eminent, began by bishop Peter in the reign of king John, and finished by his successors; though having never seen it, I can say little thereof. But, in one respect, the roof thereof is higher than any in England, and as high as any in Europe, if the ancient absolute and independant jurisdiction thereof be considered, thus stated by an authentic author:* "Episcopi Walliæ à Menevensi Antistite sunt consecrati, et ipse similiter ab aliis tanquam suffraganeis est consecratus, nullâ penitus aliæ Ecclesiæ factâ professione vel subjectione." The generality of which words must be construed to have reference as well to Rome as to Canterbury; Saint David's acknowledging subjection to neither, till the reign of king Henry the First.

PRINCES.

HENRY TUTHAR, son to Edmund earl of Richmond and Margaret his lady, was born at Pembroke in this county,† anno Domini 1462, in the reign of king Henry the Sixth. He was bred a child at court; when a young man he lived an exile in France, where he so learned to live of a little, that he contracted a habit of frugality, which he did not depose till the day of his death. Having vanquished king Richard the Third in the battle of Bosworth, and married Elizabeth eldest daughter to king Edward the Fourth, he reigned king of England by the name of Henry the Seventh.

He is generally esteemed the wisest of our English kings; and yet many conceive, that the lord Bacon, writing his life, made him much wiser than he was, picking more prudence out of his actions, than the king himself was privy to therein; and, not content to allow him politic, endeavoured to make him policy itself.

Yet many think his judgment failed him, when refusing the fair proffer of Columbus for the discovery of America, who might therein have made a secret adventure, without any prejudice to the reputation of his wisdom. But such his wariness he would not tamper with costly contingencies, though never so probable to be gainful; nor would he hazard a hook of silver to catch a fish of gold. He was the first king who secretly sought to abate the formidable greatness (the parent of many former rebellions) in the English peerage, lessening their dependencies, countenancing the commons, and encouraging the yeomanry with provisions against depopulations. However, hereby he did not free his successors from fear, but only exchanged their care, making the commons (who because more numerous, less manageable) more absolute, and able in time to contest with sovereignty.

He survived his queen, by whom he had the true title to the crown, about five years. Some will say, that all that time he was king only by the courtesy of England, which I am sure he was * Giraldus, Itinerarium Cambriæ, lib. cap. 1.

† Sir Francis Bacon, in the conclusion of his Character, in his Life.

PRINCES-SAINTS-WRITERS.

555

loath to acknowledge. Others say he held the crown by conquest, which his subjects were as unwilling to confess. But, let none dispute how he held, seeing he held it; having Pope, Parliament, power, purse, success, and some shadow of succession, on his side.

His greatest fault was, grinding his subjects with grievous exactions. He was most magnificent in those structures he hath left to posterity; amongst which, his devotion to God is most seen in two chapels, the one at Cambridge, the other at Westminster. His charity to the poor in the hospital of The Savoy ; his magnificence to himself in his own monument of gilded copper; and his vanity to the world, in building a ship called The Great Harry, of equal cost, saith some, with his chapel, which afterwards sunk into the sea, and vanished away in a moment.*

He much employed bishops in his service, finding them honest and able. And here I request the judicious and learned reader to help me at a dead lift, being posed with this passage written in his life by the lord Verulam :

"He did use to raise bishops by steps, that he might not lose the profits of the first-fruits, which by that course of gradation was multiplied."

Now, I humbly conceive, that the first fruits (in the common acception of the word) were in that age paid to the Pope and would fain be informed, what by-first-fruits these were, the emolument whereof accrued to the crown. This politic king, at his palace of Richmond, April 22, 1509, ended his life; and was buried in the magnificent chapel aforesaid; on the same token that he ordered, by his last will and testament, that none save such of the blood royal (who should descend from his loins) should be buried in that place; straightly forbidding any other, of what degree or quality soever, to be interred therein.+ But only the will of the King of Heaven doth stand inviolable, whilst those of the most potent earthly princes are subject to be infringed.

SAINTS.

JUSTINIAN was a noble Briton by birth, who with his own inheritance built a monastery in the island of Ramsey in this county, where many monks lived happily under his discipline, until three of them, by the devil's instigation, slew this Justinian, in hatred of his sanctity, about the year of Christ 486.‡ His body was brought with great veneration to Menevia, and there interred by Saint David, and since much famed with [supposed] miracles.

WRITERS.

GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, whose surname, say some,§ was

* In the beginning of the reign of queen Mary.-Stow, p. 16.

+ Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 20.

J. Capgrave, in Catal. SS. Brit.

§ Godwin, in the Bishops of St. David's.

Fitz-Girald; say others,* was Barry ; and I believe the latter, because he saith so himself in his book " De Vitâ Suâ ;" and was born at Tenby in this county.

His father, William de Barry, an Englishman :- his mother, Angareth, the daughter of Nesta, daughter of Rhese, prince of South Wales.

He was nephew to David the second bishop of St. David's, by whom he was made archdeacon of Brecknock. He was wont to complain, that the English did not love him because his mother was a Welch-woman; and the Welch did hate him because his father was an Englishman; though, by his excellent writings, he deserved of England well, of Wales better, and of Ireland best of all; making a topographical description of all three; but acting in the last as a secretary under king John, with great industry and expence. Yea, he was a great traveller, as far as Jerusalem itself, and wrote De Mirabilibus Terræ Sanctæ, so that he might be styled Giraldus Anglicus, Hibernicus, Hierosolymitanus, though it was his mind and modesty only to be Cambrensis.

One may justly wonder that, having all dimensions requisite to preferment, his birth, broad acquaintance, deep learning, long life (living above seventy years), he never attained to any considerable dignity. Hear how, betwixt grief and anger, he expresseth himself concerning his ill success at court: "Irreparabili damno duo ferè lustra consumens, nihil ab illis§ preter inanes vexationes et vacua veris promissa suscepi."

Indeed for a long time no preferment was proffered him above a beggarly bishopric in Ireland; and at last the see of St. David's was the highest place he attained. Whilst some

impute this to his planet; the malignant influence whereof hath blasted men of the most merit :- his pride; some men counting it their due for preferment to court them, and that it is enough for them to receive, too much to reach after it:-his profitableness to be employed in meaner places; some having gotten an useful servant, love to wear him out in working, and (as gardeners keep their hedges close cut, that they may spread the broader) maintain them mean, that they may be the more industrious.

Giraldus himself tells us the true reason that he was ever beheld oculo novercali, because being a Welchman by the surer side; and then such the antipathy of the English, they thought no good could come out of Wales. Sad, that so worthy a man should pænas dare patriæ et matris suæ.

Being at last, as we have said, made bishop of Saint David's, he went to Rome, and there stickled for an exemption of that

* J. Wareus, de Scriptoribus Hiberniæ, p. 112.

+ Lib. i. cap. 2, extant in Sir Robert Cotton's library.

In the life-time of King Henry his father.

§ King Henry II. and his Sons.

his see from Canterbury, and to make it an absolute metropolitan, whereby he highly offended Hubert archbishop of Canterbury. But Giraldus, after long debates, being rather over-borne with bribes than overcome in cause, returned re infectâ, died, and was buried in his own cathedral, about the year 1215.

THE FAREWELL.

I know not what better to wish this county, than that the marl, a great fertilizer of barren ground, which it affordeth, be daily increased; especially since corn is in all probability likely to grow scarcer and scarcer; that their land, through God's blessing, being put in heart therewith, may plentifully answer the desires of the husbandman, and hereafter repair the penury of this, with the abundance for many succeeding years.

RADNORSHIRE.

RADNORSHIRE (in British, Sire Maiseveth,) in form threesquare, is bounded on the north-west with Herefordshire, and on the south side (separated by the river Wye) with Brecknockshire, and on the north part thereof with Montgomeryshire.

Nature may seem to have chequered this county; the east and south parts being fruitful, whilst the north and west thereof (lying rough and uneven with mountains) can hardly be bettered by the greatest pains and industry of the husbandman. Yet is it indifferently well stored with woods, and conveniently watered with running rivers, and in some places with standing

mears.

Mr. Camden telleth us,* that there is a place therein termed Melieneth (from the mountains thereof being of a yellowish colour) which stretcheth from Offa's Dyke unto the river Wye, which cutteth over-thwart the west corner of this shire, where meeting with some stones which impede its motion, on a sudden, for want of ground to glide on, hath a violent downfall, which place is termed Raihader Gowy, that is, the fall or flood-gates of Wye. Hereupon he supposeth it not improbable that the Englishmen forged that word for the name of this shire, terming it Radnorshire.

PRINCES.

[HENRY of MONMOUTH, whose name was here inserted by Dr. Fuller, owing to its inadvertent omission in the proper place, (which error was repeated in Mr. Nichols's 4to edition), will now be found under the county of MONMOUTHSHIRE, vol. ii. p. 433.-ED.

PRELATES.

ELIAS de RADNOR.-GUILIELMUS de RADNOR.-I join them together for three reasons: first, because natives of the same town (understand it Old Radnor-the new town of that name being built probably since their decease): secondly, because bishops of the same see, Llandaff: thirdly, because eminent; being eminent for nothing, the names and dates of their deaths (the one May 6, 1240, the other June 30, 1256) being + Ibidem.

In his Britannia, in this shire.