_To my right worchipful maister, John Paston, Sqwyer._
[Sidenote: 1480-7]
Right worchipful maister, I recomaunde me un to yow, desiryng to knowe
of youre welfare and prosperyte, wheche Jesu maynteyne and encreese to
His pleser after youre hertys desyre, thankyng yow ever of youre good
maistership to me shewed at alle tymes withoute deserte on my behalve,
prayng yow, and hirtely besechyng of youre goode contynuance. Please it
yowre maistership, for as moche as it [is] moved on to the my good
maisters, the counsell of the Duche of Lancastr, that they be
weelwillyng to make laboure on to my Sovereyn Lady the Qween at youre
good instaunce for certeyn tymber toward my dortour at Bromholm, in
wheche myn specyall desyre is to have viij. princypall beemys, everych
on in length xj. zerds. I am not expeert in makyng of any supplicacion,
besechyng youre maistership to take it uppon you to do it make after
your avyce, alegged all poverte, as youre worchipfull discrecion can
moche better than I can enforme; and I remitte all to youre wysdam, ever
besechyng you to calle this matyer to youre remembraunce. No more at
this tyme, but the Holy Trinite mote have yow in His governaunce, and
sende you longe lyf to endure to His pleser.
Wreten the xiiij^e day of Octobr.
Youre preest and chapeleyn,
JOHN, Priour of Bromholm.
[Footnote 41-3: [From Fenn, iii. 400.] On the date of this letter
Fenn remarks as follows:--‘John Titleshale was prior of Bromholm
from 1460 for about twenty years. This letter must have been
written therefore either on the 14th October 1460, or on the same
day in 1465, as Edward IV. married in that year, and J. Paston
died in May 1466. If it was written in the former, the request
[for timber] must have been to Queen Margaret; if in the latter,
to Elizabeth, the Queen of Edward IV.’ In these observations Fenn
overlooks the possibility of the letter having been addressed to
any other John Paston than the first of that name; and neither of
the two years, which alone suit that supposition, has much
internal probability. It is inconceivable that the letter could
have been written in 1460, when Queen Margaret had retired into
Wales after the battle of Northampton, and it is almost equally
improbable that the date could have been 1465, when John Paston,
the father, was in prison. We have very little doubt that the
letter was addressed to John Paston the youngest, called of
Gelston, long after his father’s death, and after that of his
brother Sir John also. John Tytleshale, who was Prior of Bromholm
in 1460, was succeeded, at what date we are not informed, by John
Macham; and after him John Underwood, Bishop of Chalcedon,
suffragan of the Bishop of Norwich, was prior in 1509. The date of
this letter, however, must lie between 1480 and 1487, in which
latter year John Paston the youngest was created a knight for his
services at the battle of Stoke.]
973