But Suppose There Be Some Particulars Which Hardly Will Be Credited; Yet Thus Much I Will Boldly Say For The Friers, That Those Particulars Are But Few, And That They Doe Not Auouch Them Vnder Their Owne Names, But From The Report Of Others.

Yet farther imagine that they did auouch them, were they not to be pardoned as well as Herodotus, Strabo,

Plutarch, Plinie, Solinus, yea & a great many of our new principall writers, whose names you may see about the end of this Preface; euery one of which hath reported more strange things then the Friers between the both? Nay, there is not any history in the world (the most Holy writ excepted) whereof we are precisely bound to beleeue ech word and syllable. Moreouer sithens these two iournals are so rare, that Mercator and Ortelius (as their letters vnto me do testifie) were many yeeres very inquisitiue, and could not for all that attaine vnto them; and sithens they haue bene of so great accompt with those two famous Cosmographers, that according to some fragments of them they haue described in their Mappes a great part of those Northeastern Regions; sith also that these two relations containe in some respect more exact history of those vnknowen parts, then all the ancient and newe writers that euer I could set mine eyes on; I thought it good if the translation should chance to swerue in ought from the originals (both for the preseruation of the originals themselues, and the satisfying of the Reader) to put them downe word for word in that homely stile wherein they were first penned. And for these two rare iewels, as likewise for many other extraordinary courtesies, I must here acknowledge my selfe most deepely bounded vnto the right reuerend, graue and learned Prelate, my very good lord the Bishop of Chichester, and L. high Almner vnto her Maiestie; by whose friendship and meanes I had free accesse vnto the right honor my L. Lumley his stately library, and was permitted to copy out of ancient manuscripts, these two iournals and some others also.

After these Friers (thought not in the next place) foloweth a testimonie of Gerardus Mercator, and another of M. Dee, concerning one Nicholas de Linna an English Franciscan Frier.

Then succeedeth the long iourney of Henry Earle of Derbie, and afterward king of England into Prussia & Lithuania, with a briefe remembrance of his valiant exploits against the Infidels there; as namely, that with the help of certaine his Associates, he vanquished the king of Letto his armie, put the sayd king to flight, tooke and slew diuers of his captains, aduanced his English colours vpon the wall of Vilna, & made the citie it selfe to yeeld. Then mention is made also of Tho. of Woodstock his trauel into Pruis, and of his returne home. And lastly, our old English father Ennius, I meane, the learned, wittie, and profound Geffrey Chaucer, vnder the person of his knight, doeth full iudicially and like a cunning Cosmographer, make report of the long voiages and woorthy exploits of our English Nobles, Knights, & Gentlemen, to the Northren, and to other partes of the world in his dayes.

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