[Sidenote: Scots.] [Sidenote: Picts.] How and when the Scots, a people mixed of the Scithian and Spanish blood, should arriue here out of Ireland, & when the Picts should come vnto vs out of Sarmatia, or from further toward the north & the Scithian Hyperboreans, as yet it is vncerteine. For though the Scotish histories doo carrie great countenance of their antiquitie in this Iland: yet (to saie fréelie what I thinke) I iudge them rather to haue stolne in hither within the space of 100. yeares before Christ, than to haue continued here so long as they themselues pretend, if my coniecture be any thing. Yet I denie not, but that as the Picts were long planted in this Iland before the Scots aduentured to settle themselues also in Britaine; so the Scots did often aduenture hither to rob and steale out of Ireland, and were finallie called in by the Meats or Picts (as the Romans named them, because they painted their bodies) to helpe them against the Britains, after the which they so planted themselues in these parts, that vnto our time that portion of the land cannot be cleansed of them. I find also that as these Scots were reputed for the most Scithian-like and barbarous nation, and longest without letters; so they vsed commonlie to steale ouer into Britaine in leather skewes, and began to helpe the Picts about or not long before the beginning of Cesars time. For both Diodorus lib. 6. and Strabo lib. 4. doo seeme to speake of a parcell of the Irish nation that should inhabit Britaine in their time, which were giuen to the eating of mans flesh, and therefore called Anthropophagi. Mamertinus in like sort dooth note the Redshanks and the Irish (which are properlie the Scots) to be the onelie enimies of our nation, before the comming of Cæsar, as appeareth in his panegyricall oration, so that hereby it is found that they are no new ghestes in Britaine. Wherefore all the controuersie dooth rest in the time of their first attempt to inhabit in this Iland. Certeinlie I maruell much whie they trauell not to come in with Cantaber and Partholonus: but I see perfectlie that this shift should be too grosse for the maintenance of their desired antiquitie. Now, as concerning their name, the Saxons translated the word Scotus for Irish: whereby it appeareth that those Irish, of whom Strabo and Diodorus doo speake, are none other than those Scots, of whom Ierome speaketh Aduersus Iouinianum, lib. 2. who vsed to feed on the buttocks of boies and womens paps, as delicate dishes. Aethicus writing of the Ile of Man, affirmeth it to be inhabited with Scots so well as Ireland euen in his time. Which is another proofe that the Scots and Irish are all one people. They were also called Scoti by the Romans, bicause their Iland & originall inhabitation thereof were vnknowne, and they themselues an obscure [Sidenote: Of the Picts.] nation in the sight of all the world. Now as concerning the Picts,