"Yet, Urswick,
We'll not abate one penny, what in Parliament
Hath freely been contributed; we must not:
Money gives soul to action. Our competitor
_The Flemish counterfeit_, with James of Scotland,
Will prove what courage need and want can nourish,
Without the food of fit supplies."
Ford [1634], _Perkin Warbeck_, Act III. Sc. 1.
"_Cuddy._ Yes, I was ten days together there the last
Shrove-tide.
"_2nd Clown._ How could that be, when there are but seven days
in the week?
"_Cuddy._ Prithee, peace! I reckon _stila nova_ as a
traveller; thou understandest as a freshwater
farmer, that never saw'st a week beyond sea. _Ask
any soldier that ever received his pay but in the
Low Countries, and he'll tell thee there are Eight
days in the week there hard by._ How dost thou think
they rise in High Germany, Italy, and those remoter
places?"--Rowley, Decker, and Ford.
_Witch of Edmonton_, Act III. Sc. 1.
"This passage is explained by the following lines of Butler:
'The soldier does it every day,
_Eight to the week_, for sixpence pay.'"
Note by the Editor, Hartley Coleridge, in the
Glossary. Ed. London: Moxon, 1839.
IV. De Thou gives the following anecdote, when speaking of a defeat,
more disgraceful, however, than disastrous, which befel the French on
the borders of Flanders, A.D. 1555, in which many nobles and gentry were
captured by the Flemings:
"Cum delectus illi ex CCCC peditibus et MCC equitibus conflati,
quorum dux erat Jallius ex primaria in Andibus nobilitatae vir, in
hosticum excurrissent, et magnas praedas abegissent, dum redirent
solutis ordinibus homines ut plurimum militiae ignari, inter
Rigiacum Atrebatum et Bapalmam, ab Alsimontio loci illius praefecto
secus viam et oppositam silvam ac subjectum rivum, insidiis
excepti sunt, et ab exiguo numero caesi, ac majorem partem, cum
effugium non esset capti, non sine verborum ludibrio, nimirum,
_Nobiles Galliae non appensos a Belgis capi_! Quod dicebatur
allusione facta ad Monetae aureae Anglicanae genus, quod vulgo
nobilium nomine indigitatur."--Thuani _Hist._ lib. XVI. ad. a.
1555, tom. i. p. 494. ed. Genev. 1626.
"When these levies, made up of 400 foot soldiers and 1200
horsemen, whose leader was La Jaille, one of the principal
nobility of Anjou, had made a foray on the enemy's border, and
driven off an immense booty; upon their retreat, which, being men
for the most part utterly ignorant of military service, they
conducted with great disorder, between Arras and Bapaume, they
were entrapped by Osmand, who commanded in those parts, into an
ambuscade set for them close to their line of march, with a wood
in their front and a river below them. A few of them were slain,
but the greater part, inasmuch as there was no way of escape, were
taken prisoners: which gave occasion to the following satirical
play upon words: '_That Flemings had taken French Nobles without
first weighing them!_' The play on the words, of course, alluding
to the English gold coins commonly known by the name of 'the
noble.'"
The last instance shows the common opinion entertained of the Flemings,
as being traders far too keen to take any coin except it were of full
tale and weight. And although the expression "Flemish account" may have
originated from their practice as merchants, yet, from the second
instance quoted from Ford and Decker, it may not unreasonably be
inferred that it received greater currency from their method of paying
the soldiers who also served as mercenaries in the wars of the Low
Countries.