welle the histories of olde croniclers, as of Josephas, libro Antiquitatum,
Orosius de Ormesta Mundi, Titus Livius of the Romayne battelis, and such
othirs, how that gret chaunge of roiaumes and countreis frome one nacion to
another straunge tong hathe be, for synne and wrecchidnesse and
mysgovernaunce reignyng in the roiaume so conquerid. And as it is made
mencion in the olde historien called Gildas that for pride, covetice, and
flesshely lustis used amongis the olde Breton bloode lordis of this
roiaume, God suffred the Saxons of Duche ys tung, a straunge nacion, to
dryve them out of this land in Angle in Cornewale and Walis. And where is
Nynnyve, the gret cite of thre daies? and Babilon, the gret toure,
inhabited now withe wilde bestis? the citeis of Troy [and] Thebes, .ij.
grete magnified citeis? also Athenes, that was the welle of connyng and of
wisdam? and Cartage, the victorioux cite of gret renomme, most doubtable,
by the Romayns was brent to asshes. {52} And also Rome, so gloriously
magnified thoroughe alle the world, overthrow the gret part of it; aswelle
as was Jerusalem. And to take an example of the many overthrowes and
conquestis of this lande by straunge nacions sithen the Breton bloode first
inhabited, as withe peple callid Pictics, commyng out of ferre northe
partie of the worlde. Then after the Saxones drove out the olde Breton
bloode. Than after the Danys peple conquerid the Saxons, and than the
Normans conquerid the Danys. And sone after the Angevyns of highe Fraunce,
full noble knightis of renomme, Geffrey erle Plantagenet erle of Angew
maried withe dame Maud, doughter of the duke of Normandie and king of
Englande, Harry the second, whych doughter, called dame Maude emperesse,
and so haldyn stille the Normandie bloode and the Angevyns into this tyme.
And Job in his booke seithe that nothing fallithe or risithe on the erthe
without a cause, as who saiethe that none adversite fallithe not to us, but
only for wikkidnesse of lyvyng and synne that reignithe on us; as pride,
envye, singuler covetice, and sensualite of the bodie now a daies hathe
most reigned over us to oure destruccion, we not havyng consideracion to
the generalle profit and universalle wele of a comynalte. And to bring to
mynde how the worshipfulle senatours Romayns did gife us many examples, as
Lucius Valerius, and also the noble juge cenatoure of Rome Boecius, [of the
grete lofe[148]] had alway to the cite of Rome. For the saide Lucius
Va