[How they distinguish themselves according to their qualities.] Among this People there are divers and sundry Casts or degrees of Quality, which is not according to their Riches or Places of Honour the King promotes them to, but according to their Descent and Blood.  And whatsoever this Honour is, be it higher or lower, it remains Hereditary from Generation to Generation.  They abhor to eat or drink, or intermarry with any of Inferior Quality to themselves.  The signs of higher or meaner Ranks, are wearing of Doublets, or going bare-backed without them:  the length of their Cloth below their knees; their sitting on Stools, or on Blocks or Mats spread on the Ground:  and in their Caps.

[They never marry beneath their rank.] They are especially careful in their Marriages, not to match with any inferior Cast, but always each within their own rank:  Riches cannot prevail with them in the least to marry with those by whom they must eclipse and stain the Honour of their Family:  on which they set an higher price than on their lives.  And if any of the Females should be so deluded, as to commit folly with one beneath her self, if ever she should appear to the sight of her Friends, they would certainly kill her, there being no other way to wipe off the dishonour she hath done the Family, but by her own Blood.

[In case a Man lies with a Woman of inferior rank.] Yet for the Men it is something different; it is not accounted any shame or fault for a Man of the highest sort to lay with a Woman far inferior to himself, nay of the very lowest degree; provided he neither eats nor drinks with her, nor takes her home to his House, as a Wife.  But if he should, which I never knew done, he is punished by the Magistrate, either by Fine or Imprisonment, or both, and also he is utterly ecluded from his Family, and accounted thenceforward of the same rank and quality, that the Woman is of, whom he hath taken.  If the Woman be married already, with whom the Man of better rank lies, and the Husband come and catch them together; how low soever the one be and high the other, he may kill him, and her too, if he please.

And thus by Marrying constantly each rank within it self, the Descent and Dignity thereof is preserved for ever; and whether the Family be high or low it never alters.  But to proceed to the particular ranks and degrees of Men among them.

[Their Noblemen.] The highest, are their Noblemen, called Hondrews.  Which I suppose comes from the word Homdrewne, a Title given to the King, signifying Majesty:  these being honourable People.  ’Tis out of this sort alone, that the King chooseth his great Officers and whom he imploys in his Court, and appoints for Governors over his Countrey.  Riches are not here valued, nor make any the more Honourable.  For many of the lower sorts do far exceed these Hondrews in Estates.  But it is the Birth and Parentage that inobleth.