The reverse or back-face of the English Janus to-wit, all that is met with in story concerning the common and statute-law of English Britanny, from the first memoirs of the two nations, to the decease of King Henry II. set down and tackt together succinctly by way of narrative : designed, devoted and dedicated to the most illustrious the Earl of Salisbury / written in Latin by John Selden ... ; and rendred into English by Redman Westcot, Gent.

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ENGLISH JANUS. (Book 1)

From the Beginning of the BRITISH Story down to the NORMAN Conquest. (Book 1)

CHAP. I.

The counterfeit Berosus with the Monk that put him forth, both cen∣sured. The Story of Samothes the first Celtick King. The bounds of Celtica. From Samothes, say they, the Britans and Gauls were called Samothei. For which Diogenes Laertius is falsly quoted; the word in him, being Semnothei.

THERE came forth, and in Buskins too (I mean, with Pomp and State) some parcels of years ago, and is still handed about every where, an Author, called Berosus a Chaldee Priest (take heed how you suffer your self to believe him to be the same that Flavius Jo∣sephus so often up and down quotes for a witness) with a Commentary of Viterbiensis. Or, rather to say that which is the very truth, John Annius of Viterbium (a City of Tuscany) a Dominican Frier, playing the Leger-de-main, having counterfeited Be∣rosus,

to put off his own strange stories, hath put a cheat upon the Lady Muse who is the Governess of Antiquities, and has hung a Bantling at her back.

After the Genealogies of the Hebrews drawn down by that Author, whoever he be, according to his own humour and method, for fear he should not be thought to take in the Kingdoms and Kings of the whole Universe, and the Etymologies of Proper Names by whole-sale, as we say; as if he had been born the next day after Grandam Ops was deli∣vered of Jupiter, he subjoyns SAMOTHES (the very same who is yeleped Dis) the Founder of the Celtick Colonies, stuffing up odd Patcheries of Story to entertain and abuse the Reader.

Now, this I thought fit by the by, not to conceal, that all that space which is bounded with the River Rhine, the Alpes, the Mediterranean Sea, the Pyrenean Hills, and lastly, the Gascoin and the British Oceans, was formerly termed Celtogalatia;* 1.1 nay, that P••olomy hath comprized all Europe under the name of Celtica.

Well, as the Commentary of Annius has it,

This Samothes was Brother to Gomar and Tubal by their Father Japhet, from whom first the Britans, then the Gauls were called Samothei; and especially the Philosophers and Divines that were his followers.

And out of Laertius he tells us,

For it is evident, that among the Persians the Magi flourished, among the Babylonians and Assyrians the Chaldeans were famous, among the Celts and Gauls the Druids, and those who were called Samothei; who, as Aristotle in his Magick, and Sotion in his Three and Twentieth Book of Successions do witness, were men very well skilled in Laws Divine and Humane, and upon that account were much addicted to Religion; and were for that reason termed Samothei.

These very words you meet with in Annius.

The name of Laertius is pretended, and the beginning of his Volume concerning the Lives of Philosophers. Why then let us read Laertius himself;

and amongst the Celts and Gauls (saith he) the Semnothei as saith Aristotle in his Book of Magick, and Sotion in his Three and Twentieth of Succession.

Concerning the Samothei any other wayes there is not so much as one syllable. That they were men well skilled in Laws Divine and Humane, or that they had their name given them upon that account, only the Latin and foisted Edition of B. Brognol the Venetian has told us: whereas in truth, in all the ancient Greek Copies of Laertius, which that great Scholar Harry Stephen saw and consulted with (and he sayes he perused Eight or Nine) there is no mention at all made of that business.

And yet for all that, I cannot perswade my self, that it was only for want of care, or by meer chance, that this slipt into the Glosses: It does appear, that there have been able Lawyers and Master Philosophers not only among the Greeks, the Gauls, and those of Italy; but also among the Northern Nations, however Barbarous. Witness the Druids among us,* 1.2 and among the Goths, as Jornandes tells us, besides Cosmicus, one Diceneus, who, being at once King of Men, and Priest of Phoebus, did to∣gether with Natural Philosophy and other parts of good Learning, transmit to posterity a Body of Laws, which they called Bellagines; that is, By-Laws.

There are some, who in Laertius read Samothei; which is a device of those men, who with too much easiness (they are Isaac Casaubon's words) that I may say no worse, suffer themselves to be led by the Nose by that counterfeit Berosus.

CHAP. II.

An Account of the Semnothei. Why so called; the opinion of H. Stephen, and of the Author. Old Heroes and Philosophers went by the names of Demy-gods. The 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Venerable Goddesses, the same as Eumenides, dispensers of Justice. And by Plutarch and Orpheus they are set for Civil Magistrates. Judges in Scripture so called Elohim, i. e. Gods. These Semnai theai the same as Deae Matres in an old British Inscription.

ANd indeed if the Samothei had any thing to do with truth, or the Semnothei any thing to do with the ancient Law of the Celts (in as much as they write, that Britany was once in subjection to the Cel∣tick Kings) I should judge it not much beside the design of my intended Method to inquire into the name and nature of them both. But they be∣ing both one and t'other past all hope, except such a one as Lucian retur∣ning from the Inhabitants of the Sun, or those of the Moon, would write their History, to speak of them would be more than to lose ones labour. I dare not to say much of them.

I imagine,* 1.3 sayes Harry Stephen, they were so called, for having the Gods often in their mouths, and that in these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, The Worshipful Gods; or for that they themselves were ac∣counted amongst men as a kind of Worshipful Gods: but, writes he, this latter I do not take to be so likely as the former.

But say I for my part, if I might venture my opinion against the judgement of so great a person, I guess this latter to be the likelier of the two.

That the old Heroes went by the names of Gods, is a thing we read every where; nor did Antiquity grudge the bestowal of this honour even upon Philosophers. Not upon Amphiaraus the Prophet; not upon Aesculapius, not upon Hippocrates, renowned Physicians; they are recko∣ned among the middle sort of Gods.* 1.4 Thus Plato also was accounted by Antistius Labeo for a Demy-god, and Tyrtamus for his Divine eloquence, had the name of Theophrastus (that is, God-like Speaker) given him by his Master Aristotle. No wonder then, if thereupon thence forward great Philosophers were called Semnothei, and as it were Worshipful Gods. These instances incline me, whilst I only take a view of their Philosophy; whom, if either the authority of Annius, or the interpre∣tation of Brognol had sufficiently and fairly made out to have been also at the same time Students and Masters of Law, I should hardly stick al∣most to affirm, that I had found out in what places the true natural spring and source both of their name, and as I may say, of their dele∣gated power is to be met with.

For I have it in Pausanias (forbear your flouts, because I waft over into Greece, from whence the most ancient Customs both Sacred and Prophane of the Gentiles came) I say in Pausanias the most diligent searcher of the Greek Antiquities, I meet upon Mars his Hill at Athens, and also in his Achaicks (or Survey of Achaia) with Chappels of the Goddesses whom the Athenians styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, Worshipful. He

himself also in his Corinthiacks makes mention of a Grove set thick with a sort of Oaks on the left side of Asopus a River in Sicyon (a Countrey of Peleponnesus) where there stood a little Chappel of the Goddesses, whom the Athenians termed Semnai, the Sicyomans called Eumenides. The story of Orestes and the Eumenides or Furies that haunted him is known to every body, nor can you tell me of any little smatterer in Poetry, who doth not know, that they, together with Adrastia, Ramnu∣sia, Nem••sis, and other Goddesses of the same stamp, are pretended to be the Avengers of Villanies, and continually to assist Jupiter the great God in punishing the wicked actions of Mortals. They were black ones that met with Orestes, but that there were white ones too, to whom together with the Graces the Ancients paid their Devotions; the same Pausanias has left written in his Survey of Arcadia. I let pass that in the same Author, she whom some called Erinnys, that is a Fury; others called Themis the Goddess of Justice.

To be brief and plain; the Furies, that is, the Avenging Goddesses sit upon the skirts of the wicked; but the Eumenides, that is, the kind Goddesses,* 1.5 as Sophocles interprets them (for that they were so called properly without the Figure of Antiphrasis or contradiction he is our Author) do attend the good and such as are blameless and faultless, and poor suppliants.* 1.6 Nay, moreover Plutarch writes in a Poetick strain, that Alcmaeon fled from these Eumenides; meaning in very deed, that he made his escape from the Civil Magistrates. In a word, the whole business we have been aiming at, Orpheus compriseth in two Verses of that Hymn he has made upon those Goddesses.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉* 1.7 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

which in a short Paraphrase speaks thus;

But ye with eye of Justice, and a face Of Majesty survey all humane race, Judges commission'd to all time and place.

See here plainly out of the most ancient Divine among the Heathens, how Judges and the Dispensers of Law pass under the notion of these Ve∣nerable Goddesses: and it was a thing of custom to term the Right of the Infernal Powers, as well as the Doctrine of the Heavenly ones, a thing Holy and Sacred. What hinders then I pray, but that one may guess, that the Name, and Title, and Attributes or Characters of the Semnothei sprang forth and flowed from hence; to wit, from the Semnai theai or Venerable Goddesses?

Homer in his Poems calls Kings 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is,* 1.8 persons bred and nou∣rished by Jove;* 1.9 yea, the Eternal and Sacred Scriptures themselves do more than once call Judges by that most holy name Elohim, that is, Gods.

The judgement is Gods, not Mans;* 1.10 and (as Munster remarks out of Rabbi Kim∣chi) whatsoever thing Scripture designs to magnifie or express with height,* 1.11 it subjoyns to it the name of God.

God (as Plutarch has it out of Plato, who in his Attick style imitates our Moses) hath set himself out as a pattern of the Good, the dreadful syllables of whose very not∣to be uttered Name (though we take no notice of the Cahalists art) do strike, move and twitch the ears of Mortals, and one while when

thorough ignorance they straggle out of the way, do bring them back into the path or track of Justice; another while when they are stopt up with prejudice, and are overcast with gloomy darkness, do with a stu∣pendous, dismal and continual trembling shake the poor wretches, and put them into Ague-fits. Nor let that be any hindrance, that so splendid and so manly a name is taken from the weaker Sex, to wit, the Goddesses.

Let us more especially have to do with the Britans, as those amongst whom are those choice and singular Altars, not any where else to be met with in the whole World,* 1.12 with this Inscription, DEIS MA∣TRIBUS, To the Mother-Goddesses. Concerning these Mother-God∣desses, that excellent Learned Man (that I may hint it by the by) confesses he could with all his search find out nothing; but if such a mean person as I, may have leave, What if one should imagine, that those Goddesses, whom Pausanias in his Attick stories calls 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,were the same as these Mother Goddesses? for so those Names import. The Mother of the Gods is a Title well known; wherewith not only Berecynthia, but also Juno, Cybele, Tellus, Ceres, and other Shees among Mythologists are celebrated and made famous.

Be this, if you will, a thing by the by and out of the way; as he tells us,* 1.13 No great Wit ever pleased without a pardon. Relying upon that (the Readers Pardon I mean) I undertook this Job, whatever it is; and upon confidence of that, I come back to the business.

CHAP. III.

One Law of Samothes out of Basingstoke concerning the reckoning of Time by Nights. Bodinus his censure of Astrologers for other∣wise computing their Planetary Hours. A brief account of some of Samothes his Successors, Magus, Sarron, Druis, from whom the Druids, &c.

WE do not any where meet with any Law enacted by Samothes his authority. Yet one only one concerning the account of times, Basingstoke the Count Palatine, a very modern Historian, attri∣butes to him. He defined, sayes he, the spaces or intervals of all time, not by the number of dayes, but of nights (the same thing, saith Caesar of the Gauls, and Tacitus of the Germans) and he observed birth-dayes, and the commencements of months and years in that order, that the day should come after the night. Truth is, the Britans do at this time observe that fashion, which is most ancient, and highly agreeable to Nature.* 1.14 And the Eve∣ning and the Morning was the first day, and so on, sayes the Hebrew Wri∣ter, whose Countrey-men the Jews also followed this custom.

The Peripateticks (i. e. the followers of Aristotle) do also at this rate reckon Privation in the number of their three Principles;* 1.15 and hereupon John Bodin adventures to censure the common Astrologers, that they, ac∣cording to the course of the Planets as they order it, and repeat it over and over, begin their unequal hours, from the rising, rather than the setting of the Sun.

They write, that after this Samothes, there came in play Magus, Sarran, Druis, Bardus, and others more than a good many, in order of succes∣sion.

Sarron was not addicted to make Laws ('tis Stephanus Forcatu∣lus helps us to this) but to compose them,* 1.16 to put them into order, and to recommend them to practice, as one who reduced those Laws, which his Grand-father Samothes, and afterward his Father Magus had made, into one Volume, and with severe Menaces gave order for the keeping of them.

From Druis or Druides they will have the Druids so called, a sort of Philosophers so much famed and talked of in Caesar, Pliny and others: believe it who list for me. The whole business of the Druids at pre∣sent I put off till Caesar's times.

CHAP. IV.

K. Phranicus 900. Years after Samothes being to reside in Panno∣nia, intrusts the Druids with the Government. In the mean time Brutus, Aeneas his Grand-son, arrives and is owned King by the Britans, and builds Troynovant, i. e. London. Dunvallo Molmutius 600. years after is King, and makes Laws concerning Sanctuaries, Roads or High-wayes and Plow-lands. K. Belin his Son confirms those Laws, and casts up four great Cause-wayes through the Island. A further account of Molmutius.

ABout Nine hundred years after Samothes, King Phranicus (take it from the British story, and upon the credit of our Jeoffry) in∣trusts the Druids with the management of affairs, whilst he himself resided in Pannonia or Hungary.

In the mean time Brutus, the Son of Sylvius Posthumus King of the Latines,* 1.17 and Grand-child to Aeneas (for Servius Honoratus in his Com∣ment upon Virgil, makes Sylvius to be the Son of Aeneas, not of Asca∣nius) being happily arrived by Shipping, with Corinus one of the chief of his company, and coming to land at Totnes in Devonshire, the Britans salute and own him King. He after he had built New Troy (that is, London) gave Laws to his Citizens and Subjects; those such as the Trojans had, or a Copy of theirs.

A matter of Six hundred years after Dunvallo Molmutius being King, ordained (my Authors besides Jeoffry of Monmouth, are Ralph of Che∣ster in his Polychronicon, and Florilegus)

that their Ploughs, Temples and Roads that led to Cities, should have the priviledge to be places of refuge. But because some time after there arose a difference con∣cerning the Roads or High-wayes, they being not distinguished by certain Limits and Bounds, King Belin Son of the foresaid Molmutius, to remove all doubt, caused to be made throughout the Island four Royal High-wayes to which that priviledge might belong; to wit, the Fosse or Dike, Watlingstrete, Ermingstrete, and Ikenilt∣strete.

(But our Learned Countrey-man and the great Light of Britan, William Camden, Clarenceaux King at Arms is of opinion,

these Cause-wayes were cast up by the Romans; a thing that Tacitus, B••de and others do more than intimate.)

Moreover, so sayes Jeoffry, he ordained those Laws, which were called Molmutius his Laws, which to this very time are so famed amongst the English. Forasmuch as amongst other things, which a long time after, Gildas set down in writing, he ordained, that the Temples of the Gods, and that Cities should have that respect and veneration, that whatsoever runagate Servant, or guilty person should fly to them for refuge, he should have pardon in the presence of his enemy or prosecutor. He ordained also, That the Wayes or Roads which led to the aforesaid Temples and Cities, as also the Ploughs of Husbandmen should be confirmed by the same Law: Afterwards having reigned Forty years in peace, he dyed and was buried in the City of London, then called Troynovant, near the Temple of Concord

(by which Temple,* 1.18 there are not wanting those who understand that Illustrious Colledge on the Bank of Thames, consecrated to the Study of our Common Law, now called the Temple and)

which he himself had built for the confirmation of his Laws.

At this rate Jeoffry tells the story; but behold also those things which Polydore Virgil hath gathered out of ancient Writers, whereof he wanted no store.

He first used a Golden Crown, appointed Weights and Measures for selling and buying of things, punisht Thieves and all mischie∣vous sorts of men with the greatest severity; made a great many High-wayes; and gave order, how broad they should be, and ordai∣ned by Law, that the right of those Wayes belonged only to the Prince; and set dreadful Penalties upon their heads, who should vio∣late that right, alike as upon theirs who should commit any misde∣meanour in those wayes. Moreover, that the Land might not lye barren, nor the people be frequently oppressed or lessened through Dearth or want of Corn, if Cattle alone should possess the Fields, which ought to be tilled by men, he appointed how many Ploughs every County should have, and set a penalty upon them by whose means that number should he diminished: And he made a Law, That Labouring Beasts which attended the Plough, should not be distrained by Officers, nor assigned over to Creditors for money that was owing, if the Debtor had any other Goods left.

Thus much Polydore.

CHAP. V.

A brief Account of Q. Regent Martia, and of Merchenlage, whe∣ther so called from her, or from the Mercians. Annius again censured for a Forger, and his Berosus, for a Fabulous Writer.

THe Female Government of Martia, Widow to King Quintiline, who had undertaken the Tuition of Sisillius Son to them both, he being not as yet fit for the Government, by reason of his Nonage; found out a Law, which the Britons called the Martian Law. This also among the rest (I tell you but what Jeoffry of Monmouth tells

me) King Alfred translated, which in the Saxon Tongue he called Merchenlage. Whereas nevertheless in that most elaborate Work of Camden, wherein he gives account of our Countrey, Merchenlage is more appositely and fitly derived from the Mercians, and they so called from the Saxon word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, a Limit, Bound or Border.

These are the Stories, which Writers have delivered to us concer∣ning those times, which were more ancient than the History of the Romans; but such as are of suspected, of doubtful, that I may not say of no credit at all. Among the more Learned, there is hardly any Critick, who does not set down Annius in the list of Forgers. And should one go to draw up the account of Times, and to observe that difference which is so apparent in that Berosus of Viterbium from Sacred Scriptures, and the Monuments of the Hebrews, one would perhaps think, that he were no more to be believed, than another of the same name, who from a perpendicular position of the wandring Stars to the Center of the World in the Sign of Cancer, adventured to foretel, that all things should be burnt; and from a like Congress of them in Capri∣corn, to say,* 1.19 there would be an universal Deluge. The story is in Seneca.

CHAP. VI.

The story of Brutus canvast and taken to be a Poetick Fiction of the Bards. Jeoffry of Monmouth's credit called in question. Antiquaries at a loss in their judgements of these frivolous stories.

SOme have in like manner made enquiry concerning our British Hi∣story, and stumbled at it. From hence we had Brutus, Dunvallo and Queen Martia: There are some both very Learned and very Judi∣cious persons, who suspect, that that story is patched up out of Bards Songs and Poetick Fictions taken upon trust, like Talmudical Traditions, on purpose to raise the British name out of the Trojan ashes. For though Antiquity, as one has it, is credited for a great witness; yet how∣ever 'tis a wonder, that this Brutus, who is reported to have killed his Father with an Arrow unluckily aimed, and to have been fatal to his Mother at her very delivery of him (for which reason Richard Vitus now after so many Ages makes his true name to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, Mortal) should be mentioned by none of the Romans: a wonder, I say, that the Latin Writers should not be acquainted with the name of a Latin Prince, who gave both Name and Government to Britany. Did Euemerus Messenius alone ever since the World began, fail to the Panchoans and the Triphyllians? Indeed it is an ordinary thing for Poets, to ingraft those whom they celebrate in their Poems, into Noble Stocks and Illustrious Families, and by the assistance of their Muses heightning every thing above the truth, to feign and devise a great many stories. And what else were the Bards,* 1.20 as Athenaeus tells us out of Possidonius; but Poets reciting mens praises in song? How many things are there in that Fabulous Age (which in Joseph Scaliger's account would more aptly be called the Heroick Age of the World,* 1.21 I mean) down from that

much talked of Deluge of Pyrrha to the beginning of Iphitus his Olym∣piads; how many idle stories are there mixt with true ones, and after∣wards drest up and brought upon the stage?

Very many Nations, sayes Trithemius,* 1.22 as well in Europe as in Asia, pretend they took their original from the Trojans; to whom I have thought good to lend so much faith, as they shall be able to perswade me of truth by suffici∣ent testimony. They are frivolous things, which they bring concer∣ning their own Nobility and Antiquity, having a mind as it were openly to boast, as if there had been no people in Europe before the destru∣ction of Troy; and as if there had been no one among the Trojans themselves of ignoble birth.

He who made the Alphabetical Index to Jeoffry of Monmouth (who was Bishop of St. Asaph too) as he is printed and put forth by Ascensius, propt up the Authors credit upon this account, that, as he sayes, he makes no mention any where in his Book, of the Franks; by reason forsooth, that all those things almost, which he has written of, were done and past before the Franks arrival in France. This was a slip surely more than of memory. Go to Jeoffry himself, and in his Nineteenth Chapter of his first Book you meet with the Franks in the time of Bren∣nus and Belinus among the Senones, a people of France: a gross mis∣reckoning of I know not how many hundred years. For the Franks are not known to have taken up their quarters on this side the River Rhine, till some Centuries of years after Christs Incarnation. For how∣beit by Poetick license and Rhetorical figure Aeneas be said to have come to the Lavinian Shores, (which had not that name till some time after) yet it were much better, that, both in Verse and Prose, those things which appertain to History, should be expressed according to that form of Ovid; where at the burning of Rhemus his Funeral Pile he sayes,

Tunc Juvenes nondum facti flevere Quirites;* 1.23

that is,

The young men then not yet Quirites made, Wept as the body on the Pile they laid.

And at this rate Jeoffry might and ought to have made his Translation, if he would have been a faithful Interpreter.

But as to our Brutus whence the Britans, Saxo whence the Saxons, Bruno whence those of Brunswick, Freso whence those of Friseland, and Bato whence the Batavians had their rise and name, take notice what Pontus Heuterus observes,* 1.24 as others have done before him.

Songs or Ballads, sayes he, and Rhymes made in an unlearned Age, with ease obtruded falshoods for truths upon simple people, or mingling false∣hoods with truths imposed upon them. for three or four hundred years ago there was nothing that our Ancestors heard with greater glee, than that they were descended from the adulterous Trojans, from Alexander of Macedonia the Overthrower of Kingdoms, from that Man∣queller Hercules of Greece, or from some other disturber of the World.

And indeed that is too true which he sayes,

—Mensuraque fictis Crescit,* 1.25 & auditis aliquid novus adjicit auctor.

which in plain English speaks this sence.

Thus Stories nothing in the telling lose, The next Relater adding still to th' News.

But I will not inlarge.

To clear these points aright, Antiquaries, who are at see-saw about them, will perhaps eternally be at loss, like the Hebrews in their myste∣rious debates, for want of some Elias to come and resolve their doubts.

CHAP. VII.

What the Trojan Laws were, which Brutus brought in. That con∣cerning the Eldest Sons Inheriting the whole Estate, confuted. In the first times there were no Positive Laws; yet mention made of them in some very ancient Authors, notwithstanding a remark of some ancient Writers to the contrary.

WEll! Suppose we grant there was such a Person ever in the World as Brutus: He made Laws, they say, and those taken out of the Trojan Laws; but what I pray were those Trojan Laws them∣selves? There is one, I know well enough, they speak of, concerning the Prerogative of the eldest Sons, by which they inherited the whole Right and Estate of their deceased Father. Herodotus writes it of Hector,* 1.26 Son and Heir to King Priam, and Jeoffry mentions it; but did this Law cross the Sea with Brutus into Brittany? How then came it, that the Kingdom was divided betwixt the three Brothers, Locrinus, Camber, and Albanactus? betwixt the two, Ferrix and Porrix? betwixt Brennus and Belinus? and the like of some others. How came it, that in a Par∣liament of Henry the Eighth,* 1.27 provision was made, that the Free-holds of Wales should not thence-forward pass according to that custom, which they call Gavelkind? And anciently, if I be not mistaken, most Inheritances were parted among the Children, as we find in Hesiods works.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.—

i. e.

We had already parted the Estate.

And to the same purpose many like passages there are in old Poets, and in Holy Writ. But, as I said, what are those Trojan Laws? Perhaps the same with those, by which Nephelococcygia, the City of the Birds in Aristophanes, (or, as we use to say, Vtopia) is Governed.

The gravest Writers do acknowledge, that those most ancient times were for the most part free from positive Laws. The people, so says Justin,* 1.28 wee held by no Laws: The Pleasures and Resolves of their Princes past for Laws, or were instead of Laws. Natural Equity, like the Lesbian

Rule in Aristotle,* 1.29 being adapted, applied, and fitted to the variety of emergent quarrels, as strifes, ordered, over-ruled, and decided all Controversies.

And indeed at the beginning of the Roman State, as Pomponius writes, the people resolved to live without any certain Law or Right,

* 1.30 and all things were governed by the hand and power of the King: For they were but at a little distance from the Golden Age, when

—vindice nullo Sponte suâ sine lege fidem rectumque colebant.* 1.31

That is to say, when

—People did not grudge To be plain honest without Law or Judge.

That which the Heresie of the Chiliasts heretofore affirmed,* 1.32 concerning the Sabbatick or seventh Millenary, or thousand years of the World. And those Shepherds or Governors of the people, to whom

—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉* 1.33 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉—

that is,

—Into whose hand Jove trusts his Laws and Scepter for Command.

did Govern them by the guidance of vertue, and of those Laws which the Platonicks call the Laws of second Venus.

Not out of the ambition of Rule, as St. Austin hath it, but out of duty of Counsel; nor out of a domineering pride, but out of a provident tenderness.

Do you think the Trojans had any other Laws? Only except the worship of their Gods and those things which belong to Religion. It was duty,* 1.34 says Se∣neca, not dignity, to Reign and Govern: And an Eye and a Scepter among the Aegyptians, were the absolute Hieroglyphicks of Kings.

What? that there is not so much as the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is Law, to be met with in those old Poets, Orpheus, Musaeus, or Homer, (who was about an hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Troy) as Jose∣phus against Appio, Plutarch,* 1.35 and several modern Writers have remarked: I confess, if one well consider it, this remark of theirs is not very accu∣rate. For we very often read in Homer and Hesiod, the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which signifies Laws; and in both of them the Goddess Eunomia from the same Theme as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.—

which being interpreted, is

But they by legal methods bear the sway I'th' City fam'd for Beauties.—

which is a passage in Homers hymn to Mother Tellus,* 1.36 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, i. e. the Law of Song, (which Musicians might not transgress) is mentioned in his hymn to Apollo. Nay great Plato,* 1.37 one beyond all exception, has left it in writing, that Talus (who had the management of the Cretan Common-wealth committed to him, together with Rhadamauthus, the Son of Jupiter, by King Minos) that he did thrice every year go the cir∣cuit through the whole Island (which was the first Country,* 1.38 as Poly∣histor tells us, that joyned the practice of laws with the study of Let∣ters) and kept Assizes, giving Judgment according to Laws engraven in brass. I say nothing of Phoroneus King of the Argives, or of Nomio the Arcadian; and in good time leave this Subject.

I could wish I might peruse Jupiters Register, wherein he has record∣ed humane affairs. I could wish, that the censure of some breathing Library and living study (which might have power over the Ancients, as we read in Eunapius that Longinus had) or that the memory of some* 1.39 Aethalides might help us sufficiently to clear and make out the truth.

Hence our next passage is to the Classick Writers of the Latin style and story.

CHAP. VIII.

An Account of the DRUIDS out of Caesar's Commentaries, whence they were so called. Their determining in point of Law, and pas∣sing Sentence in ease of Crinie. Their Award binds all parties. Their way of Excommunicating or Outlawing. They have a Chief over them. How he is chosen. Their Priviledge and Immunity.

CAjus Julius Caesar was the first of the Romans, who has committed to writing the Religious Rites, the Laws and the Philosophy of the DRVIDS. Their name is of a doubtful origination, by no means were they so called from that Druis or Druides we meet with in Berosus: But whether they were so termed from a Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that signifies an Oak, in that they performed none of their devotions without oaken leaves,* 1.40 as Pliny and those that follow him are of opinion; or from the Dutch True-wise,* 1.41 as Goropius Becanus will have it; or from Trutin, a word which with the ancient Germans signified God,* 1.42 as Paulus Merula quotes it out of the Gospel of Othfred (though in the Angels salutation, in the Magnificat, in Zachariahs Song and elsewhere, Trutin rather de∣notes Lord than God; and see whether there does not lye somewhat of the Druid in the name of St. Truien, among the people of Liege, some having exploded St. Drudo) whencesoever they had their name, these Gownmen among the Gauls, I and the Britans too, were the Interpreters and Guardians of the Laws. The discipline of these Druids was first found in Britany, and so far as it regards the Civil Court, we shall faith∣fully subjoyn it out of the forenamed Caesar.

1. They order matters concerning all controversie, public and private.

So in the Laws of the twelve Tables at the same rate the knowledg of cases, of precedents, of interpreting was in the Colledge

of Pontiffs or High Priests, and such plainly our Druids were.

If any ill prank had been played, if murder committed, if there were a contro∣versie about Inheritance, about bounds of Land, these were the men that determined it, these amerced rewards and punishments.

2. If any private person or body of men do not stand to their award, they excommunicate him, that is, forbid him to come to sacrifice, which among them is the most grievous punishment.

3. Those who are thus excommunicated, are accounted wicked and ungodly wretches, every body goes out of their way, and shuns their company and conversation for fear of getting any harm by contagion. Neither have they the benefit of the Law when they desire it, nor is a∣ny respect shown to them.

4. The Druids have one over them, who has the chiefest authority amongst them.

5. When he dies, if there be any one that is eminent above the rest he succeeds in place: But if there be several of equal merit, one is chosen by majority of Votes.

6. The Druids were wont to be excused from personal attendance in War, nor did they pay taxes with the rest; they were freed from Military employ,* 1.43 and had an immunity of all things. The Levites a∣mong the Hebrews, who were the most ancient Priests in the world, injoyed the same priviledge.

CHAP. IX.

The menage of their Schools without Writing. On other occasions they might use the Greek Letters, as Caesar saith, yet not have the language. The Greek Letters then were others than what they are now. These borrowed from the Gauls, as those from the Phoeni∣cians. Ceregy-Drudion, or the Druids Stones in Wales. This Place of Caesar's suspected. Lipsius his Judgment of the whole Book.

7. UPon the account of that priviledge, they had in their Schools (which were most of them in Britany) a great confluence of youth.

They are said to learn without Book, says Caesar, a great num∣ber of Verses: Therefore some of them spend twenty years in the dis∣cipline. Nor do they judge it meet to commit such things to writing, whereas generally in all other, whether publick affairs or private ac∣compts, they make use of Greek letters.

What? Greek letters so we read Greek ones. Why! Marseilles, a City of France, which was a Greek Colony of the Phocians, had made the Gauls such lovers of Greeks,* 1.44 that, as Strabo the Geographer tells us, they writ their very Contracts and Covenants, Bargains and Agreements, in Greek. The fore-mentioned Julius Caesar also writes,* 1.45 that there were Tablets found in the Camp of the Switzers, made up of Greek letters.

But, for all that, I would not have any one from hence rashly to ga∣ther, that the Greek Language was in use to that Age and People, or to these Philosophers and Lawyers. They made use of Greek letters, there∣fore

they had the Greek Tongue too; this truly were a pitiful consequence. At this rate the ••argum or Chaldee Paraphrase, as Paulus Merula has it, and Gorepius before him, would consist of the Hebrew Language, because 'tis Printed in Hebrew Characters: And the like may be said of the New Te∣stament in Syriack, done in Hebrew letters.

What? that those very Letters of the Greeks in Caesars time, and as we now write them, are rather Gallick (as borrowed from the Gauls) than Greek? He was acquainted with those Greek letters, but did not yet know the Gallick ones, which learned men do think the Greeks took for their Copy, after the Phoenician letters, which were not altogether unlike the Hebrew, were grown out of use. Consult for this Wol••gangus Lazius his Celtae, Becanus his Gallica, and if thou hast a mind, Annius his Archilochus, Xenophons Aequivoca, and what others write concerning Li∣nus, Cadmus, Palam••des, and Simonides, the first Inventors of the Alphabet.

In the mean time take this from me, that those ancient and rude Go∣thick Characters, which Bonaventure Vulcanius of Bruges, lately put forth,* 1.46 with a little comentary of one without a name, do very much re∣semble the Greek ones (as also the Russian Characters do at this day) and that those which are now Latin letters, were at first brought over into Italy out of Arcadia, along with Nicostrata the Mother of Evander, who was banished his Country.

But that which seems to put the matter out of all dispute, Caesar being about to write to Quintus Cicero,* 1.47 who was then besieged somewhere in Flanders, among the Nervians, by great rewards perswades a Chevalier, that was a Gaul, to carry the Letter for him: He sends it written in Greek, lest peradventure it being intercepted, the Enemy should come to know their design. To what purpose should he have done this, if that Chevalier, who was a Gaul, or if the Gauls, or if the very Druids themselves, who had the management of State, had been skilled in Greek?

Among the Western Hills of Denbeigh, a County in North-Wales, there is a place, as I read in our famous Chorographer, commonly cal∣led Ceregy-Drudion,

that is, the Druids Stones, and some small pil∣lars are seen at Yvoellas, inscribed with foreign Characters, which some suspect to have been those of the Druids.

Who if they have rea∣son so to suspect, I would to God, Time, with his rusty teeth, had spa∣red those Pillars, that so some light might shine from thence to clear this quarrel

If so be our interpretation of that form of Caesars speaking, which we brought, do not please (as to Strabo's testimony, that respects some∣what later times, and perhaps mainly concerns those who lived near the Sea-side) why mayst not thou,* 1.48 with that great Scholar Francis Hotoman be of opinion, that the word Graecis crept into this Story, either by the carelesness or confidence of Transcribers? For elsewhere in that very Author, where it is said, dextris humeris exertis, Justus Lipsius, the Prince of Criticks, remarks, that the word humeris is plainly redundant, thrust in perchance by the Vamper of that Story,* 1.49 Julius Celsus.

And what so great a man, of so great a judgment as he was, did cen∣sure of those Commentaries of Caesar, in his Book called Electa, or Choice Piece,* 1.50 take from himself thus.

I see many patches stitched into that Purple; nor doth the expression it self there every where breath to my Nostrils that golden (as I may so say) Gum, or liquid myrrh, of pure antiquity. Read it, read it over again, you will find many things idly

said, disjoynted, intricate, vampt, said over and over, that it is not unreasonable to think, but that some Novel and unskilful hand was added to this, as it were, statue of ancient work.

Therefore we may be easily cheated, if we stand upon such little scruples of words, as we shall meet with in one Julius or other, Caesar or Celsus.

CHAP. X.

The Druids reckoning of time. An Age consists of thirty Years. What Authors treat of the Druids. Their Doctrines and Customs savour of Pythagoras and the Cabalists. They were the eldest Philosophers and Lawyers among the Gentiles. Some odd Images of theirs in Stone, in an Abby near Voitland, described.

8.

THe Druids begun their Months and Years from the sixth Moon (so says Pliny) and that which they called an Age after the* 1.51 thirtieth year.

In the Attick account an Age or Generation, and that of a man in his prime and strength,* 1.52 was comprized within the same terms, according to the opinion of Heraclitus,* 1.53 and as it is in Herodotus; not had Nestor's triple Age a larger compass, if one may believe Eusta∣thius,

Tiberius drove these Druids out of the two Gallia's,* 1.54 Claudius banisht them out of Rome, and the worship of the true God Christ,* 1.55 sped them out of Britany.

What further appertains to the sacred Rites and Doctrine of the Dru∣ids, (not to speak further of Caesar) Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus Siculus, (by the way his Latin Version we do not owe to Poggius of Florence, as the Books published would make us believe,* 1.56 but to John Frea formerly Fellow of Baliol Colledge in Oxford, if we may believe an Original Copy in the Library of the said Colledge.) Beside these, Lucan, Pomponius Mela, Ammianus Marcellinus, and very lately Otho Heurnius, in his Antiquities of Barbarous Philosophy, and others have, with sufficient plainness, deli∣vered, yet so, that every thing they say savours of Pythagoras (and yet I am ne're a whit the more perswaded that Pythagoras ever taught in Merton-hall at Oxford, or Anaxagor as at Cambridge, as Cantilep and Lidgate have it) I and of the Cabalists too (for John Reuchlin hath compared the discipline of Pythagoras, and that of the Cabalists, as not much unlike.) Whether the Druids,* 1.57 says Lipsius, had their Metempsychosis or transmi∣gration of Souls, from Pythagoras, or he from them, I cannot tell.

The very same thing is alike to be said, concerning their Laws, and the Common-wealths which they both of them managed: They have both the same features as like as may be, as it was with Cneius Pompey, and Caius Vibius. For the Samian Philosopher did not only teach those secrets of Philosophy which are reserved, and kept up close in the inner shrine; but also returning from Egypt he went to Croton, a City of Italy, and there gave Laws to the Italians, (my Author is Laertius) and with near upon three hundred Scholars, governed at the rate,* 1.58 as it were of an Aristocracy. The Laws of Zale••cus and Charondas are commended and had in request.

These men, says Seneca, did not in a Hall of Justice,* 1.59 nor in an Inns of Court, but in that secret and holy retirement of Py∣thagoras,

learn those Institutes of Law, which they might propose to Sicily and to Greece, all over Italy, both at that time flourishing.

That holy and silent recess was perchance borrowed of the Druids: Forasmuch as what Clement of Alexandria witnesses,* 1.60 heretofore the more secret and mysterious Arts were derived from the Barbarians to the Greeks.

However the business be, it appears hence plainly, that the Druids were of the oldest standing among the Philosophers of the Gentiles, and the most ancient among their Guardians of Laws. For grant they were of Pythagoras his School, yet even at that rate they are brought back at least to the fiftieth or sixtieth Olympiad, or if thou wilt, to the Tyranny of the Tarquins, which is about two and twenty hundred years ago. 'Tis true, Pliny, Cicero, Austin, Eusebius disagree in this point; nor will I catch that mistake by the handle, which draws him, meaning Pythagoras, back to Numa's time.

To what hath been said, I shall not grudge to subjoyn a Surplage out of Conradus Celtes. He is speaking of some ancient Images of stone, which he had seen in a certain Abby at the foot of a Hill that bears Pines, commonly called Vichtelberg, in the Neighbourhood of Voitland, which he conceives did by way of Statue represent the Druids.

They were six in number, says he,* 1.61 at the door of the Temple niched into the Wall, of seven foot apiece in height, bare-footed, having their Heads un∣covered, with a Greekish Cloak on, and that Hooded, and a Satchel or scrip by their side, their Beard hanging down to their very Privities, and forked or parted in two about their Nostrils; in their Hands a Book and a Staff like that of Diogenes, with a severe Forehead and a melan∣choly Brow, stooping down with their Head, and fastening their Eyes on the ground.

Which description, how it agrees with those things which are recounted by Caesar and Strabo, concerning the Golden adorn∣ments, the dyed and coloured Vestures, the Bracelets, the shaved Cheeks and Chin of the Britans, and other things of the like kind, let them who are concerned look to that.

CHAP. XI.

The Britans and Gauls had Laws and Customs much alike, and whence that came, Some things common to them both, set down; in rela∣tion to the breeding of their Children, the Marrying of their Wives, the Governing of their Families, burning Women that killed their Husbands, and burning some Servants with the dead Master for company. Together with some Remarks of their publick Government.

BUt forasmuch as Britanny gave the beginnings and improvements to the discipline of these Druids, and both Britans and Gauls had their Government, Customs, Language, Rites sacred and profane, every thing almost the same, or much alike, as Mr. William Camden hath some while since most learnedly made out,* 1.62 O Mr. Camden, with what respect shall I name thee!

In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbrae Lustrabunt convext, ac dum Cynosura Britannos, Semper honos, noménque tuum, laudesque manebunt.

Which in hearty English makes this acknowledgment of his worth,

As long as Rivers run into the Main. Whilst Shades on Mountains shall the Welkin hide, And Britans shall behold the Northern Wain, Thy Honour, Name, and Praise shall still abide.

And it is evident, that a great part of Britany was once under the Go∣vernment of Divitiacus King of the Soissons, a People of France. There∣fore these following Remarks I thought not amiss to set down as British, whether they were imparted to this Isle by the ancient Gauls (by reason of its nearness) or whether the Gauls owed them to the Britans.

9. They do not suffer their Children to come to them in open sight, (they are Caesar's words) but when they are grown up to that Age, that they may be able to undergo Military duty and to serve in War.

10. The men, what mony they receive with their Wives upon ac∣count of portion, they lay down so much out of their own Estate upon an appraisement made to make a joint stock with the portion. There is an account jointly kept of all this mony, and the profits of it are re∣served; the longer liver is to have both shares, with the profits of the former times.

11. The men have power of life and death over their Wives, as well as over their Children.* 1.63 Hereupon Bodin charges Justinian with a falshood, for affirming that other people had not the same Fatherly power as the Romans had.

12. When a Master of a Family, who is of higher birth and quality, dies, his Kindred meet together, that if the manner of his death were suspicious, they may by torture, as Servants were used, examine the Wife concerning the business, and if she be found guilty, they torment her miserably and burn her alive.

To this story that most excellent Lawyer,* 1.64 and worthy Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Sir Ed••ward Coke, refers the antiquity of the Law, which we at this day use of devoting to the flames those wicked Baggages, who stain their hands with the nefarious murder of their Husbands.

13. Those Servants and Dependents, who were known to have been beloved by their Master in his life time, were, when the Funeral Rites were prepared, burnt with him for company.

14. It was ordered, that if any one by flying report or common same had heard any thing from the borders, that might concern the Com∣mon-wealth, he was to make it known to some Magistrate, and not impart it to any body else.

15. The Magistrates conceal those things they think fit, and what they judge may be of use to the Publick, they discover to the populace.

16. No body has leave to speak of the Common-wealth, or of pub∣lick affairs, but in Council or Parliament.

17. They came armed into the Council or to Parliament. So the custom of the Nation was,* 1.65 saith Livy; and Tacitus, the like of the Ger∣mans.

CHAP. XII.

Women admitted to publick debates. A large commendation of the Sex, together with a vindication of their fitness to govern; against the Salick Law, made out by several examples of most Nations.

18.

IT was grown a custom amongst them (we meet with this in Plutarch)* 1.66 that they treated of Peace and War with their wo∣men in company, and if any questions arose betwixt them and their Allies, they lest it to them to determine.

The same custom the Cecro∣pians, (that is, the people of Athens) once had, as Austin relates it out of Varro,* 1.67 before the women by majority of Vote carried it for Minerva against Neptune.

Away with you, Simonides, and whosoever you are, scoundrels, that unworthily abuse the finer and brighter Sex. Good Angerona, thou Goddess of Silence,* 1.68 wash, nay stop Enbulus his foul mouth, who denies there were ever any good women more than two in the world, to wit, chast Penelope, and Alcestis, who died in her Husbands stead.

How large an honour was paid to the counsels, the prudence, the virtue of the Gaulish Ladies in their chiefest affairs, and not without their desert? How much honour even at this day, is yearly paid at Or∣leance, on the eighth of May, to the Statue of Joan Darcy of Lorain, that stands on the bank of the River Loir;* 1.69 who obliged her dear Country with a Victory wonderfully got, when all had been lost.

To pass by other arguments, Antiquity holds this Sex to be equally divine as the Male. In Heaven, Sea, Earth, together with Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, who were the Gods that shared the world, there go∣verned Juno, Salacia, Proserpina, their Goddesses. Marry! in Varro's three fold Divinity, there are more she-Gods than he-Gods.

Ipsa quoque & cultu est,* 1.70 & nomine foemina Virtus.

Virtue her self, howe're it came, Is Female both in Dress and Name.

But I do not go to act over Caius Agrippa's part, by declaiming upon Female excellency. The thing it self speaks more than I can, and the subject is its own best Orator.

I must add one thing which Cornelius Tacitus tells us of the Britans,* 1.71

that they were wont to war under the conduct of women, and to make no difference of Sex in places of Command and Government.

Which places yet there are some who stiffiy deny, that Women by right should have the charge of; as being, what Euripides says of them,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.* 1.72

that is,

But ill for the stout feats of War, Who scarce to look on Iron dare.

But those Authors especially, who, propped up with the Salick Law (as they call it) write, that Males only are by right of inheritance ca∣pable of the Government of the French, they do hold and maintain this argument tooth and nail, with all the unkindness and spite as may be to the English Law, which admits of Women to the Throne. They urge, that not only the Laws of Pharamond, but Nature her self is on their side.* 1.73

The Government of women ('tis Bodin of Anjou sayes it) is contrary to the Laws of Nature, which hath bestowed upon men discretion, strength of body, courage and greatness of Spirit, with the power of Rule, and hath taken these things from women.

But, sweet Mr. Bodin, are not discretion, strength, courage and the arts of Government, more to be desired and required in those who have the Tuition of Kings in their Minority, than in the Kings them∣selves till they are come to age? Truly I am of that mind. For why then, pray tell me, did not that reason of yours wring the Guardian∣ship of St. Louis out of the hands of the Queen-Mother Blanch? why not out of Isabella's hands under Charles the Sixth? why not of Catha∣rine de Medicis, whilst the two Brothers Francis and Charles her Pupils were incircled with the Crown? why not out of the hands of Mary, Louis the Thirteenth being at this very time King?

Were the Jews, that I may go back to stories more ancient, blind, that they could not see the defects of Womens nature, in the Govern∣ment of Debora, who triumphed over Sisera, and is sufficiently com∣mended in Holy Writ? Were the Italians blind under the Government of the most prudent Amalasincta?* 1.74 the Halicarnassians, under that of the most gallant Artemisia? the Egyptians, among whom heretofore their Women managed Law-Courts and business abroad, and the men lookt to home and minded huswifery? and the Aethiopians under their Nicaula, whom being very desirous of wisdom, King Solomon, the wisest man that has been ever since the world was, honourably entertain'd? were the Assyrians, under the Government of their magnificent Semiramis? the Massagetes, under that of the revengeful Dame Thomyris? the Palmy∣re••es, under that of the most chaste Zenobia? and that I may make an end once, under that of other excellent women, all Nations whatever, none excepted but the Franks? who, as Goropius will have it, came to throw off and slight female Government upon this account,* 1.75 that in Vespaesian's time they had seen the affairs of their neighbours the Bructeri in East Friseland, whilst that scornful Hag Velleda ruled the roast, came to no good issue.

I do very well know, that our perjured Barons, when they resolved to exclude Queen Mawd from the English Throne, made this shameful pretence,

That it would be a shame, for so many Nobles to be subject to a woman.

And yet you shall not read, that the Iceni (our Essex∣men, &c.) got any shame by that Boadicia, whom Gildas terms a Lio∣ness, or that the Brigantes (i. e. York-shire-men, &c.) got any by Char∣tismandua. You will read, that they got glory and renown by them both.

Reader, thou canst not here chuse but think of our late Soveraign of Ever Blessed Memory, the Darling of Britan, Q. ELIZABETH, nor canst thou, whosoever thou art, but acknowledge,

That there was not wanting to a Woman (what Malmesbury writes of Sexburga the Queen Dowager of Cenwalch King of the West Saxons) a great Spi∣rit to discharge the duties of the Kingdom;* 1.76 she levied new Armies,

kept the old ones to duty; she governed her Subjects with Clemency, kept her Enemies quiet with threats; and in a word, did every thing at that rate, that there was no other difference betwixt her and any King in management, but her Sex.

Of whose (I mean Elizabeths) superlative and truly Royal Vertues a rare Poet, and otherwise a very Learned man, hath sung excellently well,

Si quasdam tacuisse velim,* 1.77 quamcunque tacebo Major erit: primos actus veteresque labores Pros••quar? ad sese revocant praesentia mentem. Justitiam dicam? magis at Clementia splendet. Victrices referam vires? plus vicit inermis.

'Tis pity these are not well rendred into English. However take them as they are in blank Verse.

Should I in silence some her Uertues pass, Which e're I so pass o're, will greater be: Shall I her first deeds and old facts pursue? Present affairs to them call back my mind. Shall I her Justice in due numbers sing? But then her Clemency far brighter shines. Or shall I her victorious Arms relate? In peace unarm'd she hath got more to th' State.

What did the Germans our Ancestors? they thought there was in that Sex something of Sanctity and foresight, nor did they slight their coun∣sels, nor neglect the answers they gave, when questions were put to them about matters of business; and as Superstition increased, held most of them for Goddesses.

Let him then, whatever dirty fellow it was, be condemned to the Crows (and be hang'd to him) who is not ashamed out of ancient Scrolls, to publish to the world, that they (Women) agree with Soldiers (Bully-Rocks and Hectors) mainly in this,

That they are continually very much taken up with looking after their body, and are given to lust, that Souldiers themselves are not, nor endeavour to be more quick and sudden in their Cheats and Over-reachings, that Soldiers deceive people at some distances of time, but women lye alwayes at catch, chouse and pillage their Gallants all the wayes they can; bring them into Consumptions with unreasonable sittings up;

And other such like mad rude expressions he useth, not unfitting for a Professor in Bedlam Colledge.

Plato allowed Women to govern,* 1.78 nor did Aristotle, (whatever the Interpreters of his Politicks foolishly say) take from them that privi∣ledge. Vertue shuts no door against any body, any Sex, but freely ad∣mits all. And Hermes Trismegistus that Thrice great man in his Poe∣mander according to his knowledge of Heavenly concerns (and that sure was great in comparison of what the Owl-ey'd Philosophers had) he ascribes the mystical name of Male-Female to the great Understand∣ing, to wit, God, the Governour of the Universe.

They (the good women I have been speaking of) from their Cradle (at this rate men commonly talk of them) do too much love to have the Reins of Government, and to be uppermost. Well! be it so, that

they do love to govern? and who is it doth not love them? Now a sin and shame be it for Lovers to grudge to their beloved, that which is most desired and wished by them: nor could I forbear out of consci∣ence with my suffrage, to assist as far as I could, that Sex, which is so great and comfortable an importance to mankind, so sweet a refresh∣ment amidst our sharpest toils, and the vicissitudes of life; and in a word, is the dearest gift that Dame Nature could bestow upon Man.

But let us now return to Caesar's Gauls again.

CHAP. XIII.

Their putting themselves under protection by going into great mens ser∣vice. Their Coins of money, and their weighing of it. Some sorts of flesh not lawful to be eaten by them.

19.

VEry many of them, when they are opprest with Debt or with great Taxes, or with the injurious oppression of great men, put themselves out to service to the Nobles. Over such they have the same Right or Authority, as Masters have over their Ser∣vants or Slaves.

These things following are expresly related also of the Britans themselves.

20.

They use Brass Coin or Rings (some read it, Plates) of Iron proportion'd to a certain weight, instead of money. But, (saith Soli∣nus, a more modern Historian) they dislike and disallow of Markets or Fairs or Money;* 1.79 they give and take Commodities by way of Barter.

Camden is of opinion, that the custom of Coining Money, came in along with the Romans among the Cattieuchlani, that is, the people of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Hartfordshire. He takes notice out of William the Conqueror's Book of Rates or Dooms-Day Book (which is seasonable to mention upon this Head of Coins) that as amongst the old Romans, so amongst our Ancestors, money was weighed (as Ger∣vase of Tilbury also tells us) and so told out and paid down. Now they paid Customs to the Romans; and for this purpose they had Coins stamped and marked with various shapes of living Creatures and Ve∣getables,* 1.80 which ever and anon are digged up out of the ground. And we read in a very ancient Chronicle of the Monastery of Abendon, which had two Kings Cissa and Ina for its founders, that at the laying the first foundations,* 1.81 there were found very old Coins engraven with the Pi∣ctures of Devils and Satyrs. One may very well suppose them to be British Coins.

21.

They do not think it lawful to taste of the flesh of Hare,* 1.82 or Hen, or Goose, and yet they keep these Creatures for pleasure and divertisement sake.

Why they forbore only Hare, and Hen, and Goose, I am not able to give the reason. I perceive something of Py∣thagoras,* 1.83 and something of the Jewish Discipline mixt. For that Philo∣sopher of Samos abstained from the eating of Flesh,* 1.84 not in general from all, but with a certain choice from that of some particular Creatures.

CHAP. XIV.

Community of Wives among the Britans, used formerly by other Nati∣ons also. Chalcondylas his mistake from our Civil Custom of Saluting. A rebuke of the foolish humour of Jealousie.

22.

THey have ten or twelve of them Wives in common amongst them, and especially Brothers with Brothers, and Fathers with their Sons, but what children are born of such Mothers, they are fathered upon them by whom they were first lain with, when they were Maids.

O villany and strange confusion of the rights of Nature!

Dii meliora piis,* 1.85 erroremque hostibus istum!

which in Christian English speaks thus.

Good God! For th' pious better things devise, Such Ill as this I wish not t' Enemies.

However let not this Platonick community of Wives be more reproach to the Britans, than that promiscuous Copulation which was used by the Thuscans, and before Cecrops his time (who for appointing Marri∣age, that is, joyning one Man and one Woman together, was termed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, i.e. as one may say Two-shaped) by the Athenians,* 1.86 (as Theopompus, Suidas and Athenaeus report it) was to them. Besides, Eusebius in his Evangelical Preparation writes, that our people for the most part were contented with one single Marriage.

Did not, may one think, Chalcondylas mistake Caesar's meaning, who a hundred years ago and upwards setting himself to write History at Athens, and peradventure over-carelesly drawing ancient Customs down to the last Age, ventured to affirm of the Britans his Contempo∣raries,

That when any one upon invitation enters the house of a friend,* 1.87 the Custom is, that he first lye with his friends Wife, and af∣ter that he is kindly entertained?

Or did that officious kiss, the Ear∣nest of welcome, which is so freely admitted by our Women from strangers and guests, which some take particular notice of as the cu∣stom of our Countrey,* 1.88 put a trick upon Chalcondylas, and bring him into that mistake?

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.* 1.89

sayes Theocritus of old, that is,

In empty kisses there is swéet delight.

And,

Qui vult cubare,* 1.90 pangit saltem suavium,

sayes the Servant in Plautus,

He that would a woman win, With a kiss he doth begin.

And that other fellow,

Quaero deinde illecebr••m stupri,* 1.91 principio eam suavium posco. And

Et jam illud non placet principium de osculo,* 1.92 sayes jealous Amphitruo to his wife Alcumena. And Agesilaus mistrusting his wanton Genius, refu∣sed the buss or salute of a handsome beautiful youth.* 1.93 For as he sayes,

—Parva leves capiunt animos,* 1.94

that is,

Small matters kindle the desire▪ And a loose Spirit's soon on fire.

This our Grecian knew well enough, and perchance thought of that unlucky hint,

—Si non & caetera sumpsit, Haec quoque, quae sumpsit, perdere dignus erat.

Moreover,* 1.95 that great Philosopher of Lawyers Baldus, hath set it down for a rule, that the Fathers consent and betrothal is ratified and made good by the Daughters admitting the Wooer to kiss her. Which point of Law it would be very ridiculous to imagine should concern us, with whom both Maids and married Women do easily afford, and civilly too, them that salute them a kiss, not such as Catullus speaks of Billing like Doves, hard Busses or wanton Smacks, but slight modest chaste ones, and such as Sisters give to Brothers. These civilities, when omitted, are alwayes signs of Clownishness; when afforded, seldom are account∣ed signs of Whorishness. Nor do the Husbands in this case (unless it be perhaps some Horn mad-Cuckold) with a wrinkled Forehead shake their Bull-feathers, or so much as mistrust any thing as upon jealousie of this custom.

It may be Chalcondylas being a little pur-blind, saw these passages as it were through a grated Lattice, and made ill use of his mistake: I mean, whilst he compared our Britans, who upon a Matrimonial confidence trust their Mates honesty, with the jealous Italians, Venetians, Spaniards, and even his own Countrey-men. Which people, it is a wonder to me, they should so warily, with so much diligence and mistrust set pin∣folds, cunning Spies and close attendance, Locks and Keys, and Bats and Bolts upon their Madonna's Chastity (most commonly in my conscience all to no purpose) when that which he has said is as good as Oracle, though a wanton one.

Quod licet,* 1.96 ingratum est: quod non licet, acriùs urit. Ferreus est, siquis, quod siuit alter, amat. Siqua, metu dempto, casta est, ea denique casta est: Quae, quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit. Qui timet, ut sua sit, nequis sibi subtrahat illam; Ille Machaoniâ vix ope sanus erit.

In English thus,

What's frée, 's unpleasant; what's not, moves desire. He's thick skull'd, who doth things allow'd admire. Who, fear aside, is chaste, she's chaste indéed; Who, cause she can't, forbears, commits the deed. Who's Wife mistrusts, and plays the jealous Whelp, Is mad beyond Physicians art and help.

Who does not know, that Natures byass runs to things forbidden? and he who attempts unlawful things, does more often lose those which are lawful. Marry! that free usage of the hot Baths of Baden in Ger∣many, Men and Women together, is much safer than being jealous.

—Quis non bonus omnia malit Credere,* 1.97 quàm tanto sceleri damnare puellam?

That is,

What good man would not take all in best sense, Rather by living undisturb'd and frée; Than by distrustful foolish Jealousie His Lady force to quit her Innocence?

But we have taken that pains upon a thing by the By, as if it were our proper business.

CHAP. XV.

An account of the British State under the Romans. Claudius wins a Battel, and returns to Rome in Triumph, and leaves A. Plautius to order affairs. A Colony is sent to Maldon in Essex, and to several other places. The nature of these Colonies out of Lipsius. Julius Agricola's Government here in Vespasian's time.

JVlius Caesar gave a sight of Britanny to posterity,* 1.98 rather than made a full discovery or a delivery of it. However Malmsbury sayes,

that he compelled them to swear obedience to the Latin Laws,

certainly he did scarce so much as abridge the inhabitants from the free use of their own Laws; for the very Tributes that were imposed upon them, they in a short time shook off, by revolting from the Roman yoke. The same liberty they used and enjoyed to all intents and purposes during Au∣gustus, Tiberius and Caligula's Reigns.

Aulus Plautius as General by order of Claudius Caesar, brought an Ar∣my into Britany.* 1.99 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (so saith Dio) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that is, The inhabitants at that time were subject to divers Kings of their own. He overcame in battel Prince Cradock and Togodunus the two Sons of King Cunobellinus; afterwards Claudius himself came over into the Island, fought a set battel; and having obtained the Victory, he took Maldon in Essex, the Royal City of Cunobellinus, disarmed the inhabi∣tants, left the government of them, and the subduing of the rest of the people to Plautius, and went back himself to Ro••e, where he was ho∣noured with a most splendid and stately Triumph. For this was he, of whom Seneca the Tragoedian speaks:

Cuique Britanni terga dedêre,* 1.100 Ducibus nostris ante ignoti, Jurisque sui.—

which may be thus Englished,

To whom bold Britans turn'd their back, T' our Captains formerly unknown, And govern'd by Laws of their own.

The Island being reduced great part under the Romans power, and into a Lieutenancy, a Colony is brought down to Maldon (in Essex) as Tacitus and Dio has it, with a strong party of Veterans,* 1.101 and is planted up and down in the Countrey they had taken,

as a supply against those that would rebel, and to train up their fellows or Allies to the duties of the Laws.

And old Stone speaks thus of that Colony,

CN. MUNATIUS M. F. PAL. AURELIUS.* 1.102 BASSUS PROC. AUG. PRAEF. FABRO. PRAEF. COH. III. SA∣GITARIORUM. PRAEF. COH. ITERUM. II. ASTURUM. CENSITOR. CIVIUM. ROMANORUM. COLONIAE. VICTRI∣CENSIS. QUAE. EST. IN. BRITANNIA. CAMALODUNI.

Besides, there was a Temple built and dedicated to Claudius Ara (or as Lipsius reads it Arra) Aeternae dominationis; that is, the Altar or Earnest of an eternal Government. But you will say, all this makes little to our purpose: yes, very much; as that which brings from abroad the Roman Orders, Laws, Fashions, and every thing into Britany. Near St. Albans, a Town in Hartfordshire, there was sure enough the seat of Cassibellinus called Verulams,* 1.103 and the Burghers, as we learn from Agel∣lius, were Citizens of Rome infranchized, out of their Corporations, using their own Laws and Customs, only partaking the same honorary priviledge with the people of Rome: but we have the Colony of Maldon in Essex, which upon another nearer account had all the Rights and Orders of the people of Rome derived to it from the freedom of that City, and was not at its own disposal, or to use its own Laws. And

〈1 page duplicate〉〈1 page duplicate〉

〈1 page duplicate〉〈1 page duplicate〉

the like was practised in this Island in more than one place. The Reverse of Sev••rus the Emperours Coyn shews it.

COL. EBORACUM. LEG. VI. VICTRIX.* 1.104

and the Coyn of Septimius Geta on either side.

COL. DIVANA. LEG. XX. VICTRIX.

This old Divana (which is the very same with Deunana in Ptolomy) if you make it English, is Chester the chief City of the Cornavians, that is, the people of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, &c. Again, there is a piece of and old Stone in the Walls of Bath in Somersetshire near the North Gate has this Inscription upon it,

DEC. COLONIAE. GLEV. VIXIT. ANN. LXXXVI.

Glevum was that then which Glocester is now.* 1.105 It may be Colchester had the same right of priviledge, unless you had rather derive its name from the River Coln that runs aside it. In a word (sayes Seneca to Al∣bina)

How many Colonies has this people of ours sent into all Pro∣vinces? Where ever the Roman conquers, he dwells.

See what abundance there was of them in British Province; whose form of Go∣vernment, and other Laws, that they were different from that of the Britans, we may plainly perceive from that very form of their constitu∣tion after their detachment; which I shall present you with out of that famous Antiquary, and every way most Learned and Celebrious person Justus Lipsius.

Their manner and method was (sayes he)

That the Lands should be divided to man by man, and that by three grave discreet persons, whom they used to chuse for this purpose,* 1.106 who did set out their par∣ticular Seats and Grounds, and the Town it self (if there were one to be built) and prescribed them Rules and Rights, and the form as it were of a new Common-wealth: Yet in that manner, that all things might bear a resemblance of Rome and the Mother City; and that in the very places themselves the Courts of Law, the Capitols, the Temples, the State-houses or Town-halls might be according to that model, and that there might be in the Government or Magistracy two persons as Bailiffs in most places, like the two Consuls at Rome; in like manner Surveyors and Scavengers, Aldermen of the Wards and Headboroughs, instead of a Senate or Common Council as we may call it.

* 1.107 This is Lipsius his account; so that Beatus Gildas is not much out of the way, when he sayes, it was reckoned not Britannia, but Romania. And an ancient Copy of Verses, which Joseph Scaliger has rescued out of its rust and mouldiness, has it:

Mars pater, & nostrae gentis tutela Quirine, Et magno positus Caesar uterque polo; Cernitis ignotos Latiâ sub Lege Britannos, &c.

that is, in English,

Sire Mars, and Guardian of our State Quirinus hight after thy fate, And Caesars both plac'd near the Pole With your bright Stars ye do behold, And th' unknown Britans aw, T' observe the Roman Law.

The stately Seraglio or Building for the Emperours Women at Venta* 1.108 Belgarum (a City at this day called Winchester) and other things of that kind I let pass.

In the time of the Emperours V••spasian, Titus and Domitian, Julius Agricola, Tacitus his Wives Father, was Lord Deputy Lieutenant here.* 1.109 He encouraged the Barbarous people to Civil fashions, insomuch that they took the Roman habit for an honour, and almost every body wore a Gown; and as Juvenal has it in his Satyr,

Gallia Causidicos docuit facunda Britannos.* 1.110

The British Lawyers learnt of yore, From the well-spoken French their lore: T' imply, hereafter we should sée Our Laws themselves in French would be.

CHAP. XVI.

In Commodus his time King Lucy embraces the Christian Religion, and desires Eleutherius then Pope, to send him the Roman Laws. In stead of Heathen Priests, he makes three Arch-Bishops and twenty eight Bishops. He endows the Churches, and makes them Sanctuaries. The manner of Government in Constantine's time, where ends the Roman account.

IN Commodus the Emperours time the Light of the Gospel shone afresh upon the Britans. Lucius the first King of the Christians (for the Romans, as in other places, so in Britany, made use of even Kings for their instruments of slavery) by the procurement of Fugatius and Damianus* 1.111 did happily receive from Pope Eleutherius the Seal of Regeneration (that is, Baptism) and the Sacred Laws of eternal salvation. He had a mind also to have the Civil Laws thence, and desired them too. Ovid long since had so prophesied of Rome:

Juráque ab hàc terrâ caetera terra petet.* 1.112

that is,

And from this Countrey every other Land Their Laws shall fetch, and be at her command.

Now Eleutherius wrote him this answer:

You have desired of us,* 1.113 that the Roman and Caesarean Laws may be sent over to you; that you may, as you desire, use them in your Kingdom of Britanny. The Ro∣man and Caesarean Laws we may at all times disprove of, but by no means the Laws of God. For you have lately through Divine mercy taken upon you in the Kingdom of Britanny the Law and Faith of Christ; you have with you in the Kingdom both pages of Holy Writ, (to wit, the Old and New Testament). Out of them, in the name and by the favour of God, with the advice of your Kingdom, take your Law, and by it through Gods permission, you may govern your Kingdom of Britanny. Now you for your part are Gods Vicegerent in your Kingdom.

Howsoever by injury of time the memory of this great and Illustrious Prince King Lucy hath been imbezill'd and smuggled, this upon the credit of the ancient Writers appears plainly, that the pitiful fopperies of the Pagans, and the Worship of their Idol-Devils did begin to flag, and within a short time would have given place to the Worship of the true God, and that Three Arch-Flamens and Twenty Eight Flamens, i. e. Arch-Priests, being driven out, there were as many Arch-Bishops and Bishops put into their rooms (the Seats of the Arch-Bishops were at London, at York and at Caerleon in Wales)

to whom, as also to other Religious persons, the King granted Possessions and Territories in abundance, and confirmed his Grants by Charters and Patents. But he ordered the Churches (as he of Monmouth and Florilegus tell us) to be so free, that whatsoever Malefactor should fly thither for refuge, there he might abide secure, and no body hurt him.

In the time of Constantine the Emperour (whose Pedigree most people do refer to the British and Royal Blood) the Lord President of France was Governour of Britanny.* 1.114 He together with the rest, those of Illyri∣cum or Slavonia, of the East and of Italy, were appointed by the Empe∣rour. In his time the Lord Deputy of Britanny,* 1.115 (whose Blazonry was a Book shut with a green Cover) was honoured with the Title of Spe∣ctabilis. There were also under him two Magistrates of Consular Dig∣nity, and three Chief Justices (according to the division of the Province into five parts) who heard and determined Civil and Criminal Causes.

And here I set up my last Pillar concerning the Britans and the Roman Laws in Britanny, so far forth as those Writers which I have, do supply me with matter.

CHAP. XVII.

The Saxons are sent for in by Vortigern against the Scots and Picts, who usurping the Government, set up the Heptarchy. The Angles, Jutes, Frisons, all called Saxons. An account of them and their Laws, taken out of Adam of Bremen.

AFterwards the Scots and Picts making incursions on the North, and daily havock and waste of the Lands of the Provincials, (that is, those who were under the Roman Government) they send to desire of the Romans some Auxiliary Forces. In the mean time, Rome by a like misfortune, was threatned with imminent danger, by the fury of the Goths: all Italy was in a fright, in an uproar. For the maintaining of whose liberty, the Empire being them more then sinking, was with all its united strength engaged and ready prepared. So this way the Britans met with a disappointment. Wherefore Vortigern, who was Gover∣nour in Chief, sent for supplies from the neighbouring Germans, and invited them in. But according to the Proverb, Carpathius leporem; He caught a Tartar: for he had better have let them alone where they were. Upon this account, the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes, the Fries∣landers arrive here in their Gally-Foists in the time of Theodosius the younger. At length being taken with the sweetness of the soil (a great number of their Countrey-men flocking over after them, as there were at that time fatal flittings and shiftings of quarters all the World over) and spurred on with the desire of the chief command and rule, having struck up a League with the Picts, they raise a sad and lamentable War against their new entertainers, in whose service they had lately receiv∣ed pay: and to make short, in the end having turned the Britans out of their Ancestors Seats they advanced themselves into an Heptarchy of En∣gland, so called from them.

Albeit they pass by various names, yet in very deed they were all of them none other but Saxons. A name at that time of a large extent in Germany; which was not, as later Geographers make it, bounded with the Rivers of the Elb, of the Rhine and the Oder, and with the Con∣fines of Hessen and Duringen, and with the Ocean; but reached as far as into the Cimbrian Chersonesus now called Jutland. It is most likely, that those of them that dwelt by the Sea-side, came over by Ship into Bri∣tanny. To wit, at first Hors••s and Hengistus came over out of Batavia, or the Low Countreys, with a great company of Saxons along with them; after that out of Jutland the Jutes (for Janus Douza proves,* 1.116 that the Danes under that appellation seised our Shores, in the very begin∣ning of the Saxon Empire:) out of Angela, according to Camden about Flemsburg a City of Sleswick,* 1.117 came the Angles; out of Friseland (Proco∣pius is my Author) the Frizons. One may without any wrong call them all Saxons; unless Fabius Quastor Aethelwerd also did his Nation injury, by calling them so. He flourished Six hundred and fifty years ago,* 1.118 being the Grand-child or Nephew of King Aethelulph, and in his own words discourses,

That there was also a people of the Saxons all along the Sea-coast from the River Rhine up to the City Donia, which is now commonly called Denmark.

For it is not proper here to think

of Denmark in the neighbouring Territories of Vtrecht and Amsterdam, by reason of the narrowness of that tract.

Those few Observes then,* 1.119 which Adam of Bremen hath copied out of Einhard concerning the Saxons, forasmuch as our Ancient Saxons I sup∣pose, are concerned in them, I here set down in this manner and order.

CHAP. XVIII.

The Saxons division of their people into four ranks. No person to mar∣ry out of his own rank. What proportion to be observed in Mar∣riages according to Policy. Like to like the old Rule. Now Matrimony is made a matter of money.

23. THe whole Nation consists of four different degrees or ranks of men; to wit,

of Nobles, of Free-men born, of Free-men made so,* 1.120 and of Servants or Slaves.

And Nithard speaking of his own time, has divided them into Ethelings, that is, Nobles, Frilings, that is, Free-men, and Lazzos, that is, Servants or Slaves.

It was enacted by Laws,

That no rank in cases of Matrimony do pass the bounds of their own quality; but that a Noble-man marry a Noble-woman, a Free-man take a Free-woman, a Bond-man made Free be joyned to a Bond-woman of the same condition, and a Man-servant match with a Maid-servant.

And thus in the Laws of Henry Duke of Saxony, Emperour Elect, concerning Justs and Tournaments,

When any Noble-man had taken a Citizen or Countrey-woman to Wife, he was forbid the exercise of that sport to the third Genera∣tion, as Sebastian Munster relates it.

* 1.121 The Twelve Tables also forbad the marriage of the Patricii or Nobles with the Plebeians or Commons; which was afterwards voided and nulled by a Law which Canuleius made, when he was Tribune of the people. For both Politicians and Lawyers are of opinion, That in marriages we should make use of not an Arithmetical proportion, which consists of equals; nor of a Geome∣trical one, which is made up of likes; but of a Musical one, which pro∣ceeds from unlike notes agreeing together in sound. Let a Noble-man that is decayed in his estate, marry a Commoner with a good fortune; if he be rich and wealthy, let him take one without a fortune: and thus let Love,* 1.122 which was begot betwixt Wealth and Poverty, suite this unlikeness of conditions into a sweet harmony; and thus this disagree∣ing agreement will be fit for procreation and breed. For he had need have a good portion of his own, and be nearer to Crassus than Irus in his fortunes, who, by reason of the many inconveniencies and intolerable charges of Women, which bring great Dowries, doth, with Megadorus in Plautus,* 1.123 court a Wife without a Portion; according to that which Mar∣tial sayes to Priscus:

Vxorem quare locupletem ducere nolim* 1.124 Quaeritis? Vxori nubere nolo meae. Inferior Matrona suo sit, Prisce, Marito: Non aliter fiunt foemina virque pares.

Which at a looser rate of Translation take thus,

Should I a Wife with a great fortune wed, You'l say, I should be swéetly brought to bed. Such fortune will my Liberty undo. Who brings Estate, will wear the Bréeches too. Unhappy match! where e're the potent Bride Hath the advantage wholly on her side. Blest pairs! when the Men sway, the Women truckle, There's good agréement, as 'twixt Thong and Buckle.

And according to that of the Greek Poet,

—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.* 1.125

Take, if you'l be rul'd by me, A Wife of your own degrée.

But there is little of our Age fashioned to the model of this sense: Height of Birth, Vertue, Beauty, and whatsoever there was in Pandora of Good and Fair,* 1.126 do too too often give place to Wealth; and that I may use the Comedians word, to a Purse crammed with Money. And as the merry Greek Poet sayes,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.127 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

To be Noble or high-born, Is no argument for Love: Good Parts of Bréeding lye forlorn; 'Tis Money only they approve.

I come back now to my friend Adam.

CHAP. XIX.

The Saxons way of judging the Event of War with an Enemy. Their manner of approving a proposal in Council, by clattering their Arms. The Original of Hundred-Courts. Their dubbing their Youth into Men. The priviledge of young Lads Nobly born. The Morganheb or Wedding-dowry.

24.

THey take a Prisoner of that Nation,* 1.128 with which they are to have a War, by what way soever they can catch him, and chose out one of their own Countrey-men; and putting on each of them the Arms of their own Countrey, make them two fight toge∣ther, and judge of the Victory, according as the one or the other of them shall overcome.

This very thing also Tacitus himself hath, to whom Einhard sends his Reader. For though he treat in general of the Germans, yet nevertheless without any question, our Saxons brought over along with them into this Island very many of those things, which are delivered to us by those who have wrote concerning the Customs of the Germans. Among which, take these following.

25.

In Councils or publick Assemblies, the King or Prince, (i. e. a chief person) according as every ones Age is, according to his Nobi∣lity, according to his Reputation in Arms, according to his Eloquence, has audience given him, where they use the authority of perswading, rather than the power of commanding. If they dislike what he sayes, they disapprove it with a Hum and a rude noise. If they like the proposal, they shake and rustle their Spears or Partisans together. It is the most honourable kind of assent, to commend the Speaker with the clattering of their Arms.

From hence perhaps arose the ancient right of Wapentakes.

26.

There are also chosen at the same Councils or Meetings, chief persons (as Justices) to administer Law in the several Villages and Hamlets. Each of those have a hundred Associates out of the Com∣monalty for their Counsel and Authority.

This is plainly the pour∣traict of our Hundreds, which we still have throughout the Counties of England.

27.

They do nothing of publick or private affair, but with their Arms on; but it is not the custom for any one to wear Arms, before the City or Community approve of him as sufficient for it. Then in the Council it self, either some one of the Princes or chief persons, or the Father of the young man or some Kinsman of his in token of respect, give him a Shield and a Partisan. This with them stands for the Ceremony of the Gown; this the first honour of youth arriving at manhood; before this be done, they seem but a part of the Fami∣ly:

but after this is over, they are a part of the Common-wealth. The right ancient pattern of dubbing Knights, if any where else to be found.* 1.129 Julius Caesar sayes almost the very same thing of the Gauls.

They do not suffer their Children, to come in publick to them, till they be come to Age, that they be able to undergo the Duties of War.

28.

A remarkable Nobleness of descent, or the high merits of their Fathers, procure even to young Lads the dignity and esteem of a Prince.

* 1.130 For, as the Philosopher sayes, We owe this regard to Ver∣tues, that we respect them, not only whilst present, but also when they are taken away out of our sight; and in the Wife mans account,* 1.131 The glory of Parents, is the honour of their Children.

29.

The Wife doth not bring the Husband a Portion, but the Husband gives the Wife a Dowry.

Contrary to what the Roman Law saith, That custom is still in use with the English, as Morgangheb in other places.

CHAP. XX.

Their severe punishments of Adultery, by maiming some parts of the body. The reason of it given by Bracton. The like practised by Danes and Normans.

30.

THe Husband if his Wife playes the Whore, cuts off her hair, strips her naked, and turns her out of doors in presence of her Kindred, and drives her through the Streets, lashing or beating her as she goes along.

They were formerly in this Northern part of the World, most severe punishers of Adultery, and they ahd such Laws as were

—ipsis Marti Venerique timenda;* 1.132

that is, such as would

Put Mars and Venus in a trance Of fear, amidst their dalliance.

King Knute ordered,* 1.133 That a Wife, who took another Passenger on board her than her Husband, and

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

Oft times ith' nights away she hies, And into other harbour flyes.* 1.134

(Well speed thee and thine, fair Venus; nor do I willingly bring these ill tidings to thy tender Ducklings.) should have her Nose and ears cut off.

I remember,* 1.135 Antinous in Homer threatens Irus with the chopping off his Nose, Ears and Privities; and Vlysses inflicts that very punishment upon his Goat-herd Melanthius, for his having been too officious in his pimping attendance upon the Gallants, that haunted the house in his absence. How any one should deserve this penalty, which so disfigures Nature, I do not yet sufficiently understand.

Heraclid••s Ponticus informs us,* 1.136 That Law-makers were wont to maim that part especially which committed the misdemeanour. In testimony of this, he mentions Tytius his Liver as the Shop and Work-house of Lust; and it were not hard matter to bring in other more pertinent in∣stances; and

Pereant partes, quae nocuere.

saith some Poet,

The parts that did the hurt, Let them e'en suffer for't.

However it was not Melanthius his Ears, and by no means his Nose that offended; no nor the good Wives neither that commits the fact: as Martial the merry Wag tells a certain Husband,

Quis tibi persuasit nares abscindere moecho?* 1.137 Non hàc peccata est parte, marite, tibi.

that is, with modesty to render it,

What made thee, angry man, to cut The Nose of him, that went to rut? 'Twas not that part, that did th' offence: Therefore to punish that, what sense?

But who doth not see, that a Woman hath no other parts of her body so lyable to maiming or cutting off? Both those parts make much for the setting her off; nor are there any others in the whole outward frame of the Microcosm, which being cut off, do either more disparage beauty, or withal less afflict the animal vertue, as they call it, by which life is maintain'd. Now for those, who of old time did unlucki∣ly, that is, without the favour of those Heathen Gods Prema and Muti∣nus, to whose service they were so addicted, offer violence to untain∣ted chastity;

the loss of members did await the lust of such persons, that there might be member for member

(they are the words of Hen∣ry Bracton,* 1.138 a very ancient Writer of our Law, and they are clear testi∣monies, that the English have practised the Law of like for like) quia virgo, cùm corrumpitur, membrum amittit, & ideò corruptor puniatur in eo in quo deliquit:* 1.139 oculos igitur amittat propter aspectum decoris, quo virgi∣nem concupivit; amittat & testiculos, qui calorem stupri induxerunt. So long ago,

Aut linguam aut oculos aut quae tibi membra pudorem* 1.140 Abstulerant, ferro rapiam.

sayes Progne to her Sister Philomele, speaking of the filthy Villain Te∣reus, who had ravished her,

I'le cut out his eyes or tongue, Or those parts which did thée the wrong.

and Plautus in his Play called Paenulus, Sy. Facio quod manifesto moechi haud ferme solent. Mi. Ruid id est? Sy. Referovasa salva.

I remember I have read that Jeoffry de Millers a Nobleman of Norfolk,* 1.141 for having inticed the Daughter of John Briton to an Assignation, and ingaged her with venereal pledges; being betrayed and trepann'd by the Baggage, underwent this execution; and suffered besides, whatso••ver a Fathers fury in such a case would prompt him to do: But withal, that King Henry the third was grievously offended at it, dis-inherited Briton, banished him,* 1.142 and gave order by Proclamation, that no one should pre∣sume, unless it were in his Wives case, to do the like. But these passa∣ges are of later date, and since the Normans time and from them; unless you will bring hither that which we meet with in Alured's Law concern∣ing* 1.143 a Man and a Maid-servant.

From whence we slide back again to Tacitus.

CHAP. XXI.

The manner of Inheriting among them. Of deadly Feuds. Of Wer∣gild or Head-mony for Murder. The Nature of Country-Tenures and Knights Fees.

31.

EVery ones Children are their Heirs and Successors, and there was no Will to be.

Nor was it lawful with us down to our Grandfathers time, to dispose of Country Farms or Estates by Will, un∣less it were in some Burroughs, that had a peculiar Right and Priviledge of their own.

If there be no Children, then, says he, the next of kin shall inherit;

Brethren, or Uncles by the Fathers or Mothers side. Those of the ascending Line are excluded from Inheritances, and here appears the preference of the Fathers side: A Law at this very day usual with the English.

32.

To undertake the Enmities rather than the Friendships, whether of ones Father or Kinsman, is more necessary.

Capital enmities, which they call Deadly Feuds, are well known to our Northern people.

Nor do they hold on never to be appeased: For even Murder is expia∣ted by a certain number of some head of Cattel, and the whole Family of the murdered Person receives satisfaction.

Murders formerly were bought off with Head-mony called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; though one had killed a Nobleman, nay the King himself, as we may see in Athelstan's Constitu∣tions: But good manners, I suppose, have prevailed above Laws.

33.

The Lord imposes upon his Tenant a certain quantity of Corn or Cattel, or Clothes.

We see here clearly enough the nature of Coun∣try Land-holders, Fees or Tenures. As to military or Knights Fees, give me leave to set that down too.* 1.144 Dionysius Halicarnasseus gives us a very ancient draught and model of them in the Trojans and Aborigines: Florus in the Cymbrians, and Lampridius in Alexander Severus. Both the Nor∣thern people and the Italians do owe them to the Huns and Lombards; but these later according to a more modern form.

Let these things suffice out of Cornelius Tacitus, which belong to this Head.

CHAP. XXII.

Since the return of Christianity into the Island, King Ethelbert's Law against Sacriledge. Thieves formerly amerced in Cattel. A blot upon Theodred the Good, Bishop of London, for hanging Thieves. The Country called Engelond by Order of King Eg∣bert, and why so called. The Laws of King Ina, Alfred, E∣thelred, &c. are still to be met with in Saxon. Those of Ed∣ward the Confessor, and King Knute the Dane, were put forth by Mr. Lambard in his Archaeonomia.

BEfore that the Christian Doctrine had driven out and banished the Saxon Idolatry, all these things I have hitherto been speaking of, were in use. Ethelbert (he that was the first King, not only of Kent, but of all England, except Northumberland) having been baptized by Au∣stin the Monk, the Apostle, as some call him, of the English)

amongst other good things which by Counsel and Grant he did to his Nation, ('tis venerable Bede speaks these words) he did also with the advice of wise men,* 1.145 appoint for his peoples use the orders of their proceedings at Law, according to the examples of the Romans. Which having been written in the English tongue (says he) are hitherto, or to this time kept and observed by them. Among which orders or decrees he set down in the first place, after what manner such an one should make amends, who should convey away by stealth any of those things that belonged to the Church, or to a Bishop, or to the rest of the Orders.

In the Laws of some that came after him, as those of King Alured (who cull'd out of Ethelbert's Acts to make up his own) and those of King Athelstan, Thieves make satisfaction with mony; accordingly as Tacitus says of the Germans,

That for lighter offences those that were convicted are at the rate of their penalties amerced such a number of Horses or other Cattel.

For,* 1.146 as Festus hath it, before Brass and Silver were coyned, by ancient custom they were fined for their faults so much Cattel: But those who medled with any thing sacred, we read had that hand cut off with which they committed the theft.

Well! but am I mistaken,* 1.147 or was Sacriledge even in the time of the Saxon Government punisht as a Capital crime? There is a passage of William of Malmsbury,* 1.148 in his Book de Gestis Pontificum, that inclines me to think so. Speaking of Theodred, the Bishop of London when Athelstan was King,* 1.149 he says,

That he had among the common people got the sirname of Theodred the Good; for the eminence of his virtues: Only in one thing he fell short, which was rather a mistake than a crime, that those Thieves which were taken at St. Edmunds, whom the holy Martyr had upon their vain attempts tied with an invisible knot

(he means St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk;* 1.150 which Church these Fellows having a design to rob, are said by miracle to have stood still in the place, as if they had been tied with Cords: These Thieves Isay)

were by his means or sufferance given up to the severity of the Laws, and condemned to the Gallows or Gibbet.

Let not any one think that in this middle Age, this Gallows or Gibb••t I spoke of, was any other thing than the Roman Furca,

upon which people hang and are strangled till they die.

34.

Egbert King of the West-Saxons (I make use of Camdens words) having gotten in four Kingdoms by conquest, and devour'd the other two also in hope, that what had come under the Government of one, might likewise go under one name; and that he might keep up the memory of his own people the Angles, he gave order by Proclamation, that the Heptarchy which the Saxons had possest, should be called En∣gelond.

John Carnotensis writes, that it was so called from the first co∣ming in of the Angles; and another some body says it was so named from Hengist a Saxon Prince.

There are a great many Laws of King Ina, Alfred, Edward, Athelstan, Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred, and Knute the Dane, written in the Saxon language; which have lasted till these very times.

For King Knute gave order ('tis William of Malmsbury speaks) that all the Laws which had been made by former Kings, and especially by his Predecessor E∣thelred, should under pain of his displeasure and a Fine, be constantly ob∣served: For the keeping of which, even now in the time of those who are called the Good, people swear in the name of King Edward; not that he appointed them, but that he observed them.

The Laws of Edward, who for his piety has the sirname of Confessor, are in Readers hands. These of the Confessor were in Latin; those others of Knute were not long since put into Latin by William Lambard a learned man, and one very well vers'd in Antiquity; who had recovered them both, and published the Saxon Original with his Translation over against it, Printed by John Day at London, Anno 1567. under the Title of Archaeono∣mia, or a Book concerning the ancient Laws of the English. May he have a good harvest of it as he deserves.

From Historians let us borrow some other helps for this service.

CHAP. XXIII.

King Alfred divides England into Countyes or Shires, and into Hundreds and Tythings. The Original of Decenna or Court∣leet, Friburg, and Mainpast. Forms of Law, how Peo∣ple were to answer for those whom they had in Borgh or Main∣past.

35.

INgulph the Abbot of Crowland,* 1.151 writing of King Alfred says: That he was the first of all that changed the Villages or Lordships and Pro∣vinces of all England into Counties or Shires.

Before that it was reckon∣ed and divided according to the number of Hides or Plough-lands by lit∣tle districts or quarters. He divided the Counties into Hundreds and Ty∣things; (it was long before that Honorius,* 1.152 Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, had parted the Country into Parishes; to wit, Anno 636.) that every

Native home-born lawful man, might be in some Hundred and Tything (I mean whosoever was full twelve years of age) and if any one should be suspected of Larceny or Theft,* 1.153 he might in his own Hundred or Ward, being either condemned or giving security (in some Manuscripts it is being acquitted) he might either incur or avoid the deserved pe∣nalty. William of Malmsbury adds to this, that he that could not find security was afraid of the severity of the Laws; and if any guilty per∣son, either before his giving security or after, should make his escape, all of that Hundred and Tything should incur the Kings fine.

Here we have the Original of Decenna or a Court-leet, of Friburg, and perhaps of Mainpast: Which things though grown out of use in the pre∣sent Age;* 1.154 yet are very often mentioned, not only in the Confessors Laws, but also in Bracton and in other Records of our Law.

What Decenna was,* 1.155 the word it self does almost shew: And Ingulph makes out, that is, a Dousin or Courtleet.

Friburg or Borgh signifies a Surety; for Fri is all one as free.

He who passes his word for anothers good behaviour, or good abear∣ing, and is become his security; is said to have such a one in his Borgh: Being ingaged upon this account to the Government, to answer for him if he misbehave himself. And hence it is, that our people in the Coun∣try call those that live near them, or as I may say at the next door, Neighbours: When yet those that would find out the reason why the people of Liege in the Low Countries are called Eburones, do understand that Burgh, which is the same as Borgh, to stand for a Neighbour; and this is plainly affirmed by Pontus Heuterus,* 1.156 in other Originations of the like kind.

Manupastus is the same thing as a Family: As if one would say, fed by hand.* 1.157 Just in the like sence Julius Pollux, in Greek terms a Master of a Family, Trophimos; that is, the feeder of it.

That the Rights of Friburg and Manupast were in use with the English some five or six Generations ago,* 1.158 is manifest. Curio a Priest is fined by Edward the third, because there had been one of his Family a Murderer. And the ancient Sheets concerning the Progress or Survey of Kent under Edward the second,* 1.159 do give some light this way.

Ralph a Milner of Sandon, and Roger a Boy of the said Ralph in Borgh of* 1.160 Twicham;

(Cri∣tick

whoever you are, I would not have you to laugh at this home spun Dialect)

came by night to the Mill of Harghes, and then and there mur∣dered William the Milner; and carried away his Goods and Chattels and presently fled: It is not known whither they are gone, and the Ju∣ry mistrusts them the said Ralph and Roger concerning the death of the aforesaid William; therefore let them be driven out and out-lawed. They had no Chattels, but the aforesaid Ralph was in Borgh of Simon Godwin of Tw••cham, who at present has him not; and therefore lies at mercy: And Roger was not in Borgh, but was of the Mainpast of Ro∣bert Arch-Bishop of Canterbury deceased; there being no Engleshire pre∣sented, the Verdit is, the murder upon the Hundred. The first disco∣verer of it and three Neighbours are since dead; and Thomas Broks, one of the Neighbours, comes and is not mistrusted; and the Villages of Wimesbugewelle and Egestoun did not come fully to the Coroners Inquest and are therefore at mercy. And about the same time, Solomon Ro•• of Ickham came to the House of Alice the Daughter of Dennis W••••nes, and beat her and struck her upon the Belly with a staff; so that she dy∣ed presently. And the foresaid Solomon presently fled, and the Jury mistrust him concerning the death aforesaid; therefore let him be dri∣ven out and be outlawed. He had no Chattels, nor was he in Borgh because a Vagrant:

The Verdit, the murder lies upon the Hundred. &c. And according to this form more such Instances.

But let it suffice to have hinted at these things, adding out of Henry Bracton;* 1.161

If out of Frank-pledge an Offender be received in any Village, the Village shall be at mercy; unless he that fled be such an one, that he ought not to be in Leet and Frank-pledge; as Nobles, Knights, and their Parents (their eldest Sons it is in the yearly Records of Law in Ed∣ward the first's time;* 1.162 and we may take in Daughters too) a Clergy∣man, a Freeman, (I fear this word has crept in) and the like, according to the custom of the Country; and in which case he, of whose Family and Mainpast they were, shall be bound in some parts, and shall an∣swer for them; unless the custom of the Country be otherways, that he ought not to answer for his Mainpast, as it is in the County of Hertford, where a man does not answer for his Mainpast for any of∣fence, unless he return after Felony, or he receive him after the offence committed, as in the Circuit of M. de Pateshull in the County of Hert∣ford, in such a year of King Henry the fifth.

In sooth these usages do partly remain in our Tythings and Hundreds, not at all hitherto repealed or worn out of fashion.

CHAP. XXIV.

King Alfred first appointed Sheriffs. By Duns Scotus his advice, he gave Order for the breeding up of Youth in Learning. By the way, what a Hide of Land is. King Edgar's Law for Drink∣ing. Prelates investiture by the Kings Ring and Staff. King Knute's Law against any English-man that should kill a Dane. Hence Englescyre. The manner of Subscribing and Sealing till Edward the Confessor's time. King Harald's Law that no Welch-man should come on this side Offa's Dike with a weapon.

36.

THe Governors of Provinces who before were styled Deputy-Lieutenants (we return to Ingulph and King Alfred) He di∣vided into two Offices; that is, into Judges, whom we now call Ju∣stices, and into Sheriffs, who do still retain the same name.

Away then with Polydore Virgil, who fetches the first Sheriffs from the Norman Con∣queror.

37. John Scot Erigena advised the King, that he would have his Subjects instructed in good Letters; and that to that end he would by his Edict take care of that which might be for the benefit of Learning. Where∣upon

he gave strict order to all Freemen of the whole Kingdom,* 1.163 who did at least possess two Hides of Land, that they should hold and keep their Children till the time of fifteen years of their Age, to learning; and should in the mean time diligently instruct them to know God.

A Hide of Land, that I may note it once for all, and a Plough-Land (that is as much Land as can be well turned up and tilled with one Plough every year) are read as synonymous terms of the same sence, in Hunting∣don, Matthew Paris, Thomas Walsingham; and expresly in a very old Charter of Dunstan. Although some take a Hide for an hundred Acres, and others otherwise; do thou, if thou hadst rather so do, fansie it to be as much ground as one can compass about with a Bull-hide cut into Thongs, as Queen Dido did at Carthage: There are some who are not un∣willing to have it so understood.

38. King Edgar like a King of good Fellows, or Master of Revels, made a Law for Drinking.

He gave order that studs or knobs of Silver or Gold (so Malmsbury tells us) should be fastned to the sides of their Cups or drinking Vessels, that when every one knew his mark or boundary, he should out of modesty, not either himself covet or force another to desire more than his stint.

This is the only Law before the first Parlia∣ment under King James, has been made against those Swill-bowls,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.164

Swabbers of drunken Feasts and lusty Rowers, In full brimm'd Rummers that do ply their Dars.

who by their carowses (tipling up Nestor's years, as if they were cele∣brating the Goddess Anna Perenna) do at the same time drink others Healths, and mischief and spoil their own and the Publick.

39.

There was no choice of Prelates (these are the words of Ingulph again) that was merely free and canonical; but the Court conferred all Dignities, as well of Bishops as of Abbots, by the Kings Ring and Staff, according to his good pleasure.

The Election or choice was in the Clergy and the Monks; but they desired him whom they had chosen, of the King. Edmund, in King Ethelred's time, was after this manner made Bishop of the Holy Island on the Coast of Northumberland: And King Edgar in his Patent,* 1.165 which he signed to the Abby of Glastenbury,

retained to himself and his Heirs, the power of bestowing the Pastoral Staff to the Brother Elect.

40.

To as many as King Knute retained with him in England

(to wit, to the Danes; for by their hands also was the Scepter of this Kingdom ma∣naged)

it was granted, that they should have a firm peace all over; so that if any of the English killed any of those men, whom the King had brought along with him; if he could not clear himself by the Judgment of God (that is,* 1.166 by Ordeal) to wit, by water and burning hot iron, Justice should be done upon him: But if he run away and could not be taken, there should be paid for him sixty six marks; and they were ga∣thered in the Village where the Party was slain, and therefore because they had not the murderer forth coming; and if in such Village by rea∣son of their poverty, they could not be gathered, then they should be gathered in the Hundred, to be paid into the Kings Treasure.

In this manner writes Henry Bracton, who observes that hence the business of Englishshire came into fashion in the Inquests of murder.

41.

Hand-Writings (i.e.* 1.167 Patents and Grants) till Edward the Confessors time, were confirmed by the subscriptions of faithful Persons pres••nt;

a thing practised too among the Britans in King Arthur's time, as John Price informs us out of a very ancient Book of the Church of Landaff.

Those subscriptions were accompanied with Golden Crosses,* 1.168 and other sacred Seals or like stamps.

42.

King Harald made a Law, that whosoever of the Welch should be found with a Weapon about him without the bound which he had set them, to wit, Offa's dike; he should have his Right Hand cut off by the Kings Officers.

This dike our Chorographer tells us was cut by Offa King of the Mercians,* 1.169 and drawn along from the mouth of the River Dee to the mouth of the River Wye for about eighty miles in length, on purpose to keep the English and Welch asunder.

CHAP. XXV.

The Royal Consorts great Priviledge of Granting. Felons Estates forfeited to the King. Estates granted by the King with three Exceptions of Expedition, Bridge, and Castle. The Ceremony of the Kings presenting a Turf at the Altar of that Church, to which he gave Land. Such a Grant of King Ethelbald com∣prized in old Verse.

THe Donations or Grants of the Royal Consort, though not by the Kings Authority, contrary to what the Priviledge of any other Wife is,* 1.170 were ratified also in that Age, as they were by the Roman Law: Which by the Patent of Aethelswith, Wife to Burghred King of the Mer∣cians, granted to Cuthwuls in the year 868. hath been long since made out by Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas: Where also King Ethelred's ancient Charter proves,* 1.171 that the Estates of Felons (those I mean who concern themselves in Burglaries and Robberies) are forfeited to the King.

Having already mentioned those Hand-writings or Grants, which are from one hand and t'other, conveyances of Tenure (the fewel of quar∣rels) I have a mind, over and above what has been said, to set down also these Remarks, as being to our purpose; and taken from the Saxons. As for instance, that those are most frequent whereby Estates are convey∣ed to be held with the best and fairest right; yet most commonly these three things excepted, to wit, Expedition, Repairing of Bridges, and Building of Castles: And that those to whom the Grants were made, were very seldom acquitted upon this account. These three exceptions are noted by the term of a three-knotted necessity in an old Charter, where∣in King Cedwalla granted to Wilfrid (the first Bishop of Shelsey in Sussex) the Village of Paganham in the said County.* 1.172

For though in the Grants of King Ethelulph the Church be free (says Ingulph) and there be a con∣cession of all things for the release of our Souls,* 1.173 and pardon of our sins to serve God alone without Expedition, and building of Bridge, and fortifying of Castle;

to the intent that the Clergy might wholly attend Divine Service: Yet in that publick debate of Parliament, in the Reign of Henry the third, concerning the ancient State, Freedom, and Govern∣ment of the English Church; and concerning the hourly exactions of the Pope and the Leeches, Jugglers and Decoys of Rome, that strolled up and down the Country to pick Peoples Pockets, to the great prejudice of the Common-wealth; they did indeed stand for the priviledge of the Church, and produced as Witnesses thereof the Instruments and Grants of Kings; who nevertheless were not so much inclined to countenance that liberty of the Church, but that,* 1.174 as Matthew Paris observes,

They always re∣served

to themselves for the publick advantage of the Kingdom, three things; to wit, Expedition, and the repairing or making up of Bridge or Castle; that by them they might withstand the incursions of the Enemy.* 1.175 And King E••helbald hath this form: I grant that all the Monasteries and Churches of my Kingdom be discharged from pub∣lick Customs or Taxes, Works or Services, and Burdens or Pay∣ments or Attendances, unless it be the building and repairing of Ca∣stles or Bridges, which cannot be released to any one.

I take no notice how King Ethelred the twelfth perhaps (but by no means the fifteenth,* 1.176 wherein an Historian of ours has blundred) hath signed the third year of his Reign by the term of an Olympiad, after the manner of the Greek computation or reckoning: As likewise I pass other things of the like kind, which are many times used and practised according to the fancy of the Clerks or Notaries. How∣ever the last words, which are the close of these Grants and Patents, are not to be slighted. These we may see in that of Cedwalla,* 1.177 King of the South-Saxons, made to Theadore Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, in the year 687. thus.

For a further confirmation of my grant,* 1.178 I Cedwalla have laid a Turf of the Land aforesaid upon the holy Altar of my Saviour: And with my own hand, being ignorant of Letters, have set down and expressed the mark or sign of the Holy Cross.

Concerning Withred and a Turf of Land in Kent, Camden has the same thing;

And King Ethelulph is said to have offered his Patent,* 1.179 or Deed of Gift, on the Altar of the holy Apostle St. Peter.

For a conclusion, I know no reason why I may not set underneath, the Verses of an old Poet, wherein he hath comprised the instrument or Grant of founding an Abby,* 1.180 which Ethelbald, King of the Mercians, gave to Kenulph Abbot of Crowland: Verses, I say, but such as were made without Apollo's consent or knowledge.

Istum Kenulphum si quis vexaverit Anglus, Rex condemno mihi cuncta catella sua. Inde meis Monachis de damnis omnibus ultrà Vsque satisfaciat; carcere clausus erit. Adsunt ante Deum testes hujus dationis Anglorum proceres Pontificesque mei. Sanctus* 1.181 Guthlacus Confessor & Anachorita Hic jacet, in cujus auribus ista loqu••r. Oret pro nobis sanctissimus iste Sacerdos, Ad tumbam cujus haec mea don•• dedi.

Which in Rhyme dogrel will run much after this hobling rate.

If any English vex this Kenulph, shall I King condemn to me his Chattels all. Thenceforth, until my Monks he satisfie, For damages, in Prison he shall lye. Witnesses of this Gift here in Gods fight Are English Peers and Prelates of my Right▪ Saint Guthlac Confessor and Anchoret, Lies here, in whose Ears these words I speak yet. May he pray for us that most holy Priest, At whose Tomb these my Gifts I have addrest.

Thus they closed their Donations or Grants; thus we our Remarks of the Saxons, being now to pass to the Normans.

Notes

• * 1.1

  P••ol. 2. Geogr. & 2. quadrip. & Pausan. l. 1.
• * 1.2

  Jornand. de 1th. Goth. c. 11.
• * 1.3

  Steph. ad La••rt.
• * 1.4

  Aug. de Civ. Dei, l. 2. c. 14. Laert. lib. 5.
• * 1.5

  Soph. in Oe∣dip. in Colon.
• * 1.6

  Plut. in lib. de Exilio.
• * 1.7

  Nat. Com••s, Myt••ol. l. 3. c. 10. Plut. de Iside & Osiride.
• * 1.8

  Odyss. 3.
• * 1.9

  Exod. 22. Psal. 82.
• * 1.10

  2 Paral. 1••. Munst. ad Gen. c. 9.
• * 1.11

  Plut. de serâ Dei vindicta.
• * 1.12

  Camden.
• * 1.13

  Senec. Epist. 115.
• * 1.14

  Gen. 1.
• * 1.15

  Bodin. l. 3. damonoman.
• * 1.16

  〈◊〉〈◊〉. l. 1. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Gall. Imp.
• * 1.17

  Serv. ad 6. Aeneid.
• * 1.18

  Norden in Brit. S••e. ul.
• * 1.19

  Senec. Nat. quast. l. 3 c. 29
• * 1.20

  Athen. dip. nos. l. 6.
• * 1.21

  Jos. Scal. in Elench. O••at. Chron. D. Par.
• * 1.22

  Trithem. lib. de s••cundis.
• * 1.23

  Ovid. 4. Fast.
• * 1.24

  Heuter. de Vet. Belgio. l. 2. c. 8.
• * 1.25

  Ovid. Metam. 12.
• * 1.26

  Herodot. in Euterpe.
• * 1.27

  Stat. 37 Hen. 8. c. 26.
• * 1.28

  Justin hist. l. 1.
• * 1.29

  Arist. 5. Et••.
• * 1.30

  ff. de Orig. jur. l. 2.
• * 1.31

  Meram. 1. & Lucr. l. 5. cum Poetarumtur∣b••.
• * 1.32

  August. de civ. Dei. l. 19. c. 14.
• * 1.33

  Hom. Iliad. 9.
• * 1.34

  Senec. ep. 91. Plut. de Isid. & Osirid.
• * 1.35

  Joseph. adv. App. l. a. Plut. in lib. de Homero.
• * 1.36

  Plut. lib. de Musica.
• * 1.37

  Plato in Mi∣noc.
• * 1.38

  Sol. Polyhist. cap. 6.
• * 1.39

  〈◊〉〈◊〉 in vit. P••••phyr.
• * 1.40

  Plin. nat. hist. l. 16. c. 44.
• * 1.41

  Gorop. in Gal.
• * 1.42

  Paul. Merula, in Cosmogr. part. 2. lib. 3.
• * 1.43

  Num 1. 49. Ezra 7. 24.
• * 1.44

  Strab. Geogr. lib. 4.
• * 1.45

  Caes. de bello Gall. l. 1.
• * 1.46

  Vulcan. in app. ad Jor∣nand. Goth. Munst. Cosm. l. 4.
• * 1.47

  Cas. bell. Gal. l. 5.
• * 1.48

  Hotoman c. 2. Franco gal∣lae.
• * 1.49

  Cas. bell. Gal. l. 7.
• * 1.50

  Lips. Elect. lib. 2. cap. 7. & quast. Epi. ••••olic. l. 2. c. 2.
• * 1.51

  Plin. nat. hist. l. 10. c. 44.
• * 1.52

  Plut. de orac. def. Herod. Euterp.
• * 1.53

  Eustath. ad 1. Iliad.
• * 1.54

  Senec. in A∣pocol.
• * 1.55

  Plin. l. 30. c. 1.
• * 1.56

  Br. Tuin. Apo∣log antiq. Aca∣dem. Oxon. l. 3. §. 3. 3••9.
• * 1.57

  Reuch l. 2. de. arte Cabalist. Lips. ••to••c. physolog l 3. dissert. 12 & vide Forcatu∣lum l. 1. de Gall. Imperio.
• * 1.58

  Laert. l. 8. & Plut orat ••••le Esu carnium.
• * 1.59

  Senec. Epist. 91.
• * 1.60

  Clem l. 1. S••••om.
• * 1.61

  Apud P. Me∣rulam in Cos∣mogr. part 2. lib. 3.
• * 1.62

  Camden.
• * 1.63

  Bodin. de re∣pub. l. 1. c. 4.
• * 1.64

  In praefat. ad l. 6. Relat.
• * 1.65

  Lir. lib. 21.
• * 1.66

  ••••ut. de vir∣••t••. mul••••••.
• * 1.67

  Aug. de ••iv. D. ••i l. 18. c 9.
• * 1.68

  Athenaus.
• * 1.69

  Paul. Aemil. hist. Franc. l. 10.
• * 1.70

  Ovid. de arte amandi l. 3.
• * 1.71

  Tac. in vlt. A∣gric. & Annal. l. 14.
• * 1.72

  Eurip. in Me∣de••.
• * 1.73

  Bodin. de re∣pub. l. 6. c. 5.
• * 1.74

  Pomp. Mela, l. 1. c. 9.
• * 1.75

  Gorop. in Francicis.
• * 1.76

  Malmesb. gest. reg. l. 1. c. 2.
• * 1.77

  Connu•• Ta••••. & l••••s.
• * 1.78

  Plato de rep. lib. 5. Arist. Polit. l. 1. c. ult. Trismegist.
• * 1.79

  Solin. Poly∣hist. cap. 35.
• * 1.80

  V. Plut. quaest. centuriat. Rom. 41.
• * 1.81

  Br. Tuin. apo∣log. Oxon. l. 2. §▪ 77.
• * 1.82

  V. Plut. Sym∣pos. l. 4. c. 5.
• * 1.83

  Laert. l. 8.
• * 1.84

  Plut. symp. l. 8. c. 8.
• * 1.85

  Georgic. 3.
• * 1.86

  Athen. dip. nos. l. 12. & 13. Suid. in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Euseb. prae∣par. Evang. l. 6.
• * 1.87

  Apud Abrah. O••tel. in The∣at. Mundi.
• * 1.88

  Munsler. Bo∣ëmus, &c.
• * 1.89

  Theocr. Ei∣dyll. 3.
• * 1.90

  Plau. 〈◊〉〈◊〉.
• * 1.91

  Id. Amphitr.
• * 1.92

  Id. Casinâ.
• * 1.93

  Plut. de aud. Poct.
• * 1.94

  Ovid. de art. am. l. 1.
• * 1.95

  Bald. l. 5. consil. 78. Alber. Gentil de nupt. l. 2. c. 13.
• * 1.96

  Orid. amor. l 2. clep. 19. Id. l. 3. cleg. 4. ld. de remed. amor. l. 2.
• * 1.97

  Virg. in Ceiri.
• * 1.98

  Malmesb. de•• gest. reg. l. 1. c. 1.
• * 1.99

  Dio hist. Rom. l. 60.
• * 1.100

  Senec. in Octav. act.
• * 1.101

  Tac. annal. l. 12. Dio hist. l. 60.
• * 1.102

  Camden. & Lips. ad l. 12. Tac. num. 75.
• * 1.103

  Agell. l. 16. c. 13.
• * 1.104

  Can••len.
• * 1.105

  Colonia ca∣s••ri, whence the River cal∣led Coln. Senec. ad Alb. c. 7.
• * 1.106

  Lips. de mag. Rom. l. 1. c. 5.
• * 1.107

  Gild. in Epist. de excid. Brit.
• * 1.108

  Noti••ia Pro∣vine.
• * 1.109

  Tacit. vit. Agric.
• * 1.110

  Juvenal. Sat. 6.
• * 1.111

  Pla••••n. in vi••. Eleutherii.
• * 1.112

  Ovid. Fast. l. 1.
• * 1.113

  Jo. Fox Hist. Eccles. l. 1.
• * 1.114

  Zofim. l. 2.
• * 1.115

  Notlt. Pro∣vinc. utr. Imper. l. 1. comm. c. 5. & l. 2. comm. Pancit. c. 69.
• * 1.116

  Ja. Douz. an∣nal. Holland. l. 1. & 6.
• * 1.117

  Procop. bell. Goth. l. 4.
• * 1.118

  Aethelwerd. lib. 1. fo. 474.
• * 1.119

  Adam Brem. hist. eccles. Brem. & Ham∣burg. c. 5. ex bibliothecâ Henr. Ranzo∣vii.
• * 1.120

  Nithard. l. 4.
• * 1.121

  Munst. Cos∣••og. l. 3.
• * 1.122

  Plut. in sym∣pos.
• * 1.123

  Plaut. ••n Au∣lul. act. 3.
• * 1.124

  Martial. l. 8. Epig. 12.
• * 1.125

  Callimach. epig. 1.
• * 1.126

  Plaut. in As••∣nar.
• * 1.127

  Anacreon. carm. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.128

  Et Tacit.
• * 1.129

  Cas. de bell. Gall. l. 6.
• * 1.130

  Senec. de be∣nefic. l. 4. c. 30.
• * 1.131

  Proverb. 1••.
• * 1.132

  Juvenal. S••••.
• * 1.133

  Canut. leg. can. 50.
• * 1.134

  Theognis.
• * 1.135

  Odyss. 18. & 22.
• * 1.136

  In Allegoriis ••omeric.
• * 1.137

  Martial. l. 3. Epig. 43.
• * 1.138

  Bracton. de Coronâ l. 3. c. 28.
• * 1.139

  An. 18 Ed. 3. fol. 20. à Bri∣ton. cap. 25.
• * 1.140

  Ovid. Meta∣mor. l. 7.
• * 1.141

  Matth. Parls in H. 3. pag. 1000.
• * 1.142

  Vid. l. 2. art. 8.
• * 1.143

  Alured. leg. can. 25.
• * 1.144

  Dion. Halic. lib. 1. Flor. Hist. Rom. l. 3. c. 3. Lamprld. V. Bodin. de rep. l. 2. c. 2. & Franc. Ho∣tom. disp. ••eud. cap. 2.
• * 1.145

  Bed. hist. Ec∣cles. l. 2. c. 5.
• * 1.146

  Fest. verbo Pecul. & ver∣bo Ovibus.
• * 1.147

  V. Inae leg. cap. 13.
• * 1.148

  Malmsb. de gest. Pontif. l. 1.
• * 1.149

  Ranulph. Higden in Po∣lychron. Joan. Car••o∣tensis de nugis curial. l. 6. c. 17.
• * 1.150

  Caxt. cap. 96▪
• * 1.151

  Rotulus Win∣toniae.
• * 1.152

  Hist. Cantu••∣ri••nsis.
• * 1.153

  Canu••. leg. 19.
• * 1.154

  Leg. Edw. Confess. cap. 20.
• * 1.155

  Bract. de co∣ron••, l. 3. c. 10.
• * 1.156

  Pont. Heut. de vet. Belg. l. 1. c. 13.
• * 1.157

  Jul. Pollux. l. 3. c. 8.
• * 1.158

  3. Edw. III. Itin. North. tit. Coron. 293.
• * 1.159

  6 Edw. 2. Itin. Can••.
• * 1.160

  Perhaps it should be T••••∣cham.
• * 1.161

  B••act. lib. 3. de Caroni c. 10.
• * 1.162

  A••. 21. Ed. 1.
• * 1.163

  Alured. Rhi∣vallens. ap. Tuin. Apol. ant. Oxon. l. 2. §. 207.
• * 1.164

  Dionysius. Aeneus.
• * 1.165

  Malmsb. lib. 3. de Pontif. & de gest. Reg. 2.
• * 1.166

  Bract. lib. 3. deCoron. cap. 15.
• * 1.167

  Ingulphus.
• * 1.168

  Joh. Pris. de∣tc••s. hist. Brit.
• * 1.169

  Camdenus è Sarisburiensi.
• * 1.170

  C. de donat. inter virum & uxorem. l. 26.
• * 1.171

  In Epist. ad l. 6. Relat.
• * 1.172

  Anno Dom. 680.
• * 1.173

  Ingulph.
• * 1.174

  Matth. Pari•• hist. major. pag. 838.
• * 1.175

  Ingulph.
• * 1.176

  Ralph Holins∣hed in Hen. 7.
• * 1.177

  Chart. Ar∣chi••p. Cant.
• * 1.178

  See the Char∣ter of Edw. Conf. in En∣glish Rhyme, Camden in Essex.
• * 1.179

  Ingulph.
• * 1.180

  Ingulph.
• * 1.181

  The Saint, to whom the Monastery was dedica∣ted.