_The state of Britaine when Cæsar offered to conquer it, and the maner
of their gouernement, as diuerse authors report the same in their
bookes: where the contrarietie of their opinions is to be obserued._

THE XVIJ. CHAPTER.


After that Iulius Cesar had thus made the Britains tributaries to the
Romans, and was returned into Gallia, Cassibellane reigned 7 yeares,
and was vanquished in the ninth or tenth yeare after he began first
to reigne so that he reigned in the whole about 15 or as some haue 17
yeares, and then died, leauing no issue behind him. There hath bin an
[Sidenote: _Fabian_.]
old chronicle (as Fabian recordeth) which he saw and followeth
much in his booke, wherein is conteined, that this Cassibellane was
not brother to Lud, but eldest sonne to him: for otherwise as may be
thought (saith he) Cesar hauing the vpper hand, would haue displaced
him from the gouernement, and set vp Androgeus the right heire to the
crowne, as sonne to the said Lud. But whatsoeuer our chronicles or
the British histories report of this matter, it should appere by that
which Cesar writeth (as partlie ye haue heard) that Britaine in those
[Sidenote: _Cæsar_.]
daies was not gouerned by one sole prince, but by diuers, and that
diuers cities were estates of themselues, so that the land was diuided
into sundrie gouernements, much after the forme and maner as Germanie
and Italie are in our time, where some cities are gouerned by one
onelie prince, some by the nobilitie, and some by the people. And
whereas diuers of the rulers in those daies here in this land were
called kings, those had more large seigniories than the other, as