Hmm... signs of the decaying Elizabethan World View, perhaps?

I don't know if I particularly agree with the others before me who argue that Baldock was merely "name-dropping." I do agree that he was trying to impress the King, but the more important thing to this passage is that it demonstrates the fragmentation of the Elizabethan World View. By stating that he is not a nobleman, but is injecting himself into the court, Baldock functions as a metaphorical "break" in the Chain of Being. In this instance, the Chain of Being is not the order of forms in the universe and their proper place, but rather that of your class, your rank, and your breeding. As Ranulf Hidgen states in Polychronicon:

In the universal order of things the top of an inferior class touches the bottom of a superior: as for instance oysters, which, occupying as it were the lowest position in the class of animals, scarcely rise above tile life of plants, because they cling to the earth without motion and possess the sense of touch alone. (qtd. in Berdine)

Baldock is artifically raising his status by stating that his "gentry" he "fetched from Oxford, not heraldry" (Edward II II.ii.242-43). The OED also states that "to fetch" also denotes "to steal," which carries a negative implication. Likewise, the word alludes to something that is commodified--an object that can be taken, sold, and otherwise easy to obtain, rather than something that is given from on High by some otherworldly power.
The fragmentation of the Elizabethan World View furthers the corrupted state of the kingdom under King Edward II's reign.

(sorry this is late, I totally forgot I was supposed to post on the group today)

Work Cited
Berdine, Maggie. "The Elizabethan World View." The Elizabethan World View. West Virginia University at Parkersburg. .