SECOND EDITION 1598 



this discourse of Russia ; I have prefixed before the begin- 

 ning thereof, the petigree and genealogie of the Russian 

 Emperors and Dukes, gathered out of their owne 

 Chronicles by a Polonian, containing in briefe many 

 notable antiquities and much knowledge of those partes : 

 as likewise about the conclusion, I have signified in the 

 branch of a letter, the last Emperour Pheodor Ivanowich 

 his death, and the inauguration of Boris Pheodorowich 

 unto the Empire. 



But that no man should imagine that our forren trades 

 of merchandise have bene comprised within some few 

 yeeres, or at least wise have not bene of any long con- 

 tinuance ; let us now withdraw our selves from our ajffaires 

 in Russia, and ascending somewhat higher, let us take a 

 sleight survey of our trafiiques and negotiations in former 

 ages. First therefore the Reader may have recourse unto 

 the 1 24 page of this Volume, & there with great delight 

 and admiration, consider out of the judicial Historiographer 

 Cornelius Tacitus, that the Citie of London fifteene 

 hundred yeeres agoe in the time of Nero the Emperour, 

 was most famous for multitude of merchants and con- 

 course of people. In the pages folowing he may learne 

 out of Venerable Beda, that almost 900. yeeres past, in the 

 time of the Saxons, the said citie of London was multorum 

 emporium populorum, a Mart-towne for many nations. 

 There he may behold, out of William of Malmesburie, a 

 league concluded betweene the most renoumed and 

 victorious Germane Emperour Carolus Magnus, and the 

 Saxon king OfFa, together with the sayd Charles his 

 patronage and protection granted unto all English mer- 

 chants which in those dayes frequented his dominions. 

 There may hee plainly see in an auncient testimonie 

 translated out of the Saxon tongue, how our merchants 

 were often woont for trafliques sake, so many hundred 

 yeeres since, to crosse the wide Seas, and how their 

 industry in so doing was recompensed. Yea, there 

 mayest thou observe (friendly Reader) what privileges the 

 Danish king Canutus obtained at Rome of Pope John, of 



xlvii 



