24 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



speakes that it was not the work of the Romans^ for they were wont 

 to make stones vocall by inscriptions . . . That Stonage was 

 a work of the Britaines the rudeness itself persuades . . . plate 

 of metalj etc. appertaiue to Stonehenge, or as it is more commonly 

 named Stonage . . . quotes Geoffrey of Monmouth to criticise 



. . . Ambrosius^ story alluded to. The ruine of the old fortress, 

 which survives not far from Stonage also thought by some whom- 

 soever to have been a Roman Work, afford no cypher for spelling 

 out the founders of this stonie marvell . , . The bones of men 

 digged up at times neere this place under little bankes, convince it 

 to have been sepulchral, but armours of a large and antique fashion, 

 upon which the spade and pickaxe are sometimes said to hit doe 

 clear the owners of having been in the number of those Britains 

 whom pagan Hengist wickedly slew, for they came weaponless. 

 My jealousie touching the cause of Stonage, concludes 

 not others freedom to censure what they please.^'' 



In " Annales, or, a generall Chronicle of England,^^ begun by 

 John Stow,^ continued by Edmond Howes (folio, London, 1631), 

 we find the following : " Of this Ambrosius, William Malmesbury 

 writeth thus : Surely, even then (saith he) the Brytaines had gone 

 to wracke, if Ambrosius, who onely and alone of all the Romanes, 

 remained in Brytaine, and was Monarch of the Realme after Vortiger, 

 had not kept vnder the proud Barbarians, with the notable travaile 

 of the warriour Arthur. Now it followeth in Geffrey, that this 

 Ambrosius caused Churches to be repaired, which had been spoiled 

 by the Saxons : he caused also the great stones to bee set on the 

 Plaine of Salisbury, which is called Stonehenge, in remembrance of 



' John Stow, born in London, about 1525, was brought up by his father as a 

 tailor, but took to antiquarian researches. His " Summarie of the Englyshe 

 Chronicle " was compiled at the instance of Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and was 

 published in 1565, and afterwards continued by Edmond Howes. His " Survey 

 of London " appeared in 1598. " From his papers Edmond Howes published a 

 folio volume, entitled ' Stow's Chronicle,' which does not however contain the 

 whole of that ' far larger work,' which he had left in his study, transcribed 

 for the press, and which is said to have fallen into the possession of Sir- Symnods 

 D'Ewes. He died, afHicttd by poverty and disease, in 1605, at the a5e of 

 eighty. He was a correct and eealous antiquary, and a sincere lover of truth, 

 who never would be satisfied without a recourse to original documents." 



