**Printed in "Miscellanies on several curious subjects."
London, E. Curll, 1714.
AT a meeting of gentlemen at the Devizes, for choosing of Knights of the Shire in March 1659, it was wished by some, that this County (wherein are many observable antiquities) was surveyed, in imitation of Mr. Dugdale's illustration of Warwickshire; but it being too great a task for one man, Mr. William Yorke (Councellor at Law, and a lover of this kind of learning) advised to have the labour divided: he himself would undertake the Middle Division; I would undertake the North; T. Gore, Esq., Jeffrey Daniel, Esq., and Sir John Erneley would be assistants. Judge Nicholas was the greatest antiquary, as to evidences, that this County hath had in memory of man, and had taken notes in his Adversariis of all the ancient deeds that came to his hands. Mr. York had taken some memorandums in this kind too, both now dead; 'tis pity those papers, falling into the hands of merciless women, should be put under pies. I have since that occasionally made this following Collection, which perhaps may some-time or other fall into some antiquary's hands, to make a handsome Work of it. I hope my worthy friend Mr. Anthony Wood of Oxford will be the man. I am heartily sorry I did not set down the antiquities of these parts sooner, for since the time aforesaid, many things are irrecoverably lost.
In former days the churches and great houses hereabouts did so abound with monuments and things remarkable, that it would have deterred an antiquary from undertaking it. But as Pythagoras did guess at the vastness of Hercules' stature by the length of his foot, so among these ruins are remains enough left for a man to give a guess what noble buildings, &c. were made by the piety, charity, and magnanimity of our forefathers.
And as in prospects, we are there pleased most where something keeps the eye from being lost, and leaves us room to guess; so here the eye and mind is no less affected with these stately ruins, than they would have been when standing and entire. They breed in generous minds a kind of pity, and sets the thoughts a-work to make out their magnifice as they were taken in perfection. These remains are "tanquam Tabulata Naufragii", that after the revolution of so many years and governments, have escaped the teeth of Time, and (which is more dangerous) the hands of mistaken Zeal. So that the retrieving of these forgotten things from oblivion, in some sort resembles that of a conjurer, who make those walk and appear that have lain in their graves many hundreds of years, and to represent, as it were to the eye, the places, customs, and fashions that were of old time.
Let us imagine then what kind of country this was in the time of the ancient Britains, by the nature of the soil, which is a soure, woodsere land, very natural for the production of oaks especially; one may conclude, that this North-Division was a shady, dismal wood; and the inhabitants almost as salvage as the beasts, whose skins were their only raiment. The language, British (which for the honour of it, was in those days spoken from the Orcades to Italy and Spain). The boats on the Avon (which signifies river) were baskets of twigs covered with an ox-skin, which the poor people in Wales use to this day, and call them curricles.
Within this shire I believe that there were several Reguli, which often made war upon one another, and the great ditches which run on the plains and elsewhere so many miles, were (not unlikely) their boundaries, and withall served for defence against the incursion of their enemies, as the Picts' Wall, Offa's Ditch, and that in China; to compare small things to great. Their religion is at large described by Csesar; their priests were the Druids. Some of their temples I pretend to have restored; as Anbury, Stonehenge, &c., as also British sepulchres. Their way of fighting is livelily set down by Caesar. Their camps, with those of their antagonists, I have set down in another place. They knew the use of iron; and about Hedington fields, Bromham, Bowdon, &c. are still ploughed up cinders (i. e. the scoria of melted iron). They were two or three degrees I suppose less salvage than the Americans. Till King John's time wolves were in this island; and in our grandfathers' days more foxes than now, and marterns (a beast of brown rich furr) at Stanton Park, &c. the race now extinct thereabout.
The Romans subdued and civilized them; at Lekham (Mr. Camden saith) was a colony of them, as appears there by the Roman coin found there. About 1654, in Weekfield, in the parish of Hedington, digging up the ground deeper than the plough went, they found, for a great way together, foundations of houses, hearths, coals, and a great deal of Roman coin, silver and brass, whereof I had a pint; some little copper-pieces, no bigger than silver half-pence (quaere if they were not the Roman Denarii) I have portrayed the pot in which a good deal was found, which pot I presented to the Royal Society's Repository, it resembles an apprentice's earthen Christmas-box.
At Sherston, hath several times been found Roman money in ploughing. I have one silver piece found there (1653) not long since, of Constantine the Great. Among other arts, that of architecture was introduced by them; and no doubt but here, as well as in other parts, were then good buildings, here being so good stone: I know not any vestigia now left in this country, except the fragments of the Castle of Salisbury, which takes its name from Caesar, Caesarisburghum, from whence Sarisburgh, whence Salisbury.
At Bath are several Roman inscriptions, which Mr. Camden hath set down, and by the West Gate a piece of a delicate Corinthian freeze, which he calls wreathed leaves, not understanding architecture; and by in a bass relieve of an optriouch. At Bethford, about 1663, was found a grotto paved with Mosaic work, some whereof I have preserved.
The Saxons succeeding them, and driving away to Ireland, Cornwal, &c. these Britains were by Romans left here; for they used the best of them in their wars, (being their best soldiers) here was a mist of ignorance for 600 years. They were so far from knowing arts, that they could not build a wall with stone. They lived sluttishly in poor houses, where they eat a great deal of beef and mutton, and drank good ale in a brown mazard; and their very kings were but a sort of farmers. After the Christian Religion was planted here, it gave a great shoot, and the kings and great men gave vast revenues to the Church, who were ignorant enough in those days. The Normans then came and taught them civility and building; which though it was Gothick (as also their policy "Feudalis Lex") yet they were magnificent. For the Government, till the time of King Henry VIII. it was like a nest of boxes; for copyholders, (who, till then were villains) held of the lords of the Manor, who held of a superior lord, who perhaps held of another superior lord or duke, who held of the king. Upon any occasion of justing or tournaments in those days, one of these great lords sounded his trumpets (the lords then kept trumpeters, even to King James) and summoned those that held under them. Those again sounded their trumpets, and so downward to the copy-holders. The Court of Wards was a great bridle in those days. A great part of this North Division held of the honour of Trowbridge, where is a ruinated castle of the dukes of Lancaster. No younger brothers then were by the custom and constitution of the realm to betake themselves to trades, but were churchmen or retainers, and servants to great men rid good horses (now and then took a purse) and their blood that was bred of the good tables of their masters, was upon every occasion freely let out in their quarrels; it was then too common among their masters to have feuds with one another, and their servants at market, or where they met (in that slashing age) did commonly bang one another's bucklers. Then an esquire, when he rode to town, was attended by eight or ten men in blue coats with badges. The lords (then lords in deed as well as title) lived in their countries like petty kings, had "jura regalia" belonging to their seigniories, had their castles and boroughs, and sent burgesses to the Lower House; had gallows within their liberties, where they could try, condemn, draw and hang; never went to London but in parliament-time, or once a year to do their homage and duty to the king. The lords of manours kept good houses in their countries, did eat in their great Gothick halls, at the high table; (in Scotland, still the architecture of a lord's house is thus, viz. a great open hall, a kitchen and buttery, a parlour, over which a chamber for my lord and lady; all the rest lye in common, viz. the men-servants in the hall, the women in a common room) or oriele, the folk at the side-tables. (Oriele is an ear, but here it signifies a little room at the upper end of the hall, where stands a square or round table, perhaps in the old time was an oratory; in every old Gothic hall is one, viz. at Dracot, Lekham, Alderton, &c.) The meat was served up by watch-words. Jacks are but an invention of the other age: the poor boys did turn the spits, and licked the dripping-pan, and grew to be huge lusty knaves. The beds of the servants and retainers were in the great halls, as now in the guard-chamber, &c. The hearth was commonly in the middle, as at most colleges, whence the saying, "Round about our coal-fire." Here in the halls were the mummings, cob-loaf-stealing, and a great number of old Christmas plays performed. Every baron and gentleman of estate kept great horses for a man at arms. Lords had their armories to furnish some hundreds of men. The halls of justices of the peace were dreadful to behold, the skreens were garnished with corslets and helmets, gaping with open mouth, with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown bills, batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern colivers and petronils (in King Charles I.'s time) turned into muskets and pistols. Then were entails in fashion, (a good prop for monarchy). Destroying of manors began temp. Henry VIII., but now common; whereby the mean people live lawless, nobody to govern them, they care for nobody, having no dependance on anybody. By this method, and by the selling of the church-lands, is the ballance of the Government quite altered, and put into the hands of the common people. No ale-houses, nor yet inns were there then, unless upon great roads: when they had a mind to drink, they went to the fryaries; and when they travelled they had entertainment at the religious houses for three days, if occasion so long required. The meeting of the gentry was not then at tipling- houses, but in the fields or forest, with their hawks and hounds, with their bugle horns in silken bordries. This part very much abounded with forests and parks. Thus were good spirits kept up, and good horses and hides made; whereas now the gentry of the nation are so effeminated by coaches, they are so far from managing great horses, that they know not how to ride hunting-horses, besides the spoiling of several trades dependant. In the last age every yRoman almost kept a sparrow-hawk; and it was a divertisement for young gentlewomen to manage sparrow-hawks and merlins. In King Henry VIII.'s time, one Dame Julian writ The Art of Hawking in English verse, which is in Wilton Library. This country was then a lovely champain, as that about Sherston and Cots-wold; very few enclosures, unless near houses: my grandfather Lyte did remember when all between Cromhall (at Eston) and Castle-Comb was so, when Easton, Yatton and Comb did intercommon together. In my remembrance much hath been enclosed, and every year, more and more is taken in. Anciently the Leghs (now corruptly called Slaights) i. e. pastures, were noble large grounds, as yet the Demesne Lands at Castle Combe are. So likewise in his remembrance, was all between Kington St. Michael and Dracot-Cerne common fields. Then were a world of labouring people maintained by the plough, as yet in Northamptonshire, &c. There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather's days; but for Kington St. Michael (no small parish) the church-ale at Whitsuntide did the business. In every parish is (or was) a church-house, to which belonged spits, crocks, &c., utensils for dressing provision. Here the house-keepers met, and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c., the ancients sitting gravely by and looking on. All things were civil and without scandal. This church-ale is doubtless derived from the {Greek text: agapai}, or love-feast, mentioned in the New Testament. Mr. A. Wood assures me, that there were no alms-houses, at least they were very scarce before the Reformation; that over against Christ Church, Oxon, is one of the ancientest. In every church was a poor man's box, but I never remembered the use of it; nay, there was one at great inns, as I remember it was before the wars. Before the Reformation, at their vigils or revels, sat up all night fasting and praying. The night before the day of the dedication of the church, certain officers were chosen for gathering the money for charitable uses. Old John Wastfield, of Langley, was Peter-man at St. Peter's Chapel there; at which time is one of the greatest revels in these parts, but the chapel is converted into a dwelling-house. Such joy and merriment was every holiday, which days were kept with great solemnity and reverence. These were the days when England was famous for the " grey goose quills." The clerk's was in the Easter holidays for his benefit, and the solace of the neighbourhood.