THE ANCESTOR 75 not firmly established. The Cheshire Petition of 1450, and a poem upon England's Commercial Policy ^ written a few years after, revert to the older classification of 'knyghtis, squyers, and alle the comynalte.' Even as late as 1470 there are many royal commissions in which no one is described as a gentle- man.^ The practice of addressing an audience as ' gentlemen ' will hardly, I think, be traced before the middle or end of the seventeenth century. King Henry V., speaking to his army before the battle of Agincourt, opened with the words, ^ Syres and flFelowes.' The first gentleman to whom a monument was erected was John Daundelyon of Margate, who died about 1445, the first who entered Parliament, ' William Weston, gentylman,* who was elected in January, 1446-7. Before that time the House of Commons was principally composed of valets. I have taken a good deal of trouble to find out who was the earliest gentleman of all, the ' firste fader of gentilesse,' as we may call him in the words of Chaucer's ballad ; but the docu- ments to which I am about to refer would require months rather than days for a careful and exhaustive examination, and 1 cannot pretend that my search has been complete. In the De Banco rolls, husbandmen, yeomen and franklins are first met with at Easter, 14 14, and exactly a year later Henry Gate of Whityngton, co. Derby, * Gentilman,' occurs. Before this time no addition except ' knight ' and ' esquire ' is to be found, and persons of good position are set down without any descrip- tion of rank after their names, the title armiger being added in some cases by the clerk if he found later on that the party in question was an esquire. In the Patent and Close Rolls for 2 & 3 Henry V. a partial search failed to discover a gentleman. The first gentleman we meet with in the early chancery pro- ceedings are William Yevenet of Birchholt in Kent, and John and William de Killom of Killom in Nottinghamshire, all in 1416-7.^ Agnes Killom, who was a party to the same suit, is probably the first lady ever described as a ' gentlewoman.' From the Coroners' Rolls I obtained no result, but was more fortunate with the Staffordshire Indictments, attributed to the year 141 3-4. The cases which arose out of these present- ments by the Hundred Courts are said to have been tried ^ Wright, ii. 287. ^ Spelman^s Glossary, under * Generosus.' ^ Bundle 4, No. 47 ; 5, No. 40 ; 6, No. 142.
