Lucy Cranberry

[sweetwater]

Britain hath been as a garden enclosed, wherein all things that
man can wish, to make a pleasant life, are planted and grow
in her own soil, and whatsoever foreign countries yield, to increase
admiration and delight, are brought in by her fleets.
The people, by the plenty of their country, not being forced
to toil for bread, have ever addicted themselves to more
generous employments, and been reckoned, almost in all ages,
as valiant warriors as any part of the world sent forth : insomuch,
that the greatest Roman captains thought it not unworthy
of their expeditions, and took great glory in triumphs
for imperfect conquests. Lucan upbraids Julius Caesar for
returning hence with a repulse, and it was two hundred
years before the land could be reduced into a Roman province,
which at length was done, and such of the nation, then
called Picts, as scorned servitude, were driven into the barren
country of Scotland, where they have ever since remained
a perpetual trouble to the successive inhabitants of this place.
The Britons, that thought it better to work for their conquerors
in a good land, than to have the freedom to starve in
a cold or barren quarter, were by degrees fetched away, and
wasted in the civil broils of these Roman lords, till the land,
almost depopulated, lay open to the incursions of every
borderer, and were forced to call a stout warlike people, the
Saxons, out of Germany, to their assistance. These willingly
came at their call, but were not so easily sent out again, nor
persuaded to let their hosts inhabit with them, for they drove
the Britons into the mountains of Wales, and seated themselves
in those pleasant countries which from the new masters
received a new name, and ever since retained it, being
called England ; and on which the warlike Dane made many
attempts, with various success, but after about two or three
hundred years' vain contest, they were for ever driven out,
with shame and loss, and the Saxon Heptarchy melted into a
monarchy, which continued till the superstitious prince, who
was sainted for his ungodly chastity, left an empty throne to
him that could seize it. He who first set up his standard in
it, could not hold it, but with his life left it again for the Norman
usurper, who partly by violence, partly by falsehood,
laid here the foundation of his monarchy, in the people's
blood, in which it hath swam about five hundred years, till
the flood that bore it was ploughed into such deep furrows as
had almost sunk the proud vessel. Of those Saxons that remained
subjects to the Norman conqueror, my father's family
descended; of those Normans that came in with him, my
mother's was derived ; both of them, as all the rest in England,
contracting such affinity, by mutual marriages, that the
distinction remained but a short space ; Normans and Saxons
becoming one people, who by their valour grew terrible to all
the neighbouring princes, and have not only bravely acquitted
themselves in their own defence, ...

[creativesoul]

nice- gardens have such tales to tell- beautiful

[dadio]

Delightful cronicles.