or beaten to death with Rods. But Dion saith she was saved at the request of Amulius his daughter but Romulus and Remus were delivered to some to be cast into Tiber in a cradle which could not be effected because the River was overflowne So they were left upon a Banke Faustulus the chiefe Shepheard to Amulius being at Court having heard their doome Followed Found and carried them to his wife Acca Laurentia called by the people for her lust and the Stewes of her Lupanaria Lupa Hence arose this Fiction That they were nursed by a Shee-Woolse She delivered them to a woman that had lost a childe a little before of her owne At the age of eighten yeares these Brothers fell out with Numitors Shepheard about feeding of their Flocks But when Romulus was absent Remus was carried before Amulius who upon their Complaint delivered him to Numitor to put him to death but Faustulus perceiving the danger revealed their birth to Romulus who reputed Faustulus till that time to be his Father and to Numitor upon a consultation they assaulted Amulius slew him and restored Numitor to the Kingdome who gave leave to them to build Cityes Romulus chose the Mount Palatine and built Rome and this was Anno Mundi 3198 as the Irish Computator reckons I will not much trouble my selfe concerning the truth of this Story Onely it is observable that Rome was built founded by Bloud Murther Lust Treachery c. And I know not why I may not suppose the Irish Nation to come from that Lupa For they are all of them of the same Religion with those nay of Rome the Whore of Babylon That Countrey of Ireland hath had many Wolves in it but never more then now And Camden in his description of Ireland Fol. 83. sayes some of the Irish and such as would be thought worthy of Credit doe affirme that certaine men in the County of Tipperary are yearely turned into Wolves Whether it be a meere fable or no I matter it not Unlesse that malignant humour of unkind Melancholy predominate in them and so cause that disease which Physicians call Lycanthropia and so they imagine themselves to be transformed into Wolves However that malignant humour hath reigned amongst them above this foure yeares That now the people are become more salvage and bloudy then Wolves or any other creature whatsoever But this Parliament the Physician that can under God cure all distempers of Church and State will cure Ireland of its Lycanthropia England was many yeares ago rid of Wolves by destroying them And I have read that King Edgar imposed a taske upon Ludwall a Prince in Wales to present yeerely to him three hundred Wolves or their skins for a Tribute which he did for three yeares together But the fourth yeere he gave over protesting he could find no more What King Edgar did I know not but thankes be to God there are no Wolves in England but of the Irish breed Though there hath beene an endeavour to bring over hath beene and now are and are daily expected some Wolvish Irish in England This I am sure of This Parliament hath passed an Ordinance of the 24 of October 1644 That no Quarter shall be given to any Irish man nor to any Papists whatsoever borne in Ireland which shall be taken in hostility against the Parliament either upon the Sea or within this Kingdome or Dominion of Wales But that they shall be excepted out of all Capitulations Agreements or Compositions with the Enemy And every such person to be put to death Nay any Officer by Sea or Land that shall be remisse or negligent in the observing the Tenor of this Ordinance shall be reputed a Favourer of that Bloody Rebellion in Ireland and shall be liable to such condigne punishment as the Justice of both Houses of Parliament shall inflict upon theâ— I trust this Ordinance will be throughly and duly prosecuted and then I hope both Kingdomes will shortly be cleared of the Wolves of Ireland or the Wolvish Irish After the building of Rome comes since the Captivity of Babylon by Cyrus 2284 yeares This should seeme to be in the yeere of the world 3311 as the Irish Computator reckons But herein severall Chronologers have their diversitie of Opinions This cannot possibly be true for Cyrus began to rule over Persia in the first of the 55 Olimpiade which was Anno Mundi 3390. So that here is 89 yeeres difference of this Computation And in the yeere of the World 4409 Cyrus invaded Babylon and conquered it c. And in Anno Mundi 4420. being the end of the 70 yeeres Captivity as Scaliger and others thinke he was in a second battell with 200000 men defeated by Tomiris Queene of the Scythians where himselfe lost his life Tomiris cut off his head and threw it into a vessell of blood And now let the Irish remember her saying to dead King Cyrus After blood thou didst thirst and with blood thou shalt be satisfied Next ensues since the desolation of the Temple of Salomon 2251 yeares This should be in Anno Mundi 3344. In which yeare there was no such thing done It is true the Prophet Jeremiah Anno Mundi 3340 foretold of the destruction of the City Hierusalem and Temple which came to passe twenty yeares after For Anno Mundi 3360 Nebuchadnezzar tooke it and destroyed it as Helvicus c reckons Then comes since Augustus Caesar began his Empire 1686 yeers And this after the Irish Accompt was Anno Mundi 3909. But here are seven years errour For all Authors begin it Anno Mundi 3902. And then the fourth Monarchy began in Julius Caesar who ruled Emperour but five yeares After him came Augustus Caesar Anno Mundi 3906 and reigned 56 yeares and in the 41 yeare of his reigne which was Anno Mundi 3947 Our Saviour Christ was borne Or as the received opinion is Anno Mundi 3949. Now if we adde this 3949 to 1646 They will make 5595 The yeares since the Creation as our Irish Chronology reckons After this followes since Hierusalem utterly destroyed by Vespatian 1563 yeares This should have beene Anno Christi 83. But then there was no such matter for it was in Anno Christi 70 So that there is an errour of thirteene yeares defective then there will be since Vespatians destruction of Jerusalem 1576 yeares as most Authors agree After this followes since Ireland first received the Catholicke faith by the preaching of the glorious Saint Patrick 1221 yeares And this was Anno Christi 425. About this time this Patrick lived Caelestine the first being Pope of Rome The Nestorian heresie was much spread abroad Many strange things have beene reported of this Patrick In memory of whom the 17 of March the Irish celebrate as a Festivall But I shall take a course to crosse him out of the Calendar Hiberniae fuit Episcopus primus imago illius exprimitur Serpentibus ad ejus pedes abjectis quoniam Divina illius virtute hoc
ruine and destruction to those great ones subversion of their ancient Families and ruine to their stately Buildings Cities Townes Towers and Castles That People shall be in most miserable and deplorable condition We see the Conjunction is in Taurus under which amongst other places Ireland is posited and that the signes Leo Scorpio and Aquary are sharers and must participate in this influence Famine Scarcity Plagues and terrible warfare shall happen to many places under those Signes If they expect ayd from Foraigne parts they will be frustrated Me thinkes I behold all the States of Europe involv'd in this Quarrell the French and Spaniard Matching the Hollander busie the POPE thundering his Bulls and Excommunications the Turke making great preparations so likewise the Germane Dane Swede Polonian Venetian nay what State in the Christian World is not disquieted If I should recount the Eclipses and great Conjunctions of the superior Planets in Signes to which most or all Countries in Europe are subjected and the events that have succeeded within these few yeares in these places I might rather make an History then a succinct discourse there were not long since two or three Eclipses of both the Luminaryes in the Signe Leo the effects of all which are strongly operating and for many yeares together will produce admirable and unexpected occurrences I believe the progresse of Saturne through the Signe Taurus out of which he will not fully free himselfe till the end of March 1648. will be very fatall to Ireland and most chiefely he will powre out his influence upon that place rather then any other For if we consider the present condition thereof since the Rebellion there broke forth The horrid Murthers and cruell slaughters by them committed upon many thousands of English Protestants whose bloud cryes for vengeance doe authorise me Astrologically to pronounce a fearefull doome of Fire Sword Plague and Famine to follow that bloudy Nation Let me tell the Spaniard French or what other Nation soever that is ayding or assisting them they must not escape the Divine vengeance which God by the Starres his Coelestiall Ministers doth menace them withall If the Pope send his Agents to prosecute their Designes he may chance loose his Triple Crowne in this unjust quarrell they have raised The Divell may rage for a season Sed si Deus nobiscum quis contra nos The fight from Heaven the Starre in their Courses fight against CaesAR Sisera I hope I shall speak truth if I tell the French Spaniard or any other friend the Irish or their Associates have that though they never made greater preparations yet with as like successe as that Invincible Armado in 88 had at what time fourescore of the Spanish Ships were lost with not so few as twenty thousand men The windes and Seas fighting at that time for England which was many yeares before threatned by the proud and insulting Spaniard This Armado consisted of 130 Ships nineteene thousand two hundred and ninty Souldiers eight thousand three hundred and fifty Mariners two thousand and fourescore Gally-slaves two thousand sixe hundred and thirty great Ordinance which Navy having been three yeares in preparing and at no small charge within one moneth was often beaten and at length put to flight and as I said 20000 of their men being slaine and not above one hundred of the English were missing the remainder of their Navy some in their slight were cast upon Scotland and some upon Ireland and those few that escaped returned with a great deale of dishonour into Spaine above 700 Souldiers and Seamen were cast upon the Scottish shore who were afterward sent over to the Low-Countries but those which by Tempest were driven upon Ireland found a harder measure for the wild Irish of their owne accord slew many of them I suppose their cruelty is not inferiour now to what it was then but suppose the French Spanish Irish Jesuite Popish Fryer Priest and the whole rabble of Antichristians in all the World were combined together against England let but an English man name 1588. or 1605. And without doubt the proudest and most cruellest of them all will be daunted and sink down with amazement so powerfull hath God showne himselfe in those times That in the first the King of Spaine himselfe acknowledged the misfortune that befell him to have been the handy worke of God and gave thanks to God and his Saints causing the like to be done throughout Spaine that it fell to be no worse And for that in 1605 certainly it was the eye of Gods Providence that discovered that horrid deed of darknesse the Gun-Powder Treason invented by the Divellish Papists to the destruction of the Parliament and so consequently to the whole Kingdome Let us looke back to the yeare 1587. In which yeare Mary Queene of Scots was beheaded for the position of Saturne and we shall finde that from the first of March that yeare to the middle of Aprill 1589 he walked through Taurus the Signe under which he now is c. under which Ireland is subjected as I said before In the moneth of August the 28 day was an ominous opposition of Mars from Scorpio to him in the 16 degree and if we observe this memorable yeare 1588. Upon the 28 of May Saturne and Mars were in Conjunction in the 19 degrees Taurus not farre from the place they now meete in not many dayes after which that Spanish Fleet was discovered on our English Coast If we examine our Chronicles we shall finde most Memorable Passages in divers parts of the World to have happened this yeare Was it not unusuall and strange that Polonia this yeare should have three Kings usurping the Title while the fourth viz. Stephen Battori was yet unburied Namely Sigismond the Sweden Maximilian the Emperours brother and Henry Valoys King of France of which three Maximilian in the beginning of this yeare was taken Prisoner his Army overthrowne by meanes thereof many thousands of men women and children carryed away Captives by the Tartars Thus saith Gallobelgicus and further that Suetia was all on fire with tumults and lost certain places of strength to the Muscovite The Muscovite himselfe ranne mad and lost his wits The King of Denmarke Frederick the second dyed In France the Barricados of Paris the flight of the King from thence The slaughter of the Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinall of Lorrayne The death of the Queen Mother the poysoning of the Prince of Condee and the Overthrow which the King of Navarre gave unto Duke Mercury all which Les derniers troubles de Fraunce do testifie and gave that Kingdome sufficient cause to thinke that yeare 1588 to be an extraordinary yeere At the same time the Duke of Savoy prepared his Army and surprized Carmagmall the King of France his chiefe Magazine in Saluze The Turke suffered great overthrowes in Hungaria And in Constantinople by reason of false moneys wherewith the Jauizaryes were payd their wages they fell into a
and nature It deales not with mans will simply and directly but accidentally it doth It deales with mens inclinations dispositions temperature affections and humours It meddles not with miraculous workes nor with fatall necessity except some contingency be joyned with it nor with Gods secrets It is necessary for Physicke Policie Husbandrie Navigation Military Discipline for health It can yeeld reasons which other Arts cannot as in Clymactericall yeares Criticall dayes Why children borne in the eighth month most part are not vitall Of Tides Why Customes Rites Manners Lawes and Temperaments be divers in people inhabiting in severall Clymates Why certaine Seasons be turbulent Why some yeares be dangerous And many other things which may be read in that great Booke of the most wise God the Heavens The Stars therein differing in glory and brightnesse one from another but whose motions are most wonderfull Regular and Harmonious which stares like severall letters some being capitalls and others of lesse size being as it were set together A man endued with an apt Genius and Knowledge therein may not onely spell but in some reasonable measure reade the admirable Worke of God therein in their influentiall and secondary government of all sublunary Creatures Faelices anima quibus hac cognoscere primum Inque Domus Superas scandere cura fuit On the other side I doe pitty the blinde ignorance of some others who thinke themselves as learned as wise that not knowing the motions of the Planets and starres if they chance to see a starre in the day time doe wonder at the same possessing themselves with some strange conceit of some great matter to ensue such an Apparition So it was in the yeare 1625 when a little before the death of King James the glorious Planet Venus being occidentall of the Sun and in her greatest distance from him was thought to have beene a Comet or some nova stella being Sunday in the Afternoone the Moone and she seemed to touch one another or that as Kepler sayes she did quasi haerere in sinistro Cornu Lunae which I my selfe being at Yorke then with some others observed in the West part of the Heavens So likewise what great wonder and amazement there was in the yeare 1630 at that time when Prince Charles was borne the same starre Venus being then in great distance from the Sun and orientall or rising before him was seen to goe before the Sun all day for the most part I will set downe the words of Johannes Johnstonius in his Thaumatagraphia Capite 3. Admirand Coeli Artic. 2. de stellarum luce c. Nona denique Junii hujus Anni visa una in Anglia ante meridiem cum Gratia Deo propter nativitatem Principis Walliae agerentur visam eandem codem tempore Diepae in Gallia a Gallis quibusdam accepimus That is the ninth day of June in the forraigne account the 30 of May being Sunday in the English account of this yeare one was seene in England before noone when thanks were given to God at Pauls Church in London for the birth of the Prince of Wales And we received intelligence from certain French men that the same Starre the same time was seen at Diep in France But by leave of this Learned Gentleman I doe not accompt this a wonder for it is usuall with Venus once or twice in the yeare to shew her selfe in the day time being in her greatest distance from the Sun either when she is orientall or riseth before the Sun or occidentall and setteth after him and this may be easily demonstrated out of her Theory If she presignified any thing she was the prodromus of the miseries that since have ensued to this Kingdome And now at this very time the Royall party in some places as I am informed flatter and promise themselves strange matters by reason this Starre Venus none of them having so much Astronomy as to discover what she is appears so bright and glorious in the West after Sun-setting if she betoken any thing I suppose she appears to our gallant Generall and the rest of the Commanders Souldiers now in the West as a bright lamp to discover the darke blinde corners of the West the unknown wayes of the enemy there and in Wales to reduce that miserable wasted Country which God be thanked is in a good forwardnesse I never observed or read that the simple appearance of any Star in the day time foreshewed any thing except what Hieronomus Cardanus in lib. 14. de varietate rerum cap. 70. mentions whose words I will set down as they are there Stellas quoque die sereno bis vidisse Mediolani me memini cum tota Civitate alteram splendidissimam Anno 1511. cum pulsi sunt Galli aliam Anno 1535. subobscuram cum mortuus est Franciscus Sfortia secundus sed tunc quod sine filliis mortuus fuerit mutatus est princeps transiitque in Carolum Imperatorem Civitatis Regnum variato rerum statu that is I remember my self twice to have seen Stars in a cleer day at Millain the whole City being spectators one very bright Anno 1511. when the French were expulsed and the other Anno 1535. somewhat obscure or dark when Francis Sfortia the second dyed but then he dyed without Sons the Prince was changed and the government of the City passed over to the Emperor Charles with a various state of affairs I know not whether if God have so ordered the motion of the Stars that Stars appearing in the day time should foreshew any thing for my part I beleeve it not in that simple apparition it is not proper for the Stars to shine or appear in the day God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night he made also the Stars and God set them in the Firmament to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darknesse and God saw that it was good Gen. 1.16 17. verses This I am sure of that they work by their influence incessantly day and night upon all creatures Nay in many places of Scripture God would not tell us of the dominion of the Stars upon the earth and the creatures therein if they had no force power and influence in many places therein they are called the Host of Heaven and the Armies of Heaven therein amplifying the most wonderfull divine power and might of God by the force influence and energeticall operation of these glorious creatures in some places God expresly distinguisheth between the sweet influence of the Pleiades or the seven Stars and the binding influence of Orion under which two Constellations being of clean opposite nature and effect God comprehends all the rest of the Stars and as it were by the figure of Locution he puts the part for the whole thereby manifestly giving us so much understanding as to conceive all the other Stars of