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The term Scottish cronies
were often the ones who collected the
(123). In the case of this
particular phrase, the title of gentleman would have cost thirty pounds.
However, the monetary figure varies, and thus so does the term for those who
moved upwards on the social scale by way of making a payment. In addition to
these terms, the phrase inflation of honours
is also used by modern
historians to denote this practice (Stone,
the most
fundamental dichotomy within the society was between the gentleman and the
non-gentleman, a division that was based essentially upon the distinction
between those who did, and those who did not, have to work with their hands
(
The 1605 play by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston entitled
4.1.197–200First Gentleman: I ken the man weel, he’s one of my thirty-pound knights.Second Gentleman: No, no, this is he that stole his knighthood o’ the grand day for four pound.
Riggs explains that lest anyone fail to grasp the reference to
(123). The
passage assumes that something that can be bought can also be stolen, like
any other commodity.
During there was a
remarkable increase in the number of the upper class, which trebled at a
period when the total population barely doubled
(the number of peers rose from 60 to 160; of
baronets and knights from 500 to 1,400; of squires from perhaps 800 to
3,000; of armigerous gentry [gentlemen allowed to wear a coat of arms] from
perhaps 5,000 to around 15,000
(24).
While Stone does qualify that these increases resulted from a variety of
factors—the extremely high rate of reproduction among the gentry, as well as
the creation of new wealth due to trade—these increases were in large part
influenced by the practice of the inflation of honours (
The practice of buying titles had a significant impact on the way in which the monarchy was perceived. In
open sale of titlesin the seventeenth century
a crying scandal, and suggests that the titles bestowed in such a way were no longer viewed as legitimate. The decision to sell titles betrayed the system of bestowing honours as
fundamental[ly] artificialand exposed it to
public contempt and ridicule(45). This mockery of the inflation of honours is clear in the above passage from
Naturally, as a result of the increase in the number of gentlemen, the cachet
associated with being a gentleman waned. By 1682 these
Marks of Honour
(qtd. in Stone,
There was some debate surrounding the sale of the title of esquire and the
consequences of this practice. Originally the title was used only for the
younger sons of peers and their male heirs, knights’ male heirs, and judges,
sheriffs, and justices of the peace. But