the chiualrie, wealth, and shipping of this realme; the large contribution
of king Iohn, and the trauels of Oliuer Fitz-Roy his sonne, as is supposed,
with Ranulph Glanuile Erle of Chester to the siege of Damiata in Egypt: the
prosperous voyage of Richard Erle of Cornwall, elected afterward king of
the Romans, and brother to Henry the 3, the famous expedition of Prince
Edward, the first king of the Norman race of that name; the iourney of
Henry Erle of Derbie, duke of Hereford, and afterward King of this realme,
by the name of Henry the 4 against the citie of Tunis in Africa, and his
preparation of ships and gallies to go himselfe into the Holy land, if he
had not on the sudden bene preuented by death; the trauel of Iohn of
Holland brother by the mothers side to king Richard the 2 into those parts.
All these, either Kings, Kings sonnes, or Kings brothers, exposed
themselues with inuincible courages to the manifest hazard of their
persons, liues, and liuings, leauing their ease, their countries, wiues and
children; induced with a Zelous deuotion and ardent desire to protect and
dilate the Christian faith. These memorable enterprises in part concealed,
in part scattered, and for the most part vnlooked after, I haue brought
together in the best Method and breuitie that I could deuise. Whereunto I
haue annexed the losse of Rhodes, which although it were originally written
in French, yet maketh it as honourable and often mention of the English
nation, as of any other Christians that serued in that most violent siege.
After which ensueth the princely promise of the bountiful aide of king
Henry the 8 to Ferdinando newly elected king of Hungarie, against Solyman
the mortall enemie of Christendome. These and the like Heroicall intents
and attempts of our Princes, our Nobilitie, our Clergie, and our Chiualry,
I haue in the first place exposed and set foorth to the view of this age,
with the same intention that the old Romans set vp in wax in their palaces
the Statuas or images of their worthy ancestors; whereof Salust in his
treatise of the warre of Iugurtha, writeth in this maner: Sape audiui ego
Quintum maximum, Publium Scipionem, praterea ciuitatis nostra praclaros