This Book , entituled BRITANNIA Antiqua Illustrata , &c. Is Licensed to be Printed by the Appointment of the Right Honourable

Sr. JOSEPH WILLIAMSON ,

Principal Secretary of State to His Sacred MAJESTY .

IT was the constant Custome in all Ages , that Subjects of this High Nature , namely History and Antiquity , wherein are preserved and rescued from Time the Acts and Reliques of Great Persons , should be Dedicated to the Great , and not submitted to any ordinary Protection . This Consideration of it self might have carried me in the Publication of these my Labours , to make this Humble Address to Your Lordship , whose Eminent Vertues , though they may be more Illustrious in that High Sphere wherein You are worthily placed , yet were they ever highly conspicuous , and You have been long since in the eye of the World what You are now in the Court of Honour . Let this Work therefore in all Humility be Dedicated to Your Lordship , and if my Endeavours have been any thing answerable to the Dignity of the Matter I have undertaken ; if the Antiquities of this Nation be thereby more illustrated , the History cleared , and the Methods of former Writers rectified and amended , that is , if the Work in general be found useful and sound , and with its Novelty in some points carries truth along with it , I shall esteem it my chiefest glory that I have laid it at Your Lordships feet , entreating favour for those things only , which Your Lordship , out of Your Great Judgment and Goodness shall think some waies commendable ; But if from my great Labour and Industry I promise to my self more than possibly will be allowed me , however the Work it self may serve to stand as a Testimony and Monument of that Publick Spirit eminent in Your Lordship , whereby at its first appearance in the World You readily encouraged so promising an Undertaking , which if well managed ( as I hope in some measure it hath been ) would undoubtedly be to the honour and benefit of Your Country . May God Almighty long preserve Your Lordship in that high Station in which You act , to the Honour of His MAJESTY , the Good of this Nation , and the desires of all Honest men . So prayeth ,

HAving for some years past wholly employed my self in the diligent searching into the Histories of our Nation , I found by experience , that the words of Livy in his Preface to his Roman Decades were most true , where he writeth , That the Beginnings of Nations , and the times next succeeding those Beginnings , as yielding least pleasure both to Writer and Reader , were generally neglected , and Men naturally hastned to those Ages , which being not so far removed , yielded a pleasanter prospect , and seemed more closely to concern their knowledge . For how few are there who have taken the pains faithfully to collect , and in a distinct Method to order rightly the scattered Records of Ancient BRITAIN , which are only here and there to be pickt out of divers Authors , and not to be found , much less well disposed with an ordinary diligence or superficial enquiry ? Most of our Modern Chronicles content themselves with beginning from the Conquest , few go beyond it , as if with the general sort of Readers they were impatient until they came to the Battels of Cressy and Agencourt , the differences of the Houses of York and Lancaster , the Insurrections in Kent , or something of that nature , which being of a later Date , hath yet left an uncertain sound in our ears , and is expected to be sett off with no small flourishes or vulgar elocution . And indeed the design of such Writers is not to be discommended , who following the general stream of Mankind consult their own advantages ; For in subjects of this nature , as the Antiquity and Original of Kingdoms , the question of the Poet may perhaps be easily asked , and as soon resolved in the same verse , Quis legit haec ? nemo hercule nemo , Vel duo , vel nemo . Few there are who will trouble their heads to enquire by what means their first Ancestors possest themselves of those pleasant Lands , in the fruitfulness whereof they at present rejoyce , but content themselves to derive their knowledg as high as their own Families only , and discourse the Chronicles to the Beginning of their Pedigrees , as if there Nature and the World was at a stop , and all knowledg beyond that was mere Chaos and Confusion ; But notwithstanding whatever might be objected of this like nature against this present undertaking , I have not been discouraged in going through with it ; For if the Grecians , who had the best Historians in the World , were nevertheless called Children by their own Neighbours , because they knew not , or neglected their own Original ; will it not be a shame for us also to be ignorant in the Antiquites of our own Nation , a Nation great in its Infancy , and like Hercules ( one of its first Discoverers ) deserving an History even in its Cradle ?

But because there have been some who have already handled this Subject , and that not without great Commendation , I shall not insist farther upon the usefulness of the design in general , but only inform the Reader in short what he is to expect in this present work , which hath not been already fully discussed by others , lest perhaps it may be thought , that I have only trod in the steps of other men , and like those idle Imitators , whom Horace calls a servile sort of Cattel , have only jog'd on in the long beaten road of former Antiquities .

I confess , I might with greater security , and much more ease in the delivering of the Antiquities of the British Nation have followed Mr. Cambden , out of whom merely to collect hath been counted praise-worthy , and whom to imitate is esteemed not only safe , but honourable . As his Learning was great , so is his Authority , and his very Name carrieth a certain veneration along with it , so that it may be questioned , whether his Antiquities add more lustre to him , or he to his Antiquities . His opinions have been long received , and therefore sit deep in the mind , and by some it is thought a piece of weakness only to dissent from him ; however it be , I have chose rather to follow that which seems to the best of my judgment to be Truth , though never so naked and destitute of all advantages , then by taking in with the Common opinion , to run on further in a plausible Mistake , and to help to guild deeper what to me appeareth at best but a glorious Errour . Neither can the followers of Mr. Cambden be displeased with me , if they will but inmate his Candour and Ingenuity , whose performances they so worthily admire ; who , when he had treated of this Subject , concludes in these words , which may serve for an Apology for me also :

Thus you have ( saith he ) as touching the Original and Name of Cambden . BRITAIN , mine Error or Conjecture , whether you will , which if it swerve from the truth , I wish it were by the truth it self reformed . In this intricate and obscure study of Antiquity , it is thought praise-worthy somewhat to erre ; and remember we should withal , that such things as at the first sight being slightly thought upon are deemed false , after a better review , and further consideration , oftentimes seem true . Now , if any man should summon me to appear before the Tribunal of Verity , I have no other answer at all to make ; And as for our Country-men the Britains , such as be of the Learneder sort , I do most earnestly beseech and desire them to employ all their labour , industry , wit , and understanding in the searching out hereof , so long , until at last the Truth with her own clear bright beams may scatter and dissolve all mists of Conjectures whatsoever .

But I do not arrogate to my self the first discovery of these Antiquities , neither would I , that the credit of so fair an hypothesis should depend upon so weak an Authority . Bochartus , a learned Frenchman in this last Age , having treated of the Phoenician Voyages through the whole World , and out of their Language plainly and easily derived the Names of most Countries and Places especially remarkable , at last bringeth them even to Britain and Gaul , and discovers their Trade throughout all these Western Coasts . But as he is more particular in his own Native Country , which he would chiefly seem to illustrate ; so have I been in mine , making use of the same method in laying open the Original and Commerce of the Primitive Inhabitants of this Island , as he hath done largely of Gaul ; For when I considered what Leland writeth of the British or Welch Language , namely , that the main body of it consisteth of Hebrew and Greek words , I began to collect with my self , how it should come to pass that the Ancient Britains could have any Commerce with the Jews , who where never known to send out Colonies , and of all People in the World weremost fond of their own Country ; Certainly I concluded , this could proceed from no other root but the Commerce of the Phoenicians with this Nation , who using the same Language with the Children of Israel in Canaan , even in those Primitive times were great Traders and skilful Mariners , and sent out their Colonies through the World ; and this Mr. Cambden himself toucheth on , where he gives the derivation of the British Caer Eske , now Exeter . For Caer , to tell you Cambden . once for all ( saith he ) with our Britains is as much to say , as a City , whereupon they use to name Jerusalem , Caer Salem , Lutetia or Paris , Caer Paris , Rome , Caer Russaine . Thus Carthage in the Punick tongue was called , as Solinus witnesseth , Cartheia , that is , the New City . I have heard likewise that Caer in the Syriack tongue signified a City . Now seeing that the Syrians , as all men confess , peopled the whole World with their Colonies , it may seem probable that they left their Tongue also to their Posterity , as the Mother of all future Languages .