enjoyed the Sovereign Power of Albain The other two were Mac Con otherwise called Lughae and Criomthan mhac Fiodaigh 4. There went also thither about the year of Christ 150. on his own account with considerable Forces Cairbre Riadfadae Son to the 106. Monarch of Ireland by name Conaire mhac Mogha Lauae who Conquer'd large Dominions for himself in the more Northern parts of that Kingdom and left his Posterity after him there who are those or at least a great and the more ancient part of those called by â—â—da Nistor Eccles l. 1. c. 1. Venerable Bede Dal-Rheudini as being the Inhabitants and first Irish Planters of Dal-Rheuda or as the Irish call it Dal-Riada in Scotland Whether it be not called so from that Cairbre Riadbfadae that is from this surname of his Riadfadae being changed by V. Bede to Rheuda as it might easily be I know not But this I know that Dal which is prepos'd in the composition signifies Part or Lot And so the whole word Dal-Rheuda or Dal-Riada signifies the Part of such a man who was the chief in Conquering it 5. The foresaid Mac Con alias Lughae within a few years more at least within less than thirty purfuing the same examples Landed in Scotland with a power of his Country-men Adventurers For it was from thence he returned back into Ireland to fight the Battel called Maigh Mhuchruimhe wherein being Victorious and killing the Monarch Art Aoinfir he made himself Sovereign in his place 6. This Mac Con's Grand-Son Fiachae Ceanann entring likewise Scotland not only gain'd large possessions but left his Posterity after him to give a beginning to Mac Allin and his Family there who are all descended from him 7. Colla Vais who had been four years tho by Usurpation the 115. Monarch of Ireland when he was by the lawful Heir his own Cousin German Muireadhach Tiriogh defeated in Battel and forc'd to flie adventuring over to Scotland with the two other Collaes his Brethren and rest of his adherents and acquiring great scopes of ground there became the Grandsire of the Clan Ndomnaills both in Scotland and Ireland For all of this Surname in either Kingdom in their several generations or branches derive their extraction in a direct line from this Colla Vais and consequently neither from Herimon or Heber but from i the a Cousin of theirs who was the Son of Breoghuin mhic Bratha of the same stock with Milesius 8. Next after that Colla did Criamhthan mhac Fioda the 120. King of Ireland with a Royal Army invade Albain I mean Scotland He had in his company another very powerful Noble man called Earc mhac Eocha Muingreahar mhic Aongussa And from him the Septs not only of Clann Eirc and Cineall Gabhrain but those of Cineall Conghvill Cineall Naonghussa and Cineall Conriche Anile with their distinct propagations and Families in Scotland ever since to this present are descended 9. Corck mhac Luighdhioch is the next in order that deserves mention Because that by the false and wicked surmises of his Step-mother upon his refusal to consent to her incestuous Lust she was Daughter to Fiachac mhac Reill King of Ely falling into his Fathers displeasure and thereupon forced to seek his fortune in Scotland and arriving there accompanied with such armed Troops as he could raise and then by his own deserts coming into such extraordinary favour with the Scottish King Fearradhach Fionn otherwise called Fionn Chormac that he obtain'd his Daughter call'd Muingfionn to Wife he had issue by her besides other Sons Manie Leambna from whom the Sept of Leambnuidh in Scotland and Cairbre Cruithnioch from whom the Families of Eoghanacht Muighe Geirghin in the same Kingdom were propagated 10. Soon after him Niall Naoighiallach the 121. and most powerful indeed of all the Irish Monarchs that were at any time before or since entred Scotland with so great a force that there was no resisting him But having said enough of him before I need not add to it here 11. In the last place and year of Christ 493. much about ninety three years after the said War-like Prince Niall the Great surnamed also Naoighiallach had been kill'd in France and in the 20. year of Lugha the 125 Monarch Son to Laogirius his Reign the six Sons of Muireadhach * So says Keting in the Reign of Niall Naoighiallach yet formerly in the Reign of Oilioll Molâ— he calls them the six Sons of Eirc mhic Eachae Muinreamhair mhic Eoghuin Mhic Neill King of Vlster being six Brothers of Mairchiartach Mor that soon after came to be Monarch of Ireland namely to the two Fergusses the two Aongussaes and the two Loarns together with other Septs or Families of Dal-Riada in the same Province of Vlster adventur'd for Albain and whether or no they gave the denomination of Dal-Rheuda or Dal-Riada to the Country there mostly possessed by them tho at least for a great part of it planted before as we have seen by the Progeny of Cairbre Rioghfadae †Eochae Muinreamhar of the Progeny of Cairbre Ridhfadae had two Sons Earcha and Elchon From the former the the Families of Dal-Riada in Scotland were descended From the later those of Dal-Riada in Ulster So Keting soys in the Reign of Art Aonsir where he further says that the two Dal-Riades or Families of them have been distinguished by the surname or nick-name of Russach given those of Dal Riada in Ulster the Irish Chronicles are plain and positive herein that they gave to themselves and all their Country-men the Scots of Albion the first King that ever they had of the name of Fergus who was one of those six Brothers And it is he that both the Irish and English Scots have since for his honor surnamed the Great as likewise Fergus I. Not that he was indeed the first Irish or Scottish King of Dal-Rheuda wherein Buchanan and all the rest of his Fellow-Historians that were English Scots are extreamly out for long before that very Fergus there have been many Scottish Kings of Irish descent in Dal-Rheuda but that he was greater than any of the former and the first of his own name that ruled there To conclude so many were the Invasions and so great the Plantations made in that Country by the Irish Milesians and other Gathelians in their time of Paganism that as they Conquer'd so they planted it throughly at last having quite expell'd the Picts And so they kept it possess'd intirely by themselves as Lords thereof for some Ages That is until after the Norman Conquest of England very many of the Saxons retiring thither under their protection others invited in and accompanying William the Scottish King and both of them multiplying mightily they not only made the other Nations which are now called English Scots but by degrees gained from them as we see even all other the better parts of that Kingdom besides the Lowlands I say accompanying William the Scottish King For Stow in his Chronicle tells That
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
few That in the most famous place call'd Degsestan i. e. the stone of Degsa almost his whole Army was slain That nevertheless in the same Fight Theobaldus Brother to this Ethelfride with all the Force headed by him was in like manner kill'd And that from that time forward to this very day says Bede meaning the day when he writ this none of all the Scottish Kings had been so daring as to give Battel to the English Nation Which being the words of Bede truly rendred in English and the years of his Age being 59. when he ended all his Works and consequently this History as himself says and seeing also that he was born Anno Dom. 677. it follows That so long at least as 136 years after Degsestan Fight the Scots engag'd not against the English But whether after this term expir'd they attack'd them again before they had ruin'd the Pictish Kingdom and at the same time seiz'd so great a part of the Northumbrian I know not 54. What you might have perus'd already page 129 as derived either from Cambrensis or Cambden or both viz. of the original eruption of the great Vlster Lake call'd in Irish Loch Erne and cause thereof is abundantly refuted by Gratianus Lucius in his Book entitled Cambrensis Eversus page 132 and 133. Which having not seen before my own foresaid 127 page had been wrought off the Press makes me give now this other which as it is much fuller so I doubt not a much better and truer account in every respect of that matter The Relation of Cambrensis Topograp Hib. d. 2 c. 9. may be rendred thus in English There is in Vlster a Lake of vast extension thirty miles long and fifteen broad unto which as they say a wonderful chance gave beginning In that Countrey which is now the Lake there was in very ancient times a most vitious Nation but chiefly and incorrigibly above all other People of Ireland given over to that sin we call Bestiality And there was amongst them a Prophetical saying That so soon as a certain Well of that Countrey were at any time left uncovered for out of reverence to it proceeding from barbarous superstition it had both a covering and signature or lock it should presently overflow so prodigiously as to drown the whole Countrey thereabouts Which accordingly happen'd on this occasion One of the Countrey Women having open'd it to bring Water home it chanc'd that before she had throughly done she heard her Child a little distance off crying and going in haste to still him she forgot to cover the Well Whereupon it overflow'd on a sudden so strangely that not only the Woman her self and her Child with her but all the People universally and all the very Cattel too of the whole Countrey for very many miles were as by a particular and Provincial Deluge covered overwhelmed perished utterly in the Waters As if the Author of Nature had judg'd that Land unworthy of Inhabitants which had been conscious of such enormous turpitude against Nature And indeed that such had been the original of this Lake it is no improbable argument that the Fishermen upon it do manifestly in fair serene weather see under them in the Water Church Turrets which according to the fashion of those in that Land are not only narrow and high but round withal and that they often shew them to passengers wasted over this Lake who are strangely astonished at the sight and cause You are also to note That the River which abundantly flows out of the same Lake being one of the nine Principal Rivers of Ireland namely the Ban did even from the beginning that is ever since the time of Bartholanus though in a much smaller stream flow from the foresaid Well all along that Countrey other Waters falling into it still as it went farther off Hitherto Gerald of Wales But to this Relation of his it will not be amiss to add what Cambden says applying it and interpreting and making this nameless Pool to be the famous Loch Erne of so many miles in length and breadth and the People destroy'd to have been some Hebridians got thither Beyond Cavan says he Cambden's Ireland in Hollands Translation of it page 106. West North Fermanach presenteth it self where sometimes the Erdini dwelt a Countrey full of Woods and very boggish In the midst whereof is that famous and greatest Meere of all Ireland Loch Erne stretching out forty miles bordered about with shady Woods and passing full of inhabited Islands whereof some contain a hundred two hundred three hundred acres of ground having besides such store of Pikes Truots and Salmons that the Fishermen complain oftner of too great plenty of Fishes and of the breaking of their Nets than they do for want of draught This Lake spreadeth not from East to West as it is describ'd in the common Maps but as I have heard those say who have taken a long and good survey thereof first at Bel Tarbet which is a little Town farthest North of any in this County of Cavan it stretcheth from South to North fourteen miles in length and four in breadth Anon it draweth in narrow to the bigness of a good River for six miles in the Channel whereof standeth Iniskellin the principal Calste in this Tract which in the year 1593. was defended by the Rebels and by Dowdal a most valiant Captain won Then coming Westward it enlargeth it self most of all twenty miles long and ten broad as far as to Belek near unto which is a great downfal of Water and as they term it that most renowned Salmon's Leapue à common speech among the Inhabitants thereby is That this Lake was once firm ground passing well husbanded with Tillage and replenish'd with Inhabitants but suddenly for their abominable buggery committed with Beasts overflown with Waters and turn'd to a Lake Though Almighty God says Giraldus Creator of Nature judg'd this Land privy to so filthy Acts against Nature unworthy to hold not only the first Inhabitants but any other for the time to come Howbeit this wickedness the Irish Annals lay upon certain Islanders out of the Hebrides who being fled out of their own Countrey lurked there So he Against these Relations the one of Giraldus Cambrensis and the other of Cambden though the later as to the original of this Lake is wholly grounded on the former Gratianus Lucius opposes many Reasons 1. That all the Irish Annals and Histories who treat of Loch Ern attribute the original of it not to the overflowing of any Well or River but to a meer eruption of Waters out of the very entrails of the Earth without any kind of mention of Bestiality or other sin of the Inhabitants which might at all any way deserve it 2. That this Eruption happened in the Reign of Fiacha Lauranne * But Keting says it happen'd under the Reign of Tighermhais alias Tightermhuir forty six years before Fiacha Labhraina came to be King King of Ireland
extraordinary great veneration both in his life and after his death that as Venerable Bede records it not only all In quibus omnibus scilicet Monasteriis per Hiberniam Britanniam propagatis ex utroque Monasterio idem Monasterium Insulanum in quo ipse requiâ—scit corpore principatum tenat Habere autem solet ipsa Irsula Rectorem semper Abbatem presbyterum cujus juri omnis Provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitato debeant esse subjecti juxta exemplum primi Doctoris illius qui non Episcopus sed presbyter extitit Monachus Beda ibid. the Monasteries propagated in Ireland or Britain from either of those two Abbeys founded by himself were subordinate to this latter of Hy wherein he lived longest and died at last being 77 years aged nor only all the whole Province but even the very Bishops themselves contrary to the custom of the Church in other Countreys were subject to the jurisdiction of all the succeeding Abbots thereof tho Presbyters only by ordination to wit according to the primitive pattern of their first Doctor who was himself no Bishop but only a Priest and Monk In fine he most justly deserved the title which Posterity gave him of the first Converter of the North of Scotland and great Apostle of the Picts as Cambden himself calls him And so he might have call'd him too the great and chief if not the first Instructor in Christianity of all the Irish Scots 4. That although I cannot tell certainly what Venerable Bede means here in the Marginal Note by his omnis Provincia whole Province that is whether he mean all the Kingdom of Scotland as it lies now extended and as then comprehending all the several petty Kingdoms both of Scots and Picts for by the Battel fought in Scotland at Monadoire in the Reign of Diarmuid mhic Cearbheoil King of Ireland by the Family of the Neals against the Picts we understand this Nation of Picts had several petty Kings at that time being they lost in this one Battel together with the Victory seven of them kill'd in the place by those Irish formerly planted there or whether he mean the Kingdom of the Irish in Scotland or which is the same thing of the Scots or Dal-Rheudans only all three signifying the same People or whether only the Dominions of those Northern Picts converted by Columb and there can be no other to be meant by omnis provincia since the Island it self wherein that Monastery was exceeded not five English miles in length yet thus much I can certainly say that Keting tells us in his Reign of Aodh or Hugh Ainmhirioch Monarch of Ireland that Columb-Cille in his Voyages and Journey to the Parliament held by this Monarch at Drom-Ceath in that Kingdom was all along out of Scotland attended not only by 30 Sub-deacons 50 Deacons and 40 Priests but 20 Bishops also to praise God continually and officiate in divine Offices in his company whereby we may somewhat guess at the largeness of that Province whereof Venerable Bede does speak here SECT III. The Scene altered Cause of admiration Bloody horrible feuds begun encreas'd multiplied continued 2600 years No People on earth so implacably set upon the destruction of one another as the Milesian Irish were Above 600 Battels fought between themselves A hundred and eighteen Monarchs slaughter'd Fourscore and six of those very men that kill'd them succeeded immediatly in their Thrones Other strange deaths of several of them Of the whole number of 181 Monarchs not above 29 came to a natural end The Author of this account Battels fought by the Monarchs Caomhaol Tighearnmhuir Tuathal Teachtvair where somewhat of the Plebeians 25 years War Conn Ceadchathach alias Constantinus Centibellis and Mogha Nuadhat King of Mounster What Leath Cuinn and Leatha Mogh import The feuds rather inflam'd than allaid under Christianity Number of main Battels fought and Monarchs kill'd the first 400 years after their Conversion by S. Patrick By two of them the one betwixt the Monarch Fearghall and Murcho O Bruin King of Leinster the other between the Monarch Aodlâ— Ollan and Aodha mhac Colgan King also of Leinster may be guess'd how bloody the rest were Foreign Conquests and Plantations neglected all that while Occasionally somewhat of the Heathen Monarch Dathi's Landing in France with an Army to pursue Niall the Great 's example and of his being kill'd by a Thunderbolt near the Alps and of the ten several Invasions of Scotland by the Irish Pagans and but one if one by the Christian Irish The Families descended from those Irish remaining to this day in that Country A word of those call'd English Scots Columb-Cille himself Author of fighting three of the foresaid Battels in Ireland The heavy pennance during life enjoin'd him therefore by S. Molaisse and his humble performance of it and much greater wonders of him Why the particular of those Battels of Columb-Cille mentioned here The Parliament of Dromceathe in his time Banishment of the Poets one of the three ends it was called for Great Injustice Cruelty Pride c. instanc'd severally in their Monarchs Tuathal Teuchtvar c. Nial Naoighiallach Diarmuid mhac Ceirrbheoil and Aodh mhac Ainmhiriogh Some of the Murders and Battels that happened about the end of their fourth Century of Christian Religion particulariz'd HItherto I have briefly run over the Antiquity Martial Exploits Political Government or Grand Councils ordinary Militia and after their Conversion to Christianity the Learning also and Sanctity of the Ancient Irish And so have I think delivered in short all the most glorious Excellencies recorded of that Nation eitheir in their own Monuments or any foreign Histories that I have seen 16. What follows next is on the other side of the Medal to represent unto you not only a mixture of great imperfections with so many excellencies nor only the prevalency of downright evil men against so many good against so prodigiously numerous and great exemplars of virtue living among them after their being enlightned with the doctrine of salvation but according to the vicissitude of all things on earth the change and wane and strange decay and utter fall at last of that People in general from all the glory of their Ancestors And this whether we regard the greatness of their former dominion and power abroad or the more ancient policy of their Government at home or the stupendious fame of their Letters and Holiness every where in those days of old Nay and this alteration too in every point as happening to them even before the English had set one foot in their Country under Henry II. All which I am to represent unto you now because the order of things and both title and nature of this Tract require I should Though I shall nevertheless do it by so much the more briefly by how much I am less inclined to dwell on this subject However I must confess that when I reflect on the most authentick Monuments of
none at all mention'd by Keting who yet makes it the chief business of his History to mention the Battels fought in the Reign of every Monarch That the Battel of Gowra was occasion'd by a difference happening and continuing some years betwixt the family or Sept of Baoiskin whereof Fionn mhac Cuuail was one and the Sept of Morna meer Irish of the Milesian Conquest both and both contending for the command of the standing Militia of the Countrey and Caibre Lioffechair the Monarch favouring one side and others of great power the other the contention at last came to a Battel called from the place where it was fought the Battel of Gowra where this Monarch was kill'd by one Kirbe Which is all the account Keting has of it but without mention of any other Fight in this Monarchs Reign Though by his telling us the quarrel and the Parties that fought you see they were no Danes nor Danish Bowny's but meer Irish Bowny's and these neither of one side but some of one and some of the other the quarrel requiring it should be so These are the particulars and many more I might add which together with the general reason before them given moved me to pass by so many ill-contrived stories as I have mention'd here besides many other out of Hanmer But for his relation of the Battel of Clantarff being it is not only almost in every particular so contrary to all the Irish Chronicles but indeed as to the White Danish Knight and his injur'd Bed and Sword and Scabbard and thirty thousand Danes landed with him c. a meer Romantick story there needs no more be said of it Nor am I moved at all by Hanmers quoting the Book of Houth for himself both in this Relation and several other 1. Because for many reasons needless to be given here I take not the Book of Houth as neither indeed any English or other Foreign Author to be of any credit in such matters of Irish Antiquity as preceded the English Conquest in Ireland if otherwise in themselves either improbable or contradicting the whole current of the genuine Monuments of that Nation extant still and written in their own Language That is to say in a Language which neither the Authors of the Book of Houth nor other English Writers nor any Foreiner whatsoever could understand without the help of a very skilful perfect Scholar in it even such a one as among ten thousand Irish Natives cannot be found at present nor could for many Ages past 2. Because having never seen that Book of Houth I cannot rely on Hanmers quotation of it as whom I have manifestly found in several places to make too bold with several other Authors For having these Authors at hand perused and compared them with his quotations of them I have reason to persuade my self that either he never read 'em or which must be worse wilfully impos'd upon them against his own knowledg 53. Where I distinguish page 95. the present Scottish Nation into Irish and English Scots you are to suppose that very many among these must of necessity be Descendants partly of the more ancient Britons who sometimes inhabited the Northern Parts of Great Brittain and partly too of the Pictish Nation For the Irish that conquer'd both ' were not so numerous then as to plant the one half nay nor a third part of all those Countreys now comprehended under the name of Scotland though they became Lords of all by that Battel wherein they destroy'd utterly the Pictish Kingdom So that you may conclude the present English Scots as they are commonly call'd but not those other who go by the name of Scoti Albini * George Bu-l 2. Rer. Scotic page 54. tells us That in the beginning as well the colonies sent by the Irish to the North of Great Brittain as those that sent them went by the common name of all their Nation to wit that of Scoti or Scots But soon after to distinguish the one from the other those in Ireland were called Scoti Jerni that is Irish Scots and these in Brittain Scoti Albini i. e. Albanian Scots So says he And the distinction is proper and significant enough But that other which the Irish make even to this day in their own Language 'twixt an Irish and an English Scot is no less observable For the former they call Albanach Gaodhleach denoting both the Countrey of his Birth Albania and the Stock of his Extrnction Gathelus but the latter they call Albanach Gallda i. e. a Saxon or English Albanian are a mix'd People descended part from Britons Picts and part from Saxons and Normans whether any be remaining still of Danish posterity there I cannot tell nor is it necessary in this place I should What may be of more advantage for understanding somewhat better those affairs of Scotland is I doubt not this following passage out of Cambden After that the Scots were come into Brittain and had joyn'd themselves unto the Picts albeit they never ceas'd to vex the Brittons with skirmishes and inroads yet grew they not presently into any great State but kept a long time in that corner where they first arrived not daring as Beda writes for the space of 127 years to come forth into the Field against the Princes of Northumberland Until at one and the same time they had made such a slaughter of the Picts that few or none of them were left alive and withal the Kingdom of Northumberland what with civil Dissentions what with Invasions of the Danes sore shaken and weakned fell at once to the ground For then all the Northern Tract of Brittain became subject to them and took their name together with that hithermore Countrey on this side Cluyd and Edenborough Frith For that it also was a parcel of the Kingdom of Northumberland and possess'd by the English Saxons no man gainsayeth And hereof it is that all they which inhabit the East part of Scotland and be called Lowland-men as one would say of the Lower-Country are the very off-sping of the English Saxons and do speak English But they that dwell in the West Coast named Highland-men as it were of the upper Countrey be meer Scots and speak Irish as I have said before and none are so deadly Enemies as they be unto the Lowland men which use the English Tongue as we do Hitherto Cambden in his Britannia Tit. Scots pag. 126. Holl. Translat But as well to give the true reason why as to particularize more exactly that period of time during which the genuine Scots had ceas'd from acts of hostility against the Saxons I add out of V. Bede in his Eccles Histor of England l. 2. c. ult That Anno Dom. 603. Edan King of those Scots that inhabited Brittain at that time moved by the success of the Northumbrian King Ethelfrid against the Britons drew to the Field cum immenso exercitu with an exceeding great Army against him but was overcome and fled with a
it be not the greatest of them all I am sure that as it was very great indeed so the Irish Nation is beholden to a Foreiner namely Adolphus Cypreus for transmitting the remembrance of it to Posterity in his Annals of the Bishops of Sleswick a City in Denmark For these are his own Latin words in the sixth page of that Work Reynerus Rex Danorum LVI potentissimus qui tamen ab excitata fortuna quae ipsi in subjugandis Regnis Sueciae Russiae Angliae Scotiae Norvegiae Hiberniae plurimum favit ad inclinatam pene jacentem descivit Namque ab Hella Hiberniae Rege captus in carcere expiravit sub an 841. In English these Reyner the LVI most powerful King of the Danes who nevertheless from the height of Fortune that favour'd him so mightily in subduing the Kingdoms of Swedland Russia England Scotland Norway Ireland was thrown down as low For being taken by Hella King of Ireland he died there in prison about the year 841. And yet I must observe here with Gratianus Lucius 1. That Cypreus mistook both the name and quality of him that took Prisoner this great Danish King 2. That no King of Ireland nor Provincial nor even other lesser King in Ireland was ever call'd by the name of Hella nor was that name of any body at all known among the Irish 3. That the right Irish name in all likelihood was Oillioll which because hard of pronuntiation Foreiners mistook or chang'd it to Hella 4. That since Christianity planted in that Countrey not even any Oillioll was King among 'em save only the Monarch Oillioll surnamed Molt who was next successour to Laoghaire mhac Neill in the year 458. and was killed in Battel An. 478. And lastly therefore that he must have been some great General of an Army and his name Oillioll that took this great Reynerus and kept him in Prison till he died 68. Another is of the Fatal Stone as they call it and refers to page 378. where I ended my Animadversions on the Scottish Histories concerning Fergus I. Of that famed Stone Keting in his Relations of the People call'd Tuath De Dainainn gives this account 1. That this Nation who were the last possessors of Ireland immediately before the Milesian Race had on their arrival there from Norway brought with them four special Jewels of extraordinary use namely a Sword Lance Pot and the Enchanted Stone which in Irish they call by one name Liath Fail by an other Cloch na Cineamhna this later importing in English the Stone of Destiny or Fortune 2. That after the Milesiaus had conquer'd those Tuath-Da-Danan and consequently got possession of this Stone and after they had not only plac'd it at Teambhuir our Tarach where all their Nobles and people did usually meet to chuse the King of Ireland but ordain'd that the new Elect should sit thereon as son as he did so the Stone under him by vertue of some Magical or Diabolical Charm gave such a mighty loud ecchoing astonishing sound that presently the Election was known thereby far and near 3. That this Oraculous Vertue of it ceased as some say when the Pentarchy was set up in that Kingdom by the Monarch Eochadh Feilioch or as others say about the time of our Saviours birth when throughout the World all the sallacious Oracles of the Gentiles became mute 4. That for its name of Cloch na Cineamhne or Stone of Destiny or Fatal Stone the reason was an old Prophesie deliliver'd of it by Tradition which Hector Boethius rendred thus in Latin Verse Ni fallat Fatum Scoti hunc quocumque locatum invenient Lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem But in Irish Meeter it is in Keting thus Ciniodh Scoâ—t saor an Fine man baâ—breag an Faisdine mar a bhfulghid an Liath Fail dlighid flaitheas do ghabhail Importing in both that where-ever the Seottish Nation did find that Stone they should have Dominion Power and Regal Majesty 5. That because of this prophetical Prediction and reputation of it when Fergus that famous Invader of the Picts I mean Fergus Mor mhac Ercho mhic Eochadh muin reamhair as the Irish call and genealogize him from his Father and Grandfather whom the Scottish Historians call Fergus I. would be created K. over hisown conquering Nation the Scots of Pictavia or Albania in Great Brittain he sent to his Brother Mairchiortach Mor mhac Ercha then Monarch of Ireland for this fatal Stone and had it over into Scotland of purpose that by sitting on it when he was created King he might assure the establishment of his Crown and power of his own People in his new conquer'd Kingdom 6. That for many ensuing Ages it remain'd there for a monument either of Religion or Superstition being in the same manner and to the same purpose sate upon by the succeeding Kings of Scotland till Edward I. of England in the current of his Victories had it brought away out of the Abbey of Scone to the Abbey of Westminster Where ever since it has been kept placed under the Royal Chair which the Kings of England usually sit in at their Coronation 7. That in the memory of our Fathers that prophetical Prediction of it and the ancient Scots which you have but now seen was fulfill'd in England too when James VI. of Scotland was crowned King of England at Westminster and has ever since continued to be more and more verified in the succession of Charles I. of glorious memory and Charles II. our present most gracious King For by the line of Maine mhic Cuirek mhic Luighc they are descended through a World of Generations of ancient Scots the Milesian Irish from Heber who as has been already noted elsewhere being the son of Milesius and in a joint Sovereignty ruling with his Brother Herimon was three thousand years since King of all Ireland And this is the account which Keting where he treats of Tuath-De-Danainn gives of that fatal Stone Save only that he makes no express mention of Charles II. nor could indeed as who died himself in the Reign of Charles I. But nevertheless he express'd his mind sufficiently as to the purpose of that Fatal Prediction by naming his Father and Grandfather both I am sure his expression of joy in the same place for their having successively come to be Kings of England Scotland France and Ireland must have involv'd the concomitant wishes of his heart for their posterity after them to attain and continue the same glory while time shall be And therein he has me to join with all my very Soul 69. The Fifth may be referr'd to page 155. where I treated briefly somewhat of Cormock O Cuillenain that excellent pious holy man who was at the same time both Arch-Bishop and King of Mounster and continued so for seven years together that is even all along till he lost his life in the Battel of Mughna For to this rare Example of the same man's being both King and Priest may be added
of these two Writers has treated of the Affairs of that second Difference of Time in Varro especially Berosus He tells us that Berosus both mentioned the Flood and Ark and resting of this on the Mountains of Armenia and continued the series of his Narration downwards all along from the first of Kings after the Deluge even from Noah himself that is for the whole extent of that very Second period or Difference of Time Whence it must follow that however this Time might well and justly be reputed fabulous by the Greeks in relation to themselves and their own Historians yet their ignorance ought to be no rule to conclude other Nations that like to those ancient Egyptians Phaenicians and his Chaldeans in Joseph were from the beginning careful to preserve their Antiquities i. e. their Genealogies Adventures Changes Kings Wars and other Memorable Deeds in publick Registers on Record for Posterity Such are at present the Chineses in the utmost limit of the old World in Asia towards the Rising Sun as the History of Martinus a Martinis abundantly sheweth And that such also in the farthest Land of Europe towards the Setting Sun the ancient Irish have been while their State continued till about five hundred years since may be sufficiently evinc'd by many arguments Among which are those which you may briefly read in this Prospect Former Part Sect. II. page 46 47 and 48. whereunto it will not be amiss to add what both Cambrensis and Neubrigensis do confess that even from the beginning the Irish Nation has ever continued free from any forein Yoak or Conquest till Henry the Second of England's time That is according to Cambrensis has continued so even for so long an extent of time as the successive Reigns of a hundred eighty one Monarchs of their own Countrey and extraction from the same stock had certainly taken up And therefore it must be also confess'd That so long at least they were in a capacity to preserve their own Records And so indeed they did preserve the chiefest of 'em safe even amidst the greatest fury of the two Danish Wars Neither of which how destructive calamitous and heavy soever especially the Former was arrived to the nature of an absolute or total Conquest of the Natives not even for one week or day All which consider'd by indifferent men I hope may be enough to remove out of their way all prejudgment of Criticks from the foresaid observation of Varro against those remote Antiquities of the Irish Nation which you shall meet with in the Former Part of this Prospect What or who were the Authors I have followed it will be but reasonable I should inform you next And I think it as reasonable to tell you That although I have read whatever Cambrensis or Campion or Hanmer or Spencer wrote of Ireland yet in the whole Former Part of this Prospect I have not borrow'd from any one or more of them above one Paragraph of a few lines unless peradventure you account those other to be such i. e. borrowed from them which animadvert upon some few of their many Errours Nor certainly would I have ventur'd on writing so much as one Line of the State of that Kingdom before the English Conquest if I had not been acquainted with other kind of Authors yea Authors not only more knowing but incomparably better qualified to know the ancient Monuments of that Kingdom than they or any other Foreigners that hitherto have gather'd written printed some hear-say scraps of that Nation could possibly be In short when I was a young man I had read Geoffrey Keting's Irish Manuscript History of Ireland And now when my Lord of Castle-haven would needs engage me to write something as you have seen before I remembred how about four or five years since the R. H. Earl of Anglesey Lord Privy Seal had been pleas'd to shew me another Manuscript being an English Translation of that Irish History of Ketings Besides I remember'd to have seen and read Gratianus Lucius when he came out in print some twenty years ago And because I was sâ—re to meet in the Former materials enough for such Discourses upon the more Ancient Irish or State of their Countrey before the English Conquest as were to my purpose and that the Later too might be very useful in some particulars having borrow'd Keting first i. e. that English Manuscript Translation of him such as it is from my Lord Privy Seal I ventur'd to begin somewhâ—â— in the method you have here on so Noble and Illustrious a Subject Though I must confess I am still the more unsatisfied that while I was drawing these Papers you have now before you I could by no means procure the Reading either of Primat Vsher's Primordia Ecclesiarum Britannicarum or Sir James Ware 's Antiquities of Ireland However seeing I have expos'd my self to censure as relying wholly on the ability and sincerity of Keting and Lucius in the performance of their several undertakings I have the more reason to give here this following true account of them Geoffrey Keting was a Native of Ireland in the Province of Mounster as were his Ancestours before him for many Generations though not of Irish but English blood originally He was by Education Study Gommencement abroad in France a Doctor of Divinity in his Religion a Romanist by Ordination and Calling a secular Priest He had by his former study at home in his younger days under the best Masters of the Irish Tongue and the most skilful in their Antiquities arriv'd to a high degree of knowledg in both In his riper years when return'd back from his other Studies and Travails in Forein Parts his curiosity and genius led him to examin all Foreign Authors both Ancient and Modern who had written of that Kingdom either purposely or occasionally whether in Latin or in English And this diligent search made him observe two things chiefly 1. That every one even the very best and most knowing of those Writers were either extreamly out in many if not most of their Relations concerning the State of that Countrey before the English Conquest or rather indeed wholly ignorant of it In so much that like men groping in the dark they related scarce any thing at all well or ill of what had pass'd among the Inhabitants of Ireland far above one and Thirty Hundred years Except only what is by some of them reported of the Learning and Sanctimony of their Monks during the first fervours of Christianity and a very little more of their Wars at home in Ireland with the Danes and even this very little involv'd in a mixture of Monstrous Fables derived from such Romantick Stories as were certainly written at first for meer diversion and pastime only 2. That the generality of those Brittish Authors who have written of that Countrey since the English Conquest are against all Justice and Truth and Law 's of History in the highest degree injurious to the ancient Natives These considerations
those very Monarchs for he names only the first and last of 〈◊〉 being Feidlimidius whom he mistakes for one more was not King of Ireland but of Mounster only So little he has of the very Milesians or their Antiquities or Actions Except only 1. A few words of the six Sons of Muredus Provincial King of Ulster entring Scotland 2. A slender touch upon the Danish Invasions of Ireland In which notwithstanding he is mightily out both as to the Year of Christ he fixes on for the first of those Invasions viz. 838. and as to the name person feats yea and Nation too of Gurmundus all being meer Fictions borrow'd mostly from Galfridus Monumethensis However with such and many more idle stories in other matters not only impertinent to the Title of his Books or discharge of his Promise nor only not had from any Records or Writings whatsoever as neither from the oral Testimony of men of knowledg or integrity but wholly deriv'd from old Wive's Tales and pastime of Ferry-men and random reports of Soldiers and imposture of some Knaves who fain'd things of purpose to impose on his vain credulity and besides with most vile reflections Invectives Satyrs almost every where against the Irish Nation of his own time their Princes Priests and People generally without sparing any degree not even the very Monks nor even the very Bishops excepted he patch'd up finish'd at last after five years study all his foresaid five Books of Ireland prefixing Dedicatories of some to the King as of other of 'em to Richard Earl of Poictou who soon after was Richard I. of England And now putting an extraordinary value on these Works of his own and no longer able to conceal his ambitious design of glory by 'em he goes to Oxford renews the ancient Roman Rehearsals there in the most publick Audience could be had continues 'em three days together from morning till night allowing a day for each of his Topographical Books And to make his Comedy the more solemn feasts all the meaner sort of that whole City on the firstday on the second all the Doctors Masters and chief Scholars of the Vniversity on the third day the rest of the Scholars the Soldiers too and all the Burgesses of that Place A sumptuous and noble act says Gerald himself glorying of it whereby the ancient Custom of Poets was renewed which neither the present Age nor any former could shew in England But after all he came short of his expectation of glory His little performance and great ignorance his many Fables and evil choice of other materials toâ— yea and his mortal enmity hatred malevolence to the Irish Nation were seen through especially at Court where as himself complains he had too many back Friends to malign him Above all his Satyrs and spleen against the very name of the Irish lai'd him open Nor were the true causes thereof unknown Besides the common concern he had in the destruction of that People for the sake of his Kinsmen there was another more peculiar to himself that continually egg'd him to the greatest violence against them He had even for his own sake very deeply engag'd in a particular controversie with Albinus O Molloy a Cistercian Irish Monk and Abbot of Baltinglass wherein he was worsted Whether any other causes mov'd him I do not know But this I know that in his Second Book of the Conquest of Ireland he desir'd that whole Nation might either be throughly weakned or totally destroy'd yea notwithstanding the Peace but lately concluded and still observ'd by them And that besides in the same Book cap. 36. he prescrib'd the ways to do it I see also that on every occasion as he is perpetually in the greatest extreams even of Romantic praises of his own Relatives Fitz Stephens Fitz Gerald Meyler the two Barrys and all their Brittish Soldiers too his own Countrey-men so of the other side upon the least pique he is no less passionately excessive in charging with and exaggerating the vilest things against the very Normans and English in Ireland tho embarqu'd in the save public quarrel with them against the Irish Nation Witness among others Herveus de Monte Marisco and William Fitz Adelm the King's Lieutenant and Progenitor of the noble Family of Bourks in that Kingdom Nay witness the King himself Henry II. Whom altho during his Life this Author made the Occidental Alexander the Invincible the Salomon of his own Time the most Pious of Princes and his only Fame tho far short of his Merits to have repress'd the fury of all the very Gentils of Europe and Asia too beyond the Mediterranean Sea adding many more Hyperbolical expressions to magnifie him above all truth and reason as for example That his Victoâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 with the Circumference of the Earth and That if you seek after the Limits of his Conquests you shall sooner come to the end of the World than of them yet after this Great Prince's death as David Powel very particularly observes he the same Author Gerald of Wales most bitterly invey'd against him in his Book de Instructione Principis where he so belâ—bed forth the venom of his malevolence that he manifestly discover'd his old inveterate hatred of this King Henry So says Powell Moreover and in reference particularly to his stories of Ireland you may find in Primat Ushers Sylloge pag. 155. how the expostulations of other men and evidence of Truth compell'd him at last to several Retractations among which he confesses that altho he had some of his Relations from persons of credit in that Countrey yet for the rest he had only common report and fame Which if I be not mistaken is in effect to acknowledg that he had common Lyes and Forgeries to authorize them Nay further You may read Sir James Wares Censure of them in his own Antiquities of Ireland cap. 23. where in express terms he says in Latin That Gerald of Wales in his Topography of Ireland has heap'd together so many Fabulous Relations that to discuss them exactly would require a just Treatise And then adds in the same place his own wonder How it should come to pass that some of this very Age tho otherwise grave and learned men have again for Truths obtruded on the World those Fictions of Girald Besides You are to know that notwithstanding so many just exceptions against those Books of Cambrensis yea notwithstanding they had therefore lyen after his death 400 years neglected obscure unknown till Cambden had them printed at Francford an 1602. yet ever since that year they have proved the only chief warrant to all such men of little reading as were delighted in writing ill of the ancient Irish To conclude what I would say on the whole is That if hatred enmity open profess'd hostility and special interest and actual engagement too in the destruction of that ancient Irish Nation if ignorance of their Language and wilful passing by their History even the most authentick of their
Records if no knowledg at least of two Thirds of their Countrey if hunting collecting and hudling together the vainest and falsest and most ridiculous hear-say stories and this forsooth of purpose to gain immortal fame by telling stupendious things not heard before if Satyrs of the people in general so virulent and frequent that in very deed the publishing of 'em may be justly suspected to have been at least a great part of the Authors chief design if a licentious humour and immoderate passion transporting him to the strangest exorbitancy either of praises or dispraises or flatteries or injuries as he stood affected in writing even of his own Party and his own King for company among 'em if his acknowledgment in Usher and the Censure of him by Sir James Ware in a word if so many excellent Qualifications as are enumerated here can render him an Author of Credit or to be follow'd or believ'd in any passage of his foresaid Books that is to any degree of prejudice either against the Irish Nation or contrary to their Chronicles or vain or exotick in it self and not warranted by better authority than his only word I say that if the matter be so indeed then for my own part I must be of opinion that no Author at all how idle or vain or unwarrantable or incredible or false or injurious reproachful and satyrical soever his Relations of any People or Countrey are is to be rejected Tho in all contingencies it must be also confess'd that wherever Cambrensis has delivered any thing to the advantage renown or credit of the Irish Nation his testimony is doubtless above all exception for so much For the confession of an Adversary is valid in all Tribunals and both Bodin and Reason requires it should be so in History Thus having sufficiently inform'd you both of Cambrensis and the true original grounds of the Quarrel of Gratianus Lucius to him I return to the finishing my account of Lucius himself And this I shall dispatch by a little farther addition first of those more special considerations that put him on writing his Cambrensis Eversus and then of his performance therein Those himself gives at large but I shall contract ' em 1. He had often consider'd that altho soon after the coming out of Cambrensis in Germany from the Press two Learned Irish Gentlemen Richard White a Jesuit and Philip O Suillevan a Soldier to undeceive the World and right their injur'd Nation had most exactly and convincingly written each of them at large against his impostures yet through ill fortune their several Books on that subject were lost and no body since had put Pen to paper to retrive this loss 2. By daily conversation among Foreigners he had found That because in so many years since that Francford Edition of Cambrensis nothing appear'd against him in Print his very vilest Relations of Ireland were taken for confessedly true 3. Having read a great number of Books and he thinks all whatsoever written of that Kingdom by English other Brittish Authors and observing how as many of 'em at least as came out since the change of Religion were so unjust to the Irish Nation that amongst all there was not so much as any one Individual who does not either report Fictions or conceal Truths or exaggerate the bad or extenuate the good Things of that People he considered at last that Giraldus Cambrensis was their first pattern 4. And which to him was more grievous yet he considered that ever since the aforesaid German Edition there was not a Book written nor a Cosmographical or Geographical Table drawn there was not I mean a Map or a Card as they are call'd describing the customs or manners of Nations come forth in any part of Europe which was not replenish'd with ugly base reflections on the Irish In so much that in all Countreys and Languages they were on all occasions become a Fable to the Vulgar and object of scorn to others These were the considerations that prevail'd with Lucius to exert his zeal for Truth and Love to his Countrey in taking all the foresaid Books of Cambrensis to pieces laying open the most material of his Errors and Calumnies for it had been endless to pursue him in the more immaterial convincing him every where and therefore when he had finish'd his Work publishing it for the satisfaction of Europe in Latin under the Title of Cambrensis Eversus which may be English'd The Cambrian overthrown How justly it deserves this name others may judg seeing the Book is extant and has been since the year 1622. when it was printed For my own part I can do no less than acknowledg what I think of it my self which is That the Author shews himself very conversant in those Letters we call Polite That above all for knowledg in History both Domestic Forein Sacred and Profane he appears excellently well qualified to write on the Subject he undertook That every where and whatever matter is treated he is very exact in quoting his Authors and where the allegation must depend on Irish Books or Writers he never omits to give 'em by name in the Margin among which are the Annals of Inis Fail the Common Annals the Annals of Anonimus the Annals of Tigernacus the Continuer of Tigernacus the Books of Reigns O Duuegan O Donel Colgan Philip O Suillevan Peter Lombard Archb. of Ardmagh Keting Primat Usher Sir James Ware That in a word his performances in this Book against Cambrensis are accurate absolute full and therefore not unworthy the Dedication they bear prefix'd to the Sacred Majesty of Charles II. of Great Brittain our gracious King I say against Cambrensis Because I do abstract wholly from his occasional or incidental Reflections any where on the State of Ireland since the Year 1640. To deliver my thoughts of them is no part of my business here What more concerning Lucius must be directly to the purpose of this place is to let you understand that although Cambrensis Eversus be not a History of Ireland yet because it is in many places fraught with choice Collections out of the Irish Antiquities and in the VIII Chapter occasionally gives together with a Catalogue of all the Monarchs of Ireland under the several Conquests even from Slanius the first of them a brief account of their Reigns and Years of the World or Christ respectively when each King began finish'd his Reign therefore next to Keting I have made the greatest use of him in the Former Part tho no where before page 130. for till I came so far I had him not And out of him particularly it is That in some places I add to such or such Monarchs the Year of the World or of our Saviour Christ's Incarnation Now what Computation is follow'd by him in giving the former Years I mean those of the World albeit he does not himself expresly inform us we may notwithstanding most certainly know by his fixing
what I had almost forgotten That I have more than once or twice either quoted Geoffrey of Monmouth himself I hope no man will be scandalized that considers besides the occasion what use I make of him Nay I do persuade my self That to see * Former Part from page 3 5. to pag. 347. And again p. 363 364 369. in five or six leaves of this little Form a pretty just Abridgment of his famed Work i. e. his Seven Books of the ancient History of Great Brittain or supposed Posterity of Brutus cannot be displeasing to those who never saw nor knew where to find the Author himself or his History at large nor perhaps were it lying by them and in their own Language too would have the patience to read it over And now That I gave given what I would say in this Place concerning any of those other Authors whom besides Keting and Lucius I either follow or examine or e'en utterly reject in the Former Part of my Prospect there remains but little more to be Prefac'd to it For to the Latter Part I shall therefore prefix an other Preface but one by so much the shorter by how much it must be proper to that Part alone In which other Preface I mean to observe the same Method I have in this by giving an account of the Writers who shall direct me in that Later Part and how and the reasons why I must therein be guided partly by some of those very men whose testimonials in other matters I slight in the Former What more I would give for Preface here to the same Former Part only are these Particulars 1. That wheresoever I annex to any of those Irish Monarchs treated of by me Capital or other Letters or Figures of Numbers whereby I would signifie what rank they held in their Catalogue for example whether of the Tenth or Twentieth or so forth there I related only to the Catalogue of Milesian Monarchs not to any other containing both Milesian and the other 18. Monarchs of the several Conquests that preceded theirs 2. That although I have endeavoured with all diligence to extract in order those Milesian Monarchs out of Ketings voluminous History which no where adds to any of 'em the number i. e. any such Letters Figures or Words importing it after all I cannot be sure I have not mistaken and this perhaps more than once in adding my numbers But the best on 't is that the errour if any such be is not material 3. That where I speak of 2988 years or sometimes of a year or a few years more or less from the first of the Milesian Conquest in all such places I follow the Account of Keting Who to reduce the Irish Chronology to an agreement not only with his own Computation of the years of the World but with the Relation also of Cambrensis and Polychronicon where they tell us of the Milesians having conquer'd that Kingdom 1800 years before S. Patric's death purposely cut off of the Reigns of several of their Kings so many years as make in all 491. But elsewhere that is p. 496 c. and in the Catalogue I have strictly follow'd Gratianus Lucius and consequently the Irish Book of Reigns as to the number of years the Milesian Kings reigned or Kingdom lasted 4. That for want of Irish Books or Antiquaries to consult with I confess it remains a difficulty with me still How the six Sons of the Ulster K. Muredus as Cambrensis calls him in Latin who in Irish is call'd Muiridhach by Keting even those very six famous Brothers that invaded Tâ—ath-Chruthnigh for so the Irish by a proper name in their Language call'd the Countrey of the Picts which now we call Scotland How I say those very six Brothers go sometimes by the name of the Six Sons of Muiridhach and sometimes again by that of the Six Sons of Eirck Vnless peradventure the same person had those two names of Muiridhach Eirck or that Keting derived their being the Sons of Muredus from Girald of Wales only 5. That if any where in these Discourses of Ireland you meet with some Relations either of Miracles above Nature or Antiquities hard to believe I must beg that you will notwithstanding be so just as at least to believe I have no design to impose either upon your reason or upon your freedom 6. That besides it will be no more than Justice requires of you to persuade your self That no Relatour of matters so far beyond our ken is accountable for his own belief or disbelief of them much less for their objective truth or untruth being or not being in themselves Provided he relates no impossibilities nor absurdities nor contradictions of all other Histories that are esteemed true nor any thing whatsoever out of other Records than Authentick or other Authors than Classick or at least other than such as have been among their own People reputed men of Probity and Reason and acknowledg'd so in such matters as they write of 7. That I have commonly chosen to give the Irish proper Names and Surnames though not in Irish Characters yet in such Italick Letters as answer them because by having them so the Reader may be much better assured that he sees before him the true genuine names whether he can pronounce them rightly or not than he could be if according to the custom of others I had transform'd 'em into the English or Latin either syllables or terminations And yet withal my Copy of Keting being very bad in many places and which I do willingly acknowledg my own skill to correct the Irish Orthography of it very small I must in reason suspect my performance in this matter But neither can the Errours herein be either material or any way considerable 8. That I confess I have taken a quite contrary course to the late Brittish Writers in magnifying so far as good Authority did warrant me the Ancient Irish Nation which they a man would think made it their business to lessen and vilifie all they could But nevertheless I doubt not all judicious impartial men will acknowledg how much more it must redound to the honour of the English Nation to have conquered an ancient civil warlike brave People in the days of Yore than such an obscure barbarous vile hideous generation of men as partly the Cambrian Author partly others that follow'd the pattern left by him represent those Old Inhabitants of Ireland in their time Besides if without any relation to others but on the naked sole contemplation of some excellencies in that ancient People I have suffer'd some transport who can blame me None I believe that considers attentively the import and consequence of this Saying of the Roman Sage though delivered by him on an other subject Some acts of Liberality some of Humanity some of Fortitude had astonish'd us and we began to admire them as perfect Under 'em lay many vices which the appearance splendor of some conspicuous Fact did
monuments of Antiquity their Genealogies Cronicles and Records should have nothing foisted into them nothing at all inserted but what was true and certain by the approbation of a special Committee of the most skilful in such matters That all such and only such National Concerns Annals or other matters which they approv'd after their diligent search and examination of them should be there in publick written in the Kings or Monarchs book of Royal Records called the Psalter of Taragh and whatever was repugnant to that Book should have no credit That in prosecution of this great care of their National Monuments it was that when they became Christians a Parliament of all their Estates both Temporal and Spiritual held under the Monarch Laogirius at the same Royal Habitation of the Monarchs Taragh deputed three Kings three Bishops and three of their most singular Antiquaries even Saint Patrick himself there present being one of these Bishops as the other two were Benuin and Caraioch and the three Kings the foresaid Laogirius Monarch of Ireland tho never converted Daire King of Vlster and Cork mhac Luighioch King of Mounster the Antiquaries also being Dubthach Fergus and Rosse mhac Trichim to review and reduce into order all their National Chronicles That this Committee of Nine having done so with great pains and industry they reduced all into one Book fairly written That the keeping of this original Book was intrusted after by the Estates to the Prelats and those Prelats for its perpetual preservation caused several authentick Copies of it to be fairly engross'd whereof some are extant to this day and several more faithfully transcribed out of them their Names taken from the places where they were for many Ages kept being the Book of Ardmach The Psalter of Casshell The Book of Gleann da Loch c. Whereunto I may add as not very impertinent in this place That the Irish Nation were all along from the beginning so addicted to and had so great an esteem of the knowledg of their own Genealogies Histories that Keting in his Preface anciently there have been in Ireland above two hundred chief Annalists or Historians by place and office such who had Estates in Land set apart and assign'd them and to their Issue after them in perpetuity for attending wholly that Calling and study of it every great Lord having a peculiar Sept of them to record and transmit to Posterity what especially concern'd him and those deriving from him besides what concern'd the Nation in general yet all continually subject to the foresaid Triennial Scrutiny in Parliament A care of Antiquity and History I think not to be match'd by any other Nation in Europe And as they took that care to provide for their Antiquaries so they did also as Cambden Britannia tit Ireland p. 140. hath observed the like for their Poets Physicians and Harpers by assigning them Estates in Land to live independently of others only the duty they owed their great Lords excepted still In the two other Councils of Eumhna and Cruachain the matters principally debated by the Nobility Gentry and other members of them were the concerns of all the Artificers Tradesmen and Handicrafts-men of Ireland Smiths of all sorts Carpenters Masons c. whereof a great number was summon'd to be at each Assembly Out of which number these two Councils did cull out sixty the most eminent in their professions and gave them authority all over the Kingdom allowing them distinct jurisdictions to reform all the abuses of their several Callings and suspend such as they thought fit from exercising them So that none could set up or continue any Mechanical occupation but with their Licence after they had examined and made trial of the sufficiency or insufficiency of the party concern'd These Masters so authorised they call'd in their Language Goldannuigh which imports omniscient or skilful in all Mechanicks So much of their Councils and Government as to Civil Affairs in the more ancient times both of Paganism and Christianity Of their Judicatures and Judges whom they call Brehons he that please may see very singular and wonderful things related of them in D. Keting a Reign of Laoghaire the Monarch in St. Patricks days even when they were Pagans But if you desire to know the several degrees of their Nobility or the different Titles of Honour among those Irish Noblemen who sat in their Parliaments or Councils I can only answer besides what is said already that in Ireland until the English Conquest they had none of our Titles that is not those either of Duke or Marquess Earl Viscount Baron or Knight only such Knights as they called Niadha-Nask and may be called by us in English Knights of the Chain or in Latin Milites Torquati from a certain kind of Chain put about their Necks as no more in truth had Scotland any such Titles before the year of Christ 1074. when Malcolm III. Reigned there and William I. surnamed the Bastard and Conquerour had subdued all intirely here in England Concerning which custom of not using any such Titles of Honour in Scotland particularly as likewise concerning the other of the Language spoken till that time in the very Court of Scotland though as well the one as the other may seem foreign to this place this following Note in Samuel Daniel's words may give you further satisfaction As in the Court of England the French Tongue became more generally spoken viz. in William the Conquerours Reign for of that time this Author speaks here so in that of Scotland did the English by reason of the multitude of this Nation attending both the Queen and her Brother Edgar and daily repairing thither for their safety and combination against the common Enemy Of whom divers abandoning their Native distressed Countrey were by the bounty of that King preferred and there planted spread their off-spring into many Noble Families remaining to this day The Titles for distinguishing degrees of Honour as of Duke Earl Baron Rider or Knight were then as is thought first introduced and the nobler sort began to be called by the title of their Seigneuries according to the French manner which before bare the name of their Father with the addition of Mac after the fashion of Ireland Sam. Dan. in the Reign of William I. pag. 34. Where in the Margin he hath this further observation that Scotland before this time generally spake a kind of Irish 12. As to their constant ordinary Militia what it was in their times of peace we find in the Reign of Cormock Vlfada the Son of Airt King of Ireland a little after the Birth of Christ For then it consisted of three Battalions or Divisions of equal number each in all nine thousand men under several Commanders and Fionn mhac Cuual their General who was neither Gyant nor Dane nor other Foreigner as no more were any of his Commanders Captains or Souldiers He was himself but of the ordinary stature of other men though
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
For then converting himself wholly and for himself only to God he ceas'd not with tears and sighs and sobs too repeating continually while he could open his lips that Verse of the Psalmist Have mercy on me O God have mercy on me because my soul confideth in thee until about midnight on the 13th of November Anno 1181. he breath'd out his last to his Redeemer Now that such a life and such a death of a man so virtuous all along from his very Youth whether he be considered either as a Clerk or Monk or Abbot of Gleann-da-Loch or as Archbishop of Dublin and Chanon of the Aroasian Institute or as Legat of Ireland or as a prosperous or afflicted man should be attested as pleasing to God by prodigious Miracles both in his life and after his death seems nothing strange to me The Author of his Life recounts a good many of them wrought in the time of his Life And the Bull of his canonization dated at Reate III. Ides Decemb. by Honorius III. Ninth year of his Pontificat which was of Christ 1225. gives a brief sum of all that had been wrought either in his Life or after his death by telling us That besides the Dumb and Lame and Lepers and many others afflicted with sundry other maladies cur'd of all their evils at the sole invocation of God by him or in his name and at his Tomb by others he was by the power of God the wonderful raiser e'en from death to life of seven persons in particular and among 'em of one who had been full three days dead Nor can I well deny that this Bull ought to have by much the more credit with many who are not in other matters over-credulous and ought so to have for these reasons 1. Because it was procured and the whole ceremony and process of this canonization sollicited not only by the Letters of the Archbishop and Chapter of Roan and of the Abbot and Convent of the foresaid Auge where the body then rested within the Diocess of Roan but by those also of many other Archbishops Bishops Abbots and religious men all attesting the sanctity of his Life and glory of Miracles continually wrought after his death at his Tomb. 2. Because the Inquisition was made partly in France by the Archbishop Dean and Treasurer of Roan and for the rest in Ireland by the Bishop of Kildare and Prior of Trinity Church in Dublin 3. Because within 45 years after his death all was finish'd and this very Bull issued and his Festivity with an Octave kept in the most solemn manner could be both at Auge in France and at Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland while the people were yet alive nay by a world of those very people of all degrees that knew and conversed with him familiarly and yet invoked him now most devoutly and religiously as Coheir of Christ in glory and their tutelary Patron under Christ with God the Father The fifth and last Point is That notwithstanding all the sanctity and merits either of those two extraordinary Wonder-working Saints of God Malachy and Laurence or of any other holy men whatsoever that in secret mourned for the iniquities of their People that cried to God incessantly to spare them and that in the Language of Ezechiel interpos'd themselves Ezech. XXII 30. a hedg between the wrath of Heaven and their Land by fasting and praying and afflicting their own Bodies for the sins of others yet all would not do It was now come to that pass with the People of Ireland in general which had been with the People of Judaea when God spake to Hieremy the Prophet c. XV. v. 1. first assuring him that although Samuel and Moses stood before his face to intercede for them yet he would not listen to their prayer because his soul was against that People and then commanding him to pronounce ejection from before his face exâ—crmination and flitting out of their Land against them It was come to that very pass with the Irish now in which it had been again with the same stubborn stiffnecked Israelites when he declar'd to the Prophet Ezechiel and sware unto him even by his own Life That if those very three most perfect servants of his in their generation Moses Daniel and Job lived among them yet by their righteousness they should only save themselves not any other no not so much as either Son or Daughter For such indeed was the deplorable case of the ancient Milesians of Ireland at this time the very last period of their Monarchy And such it was notwithstanding so many just men as in particular the Bishops Malchus and Gilbertus and Celsus and Christianus and Gelasius and Malachi and Laurence that lived among them and interceded for them continually to God Yea such it was notwithstanding all the Reformation so lately wrought by any of these holy men among either Ecclesiasticks or Laics any where in the Nation and all the Councils held and all the Monasteries built and Schools erected and Churches endowed and whatever else at this time was practis'd to restore both civility and piety to some degree of the ancient Lustre Nothing at all could any longer slow the execution of the final doom pronounced by the Watcher and holy one of Heaven against the lofty proud Milesian Tree Nor must we wonder at it if we reflect upon what is discours'd at large in the former Section The Kings and Princes and Nobles and Men at Arms of Ireland either all this while were not at all themselves reformed or certainly and that most frequently too were again relapsed into their old accursed Feuds their concussions violences rapin oppression revenge their spilling of one anothers blood to death and this even all along from time to time until the Executioners of their final Sentence came to part them and make them for ever slaves on every side to a forein People What other sins of the Irish Nation might according to the judgment of man have incensed God after so long forbearance to pour upon 'em so dreadful a judgment I cannot say And the reason is because I find no specification of any other in those Histories of theirs which I have read Yet I will not pass over in silence what I find to this purpose in Girald of Wales I mean Cambrensis This Author says that upon the taking of Dublin and harrasing of Meath by Diarmuid na-Ngall King of Leinster and his forein Auxiliaries the Clergy of Ireland assembled in a National Synod at Ardmach having debated the causes of this Invasion and after full debate resolved first in general that the sins of their Nation had brought this calamity on them Secondly in particular That their evil custom of buying Christian English Youths as well from Merchants as Pirats and making them slaves for ever had been a special Cause of it Thirdly That God was just in subjecting their People to the same condition of slavery under that very Nation which they
less than the Milesians themselves and all other Gathelians whatsoever had the same very speech their Mother Tongue though with some difference in the Dialect So that only those I called once the Aborigenes of Ireland I mean the progeny of Ciocal and his followers descended from the accursed Cham and come out of Africk had another peculiar Language of their own 57. Though I have page 15. said the Antiquity of the Milesian Irish to be no-where parallel'd if not peradventure among the Chineses only c. I hope no man will understand me so as to think I would not have still excepted the Children of Israel had I feared that any would entertain such a thought of my meaning as would need the exception I am sure none could justly do so that pleas'd to consider what I said before page 5. viz. That the Milesians had not before two hundred eighty three years after Moses's passing the Red Sea landed in Ireland For until then whatever they were called it is plain they could not be called Irish because this name they derived from that Island where they never lived before this time And 't is no less plain that before this time the Children of Israel had as a free and brave and conquering Nation inhabited Palestin at least two hundred and forty years had also lived forty years in the Wilderness and before that too had been a great numerous people in Egypt where they lived in all from the descent of Jacob out of Canaan thither till their departure under Moses through the Red Sea two hundred and fifteen years as Josephus expresly tells in his Antiq. L. iii. c. vi though under great bondage for some part thereof And therefore to them or their ancientness I could not intend to compare that of the Milesians nor as now become Irish no nor as Gathelians neither For Gathelus himself the original stock of all the Gathelians and consequently of the Milestans being these were only a branch of those was but a youth in Egypt with his Father Niull when Moses cross'd the Red Sea as we have lately seen at large 48. Yet in the 18th Page I must confess there is an Errour committed by saying that the six sons of Muredus alias in Irish Muiriach King of Vlster went to Scotland under the Monarchy of Laogirius or Laoghaire King of Ireland But I have corrected it page 93. where you read it was in the Twentieth year of this Monarch's Successor and son Lugha they invaded Scotland 49. Whether Niall Naoihghiallach did or did not order Albania to be call'd Scotia as Keting says he did whereof see the same 18th page you are nevertheless to know that the most eminent Antiquary Primâ—t Vsher hath sufficiently evinc'd de Primord page 784. That as neither Dalrieda nor Argathelia alias Argyle though the proper Seat of the Scots inhabiting Brittain until the year 840. so neither the whole Countrey of Albania even after that year had ever been called Scotia by any Writer until about the year of Christ 1100. when both Nations I mean the Picts and Scots were come by degrees to make one people And that Marianus Scotus who flourish'd at that time was one of the very first Authors that call'd it by this name of Scotia Where you are further to observe that according to this most learned Primat's account of the confinement of the foresaid Scots to their ancient Dominions of Dalriada and Argyle it was the year of Christ 840. before they had inlarged themselves by overthrowing and subduing the whole Kingdom of the Picts Which is a hundred years later than my account of this matter out of Cambden in my said 18. Page 50. Page 19. where I supposed that the Nine several Countreys or Nations forc'd to deliver every one of them Hostages to Niall the Great otherwise and from the nine several sorts of Hostages surnam'd in Irish Naoighiallach in Latin Noui-Obses were only the five Provinces of Ireland and the distinct Dominions of the Dal-Rheudans Picts and other Inhabitants of that Countrey we now call Scotland there I follow'd Keting But after having lighted on the Author of Cambrensis Eversus and found in him That the great Irish Antiquary Joannes Colganus in his Trias Taumaturga Gratianus Lucius page 299. * page 447. num 56. had otherwise counted those nine Countreys and Nations I thought fit as occasion was offered page 221. to count or give them as he did viz. Mounster Leinster Connaght Vlster the Brittons Picts Dal-Rheudans Saxons and Morini a People of France towards Calice and Picardy For the word Saxons is in the said later page omitted through the Printers fault And yet I cannot but acknowledg that if Niall the Great had any Hostages from the Saxons he must either have taken 'em at Sea or from the Coasts of Germany the Higher or Lower but by no means from Great Brittain Because Niall was kill'd in France anno Dom. 405. as the foresaid Author of Cambr. Euers Gratianus Lucius himself does write in the short Account he gives of this Monarchs Reign and the Saxons were not come into Great Brittain before the year of Christ 440. as Polydore Virgil in his Reign of Vortigern says that is forty four years after the said Niall the Great Naoighiallach had left behind him all his Hostages and ended all his Greatness in this World 51. With the Battel or loss or name of Coilus as King of Great Brittain mention'd by me page 19. though I took it from Keting and quoted Buchanan as he does and find by reading Buchanan himself that Keting has rightly quoted him yet now I am not my self otherwise affected with it than to reject it utterly And my reason is not only Buchanans fixing the time of that Battel fought as he says between Coilus King of the Brittons and Fergus I. King of the Scots eight or nine hundred years before this very Fergus came from Ireland nor only Buchanan's borrowing this whole story out of Hector Boethius whom Humphry Lloyd calls hominem impurissimum a most impure Author and Lucius Scriptorem corruptissimum a most corrupt Writer nay one who in the far greater part of his History scarce delivers any truth at all but the very name of Coilus here deriving its original from the fertil invention of Geoffrey of Monmouth's new History of Brutus For it is only in this Romance we find the first mention of any Coilus among the Kings of Great Brittain And there indeed I must confess we have not only one but three Monarchs of this Island bearing that name The first of them being the fortieth King in order of time the second being the seventieth second King and the last whom he names Coel. being the seventy ninth according to Geoffrey's disposition of them and my account out of him But I must withal acknowledg that he has not a word nor a syllable either of the first or last of these Three save only the bare names of Coilus and Coel hudled
right truly there was no other limit of Brittain to be sought for Neither verily in the time ensuing did either the valour of Armies or Glory of the Roman name which scarcely could be stayed set out the Marches of the Empire in this part of the World further although with inroads they otherwhiles molested and endammaged them But after this glorious Expedition of Agricola when himself was called back Brittain as says Tacitus became For let neither was the possession kept still this far For the Caledonian â—rittons drave the Romans back as far as to the River Tine In so much as Hadrian who came into Brittain in person and reform'd many things in it went no farther forward but gave Commandment that the God Terminus who was wont to give ground to none should retire backwards out of this place like as in the East on this side Euphrates he did Hence it is that St. Augustin de Civ Dei l. 4. c. 29. wrote in this wise God Terminus who gave not place to Jupiter yielded to the will of Hadrianus yielded to the rashness of Julian yielded to the necessity of Jovian In so much as Hadrian had enough to do to make a Wall of Turf between the River of Tine and Esk well near an hundred miles Southward on this side Edenborough Frith But his adopted son Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius under the conduct of Lollius Vrbicus whom he had sent hither his Lieutenant repell'd the Northern Enemies back again beyond Bodotria or Edenborough Forth and that by raising another Wall of Turf namely besides that of Hadrianus as Capitolinus writeth Which other Wall that it was reared in this very place whereof I now speak and not by Severus as 't is commonly thought Cambden produces no other argument than twoancient Inscriptions digged up therein But when the Northern Nations viz. Picts and Scots in the Reign of Commodus having pass'd over this other Wall made much waste and great spoil in the Countrey Severus the Emperour repair'd the Wall of Hadrian Howbeit afterwards the Romans brought eftsoons the Countrey lying between under their subjection For Nemus hath recorded that Carausius under Dioclesian strengthened the Wall of Edenborough Frith an other time and fortified it with seven Castles Lastly the Romans when Theodosius the younger was Emperour fensed this Wall under the conduct of Gallio of Ravenna Now says Bede they made a Turf Wall rearing it not so much with stone as with Turfs as having no cunning Artificer for so great a piece of Work and the same to no use between two Friths or arms of the Sea for many miles in length that where the fence of Water was wanting there by the help of a Wall they might defend their borders from the invasion of Enemies Of which work that is to say a very broad and high Wall a man may see to this day most certain and and evident remains This Wall began as the Scots now say at the River Aven which goes into Edenborough Frith and ended at Dunbritton But Bede says it begins at a place call'd Pen-wael in the Brittish Tongue Pengual in English Penwalton in Scottish Ceual but all deriving no doubt from the Latin word Vallum and all importing the Head of the Wall two miles from Abercurving and endeth as the common sort think at Kirk-Patrick the native soil as some write of St. Patrick the Apostle of Ireland near unto Cluyd according to Bede Alcluid after Nennius Pen-alcloyt which do seem all one Now this Wall is commonly called Grahams Dyke either of Graham a warlike Scot whose Valour was especially seen when the breach was made through it or else of the Hill Grampie at the foot whereof it stood The Author of Rota Temporum calls it the Wall of Abercorneth that is of the mouth of the River Where in Bede's time there was a famous Monastery standing as he hath recorded Corneth on English ground but near unto that Frith or Arm of the Sea which in those days severed the Lands of the English and Picts Hitherto Cambden But I must confess Venerable Bede is in some things or some part more particular on this Subject For he tells us l. 1. c. 5. Eccl. Histor Anglor That Severus having come to the Empire anno Christi 189. the Xiiii. Emperour after Augustus and entred Great Brittain himself in person thought fit in prosecution of the War and for defence of the Roman Province there from the Caledonian Enemies to make a great strong Wall of Soads and Stakes or piles of Timber with frequent Towers upon it and a broad Ditch by it all along from Sea to Sea where nevertheless observe Paulus Orosius says this Wall was carried cross the Land for one hundred and thirty miles And the same has Ado Viennensis But George Buchanan l. 3. says 't is an error in the number and that instead of a hundred thirty two it should be only thirty two that Bede determines nothing of the place And in the xii Chapter of that same first Book he tells us at large of two other Walls even long after that time of Severus built from Sea to Sea The one which is that here described by Cambden built of Soads and Stakes by the Brittons themselves when the first supply of Romans come to beat back those Northern Foes having done so were upon their return home The other some time after of stone eight foot broad and twelve foot high built at both the publick and private charge by the joint concurrence of the Brittons and last Roman Legion come to defend them Besides in the same Chapter he tells us of the Towers built on the South of the Western Sea or that of Dun-Britton at convenient distances to defend the Brittons from the plundering Fleets of the Barbarians But for any Wall or Fence either of stone or Earth made under Theodosius the Younger Bede has not a word but rather plainly shews the contrary Chap. 13 where he tells in plain terms that Aelius to whom the Britons made their application for new supplies again refused to send them any and that as for that later Wall and those Castles of stone how strongly soever built they were soon scaled and forc'd by the Irish and Picts and the miserable Britons quite over-run by both a new even from all quarters of these very Fortifications of Lime and Stone 46. You find in the 25th Page that I make the first Danish Invasion of Ireland to have been anno Christi 820. For so Keting has it in the Reign of Aodh Ordnighe and him I follow'd there But here I must fix it earlier by eight years My warrant is from the Annals of France contracted by Eginhardus wherein you may read that in the Year of our Lord 812. Classis Danorum Hiberniam aggressa à Scotis praelio superatur the Danish Fleet invading Ireland was by the Scots for so they call'd the Irish then defeated in a Battel And Aymoinus where he relates in the
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
the other then Buchanan has before him nay wider from it as to the later Question than either Campion or Hanmer or any other follow'd by them These for so much had the good luck to yield to the Authority of V. Bede in his Eccles Histor l. 1. c. 1. where he expresly tells us to this purpose 1. That when the ancient Britons had possess'd themselves of the Southern Parts of this Noble Island which derives its name from them it happen'd that the Nation of Picts departing from Scythia entring the Ocean wind-driven to Ireland landing there desiring the Inhabitants the Scots to afford 'em Elbow-room for Cohabitation and being denied this but nevertheless directed by 'em to the Northern Tract of Great Brittain and withal promis'd their assistance if need should be to conquer it by force they by this direction and promise encourag'd put to Sea presently for that same Northern Tract and landing therein made it their habitation 2. That wanting Women and desiring Wives of the Scots they had 'em on this condition That whenever the succession to the Crown amongst their People should chance to be controverted the Female's line Royal should prevail and the King be chosen thence Which is even to this day observ'd among the Picts says Bede speaking of his own time 3. That they had a peculiar Language of their own For in the same Chapter he notes particularly how according to the number of the Five Books of Moses wherein the Divine Law had been written Brittain in his time praised God in five divers Languages viz. those of the English Britons Scots Picts and Latins this last made common to them all by their studying the Holy Scriptures Yet notwithstanding this plain account of the Picts given by V. Bede as to their great Antiquity or Time of their first appearance in these Western Islands and the Countrey whence they came to them being that of Scythia not only Buchanan but Cambden by little Criticisms and other weak conjectures would fain persuade us they had only been a part of the ancient Britons retired from the South and power of the Roman Legions in the same Island of Great Brittain c. into the more uncouth inaccessible Northern parts thereof That they were no earlier known by the name of Picts than the Reign of the Roman Emperours Diocletian and Maximian Herculeus And that their Language differ'd not in substance but only in a certain kind of Dialect from the Brittish Tongue spoken by the rest of their Countrey-men the other Brittons But the words of Bede are clearer and his authority greater than the arguments they bring are able to elude or impeach Nor indeed can any thing more be desired to end these two vexatious Questions concerning that Pictish Nation save only the particulars given by Keting out of the most ancient authentick Records of Ireland These are of such irrefragable authority that I am persuaded were they known to Cambden he had never disputed the matter At least I believe he should not if he had well consider'd of it The Irish were the Nation that by the confession of all sides from the beginning press'd longest and hardest of any upon that Northern Countrey inhabited by the Picts in Great Brittain They were the Nation that by degrees conquer'd so many of their Provinces planted so many Colonies in 'em establish'd a King of their own over the same Provinces long before the Romans attack'd either Yea they were the Nation that utterly subdued at last the whole Pictish Kingdom and extinguish'd in it the very name of Picts Wherefore it is plain that as the Irish were most concern'd so they had the best means of any to know both the time of their first appearance and Countrey too from whence they came as the Picts themselves were pleas'd to tell ' em And seeing it is no less plain out of what has been said elsewhere in these Discourses that the Irish Nation in all times had their publick Registers wherein with the greatest care and certainty could be all the Concerns of their People both at home and abroad together with all other matters they thought fit were recorded it must follow that their account of the Pictish Nation as to those two controverted points ought in reason to silence any other fancied by men of later days Now in that Irish account besides what you have seen already out of Venerable Bede there are many more particulars given at large by Keting out of the Psalter of Cashel whereof the chief heads are these 1. That in Thracia this People we call Picts serving Policornus the King of that Countrey in his Wars for pay but under a General and other Commanders of their own it happen'd that their General whose name was Gud understanding for certain how the King had design'd to ravish his beautiful Daughter if he could not otherwise make her his Whore prevented him by taking away his Life 2. That thereupon this Gud flying immediately with those of his Soldiery who were resolv'd to run his fortune put to Sea where he found convenience and roam'd up and down till he arriv'd in Gaule where being well entertain'd by the King of that Kingdom his Daughter's beauty prov'd the second time his bane after he had built or at least began the building of Pictavis from his People so called we call it now Poictiers For then observing that this Gaulish King also had the same design upon her that the Thracian had he saw there was no abiding there without sacrificing her honour to his Lust And therefore in all haste but as privately as he could he put to Sea again with his own People where he was toss'd so long till the occasion of all his woe his beautiful Daughter died and soon after he and his People arriv'd safe in Ireland at a place call'd in the Irish Tongue Inbher Slaine or the Mouth of the River Slane in Leinster which now we call the Haven of Weixford 3. That one by name Criomthann Sciatbheal being then Commander of Leinster under Herimon the First Milesian Monarch of Ireland hearing of their landing came to them and seeing them brave men entertain'd 'em willingly of purpose to assist him in fighting some Brittish Troops whom the Irish Books call Tuath Fiodhgha whose Lances and Arrows were poison'd to such degree that whoever was wounded by 'em could have no cure but Death 4. That after this League of Friendship made one of the Picts called Trosdan a great Magitian understanding of the common danger from those poison'd Weapons advis'd the said Leinster Commander to provide against the day of Battel a 150 white milch crumple-horn'd Cows to be milk'd all together when the Fight began the Milk put into a Hole prepar'd of purpose hard by and the wounded men to run presently and bath therein which being observ'd the effect prov'd answerable to expectation and the Brittains were quite overthrown with the loss of most of their Lives upon the spot 5.
That upon this success at least not long after it the Picts looking big growing unruly and even aspiring to the Command of that whole Province of Leinster but the Monarch Herimon made acquainted with it drawing together a greater Power then they dared fight they were compell'd to accept of his Terms and hye them away out of hand with his directions and assistance for the Northern parts of Great Brittain 6. That nevertheless before their departure they obtain'd of Herimon three Irish Ladies by name Beanbhreasi Beanbhuais and Beanbhuaisdhne who had been the Widows of three of Herimons Commanders and taken these names from 'em kill'd in the late War with Tuath-De-Danann and these were all the Women they could obtain at least then though upon that very condition told us by Bede The first of 'em married to Cathluan the chief Commander now of the Picts for it seems his Father Gud was before this time departed the World the other two married to two more of their Nobles Nor could any of them obtain leave to stay in Ireland but only six viz. Trosdan the foresaid Magitian Soilean Vlpre Neachtan Nar Aongus and Leatan who had possessions given them for ever by Herimon in the Countrey of Breagh Mhoigh now call'd by us East and West Meath 6. That the foresaid Cathluan was the first King of the Picts in Cruithin-Tuath or Tuath Chruinigh for by both these compound names indifferently the Irish Books call that Countrey in the North of Brittain which the Picts erected to a Kingdom and call it so properly enough as importing in English the Lordship Lordship or Dominion of the Picts the simple word Tuath signifying in Irish a Lordship and Cruinigh the Picts themselves 7. That after him in a succession reign'd in the same Countrey at least in some part of it and of the same Pictish Nation Threescore and Ten Kings more to Constantine the last of ' em And these being the Heads of those particulars that concern them in the Psalter of Cashel written by the Holy Cormock O Cuilenain Arch Bishop and King of Mounster eight hundred years since and by consequence written either immediately before or immediately after I am sure much about the time of their last fatal overthrow by his Countrey men the Irish and their Issue in Scotland we need no longer question either the time of that Pictish Nation 's first appearance or the Countrey they came from to the Western parts of Europe As neither indeed whence they deriv'd the custom of painting themselves They might have learn'd this from the Agathyrsi in Thracia if themselves had it not before yea they might be the first that us'd it in Great Brittain and the Brittons might have only had it from them for any thing said to the contrary And they came as early to Ireland and Scotland both as the Reign of Herinton the first Milesian Monarch of Ireland after he had kill'd his elder Brother Heber to whom he was but joyn'd in Sovereignty while Heber lived Nay we need not question how long this Pictish Kingdom lasted For seeing it began at least as early as Herimon's death I mean by this account in the Psalter of Cashel and that by Primat Vshers account it continued to the year of Christ 840. then we must conclude that according to Gratianus Lucius's computation of the years of the World and years also of all the several Irish Monarchs Reigns the Pictish Kingdom lasted 2623 years in all For this Author fixes the death of Herimon in the year of the World 3516. and the Birth of Christ in the year 5199. as Eusebius Caesariensis one of the Fathers of the first General Council of Nice did long before him What more I have to say in reference to the Picts their Kingdom or Kings is That as I was writing this Reflection Mr. Langhorn's Introduction to the History of England being brought me by chance and looking it over I observ'd That altho the ingenious Author gives no more light therein concerning the Countrey whence those Picts came first to Ireland and thence to Scotland nor of their Leaders name nor of the time of their arrival amongst us than other late Writers especially Campion and Hanmer did before him who call that Leader King Roderick and say this Roderick came to Ireland from Scandia alias Scandinavia which goes under the name of Scythia Germanica or the German Scythia yet he gives therein page 197 a Catalogue of the Brittish Kings and years of their several Reigns partly out of John Fordon's M. S. Scoto-Chronicon and partly out of Hector Boethius who adds to the 76 Kings in Fordon five more So that both numbers put together make just the very same number of Pictish Kings which the Psalter of Cashel has Though I must confess there is no other agreement in any point between that Psalter these Authors either as to the names of those Kings or years of their Reigns or total sum of these years Neither is there in that whole Catalogue any Roderick either as first or last or any at all of them nor any thing near his name The very same you may assure your self of Cathluan whom nevertheless you have seen before out of the Psalter of Cashel to have been the first Pictish King As for the total sum of the years of their Reign which by casting it up out of the several Reigns every body may see is 1165. it plainly comes short by 1452 years of the former account derivable from the Psalter of Cashel and Vsher Lucius Besides it necessarily must suppose the Pictish Kingdom began in Scotland e'en four hundred years full before any Picts landed in Scotland or came from Scandinavia to Scotland or Ireland which does not stand with the time of their coming set down by our new Historians and last of all by Langhorn himself As for the names express'd in that Catalogue all I can say is that if we give credit to Nennius a Brittish Author that liv'd as himself writes an Christi 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech if besides we suppose his Book rightly translated into Irish in O Duvegans Miscellanies and if withal we believe that Gratianus Lucius quoting both would not impose upon us nor I on you or my self what follows must be That we give no kind of credit to the foresaid Catalogue drawn out of Fordon and Boethius not even I mean as to those names of the Pictish Kings contain'd therein For the same Gratianus Lucius after letting us know in his Cambr. Evers page 93. That himself had a Copy of those Miscellanies and among 'em the Catalogue of all the Pictish Kings written by the said Nennius then presently though upon another occasion names five and forty of 'em and I am sure that of this very number tho only a part of Nennius's Catalogue there are at least six and twenty names that have no affinity with no resemblance at all nor imitation of any in the whole Bedâ—oll