Corporation and Society each several Art and Science therein not much unlike our several Companies and inferior Schools which fit Youth for those places but as Shops wherein young men are initiated Apprentices and afterwards commence Masters There might be much more said in the defence of Trade and Commerce but the Book consisting of particulars in relation to the City and its policy an Enlargement here would but anticipate the Kind and Courteous Reader who will I hope pardon the length of this Preface and supply the rest with his own Candor and Ingenuity To the READER READER I Have been lately put to the Question which heretofore some years since I have discoursed very briefly Whether Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentry And being now called to an Account I have not only perused my former Opinion but with some addition do confirm my then Assertion that it doth not with a clear Refutation of the pretended Reasons or rather pernicious Errors against it swallowed by Erasmus Roterdam Sir Thomas Smith in his Common-weal Sir John Ferne in his Blazon Ralph Brook York-Herald and others And I shall cleer the Refutation of that pestilent Opinion which hath some Authority for it and many Injurious Partakers intending to lodge upon the hopeful and honest estate of Apprentiship the odious Note of Bondage and the barbarous penalty of loss of Gentry to the reproach of our Kingdom 's policy and to the manifold dammage of the Publick For though the Schools and Camps are most proper for Honour and Arms yet the Ancient Wisdom and the like frequent Bounty of our Sages did ever leave the Gates of Honour open to City-Arts and to the mystery of honest Gain as fundamental in Common-weals and the suscepture of external Splendor according to the most laudable Example of rising Rome under her first Dictators and Consuls By which their Moderation and Judgment they happily avoided two opposite Rocks viz. Tyrannical Appropriation of Gentry to some certain old Families as in Germany and the Confusion of not allowing Hereditary Nobleness or Gentry to any at all as under the Sultan in Turky I shall not crave any Patronage or other Acknowledgment nor repeat here how the Noble People of Eldest Rome accepted the Book which Guecus Flavius dedicated to their Name and Use de origine Juris in the Caesarian Laws but leave the Issue to those that may receive the Honour and Profit thereof with this Caution First that it belongs only to such Masters or Citizens as are generously disposed and worthily qualified Men who say with Publius Syrus Damnum appellandum est cum mala fama lucrum and then to such among Apprentices as resemble Potifer's chast Servant or St. Paul's converted Onesimus young men who say with Statius Caecilius in his Plotius Liberè servimus salva Urbe atque Arce meaning by the City and the Citadel the Body and the Head of Man And there is no doubt that the worthy Citizen shall find his honest Servant not the less serviceable for this Discourse but rather the more obsequious For in good Bloods and in good Natures Praise and Honour prevail more than Rigor and Blows And because your selves for the most part were Apprentices ye may remember herein with Comfort the honesty of your Condition when ye were such and the Splendor of what ye are now in that Right The principal Objection against the Publishing of this or the like Discourse of this Argument is That the Insolency of the Youth and the Irregular Frie of the City may hereby take increase But it hath been elsewhere answered That those Apprentices are of the Dregs and Bran of the Vulgar the ordinary Balls played by the hands of Justice into the Prisons and Places of Correction nay perhaps not Apprentices at all but forlorn Companions Masterless Men and the like as lately hath been made to appear In a word the City of London which before Rome it self was built was rocked in a Trojan Cradle by the Founder and Father thereof Heroick Brute or Brytus as the most ancient Monuments setting aside all late fancies bear witness and under Claudius Caesar It was the Metropolis of the Trynovants under other Caesars afterwards it was Augusta the Majesterial City which at this time for Hugeness increase of beautious Buildings Concourse Navigation Popularity and Trade notwithstanding the hand of God's Correction by late Sickness and Fire very hardly giving place to any one City in Europe or at lest doth match and equal them This very London so venerable for Antiquity so honourable for her Customs so profitable for life noble in Renown even beyond the Names both of our Country it self and of our Nation the Birth-place of Constantine the Great and the famous Recess or Chamber of our Kings this very CityLondon whether it be your local Parent or loving Foster Mother shall not grace or honour you more than you shall grace or honour Her and England also To Conclude In this Discourse I designe nothing but rest only upon the Defence and Affirmation against the Assailers and Deniers of my Arguments and Reason with due submission for the Judicial part to the proper Court of Honour heretofore the Illustrious High Marshal of England by Commission or to the Approbation of the Learned Heralds Kings of Arms and my self to the favour of the Ingenious Reader W. S. The Cities great Concern In a Question of HONOUR and ARMS Whether APPRENTISHIP extinguisheth Gentry THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART 1. THE present Question very important for many great Causes Two Crowned Queens of England some of the Nobility parties to it Bullen and Calthrope Lord Mayors of London had their Interests in Royal Bloud what Questio status and what the least Capitis diminutio is only the Base neglect it Honour a fair star Disparagement odious Prevention of Mischief by determining this Question Proud City-races unworthy of the City 2. The Cities Honours in Arms is proved out of Ancient Monuments The Lord Fitz-Water Standard-Bearer of London Clauric and Bialle two Terms in old Blazon 3. The transcendent power of Opinion To derogate from the Splendor of Birth deputed an Injury whence comes the present Question of Apprentiship 4. The main reason why some do hold that APPRENTISHIP extinguisheth Gentry Apprentiship no Bondage either in truth or at all the case truly propounded The skill of honest Gettings a precious Mystery what kind of Contract that seems to be which is between Master and Apprentice 5. An Objection that an Apprentiship is a kind of Bondage The folly of Erasmus in his Etymologie of an Apprentice The comparison between Servus among the Civilians and Apprentices among Englishmen holds not what the word APPRENTICE means Sr. Thomas Smith's error in confounding Servitude and Discipline 6. 7. 8. Particular points touching Servus his Sanctuary at the Princes Image Manumission and Recaptivity by Law None of these points concern Apprentices more than Soldiers Scholars or Religious Novices 9. 10. The very final cause
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
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
Epistles he saith Nunc panno facient nunc pannum amant Again such of the Gentry who live not in the City and do most of all elevate themselves with contempt of others in respect of the Arts and ways of maintenance were they but incorporated under the true Titles of their Means in which we will not speak of their prodigious eating up of whole Houses Towns People by a thousand wicked Devices proper to the mystery of depopulation against whose consuming works so many Statutes of this Land have long time warred in vain the Names of those City Brotherhoods or Companies would easily sound in a most curious ear full out as fair and well as Corn Cattle Butter Cheese Hay Wood Wool Coals and the like materials of their Maintenance all of them inseparable to Country-Common-weals and without which they can no more subsist than the Drapers as Drapers without Cloth Gold-smiths as Goldsmiths without Jewels or Plate Neither doth it create any great odds in this point touching Honour between parties in this dispute that Gentlemen by their Officers as Bayliffs Reeves or the like do order their Affairs for their more ease and dignities for besides that the wisest among them exercise that superintendency in their own Persons so herein the worthy Citizen is no way behind dispatching his business by Factors Journeymen or expert Apprentices reserving only to himself the Over-view and Controll of all their doings City-Nobleness so apparent that the Knights or Gentlemen of Rome professing Merchandise and other among them that way bent had their Hall or seat of their Colledge or Company upon Mount Capitoline it self dedicated to their Patron Deity or Tutelary Godhead Mercury Other incorporated Societies there also were as Goldsmiths and the rest who lived so far from being excluded out of the power of Common-weal or from Honours and signs of Nobleness that they forced a right in some Cases to chuse out of their own Body one of the Consuls before their Emperors times Yea so mighty were they grown in respect of Election and negative Authority that Clodius to be revenged on Cicero left his own rank of Patricians and Lords and turned Commoner 6. To conclude such Gentlemen are much deceived which no sooner they hear a man named to be of this or that Society or Colledge of Trade in London as of Grocers Haberdashers Fishmongers or any other of the twelve principal Monopolies the Zodiack of the City in whose Ecliptick-line their Lord Mayor must ever run his years Course but they forthwith entertain a low conceit of the parties quality as too much beneath their own Rank and Order without farther examination when it often happens that he who is titularly of this fraternity never was bred up in it nor understands more in it than the remotest Gentleman their Masters themselves having been Merchants or of other Profession of life divers from their title under which they are marshalled the law of the City imposing an absolute necessity that all who are free of the City should carry the Name of some one or other of their Brotherhoods Again what do the Constellations of Heaven shine the worse or the less because they carry the names of a Ram of a water-bearer of Fishes and so forth or how many the fewer are their several lights for that Answerable to which I say that if the Partie's mind be adorned with the Star-lights of Honour and Virtue what baseness is it for him to be marshall'd under any of the Names comprehending one or other of the honest Arts of worldly life no more than the Name of the Great Fabii at Rome for their usual feeding upon Beans or Cicero of Pulse 7. In disputing thus let me not be thought to set up an envious Comparison between these two degrees or qualifications of men that is very far from me for it must ever be granted to the Authority of general Opinion founded upon custom among us that the true Country Esquire caeteris paribus is in his proper place before the City Esquire which with the perpetual clause beforesaid of caeteris paribus holds also throughout the other degrees of the inferior Nobleness in England I reason here as Reason bids not against the right or dignity of persons either as in parallel or as in disparagement but against the vanity and offences rising out of causeless Elation and Arrogancy and against their Errors who not understanding the things of their own Country are indeed meer Meteoroscopes and hover in the Cloudy Region of Admiration upon rude and unlearned phantasies for which cause as minds needing to be healed so would I sincerely wish that they were healed Such are theirs who would perhaps think the Companies or Monopolies of the City more worthy of their acknowledgment if where now they are denominated of some particular Ware or Craft they were named of Eagles Vultures Lyons Bears Panthers Tigers or so forth as the several Orders of Nobility in Mexico which Josephus Acosta writes under their Emperour Yet much better because more truly these Fellowships of London carry the Names of Men and their Trades as they have Vocations in Professions which onely Men can execute better or more Noble if those Societies were denominated of Eyes Ears Hands Feet or of other Members as Philostratus in the life of that Impostor Apollonius Tyaneus saith the Officers and Instrument of a Philosophical King his Eyes Ears and so forth so have these Mysteries some one or other Professor in each of them from a higher Trade to the lowest eminently dignified with the Honour of being the King's Servant as the King's Mercer the King's Draper and so forth Again how much more worthy is the whole than the parts because the parts are in the whole so by that Argument it is more honourable to be marshalled as a man among Societies of Civil men than to be distinguished by Allusions to particular Members at least wise those Singular Gentlemen might certainly in their most contempt of the City remember that rare and real worth may be in the Persons of Citizens themselves seeing Terrentius Consul of Old Rome with the Noble Paulus Aemilius was free of the Butchers Company and our Walworth Lord Mayor of Old London was free of the Fishmongers And the others were not onely the Lords Knights and Gentlemen of Rome who had voice in Election of their Principal yearly Magistrates but even Handicrafts-men and Artificers as is most manifest by that place of Salust in his Jugurthine War where Marius was chosen Consul by the special 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 earned their Livings Finally they may remember that in the Posterity of Citizens many Right Noble and worthy Gentlemen are often found and that besides the universal mixture with City-races through the Kingdom it may not be denied that true Nobleness or Gentry