[Sidenote: A.D. 1459.] In the year following, the fire that had for some

time smouldered, burst once more into a flame. About Candlemas,

according to Fabyan--but an older authority says specifically on the 9th

November preceding[179-1]--a fray occurred between one of the king’s

servants and one of the Earl of Warwick’s, as the earl, who had been

attending the Council at Westminster, was proceeding to his barge. The

king’s servant being wounded, the other made his escape; but a host of

retainers attached to the royal household rushed out upon the earl and

his attendants, and wounded several of them before they could embark.

With hard rowing they got beyond the power of their assailants and made

their way into the city; but the queen and her friends insisted on

imputing the outrage to the earl himself, and demanded his arrest. The

earl found it politic to retire to Warwick, and afterwards to his former

post at Calais. On this the queen and her council turned their

machinations against his father, the Earl of Salisbury, whom Lord Audley

was commissioned to arrest and bring prisoner to London. Audley

accordingly took with him a large body of men, and hearing that the earl

was on his way from Middleham in Yorkshire, journeying either towards

Salisbury or London, he hastened to intercept him. [Sidenote: Civil war

renewed.] The earl, however, had received notice of what was intended,

and having gathered about him a sufficient band of followers, defeated

Lord Audley in a regular pitched battle at Bloreheath in Staffordshire,

where he attempted to stop his way, on Sunday the 23rd of

September.[179-2]

[Footnote 179-1: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 78.]

[Footnote 179-2: Fabyan, _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 80. _Parl.

Rolls_, v. 348.]

The old elements of confusion were now again let loose. Commissions to

raise men were issued in the king’s name, and the Duke of York and all

his friends were denounced as a confederacy of traitors. They, for their

parts, gathered together the men of the Marches in self-defence. At

Ludlow, the duke was joined by the Earl of Salisbury, and also by the

Earl of Warwick, who had come over again from Calais. [Sidenote: The

king takes the field.] On the other hand, the king himself entered into

the strife in a way he had not done hitherto. He not only took the field

in person against the rebellious lords, but exhibited a spirit in the

endurance of fatigue and discomfort which seems to have commanded

general admiration. Even at the time of Lord Audley’s overthrow, it

would appear that he was leading forward a reserve. For about a month he

kept continually camping out, never resting at night, except on Sundays,

in the same place he had occupied the night before, and sometimes, in

spite of cold, rough weather, bivouacking for two nights successively on

the bare field. After the battle of Bloreheath, he could only regard

Salisbury as an overt enemy of his crown. At the same time he despatched

heralds to the Duke of York and the Earl of Warwick, with proclamations

of free and perfect pardon to themselves and all but a few of the

leaders at Bloreheath, on condition of their submitting to him within

six days.[180-1]

[Footnote 180-1: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 348.]

To Garter King of Arms, one of the messengers by whom these offers were

conveyed, the confederate lords made answer, and also delivered a

written reply to be conveyed to the king, declaring the perfect loyalty

of their intentions, which they would have been glad to prove in the

king’s presence if it had been only possible for them to go to him with

safety. They had already endeavoured to testify their unshaken fidelity

to Henry by an indenture drawn up and signed by them in Worcester

Cathedral. This instrument they had forwarded to the king by a

deputation of churchmen, headed by the prior of that cathedral, and

including among others Dr. William Lynwoode,[180-2] who administered to

them the sacrament on the occasion. Again, after Garter left, they wrote

from Ludlow on the 10th of October, protesting that their actions had

been misconstrued, and their tenants subjected to wrong and violence,

while they themselves lay under unjust suspicion. Their enemies, they

said, thirsted for the possession of their lands, and hoped to obtain

them by their influence with the king. For their own part they had

hitherto avoided a conflict, not from any fear of the power of their

enemies, but only for dread of God and of his Highness, and they meant

to persevere in this peaceful course, until driven by necessity to

self-defence.[181-1]

[Footnote 180-2: Not, as Stow supposes, the author of the book on

the Constitutions of the Church of England, but probably a nephew

or other relation of his. The William Lynwoode who wrote upon the

Church Constitutions was Bishop of St. David’s, and died in 1446.]

[Footnote 181-1: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 81, 82.]

These earnest, solemn, and repeated expressions of loyalty have

scarcely, I think, received from historians the attention to which they

are entitled.[181-2] Of their sincerity, of course, men may form

different opinions; but it is right to note that the confederate lords

had done all that was in their power by three several and distinct

protests to induce the king to think more favourably of their

intentions. It is, moreover, to be observed that they remained at this

time in an attitude strictly defensive. But the king and his forces

still approaching, they drew themselves up in battle array at Ludford,

in the immediate vicinity of the town of Ludlow. Here, as they were

posted on Friday the 12th October, it would almost seem that the lords

were not without apprehension of the defection of some of their

followers. A report was spread through the camp that the king was

suddenly deceased, witnesses were brought in who swore to the fact, and

mass was said for the repose of his soul. But that very evening, Henry,

at the head of his army, arrived within half a mile of their position.

The state of the country, flooded by recent rains, had alone prevented

him from coming upon them sooner. Before nightfall a few volleys of

artillery were discharged against the royal army, and a regular

engagement was expected next day. But, meanwhile, the royal proclamation

of pardon seems to have had its effect. One Andrew Trollope, who had

come over with the Earl of Warwick from Calais, withdrew at dead of

night and carried over a considerable body of men to the service of the

king, to whom he communicated the secrets of the camp. The blow was

absolutely fatal. [Sidenote: The Yorkists disperse.] The lords at once

abandoned all thought of further resistance. Leaving their banners in

the field, they withdrew at midnight. York and his second son, Edmund,

Earl of Rutland, fled into Wales, from whence they sailed into Ireland.

His eldest, Edward, Earl of March, accompanied by the two other earls,

Warwick and Salisbury, and by Sir John Wenlock, made his way into

Devonshire. There by the friendly aid of one John Dynham, afterwards

Lord Dynham, and Lord High Treasurer to Henry VII., they bought a ship

at Exmouth and sailed to Guernsey. At last, on Friday the 2nd of

November, they landed at Calais, where they met with a most cordial

reception from the inhabitants.[182-1]

[Footnote 181-2: The Act of Attainder against the Yorkists most

untruly says, ‘they took no consideration’ of Garter’s message.

See _Rolls of Parliament_ above cited.]

[Footnote 182-1: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 348-9. Whethamstede,

459-62; Fabyan.]

[[a most cordial reception from the inhabitants.[182-1]

_footnote tag missing: supplied from 1st edition_]

[Sidenote: They are attainted.] Then followed in November the Parliament

of Coventry, and the attainder of the Duke of York and all his party.

The queen and her friends at last had it all their own way, at least in

England. It was otherwise doubtless in Ireland, where the Duke of York

remained for nearly a twelvemonth after his flight from Ludlow. It was

otherwise too at Calais, where Warwick was all-powerful, and whither

discontented Yorkists began to flock from England. It was otherwise,

moreover, at sea, where the same Warwick still retained the command of

the fleet, and could not be dispossessed, except on parchment. On

parchment, however, he was presently superseded in both of his important

offices. The Duke of Exeter was intrusted with the keeping of the sea,

which even at the time of the great reconciliation of parties he had

been displeased that Warwick was allowed to retain.[182-2] The young

Duke of Somerset was appointed Captain of Calais, but was unable to take

possession of his post. Accompanied by Lord Roos and Lord Audley, and

fortified by the king’s letters-patent, he crossed the sea, but was

refused admittance into the town. Apparently he had put off too long

before going over,[183-1] and he found the three earls in possession of

the place before him; so that he was obliged to land at a place called

Scales’ Cliff and go to Guisnes.[183-2] But a worse humiliation still

awaited him on landing; for of the very sailors that had brought him

over, a number conveyed their ships into Calais harbour, offered their

services to the Earl of Warwick, and placed in his hands as prisoners

certain persons who had taken part against him. They were shortly after

beheaded in Calais.[183-3]

[Footnote 182-2: W. Worc., 479.]

[Footnote 183-1: He received his appointment on the 9th October,

three days before the dispersion of the Yorkists at Ludlow (Rymer,

xi. 436), and, according to one authority (_Engl. Chron._, ed.

Davies, 84), he went over in the same month; but as all agree that

Warwick was there before him, it was more probably in the

beginning of November.]

[Footnote 183-2: _Chronicle_ in MS. Cott., Vitell. A. xvi.]

[Footnote 183-3: Fabyan.]

It would seem, in short, that ever since his great naval victory in

1458, Warwick was so highly popular with all the sailors of England,

that it was quite as hopeless for the Duke of Exeter to contest his

supremacy at sea as for Somerset to think of winning Calais out of his

hands. Friends still came flocking over from England to join the three

earls at Calais; [Sidenote: A.D. 1460.] and though in London in the

February following nine men were hanged, drawn, and beheaded for

attempting to do so,[183-4] the cause of the Yorkists remained as

popular as ever. In vain were letters written to foreign parts, ‘that no

relief be ministered to the traitor who kept Calais.’[183-5] In vain the

Duke of Somerset at Guisnes endeavoured to contest his right to the

government of that important town. All that Somerset could do was to

waste his strength in fruitless skirmishes, until on St. George’s Day he

suffered such a severe defeat and loss of men at Newnham Bridge, that he

was at length forced to abandon all idea of dispossessing the Earl of

Warwick.[183-6]

[Footnote 183-4: W. Worc., 478; _Three Fifteenth Century

Chronicles_, 73. One of them was named Roger Nevile, a lawyer of

the Temple, and probably a relation of the Earl of Warwick.]

[Footnote 183-5: Speed.]

[Footnote 183-6: W. Worc.]

Not only were the three earls secure in their position at Calais, but

there was every reason to believe that they had a large amount of

sympathy in Kent, and would meet with a very cordial reception whenever

they crossed the sea. To avert the danger of any such attempt, and also,

it would appear, with some design of reinforcing the Duke of Somerset at

Guisnes, Lord Rivers and his son Sir Anthony Wydevile were sent to

Sandwich about the beginning of the year, with a body of 400 men.

Besides the command of the town, they were commissioned to take

possession of certain ships which belonged to the Earl of Warwick, and

lay quietly at anchor in the harbour.[184-1] [Sidenote: Lord Rivers at

Sandwich.] But the issue of their exploit was such as to provoke

universal ridicule. ‘As to tidings here,’ wrote Botoner from London to

John Berney at Caister, ‘I send some offhand, written to you and others,

how the Lord Rivers, Sir Anthony his son, and others _have won Calais_

by a feeble assault at Sandwich made by John Denham, Esq., with the

number of 800 men, on Tuesday between four and five o’clock in the

morning.’[184-2]

[Footnote 184-1: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 84, 85; _Three Fifteenth

Century Chronicles_, 72.]

[Footnote 184-2: Letter 399.]

The exact mode in which Rivers and his son ‘won Calais’ seems to have

been described in a separate paper. The truth was that a small force

under the command of John Denham (or Dynham) was despatched across the

sea by Warwick, and landing at Sandwich during the night, contrived not

only to seize the ships in the harbour, but even to surprise the earl

and his son in their beds, and bring them over as prisoners to the other

side of the Channel.[184-3] The victors did not fail to turn the

incident to account by exhibiting as much contempt as possible for their

unfortunate prisoners. ‘My Lord Rivers,’ writes William Paston, ‘was

brought to Calais, and before the lords with eight score torches, and

there my lord of Salisbury rated him, calling him knave’s son, that he

should be so rude to call him and those other lords traitors; for they

should be found the king’s true liegemen when he should be found a

traitor. And my Lord of Warwick rated him and said that his father was

but a squire, and brought up with King Henry V., and since made himself

by marriage, and also made a lord; and that it was not his part to have

such language of lords, being of the king’s blood. And my Lord of March

rated him in like wise. And Sir Anthony was rated for his language of

all the three lords in like wise.’[185-1] It must have been a curious

reflection to the Earl of March when in after years, as King Edward IV.,

he married the daughter of this same Lord Rivers, that he had taken part

in this vituperation of his future father-in-law!

[Footnote 184-3: W. Worc. _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 85.]

[Footnote 185-1: Letter 400.]

By and by it became sufficiently evident that unless he was considerably

reinforced, the Duke of Somerset could do no good at Guisnes. Instead of

attempting to maintain a footing beside Calais, the queen’s Government

would have enough to do to keep the rebels out of England. The capture

of Rivers had excited the most serious alarm, and the landing of Warwick

himself upon the eastern coast was looked upon as not improbable.[185-2]

A new force of 500 men was accordingly sent to Sandwich under the

command of one Osbert Mountford or Mundeford,[185-3] an old officer of

Calais. His instructions were to go from Sandwich to Guisnes, either in

aid of the Duke of Somerset, as intimated in Worcester’s _Annals_, or,

according to another contemporary authority,[185-4] to bring him over to

England. But while he waited for a wind to sail, John Dynham again

crossed the sea, attacked the force under the command of Mundeford, and

after a little skirmishing, in which he himself was wounded, succeeded

in carrying him off to Calais, as he had before done Lord Rivers.

Mundeford’s treatment, however, was not so lenient as that of the more

noble captive. On the 25th of June he was beheaded at the Tower of

Rysebank, which stood near the town, on the opposite side of the

harbour.[185-5]

[Footnote 185-2: _See_ Appendix to Introduction.]

[Footnote 185-3: The writer of Letter 378. He was a connection of

the Paston family, having married Elizabeth, daughter of John

Berney, Esq., another of whose daughters, Margaret, was the mother

of Margaret Paston (Blomefield, ii. 182). He had been much engaged

in the king’s service in France, and had been treasurer of

Normandy before it was lost--a fact which may account for his

writing French in preference to English. _See_ Stevenson’s _Wars

of the English in France_, index.]

[Footnote 185-4: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 85.]

[Footnote 185-5: W. Worc., 479; Fabyan; Stow, 406-7.]

Meanwhile the Earl of Warwick did not remain at Calais. He scoured the

seas with his fleet and sailed into Ireland. Sir Baldwin Fulford,

a knight of Devonshire, promised the king, on pain of losing his head,

to destroy Warwick’s fleet; but having exhausted the sum of 1000 marks

which was allowed him for his expenses, he returned home without having

attained his object.[186-1] On the 16th of March, Warwick having met

with the Duke of York in Ireland, the two noblemen entered the harbour

of Waterford with a fleet of six-and-twenty ships well manned; and on

the following day, being St. Patrick’s Day, they landed and were

ceremoniously received by the mayor and burgesses.[186-2] Warwick seems

to have remained in Ireland more than two months, concerting with the

Duke of York plans for future action. About Whitsunday, which in this

year fell on the 1st of June, his fleet was observed by the Duke of

Exeter off the coast of Cornwall, on its return to Calais. Exeter’s

squadron was superior in strength, and an engagement might have been

expected; but the duke was not sure that he could trust his own sailors,

and he allowed the earl to pass unmolested.[186-3]

[Footnote 186-1: _English Chron._ (Davies), 85.]

[Footnote 186-2: Lambeth MS. 632, f. 255.]

[Footnote 186-3: _Chron._ (Davies), 85; W. Worc.]

[[allowed the earl to pass unmolested.[186-3]

_footnote tag missing: supplied from 1st edition_]]

[Sidenote: The Legate Coppini.] About this time there arrived at

Calais a papal nuncio, by name Francesco Coppini, Bishop of Terni,

returning from England to Rome. He had been sent by the new pope, Pius

II., the ablest that had for a long time filled the pontifical chair,

to urge Henry to send an ambassador to a congress at Mantua, in which

measures were to be concerted for the union and defence of Christendom

against the Turks. This was in the beginning of the preceding

year,[186-4] and, as he himself states, he remained nearly a year and

a half in England.[186-5] But the incapacity of the king, and the

dissensions that prevailed among the lords, rendered his mission a total

failure. Henry, indeed, who was never wanting in reverence for the Holy

See, named a certain number of bishops and lords to go upon this

mission, but they one and all refused. He accordingly sent two priests

of little name, with an informal commission to excuse a greater embassy.

England was thus discredited at the papal court, and the nuncio, finding

his mission fruitless, at last crossed the sea to return home. At

Calais, however, he was persuaded by Warwick to remain. The earl himself

was about to return to England, and if the legate would come back in his

company he might use the influence of his sacred office to heal the

wounds of a divided kingdom.[187-1]

[Footnote 186-4: His commission from the Pope is dated 7th January

1458[9]--Rymer, xi. 419.]

[Footnote 186-5: Brown’s _Venetian Calendar_, i. p. 91.]

[Footnote 187-1: Gobellinus, 161.]

The nuncio had doubtless seen enough of the deplorable condition of

England to be convinced that peace was impossible, so long as the lords

most fit to govern were banished and proclaimed rebels by the queen and

her favourites.[187-2] He was, moreover, furnished with powers, by

which--the main object of his mission being the union of Christendom--he

was authorised to make some efforts to compose the dissensions of

England.[187-3] But he certainly overstrained them, and allowed himself

to become a partisan. Flattered by the attentions shown him by Warwick,

he acceded to his suggestion, and when, on the 26th of June,[187-4] the

day after Mundeford was beheaded at Calais, the confederate lords

crossed the Channel, the nuncio was in their company, bearing the

standard of the Church. Archbishop Bourchier, too, met them at Sandwich,

where they landed, with a great multitude of people; and with his cross

borne before him, the Primate of England conducted the three earls and

their followers, who increased in number as they went along, until they

reached the capital. After a very brief opposition on the part of some

of the citizens, the city opened its gates to them. They entered London

on the 2nd of July.[187-5]

[Footnote 187-2: The Yorkists apparently were not sparing of

insinuations against the queen. It had been rumoured, according to

Fabyan, that the Prince of Wales was not really the king’s son;

but the worst that was insinuated was that he was a changeling.

But Warwick himself, according to Gobellinus, described the

situation to the nuncio as follows:--‘Rex noster stupidus est, et

mente captus; regitur, non regit; apud uxorem et qui regis

thalamum fœdant, imperium est.’]

[Footnote 187-3: _See_ the Pope’s letter to him in Theiner,

423-4.]

[Footnote 187-4: ‘The lords crossed the sea on Thursday,’ writes

Coppini from London on the 4th July.--Brown’s _Venetian Calendar_,

i. 90.]

[Footnote 187-5: _Engl. Chron._ (Davies), 94.]

[Sidenote: The Earls of March, Warwick, and Salisbury.] Before they

crossed the sea, the three earls had sent over a set of articles

addressed to the archbishop and the commons of England in the name of

themselves and the Duke of York, declaring how they had sued in vain to

be admitted to the king’s presence to set forth certain matters that

concerned the common weal of all the land. Foremost among these was the

oppression of the Church, a charge based, seemingly, on facts with which

we are unacquainted, and which, if known, might shed a clearer light

upon the conduct of the legate and Archbishop Bourchier. Secondly, they

complained of the crying evil that the king had given away to favourites

all the revenues of his crown, so that his household was supported by

acts of rapine and extortion on the part of his purveyors. Thirdly, the

laws were administered with great partiality, and justice was not to be

obtained. Grievous taxes, moreover, were levied upon the commons, while

the destroyers of the land were living upon the patrimony of the crown.

And now a heavier charge than ever was imposed upon the inhabitants; for

the king, borrowing an idea from the new system of military service in

France, had commanded every township to furnish at its own cost a

certain number of men for the royal army; ‘which imposition and

talliage,’ wrote the lords in this manifesto, ‘if it be continued to

their heirs and successors, will be the heaviest charge and worst

example that ever grew in England, and the foresaid subjects and the

said heirs and successors in such bondage as their ancestors were never

charged with.’[188-1]

[Footnote 188-1: It appears by Letter 377 that privy seals were

issued in 1459 addressed on the back to certain persons, requiring

them to be with the king at Leicester on the 10th of May, each

with a body of men sufficiently armed, and with provision for

their own expenses for two months. One of these privy seals,

signed by the king himself, was addressed specially to John

Paston’s eldest son, John, who at this time could not have been

more than nineteen years of age. On its arrival, his mother

consulted with neighbours whether it was indispensable to obey

such an injunction, and on their opinion that it was, wrote to her

husband for instructions.]

Besides these evils, the infatuated policy into which the king had been

led by his ill-advisers, threatened to lose Ireland and Calais to the

crown, as France had been lost already; for in the former country

letters had been sent under the Privy Seal to the chieftains who had

hitherto resisted the king’s authority, actually encouraging them to

attempt the conquest of the land, while in regard to Calais the king had

been induced to write letters to his enemies not to show that town any

favour, and thus had given them the greatest possible inducement to

attempt its capture. Meanwhile the Earls of Shrewsbury and Wiltshire and

Viscount Beaumont, who directed everything, kept the king himself, in

some things, from the exercise of his own free will, and had caused him

to assemble the Parliament of Coventry for the express purpose of

ruining the Duke of York and his friends, whose domains they had

everywhere pillaged and taken to their own use.[189-1]

[Footnote 189-1: The articles will be found in Holinshed, iii.

652-3; and in Davies’s _Chronicle_, 86-90.]

It was impossible, in the nature of things, that evils such as these

could be allowed to continue long, and the day of reckoning was now at

hand. Of the great events that followed, it will be sufficient here to

note the sequence in the briefest possible words. [Sidenote: The battle

of Northampton.] On the 10th July the king was taken prisoner at the

battle of Northampton, and was brought to London by the confederate

lords. The government, of course, came thus entirely into their hands.

Young George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, was made Chancellor of England,

Lord Bourchier was appointed Lord Treasurer, and a Parliament was

summoned to meet at Westminster for the purpose of reversing the

attainders passed in the Parliament of Coventry. Of the elections for

this Parliament we have some interesting notices in Letter 415, from

which we may see how the new turn in affairs had affected the politics

of the county of Norfolk. From the first it was feared that after the

three earls had got the king into their hands, the old intriguers,

Tuddenham and Heydon, would be busy to secure favour, or at all events

indulgence, from the party now in the ascendant. But letters-missive

were obtained from the three earls, directed to all mayors and other

officers in Norfolk, commanding in the king’s name that no one should do

them injury, and intimating that the earls did not mean to show them any

favour if any person proposed to sue them at law.[189-2] Heydon,

however, did not choose to remain in Norfolk. He was presently heard of

from Berkshire, for which county he had found interest to get himself

returned in the new Parliament.

[Footnote 189-2: No. 410.]

[Sidenote: John Paston in Parliament.] John Paston also was returned to

this Parliament as one of the representatives of his own county of

Norfolk. His sympathies were entirely with the new state of things. And

his friend and correspondent, Friar Brackley, who felt with him that the

wellbeing of the whole land depended entirely on the Earl of Warwick,

sent him exhortations out of Scripture to encourage him in the

performance of his political duties.[190-1] But what would be the effect

of the coming over from Ireland of the Duke of York, who had by this

time landed at Chester, and would now take the chief direction of

affairs?[190-2] Perhaps the chief fear was that he would be too

indulgent to political antagonists. Moreover, the Dowager Duchess of

Suffolk had contrived to marry her son to one of York’s daughters, and

it was apprehended her influence would be considerable. ‘The Lady of

Suffolk,’ wrote Friar Brackley to Paston, ‘hath sent up her son and his

wife to my Lord of York to ask grace for a sheriff the next year,

Stapleton, Boleyn, or Tyrell, _qui absit!_ God send you Poynings, W.

Paston, W. Rokewood, or Arblaster. Ye have much to do, Jesus speed you!

Ye have many good prayers, what of the convent, city, and

country.’[190-3]

[Footnote 190-1: Letter 415.]

[Footnote 190-2: Letter 419.]

[Footnote 190-3: Letter 415.]

Such was the state of hope, fear, and expectation which the new turn of

affairs awakened in some, and particularly in the friends of John

Paston. The next great move in the political game perhaps exceeded the

anticipations even of Friar Brackley. [Sidenote: York challenges the

Crown.] Yet though the step was undoubtedly a bold one, never, perhaps,

was a high course of action more strongly suggested by the results of

past experience. After ten miserable years of fluctuating policy, the

attainted Yorkists were now for the fourth time in possession of power;

but who could tell that they would not be a fourth time set aside and

proclaimed as traitors? For yet a fourth time since the fall of Suffolk,

England might be subjected to the odious rule of favourites under a

well-intentioned king, whose word was not to be relied on. To the

commonweal the prospect was serious enough; to the Duke of York and his

friends it was absolute and hopeless ruin. But York had now determined

what to do. On the 10th of October, the third day of the Parliament, he

came to Westminster with a body of 500 armed men, and took up quarters

for himself within the royal palace. On the 16th he entered the House of

Lords, and having sat down in the king’s throne, he delivered to the

Lord Chancellor a writing in which he distinctly claimed that he, and

not Henry, was by inheritance rightful king of England.[191-1]

[Footnote 191-1: W. Worc., 483; Fabyan; _Rolls of Parl._ v. 375.]

The reader is of course aware of the fact on which this claim was based,

namely, that York, through the female line, was descended from Lionel,

Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., while King Henry, his

father, and his grandfather had all derived their rights from John of

Gaunt, who was Lionel’s younger brother. Henry IV. indeed was an

undoubted usurper; but to set aside his family after they had been in

possession of the throne for three generations must have seemed a very

questionable proceeding. Very few of the lords at first appeared to

regard it with favour. The greater number stayed away from the

House.[191-2] But the duke’s counsel insisting upon an answer, the House

represented the matter to the king, desiring to know what he could

allege in opposition to the claim of York. The king, however, left the

lords to inquire into it themselves; and as it was one of the gravest

questions of law, the lords consulted the justices. But the justices

declined the responsibility of advising in a matter of so high a nature.

They were the king’s justices, and could not be of counsel where the

king himself was a party. The king’s serjeants and attorney were then

applied to, but were equally unwilling to commit themselves; so that the

lords themselves brought forward and discussed of their own accord a

number of objections to the Duke of York’s claim. At length it was

declared as the opinion of the whole body of the peers that his title

could not be defeated, but a compromise was suggested and mutually

agreed to that the king should be allowed to retain his crown for life,

the succession reverting to the duke and his heirs immediately after

Henry’s death.[191-3]

[Footnote 191-2: W. Worc., 484.]

[Footnote 191-3: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 375-9.]

So the matter was settled by a great and solemn act of state. But even a

parliamentary settlement, produced by a display of armed force, will

scarcely command the respect that it ought to do if there is armed force

to overthrow it. The king himself, it is true, appears to have been

treated with respect, and with no more abridgment of personal liberty

than was natural to the situation.[192-1] Nor could it be said that the

peers were insensible of the responsibility they incurred in a grave

constitutional crisis. But respect for constitutional safeguards had

been severely shaken, and no securities now could bridle the spirit of

faction: suspicion also of itself produced new dangers. The Duke of

York, after all the willingness he had shown in Parliament to accept a

compromise, seems to have been accused of violating the settlement as

soon as it was made; for on that very night on which it was arranged

(31st October), we are told by a contemporary writer that ‘the king

removed unto London against his will to the bishop’s palace, and the

Duke of York came unto him that same night by torchlight and took upon

him as king, and said in many places that “This is ours by

right.”’[192-2] Perhaps the facts looked worse than they were really;

for it had been agreed in Parliament, though not formally expressed in

the Accord, that the duke should be once more Protector and have the

actual government.[192-3] But it is not surprising that Margaret and her

friends would recognise nothing of what had been done in Parliament.

Since the battle of Northampton she had been separated from her husband.

She fled with her son first into Cheshire, afterwards into Wales, to

Harlech Castle, and then to Denbigh, which Jasper Tudor, Earl of

Pembroke, had just won for the House of Lancaster.[192-4] Her flight had

been attended with difficulties, especially near Malpas, where she was

robbed by a servant of her own, who met her and put her in fear of the

lives of herself and her child.[192-5] In Wales she was joined by the

Duke of Exeter, who was with her in October.[192-6] From thence she

sailed to Scotland, where the enemies of the Duke of York were specially

welcome. For James II., profiting, as might be expected, by the

dissensions of England, a month after the battle of Northampton, had

laid siege to Roxburgh, where he was killed by the bursting of a cannon.

Margaret, with her son, arrived at Dumfries in January 1461, and met his

widow, Mary of Gueldres, at Lincluden Abbey.[193-1] Meanwhile her

adherents in the North of England held a council at York, and the Earl

of Northumberland, with Lords Clifford, Dacres, and Nevill, ravaged the

lands of the duke and of the Earl of Salisbury. The duke on this

dissolved Parliament after obtaining from it powers to put down the

rebellion,[193-2] and marched northwards with the Earl of Salisbury. A

few days before Christmas they reached the duke’s castle of Sandal,

where they kept the festival, the enemy being not far off at

Pomfret.[193-3] On the 30th December was fought the disastrous battle of

Wakefield, [Sidenote: The battle of Wakefield.] when the Yorkists were

defeated, the duke and the Earl of Salisbury being slain in the field,

and the duke’s son, the Earl of Rutland, ruthlessly murdered by Lord

Clifford after the battle.

[Footnote 192-1: Though he was taken prisoner at the battle of

Northampton, and had ever since been in the power of the victors,

he does not appear to have been placed under any kind of

restraint. In October, before the Parliament met, he was spending

the time in hunting at Greenwich and Eltham.--No. 419.]

[Footnote 192-2: _Collections of a London Citizen_, 208 (Camden

Society).]

[Footnote 192-3: _English Chronicle_ (Davies), 106; Fabyan; Hall,

249.]

[Footnote 192-4: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 303.]

[Footnote 192-5: _Collections of a London Citizen_, 209.]

[Footnote 192-6: No. 419.]

[Footnote 193-1: _Auchinleck Chronicle_, 21. _Exchequer Rolls of

Scotland_, vii. 8, 39, 157.]

[Footnote 193-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 382.]

[Footnote 193-3: W. Worc., 484.]

The story of poor young Rutland’s butchery is graphically described by

an historian of the succeeding age who, though perhaps with some

inaccuracies of detail as to fact, is a witness to the strong impression

left by this beginning of barbarities. The account of it given by Hall,

the chronicler, is as follows:--

‘While this battle was in fighting, a priest called Sir Robert

Aspall, chaplain and schoolmaster to the young Earl of Rutland,

second son to the above-named Duke of York, scarce of the age of

twelve years [he was really in his eighteenth year], a fair

gentleman and a maiden-like person, perceiving that flight was more

safeguard than tarrying, both for him and his master, secretly

conveyed the Earl out of the field by the Lord Clifford’s band

towards the town. But or he could enter into a house, he was by the

said Lord Clifford espied, followed, and taken, and, by reason of

his apparel, demanded what he was. The young gentleman, dismayed,

had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees, imploring mercy

and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making

dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. “Save him,”

said his chaplain, “for he is a prince’s son, and peradventure may

do you good hereafter.” With that word, the Lord Clifford marked him

and said--“By God’s blood, thy father slew mine; and so will I do

thee and all thy kin”; and with that word stack the Earl to the

heart with his dagger, and bade his chaplain bear the Earl’s mother

word what he had done and said.’

Another illustration which the chronicler goes on to give of Clifford’s

bloodthirsty spirit may be true in fact, but is certainly wrong as

regards time. For he represents Queen Margaret as ‘not far from the

field’ when the battle had been fought, and says that Clifford having

caused the duke’s head to be cut off and crowned in derision with a

paper crown, presented the ghastly object to her upon a pole with the

words:--‘Madam, your war is done; here is your king’s ransom.’ Margaret,

as we have seen, was really in Scotland at the time, where she

negotiated an alliance with the Scots, to whom she agreed to deliver up

Berwick for aid to her husband’s cause. But soon afterwards she came to

York, where, at a council of war, she and her adherents determined to

march on London. So it may have been a fact that Clifford presented to

her the head of York upon a pole with the words recorded. But never was

prophecy more unhappy; for instead of the war being ended, or the king

being ransomed, there cannot be a doubt these deeds of wickedness

imparted a new ferocity to the strife and hastened on the termination of

Henry’s imbecile, unhappy reign. Within little more than two months

after the battle of Wakefield the son of the murdered Duke of York was

proclaimed king in London, by the title of Edward IV., and at the end of

the third month the bloody victory of Towton almost destroyed, for a

long time, the hopes of the House of Lancaster. From that day Henry led

a wretched existence, now as an exile, now as a prisoner, for eleven

unhappy years, saving only a few months’ interval, during which he was

made king again by the Earl of Warwick, without the reality of power,

and finally fell a victim, as was generally believed, to political

assassination. As for Margaret, she survived her husband, but she also

survived her son, and the cause for which she had fought with so much

pertinacity was lost to her for ever.

And now we must halt in our political survey. Henceforth, though public

affairs must still require attention, we shall scarcely require to

follow them with quite so great minuteness. We here take leave, for the

most part, of matters, both public and private, contained in the Letters

during the reign of Henry VI. But one event which affected greatly the

domestic history of the Pastons in the succeeding reign, must be

mentioned before we go further. It was not long after the commencement

of those later troubles--more precisely, it was on the 5th November

1459, six weeks after the battle of Bloreheath, and little more than

three after the dispersion of the Yorkists at Ludlow--that the aged Sir

John Fastolf breathed his last, within the walls of that castle which it

had been his pride to rear and to occupy in the place of his birth.

[Sidenote: Death of Sir John Fastolf.] By his will, of which, as will be

seen, no less than three different instruments were drawn up, he

bequeathed to John Paston and his chaplain, Sir Thomas Howes, all his

lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, for the purpose of

founding that college or religious community at Caister, on the erection

of which he had bestowed latterly so much thought. The manner in which

this bequest affected the fortunes of the Paston family has now to be

considered.

_Fastolf’s Lands_

Under the feudal system, as is well known, on the death of any tenant

_in capite_ of the crown, his lands were seized in the king’s name by an

officer called the escheator, until it was ascertained by a jury of the

county who was the next heir that should succeed to the property, and

whether the king had any right of wardship by reason of his being under

age. [Sidenote: A.D. 1459.] But when Sir John Fastolf died, he left no

heir, nor was he, strictly speaking, at his death a tenant _in capite_

of the crown. [Sidenote: The lands of Sir John Fastolf.] He had at

different times handed over all his landed property to trustees, who

were to hold it to his use so long as he lived, and to apply it after

his death to the purposes mentioned in his will. For the greater part of

his lands in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey, he had

appointed one body of trustees as early as the year 1449, ten years

before his death.[196-1] This body consisted of five bishops, including

the two primates, three lords, two justices of the King’s Bench, two

knights, and ten other persons. But of these original trustees a good

number were already dead, when, in the year 1457, a new trust was

created, and the greater part of the Norfolk and Suffolk property was

vested in the names of Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury,

William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, William Yelverton, Justice of

the King’s Bench, John Paston, Esq., Henry Fylongley, Esq., Thomas

Howes, clerk, and William Paston. In the preceding year he had already

created these same persons, with the addition of William Jenney, his

trustees for the manor of Titchwell, in Norfolk, and the same again,

with Jenney, but without Bishop Waynflete, for the manor of Beighton.

The trust-deed for the former manor was dated 1st April 34 Henry VI.,

and that for the latter 26th March 34 Henry VI.[196-2]

[Footnote 196-1: The deed is dated 7 July 27 Hen. VI., and

inrolled on the _Close Roll_, 29 Hen. VI. m., 39, _in dorso_.]

[Footnote 196-2: _Inquisition post mortem_, 38 and 39 Henry VI.,

No. 48.]

Thus it appears that as early as the month of March 1456, about a year

and a half after Sir John Fastolf had taken up his abode in Norfolk,

John Paston and his brother William were already named by him as

trustees for some of his property. [Sidenote: John and William Paston,

trustees.] From that time the influence of John Paston with the old

knight continued to increase till, as it was evident that the latter

drew near his end, it became a subject of jealousy and suspicion. Of

course, these feelings were not diminished when it was found after

Fastolf’s death that, subject only to the obligation of founding his

college at Caister, and paying 4000 marks to his other executors, he had

in effect bequeathed to John Paston the whole of his lands in the

counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Yet it does not appear that in

Fastolf’s latter days John Paston was about him more than usual. He was

just as frequently away in London as he had been in any previous

year.[197-1] But even when absent, he had a very staunch and hearty

friend in Friar Brackley, who frequently visited the sick chamber, and

took every opportunity to preserve and augment the high esteem that

Fastolf entertained for him. At the last Brackley wrote to urge him to

come down to Norfolk, as the patient evidently could not live much

longer. ‘It is high time; he draweth fast homeward, and is right low

brought, and sore weakened and feebled.’ Paston must bring with him a

draft petition to the king about the foundation of the college at

Caister, and an arrangement with the monks of St. Benet’s, for the dying

man’s satisfaction. ‘Every day this five days he saith, “God send me

soon my good cousin Paston, for I hold him a faithful man, and ever one

man.” _Cui ego_: “That is sooth,” &c. _Et ille_: “Show me not the meat,

show me the man.”’ Such is the curious report written by Dr. Brackley to

Paston himself of the anxiety with which the old knight expected him

shortly before his death.[197-2]

[Footnote 197-1: _See_ Nos. 376, 377, 379, 380, 383.]

[Footnote 197-2: No. 383.]

[Sidenote: William Worcester.] On the other hand, William Worcester, who

had so long acted as Fastolf’s private secretary, was perhaps a little

jealous at the closer intimacy and greater influence of Paston with his

master. At least, if this was not his feeling before Sir John Fastolf’s

death, he expressed it plainly shortly afterwards. It was, he

considered, owing to himself that John Paston had stood so high in

Fastolf’s favour;[197-3] and it seemed scarcely reasonable that Paston

should have the principal share in the administration of the property

while he, who had been so long in Fastolf’s service, so devoted to his

interests, and yet so ill rewarded during his master’s life, found no

kind of provision made for him in the will. It was, indeed, perfectly

true that Fastolf had named him one of his executors. But this

executorship, as it turned out, was not a thing likely to yield him

either profit or importance. For by the last will, made immediately

before the testator’s death, a body of ten executors was constituted, of

whom two were to have the sole and absolute administration, the others

having nothing whatever to do except when those two thought fit to ask

for their advice. The two acting executors were to be John Paston and

Thomas Howes. William Worcester was one of the other eight.[198-1]

[Footnote 197-3: No. 401.]

[Footnote 198-1: No. 387.]

Yet, at first, he refrained from expressing dissatisfaction, and showed

himself ready to co-operate with John Paston. Within a week after

Fastolf’s death, he accompanied William Paston up to London, and joined

him in an interview with Bishop Waynflete, at that time Lord Chancellor,

who was one of the other executors. In accordance with Bishop

Waynflete’s advice, he and William Paston proceeded to collect and

sequester the goods of the deceased in different parts of London until

the time that John Paston could have an interview with the bishop. They

managed to have goods out of the Abbey of Bermondsey that no one knew

about, except William Paston and Worcester themselves, and another man

named Plomer. In short, William Worcester acted at this time as a most

confidential and trusty friend to John Paston’s interests, being either

entirely ignorant how little provision was made for his own, or trusting

to Paston’s benevolence and sense of justice for that reward which was

not expressly ‘nominated in the bond.’ And William Paston felt his

claims so strongly that he could not help insinuating to his brother

that he was bound in honour to make him a provision for life. ‘I

understand by him,’ wrote William Paston, ‘he will never have other

master but his old master; and to my conceit it were pity but if he

should stand in such case by my master he should never need service,

considering how my master trusted him, and the long years that he hath

been with him in and many shrewd journeys for his sake.’[198-2]

[Footnote 198-2: Nos. 391, 393.]

But very shortly afterwards the manner in which Worcester spoke of

Paston revealed a bitter sense of disappointment and injustice. He

asserted that Fastolf had actually granted him a portion of land to live

upon, and that Sir Thomas Howes, Fastolf’s confessor, who was his wife’s

uncle, had been present in the chapel at Caister when this gift was

conceded. Worcester’s wife had in fact asked Sir Thomas to choose the

land. Nevertheless, when he came to demand of Paston that to which he

considered he had a lawful claim, the latter was displeased with him;

nor did the two come to a good understanding again during Paston’s

life.[199-1]

[Footnote 199-1: No. 401. It appears by a document inrolled in the

_Close Roll_ of 39 Henry VI., m. 13, _in dorso_, that Worcester on

the 28th August 1460 executed a deed making over all his goods and

chattels (_bona mea et catalla mobilia et immobilia, viva et

mortua, ubicumque et in quorumcumque manibus_), and all debts due

to him from whatever persons, to Henry Everyngham, Esq., Hugh

Fenne, gentleman, Henry Wyndesore, gentleman, Robert Toppes, jun.,

gentleman, and John Bokkyng, gentleman; which deed he acknowledged

in Chancery on the 1st September following (_see_ Appendix to this

Introduction). Apparently the object of this was to give others an

interest in vindicating what he supposed to be his rights.]

It was but nine days after Sir John Fastolf’s death, and three days

after his first interview with the chancellor, Bishop Waynflete, that

William Paston, in writing to his brother, expressed his intention of

going to the bishop again for writs of _diem clausit extremum_. These

writs were the ordinary authority under which the escheators of the

different counties wherein the deceased had held lands would proceed to

inquire what the manors were, and to whom they ought to descend.

[Sidenote: Claimants of Fastolf’s property.] That many pretenders would

lay claim to the different portions of those rich domains, John Paston

and his brother knew full well. The Duke of Exeter had already set up a

claim to Fastolf’s place in Southwark, on what grounds it is impossible

to say. Others, who had no hope of proving title to any part of the

property themselves, expected to win favour at court by offering to

establish the rights of the crown in all the goods and chattels. William

Paston accordingly endeavoured to secure the friendship of the Lord

Treasurer, James, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond; but though the earl gave

him fair words, William Paston was advised to put no trust in

him.[199-2] In point of fact, soon after Christmas, the earl entered Sir

John’s mansion in Southwark, and occupied it for a time as if it had

been his own dwelling-house.[199-3]

[Footnote 199-2: No. 391.]

[Footnote 199-3: W. Worcester’s _Annals_.]

The escheator of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk was Richard

Southwell, a friend of John Paston’s, and if the writs of _diem clausit

extremum_ had been issued at once, the latter doubtless hoped that the

rights of Fastolf’s trustees would have been immediately acknowledged by

two different juries, the one in Norfolk and the other in Suffolk. But

the efforts of William Paston were not crowned with such speedy success

as he and his brother could have wished. Already, on the 10th November,

writs of _diem clausit extremum_ had issued without his applying for

them, but they were only for the counties of Surrey and Essex, in which

John Paston was not interested. Special commissions to the same effect

for the counties of Wilts and Yorkshire were procured from the king at

Coventry eighteen days later. [Sidenote: A.D. 1460.] But for Norfolk and

Suffolk the writs were not issued till the 13th May in the following

year.[200-1] The delay was most probably owing to representations on the

part of Paston’s enemies; and to the same cause we may attribute the

fact that even after the writ was issued it was not acted on for five

months longer, so that nearly a whole year had elapsed since Sir John

Fastolf’s death before the Norfolk and Suffolk inquisitions were held.

But at length the opposition was overcome. ‘A great day’ was holden at

Acle before the under-sheriff and the under-escheator, in presence of

some of the most substantial gentlemen of Norfolk; ‘and the matter,’

wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘is well sped after your

intent.’[200-2]

[Footnote 200-1: _Inquis. post mortem_, 38 and 39 Henry VI., No.

48.]

[Footnote 200-2: No. 423.]

Already John Paston’s increased importance in his native county had come

to be acknowledged. He was at this time knight of the shire for Norfolk.

His wife was living at Hellesdon, on the Fastolf estates, two miles out

of Norwich; and the mayor and mayoress paid her the compliment of

sending thither their dinners and inviting themselves out to dine with

her. The mills at Hellesdon and the lands at Caister were let by his

agents, and apparently, in spite of his opponents, whoever they may have

been, he had succeeded in obtaining quiet possession of all Fastolf’s

lands in Norfolk.[200-3] Equally little resistance seems to have been

made to his claims in the county of Suffolk, where an inquisition was

taken at Bungay nine days after that which had been taken at Acle. In

each county the jury limited themselves to declaring the names of the

trustees in whose hands the property remained at Fastolf’s death, and

nothing was said about the will. A will, in itself, could convey no

title to lands, and the juries had nothing to do with it. But in both

counties John Paston, either as executor or as one of the trustees, was

allowed to assume at this time the entire control of the property.

[Footnote 200-3: _Ibid._]

But now came the renewal of civil war--the battle of Wakefield, soon

avenged by the proclamation of Edward IV. as king, and the bloody

victory of Towton. [Sidenote: A.D. 1461.] The kingdom was convulsed from

end to end, and there was little chance for doubtful titles and disputed

claims, except when supported by the strong arm of power. Long before

the time at which we have now arrived, [Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk.]

the Duke of Norfolk had set covetous eyes upon Sir John Fastolf’s

magnificent new castle of Caister, and he had spread a report in the

country that the owner had given it to him.[201-1] But it would seem

that Sir John himself had never entertained such an idea, and if ever in

conversation with the duke he had let fall something that might have

encouraged the hope, he had taken special care before his death to show

that it was unfounded. For the duke had visited Sir John in September

before he died, and had proposed to purchase of him the reversion of the

manor; but Sir John distinctly told him he had given it to Paston for

the purpose of founding a college.[201-2] Indeed, it is perfectly clear

that for years he had intended it to be turned into an abode of priests,

and not made a residence for any such powerful nobleman. And this

intention, which is apparent enough in several of the letters written

during his lifetime, was expressed in the most unambiguous language in

the document which John Paston declared to have been his last

will.[201-3] Indeed, if we believe John Paston’s testimony, interested

though it no doubt may be, it was chiefly from a fear that his executors

might sell the place, not, indeed, to the duke, of whom he seems at that

time to have ceased to entertain any apprehension, but to the Viscount

Beaumont, the Duke of Somerset, or the Earl of Warwick, that the old

knight determined to make Paston his principal executor.[201-4] So, ‘to

avoid that no lord, nor great estate, should inhabit in time coming

within the great mansion,’ he made a covenant with Paston by which the

latter was to have in fee-simple all his lands in the counties of

Norfolk and Suffolk, subject only to the payment of a sum of 4000 marks

and the duty of establishing in Caister Castle ‘a college of seven

religious men, monks, or secular priests, and seven poor folk, to pray

for his soul and the souls of his wife, his father, and mother, and

other that he was behold to, in perpetuity.’ And if in endeavouring to

carry out this object John Paston was interfered with by any one

attempting to obtain possession of the place by force, he was enjoined

to ‘pull down the said mansion, and every stone and stick thereof, and

do found three of the said seven priests or monks at St. Benet’s, and

one at Yarmouth, one at Attleborough, and one at St. Olave’s Church at

Southwark.’[202-1]

[Footnote 201-1: No. 222 (in vol. ii.).]

[Footnote 201-2: No. 543.]

[Footnote 201-3: No. 385.]

[Footnote 201-4: No. 390.]

[Footnote 202-1: No. 386.]

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the Duke of Norfolk, within three months

after the accession of Edward IV., and little more than a year and a

half after Sir John Fastolf’s death,[202-2] had certainly taken

possession of the great mansion of Caister. The confusion of the time

undoubtedly favoured the act, and redress might well have been a

troublesome matter, as the Duke of Norfolk was a nobleman whom perhaps

even the king would not care to displease. But Edward was a king who,

with many faults, was most honourably anxious from the first to do

justice even to the meanest of his subjects.[202-3] Paston repaired to

the royal presence, and obtained letters from the king to the duke,

which his servant, Richard Calle, conveyed to Framlingham. They were

delivered to his lordship at the lodge of his demesne, but the messenger

was not admitted to his presence. The duke, however, wrote an answer to

the king, promising shortly to repair to Court, when he offered to prove

that some of the statements in Paston’s letters were erroneous, and that

he himself was the person who had the best claim to the manor. It

appears there was one other claimant besides, viz. Thomas Fastolf of

Cowhaw; but he, not expecting to make his title good against Paston

himself, and having need of a powerful friend in some other matters,

gave up his claim to the duke, and brought documents to justify the

latter in taking possession by the right derived from him.[203-1]

[Footnote 202-2: He had probably done so before by authority of

Henry VI., for in the beginning of 1460 Friar Brackley writes: ‘A

man of my Lord Norfolk told me here he came from London, and there

he had commonly voiced that the Duke of Norfolk should, by the

king’s commandment, keep his Easter at Caister for safeguard of

the country against Warwick and other such of the king’s

enemies.’--Vol. iii. p. 212.]

[[iii. 212 = second-to-last paragraph of letter 403]]

[Footnote 202-3: Edward’s reply to another suit preferred by John

Paston this same year is an excellent example of this spirit of

impartiality. John Paston’s eldest son writes to his father as

follows, touching an interview he had had with the Lord Treasurer,

the Earl of Essex: ‘And now of late I, remembering him of the same

matter, inquired if he had moved the king’s highness therein. And

he answered me that he had felt and moved the king therein,

rehearsing the king’s answer therein: how that when he had moved

the king in the said manor of Dedham, beseeching him to be your

good lord therein, considering the service and true part that ye

have done and ought to him, and in especial the right that ye have

thereto, he said he would be your good lord therein, as he would

to the poorest man in England. He would hold with you in your

right; and as for favour, he will not be understood that he shall

show favour more to one man than to another, not to one in

England.’]

[Footnote 203-1: Nos. 458, 465.]

In the end, however, Paston’s appeal to the king must have been

successful. Caister was certainly restored to him, and in all

probability it was restored within a month or two before the Duke of

Norfolk’s death, which occurred that same year, in the beginning of

November.[203-2]

[Footnote 203-2: This perhaps may be a reason for supposing Letter

630 to have been written in the year 1461, notwithstanding the

difficulty mentioned in the preliminary note.]

_The Beginning of Edward IV.’s Reign_

But notwithstanding the even-handed justice of the king, the times were

wild and unsettled. The revolution by which Henry was deposed was not a

thing calculated to bring sudden peace and quiet. [Sidenote: Troubled

times.] On the Patent Rolls of this year we have innumerable evidences

of the state of alarm, confusion, and tumult which prevailed

continuously for at least a twelvemonth over the whole

kingdom. Commissions of array,[203-3] commissions to put down

insurrections,[203-4] and to punish outrages,[203-5] to arrest

seditious persons,[203-6] to resist the king’s enemies at sea,[203-7]

or to prepare beacons on the coast to give warning of apprehended

invasion,[204-1] are continually met with. Our Letters also tell the

same tale. Margaret Paston writes at one time about ‘Will. Lynys that

was with Master Fastolf, and such other as he is with him,’ who went

about the country accusing men of being Scots, and only letting them go

on payment of considerable bribes. ‘He took last week the parson of

Freton, and but for my cousin Jerningham the younger, there would have

led him forth with him; and he told them plainly, if they made any such

doings there, unless they had the letter to show for them, they should

have laid on[204-2] on their bodies.’[204-3] A still more flagrant

instance of lawlessness had occurred just before, of which our old

acquaintance Thomas Denys was the victim. [Sidenote: Thomas Denys.] He

was at this time coroner of Norfolk. If not in Edward IV.’s service

before he was king, he became a member of the royal household

immediately afterwards, and accompanied the new king to York before his

coronation. It appears that he had some complaints to make to the king

of one Twyer, in Norfolk, and also of Sir John Howard, the sheriff of

the county, a relation of the Duke of Norfolk, of whom we have already

spoken,[204-4] and shall have more to say presently. But scarcely had he

returned home when he was pulled out of his house by the parson of

Snoring, a friend of Twyer’s, who accused him of having procured

indictments against Twyer and himself, and carried him off, we are not

told whither.[204-5] All we know is that in the beginning of July Thomas

Denys was murdered, and that there were various reports as to who had

instigated the crime. William Lomner believed that some men of the Duke

of Norfolk’s council were implicated. Sir Miles Stapleton factiously

endeavoured to lay the blame on John Berney of Witchingham. The parson

of Snoring was put in the stocks, with four of his associates, but what

further punishment they underwent does not appear. John Paston was

entreated to use his influence to get them tried by a special

commission.[204-6] The most precise account of the crime is found in the

records of the King’s Bench, which give us the date and place where it

occurred. One Robert Grey of Warham, labourer, was indicted for having,

along with others, attacked Denys on Thursday the 2nd July, and dragged

him from his house at Gately to Egmere, not far from Walsingham, where

they killed him on the Saturday following.

[Footnote 203-3: _Patent Roll_, 1 Edward IV. p. 1, m. 18 _d._,

dated March 16; and m. 19 _d._, dated May 10; p. 4, m. 22 _d._,

February 24 and March 1 (1462); also p. 2, m. 12 _d._ (against the

Scots), Nov. 13.]

[Footnote 203-4: _Ib._ p. 1, m. 27 _d._, March 28, and p. 3, m. 3

_d._, July 8.]

[Footnote 203-5: _Ib._ p. 2, m. 10 _d._, Aug. 17.]

[Footnote 203-6: _Ib._ p. 2, m. 12 _d._, Nov. 4; and p. 4, m. 22

_d._, Feb. 28 (1462).]

[Footnote 203-7: _Ib._ p. 3, m. 3 _d._, July 12.]

[Footnote 204-1: _Ib._ p. 3, m. 3 _d._ and 27 _d._, Aug. 6 and 12;

also m. 8 _d._, Jan. 29.]

[Footnote 204-2: Such, I think, must be the meaning intended. The

expression in the original is, ‘they shuld aley (_qu._ should a’

laid?) on her bodyys.’]

[Footnote 204-3: No. 469.]

[Footnote 204-4: _See_ p. 164.]

[Footnote 204-5: Nos. 455, 463.]

[Footnote 204-6: No. 472.]

Elizabeth Poynings, too, John Paston’s sister, has some experience of

the bitterness of the times. She has by this time become a widow, having

lost her husband at the second battle of St. Albans, and her lands are

occupied by the Countess of Northumberland and Robert Fenys, in

disregard of her rights.[205-1] In times of revolution and tumult the

weak must go to the wall.

[Footnote 205-1: No. 461.]

Besides these illustrations of the social condition of the times, our

Letters still abound with information not to be found elsewhere as to

the chief political events. [Sidenote: Political events.] Here we have

the record of the battle of Towton, of those who fell, and of those who

were wounded;[205-2] after which we find Henry VI. shut up in Yorkshire,

in a place the name of which is doubtful.[205-3] Then we hear of the

beheading of the Earl of Wiltshire, and of his head being placed on

London Bridge.[205-4] Then come matters relating to the coronation of

Edward IV., which was delayed on account of the siege of

Carlisle.[205-5] On this occasion, it seems, John Paston was to have

received the honour of knighthood,[205-6] which he doubtless declined,

having already compounded with Henry VI. not to be made a knight.[205-7]

Two years later, however, his eldest son was made one, very probably as

a substitute for himself, apparently just at the time when he attained

the age of twenty-one.[205-8] To the father such an honour would

evidently have been a burden rather than a satisfaction.

[Footnote 205-2: No. 450.]

[Footnote 205-3: No. 451.]

[Footnote 205-4: Nos. 451, 452.]

[Footnote 205-5: No. 457.]

[Footnote 205-6: Nos. 457, 460.]

[Footnote 205-7: No. 373.]

[Footnote 205-8: Sir John Paston must have been born in 1442. At

the inquisition taken in October 1466, after his father’s death,

he was found to be twenty-four years old and more.]

But on the whole John Paston stood well with his countrymen, and the

change of kings was an event from which he had no reason to anticipate

bad consequences to himself. Since the death of Sir John Fastolf he had

become a man of much greater importance, and he had been returned to

Parliament in the last year of Henry VI. as a supporter of the Duke of

York. He was now, in the first year of Edward IV., returned to

Parliament again. [Sidenote: John Paston returned to Parliament.] He was

apparently in good favour with the king, and had been since the

accession of Edward for a short time resident in his household.[206-1]

The king also obtained from him the redelivery of the jewels pawned by

his father, the Duke of York, to Sir John Fastolf,[206-2] in

consideration of which he granted John Paston an assignment of 700

marks[206-3] on the fee-farm of the city of Norwich, and on the issues

of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. But his election as knight of

the shire for Norfolk did not pass altogether without question. Paston’s

wife’s cousin, John Berney of Witchingham, whom Sir Miles Stapleton

accused of being implicated in the murder of Denys, had taken a leading

part in the proceedings, and Stapleton alleged that he was meditating

further outrages. The people had appeared ‘jacked and saletted’ at the

shire house, the under-sheriff was put in suspicion of Berney, and the

sheriff, Sir John Howard, conceived it would be necessary to have a new

election. To this neither Berney nor Paston very much objected. Berney

was willing to give every assurance that he would do the under-sheriff

no bodily hurt, but he considered his conduct that at the election had

not been creditable, and he desired that he would either intimate to the

people that the election should stand, or procure a new writ, and

publicly announce the day on which another election should be holden. As

for Paston, he was perfectly satisfied, provided that he were not put to

further expense, as he believed it was the general desire of the people

to ratify what they had done; he only wished that it might be on a

holiday, so as not to interfere with the people’s work. The matter was

discussed before the king himself, John Paston and the under-sheriff

being present, each to answer for his part in the affair, and a writ was

finally granted for a new election on St. Laurence’s Day. But from what

he had seen of the conduct of the under-sheriff, Paston seems to have

been afraid the day might yet be changed, to his prejudice; so, in a

personal interview with that functionary, he got him to place the writ

in his hands, and sent it down to his wife to keep until the new day of

election came round, charging her to see that the under-sheriff had it

again that day.[207-1]

[Footnote 206-1: No. 459.]

[Footnote 206-2: No. 473. Compare No. 223. It is striking that,

notwithstanding his large possessions in land, the Duke of York

should have been unable for eight years to redeem these jewels.]

[Footnote 206-3: This was less than the sum (£487) for which the

jewels were pledged, and yet it was the whole compensation granted

both for the jewels and for a bond of 100 marks given by the Duke

of York to Fastolf, which Paston also surrendered.]

[Footnote 207-1: Nos. 466-8, 471, 475.]

[[but he considered his conduct that at the election

_text unchanged: 1st edition has same word order_]]

His suspicions of unfair dealing were probably too well founded. At all

events, the new election did not pass over peacefully any more than the

previous one, perhaps not so much so. We do not, indeed, hear any more

of John Berney and Sir Miles Stapleton; [Sidenote: John Paston and Sir

John Howard.] but the sheriff, Sir John Howard, had a violent

altercation with Paston himself in the shire house, and one of Howard’s

men struck Paston twice with a dagger, so that he would have been

severely wounded but for the protection of a good doublet that he wore

on the occasion.[207-2]

[Footnote 207-2: Nos. 477, 478.]

The occurrence was an awkward one. The feuds in the county of Norfolk

had already occupied the king’s attention once, and that which it was

supposed would have been a settlement had proved no settlement at all.

Perhaps Edward had been too lenient towards old offenders; for Sir Miles

Stapleton was but an ally of Sir Thomas Tuddenham and John Heydon, of

whom we have heard so much in the days of Henry VI., and these two

personages were almost as influential as ever. Some time before the

king’s coronation, they had received a royal pardon, on the strength of

which, as we learn by a letter at that time, they intended going up to

London with the Duchess of Suffolk to be present at the ceremony.[207-3]

And very soon afterwards we have a renewal of the old complaints that

‘the world was right wild, and had been sithence Heydon’s safeguard was

proclaimed at Walsingham.’[207-4] But whoever was in fault, it was a

serious thing for John Paston--who by this time hoped that he was in

favour with the king, and had actually got his eldest son introduced

into the king’s household[208-1]--that royal influence itself could not

still the angry feelings that had arisen about his election. The dispute

must now once more come before the king, and his adversary, in

consequence of his relation to the Duke of Norfolk, was doubtless a man

of considerable influence. Paston himself, it is true, was in the

position of the injured party, but he forbore to complain. The subject,

however, was brought by others under the notice of the king, who

commanded both Paston and Howard to appear before him, and was even

incensed at the former for delaying to obey his summons. On the 11th of

October the king said to one of John Paston’s friends: ‘We have sent two

privy seals to Paston by two yeomen of our chamber, and he disobeyeth

them; but we will send him another to-morrow, and, by God’s mercy, if he

come not then, he shall die for it. We will make all other men beware by

him how they shall disobey our writing. A servant of ours hath made a

complaint of him. I cannot think that he hath informed us all truly. Yet

not for that we will not suffer him to disobey our writing; but sithence

he disobeyeth our writing, we may believe the better his guiding is as

we be informed.’[208-2]

[Footnote 207-3: No. 458.]

[Footnote 207-4: No. 465.]

[Footnote 208-1: Nos. 477, 478.]

[Footnote 208-2: No. 484.]

[[Footnote 208-1: Nos. 477, 478.

_text reads “No.”_]]

These terrible words were reported to John Paston by his brother

Clement, then in London, who urged him to come up from Norfolk in all

possible haste, and to be sure that he had some very weighty excuse for

having neglected the previous messages. But besides great despatch in

coming, and a very weighty excuse, one thing more was very necessary to

be attended to, and this further admonition was added: ‘Also, if ye do

well, come right strong; for Howard’s wife made her boast that if any of

her husband’s men might come to you, there should go no penny for your

life, and Howard hath with the king a great fellowship.’[208-3]

[Footnote 208-3: _Ibid._]

It was clear this advice was not to be neglected. Paston seems to have

been detained in Norfolk by a dispute he had with his co-executors Judge

Yelverton[209-1] and William Jenney, who refused to acknowledge his

claims as chief administrator of Fastolf’s will, and had entered on the

possession of some of Sir John’s manors in Suffolk, near the borders of

Norfolk.[209-2] But his absence from London had done great mischief. Not

only Howard, but the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were endeavouring to

put him out of the king’s favour; and it was said that Caister would be

given to the king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.[209-3] Worst

of all, however, was the fact that the king, who had evidently had a

good opinion of Paston hitherto, was beginning to alter his tone so

seriously. [Sidenote: John Paston imprisoned.] No time, therefore, was

to be lost in going up to London, and no marvel though, when he got

there, he was immediately committed to the Fleet.[209-4]

[Footnote 209-1: I have already indicated my belief that Judge

Yelverton was the real person nicknamed Colinus Gallicus in Friar

Brackley’s letters. It is quite clear by No. 404 (one of the

letters found after the text of Mr. Arber’s edition had passed

through the press) that Colinus Gallicus not only could not have

been Worcester, but that he was a man of some social standing on

familiar terms with the Earl of Wiltshire. This, and the fact that

he was one of Fastolf’s executors, seem to prove his identity. It

is a satisfaction to find that, though Brackley did not love

William Worcester, the bitter words in No. 383 were not levelled

at him. Thus he wrote while Sir John Fastolf was on his deathbed:

‘Colinus Gallicus says in Yarmouth and other places that he is an

executor. He said also yesterday before several persons, if once

he were in London, he wishes never to see Norfolk. He says also,

whereas the executors think they will have keys, after the death

others will have keys as well as they. He is a very deceitful man

(_falsissimus_). . . . That same Gallicus intensely hates the

rector (Howes), and would like to supplant him.’]

[Footnote 209-2: No. 481.]

[Footnote 209-3: Nos. 482, 484.]

[Footnote 209-4: No. 488.]

John Paston’s enemies, acting in several ways, had now done their worst.

While the news of his dispute with Howard was reported to the king in

the most unfavourable terms, Judge Yelverton (he had been made Sir

William Yelverton at the coronation)[209-5] and William Jenney entered

Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Cotton in Suffolk, [Sidenote: Manor of

Cotton.] and distrained upon the tenants for rent. John Paston’s

faithful servant, Richard Calle, at first interrupted their proceedings,

and when Jenney went to hold a court at Cotton, entered the place before

he came, along with Paston’s eldest son. By Calle’s activity and

watchfulness the court was holden in Paston’s name, although it had been

summoned in Jenney’s; and young John Paston next day, to requite the

enemy for the trouble they had occasioned, took with him thirty men, and

rode to Jenney’s place, where he carried off thirty-six head of neat,

and brought them into Norfolk. This was a bold exploit, for the enemy

had threatened to drag him and Calle out of the place by violence; but

Calle still remained, and twelve men with him, and kept possession for

five whole days, during which time he visited the farmers and tenants of

the manor, and ascertained that they were all well disposed towards

Paston, and would pay no money to any one else. But, unfortunately, just

at this point came the summons to Paston which he did not dare to

disobey; and his opponents knew how to profit by his absence and

imprisonment in London. Yelverton and Jenney did not re-enter the manor

themselves; but Jenney sold his interest in it to one Gilbert Debenham,

who intended to give it to his son, Sir Gilbert, for a dwelling-house.

Accordingly, by the encouragement of Jenney and Debenham, a body of

unknown men took possession of the place, and garrisoned it against all

comers as strongly as they could. They broke down the drawbridge over

the moat, so that no one could enter the place except by means of a

ladder. They melted lead, and damaged the property in various ways,

while John Paston was a prisoner in the Fleet. At the same time

Yelverton and Jenney took proceedings against Richard Calle. They

succeeded in getting him imprisoned upon an indictment for felony in

Norfolk; and, fearing lest he should be acquitted upon that charge, they

‘certified insurrections’ against him in the King’s Bench, and sent the

sheriff a writ to bring him up to London in the beginning of

November.[210-1]

[Footnote 209-5: No. 457.]

[Footnote 210-1: Nos. 485-487.]

[Sidenote: John Paston released from prison.] But before the day that

Richard Calle was to appear in the King’s Bench John Paston was

delivered from the Fleet, and his adversary Howard was sent to prison in

his place. The whole circumstances of the controversy had been laid

before the king, and Paston was released after about a fortnight’s

imprisonment. The news that he had got into trouble had excited much

sympathy in Norwich, for he was highly popular, and Howard’s attempt to

set aside his election met with very little approbation. Margaret

Paston, especially, was sad and downcast at home, and though her husband

had sent her comfortable messages and letters showing that his case was

not so bad as it appeared to be, ‘yet I could not be merry,’ she wrote

to him, ‘till this day that the Mayor sent to me, and sent me word that

he had knowledge for very truth that ye were delivered out of the

Fleet.’[211-1]

[Footnote 211-1: No. 488.]

The king was much interested in the dispute, and was laudably determined

to insist upon justice and fair dealing. He appointed Sir Thomas

Montgomery, one of the knights of his own household, in whom he had

special confidence, sheriff of Norfolk for the ensuing year. And when

Sir Thomas went down into Norfolk, he sent Sir William Yelverton along

with him, who, though not very favourably disposed towards Paston, was

still one of the justices, and bound to be impartial. Edward gave them

both a very explicit message from his own mouth to declare to the people

in the shire house, and Yelverton was made the spokesman. [Sidenote:

Message from the king to the people of Norfolk.] He said the king had

been greatly displeased to hear that there had been ‘a riotous

fellowship’ in the county, but that he understood it was not owing to

disaffection on the part of the people generally--that it had been

stirred up only by two or three evil-disposed persons--that he and the

sheriff were there by the king’s command, ready to receive complaints

from any man against any one whomsoever--and that if they could not

prevail upon the wrongdoer to make restitution, the bills should be sent

to the king; moreover, that if any man was afraid to set forth his

grievances, he should have full protection. At this point Yelverton

asked the sheriff if he remembered anything more in the king’s message,

and requested him in that case to declare it himself. The sheriff said

Sir William had set forth everything, except that the king had made

special reference to two persons, Sir Thomas Tuddenham and Heydon. ‘Ah,

that is truth,’ said Yelverton; and he explained that any one who wished

to complain of them should be protected also. The sheriff then added a

few words for his part, in which he promised faithfully before all the

people, ‘and swore by great oaths,’ that neither by fear nor by favour

would he be restrained from communicating to the king the truth as he

found it to be.[212-1]

[Footnote 212-1: Nos. 497, 500.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1462.] All this was reassuring; but yet it was remarked

that John Paston did not come home again into Norfolk, and neither did

his colleague in the representation of the county, John Berney of

Witchingham. This alone caused Margaret Paston still to entertain

apprehensions for her husband’s safety, and her suspicions were shared

by many, who feared that they and Paston alike were involved in some new

charges of sedition. Busybodies, it was thought, had been insinuating to

the king that a very rebellious spirit prevailed in Norfolk, and report

said that the Dukes of Clarence and Suffolk would come down with certain

judges commissioned to try such persons as were ‘noised riotous.’ The

rumour scarcely tended to pacify discontent. If it were true, people

said they might as well go up to the king in a body to complain of those

who had done them wrong, and not wait quietly to be hanged at their own

doors. The Duke of Suffolk and his mother were the maintainers of those

who oppressed the country most, and nothing but severity could be

expected from a commission of which the duke was a member, unless his

influence were counteracted by that of more popular persons.[212-2]

These misgivings, however, were happily soon after set at rest. The

election of John Paston was confirmed, and no such dreaded commission

appears to have been sent into Norfolk. ‘The people of that country,’

wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘be right glad that the day went

with you on Monday as it did. You were never so welcome into Norfolk as

ye shall be when ye come home, I trow.’[212-3] Paston, in fact, appears

to have gained a complete triumph over his adversaries, and it was said

that Howard was likely to lose his head.[212-4]

[Footnote 212-2: No. 504.]

[Footnote 212-3: No. 505.]

[Footnote 212-4: No. 510.]

But the dispute with Yelverton and Jenney was still unsettled. Writs

were sent down into Norfolk to attach John Paston’s eldest son and

Richard Calle upon indictments of trespass, and Debenham threatened to

hold a court at Calcot in defiance of Paston’s agents.[212-5] It is

evident, too, that he made good his word, and John Paston in consequence

got his tenants to bring actions against him.[213-1] Cross pleas between

the parties occupied the courts at Westminster for a year or more,

during which time we find it suggested to John Paston that he would

never get leave to live in peace, unless he could by some means obtain

‘the good lordship’ of the Duke of Suffolk.[213-2] Appeals to law and

justice were all very well, and no one fought his battle in the courts

with more unflinching energy than Paston; but unless he wished to be

always fighting, the best way for him was to obtain the favour of the

great.

[Footnote 212-5: No. 538.]

[Footnote 213-1: No. 540.]

[Footnote 213-2: No. 544.]

It is a question, indeed, whether in this eternal turmoil of litigation

at Westminster, and watch to keep out intruders in his Suffolk manors,

John Paston had not to some extent neglected his duty to his children at

home. Such, at least, was the world’s opinion, and there were candid

friends who did not hesitate to tell him so. [Sidenote: Sir John

Paston.] His eldest son now attained the age of twenty-one, and received

the dignity of knighthood--probably, as we have before suggested, as a

substitute for himself. [Sidenote: A.D. 1463.] The young man had been

summoned four years before to attend and do military service to King

Henry VI.[213-3] He had since been for some little time a member of King

Edward’s household, travelling about with the court from place to

place.[213-4] But he had scarcely seen the usual amount of service, and

though now of full age, and known as Sir John Paston, knight, he was

living again under his father’s roof, wasting his time, as it was

considered, in inglorious ease. ‘At reverence of God, take heed,’ wrote

some one to his father, ‘for I hear much talking thereof. . . . Some say

that he and ye stand both out of the king’s good grace, and some say

that ye keep him at home for niggardship, and will nothing spend upon

him; and so each man says his advice as it pleases him to talk. And I

have inquired and said the most cause is in party for cause ye are so

much out, that he is rather at home for the safeguard of the

coasts.’[213-5]

[Footnote 213-3: No. 377.]

[Footnote 213-4: Nos. 477, 478, 511.]

[Footnote 213-5: No. 550.]

The protection of the coast, especially about Yarmouth, might well be an

object in which John Paston was specially concerned, for close to

Yarmouth lay Caister Castle. And he had actually procured a commission

for his son to be captain of a ship in the king’s service, called the

_Barge of Yarmouth_. But here again he was brought into collision with

Gilbert Debenham, who had already procured a commission to the same

effect for himself, and this field of usefulness seems to have been cut

off.[214-1] Confinement at home, to superintend his father’s servants,

did not suit the young man’s tastes. Once before he had displeased his

father, probably by seeking too much liberty.[214-2] He now not only

sought it, but took it without leave. [Sidenote: He leaves home.]

Without signifying his intention to any one, he stole away from Caister,

apparently with the view of joining himself again to the king’s

household. In passing by Lynn, he wrote a penitent letter to his mother,

expressing his fear that he had done wrong, and given her uneasiness.

And, in truth, she was by no means pleased; for hitherto in their little

disagreements she had stood between him and his father, and now her own

past efforts at conciliation caused his father to suspect that she had

been privy to his escape. If on any occasion Margaret Paston ever

deceived her husband, it must have been for the sake of shielding one of

her sons; but we are not warranted in believing even this. The

imputation in this instance was certainly untrue; but so great was the

offence taken by the father, that she durst not even let him know that

she had received a letter from her son since his departure. She,

however, wrote to the runaway, and charged him, as he valued her

blessing, to do all in his power to recover his father’s goodwill. He

must write to his offended parent again and again in the most humble

terms he could think of, giving him all the news from court, and taking

far more pains than he had done at home to avoid incurring

expenses.[214-3]

[Footnote 214-1: Nos. 521-3.]

[Footnote 214-2: Nos. 375, 377.]

[Footnote 214-3: No. 552.]

[Sidenote: John Paston the youngest.] For his second son John’s setting

out in life, the father had made better provision than for his eldest.

He had succeeded in getting him placed in the household of the new Duke

of Norfolk, the last of the Mowbrays, who succeeded his father towards

the close of the year 1461, the first year of King Edward’s reign. It

was the preceding duke who had occupied Caister just before the

coronation; but he died on the 6th November following, at the beginning

of Edward’s first Parliament, when his son and heir had just attained

the age of seventeen.[215-1] John Paston the father evidently hoped to

have the young duke for his friend, and so to maintain himself in

undisturbed possession of the lands which he claimed under Sir John

Fastolf’s will. His son must have been as nearly as possible of the same

age as the young nobleman, in whose service he was placed, and he was

soon made familiar with the stir and bustle of life. At first he went

down with the duke to his castle of Holt, in Wales, where he expected to

keep his Christmas. The young duke, who was already married, being

desired by the king to repair thither for the quiet of the country, had

left his wife behind him, but after a while proposed to send for her to

keep Christmas in Wales along with him. This intention, however, he was

compelled to abandon. At that very time Queen Margaret had come out of

France, and had won the castle of Bamborough: [Sidenote: Bamborough

Castle taken by Margaret of Anjou.] and though Warwick was sent to the

north as the king’s lieutenant, and the king himself was following with

an army of his own, it was shortly afterwards determined that the Duke

of Norfolk also should repair into Northumberland. [Sidenote: A.D. 1462.

Oct.] The castles of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamborough were

invested by the royal forces; but it was fully expected the Scots would

make a strong attempt to rescue them. The Earl of Warwick’s headquarters

were at Warkworth, three miles out of Alnwick, but he rode daily to each

of the three castles to superintend the siege operations at each. The

Duke of Norfolk had the task assigned him to conduct the victuals and

ordnance from Newcastle. The king himself lay at Durham; and young John

Paston had an opportunity of making acquaintance with a number of

influential persons, including the Lord Hastings and Lord Dacres, who

had continual access to the presence of their sovereign. Altogether,

John Paston the youngest had certainly begun the world well.[215-2]

[Footnote 215-1: Fabyan. _Inquisition p. m._, 1 Edward IV., No.

46.]

[Footnote 215-2: Nos. 532, 533.]

Of the other children of John and Margaret Paston it is unnecessary to

say anything at present. At the time of which we now treat there was

hardly one of them far advanced beyond childhood; nor do they, in fact,

occupy very much attention even in later years, although we shall meet

with casual notices of one or two of them.

_Troubles of John Paston_

On the whole, though the conduct of one of them had not given him entire

satisfaction, the two eldest sons of John Paston had probably both been

of some service to their father in maintaining his influence at court.

And this must have been a matter of no small consequence in the

continued struggle that he was obliged to maintain with adversaries like

Yelverton and Jenney. The dispute with them had now assumed another

form. [Sidenote: A.D. 1464.] [Sidenote: Litigation touching Fastolf’s

will.] Sir William Yelverton, in conjunction with our old friend William

Worcester, was contesting in the spiritual court of Canterbury the claim

put forward by Paston to be the chief executor under Sir John Fastolf’s

will; while at the same time William Jenney, and one William Hogan, by

Jenney’s procurement, took actions for trespass against him in the

Suffolk county court. Paston trusted to his influence with the king to

deliver him from these vexatious suits. He neglected to put in an

appearance at four several county courts, and allowed himself to be put

in exigent, while he followed the king to Marlborough, and obtained from

him a licence for the erection of the college at Caister provided for in

Fastolf’s will. Along with this the king covenanted to give him a free

pardon when required for all offences against the peace, to save him

harmless against Yelverton and Jenney; but undertook at the same time to

cause inquiry to be made into the substance of their accusations, and if

these proved to be unfounded, to compel them to make Paston

compensation.[216-1]

[Footnote 216-1: Nos. 568-9, 571-2.]

Paston had partly trusted to the friendship of William Calthorpe, who

was at this time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to protect him against

outlawry. His servant Richard Calle offered surety that Paston would

save the sheriff harmless, either by making an appearance at a later

date or by producing a _supersedeas_; and he requested that upon this

assurance the sheriff would return that his master had appeared the

first day. Calthorpe had every wish to do Paston a kindness; though he

confessed that Jenney had been his good friend and legal adviser for two

years past, Paston was still more his friend than Jenney, and he

promised to do all that was required.[217-1] But this promise he failed

to fulfil. Paston’s non-appearance was proclaimed at four successive

county courts at Ipswich; and a writ of exigent was granted against him.

Paston obtained a _supersedeas_ from the king at Fotheringay on the 3rd

August; [Sidenote: John Paston outlawed.] but in the end judgment was

given against him in Suffolk on the 10th September, and he was

proclaimed an outlaw. On the 3rd November following he was committed to

the Fleet prison.[217-2]

[Footnote 217-1: No. 572.]

[Footnote 217-2: No. 572. Itin. W. Worc., 366. Those who are

interested in the subject may be referred to the Year Books of

Mich. and Hil. 4 Edw. iv. for pleadings as to the validity of the

outlawry and _supersedeas_. These, however, are purely technical

and of no interest to the general reader.]

[[Mich. and Hil. 4 Edw. iv.

_typography unchanged: expected form “Edw. IV.”_]]

This was his second experience of captivity since the death of Sir John

Fastolf. We do not know that he ever suffered it before that time; but

he was now paying the penalty of increased importance. His detention on

this occasion does not seem to have been of long duration; but if we are

right in the interpretation of a sarcastic anonymous letter[217-3] found

among his correspondence, his fellow-prisoners threw out surmises when

he left that the Fleet would see him yet a third time within its walls.

At least, this may or may not have been the purport of what is certainly

an ironical and ambiguous epistle addressed to him, we cannot tell by

whom. If it was so, the prediction was verified before another

twelvemonth had passed away.

[Footnote 217-3: No. 574.]

How matters went during the winter we have very little indication,

except that Paston’s friend John Wykes, an officer of the king’s

household, [Sidenote: A.D. 1465. Feb. 7.] writes to Margaret Paston on

the 7th February from London, ‘that my master your husband, my mistress

your mother, my master Sir John, Mr. William, Mr. Clement, and all their

men, were in good health when this letter was written, thanked be Jesu;

and also their matters be in a good way, for my Lord Chancellor is their

singular good lord.’ The crisis in the affairs of the family was

certainly very serious, when old Agnes Paston, the judge’s widow (for I

have never found any other lady spoken of as Margaret Paston’s

‘mother’), took the trouble to go up to London to see them settled. It

appears that there was a little family council on the occasion, and John

Paston’s two brothers, William and Clement, together with his son Sir

John, were also present.[218-1] What kind of arrangement they all

succeeded in making we have no means of ascertaining; but the next

occasion of trouble to John Paston was not given by Yelverton and

Jenney.

[Footnote 218-1: No. 576.]

[Sidenote: The Duke of Suffolk lays claim to Drayton.] The first

indications of it appear in a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband,

written on the 8th April 1465, by which we find that the Duke of Suffolk

had now set up a claim to Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Drayton, about

four miles north-west of Norwich. Margaret had also heard that he had

bought up the rights of a person named Brytyeff or Bryghtylhed, who laid

claim to the neighbouring manor of Hellesdon, a little nearer the city,

and that he intended to take possession after Easter.[218-2] The claim

appears to have been very ill founded, and the tenants, all but one or

two, were favourable to Paston.[218-3] Nevertheless Philip Lipyate, the

duke’s bailiff, began taking distresses, and carried off the horses of

one Dorlet as he was about to yoke them to his plough. But Margaret

Paston, who had been staying at Caister, after waiting till her son Sir

John could come to her, and leaving him to keep the castle, went over to

Hellesdon to collect the rents for her husband, and put a stop, if

possible, to the proceedings of the duke’s officers. She soon began to

feel that there was more need of a captain like her son Sir John at

Hellesdon than at Caister. One single tenant named Piers Warin gave her

servants a little trouble, and they took from him two mares as security

for the rent. Warin made his complaint to Philip Lipyate and the duke’s

bailiff of Cossey, who came with a body of eightscore men in armour, and

took away the plough-horses of the parson and another tenant, intimating

that the beasts should not be restored unless their owners would appear

and give answer to certain matters at Drayton on the Tuesday following.

The duke’s men further threatened that if Paston’s servants ventured to

take any further distresses in Drayton, even if it were but of the value

of a hen, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon.[219-1]

[Footnote 218-2: No. 578.]

[Footnote 218-3: Nos. 579, 584.]

[Footnote 219-1: Nos. 579, 581.]

John Paston, though not at this time in confinement, seems to have been

unable to leave London. But it was impossible that he could

underestimate the danger in which his property stood from the

pretensions of such a formidable neighbour as the Duke of Suffolk. The

letters written to him at this period by his wife are annotated all down

the margin with very brief rough jottings in his own handwriting, for

the most part only calling attention to the subjects touched upon in the

letter, but occasionally indicating what he was about to say in his

reply. He expressed, indeed, no great respect for the big threats of

Suffolk’s officers about taking the value of an ox for that of a hen,

which he characterised in the margin by the simple monosyllable ‘crack’;

but he noted, in the brief words ‘Periculum Heylesdon,’ the fact that

there was real cause for anxiety lest the duke, who had already occupied

Drayton, should drive him out of Hellesdon as well.[219-2]

[Footnote 219-2: No. 581.]

The Bishop of Norwich had been appealed to, as chief justice of the

peace for the county, to use his influence with the Duke of Suffolk’s

officers, and especially with Philip Lipyate, who was a priest, and

subject to his jurisdiction, to bring the dispute to a peaceful

settlement. But John Paston probably trusted more to the fact that he

had men of his own ready to repel force by force. The parishes of

Hellesdon and Drayton are situated on the northern bank of the river

Wensum, partly on a low ridge which slopes downward towards the stream.

Opposite to Drayton, on the other side of the river, lay the Duke of

Suffolk’s mansion of Cossey,[219-3] from which, at any time that was

thought advisable, an armed band could be sent along with a distraining

officer to assert the duke’s alleged rights over the tenants. It was

really a case of two hostile camps keeping watch upon each other, and

each of them ready to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Not that

either of them pretended to be above the law, but the duke and Paston

each claimed to be lawful owner of the lordships of Hellesdon and

Drayton, and, until any legal settlement could be come to, each was well

aware of the importance of maintaining his claim by corresponding acts.

If the duke could levy a distress, so could Paston. His officers made an

inroad, undeterred by the menaces of the duke’s men, into Drayton, took

77 neat, and brought them home to Hellesdon. The tenants followed,

petitioning to have their cattle back again, but Margaret Paston told

them they must first pay such duties as they owed to her husband, or

find security to pay at such a day as she could agree to. An officer of

the duke named Harleston was at Norwich, and told them that if they

either paid or gave such surety they should be put out of their

holdings. Harleston had a conference with Margaret Paston in the

evening, but she refused to redeliver the distress on any other terms

than those she had already intimated. This was on a Saturday evening. On

Monday following a replevin was served upon her in the name of

Harleston, who was under-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, on the

ground that the cattle had been taken within the fee of the duchy.

Margaret refused to deliver them until she had ascertained whether this

was actually the case, and on inquiry she found that it was not so. The

beasts were accordingly still detained in Hellesdon pin-fold, and

Pynchemore, the officer who had brought the replevin, was obliged to

return to his master. But in the afternoon he came again with a replevin

under the seal of the sheriff of Norfolk, which it was impossible

lawfully to disobey. So the beasts were at last taken out of the

pin-fold and redelivered to the tenants.[220-1]

[Footnote 219-3: Now commonly spelt Costessey, but pronounced, as

it is usually spelt in the Paston Letters, Cossey.]

[Footnote 220-1: No. 583.]

This sort of quasi-legal warfare continued for weeks and for months.

At one time there would be a lull; but again it was reported that the

duke’s men were busier. The duke himself was coming to Cossey, and his

servants boasted openly that he would have Drayton in peace and then

Hellesdon.[221-1] And not very long after the duke did come to Norfolk,

raising people on his way both in Norfolk and Suffolk,--for an attack,

as every one knew, on Paston’s stronghold at Hellesdon, which was now

placed in the keeping of his son Sir John.[221-2]

[Footnote 221-1: No. 585.]

[Footnote 221-2: No. 592.]

[Sidenote: Attempt of the duke’s men on Hellesdon.] On Monday the 8th

July, Philip Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey, with about 300 men, came

before Hellesdon, but, finding Sir John Paston quite prepared for them,

professed they had no intention of attempting to force an entry. For Sir

John had a garrison of 60 men within the place, and such a quantity of

guns and ordnance that the assailants would certainly have had the worst

of it. Lipyate and the bailiff, however, informed Sir John that they had

a warrant to attach John Daubeney, Wykes, Richard Calle, and some

others. Sir John replied that they were not within, and if they had been

he would not have delivered them. Afterwards it was mutually agreed that

the Duke of Suffolk should dismiss his men and Sir John Paston should do

the same. But this only transferred the scene of action to Norwich,

where Richard Calle was attacked by twelve men in the streets and only

rescued by the sheriff; nor did he escape without the pleasant assurance

that if he were caught another time he would be put to death, so that he

did not dare ride out without an escort. Daubeney and Wykes were in a

similar state of apprehension, and to crown all, it was said that there

was to be a special commission to inquire of riots, in which the Duke of

Suffolk and Yelverton would be commissioners. If so, every man that had

taken Paston’s part was pretty sure of being hanged.[221-3]

[Footnote 221-3: No. 593.]

Sir John Paston, however, acquired great credit for having withstood

so numerous a force as Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey had brought

against him. It will be readily understood that his position must have

been a strong one. He and his mother were then living at a mansion in

Hellesdon, which probably stood on comparatively low ground near the

river.[222-1] But on the brow of the hill, nearer Drayton, stood a

quadrangular fortress of which the ruins still exist, known at this day

by the name of Drayton Lodge. This lodge lay within what was then called

Hellesdon Warren, and commanded the entrance to the property. From its

elevated position it must have been peculiarly difficult to attack. The

country around was open heath, and the approach of an enemy could be

descried distinctly in the distance. From the mansion below, where he

had quartered his garrison of 60 men, he could doubtless bring up with

ease at any time as many as seemed necessary for the defence of the

lodge;[222-2] while from the battlements of the lodge a heavy fire could

be opened on the advancing foe.[222-3]

[Footnote 222-1: At Hellesdon North Hall, the property of Mr.

J. H. Gurney, old foundations have been recently discovered, which

are in all probability those of John Paston’s house. The place is

about 400 yards from Hellesdon Church.]

[Footnote 222-2: One day in the beginning of May as many as sixty

men were placed in the lodge itself, and kept there all day. At

that time an attack was continually expected, but not more than

sixteen or twenty persons could sleep in the building. _See_ No.

581, at p. 139 (vol. iv.).]

[Footnote 222-3: ‘The ruined Lodge at Drayton’ is the subject of

an interesting paper by the late Mr. Henry Harrod in the _Norfolk

Archæology_, vol. ii. p. 363. There are no remains of battlements

now, but most probably they once existed.]

Living within a house that was threatened with siege, Margaret Paston,

at this juncture, seems to have taken an active part along with her son

in the preparations for defence. Her husband in London writes to her as

a commander-in-chief might do to the governor of a besieged fort:--‘In

good faith ye acquit you right well and discreetly, and heartily to your

worship and mine, and to the shame of your adversaries: and I am well

content that ye avowed that ye kept possession at Drayton and so would

do.’ But the task imposed upon her had impaired her health; and John

Paston, though for some potent reasons he was not able even now to come

to her aid, was anxious to give her every comfort and encouragement in

his power. ‘Take what may do your ease and spare not,’ he says in the

same letter; ‘and in any wise take no thought nor too much labour for

these matters, nor set it not so to your heart that ye fare the worse

for it. And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or

boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke

shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law,

John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that

could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he

points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think

proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had

belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any

of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. It had descended to

his daughter Alice, and John Paston was able to show his title to her

property. On the other hand he traced the pedigree of the Duke of

Suffolk from ‘one William Poole of Hull, which was a worshipful man

grown by fortune of the world,’ and whose son Michael, the first Earl of

Suffolk, had been so created by King Richard II. since Paston’s father

was born; and if any of their lineage held the manor of Drayton he would

lose £100, if the duke would be bound in as much to prove the contrary.

But the duke must not expect him to show his title to one who tried to

oust him by violence. On this point John Paston was resolute. ‘Let my

lord of Norwich wit that it is not profitable, nor the common weal of

gentlemen, that any gentleman should be compelled by an entry of a lord

to show his evidence or title to his land, nor I will not begin that

example ne thraldom, of gentlemen nor of other. It is good a lord take

sad counsel ere he begin any such matter.’[223-1]

[Footnote 223-1: No. 595.]

It might have been supposed that after the duke’s attempt on Hellesdon,

nothing but impediments of the most serious kind would have prevented

John Paston from going down to Norfolk to take charge of his own

interests and relieve his wife’s anxiety. But it appears that he hardly

expected to be able to leave London, and in the same letter from which

we have just been quoting he desires that if he be not home within three

weeks his wife will come to him. In that case she is, before leaving, to

put everything under proper rule both at Caister and Hellesdon, ‘if the

war hold.’ The state of matters between him and Suffolk was such as

could only be spoken of as a state of war, even by plain matter-of-fact

John Paston. And if the enemy offered peace his wife was to send him

word.

What could have been the obstacle that prevented John Paston leaving

London? It appears for one thing that he was at this time called upon to

undergo an examination before the spiritual court of Canterbury, in

defence of his claim to be Sir John Fastolf’s executor. This alone was,

perhaps, sufficient to detain him, for it was a thing on which his most

important interests depended. But there is no doubt that additional

obstacles were raised up for him expressly by the malice of his enemies;

[Sidenote: John Paston imprisoned a third time.] for it could not have

been many weeks after his first examination that John Paston again found

himself a prisoner in the Fleet, and within the walls of that prison his

further depositions were taken.[224-1]

[Footnote 224-1: No. 606.]

It was the malicious ingenuity of Judge Yelverton that had devised the

means to inflict upon him this new incarceration. And the means employed

were such as to make captivity doubly painful and humiliating. The

king’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in

May of the preceding year. At Michaelmas it was openly avowed; and if it

displeased, as no doubt it did, Warwick and the old nobility, even from

the first, it informed a whole world of time-servers and place-hunters

that there was a new avenue to fortune in securing the favour of the

Woodvilles. Already Rivers had been created Lord Treasurer and advanced

to the dignity of an earldom. Already marriages had been made for the

queen’s brothers and sisters, which were evidently provocative of envy,

jealousy, and indignation.[224-2] The king’s liberality towards his new

relations was unbounded, and sycophants were not wanting to suggest to

him how he might gratify their cupidity, sometimes at the expense of

others than himself. Sir William Yelverton, accordingly, contrived to

whisper in the royal ear that the king might fairly dispose of some fine

property in Norfolk and Suffolk; for John Paston, who claimed to be the

owner, was come of servile blood, and was really the king’s

bondman.[225-1]

[Footnote 224-2: W. Worc. _Annales_, 501, 506.]

[Footnote 225-1: _Itin._ Will. de Worc., 323.]

The reader will remember the curious paper[225-2] in which it is set

forth that the grandfather and father of John Paston had held lands in

the village of Paston, by servile tenures, and that John Paston himself,

without having any manor place, was endeavouring to ‘make himself a

lordship there,’ to the prejudice of the duchy of Lancaster. There can

be little doubt that this statement was drawn up in the year 1465 and

that its author was Judge Yelverton. He had been at this time

endeavouring to ingratiate himself with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales,

the queen’s brother, and it was in the interest of that nobleman that he

made this attempt to asperse the lineage of the Pastons. [Sidenote: Lord

Scales seeks to obtain Caister.] For Lord Scales had begun to cast

covetous eyes on the magnificent castle at Caister; and if it were but

satisfactorily shown that John Paston was disqualified from possessing

it, no doubt the king, his brother-in-law, would be only too willing to

grant it to himself. The case was already prejudged; Caister and the

lordship of Cotton as well were his by anticipation, and some time

before Paston was committed to prison it was known that Lord Scales

meant to ride down into Norfolk and oust him from his property.[225-3]

[Footnote 225-2: _See_ pp. 28, 29.]

[[pp. 28-29 = letter headed “A remembrance of the worshipful kin

and ancestry of Paston”]]

[Footnote 225-3: No. 598. It appears by the city records of

Norwich, an extract from which, kindly communicated to me by the

Rev. William Hudson, will be found in the Appendix to this

Introduction, that Lord Scales arrived in the city ‘a second time’

towards the close of the year 1465--apparently just before

Christmas day, for the date was within eighteen days of a document

dated 10th January, 5 Edward IV.--for the express purpose of

taking possession of all the goods and chattels of John Paston,

whom the king had seized as his ‘native.’ This raised an awkward

question about the privileges of the city, in which John Paston

possessed a house. But the civic authorities found a way out of

the difficulty, and agreed that Lord Scales should be allowed to

enter by the act of John Paston’s feoffees; for it was understood

that certain aldermen and common council men were co-feoffees

along with him, of the messuage which he held. Thus the city’s

liberty was theoretically preserved without offence to the higher

powers.]

Although John Paston was thus unable to go home, as he wished to do,

neither was Margaret Paston able for some time to go up and see him in

London, as he had desired her. Wykes, who had promised to keep

possession of the place at Hellesdon in her absence, did not go down

into Norfolk so soon as he had intended, but remained in London taking

care of Paston’s interests in another fashion in conferences with

Nevill, Archbishop of York, at that time Lord Chancellor. Perhaps

already the influence of Archbishop Nevill, like that of his brother the

Earl of Warwick, had begun to decline, and Wykes was really wasting his

labour in complaining to his lordship of the riotous attempt made by the

Duke of Suffolk’s men at Hellesdon. There was but one pretext on which

the outrage could be justified,--a matter concerning the payment of 100

marks, but the money had been paid long ago. His lordship, however,

durst swear the Duchess of Suffolk had no knowledge of it; and with that

he left town, promising an answer when he came back next Tuesday.[226-1]

[Footnote 226-1: No. 598.]

But Margaret Paston, though she could not yet come up to London, did not

spend the time at home unprofitably. The judges had come down to Norwich

on their circuit, when Margaret endeavoured to secure the advantage she

had already gained in keeping possession at Drayton by getting a manor

court held there in her husband’s name. But to do this she required the

services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a

little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many,

certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written

to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep

the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep

all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less

than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an

entry into Hellesdon.

[Sidenote: Attempt of Margaret Paston to hold a court at Drayton.]

Thomas Bond and an attached and confidential priest named Sir James

Gloys were adventurous enough to go to Drayton alone for the purpose of

holding a court on Lammas Day. They found, as might have been expected,

that officers of the Duke of Suffolk were there before them. Harleston,

along with Philip Lipyate, the parson of Salle, and William Yelverton,

a grandson of the judge, who was to sit as steward, were in the courtyard

of the manor, prepared to hold the court in the Duke of Suffolk’s name.

They were accompanied by about sixty persons or more, besides the

tenants of Drayton, some having rusty poleaxes and bills to enforce

respect for the duke’s authority. In the face of this array, however,

Bond and Gloys announced that they came to keep the court in the name of

John Paston; on which the former was immediately delivered into the

custody of William Ducket, a new bailiff of Drayton appointed by the

duke, and was carried off to Cossey, his arms bound behind him with

whipcord like a thief. But Margaret Paston spoke with the judges next

morning before they went to the shirehouse, in presence of the bailiff

of Cossey and the whole of the duke’s council; and the judges calling

the bailiff before them, gave him a severe reproof, and sent the sheriff

to see what company had been mustered at Drayton. The sheriff rode first

to Hellesdon, and expressed himself satisfied with the demeanour of

Paston’s men there. When he came to Drayton, the bands of Suffolk’s

retainers had disappeared. He demanded that Thomas Bond should be

delivered to him, and was told that he had been sent to the Duke of

Suffolk; but he was afterwards delivered to him at Norwich, with a

request that he should not be set at liberty without a fine, as he had

troubled the king’s leet. The judges, however, on being informed of the

real state of the case, commanded him to be set at liberty, and

pronounced a very strong censure on the conduct of Suffolk’s

officers.[227-1]

[Footnote 227-1: No. 599.]

As for the manors of Caister and Cotton, it does not appear that Lord

Scales ever carried out his intention so far as the latter was

concerned; nor had he taken possession even of the former some time

after John Paston was committed to the Fleet. That occurrence must have

taken place about the middle of the month of August,[227-2] and towards

the end of September we have evidence that Sir John Paston was in

Caister Castle keeping possession for his father.[227-3] But the Paston

family had been warned of the danger, and we may be well assured that

they did not neglect the warning in either case. Indeed, the question

how to make matters secure at Caister seems to have been the principal

difficulty that caused Margaret to delay her journey up to London. As to

Cotton, we shall see ere long that very effectual means were taken to

secure possession there.

[Footnote 227-2: On the 18th August Margaret Paston was still

hoping that her husband would find it possible to come home

himself, and save her the necessity of going up to London to see

him. _See_ No. 604. But we know that he was imprisoned before the

28th of the month. No. 606.]

[Footnote 227-3: No. 610 (vol. iv. p. 192).]

[Sidenote: Margaret Paston visits her husband in prison.] It would

appear that when Margaret knew her husband was in prison she determined

to delay no longer, but to visit him in London at all costs. Early in

September she had already gone to him, and her son, John Paston the

youngest, wrote to her from Norwich on the 14th, advising her, among

other things, to visit the Rood of North-door (a cross beside St. Paul’s

Cathedral), and St. Saviour’s at Bermondsey, during her stay in the

capital. ‘And let my sister Margery,’ he suggests, ‘go with you, to pray

to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.’ It is

difficult to tell whether this means devotion or sightseeing, jest or

earnest. The young man had already seen a good deal of life, and was

familiar with the principal attractions of the great city, to which in

all probability his mother was as great a stranger as his young sister.

Even the dame who had the care of his father’s apartments in the prison

was not unknown apparently to John Paston the youngest. ‘And the Holy

Trinity,’ he writes, ‘have you in keeping, and my fair Mistress of the

Fleet.’

John Paston the father does not seem to have been very uncomfortable in

prison. He made friends in the place of his confinement, and among other

persons became acquainted with Henry, Lord Percy, son of the attainted

Earl of Northumberland, who was afterwards restored by King Edward to

his father’s earldom. His spirits, indeed, if we may judge from his

correspondence, were at this time particularly buoyant; for after his

wife had taken leave of him to return homeward he wrote her a letter the

latter half of which was composed of doggerel rhyme, jesting about

having robbed her portmanteau, and referring her for redress to Richard

Calle, whose ears he bade her nail to the post if he did not pay her the

value. In none of his previous correspondence does he indulge in verse

or betray anything of this rollicking humour. The only subject on which

he even insinuates a complaint is the weather, which seems to have been

unnaturally cold for September. He speaks of it satirically as ‘this

cold winter,’ and wishes his wife to send him some worsted for doublets

in which to protect himself from the severity of the season. But even in

this we can tell that he is jesting, for he explains himself that he

wishes to have a doublet entirely composed of the wool manufactured at

Worsted, for the credit of his native county. And so far is he from

wishing it for the sake of warmth, that he particularly desires to

procure a fine quality of worsted ‘almost like silk,’ of which William

Paston’s tippet was composed.[229-1]

[Footnote 229-1: No. 609.]