Class consciousness

Lawrence Stone records the following in his classic Crisis of the Aristocracy : “So deep [was] feeling of a fundamental distinction of ranks that gentlemen did not hesitate to behave in ways which would today be considered base and even cowardly. When Lord Herbert of Cherbury was shipwrecked at Dover in 1609 he leaped into the only rescue boat, used his drawn sword to prevent anyone but Sir Thomas Lacy from entering, and then deserted the sinking ship and its crew and made for the safety of the shore – an action which he was not ashamed to record in his autobiography.”