. Laurence, to be broiled on both sides, being persecuted both by Protestants and Papists. He was preferred to be bishop of Saint David's by the duke of Somerset, then Lord Protector, who was put to death not long after. Some conceive that the patron's fall was the chaplain's greatest guilt, and encouraged his enemies against him. Of these, two were afterwards bishops in the reign of queen Elizabeth, viz. Thomas Young, archbishop of York, and Rowland Merrick bishop of Bangor. SOLDIERS. SIR RICE аp THOMAS was never more than a knight, yet little less than a prince in this his native county, if the author of "Prœlia Anglorum" may not be believed, "Ricius Thomas flos Cambro-Britannum." King Henry the Seventh will himself witness his worth. To him, lately landed at Milford Haven with contemptible forces, this Sir Rice repaired with a considerable accession of choice soldiers, marching with them to Bosworth field, where he right valiantly behaved himself. That thrifty king, according to his cheap course of remuneration (rewarding gownmen in orders, by him most employed, with church livings, and swordmen with honour) afterwards made Sir Rice knight of the order; and well might he give him a garter, by whose effectual help he had recovered a crown. Elmelin in this county was one of his principal seats, whose name and nature he altered, building and calling it Newcastle;* and I believe it one of the latest castles in Wales, seeing since that time it hath been fashionable to demolish, not to erect, fortified houses. As he appeared early, so he continued long in military action; for I find him, in the fourth year of king Henry the Eighth, conductor to five hundred light horse, at the pompous and expensive siege of Therouenne, where I meet his last mention in our English Chronicles. WALTER DE DEVEREUX, son of Devereux and Cicely his wife (sole sister to Thomas Bourchier last earl of Essex) was born in the town of Camarthen,† and by queen Elizabeth in his maternal right created Earl of Essex. One martially minded, and naturally hating idleness, the rust of the soul. Though time hath silenced the factions, and only sounded the facts of queen Elizabeth's court, no place had more heart-burnings therein; and it was a great part of God's goodness and her prudence that no more hurt was done thereby. Many maligned * Camden's Britannia, in this County. Mills, in his Catalogue of Honour, in the Earls of Essex. our earl-tantæne animis aularibus iræ ;-desirous to thrust him on dangerous designs. Nor need we consult the oracle of Apollo to discover his chief adversary, seeing he was a prime favourite, who loved the earl's nearest relation better than he loved the earl himself, whom he put on the project of Ireland. Yet was not our Walter surprised into that service, seeing injuria non fit volenti; and being sensible that his room was more welcome to some than his company at court, he willingly embraced the employment. Articles (the first and last, I believe, in that kind) are drawn up betwixt the queen and him, who was to maintain such a proportion of soldiers on his own cost, and to have part of the territory of Clandboy in Ulster for the conquering thereof. So much for the bear's-skin. Now all the craft will be to catch, kill, and flay the bear himself. Well, to maintain an army (though a very little one) is a sovereign's and no subject's work, too heavy for the support of any private man's estate, which cost this earl first the mortgaging, then the selling outright his fair inheritance in Essex. Över he goeth into Ireland with a noble company of kindred and friends, supernumerary volunteers above the proportion of soldiers agreed upon. Sir William Fitz-Williams, lord deputy of Ireland, hearing of his coming, and suspecting (court jealousy riseth very early, or goeth not to bed at all) to be eclipsed by this great earl, solicits the queen to maintain him in the full power of his place, without any dimunition; alleging this much to conduce to the honour of her majesty, whom he represented. Hereupon it was ordered, that the earl should take his commission from this lord deputy, which with much importunity and long attendance, he hardly obtained, and that with no higher title than " Governor of Ulster." After many impressions (not-over successfully) made in Ulster, he was by the deputy remanded in the south of Ireland, where he spent much time (take much into little in my author's words as to his general performance) nullius bono, sed magno suo damno.† His friends in the English court grew few and cold, his foes many and active; affronts were plentifully poured upon him, on purpose either to drown him in grief, or burn him in his own anger. From Munster he was sent back into Ulster, where he was forbidden to follow his blow, and use a victory he had gotten: yea, on a sudden stript out of his commission, and reduced to be governor of three hundred men: yet his stout stomach (as true tempered steel) bowed without breaking; in all these afflictions embracing all changes with the same tenor of constancy. Pay-days in Ireland came very thick, moneys out of England very slow; and his noble associates began to withdraw, common men to mutiny; so that the earl himself was at last recalled home. 200 horse and 400 foot. + Camden's Elizabeth, anno 1573. Not long after, he was sent over the second time into Ireland with a loftier title than (the length of the feather makes not the heap the higher) of earl marshal of Ireland, where he fell into a strange looseness (not without suspicion of poison); and he died anno 1576. His soul he piously resigned to God; his lands (much impaired) descended to his son Robert, but ten years of age. His body was brought over, and buried in Carmarthen, the place of his nativity; and his widow lady (to say no more) was soon re-married to Robert earl of Leicester. Let me add, that he died in the 36th year of his age, fatal to his family, his father and grandfather dying in the same ;* which year Robert earl of Essex his son never attained to; and whether it had not been as honourable for his grand-child Robert earl of Essex† to have died in the same year of his age, or to have lived longer, let others decide. WRITERS. AMBROSE MERLIN was born at Carmarthen, a city so denominated from his nativity therein. This I write in conformity to common tradition (and he who will not errare cum vulgo must pugnare cum vulgo); my own judgment remonstrating against the same, finding the city called Mariadunum in Ptolemy, before Merlin's cradle was ever made, if Merlin's cradle was ever made. His extraction is very incredible, reported to have an incubus to his father, pretending to a pedigree older than Adam, even from the serpent himself. But a learned pen demonstrateth the impossibility of such conjunctions. And let us not load Satan with groundless sins, whom I believe the father of lies,§ but [in a literal sense] no father of bastards. Many are the pretended prophecies of Merlin, whereof the British have a very high esteem, and I dare say nothing against them; only I humbly tender to this nation's consideration a modest proverb of their own country, "Namyn Dduw nid oes Dewin," (that, besides God, there is no Diviner.) Yet I deny not but that the devil can give a shrewd conjecture; but often the deceiver is deceived. Sure I am, Merlin's prophecies have done much mischief, seeing such who pretended skill therein, that they could unfold his meaning (though, for my part, I believe they must have the devil's key who open the devil's lock) put Owen Glendower on his rebellion against king Henry the Fourth,|| persuading him the time wherein he would recover the Welch Principality, which caused the making of those cruel laws, with Draco's, written in blood against the Welch, which no tender Englishman can read without regret. Camden's Elizabeth, anno 1576. The famous Parliamentarian general, who died Sept. 13, 1646.-ED. || Dr. Powell, in his History of Wales, p. 386. § John viii. 44. There want not those who maintain Merlin to be a great chemist; and those, we know, have a language peculiar to themselves; so that his seeming prophecies are not to be expounded historically, but naturally, disguising the mysteries of that faculty from vulgar intelligence. The best prophecy I meet with in Merlin, which hit the mark indeed, is what I find cited out of him by Giraldus Cambrensis: "Sextus monia Hiberniæ subvertent, et regiones in regnum redigentur," (the Sixth shall overturn the walls of Ireland, and reduce their countries into a kingdom.) This was accomplished under king James the Sixth, when their fastnesses (Irish walls) were dismantled, and courts of civil justice set up in all the land. But enough of Merlin, who is reported to have died† anno THE FAREWELL. How this county (with the rest of Wales) hath preserved its woods in our unhappy civil wars is to me unknown; yet if they have been much wasted (which I suspect) I wish that the pitcoal, which in some measure it affordeth, may daily be increased for the supply of their fuel. In his History of Ireland. †The tradition is, that Merlin did not die, but was laid asleep by magic; to which fable Spenser alludes. He is supposed to have lived about the end of the fifth century.-Ev. CARNARVON. This county hath the Irish sea on the west, Anglesea (divided by Menaifret) on the north, Denbyshire on the east, and Merionethshire on the south. This I have observed peculiar to this county, that all the market are sea towns (being five in number, as noted in the maps) which no other county in England or Wales doth afford. The natives hereof count it no small credit unto them, that they made the longest resistance against, and last submitted unto, the English: and, indeed, for natural strength, it exceedeth any part of this Principality; so that the English were never more distressed than in the invasion thereof. I am much affected with the ingenuity of an English nobleman, who, following the camp of king Henry the Third, in these parts, wrote home to his friends, about the end of September 1245, the naked truth indeed, as followeth: "We lie in our tents watching, fasting, praying, and freezing: we watch for fear of the Welchmen, who are wont to invade us in the night; we fast for want of meat, for the half-penny loaf is worth five pence; we pray to God to send us home again speedily; we freeze for want of winter garments, having nothing but thin linen betwixt us and the wind." Yet is this county in itself sufficiently plentiful (though the Welch had the wit to keep food from the English); and Snowdon hills therein are commended by my author,* for fertility of wood, cattle, fish, and food. Smile not, reader, to hear of fish in so high mountains which have plenty of pools interposed. WONDERS. Giraldus Cambrensis telleth us how there is a lake in Snowdon hills, in this county, which hath a floating island therein. But it seemeth that it either always swimmeth away from such who endeavour to discover it, or else that this vagrant, wearied with long wandering, hath at last fixed itself to the continent. He telleth us also of monoculous fishes, though not fully acquainting us how their one eye is disposed; whether, Polyphemus-like, in the midst of their head, or only on one side. The truth is, these one-eyed fishes are too nimble for any men with two eyes to behold them. Matthew Paris, anno notato, p. 924. |