SHROPSHIRE. SHROPSHIRE hath Cheshire on the north; Staffordshire on the east; Worcester, Hereford, and Radnor-shires on the south; Montgomery and Denbigh-shires on the west. The length thereof from north to south is 34 miles, and the general breadth thereof about 26 miles. I behold it really (though not so reputed) the biggest land-lock-shire in England: for although, (according to Mr. Speed's measuring) it gathereth but one hundred thirty-four miles (short of Wiltshire by five) in circumference; yet, though less in compass, it may be more in content, as less angular in my eye, and more approaching to a circle, the form of greatest capacity: a large and lovely county, generally fair and fruitful, affording grass, grain, and all things necessary for man's sustenance, but chiefly abounding with NATURAL COMMODITIES. IRON. It is the most impure of metals, hardly meltable but with additaments; yea malleable and ductible with difficulty. Not like that at Damascus, which they refine in such sort, that it will melt at a lamp, and yet so tough that it will hardly break.* Some impute the grossness of our English iron to our water, not so proper for that purpose as in Spain and other parts; and the poet telleth us of Turnus's sword. Ensem quem Dauno igni potens Deus ipse parenti However, many utensils are made of the iron of this county, to the great profit of the owners, and no loss (I hope) of the commonwealth. COAL. One may observe a threefold difference in our English coal; 1. Sea-coal, brought from Newcastle; 2. Land-coal, at Mendip, MANUFACTURES - -BUILDINGS-MEDICINAL WATERS. 53 Bedworth, &c. and carted into other counties; 3. What one may call River or Fresh-water coal, digged out in this county, at such a distance from Severn, that they are easily ported by boat into other shires. Oh if this coal could be so charcked as to make iron melt out of the stone, as it maketh it in smiths' forges to be wrought in the bars. But "Rome was not built all in one day;" and a new world of experiments is left to the discovery of posterity. MANUFACTURES. This county can boast of no one, her original, but may be glad of one to her derivative; viz. the Welsh Friezes brought to Oswestry, the staple of that commodity, as hereafter shall be observed. THE BUILDINGS. No county in England hath such a heap of castles together, insomuch that Shropshire may seem on the west, divided from Wales with a wall of continued castles. It is much that Mr. Speed, which alloweth but one hundred and eighty-six in all England,* accounteth two and thirty in this county. But as great guns, so useful in the side of a ship, are useless in the middle thereof; so these castles, formerly serviceable whilst Shropshire was the verge of English dominions, are now neglected, this shire being almost in the middest of England, since Wales was peaceably annexed thereunto. As for the houses of the gentry of this county, as many of them are fair and handsome, so none amount to an extraordinary eminence. MEDICINAL WATERS. There is a spring at Pitchford, in this shire, which hath an oily unctuous matter swimming upon the water thereof. Indeed it is not in such plenty as in a river near to Solos in Cilicia,‡ so full of that liquid substance, that such as wash therein seem anointed with oil; nor so abundant as in the springs near the Cape of St. Helen, wherewith (as Josephus Acosta reports) men use to pitch their ropes and tackling. I know not whether the sanative virtue thereof hath been experimented; but am sure that, if it be bitumen, it is good to comfort the nerves, supple the joints, dry up rheums, cure palsies and contractions. I have nothing more to say of bitumen, but that great the affinity thereof is with sulphur, save that sulphur hath ingression into metal, and bitumen none at all. Here I purposely pass by See his Map General of England. + See his Description of Shropshire. Agricola de Natura, &c. lib. 1. cap. 7. Okenyate in this county,* where are alum springs, whereof the dyers of Shrewsbury make use instead of alum. PROVERBS. "He that fetcheth a wife from Shrewsbury must carry her into Staffordshire, or else shall live in Cumberland."] The staple-wit of this vulgar proverb, consisting solely in similitude of sound, is scarce worth the inserting. Know then that (notwithstanding the literal allusion) Shrewsbury affordeth as many meek wives as any place of the same proportion. Besides, a profitable shrew well may content a reasonable man, the poets feigning Juno chaste and thrifty, qualities which commonly attend a shrewd nature. One being demanded, "How much shrewishness may be allowed in a wife?” “Even so much," said he, "as of hops in ale;" whereof a small quantity maketh it both last the longer in itself, and taste the better to the owner thereof." "The case is altered, quoth Plowden."] This proverb referreth its original to Edmund Plowden, an eminent native and great lawyer of this county, though very various the relations of the occasion thereof. Some relate it to Plowden's faint pleading at the first for his client, till spurred on with a better fee; which, some will say, beareth no proportion with the ensuing character of his integrity. Others refer it to his altering of his judgment upon the emergency of new matter formerly undiscovered; it being not constancy, but obstinacy, to persist in an old error, when convinced to the contrary by clear and new information. Some tell it thus, that Plowden being of the Romish persuasion, some setters trepanned him (pardon the prolepsis) to hear mass. But afterwards Plowden understanding that the pretender to officiate was no priest, but a mere layman (on design to make a discovering),"" Oh the case is altered," quoth Plowden: "no priest, no mass." As for other meaner origination of this proverb, I have neither list nor leisure to attend unto them. PRINCES. RICHARD PLANTAGENET, second son to Edward the Fourth and Elizabeth his queen, was born at Shrewsbury 1472.† He was created by his father duke of York, and affianced to Anne, daughter and heir to John Mowbray duke of Norfolk. But, before the nuptials were solemnized, his cruel uncle, the duke of Gloucester, married him to a grave in the Tower of London. The obscurity of his burial gave the advantage to the report, that he lived in Perkin Warbeck, one of the idols which put politic king Henry the Seventh to some danger, and more trouble, before he could finally suppress him. * D. Jordan of Mineral Baths, p. 26. † Stow's Chronicle, p. 703. GEORGE PLANTAGENET, youngest son to Edward the Fourth and Elizabeth his queen, was born at Shrewsbury.* He was like Plautus's Solstitial flower, "qui repentinò ortus, repentinò occidit," dying in the infancy of his infancy. Some vainly conceive (such conjectures may be safely shot, when nobody can see whether they hit or miss the mark) that, had this George survived, he would have secured the lives of his two elder brethren, whose uncle duke Richard durst not cut through the threefold cable of royal issue; a vain surmise, seeing when tyrants' hands are once washed in blood, two or three are all one with their cruelty. SAINTS. MILBURGH, daughter to Meroaldus prince of Mercia, had the fair manor of Wenlock in this county given to her by her father for her portion. She, quitting all worldly wealth, bestowed her inheritance on the poor, and answered her name of Milburgh, which (as an antiquary + interpreteth) is good or gracious, to town and city. Living a virgin, she built a monastery in the same place; and departed this life about the year 664. Four hundred years after, in the reign of William the Conqueror, her corpse (discovered by miracles wrought thereby) was taken up sound and uncorrupted, to the admiration of the beholders (saith my author ‡); and surely, had I seen the same, I would have contributed my share of wondering thereunto. This I am sure of, that as good a Saint, Lazarus by name, by the confession of his own sister, did stink § when but four days buried. Her relics, enshrined at Wenlock, remained there in great state, till routed in the reign of king Henry the Eighth. OSWALD was king of Northumberland, who, after many_fortunate battles fought, was vanquished and slain at last by Penda, the Pagan king of the Mercians, at a place in this county, called after his name, Oswaldstre (now a famous market town in the Marshes); thereby procuring to his memory the reputation of saint and martyr. Be pleased, reader, to take notice, that all battles of this nature, though there were quarrels or armed suits, commenced on a civil or temporal account, for the extending or defending their dominions; yet were they conceived (in that age especially) to have a mixture of much piety and Church concernment therein, because fought against infidels, and so conducing consequentially to the propagation of the faith; the reason that all kings, killed in such service, achieved to themselves the veneration of saints and martyrs. Say not that king Saul|| might be sainted on the same account, mortally wounded in a pitched field fought • Stow's Chronicle, p. 703. + Verstegan, p. 265. The English Martyrology, on the 13th day of February. 1 Samuel xxxi. 3. § John xi. 39. against the uncircumcised Philistines; both because in fine he slew himself, and his former life was known to be notoriously wicked; whereas our Oswald was always pious, and exceedingly charitable to the poor. His arm, cut off, it seems from the rest of his body, remained, said. Bede, whole and incorrupt, kept in a silver case in St. Peter's church at Bamborough, whilst his corpse was first buried at Peterborough, and afterwards (in the Danish persecution) translated to Bergen in Flanders,* where it still remaineth. The fifth of August was, in our calendar, consecrated to his memory, save that the thanksgiving for the defeating of Gowrie's conspiracy made bold to justle him out all the reign of king James. His death happened anno Domini 635. CONFESSORS. This county afforded none, as the word is re-confined in our preface. But, if it be a little enlarged, it bringeth within the compass thereof. THOMAS GATAKER, younger son to William Gataker, was who a branch of an ancient family, so firmly planted by Divine Providence at Gatacre-hall in this county, that they have flourished the owners thereof, by a non-interrupted succession, from the time of king Edward the Confessor.† This Thomas being designed a student for the law, was brought up in the Temple, where, in the reign of queen Mary, he was often present at the examination of persecuted people. Their hard usage made him pity their persons, and admirable patience to approve their opinions. This was no sooner perceived by his parents (being of the old persuasion) but instantly they sent him over to Louvain in the Low Countries, to win him to compliance to the Popish religion; and, for his better encouragement, settled on him an estate of one hundred pound per annum, old rent. All would not do. Whereupon his father recalled him home, and revoked his own grant; to which his son did submit, as unwilling to oppose the pleasure of his parents, though no such revocation could take effect without his free consent. He afterwards diverted his mind from the most profitable to the most necessary study; from law to divinity and, finding friends to breed him in Oxford, he became the profitable pastor of St. Edmond's in Lombard Street, London, where he died anno 1593, leaving Thomas Gataker, his learned son (of whom formerly ) heir to his pains and piety. * PRELATES. ROBERT of SHREWSBURY was, in the reign of king John English Martyrology, 165. Narrative of the life of Thomas Gataker, junior, after the Sermon preached at his funeral. Vide LEARNED WRITERS, in London. |