"And when that tyrant John had our subversion vow'd, . To his unbridled will our necks we never bow'd: Nor to his mighty son; whose host we did enforce (His succours cutting off) to eat their warlike horse. "Until all-ruling Heaven would have us to resign: When that brave prince, the last of all the British line, Levellin; Griffith's son, unluckily was slain, §. As fate had spar'd our fall till Edward Longshank's reign. Yet to the stock of Brute so true we ever were, To satisfy our wills, and to Caernarvon brought That they unto his court should come incontinent, Of things that much concern'd the country to debate: But now behold the power of unavoided fate! Here only to be rul'd by princes of our own, [born) Com'n of the race of kings, and (in their country Could not one English word: of which he durst be sworn. Besides, his upright heart, and innocence was such, [touch As that (he was assur'd) black envy could not His spotless life in aught. Poor we (that not espy His subtilty herein) in plain simplicity, [refuse: Soon bound ourselves by oath, his choice not to When as that crafty king, his little child doth chuse, Young Edward, born in Wales, and of Caernarvon call'd: [thrall'd. say, Thus by the English craft, we Britons were en"Yet in thine own behalf, dear country, dare to [way. Thon long as powerful wer't as England every And if she overmuch should seek thee to imbase, Tell her, thou art the nurse of all the British race And he that was by Heaven appointed to unite (After that tedious war) the red rose and the white; A Tudor was of thine, and native of thy Mon, From whom descends that king now sitting on her [please This speech, by Snowdon made, so lucky was to Both parties, and them both with such content t'appease; throne." That as before they strove for sovereignty and place, [grace. They only now contend, which mest should other VOL IV. Into the Irish sea then all those rills that ran, In Snowdon's praise to speak immediately began ; Lewenny, Lynan next, then Gwelly gave it out, And Kerriog her compeer, soon told it all about: So did their sister nymphs, that into Mena strain; The flood that doth divide Mou from the Cambrian main. It Gorway greatly prais'd and Seint it loudly sung. So, mighty Snowdon's speech was through Caernar von rung; That scarcely such a noise to Mon from Mena came, [same, When with his puissant troops for conquest of the On bridges made of boats, the Roman powers her sought, Or Edward to her sack his English armies brought : That Mona strangely stirr❜d great Snowdon's praise to hear, Although the stock of Troy to her was ever dear; Yet (from her proper worth) as she before all other §. Was call'd (in former times) her country Cambria's mother, Persuaded was thereby her praises to pursue, Or by neglect, to lose what to herself was due, A sign to Neptune sent, his boist'rous rage to slake ; Which suddainly becalm'd, thus of herself she spake; [long "What one of all the isles to Cambria doth be(To Britain, I might say, and yet not do her wrong) Doth equal me in soil, so good for grass and grain? As should my Wales (where still Brute's offspring doth remain) That mighty store of men, yet more of beasts doth breed, By famine or by war constrained be to need, And England's neighbouring shires their succour would deny; My only self her wants could plenteously supply. "What island is there found upon the Irish coast, [most, In which that kingdom seems to be delighted And seek you all along the rough Vergivian shore, Where the encount'ring tides outrageously do roar) That bows not at my beck, as they to me did owe The duty subjects should unto their sovereign show; §. So that th' Eubonian Man, a kingdom long time known, Which wisely hath been rul'd by princes of her own, In my alliance joys. as in th' Albanian seas The Arrans", and by them the scatter'd Eubides" Rejoice even at my name; and put on mirthful cheer, [hear. When of my good estate they by the sea-nymphs "Sometimes within my shades, in many an an cient wood, [stood, Whose often-twined tops great Phoebus' fires with§. The fearless British priests, under an aged oak, Taking a milk-white bull, unstrained with the yoke, [tree And with an ax of gold, from that Jove-sacred The misleto cut down; then with a bended knee On th' unhew'd altar laid, put to the hallow'd fires: [expires, And whilst in the sharp flame the trembling flesh As their strong fury mov'd (when all the rest adore) Pronouncing their desires the sacrifice before, "1 Isles upon the west of Scotland. R rear: [with fear, And, whilst the murmuring woods even shudder'd as Preach'd to the beardless youth the soul's immortal state; Up to th' eternal Heaven their bloodied hands did | thus pretending title, got also possession of Merio neth, from Gruffith ap Conan, prince of NorthWales: but he soon recovered it, and thence left it continued in his posterity, until Lhewellin ap Gruffith, under Edward the First, lost it himself, and all his dominion. Whereas other parts (of South and West-Wales especially) had before subjected themselves to the English crown; this through frequency of craggy mountains, accessible with too much difficulty, being the last strong refuge until that period of fatal conquest. To other bodies still how it should transmigrate, To look upon my face, which then was call'd the Until in after-time, the English for a mark And Anglesey from them am called every where. draw; And next to them again, the fat and moory Fraw, §. Which with my prince's court I sometime pleas'd to grace, Of those two noble arms into the land that bear. In the confines of Merioneth and Cardigan, where these rivers jointly pour themselves into the Irish ocean, are these two arms or creeks of the sea, famous, as he saith, through Guinethia (that is one of the old titles of this North-Wales) by their names Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bachan, i. e. as it were, the great haven and the little haven; traeth (b), in British, signifying a tract of sand whereon the sea flows, and the ebb discovers. Into that spacious lake where Dee unmixt doth flow. That is, Lhin tegid (otherwise call'd by the English, Pemelsmere) through which Deer rising in this part, runs whole and unmixt, neither lake nor river communicating to each other water or fish; as the author anon tells you. In the ancients (c), is remembered specially the like of the Rhosne running unmixt, and (as it were) over the lake of Geneva; as, for a greater wonder, the most learned Casaubon (d) hath delivered also of Arva, running whole through Rhosne; and divers other such like are in Pliny's collection of Nature's most As those that to the west directly run their race. some be, [hide." The muititude of wolves that long this land annoy'd. That she in Neptune's brack her bluish head doth Herselt awhile betakes to bathe her in the Sound; ILLUSTRATIONS. MORE western are you carried into Merioneth, Our excellent Edgar (having first enlarged his name with diligent and religious performance of charitable magnificence among his English, and confirmed the far-spread opinion of his greatness, by receipt of homage at Chester from eight kings; as you shall see in and to the next song) for increase of his benefits towards the isle, joined with preservation of his crown-duties, converted the tribute of the Welsh into three hundred wolves a year, as the author shows; the king that paid it; Thre yer he huld is term-rent, ac the vorthe was The last her genuine laws which stoutly did retain. (a) Powel. ad Caradoc Lhancarv. & Camd, (b) Girald. Itinerar. 2. cap 6. (c) Ammian. Marcel. hist. 15. Pomp. Mel. lib. (e) Itin. Leicest. 27. ann. Hen. 3. in Archiv. Turr. Lond. Henry of Angage, per serjeantiam capiendi lupos, | was used for the name of Gauls, strangers, and as the inquisition delivers it. St. Helen's wondrous way By Festeneog in the confines of Caernarvon and Merioneth is this high-way of note; so called by the British, and supposed made by that Helen, mother to Constantine (among her other good deeds) of whom to the last song before. As level as the lake until the general flood. So is the opinion of some divines (ƒ), that, until after the flood, were no mountains, but that by congestion of sand, earth, and such stuff as we now see hills strangely fraughted with, in the waters they were first cast up. But in that true secretary of divinity and nature, Selomoh (g) speaking as in the person of Wisdom, you read; "Before the mountains were founded, and before the hills I was formed," that is, before the world's beginning; and in holy writ (h) elsewhere, "the mountains ascend, and the valleys descend to the place where thou didst found them ;" good authorities to justify mountains before the flood. The same question hath been of isles, but I will peremptorily determine neither. And with stern Eolus' blasts, like Thetis waxing rank. The south-west wind constrained between two hills on both sides of the lake, sometimes so violently fills the river out of the lake's store, that both have been affirmed (but somewhat against truth) never to be disturbed, or overflow, but upon tempestuous blasts, whereas indeed (as Powel delivers) they are overfilled with rain and laudfloods, as well as other waters; but most of all moved by that impetuous wind. Still Delos like, wherein a wandering isle doth float. Of this isle in the water on top of Snowdon, and on one side eels, trouts, and perches, in another lake there, Girald is witness. Let him perform his word; I will not be his surety for it. The author alludes to that state of Delos, which is feigned (1) before it was with pillars fastened in the sea for Latona's child birth. That with the term of Welsh the English now imbase. For this name of Welsh is unknown to the British themselves, and imposed on them, as an ancient and common opinion is, by the Saxons, calling them Walsh, i. e. strangers. Others fabulously have talk of Wallo and Wandolena, whence it should be derived. But you shall come nearer truth, if, upon the community of name, customs, and original, 'twixt the Gauls and Britons, you conjecture them called Walsh, as it were Gualsh (the W. oftentimes being instead of the Gu.) which expresses them to be Gauls rather than strangers; although in the Saxon (which is (k) observed) it barbarous, perhaps in such kind as in this kingdom the name of Frenchman (7), hath by inclusion comprehended all kind of aliens. Was little Britain call'd See a touch of this in the passage of the virgins to the eighth song. Others affirm, that under Constantine (m), of our Britons colonies were there placed; and from some of these the name of that now dukedom, to have had its beginning. There be also that will justify the British name to have been in that tract long before (n), and for proof cite Dionysius Afer (o), and Pliny (p); but for the first, it is not likely that he ever meant that continent, but this of ours, as the learned tell you; and for Pliny, seeing he reckons his Britons of Gaul in the confines of the now France, and lower Germany, it is as unlikely that betwixt them and little Bretagne should be any such habitude. You want not authority, affirming that our Britons from them (q), before they from ours, had deduction of this national title; but my belief admits it not. The Britons, which (being expelled the island at the surer opinion is to refer the name unto those entry of the Saxous) got them new habitation in this maritime part, as beside other authority an express assertion is in an old fragment of a French history (r), which you may join with most worthy' Camden's treatise on this matter; whither (for a learned declaration of it) I send you. Forewarned was in dreams that of the Britons' reign. Cadwallader, driven to forsake this land, especially by reason of plague and famine tyrannising among his subjects, joined with continual erup. tions of the English, retired himself into little Bretagne, to his cozen Alan, there king: where in a dream he was admonished by an angel (I justify it but by the story) that a period of the British empire given to king Arthur, his country or posterity was now come, and until time of Merlin's prophecy, should have no restitution; and farther, that be should take his journey to Rome, where, for a transitory, he might receive an eternal kingdom. Alan, upon report of this vision, compares it with the eagle's prophecies, the Sibyl's verses, and Merlin; nor found he but all were concording in prediction of this ceasing of the British monarchy. Through his advice, therefore, and a prepared ceived of P.P. Sergius, with holy tincture, the affection, Cadwallader takes voyage to Rome, redied; his body very lately under pope Gregory name of Peter, and within very short time there the XIII. was found buried by S. Peter's tomb (s), where it yet remains; and White of Basingstoke colour, taken up (with the corpse) uncorrupted; says, he had a piece of his raiment, of a chesnut Conquest. & D. Coke in Cas. Calvin. (2) Paul Merul. Cosmog, part 2. 1. 3. c. 31. (p) Hist. Nat. lib. 4. cap. 17. quem super Ligerim Britannos hos sitos dixisse, miror P. Merufam tam constantèr affirmâsse. (q) Bed. lib. 1. cap. 3. quem secutus P. Merola. (r) Ex Ms. Coenob. Floriac. edit. per P. Pithæum. (s) Auton. Major. ap. Basinstoch. lib. 9. not. 24. · which he accouts, as a Romish pupil, no slight This shows also his short life afterward, and agrees miracle. It was added among British traditions, fully with the English story. His honourable that, when Cadwallader's bones were brought into affection to religion, before his cleansing mark of this isle(), then should the posterity of their regeneration, is seen in that kind respect given by princes have restitution: concerning that, you have him to Wilfrid, first bishop of Selesey, in Sussex; enough to the second song. Observing concurrence where the episcopal see of Chichester (hither was of time and difference of relation in the story of it translated from Selesty, under William the this prince, I know not well how to give myself or Conqueror) acknowledges in public monuments, the reader satisfaction. In Monmouth, Robert of rather him founder than Edilwalch, the first Glocester, Florilegus, and their followers, Cad- Christian king of that province, from whom wallader is made the son of Cadwallo, king of the Cedwalla violently took both life and kingdom: Britons before him, but so, that he descended also nor doth it less appear, in that his paying tenths from English-Saxon blood; his mother being of such spoils, as by war's fortune accrued to his daughter to Penda, king of Merckland. Our greatness: which notwithstanding, although done mouks call him king of West-Saxons, successor by one then not received into the church of either of Kentwine, and son to Kenbrith. And where testament, is not without many examples among Caradoc Lhancarvan tells you of wars betwixt Ine the ancient Gentiles, who therein imitating the or Ivor (successor to Cadwallader) and Kentwine, Hebrews, tithed much of their possessions, and it appears in our chronographers, that Kentwine acquired substance to such deities as unhallowed must be dead above three years before. But how- religion taught them to adore; which, whether soever these things might be reconcileable, I think they did upon mystery in the number, or therein clearly that Cadwallader (z) in the British, and as paying first fruits (for the words which Cedwalla, king of West-Saxons in Bede, Malmes- was for Abel's offerings, and p for Melchisebury, Florence, Huntingdon, and other stories of dech's tithes, according to that less calculation in the English, are not the same, as Geffrey, and, Cabalistic (y) concordance of identities in differout of Girald, Randal of Chester, and others ent words, are of equal number, and by consequent since erroneously have affirmed. But strongly of like interpretation) I leave to my reader. Speakyou may hold, that Cadwallo, or Caswallo, living ing of this, I cannot but wonder at that very about the year DCXL. slain by Oswald, king of wonder of learning, Joseph Scaliger (z); affirmNorthumberland, was the same with Bede's first ing, tithes among those ancients only payable to Cedwalla, whom he calls king of Britons, and that Hercules; whereas by express witness of an old by misconceit of his two Cedwals, (the other being, inscription at Delphos (@), and the common report almost fifty years after, king of West-Saxons) and of Camillus, it is justified, that both Greeks and by communicating of each other's attributes upon Romans did the like to Apollo, and no less among indistinct names, without observation of their them and others together, was to Mars (b), several times, these discordant relations of them, | Jupiter (c), Juno (d), and the number of gods in which in story are too palpable, had their first general, to whom the Athenians dedicated the being. But to satisfy you in present, I keep my. tenth part of Lesbos (e). He which the author, self to the course of our ordinary stories, by reason after the British, calls here Ivor, is affirmed the of difficulty in finding an exact truth in all. Touch- same with Ine, king of West-sex, in our monkish ing his going to Rome, thus: some will, that he chronicles, although there be scarce any congruity was Christian before, and received of Sergius only betwixt them in his descent. What follows is but confirmation; others, that he had there his first historical and continued succession of their princes. baptism, and lived not above a month after; More excellent than those which our good Howel which time (to make all dissonant) is extended to here. eight years in Lhancarvan. That one king Cedwal went to Home, is plain by all, with his new imposed name and burial there: for his baptism before, I have no direct authority but in Polychronicon; many arguments proving him indeed a well willer to Christianity, but as one that had not yet received its holy testimony. The very phrase in most of our historians is plain that he was baptised; and so also his epitaph then made at Rome, in part here inserted. Percipiénsque alacer redivivæ præmia vitæ, Barbaricam rabiem, nomen & inde suum, (1) Ranulph. Higden. lib. 5. cap. 20. (u) Cedwalla Rex Britonum Bed. Hist. Eccles. 3. cap. 1. Cæterum v. Nennium ap. Camd. in Ottadinis pag. 664. & 665. & Bed. lib. 5. cap. 7. (x) Bed. eccles. hist. lib. 5. c. 7. Englished in substance, if you say, He was baptized, and soon For Howel Dha, first prince of South-Wales and Powis, after upon death of his cousin Edwal Voel, of North-Wales also, by mature advice, in a full council of barons and bishops, made divers universal constitutions. By these, Wales (until Edward I.) was ruled. So some say; but the truth is, that died, Anno Christi DC.LXXXVIII. Judicious conjecture cannot but attribute all this to the WestSaxon Cedwal, and not the British. See to the XI song. (y) Ratio cabalistica minor, secundum quam è centenario quolibet & denario unitatem accipiunt, reliquos numeros in utroque vocabulo retinentes uti Archangel. Burgonovens. in Dog. Caba listicis. (*) Ad Festum, verb. Decuma. (a) Clemens Alexand. Strom. a. & Steph. roa. in Apogyi tantundem: præter alios quamplurimos. (b) Lucian. g) Oxnews. & Varro ap. Macrob. 3. cap. 1. (c) Herodot. *. (d) Samii apud. Herodot. d. (e) Thucydid. hist. y. before Edward I. conquered Wales, and, as it seems, from XXVIII. but especially XXXV. of Henry III. his empire enlarged among them, the En iish king's writ did run there. For when Edward I. sent commission to Reginald of Grey (ƒ), Thomas bishop of St Dewy's, and Walter of Hopton, to inquire of their customs, and by what laws they were ruled, divers cases were upon oath returned, which by, and according to, the king's law, if it were between lords or the princes themselves, had been determined; if between tenants, then by the lord's seizing it into his hands, until discovery of the title in his court; but also that none were decided by the laws of Howel Dha. Of them, in Lhuyd's annotations to the Welsh chronicle, you have some particulars, and in the roll which hath aided me. Touching those other of Molmutius and Martia, somewhat to the ninth song. Us to subjection stoop, or make us Britons bear Th' unwieldy Norman yoke Snowdon properly speaks all for the glory of his country, and follows suppositions of the British story, discording herein with ours. For in Matthew Paris, and Florilegus, under the year c1ɔ. LXXVIII. I read that the Conqueror subdued Wales, and took homage aud hostages of the princes; so of Henry I. c. c. xut. Henry II. in C15. CLVII. and other times: Of this Henry II bath been understood that prophecy of Merlin," When the frecklefaced prince (so was the king) passes over Rhyd Pencarn (g), then should the Welsh forces be weakened." For he, in this expedition against Rees ap Gryffith into South Wales, corning mounted near that ford in Glamorgan, his sted madded with sudden sound of trumpets, on the bank violently, out of the purposed way, carries him through the ford: which compared with that of Merlin, gave to the British army no small discomfiture; as a Cambro-Briton (h), then living, hath delivered. But, that their stories and ours are so different in these things, it can be no marvel to any that knows how often it is used among historians (i), to flatter their own nation, and wrong the honour of their enemies. See the first note here for Rufus his time. And from the English power th' imperial standard took. Henry of Essex, at this time standard-bearer to Henry II. in a strait at Counsylth, near Flint, cast down the standard, thereby animating the Welsh, and discomfiting the Fuglish, adding much danger to the dishonour. He was afterward accused, by Robert of Montfort, of a traitorous design in the action. To clear himself, he challenges the combat: they both, with the royal assent and judicial course by law of arms, enter the lists; where Montfort had the victory, and Essex pardoned for his life; but forfeiting all his substance(k), entered religion, and profess'd in the abbey (f) Rot. Claus. de ann. 9. Ed. 1. in Archiv. Tur. Londin. (g) The ford at the rock's head. (h) Girald. Itinerar. 1. cap. 6. Or any ear had heard the sound of Florida. About the year C13. C. LXX. Madoc, brother to David ap Owen, prince of Wales, made this sea voyage; and, by probability, those names of Capo de Breton, in Norumbeg, and Penguin, in part of the northern America, for a white rock and a white-headed bird, according to the British, were relics of this discovery. So that the Welsh may challenge priority of finding that new world, before the Spaniard, Genoway, and all other mentioned in Lopez, Marinæus, Cortez, and the rest of that kind. And with that Crogen's name let th' English us disgrace. The first cause of this name, take thus: In one of Henry the second's expeditions into Wales, divers of his camp sent to assay a passage over Offa's dike, at Crogen castle were entertained with prevention by British forces, most of them there slain, and, to present view, yet lying buried. Afterward, this word Crogen (2), the English used to the Welsh, but as remembering cause of revenge for such a slaughter, although time hath made it usual in ignorant mouths for a disgraceful attribute. To his unbridled will our necks we never bow'd. Sufficiently justifiable is this of king John, although our inonks therein not much discording from British relation, deliver, that he subdued all Wales; especially this northern part unto Snowdon (o), and received XX. hostages for surety of future obedience. For, at first, Lhewelin ap Jorwerth, prince of North-Wales, had by force joined with stratagem the better hand, and compelled the English camp to victual themselves with horseflesh; but afterward indeed, upon a second road made into Wales, king John had the conquest. This compared with those changes ensuing upon the pope's wrongful uncrowning him, his barons rebellion, and advantages in the meantime taken by the Welsh, proves only, that his winnings here were little better than imaginary, as on a tragic stage. The stories may, but it fits not me, to inform you of large particulars. As fate had spar'd our fall till Edward Longshank's reign. But withal observe the truth of story in the meantime. Of all our kings until John, somewhat you have already. After him, Henry III. had wars with Lheweliu ap Jorwerth; who (a most (7) Joann. Sarisburiens. Ep. 159. (m) 30 Ed. 3 fol. 20. (n) Gutyn Owen in Lhewelin ap Jorwerth. (0) Note that North Wales was the chief princi (i) De quo, si placet, videas compendiosè apud pality, and to it South-Wales and Powis paid a Alberic. Gentil. de Arm. Ro 1. cap. 1. (k) Guil. de Novo Burgo. lib. 2. c. 5, tribute, as out of the laws of Howel Dha is noted by doctor Powel. |