his Kingdom and Wales whereby he might the better defend his Country from the Incursions of the Welsh hereafter This Ditch is seen at this day in divers places and is called Welsh Clawdh Offa i.e. Offa's Ditch This Year Aethebald and Hearbert kill'd Three chief Gerifs or Governours Ealdwulf the Son of Bosa at Cyningeselife i. e. Kings Cliffe and Cynwulf and Ecga at Helathyrn XI Kal. Aprilis then Alfwold took the Kingdom Aethelred being Expel'd the Land and Reigned Ten Years But H. Huntington and Simeon of Durham gives us a more exact account of this Matter that Aethelred King of Northumberland having caused Three of his Nobles Aldwulf Kinwulf and Ecga to be treacherously slain by two of the same rank The Year following his Subjects Rebelling against him they first slew Aldwulf General of the King's Army in Flight at the place above mentioned as they also did the two other Commanders in the same manner so that King Aethelred's Captains being all slain and his hopes as well as his Forces defeated he was forced to flee into another Country and so Elfwald the Son of Oswulf succeeded him thô not without Civil Broils He was a Just and Pious Prince yet could not escape the hard Fate of his Predecessors as you will see in due time The same Year as the Laudean Copy relates King Charles entred Spain and destroyed the Citties of Pampelona and Cesar Augusta now called Saragosa and having joined his Army subdued the Saracens and received Hostages from them and then returned by Narbon and Gascony into France This Year the chief Gerifs or Governours of Northumberland burnt Beorne the Ealderman in Seletune 19 Kal. Januarij Roger Hoveden calls these Gerifs Osbald and Aethelheard and H. Huntington says They burnt this Ealderman or Chief Justice of the Kingdom because he was more Rigid and Severe than in Reason he ought to have been The same Year the Ancient Saxons and Franks fought against each other in which Battle Charles King of the Franks gained the Victory having wasted the Saxon Territories with Fire and Sword and laid them to his own Dominions as not only our own but the French Historians relate Also Bishop Aethelheard dyed at York and Eanbald was consecrated to the same See and Cynebald the Bishop resigned his See at Lindisfarne and Alchmuna Bishop of Hagulstead deceased 7 th Id. Sept. and Higbert was consecrated in his stead the 6 th of the Nones of Octob. as likewise Higbald was consecrated at Soccabrig to be Bishop of Lindisfarne Also King Allwold sent to Rome to demand the Pall for Eanbald Arch-Bishop of York This Year Werburh the Wife of King Ceolred late King of the Mercians deceased at her Nunnery of Chester where she was Abbess and where the Church is dedicated to her Memory also Cenwulf Bishop of Lindisfarne died
as his own ever since the time that King Offa took it but now the Mercians tried to recover it by Force The same Year was also held another Synodal Council at Cloveshoe for the Kingdom of Mercia under K. Beornwulf and Wilfred Arch-Bishop of Canterbury with all the Bishops and Chief Men of that Kingdom wherein some disputes about Lands between Heabert Bishop of Worcester and a certain Monastery called Westburgh were determined This Year Ludican King of the Mercians and five of his Ealdermen were slain and Wiglaf began to Reign in his stead Ingulf and Will of Malmesbury tell us That this Ludican was Kinsman to the last mentioned King Beornwulf and leading an Army against the East-Angles to revenge his Death was there overcome and Slain and that both these Tyrants were justly removed who had not only made Kings without any Right but had also by their imprudence been the occasion of the destruction of the Military Forces of that Kingdom which had till then proved Victorious and that thereupon one Withlaf being before Ealderman of Mâ—rcia was by the consent of all the People created King whose Son Wimond had Married Alfleda the Daughter of Ceolwulf the late King This King Withlaf Reigned thirteen Years as Tributary to King Egbert as shall be further related anon The Moon was Eclipsed on Christmass day at Night and the same Year King Egbryht subdued the Kingdom of Mercia and all the Country that lay South of Humber He was the Eighth King who Ruled over all Britain but the First who had so great a Command was Aella King of the South Saxons the Second was Ceaâ—lin King of the West-Saxons the Third was Aethelbryght King of Kent the Fourth was Redwald King of the East Angles the Fifth was Edwin King of Northumberland the Sixth was Oswald who succeeded him the Seventh was Oswi the Brother of Oswald and the Eight was Egbryght King of the West-Saxons who not long after led an Army against the Northumbers as far as Dore which place is supposed to have been in York-shire beyond the River Hâ—mber but the Northumâ—ers offering him Peace and due Subjection they parted Friends From which passage in the Saxon Annals it is apparent that this Supream Dominion of one English King over all the rest was no new thing Bede having taken notice of it long before yet did they not therefore take upon them the Title of Monarchs any more than Egbert who now succeeded them in that Power thô most of our Historians who have written the Saxon History in English have but without any just reason given them that Title which could not properly belong to Kings who had divers others under them with the like Regal Jurisdiction within their own Territories not but that King Egbert was in a more peculiar manner the Supream King of England because by his Absolute Conquest of the Kingdoms of Kent and of the South and East Saxons he was the greatest King who had hitherto Reigned in England all the rest of the Kings that remained Reigning by his permission and paying him Tribute a power which never had been exercised by any other King before him But to return to our History it seems that King Egbert was so highly displeased with the Mercians for setting up a King without his consent that Ingulf and Florence of Worcester tell us That as soon as ever Withlaf was made King before he could raise an Army he was expell'd his Kingdom which Egbert added to his own but Withlaf being search'd for by Egbert's Commanders through all Mercia he was by the industry of Seward Abbot of Croyland concealed in the Cell of the Holy Virgin Etheldrith Daughter of King Offa and once the Spouse of Ethelbert King of the East Angles where King Withlaf found a safe retreat for the space of Four Months until such time as by the Mediation of said Abbot Seward he was reconciled to King Egbert and upon promise of the payment of an Yearly Tribute permitted to return to his Kingdom in Peace which is by him acknowledged in that Charter of his that Ingulf hath given us of his Confirmation of the Lands and priviledges of the Abbey of Croyland It was made in the Great Council of the whole Kingdom in the presence of his Lords Egbert King of West-Saxony and his Son Ethelwulf and before the Bishops and great Men of all England Assembled at the City of London to take Counsel against the Daniâ—h Pyrats then infesting the English Coasts And in the Year 833 as you shall see when we come to that Year This Restoration of King Withlaf to his Kingdom is also mentioned in the Saxon Annals of the next Year where it is said That Withlaf again obtained the Kingdom of the Mercians and Bishop Ethelwald deceased also the same Year King Egbryht led an Army against the Northern Britains and reduced them absolutely to his Obedience For it seems they had again rebelled Now likewise as Mat. Westminster relates King Egbert vanquished Swithred King of the East-Saxons and drove him out of his Kingdom upon whose expulsion the West Saxon Kings ever after possest that Kingdom Now according to the same Authour King Egbert having subdued all the South Parts of England led a great Army into the Kingdom of Northumberland and having grievously wasted that Province made King Eandred his Tributary which is also confirmed by Will of Malmesbury who relates that the Northumbers who stood out the last fearing least this King's anger might break out upon them now giving Hostages submitted themselves to his Dominion but they continued still under Kings of their own as you will further find To this Year I think we may also refer that great Transaction which the Annals of the Cathedral Church of Winchester printed in Monast. Angl. from an ancient Manuscript in the Cottonian Library place under the Year following viz. That King Egbert having thus subdued all the Kingdoms above-mentioned and forced them to submit to his Dominions called a great Council at Winchester whereto were summoned all the Great Men of the whole Kingdom and there by the General Consent of the Clerus Populus i. e. the Clergy and Laity King Egbert was crowned King of Britain And at the same time he Enacted That it should be for ever after called England and that those who before were called Jutes or Saxons should now be called English â—en And this I could not omit because thô William of Malmesbury and other Historians agree of the Matter of Fact yet I think this the truest and most particular Account of the Time and manner when it was performed Also this Year Wilfred the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury deceased and Feologild the Abbot was Elected Arch-Bishop 7 Kal. Maij. and was Consecrated 5. Id. Junij being Sunday and dyed the 3. Kal. Sept. after But here is certainly a mistake in this Copy of the Annals for it was not Feologild but Ceolnoth who was then chosen
and the Charter of that King to the Abby of Croyland is confirmed under the Rule of St. Benedict and is supposed by Sir H. Spelman in his Councils to be a great Council of that Kingdom because it bears date in the Week of Easter when they were Assembled about the publick Affairs of the Kingdom at which time as also at Whitsontide and Christmass the great Men of the Kingdom were wont of course to attend at the King's Court to consult and ordain what should be necessary for the common Good when also the King used to appear in State with his Crown upon his head which custom of holding great Councils was also continued after the Norman Conquest to the middle of the Reign of Henry the Second as Sir H. Spelman learnedly observes in his Notes at the end of this Council This Year according to the Peterburgh Copy of the Saxon Annals Ceolred Abbot of Medeshamstead and his Monks leased out to one Wulfred the Land of Sempigaham perhaps Sempingham in Lincoln-shire on Condition That after his Death it should again revert to the Monastery he paying in the mean time a Yearly Rent of so many Loads of Wood Coals and Turf and so many Barrels of Beer and Ale and other Provisions with Thirty Shillings in Money as is there specified at which Agreement Burherd King of the Mercians who had now succeeded Beorthwulf was present together with Ceolred the Arch-Bishop with divers other Bishops Abbots and Ealdormen I have inserted this to let you see the form of Leasing out the Abbey Lands in those Days and which it seems required the Solemnity of the Common Council of that Kingdom to confirm it The same Year also according to Florence Berthulph King of the Mercians deceased and Burhed succeeded him Who this next Year together with his Wites that is the Wise Men of his Great Council desired King Aethelwulf that he would assist them to subdue the Northern Welshmen which he performed and marching with his Army through Mercia made the Men of North-Wales Subject to King Burhed but of this the Welsh Chronicles are silent This Year also King Aethelwulf sent his Son Aelfred to Pope Leo to Rome who there anointed him King and adopted him for his Episcopal Son It is much disputed among some of our Modern Historians of what the Pope anointed Alfred King whether of any present or else future Dominions But since an ancient Manuscript in the Cottonian Library containing an History of the Kings of England says expresly That he was anointed In Successorem Paterni Regni and that we do not read of any Territories King Alfred enjoyed till after the Death of his Brethren it is most reasonable to understand it in the plain Literal Sense as it is here set down not only in these Annals but in Asser's Account of this King's Life and Actions that the Pope anointed him King as a Prophetical Presage of his future Royal Dignity And the same Year Ealcher with the Kentish-men and Huda with the Surrey-men fought with the Danish Army in the Isle of Thanet and at first had the better of them but there were many killed and drowned on both sides and both the Ealdormen or Chief Commanders perished Also Burhed King of the Mercians now married the Daughter of King Ethelwulf Asser relates the Marriage to have been kept with great Solemnity at a Town of the King 's called Cippenham now Chipnam in Wiltshire This Year the Danes winter'd in Scepige or Sheppie and the same year King Aethelwulf discharged the Tenth part of his Land throughout his whole Kingdom of all Tribute or Taxes for the Honour of God and his own Salvation This being the famous and solemn Grant of King Aethelwulf concerning Tythes requires a more particular Relation and therefore I shall here give you the Words of the said Grant at large I Aethelwulf King of the West Saxons with the Councel or Consent of my Bishops and Chief Men c. have consented That a certain Hereditary Part of the Lands heretofore possess'd by all Orders and Degrees of Persons whether Men or Women Servants of GOD i. e. Monks or Nuns or meer Laicks shall give their Tenth Mansion and where it is least the Tenth Part of all their Goods free and discharged of all Secular Servitude and particularly of all Royal Tributes or Taxations as well the greater as the less which they call Wittereden which signifies a certain Fine or Forfeiture and that they be free from all other Things as Expedition building of a Bridge or fortifying of a Castle c. And that they may the more diligently pour out their Prayers to GOD for us without ceasing we do in some part discharge their other Service These Things were done in Winchester in the Church of St. Peter in the Year of our LORD's Incarnation 855 the Third Indiction on the Nones of November before the great Altar in Honour of the Glorious Virgin Mary the Mother of GOD St. Michael the Arch-Angel and St. Peter Prince of the Apostles as also of our blessed Father Pope Gregory all the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of England being present and subscribing to it as also Beorhed King of Mercia together with the Abbots Abbesses Earls and other chief Men of the whole Kingdom with an infinite multitude of other Believers who all of them have witnessed and consented to the Royal Grant but the Dignitaries have thereunto subscribed their Names But as Ingulph relates King Aethelwulf for the greater firmness thereof offered this Charter at the Altar of St. Peter at Rome but that the Bishops received it in the Faith of God and transmitted it to be published throughout all the Churches in their several Diocesses Thô this Grant of Tithes is mentioned by the Annals as to be made before the King 's going to Rome yet it appears by the Date as also from Asser and Ingulph not to have been done till after his Return from thence which makes Sir H. Spelman conjecture and not without good Grounds that this Grant was twice made once before his going to Rome it being there confirmed by the Pope and was also regranted by a Great Council of the Kingdom after his Return as appears by the Charter here recited I have been the more exact in reciting this Law concerning Tythes both because it gives us the form of passing an Act in the great Council of the Kingdom at that time and who were the Parties to it as also because this was the first general Law that was ever made in a Mycel Synod of the whole Kingdom for the payment of Tythes thô I do not deny but there had been before some particular Laws of King Ina and King Offa to the same effect yet those could only oblige the West Saxon and Mercian Kingdoms The next Year also according to Florence and Asser's Chronicle K. Aethelwulf went to Rome carrying Aelfred his youngest and best beloved Son along with him but
now repaired it and made it habitable and then committed it to the Custody of his Son-in-Law Ethered Earl of the Mercians and now all the English viz. the Mercians and Kentishmen as also the East and West Saxons who had been before dispersed or made Prisoners with the Danes being now returned home put themselves under King Alfred's Protection But these Danish Storms being pretty well blown over King Alfred began now to make some use of the Learned Men he had sent for from abroad for as Mr. Camden shews us in his Britannia we have a large account of the University of Oxon. Under the Year of our Lord 886 viz. That in the Second Year of St. Grimbald's coming over into England the University of Oxford was founded the first Regents there and Readers in Divinity were St. Neot an Abbot an Eminent Professor of Theology and St. Grimbald and Eloquent and most Excellent Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures whilst Grammer and Rhetorick were Taught by Asser a Monk a Man of extraordinary Learning Logick Musick and Arithmetick were Read by John a Monk of St. Davids Geometry and Astronomy were professed by John another Monk and Collegue of St. Grimbald one of a sharp Wit and Immense Knowledge These Lectures were often honoured with the presence of the most Illustrious and Invincible Monarch King Aelfred which is also asserted by Will of Malmesbury who tells us a constant Tradition of his time that King Alfred by the Advice of Neot the Abbot first founded publick Schools of various Arts at Oxford which is further confirm'd by an Ancient Manuscript Copy of Randolph Higden's Polychron in Bayliol College Library which in the beginning treating of all the Kings of England when he comes to King Alfred says thus That he first founded the University of Oxford John Rouse in his Manuscript Treatise de Regibus Angliae Lib. 1. seems also to have seen this passage in Winchester Annals and adds Three Halls to have been thus built The one for Grammar near the East Gate the Second near the North-Gate for Logicians and the Third in the High-Street for Divines But since this only proves that King Alfred first founded publick Schools here and not that there was any such thing here before I shall recite also what follows as it is quoted by the said Mr. Camden out of an ancient Copy of Asser de Gestis Alfredi which I could wish may clear this point About this time says he there arose a sharp and grievous dissention between Grimbald and those learned Men whom he brought hither with him and the old Scholars whom he found here at his coming for these absolutely refused to comply with the Statutes Institutions and Forms of Reading perscribed by Grimbald the difference proceeded to no great height for the space of Three Years yet there was always a private Grudge and Enmity between them which soon after broke out with the utmost violence imaginable to appease these Tumults the most Invincible King Aelfred being informed of the Faction by a Message and Complaint from Grimbald came to Oxford to accommodate the matter and submitted to a great deal of Pains and Patience to hear the Cause and Complaint of both Parties The Controversie depended upon this The Old Scholars maintain'd that before the coming of Grimbald to Oxford Learning did here flourish thô the Students were less in number than they had formerly been because very many of them had been Expell'd by the cruel Tyranny of the Pagans They farther declar'd and proved by the undoubted Testimony of their ancient Annals that good Orders and constitutions for the Government of that place had been already made by Men of great Piety and Learning such as Gildas Melkin Ninnias Kentigern and others who had there prosecuted their Studies to a good old Age All things being then managed in happy Peace and quiet and that St. German coming to Oxford and residing there half a Year after he had gone through all England to Preach down the Pelagian Heresie did well approve of their Rules and Orders The King with incredible Humility and great attention heard both parties exhorting them with Pious and Importunate entreaties to preserve Love and Amity with one another upon this he left them in hopes that they both would follow his Advice and obey his Instructions But Grimbald resenting these proceedings retired imediately to the Monastery of Winchester which King Aelfred had lately founded and soon after he got his Tomb to be removed thither to him in which he had designed his Bones should be put after his Decease and laid in a Vault under the Chancel of the Church of S. Peters in Oxford which Church the said Grimbald had raised from the ground of Stones hewn and carved with great Art But since it must be confessed that this passage of the quarrel of St. Grimbald and the Old Scholars of Oxford is not to be found in that ancient Copy of Asser which Arch-Bishop Parker first published in Saxon Characters like those in which it is written being still Extant in the Cottonian Library yet though it was published by Mr. Camden in that Edition of Asser which was printed at Frankford in 1603. The Original of which the Lord Primate Usher in his Ant. Brit. Eccles. expresly tells us Mr. Camden never saw from whence Sir John Spelman in his History of the Life of King Aelfred hath made a very hard inferences as if that clause was not to be found in any of the ancient Copies of that Authour but had been foisted in either by the Publisher or else by Mr. Camden himself thô this Authour does not say so in express terms I shall therefore repeat in short what Mr. Ant. Wood hath answered to this Objection in the Antiquities of the University of Oxford from a Manuscript Testimonial under the hand of the learned Mr. Twyne viz. That he himself long after discoursing with Mr. Camden on this Subject and asking him expresly about this passage whose authority began to be then questioned His Answer was that he very well knew that he had truly transcribed that passage from an ancient Manuscript of Asser which he had then by him and which as the said Mr. Wood in his Notes tells us then belonged to Sir Henry Savile of Banke near Halifax in York-shire But I shall not now take upon me to Answer the rest of the Objections which the said Sir John Spelman does there produce against the validity of the above cited passage which supposes publick Schools to have been at Oxford before King Alfreds time for they are all reduceable to these two heads First the express words of the Annals of the Abbey of Hyde above-mentioned as also that of Polychronicon That King Alfred was the first King who founded a University there all which may be answered by allowing that to be true in respect of a University endow'd with Priviledges and distinct Halls and Colledges built on purpose and
Edgar was certainly a very Great and Heroick Prince yet questionless that Charter which makes him to have subdued the greatest part of Ireland with the City of Dublin and to be Lord of all the Isles as far as Norway is fictitious and nothing but a piece of Monkish Forgery no Author of that Age making mention of any such thing and instead of a Great Warrior he is usually stiled Edgar the Peaceable for he never made any Foreign Wars that we can learn However such was his mighty Fame that if he did not go himself to Foreigners they came to him out of Saxony Flanders Denmark and other places Though William of Malmesbury observes their coming over did much detriment to the Natives who from the Saxons learned Rudeness from the Flemings Effeminacy and from the Danes Drunkenness the English being before free from those gross Vices and contented themselves to defend their own with a natural Simplicity and not given to admire the Customs and Fashions of other Nations Hereupon the Monk tells us he is deservedly blamed in Story for his too great Indulgence to Strangers This Noble Prince died when he had Reigned about Sixteen Years in the very flower of his Age being scarce Two and thirty years old and with him fell all the Glory of the English Nation scarce any thing henceforth being to be heard of among them but Misery and Disorder He had by Egelfleda sirnamed the Fair the Daughter of Earl Ordmer it 's uncertain whether his Wife or Concubine a Son named Edward who succeeded him By Wilfrida the Nun he had a Daughter named Editha who was also a Nun as hath been already related And by Elfreda the Daughter of Duke Ordgar a Son called Edmund who died five years before his Father and another called Ethelrede who reigned after him but was wholly unlike him in Prudence and Courage I have nothing else to add that is considerable under this year but the death of the Noble Turketule Abbot of Croyland whom from Chancellor to King Edred was at his own desire by him made Abbot He repaired and much enriched that Abby after its being ruined by the Danes and was the first that by adding to the Two Great Bells of that Monastery Six more made the first Tuneable Rings of Bells in England as Ingulph at the end of the account he gives of his Life informs us But before I dismiss this King's Reign it is fit I give you a short account of the chief Laws he made which since neither the time nor place of their enacting are any where mention'd I refer to this place The Preface of these Laws is thus This is the Decree or Law which King Edgar made with the counsel or consent of his Wites or Wisemen for the Honour of God the Confirmation of his Royal Dignity and for the Good of his People The Laws themselves begin with some Ecclesiastical Canons the first of which is concerning the Immunities of the Church and about paying Tythes out of the Lands of the Thanes as well as of those of Ceorles or Countrey-men The Second is concerning payment of Tythes and First fruits as well where a Thane had a Church with a Burying-place as also where he had not The Third appoints the times the Tythes should be paid at and what Remedy was to be had in case they were not paid at the time when they were due The Fourth ordains at what time of the year Peter-pence should be paid and the Penalty that should be incurred by those that should neglect to pay them in accordingly The last ordains every Sunday to be kept holy and to begin at Three a Clock in the Afternoon on Saturday and to end at break of day on Monday upon the penalty appointed by the Judiciary Book From which last Law you may observe how early keeping the Sunday like the Jewish Sabbath began in England Then follow the Secular or Temporal Laws The First of which enjoins that every man poor or rich enjoy the benefit of the Law and have equal Justice done him and for Punishments he would have them so moderated that being accommodated to the Divine Clemency they may be the more tolerable unto men The Second forbids Appeals to the King in Suits except Justice cannot otherwise be obtained And if a man be oppressed he may betake himself to the King for relief and in case a Pecuniary Mulct be inflicted for a fault it must not exceed the value of the man's head The Third imposes a Mulct of an Hundred and twenty Shillings to the King upon a Judge that passes an unjust Sentence against any man except such Judge will take his Oath that he did it not out of any malice but only from Unskilfulness and Mistake in Judgment and in such case he is to be removed from his Place except he can obtain favour of the King longer to retain it and then the Bishop of the Diocess is to send the Mulct imposed upon him to the King's Treasure The Fourth commands That whosoever maliciously shall defame another man whereby he receives any damage either in his Body or Estate so that the defam'd Party can clear himself of those Reports and prove them false then the Defamer's Tongue shall either be cut out or he shall redeem it with the value of his Head The Fifth is to the same effect as in another Law we have formerly cited commanding every one to be present at the Gemote or Assembly of the Hundred and further ordains That the Burghmotes or Assemblies of the great Towns or Cities be held thrice a year and the Shiregemotes or general Meeting of the whole County twice whereat were to be present the Bishop and the Ealdorman the one to teach the people God's Law and the other Man's From whence you may observe the Antiquity of our Charges at our Assizes and Sessions which no doubt do succeed those Discourses which the Ealdorman and Bishop then made to the people upon the subjects above-mentioned The Sixth requires that every man find Sureties for his Good Behaviour and in case any one commit a Crime and fly for it the Sureties should undergo what should be laid upon him If he stole any thing and be taken within a Twelvemonth he should be brought to Justice and then the Sureties should receive back what they had paid on his account Hence we may also take notice not only of the Antiquity of Frank-Pledges which had been long before instituted by King Alfred but also the continuation of this Law by King Edgar from whence it appears that it was no Norman invention introduced to keep under the English Commonalty as some men have without any just cause imagined The Seventh ordains That when any one of evil report is again accused of a Crime and absents himself from the Gemotes or publick Meetings some of the Court shall go where he dwells and take Sureties for his Appearance if they may be had but
him so unmercifully with a Wax Taper which she then light upon that he was almost dead which caused in him such an aversion to Wax-Lights ever after that he could never endure any such to be brought before him But this sounds too Romantick and therefore I leave it to the Reader 's discretion what credit to give it But to come to somewhat more certain and material all Authors agree that Archbishop Dunstan crown'd this King with great reluctancy yet he was forced to do it as not having any of the Blood Royal fit to set up But because the Monks will have their St. Dunstan to have had the Spirit of Prophecy like the Prophets in the Old Testament they relate that denouncing God's Judgments against this King at his Coronation he said thus Because thou hast aspired to the Kingdom by the Death of thy Brother thus saith the Lord God The Sin of thine Ignominious Mother shall not be expiated neither the Sin of those that were her Counsellors but by great Bloodshed of thy miserable People for such Miseries shall come upon England as it never underwent since it had that name But this Doom was very unjust for it is certain that the King never knew of nor desired his Brother's Death and it was very hard to denounce God's Judgments upon the whole Nation for the Contrivance of one wicked Woman and which was put in execution by but a few of her Accomplices So that if the Nation was guilty of any fault it was only in so far conniving at the Crime as out of fear or partiality to permit the Authors of it to pass unpunished and for this the Bishops they having then so great a sway in the whole Council of the Nation had as much to answer for as any of the Laity But passing by God's Judgments which are too deep for us to fathom About this time as the Welsh Chronicles relate Custenyn Dhu i. e. Constantine the Black Son to Prince Jago then a Prisoner hired Godfryd the Dane to bring his men against his Cousin Howel ap Jevaf Prince of North-Wales so joining their Forces together they destroyed Anglesey and Lhyn Whereupon Prince Howel gathered an Army and setting upon the Danes and Welshmen who assisted them at a place called Gwayth Horborth routed them and Constantine was slain I shall now return to our Annals which under the next year relate That Archbishop Dunstan and Elfer the Ealdorman having taken up the Body of King Edward which lay buried at Werham they carried and buried it at Scaeftesbyrig i. e. Sbaftsbury with great Funeral Pomp. The occasion of which Removal by Elfer Earl of the Mercians according to Bromton's Chronicle was that old sign of an English Saxon Saint so often repeated in this History whether true or false I shall not affirm viz. a Column of Light streaming down from Heaven over the place where his Body lay buried as also that when it was taken up out of the Grave it was as whole and uncorrupt as when it was first buried three years before whereupon having washed and dressed it in new Cloathes they buried it with great Solemnity at the Monastery above-mentioned where his Sister Edith the Daughter of King Edgar by Wulfritha the Nun was then her self professed But as for the strange Miracles which are here related to have been done at his Tomb I willingly omit them But William of Malmesbury further adds about this Queen Elfreda That she took upon her the Habit of a Nun at Werewell a Nunnery which she lately founded and there passed the rest of her days in great Austerities and Devotions She also about the same time built another Nunnery at Ambresbury in Wiltshire this being the usual way to expiate the most horrid Murthers in those dark times This year came seven Danish Ships full of Pyrates and destroyed Southampton and as Florence adds though under the year before plundered the Town and either killed or carried away the Townsmen Prisoners William of Malmesbury also takes notice of this because they were so much talked of as being the first that had invaded England after above 60 years intermission and were only the forerunners of many more that follow'd To which we may also refer that which is added by Simeon of Durham under the year before but should be put under this That the same Fleet also wasted Taenetland that is the Isle of Thanet and the same year also the Province of Chester was much spoiled by the Norwegian Pyrates The same year the Danish Pyrates landed in Cornwal and burnt the Church and Monastery of St. Petroc Also Godfryd the Son of Harold the Dane landed with a great Army of his Countreymen in West-Wales where spoiling all the Land of Dyvet with the Church of St. Davids he fought the Battel of Lhanwanoc though who had the Victory the Welshmen or the Danes Caradoc's Chronicle which gives us this relation does not tell us This year according to R. Hoveden Three Ships of these Pyrates landed in Dorsetshire and spoiled the Isle of Portland The same year also the City of London was miserably destroyed by Fire About this time also according to the same Author Alfred and Ealdorman or English Earl joining as the Welsh Manuscript Annals relate with Howel the Son of Edwal destroyed Brecknock and spoil'd a great part of the Lands of Owen Prince of South-Wales against whom Eneon the Son of the said Owen and Howel King of North-Wales raising an Army met with them and totally defeated them so that the greatest part of Earl Alfred's Army was slain and the rest put to flight Also about this time the Churches of Wales began first to acknowlege the Superiority of the Archbishops of Canterbury Gacon Bishop of Landaffe being now consecrated by Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury This year Aelfer the Ealdorman deceased and Aelfric his Son took his Government some of the Monks further add That he was eaten up with Lice the reason is plain for this Aelfer had not long before turn'd the Monks out of their Cloysters as you have heard and they seldom fail'd to revenge such an Affront upon those that did so either alive or dead And the same year the Gentlemen of Gwentland in Southwales rebelled against their Prince and cruelly slew Eneon the Son of Prince Owen though he came only to appease them This Eneon was a Gallant Young Prince that did many brave Actions for the Defence of his Countrey in his Father's life time he left behind him Two Sons Edwyn and Theodore from whom descended the Princes of South-Wales This year deceased Athelwald that good Bishop of Winchester who was the Father of the Monks And well might they call him so for he rebuilt or repaired above a dozen great Monasteries so that as William of Malmesbury observes it is a great wonder how a Bishop's Purse could afford to do that in those days which a King could scarce perform when he
him to govern as a Conqueror From which also you may observe the flourishing Trade and Wealth of that City in those days since it could even at that time pay above a Seventh of this excessive Taxation Then also a great part of the Danish Army return'd into Denmark and only forty Ships remain'd with King Cnute the Danes and English were likewise now reconciled and united at Oxnaford Bromton says it was done at a Great Council or Parliament at Oxford where King Cnute ordained the Laws of King Edgar i. e. of England to be observed The same year also Aethelsige Abbot of Abbandune deceased and Aethelwin succeeded him This year King Cnute returned into Denmark and there stayed all the Winter Bromton's Chronicle says he went over to subdue the Vandals who then made War against him and carried along with him an Army both of English and Danes the former being commanded by Earl Godwin set upon the Enemies by surprize and put them to flight after which the King had the English in as much as esteem as his own Danish Subjects But the year following He returned into England and then held a Mycel Gemot or Great Council at Cyrencester where Ethelward the Earldorman was outlaw'd The same year also King Cnute went to Assandune the place where he had before fought the great Battel with King Edmund and there caused a Church to be built of Lime and Stone for the souls of those men that had been slain there Which being as R. Hoveden relates consecrated in the King's presence by Wulstan Archbishop of York and divers other Bishops was committed to the care of his Chaplain whose Name was Stigand Also Archbishop Living deceased and Ethelnoth a Monk and Dean of Canterbury was consecrated Bishop by Wulstan Archbishop of York But before we proceed farther I will give you some account of the Affairs of Wales in these times Where after the death of Kynan or Conan the Usurping Prince of South-Wales above-mentioned Lewelyn Prince of North-Wales had according to Caradoc's Chronicle possessed himself of South-Wales and had for some years governed both those Countries with great Peace and Prosperity so that from the North to the South Sea there was not a Beggar in the whole Countrey but every man had sufficient to live of his own insomuch that the Countrey grew daily more and more populous But this year produced a notable Impostor for a certain Scot of mean Birth came now into South-Wales and called him self Run or Reyn as the Manuscript Copies have it the Son of Meredyth ap Owen late Prince of Wales as you have already heard Upon which the Nobility of that Countrey who loved not Lewelyn set up this Run or Reyn to be their Prince But Lewelyn hearing of it assembled all the Forces of North-Wales and marched against this Run who had now also got all the strength of South-Wales together and going as far as Abergwily i. e. the mouth of the River Gwily there waited the coming of Lewelyn but when he arrived and both Armies were ready to join Battel Run full of outward confidence encouraged his men to fight yet no sooner was the Battel begun but this Impostor soon discovered what he was by withdrawing himself pâ—â—â—ly out of the fight whereas on the contrary Lewelyn like a Couragious Prince standing in the Head of his Army called out aloud for this base Scot Run who durst so belye the Blood of the British Princes Both Armies then meeting fought for a while with great Courage and Malice to each other but it seems the South-Wales men being not so resolute in the Quarrel of this Impostor as those of North-Wales were to defend the Right of their Lawful Prince the latter being also encouraged by the Speeches and Prowess of their Prince put the former to the Rout and pursued this Run so closely that he had much ado to escape Prince Lewelyn having got thus a great deal of Spoil return'd home and for a short time govern'd these Countries in Peace But to return to our Annals This year about Martinmass King Cnute outlaw'd i. e. banished Earl Thurkyl But they tell us not the Crime Yet William of Malmesbury makes it a Judgment for being the principal Promoter of the Murther of Archbishop Aelfeage and that as soon as he return'd into Denmark he was killed by some Noblemen of that Nation This year also according to an Old Manuscript belonging to St. Edmundsbury and cited by the Lord Chief Justice Coke in the Preface to the 9 th Book of his Reports King Cnute held a Parliament at Winchester wherein were present the two Archbishops and all the other Bishops as also many Ealdormen and Earls with divers Abbots together with a great many Knights and a vast multitude of People and there in pursuance of the King's desires it was decreed That the Monastery of St. Edmund the King should be free and for ever exempt from all Jurisdiction of the Bishops and Earls of that Country But Sir H. Spelman here very well observes that this Manuscript could be no Ancienter than the Reign of Henry the Third because the word Parliament was not in use before that time Though thus much is certain That King Cnute the year before founded this Monastery afterwards called St. Edmundsbury but then known to the Saxons by the name of Beadrichesworth where there had been a Church built before and King Edward the Elder in the year 942 had also given several Lands to it and upon which Foundation King Cnute had lately built and endowed the said Abby which was one of the Largest and Richest in all England Lewelyn ap Sitsylt Prince of Wales but a short time enjoyed the fruits of his late Victory for this year the Welsh Chronicles tell us he was slain by Howel and Meredyth the Sons of Prince Edwin or Owen above-mentioned who yet did not succeed in the Principality for Jâ—go Son to Edwal late Prince of Wales was now advanced to the Throne as Lawful Heir having been long debarr'd of his Right But it seems he could not do the like in South-Wales which one Rytheric ap Justin seiz'd upon and held by force This year King Cnute sail'd with his Fleet to the Isle of Wight but upon what account our Annals do not shew us Also Archbishop Aethelnoth went to Rome and was there received by Pope Benedict with great Honour who put on his Pall with his own hands and being so habited celebrated Mass as the Pope commanded him and then after he had dined with him return'd home with his Benediction Also Leofwin the Abbot who had been unjustly expell'd from the Monastery of Elig was his Companion and there cleared himself of those Crimes of which he had been accused before the Pope the Archbishop and all the Company that were there present testifying on his behalf Wulstan Archbishop of York deceased and Aelfric succeeded Edelnoth the Archbishop consecrating him at Canterbury Also this
at Byferstane i. e. Beverston in Gloucestershire together with a great many in their Retinue to attend on the King their Natural Lord and all the Chief and Wise Men that waited on him whereby they might have the King's Consent and Assistance as also that of his Great Council to revenge the Affront and Dishonour which had been lately done to the King and the whole Nation But the Welshmen getting first to the King highly accused the Earls insomuch that they durst not appear in his presence for they said they only came thither to betray him But then there came to the King the Earls Syward and Leofric with many others from the North parts being as William of Malmesbury relates almost all the Nobility of England who had been summoned by the King to come thither But whilst according to our Annals it was told Earl Godwin and his Sons that the King and those that were with him were taking Counsel against them they on the other side stood resolutely on their own defence though it seem'd an hard thing for them to act any thing against their Natural Lord. But William of Malmesbury adds farther That Earl Godwin commanded those of his Party not to fight against the King yet if they were set upon that they should defend themselves so that there had then like to have happen'd a Cruel Civil War if calmer Counsels had not prevailed By this you may see the great Power of Earl Godwin and his Sons who could thus withstand the King and all the Nobility that were with him But to proceed with our Annals Then it was agreed by the chief men on both sides that they should desist from any further violence and thereupon the King gave them God's Peace and his own Word After this the King and his Great Men about him resolved a second time to summon a Witena Gemot or Great Council at London at the beginning of September He also commanded an Army to be raised as great as ever had been seen in England both from the North and South side of Thames When this Council met Earl Sweyn was declared outlaw'd and Earl Godwin and Earl Harold were cited to appear at the Council with all speed As soon as they were come there they desired Peace i. e. Security and also Pledges to be given them whereby they might have safe ingress and regress to and from the Council But the King required all the Earl's Servants to deliver them up into his hands after which the King sent to them commanding them to come with Twelve men to the Great Council but the Earl again demanded Securities and Pledges to be given him and then he promised to clear himself from all Crimes laid to his charge But the Pledges were still denied him and there was only granted him a five days Peace or Truce in which he might depart the Land Then Earl Godwin and Earl Sweyn his Son went to Bosenham in Sussex and their Ships being brought out of the Harbour they sail'd beyond the Seas and sought the Protection of Earl Baldwin staying with him all that Winter but Earl Harold sailed Eastward into Ireland and there took up his Residence under that King's Protection Soon after this the King sent away his Wife who had been crown'd Queen and suffer'd all her Money Lands and Goods to be taken from her and then committed her to the Custody of his Sister at the Nunnery of Werwell But note that Florence of Worcester places this Quarrel with Earl Godwin and his Sons three years later viz. under Anno 1051 and farther adds That the reason why Earl Godwin fled thus privately away was that his Army had forsook him so that he durst not plead the matter with the King but fled away the night following with his five Sons carrying away all their Treasure with them into Flanders This is the Relation which Florence and the Printed Copy of these Annals give us of this great difference between the King and Earl Godwin and his two Sons in the carriage of which both Parties are to be blamed the King in yielding so easy an ear to the false Accusations brought against them and they in refusing to stand to the Determination of the Great Council of the Kingdom without Pledges first given them by the King which is more than any Subject ought to require from his Prince But certainly the King shewed himself a very Weak Man in being persuaded to deal thus severely with his Innocent Queen for the Faults of her Father and Brothers which it was not in her power to help But to conclude the Affairs of this unhappy year our Annals proceed to tell us That About the same time the Abbot Sparhafoc was deposed from the Bishoprick of London and William the King's Chaplain ordained to that See Also Earl Odda was appointed Governor of Defenascire Somersetscire and Dorsetscire and of all the Welsh and the Earldom which Earl Harold lately held was given to Aelfgar the Son of Earl Leofric About this time the Bishoprick of Credington in Cornwal was as we find in the Monasticon at the Request of Pope Leo removed from thence to Exeter where the Monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul was made a Bishop's See the Monks being removed from thence to Westminster and Secular Chanons placed in their stead Which shews that the humour of Monkery did not so much prevail now as in the days of King Edgar And this year Leofric Bishop of that Diocess was enthron'd at Exeter after a solemn Procession where the Bishop walked to Church between King Edward and Queen Editha his Wife This year according to Florence of Worcester the King released the Nation from that cruel Burthen of Danegelt under which it had for so many years groaned but I will not pass my word for the truth of the occasion why he did it though related by Ingulph viz. That King Edward going into his Treasury where this Tax had been laid up saw the Devil capering and dancing upon the Money-bags which it seems no body else could see but himself at which he was so concerned that he ordered all the Money to be restored to the right Owners and forbad its being gathered any more Not long after according to the same Author William Duke of Normandy the King's Cousin coming over into England was honourably received here and had Noble Presents made him and as some relate too that King Edward promised to make him his Successor in the Kingdom This year also according to Florence of Worcester Alfric Archbishop of York deceased and Kinsing the King's Chaplain succeeded him This year deceased Aelgiva alias Ymma the Mother of King Eadward and King Hardecnute She hath a various Character given her by our Historians William of Malmesbury represents her to be very Covetous and Unkind to her first Husbands Children which seems to have been true enough But then she was very Devout and had a great Respect for
what they knew would please their Masters would have passed him over without this Story and have given him a fairer Character His first Wife was the Sister of King Cnute by whom he had a Son but in his Infancy happening to mount an unruly Horse that was presented him by his Grandfather he was run away with into the Thames and there drowned His Mother was kill'd by Thunder which as then was believed fell upon her as a Judgment on the account of her great Cruelty for she made a Trade of selling handsome English Boys and Girls into Denmark After her Death Earl Godwin married another Wife and by her had Six Sons viz. Harold Sweyn Wined Tosti Gyrth and Leofwin His Earldom of West-Seaâ— was given to his Son Harold and the Earldom that Harold had before viz. Essex was conferred on Alfgar the Son of Leofric Earl of Mercia which is also confirmed by our Annals And the same year according to Simeon of Durham Rees the Brother of Griffyn King of South-Wales being taken Prisoner for the many Insolences he had committed against the English was by the Command of King Edward put to death at a place called Bulendun and his Head sent to the King then lying at Gloucester on the Vigil of Epiphany But this is omitted in the Welsh Chronicles as commonly every thing is that makes to the disadvantage of their own Nation This year Leo that Holy Pope of Rome deceased and Victor was elected in his stead And there was also so great a Murrain of all sorts of Cattel in England that none could ever remember the like And now according to the Welsh Chronicles Griffyth the Son of Ratherch ap Justin raised a great Army both of Strangers and others against Griffyth Prince of North Wales who delaying no time but getting all the Forces of that Countrey together and meeting the other Griffyth fought with him and slew him on the place though none of these Chronicles have told us where that was This was the last Rebellion or Welsh Civil War that happened in this Prince's Reign The same year according to Simeon of Durham and Roger Hoveden Siward that Valiant Earl of Northumberland at the Command of King Edward being attended with a powerful Army and a strong Fleet marched into Scotland to restore Malcolm the Right Heir to the Crown of that Kingdom where joining Battel with Macbeth the then Usurping King of Scots many both of that Nation and of the Normans who took their part were slain and the Earl put the Usurper to flight But in this Battel the Earl's Son and several of the English and Danes were slain H. Huntington further adds That when the News was brought to the Earl of the Death of his Son he presently asked Whether he had received the Wound behind or before And being told it was before he only replied I am glad to hear that for so it became my Son to dye He says also That this Son of his whom he does not name had been sent into Scotland before his Father and was there killed and that Earl Siward did not subdue Macbeth till the second Expedition in which he differs from all the rest of the English and Scotish Historians Buchanan indeed acknowledges that this Prince Malcolm having taken Refuge in the Court of England obtain'd of King Edward the Assistance of Ten thousand men under the Conduct of Earl Siward and that the rest were raised for him by Macduf and others of his Party that took Arms on his behalf But John Fordun in his History writes much more improbably and though he allows that King Edward offered Malcolm an Army sufficient to place him on the Throne yet that he refused it with Thanks and only took Earl Siward of all the English Lords along with him as if this Earl's single Might though he was a Man of great Strength and Stature signified any thing against the Forces of Macbeth unless he had also brought a powerful Army along with him Mat. Westminster also adds That Scotland being thus conquered by the Forces of King Edward he bestowed it upon King Malcolm to be held of himself But since this is not found in any of our Ancient Historians and this Author does not acquaint us from whence he had it I do not look upon it as worthy of any great Credit About this time according to Simeon Aldred Bishop of Worcester was sent Ambassador to the Emperor with Noble Presents and being received with great Honour by him as likewise by Herman Archbishop of Cologne he staid in Germany a whole year to prevail with the Emperor on the King's behalf to send Ambassadors into Hungary to bring back Prince Edward the King's Cousin Son of King Edmund Ironside into England The same year also according to the Latin Copy of the Annals ' Was a Battel at Mortimer in Normandy But though they do not tell us by whom it was fought yet from others we learn it was between William Duke of Normandy and the King of France where the former obtain'd a most signal Victory This year Siward Earl of Northumberland deceased and the King gave that Earldom to Tostig Son of Earl Godwin Of this Siward's death our Historians give us divers remarkable Circumstances That being near his End by a Bloody-Flux he said He was asham'd to dye thus like a Beast so causing himself to be compleatly Armed and taking his Sword in his hand as if he would have fought even Death it self he in this Posture expired as he supposed like a Man of Honour King Edward not long after this summoned a Witena Gemot or Great Council seven days before Midlent wherein Earl Aelfgar was outlaw'd upon a Charge of being a Traytor to the King and the whole Nation and of this he was convicted before all there assembled Then Earl Aelfgar went to the Castle of Prince Griffyn in North-Wales and the same year they both together burnt the City of Hereford with the Monastery of St. Aethelbert once King of the East-Angles whose Bones were here enshrin'd This Earl had the greater reason to do what he did having been unjustly banish'd as most of our Historians write Simeon of Durham is somewhat larger in his account of this Affair and says That this Earl Aelfgar first went to Ireland and there procuring Eighteen Pyrate-Ships sail'd with them into Wales to assist Prince Griffyn against King Edward where joining with the Welshmen they laid waste the Countrey about Hereford with Fire and Sword against whom was sent that Cowardly Earl Rodolph King Edward's Sister's Son who gathering an Army and meeting with the Welshmen about two miles from that City he commanded the Englishmen contrary to their custom to fight on Horseback but so soon as they were ready to join Battel Rodulph with all his Frenchmen ran away which the English seeing quickly followed By which you may see that it is no new thing for a Cowardly General to make Cowardly Soldiers The
Ailesbury in Buckinghamshire anciently called Eglesbyrig l. 5. p. 321. Ailmer Earl of Cornwal Founder of the Abbey of Cerne in Dorsetshirâ— l. 6. p. 22. Ailnoth Vid. Ethelnoth Ailwin the Ealdorman Founder of the Abbey of Ramsey l. 6. p. 6 7. Akmanceaster an Ancient City called Bathan by the Inhabitants l. 6. p. 7. Alan King of Armorica receives Cadwallader l. 4. p. 190. Alan Earl of Britain so great an Assistant to William Duke of Normandy that after his Conquest he made him Earl of Richmond and had great part of the Countrey thereabouts given him l. 6. p. 109. Alaric King of the Goths takes Rome l. 2 p. 104. St. Alban an Account of his Martyrdom l. 2. p. 85 86. The Miracles thereat Ibid. p. 107 108. Is privately buried that Age being ignorant of the virtue of keeping Saints Relicks Id. p. 86. Offa is warned by an Angel to remove his Relicks to a more Noble Shrine He builds a new Church and Monastery in honour of him who was after canonized l. 4. p. 237. As he was the first Martyr of England so the Abbot thereof ought to be the first in Dignity of all the Abbots in England Ib. p. 238. Pope Honorius ratified the Privileges formerly granted and gave to this Abbot and his Successors Episcopal Rights together with the Habit c. Jd. Ib. St. Albans anciently called Verulam where a Great Council was held by King Offa Id. p. 239. Albania now Scotland Northwest of the Mountains of Braid-Albain and its extent l. 2. p. 83 98. Albert ordained Archbishop of York l. 4. p. 229. Receives his Pall for the Archbishoprick from Pope Adrian Id. p. 230. Albinus Chlodius made Lieutenant of Britain by Commodus the Emperor who would have created him Caesar and permitted him in his presence to wear the Purple Robe but he refused them then yet afterwards assumed the Titles and Honour and died in asserting his Right to the Imperial Purple l. 2. p. 71 73. Is dismissed from the Government of Britain but retained it under both Pertinax and Didius Julianus Takes upon him the Title of Caesar under Severus had Statues erected and Money coin'd with his Image Forced the Messengers sent by the Emperor to dispatch him by Torture to confess the Design Id. p. 72. But is obliged at last to run himself through with his own Sword Id. p. 73. Alburge Sister to King Egbert Foundress of a Benedictine Nunnery at Wilton l. 5. p. 248. Alcluid now called Dunbritton in Scotland l. 2. p. 101. Is destroyed by the Danes l. 5. p. 277. Alchmuid Son to Ethelred King of Northumberland being taken by the Guards of King Eardulf is slain by his Command l. 4. p. 243. Alchmund Bishop of Hagulstade his Decease l. 4. p. 232. Alcuin or Albinus writes an Epistle wherein he proves Image-Worship utterly unlawful l. 4. p. 237. At his Intercession the Northumbrian Kingdom is spared from Ruin Id. p. 240. Goes into France and is much in favour with Charles the Great whom he taught the Liberal Arts and by his means the University of Paris is erected His Death and Character Id. p. 244. Aldhelm made Bishop of Shireburn and by whom l. 4. p. 213. A Catalogue of his Works given us by Bede Id. p. 213 214. His Death and Character Id. p. 214. Aldred Bishop of Worcester by his Intercession makes Sweyn's Peace with Edward the Confessor and goes with Bishop Hereman to the great Synod assembled at Rome l. 6. p. 75. Is sent Ambassador to the Emperor with Noble Presents to prevail with him to send Ambassadors into Hungary to bring back Prince Edward the King's Cousin Son of King Edmund Ironside into England Id. p. 86. His rebuilding the Church of St. Peter in Gloucester and going on Pilgrimage through Hungary to Jerusalem Id. p. 88. Is made Archbishop of York and goes with Earl Tostige to Rome where he receives his Pall Ibid. Crowns Harold King of England Id. p. 105. Aldune Bishop of Lindisfarne removes the Body of St. Cuthbert from Chester after a hundred years lying there to Durham and there builds a small Church dedicating it to him l. 6. p. 26. Alehouses how anciently these have been here with the Consequences thereof viz. quarrelling and breaking of the Peace l. 6. p. 43. Alemond Father to Edmund the King and Martyr whom he had by his Wife Cywara in old Saxony l. 5. p. 265. Alfleda Daughter to Ceolwulf King of the Mercians is married to Wimond Son of Withlaff an Ealdorman there who is afterwards made King by the Consent of the People l. 5. p. 253. Alfred King of Northumberland would not alter the Judgment against Bishop Wilfrid for any Letter from the Pope l. 4. p. 207. Deceases at Driffield and on his Death-bed repents of what he had done towards the Bishop Id. p. 212 213. Alfred King of the West-Saxons was the fifth Son of King Aethelwulf Id. p. 258. When born of Osberge his Mother at Wantige in Berkshire l. 5. p. 261. Is anointed King by the Pope as a Prophetical Presage of his future Royal Dignity Id. p. 262 265. Married to Alswitha the Daughter of Aethelred the Ealdorman of the Gaini l. 5. p. 269. He with his Brother Ethelred made a great slaughter of the Danes Id. p. 275. By the general Consent of the whole Kingdom is advanced to the Throne Id. p. 276. Fights with the Danes and the various success of his Fortune Ibid. Fights at Sea against seven of their Ships and takes one the rest escaping Id. p. 277. Is forced to make Peace with them and what Hostages they give him to depart the Kingdom but upon breach of Oath he puts them all to death The Danes make another Peace with him but did not long observed it Id. p. 278. Leads an uneasy Life upon their account beiâ—g forced to hide and lurk among the Woody parts of Somersetshire Id. p. 280. His excessive Charity to a poor man in the midst of his own Extremity Id. p. 280 281. Goes into the Danish Army in the habit of a Countrey Fidler discovers their weakness and by that means obtain a signal Victory over them Id. p. 282. Delivers the Kingdom of the East-Angles up to Guthrune and the League made between them setting out the Extent of each other's Territories Id. p. 283 284. The Subjection or Dependance the Danes shew'd to this King by their consenting to the Laws made in a Common-Council of the Kingdom Id. p. 285. Fights against four Danish Pyrate-ships takes two the other two surrender Id. p. 285 286. Pope Martinus sends some of the Wood of our Lord's Cross to him and in return he sends to Rome the Alms he had vowed Id. p. 286. Setting upon the Danish Pyrates with his Fleet takes them all with great Spoils and kills most of their men but returning home and meeting with another Fleet of them they prove too hard for him Id. p. 286 287. Takes the City of London from the Danes who had kept it
p. 280. Hinguar their Captain with Twelve Hundred Men slain near the Castle of Kenwith Id. p. 281. Are signally beaten by King Aelfred so as to desire Peace on Conditions Id. p. 282 283. The Laws made between them and King Aelfred in a Common Council of the Kingdom acknowledging his Superiority over them Id. p. 285. Besiege the City of Rochester build a strong Fort before the Gates of it but however they are forced to retire and go to their Ships Id. p. 286. One Fleet of theirs beaten by King Alfred another meeting him on his Return home prove too hard for him The Peace lately made with King Alfred broke by the Danes of East-England Id. p. 286 287. Beaten by the Bretons and by Arnulf the Emperor Id. p. 298. Infest the Kingdom for Three years worse than ever their landing in Kent and their various Successes Id. p. 298 299 300 301 302. Fight at Holme with the Kentish-men and their success l. 5. p. 312 313. Break their League with King Edward the Elder afterwards are beaten by the English in Staffordshire Id. p. 315 316. Commit great Ravage and Slaughter in Oxfordshire and several other Countries but often worsted Id. p. 319 321. Their power beginning to decrease and that of the English to increase Id. p. 321 322. Burn Tavistock in less than Fifty years after it was founded l. 6. p. 4. With the Welshmen that assisted them routed by Howel ap Jevaf their Pyrates destroy Southampton and commit great Ravage there They land in Cornwal and Burn the Church and Monastery of St. Petroc Id. p. 20. They land in Dorsetshire and spoil the Isle of Portland Id. p. 21. Destroy Weedport that is Watchet in Somersetshire Id. p. 22. As likewise the whole Isle of Anglesey and the Town of Ipswich in Suffolk Id. p. 23. Several Tributes paid them and yet those did not long satisfy their Covetousness Id. p. 25 29 32. Their Fleet escape by flight from being encompassed by King Ethelred's Id. p. 23. Come hither again with Ninety three Ships and ravaging several Countries Id. p. 24 25. Maintained by the West-Saxons and received a great Tribute besides Id. p. 25. Take much plunder from the Welsh Cornwal and Devonshire c. Id. p. 26 27. And the Spoils Burnings and Desolations they made where-ever they came Id. p. 28.29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 45 46 47 74. Leagues made with them but they never regarded them long Id. 28 31. King Ethelred commands all the Danes that could be found in England to be slain with the reason why which was most barbarously put in Execution especially at London but not long after it was bloodily revenged Id. p. 29 30 31. They insolently demand greater Tribute of the King and Kingdom l. 6. p. 35. Two thousand of them perish by divers inward Torments Their submission to King Ethelred upon Conditions Id. p. 36 37. Upon a Peace with Edmond Ironside they take up their Winter-Quarters at London Id. p. 48. They and the English are reconciled and united at Oxford at a Great Council Id. p. 51. At the Election of Edward the Confessor the Great Council agreed and Swore That no Danes should Reign over them any more and why Id. p. 70. Lothen and Yrling Danes with Five and twenty Ships landing at Sandwic commit great havock and carry off abundance of Booty Id. p. 74. Daniel the Learned and most Pious Bishop of Bangor in what Age he lived among the Britains l. 3. p. 149. Daniel being worn out by Age resigns the Bishoprick of Winchester to Hunferth l. 4. p. 224. His Death after he had been Three and forty years a Bishop Id. p. 225. Darwent a River near York not far from which stood an Idol-Temple called Godmundingham in King Edwin's time l. 4. p. 174. David afterwards Sainted succeeds Dubritius in the Archbishoprick of Caer-Leon l. 3. p. 149. Is said to have been Uncle by the Mother side to King Athur Ibid. St. Davids destroyed by the Danes who slew Urgeney the Bishop of that See l. 6. p. 27. Deadly Feuds vid. Quarrels Death None to Die for small offences but Mercy to be shewn to such Criminals by King Cnute's Law l. 6. p. 58. He that dies in fight c. his Heriot shâ—ll be remitted and his Children shall equally divide his Goods and Lands between them Id. p. 60. Decennary every one of Twelve years old to be entered into it l. 6. p. 58 104. Decianus Catus solicited by the Romans here to send them some Assistance against the Iceni and Trinobantes l. 2. p. 47 48. Decimation a very strange one indeed which the Danes made both of the Monks and Laity so that but One out of Ten persons was kept alive l. 6. p. 36. Decius Scil. Quintus Trajanus a great Enemy to Christianity he raised the Seventh Persecution l. 2. p. 81. Defamation punishable by cutting out the Tongue of the Party or redeeming it with the Value of his Head l. 6. p. 13. Degradation of a Priest for Murther as well as Confiscation of all his Estate unless his Lord will obtain his Pardon by the Price of his Head l. 5. p. 297. Degsa-stan or Degstan where Adian jealous of Ethelfrid's great Success came against him with a powerful Army but was routed l. 4. p. 159. Deira a Kingdom in Northumberland whose Kings were generally named Ella l. 4. p. 152. And Bernicia united into one Kingdom in Oswald's time Id. p. 178. Demetae that is South-Welshmen l. 3. p. 139 Vid. Venedoti Denulp Bishop of Winchester his Education Advancement and Death l. 5. p. 315. Deomed supposed to be South-Wales l. 5. p. 319. Deorham now Durham in Gloucestershire l. 3. p. 146. Deposition the first Instance of it by the Authority of the Great Council l. 4. p. 227. Alhred deposed by the Common Council and Consent of his own Subjects Id. p. 230. Of Edwi confirmed by the Common Council of the Kingdom l. 5. p. 354. Sparsim Deprivation of Bosa Bishop of Dunmoc and for what l. 4. p. 193. Derawnde now called Beverley in Yorkshire l. 4. p. 202. Desertion he that deserts his Lord or Fellow-Soldier either by Land or Sea in an Expedition is deprived both of Life and Estate l. 6. p. 60. Devils-Ditch formerly divided the Mercian Kingdom from that of the East-Angles l. 4. p. 239. l. 5. p. 313. Devise of Lands by Will Vid. Testament Deusdedit the Pope grants Adrian the Abbot of Canterbury a Privilege concerning the free Election of the Abbot of that Monastery l. 4. p. 165. Deusdedit consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury and was the first English Monk that had ever been chosen Archbishop of that See and the first Bishop consecrated but by one he changed his Name to this having before been called Fridona or Fridon l. 4. p. 186. His Death Id. p. 189. Dicul an Irish or Scotch Monk that lived in a little Monastery at a place called Bosenham with five or six Brethren in great
or Incest l. 4. p. 233 234. Honour and Obedience to be rendered to them and none to speak evil of them The Punishment either for Conspiring the Death of Kings or actually Killing of them Id. p. 234. l. 6. p. 59. Chief Lords of any Countrey in Wales when called Kings l. 4. p. 241. The Supreme Dominion of One English King over all the rest no new thing in King Egbert's time l. 5. p. 254. At the Great Councils they used to appear in State with the Crown on their Heads Id. p. 261. A weak Prince by the assistance of Able and Faithful Councellors may Govern his Kingdom prudently and happily Id. p. 267. King of England was anciently called King of London Id. p. 279. Alfred's Law concerning the Death of the King Id. p. 292. In Athelstan's time the Mercians had not lost their Ancient Right of chusing their own Kings Id. p. 329. The King's House no shelter to him that sheds Blood l. 5. p. 347. How dangerous it was for Kings to provoke the Ruling part of the Priests and People Id. p. 354. Neither in Edgar's time nor long after the Conquest did any King Elect take the Title of King till after his Coronation l. 6. p. 8. To be blamed for trusting those who had before betrayed them Id. p. 30. Sworn to observe the good Laws of King Edward not that he only Ordained but obser-served them Id. p. 56. Provision for his Houshold how to be made not to Oppress the Subject Id. p. 59. No Subjâ—ct in their Hunting to meddle with the King's Game Id. p. 60. His Office how declared by Edward the Confessor's Law His power to pardon Life and loss of Member but with a Proviso Id. p. 102. Kingsbury a Council held there under Berthwulf King of the Mercians l. 5. p. 261. King's-Evil Edward the Confessor the first that Cured it by his bare washing the Sores with his own hands l. 6. p. 98. King's Houshold Vid. Provision Kingsige King Edward the Confessor's Chaplain succeeds Aelfric in the Archbishoprick of York l. 6. p. 79. His Deatâ— Id. p. 88. Knight's-Service in England in King Wightred's time l. 4. p. 211. Knute vid. Cnute Kynan vid. Conan Prince of South-Wales Kynobelin at Rome saluted by the Emperor a Friend of the Commonwealth l. 2. p. 36. Being King he caused Coins to be stamp'd after the Roman manner Ibid. Died not long before the Roman Invasion by Claudius Id. p. 38. L LAncaster anciently called Caer-Werith supposed to be built by Gurguint l. 1. p. 13. Lands-End the Point anciently called Penwithsteort l. 6. p. 26 82. Langoemagog that is the Giants Leap from a persons taking up the mighty Giant Gogmagog in his Arms and flinging him off from a Cliff in Cornwal into the Sea l. 1. p. 9. Lanthorns first Invented in England by King Alfred of Cow's-Horns cut into thin plates l. 5. p. 305. Lashlite a Fine or Mulct the English and Danes were to pay according to the value of their heads for the Violation of the Laws made between them l. 5. p. 284. Lawrence a Priest and Peter a Monk sent to the Pope to acquaint him that by Augustine and his Monks their Preaching the English had received the Christian Faith and to have his Opinion about certain Questions l. 4. p. 155 165. Consecrates the Old Church rebuilt by Augustine at Canterbury and succeeds him as Archbishop there Id. p. 157 166. Draganus refuses to Eat with him and why Id p. 166. What happened to him upon his going to desert his Flock in Britain Id. p. 169. His Death and Burial Id. p. 171. Laws called Mercevenlage from whence said to be derived l. 1. p. 13. What those were in King Ethelbert's Reign l. 4. p. 163. Ecclesiastical Laws made between King Alfred and Guthrune the Dane l. 5. p. 284 285. Every man to enjoy the benefit of the Law and to have equal Justice done him l. 6. p. 13 58. Three sorts of Laws in use in Brompton the Chronicler's time viz. Merchenlage West-Saxonlage and Danelage Id. p. 103. League or Agreement made between King Alfred and King Guthrune setting out the Territories of each of those Princes l. 5. p. 283 284. Between Edward the Elder and the Danes Inhabiting East-England and Northumberland l. 5. p. 314. Vide Peace Learning reduced to a very low ebb in King Alfred's time by reason of the Danish Wars l. 5. p. 304. Lease of Abbey-Lands made in a Great Council the first Example of it l. 4. p. 230. Lee a River anciently called Ligan which divides Middlesex and Essex l. 5. p. 301.316 Leeds in Yorkshire anciently called Loyden where the Battel was fought between Oswy King of Northumberland and Penda King of the Mercians l. 4. p. 185. Legancester that is West-Chester Vide Chester Legion Roman being sent over to Britain made a great Slaughter of their Enemies driving the rest out of the British Borders and so delivered the Inhabitants from being destroyed l. 2. p. 99 100. Legions a City now Caerleon upon Uske l. 2. p. 85. Westchester was anciently called by this Name l. 4. p. 164. Leicester anciently Caer-Leir by whom said to be first Built l. 1. p. 11. Tocca the first Bishop there which continued a Bishop's See for divers Ages l. 4. p. 223. Anciently called Ligceaster and when Repaired l. 5. p. 314. And Ligraceaster Id. p. 319. Leighton in Bedfordshire anciently called Ligtune l. 3. p. 145. l. 5. p. 319. Lent by the Authority of Earcombert Ordained to be observed which seems to have been the first observed in England by a Law l. 4. p. 180. Leo the Pope whom the Romans took and cut out his Tongue and put out his Eyes Deposing him but he was Restored to every thing he had lost Miraculously l. 4. p. 241. When he Died l. 5. p. 251. Leo Bishop of Treve sent by Pope John as his Nuntio to King Ethelred with Letters of Complaint against the Marquiss of Normandy l. 6. p. 24. Leof a notorious Thief Banished by King Edmund but be returned and at a great Entertainment of the King 's Stabs him so that he instantly died l. 5. p. 345. Leofgar Ordained Bishop of Hereford in the room of Bishop Athelstane together with his Clerks is Slain by Griffyn Prince of Wales l. 6. p. 87. Leofred a Dane his Ravages in Wales but at last is Beheaded by Athelstan's Order l. 5. p. 321. Leofric Earl of Mercia with his Lady Godiva Founders of the Monastery of Coventry and the Repairers of several others l. 6. p. 71 72. Comes to the Great Council at Glocester about Earl Godwin Id. p. 77. His Death and Burial in the Church of the Monastery of Coventry Id. p. 88. Leofric King Edward the Confessor's Chaplain succeeds Living Bishop of Devonshire that is of Exeter l. 6. p. 73. Is Enthroned there be walking to Church between the King and Queen Editha his Wife Id. p. 78. Leofwin the Abbot is unjustly Expelled from the Monastery of Elig goes
of Age to give it by Oath and for what l. 6. p. 58. Selred King of the East-Saxons l. 4. p. 214. Sirnamed the Good Reigned Thirty eight year and then slain but is unknown how or by whom Id. p. 225. Sempingham in Lincolnshire anciently called Sempigaham l. 5. p. 261. Seneca only in his Books a Philosopher his Extortion on the Britains l. 2. p. 47. Seolefeu that is The Island of Seals afterwards called Selsey where Wilfrid Founded a small Monastery l. 4. p. 198. Sermon the first that is to be found at any King's Coronation by whom and to whom made l. 6. p. 70. Serpents strange ones seen in the Province of the South-Saxons l. 4. p. 230. Servants none to receive another Man's Man into his Family without leave first had of his Master the Penalty of doing the contrary l. 5. p. 341. To give Security for their good Abearing Id. p. 346. Who Desert their Lord in Battel what they Forfeit and to whom l. 6. p. 60. Sester that is a Horse-Load of Wheat Sold in Hardecnute's time for Fifty five Pence and more l. 6. p. 66 72. Severn the River from whence it came to be so called l. 1. p. 10. Severus the Emperor makes War against Pescenius Niger and slays him then sends Messengers to dispatch Albinus and the effect thereof l. 2. p. 72 73. Puts Laetus Severus to Death for his Treachery Id. Ib. Makes an Expedition into Britain and the issue of it Id. p. 74 75. How he Treats his Son Baffianus that twice attempted to kill him Id. p. 75 76. Makes a Wall cross the Island from Sea to Sea One hundred thirty two Miles in length and from thence he receiv'd the Stile of Britannicus Id. p. 76. This Wall was built in the same place where Adrian's was before Id. p. 100. His Death and Funeral Pile and Character Id. p. 77 78. Severus Alexander succeeds Heliogabolus having been before declared Caesar by the Senate his Actions in this Island l. 2. p. 80. Is slain by some of his own Army Id. Ib. Severus Germanus his Scholar being Ordained Bishop of Triers preaches the Gospel to the Germans l. 3. p. 117. Seward Abbot of Croyland conceals Withlaf King of Mercia from the Displeasure of King Egbert in the Cell of the Holy Virgin Etheldrith Daughter of King Offa till a perfect Reconciliation was made l. 5. p. 254. Sexburga Governs the Kingdom of the West-Saxons for a year as being left to her by King Cenwalch her Husband Her Character l. 4. p. 192. Shaftsbury first called Paladur afterwards Septonia by whom Built l. 1. p. 10. New built by King Alfred l. 5. p. 285 298 307. Called in Saxon Scaeftesbyrig l. 6. p. 20. Shaving of Crowns and about the manner of it l. 4. p. 216. Sheovesham or Secvesham Abby Vid. Abingdon Shepholme a little Island in the Mouth of Severne anciently called Bradanrelic Florence calls it Reoric l. 5. p. 319. Sheriffs their Antiquity and Appointment by King Alfred l. 5. p. 291. Sherwood-Forest anciently called Walewode l. 5. p. 321. Ships a great Tax raised by Harold for setting out Sixteen Sail which highly incensed the minds of the English l. 6. p. 65. Sixty two Sail had another Tax of Eight Marks to be paid the Rowers Id. p. 66. Shireburne anciently called Westwude l. 4. p. 214. Shiremotes to be held Twice every Year and who to be present thereat l. 6. p. 13. Shropshire anciently called Scrobbesbyrigscire l. 6. p. 32. Sicga dies who killed the good King Oswald or Alfwold as one Historian says by his own hands l. 4. p. 236 238. Sigebert succeeds his Brother Eorpenwald in the Kingdom of the East-Angles he was Baptized in France whither he had been Banished and by Bishop Foelix his assistance erects a School to Instruct Youth and two Years after Resigns his Kingdom to his Cousin Egric and became a Monk l. 4. p. 179. Is forced out of his Monastery by the East-Angles to encourage the Soldiers against Penda King of the Mercians where he is killed Id. p. 181. Is made a Christian at the persuasion of King Oswy Id. p. 184. And at last wickedly Murthered by whom and upon what occasion Id. p. 188 189. Sigebert Cousin to Cuthred succeeds him in the Kingdom of the West-Saxons is Deposed by Cynwulf and the Great Council for his Cruelty and Injustice and at last a certain Hog-herd ran him through and killed him l. 4. p. 226. Sigeferth a petty King of some Province makes himself away and is Buried at Wilton l. 6. p. 4. Another of the same Name a Danish Thane Treacherously slain and his Goods seized on and his Beautiful Widow secured by King Ethelred Id. p. 40. Siger and Sebba who succeed Swidhelm in the Kingdom of the East-Saxons their relapse from the Christian Faith into Idolatry but soon again they renounced their Apostacy l. 4. p. 190. Sigeric Vid. Syric Sihtric a Danish King of Northumberland is Married to Edgitha the Sister of King Athelstan his professing himself a Christian though he relapsed soon after and Died the next year l. 5. p. 330. Another of this Name King of Ireland and the Isles adjacent Id. p. 334. Silures their Complexion Swarthy and they had Curled Hair like the Spaniards l. 1. p. 4. The Inhabitants of the now South-Wales l. 2. p. 42. Their Name ought wholly to be extinguished and why Id. p. 45. Are wasted by many small Incursions Id. p. 46. Simony the first Example of it in the English Church l. 4. p. 191. Vid. Wini. Singin a Captain over the Worcestershire-men kills Constantine King of the Scots l. 5. p. 335 336. Sithicundmon esteemed equal to a Thane by the Valuation of his Head l. 5. p. 342. Slaves The Common People of England were not such Slaves in Alfred's time as some late Writers would fain make them l. 5. p. 294 295. Snottingaham the Town taken and Commanded to be Repaired and Garison'd by King Edward the Elder l. 5. p. 324. Soldier the Discovery made by One and yet his Fidelity at the same time to a Prince to whom he had formerly taken a Military Oath l. 5. p. 335. He that deserts his Lord or fellow Soldier what he Forfeits and to whom l. 6. p. 60. Somerton taken by Ethelbald from the West-Saxons l. 4. p. 221. Was anciently a great Town and Castle that gave Name to that Countrey which is now called Somersetshire Id. p. 222. Southampton was anciently called Hamtun l. 5. p. 258. Destroyed by Danish Pyrates when l. 6. p. 20. South-Saxons when this Kingdom began l. 3. p. 132. Are Converted by the Preaching of Wilfrid l. 4. p. 198. Their Province which had belonged to the Diocess of Winchester is made an Episcopal See Id. p. 214. South-Shoebury in Essex anciently called Sceobyrig where the Danes built a Castle l. 5. p. 300. Southumbers that is the Mercians l. 4. p. 210 212. South-Wales the Seat of War a long while for the Supremacy between Jevaf and
and to whom l. 5. p. 293. Trumbrith or Trumbert when consecrated Bishop of Hagulstade l. 4. p. 201. Trumwin consecrated Bishop of the Picts this was the Bishoprick of Wyterne called in Latin Candida Casa l. 4. p. 201. Trutulensis a Port supposed by Mr. Somner to be Richborough near Sandwich l. 2. p. 63. Tryals the Antiquity of them by a Grand Inquest of more than Twelve men l. 6. p. 43. Tuda Bishop of Lindisfarne dies of the Plague and where buried l. 4. p. 189 190. Tudric King of Glamorgan said to have exchanged his Crown for a Hermitage but afterwards going out of it against the Saxons in the defence of his Son Mouric he received a mortal Wound l. 3. p. 148 149. Tudwall Gloff or the Lame why he was so called l. 5. p. 317. Turkytel a Danish Earl owns King Edward the Elder for his Lord l. 5. p. 319. Goes into France with King Edward's leave and Convoy with what Danes would follow him Id. p. 320. The Chancellor his great Valour and Slaughter of Constantine and Anlaff's Army and his narrow Escape from being killed by them Id. p. 335 336. Afterwards he was Abbot of the Abbey of Croyland Id. p. 336 349. Sent Ambassador by King Edred to the Northumbers to reduce them to their Duty Id. p. 349. Carries Archbishop Oskytel his Kinsman's Body to Bedford to be buried l. 6. p. 7. His Death Id. p. 12. Turne-Island formerly called the Isle of Medcant l. 3. p. 146. Turpilianus Petronius sent in Paulinus Suetonius his room as being more exorable to the Britains l. 2. p. 51. Twelfhind-man one that is worth Twelve hundred Shillings of Estate l. 5. p. 346. Twihind-man one worth Two hundred Shillings of Estate they both to join together to apprehend a Thief if known where he is Id. Ib. Tyrants said to be justly removed for being the Occasion of the Destruction of the Military Forces of their Kingdom l. 5. p. 253. Tythes to be paid according to the Scriptures The first Decree of any Council in England concerning the Payment of them and that declares them to be of Divine Right l. 4. p. 234. Aethelwulfe's famous and solemn Grant of them which was the first General Law that ever was made in a Mycel Synod of the whole Kingdom for their Payment Id. p. 263. Edgar's Law concerning them and First-Fruits l. 6. p. 13. Edward the Confessor's Laws concerning what things small Tythes shall be paid out of Id. p. 100. Tythings when Counties were first thus divided by King Alfred l. 5. p. 291. Every man of free Condition obliged to enter himself into some Tything l. 6. p. 58 104. V VAcancy of the Throne in Edwi's time for above a year and what Enormities were committed during that time l. 5. p. 354. Valentia who ordered the Northern Province of Britain to be for the future called Valentia and why l. 2. p. 93. In France defended by Constantine against Honorius Id. p. 102. Valentinian chosen Emperor by the Army at Nice in Bythinia and not long after declares Valens his Brother Partner in the Empire l. 2. p. 91. Is again restored to the Empire of the West by Theodosius but held it not long for he was strangled by Arbogastes at Vienne in Gallia Id. p. 97. Valentinus plotting with some Soldiers against Theodosius they were seized and delivered to Dulcitius to be put to death l. 2. p. 93. Valerianus Pub. Licinius Emperor is made the Footstool of the Tyrant Sapores King of Persia for seven years then flead alive and so died l. 2. p. 81. Valuation The Valuation of mens Heads fâ—om the King 's down to the Countreyman's l. 5. p. 341 342. Vectius Bolanus succeeds Trebellius Maximus in the Government of Britain l. 2. p. 53. Could not attempt any thing on the Britains because of the Factions of the Army Id. p. 54. Venedoti and Daemetae the Inhabitants of Wales l. 2. p. 85. l. 3. p. 139. Venutius a Prince of the Jugantes l. 2. p. 45. Is highly provoked by the Injuries of Queen Cartismandua his Wife he takes up Arms against the Romans she dâ—spises him and embraces an Adulterer Id. Ib. This War is supposed to have begun in Nero's time Id. p. 46. But is carried on against the Romans evâ—n till and in the time of tbe Emperor Vitellius Id. p. 54. Veranius wastes the Silures by many small Iâ—cursions a man of great Vanity and Ambition as appears by his Last Will l. 2. p. 46. Verulam that is St. Albans the Great Council which was held there l. 4. p. 239. Vespasian Flavius afterwards Emperor partly under Claudius partly under Plautius fights thirty Battels with the Britains l. 2. p. 39 41. Brings two powerful Nations and above twenty Towns with the Isle of Wight under his subjection Id. p. 41. Titus his Son serving under him as a Tribune is much renowned for his Valour Id. Ib. Succeeds Vitellius who was deposed about the Tenth Month of his Reign Id. p. 54. His Death when Id. p. 56. Vespatian Titus succeeds and rather exceeds than equals his Father in Valour and Worth l. 2. p. 56. For the great Atchievements of Agricola he was fifteen times saluted Imperator or General is stiled The Delight of Mankind but yet dies as suspected by Poyson Id. p. 57. A Cohort of his having slain a Centurion and other Soldiers deserted and went to Sea turning Pyrates where ever they landed but at last the Suevians and Frisians took and sold them as Pyrates Id. p. 59. Uffa the Eighth King from Woden and First of the East-Angles l. 3. p. 149. Gets himself made sole King and governs with that Glory that it is said the Kings descending from him were called Uffings How long he reigned uncertain Id. Ib. Vice-Domini that is the Governors of Provinces divided by King Alfred into two Offices viz. Judges and Sheriffs l. 5. p. 291. Victor elected Pope in the room of Leo that holy Bishop of Rome l. 6. p. 85. His Decease and who succeeded him Id. p. 87. Victorinus a Roman Governor in Britain l. 2. p. 104. Vienne a City in Dauphine where Constans was slain l. 2. p. 103. Villain if he wrought on Holidays he was to satisfy it with his skin that is by whipping or pay his Head-gild c. l. 5. p. 285. Villains great and prosperous ones often meet with the Punishment they deserveâ— as well the Actors as Contrivers l. 2. p. 96. Virgilius the Scoâ—ish Abbot his Decease l. 5. p. 312. Virgins Geoffrey of Monmouth's Story of Ursula's being sent over to Britain and Eleven thousand Noble Virgins to attend her besides sixty thousand of meaner condition she to be bestowed on Conan and the rest on the other Britains and their End l. 2. p. 96 97. Vitalian the Pope confirms by his Bull King Wulfher's Charter to the Abbey of Medeshamsted l. 4. p. 187. This Bull is confirmed by Pope Agatho Id. p. 200. Ulfkytel the Ealdorman his sharp Engagement with the Danes and the