[Sidenote: Between 1497 and 1503]
Trusty and right welbeloved, we greet you well. And wher by the meanes
of our trusty and right welbeloved Sir Reynold Bray, Sir Thomas Lovell,
and Sir Henry Heydon, Knights, there was a full agreement made and
concluded, and also put in writinge, betwen our trusty and right
welbeloved Sir John Savile, Knight, and Gilbert Talbot, Esquier, on
th’one partie, and yow on th’other, for divers lands which they ought to
have in the right of their wives, daughters and heyers to William
Paston, Esquier, their late fader deceassed, which lands ye by mighty
power kepe and withholde from them without any just title, as they
afferme; and albeit the said agrement was made by your minde and
consent, yet ye ne doe performe the same, to our merveile, if it be so.
Wherefore we desier and also counsell yow without delay upon the sight
hereof now shortly to ride to the court to the said arbitrators, now
ther being, with whom ye shall finde your adverse partie, or other in
their names fully authorized, to abide such final ende and conclusion in
the premisses as shall be consonant with the said agrement, without
further troubles or busines therin hereafter to be had; and that ye will
thus do in any wise, so as we be not driven (through your defalte) to
put to our hands for further remedye to be had in the premisses.
Yeven under our signet at our manner of Colly Weston, the x^th day of
February.
[Footnote 158-1: [From Sandford’s _Paston Genealogy_.] William
Paston, the uncle of the two Sir Johns, died in 1496, and this
letter must have been written either in the year following or
between that date and 1503, when Sir Reginald Bray died. William
Paston’s will, which will be found in the Appendix, was dated 7th
September 1496, and proved on the 28th November following. He
married Anne Beaufort, daughter of Edmond, Duke of Somerset, and
was therefore uncle to the writer of this letter, Margaret,
Countess of Richmond, the mother of King Henry VII. The person to
whom the letter is addressed is not named, but it is not unlikely
to have been Sir John Paston the second.]
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