Batman’s emphasis on ‘Bartholomew Glantvyle’ at start and finish of the work combines with numerous added references to England and matters English to give the impression that the assumed Englishness and gentility of the original author are important to him, and that he expects his readers to consider them important also. At the end of his printed version of Bartholomew’s chapter on Britain, Batman adds a lengthy extract from the Thesaurus linguae Romae & Britannicae (1565) by Thomas Cooper, English bishop, lexicographer, physician and writer.[46] He does not say why, but we can assume that Cooper, as part of the pro-Parker network of church reformers and supporters of the Elizabethan Settlement, was for Batman a more reliable proponent of British history than Bartholomew. In this extract Cooper lays out the debate over the nation’s origins, first stating that there ‘is yet no certain determination’ of the naming of the island since ‘the olde Britaine bookes (such as were)’ had been destroyed by the Saxons; any works by Roman or other writers on the subject ‘are utterly perished’. The History of Gildas ‘the Briton’ cannot be found; Bede can be discounted; even Julius Caesar, while ‘an excellent Prince, and also a great learned man’, could not discover the origins of the native people. It was, however, called Albion by some, ‘that is to saye, more happie or richer’. If there is any writer earlier than Geoffrey of Monmouth or Bede to contest this view, he says, ‘to such will I gladlye give place’. Cooper cites John Stowe’s description of England on the nation’s four peoples — the English, Scots, Welsh and Cornish — saying: ‘All they, either in language, condition, or lawes, doe differ among themselves.’
Cooper is not a supporter of the legend of Brutus’ foundation of Britain. He states that since the Trojans were treacherous and condoned the adultery of Paris and Helen, the Trojan Brutus is merely ‘a vaine Fable’: ‘Yet this follye is founde almost in all people, which contend to have their Progenitours come first from Troy: which fantasie maye well be laughed at among wise men.’ He had always thought it would be more honourable to have received the first name from admixture with ‘the most wise and valiant people of Greece, vanquishers and subduers of Troians’. He concedes, however, that England’s origins lay with Brutus, and cites the firm opinion of Thomas Lanquet, his contemporary and source, that England was uninhabited when Brutus arrived. After Brutus, his son Locrine ruled England, Camber took Wales and Albanact became king of Scotland. Cooper does not mention the legend of Albina and her giant brood. Batman inserts Cooper’s historical account without further comment. However, he does add an account, taken from Lanquet, of the Scots as formerly savage, cruel and cannibalistic, concluding that on the whole they are now ‘tractable inough with good governement’.[47] Batman's own interest in pre-Norman English history comes across in comments and additions. To the chapter on Normandy, he adds: ‘The people and inhabitants of this Province or countrie were the last that with William Duke of Normandy, subdued England.’[48] On Saxony, he says: ‘After the time of Arthur king of Britaine, the Saxons greatly molested the Britons, and helde them in subiection, a long time.’[49] Here he cites Polydore Vergil, perhaps for the sake of a good story:
Polidorus Virgilius, in his eyght booke of the histories of Englande, maketh mention of Emma, mother of Edwarde, the seconde King of Englande, beeing uniustlye accused by Goodwyn, which after manye attempted iniuryes, ceased not to accuse hir of adulterye, with the Bishop of Winchester … the Queene in open view cast her selfe into a great fire.[50]
Batman privileges Thomas Cooper, a supporter of Parker and the English Settlement; on the other hand, he makes a point of dismissing a discredited Catholic work on martyrs published in 1526, Martiloge in englysshe after the use of Salisbury, a translation from Latin by Richard Whitford, a brother of the Brigittine monastery of Syon. In Book 5, chapter vii on blood, Batman notes with asperity that ‘Martiloge, was a booke of all the dedication of saints, and Englished by Richard Whitford, Priest, and brother of Syon, by Richmond, a fond booke’.[51] One might expect to find, but does not, references to churchmen such as Richard Hooker (d.1600) or John Jewel (d.1571) now considered of note.[52] It is hard to believe that Batman did not know of their work but impossible to discern the personal or political nuances that might have caused him to omit them. He does on the other hand refer to a more obscure churchman, William Alley, Bishop of Exeter, to support a lengthy and hostile account of the life of Mahomet which he adds on to Bartholomew’s chapter on Greece.[53]