Out of these also are the great
deputies and high presidents chosen, of which one serveth in Ireland,
as another did some time in Calais, and the captain now at Berwick, as
one lord president doth govern in Wales, and the other the north parts
of this island, which later, with certain counsellors and judges, were
erected by King Henry the Eighth. But, for so much as I have touched
their conditions elsewhere, it shall be enough to have remembered them
at this time.
3. The third and last sort is named the yeomanry, of whom and their
sequel, the labourers and artificers, I have said somewhat even now.
Whereto I add that they may not be called _masters_ and _gentlemen_,
but _goodmen_, as Goodman Smith, Goodman Coot, Goodman Cornell,
Goodman Mascall, Goodman Cockswet, etc., and in matters of law these
and the like are called thus, _Giles Jewd, yeoman; Edward Mountford,
yeoman; James Cocke, yeoman; Harry Butcher, yeoman_, etc.; by which
addition they are exempt from the vulgar and common sorts. Cato
calleth them "_Aratores et optimos cives rei publicae_," of whom also
you may read more in the book of commonwealth which Sir Thomas Smith
some time penned of this land.
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