by Mr. Cowper in his painstaking Introduction; and there is more besides little bits of parish history, notices as to the weather, and other remarks which make one regret that some similar plan is not in vogue in the present day.

As illustrating the way in which our ancestors carried out the principle of Protection, we may observe that "in 1679 the curious Act was passed enforcing the burial of all bodies in woollen. Origi. nally enacted in 1666, with the ridiculous object of encouraging and protecting the woollen trade, it had been generally disregarded. Accordingly, by the new and more strict regulation, it was ordered that an affidavit was to be produced within eight days of the burial. Fortunately, a large number of these affidavits have been preserved at Hawkshead, and the present writer himself rescued from the old parish chest no less than ninety, which were all more or less decayed from the damp and the inroads of mice. They are of great interest, as they serve to check the register itself, and enable the student to fill up all gaps when the register is damaged or unreadable. One hundred and ninety-four in all still exist, and all belong to the years 1680 to 1696 inclusive" (Introduction, pp. lxiii, lxiv). We give a specimen from the abstract printed in the Appendix :-" We, Isabell Hobson, wife of John Hobson, & Elinor Satterthwaite, Spinster. . . . make oath that the corps of George Braithwaite, late of Coulthouse, interred within the p'ish of Hawkshead, in the County of Lancaster, the 6th day of March instant, was nott put in wrapt or wound up or buryed in any shirt, shift, sheet or shroud made or mingled with fflax, hempe (silke, heire, gold or silver), or other than what is made of sheepes wooll onely, according to an Act of Parliament, entituled an Act for burying in woollen onely. In witness whereof we have hereunto sett our handes & seales this tenth day of March Ano Dom'i, 1681. Ano Regni, &c.

Cap't et Jurat decimo
die Mensis Martii coram
me Ricardum Rawling
curatum de Coniston
Anno Dom. 1681.

ISABELL HOBSON

her marke ELLINOR SATTERTHWAITE her marke."

We are tempted to quote from the Register itself, but space forbids us to give more than one or two extracts. Under the heading"1672, April 8: Thomas Lancaster, who for poysonninge his owne family, was Adjudjt at the Assizes att Lancaster to bee carried backe to his owne house att Hye-way, where he lived: & was there hang'd before his owne doore till he was dead, for that very facte then

=

was brought with a horse & a carr into the Coulthouse meadows & forthwith hunge upp in iron Chaynes on a gibbet which was sett for that very purpose on the south-syde of Sawrey Casey, neare unto the Pooll stang: (where the road from Colthouse to Hawkshead crosses the beck. In 1836, something like an ancient wooden causeway, constructed apparently to cross what was once a bog, was discovered near here) & there continued untill such tymes as hee rotted everye (?) bone from other . . .

One of the most interesting entries in all the Register is the following graphic account of a terrible storm: "Bee it remembered that upon the Tenth Day of June att nighte in the yeare of our lord the one thousand sixxe hundred eighty and sixxe there was such a fearefull Thunder with fyre & rayne wh occasioned such a terrible flood as the like of it was never seene in these parts by noe man livinge; for it did throw downe some houses & milles & tooke Away seuerall briggs; yea, the water did run through houses & did much hurte to houses; besydes the water wash't upp greate trees, stocks & greate stones a greate way off, & layd them on men's ground; yea further the water did so fiercely run down the hye-ways & made such deepe holes & ditches in them that att seuerall places neither horse nor foote coulde passe; & besydes the becks and rivers did soe breake out of their races as they broughte exceedinge greate sand beds into men's ground att many places, which did greate hurte the neuer like was knowne; I pray God of his greate mercy graunte that none which is now liveinge can neuer see the like again."

Many other such gems are to be found in this Oldest Register, giving a lifelike picture of the people of this upland parish and their ways during a century and a half. Our members will find them in Mr. Cowper's book, for which all antiquarians are in his debt.

Captain Cuellar's Adventures in Connacht and Ulster, A.D. 1588. A Picture of the Times drawn from Contemporary Sources. By HUGH ALLINGHAM, M.R.I.A. To which is added "An Introduction and Complete Translation of Captain Cuellar's Narrative of the Spanish Armada and his Adventures in Ireland", by ROBERT CRAWFORD, M.A., M.R.I.A., etc. With Map and Illustrations (London: Elliot Stock).— It is always interesting and instructive to study events from the pages of contemporary documents, both for the light they throw on the events themselves, and for the corrections they afford to preconceived opinions. We have had stories innumerable of the "Spanish Armada” from the English point of view; this fascinating little book gives us the Spanish side, in the form of a narration, by one of the captains

of the ill-fated fleet, of the terrible voyage round the western shores of Ireland, when vessel after vessel went to pieces on the rocks, and of the writer's subsequent adventures among the "savages" (his own word) of Connaught and Ulster. As the title indicates, the book is twofold: the first Part containing Mr. Allingham's contribution, which is in fact a Paper written by him for The Ulster Journal of Archaeology in 1895, revised, and with new information (not then obtainable) added ; while the second Part consists of the original narrative of Captain Cuellar, translated by Mr. Crawford (with an Introduction), and is indeed the basis of Mr. Allingham's Paper. Capt. Cuellar's letter first saw the light in a work entitled La Armada Invincible, by a Capt. Duro, a Spanish naval officer, in 1885; was referred to by the Earl of Ducie in the same year in the Nineteenth Century, and by J. A. Froude, in 1891, in Longman's Magazine; while in 1893 Prof. T. P. O'Reilly contributed a Paper on this subject to the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: all of which demonstrates the importance of the document. Mr. Allingham's object in again treating of it was, more especially, from his intimate acquaintance with the locality, to verify the topography of the letter as far as possible, and to identify the places named.

Capt. Cuellar was in command of the San Pedro, one of three galleons which went ashore and were shipwrecked on the coast of Sligo, at a point called to this day Carrig-na-Spaniagh. Cuellar, grievously wounded by pieces of floating timber, managed to reach the shore, where he escaped the lot of most of those who survived the sea and were murdered by the wild Irish, by hiding by day and only creeping forth at night in the effort to procure food. He describes how he saw twelve of his compatriots hanging together within the walls of a deserted monastery, identified by Mr. Allingham as Staad Abbey, close to the shore; and in another place he discovered four hundred of his murdered countrymen lying together on the beach. Wounded, footsore, half-naked and starving, he betakes himself inland, and after numerous adventures, shared by two companions whom he fell in with, and after being made practically a slave to a "wicked savage blacksmith", who had a wife "very beautiful in the extreme", he finally took refuge with a petty chieftain named McClancy, who treated him fairly well; and who, when he was obliged to flee to the woods from the English forces under the Lord Deputy, Fitzwilliam, who were scouring the country, left the Spaniards, now nine in number, to defend his castle. This was situated on an island in the midst of a lake, and was impreg nable, except to an attack by artillery. After holding the castle for some time, Cuellar and his companions determined to attempt to get

out of so inhospitable a country; and at length, after many hair-breadth escapes and multiplied dangers in their journey northwards, they embarked near the Giant's Causeway for Scotland. Cuellar survived another shipwreck, and at last got safe to Antwerp-how he does.

not say.

Cuellar's narrative is very graphic, and Mr. Allingham's elucidations are most valuable; we can trace his route almost without a break. The gallant captain notices more than once the beauty of the Irish women, but adds that they are "badly dressed". His description of the "savages" throws a remarkable light on the life and habits of the native Irish in the days of Good Queen Bess: "Their custom is to live as the brute beasts among the mountains, which are very rugged in that part of Ireland where we lost ourselves. They live in huts made of straw; the men are all large-bodied and handsome, active as the roe-deer. They do not eat oftener than once a day, and this at night, usually butter with oaten bread. They drink sour milk, no water, though it is the best in the world. On feast-days they eat some flesh, half-cooked. They clothe themselves with tight trousers and short loose coats of very coarse goat's hair. They wear their hair down to their eyes. The women do not wear more than a chemise and a blanket, with which they cover themselves, and a linen cloth over the head and tied in front." The description is that of an eyewitness, but, did we not know, we should think we were reading, in some respects, of some Red Indian tribe, and not of native Irish only three hundred years ago!

Among the illustrations we notice one of a genuine Spanish treasurechest from the Armada. This is interesting, as it has lately been the fashion to denounce all so-called Spanish chests, which abound in Ireland, as frauds; but Mr. Allingham notes several undoubted examples.

We heartily commend this little work to our readers, both for its stirring narrative and for its graphic side-lights on Irish life and manners at the close of the sixteenth century.

INDEX.