Chapter XVII: Letter 863 (1)

[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.]