ed to Virginia at this period their arrival
would scarcely have escaped being recorded. Their prominence and the
circumstances of their coming to the colony would have insured for
them a place in the writings of the day. A careful collection of the
names of those Cavaliers that were prominent enough to find a place in
the records, shows that their number was insignificant. The following
list includes nearly all of any note whatsoever: Sir Thomas Lunsford,
Col. Hammond, Sir Philip Honeywood, Col. Norwood, Stevens, Brodnax,
Welsford, Molesworth, Col. Moryson, John Woodward, Robert Jones,
Nicholas Dunn, Anthony Langston, Bishop, Culpeper, Peter Jenings, John
Washington, Lawrence Washington, Sir Dudley Wiat, Major Fox, Dr.
Jeremiah Harrison, Sir Gray Shipworth, Sir Henry Chiskeley and Col.
Joseph Bridger. Of this number a large part returned to England and
others failed to establish families in the colony. How few were their
numbers is shown by the assertions of colonial writers. Sir William
Berkeley reported in 1671 that Cromwell's "tyranny" had sent divers
worthy men to the colony. Hugh Jones, writing in 1722, speaks of the
civil wars in England as causing several families of good birth and
fortune to settle in Virginia. This language certainly gives no
indication of a wholesale immigration of Cavaliers.

Some writers have pointed to the number of families in Virginia that
were entitled to the use of coats-of-arms as convincing proof that the
aristocracy of the colony was founded by men of high social rank. It
is true that in numerous instances Virginians had the right to
coats-of-arms, but this does not prove that their blood was noble, for
in most cases these emblems of gentility came to them through
ancestors that were mercantile in occupation and in instinct. During
the 17th century the trades were in high repute in England, and to
them resorted many younger sons of the gentry. These youths, excluded
from a share in the paternal estate by the law of primogeniture, were
forced either into the professions or the trades. It was the custom
for the country gentleman to leave to his eldest son the whole of his
landed estates; the second son he sent to Oxford or to Cambridge to
prepare for one of the learned professions, such as divinity, medicine
or law; the third was apprenticed to some local surgeon or
apothecary; the fourth was sent to London to learn the art of weaving,
of watchmaking or the like. It was the educating o