_To oure right reverent and worshipfull and special good maister,
Maister Paston._
[Sidenote: 1491 / [SEPT.]]
Right reverent and worshipfull sir, and oure veray lovyng and curteys
good mayster, we recomaund us on to you in as feythefull wyse as on oure
part aperteynith; and hertely we thanke you for your labour and letter,
whiche ye sent to us be your servaunt, be the whiche we wer asserteynid
of the Kynges pleasure, and to acomplyshe the same, we with the
assistens of youre maistirship wyll put us in oure devoir.
We were at your manoir of Castir to have sen your maistirshyp, but ye
were departyd as well from Yermouth yistirday, as this day from Castre.
We wold have ben joyous to have seen your maistirship, if our fortune so
had ben.
Sir, we be enfourmyd that ore old special good Lord of Oxford, in whom
we founde as gret favour be the mediacion of your maystirship, as ever
we had of any creature, as we have wryting to shewe, in recumpens of
whiche at all tymes sethyn hise lordshyp hathe had our preyeris; and now
we wold have waytid upon hise lordshyp, but your maystirship knowith
well we may not be absent on Mychilmesse Day for dyverse consederacions.
Wherfore we beseke your good maystirshyp, ye lyke of your jentilnesse,
to recomaund us unto our seyd good lord, and to make our exkuse to hym,
and to do hyse lordshyp [to be] presentyd with a porpeyse, whiche we
send yow be the brynger of thys; and if we had any othyr deyntes to do
hym a pleasure, we wold, that knowyth God, Whom we beseke of Hyse
infenit mercy to preserve the Kyng our Soverayn Lord, and oure seyd good
lord, and you, and all the frutys of you from all adversite.
Youre loveres and bedmen, the old Baliffes of Yermouth,
and the newe Balyffes that now shalbe.
[Footnote 138-2: [From Paston MSS., B.M.] ‘Several ordinances,’
says Fenn, ‘respecting corporation business, made by the men of
Yarmouth, through Sir John Paston and Lord Oxford’s attention to
them, received the King’s assent by his Attorney-General in 1491.
It was for their activity in those matters, I presume, that this
letter of thanks, etc. was addressed to Sir John.’ The time of
year appears by the letter itself to be about Michaelmas.]
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