Anglorum speculum, or, The worthies of England in church and state alphabetically digested into the several shires and counties therein contained : wherein are illustrated the lives and characters of the most eminent persons since the conquest to this present age : also an account of the commodities and trade of each respective county and the most flourishing cities and towns therein.

CHAP. III. Of the first Quaternion of Persons.

Viz.

• 1. Princes since the Conquest.
• 2. Saints, who generally may be divided into those of Fiction, Faction, Super∣stition, or Real existence.
• 3. Martyrs.
• 4. Confessors.

FOr the First, I take notice of the Legitimate Issue; as to Saints, I am sorry that the Lives of some of them, are so darkened with Needless, if not false Illustrations, to their Dishonour, and the De∣triment of Church History, which has arisen from the Ignorance or Disingenuity of the Writers of their Lives, or for want of true matter, or for hope of gain, or lastly for this, that they saw it pleased the People. Whence it is true, what

Melchior Canus says, I speak it to my * 1.1 grief that the Lives of the Philosophers are more gravely Written by Laertius, than Saints are by Christians. Our Catalogue contains only English Saints, wherefore Anselm is left out as being a French-Man, since whom the Pope has been very sparing to confer the Honour of Saintship; because, the multitude of Saints, abates Veneration, and would overcharge the Calender, that already labours with the Sacred burden; besides the charge of Canonization is great, and his Holiness unwilling to bestow it gratis; and lastly, Protestants shrewdly suspect that some unworthy Persons have been served with the Dignity by that Servant of the Servants of God, there∣fore none are Canonized while their Memories are

on the Must, immediately after their Deaths, before the same be fined in the Cask, with some competent time. As to the third, viz. Martyrs, who have lost their Lives for the Testimony of a fundamental Truth; those our Land hath produced, are either Brittains, who suffered under Dioclesian, or Saxons Massacred by the Danes, or lastly English Martyred by the Papists, since the year 1400. I shall tre•••• of the last, the two former being done already. For the last, viz. Confessors, they are such who have lost all but Life, for the truth, and escaped Martyr∣dom very narrowly; who were as Wax, ready for the Signature of Death; But, Threatned folks Live long, yea threatned Elijah by Gods Miraculous Pro∣vidence, never died.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Lib. 11. c. 6.