_Endorsed_ Appunctuamentum factum pro Stephano Scroope anno xxviijº
Regis H. vj. ad maritandum.
[Footnote 113.2: [From the Castlecombe MSS. in the B.M., Add.
MS. 28,212, No. 21.] According to the endorsement, this letter
should have been written in the year 1449; but the reader will
see by the footnotes that there are grounds for doubting the
accuracy of this date.]
[Footnote 114.1: The marriage of wards in those days used to be
sold to men of property, who would compel them to marry their
own sons or daughters, or whatever other persons suited them.
The only restriction to this right was, that the ward might, on
coming of age, have an action against his guardian in case of
_disparagement_, that is to say, if he was married beneath his
station.]
[Footnote 114.2: Sir Reginald Cobham of Sterborough, in Surrey,
who died in 1446. He was the father of the notorious Eleanor
Cobham, the mistress, and afterwards wife, of Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester.--Brayley’s _Hist. of Surrey_, iv. 159.]
[Footnote 114.3: Milicent, wife of Sir John Fastolf, is known to
have been alive in the 24th year of Henry VI. (1446). William
Worcester says the allowance for her chamber was paid until that
date; but as he says nothing more, it has been supposed she did
not live longer. Mr. Poulett Scrope also believes her to have
died in 1446, on the authority of a contemporary MS., which says
she and Fastolf lived together thirty-eight years.--_Hist.
Castlecombe_, 263.]
[Footnote 115.1: Thomas de Scales, 8th Lord.]
[Footnote 115.2: John Kemp, Archbishop of York, afterwards of
Canterbury; or, if this document be some years earlier, Cardinal
Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester.]
[Footnote 116.1: Walter, 1st Lord Hungerford, died in August
1449, and was succeeded in the title by his son Robert.]
[Footnote 116.2: The name is a little indistinct from the decay
of the paper, but the first and last letters are clear, and it
is scarcely possible to doubt that Rouen was the place here
intended. Yet if this be so, the letter must be much earlier
than the date assigned to it in the endorsement.]
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