560 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
(12) 23. Aprill Coronation, Scarlet. 
(13) 29. May, his M tys birth, & return. Scarlet, bunns, & wine. 
(14) Sunday befor 25 th July, Scarlet, wine. & cakes, being the 
day y e Spanish Armada, 1588, were seen on this coast. 
(15) Munday after Michaelmas is Law court, Munday aftar 
twelfth day is Sessions. 
(16) The Munday after Eastar week is Law court, & y e munday 
next after Tho. Beclcets day is Sessions. 
All those dayes y e Serjeants are to give warning to y e Aldermen, 
and Assistants. 
The gowns of the twenty-four as described by one of the train of Cosmo 
de Medici, who visited Plymouth in 1669, reached to the ground, and were 
of black cloth, richly ornamented with strips of black velvet, and a black 
square collar lined with fur. 
The oaths of the mayor and other officers of the borough follow, as may 
be seen in the Black and White Books, with the freemen's oath of 1684. 
This differs in some material particulars from the old oath already given. 
For the words ' i and as far forth as you can you shall save this Burrough 
harmles ag fc y e King and all his Leige people," the words "you shall save 
this burrough harmless as farr as Lawfully you may " are substituted. The 
passage, "whereby any Custom or duety may be lost or withdrawn from 
y Q Mayor and commons," is altered by the insertion of the words "from the 
king and" before "y e Mayor." And before the words "and you shall pay 
yearely for your freedom " there is inserted the significant clause, " & you 
shall from time to time give notice to y e Mayor of this Burrough for y e time 
being, of all conventicles or unlawfull Assemblyes y l you shall know to be 
within this Burrough." 
There were only two classes of freemen of right — the apprentices of free- 
men and the eldest sons of freemen after the father's death; and in 1730 a 
special order was passed confirming their rights, in order to put an end to 
disputes which had existed. At the same time it was agreed that only persons 
of considerable rank and distinction, and nobody under the degree of a gentle- 
man, outside the borough should be made free under the third class — that of 
honorary freemen. It was also decided that if a freeman under the degree 
of a gentleman left the town for two years, he could be disfranchised. More- 
over it was declared that the sole right of electing capital burgesses was in 
the mayor and the capital burgesses. Occasionally the freedom was sold. This 
was the case immediately before the Reform Act of 1832, the price being £25, 
but the new freemen were not of sufficient standing to preserve their rights 
under that measure. The apprenticeship freedom was eventually curtailed to 
a freeman's first apprentice. Harris, in his MS. "Vestiges," states that a 
freeman was made annually by each mayor on retiring from office ; and that 
for some little while the mayoress was "allowed to make her favourite," if 
any. 
