great, or how faire soever it hath beene in old time, a verie small village it is at this daie, containing in it scarce fourteene dwelling houses and those but little ones, and hath no monument of Antiquity to shew, beside an antient mount which they call Oldburie. For on the one side Atherstone, a mercate towne of good resort, where there stood a church of Augustine Friers, now turned into a Chapel, (which neverthelesse acknowledgeth Mancester Church for her Mother,) and Nun-Eaton on the other side, by their vicinity have left it bare and emptie.

Close unto Atherstone standeth Mery Vale, where Robert Fer- Merivall. rars erected a Monastery to God and the blessed Virgin Mary, wherein himselfe enwrapped in an Ox-hide for a shrouding sheet was interred.

Beyond these, north-eastward, is Pollsworth, where Modwena, Polesworth. an Irish virgin, of whom there went so great a fame for her holie life, built a religious house for nunnes, which R. Marmion, a nobleman repaired, who had his castle hard by at Stippershull. Neere unto this place, also, there flourished in the Saxon daies, a towne that nowe is almost quite gone, called then Secandvnvm, and at this day Seckington, where Aethelbald, king of the Mercians, in civill Seckingwarre about the yeere of our Lord 749, was stabbed to death by Beared; and soone after Offa slew Beared, so as that by bloudy meanes he invaded the kingdome of Mercia, hee likewise lost the same sodainly.

ton.

Warwick.

It remaineth now that wee reckon up the earles of Warwicke; for, Earles of to passe over Guare Morind, Guy of Warwicke, of whose acts all England resoundeth, and others of that stampe, whom pregnant wits have at one birth bred and brought forth into the world: Henrie, the sonne of Roger de Beaumont, and brother to Robert earle of Mellent, was the first earle descended of Normans bloud, who had married Margaret, the daughter of Ernulph de Hesdine, earle of Perch a most mighty and puissant man.

Out of this family, there bare this honorable title, Roger the sonne of Henry, William, the sonne of Roger, who died in the thirtieth yeare of king Henry II. Walleren his brother, Henry, the sonne of Walleren, Thomas his sonne, who deceased without issue in the

Placita

E. 3. Rotulo

234.

23. H. C.

twenty-sixth yeere of king Henry III. leaving behind him Margery, his sister, who being countesse of Warwicke, and barraine, departed this life yet her two husbands, first John Mareshal, then John de Plessetis or Plessy, in their wives right and through their princes favor mounted up to the honorable dignity of earles of Warwicke.

Now when these were departed without any issue by that Margery, Wallerand, uncle unto the said Margery, succeeded them. After whom, dying also childlesse, his sister Alice enjoyed the inheritance: afterwards her sonne William, called Malduit and Manduit of Hanslop, who left this world and had no children. Then Isabell, the said William Malduit's sister, being bestowed in marriage upon William de Beauchamp, lord of Elmsley, brought the earledome of Warwicke into the family of the Beauchamps; who, if I deceive Rot. Part not myselfe, for that they came of a daughter of Vrsus de Abtot, gave the beare for theire cognizance, and left it to their posterity. Out of this house there flourished six earles and one duke; William, the sonne of Isabell, John, Guy, Thomas, Thomas the younger, Richard and Henry, unto whom king Henry VI. granted this preeminence and prerogative without any precedent, to be the first and chiefe earle of England, and to carry this stile-Henricus Præcomes totius Anglia et Comees Warwici, that is, Henry, chiefe Earle of all England, and earle of Warwicke; he nominated him also King of the Isle of Wight, and afterwards created him Duke of Warwicke, and by these expresse words of his patent, granted that he should take his place in Parliaments and elsewhere next unto the Duke of Norfolke, and before the Duke of 14 H. C. Buckingham. One only daughter he had named Anne, whom in the Inquisitions wee finde entituled the Countesse of Warwicke, and she died a child. After her succeeded Richard Nevil, who had married Anne, sister to the said Duke of Warwicke, a man of an undaunted courage, but wavering and untrusty, the very tenisse-ball, in some sort of fortune, who, although he were no king, was above kings, as who deposed King Henry VI. (a most bountifull prince to him) from his regall dignity, placed Edward IV. in the royal throne, and afterwards put him down too, restored Henry VI. againe to the kingdom, enwrapped England within the most wofull and lamentable flames of civil war, which himself at the length hardly quenched with his own bloud. After his death, Anne his wife, by act of parliament, was excluded and debarred from all her lands for ever, and his two daugh

An 12.
Ed. 4.

Parlia

ment.

ters, heires to him, and heires apparent to their mother, being married to George Duke of Clarence, and Richard Duke of Gloucester, were enabled to enjoy all the same lands, in such wise as if the Deed in said Anne their mother were naturally dead. Whereupon the name, stile, and title of Earle of Warwicke and Sarisbury, was granted to George Duke of Clarence, who soone after was unnaturally dispatched by a sweet death in a butt of Malmesy, by his suspicious brother, King Edward IV. His yoong sonne Edward was stiled Earle of Warwicke, and being but a very child, was beheaded by King Henry VII. to secure himselfe and his posterity.

Period of the civill

war be

tween Lan

caster and

The death of this Edward, our ancestors accounted to be the full period, and finall end of the long lasting war between the two royal houses of Lancaster and Yorke. Wherein, as they reckoned, from the twenty-eighth yeere of Henry VI. unto this, being the fifteenth of York. Henry VII. there were thirteen fields fought, three kings of England, one prince of Wales, twelve dukes, one marques, eighteen earles, with one vicount, and twenty-three barons, besides knights and gentlemen, lost their lives. From the death of this yoong Earle of Warwicke, this title lay asleepe, which King Henry VIII. feared as a firebrand of the state, by reason of the combustion which that Richard Nevil, that whip-king (as some tearmed him) had raised, untill that King Edward the Sixth conferred it upon John Dudley, that derived his pedigree from the Beauchamps, who, like unto that Richard above said, going about in Queen Maries daies to turn and translate Scepters at his pleasure, for his traiterous deep ambition lost his head. But his sonnes first, John, when his father was now Duke of Northumberland, by a courteous custome usually received, held this title for a while; and afterwards Ambrose, a most worthy personage, both for

Warlike prowesse and sweetnesse of nature, through the favour of Queen Elizabeth,
received in our remembrance, the honour of Earle of WARWICKE to him
and his heirs males, and in defect of them, to ROBERT his brother,
and the heirs males of his body lawfully begotten. This honour
AMBROSE bare with great commendation, and died without
children in the yeere one thousand five hundred
eighty-nine, shortly after his brother

Robert Earl of Leicester.

In this County there be Parish Churches 158.

LIFE OF JOHN SPEED.

THE Author of the present Work has been anxious to include in as moderate a compass as possible, the sentiments of our early historians, so far as regards « WARWICKSHIRE,”—without having recourse to marginal notes, or confusing the reader with quotation upon quotation. Such a plan, he considered, would only be rendering obscure, that which would be better understood in the plain, simple, and original narrative, however quaint, of those who have laid the foundation of this and similar productions. He has therefore preferred introducing the authorities of SPEED, and his predecessor entire. They occupy but little space, but are admirably calculated to awaken feelings of regard and veneration for these portions of their labours, furnishing the mind, as they do, with materials for viewing the extraordinary changes that have taken place, and forming a curious contrast between antient and modern times.

SPEED, from possessing the confidence of CAMDEN, is entitled to our attention and esteem. On this account, the following short sketch of his life cannot be unacceptable, particularly as it forms a part of the Biographical Memoir drawn by that able veteran in the field of literature, ALExander Chalmers, Esq.→ a gentleman with whom the author's recollections, for nearly half a century, are so interwoven, that he feels an additional gratification in introducing what he trusts will not be deemed irrelevant to the subject, but be found highly interesting, particularly when it is considered, that the description of WARWICKSHIRE forms so small a portion of the " Theatre of Great Britain," and the descriptive part the least of the labours, under very peculiar circumstances, of so extraor dinary man as JOHN SPEED.

JOHN SPEED, the well-known English historian, was born at Farrington, in Cheshire, about 1555, and brought up to the business of a taylor, and became a freeman of the company of Merchant Taylors, in the city of London. He had probably shewn some taste for literature, as sir Fulke Greville, a patron of learning, took him from his shop-board, and supported him in his study of English history and antiquities. By such encouragement he published, in 1606, his "Theatre of Great Britain," which was afterwards reprinted, particularly in 1650, under this title: "The Theatre of the Empire of Great Brittaine, presenting an exact geography of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the isles adjoyning. With the shires, hundreds, cities, and shire townes, within the kingdome of England, divided and described by John Speed," folio. Nicolson observes, that these maps 66 are extremely good; and make a noble apparatus.

as they were designed, to his history: but his descriptions of the several counties are mostly short abstracts of what Camden had said before him." In 1614, he published, in folio, "The History of Great Britain, under the conquest of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans; their originals, manners, warres, coines, and seales, with the successions, lives, actes, and issues of the English monarches, from Julius Cæsar to our most gracious sovereign king James;" dedicated to James I.

He borrowed many of his materials from Camden; and was supplied by many by sir Robert Cotton, sir Henry Spelman, and other antiquaries, with whom he was well acquainted. There are prefixed to it commendatory poems in Latin, French, and English, by sir Henry Spelman and others; and many writers have spoken of it in high terms of commendation. Speed was not only an historian, but also a divine; for, in 1616, he published a work in eight volumes, called "The Cloud of Witnesses; or, the Genealogies of Scripture, confirming the truth of holy history and humanity of Christ." This was prefixed to the new translation of the Bible in 1611, and printed for many years in the subsequent editions, particularly of the folio and quarto sizes, and king James I. gave him a patent for securing the property of it to him and his heirs.

He died July 28, 1629, and was buried in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London, where a monument was erected to his memory. By his wife Susannah, with whom he lived fifty-seven years, and who died almost a year before him; he had twelve sons and six daughters. One of his sons, named JOHN, was an eminent physician; as to Speed himself, "he must be acknowledged," says Nicolson, "to have a head the best disposed towards history of any of our writers; and would certainly have outdone himself, as far as he has gone be yond the rest of his profession, if the advantages of his education had been answerable to those of his natural genius. We may boldly say, that his chronicle is the largest and best we have hitherto extant." In another place," John Speed was a person of extraordinary industry and attainments in the study of antiquities; and seems not altogether unworthy the name of summus et eruditus antiquarius,' given him by Sherringham, who was certainly so himself."