“I wish thee, Vin., before all wealth, Both bodily and ghostly health: Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee, So much of either may undo thee. I wish thee learning, not for show, Enough for to instruct, and know; Not such as gentlemen require, To prate at table, or at fire. I wish thee all thy mother’s graces, Thy father’s fortune, and his places. I wish thee friends, and one at court, Not to build on but support; To keep thee, not in doing many Oppressions, but from suffering any. I wish thee peace in all thy ways, Nor lazy nor contentious days; And when thy soul and body part, As innocent as now thou art.”
Or take the case of the Gills, father and son. Alexander Gill, senior, was High Master of St. Paul’s School from 1608 to 1635, and is famous as having numbered Milton among his pupils. A degree of fame is also his for the unsparing use of the rod, which he wielded even upon his son, the under master:
“‘O good Sir,’ then cry’d he, ‘In private let it be, And do not sauce me openly.’”
In his will we see that as he had ruled in his lifetime, so he would have his wife rule after him. “And although it may seem needless to charge my sons so professed how they should honour their mother, yet I hold it fit in and by this my last will to leave this precept unto them as my last remembrance, charging them as much as I can that, as they hope for a blessing of God to be with them, to give her that honour which is due as the law of God and nature bindeth them, and in every thing to harken to her counsel and precept and to obey her and be ruled by her.”
Nor is it surprising to find that another son, Nathaniel, “hath refused my correction,” and that he has an “unthankful and injurious brother.” “To my unthankful and injurious brother Simon Gill I freely forgive all debts which he oweth me, with all demands for other charges of food apparel losses and supplies in his want by which I have been much damnified by him, which in a most charitable accompt would come to above fifty pounds; I forgive, I say, all most freely except one bill of eight pounds, which debt I give to my executrix, with hope she will not be troublesome to him by suit thereof except he become troublesome unto her or her children as his manner hath been towards me and others.”