To the Reader.
greater part of Readers, I haue set downe immediatly before the first Prussian ambassage, pagina 144 a briefe and orderly Catalogue of them all, contayning the first originall and institution of themselues and of their whole knightly order and brotherhood, with the increase of reuenues and wealth which befell them afterward in Italy and Germany and the great conquests which they atchieued vpon the infidels of Prussia, Samogitia, Curland, Liefland, Lituania, &c. also their decay and finall ouerthrow, partly by the reuolt of di•ers Townes and Castles vnder their iurisdiction, and partly by the meanes of their next mightie neighbour the King of Poland.
After all these, out of 2. branches of 2. ancient statutes, is partly shewed our trade and the successe thereof with diuers forren Nations in the time of K. Henry the sixt.
Then followeth the true processe of English policie, I meane that excellent and pithy treatise de politia conseruatiua maris: which I cannot to any thing more fitly compare, then to the Emperour of Russia his palace called the golden Castle, and described by Richard Chanceller pag. 238. of this volume: whereof albeit the outward apparance was but homely and no whit correspondent to the name, yet was it within so beautified and adorned with the Emperour his maiesticall presence, with the honourable and great assembly of his rich-attired Peers and Senatours, with an inualuable and huge masse of gold and siluer plate, & with other princely magnificence; that well might the eyes of the beholders be dazeled, and their cogitations astonished thereat. For indeed the exteriour habit of this our English politician, to wit, the harsh and vnaffected stile of his substantiall verses and the olde dialect of his wordes is such; as the first may seeme to haue bene whistled of Pans oaten pipe, and the second to haue proceeded from the mother of Euander: but take you off his vtmost weed, and beholde the comelinesse, beautie, and riches which lie hid within his inward sense and sentence; and you shall finde (I wisse) so much true and sound policy, so much delightfull and pertinent history, so many liuely descriptions of the shipping and wares in his time of all the nations almost in Christendome, and such a subtile discouery of outlandish merchants fraud, and of the sophistication of their wares; that needes you must acknowledge, that more matter and substance could in no wise be comprised in so little a roome. And notwithstanding (as I said) his stile be vnpolished, and his phrases somewhat out of vse; yet, so neere as the written copies would giue me leaue, I haue most religiously without alteration obserued the same: thinking it farre more conuenient that himselfe should speake, then that I should bee his spokesman; and that the Readers should enioy his true verses, then mine or any other mans fained prose.
Next after the conclusion of the last mentioned discourse, the Reader may in some sort take a vieu of our state of merchandise vnder K. Edward the fourth, as likewise of the establishing of an English company in the Netherlands, and of all the discreet prouisoes, iust ordinations, & gratious priuileges conteined in the large Charter which was granted for the same purpose.
Now besides our voyages and trades of late yeeres to the North and Northeast regions of the world, and our ancient traffique also to those parts; I haue not bene vnmindefull (so farre as the histories of England and of other Countreys would giue me direction) to place in the fore-front of this booke those forren conquests, exploits, and trauels of our English nation, which haue bene atchieued of old. Where in the first place (as I am credibly informed out of Galfridus Monumetensis, and out of M. Lambert his GREEK HERE) I haue published vnto the world the noble actes of Arthur and Malgo two British Kings. Then followeth in the Saxons time K. Edwin his conquest of Man and Anglesey, and the expedition of Bertus into Ireland. Next succeedeth Octher making relation of his doings, and describing the North Countreys, vnto his soueraigne Lord K. Ecfrid. After whom Wolstans Nauigation within the Sound of Denmark is mentioned, the voyage of the yong Princes Edmund and Edward into Sweden and Hungarie is recorded, as likewise the mariage of Harald his daughter vnto the Russian duke Ieruslaus. Neither isthat
