The impatience of taxation expressed by John Paston and others may
perhaps be interpreted as showing that little was generally known, or at
all events believed, of any such serious danger to the kingdom from
outward enemies as had been represented to Parliament. Nevertheless, in
March 1473, John Paston speaks of ‘a few Frenchmen whirling on the
coasts,’ for fear of whom the fishermen did not venture to leave port
without safe conducts.[280-4] [Sidenote: Hogan’s prophecies.] A
political prophet named Hogan also foretold that some attempt would
shortly be made to invade the kingdom or to create trouble within it.
But the French ships soon returned home, and Hogan’s words were not
greatly esteemed, though he was arrested and sent up to London for
uttering them. He had, in fact, prophesied similar things before. Yet
there was an impression in some quarters that he might be right on this
occasion. He was committed to the Tower, and he desired leave to speak
to the king, but Edward declined to give him any occasion for boasting
that his warnings had been listened to. Ere long, however, his story was
to some extent justified. News came that on Saturday, the 10th April,
the Earl of Oxford had been at Dieppe with twelve ships, about to sail
for Scotland. A man was examined in London, who gave information that
large sums of money had been sent him from England, and that a hundred
gentlemen in Norfolk and Suffolk had agreed to assist him if he should
attempt a landing. On the 28th May he actually did land at St. Osith’s,
in Essex, but hearing that the Earl of Essex with the Lords Dynham and
Durasse were coming to oppose him, he returned to his ships and sailed
away. His attempt, however, saved Hogan his head, and gained him greater
esteem as a prophet; for he had foretold ‘that this trouble should begin
in May, and that the king should northwards, and that the Scots should
make us work and him battle.’ People began everywhere to buy armour,
expecting they knew not what.[281-1]
[Footnote 280-4: No. 828.]
[Footnote 281-1: Nos. 829, 830, 831, 833, 834.]
Sir John Paston, for his part, during his visit to the Burgundian court
in the end of January,[281-2] had already ordered a complete suit of
armour for himself, together with some horse armour, of Martin Rondelle,
the armourer of the Bastard of Burgundy.[281-3] But the demand for
armour increased as the year went on. [Sidenote: The Earl of Oxford at
St. Michael’s Mount.] The Earl of Oxford again suddenly appeared, this
time on the coast of Cornwall, and took possession of St. Michael’s
Mount on the last day of September. He was besieged there by Sir Henry
Bodrugan, but the place was so strong that, if properly victualled,
twenty men could keep it against the world. The earl’s men, however,
parleyed with Sir Henry, who by some gross negligence allowed victuals
to be conveyed into the Mount. The command of the besieging force was
taken from him by the king and given to Richard Fortescue, sheriff of
Cornwall.[281-4] At the same time the quarrel between the Dukes of
Clarence and Gloucester contributed to make people uneasy. The world, as
Sir John Paston phrased it, seemed ‘queasy.’ Every man about the king
sent for his ‘harness.’ The king himself sent for the Great Seal, which
was conveyed to him by Dr. Morton, Master of the Rolls. Some expected
that he would make a new Chancellor, some that he would keep the Seal in
his own hands as he had done during former commotions.[282-1]
[Footnote 281-2: He was at Ghent on Thursday, 28th January.--No.
826.]
[Footnote 281-3: No. 838.]
[Footnote 281-4: Warkworth’s _Chronicle_, 26-7.]
[Footnote 282-1: No. 841.]
The Earl of Oxford was fast shut up in the Mount. But during November he
made a sally, took a gentleman prisoner, and dragged him within. Shortly
afterwards, attempting to give more trouble to the besiegers, he was
wounded in the face with an arrow.[282-2] But his gallant defence seems
to have awakened sympathy in the West Country; for on the 10th December
the king found it necessary to issue a proclamation against bearing arms
in Devonshire.[282-3] However, after keeping possession of the place for
four months and a half, he felt himself compelled to surrender, not by
lack of victuals, but for want of reliance on his own men, to whom the
king had offered pardons and rewards for deserting him. The earl himself
was constrained to sue for pardon of his own life, and yielded himself a
prisoner on the 15th February 1474.[282-4]
[Footnote 282-2: No. 843.]
[Footnote 282-3: _Close Roll_, 13 Edw. IV., m. 8.]
[Footnote 282-4: No. 846. Warkworth, 27.]
[Sidenote: Projected royal expedition against France.] Meanwhile people
were looking forward to a royal expedition against France. It was for
this the 13,000 archers were to be raised, and it was agreed in
Parliament that if the expedition did not take place before Michaelmas
1474, the money collected for the purpose should be repaid. As the time
drew near, however, it was found impossible to carry out the project
quite so soon. The tenth voted in November 1472 had been assessed by the
commissioners before February 1473 over all the kingdom, except five
northern shires and one or two separate hundreds and wapentakes. But the
total amount of the assessment had only produced £31,410: 14: 1½, a sum
which to the modern reader will appear inconceivably small as the
proceeds of a ten per cent. income and property tax for nearly the whole
of England. It was in fact not sufficient for the purpose intended; even
such a tax, strange to say, could not maintain 13,000 archers; and the
Commons, as we have already said, voted one-tenth and one-fifteenth
additional. This impost, however, was not immediately levied. On the
26th March 1473 a truce was made at Brussels between England and
Burgundy on the one side, and France on the other, till the 1st April
1474.[283-1] After it expired Edward announced to his Parliament that he
intended as soon as possible to invade France in person; but as it was
not likely that he could do so before Michaelmas following, the time at
which the money was to be repaid to the taxpayers, in case of the
expedition not taking place, was prolonged to St. John Baptist’s Day
(24th June) in 1476.[283-2]
[Footnote 283-1: No. 832. It is curious that we have no notice of
this truce in Rymer.]
[Footnote 283-2: _Rolls of Parl._ vi. 113-14.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1474.] [Sidenote: Effects of severe taxation.] The
taxation pinched every one severely. ‘The king goeth so near us in this
country,’ wrote Margaret Paston, ‘both to poor and rich, that I wot not
how we shall live but if the world amend.’ The two taxes came so close
upon each other that they had to be paid at one and the same
time.[283-3] And to those who, like Sir John Paston, were in debt and
trying to raise money for other purposes, the hardship was extreme. So
many were selling corn and cattle that very little was to be realised in
that way. Wheat was but 2s. 4d. a comb, and malt and oats but tenpence.
During the year 1473 Sir John had applied in vain to his mother for a
loan of £100 to redeem the manor of Sporle, which he had been obliged to
mortgage. He had already been driven to sell a portion of the wood, and
had thoughts of giving a seven years’ lease of the manor to a neighbour
of the name of Cocket, on receiving six years’ rent in ready
money.[283-4] But in 1474, having received £100 from the executors of
Lyhart, Bishop of Norwich, in satisfaction of some old claim, his mother
consented to lend another sum of like amount, which would enable him,
with a very little further help from some other quarter, to meet the
demands of Townsend the mortgagee.[283-5] In the end, however, a sum of
£142: 13: 4 was advanced by his uncle William, and some other moneys by
Margaret Paston, partly on the security of her own plate, and partly on
that of Sir John Paston’s lands in the hundred of Flegg.[283-6]
[Footnote 283-3: No. 871. ‘William Pecock shall send you a bill
what he hath paid for you for two tasks (_taxes_) at this time.’
Margaret Paston to Sir John, 23rd May 1475.]
[Footnote 283-4: Nos. 828, 831, 842, 865.]
[Footnote 283-5: No. 856.]
[Footnote 283-6: No. 865.]
[Sidenote: Arrangement with Bishop Waynflete.] About the same time Sir
John came to an understanding with Bishop Waynflete about the lands of
Sir John Fastolf; [Sidenote: The college at Caister abandoned.] and the
bishop having obtained a dispensation from the Pope enabling him to
apply the endowments of Fastolf’s intended college at Caister to the
support of Magdalen College, Oxford, a division was made of the Norfolk
lands between him and Paston. Sir John was allowed to enjoy Caister and
the lands in Flegg, if he could recover them from the Duke of Norfolk,
with the manor of Hellesdon, Tolthorpe, and certain tenements in Norwich
and Earlham; but he gave up Drayton to the bishop. And so terminated one
long-standing controversy.[284-1]
[Footnote 284-1: Nos. 834, 859.]
[Sidenote: Anne Paston engaged to William Yelverton.] An event in the
family now claims our notice, although the allusions to it are but
slight, and the manner in which it is referred to is quite in keeping
with that strange absence of domestic feeling which is so painfully
characteristic of the times. Anne Paston, Sir John’s sister, had come to
a marriageable age; and her mother disposed of her hand to William
Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, although she had an offer from one
of the family of Bedingfield.[284-2] The engagement had lasted at least
a year and a half, when Sir John Paston in London heard news that she
had been exceedingly unwell; on which he quietly remarks that he had
imagined she was already married. It seems scarcely possible to
attribute this ignorance to any unusual detention of letters between
Norwich and London; so that we are almost driven to conclude that his
sister’s marriage was an event of which Sir John did not expect to
receive any very special intimation. The news even of her sickness,
I suspect from the manner in which he refers to it, was conveyed to him
not by letters from home, but by Yelverton, her intended husband, who
had come up to London. Nor must it be supposed that Yelverton himself
was deeply concerned about her state of health; for it was certainly not
with a lover’s anxiety that he communicated the intelligence to Sir
John. In fact the marriage, so far from being a thing already
accomplished, as Sir John supposed, was a matter that still remained
uncertain. ‘As for Yelverton,’ writes Sir John himself, ‘he said but
late that he would have her if she had her money, and else not;
wherefore me thinketh that they be not very sure.’ Still the old song of
‘Property, property,’ like Tennyson’s ‘Northern Farmer.’ And how very
quietly this cold-hearted brother takes the news that the marriage which
he thought already accomplished might very likely never take place at
all! ‘But among all other things,’ he adds, ‘I pray you beware that the
old love of Pampyng renew not.’ What, another sister ready to marry a
servant of the family? If she could not have Yelverton, at least let her
be preserved from that at all hazards.[285-1]
[Footnote 284-2: No. 804.]
[Footnote 285-1: Nos. 842, 843.]
[Sidenote: Married to him.] Such was the state of matters in November
1473. And it seems by the course of events that Pampyng was not allowed
to follow the example of Richard Calle. Anne Paston remained unmarried
for about three and a half years longer, and the family, despairing of
Yelverton, sought to match her somewhere else;[285-2] but between March
and June of the year 1477, the marriage with Yelverton actually took
place.[285-3] Of the married life of this couple we have in the Paston
Letters no notices whatever; but one incident that occurred in it we
learn from another source. Yelverton brought his bride home to his own
house at Caister St. Edmund’s, three miles from Norwich. Some time after
their marriage this house was burned down by the carelessness of a
servant girl while they were away at the marriage of a daughter of Sir
William Calthorpe. The year of the occurrence is not stated, but must,
I think, have been 1480, for it happened on a Tuesday night, the 18th of
January, the eve of St. Wolstan’s Day.[285-4] Now the 18th of January
did not fall on a Tuesday during their married life in any earlier year,
and it did not so fall again till 1485, when William Worcester, in whose
itinerary the event is recorded, was certainly dead.
[Footnote 285-2: No. 885.]
[Footnote 285-3: Margaret Paston speaks of ‘my son Yelverton’ in
June 1477.--No. 913. But Anne appears to have been unmarried at
least as late as the 8th March 1477.--_See_ No. 901.]
[Footnote 285-4: ‘Memorandum, quod manerium. . . . Yelverton
generosi in villa de Castre Sancti Edmundi, per iii. miliaria
de civitate Norwici, in nocte diei Martis, 18 diei Januarii,
videlicet in vigilia Sancti Wolstani, dum modo dictus Yelverton,
cum filia Johannis Paston senioris, uxore dicti Yelverton, fuerunt
ad nupcias filiæ Willelmi Calthorp militis, fuit per negligenciam
parvæ puellæ in lectisternio leti (_qu._ lecti?) per candelam igne
consumptum.’ --W. Worc. _Itin._, 269.]
[[per candelam igne consumptum.’
_close quote missing_]]
[Sidenote: John Paston’s marriage prospects.] John Paston, too, was
seriously thinking of taking a wife; and, that he might not be
disappointed in an object of so much importance, he had two strings to
his bow. We must not, however, do him the injustice to suppose that he
had absolutely no preference at all for one lady over another; for he
writes his full mind upon the subject to his brother Sir John in London,
whom he commissions to negotiate for him. If Harry Eberton the draper’s
wife were disposed to ‘deal’ with him, such was the ‘fantasy’ he had for
Mistress Elizabeth Eberton, her daughter, that he requests his brother
not to conclude ‘in the other place,’ even though old Eberton should not
be disposed to give her so much dowry as he might have with the second
lady. Nevertheless Sir John is also requested to ascertain ‘how the
matter at the Black Friars doth; and that ye will see and speak with the
thing yourself, and with her father and mother or ye depart; and that it
like you to desire John Lee’s wife to send me a bill in all haste
possible, how far forth the matter is, and whether it shall be necessary
for me to come up to London hastily or not, or else to cast all at the
cock.’[286-1] The reader, we trust, is fully impressed with the
businesslike character of this diplomacy, and he ought certainly not to
be less so with the appropriateness of the language employed. ‘If Mrs.
Eberton will _deal_ with me,’ and ‘Speak with _the thing_ yourself.’ How
truly does it indicate the fact that young ladies in those days were
nothing but mere chattels!
[Footnote 286-1: No. 850.]
It happened, however, that neither the ‘thing’ at the Black Friars, nor
the lady for whom he had the somewhat greater ‘fantasy,’ was to be
attained. Apparently the former was the daughter of one Stockton, and
was married about four months later to a man of the name of Skerne. She
herself confidentially told another woman just before her marriage that
Master Paston had once come to the place where she was with twenty men,
and endeavoured to take her away. As for Eberton’s daughter, the matter
quietly dropped, but before it was quite broken off John Paston had
engaged his brother’s services as before in a new matter with the Lady
Walgrave. Sir John Paston executed his commission here too with the
utmost zeal to promote his brother’s suit; but he received little
comfort from the lady, and could not prevail upon her to accept John
Paston’s ring. Indeed she told him plainly she meant to abide by an
answer she had already given to John Paston himself, and desired Sir
John no more to intercede for him. Sir John, however, had secured
possession of a small article belonging to her, a muskball, and told her
he meant to send it to his brother, without creating in her any feeling
of displeasure. Thus the lover was still left with some slight gleam of
hope--if, at least, he cared to indulge it further; but it does not
appear by the correspondence that he thought any more either of Lady
Walgrave or of Elizabeth Eberton.[287-1]
[Footnote 287-1: Nos. 858, 860.]
[Sidenote: John Paston’s pilgrimage to Compostella.] We have omitted to
notice an incident characteristic of the times, which ought not to pass
altogether unrecorded. The year before these love passages took place,
John Paston took a voyage to Spain on pilgrimage to the shrine of St.
James of Compostella. He sailed, or was about to sail, from Yarmouth
early in July, for the letters only allude to the voyage when he was on
the eve of departure, and he declared his purpose of coming home again
by Calais, where his brother expected to see him within a month after he
left.[287-2] It does not appear what prompted this pious expedition,
unless it was the prevalence of sickness and epidemics in England.
Margaret Paston’s cousin, John Berney of Reedham, died in the beginning
of that year;[287-3] and the letter, which first speaks of John Paston’s
intended pilgrimage, records also the deaths of the Earl of Wiltshire
and the Lord Sudley, and mentions a false rumour of the death of Sir
William Stanley.[287-4] The death of Sir James Gloys, Margaret Paston’s
priest, occurred about four months later; and the same letter in which
that event is mentioned says also that Lady Bourchier (I presume John
Paston’s old flame, though she was now the wife of Thomas Howard) had
been nearly dead, but had recovered.[287-5] It is evident that the year
was one of great mortality, though not perhaps quite so great as that of
two years before.
[Footnote 287-2: Nos. 833, 836.]
[Footnote 287-3: No. 825.]
[Footnote 287-4: No. 833.]
[Footnote 287-5: No. 842.]
[Sidenote: Illness of Sir John Paston.] During the autumn of the year
following, Sir John Paston had an illness, which probably attacked him
in London, and induced him to remove into Norfolk. After a little
careful nursing by his mother, his appetite returned, and he felt
himself so much stronger that he went back again to London to see to his
pecuniary affairs, which required careful nursing as much as he had done
himself. His brother Edmund, too, had been ill in London about the same
time, but he found him ‘well amended’; which was, perhaps, not
altogether the case with himself, for during the winter he had a return
of fever, with pain in the eyes and in one of his legs, particularly in
the heel.[288-1] Sir John, however, was not the man to make much of a
slight indisposition. About Christmas or the New Year he had gone over
to Calais; and while his mother was solicitous about the state of his
health, he said nothing about it, but wrote that he was going into
Flanders, and hoped to get a sight of the siege of Neuss.[288-2] On
receipt of his mother’s letter, however, he wrote back that he was
perfectly well again, except that the parts affected were still
tender.[288-3]
[Footnote 288-1: Nos. 856, 862, 863, 865.]
[Footnote 288-2: No. 861.]
[Footnote 288-3: No. 865.]
[[Footnote 288-3: _missing number “3” added_]]
[Sidenote: Siege of Neuss.] This siege of Neuss--a town on the Rhine
near Düsseldorf--was an undertaking of Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy, on which the eyes of the whole world were riveted, and
especially of Englishmen. A body of 3000 English took part in the
operations.[288-4] But the work was arduous, and in the end proved
ineffectual. Not only was the attempt a failure, but it caused the
breakdown of other projects besides. The duke had hoped to be master of
the place before the truce with France expired in June 1475, and
afterwards to join with Edward in an invasion of that country, in which
he was bound by treaty to co-operate. But month after month slipped
away, and the Burgundian forces were still detained before Neuss, so
that he was unable strictly to fulfil his engagement. His cunning enemy
Louis saw his advantage in the circumstance, and contrived to cool
Edward’s ardour for the war by arts peculiarly his own. He received with
the greatest possible politeness the herald sent by Edward to defy him;
asked him to a private conference; told him he was sure his master had
not entered on the expedition on his own account, but only to satisfy
the clamour of his own people and the Duke of Burgundy. He remarked that
the duke, who had not even then returned from Neuss, had lost the flower
of his army in the siege, and had occasioned the waste of so much time
that the summer was already far spent. He then suggested that the herald
might lay these and other considerations before his master to induce him
to listen to a peace; and he dismissed him with a handsome
present.[289-1]
[Footnote 288-4: Comines, Book iv. ch. i.]
[Footnote 289-1: Comines, Book iv. ch. v.]
[Sidenote: Edward IV. and Louis XI.] The herald did what was expected of
him, and the result told in two ways. Edward’s vanity was flattered and
his cupidity was excited. The King of France, it seemed, stood in awe of
him, and did not wish to fight. He was willing to pay handsomely for
peace. How much easier, after all, to accept a large yearly tribute in
recognition of his sovereignty over France than to vindicate it by
conquering the country! Arguments, too, were not wanting in the shape of
private pensions offered by Louis to the Lords of the English Council.
Not, of course, that English noblemen regarded these gratuities as
bribes--Lord Hastings, at least, stood upon his dignity and refused to
give a receipt for money which was but a free-will offering on the one
part, and involved no obligation on the other.[289-2] Still the money
was very acceptable, and there was no doubt a great deal of weight in
the arguments addressed by Louis to the herald. Indeed, any one worthy
to be called a statesman knew quite well that the idea of conquering
France was altogether chimerical.
[Footnote 289-2: _Ibid._ ch. viii.]
This was true; but it would scarcely have been pleasant news to the
nation at large, which had been taxed and taxed again for the sake of
that same chimerical idea, to have been informed of what was going on
in the king’s council-chamber. For not only had a tenth been voted
one year, and a tenth and fifteenth another, but the wealthy had been
solicited to make still further contributions in a form till now unheard
of--contributions called ‘benevolences,’ [Sidenote: Benevolences.]
because they were supposed, by a cruel irony, to be offered and given
with good will.[290-1] For the nation was quite sufficiently
aware--there were many then alive who could testify it from past
experience--that it was a difficult and costly business to make any
conquests in France; and everybody had been pricked and goaded to
furnish what he could towards the equipment of the expedition out of
his own resources.
[Footnote 290-1: _Contin. Chron. Croyl._ p. 558. The king, as is
well known, went about soliciting contributions personally. During
the year 1474, as appears by his Privy Seal dates, he visited
Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Coventry, Guildford, Farnham,
Kenilworth, Worcester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Cirencester, in
different excursions, returning to London in November; after which
he again set out, going this time into Suffolk. He was at Bury on
the 5th and 7th December, and at West Thorpe, on the northern
confines of the county, on the 8th. From this it appears (though
the Privy Seal dates do not show it) that he must have gone on to
Norwich. After which we find him at Coventry on the 26th, so that
he probably spent his Christmas there. That he visited Norwich
about that time, and solicited benevolences there, is evident from
Letter 863.]
[Sidenote: Peace with France.] Sir John Paston’s brothers, John[290-2]
and Edmund,[290-3] and probably another named Clement, of whom we have
very little notice in the correspondence, went over in the king’s great
army to Calais. Sir John himself had been in Calais for some time
before, and his mother commended his younger brothers to his care,
urging him to give them the benefit of his advice and experience for
their safety, as some of them were but young soldiers.[290-4] Margaret
Paston need not have been so anxious if she had been in the secrets of
the Cabinet. No blood was drawn in that campaign. The army had crossed
the sea in the end of June, and peace was already made in the end of
August. Nominally, indeed, it was but a seven years’ truce, but it was
intended to be lasting. For a payment of 75,000 crowns in ready money,
a pension of 50,000 crowns a year, and an undertaking that the Dauphin
should hereafter marry Edward’s eldest daughter, and that Louis should
give her a dowry of 60,000 livres a year, the king consented to withdraw
his forces and trouble France no longer with his claims.[290-5]
[Footnote 290-2: Nos. 868, 876.]
[Footnote 290-3: No. 873.]
[Footnote 290-4: No. 871.]
[Footnote 290-5: Rymer, xii. 14-21.]
Was it a triumph or a humiliation? an easy victory of Edward over Louis,
or of Louis over Edward? The thing might be, and was, looked at from
different points of view. The English considered that they had forced
France to pay tribute; the French king chuckled at having made Edward
his pensioner. Louis, doubtless, had the best of the bargain, for he had
managed to sow division between England and Burgundy, and to ward off a
very serious danger from France. But common-place, dull-witted
Englishmen saw the thing in a different light, and Sir John Paston gave
thanks to God when he reported that the king’s ‘voyage’ was finished and
his host returned to Calais.[291-1]
[Footnote 291-1: No. 875.]
[Sidenote: Sir John Paston ill again.] Sir John, however, was the worse
of his abode in Calais air.[291-2] He had felt himself strong and
vigorous when upon the march, but on the return of the army to Calais he
was again taken ill in eight days. We may, perhaps, suspect that it was
another outbreak of his old disease, and that he never allowed himself
sufficient rest to make a perfect recovery. But it may be that from the
general neglect of proper sanitary arrangements, pestilence was still
rife both in Calais and in England. Six weeks later his brother John at
Norwich was also much troubled with sickness.[291-3]
[Footnote 291-2: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 291-3: No. 877.]
_Sir John Paston and Caister_
[Sidenote: William Paston.] When Sir John Paston returned to England,
the first thing that he had to consider was how to meet a debt to his
uncle William which was due at Michaelmas.[291-4] William Paston is a
member of the family of whom we totally lose sight for many years after
the very beginning of Edward’s reign; but his pecuniary relations with
his nephew about this time cause him again to be spoken of and to take
part in the correspondence.[291-5] He was, doubtless, a rich man,
although we find him pledging some of his plate to Elizabeth Clere of
Ormesby.[291-6] He was one of the trustees of Elizabeth, Countess of
Oxford, the mother of the banished earl.[291-7] He had married, probably
since the decease of his brother the eldest John Paston, the Lady Anne
Beaufort, third daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, a lady of a
wealthy family; and he occupied the great mansion called Warwick’s Inn,
near Newgate, which had been the town-house of the mighty Kingmaker. His
mother, Agnes Paston, lived there along with him.[292-1] Of his family
we may mention here that the first child he had by the Lady Anne was a
daughter named Mary, born, as we know from an old register, on St.
Wolstan’s Day, the 19th January 1470. The second, more than four years
later, was also a daughter, and having been born on Tuesday the 19th
July 1474, the eve of St. Margaret’s Day,[292-2] was christened Margaret
next day at St. Sepulchre’s Church, having for her godfather the Duke of
Buckingham, and for her godmothers, Margaret, Duchess of
Somerset,[292-3] and Anne, Countess of Beaumont.[292-4] Neither of these
two daughters, however, survived him. The second, Margaret, died four
months after her birth, at a time when her father was absent from
London, and was buried before he came home.[292-5] In the end, the lands
of William Paston descended to two other daughters, for he had no sons.
[Footnote 291-4: No. 875.]
[Footnote 291-5: Nos. 854, 855, 856.]
[Footnote 291-6: No. 851.]
[Footnote 291-7: No. 845.]
[Footnote 292-1: No. 856.]
[Footnote 292-2: Our authority is very particular as to the time,
and gives not only the day but the hour: ‘Inter horam post nonam
et horam ante horam secundam, viz., fere dimidiam horam ante horam
secundam, luna curren., et erat clara dies.’]
[Footnote 292-3: Mother of the Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of
Richmond, who was the mother of King Henry VII.]
[Footnote 292-4: So according to Sandford’s Genealogy of the
Paston family in Mr. Worship’s communication to the _Norfolk
Archæology_. But who was Anne, Countess of Beaumont? I find no
Earl Beaumont in the peerage, but there was a William, Viscount
Beaumont, who succeeded his father in that title in 1459.
According to Dugdale, he had two wives, the first of whom was
named Elizabeth, and the second Joan. His mother, who may have
been living at this time, was also named Elizabeth, but I can find
no Anne.]
[Footnote 292-5: No. 857.]
[Sidenote: Money matters.] At this time Sir John had only borrowed of
his uncle £4, a sum not quite so inconsiderable in those days as it is
now, but still a mere trifle for a man of landed property, being perhaps
equivalent to £50 or £60 at the present day. He repaid the money about
November 1474, and his uncle, being perhaps agreeably surprised,
inquired how he was going to redeem a mortgage of 400 marks held by one
Townsend on the manor of Sporle. William Paston was already aware that
Sir John had received a windfall of £100 from the executors of Walter
Lyhart, Bishop of Norwich, who died two years before, and that some one
else had offered to advance another £100, which left only 100 marks
still to be raised. He was afraid his nephew had been compelled to offer
an exorbitant rate of interest for the loan. Sir John, however, being
pressed with his questions, told him that his mother had agreed to stand
surety for the sum he had borrowed; on which William Paston, to save him
from the usurers, offered to advance the remaining 100 marks himself,
and with this view placed, apparently unsolicited, 500 marks’ worth of
his own plate in pawn. Sir John thought the plate was in safer custody
than it would have been at Warwick’s Inn, where, in his uncle’s absence,
it remained in the keeping of his aged grandmother; but he was anxious,
if possible, not to lay himself under this kind of obligation to his
uncle.[293-1]
[Footnote 293-1: No. 856.]
The manor of Sporle was redeemed, but apparently not without his uncle
William’s assistance. Some other land was mortgaged to his uncle
instead; but the transaction was no sooner completed than Sir John
declared he felt as much anxiety about the land in his uncle’s hand as
he had before about that which was in Townsend’s. His mother, too, was
not a little afraid, both for the land and for her own securities. She
suspected William Paston was only too anxious to gain some advantage
over them. She was jealous also of the influence he exercised over his
aged mother, who had recently recovered from an illness, and she wished
the old lady were again in Norfolk instead of living with her son in
London.[293-2]
[Footnote 293-2: Nos. 857, 862, 863.]
Sir John remained in debt to his uncle for at least a year,[293-3] and
whether he repaid him at the end of that time I cannot tell; but
certainly, if out of debt to his uncle, he was two or three years later
in debt to other men. In 1477 he was unable to meet promptly the claims
of one named Cocket, and was labouring once more to redeem the manor of
Sporle, which he had been obliged to mortgage to Townsend a second time.
His mother, annoyed by his importunity for assistance, told him flatly
she did not mean to pay his debts, and said she grieved to think what he
was likely to do with her lands after her decease, seeing that he had
wasted so shamefully what had been left him by his father.[294-1]
[Footnote 293-3: No. 875.]
[Footnote 294-1: Nos. 916, 917.]
[Sidenote: Sir John Paston’s claim to Caister.] But, however careless
about his other property, Sir John, as we have already remarked, always
showed himself particularly anxious for the recovery of Caister. During
the whole of the year 1475, when he was abroad at Calais and with the
army, he makes frequent reference to the matter in his letters. His
brother John and his uncle William had undertaken to urge his suit in
his absence to my lord and lady of Norfolk; but he would have come home
and brought it before the king in Parliament, had not the French king at
that time come to the confines of Picardy, and made the Council of
Calais anxious to retain the services of every available soldier on that
side of the sea.[294-2] He was impatient at the non-fulfilment of a
promise by Bishop Waynflete--‘the slow Bishop of Winchester,’ as he
called him--to entreat the duke and duchess in his favour.[294-3] But he
was consoled by news which reached him before he came home, that the
king himself had spoken to the Duke of Norfolk on the subject, and that,
though the matter was delayed till next term, the king had commanded the
duke to take good advice on the subject and be sure of the validity of
his title, for justice would certainly be done without favour to either
party.[294-4] This report, however, was rather too highly coloured. The
Duchess of Norfolk denied its accuracy to John Paston. The king, she
said, had only asked the duke at his departure from Calais how he would
deal with Caister, and my lord made him no answer. The king then asked
Sir William Brandon, one of the duke’s principal councillors, what my
lord meant to do about it. Brandon had already received the king’s
commands to speak to the duke on the subject, and he said that he had
done so; but that my lord’s answer was ‘that the king should as soon
have his life as that place.’ The king then inquired of the duke if he
had actually said so, and the duke said yes. On this the king simply
turned his back without another word, although, as my lady informed John
Paston, if he had spoken one word more, the duke would have made no
refusal. John Paston, however, informed her ladyship that he would no
longer be retained in the duke’s service.[295-1]
[Footnote 294-2: No. 864.]
[Footnote 294-3: No. 873.]
[Footnote 294-4: Nos. 875, 876.]
[Footnote 295-1: No. 877.]
[Sidenote: His petition to the king.] Sir John drew up a petition to the
king upon the subject. He showed that the duke had been originally led
to lay claim to Caister by the malice of Sir William Yelverton, William
Jenney, and Thomas Howes, who were enfeoffed of that and other lands to
his use; that upon their suggestion the duke had entered the manor by
force, and also taken from him 600 sheep and 30 neat, besides one
hundred pounds’ worth of furniture; that he had done damage to the place
itself which 200 marks would not suffice to repair, and that he had
collected the revenues of the lands for three years to the value of
£140. By the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, the duke had
afterwards restored him to possession of the manor on payment of 500
marks, and released to him his estate and interest therein by a deed
under the seals of himself and his co-feoffees, and of the Bishop of
Winchester. Sir John, however, had remained in possession only half a
year, during which time he had laid out 100 marks in repairs, and £40
for the ‘outrents’ due for the three years preceding, when the duke
again forcibly entered the manor, and had kept possession from that time
for the space of four years and more, refusing to hear any remonstrances
on the subject, or to allow Sir John to come to his presence. Moreover,
when Sir John had applied to any of my lord’s council, requesting them
to bring the matter before his lordship, they told him that they had
mentioned his request, but that he was always so exceedingly displeased
with them that they did not dare to urge it. Thus Sir John had lost all
his cost and trouble for four years, and thrown away 500 marks to no
purpose.[295-2]
[Footnote 295-2: No. 879.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1476, 16th Jan.] This petition was probably never
presented to the king. [Sidenote: Death of the Duke of Norfolk.] It must
have been drawn up in the end of the year 1475, and in the middle of
January 1476 the Duke of Norfolk suddenly died.[295-3] The event seems
to have occurred at his seat at Framlingham, and Sir John Paston, who
writes to notify it to his brother, must have been there at the
time,[296-1] intending perhaps to have made one last effort with the
duke’s council or himself, before applying for justice to the king. But
matters now stood on a different footing, and Sir John, after making his
intention known to the duke’s council, sent a messenger named Whetley to
Caister to assert his rights there. Considering all that had passed, the
act could not reasonably have been wondered at; but his brother John
intimated to him a few days later that it was resented by some of the
late duke’s servants, as showing great want of respect for their
master.[296-2] This imputation Sir John repudiated, pointing out most
truly that no wise man could have blamed him, even if he had anticipated
the duke’s decease, and entered Caister an hour before it took place.
Indeed, considering the justice of his claim, no one could be sorry to
see Sir John in possession, who was a real friend to the duke, and loved
the weal of his soul.[296-3]
[Footnote 295-3: No. 881.]
[Footnote 296-1: Sir John’s letter is distinctly dated Wednesday
the 17th January, 15 Edward IV. (1476), and he says the event took
place ‘this night about midnight.’ It is scarcely probable,
however, that he wrote within an hour of the occurrence, as he
mentions having spoken after it with the duke’s council about
furnishing cloth of gold for the funeral. I suppose therefore that
the death took place on the night between the 16th and the 17th,
and that Sir John wrote on the following morning. The date given
in the _Inquisition post mortem_ (17 Edw. IV., No. 58) is, strange
to say, erroneous; for it was found in twelve different counties
that the duke died on _Tuesday after Epiphany_, in the fifteenth
year of Edward IV., which would have been the 9th January instead
of the 16th. These inquisitions, however, were not taken till more
than a year and a half after the event, and it is clear the date
they give is wrong by a week; but they may, nevertheless, be taken
as additional evidence that the duke died on a Tuesday and not on
a Wednesday.]
[Footnote 296-2: No. 883.]
[Footnote 296-3: No. 884.]
It is curious to see the notions entertained in that day of the respect
due to a duke, even from those whom he had very seriously wronged.
However, Sir John Paston was not backward in yielding all that was
conventionally due; and in the very letter in which he intimated the
duke’s death to his brother, he says he had promised his council the
loan of some cloth of gold for the funeral. The article was one which it
was difficult to procure in the country, and he proposed to lend them
some that he had bought for his father’s tomb.[296-4] His mother
afterwards authorised him to sell it to them, if he could get a
sufficient price for it.[296-5]
[Footnote 296-4: No. 881.]
[Footnote 296-5: No. 882.]
Sir John, however, after a brief visit to Norwich, hastened up to
London. Now was the time that application must be made to the king; for
it would be found by the inquisition that the Duke of Norfolk had
actually died seised of the manor of Caister, and, unless efficient
protest were made, the title would be confirmed to his widow.[297-1] Sir
John’s chief fear seems to have been that writs of _diem clausit
extremum_ would be issued before he had an opportunity of urging reasons
for delay; in which case the inquisition would speedily be taken, and
all that he could do would be to set forth his claim to the escheator
before whom it was held. But he soon found that he need not be over
anxious on this account. The duchess herself was anxious that the writs
should not be issued too precipitately, and John Paston told his brother
that he ‘need not deal over largely with the escheators.’[297-2] The
duchess, on the other hand, was suspicious of Sir John, and was warned
to be upon her guard lest he should attempt to retake Caister by the
strong hand. A favourable opportunity might have been found for such an
attempt at that time, as the moat was frozen and could have been crossed
with ease. John Paston, however, assured the duchess that his brother
intended to make no entry without her knowledge and assent. The matter
at last was brought before the king’s council, and was decided in Sir
John Paston’s favour in May following, all the lords, judges, and
serjeants pronouncing his title good. [Sidenote: Recovery of Caister.]
Privy seals were then made out for the duchess’s officers to give up
possession, and seven years after the siege of Caister, Sir John was
once more the acknowledged master of the place.[297-3]
[Footnote 297-1: No. 882.]
[Footnote 297-2: No. 885.]
[Footnote 297-3: Nos. 891, 892.]
The whole story of the duke’s claim to Caister and of his injustice
towards Sir John was finally recorded in the inquisition, which was
taken, after an unusual delay, in October of the year following. It was
shown that Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes, acting without the assent and
against the will of the other trustees of Sir John Fastolf’s lands, but
in their names, had made a charter granting to the duke and to Thomas
Hoo, Sir Richard Southwell, William Brandon, Ralph Asheton, John
Tymperley, and James Hobert, the manors of Caister in Flegg, by Great
Yarmouth, called Redham Hall, Vaux, and Bosouns. This charter, which was
not sealed, was shown to the jury, and it appeared that the said
Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes had thereby demised what had belonged to
them, that is to say, three out of eight parts of the same manors, to
the said duke and the others. Afterwards the same duke and his
co-feoffees, by the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, seeing that
the said demise and enfeoffment was against conscience, and in
consideration of 500 marks paid by the bishop at the charge of Sir John
Paston, enfeoffed John, Bishop of Hereford, John, Bishop of Coventry and
Lichfield, and nine others, to the use of Sir John Paston. These again,
by another deed, gave up their trust to Sir John Paston, and to Guy
Fairfax and Richard Pigot, serjeants-at-law, John Paston, Esquire, and
Roger Townsend, whom they enfeoffed to the use of Sir John Paston and
his heirs for ever. Then the other trustees of Sir John Fastolf
enfeoffed the same Sir John Paston, Fairfax, and the others in the same
way; so that these last became seised to Sir John’s use of the whole
property--not merely of the three-eighths originally demised by
Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes, but also of the remaining
five-eighths--until they were violently disseised by the duke, who
enfeoffed thereof Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, William, Bishop of
Winchester, Henry, Earl of Essex, Richard Southwell, James Hobert,
Richard Darby, clerk, and John York. After this the duke died; but while
he lived, Sir John Paston had continually laid claim to the manors in
his own name and in that of the said Guy Fairfax and others, sometimes
entering the same, and sometimes going as near as he could with safety
to himself. Finally, he entered after the duke’s death, and had been
seised for a long time when the inquisition was taken. The duke,
therefore, it was found, did not die seised of the manors. It was
further found that these manors were holden of the Abbey of St. Benet’s,
Hulme.[298-1]
[Footnote 298-1: _Inquisition post mortem_, 17 Edw. IV., No. 58.]
_Death of Charles the Bold_
The allusions to public affairs contained in the letters about this time
are of some interest. News came from Rome that a great embassy,
consisting of Earl Rivers, Lord Ormond, Lord Scrope, and other lords of
England, had been honourably received by the pope, but after their
departure had been robbed of their plate and jewels at twelve miles’
distance from Rome. On this they returned to the city to seek a remedy
for the property they had lost was worth fully a thousand marks.
[Sidenote: Defeat of the Duke of Burgundy by the Swiss.] In the same
letter mention is made of the conquest of Lorraine by the Duke of
Burgundy, and his disastrous expedition into Switzerland immediately
after. By the first of these events the prospects of Margaret of Anjou
were seriously impaired, and the French king paid less attention to her
interests. In the second, the victorious career of Charles the Bold had
been already checked by the first great defeat at Grandson. His vanguard
had been broken, his artillery captured by the Swiss, his whole army
repulsed, and booty of enormous value left in the hands of the enemy.
‘And so,’ as Sir John Paston reports the matter, ‘the rich saletts,
helmets, garters, nowches gilt, and all is gone, with tents, pavilions,
and all; and so men deem his pride is abated. Men told him that they
were froward karls, but he would not believe it. And yet men say that he
will to them again. God speed them both!’[299-1]
[Footnote 299-1: No. 889.]
[Sidenote: His death. A.D. 1477, 5th Jan.] This expectation, as we know,
was verified, and the result was that the defeat of Charles at Grandson
was followed by another still more decisive defeat at Morat. Yet
Charles, undaunted, only transferred the scene of action to Lorraine,
where he met with his final defeat and death at Nancy. The event made a
mighty change. The duchy which he had nearly succeeded in erecting into
an independent kingdom, and which, though nominally in feudal subjection
to France, had been in his day a first-rate European power, now fell to
a female. The greatness of Burgundy had already departed, and the days
of its feudal independence were numbered. To England the state of
matters was one of deep concern, for, should France turn hostile again,
the keeping of Calais might not be so easy, unless the young Duchess
Mary could succeed in organising a strong government in the Low
Countries. A Great Council was accordingly convoked by the king, and met
on the 18th of February. The world, as Sir John Paston wrote, seemed to
be ‘all quavering.’ Disturbance was sure to break out somewhere, so that
‘young men would be cherished.’ A great comfort this, in Sir John’s
opinion, and he desires his brother John to ‘take heart’
accordingly.[300-1]
[Footnote 300-1: No. 900.]
_Conclusion of the Family History_
[Sidenote: John Paston and Margery Brews.] His brother John, however,
found occupation of a more peaceful character. About this very time he
had met with a lady named Margery Brews, daughter of Sir Thomas Brews,
and had clearly determined in his own mind that she would be a desirable
wife for him. In the spring of the year 1476, he had heard that a
certain Mrs. Fitzwalter had a sister to marry, and thought his brother
Sir John might negotiate a match for him in that quarter;[300-2] but the
affair fell through, apparently because his brother refused to stand
surety that he would make her a jointure of 50 marks a year.[300-3] Not
many months, however, passed away, when he and Dame Elizabeth Brews were
in correspondence about his proposed marriage with her daughter. He had
promised the mother not to speak his mind to the young lady herself till
he had come to an agreement with her parents; but Margery, I suppose,
had read his purpose without an explicit declaration, or had forced it
out of him. At all events she was no coy heroine of the modern type, but
had a very decided mind upon the subject, and gave her mother no peace
with her solicitations to bring the matter to effect.[300-4]
[Footnote 300-2: No. 890.]
[Footnote 300-3: No. 892.]
[Footnote 300-4: Nos. 894, 895, 896.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1477, Feb.] Her mother, for her part, was not unwilling,
and believing that pecuniary matters might be easily arranged with her
husband, wrote to John Paston in February, reminding him that Friday was
Valentine’s Day, when every bird chose him a mate. She also invited him
to visit her on Thursday night, and stay till Monday, when she hoped he
would have an opportunity of speaking to her husband. In fact, she
showed herself quite eager for the match, and alluding apparently to
some difficulty made by her husband to terms that had been already
offered, said it was but a simple oak that was cut down at the first
stroke.[301-1] Thus encouraged, John Paston persevered in his suit, and
Margery wrote him very warm and ardent letters, calling him her
well-beloved valentine, and vowing that she would accept him with half
the ‘livelode’ he actually possessed.[301-2] The question, however, was
how much the father could afford to give along with his daughter, and
what Margaret Paston and Sir John could do that they might have a
reasonable settlement. Sir John Paston’s answer was very discouraging.
He felt himself in no condition to help his brother, and after pointing
out the difficulty of acting on some of his suggestions, he added in a
surly fashion: ‘This matter is driven thus far forth without my counsel;
I pray you make an end without my counsel. If it be well, I would be
glad; if it be otherwise, it is pity. I pray you trouble me no
more.’[301-3]
[Footnote 301-1: No. 896.]
[Footnote 301-2: Nos. 897, 898.]
[Footnote 301-3: Nos. 902, 909.]
Margaret Paston, however, showed a mother’s heart in the affair, and
consented to entail upon the young people her manor of Sparham, if Sir
John would consent to ratify the gift, and forgo his prospective
interest in the succession. Even to this Sir John would not quite
consent. He wished well to his brother, owned that it would be a pity
the match should be broken off, and did not wonder at what his mother
had done; but he saw reasons why he could not ‘with his honesty’ confirm
it. He did not, however, mean to raise any objection. ‘The Pope,’ he
said, ‘will suffer a thing to be used, but he will not license, nor
grant it to be used nor done, and so I.’ He would be as kind a brother
as could be, and if Sir Thomas Brews was afraid he might hereafter
disturb John Paston and his wife in the possession of the manor, he was
quite ready to give a bond that he would attempt no such thing. The
manor was not his, and he professed he did not covet it.[301-4]
[Footnote 301-4: Nos. 910, 911.]
Sir John seems really to have desired his brother’s happiness, though
from his own bad management he knew not how to help him.[302-1] Hitherto
he had been the mediator of all such schemes for him, probably because
the younger brother believed his prospects to be mainly dependent upon
the head of the house; and I am sorry to say he had been employed in the
like duty even after John Paston had begun to carve for himself. For it
is clear that after receiving those warm letters from Margery Brews, in
which she called him her valentine, and was willing to share his lot if
it were with half his actual means, he had commissioned his brother once
more to make inquiries about a certain Mistress Barly. Sir John’s
report, however, was unfavourable. It was ‘but a bare thing.’ Her income
was insignificant, and she herself was insignificant in person; for he
had taken the pains to see her on his brother’s account. She was said to
be eighteen years of age, though she looked but thirteen; but if she was
the mere girl that she looked, she might be a woman one day.[302-2]
[Footnote 302-1: No. 913.]
[Footnote 302-2: No. 903.]
Perhaps, after all, like Captain Absolute, John Paston had more a mind
of his own in the matter than might be inferred from his giving so many
commissions to another to negotiate a wife for him. At all events, if he
had not made up his mind before, he seems really to have made it up now,
and he steered his way between difficulties on the one side and on the
other with a good deal of curious diplomacy, for which we may refer the
reader to the letters themselves.[302-3] In the end, though Sir John
seems to have been in vain urged by his mother to show himself more
liberal,[302-4] all other obstacles were removed, and during the autumn
of the year 1477 the marriage took effect.[302-5]
[Footnote 302-3: Nos. 901, 904, 905, 913, 915.]
[Footnote 302-4: No. 916.]
[Footnote 302-5: No. 923.]
Before Christmas in that same year, it had become apparent that children
would soon follow of their union;[302-6] and after the New Year John
Paston took Margery to her father’s house to be with her friends a short
time, while yet she could go about with ease.[302-7] Their eldest child
was born in the following summer, and received the name of
Christopher.[302-8] Other children followed very soon,[303-1] and by the
time they had been seven years married, John and Margery Paston had two
lads old enough to be sent on messages,[303-2] besides, in all
probability, one or more daughters. It was, however, their second son,
William,[303-3] that continued their line, and became the ancestor of
the future Earls of Yarmouth.
[Footnote 302-6: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 302-7: No. 925.]
[Footnote 302-8: No. 936.]
[Footnote 303-1: No. 982.]
[Footnote 303-2: No. 999.]
[Footnote 303-3: He was a lawyer of some eminence, received the
honour of knighthood from Henry VIII., and was Sheriff of Norfolk
in 1517-18. He died in 1554. It was his grandson, another Sir
William, whose name is so well known in Norfolk as the founder of
the North Walsham Grammar School.]
[Sidenote: The Duke of Suffolk again gives trouble.] In the spring of
1478 Sir John Paston was again involved in a dispute with a powerful
nobleman. The Duke of Suffolk revived his old claim to Hellesdon and
Drayton, and ventured to sell the woods to Richard Ferror, the Mayor of
Norwich, who thereupon began to cut them down. Sir John brought the
matter into Chancery, and hastened up to London. Ferror professed great
regret, and said he had no idea but that the manor was in peaceable
possession of the duke, adding that if Sir John had sent him the
slightest warning, he would have refrained from making such a bargain.
This, however, was a mere pretence; for, as Sir John remarked to his
brother, he must certainly have spoken about the matter beforehand with
some well-informed men in Norwich, who would have set him right.[303-4]
At all events Ferror went on with what he had begun, and nearly the
whole of Drayton wood was felled by Corpus Christi Day, the 20th day of
May. Whetley, a servant of Sir John Paston, who had been sent down from
London on the business, writes on that day to his master that the duke
had made a formal entry into Hellesdon on Wednesday in Whitsun week. He
dined at the manor-house, ‘drew a stew, and took plenty of fish.’ I
suppose from what follows that he also held a court as lord of the
manor. ‘At his being there that day,’ writes Whetley, ‘there was never
no man that played Herod in Corpus Christi play better and more
agreeable to his pageant than he did. But ye shall understand that it
was afternoon, and the weather hot, and he so feeble for sickness that
his legs would not bear him, but there was two men had great pain to
keep him on his feet. And there ye were judged. Some said “Slay”; some
said “Put him in prison.” And forth come my lord, and he would meet you
with a spear, and have none other ’mends for the trouble ye have put him
to but your heart’s blood, and that will he get with his own hands; for
and ye have Hellesdon and Drayton, ye shall have his life with
it.’[304-1]
[Footnote 303-4: Nos. 929, 930.]
[Footnote 304-1: No. 932.]
It appears, however, that the Duke of Suffolk was not in high favour
with the king, and it was considered at this time that Sir John Paston’s
influence at court was very high. Although the affair with Anne Haute
had been broken off, it was expected that he would marry some one nearly
related to the queen’s family; and Margaret Paston thought it a strong
argument for the match, if her son could find it in his heart to love
the lady, that it would probably set at rest the question of his title
to Hellesdon and Drayton.[304-2] This ambitious hope was not destined to
be gratified. We know not even who the lady was that is thus referred
to; and as to the dispute with the Duke of Suffolk, it remained
unsettled at least a year and a half--in fact, as long as Sir John
Paston lived.[304-3]
[Footnote 304-2: No. 933.]
[Footnote 304-3: No. 956.]
[Sidenote: The manor of Oxnead.] Two or three months after the beginning
of this dispute, William Paston the uncle accompanied the Duke of
Buckingham into Norfolk on pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady at
Walsingham. At his coming he brought a report that there was likely also
to be trouble in the manor of Oxnead, which belonged to his mother
Agnes, the widow of the judge. The nature of this trouble is not stated;
but apparently it was either occasioned, like the other, by a claim of
the Duke of Suffolk, or it was feared the duke might attempt to profit
by it. ‘Wherefore I pray you,’ writes Sir John Paston to his brother,
‘take heed lest that the Duke of Suffolk’s council play therewith now at
the vacation of the benefice, as they did with the benefice of Drayton,
which by the help of Mr. John Salett and Donne, his men, there was a
quest made by the said Donne that found that the Duke of Suffolk was
very patron, which was false; yet they did it for an evidence.’ Whether
the duke’s council attempted the same policy on this occasion, we cannot
say; but by some means or other the Paston family were hindered from
exercising their right of presentation, so that they very nearly lost
it. A rector named Thomas, presented to the living by Agnes Paston three
years before, died in March 1478. On the 5th August following, Agnes
Paston made out letters of presentation in favour of Dr. Richard
Lincoln, but for some reason or other this presentation did not pass;
and eight days later she presented a certain Sir William Holle, who we
are told ran away. Her rights, however, were contested; and after the
benefice had remained more than a year vacant, some insisted that it had
lapsed to the bishop by the patron not having exercised her rights
within six months. She had, however, as a matter of fact, delivered Sir
William Holle his presentation within that period; and though he did not
avail himself of it, she was, after a good deal of trouble, allowed to
present again.[305-1]
[Footnote 305-1: Nos. 934, 935, 936, 937, 943.]
[Sidenote: Walter Paston.] In the spring of 1478 Margaret Paston had a
serious illness, and, thinking that it would carry her off, she made her
will. She lived, however, six years longer, and the will she had made
was superseded by another dated on the 4th of February 1482.[305-2] For
in the interval considerable changes took place in the family, which we
shall mention presently. At this time she had five, if not six, sons and
two daughters, but the daughters were both of them married; and, as we
have already intimated, she was particularly anxious about her son
Walter, who was now at Oxford being educated for the priesthood.[305-3]
He had not yet taken orders, when his mother, finding some benefice
vacant, of which she expected to have the disposal,[305-4] thought of
conferring it upon him, and took advice upon the matter of Dr. Pykenham,
Judge of the Court of Arches. She was told, however, that her intention
was quite against the canon law for three reasons: first, because her
son had not received the tonsure, which was popularly called Benet;
secondly, he had not attained the lawful age of four-and-twenty; and
thirdly, he would require to take priest’s orders within a twelvemonth
after presentation to the benefice, unless he had a dispensation from
the Pope, which Dr. Pykenham felt sure he could never obtain.[306-1] His
progress at Oxford, however, seems to have given satisfaction to his
tutor, Edmund Alyard, who reports on the 4th March 1479 that he might
take a bachelor’s degree in art when he pleased, and afterwards proceed
to the faculty of law.[306-2] This course he intended to pursue; and he
took his degree at Midsummer accordingly,[306-3] then returned home to
Norwich for the vacation. His career, however, was arrested by sudden
illness, and he died in August. He left a will, hastily drawn up before
his death, by which it appears that he was possessed of the manor of
Cressingham, which he bequeathed to his brother John Paston, with a
proviso that if ever he came to inherit the lands of his father it
should go to his other brother Edmund. He also possessed a flock of
sheep at Mautby, which he desired might be divided between his sister
Anne Yelverton and his sister-in-law Margery, John Paston’s wife.[306-4]
[Footnote 305-2: Nos. 932, 978.]
[Footnote 305-3: No. 931.]
[Footnote 305-4: Oxnead, which was certainly vacant at the date
which I have supposed to be that of Margaret Paston’s application
to Dr. Pykenham, was in her mother-in-law Agnes Paston’s gift; but
it is not at all unlikely that this was the living in question, as
she may reasonably have expected to be able to prevail upon the
old lady to give it to her grandson.]
[Footnote 306-1: No. 941.]
[Footnote 306-2: No. 949.]
[Footnote 306-3: Nos. 945, 946.]
[Footnote 306-4: No. 950.]
[Sidenote: Clement.] Of Margaret Paston’s other sons one named Clement
is mentioned in Fenn’s pedigree of the family; but he is nowhere spoken
of in the correspondence. I presume that Fenn was not without authority
for inserting his name in the family tree, and I have surmised that he
was one of the ‘young soldiers,’ about whom Margaret Paston was
solicitous, who went over to Calais in 1475. He may perhaps have died
soon after. The absence of his name, especially in his mother’s will, is
at least strong presumptive evidence that he was not alive in 1482.
[Sidenote: Edmund and William.] Edmund Paston, another brother, was
probably of about the same age as Walter, perhaps a year or two older;
and the youngest of the family was William, who in the beginning of the
year 1479 was learning to make Latin verses at Eton.[306-5] He must have
been at this time barely nineteen years of age;[306-6] but he had
precociously fallen in love with a certain Margaret Alborow. He writes
to his brother John Paston how he first became acquainted with her at
the marriage of her elder sister,--that she was not more than eighteen
or nineteen (which was just about his own age); that she was to have a
portion in money and plate whenever she was married, but he was afraid
no ‘livelode’ or lands till after her mother’s decease. His brother
John, however, could find out that by inquiry.[307-1] As might have been
expected, this calf-love came to nothing. I do not know if William
Paston ever married at all. At a more advanced age his brother Edmund
writes to him offering to visit on his behalf a widow, who had just
‘fallen’ at Worsted, whose deceased husband had been worth £1000, and
had left her 100 marks in money, with plate of the same value, and £10 a
year in land.[307-2]
[Footnote 306-5: No. 942. _See_ a previous letter of his, No. 939,
and also a notice of his schooling as early as August 1477, when
Margaret Paston writes to Sir John to pay for his board and
school-hire, gowns, and other necessaries (No. 917).]
[Footnote 306-6: No. 842.]
[Footnote 307-1: No. 942.]
[Footnote 307-2: No. 974.]
For Edmund Paston himself the same kind of office had been performed in
1478 by his brother John, who, having heard while in London of ‘a goodly
young woman to marry,’ spoke with some of her friends, and got their
consent to her marrying his brother. She was a mercer’s daughter, and
was to have a portion of £200 in ready money, and 20 marks a year in
land after the decease of a stepmother, who was close upon fifty. This
match, however, did not take effect, and about three years later Edmund
Paston married Catherine, the widow of William Clippesby.[307-3]
[Footnote 307-3: No. 975. There is an oversight in the preliminary
note to this letter. The date is certainly 1481, and no later, as
Margaret Paston in her will makes bequests not only to Edmund and
his wife Catherine, but to their son Robert, who must therefore
have been born before February 1482.]
[Sidenote: Death of Agnes Paston;] The year 1479 was, like several of
the years preceding, one of great mortality, and it was marked by
several deaths in the Paston family. The grave had not yet closed over
Walter Paston, when news came to Norwich of the death of his
grandmother, old Agnes Paston, the widow of the judge. At the same time
John Paston’s wife, Margery, gave birth, in her husband’s absence, to a
child that died immediately after it was born.[307-4] This perhaps was a
mere accidental coincidence. Two months later Sir John Paston found it
necessary to go up to London on business, partly, it would seem, about
his dispute with the Duke of Suffolk, and partly, perhaps, to keep watch
on the proceedings of his uncle William with regard to the lands of his
grandmother; for it appears that his uncle, who immediately on his
mother’s death laid claim to the manor of Marlingford,[308-1] had been
making certain applications to the escheator on the subject, which were
naturally viewed with jealousy. On his arrival in town, Sir John found
his chamber ill ventilated, and his ‘stuff not so clean’ as he had
expected. He felt uneasy for fear of the prevailing sickness,
and some disappointments in money matters added sensibly to his
discomfort.[308-2] [Sidenote: and of Sir John Paston.] He fell ill, and
died in November. John Paston was on the point of riding up to London to
have brought down his body with that of his grandmother, who had been
kept unburied nearly three months, to lay them both in Bromholm Priory,
beside his father. But he was met by a messenger, who told him that his
brother had already been buried at the White Friars, in London.[308-3]
[Footnote 307-4: No. 952.]
[Footnote 308-1: No. 953.]
[Footnote 308-2: No. 956.]
[Footnote 308-3: No. 962.]
[[Sidenote: Death of Agnes Paston;
_not an error: sentence continues later_]]
We cannot close the record of Sir John Paston’s life without a certain
feeling of regret. The very defects of his character give an interest to
it which we do not feel in that of his father or of his brother John. He
is a careless soldier, who loves adventure, has some influence at court,
mortgages his lands, wastes his property, and is always in difficulties.
Unsuccessful in love himself, he yet does a good deal of wooing and
courting disinterestedly in behalf of a younger brother. He receives
sprightly letters from his friends, with touches of broad humour
occasionally, which are not worse than might be expected of the
unrestrained freedom of the age.[308-4] He patronises literature too,
and a transcriber copies books for him.[308-5] With his death the
domestic interest of the Paston Letters almost comes to an end, and the
quantity of the correspondence very greatly diminishes. The love-making,
the tittle-tattle, and a good deal of the humour disappear, and the few
desultory letters that remain relate, for the most part, either to
politics or to business.
[Footnote 308-4: Nos. 906-908.]
[Footnote 308-5: No. 695.]
[Sidenote: The title to Marlingford and Oxnead.] As soon as the news of
his death arrived in Norfolk, John Paston wrote to his mother, desiring
that his brother Edmund would ride to Marlingford, Oxnead, Paston,
Cromer, and Caister, to intimate his right of succession to the tenants
of these different manors, and to warn those of Marlingford and Oxnead
to pay no rents to the servants or officers of his uncle William.[309-1]
These two manors, the reader will remember, belonged to Agnes Paston;
and her son William, with whom she lived, had doubtless watched the old
lady’s failing health, and made preparations even before her actual
decease to vindicate his claim to them as soon as the event
occurred.[309-2] The manors, however, having been entailed under Judge
Paston’s will, properly descended to Sir John Paston, and after his
death to his brother John. In accordance, therefore, with his brother’s
instructions, Edmund Paston rode to Marlingford on Sunday before St.
Andrew’s Day, ‘and before all the tenants examined one James, keeper
there for William Paston, where he was the week next before St. Andrew;
and there he said that he was not at Marlingford from the Monday unto
the Thursday at even, and so there was no man there but your brother’s
man at the time of his decease’ (we are quoting a letter of William
Lomnour to John Paston). ‘So by that your brother died seised. And your
brother Edmund bade your man keep possession to your behoof, and warned
the tenants to pay no man till ye had spoken to them.’ In the afternoon
Edmund went on to Oxnead, where a servant named Piers kept possession
for Sir John Paston, and he found that William Paston’s agent was not
there at the time, but had ordered another man to be there in his place.
Whether that amounted to a continuance of the possession of William
Paston, was a point to be considered.[309-3]
[Footnote 309-1: No. 962.]
[Footnote 309-2: No. 940.]
[Footnote 309-3: No. 963.]
As usual in such cases, farmers and tenants had everywhere a bad time of
it until uncle and nephew were agreed. John Paston’s men threatened
those of his uncle William at Harwellbury, while, on the other hand, his
uncle William’s men molested those of John Paston at Marlingford.[309-4]
During the interval between Agnes Paston’s death and that of Sir John,
the tenants at Cromer had been uncertain who was to be their lord, and
at Paston there was a similar perplexity.[309-5] Sir John’s bailiff
ordered the Paston tenants to pay no rents to Mr. William Paston; but
one Henry Warns wrote to Mr. William of the occurrence, and ordered them
to pay none to any one else. After Sir John’s death Warns still
continued to be troublesome, making tenants afraid to harrow or sow lest
they should lose their labour, pretending that John Paston had given him
power over everything he had himself in the place.[310-1] Things went on
in this unpleasant fashion for a period of at least five years.[310-2]
[Footnote 309-4: Nos. 970, 982, 983.]
[Footnote 309-5: No. 957.]
[Footnote 310-1: Nos. 852 and 853, which by inadvertence I have
assigned to the year 1474. They are undoubtedly of the year 1479,
the former being written just before Sir John Paston’s death, and
the latter after it.]
[Footnote 310-2: No. 998.]
[Sidenote: Death of Margaret Paston.] Margaret Paston survived her son
Sir John five years, and died in 1484, in the reign of Richard
III.[310-3] In her very interesting will, made two years before her
decease, a number of bequests of a religious and charitable kind show
how strongly she felt the claims of the poor, the sick, and the needy,
as well as those of hospitals, friars, anchoresses, and parish churches.
From the bequests she makes to her own family, it appears that not only
John Paston, her eldest surviving son, but his brother Edmund also, was
by that time married, and had children. To Edmund she gives ‘a standing
piece white covered, with a garlick head upon the knop,’ ‘a gilt piece
covered, with a unicorn,’ a feather bed and a ‘transom,’ and some
tapestry. To his wife Catherine she leaves a purple girdle ‘harnessed
with silver and gilt,’ and some other articles; and to their son Robert,
who must have been quite an infant, all her swans marked with
‘Daubeney’s mark,’ to remain with him and his heirs for ever. Various
other articles are left to her daughter Anne, wife of William Yelverton,
to her son William, to John and Margery Paston, and to their son William
and to their daughter Elizabeth (apparently Christopher Paston, the
eldest child, was by this time dead), and also to Constance, a natural
daughter of Sir John Paston. She also left £20 to John Calle, son of her
daughter Margery, when he should come to be twenty years of age, and if
he died before that, it was to be divided between his brothers William
and Richard when they grew up. To Margery Calle herself and her husband
Richard she left nothing.[311-1]
[Footnote 310-3: The exact date is given as the 4th November 1484
in a calendar prefixed to an old MS. missal in the possession of
the late Mr. C. W. Reynell.]
[Footnote 311-1: No. 978.]
_Times of Richard III. and Henry VII._
[Sidenote: Richard III.] The personal interest of the correspondence is
not altogether exhausted, although, as we have already remarked, it is
very greatly diminished after the death of Sir John Paston. But the
political interest of the remaining letters is so great, that they are
almost more indispensable to the historian than the preceding ones. The
brief and troubled reign of Richard III. receives illustration from two
letters of the Duke of Norfolk to John Paston. The first was written in
anticipation of Buckingham’s rebellion, requiring him to make ready and
come to London immediately with ‘six tall fellows in harness,’ as the
Kentish men were up in the Weald, and meant to come and rob the
city.[311-2] Again, on the Earl of Richmond’s invasion, the duke desires
Paston to meet him at Bury with a company, to be raised at the duke’s
expense.[311-3] There is also a copy of King Richard’s proclamation
against Henry Tudor,[311-4] of which, however, the text is preserved in
other MSS.
[Footnote 311-2: No. 994.]
[Footnote 311-3: No. 1002.]
[Footnote 311-4: No. 1001.]
[Sidenote: Henry VII.] The troubles of the reign of Henry VII. at first
were scarcely less in magnitude than those of the tyrant whom he
overthrew. But somehow or other the new king had the art of discovering
who was to be trusted and who was not. John Paston was soon found out to
be a man deserving of confidence. Very early, indeed, in Henry’s reign,
he must have acquired some influence at court. [Sidenote: John Paston
Sheriff of Norfolk.] Two months had not elapsed after the battle of
Bosworth when we find him Sheriff of Norfolk. The Duke of Suffolk writes
to him to issue proclamations in the king’s name against certain rebels
who were in confederacy with the Scots.[311-5] The Countess of Surrey
writes to him to intercede with my Lord Fitzwalter and the Earl of
Oxford in behalf of her imprisoned husband.[311-6] Lady Fitzhugh,
a daughter of the great Kingmaker, calls him her son, and requests his
favour for her daughter Anne, wife of the fugitive Yorkist rebel
Francis, Viscount Lovel, whose pardon she was making importunate suit to
obtain.[312-1] The king himself writes to him,[312-2] and the Earl of
Oxford addresses letters to him as his ‘right well beloved
councillor.’[312-3] The earl, of course, was his old friend, and we may
presume it was through his influence that Paston was recommended to the
king’s favour.
[Footnote 311-5: No. 1006.]
[Footnote 311-6: No. 1004.]
[Footnote 312-1: No. 1008.]
[Footnote 312-2: No. 1010.]
[Footnote 312-3: No. 1012.]
[[Footnote 312-2: _missing “2” added_]]
[Sidenote: Lambert Simnel’s rebellion.] So much honour, trust, and
confidence had already been bestowed on him when the rebellion of
Lambert Simnel broke out in the second year of Henry’s reign. Of that
commotion we have some interesting illustrations, by which it is clear
that the gentry of Norfolk were at first doubtful of the success of the
king’s cause, and that many were indisposed to obey his summons to
battle. Sir William Boleyn and Sir Harry Heydon had gone as far as
Thetford on their way towards Kent, when they received advice which
induced them to return. Sir Edmund Bedingfield wrote to John Paston, he
believed that they would not go if the king wanted them. But there were
similar rumours about John Paston himself, and it was even said that he
meditated mischief. It is true he had actually waited on the king, in
the train, apparently, of the Earl of Oxford, one of the two generals to
whom the military powers of the whole kingdom were at this time
intrusted; but it was suspected, perhaps owing to the application made
to him on her account, that after my lord’s departure from the king he
had been with the Viscountess Lovel, whose husband was among the rebel
leaders. ‘But wrath said never well,’ adds Bedingfield in reporting this
rumour to John Paston himself. It was evident that he had enemies, and
it was necessary to conduct himself at such a critical period with
extreme discretion.[312-4]
[Footnote 312-4: No. 1014.]
[Sidenote: Fear of invasion on the East Coast.] At this time the rebels
had not yet landed in England. Nothing had been known of their movements
till very lately; but the Earl of Lincoln had been in Flanders with the
Lady Margaret of Burgundy, the chief organiser of the conspiracy. The
East Coast, it was supposed, was chiefly threatened; and the king had
made a progress through Suffolk and Norfolk to animate the people to
loyalty. Commissions of array had been issued for the Eastern Counties
on the 7th April. On the 15th Henry kept his Easter at Norwich; after
which he went on to Walsingham, and thence to Coventry.[313-1] News
came, however, that seemed to show the East Coast was in no immediate
danger. The rebels had left the Low Countries, but they had gone to
Ireland. The gentlemen of the Eastern Counties were informed that the
king would put them to no further charge at that time, but hoped the
country would be ready on reasonable warning.[313-2]
[Footnote 313-1: _See_ Spedding’s Notes in Bacon’s Henry
VII.--_Works of Bacon_, vi. 55, 56.]
[Footnote 313-2: No. 1015.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Stoke.] The extraordinary farce enacted in
Ireland--the recognition of Lambert Simnel as the son of Clarence, his
coronation in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and his enthusiastic and
universal reception by a people to whom political truths have been at
all times unimportant, and rebellion a mere amusement,--these were facts
that could not have been easily realised by sober-minded Englishmen. The
news, indeed, could scarcely have reached England very much in advance
of the rebel hosts themselves, which presently crossed the sea and
landed at Furness in Lancashire.[313-3] In less than a fortnight they
penetrated into the heart of England, where they were met by the king’s
forces and suffered a complete overthrow in the battle of Stoke.
[Sidenote: John Paston knighted.] In that battle John Paston was with
the king’s army, and seems to have done some distinguished service, in
recognition of which he was knighted by the king upon the field of
battle. The same honour was conferred at that time upon fifty-one
persons besides himself, while thirteen others were made knights
bannerets.[313-4]
[Footnote 313-3: It was but on the 5th May, as Spedding has
pointed out (_Bacon_, 56) that the principal party of the rebels
landed in Ireland. On the 4th June they had crossed the Channel
and landed in Lancashire. The coronation of Lambert Simnel took
place on Ascension Day, the 24th May.--_Rolls of Parl._ vi. 397.]
[Footnote 313-4: No. 1016 and Note at p. 187 (vol. vi.).]
[[Sidenote: John Paston knighted.
_sidenote printed at beginning of paragraph_]]
[[“Note at p. 187” = text section headed “Note to No. 1016”,
immediately before Appendix]]
[Sidenote: Deputy to the Earl of Oxford as Admiral.] Sir John Paston, as
he was now called, continued to maintain his influence with the Earl of
Oxford and the king. The earl was Lord High Admiral, and he made Sir
John his deputy; in which capacity we find letters addressed to him
about a whale taken off the coast of Norfolk,[314-1] and deputations
waiting upon him at Caister from the corporation of Yarmouth,[314-2]
besides some correspondence with the earl as Admiral.[314-3] He got his
brother William into the earl’s service; and though ultimately the earl
was obliged to dismiss him as being ‘troubled with sickness and crased
in his mind,’[314-4] William Paston certainly continued many years in
the earl’s household. He became, in fact, a means of communication
between the earl and his brother, and in one case we have an important
letter addressed to the earl by the king on the subject of the war in
Britanny, copied out by William Paston and forwarded to Sir John.[314-5]
[Footnote 314-1: Nos. 1029, 1030.]
[Footnote 314-2: No. 924.]
[Footnote 314-3: Nos. 1049, 1050, 1051.]
[Footnote 314-4: No. 940.]
[Footnote 314-5: No. 913.]
[Sidenote: The war in Britanny.] The eager interest with which this war
in Britanny was watched by Englishmen--the anxiety to learn what had
become of English volunteers, and of the forces sent thither afterwards
by the king’s authority--is shown in several of the letters.[314-6] The
facts relating to the whole affair, and their true chronology, had been
a good deal confused and mis-stated until the late Mr. Spedding, in
editing Lord Bacon’s _History of Henry VII._, compared the testimony of
the Paston Letters with that of other original sources.[314-7] But it
would take up too much space, and involve writing a complete history of
the times, to show what important light is thrown upon this and other
subjects of interest in the reign of Henry VII. by the scattered notices
of political events contained in these letters; and we must be content,
for the remainder of the period, briefly to indicate the matters of
public interest referred to.
[Footnote 314-6: Letters 1026, 1030, 1036. An allusion to this war
occurs in Barclay’s _Ship of Fools_, f. 152 b.:
‘The battles done, perchance in small Britain,
In France, in Flanders, or to the worldes end,
Are told in the quere, of some, in wordes vain
In midst of matins in stead of the Legende,
And other gladly to hear the same intend
Much rather than the service for to hear.’]
[Footnote 314-7: Spedding’s _Bacon_, vi. 68, 72, 84, 97-8, 101-2.]
[Sidenote: The Earl of Northumberland.] The rising in the North, in
which the Earl of Northumberland was slain, is the subject of two
letters;[315-1] and, closely connected with this subject, if our
chronology is to be relied on, is an intended progress of the king into
Norfolk a few weeks earlier, which was abandoned for some reason not
explained. The Great Council which Henry had summoned on the affairs of
Britanny appears to have been dissolved on the 3rd March 1489. Two days
before it separated, the Earl of Northumberland was appointed to protect
the kingdom against the Scots, and entered into indentures with the king
at Sheen ‘for the keeping out of the Scots and warring on them.’ But
instead of having an outward enemy to contend with, before two months
had elapsed he found himself called upon to put down the revolt in
Yorkshire, and he was killed on the 28th April.
[Footnote 315-1: Nos. 1037, 1039.]
[Sidenote: Intended royal visit to Norfolk.] The king, if his original
designs had been adhered to, would by this time have passed through the
Eastern Counties, kept his Easter at Norwich, and gone on to
Walsingham.[315-2] In the course of his progress he was to have visited
the Earl of Oxford at his mansion at Hedingham in Essex, where William
Paston, Sir John’s brother, was staying in the earl’s service. Sir John
himself had notice from the earl to come to him with the same number of
men ‘defensably arrayed’ as he had before granted to do the king
service;[315-3] and in anticipation of the royal visit to Norfolk,
William Paston sent orders to the Bailiff of Mautby to have his horse
Bayard well fed, whatever it cost, that the animal might look fat and
sleek when the king came.[315-4] This order, however, it must be
observed, is provisional, ‘if Bayard be unsold’; and perhaps the proviso
may point to the reason why the royal progress was abandoned. The
subsidy which caused the rising in Yorkshire was heavily felt over the
whole kingdom besides; and though at another time a royal progress might
have been very popular, the king doubtless saw that it would be
unadvisable to add to the expenses of his subjects at a time when they
were so severely taxed already.
[Footnote 315-2: No. 1031.]
[Footnote 315-3: No. 1032.]
[Footnote 315-4: No. 1033.]
[Sidenote: Creation of Prince Henry as Duke of York.] In No. 1058 we
have a list of the persons who were made Knights of the Bath on the
creation of Henry, the king’s second son (afterwards Henry VIII.) as
Duke of York, in November 1494.[316-1]
[Footnote 316-1: No. 1058.--This list agrees pretty well with the
names given in the description of the ceremony printed by me in
_Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p.
390. But besides some variations in spelling and a difference in
one place as to the Christian name, this list includes the names
of Lords Harington and Clifford, who are not only not mentioned in
the other as having been made Knights of the Bath on this
occasion, but who seem to be excluded by the statement that there
were only twenty baths and beds provided besides those of the
prince himself.]
[Sidenote: Perkin Warbeck.] In July 1495, the corporation of Yarmouth
write to Sir John Paston about the capture of five captains of Perkin
Warbeck’s host, who landed at Deal with about 140 men, when an invasion
was attempted by the pretender. Whatever encouragement was given to
Perkin abroad, his appearance off the coast of Kent gave little
satisfaction to the inhabitants, who killed or took prisoner every man
that set foot on the land. Perkin, leaving his friends to their mercy,
sailed away, only creating a little disquietude as to where he would
next make his appearance. One of the captains taken, whose name was
Belt, said he knew he had no hope of mercy, and therefore did not mind
revealing the plans of his comrades. They meant to gain possession of
Yarmouth or to die for it.[316-2] If this was said in good faith, the
rebels must have been so discouraged by their reception at Deal, that
they changed their plans and went to Ireland. But it may of course have
been said purposely in order to mislead. It was, however, effectual in
creating some alarm about the safety of the town. The corporation
received a promise from Sir John Paston that aid should be forthcoming,
if required; but the very next day intelligence was received that the
rebel fleet had sailed westward,[316-3] and doubtless before many days
more all serious alarm was at an end.
[Footnote 316-2: No. 1059.]
[Footnote 316-3: No. 1060.]
[Sidenote: Edmund de la Pole.] The next political letter refers to
Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, whose first escape from England was
made in the summer of 1499. The king was then staying at Godshill, in
the Isle of Wight, where the Earl of Oxford was with him; and the latter
wrote to Sir John Paston on the 20th August to make inquiry what persons
had accompanied the fugitive, or were privy to his departure, commanding
him to take into custody every one whom he could find to have been any
way concerned in the matter, or any ‘suspect’ person who seemed to be
‘of the same affinity,’ found hovering near the sea coasts.[317-1] Writs
were issued the very same day to the sheriffs of the Eastern Counties to
prevent persons leaving the kingdom without a licence.[317-2]
[Footnote 317-1: No. 1065.]
[Footnote 317-2: _Letters and Papers Ric. III. and Hen. VII._,
vol. ii. p. 377.]
[Sidenote: Coming of Catherine of Arragon to England.] The next letter
after this is a notification from the king to Sir John Paston, given on
the 20th May 1500, that Catherine of Arragon, the affianced bride of
Arthur, Prince of Wales, was expected in England in the following May.
Sir John Paston was required to be ready to give his attendance at her
reception at that date; but owing to a change of plans, she did not
arrive before October 1501.[317-3]
[Footnote 317-3: No. 1066.]
[Sidenote: Meeting of Henry VII. and Philip of Castile.] After this
there is nothing more relating to public matters during Sir John
Paston’s life; but we must not pass over without notice the very curious
account given in No. 1078--a letter which, though among the Paston
papers, has no obvious connection with the Paston family at all--of the
meeting between Henry VII. and Philip, King of Castile, at Clewer, near
Windsor, in January 1506. It is well known how Philip, who until the
death of his mother-in-law, Isabella of Spain, was only Archduke of
Austria, had set out from Flanders to take possession of his new
dominions, when, meeting with a storm at sea, he was driven upon the
coast of England, and was for some time entertained by Henry at his
court. This letter gives a minute description of the meeting between the
two kings, and of the persons by whom they were accompanied, noting the
apparel and liveries of all present, after the fashion of court newsmen.
The scene unquestionably must have been a striking one; but we must
refer our readers for the particulars to the letter itself.
_Social Aspect of the Times_
[Sidenote: State of society.] Thus far have we followed the fortunes of
the Paston family and the history of the times in which they lived, as
illustrated by their correspondence. The reader must not, however,
imagine that we have by any means exhausted the materials before us,
either in their social or in their political bearings. Indeed, to
whatever length we should prolong these observations, we could not but
leave an ample harvest of facts to be gathered in by others, nor have we
attempted more than to bring the leading points of the story into one
connected narrative. Of the general condition of society revealed to us
by this remarkable correspondence, we have left the reader to form his
own impressions. But a few very brief remarks upon this subject may
perhaps be expected of us before we conclude.
[Sidenote: Education.] The first thing which strikes the most casual
observer on glancing over these letters, is the testimony they afford to
the state of education among the people at the period in which they were
written. From the extreme scarcity of original letters of such an early
date, we are too easily led to undervalue the culture and civilisation
of the age. But these letters show that during the century before the
Reformation the state of education was by no means so low, and its
advantages by no means so exceptionally distributed, as we might
otherwise imagine. For it is not merely that Judge Paston was a man of
superior cultivation, and took care that his family should be endowed
with all those educational advantages that he had possessed himself.
This was no doubt the case. But it must be remembered that the majority
of these letters were not written by members of the Paston family, but
were only addressed to them; and they show that friends, neighbours,
lords, commoners, and domestic servants possessed the art of writing, as
well as the Pastons themselves. No person of any rank or station in
society above mere labouring men seems to have been wholly illiterate.
All could write letters; most persons could express themselves in
writing with ease and fluency. Not perhaps that the accomplishment was
one in which it was considered an honour to excel. Hands that had been
accustomed to grasp the sword were doubtless easily fatigued with the
pen. Old Sir John Fastolf evidently feels it a trouble even to sign his
name, and in his latter years invariably allows others to sign it for
him. Men of high rank generally sign their letters, but scarcely ever
write them with their own hands. And well was it, in many cases, for
their correspondents that they did not do it oftener. Whether, like
Hamlet, they thought it ‘a baseness to write fair,’ and left such
‘yeoman’s service’ to those who had specially qualified themselves for
it; or whether, absorbed by other pursuits, they neglected an art which
they got others to practise for them, the nobility were generally the
worst writers of the day. Their handwriting and their spelling were on a
par, and were sometimes so outrageous, that it requires no small effort
of imagination to comprehend the words, even if we could be sure of the
letters.[319-1]
[Footnote 319-1: A notable example of this is afforded by the
letters of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, which will be found
printed in my _Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII._
His successor in title, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the
favourite of Henry VIII., wrote quite as barbarous a hand, and
outraged orthography in a manner equally bewildering.]
[Sidenote: Eton College.] Education, nevertheless, was making undoubted
progress, both among high and low. Eton College and King’s College,
Cambridge, had been founded by Henry VI. only a few years before old
Judge Paston died. His grandson and namesake, William Paston, as we have
seen, was sent to the former place for his education, and was learning
to construct Latin hexameters and pentameters there in 1479. His
progress, it is true, seems to have been but indifferent. What was to be
expected of a young gentleman of nineteen, whose attention, even while
at school, was distracted by the thought that he had already met with
one who might be a partner for life? Nevertheless, in that same letter
in which he writes to his brother John what he knows of Mistress
Margaret Alborow, he sends him also a specimen of his performances in
Latin versification. It is not a very brilliant production, certainly,
but the fact of his sending it to his elder brother shows that John
Paston too had gone through a regular classical training on the system
which has prevailed in all public schools down to the present day.
[Sidenote: Oxford.] It has, moreover, been remarked that the
illustrations both of Eton and of Oxford life in the fifteenth century
bear a striking resemblance to the well-known usages of modern times. It
is true Walter Paston’s expenses at Oxford were not great, even if we
take into consideration the much higher value of money in that day. For
a period of probably half a year they amounted to no more than £6: 5
_s._: 5¾ _d._[320-1] Yet when he became B.A. he gave a banquet, as
graduates have been accustomed to do since his day, for which he was
promised some venison from Lady Harcourt, but was disappointed.[320-2]
Even the expenses attending the graduation, however, do not appear to
have been very heavy. ‘It will be some cost to me, but not much,’ wrote
Walter Paston in his own case, though he had been disappointed in the
hope of passing at the same time as Lionel Woodville, the queen’s
brother, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, who apparently would have borne
a portion of the expenses of his fellow-graduates.[320-3]
[Footnote 320-1: No. 931.]
[Footnote 320-2: No. 946.]
[Footnote 320-3: No. 945.]
From the letters just referred to we are reminded that it was at this
time usual for those who received a liberal education not only to take a
degree in arts but to proceed afterwards in the faculty of law. At the
universities, unfortunately, law is studied no longer, and degrees in
that faculty are now purely honorary.
[Sidenote: Mode of computing dates.] Some other points may be suggested
to us, even by the most superficial examination of the contents of these
volumes. The mode in which the letters are dated by their writers shows
clearly that our ancestors were accustomed to measure the lapse of time
by very different standards from those now in use. Whether men in
general were acquainted with the current year of the Christian era may
be doubted; that was an ecclesiastical computation rather than one for
use in common life. They seldom dated their letters by the year at all,
and when they did it was not by the year of our Lord, but by the year of
the king’s reign. Chronicles and annals of the period, which give the
year of our Lord, are almost always full of inaccuracies in the figures;
and altogether it is evident that an exact computation of years was a
thing for which there was considered to be little practical use. As to
months and days, the same remark does not apply. Letters were very
frequently dated in this respect according to what is the general usage
now. But even here, as the reader will not fail to observe, there was a
much more common use of Festivals and Saints’ days, and when a letter
was not written on a day particularly marked in the Calendar, it was
frequently dated the Monday or Wednesday, or whatever day of the week it
might happen to be, _before_ or _after_ such a celebration. Agnes Paston
even dates a letter during the week by the collect of the Sunday
preceding:--‘Written at Paston in haste, the Wednesday next after _Deus
qui errantibus_.’[321-1]
[Footnote 321-1: No. 34.]
[Sidenote: Mode of reckoning.] Of their modes of computing other things
we have little indication in these volumes except in money accounts,
which are always kept in Roman figures. No separate columns are set
apart in MSS. of this date (although for the convenience of the reader
this has sometimes been done in print) for the different denominations
of pounds, shillings, pence, and marks, so that it would have been
impossible for the best arithmetician easily to cast up totals after the
modern fashion. The arithmeticians of that day, in fact, had a totally
different method of reckoning. They used counters, and had a
counting-board or abacus, on which they set up the totals.[321-2] An
instance of this occurs in the first volume, where John Paston, in
superintending the works at Caister Castle, or, as we now rather
suspect, at Mautby, thought it advisable to change the room in which his
coffers and his ‘countewery’ should be set. In connection with this
incident one other point is worthy of observation. On taking the measure
of the new room, John Paston’s wife reported that he would find it less
convenient than the former one. ‘There is no space,’ she wrote, ‘beside
the bed, though the bed were removed to the door, to set both your board
and your coffers there, and to have space to go and sit beside.’[321-3]
When it is considered that the room in question was a ‘draught chamber,’
that is to say, that it contained a privy in addition to the furniture
which Paston intended to introduce, want of space ought certainly to
have been a very serious objection.
[Footnote 321-2: The modern mode of adding up columns of arabic
numerals was called _Algorism_ or _Awgrym_. Thus Palsgrave gives
as an example of the use of the word--‘I shall reken it syxe times
by aulgorisme, or you can caste it ones by
counters.’--_Promptorium Parv._ i. 18.]
[Footnote 321-3: No. 224.]
[Sidenote: Manner of living.] The neglect of sanitary considerations in
domestic architecture--indeed, in domestic matters generally--was no
doubt a prolific source of disease and pestilence. Yet the general plan
of daily life pursued by our ancestors was, it must be owned, more
wholesome than that of the nineteenth century. It is well known that
they were early risers. Innumerable patent kinds of artificial light did
not tempt them to waste the natural hours of rest either in study or in
dissipation. Their meals too were earlier. Their dinner was at noon, if
not before; and after dinner, in the long summer days, it was customary
to take some additional repose. Thus Henry Windsor concludes a letter to
John Paston--‘Written in my sleeping time at afternoon, on
Whitsunday.’[322-1] This practice of sleeping in the daytime was so
universal that in the case of labourers it was only thought necessary to
keep it within certain limits, and to restrict it by Act of Parliament
to a quarter of the year, from the middle of May to the middle of
August.[322-2]
[Footnote 322-1: No. 332.]
[Footnote 322-2: Statute 6 Hen. VIII. ch. 3.]
[Sidenote: Sending dinners out.] A curious practice in relation to
dining mentioned in Letter 423 has already been incidentally alluded to.
It was the year after Sir John Fastolf’s death, and John Paston’s wife
had gone out of Norwich to reside at Hellesdon. Paston’s increased
importance in the county was shown by the Mayor and Mayoress of Norwich
one day _sending their dinners out_ to Hellesdon, and coming to dine
with Margaret Paston. Of this kind of compliment we have another
illustration in More’s _History of Richard III._ It is well known how,
when just after the death of Edward IV. the Earl of Rivers and Lord
Richard Grey were conducting the boy king Edward V. up to London, they
were overtaken by the Duke of Gloucester at Stony Stratford, and placed
under arrest. As the story is reported by More, Gloucester at first
treated his prisoners with courtesy, and at dinner sent a dish from his
own table to Lord Rivers, praying him to be of good cheer, for all
should be well enough. ‘And he thanked the duke,’ continues the
historian, ‘and prayed the messenger to bear it to his nephew the Lord
Richard with the same message for his comfort, who he thought had more
need of comfort as one to whom such adversity was strange; but himself
had been all his days in ure therewith, and therefore could bear it the
better.’
[Sidenote: Chivalry and courtesy.] The courtesies of life were certainly
not less valued in those rough unquiet days than in our own. Although
men like Caxton lamented the decline of chivalry, its civilising
influence continued, and its most important usages were still kept up.
Among the books which William Ebesham transcribed for Sir John Paston at
the rate of twopence a leaf, was one which was called _The Great Book_,
treating of ‘the Coronation and other Treatises of Knighthood,’ ‘of the
manner of making joust and tournaments,’ and the like.[323-1] His
library, or that of his brother John, contained also ‘the Death of
Arthur,’ the story of Guy of Warwick, chronicles of the English kings
from Cœur de Lion to Edward III., the legend of Guy and Colbrand, and
various other chronicles and fictions suited to knightly culture;
besides moral treatises, like Bishop Alcock’s _Abbey of the Holy Ghost_,
and poetical and imaginative books, such as the poems of Chaucer--at
least his _Troilus and Cressida_, his _Legend of Ladies_ (commonly
called _The Legend of Good Women_), his _Parliament of Birds_, the
_Belle Dame sauns Mercie_, and Lydgate’s _Temple of Glass_. Books like
these formed part of the recreations of a country gentleman. They
contained, doubtless, the fund of ideas which fathers communicated to
their children around the winter fire. And the children were the better
qualified to appreciate them by an education which was entirely founded
upon the principles of chivalry.
[Footnote 323-1: Nos. 695, 987.]
[Sidenote: The training of the young.] It was in accordance with these
principles, and to maintain a true sense of order in society, that the
sons of knights and gentlemen were sent at an early age to serve in
other gentlemen’s houses. Thus John Paston the youngest was sent to be
brought up in the family of the Duke of Norfolk; and so common was this
practice, so necessary was it esteemed to a young gentleman’s education,
that, as we have seen, his father was reproached for keeping his elder
brother at home and unemployed. In a new household, and especially in
that of a man of rank, it was considered that a youth would learn
something of the world, and fit himself best for the place he was to
fill in it. It was the same also, to some extent, with the daughters of
a family, as we find Margaret Paston writing to her son Sir John to get
his sister placed in the household either of the Countess of Oxford or
of the Duchess of Bedford, or else ‘in some other worshipful
place.’[324-1] This we have supposed to be his sister Margery, who (no
doubt for want of being thus taken care of) shortly after married
Richard Calle, to the scandal and disgust of the whole family. His other
sister, Anne, was placed in the household of a gentleman named
Calthorpe, who, however, afterwards desired to get rid of her, alleging
that he wished to reduce his household, and suggested that she ‘waxed
high, and it were time to purvey her a marriage.’ It is curious that the
prospect of her being sent home again does not seem to have been
particularly agreeable even to her own mother. Margaret Paston wonders
why Calthorpe should have been so anxious to get rid of the young lady
without delay. Perhaps she had given him offence, or committed some
misdemeanour. Her mother therefore writes to her son John the youngest
in London to see how Cousin Clere ‘is disposed to her-ward,’ that she
may not be under the necessity of having her home again, where she would
only lose her time, and be continually trying her mother’s patience, as
her sister Margery had done before her.[324-2]
[Footnote 324-1: No. 704.]
[Footnote 324-2: No. 766.]
[Sidenote: Want of domestic feeling.] And was this, the reader may well
ask, the spirit of domestic life in the fifteenth century? Could two
generations of one family not ordinarily live together in comfort? Was
the feeling of older people towards children only that they ought to be
taught the ways of the world, and learn not to make themselves
disagreeable? Alas! I fear, for the most part it amounted to little more
than this. Children, and especially daughters, were a mere burden to
their parents. They must be sent away from home to learn manners, and to
be out of the way. As soon as they grew up, efforts must be made to
marry them, and get them off their parents’ hands for good. If they
could not be got rid of that way, and were still troublesome, they could
be well thrashed, like Elizabeth Paston, the aunt of the last-mentioned
young ladies, who, as will be remembered, was allowed to speak to no
one, was beaten once or twice a week, and sometimes twice in one day,
and had her head broken ‘in two or three places’ in consequence.[325-1]
[Footnote 325-1: No. 94, and p. 155 of this Introduction.]
Such a state of matters, however repulsive to our feelings, is by no
means unaccountable. That age was certainly not singular, however much
mistaken, in its belief that a sense of what is due to the State is more
important than a sense of what is due to the family. Our ancestors
forgot the fact--as we too, in this age of enforced schooling are too
apt to leave it out of account--that the most important part of
education, good or bad, must inevitably be that which a child receives
at home. They were rewarded for their forgetfulness by a loss of natural
affection, for which their high sense of external order afforded but
imperfect compensation. Admirable as the feudal system was in
maintaining the necessary subordination of different classes, it acted
most injuriously upon the homes, where all that makes up a nation’s real
worth must be carefully tended in the first instance. [Sidenote:
Wardships.] The very foundation of domestic life was in many cases
vitiated by a system which put the wardship and marriage of heirs under
age at the disposal of their superior lords. In the case of an important
landowner who held of the Crown, it was a regular matter of bargain and
sale. The wardship and marriage were granted away to such a person as
could offer the Treasury a satisfactory sum for the privilege; and if
the heir took it upon himself to marry without licence of such person,
he incurred a heavy fine.[325-2] Thus was the most sacred of all human
relations made a matter of traffic and sale, and the best feelings of
the human heart were systematically crushed by considerations the most
sordid.
[Footnote 325-2: We have already referred, at p. 154, to the case
of Stephen Scrope, whose wardship was sold by his stepfather, Sir
John Fastolf, to Judge Gascoigne, but was afterwards bought back
again to prevent the judge marrying him to one of his own
daughters, both the original sale and the redemption being equally
against the will of Stephen Scrope himself, who complained that
Fastolf had ‘bought and sold him like a beast.’ The particulars of
these transactions are not obtained from the Paston Letters, but
there will be found several notices of another wardship, viz. that
of Thomas Fastolf of Cowhaw, kinsman of Sir John Fastolf, which
was bought by Sir John of the king, and committed by patent to
John Paston and Sir Thomas Howes, and which became the subject of
a good deal of controversy.--_See_ Nos. 248, 263, 266, 267, 271,
292, and 352.]
[Sidenote: Remarks of a Venetian on the English.] The absence of
domestic affection among the English people generally was, in fact,
a subject of observation to foreigners in that day. The earliest extant
report of a Venetian ambassador on the state of this country was written
in the reign of Henry VII., and in this we find some very strong
comments on the subject, showing that the cold-heartedness of parents
towards their children, the want of tenderness in husbands towards their
wives, the mercenary way in which marriages were contracted by parents
or guardians for the young people under their charge, was such as to
shock the sensibility of strangers from the warmer lands of the South.
To the Italian mind it seemed as if there was no real human nature in
Englishmen at all. There was licentiousness among them, to be sure, but
our Venetian almost doubted whether in high or low society an Englishman
was ever known to be in love. He had witnessed nothing of the sort
himself. On the contrary, he had seen young noblemen content to marry
old widows for the sake of fortunes, which they hoped to share soon with
younger partners; and he suspected that although Englishmen were very
jealous husbands, the most serious offences against married life might
be condoned for money.[326-1]
[Footnote 326-1: _Italian Relation of England_ (Camden Soc.), pp.
24-27.]
[Sidenote: Freedom of manners.] It is impossible to deny that these
comments, except the last, which we would fain hope was a mistake, must
have been largely justified. The Paston letters bear strong additional
testimony to the general truth of what our Italian critic saw in
England. Yet, acute as his observation was, an ambassador from the
stately Signory of Venice was perhaps not altogether in a position to
read the deepest mysteries of the English heart. To this day the warmth
of the English nature lies covered by a cold exterior; yet even in the
external manners of the people the genial Erasmus found touches which
our Venetian cared not for, and did not deign to notice. While feudalism
still kept down the natural emotions, insisting on a high respect for
order, there was a freedom in social intercourse, and in England more
than elsewhere, which has long ago been chilled among ourselves by the
severity of Puritanism. In his own amusing way Erasmus tells us how in
this delightful island ladies and gentlemen kissed each other freely
whenever they met, in the streets or in their houses. There were kisses
when you came, and kisses when you went away--delicate, fragrant kisses
that would assuredly tempt a poet from abroad to stay in England all his
days.[327-1] So the witty Dutchman informed a friend in the unrestrained
freedom of epistolary correspondence. And we may believe that in most
cases the severity of home was mitigated by a greater freedom of
communication with the world outside. Only in cases of very severe
displeasure were the daughters of a family shut up for a time, like
Elizabeth Paston, and forbidden to speak to any one. For the most part,
they received the salutations of strangers, and conversed with them
without reserve, as marriage was quite understood to be a thing which
depended entirely upon arrangements made by their parents.
[Footnote 327-1: _Erasm. Epp._ lib. v. 10.]
[Sidenote: Urbanity.] With all this, there was an urbanity of manners,
a courtesy of address, and a general external refinement, on which more
recent times have not improved. And in these things England was
pre-eminent. Our Venetian could not help noticing that the English were
a very polite people. Another Italian of that day, Polydore Vergil, has
recorded that in this respect they resembled his own countrymen. The
hard schooling which they received at home, the after-training elsewhere
in the houses of ‘worshipful’ persons, had taught them from their early
years to consider above all things what was due to others. In every
relation of life, in the freest social intercourse, the honour due to
parents, to strangers, to noblemen, or to kings, was never for a moment
forgotten. In the most familiar letters the son asks his father’s or
mother’s blessing, and the wife addresses her husband as ‘right
worshipful.’ When people talked to each other on the street, they did so
with heads uncovered. Even kings at the mention of other potentates’
names took off their hats with reverence.[328-1]
[Footnote 328-1: _Italian Relation_, pp. 22-32; Polydore Vergil,
14-15. Henry VII., in conference with the Spanish ambassador, De
Puebla, always took off his hat when the names of Ferdinand and
Isabella were mentioned (Bergenroth’s _Spanish Calendar_, vol. i.
p. 10). I have also seen notices of the same custom elsewhere.]
[Sidenote: Importance of maintaining authority.] An age which, with all
its many drawbacks, cultivated ideas such as these cannot be looked upon
as despicable or barbarous. We could have wished to see something more
of the element of love in families--something more of the easy rule of
natural affection occasionally superseding the hard notions of feudal or
parental discipline. But the anxiety to uphold authority, to preserve
honour for whom it was due, to maintain social and political order in
spite of influences which were conspicuously at work breaking it up
before men’s eyes, was a true and wholesome feeling, to the strength of
which we owe a debt unspeakable even in these days of progress. At no
time in England’s history was there a stronger feeling of the needful
subordination of the different parts of society to each other; but under
a king incapable of governing, this feeling bred a curse, and not a
blessing. The great lords, who should have preserved order under the
king, fell out among themselves, and in spite of the fervid loyalty of
the age, the greatest subject became a kingmaker.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Warwick’s household.] That civil war should have
broken out in a state of society like this need occasion no surprise.
The enormous retinues of feudal noblemen were in themselves sufficiently
dangerous to the peace of the kingdom, and when the sense of feudal
subjection to one sovereign was impaired, the issue could not be
doubtful. At the table of the great Earl of Warwick, Stow informs us
that the flesh of six entire oxen was sometimes consumed in a single
meal. With the profuse hospitality of the Middle Ages, he entertained
not only all his regular dependants, but all chance comers who had any
acquaintance in his household. Visitors were also allowed to carry off
joints from his table, and the taverns in the neighbourhood of Warwick’s
inn were actually full of his meat.[329-1] Such a nobleman had no
difficulty in obtaining friends to fight for him in the day of battle.
He maintained, in fact, what might be called a little standing army at
all times, and if an emergency arose, doubtless many who had dined at
his table would flock to his standard, and take his wages.[329-2]
[Footnote 329-1: Stow’s _Chronicle_, 421.]
[Footnote 329-2: _See_ No. 760.]
[[Footnote 329-2: _missing “2” added_]]
[Sidenote: The Tudor policy.] The causes which had produced the wars of
the Roses were carefully watched by the Tudor sovereigns, and one by one
rooted out. Laws were passed against noblemen keeping large retinues,
and were not suffered to remain a dead letter. The nobility of England
learned to stand in awe of the Crown in a way they never did before, and
never have done since. Every branch of the royal family, except the
reigning dynasty, was on one pretext or another lopped away. Every
powerful nobleman knew that just in proportion as he was great, it was
necessary for him to be circumspect. Under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth,
birth and rank counted for very little, and the peers became submissive
instruments, anxious, and indeed eager, to carry out the sovereign’s
will. In short, the unity of a divided nation was restored under a set
of politic kings, who enforced the laws, kept down the nobility, and, in
spite of their despotism, were generally loved by the people.