Letter 97 to a much earlier date than that assigned to it by the

endorsement.]

[Footnote 155-1: Letter 94.]

[Footnote 155-2: No. 93.]

[Footnote 155-3: No. 94.]

Some years certainly elapsed after this before either Stephen Scrope found a wife or Elizabeth Paston a husband. The former ultimately married Joan, the daughter of Richard Bingham, judge of the King’s Bench; the latter was married to Robert Poynings, whom we have already had occasion to notice as an ally of Jack Cade in 1450, and a ringleader in other movements a few years later. This second marriage appears to have taken place about New Year’s Day 1459;[156-1] before which time we find various other proposals for her hand besides that of Scrope.[156-2] Among these it may be noted that Edmund, Lord Grey of Hastings, wrote to her brother to say that he knew a gentleman with property worth 300 marks (£200) a year to whom she might be disposed of. No doubt, as in similar cases, this gentleman was a feudal ward, whose own opinion was the very last that was consulted as to the lady to whom he should be united. But it is time that we return to the current of public affairs.[156-3]

[Footnote 156-1: _See_ No. 374.]

[Footnote 156-2: Nos. 236, 250, 252.]

[Footnote 156-3: We ought not to leave unnoticed one fact in the relations of Scrope and Fastolf which is much more creditable to both of them than the disputes above mentioned. In the year 1450, Scrope translated from the French and dedicated to Sir John, ‘for his contemplation and solace,’ a work entitled _Ditz de Philosophius_ (Sayings of Philosophers), of which the original MS. is now in the Harleian Collection, No. 2266. That Fastolf was a real lover of literature, and encouraged literary tastes in those about him, there can be no question.]

_The Strife of Parties_

[Sidenote: The king’s recovery.] At Christmas, to the great joy of the nation, the king began to recover from his sad illness. He woke up, as it were, from a long sleep. So decidedly had he regained his faculties, that, first, on St. John’s Day (27th December), he commanded his almoner to ride to Canterbury with an offering, and his secretary to present another at the shrine of St. Edward. On the following Monday, the 30th, the queen came to him and brought with her the infant prince, for whom nearly twelve months before she had in vain endeavoured to bespeak his notice. What occurred at that touching interview we know from a letter of Edmund Clere to John Paston, and it would be impossible to wish it recorded in other words. ‘And then he asked what the Prince’s name was, and the queen told him “Edward”; and then he held up his hands and thanked God thereof. And he said he never knew till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wist not where he had been whilst he hath been sick, till now. And he asked who was godfathers, and the queen told him; and he was well apaid. And she told him that the cardinal (Kemp) was dead; and he said he knew never thereof till that time; and he said one of the wisest lords in this land was dead.’[157-1]

[Footnote 157-1: No. 270.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1455.] On the 7th of January, Bishop Waynflete and the Prior of St. John’s were admitted to speak with him, and finding his discourse as clear and coherent as they had ever known it, on coming out of the audience chamber they wept for joy.[157-2]

[Footnote 157-2: _Ibid._]

Joy was doubtless the prevailing sentiment among all ranks and classes of people; but there was one to whom the news of the king’s recovery must have afforded a delight and satisfaction beyond what any one else--unless it were Queen Margaret--could possibly derive from it. The Duke of Somerset had now lain in prison more than a year. The day appointed for his trial had passed away and nothing had been done. It certainly casts some suspicion upon the even-handed justice of the Duke of York, that his adversary was thus denied a hearing; but the fault may have been due, after all, to weakness more than malice. In cases of treason, when once a trial was instituted against a leading nobleman, a conviction was, in those days, an absolutely invariable result; but this made it a thing all the more dangerous to attempt when it was hopeless to expect the positive sanction of the king. The real cause, however, why Somerset was not brought to trial can only be a matter of conjecture. His continued confinement, however harsh, was, according to the practice of those days, legal; nor was it till six weeks after the king’s recovery that he was restored to liberty. A new day, meanwhile, and not a very early one, was fixed for the hearing of charges against him. On the morrow of All Souls--the 3rd of November following--he was to appear before the Council. This was determined on the 5th of February. Four lords undertook to give surety in their own proper persons that he would make his appearance on the day named; and orders were immediately issued to release him from confinement.[158-1]

[Footnote 158-1: Rymer, xi. 361.]

On the 4th day of March, he presented himself at a Council held before the king in his palace at Greenwich. The Duke of York was present, with ten bishops and twenty temporal peers, among whom were the Protector’s friend, the Earl of Salisbury, Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Worcester, Treasurer of England, and the king’s half-brother, the Earl of Pembroke. His accuser, the Duke of Norfolk, was absent, probably not without a reason. In presence of the assembled lords, Somerset then declared that he had been imprisoned without a cause and confined in the Tower of London one whole year and more than ten weeks over, and had only been liberated on bail on the 7th of February. So, as he declared there was no charge made against him for which he deserved to be confined, he besought the king that his sureties might be discharged; offering, if any one would accuse him of anything contrary to his allegiance, that he would be ready at all times to answer according to law and like a true knight. [Sidenote: Somerset released.] His protestations of loyalty were at once accepted by the king, who thereupon declared that he knew the duke to be his true and faithful liegeman, and wished it to be understood that he so reputed him. After this, the mouths of all adversaries were of course sealed up. The duke’s bail were discharged. His character was cleared from every insinuation of disloyalty; and whatever questions might remain between him and the Duke of York were referred to the arbitration of eight other lords, whose judgment both parties were bound over in recognisances of 20,000 marks, that they would abide.[158-2]

[Footnote 158-2: _Ibid._ 362, 363.]

The significance of all this could not be doubtful. The king’s recovery had put an end to the Duke of York’s power as Protector, and he was determined to be guided once more by the counsels of the queen and Somerset. On the 6th March, York was deprived of the government of Calais which he had undertaken by indenture for seven years.[159-1] On the 7th, the Great Seal was taken from the Earl of Salisbury and given to Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. These changes, or at least the former, promised little good to the country; and in the beginning of May we not only find that Calais stood again in imminent danger of siege,[159-2] but that considerable fears were entertained of an invasion of England.[159-3] But to the Duke of York they gave cause for personal apprehension. Notwithstanding the specious appointment of a tribunal to settle the controversy between him and Somerset, it was utterly impossible for him to expect anything like an equitable adjustment. A Council was called at Westminster in the old exclusive spirit, neither York nor any of his friends being summoned to attend it. A Great Council was then arranged to meet at Leicester long before the day on which judgment was to be given by the arbitrators; and it was feared both by York and his friends, the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, that if they ventured to appear there they would find themselves entrapped. The ostensible ground of the calling of that council was to provide for the surety of the king’s person; from which it was fairly to be conjectured that a suspicion of treason was to be insinuated against persons who were too deservedly popular to be arrested in London with safety to the Government.[159-4]

[Footnote 159-1: Rymer, xi. 363.]

[Footnote 159-2: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 234-8.]

[Footnote 159-3: On the _Patent Roll_, 33. Hen. VI. p. 19 _d._, is a commission dated 5th May, for keeping watch on the coast of Kent against invasion.]

[Footnote 159-4: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 280-1.]

[Sidenote: York and his friends take arms.] York had by this time retired into the north, and uniting with Salisbury and Warwick, it was determined by all three that the cause assigned for the calling of the Council justified them in seeking the king’s presence with a strong body of followers. On the 20th May they arrived at Royston, and from thence addressed a letter to Archbishop Bourchier, as Chancellor, in which they not only repudiated all intention of disloyalty, but declared that, as the Council was summoned for the surety of the king’s person, they had brought with them a company of armed followers expressly for his protection. If any real danger was to be apprehended they were come to do him service; but if their own personal enemies were abusing their influence with the king to inspire him with causeless distrust, they were determined to remove unjust suspicions, and relied on their armed companies for protection to themselves. Meanwhile they requested the archbishop’s intercession to explain to Henry the true motives of their conduct.[160-1]

[Footnote 160-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 280-1.]

Next day they marched on to Ware, and there penned an address to the king himself, of which copies seem to have been diffused, either at the time or very shortly afterwards, in justification of their proceedings. One of these came to the hands of John Paston, and the reader may consequently peruse the memorial for himself in Volume III.[160-2] In it, as will be seen, York and his friends again made most urgent protest of their good intent, and complained grievously of the unfair proceedings of their enemies in excluding them from the royal presence and poisoning the king’s mind with doubts of their allegiance. They declared that they had no other intent in seeking the king’s presence than to prove themselves his true liegemen by doing him all the service in their power; and they referred him further to a copy of their letter to the archbishop, which they thought it well to forward along with their memorial, as they had not been informed that he had shown its contents to the king.

[Footnote 160-2: No. 282.]

In point of fact, neither the letter to the archbishop nor the memorial to the king himself was allowed to come to Henry’s hands. The archbishop, indeed, had done his duty, and on receipt of the letter to himself had sent it on, with all haste, to Kilburn, where his messenger overtook the king on his way northwards from London. But the man was not admitted into the royal presence; for the Duke of Somerset and his friends were determined the Yorkists should not be heard, that their advance might wear as much as possible the aspect of a rebellion. York and his allies accordingly marched on from Ware to St. Albans, where they arrived at an early hour on the morning of the 22nd. Meanwhile the king, who had left London the day before, accompanied by the Dukes of Buckingham and Somerset, his half-brother, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, the Earls of Northumberland, Devonshire, Stafford, Dorset, and Wiltshire, and a number of other lords, knights, and gentlemen, amounting in all to upwards of 2000, arrived at the very same place just before them, having rested at Watford the previous night. Anticipating the approach of the Duke of York, the king and his friends occupied the suburb of St. Peter’s, which lay on that side of the town by which the duke must necessarily come. The duke accordingly, and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, drew up their forces in the Keyfield, outside the barriers of the town. From seven in the morning till near ten o’clock the two hosts remained facing each other without a blow being struck; during which time the duke and the two earls, still endeavouring to obtain a peaceful interview with the king, petitioned to have an answer to their memorial of the preceding day. They were told in reply that it had not been received by the king, on which they made new and more urgent representations. At first, it would seem, they demanded access to the royal presence to declare and justify their true intentions; but when this could not be obtained, they made a still more obnoxious request. They insisted that certain persons whom they would accuse of treason should be delivered into their hands, reminding the king, as respectfully as the fact could be alluded to, that past experience would not permit them to trust to a mere promise on his part that a traitor should be kept in confinement.[161-1]

[Footnote 161-1: No. 283. _Rolls of Parl._ v. 281-2.]

For the answer made to this demand, and for the details of the battle which ensued, we may as well refer the reader to the very curious paper (No. 283) from which we have already derived most of the above particulars. We are not here writing the history of the times, and it may be sufficient for us to say that York and his friends were completely victorious. The action lasted only half an hour. [Sidenote: Battle of St. Albans.] The Duke of Somerset was slain, and with him the Earl of Northumberland, Lords Clifford and Clinton, with about 400 persons of inferior rank, as the numbers were at first reported. This, however, seems to have been an over-estimate.[162-1] The king himself was wounded by an arrow in the neck, and, after the engagement, was taken prisoner; while the Earl of Wiltshire, and the Duke of York’s old enemy, Thorpe, fled disgracefully. When all was over, the duke with the two earls came humbly and knelt before the king, beseeching his forgiveness for what they had done in his presence, and requesting him to acknowledge them as his true liegemen, seeing that they had never intended to do him personal injury. To this Henry at once agreed, and took them once more into favour.[162-2]

[Footnote 162-1: John Crane, writing from Lambeth on Whitsunday, three days after the battle, says, ‘at most six score.’ No. 285. Another authority says, ‘60 persons of gentlemen and other.’ _English Chronicle_, ed. Davies, p. 72.]

[Footnote 162-2: Nos. 283, 284, 285.]

Thus again was effected ‘a change of ministry’--by sharper and more violent means than had formerly been employed, but certainly by the only means which had now become at all practicable. The government of Somerset was distinctly unconstitutional. The deliberate and systematic exclusion from the king’s councils of a leading peer of the realm--of one who, by mere hereditary right, quite apart from natural capacity and fitness, was entitled at any time to give his advice to royalty, was a crime that could not be justified. For conduct very similar the two Spencers had been banished by Parliament in the days of Edward II.; and if it had been suffered now to remain unpunished, there would not have existed the smallest check upon arbitrary government and intolerable maladministration.

Such, we may be well assured, was the feeling of the city of London, which on the day following the battle received the victors in triumph with a general procession.[162-3] The Duke of York conducted the king to the Bishop of London’s palace, and a council being assembled, writs were sent out for a Parliament to meet on the 9th of July following.[162-4] Meanwhile the duke was made Constable of England, and Lord Bourchier, Treasurer. The defence of Calais was committed to the Earl of Warwick.[162-5] There was, however, no entire and sweeping change made in the officers of state. The Great Seal was allowed to continue in the hands of Archbishop Bourchier.

[Footnote 162-3: No. 284.]

[Footnote 162-4: No. 283.]

[Footnote 162-5: No. 285.]

It remained, however, for Parliament to ratify what had been done. However justifiable in a moral point of view, the conduct of York and his allies wore an aspect of violence towards the sovereign, which made it necessary that its legality should be investigated by the highest court in the realm. Inquiry was made both in Parliament and by the king’s Council which of the lords about the king had been responsible for provoking the collision. Angry and unpleasant feelings, as might be expected, burst out in consequence. The Earl of Warwick accused Lord Cromwell to the king, and when the latter attempted to vindicate himself, swore that what he stated was untrue. So greatly was Lord Cromwell intimidated, that the Earl of Shrewsbury, at his request, took up his lodging at St. James’s, beside the Mews, for his protection. The retainers of York, Warwick, and Salisbury went about fully armed, and kept their lords’ barges on the river amply furnished with weapons. Proclamations, however, were presently issued against bearing arms. The Parliament, at last, laid the whole blame of the encounter upon the deceased Duke of Somerset, and the courtiers Thorpe and Joseph; and by an Act which received the royal assent, it was declared that the Duke of York and his friends had acted the part of good and faithful subjects. ‘To the which bill,’ said Henry Windsor in a letter to his friends Bocking and Worcester, ‘many a man grudged full sore now it is past’; but he requested them to burn a communication full of such uncomfortable matter to comment upon as the quarrels and heartburnings of lords.[163-1]

[Footnote 163-1: No. 299.]

[Sidenote: The Parliamentary elections.] But with whatever grudge it may have been that Parliament condoned the acts of the Yorkists, it seems not to have been without some degree of pressure that the duke and his allies obtained a Parliament so much after their own minds. Here, for instance, we have the Duchess of Norfolk writing to John Paston, just before the election, that it was thought necessary ‘that my lord have at this time in the Parliament such persons as long unto him and be of his menial servants (!)’; on which account she requests his vote and influence in favour of John Howard and Sir Roger Chamberlain.[164-1] The application could scarcely have been agreeable to the person to whom it was addressed; for it seems that John Paston himself had on this occasion some thought of coming forward as a candidate for Norfolk. Exception was taken to John Howard, one of the duke’s nominees (who, about eight-and-twenty years later, was created Duke of Norfolk himself, and was the ancestor of the present ducal family), on the ground that he possessed no lands within the county;[164-2] and at the nomination the names of Berney, Grey, and Paston were received with great favour.[164-3] John Jenney thought it ‘an evil precedent for the shire that a strange man should be chosen, and no worship to my lord of York nor to my lord of Norfolk to write for him; for if the gentlemen of the shire will suffer such inconvenience, in good faith the shire shall not be called of such worship as it hath been.’ So unpopular, in fact, was Howard’s candidature that the Duke of Norfolk was half persuaded to give him up, declaring, that since his return was objected to he would write to the under-sheriff that the shire should have free election, provided they did not choose Sir Thomas Tuddenham or any of the old adherents of the Duke of Suffolk. And so, for a time it seemed as if free election would be allowed. The under-sheriff even ventured to write to John Paston that he meant to return his name and that of Master Grey; ‘nevertheless,’ he added significantly, ‘I have a master.’ Howard appeared to be savage with disappointment. He was ‘as wode’ (_i.e._ mad), wrote John Jenney, ‘as a wild bullock.’ But in the end it appeared he had no need to be exasperated, for when the poll came to be taken, he and the other nominee of the Duke of Norfolk were found to have gained the day.[164-4]

[Footnote 164-1: No. 288.]

[Footnote 164-2: Nos. 294, 295.]

[Footnote 164-3: No. 291.]

[Footnote 164-4: No. 295.]

Besides the act of indemnity for the Duke of York and his partisans, and a new oath of allegiance being sworn to by the Lords, little was done at this meeting of the Parliament. On the 31st July it was prorogued, to meet again upon the 12th November. But in the interval another complication had arisen. The king, who seems to have suffered in health from the severe shock that he must have received by the battle of St. Albans,[165-1] had felt the necessity of retirement to recover his composure, and had withdrawn before the meeting of Parliament to Hertford; at which time the Duke of York, in order to be near him, took up his quarters at the Friars at Ware.[165-2] He was well, or at all events well enough to open Parliament in person on the 9th July; but shortly afterwards he retired to Hertford again, where according to the dates of his Privy Seals, I find that he remained during August and September. [Sidenote: The king again ill.] In the month of October following he was still there, and it was reported that he had fallen sick of his old infirmity;--which proved to be too true.[165-3]

[Footnote 165-1: _See_ Rymer, xi. 366.]

[Footnote 165-2: No. 287.]

[Footnote 165-3: No. 303.]

Altogether matters looked gloomy enough. Change of ministry by force of arms, whatever might be said for it, was not a thing to win the confidence either of king or people. There were prophecies bruited about that another battle would take place before St. Andrew’s Day--the greatest that had been since the battle of Shrewsbury in the days of Henry IV. One Dr. Green ventured to predict it in detail. The scene of the conflict was to be between the Bishop of Salisbury’s Inn and Westminster Bars, and three bishops and four temporal lords were to be among the slain. The Londoners were spared this excitement; but from the country there came news of a party outrage committed by the eldest son of the Earl of Devonshire, on a dependant of the Lord Bonvile, [Sidenote: Disturbances in the West.] and the West of England seems to have been disturbed for some time afterwards.[165-4] From a local MS. chronicle cited by Holinshed, it appears that a regular pitched battle took place between the two noblemen on Clist Heath, about two miles from Exeter, in which Lord Bonvile having gained the victory, entered triumphantly into the city. A modern historian of Exeter, however, seems to have read the MS. differently, and tells us that Lord Bonvile was driven into the city by defeat.[165-5] However this may be, the Earl of Devonshire did not allow the matter to rest. Accompanied by a large body of retainers--no less, it is stated, than 800 horse and 4000 foot--he attacked the Dean and Canons of Exeter, made several of the latter prisoners, and robbed the cathedral.[166-1]

[Footnote 165-4: No. 303. _See_ also a brief account of the same affair in W. Worcester’s _Itinerary_, p. 114.]

[Footnote 165-5: Jenkins’s _History of Exeter_, p. 78.]

[Footnote 166-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 285. It may be observed that the bishopric was at this time vacant, and the dean, whose name was John Hals, had received a papal provision to be the new bishop, but was forced to relinquish it in favour of George Nevill, son of the Earl of Salisbury, a young man of only three-and-twenty years of age. Godwin _de Præsulibus_. Le Neve’s _Fasti_. Nicolas’s _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 265.]

That one out of the number of those great lords who had been attached to the government of the queen and the Duke of Somerset should thus have abused his local influence, was pretty much what might have been expected at such a juncture. But the effect was only to strengthen the hands of York when Parliament met again in November. The situation was now once more what it had been in the beginning of the previous year. The day before Parliament met, the Duke of York obtained a commission to act as the king’s lieutenant on its assembling.[166-2] The warrant for the issuing of this commission was signed by no less than thirty-nine Lords of the Council. The Houses then met under the presidency of the duke.[166-3] The Commons sent a deputation to the Upper House, to petition the Lords that they would ‘be good means to the King’s Highness’ for the appointment of some person to undertake the defence of the realm and the repressing of disorders. But for some days this request remained unanswered. The appeal was renewed by the Commons a second time, and again a third time, with an intimation that no other business would be attended to till it was answered. [Sidenote: York again Protector.] On the second occasion the Lords named the Duke of York Protector, but he desired that they would excuse him, and elect some other. The Lords, however, declined to alter their choice, and the duke at last agreed to accept the office, on certain specific conditions which experience had taught him to make still more definite for his own protection than those on which he had before insisted. Among other things it was now agreed that the Protectorship should not again be terminated by the mere fact of the king’s recovery; but that when the king should be in a position to exercise his functions, the Protector should be discharged of his office in Parliament by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal.[167-1]

[Footnote 166-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 285.]

[Footnote 166-3: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 262.]

[Footnote 167-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 285-7.]

On the 19th of November, accordingly, York was formally appointed Protector for the second time. Three days afterwards, at Westminster, the king, whose infirmity on this occasion could scarcely have amounted to absolute loss of his faculties, committed the entire government of the kingdom to his Council, merely desiring that they would inform him of anything they might think fit to determine touching the honour and surety of his person.[167-2] The business of the nation was again placed on something like a stable and satisfactory footing; and Parliament, after sitting till the 13th December, was prorogued to the 14th January, in order that the Duke of York might go down into the west for the repressing of those disorders of which we have already spoken.[167-3]

[Footnote 167-2: _Ibid._ v. 288-90.]

[Footnote 167-3: _Ibid._ 321.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1456.] Unluckily, things did not remain long in a condition so hopeful for the restoration of order. Early in the following year the king recovered his health, and notwithstanding the support of which he had been assured in Parliament, York knew that his authority as Protector would be taken from him. On the 9th of February, as we learn from a letter of John Bocking, it had been anticipated that he would have received his discharge in Parliament; but he was allowed to retain office for a fortnight longer. On that day he and Warwick thought fit to come to the Parliament with a company of 300 armed men, alleging that they stood in danger of being waylaid upon the road. The pretence does not seem to have been generally credited; and the practical result of this demonstration was simply to prevent any other lords from going to the Parliament at all.[167-4]

[Footnote 167-4: No. 322.]

The real question, however, which had to be considered was the kind of government that should prevail when York was no more Protector. The queen was again making anxious efforts to get the management of affairs into her own hands; but the battle of St. Albans had deprived her of her great ally the Duke of Somerset, and there was no one now to fill his place. It is true he had left a son who was now Duke of Somerset in his stead, and quite as much attached to her interests. There were, moreover, the Duke of Buckingham and others who were by no means friendly to the Duke of York. But no man possessed anything like the degree of power, experience, and political ability to enable the king to dispense entirely with the services of his present Protector. The king himself, it was said, desired that he should be named his Chief Councillor and Lieutenant, and that powers should be conferred upon him by patent inferior only to those given him by the Parliament. But this was not thought a likely settlement, and no one really knew what was to be the new _régime_. The attention of the Lords was occupied with ‘a great gleaming star’ which had just made its appearance, and which really offered as much help to the solution of the enigma as any appearances purely mundane and political.[168-1]

[Footnote 168-1: No. 322.]

At length on the 25th of February the Lords exonerated York from his duties as Protector; soon after which, if not on the same day, Parliament must have been dissolved.[168-2] [Sidenote: Again discharged.] An Act of Resumption, rendered necessary by the state of the revenue, was the principal fruit of its deliberations.[168-3] The finances of the kingdom were placed, if not in a sound, at least in a more hopeful condition than before; and Parliament and the Protector were both dismissed, without, apparently, the slightest provision being made for the future conduct of affairs. Government, in fact, seems almost to have fallen into abeyance. There is a most striking blank in the records of the Privy Council from the end of January 1456 to the end of November 1457. That some councils were held during this period we know from other evidences;[168-4] but with the exception of one single occasion, when it was necessary to issue a commission for the trial of insurgents in Kent,[169-1] there is not a single record left to tell us what was done at them.

[Footnote 168-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 321.]

[Footnote 168-3: _Ibid._ 300. A more sweeping bill for this purpose, which was rejected by the Lords, states that the revenue was so encumbered ‘that the charge of every sheriff in substance exceedeth so far the receipt of the revenues thereof due and leviable to you (_i.e._ the king), that no person of goodwill dare take upon him to be sheriff in any shire, for the most party, in this land.’ _Ibid._ 328. Additional illustrations of this fact will be found in Nicolas’s _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 263-4, 272-3, and Preface lxxv-vi.]

[Footnote 168-4: Nos. 334, 345, 348.]

[Footnote 169-1: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 287.]

Yet the machine of state still moved, no one could tell exactly how. Acts were done in the king’s name if not really and truly by the king, and by the sheer necessity of the case York appears to have had the ordering of all things. But his authority hung by a thread. His acts were without the slightest legal validity except in so far as they might be considered as having the sanction of the king; and in whatever way that sanction may or may not have been expressed, there was no security that it would not afterwards be withdrawn and disavowed.

And so indeed it happened at this time in a matter that concerned deeply the honour of the whole country. The outbreak of civil war had provoked the interference of an enemy of whom Englishmen were always peculiarly intolerant. The Duke of Somerset slain at St. Albans was uncle to James II., the reigning king of Scotland, who is said to have resented his death on the ground of consanguinity. [Sidenote: The King of Scots.] In less than six weeks after the battle, ‘the King of Scots with the red face,’ as he is called in a contemporary chronicle, laid siege to Berwick both by water and land. But the Bishop of Durham, the Earl of Northumberland, and other Lords of the Marches, took prompt measures for the relief of the town, and soon assembled such a force as to compel James not only to quit the siege but to leave all his ordnance and victuals behind him.[169-2] How matters stood between the two countries during the next ten months we have no precise information; but it is clear that England, although the injured party, could not have been anxious to turn the occasion into one of open rupture. Peace still continued to be preserved till, on the 10th of May 1456, James wrote to the King of England by Lyon herald, declaring that the truce of 1453 was injurious to his kingdom, and that unless more favourable conditions were conceded to him he would have recourse to arms.[169-3] A message more calculated to fire the spirit of the English nation it would have been impossible for James to write; nevertheless, owing either to Henry’s love of peace, or to his lack of advisers after his own mind, it was not till the 26th of July that any answer was returned to it. On that day the Duke of York obtained, or took, the liberty of replying in Henry’s name. To the insolence of the King of Scots, he opposed all the haughtiness that might have been expected from the most warlike of Henry’s ancestors. Insisting to the fullest extent on those claims of feudal superiority which England never had abandoned and Scotland never had acknowledged, he told James that his conduct was mere insolence and treason in a vassal against his lord; that it inspired not the slightest dread but only contempt on the part of England; and that measures would be speedily taken to punish his presumption.[170-1]

[Footnote 169-2: _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 70 (edited by me for the Camden Society): _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 248-9.]

[Footnote 169-3: Lambeth MS. 211, f. 146 b.]

[Footnote 170-1: Lambeth MS. 211, f. 147. Rymer, xi. 383.]

A month later the Duke of York addressed a letter to James in his own name, declaring that as he understood the Scotch king had entered England, he purposed to go and meet him. He at the same time reproached James with conduct unworthy of one who was ‘called a mighty Prince and a courageous knight,’ in making daily forays and suddenly retiring again.[170-2] The end of this expedition we do not know; but we know that not long afterwards Henry changed his policy. The letter written by the Duke of York in the king’s name was regularly enrolled on the Scotch Roll among the records of Chancery; but to it was prefixed a note on the king’s behalf, disclaiming responsibility for its tenor, and attributing to the duke the usurpation of authority, and the disturbance of all government since the time of Jack Cade’s insurrection.[170-3]

[Footnote 170-2: Lambeth MS. 211, f. 148. This letter is dated 24th August 1456.]

[Footnote 170-3: Rymer, xi. 383.]

The glimpses of light which we have on the political situation during this period are far from satisfactory. Repeated notice, however, is taken in these letters of a fact which seems significant of general distrust and mutual suspicion among the leading persons in the land. The king, queen, and lords were all separated and kept carefully at a distance from each other. Thus, while the king was at Sheen, the queen and her infant prince were staying at Tutbury, the Duke of York at Sandal, and the Earl of Warwick at Warwick.[171-1] Afterwards we find the queen removed to Chester, while the Duke of Buckingham was at Writtle, near Chelmsford in Essex. The only lord with the king at Sheen was his half-brother the Earl of Pembroke. His other brother, the Earl of Richmond, who died in the course of this year, was in Wales making war upon some chieftain of the country whose name seems rather ambiguous. ‘My Lord [of] York,’ it is said, ‘is at Sendall still, and waiteth on the queen, and she on him.’[171-2] The state of matters was evidently such that it was apprehended serious outrages might break out; and reports were even spread abroad of a battle in which Lord Beaumont had been slain and the Earl of Warwick severely wounded.[171-3]

[Footnote 171-1: Nos. 330, 331.]

[Footnote 171-2: No. 334.]

[Footnote 171-3: No. 331.]

[[Earl of Warwick severely wounded.[171-3] _text has superfluous close quote_]]

[Sidenote: The king and queen.] The separation of the king and queen is especially remarkable. During May and June they were more than a hundred miles apart; and in the latter month the queen had increased the distance by removing from Tutbury in Staffordshire to Chester. It was then that she was said to be waiting on my Lord of York and he on her. The exact interpretation of the position must be partly matter of conjecture, but I take it to be as follows. The Duke of York, as we find stated only a few months later, was in very good favour with the king but not with the queen;[171-4] and we know from Fabyan that the latter was at this time doing all she could to put an end to his authority. It appears to me that by her influence the duke must have been ordered to withdraw from the Court, and that to prevent his again seeking access to the king’s presence, she pursued him into the north. At Tutbury[171-5] she would block his way from Sandal up to London; and though for some reason or other she removed further off to Chester, she still kept an anxious watch upon the duke, and he did the same on her. Very probably her removal did give him the opportunity she dreaded of moving southwards; for he must have been with the king at Windsor on the 26th of July when he wrote in Henry’s name that answer to the King of Scots of which we have already spoken.

[Footnote 171-4: No. 348.]

[Footnote 171-5: Tutbury was one of the possessions given to her for her dower. _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 118.]

However this may be, Margaret soon after had recourse to other means to effect her object. In consequence of the Duke of York’s popularity in London, it was expedient to remove the king some distance from the capital.[172-1] He appears to have been staying at Windsor during July and the beginning of August. In the middle of the latter month he took his departure northwards. By the dates of his Privy Seals we find him to have been at Wycombe on the 18th, at Kenilworth on the 24th, and at Lichfield on the 29th. In September he moved about between Lichfield, Coventry, and Leicester; but by the beginning of October the Court seems to have settled itself at Coventry, where a council was assembled on the 7th.[172-2] To this council the Duke of York and his friends were regularly summoned, as well as the lords whom the queen intended to honour; but even before it met, changes had begun to be made in the principal officers of state. On the 5th, Viscount Bourchier, the brother of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was dismissed from his office of Lord Treasurer, and the Earl of Shrewsbury was appointed in his room. On the 11th, the archbishop himself was called upon to surrender the Great Seal, and Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, was made Chancellor in his stead. Laurence Booth, afterwards Bishop of Durham, was made Lord Privy Seal.

[Footnote 172-1: Fabyan.]

[Footnote 172-2: No. 345.]

The new appointments seem to have been on their own merits unexceptionable,--that of Waynflete more especially. Whether the superiority of the new men was such as to make it advisable to supersede the old is another question, on which we would not attempt to pronounce an opinion, either one way or other. One thing, however, we may believe on the evidence of James Gresham, whose letters frequently give us very interesting political intelligence: the changes created dissatisfaction in some of the queen’s own friends, particularly in the Duke of Buckingham, who was half-brother to two of the discharged functionaries, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Viscount Bourchier. Either from this cause or from a mere English love of fair-play, it would appear that Buckingham now supported the Duke of York, who, it is said, though at this time he had some interviews with the king and found Henry still as friendly as he could desire, would certainly have been troubled at his departure if Buckingham had not befriended him. About the Court there was a general atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. On the 11th October, the very day on which Waynflete was appointed Chancellor, an encounter took place between the Duke of Somerset’s men and the watchmen of the city of Coventry, in which two or three of the citizens were killed. And probably it would have gone hard with the duke’s retainers, had not Buckingham used his good offices here too as peacemaker; for the alarm-bell rang and the citizens rose in arms. But by the interposition of Buckingham the tumult was appeased.[173-1]

[Footnote 173-1: No. 348.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1457.] For about a twelvemonth from this time we find that the Court continued generally at Coventry,[173-2] occasionally moving about to Stafford, Coleshill, Chester, Shrewsbury, Kenilworth, Hereford, and Leicester.[173-3] The queen evidently feared all the while to bring her husband nearer London, lest he should fall once more under the power of the Duke of York. Meanwhile the want of a vigorous ruler became every day more apparent. Not only was Calais again in danger of siege,[173-4] but the coast of Kent was attacked by enemies, and within the kingdom a dangerous spirit of disaffection had shown itself in various places. On the Patent Rolls we meet with numerous commissions for keeping watch upon the coasts,[173-5] for arraying the country against invasion,[173-6] and for assembling the _posse comitatus_ in various counties, against treasonable attempts to stir up the people.[173-7] During April the Court had removed to Hereford,[174-1] apparently in consequence of some disturbances which had taken place in Wales under Sir William Herbert. Its sojourn upon the Welsh borders had an excellent effect, the burgesses and gentlemen about Hereford all declaring themselves ready to take the king’s part unless a peace were made. On the 1st of May it was reported in London that Herbert had offered, on being granted his life and goods, to return to his allegiance and appear before the king and lords at Leicester; so we may conclude the insurrection did not last long after.[174-2]

[Footnote 173-2: Accounts of the pageants shown before Queen Margaret at Coventry are noticed as contained in the earliest Leet Book of the City. See _Historical MSS. Commission Report I._, 100.]

[Footnote 173-3: Privy Seals in Public Record Office.]

[Footnote 173-4: No. 356.]

[Footnote 173-5: _Patent Roll_, 35 Hen. VI. p. 1 m. 16 _d._ (26 Nov.); m. 7 _d._ (19 May).]

[Footnote 173-6: _Ibid._ p. 2 m. 5 _d._ (29 Aug.).]

[Footnote 173-7: _Ibid._ (18 July).]

[Footnote 174-1: No. 356. There are Privy Seals dated at Hereford between the 1st and the 23rd of April.]

[Footnote 174-2: No. 356. By the 4th of May the king had left Hereford and gone to Worcester, from which he proceeded to Winchcombe on the 10th and Kenilworth on the 13th. (Privy Seal dates.)]

But though the personal influence of the king was doubtless great and beneficial within his own immediate vicinity, it could do little for the good order and protection of the country generally. Distrust, exclusiveness, and a bankrupt exchequer were not likely to obtain for the king willing and hearty service. Notwithstanding the commissions issued to keep watch upon the coasts, the French managed to surprise and plunder Sandwich. [Sidenote: The French attack Sandwich.] On Sunday, the 28th August, a large force under the command of Pierre de Brézé, seneschal of Normandy, landed not far from the town, which they took and kept possession of during the entire day. A number of the inhabitants, on the first alarm, retreated on board some ships lying in the harbour, from whence they began presently to shoot at the enemy. But de Brézé having warned them that if they continued he would burn their ships, they found it prudent to leave off. Having killed the bailiffs and principal officers, the Frenchmen carried off a number of wealthy persons as prisoners, and returned to their ships in the evening, laden with valuable spoils from the town and neighbourhood.[174-3]

[Footnote 174-3: _English Chronicle_ (Davies), 74. _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 70, 71, 152-3. _Contin. of Monstrelet_, 70, 71.]

The disaster must have been keenly felt; but if Englishmen had known the whole truth, it would have been felt more keenly still. Our own old historians were not aware of the fact, but an early French chronicler who lived at the time assures us that the attack had been purposely invited by Margaret of Anjou out of hatred to the Duke of York, in order to make a diversion, while the Scots should ravage England![175-1] It was well for her that the truth was not suspected.

[Footnote 175-1: De Coussy, 209.]

_Reconciliation and Civil War_

At length, it would seem, the Court found it no longer possible to remain at a distance from the metropolis. In October the king had removed to Chertsey,[175-2] and soon after we find him presiding at a Great Council, which had been summoned to meet in his palace at Westminster in consequence of the urgent state of affairs. Though attended not only by the Duke of York, but by a large number of the principal lords on both sides, the meeting does not appear to have led to any very satisfactory results. All that we know of its proceedings is that some of them, at least, were of a stormy character,--one point on which all parties were agreed being the exclusion from the council chamber of Pecock, [Sidenote: Bishop Pecock.] Bishop of Chichester, an ardent and honest-minded prelate, who, having laboured hard to reconcile the Lollards to the authority of the Church by arguments of common sense instead of persecution, was at this time stigmatised as a heretic and sedition-monger, and very soon after was deprived of his bishopric. It augured little good for that union of parties which was now felt to be necessary for the public weal, that the first act on which men generally could be got to agree was the persecution of sense and reason. There were other matters before the council on which they were unable to come to a conclusion, and they broke up on the 29th November, with a resolution to meet again on the 27th January; for which meeting summonses were at once sent out, notifying that on that day not one of the lords would be excused attendance.[175-3]

[Footnote 175-2: Privy Seal dates.]

[Footnote 175-3: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 290-1.]

It was, indeed, particularly important that this meeting should be a full one, and that every lord should be compelled to take his share of the responsibility for its decisions. The principal aim was expressly stated to be a general reconciliation and adjustment of private controversies[176-1]--an object to which it was impossible to offer direct opposition. But whether it was really distasteful to a number of the peers, or obstacles started up in individual cases, there were certainly several who had not arrived in town by the day appointed for the meeting. [Sidenote: A.D. 1458.] The Earl of Salisbury’s excuse, dated at Sheriff Hutton on the 24th of January,[176-2] does not refer to this, for it appears certainly to be of a different year. Fabyan says that he had already arrived in London on the 15th January. He made his appearance there at the head of 400 horse, with eighty knights and squires in his company. The Duke of York also came, though he arrived only on the 26th, ‘with his own household only, to the number of 140 horse.’ But the Duke of Somerset only arrived on the last day of the month with 200 horse; the Duke of Exeter delayed his coming till the first week of February; and the Earl of Warwick, who had to come from Calais, was detained by contrary winds. Thus, although the king had come up to Westminster by the time prefixed, a full Council could not be had for at least some days after; and even on the 14th of February there was one absentee, the Earl of Arundel, who had to be written to by letters of Privy Seal.[176-3]

[Footnote 176-1: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 293.]

[Footnote 176-2: No. 361.]

[Footnote 176-3: No. 364. _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 293.]

[Sidenote: A Great Council in London.] But by the 14th Warwick had arrived in London with a body of 600 men, ‘all apparelled in red jackets, with white ragged staves.’[176-4] The town was now full of the retinues of the different noblemen, and the mayor and sheriffs trembled for the peace of the city. A very special watch was instituted. ‘The mayor,’ says Fabyan, ‘for so long as the king and the lords lay thus in the city, had daily in harness 5000 citizens, and rode daily about the city and suburbs of the same, to see that the king’s peace were kept; and nightly he provided for 3000 men in harness to give attendance upon three aldermen, and they to keep the night-watch till 7 of the clock upon the morrow, till the day-watch were assembled.’ If peace was to be the result of all this concourse, the settlement evidently could not bear to be protracted. The Duke of York and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick had taken up their quarters within the city itself; but the young lords whose fathers had been slain at St. Albans--the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland and his brother, Lord Egremont, and the Lord Clifford--were believed to be bent upon revenge, and the civic authorities refused them entrance within their bounds.[177-1] Thus the lords within the town and those without belonged to the two opposite parties respectively; and in consequence of their mutual jealousies, conferences had to be arranged between them in the morning at the Black Friars, and in the afternoon at the White Friars, in Fleet Street.[177-2] The king, for his part, having opened the proceedings with some very earnest exhortations addressed to both parties, withdrew himself and retired to Berkhampstead.[177-3] The Duke of Somerset and others went to and fro to consult with him during the deliberations. Meanwhile the necessity of some practical arrangement for government must have been felt more urgent every day. Sixty sail of Frenchmen were seen off the coast of Sussex; and though Lord Falconbridge was at Southampton in command of some vessels (probably on his own responsibility), there was a general feeling of insecurity among the merchants and among dwellers by the sea-coast. Botoner had heard privately from Calais that the French meditated a descent upon Norfolk at Cromer and Blakeney.[177-4] And the news shortly afterwards received from the district showed that his information was not far wrong.[177-5]

[Footnote 176-4: _Chronicle_ in MS. Cott., Vitell. A. xvi.]

[Footnote 177-1: _English Chronicle_ (ed. Davies), p. 77. Hall.]

[Footnote 177-2: Letter 366.]

[Footnote 177-3: Whethamstede, 417-18. Letter 365.]

[Footnote 177-4: Letter 365.]

[Footnote 177-5: Letter 366.]

[Sidenote: Terms of agreement.] At last it was agreed on both sides that old animosities should be laid aside, and that some reparation should be made by the Yorkists to the sons and widows of the lords who had fallen on the king’s side at St. Albans. The exact amount of this reparation was left to the award of Henry, who decided that it should consist of an endowment of £45 a year to the Monastery of St. Albans, to be employed in masses for the slain, and of certain money payments, or assignments out of moneys due to them by the Crown, to be made by York, Warwick, and Salisbury, to Eleanor, Duchess Dowager of Somerset and to her son, Duke Henry, to Lord Clifford, and others, in lieu of all claims and actions which the latter parties might have against the former.[178-1] With what cordiality this arrangement was accepted on either side we do not presume to say. Historians universally speak of it as a hollow concord, unreal from the first. But it at least preserved the kingdom in something like peace for about a twelvemonth. It was celebrated by a great procession to St. Paul’s on Lady Day, which must have been an imposing spectacle. The king marched in royal habit with the crown upon his head, York and the queen followed, arm in arm, and the principal rivals led the way, walking hand in hand.[178-2]

[Footnote 178-1: Whethamstede, 422 _sq._ _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 77, 78.]

[Footnote 178-2: Hall.]

[Sidenote: A sea fight.] The keeping of the sea was now intrusted to the Earl of Warwick, and it was not long before he distinguished himself by an action which probably relieved the English coasts for some time from any immediate danger of being attacked by the enemy. On the morning of Trinity Sunday word was brought to him at Calais of a fleet of 28 Spaniards, of which 16 were described as ‘great ships of forecastle.’ Immediately he manned such vessels as he had in readiness, and went out to seek the enemy. The force at his command was only five ships of forecastle, three carvels, and four pinnaces; but with these he did not hesitate to come to an engagement. At four o’clock on Monday morning the battle began, and it continued till ten, when the English obtained a hard-won victory. ‘As men say,’ wrote one of the combatants, ‘there was not so great a battle upon the sea this forty winter; and forsooth, we were well and truly beat.’ Nevertheless, six of the enemy’s ships were taken, and the rest were put to flight, not without very considerable slaughter on either side.[178-3]

[Footnote 178-3: Letter 369. Compare Fabyan. Whethamstede, who writes with some confusion in this part of his narrative, speaks of a great naval victory won by Warwick on St. Alban’s Day, the 22nd June 1459, over a fleet of Genoese and Spanish vessels, in which booty was taken to the value of £10,000, and upwards of a thousand prisoners, for whom it was difficult to find room in all the prisons of Calais. It is not impossible that this may have been a different action, which took place on the very day, month, and year to which Whethamstede refers it; but the silence of other authorities about a second naval victory would lead us to suppose he is simply wrong in the matter of date. It must be observed that Whethamstede immediately goes on to speak of the Legate Coppini’s arrival in England, which took place in June 1460, as having happened _circa idem tempus_, and as if it had been in the same month of June, only a few days earlier. This shows great inaccuracy.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1459.] In the year following, the fire that had for some time smouldered, burst once more into a flame. About Candlemas, according to Fabyan--but an older authority says specifically on the 9th November preceding[179-1]--a fray occurred between one of the king’s servants and one of the Earl of Warwick’s, as the earl, who had been attending the Council at Westminster, was proceeding to his barge. The king’s servant being wounded, the other made his escape; but a host of retainers attached to the royal household rushed out upon the earl and his attendants, and wounded several of them before they could embark. With hard rowing they got beyond the power of their assailants and made their way into the city; but the queen and her friends insisted on imputing the outrage to the earl himself, and demanded his arrest. The earl found it politic to retire to Warwick, and afterwards to his former post at Calais. On this the queen and her council turned their machinations against his father, the Earl of Salisbury, whom Lord Audley was commissioned to arrest and bring prisoner to London. Audley accordingly took with him a large body of men, and hearing that the earl was on his way from Middleham in Yorkshire, journeying either towards Salisbury or London, he hastened to intercept him. [Sidenote: Civil war renewed.] The earl, however, had received notice of what was intended, and having gathered about him a sufficient band of followers, defeated Lord Audley in a regular pitched battle at Bloreheath in Staffordshire, where he attempted to stop his way, on Sunday the 23rd of September.[179-2]

[Footnote 179-1: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 78.]

[Footnote 179-2: Fabyan, _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 80. _Parl. Rolls_, v. 348.]

The old elements of confusion were now again let loose. Commissions to raise men were issued in the king’s name, and the Duke of York and all his friends were denounced as a confederacy of traitors. They, for their parts, gathered together the men of the Marches in self-defence. At Ludlow, the duke was joined by the Earl of Salisbury, and also by the Earl of Warwick, who had come over again from Calais. [Sidenote: The king takes the field.] On the other hand, the king himself entered into the strife in a way he had not done hitherto. He not only took the field in person against the rebellious lords, but exhibited a spirit in the endurance of fatigue and discomfort which seems to have commanded general admiration. Even at the time of Lord Audley’s overthrow, it would appear that he was leading forward a reserve. For about a month he kept continually camping out, never resting at night, except on Sundays, in the same place he had occupied the night before, and sometimes, in spite of cold, rough weather, bivouacking for two nights successively on the bare field. After the battle of Bloreheath, he could only regard Salisbury as an overt enemy of his crown. At the same time he despatched heralds to the Duke of York and the Earl of Warwick, with proclamations of free and perfect pardon to themselves and all but a few of the leaders at Bloreheath, on condition of their submitting to him within six days.[180-1]

[Footnote 180-1: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 348.]

To Garter King of Arms, one of the messengers by whom these offers were conveyed, the confederate lords made answer, and also delivered a written reply to be conveyed to the king, declaring the perfect loyalty of their intentions, which they would have been glad to prove in the king’s presence if it had been only possible for them to go to him with safety. They had already endeavoured to testify their unshaken fidelity to Henry by an indenture drawn up and signed by them in Worcester Cathedral. This instrument they had forwarded to the king by a deputation of churchmen, headed by the prior of that cathedral, and including among others Dr. William Lynwoode,[180-2] who administered to them the sacrament on the occasion. Again, after Garter left, they wrote from Ludlow on the 10th of October, protesting that their actions had been misconstrued, and their tenants subjected to wrong and violence, while they themselves lay under unjust suspicion. Their enemies, they said, thirsted for the possession of their lands, and hoped to obtain them by their influence with the king. For their own part they had hitherto avoided a conflict, not from any fear of the power of their enemies, but only for dread of God and of his Highness, and they meant to persevere in this peaceful course, until driven by necessity to self-defence.[181-1]

[Footnote 180-2: Not, as Stow supposes, the author of the book on the Constitutions of the Church of England, but probably a nephew or other relation of his. The William Lynwoode who wrote upon the Church Constitutions was Bishop of St. David’s, and died in 1446.]

[Footnote 181-1: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 81, 82.]

These earnest, solemn, and repeated expressions of loyalty have scarcely, I think, received from historians the attention to which they are entitled.[181-2] Of their sincerity, of course, men may form different opinions; but it is right to note that the confederate lords had done all that was in their power by three several and distinct protests to induce the king to think more favourably of their intentions. It is, moreover, to be observed that they remained at this time in an attitude strictly defensive. But the king and his forces still approaching, they drew themselves up in battle array at Ludford, in the immediate vicinity of the town of Ludlow. Here, as they were posted on Friday the 12th October, it would almost seem that the lords were not without apprehension of the defection of some of their followers. A report was spread through the camp that the king was suddenly deceased, witnesses were brought in who swore to the fact, and mass was said for the repose of his soul. But that very evening, Henry, at the head of his army, arrived within half a mile of their position. The state of the country, flooded by recent rains, had alone prevented him from coming upon them sooner. Before nightfall a few volleys of artillery were discharged against the royal army, and a regular engagement was expected next day. But, meanwhile, the royal proclamation of pardon seems to have had its effect. One Andrew Trollope, who had come over with the Earl of Warwick from Calais, withdrew at dead of night and carried over a considerable body of men to the service of the king, to whom he communicated the secrets of the camp. The blow was absolutely fatal. [Sidenote: The Yorkists disperse.] The lords at once abandoned all thought of further resistance. Leaving their banners in the field, they withdrew at midnight. York and his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, fled into Wales, from whence they sailed into Ireland. His eldest, Edward, Earl of March, accompanied by the two other earls, Warwick and Salisbury, and by Sir John Wenlock, made his way into Devonshire. There by the friendly aid of one John Dynham, afterwards Lord Dynham, and Lord High Treasurer to Henry VII., they bought a ship at Exmouth and sailed to Guernsey. At last, on Friday the 2nd of November, they landed at Calais, where they met with a most cordial reception from the inhabitants.[182-1]

[Footnote 181-2: The Act of Attainder against the Yorkists most untruly says, ‘they took no consideration’ of Garter’s message. See _Rolls of Parliament_ above cited.]

[Footnote 182-1: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 348-9. Whethamstede, 459-62; Fabyan.]

[[a most cordial reception from the inhabitants.[182-1] _footnote tag missing: supplied from 1st edition_]

[Sidenote: They are attainted.] Then followed in November the Parliament of Coventry, and the attainder of the Duke of York and all his party. The queen and her friends at last had it all their own way, at least in England. It was otherwise doubtless in Ireland, where the Duke of York remained for nearly a twelvemonth after his flight from Ludlow. It was otherwise too at Calais, where Warwick was all-powerful, and whither discontented Yorkists began to flock from England. It was otherwise, moreover, at sea, where the same Warwick still retained the command of the fleet, and could not be dispossessed, except on parchment. On parchment, however, he was presently superseded in both of his important offices. The Duke of Exeter was intrusted with the keeping of the sea, which even at the time of the great reconciliation of parties he had been displeased that Warwick was allowed to retain.[182-2] The young Duke of Somerset was appointed Captain of Calais, but was unable to take possession of his post. Accompanied by Lord Roos and Lord Audley, and fortified by the king’s letters-patent, he crossed the sea, but was refused admittance into the town. Apparently he had put off too long before going over,[183-1] and he found the three earls in possession of the place before him; so that he was obliged to land at a place called Scales’ Cliff and go to Guisnes.[183-2] But a worse humiliation still awaited him on landing; for of the very sailors that had brought him over, a number conveyed their ships into Calais harbour, offered their services to the Earl of Warwick, and placed in his hands as prisoners certain persons who had taken part against him. They were shortly after beheaded in Calais.[183-3]

[Footnote 182-2: W. Worc., 479.]

[Footnote 183-1: He received his appointment on the 9th October, three days before the dispersion of the Yorkists at Ludlow (Rymer, xi. 436), and, according to one authority (_Engl. Chron._, ed. Davies, 84), he went over in the same month; but as all agree that Warwick was there before him, it was more probably in the beginning of November.]

[Footnote 183-2: _Chronicle_ in MS. Cott., Vitell. A. xvi.]

[Footnote 183-3: Fabyan.]

It would seem, in short, that ever since his great naval victory in 1458, Warwick was so highly popular with all the sailors of England, that it was quite as hopeless for the Duke of Exeter to contest his supremacy at sea as for Somerset to think of winning Calais out of his hands. Friends still came flocking over from England to join the three earls at Calais; [Sidenote: A.D. 1460.] and though in London in the February following nine men were hanged, drawn, and beheaded for attempting to do so,[183-4] the cause of the Yorkists remained as popular as ever. In vain were letters written to foreign parts, ‘that no relief be ministered to the traitor who kept Calais.’[183-5] In vain the Duke of Somerset at Guisnes endeavoured to contest his right to the government of that important town. All that Somerset could do was to waste his strength in fruitless skirmishes, until on St. George’s Day he suffered such a severe defeat and loss of men at Newnham Bridge, that he was at length forced to abandon all idea of dispossessing the Earl of Warwick.[183-6]

[Footnote 183-4: W. Worc., 478; _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 73. One of them was named Roger Nevile, a lawyer of the Temple, and probably a relation of the Earl of Warwick.]

[Footnote 183-5: Speed.]

[Footnote 183-6: W. Worc.]

Not only were the three earls secure in their position at Calais, but there was every reason to believe that they had a large amount of sympathy in Kent, and would meet with a very cordial reception whenever they crossed the sea. To avert the danger of any such attempt, and also, it would appear, with some design of reinforcing the Duke of Somerset at Guisnes, Lord Rivers and his son Sir Anthony Wydevile were sent to Sandwich about the beginning of the year, with a body of 400 men. Besides the command of the town, they were commissioned to take possession of certain ships which belonged to the Earl of Warwick, and lay quietly at anchor in the harbour.[184-1] [Sidenote: Lord Rivers at Sandwich.] But the issue of their exploit was such as to provoke universal ridicule. ‘As to tidings here,’ wrote Botoner from London to John Berney at Caister, ‘I send some offhand, written to you and others, how the Lord Rivers, Sir Anthony his son, and others _have won Calais_ by a feeble assault at Sandwich made by John Denham, Esq., with the number of 800 men, on Tuesday between four and five o’clock in the morning.’[184-2]

[Footnote 184-1: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 84, 85; _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 72.]

[Footnote 184-2: Letter 399.]

The exact mode in which Rivers and his son ‘won Calais’ seems to have been described in a separate paper. The truth was that a small force under the command of John Denham (or Dynham) was despatched across the sea by Warwick, and landing at Sandwich during the night, contrived not only to seize the ships in the harbour, but even to surprise the earl and his son in their beds, and bring them over as prisoners to the other side of the Channel.[184-3] The victors did not fail to turn the incident to account by exhibiting as much contempt as possible for their unfortunate prisoners. ‘My Lord Rivers,’ writes William Paston, ‘was brought to Calais, and before the lords with eight score torches, and there my lord of Salisbury rated him, calling him knave’s son, that he should be so rude to call him and those other lords traitors; for they should be found the king’s true liegemen when he should be found a traitor. And my Lord of Warwick rated him and said that his father was but a squire, and brought up with King Henry V., and since made himself by marriage, and also made a lord; and that it was not his part to have such language of lords, being of the king’s blood. And my Lord of March rated him in like wise. And Sir Anthony was rated for his language of all the three lords in like wise.’[185-1] It must have been a curious reflection to the Earl of March when in after years, as King Edward IV., he married the daughter of this same Lord Rivers, that he had taken part in this vituperation of his future father-in-law!

[Footnote 184-3: W. Worc. _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 85.]

[Footnote 185-1: Letter 400.]

By and by it became sufficiently evident that unless he was considerably reinforced, the Duke of Somerset could do no good at Guisnes. Instead of attempting to maintain a footing beside Calais, the queen’s Government would have enough to do to keep the rebels out of England. The capture of Rivers had excited the most serious alarm, and the landing of Warwick himself upon the eastern coast was looked upon as not improbable.[185-2] A new force of 500 men was accordingly sent to Sandwich under the command of one Osbert Mountford or Mundeford,[185-3] an old officer of Calais. His instructions were to go from Sandwich to Guisnes, either in aid of the Duke of Somerset, as intimated in Worcester’s _Annals_, or, according to another contemporary authority,[185-4] to bring him over to England. But while he waited for a wind to sail, John Dynham again crossed the sea, attacked the force under the command of Mundeford, and after a little skirmishing, in which he himself was wounded, succeeded in carrying him off to Calais, as he had before done Lord Rivers. Mundeford’s treatment, however, was not so lenient as that of the more noble captive. On the 25th of June he was beheaded at the Tower of Rysebank, which stood near the town, on the opposite side of the harbour.[185-5]

[Footnote 185-2: _See_ Appendix to Introduction.]

[Footnote 185-3: The writer of Letter 378. He was a connection of the Paston family, having married Elizabeth, daughter of John Berney, Esq., another of whose daughters, Margaret, was the mother of Margaret Paston (Blomefield, ii. 182). He had been much engaged in the king’s service in France, and had been treasurer of Normandy before it was lost--a fact which may account for his writing French in preference to English. _See_ Stevenson’s _Wars of the English in France_, index.]

[Footnote 185-4: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 85.]

[Footnote 185-5: W. Worc., 479; Fabyan; Stow, 406-7.]

Meanwhile the Earl of Warwick did not remain at Calais. He scoured the seas with his fleet and sailed into Ireland. Sir Baldwin Fulford, a knight of Devonshire, promised the king, on pain of losing his head, to destroy Warwick’s fleet; but having exhausted the sum of 1000 marks which was allowed him for his expenses, he returned home without having attained his object.[186-1] On the 16th of March, Warwick having met with the Duke of York in Ireland, the two noblemen entered the harbour of Waterford with a fleet of six-and-twenty ships well manned; and on the following day, being St. Patrick’s Day, they landed and were ceremoniously received by the mayor and burgesses.[186-2] Warwick seems to have remained in Ireland more than two months, concerting with the Duke of York plans for future action. About Whitsunday, which in this year fell on the 1st of June, his fleet was observed by the Duke of Exeter off the coast of Cornwall, on its return to Calais. Exeter’s squadron was superior in strength, and an engagement might have been expected; but the duke was not sure that he could trust his own sailors, and he allowed the earl to pass unmolested.[186-3]

[Footnote 186-1: _English Chron._ (Davies), 85.]

[Footnote 186-2: Lambeth MS. 632, f. 255.]

[Footnote 186-3: _Chron._ (Davies), 85; W. Worc.]

[[allowed the earl to pass unmolested.[186-3] _footnote tag missing: supplied from 1st edition_]]

[Sidenote: The Legate Coppini.] About this time there arrived at Calais a papal nuncio, by name Francesco Coppini, Bishop of Terni, returning from England to Rome. He had been sent by the new pope, Pius II., the ablest that had for a long time filled the pontifical chair, to urge Henry to send an ambassador to a congress at Mantua, in which measures were to be concerted for the union and defence of Christendom against the Turks. This was in the beginning of the preceding year,[186-4] and, as he himself states, he remained nearly a year and a half in England.[186-5] But the incapacity of the king, and the dissensions that prevailed among the lords, rendered his mission a total failure. Henry, indeed, who was never wanting in reverence for the Holy See, named a certain number of bishops and lords to go upon this mission, but they one and all refused. He accordingly sent two priests of little name, with an informal commission to excuse a greater embassy. England was thus discredited at the papal court, and the nuncio, finding his mission fruitless, at last crossed the sea to return home. At Calais, however, he was persuaded by Warwick to remain. The earl himself was about to return to England, and if the legate would come back in his company he might use the influence of his sacred office to heal the wounds of a divided kingdom.[187-1]

[Footnote 186-4: His commission from the Pope is dated 7th January 1458[9]--Rymer, xi. 419.]

[Footnote 186-5: Brown’s _Venetian Calendar_, i. p. 91.]

[Footnote 187-1: Gobellinus, 161.]

The nuncio had doubtless seen enough of the deplorable condition of England to be convinced that peace was impossible, so long as the lords most fit to govern were banished and proclaimed rebels by the queen and her favourites.[187-2] He was, moreover, furnished with powers, by which--the main object of his mission being the union of Christendom--he was authorised to make some efforts to compose the dissensions of England.[187-3] But he certainly overstrained them, and allowed himself to become a partisan. Flattered by the attentions shown him by Warwick, he acceded to his suggestion, and when, on the 26th of June,[187-4] the day after Mundeford was beheaded at Calais, the confederate lords crossed the Channel, the nuncio was in their company, bearing the standard of the Church. Archbishop Bourchier, too, met them at Sandwich, where they landed, with a great multitude of people; and with his cross borne before him, the Primate of England conducted the three earls and their followers, who increased in number as they went along, until they reached the capital. After a very brief opposition on the part of some of the citizens, the city opened its gates to them. They entered London on the 2nd of July.[187-5]

[Footnote 187-2: The Yorkists apparently were not sparing of insinuations against the queen. It had been rumoured, according to Fabyan, that the Prince of Wales was not really the king’s son; but the worst that was insinuated was that he was a changeling. But Warwick himself, according to Gobellinus, described the situation to the nuncio as follows:--‘Rex noster stupidus est, et mente captus; regitur, non regit; apud uxorem et qui regis thalamum fœdant, imperium est.’]

[Footnote 187-3: _See_ the Pope’s letter to him in Theiner, 423-4.]

[Footnote 187-4: ‘The lords crossed the sea on Thursday,’ writes Coppini from London on the 4th July.--Brown’s _Venetian Calendar_, i. 90.]

[Footnote 187-5: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 94.]

[Sidenote: The Earls of March, Warwick, and Salisbury.] Before they crossed the sea, the three earls had sent over a set of articles addressed to the archbishop and the commons of England in the name of themselves and the Duke of York, declaring how they had sued in vain to be admitted to the king’s presence to set forth certain matters that concerned the common weal of all the land. Foremost among these was the oppression of the Church, a charge based, seemingly, on facts with which we are unacquainted, and which, if known, might shed a clearer light upon the conduct of the legate and Archbishop Bourchier. Secondly, they complained of the crying evil that the king had given away to favourites all the revenues of his crown, so that his household was supported by acts of rapine and extortion on the part of his purveyors. Thirdly, the laws were administered with great partiality, and justice was not to be obtained. Grievous taxes, moreover, were levied upon the commons, while the destroyers of the land were living upon the patrimony of the crown. And now a heavier charge than ever was imposed upon the inhabitants; for the king, borrowing an idea from the new system of military service in France, had commanded every township to furnish at its own cost a certain number of men for the royal army; ‘which imposition and talliage,’ wrote the lords in this manifesto, ‘if it be continued to their heirs and successors, will be the heaviest charge and worst example that ever grew in England, and the foresaid subjects and the said heirs and successors in such bondage as their ancestors were never charged with.’[188-1]

[Footnote 188-1: It appears by Letter 377 that privy seals were issued in 1459 addressed on the back to certain persons, requiring them to be with the king at Leicester on the 10th of May, each with a body of men sufficiently armed, and with provision for their own expenses for two months. One of these privy seals, signed by the king himself, was addressed specially to John Paston’s eldest son, John, who at this time could not have been more than nineteen years of age. On its arrival, his mother consulted with neighbours whether it was indispensable to obey such an injunction, and on their opinion that it was, wrote to her husband for instructions.]

Besides these evils, the infatuated policy into which the king had been led by his ill-advisers, threatened to lose Ireland and Calais to the crown, as France had been lost already; for in the former country letters had been sent under the Privy Seal to the chieftains who had hitherto resisted the king’s authority, actually encouraging them to attempt the conquest of the land, while in regard to Calais the king had been induced to write letters to his enemies not to show that town any favour, and thus had given them the greatest possible inducement to attempt its capture. Meanwhile the Earls of Shrewsbury and Wiltshire and Viscount Beaumont, who directed everything, kept the king himself, in some things, from the exercise of his own free will, and had caused him to assemble the Parliament of Coventry for the express purpose of ruining the Duke of York and his friends, whose domains they had everywhere pillaged and taken to their own use.[189-1]

[Footnote 189-1: The articles will be found in Holinshed, iii. 652-3; and in Davies’s _Chronicle_, 86-90.]

It was impossible, in the nature of things, that evils such as these could be allowed to continue long, and the day of reckoning was now at hand. Of the great events that followed, it will be sufficient here to note the sequence in the briefest possible words. [Sidenote: The battle of Northampton.] On the 10th July the king was taken prisoner at the battle of Northampton, and was brought to London by the confederate lords. The government, of course, came thus entirely into their hands. Young George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, was made Chancellor of England, Lord Bourchier was appointed Lord Treasurer, and a Parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster for the purpose of reversing the attainders passed in the Parliament of Coventry. Of the elections for this Parliament we have some interesting notices in Letter 415, from which we may see how the new turn in affairs had affected the politics of the county of Norfolk. From the first it was feared that after the three earls had got the king into their hands, the old intriguers, Tuddenham and Heydon, would be busy to secure favour, or at all events indulgence, from the party now in the ascendant. But letters-missive were obtained from the three earls, directed to all mayors and other officers in Norfolk, commanding in the king’s name that no one should do them injury, and intimating that the earls did not mean to show them any favour if any person proposed to sue them at law.[189-2] Heydon, however, did not choose to remain in Norfolk. He was presently heard of from Berkshire, for which county he had found interest to get himself returned in the new Parliament.

[Footnote 189-2: No. 410.]

[Sidenote: John Paston in Parliament.] John Paston also was returned to this Parliament as one of the representatives of his own county of Norfolk. His sympathies were entirely with the new state of things. And his friend and correspondent, Friar Brackley, who felt with him that the wellbeing of the whole land depended entirely on the Earl of Warwick, sent him exhortations out of Scripture to encourage him in the performance of his political duties.[190-1] But what would be the effect of the coming over from Ireland of the Duke of York, who had by this time landed at Chester, and would now take the chief direction of affairs?[190-2] Perhaps the chief fear was that he would be too indulgent to political antagonists. Moreover, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk had contrived to marry her son to one of York’s daughters, and it was apprehended her influence would be considerable. ‘The Lady of Suffolk,’ wrote Friar Brackley to Paston, ‘hath sent up her son and his wife to my Lord of York to ask grace for a sheriff the next year, Stapleton, Boleyn, or Tyrell, _qui absit!_ God send you Poynings, W. Paston, W. Rokewood, or Arblaster. Ye have much to do, Jesus speed you! Ye have many good prayers, what of the convent, city, and country.’[190-3]

[Footnote 190-1: Letter 415.]

[Footnote 190-2: Letter 419.]

[Footnote 190-3: Letter 415.]

Such was the state of hope, fear, and expectation which the new turn of affairs awakened in some, and particularly in the friends of John Paston. The next great move in the political game perhaps exceeded the anticipations even of Friar Brackley. [Sidenote: York challenges the Crown.] Yet though the step was undoubtedly a bold one, never, perhaps, was a high course of action more strongly suggested by the results of past experience. After ten miserable years of fluctuating policy, the attainted Yorkists were now for the fourth time in possession of power; but who could tell that they would not be a fourth time set aside and proclaimed as traitors? For yet a fourth time since the fall of Suffolk, England might be subjected to the odious rule of favourites under a well-intentioned king, whose word was not to be relied on. To the commonweal the prospect was serious enough; to the Duke of York and his friends it was absolute and hopeless ruin. But York had now determined what to do. On the 10th of October, the third day of the Parliament, he came to Westminster with a body of 500 armed men, and took up quarters for himself within the royal palace. On the 16th he entered the House of Lords, and having sat down in the king’s throne, he delivered to the Lord Chancellor a writing in which he distinctly claimed that he, and not Henry, was by inheritance rightful king of England.[191-1]

[Footnote 191-1: W. Worc., 483; Fabyan; _Rolls of Parl._ v. 375.]

The reader is of course aware of the fact on which this claim was based, namely, that York, through the female line, was descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., while King Henry, his father, and his grandfather had all derived their rights from John of Gaunt, who was Lionel’s younger brother. Henry IV. indeed was an undoubted usurper; but to set aside his family after they had been in possession of the throne for three generations must have seemed a very questionable proceeding. Very few of the lords at first appeared to regard it with favour. The greater number stayed away from the House.[191-2] But the duke’s counsel insisting upon an answer, the House represented the matter to the king, desiring to know what he could allege in opposition to the claim of York. The king, however, left the lords to inquire into it themselves; and as it was one of the gravest questions of law, the lords consulted the justices. But the justices declined the responsibility of advising in a matter of so high a nature. They were the king’s justices, and could not be of counsel where the king himself was a party. The king’s serjeants and attorney were then applied to, but were equally unwilling to commit themselves; so that the lords themselves brought forward and discussed of their own accord a number of objections to the Duke of York’s claim. At length it was declared as the opinion of the whole body of the peers that his title could not be defeated, but a compromise was suggested and mutually agreed to that the king should be allowed to retain his crown for life, the succession reverting to the duke and his heirs immediately after Henry’s death.[191-3]

[Footnote 191-2: W. Worc., 484.]

[Footnote 191-3: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 375-9.]

So the matter was settled by a great and solemn act of state. But even a parliamentary settlement, produced by a display of armed force, will scarcely command the respect that it ought to do if there is armed force to overthrow it. The king himself, it is true, appears to have been treated with respect, and with no more abridgment of personal liberty than was natural to the situation.[192-1] Nor could it be said that the peers were insensible of the responsibility they incurred in a grave constitutional crisis. But respect for constitutional safeguards had been severely shaken, and no securities now could bridle the spirit of faction: suspicion also of itself produced new dangers. The Duke of York, after all the willingness he had shown in Parliament to accept a compromise, seems to have been accused of violating the settlement as soon as it was made; for on that very night on which it was arranged (31st October), we are told by a contemporary writer that ‘the king removed unto London against his will to the bishop’s palace, and the Duke of York came unto him that same night by torchlight and took upon him as king, and said in many places that “This is ours by right.”’[192-2] Perhaps the facts looked worse than they were really; for it had been agreed in Parliament, though not formally expressed in the Accord, that the duke should be once more Protector and have the actual government.[192-3] But it is not surprising that Margaret and her friends would recognise nothing of what had been done in Parliament. Since the battle of Northampton she had been separated from her husband. She fled with her son first into Cheshire, afterwards into Wales, to Harlech Castle, and then to Denbigh, which Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, had just won for the House of Lancaster.[192-4] Her flight had been attended with difficulties, especially near Malpas, where she was robbed by a servant of her own, who met her and put her in fear of the lives of herself and her child.[192-5] In Wales she was joined by the Duke of Exeter, who was with her in October.[192-6] From thence she sailed to Scotland, where the enemies of the Duke of York were specially welcome. For James II., profiting, as might be expected, by the dissensions of England, a month after the battle of Northampton, had laid siege to Roxburgh, where he was killed by the bursting of a cannon. Margaret, with her son, arrived at Dumfries in January 1461, and met his widow, Mary of Gueldres, at Lincluden Abbey.[193-1] Meanwhile her adherents in the North of England held a council at York, and the Earl of Northumberland, with Lords Clifford, Dacres, and Nevill, ravaged the lands of the duke and of the Earl of Salisbury. The duke on this dissolved Parliament after obtaining from it powers to put down the rebellion,[193-2] and marched northwards with the Earl of Salisbury. A few days before Christmas they reached the duke’s castle of Sandal, where they kept the festival, the enemy being not far off at Pomfret.[193-3] On the 30th December was fought the disastrous battle of Wakefield, [Sidenote: The battle of Wakefield.] when the Yorkists were defeated, the duke and the Earl of Salisbury being slain in the field, and the duke’s son, the Earl of Rutland, ruthlessly murdered by Lord Clifford after the battle.

[Footnote 192-1: Though he was taken prisoner at the battle of Northampton, and had ever since been in the power of the victors, he does not appear to have been placed under any kind of restraint. In October, before the Parliament met, he was spending the time in hunting at Greenwich and Eltham.--No. 419.]

[Footnote 192-2: _Collections of a London Citizen_, 208 (Camden Society).]

[Footnote 192-3: _English Chronicle_ (Davies), 106; Fabyan; Hall, 249.]

[Footnote 192-4: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 303.]

[Footnote 192-5: _Collections of a London Citizen_, 209.]

[Footnote 192-6: No. 419.]

[Footnote 193-1: _Auchinleck Chronicle_, 21. _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, vii. 8, 39, 157.]

[Footnote 193-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 382.]

[Footnote 193-3: W. Worc., 484.]

The story of poor young Rutland’s butchery is graphically described by an historian of the succeeding age who, though perhaps with some inaccuracies of detail as to fact, is a witness to the strong impression left by this beginning of barbarities. The account of it given by Hall, the chronicler, is as follows:--

‘While this battle was in fighting, a priest called Sir Robert Aspall, chaplain and schoolmaster to the young Earl of Rutland, second son to the above-named Duke of York, scarce of the age of twelve years [he was really in his eighteenth year], a fair gentleman and a maiden-like person, perceiving that flight was more safeguard than tarrying, both for him and his master, secretly conveyed the Earl out of the field by the Lord Clifford’s band towards the town. But or he could enter into a house, he was by the said Lord Clifford espied, followed, and taken, and, by reason of his apparel, demanded what he was. The young gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees, imploring mercy and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. “Save him,” said his chaplain, “for he is a prince’s son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter.” With that word, the Lord Clifford marked him and said--“By God’s blood, thy father slew mine; and so will I do thee and all thy kin”; and with that word stack the Earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade his chaplain bear the Earl’s mother word what he had done and said.’

Another illustration which the chronicler goes on to give of Clifford’s bloodthirsty spirit may be true in fact, but is certainly wrong as regards time. For he represents Queen Margaret as ‘not far from the field’ when the battle had been fought, and says that Clifford having caused the duke’s head to be cut off and crowned in derision with a paper crown, presented the ghastly object to her upon a pole with the words:--‘Madam, your war is done; here is your king’s ransom.’ Margaret, as we have seen, was really in Scotland at the time, where she negotiated an alliance with the Scots, to whom she agreed to deliver up Berwick for aid to her husband’s cause. But soon afterwards she came to York, where, at a council of war, she and her adherents determined to march on London. So it may have been a fact that Clifford presented to her the head of York upon a pole with the words recorded. But never was prophecy more unhappy; for instead of the war being ended, or the king being ransomed, there cannot be a doubt these deeds of wickedness imparted a new ferocity to the strife and hastened on the termination of Henry’s imbecile, unhappy reign. Within little more than two months after the battle of Wakefield the son of the murdered Duke of York was proclaimed king in London, by the title of Edward IV., and at the end of the third month the bloody victory of Towton almost destroyed, for a long time, the hopes of the House of Lancaster. From that day Henry led a wretched existence, now as an exile, now as a prisoner, for eleven unhappy years, saving only a few months’ interval, during which he was made king again by the Earl of Warwick, without the reality of power, and finally fell a victim, as was generally believed, to political assassination. As for Margaret, she survived her husband, but she also survived her son, and the cause for which she had fought with so much pertinacity was lost to her for ever.

And now we must halt in our political survey. Henceforth, though public affairs must still require attention, we shall scarcely require to follow them with quite so great minuteness. We here take leave, for the most part, of matters, both public and private, contained in the Letters during the reign of Henry VI. But one event which affected greatly the domestic history of the Pastons in the succeeding reign, must be mentioned before we go further. It was not long after the commencement of those later troubles--more precisely, it was on the 5th November 1459, six weeks after the battle of Bloreheath, and little more than three after the dispersion of the Yorkists at Ludlow--that the aged Sir John Fastolf breathed his last, within the walls of that castle which it had been his pride to rear and to occupy in the place of his birth. [Sidenote: Death of Sir John Fastolf.] By his will, of which, as will be seen, no less than three different instruments were drawn up, he bequeathed to John Paston and his chaplain, Sir Thomas Howes, all his lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, for the purpose of founding that college or religious community at Caister, on the erection of which he had bestowed latterly so much thought. The manner in which this bequest affected the fortunes of the Paston family has now to be considered.

_Fastolf’s Lands_

Under the feudal system, as is well known, on the death of any tenant _in capite_ of the crown, his lands were seized in the king’s name by an officer called the escheator, until it was ascertained by a jury of the county who was the next heir that should succeed to the property, and whether the king had any right of wardship by reason of his being under age. [Sidenote: A.D. 1459.] But when Sir John Fastolf died, he left no heir, nor was he, strictly speaking, at his death a tenant _in capite_ of the crown. [Sidenote: The lands of Sir John Fastolf.] He had at different times handed over all his landed property to trustees, who were to hold it to his use so long as he lived, and to apply it after his death to the purposes mentioned in his will. For the greater part of his lands in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey, he had appointed one body of trustees as early as the year 1449, ten years before his death.[196-1] This body consisted of five bishops, including the two primates, three lords, two justices of the King’s Bench, two knights, and ten other persons. But of these original trustees a good number were already dead, when, in the year 1457, a new trust was created, and the greater part of the Norfolk and Suffolk property was vested in the names of Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, William Yelverton, Justice of the King’s Bench, John Paston, Esq., Henry Fylongley, Esq., Thomas Howes, clerk, and William Paston. In the preceding year he had already created these same persons, with the addition of William Jenney, his trustees for the manor of Titchwell, in Norfolk, and the same again, with Jenney, but without Bishop Waynflete, for the manor of Beighton. The trust-deed for the former manor was dated 1st April 34 Henry VI., and that for the latter 26th March 34 Henry VI.[196-2]

[Footnote 196-1: The deed is dated 7 July 27 Hen. VI., and inrolled on the _Close Roll_, 29 Hen. VI. m., 39, _in dorso_.]

[Footnote 196-2: _Inquisition post mortem_, 38 and 39 Henry VI., No. 48.]

Thus it appears that as early as the month of March 1456, about a year and a half after Sir John Fastolf had taken up his abode in Norfolk, John Paston and his brother William were already named by him as trustees for some of his property. [Sidenote: John and William Paston, trustees.] From that time the influence of John Paston with the old knight continued to increase till, as it was evident that the latter drew near his end, it became a subject of jealousy and suspicion. Of course, these feelings were not diminished when it was found after Fastolf’s death that, subject only to the obligation of founding his college at Caister, and paying 4000 marks to his other executors, he had in effect bequeathed to John Paston the whole of his lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Yet it does not appear that in Fastolf’s latter days John Paston was about him more than usual. He was just as frequently away in London as he had been in any previous year.[197-1] But even when absent, he had a very staunch and hearty friend in Friar Brackley, who frequently visited the sick chamber, and took every opportunity to preserve and augment the high esteem that Fastolf entertained for him. At the last Brackley wrote to urge him to come down to Norfolk, as the patient evidently could not live much longer. ‘It is high time; he draweth fast homeward, and is right low brought, and sore weakened and feebled.’ Paston must bring with him a draft petition to the king about the foundation of the college at Caister, and an arrangement with the monks of St. Benet’s, for the dying man’s satisfaction. ‘Every day this five days he saith, “God send me soon my good cousin Paston, for I hold him a faithful man, and ever one man.” _Cui ego_: “That is sooth,” &c. _Et ille_: “Show me not the meat, show me the man.”’ Such is the curious report written by Dr. Brackley to Paston himself of the anxiety with which the old knight expected him shortly before his death.[197-2]

[Footnote 197-1: _See_ Nos. 376, 377, 379, 380, 383.]

[Footnote 197-2: No. 383.]

[Sidenote: William Worcester.] On the other hand, William Worcester, who had so long acted as Fastolf’s private secretary, was perhaps a little jealous at the closer intimacy and greater influence of Paston with his master. At least, if this was not his feeling before Sir John Fastolf’s death, he expressed it plainly shortly afterwards. It was, he considered, owing to himself that John Paston had stood so high in Fastolf’s favour;[197-3] and it seemed scarcely reasonable that Paston should have the principal share in the administration of the property while he, who had been so long in Fastolf’s service, so devoted to his interests, and yet so ill rewarded during his master’s life, found no kind of provision made for him in the will. It was, indeed, perfectly true that Fastolf had named him one of his executors. But this executorship, as it turned out, was not a thing likely to yield him either profit or importance. For by the last will, made immediately before the testator’s death, a body of ten executors was constituted, of whom two were to have the sole and absolute administration, the others having nothing whatever to do except when those two thought fit to ask for their advice. The two acting executors were to be John Paston and Thomas Howes. William Worcester was one of the other eight.[198-1]

[Footnote 197-3: No. 401.]

[Footnote 198-1: No. 387.]

Yet, at first, he refrained from expressing dissatisfaction, and showed himself ready to co-operate with John Paston. Within a week after Fastolf’s death, he accompanied William Paston up to London, and joined him in an interview with Bishop Waynflete, at that time Lord Chancellor, who was one of the other executors. In accordance with Bishop Waynflete’s advice, he and William Paston proceeded to collect and sequester the goods of the deceased in different parts of London until the time that John Paston could have an interview with the bishop. They managed to have goods out of the Abbey of Bermondsey that no one knew about, except William Paston and Worcester themselves, and another man named Plomer. In short, William Worcester acted at this time as a most confidential and trusty friend to John Paston’s interests, being either entirely ignorant how little provision was made for his own, or trusting to Paston’s benevolence and sense of justice for that reward which was not expressly ‘nominated in the bond.’ And William Paston felt his claims so strongly that he could not help insinuating to his brother that he was bound in honour to make him a provision for life. ‘I understand by him,’ wrote William Paston, ‘he will never have other master but his old master; and to my conceit it were pity but if he should stand in such case by my master he should never need service, considering how my master trusted him, and the long years that he hath been with him in and many shrewd journeys for his sake.’[198-2]

[Footnote 198-2: Nos. 391, 393.]

But very shortly afterwards the manner in which Worcester spoke of Paston revealed a bitter sense of disappointment and injustice. He asserted that Fastolf had actually granted him a portion of land to live upon, and that Sir Thomas Howes, Fastolf’s confessor, who was his wife’s uncle, had been present in the chapel at Caister when this gift was conceded. Worcester’s wife had in fact asked Sir Thomas to choose the land. Nevertheless, when he came to demand of Paston that to which he considered he had a lawful claim, the latter was displeased with him; nor did the two come to a good understanding again during Paston’s life.[199-1]

[Footnote 199-1: No. 401. It appears by a document inrolled in the _Close Roll_ of 39 Henry VI., m. 13, _in dorso_, that Worcester on the 28th August 1460 executed a deed making over all his goods and chattels (_bona mea et catalla mobilia et immobilia, viva et mortua, ubicumque et in quorumcumque manibus_), and all debts due to him from whatever persons, to Henry Everyngham, Esq., Hugh Fenne, gentleman, Henry Wyndesore, gentleman, Robert Toppes, jun., gentleman, and John Bokkyng, gentleman; which deed he acknowledged in Chancery on the 1st September following (_see_ Appendix to this Introduction). Apparently the object of this was to give others an interest in vindicating what he supposed to be his rights.]

It was but nine days after Sir John Fastolf’s death, and three days after his first interview with the chancellor, Bishop Waynflete, that William Paston, in writing to his brother, expressed his intention of going to the bishop again for writs of _diem clausit extremum_. These writs were the ordinary authority under which the escheators of the different counties wherein the deceased had held lands would proceed to inquire what the manors were, and to whom they ought to descend. [Sidenote: Claimants of Fastolf’s property.] That many pretenders would lay claim to the different portions of those rich domains, John Paston and his brother knew full well. The Duke of Exeter had already set up a claim to Fastolf’s place in Southwark, on what grounds it is impossible to say. Others, who had no hope of proving title to any part of the property themselves, expected to win favour at court by offering to establish the rights of the crown in all the goods and chattels. William Paston accordingly endeavoured to secure the friendship of the Lord Treasurer, James, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond; but though the earl gave him fair words, William Paston was advised to put no trust in him.[199-2] In point of fact, soon after Christmas, the earl entered Sir John’s mansion in Southwark, and occupied it for a time as if it had been his own dwelling-house.[199-3]

[Footnote 199-2: No. 391.]

[Footnote 199-3: W. Worcester’s _Annals_.]

The escheator of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk was Richard Southwell, a friend of John Paston’s, and if the writs of _diem clausit extremum_ had been issued at once, the latter doubtless hoped that the rights of Fastolf’s trustees would have been immediately acknowledged by two different juries, the one in Norfolk and the other in Suffolk. But the efforts of William Paston were not crowned with such speedy success as he and his brother could have wished. Already, on the 10th November, writs of _diem clausit extremum_ had issued without his applying for them, but they were only for the counties of Surrey and Essex, in which John Paston was not interested. Special commissions to the same effect for the counties of Wilts and Yorkshire were procured from the king at Coventry eighteen days later. [Sidenote: A.D. 1460.] But for Norfolk and Suffolk the writs were not issued till the 13th May in the following year.[200-1] The delay was most probably owing to representations on the part of Paston’s enemies; and to the same cause we may attribute the fact that even after the writ was issued it was not acted on for five months longer, so that nearly a whole year had elapsed since Sir John Fastolf’s death before the Norfolk and Suffolk inquisitions were held. But at length the opposition was overcome. ‘A great day’ was holden at Acle before the under-sheriff and the under-escheator, in presence of some of the most substantial gentlemen of Norfolk; ‘and the matter,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘is well sped after your intent.’[200-2]

[Footnote 200-1: _Inquis. post mortem_, 38 and 39 Henry VI., No. 48.]

[Footnote 200-2: No. 423.]

Already John Paston’s increased importance in his native county had come to be acknowledged. He was at this time knight of the shire for Norfolk. His wife was living at Hellesdon, on the Fastolf estates, two miles out of Norwich; and the mayor and mayoress paid her the compliment of sending thither their dinners and inviting themselves out to dine with her. The mills at Hellesdon and the lands at Caister were let by his agents, and apparently, in spite of his opponents, whoever they may have been, he had succeeded in obtaining quiet possession of all Fastolf’s lands in Norfolk.[200-3] Equally little resistance seems to have been made to his claims in the county of Suffolk, where an inquisition was taken at Bungay nine days after that which had been taken at Acle. In each county the jury limited themselves to declaring the names of the trustees in whose hands the property remained at Fastolf’s death, and nothing was said about the will. A will, in itself, could convey no title to lands, and the juries had nothing to do with it. But in both counties John Paston, either as executor or as one of the trustees, was allowed to assume at this time the entire control of the property.

[Footnote 200-3: _Ibid._]

But now came the renewal of civil war--the battle of Wakefield, soon avenged by the proclamation of Edward IV. as king, and the bloody victory of Towton. [Sidenote: A.D. 1461.] The kingdom was convulsed from end to end, and there was little chance for doubtful titles and disputed claims, except when supported by the strong arm of power. Long before the time at which we have now arrived, [Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk.] the Duke of Norfolk had set covetous eyes upon Sir John Fastolf’s magnificent new castle of Caister, and he had spread a report in the country that the owner had given it to him.[201-1] But it would seem that Sir John himself had never entertained such an idea, and if ever in conversation with the duke he had let fall something that might have encouraged the hope, he had taken special care before his death to show that it was unfounded. For the duke had visited Sir John in September before he died, and had proposed to purchase of him the reversion of the manor; but Sir John distinctly told him he had given it to Paston for the purpose of founding a college.[201-2] Indeed, it is perfectly clear that for years he had intended it to be turned into an abode of priests, and not made a residence for any such powerful nobleman. And this intention, which is apparent enough in several of the letters written during his lifetime, was expressed in the most unambiguous language in the document which John Paston declared to have been his last will.[201-3] Indeed, if we believe John Paston’s testimony, interested though it no doubt may be, it was chiefly from a fear that his executors might sell the place, not, indeed, to the duke, of whom he seems at that time to have ceased to entertain any apprehension, but to the Viscount Beaumont, the Duke of Somerset, or the Earl of Warwick, that the old knight determined to make Paston his principal executor.[201-4] So, ‘to avoid that no lord, nor great estate, should inhabit in time coming within the great mansion,’ he made a covenant with Paston by which the latter was to have in fee-simple all his lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, subject only to the payment of a sum of 4000 marks and the duty of establishing in Caister Castle ‘a college of seven religious men, monks, or secular priests, and seven poor folk, to pray for his soul and the souls of his wife, his father, and mother, and other that he was behold to, in perpetuity.’ And if in endeavouring to carry out this object John Paston was interfered with by any one attempting to obtain possession of the place by force, he was enjoined to ‘pull down the said mansion, and every stone and stick thereof, and do found three of the said seven priests or monks at St. Benet’s, and one at Yarmouth, one at Attleborough, and one at St. Olave’s Church at Southwark.’[202-1]

[Footnote 201-1: No. 222 (in vol. ii.).]

[Footnote 201-2: No. 543.]

[Footnote 201-3: No. 385.]

[Footnote 201-4: No. 390.]

[Footnote 202-1: No. 386.]

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the Duke of Norfolk, within three months after the accession of Edward IV., and little more than a year and a half after Sir John Fastolf’s death,[202-2] had certainly taken possession of the great mansion of Caister. The confusion of the time undoubtedly favoured the act, and redress might well have been a troublesome matter, as the Duke of Norfolk was a nobleman whom perhaps even the king would not care to displease. But Edward was a king who, with many faults, was most honourably anxious from the first to do justice even to the meanest of his subjects.[202-3] Paston repaired to the royal presence, and obtained letters from the king to the duke, which his servant, Richard Calle, conveyed to Framlingham. They were delivered to his lordship at the lodge of his demesne, but the messenger was not admitted to his presence. The duke, however, wrote an answer to the king, promising shortly to repair to Court, when he offered to prove that some of the statements in Paston’s letters were erroneous, and that he himself was the person who had the best claim to the manor. It appears there was one other claimant besides, viz. Thomas Fastolf of Cowhaw; but he, not expecting to make his title good against Paston himself, and having need of a powerful friend in some other matters, gave up his claim to the duke, and brought documents to justify the latter in taking possession by the right derived from him.[203-1]

[Footnote 202-2: He had probably done so before by authority of Henry VI., for in the beginning of 1460 Friar Brackley writes: ‘A man of my Lord Norfolk told me here he came from London, and there he had commonly voiced that the Duke of Norfolk should, by the king’s commandment, keep his Easter at Caister for safeguard of the country against Warwick and other such of the king’s enemies.’--Vol. iii. p. 212.]

[[iii. 212 = second-to-last paragraph of letter 403]]

[Footnote 202-3: Edward’s reply to another suit preferred by John Paston this same year is an excellent example of this spirit of impartiality. John Paston’s eldest son writes to his father as follows, touching an interview he had had with the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Essex: ‘And now of late I, remembering him of the same matter, inquired if he had moved the king’s highness therein. And he answered me that he had felt and moved the king therein, rehearsing the king’s answer therein: how that when he had moved the king in the said manor of Dedham, beseeching him to be your good lord therein, considering the service and true part that ye have done and ought to him, and in especial the right that ye have thereto, he said he would be your good lord therein, as he would to the poorest man in England. He would hold with you in your right; and as for favour, he will not be understood that he shall show favour more to one man than to another, not to one in England.’]

[Footnote 203-1: Nos. 458, 465.]

In the end, however, Paston’s appeal to the king must have been successful. Caister was certainly restored to him, and in all probability it was restored within a month or two before the Duke of Norfolk’s death, which occurred that same year, in the beginning of November.[203-2]

[Footnote 203-2: This perhaps may be a reason for supposing Letter 630 to have been written in the year 1461, notwithstanding the difficulty mentioned in the preliminary note.]

_The Beginning of Edward IV.’s Reign_

But notwithstanding the even-handed justice of the king, the times were wild and unsettled. The revolution by which Henry was deposed was not a thing calculated to bring sudden peace and quiet. [Sidenote: Troubled times.] On the Patent Rolls of this year we have innumerable evidences of the state of alarm, confusion, and tumult which prevailed continuously for at least a twelvemonth over the whole kingdom. Commissions of array,[203-3] commissions to put down insurrections,[203-4] and to punish outrages,[203-5] to arrest seditious persons,[203-6] to resist the king’s enemies at sea,[203-7] or to prepare beacons on the coast to give warning of apprehended invasion,[204-1] are continually met with. Our Letters also tell the same tale. Margaret Paston writes at one time about ‘Will. Lynys that was with Master Fastolf, and such other as he is with him,’ who went about the country accusing men of being Scots, and only letting them go on payment of considerable bribes. ‘He took last week the parson of Freton, and but for my cousin Jerningham the younger, there would have led him forth with him; and he told them plainly, if they made any such doings there, unless they had the letter to show for them, they should have laid on[204-2] on their bodies.’[204-3] A still more flagrant instance of lawlessness had occurred just before, of which our old acquaintance Thomas Denys was the victim. [Sidenote: Thomas Denys.] He was at this time coroner of Norfolk. If not in Edward IV.’s service before he was king, he became a member of the royal household immediately afterwards, and accompanied the new king to York before his coronation. It appears that he had some complaints to make to the king of one Twyer, in Norfolk, and also of Sir John Howard, the sheriff of the county, a relation of the Duke of Norfolk, of whom we have already spoken,[204-4] and shall have more to say presently. But scarcely had he returned home when he was pulled out of his house by the parson of Snoring, a friend of Twyer’s, who accused him of having procured indictments against Twyer and himself, and carried him off, we are not told whither.[204-5] All we know is that in the beginning of July Thomas Denys was murdered, and that there were various reports as to who had instigated the crime. William Lomner believed that some men of the Duke of Norfolk’s council were implicated. Sir Miles Stapleton factiously endeavoured to lay the blame on John Berney of Witchingham. The parson of Snoring was put in the stocks, with four of his associates, but what further punishment they underwent does not appear. John Paston was entreated to use his influence to get them tried by a special commission.[204-6] The most precise account of the crime is found in the records of the King’s Bench, which give us the date and place where it occurred. One Robert Grey of Warham, labourer, was indicted for having, along with others, attacked Denys on Thursday the 2nd July, and dragged him from his house at Gately to Egmere, not far from Walsingham, where they killed him on the Saturday following.

[Footnote 203-3: _Patent Roll_, 1 Edward IV. p. 1, m. 18 _d._, dated March 16; and m. 19 _d._, dated May 10; p. 4, m. 22 _d._, February 24 and March 1 (1462); also p. 2, m. 12 _d._ (against the Scots), Nov. 13.]

[Footnote 203-4: _Ib._ p. 1, m. 27 _d._, March 28, and p. 3, m. 3 _d._, July 8.]

[Footnote 203-5: _Ib._ p. 2, m. 10 _d._, Aug. 17.]

[Footnote 203-6: _Ib._ p. 2, m. 12 _d._, Nov. 4; and p. 4, m. 22 _d._, Feb. 28 (1462).]

[Footnote 203-7: _Ib._ p. 3, m. 3 _d._, July 12.]

[Footnote 204-1: _Ib._ p. 3, m. 3 _d._ and 27 _d._, Aug. 6 and 12; also m. 8 _d._, Jan. 29.]

[Footnote 204-2: Such, I think, must be the meaning intended. The expression in the original is, ‘they shuld aley (_qu._ should a’ laid?) on her bodyys.’]

[Footnote 204-3: No. 469.]

[Footnote 204-4: _See_ p. 164.]

[Footnote 204-5: Nos. 455, 463.]

[Footnote 204-6: No. 472.]

Elizabeth Poynings, too, John Paston’s sister, has some experience of the bitterness of the times. She has by this time become a widow, having lost her husband at the second battle of St. Albans, and her lands are occupied by the Countess of Northumberland and Robert Fenys, in disregard of her rights.[205-1] In times of revolution and tumult the weak must go to the wall.

[Footnote 205-1: No. 461.]

Besides these illustrations of the social condition of the times, our Letters still abound with information not to be found elsewhere as to the chief political events. [Sidenote: Political events.] Here we have the record of the battle of Towton, of those who fell, and of those who were wounded;[205-2] after which we find Henry VI. shut up in Yorkshire, in a place the name of which is doubtful.[205-3] Then we hear of the beheading of the Earl of Wiltshire, and of his head being placed on London Bridge.[205-4] Then come matters relating to the coronation of Edward IV., which was delayed on account of the siege of Carlisle.[205-5] On this occasion, it seems, John Paston was to have received the honour of knighthood,[205-6] which he doubtless declined, having already compounded with Henry VI. not to be made a knight.[205-7] Two years later, however, his eldest son was made one, very probably as a substitute for himself, apparently just at the time when he attained the age of twenty-one.[205-8] To the father such an honour would evidently have been a burden rather than a satisfaction.

[Footnote 205-2: No. 450.]

[Footnote 205-3: No. 451.]

[Footnote 205-4: Nos. 451, 452.]

[Footnote 205-5: No. 457.]

[Footnote 205-6: Nos. 457, 460.]

[Footnote 205-7: No. 373.]

[Footnote 205-8: Sir John Paston must have been born in 1442. At the inquisition taken in October 1466, after his father’s death, he was found to be twenty-four years old and more.]

But on the whole John Paston stood well with his countrymen, and the change of kings was an event from which he had no reason to anticipate bad consequences to himself. Since the death of Sir John Fastolf he had become a man of much greater importance, and he had been returned to Parliament in the last year of Henry VI. as a supporter of the Duke of York. He was now, in the first year of Edward IV., returned to Parliament again. [Sidenote: John Paston returned to Parliament.] He was apparently in good favour with the king, and had been since the accession of Edward for a short time resident in his household.[206-1] The king also obtained from him the redelivery of the jewels pawned by his father, the Duke of York, to Sir John Fastolf,[206-2] in consideration of which he granted John Paston an assignment of 700 marks[206-3] on the fee-farm of the city of Norwich, and on the issues of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. But his election as knight of the shire for Norfolk did not pass altogether without question. Paston’s wife’s cousin, John Berney of Witchingham, whom Sir Miles Stapleton accused of being implicated in the murder of Denys, had taken a leading part in the proceedings, and Stapleton alleged that he was meditating further outrages. The people had appeared ‘jacked and saletted’ at the shire house, the under-sheriff was put in suspicion of Berney, and the sheriff, Sir John Howard, conceived it would be necessary to have a new election. To this neither Berney nor Paston very much objected. Berney was willing to give every assurance that he would do the under-sheriff no bodily hurt, but he considered his conduct that at the election had not been creditable, and he desired that he would either intimate to the people that the election should stand, or procure a new writ, and publicly announce the day on which another election should be holden. As for Paston, he was perfectly satisfied, provided that he were not put to further expense, as he believed it was the general desire of the people to ratify what they had done; he only wished that it might be on a holiday, so as not to interfere with the people’s work. The matter was discussed before the king himself, John Paston and the under-sheriff being present, each to answer for his part in the affair, and a writ was finally granted for a new election on St. Laurence’s Day. But from what he had seen of the conduct of the under-sheriff, Paston seems to have been afraid the day might yet be changed, to his prejudice; so, in a personal interview with that functionary, he got him to place the writ in his hands, and sent it down to his wife to keep until the new day of election came round, charging her to see that the under-sheriff had it again that day.[207-1]

[Footnote 206-1: No. 459.]

[Footnote 206-2: No. 473. Compare No. 223. It is striking that, notwithstanding his large possessions in land, the Duke of York should have been unable for eight years to redeem these jewels.]

[Footnote 206-3: This was less than the sum (£487) for which the jewels were pledged, and yet it was the whole compensation granted both for the jewels and for a bond of 100 marks given by the Duke of York to Fastolf, which Paston also surrendered.]

[Footnote 207-1: Nos. 466-8, 471, 475.]

[[but he considered his conduct that at the election _text unchanged: 1st edition has same word order_]]

His suspicions of unfair dealing were probably too well founded. At all events, the new election did not pass over peacefully any more than the previous one, perhaps not so much so. We do not, indeed, hear any more of John Berney and Sir Miles Stapleton; [Sidenote: John Paston and Sir John Howard.] but the sheriff, Sir John Howard, had a violent altercation with Paston himself in the shire house, and one of Howard’s men struck Paston twice with a dagger, so that he would have been severely wounded but for the protection of a good doublet that he wore on the occasion.[207-2]

[Footnote 207-2: Nos. 477, 478.]

The occurrence was an awkward one. The feuds in the county of Norfolk had already occupied the king’s attention once, and that which it was supposed would have been a settlement had proved no settlement at all. Perhaps Edward had been too lenient towards old offenders; for Sir Miles Stapleton was but an ally of Sir Thomas Tuddenham and John Heydon, of whom we have heard so much in the days of Henry VI., and these two personages were almost as influential as ever. Some time before the king’s coronation, they had received a royal pardon, on the strength of which, as we learn by a letter at that time, they intended going up to London with the Duchess of Suffolk to be present at the ceremony.[207-3] And very soon afterwards we have a renewal of the old complaints that ‘the world was right wild, and had been sithence Heydon’s safeguard was proclaimed at Walsingham.’[207-4] But whoever was in fault, it was a serious thing for John Paston--who by this time hoped that he was in favour with the king, and had actually got his eldest son introduced into the king’s household[208-1]--that royal influence itself could not still the angry feelings that had arisen about his election. The dispute must now once more come before the king, and his adversary, in consequence of his relation to the Duke of Norfolk, was doubtless a man of considerable influence. Paston himself, it is true, was in the position of the injured party, but he forbore to complain. The subject, however, was brought by others under the notice of the king, who commanded both Paston and Howard to appear before him, and was even incensed at the former for delaying to obey his summons. On the 11th of October the king said to one of John Paston’s friends: ‘We have sent two privy seals to Paston by two yeomen of our chamber, and he disobeyeth them; but we will send him another to-morrow, and, by God’s mercy, if he come not then, he shall die for it. We will make all other men beware by him how they shall disobey our writing. A servant of ours hath made a complaint of him. I cannot think that he hath informed us all truly. Yet not for that we will not suffer him to disobey our writing; but sithence he disobeyeth our writing, we may believe the better his guiding is as we be informed.’[208-2]

[Footnote 207-3: No. 458.]

[Footnote 207-4: No. 465.]

[Footnote 208-1: Nos. 477, 478.]

[Footnote 208-2: No. 484.]

[[Footnote 208-1: Nos. 477, 478. _text reads “No.”_]]

These terrible words were reported to John Paston by his brother Clement, then in London, who urged him to come up from Norfolk in all possible haste, and to be sure that he had some very weighty excuse for having neglected the previous messages. But besides great despatch in coming, and a very weighty excuse, one thing more was very necessary to be attended to, and this further admonition was added: ‘Also, if ye do well, come right strong; for Howard’s wife made her boast that if any of her husband’s men might come to you, there should go no penny for your life, and Howard hath with the king a great fellowship.’[208-3]

[Footnote 208-3: _Ibid._]

It was clear this advice was not to be neglected. Paston seems to have been detained in Norfolk by a dispute he had with his co-executors Judge Yelverton[209-1] and William Jenney, who refused to acknowledge his claims as chief administrator of Fastolf’s will, and had entered on the possession of some of Sir John’s manors in Suffolk, near the borders of Norfolk.[209-2] But his absence from London had done great mischief. Not only Howard, but the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were endeavouring to put him out of the king’s favour; and it was said that Caister would be given to the king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.[209-3] Worst of all, however, was the fact that the king, who had evidently had a good opinion of Paston hitherto, was beginning to alter his tone so seriously. [Sidenote: John Paston imprisoned.] No time, therefore, was to be lost in going up to London, and no marvel though, when he got there, he was immediately committed to the Fleet.[209-4]

[Footnote 209-1: I have already indicated my belief that Judge Yelverton was the real person nicknamed Colinus Gallicus in Friar Brackley’s letters. It is quite clear by No. 404 (one of the letters found after the text of Mr. Arber’s edition had passed through the press) that Colinus Gallicus not only could not have been Worcester, but that he was a man of some social standing on familiar terms with the Earl of Wiltshire. This, and the fact that he was one of Fastolf’s executors, seem to prove his identity. It is a satisfaction to find that, though Brackley did not love William Worcester, the bitter words in No. 383 were not levelled at him. Thus he wrote while Sir John Fastolf was on his deathbed: ‘Colinus Gallicus says in Yarmouth and other places that he is an executor. He said also yesterday before several persons, if once he were in London, he wishes never to see Norfolk. He says also, whereas the executors think they will have keys, after the death others will have keys as well as they. He is a very deceitful man (_falsissimus_). . . . That same Gallicus intensely hates the rector (Howes), and would like to supplant him.’]

[Footnote 209-2: No. 481.]

[Footnote 209-3: Nos. 482, 484.]

[Footnote 209-4: No. 488.]

John Paston’s enemies, acting in several ways, had now done their worst. While the news of his dispute with Howard was reported to the king in the most unfavourable terms, Judge Yelverton (he had been made Sir William Yelverton at the coronation)[209-5] and William Jenney entered Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Cotton in Suffolk, [Sidenote: Manor of Cotton.] and distrained upon the tenants for rent. John Paston’s faithful servant, Richard Calle, at first interrupted their proceedings, and when Jenney went to hold a court at Cotton, entered the place before he came, along with Paston’s eldest son. By Calle’s activity and watchfulness the court was holden in Paston’s name, although it had been summoned in Jenney’s; and young John Paston next day, to requite the enemy for the trouble they had occasioned, took with him thirty men, and rode to Jenney’s place, where he carried off thirty-six head of neat, and brought them into Norfolk. This was a bold exploit, for the enemy had threatened to drag him and Calle out of the place by violence; but Calle still remained, and twelve men with him, and kept possession for five whole days, during which time he visited the farmers and tenants of the manor, and ascertained that they were all well disposed towards Paston, and would pay no money to any one else. But, unfortunately, just at this point came the summons to Paston which he did not dare to disobey; and his opponents knew how to profit by his absence and imprisonment in London. Yelverton and Jenney did not re-enter the manor themselves; but Jenney sold his interest in it to one Gilbert Debenham, who intended to give it to his son, Sir Gilbert, for a dwelling-house. Accordingly, by the encouragement of Jenney and Debenham, a body of unknown men took possession of the place, and garrisoned it against all comers as strongly as they could. They broke down the drawbridge over the moat, so that no one could enter the place except by means of a ladder. They melted lead, and damaged the property in various ways, while John Paston was a prisoner in the Fleet. At the same time Yelverton and Jenney took proceedings against Richard Calle. They succeeded in getting him imprisoned upon an indictment for felony in Norfolk; and, fearing lest he should be acquitted upon that charge, they ‘certified insurrections’ against him in the King’s Bench, and sent the sheriff a writ to bring him up to London in the beginning of November.[210-1]

[Footnote 209-5: No. 457.]

[Footnote 210-1: Nos. 485-487.]

[Sidenote: John Paston released from prison.] But before the day that Richard Calle was to appear in the King’s Bench John Paston was delivered from the Fleet, and his adversary Howard was sent to prison in his place. The whole circumstances of the controversy had been laid before the king, and Paston was released after about a fortnight’s imprisonment. The news that he had got into trouble had excited much sympathy in Norwich, for he was highly popular, and Howard’s attempt to set aside his election met with very little approbation. Margaret Paston, especially, was sad and downcast at home, and though her husband had sent her comfortable messages and letters showing that his case was not so bad as it appeared to be, ‘yet I could not be merry,’ she wrote to him, ‘till this day that the Mayor sent to me, and sent me word that he had knowledge for very truth that ye were delivered out of the Fleet.’[211-1]

[Footnote 211-1: No. 488.]

The king was much interested in the dispute, and was laudably determined to insist upon justice and fair dealing. He appointed Sir Thomas Montgomery, one of the knights of his own household, in whom he had special confidence, sheriff of Norfolk for the ensuing year. And when Sir Thomas went down into Norfolk, he sent Sir William Yelverton along with him, who, though not very favourably disposed towards Paston, was still one of the justices, and bound to be impartial. Edward gave them both a very explicit message from his own mouth to declare to the people in the shire house, and Yelverton was made the spokesman. [Sidenote: Message from the king to the people of Norfolk.] He said the king had been greatly displeased to hear that there had been ‘a riotous fellowship’ in the county, but that he understood it was not owing to disaffection on the part of the people generally--that it had been stirred up only by two or three evil-disposed persons--that he and the sheriff were there by the king’s command, ready to receive complaints from any man against any one whomsoever--and that if they could not prevail upon the wrongdoer to make restitution, the bills should be sent to the king; moreover, that if any man was afraid to set forth his grievances, he should have full protection. At this point Yelverton asked the sheriff if he remembered anything more in the king’s message, and requested him in that case to declare it himself. The sheriff said Sir William had set forth everything, except that the king had made special reference to two persons, Sir Thomas Tuddenham and Heydon. ‘Ah, that is truth,’ said Yelverton; and he explained that any one who wished to complain of them should be protected also. The sheriff then added a few words for his part, in which he promised faithfully before all the people, ‘and swore by great oaths,’ that neither by fear nor by favour would he be restrained from communicating to the king the truth as he found it to be.[212-1]

[Footnote 212-1: Nos. 497, 500.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1462.] All this was reassuring; but yet it was remarked that John Paston did not come home again into Norfolk, and neither did his colleague in the representation of the county, John Berney of Witchingham. This alone caused Margaret Paston still to entertain apprehensions for her husband’s safety, and her suspicions were shared by many, who feared that they and Paston alike were involved in some new charges of sedition. Busybodies, it was thought, had been insinuating to the king that a very rebellious spirit prevailed in Norfolk, and report said that the Dukes of Clarence and Suffolk would come down with certain judges commissioned to try such persons as were ‘noised riotous.’ The rumour scarcely tended to pacify discontent. If it were true, people said they might as well go up to the king in a body to complain of those who had done them wrong, and not wait quietly to be hanged at their own doors. The Duke of Suffolk and his mother were the maintainers of those who oppressed the country most, and nothing but severity could be expected from a commission of which the duke was a member, unless his influence were counteracted by that of more popular persons.[212-2] These misgivings, however, were happily soon after set at rest. The election of John Paston was confirmed, and no such dreaded commission appears to have been sent into Norfolk. ‘The people of that country,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘be right glad that the day went with you on Monday as it did. You were never so welcome into Norfolk as ye shall be when ye come home, I trow.’[212-3] Paston, in fact, appears to have gained a complete triumph over his adversaries, and it was said that Howard was likely to lose his head.[212-4]

[Footnote 212-2: No. 504.]

[Footnote 212-3: No. 505.]

[Footnote 212-4: No. 510.]

But the dispute with Yelverton and Jenney was still unsettled. Writs were sent down into Norfolk to attach John Paston’s eldest son and Richard Calle upon indictments of trespass, and Debenham threatened to hold a court at Calcot in defiance of Paston’s agents.[212-5] It is evident, too, that he made good his word, and John Paston in consequence got his tenants to bring actions against him.[213-1] Cross pleas between the parties occupied the courts at Westminster for a year or more, during which time we find it suggested to John Paston that he would never get leave to live in peace, unless he could by some means obtain ‘the good lordship’ of the Duke of Suffolk.[213-2] Appeals to law and justice were all very well, and no one fought his battle in the courts with more unflinching energy than Paston; but unless he wished to be always fighting, the best way for him was to obtain the favour of the great.

[Footnote 212-5: No. 538.]

[Footnote 213-1: No. 540.]

[Footnote 213-2: No. 544.]

It is a question, indeed, whether in this eternal turmoil of litigation at Westminster, and watch to keep out intruders in his Suffolk manors, John Paston had not to some extent neglected his duty to his children at home. Such, at least, was the world’s opinion, and there were candid friends who did not hesitate to tell him so. [Sidenote: Sir John Paston.] His eldest son now attained the age of twenty-one, and received the dignity of knighthood--probably, as we have before suggested, as a substitute for himself. [Sidenote: A.D. 1463.] The young man had been summoned four years before to attend and do military service to King Henry VI.[213-3] He had since been for some little time a member of King Edward’s household, travelling about with the court from place to place.[213-4] But he had scarcely seen the usual amount of service, and though now of full age, and known as Sir John Paston, knight, he was living again under his father’s roof, wasting his time, as it was considered, in inglorious ease. ‘At reverence of God, take heed,’ wrote some one to his father, ‘for I hear much talking thereof. . . . Some say that he and ye stand both out of the king’s good grace, and some say that ye keep him at home for niggardship, and will nothing spend upon him; and so each man says his advice as it pleases him to talk. And I have inquired and said the most cause is in party for cause ye are so much out, that he is rather at home for the safeguard of the coasts.’[213-5]

[Footnote 213-3: No. 377.]

[Footnote 213-4: Nos. 477, 478, 511.]

[Footnote 213-5: No. 550.]

The protection of the coast, especially about Yarmouth, might well be an object in which John Paston was specially concerned, for close to Yarmouth lay Caister Castle. And he had actually procured a commission for his son to be captain of a ship in the king’s service, called the _Barge of Yarmouth_. But here again he was brought into collision with Gilbert Debenham, who had already procured a commission to the same effect for himself, and this field of usefulness seems to have been cut off.[214-1] Confinement at home, to superintend his father’s servants, did not suit the young man’s tastes. Once before he had displeased his father, probably by seeking too much liberty.[214-2] He now not only sought it, but took it without leave. [Sidenote: He leaves home.] Without signifying his intention to any one, he stole away from Caister, apparently with the view of joining himself again to the king’s household. In passing by Lynn, he wrote a penitent letter to his mother, expressing his fear that he had done wrong, and given her uneasiness. And, in truth, she was by no means pleased; for hitherto in their little disagreements she had stood between him and his father, and now her own past efforts at conciliation caused his father to suspect that she had been privy to his escape. If on any occasion Margaret Paston ever deceived her husband, it must have been for the sake of shielding one of her sons; but we are not warranted in believing even this. The imputation in this instance was certainly untrue; but so great was the offence taken by the father, that she durst not even let him know that she had received a letter from her son since his departure. She, however, wrote to the runaway, and charged him, as he valued her blessing, to do all in his power to recover his father’s goodwill. He must write to his offended parent again and again in the most humble terms he could think of, giving him all the news from court, and taking far more pains than he had done at home to avoid incurring expenses.[214-3]

[Footnote 214-1: Nos. 521-3.]

[Footnote 214-2: Nos. 375, 377.]

[Footnote 214-3: No. 552.]

[Sidenote: John Paston the youngest.] For his second son John’s setting out in life, the father had made better provision than for his eldest. He had succeeded in getting him placed in the household of the new Duke of Norfolk, the last of the Mowbrays, who succeeded his father towards the close of the year 1461, the first year of King Edward’s reign. It was the preceding duke who had occupied Caister just before the coronation; but he died on the 6th November following, at the beginning of Edward’s first Parliament, when his son and heir had just attained the age of seventeen.[215-1] John Paston the father evidently hoped to have the young duke for his friend, and so to maintain himself in undisturbed possession of the lands which he claimed under Sir John Fastolf’s will. His son must have been as nearly as possible of the same age as the young nobleman, in whose service he was placed, and he was soon made familiar with the stir and bustle of life. At first he went down with the duke to his castle of Holt, in Wales, where he expected to keep his Christmas. The young duke, who was already married, being desired by the king to repair thither for the quiet of the country, had left his wife behind him, but after a while proposed to send for her to keep Christmas in Wales along with him. This intention, however, he was compelled to abandon. At that very time Queen Margaret had come out of France, and had won the castle of Bamborough: [Sidenote: Bamborough Castle taken by Margaret of Anjou.] and though Warwick was sent to the north as the king’s lieutenant, and the king himself was following with an army of his own, it was shortly afterwards determined that the Duke of Norfolk also should repair into Northumberland. [Sidenote: A.D. 1462. Oct.] The castles of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamborough were invested by the royal forces; but it was fully expected the Scots would make a strong attempt to rescue them. The Earl of Warwick’s headquarters were at Warkworth, three miles out of Alnwick, but he rode daily to each of the three castles to superintend the siege operations at each. The Duke of Norfolk had the task assigned him to conduct the victuals and ordnance from Newcastle. The king himself lay at Durham; and young John Paston had an opportunity of making acquaintance with a number of influential persons, including the Lord Hastings and Lord Dacres, who had continual access to the presence of their sovereign. Altogether, John Paston the youngest had certainly begun the world well.[215-2]

[Footnote 215-1: Fabyan. _Inquisition p. m._, 1 Edward IV., No. 46.]

[Footnote 215-2: Nos. 532, 533.]

Of the other children of John and Margaret Paston it is unnecessary to say anything at present. At the time of which we now treat there was hardly one of them far advanced beyond childhood; nor do they, in fact, occupy very much attention even in later years, although we shall meet with casual notices of one or two of them.

_Troubles of John Paston_

On the whole, though the conduct of one of them had not given him entire satisfaction, the two eldest sons of John Paston had probably both been of some service to their father in maintaining his influence at court. And this must have been a matter of no small consequence in the continued struggle that he was obliged to maintain with adversaries like Yelverton and Jenney. The dispute with them had now assumed another form. [Sidenote: A.D. 1464.] [Sidenote: Litigation touching Fastolf’s will.] Sir William Yelverton, in conjunction with our old friend William Worcester, was contesting in the spiritual court of Canterbury the claim put forward by Paston to be the chief executor under Sir John Fastolf’s will; while at the same time William Jenney, and one William Hogan, by Jenney’s procurement, took actions for trespass against him in the Suffolk county court. Paston trusted to his influence with the king to deliver him from these vexatious suits. He neglected to put in an appearance at four several county courts, and allowed himself to be put in exigent, while he followed the king to Marlborough, and obtained from him a licence for the erection of the college at Caister provided for in Fastolf’s will. Along with this the king covenanted to give him a free pardon when required for all offences against the peace, to save him harmless against Yelverton and Jenney; but undertook at the same time to cause inquiry to be made into the substance of their accusations, and if these proved to be unfounded, to compel them to make Paston compensation.[216-1]

[Footnote 216-1: Nos. 568-9, 571-2.]

Paston had partly trusted to the friendship of William Calthorpe, who was at this time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to protect him against outlawry. His servant Richard Calle offered surety that Paston would save the sheriff harmless, either by making an appearance at a later date or by producing a _supersedeas_; and he requested that upon this assurance the sheriff would return that his master had appeared the first day. Calthorpe had every wish to do Paston a kindness; though he confessed that Jenney had been his good friend and legal adviser for two years past, Paston was still more his friend than Jenney, and he promised to do all that was required.[217-1] But this promise he failed to fulfil. Paston’s non-appearance was proclaimed at four successive county courts at Ipswich; and a writ of exigent was granted against him. Paston obtained a _supersedeas_ from the king at Fotheringay on the 3rd August; [Sidenote: John Paston outlawed.] but in the end judgment was given against him in Suffolk on the 10th September, and he was proclaimed an outlaw. On the 3rd November following he was committed to the Fleet prison.[217-2]

[Footnote 217-1: No. 572.]

[Footnote 217-2: No. 572. Itin. W. Worc., 366. Those who are interested in the subject may be referred to the Year Books of Mich. and Hil. 4 Edw. iv. for pleadings as to the validity of the outlawry and _supersedeas_. These, however, are purely technical and of no interest to the general reader.]

[[Mich. and Hil. 4 Edw. iv. _typography unchanged: expected form “Edw. IV.”_]]

This was his second experience of captivity since the death of Sir John Fastolf. We do not know that he ever suffered it before that time; but he was now paying the penalty of increased importance. His detention on this occasion does not seem to have been of long duration; but if we are right in the interpretation of a sarcastic anonymous letter[217-3] found among his correspondence, his fellow-prisoners threw out surmises when he left that the Fleet would see him yet a third time within its walls. At least, this may or may not have been the purport of what is certainly an ironical and ambiguous epistle addressed to him, we cannot tell by whom. If it was so, the prediction was verified before another twelvemonth had passed away.

[Footnote 217-3: No. 574.]

How matters went during the winter we have very little indication, except that Paston’s friend John Wykes, an officer of the king’s household, [Sidenote: A.D. 1465. Feb. 7.] writes to Margaret Paston on the 7th February from London, ‘that my master your husband, my mistress your mother, my master Sir John, Mr. William, Mr. Clement, and all their men, were in good health when this letter was written, thanked be Jesu; and also their matters be in a good way, for my Lord Chancellor is their singular good lord.’ The crisis in the affairs of the family was certainly very serious, when old Agnes Paston, the judge’s widow (for I have never found any other lady spoken of as Margaret Paston’s ‘mother’), took the trouble to go up to London to see them settled. It appears that there was a little family council on the occasion, and John Paston’s two brothers, William and Clement, together with his son Sir John, were also present.[218-1] What kind of arrangement they all succeeded in making we have no means of ascertaining; but the next occasion of trouble to John Paston was not given by Yelverton and Jenney.

[Footnote 218-1: No. 576.]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Suffolk lays claim to Drayton.] The first indications of it appear in a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband, written on the 8th April 1465, by which we find that the Duke of Suffolk had now set up a claim to Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Drayton, about four miles north-west of Norwich. Margaret had also heard that he had bought up the rights of a person named Brytyeff or Bryghtylhed, who laid claim to the neighbouring manor of Hellesdon, a little nearer the city, and that he intended to take possession after Easter.[218-2] The claim appears to have been very ill founded, and the tenants, all but one or two, were favourable to Paston.[218-3] Nevertheless Philip Lipyate, the duke’s bailiff, began taking distresses, and carried off the horses of one Dorlet as he was about to yoke them to his plough. But Margaret Paston, who had been staying at Caister, after waiting till her son Sir John could come to her, and leaving him to keep the castle, went over to Hellesdon to collect the rents for her husband, and put a stop, if possible, to the proceedings of the duke’s officers. She soon began to feel that there was more need of a captain like her son Sir John at Hellesdon than at Caister. One single tenant named Piers Warin gave her servants a little trouble, and they took from him two mares as security for the rent. Warin made his complaint to Philip Lipyate and the duke’s bailiff of Cossey, who came with a body of eightscore men in armour, and took away the plough-horses of the parson and another tenant, intimating that the beasts should not be restored unless their owners would appear and give answer to certain matters at Drayton on the Tuesday following. The duke’s men further threatened that if Paston’s servants ventured to take any further distresses in Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a hen, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon.[219-1]

[Footnote 218-2: No. 578.]

[Footnote 218-3: Nos. 579, 584.]

[Footnote 219-1: Nos. 579, 581.]

John Paston, though not at this time in confinement, seems to have been unable to leave London. But it was impossible that he could underestimate the danger in which his property stood from the pretensions of such a formidable neighbour as the Duke of Suffolk. The letters written to him at this period by his wife are annotated all down the margin with very brief rough jottings in his own handwriting, for the most part only calling attention to the subjects touched upon in the letter, but occasionally indicating what he was about to say in his reply. He expressed, indeed, no great respect for the big threats of Suffolk’s officers about taking the value of an ox for that of a hen, which he characterised in the margin by the simple monosyllable ‘crack’; but he noted, in the brief words ‘Periculum Heylesdon,’ the fact that there was real cause for anxiety lest the duke, who had already occupied Drayton, should drive him out of Hellesdon as well.[219-2]

[Footnote 219-2: No. 581.]

The Bishop of Norwich had been appealed to, as chief justice of the peace for the county, to use his influence with the Duke of Suffolk’s officers, and especially with Philip Lipyate, who was a priest, and subject to his jurisdiction, to bring the dispute to a peaceful settlement. But John Paston probably trusted more to the fact that he had men of his own ready to repel force by force. The parishes of Hellesdon and Drayton are situated on the northern bank of the river Wensum, partly on a low ridge which slopes downward towards the stream. Opposite to Drayton, on the other side of the river, lay the Duke of Suffolk’s mansion of Cossey,[219-3] from which, at any time that was thought advisable, an armed band could be sent along with a distraining officer to assert the duke’s alleged rights over the tenants. It was really a case of two hostile camps keeping watch upon each other, and each of them ready to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Not that either of them pretended to be above the law, but the duke and Paston each claimed to be lawful owner of the lordships of Hellesdon and Drayton, and, until any legal settlement could be come to, each was well aware of the importance of maintaining his claim by corresponding acts. If the duke could levy a distress, so could Paston. His officers made an inroad, undeterred by the menaces of the duke’s men, into Drayton, took 77 neat, and brought them home to Hellesdon. The tenants followed, petitioning to have their cattle back again, but Margaret Paston told them they must first pay such duties as they owed to her husband, or find security to pay at such a day as she could agree to. An officer of the duke named Harleston was at Norwich, and told them that if they either paid or gave such surety they should be put out of their holdings. Harleston had a conference with Margaret Paston in the evening, but she refused to redeliver the distress on any other terms than those she had already intimated. This was on a Saturday evening. On Monday following a replevin was served upon her in the name of Harleston, who was under-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, on the ground that the cattle had been taken within the fee of the duchy. Margaret refused to deliver them until she had ascertained whether this was actually the case, and on inquiry she found that it was not so. The beasts were accordingly still detained in Hellesdon pin-fold, and Pynchemore, the officer who had brought the replevin, was obliged to return to his master. But in the afternoon he came again with a replevin under the seal of the sheriff of Norfolk, which it was impossible lawfully to disobey. So the beasts were at last taken out of the pin-fold and redelivered to the tenants.[220-1]

[Footnote 219-3: Now commonly spelt Costessey, but pronounced, as it is usually spelt in the Paston Letters, Cossey.]

[Footnote 220-1: No. 583.]

This sort of quasi-legal warfare continued for weeks and for months. At one time there would be a lull; but again it was reported that the duke’s men were busier. The duke himself was coming to Cossey, and his servants boasted openly that he would have Drayton in peace and then Hellesdon.[221-1] And not very long after the duke did come to Norfolk, raising people on his way both in Norfolk and Suffolk,--for an attack, as every one knew, on Paston’s stronghold at Hellesdon, which was now placed in the keeping of his son Sir John.[221-2]

[Footnote 221-1: No. 585.]

[Footnote 221-2: No. 592.]

[Sidenote: Attempt of the duke’s men on Hellesdon.] On Monday the 8th July, Philip Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey, with about 300 men, came before Hellesdon, but, finding Sir John Paston quite prepared for them, professed they had no intention of attempting to force an entry. For Sir John had a garrison of 60 men within the place, and such a quantity of guns and ordnance that the assailants would certainly have had the worst of it. Lipyate and the bailiff, however, informed Sir John that they had a warrant to attach John Daubeney, Wykes, Richard Calle, and some others. Sir John replied that they were not within, and if they had been he would not have delivered them. Afterwards it was mutually agreed that the Duke of Suffolk should dismiss his men and Sir John Paston should do the same. But this only transferred the scene of action to Norwich, where Richard Calle was attacked by twelve men in the streets and only rescued by the sheriff; nor did he escape without the pleasant assurance that if he were caught another time he would be put to death, so that he did not dare ride out without an escort. Daubeney and Wykes were in a similar state of apprehension, and to crown all, it was said that there was to be a special commission to inquire of riots, in which the Duke of Suffolk and Yelverton would be commissioners. If so, every man that had taken Paston’s part was pretty sure of being hanged.[221-3]

[Footnote 221-3: No. 593.]

Sir John Paston, however, acquired great credit for having withstood so numerous a force as Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey had brought against him. It will be readily understood that his position must have been a strong one. He and his mother were then living at a mansion in Hellesdon, which probably stood on comparatively low ground near the river.[222-1] But on the brow of the hill, nearer Drayton, stood a quadrangular fortress of which the ruins still exist, known at this day by the name of Drayton Lodge. This lodge lay within what was then called Hellesdon Warren, and commanded the entrance to the property. From its elevated position it must have been peculiarly difficult to attack. The country around was open heath, and the approach of an enemy could be descried distinctly in the distance. From the mansion below, where he had quartered his garrison of 60 men, he could doubtless bring up with ease at any time as many as seemed necessary for the defence of the lodge;[222-2] while from the battlements of the lodge a heavy fire could be opened on the advancing foe.[222-3]

[Footnote 222-1: At Hellesdon North Hall, the property of Mr. J. H. Gurney, old foundations have been recently discovered, which are in all probability those of John Paston’s house. The place is about 400 yards from Hellesdon Church.]

[Footnote 222-2: One day in the beginning of May as many as sixty men were placed in the lodge itself, and kept there all day. At that time an attack was continually expected, but not more than sixteen or twenty persons could sleep in the building. _See_ No. 581, at p. 139 (vol. iv.).]

[Footnote 222-3: ‘The ruined Lodge at Drayton’ is the subject of an interesting paper by the late Mr. Henry Harrod in the _Norfolk Archæology_, vol. ii. p. 363. There are no remains of battlements now, but most probably they once existed.]

Living within a house that was threatened with siege, Margaret Paston, at this juncture, seems to have taken an active part along with her son in the preparations for defence. Her husband in London writes to her as a commander-in-chief might do to the governor of a besieged fort:--‘In good faith ye acquit you right well and discreetly, and heartily to your worship and mine, and to the shame of your adversaries: and I am well content that ye avowed that ye kept possession at Drayton and so would do.’ But the task imposed upon her had impaired her health; and John Paston, though for some potent reasons he was not able even now to come to her aid, was anxious to give her every comfort and encouragement in his power. ‘Take what may do your ease and spare not,’ he says in the same letter; ‘and in any wise take no thought nor too much labour for these matters, nor set it not so to your heart that ye fare the worse for it. And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law, John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. It had descended to his daughter Alice, and John Paston was able to show his title to her property. On the other hand he traced the pedigree of the Duke of Suffolk from ‘one William Poole of Hull, which was a worshipful man grown by fortune of the world,’ and whose son Michael, the first Earl of Suffolk, had been so created by King Richard II. since Paston’s father was born; and if any of their lineage held the manor of Drayton he would lose £100, if the duke would be bound in as much to prove the contrary. But the duke must not expect him to show his title to one who tried to oust him by violence. On this point John Paston was resolute. ‘Let my lord of Norwich wit that it is not profitable, nor the common weal of gentlemen, that any gentleman should be compelled by an entry of a lord to show his evidence or title to his land, nor I will not begin that example ne thraldom, of gentlemen nor of other. It is good a lord take sad counsel ere he begin any such matter.’[223-1]

[Footnote 223-1: No. 595.]

It might have been supposed that after the duke’s attempt on Hellesdon, nothing but impediments of the most serious kind would have prevented John Paston from going down to Norfolk to take charge of his own interests and relieve his wife’s anxiety. But it appears that he hardly expected to be able to leave London, and in the same letter from which we have just been quoting he desires that if he be not home within three weeks his wife will come to him. In that case she is, before leaving, to put everything under proper rule both at Caister and Hellesdon, ‘if the war hold.’ The state of matters between him and Suffolk was such as could only be spoken of as a state of war, even by plain matter-of-fact John Paston. And if the enemy offered peace his wife was to send him word.

What could have been the obstacle that prevented John Paston leaving London? It appears for one thing that he was at this time called upon to undergo an examination before the spiritual court of Canterbury, in defence of his claim to be Sir John Fastolf’s executor. This alone was, perhaps, sufficient to detain him, for it was a thing on which his most important interests depended. But there is no doubt that additional obstacles were raised up for him expressly by the malice of his enemies; [Sidenote: John Paston imprisoned a third time.] for it could not have been many weeks after his first examination that John Paston again found himself a prisoner in the Fleet, and within the walls of that prison his further depositions were taken.[224-1]

[Footnote 224-1: No. 606.]

It was the malicious ingenuity of Judge Yelverton that had devised the means to inflict upon him this new incarceration. And the means employed were such as to make captivity doubly painful and humiliating. The king’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in May of the preceding year. At Michaelmas it was openly avowed; and if it displeased, as no doubt it did, Warwick and the old nobility, even from the first, it informed a whole world of time-servers and place-hunters that there was a new avenue to fortune in securing the favour of the Woodvilles. Already Rivers had been created Lord Treasurer and advanced to the dignity of an earldom. Already marriages had been made for the queen’s brothers and sisters, which were evidently provocative of envy, jealousy, and indignation.[224-2] The king’s liberality towards his new relations was unbounded, and sycophants were not wanting to suggest to him how he might gratify their cupidity, sometimes at the expense of others than himself. Sir William Yelverton, accordingly, contrived to whisper in the royal ear that the king might fairly dispose of some fine property in Norfolk and Suffolk; for John Paston, who claimed to be the owner, was come of servile blood, and was really the king’s bondman.[225-1]

[Footnote 224-2: W. Worc. _Annales_, 501, 506.]

[Footnote 225-1: _Itin._ Will. de Worc., 323.]

The reader will remember the curious paper[225-2] in which it is set forth that the grandfather and father of John Paston had held lands in the village of Paston, by servile tenures, and that John Paston himself, without having any manor place, was endeavouring to ‘make himself a lordship there,’ to the prejudice of the duchy of Lancaster. There can be little doubt that this statement was drawn up in the year 1465 and that its author was Judge Yelverton. He had been at this time endeavouring to ingratiate himself with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, the queen’s brother, and it was in the interest of that nobleman that he made this attempt to asperse the lineage of the Pastons. [Sidenote: Lord Scales seeks to obtain Caister.] For Lord Scales had begun to cast covetous eyes on the magnificent castle at Caister; and if it were but satisfactorily shown that John Paston was disqualified from possessing it, no doubt the king, his brother-in-law, would be only too willing to grant it to himself. The case was already prejudged; Caister and the lordship of Cotton as well were his by anticipation, and some time before Paston was committed to prison it was known that Lord Scales meant to ride down into Norfolk and oust him from his property.[225-3]

[Footnote 225-2: _See_ pp. 28, 29.]

[[pp. 28-29 = letter headed “A remembrance of the worshipful kin and ancestry of Paston”]]

[Footnote 225-3: No. 598. It appears by the city records of Norwich, an extract from which, kindly communicated to me by the Rev. William Hudson, will be found in the Appendix to this Introduction, that Lord Scales arrived in the city ‘a second time’ towards the close of the year 1465--apparently just before Christmas day, for the date was within eighteen days of a document dated 10th January, 5 Edward IV.--for the express purpose of taking possession of all the goods and chattels of John Paston, whom the king had seized as his ‘native.’ This raised an awkward question about the privileges of the city, in which John Paston possessed a house. But the civic authorities found a way out of the difficulty, and agreed that Lord Scales should be allowed to enter by the act of John Paston’s feoffees; for it was understood that certain aldermen and common council men were co-feoffees along with him, of the messuage which he held. Thus the city’s liberty was theoretically preserved without offence to the higher powers.]

Although John Paston was thus unable to go home, as he wished to do, neither was Margaret Paston able for some time to go up and see him in London, as he had desired her. Wykes, who had promised to keep possession of the place at Hellesdon in her absence, did not go down into Norfolk so soon as he had intended, but remained in London taking care of Paston’s interests in another fashion in conferences with Nevill, Archbishop of York, at that time Lord Chancellor. Perhaps already the influence of Archbishop Nevill, like that of his brother the Earl of Warwick, had begun to decline, and Wykes was really wasting his labour in complaining to his lordship of the riotous attempt made by the Duke of Suffolk’s men at Hellesdon. There was but one pretext on which the outrage could be justified,--a matter concerning the payment of 100 marks, but the money had been paid long ago. His lordship, however, durst swear the Duchess of Suffolk had no knowledge of it; and with that he left town, promising an answer when he came back next Tuesday.[226-1]

[Footnote 226-1: No. 598.]

But Margaret Paston, though she could not yet come up to London, did not spend the time at home unprofitably. The judges had come down to Norwich on their circuit, when Margaret endeavoured to secure the advantage she had already gained in keeping possession at Drayton by getting a manor court held there in her husband’s name. But to do this she required the services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many, certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an entry into Hellesdon.

[Sidenote: Attempt of Margaret Paston to hold a court at Drayton.] Thomas Bond and an attached and confidential priest named Sir James Gloys were adventurous enough to go to Drayton alone for the purpose of holding a court on Lammas Day. They found, as might have been expected, that officers of the Duke of Suffolk were there before them. Harleston, along with Philip Lipyate, the parson of Salle, and William Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, who was to sit as steward, were in the courtyard of the manor, prepared to hold the court in the Duke of Suffolk’s name. They were accompanied by about sixty persons or more, besides the tenants of Drayton, some having rusty poleaxes and bills to enforce respect for the duke’s authority. In the face of this array, however, Bond and Gloys announced that they came to keep the court in the name of John Paston; on which the former was immediately delivered into the custody of William Ducket, a new bailiff of Drayton appointed by the duke, and was carried off to Cossey, his arms bound behind him with whipcord like a thief. But Margaret Paston spoke with the judges next morning before they went to the shirehouse, in presence of the bailiff of Cossey and the whole of the duke’s council; and the judges calling the bailiff before them, gave him a severe reproof, and sent the sheriff to see what company had been mustered at Drayton. The sheriff rode first to Hellesdon, and expressed himself satisfied with the demeanour of Paston’s men there. When he came to Drayton, the bands of Suffolk’s retainers had disappeared. He demanded that Thomas Bond should be delivered to him, and was told that he had been sent to the Duke of Suffolk; but he was afterwards delivered to him at Norwich, with a request that he should not be set at liberty without a fine, as he had troubled the king’s leet. The judges, however, on being informed of the real state of the case, commanded him to be set at liberty, and pronounced a very strong censure on the conduct of Suffolk’s officers.[227-1]

[Footnote 227-1: No. 599.]

As for the manors of Caister and Cotton, it does not appear that Lord Scales ever carried out his intention so far as the latter was concerned; nor had he taken possession even of the former some time after John Paston was committed to the Fleet. That occurrence must have taken place about the middle of the month of August,[227-2] and towards the end of September we have evidence that Sir John Paston was in Caister Castle keeping possession for his father.[227-3] But the Paston family had been warned of the danger, and we may be well assured that they did not neglect the warning in either case. Indeed, the question how to make matters secure at Caister seems to have been the principal difficulty that caused Margaret to delay her journey up to London. As to Cotton, we shall see ere long that very effectual means were taken to secure possession there.

[Footnote 227-2: On the 18th August Margaret Paston was still hoping that her husband would find it possible to come home himself, and save her the necessity of going up to London to see him. _See_ No. 604. But we know that he was imprisoned before the 28th of the month. No. 606.]

[Footnote 227-3: No. 610 (vol. iv. p. 192).]

[Sidenote: Margaret Paston visits her husband in prison.] It would appear that when Margaret knew her husband was in prison she determined to delay no longer, but to visit him in London at all costs. Early in September she had already gone to him, and her son, John Paston the youngest, wrote to her from Norwich on the 14th, advising her, among other things, to visit the Rood of North-door (a cross beside St. Paul’s Cathedral), and St. Saviour’s at Bermondsey, during her stay in the capital. ‘And let my sister Margery,’ he suggests, ‘go with you, to pray to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.’ It is difficult to tell whether this means devotion or sightseeing, jest or earnest. The young man had already seen a good deal of life, and was familiar with the principal attractions of the great city, to which in all probability his mother was as great a stranger as his young sister. Even the dame who had the care of his father’s apartments in the prison was not unknown apparently to John Paston the youngest. ‘And the Holy Trinity,’ he writes, ‘have you in keeping, and my fair Mistress of the Fleet.’

John Paston the father does not seem to have been very uncomfortable in prison. He made friends in the place of his confinement, and among other persons became acquainted with Henry, Lord Percy, son of the attainted Earl of Northumberland, who was afterwards restored by King Edward to his father’s earldom. His spirits, indeed, if we may judge from his correspondence, were at this time particularly buoyant; for after his wife had taken leave of him to return homeward he wrote her a letter the latter half of which was composed of doggerel rhyme, jesting about having robbed her portmanteau, and referring her for redress to Richard Calle, whose ears he bade her nail to the post if he did not pay her the value. In none of his previous correspondence does he indulge in verse or betray anything of this rollicking humour. The only subject on which he even insinuates a complaint is the weather, which seems to have been unnaturally cold for September. He speaks of it satirically as ‘this cold winter,’ and wishes his wife to send him some worsted for doublets in which to protect himself from the severity of the season. But even in this we can tell that he is jesting, for he explains himself that he wishes to have a doublet entirely composed of the wool manufactured at Worsted, for the credit of his native county. And so far is he from wishing it for the sake of warmth, that he particularly desires to procure a fine quality of worsted ‘almost like silk,’ of which William Paston’s tippet was composed.[229-1]

[Footnote 229-1: No. 609.]

[Sidenote: Margaret Paston enters Cotton.] On her way back to Norfolk, Margaret Paston entered the manor of Cotton and remained in it for three days. She had sent a message to her son John Paston the youngest at Hellesdon to come and meet her there,[229-2] and he came along with Wykes and twelve others, whom she had left at her departure to keep possession and collect the rents. It was within a week of Michaelmas Day, when rents fell due. As yet Lord Scales had made no attempt to seize upon this property. Sir Gilbert Debenham had occupied the manor for some years undisturbed, and he was doubtless considerably taken by surprise when he found that a lady on her way home from London had entered and taken possession in the name of John Paston. But when he heard that young John Paston was gathering money of the tenants, he raised a body of 300 men to expel the intruder. Young John Paston was expecting reinforcements to his little band from Caister or elsewhere, but they did not come; so that his position would have been a critical one had not some one been his friend in the household of the Duke of Norfolk. Sir Gilbert was the duke’s steward, and John Paston the youngest was still in the duke’s service. A yeoman of his lordship’s chamber represented to that nobleman that there was imminent risk of a quarrel between two of his men, which would be a great ‘disworship’ to his grace. The duke sent for the two immediately to attend upon him at Framlingham Castle, and proposed to them terms of compromise until the matter could be thoroughly investigated. He desired that neither party should muster men, that the court should be ‘continued’--that is to say, adjourned--till he himself should have had an opportunity of speaking both with John Paston the father and on the other side with Yelverton and Jenney, who had conveyed to Debenham the title on which he founded his claim to the manor. Meanwhile he proposed that the place should be kept by some indifferent person to be chosen by both parties.

[Footnote 229-2: _See_ No. 613. The heading of this letter is unfortunately wrong. Deceived by the facsimile to which Fenn refers as showing the character of the signature, I attributed the letter to Sir John Paston. But Margaret Paston expressly says it was John Paston the younger whom she left at Cotton (No. 610), and this letter must therefore have been written by him. Besides, the writer himself mentions that the dispute with Debenham was referred to the Duke of Norfolk to avoid the scandal of a quarrel _between two of his men_. It was not Sir John Paston, but his brother, that was in the Duke of Norfolk’s service.]

To these terms John Paston the youngest would not assent without consulting his mother, who had again come over from Norwich, or perhaps from Caister, to see how matters went. But after a conference, they sent an answer to the duke, declaring that they could not give up possession of the place, but out of their anxiety for peace, and to satisfy his lordship, they were willing to desist meanwhile from collecting rents, if the opposite party would engage not to distrain or keep courts there either. To this compromise Sir Gilbert said that he agreed, provided it met with the approval of Yelverton and Jenney; and the Duke of Norfolk, who was going up to London in anticipation of his birthday when he attained his majority, left all the sooner in the hope of bringing this matter to a favourable settlement.[230-1]

[Footnote 230-1: Nos. 613, 614.]

Thus far, at least, the entry into Cotton had been a distinct success. The compromise was greatly in favour of the Pastons, for an appeal to force would almost certainly have gone against them, and, though they engaged for the time to abstain from taking more money of the tenants, they had already succeeded in collecting almost all that they expected to receive for Michaelmas term.[230-2] So Margaret Paston on her return to Norfolk, and her son, when he was summoned to London shortly afterwards, to attend the duke on his coming of age,[231-1] may each have left Cotton with feelings akin to triumph. But scarcely had the former returned to Norwich when she discovered to her dismay that her clever manœuvre in Suffolk had left the family interests insufficiently protected elsewhere. The Duke of Suffolk had not only a great number of men at Cossey, but he had a powerful friend within the city of Norwich. Thomas Elys, the new mayor, was so flagrantly partial, that he had said at Drayton he would supply my lord of Suffolk with a hundred men whenever he should require them, and if any men of the city went to Paston he would lay them fast in prison.[231-2] Hellesdon, unfortunately, lay midway between Cossey and the city of Norwich, and as it was not now assize time there was practically no control over such magnates as the Duke of Suffolk and the mayor. So, on the morning of Tuesday the 15th of October, one Bottisforth, who was bailiff for the duke at Eye, came to Hellesdon, arrested four of John Paston’s servants, and carried them off to Cossey without a warrant from any justice of the peace. His intention, he said, was to convey them to Eye prison along with as many more of Paston’s adherents as he could lay his hands on. That same day the duke came to Norwich with a retinue of 500 men. He sent for the mayor and aldermen with the sheriffs, and desired them in the king’s name to make inquiry of the constables in every ward of the city what men had taken part with Paston in recent gatherings. Any such persons he requested that they would arrest and punish, and send their names to him by eight o’clock on the following day. On this the mayor arrested one Robert Lovegold, brasier, and threatened him that he should be hanged, though he had only been with Margaret Paston at Lammas, when she was menaced by the companies of Harleston and the bailiff of Cossey.[231-3]

[Footnote 230-2: No. 613.]

[Footnote 231-1: No. 614.]

[Footnote 231-2: No. 581.]

[Footnote 231-3: No. 616.]

[Sidenote: Attack on Hellesdon.] Scarcely one of Paston’s servants now durst openly show himself abroad, and, the duke having the city at his command, his followers made, that same Tuesday, a regular assault on the place at Hellesdon. The slender garrison knew that it was madness to resist, and no opposition was offered. The duke’s men took possession, and set John Paston’s own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston’s own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors, or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the work of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now.[232-1]

[Footnote 232-1: Nos. 616, 617.]

This was carrying things with the high hand; but it did not improve the Duke of Suffolk’s popularity at Norwich, and it created no small sympathy with Paston and his tenants. ‘There cometh much people daily,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘to wonder thereupon, both of Norwich and of other places, and they speak shamefully thereof. The duke had been better than a thousand pound that it had never been done; and ye have the more good will of the people that it is so foully done.’ Margaret was anxious that the effects of the outrage should be seen before winter came on by some one specially sent from the king to view and report upon the ruin. But no redress was obtained while her husband lived, and even some years after his death his sons petitioned for it in vain.

_John Paston’s Latter Days_

The chagrin and mortification inflicted upon John Paston by an injury like this may not unlikely have contributed to shorten his days. The correspondence is scanty from the end of October 1465 till some time after his death, which occurred in London in May of the following year. We know nothing of the nature of the illness which carried him off; but three imprisonments in the course of five years, accompanied with a great deal of anxiety about his newly acquired property, the intrigues of lawyers and the enmity of great men, must have exercised a depressing influence even on the stoutest heart. He appears to have been released from prison some time before his death, [Sidenote: A.D. 1466.] and was so far well in February that he had a conference in Westminster Hall with William Jenney, who desired at last to come to some agreement with him. But the great lawsuit about Fastolf’s will remained still undecided, and he left to his son Sir John an inheritance troubled by a disputed claim. He died on the 21st or 22nd May[233-1] 1466. His remains were carried down into Norfolk and buried with great magnificence in Bromholm Abbey.[233-2]

[Footnote 233-1: No. 648. I do not know Fenn’s authority for saying it was on the 26th May. Perhaps it is only a misprint.]

[Footnote 233-2: No. 637.]

Of his character we see fewer indications than might have been expected in a correspondence extending over more than twenty years, and perhaps we are in danger of judging him too much from the negative point of view. A man of business habits and of little humour, but apparently of elastic spirits and thorough knowledge of the world, he was not easily conquered by any difficulties or overwhelmed by misfortunes. His early experience in that dispute with Lord Molynes about Gresham must have taught him, if he needed teaching, the crookedness of the times in which he lived, and the hopelessness of trusting to mere abstract right and justice for the protection of his own interests. But by unwearied energy, by constant watchfulness, by cultivating the friendship of Sir John Fastolf and the goodwill of the world in general, he succeeded in asserting for himself a position of some importance in his native county. That he was, at the same time, grasping and selfish to some extent, is no more than what we might be prepared to expect; and it would seem there were complaints to this effect even among the members of his own family.[233-3] As a parent he appears to have been somewhat unamiable and cold-hearted. Yet it is mainly to his self-seeking, businesslike character that we owe the preservation of so valuable a correspondence. He knew well the importance of letters and of documents when rights came to be contested, and he was far more anxious about their security than about all the rest of his goods and chattels.[234-1]

[Footnote 233-3: Nos. 644, 645.]

[Footnote 234-1: No. 649.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Fastolf’s will.] Such being the nature of the man, and his personal history being as we have seen, what are we to say of the dark suspicion thrown upon his conduct in one important matter by his personal enemy Sir William Yelverton, and even by his quondam friend William Worcester? If their contention was true, the great addition made to the fortunes of the Paston family on the death of Sir John Fastolf was only due to a successful forgery. The will on which John Paston founded his claim to Caister, as well as to the manors of Drayton and Hellesdon, Cotton, Calcotes, and the whole of Fastolf’s lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, was denounced by them as a fabrication and not the genuine will of Sir John Fastolf. And we must own that there are many things which seem to make the imputation credible. We have, unfortunately, only a portion of the depositions taken in the lawsuit, and these are entirely those of the adverse party, with the exception of two separate and individual testimonies given in Paston’s favour.[234-2] We ought, therefore, undoubtedly to be on our guard against attaching undue weight to the many allegations of perjury and corruption against Paston’s witnesses, as it is certainly quite conceivable that the interested testimony was on the other side, and it is truly shown in John Paston’s own comments upon the evidence that the proofs given were insufficient. But, on the other hand, it is a very suspicious circumstance that a will drawn up by Fastolf on the 14th June before his death, was altered on the 3rd November so as to confer special powers in the administration to John Paston and Thomas Howes, and to give a large beneficiary interest to the former.[234-3] It is also singular that there should be three separate instruments of this latter date, each professing to be Fastolf’s will.[234-4] And it by no means tends to allay suspicion when we find that two years after John Paston’s death, and very shortly before his own, the parson Thomas Howes, a Grey Friar, and partner with him in the principal charge of the administration of the alleged last will, made a declaration ‘for the discharge of his conscience’ that the document was a fabrication.[235-1]

[Footnote 234-2: Nos. 541, 543.]

[Footnote 234-3: No. 385.]

[Footnote 234-4: Nos. 385-387.]

[Footnote 235-1: No. 689.]

This evidence might seem at first sight decisive and extremely damaging to the character of John Paston. But even here we must not be too precipitate in our conclusion. It is, for one thing, fairly open to remark that if this subsequent declaration of Sir Thomas Howes was an impeachment of Paston’s honesty, it was no less so of his own; so that it becomes a question whether he was more honest at the time he was acting in concurrence with Paston or at the time of his professed repentance when he made this declaration. But on the whole we may admit that the latter alternative is more probable, and we frankly own it as our belief that Sir Thomas Howes, in his latter days, felt scruples of conscience with regard to the part he had taken in defending for his master Paston the validity of what, after all, he considered to be a questionable document. Yet what are we to say, in this case, to the testimony of another Grey Friar, our old friend Dr. Brackley, who had drawn up the final agreement between Fastolf and Paston relative to the college, got it engrossed on indented parchment, read it to Sir John, and saw him put his seal to it?[235-2] It was Brackley’s dying testimony, when he was shriven by Friar Mowth, and informed that there were serious imputations on his conduct in reference to this matter, that as he would answer before God, in whose presence he was soon to appear, the will which John Paston produced in court was the genuine will of Sir John Fastolf. This testimony, too, he repeated unsolicited when, after seeming to rally for a day or two, he sank again, and saw himself once more in the presence of death.[235-3] Truly, if it seem hard to doubt the declaration of Sir Thomas Howes, it is harder still to cast suspicion on Brackley’s dying evidence.

[Footnote 235-2: No. 606 (vol. iv. pp. 183-4).]

[Footnote 235-3: No. 666.]

The true explanation of these discrepancies may, however, involve less serious charges against the character either of Paston, Brackley, or Howes than would at first sight appear inevitable. The question was not really one about the authenticity of a document, but about the exact nature of a dying man’s will. The document avowedly had not Fastolf’s signature attached; it seems that he was too ill to write. For some years before his death I do not find Fastolf’s own signature attached to any of his letters. The point in dispute was whether it really represented Fastolf’s latest intentions as to the disposal of his property. True, it bore Fastolf’s seal of arms, which Yelverton and Worcester at first endeavoured to prove must have been affixed to it after his death. But Paston seems to have shown most successfully that this was impossible, as Fastolf’s seal of arms was at his death contained in a purse sealed with his signet, and the signet itself was at that time taken off his finger, and sealed up in a chest under the seals of several of the executors.[236-1] Moreover, Paston’s statements went to show that the terms of the will were settled in various conferences with Sir John during the months of September, October, and the beginning of November, and that corrections had been made in it by his express desire. With all this, however, it may have been a delicate question whether the latest corrections were truly in accordance with Fastolf’s mind, and doubts may have been fairly entertained on the subject by Sir Thomas Howes; especially when we consider that on the day the will was dated Fastolf was utterly unable to speak articulately, so that no one could hear him without putting his ear close to the mouth of the dying man.[236-2] With regard to John Paston’s part in the matter, he was not present when Fastolf’s seal was put to the document, so that the validity of that act rested entirely upon the testimony of others, particularly Dr. Brackley. And as to the charge of his ‘fabricating’ the will, it was never denied that he drew it up, or took a considerable part in doing so; the only question is how far he did so in accordance with Sir John Fastolf’s own instructions.

[Footnote 236-1: No. 606 (vol. iv. p. 183).]

[Footnote 236-2: No. 565 (vol. iv. p. 104); No. 639 (vol. iv. p. 240).]

Some important matters of fact, indeed, were asserted by Paston in support of his case, and contested by the opposite side. Among other things, it was contended that in the autumn of the year 1457, two years before his death, Sir John Fastolf had actually made estate to John Paston of the manor of Caister and other lands in Norfolk, and thereupon given him livery of seisin with a view to the foundation of the college:[237-1] also that the will made in 1459 was an imperfect document, in which no executors were named, and to which no seal was attached.[237-2] If these allegations were true, there was, after all, no great alteration in Sir John’s intentions during the last two years of his life. On the other hand, Sir Thomas Howes, in his later declaration, asserts that only a year before Fastolf’s death he had, at Paston’s desire, urged Sir John to allow Paston to buy three of his manors and live in his college; at which proposition the old knight started with indignation, and declared with a great oath, ‘An I knew that Paston would buy any of my lands or my goods, he should never be my feoffee, nor mine executor.’ But even Howes acknowledges that he was willing to allow Paston a lodging for term of his life within the manor of Caister.[237-3]

[Footnote 237-1: Vol. iii. No. 386; vol. iv. Nos. 541, 606 (p. 183), 639 (p. 237).]

[Footnote 237-2: No. 606, p. 182 (vol. iv.).]

[Footnote 237-3: No. 689.]

The whole controversy affords certainly an admirable illustration of the inconvenient state of the law before the passing of the Statute of Uses in the days of Henry VIII. The hearing of all causes touching the wills of dead men belonged to the spiritual courts of the Church, which did not own the king’s jurisdiction. The king’s courts, on the other hand, had cognisance of everything affecting real property. No lands or tenements could be bequeathed by will, because the courts of common law would not give effect to such an instrument. But legal ingenuity had found the means to enable wealthy persons to bequeath their lands as well as their goods to whomsoever they pleased. A man had only to execute a conveyance of his lands to a body of trustees, who thereupon became in law the owners, express provision being made at the same time that they were to hold it for his use so long as he lived, and after his death for the use of certain other persons named in his will, or for such purposes as might therein be indicated. By this indirect means a title in lands was very effectually conveyed to a legatee without any abatement of the original owner’s control over his own property so long as he lived. But the practice gave rise to a multitude of inconveniences. Private bargains, legal quibbles and subtleties, crafty influences brought to bear upon dying men, great uncertainty as to the destination of certain properties, were among its frequent results. At the very last moment, when the dying man, perhaps, was in imperfect possession of his faculties, mere words, or even a nod or sign, might affect the title to very large estates. And almost by the very nature of the case, wherever a trust was instituted like that of Sir John Fastolf, all the pettifogging devices of legal chicanery were necessarily brought into play, either to establish a title or to contest it.[238-1]

[Footnote 238-1: See the preamble to the Statute of Uses, 27 Henry VIII. c. 10.]

_Sir John Paston_

Sir John Paston now stepped into his father’s place, as heir to Caister and to Fastolf’s other possessions in Norfolk and Suffolk. But before he could vindicate his rights in any part of them it was necessary that he should wipe out that stain upon his pedigree which had been devised by calumny in bar of the claims made by his father. The case came before the king himself in council. An array of court rolls and other ancient records was produced by the family, to show that they had been lords of the soil in Paston from a very remote period. Some of their title-deeds went back as far as the reign of Henry III., and it was shown that their ancestors had given lands to religious houses in that reign. Indeed, so little truth was there in the imputation that John Paston the father was a bondman, that his ancestors, certainly by the mother’s side if not by the father’s also, had been the owners of bondmen. The evidences were considered satisfactory, and the family were declared by the king’s council to be fully cleared of the imputation. The lands, of which Lord Scales had taken possession for about half a year,[239-1] were restored to Sir John Paston by a warrant under the king’s signet, dated on the 26th July, little more than two months after the death of John Paston the father.[239-2]

[Footnote 239-1: _Itin._ W. Worc., 323, where it is said that Lord Scales ‘custodivit hospicium in Castre per spacium dimidii . . .’ The blank must surely be supplied by the word _anni_.]

[Footnote 239-2: Nos. 641, 643.]

[Sidenote: Tournament at Eltham.] After this Sir John Paston was much at court, and Lord Scales became his special friend. Even as early as the following April we find Sir John taking part in a tournament at Eltham, in which the king, Lord Scales, and himself were upon one side.[239-3] But the favour with which he was regarded at court both by the king and the Lord Scales appeared more evidently one year later, [Sidenote: A.D. 1468.] when the king’s sister Margaret went over to the Low Countries to be married to Charles, Duke of Burgundy. [Sidenote: Marriage of Margaret, sister of Edward IV., to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.] This match had been more than a year in contemplation, and was highly popular in cementing the friendship of England and Burgundy in opposition to France. On the 1st May 1467 a curious bargain or wager was made by Sir John Paston as to the probability of its taking effect within two years.[239-4] But on the 18th April 1468 he received a summons from the king to be prepared to give his attendance on the princess by the 1st June following, and to accompany her into Flanders.[239-5] Not only he, but his brother John Paston the younger, crossed the sea in the Lady Margaret’s train; and we are indebted to the latter for an interesting account of the marriage and of the tournaments which followed in honour of it. Young John Paston was greatly struck with the splendour of the Burgundian court. He had never heard of anything like it, he said, except the court of King Arthur.[239-6] But his brother seems to have found another attraction abroad which fascinated him quite as much as all the pageants and the tournaments in honour of the Lady Margaret.

[Footnote 239-3: No. 665.]

[Footnote 239-4: No. 667.]

[Footnote 239-5: No. 683.]

[Footnote 239-6: No. 684.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Paston and Anne Haute.] There lived, probably in the town of Calais, a certain Mrs. Anne Haute, a lady of English extraction and related to Lord Scales, whom Sir John Paston seems on this occasion to have met for the first time. Having been perhaps all her life abroad, she appears to have had an imperfect command of the English language; at least Sir John, in proposing to open a correspondence, wrote to her, ‘Mistress Annes, I am proud that ye can read English.’ For the rest we must not attempt to portray the lady, of whose appearance and qualities of mind or body we have no account whatever. But perhaps we may take it for granted that she was really beautiful; for though Sir John was a susceptible person, and had once been smitten before, his friend Daverse declared him to be the best chooser of a gentlewoman that he knew.[240-1] It is a pity that with this qualification his suit was not more successful. It went on for several years, but was in the end broken off, and Sir John Paston lived and died a bachelor.

[Footnote 240-1: No. 660.]

[Sidenote: A troubled inheritance.] But Sir John was heir to the troubles of a lawsuit, and his property was continually threatened by various claimants both at Hellesdon and at Caister. His mother writes to him on one occasion that Blickling of Hellesdon had come from London, ‘and maketh his boast that within this fortnight at Hellesdon should be both new lords and new officers. And also this day Rysing of Fretton should have heard said in divers places, there as he was in Suffolk, that Fastolf of Cowhaw maketh all the strength that he may, and proposeth him to assault Caister and to enter there if he may, insomuch that it is said that he hath a five-score men ready, and sendeth daily espies to understand what fellowship keep the place.’ For which reason Margaret Paston urges her son to send home either his brothers or Daubeney to command the garrison, for, as he well knew, she had been ‘affrayed’[240-2] there before this time, and she could not ‘well guide nor rule soldiers.’[240-3] Another time it is intimated to Sir John that the Duchess of Suffolk means to enter into Cotton suddenly at some time when few men should know what she is going to do.[240-4] And this intention she seems to have fully accomplished, for in the beginning of the year 1469 the Earl of Oxford sends Sir John a friendly warning that she means to hold a court there next Monday with a view to proving that the manor of Cotton Hemnales is holden of her by knight’s service.[241-1] So that altogether Sir John Paston’s inheritance was held by a very precarious tenure, and his mother, like a prudent woman, advises him ‘not to be too hasty to be married till ye were more sure of your livelode.’[241-2]

[Footnote 240-2: That is to say, menaced, if not attacked, an ‘affray’ being made upon her. It is curious to meet here our familiar word ‘afraid’ in its original form and signification.]

[Footnote 240-3: No. 671.]

[Footnote 240-4: No. 690.]

[Footnote 241-1: No. 696.]

[Footnote 241-2: No. 704.]

The old dispute with the executors, however, was compromised in the court of audience: and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Waynflete, and Lord Beauchamp granted to Sir John full right in the manor of Caister, and a number of other lands both in Norfolk and Suffolk.[241-3] Sir John soon afterwards conveyed a portion of the Suffolk property called Hemnales in Cotton and the manor of Haynford to the Duke of Norfolk and others.[241-4] William Worcester became friends with John Paston’s widow, imputed his old misunderstanding with her husband to the interference of others between them, and expressed himself well pleased that Caister was to be at her command. ‘A rich jewel it is at need,’ writes Worcester, ‘for all the country in time of war; and my master Fastolf would rather he had never builded it than it should be in the governance of any sovereign that would oppress the country.’ At the same time it seemed very doubtful whether Fastolf’s intention of founding the college there could be carried out, and Worcester had some conferences with Sir John Paston about establishing it at Cambridge. Bishop Waynflete had already proposed doing so at Oxford; but Cambridge was nearer to the county of Norfolk, and by buying a few advowsons of wealthy parsonages an additional foundation might be established there at considerably less cost than by the purchase of manors. In this opinion Sir John Paston and William Worcester coincided, and the former promised to urge it upon Bishop Waynflete.[241-5]

[Footnote 241-3: No. 675. The deed, perhaps, was found to be irregular afterwards, for its general effect was confirmed about five months later by another instrument. No. 680.]

[Footnote 241-4: No. 677.]

[Footnote 241-5: No. 681.]

Sir John Paston had now some reason to expect that with the settlement of this controversy he would have been left for life in peaceful possession of Caister. That which his father had not been able to attain was now apparently conceded to him: and even if Sir William Yelverton was still dissatisfied, the other executors had formally recognised his rights in the court of audience. But before many months had passed it appeared that Yelverton could still be troublesome, and he found an ally in one who had hitherto been his opponent. [Sidenote: Sir Thomas Howes unites with Yelverton,] Sir Thomas Howes was probably failing in health--for he seems to have died about the end of the year 1468[242-1]--when he made that declaration ‘for the discharge of his conscience’ to which we have already alluded. Scruples seem to have arisen in his mind as to the part he had taken with Sir John Paston’s father in reference to the administration of Fastolf’s will, and he now maintained that the will nuncupative which he himself had propounded along with John Paston in opposition to an earlier will propounded by Yelverton and Worcester, was a fabrication which did not truly express the mind of the deceased. We may observe, though the subject is exceedingly obscure, that of the three wills[242-2] printed in Volume III., each of which professes to be the will of Sir John Fastolf, the third, which is in Latin, is clearly a will nuncupative declaring the testator’s mind in the third person, and defining the powers of the executors in regard to his goods and chattels.[242-3]

[Footnote 242-1: _See_ preliminary note to No. 703.]

[Footnote 242-2: Nos. 385-7.]

[Footnote 242-3: The other two have relation to his lands, and are not inconsistent with each other; but the first is drawn up in the name of the testator himself, while the second speaks of him in the third person. The second is, in fact, a note of various instructions given by the testator in reference to his property on the 2nd and 3rd days of November before he died, and its contents may have been fully embodied in the first, when the will was regularly drawn up; but the first is printed from a draft which is probably imperfect.]

[[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Howes unites with Yelverton, _not an error: sentence continues below_]]

It was apparently this nuncupative will that Howes declared to be spurious. The validity of the others touching his lands depended upon the genuineness of a previous bargain made by Fastolf with John Paston, which was also disputed. But it was the nuncupative will that appointed ten executors and yet gave John Paston and Thomas Howes sole powers of administration, except in cases where those two thought fit to ask their assistance. This will seems to have been drawn up mainly by the instrumentality of one Master John Smyth, whom Howes afterwards denounced as ‘none wholesome counsellor.’[243-1] Howes now combined with Yelverton in declaring it to be spurious.[243-2]

[Footnote 243-1: No. 681.]

[Footnote 243-2: Nos. 688-9.]

[Sidenote: and they sell Caister to the Duke of Norfolk.] The result of this allegation was that Yelverton and Howes took it upon them, as executors of Sir John Fastolf, to recommend to Archbishop Bourchier that the Duke of Norfolk should be allowed to purchase the manor of Caister and certain other lands in Norfolk, and that the money received for it should be spent in charitable deeds for the good of Fastolf’s soul. The transaction was not yet completed,[243-3] but the duke immediately proceeded to act upon it just as if it were. He did not, indeed, at once take possession of the place, but he warned the tenants of the manor to pay no money to Sir John, and his agents even spoke as if they had the king’s authority. On the other hand, Sir John had the support of powerful men in the king’s council--no less persons than the great Earl of Warwick and his brother, the Archbishop of York, who had lately been Lord Chancellor, and was hoping to be so again. The Earl of Warwick had spoken about the matter to the duke even in the king’s chamber, and the archbishop had said, ‘rather than the land should go so, he would come and dwell there himself.’ [Sidenote: Archbishop Nevill.] ‘Ye would marvel,’ adds the correspondent who communicates the news to Sir John Paston, ‘ye would marvel what hearts my lord hath gotten and how this language put people in comfort.’ It had its effect upon the Duke of Norfolk, who saw that he must not be too precipitate. He was urged on, it seems, by the duchess his wife, but he would go and speak to her and entreat her.[243-4]

[Footnote 243-3: ‘The bargain is not yet made,’ says an anonymous writer on the 28th October. _See_ No. 690. Nevertheless an ostensible title had been conveyed to the duke by a formal document on the 1st October. _See_ No. 764.]

[Footnote 243-4: Nos. 688, 690.]

On the other hand, Yelverton and Howes seem to have been pretty confident that my Lord of York would not be chancellor again unless their bargain with the duke was ratified. The Nevills were no longer regarded with favour at court. The coolness which had existed between the king and Warwick ever since the marriage with Elizabeth Woodville had last year come to an open rupture, and the Archbishop of York had been at the same time dismissed from the office of chancellor. Soon after the new year a reconciliation was effected through the medium of private friends, and the archbishop conducted his brother the Earl of Warwick to the king at Coventry.[244-1] But real confidence was not restored, and party spirit was anxious that it never should be. Nor could the public at large, perhaps, imagine the deep grounds of distrust that Warwick had already given to his sovereign.

[Footnote 244-1: W. Worc., 512-13.]

Sir John Paston, nevertheless, was advised to put his trust chiefly in the friendship of the Nevills and in the probable reinstatement of the archbishop as Lord Chancellor. Another means, however, was not to be neglected. Sir Thomas Howes might be gammoned, or bullied, or got over in some way. He and Yelverton did not agree so well that it need be a very hard matter to separate them. Sir John’s friends hoped to secure for him the good offices of the Bishop of Ely and a certain Master Tresham, who, it was thought, could put it nicely to Sir Thomas Howes half in jest and half in earnest, putting him ‘in hope of the moon shone in the water,’ and telling him that such efforts were made ‘that either he should be a pope, or else in despair to be deprived _de omni beneficio ecclesiastico_ for simony, lechery, perjury, and double variable peevishness, and for administering without authority.’ Such were a few of the humours of the controversy.[244-2]

[Footnote 244-2: No. 690.]

[Sidenote: Sir John ‘wages’ men. A.D. 1469.] Better, however, than the friendship of the great, was the security to be derived from keeping Caister well guarded; and Sir John Paston immediately set about ‘waging’ men to add to the little garrison.[244-3] With this he seems to have been much occupied from November till January following, when by repeated letters from the king he was commanded to desist from making any assembly of the lieges, and to appear personally before the council at Westminster.[244-4] The matter, apparently, was hung up for a time without any decision being come to by the council. The friendship of Archbishop Nevill could have done little to recommend the cause of Sir John Paston to the king. On the other hand, if favour had anything to do with the result, his cause was warmly advocated by Lord Scales, the king’s own brother-in-law, on account of Sir John’s intended marriage with his kinswoman, Anne Haute.[245-1] And it is certain that Judge Yelverton had conferences with Lord Scales in the hope of coming to some kind of understanding. But King Edward, as we have already said, had a real desire to be impartial in the disputes and quarrels of his subjects; and doubtless it was from a feeling of this that Sir John Paston and his mother rejoiced to hear that it was the king’s intention to visit Norwich in the course of the ensuing summer. The rumour of this intention, it was believed, had a powerful influence in inducing the Duchess of Suffolk to remain at her family seat at Ewelme, in Oxfordshire, that she might be out of the way if sent for by the king, and plead age or sickness as her excuse.[245-2] The attempt made by her son to dispossess Sir John Paston at Hellesdon could best be judged of on the spot. And in Norfolk, too, the king would learn what was thought of the Duke of Norfolk’s claim to Caister.

[Footnote 244-3: No. 691.]

[Footnote 244-4: No. 698.]

[Footnote 245-1: Nos. 704, 706, 707.]

[Footnote 245-2: No. 704.]

So it was hoped that the king’s presence in the county would tell most favourably on Sir John Paston’s interests. And there was one circumstance in particular of which advantage might be taken. As Edward was to go from Norwich on pilgrimage to Walsingham, his way would of necessity lie through Hellesdon and Drayton. The lodge whose walls the Duke of Suffolk had caused to be broken down could hardly fail, from its conspicuous position, to meet his eye, and perhaps some friend in the king’s suite could be got to call his attention to it and tell him the story of the outrage. This Thomas Wingfield engaged to do, and promised to get the king’s own brother, the Duke of Gloucester, to join him in pointing out the ruin. Promises were also obtained from Earl Rivers, the queen’s father, and from her brother Lord Scales and Sir John Woodville, that they would urge the king to command the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to forbear claiming title to the lands of Sir John Fastolf. And by the time the king took his departure from Norwich the Pastons were encouraged to believe that steps had already been taken to end their controversy with one if not with both dukes. Unfortunately the belief, or at least the hope that it gave rise to, proved to be utterly unfounded.[246-1]

[Footnote 246-1: No. 716.]

[Sidenote: The ruined lodge is shown to the king.] The king rode through Hellesdon Warren on his way, as it had been expected that he would do. The ruined lodge was pointed out to him by William Paston, Sir John’s uncle; but his answer was altogether at variance with what the Woodvilles had led them to expect. The king said the building might have fallen by itself, and if it had been pulled down, as alleged, the Pastons might have put in bills at the session of _Oyer and Terminer_ held by the judges when he was at Norwich. William Paston replied that his nephew had been induced to hope the king himself would have procured an amicable settlement with both the dukes, and therefore had forborne to vindicate his rights by law. But the king said he would neither treat nor speak for Sir John, but let the law take its course.[246-2]

[Footnote 246-2: _Ibid._]

_Civil War--Public and Private_

Possibly on the eve of his departure from Norwich, the king had heard news which took away all disposition he might once have entertained to hear personally complaints against such noblemen as the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. [Sidenote: Robin of Redesdale’s rebellion.] It was just about the time of the insurrection of Robin of Redesdale in Yorkshire--a movement got up under fictitious names and really promoted by the discontented Earl of Warwick. From the day that Edward IV. had announced himself a married man, and disconcerted the subtle promoters of an alliance with France through the medium of the French king’s sister-in-law, Bona of Savoy,[246-3] the Earl of Warwick had not only lost his old ascendency in the king’s councils, but had seen his policy altogether thwarted and his own selfish interests continually set aside. He had been from the first in favour of an amicable compromise of the dispute with France, while the young king owed not a little of his popularity to the belief that he would maintain the old pretensions of England, and vindicate them if necessary upon the field of battle. Disappointed of one mode of promoting a French alliance, he had been disappointed still further in 1467, when the king, to humour his inclinations for a while, sent him over to France on embassy. The result was that he was magnificently entertained by Louis XI., captivated by the bland familiarity of the French monarch, and became for ever after his most ready and convenient tool. If he had anything to learn before in the arts of diplomacy and statecraft, he came back from France a most accomplished scholar. Edward, however, pursued a course of his own, treated the French ambassadors in England with rudeness, and cultivated instead a close alliance with Burgundy, the formidable rival and lately the enemy of Louis. He contracted his sister Margaret to the Duke of Burgundy’s eldest son, Charles, Count of Charolois, who became duke himself in the following year, when the marriage was solemnised at Bruges with a splendour no court in Europe could have rivalled. To crown all, he announced in Parliament just before the marriage an intention to invade France in person.[247-1]

[Footnote 246-3: The story that the Earl of Warwick had gone to France to negotiate the marriage of Edward with Bona of Savoy, when Edward frustrated his diplomacy by marrying Elizabeth Woodville, is certainly not in accordance with facts. But the doubts of some modern historians that the project of such a match was ever entertained are quite set at rest by the evidence of two letters which have been recently printed in some of the publications of the Société de l’Histoire de France, to which attention is called by Mr. Kirk in his _History of Charles the Bold_ (vol. i. p. 415 note, and ii. p. 15 note). It appears that although the earl had not actually gone to France, he was expected there just at the time the secret of the king’s marriage was revealed. Nor can there be a reasonable doubt--indeed there is something like positive evidence to prove--that the first cause of the Earl of Warwick’s alienation from the king arose out of this matter. I ought to add that the merit of placing before us for the first time a clear view of the consequences of Edward IV.’s marriage, in its bearing alike on the domestic history of England and on Edward’s relations with France and Burgundy, is due to Mr. Kirk.]

[Footnote 247-1: W. Worc., 513-14.]

The Earl of Warwick dissembled. Charles of Burgundy was the man he hated most,[247-2] but he conducted the Princess Margaret to the coast on her way to Flanders. A number of personal wrongs and disappointments also rankled in his breast, and gave birth to sinister projects for gratifying a wounded ambition, and taking revenge upon an ungrateful king, who owed it in no small degree to himself that he was king at all. As yet Edward was without an heir-male. He had two daughters;[248-1] but in the succession a brother might perhaps be preferred to a female. Warwick could marry his eldest daughter to George, Duke of Clarence, and encourage that vain prince in his expectation of the crown. The earl was governor of Calais. At midsummer in the year 1469 the Duke of Clarence stole across the sea without the leave of his brother, and landed in a territory where Warwick was like an independent king. There the wedding was celebrated by the Archbishop of York, the Earl of Warwick’s brother. Soon after it was over, the duke, the earl, and the archbishop returned to England.

[Footnote 247-2: _Contin. of Croyland Chronicle_, p. 551.]

[Footnote 248-1: The two eldest daughters of Edward IV. were born in the years 1465 and 1466; the third, Cecily, in the latter end of 1469. _See_ Green’s _Princesses_, vol. iii.; also an article by Sir Frederic Madden, in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1831 (vol. ci. pt. i., p. 24).]

And now it was that the king, after leaving Norwich and visiting the famous shrine at Walsingham, found himself compelled to turn his steps northwards and face the insurrection that had been secretly stirred up by Warwick and his own brother. It appears by the Privy Seal dates that he had reached Lynn on the 26th June.[248-2] He passed on through Wisbeach with a company of two hundred horse to Crowland Abbey, where he stayed a night, and sailed from thence through the fenny country up the Nen to his father’s castle of Fotheringay, one of his own favourite residences.[248-3] From thence, when a number of troops had flocked to his standard from all parts of the kingdom, he marched northwards to Nottingham; where, apparently, he learned, to his no little mortification, that his brother Clarence was in alliance with the Earl of Warwick and Archbishop Nevill, and that it was questionable whether they had not too good an understanding with the rebels in the North. That such was the actual fact we know to a certainty. The insurgents disseminated papers complaining that the kingdom was misgoverned, in consequence of the undue influence of the queen’s relations and one or two other councillors, who had impoverished the crown by procuring large grants of crown lands to themselves, and who had caused the king to tamper with the currency and impose inordinate taxes. Worst of all, they had estranged the true lords of the king’s blood from his secret council, and thereby prevented any check being placed on their rapacity and misconduct.[249-1]

[Footnote 248-2: He seems to have left Norwich on the 21st. There are Privy Seals dated on that day, some at Norwich and some at Walsingham.]

[Footnote 248-3: _Contin. Chron. Croyl._ p. 542.]

[Footnote 249-1: _See_ the petition printed by Halliwell in his notes to _Warkworth’s Chronicle_, pp. 47-51.]

The Duke of Clarence, with Warwick and the archbishop, had no sooner landed from Calais, than copies of these manifestoes were laid before them, which they took it upon them to regard in the light of a petition calling upon the lords of England generally, and themselves in particular, to redress the evils of the state. They declared the petition just and reasonable, promised to lay it before the king, and by a proclamation under their signets, dated the 12th day of July, called upon all who loved the common weal to meet them at Canterbury on Sunday following, armed and arrayed to the best of their power.[249-2] Three days before the date of this proclamation, the king at Nottingham had addressed letters to the duke, earl, and archbishop separately, desiring credence for Sir Thomas Montgomery and Maurice Berkeley, and expressing a hope that the current rumour as to their intentions was erroneous.[249-3] A hope altogether vain. The king was surrounded with enemies, and no plan of action could be arranged among his friends. Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whom he had summoned from Wales, met at Banbury with Humphrey, Lord Strafford of Southwick, lately created Earl of Devonshire,[249-4] who came out of Devonshire to do battle with the rebels. But the two leaders had a dispute about quarters; the Earl of Devonshire withdrew eight or ten miles back; and Sir William Conyers, the rebel captain, who had adopted the name Robin of Redesdale, [Sidenote: Battle of Hedgecote, 26th July.] came down upon the Earl of Pembroke and defeated him with great slaughter. The earl himself and his brother Sir Richard Herbert were taken prisoners, and were shortly afterwards put to death at Coventry, along with Lord Rivers and his son Sir John Woodville, who were about the same time captured in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. They had parted from the king in alarm before he came to Nottingham, and fled for safety towards Wales; but their flight was to no purpose. [Sidenote: The king taken prisoner.] Before their execution--apparently some time during the month of August--the king himself was taken prisoner near Coventry by the confederate lords, and led to Warwick Castle; from which place he was, soon after his committal, transferred to Middleham, another castle of the Earl of Warwick, in Yorkshire.[250-1]

[Footnote 249-2: _See_ the proclamation immediately preceding the above petition in the notes to _Warkworth’s Chronicle_, pp. 46-7.]

[Footnote 249-3: No. 719.]

[Footnote 249-4: No. 714.]

[Footnote 250-1: _Contin. Chron. Croyl._ pp. 542, 551. There are Privy Seals dated on the 2nd August at Coventry; on the 9th, 12th, and 13th at Warwick; and on the 25th and 28th at Middleham.]

He was shortly afterwards released, and arrived in London in the beginning of October. It was not easy to say what to do with such a prisoner, and Warwick thought it best to let him go. He had done enough for the present to show his power and wreak his revenge upon the Woodvilles; and Edward, even when he was set at liberty, saw clearly that prudence required him to forget the affront and not show himself in any way offended.[250-2]

[Footnote 250-2: No. 736.]

But what kind of order could have prevailed throughout the kingdom at a time when the king was a captive in the hands of his own subjects? For the most part we know nothing of the facts, but perhaps we may judge to some extent from what took place in a small corner of the county of Norfolk. [Sidenote: Siege of Caister, A.D. 1469, Aug.] On Monday the 21st August,[250-3] the Duke of Norfolk began to lay a regular siege to Caister Castle. Sir John Paston was at the time in London, and his brother John kept the place as his lieutenant. At first the duke sent Sir John Heveningham, a kinsman of Sir John Fastolf, to demand peaceable entry, on the ground that he had bought the manor from Fastolf’s executor Yelverton; but on being refused admittance, he surrounded the castle with a body of 3000 men.[251-1] Those within were not wholly unprepared. They had rather more than a month’s supply of victuals and gunpowder, but they were only a handful of men. Sir John Heveningham, who was appointed by the duke one of the captains of the besieging force, had hitherto been friendly to the Paston family. He came and visited old Agnes Paston at Norwich, and Margaret Paston thought he might be induced to show a little favour to messengers coming from herself or her son Sir John. But this he steadily refused to do, and made a very suspicious suggestion for the settlement of the controversy, which he requested Margaret to write to her son Sir John in London. Could not the duke be allowed to enter peaceably on giving surety to Sir John to recompense all wrongs, if the law should afterwards declare the right to be in him? ‘Be ye advised,’ wrote Margaret, ‘what answer ye will give.’[251-2]

[Footnote 250-3: At least William Worcester, in his _Itinerary_, p. 321, seems to indicate in very bad Latin that the siege began on the Monday before St. Bartholomew’s Day, which in 1469 would be the 21st August. Yet a very bewildering sentence just before would imply that the siege began either on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (15th August) or on St. Bartholomew’s Day itself (24th August), and that it lasted five weeks and three days. But we know that the castle surrendered on the 26th September, so that if the duration of the siege was five weeks and three days it must have begun on the 19th August, a different date still. William Worcester’s habit of continually jotting down memoranda in his commonplace books has been of very great service to the historian of this disordered epoch; but his memoranda reflect the character of the times in their confusion, inconsistency, and contradictions.]

[Footnote 251-1: _Itin._ W. de Worc., 325.]

[Footnote 251-2: No. 720.]

Other proposals were shortly afterwards made on the duke’s behalf, nearly the same in character but with somewhat greater show of fairness. The place, it was suggested, might be put in the keeping of indifferent parties, who would receive the profits for the benefit of whoever should prove to be the true claimant until the right could be determined, the duke and Paston both giving security not to disturb these occupants in the meanwhile. But who could be relied upon as indifferent, or what power existed in the kingdom to secure impartiality at a time when the king himself was a prisoner in the hands of his enemies? Margaret Paston could but forward these suggestions to her son, with a warning to lose no time in making up his mind about them. ‘Send word how ye will be demeaned by as good advice as ye can get, and make no longer delay, for they must needs have hasty succour that be in the place; for they be sore hurt and have none help. And if they have hasty help, it shall be the greatest worship that ever ye had. And if they be not holpen it shall be to you a great disworship; and look never to have favour of your neighbours and friends but if this speed well.’[252-1]

[Footnote 252-1: No. 720.]

Unfortunately the only relief which Sir John Paston had it easily in his power to obtain for the garrison was not in the shape of succours. Sir John was in London, and did not know for certain how long they had the power to hold out. But he addressed his complaints to the Duke of Clarence and Archbishop Nevill, who now ruled in the name of the captive king, and one Writtill, a servant of the former, was sent down to procure a suspension of hostilities, preparatory, if possible, to a settlement of the controversy. Terms were agreed upon by the lords in London which it was thought might be honourably offered to both parties. Apparently it was proposed that the Earl of Oxford, as a neutral person, should be allowed to keep the place until a final decision had been come to by a competent tribunal. But the Duke of Norfolk, after agreeing to the suspension of hostilities, which only diminished by so many days’ allowance the scanty provisions of the garrison, utterly rejected the conditions which some of his own relations in the king’s council had given it as their opinion that he ought not to refuse. On the other hand, Sir John Paston in London, fondly believing that the store of victuals within the place would last a much longer period, caught at an eager hope of obtaining a message from the king which would compel Norfolk to withdraw his forces, and in this idle expectation he was foolish enough to urge Writtill to get the truce prolonged a few days further. Shortly afterwards he received a letter from his mother which ought to have opened his eyes. Victuals, she informed him, were failing in the garrison; his brother and the little band within stood in great danger; Daubeney and Berney, two of their captains, were dead, and several others were wounded; the walls were severely battered, and the supply of gunpowder and arrows would very soon be exhausted. Since Writtill’s attempt at negotiation the Duke of Norfolk had been more determined than ever to win the place, and with a view to a grand assault, whenever the truce should expire, he had sent for all his tenants to be there on Holy Rood day, the 14th September. If Sir John Paston had it in his power to relieve the garrison, let him do it at once. If not, let him obtain letters from the Duke of Clarence or the lords in London addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, to allow them to quit the place with their lives and goods.[253-1]

[Footnote 253-1: Nos. 722-6.]

Sir John Paston still would not believe that the case was desperate. He had repeatedly declared that his desire to preserve the stronghold was exceeded only by his anxiety for the lives of his brother and those within. But what evidence was there to justify his mother’s apprehensions? Daubeney and Berney had been alive the Saturday before, and since that day no one could have got leave to pass outside. Truce had been prolonged till Monday following, and he expected it to be renewed for another week. He had heard far worse tidings before than his mother told him now. As for means of relief to the besieged, the Duke of Clarence and Archbishop Nevill were no longer in London, but he was expecting an answer from the king in Yorkshire, which ought to arrive by Wednesday at farthest, and his mother might rest assured there could not possibly be any fear of victuals or gunpowder running short. When all else failed, a rescue he would certainly procure, if all the lands he held in England and all the friends he had would enable him to obtain it. But this was the very last remedy that could be thought of. It would not agree with the attempt to get the king or lords to interfere. It would besides cost fully a thousand crowns, and how to raise the money he was not sure. How much could his mother herself raise by mortgage, and what friends could she obtain to give their aid?[253-2]

[Footnote 253-2: No. 725.]

[Sidenote: Caister surrenders.] Unluckily, while Sir John Paston was devising means how, after another week or fortnight’s truce, effectual relief might at last be conveyed to the besieged, they were reduced to such extremities as to be compelled to capitulate. Owing to the representations that had been made in their behalf by Cardinal Bourchier and the Duke of Clarence, Norfolk allowed them to pass out in freedom, with bag and baggage, horses and harness, leaving only behind them their guns, crossbows and ‘quarrels.’[254-1] Thus, after some weeks’ suspense and the loss of one valuable soldier (Margaret Paston was misinformed about Berney being dead as well as Daubeney), the great castle in which Fastolf intended the Pastons to reside and to found a college, and which he was anxious that no great lord should occupy, fell into the hands of the most powerful nobleman of Eastern England.[254-2]

[Footnote 254-1: Square pyramids of iron which were shot out of crossbows. The word is of French origin and was originally _quarreaux_.]

[Footnote 254-2: Nos. 730, 731.]

Sir John Paston had now lost the fairest gem of his inheritance--or, as he and his contemporaries called it, of his ‘livelode.’[254-3] Hence it was become all the more important that he should see to the remainder. Just before the surrender of Caister, in answer to his appeal to see what money she could raise, his mother by a great effort obtained for him £10 on sureties, but it was all spent immediately in paying the discharged garrison and some other matters. Ways and means must be found to obtain money, for even his mother’s rents did not come in as they ought to have done, and she expected to be reduced to borrowing, or breaking up her household. On consideration, he determined to part with the manor of East Beckham, and to ascertain what was likely to be realised by selling a quantity of wood at Sporle. The sale of East Beckham--with all Paston’s lands both in East and West Beckham, Bodham, Sherringham, Beeston-near-the-Sea, Runton, Shipden, Felbrigg, Aylmerton, Sustead and Gresham, places which lie a few miles to the west and south of Cromer--was at length completed for the sum of 100 marks.[254-4]

[Footnote 254-3: The modern confusion of this word with _livelihood_--a word which properly means a lively condition--is one of the things that would be unpardonable did not usage pardon everything in language.]

[Footnote 254-4: Nos. 733, 737, 738.]

It was unfortunate for Sir John Paston’s interests that at such a time as this he happened to have a misunderstanding with his most faithful bailiff and general manager of his property, Richard Calle. The title-deeds of Beckham were in Calle’s hands, but he at once gave up, when required, both these and every one of the documents in his possession relating to Paston’s lands, and made a clear account of everything to John Paston the younger.[255-1] The coolness had arisen some months before the siege; the cause was a very old, old story. Richard Calle had presumed to fall in love with Sir John Paston’s sister Margery. [Sidenote: Richard Calle and Margery Paston.] Margery Paston had not disdained to return his affection. She at once fell into disgrace with the whole family. Her eldest brother, Sir John, was in London when he heard of it, and it was insinuated to him that the matter was quite well known to his brother John and met with his approval. John the younger hastened to disavow the imputation. A little diplomacy had been used by Calle, who got a friend to inquire of him whether the engagement was a settled thing, intimating that if it were not he knew of a good marriage for the lady. But young John saw through the artifice, and gave the mediator an answer designed to set the question at rest for ever. ‘I answered him,’ writes young John himself to his brother, ‘that an my father (whom God assoil) were alive, and had consented thereto, and my mother and ye both, he should never have my goodwill for to make my sister to sell candle and mustard in Framlingham.’ If such a prospect did not disgust Margery herself, it was clear she must have a very strong will of her own.[255-2]

[Footnote 255-1: No. 737.]

[Footnote 255-2: No. 710.]

The anger of her relations was painful to bear in the extreme. For some time Margery found it difficult to avow that she had fairly plighted her troth to one who was deemed such an unequal match. For what was plighted troth in the eye of God but matrimony itself? Even the Church acknowledged it as no less binding. Once that was avowed, the question was at an end, and no human hands could untie the knot. To interfere with it was deadly sin. Hence Richard Calle implored the woman of his love to emancipate both herself and him from an intolerable position by one act of boldness. ‘I suppose, an ye tell them sadly the truth, they would not damn their souls for us.’[255-3] But it required much courage to take the step which when taken must be decisive. The avowal was at last made, and though the family would fain have suppressed it or got the poor girl to deny what she said, her lover appealed to the Bishop of Norwich to inquire into the matter, and free the point from any ambiguity. The bishop could not refuse. He sent for Margery Paston and for Richard Calle, and examined them both apart. He told the former that he was informed she loved one of whom her friends did not approve, reminded her of the great disadvantage and shame she would incur if she were not guided by their advice, and said he must inquire into the words that had passed between her and her lover, whether they amounted to matrimony or not. On this she told him what she had said to Calle, and added that if those words did not make it sure she would make it surer before she left the bishop’s presence, for she thought herself in conscience bound to Calle, whatever the words were. Then Calle himself was examined, and his statements agreed with hers as to the nature of the pledges given and the time and place when it was done. The bishop then said that in case other impediments were found he would delay giving sentence till the Wednesday or Thursday after Michaelmas.[256-1]

[Footnote 255-3: No. 713.]

[Footnote 256-1: No. 721.]

When Margery Paston returned from her examination her mother’s door was shut against her, and the bishop was forced to find a lodging for her until the day that he was to give sentence. Before that day came occurred the loss of Caister. The fortunes of the Paston family were diminished, and Sir John began to feel that he at least could ill afford to lose the services of one who had been such a faithful and attached dependant. In writing to his mother he expressed a wish merely that the marriage might be put off till Christmas. Calle, meanwhile, unmarried, was staying at Blackborough Nunnery near Lynn, where his bride had found a temporary asylum. He was still willing to give his services to Sir John Paston, and promised not to offer them to any other unless Sir John declined them. They appear to have been accepted, for we find Calle one or two years later still in the service of the family. But he never seems to have been recognised as one of its members.[256-2]

[Footnote 256-2: Nos. 721, 736, 737.]

The siege of Caister was one of those strong and high-handed acts which could only have been possible when there was really no sovereign authority in the land to repress and punish violence. Acts of very much the same character had been seen before--the reader will not have forgotten the forcible ejection of John Paston’s wife from Gresham. But they had been due more especially to the weak and incompetent rule of Henry VI., and not even then do we hear of a place being taken from one of the king’s subjects after a five weeks’ siege by a rival claimant. It was evident that the rebellion of Robin of Redesdale had destroyed King Edward’s power. The king had been actually made a prisoner, and the ascendency of the Woodvilles had been abolished. The Duchess of Bedford, wife of the late Earl of Rivers, had even during the commotions been accused of witchcraft.[257-1] The Earl of Warwick enjoyed his revenge in the disorganisation of the whole kingdom. He had now made it almost impossible for Edward to recover his authority without getting rid of him; nor did many months pass away before he stirred up another rebellion in Lincolnshire.[257-2] When that movement failed, he and Clarence escaped abroad; but it was not many months before they reappeared in England and drove out the king. [Sidenote: Warwick the Kingmaker. A.D. 1470.] Henry VI. was proclaimed anew, and for the space of a short half-year Warwick the Kingmaker governed in the name of that sovereign in whose deposition ten years before he had been one of the principal agents.

[Footnote 257-1: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 232.]

[Footnote 257-2: _See_ Nos. 742, 743.]

[Sidenote: Appeal of two widows.] We have but a word or two to say as to matters affecting the family history of the Pastons during this brief interval. At the siege of Caister two men of the Duke of Norfolk’s were killed by the fire of the garrison. The duke’s council, not satisfied with having turned the Pastons out, now prompted the widows of these two men to sue an ‘appeal’[257-3] against John Paston and those who acted with him. A true bill was also found against them for felony at the Norwich session of June 1470, in which Sir John Paston was included as an accessory; but the indictment was held to be void by some of Paston’s friends on the ground that two of the jury would not agree to it. This objection I presume must have been held sufficient to quash the proceedings in this form, of which we hear no more.[258-1] The ‘appeal,’ however, remained to be disposed of, as we shall see by and by.

[Footnote 257-3: An appeal of murder was a criminal prosecution instituted by the nearest relation of the murdered person, and a pardon from the king could not be pleaded in bar of this process.]

[Footnote 258-1: Nos. 740, 746, 747.]

[Sidenote: Compromise touching Fastolf’s will.] With respect to the title claimed by Sir John Paston in Caister and the performance of Fastolf’s will, a compromise was arranged with Bishop Waynflete, who was now recognised as sole executor. It was agreed that as the whole of Fastolf’s lands in Essex, Surrey, Norfolk, and Suffolk had been much wasted by the disputes between the executors, the manors should be divided between Sir John Paston and the bishop, the former promising to surrender the title-deeds of all except the manor of Caister. The project of a college in that place was given up, and a foundation of seven priests and seven poor scholars in Magdalen College, Oxford, was agreed to in its place.[258-2] Soon afterwards the Duke of Norfolk executed a release to the bishop of the manor of Caister and all the lands conveyed to him by Yelverton and Howes as executors of Sir John Fastolf, acknowledging that the bargain made with them was contrary to Fastolf’s will, and receiving from the bishop the sum of 500 marks for the reconveyance. The duke accordingly sent notice to his servants and tenants to depart out of the manor as soon as they could conveniently remove such goods and furniture as he and they had placed in it.[258-3]

[Footnote 258-2: Nos. 750, 755, 767.]

[Footnote 258-3: Nos. 763, 764.]

Thus by the mediation of Bishop Waynflete the long-standing disputes were nearly settled during the period of Henry VI.’s brief restoration. But, probably in consequence of the disturbed state of the country and the return of Edward IV., the duke’s orders for the evacuation of Caister were not immediately obeyed, and, as we shall see hereafter, the place remained in Norfolk’s possession for the space of three whole years.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth Poynings remarries.] About this time, or rather, perhaps, two years later, Sir John Paston’s aunt, Elizabeth Poynings, terminated her widowhood by marrying Sir George Browne of Betchworth Castle in Surrey. We have already seen how she was dispossessed of her lands soon after her first husband’s death by the Countess of Northumberland. They were afterwards seized by the Crown as forfeited, and granted by patent to Edmund Grey, Earl of Kent, but without any title having been duly found for the king. The Earl of Kent after a time gave up possession of them to the Earl of Essex, but this did not make things pleasanter for Elizabeth Poynings; while other of her lands were occupied by Sir Robert Fenys in violation, as she alleged, of her husband’s will.[259-1] The date of her second marriage was probably about the end of the year 1471.[259-2]

[Footnote 259-1: Nos. 461, 627, 692, 693.]

[Footnote 259-2: On the 18th November 1471, Edmund Paston speaks of her as ‘my Aunt Ponynges.’ Before the 8th January 1472 she had married Sir George Browne. Nos. 789, 795.]

These matters we are bound to mention as incidents in the history of the family. Of Elizabeth Paston, however, and her second husband we do not hear much henceforward; in the Letters after this period the domestic interest centres chiefly round the two John Pastons, Sir John and his brother.

_Changes and Counter-changes_

[Sidenote: Reckless government of Edward IV.] Within the space of ten brief years Edward IV. had almost succeeded in convincing the world that he was no more capable of governing England than the rival whom he had deposed. Never did gambler throw away a fortune with more recklessness than Edward threw away the advantages which it had cost him and his friends so much hard fighting to secure. Just when he had reached the summit of his prosperity, he alienated the men to whom it was mainly due, and took no care to protect himself against the consequences of their concealed displeasure. The Earl of Warwick took him prisoner, then released him, then stirred up a new rebellion with impunity, and finally, returning to England once more, surprised and drove him out, notwithstanding the warnings of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy. Henry VI. was proclaimed anew, and the cause of the House of York seemed to be lost for ever.

It was not so, however, in fact. Adversity quickened Edward’s energies in a manner almost miraculous, and in a few months he recovered his kingdom as suddenly as he had lost it. But it was not easy to believe, even after his most formidable enemy had been slain at Barnet, that a king who had shown himself so careless could maintain himself again upon the throne. Besides, men who desired a steady government had rested all their hopes in the restoration of Henry VI., and had found the new state of matters very promising, just before Edward reappeared. The king, it might have been hoped, would be governed this time by the Earl of Warwick, and not by Queen Margaret. [Sidenote: The Pastons favour Henry VI.] The Pastons, in particular, had very special reasons to rejoice in Henry’s restoration. They had a powerful friend in the Earl of Oxford, whose influence with Henry and the Earl of Warwick stood very high. Owing partly, perhaps, to Oxford’s intercession, the Duke of Norfolk had been obliged to quit his hold of Caister, and Sir John Paston had been reinstated in possession.[260-1] The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk sued to Oxford as humbly as the Pastons had been accustomed to sue to them, and the earl, from the very first, had been as careful of the interests of this family as if they had been his own. Even in the first days of the revolution--probably before Edward was yet driven out--he had sent a messenger to the Duchess of Norfolk from Colchester when John Paston was in London on a matter which concerned him alone. The family, indeed, seem at first to have built rather extravagant expectations upon the new turn of affairs, which John Paston felt it necessary to repress in writing to his mother. ‘As for the offices that ye wrote to my brother for and to me, they be for no poor men, but I trust we shall speed of other offices meetly for us, for my master the Earl of Oxford biddeth me ask and have. I trow my brother Sir John shall have the constableship of Norwich Castle, with £20 of fee. All the lords be agreed to it.’[260-2]

[Footnote 260-1: _See_ preliminary note to Letter No. 879.]

[Footnote 260-2: No. 759.]

Certainly, when they remembered the loss of Caister, which they had now regained--when they recalled his inability to protect them against armed aggression, and the disappointment of their expectations of redress against the Duke of Suffolk for the attack on the lodge at Hellesdon--the Pastons had little cause to pray for the return of Edward IV. They were completely committed to the cause of Henry; and Sir John Paston and his brother fought, no doubt in the Earl of Oxford’s company, against King Edward at Barnet. [Sidenote: Sir John Paston and his brother in the battle of Barnet. A.D. 1471.] Both the brothers came out of the battle alive, but John Paston was wounded with an arrow in the right arm, beneath the elbow.[261-1] His wound, however, was not of a very serious character, and in little more than a fortnight he was able to write a letter with his own hand.[261-2] A more serious consideration was, how far the family prospects were injured by the part they had taken against what seemed now to be the winning side. Perhaps they might be effectually befriended by their cousin Lomner, who seems to have adhered to Edward, and who had promised them his good offices, if required. But on the whole the Pastons did not look despondingly upon the situation, and rather advised their cousin Lomner not to commit himself too much to the other side, as times might change. ‘I beseech you,’ writes Sir John Paston to his mother, ‘on my behalf to advise him to be well aware of his dealing or language as yet; for the world, I ensure you, is right queasy, as ye shall know within this month. The people here feareth it sore. God hath showed Himself marvellously like Him that made all, and can undo again when Him list, and I can think that by all likelihood He shall show Himself as marvellous again, and that in short time.’[261-3]

[Footnote 261-1: No. 774.]

[Footnote 261-2: No. 776.]

[Footnote 261-3: No. 774.]

In point of fact, Sir John Paston, when he wrote these words, had already heard of the landing of Queen Margaret and her son in the west, so that another conflict was certainly impending. His brother John, recovering from his wounds, but smarting severely in pocket from the cost of his surgery, looked forward to it with a sanguine hope that Edward would be defeated. ‘With God’s grace,’ he writes, ‘it shall not be long ere my wrongs and other men’s shall be redressed, for the world was never so like to be ours as it is now. Wherefore I pray you let Lomner not be too busy yet.’[262-1] The issue, however, did not agree with his expectations. [Sidenote: The battle of Tewkesbury.] Four days later was fought the battle of Tewkesbury,[262-2] at which Margaret was defeated, and her son, though taken alive, put to death upon the field. Shortly afterwards she herself surrendered as a prisoner, while her chief captain, Somerset, was beheaded by the conqueror. The Lancastrian party was completely crushed; and before three weeks were over, King Henry himself had ended his days--no doubt he was murdered--within the Tower. Edward, instead of being driven out again, was now seated on the throne more firmly than he had ever been before; and the Paston brothers had to sue for the king’s pardon for the part they had taken in opposing him.

[Footnote 262-1: No. 776.]

[Footnote 262-2: In connection with this battle, we have in No. 777 lists of the principal persons killed and beheaded after the fight, and of the knights made by King Edward upon the field. This document has never been published before.]

[Sidenote: Caister retaken by the Duke of Norfolk.] Under these circumstances, it was only natural that the Duke of Norfolk, who had been forced to relinquish his claim to Caister under the government of Henry VI., should endeavour to reassert it against one who was in the eye of the law a rebel. On this occasion, however, the duke had recourse to stratagem, and one of his servants suddenly obtained possession of the place on Sunday, the 23rd June.[262-3] It is remarkable that we have no direct reference in the letters either to this event, or to the previous reinstatement of Sir John Paston during the restoration of Henry VI.; but a statement in the itinerary of William Worcester and Sir John Paston’s petition to the king in 1475[262-4] leave no doubt about the facts. After about six months of possession the Pastons were again driven out of Caister.[262-5]

[Footnote 262-3: W. Worc. _Itin._, 368.]

[Footnote 262-4: No. 879.]

[Footnote 262-5: Although the fact of this expulsion could not be gathered from the letters of this date, some allusion to it will be found in Letter 778, by which it seems that a horse of John Paston’s had been left at Caister, which the family endeavoured to reclaim by pretending that it was his brother Edmund’s. John Paston, however, seems to have preferred that the duke’s men should keep the animal, in the hope that they would make other concessions of greater value.]

The Pastons had need of friends, and offers of friendship were made to them by Earl Rivers, formerly Lord Scales. [Sidenote: Earl Rivers offers his friendship.] The engagement of Sir John Paston to Rivers’s kinswoman, Anne Haute,[263-1] still held; and though there was some talk of breaking it off, the earl was willing to do what lay in his power in behalf both of Sir John and of his brother. The latter was not very grateful for his offer, considering, apparently, that the earl’s influence with the king was not what it had been. ‘Lord Scales,’ he said, for so he continued to call him, ‘may do least with the great master. But he would depart over the sea as hastily as he may; and because he weeneth that I would go with him, as I had promised him ever, if he had kept forth his journey at that time, this is the cause that he will be my good lord, and help to get my pardon. The king is not best pleased with him, for that he desireth to depart; insomuch that the king hath said of him that whenever he hath most to do, then the Lord Scales will soonest ask leave to depart, and weeneth that it is most because of cowardice.’[263-2]

[Footnote 263-1: A transcript of an old pedigree with which I was favoured by Mr. J. R. Scott during the publication of these letters long ago, confirmed my conjecture that Anne Haute was the daughter of William Haute, whose marriage with Joan, daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, is referred to in the _Excerpta Historica_, p. 249. She was, therefore, the niece of Richard, Earl Rivers, and cousin-german to Edward IV.’s queen. It appears also that she had a sister named Alice, who was married to Sir John Fogge of Ashford, Treasurer of the Household to Edward IV. This Sir John Fogge was the man whom Richard III., having previously regarded him as a deadly enemy, sent for out of sanctuary, and took publicly by the hand at his accession, in token that he had forgotten all old grudges.]

[Footnote 263-2: No. 778.]

Earl Rivers, in fact, was at this time meditating a voyage to Portugal, where he meant to go in an expedition against the Saracens, and he actually embarked on Christmas Eve following.[263-3] His friendship, perhaps, may have been unduly depreciated by the younger brother; for within twelve days John Paston actually obtained the king’s signature to a warrant for his pardon. This, it is true, may have been procured without his mediation; but in any case the family were not in the position of persons for whom no one would intercede. They had still so much influence in the world that within three months after he had been a second time dispossessed of Caister, Sir John made a serious effort to ascertain whether the Duke of Norfolk might not be induced to let him have it back again. [Sidenote: Sir J. Paston petitions the Duke of Norfolk to give back Caister.] This he did, as was only natural, through the medium of his brother John, whose former services in the duke’s household gave him a claim to be heard in a matter touching the personal interests of the family. John Paston, however, wisely addressed himself, on this subject, rather to the duchess than to the duke; and though he received but a slender amount of encouragement, it was enough, for a few months, just to keep his hopes alive. ‘I cannot yet,’ he writes, ‘make my peace with my lord of Norfolk by no means, yet every man telleth me that my lady sayeth passing well of me always notwithstanding.’ This was written in the beginning of the year 1472, just seven months after Sir John’s second expulsion from Caister. But the Pastons continued their suit for four years more, and only recovered possession of the place on the Duke of Norfolk’s death, as we shall see hereafter.[264-1]

[Footnote 263-3: Nos. 793, 795.]

[Footnote 264-1: Nos. 781, 796, 802.]

_The Paston Brothers_

[Sidenote: Royal pardon to John Paston.] John Paston obtained a ‘bill of pardon’ signed by the king, on Wednesday the 17th July. This, however, was not in itself a pardon, but only a warrant to the Chancellor to give him one under the Great Seal. The pardon with the Great Seal attached he hoped to obtain from the Chancellor on the following Friday. Meanwhile he wrote home to his mother to let no one know of it but Lady Calthorpe, who, for some reason not explained, seems to have been a confidante in this particular matter.[264-2] Perhaps this was as well, for as a matter of fact the pardon was not sealed that Friday, nor for many a long week, and even for some months after. It seems to have been promised, but it did not come. At Norwich some one called John Paston traitor and sought to pick quarrels with him; and how far he could rely upon the protection of the law was a question not free from anxiety. His brother, Sir John, urged him to take steps to have the pardon made sure without delay; but it was only passed at length upon the 7th of February following, nearly seven months after the king had signed the bill for it. His brother, Sir John, obtained one on the 21st December.[265-1]

[Footnote 264-2: No. 780.]

[Footnote 265-1: Nos. 780, 781, 795.]

[Sidenote: The appeal of the widows.] But John Paston stood in another danger, from which even a royal pardon could not by law protect him. The ‘appeal’[265-2] of the two widows still lay against him. The blood of their husbands cried for vengeance on the men who had defended Caister, and especially upon the captain of the garrison. Their appeal, however, was suspected to proceed from the instigation of others who would fain have encouraged them to keep it up longer than they cared to do themselves. Sir John Paston had information from some quarter which led him to believe that they had both found husbands again, and he recommended his brother to make inquiry, as in that case the appeals were abated. With regard to one of them, the intelligence turned out to be correct. A friend whom John Paston asked to go and converse with this woman, the widow of a fuller of South Walsham, reported that she was now married to one Tom Steward, dwelling in the parish of St. Giles in Norwich. She confessed to him that she never sued the appeal of her own accord, ‘but that she was by subtle craft brought to the New Inn at Norwich. And there was Master Southwell; and he entreated her to be my lord’s widow[265-3] by the space of an whole year next following; and thereto he made her to be bound in an obligation. And when that year was past he desired her to be my lord’s widow another year. And then she said that she had liever lose that that she had done than to lose that and more; and therefore she said plainly that she would no more of that matter; and so she took her an husband, which is the said Tom Steward. And she saith that it was full sore against her will that ever the matter went so far forth, for she had never none avail thereof, but it was sued to her great labor and loss, for she had never of my lord’s council but barely her costs to London.’[265-4]

[Footnote 265-2: _See_ p. 257, note 3.]

[Footnote 265-3: The widow of a lord’s vassal was called the lord’s widow, and could only marry again by his leave.]

[Footnote 265-4: Nos. 782, 783.]

The other widow, however, had not married again as Sir John had imagined. With her the right of appeal still remained, and she was induced to exercise it. In this she seems to have been encouraged by the Duke of Norfolk, simply for the sake of giving trouble to Sir John Paston; for though it was his brother and the men with him who were the most direct cause of her husband’s death, the appeal was not prosecuted against them, but against him only. In the following January the widow went up to London, and 100 shillings were given her to sue with. What came of the affair then we have no further record. Sir John Paston was warned of his danger both by his mother and by his brother; so perhaps he found the means to induce her to forbear proceeding further. An argument that has often enough stopped the course of justice would doubtless have been efficacious to put an end to such a purely vexatious prosecution. But it may be that the case was actually heard, and Sir John Paston acquitted.[266-1]

[Footnote 266-1: Nos. 796, 797.]

[Sidenote: Great mortality.] In a social point of view the year of Edward IV.’s restoration was not one of gladness. The internal peace of the kingdom was secured by the two sharp battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and by the execution of the Bastard Falconbridge after his attempt on London, but the land was visited with pestilence and the mortality was severe. Hosts of pilgrims travelled through the country, eager to escape the prevailing infection or to return thanks for their recovery from illness. The king and queen went on pilgrimage to Canterbury; and never, it was said, had there been so many pilgrims at a time.[266-2] ‘It is the most universal death that ever I wist in England,’ says Sir John Paston; ‘for by my trouth I cannot hear by pilgrims that pass the country that any borough town in England is free from that sickness. God cease it when it pleaseth Him! Wherefore, for God’s sake let my mother take heed to my young brethren, that they be in none place where that sickness is reigning, nor that they disport not with none other young people which resorteth where any sickness is; and if there be any of that sickness dead or infect in Norwich, for God’s sake let her send them to some friends of hers into the country, and do ye the same by mine advice. Let my mother rather remove her household into the country.’[267-1]

[Footnote 266-2: No. 782.]

[Footnote 267-1: No. 781.]

The plague continued on till the beginning of winter. Margaret Paston does not seem to have removed into the country, but in writing to her son John in the beginning of November she notes the progress of the enemy. ‘Your cousin Berney of Witchingham is passed to God, whom God assoyle! Veyl’s wife, and London’s wife, and Picard the baker of Tombland, be gone also. All this household and this parish is as ye left it, blessed be God! We live in fear, but we wot not whither to flee for to be better than we be here.’[267-2] In the same letter Margaret Paston speaks of other troubles. [Sidenote: Money matters.] She had been obliged to borrow money for her son Sir John, and it was redemanded. The fortunes of the family were at a low ebb, and she knew not what to do without selling her woods--a thing which would seriously impair the value of Sir John’s succession to her estates, as there were so many wood sales then in Norfolk that no man was likely to give much more than within a hundred marks of their real value. She therefore urged Sir John in his own interest to consider what he could do to meet the difficulty. Already she had done much for him, and was not a little ashamed that it was known she had not reserved the means of paying the debts she had incurred for him. Sir John, however, returned for answer that he was utterly unable to make any shift for the money, and Margaret saw nothing for it but the humiliation of selling wood or land, or even furniture, to meet the emergency. ‘It is a death to me to think upon it,’ she wrote. She felt strongly that her son had not the art of managing with economy--that he spent double the money on his affairs that his father had done in matters of the same character, and, what grieved her even more, that duties which filial pride ought to have piously discharged long ago had been neglected owing to his extravagance. ‘At the reverence of God,’ she writes to his younger brother John, ‘advise him yet to beware of his expenses and guiding, that it be no shame to us all. It is a shame and a thing that is much spoken of in this country that your father’s gravestone is not made. [Sidenote: John Paston’s gravestone.] For God’s love, let it be remembered and purveyed in haste. There hath been much more spent in waste than should have made that.’ Apparently direct remonstrances had failed to tell upon Sir John otherwise than to make him peevish and crusty. She therefore wrote to his younger brother instead. ‘Me thinketh by your brother that he is weary to write to me, and therefore I will not accumber him with writing to him. Ye may tell him as I write to you.’[268-1]

[Footnote 267-2: No. 787.]

[Footnote 268-1: Nos. 787, 791. In justice to Sir John Paston it should be mentioned that he had been making inquiries two months before as to the dimensions of the space over his father’s grave at Bromholm available for a monument.--_See_ No. 782. More than five years, however, had elapsed since his father’s death, and even two years after this the tomb was not attended to, as we find by repeated comments on the subject.--_See_ Nos. 843 and 878. This last letter has been accidentally misplaced, and is really of the year 1472, as will be shown hereafter.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Paston and Anne Haute.] Thriftless, extravagant, and irresolute, Sir John Paston was not the man to succeed, either in money matters or in anything else. No wonder, then, that his engagement with Anne Haute became unsatisfactory, apparently to both parties alike. The manner in which he speaks of it at this time is indeed ambiguous; but there can be no doubt that in the end both parties desired to be released, and were for a long time only restrained by the cost of a dispensation, which was necessary to dissolve even such a contract as theirs. It would not have been surprising, indeed, if on the restoration of Edward IV. Lord Rivers and the queen’s relations had shown themselves unfavourable to a match between their kinswoman and one who had fought against the king at Barnet. But whether this was the case or not we have no positive evidence to show. Only we know that in the course of this year the issue of the matter was regarded as uncertain. In September Sir John Paston writes that he had almost spoken with Mrs. Anne Haute, but had not done so. ‘Nevertheless,’ he says, ‘this next term I hope to take one way with her or other. She is agreed to speak with me and she hopeth to do me ease, as she saith.’[268-2]

[Footnote 268-2: No. 781.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1471, Oct.] Six weeks later, in the end of October, the state of matters is reported, not by Sir John Paston but by his brother. ‘As for Mrs. A. Haulte, the matter is moved by divers of the queen’s council, and of fear by R. Haulte; but he would it should be first of our motion, and we would it should come of them first--our matter should be the better.’[269-1] [Sidenote: A.D. 1472, Feb.] In February following Sir John was admitted to another interview with the lady, but was unable to bring the matter to a decisive issue. ‘I have spoken,’ he says, ‘with Mrs. Anne Haulte at a pretty leisure, and, blessed be God, we be as far forth as we were tofore, and so I hope we shall continue. And I promised her that at the next leisure that I could find thereto, that I would come again and see her, which will take a leisure, as I deem now. Since this observance is overdone, I purpose not to tempt God no more so.’[269-2]

[Footnote 269-1: No. 784.]

[Footnote 269-2: No. 798.]

A year later, in April 1473, he says that if he had six days more leisure, he ‘would have hoped to have been delivered of Mrs. Anne Haulte. Her friends, the queen, and Atcliff,’ he writes, ‘agreed to common and conclude with me, if I can find the mean to discharge her conscience, which I trust to God to do.’[269-3] But the discharge of her conscience required an application to the Court of Rome, and this involved a very unsentimental question of fees. ‘I have answer again from Rome,’ he writes in November following, ‘that there is the well of grace and salve sufficient for such a sore, and that I may be dispensed with; nevertheless my proctor there asketh a thousand ducats, as he deemeth. But Master Lacy, another Rome runner here, which knoweth my said proctor there, as he saith, as well as Bernard knew his shield, sayeth that he meaneth but an hundred ducats, or two hundred ducats at the most; wherefore after this cometh more. He wrote to me also _quod Papa hoc facit hodiernis diebus multociens_ (that the Pope does this nowadays very frequently).’[269-4]

[Footnote 269-3: No. 831.]

[Footnote 269-4: No. 842.]

Here we lose for a while nearly all further trace of the matter. Nothing more seems to have been done in it for a long time; for about fourteen months later we find Sir John Paston’s mother still wishing he were ‘delivered of Mrs. Anne Haulte,’[270-1] and this is all we hear about it until after an interval of two years more, when, in February 1477, Sir John reports that the matter between him and Mrs. Anne Haulte had been ‘sore broken’ to Cardinal Bourchier, the Lord Chamberlain (Hastings), and himself, and that he was ‘in good hope.’[270-2] Finally, in August following, he expects that it ‘shall, with God’s grace, this term be at a perfect end.’[270-3] After this we hear nothing more of it. The pre-contract between Sir John and Anne Haulte seems therefore to have been at last annulled; and what is more remarkable, after it had been so, he was reported to be so influential at Court that another marriage was offered him ‘right nigh of the Queen’s blood.’[270-4] His mother, who writes to him on the subject in May 1478, had not been informed who the lady was, and neither can we tell the reader. We only know for certain that such a marriage never took effect.

[Footnote 270-1: No. 863. Some months before the time when he himself expressed that hope of being delivered from his engagement, I meet with a passage of rather doubtful meaning in a letter to Sir John Paston from his brother. There is a lady in the case, but the lady is not named. John Paston has delivered to her a ring which he had much difficulty in inducing her to take. But he promises that Sir John shall be her true knight, and she in return promises to be more at his commandment than at any knight’s in England, ‘my lord’ excepted. ‘And that ye shall well understand’ (so John Paston reports the message) ‘if ye have aught to do wherein she may be an helper; for there was never knight did so much cost on her as ye have done.’ (No. 817.) Is this anonymous lady Anne Haulte once more? Was the ring an engagement ring returned? And did they thus break off relations with each other, retaining mutual esteem? Let us hope this is the explanation, which indeed I should even think probable, but that the lady must have been at this time residing in the county of Norfolk, and I have no notice of Anne Haulte having been there at any time.]

[Footnote 270-2: No. 900.]

[Footnote 270-3: No. 916.]

[Footnote 270-4: No. 933.]

[Sidenote: John Paston’s love affairs.] John Paston, too, had his love affairs as well as his brother, but was more fortunate in not being bound helplessly to one lady for a long series of years. In the summer of 1471, he seems to have been endeavouring to win the hand of a certain Lady Elizabeth Bourchier; but here he did not prosper, for she was married a few months later to Lord Thomas Howard--the nobleman who more than forty years after was created Duke of Norfolk by King Henry VIII. for his victory over the Scots at Flodden.[270-5] As to his further proceedings in search of a wife, we shall have occasion to speak of them hereafter.

[Footnote 270-5: Nos. 781, 800.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1472.] Property was at all times a matter of more importance than love to that selfish generation; it was plainly, avowedly regarded by every one as the principal point in marrying. [Sidenote: The Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester.] In the royal family at this very time, the design of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to marry the widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, awoke the jealousy of his brother Clarence. For the lady was a younger sister of Clarence’s own wife, and co-heir to her father, Warwick the Kingmaker; and since the death of that great earl at Barnet, Clarence seems to have pounced on the whole of his immense domains without the slightest regard even to the rights of his widow, who, indeed, was now in disgrace, and was living in sanctuary at Beaulieu. The idea of being compelled to share the property with his brother was a thing that had never occurred to him, and he could not endure the thought. He endeavoured to prevent the proposed marriage by concealing the lady in London.[271-1] Disputes arose between the two brothers in consequence, and though they went to Sheen together to pardon, it was truly suspected to be ‘not all in charity.’ The king endeavoured to act as mediator, and entreated Clarence to show a fair amount of consideration to his brother; but his efforts met with very little success. ‘As it is said,’ writes Sir John Paston, ‘he answereth that he may well have my lady his sister-in-law, but they shall part no livelode,’--the elder sister was to have all the inheritance, and the younger sister nothing! No wonder the writer adds, ‘So what will fall can I not say.’[271-2] What did fall, however, we know partly from the Paston Letters and partly from other sources. The Duke of Gloucester married the lady in spite of his brother’s threats. The dispute about the property raged violently more than two years, and almost defied the king’s efforts to keep his two brothers in subjection. In November 1473 we find it ‘said for certain that the Duke of Clarence maketh him big in that he can, showing as he would but deal with the Duke of Gloucester; but the king intendeth, in eschewing all inconvenients, to be as big as they both, and to be a styffeler atween them. And some men think that under this there should be some other thing intended, and some treason conspired.’ Sir John Paston again did not know what to make of it, and was driven to reiterate his former remark, ‘So what shall fall can I not say.’[272-1] He only hoped the two brothers would yet be brought into agreement by the king’s award.[272-2]

[Footnote 271-1: _Contin. Chron. of Croyland_, 557.]

[Footnote 271-2: No. 798.]

[Footnote 272-1: No. 841.]

[Footnote 272-2: No. 842.]

This hope was ultimately realised. Clarence at last consented with an ill will to let his sister-in-law have a share in her father’s lands; and an arrangement was made by a special Act of Parliament for the division of the property.[272-3] To satisfy the rapacity of the royal brothers, the claims of the Countess of Warwick were deliberately set aside, and the Act expressly treated her as if she had been a dead woman. So the matter was finally settled in May 1474. Yet possibly the Countess’s claims had some influence in hastening this settlement; for about a twelvemonth before she had been removed from her sanctuary at Beaulieu[272-4] and conveyed northwards by Sir James Tyrell. This, it appears, was not done avowedly by the king’s command; nevertheless rumour said that it was by his assent, and also that it was contrary to the will of Clarence.[272-5]

[Footnote 272-3: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 100.]

[Footnote 272-4: ‘Beweley Seyntwarye’ in Fenn; but the reading is ‘_Beverley_ sanctuary’ in the right-hand version. Which is correct?]

[Footnote 272-5: No. 834.]

Even so in the Paston family love affairs give place at this time to questions about property, in which their interests were very seriously at stake. Not only was there the great question between Sir John and the Duke of Norfolk about Caister, but there was also a minor question about the manor of Saxthorpe, the particulars of which are not very clear. On the 12th July 1471, Sir John Paston made a release of Saxthorpe and Titchwell and some other portions of the Fastolf estates, to David Husband and William Gyfford;[272-6] but this was probably only in the nature of a trust, for it appears that he did not intend to give up his interest in the property. [Sidenote: A.D. 1472, Jan.] In January following, however, William Gurney entered into Saxthorpe and endeavoured to hold a court there for the lord of the manor. [Sidenote: John Paston interrupts the Manor Court at Saxthorpe.] But John Paston hearing of what was doing, went thither accompanied by one man only to protect his brother’s interest, and charged the tenants, in the presence of Gurney himself and a number of his friends, to proceed no further. The protest was effective so far as to produce a momentary pause. But when it was seen that he had only one man with him, the proceedings were resumed; on which John Paston sat down by the steward and blotted his book with his finger as he wrote, and then called the tenants to witness that he had effectually interrupted the court in his brother’s right.[273-1] Gurney, however, did not give up the game, but warned another court to be kept on Holy Rood day (May 3rd, the Invention of the Holy Cross), when he would have collected the half-year’s rents from the tenants. The court was held, but before it was half over John Paston appeared again and persuaded him to stay proceedings once more, and to forbear gathering money until he and Sir John Paston should confer together in London. It seems to have required some tact and courtesy to get him to consent to this arrangement; for Henry Heydon, the son of the old ally of Sir Thomas Tuddenham, had raised a number of men-at-arms to give Gurney any assistance that might have been necessary, but the gentle demeanour of John Paston left him no pretext for calling in such aid.[273-2]

[Footnote 272-6: No. 779.]

[Footnote 273-1: No. 796.]

[Footnote 273-2: No. 801.]

The real claimant of the manor against Sir John Paston was Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, of whom, almost immediately after this, Henry Heydon bought both Saxthorpe and Titchwell. Sir John Paston, apparently, had been caught napping as usual, and knew nothing of the transaction. His mother wrote to him in dismay on the 5th June. Young Heydon had already taken possession. ‘We beat the bushes,’ said Margaret Paston, ‘and have the loss and the disworship, and other men have the birds. My lord hath false counsel and simple that adviseth him thereto. And, as it is told me, Guton is like to go the same way in haste. And as for Hellesdon and Drayton, I trow it is there it shall be. What shall fall of the remnant God knoweth,--I trow as evil or worse.’[273-3]

[Footnote 273-3: No. 803.]

John Paston in like manner writes on the same day that Heydon was sure of Saxthorpe, and Lady Boleyn of Guton.[274-1] Sir John Paston was letting the family property slip out of his fingers, while on the other hand he was running into debt, and in his straitened circumstances he was considering what he could sell. His mother had threatened if he parted with any of his lands to disinherit him of double the amount;[274-2] so he was looking out for a purchaser of his wood at Sporle, which he was proposing to cut down.[274-3] But by far the most serious matter of all was Caister; ‘if we lose that,’ said Margaret Paston, ‘we lose the fairest flower of our garland.’ To her, too, it would be peculiarly annoying, for she expected to have little comfort in her own family mansion at Mautby, if the Duke of Norfolk had possession of Caister only three miles off.[274-4] [Sidenote: Sir John Paston seeks to get Caister restored to him.] On this subject, however, Sir John Paston does not appear to have been remiss. It was the first thing that occupied his thoughts after he had secured his pardon. In the beginning of the year he had been with Archbishop Nevill, who, though he had been in disgrace and committed to the Tower just after the battle of Barnet, seems at this time again to have had some influence in the world, at his residence called the Moor. By the archbishop’s means apparently he had received his pardon, and had spent a merrier Christmas in consequence; and he wrote to his mother that if he could have got any assurance of having Caister restored to him, he would have come away at once.[274-5] But it was not long before the archbishop again got into trouble. He was once more conducted to the Tower, and two days afterwards at midnight he was put on board a ship and conveyed out to sea.[274-6] Nothing more therefore was to be hoped for from the archbishop’s friendship; but Sir John Paston did not cease to use what means lay in his power. His brother made incessant applications on his behalf to the Duchess of Norfolk, and to the duke’s council at Framlingham. To be reinstated Sir John was willing to make the duke a present of £40, an offer which the council acknowledged was ‘more than reasonable.’ If the matter were their own, they gave John Paston to understand, they could easily come to an understanding with him, but my lord was intractable. The duchess herself declined to interfere in the matter until my lord and the council were agreed, and the latter said that when they had mooted it to the duke ‘he gave them such an answer that none of them all would tell it.’ They suggested, however, that the duke might be swayed by more influential opinions, and that if Sir John could get my Lord Chamberlain Hastings, or some other nobleman of mark, to speak to the duke in his favour, there was great probability that he would attain his object.[275-1]

[Footnote 274-1: No. 804.]

[Footnote 274-2: No. 802.]

[Footnote 274-3: Nos. 798, 804, 819, 820.--No. 819 is a little out of its place, the exact date of the letter being the 9th May.]

[Footnote 274-4: No. 803.]

[Footnote 274-5: No. 795.]

[Footnote 274-6: No. 800.]

[Footnote 275-1: No. 809.]

[Sidenote: The Duchess of Norfolk.] A favourable opportunity, however, presented itself shortly afterwards for urging a petition for justice on the duke himself. After ten years or more of married life the Duchess of Norfolk was at length with child. Duke and duchess received everywhere congratulations from their friends and dependants. Among the rest Sir John Paston offered his to my lady herself, in a vein of banter that seems slightly to have offended her, though not perhaps so much by its grossness, which was excessive, as by the undue familiarity exhibited in such a tone of address.[275-2] The Duke of Norfolk was going to be with his wife on the occasion of her lying-in, and John Paston, as an old servant of the family, went to give his attendance at Framlingham. It was resolved that the utmost should be made of the opportunity. John Paston drew up a petition in behalf of his brother to present to the duke, while Sir John Paston himself, then in London, obtained letters from the king to both the duke and duchess, and also to their council. The king seems to have been particularly interested in the case, and assured Sir John that if his letters were ineffectual justice should be done in the matter without delay. The letters were despatched by a special messenger, ‘a man of worship’ in high favour with the king himself. With such powerful influence engaged on his behalf, most probably Sir John did not care to ask for letters from Lord Hastings, which his brother was even then expecting. But he suggested, if my lady’s lying-in should be at Norwich instead of Framlingham, that his mother might obtain admittance to her chamber, and that her persuasions would be of considerable use.[276-1]

[Footnote 275-2: Nos. 812, 813.]

[Footnote 276-1: Nos. 813, 814, 815, 817, 824. _See_ also No. 878, which by a strange inadvertence has been put in the year 1475 instead of 1472. The preliminary note is correct except as to the year.]

[Sidenote: Birth of a daughter.] The duchess was confined at Framlingham, and gave birth to a daughter, who received the name of Anne. Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, came down to christen the child, and he, too, took an opportunity during his brief stay to say a word to my lady about Caister and the claim of Sir John Paston to restitution. But exhortations, royal letters, and all were thrown away upon the Duke of Norfolk. My lady promised secretly to another person to favour Sir John’s suit, but the fact of her giving such a promise was not to be communicated to any one else. John Paston was made as uncomfortable as possible by the manner in which his representations were received. ‘I let you plainly wit,’ he wrote to his brother, ‘I am not the man I was, for I was never so rough in my master’s conceit as I am now, and that he told me himself before Richard Southwell, Tymperley, Sir W. Brandon, and twenty more; so that they that lowered now laugh upon me.’[276-2]

[Footnote 276-2: No. 823.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Paston seeks to enter Parliament.] But although all arts were unsuccessful to bend the will of the Duke of Norfolk on this subject, Sir John Paston seems to have enjoyed the favour and approval of the duchess in offering himself as a candidate for the borough of Maldon in the Parliament of 1472. His friend James Arblaster wrote a letter to the bailiff of Maldon suggesting the great advantage it would be to the town to have for one of their two burgesses ‘such a man of worship and of wit as were towards my said lady,’ and advising all her tenants to vote for Sir John Paston, who not only had this great qualification, but also possessed the additional advantage of being in high favour with my Lord Chamberlain Hastings.[276-3] There was, however, some uncertainty as to the result, and his brother John suggested in writing to him that if he missed being elected for Maldon he might be for some other place. There were a dozen towns in England that ought to return members to Parliament which had chosen none, and by the influence of my Lord Chamberlain he might get returned for one of them.[277-1]

[Footnote 276-3: No. 808.]

[Footnote 277-1: No. 809.]

In point of fact, I find that Sir John Paston was not returned for Maldon to the Parliament of 1472; and whether he sat for any other borough I am not certain, though there is an expression in the correspondence a little later that might lead one to suppose so.[277-2] But that he went up to London we know by a letter dated on the 4th November;[277-3] and though he went to Calais, and even visited the court of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy at Ghent early in the following year, when Parliament was no longer sitting, he had returned to London long before it had ended its second session in April 1473.[277-4] It is also clear that he took a strong interest in its proceedings; but this was only natural. That Parliament was summoned avowedly to provide for the safety of the kingdom. Although the Earl of Warwick was now dead, and Margaret of Anjou a prisoner at Wallingford,[277-5] and the line of Henry VI. extinct, [Sidenote: Fear of Invasion.] it was still anticipated that the Earl of Oxford and others, supported by the power of France, would make a descent upon the coast. Commissions of array were issued at various times for defence against apprehended invasion.[277-6] Information was therefore laid before Parliament of the danger in which the kingdom stood from a confederacy of the king’s ‘ancient and mortal enemies environing the same,’ and a message was sent to the Commons to the effect that the king intended to equip an expedition in resistance of their malice.[277-7] The result was that, in November 1472, the Commons agreed to a levy of 13,000 archers, and voted a tenth for their support, which was to be levied before Candlemas following.[278-1] An income and property tax was not a permanent institution of our ancestors, but when it came it pressed heavily; so that a demand of two shillings in the pound was not at all unprecedented. A higher tax had been imposed four years before, and also in 1453 by the Parliament of Reading. Still, a sudden demand of two shillings in the pound, to be levied within the next four months, was an uncomfortable thing to meet; and owing either to its unpopularity or the difficulty of arranging the machinery for its collection, it was not put in force within the time appointed. [Sidenote: A.D. 1473.] But in the following spring, when the Parliament had begun its second session, collectors were named throughout the country, and it was notified that some further demands were to be made upon the national pocket. On the 26th March, John Paston writes that his cousin John Blennerhasset had been appointed collector in Norfolk, and asks his brother Sir John in London to get him excused from serving in ‘that thankless office,’ as he had not a foot of ground in the county. At the same time the writer expresses the sentiments of himself and his neighbours in language quite sufficiently emphatic: ‘I pray God send you the Holy Ghost among you in the Parliament House, and rather the Devil, we say, than ye should grant any more taxes.’[278-2] Unfortunately, before the Parliament ended its sittings, it granted a whole fifteenth and tenth additional.[278-3]

[Footnote 277-2: His name does not appear in any of the original returns preserved in the Record Office; but they are certainly very imperfect, and some of them are not very legible. The two burgesses returned for Maldon were William Pestell and William Albon. I find, however, that William Paston, probably Sir John’s uncle, was returned for Newcastle-under-Lyne.]

[Footnote 277-3: No. 812.]

[Footnote 277-4: He could scarcely have returned from Calais in time for the opening of that session on the 8th February, as he was at Calais on the 3rd, and says nothing about coming home at that date.--No. 826.]

[Footnote 277-5: No. 795.]

[Footnote 277-6: Patent, 7th March, 12 Edw. IV., p. 1, membs. 25 and 26 _in dorso_; and 10th May, p. 1, m. 13 _in dorso_.]

[Footnote 277-7: Even on the 1st June, four months before Parliament met, we find commissions issued to certain masters of ships to take sailors for the army going over sea.--_Patent Roll_, 12 Edw. IV., p. 1, m. 10 _in dorso_.]

[Footnote 278-1: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 4.]

[Footnote 278-2: No. 829.]

[Footnote 278-3: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 39.]

[Sidenote: Family jars.] At this time we find that there was some further unpleasant feeling within the Paston family circle. Margaret Paston had several times expressed her discontent with the thriftless extravagance of her eldest son, and even the second, John, did not stand continually in her good graces. A third brother, Edmund, was now just coming out in life, and as a preparation for it he too had to endure continual reproofs and remonstrances from his mother. Besides these, there were at home three other sons and one daughter, of whom we shall speak hereafter. The young generation apparently was a little too much for the lone widow; and, finding her elder sons not very satisfactory advisers, she did what lone women are very apt to do under such circumstances--took counsel in most of the affairs of this life of a confidential priest. In fact, she was a good and pious woman, to whom in her advancing years this world appeared more and more in its true character as a mere preparation for the next. She had now withdrawn from city life at Norwich, and was dwelling on her own family estate at Mautby. Bodily infirmities, perhaps--though we hear nothing explicitly said of them--made it somewhat less easy for her to move about; and she desired to obtain a licence from the Bishop of Norwich to have the sacrament in her own chapel.[279-1] She was also thinking, we know, of getting her fourth son Walter educated for the priesthood; and she wished her own spiritual adviser, Sir James Gloys,[279-2] to conduct him to Oxford, and see him put in the right way to pursue his studies creditably. She hoped, she said, to have more joy of him than of his elder brothers; and though she desired him to be a priest, she wished him not to take any orders that should be binding until he had reached the age of four-and-twenty. ‘I will love him better,’ she said, ‘to be a good secular man than a lewd priest.’[279-3]

[Footnote 279-1: No. 821. She repeats the request more than two years later, and desires that if it cannot be obtained of the Bishop of Norwich, John Paston should endeavour to get it of the Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘for that,’ she says, ‘is the most sure for all places.’--No. 866.]

[Footnote 279-2: We ought, perhaps, to have explained before that the prefix ‘Sir’ before a priest’s name, as in Sir James Gloys and Sir Thomas Howes, was commonly used as equivalent to ‘Reverend,’ though strictly speaking it was applied to one who had taken no higher degree than bachelor.]

[Footnote 279-3: No. 825. Even so Erasmus says of More (Epp. lib. x. 30, col. 536). ‘Maluit maritus esse castus quam sacerdos impurus.’ The sentiment evidently was a very common one.]

[[(Epp. lib. x. 30, col. 536). _text unchanged: expected final comma_]]

[Sidenote: Sir James Gloys.] But the influence of this spiritual adviser over their mother was by no means agreeable to the two eldest sons. John Paston speaks of him in a letter to his brother as ‘the proud, peevish, and ill-disposed priest to us all,’ and complains grievously of his interference in family affairs. ‘Many quarrels,’ he writes, ‘are picked to get my brother Edmund and me out of her house. We go not to bed unchidden lightly; all that we do is ill done, and all that Sir James and Pecock doth is well done. Sir James and I be twain. We fell out before my mother with “Thou proud priest,” and “Thou proud squire,” my mother taking his part; so I have almost beshut the bolt as for my mother’s house; yet summer shall be done or I get me any master.’[280-1] John Paston, in fact, was obliged to put up with it for some months longer, and though he afterwards reports that Sir James was always ‘chopping at him,’ and seeking to irritate him in his mother’s presence, he had found out that it was not altogether the best policy to rail at him in return. So he learned to smile a little at the most severe speeches, and remark quietly, ‘It is good hearing of these old tales.’[280-2] This mode of meeting the attack, if it did not soften Sir James’s bitterness, may have made Margaret Paston less willing to take his part against her son. At all events we hear no more of these encounters. Sir James Gloys, however, died about twelve months later.[280-3]

[Footnote 280-1: No. 805.]

[Footnote 280-2: No. 810.]

[Footnote 280-3: No. 842.]

_Taxation, Private Affairs, and the French War_

The impatience of taxation expressed by John Paston and others may perhaps be interpreted as showing that little was generally known, or at all events believed, of any such serious danger to the kingdom from outward enemies as had been represented to Parliament. Nevertheless, in March 1473, John Paston speaks of ‘a few Frenchmen whirling on the coasts,’ for fear of whom the fishermen did not venture to leave port without safe conducts.[280-4] [Sidenote: Hogan’s prophecies.] A political prophet named Hogan also foretold that some attempt would shortly be made to invade the kingdom or to create trouble within it. But the French ships soon returned home, and Hogan’s words were not greatly esteemed, though he was arrested and sent up to London for uttering them. He had, in fact, prophesied similar things before. Yet there was an impression in some quarters that he might be right on this occasion. He was committed to the Tower, and he desired leave to speak to the king, but Edward declined to give him any occasion for boasting that his warnings had been listened to. Ere long, however, his story was to some extent justified. News came that on Saturday, the 10th April, the Earl of Oxford had been at Dieppe with twelve ships, about to sail for Scotland. A man was examined in London, who gave information that large sums of money had been sent him from England, and that a hundred gentlemen in Norfolk and Suffolk had agreed to assist him if he should attempt a landing. On the 28th May he actually did land at St. Osith’s, in Essex, but hearing that the Earl of Essex with the Lords Dynham and Durasse were coming to oppose him, he returned to his ships and sailed away. His attempt, however, saved Hogan his head, and gained him greater esteem as a prophet; for he had foretold ‘that this trouble should begin in May, and that the king should northwards, and that the Scots should make us work and him battle.’ People began everywhere to buy armour, expecting they knew not what.[281-1]

[Footnote 280-4: No. 828.]

[Footnote 281-1: Nos. 829, 830, 831, 833, 834.]

Sir John Paston, for his part, during his visit to the Burgundian court in the end of January,[281-2] had already ordered a complete suit of armour for himself, together with some horse armour, of Martin Rondelle, the armourer of the Bastard of Burgundy.[281-3] But the demand for armour increased as the year went on. [Sidenote: The Earl of Oxford at St. Michael’s Mount.] The Earl of Oxford again suddenly appeared, this time on the coast of Cornwall, and took possession of St. Michael’s Mount on the last day of September. He was besieged there by Sir Henry Bodrugan, but the place was so strong that, if properly victualled, twenty men could keep it against the world. The earl’s men, however, parleyed with Sir Henry, who by some gross negligence allowed victuals to be conveyed into the Mount. The command of the besieging force was taken from him by the king and given to Richard Fortescue, sheriff of Cornwall.[281-4] At the same time the quarrel between the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester contributed to make people uneasy. The world, as Sir John Paston phrased it, seemed ‘queasy.’ Every man about the king sent for his ‘harness.’ The king himself sent for the Great Seal, which was conveyed to him by Dr. Morton, Master of the Rolls. Some expected that he would make a new Chancellor, some that he would keep the Seal in his own hands as he had done during former commotions.[282-1]

[Footnote 281-2: He was at Ghent on Thursday, 28th January.--No. 826.]

[Footnote 281-3: No. 838.]

[Footnote 281-4: Warkworth’s _Chronicle_, 26-7.]

[Footnote 282-1: No. 841.]

The Earl of Oxford was fast shut up in the Mount. But during November he made a sally, took a gentleman prisoner, and dragged him within. Shortly afterwards, attempting to give more trouble to the besiegers, he was wounded in the face with an arrow.[282-2] But his gallant defence seems to have awakened sympathy in the West Country; for on the 10th December the king found it necessary to issue a proclamation against bearing arms in Devonshire.[282-3] However, after keeping possession of the place for four months and a half, he felt himself compelled to surrender, not by lack of victuals, but for want of reliance on his own men, to whom the king had offered pardons and rewards for deserting him. The earl himself was constrained to sue for pardon of his own life, and yielded himself a prisoner on the 15th February 1474.[282-4]

[Footnote 282-2: No. 843.]

[Footnote 282-3: _Close Roll_, 13 Edw. IV., m. 8.]

[Footnote 282-4: No. 846. Warkworth, 27.]

[Sidenote: Projected royal expedition against France.] Meanwhile people were looking forward to a royal expedition against France. It was for this the 13,000 archers were to be raised, and it was agreed in Parliament that if the expedition did not take place before Michaelmas 1474, the money collected for the purpose should be repaid. As the time drew near, however, it was found impossible to carry out the project quite so soon. The tenth voted in November 1472 had been assessed by the commissioners before February 1473 over all the kingdom, except five northern shires and one or two separate hundreds and wapentakes. But the total amount of the assessment had only produced £31,410: 14: 1½, a sum which to the modern reader will appear inconceivably small as the proceeds of a ten per cent. income and property tax for nearly the whole of England. It was in fact not sufficient for the purpose intended; even such a tax, strange to say, could not maintain 13,000 archers; and the Commons, as we have already said, voted one-tenth and one-fifteenth additional. This impost, however, was not immediately levied. On the 26th March 1473 a truce was made at Brussels between England and Burgundy on the one side, and France on the other, till the 1st April 1474.[283-1] After it expired Edward announced to his Parliament that he intended as soon as possible to invade France in person; but as it was not likely that he could do so before Michaelmas following, the time at which the money was to be repaid to the taxpayers, in case of the expedition not taking place, was prolonged to St. John Baptist’s Day (24th June) in 1476.[283-2]

[Footnote 283-1: No. 832. It is curious that we have no notice of this truce in Rymer.]

[Footnote 283-2: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 113-14.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1474.] [Sidenote: Effects of severe taxation.] The taxation pinched every one severely. ‘The king goeth so near us in this country,’ wrote Margaret Paston, ‘both to poor and rich, that I wot not how we shall live but if the world amend.’ The two taxes came so close upon each other that they had to be paid at one and the same time.[283-3] And to those who, like Sir John Paston, were in debt and trying to raise money for other purposes, the hardship was extreme. So many were selling corn and cattle that very little was to be realised in that way. Wheat was but 2s. 4d. a comb, and malt and oats but tenpence. During the year 1473 Sir John had applied in vain to his mother for a loan of £100 to redeem the manor of Sporle, which he had been obliged to mortgage. He had already been driven to sell a portion of the wood, and had thoughts of giving a seven years’ lease of the manor to a neighbour of the name of Cocket, on receiving six years’ rent in ready money.[283-4] But in 1474, having received £100 from the executors of Lyhart, Bishop of Norwich, in satisfaction of some old claim, his mother consented to lend another sum of like amount, which would enable him, with a very little further help from some other quarter, to meet the demands of Townsend the mortgagee.[283-5] In the end, however, a sum of £142: 13: 4 was advanced by his uncle William, and some other moneys by Margaret Paston, partly on the security of her own plate, and partly on that of Sir John Paston’s lands in the hundred of Flegg.[283-6]

[Footnote 283-3: No. 871. ‘William Pecock shall send you a bill what he hath paid for you for two tasks (_taxes_) at this time.’ Margaret Paston to Sir John, 23rd May 1475.]

[Footnote 283-4: Nos. 828, 831, 842, 865.]

[Footnote 283-5: No. 856.]

[Footnote 283-6: No. 865.]

[Sidenote: Arrangement with Bishop Waynflete.] About the same time Sir John came to an understanding with Bishop Waynflete about the lands of Sir John Fastolf; [Sidenote: The college at Caister abandoned.] and the bishop having obtained a dispensation from the Pope enabling him to apply the endowments of Fastolf’s intended college at Caister to the support of Magdalen College, Oxford, a division was made of the Norfolk lands between him and Paston. Sir John was allowed to enjoy Caister and the lands in Flegg, if he could recover them from the Duke of Norfolk, with the manor of Hellesdon, Tolthorpe, and certain tenements in Norwich and Earlham; but he gave up Drayton to the bishop. And so terminated one long-standing controversy.[284-1]

[Footnote 284-1: Nos. 834, 859.]

[Sidenote: Anne Paston engaged to William Yelverton.] An event in the family now claims our notice, although the allusions to it are but slight, and the manner in which it is referred to is quite in keeping with that strange absence of domestic feeling which is so painfully characteristic of the times. Anne Paston, Sir John’s sister, had come to a marriageable age; and her mother disposed of her hand to William Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, although she had an offer from one of the family of Bedingfield.[284-2] The engagement had lasted at least a year and a half, when Sir John Paston in London heard news that she had been exceedingly unwell; on which he quietly remarks that he had imagined she was already married. It seems scarcely possible to attribute this ignorance to any unusual detention of letters between Norwich and London; so that we are almost driven to conclude that his sister’s marriage was an event of which Sir John did not expect to receive any very special intimation. The news even of her sickness, I suspect from the manner in which he refers to it, was conveyed to him not by letters from home, but by Yelverton, her intended husband, who had come up to London. Nor must it be supposed that Yelverton himself was deeply concerned about her state of health; for it was certainly not with a lover’s anxiety that he communicated the intelligence to Sir John. In fact the marriage, so far from being a thing already accomplished, as Sir John supposed, was a matter that still remained uncertain. ‘As for Yelverton,’ writes Sir John himself, ‘he said but late that he would have her if she had her money, and else not; wherefore me thinketh that they be not very sure.’ Still the old song of ‘Property, property,’ like Tennyson’s ‘Northern Farmer.’ And how very quietly this cold-hearted brother takes the news that the marriage which he thought already accomplished might very likely never take place at all! ‘But among all other things,’ he adds, ‘I pray you beware that the old love of Pampyng renew not.’ What, another sister ready to marry a servant of the family? If she could not have Yelverton, at least let her be preserved from that at all hazards.[285-1]

[Footnote 284-2: No. 804.]

[Footnote 285-1: Nos. 842, 843.]

[Sidenote: Married to him.] Such was the state of matters in November 1473. And it seems by the course of events that Pampyng was not allowed to follow the example of Richard Calle. Anne Paston remained unmarried for about three and a half years longer, and the family, despairing of Yelverton, sought to match her somewhere else;[285-2] but between March and June of the year 1477, the marriage with Yelverton actually took place.[285-3] Of the married life of this couple we have in the Paston Letters no notices whatever; but one incident that occurred in it we learn from another source. Yelverton brought his bride home to his own house at Caister St. Edmund’s, three miles from Norwich. Some time after their marriage this house was burned down by the carelessness of a servant girl while they were away at the marriage of a daughter of Sir William Calthorpe. The year of the occurrence is not stated, but must, I think, have been 1480, for it happened on a Tuesday night, the 18th of January, the eve of St. Wolstan’s Day.[285-4] Now the 18th of January did not fall on a Tuesday during their married life in any earlier year, and it did not so fall again till 1485, when William Worcester, in whose itinerary the event is recorded, was certainly dead.

[Footnote 285-2: No. 885.]

[Footnote 285-3: Margaret Paston speaks of ‘my son Yelverton’ in June 1477.--No. 913. But Anne appears to have been unmarried at least as late as the 8th March 1477.--_See_ No. 901.]

[Footnote 285-4: ‘Memorandum, quod manerium. . . . Yelverton generosi in villa de Castre Sancti Edmundi, per iii. miliaria de civitate Norwici, in nocte diei Martis, 18 diei Januarii, videlicet in vigilia Sancti Wolstani, dum modo dictus Yelverton, cum filia Johannis Paston senioris, uxore dicti Yelverton, fuerunt ad nupcias filiæ Willelmi Calthorp militis, fuit per negligenciam parvæ puellæ in lectisternio leti (_qu._ lecti?) per candelam igne consumptum.’ --W. Worc. _Itin._, 269.]

[[per candelam igne consumptum.’ _close quote missing_]]

[Sidenote: John Paston’s marriage prospects.] John Paston, too, was seriously thinking of taking a wife; and, that he might not be disappointed in an object of so much importance, he had two strings to his bow. We must not, however, do him the injustice to suppose that he had absolutely no preference at all for one lady over another; for he writes his full mind upon the subject to his brother Sir John in London, whom he commissions to negotiate for him. If Harry Eberton the draper’s wife were disposed to ‘deal’ with him, such was the ‘fantasy’ he had for Mistress Elizabeth Eberton, her daughter, that he requests his brother not to conclude ‘in the other place,’ even though old Eberton should not be disposed to give her so much dowry as he might have with the second lady. Nevertheless Sir John is also requested to ascertain ‘how the matter at the Black Friars doth; and that ye will see and speak with the thing yourself, and with her father and mother or ye depart; and that it like you to desire John Lee’s wife to send me a bill in all haste possible, how far forth the matter is, and whether it shall be necessary for me to come up to London hastily or not, or else to cast all at the cock.’[286-1] The reader, we trust, is fully impressed with the businesslike character of this diplomacy, and he ought certainly not to be less so with the appropriateness of the language employed. ‘If Mrs. Eberton will _deal_ with me,’ and ‘Speak with _the thing_ yourself.’ How truly does it indicate the fact that young ladies in those days were nothing but mere chattels!

[Footnote 286-1: No. 850.]

It happened, however, that neither the ‘thing’ at the Black Friars, nor the lady for whom he had the somewhat greater ‘fantasy,’ was to be attained. Apparently the former was the daughter of one Stockton, and was married about four months later to a man of the name of Skerne. She herself confidentially told another woman just before her marriage that Master Paston had once come to the place where she was with twenty men, and endeavoured to take her away. As for Eberton’s daughter, the matter quietly dropped, but before it was quite broken off John Paston had engaged his brother’s services as before in a new matter with the Lady Walgrave. Sir John Paston executed his commission here too with the utmost zeal to promote his brother’s suit; but he received little comfort from the lady, and could not prevail upon her to accept John Paston’s ring. Indeed she told him plainly she meant to abide by an answer she had already given to John Paston himself, and desired Sir John no more to intercede for him. Sir John, however, had secured possession of a small article belonging to her, a muskball, and told her he meant to send it to his brother, without creating in her any feeling of displeasure. Thus the lover was still left with some slight gleam of hope--if, at least, he cared to indulge it further; but it does not appear by the correspondence that he thought any more either of Lady Walgrave or of Elizabeth Eberton.[287-1]

[Footnote 287-1: Nos. 858, 860.]

[Sidenote: John Paston’s pilgrimage to Compostella.] We have omitted to notice an incident characteristic of the times, which ought not to pass altogether unrecorded. The year before these love passages took place, John Paston took a voyage to Spain on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella. He sailed, or was about to sail, from Yarmouth early in July, for the letters only allude to the voyage when he was on the eve of departure, and he declared his purpose of coming home again by Calais, where his brother expected to see him within a month after he left.[287-2] It does not appear what prompted this pious expedition, unless it was the prevalence of sickness and epidemics in England. Margaret Paston’s cousin, John Berney of Reedham, died in the beginning of that year;[287-3] and the letter, which first speaks of John Paston’s intended pilgrimage, records also the deaths of the Earl of Wiltshire and the Lord Sudley, and mentions a false rumour of the death of Sir William Stanley.[287-4] The death of Sir James Gloys, Margaret Paston’s priest, occurred about four months later; and the same letter in which that event is mentioned says also that Lady Bourchier (I presume John Paston’s old flame, though she was now the wife of Thomas Howard) had been nearly dead, but had recovered.[287-5] It is evident that the year was one of great mortality, though not perhaps quite so great as that of two years before.

[Footnote 287-2: Nos. 833, 836.]

[Footnote 287-3: No. 825.]

[Footnote 287-4: No. 833.]

[Footnote 287-5: No. 842.]

[Sidenote: Illness of Sir John Paston.] During the autumn of the year following, Sir John Paston had an illness, which probably attacked him in London, and induced him to remove into Norfolk. After a little careful nursing by his mother, his appetite returned, and he felt himself so much stronger that he went back again to London to see to his pecuniary affairs, which required careful nursing as much as he had done himself. His brother Edmund, too, had been ill in London about the same time, but he found him ‘well amended’; which was, perhaps, not altogether the case with himself, for during the winter he had a return of fever, with pain in the eyes and in one of his legs, particularly in the heel.[288-1] Sir John, however, was not the man to make much of a slight indisposition. About Christmas or the New Year he had gone over to Calais; and while his mother was solicitous about the state of his health, he said nothing about it, but wrote that he was going into Flanders, and hoped to get a sight of the siege of Neuss.[288-2] On receipt of his mother’s letter, however, he wrote back that he was perfectly well again, except that the parts affected were still tender.[288-3]

[Footnote 288-1: Nos. 856, 862, 863, 865.]

[Footnote 288-2: No. 861.]

[Footnote 288-3: No. 865.]

[[Footnote 288-3: _missing number “3” added_]]

[Sidenote: Siege of Neuss.] This siege of Neuss--a town on the Rhine near Düsseldorf--was an undertaking of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, on which the eyes of the whole world were riveted, and especially of Englishmen. A body of 3000 English took part in the operations.[288-4] But the work was arduous, and in the end proved ineffectual. Not only was the attempt a failure, but it caused the breakdown of other projects besides. The duke had hoped to be master of the place before the truce with France expired in June 1475, and afterwards to join with Edward in an invasion of that country, in which he was bound by treaty to co-operate. But month after month slipped away, and the Burgundian forces were still detained before Neuss, so that he was unable strictly to fulfil his engagement. His cunning enemy Louis saw his advantage in the circumstance, and contrived to cool Edward’s ardour for the war by arts peculiarly his own. He received with the greatest possible politeness the herald sent by Edward to defy him; asked him to a private conference; told him he was sure his master had not entered on the expedition on his own account, but only to satisfy the clamour of his own people and the Duke of Burgundy. He remarked that the duke, who had not even then returned from Neuss, had lost the flower of his army in the siege, and had occasioned the waste of so much time that the summer was already far spent. He then suggested that the herald might lay these and other considerations before his master to induce him to listen to a peace; and he dismissed him with a handsome present.[289-1]

[Footnote 288-4: Comines, Book iv. ch. i.]

[Footnote 289-1: Comines, Book iv. ch. v.]

[Sidenote: Edward IV. and Louis XI.] The herald did what was expected of him, and the result told in two ways. Edward’s vanity was flattered and his cupidity was excited. The King of France, it seemed, stood in awe of him, and did not wish to fight. He was willing to pay handsomely for peace. How much easier, after all, to accept a large yearly tribute in recognition of his sovereignty over France than to vindicate it by conquering the country! Arguments, too, were not wanting in the shape of private pensions offered by Louis to the Lords of the English Council. Not, of course, that English noblemen regarded these gratuities as bribes--Lord Hastings, at least, stood upon his dignity and refused to give a receipt for money which was but a free-will offering on the one part, and involved no obligation on the other.[289-2] Still the money was very acceptable, and there was no doubt a great deal of weight in the arguments addressed by Louis to the herald. Indeed, any one worthy to be called a statesman knew quite well that the idea of conquering France was altogether chimerical.

[Footnote 289-2: _Ibid._ ch. viii.]

This was true; but it would scarcely have been pleasant news to the nation at large, which had been taxed and taxed again for the sake of that same chimerical idea, to have been informed of what was going on in the king’s council-chamber. For not only had a tenth been voted one year, and a tenth and fifteenth another, but the wealthy had been solicited to make still further contributions in a form till now unheard of--contributions called ‘benevolences,’ [Sidenote: Benevolences.] because they were supposed, by a cruel irony, to be offered and given with good will.[290-1] For the nation was quite sufficiently aware--there were many then alive who could testify it from past experience--that it was a difficult and costly business to make any conquests in France; and everybody had been pricked and goaded to furnish what he could towards the equipment of the expedition out of his own resources.

[Footnote 290-1: _Contin. Chron. Croyl._ p. 558. The king, as is well known, went about soliciting contributions personally. During the year 1474, as appears by his Privy Seal dates, he visited Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Coventry, Guildford, Farnham, Kenilworth, Worcester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Cirencester, in different excursions, returning to London in November; after which he again set out, going this time into Suffolk. He was at Bury on the 5th and 7th December, and at West Thorpe, on the northern confines of the county, on the 8th. From this it appears (though the Privy Seal dates do not show it) that he must have gone on to Norwich. After which we find him at Coventry on the 26th, so that he probably spent his Christmas there. That he visited Norwich about that time, and solicited benevolences there, is evident from