Beeves and twelve Hogs Add further yet as part of this heavy Leinster Fine says Lucius 30 either white or red Cows with their Calves of the same colour 30 brass Collars for those Cows to keep them quiet in their stabling and 30 other brazen ties for their feet also to keep them gentle at their milking Where nevertheless I must take notice that Lucius in this Account does much vary from Keting and that whatever may be thought of all other particulars of it surely the number of 15000 Cauldrons or Coppers as we call them now of that capacity seems to me somewhat incredible But leaving this to the Readers indifferency what is more proper here may be read in the same Author Lucius where he tells us next of this Monarchs port and magnificence in House-keeping which though very great indeed is however I think credible enough He had eleven hundred and fifty Waiters that serv'd him ordinarily at Table in his great Hall at Tarach And this Hall was by himself built of purpose to answer in its capacity the entertainment and attendance of a great King It was 300 Foot long 30 Cubits high and 50 Cubits broad with fourteen Doors opening into it And the daily service of Plate the Flagous and Cups of Gold Silver and precious stone at his Table there consisted of a hundred and fifty pieces in all What is besides delivered of this Monarch is That which among the truly wise must be more valuable than any worldly magnificence or secular glory whatsoever He was to all mankind very just and in his later days through the mercy of God very pious also religious towards him That so strangely powerful on a sudden were his inward illuminations That in plain terms he now refus'd his Druids any more to worship their Idol Gods That soon after he openly professed he would no more worship any but the only true God of the Universe the Immortal and Invisible King of Ages as the great Apostle calls him And finally that those Priests of the Devil by their Necromantical adjurations and ministery of damned Spirits raised from Hell God permitting it wrought his destruction by choaking him as I have said before For in such manner and for such a cause died this great and happy King of Ireland An. Christi 266. But whether he may or may not therefore be rank'd among the true Christian Martyrs I leave others to judge And the same question might peradventure be rationally put though not I confess with the same advantage of the circumstance of violence from an external cause concerning Connor the first Provincial King of Vlster made by the Monarch Eochuidh Feilioch himself the Author of the Pentarchy about 400 years before the Birth of Christ This Connor's Druyd or Magitian which you please to call him having it seems the spirit of Prophecy as you see in the Book of Judges that Baldam though otherwise a Heathen wicked Idolater had the like on a day speaking his Raptures to Connor and among other things delivering much of the Son of God that was to come down from Heaven to save mankind and was nevertheless to suffer the most cruel death of the Cross from his own beloved Countrymen the Jews whom he came to save before any others Connor says Keting on the hearing of all became so affected first with the stupendious mercy of God to Sinners and then presently so transported against the ungrateful Jews that being in a great Wood at the time of this Discourse he drew his Sword fell a slashing and cutting the Trees about him on every side with the greatest fury could be imagining he had before him still those cruel men that put our Saviour to death and continued so long in this passionate action of transport till by over-heating himself and the opening thereby of some old wounds he had in his shull he died What the Reader may answer to the foresaid Quere in relation to either of these two Kings I know not But think nevertheless what St. John Chrysostom would have answer'd it very consequently at least in reference to the former had the case been debated by him when he wrote his Three Books de Providentia Dei to Stargirius a holy Monk that notwithstanding his holiness was through the permission of God either possess'd or obsess'd or both by the power of the Devil It was also in the time of Ireland's Paganism that Niall the Great surnamed Naoighiollach in Latin Noui-obses in English Niall of the Nine Hostages because says Colgan in his Trias Taumatorge from Vlster Connaght Mounster Leinster the Britons Picts Dal-Rheudans and Morini a People of France in all nine Nations he had Hostages did reign the CXX or CXIX Monarch of the Irish Of whose great cruelty in his judgment given against Eochuidh King of Leinster because I have so particularly spoken before I will not conceal now what I have since observ'd in Gratianus Lucius of the extraordinary favour of God unto him For such we must undoubtedly acknowledg it to have been seeing it was no less than a heavenly illustration of his mind with the beams of Christianity to that degree as turn'd him wholly to a new man of perfect holiness Nor yet less than that above a hundred years after his death his Body on the opening of his Shrine or Tomb which I take to have been on Cruach Phadruig in Connaght whither the Army brought his Body from France was found entire without any corruption Nay nor a jot less than that a Christian Bishop namely St. Cernachus infected with the Leprosie was perfectly cured by visiting and lying down in that very Shrine of this Great Niall Naoighiallach So writeth Gratianus Lucius quoting for his Author Colgan And so I have done with those few of the Kings of Ireland in the time of Paganism that besides many more of that very time and their Catalogue have been for several great Excellencies other than those of warlike bravery or success renown'd in that Nation 34. But after Christianity had been among the people of Ireland universally preach'd and establish'd yea and all along from time to time in the succeeding Ages not even those very Ages following the horrible desolations by the Danish Wars excepted they had questionless notwithstanding all their intestin Feuds many more both Monarchs Provincial Kings and other lesser Kings too famous in their generation as well for other great Vertues especially those peculiar to Religion as for those of Martial fortitude and Valour Yet because I perceive this little Book to swell insensibly beyond my design I pass over much of that which otherwise I would have willingly mention'd in this place And therefore what I can briefly on the present Subject observe is First in general the wonderful Devotion Zeal Religious Liberality of the first Christian Monarchs Provincial Kings and other great Lords of Ireland who upon their first conversion not only parted so readily with the whole Tenths of their Estates real
and personal nay and of their Subjects also both men and women by the dedication of all in a peculiar way to God as hath been said before but were so fervently Zealous even to a degree of excess in this kind that as both Keting and Lucius relate it if St. Patrick would have receiv'd what they offer'd more their Successors should have scarce been left the grazing of four Beasts to bestow on the Church Secondly in particular the great number of those Princes one after another in the succession of so many Ages that notwithstanding all the bloody Feuds and warlike humor of their Nation withdrew themselves in time from sin yea from all the pleasures vanity pomp earthly glory of their condition and by contemning the world for the sake of God made themselves greater than the World A large list of them you may find partly in Keting but more amply and exactly in Lucius And they were those that stripping themselves naked to follow Christ and shutting themselves up in Cloysters made choice of the better part with Mary at the feet of out Lord. Such were the Monarchs 1. Maâ—â—â—hoba who by the prayers of Columbe-Cille recovering from death to life thereupon without delay Anno 610. renounc'd the World enter'd a Monastery profess'd himself a Monk and was after in regard of his holiness made Bishop of Kildare 2. Flaithiortach who likewise though without any such inducement as Maolchoba had in perfect health vigour streingth deliberately chose to dispoil himself of all earthly greatness Goods Employments and exchange them all for a poor monastick Weed in the Monastery of Ardmagh for a penitential course of life within the walls of that enclosure and for a Christian happy death which he found in that same place after nine years more had been over in his holy exercises there 3. Niall Frassach that not only quitted the Crown and Power but the very Soil of Ireland by retiring to the Scottish Isle of Hy and there in Columb Cille's Monastery devoting himself wholly to works of Christian repentance after eight years continual preparation by them for his passage to immortality had it in the year 773. of our Saviour's Incarnation 4. Muirchiortach great Grandchild to Brion Buraimh and one of Ketings Monarchs of Ireland who having resign'd his Royal Authority and together with it whatever else he possess'd or loved on earth put on the habit of a pooor religious man at Lismore where without looking back he ended happily his days 5. Domhnal mhac â—rdghair who according to Colgan as we have seen before was also King of Ireland though in his declining years yet amidst his prosperity retiring to the Abbey of Doire Cholumb-Cilie employing the remainder of his life there in exercises of piety holiness and mortification and lamenting the sins of his former days prepared for encountred and receiv'd death with a serene countenance full of hopes of a glorious Immortality But whether he took upon him the outward profession of a Monk in those exercises there or did not I can say nothing on either side Nor is it very material to know seeing the inward habit of his Soul yielded fruits worthy of true repentance and the severest outward profession of it 6. Ruaruidh O Conchabhair the very last Irish Monarch we have shewn likewise before to have made a religious life under the Habit and in a Cloister of Augustinian Chanon Regulars his last refuge in this World from so many vicissitudes of Fortune There it was he became so truly wise indeed as to prepare only for that other World which being planted far above all the glory of the Sun and all the Circles of time expects only Souls either never tainted with sin at any time or by perfect repentance at least before death throughly purified from its deadly sting And such indeed for making choice either sooner or later of the better part with Mary were those now enumerated Monarchs of Ireland And yet I know not why I might not add to their number Maolseachluinn I. and Brian Boraimh For albeit they never had been either profess'd Monks Anchorites or Clerks nor divested of their Authority Royal nor at all outwardly retired from the cares of the Publick or management of their own domestick affairs or comfort of their Wives and Children yet their piety of life was such as purchas'd for them after death the reputation of holy men Yea S. Cairbre Bishop of Cluan-mhac-Noise when the former died Anno 860. being in extasy beheld his Soul ascending to glory says Lucius And the later has been inserted not only by John Wilson in his Martyrologe but by Henry Fitz Simons in his Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland both these Authors having in this particular followed Marianus Scotus Of the Provincial Kings a far greater number and some of them very early that is in their very youth made the same prudential wise divine choice Aillill Anmbanna King of Connaght led so wonderfully strict a life according to the exactest Rules of Christianity that upon his death it pleased God to shew his Soul to Columb-Cille ascending to Heaven Anno 544. Cormac King of South Leinster about the Year of Christ 567. quitting voluntarily his Kingdom went to Beannchuir profess'd himself there a Monk continued in the same place leading a life truly answerable to his profession till death translated him to happiness Anno 567. which the Irish Church believing has placed him in her Calendar of Saints Aodh Dubh King of Leinster forsaking in the same manner both his Kingdom and whatever else he might enjoy on earth took the Monastical habit and Vows upon him lived accordingly some years in the Monastery of Kildare an underling was after made Abbot then Bishop of the same Cloister and See deceased Anno Christi 638. and in fine was recorded in the Register of Saints Ceallach mhac Reghal King of Connaght made the like exchange of a Kingdom for a Cloister died in the Year of our Lord 703. and is invoked particularly at Lochkinne as their tutelary Patron Ardghal mhac Cathail King of Connaght the very same only that to be further off from all noise of the World he retired out of Ireland to the Monastery of Columb-Cille in the Island of Hy where in the seventh year of his peregrination which was of Christ 786 he ended his mortal course Before him a little that is Anno Christi 739. flourished the good King of Vlster Fiacha mhac Aodh Roin surnamed In Droiched from his continual care of building Bridges every-where throughout his Kingdom to make the ways more passable for Droiched in their Tongue signities a Bridge He was even to admiration vertuously just and equitable to all persons whatsoever Only one Cow taken away by stealth within his Dominion and because peradventure says Gratianus Lucius the Author of this stealth had not been with due severity punish'd he inflicted the remainder on his own person by going a Pilgrimage to Beannchuir In his Reign and
Fictions For so himself expresly says Adding withal that such only and no other was the repute they had in the very days of Yore among the best Irish Antiquaries And for this he brings sufficient proofs by alledging their own words Gratianus Lucius is the next Author I make frequent use of to lead me in several remote affairs of the more Ancient Irish And he likewise an Irish man by birth but of the Province of Connaght and as himself professes by name and blood of English Extraction His own proper name and surname John Lynch his Function Sacerdotal and of the Secular Clergy too His employ besides at Galway for some years in our own time was Teaching a School of Humanity as they call it wherein he was excellent In the differences between the Roman Catholic Confederates in the late unhappy War of that Nation he join'd with those of them that were against the Nuncio Rinuccini's Censures for the Cessation with Inchiquin submission to the King and the two Peaces After the surrender of Galway to the English Parliament Army he went to France Where employing his time as became a good Patriot Loyal Subject he wrote printed and publish'd two Latin Books in Quarto with a Dedicatory Epistle to the Congregation of Cardinals de Propaganda Fide against a Factious disloyal Manuscript which one Richard Ferral an Irish Capuccin had some years before written and presented to the same Congregation as a Direction for them in their government of the Church affairs of Ireland the former entitled Alithinologia the Later Supplementum Alithinologiae Some years after that is an 1662. he publish'd under the name of Gratianus Lucius an other Latin Work in Folio intitled Cambrensis Eversus as being a full confutation of the Author that goes by the name of Cambrensis Who this Cambrensis and what the Quarrel was to let you know if I digress a little it may peradventure be worth the while His proper name and surname in English being Gerald Barry that Additional of Cambrensis he had from his native Countrey in Latin Cambria in English Wales His education of a Scholar profession of a Divine Function of a Priest and as I must suppose merits in all brought him in time to be not only Arch-deacon of S. Davids but Tutor to the young Earl of Mortaign Fifth Son to Henry II. Vnder which Qualifications first his zeal for the old Archiepiscopal privileges of that See engag'd him in a long Contest with the See of Canterbury and then his Election to the same See of S. Davids involv'd him in another In so much that however he came to be worsted in both for so he was yet his name has ever since remain'd on Record in the Papal Canons His extraction made him Nephew to Robert fitz Stephens and Maurice fitz Gerald Cousin to Meylerus and Brother to Philip Barry and Robert Barry five of the first chief men that adventured to Ireland of purpose to advance their own fortune by helping on the Restauration of Diarmuid na Ngall King of Leinster His own Genius once and once more his Place carried him to Ireland For twice he was there first to see his kinsmen daily acquiring large possessions by their valour and next to wait on his young Prince Earl John when created Lord of Ireland and sent thither by the King And now as himself confesses being desirous of glory and immortal fame by describing Ireland and informing the World not only of what he knew of the State of that Kingdom then under the English Conquerors but of all former Conquests and State thereof from the beginning he wrote to this purpose five Books in Latin The first three of 'em under the Title of The Topography of Ireland and the other two under that of The Conquest of Ireland by Henry II. Indeed more specious Titles both than his Relations under them do so much as meanly answer Besides that the Title at least of Topography must be very strangely applyed to signifie the Description of a whole Kingdom And yet notwitstanding This together with the History of all former Conquests and other Antiquities of Ireland is that which he promises to give under the same Title That he has very ill perform'd that he has given his Reader 's nothing less than such a History or such a Description we must not wonder He neither could understand the Language nor so much as read the Books whether of History or Chorography written at large by the Natives themselves in their own Character He saw not in any manner nor travel'd nor view'd e'en at a distance above one Third of the Kingdom nor dar'd for his Life venture into either of the other two parts His whole stay in Ireland being the whole extent of Yime employ'd by him in gathering materials for his intended Work was but a year and a half besides an other half years task which he had left to his Companion Bertram Verdon who therefore stay'd so long behind him His Collections at least for such part of 'em as any way pertinently related to his foresaid promise or Titles were certainly extream little but the rest of them no less extream bad and commonly false to boot They were so little that he describes not so much as one County or Tract or Town no not of that very third Part of the Kingdom which he might have seen Vnless peradventure you take for a Description of all Ireland his Fabulous Narrations of four Wells three Islands three Lakes the Fountain head of four great Rivers and the Fall of the greatest of them all by name the River of Shannon into the Northern Sea Tho it be well known That as all these Narrations are such i. â— meer Fables so the one moiety of these Lakes Wells Islands besides the Head-spring of Shannon are within those other parts of Ireland which he never saw nor durst enter As for the History of the former Inhabitants Conquests and other Antiquities of that Kingdom promised by him it is in like manner not only so imperfect but so little in all respects That 1. he has not the least mention of Tuatha-De-Danainn though a powerful People that by a bloody War entirely won it from Feara-Bolg and were possessors of it for a hundred ninty seven Years under the successive Reigns of seven or rather indeed Nine Kings of their own that is until they also in their turn were conquer'd by the Clanna Mileadh about Thirteen hundred years before the Birth of Christ 2. Of those Clanna Mileadh or Descendents from Milesius though they were the People that continued the Possession and Government of Ireland ever since about 2500 years to this very Authors days yet all the account he gives is only in short that they had a hundred eighty one Monarchs ruling successively over that Kingdom but not a word more of their History Polity Laws Conquests abroad Militia or Wars at home may not so much as a bare Catalogue of
conceal and these we dissembled Nature bids us magnifie deeds that are commendable None but has extol'd the glorious beyond truth So said Lucius Annaeus Seneca in his one Hundred and Twentieth Epistle as rigid a Stoick as he was And yet I can say for my self this much that I have been so far from dissembling in any such kind where I had unquestionable Authors to lead me that I rather fear to have exceeded on this side than on that other 9. That when I had almost finish'd this Former Part I was unexpectedly desir'd to print before it a Catalogue tho containing only the bare Names of all the Kings that in the succession of so many Conquests and many more Ages for even 3204 years reign'd from Slanius the Son of Dela to the sixth year of Rotheric O Connor the Last of the Irish Race when Hen. II. of England was receiv'd Lord of Ireland in the year of Christ 1172. And though I had my self no inclination to it as apprehending that since I have not given any kind of History great or small of all their Lives or Reigns nor indeed any particular account in any Method Historical or not Historical no not scarce of the Tenth among 'em it would seem a vanity in me to promise more by the Frontispiece than the whole Structure is worth yet after I was persuaded So prevalent with me was the esteem I had of his judgment that urg'd it altho he gave me no other reason than that certainly it would prove at least some satisfaction to all curious Searchers into such remote patterns of Antiquity And truly had he or any other given me this occasion before I had engag'd too far in pursuance of the Method taken by me all along I would have given another kind of Catalogue I mean such a one as together with the Name of each King should have had annex'd the years of his Reign the means of his attaining the Sovoreignty the manner of his death whether natural or violent some one at least of his most remarkable Kingly Actions if any such were recorded of him the Year of the World or Christ respectively answering both the first and last of his Reign and all this of each in a small number of Lines and the whole of all in seven or eight sheets at most or thereabouts I am sure I might with far less trouble have done it than the collecting digesting and discoursing on the matters handled in any one at least in the sixth Section of this Former Part have given me Gratianus Lucius in his Eighth Chapter would have eas'd me of other care in doing it than that of rendring his Catalogue there into English in some few places abridging him by referring the Reader to those pages of my own where I treat the matter at large and in very few places more by adding somewhat out of Keting and then animadverting on both Keting and him But no easing me in that kind could hinder the unproportionable swelling of this Former Part if I should annex to it such a Catalogue as this And therefore in stead thereof I give that of bare Names which take up but little room Perhaps hereafter I may give the other too in a small Treatise bound together with the Later Part. I mean if that Later Part can better than this here admit of such a conjunction without rendring it self unproportionably thick However that happen there needs no further Preface now A Catalogue of the Kings of Ireland Who according to the Irish Book of Reigns and Computation particularly of Lucius Reign'd in all 3204 Years before Henry the II's landing there Anno Christi 1172. Kings of the Fir-bholgian Conquest Reigning in all 36 Years 1 Slainghe 2 Rughruigh 3 Gann and Geannan two Brothers 4 Seanghann 5 Fiacha Cinn Fionnain 6 Rionnal 7 Oidghen 8 Eochâ—dh Kings of the Tuatha-De-Danann Conquest Reigning in all 197 Years 1 Nuadhad Airgidlaimh 2 Breas 3 Lugha Lamhfhada 4 Andaghdha 5 Dealbbaoith 6 Fiacha mhac Dealbhaoith 7 Eachtur Teachtur Ceachtur surnamed Mac Coill Mac Ceacht and Mac Greine the three sons of Cearmada Kings of the Clanna Mileadh or Milesian Conq. Reigning in all 2971 Years 1 Eibhir Fionn and Erimhon two Sons of Mileadh joyntly reigning 2 Erimhon singly 3 Muininne Luigne and Laigne three Sons of Erimhon 4 Iriall Faidh 5 Ear Orba Fearon and Feargna Four Brothers Sons to Eibhir Fionn 6 Ethriall mhac Iriall Faidh 7 Conmhâ—â—l 8 Tighearnmhais 9 Eochodh I. Eadghathach 10 Cearmna and Sohairce two Brothers 11 Eochodh II. Faobharghlas 12 Fiacha I. Labhranna 13 Eochodh III. Mumho 14 Aonghus I. Ollmhuicidh 15 Eunna I. Airgtheach 16 Roitheacthuigh I. mhac Maoin 17 Seadhna I. mhac Artri 18 Fiacha II. Fionscothach 19 Muinemhon 20 Allerghoid 21 Ollamh Fodhla 22 Fionshneachta I. 23 Slanoll ach 24 Geithe Ollghoth 25 Fiacha III. 26 Bearnghall 27 Oillioll I. 28 Siorna Saoghalach 29 Roitheachâ—huigh II. mhac Roin 30 Elim I. Ollfionshneachta 31 Giallchadh 32 Art I. Imleach 33 Nuadhad II. Fionnfail 34 Breasrigh 35 Eochodh IV. Apthach 36 Fionn mhac Bratha 37 Sedhna II. Innarrhuidh 38 Siomon Breac 39 Duacha I. Fionn 40 Muiriadhach Bolgrach 41 Eunna II. Dearg 42 Lughadh I. Jarann 43 Siorlamha 44 Eochodh V. Vaircheas 45 Eochodh VI. Fiadhmhaine and Conn Begeaglach 2 Bro. 46 Lughadh II. Lamhdhearg 47 Conn Begeaglach the second time 48 Art II. mhac Lughaidh 49 Fiacha IV. Tolgrach 50 Oillioll II. Fionn 51 Eochodh VII mhac Oilliolla 52 Airgiodmhair 53 Duacha II. Ladhghrach 54 Lughha III. Laidhe 55 Aaâ—dh I. Ruadh 56 Dithorba 57 Ciombaoth 58 Macha the Queen 59 Reachta Rithdhearg 60 Eoghan Mor. 61 Buchadh 62 Laoghaire I. Lorc 63 Cobhthach Caolbhreag 64 Lauradh Loinnseach 65 Meilge Molbhthach 66 Modhehorh 67 Aonghus II. Ollamh 68 Jar Ainghleo 69 Fearchorh 70 Connla I. Cruaidhcheallgach 71 Oillioll III. Cassâ—hiaclach 72 Adhamhair Foltchinn 73 Eochodh VIII Altleathan 74 Ferghus I. Fortabhaile 75 Aonghus III. Tuirmhidh Teamhrach 76 Conall I. Columhrach 77 Niadh Seadhghamhaine 78 Eunna II. Aignioch 79 Criomthann I. Cosgrach 80 Rughruidh I. mhac Sithrigh 81 Jodhnambar 82 Breassal 83 Lughadh IV. Luighnioch 84 Conghall II. Clarigneach 85 Duach III. Dalltha Deaghniodh 86 Fachna Fathach 87 Eochodh IX Feidhlioch 88 Eochodh X. Aimhremh 89 Eidrisgceoil 90 Nuadhad II. Neacht 91 Conair I. Mor. Immediately after the murder of this Conair surnamed the Great committed on him by some Irish Outlaws but headed as Keting says by Hainchill Keagh Yon to the King of Brittain there follow'd An Interregnum of five Years which being over the Succession was re-assum'd and continued thus 92 Lughadh V. Sriamhndearg 93 Conchahhar I. Abhraruadh 94 Criomthann II. Niadhnair 95 Fearadhach I. Fionnfachtuach 96 Fiacha V. Fionn 97 Fiacha VI. Finnolaidh 98 Cairbre I. Ceann-cheit 99 Feilim I. mhac Conruidh 100 Tuathal I. Teachtmhur 101 Mal. 102 Feilim II. Rachtmhur 103 Cathaoir Mor. 104 Conn II. Ceadchathach 105 Conair II. mhac Moghalaimhe 106 Art III. Aoinfhir 107 Lugha VI. alias Mac Con.
and that this Cuornâ—ne flying away presently to shelter himself under the wings of Domhnal and Ferghusse the Sons of Muirchiortach mhac Earcha two powerful men in their own Territory and they for his better assurance recommending him to Columb-Cille's protection the Monarch nevertheless lighting on him put him to death for his unpardonable crime at Taragh Which Columb-Cille resented so grievously that he persuaded such Families of the Neales as inhabited the North who by way of distinction from those other Neales living in the South of Ireland were called Clanna Neill in Tuaisgâ—â—art as the said other were Clanna Neill in Disgcâ—art to fight the Monarch while himself pray'd to God for their good success And it seems God was pleased to hear his prayer for humbling the Monarch For the issue of the Battel fought so by those Neales at Cuile Druimhne was that Diarmuid not only saw himself routed but almost his whole Army kill'd in that very Field The second on this occasion Dal-Narruidh and other Vltonians had in a difference twixt Columb-Cille and Comghall shewed themselves unjustly partial against Columb as he thought And therefore he had the Battel of Cuile Rathan fought against them Who this Comghall was I cannot certainly tell tho I think he might be the great Comghall alias Congellus Founder and Abbot of Beannchuir of whom so much has been said before I am sure he and Colum-Cille were contemporaries and of the same Province of Vlster But for being Author of the third Battel Columb-Cille had a much more specious cause it I may presume to interpose my simple judgment than either of the two former Baodhan mhac Niueadha who had been Monarch but one whole year being in some extraordinary danger from his Enemies Columb-Cille pass'd his word in the nature of a Sanctuary to him to keep him safe in that extremity Which Colmane mhac Colmain not regarding he had him set upon and murder'd by the two Cummins viz. Cummin mhac Colmain Bhig and Cummin in hac Libhrein at Carrig Leime in Eich or the Horse-leap in Jomairge And this was the cause that moved Columb-Cille to persuade and be Author of the Battel of Cuile Feadha fought against Colmane mhac Diarmuda It is true That whatever or how just soever the causes of each or all those three Battels had seem'd to Columb-Cille yet the holy Bishop Molaisse was so far from approving any of them that for engaging in them any way he not only most severely reproved Columb-Cille but enjoyn'd him the grievous pennance of departing presently out of Ireland and never more during life to see it It is also true that Columb-Cille with all humility and readiness obeying this injunction departed forthwith to Scotland where the power of God was with him so eminently in converting such vast numbers of Infidels to Christ as if God himself from all eternity had preordained those three Battels to be the occasion of saving the Picts And no less true it is That when the great Parliament of Ireland was summon'd by the Monarch Aodh mhac Ainmhirogh to assemble at Drom Ceatha as they did and sate there thirteen months without intermission or Prorogation debating principally those three things which he proposed to them 1. That of Banishing for ever all the Poets out of the Kingdom by reason of their being an excessive intolerable burden to the People Whereof you may see strange particulars in the following account This was the fourth time the Poets whom the Irish in their Language call Ollamhs were by a general Decree all of them condemn'd to Banishment into Dal-Riada in Scotland by reason of their insolency excessive number and burthen to the People For 1. They beg'd all what-ever seem'd to be most valued by the Noble-men who out of a foolish custom that prevail'd too long could deny them nothing And therefore they had the impudence to beg of this very Monarch Aodh mhac Ainmhiriogh the richest and most precious Jewel in all his Treasury and had it 2. Their number was near a third part of the People of Ireland So says Keting if my Copy of his work be right There was a thousand of them that kept Trains of Vnderlings waiting on them continually where-ever they went The chiefest of all had 30 men for his own particular train The next to him 15. and so forth descending every one of them had some number in his own proper retinue to the very last of 1000 leading Poets 3. They were all of 'em with all their numerous trains yearly cess'd on the other Inhabitants of the Kingdom from All-hallows-day till May-day even six entire months of the year And these I think were sufficient reasons to Banish them as I have said they were three several times before this Parliament of Drom-Ceatha had been chiefly called for the same end For you are to understand that after each of their former Banishments they were still harbour'd in the North until they procur'd licence to return to all the other Provinces The first time being a thousand in number at the intercession of Columb-Cille who went in behalf of Conchabhar King of Ulster to meet and invite them they were staid received and maintain'd by him and his Nobles of that Province till seven years were over The second time by Fiachna mhac Baodhaine King of Ulster but for one year only their number being seven hundred The third time by Maobchoba King of Ulster likewise one whole year when their number was full 1200. But this fourth time at the Parliament at Drom-Ceatha tho Colum-Cille had interposed for them all he could yet being convinc'd by the Monarch's reasons he acquiesed at last in what was decreed there not only for the suppression of their multitudes and reformation of their abuses and ease of the People but even for preservation of their own Language Laws Poetry History Genealogy and Chronology arts both useful and delightful to all ingenious Men and civil Nations As 1. That the Monarch Provincial and other lesser Kings and every Lord of a Cantred or Barony should each of them entertain a Poet of his own bestow on him and his Posterity for ever a competent Estate in Lands to live upon and that both his Person Lands and other Goods should be exempt from all publick duties 2. That for preserving the sciences they profess'd there should be some publick Free Schools both appointed and endowed with Lands by the Estates of the Kingdom in general And pursuant to this Decree those two in Breithfne the one at Rath-Ceanaidh the oother at Magh-Sleacht were establish'd 3. That the Monarch's Poet or Ollamh should be the Ard-Ollamh that is Arch-Poet and Arch-Professor of their knowledge and that he should have the appointment of and a superintendency too over the rest 4. And lastly none otherwise or above this number to be allow'd 2. That of deposing Scanlane Mor mhac Ceanfoaladh King of Ossory who was then his Prisoner and committed even by Authority of
whole Irish Nation had the ambition or lust or heart or valour now to entitle himself to that Soveraignty which had cost their Fore-fathers so many hundred Battels and such Rivers of blood to conquer it from one another he now usurps the title as he had before the power of King of Ireland though not acknowledged for such by the Irish at least not otherwise than by the meerest Galley-slaves their cruel unjust tormentors may be In fine that how long or how short soever it continued after this although it was indeed unsupportable to any human Creatures not wholly devoid of sense or feeling nevertheless it was no other than the most eminently prophetical Saints of that Nation Columb-Cille and Berchane observing even in their own time the detestable Pride Ambition Injustice Violence Licentiousness Aveâ—sation from all good Government so common and so ingrafted in their great Lords and Chieftains had 200 years before it happen'd fore-told should happen as a just judgment from God upon so sinful a Generation of men And which is very remarkable that Columb-Cille particuly foretold how in that very Monastery which in his time had been founded at Ardmacha such a Heathen powerful Stranger from beyond Seas and such in all respects as Turgheis was should make himself Abbot of it as verily he did upon his chasing away Foranan the Christian Abbot long before he had assum'd the Title of King of Ireland Yea and which I am sure is no less if not more remarkable yet that Berchan in express terms prophesied how under such a Forreign Tyrant every Church or Cili in Ireland should be possess'd by an Abbot of his Gang. 27. Besides I can inform you that altho in regard of the extraordinary mortifications offered and prayers incessantly pour'd out to God by the small remainder of the Irish Clergy who had hitherto saved themselves in uncouth horrid Wildernesses he was mercifully pleas'd as Keting says about this time i. e. after some few years of the universal Bondage to inspire that counsel to Maolseachluinn mhac Mhaolruanuidh the Irish King of Meath which as we have related before destroy'd both the Tyrant himself and all his Armies and Fortifications too on a sudden and consequently set all the Irish Nation free being now restored every private person to his former possessions as the Lords and Princes and Provincial Kings were each of them to his own respective jurisdiction at large and the said Maolseachluinn by common consent made Monarch and so their Policy and power of Dominion at home fully recovered Yet so were not their Riches their Treasures their Gold Silver and Jewels those former spoils of so many forreign Provinces for so many hundred years gathered home to Ireland by their Pagan Predecessors During so many strong impressions of the late conquering Heathen Foe into the very heart and all the most secret recesses of Ireland all were taken by them and carried away by their several Fleets some to Norway some to Denmark and the rest to other Eastern Borderers on the German or Baltick Sea And which was a greater loss to the Learned their Libraries their Books were never recover'd Only the few Religious men that preserv'd themselves preserved also a few of their Books But the greatest loss of all was not only of Learning in the Mart of Litterature but of Sanctity in the Island of Saints Neither the one nor the other was ever at any time after this restor'd in Ireland at least not near the former degree of eminence The only thing the only virtue indeed that after so many great losses revived illustriously and continued eminently conspicuous in that People was their Military prowess their Valour Bravery Fortitude in the second Danish War to say nothing more of their destroying Turgesius and all his Forces by help of that stratagem which ended the first And yet I must confess that all their Martial spirit in that very second War did exert it self in was only in defending themselves at home without any design or thought for ought appears to us of imitating those former Heroes among their Ancestors that carried the terror of their Arms both far and near abroad The truth is they were no sooner enfranchiz'd from the Tyranny of Turgesius than they resign'd themselves wholly to ease and rest and a life of extream unworthy unmasculin laziness Insomuch that they not only neglected all kind of Navigation and provision for it tho they might have considered that the like neglect formerly since they became Christians had been at least one of their greatest banes and that which gave their Invaders the opportunity of attacking them without fear on every Quarter of their Island whether with great or small inconsiderable Fleets but were so far besides blinded that having slighted all the Danish Fortificacations throughout the Land they made none at all in their stead nor indeed in any place not even on the Sea Ports for their own defence from abroad And which was yet more strange would not themselves be at the trouble of guarding so much as any one of all those very Ports but entertain'd in pay some of those very Forreigners their late vanquisht enemies for that employment of greatest trust whom therefore that is from their being hired for pay they call'd Buannacidhs In a word they gave themselves over to Luxury and full enjoyment of the good things of the Land which naturally of it self without much labour was a Country flowing with Milk and Honey and all things else necessary both for life and pleasure But the greatest of Curses expecting them was that by the time and it was but a very short time when they had surfeired on plenty and wantonness they presently says Keting return'd to their old vomit again They renew'd their fatal Feuds divided were at cruel discord fell a persecuting one another like mad as in former times with all kind of hostility This kindled anew the wrath of God against the Nation in general to such an extream that notwithstanding his mercy prevail'd with him still so far as not to bereave them of their Martial Fortitude tho they had so long and so often and so freshly now again abus'd it so mightâ—ly but to expect for a much longer time even two or three Ages yet their amendment and repentance before he would utterly destroy them nevertheless he did without delay permit his justice to set open once more the Flood-gates of the North to pour in the second time upon them those Ministers of his Vengeance the Norvegians Danes and their other barbarous Heathen Associats known to us only by the name of Oostmans or Easterlings and to continue their â—â—undations in Ireland to Plague a Rebellious ungrateful Generation of Christians and plague 'em now for a hundred and fifty years more compleat For as I have already noted elsewhere so long at least did this second Danish War continue heavy upon 'em only some few lucid intervals it had excepted And yet neither
half So that by this time I think the Reader has no reason to complain of want of Instances to purpose out of this Reign of Muirchiortach mhac Neill Who as we have seen was the saddest of them all himself as having by his own Vassals been set upon unprovided fought overcome and kill'd In the last place Ruaruidh O Conchabhar King of Connaght e'n that very same Ruaruidh who contended for so many years before with Muirchiortach mhac Neill and submitted to him at last appears now his Successor on this long tottering Theatre of Irish Monarchs Keting delivers a very imperfect account of him saying That besides Cannaght he had only the Kings of Breithfne and Oirghillac to acknowledg his Sovereignty and giving scarce any thing else happen'd in his Reign but what relates to Diarmuid na Ngall the Leinster Kings Rape and to the Brittons invited in by this Diarmuid nothing I am sure of those warlike Actions and great Contests of this Monarch with other Irish Princes But this defect in Keting is elsewhere abundantly supply'd I mean by Gratianus Lucius in his Cambrensis Eversus In this Author grounding himself on the Annals of Inis Faile you may read that this Ruaruidh not only bore the Title of King of Ireland but was so indeed But without any peradventure the Relation given by him shews this last Irish Monarch's fatal Reign to have been fruitful enough of those and they the very last of those Instances I purpos'd to recount Immediately on the death of his Predecessor kill'd by Eochadh he march'd his Connaght Army to Assa Ruah subdued all Tirconel and received their Hostages From thence both with his own Connacians and the Legions of Breithfne Teamhfna and Meath led on by Tighernan O Ruairk King of Breithfne and Diarmuid O Maolseachluinn King of Meath he march'd to Dublin enter'd it was entertain'd in it by the Danes Easterlings and other the Inhabitants of that City and Territories belonging to it with all demonstrations of honour was proclaim'd their King and they presented by him according to the custom then with a royal Gift of 4000 Beeves From hence but joyning first all the Militia of those Citizens to his former Legions he goes directly so accompanied to Droghedagh the Irish call it Droighid At h is received there by Donochad O Cearbheoil King of Oirghiallae has Hostages whom he pleas'd of that Countrey put into his power and then causes a present of 2000 Beeves more to be in his name given that King From thence returning back to Leinster he advances to Findorf gives Battel there to Mac Murcho King of Leinster defcats him pursues him forces him at last to submit and give Hostages then abridges him of his jurisdiction leaves him only Cionsallach and bids him be content with that or he should lose that too From thence he made his progress to Mac Gille Phadruic the King of Ossory who delivering Pledges was royally treated and presented by him And now he enters Mounster has the submissions of all the Province bestows North-Mounster on Muirchiortach O Brien his own Brother by a Mother commands pledges from Diarmuid mhac Cartha King of South-mounster and so passes on in triumph to Connaght his own home having well nigh surrounded the whole Island in this very first year of his Reign After which circuit and either in the same year of our Lord 1166 as Gratianus insinuates it to have been or at furthest in the next as the Annals of Ireland in Cambden expresly say it was that Diamuid mhac Mhurrchadh alias Mhurchu and Diarmuid na Nghall having committed the famous Rape if it was a Rape on Tighernan O Roirk King of Breithfn's Wife the same Tighernan to be reveng'd on Diarmuid by the Monarch's Authority heading both his own Breithne Forces with those of Meath and most of Leinster too march'd into Ibh-Cionsallach made Diarmuid fly beyond Seas destroy'd his Castle at Ferns divided his said Countrey of Cionsallach between Mac Gille Phadrick King of Ossory and one Murchadh the Son of Murchadh and then return'd with seventeen Hostages for the Monarch And now this revenge or justice on Diarmuid being executed the Monarch himself An. 1167. attended on by all the Kings and Nobles of Mounster Leinster Meath Breithsne Comhaicne Orghiall and Vlidia or Vlla which I take to have been then but a part of the now large Province of Vlster with all their Troops consisting of Nine and thirty thousand Foot and one and twenty thousand Horse march'd to Ardmach From thence of one side with those great Land Forces and from Doire now by us call'd London-derry on the other where his Fleet of a hundred and ninety Sail had landed he attacks Tir-Eoghain so furiously on every side that after the stubborn Forces of that Countrey being first retired into their Woody Fastnesses had not only in vain attempted to fall by Night on his Royal Camp but instead thereof by a great mistake had fallen fouly on one another in the dark they found it necessary on the fourth day to submit and deliver him Hostages This Expedition being ended so he breaks up his Camp dismisses his great Army the several Troops and Legions to their respective Countreys returns himself by the way of Assa Ruagh to Connaght with the two Mounster Kings in his Company entertains them nobly at his own Palace there and at their departure presents them richly But he had not rested above one week at home when he had intelligence brought him of Diarmuid mhac Mhurchadh the Leinster King's being landed in Cionnsallach with forein Auxiliarics possess'd already of Wexford Master besides of a great part of Leinster and a terrour to all the rest Those call'd the Annals of Ireland in Cambden which yet began no earlier than four years before this Monarch Ruiruidgs O Cenchabhar's Reign say these forein Aaxiliaries landed An 1168. But the right Irish Annals that record their landing in the former year 1167. are sollowed by Gratianus Lucius and him I follow However presently on the news Ruaruidh O Conchabhar the Monarch heading his Conacian Troops and joyning in his way the Militia of Meath and Dublin marches to Findorch finds out fights and defeats Diarmuid An atonement between them follows Diarmuid giving the Monarch seven Hostages for his future fidelity and paying a hundred ounces in Gold to Tighernan O Ruairck for the injury done him by the Rape And yet Diarmuid by new Tumults the very next Year giving new jealousies the Monarch marches against him the second time and fights and foils him again Though after all he was wrought upon to accept this second time of Diarmuid's submission promises and base Son for Diarmuid had none at this time remaining that was Legitimat as a new addition to the former Hostages In the same Year 1â—68 Ludos Taltinos dedit says Lucius That is he gave and held with great solemnity the publick famous ancient Games at Tailtean What these were and who ordain'd them first
and upon what occasion you may peradventure know in the next Section At present it may suffice to know they were much like the Olympick Games of Greece But whatever this Aonach of Tailteann as the Irish call it be thought to have been Lucius proceeds and tells us that in the same Year also Muirchiortach O Brien King of North mounster was murder'd by the South mounster men That the Monarch made his Brother Domhnal O Brien King to succeed him put him in full possession fined the Desmonians in 3120 Beeves for killing his Brother and made them effectually pay this Fine The same year likewise he fined the Methians in 800 Beeves and the men of Dealfna heavily for the killing of O Finolan one of their Lords In the Year 1169. Domhnal Breagach for being Author of Diarmuid the Prince of Meath's death he punish'd with the loss of that Estate which the said Domhnal by so wicked an Act of murder aim'd to inherit But this Monarch did confiscate it so as he reserv'd West-meath to himself and the Conacians bestowing at the same time Eastmeath on the foresaid Tighernan O Ruairk and his people of Breithfne Anno 1175. Domhnal O Brien King of North-mounster pull'd out the eyes both of Diarmuid mhic Teaidhg and Mahoom mhic Toirrgiallaidgh vihh Bhrian yea and murder'd the Son of Conchabhar O Brien of Corcumruadh To punish this Tyranny Rotherick or Roderick for so the English Writers name this Ruadhruigh the present Monarch enters Tomond makes Domhnal fly and because he could not find him lays his whole Countrey waste In the same Year 1175. he defeated in Ormund the Irish call it Ir-mhoun that is East Mounster both the Welsh English and Irish Troops led by Strougbow kill'd 1700 of them in the place and forc'd that Earl how valiant and fortunate soever till then to give over his present design and retire in great disorder to Watenford After this but yet in the same Year still Ruadhruigh considering not only the defection of many of the Princes from him but their variance among themselves and which was most dangerous of all his own Sons turn'd unruly and rebellious and therefore considering also that himself alone was not able any longer to bear up against so many Enemies both Domestick and Foreign Irish and Brittish well nigh already environing him round he now at last descends to Capitulations of Peaco with the King of England The sum of them says Lucius the Irish Annals deliver in words importing mostly this sense that Cathal alias Catholicus O Dubhay Archbishop of Tuam return'd out of England with the Peace concluded by him there with Henry II. on these conditions viz. That Rotherick should enjoy still the authority and Title of King over the Irish and the Provincial Kings their respective dignities and power but with their former dependance on and subjection to him the said Ruadruigh O. Rotherick But whatever those Capitulations were which you may see more particularly and fully in Roger Hoveden ad An. 1175. pag. 312. the troubles of Ruadhruidh were but little abated by them In the Year 1177. one of his own Sons by name Murchadh out of some unreasonable pique turn'd most unnaturally Traytor to him sided with the common Enemy and was the very Guide to Miles Cogan and his English Troops in their entring Connaght or at least from their coming to Roscommon till they were soon after fought and beat and forc'd back out of that whole Province by Ruaruidh himself Who thereupon seiz'd the said Murchadh and though his own Son put out his eyes for his rebellious unnatural Treachery and justly enough without any peradventure as at the same time for some other heinous transgression he confin'd prisoner to the small Island in Loch-Cuam his own other yea his eldest Son Conchabhar whom notwithstanding O Flatherty and other Favourers of this young Prince rescued by plain force within a twelve-month from that restraint and set at liberty To conclude partly the forein Invaders but chiefly his own Children brought this last Irish Monarch's hoary hairs with grief to the Grave Even his own eldest Son the foresaid Conchabhar in the year 1186. first depriv'd him of his very Kingdom of Connaght then by sundry other indignities forc'd him to fly away to Mounster and last of all after he had been recall'd by the Connaght Nobility compell'd him again to seek refuge in Tir-Chonaill And here it was that this now afflicted man indeed though in his youth and manly years too for some time the Darling of Fortune found his long wish'd-for death among the Chanon Regulars in the Year of Christ 1198. having first by habit and profession made himself a member of that Religious Order He continued seventeen years possess'd at least in part and in Title of his Monarchy over the Irish For so many years their Antiquaries allow his Reign over Ireland though from the beginning of it to his death were efflux'd full two and forty years Thus you have in substance the account and a very particular full one indeed it is given by Gratianus Lucius of this very last Milesian Monarch and his Reign over Ireland Wherein if I be not extreamly mistaken you have withal though among other matters which I have for some use that may be made of them hereafter mentioned Instances enough answerable both in quality and number to those alledged before out of any of the former Reigns of Irish Monarchs since Maolseachluinn II. for demonstrating what I intended by them all Certainly these and those jointly taken are sufficient demonstrations that the Monarchs Princes and other great ones of that Nation receiv'd no correction from the great Hand that from above scourg'd them so grievously so often and so long Nor can it be denied that the later part of the same Instances I mean that large part of them which hap'ned between Maolseachluinn II. Reign and Ruadhruigh O Conchabhair's death are most evident convictions of the little nay the evil use in order to any reformation of their fatal Feuds they made of the hundred and thirty years freedom from foreign Enemies after the last expulsion or subjection of the Danes though a large term of time questionless allow'd them by the extraordinary mercy of God to consider at least then more wisely of the matter and not only relent from their former unnatural courses of persecuting and spoiling and killing and murdering one another but heartily repent what themselves and their Parents and their Grandsires had done in that kind exasperating him continually to hasten on 'em that final doom of theirs which he had so long suspended Neither is it any further to be doubted that both the former and later part equally of the same Instances are sufficient proofs that those passages of Jeremy the Prophet which I have given before page 153. however in his time and as spoken by him describing only the stubbornness of his own Jewish Countrymen might nevertheless be most justly applied by Keting the
a single Person must evince the same truth So for Spain Alphonsus III. by putting out the eyes of all his Brethren save one that was kill'd Alfonsus IV. with the like cruelty us'd by his own Brother â—aymirus Peter the Legitimat Son of Alphonsus XI depos'd and kill'd by his Bastard Brother Henry Garzias by Sanctius then Sanctius by Vellidus and after so many retaliations all Spain under King Roderic betray'd to the Moors by a natural Spaniard a Subject to that King Count Julian Prince of Celtiberia as Bodin calls him yea seven hundred thousand Spaniards kill'd in the short space of fourteen months next following that hideous treachery must evince mightily the self-same truth So for France those horrible Feuds Combustions Devastations cruelties inhumanities barbarous sacriledges of the late Civil Wars there continued 40 years against four Kings whereof you may read at large in D'Avila and the Holy Ligue and both Henry III. and Henry IV. one after another so vilely murder'd by those devoted Assassins of Hell Jacques Clement and Ravilliac evince it still Lastly and to come nearer home tho in an earlier time even so for England 1. Those eight and twenty Saxon Kings of the Heptarchy part by one another kill'd part by their own Subjects murder'd besides many other depos'd and forc'd to fly away for their lives For as Matthew of Westminster l. 1. c. 3. writes of the very Northumbrian Kings alone four were murder'd and three more deposed within the little time of one and forty years only And therefore it was that Charles the Great of France when the news of the last of them by name Ethelbert being murdered came to his hearing not only resolv'd to stop the presents he was before on sending to England nor only to do the English in lieu of sending them gifts all the mischiefs he could but said to Alcuinus an English man his own Instructor in Rhetorick Logick and Astronomy that indeed That was a perfidious and perverse Nation a murderer of their Lords and worse than Pagans Nay therefore also it was that many of the Bishops and Nobles fled out of this Northumbrian Kingdom and no man dared for 30 years next following venture on being their King but all men declined it and so left them a prey to the Irish Scâ—ts and Danes who by the just judgment of God over-run them and destroy'd them at last on that very occasion principally 2. Since the Norman Conquest besides the horrible rebellion of Henry the 2d's own Children against him and many other particulars which I pass over not only all the calamities miseries cruelties unspeakable evils of the Barons Wars on both sides under King John Henry III. and Edward II. nor only the deposition and murder too of this poor Edward even his own Wife Queen Eleanor and his own very Soâ—thâ—e Prince of Wales having both of them concurr'd in the deposing him and usurping his Crown but the most prodigiously mortal dissentions of Lancaster and York began with the rebellion against deposition and murder of Richard the II. and so bloodily prosecuted for thirty years under Henry VI. and Edw. IV. that besides eleven main Battels fought with infinite slaughter of English men on either side nay even twenty thousand men kill'd besides the wounded in one of them which Polydore calls the Battel of Touton a Village of Yorkshire the excellent Historian Philip Comines tells us of 80 of the Blood Royal destroyed in them and among this number Henry VI. a most vertuous innocent holy King most barbarously murder'd To say nothing of Richard the Third that Usurping Tyrant so justly dispatch'd in the Battel of Bosworth by the Earl of Richmond who thereupon succeeded King by the name of Henry VII and by marrying the Daughter of Edward IV. and thereby most happily uniting in himself and his Queen and Issue the right of the two Houses ended those fatal dissentions of Lancaster and York Dissentions indeed so fatal to England that besides all her best blood at home as we have seen by their long continuance from the year of Christ 1393. to the year 1486. lost Her not only the Kingdom of France but even the more ancient Inheritance of our Kings in the Dukedoms of Normandy Aquitane and whatever else belong'd to the English Crown on that side of the Sea only the Town of Calais with its little Appendages excepted Were it necessary Buchanan could furnish out of the neighbouring Kingdom of Scotland a very large addition of more examples to the purpose of this place But more than enough has been already said to conclude that notwithstanding any thing or expression in either of the two former Sections my meaning could not be to make those bloody Feuds in Ireland or consequents of them so peculiar to the Milesian Race or Irish Nation as if no other People on Earth had been at any time guilty of the like or as horrid The truth is I mean'd only to say That in respect of their long duration perpetual return from time to time for almost five and twenty hundred years compleat and their excessive degree at very many times within that long Succession of Ages especially considering the small extent of Ireland those cruel bloody Feuds were both National and peculiar to that People only Which I think is true notwithstanding that other Nations either much greater or much lesser might have been in some few Instances of time as high nay peradventure much more horrible transgressors in the very same kind than those antient Milesians were at any one time since their Conquest of Ireland from Tuath-Dee-Danan 33. The second point is to do those ancient Milesians the right as to acknowledg what their Histories have at large That amidst all the Feuds and fury of their Arms how bloody or how lasting soever they had several both Monarchs and after the Pentarchy was set up lesser Kings yea some of those too in their time of Paganism and many more as well of those as these after Christianity establish'd that were of great renown among them for other excellent Qualifications becoming their dignity than those only of Martial Vertue and Fortitude In time of Paganism they had their XXII Monarch Ollamh Fodhla so called from his great Knowledg that very name given him importing in Irish as Gratianus Lucius hath observ'd a great master in Sciences and Teacher of all Knowledg to his People It was he that divided the Lands of Ireland into Hundreds call'd by them Triochae-chead and placed a Lord over each Hundred and over each Town of the Hundred a Bailiff an Applotter of Duties and receiver of Strangers to provide Entertainment for them They had their XCI Monarch Conair mor mhac Eidirsgceoil so great a Justiciar so zealous a Prosecutor of all Malefactors that although with great pains industry hazard to himself yet he forc'd at last all kind of Robbers Thieves Vagabonds and Idlers to fly the whole Kingdom and after this during his Reign
the Cattel throughout all parts and Provinces wandred safely in the Fields without any Keeper Besides the magnificent Hospitality of this Monarch is wonderfully celebrated in that Nation Add hereunto this farther happiness of his Reign That in it the weather was so mild from mid-harvest to mid-spring that both Kine and Sheep and other Beasts lay continually abroad in the open air without feeling one sharp breath of wind the Sea covered the very shores at Imbhercholptha then so called after Droichid ath by us now corruptly Droghedae or Tredath with a most prodigious ejection of all sorts of Fish and the fruit-bearing Trees were so laden that they hung down their branches to the very earth They had their CIV Monarch Conn surnamed Ceadchatach whose Reign notwithstanding that prodigious number of Battels sought by him as we have seen before was so wonderfully abounding in all earthly blessings throughout Ireland that when the Writers of after-Ages were minded to express any time of extraordinary abundance or plenty they said it was the Reign of Conn Ceadchatach or Conair Mor return'd again on Earth Now doubtless it could not be otherwise than morally impossible that considering all his Battels there should be so much plenty in every part of the Kingdom had not he as well as Conair Mor before him been as good a Governour as he was a great Warrior And yet on this occasion let me tell you that neither the one nor other excellency could save him from being murther'd Whereof because of the extraordinary contrivance and manner of it I take that notice here which I find in Gratianus Lucius though otherwise it may seem forein to this place and Keting has not a syllable how or where or whether at all this Monarch died either of a natural or violent death But thus in short it happen'd In the 35th year of his Reign which was of Christ 157. being retired without Guards or much attendance at a place then called Tuaihamâ—rois the King of Vlster by name Tibraid Tirigh employed 50 young striplings clad like Maiden Ladies to dispatch him and they did it says Lucius For it is only to him we are beholden as for many other particulars so for this very singular one indeed And if I may conjecture it was or at least might well be thought the pattern whence Maolseachluinn I. when he was yet but King of Meath derived his own stratagem whereby he destroyed the Danish Tyrant Turghesius They had their IVC Monarch Fearrhadhach Fachiuach a Prince of so much Truth in hâ—s words and such integrity in his Life and Actions that from thence he was surnamed Fachtuach signifying in Irish Truth and Integritâ— says the same Author Lucius And it is observable what both he and Keting write of one Moran chief Justice under this King that he had a ring or hoop of such Vertue that when it was put about the Neck of any Judg or any Witness whatsoever at the time the one was to give Sentence or the other to depose upon Oath if either did swerve a title from the right then presently it clasp'd and pinch'd and wrung them so close that to avoid present death by strangling they retracted openly before all the Spectators what they had so wickedly done amiss Whence proceeded that Proverbial wish among the Irish O That he had Moran's Ring about his Neck when they suspect the truth or integrity of any person But to proceed with their Kings They had their CII Monarch Felim surnamed Rachtmhor from his being a Great Maker of excellent wholsome Laws Among which he establish'd with all firmness that of Retaliation kept to it most inviolably and by that means preserv'd the people in peace quiet plenty and security during his Time They had their CIX Monarch Cormock mhac Airt who says Lucius in making good Laws for the Commonwealth and observing them exceeded by much all his Predecessors He wrote a Book of the Institution of a Prince to his Son Cairbre He had the Psalter of Taragh composed In this he gives an account at large 1. of all the noble Irish Families their propagation and relation by blood one to another 2. Of the limits not only of every Province of Ireland but of every Countrey both great and small in each of them 3. Of the Duties Rents Tributes paid usually out of each Province to the Monarch or King of Ireland 4. Of the Duties paid unto the Provincial Kings by the Lords their Vassals 5. And finally of the Rents accrewing to every such Lord from his Tenants any where in the Kingdom The Book also which they call in Irish Sanasan Chormaic and we in English may call the Etymological Dictionary of Cormock is by most ascribed to him though by some to Cormock O Cuillenan the holy King and Archshop of Mounster I pass over his Martial Spirit his Fortune and success in Arms. Tho it was he that when by the surprisal force and rebellious usurpation of Ferghussa Dubhdeadach King of Vlster he had been first dispossess'd of his Royal Mansion of Teamhuir alias Tarach and then affronted with the burning of his Beard as well by the command or direction as by the servant of the same Vlster King Fearghussa for so Gratianus Lucius calls this Northern King tho Keting names him Giolla as I have done before and then after this affront had been banish'd into Connaght yet within a twelve month accompanied with 30 great Lords 50 other Chieftains and fifty thousand men gave Battel at Criombreag to this Usurper kill'd him destroy'd his Army and for the rest of his Vlster adherents banish'd them for ever to the Isle of Man Yea it was he that after this Field was further yet Conqueror of all his other Enemies in 36 Battels more and thereby gave perfect peace to the whole Kingdom for the remainder of his long reign which lasted in the whole forty years And further also it was he that with the Sword of Justice took revenge on the more than savage cruelty of Dunling the Son of Eudeus that murdered those 30 celebrated Virgins living collegially as in the Temple of Vesta at Cluain-fearâ— in Teamhuir all of them of such Royal extraction and quality that each had 30 Virgins more in retinue which made in all Nine Hundred For that unparallel'd Savageness of Dunling this Monarch destroy'd the twelve Tyrants of Leinster who either by approbation of it or defence of him were guilty of it Lastly It was he that whether on this occasion or no I know not But this I know that Lucius writes how it was he that even to a farthing's worth made the Province of Leinster pay the old Boarian Fine impos'd upon them by Tuathal Teachâ—mhor Which this Author says consisted not of 3000 but of 15000 Cows and so many Hogs Mantles Silver Chains Cauldrons of Brass or Coppers that is 15000 of each and each Cauldron as large as that in the Monarch's Kitchin at Tarach which boil'd together at one boyling twelve
wickedness committed by his Brother Which yet he had not forgiven but only delai'd to judg as having never once heard of it before that very morning when he was preparing for Battel and consequently his Soul taken up wholly with other cares Whereby says Gratianus Lucius relating this matter at large and quoting O Duvegan for it we may guess at the condition of those Governors that wilfully and deliberately not only delay the punishment of so many horrible crimes they see daily committed even against all Justice and Religion but resolve never to punish them Neâ— enim injuria quis dixerit eum saevire in bonos qui parcit-malis But if you be of an other judgment as to this Maxim I mean That he is cruel to the good who spares the wicked or if peradventure you boggle at the miraculous part either of this Relation of Conchabhar O Cealla's death or of the former enumeration of such Irish Christian Monarchs Provincial and other Lesser Kings who have been famous in their time for piety you may pass it over and leave it to the devotion and credulity of other men that have not the same apprehensions doubts or scruples as they have not the same soul with you I am sure that laying all such matters aside there is among those great Examples of Virtue enough still remaining to edifie any good Christian or any sober man alive Though I must tell you withal that as no Writer holds himself accountable either for the verity or falsity of any other matters of Fact whatsoever written by him out of ancient History so much less for those of Miracles And yet further I must acknowledg that I know not whether any man writing purposely of a Nation or People that both firmly do believe such miraculous works to have been wrought by God among their Predecessors and would perhaps hold it a very invidious malevolent diminution of their glory for such a man to pass them over wholly in silence it were just or prudential in him to do so However I have avoided the two extreams I have not been wholly silent as to such matters nor have I given but a very few of them Besides I do not interpose a syllable of my own judgment Though I would nevertheless be as free either to assent or dissent or even to suspend as any other upon sufficient ground But enough of this and together with it of all I intended to give in the second Point 35. The third is an Appendix to what has been hitherto said of the personal piety of those Princes For I am now to give in order what was done partly by some of the very same partly by other Irish Kings Princes Lords as well to reform the Commonwealth regulate the Church restore Learning to the Nation as to promote Christian religious piety among all their Subjects no less than in themselves And all this I mean acted by them after the general calamity of the Danish Wars yea and acted by them notwithstanding their own so frequent relapses at this very time into their old Feuds again Brian Boraimh so often mention'd but never enough praised must be the first Instance in this place He set all men free from the exactions of the Danes All the spoils gained by him from the Danes he bestow'd on others All the Lands and Territories of the Kingdom he restor'd to the ancient Proprietors and lawful Heirs not retaining to himself or any Relations one foot of Land belonging to others He conferr'd on each Temporal Lord great Priviledges and Immunities according to his degree He restored to each Bishop his own Diocess to each Priest his Church throughout Ireland He founded built endow'd many Churches Schools Colledges and with Royal munificence care solicitude gave a new beginning again to the destroy'd Universities He bestow'd on every person that would learn money to bear his charges competently He built at his own proper cost the Cathedral of Cill-da-Luagh the Church of Inis Cealtrach and re-edified the Steeple of Tuaim-Ghreine He built many Bridges made many Causeys mended many High ways before not passable He erected many new Forts strengthened the old ones with new Bulwarks and in particular fortified Cashel the usual mansion of the Mounster Kings He re-edified all the Royal Houses or Palaces in Mounster that before his time had been either utterly ruin'd or wholly neglected in particular thirteen of them His Government was so rigid that under it a young Woman travail'd all alone from Toruidh to Cliodhna the length of Ireland with a gold Ring hanging on the top of a Wand in her hand without meeting any that attempted to rob or ravish her Besides he enter'd not on the Sovereignty by murdering or killing his Predecessor as so many others did who nevertheless were not tax'd with Usurpation because of their descent from the Royal Line and yet Brian was undoubtedly of the Line from Heber Moreover he was gloriously magnificent in his Port. No man could carry Arms in his Court where ever it chanc'd to be except only Dal-Gheass that were his own peculiar Guards All the Provinces of Ireland every one and some lesser Countreys too besides the Danes inhabiting Dublin and Limmeric lay under a considerable Boraimh or Tax which they paid yearly for the maintenance of his House at Ceann-Chora viz. Connaght 800 Beeves and so many Hogs Tirchonail 500 Mantles and 500 Beeves Tir-Eoghuin 600 Beeves 600 Hogs and 60 Tun of Iron Clanna Ruidhruidh in Vlster 150 Beeves and so many Hogs Oirghilluibh 800 Beeves Leinster 300 Beeves 300 Hogs and 300 Tuns of Iron Ossory 60 Beeves 60 Hogs and 60 Tuns of Iron Danes of Dublin 300 Pipes or Buts of Wine Danes of Limmerick a Tun of Claret for every day in the Year what Mounster paid I do not find In short his Hospitality at Ceann-Chora in every degree was such that excepting the Monarchs Cormock mhac Airt and Conair mor mhac Eidrisgceoil no other King of Ireland ever did an near it Maolseachluinn II. in his Second Reign especially towards the middle of it when he gave himself to Devotion and thoughts of an other life did as well in good Government and care of the Publick as in Piety shew himself both a great and good King He reedified many Schools repair'd many Churches maintain'd 300 Scholars out of his own Revenue laid the foundation of S. Mary Abbey in Dublin built and endow'd it An. 1039. * Vnderstand this according to Ketings Computation that gives Clantar Clantarâ—â— Battel fought on the 16th of April 1036. but not according to Gratianus Lucius or others that deliver it fought earlier by 20 years viz. Anno. 1014. the very first Abbey we read of built in Ireland since the universal destruction by the Danes For the Monarch Toirghiallach mhac Teaidhg mhic Brian Boraimh that he was not only a good man but excellent King you may read in Lucius very convincing Arguments 1. That during his twelve years Reign there was
Christ 498. the time of Fergus Mor as they call him son to Ercho Nephew to Eochadh Muinreamhar and of his five Brothers with him invading the North of Brittain And Tigernacus who commonly delivers in Latin what was done abroad as what was done at home in Irish has of the present subject this following passage Fergus Mor mhac Ercha id est Fergusius Magnus Erci filius cum Gente Dalrieta partem Britanniae tenuit ibi mortuâ—s est c. That is Fergus Mor the son of Erch with his people of Dal-Riada possess'd himself of part of Brittain and died there about the first year of the Popedom of Symmachus Which was the year of Christ 498. as Primat Vsher has rightly observed Besides the old Irish Book containing the Synchronism or if I may so speak the contemporariness not only of the Monarchs and Provincial Kings of Ireland but of the Kings in Albania too expresly relates how it was in the twentieth year after the Batâ—â—l of Ocha that the six sons of Ercho viz. the two Enguses the two Loarns some Copies have Coarns and the two Ferguses whereof one was this Fergus the Great pass'd over into Albania I say nothing how Nennius translated into Irish among O Duncgans Miscellanies says it was in the sixth Age of the World 〈…〉 〈…〉 the Dal-Riadans had conquer'd part of the Countrey of the Picts and the Saxons enter'd on other parts of Great Brittain Nor do I insist on O Duucgan himself though he most minutely prosecutes this Adventure of Ercho's Children telling the Families issued from them in Scotland which he calls Albain what Lordships or Lands each of them was possess'd of there and what Forces by Land or Sea they usually raised But what I am particularly to observe is that of all hands among the Irish Annalists and Historians it is without any contradiction admitted That this Fergus the Great son to Ercho is the same with Fergusius I. King of the Scots though in Boethius Major Buchanan c. called in Latin the son of Ferchardus That the foresaid Battel of Ocha wherein the Irish Monarch Oillioll Molt perish'd was fought in the year of Christ 478. And that from this year to the year 498. there is no man but sees the just interval must be those twenty years on expiration whereof the foresaid Book of Syncâ—ronisin relates the passing of Fergus Mor to Brittain And the issue of all must be that certainly as to this particular either all the ancient Irish Annals and Monuments besides the late Histories of Keting and Lucius are extraordinary false or Buchanan and Hector Boethius and all other Scottish Authors follow'd by them are extreamly out Even so far out as to have at least inverted the whole succâ—ssion descent line and genealogie of their Kings by giving us a Catalogue with the Lives and Reigns of two or three and forty Kings as descended Lineally from Fergusius I. before he had been existent on Earth For Congallus is the Xliiii King in Buchanan c. and yet the eighteenth year of this very Congallus according to Buchanans computation must have been the year of our Lord 498. in which all the Irish Records place the landing of Fergus Mor in Scotland tho the very first of the Catalogue in him and other Historians follow'd by him Moreover and which yet is no less considerable than any of the former Arguments we may take notice that Buchanan and his Authors make Reuda the sixth King of those in his Catalogue descended from Fergus Then which nothing can be more plain against all the Irish Antiquities To say nothing of V. Bede in his Eccles Hist l. 1. cap. 1. whom you may consult at leasure But for the Irish Chronicles I am sure they tell us particularly that the Monarch of Ireland Conaire mhac Mogha Lauae had three sons call'd the Three Carbry's viz. Cairbre Muisck from whom the Tract of Musckry and Cairbre Baisckin from whom the Land of Corca bhaiskin both in Mounster has denomination and Cairbre Riada alias Riadhfada That this last of the Three was the first Irish Conqueror of the Countrey in Albania which bore his name being called in Irish Dal-Riada in English the Part of Riada and by Latin Writers Dal-rieta Dal-Reuda and the Inhabitants Dal-Reudini as Bede calls ' em And that his foresaid Father the Irish Monarch Conaire mhac Mogha Lauae having reign'd in Ireland eight years was kill'd in the year of the World 5364. being the year of Christ 165. Whence it must follow that his said son Cairbre surnamed Riada in Irish though by V. Bede and others called Reuda must have invaded the Picts and possess'd himself of that part of their Countrey named from him at least three hundred years before the time of Pergus the Great who as we have seen before invaded not Albania till the year of Christ 498. So wide in this very particular of Reuda is the Irish account and History from the Scottish in Buchanan How to reconcile the difference in either particular being it is so great and concerns so great a succession of Kings and Ages too for at least 819 years I leave to such as shall please to concern themselves in it more than my purpose in this place requires I should my self But let them withal take these further Animadversions to thought 1. That the Father of this Fergusius the Great however you call him Erck Ercho Ercha or either as Buchanan has it Ferchardus or any other name whatsoever was never King of Ireland as no more was Fergus Mâ—â— himself notwithstanding Buchanan's intimation to the contrary but only a Brother to Muirchiortach the Irish Monarch that reign'd over all Ireland from the year of Christ 503 to the year 527. wherein he was murder'd 2. That Joannes Major himself though a Scotchman has in his little History of Great Brittain cap. X. reflected on that Vulgar Errour in the Annals of Scotland where they place Fergusius I. before Reuda's time 3. That Hollingshed in his English Translation of Hector Boethius professes himself to be of Opinion That very many of those Kings related by the Scottish Histories to have reigned successively one after another in Scotland were such as neither successively nor in Scotland but together at the same time reigned part of them in Ireland and part in other adjacent lesser Islands 4. That Gratianus Lucius in his Camb. Evers page 93. adds moreover Himself to think not improbably that the Scottish Authors borrowed a great number of their Kings from those indeed that were Pictish Kings Where to ground this Opinion of his he produces an old Irish Translation of Ninnius I mean as to the Catalogue of Pictish Kings in that ancient Author and fixes in particular on eighteen of them by name among which is one Gregory albeit Gregory be the Lxxiii King of Scots in Buchanan's Catalogue and that King too in whom Buchanan glories so much as to record him to posterity by the
Title of Gregory the Great which he says was deservedly given him by his own People 5. That although in Buchanan's account this very Gregory began his Regn an Christi 870. and finish'd it by his death anno 892. and consequently was not only King of Scots but of Scotland being the Pictish Kingdom there at least as 't is commonly suppos'd had been utterly destroy'd full thirty years before the very first of his Reign yet if his being either King of Scotland or King of Scots be no truer than Buchanan's Relation of his invading Ireland fighting a great Battel victoriously there against the two Protectors or Tutors of the young King Duncanus a Minor and then visiting this young King at Dublin where he resided and then appointing new Tutors for him and last of all taking with him to Scotland threescore Irish Hostages out of the several Provinces of Ireland I dare say there was never any such thing or Person or Prince as Gregory King of Scots For besides what I have given before page 23 24. to disprove this great fiction of Gregory the Great either conquering or at all invading Ireland 't is clear out of all the Irish Antiquities recording the Danish Wars that not the Irish nor any Irish King Minor or not Minor did possess Dublin at that time but the Danes And indeed to confirm this truth the Annals of Vlster tell us that in the year of our Lord 871. two great Danish Captains viz. Ainlaph and Juor came from Albania to Ath-Cliath alias Dublin with two hundred sail and an exceeding great Prey of English and Brittons and Picts whom they brought Captives to Ireland So that Dublin most certainly was in the Reign of that Gregory of Scotland not under any Monarch or other Irish King as no more was it in a hundred and fifty years following but in the power of the Danes who were at least the first Re-builders of it much about the same time that Buchanan supposes it to have been the Metropolitan City of Ireland tho it came not to be so till Henry the Second's Reign For he indeed was the first King or Lord of Ireland that ever kept his Court there and by appointing it the Residence of his Vice-Roys gave it in a little time so great splendor that the Forger seeing it so in his own time thought fit in much earlier times to place his forged Irish Monarch of Gregory of Scotlands story Duncanus in it as in the Royal Mansion of the Kings of Ireland Whereas to the contrary nothing is more known in the Irish Histories than that the City of Tarach full twenty miles from Dublin was the Royal Seat of the Kings of Ireland till its destruction by the first Danish War and in the same days Dublin at best but a very mean place respectively 6. That nevertheless as I am apt enough to believe that allowing Cambden the liberty of an hyperbolical expression he has upon sufficient grounds told us that the Earls of Argile derive their Race from the ancient Princes and Potentates of Argile by an infinite descent of Ancestors so I am verily persuaded that by how much the Genealogy of Kings must be more narrowly sifted than that of any Subjects by so much Gratianus Lucius has upon surer grounds exactly derived in a direct Line the descent of James the sixth of Scotland and first of Great Brittain not only through so many Kings his Predecessors of Scotland from the ancient Kings of Argile up along to Fergus I. nor only from those before that very Fergus through fourteen Generations up to Reuda but even before this Reuda through fifty three Generations whereof Twenty four were Monarchs of Ireland up along to Herimon the first sole absolute Monarch of the Milesian blood in that Kingdom even so long since as Three thousand years wanting only seven Nay I am likewise persuaded that he has also very exactly in two other Lines carried up the descent of the same King James through thirty one other Monarchs of Ireland to the said Herimon as also in a fourth and fifth Line through four and twenty more of the Irish Monarchs and here I mean twenty four more wholly different from all those fifty six already given of Herimons Race up along to Heber who being the stock in these two last Lines makes the 25th King of Ireland in this number ascending upwards for so he was during his short life in a joynt Sovereignty with his foresaid Brother Herimon 7. That undoubtedly this derivation of King James through so many Lines for three thousand years and from the Loins of eighty one Irish Monarchs besides all the truly real both Kings of Scotland and Kings of Scots or Dal-Riada and Argathelia in Scotland given us at large by Gratianus Lucius in his Camb. Evers page 242. 243 and 244. as it is by many degrees a much more ancient so it is a much more glorious derivation of the Royal Pedigree than either Buchanan or Boethius or Major or indeed any other Scottish Historian nay or even any Scottish Herald whatsoever among those called English Scots was capable to make even so much as in any manner well or ill as being wholly ignorant of the Irish Antiquities which they could neither understand nor read if they had had ' em And these are the Animadversions I desire them take to thought who shall either persuade themselves they can reconcile the difference 'twixt the Scottish and Irish Histories concerning Fergus or except against me for laying it open how justly soever the story of Him and Coilus given by me page 20 out of Buchanan has put a necessity on me to do so here There is a passage in my 21 page that says The Romans built Towers and Bulwarks all along the Southern Coast of Brittain at convenient distances against the landing of the Irish on that side out of their plundering Fleets Herein also I followed my Author Keting if I understand him rightly But having since consulted Cambden I found that either Keting had mistaken the matter or I him For the truth is that albeit in relation to the Caledonians or Picts and Scots inhabiting or those driven at that time to the Countreys lying North of Grahams Dyke the foresaid Towers or Castles must be acknowledg'd built in the South yet in relation to the whole Island of Great Brittain or to us now in England they were not so Which and whatever else concerning either that Dyke or Wall of the Romans that you may the more fully understand take this following Extract out of Cambden according to Hollands translation of him Camden in his Scotia and Sterling Sheriffdom Julius Agricola observing the narrow land or Streight by which Dunbritton Frith and Edenborough Frith are held from commixing fortined this space between with Garrisons So as all the part this side was then in possession of the Romans the Enemies remov'd and as it were driven into another Island In so much as Tacitus judg'd
that Nation at least of such as relate to their Monarchs And because all reason tells us that the Irish Antiquaries who give in a manner the most minute particulars of all the Invasions and Fights in that Countrey either amongst their own Princes or against Foreiners and Battels lost and Victories obtain'd at any time under any of the several Monarchs of Ireland for much above two thousand years until the English Conquest an 1152. would never have omitted at least these mighty Victories told us by Hanmer which if true would much more have made for the glory of their Nation than many or most or perhaps any of those other so exactly and minutely too not a few of them related in their Chronicles Secondly because of all these following particulars than which nothing is more clear and uncontested in all the Irish Chronicles or Histories that are not known Romances 49. For they particularly and unanimously tell us in the first place what in effect I have said before viz. that Gathelus himself otherwise by them and in their Languages named Gacidheal and surnamed Glas from whom originally the whole both Milesian and other Gathelian Irish descended and are therefore jointly callâ—d in Irish Clanna Gaoidheal i. e. the children of Gathelus not only never came to Ireland nay nor into Spain neither but was no where on Earth living some hundreds of years before Mileadh or Milesius was born That under Pharaoh Cingeris he was born in Egypt though begotten by Niall Brother to the King of Scythia That his Father Niull was both contemporary and acquainted with Moses and offered to do him service kindness too when the Children of Israel were upon the banks of the Red Sea to cross it over Niull being then by Pharaoh's gift possessor and Lord of a large Countrey near that place where the Israelites encamp'd at that time That as the Father Niull so the Son Gaodheal or Gathelus and children after him continued in Egypt until Pharaoh Intius banish'd the whole Race of them away and forc'd them to seek their Adventures elsewhere under the conduct of Sruth the son of Easruth son to the said Gathelus or Gaodheal Glas. That Mileadh or Milesius whose posterity long after invaded conquered and possess'd Ireland was the nineteenh Generation from the said Gathelus and Pharaoh Nectanibus being the XVth Pharaoh after Cingeris who had been drown'd in the Red Sea was the King of Egypt who gave his Daughter to Milesius in marriage That although it be from the said Gaodheal Glas the Milesian Race in Ireland and Race also of their Cosins that came with them out of Spain and those and these only of all the Irish be properly called Gaoidhil or Clanna Gaoidheal i. e. the children or descendants of Gathelus yet tste Irish Language is not from him called Gaodhealc but from an other Gathelus or Gaodheal former to him another I mean who either compos'd or at least refin'd and distinguish'd it into those five several different idioms or dialects for Poetry Law Genealogy c. so hard to be understood all of them by any one man that they would require the whole Age of a man to attain unto them Lastly that the posterity of the later Gaodheal I mean Gaodheal Glas and of his Wife Scota at least so called viz. the Milesian Race their Cosins had been possessors of Ireland near 1320 years before the birth Christ In which account or period of time even Cambrensis himself and Polichronicon agree as we have seen before page 6. And therefore that story of Hanmer derived from Harding and Meuin telling us of Gathelus and Scotas coming to these Northern parts or landing in Ireland anno Christi 75. must be one of the most ridiculous stories in the world They were dead well nigh two thousand years before and in their life-time never left Egypt for ought that may be known of them In the next place they tell us that Bartolanus whom they call Partholan enter'd planted and possess'd Ireland anno Mundi 1956. that is about 300 years after the Flood Argument enough that Hanmer knew nothing of the Irish History when he joyn'd together Bartolanus and the Milesian off spring as being of a company and entring Ireland at the same time for this also he does And yet we have seen before that the Milesians came not to Ireland before the year of the World 2736. that is 731 years after Bartolanus had setled there 50. Besides they tell us particularly and unanimously that as we have often seen already in that year of the World 2736. and before Christ 1308 years those Iherians the sons of Milesius landed and conquer'd Ireland How then could they be conducted thither and assign'd that Countrey for their Habitation by Gurguntius King of Great Brittain He was not in being then nor in many Ages after I am sure he was not King of Great Brittain by Hanmer's own relation until the year of the World 3580. Nor was he Conductor of those Iberians to Ireland nor did they swear allegiance to him until the year of the World 3592 and before the birth of Christ 376 according to Campions account That is full 858 years after they had conquer'd that Kingdom And therefore I need not quarrel either Campion or Hanmer about their relating those Iberians or Spaniards before their passing to Ireland to have dwell'd in Gascoign or towards Baiona or within the jurisdiction of that so great and Capital a City then though it be not true Nor need I expostulate with them about their affirming that Gurguntius had the Sovereign Rule of that Countrey and City and consequently of these very Milesians when they dwelt thereabouts before their adventuring to Ireland Enough is said already to ruin this whole story And by consequence enough to overthrow all the supports of that pretended subjection of Ireland to Gurguntius But if I mind you once more that Polichronicon nay Cambrensis himself who is the Ringleader as in many other so particularly in this matter to Campion Hanmer and other late Authors confesses the landing of those Iberians in Ireland full 1800 years before the mission of St. Patrick to Ireland by Celestinus in the year of Christ 431. then I doubt whether I have not said more than enough on the Subject I am sure that by this very computation or confession of Cambrensis and their own account of the year before Christ wherein Hanmer and Campion say Gurguntius met those Iberians at Sea this year before Christ and this meeting of Gurguntius at Sea must be later by a whole thousand years of the World than that assign'd by Cambrensis for the conquest made on Ireland by the same Iberians Moreover the Irish Antiquaries no less particularly tell us that Criossan Niad Nar was Monarch of Ireland Keting when our Saviour was born That this divine Generation happened in the 12th year of his Reign and his Reign lasted in all but four years more That
Conchabhar Abhraruadh was King before him for one year only but before him Lughadh Sriabhndearg had continued Monarch six and twenty years compleat That this same Lughadh married the King of Denmarks Daughter and before his Reign immediately an Interregnum of five years had been which followed upon the murder of Conair Mor mhic Eidirsceoil and before this Interregnum the same Conair Mor had reigned full seventy years in great prosperity That after the foresaid Crioffan Niadnair those who immediately succeeded in the Sovereign power of Ireland were Fearrhadlach for twenty years then Fiacha Fionn for three and after him Fiocha Fionnolladh for twenty seven years more That these those in all seven Monarchs were every one of them kill'd in such and such manner and by such and such men of their own very Nation That after the seventh of them had been slaughtered by the Athaghtuachi or Countrey Boors and Plebeians in their General conspiracy against all the Royal and noble Blood the same Athatchtuachi set up for King of Ireland one Cairbre surnamed Ceannchait or Caitcheann from his Cats face an Irish man indeed by birth but by descent originally that is in the Ninth generation before come out of Denmark as one of the King of Denmark's sons who had accompanied Lauradh Loinnsioch returning with Anxiliaries from France to recover his inheritance the Monarchy of Ireland which Lauradh did Anno 3727. according to the computation followed by Gratianus Lucius Lastly that this Usurper Cairbre Caitcheann was at the end of five years kill'd and all his rebellious rout of Peasants and their partakers overthrown by the Nobles headed then by the rightful Heir of the Monarchy Tuathal Teachtmhor who thereupon was received as such being now the C. Monarch of the Milesian Race And all these matters together with so many other particular appendants on them within the Reigns of those eight or nine Monarchs which Reigns compriz'd the whole Reign and Life too nay much more time before and after than the whole Reign or Life either of Augustus in the Roman Empire the Irish Antiquaries give us most exactly at large And yet not a syllable of Fredelenus nor of either of the Frotho's no nor indeed of any other forein King or Prince or Adventurer so much as invading Ireland within or near that time though they wanted not occasion in Lughad's Reign and in Caibre Ceannchaits as we have seen to reflect on such matters if any such had really been The same or like argument though but a Negative one yet founded on the general silence of all the Irish Annals Chronicles Histories in the greatest concern of their Nation must be to every indifferent person a clear proof and conviction enough against the vain relations of Hanmer and Campion c. borrowed by them out of Cambrensis as by him from Geffrey of Monmouth I mean at present only those Fables of their great Brittish Heroe King Arthur's forcing the Irish Kings to pay him Tribute and their appearing at his great Court and City of Caer Leon upon Vsk and the Irish Monarch that as they idly fain was contemporary and tributary to him to have been called Gillemer In any of the Irish Annals Chronicles Histories there is not a syllable of any part of these matters no not so much as of Arthur's attempting once at any time on Ireland or picking or having any quarrel with any of the Kings or Lords there Nay Keting does quote Speed himself though a late English Auhor asserting in effect the whole to be a meer fiction and that Ireland was neither subject nor tributary to Arthur And the Keting in his Preface same Keting is positive herein that there was never any King of Ireland by name Gillemer Besides that Muirchiortach Mor mhac Ercha was not only Monarch of Ireland when Arthur was King of Great Brittain but in peace and amity all his life with him Where it may be added that if Arthur was created King of Great â—rittain in the 18th year of his age and was kill'd Anno 542. as Buchanan says he was then Buchanan l. 5. Rer. Scot. in Goran Rege XLV certainly the said Muirchiortarch Mor and his two next Successours immediately following one another Tuathal Maolgharbh and Diarmuid mhac Cearbheoil were those three Kings or Monarchs of Ireland that by succession were contemporary to the whole Reign of Arthur which if Buchanan be judg consisted of 24 years And yet there was no quarrel at all by any of them with Arthur much less subjection to him Also it may be added That as Keting says Fergusius the First of Scotland was Brother to the foresaid Muirchiortach King of Ireland And consequently that the Subjects of Muirchiortach were great Conquerors in the Northern parts of Great Brittain at that very time Yea that as Buchanan himself in the Reign of Goranus the XLV King of Scotland in his Computation and History relates it The great Battel of Humber wherein Arthur was not only defeated but mortally wounded nay in effect lost both Kingdom and life was fought against him by an Army of Irish Scots however in confederacy and conjunction with the Picts and some Brittons led in the same Field by Modrocdus against him Out of all which may be seen how unlikely the stories of King Arthur in Polychronicon Hanmer Campion c. which relate to Ireland are How improbable that must be of Westmonasteriensis in his years of Christ 497. and 592. which attributing the Monarchical power of Ireland to one Gillamurius alias Gillimer one that was never heard of in Ireland represents him notwithstanding as taken there by King Arthur and thereupon the rest of the Irish Princes e'en plainly forc'd to yield themselves all and do homage to Arthur How vain also is that of Cambrensis to the same purpose written before telling us It is read that the famous King of the Brittons Arthur had the Kings of Ireland his Tributaries and that some of them waited on him in his great Court of Caer Leon. But above all the candor and ingenuity of honest Galfridus the first forger of these among so many other Fables appears in grain however Cambrensis had not the confidence either to quote him for it or to mention at all Gillamurius though a part of it And yet notwithstanding any thing hitherto either in this place or elsewhere said I doubt not the posterity of the ancient Brittons have just reason if not to glory of King Arthurs Trophies at least to be sorry for his untimely Death and heartily wish their Ancestours had not deserv'd to see their blooming hopes in him so suddenly vanish Though at the same time I must ingenuously confess there are but too too many reasons able to suspend any judicious knowing man's belief of what even Buchanan himself has in our own days transmitted to Posterity for authentick Truths of this famous Kings renowned glorious performances viz. That he had continually been for many years but most particularly
hand but by stooping and putting down his mouth like a Beast on all sides of the very bathing Cistern or Cauldron at large wherein he had wash'd Which being over the whole Rite and Solemnity of his inauguration was ended and he compleatly install'd in his Kingship of Tirconel So says Cambrensis intimating hereby as if this filthy custom held in that Countrey even in his own time But Keting has abundantly refuted this no less filthy abominable Fiction where he shews at large in the Reign of Brian Boraimh the known solemn decent and significant Rites yea and places too of Inaugurating every King and Prince in all the Provinces of Ireland and who were the Lords or which were the Families that bore the chief Offices at the respective Inaugurations Particularly as to the Prince of Tirconel namely O Donel of whose creation this Fable of Cambrensis must be understood the same Keting shews that the place both of his Election or Inauguration or Investiture was Cill-mhic-Creunain and the chief Officers at it were O Fiorghaill who carried before him and solemnly put into his hand the White Rod which was his Scepter and O Gallechuir who was his Marshal But Gratianus Lucius page 316 of his Cambrensis Eversus takes a little more pains in this particular He tells in the first place how when any was to be created O Donel all the Estates of the Countrey met together upon a certain Hill And how the Assembly being full one of the greatest Peers amongst them rising up and standing in the middle of the multitude with a pure white streight un-knotty Rod in his hand address'd himself to the new Elect in this manner and words Receive Sir the auspicious Ensign of your Dignity and remember to imitate in your Life and Government the whiteness and streightness and unknottiness of this Rod to the end no evil Tongue may find cause to asperse the candour of your Actions with blackness nor any kind of corruption or tye of friendship be able to pervert your Justice Take therefore upon you in a lucky hour the Government of this People and exercise the Power given you hereby with all freedom and security And how these words spoken he deliver'd the Rod into the Prince's Hand and so the whole Solemnity was perclosed In the next place Lucius desires it may be consider'd that the whole controversie in this matter with Cambrensis may be in short reduced to these Queries Whether we ought to believe one Hear-say-mans denial before the affirmation of very many both ear and eye-witnesses Whether Domestick Writers especially those whose peculiar employment calling charge it is are not more likely to deliver the truth of matters to Posterity than a meer Foreigner that not only never was in the Countrey he speaks of as Cambrensis was never in Tirconel but shews himself in too too many Instances a perfect Enemy even to all that wish it well And whether we owe belief rather to publick National Records and Monuments than to the Narration of a private man which was not more purposely invented by some Bard or Ballad-monger than desirously taken up by an invidious Writer Thirdly to these and after these Questions Lucius in effect answers and reasons thus That without question the Irish Chroniclers wrote of these matters to discharge the duty of their place but Girald both in his Topographical and Historical Books of Ireland such as they be yielded so far to passion even that of extream hatred as made him not only obscure the Truth but suppress it even with manifest Lyes and Fictions That no indifferent considering Person can believe that St. Patrick who accurately surveying this Countrey of Tirconel converted all the People of it and together with them instructed so their Prince Conall Gubhan in the austerest principles of Christianity that in a secular habit he lived an Hermits Life would have permitted such filthy dregs of Pagan superstition to remain Jocelin c. 138. had there been any such and this not only among the baser obscure sort of Plebeians but among the very most illustrious the very Princes themselves of the People That if such obvious and conspicuous turpitude had which is not credible escap'd the knowledg of St. Patrick who lived among 'em threescore years assuredly it could by no means have escap'd either the notice or reprehension of those many other Saints who in the succession of so many after-Ages of Christian Religion lived in that very Countrey of Tirconel That above fifty eminent Saints are upon Record of those descended from the Loins of that Conall Gubhan alone whereof the greatest part fix'd their dwelling there and built also there above twenty Monasteries That the two Episcopal Sees of Doire and Rapoth were constituted in those early days in the same most Northern Tract of Vlster wherein as many Bishops and Abbots succeeded one another so many religious Watchmen must be acknowledg'd to have been viewing far and near about them in such manner as it was morally impossible so hideous and withal so publick notorious a blemish could all along even for six hundred years compleat till the time of Cambrensis escape their animadversion That betwixt many of the Bishops and Abbots of those two Dioceses and the Lords or Princes or Kings which you please to call 'em of Tirconel there was often both very great familiar friendship and near kindred too That if the reverence of the Princes did awe other Prelates from reprehending this nasty bestial ceremony of their creation undoubtedly at least among their kinsmen Prelates some would have been found that out of Nature and for the sake of consanguinity would have admonish'd them and procured the reformation of it That no man can believe that the Saints Columb-Cille Bathenus Lasrenus Fergnaus Suibhneus Adamnanus and other most holy men who had both their extraction and birth and their Education too in all Piety in Tirconel and been such fearless undaunted tramplers under foot of all Vice and superstition would not have cut off by the root so hideous loathsom brutish a custom if any such in their days had been That in case these great servants of God had wanted power enough to do so yet surely the more powerful Saints Moelbridius and Malachias Primats of all Ireland who derived their extraction from that Countrey of Tirconel would not have suffer'd the example to continue That hesides it is beyond belief That the very Princes themselves of Tirconel whereof so many were famous for Humanity Liberality Piety Religion would have enter'd on their Princedom by so inauspicious and execrable a Rite Lastly that without any peradventure if they or their People had prov'd herein pertinacious yet so many pious excellent Monarchs of Ireland as we have before seen who had supream Authority over them would not have connived at it So in effect Lucius against this equally injurious vain ridiculous filthy Fiction vented first of any Mortal as the former of Loch Ern by Girald
put out then and under great penalties not kindled again but from or out of this holy Fire of Tlaghtghae And every house in the Kingdom as receiving from this new consecrated Fire and because the ground of Tleaghthae had been formerly the Mounster King's Dominion to pay him yearly three pence for ever At Visneach House or that which he had built hard by and West of it on the ground taken from the Connaght King he ordained That each May day for ever a general Meeting of all the Nobility should be held which Meeting they call'd in their Language Morhail Visneach and it may be English'd the Magnificence of Visneach That two great Fires should be made at this Meeting and betwixt them both all beasts sacrific'd to their great God Beile which Keting conceives to have been the same with Belus for expiating their sins appeasing his wrath and obtaining from him favour for the following year That the same day and hour in every District or Territory of the whole Kingdom two such other Fires should be made for the like purpose that is for all the respective Inhabitants to resort unto them with their Heathen Priests and sacrifices In fine that every Chieftain and person of Quality come to the said great Meeting at Visneach should present the Connaght King with a Horse and compleat harness for a Horseman as a Chiefry reserv'd to him for that ground Where Keting adds that from these yearly Paganical Fires at Visneach and elsewhere made in those days of Idolatry to honour Beall it is that ever since even along to this very day the Irish call the first of May Lae Beall-tine which imports in English Beali's Fire day for in their Tongue Lae is day and Tine is Fire At or near the Palace of Tailltionn he by a new Ordinance of his own commanded the ancient Fair called Aonach Tailltinn whereof we have spoke before to be kept yearly on Lammas day with much more solemnity and a far greater conflux of people than ever And there it was that Wedding-matches were usually treated agreed upon concluded betwixt the Parents of young Folks And by this Monarchs new Law every couple marrying there paid six shillings eight pence which the Irish then did call Vinghe Airgiod an ounce of Silver to the King of Vlster as an acknowledgment of his having formerly been Lord of that portion But for Tarach alias Teambhuir where he had built his fourth Royal Palace I find nothing ordained by him concerning any solemnity or Assembly there And the reason I suppose might be that even the very greatest and most solemn Assembly of all the Estates in Parliament either to make new Laws and repeal the old or to exercise any other Acts of Supream Jurisdiction had been already both by Law and Custom fix'd in that place ever since Ollamh Fodhlas's Reign that is full 1200. years wanting only seventeen before Tuathal Teachtmhor came to be King No more do I find any duty or Chiefry payable to the K. of Leinster Whereof I conceive also the reason might have been That indeed as Keting elsewhere and upon an other occasion than this here observes Cairbre Niafearr the very first King of Leinster had full two hundred and six years before Tuathal Teachtmor's time pass'd away both his own right and that of his Successors after him in the foresaid portion of Land wherein Tarach was built and for ever made it over by way of sale and bargain to Connor the first King of Vlster and his Successours after him in lieu of his beloved Daughter by name Feilim Nua Chrothach or Felicia the Beautiful whom Cairbre had bought so dear to be his Wife So dear I say because that fourth portion from Visneach to the Eastern Sea being in his time and until this bargain made part of Leinster contain'd three Cantreds of Land of the very best in Ireland even all the Land which now goes under the name of the County of Meath I mean East-Meath along to Droghedagh besides Fingale and all the other Lands too on that side of the River Liffy to Dublin But if you desire to know what or how much Land a Cantred means being I have told but now of three Cantreds in this Fourth portion Cambrensis in his Hiber expug l. 2. c. 18. answers that as well in the Irish as Brittish Tongue by a Cantred is meant that proportion or quantity of Land which usually contains a hundred Villages And whether Keting disagree in this signification of that word I know not certainly because I know not how much Land Cambrensis would assign to a Village or Villa his Latin term Of this I am certain that Keting assigns according to the Irish account but thirty Feeding Towns or Bailite â—iath as he calls ' â—m to a Cantred every one of them containing twelve Plow-lands and every Plowland a hundred and twenty acres of Irish measure which is commonly three or four times greater than the English And this is both reflection and digression enough occasion'd by the mention made of Tuathal Teachtmhor the Irish Monarch in my foresaid 217. page 59. My next Reflection is to correct an Error which I observe in my 229. page For there and whether through my own mistake or the Printers I know not it is said That Connor the first Provincial King of Vlster was made so by Eochuidh Feileach the Monarch and Author of the Pentarchy about 400 years before the Birth of Christ whereas indeed it could not be so much by at least two hundred and eighteen years Because this Monarch Eochadh Feileach who made that Connor King of Vlster could not make him King before himself was Monarch and this he was not before the year of the World 5057. in which he kill'd his Predecessor and possess'd his Throne Now according to the Chronology of Lucius that year of the World was just one hundred forty two years before the Birth of our Lord because says he this Birth hapned in the year of the World 5199. after the deluge 2957. and in the 8th year as some say or as others in the 12th year of the Monarch of Ireland Criomthain Niadnairs Reign Now 't is plain that from the year 5057 to the year 5099. no more efflux'd but 142 years 60. The review of my 229. page and what is given there of that happy King of Mounster Feilim mhac Criomthain brings to my thoughts here a passage in Keting that is very lingular both for the Author and matter of it The Author is holy Bennin as the Irish call him in their Language whom the Latins call St. Benignus even that very beloved Disciple of St. Patrick their great Apostle who was consecrated and install'd by him in his own days and in his own stead Arch-bishop of Ardmagh And the matter is the magnificent and costly progress of the Kings of Cashel in former times about Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogh throughout all Ireland And says Keting it is in the Irish Book
call'd Leabhar na Geart i. e. the Book of Rights or Dues a Book beginning with these words Dligh gach Riogh O Riogh Cassil and a Book written wholly by S. Benignus himself 1200 years since that the particulars of that stately Progress are set down as here they follow Bestow'd by him that is by the King of Cashel when he went that Progress on the King of Cruachain a hundred Swords a hundred Cups of Plate a hundred Horses and a hundred Mantles Receiv'd from this Cruachain or Connaght King half a years entertainment and the Rising out as they call it of all the Countrey waiting on him to Tirconail Bestow'd by him on the King of Cineal Gonuill twenty Rings twenty pair of Tables which they call'd Fithchioll and twenty Horses Received a months entertainment and the rising out of that Countrey along with him to Tir-oghain Bestow'd by him on the King of Oileach fifty Silver Cups and fifty Swords Receiv'd a months entertainment and the waiting of the Countrey on him to Tullenoge Bestow'd by him on the Lord or Chieftain of Tullenoge thirty Silver Bowls and thirty Swords or Lances Receiv'd twelve days entertainment and waiting on as elsewhere to Oirgialluibh Bestow'd by him on this King I mean of Oirghialluibh eight shirts of Mayle sixty Coats and sixty Horses Receiv'd a months entertainment at Eambaine with the rising out into Vlster against Clanna Ruidhruidh Bestow'd by him on the King of Tarach 30 shirts of Mayle thirty Rings a hundred Horse and thirty Harpers Receiv'd there a months entertainment and the four chief Families accompanying him thence to Dublin Bestow'd by him on the King of Dublin ten Women ten Ships and ten Horses Receiv'd a months entertainment and this Kings Company into Leinster Bestow'd by him on the Leinster King thirty Cows thirty Ships thirty Horses and thirty young Maids which they termed Cumbhall Receiv'd two months entertainment i. e. one months from Vpper Leinster and another from the Lower which they call Jachter Laighion Finally to the Tanist of the same Low-Leinster thirty Horses thirty shirts of Mayle and 30 Swords And this was the costly splendour of that general Progress of the Mounster Kings over Ireland in former Ages when they thought fit to make or undertake it Which Feidlimidius alias Felim mhac Criomthain King of that Province did in his Reign and this no longer since then the 845 year of Christ for he enter'd upon that Kingdom An. Dom. 818. and retir'd from it to lead an Eremitical Life in the 27th yearafter What the Original or Rise of it was or what right a Provincial King of Mounster could pretend to such a Progress I do not find Nor do I know what moved Keting to desire the Reader not to account him the Author of the Relation Or why so contrary to his custome elsewhere generally throughout his whole Chronicle he quotes here the Author It had been indeed very well and much to be wish'd that he had done so all along for his other Relations But here perhaps he thought fit to do it of purpose to decline the invidious Censure of those of other Provinces for magnifying so much his own Province of Mounster without so good a warrant as Benuin's Book Whatever his motive was the Relation it self puts me upon some occasional observations here which shall be in all three First Observation That Dublin must have been a considerable place in the days of Benuinn seeing it had then or at least before his time a King and was a Kingdom of it self different from that of Leinster And therefore that however or whenever it was first after that time destroy'd yet surely none of those three Norvegian Brethren Amelacus Sitaracus Juor was the first Founder but only the Repairer and Fortifyer of it a little before the second Danish War In which persuasion I 'am fix'd by considering that in the Chorographical Tables of Ptolomy who flourish'd under the Emperour T. Aurelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius in the year of Christ 153. the People Eblani and the City Eblana is placed where Dublin has always been And therefore Eblana in Ptolomy is the very self-same Town we now call Dublin the Latin Writers Dublinium and Dublinia the Welsh Britons Dinas Dulin the English Saxons in times past Duplin and all from one of the two original Irish names of it The first of them was Dubh-linn which imports a black Depth of Water that was there And the second not only was but is still among all sorts of Irish not as Cambden has it Bala-Cleigh but Bala-Ath-Cliath importing not the Town upon Hurdles but the Town of the Ford of Hurdles Which nevertheless is consistent enough with the Tradition that when Dublin was first built the foundation was laid upon Hurdles by reason the place had been deeply moorish I could here add out of Cambden not only that Saxo Grammaticus writes how it was pitifully rent and dismembred in the Danish Wars but also that in the Life of Griffith ap Synan Prince of Wales 't is read that Harald of Norway when he had subdued the greatest part of Ireland built Deuelin I could likewise add my own animadversions on both the one other passage viz. That the Irish Chronicles make no mention of any Harald either conquering any part of Ireland or building or so much as repairing Dublin That neither does the Author of Polichronicon agree in the one or other point deriv'd from that Life Nay that according to him Sitaracus or Sitric was the Noruegian Builder of Dublin And yet I could further add that what Cambden has next out of the foresaid Life may be very true For after telling us his own opinion of the above Harald to be That he was Harald surnamed Harfager i. e. of the Fair Locks or Tresses who was the first King of Norway he adds that his Lineal descent goes thus in that Life Harald begat a Son named Auloed alias Abloicus Aulafus and Olauus Auloed begat another Auloed this had a Son by name Sitric King of Dublin Sitric begat Auloed whose Daughter Racuella was Mother to Griffith ap Synan born at Dublin whilest Tirlough reign'd in Ireland And all these matters and much more relating to them I could dilate upon were they to my purpose here But they are not because my purpose here is only to trace up the antiquity of Dublin as far as I can And this I have done before out of Ptolomy by shewing that City to have been famous in his time which was above 1510 years since But how long before is a thing wholly buried in oblivion for want of Records And therefore I pass to my Second Observation Which is to give the original of those Clanna Ruidhruidgh against whom the King of Oirghillaedh alias Vriel with his People was bound to wait on the Mounster Kings in their Progress And this I do because their name is very frequent both in the Irish Histories and in all the Provinces of Ireland among the
and marching confidently in the head of his Troops against an infinite number of Enemies who in one terrible Host came to fight him obtain'd that miraculous Victory over them which is recorded by Metaphrastes and Glycas Annal. Part. 4. and Baronius too ad an 388. Even that very same wonderful Victory which the Winds and Tempests fighting for him and 〈◊〉 their own Darts upon his Enemies he obtained against Maximus the Tyrant and which Claudian the Christian Poet has so divinely celebrated in heroick Verse part whereof speaks thus to Theodosius himself O nimium dilecte Deo cui fundit ab antris Aeolus atratas hyemes cui militat Aether Et conjurati veniunt ad Classica venti Besides that pious learned Bishop of Ossory desires it be considered that the former History of the Staff of Jesus has no less illustrious famous approv'd Authors than those of the later History of the Staff of Senuphius are But whether it be or be not so my design here is not concern'd For I have already let the Reader know what is written of and has been deliver'd all along and what is believed at present among the Roman Catholick Irish of that religious Relique the Staff of Jesus What remains either of Reflection or Addition are these few Notes that follow I have indeed forgot to give them in their due place according to the order of pages observ'd hitherto in this Section But that will not hinder the understanding them where they are given here 66. The first is a◠very material Animadversion upon my 146 page Where because following the authority of D. Geoffrey Keting I suppos'd and accordingly told of an Interregnum in Ireland that by reason of the over-ruling power of the Danes and their great Commander Turgesius had succeeded immediately upon the drowning of the Monarch Niall Caille I must here let the Reader know that Gratianus Lucius page 297 and 298. brings several arguments to evince not only That there had never been any Interregnum at all of the Irish Monarchy at any time during either of the two Danish Wars nor consequently Turgesius the Dane had ever succeeded not even by usurpation any of the Irish Monarchs but that Keting was led into Errour in this particular by Gerald of Wales Among which arguments are these two 1. That Sir James Ware in his Catalogue of the Kings of Ireland lately publish'd makes no mention at all of Turgesius 2. That the Annals of Ireland place both the end of Niall Caille's Reign and the beginning of Maolseachluinn I. in the year of our Lord 844. But as to the Interregnum neither of these arguments nor any other which I have yet seen evince more than that the Interregnum was very short and concluded with one year 67. The second Note must refer to p. 222 c. where the Subject treated is the true Christian religious great Vertues indeed of as many Irish Monarchs or Kings of all Ireland as I have remembred there but the addition to them here is only of two more viz. Ainmirus the son of Sedna and Donnaldus the son of Aidus For so they are call'd in Latin by Gratianus Lucius though in Irish their names and surnames are Ainmhire mhac Seadhna who was the XI and Domhnall mhac Aodh Slaine who was the Xviii Christian King of all Ireland The former com to the Sovereignty in the year of Christ 563. but parted from it and his life too by a horrible murther committed on him in the fourth year of his Reign was so Christianly zealous for the purity of Religion Rites Discipline Church that he could not abide the least blemish spot or wrinkle in any of them In so much that in the Irish Histories it is specially recorded of him to his great honour how when he had observ'd some things amiss in the Rituals i. e. some Errours crept in or some deviation from the Rules prescrib'd them though but so lately before by their great Apostle St. Patrick and when about the same time he had heard by fame of the excellent knowledg integrity sanctity wisdom of Gildas in Great Brittain he sent his own Letters to invite him to Ireland towards the reforming there whatever had been so amiss But why Gratianus Lucius here gives the surname of Badonicus to Gildas for he calls him Gildas Badonicus I confess I do not know nor can conjecture unless perhaps that Northern Mountainous Countrey in Yorkshire now call'd Blackemere in English but formerly in Latine Mons Badonicus has been the native Countrey of this ancient Father This I know that in Bibliotheca Patrum he is surnamed Sapiens or Gildas the Wise And moreover that Polydore Virgil l. 3. Hist Angl. writes how Gildas himself has told us his little Book de excidio Brittannico that himself was born that very year wherein the Britons had obtain'd against the Saxons the famous Victory at Mons Badonicus which was the forty fourth year after the first landing of Hengistus and Horsus being the year of Christ 492. Unto which if we joyn what the same Polydore had said before l. 1. Hist Angl. of Gildas viz. That he flourish'd about the year of Christ 580. we may conclude that certainly the time set down in the Irish Books for his going to Ireland as invited thither by the foresaid Monarch Ainmhire mhac Sedhna agrees full well with this time and age of Gildas then The later of these two Monarchs namely Domhnal son to Aodh Slaine who not only came with pure hands without blood to the Crown but after fourteen year's glorious Reign first and then eighteen months sickness parted with Crown and life together peaceably on his Bed which was in that Nation a very singular blessing of God This Domhnal I say besides his other great Vertues is most deservedly celebrated for a very great Exemplar of Christian humility and contempt of himself He had through human frailty committed some fault which though I do not find express'd or specified what it was I find notwithstanding the rarest instance of Repentance submission and humiliation of a King in him that could be to procure the forgiveness of it from his own Subject tho a holy man of that Nation call'd St. Fechinus For after earnest humble entreaties to this man of God for pardon when he had found him backward still and hard to relent he prostrated himself on the ground at his feet and suffered him to tread on his bare neck 67. My next additional Note although of another Subject tends nevertheless very much to the magnifying of the Ancient Irish as to that natural heroick Vertue which next to the favour of Heaven preserv'd them for so many Ages a Free Nation Martial courage and Valour I mean And therefore this Addition must relate to those pages where from 25 to 40. I treated before of the Danish Wars in Ireland However it is such an addition to the brave performances of the Irish in those Wars that I know not whether
one more of the same Nature and in the very same Kingdom of Mounster too Where as Keting acquaints us upon the Death of Duibh Lachne next Successour in that Provincial Kingdom to Cormock O Cuilleinan for seven years more the Princes and Gentry meeting chose another Priest nay a Monk to be their King even the Abbot of Inis Catha by name Flaithhiortach mhac Jonmâ—uinein who reigned thirteen years over them And they chose him notwithstanding he had been the chief Adviser of Cormock O Cuillenain so lately that is but seven years before to venture that Battel against Flann mhac Sionnadh the Monarch and the Leinster King Cearbhall mhac Muaregein which prov'd so fatal to that good King and his whole Kingdom of Mounster and to this very Abbot himself troublesom For he was taken Prisoner in it and as such detain'd some time at Kildare by that Leinster King until at the intercession of the Abbess of Saint Bridgets Monastery in that Town he was released and return'd to his own Abbey of Inis-Catha in Mounster Whence after some few years wholly employ'd there in rigid ascetical exercises he was call'd upon and e'en compell'd to take the Royal State of a King So says Keting in his Reign of the said Monarch Flann Where also he notes occasionally an other great Errour of Hanmer in his Chronicle For Hanmer page 88. says that both the foresaid Cormock O Cuillenain King of Mounster but he makes him King of Ireland and Cearbhall O Muirreigein King of Leinster were kill'd by the Danes in the year of our Lord 905. Whereas on the contrary neither was Cearbhall kill'd in that year nor that Battel fought of either side by the Danes but of one side by the Monarch and of the other by Cormock who perish'd therein All which is abundantly testified by the Authentick Irish Book of that very Battel which Book has for Title Catha Bheala Mughna Besides as Keting observes in the same place the Danes attempted nothing at all no not once against the Irish during the seven years Reign of Cormock O Cuillenain over Mounster Nay there was so general a peace over all Ireland for this time so great plenty of all earthly blessings so universal a Reformation of manners and so much devotion and zeal in all sorts of people for restoring what had been destroy'd by the first Danish Wars and other attempts following it that nothing was to be seen more frequent now than every where repairing the old and building new Churches Colledges Hospitals Monasteries Yea the numbers of men dedicated only to a religious life was such at this time that Cormock O Cuillenainn tells in his Psalter of Cashel that in Muingharid formerly call'd the City of Deochaine-assain there was a Monastery with six Churches belonging to it in the same Town wherein the number of Conventual Monks was 1500. whereof five hundred were learnned Preachers five hundred Psalmists to serve constantly in the Choire and four hundred old Fathers applied wholly to Contemplation Such was the happy state of Ireland in the short Reign of the same Cormock over Mounster which must have been at or a little before the year of Christ 914. because this year ended the thirty eight years long Reign of the Monarch Flann mhac Sionna who kill'd in Battel that good King Cormock as we have seen before 70. The Sixth being an addition to what has been said before against Hanmer page 403. gives you to understand How Dionbhuillach son to the King of Denmark invading Ireland with a mighty Force landed in the North and march'd his Army so far as Ardmach How Conchabhar the first Provincial King of Vlster with his own people the Sept of Clanna Ruadhruidh i. e. the Children or Descendants from one Ruadhruidh whom they call Ruadhruidh Mor and with them alone nay with tumultuary small Forces rais'd out of them found himself necessitated to attack these Danes How by the advice of one Geanann Gruadhollas lest the Irish Youth should be contemn'd by the Danish old experienc'd Soldiers Conchabhar used the stratagem of tying Locks of grey wool in form of beards to their cheeks and chins whereby having made 'em seem the more considerable to the Enemy as if they also had been Veterans and then giving a furious charge on Dionbhuillach he defeated utterly all his Danes How these ascititious woollen beards were call'd in their Language Vlladh and from them it was that ever since the Northern Province of Ireland has been call'd in the same Irish Language Vlladh which we in ours call Vlster How that which we have here observed having been the issue of Dionbhuillach's Invasion and the time when it happen'd as Keting writes having also been the Reign of Eochadh Feilioch the Irish Monarch and Author of the Pentarchy who died in the year of the World 5069. that is just a hundred and forty years before the birth of Christ according to the computation follow'd by Lucius nothing can be desired clearer to evict Hanmer's little skill in the Irish History and his manifold Errours in delivering as you have seen before page 386. so many other Invasions of the Danes on Ireland and Conquests therein long before the year of Christ 800. 71. My seventh Note being likewise an addition is to supply what I purposely omitted in my 17th Page There I mention'd occasionally the Picts arriving in Ireland out of Scythia so long since as the Reign of Herimon the first Milesian Monarch of that Kingdom but little more of 'em save only their being made Tributary some Ages after in Scotland by the Irish Indeed when I writ and printed that Page I did not think of enlarging as I have done since And therefore partly for haste and partly for compendiousness I pass'd then over several particulars which I had before me that very time in Keting and he has at large in the foresaid Reign concerning those Picts But seeing I have since though contrary to my first design dilated on other matters I think it not amiss to add somewhat more of that Pictish Nation And this for two reasons The first is because 't is not only of all hands confess'd the Picts had been a warlike ancient People but Venerable Bede represents them as most powerful too in the year of Christ 569. In which year speaking of Columb Cille's landing in their Country from Ireland to convert 'em he has these very words Regnante Pictis Bridio filio Meilochon Rege potentissimo c. The second Because both the time of their first appearing in these parts and their very Original i. e. what Country-men they were or whence they came have continued for many Ages hitherto at least of late they are vexatious Questions As may be seen in Cambden's Britannia where he has given a Title of the Picts and four pages in Holland's Translation of him to resolvethese Questions Though after all he seems to me no nearer the Truth in his conjectural decision of either the one or
in the World before the loss of their freedom or their subjection to a forein Power Nor had I any farther if it be a farther end in the matter then That of your understanding throughly at least sufficiently who or what kind of People were the former of those two Nations whose Posterities I have before i. e. in the very beginning of the first Section page 5. observ'd like the Twins of Rebecca contending these last five hundred years in the bowels of Ireland But who the later Nation were and how and by what degrees and means they not only for many Ages got the better of the former but subdued them utterly at last in the memory of our Fathers and what besides happen'd in our own days to the Issue as well of these Conquerours as of those conquer'd by 'em in that Country will be the subject of the Second Part. FINIS Additions 1. AFTER the Fourth Observation on the Catalogue of Kings add what follows here viz. That although it be no part of my business in this Place to speak in particular of any of those Kings other than what I have already of a few of 'em and that only for thy better understanding the said Catalogue yet because I considered that peradventure the Relation of Siorna Saoghall-ach's See the Catalogue Numb 27. long extent of Life and Beign is the only extraordinary of all whatsoever delivered anywhere in the whole Irish History concerning any of so great a number of Monarchs or Kings and Sovereign Princes of Ireland some Readers will boggle at or scruple the truth thereof by objecting How it seems at least improbable that he should be a hundred years old when he came to be Monarch or should reign a hundred and fifty years after or should be in all two hundred and fifty years of Age when he was kill'd by Roitheachtsigh alias Roithsigh mhac Roain therefore to shew that this Relation of him is not improbable I give here those arguments that convince my self And to say nothing of his Surname Saoghalach which attributed to him alone among all other Irish Kings whereof notwithstanding some had reigned 60. others 70 years must import him to have been of extraordinary Long Life and even a man of Ages what convinces me is 1. That not only the Irish Book of Reigns besides many other ancient Monuments and Historians of that Nation who speak of this Subject and after them Gratianus Lucius in our own time have deliver'd it so but Keting himself though he be the chiefest of all the Historians of later days that to reduce the Irish Chronology to an agreement with his own Computation of the years of the World would consequently needs reduce those hundred and fifty years of Siorna's Reign to 21. confesses they did so 2. That very good Historians both ancient and modern of other Countreys tell us how in later Times then Siorna Saoghallach's Reign there have been many that lived as long and some longer then he And yet I 'le lay no stress on Xenophon's writing That a certain Maritim King lived 800. and his son 600 years Nor on Ravisius giving the very same or at least the like Relation of one Impetris King of the Plutinian Islanders and his Son Nor on Pliny recording the five hundred years life of Dondonius a Sclavonian Nor on Homer or his Followers speaking Nestors age to have been 300 years Neither on Hellanicus a most ancient Writer saying That in the Province of Aetholia some lived 200. others 300 years Nor on Onesicritus neither though attesting the same age of two and three hundred years even as very ordinary in the Island of Pandora All these I pass over because I am not certain of the Age of the World they lived in that is whether it was not of earlier Date than Siorna Saoghalach's reign who was kill'd An. M. 4â— 69. according to Lucius My instances are in Servatius Bishop of Tongres and Joannes de Temporibus and Xequipir an Ethiopian and the Nameless Indian living in the same Time and Kingdom of Bengala with Xequipir The first of these four died in the year of Christ 403. after he had lived 300 years as Sigebert in his Chronicle and others write The second took his denomination or surname de Temporibus from those 336 years he had lived under many Emperours whereof one was Charles the Great of whose Life-guard he had sometimes been and another was Conrad III. in whose Reign he died in France An. D. 1139. as not only Petrus Messias in the said Conrad's Life but the Author of Fasciculus Temporum and many more Writers affirm The third I mean Xequipir was yet alive so near our own time as the year of Christ 1536. after having lived till then 300 years For so Hernandus Lopez à Castagneda â— 8 Chronici has written of him The Last or the Nameless Indian had in the foresaid year of Christ 1536 come to the year of his own age 335. says Joannes Petrus Maffeius â— XI Histor Indic and before him the above Lopez both the one and the other telling us many more particulars of Xequipir and Lopez som of this Anonimus Indian but neither being able to recount or give us any light to see how many years more either of 'em lived nor when they died Of all which you may read more at large in Augustinus Torniellius's Annales Sacri c. ad an M. 1556. n. 4. 5. And so I have given the two arguments which convince my self that from the Relation of Siorna Saoghalach's Life of 250 years c. nothing can be derived to make any Reader at all scruple the truth of the Irish History of that Kingdoms Monarchs or Kings Nor by consequence any thing against the Catalogue of them which you have in the beginning of this Book or the long extent of Time which in all they reign'd according to the Title of that Catalogue 2. After the Last Inference from the same Catalogue add this here as an other viz. That notwithstanding any thing said hitherto as it is confess'd that the former sixteen of those 23 of the English or Fourth and Last Conquest of Ireland never assum'd the Stile or Title of Kings of Ireland for Henry VIII was the First of this Conquest that assum'd it altho nevertheless all the same former sixteen Kings of England were Sovereign Lords of Ireland too at least by Title every one in his turn since the 17th year of Henry the II's reign over England so it must be confess'd That properly speaking none of those Irish Kings who rul'd in Association with any other could be called Monarchs while their Association lasted And we see by this Catalogue that such were in all at least for some time 29 among those of the former Three Conquests whereof One and Twenty were Milesians Which is the reason that Cambrensis where he tells us of 181 Monarchs of the Milesians must be corrected as to that appellation or Title of Monarch attributed so indistinctly by him to them all and so must I wheresoever in this Former Part of my Prospect I have in this particular follow'd him The Irish Historians in their own Language speak more properly giving 'em all the Title of Kings of Ireland Errors in the Matter where and where they are corrected THE First in Page 4. and 16. concerning Eoghun Mor and Aonghus Ollbhuodhach but corrected p. 89. and 435. The second p. 67. about Dearmach corrected p. 181. Third in p. 18. concerning Muâ—rieadhach's Six sons c. and corrected p. 93. Fourth p. 19. about the nine Hostages corrected p. 359. Errors in Words and Letters to be corrected by this following Table wherein the first Number signifies the Page the second the Line a add d dele and r read First in the Dedicatory 2. 7. d. as Secondly in the Preface 7. 18. d. his 35. 16. r. 1662. p. 39. 31. r. 1604. Thirdly in the Former Part 35. 5. d. the Monarch 71. r. Tighernmhais 99. 16. d. to 107. 29. d. of 137. 6. r. theâ— and again 8. r. the. 180. 14. for Diarmuid r. Dombnall 221. 7. Taumaturga 272. 5. for him r. bâ— and 24. r. or any 317. 13. d. to 319. â— a. as 351. 14. r. Monmouth 354. 13. r. understood 382. 21. r. Aetius 385. 26. r. other 387. 8. r. 51. 389. 19. r. Language and 29. r. Niull 395. 7. d. was and for kill'd r. died 413. 9. r. Trouts 414. 1. r. Leap and 8. for though r. the. 434. â— 26. r. 219. 459. 2. r. Notkerus 461. 26. r. To and in the Note â— penvâ—t r. Books Lastly observe that the Orthography of all the proper Irish Names and Surnames of the Kings throughout this whole Book must be corrected by that in the Catalogue where any variation appears
in like manner Claudius the Roman Emperour though come in person with a mighty power of Legions and Auxiliaries into Brittain found it his safest way to run away in two great Battels from the victorious Army of Guiderius and Arviragus the Lxvii and Lxviii Brittish Monarchs one after another in so much that Claudius was content at last ' een fairly to capitulate for Peace with Arviragus by sending to Rome for his own Daughter Gennissa and giving her in marriage to him nay and leaving him too the Government wholly of all these Provincial Islands for so Geoffrey calls them in this place That Severus how great soever both a Souldier and Emperour he was found it a desperate business to fight in Great Brittain against the Brittons when he saw himself receiving his death's wound from Fulgenius in that Battel whence he was carried dead and buried in York That under Vortigern their Lxxxvi Monarch Hengistus the Saxon invited in by him landed the second time in Great Brittain with an Army of three hundred thousand Heathen Foreigners and yet Aurelius Ambrosius the next Brittish King after Vortigern fought him in the head of all his formidable Forces and in a plain Field overthrew both him and them all nay pursued them in their Flight till he reduced them to nothing and the whole Island of Brittain to its native liberty from any Foreign Yoak Nor had his Victories a period here but over-run Ireland also where he took Prisoner in a great Battel the Monarch of that Countrey Gillomar and then brought away Choream Gigantum the Giants Monument of stones from the Plains of Kildare in that Kingdom which he set up on Salisbury Plains in England That Arthur who was likewise save one the next King of Great Brittain for he was son to Vter Pendragon that Reign'd immediately before him subdued all England Scotland Ireland the Isles of Orkney Denmark Norway Gothland along to Livonia France and as many Kingdoms in all as made up XXX Yea moreover i. e. after so many great and mighty Conquests and besides the killing too of Monsters and Giants fought even Flollo and Lucius the two Lieutenant Generals of the Roman Emperour Leo kill'd them both in France and the later of them I mean Lucius in the head of a dreadful Army consisting of four hundred thousand men all which he overthrew and ruin'd That although by occasion of some unhappy quarrels among the Britons themselves under Catericus their Lxxxxvi King a bad man the Saxons to be reveng'd on them wrought King Gurmundus the late African Conqueror of Ireland to come from thence into Great Britain with an Army of a hundred sixty six thousand Heathen Africans and burn spoil and destroy the better parts thereof and after put and leave the Saxons in possession of all he could which was that whole Countrey then called Loegria now England as distinguish'd both from Scotland and Wales meaning by Wales the ancient Kingdom of Cambria which comprehended all beyond the Savern and that notwithstanding the Saxons had by such means got possession of all Loegria and held it for several years they were beat out again so soon as the Britons agreed amongst themselves meeting at Westchester and chusing there Caduallo for their King who bravely recovered the whole Island every way round even to the four Seas and kept both Picts and Scots and such of the Saxons as were left alive or permitted to stay in perfect obedience to the British Crown during his own Reign which lasted forty years in all and that so did Cadwallador after him during his In short that as the progeny of Frute continued free independent successful glorious in the first period of their Monarchy under sixty six Kings of their own during at least a thousand years and forty from the landing of Brute till the Invasion of Julius Caesar and as for the next period which took up five hundred and nine years more till the landing of Hengistus the Saxon albeit the Roman power and glory did sometimes lessen sometime ecclipse theirs yet they preserved still their freedom and Laws and Government under twenty other Kings of their British Nation successively reigning over them and paying only a slight acknowledgment of some little tribute to the Roman Emperours nay and this same but now and then very seldom so in the third or last period of it containing somewhat above two hundred and fifty years from the said landing of Hengistus to the twelfth year of Cadwallador they upon the Romans quitting them not only restor'd themselves under Aurelius and Arthur by their own sole valour to the ancient glory of their Dominion but maugre all the opposition of the Confederated Saxons Picts and Scots now and then rebelling against them enjoyed it under the succession of seven Brittish Kings more from Arthur to Cadwallador yea Malgo the fourth of this very last number when the six foreign Provincial Countreys as Geoffrey calls them viz. Ireland Island the Orcades Norway Denmark and Gothia had rebell'd anew was so fortunately brave as by dint of Sword to have reduced them all again to their old subjection under Great Brittains Empire Add moreover that Cadwallador himself albeit the last of this Trojan Race wielding the Sâ—â—pter of Great Brutus enjoyed the same Glorious Power that his Predecessours had before him over the whole extent of this Noble Island That the total change and utter downfal of the Brittish Government happening after in his days proceeded only from an absolute Decree of Heaven and mighty Anger of God incensed against the Brittons for their sins but neither in the whole nor in part from any Power of the Saxons or other Enemies or men upon Earth That the immediate visible means which God made use of to destroy them irrecoverably were 1. A most bloody fatal Division after some years of this Cadwallador's reign happening among them yea continuing so long and to such a degree that between both sides all the fruitful Fields were laid waste no man caring to till the ground 2. The consequence of this waste a cruel Famine over all the Land 3. A Plague so prodigiously raging that the number of the Living was not sufficient to bury the Dead That the Almighty's hand lying so heavy on them by so dreadful a Pestilence was it alone that forc'd Cadwallador in the twelfth year of his Reign to retire for some time into Little Britanny in France That after ten years more when this Epidemical Plague had been wholly over and Cadwallador prepared to ship his Army and return a voice of Thunder by Angelical Ministery spake to him from Heaven commanding him aloud to desist from his Enterprize and telling him in plain terms it was decreed above unalterably The Race of Brutus should bear no more sway in Great Brittain till the time were come which Merlin had prophecied of to King Arthur And to conclude all That in pure obedience to this Voice of God it was that Cadwallador giving
over his designed return and instead thereof going to Rome and soon after dying there upon the 12th of the Calends of May in the Year of our Lord 689 left his Countrey a prey to the Saxons who till then could never subdue it nor prevail against the Brittons but were themselves always overthrown and forc'd all along e'n by so many Brittish Kings in succession from Aurelius and Arthur to Caduallo either to fly the Land or submit to their mercy All which in substance and much more at large we are told by Geoffrey * Galfridus Monumetensis in his Latin History de Origine Gestis Britannorum printed at Paris by Ascensius Badius Anno 1517. But the fourth Book of this Romantick story iâ— wholly taken up with the deceitful Propâ—ecies of Merlin though Prophecles much augmented says Neubrigensis by additions of Geoffrey's own inventive Brain which he foisted in as Merlin's Nor has been ashamed to endeavour to make us believe that Merlin was a great and wonderful and true Prophet indeed yea notwithstanding that Merlin's own Mother confessed him to be the Son of an Incubus Devil See Galfridus himself l. 3. c. 3. of Monmouth in his seven Books of History and out of him by others Only besides my summing up the number of Kings and fixing the period of times and contracting the whole story and digesting it into this order and Method give me leave to except the particular of Dioclesian the Syrian King 's thirty Daughters and the Incubi Devils with their Gigantic procreation For this I had from Buchanan's relation of it l. 2. Rer. Scot. as added by some others to supply a defect of so much in the new History of Galfridus 45. But as William of Newbery commonly called in Latin Neubrigensis this Geoffrey's own Contemporary in England has in Proemio Histor five hundred years since reflected with much freedom and tartness on the Vanity incredibility and falsity of his History in general and more particularly on that part of it which represents King Arthur such a wonderful Heroe so has in later times Polydore Virgil first and after him George Buchanan ruin'd the very foundation of the whole Fabrick I mean the very Being or Existence of Brute himself at any time on Earth And certainly in my opinion the reasons of Polydore seem convincing enough to any unbyass'd man For says he l. 2. Histor Anglic neither Titus Livius nor Dionysius Halicarnasseus nor any of those other Authors that most diligently write of Roman Antiquities have one syllable of this Brutus Nor could any thing concerning so much as either his Name or Existence be fetch'd from the ancient Annals of Great Brittain seeing that five hundred years or thereabouts before this new History of Galfridus had been contriv'd Gildas I mean the true and not the supposititious one complain'd that if ever the ancient Britons his Countrey-men had any such or other Annals at all they were undoubtedly either perish'd in the War at home or carried away so far abroad as no news could be had of them Besides the particular of the taking of Rome by Belinus and Brennus quite over-throws all both Fabrick and foundation of this New History if we compute the times set down in it and compare them with those in the Greek and Roman Chronicles For in this New History not only Brute is said to have conquer'd Albion about the tenth year after his Father Silvius had been kill'd which was the year of the World 4100 but the two Brothers Belinus and Brennus sons to Molmutius the XX. King and they the XXI Generation from Brute are said to have taken Rome about four hundred years after the same Brute had conquer'd this Island And yet according to the Epitome or account of times both in Eusebius and all other as well Greek as Latin Histories Rome was taken by Brennus and his Gauls even after full seven hundred years and ten had been over from the foresaid year wherein Brute is said by the new History to have enter'd Albion So that by this new History Brennus must have taken Rome three hundred and ten years before it was really taken at all Then which I think nothing can be desired more convincing to ruin both the Fabrick and foundation of this Romance of Brute And so in effect has Polydors thought before me But if you would have more yea many more unanswerable arguments on this Subject you may consult George Buchanan where he has them at large L. 2. Histor Scot. For as it ought to be no part of my purpose here to compare or confront so many or indeed any of those vain particulars in the new History of Brute either with the Commentaries of Caesar or Annals and History of Tacitus or his Life of Agricola or Venerable Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English or the Saxon Chronology publish'd by Wheloc or the most ancient Monuments of the Irish or any other sacred or profane of so many other Kingdoms of Europe or with Reason it self so it is neither any part of it to dilate or give those manifold arguments of Buchanan though they be directly home against the very foundation of the same new History or the Being or Existence at any time of Brute It sufficeth me in this place to have given the reasons of Polydore against it My purpose here being no other than in relation to the above passage in my eighth and ninth page to conclude out of all That the Irish Cronologers and Historians have at least much more probability on their side in asserting unanimously that their true Briotan who descended of Nemedus and planted a Colony in the North part of this great Island so early was he that gave the whole Island the denomination of Brittain from his own name than they on the other side have who if the arguments hitherto be conclusive tell us in effect that a false and forged Brutus one that never was in Being should have given it And indeed the Authority of the Irish Monuments in the Psalter of Cashel an authentick Book of Irish Histories written above eight hundred years since by so great and knowing and holy a man as Cormack who was at the same time both King and Bishop of Mounster and the further derivation of the more remote Antiquities inserted in it from that other Book much more ancient yet which above one thousand two hundred years since in the composing or collecting of it out of all the former Chronicles of that Nation from the very first Plantations of it had been in the Parliament or National Assembly of all the Estates at Tarach under Laogirius the Monarch supervised and agreed upon by the choicest Committee they could appoint of three Antiquaries three Kings and three Bishops whereof S. Patrick himself was one over-ballances by much the credit of Geoffrey of Menmouth in his new History of Brutus written by him no earlier than Henry II. Reign and opposed nay quite run down by his own