Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, CompleteHolinshed, Raphael
History
Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, Complete
Holinshed, Raphael
Great Britain -- History -- To 1485; Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603
the land, and the streame betwéene foure fadams déepe, as ship-boies
haue oft sounded, but at a lowe water a man may go ouer thither on the
sand. The Ile of it selfe is verie sandie a mile in compasse, and well
stored with conies, thither also went a sort of supersticious fooles
in times past, in pilgrimage, to our ladie of Hilberie, by whose
offerings a cell of monkes there, which belonged to Chester, was
cherished and mainteined.
The next Iland vpon the coast of England is Man or Mona Cæsaris, which
some name Mana or Manim, but after Ptolomie, Monaoida, as some thinke,
though other ascribe that name to Anglesei, which the Welshmen doo
commonlie call Môn, as they doo this Manaw. It is supposed to be the
first, as Hirtha is the last of the Hebrides. Hector Boetius noteth a
difference betwéene them of 300. miles. But Plinie saith that Mona is
200000. miles from Camaldunum, lib. 2. cap. 75. It lieth also vnder
53. degrées of latitude, and 30. minuts, and hath in longitude 16.
degrees and 40. minuts, abutting on the north side vpon S. Ninians in
Scotland, Furnesfels on the east, Prestholme and Anglesei on the
south, and Vlsther in Ireland on the west. It is greater than Anglesei
by a third, and there are two riuers in the same, whose heads doo
ioine so néere, that they doo seeme in maner to part the Ile in
[Sidenote: Eubonia.]
[Sidenote: Meuania.]
twaine. Some of the ancient writers, as Ethicus, &c: call it Eubonia,
and other following Orosius, Meuana or Mæuania, howbeit after Beda and
the Scotish histories, the Meuaniæ are all those Iles aforesaid called
the Hebrides, Eubonides, or Hebudes (whereof William Malmesburie, lib.
1. de regibus (beside this our Mona) will haue Anglesei also to be
one. Wherefore it séemeth hereby that a number of our late writers
ascribing the said name vnto Mona onelie, haue not beene a little
deceiued. Iornandes lib. de Getis speaketh of a second Meuania; "Habet
& aliam Meuaniam (saith he) necnon & Orchadas." But which should be
prima, as yet I do not read, except it should be Anglesei; and then
saith Malmesburie well. In like sort Propertius speaketh of a Meuania,
which he called Nebulosa, but he meaneth it euidentlie of a little
towne in Vmbria where he was borne, lib. 4. eleg. De vrbe Rom.
Wherfore there néedeth no vse of his authoritie. This in the meane
time is euident out of Orosius, lib. 1. capite 2. that Scots dwelled
somtime in this Ile, as also in Ireland, which Ethicus also affirmeth
of his owne time, and finallie confirmeth that the Scots and Irish
were sometime one people. It hath in length 24. miles, and 8. in
bredth, and is in maner of like distance from Galloway in Scotland,
Ireland and Cumberland in England, as Buchanan reporteth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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