Letter 863.

[Sidenote: Peace with France.] Sir John Paston’s brothers, John[290-2] and Edmund,[290-3] and probably another named Clement, of whom we have very little notice in the correspondence, went over in the king’s great army to Calais. Sir John himself had been in Calais for some time before, and his mother commended his younger brothers to his care, urging him to give them the benefit of his advice and experience for their safety, as some of them were but young soldiers.[290-4] Margaret Paston need not have been so anxious if she had been in the secrets of the Cabinet. No blood was drawn in that campaign. The army had crossed the sea in the end of June, and peace was already made in the end of August. Nominally, indeed, it was but a seven years’ truce, but it was intended to be lasting. For a payment of 75,000 crowns in ready money, a pension of 50,000 crowns a year, and an undertaking that the Dauphin should hereafter marry Edward’s eldest daughter, and that Louis should give her a dowry of 60,000 livres a year, the king consented to withdraw his forces and trouble France no longer with his claims.[290-5]

[Footnote 290-2: Nos. 868, 876.]

[Footnote 290-3: No. 873.]

[Footnote 290-4: No. 871.]

[Footnote 290-5: Rymer, xii. 14-21.]

Was it a triumph or a humiliation? an easy victory of Edward over Louis, or of Louis over Edward? The thing might be, and was, looked at from different points of view. The English considered that they had forced France to pay tribute; the French king chuckled at having made Edward his pensioner. Louis, doubtless, had the best of the bargain, for he had managed to sow division between England and Burgundy, and to ward off a very serious danger from France. But common-place, dull-witted Englishmen saw the thing in a different light, and Sir John Paston gave thanks to God when he reported that the king’s ‘voyage’ was finished and his host returned to Calais.[291-1]

[Footnote 291-1: No. 875.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Paston ill again.] Sir John, however, was the worse of his abode in Calais air.[291-2] He had felt himself strong and vigorous when upon the march, but on the return of the army to Calais he was again taken ill in eight days. We may, perhaps, suspect that it was another outbreak of his old disease, and that he never allowed himself sufficient rest to make a perfect recovery. But it may be that from the general neglect of proper sanitary arrangements, pestilence was still rife both in Calais and in England. Six weeks later his brother John at Norwich was also much troubled with sickness.[291-3]

[Footnote 291-2: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 291-3: No. 877.]

_Sir John Paston and Caister_

[Sidenote: William Paston.] When Sir John Paston returned to England, the first thing that he had to consider was how to meet a debt to his uncle William which was due at Michaelmas.[291-4] William Paston is a member of the family of whom we totally lose sight for many years after the very beginning of Edward’s reign; but his pecuniary relations with his nephew about this time cause him again to be spoken of and to take part in the correspondence.[291-5] He was, doubtless, a rich man, although we find him pledging some of his plate to Elizabeth Clere of Ormesby.[291-6] He was one of the trustees of Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, the mother of the banished earl.[291-7] He had married, probably since the decease of his brother the eldest John Paston, the Lady Anne Beaufort, third daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, a lady of a wealthy family; and he occupied the great mansion called Warwick’s Inn, near Newgate, which had been the town-house of the mighty Kingmaker. His mother, Agnes Paston, lived there along with him.[292-1] Of his family we may mention here that the first child he had by the Lady Anne was a daughter named Mary, born, as we know from an old register, on St. Wolstan’s Day, the 19th January 1470. The second, more than four years later, was also a daughter, and having been born on Tuesday the 19th July 1474, the eve of St. Margaret’s Day,[292-2] was christened Margaret next day at St. Sepulchre’s Church, having for her godfather the Duke of Buckingham, and for her godmothers, Margaret, Duchess of Somerset,[292-3] and Anne, Countess of Beaumont.[292-4] Neither of these two daughters, however, survived him. The second, Margaret, died four months after her birth, at a time when her father was absent from London, and was buried before he came home.[292-5] In the end, the lands of William Paston descended to two other daughters, for he had no sons.

[Footnote 291-4: No. 875.]

[Footnote 291-5: Nos. 854, 855, 856.]

[Footnote 291-6: No. 851.]

[Footnote 291-7: No. 845.]

[Footnote 292-1: No. 856.]

[Footnote 292-2: Our authority is very particular as to the time, and gives not only the day but the hour: ‘Inter horam post nonam et horam ante horam secundam, viz., fere dimidiam horam ante horam secundam, luna curren., et erat clara dies.’]

[Footnote 292-3: Mother of the Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, who was the mother of King Henry VII.]

[Footnote 292-4: So according to Sandford’s Genealogy of the Paston family in Mr. Worship’s communication to the _Norfolk Archæology_. But who was Anne, Countess of Beaumont? I find no Earl Beaumont in the peerage, but there was a William, Viscount Beaumont, who succeeded his father in that title in 1459. According to Dugdale, he had two wives, the first of whom was named Elizabeth, and the second Joan. His mother, who may have been living at this time, was also named Elizabeth, but I can find no Anne.]

[Footnote 292-5: No. 857.]

[Sidenote: Money matters.] At this time Sir John had only borrowed of his uncle £4, a sum not quite so inconsiderable in those days as it is now, but still a mere trifle for a man of landed property, being perhaps equivalent to £50 or £60 at the present day. He repaid the money about November 1474, and his uncle, being perhaps agreeably surprised, inquired how he was going to redeem a mortgage of 400 marks held by one Townsend on the manor of Sporle. William Paston was already aware that Sir John had received a windfall of £100 from the executors of Walter Lyhart, Bishop of Norwich, who died two years before, and that some one else had offered to advance another £100, which left only 100 marks still to be raised. He was afraid his nephew had been compelled to offer an exorbitant rate of interest for the loan. Sir John, however, being pressed with his questions, told him that his mother had agreed to stand surety for the sum he had borrowed; on which William Paston, to save him from the usurers, offered to advance the remaining 100 marks himself, and with this view placed, apparently unsolicited, 500 marks’ worth of his own plate in pawn. Sir John thought the plate was in safer custody than it would have been at Warwick’s Inn, where, in his uncle’s absence, it remained in the keeping of his aged grandmother; but he was anxious, if possible, not to lay himself under this kind of obligation to his uncle.[293-1]

[Footnote 293-1: No. 856.]

The manor of Sporle was redeemed, but apparently not without his uncle William’s assistance. Some other land was mortgaged to his uncle instead; but the transaction was no sooner completed than Sir John declared he felt as much anxiety about the land in his uncle’s hand as he had before about that which was in Townsend’s. His mother, too, was not a little afraid, both for the land and for her own securities. She suspected William Paston was only too anxious to gain some advantage over them. She was jealous also of the influence he exercised over his aged mother, who had recently recovered from an illness, and she wished the old lady were again in Norfolk instead of living with her son in London.[293-2]

[Footnote 293-2: Nos. 857, 862, 863.]

Sir John remained in debt to his uncle for at least a year,[293-3] and whether he repaid him at the end of that time I cannot tell; but certainly, if out of debt to his uncle, he was two or three years later in debt to other men. In 1477 he was unable to meet promptly the claims of one named Cocket, and was labouring once more to redeem the manor of Sporle, which he had been obliged to mortgage to Townsend a second time. His mother, annoyed by his importunity for assistance, told him flatly she did not mean to pay his debts, and said she grieved to think what he was likely to do with her lands after her decease, seeing that he had wasted so shamefully what had been left him by his father.[294-1]

[Footnote 293-3: No. 875.]

[Footnote 294-1: Nos. 916, 917.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Paston’s claim to Caister.] But, however careless about his other property, Sir John, as we have already remarked, always showed himself particularly anxious for the recovery of Caister. During the whole of the year 1475, when he was abroad at Calais and with the army, he makes frequent reference to the matter in his letters. His brother John and his uncle William had undertaken to urge his suit in his absence to my lord and lady of Norfolk; but he would have come home and brought it before the king in Parliament, had not the French king at that time come to the confines of Picardy, and made the Council of Calais anxious to retain the services of every available soldier on that side of the sea.[294-2] He was impatient at the non-fulfilment of a promise by Bishop Waynflete--‘the slow Bishop of Winchester,’ as he called him--to entreat the duke and duchess in his favour.[294-3] But he was consoled by news which reached him before he came home, that the king himself had spoken to the Duke of Norfolk on the subject, and that, though the matter was delayed till next term, the king had commanded the duke to take good advice on the subject and be sure of the validity of his title, for justice would certainly be done without favour to either party.[294-4] This report, however, was rather too highly coloured. The Duchess of Norfolk denied its accuracy to John Paston. The king, she said, had only asked the duke at his departure from Calais how he would deal with Caister, and my lord made him no answer. The king then asked Sir William Brandon, one of the duke’s principal councillors, what my lord meant to do about it. Brandon had already received the king’s commands to speak to the duke on the subject, and he said that he had done so; but that my lord’s answer was ‘that the king should as soon have his life as that place.’ The king then inquired of the duke if he had actually said so, and the duke said yes. On this the king simply turned his back without another word, although, as my lady informed John Paston, if he had spoken one word more, the duke would have made no refusal. John Paston, however, informed her ladyship that he would no longer be retained in the duke’s service.[295-1]

[Footnote 294-2: No. 864.]

[Footnote 294-3: No. 873.]

[Footnote 294-4: Nos. 875, 876.]

[Footnote 295-1: No. 877.]

[Sidenote: His petition to the king.] Sir John drew up a petition to the king upon the subject. He showed that the duke had been originally led to lay claim to Caister by the malice of Sir William Yelverton, William Jenney, and Thomas Howes, who were enfeoffed of that and other lands to his use; that upon their suggestion the duke had entered the manor by force, and also taken from him 600 sheep and 30 neat, besides one hundred pounds’ worth of furniture; that he had done damage to the place itself which 200 marks would not suffice to repair, and that he had collected the revenues of the lands for three years to the value of £140. By the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, the duke had afterwards restored him to possession of the manor on payment of 500 marks, and released to him his estate and interest therein by a deed under the seals of himself and his co-feoffees, and of the Bishop of Winchester. Sir John, however, had remained in possession only half a year, during which time he had laid out 100 marks in repairs, and £40 for the ‘outrents’ due for the three years preceding, when the duke again forcibly entered the manor, and had kept possession from that time for the space of four years and more, refusing to hear any remonstrances on the subject, or to allow Sir John to come to his presence. Moreover, when Sir John had applied to any of my lord’s council, requesting them to bring the matter before his lordship, they told him that they had mentioned his request, but that he was always so exceedingly displeased with them that they did not dare to urge it. Thus Sir John had lost all his cost and trouble for four years, and thrown away 500 marks to no purpose.[295-2]

[Footnote 295-2: No. 879.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1476, 16th Jan.] This petition was probably never presented to the king. [Sidenote: Death of the Duke of Norfolk.] It must have been drawn up in the end of the year 1475, and in the middle of January 1476 the Duke of Norfolk suddenly died.[295-3] The event seems to have occurred at his seat at Framlingham, and Sir John Paston, who writes to notify it to his brother, must have been there at the time,[296-1] intending perhaps to have made one last effort with the duke’s council or himself, before applying for justice to the king. But matters now stood on a different footing, and Sir John, after making his intention known to the duke’s council, sent a messenger named Whetley to Caister to assert his rights there. Considering all that had passed, the act could not reasonably have been wondered at; but his brother John intimated to him a few days later that it was resented by some of the late duke’s servants, as showing great want of respect for their master.[296-2] This imputation Sir John repudiated, pointing out most truly that no wise man could have blamed him, even if he had anticipated the duke’s decease, and entered Caister an hour before it took place. Indeed, considering the justice of his claim, no one could be sorry to see Sir John in possession, who was a real friend to the duke, and loved the weal of his soul.[296-3]

[Footnote 295-3: No. 881.]

[Footnote 296-1: Sir John’s letter is distinctly dated Wednesday the 17th January, 15 Edward IV. (1476), and he says the event took place ‘this night about midnight.’ It is scarcely probable, however, that he wrote within an hour of the occurrence, as he mentions having spoken after it with the duke’s council about furnishing cloth of gold for the funeral. I suppose therefore that the death took place on the night between the 16th and the 17th, and that Sir John wrote on the following morning. The date given in the _Inquisition post mortem_ (17 Edw. IV., No. 58) is, strange to say, erroneous; for it was found in twelve different counties that the duke died on _Tuesday after Epiphany_, in the fifteenth year of Edward IV., which would have been the 9th January instead of the 16th. These inquisitions, however, were not taken till more than a year and a half after the event, and it is clear the date they give is wrong by a week; but they may, nevertheless, be taken as additional evidence that the duke died on a Tuesday and not on a Wednesday.]

[Footnote 296-2: No. 883.]

[Footnote 296-3: No. 884.]

It is curious to see the notions entertained in that day of the respect due to a duke, even from those whom he had very seriously wronged. However, Sir John Paston was not backward in yielding all that was conventionally due; and in the very letter in which he intimated the duke’s death to his brother, he says he had promised his council the loan of some cloth of gold for the funeral. The article was one which it was difficult to procure in the country, and he proposed to lend them some that he had bought for his father’s tomb.[296-4] His mother afterwards authorised him to sell it to them, if he could get a sufficient price for it.[296-5]

[Footnote 296-4: No. 881.]

[Footnote 296-5: No. 882.]

Sir John, however, after a brief visit to Norwich, hastened up to London. Now was the time that application must be made to the king; for it would be found by the inquisition that the Duke of Norfolk had actually died seised of the manor of Caister, and, unless efficient protest were made, the title would be confirmed to his widow.[297-1] Sir John’s chief fear seems to have been that writs of _diem clausit extremum_ would be issued before he had an opportunity of urging reasons for delay; in which case the inquisition would speedily be taken, and all that he could do would be to set forth his claim to the escheator before whom it was held. But he soon found that he need not be over anxious on this account. The duchess herself was anxious that the writs should not be issued too precipitately, and John Paston told his brother that he ‘need not deal over largely with the escheators.’[297-2] The duchess, on the other hand, was suspicious of Sir John, and was warned to be upon her guard lest he should attempt to retake Caister by the strong hand. A favourable opportunity might have been found for such an attempt at that time, as the moat was frozen and could have been crossed with ease. John Paston, however, assured the duchess that his brother intended to make no entry without her knowledge and assent. The matter at last was brought before the king’s council, and was decided in Sir John Paston’s favour in May following, all the lords, judges, and serjeants pronouncing his title good. [Sidenote: Recovery of Caister.] Privy seals were then made out for the duchess’s officers to give up possession, and seven years after the siege of Caister, Sir John was once more the acknowledged master of the place.[297-3]

[Footnote 297-1: No. 882.]

[Footnote 297-2: No. 885.]

[Footnote 297-3: Nos. 891, 892.]

The whole story of the duke’s claim to Caister and of his injustice towards Sir John was finally recorded in the inquisition, which was taken, after an unusual delay, in October of the year following. It was shown that Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes, acting without the assent and against the will of the other trustees of Sir John Fastolf’s lands, but in their names, had made a charter granting to the duke and to Thomas Hoo, Sir Richard Southwell, William Brandon, Ralph Asheton, John Tymperley, and James Hobert, the manors of Caister in Flegg, by Great Yarmouth, called Redham Hall, Vaux, and Bosouns. This charter, which was not sealed, was shown to the jury, and it appeared that the said Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes had thereby demised what had belonged to them, that is to say, three out of eight parts of the same manors, to the said duke and the others. Afterwards the same duke and his co-feoffees, by the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, seeing that the said demise and enfeoffment was against conscience, and in consideration of 500 marks paid by the bishop at the charge of Sir John Paston, enfeoffed John, Bishop of Hereford, John, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and nine others, to the use of Sir John Paston. These again, by another deed, gave up their trust to Sir John Paston, and to Guy Fairfax and Richard Pigot, serjeants-at-law, John Paston, Esquire, and Roger Townsend, whom they enfeoffed to the use of Sir John Paston and his heirs for ever. Then the other trustees of Sir John Fastolf enfeoffed the same Sir John Paston, Fairfax, and the others in the same way; so that these last became seised to Sir John’s use of the whole property--not merely of the three-eighths originally demised by Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes, but also of the remaining five-eighths--until they were violently disseised by the duke, who enfeoffed thereof Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, William, Bishop of Winchester, Henry, Earl of Essex, Richard Southwell, James Hobert, Richard Darby, clerk, and John York. After this the duke died; but while he lived, Sir John Paston had continually laid claim to the manors in his own name and in that of the said Guy Fairfax and others, sometimes entering the same, and sometimes going as near as he could with safety to himself. Finally, he entered after the duke’s death, and had been seised for a long time when the inquisition was taken. The duke, therefore, it was found, did not die seised of the manors. It was further found that these manors were holden of the Abbey of St. Benet’s, Hulme.[298-1]

[Footnote 298-1: _Inquisition post mortem_, 17 Edw. IV., No. 58.]

_Death of Charles the Bold_

The allusions to public affairs contained in the letters about this time are of some interest. News came from Rome that a great embassy, consisting of Earl Rivers, Lord Ormond, Lord Scrope, and other lords of England, had been honourably received by the pope, but after their departure had been robbed of their plate and jewels at twelve miles’ distance from Rome. On this they returned to the city to seek a remedy for the property they had lost was worth fully a thousand marks. [Sidenote: Defeat of the Duke of Burgundy by the Swiss.] In the same letter mention is made of the conquest of Lorraine by the Duke of Burgundy, and his disastrous expedition into Switzerland immediately after. By the first of these events the prospects of Margaret of Anjou were seriously impaired, and the French king paid less attention to her interests. In the second, the victorious career of Charles the Bold had been already checked by the first great defeat at Grandson. His vanguard had been broken, his artillery captured by the Swiss, his whole army repulsed, and booty of enormous value left in the hands of the enemy. ‘And so,’ as Sir John Paston reports the matter, ‘the rich saletts, helmets, garters, nowches gilt, and all is gone, with tents, pavilions, and all; and so men deem his pride is abated. Men told him that they were froward karls, but he would not believe it. And yet men say that he will to them again. God speed them both!’[299-1]

[Footnote 299-1: No. 889.]

[Sidenote: His death. A.D. 1477, 5th Jan.] This expectation, as we know, was verified, and the result was that the defeat of Charles at Grandson was followed by another still more decisive defeat at Morat. Yet Charles, undaunted, only transferred the scene of action to Lorraine, where he met with his final defeat and death at Nancy. The event made a mighty change. The duchy which he had nearly succeeded in erecting into an independent kingdom, and which, though nominally in feudal subjection to France, had been in his day a first-rate European power, now fell to a female. The greatness of Burgundy had already departed, and the days of its feudal independence were numbered. To England the state of matters was one of deep concern, for, should France turn hostile again, the keeping of Calais might not be so easy, unless the young Duchess Mary could succeed in organising a strong government in the Low Countries. A Great Council was accordingly convoked by the king, and met on the 18th of February. The world, as Sir John Paston wrote, seemed to be ‘all quavering.’ Disturbance was sure to break out somewhere, so that ‘young men would be cherished.’ A great comfort this, in Sir John’s opinion, and he desires his brother John to ‘take heart’ accordingly.[300-1]

[Footnote 300-1: No. 900.]

_Conclusion of the Family History_

[Sidenote: John Paston and Margery Brews.] His brother John, however, found occupation of a more peaceful character. About this very time he had met with a lady named Margery Brews, daughter of Sir Thomas Brews, and had clearly determined in his own mind that she would be a desirable wife for him. In the spring of the year 1476, he had heard that a certain Mrs. Fitzwalter had a sister to marry, and thought his brother Sir John might negotiate a match for him in that quarter;[300-2] but the affair fell through, apparently because his brother refused to stand surety that he would make her a jointure of 50 marks a year.[300-3] Not many months, however, passed away, when he and Dame Elizabeth Brews were in correspondence about his proposed marriage with her daughter. He had promised the mother not to speak his mind to the young lady herself till he had come to an agreement with her parents; but Margery, I suppose, had read his purpose without an explicit declaration, or had forced it out of him. At all events she was no coy heroine of the modern type, but had a very decided mind upon the subject, and gave her mother no peace with her solicitations to bring the matter to effect.[300-4]

[Footnote 300-2: No. 890.]

[Footnote 300-3: No. 892.]

[Footnote 300-4: Nos. 894, 895, 896.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1477, Feb.] Her mother, for her part, was not unwilling, and believing that pecuniary matters might be easily arranged with her husband, wrote to John Paston in February, reminding him that Friday was Valentine’s Day, when every bird chose him a mate. She also invited him to visit her on Thursday night, and stay till Monday, when she hoped he would have an opportunity of speaking to her husband. In fact, she showed herself quite eager for the match, and alluding apparently to some difficulty made by her husband to terms that had been already offered, said it was but a simple oak that was cut down at the first stroke.[301-1] Thus encouraged, John Paston persevered in his suit, and Margery wrote him very warm and ardent letters, calling him her well-beloved valentine, and vowing that she would accept him with half the ‘livelode’ he actually possessed.[301-2] The question, however, was how much the father could afford to give along with his daughter, and what Margaret Paston and Sir John could do that they might have a reasonable settlement. Sir John Paston’s answer was very discouraging. He felt himself in no condition to help his brother, and after pointing out the difficulty of acting on some of his suggestions, he added in a surly fashion: ‘This matter is driven thus far forth without my counsel; I pray you make an end without my counsel. If it be well, I would be glad; if it be otherwise, it is pity. I pray you trouble me no more.’[301-3]

[Footnote 301-1: No. 896.]

[Footnote 301-2: Nos. 897, 898.]

[Footnote 301-3: Nos. 902, 909.]

Margaret Paston, however, showed a mother’s heart in the affair, and consented to entail upon the young people her manor of Sparham, if Sir John would consent to ratify the gift, and forgo his prospective interest in the succession. Even to this Sir John would not quite consent. He wished well to his brother, owned that it would be a pity the match should be broken off, and did not wonder at what his mother had done; but he saw reasons why he could not ‘with his honesty’ confirm it. He did not, however, mean to raise any objection. ‘The Pope,’ he said, ‘will suffer a thing to be used, but he will not license, nor grant it to be used nor done, and so I.’ He would be as kind a brother as could be, and if Sir Thomas Brews was afraid he might hereafter disturb John Paston and his wife in the possession of the manor, he was quite ready to give a bond that he would attempt no such thing. The manor was not his, and he professed he did not covet it.[301-4]

[Footnote 301-4: Nos. 910, 911.]

Sir John seems really to have desired his brother’s happiness, though from his own bad management he knew not how to help him.[302-1] Hitherto he had been the mediator of all such schemes for him, probably because the younger brother believed his prospects to be mainly dependent upon the head of the house; and I am sorry to say he had been employed in the like duty even after John Paston had begun to carve for himself. For it is clear that after receiving those warm letters from Margery Brews, in which she called him her valentine, and was willing to share his lot if it were with half his actual means, he had commissioned his brother once more to make inquiries about a certain Mistress Barly. Sir John’s report, however, was unfavourable. It was ‘but a bare thing.’ Her income was insignificant, and she herself was insignificant in person; for he had taken the pains to see her on his brother’s account. She was said to be eighteen years of age, though she looked but thirteen; but if she was the mere girl that she looked, she might be a woman one day.[302-2]

[Footnote 302-1: No. 913.]

[Footnote 302-2: No. 903.]

Perhaps, after all, like Captain Absolute, John Paston had more a mind of his own in the matter than might be inferred from his giving so many commissions to another to negotiate a wife for him. At all events, if he had not made up his mind before, he seems really to have made it up now, and he steered his way between difficulties on the one side and on the other with a good deal of curious diplomacy, for which we may refer the reader to the letters themselves.[302-3] In the end, though Sir John seems to have been in vain urged by his mother to show himself more liberal,[302-4] all other obstacles were removed, and during the autumn of the year 1477 the marriage took effect.[302-5]

[Footnote 302-3: Nos. 901, 904, 905, 913, 915.]

[Footnote 302-4: No. 916.]

[Footnote 302-5: No. 923.]

Before Christmas in that same year, it had become apparent that children would soon follow of their union;[302-6] and after the New Year John Paston took Margery to her father’s house to be with her friends a short time, while yet she could go about with ease.[302-7] Their eldest child was born in the following summer, and received the name of Christopher.[302-8] Other children followed very soon,[303-1] and by the time they had been seven years married, John and Margery Paston had two lads old enough to be sent on messages,[303-2] besides, in all probability, one or more daughters. It was, however, their second son, William,[303-3] that continued their line, and became the ancestor of the future Earls of Yarmouth.

[Footnote 302-6: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 302-7: No. 925.]

[Footnote 302-8: No. 936.]

[Footnote 303-1: No. 982.]

[Footnote 303-2: No. 999.]

[Footnote 303-3: He was a lawyer of some eminence, received the honour of knighthood from Henry VIII., and was Sheriff of Norfolk in 1517-18. He died in 1554. It was his grandson, another Sir William, whose name is so well known in Norfolk as the founder of the North Walsham Grammar School.]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Suffolk again gives trouble.] In the spring of 1478 Sir John Paston was again involved in a dispute with a powerful nobleman. The Duke of Suffolk revived his old claim to Hellesdon and Drayton, and ventured to sell the woods to Richard Ferror, the Mayor of Norwich, who thereupon began to cut them down. Sir John brought the matter into Chancery, and hastened up to London. Ferror professed great regret, and said he had no idea but that the manor was in peaceable possession of the duke, adding that if Sir John had sent him the slightest warning, he would have refrained from making such a bargain. This, however, was a mere pretence; for, as Sir John remarked to his brother, he must certainly have spoken about the matter beforehand with some well-informed men in Norwich, who would have set him right.[303-4] At all events Ferror went on with what he had begun, and nearly the whole of Drayton wood was felled by Corpus Christi Day, the 20th day of May. Whetley, a servant of Sir John Paston, who had been sent down from London on the business, writes on that day to his master that the duke had made a formal entry into Hellesdon on Wednesday in Whitsun week. He dined at the manor-house, ‘drew a stew, and took plenty of fish.’ I suppose from what follows that he also held a court as lord of the manor. ‘At his being there that day,’ writes Whetley, ‘there was never no man that played Herod in Corpus Christi play better and more agreeable to his pageant than he did. But ye shall understand that it was afternoon, and the weather hot, and he so feeble for sickness that his legs would not bear him, but there was two men had great pain to keep him on his feet. And there ye were judged. Some said “Slay”; some said “Put him in prison.” And forth come my lord, and he would meet you with a spear, and have none other ’mends for the trouble ye have put him to but your heart’s blood, and that will he get with his own hands; for and ye have Hellesdon and Drayton, ye shall have his life with it.’[304-1]

[Footnote 303-4: Nos. 929, 930.]

[Footnote 304-1: No. 932.]

It appears, however, that the Duke of Suffolk was not in high favour with the king, and it was considered at this time that Sir John Paston’s influence at court was very high. Although the affair with Anne Haute had been broken off, it was expected that he would marry some one nearly related to the queen’s family; and Margaret Paston thought it a strong argument for the match, if her son could find it in his heart to love the lady, that it would probably set at rest the question of his title to Hellesdon and Drayton.[304-2] This ambitious hope was not destined to be gratified. We know not even who the lady was that is thus referred to; and as to the dispute with the Duke of Suffolk, it remained unsettled at least a year and a half--in fact, as long as Sir John Paston lived.[304-3]

[Footnote 304-2: No. 933.]

[Footnote 304-3: No. 956.]

[Sidenote: The manor of Oxnead.] Two or three months after the beginning of this dispute, William Paston the uncle accompanied the Duke of Buckingham into Norfolk on pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. At his coming he brought a report that there was likely also to be trouble in the manor of Oxnead, which belonged to his mother Agnes, the widow of the judge. The nature of this trouble is not stated; but apparently it was either occasioned, like the other, by a claim of the Duke of Suffolk, or it was feared the duke might attempt to profit by it. ‘Wherefore I pray you,’ writes Sir John Paston to his brother, ‘take heed lest that the Duke of Suffolk’s council play therewith now at the vacation of the benefice, as they did with the benefice of Drayton, which by the help of Mr. John Salett and Donne, his men, there was a quest made by the said Donne that found that the Duke of Suffolk was very patron, which was false; yet they did it for an evidence.’ Whether the duke’s council attempted the same policy on this occasion, we cannot say; but by some means or other the Paston family were hindered from exercising their right of presentation, so that they very nearly lost it. A rector named Thomas, presented to the living by Agnes Paston three years before, died in March 1478. On the 5th August following, Agnes Paston made out letters of presentation in favour of Dr. Richard Lincoln, but for some reason or other this presentation did not pass; and eight days later she presented a certain Sir William Holle, who we are told ran away. Her rights, however, were contested; and after the benefice had remained more than a year vacant, some insisted that it had lapsed to the bishop by the patron not having exercised her rights within six months. She had, however, as a matter of fact, delivered Sir William Holle his presentation within that period; and though he did not avail himself of it, she was, after a good deal of trouble, allowed to present again.[305-1]

[Footnote 305-1: Nos. 934, 935, 936, 937, 943.]

[Sidenote: Walter Paston.] In the spring of 1478 Margaret Paston had a serious illness, and, thinking that it would carry her off, she made her will. She lived, however, six years longer, and the will she had made was superseded by another dated on the 4th of February 1482.[305-2] For in the interval considerable changes took place in the family, which we shall mention presently. At this time she had five, if not six, sons and two daughters, but the daughters were both of them married; and, as we have already intimated, she was particularly anxious about her son Walter, who was now at Oxford being educated for the priesthood.[305-3] He had not yet taken orders, when his mother, finding some benefice vacant, of which she expected to have the disposal,[305-4] thought of conferring it upon him, and took advice upon the matter of Dr. Pykenham, Judge of the Court of Arches. She was told, however, that her intention was quite against the canon law for three reasons: first, because her son had not received the tonsure, which was popularly called Benet; secondly, he had not attained the lawful age of four-and-twenty; and thirdly, he would require to take priest’s orders within a twelvemonth after presentation to the benefice, unless he had a dispensation from the Pope, which Dr. Pykenham felt sure he could never obtain.[306-1] His progress at Oxford, however, seems to have given satisfaction to his tutor, Edmund Alyard, who reports on the 4th March 1479 that he might take a bachelor’s degree in art when he pleased, and afterwards proceed to the faculty of law.[306-2] This course he intended to pursue; and he took his degree at Midsummer accordingly,[306-3] then returned home to Norwich for the vacation. His career, however, was arrested by sudden illness, and he died in August. He left a will, hastily drawn up before his death, by which it appears that he was possessed of the manor of Cressingham, which he bequeathed to his brother John Paston, with a proviso that if ever he came to inherit the lands of his father it should go to his other brother Edmund. He also possessed a flock of sheep at Mautby, which he desired might be divided between his sister Anne Yelverton and his sister-in-law Margery, John Paston’s wife.[306-4]

[Footnote 305-2: Nos. 932, 978.]

[Footnote 305-3: No. 931.]

[Footnote 305-4: Oxnead, which was certainly vacant at the date which I have supposed to be that of Margaret Paston’s application to Dr. Pykenham, was in her mother-in-law Agnes Paston’s gift; but it is not at all unlikely that this was the living in question, as she may reasonably have expected to be able to prevail upon the old lady to give it to her grandson.]

[Footnote 306-1: No. 941.]

[Footnote 306-2: No. 949.]

[Footnote 306-3: Nos. 945, 946.]

[Footnote 306-4: No. 950.]

[Sidenote: Clement.] Of Margaret Paston’s other sons one named Clement is mentioned in Fenn’s pedigree of the family; but he is nowhere spoken of in the correspondence. I presume that Fenn was not without authority for inserting his name in the family tree, and I have surmised that he was one of the ‘young soldiers,’ about whom Margaret Paston was solicitous, who went over to Calais in 1475. He may perhaps have died soon after. The absence of his name, especially in his mother’s will, is at least strong presumptive evidence that he was not alive in 1482. [Sidenote: Edmund and William.] Edmund Paston, another brother, was probably of about the same age as Walter, perhaps a year or two older; and the youngest of the family was William, who in the beginning of the year 1479 was learning to make Latin verses at Eton.[306-5] He must have been at this time barely nineteen years of age;[306-6] but he had precociously fallen in love with a certain Margaret Alborow. He writes to his brother John Paston how he first became acquainted with her at the marriage of her elder sister,--that she was not more than eighteen or nineteen (which was just about his own age); that she was to have a portion in money and plate whenever she was married, but he was afraid no ‘livelode’ or lands till after her mother’s decease. His brother John, however, could find out that by inquiry.[307-1] As might have been expected, this calf-love came to nothing. I do not know if William Paston ever married at all. At a more advanced age his brother Edmund writes to him offering to visit on his behalf a widow, who had just ‘fallen’ at Worsted, whose deceased husband had been worth £1000, and had left her 100 marks in money, with plate of the same value, and £10 a year in land.[307-2]

[Footnote 306-5: No. 942. _See_ a previous letter of his, No. 939, and also a notice of his schooling as early as August 1477, when Margaret Paston writes to Sir John to pay for his board and school-hire, gowns, and other necessaries (No. 917).]

[Footnote 306-6: No. 842.]

[Footnote 307-1: No. 942.]

[Footnote 307-2: No. 974.]

For Edmund Paston himself the same kind of office had been performed in 1478 by his brother John, who, having heard while in London of ‘a goodly young woman to marry,’ spoke with some of her friends, and got their consent to her marrying his brother. She was a mercer’s daughter, and was to have a portion of £200 in ready money, and 20 marks a year in land after the decease of a stepmother, who was close upon fifty. This match, however, did not take effect, and about three years later Edmund Paston married Catherine, the widow of William Clippesby.[307-3]

[Footnote 307-3: No. 975. There is an oversight in the preliminary note to this letter. The date is certainly 1481, and no later, as Margaret Paston in her will makes bequests not only to Edmund and his wife Catherine, but to their son Robert, who must therefore have been born before February 1482.]

[Sidenote: Death of Agnes Paston;] The year 1479 was, like several of the years preceding, one of great mortality, and it was marked by several deaths in the Paston family. The grave had not yet closed over Walter Paston, when news came to Norwich of the death of his grandmother, old Agnes Paston, the widow of the judge. At the same time John Paston’s wife, Margery, gave birth, in her husband’s absence, to a child that died immediately after it was born.[307-4] This perhaps was a mere accidental coincidence. Two months later Sir John Paston found it necessary to go up to London on business, partly, it would seem, about his dispute with the Duke of Suffolk, and partly, perhaps, to keep watch on the proceedings of his uncle William with regard to the lands of his grandmother; for it appears that his uncle, who immediately on his mother’s death laid claim to the manor of Marlingford,[308-1] had been making certain applications to the escheator on the subject, which were naturally viewed with jealousy. On his arrival in town, Sir John found his chamber ill ventilated, and his ‘stuff not so clean’ as he had expected. He felt uneasy for fear of the prevailing sickness, and some disappointments in money matters added sensibly to his discomfort.[308-2] [Sidenote: and of Sir John Paston.] He fell ill, and died in November. John Paston was on the point of riding up to London to have brought down his body with that of his grandmother, who had been kept unburied nearly three months, to lay them both in Bromholm Priory, beside his father. But he was met by a messenger, who told him that his brother had already been buried at the White Friars, in London.[308-3]

[Footnote 307-4: No. 952.]

[Footnote 308-1: No. 953.]

[Footnote 308-2: No. 956.]

[Footnote 308-3: No. 962.]

[[Sidenote: Death of Agnes Paston; _not an error: sentence continues later_]]

We cannot close the record of Sir John Paston’s life without a certain feeling of regret. The very defects of his character give an interest to it which we do not feel in that of his father or of his brother John. He is a careless soldier, who loves adventure, has some influence at court, mortgages his lands, wastes his property, and is always in difficulties. Unsuccessful in love himself, he yet does a good deal of wooing and courting disinterestedly in behalf of a younger brother. He receives sprightly letters from his friends, with touches of broad humour occasionally, which are not worse than might be expected of the unrestrained freedom of the age.[308-4] He patronises literature too, and a transcriber copies books for him.[308-5] With his death the domestic interest of the Paston Letters almost comes to an end, and the quantity of the correspondence very greatly diminishes. The love-making, the tittle-tattle, and a good deal of the humour disappear, and the few desultory letters that remain relate, for the most part, either to politics or to business.

[Footnote 308-4: Nos. 906-908.]

[Footnote 308-5: No. 695.]

[Sidenote: The title to Marlingford and Oxnead.] As soon as the news of his death arrived in Norfolk, John Paston wrote to his mother, desiring that his brother Edmund would ride to Marlingford, Oxnead, Paston, Cromer, and Caister, to intimate his right of succession to the tenants of these different manors, and to warn those of Marlingford and Oxnead to pay no rents to the servants or officers of his uncle William.[309-1] These two manors, the reader will remember, belonged to Agnes Paston; and her son William, with whom she lived, had doubtless watched the old lady’s failing health, and made preparations even before her actual decease to vindicate his claim to them as soon as the event occurred.[309-2] The manors, however, having been entailed under Judge Paston’s will, properly descended to Sir John Paston, and after his death to his brother John. In accordance, therefore, with his brother’s instructions, Edmund Paston rode to Marlingford on Sunday before St. Andrew’s Day, ‘and before all the tenants examined one James, keeper there for William Paston, where he was the week next before St. Andrew; and there he said that he was not at Marlingford from the Monday unto the Thursday at even, and so there was no man there but your brother’s man at the time of his decease’ (we are quoting a letter of William Lomnour to John Paston). ‘So by that your brother died seised. And your brother Edmund bade your man keep possession to your behoof, and warned the tenants to pay no man till ye had spoken to them.’ In the afternoon Edmund went on to Oxnead, where a servant named Piers kept possession for Sir John Paston, and he found that William Paston’s agent was not there at the time, but had ordered another man to be there in his place. Whether that amounted to a continuance of the possession of William Paston, was a point to be considered.[309-3]

[Footnote 309-1: No. 962.]

[Footnote 309-2: No. 940.]

[Footnote 309-3: No. 963.]

As usual in such cases, farmers and tenants had everywhere a bad time of it until uncle and nephew were agreed. John Paston’s men threatened those of his uncle William at Harwellbury, while, on the other hand, his uncle William’s men molested those of John Paston at Marlingford.[309-4] During the interval between Agnes Paston’s death and that of Sir John, the tenants at Cromer had been uncertain who was to be their lord, and at Paston there was a similar perplexity.[309-5] Sir John’s bailiff ordered the Paston tenants to pay no rents to Mr. William Paston; but one Henry Warns wrote to Mr. William of the occurrence, and ordered them to pay none to any one else. After Sir John’s death Warns still continued to be troublesome, making tenants afraid to harrow or sow lest they should lose their labour, pretending that John Paston had given him power over everything he had himself in the place.[310-1] Things went on in this unpleasant fashion for a period of at least five years.[310-2]

[Footnote 309-4: Nos. 970, 982, 983.]

[Footnote 309-5: No. 957.]

[Footnote 310-1: Nos. 852 and 853, which by inadvertence I have assigned to the year 1474. They are undoubtedly of the year 1479, the former being written just before Sir John Paston’s death, and the latter after it.]

[Footnote 310-2: No. 998.]

[Sidenote: Death of Margaret Paston.] Margaret Paston survived her son Sir John five years, and died in 1484, in the reign of Richard III.[310-3] In her very interesting will, made two years before her decease, a number of bequests of a religious and charitable kind show how strongly she felt the claims of the poor, the sick, and the needy, as well as those of hospitals, friars, anchoresses, and parish churches. From the bequests she makes to her own family, it appears that not only John Paston, her eldest surviving son, but his brother Edmund also, was by that time married, and had children. To Edmund she gives ‘a standing piece white covered, with a garlick head upon the knop,’ ‘a gilt piece covered, with a unicorn,’ a feather bed and a ‘transom,’ and some tapestry. To his wife Catherine she leaves a purple girdle ‘harnessed with silver and gilt,’ and some other articles; and to their son Robert, who must have been quite an infant, all her swans marked with ‘Daubeney’s mark,’ to remain with him and his heirs for ever. Various other articles are left to her daughter Anne, wife of William Yelverton, to her son William, to John and Margery Paston, and to their son William and to their daughter Elizabeth (apparently Christopher Paston, the eldest child, was by this time dead), and also to Constance, a natural daughter of Sir John Paston. She also left £20 to John Calle, son of her daughter Margery, when he should come to be twenty years of age, and if he died before that, it was to be divided between his brothers William and Richard when they grew up. To Margery Calle herself and her husband Richard she left nothing.[311-1]

[Footnote 310-3: The exact date is given as the 4th November 1484 in a calendar prefixed to an old MS. missal in the possession of the late Mr. C. W. Reynell.]

[Footnote 311-1: No. 978.]

_Times of Richard III. and Henry VII._

[Sidenote: Richard III.] The personal interest of the correspondence is not altogether exhausted, although, as we have already remarked, it is very greatly diminished after the death of Sir John Paston. But the political interest of the remaining letters is so great, that they are almost more indispensable to the historian than the preceding ones. The brief and troubled reign of Richard III. receives illustration from two letters of the Duke of Norfolk to John Paston. The first was written in anticipation of Buckingham’s rebellion, requiring him to make ready and come to London immediately with ‘six tall fellows in harness,’ as the Kentish men were up in the Weald, and meant to come and rob the city.[311-2] Again, on the Earl of Richmond’s invasion, the duke desires Paston to meet him at Bury with a company, to be raised at the duke’s expense.[311-3] There is also a copy of King Richard’s proclamation against Henry Tudor,[311-4] of which, however, the text is preserved in other MSS.

[Footnote 311-2: No. 994.]

[Footnote 311-3: No. 1002.]

[Footnote 311-4: No. 1001.]

[Sidenote: Henry VII.] The troubles of the reign of Henry VII. at first were scarcely less in magnitude than those of the tyrant whom he overthrew. But somehow or other the new king had the art of discovering who was to be trusted and who was not. John Paston was soon found out to be a man deserving of confidence. Very early, indeed, in Henry’s reign, he must have acquired some influence at court. [Sidenote: John Paston Sheriff of Norfolk.] Two months had not elapsed after the battle of Bosworth when we find him Sheriff of Norfolk. The Duke of Suffolk writes to him to issue proclamations in the king’s name against certain rebels who were in confederacy with the Scots.[311-5] The Countess of Surrey writes to him to intercede with my Lord Fitzwalter and the Earl of Oxford in behalf of her imprisoned husband.[311-6] Lady Fitzhugh, a daughter of the great Kingmaker, calls him her son, and requests his favour for her daughter Anne, wife of the fugitive Yorkist rebel Francis, Viscount Lovel, whose pardon she was making importunate suit to obtain.[312-1] The king himself writes to him,[312-2] and the Earl of Oxford addresses letters to him as his ‘right well beloved councillor.’[312-3] The earl, of course, was his old friend, and we may presume it was through his influence that Paston was recommended to the king’s favour.

[Footnote 311-5: No. 1006.]

[Footnote 311-6: No. 1004.]

[Footnote 312-1: No. 1008.]

[Footnote 312-2: No. 1010.]

[Footnote 312-3: No. 1012.]

[[Footnote 312-2: _missing “2” added_]]

[Sidenote: Lambert Simnel’s rebellion.] So much honour, trust, and confidence had already been bestowed on him when the rebellion of Lambert Simnel broke out in the second year of Henry’s reign. Of that commotion we have some interesting illustrations, by which it is clear that the gentry of Norfolk were at first doubtful of the success of the king’s cause, and that many were indisposed to obey his summons to battle. Sir William Boleyn and Sir Harry Heydon had gone as far as Thetford on their way towards Kent, when they received advice which induced them to return. Sir Edmund Bedingfield wrote to John Paston, he believed that they would not go if the king wanted them. But there were similar rumours about John Paston himself, and it was even said that he meditated mischief. It is true he had actually waited on the king, in the train, apparently, of the Earl of Oxford, one of the two generals to whom the military powers of the whole kingdom were at this time intrusted; but it was suspected, perhaps owing to the application made to him on her account, that after my lord’s departure from the king he had been with the Viscountess Lovel, whose husband was among the rebel leaders. ‘But wrath said never well,’ adds Bedingfield in reporting this rumour to John Paston himself. It was evident that he had enemies, and it was necessary to conduct himself at such a critical period with extreme discretion.[312-4]

[Footnote 312-4: No. 1014.]

[Sidenote: Fear of invasion on the East Coast.] At this time the rebels had not yet landed in England. Nothing had been known of their movements till very lately; but the Earl of Lincoln had been in Flanders with the Lady Margaret of Burgundy, the chief organiser of the conspiracy. The East Coast, it was supposed, was chiefly threatened; and the king had made a progress through Suffolk and Norfolk to animate the people to loyalty. Commissions of array had been issued for the Eastern Counties on the 7th April. On the 15th Henry kept his Easter at Norwich; after which he went on to Walsingham, and thence to Coventry.[313-1] News came, however, that seemed to show the East Coast was in no immediate danger. The rebels had left the Low Countries, but they had gone to Ireland. The gentlemen of the Eastern Counties were informed that the king would put them to no further charge at that time, but hoped the country would be ready on reasonable warning.[313-2]

[Footnote 313-1: _See_ Spedding’s Notes in Bacon’s Henry VII.--_Works of Bacon_, vi. 55, 56.]

[Footnote 313-2: No. 1015.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Stoke.] The extraordinary farce enacted in Ireland--the recognition of Lambert Simnel as the son of Clarence, his coronation in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and his enthusiastic and universal reception by a people to whom political truths have been at all times unimportant, and rebellion a mere amusement,--these were facts that could not have been easily realised by sober-minded Englishmen. The news, indeed, could scarcely have reached England very much in advance of the rebel hosts themselves, which presently crossed the sea and landed at Furness in Lancashire.[313-3] In less than a fortnight they penetrated into the heart of England, where they were met by the king’s forces and suffered a complete overthrow in the battle of Stoke. [Sidenote: John Paston knighted.] In that battle John Paston was with the king’s army, and seems to have done some distinguished service, in recognition of which he was knighted by the king upon the field of battle. The same honour was conferred at that time upon fifty-one persons besides himself, while thirteen others were made knights bannerets.[313-4]

[Footnote 313-3: It was but on the 5th May, as Spedding has pointed out (_Bacon_, 56) that the principal party of the rebels landed in Ireland. On the 4th June they had crossed the Channel and landed in Lancashire. The coronation of Lambert Simnel took place on Ascension Day, the 24th May.--_Rolls of Parl._ vi. 397.]

[Footnote 313-4: No. 1016 and Note at p. 187 (vol. vi.).]

[[Sidenote: John Paston knighted. _sidenote printed at beginning of paragraph_]]

[[“Note at p. 187” = text section headed “Note to No. 1016”, immediately before Appendix]]

[Sidenote: Deputy to the Earl of Oxford as Admiral.] Sir John Paston, as he was now called, continued to maintain his influence with the Earl of Oxford and the king. The earl was Lord High Admiral, and he made Sir John his deputy; in which capacity we find letters addressed to him about a whale taken off the coast of Norfolk,[314-1] and deputations waiting upon him at Caister from the corporation of Yarmouth,[314-2] besides some correspondence with the earl as Admiral.[314-3] He got his brother William into the earl’s service; and though ultimately the earl was obliged to dismiss him as being ‘troubled with sickness and crased in his mind,’[314-4] William Paston certainly continued many years in the earl’s household. He became, in fact, a means of communication between the earl and his brother, and in one case we have an important letter addressed to the earl by the king on the subject of the war in Britanny, copied out by William Paston and forwarded to Sir John.[314-5]

[Footnote 314-1: Nos. 1029, 1030.]

[Footnote 314-2: No. 924.]

[Footnote 314-3: Nos. 1049, 1050, 1051.]

[Footnote 314-4: No. 940.]

[Footnote 314-5: No. 913.]

[Sidenote: The war in Britanny.] The eager interest with which this war in Britanny was watched by Englishmen--the anxiety to learn what had become of English volunteers, and of the forces sent thither afterwards by the king’s authority--is shown in several of the letters.[314-6] The facts relating to the whole affair, and their true chronology, had been a good deal confused and mis-stated until the late Mr. Spedding, in editing Lord Bacon’s _History of Henry VII._, compared the testimony of the Paston Letters with that of other original sources.[314-7] But it would take up too much space, and involve writing a complete history of the times, to show what important light is thrown upon this and other subjects of interest in the reign of Henry VII. by the scattered notices of political events contained in these letters; and we must be content, for the remainder of the period, briefly to indicate the matters of public interest referred to.

[Footnote 314-6: Letters 1026, 1030, 1036. An allusion to this war occurs in Barclay’s _Ship of Fools_, f. 152 b.:

‘The battles done, perchance in small Britain, In France, in Flanders, or to the worldes end, Are told in the quere, of some, in wordes vain In midst of matins in stead of the Legende, And other gladly to hear the same intend Much rather than the service for to hear.’]

[Footnote 314-7: Spedding’s _Bacon_, vi. 68, 72, 84, 97-8, 101-2.]

[Sidenote: The Earl of Northumberland.] The rising in the North, in which the Earl of Northumberland was slain, is the subject of two letters;[315-1] and, closely connected with this subject, if our chronology is to be relied on, is an intended progress of the king into Norfolk a few weeks earlier, which was abandoned for some reason not explained. The Great Council which Henry had summoned on the affairs of Britanny appears to have been dissolved on the 3rd March 1489. Two days before it separated, the Earl of Northumberland was appointed to protect the kingdom against the Scots, and entered into indentures with the king at Sheen ‘for the keeping out of the Scots and warring on them.’ But instead of having an outward enemy to contend with, before two months had elapsed he found himself called upon to put down the revolt in Yorkshire, and he was killed on the 28th April.

[Footnote 315-1: Nos. 1037, 1039.]

[Sidenote: Intended royal visit to Norfolk.] The king, if his original designs had been adhered to, would by this time have passed through the Eastern Counties, kept his Easter at Norwich, and gone on to Walsingham.[315-2] In the course of his progress he was to have visited the Earl of Oxford at his mansion at Hedingham in Essex, where William Paston, Sir John’s brother, was staying in the earl’s service. Sir John himself had notice from the earl to come to him with the same number of men ‘defensably arrayed’ as he had before granted to do the king service;[315-3] and in anticipation of the royal visit to Norfolk, William Paston sent orders to the Bailiff of Mautby to have his horse Bayard well fed, whatever it cost, that the animal might look fat and sleek when the king came.[315-4] This order, however, it must be observed, is provisional, ‘if Bayard be unsold’; and perhaps the proviso may point to the reason why the royal progress was abandoned. The subsidy which caused the rising in Yorkshire was heavily felt over the whole kingdom besides; and though at another time a royal progress might have been very popular, the king doubtless saw that it would be unadvisable to add to the expenses of his subjects at a time when they were so severely taxed already.

[Footnote 315-2: No. 1031.]

[Footnote 315-3: No. 1032.]

[Footnote 315-4: No. 1033.]

[Sidenote: Creation of Prince Henry as Duke of York.] In No. 1058 we have a list of the persons who were made Knights of the Bath on the creation of Henry, the king’s second son (afterwards Henry VIII.) as Duke of York, in November 1494.[316-1]

[Footnote 316-1: No. 1058.--This list agrees pretty well with the names given in the description of the ceremony printed by me in _Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p. 390. But besides some variations in spelling and a difference in one place as to the Christian name, this list includes the names of Lords Harington and Clifford, who are not only not mentioned in the other as having been made Knights of the Bath on this occasion, but who seem to be excluded by the statement that there were only twenty baths and beds provided besides those of the prince himself.]

[Sidenote: Perkin Warbeck.] In July 1495, the corporation of Yarmouth write to Sir John Paston about the capture of five captains of Perkin Warbeck’s host, who landed at Deal with about 140 men, when an invasion was attempted by the pretender. Whatever encouragement was given to Perkin abroad, his appearance off the coast of Kent gave little satisfaction to the inhabitants, who killed or took prisoner every man that set foot on the land. Perkin, leaving his friends to their mercy, sailed away, only creating a little disquietude as to where he would next make his appearance. One of the captains taken, whose name was Belt, said he knew he had no hope of mercy, and therefore did not mind revealing the plans of his comrades. They meant to gain possession of Yarmouth or to die for it.[316-2] If this was said in good faith, the rebels must have been so discouraged by their reception at Deal, that they changed their plans and went to Ireland. But it may of course have been said purposely in order to mislead. It was, however, effectual in creating some alarm about the safety of the town. The corporation received a promise from Sir John Paston that aid should be forthcoming, if required; but the very next day intelligence was received that the rebel fleet had sailed westward,[316-3] and doubtless before many days more all serious alarm was at an end.

[Footnote 316-2: No. 1059.]

[Footnote 316-3: No. 1060.]

[Sidenote: Edmund de la Pole.] The next political letter refers to Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, whose first escape from England was made in the summer of 1499. The king was then staying at Godshill, in the Isle of Wight, where the Earl of Oxford was with him; and the latter wrote to Sir John Paston on the 20th August to make inquiry what persons had accompanied the fugitive, or were privy to his departure, commanding him to take into custody every one whom he could find to have been any way concerned in the matter, or any ‘suspect’ person who seemed to be ‘of the same affinity,’ found hovering near the sea coasts.[317-1] Writs were issued the very same day to the sheriffs of the Eastern Counties to prevent persons leaving the kingdom without a licence.[317-2]

[Footnote 317-1: No. 1065.]

[Footnote 317-2: _Letters and Papers Ric. III. and Hen. VII._, vol. ii. p. 377.]

[Sidenote: Coming of Catherine of Arragon to England.] The next letter after this is a notification from the king to Sir John Paston, given on the 20th May 1500, that Catherine of Arragon, the affianced bride of Arthur, Prince of Wales, was expected in England in the following May. Sir John Paston was required to be ready to give his attendance at her reception at that date; but owing to a change of plans, she did not arrive before October 1501.[317-3]

[Footnote 317-3: No. 1066.]

[Sidenote: Meeting of Henry VII. and Philip of Castile.] After this there is nothing more relating to public matters during Sir John Paston’s life; but we must not pass over without notice the very curious account given in No. 1078--a letter which, though among the Paston papers, has no obvious connection with the Paston family at all--of the meeting between Henry VII. and Philip, King of Castile, at Clewer, near Windsor, in January 1506. It is well known how Philip, who until the death of his mother-in-law, Isabella of Spain, was only Archduke of Austria, had set out from Flanders to take possession of his new dominions, when, meeting with a storm at sea, he was driven upon the coast of England, and was for some time entertained by Henry at his court. This letter gives a minute description of the meeting between the two kings, and of the persons by whom they were accompanied, noting the apparel and liveries of all present, after the fashion of court newsmen. The scene unquestionably must have been a striking one; but we must refer our readers for the particulars to the letter itself.

_Social Aspect of the Times_

[Sidenote: State of society.] Thus far have we followed the fortunes of the Paston family and the history of the times in which they lived, as illustrated by their correspondence. The reader must not, however, imagine that we have by any means exhausted the materials before us, either in their social or in their political bearings. Indeed, to whatever length we should prolong these observations, we could not but leave an ample harvest of facts to be gathered in by others, nor have we attempted more than to bring the leading points of the story into one connected narrative. Of the general condition of society revealed to us by this remarkable correspondence, we have left the reader to form his own impressions. But a few very brief remarks upon this subject may perhaps be expected of us before we conclude.

[Sidenote: Education.] The first thing which strikes the most casual observer on glancing over these letters, is the testimony they afford to the state of education among the people at the period in which they were written. From the extreme scarcity of original letters of such an early date, we are too easily led to undervalue the culture and civilisation of the age. But these letters show that during the century before the Reformation the state of education was by no means so low, and its advantages by no means so exceptionally distributed, as we might otherwise imagine. For it is not merely that Judge Paston was a man of superior cultivation, and took care that his family should be endowed with all those educational advantages that he had possessed himself. This was no doubt the case. But it must be remembered that the majority of these letters were not written by members of the Paston family, but were only addressed to them; and they show that friends, neighbours, lords, commoners, and domestic servants possessed the art of writing, as well as the Pastons themselves. No person of any rank or station in society above mere labouring men seems to have been wholly illiterate. All could write letters; most persons could express themselves in writing with ease and fluency. Not perhaps that the accomplishment was one in which it was considered an honour to excel. Hands that had been accustomed to grasp the sword were doubtless easily fatigued with the pen. Old Sir John Fastolf evidently feels it a trouble even to sign his name, and in his latter years invariably allows others to sign it for him. Men of high rank generally sign their letters, but scarcely ever write them with their own hands. And well was it, in many cases, for their correspondents that they did not do it oftener. Whether, like Hamlet, they thought it ‘a baseness to write fair,’ and left such ‘yeoman’s service’ to those who had specially qualified themselves for it; or whether, absorbed by other pursuits, they neglected an art which they got others to practise for them, the nobility were generally the worst writers of the day. Their handwriting and their spelling were on a par, and were sometimes so outrageous, that it requires no small effort of imagination to comprehend the words, even if we could be sure of the letters.[319-1]

[Footnote 319-1: A notable example of this is afforded by the letters of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, which will be found printed in my _Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII._ His successor in title, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the favourite of Henry VIII., wrote quite as barbarous a hand, and outraged orthography in a manner equally bewildering.]

[Sidenote: Eton College.] Education, nevertheless, was making undoubted progress, both among high and low. Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, had been founded by Henry VI. only a few years before old Judge Paston died. His grandson and namesake, William Paston, as we have seen, was sent to the former place for his education, and was learning to construct Latin hexameters and pentameters there in 1479. His progress, it is true, seems to have been but indifferent. What was to be expected of a young gentleman of nineteen, whose attention, even while at school, was distracted by the thought that he had already met with one who might be a partner for life? Nevertheless, in that same letter in which he writes to his brother John what he knows of Mistress Margaret Alborow, he sends him also a specimen of his performances in Latin versification. It is not a very brilliant production, certainly, but the fact of his sending it to his elder brother shows that John Paston too had gone through a regular classical training on the system which has prevailed in all public schools down to the present day.

[Sidenote: Oxford.] It has, moreover, been remarked that the illustrations both of Eton and of Oxford life in the fifteenth century bear a striking resemblance to the well-known usages of modern times. It is true Walter Paston’s expenses at Oxford were not great, even if we take into consideration the much higher value of money in that day. For a period of probably half a year they amounted to no more than £6: 5 _s._: 5¾ _d._[320-1] Yet when he became B.A. he gave a banquet, as graduates have been accustomed to do since his day, for which he was promised some venison from Lady Harcourt, but was disappointed.[320-2] Even the expenses attending the graduation, however, do not appear to have been very heavy. ‘It will be some cost to me, but not much,’ wrote Walter Paston in his own case, though he had been disappointed in the hope of passing at the same time as Lionel Woodville, the queen’s brother, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, who apparently would have borne a portion of the expenses of his fellow-graduates.[320-3]

[Footnote 320-1: No. 931.]

[Footnote 320-2: No. 946.]

[Footnote 320-3: No. 945.]

From the letters just referred to we are reminded that it was at this time usual for those who received a liberal education not only to take a degree in arts but to proceed afterwards in the faculty of law. At the universities, unfortunately, law is studied no longer, and degrees in that faculty are now purely honorary.

[Sidenote: Mode of computing dates.] Some other points may be suggested to us, even by the most superficial examination of the contents of these volumes. The mode in which the letters are dated by their writers shows clearly that our ancestors were accustomed to measure the lapse of time by very different standards from those now in use. Whether men in general were acquainted with the current year of the Christian era may be doubted; that was an ecclesiastical computation rather than one for use in common life. They seldom dated their letters by the year at all, and when they did it was not by the year of our Lord, but by the year of the king’s reign. Chronicles and annals of the period, which give the year of our Lord, are almost always full of inaccuracies in the figures; and altogether it is evident that an exact computation of years was a thing for which there was considered to be little practical use. As to months and days, the same remark does not apply. Letters were very frequently dated in this respect according to what is the general usage now. But even here, as the reader will not fail to observe, there was a much more common use of Festivals and Saints’ days, and when a letter was not written on a day particularly marked in the Calendar, it was frequently dated the Monday or Wednesday, or whatever day of the week it might happen to be, _before_ or _after_ such a celebration. Agnes Paston even dates a letter during the week by the collect of the Sunday preceding:--‘Written at Paston in haste, the Wednesday next after _Deus qui errantibus_.’[321-1]

[Footnote 321-1: No. 34.]

[Sidenote: Mode of reckoning.] Of their modes of computing other things we have little indication in these volumes except in money accounts, which are always kept in Roman figures. No separate columns are set apart in MSS. of this date (although for the convenience of the reader this has sometimes been done in print) for the different denominations of pounds, shillings, pence, and marks, so that it would have been impossible for the best arithmetician easily to cast up totals after the modern fashion. The arithmeticians of that day, in fact, had a totally different method of reckoning. They used counters, and had a counting-board or abacus, on which they set up the totals.[321-2] An instance of this occurs in the first volume, where John Paston, in superintending the works at Caister Castle, or, as we now rather suspect, at Mautby, thought it advisable to change the room in which his coffers and his ‘countewery’ should be set. In connection with this incident one other point is worthy of observation. On taking the measure of the new room, John Paston’s wife reported that he would find it less convenient than the former one. ‘There is no space,’ she wrote, ‘beside the bed, though the bed were removed to the door, to set both your board and your coffers there, and to have space to go and sit beside.’[321-3] When it is considered that the room in question was a ‘draught chamber,’ that is to say, that it contained a privy in addition to the furniture which Paston intended to introduce, want of space ought certainly to have been a very serious objection.

[Footnote 321-2: The modern mode of adding up columns of arabic numerals was called _Algorism_ or _Awgrym_. Thus Palsgrave gives as an example of the use of the word--‘I shall reken it syxe times by aulgorisme, or you can caste it ones by counters.’--_Promptorium Parv._ i. 18.]

[Footnote 321-3: No. 224.]

[Sidenote: Manner of living.] The neglect of sanitary considerations in domestic architecture--indeed, in domestic matters generally--was no doubt a prolific source of disease and pestilence. Yet the general plan of daily life pursued by our ancestors was, it must be owned, more wholesome than that of the nineteenth century. It is well known that they were early risers. Innumerable patent kinds of artificial light did not tempt them to waste the natural hours of rest either in study or in dissipation. Their meals too were earlier. Their dinner was at noon, if not before; and after dinner, in the long summer days, it was customary to take some additional repose. Thus Henry Windsor concludes a letter to John Paston--‘Written in my sleeping time at afternoon, on Whitsunday.’[322-1] This practice of sleeping in the daytime was so universal that in the case of labourers it was only thought necessary to keep it within certain limits, and to restrict it by Act of Parliament to a quarter of the year, from the middle of May to the middle of August.[322-2]

[Footnote 322-1: No. 332.]

[Footnote 322-2: Statute 6 Hen. VIII. ch. 3.]

[Sidenote: Sending dinners out.] A curious practice in relation to dining mentioned in Letter 423 has already been incidentally alluded to. It was the year after Sir John Fastolf’s death, and John Paston’s wife had gone out of Norwich to reside at Hellesdon. Paston’s increased importance in the county was shown by the Mayor and Mayoress of Norwich one day _sending their dinners out_ to Hellesdon, and coming to dine with Margaret Paston. Of this kind of compliment we have another illustration in More’s _History of Richard III._ It is well known how, when just after the death of Edward IV. the Earl of Rivers and Lord Richard Grey were conducting the boy king Edward V. up to London, they were overtaken by the Duke of Gloucester at Stony Stratford, and placed under arrest. As the story is reported by More, Gloucester at first treated his prisoners with courtesy, and at dinner sent a dish from his own table to Lord Rivers, praying him to be of good cheer, for all should be well enough. ‘And he thanked the duke,’ continues the historian, ‘and prayed the messenger to bear it to his nephew the Lord Richard with the same message for his comfort, who he thought had more need of comfort as one to whom such adversity was strange; but himself had been all his days in ure therewith, and therefore could bear it the better.’

[Sidenote: Chivalry and courtesy.] The courtesies of life were certainly not less valued in those rough unquiet days than in our own. Although men like Caxton lamented the decline of chivalry, its civilising influence continued, and its most important usages were still kept up. Among the books which William Ebesham transcribed for Sir John Paston at the rate of twopence a leaf, was one which was called _The Great Book_, treating of ‘the Coronation and other Treatises of Knighthood,’ ‘of the manner of making joust and tournaments,’ and the like.[323-1] His library, or that of his brother John, contained also ‘the Death of Arthur,’ the story of Guy of Warwick, chronicles of the English kings from Cœur de Lion to Edward III., the legend of Guy and Colbrand, and various other chronicles and fictions suited to knightly culture; besides moral treatises, like Bishop Alcock’s _Abbey of the Holy Ghost_, and poetical and imaginative books, such as the poems of Chaucer--at least his _Troilus and Cressida_, his _Legend of Ladies_ (commonly called _The Legend of Good Women_), his _Parliament of Birds_, the _Belle Dame sauns Mercie_, and Lydgate’s _Temple of Glass_. Books like these formed part of the recreations of a country gentleman. They contained, doubtless, the fund of ideas which fathers communicated to their children around the winter fire. And the children were the better qualified to appreciate them by an education which was entirely founded upon the principles of chivalry.

[Footnote 323-1: Nos. 695, 987.]

[Sidenote: The training of the young.] It was in accordance with these principles, and to maintain a true sense of order in society, that the sons of knights and gentlemen were sent at an early age to serve in other gentlemen’s houses. Thus John Paston the youngest was sent to be brought up in the family of the Duke of Norfolk; and so common was this practice, so necessary was it esteemed to a young gentleman’s education, that, as we have seen, his father was reproached for keeping his elder brother at home and unemployed. In a new household, and especially in that of a man of rank, it was considered that a youth would learn something of the world, and fit himself best for the place he was to fill in it. It was the same also, to some extent, with the daughters of a family, as we find Margaret Paston writing to her son Sir John to get his sister placed in the household either of the Countess of Oxford or of the Duchess of Bedford, or else ‘in some other worshipful place.’[324-1] This we have supposed to be his sister Margery, who (no doubt for want of being thus taken care of) shortly after married Richard Calle, to the scandal and disgust of the whole family. His other sister, Anne, was placed in the household of a gentleman named Calthorpe, who, however, afterwards desired to get rid of her, alleging that he wished to reduce his household, and suggested that she ‘waxed high, and it were time to purvey her a marriage.’ It is curious that the prospect of her being sent home again does not seem to have been particularly agreeable even to her own mother. Margaret Paston wonders why Calthorpe should have been so anxious to get rid of the young lady without delay. Perhaps she had given him offence, or committed some misdemeanour. Her mother therefore writes to her son John the youngest in London to see how Cousin Clere ‘is disposed to her-ward,’ that she may not be under the necessity of having her home again, where she would only lose her time, and be continually trying her mother’s patience, as her sister Margery had done before her.[324-2]

[Footnote 324-1: No. 704.]

[Footnote 324-2: No. 766.]

[Sidenote: Want of domestic feeling.] And was this, the reader may well ask, the spirit of domestic life in the fifteenth century? Could two generations of one family not ordinarily live together in comfort? Was the feeling of older people towards children only that they ought to be taught the ways of the world, and learn not to make themselves disagreeable? Alas! I fear, for the most part it amounted to little more than this. Children, and especially daughters, were a mere burden to their parents. They must be sent away from home to learn manners, and to be out of the way. As soon as they grew up, efforts must be made to marry them, and get them off their parents’ hands for good. If they could not be got rid of that way, and were still troublesome, they could be well thrashed, like Elizabeth Paston, the aunt of the last-mentioned young ladies, who, as will be remembered, was allowed to speak to no one, was beaten once or twice a week, and sometimes twice in one day, and had her head broken ‘in two or three places’ in consequence.[325-1]

[Footnote 325-1: No. 94, and p. 155 of this Introduction.]

Such a state of matters, however repulsive to our feelings, is by no means unaccountable. That age was certainly not singular, however much mistaken, in its belief that a sense of what is due to the State is more important than a sense of what is due to the family. Our ancestors forgot the fact--as we too, in this age of enforced schooling are too apt to leave it out of account--that the most important part of education, good or bad, must inevitably be that which a child receives at home. They were rewarded for their forgetfulness by a loss of natural affection, for which their high sense of external order afforded but imperfect compensation. Admirable as the feudal system was in maintaining the necessary subordination of different classes, it acted most injuriously upon the homes, where all that makes up a nation’s real worth must be carefully tended in the first instance. [Sidenote: Wardships.] The very foundation of domestic life was in many cases vitiated by a system which put the wardship and marriage of heirs under age at the disposal of their superior lords. In the case of an important landowner who held of the Crown, it was a regular matter of bargain and sale. The wardship and marriage were granted away to such a person as could offer the Treasury a satisfactory sum for the privilege; and if the heir took it upon himself to marry without licence of such person, he incurred a heavy fine.[325-2] Thus was the most sacred of all human relations made a matter of traffic and sale, and the best feelings of the human heart were systematically crushed by considerations the most sordid.

[Footnote 325-2: We have already referred, at p. 154, to the case of Stephen Scrope, whose wardship was sold by his stepfather, Sir John Fastolf, to Judge Gascoigne, but was afterwards bought back again to prevent the judge marrying him to one of his own daughters, both the original sale and the redemption being equally against the will of Stephen Scrope himself, who complained that Fastolf had ‘bought and sold him like a beast.’ The particulars of these transactions are not obtained from the Paston Letters, but there will be found several notices of another wardship, viz. that of Thomas Fastolf of Cowhaw, kinsman of Sir John Fastolf, which was bought by Sir John of the king, and committed by patent to John Paston and Sir Thomas Howes, and which became the subject of a good deal of controversy.--_See_ Nos. 248, 263, 266, 267, 271, 292, and 352.]

[Sidenote: Remarks of a Venetian on the English.] The absence of domestic affection among the English people generally was, in fact, a subject of observation to foreigners in that day. The earliest extant report of a Venetian ambassador on the state of this country was written in the reign of Henry VII., and in this we find some very strong comments on the subject, showing that the cold-heartedness of parents towards their children, the want of tenderness in husbands towards their wives, the mercenary way in which marriages were contracted by parents or guardians for the young people under their charge, was such as to shock the sensibility of strangers from the warmer lands of the South. To the Italian mind it seemed as if there was no real human nature in Englishmen at all. There was licentiousness among them, to be sure, but our Venetian almost doubted whether in high or low society an Englishman was ever known to be in love. He had witnessed nothing of the sort himself. On the contrary, he had seen young noblemen content to marry old widows for the sake of fortunes, which they hoped to share soon with younger partners; and he suspected that although Englishmen were very jealous husbands, the most serious offences against married life might be condoned for money.[326-1]

[Footnote 326-1: _Italian Relation of England_ (Camden Soc.), pp. 24-27.]

[Sidenote: Freedom of manners.] It is impossible to deny that these comments, except the last, which we would fain hope was a mistake, must have been largely justified. The Paston letters bear strong additional testimony to the general truth of what our Italian critic saw in England. Yet, acute as his observation was, an ambassador from the stately Signory of Venice was perhaps not altogether in a position to read the deepest mysteries of the English heart. To this day the warmth of the English nature lies covered by a cold exterior; yet even in the external manners of the people the genial Erasmus found touches which our Venetian cared not for, and did not deign to notice. While feudalism still kept down the natural emotions, insisting on a high respect for order, there was a freedom in social intercourse, and in England more than elsewhere, which has long ago been chilled among ourselves by the severity of Puritanism. In his own amusing way Erasmus tells us how in this delightful island ladies and gentlemen kissed each other freely whenever they met, in the streets or in their houses. There were kisses when you came, and kisses when you went away--delicate, fragrant kisses that would assuredly tempt a poet from abroad to stay in England all his days.[327-1] So the witty Dutchman informed a friend in the unrestrained freedom of epistolary correspondence. And we may believe that in most cases the severity of home was mitigated by a greater freedom of communication with the world outside. Only in cases of very severe displeasure were the daughters of a family shut up for a time, like Elizabeth Paston, and forbidden to speak to any one. For the most part, they received the salutations of strangers, and conversed with them without reserve, as marriage was quite understood to be a thing which depended entirely upon arrangements made by their parents.

[Footnote 327-1: _Erasm. Epp._ lib. v. 10.]

[Sidenote: Urbanity.] With all this, there was an urbanity of manners, a courtesy of address, and a general external refinement, on which more recent times have not improved. And in these things England was pre-eminent. Our Venetian could not help noticing that the English were a very polite people. Another Italian of that day, Polydore Vergil, has recorded that in this respect they resembled his own countrymen. The hard schooling which they received at home, the after-training elsewhere in the houses of ‘worshipful’ persons, had taught them from their early years to consider above all things what was due to others. In every relation of life, in the freest social intercourse, the honour due to parents, to strangers, to noblemen, or to kings, was never for a moment forgotten. In the most familiar letters the son asks his father’s or mother’s blessing, and the wife addresses her husband as ‘right worshipful.’ When people talked to each other on the street, they did so with heads uncovered. Even kings at the mention of other potentates’ names took off their hats with reverence.[328-1]

[Footnote 328-1: _Italian Relation_, pp. 22-32; Polydore Vergil, 14-15. Henry VII., in conference with the Spanish ambassador, De Puebla, always took off his hat when the names of Ferdinand and Isabella were mentioned (Bergenroth’s _Spanish Calendar_, vol. i. p. 10). I have also seen notices of the same custom elsewhere.]

[Sidenote: Importance of maintaining authority.] An age which, with all its many drawbacks, cultivated ideas such as these cannot be looked upon as despicable or barbarous. We could have wished to see something more of the element of love in families--something more of the easy rule of natural affection occasionally superseding the hard notions of feudal or parental discipline. But the anxiety to uphold authority, to preserve honour for whom it was due, to maintain social and political order in spite of influences which were conspicuously at work breaking it up before men’s eyes, was a true and wholesome feeling, to the strength of which we owe a debt unspeakable even in these days of progress. At no time in England’s history was there a stronger feeling of the needful subordination of the different parts of society to each other; but under a king incapable of governing, this feeling bred a curse, and not a blessing. The great lords, who should have preserved order under the king, fell out among themselves, and in spite of the fervid loyalty of the age, the greatest subject became a kingmaker.

[Sidenote: The Earl of Warwick’s household.] That civil war should have broken out in a state of society like this need occasion no surprise. The enormous retinues of feudal noblemen were in themselves sufficiently dangerous to the peace of the kingdom, and when the sense of feudal subjection to one sovereign was impaired, the issue could not be doubtful. At the table of the great Earl of Warwick, Stow informs us that the flesh of six entire oxen was sometimes consumed in a single meal. With the profuse hospitality of the Middle Ages, he entertained not only all his regular dependants, but all chance comers who had any acquaintance in his household. Visitors were also allowed to carry off joints from his table, and the taverns in the neighbourhood of Warwick’s inn were actually full of his meat.[329-1] Such a nobleman had no difficulty in obtaining friends to fight for him in the day of battle. He maintained, in fact, what might be called a little standing army at all times, and if an emergency arose, doubtless many who had dined at his table would flock to his standard, and take his wages.[329-2]

[Footnote 329-1: Stow’s _Chronicle_, 421.]

[Footnote 329-2: _See_ No. 760.]

[[Footnote 329-2: _missing “2” added_]]

[Sidenote: The Tudor policy.] The causes which had produced the wars of the Roses were carefully watched by the Tudor sovereigns, and one by one rooted out. Laws were passed against noblemen keeping large retinues, and were not suffered to remain a dead letter. The nobility of England learned to stand in awe of the Crown in a way they never did before, and never have done since. Every branch of the royal family, except the reigning dynasty, was on one pretext or another lopped away. Every powerful nobleman knew that just in proportion as he was great, it was necessary for him to be circumspect. Under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, birth and rank counted for very little, and the peers became submissive instruments, anxious, and indeed eager, to carry out the sovereign’s will. In short, the unity of a divided nation was restored under a set of politic kings, who enforced the laws, kept down the nobility, and, in spite of their despotism, were generally loved by the people.

APPENDIX TO PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION

I. WILL OF PETER LE NEVE.--See p. 3.

The following extracts from the will of Peter Le Neve, as contained in the principal register at Doctors’ Commons, are curious in other respects besides their bearing on the history of the Paston MSS.

Item, I give and bequeath unto the Reverend Doctor Tanner, Chancellor of Norwich, and Mr. Thomas Martin of Palgrave, all my abstracts out of records, old deeds, books, petigrees, seals, papers, and other collections which shall only relate to the antiquityes and history of Norfolk and Suffolk, or one of them, upon condicion that they, or the survivor of them, or the executors or administrators of such survivor, do and shall, within twelve months next after my decease, procure a good and safe repository in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, or in some other good and publick building in the said city, for the preservation of the same collections, for the use and benefitt of such curious persons as shall be desirous to inspect, transcribe, or consult the same. And I doe hereby give full power to the said Doctor Tanner and Thomas Martin, and to the survivor of them, and to the executors or administrators of such survivor, to fix and prescribe such rules and orders for the custody and preservation of the said collecions as they shall think proper. . . .

Item, my will and mind is, that if my said wife Frances shall at any time hereafter intermarry with Thomas Allen, my late clerk, then I will that she shall have and enjoy but the annuity or summe of forty pounds per annum from the time of such her intermarryage, and noe more shall be paid unto her by my aforesaid trustees; and I strickly charge and forbid her, the said Frances, to permitt the said Thomas Allen to come into any of my studys, or to lend or give him any of my books or papers, or to suffer him in any respect to intermeddle with my affairs. Item, I give unto my said wife Frances such goods and things att Bow and Wychingham as I shall mencion and sett down in a certain paper to be signed and left by me for that purpose. Item, I give unto my said wife Frances my crown, silver gilt, my collar, silver party, my jewell, my herald’s coat and chain. Item, I give unto Henrietta Beeston the summe of twelve pence per week, to be paid to her from the first day of August last for so long time as she shall continue with me at Wychingham. Item, I will that all my shelves, presses, drawers, and boxes now in my study att Wychingham shall goe along with my Norfolk and Suffolk collections to Norwich. . . .

Item, the residue of my printed or manuscript books, arms, and things relating to antiquity, I give them unto such person and persons, and bodyes, politic or corporate, as I shall direct and appoint, in a paper to be signed and left by me for that purpose.

_The above will was proved 7th November 1729._

[[I. WILL OF PETER LE NEVE.--See p. 3. _final . missing_]]

[[p. 3 = under sidenote “the MSS.”]]

II. JULIAN HERBERD.--See pp. 33, 34.

The following documents in the case of Julian Herberd _v._ William Paston are preserved in the Record Office among ‘Chancery, Parliamentary and Council Proceedings.’ The date, it will be seen, must be after 1432:--

MEMBRANE 1

William Paston.

S{r} Rauf, parson of Bronham, steward with my maister Cromwell. Austinne Bange of Norwiche. John Roppys with hem priour of the Abbey of Norwiche. Rob’t Chapelleyn of Norwiche. Rob’t Grygge of litel Plomstede in the cuntie of Norwiche. S{r} William, the vicaire of Seint Stephenes Chirche in Norwiche.

MEMBRANE 2

Please it to youre moste hie and habundant grace to graunte un to youre pouere and continuel bedwoman Julian Herberd, that William Paston one of youre Juges of the cõe benche may come with alle his affinite and appere bifore youre hie and gracious presence with alle youre worthy and right wyse counsail, and that of youre hie goodnesse comaunde the seide William Paston to bringe bifore yow and to schewe alle the evidences and munimentes, whiche that the modere of youre seide pore bisechere schulde have yeve un to the seide William Paston state or to any man that had it bifore hym or eny man for here seide moder or eny of the seide blode, fro the tyme youre seide pore bisechere modere was borne un to this oure. For the seide William Paston knowleched bifore my lorde of Warewyk and youre Chaunceller of Inglonde, youre Tresorer, youre chef Juge of the Kynges benche, and afore other of yo{r} sergeantz of lawe, beynge to gidere, how he radde diversez evidences of xix acres londe that schulde longe un to youre seide pore bisechere every yere vj_s._ viij_d._, so that sche wolde holde here plesed and content. Up on the whiche sche wolde nat holde here so agreed with oute youre gracious advis in this matere. Besechinge to youre hie and habundant grace, for oure right worthy and gracious Kynge youre fadere soule, and for oure right worthy and gracious quene youre moder soule, whos soules God of his grace assoille, that youre seide pore bisecher may have here evidences, so that here trewe right might be opinly knowen. For there ys twies so good behinde as the saide William Paston knowleched of the seide xix acres, and youre seide pore bisecher wol nat assent that he schulde take his otthe, laste he wol suere that he have nat here evidences. For it may nat be but he moste nedes have hem or summe of his, and that ys opinly knowen. That it like un to youre good Grace to considere this matere above wretyn, and thereuppon to graunte, that the seide William Paston with alle his affinite and youre seide bisecher may alle be bounden to yow in a simple obligacion in what somme that liketh youre hie wysdome, demene so that they may abide youre awarde, with the assent & consent of youre fulle wys and discrete councell and youre worthy and gracious jugement in this mater for the love of God and yn wey of charitee.

MEMBRANE 3

TO OURE RIGHT GRACIOUS LORDE THE KYNGE

Please it to youre right high and gracious lordeshipe to considere the grete wronges that William Paston hath done to Julian Herberd, youre pore wydowe and continuell bedewoman, for with holdynge of diverses evidences and wrongefulle prisonmentes that he hath done to the seide Julian ayenst youre lawes, whiche been here under wretyn yn article wise, whiche the seide Julian bisechith un to youre moste hie and gracious lordeshipe oversee, and that remedie may be putte therynne by youre gracious hondes atte Reverence of God and in wey of charitee.

These been the wronges and extorcions done to Julian Herberd doughter and heir of Herry Herberd of lytel Plumstede yn the Counte of Norff. and Margarete his wyf, doughter and heir to William Palmere, sometyme of the seide Plumstede, by William Paston, and of othere by his assent.

Firste, there as the seide Margarete died sesid yn here demene as yn fee taille of a mesuage of xix. acres of londe with thappourtenance yn Plumstede, the whiche to the same Juliane schulde discende be right of heritage, as doughter and nexte heir of the seide Margarete. The whiche William Paston the seide Juliane of the seide mees and londes now be xl. wynter hath witholden, the whiche been yerly worth xxx_s̃._ and better, the sõme ys now owynge lx_l̃i._

Memorandum, quod Juliana Herberd de Norwico, que fuit filia Margarete Palmere de Plumstede produxit Robertum Bresyngham et Johannem Colton, Cives Norwici, coram Willelmo Paston apud Norwicum in Camera sua ad recordandum coram eo et aliis circumstantibus quod Johannes Thornham optulit prefate Juliane pro tribus acris terre in campis de Plumstede predictis xl_s̃._ pro jure suo hereditario, que tres acre jacent in placito inter dominum Johannem Thornham, petentem, et Robertum Grigge tenentem. Et prefatus Robertus Bresyngham et Johannes inquirebant per viciñ vill’ adjac̃, qui dixerunt quod Margareta Palmere, mater dicte Juliane fuit recta heres illius terre; Et quod post decessum ejusdem Margarete discendere debuisset prefate Juliane ut de feodo talliato. Et postea dictus Willelmus in presencia Radulphi Rectoris de Brunham, Johannis Roppys, Henrici Pye de Brixston, Thome Marchall et aliorum ibidem existencium publice legebat cartas et evidencias pertinentes dicte Juliane, et optulit eidem Juliane pro suo jure habendo etc., xij_d._, et postea xx_d._ Et eciam pro majore evidencia dicta Juliana produxit duodecim legales homines ville de Plumstede Magna et Parva coram Thoma Erpyngham milite, qui dixerunt quod prefata Margareta, mater dicte Juliane, fuit recta heres predictarum terrarum etc., et quod per totam patriam bene est cognitum quod prefata Juliana est recta heres ejusdem Margarete. Ac eciam alia vice predictus Willelmus optulit dicte Juliane pro jure suo xx_s̃._ in presencia Ricardi Gegge, Gentilman, sibi solvendos quandocunque vellet, prout idem clericus omni tempore recordare voluerit.

Also there as the seide Julian poursued ayenst the seide William atte a parlement holden atte Westminstre, and there the seide William did here arrest yn to the Countour of London, and there kepte here yn prisone to the seide parlement was ended thretnynge here to holde here there terme of here lyf, but yf sche wol relesse to hym here right and make acquitaunce generall.

Also the seide Paston, be nightes tyme bituene ix. or x. of the belle, did do bringe the seide Julian prisoner under warde to his ynne in Fletestrete, and there constreined here to seale a blanke chartre, yn whiche he dide write a relesse atte his owne devys, and sent here ayene to prisone, and there kepte here iij. daies, and sent ayene for here to hire the relesse radde, and profred for here right vj. marke.

Also the seide Paston, the Saturday nexte bifore the feste of Saint George, the vj. yere, etc., profred the seide Juliane in presence of the Chaunceller vj. marke yn playne court and iij. acres of the seide londe, and so moche ys the seide Juliane refused that profre, did arreste here newe in the seide Countoure and helde here there from the vij. day of Feverere, etc., and there wolde make here swere on a book or be bounde by obligacion never more to poursue here right.

Also the seide Paston atte Counsell holden atte Redynge the seide Juliane poursued to the lorde of Bedford, and he comaunded to write his lettres to the seide Paston chargynge hym to aggre with here, the seide Paston havynge knowleche that sche sewed for the lettres, made a false sugestion to the Chaunceller, wherby sche was by a sergeaunt of armes committed to Flete, and there beten, fetered and stokked, and so there holden by an hole yere, to that entent that no man schulde wete where sche was by come tille sche hadde be dede in prison. Of whiche false prisonment S{r} Thomas Erpyngham poursued here deliveraunce, comaunded here to be atte the nexte Cessions to be justefied there, consideringe to here grete damage as well in here body as losse of goodes by so longe tyme continued, whiche prisonment the seide Julian wolde nat have hadde for xl_li._ beside alle other losse of goodes.

Also the seide Paston with holdeth alle the evidences to here seide right longinge, and wastynge the seide mesuage and londes in that he may.

Also the seide Paston kepte here iij. yere in the pitte withynne the Castell of Norwiche in grete meschef, in so moche that scho hadde nat but a pynte of mylke yn x. daies and x. nightes, and a ferthinge loffe, standinge under the jugement and ordenance of the Duke of Norffe now late passed to God.[333-1]

Also, the seide Paston scith hadde youre seide suppliant in prisone in the Kynges benche, and there sche lay xij. monthes and more in harde payne and distresse nye dede for colde hunger and thurste.

Item, the seide Paston dede to bringe here oute of the Roundehows yn to youre paleys and brought here afore youre chef Justice, and than the saide Paston comaunded certeines persones to bringe here to prisone to youre Benche, and badde atte his perille certeines persones to smyte the brayne oute of here hede for suynge of here right, and there beynge in grevouse prison durynge half yere and more fetered and cheined, suffringe colde, hunger, thurste, in pointe of deth, God and ye, gracious Kynge, helpe here to here right.

(_Membranes 1 and 2 are sewn on to the face of membrane 3, one at the top, the other at the bottom._)

[Footnote 333-1: John Mowbray, second Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1432.]

[[II. JULIAN HERBERD.--See pp. 33, 34. _final . missing_]]

[[pp. 33, 34 = under sidenote “John Wortes”]]

III. PARMINTER’S INSURRECTION.--See p. 75.

In the bundle of Privy Seals for the year 29 Henry VI. is a pardon to James God, dated on the 4th March, and delivered to the Chancellor for execution on the 5th. Attached to it is the following record of his indictment:--

‘_Kent sc._--Jur’ dicunt quod Jacobus God nuper de Feversham in com’ prædicto, plummer, et alii, ac quamplures alii proditores, rebelles et inimici illustrissimis Principis Henrici Regis Angliæ Sexti post Conquestum ignoti et nuper complices et de societate falsi proditoris Will’i Parmynter, smyth, qui se ipsum nominavit Secundum Capitaneum Kanciæ, eidemque adhærentes et de ejus covina et assensu in omnibus proditionibus suis mortem dicti Regis et destructionem regni sui Angliæ confœderantes, machinantes, compassentes et proponentes, ultimo die Augusti anno regni dicti Regis vicesimo nono[334-1] apud Feversham et alibi in com. Kanciæ se adinvicem congregaverunt ad numerum quadringentorum hominum et amplius, dicentes et confidentes quod ipsi essent de eorum covina et assensu ad eorum libitum et voluntatem xl. milia hominum armatorum et modo guerrino arraiatorum ad præbendum et percussiendum bellum contra dictum Regem seu quoscumque alios in proditionibus suis prædictis eis contravenientes, et falso et proditorie insurrexerunt et mortem dicti Regis imaginaverunt et compassi fuerunt, ac guerram adtunc et ibidem et alibi per vices infra dictum com. Kanc. falso et proditorie contra dictum Regem, supremum dominum suum, levaverunt, in destructionem ipsius Regis et Regni prædicti.

BENET.’

There is a note of the trial of Parmynter in Hilary term, 29 Hen. VI., on the Controlment Roll of that year, rot. 9.

[Footnote 334-1: So in the record, but evidently an error. It should have been _vicesimo octavo_.]

[[inimici illustrissimis Principis _text unchanged: expected form “illustrissimi”_]]

[[p. 75 = under sidenote “Further disturbances”]]

IV. PARDON TO JOHN PAYN.--See p. 78.

On the Patent Roll 30 Henry VI., p. 1, m. 23, occurs the following entry:--

_De Pardonacione._--Rex omnibus ballivis et fidelibus suis ad quos, &c., salutem. Sciatis quod cum nonnulli rebelles nostri in comitatu nostro Kanciæ, paucis ante diebus contra pacem nostram insurrectionem gravem concitantes, quasdam factiones proditorias contra nostram personam detestabiliter machinati fuerint, nonnullaque proditiones, murdra, felonias et facinora, aliasque transgressiones perpetraverint; quia tamen, cum nuper per civitates, oppida atque villas in eodem comitatu nostro ad eorum hujusmodi insolencias et rebelliones coercendos iter faceremus, plurimi ex eisdem, spiritu sanioris consilii ducti, plurimum humiliati, etiam usque femoralia nudi, suorum immanitates criminum coram nobis confitentes, veniam a nobis effusis lachrymis anxie postularunt; Nos, ad singulorum hujusmodi ligeorum nostrorum submissiones humillimas nostros misericordes oculos dirigentes, ac firmiter tenentes quod de cætero in nostra obedientia stabiles permanebunt, fidem ligeanciæ suæ erga nos inantea inviolabiliter servaturi, ad laudem, gloriam et honorem Omnipotentis et misericordis Dei ac gloriosissimæ Virginis matris Christi, de gratia nostra speciali pardonavimus, remisimus et relaxavimus Johanni Payn de Pecham in comitatu prædicto, yoman, alias dicto Johanni Payn, nuper de Estpekham in comitatu prædicto, smyth, qui inter cæteros se submisit nostræ gratiæ, quocumque nomine censeatur, sectam pacis nostræ quæ ad nos versus eum pertinent, seu poterit pertinere, pro quibuscumque proditionibus, feloniis, murdris et transgressionibus per ipsum a septimo die Julii anno regni nostri vicesimo octavo usque decimum diem Junii ultimo præteritum factis sive perpetratis; acetiam utlagarias, si quæ in ipsum Johannem occasionibus prædictis seu earum aliqua fuerint promulgatæ; necnon omnimodas forisfacturas terrarum, tenementorum, reddituum, possessionum, bonorum et catallorum, quæ idem Johannes nobis occasionibus prædictis seu earum aliqua forisfecit aut forisfacere debuit, et firmam pacem nostram ei inde concedimus: Ita tamen quod stet recto in curia nostra si quis versus eum loqui voluerit de præmissis seu aliquo præmissorum. Proviso semper quod ista nostra pardonacio, remissio sive relaxacio se non extendat ad aliqua malefacta supra mare et aquas aliquo modo facta sive perpetrata. In cujus, &c. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium secundo die Novembris.

Two similar patents were granted on the same date to Richard Doke, yeoman, and William Souter, labourer, both of Peckham.

[[p. 78 = under sidenote “John Payn and the rebels”]]

V. THE DUKE OF YORK AT DARTFORD.--See p. 99.

The most minute account of the encampment of the Duke of York at Dartford is contained in the following extract from the Cottonian Roll, ii. 23.

At Crayfford, myle from Dertfford.

Primo die mensis Marcii anno regni Regis Henrici Sexti xxx{o} ther was my Lord of Yorkes ordynaunce iij{mill.} gownner, and hym selff in the middell ward with viij{mil.}, my Lord of Devynsher by the southe side with vj{mill.}, and my Lord Cobham with vj{mil.} at the water side, and vij. shippus with ther stuff. And sith that tyme, and sith was poyntment made and taken at Dertfford by embassetours, my Lord the B. of Winchester, my Lord B. of Ely, my Lord the Erle of Salusbury, my Lorde of Warrewik, my Lord Bewcham, and my Lord of Sydeley, &c., whiche poyntment was, &c. And soon after was Chatterley, yeman of the Crown, maymed, notwithstondyng he was takyn at Derby with money making and ladde to London. Then after the Kynges yeman of his chambur, namyd Fazakerley, with letteris was sent to Luddelowe to my Lord of Yorke chargyng to do forth a certeyn of his mayny, Arthern, squier, Sharpe, sqier, &c.; the whiche Fazakerley hyld in avowtry Sharpes wiff, the which Sharpe slewe Fitzacurley, and a baker of Ludlow roos and the Commyns, &c., the whych baker is at Kyllyngworth Castell, &c. After this my Lord of Shrousbury, &c., rode in to Kent, and set up v. peyre of galowes and dede execucion upon John Wylkyns, taken and brought to the towne as for capteyn, and with other mony mo, of the whiche xxviij. were honged and be heded, the whiche hedes were sent to London; and London said ther shuld no mo hedes be set upon there; and that tyme Eton was robbyd, and the Kyng beyng at Wynsor on Lowe Sonday, &c.

[[viij{mil.}, _comma misprinted as superscript_ at Wynsor on Lowe Sonday, &c. _final . missing_]]

[[p. 99 = shortly before sidenote “York is entrapped”]]

VI. THE DUKE OF YORK AND THE COUNCIL.--See p. 132.

The following document is enrolled on the Patent Roll, 32 Henry VI., membrane 20:--

_Pro Ricardo Duce Ebor._--Rex omnibus ad quos, &c., salutem. Inspeximus tenorem cujusdam actus in consilio nostro apud Westmonasterium tento facti, venerabili patri Johanni Cardinali et Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, totius Angliæ primati, Cancellario nostro, per Thomam Kent, clericum ejusdem consilii nostri, ad exemplificationem tenoris prædicti sub Magno Sigillo nostro in forma debita fiendam nuper deliberatum et in filaciis Cancellariæ nostræ residentum, in hæc verba:--

The xxj. day of Novembre, the yere of the regne of oure Souverain Lorde King Henry the VI{th} xxxij{ti.} at Westmynstre, in the Sterred Chambre, being there present the Lordes, the Cardinal Archebisshop of Canterbury and Chaunceller of England, th’ Archebisshop of Yorke, the Bisshops of London, Winchestre, Ely, Norwich, Saint Davides, Chestre, Lincoln, and Carlisle, the Duc of Buckingham, th’Erles of Salisbury, Pembroke, Warrewik, Wiltshire, Shrovesbury, and Worcestre, Tresourer of England, the Viscount Bourchier, the Priour of Seint Johns, the Lordes Cromwell, Suddeley, Duddeley, Stourton, and Berners. The Duc of York reherced unto the seid Lordes that he, as the Kinges true liegman and subgit, was by commaundement directed unto him undre the Kinges Prive Seal, come hidre to the Kinges greet Counsail, and wolde with all diligence to his power entende to the same, and to all that that sholde or might be to the welfare of the King and of his subgettes; but for asmoche as it soo was that divers persones, suche as of longe tyme have been of his Counsail, have be commaunded afore this tyme, by what meanes he watte never, not to entende upon him, but to withdrawe thaim of any counsail to be yeven unto him: the which is to his greet hurte and causeth that he can not procede with suche matiers as he hath to doo in the Kinges courtes and ellus where, desired the Lordes of the counsail abovesaid that they wolde soo assente and agree that suche as have been of his counsail afore this tyme might frely, without any impediment, resorte unto him and withoute any charge to be leide unto theim, yeve him counsail from tyme to tyme in suche matiers as he hath or shal have to doo. To the which desire alle the Lordes abovesaide condescended and agreed, as to that thing that was thought unto them juste and resounable, and fully licenced all suche persones as he wolde calle to his counsail frely withoute any impediment to entende unto him; and commaunded this to be enacted amonge th’actes of the Counsaill. Actum anno, mense, die et loco ut supra, præsentibus dominis supradictis.

T. Kent.

Nos autem tenorem actus prædicti ad requisicionem carissimi consanguinei nostri prædicti, Ricardi Ducis Ebaracensis, duximus exemplificandum per præsentes. In cujus, &c. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium, vj. die Decembris.

[[p. 132 = before sidenote “Norfolk accuses Somerset”]]

VII. DEFENCE AGAINST THE EARL OF WARWICK.--See p. 185.

The following commissions are found on the Patent Roll 38 Henry VI., p. 2, m. 21. They afford remarkable evidence of the terror inspired in the Queen’s Government by the capture of Lord Rivers at Sandwich.

_De advocando et debellando._--Rex carissimo consanguineo suo Johanni Duci Norff’ ac dilecto et fideli suo Philippe Wentworth militi, necnon dilectis, sibi Roberto Willoughby, Johanni Hopton, Willelmo Tyrell, Thomæ Brewes, Gilberto Debenham, Johanni Clopton, Willelmo Jenney, et Reginaldo Rous, salutem. Quia satis manifestum est quod quidam rebelles nostri Ricardo nuper Comiti Warr’ proditori et inimico nostro adhærentes, villam nostram Sandewici jam tarde intrarunt et ibidem mala quamplurima nobis et fidelibus ligeis nostris fecerunt et perpetrarunt, et alia mala prioribus pejora in diversis partibus comitatus nostri Suff’, si eas ingredi poterint, facere et perpetrare proponunt, ut veraciter informamur, nisi eorum maliciæ citius et celerius resistatur: Nos, tam maliciæ ipsius inimici nostri ac complicum suorum prædictorum (_sic_), quam pro defensione partium ibidem providere volentes, ut tenemur, assignavimus vos, conjunctim et divisim, ac vobis et vestrum cuilibet plenam potestatem et auctoritatem damus et committimus ad advocandum coram vobis [omnes] et singulos ligeos nostros comitatus prædicti, cujuscunque status, gradus seu condicionis fuerint, de quibus vobis melius videbitur expedire, ad proficiscendum vobiscum contra præfatum inimicum nostrum ac complices suos prædictos, ac ad assistenciam et auxilium suum vobis seu vestrum cuilibet in eorum resistenciam dandum et impendendum in casu quo idem inimicus noster ac complices sui prædicti dictum comitatum vel partes adjacentes ingredi præsumant, ac ad eos et secum comitantes ut hostes et rebelles nostros debellandum, expugnandum, et destruendum, ac ad omnia alia et singula quæ juxta sanas discretiones vestras in hac parte in repressionem prædictorum inimicorum nostrorum ac complicum suorum et eorum maledicti propositi fore videritis necessaria et oportuna, faciendum, exercendum et exequendum. Et insuper assignavimus vos conjunctim et divisim ad omnes personas partem prædicti nuper Comitis Warr’ seu aliorum rebellium nostrorum et complicum suorum verbis vel operibus defendentes et tenentes, vel aliqua verba contra majestatem nostram regiam habentes et dicentes, similiter capiendum et arestandum, et in prisonis nostris in forma prædicta custodiendum, et custodiri faciendum. Et ideo vobis et vestrum cuilibet mandamus quod circa præmissa diligenter intendatis et ea faciatis et exequamini in forma prædicta. Damus autem universis et singulis vicecomitibus, majoribus, ballivis, constabulariis, ac aliis officiariis, ministris, fidelibus legiis et subditis nostris quibuscunque, tam infra libertates quam extra, tenore præsentium, firmiter, in mandatis, quod vobis et vestrum cuilibet in executione præmissorum intendentes sint, assistentes et auxiliantes in omnibus diligenter. In cujus, &c. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium, x. die Februarii.

Per Consilium.

Consimiles literæ Regis patentes diriguntur carissimo consanguineo suo Johanni Duci Norff’ ac dilectis et fidelibus suis Thomæ Tudenham militi, Willelmo Chamberleyn militi, Miloni Stapulton militi, et Philippo Wentworth militi; necnon dilectis sibi Willelmo Calthorp, Johanni Heydon, Henrico Inglose, Johanni Wymondham, et Thomæ Claymond in comitatu Norff’. Teste ut supra.

Consimiles literæ Regis patentes diriguntur dilectis et fidelibus suis majori et aldermannis ac vicecomitibus villæ suæ de Kyngeston super Hull, et eorum cuilibet in villa prædicta. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium, xvj. die Februarii.

[[necnon dilectis, sibi Roberto Willoughby _superfluous comma in original_]]

[[p. 185 = midway between sidenotes “Lord Rivers at Sandwich” and “The Legate Coppini”]]

VIII. WILLIAM WORCESTER.--See p. 199.[338-1]

[Sidenote: 1460 AUG. 28]

_De scripto irrotulato, Worcestre._--Universis et singulis Christi fidelibus ad quos præsens scriptum pervenerit, Willelmus Worcestre, alius dictus Botoner, de Castre juxta Yermouth in com’ Norff., gentilman, salutem in Domino. Noveritis me, præfatum Willelmum, dedisse, concessisse et hoc præsenti scripto meo confirmasse Henrico Everyngham armigero, Hugoni Fenne gentilman, Henrico Wyndesore gentilman, Roberto Toppes juniori, gentilman, et Johanni Bokkyng, gentilman, omnia et singula bona mea et catalla, mobilia et immobilia, viva et mortua, ubicumque et in quorumcumque manibus, tam infra comitatu prædicto quam alibi infra regnum Angliæ existentia seu[338-2] inveniri poterint; acetiam omnia debita quæ mihi quacumque de causa a quibuscumque personis ubilibet debentur; habenda et tenenda omnia prædicta bona, catalla et debita præfatis Henrico, Hugoni, Henrico, Roberto et Johanni, executoribus et assignatis suis, ad inde faciendum, ordinandum et disponendum liberam suam voluntatem, ut de bonis, catallis et debitis suis propriis, sine contradictione, perturbatione, seu reclamatione aliquali imperpetuum; Ita, videlicet, quod nec ego, prædictus Willelmus, nec executores mei, nec aliquis alius per nos, pro nobis, seu nomine nostro, aliquid juris, proprietatis, seu clamei in prædictis bonis, catallis et debitis, nec in aliqua parcello eorundem, de cætero exigere, clamare seu vendicare poterimus nec debemus in futuro; sed ab omni actione juris, proprietatis et clamei inde petendi totaliter simus exclusi imperpetuum per præsentes. In cujus rei testimonium huic præsenti, scripto meo sigilium meum apposui. Datum vicesimo octavo die Augusti, anno regni Regis Henrici Sexti post Conquestum Angliæ tricesimo octavo.

_Et memorandum quod prædictus Willelmus venit in Cancellariam Regis apud Westmonasterium primo die Septembris anno præsenti et recognovit scriptum prædictum et omnia contenta in eodem in forma prædicta._

[Footnote 338-1: [From _Close Roll_ 39 Henry VI., m. 13 _d._]

[Footnote 338-2: _Sic._]

[[scripto meo sigilium meum _text unchanged: error for “sigillum”?_]]

[[p. 199 = shortly before sidenote “Claimants of Fastolf’s property”]]

IX. JOHN PASTON CLAIMED AS THE KING’S ‘NATIVUS.’--See p. 225.[339-1]

FROM THE FIRST ASSEMBLY BOOK OF THE CITY OF NORWICH (fol. 65).

[Assembly on Friday after the Epiphany, 5 Edw. IV.]

[Sidenote: 1466 JAN. 10]

Eodem die publicata fuit per Maiorem et Recordatorem Civitatis causa adventus domini de Scales ad civitatem secunda vice infra xviij{cim} dies; est et fuit pro bonis et catallis Johannis Paston quem dominus Rex pro suo nativo seisivit, ad dicta bona et catalla in quorumcunque manibus comperta fuerint nomine domini Regis seisiend’, et mesuagium[339-2] ipsius Johannis Paston infra Civitatem intrand’ et seisiend’ cum omnibus bonis et catallis in eodem inventis. Unde super et de materiis predictis per Recordatorem et Consilium legis peritorum Civitatis responsum fuit dicto domino de Scales omnibus viis modis et forma secundum eorum erudicionem prout poterunt (? potuerunt) pro libertate Civitatis salvand’ et custodiend’ illesa. Et quia materia predicta tangit libertatem Civitatis et privilegia, et dictus dominus de Scales per aliquod responsum ei factum non vult satisfieri, pro eo quod dictus dominus de Scales intendit omnino dictum mesuagium intrare et clausuras eiusdem frangere; Id circo presens communis congregacio summonita fuit, consilium et avisamentum communis Consilii et Constabulariorum[339-3] Civitatis audire et inde habere. Post vero diversas communicaciones communicare petierunt deliberacionem; matura deliberatione habita sic est deffinitum, quod introitus factus erit per assensum totius communis congregacionis per feoffatores ipsius Johannis Paston, quia bene suppositum est quod tam certi Aldermanni quam Cives Communarii[340-1] Civitatis sint cofeoffati cum ipso Johanne Paston; et sic per feoffatores dictum mesuagium erit apertum sine fractura vel ad minus nomine ipsorum feoffatorum vel feoffati unius.

[Footnote 339-2: The house is supposed to have been in the parish of St. Peter Hungate, but it is not certainly known.]

[Footnote 339-3: About this period the 24 Ward Constables were associated in an Assembly with the 60 Common Councillors. This is why they are mentioned here, not with any reference to ‘police’ action.]

[Footnote 340-1: Members of the Common Council.]

[Footnote 339-1: For this extract from the Assembly books of the City of Norwich I am indebted to the Rev. William Hudson of Eastbourne, who further adds the following particulars:--

The Mayor this year was Thomas Elys who is mentioned in the Paston Letters (iv. 139) as a great supporter of the Duke of Suffolk and opponent of Paston.

The Recorder apparently was John Damme, I suppose the same who occurs so often as a friend of the Pastons.

What with this divergence of feeling and the difficulty of satisfying Lord Scales as well as their own duty towards the City the case was a delicate one and was rather ingeniously dealt with.

There is no other reference to the matter in the Norwich documents so far as I am aware.]

[[p. 225 = shortly after sidenote “John Paston imprisoned a third time”_]]

X. A CHRONOLOGICAL NOTE.

It is desirable here to correct an error in the text, which unfortunately was discovered too late. Letters 1020-1022 are out of their proper place. No. 1020 is certainly a letter of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV.’s queen, not of her daughter Elizabeth, who was Henry VII.’s. No. 1021 was placed after it as being about the same time, which no doubt it was; and the fact that the Earl of Oxford was out of favour for a considerable part of Edward IV.’s reign made it appear as if both letters belonged to that of Henry VII., to which they were accordingly relegated in previous editions. But this Earl of Oxford was in favour under Edward IV. till the restoration of Henry VI.; and No. 1022, a letter which only appeared in the Supplement of the last edition of this work, was written by John Daubeney, who was killed at the siege of Caister in 1469. The reference to the Queen’s confinement, moreover, which was so perplexing in the case of Elizabeth of York, fits exactly with the August of 1467, in which month Elizabeth Woodville gave birth to a daughter named Mary. This letter, therefore, was written on the 8th August, which would be the ‘Saturday before St. Laurence’ day’ in that year: and it must be noted that the footnotes on p. 107 are entirely wrong. The Archbishop of York referred to in the letter was George Nevill, and the Treasurer was Richard, Earl Rivers.

No. 1021 is perhaps before A.D. 1467, as Howard and Sir Gilbert Debenham are believed to be intending ‘to set upon Coton,’ of which apparently Sir Gilbert was in possession in April 1467 (see vol. iv. No. 664, p. 274).

END OF VOLUME I

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