he same I offer now not with such
vsury and gayne as your beneuolence and syngular bounty, by long
forbearing hath deserued, but with such affected will and desyre
of recompence, as any man alyue can owe to so rare a friend.
Your worship I haue chosen for the firste person of this boke,
and the protector of the same (the matter moste specially therin
comprised, treating of courtly fashions and maners, and of the
customes of loue's gallantise, and the good or yll successe
therof,) because you be an auncient Courtier, and one of the
eldest Trayne, and such as hath bene imployed by sundry our
Princes, in their affayres of greatest wayght and importance,
and for that your selfe in your lustiest tyme (euer bred and
brought vp in Court,) haue not ben vnacquainted with those
occurrants. If I shoulde stand particularlye to touch the
originall of your noble Auncestry, the succession of that
renowmed line, their fidelity for graue aduise and counsel, your
honowrable education, the mariage of a mighty kyng with one of
your sisters, the valiant exploites of your parents againste the
Frenche and Scottes, the worthye seruice of your selfe in
fielde, wherby you deseruedly wanne the order of Knighthode, the
trust which her maiestie reposeth in you, by disposing vnder
your charge the store of her Armure, and your worthy preferment
to be Maister of her Armary generall. If I should make recitall
of your careful industry and painful trauel sustayned, for
aunswearing her Maiestye's expectation, your noble cherishing of
the skilful in that science, your good aduancemente of the best
to supply the vacant romes, your refusall of the vnworthy: and
finally of your modest and curteous dealings in that office,
I feare lacke of ability (and not of matter) would want grace
and order by further circumstaunce to adde sufficient prayse:
yea although my selfe do say nothinge, (but reserue the same in
silence to auoyd suspecte of adulation) the very armure and
their furnitures do speake, vniuersal testimony doth wonder, and
the Readines of the same for tyme of seruice doth aduouch. Which
care of things continually resting in your breast, hath atchyued
such a tymely diligence, and successe, as when her Maiestye's
aduersary shal be readye to molest, she shal be prest (by God's
assistance) to defend and march. But not to hold your worship
long by length of preamble, or to discourse what I might further
saye, either in fauour of this boke, or commendation