Travels in England [22]
right hand some horsemen, their stature, dress, and horses exactly resembling those of our friends; glad of having found them again, we determined to set on after them; but it happened, through God's mercy, that though we called to them, they did not answer us, but kept on down the marshy road at such a rate, that their horses' feet struck fire at every stretch, which made us, with reason, begin to suspect they were thieves, having had warning of such; or rather, that they were nocturnal spectres, who, as we were afterwards told, are frequently seen in those places: there were likewise a great many Jack-a-lanterns, so that we were quite seized with horror and amazement! But, fortunately for us, our guide soon after sounded his horn, and we, following the noise, turned down the left-hand road, and arrived safe to our companions; who, when we had asked them if they had not seen the horsemen who had gone by us, answered, not a soul. Our opinions, according to custom, were various upon this matter; but whatever the thing was, we were, without doubt, in imminent danger, from which that we escaped, the glory is to be ascribed to God alone.
Dover, situated among cliffs (standing where the port itself was originally, as may be gathered from anchors and parts of vessels dug up there), is more famous for the convenience of its port, which indeed is now much decayed, and its passage to France, than for either its elegance or populousness: this passage, the most used and the shortest, is of thirty miles, which, with a favourable wind, may be run over in five or six hours' time, as we ourselves experienced; some reckon it only eighteen to Calais, and to Boulogne sixteen English miles, which, as Ortelius says in his "Theatrum," are longer than the Italian.
Here was a church dedicated to St. Martin by Victred, King of Kent, and a house belonging to the Knights Templars; of either there are now no remains. It is the seat of a suffragan to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, when the Archbishop is employed upon business of more consequence, manages the ordinary affairs, but does not interfere with the archiepiscopal jurisdiction. Upon a hill, or rather rock, which on its right side is almost everywhere a precipice, a very extensive castle rises to a surprising height, in size like a little city, extremely well fortified, and thick-set with towers, and seems to threaten the sea beneath. Matthew Paris calls it the door and key of England; the ordinary people have taken into their heads that it was built by Julius Caesar; it is likely it might by the Romans, from those British bricks in the chapel which they made use of in their foundations. See Camden's "Britannia."
After we had dined, we took leave of England.
FRAGMENTA REGALIA
OR, OBSERVATIONS ON THE LATE QUEEN ELIZABETH, HER TIMES, AND FAVOURITES. WRITTEN BY Sir Robert Naunton, MASTER OF THE COURT OF WARDS. A.D. 1641.
To take her in the original, she was the daughter of King Henry VIII. by Anne Boleyn, the second of six wives which he had, and one of the maids of honour to the divorced Queen, Katharine of Austria (or, as the now styled, Infanta of Spain), and from thence taken to the royal bed.
That she was of a most noble and royal extract by her father will not fall into question, for on that side was disembogued into her veins, by a confluency of blood, the very abstract of all the greatest houses in Christendom: and remarkable it is, considering that violent desertion of the Royal House of the Britons by the intrusion of the Saxons, and afterwards by the conquest of the Normans, that, through vicissitude of times, and after a discontinuance almost of a thousand years, the sceptre should fall again and be brought back into the old regal line and true current of the British blood, in the person of her renowned grandfather, King Henry VII., together with whatsoever the German, Norman, Burgundian, Castilian, and French achievements, with their intermarriages, which eight hundred years had acquired, could add of glory thereunto.
By her mother
Dover, situated among cliffs (standing where the port itself was originally, as may be gathered from anchors and parts of vessels dug up there), is more famous for the convenience of its port, which indeed is now much decayed, and its passage to France, than for either its elegance or populousness: this passage, the most used and the shortest, is of thirty miles, which, with a favourable wind, may be run over in five or six hours' time, as we ourselves experienced; some reckon it only eighteen to Calais, and to Boulogne sixteen English miles, which, as Ortelius says in his "Theatrum," are longer than the Italian.
Here was a church dedicated to St. Martin by Victred, King of Kent, and a house belonging to the Knights Templars; of either there are now no remains. It is the seat of a suffragan to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, when the Archbishop is employed upon business of more consequence, manages the ordinary affairs, but does not interfere with the archiepiscopal jurisdiction. Upon a hill, or rather rock, which on its right side is almost everywhere a precipice, a very extensive castle rises to a surprising height, in size like a little city, extremely well fortified, and thick-set with towers, and seems to threaten the sea beneath. Matthew Paris calls it the door and key of England; the ordinary people have taken into their heads that it was built by Julius Caesar; it is likely it might by the Romans, from those British bricks in the chapel which they made use of in their foundations. See Camden's "Britannia."
After we had dined, we took leave of England.
FRAGMENTA REGALIA
OR, OBSERVATIONS ON THE LATE QUEEN ELIZABETH, HER TIMES, AND FAVOURITES. WRITTEN BY Sir Robert Naunton, MASTER OF THE COURT OF WARDS. A.D. 1641.
To take her in the original, she was the daughter of King Henry VIII. by Anne Boleyn, the second of six wives which he had, and one of the maids of honour to the divorced Queen, Katharine of Austria (or, as the now styled, Infanta of Spain), and from thence taken to the royal bed.
That she was of a most noble and royal extract by her father will not fall into question, for on that side was disembogued into her veins, by a confluency of blood, the very abstract of all the greatest houses in Christendom: and remarkable it is, considering that violent desertion of the Royal House of the Britons by the intrusion of the Saxons, and afterwards by the conquest of the Normans, that, through vicissitude of times, and after a discontinuance almost of a thousand years, the sceptre should fall again and be brought back into the old regal line and true current of the British blood, in the person of her renowned grandfather, King Henry VII., together with whatsoever the German, Norman, Burgundian, Castilian, and French achievements, with their intermarriages, which eight hundred years had acquired, could add of glory thereunto.
By her mother