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HISTORY OF

lows, is enough to juſtify the expulſion of a whole race of Tarquins. After Michaelmas he ſailed to dover to meet his outlandiſh ſcum, with which he invades his own kingdom. Such an execrable deſperate crew never ſet foot upon Engliſh ground, ſo fitted for miſchief, and that thirſted after nothing more than human blood, whom his agents had drawn together out of Poictou, Gaſcony, Lovain, Brabant, Flanders, and weeded all the neighbouring continent for them. Theſe made up a vaſt army, notwithſtanding the ſhipwreck of Hugh de Boves, who was bringing forty thouſand more, beſides women and children, who all periſhed in a ſtorm betwixt Calais and Dover. This freight of women and children, ſeveral of whom were afterwards driven aſhore in their cradles, were intended to plant the two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, after the extirpation of the Engliſh; for it is ſaid, that this Hugh had a charter of inheritance given him of theſe two provinces.

But with theſe forces he had, he over-run England and waſted it with fire and ſword in ſuch a manner, as no Engliſhman can read the hiſtory of it without being in pain and torment. There is ſuch a ſcene in Matt. Paris, p. 276. as was never

ſeen