OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 15 



the lady of some noble or royal house; or unless they became hench- 

 men, or companions ' to the scions of noble houses, as many of the 

 sons of the principal gentry did. The Tracies, Kingscotes, Yeels, and 

 others -were attendants upon, and brought up with, the young barons 

 of Berkeley, &c. ; one of their privileges, too, was to bear the whipping 

 designed for the young barons in cases of misbehaviour. "WTien a 

 youth entered into one of these noble houses, as he grew older he 

 would continue as a retainer on the establishment, and follow his 

 patron to the wars, when necessary, marrying perhaps, eventually, 

 a daughter of the house, and founding another branch of his family 

 in some other locality. Xow poor Richard Whittington, (to judge by 

 Elstrack's portrait of him in mature age), did not possess in his 

 youth the face or figure likely to make an elegant or interesting page, 

 but he evidently was of that more practically useful class of whom the 

 adage justly says, — " Handsome is that handsome docs." 



Trade was the resource of the younger branches of noble houses. 

 The father of the celebrated" Samuel Pepys, nearly related to the 

 Earl of Sandwich, and collateral ancestor of some of our present noble 

 families, being a younger son of an old family, became a tailor. John 

 Coventre, Whittington's executor, the direct ancestor of the present 

 Earls of Coventry, was a mercer. "" Sir Baptist Hicks, ' the founder 

 of a line of Baronets, and first Viscount Campden, of this County, was 

 a mercer, and made a large fortune in that trade. It is said that he 

 was then (A. D. 1612) the first person who continued to keep a shop after 

 he had been created a baronet. The same, then, was the case with 

 Richard Whittington ; his patrimony was probably very small, perhaps 

 not many shillings, when ^ four pounds a year was considered ample 

 remuneration for a parochial clergyman. We can readily imagine a 

 thoughtful boy in his position, (as his manhood proves to us that he 

 must have been), ruminating in his mind what his future lot in life 

 would be. It was clear that Pauntley, his native village, ' offered no 



t Smytho's Lives of tJic Bcrlelojs. 

 V Lempriore's Biography. Biirke's Peerage. Doran's Habits and Men^ p. 301. 

 w Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. Collins's Peerage, S^c. 

 X Strype. y See Gibson on Door, Hempsted, and Holm Lacy. 



z The village of Pauntley is at a considerable distance from any tovm of 

 consequence, and can scarcely be called a village. It consists of the Church and 



