A chorographicall description of tracts, riuers, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of Great Britain with intermixture of the most remarkeable stories, antiquities, wonders, rarities, pleasures, and commodities of the same. Diuided into two bookes; the latter containing twelue songs, neuer before imprinted. Digested into a poem by Michael Drayton. Esquire. With a table added, for direction to those occurrences of story and antiquitie, whereunto the course of the volume easily leades not.

And into seuerall Shires the Kingdome did diuide.

To those Shires he e constituted Iustices & Sherifes, call'd 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the office of those two being before confounded in Vice-Domini. i. Lieutenants; but so, that Vicedominus & Vicecomes remain'd indifferent words for name of Sherife, as, in a Charter of K. Edred DCCCC. L. Ego Bingulph Vicedo∣min{us} Consului § Ego Alfer Vicecomes audini § I find together subscribed. The Iustices were, as I thinke, no other then those whom they call'd 〈◊〉〈◊〉 man∣num, being the same with 〈◊〉〈◊〉, now Earles, in whose disposition & gouern∣ment vpon delegatiō from the King (the title being Officiary, not Hereditary, except in som particular Shire as Leicester, &c.) the County was; with the Bi∣shop of the Diocese: the Earle f sare in the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 twise euery yeare, where, charge was giuen touching g 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉: But by the h Conqueror, this medling of the Bishop, in Turnes was prohibited. The Sherife had then his Monthly Court also, as the now County Court, instituted by the Saxon Ed. 1. as that other of the Turne by K. Edgar. The Sherife is now im∣mediat

officer to the Kings Court, but it seemes that then the Earle (hauing al∣wayes the third part of the shires profits, both before and since the Normans) had chargevpon him. For this diuision of Countries: how many he made, I know not, but Malmesbury, vnder Ethelred, affirms, there were XXXII. (Robert of Glocester XXXV.) about which time Winchelcomb was one, i but then ioyn'd to Glocestershire; those XXXII. k were

IX. Go∣uerned by the West∣Saxon law. Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hantshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Deuonshire,

XV. by the Da∣nish law. Essex, Middlesex. Suffolke, Norfolke, Hertford, Cambridge, Bedford, Buckingham, Huntingdon, Northamton, Leicester, Derby, Notingham, Lincolne. Yorke.

VIII. by the Mercian Law. Oxford, Warwicke, Glocester, Hereford, Shropshire, Stafford, Cheshire, Worcester,

Here was none of Cornwall, Cumberland (stiled also Carlileshire) Northumber∣land, Lancaster, Westmerland (which was since titled Aplebyshire) Durbam, Mon∣mouth, not Rutland, which at this day make our number (beside the XII. in Wales) XL. Cornwall (because of the Britons there planted) vntill the Conqueror gaue the County to his brother Robert of Moreton, continued out of the di∣uision. Cumberland, Northumberland, Westmerland, and Durham, being all Nor∣therne, seeme to haue bin then vnder Scettish or Danish power. But the two first receiued their diuision, as it seemes before the Conquest; for Cumberland had its particular l gouernors, and Northumberland m Earles: Westmerland perhaps began when K. Iohn gaue it Robert Vipont, ancestor to the Cliffords, holding by that Patent to this day the inheritance of the Sherifdome. Durham religiously was with large immunities giuen to the Bishop, since the Norman inuasion. Lancaster, vntill Hen. III. created his yonger sonne Edmund Crooke-backe Earle of it, I think, was no County: for, in one of our old year n books a learned Iudge affirms, that, in this Henries time, was the first Sherises Tourne held there. Nor vntill Edward (first sonne to Edmund of Langley D. of Yorke, and afterward D. of Aumerle) created by Rich. II. had Rutland any Earles. I know for number and time of those, all authority agrees not with me, but I coniecture only vpon se∣lected. As Alured diuided the Shires first; (o to him is owing the constitution of Hundreds, Titbings, Lathes, & Wapentakes, to the end that whosoeuer were not lawfully, vpon credit of his Boroughes. i. pledges, admitted in some of them for a good Subiect, should be reckon'd as suspicious of life and loyaltie. Some steps thereof remaine in our o ancient & later Law books.

Notes

• e

  Histor. Crow∣landensis.
• At Mompelier, Paris, Oxford, Cologne, Bologua we institute general Studies. V ad Cant. XIII.
• f

  Edgar. leg. Hu∣man cap. 5. Ed∣ward. cap. 11. Canut. cap. 17.
• g

  Rot Chart. 2. Rich. 2. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 De∣can. & capit. Lincoln. tran∣scripsimus in Ia∣uo Anglorum lib. 2. § 14. & vide∣as apud Fox. hist. eccles. 4.
• h

  Gods right and the worlds.
• See to the XIII. Song. He comman∣ded all lawes made by the ancient Kings to be kept, espe∣cially those of Ethelred, to which the Kings sweare vnder name of K. Edwards lawes, not that he made them, but obserued them.
• i

  Codek Wigor∣niensis apud Cam. in Dobunis.
• k

  Polychronicon lib. 1. cap. de Pro∣uincijs.
• l

  Matth. West. fol. 366.
• m

  Ingulph. hist. Crowland.
• n

  Thorp. 17. Ed. 3 sol. 56. 6.
• o

  Bract. lib. 3. tract de Corona cap. 10. Quàm∣plurimi 〈◊〉〈◊〉 in annis Ed. 3. & 5. Iacob. apud Dom. Ed. Cok. 〈◊〉〈◊〉. 6. fol. 57. maximè verò bùe faciunt Itinera illa H. 3. & Ed. 1.