342. "Is named of Kinge Edmunde, whom the comon Chronicles call St Edmund, or Edmund the Martyr; for Bury is but to say a Court or Palace. It was first a Colledge of Priests, founded by Athelstane the kinge of Ingland, to the Honour and Memorye of Edmund that was slayne at Hoxton (then called Eylesdund [or Eglesdon], as Leland thinketh), whose Bones he removed thyther. The hole hystorie of this matter is so enterlaced with miracles, that Polydor himselfe (who beleaved them better then I) began to delye with it; sayinge, that Monkes weare much delighted with them" (Lambarde's "Dictionarium," p. 35).
343. This place, which was much frequented by pilgrims, was situate on a lake called Logh Derg, in the Southern part of the county of Donegal, near the borders of Tyrone and Fermanagh. It was surrounded with wild and barren mountains, and was almost inaccessible by horsemen even in summer time, on account of great bogs, rocks, and precipices which environed it. The popular tradition concerning it is as ridiculous as is to be found in any legend of the Romish Martyrology. After continuing in great credit many years, it began to decline; and in the 13th of Henry the Seventh was demolished with great solemnity, on St Patrick's Day, by the Pope's express order. It, however, afterwards came into reputation again, insomuch that, by an order of the Privy Council, dated 13th of September 1632, it was a second time destroyed. From this period, as pilgrimages grew less in fashion, it will appear extraordinary that the place should be a third time restored to its original state, and as much visited as in any former period. In this condition it continued until the second year of Queen Anne, when an Act of the Irish Parliament declared, that all meetings and assemblies there should be adjudged riots and unlawful assemblies, and inflicted a penalty upon every person meeting or assembling contrary to the Statute. The ceremonies to be performed by the pilgrims are very exactly set forth in Richardson's "Great Folly, Superstition, and Idolatry of Pilgrimages in Ireland, especially of that to St Patrick's Purgatory," Dublin, 8vo. 1727.
Enough hath been already said on the subject of "Saint Patrick's Purgatory," I shall therefore only add, that it is often mentioned in Froissard's "Chronicle," and that Sir James Melvil, who visited it in 1545, describes it as looking "like an old coal-pit, which had taken fire, by reason of the smoke that came out of the hole" (Melvil's "Memoirs," p. 9., edit. 1683).
It is mentioned in Erasmus's "Praise of Folie," 1549, Sign. A: "Whereas before ye satte all heavie and glommyng, as if ye had come lately from Troponius cave, or Saint Pattrickes purgatorie."
344. Within three miles of St Alban's. "At this place," says Norden, "were founde the reliques of Amphiball, who is saide to be the instructour and convertour of Alban from Paganisme, of whose reliques such was the regard that the abbottes of the monasterie of Alban had, that they should be devoutly preserved, that a decree was made by Thomas then abbott, that a pryor and three munckes should be appointed to this holie function, whose allowance in those dayes amounted yearely to 20 pound, or upwardes, as much as three hundred pound in this age" ("Description of Hartfordshire." p. 22).
See also Weever's "Funeral Monuments," p. 585. Dr Middleton, in his "Letter from Home," says: "Bishop Usher has proved that this saint never existed, and that we owe the honour of his saintship to a mistaken passage in the Legend of St Alban, where the Amphibolus there mentioned is nothing more than a cloak."
345. The abbey of Hales, in Gloucestershire, was founded by Richard, King of the Romans, brother to Henry the Third. This precious relic, which was commonly called the blood of Hailes, was brought out of Germany by Richard's son Edmund, who bestowed a third part of it upon his father's abbey of Hales, and some time after gave the other two parts to an abbey of his own foundation at Ashridge, near Berkamstead. It was given out, and believed to have this property, that, if a man was in mortal sin, and not absolved, he could not see it; otherwise, he might see it very well: therefore, every man that came to see this miracle, this most precious blood, confessed himself first to one of the priests there; and then, offering something at the altar, was directed to a chapel, where the miracle was shown; the priest who confessed him, in the meantime, retiring to the back part of the said chapel, and putting forth a little cabinet or vessel of crystal, which being thick on the one side, that nothing could be seen through it, but on the other side thin and transparent, they used diversely, as their interests required. On the dissolution of the abbey, it was discovered to be nothing more than honey clarified and coloured with saffron, "an unctowse gumme coloured, which in the glasse apperyd to be a glisterynge red resemblyng partlie the color of blood, and owte of the glasse apparaunte glystering yelow colour like amber or basse gold" (Certificate of visitors, printed at end of Hearne's Benedictus Abbas, II. 751).
346. i.e., Saint David. Drayton, in his "Poly-Olbion," Song xxiv., says—
"Whose Cambro Britons so their saints as duly brought,
T' advance the Christian faith, effectually that wrought;
Their David (one deriv'd of th' royal British blood),
Who 'against Pelagius' false and damn'd opinions stood;
And turn'd Menenia's name to David's sacred see.
The patron of the Welsh deserving well to be."
See an account of him in an extract from Bale, in Godwin "de Praesulibus Angliae," p. 573, edit. 1743. He is said to have been bishop 65 years, and to have lived 146. He died, according to some accounts, in the year 546, according to others, in the year 542. His shrine, I am informed, remains in the wall of his cathedral in Pembrokeshire.