Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	great_a	sir_n	william_n	5,591	4	8.8072	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A16306	The cities aduocate in this case or question of honor and armes; whether apprentiship extinguisheth gentry? Containing a cleare refutation of the pernicious common errour affirming it, swallowed by Erasmus of Roterdam, Sir Thomas Smith in his common-weale, Sir Iohn Fern in his blazon, Raphe Broke Yorke Herald, and others. With the copies of transcripts of three letters which gaue occasion of this worke.	Bolton, Edmund, 1575?-1633?; Philipot, John, 1589?-1645, attributed name.	1629 (1629)	STC 3219; ESTC S106271	30,252	83

among their owne and villanous euerywhere But you none of that caitiue and vntrustie number are the parties for whom this labour hath been vndergone whose behauiours full of gentlenesse and of bounden dutie to superiors commend you to the present times and maintaine in you that stocke of good hope out of which are in due time elected those successions of the whole which make the politicall bodie or state of a Citie immortall Thinke therefore with your selues that by how much this most friendly office tends to your more defence and praise by so much you are the more bound to beare your selues honestly and humbly In your so doing the Citie of London which before Rome it self was built was rockt in a Troian Cradle by the founder and Father thereof as the most ancient extant monuments setting all late phansies aside beare witnesse heroicke Brute or Brytus vnder Claudius Caesar the Metropolis of the Trinobants vnder other Caesars afterwards Augusta or the maiesticall Citie which for hugenesse concourse nauigation trade and populosity very hardly giuing place to any one in Europe doth absolutely excell all the Cities of the world for good gouernment or at least doth match and equall them that very London so venerable for the antiquitie so honorable for the customes so profitable for life noble in renowne euen beyond the names both of our Countrey it selfe and of our nation the birth-place of Constantine the Great and inmost recesse or chamber of her Kings that very City that very London whether your locall parent or louing foster-mother shall not grace or honor you more then you shall grace and honor her and England also VALETE From Sir WILLIAM SEGAR Knight GARTER principall King of Armes of ENGLAND a speciall Letter to the Author concerning the present worke Sir I Haue viewed and reuiewed your book with good deliberation and find that you haue done the office of a very worthy Aduocate to plead so well for so famous a Client as the City of London in her generality which as I gratulate vnto her and to all interessed parties so I shall much more gratulate to her and you the honour and vse of so faire a labour if I may once see that publike And for my part considering that you define nothing but lye onely vpon the defensiue and affirmatiue against assaylers and denyers with due submission for the iudiciall part to the proper Court of Honor the illustrious high I see no cause why your learned worke may not receiue the glory of publike light and that most renowned Citie the benefit of honors encrease for incouragement of enriching endustrie And so with my hearty respects I rest Your very louing friend WILLIAM SEGAR Garter THE TRVE COPIES OF the Letters mentioned after the Booke The first letter from the Citizen in the behalfe and cause of his eldest sonne to a speciall friend of whose loue and learning he rested confident Right Worthy Sir IF hauing beene at no small charge and some care to breed my sonne vp in Gentleman like qualities with purpose the rather to enable him for the seruice of God his Prince and Countrey I am very curious to remoue from him as a Father all occasions which might either make him lesse estemed of others or abate the least part of his edge I say not towards the honesty of life onely but towards the splendor thereof and worship also my hope is that I shall not in your worthy iudgement seeme either insolent or vaine glorious Truth and Iustice are the onely motiues of my stirring at this present For as I mortally hate that my Son should beare himselfe aboue himself so should I disclaime my part in him if being vniustly sought to be embased he sillily lost any inch of his due He hath beene disgraced as no Gentleman borne when yet not hee but I his Father was the Apprentise thankes be to God for it They cannot obiect to him want of fashion they cannot obiect to him the common vices badges rather of reprobates then of Gentlemen They cannot obiect to him cowardise for it is well knowne that he dares defend himselfe nor any thing else vnworthy of his name which is neither new nor ignoble But mee his poore father they obiect vnto him because I was once an Apprentise Wise Sir Thomas Moore teacheth vs vnder the names and persons of his Eutopians that victories and atchieuements of wit are applauded farre aboue those of forces and seeing reuerence to God to our Prince commandeth vs as his Maiesties booke of Duells doth affirme not to take the office of iustice from Magistrates by priuate rash reuenges I haue compelled my sonne vpon Gods blessing and mine to forbeare the sword till by my care he may be found not to be in the wrong For if it be true that by Apprentiship we forfeit our titles to natiue Gentrie God forbid that my sonne should vsurpe it And if it be not true then shall be haue a iust ground to defend himselfe and his aduersaries shall stand conuicted of ignorance if not of enuie also These are therefore very earnestly to pray you to cleare this question For in the City of London there are at this present many hundreds of Gentlemens children Apprentises infinite others haue beene and infinite will be and all the parts of England are full of families either originally raised to the dignity of Gentlemen out of this one most famous place or so restored and enriched as may well seeme to amount to an originall raising And albeit I am very confident that by hauing once beene an Apprentise in London I haue not lost to be a Gentleman of birth nor my sonne yet shall I euer wish and pray rather to resemble an heroicke Walworth a noble Philpot an happie Capel that learned Sheriffe of London Mr. Fabian or any other famous Worthies of this royall City out of any whatsoeuer obscurest parentage then that being descended of great Nobles to fall by vice farre beneath the rancke of poorest Prentises In requitall of your care in this point you shall shortly receiue if I can obtain my desire out of the records monuments of London a Roll of the names and Armes of such principall friends as haue beene aduanced to Honor and Worship throughout the Realme of England from the degree of Citizens A warrantable designe by the example of the Lord chiefe Iustice Cooke who hath bestowed vpon the world in some one or other of his bookes of reports a short Catologue of such as haue beene eminently beholding to the Common Lawes and if I should faile in that yet doe I promise you a list or Alphabet of Apprentises names who by their enrollments will appeare vpon good Record to haue beene sonnes of Gentlemen from all the parts of England Neither let your approued vertue doubt but that in the meane time you shall finde vs very ready to shew our free and honest mindes in all commendable and disenuious emulations with the best

important for very many other reasons and particularly because it is not onely fit that states of opinions should be rectified in this kinde as breeding bad affections among people of the same nation from whence great mischiefes often rise euen to hatred quarrels and homicides but that such also as through vanity or other sicknesse of the wit or iudgement disdaine to seeme either Citie-borne or Citie-bred or to owe any thing of their worship or estate either to the City or to Citizens may vnderstand their owne place and true condition lest they be conuinced to be among them who are vnworthy of so honest either originall or accession as the Citie yeeldeth But let vs first behold the Cities Honour in Armes as it stands displayed in ancient Heraldry and as it is commented vpon out of authenticke Monuments in that worthily well commended Survey of LONDON composed by that diligent Chronologer and vertuous Citizen M. Iohn Stowe The present figure with the same words as here they stand is a copy of that which an old imperfect larger volume at the Office of Armes containeth 〈◊〉 BADGES LONDON OF THE CITIE OF LONDON THE LORD FITZ-WALTER BANNERER There needs no greater demonstration of the Cities ancient honor and of her peoples free qualitie then this that a principall Baron of the Realm of England was by tenure her Standard-bearer The figure of St. Paul titularie patron of London aduanced it selfe in the Standard and vpon the shield those famous well-knowne Armories of the Crosse and Weapon The like picture of which Apostle was also embroidered in the caparisons of that horse of warre which for the purpose of the Cities seruice he receiued of gift at the hands of the Lord Maior Vpon the Standard-bearers coat armour are painted the hereditarie ensignes of his owne illustrious Familie that is to say Or a Fesse betweene two Cheuerns Gules Which kind of field the ancients called Claurie perhaps à claritate because such fields as were all of one colour made their charges the more clearely seene and perspicuous And as they gaue to that species of blazon a peculiar name for the dignitie so did they also assigne to this manner of bearing two Cheuerns the terme Biallie or a coat Biallie a numero binario In which braue times had that noble Gentleman but slightly and farre off suspected that he displayed that banner for a kind of bondmen or as for their seruice his great heroick spirit would rather haue trodden such an office vnder foot In good assurance therefore of this common causes iustice we proceed Sound opinion meaning doctrine is the anchor of the world and opinion meaning a worthy conceit of this or that person is the principall ingredient which makes words or actions relish well and all the Graces are without it little worth To take the fame from any man that hee is a Gentleman-borne is a kind of disenablement and preiudice at leastwise among the weake who consider no further then seemings that is to say among almost all Consequently a wrong And if a wrong then due to be redressed To find iniurie we must first enquire Whether Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentrie 4 The maine reason certainly the most generall vsed to proue that it doth is That Apprentiship is a kinde of bondage and bondage speciallie voluntarie in which case the Imperiall law-rule non officit natalibus in seruitute fuisse may bee perhaps defectiue extinguisheth natiue Gentrie But I denie that Apprentiship is either vera seruitus or omnino servitus For explication of this difficultie I will set before your eyes the case as it is A Gentleman hath a sonne whom he meanes to breed vp in an Art of thrift not rising meerely out of a stocke of wit or learning but out of a stocke of money and credit managed according to that Art and for this cause hee brings his child at 15. or 16. yeares old more or lesse to the Citie of London prouides him a Master and the youth by his fathers counsel willingly becomes an Apprētise that is to say interchangeably seales a written contract with his Master by an indented instrument That he for his certaine yeares true and faithfull seruice shall learne that precious mystery of how to gaine honestly and to raise himselfe Let the legal and ordinarie forme of that instrument extant in Wests Precedents and familiar euery where be duly pondered and it will appeare a meere ciuill contract which as all the world knowes a bondman is vncapable of If you would know vnder what kinde or species of contract that doth fall I answer That it seemes to be a contract of permutation or interchange In which mutuall obligation or conuention the act of binding is no more but that as reason and iustice would the Master might be determinately for the time and sufficiently for the manner sure to enioy his Apprentise Apprētiship being therfore but an effect of a ciuill contract occasioned and caused by that prudent respect which the Contrahents mutually haue to their lawfull and honest commodity and such onely as are free-borne being capable to make this contract with effect Apprentiship doth not extinguish Gentry On the contrarie it is vrged That although Apprentiship bee not a true bondage to all constructions and purposes yet that it is a temporary bondage and equall for the time it lasteth to very seruitude In which opinion Erasmus is making his Etymologie of our Prentises to be for that they are like to such as are bought with money pares emptitijs which conceipt as it is more literate then happie so if it were set to sale would find few Chapmen but to laugh at it For Erasmus is aswell proued to be errans mus in obscurorum virorum Epistolis as Apprentises in England to be pares emptitijs But we absolutely deny that Apprentiship is in any sort a kinde of bondage For notwithstanding that to proue it be so they make a parallel between the ancient Roman seruitude and the London apprentiship yet will these comparata be found disparata if not disparatissima For seruus among the old Romans was so called of seruando of preseruing or sauing and not of seruiendo of seruing saith the Law-maker himselfe the Emperor Iustinian But the word Apprentise commeth of Aprenti the French word a raw souldier or young learner Tyro rudis discipulus or of the French verbē which signifies to learne or of the Latine word apprehendo or apprendo which properly is to lay hold of and translatiuely to learne which deriuations are consonant to the thing and true howsoeuer Sir Thomas Smith in his bookes de Republica Anglorum not remembring to distinguish betweene seruitude and discipline bondage and regular breeding iniuriously defined them to be a kind of bondmen meaning meere slaues and not as in some places of England bondsmen are taken for such as are in bonds for actionable causes and such bondmen as differ onely thus from very bondmen whose like words for signification

or Monopolies of the citie more worthy of their acknowledgement if where now they are denominated of some particular ware or craft they were named of Eagles Vultures Lions Beares Panthers Tygers or so forth as the seuerall orders of the Noble in Mexico which Iosephus Acosta writes vnder their Emperor yet much better because more truly these fellowships of London cary the names of men as they haue vocations in professions which onely men can execute Or they would peraduenture thinke more noblie of them if those societies were denominated of Eyes eares hands feet or of other members as Philostratus in the life of that impostor Apollonius Tianaeus saith the officers and instruments of a Philosophical King in India were But as those were called of their King his eyes eares and so forth so haue these mysteries some one or other professor in each among them from the higher trade to the lowest eminently designed out with the addition of King as the Kings Mercer the Kings Draper and so forth Againe how much more worthy the whole is then the parts because the parts are in the whole so by that argument it is more honourable to be marshall'd as a man among societies of ciuill men then to be distinguisht by allusions to particular members At leastwise those singular Gentlemen might certainin their most contempt of the City remēber that of Plato Nemo Rex non ex seruis nemo non seruus ex Regibus and that also rare and reall worth may bee in the persons of Citizens themselues seeing Terentius Consul of old Rome with that noble Paulus Aemilius was free of the Butchers company and our Walworth Lord Maior of old London was free of the Fishmongers And they were not onely the Lords Knights and Gentlemen of Rome who had voice in election of their principall yearly Magistrates but euen handycrafts-men and Artificers as is most manifest by that place of Salust in his Iugurthine warre where Marius was chosen Consul by the speciall affection of that sort of Roman Citizens who saith he sua necessaria post illius honorem ducebant preferred his election by their voices before the trades by which they earnd their liuings Finally they may remēber that in the posterity of Citizens many right noble and worthy Gentlemen are often found and that besides the vniuersall mixture with Citie-races thorow the Kingdom it may not be denyed that true nobless shineth often very bright among thē For they are Companies of free Citizens in which soueraigne Maiesty it selfe is incorporated making them at once to be sacred as it were and certainly magnificent For euen as where the Sun is there is no darknes so where soueraign Princes are interressed parties there is no basenes And as the Philosophers Medicine purgeth vilest metals turning all to gold so the operation of Princes intention to ennoble Societies with his personall presence transmetalls the subiect and clearly takes away all ignobilitie Which things as they are most true in London so for that the Emperour Constantinus magnus if our ancient Fitz Stephan reports the right Henry King of England sonne of king Henry the second and that braue great Prince Edward the first and whosoeuer else were borne in the Citie they giue to it the glory of Armes and Ieffrey Chaucer Sir Thomas Moore knight with others borne in London communicate thereunto the glorie of wits and letters To nourish vp both which most excellent titles to reall nobilitie in the Citie the Artillery-yard and Gressam Colledge were instituted 8 Thus this question of Honor and Armes vndertaken at the instance of interessed parties but more for loue to that great Citie and her children being by Gods assistance and as we hope sufficiently discussed the end of all is this that albeit the loue of humane praise and of outward splendor in the markes and testimonies of it are very vehement fires in all worthiest natures yet haue they no beatitude nor so to say felicitation but onely as with referment to this of the blessed Apostle Soli Deo Honor Gloria Amen I haue viewed this booke and perused the same and finde nothing therein dissonant to reason or contrary to the Law of Honor or Armes William Segar Garter princip King of Armes Errata In the Epistle to the Masters For iuice of ingratitude read vice of ingratitude In the Epistle to the Prentises For preying read prying For honourable all read honorable strangers all Page 5 For larger volume read leger volume 17. For discouser read discourser 19. For ciuill Art gouernment read ciuill Art of gouernment ●ad For most an Art of encrease read most ancient Art of encrease 20. For a would read as would 23. For ouer-slaue read ouer his slaue 38. For fasteth read fastest 51. For you are read you as are 55. For controll all read controll of all 57. For Ramme read a Ramme 58. For certaine read certainly