next Parliament declared Protector only and so moderate as to permit his two great Supporters the Earl of Salisbury then Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Warwick Captain of Callice to share with him for a while in the power who making up a kind of Triumvirate for the time being placed and displaced whom they pleased Upon which the King foreseeing the evil Consequences was moved with a condescention beneath his Majesty to offer an Accommodation which not taking effect both sides prepared to begin the War afresh which ended not with themselves The principal Persons for Quality Power and Interest that stuck to the King were the young Duke of Somerset the Dukes of Exeter and Buckingham the Earls of Oxford Northumberland Shrewsbury Pembroke Ormond and Wiltshire the Lords Clifford Gray Egremount Dacres Beaumont Scales Awdley Wells c. who having muster'd all the Forces they could make incamped near Northampton Thither came the Earl of March Son and Heir to the Duke of York his Father being then in Ireland to give them Battel assisted by the Duke of Norfolk the Earls of Warwick Salisbury Huntington Devon Essex Kent Lincoln c. all men of great Name and Power with whom were the Lords Faulconbridge Scroop Stamford Stanley c. and so fierce was the Encounter betwixt them that in less then two hours above ten thousand men lost their Lives amongst whom the principal on the Kings side were the Duke of Buckingham the Earl of Shrewsbury the Lords Egremount and Beaumont the unfortunate King being made Prisoner the second time who by the Earl of Warwick was conveighed to the Tower Upon which the Queen taking with her the Prince and the young Duke of Somerset fled The rumour of which Victory brought the Duke of York over who laying aside all disguises in the next Parliament call'd for that purpose pâ—aced himself on the Throne and with great Assurance laid open his claim to the Crown as Son and Heir to the Lady Anne Daughter and Heir to Roger Mortimer Earl of March Son and Heir of Philippa sole Daughter and Heir of Lyonel Duke of Clarence third Son of Edward the Third and elder Brother to John of Gaunt Father of Henry the Fourth who was Grandfather to him that as he said now untruly stiled himself King by the Name of Henry the Sixth This though it was no feign'd Title but known to all the Lords yet such was their prudence that they left the King de facto to enjoy his Royalty during his Life and declar'd t'other only Heir apparent with this Caution for the Peace of the Kingdom That if King Henry 's Friends should attempt the disanulling of that that then the Duke should have the present Possession But this nothing daunted the Queen who having raised eighteen thousand men in Scotland resolv'd to urge Fortune once more and accordingly they met the Yorkists at Wakefield where to mock her with a present Victory Fortune gave her the Duke of York's Life who vainly had stil'd himself Protector of the Kingdom being not able it seems to protect himself but pity it was he could not save his innocent Son the Earl of Rutland a hopeful Youth of not above Twelve years old who being brought into the Army only to see fashions was inhumanly murther'd by the Lord Clifford kneeling upon his knees and begging for his life that angry Lord making him a Sacrifice as he said to appease the injured Ghost of his Father murther'd by t'others Father which Cruelty was fully and suddenly repaid by the Earl of March who in the Battel at Mortimer's Cross slew three thousand eight hundred of the Lancastrian Forces and having put the Earl of Ormond to slight cut off the head of Owen Tuthor who had married King Henry's Mother which it seems did not so weaken or dishearten them but that they recover'd themselves and took their full revenge at the Battel of Barnet-heath where the Queen was again Victorious But such was the activity of the Earl of March that before she could recover London he came up to her and passing by entred the City in Triumph before her whereby he had so far the Start in point of Opinion that he was forthwith elected King by the Name of Edward the Fourth leaving King Henry so much more miserable in that he lost not his Life with his Majesty But herein consisted his happiness That he was the only Prince perhaps of the World that never distinguish'd betwixt Adversity and Prosperity being so intent upon his Devotion as to think nothing Adversity that did not interrupt that Nature having rather fitted him for a Priest then a King and perhaps rather for a Sacrifice then a Priest that he might not otherwise dye then as a Martyr that had lived all his time so like a Confessor HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE The sudden end of these his Competitors gave K. Edward as sudden an end to all his Troubles though not to his Wars For having setled peace at home he was provok'd to take Revenge upon his Enemies abroad falling first upon the King of France after upon the King of Scots but they thinking themselves as unable to grapple with him as two Foxes with the Lion bought their Peace and avoided the ill Consequences of his Fury till Death the common Foe of Mankind made him turn another way forcing him to end the Race of his Fortune as he began it like the Great Augustus Caesar who at the same Age succeeded his slaughter'd Predecessor and by a like Fate was disappointed of his intended Successor HON · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE This was as much as Humane Policy could do but in vain doth he strive to preserve what Heaven had decreed to overthrow Having by his Will declar'd his ambitious Brother Gloucester Protector of both the Children he was resolv'd to let this act the part of King and no King no longer then till his Tyranny could support it self by its own Authority who having to do with the Mother a weak Woman for to her from whom they received their Lives was these helpless Princes to owe their Deaths he had that respect to her Frailty as to keep time with her slow pac'd fears in deferring his intended Paracide till she that was their Nurse thought it fit time to bring them to bed Unhappy Youths to whom the Tenderness of their Mother must prove no less fatal than the Cruelty of their Uncle Had she in the first place Insisted upon the keeping them herself as what fitter Guardian then their own Mother or had she not in the last place Rashly consented to the taking off that Guard which her Husband had so providently placed about them or had at least suffer'd the King to have continued for a while longer at that distance he was when his Father dyed where by his Education and Acquaintance he might have as well secured the Peoples Faith as he was secur'd by
Loyalty and good Affections 7. That he order'd an Impeachment against those Lords that took upon them the Government by Authority of Parliament Indeavouring to reduce those under the Law that had so apparently broken through all Law 8. That in the management of that Affair he consulted with all the Judges Whereas it had been fitter perhaps to have consulted with all the Sword-men of his Kingdom 9. That he caus'd his Uncle Gloucester to be made away privately at Calais When he found he had not power to take him off publickly at home 10. That he took off the Earl of Arundel 's Head notwithstanding a Charter of Pardon given him but a little before Finding that he continued to abuse his Favour by carrying on the old Conspiracy 11. That he defended himself with Force When the Lords assail'd him with Force 12. That though he had made Proclamation that the Lords whom he Arrested were not Arrested for any Crime of Treason yet when he was better inform'd by his Councel he laid Treason to their Charge and prov'd it 13. That he grievously Fined those that took part with the Lords against him Which being paid out of the Estates forfeited to him was a great Discouragement to all honest men that should ever have a mind to turn Rebels afterwards 14. That when he went over into Ireland he carried with him the Plate and Jewels of the Kingdom Without asking any body leave that he might appear as like a King there as he did here which could not but be very displeasing to them that would have him like one no where Upon these scarce grievous Articles he was depos'd or rather he depos'd himself for the Duke who had laid the Foundation of his Hypocrisie lower then to fear any under-mining refusing by the Example of his Grandfather to accept the Crown unless he would tender it to him he became so humble not only to do so but which was yet viler made it his Suit to the Usurper to accept of it from his hand and as it were brib'd him with the Signet on his own Finger which he deliver'd as a Seal to ratifie his voluntary Resignation Strange Metamorphosis When the Lion instead of indeavouring to take that noble Revenge which makes all the Herd to tremble as often as they see him offended crouches and fawns like a Dog on him that beat him Who was not tempted to quit his Allegiance that saw their King thus turn Traytor to himself making good the dismal Presage of that River which but a little before to the amazement of all men turn'd its natural Course and left the Channel dry forgetting the miserable Example of his Great-grand-father who hoping to save his Life by not strugling for it lost it with more horror and less pity Who knows not that the Prisons of Princes are their Graves from whence they ne're return till the general Resurrection The Usurper could not sleep at all after the Resignation till the depos'd King slept his last the Wrong that he had done him beating a continual Alarm upon his Conscience neither could he eat his meat with alacrity but sighing as he sate at Table bemoan'd his having no Friend so faithful or rather so faithless as to deliver him from his Fears leaving those about him to guess what he meant And no sooner did these Thoughts of his take vent but a ready Paracide taking his Cue to be the Executioner of his black purpose hasted unbidden to the place where the Captive King was and tim'd his Treason so near to that of his Order as to take him off just as he was at meat assailing him with eight Ruffians arm'd with Holberts four of which this wretched King kill'd before he sunk and possibly had deliver'd himself from the rest had not their Captain Paracide Sir Pierce Exon whose Name for Infamy sake must never be forgotten come behind him and beat out his Brains with a Pole-Axe Thus fell Richard the Second as his Great-grand-father Edward the Second and both as unhappily as their Ancestors William and Henry the Second long before neither of whom dyed a dry death the first being kill'd by his own Servant t'other by his own Sons And whether there was any thing fatal in that Number I know not but so it was that the Seconds of those Kings amongst the Danes were not much more fortunate Eric the Second Anlaff the Second and Canute the Second all came as well as those amongst the Normans to untimely Ends the first being butcher'd by the hands of his own Sons the second kill'd upon a mistake by one of his own Domesticks and the last made as it were Felo de se having drunk himself so dead that he fell down with the Cup at his Nose And as amongst the Normans and Danes so 't is observable amongst the English Monarchs that Edward the Second thereupon surnam'd th◠Martyr was murther'd by his Mother in Law and Ethelred the Second though he dyed not a violent scarce dyed a timely death being perfectly worn out with continual Troubles whilst he found himself unable to recover the Consumption either of his Body or his Estate However none of these were yet so unfortunate as this King who being so unwilling and unfit to dye yet contributed most to his own Death HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE And 't is observable that he claim'd in the name of the Father not of his Father for thereby hung a Tale his own Father being but the fourth Son whereas King Richard's Father was the first Son of Edward the Third Secondly he claim'd in the name of the Son forgetting whose Son he put by for King Richard deriv'd himself from Edward the First the eldest Son of Henry the Third he but from Edmond Earl of Lancaster the second Son of that Henry the Third Lastly he claim'd in the Name of the Holy Ghost smothering that check of Conscience which he was afterwards forc'd to reveal when he came to give up the Ghost But this we may the less wonder at if we consider that 't was in a time when the Devil was seen in the likeness of a Frier as our Histories tells us and therefore an Usurper might as well appear in the likeness of a Saint although he had no more Morality then what * Lib. 1. Tacitus observ'd in the Emperor Galba whom he describes to be Magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus Such was his power that no man contradicted him Heaven having decreed that he should contradict himself for at the same time he made out his Title by Descent he acknowledged that he came in by Conquest assuring the People that every one should enjoy his own as freely as in times of Lawful Succession they are his own words but when he came to treat with Forreign Princes that were as well vers'd in the nature of Politick Treacheries as himself he pretended then to be chosen by the unanimous Consent and
was it long that the Protector bore up after his Brothers Fall the great care he took to build his * From his Tittle call'd Somerset-house House being no less fatal to him then the little care he had to support his Family whiles the Stones of those Churches Chappels and other Religious Houses that he demolish'd for it made the cry out of the Walls so loud that himself was not able to indure the noise the People ecchoing to the defamation and charging him with the guilt of Sacriledge so furiously that he was forced to quit the place and retire with the King to Windsor leaving his Enemies in possession of the strength of the City as well as the affections of the Citizens who by the reputation of their power rather then the power of their repute prevail'd with the King as easily to give him up to publick Justice as he was before prevail'd with to give up his Brother it being no small temptation to the young King to forsake him when he forsook himself so far as to submit to the acknowledgement of that Guilt he was not conscious of The Lawyers charged him with removing Westminster-hall to Somerset-house The Souldiers with detaining their Pay and betraying their Garrisons The States-men with ingrossing all Power and indeavouring to alter the Fundamental Laws and the ancient Religion But he himself charg'd himself with all these Crimes when he humbled himself so far as to ask the Kings pardon publickly which his Adversaries were content he should have having first strip'd him of his Protectorship Treasurership Marshalship and Two thousand pound a year Land of Inheritance But that which made his Fate yet harder was that after having acquitted himself from all Treason against his Prince he should come at last to be condemn'd as a Traytor against his Fellow-Subject whilst the Innocent King labouring to preserve him became the principal Instrument of his Destruction who by reconciling him to his great Adversaries made the Enmity so much the more incompatible who at the same time he gave the Duke his Liberty gave the Earl of Warwick and his Friends the Complement of some new Titles which adding to their Greatness he reasonably judg'd might take from their Envy The Earl himself he created Duke of Northumberland and Lord High Admiral of England and to oblige him yet more married up his eldest Son the Lord Dudley to his own Cosin the second Daughter of the Duke of Somerset whom he gave to him for the more honour with his own hand and made Sir Robert Dudley his fourth and his beloved Son the same that was after made by Queen Elizabeth Earl of Leicester one of the Gentlemen of his Bedchamber And to gratifie the whole Faction he made the Marquiss of Dorset Duke of Suffolk the Lord St. John Earl of Wilts and afterwards Marquiss of Winchester Sir John Russel who was Northamberland's Confident he created Earl of Bedford Sir William Paget another of his Tools he made Lord Paget This the good natur'd King did out of sincere Affection to his Uncle in hopes to reconcile him so thoroughly to Northumberland so that there might be no more room left for Envy or Suspect betwixt them But as there is an invisible Erinnis that attends all Great men to do the drudgery of their Ambition in serving their Revenge and observing the Dictates of their power and pride so it was demonstrable by the most unfortunate issue of this so well intended purpose that by the same way the King hoped to please both he pleas'd neither Somerset thinking he had done too much Northumberland thinking that he had done too little who having drunk so deep a Draught of Honour grew hot and dry and like one fall'n into a State-Dropsie swell'd so fast that Somerset perceiving the Feaver that was upon him resolv'd to let him blood with his own hand And coming one day to his Chamber under the colour of a Visit privately arm'd and well attended with Seconds that waited him in an outward Chamber found him naked in his Bed and supposing he had him wholly in his power began to expostulate his wrongs with him before he would give him the fatal stroke whereby t'other perceiving his intent and being arm'd with a Weapon that Somerset had not a ready fence for an Eloquent Tongue he acquitted himself so well and string'd upon him with so many indearing protestations as kept the point of his Revenge down till it was too late to make any Thrust at him Whereby Northumberland got an advantage he never hop'd for to frame a second Accusation against him so much more effectual then the former by how much he brought him under the forfeiture of Felony as being guilty of imagining to kill a Privy Counsellor for which he was the more worthily condemn'd to lose his Head in that he so unworthily lost his Resolution at the very instant of time when he was to vindicate his too much abus'd Patience thereby betraying those of his Friends that came to second him into the scandal of a Crime which had it succeeded would have pass'd for a magnanimous piece of Justice in cutting off one whom however he was content to spare Providence it seems was not reserving him to die a more ignoble death and by a worse hand The sorrow for his ignominious fall as it much affected the Consumptive King his Nephew who was now left as a Lamb in the keeping of the Wolf the Duke of Northumberland having got as high in Power as Title by ruining the Family of the Seymours so his end which was not long after put an end to the Reformation and made way for the Dudley's to aspire with incredible Ambition and not without hope of setling the Succession of the Crown in themselves For the Duke finding that the King languish'd under a Hectical Distemper and having better assurance then perhaps any one else could from his Son that alwayes attended in his Bedchamber that it was impossible for him to hold out long for Reasons best known to him he cast about how to introduce the far fetch'd Title of his other Son who had married the Lady Jane Gray eldest Daughter to the Duke of Suffolk by the Lady Frances one of the Daughters and Heirs of Charles Brandon by his Wife Mary Queen of France the second Daughter of Henry the Seventh And however this seem'd to be a very remote pretention yet making way to other great Families to come in by the same Line in case her Issue fail'd as to the Earl of Cumberland who had married the other Daughter of Charles Brandon and to the Earl of Darby that had married a Daughter of that Daughter and to the Earl of Pembroke that had married the Lady Jane's second Sister it was back'd with so many well-wishers that it was become not only terrible to the Kingdom but to the King himself However there were two Objections lay in the way the one the preference that ought to be
so unreasonable a Story or not be able to write it so plainly as that it may be intelligible How a King was made a Subject to his Vassals and how they were made Slaves to one another How every man who had any honesty was afraid and every one who had any honour asham'd to own it How they that had any Reason were forc'd to deny or disguise it lest their Wisdom should bring them under Suspect and that Suspect under Condemnation whiles Loyalty was the only proper Subject for a Tragedy and Religion for a Farse God with us being set up against Dieu mon Droit For all which we have no excuse to give to Posterity but must disclaim with the Poet and say to each Reader Desit in hac tibi parte Fides nec credite Factum Ovid. Metam Vel si credatis facti quoque Credite poenam But we have this to attenuate our dishonour if the condemning them can any whit excuse us that the Scots were not disunited from us in point of Shame more then in point of Guilt who having the impudence to make their King their Prisoner sold him back to their Brethren of the Covenant here at a dearer rate then the Jews paid for Christ or then possibly those here would have given for him had they not thought it the price of their own Freedom rather then his But as the buyers found themselves not long after miserably disappointed by the Regicides who took the Quarrey from them so those that sold him to them liv'd to see themselves sold at a lower rate then he was and bought by those who bought him of them The Genius of the whole Nation of Scotland feeling a just reverberation of Divine Vengeance in being rendred afterward no Kingdom I might say no People if we consider the Akephalisis that follow'd but a miserable subjected Province to the Republicans of England without any hope of Redemption but what they must expect from the free grace of his Son against whom they had thus sinned And however they have since recover'd something of their ancient Glory by the Merits of some great Persons amongst them eminent for their Loyalty but more particularly by the merits of the brave Montross whose incomparable Example alone is enough to buoy up the dishonour of their lost Nation as being more lasting yet 't is to be fear'd they as well as we yet suffer so much in their reputation abroad that the very Pagan Princes of the other part of the World how remote soever have been alarm'd at the report of so unpresidented an Impiety and accompting themselves therefore more secure in the Fâ—ith of their Bruitish Subjects then our King can be in ours rejoyce at the happiness of having no Commerce with us exalting himself in the words of the Poet Ovid. Metam Si tamen admissum sinit hoc Natura videri Gratulor huic terrae quod abest Regionibus illis Quae tantum fecêre nefas THE ORDER AND SUCCESSION OF THEIR KINGS I. date of accession 1603 JAMES the Sixth of Scotland and first of England being after the death of Queen Elizabeth the last of the direct Line the next Heir as only Son of Mary Queen of Scots sole Daughter and Heir of James the Fifth Son and Heir of James the Fourth by Margaret eldest Daughter of Henry the Seventh of England was on S. James 's day 1603. Crown'd King of Great Britain and Prince Henry his eldest Son dying before him the Crown descended to his second Son II. date of accession 1627 CHARLES the First a Prince who deserving the best of any other was the worst used by his People that ever any King was but Heaven has been pleas'd to recompence him for the indignities he suffer'd here on earth by compelling all those who would not allow him the honour of a KING whiles he was alive to reverence him as a PROPHET being dead themselves being made the instruments in the accomplishment of his dying Prediction That God would at last restore his Son III. date of accession 1648 CHARLES the Second our present Soveraign who bless'd be Divine Providence for it after twelve years rejection by those Sons of Zerviah that were too hard for him was brought back triumphant and placed upon the Throne by an invisible hand which having now recorded hu right as it were with the Beams of the Sun unworthy are they of that light who do not willingly submit to him being as he is the undoubted Heir to his Fathers Vertues as well as to his Kingdoms HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Now if it be one of the most desirable points of happiness because the most durable to have such Subjects as wish no other Soveraign but himself as himself desired no other Subjects but those he had so we may believe he had a large share of Joy with the People and possibly more transcendent then most men conceiv'd in respect of the Reflections he could not but make upon his past Troubles which in some sort may be said to have taken their beginning even before he took his there being such a Sympathy in Nature that he could not but have some Convulsion fits in his Mothers Womb at the time when that unhappy Prince received his death to whom he was indebted for his life especially since the same men by the same Principle they were mov'd to deprive him of a Father were obliged to deprive him of his Soveraignty as after they attempted to do when they disputed his Right of Succession Thus far he suffer'd being yet unborn Now being born he seem'd to be in no less danger in his Cradle then that great Legislator of the Jews was at the same Age in his Bull-rush Ark being toss'd and tumbled by the agitation of several swelling Factions as t'other by the motion of the troubled Waters whilst they that made away his Father began with no less Audacity to fall upon his Mother and as they strangled the King first and then blew up the House afterward so now they restrain'd the Queen under so streight a Confinement that she could scarce breath and blew up her Power which we may call her Castle by a train of Popularity to which Buchanan gave Fire by that Invective he wrote against the Monarchy of that Kingdom intituled De Jure Regni apud Scotos wherein as much as in him lay he subjected Kingship to be trampled underfoot by the Beasts of the People affirming that they had the Right to create or depose their Princes as they pleas'd And accordingly they compell'd his Mother to resign into their hands the Crown she had receiv'd in her Cradle to be given to him that was now lying in his Thus far he suffer'd being yet uncrown'd Five dayes after his Mothers Resignation he was Crown'd and Anointed and being but thirteen Moneths old was acknowledg'd King by the Name of James the Sixth But at very same
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even Westward of the West especially the latter which from thence saith Bochart got the Name of Ebernia now corruptly Hibernia which in the proper signification as Melancthon tells us is Ultima habitatio Now for the different sound of the Names of Belinus and Brennus it is no more then what we usually find in almost all Histories whereof divers (h) Seld. Poliolb â—â—lid Virg. Giâ—nan Villani Learned Authors and amongst the rest the Famous Selden himself gives us several Instances But there is nothing of fuller proof then that Verse in Eusebius Sol Osyris idem Dionysius Orus Apollo Nor is it less a Question Whether he that fir'd Rome be the same that troubled Greece then whether either of them were Britains But since it is admitted by (i) T. Livy diverse Historians abroad that they if so be they were two were both of Celtick Extraction and so positively asserted by so many Historians of our own that this Belinus was the man I shall not make it more doubtful by shewing my self over-industrious in the proof of it but conclude with like modesty as the Poet in this as in all things of like uncertainty Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus Imperti si non his utere mecum LUDBELIN date of accession 3880 BEtwixt the last and this Kings Reign I reckon near about 330 years by the Vulgar account in which Jeffery of Monmouth places a Succession of about 44 Kings But Hollinshed making a digression of 180 years which cuts of 33 from the number leaves him and Fabian and the rest that follow them to make out their Catalogue through this dark Period as well as they can wherein they could not it seems discern Men from Trees otherwise they would not as they have denominated the Isle of Ely from Holy the suppos'd Father of this King which rather was Bely the corruption of Belin whereas the true derivation was from Helig a Willow with which sort of Trees that Isle abounds That which illustrates the name of this Eliod or as he is commonly call'd by contraction Lud or rather Lluid i. e. the brown Belin is that Urbicarii honour given him by consent of a most all Writers of being the Founder of the West wall as the first Belin was of the East wall of the City of London to which the Gates yet bearing their Names give probable Testimony of their memory However there are those that object against both and will have that of Belinsgate to be no more but as if one should say the Kings Gate so call'd because the Kings Toll and Customs was ever paid and brought in there and Ludgate to be no more but Portus Populi changing Lud into Leod which in the old Saxon Tongue signifi'd as Verslegan tells us the Peoples Gate a conceipt as applicable to the Gate of any other great City as to this wherein if private Criticismes might be admitted to derogate from the authority of Antiquity yet the Etymology Hermoldus Nigellus gives of this Name deriving it from Hludo i. e. Preclarus with whom the learned Camden concurs sufficiently repairs that Indignity and excuses the good Will of the good old (k) Robert of Glocester Monk that for the same reason would have London to be quasi Ludstowne a conceipt as allowable as that of Rome from Roma Romus Romanus or Romulus all averr'd by several Historians to be Founders of that City out of respect to the consonancy of the Names only and would doubtless have pass'd for currant had it not lately been exploded by a better Authority which hath inform'd us that it was rather London quasi Lhondine i. e. the City of Shipping with which agrees that of Huntingdon one of as good credit as any of his Time who turns this Lud or Lhuid into Lond to render him the Prince of Shipping All that we hear of him in the British Story is That he left two Sons under Age at the time of his death the elder call'd by the Romans Androgius the younger Theomantius either of whom being unfit to succeed in the Government by reason of their Minority the Britains after the manner of most Nations at that time chose the nearest in Merit as well as in Kin to succeed which was their Uncle Cassibelin or Belin the Yellow CASSIBELIN date of accession 3995 THIS King as he was the first of all the British Princes that shew'd himself upon the Stage of Action so being not content to be Chief unless he were absolute he made so good use of the Accidental part of his Fortune the minority of his two Nephews that he took the confidence having first justled them out of all hopes of succeeding their Father to quarrel with all that stood near him in the Government Two there were more eminent then the rest of whom it was doubted whether their Malice or their Power were the greater Comoc Prince of the Attrebatii and Imanuence Prince of the Trinobantes the first a sullen subtil man the last more open very rash but Popular neither of them so confident in his Power as affected with his merit yet being united by the concord of their Discontents they began to swell and be tumultuous but as Wisdom when it wants Integrity like Salt when it hath lost its savour is not only as insignificant but oftentimes more hurtful then Folly it self so their publique Pretensions being tainted with private Malice and Ambition lost so much of the efficacy that was expected from so smart a beginning that their Forces not answering their forwardness the one was compell'd to submit to be a Prisoner the other an Exile Comoc apply'd himself to Caesar then in the higher part of Gallia and to make himself the more acceptable presented to him the young Prince Androgeus as a Pledge for the homage of the whole Isle This gave that great Son of Fortune the first prospect of the greatest design Humanity was capable of at that time and so much the more worthy the thoughts of him who would be esteem'd nothing less then a God by how much the Transports of his invincible Spirit carried his Resolutions to the conquest of another World altogether unknown to his Country-men and scarce probable to have been discover'd by him had not their fatal Ambition destin'd to be so officious to his rais'd his Fame upon the Ruins of their own Easier it was for Coâ—â—oc to prevail with Caesar to take the Sea then for Caesar to prevail with his Legions to quit it who finding the Britains all in Arms ready to oppose their landing refus'd to set foot on shore till Mandubrace Son of Imanuence whose head Cassibelin took off upon his departure with Conioc having chang'd his Nature with his (l) For the Romans call'd him Scaeva in respect of the cruelty he shew'd to his Country-men Name leapt first into the Water and by the fierceness of his Example urg'd them to quit their Ships who could not yet
Yellow King so call'd from the Emication of that Golden Age he liv'd in to wit at the time of the birth of that beautiful (a) Christ Jesus Child which Tully dream'd he saw let down from Heaven in a golden Chain which was verifi'd in the 18th Year or as some think in the 23 Year of this Kings Reign at which time the Temple of Janus being shut up in Rome in token of an universal Peace throughout the World Some have supposed and not improbably that be took thence occasion to make use of this Device which we find on his Money and elsewhere But some others that have lately div'd deeper into the Mysteries of Antiquity conjecture that he did hereby rather denote a farewel to Barbarity Janus being the Person that is said to have first civiliz'd the World as this King did the Britains and therefore painted with two Faces as bringing one shape out of another a conceipt tolerable enough and to me so much the more acceptable by how much the same (b) Canden Author whose Authority may bear it ot admits Cunobelin to be as Critical as himself most certain it is that mov'd by an Emulation of the Roman Majesty whereof he had been an eye witness when his Father under pretence of sending him to congratulate Augustus his success against M. Anthony left him an Hostage at Rome he did indeavour by his own Example to bring his Country-men into the Roman fashion of living imitating them in the manner of their Houses eating drinking and cloaths Coyning money in (c) In Aâ—chiv Londin Gold and Silver instead of their rusty Iron and Copper Ringâ— valued by weight making their Money More Romano in Medals or Plates in the one side whereof was some device queint enough for the invention of those Times on the other the face of the King some whereof have been preserv'd to the glory of this Kings memory to this day which being under a form so rarely found amongst those of any other Nation to wit the device of the (d) Jun. Nomensi Toruma ingrav'd in the Concavity of the Reverse intitles the Nation to a distinct Epoche more renown'd then most other States in the World can pretend to We find many different devices of this King but this of Janus I take to be the principal and without doubt had some signal meaning which the Criticks have not yet light upon possibly to denote the Isle under two Heads at that time Caesar and himself who rul'd as we may say with a kind of double fac'd Supremacy Cunobeline whilst thou desir'st to be Fam'd for a double fac'd Supremacy Bringing the Britains into th' Roman fashion By eivilizing thou undo'st thy Nation They 're Caesars Subjects now who erst were thine Ere long their Virtue will become their Crime For being true to both th' are true to none Two Heads may thus prove not so good as one GUITHBELIN 'T IS a question Whether the last King were more happy in Himself An. Ch. 17. or in his Children whereof he left no less then five Sons to succeed him of which only (e) Adminius the Eldest Guiderius the Second Tâ—godomous the Third Carastâ—â—us the Fourth Arviragus the Fifth One miscarried who indeavouring to betray his Country in the life time of his Father was after his death put besides the Succession and this King his second Brother set up in his room to whom there are so many different Names given in different Transcripts both British and Latin as hath occasion'd many doubts of his Person His right Name was Caradec which being too rough for the Roman pronunciation their Historians call him Caradocus The Britains in respect of his being Prince of the Isle of Wight which they call'd in their Language Guith styl'd him after he came to be King Guithbelin as much as to say the King that came out of that Island and the Romans thereupon Guiderius So that â—t is no marvel if those that had no other Guides but Names only have found themselves misled in the dark places of the British Annals He began his Reign in the time of Tiberius Nero for his sottishness nicknam'd by his Country-men Biberius Mero who leaving every Province to the protection of its proper Strength occasion'd so many disorders as begot at last a Civil war in his own Breast as well as his Empire his Covetousness striving in vain with his Cowardise to recover the benefit at least if not the honour he had lost Britain was the place he alwayes threatned but with so palpable Irresolution that taking occasion from every little accident to alter his purpose of Invasion the Souldiers in scorn call'd him (b) As much as to say in English Short Leggs meaning he had alwayes one Legg in the Stirrup but never got up Callipedes this added to the Fortune more then the same of this King who all the time of his Government had no occasion given him of Glory but found the opportunity to learn by observing that of his Neighbours how to encounter the dangers which afterwards approach'd towards him when his Brother Adminius brought on Caligula to give him that false Allarum from the Holland Coast Nine years he rul'd in peace till the Ambition of Claudius which transported him as much beyond the bounds of his Reason as those of his Empire broke in like the Ocean with a resistless Torrent and bore away all before it The Britains who could not withstand their own Fears being less able to resist his Forces flying at the first sight of his Elephants as if they had believ'd there could have been no greater a Beast in the World then himself upon which advantage he made himself Master of the Pass over the Thames which yet he dreaded more then that over the Sea and so march'd up to London where the two brave Brothers Caradocus and Togodomnus gave him Battel in which the last scorning to outlive the Liberty of his Country fell a Sacrifice to the Incensed Gods of the Isle His Royal Brother retiring as a wounded Deer forsaken by the Heard to seek some shelter in the Neighbouring Woods resolv'd to make head against those pursu'd him as often as he reflected on his lost greatness but the danger approaching nearer his Wisdom prevail'd with him to retreat till he might fight with more advantage So the stall Stagg upon the brink Of some smooth Stream about to drink Waller Surveying there his armed head With shame remembers that be fled The scorned Doggs resolves to try The Combat next But if their cry Invade again his trembling Ear He straight resumes his wonted fear Leaves the untasted Spring behind And wing'd with fear out-flies the wind BELIN ARVIRAG date of accession 0050 FROM the beginning of this Kings Reign if so be we may not rather call it Rebellion we date the Dominion of the Romans in this Isle Julius Caesar had the honour of being the first Aggressor Claudius laid the
Majesty which might preserve the Reverence due to it and accordingly he not only purged and prepar'd the great Pagan Temples for the Service and Honour of Religion but erected many particular Seminaries quae Christianae pietatis extitere primordia saith Polidor endowing them at his own proper costs and charges amongst the rest I take that of Bangor to be as the first so perhaps the (q) Containing no less then 300 Monks greatest Monastery that ever was I say not in this Isle only but in any part of the World whose Foundation was layd so deep that none of the Emperors in the Century following who for the most part prov'd bloody Persecutors could undermine it The Religious continuing safe in the peaceful Exercise of their Devotions till the Entrance of those cursed Pagans the Saxons who sacrificed them all in one day But as he was the first Christian so he was unhappily the last King of this Class who dying without Heir or Successor left his Orphan Country not only dispairing of future Liberty but subjected to all the present miseries a dejected people could suffer under the Oppression of a greedy proud and cruel Nation who kept faith with them no longer then till they could find an Opportunity to do otherwise being not content to command their Purses without they dispos'd of their Persons also forcing them to serve in their ambitious Quarrels abroad and to follow the Fortune of their several Factions through all the disadvantages that attended the injustice of their Arms till wasted wearied to that degree as rendred them unable to defend themselves they were necessitated to implore aid from those who under colour of coming as Auxiliaries prov'd of all others the most fatal Enemies taking their Country from them and from their Country its name THE SECOND DYNASTY OF ROMANS OF ROMANS THE Romans as most other Nations were a People mixt Party per Pale half Latins and half Sabins and so equally Incorporated that the one gave name to the place they liv'd in t'other to the People they liv'd with Rome was the name of the City Quirites the appellation of the Citizens Some say the City was in the first place call'd (a) Aug. de Civit Dei Febris after the name of Febra the mother of Mars Others suppose the Antient name to be (b) Solinus Valentia but (c) Pier. Hieroglyph lib. 36. Pierrius affirms from the testimony of Gergithias that the primitive name was Cephalon a Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caput a name saith he occasionally given to it out of respect to a mans head of incredible magnitude that was found at the digging up the foundation of the Capitol or rather Prophetically given as believing it would be the head City of the World There are who affirm it had (d) Erithraeus ind Virg. l. 11. three names the first Soveraign which was that of Romethe the Second Sacred which was (e) Plut. Vit. Romuli calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Floreâ— Anthusa as much as to say Flourishing the third was Secret as having never been publish'd by any man saith (f) Pliny lib. 3. Cap. 5. Pliny but once by Valerius Soranus who for his bold Impiety for so it was then Esteem'd was presently put to death the Romans superstitiously believing as all other Gentiles did at that time that the good fortune of their City was involv'd in the name the discovery whereof by the help of some Charms might be a means to Rob them of their Tutelar Gods and therefore to shew that this name was not so much as to be enquir'd after they made the Image of the Goddess Angerona the presentative of the Genius of their City with a (g) As Mussurius Sabinus Varro and others testifie Muffler on her mouth to shew that she might not speak Something of the same conceit was questionless the cause that Posterity is left at such a loss in seeking after the right name of this Isle of Ours which seems to be rather conceal'd by the Druides than unknown to them when Caesar could neither by flattery or force extort the truth from them Fabius Pictor tells us yet of another name that Rome had to wit Amarillis so call'd from Amaris a Trench to convey water for that after they had Sacrific'd to Vectumnius upon the overflow of the Argean Sea by Tyber the water return'd to his own Chanel and thence by Aquaducts was conveyed to the City Thus it remains uncertain what the Original not to say principal name of this great City was and more uncertain when it took that name Some fetch the Aera thereof Ab A. M. 2389. others looking back to the year 2336. But most of the Vulgar Chronologers go no further than the year 3211. Some will have it call'd Rome from Roma Daughter of Italus King of the Aborigines Others from Romanessa better known by the name of Saturn Some again impute the honour to Romanus Son of Ulisses and Circe and there are who contend for Romus the Son of Ematheon sent by Dyomede from Troy but the Vulgar Tradition favours Romulus which yet Plutarch that wrote his life acknowledges not making him their Patronimick who was by Birth a Bastard and no otherwise a King than by Treachery having laid the foundation of his greatness in the Blood of his Brother and slain his Uncle to make way for his Grand-father Thus these Romans that would be esteem'd the most glorious People in the World had this in Common with the most Barbarous and obscure Nations that they came from such Springs as running under ground were not discoverable in many Ages after their first Rice insomuch that they who would trace their Originals as far as they themselves could wish or their Poets Feign must stop at last at the Non ultra of the utmost bounds of Nature where the rest of the Universe stands equal with them in all points Now as Rome had its Sacred Name so had it also its Sacred Number compâ—ehended in that name which answering to the Influences of those Constellations with which the Genius of their Nation kept Intelligence actuated all their great designs and undertakings For as the Britains were principally if not wholly swaid by the Number Six as all Nations in the World by some one number or another so were they by that of Seven which being of all other most like the Geometrical Square may be said to be the most proper figure of Regulation Seven Letters in the (h) Anthusa Mystical or Sacred name of their City before mention'd as many in that of Romulus their supposed Founder who as Livy tells us alter'd his mind seven times touching the place where he would have it Founded and at last plac'd it upon seven Hills afterwards he divided his Principality into seven Tribes four Local and three National and when he came to distinguish betwixt the Nobility and the Populacy he differenc'd them by seven
to prey for himself where ere they could find their Quarry Ambrosius set upon the Saxons whiles Uter sought out Vortigern This brought a fourth pretender into the list as forward and fortunate as either of them who had he been as skilful to keep as he was to get a Victory he might possibly by turning Fortune round have made her so giddy that she could not in a short time have been able to bear up as after she did and fix her self upon one side This was Pascentius the second Son of Vortigern who mov'd with like Zeal to preserve his Father as his elder Brother was to preserve his Country joyned with the Saxons and set upon Ambrosius to divert Uter and if possible to have contracted the War into a narrower room at that place now called Aymesbury but in the first place Ambrosebury in memory of K. Ambrosius his being slain there where they met with so like assurance and not unlike courage that the hopes on either side seem'd evenly poys'd But the Battel ending with the lives of the two great Undertakers Ambrosius and Pascentius the one just ready to step into the Throne the other not well fixed in it who went into the other World with a sufficient train of Followers to shew what rank they held in this Uter enter'd not only without resistance but without a Rival which added no less to his Greatness then to his Security This one would have thought had been sufficient to have unravel'd all his Glory and to have rendred him not only lost to all the World but to himself too But as the Palm-tree is therefore figurative of Victory because the more it is depressed the stronger it bears up against the weight is laid upon it so he less sensible of his own then his Armies weakness caus'd himself to be carried in his Litter to them and that unexpected conquest of his own infirmities so animated their activity that finding they must either leave all their Bodies dead upon the place or his in case they did not make themselves Masters of the Day they tarried not to expect the Assault but gave it whereby turning the surprise upon the other side they slew Ten thousand of their best men and forced the rest to seek safeguard under the protection of their new landed Forces who taught by the experience of former Battels lost how necessary 't is to joyn to Courage caution had strongly fortified themselves within an inaccessable Rampart which he indeavouring to force lost his Victory as unexpectedly as he got it and with it his own amongst many other lives falling like the fierce Creature from which he took his Name whose Image 't is thought he bore upon his Shield to shew his descent from the Roman Emperours as our Kings since have continued it amongst the Royal Banners of England to shew their descent from him THE THIRD DYNASTY OF ENGLISH OF ENGLISH SUccessors to the Romans were the English a People of so ancient an Extract that he that will trace their Original must follow it as Berosus doth into the Flood for as they were ever famous by Sea so they deduce their Pedigree from the Universal Deluge (a) Whom the â—ermans worshipt for their God of War as the Romans Mars Woden their Common Ancestor being descended in a direct Line from (b) From whom the German Language is call'd the Tentonick Theutones the Grandchild or (c) Lanquet Gambrivius the first Inventer of good Ale and Beer which they have lov'd but too well ever since he was the third in descent from (d) From whom they were call'd Germans Manus Son of (e) From whom the German Language came to be call'd the Twich or Tutch Tongue Tuisco the eldest Son of Gomer the first Son of Japheth third Son of Noah whom Moses remembers by the name of Aschenaz from whom the Hebrews call the Germans (f) Illust Poliolb fol. 70. Aschenims Thus their own Records will have them to be some of the most renown'd Reliques of the Old World however Tacitus who began to live near about the time Christ died by what mis-understanding I know not makes no mention of them otherwise than under the Common Name of Cimbri But probable 't is that in respect they possess'd that part of Germany which lyes betwixt the Rhene and the River Albis over which the Romans never pass'd being by (g) Ptol. lib. 5. c. 18. Ptolomey's Reckoning near a third part of the whole he had not the good hap to attain to any near acquaintance with them At their first Arrival here they design'd to change the Name of Britain into Nova Saxonia or rather Saxonia Transmarina they themselves passing under the general Name of Saxons so call'd from their (h) Lipsius Seaiâ—es a sort of short Swords or rather long Knives that they wore under their Arming Coats So much more remarkable amongst the unadvised Britains in that they made a most fatal Proof of the dangerous use of them by the loss of no less than three hundred Lives at one Interview amongst whom were divers of the best Quality of their Nation who were inhumanely butcher'd at a Parley where they met unarm'd in that desert place now call'd Stonenge in Wiltshire by some suppos'd to be the Monument of that days Treachery for which there can be no excuse but that of the Poet Virtus an dolus quis in Hoste requirat But after they got the entire possessâ—on of the whole they chang'd their minds and as some say in honour of Engist the first Invader they turn'd the Name of Britain into Engistland or as others say complying with the Angles the greatest People amongst them call'd it Anglelond which since we term England They were divided into three distinct Tribes differing as in Countrey so in Name The first call d JUTES or as Bede calls them VITES these before they came hither inhabited the Mountains that divide Germany from Italy in the first place and afterwards fixt themselves in the Cimbrian Cbersoness since call'd Juitland their portion here was most of the South part of the Isle being thereupon term'd South-sex toward that Island which from them was call'd the Isle of Vites or Wight The second Tribe was call'd ANGLES who possessing the South part of the Chersoness gave name to the Town of Angolen These were the greatest Scept both for fame and power who taking up much of the East all the North and most of the North-west part of this Isle being four parts of seven in the whole the rest took its denomination from them and fell under the general appellation of (i) Which in the Ventonick Tongue signifâ—es the Sâ—aight or Narrow Land Angleland or England The third Tribe which afterwards devorred the other two were those most properly call'd Saxons and for distinction sake from the rest of their own Countrey (k) Aâ— Holiz quod Silvâ—â— Ligâ—â—â— sigâ—â—ficat HOLY SAXONS in respect of their woody Countrey
an intestine War one with another undermin'd them by Land before they could perfect any great matter by Sea they had not contented themselves as they did with an Insulary glory having laid so good a foundation to an universal Empire and so much more lasting than any that were ever before it by how much they would have had it in their power to have secur'd the obedience of the rest of the World by their ignorance rendring themselves their Masters by a mystery of State not to be resisted because not understood whereof our Kings their Successors now absolute Lords of the Sea have happily made good proof For as a modern Poet hath well observ'd Where ere our Navy spreads her Canvass Wings Homage to th' State and Peace to all she brings French Dutch and Spaniards when our Flags appear Forget their hatred and consent to fear So Jove from Ida did the Hosts survey And when he pleas'd to thunder part the Fray Waller Ships heretofore in Seas like Fishes sped The greatest still upon the smallest fed We on the Deep impose more equal Laws And by that justice do remove the cause Of those rude Tempests which for rapine sent Did too too oft involve the innocent Rendring the Ocean as our Thames is free From both those Fates of Storms and Pitacy Thrice happy People who can fear no force But winged Troops or Pegasean Horse But considering as I said the difficulties they met with before without mentioning the dangers they encountred after they were setled the checks of Fortune whilst they were rising and the counterbuffs of Envy after they were up and mounted to their height whereof as Gildas relates they were forewarned by their Gods who being consulted about the Invasion gave answer that the Land whereto they went should be held by them 300 years half the time to be spent in conquering t'other half in possessing their Conquest which agreed with the measure of their Heptarchy Lastly Considering the fierceness of the Britains of the one side and the fraud of the Danes of the other those perhaps doing them more mischief by Treaties than t'other by admitting no cessation We may conclude with the Poet Nec minor est Virtus quam quarere parta tueri THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF KENT I. I. date of accession 445 ENGIST having broken in like a Horse for so his Name imports and trampled down all that withstood him made himself King of Kent and by being the first King was worthily esteem'd the first Monarch of the English a Title that during the Heptarchy was appropriated to some one above all the rest of the Kings He reigned 34 years and left his Glory to descend on his second Son II. date of accession 448 OESKE under whose Government the Kentish men thriv'd so well that they were contentedly named from him Eskins III. date of accession 512 OCTA had a longer but less happy Reign wasting 22 years without any memorable act that might render him more renown'd then his Successor IV. date of accession 537 IRMERICK who after 25 years Reign by Stow 's Accompt 29 by Savil's had nothing to boast but that he was the Son of such a Father as Oeske and the Father of such a Son as V. date of accession 562 ETHELBERT the first Christian King of all this Nation and the sixth Monarch of the English men A Prince who was therefore esteem'd great because good but his happiness ended with himself for his impious Son VI. date of accession 617 EDBALD was laid in his Bed as soon as he was laid in his Grave apostatizing from his natural Religion to gratifie his unnatural Lust he had many Sons but the Succession fell to the youngest VII date of accession 641 ERCOMBERT more like his Grandfather then his Father a pious publick spirited Prince he was the first divided Kent into Parishes and commanded the observation of Lent He was not so good but his Sons were as bad VIII date of accession 665 EGBERT the eldest made his way to the Crown by the murther of his two Cosins the right Heirs of Ethelbert and Sons to his Fathers Elder Brother Ermenred who being not able to do themselves right were reveng'd by his younger Brother IX date of accession 677 LOTHAIRE who gave the like measure to his two Sons putting them besides the Succession to admit X. date of accession 686 EDRICK who entred with more Triumph than Joy being within two years after depriv'd both of honour and life by his own Subjects upon which his Brother XI date of accession 693 WIGHFRED assumed the Government being rather admitted then chosen or rather gave himself up to be govern'd by one Swebard who they put over him by whose advice he rul'd not ingloriously 33 years and left his Kingdom to his Sons who alternately succeeded XII date of accession 726 EGBERT the Eldest most like his Father both in Person and Fortune reigned 23 years XIII date of accession 749 ETHELBERT the second reign'd but one year XIV date of accession 760 ALRICK the last of the three and indeed the last of the Royal Lyne did only something that made him more notably unfortunate then the two former in being overcome by the great Mercian Offa whereby the Kingdom became a prey to whosoever could catch it the first whereof that got that advantage was XV. date of accession 794 ETHELBERT the third firnamed Pren who entred in the Vacancy of the first Occupant and being disseized by that Wolfe Kenelwolph the thirteenth King of Mercia he put in one XVI date of accession 797 CUTHRED who enjoyed an undisturb'd possession eight years after whom XVII date of accession 805 BALDRED stept in who being little regarded abroad was less belov'd at home fearing his People might leave him he first left them and flying over the River Thames as soon as Egbert the West-Saxon entred his Territories left all to the Conquerour who without more trouble made this Kingdom and those of the South and East-Sexes an Appenage for his younger Son Athelstan IT is hard to resolve Whether Engist that erected this Kingdom were more beholding to Fortune or his own foresight or whether indeed the folly of Vortigern were not more advantageous to him then either who not trusting the incertain obedience of his own People cast himself upon the faith of this Stranger who in serving of him could have no other design but to serve himself upon him Neither did the frowardness of the Natives contribute less to his Greatness then the folly of their King who not consenting to the Ratification of that little which was promis'd him justifi'd him in the larger Demands he made afterwards when they durst not deny his Experience on the Seas taught him how to Laveer from point to point and shift as he found the wind failing to steer in a direct course but had the Britains kept Faith with him 't is probable he had not broke as he did with them taking that advantage
by his very first Treaty which was not to have been hop'd for by any long hostility which success though the execution seem'd not considerable amounted to a kind of Victory So that 't was no wonder he rested not contented with such a Proportion as he was before asham'd to wish for Ambition respecting not so much whence it comes as whither it is addressed pressing still forwards without any consideration but that of the felicity it aims at on which it fixes with so intense a look that it regards no dangers much less any faith being deny'd the Government of the Isle of Thanet he insisted upon that of the whole Province of Kent meeting with opposition there he supply'd force with fraud and both with Fortune and by the possession of that one only got the command of three Provinces more all lying so convenient for landing Supplies that this seem'd to be but an Earnest for an entire Conquest Neither thought he it sufficient to have the Power without he had the Title of a King Hitherto he had only studied his Security that being obtain'd he begins to affect Glory and in respect Kent was his Principal Seat he gives that the preheminence of giving the Name to his Kingdom being the first not to say the last too of the whole Heptarchy continuing near four hundred years supported by its own proper Forces before it fell under the common Fate of being incorporated into the Universal Monarchy of the English And as it was the first Kingdom so was it the first Christian Kingdom of the Seven from whom the East-Saxons borrow'd their light and from them the rest till an universal brightness oversp ead the whole Hemisphere which however it seems to have been a work of time as appears by that oâ—d Adage yet in use amongst us In Kent and Christendom was an occasion of so high regard to the People of that Province that all the Counties of England have ever since consented to allow them the honour of precedency in the Field by giving them the right of leading the Van as often as the Nation appears to give any Batgel Royal which Priviledge hath been by special Charter confirm'd to them from the time of King Knute the Zealous The long Reign of Engist not less as some say then fifty years contributed much to the Corroboration of his Conquest which being the Gift of Fortune rather then Nature he bestow'd it on his youngest Son Oeske from whom as I said before 't was call'd the Kingdom of Eskins which beginning at the time of Ambrosius the British King continued Three hundred seventy two years an intire Kingdom and after the West-Saxons reduc'd it under their Obedience had yet the repute of being a distinct Principality and by that Title was bestow'd upon the younger Sons of those Kings who defended it against the Danes till Ethelbert the second Son of Athelstan second Son of Egbert after the death of his Elder Brother Ethelwald entring upon the whole Monarchy of England Anno 860. united it inseparably to his Empire THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF SOUTH-SEXE II. I. date of accession 488 ELLA was the first King of this and second absolute Monarch of the whole Kingdom for which Honour he was more indebted to the length of his Reign then the greatness of his Dominions being indeed the very least of the Seven II. date of accession 514 CISSA his youngest Son the two elder being slain succeeded his Father he reigned peaceably seventy six years founded Chichester and Chisbury the one for the resort of his People t'other for the repose of himself where dying he left his Son III. EDELWOLPH to succeed the first Christian of this House who refusing to contribute to the War against the Britains in respect the West-Saxon lay betwixt him and danger Ceadwald the Tenth of those Kings sell upon him and slew him upon whose death IV. BERTHUN and AUTHUN Two Dukes collaterally sprung out of the Royal Stock of this Kingdome interpos'd themselves with equal merit in the common Calamity and Defence of their Country and forcing Ceadwald to retire rul'd jointly for six years till the same King returning upon them took from the one his Life from the other his Liberty whereby this became a Province to the West-Sexe BY the setting up of this Kingdom conteining no more but two Counties Sussex and Surrey and those none of the greatest we may take some measure of the Ambition of our Ancestors who had as great respect to their Glory as their Security being not content to have the Power without they had the Title of Kings This Ella was in the first place but a Colonel under Engist who made him Governour of Sussex to which having added Surrey with the loss of the lives of his two eldest Sons Kymen and Plenchin after the death of his General he set up for himself and being resolv'd to shew the greatness of his mind by the narrowness of his Dominions not onely declar'd himself the first King of the South-Sexe but made himself so considerable in the esteem of all his Country-men that they submitted to him as the second Monarch of the English which Glory he held up to the height near thirty years But that Sun which began in Kent the East part of the Isle and came towards him who was planted in the South hasted to set amongst the West-Sexe to whom his Successors were forc'd to become Tributary or if it may lessen the dishonour for these were all of them most deserving Princes we may say Contributioners towards the War against the Britains The West-Saxon Kingdom lying betwixt them and danger the non-payment of this Tax whether it were that the Kings hereof refus'd it as being too heavy a Burthen upon them or disdain'd the manner of Exaction or thought themselves not oblig'd to be longer charg'd having clear'd their own Territories is not certain was the first and only occasion of the downfall of this Kingdom being thereby ingag'd in a War with too potent a Neighbour against whom though they had no hopes to prevail yet they scorn'd to yield till their tottering State fell down about their Ears and buried them in the common Ruins of their Country which was so far wasted before it submitted to become a Province that when it was added to th' other it became rather a Burthen then a Strengthning for a great while so far had Famine and Plague the Peace-makers in all Civil Wars disabled them to all intents and purposes before this Curse fell upon them to be devour'd by their Friends which was so much more dishonourable then to be conquer'd by their Enemies by how much it was the first unhappiness of this kind THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF WEST-SEXE III. I. date of accession 522 CERDIC having conquer'd Natan-leod the Dragon of the Western Britains set up the third Kingdom which reaching from Hampshire to Cornwal was call'd the Kingdome of West-Sexe and gave him the repute of being the
tenth in descent from Whethelgeat the third Son of Woden was the last but by no means the least of the Heptarchs for he had seventeen intire Provinces which shews his head to be as active as his hands His Son II. date of accession 595 WIBBA thought he did enough in keeping what his Father got which he left well fortified to his Nephew III. date of accession 615 CEORL Son of Kinemund younger Brother to Cridda whose reign was neither long nor splendid perhaps overwhelm'd by the Glory of his Successor IV. date of accession 625 PENDA the Son of Wibba a minor when his Father dyed and so put beside the Crown but being King he over-aw'd all the rest that were Contemporaâ—y with him having slain six Kings of the East-Angâ—es and two of Northumberland But the last requited him blood for blood and took from him both Life and Kingdom which Oswy the Conquerour generously return'd to his eldest Son V. date of accession 655 PEADA who thereupon became his Son and his Subject and at once imbraced his Daughter and the Christistian Faith the last more fatal to him then the first his Life being thereupon taken away by her that first gave it to make way for his Pagan Brother VI. date of accession 658 WULPHERE who from his own Mother learnt to butcher his own Sons hearing that they were converted by St. Chad Bishop of Litchfield which yet could not prevent a Christian Successor for VII date of accession 675 ETHELRED came in after him his Son being under Age who as if he had had only intended to shew his Nephew what he would have him do devoted himself to a Religious Life to make way to VIII date of accession 700 KENRED who after eight years tryal being no better pleas'd with the sweet of Dominion surrender d to IX date of accession 709 CHELRED his Son who prov'd no less vigilant and valiant then his Grand father but being overmatch'd by the West-Saxon his Country lost a great part of the happiness and himself of the renown that justly might have been hoped from the continuance of his life whereby X. date of accession 716 ETHELBALD succeeded who was descended from a younger Brother of Penday against whom the villany of Whodert prevail'd more then the valour of his Enemies could being treacherously slain to make way for a stranger who yet was put beside the succession by XI date of accession 757 OFFA another Prince of the collateral Line descended from Koppa second son of Wibba who it seems was more indebted to Education then Nature and to Providence then to either for being born blind deaf and dumb he became miraculously restored to all his Senses and gave so great proofs of his Courage Prudence and Piety that his Reign is supposed to be the Meridian of the Mercian Kingdoms Glory for from his death it visibly fell under the Horizon XII date of accession 796 EGFRID his son succeeded who was the more famous in that he was made a King before he had a Kingdom but as Trees that blossom too soon never bear Fruit so his too early Honour was quickly blasted whereby XIII date of accession 796 KENULPH took place who was fifth in descent from Kenwalch younger Brother to Penda who seems to have been happier in himself then his Posterity for his Reign was not so long but XIV date of accession 820 KENELM his Sons was as short being murthred by his own Sister to make way for her Uncle XV. date of accession 820 CEOLULPH who was as barbarously dispatch'd by one XVI date of accession 822 BERNULPH an Usurper who prov'd a better King then he was a Man he contested hard with Egbert the West-Saxon and lost so much blood in the quarrel that his old Adversary the East-Angle perceiving how he was weakened set upon him and slew him XVII date of accession 826 LUDFCAN his successor attempting to revenge his death got his own whereupon XVIII date of accession 828 WITHLAF that came after him bought his security with a Tribute which his successor XIX date of accession 840 BERTULPH was content to continue but whiles he lookt foreright only an unexpected Enemy came upon him behind to wit the merciless Dane and over-run him but Ethelwulph the last Saxon recovering back the Kingdom gave it with his Daughter to one XX. date of accession 853 BURTHRED a Person worthy either who supported this tottering House ready to fall about his Ears till he was betray'd by his servant XXI CEOLWULPH whose treachery was rewarded by the Danes with the Title of King but King Edward the Eldest having slain him made it a Province of the English Monarchy THIS though it were one of the last was yet the very largest of all the Heptarchical Dominions and fitly setled to give Laws to all the rest as being in Umbilico Terrarum in the very Center or Navel of the Isle The wonder is how so great a Kingdom rose out of nothing with so little noyse the Founder leaving no more Constat of his Merit then of the method of his Ambition it being not yet known whether he attain'd that power that render'd him so great or receiv'd from Fortune the Greatness that render'd him so powerful Some ascribing it to his Wisdom others to his Courage but most to his Credit so that we may guess his Character to be not much unlike that which a foolish Athenian gave of God who being ask'd what he was answer'd He was neither Bowman nor Spearman Horsman nor Footman but one that knew well how to command all So 't is as probable this man was neither Souldier nor Scholar but as the Athenian said one that knew how to govern either otherwise he could not have dispos'd all things as he did so much to the advantage of his Successors that in fewer Months then others took up Years they spread their Wings over no less then six of the most goodly Provinces according to Ptolomey's accompt but by that of their own when they cantred the whole into Shires it was no less then seventeen which in Alfrids Tripartite Division made one third part of the whole Isle too great a Gripe to have been held long had not the Reign of his Successor who laid the Superstructure as wisely as he the Foundation fortunately confirm'd the Fabrick till it was setled and past shaking a happy beginning that made those that came after not only the Terrour of their Enemies but the Envy of their Neighbours whereof no less then Four assaulted his Grand-son at once and those not the meanest viz. the Northumber the East-Angle the West-Saxon and those of Kent keeping him at a Bay as a Lyon in a Toyl till Fate conspiring with his Forces drove some of them out of their Confidence others out of their Kingdoms and the rest out of the World Some compounding by a Tribute others by Homage the rest with loss of their Lives Prosperity prompting him to scorn all Conditions of Peace till he gave
them a greater advantage by their dispair then themselves could have hoped from their natural Fortitude for not knowing how to overcome he took from them all hopes of yielding and shewed them thereby a way to conquer him which they could not have found before he wrote himself Universal Monarch a Title he design'd to rip out of the Womb of Providence having not patience to expect the Birth of his Greatness His Fall so crush'd the growth of his Successors that they recover'd not in many years after but as backward Springs produce the best Fruit so the Glory that came late held the longer their heads proving as active as their hands their hands as bountiful as their hearts and their hearts as large as their purses Whilst they were Pagans they fortified themselves by extraordinary Acts of Cruelty but after they became Christians they rais'd them by as great works of Charity Once they were closely begirt and in so low a Condition that they were forc'd to redeem themselves by a Tribute from the Power of the Northumbers but having recover'd this they stood fair to have taken in the whole Heptarchy under the Government of Offa the Series of whose Prosperity had it not been interrupted by one unlucky Action the Guilt whereof not only dampt his own Spirit but cast a fatal Vale of Distrust on all his Successors had probably reach'd beyond the bounds of an insulary Glory as appears by the Emulation of his Contemporary Charlemain who much disdain'd he should have the honour to be stil'd The Great as well as himself but having inhospitably murther'd Ethelbert King of the East-Saxons coming to his Court under the Security of Publick Faith as a Suiter to his Daughter His Innocent blood was by Divine Vengeance charged so home upon his Posterity that their Greatness declin'd as Planet-struck from that very time So that of Nine Descents after him there was only one that had not a short but not any that had not a very sinister and unprosperous Reign till Fate drew the Circle of their Royalty to the full Compass stopping thereby the hand of Providence from any further motion So that from that time their Kingdom like a great Tree blown down but not quite rooted up lay so low that some Branches or other were lopt off daily from it till the West-Saxon seiz'd on the main Body as a Windfall due to him after it had stood the shock of Three hundred forty five Winters THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF EAST-ANGLES VI. I. date of accession 578 UFFA seventh in descent from Caesar second Son of Woden was the first King of the East-Angles from him call'd the Kingdom of the Uffins whose Reign was rather happy than long yet long enough to confirm the Succession to his Son II. date of accession 583 TITULUS who did nothing to make himself known more than being the Father of III. REDWALD who in assisting Edwin the Northumber lost his eldest Son and that broke his heart so that the second Son IV. date of accession 625 ERPENWALD took place the first Christian of this Race converted by the aforesaid King Edwin with so much dislike of his People that a base Villain adventur'd to murther him and so made a way to his younger Brother V. date of accession 636 SIGEBURT whose converse with Learning and Learned men being bred in France rendred him so favourable to both that the two Universities Oxford and Cambridge do to this day contend for the honour of having him their Founder He gave up his Royalty to his Kinsman VI. date of accession 638 EGRICK who with himself and the next in Succession VII date of accession 642 ANNA were all slain by the Pagan Penda who plac'd here the younger Brother VIII date of accession 654 ETHELHERD a Traytor to his Countrey and his own blood worthily depriv'd of Life and Kingdom by the famous Osâ— in the Northumber that put in IX date of accession 656 ETHELWOLD Regent in Trust for his Nephew X. date of accession 664 ALDULPH eldest Son of Ethelherd then a Child who wasted nineteen years without any memorable Action leaving his Brother XI date of accession 683 ELWOLPH to deserve a little of Posterity and his People Neither did the younger Brother XII date of accession 714 BEORN excel either of them for he left neither Wise Issue or Action to continue his memory whereby XIII date of accession 714 ETHELRED took place famous for nothing but being the Father of XIV date of accession 749 ETHELBERT the Unfortunate who was murther'd by Offa the Mercian after whose death the said Offa broke into this Kingdom of the one side and the West-Saxon on the other and the King of Kent on another side each preying like Vultures upon the headless Trunk or like Pikes in a Pond which devour one another till they were beaten off by a Stranger one XV. date of accession 771 EDMUND the Son of Alkmond a German Prince made Executor of one Offa a Prince of this Family and the next it seems in blood as well as in right who dying at Norimberg in his passage to the Holy Land adopted this Edmund his Heir who defending his Title was slain by the Danes who thereupon placed here a King of their own as will appear in its proper place THE Saxons having engaged their whole Nation to an entire Conquest of this Isle partly out of desire of glory but more of gain ceased not daily to oppress the dismay'd Britains with unequal numbers who growing base with their Fortune lost their Courage as fast as their Countrey fighting so faintly at the last that when they prevail'd they were afraid to pursue which made Fortune out of love with them that she seldom or never took their part The report hereof being carry'd into Germany every person that had any sense of Honour or Necessity emulous of his Neighbours Forwardness or asham'd of his own Sloth transplanted himself hither with whatsoever Forces he could get together And amongst the men that took advantage of this common Calamity was this Uffa in the beginning a Viceroy to the Kings of Kent in the Provinces of Suffolk and Norfolk who having over-run all the Countrey about the Isle of Ely to the uttermost parts of Cambridgshire joyn'd those to these and made up the sixt Kingdom stil'd the Kingdom of the East-Angles but with respect to him the Kingdom of the Uffins It was one of the least in dimensions but greatest in dignity of all the Seven for the Kings being but fifteen in number were deservedly esteem'd the wisest and valiantest of all this Nation by how much though their Title were the worst the best part obtain'd by treachery their Advantages the least their Territories the narrowest and their Adversaries the most numerous not to say the most puissant that is the haughty Northumber the implacable West-Saxon the cruel Mercian and the victorious Eskin the three last assaulting them all at one time yet they maintained a
of which were more desperately bent against each other then either Picts or Britains against both The whole Continent of their Dominions took up six Counties as we now reckon them viz. Northumberland properly so call'd Westmerland Cumberland Yorkshire Lancashire and Durham These falling to the Charge of Otho and Ebusa they made an equal Dividend betwixt them taking three to each the first had all betwixt Humber and Tine and call'd it the Dukedom of Deira The second had all from Tine to the Frith of Edinburgh which was entituled the Dukedom of Bernicia Ninety nine years it continued under the distinct Government of their Posterity each independent of other and each as often as the Common Enemy gave them any rest pecking at the other with equal Enmity and not unequal Fortune till the time of Ella and Ida two famous Captains the one descended from Wealdeag fourth Son of Woden t'other from Bealdeag his fifth Son who thinking themselves less in Title then in Power urged by a mutual Emulation elevated their Dignity to the height of their Fortunes and stil'd themselves as all the rest of their Country-men Kings the last was the first Monarch the first the last King One getting the Start of Priority in Degree the other the advantage of Survivorship by which means it happened that the Government which hitherto had been as it were Party per Pale not long after became Checquy Fortune according to her Constant Inconstancy alternately deposing sometimes one sometimes the other disposing the Diadem like a Ball toss'd from one Hazzard to another so that the Spectators knew not which side to beat on till those of the House of Ella making a Fault Ethelrick won the Sett having got the honour to be the first absolute Lord of the whole which he united under the Title of the Kingdom of Northumberland banishing the other Names of Distinction This Malmesbury ascribes more to his Fortune then his Merit making him beholding to the bravery of his sprightly Son Ethelfrid the Wild for the continuance of any Memory of his Name which shews us the Founders themselves are oftentimes as the Foundations they lay under Ground unknown and obscure taking their Honour from the Superstructure that they rear not from themselves But as those of Bernicia claim'd the honour of building the House so those of Deira boasted they were the first took the Possession their Dignity becoming them so much the better in that they made their Power known where their Title was not by the Courage of their Magnanimous King Edwin who inlarged his Dominions as far as the Mavian Isles but by that Prosperity of his render'd himself rather Glorious then Great drawing himself out of his proper Strength by an Extent that weakned him and drew on him a more powerful Enemy then that he had subdued to wit the Neighbouring Mercian who by his death and his Sons made way to let in the Bernician Line again which continued uninterrupted ten Descents after which follow'd a Succession of Six Usurpers out of distinct Stocks who wasted near Thirty years with so little advantage to themselves or their Country that at length it became a Prey to several petty Tyrants of so low Rank that only One of Ten had the Confidence to stile himself a King which confusion tempted the Dane to fall in upon them with so resistless fury that they were fain to crave Protection of the West-Saxon who made them a Province unto him after they had stood the shock of Two hundred thirty five years with repute of being an absolute and intire Kingdom THE ORDER OF THE English Kings AFTER THE HEPTARCHY Was reduc'd into an Absolute Monarchy VIII I. date of accession 800 EGBERT was the first gave himself the Imperial Stile of King of England differing therein from his Predecessors who stiled themselves Kings of the Englishmen having reduc'd the Heptarchy into a Monarchy he gave Kent and Sussex to his younger Son Athelstan the rest descending on his eldest Son II. date of accession 837 ETHELWOLPH who put off a Myter to put on a Crown being Bishop of Winchester at the time of his Fathers death and being fitter to be a Monk then a Monarch he was accordingâ—y justled out of his Right by his ungracious Son III. date of accession 857 ETHELBALD whose ill got Glory pâ—ov'd so transitory that â—t serv'd him only to perform an act of Infamy outlasted it possessing himself of his Fathers Bed as well as of his Throne which prov'd his Grave so that his Brother VI. date of accession 858 ETHELBERT before Lord of a part as Heir to his Uncle Athelstan became now Lord of the whole and by managing that he learn'd how to manage this the number of his troubles exceeded that of the Months of his reign so that not able to bear up under the weight of the burthen of the Government he died and left his Brother V. date of accession 863 ETHELRED to succeed him as Heir both to his happiness and unhappiness who being likewise wearied rather then vanquish'd hy the continual Assaults of the Danes left the glory with the danger to his Brother VI. date of accession 873 ELFRID a Prince that in despight of War perform'd all the noblest Acts of Peace making as good use of his Pen as of his Sword at the same time securing and civilizing his People His Son VII date of accession 900 EDWARD surnam'd the Elder enjoy'd thereby such a happiness as was only worthy the Son of such a Father as St. Elfrid and the Father of such a Son as VIII date of accession 924 ATHELSTAN who knew no Peace but what he purchas'd with his Sword being more Forward then Fortunate and therein like his Brother IX date of accession 940 EDMOND who escaping all the Storm perished in a Calm being kill'd after he had escaped so many Battels in a private Fray betwixt two of his own Servants in his own House X. date of accession 946 EADRED succeeded who gave himself the stile of King of Great Britain a Title too great it seems for his Successor XI date of accession 955 EDWIN who discontinued it shewing thereby that Nature was mistaken in bringing him into the World before his Brother XII date of accession 959 EDGAR who reassum'd that Title again yet not before he had made himself Lord of the whole Continent but as one surfeited with Glory he dyed as we may so say before he began to live leaving his Son XIII date of accession 975 EDWARD surnam'd the Martyr to support his memory who fell as a Sacrifice to the Inhumane Ambition of a Step-mother who murther'd him to prefer his younger Brother but her eldest Son XIV date of accession 978 ETHELRED an excellent Prince had he not been blasted by the Curse of his Mothers Guilt who as an ill-set Plant wither'd before he could take firm Root being wind-shaken with continual storms all his reign which his Son XV. date of accession 1016 EDMOND from his
continual being in arms surnam'd Iron-sides was so sensible of that he was forc'd to compound with an Enemy that afterwards took from him the whole by the same Power he compell'd him to let go the half however in two Descents after the English Line took place again in the Person of XVI date of accession 1042 EDWARD surnam'd the Confessor who proving regardless of Posterity tempted Providence to take no care of him whereby his Steward thought himself obliged amongst other things committed to his Charge to take that of the Crown which was the famous XVII date of accession 1065 HAROLD Son of Godwyn Earl of Kent who putting the undoubted Heir besides his Right taught the Norman how to disseize him who with his death put the period to the English Monarchy that reckoning from Engist by all Historians accompted the first King had lasted Six hundred and twenty years EGBERT date of accession 800 THIS was he that may be said to be the first of all the English whom Fortune declar'd to be her Heir having beaten up the Seven Crowns of his Predecessors into one Diadem to fit his Head To them she gave only Title to part but to him the Dominion of the whole Isle Nature agreeing to fit his Parts to the proportion of his Preferment For as he was young and hardy so he was temperate and discreet noble by Birth descended from Ingill Brother to Ine the Magnificent but nobler by his Bounty which had purchas'd him so universal an Affection that his Predecessor Bithrick suspecting the danger of his Vertues made them so far his Crimes as to give him a fair pretense to banish him by which means all his good Qualities came to be so refin'd breathing in a purer Air then that of his native Soil as leaves it yet in doubt Whether he were any whit less beholding to Providence then Nature his Afflictions contributing so much to his Experience his Experience to his Wisdom and his Wisdom to his Fame that they seem'd like so many steps fitly plac'd together by which he might ascend the Throne He serv'd the Emperour Charles the Great in that great Expedition of his into Italy which took up all the time of his banishment and there he so well govern'd himself that he return'd with a Testimonial of his fitness to govern others The Tyrant Bithrick who had expuls'd him finding when it was too late that by driving him further from his Country he had brought him nearer to the Affections of his Country-men especially those of the Vulgar sort who first pity then praise men in distress and not seldom by their Opinion make up the want in Merit and where there is no want add so great a Weight that 't is not in the power of Humane Policy to turn the Scale Yet he did not think fit to return till after Bithrick's death as judging it more danger then honor to serve one under whom 't was a Crime to be Victorious and Capital to be otherwise Besides he thought it greater to let Honour seek him then for him to seek it knowing that Necessity if not Choice would move his Country-men to call him home being begirt with potent Neighbours that wanted nothing but a Circulation of Intelligence to subvert them totally So much were they discouraged by their Fears from without and their Discontents within Neither miss'd he of the Invitation he look'd for being receiv'd with so universal Satisfaction that it appear'd he was their Lord before he became their Soveraign In this confidence he took up the Sword before the Scepter to the end his Title might be written in the blood of his Enemies the number whereof were more then those of his Subjects The first that wrestled with him were the sturdy Cornish who being laid on their backs by a trick they understood not The next that came on were the Welch their Allies who though they rather gave him Trouble then War yet he thought it worth the going in Person against them and pâ—rsu'd them so faâ— as made it appear it was more their dishonour then his that they were not totally subdued by him The next that fell under the power of his Arms was the haughty Northumber for both he and the disdainful Mercian dreading his growing Greatness burst with swelling This gave him leisure to look towards Kent the only considerable Foe left whose King flying into Essex like a spark of Fire into another mans House ruin'd that by the same way he had undone his own Kingdom That Prince taking a pattern of Cowardize from him to quit that as t'other had done his Kingdom so that Egbert whilst he pursued one conquer'd two of the Heptarchs This success inlarg'd his Dominions so wide that he began to bear himself up with an universal Obedience being no less Elevated with the prospect of his Power then Hercules after he had subdued the many headed Monster with the contemplation of his Fortune to manifest which he turn'd the Name of BRITAIN so venerable for its Age having been the only Appellation of this Isle for near 1800 years before into that of ENGLAND the Country from whence his Ancestors came A Vanity so displeasing to Providence that it set up the same Nemesis which had been so Instrumental to his Country-men in the destruction of the Britains to face about upon him and his Successors whose Necks it broke down the same Stairs by which they ascended setting up a People to be the dire Executioners of her Justice that were of their own Lineage spoke the same Language and had drove them our once before from those Possessions to which they had much better right then to any thing here This was the Dane which though they got not much in this Kings reign yet they so nipt the glory of his Conquest by beating down the Blossoms of his Reputation that he liv'd not to see the Fruit he expected being forc'd to divide before he had firmly united and cut his own Kingdom into two again Giving that of Kent to his younger Son Ethelbert not without a seeming Injury to his elder Son Ethelwolph that being the most fertile though the lesser this the most incumbred though the greater yet herein his Wisdom appears to have equall'd his Power in that he made both Kings but left but one Soveraign ETHELWOLPH date of accession 837 THIS St. Ethelwolph or as he is vulgarly call'd St. Adulph was at the time of his Fathers death a Deacon Hoveden says a Bishop and so much addicted to Devotion more then Action that he accepted the Government rather out of necessity then choice refusing to be crown'd as long as he could resist the importunity of his Friends or suffer the Insolence of his Enemies being at last made a King as it were in his own defence as well as the Kingdoms But no sooner had the loud Acclamations of his over joy'd People awaken'd his Lyon-like Dulness but rouzing up himself he confronted the Common Foe with
such a silent Resolution as look'd like a belief of conquering them without a stroke for he fought only one Battle with the Danes and no more wherein he press'd upon them with that inconsideration as shew'd that the apprehensions of future danger had made him altogether contemn the present the slaughter on their side being so great that he thinking it not worth the trouble to bury their Carcasses in several Graves caus'd them to be gather'd into congested heaps and by those dismal Monuments of their unhappy Courage left to Posterity so many Land-marks of a second Conquest That which made this Victory of his appear more serene like the Air after a Thunder storm was the sudden Calm which followed after it all those fierce Infidels being so wholly dispers'd and defeated that having nothing more to do relating to War he bethought himself of performing some notable Act of Peace And accordingly made a Pilgrimage to Rome where it appears how welcom he was by the magnificent Reception he had of Pope Leo the Fourth who not only entertain'd him a whole year upon his own Charge but anointed his darling Son Elfrid who accompanied him thither to the expectation of his Kingdom after him wherein whether his Holiness intended an Obligation to the Father in honouring the Son that was thought most like him and certainly most belov'd of him or whether it were that being his God-son he could not bestow upon him any cheaper Blessing then an Airy Title which yet seem'd to be a Prophetical Designation to the Crown or what other Cause mov'd him to prop up the old with setting up a young King is not known But in the Consequence it prov'd a fatal Complement to them both For Ethelbald the elder Brother apprehending that he was rejected being a Prince of a furious and vindictive Spirit attempted to do himself right by such an unnatural Wrong as never any Son offer'd to a Father before taking his exception from the most unreasonable and one would have thought the most frivolous Ground that could be imaginable For the Father having given the Complement of Majesty to his young Queen the fair Daughter of the Emperour Charles the Bald whom he had married in his return through France contrary as his Son urg'd to a Law made by the West-Sexe who after Bithrick was poyson'd by his Queen ordain'd that no English Queen ever after should be allow'd the Title place or Priviledge of Majesty he took that Occasion from the respect shew'd to his Mother in Law to justifie himself so far in his disrespect to his Father that without more ado he seiz'd the Crown and kept out both Father and Brother the People who are apt to adore the rising Sun declaring their readiness to stand by him as he by the Laws The shame and horror of whâ—ch unexpected Repulse broke the heart of the good old King who dying seem'd to bemoan more the loss of his Subjects duty then that of his own Honour But that blessing which Providence deny'd to himself it gave to his four Sons each of which was King after him and all of them this Ethelbald only excepted so eminently virtuous that however we cannot rank Ethelwolph amongst the Fortunate we may yet number him amongst the happy Princes of this Isle ETHELBALD date of accession 857 AS we may presume that the Impudence and Impiety of this graceless Usurper did sufficiently amaze the present so it remain'd as a Riddle to those of future Times who were left to seek how it could come to pass that so bad a Son could so easily supplant so good a Father And which was yet more the Father of his Country as well as his own For however it is evident that he took the first advantage of his weakness by the rigour of that petulant Law before mention'd which was no less unreasonable for the matter of it then himself appear'd to be by the Execution making the People believe that his Father who had broken a Fundamental Law intended also to violate their Fundamental Priviledges whereof no Nation in the World is more jealous then the English Yet had not this single Ingratitude of his been double edg'd it could never have pierc'd to the heart of so wise a Prince but the hatred to the Father being bottom'd upon a love to the Mother whose Beauty Pride and Lust had prepared the first temptation for his Youth and Power The good old King could not resist that double Injury there being so good an Understanding betwixt the two Serpents that they engendred whilst they were hissing at one another And which is yet more strange the Incestuous Parricide after he had possess'd the Bed as well as the Throne so blind is Passion out-did his Father as much in that very point of respect to her for which he undid him as he out-did aâ—l other men in point of Inhumanity allowing her not only the stile of Queen but designing to make her by the formal pomp of a solemn Coronation alike Partner with him in his Royalty as she was in his Luxury had not Death and the Danes happily parted them After which she was forc'd to return home and by the way fell it seems into the hands of Baldwyn the Forrester of Arden by whom being taken Prisoner he entred at the Breach he found already made and took the Pleasure of her Beauty as lawful Prize ETHELBERT date of accession 858 SO monstrously rebellious was Ethelbald against his Father that Providence vouchsafed him not the honour of being a Father himself So that dying Childless his second Brother Ethelbert became his Heir and Successor a Prince fitted by the Government of part for the Soveraignty of the whole who having happily rul'd the Kentish South and East-Saxons for five years together was admitted by common Consent as well as by particular Right to the honour of being Fourth absolute Monarch of England However his Government was much disturb'd before he could settle upon the Lees of his Power by the increasing rage of the Danes who landing at Southampton sack'd all the Country to the Walls of Winchester and having afterwards buried that Loyal old Town in its own Ashes came on as far as Berkshire with intent to visit London it self but being stopt by the united Forces of that Country they were compell'd to repay the price of their Cruelties to those they had before harassed falling under the Fury of Osrick Earl of Southampton whose People provok'd with the sense of their Sufferings forc'd in upon them and slew Osbeeck and Crans their Chief Leaders exposing the rest to all the miseries that usually befall a routed Enemy in a strange Country and so great was the slaughter of them that the very Fame of it incourag'd the Kentish men to turn head upon another Party that had bridled and was about to saddle them Some have doubted the Courage of this King for that they find him not personally ingag'd all this while not considering
wherein his Clemency so interpos'd betwixt his Wisdom and his Power that it is hard to judge whether he rul'd more by Awe Art or Affection tying them to no Rule or Order which he did not with more severity impose upon himself So that what Martiaâ— sayes of Fronto may be applyed to him That he was Clarum Militiae Togâ—que decus there being that harmony in his natural Constitution as inclined him to that gentle Science of Musick which as it served him to good purpose in his utmost extremity so it brought him to such a strict habit in keeping of Time that to make himself sure of every moment of his whole life he divided the Day into three equal spaces allowing the first to the business of Devotion the second to the care of Nature and the third to that of his State of each of which he was so excellent a manager that he is not undeservedly placed in the first rank of the Conditores of this Nation And if he were not the first Founder of Oxford which cannot be conceiv'd without apparent injury to the memory of his Grandfather whom the Annals of Winchester commemorate as the greatest Patron that ever the Muses had there yet we cannot deny him the glory of being one of those great Patrons or Foster-fathers whereof there were many almost in all Ages from the very time of the Britains whose beneficence Alexander Necam celebrates with much gratitude who nourisht up Learning and learned Men and gave Incouragement to all those who studied knowledge And this he did in such unsetled and disorderly Times when he had much ado to bear up himself with all the helps he had from the Wisdom and Courage of all about him the Troubles of his Reign being so incessant like one continued Storm that he was as is said before once forc'd to quit the Stearn another time to cut the Cable and never enjoy'd so much tranquillity as to be able to put out all his Sayls so that it was esteem'd a great good luck that he was not wreckt since he could not reach his Port which doubtless he owed to the Faith of his People the universality of whose Affections supply'd the defects of his Power being as superstitious in the confidence of his good Fortunes as Caesars Souldiers are said to have been of his who never thought themselves in danger while he was safe nor ever thought him the less safe for being in the midst of danger Who would not follow him into the Field Who cannot chuse but conquer though he yield Whose Sword cut deep yet was his wit more keen Some Fence ' gainst that but this did wound unseen To thee is due great Elfrid double praise To thee we bring the Laurel and the Bays Master of Arts and Arms. Apollo so Sometimes did use his Harp sometimes his Bow And from the other Gods got this Renown To reconcile the Gauntlet to the Gown But who did e're with the same Sword like thee Execute Justice and the Enemy Keep up at once the Law of Arms and Peace And from the Camp issue out Writs of Ease EDWARD THE ELDER date of accession 900 AS Elfrid was thought to be dead long after he was living so long after he was dead he seem'd to live still in the Person of this his Son Edward who was so like him that he might rather have been call'd Elfrid the Younger then Edward the Elder being so immediate a Successor to his Vertues as well as his Titles that 't was not discernable whether the Peoples grief or joy was greater out of the apprehensions they had of the loss of the one or the hopes conceived by the fruition of the other In Learning he was his Fathers Inferiour in Courage his Equal but in Fortune his Superiour For however he was attach'd on all sides by tumultuary Troops of Danes who by this time were grown very numerous and were a People of that stomach and patience that they grew greater by being lessned and which is strange to tell prosper'd by being beaten yet he acquitted himself so well of them that they got no more Ground from him than what might be allowed them for their Graves which they purchas'd at the price of their blood and measur'd out by the length of their Swords However the first provocation he had to arm was from his own flesh and blood an Enemy so much more dangerous for that he had something of his own Nature in him this was Ethelward the Son of Ethelbert his Fathers second Brother who having been declar'd Clyto which amongst the Saxons was as much as Caesar amongst the Romans that is to say the Heir Apparent he thought it not so much an Injury to be put besides the Right of Succession by his two Uncles as an Indignity to be disappointed by a Cosin who however surnam'd the Elder was in truth the Younger of the two aâ—d perhaps according to the Rule of those times had the weaker-Title This spark of Indignation being kindled in his Breast was quickly blown into a Flame and wanting not matter to nourish it was easily kept up at its height by other mens discontents as well as his own who urging him to arm without due consideration of King Edwards Possession Power and Reputation all great Check-mates to Rebellion brought him and themselves under a necessity of craving help from the common Enemy who having no other way but by this division to preserve themselves intire readily accorded to acknowledge him King Upon this the two Rivals meeting at a place call'd St. Edmunds-Ditch gave Battel to each other where King Edward got the Victory but lost the day the Battel being so equally poys'd that it not being known which had the better either side was suppos'd to have the worst of it King Edward lost the greater number of men King Ethelward the most considerable for both himself and the Danish General his Colleague were slain their Bodies lying conceal'd under such vast heaps of the English that their dishonour seems to be cancell'd by those that conquer'd them Upon this there was a Truce concluded with the Dane I cannot call it a Peace since the shortness of it made it seem no more then a Repose to take breath to fight again during this Cessation Fame partial to the English had so divuâ—g'd the loss of the Enemy that the Countess of Mercia Sister to King Edward and as nearly related to him in Fortune as in Blood arm'd her self like another Zenobia and fell upon those that were nearest her Country who by the death of two great Princes Cowilph and Healidine gave her Brother time to refresh his tired Forces But he as doubting his Sword might rust if it were put up into the Sheath bloody pursu'd his Successes with so indefatigable a Rage that all those of East-Anglia dreading the Consequences of being conquer'd compounded for their own Lives by giving up that of their King chusing rather to be disloyal than
miserable but lost them their Freedom by the same way they hop'd to preserve it For K. Edward was so incensed at the sight of their Butchery that however the Paracide made for him to the recovery of that whole Kingdom yet he determin'd to give the Traytours no Conditions Upon which they fled into Northumberland where he thought not fit to pursue but left the Glory of clearing that Province to his Successor who neither deceiv'd his nor the Kingdoms expectation ATHELSTAN date of accession 924 THEY that will take the height of this King must begin near about the time his Reign began to end his rising being like that of the Sun in a Cloud which being not discernable at first after looks red and bloody but at last recovers its wonted lustre and brightness The inequality of his Mothers condition to that of his Fathers being but a private Gentlewoman contracted to him in the life of the Grandfather so obscur'd his Birth that there were great doubts whether he were not illegitimate and that which gave the suspicion of it was his Fathers not owning of him after he came to be King who caus'd his second Brother to be Crown'd in his own life-time to entitle him the nearer to the Succession in order to the putting this man by By which frowardness of Fate or rather of his own Friends he was so over-shadow'd at the time of his Fathers death that had he not shew'd himself to be the true Son as well as the eldest and the undoubted Heir of his Courage if not to his Crown fitted for Government by parts as well as by years 't is probable he had been wholly set aside it being scarce possible for him to have penetrated so thick a cloud of malice as his merit had exhal'd much less to have sustain'd the shock of his Fathers envy alone who malign'd him upon no other account but that of his Grandfathers Indulgence who was so fond of him that 't was thought he would have given him a share of the Government with himself whilst he lived as an earnest of the rest when he was dead to the hazard of setting aside his Son Edward Thus the kindness of his Grandfather and the unkindness of his Father being alike unfortunate to him 't is no marvel the melancholly he had contracted thickned his blood and corrupted his good nature inclining him to frowardness and cruelty after he recover'd the Zenith of his Power taking a president of unnaturalness from his Father to fall upon his innocent Brother jealousie the canker of Majesty having so far eaten out the coar of his vertues that he could entertain no other thoughts but what were rank with revenge being so far transported that when death had remov'd the Brother that was his Rival he was not satisfied till himself had remov'd the other that was not whom resolv'd it seems to have no body stand near his Throne he expos'd to the rage and fury of the Sea in a Bark without Sails or any kind of Tackle where the helpless Youth believing that rude Element more merciful than his Brother cast himself into its bosom and so put a speedy end to his unhappiness and fear This was so crying a crime that it needed not a second to weigh down all his vertues and would questionless have condemn'd him to all eternity had he not timely condemn d himself for it and by a suitable Penance which ended not but with his own life pacifi'd the Ghost of his murther'd Brother and the horrour of his own guilty Conscience that came to be as strangely awaken'd as it was at first abus'd by the very same person who put him upon that execrable action who as the Story goes stumbling accidentally in his presence as he was bringing up a Dish of meat to his Table having recover'd himself without falling said as he thought pleasantly but unwittingly See Sir how one Brother meaning one Leg helps another which unexpected Jest gave so sudden a touch to the Kings Conscience that in as sudden a passion he reply'd Villain it was thou that didst cause me to murther my innocent Brother and so commanded him to be strangled in his presence This was thoâ—ght to be an effect of rage rather than remorse till it appear'd otherwise by those voluntary punishments he afterwards laid upon his own Person and more upon his Purse the expiating of this one sin costing him no less Treasure than all his Wars though he knew no Peace all his Reign and had it not been for this blood in the beginning of his Story no King had left his Name to Posterity under a fairer Character for being just in his promises resolv'd in his purposes constant in his resolutions and as his Father before him fortunate in that constancy having rul'd well liv'd better and at last dy'd desired which could not have been had he not been as much Lord of himself as others and rightly temper'd to maintain by his Courage what be got by his Wisdom of both which Qualifications he gave so signal proof that the memory of his Magnanimity hath outlived himself it being agreed by all Historians that he once oppos'd himself single to the force of a whole Army and notwithstanding the odds of number kept them at a stand till he was reliev'd by his own People who turn'd the Duel into a Battle but could not part the Enemy and he till he had made his way through them to their King with whom he fought hand to hand he yielded himself Prisoner after which as if he were not satisfied with conquering him but once he dismist him again with a generous scorn saying 'T was greater to make a King than be one Pity 't was that Nature was not so kind to him as Fortune for this made his way to the Crown but t'other deny'd him Issue to enjoy it so that for want of Heirs of his own Body he was forc'd to leave the Succession to his younger Brother the first Son of his Father by a second Venter EDMOND date of accession 940 THIS Prince being but three years old at the death of his Father and not full fifteen at the death of his Brother lost all those Advantages he might have hop'd for by observing the Vertues of the one or the Vices of the other however the loss of the Example of his Father was so well supply'd by the Care and Providence of his Mother who gave him an Education fit for those active times that he may worthily be said to have been fitted for Majesty before Majesty was fitted for him shooting up to that unexpected height that the Danes finding they could not keep down his growth by open Hostility endeavour'd to supplant him by unperceiv'd Hypocrisie casting themselves under the Sanctuary of Religion as profess'd Proselytes to the two great Prelates that then rul'd him and his Kingdom the Archbishops of Canterbury and York By the solemnity of which holy Cheat ratifi'd with the Seal
hold out than while it was preserv'd by the Courage of such active Princes as those that appear'd upon the Throne the four last Descents following who spight of Fate made good their Ground for an hundred years without any Interruption to the course of honour save by the Interposition of Edwin whom yet the hatred of the Clergy is suppos'd to have made worse than he was EDWARD the Martyr date of accession 975 THE Globe of Soveraignty like that of the Earth is so plac'd that it never stands still but as the Ocean the Emblem of human frailty has its Ebbs and Flows its Falls and Swellings so hath it its Turnings Tumblings and Revolutions No sooner were Edgar's Halcyonian daies done but there appear'd new Signs of the old Troubles and Commotions which like the meeting of contrary Tides prest in each upon other with dreadful noise and Tumult the Laiety opposing the Clergy the Nobility scorning the Populacy and they again dividing from one another But amongst the rest no Feud seemed so fatal as that betwixt the two Unhappy Sons of this so happy Father the one trusting to his Primogeniture t'other standing upon his Legitimacy the right of either being so equally ballanc'd that there wanted only the affections of the Multitude to turn the Scale either way whilst the Clergy favour'd the Eldest the Temporal Lords the younger The head of the Church-Faction was the A. B. Dunstan then and all the time of the last King chief Minister of State Principal of the Lay Faction was Ordgar the great Earl of Devon back'd by the Queen Mothers Party So equal was the power so pressing the necessity on either side that both Consented to stand to the determination of a Publick Convention of all the States at London Accordingly a Parliament was held at Westminster where the bold St. Dunstan not tarrying for the result of any Debate upon the point De Jure set the Crown upon the head of Edward the Elder Brother and so presented him De Facto to the Assembly as their lawful Soveraign which confident Act of his either satisfying or surprizing those of the opposite Party met with an universal submission every Body acquiescing and dissembling their discontent except the Queen only who being his Step-mother could not forget much less forgive an injury so grievous to the Son of her own Body turning therefore her passion of Ambition into that of Revenge she broke over all the bounds of Nature and Right to find the nearest way to the Throne nor wanted she a dismal opportunity however taken from a pretence of humanity and kindness to set up her Darling by the murther of this guiltless Prince who coming alone estray'd from Hunting and altogether unattended to visit her at her Castle of Corffe in the Isle of Purbeck was by her Command slain by an Assassme that took the advantage to stab him in the Reins of the Back as he was drinking her Health at the gate on Horse-back the helpless Youth finding himself wounded clapt spurs to his Horse in hopes to have out-rid her malice but his Spirits failing he fell out of his Saddle and so unfortunately that his Foot fastned in the Stirrup at which his poor Beast affrighted became alike accessary though not alike guilty of his death by dashing our his Brains before that Life had got its passage through his wounds So perished this harmless Prince in the infancy of his Royalty as well as of his Age being rather sacrific'd than slain by a kind of double Death without so much as a single Crime laid to his charge the same malice that envy'd him the honour of being a King becoming instrumental thereby to the dignifying him with the glory of being a Martyr the Charity of those times or rather the Affection of the Clergy leaving him enshrin'd in the Kalendar of Saints Which shews how deplorable his death was wherein the whole Nation were so much more sufferers than himself that it may be truly said that the Same stroak which took away his Life gave the Deaths wound to the English Monarchy bringing upon them the misery of being in Bondage to a Stranger Nation of all other the most cruel and insolent who ow'd their Rise next the immediate determination of Providence to nothing more than the unexpected Fall of this hopeful Prince with whose blood they may be said to have mixt the Morter of that Foundation they after laid taking the same advantage of the Sins of the English as they before of those of the Britains and breaking in upon them as they upon t'other with a Resolution not so much to conquer as to confound them which may be some Excuse for the cruelty of the next King that massacred so many of them in cold blood whilst who like Sampson in the midst of his Enemies thought there was no way left but removing the Pillars of the house and perishing together with them ETHELRED date of accession 978 'T IS easie to imagine by the Title of Martyr given to the last King what Reflex his Death had upon this who like an ill-set plant unhappily plac'd in the same Room from which the other was taken never could recover any firm rooting and consequently never thriv'd being continually wind-shaken from the very first moment that he was set up and vext with uncessant troubles the Sword never departing from his House as 't is reported St. Dunstan preaching at his Coronation boldly foretold till the common Enemy became Master of his ill-got Glory repaying him with the misery of loss and that infelicity which always attends it shame and reproach For 't is observ'd that notwithstanding there were scarcely any King that ever setled the constitutions of his Government upon firmer principles that fought his Battels with braver Resolution that encountred all Emergencies of State with like indifferency and temperance yet neither could his vigilance or valour his prudence fortitude or patience so prevail against Destiny but that all his designs were stifled in the birth or frustrated at the very point of dispatch as if Heaven had decreed to lay such a curse upon the wickedness of his Parent as should weigh down all the merit of his Vertues and â—â—ast the hopes conceiv'd from them One while Famin was his Foe another time Pestilence and it was not rare for the very Elements themselves to fight against him it being more than once or twice that he had a kind of Battel with Heaven it self for his Fleets were in danger of being fired by unexpected Lightning and Thunder-Storms neither was it for a little time that he thus strugled with the perverseness of his Stars hoping the malignity of their Influences might spend it self in due season but finding they gave him no opportunity or incouragement to perform any worthy Action for several years together having plac'd all Glory so far above the reach of his Sword that 't was impossible he could at the same time appear to be
a Tetrarchy but he was forc'd at the same time to banish Ten thousand of his other Country-men only to be rid of them two putting himself by an unusual Confidence upon the Faith of the English whom to oblige the more he taught the knowledge of their own Strength which till then they seem'd ignorant of shewing them the way to Victory in other Countries where while they became Conquerours under him they forgot the hate conceiv'd for being conquer'd by him Neither was he less careful in Peace to heal the wounds receiv'd in War by applying the Balsome of wholsome Laws in the making whereof he had a particular Art to meet with the Distempers of the Times wisely providing against such as were likely to have become Epidemical But more particularly severe was he against that sottish sin of Drinking then so much in fashion not without some secret instinct perhaps or presage of what did happen after that it would prove fatal to the Glory of his own House and not only cut off every Branch thereof but be the occasion of rooting out his Nation so full and wholly that in two Successions after him there should not be found scarce one Family in the whole Isle that could so trace their broken Pedigrees through the obscure windings and deviations of their so often interrupted History as to prove himself of Danish Extract both by Father and Mother But as it was too great an Undertaking to subdue the Vices of that indomitable Age where if they had not thirsted for wine they would perhaps for blood So much less was he able to contest with Heaven which had put them a period for a Penalty and bound them up by an invisible Chain of Causes beyond the length of which they could not make one step forward The Links whereof were peradventure no more and therefore the heavier then what was proper for the mystical number of their three Letter'd Name of DAN for as their Monarchy held only three Descents so the whole Systeme of their Conquest with every Action Accident and Atchievement therein seems to be circumscribed within the Circle of that hree corner'd square with like Fatality as the Britains were rul'd by the Number of Six and the Romans by that of Seven For as they were originally divided into three Tribes so each Tribe had as many Kingdoms and thereupon they gave for their ancient Arms three times three * Olao Worms Monument Dan. 431. Hearts which makes up Nine the great Square of the Number Three their Dominions then conteining just so many Islands as we learn from †Casp F. Epist Tho. Bartolinus to which they have added since Three Lions So when they began their Invasion here 't is observable they had but only Three Ships which yet landed not all at once but in three several places and that inconsiderable Party they brought over were conducted by three Generals each equal in Trust and Honour these were Gurmo Byorn and Sytherick who began that cruel war that followed upon their Departure came over Ingar Ivor and Hubbo three fierce Brothers which were seconded by Gurmo the younger Eskell and Amond as they again back'd by Cockric Hastang and Rollo The three great Triumviri in the height of the war were Edric Stroeg and Halidine after them succeeded Sytherick the Second Godfred and Anlaff after whom were Eric the Second Anlaff the Second and Swain not to mention Fran Frithegist and Frothoe whose names were over-whelm'd by Irtus Turkill and Knute who were the bringers up of the Rear and ended the war the last of whom was the first had the good fortune to shake off his right and left hand-men in the Government The like Order they observ'd in invading Ireland where the first Undertakers were Turges and the two Gurmo's Father and Son the second Expedition being managed by Thor Raglobert and Sytherick the same Sytherick I take it came after into England And as they had alwaies three Generals so all their Battalion's were divided into Tertia's and as divers Historians relate they never quit the Field how much soever over-press'd by their Enemies till they had been thrice broken Lastly as they had a Succession of three times three Kings here before they could get the intire Domination over the whole that is to say three in East-Anglia and twice three in Northumberland so they had three and but three Kings that continued the Succession after they became absolute And as their Monarchy held out but three Descents so it continued but three times nine years at longest Too short a space to compensate the loss of so much blood as the recovery of their short-liv'd Glory cost them much less to repair the Naufrages of the Common-wealth wasted by continual Storms whilst Fortune appear'd so indifferent which side to favour that there could be no measure taken of her Inclinations from the Success there being scarce any Battel fought in which the Conquerour had so much the better on 't to keep the Field long or the conquer'd so beaten as not to be able in very short time to take the Field again with confidence of getting the day next rising like Game-cocks after they were laid for dead to crow over them that had the better of them those that died intailing their Ambition on those that surviv'd infecting them if I may so say with their Courage So that that Character is very applicable to them which we find elsewhere Quos nulla fatigant Praelia nec Victi possunt absistere Ferro THE Order and Succession OF THEIR KINGS Before and after they got The Intire and Absolute Government OF ENGLAND I. date of accession 870 HUNGAR was the first Danish King in this Isle who assisted by his Brother Beorn that had marryed the Lady of Northumberland found Interest enough to give him admittance there whence marching directly into East-Anglia he sacrific'd King Edmund to the Ghost of his murther'd Father and possessing himself of that Kingdom left it to II. date of accession 874 GURMO a younger Brother of the Royal House of Denmark who to ingratiate himself to the English became a Christian and with his new Title took a new Name being by his Godfather King Elfred worthily call'd Athelstan that is to say as Verstegan interprets it the Noble he left his Title to his Brother III. date of accession 905 ERIC the first that had this name and last that had this honour who meeting with a Competitor that over-match'd him both in the dignity of his Person and the designation of his Power was betray'd by his own Subjects who put themselves under King Edward surnam'd the Elder the Northumbers and Mercians submitting to IV. date of accession 907 ERIC the Second or as some call him Sytherick a Norwegian who contracting an Allyance with King Athelstan and after the Example of Gurmo turning Christian was poyson'd by his own two Sons the eldest whereof V. date of accession 924 ANLAFF the First possess'd
himself of Northumberland Godfrid his younger Brother held Mercia but King Athelstan fell upon both and took from the last his Life from the first his Kingdom which was recovered again not long after by his Son VI. date of accession 946 ANLAFF the Second thereupon esteem'd the third King of the Northumbers His reign was not long for his Subjects weary of continual wars set him besides the Saddle to make way for VII date of accession 950 ERIC the Third or as some call him IRING Son of Harold the Grandson of Gurmo King of Denmark recommended to them by Milcolmb King of Scots but he being elected King of Sweden the Northumbers submitted to Edgar the younger Brother or next in succession to Edwyn and from that time it continued a Member of the English Crown till about the year 980 when VIII date of accession 980 ANLAFF the Third understanding they were affected to his Nation arriv'd with a fresh Supply and making his Claim was admitted King but being over prest the Title came to IX date of accession 1013 SWAIN King of Denmark who made this his first step to the Engâ—ish Throne into which as he was mounting death seiz'd on him and kept the Room empty for his Son Knute DANES Absolute Kings OF ENGLAND I. date of accession 1017 KNUTE was deservedly surnam'd the Great as being the very greatest and most absolute King that ever England or Denmark knew those of the Roman Line only excepted for he was King of England Scotland Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden and Lord of a great part of Poland all Saxony some part and not a little of Brandenburgh Bremen Pomerania and the adjacent Countries most of them not to say all besides Denmark and Norway reduc'd under his Obedience by the valour of the English only upon his death Denmark and Norway fell to his Son Hardycanute the rest as Sweden c. devolv'd upon the right Heirs whilst England was usurp'd by his Natural Son II. date of accession 1036 HAROLD surnam'd Harfager or Golden Locks who being the Elder and having the advantage to be upon the place entred as the first Occupant thereby disappointing his legitimate Brother III. date of accession 1041 KNUTE surnam'd the Hardy design'd by his Father to be the next Successor to him as bearing his Name though upon tryal it appear'd he had the least part of his Nature for he had not the Courage to come over and make any claim as long as Harold liv'd and after his death he drown'd himself in a Land-flood of Wine losing all the Glory his Predecessors had gotten by wading through a sea of blood which made the way to his Throne so slippery that those English that came after him could never find firm footing But upon the very first Encounter with the Norman caught such a Fall that could never recover themselves again This Gurmo came out of Ireland I take it in the second year of King Elfrid not without a confident hope of making good his Predecessors Conquest which had cost already so much blood as made his desire of Rule look like a necessity of Revenge the Monarchy of Denmark it self being put if I may so say into a Palsie or trembling Fit by the loss of the Spirits it had wasted here So that he came with this advantage which those before him had not That the Cause seem'd now to be his Countries more then his own who therefore bore him up with two notable props Esketel and Amon men of great Conduct and known Courage the one of which he plac'd as Vice-Roy in Northumberland t'other in Mercia And having before expelled Burthred the Saxon he fixed himself in East-Anglia as being nearer to correspond with Denmark and most commodious to receive Reâ—ruits Upon his first advance against King Elfrid Fortune appear'd so much a Neuter that either seem'd afraid of other and striking under line preferr'd a dissembled Friendship before down-right Hostility And to shew how much the edge of their Courage was rebated they mutually accorded to divide the Land betwixt them Gurmo was to be Lord of the North and East Elfrid to hold the South and West part of the Isle The politick Dane after this suffered himself to become what the English would have him to be a Christian to the intent that he might be what he would have himself to be absolute changing his Pagan name of Gurmo into that of Athelstan which being of all others the most grateful to the Saxons he render'd himself by that Condescension so acceptable to the whole Nation that they consented to his Marriage with the fam'd Princess Thyra King Elfrids vertuous Sister by whom he had Issue Harold Blaatand that liv'd to be King of Denmark after himself and another Knute whom he left in Ireland to make good the Acquests of the first Gurmo there a Prince of so great hopes and so belov'd by him that the knowledge of his death being slain at the Siege of Dublin gave him his own for he no sooner apprehended the tidings thereof by the sight of his Queens being in mourning but he fell into such a violent fit of Grief as left him not till he left the World whereby the Crown of Denmark fell to his Son Harold the Title and Possession of East-Anglia with its Appurtenances he bequeath'd to his Brother Eric who having perform'd the first Act of Security to himself in having taken an Oath of Allegiance of all his Subjects suffer'd them to perform the last Act of Piety towards him in giving him all the Rites of an honourable Interment at Haddon in Suffolk which place it seems he purposed to make the Burial place of all the East-Anglian Kings But this Ambition of his beginning where it should have ended with a design of assuring to himself more honour after he was dead then he was able to make good whiles he was living ended as soon as it began as will appear by his Story following Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Upon which his Queen frighted with the horrour of their Inhumanity fled back to her Brother Athelstan to seek from his Power Justice Protection and Revenge whiles Anlaff took upon him to be King The Equality of Power as well as of Ambition ripen'd the Factions on both sides very fast by the heat of their Contest But before they came to Maturity there was a Parliament conven'd at Oxford that took the matter into consideration where the Lords fearing that the Question if delay'd might be decided by Swords and not by Words out of a deep sence of the lingring Calamities of a new War all the wounds of the old being not yet cured or at least not so well but that the Scars were yet fresh in many of their Faces they declar'd for the King in possession but with such a wary form of Submission as shew'd they did it rather out of regard to themselves then him whereupon Goodwin produced the deceased Kings Will in opposition to theirs but the
a dispute with the French and so neither at leisure as he thought to disturb him The third who claimed as the right Heir by descent as well as by the Will of his Uncle was Edgar Atheling Son of Prince Edward eldest Son of Edmond Ironsides but he being a Child and having no Friends nearer then Hungary he oppos'd to him the good Omen of his own †Harold in old Saxon signified Love of the Army Name only that is to say concluded to overcome Right by Might having besides the advantage of his Years and Experience two great Supporters to participate of the danger with him in case the other two should joyn with Edgar that was Morcar Earl of York and Edwin Earl of Chester both Brothers to his Wife who being the Relict of Llewellin Prince of Wales seem'd to be a Pledge given by Fortune to secure to him the affections of that People also Neither wanted he something like a gilded Title to dazle the Common Peoples eyes for besides that he was Heir to the Fame and Fortune of the great Goodwin the Champion of their Liberties descended from the Kings of the West-Sexe which gave him the preferrence of the Norman so by the Mothers side he had in him the Royal Blood of Denmark which by the advantage of his present possession gave him the Superiority of those Kings too Thus fortified and adorned he undertook to make the People as happy as they had made him Great and because Trisles please Children as well as greater matters he call'd himself Prince Edgar's Protector fooling those of his Party into a belief that he intended something towards him that might amount to a Surrender in convenient time or at least to a Confirmation of the Succession after him which they were well contented with Thus having by many Lines drawn to himself an universal Consent that made his Right of Desert equivalent with t'others Right of Descent he hung like a Spider by the slender thread spun out of his own Bowels which how weak soever it seem'd was strong enough to bear him up till he had put his Affairs into as good a Posture of Security as the present necessity would permit And it so fell out that the first that question'd him was the last that assaulted him his next Neighbour the Norman who pretending to a Conveyance of King Edwards Right to him to which as he said Harold himself was Witness and which was more sworn by Oath to defend he tax'd him upon his Allegiance to make good the same to which Harold return'd a short Answer That Oaths exacted par Duresse were not binding for taking his pleasure as it is said one day at Sea he was by contrary winds drove into Normandy and there detain'd till he took that Oath 2. He said that his private compact with the Norman was of no validity without the consent of the whole State of England 3. That no Act of King Edward's could pass the Crown away being himself intitled to it but by Election and so holding only in Trust Lastly that the Kingdom of England and Dukedom of Normandy were enough for two Persons and too much to be rul'd by one and therefore Nature had well placed a Sea betwixt them which Sea because he thought the Norman could not pass he concluded he would not devest himself of the Dignity Providence had given him with the consent of the People By this Duke William finding that Arms not Arguments must decide the Controversie resolv'd to drive out one wedge with another and accordingly working upon the Revenge and Ambition of Toustan Harold's younger Brother then in his Court who was tainted with an irreconcileable Enmity both to his Brother and Country to him for a Box of the Ear given him in the presence of King Edward to it for a worse blow in deposing him from his Government in Northumberland and forcing him into Exile whereby he was necessitated to appear rather like a Pirate then a Prince he prevail'd with him to make the first Invasion who assisted by the King of Scots and the King of Norwey then ingaged in taking in the Northern Isles landed in his own Province and thence pierc'd into the very Bowels of the Kingdom forcing his Brother Harold though with apparent hazard to leave London to make what speed he could to check their forwardness who accordingly advanc'd as far as Stamford where he put an end to the troubles of his Brother and the Norweygian but not to his own For as he was allaying this Storm in the North he had notice of a more dreadful one in the South the Norman having so tim'd his business that he landed that very day that his Confederates were fighting with whom came over the Great Earl of Flanders Father in Law to Toustan as well as to himself accompanied with the Earl of Bulloigne who had been so inhospitably treated at Canterbury by Harold's Father Harold tarried not to sheath his blood-stain'd Swords lest rusting in their Scabards they should be hardly drawn forth again But leading his men on weary as they were to compleat the first by a second Victory in less time then could be thought possible to have march'd so far he fac'd the Invaders with so much confidence that Duke William loath to venture all at one stake sent him the offer of referring it to the Pope or putting the trial upon a single Combat betwixt them two But Harold deaf to all Conditions of Peace having in his memory the fatal Success of that dispute between Knute and Ironsides on the like Occasion return'd him this Answer That none but that Power which gave it him should judge his Right and that he would support it with more then singâ—e Courage superstitiously believing that that day would prove auspicâ—ous to him because it was his Birth-day Neither was he worse then his word for that single Battel cost the English near Seven thousand Lives besides what were lost on the Norman side the just number whereof their Historians have not thought fit to let us know Men worthy to be as they were then made Immortal who bravely strove with Destiny to save their Country from the Ca amity of Forreign Servitude but finding that they couâ—d not do it as scorning to out live their Liberties they fell round the Body of their vanquish'd King which lay wrapt up in his Royal Standard instead of a Winding sheet with more wounds upon him then he had reign'd Months in such congested heaps as shew'd the Normans that they had wâ—th him subdu'd the Kingdom there being scarce so much Noble blood â—eft unspilt as to keep the State alive if he had quit them much less to make a second Resistance From which Catastrophe we may conclude that the advantage which the English got over the Britains in the first place was no more then what the Normans got over them in the last not by an inequaliâ—y of Courage but partiality of Fortune which like a
their Gentility by Charters from St. Edward and others from King Edgar whose Pedigrees do yet fall short of many of the Welch by many Descents In fine from the Normans we first learn'd how to appear like a People compleatly civiliz'd being as more elegant in our Fashions so more sumptuous in our Dwellings more magnifick in our Retinue not to say choicer in our Pleasures yet withal more frugal in our Expences For the English being accustomed to bury all their Rents in the Draught knowing no other way to out-vie one another but as a †Jaq. Praslin Progmat French Writer expresses it by a kind of greasie Riot which under the specious Name of Hospitality turn'd their Glory into Shame began after the Conquest to consume the Superfluity of their Estates in more lasting Excesses turning their Hamlets into Villes their Villages into Towns and their Towns into Cities adorning those Cities with goodly Castles Pallaces and Churches which being before made up of that we call Flemmish Work which is only Wood and Clay were by the Normans converted into Brick and Stone which till their coming was so rarely used that Mauritius Bishop of London being about to re-edifie Paul's Church burn'd in the Year 1086. was either for want of Workmen Materials or both necessitated not only to fetch all his Stone out of Normandy but to form it there So that we may conclude if the Conqueror had not as he did obliged the English to a grateful continuance of his Memory by personal and particular Immunities yet he deserv'd to be Eterniz'd for this that he elevated their minds to a higher point of Grandeur and Magnificence and rendred the Nation capable of greater Undertakings whereby they suddenly became the most opulent and flourishing People of the World advanc'd in Shipping Mariners and Trade in Power External as well as Internal witness no less then two Kings made Prisoners here at one time one of them the very greatest of Europe whereby they increased their publick Revenues as well as their private Wealth even to the double recompensing the loss sustain'd by his Entry whilst himself however suppos'd by that big sounding Title of Conqueror to have been one of the most absolute Princes we had got not so much ground while he was living as to bury him here when he was dead but with much ado obtain'd a homely Monument in his Native Soil THE ORDER AND SUCCESSION OF THE Norman Kings I. date of accession 1066 WILLIAM I. known by that terrible Name of the Conqueror gave the English by one single Battel so sad experience of their own weakness and his power that they universally submitted to him whereby becoming the first King of England of the Norman Race he left that Glory to be inherited by his second Son II. date of accession 1087 WILLIAM II. surnam'd Rufus who being the eldest born after he was a King and a Native of this Country succeeded with as much satisfaction to the English as to himself but dying without Issue left his younger Brother III. date of accession 1100 HENRY I. surnam'd Beauclark to succeed in whose Fortune all his Friends were as much deceiv'd as in his Parts his Father only excepted who foretold he would be a King when he scarce left him enough to support the dignity of being a Prince As he set aside his elder Brother Robert Duke of Normandy so he was requited by a like Judgment upon his Grandson the Son of his Daughter Maud who was set aside by IV. date of accession 1135 STEPHEN Earl of Blois his Cousin but she being such a woman as could indeed match any man disputed her Right so well with him that however she could not regain the Possession to her self she got the Inheritance fixed upon her Son V. date of accession 1155 HENRY II. Plantaginet the first of that Name and Race and the very greatest King that ever England knew but withal the most unfortunate and that which made his misfortunes more notorious was that they rose out of his own Bowels his Death being imputed to those only to whom himself had given life his ungracious Sons the eldest whereof that surviv'd him succeeded by the Name of VI. date of accession 1189 RICHARD I. Coeur de Leon whose undutifulness to his Father was so far retorted by his Brother that looking on it as a just Judgment upon him when he dyed he desired to be buried as near his Father as might be possible in hopes to meet the sooner and ask forgiveness of him in the other World his Brother VII date of accession 1199 JOHN surnam'd Lackland had so much more lack of Grace that he had no manner of sense of his Offence though alike guilty who after all his troubling the World and being troubled with it neither could keep the Crown with honour nor leave it in peace which made it a kind of Miracle that so passionate a Prince as his Son VIII date of accession 1216 HENRY III. should bear up so long as he did who made a shift to shuffle away fifty six years doing nothing or which was worse time enough to have overthrown the tottering Monarchy had it not been supported by such a Noble Pillar as was his Son and Successor IX date of accession 1272 EDWARD I. a Prince worthy of greater Empire then he left him who being a strict Observer of Opportunity the infallible sign of Wisdom compos'd all the differences that had infested his Fathers Grand-fathers and Great-Grand-fathers Governments and had questionless dyed as happy as he was glorious had his Son X. date of accession 1307 EDWARD II. answer'd expectation who had nothing to glory in but that he was the Son of such a Father and the Father of such a Son as XI date of accession 1328 EDWARD III. who was no less fortunate then valiant and his Fortune the greater by a kind of Antiperistasis as coming between two unfortunate Princes Successor to his Father and Predecessor to his Grandson XII date of accession 1377 RICHARD II. the most unfortunate Son of that most fortunate Father Edward commonly call d the Black Prince who not having the Judgment to distinguish betwixt Flatterers and Friends fell like his Great-Grand-father the miserable example of Credulity being depos'd by his Cosin XIII date of accession 1399 HENRY IV. the first King of the House of Lancaster descended from a fourth Son of Edward the Third who being so much a greater Subject then he was a King 't was thought he took the Crown out of Compassion rather then Ambition to relieve his oppress'd Country rather then to raise his own House and accordingly Providence was pleas'd to rivat him so fast in the Opinion of the People that his Race have continued though not without great Interruption ever since His Son XIV date of accession 1412 HENRY V. was in that repute with the People that they swore Allegiance to him before he was crown'd an honour never done to any of his Predecessors
by taking off his Caution so that after Dinner he would needs go hunt in the New Forrest and taking his Bow to shoot a Deer in that ominous place where before a * His Brother Richard Brother and a †The Son of Robert Duke of Normandy his elder Broth r. Brothers Son of his had both met with violent Deaths Tyrel his Bow-bearer being plac'd right against him as the best Marks-man let fly an Arrow that glancing against a Bough miss'd the Deer and found out him Pectus dum perforat ingens Ille rapit calidum frustrâ de Vulnere Telum Unâ eademque viâ Sanguisque Animusque sequuntur Being thus quietly stated he sweetned his Government by taking off all Taxes to shew his Beneficence and some of the principal Taxers to shew his Justice By the first he pleas'd the Multitude in point of Relief by the other the better sort in point of Envy and Revenge gratifying their Spleen by sacrificing the griping Bishop of Durham a man who being rais'd from a base Condition by baser means had attained to the honour of being Chief Minister to his Brother King William and was grown learn'd in the Science of selling Justice by the distribution of whose Bribes he brib'd those whom he thought fit to make his own Ministers neither thought it he enough to be an English man himself without assuring the State that he intended all his Posterity should be so too and therefore to the end to make sure the wise men that were as apt to be jealous as the weaker sort to be querulous he married Maud Sister to the Scotch King and Daughter to Margaret Sister to Edgar Atheling the right Heir of the English Blood a Lady that brought him an Inheritance of Goodness from her Mother and a good Title of Inheritance from her Uncle Thus firmly did he intrench himself before his Brother whom he had made a King in fame only that he might the easier make himself a real one return'd home who arriving unlook'd for was welcom'd by the Nobility of Normandy with more then ordinary Joy by whom being inform'd of what was done in England he made it the business of the first year to provide an Army and in the second landed it at Portsmouth in order to the recovery of his lost Right whereof he was the more assur'd in respect of those of the Norman Nobility here as he thought inclin'd to him who mov'd with revenge or discontent would be glad of any Occasion to Revolt This as it was a storm King Henry saw at a distance so he provided so well for it by cutting off all Assistances that Duke Robert and those with him doubting the success and seeing themselves certainly lost if they prevail'd not it being in his power to fight them where he pleas'd and when upon his desire to save the effusion of Christian Blood yielded to Articles of Peace the Substance whereof was this That Henry being born after his Father was rightfully King and being now invested in the Crown by act of the Kingdom should enjoy the same during life and pay Robert 3000 Marks per Annum as an Earnest of the Reversion after his Death in case Robert out-liv'd him With these Conditions Robert rather blinded then satisfied returns back again into his own Country and it had been well if he had never been blinded otherwise But such is the frenzie of Ambition that it suffers not unhappy Princes to consider either what they ought to do or what to suffer whilst like the Superior Orbs they are hurried with restless Motion without understanding by what Intelligences they are actuated Finding himself fallen from the height of his Expectation into some degree of Contempt with his own Subjects he assai'd by Profusion which some call Liberality to raise his Reputation at least to disguise his Impotency spending so freely that the Nobility fearing the Revenues of the Dutchy would not suffice to support his vanity complain'd thereof to King Henry who to shew his own power and t'others weakness sent for him over to chide him and indeed reprehended him so sharply as if he had been his Father and not his Brother and as if he would have him to know he rather expected the Reversion of the Dukedome after his death then to be accomptable to him for the Kingdom after his own and whether it were that he threatned him with a Detention of his Pension or drew him being of a yielding Nature as most indigent men are to give him a release for some inconsiderable Sum of ready Mony is not certain but so it was that upon his return he could no longer conceal the indignation he had conceived at it but took the very first Occasion to shew it by joyning himself with some mutinous Lords who having before begun an unsuccessful Combustion in England had fled over thither to commit what Outrages they could there King Henry for a while pretended himself touch'd in Conscience with the foulness of a Fraternal War but was indeed apprehensive that such trivial Injuries as the taking a few Castles was not worthy the trouble of drawing him over in Person at least not worth the charge of entring into such a War as might justifie the requiring his Dukedom for a satisfaction but having let them alone till he believ'd his sufferance had elevated them beyond the temper of hearkning to any conditions he then took his time to chastise their folly and by one single Battle upon the very same day and in the very same manner as 't is reported that his Father just forty years before won England he won Normandy and having made his brother prisoner depriv'd him first of his liberty after of his country and lastly of that which was dearer than either the light of his Eyes requiting his attempt which was but natural to escape out of prison with a punishment that was of all other most unnatural and as much beyond death as it was short of it which inhumanity to his brother though it was perhaps but a just judgment from Heaven upon him for his inhumanity to his Father whose life he had twice attempted being wilfully blinded by the King of France yet 't was such as was altogether undeserv'd as from him for t'other had him fast enough within his power circumscrib'd by all the rules of Hostility besieged within a Fort and half starv'd he was so far from pressing upon him that he pittied him and broke with his brother Friend to save his brother Enemy Poor Prince Robert how was he betraied by the goodness of his own Nature and tempted like a Child to save the bird which was to pick out his Eyes How did he live to see himself buried before he was dead invelop'd in dark and dismal thoughts whilst he contemplated his Sons loss with more affliction than his own a forward Prince born to two Crowns but now reduc'd to that necessity to borrow one to buy him bread So long
as it serv'd the King of France his turn to serve him he entertain'd him in that Court adversity knows no other Friends nor upon other Terms But King Henry by his mony quickly took him off and Heaven to requite the good turn not long after took off him for whom all this was done punishing his unjust detaining the livelihood of his innocent Nephew William with taking away the life of his own innocent Son William the only hope of his Family who being shipwrackt in his return out of Normandy with a hundred and fifty Passengers more amongst whom was his beloved Sister the Countess of Perch indeavouring to save her lost himself This Clap of Judgment coming in a Calm of glory when all the busling of his Ambition seem'd to be pass'd over so overwhelm'd the Joys of his past successes that as if his Conscience had shrunk at the horror of seeing his oppression and supplantation so repaid with the extinction of that for which he drew all this guilt upon himself 't is said that from that time he never was seen to laugh more and however he strugled with Destiny for more Issue Male marrying not long after a most vertuous and beautiful young Lady yet all was in vain The invenom'd Arrow stuck still in his Liver and for want of other Heirs he was forced to fasten the succession on his Daughter Maud who being intangled in his fate and as apparently Planet-struck as himself could never attain to be a Queen however a Dutchess and an Empress being disappointed by one that had less right and not so good pretence as her own Father And as the main Line of Normandy fail'd in him that was but the third Inheritor so the succession ever since proved so brittle that it never held to the third Heir in a right descent without being put by or receiving some alteration by usurpation or extinction of the Male blood which saith mine Author may teach Princes to let men alone with their Rights and God with his Providence But such is the unhappiness of Kings that they either understand not Destiny so well as private Men or cannot so readily submit to it and as Ambition is a restless passion which however it may be sometimes weary never tires so it urges them to be still pressing upon Fortune with hopes to compel or corrupt her hoping that if she will not be serviceable to them she may at least not oppose them He found that this rent at home had crack'd all the chain of his courses in France whose King took part with his Nephew William whilst his two great Friends Foulk Earl of Anjou and Robert Earl of Mellent declared against him Yet urg'd by his natural diligence or desire of Rule he could not but still push on till by the death of that unfortunate youth before mention'd all the hopes of his Brother Robert perished and came to be entirely his yet neither then could he take any Rest though he had no body to give him any disquiet his Conscience keeping him waking with continual Alarums without any kind of sleep but what was so disturbed and disorderly as declar'd to the whole World all was not well within Often did he rise out of his Bed in the Night and catching up his Sword put himself into a Posture of Defence as against some Personal assault and sometimes in company he would catch hold of his Servants hands as apprehending they were about to draw upon him Thus was he dog'd with continued fears and those such as perhaps were Prophetical of what follow'd that some body should start up as immediately after there did who taking Example from himself should Spurn his ashes and usurp as much upon his Innocent Daughter and her Son as he himself had done upon his innocent Brother and his Son The Breach at which she first entred was made by King Stephen himself who foreseeing the approaching mischief drew on the evil he would avoid by the same way he thought to prevent it for suspecting the Castles he had permitted to be new built with purpose to have broken the force of any over-running Invasion might now as well become receptacles to the adverse Party he commanded them to be deliver'd up into his hands for securing the publick Peace This begat a general murmure that a dispute among the proprietors whereof those of most note being Clergy-men and Lords of great power and stomach presuming upon the Obligation he had to the Church which as they said advanced him to the Crown without any military help refus'd so give up their Keys into the hands of Laymen upon whom as they thought he had not the like tie of honour nor honesty as upon themselves Hereupon the Legate interpos'd who holding himself nearer allied to his Brother Prelates than to his Brother King urg'd the question of priviledg so far that 't was thought there wanted nothing but an opportunity to shew they could more willingly quit their Allegiance as they had done their Liberty than their possessions for King Stephen upon their refusal to obey his Order clapt up several of them in prison This opportunity Maud by her arrival rather gave than took when she made up the Crie and joyn'd her claim with theirs and thereby made the War to be felt before it was perceiv'd which spread it self like a burning Feaver through all the veins of the body politick but raged by Fits only it so happening that they were not seldom parted by the said new built Castles they contested for many of which standing neuter give stops to their Fury as if intended by Providence to allay their heat till it were temperate enough to admit of some Parley but that proving ineffectual like Game-cocks aftertaking breath they fell to it afresh with equal force and equal confidence the whole Nation being divided betwixt them according to their several interest for affections some taking part with her others with him these to discharge their Consciences those their honour some to advance their fortunes others to secure their advancements King Stephen gave every where proof of his courage she of her wisdom both of their diligence either perhaps worthy a greater Empire than they contended for but whilst the Body politick thus miserably tormented with the convulsions of Might and Right languish'd under the growing distemper behold a sudden change which seem'd the more mortal for that the grief seiz'd upon the head The King is taken prisoner with whose liberty one would have thought all the hopes of that side had been lost but it so hapned that the Feminine Victor found herself ingag'd in a more equal Contest with one of her own Sex and as of the same spirit so of the same name King Stephen's Wife takes up the Sword whilst her husband continues a prisoner who not looking that Fortune should fall into her lap was so industrious to catch it and heading her husbands Forces she brought the Title to a second trial with so
fondness but out of a provident care to settle the Succession and as reasonably to fix his Sons Ambition Neither was his severity to his younger Sons less fatal to him than his indulgence to his Elder whilst thinking to recover the power he lost there by keeping a stricter hand over those here he was bereft of them too by the same way he thought to make them more surer to him for as the eldest by having so much was easily perswaded there was more due to him so the younger brothers believing they ought to have had something more than they had because their elder brother had so much more than he should press'd him out of necessity as much as t'other out of wantonness This looking so like a judgment from heaven gave both the world and himself so full a view of his fate and his failings that from this time he began sensibly to languish under the grief and shame of being so affronted the rancor of his thoughts so festring inwardly that though he asswaged it by all the Lenitives imaginable yet the wound broke out as fast as it was heal'd till the Cause was taken away by the death of those that were the two most unnatural Sons whose ends prov'd to be as violent as their natures after which yet he was no less afflicted by the no less unnatural obstinacy of the two surviving Brothers Richard and John But that which made the troubles of his own house more insupportable was the meeting with as great troubles in Gods house where the disobedience of his Children was out-vied by the contempt of a servant who advanced by destiny to make a mock of Majesty finding a purpose in him to curtail the growing greatness of the Clergy that was arriv'd to that height that they were able to make a King without a Title and might as he suspected by tampering with Posterity be able in time to set up a Title without a King resolv'd to wrestle both single and to compare authority and however he knew the design to be so well backt by the envy of the Laiety that the Pope himself and all the Conclave despair'd of weathering it yet such was his obstinacy having got the help of opinion and the belief of Integrity on his side that he stood the breach of this unhappy Kings Indignation and defied his Thunderbolt till the very minute it blasted him by whose death every one thought the King had got the better of it in that he had the satisfaction of a full Revenge without being touch'd with the guilt since those that murther'd him however they did it to please the King did it yet without his knowledg or privity But such was the Tyranny of Fate that he who in his life time only made him how being dead brought him upon his knees and forced him to acknowledg him as much above his faith afterwards as he was above his will before and then which nothing could be more unfortunate for the very same cause he prosecuted him in his life time as a Traitour being dead he ador'd him as a Saint It were too troublesome to tell of all the troubles of this great Prince much more to bring them into any method which coming from himself and not ending as I said before but with himself however they seem'd to vary in the Lines kept still in the circle of his Family mov'd by the same Causes though not by the same Persons for as his Son Henry before so his Son Richard afterwards was tempted to capitulate with him and to shew the world he was his Brothers successor in point of disobedience as well as of right he did with as great ambition but greater passion require an assurance of the same Kingdom and the same Wife both equally dear to the Father both alike fatal to the Sons wherein meeting with a denial the present fit of Love that was upon him heightened into an extream of hatred with the contagion whereof for it ran in a blood his brother John was not long after infected and so joyning together they made the last Effort upon their now almost tired fathers patience besieging him in the beloved Town where his Father was buried and himself born which he not long after took from him and in it her that was dearer to him than his life the fair Lady Adela now become the old Kings avowed Mistress however affianc'd before to his Son Richard This as it was an indignity that flaw'd his great heart at one single stroak and wounded his spirit beyond all recovery so the loss of the City provok'd him to blaspheme God and the loss of the Lady to curse all his posterity and what sence nature retain'd of the loss of his life that took away the sence of all other losses appears by the intelligence it held with his revenge after death which over-acting its part if I may so say to charge the guilt upon the unnatural offender forced the blood out of his nostrils as he lay bare-fac'd upon his hearse as soon as his Son Richard the murtherer approach'd with dissembled reverence to kiss his hand Thus Thus as he had constant troubles whilst he liv'd so it seems he had no great rest when he was dead being ordain'd by Destiny to be an Example of unparalleld Desolation and which made this unhappiness a kind of Riddle that which renders all other men happy undid him viz. great Wisdom great Power and great Possessions either of which makes great Friends at least great numbers of those that profess themselves to be so whiles he liv'd to see himself forsaken of Wife Children Family Friends and if he were not himself as in Charity we ought to think when he blasphem'd God for the loss of Mentz we may say forsaken of himself too then which there could be no sadder Epilogue to humane Glory And wherefore was all this toyl and charge imbarasing himself and his Subjects but only to hold up the vain-glorious reputation of his Courage and make good that Bestial Adjunct of Coeur de Leon which was not improperly given to him if we consider that the same Creature is as much noted for his Voracity as Courage yet was the excess of his Valour mostly spent in private quarrels the King of France who was ingaged with like Devotion and he falling together by the Ears as soon as they met in Scicily and after he came into the Holy Land he had the like quarrel with the Arch-Duke of Austria with both upon the same point of Precedence though not with like reason the other having out-brav'd him in the common Cause and planted his Colours upon the Walls of Acon before him which he plucking down in scorn t'other made him vail Bonnet to it that is surrender up his Cap of Maintenance as 't was then call'd as a Pledge of his Homage to the Emperor when he acknowledg'd him his Supream Lord. And what was the end of this great Enterprize after having tarried above a
as often as any advantage was offer'd to him during the Barons War playing fast and loose sometimes as an Enemy otherwhile as a Friend as it made for his turn and having it alwayes in his Power by being in Conjunction with Scotland without which he had been inconsiderable to disturb the Peace of England at his pleasure never neglected any occasion where he might gain Repute to himself or booty for his People Upon him therefore he fastened the first Domestick War he had entring his Country like Jove in a storm with Lightning and Thunder the Terrour whereof was so resistless that that poor Prince was forc'd to accept whatsoever terms he would put upon him to obtain a temporary Peace without any other hope or comfort then what he deriv'd from the mental reservation he had of breaking it again as soon as he return'd whereunto he was not long after tempted by the delusion of a mistaken Prophesie of that false Prophet Merlin who having foretold that he should be crown'd with the Diadem of Brute fatally heightened his Ambition to the utter destruction both of himself and Country with whom his innocent Brother the last of that Race partaking in life and death concluded the Glory of the ancient British Empire which by a kind of Miracle had held out so many hundred years without the help of Shipping Allyance or Confederation with any Forreign Princes by the side of so many potent Kings their next Neighbours who from the time of the first entrance of the English suffer'd them not to enjoy any quiet though they vouchsafed them sometimes Peace Wales being thus totally reduced by the irrecoverable fall of Llewellen and David the last of their Princes that were ever able to make resistance and those ignorant People made thereby happier then they wish'd themselves to be by being partakers of the same Law and Liberty with those that conquer'd them he setled that Title on his eldest Son and so passed over into France to spend as many years abroad in Peace as he had done before in War in which time he renew'd his League with that Crown accommodated the Differences betwixt the Crowns of Scicily and Arragon and shew'd himself so excellent an Arbitrator that when the right of the Crown of Scotland upon his return home came to be disputed with Six some say Ten Competitors after the death of Alexander the Third the Umpirage was given to him who ordered the matter so wisely that he kept off the final Decision of the main Question as many years as there were Rivals put in for it deferring Judgment till all but two only were disputed out of their Pretensions These were Baliol and Bruce the first descended from the elder Daughter of the right Heir the last from the Son of the younger who having as 't was thought the weaker Title but the most Friends King Edward privately offered him the Crown upon Condition of doing Homage and Fealty to him for it the greatness of his Mind which bespoke him to be a King before he was one suffer'd him not to accept the terms whereupon King Edward makes the same Proposition to Baliol who better content it seems with the outside of Majesty accepted the Condition But see the Curse of ill-got Glory shewing himself satisfied with so little he was thought unworthy of any being so abhor'd of his People for it that upon the first occasion they had to quarrel with his Justice as who should say they would wound him with his own Weapon they appeal'd to King Edward who thereupon summon'd him to appear in England and was so rigid to him upon his appearance he would permit none else to plead his Cause but compell'd him in open Parliament to answer for himself as well as he could This being an Indignity so much beneath the sufferance of any private Person much more a King sunk so deep into his Breast that meditating nothing after but Revenge as soon as he return'd home securing himself first by a League and Allyance with the King of France to whose Brothers Daughter he married his Son he renounced his Allegiance and defied King Edward's Power no less then he did his Justice This begat a War betwixt the two Nations that continued much longer then themselves being held up by alternate Successes near three hundred years a longer dated difference perhaps then is to be found in any other Story of the World that Rancor which the Sword bred increasing continually by the desire of Revenge till the one side was almost wholly wasted t'other wholly wearied Baliol the same time King Edward required him to do Homage for Scotland here prevailed with the French King to require the like from him for his Territories there this began the Quarrel that the Division by which King Edward which may seem strange parting his Greatness made it appear much greater whilst himself advanc'd against Baliol and sent his Brother the Earl of Lancaster to answer the King of France Baliol finding himself overmatch'd as well as over-reach'd renew'd his Homage in hopes to preserve his Honour But King Edward resolving to bind him with stronger Fetters then Oaths sent him Prisoner into England whereby those of that Country wanting not only a Head but a Heart to make any further resistance he turn'd his Fury upon the King of France hastning over what Forces he could to continue that War till himself could follow after But Fortune being preingaged on the other side disposed that whole Affair to so many mistakes that nothing answered Expectation and which was worse the Fame of his Male-Adventures spirited a private person worthy a greater * Wallis Name then he had to rise in Scotland who rallying together as many as durst by scorning Misery adventure upon it defied all the Forces of England so fortunately that he was once very near the redeeming his despairing Country-men and had he had less Vertue might possibly have had more success For scorning to take the Crown when he had won it a Modesty not less fatal to the whole Nation then himself by leaving room for Ambition he made way for King Edward to Re-enter the second time who by one single Battel but fought with redoubled Courage made himself once more Lord of that miserable Kingdom all the principal Opposers Wallis only excepted crowding in upon Summons to swear Fealty the third time to him This had been an easie Pennance had they not together with their Faith resigned up their Laws and Liberties and that so servilely that King Edward himself judging them unworthy to be continued any longer a Nation was perswaded to take from them all the Records and Monuments whereby their Ancestors had recommended any of Glory to their Imitation Amongst other of the Regalia's then lost was that famous Marble Stone now lodg'd in Westminster-Abby wherein their Kings were crown'd in which as the Vulgar were perswaded the Fate of their Country lay for that there was an ancient Prophesie
dispend a thousand Marks a day which I have the rather noted to shew how the Kingdom flourish'd as well as the King gaining as all wise States do by their layings out for the whole Revenues of the Crown in his Grand-fathers days were esteem'd to be not much above a hundred thousand Marks a year Five years the French King continued Prisoner here in England time enough to have determin'd the Fortune of that great Kingdom and dissolv'd their Canton'd Government into parts had it not been a Body consisting of so many strong Limbs and so abounding with Spirits that it never fainted notwithstanding all its loss of Blood but scorn'd to yield though King Edward came very near their heart having wounded them in the most mortal part their Head The Scotch King could not recover his Liberty in double the time being the less able to redeem himself for that he was upon the matter but half a King the other half being in the possession of Baliol who to secure a Moyety to himself surrendred the whole to King Edward whose Magnificence vying with his Justice he gave it back again upon Terms more befitting a Brother then a Conqueror shewing therein a Wantonness that no King perhaps besides himself would have been guilty of nor probably he neither had either his People been less bountiful to him or Fortune less constant which to say truth never forsook him till he like his Father forsook himself leaving all Action and bidding adieu to the World ten years before he went out of it declining so fast from the fortieth year of his Government that it may rather be said his famous Son Prince Edward commonly call'd the Black Prince reign'd then he and happy 't was for him that when his own Understanding fail'd him he had so good a Supporter who having it in his power to dispose of Kingdoms whilst he liv'd ought not to be denyed after he dyed the honour of being esteem'd equal to Kings in the Prerogative of a distinct Character Begin we then the Date of his Government from the Battel of Crassy which happening in the Sixteenth year of his Age makes the Computation of his Glory to commence near about the same time his Fathers did who however he was King at fourteen rul'd not till after Mortimer's death by which Battel he so topt the Fortune of France as his Father had that of England that he may be said to have taken thereby Livery in order to the Seisin of that Kingdom And after the Recovery of Calais it may be said the Keys of the Kingdom rather then of that Town were deliver'd into his hand for that he therewith open'd all the Gates of almost every Town he came to till the King of France incompassed him like a Lion in a Toil with no less then 60000 of the best Men of France and brought him to that streight that it seem'd alike disadvantageous to sight or yield and which made the danger more considerable as things then stood England it self was in some hazard of being lost with him here he seem'd to have been as well accomptable to his Country as to his Father for his Courage and Discretion and how well he acquitted himself appears by the Sequel when forcing Hope out of Despair like fire out of a Flint he necessitated his Men to try for Conquest by shewing them how impossible 't was for him to yield and by that incomparable Obstinacy of his made Fortune so enamour'd of his Courage that she follow'd him wherever he went while his Sword made its way to Victory and his Courtesie to the Affections of the Conquer'd whom he treated with that regard and generosity that many of them were gainers by the loss being dismiss'd with honourable Presents that made his second Conquest over them greater then the first the King of France himself being so well pleas'd with his Bondage that he return'd voluntarily into England after he was redeem'd to meet two Kings more that might be Witness of his Respect and Gratitude In short he was as King of England on the other side the Water as his Father was on this side keeping so splendid a Court in Acquitaine that no less then three Kings came to visit him too all at once these were the King of Majorque Navar and Castile the last of which craving Aid of him against an Usurper who was back'd by an Army consisting of no less then One hundred thousand men if the Writers of those times say true was re-instated accordingly by his single power to shew the World that he could as well make Kings as unmake them His second Brother who had the Title of King by marrying with the King of Castile's Daughter and Heir being principally indebted to him for the honour of that Title and it prov'd a fatal Debt both to him and his Son Richard the Second costing the one his Life the other both Life and Kingdom too for as himself never recover'd the health he lost in undertaking that Expedition so his Son never recover'd the disadvantage put upon him afterward by his Uncle Lancaster who by that means having got the Regency of his drooping Father King Edward who tyred with Action rather then Age fatally submitted to the loss of more years of his Government then he got by his unnatural Anticipation from his own Father and suffer'd himself to be buried alive as we may say under his Cradle put fair for setting his Nephew aside but wanting a Colour for so apparent an Injustice his jealous Father the Black Prince having declar'd him his Successor in his life time to prevent all tricks he thought it enough to make way for his Son to do it and accordingly put such an impression of dislike upon the innocent Youth at his very first Edition as prov'd Indelible in his riper years for the very same day he was presented to take his Grandfathers Seat in Parliament as Heir apparent to the Crown being then but eleven years old he taught him to demand a Subsidy purposely to turn the Peoples blood who were then big with their Complaint of Taxes But possibly he is made more splenetick as well as more politick then he was for it was scarce possible to make the Youth more odious then he had made himself before by disgusting those two potent Factions of the Church and the City of London who to shew how weary they were of his governing the old Child his Father would not after his Death let him longer Rule the young Child his Nephew but purposely depos'd him to the end as they said that he might not depose the other Thus this great King ended as ingloriously as he began who having stept into the Throne a little before he should 't is the less wonder he left it a little before it was expected he would especially if we consider that in out-living the best Wife and the best Son in the World he had a little out-liv'd himself being so unfortunate
Election of the People to whom that he might appear restor'd as by Divine Providence he appointed the day of his Coronation to be upon the very same day wherein the year before he had been Banished and to hold up the Cheat he was anointed with an Oyl which as 't was pretended was deliver'd to his Father together with this Prophesie That all the Kings that receiv'd their Chrisme from it should be Champions of the Church which as the Legend holds forth coming by chance to the hands of King Richard as he was going for Ireland he would have been anointed therewith had not the Arch-bishop of Canterbury disswaded him from it as not being lawful to be anointed twice however he was resolv'd to intitle himself self so far to the vertue of it as to stile himself Defensor Fidei The only man that withstood this Kings Usurpation and would not be perswaded to swim down the Stream with the rest of the Time-serving Nobility was the bold Bishop of Carlisle who having so frankly discharged himself upon the occasion of Debating in Parliament what should be done with King Richard for as yet they had not taken away his Life though they had taken his Crown and by a Speech as eloquent as pious shew'd what was the Complexion and Face of those Jugling Times and what was expected from what was done and what was done upon the found of the present Expectations I have thought it a respect due to the honour of his singular Merit to set it down expresly as he spoke it to the end the Reader may judge whether he had not Reason enough to justifie his Passion and pity 't was he had not power enough to justifie that Reason when combining with others of the same Judgment to Restore his true Soveraign he gloriously lost himself in the Attempt and with himself the unfortunate King he would have saved The words of his Speech were as followeth My Lords THE matter now propounded is of marvellous weight and consequence wherein there are two Points chiefly to be considered the first Whether King Richard be sufficiently put out of his Throne the second Whether the Duke of Lancaster be lawfully taken in For the first How can that be sufficiently done when there is no Power sufficient to do it The Parliament cannot do it for the King is Head of the Parliament and can the Body pull down the Head You will say but the Head may bow it self down and so may the King resign It is true but of what Force is that that is done by Force and who knows not that King Richard's Resignation was no other But suppose he be lawfully out yet how comes the Duke of Lancaster to be lawfully in If you say by Conquest you speak Treason for what Conquest without Arms and can a Subject take Arms against his lawful Soveraign and not be Treason if so then whoever Arms against him successfully does it rightfully and what hope of Peace at this rate If you say by Election of State you speak not Reason For what power hath the State to Elect while any is living that hath Right to succeed but such a Successor is not the Earl of Lancaster as descended from Edmund Crouchback the elder Son of Henry the Third put by the Crown for deformity of Body for who knows not the falseness of this Allegation seeing it is a thing notorious that this Edmund was neither the elder Son nor yet Crook-backt though call'd so for some other Reason but a goodly Personage and without any Deformity and your selves cannot forget a thing so lately done * * The Earl of March who it was that in the fourth year of King Richard was declar'd by Parliament to be Heir of the Crown in case King Richard should die without Issue but why then is not that Claim made good because that Inter Arma silent Leges what disputing of Titles against the stream of Power But howsoever 't is extream Injustice that King Richard should be condemned without being heard or once allowed to make his Defence and what can we Subjects expect when our King is thus abus'd My Lords I have spoken this at this time that you may consider of it before it is too late for as yet 't is in your power to undo that justly which you have unjustly done Those last words express'd a Zeal that seem'd to have something of the same effect as that of Lightning which is said to melt the Sword without so much as singeing the Scabard For however no body that heard him appeard to be warm by what he said yet a secret Fire was shot into many of their Breasts that after it came to be thorowly kindled in their Consciences could not be extinguish'd no not with Blood so that they continued their Resentments not for their own Lives only but intail'd the Quarrel upon their Posterity even untill the House of Clarence recover'd their Right in the third Generation after Now as a Clergy-man first declar'd against this King so a Clergy-man first Ingaged against him without considering his holy Unction which made him the great Champion of the Church for however the Church-men are willing that others should belive their Miracles themselves do not this was the politick Abbot of Westminster a great Book-states-man who invited several of the Chief Nobility into a Combination to take away his Life so that Killing no Murther is no Modern Tenet and admitting what he suspected only there might be some reason for it for who would not dispatch an Enemy to God the King and the Church one that therefore had unduly made himself King that he might rob the great King of Kings of his due the ground of this Jealousie was upon certain words utter'd in the Abbots hearing whilst he was Duke of Hereford viz. That Princes had too little and Clergy-men too much upon which he concluded he would be a Persecutor of the Church rather then a Patron Neither it seems was the Abbot only of that Opinion but the Nation in general otherwise the House of Commons would not as they did afterward frame a Bill for setling the Church Lands in the Crown as believing it would be an acceptable Oblation to him Upon which this Abbot and the Bishop before nam'd and five Temporal Lords to wit the Dukes of Exeter Surry and Albemarle and the two Earls of Salisbury and Gloucester with many Knights and Gentlemen their Friends complotted to dispatch him at a publick Just or Tournament to be held at Oxford where they hop'd coming arm'd as the fashion was upon such Occasions they might as easily take him off as the Roman Senate did Caesar neither indeed was the Plot ill laid had not the same Power that set him up protected him against all their Machinations diverting the Destiny upon themselves by such a strange and unexpected discovery as shews that Secresie in Treason signifies nothing unless it could be hid from the All-seeing Eye of
it or had she kept the Second Son which she had in her own hands after she saw what was like to become of the eldest that was in his 't is possible the one might have been a security for the other since without taking both the Treason had not been worth the hazard much less the guilt of destroying t'other and 't is more than probable she might have stop'd him upon the very last step to the Throne But yet it is hard to call that the Mothers fault which might be the Sons fate design'd by Destiny for ought we know to a Death as private as his Birth who was born whilst she was in a Cloyster and his Father in Banishment Fain she would have recover'd her Error when it was too late craving Protection for her self and the younger Children in a Sanctuary but in vain seek they Refuge from The Treachery of others who have been of the Plot to betray themselves the Protector resolved to have them all into his hands to effect which he makes the Effect become a Cause for finding the young King more than usually melancholly with the Apprehensions he had of the danger of his present condition he made that Melancholly an important reason for his brother to be brought to keep him company and because this could not be done without the Queens consent but by offering some Violation to the rights of Sanctuary it being reasonably to be supposed that she would never let the Child go without apparent force upon her he singled out a Clergy-man to be the Picklock of Priviledge a grave State-drudge and by his degree no worse a man then an Arch bishop who having only so much Divinity as to know that Obedience was better then Sacrifice so far perswaded or rather terrified the disconsolate Queen into a Complyance that she consulting with her Fears only gave up the innocent Infant to his Grace who thereby had the honour to be the third great Instrument in that great Treason that followed The Monster having thus got his desired Prey within his own Denn did not yet think fit to devour them immediately but before he entred upon so solemn an act of horrour as the plunging himself into that fathomless Gulf of Cruelty he thought fit to wade in blood by degrees that sounding the depth of the danger as well as of the guilt he was to enter into he might at the same time harden and secure himself First then he cut off all their Friends beheading the Lord Rivers Sir Anthony Woodvill and the principal persons of the Queens Relations upon pretence of treachery against his Person and Government which being in some sense true for doubtless they meant to oppose his intended Usurpation he thought it a reasonable Justification for taking their Lives In the next place he charged the Queen her self with Sorcery making the poor Innocent Jane Shore to be her Hand-mate in the Inchantation with whom the Lord Hastings having had a known Familiarity from the time of the death of King Edward he most maliciously design'd him to be their Accuser who scorning to assist him in such dark purposes was himself made a Conspirator with them being deservedly executed as a Traytor because he refused to be one his Execution following so close upon his Sentence and the Proclamation of his Treason so close upon that that at the reading of it in the Street a stander by observing how fairly they had drawn the foul Charge against him being ingrossed at large in Parchment he cried out aloud That it was written by Prophecy Thus having clear'd the Foundation and sufficiently tamper'd his Mortar with blood to make it more strong and binding he laid the Ground-work of his Usurpation upon the Illegitimacy of the two young Princes pretending that the King their Father was never lawfully married to the Queen their Mother but was before God Husband to the Lady Elizabeth Lucy This as it had something of Truth in point of Fact for 't is said he was betrothed to her so being matter of Divinity in point of Right it was agreed that a Chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham who was his great Confident and bound to him by the stipulation of a Match betwixt their Children and a promise of equal partition of the Treasure of the Kingdom should open the Case at large in a Sermon at Paul's Cross who taking his Text from that place where 't is said that Bastard Plants shall not Inherit so over-acted his part that he not only made King Edward's Children but he himself a Bastard too and all the Children of his Father the Duke of York the Protector only excepted who he said was the express Image of his Father and pre-ordained by God to the great Charge of the Kingly Office But all this was delivered with so apparent flattery and dissimulation that not believing himself 't is no wonder the People gave so little credit to him who instead of crying out thereupon as 't was expected they should God save King Richard cryed out the Devil take the shameless Preacher This scorn put upon the Priest or rather upon him did not yet so deter him but that two dayes after he sent the Duke himself into the City to see whether his Authority might move any thing more then the Doctors Eloquence who confidently affirm'd to the Citizens at Guild-hall That all the Nobility judging the Issue of King Edward spurious had chosen him to succeed and only expected a Declaration of their Consents But as it was not likely that they who but two dayes before could not be moved when they were told the Lord from Heaven had made choice of him should now concur in the Election with any Lords on Earth so neither could the Rhetorick of his Greatness prevail for any other confirmation then what was couched sub alto silentio This gave little satisfaction to his Lordship for that he knew it would give none to his Master and therefore rather then depart without something like a Vote he secretly ordered some few of his own Servants at the lower end of the Hall to cast up their Caps and cry King Richard King Richard which impudence of theirs though it apparently abasht the greatest part of the Company there yet his graceless Grace taking it up at the first bound for an unanimous consent said it was a goodly Cry and such as shew'd their universal approbation requiring thereupon the Mayor and his Fraternity to meet him the next day at the Protectors Court in Baynard's Castle in order to Petition him to accept their freely offer'd Subjection And here I cannot but think it worth the notice although we that have lived in these latter times have seen perhaps more exquisite Scenes of Hypocrisie to observe the instability and levity of the common Peoples Faith who like the Sea to which they are compared have their fluxes and refluxes of Loyalty It was not two dayes since they shew'd as great Affections to the Son as
consequences of which being justly to be suspected he made use of their present apprehensions to renew the Treaty and by his contrivance there came a Letter to the King from Melancthon to whom the King seem'd alwayes to have great regard exhorting him to perfect the Reformation begun as well in the Doctrinal as the Ceremonial part of Worship To which the King by advice of Gardiner gave this Answer That he would make a League with them in honest Causes as he had done with the Duke of Juliers and after that he would treat of an Accord in Religion This being no way satisfactory to them much less to Cromwell who had slatter'd them with hopes of a better Accommodation he cast about another way to compass his end and knowing very well that the King did alwayes prefer his Pleasure before his Revenge as those that mean to take great Fishes bait their Hooks with flesh so he held up the Treaty with the Proposal of a new Match that he believ'd could not but be very acceptable not only in respect of the Kings having been near three Years a Widower but for that it was such as he said would at once anger and curb the Emperor the Popes only Executioner to make good his late Fulmination This was a Daughter to the Duke of Cleve who being a Protestant and Father in Law to the Duke of Saxony and next Neighbour to the Emperors Dominions in the Low Countries there seem'd to be in the Proposal great considerations of State besides that of Riches and Beauty the last being the first thing in the Kings Thoughts wherein Hans Holbin the famous Painter contributed much to the deceiving him which whether it prov'd more unfortunate to her or Cromwell I cannot say but it so fell out that the King disgusting her after he saw her was easily prevail'd with to repudiate her and consequently to reject the Match-maker who having it in his Fate to be undone as he was at first set up by the Smock was sacrificed to the Envy of the People rather then his Masters Displeasure who let them lay the load of his Faults upon him and being a Prince that drew upon all his great Ministers more blame then either they could bear or durst answer he left him to perish under the weight of it And which made his Case more deplorable perhaps then that of most others that felt the weight of his Iron Rod and therefore look'd more like a Judgment from Heaven then Earth was First that he suffer'd him to be condemn'd at the same time all other men by a general and free pardon were indempnified from the same Crimes of which he stood accus'd Secondly in that he died like Phalaris by an Instrument as some say of his own inventing Thirdly and lastly that after having been Vicegerent to the Defender of the Faith he should dye as an Heretick for opposing the Faith after having had the repute of a faithful Servant indeed so faithful that as Cranmer's Letter to the King yet to be seen testifies he cared not whom he displeas'd to serve his Majesty he should dye like one that had merited no favour from him That he who was so vigilant to detect all Treasons in their Embrio should dye like a Traytor himself That he that had no bounds set to his Authority should dye for exceeding his Commission Lastly That he who was the only Master of Requests and gave an answer to all men that made any Addresses to the King should himself dye unheard as well as unpitied But when we consider all this we must conclude the end of some mens Rise is to keep others from Falling Providence oftentimes upholding Justice even by Injustice that so by correcting some men causlesly she may certainly teach all men Caution The King having thus rid himself of his new Wife and his old Servant both submitting to his Will the first with the loss of her Estate and Dignity for instead of being his Queen she was adopted his Sister the last with the loss of both his Estate and Life he found the means to repair the want of the one though he could not of the other by taking to his Bed perhaps with no disparity to his Greatness if there had been none betwixt her own Vertue and Beauty the fair Lady Katherine Howard Neece to the Duke of Norfolk who seems to be born to be a Scourge of the Injustice shew'd to his former Wives whilst her Incontinence under the veil of a clear and most modest behaviour appear'd so notorious that being confessed by her self he himself was forc'd to suffer in the shame with her which he was so sensible of that we find by a Law ex post facto he labour'd to prevent the like for the future And now being as it were weary of Pleasures of that kind this being his fifth Wife that was executed or suffer'd worse his Love gave place once more to his Ambition which he gratified with a new Title or rather the Superfoetation of an old one causing himself to be stiled King of Ireland whereas none of his Predecessors were otherwise stiled then Lords thereof which as it was in the first place intended by him as an additional honour to that Nation rather then to himself so in the last place he did it to prevent James the Fifth of Scotland who had an Invitation from some of the discontented Nobility there to have taken it on him having before affronted him by assuming the Title of Defender of the Faith with the addition only of the word Christian as if there were any other Faith but what was in truth so and because he was resolv'd to quarrel him upon it he sent to require Homage to be paid him for that Kingdom urging that the Kings of that Nation had for many Ages submitted themselves in a qualified Condition of Vassalage under the Kings his Ancestors both before and since the Conquest This begat a War which ended not with the Life of that King being struck to the heart with the melancholy apprehensions of being over-match'd who dying left a young Daughter to succeed whom King Henry thought a fitting Wife for his Son Prince Edward and accordingly afterward in despight of all the tricks of the French Party that then rul'd there he brought it to such a Treaty as amounted to a Contract being under Hands and Seals of both sides But the Scots shewing themselves by their wonted breach of Faith to be true Scots all ended in War wherein though he were victorious yet the main business was nothing advanc'd by the Success there being more done then became a Suiter for Alliance and too little for one pretending to Conquest Hereupon he was forc'd to try the Fortune of another Treaty with the discontented Earl of Lenox who having formerly been set up by the French to be Governour of the young Queen and the Kingdom but deserted by them when he had most need of their aid he was
should be but short were easily drawn into many desperate Conspiracies which ending with the Forfeiture of their own brought her Life and Government into continual Jeopardy The next great thing that feâ—l under her Consideration was the point of Marriage and Singularity For it being doubtful in what state the Kingdom would be left if the Queen of Scots Title should ever take place who besides that she was an avow'd Papist had married the French Kings Son who in her Right bore the Arms and Title of England as well as of Scotland it was told her she would not shew her self a true Mother of her Country without she consented to make her self a Mother of Children Whereunto King Philip of Spain as soon as he heard of Queen Mary his Wives death gave her a fair Invitation by his Ambassador the Conde Feria whom he sent over publickly â—o Congratulate her as a Queen but privately to Court her as a Mistress assuring her that he much rather desired to have her to be his Wife then his Sister and as the Report of her being Successor to his Queen had much allay'd the grief he conceiv'd for her death so he said 't was his desire she should take place in his Bed as well as in his Throne that so by giving her self to him she might requite the kindness shew'd by him when he gave her to her self after her Sister left her exposed to the malice and power of her Enemies In fine he omitted no Arguments to gain his end that might be rais'd from the Consideration of her Gratitude or his own Greatness But she being naturally Inflexible not to say as some have said Impenetrable lest it to her Councel to return this grave Answer for her That she could not consent to have him of all men for a Husband without as great reflection on her Mother as her self since it could not be more lawful for two Sisters to marry the same Husband then for two Brothers to marry the same Wife Secondly That she could not consent to a Match that was like to prove so unfortunate as this would be if without Issue and yet so much more unfortunate with it in respect her Kingdom of England must by the same Obligation become subject to Spain as she to him Thirdly That nothing could more conduce to the Establishing that Authority which had been so industriously abolish'd by her Father and Brother of blessed Memory and conscientiously rejected by her self Fourthly That it could neither be satisfactory to her self or Subjects to have such a King to her Husband whose greatest Concerns being necessarily abroad could neither regard her nor them as he ought much less as they desired This Denial though it seem'd reasonable enough yet King Philip inferring that she dislik'd his Person rather then his Proposal very temperately recommended his Suit to his more youthful Kinsman Charles Duke of Austria second Son to the Emperour Ferdinand who was Rival'd by Eric eldest Son of Gustavus King of Sweden as he by Adolph Duke of Holst Uncle to Frederick III. King of Denmark But neither of these being more successful then his most Catholick Majesty the whole Parliament became Suiters to her to think of Posterity and to eternize her Memory not so much by a Successor like her self as by one descended from her self Which serious address she answer'd with a Jest telling them she was married already And shewing them a Ring on her Finger the same she had received at her Coronation told them it was the Pledge of Love and Faith given her by her dear Spouse the Kingdom of England which words she delivered with such an odd kind of Pleasantness that all the Wise men amongst them thought she made Fools of them and the Fools thought themselves made so much wiser by it as to understand her meaning to be that she would not look abroad for a Husband but take one of her own Subjects Amongst the rest thus mistaken was Leicester himself who having the vanity to believe he might be the man obstructed his own preferment when he was propos'd as a fitting Husband for the Queen of Scots The Catholick King however he had been rejected hoping that the Catholick Religion might find better acceptation continued his Frâ—endship a long time after his Courtship was ended being so respectful to the Nation not to say to the Queen her self that he would make no accord with the French at the Treaty of Cambray without the restoration of Calais to the English But when he understood how far the Queen had proceeded in point of Reformation how she had as resolutely refus'd to be the Popes Daughter as to be his Wife how she had disallow'd the Councel of Trent and set up a Synod of her own at London he not only left her as slightly as she left him but made such a Conclusion with the French as gave her more cause of Jealousie being not his Wife then she could possibly have had if he had been her Husband For marrying the Lady Isabella eldest Daughter to that King it was suspected that the two Crowns might thereupon unite against England upon the account of the Queen of Scots her Claim who being the Daulphins Wife and the next in Succession after Queen Elizabeth or as some will have it in Right before her as being the undoubted Heir of the Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of Henry the Seventh was therefore the only Person in the World to whom she could never be reconciled holding her self oblig'd by the Impulse of Nature Honour and Religion to oppose her as after she did to the death wherein perhaps there was no less of Envy then Reason of State being as much offended with her Perfections as her Pretensions For that t'other was a Lady that equall'd her in all surmounted her in some and was inferiour to her in no respects but Fortune only This as it prov'd a Feud that puzled that Age to unriddle the meaning of it charging all the Misunderstanding betwixt them upon the despite of Fate only which to speak Impartially was never more unkind not to say unjust all Circumstances of the Story considered to any Soveraign Princess in the World then to that poor Queen so it was the wonder of this till we saw by the no less fatal Example of that Queens Grandson our late Soveraign how the best of Princes may fall under the power of the worst of men For it was Flattery and Feminine Disdain questionless that first divided them beyond what the difference of Nation Interest or Religion could have done which heightning their mutual Jealousies insensibly ingag'd them before they were aware in such a Game of Wit and Faction as brought all that either had at last to stake and made them so wary in their Play on both sides that the Set ended not as long as the one liv'd or the other reign'd The Queen of Scots had the advantage of Queen Elizabeth by the Kings in her Stock the Kings of