I Have inform’d the reader, to the best of my skill, what was, and what is the state of Stonehenge, both above, and below ground. I apprehend, it will be expected, that I should say somewhat, concerning the antiquity and time of erecting these works, especially of Stonehenge. But what can we say, of a matter so very remote? where the oldest memoirs and reports of the oldest nation inhabiting the island, can give us no satisfaction about it: but are as far to seek, as to the founders of this wonderful work, as we are, at this time, and are forced to apply to magic: in order to account for it. Notwithstanding, I shall endeavour to satisfy the readers curiosity, in this point, as well as I can; by giving him my own opinion about it. Not doubting of his candour, in so arduous an attempt: which may perhaps be an amusement to him, whether it gains his belief, or not. Therefore, I shall recite, in short, what occurs to me, on this subject. 1. As to the antiquity of these temples in general. 2. Of the time of founding Stonehenge.
The former will anticipate, in some sort, what I promis’d, in treating of the temples of the Druids in general. But I am naturally led to it, here, by observing, that the name of the adjacent town of Ambersbury, points out a relation to the work of Stonehenge, and to the ancient name of it. For as we took notice at first, the present name of Stonehenge, is purely Saxon, given by our latest ancestors, by a people wholly strangers to the purport of the thing, that had no notion, no report of its having once been a sacred place; and signifies no more than hanging-stones, or a stone-gallows. The ancient Britons call’d it choir-gaur, which the Monks latiniz’d into chorea gigantum, the giants dance; a name suited to the marvelous notion they had of the structure, or of the reports of magic, concern’d in raising it. But I had rather chuse to think choir gaur in Welsh, truly means, the great church; the cathedral, in our way of speaking. A general title, which the Welsh inhabitants, the remnants of the Belgæ, conquer’d by the Romans, gave it; as well knowing the true use of it, and even frequenting it in a religious way. Tho’ they had driven off the first possessors of it, and the builders: I mean in Divitiacus his time, or sooner, before the Roman invasion.
There is a very plain reason: that Stonehenge was built, before the Wansdike was made, and that was the last boundary of the Belgic kingdom in Britain. The stones of which Stonehenge is compos’d, were fetcht from beyond that boundary, consequently then an enemies country. It seems not improbable, that the Wansdike was made, when this Belgic kingdom was at its height, and that time we may well guess at, from Cæsar. He tells us in Bell. Gall. Lib. II. 4. “the Belgæ are of German original. By force of arms, they possess’d themselves of the countries, south of the Rhine and towards the ocean, driving out the Gauls. They were a very warlike nation, and could produce 100000 men in arms. That one of their kings Divitiacus, in the memory of some then living, obtain’d the government, both of great part of Gaul and in Britain too.” I believe the Belgæ and Sicambri, all one people of German original. Our Welsh call themselves Cymri, and from them Cumberland has its name. It is very just to think this Wansdike was made in the time of Divitiacus, both because of the greatness of the work, suiting so potent a prince, and because it is the last boundary: after that time, the Roman power swallowing up all divisions.
I judge, we may reasonably place the time of making the Wansdike, about 50 years before Cæsar wrote, we may say AUC. 650. Divitiacus probably ordered it to be made in person. And it seems to have been drawn from the upper end of the Tees river, about Whit-church, and Andover, in Hampshire: to the Avon river, about Bristol. These two rivers and the Wansdike separated the Belgic kingdom from the old Celtic Britons. They by this means, were driven from this beautiful country, and from their stately temple of Stonehenge, by these powerful invaders. It is remarkable enough, that the inhabitants of Somersetshire, the ancient seat of the Belgæ, retain still the Belgic, liquidating pronunciation, v consonant for f, z for s.
The Devizes is a town in the middle of the length of Wansdike, very probably erected, among others, to secure this ditch or fortification. It seems to have been the capital fort or frontier town, and to have its name from the king, as a trophy or monument of his power: built by him in person. Anonymus Ravennas may possibly call it Punctuobice, but we have no certainty, that his copy retains the word uncorrupt, or that he transcribed it right: nor what alteration the Romans made in the original word, nor what was made in the later and barbarous times. However there seems enough therein, as well as in the present name of the town, to countenance our conjecture. The former part of the word punctuo, which Mr. Baxter thinks monstrous, may come, perhaps, from the German word pooghen, which signifies an arduous work, and might regard the castle here, which is said to have been once, the strongest in Europe. Neubringensis calls it Divisæ. They tell us legendary stories of its being built by an old British king.
Divisus was probably the name of this Belgic Monarch, or Duiguis: as Gluiguis king of Demetia in Wales is wrote Glivisus in Toland, p. 186. and the termination may have been form’d into Latin, from the Celtic word taeog dux. Whence, perhaps, the Etruscan Tages, so much boasted of in their antiquities; likewise the modern Doge of Venice. So that Divitiacus may well be Divisus dux. The name of the Wansdike, I shewed to be purely Celtic, p. 4.
It is an ancient oriental custom to make these boundary ditches. Thus the land belonging to the several tribes of Israel was marked out by a ditch, as we read in the accounts of the holy land. Particularly the author of le voyage de la terre sainte, printed 1675. Paris, p. 57. says, “he travell’d five or six miles along such a ditch going from Joppa to Jerusalem, which parted the tribes of Benjamin and Judah.” ’Tis recited Joshua xv.
The monkish writers make much ado about Aurelius Ambrosius, a christian king of the Britons (in the time of our great ancestor Hengist) building Stonehenge, by the help of Merlin Ambrosius the magician, in memory of the British nobility slain treacherously by Hengist, at Ambresbury. Some say the fact was committed ad pagum Ambri, others call it cœnobium Ambrij, others ad montem Ambrij. One while they refer the name to Ambrosius, another time to an Abbot Ambrius, and this was among our Roman British ancestors, who were christians. They add too, that Merlin fetch’d these stones out of Ireland, that they had been brought before, out of Africa into Ireland: that he set them up here in the same form, by art magic; and that the stones were of a medicinal Virtue. These matters we read in Girald. Cambrens. de admirand. Hib. c. 18. Higden’s Polychron. v. Geoff. Monmouth VIII. Matt. Westminster, &c.
Stukeley delin.