 Book 1 of the History of Britain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Thomas Copeland. The History of Britain by John Milton. Book 1. The History of Britain, that part especially now called England. From the first traditional beginning continued to the Norman conquest, collected out of the ancient and best authors thereon, published from a copy corrected by the author himself, first published in the year 1670. The first book. The beginning of nations, those accepted of whom sacred books have spoken, is to this day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds also of many succeeding ages, yay, periods of ages, are either wholly unknown, or obscured and blemished with fables. Whether it were that the use 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 slow-thin ignorance, whereby the monuments of more ancient civility have been some destroyed, some lost, perhaps to esteem and contempt of the public affairs then present, as not worth recording, might partly be in cause. Certainly often times we see that wise men and a best ability have foreborn to write the acts of their own days, while they beheld with a just loathing and disdain not only how unworthy, how perverse, how corrupt, but often how ignoble, how petty, how below all history the persons and their actions were, who either by fortune or some rude election had attained, as a sword judgment and ignominy upon the land, to have the chief sway in managing the commonwealth. But that any law or superstition of our philosophers that drew it forbade the Britons to write accounts of their own memorable deeds, I know not why any person should out of Caesar's commentaries eledge. He indeed said that the doctrine they thought not lawful to commit to letters, but in most matters elths, both private and public, among which well may history be reckoned, they used the Greek term, and that the British Druids, who taught those in Gaul, should have been ignorant of any language that was known and used by the disciples, or that when they were so frequently employed in writing other things and were so inquisitive into the highest subjects, they would, for want of recording events, continue to be ever children in the knowledge of times and ages, is not likely. But whatever might be the reason of it, this we find, that of British affairs from the first peopleing of the island to the coming of Julius Caesar, nothing certain, either by tradition, history, or ancient fame hath hitherto been left us. At which we have of oldest seeming hath, by the greater part of judicious antiquaries, been long rejected as being only a modern fable. Nevertheless, there being others besides the first supposed author, and these too may not unread nor unlearned in antiquity, who admit that for a proved story which the former explode for fiction, and seeing that oft times relations here to fore counted fabulous, have been afterwards found to contain in them many footsteps and relics of something true, as what we read in poets of the flood and giants was little believe, till undoubted witnesses taught us that all of it was not famed. I have therefore determined to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales, be it for nothing else but in favor of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judiciously. I might also produce examples as deodoris among the Greeks, Livy and others among the Latins, and Polador and Verunius, who are accounted among our own writers, but I intend not with controversies and quotations to delay or interrupt the smooth course of the history, much less to argue and debate long who were the first inhabitants of this island and with what probabilities and what authorities each opinion have been upheld, but shall endeavor to do that which either to have been needed most, that is, with plain and lights and brevity, to relate well and in good order things worth the noting, so as they may best instruct and benefit those who read them, which imploring divine assistance that it may redound to his glory and the good of the British nation, I now begin, that the whole earth was inhabited before the flood and to the utmost point of habitable ground from those effectual words of God in the creation may be more than conjectured. Hence, that this island also had her dwellers, her affairs and perhaps her written histories, even in that old world, those many hundred years before the flood, with much reason we may infer. After the flood and the dispersing of nations as they journeyed leisurely from the east, Gomer, the eldest son of Javit, and his offspring, as by authorities, arguments and affinity of diverse names as generally believed, were the first that peopled all these western and northern climes. But those of our own writers who thought they had done nothing unless with all circumstances they tell us when and who they were who first set foot upon this island, presumed to name out of fabulous and counterfeit authors a certain Samothus, or dis, a fourth or sixth son of Javit, whom they make about 200 years after the flood, to have planted with colonies. First the continent of Celtica, or Gaul, and next this island. Thence to have named it Samothia, to have reigned here, and after him the nearly four kings, Megas, Saren, Druis, and Bardas. But the forged barosus, whom only they have to cite, nowhere mentions that either he or any of those whom they bring did ever pass into Britain, or send their people hither. So that this outlandish figment may easily excuse our not allowing it the room here so much as of a British fable. That which follows, perhaps as wide from truth, though seeming less impertinent, is that these Samothians under the reign of Bardas were subdued by Albion, a giant son of Neptune, who called the island after his own name, and ruled it 44 years. Till at length, passing over into Gaul, in aid of his brother Lestergan, against whom Hercules was hasting out of Spain into Italy, he was there slain in fight, and Bergen also his brother. Sure enough we are that Britain had been anciently termed Albion, both by the Greeks and Romans, and Mila, the geographer, makes mention of a stony shore in Langerdog, where by report such a battle was fought. The rest, as his giving name to the isle, or even landing here, depends altogether upon late surmises. But too absurd, and too unconscionably gross, is that fond invention that wafted hither the fifty daughters of a strange Diocletian king of Syria, brought in doubtless by some illiterate pretender with something mistaken in the common poetical story of Daneus, king of Argos, while his vanity, not pleased with the obscure beginning which truest antiquity affords the nation, labored to contrive us a pedigree, as he thought, more noble. These daughters, after having by the appointment of their father Daneus murdered on the night of their marriage all their husbands, except Linceus, whom his wife's loyalty saved, were by Linceus at the suit of his wife, their sister, not put to death, but turned out to see in a ship unmanned, of which whole sex they had incurred the hate, and, as the tale goes, they were driven on this island, where the inhabitants, who were none but devils, as some write, or as others, a lawless crew left here by Albion, without head or governor, both entertained them and had issue by them a second breed of giants, who tyrannized the isle till Brutus came. The eldest of these dames in a legend, they called Albina, and from thence, for which cause the whole seam was framed, will have the name Albion derived. Incredible it may seem that so sluggish a conceit should prove so ancient, as to be authorized by the elder Ninius, who is reputed to have lived above a thousand years ago. This, however, I find not in him, but he relates that Histian, sprung of Japheth, had four sons, Frankus, Romanus, Alaminus, and Pritto, of whom the Britons were the descendants, which, it says true, I believe, as that those other nations, whose names are resembled, came of the other three. If these dreams give not justification to call and doubt the book itself, which bears that title. Here, too, the things themselves have given us a warrantable dispatch to run them soon over, but now, of Brutus and his line, with the whole progeny of kings to the entrance of Julius Caesar, we cannot so easily be discharged. Descensive ancestry long continued, laws and exploits not plainly seeming to be borrowed or devised, which on the common belief have no small impression, being defended by many, denied utterly by few. For what, though Brutus and the whole trojan pretence were yielded up, seeing they who first devised to bring us from some noble ancestor were content at first with Brutus the first consul of Rome after the expulsion of Tarquinius of Pervas, till better invention, although not willing to forego the name of Brutus, taught them to remove it higher into a more fabulous age, and by the same remove, lighting on the trojan tales in affectation to make the Britain of one original with the Roman, pitched there. Yet that of those old and inborn names of successive kings of this island, never any should have been real persons or have done in their lives at least some part of what so long that's been related of them, cannot be absolutely concluded without too great a degree of incredulity. For these, and those causes above mentioned, that which hath received deprivation from so many, I have chosen not to admit. Certain or uncertain, be that upon the credit of those whom I must follow. So far as it keeps aloof from impossible and absurd and is attested by ancient writers from books more ancient, I refuse not to relate it as being the due and proper subject of story. The principal author of these disputed facts is well known to be Geoffrey of Mamma. What he was, and whence his authority, who in his age or before him have delivered the same matter, and such like general discourses, will better stand in a treatise by themselves. All of them agree in this, that Brutus was the son of Silveus, he of Ascanius, whose father was Ineus, a Trojan Prince, who at the burning of that city, with his son Ascanius and a collected number of his countrymen, that escaped from that destruction, took refuge on board a small fleet of ships and abandoned their native country in search of another settlement. And after long wandering on the sea arrived in Italy, where at length, by the assistance of Latinus, king of Laceum, who had given him his daughter Lavinia in marriage, he prevailed against his enemies and at length succeeded Latinus in that kingdom and left it to his son Ascanius, whose son Silveus, though Roman historians deny Silveus to be son of Ascanius, had secretly married a niece of Lavinia without the consent or knowledge of Ascanius. But sometime after this marriage, the wife of Silveus, becoming pregnant, the matter became known to Ascanius, and he then commanded his magicians to inquire by their art of what sex the offspring now conceived by the maid would prove at its birth to be, to which inquiry the magicians made answer that it was such a child as should be the cause of the death of both its parents, and further that after he should for so doing have been banished from his country, he should in a far country obtain the highest honor. And this prediction failed not to be accomplished, for its mother died in child bed, and the child, who was a boy and named Brutus, when he was 15 years of age, attending his father to the chase with an arrow unfortunately killed him. In consequence of this unhappy event, this young man was banished by his kindred from his native country and retired into Greece. In that part of it, which had formerly been subject to Peleus, the father of the celebrated warrior Achilles, but was then governed by a king named Pandrasus, and there took up his abode, where he met with a great number of persons who, like himself, were descended from Trojan ancestors. For after the taking of Troy by the Grecian army, Peleus, the son of Achilles, who was present at that great event, in revenge for his father's death, who had been slain there a little before, took prisoner Hellenus, one of King Prime's sons, together with other Trojans of distinction, and carried them and their families away with him to Greece, in a state of servitude, from whom there was descended a numerous posterity, when young Brutus took refuge among them. And amongst these descendants, from the same common ancestors with himself, the young man soon distinguished himself so much by his valor and activity and capacity for military undertakings, that he became an object of the respect and admiration of the kings and great captains of the age, above all the youth of that country, whereby the Trojans not only began to hope but secretly to move him that he would lead them the way to liberty. They alleged their numbers and the promised help of Asaricus, a noble Greekish youth, who was by the mother's side a Trojan, and whom for that cause his brother went about to dispossess of certain castles bequeathed to him by his father. Brutus, considering both the forces offered him and the strength of those holds or castles, not unwillingly consents. First, therefore, having fortified those castles, he, with Asaricus and the whole multitude, betake them to the woods and hills, as the safest place from which to expostulate. And in the name of all, he sends to Pendrasus this message, that the Trojans, holding it to be acting in a manner unworthy of their ancestors for them to continue in a state of servitude in a foreign kingdom, had retreated to the woods, choosing rather a savage life than a slavish. If that displeased him, the desire that then, with his leave, they might depart to some other soil. As this may pass with good allowance that the Trojans might be many in these parts, for Hellenus was by Pyrrhus, made king of the Kaonians, and the sons of Pyrrhus, by Andromache Hector's wife, could not but be powerful through all Epirus. So much the more it may be doubted how these Trojans could be thus in bondage, where they had friends and countrymen so potent. But to examine these things with diligence were but to confute the fables of Britain with the fables of Greece or Italy. For of this age what we have to say as well concerning most other countries as this island is equally liable to doubt. Be how it will, Pendrasus, not expecting so bold a message from the sons of Captives, gathers an army, and marching toward the woods, Brutus, who had noticed his approach nigh to a town called Sporotinum, I know not what town, but certainly of no Greek name, overnight planting himself there with good part of his men, suddenly sets upon him, and with slaughter of the Greeks pursues him to the passage of a river, which my unauthor names Acolyne, meaning perhaps Acolyus or Acheron, where at the fore he overlays them afresh. This victory obtained and a sufficient strength left in Sporotinum, Brutus with Antigonus, the king's brother, and his friend Anacletus, whom he had taken in the fight, returns to the residue of his friends in the thick woods. While Pendrasus, with all speed recollecting his scattered troops, besieges the town. Brutus, to relieve his men besiege, to earnestly call him, distrusting the sufficiency of his force, bethinks himself of this policy. He calls to him Anacletus, and, threatening instant death else, both to him and his friend Antigonus, enjoins him that he should go at the second hour of night to the Greekish legra, and tell the guards he had brought Antigonus by stealth out of prison to a certain woody veil, enable through the weight of his fetters to move him further, and treating them to come speedily and fetch him in. Anacletus, to say both himself and his friend Antigonus, swears this, and, at a fit hour, sets on alone toward the camp. He is met, examined, and at last unquestionably known. To whom great profession of fidelity first made, he frames his tail, as had been taught him, and they now, fully assured with the credulous rashness leaving their stations, fared accordingly by the ambush that there awaited them. Fourthwith, Brutus, dividing his men into three parts, leads on in silence to the camp, commanding first each part at a several place to enter, and for their execution, till he, with his squadron possessed of the king's tent, gave signal to them by trumpet. The sound whereof is no sooner heard, but huge havoc begins upon sleeping and unguarded enemy, whom the besieged, also now sallying forth, on the other side to sail. Brutus the while had special care to seize and secure the king's person, whose life, he being still within his custody, he knew was the surest pledge to obtain what he should demand. Day appearing, he enters the town, there distributes the king's treasury, and, leaving the place better fortified, returns with the king his prisoner to the woods. Straight, the ancient and grave man he summons to council, to consider what they should now demand of the king. After long debate, memprisious, one of the gravest, utterly dissuading them from thought of longer stay in Greece, unless they meant to be deluded with a subtle peace and the awaited revenge of those whose friends they had slain, advises them to demand, first the king's eldest daughter, Inugin, in marriage to their leader, Brutus, with a rich dowry, next shipping, money, and fit provision for them all to depart the land. This resolution pleasing best, the king, now brought in and placed in a high seat, is briefly told that on these conditions granted he might be free, not granted he must prepare to die. Pressed with the fear of death, the king readily yields, especially to bestow his daughter on whom he confessed so noble and so valiant, offers them also the third part of his kingdom if they like to stay, if not to be their hostage himself till he had made good his word. The marriage therefore solemnized, and shipping from all parts got together, the Trojans in a fleet no less written than three hundred four and twenty sail, but take them to the wide sea, where with a prosperous course, two days and a night, bring them on a certain island long before dispeopled and left waste by sea rovers. The name were of was then the Ogisha, now unknown. They who were sent out to discover, came at length to a ruined city, where was a temple and image of Diana that gave oracles, but not meeting first to last with any creatures save wild beasts, they returned with this notice to their ships, wishing their general would inquire of that oracle what voyage to pursue. Consultation had, Brutus, taking with him Gerion, his diviner, and twelve of the ancientists, with wondered ceremonies before the inward shrine of the goddess, in verse as it seems the manner was, utters his request, Diva potens, Nemoran, etc. Goddess of shades and huntress, who at will walked on the ruling sphere and through the deep, on thy third reign the earth looked now, and tell what land, what seat of rest thou bidst we seek, what certain seat where I may worship thee for a, with temples vowed and virgin choirs, to whom, sleeping before the altar, Diana in a vision that night thus answered, Brute, sub-okasum, solace, etc. Brutus, far to the west, in the ocean wide, beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, sea-girt it lies where giants dwell to vote, now void it fits thy people, thither bend thy course, there shall thou find a lasting seat, there to thy sons another Troy shall rise, and kings be born of thee, whose dreaded might shall all the world and conquer nations bold. These verses were originally Greek and were put into Latin Sethbaroneus by Gildus, a British poet whom he supposes to have lived unto the Roman emperor Claudius, which, if granted true, adds much to the antiquity of this fable, and indeed the Latin verses are much better than for the age of Geoffrey up Arthur, unless perhaps Joseph of Exeter, who was the only smooth poet of those times befriended him. In this answer Diana overshot her oracle, thus ending, ipsis totius teri, sub-ditus orbus errant, that to the race of Brute, kings of this island, the whole earth shall be subject. But Brutus, guided now as he thought by divine conduct, speeds him towards the west, and after some encounters on the Afric side, arrives at a place on the Tyrin Sea, where he happens to find the race of those Trojans who, with Antonor, came into Italy, and Carinius, a man much famed, was the chief, though by sure authors it be reported that those Trojans with Antonor were seated on the other side of Italy on the Adriatic, not on the Tyrin shore. But these, joining company, and past the Herculian pillars at the mouth of Ligius in Aquitania, cast anchor, where, after some discovery made of the place, Carinius, hunting nigh the shore with his men, is by messengers of the king Gopharius, Pictus, met, and questioned about his errand there. Who not answering to their mind, Imbertus, one of them, lets fly an arrow at Carinius, which he avoiding slays him, and the Pictavian himself, here upon levying his whole force, is overthrown by Brutus and Carinius, the latter of whom, with the battle axe which he was one to manage against the Tyrin giants, is said to have done marvels. But Gopharius, having drawn to his aid the whole country of Gaul, at that time governed by twelve kings, puts his fortune to a second trial, wherein the Trojans, overborn by multitude, are driven back and besieged in their own camp, which by good foresight was strongly situate. When Brutus unexpectedly issuing out, and Carinius in the meanwhile, whose device it was, assaulting them behind from the wood, where he had conveyed his men the night before, the Trojans are again victors. But with the loss of Turon, a valued nephew of Brutus, whose ashes left in that place gave name to the city of Tur, built there by the Trojans. Brutus, finding now his powers much lessened, and thinking this yet not the place foretold him, leaves Aquitaine, and with an easy course arriving at Totnes in Devonshire, quickly perceives here to be the promised end to his labours. The island, not yet called Britain, but Albion, was in a manner desert and inhospitable, kept only by a remnant of giants, whose excessive force and tyranny had consumed the rest of the people. These giants Brutus destroys, but to his people divides the land, which with some reference to his own name he then forecalled Britain. To Carinius, Cornwall, as he now call it, fell by lot. The rather by him liked for the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk still there. Which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise. And here, with leave bespoken to recite a grand fable, though dignified by our best poets, while Brutus on a certain festival day solemnly kept on that shore, where he first landed, was with the people in great jollity and mirth, a crew of these savages breaking in upon them began on the sudden another sort of game than at such a meeting was expected. But at length, by many hands overcome, Goemmigog, the hugest in height twelve cubits, is reserved alive, that with him Carinius, who desired nothing more might try his strength, whom in a wrestle the giant catching a loft with a terrible hug broke three of his ribs. Nevertheless, Carinius, enraged, heaving him up by main force, and on his shoulders, bearing him to the next high rock, threw him headlong all shattered into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, called ever since, Goemmigog, which is to say the giant's lead. After this, Brutus, in a chosen place, builds Trojanova, changed in time to Trinovantum, now London, and began to enact laws, heli being then high priest in Judea. And having governed the whole isle twenty-four years, died, and was buried in his new Troy. His three sons, Lucrine, Albanact, and Camber, divide the land by consent. Lucrine has the middle part, Loegria. Camber possessed Cambria, or Wales. Albanact Albania, now Scotland. But he, in the end, by Humber, king of the Huns, who with the fleet invaded that land, was slain in fight, and his people drove back into Loegria. Lucrine and his brother go out against Humber, who now marching onward was by them defeated, and in a river drowned, which to this day retains his name. Among the spoils of his camp and navy were found certain young maids and estrudists, above the rest passing fair, the daughter of a king in Germany. From whence Humber, as he went wasting the sea coast, had led her captive, whom Lucrine, though before contracted to the daughter of Carinius, resolved to marry. By being forced and threatened by Carinius, whose authority and power he feared, he yields to marry Gwendolyn, his daughter, but in secret loves the other, and oftentimes retiring as to some private sacrifice, the vaults and passages made underground, and seven years, thus enjoying her, had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off, by the death of Carinius, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Gwendolyn, he makes estrudists now his queen. Gwendolyn, all in a rage, departs into Cornwall, where Madame, the son she had by Lucrine, was hitherto brought up by Carinius, his grandfather, and gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects gives battle to her husband by the river Stur, wherein Lucrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Gwendolyn. For estrudists and her daughter, Sabra, she throws into a river, and to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's name, which by length of time is changed now to Sabrina, or Sabra. Fifteen years she governs in behalf of her son, then, resigning to him at age, retires to her father's dominion. This, set my author, was in the days of Samuel. Madden hath the praise to have well and peacefully ruled the space of forty years, leaving behind him two sons, Memprisius and Malin. Memprisius had first to do with the ambition of his brother, aspiring to share with him in the kingdom, whom therefore at a meeting to compose matters, with a treachery which his cause needed not, he slew. Nor was he better in the sole possession thereof, so ill could he endure a partner, for he afterwards killed his nobles, and those especially next to succeed him, till, at last, being given over to unnatural lust. In the twentieth year of his reign, hunting in a forest, he was devoured by wolves. His son Ebronc, a man of mighty strength and stature, reigned forty years. He first, after Brutus, invaded Gaul, and laid it waste, and returning rich and prosperous, built Carybronc, now York in Albania, and Alcud, Mount Agnid, or the castle of Madden's, now Edinburgh. He had twenty sons and thirty daughters by twenty wives, his daughters he sent to Silvius Alba into Italy, who bestowed them on his peers of the Trojan line. His sons, under the leading of a saracus, the brother, won them lands and senaries in Germany, which country has been thought by some persons to have been thence called Germania, or the land of brothers, the word Germanus in the Latin language being often used for a brother. But this derivation of the word Germany, as the name of the country, now so called, seems to have been too hastily adopted, as the time of these conquests of Ebronc and his sons of Germany seems to have been prior to the use of the word Geminus in the Latin tongue in the sense of the word brother, or even to the existence of the Latin language itself, such as we now have it in Plautus and Terence, and all posterior authors in it. Some writers, who have described the country of Hennault, as Jacobus Bergamas and Lesabius, are cited to affirm that Ebronc in his war there was by Brunschildus, Lord of Hennault, put to the worst. Brutus therefore, surnamed Green Shield, succeeding to repair his father's losses as the same Lesabius reports, fought a second battle in Hennault with Brunschildus at the mouth of Scaldus, and encamped on the river Hania, of which our Spencer also thus sings. Let Scaldus tell and let tell Hania, and let the marsh of Esthambruges tell what color were their waters that same day, and all the moor twixed Elvisham and Del, with blood of Hennalois, which therein fell. How oft that day did sad Brunschildus see the Green Shield died in Dolores for mail, etc. But Hennault and Brunschild and Green Shield seemed newer names than for a story pretended thus ancient. Him succeeded Leo, a maintainer of peace and equity, but slackened in his latter end, whence arose some civil discord. He built in the north, care Leo, and in the days of Solomon. Rudhudebras, or Hudebras, appeasing the commotions which his father could not, founded Kerkaint, or Canterbury, Kegwent, or Winchester, and Mount Palladour, now Sceptonia, or Shaftesbury. But this by others is contradicted. Rudhude, his son, built Kerberus, or Bath, and those medicinal waters he dedicated to Minerva, in whose temple there he kept fire continually burning. He was a man of great invention, and taught necromancy, till having made him wings to fly, he fell down upon the temple of Apollo in Trinivant, and so died after twenty years' reign. Hitherto, from father to son, the direct line had run on, but Leo, who next reigned, had only three daughters, and no male issue, governed laudably, and built Kerler, now Leicester, on the bank of Sauron. But at last, failing through age, he determined to bestow his daughters, and so among them to divide his kingdom. Yet first, to try which of them loved him best, a trial that might have made him, had he known as wisely how to try, as he seemed to know how much the trying behooved him, he resolved a simple resolution to ask them solemnly in order, and which of them should profess largest her to believe? Goneril, the eldest, apprehending too well her father's weakness, makes answer invoking heaven that she loved him above her soul. Therefore, quoth the old man, overjoyed, since thou so honorest my declining age, to thee and the husband whom thou shalt choose, I give the third part of my realm. So fair a speeding, for a few words soon uttered, was to Reagan the second ample instruction what to say. She, on the same demands, fares no protesting, and the gods must witness that otherwise to express her thought she knew not, but that she loved him above all creatures, and so receives an equal revolt with her sister. But, quodilia, the youngest, though hitherto she had been the best beloved, and had now before her eyes the rich and present hire of a little easy soothing, and the danger also, and the loss likely to be tied plain dealing, yet moves not from the solid purpose of a sincere and virtuous answer. Father, saith she, my love towards you is as my duty bids. What should a father seek? What can a child promise more? They who pretend beyond this flatter. When the old man, sorry to hear this, and wishing her to recall those words, persisted asking, with a loyal sadness at her father's infirmity, but something on the sudden, harsh and glancing rather to sisters than speaking your own mind. Two ways only, saith she, I have to answer what you require me. The former, your command is, I should recant, except then this other which has left me. Look how much you have, so much is your value, and so much I love you. Then here thou, quodilia, now all in passion, what thy ingratitude hath gained thee. Because thou hast not reverenced thy aged father equal to thy sisters, part in my kingdom, or what else is mine, reckoned to have none. And without delay gives in marriage his other daughters, Goneril, Tumaglownas, Duke of Balbania, Reagan, Tujanayas, Duke of Coral. With them, in present, half his kingdom, the rest to follow at his death. In the meanwhile, fame was not sparing to divulge the wisdom and other graces of quodilia, in so much that Agnepas, a great king in Gaul, however he came by his Greek name, not found in any register of French kings, seeks her to wife, and nothing altered at the loss of her dowry receives her gladly, in such manner as she was sent him. After this, king Lear, more and more drooping with years, became an easy prey to his daughters and their husbands, who now, by daily encroachment, had seized the whole kingdom into their hands, and the old king is put to sojourn with his eldest daughter, attended only by three score knights. But they, in a short while grudged at as too numerous and disorderly for continual guests, are reduced to thirty. Not brooking that affront, the old king betakes him to his second daughter. But there also discord soon arising between the servants of different masters in one family, five only are suffered to attend him. Then, back again, he returns to the other, hoping that she, his eldest, could not but have more pity on his grey hares, but she now refuses to admit him, unless he be content with one only of his followers. At last the remembrance of his youngest, Cordelia, comes to his thoughts, and now acknowledging how true her words had been, though with little hope of a kind reception from one whom he had so much injured, and that he might be able to pay her the last recompense she can have from him by making to her his confession of her wise forewarning, that so perhaps his misery, the proof and experiment of her wisdom, might something soften her, he takes his journey into France. Now might be seen a difference between the silent or downright spoken affection of some children to the parents, and the talkative obsequiousness of others, while the hope of inheritance overacts them, and on the tongue's end enlarges their duty. Cordelia, out of mere love, without the suspicion of expected reward, at the message only of her father in distress, pours forth true filial tears, and not enduring either that her own, or any other eye should see him in such forlorn condition, as his messenger declared, discreetly appoints one of her trusted servants, first to convey him privately toward some good sea-town, there to array him, bathe him, cherish him, and furnish him with such attendance and state as besieged his dignity. But then, as from his first landing, he might send word of his arrival to her husband Akhenippus, which, done with all mature and requisite contrivance, Cordelia, with the king her husband, and all the barony of his realm, who then first had news of his passing the sea, go out to meet him. And after all honourable and joyful entertainment, Akhenippus, as to his wife's father and his royal guests, surrenders to him during his abode there the power and disposal of his whole dominion, permitting his wife Cordelia to go with an army and set her father upon his throne, wherein her piety so prospered as that she vanquished her impious sisters with those dukes, and Lear again, as set the story, three years obtained the crown, to whom dying Cordelia with all regal salendities gave burial in the town of Leicester. And then, as right heir succeeding him, and her husband Akhenippus being dead, ruled the land five years in peace, until Morvanus and Cunedegius, her two sisters' sons, not bearing that a kingdom should be governed by a woman, in the unseasonableness time to raise that quarrel against a woman so worthy, make war against her, depose her, and imprison her, of which being impatient, and now long unexercised to suffer, she there, as is related, killed herself. The victors between them part the land. But Morvanus, the eldest sister's son, who held by agreement from the north side of Humber to Cathness, incited by those about him to invade all as his own right wars on Cunedegius, who soon met him, overcame, and overtook him in a town of Wales, where he left his life, and ever since his name, to the place. Cunedegius was now sole king, and governed with much praise many years, about the time when Rome was built. Him succeeded Rivalo, his son, wise also, and fortunate, save what they tell us of three days' reigning blood, and swarms of stinging flies, where all men died. In order then, Gurgustius, Chago, or Lago, his nephew, Sicilius, Kinmarcus, then Gorbodigo, whose mother's name, Gorbodigo, and Gorbodion, who had two sons, Pharex and Porrex. They, in the old age of their father, falling to contend who should succeed, Porrex, attempting by treachery his brother's life, drives him into France, and, in his return, though aided with the force of that country, defeats and slays him. But by his mother Vedena, who less loved him, is himself with the assistance of her women soon after slain in his bed, with whom ended, as is thought, the line of Brutus, whereupon the whole land with civil droils was rented of five kingdoms, long time waging war each on other, and some say fifty years. At length, Dunwallo Monmuteus, the son of Clotin, king of Cornwall, one of the four said five, excelling in valor and goodliness of person, after his father's decease found means to reduce again the whole island into a monarchy, subduing the rest at opportunities. First, Imner, king of Luagria, whom he slew, then Rudaukas of Cambria, Steterias, Valbenia, confederate together, in which fight Dunwallo is reported, while the victory hung doubtful, to have used this art. He takes with him six hundred stout men, vids them put on the armor of their slain enemies, and so, unexpectedly approaching the squadron where those two kings had placed themselves in fight, from that part which they thought secure, assaults and dispatches them. Then, displaying his own ensigns, which before he had concealed, and sending notice to the other part of his army what was done, adds to them new courage, and gains a final victory. This Dunwallo was the first in Britain that wore a crown of gold, and therefore by some reputed the first king. He established the Momutine Laws, famous among the English to this day, written long after in Latin by Gildus and in Saxon by King Alfred, Soceth Joffrey. But Gildus denies to have known out of the Britons before Caesar, much less New Alfred. These laws, whoever made them, bestowed on temples the privilege of sanctuary, to cities also, and the ways dither-leading. Yea, to plows, granted a kind of like refuge, and made such riddance of thieves and robbers that all passages were safe. Forty years he governed alone, and was buried nigh to the temple of Concord, which he, to the memory of peace restored, had built in Trinafonte. His two sons, Bellinus and Brennus, contending about the crown, by decision of friends came at length to an accord. Brennus, to have the north of Humber, Bellinus the sovereignty of all. But the younger, not so contented that he, as they whispered to him, whose valor had so oft repelled the invasion of Culfus the Maureen duke, should not be subject to his brother. Upon new design, sales into Norway, enters into a league with Elsing the king of Norway, and proposes to marry his daughter, which Bellinus perceiving, in his absence, dispossesses him of all the north. Brennus, with a fleet of Norwegians, makes towards Britain. But being encountered by Withloth, the Danish king, who lay in claim to his bright pursuit among the sea, his haste was retarded, and he bereft of his spouse, who, from the fight, by a sudden tempest, was with the Danish king, driven on the coast of Northumberland, and brought to Bellinus. Brennus, nevertheless finding means to recollect his navy, lands in Albania, and gives battle to his brother in the wood Calaterium. But losing the day escapes with one single ship into Gaul. Meanwhile, the Dane upon his own offered to become tributary to Bellinus, being sent home with his new prize, the daughter of the king of Norway. Bellinus again turns his thoughts to the administering of justice, and the perfecting of his father's law. And to explain what highways might enjoy the foresaid privileges, he caused to be drawn out and paved four main roads to the utmost length and breadth of the island, and to others of thought, which are since attributed to the Romans. Brennus, on the other side, soliciting to his aid the kings of Gaul, happens at last on Soginus, Duke of the Aloborges, where his worth and comeliness of person, won him the duke's daughter and heir. In whose right he shortly after, by the death of Soginus, succeeding to his dukedom, and by obtained leave, passing with a great host through the length of Gaul, gets footing once again in Britain. Now was Bellinus unprepared. And now, the armies of the two brothers being ready to meet each other in battle, Conevena, the mother of them both, all in a fright, throws herself between them, and calling earnestly to Brennus, her son whose absence had so long deprived her of his sight, after embracements and tears assails him with such unmotherly power and the mention of things so dear and reverend, as irresistibly wrung from him all his enmity against Bellinus. Then our hands joined, reconciliation made firm, and council held to turn their united preparations on foreign parts. Thence, that by these two brothers, all Gaulia was overrun, the story tells. And what they did in Italy and at Rome, if these be they and not Gauls, who took that city, the Roman authors can best relate. So far from home, I undertake not for the Monmouth Chronicle, which here, against the stream of history, carries up and down these two brethren now into Germany, then again to Rome, pursuing Gabbias and Pozena to unheard of consulates. Thus much is more generally believed, that both this Brennus and another famous captain, Brithomaris, whom the epitonist Floris and others mention, were not Gauls but Brithoms. The name of the first in that tongue signifying a king, and of the other a great Britain. However, Bellinus, after a while returning home, the rest of his days ruled in peace, wealth and honour, above all his predecessors, building some cities, of which one was Caros of Panosca, since Cariccian, beautifying others as trenifant, with a gate, a haven, and a tower on the Thames, retaining yet his name. On the top whereof, his ashes are said to have been laid up in a golden urn. After him, Gurguntius Barberus was king, mild and just, but yet, inheriting his father's courage, he subdued the Dacian, or Dain, who refused to pay the tribute covenanted to Bellinus for his enlargement. In his return, finding about the Orphanes thirty ships of Spain, or Viscay, fraught with men and women for a plantation, whose captain also, Bartolinus, wrongfully banished as he pleaded, besought him that some part of his territory might be assigned them to dwell in, he sent with them certain of his own men to Ireland, which then lay unpeopled, and gave them that island to hold of him as in homage. He was buried in Carligion, a city which he had walled about. Gwytholin, his son, is also remembered as a just and good prince, and his wife, Marsha, to have excelled so much in wisdom as to venture upon a new institution of laws, which King Alfred translating called Marchion League, but more truly thereby has meant the Mersion Law, not translated by Alfred, but digested and incorporated with the West Saxon. In the minority of her son, she had the rule, and then, as may be supposed, brought forth these laws. Not herself, for laws are masculine births, but by the advice of her sages-councillors, and therein she might do virtuously since it befell her to supply the knowledge of her son. Else nothing is more arrived from the law of God and nature than that a woman should give laws to men. Her son Cecilius, coming to years, received the rule. Then, in order, Chimeras, then Daneus, or Alaneus, his brother. Then, Morindus, his son by Tanquistella, a concubine, who is recorded a man of excessive strength, value, liberal, and fair of aspect, but a manly cruel, not sparing in his anger enemy or friend, if any weapon were in his hand. A certain king of the Morines, or Picard's, invaded Northumberland, whose army this king, though not wanting sufficient numbers, chiefly by his own prowess overcame, but dishonored his victory by the cruel usage of his prisoners, whom his own hands or others in his presence put all to several deaths. Well fitted to such a bestial cruelty was his end. For hearing of a huge monster that from the Irish sea infested the coast, and in the pride of his strength foolishly attempting to set manly valor against a brute vastness, when his weapons were all in vain by that horrible mouth he was catched up and devoured. Corbonian, the eldest of his five sons, then whom a juster man lived not in his age, was a great builder of temples, and gave to all persons what was their due. To his gods devout worship, to men of dessert, honor, and preferment, to the commons, encouragement in their labors and trades, defense and protection from injuries and oppressions, so that the land flourished above her neighbors. Violence and wrong seldom was heard of. His death was a general loss. He was buried in Trinivant. Arcagalo, the second brother, followed not his example, but depressed the ancient nobility, and by peeling the wealthier sort stuffed his treasury and took the right way to be deposed, which afterwards befell him. Elendure, the next brother so named the Pius, was set up in his place, a mind so noble and so moderate, as almost as incredible to have been ever found. For having held the scepter five years, hunting one day in the forest of Calator, he chanced to meet his deposed brother, wandering in a mean condition who had been long in vain beyond the seas in portioning foreign aids to his restorment, and was now in a poor habit with only ten followers privately returned to find subsistence among his secret friends. At the unexpected sight of him, Elendure, himself also then but thinly accompanied, runs to him with open arms, and after many dear and sincere welcomings conveys him to the city Alclut. There hides him in his own bedchamber. Afterwards, feigning himself sick, he summons all his peers as about greatest affairs, where, admitting them one by one, as if his weakness endured not the disturbance of more at once, he causes them, willing or unwilling, once more to swear allegiance to Archigala, whom, after reconciliation made on all sides, he leads to York, and from his own head places the crown on the head of his brother. With thenceforth, the vice itself dissolving in him and forgetting her firmest hold, with the admiration of a deed so heroic, became a true converted man, ruled worthily ten years, died, and was buried in Calir. Thus was a brother saved by a brother, to whom the love of a crown, the thing that so often dazzles and vitiates mortal men, and for which thousands of persons of nearest blood have destroyed each other, was, in respect of brotherly dearness, a contemptible thing. Aladur now, in his own behalf, re-assumes the government, and did as was worthy such a man to do. When Providence, that so great a virtue might want no sort of trial to make it more illustrious, stirs up Vigenius and Peridur, his youngest brethren against him, who had deserved so nobly of that relation of brotherhood as least of all men to have deserved to be injured by a brother. Yet him they defeat, him they imprison in the tower of Trinibbant, and divide his kingdom, the north to Peridur, the south to Vigenius. After whose death, Peridur, obtaining all, so much the better used his power by how much the worse he got it, so that Aladur now is hardly missed. But yet, in all right, owing to his elder the due place whereof he had deprived him, fate would that he should die first, and Aladur, after many years imprisonment, is now the third time seated on the throne, which at last he enjoyed long in peace, finishing the interrupted course of his mild and just reign as full of virtuous deeds as days to his end. After these five sons of Morindus succeeded also their sons in order, Regin of Gorbonian, Morganus of Arcigalo, both good kings, but Enionus, his brother, taking other courses, was after six years deposed. Then Edwalo, taught by a near example, governed soberly. Then Runo, then Garuntius, he of Peridur, this last son of Aladur, from whose loins, for that likely is the durable and surviving race that springs of just progenitors, issued a long descent of kings, whose names only, for many successions without other memory, stand thus registered. Catellus, Coelus, Porex, Caron, and his three sons Fulgentius, Eldadus, and Adraegius, his son Orianus, Eliud, Edudacus, Coutenus, Griguntius, Marianus, Bleduno, Capit, Buenas, Sicilius, 20 kings in a continued row that either did nothing or lived in ages that wrote nothing, at least a foul pretermission in the author of this, whether story or fable, himself weary of seams of his own tedious tale. But to make amends for this silence, Blegabridus, next succeeding, is recorded to have excelled all before him in the art of music. Opportunally, had he but left us one song of the actions of his twenty predecessors. Yet after him, nine more succeeded in name. His brother Archimelus, Eldal, Redion, Radarchius, Simulius, Penisel, Hier, Comporius, but Cleguelius, with the addition of modest, wise, and just. His son Heli reigned forty years and had three sons, Ludd, Cassibilan, and Ninius. This Heli seems to be the same whom Ninius in his fragment calls Minocon. For him he writes to be the father of Cassibilan. Ludd was he who enlarged and walled about Trinovant. There kept his court, made it the prime city, and called it from his own name Keralud, or Ludd's town now London. Which, as is alleged out of Gildus, became matter of great dissension betwixt him and his brother Ninius. Who took it heinously that the name of Troy, their ancient country, should be abolished for any new one. Ludd was hardy and bold in war, in peace jolly feasting. He conquered many islands of the sea, Seth Huntington, and was buried by the gate, which from thence we call Luddget. His two sons Androgyus and Tenuantius were left to the tuition of Cassibilan, whose bounty and high demeanor so wrought with the common people has got him easily the kingdom transferred upon himself. He nevertheless, continuing to favor and support his nephews, confers freely upon Androgyus London with Kent, upon Tenuantius Cornwall, reserving a superiority over both of them, and all the other princes to himself, till the Romans for a while circumscribed his power. Thus far, though leaning only on the credit of Geoffrey Monmouth and his assertors, I yet for the specified causes have thought it not beneath my purpose to relate what I found. Where to I neither oblige the belief of other persons, nor over hastily subscribe mine own, nor have I stood with others computing or collating years and chronologies, lest I should be vainly curious about the times and circumstances of things whereof the substance is so much in doubt. By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night and traveled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colors and shapes. For albeit Caesar, whose authority we are now first to follow, wanted not some critics who taxed him of misrepresenting facts in his commentaries, and even in his history of the Civil War gets pumpy, and therefore much more may we suppose that he has taken the same liberties in treating of the British affairs, in which the little skill of the British in writing he could not apprehend that he should be contradicted, yet now in such a variety of good authors as have treated of the next following part of our history, we hardly can fail from one hand or other to be sufficiently informed of the events that happened in it, as far as can well be expected concerning things that passed so long ago. But this will better be referred to a second discourse. End of Book One, Recording by Thomas Copeland