British Antiquities by Sammes

Israelites & Edomites in Celtic Britain, the work of AYLETT SAMMES (11 May, 2015, 22 Iyar, 5775)

An Old Source Gives valuable Information concerning Edomites, Phoenicians, and Hebrews in Celtic Britain
Re
BRITANNIA ANTIQUA ILLUSTRATA: OR, THE ANTIQUITIES OF ANCIENT BRITAIN, Derived from the Phoenicians By AYLETT SAMMES (1674).
http://tei.it.ox.ac.uk/tcp/Texts-HTML/free/A61/A61366.html
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A61366.0001.001?view=toc
Contents:
1. Introduction. Aylett Sammes
2. What Did Sammes say?
3. What Do We say?
4. Herman L. Hoeh and Sammes
5. Sammes Explained Followed by Brit-Am Commentary in Square Brackets [..].
6. Sammes on the Frisians Invading Britain
7. Selected Quotations from Sammes
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1. Introduction. Aylett Sammes

Aylett Sammes (1636?-1679?) was an English antiquary, noted for his theories of Phoenician influence on the Welsh language. Sammes however did much more than this. Sammes shows that early Britain before the Anglo-Saxon invasions was heavily influenced by Phoenician culture.
Sammes in the early part of his work relied heavily on Samuel Bochart (1599-1667). He repeats items from Bochart but usually fails to acknowledge Bochart as his source. Bochart wrote in Latin whereas Sammes wrote in an English that is still understandable. The two works are different. Sammes did a great service in spreading the information shared by both of them. Nevertheless, the sources in Bochart used by Sammes should have been provenanced by him.
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2. What Did Sammes say?

Sammes claims that Britain was first settled by Germans and that the mutuality between Britain and Gaul was due to both being involved with the Phoenicians.
Says that the Phoenicians very greatly influenced the inhabitants of Britain in numerous ways but that these themselves were of German origin.
[We disagree from Sammes in this point and he does not bring any proof for it. On the other hand, Sammes has foreshadowed numerous recent researchers who have tended to emphasize the differences between the inhabitants of Britain and Celts on the Continent.]
Sammes implies that these Phoenicians of his, in order to have had such great influence, must also have settled quite heavily in Britain alongside the natives.
Sammes identifies the Phoenicians by implication as primarily Edomites with some Canaanite admixture.
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3. What Do We say?

The Ancient Israelites were a great and numerous people. The major section known as the Ten Tribes were conquered by the Assyrians.
The Assyrians took most of them overland to areas to their north.
Apart from that,
Philistine (Minoan and Mycenean) Proxies along with Edomite Phoenicians from Tyre acting on behalf of Assyria and Edom transported Israelites by ship to Spain, Britain, possibly Ireland, Gaul (especially Brittany), and Scandinavia. The transportees were to be engaged in mining mineral resources and in the case of Britain supplying grain to the Mediterranean world.
Meanwhile those Israelites who had been taken overland asserted their independence in their places of exile. They rebelled against Assyria and were instrumental in defeating her. They then moved to the north and to the west. They did this in stages and in different bodies together with non-Israelite groups they had federated with. These non-Israelites were chiefly descendants of Gomer son of Japhet. A portion of the Israelites who moved westward at an early stage had been associated with the Cimmerians. In the west they helped create Celtic Culture and linked up with those other Israelites who had been taken westward previously.
This is the situation that Sammes was describing without being aware of it. Sammes relied mainly on Greek and Roman writers who in turn, he says, must have been using Phoenician sources.
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4. Herman L. Hoeh and Sammes

Herman L. Hoeh, "Compendium of World History", USA, 1962, 1967.
http://www.cgca.net/coglinks/wcglit/hoehcompendium/hhc1toc.htm
volume 1, chapter 19, quotes from Sammes.
http://www.cgca.net/coglinks/wcglit/hoehcompendium/hhc1ch19.htm

Hoeh says that Chaldeans (whom he terms "Hebrews") and Assyrians from Shinar under Samothes, or Zames Ninyas came west together with Tuatha De Daanan of Ireland.
Then came Brutus of Troy followed by Ebranck in Solomon's day. [We are doubtful about this and tend to dismiss it.]
Then came other Israelites from the Ten Tribes:

(1) Archaeological Parlance:
"Deverel-Rimbury" invasions in so-called "Late Bronze" period; gradually replace "Urn People".
Testimony of Written History:
A new, but related, people invade British Isles during days of Silvius (681-632) and Jaso (632- 604); see Sammes' "Antiquities of Ancient Britain", p. 170; these were first wave of children of Jacob (Esau's brother) who were uprooted by Assyrians.

These were followed by:

(2) Archaeological Parlance:
So-called "Early Iron" immigrants penetrate into Britain; in after years early pastoral "Urn People"migrate out of Britain to Brittany in France.
Testimony of Written History:
Another wave of same people who invaded in days of Silvius and Jaso now peroclate into Britain: civil war results; old line of kings overthrown and perish in 482: civil war ends in 434 with new line of kings

followed in turn by:

(3) Archaeological Parlance:
Another wave of "Early Iron" invaders; originally from region of Austria and Moravia, migrants passed through Gaul and became known among archaeologists as "La Tene" people from site of their culture in Gaul.
Testimony of Written History:
In days of Morindus, king of Britain (299-290), invaders from Gaul attack Britain named "Morini" or "Moriani"in welsh records -- from whence Moravia, their original homeland,is derived; King Morindus defeats them after they had already overrun much of the country (Sammes' "Antiquities", pp.175-176); from archaeology comes this testimony: "The determined and organized resistance to aggression ... discouraged the La Tene raiders and prevented them from settling in any force on the southern chalk .... no wholly La Tene type of society was established" (p. 126 of Hawkes' "Prehistoric Britain")

Hoeh above in no (1) identifies those who invaded in the days of Silvius and Jaso as the "first wave of children of Jacob (Esau's brother) who were uprooted by Assyrians". This is the given opinion of Hoeh and is not found in Sammes. Hoeh was a formidable scholar and doubtless had sources for what he said but in this case he has not given sources on the spot proving it.
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5. Sammes Explained Followed by Brit-Am Commentary in Square Brackets [..].

The name Britain is from the Phoenician term (says Bochart) BARAT-ANAC, or BRATANAC meaning Land of Tin (?).
Phoenicians mined tin etc and sent it into Gaul whence it was taken overland to Narbonne in the southeast for trade in the Mediterranean.
With the decline of Phoenicia and the fall of Carthage the Greeks began to take over in part but then due to fear of the Roman predominance in the Mediterranean they desisted. Britain was left alone for ca. 150 years until Caesar invaded.
Britain supplied grain to the Phoenicians and had been known as, "The Granary of the Western World".

Sammes quotes Camden that the Isles of Britain were the Fortunate Islands so much celebrated by the Ancient Poets, where the ELYSIAN FIELDS, and HELL itself might be placed. They were part of The Kingdom of Darkness and Places of Rest, to which Virtuous Souls were carried after their departure out of a temporal Being.
Sammes says that for the Phoenicians and Greeks Britain really was a remote location and that the Phoenicians wished to link it with the other world in order to keep rivals away.
[ The Jews in Second temple Times and later had the idea that the Ten Tribes and related peoples such as the Sons of Moses and the Rechabites were in the Isles of the Blessed. In Classical terminology this meant the islands of Britain and Ireland.
See:
Aed and the Lost Tribes in Britain. The Lost Ten Tribes in Celtic and Arabic Lore
http://www.britam.org/aed.html
See Also:
James H. Charlesworth , THE HISTORY OF THE RECHABITES, Vol. I: The Greek Recension (Scholars Press (c) 1982)., quoted by George Brooks ]
This may link up with a passage in the Zohar which says the Ten Tribes had a special place reserved for them in Gehinom meaning the Place of the Dead where they were still to be found. The Zohar is a mystical work that was first revealed in the 1200s CE BUT it contains a great deal of earlier material and ancient sources.]

Sammes identifies the Phoenicians with Edom. Quotes a tradition whereby King Erithras of Phoenicia was the first maker of a Ship. Erithras means in Greek, "Red" i.e. Edom.
Quotes Strabo concerning a British Isle wherein were worshipped Ceres and Proserpina the goddesses of grain and prosperity, with the same Rites they did in Samothrace.
[Samothrace was a Greek island off the coast of Thrace.
Samothrace was first inhabited by Pelasgians and Carians, and later Thracians. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was settled by Greeks in the 500s BCE.
Lempriere records that its settlers also included colonies of Phoenicians. Samothrace was known for its religious rites and the worship of the Cabiri meaning in Hebrew "Mighty Ones". ]

Pliny relates that Midacritus was the first to bring Tynn (i.e. tin) out of the Cassiterides. The Cassiterides (Isles of Tin) were the Isles of Britain. Bochart identified Midcritus with Melkart a Phoenician god equated with Hercules.
Marcellinus of Timagines records that the Dorienses followed Hercules into Gaul.
Identifies (following Bochart) the Dorienses with Phoenicians of the City Dora. Proves that the name could not refer to Greeks but must relate to others.
[Dora is the City of Dor on the coast in the territory of Mananasseh and elsewhere we have identified these people with Israelites from the Ten Tribes who settled in the west.]

Sammes quotes Enidius and other German Writers that the Dorienses who followed Hercules the Ancient (so-called to distinguish him from another Hercules who came later), inhabited the Sea Coasts of Gallia, by Gallia they think is meant Germany, because all Germany was called so Anciently, and by the Sea Coast, Beligium, and in particular an Island of the Zealanders [Netherlands], called Wallacheia [i.e. Walcheren in the Netherlands].
[For us this would mean that settlers from Manasseh settled in Belgium and Holland and on the North German coast.]
Sammes shows that the Domnonii who settled in the southwest of Britain (in Devon and Cornwall) were originally known as Dan (as we have shown elsewhere from other sources) but he does not relate them to Dan of Israel [whereas we do].

The god Hesus in Gaul is identified with Mars the god of war. The name Hesus comes from the Syrian... signifying strong and Powerful in War. Says this god was worshipped by the Phoenicians who equated him with Mars of the Romans.
[We have shown elsewhere that Hesus-Esus is the same as Esau and that he was a forerunner of the Germanic god Odin whose name in turn is a form of Edom another name for Esau.]
See:
Odin - Edom
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/esau/odin4.html

Phoenicians introduced into Britain worship of the god Belus.
[This is accepted in archaeology but conventionally they claim that the similarity of the name Bel as worshipped by the Celts and bel or baal of the Phoenicians is a coincidence.]
Bel is identified with Apollo. The priests of the Apollo were known as Paterae which he explains to be derived from Phoenician/Hebrew word Peter meaning to interpret or to solve.
The Phoenicians, says Sammes, were also called the Idumaean Tyrians.
[In other words the Phoenicians from Tyre were also known as "Idumaeans" or "Idumaeans from Tyre". Idumaean is another form of the word Edom. The name Phoenician means "Red" i.e. "Edom". The Phoenicians of Tyre had a tradition (reported by Sanchuniathon) that a hairy hero named Ousoos (i.e. Esau) had founded part of Tyre.

The Druids were exampt from war. The Druids revered the oak tree and especially the mistletoe that grows upon it. Britain was the center of Druid worship.

British tradition (e.g., Nennius, Geoffrey, etc) says that there many Giants amongst the early inhabitants of Britain. Samnes identifies these giants with Phoenicians who were men of tall stature.

[The Phoenicians were Canaanites. major Canaanite nation were the Amorites whose very name ("Amor") connotes tallness and of whom the Bible tells us:

Amos 2:
9 "Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath." ]

Britain was once known as Samothea in honor of Samothes descendants of Japhet and the forerunner of the Celts who received the area of Gaul as an inheritance. others say that the region originally belonged to descendants of Gomer son of Japhet but Samothes drove them from it.
[In "The Tribes" we identified Samothes with Shemida son of Gilead from Manasseh (Numbers 26:30). The names Shemida and Samothe are virtually the same since the "sh" became "s" and the "th" and "d" in Ancient Hebrew interchange.]

SARRON, the third King of the Britains and Celts. ..Founder of the Sect of the Sarronides, when indeed the Sarronides were but another name for the Druids.
The word "sar" in Hebrew means "prince" . Saron was a title amongst the Philistines for local ruler.

Sammes traces the Druids to Abraham and the oaks of Mamre. He claims the Druids imitated the practices of Abraham but corrupted them.
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6. Sammes on the Frisians Invading Britain

Sammes goes on and deals with later British History. Here too, he has sources and insights of value.
The Frisians for example were recalled by Procopius as having accompanied the Angles and Saxons in the invasion of England.
This is well known and often quoted but left alone as an interesting curioisity.
Sammes shows that not only Procopius but also Bede and Marecellinus (a contemporary of Bede were of this opinion.
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7. Selected Quotations from Sammes

BRITANNIA ANTIQUA ILLUSTRATA: OR, THE ANTIQUITIES OF ANCIENT BRITAIN, Derived from the Phoenicians:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A61366.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Wherein the Original Trade of this ISLAND is discovered, the Names of Places, Offices, Dignities, as likewise the Idolatry, Language, and Customs of the Primitive Inhabitants are clearly demonstrated from that Nation, many old Monuments illustrated, and the Commerce with that People, as well as the Greeks, plainly set forth and collected out of approved Greek and Latin Authors. TOGETHER With a CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY of this Kingdom, from the first Traditional Beginning, until the year of our Lord 800, when the Name of BRITAIN was changed into ENGLAND; Faithfully collected out of the best Authors, and disposed in a better Method than hitherto hath been done; with the Antiquities of the Saxons, as well as Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. The First Volume. By AYLETT SAMMES, of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge.Since, of the Inner-Temple.

Caer meaning walled city: quotes Cambden who gives the derivation of the British Caer Eske, now Exeter. For Caer, to tell you*once for all (saith he) with our Britains is as much to say, as a City, whereupon they use to name Jerusalem, Caer Salem, Lutetia or Paris, Caer Paris, Rome, Caer Russaine. Thus Carthage in the Punick tongue was called, as Solinus witnesseth, Cartheia, that is, the New City. I have heard likewise that Caer in the Syriack tongue signified a City.

BRITAIN, the most Renowned Island of the whole World, was called by the Ancient Greeks in non-Latin alphabet , afterwards it took the name of BRITANNIA, but more truly, BRETANICA, from the Adjacent Islands called, BARAT-ANAC, or BRATANAC by the Phoenicians, from the abundance of Tynn, and * Lead-Mines, found in them.

In this condition BRITAIN continued during the time the Phoenicians flourished, sending forth its Commodities to the Straights, and to all the Mediterranean Seas, as likewise thorough Gaul, by Land, to Narbo, where the Phoenicians held a publick Mart.

About the declining of the Phoenician State, the Graecians began to Trade into these parts, and they, who before had only heard of the Bratanacks, which in the same sence they called Cassiterides, or the Tynn Islands; now learnt the way to them, and conformed themselves to the Name the Phoenicians had given them, calling them first the Bretanick Islands, afterwards Britanes.

Upon the encrease of the Roman Empire, and the fall of Carthage, the Trading began to decrease, and the Graecians, for fear of that powerful State, discontinued their Voyages into the Western Seas. And it may be supposed, that Britain lay idle during the space of a hundred and seventy years, till Julius Caesar's arrival.

In evidencing this Opinion, I have not made use of any of the British Histories, because their credit in the World is but small, but have grounded it upon the Authority of Greek and Roman Authors, some of which, as Timagenes, Polybius, and Festus Avienus, had made great Enquiries into Phoenician Records, and for that * reason were more able than others, to give a true account of the Trade of that Nation relating to Britain. So that for the present, granting the Bretannick Islands to be so well known to the Ancient World, it will not seem fabulous, that Orpheus, but more truly Onomacritus called them of old, The Seat of Queen CERES; as afterwards * they were stiled, The Granary of the Western World.

Neither will it seem Ridiculous what Mr. Cambden mentions, namely, That they *were supposed to be the Fortunate Islands so much celebrated by the Ancient Poets, where the ELYSIAN FIELDS, and HELL it self might be placed. Let us consider, that upon the first discovery of them by the Phoenicians, they were to the then known World, just as the West Indies were at first to Europe, and that by the small progress the World had made, so early, in the art of Navigation, the Voyage to them was as long, and as difficult. Add to this, the many Stories the Phoenicians might relate to them, especially to the credulous Greeks, and in a fabulous Age, when the digging in Mines might be interpreted, A discent into Hell; and Chule, in the Phoenician Tongue, signifying Night and Obscurity, might be called, The Kingdom of Darkness. No doubt on the other side; The pleasant scituation of BRITAIN, the Remoteness of it from the busie and careful World, the flowry Vallies curiously deck'd by Nature, watered by Rivers, and defended by Woods, Hills, &c. To pass over many other advantages wherewith this Island is blessed above other Nations, when they came to be related, by the Phoenicians, to that Nation, it created in them the Idaea's of another World, and might be the ground-work of those Elysian Fields, and Places of Rest, to which Vertuous Souls were carried after their departure out of a temporal Being.

This was the Opinion of the Ancient Greeks concerning BRITAIN in those daies, when they had the knowledge of it by Hear-say only, from the Phoenicians, which doth evidently appear, if we consider, that upon the Real discovery of it by them, and their better Acquaintance in these parts, they left not off to hunt after those Imaginary places, still believing (according to the Ancient Tradition) that they were here only to be found. And this gave occasion to the Story of Isacius Tzetzes, a Greek of no small Repute and Credit with M. Cambden; namely, *That JULIUS CAESAR was carryed from Gallia into I know not what Western Islands, where the pleasantness of the place invited him to tarry, had he not been obliged to depart by the Inhabitants, and so forceibly carried back by the same Spirits that conveighed him thither. And, although this be but a Fable, yet it shews the Opinion of those Times, and the strong belief they had, that here were the Fortunate Islands, and the Elysian Fields.

If this conjecture be right concerning King Erithras, that he was the first maker of a Ship, and was the same with Edom (as Scaliger sup

[p.55
And first I will begin with Strabo, because what he speaks of has relation to the Plenty of England for all sorts of Grain; in his fourth Book, Artimidorus asserts, *That there was an Island near Britain, I suppose one of the Scilly Islands, and in most probability St. Maries, in which they worshipped Ceres and Proserpina, with the same Rites they did in Samothrace.

Now this Artimidorus lived in the daies of Ptolemeus Lathyrus, before Colaeus the Greek had ever discovered any thing of these Seas, so that the Graecians could not introduce the Worship of Ceres and Proserpina into any British Island. It remains therefore, that they were brought in by the Phoenicians, who had taught the Samothracians first their Worship, and the Mysteries of their Cabiri, which were so many that Juvenal takes notice of them.

Now, that the Worship of the Samothracians, and consequently of the Britains who had the same Rites, were taught them by the Phoenicians, I will prove.

First, The word Cabiri, signifying their Gods, is a Phoenician word signifying Power and Greatness, and they were worshipt chiefly at Beritus by the Phoenicians, as Sanchoniathon in Eusebius witnesseth, which place was dedicated to the Honour of Neptune, a great God with them, and the Cabiri.*

p.56
But is it absolutely against Reason to say, that Hercules might arrive at this Island? Certainly No, as it hath some probability in it, if we consider what Pliny writes, * viz. that Midacritus was the first that brought Tynn out of the Cassiterides. Now who should this Medacritus be? we are assured it is a Greek name, and a Gracian could not be the first that brought Tynn from thence, wherefore Bochartus thinks * it ought to be Milicartus, or Melcartus, a known name of Hercules.

Now this Inscription is thought to belong to the Ancient HERCULES whom the Dorienses followed into Gaul, as Marcellinus out of Timagines writes, * and not to the Greek HERCULES, as some have gathered by his Followers, the Dorienses, whom they have imagined to be Greeks, when indeed they were Phoenicians of the City Dora, or Dorus, in Phoenicia, of which Stephanusthus writes: Dorus in * a City of Phoenicia, as Josephus and others write, the Name of the People was Dorites, but Pausanias calls them Dorienses. Some think that Petronius should be read for Pausanias, for an Epistle of his is extant in Josephus, where the Inhabitants of Dora are called Dorienses. The Inscription of the Epistle is this:

These Dorienses, as Marcellinus writes, who followed the Elder Hercules, could not be Gracians, because in his daies (I mean the Elder Hercules) there was no such People so called among the Greeks, for Dorus the Father of the Greek Dorienses lived after the Phoenician Hercules.

Enidius and other German Writers, upon those words of Marcellinus, The Dorienses following the Ancient Hercules, inhabited the Sea Coasts of Gallia, by Gallia they * think is meant Germany,because all Germany was called so Anciently, and by the Sea Coast, Beligium, and in particular an Island of the Zealanders, called Wallacheia. And this Inscription is brought by him to confirm his opinion.

p.58
Upon this account some have derived them from Moina, in the British Tongue signifying Mines, but the Question is, whence the Dan or Dun proceeds? for So linus calls them Dunmonii; Ptolomy, Domnonii, and in other Copies (as Cambden* saith) trulier Danmonii, although I think the transposition is very easie and usual, and hides not at all the Original Dan or Dun.

In the Ancient British Language, as also in the Phoenician, Dun or Cun (for in composition we find both waies) signifies a Hill, and Dan of the British, Down of the Phoenicians and English signifie Low.

Now whether we derive them from Dan, from their Low habitations in Valleys, or, which is righter, from Dun or Cun, or Monia, signifying Hills of Tynn; I sind both waies that they are of a Phoenician Derivation.

Besides, this word Dun, being a frequenter word in derivation, and extending to the Language of the Gauls, who called an Hill Dun, I think more proper to derive Dunmonii from it, for from Dun, a Hill, many Cities of high Scituation both in Gaul and Britain take their Name, as Augustodunum, Axellodunum, Juliodunum, Laudunum, Melodunum, Noviodunum, Sedunum, Vellannodunum. Clitophon expresly, *Lugaunum, Corvi Collem, because it was placed on a Hill; likewise Andomatunum, with a T, in Ptolomy, the Metropolis of the Lingones.

The first Country of the Danmonii Westward is Cornwal, shooting into the Sea, and running into a Point of Belirium, the Name of which Country, if we examine the Original of it, and what at this day it is called by the Inhabitants, and the similitude it bears with other places, exactly agreeing in Name and Nature with it, we shall find it could be called so by none but the Phoenicians.

61
The Gauls had another God called by Lucan, HESUS, this Hesus is thought to be Mars, as we may learn out of the History of the Ancient Gauls, which not long since Antonius Gosselinus put forth; And the name Hesus comes from the Syrian in non-Latin alphabet or in non-Latin alphabet , signifying strong and Powerful in War, from which word the Phoenicians* had their name of Mars, as out of Jamblicus Julian the Apostate shews in his Oration of the SUN;

69
Paterae, were the Priest, of Apollo, who were worshipped by the Britains and Gauls under the name of Belenus, and this name of theirs is derived from Patar in the Phoenician Tongue, signifying to Interpret, because they were the Interpreters of his Oracles; And Joseph was called Potar, because he interpreted the King of Egypts Dreams, and as this Belus was brought by the Phoenicians into Britain, and is a peculiar God of theirs, as shall be shewn in the Treatise of the British Gods, so without dispute this word PATERAE is to be referred to a Phoenician Original.

Ausonius, writing of Attius Patera, or Paterius, has these Verses:

71
for the Original of Phoenicia, which by interpretation was a place in that Country where a multitude of Palm-Trees grew, they also put in non-Latin alphabet , signifying Red, in allusion to the Red Sea, upon which those People bordered, from which they were also called the Idumaean Tyrians, and so in non-Latin alphabet, Phoenicians; And still proceeding, after that in genious Method, of naming People according to the product of their own Brains, as I

74
That this is true, Strabo in his third Book of his Geography witnesseth: 'At the * beginning (saith he) the Phoenicians alone Traded to Britain from Gades, and concealed from others this Navigation; but when a Roman Vessel followed a certain Master of a Ship, that they themselves might learn this traffick of Merchandize, he upon a spiteful Envy ran his Ship on purpose upon the Sands, and after he had brought them, that followed after, into the same danger of destruction, himself escaped the Shipwrack, and out of the Common Treasury received the worth of the Commodities and Wares be had lost.

103
The Druids were exempted from the services of War, and paid no Taxes as the rest of the people did, by which Immunities many were invited, on their own free wills, to enter themselves into that Order and Discipline, and many were sent by their Friends and Relations to learn it, and although it was taught in Gaul as well as Britain, yet most perfectly in this Island, although more probably in the Isles of Man and Anglesey, whither, they that desired to be fully instructed, repaired, in so much as Caesar writes, that the Order it self began in Britain.

The Druids had the Oak in great veneration, but especially the Missletoe upon * it, or any thing they found growing to it; neither did they perform any Sacrifice without a branch of it.
Now, there is nothing that doth so easily occur to our first apprehension, as that they might do it in the Remembrance of the Phoenicians, who were Men, as shall be shewn, of vast and exceeding stature, who for a long time had subdued and kept them under (and without doubt, if Credit may be given to the British History) they were those Giants that so long infested the Land; Wherefore in publick de testation of that Slavery they once endured under them, this vast figure of a Man, made up in Wicker or Osyer work, might be introduced as in scorn and derision of them, having now lost their power over them, although the cause why they were first made (as it often falls out) might be forgotten, and so the Representation only remain.

107
Now, if there be any truth in the British Histories, those men of vast Proportions, called by them, GIANTS, could be none but the Phoenicians, as the Time of the being of such Giants, viz. about the year MMDLX, this Island corresponding * with the Age of the Phoenicians Navigation hither, doth plainly shew.

p.148
JAPHET divided Europe among his Sons; Mesech for his Lot, received all * the Countries lying between the River Rhyne, and the Pyraenean Mountains; He is supposed to be called SAMOTHES,and DIS, and is made the founder of the Celtick Kingdom. Others make these Parts to have been Peopled first by Gomer, and asterwards driven out of their Seats by Samothes.
From Him this Island is feigned to be called SAMOTHEA. He began his * Reign, Anno Mundi MDCCCCX, according to Basingstoak, and so reigned six and forty years.

p.149
SARRON, the third King of the Britains and Celts.
He is reigned to be the Founder of the Sect of the Sarronides, when indeed the Sarronides were but another name for the Druids,

The word in non-Latin alphabet , from whence the name Druid is derived, proceeded from the Oaks that grew in the Plain of *Mamre, under which, in times past, those Religious Men called Druids, to whom the office of Priesthood was committed, lived most devoutly. That it was a holy place we read in Genesis, that blessed Abraham dwelt among the Oaks of Mamre, where he pitched his Tent, and built a Tabernacle and Altar unto the LORD, in which he offered Rams, Geats, Calves, &c. in Sacrifice, and moreover that he performed there all other Sacerdotal Rites and Ceremonies appertaining to his Priestly-office in those daies; From these Oaks of Mamre (which some call otherwise Palm Trees) sprang the Original Sect of Druids, which reached up as high as Abrahams time, and it is positively recorded by some Authentick Authors, that the Druid Colledges flourished also very eminently in the daies of Hermio, a German Prince, which happened not long after Abrahams death; This I esteem to be very much assisting to a clearer proof and evidence of the Antiquity of that Sect, whom I do make appear were Ancient Priests and Governours in Ecclesiastical and Civil matters in this Nation; And by Reason Abraham lived under those Oaks of Mamre so piously, the Druids in Example thereof (although degenerating from the true sub stance and intent of so good an Example) chose Groves of Oaks under which they performed all the invented Rites and Ceremonies belonging to their Religion.

Besides the Saxons, Angles and Jutes, which are particularly mentioned by Bede, the FRISONES also about the same time came into Britain, as is gathered out of Procopius, who is cited by Mr.Cambden for that purpose.

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The Island BRITAIN three most populous Nations do inhabit, which have every one their several King to rule them; And those Nations be called Angili FRISONES, and after the name of the very Island, Britones. Now they seem to be so great a multitude of People, that every year a mighty number of them with their Wives and Children go from thence unto the Frankes, and they give them entertainment in that part of their Land, which seemeth most desert above the rest, and hereupon Men say, they challenge unto themselves the very Land. And verily, not long since, when the King of the Frankes sent certain of his People in Embassage to Constantinople unto the Emperor Justinian, he sent withal some English,pretending ambitiously, that this Island was under his Deminion.

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But, besides the testimony of Procopius, it may be gathered out of Bede himself, that such a People did seat themselves in this Island; For when he writes of Wilsrid, Wicbert, and Willibrord, who were sent out of England to preach the Gospel, he saith, they taught the Frisians with their own voice the Gospel of Christ, which they could not have done, had the Language of the Frisiansbeen different from what they had learned in their own Country. And the same Author, speaking of Egbert and English Saxon Anachoret, in his first Book and tenth Chapter useth these very words:

" Having undertaken the work of an Apostle, he resolved to preach the word of God to some that had not yet heard of it, of which sort he knew many Nations in Germany, from whom the Angles and Saxons, which now inhabit Britain, are known to derive their descent and Original. These are the FRISONS, * Rugians, Danes, Huns, and Ancient Saxons".

Marcellinus co-temporary with Bede (who being sent with Willibrord out of England, preached the Gospel in Frisia, and is highly commended by Ludger the Evangelist of the Frisons) in the Life of Suidbert (his Country-man and Companion in Travels, and first Bishop of Utrecht) which he wrote to Gregory, the third Bishop of the same place, saith thus: This Suidbert thirsted after the Salvation of all Men; but especially of the Pagan Frisians and Saxons, because the English sprang from them.

And in the same place, speaking of Willibrord and Suidbert, and others of their Associates sent out of England, among which he was one, he hath these words: Because, saies he, the holy Doctors were born in England of the Race of Frisions and Saxons, therefore could they conveniently preach unto them the Gospel of Christ in the German Tongue. And the Annals of Leiden say, thatWillibrord preached to the Frisians in the Frisian Tongue.

By comparing these Testimonies together, we may undoubtedly conclude, that many of the Frisians came into Britain with other Saxon Nations, and that the Language spoken in Britain in the daies of Bede differed very little from what was spoke on the Continent, from the mouth of the Rhine round to Pomerania, and through all those Inland Countries of Saxony, Alsatia, Westphalia;and indeed all those Territories were possest by the same Nation of the Saxons, though called by different Names. And the very Coasts lying upon the British Sea, even to Frisia, Batavia, and the River Scaldis, even to the shore of Flanders, was Anciently called by the name of Lower Saxony, as may be gathered out of an old Chronicle writ about three hundred years ago in old Teutonick Verses.