A RUFFLER.

The Ruffler, because he is first in degree of this odious order, and is
so called in a statute made for the punishment of Vagabonds in the
twenty-seventh year of King Henry VIII, late of most famous memory, he
shall be first placed as the worthiest of this unruly rabblement. And he
is so called when he goeth first abroad. Either he hath served in the
wars, or else he hath been a serving-man, and weary of well-doing,
shaking off all pain, doth choose him this idle life; and wretchedly
wanders about the most shires of this realm, and with stout audacity
demandeth, where he thinketh he may be bold, and circumspect enough
where he seeth cause, to ask charity ruefully and lamentably, that it
would make a flinty heart to relent and pity his miserable estate, how
he hath been maimed and bruised in the wars. Peradventure one will show
you some outward wound which he got at some drunken fray, either halting
of some privy wound festered with a filthy fiery flankard [brand]. For
be well assured that the hardiest soldiers be either slain or maimed,
either and [or if] they escape all hazards and return home again, if
they be without relief of their friends they will surely desperately rob
and steal, and either shortly be hanged or miserably die in prison. For
they be so much ashamed and disdain to beg or ask charity, that rather
they will as desperately fight for to live and maintain themselves, as
manfully and valiantly they ventured themselves in the Prince's quarrel.
Now these Rufflers, the outcasts of serving-men, when begging or craving
fails them, they pick and pilfer from other inferior beggars that they
meet by the way, as rogues, palliards, morts, and doxes. Yea, if they
meet with a woman alone riding to the market, either old man or boy,
that he kneweth well will not resist, such they fetch and spoil. These
Rufflers, after a year or two at the farthest, become upright men [lusty