Chapter XVI: Letter 97: to a much earlier date than that assigned to it by the (7)

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 286-1: No. 850.]

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 287-3: No. 825.]

[Footnote 287-4: No. 833.]

[Footnote 287-5: No. 842.]

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

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

[Footnote 288-2: No. 861.]

[Footnote 288-3: No. 865.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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