Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, vol 6 | Page 2

the Streight of Gibraltar, and from thence ouer-land to the South and Southeast parts of the world, all circumstances considered, I found none to whom I thought it fitter to bee presented then to your selfe: wherein hauing begun at the highest Antiquities of this realme vnder the gouerment of the Romans; next vnder the Saxons; and thirdly since the conquest vnder the Normans, I haue continued the histories vnto these our dayes. The time of the Romans affoordeth small matter. But after that they were called hence by forren inuasions of their Empire, and the Saxons by degrees became lords in this Iland, and shortly after receiued the Christian faith, they did not onely trauell to Rome, but passed farther vnto Ierusalem, and therewith not contented, Sigelmus bishop of Shireburne in Dorsetshire caried the almes of king Alfred euen to the Sepulcher of S. Thomas in India, (which place at this day is called Maliapor) and brought from thence most fragrant spices, and rich iewels into England: Which iewels, as William of Malmesburie in two sundry treatises writeth, were remaining in the aforsayd Cathedrall Church to be seene euen in his time. And this most memorable voyage into India is not onely mentioned by the aforesayd Malmesburie, but also by Florentius Wigorniensis, a graue and woorthy Author which liued before him, and by many others since, and euen by M. Foxe in his first volume of his acts and Monuments in the life of king Alfred. To omit diuers other of the Saxon nation, the trauels of Alured bishop of Worcester through Hungarie to Constantinople, and so by Asia the lesse into Phoenicia and Syria, and the like course of Ingulphus, not long afterward Abbot of Croiland, set downe particularly by himselfe, are things in mine opinion right worthy of memorie. After the comming in of the Normans, in the yeere 1096, in the reigne of William Rufus, and so downward for the space of aboue 300 yeeres, such was the ardent desire of our nation to visite the Holy land, and to expell the Saracens and Mahumetans, that not only great numbers of Erles, Bishops, Barons, and Knights, but euen Kings, Princes, and Peeres of the blood Roiall, with incredible deuotion, courage and alacritie intruded themselues into this glorious expedition. A sufficient proofe hereof are the voiages of prince Edgar the nephew of Edmund Ironside, of Robert Curtois brother of William Rufus, the great beneuolence of king Henry the 2. and his vowe to haue gone in person to the succour of Ierusalem, the personall going into Palestina of his sonne king Richard the first, with the chiualrie, wealth, and shipping of this realme; the large contribution of king Iohn, and the trauels of Oliuer Fitz-Roy his sonne, as is supposed, with Ranulph Glanuile Erle of Chester to the siege of Damiata in Egypt: the prosperous voyage of Richard Erle of Cornwall, elected afterward king of the Romans, and brother to Henry the 3, the famous expedition of Prince Edward, the first king of the Norman race of that name; the iourney of Henry Erle of Derbie, duke of Hereford, and afterward King of this realme, by the name of Henry the 4 against the citie of Tunis in Africa, and his preparation of ships and gallies to go himselfe into the Holy land, if he had not on the sudden bene preuented by death; the trauel of Iohn of Holland brother by the mothers side to king Richard the 2 into those parts. All these, either Kings, Kings sonnes, or Kings brothers, exposed themselues with inuincible courages to the manifest hazard of their persons, liues, and liuings, leauing their ease, their countries, wiues and children; induced with a Zelous deuotion and ardent desire to protect and dilate the Christian faith. These memorable enterprises in part concealed, in part scattered, and for the most part vnlooked after, I haue brought together in the best Method and breuitie that I could deuise. Whereunto I haue annexed the losse of Rhodes, which although it were originally written in French, yet maketh it as honourable and often mention of the English nation, as of any other Christians that serued in that most violent siege. After which ensueth the princely promise of the bountiful aide of king Henry the 8 to Ferdinando newly elected king of Hungarie, against Solyman the mortall enemie of Christendome. These and the like Heroicall intents and attempts of our Princes, our Nobilitie, our Clergie, and our Chiualry, I haue in the first place exposed and set foorth to the view of this age, with the same intention that the old Romans set vp in wax in their palaces the Statuas or images of their worthy ancestors; whereof Salust in his treatise of the warre of Iugurtha, writeth