Both taking them the cowl, th' one here his flesh did tame, [came. The other went to Rome, and there a monk be"So, Ethelbald may well be set the rest among: Who, though most vainly given when he was hot and young; Yet, by the wise reproof of godly bishops, brought From those unstay'd delights by which his youth was caught, He all the former kings of Mercia did exceed, §. And (through his rule) the church from taxes strongly freed. Then to the eastern sea, in that deep wat❜ry fen (Which seem'd a thing so much impossible to men) He that great abbey built of Crowland, as though he Would have no other's work like his foundation be. "As, Offa greater far than any him before: Whose conquests scarcely were suffic'd with all the shore; But over into Wales adventurously he shot His Mercia's spacious mere, and Powsland to it got. [heaps of stones This king, even in that place, where with rude §. The Britons had interr'd their proto-martyr's bones, owe. That goodly abbey built to Alban; as to show How much the sons of Brute should to the Saxons [at last, "But when by powerful Heaven it was decreed That all those sevenfold rules should into one be [brought) (Which quickly to a head by Britrik's 10 death was Theu Egbert, who in France had carefully been cast taught, [made, Returning home, was king of the West-Sexians Whose people, then most rich and potent, him persuade hand (As once it was of old) to monarchize the land. Who following their advice, first with a warlike [ous sails, The Cornish overcame; and thence, with prosperO'er Severn set his powers into the heart of Wales; And with the Mercians there, a bloody battle wag'd: Wherein he won their rule; and with his wounds enrag'd, Went ou against rest. Which, sadly when they saw How those had sped before, with most subjective Of any in the world no story shall us tell, Which did the Saxon race in pious deeds excel: That in these drowsy times should I in public bring Each great peculiar act of every godly king, The world might stand amaz'd in this our age to see Those goodly fanes of theirs, which irreligious we Let every day decay; and yet we only live By the great freedoms then those kings to these did give. [seat "Wise Segbert (worthy praise) preparing us the §. Of famous Cambridge first, then with endow ments great The Muses to maintain, those sisters thither brought. "By whose example, next, religious Alfred taught, Renowned Oxford built t Apollo's learned brood; And on the hallowed bank of Isis' goodly flood, Worthy the glorious arts, did gorgeous bowers provide, §. He into several shires the kingdom did divide. "So, valiant Edgar, first, most happily destroy'd The multitudes of wolves, that long the land annoy'd. [king, And our good Edward here, the confessor and (Unto whose sumptuous shrine our monarchs off'rings bring) [jaws, That cancred evil cur'd, bred 'twixt the throat and When physic could not find the remedy nor cause, And much it did afflict his sickly people here, He of Almighty God obtain'd by earnest pray'r, This tumour by a king might cured be alone: §. Which he an heir-loom left unto the English [use, So, our saint Edward here, for England's general §. Our country's common laws did faithfully produce, [tongue." Both from th' old British writ, and from the Saxon Of forests, hills and floods, when now a mighty throng throne. For audience cry'd aloud; because they late had heard, [ly dar'd That some high Cambrian hills the Wrekin proudWith words that very much had stirr'd his rancorous spleen: [between Where, though clear Severn set her princely self The English and the Welsh, yet could not make them cease: Here Weever, as a flood affecting goodly peace, His place of speech resigns, and to the Muse refers The caring of the cause, to stickle all these stirs. ILLUSTRATIONS. Now are you newly out of Wales, returned into England: and for conveniency of situation, imitating therein the ordinary course of chorography, the first shire eastward (from Denbigh and Flint, last sung by the Muse) Cheshire is here surveyed. Of our great English bloods as careful— For, as generally in these northern parts of England, the gentry is from ancient time left preserved in the continuance of name, blood, and place; so most particularly in this Cheshire, and the adjoining Lancashire: which, out of their numerous families, of the same name, with their chief houses and lordships, hath been observed (a). (a) Camd. in Cornav. & Brigant. 1. And, of our counties, place of palatine doth hold. We have in England three more of that title, Lancaster, Durham, and Ely: and, until later time (b), Hexamshire, in the western part of Northumberland, was so reputed. William the Conqueror first created one Hugh Wolfe, a Norman, count palatine of Chester, and gave the earldom to hold, as freely as the king held his crown. By this supremacy of liberty he made to himself barons, which might assist him in council, and had their courts and cognisance of pleas in such sort, regarding the earldom, as other barons the crown. Ego comes Hugo & mei barones confirmavimus ista omnia, is subscribed to a charter, whereby he founded the monastery of St. Werburg there For the name of palatine, know, that in ancient time, under the emperors of declining Rome, the title of count palatine was; but so, that it extended first only to him which had the care of the household and imperial revenue (c); which is now (so saith Wesembech (d); I affirm it not) as the marshal in other courts: but was also communicated by that honorary attribute of comitiva dignitas, to many others, which had any thing proportionate, place or desert, as the code teacheth us. In later times, both in Germany, (as you see in the palsgrave of Rhine) in France, (which the earldom of Champagne shows long time since in the crown; yet keeping a distinct palatine government, as Peter Pithou (c) hath at large published) and in this kingdom, such were hereditarily honoured with it as, being near the prince in court, (which they, as we, called the palace) had by their state-carriage gained full opinion of their worth, and ability in government, by delegate power of territories to them committed, and here after titled countes de palais, as our law-annals call them. If you desire more particulars of the power and great state of this palatine earldom, I had rather (for a special reason) send you to the marriage of Henry III. and queen Eleanor, in Matthew Paris; where John Scot, then earl of Chester, bare before the king St. Edward's sword, called curtein, which the prince at coronation of Henry IV. is recorded to have done, as duke of Lancaster (f); and wish you to examine the passage there, with what Bracton hath of earls (g), and our year books (h) of the high constable of England, than here offer it myself. To add the royalties of the carldom, as courts, officers, franchises, forms of proceeding, even as at Westminster, or the diminution of its arge liberties by the statute of Resumption (i), were to trouble you with a harsh digression. Our leopards they so long and bravely did advance. He well calls the coat of England, leopards. (b) Stat. 14. Eliz. c. 13. (c) C. de Offic. Com. Sac. Palat. vid. Euseb. de vit. Constantin. d. & Cod. lib. 12. (d) In Parat. C. 1. tit. 34. (e) Livre 1. des Comtes de Champagne & Brie. Palatinorum nostrorum nomine Sarisbur. Policrat. 6. cap. 16. & Epist. 263. (f) Archiv. in Tur. Lond jam vero & typis commis. apud Crompt. Jurisdict. Cur. (g) De acq. rer. dom. cap. 16. § 3. (h) 6 Hen. 8. Kelaway, & v. Brook. tit. prerog. (i) 27 Hen. 8. cap. 24. Neither can you justly object the common blazon And Edward IV. (m) granted to Lewis of Bruges, earl of Winchester, that he should bear “d'azure, a dix Maseles enarme d' un canton de nostre propre armes d'Engleterre, c'est assavoir, de goules ung leopard passant d'or, arme d'azure," as the patent speaks: and likewise Henry VI. (n) to King's college, in Cambridge, gave a coat armour, three roses, and summo scuti partitum principale de azoreo cum Francorum flore deque rubeo cum peditante leopardo, and calls them parcella armorum, quæ nobis in regnis Angliæ & Francia jure debentur regio. I know it is otherwise now received, but withal, that princes being supreme judges of honour and nobility, may arbitrarily change their arms in name and nature; as was done upon return out of the holy war in Godfrey of Bologne's time (o); and it seems it hath been taken indifferently, whether you call them the one or the other, both for similitude of delineaments and composture, (as in the bearing of Normandy, the county of Zutphen, and such more) being blazoned in Hierom de Bara, and other French heralds, lion-leopards: and for that even under this Henry VI. a great student in heraldry (p), and a writer of that kind, makes the accession of the lion of Guienne to the coat of Normandy, (which was by Henry II. his marriage with queen Eleanor divorced from Lewis of France) to be the first three lions borne by the English kings. Caerleg on whilst proud Rome her conquests here did hold. You have largely in that our most learned antiquary, the cause of this name from the tents of Roman legions there, about Vespasian's time. I will only note, that Leland (2) hath long since (k) V. Stat. 14. Ed. 3. (1) 19 Hen. 3. (m) Pat. 12. Ed. 4. part. 1. memb. 12. (n) Pat. 27. Hen. 6. num. 46. (0) Pont. Heut. de vet. Belgio. 2. (p) Nichol, Upton. de re militari, 1. 3. (2) In Deva ad Cyg. Cant. found fault with William of Malmesbury for affirming it so called, quod ibi emeriti Legionum Julianarum resedêre (r); whereas it is plain, that Julius Cæsar never came near this territory. Perhaps, by Julius, he meant Agricola, (then lieutenant here) so named, and then is the imputation laid on that best of the monks unjust: to help it with reading militarium for Julianarum, as the printed book pretends, I find not sufficiently warrantable, in respect that my MS. very ancient, as near Malmesbury's time as (it seems) may be, and heretofore belonging to the priory of St. Augustines, in Canterbury, evidently persuades the contrary. -the fortress upon Dee. At this day, in British, she is called Cair Lheon ar dour dwy (s), i. e. the city of legions upon the river Dee. Some vulgar antiquaries have re. ferred the name of Leon to a giant, builder of it: I, nor they, know not who, or when he lived. But indeed ridiculously they took Leon Daur (1) for king Leon the great; to whom the author alludes presently. Frithwald, Frealaf, Frithulf, Fin, Godulph, Geta, and others, to Seth; but with so much uncertainty, that I imagine many of their descents were just as true as the theogony in Hesiod, Apollodorus, or that of Prester John's, sometimes deriving himself very near from the loins of Salomon (c). Of this Woden, beside my authors named, special mention is found in Paul Warnfred (d), who makes Frea his wife, (others call her Pricco, and by her understand Venus) and Adam of Breme (e) which describe him as Mars; but in Geffrey of Monmouth, and Florilegus, in Hengist's own person, he is affirmed the same with Mercury, who by Tacitus' report was their chief deity; and that also is warranted in the denomination of our Wodensday, (according to the Dutch Wodensdagh) for the fourth day of the week, titled by the ancient planetary account with nan.e of Mercury. If that allusion in the illustrations of the third song to Merc, allow it him not, then take the other first taught me by Lipsius (ƒ), fetching Wodan from won or win, which is to gain, and so make his name Wondan, expressing in that sense the self name Ερμής Κερδώος (3) used by the Greeks. But without this inquiry you understand the author. But in himself thereby doth holiness retain. He compares it with Dee's title presently, which hath its reason given before to the seventh song. Weever, by reason of the salt-pits at Northwich, Nantwich, and Middlewich, (all on his banks) hath this attribute, and that of the sea-gods' suit to him, and kind entertainment for his skill in physic and prophecy; justifiable in general, as well as to make Tryphon their surgeon, which our excellent Spenser hath done; and in particular cause, upon the most respected and divinely honoured name of salt; of which, if you observe it used in all sacrifices by express commandment of the true God (u), no (r) in holy writ, the religion of the salt, set first, and last taken away, as a symbol of perpetual friendship (y), that in Homer Пáros d' 'Aλòs Oríso (2), the title of 'Ayvírns («) | given it by Lycophron, and passages of the ocean's medicinable epithets because of his saltness (b), you shall see apparent and apt testimony. From Woden, by which name they styled Mercury. Of the Britons' descent from Jove, if you remember but Eneas, son to Anchises, and Venus, with her derivation of blood from Jupiter's parents, sufficient declaration will offer itself. For this of Woden, see somewhat to the third song. To what you read there, I here more fitly add this: Woden, in Saxon genealogies, is ascended to, as the chief ancestor of their most royal progenies; so you may see in Nennius, Bede, Ethelwerd, Florence of Worcester, an anonymus de Regali Prosapia, Huntingdon, and Hoveden; yet in such sort, that in some of them they go beyond him, through Here put the German names upon the weekly days. From their Sunnan for the Sun, Monan for the Moon, Tuisco, or Tuisto (of whom see to the fourth song) for Mars, Woden for Mercury, Thor for Jupiter, Fre, Frie, or Frigo, for Venus, Sætern for Saturn, they styled their days Sunnan-dæg, Monan-dag, tuiscons-dez, podens dæg, porrdag, frig-dag, Sæterns dæg: theuce came our names now used Sunday, Munday, Tuesday, Wodensday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; which planetary account was very ancient among the Egyptians (b), (having much Hebrew discipline) but so superstitious, that, being great astronomers, and very observant of mysteries produced out of number and quantity, they began on the Jewish sabbath, and imposed the name of Saturn, on the next, Sun, then the Moon, as we now reckon, omitting two planets in every nomination, miss the reasons of that form; but nothing gives as you easily conceive it. One might seek, yet satisfaction equal to that, of all-penetrating Joseph Scaliger (i), whose intended reason for it is thus. In a circle describe an heptagonal and equilateral figure; from whose every side shall fall equilateral triangles, and their angles respectively on the corners of the inscribed figure, which are noted with the planets after their not interrupted order. At the right side of any of the bases begin your account, from that to the oppositely noted planet, thence to his opposite, and so shall you find a continued course in that order, (grounded perhaps among (c) Damian. a Goes de morib. Æthiopum. (d) De Longobard. 1. c. 8. (e) Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. 4. cap. 91. (f) Ad Tacit. Germ. not. 32, (g)" Mercury, president of gain." (h) Dion. Hist. Rom. x. (i) De Emendat. Temp. 1. Eundem de hâc re Prolegom. & lib. 7. Doctorem meritù agnoscimus, the ancients upon mysteries of number, and inter- | from the first Sunday in Lent; so that even from Changed government by those superior bodies over this habitable orb) which some have sweated at, in inquiry of proportions, music distances, and referred it to planetary hours: whereas they (the very name of hour for a twenty fourth part of a day, being unusual till about the Peloponnesiac war) had their original of later time, than this hebdomadal account, whence the hourly from the morning of every day had his breeding, and not the other from this, as pretending and vulgar astrologers receive in supposition. At last, by Constantine the Great, and pope Silvester, the name of Sun-day was turned into the Lord's-day (k); as it is styled Dominicus & Kugann; of Saturday, into the Sabbath; and the rest, not long afterward, named according to their numeral order as the first, second, or third Feria, (that is, holiday, thereby keeping the remembrance of Easter-week, the beginning of the ecclesiastic year, which was kept every day holy) for Sunday, Munday, Tuesday. You may note here, that Cæsar (1) was deceived in telling us, the Germans worshipped no other gods but quos cernunt, & quorum opibus apertè juvantur, Solem, Vulcanum & Lunam, reliquos ne fainâ quidem accepisse; for you see more than those thus honoured by them, as also they had their Eoten Monath (m) for April, dedicated to some adored power of that name: but blame him not; for the discovery of the northern parts was but in weakest infancy, when he delivered it. Good Ethelbert of Kent first christ'ned English king. About the year six hundred, Christianity was received among the Saxons: this Ethelbert (being first induced to taste that happiness by Berta his❘ queen, a Christian, and daughter to Hilperic, or Lothar the Second, king of France) was afterward baptized by Augustine, a monk, sent hither, with other workmen, for such a harvest, by pope Gregory the First, zealously being moved to conversion of the English nation: so that, after the first coming of Hengist, they had lived here one hundred and fifty years, by the common account, without tincture of true religion: nor did the Britons, who had long before (as you see to the eighth song) received it, at all impart it by instruction, which Gildas imputes to them for merit of divine revenge. White (n) of Basingstoke (I must cite his naine, you would laugh at me, if 1 affirmed it) refers to Kent's paganism, and British Christianity before this conversion, the original of our vulgar by-word, "Nor in Christendom, nor in Kent." That abstinence of flesh for forty days began. Began it here, so understand him; for plainly that fasting time was long before in other churches, as appears in the decreeing epistle of pope Telesphorus (0) constituting that the clergy should fast from Quinquagesima (that is, Shrove-sunday) to Easter, whereas the laity and they both were before bound but to six weeks, accounted, as now, () Nicephor. Callist. Eccles. Hist. . cap. pr. Polyd. Invent. Rér. 6. cap. 5. (1) Comment. Gallic. 6. (m) Bed. lib. de Temporibus. (n) Hist. 7. not. 24. } the first of Christianity (p), for remembrance of our Saviour, it seems, it hath been observed, although I know it hath been referred to Telesphorus, as first author. He died in the year 140 of Christ. But if you compare this of him with that of pope Melchiades (q), (some 170 years after) taking away the fast upon a Sunday and Thursday, you will lose therein forty days, and the common name of Quadragesime; but again find it thus. Saint Gregory (r), after both these, makes Lent to be so kept, that yet no fasting be upon Sundays; because (among other reasons) he would have it as the tenth of time consecrated to God in prayer and abstinence (and the canonists (s), how justly I argue not, put it in their division of personal tithes). Then, in this form, after the exception, calculates out his number. From the first Sunday in Lent to Easter are six weeks, that is, fortytwo days, whence six Sundays subtracted, remain thirty-six, which (fractions avoided) is the quotient of 365, being the number of the common year, divided by ten. But seeing that holy number (as he calls it) of forty, which our Saviour. honoured with his fasting, is by this reckoning excluded, he adds, to the first week, the four last days of the Quinquagesima, that is, Ashwednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; so keeping both his conceit of tithing, and also observation of that number, which we remember only (not able to imitate) in our assayed abstinence. For proof of this in Erconbert, both Bede and Malmesbury, beside their later followers, are witnesses. Their Saxon name near ours was LengerenFæren (1), as the other four fasts ymbɲea Færten. So Ella coming in, soon from the Britons won. Near forty years after the Saxons' first arrival, Ella, (of the same nation) with his sons Pleucing, or Pleting, Cimen and Cissa, landed at Cimenshore, in the now Sussex, (it is supposed (u) to be near the Witterings by Chichester) and having his forces increased by supply, after much blood shed betwixt him and the Britons, and long siege of the city Andredceaster, now Newenden, in Kent, (as learned Camden conjectures) got supreme dominion of those southern parts, with title of king of Sussex, whose son and successor, Cissa's name, is yet there left in Cirra-cearten (~), for Chichester, and in a hill encircled with a deep trench for military defence, called Ciss-bury, by Offington. The author fitly begins with him after the Kentish; for he was the first made the num ber of the Saxon kings plural, by planting and here reigning over the South-Saxons: and as one was always in the heptarchy, which had title of first, or chief king of the Angles and Saxons, so (p) Ita etiam Baronius, sed & vide Eusebii Chronic. in Sixto 1. (9) Dist. 4. de Consecrat. cap. 14. Jejunum. (") Ex antiq. charta Eccles. Selesens. ap. Camden. (x) So is it called in Florent. Wigorn. p. 331. (•) Dist. 4.. 4. statuimus & ibid, D. Ambrosius. Į kingdom of Sussex. this Ella not only was honoured with it (y), but also the prerogative, by priority of time, in first enjoying it, before all other princes of his nation; but his dominion afterward was, for the most part, still under the Kentish and West-Saxon kings. Saint Wilfrid sent from York into his realm receiv'd. This Wilfrid, archbishop of York, expelled that see by Egfrid, king of Northumberland, was kindly received by Edilwalch, (otherwise Ethelwalch, being before christened, through religious persuasion of his godfather, Wulpher, king of Mercland) and converted the South-Saxons to the gospel. He endowed this Wilfrid with Selsey, a chersonese in Sussex, and was so founder of a bishopric, afterward translated, under the Norman conqueror, to Cichester, whose cathedral church in public monuments honours the name of Cedwalla, (of whom see to the ninth song) king of West-Sex, for her first creator: but the reason of that was rather because Cedwalla, after the death of Edilwalch, (whom he slew) so honoured Wilfrid, ut magistrum & dominum omnis provinciæ eum præfecit, nihil in tota provincia siue illius assensu faciendum arbitratus (); whereupon it was, as it seems, thought fit (according to course of yielding with the sway of fortune) to forget Edilwalch, and ac- | knowledge Cedwalla (then a pagan) for first patron of that episcopal dignity. It is reported, that three years before this general receipt there of Christ's profession, continued without rain; in so much that famine, and her companion pestilence, so vexed the province, that in multitudes of forty or fifty at a time, they used, hand in hand, to end their miseries in the swallowing waves of their neighbouring ocean: but that all ceased upon Wilfrid's preaching; who taught them also first (if Henry of Huntingdon's teaching deceive me not) to catch all manner of fish, being before skilled only in taking of eels. I know, some make Eadbert abbot of the monastery in Selsey (a), under king Ine, first bishop there, adding, that before his time the province was subject to Winchester; but that, rightly understood, discords not; that is, if you refer it to instauration of what was discontinued by Wilfrid's return to his archbishopric. Adopting for his heir young Edmund Penda, king of Mercland, had slain Sigebert (or Sebert) and Anna, kings of East-Angles, and so in dominion might be said to have possessed that kingdom; but Anna had divers successors of his blood, of whom Ethelberth was traitorously slain in a plot dissembled by Offa, king of Mercland, and this part of the heptarchy confounded in the Mercian crown. Then did Offa adopt this Saint Edmund, a Saxon, into name of successor in that kingdom which he had not long enjoyed, but that through barbarous cruelty, chiefly of one Hinguar, a Dane, (Polydore will needs have his name Anger) he was with miserable torture martyred, upon the nineteenth of November, 870, whither his canonization directeth us for holy memory of him, (y) Ethelwerd. hist. 3. cap. 2. Bed, hist, 2. cap. 5. (*) Malmesb. de gest. Pontific. 3. Matth. Westmonasteriensis. And slew a thousand monks, as they devoutly pray'd. You may add two hundred to the author's number. This Ethelfrid, or Edilfrid, king of Northumberland, aspiring to increase his territories, made war against the bordering Britons. But as he was in the field, by Chester, near the onset, he saw, with wonder, a multitude of monks assembled,in a place by, somewhat secure ; demanded the cause, and was soon informed, that they were there ready to assist his enemies' swords with their devout orisons, and had one, called Brocmail, professing their defence from the English forces. The king no sooner heard this, but Ergo (saith he, being a heathen) si adversus nos, ad dominum suum clamant, profecto & ipsi quamvis arma non ferant, contra nos pugnant, qui adversis nos imprecationibus persequuntur; presently commands their spoil: which so was performed by his soldiers, that 1200 were in their devotions put to the sword. A strange slaughter of religious persons, at one time and place; but not so strange as their whole number in this one monastery, which was 2100; not such idle lubberly sots as later times pestered the world withal, truly pictured in that description of (their character) sloth (b). 12 |