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wealth, that they are able and daily doe buy the
Lands of unthrit'tie Gentlemen, and after setting
their Sonnes to the Schoole at the Universities, to
the Lawes of the Realrae, or otherwise leaving
them sufficient Lands whereon they may live with-
out labour, do make their said Sonnes by those
meanes Gentlemen : These be not called Masters,
for that (as I said) pertaineth to Gentlemen only.
But to their sirnames men adde Goodman : as if
the sirname bee Luter, Finch, White, Browne, they
are called Goodman Luter, Goodman Finch, Good-
man White, Goodman Browne, amongst their
Neighbours. I meane not in matters of importance,
or in Law : But in matters of Law and for dis-
tinction ; if one were a Knight, they would write
him (for examples sake) Sir John Finch Knight ; so
if hee bee an Esquire, John Finch Esquire or
Gentleman; if he be no Gentleman, John Finch
Yeoman. For amongst the Gentlemen, they which
claime no higher degree, and yet be to be exempted
out of the number of the lowest sort thereof, bee
written Esquires ; so amongst the Husbandmen
Labourers, the lowest and rascall sort of the people,
such as bee exempted out of the number of the
rascalitie of the popular, be called and written
Yeomen, as in the degree next unto Gentlemen.
These are they which old Cato calleth Aratorea, and
optimos cives in Republica, and such as of whom the
Writers of Commonwealths prayse to have many
in it. Aristotle namely reciteth noQa^ai; ;
these tend their owne businesse, come not to meddle in publike matters, & judgements, but when they are called, and glad when they are delivered thereof, are obedient to the Gentlemen & Rulers, and in Warre can abide travell and labour, as men used to fight for their Lords of whom they hold their Lands, for their Wives and Children, for their Country and Nation, for praise and honour against they come home, and to have the love of their Lord and hjs children, to be continued towards them and their children, which have adventured their lives for and with him and his. These are they which in the old world gat that honour to England ; not that either for wit, conduction, or for power they are or were to be compared to the Gentlemen, but oecause they be so many in number, so obedient at the Lords call, so strong of body, so hardy to endure paine, so courageous to adventure with their Lords or Captaine, going with, or before them ; for else they be not hastie, nor never were, as making no pro- fession of knowledge of warre.
" These were the good Archers in times past, and the stable troupe of Footmen that affraid all France, that would rather die all, then once abandon the Knight or Gentleman their Captaiue, who in those dayes commonly was their Lord, & whose Tenants they were, readie (besides per- petuall shame) to be in danger of undoing them- selves, and all theirs, if they should shew any signe of cowardise, or abandon the Lord, Knight, or Gentleman of whom they held their living. And this they have amongst them from their fore- fathers, told one to another. The Gentlemen of France, and the Yeomen of England, are renowned, because in battell of Horsemen, France was many times too good for us, as wee againe alway for them on foot. And Gentlemen for the most part be men at Armes and Horsemen, and Yeomen commonly on foot : howsoever it was, yet the Gentlemen had alwayes the conduction of the Yeomen, and as their Captaines were either a foot, or upon a little Nagge with them, & the Kings of England in
foughten battels, remayning alwayes among the
Footmen, as the French Kings among their Horse-
men. Each Prince thereby, as a man may ghesse,
did shew where hee thought his strength did con-
sist. What a Yeoman is I have declared, but from
whence the word is derived it is hard to say : it
cannot bee thought that Yeoman should be said of
a young man, for commonly wee doe not call any a
Yeoman till he be married, and have children v and,
as it were, have some authority among his 1* eigh-
bours. Yonker in Low Dutch betokeneth a meane
Gentleman, or a gay fellow. Possibly our Yeomen,
not being so bold as to name themselves Gentlemen,
when they came home, were content when they had
heard by frequentation with Low Dutchmen, of
some small Gentleman (but yet that would bee
counted so) to bee called amongst them, Yonker-
man, they calling so in Warres by mockage or in
sport the one another, when they came home,
"Yonkerman, and so Yeoman: which word now
signifieth among us, a man well at ease, and having
honestly to live, yet not a Gentleman : whatsoever
that word Yonkerman, young-man, or Yeoman doth
more or lesse signifie to the Dutchmen."
Dr. Samuel Johnson does not quote this fine bit of Elizabethan prose in his ' Dic- tionary.' The book must have been very scarce in his time, so I consider myself fortunate in posssessing a copy printed in 1640, in the pages of which there is nothing more interesting than the chapter entitled ' Of Yeomen ' (pp. 59-65).
JOHN T. CUBBY.
An account of the term yeoman is given by Sir Sibbald David Scott in 'The British Army : its Origin, Progress, and Equipment,' 1868, vol. i. pp. 504 et seq. I give one quotation which may be of use to your correspondent :
"It was the yeoman retainer or the faithful yeoman domestic who had helped to fight the battles of England. Elizabethan writers often speak of the ancient yeomen who distinguished themselves in a military capacity in the wars of the Middle Ages : the expression, however, is only to be taken in a general sense, as denoting the stout, able-bodied, inferior ranks of the people who composed the greater part of the infantry. There were no troops specially called yeomen. It was not till about the time of Henry VII. that the term yeoman occurs in its present acceptation namely, as a petty land- holder, probably as having received small grants of land as a reward for services."
It may safely be said that but few members of the London regiments of I.Y. are yeomen in this technical sense ; but we do our best to shake off the town and its ways for one fortnight in the year.
W. R. B. PBTDEAUX,
Trooper, King's Colonials I.Y.
This was evidently in its origin the " frank " service (liberum servitium), as distinct from " base " service (villenagium),
