The Company and the Trade. 189 



serve for the yeres on their severall Indentures 

 contelned as amply and lardgly to every extent as 

 yf the same apprentice were of full age at the time 

 of making of suche indenture any Lawe Usage 

 or Custome to the contrary notwithstanding." 



Clause xix. of the same Statute seems to throw 

 some light upon the difficulty suggested by the 

 allusion on numerous occasions in the Com- 

 pany's Books of bindings for as much as eleven 

 years already mentioned. It gives liberty to 

 householders In any city or corporate town, 

 provided they be at least 24 years of age, to take 

 an apprentice '' to serve and bee bounde as an 

 apprentice after the custome and order of the 

 CItle of London for seven yeres at the least so as 

 the tearme and yeares of suche apprentice doe not 

 expyre or determyne afore such apprentice shall 

 bee of thage of foure and twentye yeres at the 

 least. "^ 



We learn from the Company's ordinances, 

 however, that it was occasionally permissible for 

 an apprentice to be remitted of an unexpired term 

 of years If '' the residue of his terme shalbe for- 

 given him by speciall legacye of his M^'' conteyned 

 in his laste will and testament." 



As has been already stated, apprentices could 

 appeal to the Company against arbitrary exactions 

 of or improper treatment by their masters, and 

 masters could invoke the intervention of the 



^ This Statute was not repealed until the early part of the 

 present century. 



O 2 



