Chapter XVIII: Letter 863 (2)

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

[Footnote 311-5: No. 1006.]

[Footnote 311-6: No. 1004.]

[Footnote 312-1: No. 1008.]

[Footnote 312-2: No. 1010.]

[Footnote 312-3: No. 1012.]

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

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

[Footnote 312-4: No. 1014.]

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

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

[Footnote 313-2: No. 1015.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 314-2: No. 924.]

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

[Footnote 314-4: No. 940.]

[Footnote 314-5: No. 913.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 315-2: No. 1031.]

[Footnote 315-3: No. 1032.]

[Footnote 315-4: No. 1033.]

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

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

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

[Footnote 316-2: No. 1059.]

[Footnote 316-3: No. 1060.]

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

[Footnote 317-1: No. 1065.]

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

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

[Footnote 317-3: No. 1066.]

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

_Social Aspect of the Times_

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 320-1: No. 931.]

[Footnote 320-2: No. 946.]

[Footnote 320-3: No. 945.]

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

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

[Footnote 321-1: No. 34.]

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

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

[Footnote 321-3: No. 224.]

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

[Footnote 322-1: No. 332.]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 324-1: No. 704.]

[Footnote 324-2: No. 766.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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