Chapter XIII: Letter 97: to a much earlier date than that assigned to it by the (4)

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

[Footnote 221-3: No. 593.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 223-1: No. 595.]

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

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

[Footnote 224-1: No. 606.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 226-1: No. 598.]

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

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

[Footnote 227-1: No. 599.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 229-1: No. 609.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 230-2: No. 613.]

[Footnote 231-1: No. 614.]

[Footnote 231-2: No. 581.]

[Footnote 231-3: No. 616.]

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

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

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

_John Paston’s Latter Days_

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

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

[Footnote 233-2: No. 637.]

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

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

[Footnote 234-1: No. 649.]

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

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

[Footnote 234-3: No. 385.]

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

[Footnote 235-1: No. 689.]

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

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

[Footnote 235-3: No. 666.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 237-3: No. 689.]

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

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

_Sir John Paston_

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 239-3: No. 665.]

[Footnote 239-4: No. 667.]

[Footnote 239-5: No. 683.]

[Footnote 239-6: No. 684.]

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

[Footnote 240-1: No. 660.]

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

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

[Footnote 240-3: No. 671.]

[Footnote 240-4: No. 690.]

[Footnote 241-1: No. 696.]

[Footnote 241-2: No. 704.]

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

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

[Footnote 241-4: No. 677.]

[Footnote 241-5: No. 681.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 243-1: No. 681.]

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