The Cities great Concern In this Case or Question of HONOUR and ARMS WHETHER APPRENTISHIP Extinguisheth Gentry Discoursed With a clear Refutation of the pernicious Error that it doth Lam. Jerem. Cap. 3. Vers. 27. Bonum est viro cùm importaverit Jugum ab Adolescentia sua LONDON Printed by WILLIAM GODBID dwelling in Little Britain 1674. HONORATISSIMO SENATUI POPULOQUE AUGUSTAE URBIS LONDINENSIS The Bookseller's Report THere hath been of late a diligent Enquiry among us concerning this subject of APPRENTICES advising us to a search in our Registry and Kalender for Writings of this nature and we are assured that no Impression hath escaped our view for 40 or 50 years last past but we find none except some passages of the Author in one of his Histories very briefly which makes us wish the Publication of this Treatise for the general good of this famous City and Citizens and particularly of some of us who claim an Interest of Birth herein whether it be Bond or Free A PREFACE In Defence of TRADE COMMERCE THere is none that curiously observes and takes notice of the various yet neat and orderly Frame of this Terrestrial Globe but must confess so vast a Body was not designed for the use of any single person but even then in its first Original looked forward to Posterity whose provision the Great Creator of all things chiefly had care of when he enriched it with infinite conveniences both for necessity and delight which the Off-spring of Adam doth now enjoy As therefore the World it self was too great a Patrimony for one man had not God been pleased to have given him a large and numerous issue to enjoy and improve it so had those secret and immense Treasures wherewith it is embellished and enriched layn still obscure either in the bowels of the Earth or in the vast distances and inaccessible parts of forrein Countries had not Commerce and Traffick heightned by the ingenuity and industry of man unlocked these hidden Mines and secret Treasures and by an easie yet speedy passage brought them to our very doors By these it is we come to be as it were Citizens of the World and to have correspondence and intercourse with the remotest Countries By these then it is the Globe was first inhabited and mankind made a Citizen thereof and the whole World become a common Mart where each Inhabitant thereof though never so distant may freely commute the Commodities of their own into the riches and treasures of another By these Nations became first civiliz'd by corresponding with Strangers and learning from each other those forms of Policy and Government which might become useful and profitable What had become of the Western part had not Learning and other ingenuous Arts been brought to us either by Strangers and faught from them by Noble Spirits of our own And surely Nature wisely did forsee the many inconveniences of Idleness how that it would convert the World into another Chaos making the Earth but as one dull and useless mass when she hid her Rarities and Treasures in the secret Bowels thereof and buried them in the watry Deep and lodged them at so vast and remote a distance that so their worth and Value might be a spur to Labour and Industry to fetch them thence Nay God himself is particularly called the God of the Isles as looking on them by virtue of their skill in Navigation to be the best factors for the Common Good and as a blessing upon their Industry we find most Isles and Maritime places exceed all In-land Cities and Countries in Riches and variety of plenty But besides his particular favour to Isles he hath created such a dependance of each on the whole that what one Country is deficient in another doth supply Thus we borrow Silks from Persta Drugs from Egypt Furrs from Russia Gold from Barbary and in lieu thereof we furnish them with Cloth and Lead and Tin and Corn and other good Commodities which our Country doth afford Nor has Religion less honoured Trade than Nature for what has been the Propagation of the Gospel but a kind of a Religious Commerce whereby the Souls as well as the Bodies of Mankind might be supplied with necessaries for a better life for it cannot be imagin'd that the Doctrine of the Blessed Jesus was at one time promulged and declared through all the Habitable World but by degrees as places were found out and men were qualified with Abilities and Capacities for so great a Work Hence is it our Saviour made choice of fishermen who were to pass as it were through the Zodiac and disperse his Precepts their Calling and Trade rendring them skilful in Navigation and bold in adventuring and their Blessed Master inspiring them with Gifts and Parts to improve it to the inlargement of his Doctrine and Kingdom For at first the true Religion was confined to one small Spot but by little and little the care of Heaven and the indefatigable Industry of Man what was then onely known in Judah and Jerusalem became both the Wonder and Glory of the World So that we that live so remote from the first Declaration thereof are more than ordinarily endebted unto the pains and travail of those pious and religious men who adventur'd hither which could not well have been done had not Commerce first found out our Coafts and then Religion civiliz'd them Besides Trade is the very Life and Soul of the Universe which like the vital Blood in the Body circulates to the health and well-being of the whole What were the World but a rude and dull indigested Lump a noisome and pestilential Mass did not Commerce like the Sun by its Universal Rays exhale all its malignant and noxious Vapours and by a continual motion and transaction render it wholsome and profitable What would become of the busie Soul of Man had she not found out variety of Imployment for its Exercise How would each Country become the Sink or common Shore of Debauchery and Wickedness did not Traffick devest their Inclinations by the use of Liberal Arts and Mysteries So that it is the salt of the Earth which preserves Mankind from putrefaction and ruine Nor is it onely profitable to the whole but to each single Country and City and Family It is the strength and glory of a Kingdom the beauty and splendor of a City the sinews of War the support of Peace the true foundation of Honour and Gentility the best security of a Fortune when got and the best way to get it when wanting I cannot but confess that in the common repute of the World there are several other ways whereby men may arise to Wealth and Honour as the Sword and Gown yet I think without injury to the credit of either I may safely say that strictly taken those very ways and methods are in effect Trades and Mysteries the End of all being Emolument and Profit Nay the Universities themselves are but as it were a learned
denominates the Action and proves Apprentiship not to be base The contrary Opinion pernicious to Manners and good Common-wealth among us chiefly now The different face of both Opinions in daily Experience Whether APPRENTISHIP extinguisheth GENTRY THE FIRST PART THE present Question whether Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentry being now not so much a Paradox as grown in secret to be of late a common Opinion I am bold to call it a weighty and important Question unjustly grounded upon the learned folly of Erasmus of Roterdam and the incircumspection of Sr. Thomas Smith Knight in his Book de Republica Anglorum and out of certain wandring conceits hatcht among Trees and Tillage as shall appear hereafter Weighty and Important I call it and it is so because in looking out upon the concernings of the Case I find that prospect so specious that within the compass thereof as well the greater as the lesser Nobility of England are very notably and very inexplicably enwrapped what do I say of the subalternate Nobility when the Royal Name it self was deeply interessed in the Proposition For Queen Elizabeth though a free Monarch and chief of the English in her turn was a Party to the Cause which she ingenuously and openly acknowledged calling Sir Martin Calthrope Kinsman as indeed he was being at that time Knight and Lord Mayor of London as also Sir Godfrey Bullen Knight and Lord Mayor of London was lineal Ancestor to Queen Anne Mother to Queen Elizabeth no longer before than in the Reign of Henry the sixth King of England Both which Knights being also Gentlemen born and of right worthy Families ascended by due degrees from the condition of Apprentices to the greatest Annual Honour in this Kingdom It is Weighty and Important because without much impropriety of speech it may be called Quaestio status which in the ancient phrase of the Emperor Justinian is as much as to say a Tryal whether one is to be adjudged bond or free servile or ingenuous and implieth that odious and unnatural sequel which by Textuists is named Capitis diminutio whereof though the Roman Laws make a threefold division yet in this our question is but only whether the third and lowest degree were incurred which happeneth cum qui sui juris fuerunt coeperunt alieno juri subjecti It is weighty and important and can appear none other because it directly tends to darken and as it were to intercloud the luminous body of that beautious Planet Honour with foul and lasting Spots For what can lightly be a more disparagement than for the Free-born to become a kind of Bond-men or to come of such nay there is nothing without it which can be of so great disparagement Finally it is weighty and important for very many other reasons and particularly because it is not only fit that states of Opinions should be rectified in this kind as breeding bad affections among people of this Nation from whence great mischiefs often arise even to hatred quarrels and homicides but that such also as through vanity or other distempers of the wit or judgment disdain to seem either City-born or bred or to own any thing of their Worship or Estate either to the City or Citizens may understand their own place and true condition lest they be convinced to be among them who are unworthy of so honest either Original or Accession as the City yeildeth 2. But let us first behold the Cities Honour in Arms as it stands displayed in Ancient Heraldry and as it is commented upon out of Authentick Monuments in that commendable Survey of London comprised by its Chronologer and Citizen Stowe The present figure with the same words as here they stand is a copy of that which an old imperfect Legier volumn at the Office of Arms containeth There needeth no greater demonstration of the Cities ancient Honour and of her peoples free quality than this that a principal Baron of the Realm of England was by Tenure her Standard-bearer being the Lord Fitz-Water from whence the now Lord Fitz-Water is descended The figure of St. Paul advanced it self in the Standard and upon the Shield those famous well known Armouries of the Cross and Weapon The like Picture of which Apostle was also embroidered in the Caparisons of that Horse of War which for the purpose of the Cities Service he received of Gift at the hands of the Lord Mayor Upon the Standard-bearers Coat Armour are painted the Hereditary Ensigns of his own Illustrious Family viz. Or a Fesse between two Cheverons Gules Which kind of Field the Ancients called Clauric perhaps à claritate because such Fields as were all of one colour made their Charges more cleerly seen and perspicuous And as they gave to that species of Blazon a peculiar Name for the Dignity so did they also assign to this manner of bearing two Cheverons the term Bialle or a Coat Bialle à numero binario In which brave times had that noble Gentleman but slightly and far off suspected that he displayed that Banner for a kind of Bondmen or as for their Service his great Heroick spirit would rather have troden such an offer under foot In good Assurance therefore of this common Causes justice we proceed 3. Sound Opinion meaning Doctrine is the Anchor of the World and Opinion meaning a worthy conceit of this or that person is the principal Ingredient which makes words or actions rellish well and all the Graces without it are little worth To take the fame from any man that is a Gentleman born is a kind of disablement and prejudioe at least wise among the weak who consider no farther than Seemings that is among almost all consequently a wrong and if a wrong then due to be redressed To find the Injury we must first enquire Whether Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentry 4. The main reason certainly the most generally used to prove it doth is That Apprentiship is a kind of Bondage and Bondage specially voluntary in which case the Imperial Law-rule Non officit natalibus in servitute fuisse may be perhaps defective doth not extinguish Native-Gentry But I deny that Apprentiship is either vera servitus Or omnino servitus For explanation of this difficulty I will set before your eyes the Case as it is A Gentleman hath a Son whom he means to breed up in an Art of thrift not rising meerly out of a stock of Wit or Learning but out of a stock of Money and Credit managed according to that Art and for this cause he brings his Child at fifteen or sixteen years of age more or less to the City of London provides him a Master and the Youth by his Father's counsel willingly becomes an Apprentice that is he interchangeably seals a written Instrument that he for his certain years of true and faithful Service shall learn that precious Mystery of how to gain honestly and to raise himself Let the legal and ordinary form of that Instrument extant in Wells's Presidents and familiar every
any consideration of him as he may otherwise be a Gentleman Esquire or Knight which in some cases happens As in the famous Corporation of Droit-Wiche in worcestershire where he that hath a property in a Salt-pan or a certain Measure or liberty of making salt is ipso facto a Burgess of that Town and hath a Vote there Insomuch as an Earl of Shrewsbury and some of the neighbouring Knights Esquires and Gentry have deemed themselves honoured thereby and at their deaths though absent from the place have the great Bell of Droit-Wiche rung out for them And in conferring of Arms or Coats of Arms upon Citizens not born Gentlemen Reason requireth that they should not have Coats of the fairest Bearing assign'd to them but such as either in Canton Chief Border or otherwise might carry some Testimony Mark or Sign to shew the Art by which they were advanced as Merchants Adventurers to bear Anchors Grocers Cloves Cloth-workers a Tezel Merchant-Taylors a Robe and so forth which those Gentlemen ought in honesty and thankfulness to chose and not only to accept but rather to strive to have such Acknowledgment reversed to their Posterity who afterwards thriving may procure some change to be also made in the Coat for the better specially considering what pretty riddance hath been in latter times made of Surcharges in Armory granted about the end of King Henry the Eighth what Encroachments upon Gentlemen's Rights by new Ones because their Names or by the addition or taking away a Letter or Syllable have been made to be the same and many other Inventions to blanch or beautifie Newness Which to rectifie divers Coats of Arms have been delivered from their Original deformities surfets and surcharges by their proper Physician the Provincial King of Arms. So Sir Thomas-Kissons of Suffolk whose Chief now simply Gold was heretofore overladen with three egresses and they with an Anchor the Badge or Argument of the Original and two Lyons rampant argent as is publickly extant to be seen in Trinity Hall in Cambridge whereunto he was a Benefactor And besides that Gentlemans the Coat of Arms of some of the Gentry of this Land do need the like relief or remedy The rule of Proportion seeming carefully to be observed in Antiquities among us where the principal and most Noble Charges were not appropriated but to Anological concretences of honourable quality 3. Such therefore being the nature of Apprentiship and such the condition of Citizens estates as to the purposes of Honour and Arms let Fathers who are Gentlemen put their Children who are not inclining to Arms or Letters to Apprentiships to the Discipline and Art of honest Gain giving them a Title of being somewhat in our Countrey for it is a Vocation if not misused simply honest and may prove a stay to Posterity and give Credit to their Names when licentious and corrupted Eldest sons have sold their Birth-rights away for albeit many Citizens thrive not yet those Fathers and such who are in place of Fathers provide more probably who put their Children or Orphans into a certain Method of Life than others who leave them at large And however some riotous foolish or unfortunate Citizens miscarry yet there are more than Ten to One which do not and many of those who are not Gentlemen born and being put by their Parents to be Apprentices that as God may bless their just true and virtuous Industry so they may be Founders of a New Family and both raise themselves and theirs to the title of Gentlemen lawfully bearing Arms. For which cause those who may perchance own their worldly estate and the foundation of that greatness or amplitude of means to such as have been Citizens of London are not free enough to busie themselves in detracting from those whose original Greatness was drawn from the others nor those others whose Originals were from Chivalrie and Martial Service the most pure and proper Nobleness of all as to the purpose of bearing Arms and have since been mixed with Citizens ought to think it the least disparagement to own their Ancestors or Benefactors to have been Citizens of London But it will worthily become them freely and thankfully to acknowledge so honest Originals and accession to Originals as many parts of this Realm from thence have been filled with because among them the Sinews of War and Peace abundance of Treasure are stored up as in the Chambers of the King when they will be pleased either by Lone or Subsidy to afford their Soveraign and Great Benefactor the use of it 4. Which acknowledgement besides that it is in the laws of Honour an act of bounden Duty they may the rather take it for a Glory Because some of our Princes have so far vouchsafed to grace them as to be incorporated as Members of some of their Companies of Trade in the City And King Henry the seventh whom all of us will easily confess to have well enough understood what he did is credibly said to have been in Person at the Election of a Master and Wardens and Himself to have sitten openly among them in a Gown of Crimson-Velvet City-fashion with a Citizen's Hood of Velvet on his Shoulders a la mode de Londres upon their solemn Feast-day in the Common Hall of the Company of Merchant-Taylors Moreover his Grandchild Queen Elizabeth no way inferior to her Ancestors in high policy was free of the Company of Mercers Lastly which is more to our present purpose our late Solomon Soveraign King James being one of the most Learned of our Princes though Learning hath been a Royal Ability in our Ancient Soveraigns and so flourishing in sebert King of the East-Angles that Venerable Bede affirms him to have been nec omnia doctissimus King James I say did honour the Company of Cloth-workers in London which if well encouraged would be one of the most important Companies of Trade in that City with a condescension of being accounted a Freeman of that Company of Cloth-workers whose Employment is the well-making the greatest Staple-Commodity of this Kingdom 5. Nor let the Name of Companies because they seem not to found honourable enough as the Appellations of degrees in Nobility and Gentry avert the mind from them as things ignoble and unworthy the Dignity of Generous dispositions erroneously holden to be so in Sir John Birne's Blazon of Gentry for all Renowned Cities ever had in them Urbana Nobilitas and yet their Citizens could not but be distributed into Orders Tribes or Titles of Profession yea sometimes in their Games For the Circensian Companies in Rome called Factions that is to say in truth Companies and denominated from their several clothings as White Blew Green and Red to which Domitian added two others Purple and Gold were the special Exercises of Princes and People which grew to such Excess that no longer after than in Trajan's time that Plinius secundus held it to be a matter worthy of his Complaint and Censure so as in one of his