Gildas, Surnamed: "SAPIENS," OR THE WISE (c.500-570): The Ruin of Britain

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II THE HISTORY

3. The island of Britain, situated on almost the utmost border of
the earth, towards the south and west, and poised in the divine
balance, as it is said, which supports the whole world, stretches
out from the south-west towards the north pole, and is eight
hundred miles long and two hundred broad, except where the
headlands of sundry promontories stretch farther into the sea. It
is surrounded by the ocean, which forms winding bays, and is
strongly defended by this ample, and, if I may so call it,
impassable barrier, save on the south side, where the narrow sea
affords a passage to Baltic Gaul. It is enriched by the mouths of
two noble rivers, the Thames and the Severn, as it were two arms,
by which foreign luxuries were of old imported, and by other
streams of less importance. It is famous for eight and twenty
cities, and is embellished by certain castles, with walls, towers,
well barred gates, and houses with threatening battlements built
on high, and provided with all requisite instruments of defence.
Its plains are spacious, its hills are pleasantly situated,
adapted for superior tillage, and its mountains are admirably
calculated for the alternate pasturage of cattle, where flowers of
various colours, trodden by the feet of man, give it the
appearance of a lovely picture. It is decked, like a man's chosen
bride, with divers jewels, with lucid fountains and abundant
brooks wandering over the snow white sands; with transparent
rivers, flowing in gentle murmurs, and offering a sweet pledge of
slumber to those who recline upon their banks, whilst it is
irrigated by abundant lakes, which pour forth cool torrents of
refreshing water.

4. This island, stiff-necked and stubborn-minded, from the time
of its being first inhabited, ungratefully rebels, sometimes
against God, sometimes against her own citizens, and frequently,
also, against foreign kings and their subjects. For what can there
either be, or be committed, more disgraceful or more unrighteous
in human affairs, than to refuse to show fear to God or affection
to one's own countrymen, and (without detriment to one's faith) to
refuse due honour to those of higher dignity, to cast off all
regard to reason, human and divine, and, in contempt of heaven and
earth, to be guided by one's own sensual inventions? I shall,
therefore, omit those ancient errors common to all the nations of
the earth, in which, before Christ came in the flesh, all mankind
were bound; nor shall I enumerate those diabolical idols of my
country, which almost surpassed in number those of Egypt, and of
which we still see some mouldering away within or without the
deserted temples, with stiff and deformed features as was
customary. Nor will I call out upon the mountains, fountains, or
hills, or upon the rivers, which now are subservient to the use of
men, but once were an abomination and destruction to them, and to
which the blind people paid divine honour. I shall also pass over
the bygone times of our cruel tyrants, whose notoriety was spread
over to far distant countries; so that Porphyry, that dog who in
the east was always so fierce against the church in his mad and
vain style added this also, that "Britain is a land fertile in
tyrants." I will only endeavour to relate the evils which Britain
suffered in the times of the Roman emperors, and also those which
she caused to distant states; but so far as lies in my power, I
shall not follow the writings and records of my own country, which
(if there ever were any of them) have been consumed in the fires
of the enemy, or have accompanied my exiled countrymen into
distant lands, but be guided by the relations of foreign writers,
which, being broken and interrupted in many places, are therefore
by no means clear.

5. For when the rulers of Rome had obtained the empire of the
world, subdued all the neighbouring nations and islands towards
the east, and strengthened their renown by the first peace which
they made with the Parthians, who border on India, there was a
general cessation from war "throughout the whole world; the fierce
flame which they kindled could not be extinguished or checked by
the Western Ocean, but passing beyond the sea, imposed submission
upon our island without resistance, and entirely reduced to
obedience its unwarlike but faithless people, not so much by fire,
and sword and warlike engines, like other nations, but threats
alone, and menaces of judgments frowning on their countenance,
whilst terror penetrated to their hearts.

6. When afterwards they returned to Rome, for want of pay, as is
said, and had no suspicion of an approaching rebellion, that
deceitful lioness (Boadicea) put to death the rulers who had been
left among them, to unfold more fully and to confirm the
enterprises of the Romans When the report of these things reached
the senate, and they with a speedy army made haste to take
vengeance on the crafty foxes, as they called them, there was no
bold navy on the sea to fight bravely for the country; by land
there was no marshalled army, no right wing of battle, nor other
preparation for resistance; but their backs were their shields
against their vanquishers, and they presented their necks to their
swords, whilst chill terror ran through every limb, and they
stretched out their hands to be bound, like women; so that it has
become a proverb far and wide, that the Britons are neither brave
in war nor faithful in time of peace.

7. The Romans, therefore, having slain many of the rebels, and
reserved others for slaves, that the land might not be entirely
reduced to desolation, left the island, destitute as it was of
wine and oil, and returned to Italy, leaving behind them
taskmasters, to scourge the shoulders of the natives, to reduce
their necks to the yoke, and their soil to the vassalage of a
Roman province; to chastise the crafty race, not with warlike
weapons, but with rods, and if necessary to gird upon their sides
the naked sword, so that it was no longer thought to be Britain,
but a Roman island; and all their money, whether of copper, gold,
or silver, was stamped with Caesar's image.

8. Meanwhile these islands, stiff with cold and frost, and in a
distant region of the world, remote from the visible sun, received
the beams of light, that is, the holy precepts of Christ, the true
Sun, showing to the whole world his splendour, not only from the
temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses
every thing temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign
of Tiberius Caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without
impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered with Its
professors.

9. These rays of light were received with lukewarm minds by the
inhabitants, but they nevertheless took root among some of them in
a greater or less degree, until nine years' persecution of the
tyrant Diocletian, when the churches throughout the whole world
were overthrown, al1 the copies of the Holy Scriptures which could
be found burned in the streets, and the chosen pastors of God's
flock butchered, together with their innocent sheep, in order that
not a vestige, if possible, might remain in some provinces of
Christ's religion. What disgraceful flights then took place -what
slaughter and death inflicted by way of punishment in divers
shapes, -what dreadful apostacies from religion; and on the
contrary, what glorious crowns of martyrdom then were won, -what
raving fury was displayed by the persecutors, and patience on the
part of the suffering saints, ecclesiastical history informs us;
for the whole church were crowding in a body, to leave behind them
the dark things of this world, and to make the best of their way
to the happy mansions of heaven, as if to their proper home.

10. God, therefore, who wishes all men to be saved, and who calls
sinners no less than those who think themselves righteous,
magnified his mercy towards us, and, as we know, during the
above-named persecution, that Britain might not totally be
enveloped in the dark shades of night, he, of his own free gift,
kindled up among us bright luminaries of holy martyrs, whose
places of burial and of martyrdom, had they not for our manifold
crimes been interfered with and destroyed by the barbarians, would
have still kindled in the minds of the beholders no small fire of
divine charity. Such were St. Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Julius,
citizens of Carlisle, and the rest, of both sexes, who in
different places stood their ground in the Christian contest.

11. The first of these martyrs, St. Alban, for charity's sake
saved another confessor who was pursued by his persecutors, and
was on the point of being seized, by hiding him in his house, and
then by changing clothes with him, imitating in this the example
of Christ, who laid down his life for his sheep, and exposing
himself in the other's clothes to be pursued in his stead. So
pleasing to God was this conduct, that between his confession and
martyrdom, he was honoured with the performance of wonderful
miracles in presence of the impious blasphemers who were carrying
the Roman standards, and like the Israelites of old, who trod
dry-foot an unfrequented path whilst the ark of the covenant stood
some time on the sands in the midst of Jordan; so also the martyr,
with a thousand others, opened a path across the noble river
Thames, whose waters stood abrupt like precipices on either side;
and seeing this, the first of his executors was stricken with awe,
and from a wolf became a lamb; so that he thirsted for martyrdom,
and boldly underwent that for which he thirsted. The other holy
martyrs were tormented with divers sufferings, and their limbs
were racked in such unheard of ways, that they, without delay,
erected the trophies of their glorious martyrdom even in the gates
of the city of Jerusalem. For those who survived, hid themselves
in woods and deserts, and secret caves, waiting until God, who is
the righteous judge of all, should reward their persecutors with
judgment, and themselves with protection of their lives.

12. In less than ten years, therefore, of the above named
persecution, and when these bloody decrees began to fail in
consequence of the death of their authors, all Christ s young
disciples, after so long and wintry a night, begin to behold the
genial light of heaven. They rebuild the churches, which had been
levelled to the ground; they found, erect, and finish churches to
the holy martyrs, and everywhere show their ensigns as token of
their victory; festivals are celebrated and sacraments received
with clean hearts and lips, and all the church's sons rejoice as
it were in the fostering bosom of a mother. For this holy union
remained between Christ their head and the members of his church,
until the Arian treason, fatal as a serpent, and vomiting its
poison from beyond the sea, caused deadly dissension between
brothers inhabiting the same house, and thus, as if a road were
made across the sea, like wild beasts of all descriptions, and
darting the poison of every heresy from their Jaws, they inflicted
dreadful wounds upon their country, which is ever desirous to hear
something new, and remains constant long to nothing.

13. At length also, new races of tyrants sprang up, in terrific
numbers, and the island, still bearing its Roman name, but casting
off her institutes and laws, sent forth among the Gauls that
bitter scion of her own planting Maximus, with a great number of
followers, and the ensigns of royalty, which he bore without
decency and without lawful right, but in a tyrannical manner, and
amid the disturbances of the seditious soldiery. He, by cunning
arts rather than by valour, attaching to his rule, by perjury and
false hood, all the neighbouring towns and provinces, against the
Roman state, extended one of his wings to Spain, the other to
Italy, fixed the seat of his unholy government at Treves, and so
furiously pushed his rebellion against his lawful emperors that he
drove one of them out of Rome, and caused the others to terminate
his holy life. Trusting to these successful attempts, he not long
after lost his accursed head before the walls of Aquileia, whereas
he had before cut off the crowned heads of almost all the world.

14. After this, Britain is left deprived of all her soldiery and
armed bands, of her cruel governors, and of the flower of her
youth, who went with Maximus, but never again returned; and
utterly ignorant as she was of the art of war, groaned in
amazement for many years under the cruelty of two foreign
nations-the Scots from the north-west, and the Picts from the
north.

15. The Britons, impatient at the assaults of the Scots and Picts,
their hostilities and dreadful oppressions, send ambassadors to
Rome with letters, entreating in piteous terms the assistance of
an armed band to protect them, and offering loyal and ready
submission to the authority of Rome, if they only would expel
their invading foes. A legion is immediately sent, forgetting
their past rebellion, and provided sufficiently with arms. When
they had crossed over the sea and landed, they came at once to
close conflict with their cruel enemies, and slew great numbers of
them. All of them were driven beyond the borders, and the
humiliated natives rescued from the bloody slavery which awaited
them. By the advice of their protectors, they now built a wall
across the island from one sea to the other, which being manned
with a proper force, might be a terror to the foes whom it was
intended to repel, and a protection to their friends whom it
covered. But this wall, being made of turf instead of stone, was
of no use to that foolish people, who had no head to guide them.

16. The Roman legion had no sooner returned home in joy and
triumph, than their former foes, like hungry and ravening wolves,
rushing with greedy jaws upon the fold which is left without a
shepherd, and wafted both by the strength of oarsmen and the
blowing wind, break through the boundaries, and spread slaughter
on every side, and like mowers cutting down the ripe corn, they
cut up, tread under foot, and overrun the whole country.

17. And now again they send suppliant ambassadors, with their
garments rent and their heads covered with ashes, imploring
assistance from the Romans, and like timorous chickens, crowding
under the protecting wings of their parents, that their wretched
country might not altogether be destroyed, and that the Roman
name, which now was but an empty sound to fill the ear, might not
become a reproach even to distant nations. Upon this, the Romans,
moved with compassion, as far as human nature can be, at the
relations of such horrors, send forward, like eagles in their
flight, their unexpected bands of cavalry by land and mariners by
sea, and planting their terrible swords upon the shoulders of
their enemies, they mow them down like leaves which fall at the
destined period; and as a mountain-torrent swelled with numerous
streams, and bursting its banks with roaring noise, with foaming
crest and yeasty wave rising to the stars, by whose eddying
currents our eyes are as it were dazzled, does with one of its
billows overwhelm every obstacle in its way, so did our
illustrious defenders vigorously drive our enemies' band beyond
the sea, if any could so escape them; for it was beyond those same
seas that they transported, year after year, the plunder which
they had gained, no one daring to resist them.

18. The Romans, therefore, left the country, giving notice that
they could no longer be harassed by such laborious expeditions,
nor suffer the Roman standards, with so large and brave an army,
to be worn out by sea and land by fighting against these
unwarlike, plundering vagabonds; but that the islanders, inuring
themselves to warlike weapons, and bravely fighting, should
valiantly protect their country, their property, wives and
children, and, what is dearer than these, their liberty and lives;
that they should not suffer their hands to be tied behind their
backs by a nation which, unless they were enervated by idleness
and sloth, was not more powerful than themselves, but that they
should arm those hands with buckler, sword, and spear, ready for
the field of battle; and, because they thought this also of
advantage to the people they were about to leave, they, with the
help of the miserable natives, built a wall different from the
former, by public and private contributions, and of the same
structure as walls generally, extending in a straight line from
sea to sea, between some cities, which, from fear of their
enemies, had there by chance been built. They then give energetic
counsel to the timorous native, and leave them patterns by which
to manufacture arms Moreover, on the south coast where their
vessels lay, as there was some apprehension lest the barbarians
might land, they erected towers at stated intervals, commanding a
prospect of the sea; and then left the island never to return.

19. No sooner were they gone, than the Picts and Scots, like worms
which in the heat of mid-day come forth from their holes, hastily
land again from their canoes, in which they had been carried
beyond the Cichican valley, differing one from another in manners,
but inspired with the same avidity for blood, and all more eager
to shroud their villainous faces in bushy hair than to cover with
decent clothing those parts of their body which required it.
Moreover, having heard of the departure of our friends, and their
resolution never to return, they seized with greater boldness than
before on all the country towards the extreme north as far as the
wall. To oppose them there was placed on the heights a garrison
equally slow to fight and ill adapted to run away, a useless and
panic-struck company, who clambered away days and nights on their
unprofitable watch. Meanwhile the hooked weapons of their enemies
were not idle, and our wretched countrymen were dragged from the
wall and dashed against the ground. Such premature death, however,
painful as it was, saved them from seeing the miserable sufferings
of their brothers and children. But why should I say more? they
left their cities, abandoned the protection of the wall and
dispersed themselves in flight more desperately than before. The
enemy, on the other hand, pursued them with more unrelenting
cruelty than before, and butchered our countrymen like sheep, so
that their habitations were like those of savage beasts; for they
turned their arms upon each other, and for the sake of a little
sustenance, imbrued their hands in the blood of their fellow
countrymen. Thus foreign calamities were augmented by domestic
feuds; so that the whole country was entirely destitute of
provisions, save such as could be procured in the chase.

20. Again, therefore, the wretched remnant, sending to AEtius, a
powerful Roman citizen, address him as follows:-"To AEtius, now
consul for the third time: the groans of the Britons." And again a
little further thus:-"The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea
throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await
us, we are either slain or drowned." The Romans, however, could
not assist them, and in the meantime the discomfited people,
wandering in the woods, began to feel the effects of a severe
famine, which compelled many of them without delay to yield
themselves up to their cruel persecutors, to obtain subsistence:
others of them, however, lying hid in mountains, caves, and woods,
continually sallied out from thence to renew the war. And then it
was, for the first time, that they overthrew their enemies, who
had for so many years been living in their country; for their
trust was not in man, but in God; according to the maxim of Philo,
"We must have divine assistance, when that of man fails." The
boldness of the enemy was for a while checked, but not the
wickedness of our countrymen: the enemy left our people, but the
people did not leave their sins.

21. For it has always been a custom with our nation, it is at
present, to be impotent in repelling foreign foes, but bold and
invincible in raising civil war, and bearing the burdens of their
offences they are impotent, I say, in following the standard of
peace and truth, but bold in wickedness and falsehood. The
audacious invaders therefore return to their winter quarters,
determined before long again to return and plunder. And then, too,
the Picts for the first time seated themselves at the extremity of
the island where they afterwards continued, occasionally
plundering an wasting the country. During these truces, the wounds
of the distressed people are healed, but another sore, still more
venomous, broke out. No sooner were the ravages of the enemy
checked, than the island was deluged with a most extraordinary
plenty of all things, greater than was before known, and with it
grew up every kind of luxury and licentiousness. It grew with so
firm a root, that one might truly say of it, "Such fornication is
heard of among you, as never was known the like among the
Gentiles." But besides this vice, there arose also every other, to
which human nature is liable, and in particular that hatred of
truth, together wit her supporters, which still at present
destroys every thing good in the island; the love of falsehood,
together with its inventors, the reception of crime in the place
of virtue, the respect shown to wickedness rather than goodness,
the love of darkness instead of the sun, the admission of Satan as
an angel of light. Kings were anointed, not according to God's
ordinance, but such as showed themselves more cruel than the rest;
and soon after, they were put to death by those who had elected
them, without any inquiry into their merits, but because others
still more cruel were chosen to succeed them. If any one of these
was of a milder nature than the rest, or in any way more regardful
of the truth, he was looked upon as the ruiner of the country,
every body cast a dart at him, and they valued things alike
whether pleasing or displeasing to God, unless it so happened that
what displeased him was pleasing to themselves. So that the words
of the prophet, addressed to the people of old, might well be
applied to our own countrymen: "Children without a law, have ye
left God and provoked to anger the holy one of Israel? Why will ye
still inquire, adding iniquity? Every head is languid and every
heart is sad; from the sole of the foot to the crown, there is no
health in him." And thus they did all things contrary to their
salvation, as if no remedy could be applied to the world by the
true physician of all men. And not only the laity did so, but our
Lord's own flock and its shepherds, who ought to have been an
example to the people, slumbered away their time in drunkenness,
as if they had been dipped in wine; whilst the swellings of pride,
the jar of strife, the griping talons of envy, and the confused
estimate of right and wrong, got such entire possession of them,
that there seemed to be poured out (and the same still continueth)
contempt upon princes, and to be made by their vanities to wander
astray and not in the way.

22. Meanwhile, God being willing to purify his family who were
infected by so deep a stain of woe, and at the hearing only of
their calamities to amend them; a vague rumour suddenly as if on
wings reaches the ears of all, that their inveterate foes were
rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take
possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other. But yet
they derived no advantage from this intelligence; for, like
frantic beasts, taking the bit of reason between their teeth, they
abandoned the safe and narrow road, and rushed forward upon the
broad downward path of vice, which leads to death. Whilst,
therefore, as Solomon says, the stubborn servant is not cured by
words, the fool is scourged and feels it not: a pestilential
disease mortally affected the foolish people, which, without the I
sword, cut off so large a number of persons, that the living were
not able to bury them. But even this was no warning to them, that
in them also might be fulfilled the words of Isaiah the prophet,
"And God hath called his people to lamentation, to baldness, and
to the girdle of sackcloth; behold they begin to kill calves, and
to slay rams, to eat, to drink, and to say, 'We will eat and
drink, for tomorrow we shall die."' For the time was approaching,
when all their iniquities, as formerly those of the Amorrhaeans,
should be fulfilled. For a council was called to settle what was
best and most expedient to be done, in order to repel such
frequent and fatal irruptions and plunderings of the above-named
nations.

23. Then all the councillors, together with that proud tyrant
Gurthrigern [Vortigern], the British king, were so blinded, that,
as a protection to their country, they sealed its doom by inviting
in among them (like wolves into the sheep-fold), the fierce and
impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the
invasions of the northern nations. Nothing was ever so pernicious
to our country, nothing was ever so unlucky. What palpable
darkness must have enveloped their minds-darkness desperate and
cruel! Those very people whom, when absent, they dreaded more than
death itself, were invited to reside, as one may say, under the
selfsame roof. Foolish are the princes, as it is said, of
Thafneos, giving counsel to unwise Pharaoh. A multitude of whelps
came forth from the lair of this barbaric lioness, in three cyuls,
as they call them, that is, in three ships of war, with their
sails wafted by the wind and with omens and prophecies favourable,
for it was foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they
should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred
years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should
plunder and despoil the same. They first landed on the eastern
side of the island, by the invitation of the unlucky king, and
there fixed their sharp talons, apparently to fight in favour of
the island, but alas! more truly against it. Their mother-land,
finding her first brood thus successful, sends forth a larger
company of her wolfish offspring, which sailing over, join
themselves to their bastard-born comrades. From that time the germ
of iniquity and the root of contention planted their poison
amongst us, as we deserved, and shot forth into leaves and
branches. The barbarians being thus introduced as soldiers into
the island, to encounter, as they falsely said, any dangers in
defence of their hospitable entertainers, obtain an allowance of
provisions, which, for some time being plentifully bestowed,
stopped their doggish mouths. Yet they complain that their monthly
supplies are not furnished in sufficient abundance, and they
industriously aggravate each occasion of quarrel, saying that
unless more liberality is shown them, they will break the treaty
and plunder the whole island. In a short time, they follow up
their threats with deeds.

24. For the fire of vengeance, justly kindled by former crimes,
spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east,
and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and
lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red
and savage tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults,
therefore, not unlike that of the Assyrian upon Judea, was
fulfilled in our case what the prophet describes in words of
lamentation: "They have burned with fire the sanctuary; they have
polluted on earth the tabernacle of thy name." And again, "O God,
the gentiles have come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple
have they defiled," &c. So that all the columns were levelled with
the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the
husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests, and
people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around
them on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the
streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground,
stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies,
covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they
had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being
buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening
bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for
their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were
carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels. So
entirely had the vintage, once so fine, degenerated and become
bitter, that, in the words of the prophet, there was hardly a
grape or ear of corn to be seen where the husbandman had turned
his back.

25. Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the
mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by
famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their
foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was
the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed
beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of
exhortation. "Thou hast given us as sheep to be slaughtered, and
among the Gentiles hast thou dispersed us." Others, committing the
safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the
mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of
the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their
country. But in the meanwhile, an opportunity happening, when
these most cruel robbers were returned home, the poor remnants of
our nation (to whom flocked from divers places round about our
miserable countrymen as fast as bees to their hives, for fear of
an ensuing storm), being strengthened by God, calling upon him
with all their hearts, as the poet says,-

"With their unnumbered vows they burden heaven,"

that they might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms
under the conduct of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a modest man, who of
all the Roman nation was then alone in the confusion of this
troubled period by chance left alive. His parents, who for their
merit were adorned with the purple, kind been slain in these same
broils, and now his progeny in these our days, although shamefully
degenerated from the worthiness of their ancestors, provoke to
battle their cruel conquerors, and by the goodness of our Lord
obtain the victory.

26. After this, sometimes our countrymen, sometimes the enemy, won
the field, to the end that our Lord might this land try after his
accustomed manner these his Israelites, whether they loved him or
not, until the year of the siege of Bath-hill, when took place
also the last almost, though not the least slaughter of our cruel
foes, which was (as I am sure) forty-four years and one month
after the landing of the Saxons, and also the time of my own
nativity. And yet neither to this day are the cities of our
country inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown,
still lie desolate; our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil
troubles still remaining. For as well the remembrance of such a
terrible desolation of the island, as also of the unexpected
recovery of the same, remained in the minds of those who were
eyewitnesses of the wonderful events of both, and in regard
thereof, kings, public magistrates, and private persons, with
priests and clergymen, did all and every one of them live orderly
according to their several vocations. But when these had departed
out of this world, and a new race succeeded, who were ignorant of
this troublesome time, and had only experience of the present
prosperity, all the laws of truth and justice were so shaken and
subverted, that not so much as a vestige or remembrance of these
virtues remained among the above-named orders of men, except among
a very few who, compared with the great multitude which were daily
rushing headlong down to hell, are accounted so small a number,
that our reverend mother, the church, scarcely beholds them, her
only true children, reposing in her bosom; whose worthy lives,
being a pattern to all men, and beloved of God, inasmuch as by
their holy prayers, as by certain pillars and most profitable
supporters, our infirmity is sustained up, that it may not utterly
be broken down, I would have no one suppose I intended to reprove,
if forced by the increasing multitude of offences, I have freely,
aye, with anguish, not so much declared as bewailed the wickedness
of those who are become servants, not only to their bellies, but
also to the devil rather than to Christ, who is our blessed God,
world without end.

For why shall their countrymen conceal what foreign nations round
about now not only know, but also continually are casting in their
teeth?