CONTENTS THE History of Britain, that Part especially now called England; from the first Traditional Be- ginning, continued to the Norman Conquest. Collected out of the ancientest and best Authors Of true Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and what best means may be used against the Growth of Popery. Printed in the Year 1673........259 A brief History of Moscovia, and of other less known Countries lying Eastward of Russia, as far as Cathay, gathered from the Writings of A Declaration, or Letters Patents for the Election of John the Third, King of Poland, elected on the 22d of May, Anno Dom. 1674, containing the Reasons of this Election, the great Virtues and Merits of the said serene Elect, his eminent Services in War, especially in his last great Victory against the Turks and Tartars; whereof many Particulars are here related, not pub- THE HISTORY OF That Part especially, now called ENGLAND; From the First Traditional Beginning, continued to the NORMAN CONQUEST. Collected out of the ancienteft and beft Authors thereof. Published from a Copy corrected by the Author himself. THE THE FIRST BOOK. HE beginning of nations, thofe excepted of whom facred books have fpoken, is to this day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds alfo of many fucceeding ages, yea, periods of ages, either wholly unknown, or obfcured and blemished with fables. Whether it were that the ufe of letters came in long after, or were it the violence of barbarous inundations, or they themselves at certain revolutions of time, fatally decaying, and degenerating into floth and ignorance; whereby the monuments of more ancient civility have been fome destroyed, fome loft. Perhaps difefteem and contempt of the public affairs then prefent, as not worth recording, might partly be in caufe. Certainly ofttimes we see that wife men, and of best ability, have forborn to write the acts of their own days, while they beheld with a juft loathing and difdain, not only how unworthy, how perverse, how corrupt, but often how ignoble, how petty, how below all hiftory the perfons and their actions were; who, either by fortune or fome rude election, VOL. IV. B had had attained as a fore judgment and ignominy upon the land, to have chief fway in managing the commonwealth. But that any law, or fuperftition of our philofophers, the Druids, forbad the Britains to write their memorable deeds, I know not why any out of Cæfar * fhould allege: he indeed faith, that their doctrine they thought not lawful to commit to letters; but in moft matters elfe, both private and public, among which well may history be reckoned, they used the Greek tongue; and that the British Druids, who taught those in Gaul, would be ignorant of any language known and used by their difciples, or fo frequently writing other things, and fo inquifitive into higheft, would for want of recording be ever children in the knowledge of times and ages, is not likely. Whatever might be the reason, this we find, that of British affairs, from the first peopling of the island to the coming of Julius Cæfar, nothing certain, either by tradition, hiftory, or ancient fame, hath hitherto been left us. That which we have of oldest feeming, hath by the greater part of judicious antiquaries been long rejected for a modern fable. Nevertheless there being others, befides the first fuppofed author, men not unread, nor unlearned in antiquity, who admit that for approved story, which the former explode for fiction; and feeing that ofttimes relations heretofore accounted fabulous have been after found to contain in them many footsteps and reliques of fomething true, as what we read in poets of the flood, and giants little believed, till undoubted witneffes taught us, that all was not feigned; I have therefore determined to bestow the telling over even of thefe reputed tales; be it for nothing elfe but in favour of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judicioufly. I might also produce example, as Diodorus among the Greeks, Livy and others among the Latins, Polydore and Virunnius accounted among our own writers. But I intend not with controverfies and quotations to delay or interrupt the smooth courfe of hiftory; much less to * Cæf. 1. 6. argue |