[Footnote 1.1: [From Fenn, iv. 232.] This letter is ascribed by
Fenn to the year 1465, in consequence of the allusion to John
Paston’s imprisonment in the Fleet. But there were more occasions
than one on which he was confined there. Fenn himself knew of two.
Paston was committed to the Fleet, as we know from William
Worcester, on Saturday, the 3rd November 1464. He was also
confined there in August and September 1465, and may very possibly
have been released by the beginning of November. But I am inclined
to think this letter refers to an imprisonment prior to either of
these. For, in the first place, the news of it seems only to have
been recent. It had become general subject of conversation at
Norwich, ‘on Saturday last,’ whereas in 1465 it must have been
known two months earlier. Secondly, Sir William Chamberlain, whose
influence Sir Thomas Howes hopes will be of service, must have
died in the spring of 1462. According to Blomefield (_Hist. of
Norfolk_, i. 321), his will was dated the 3rd March 1461 (which
would be in the modern computation 1462), and was proved on the
21st April 1462. It may be presumed, therefore, that on receiving
the letter from his brother Clement (No. 484), written on the 11th
October 1461, John Paston hastened up to London and was
immediately thrown into prison. By this letter, however, we find
that he was soon afterwards released, and his great enemy Howard
sent to prison in his stead.]
[Footnote 1.2: There is no direction to the letter, but the words
above inserted are written in an ancient hand upon the back of
it.--F.]
[Footnote 2.1: William Norwich was Mayor of Norwich in 1461.]
[Footnote 2.2: John Gilbert was Mayor in 1459 and in 1464. He died
in 1472.]
[Footnote 2.3: Sir William Chamberlain of Gedding, Suffolk,
a Knight of the Garter, who had served under the Regent Bedford in
the French wars. He married Anne, daughter and heir of Sir Robert
de Herling, who, though she long survived him, and had two
husbands after him, the second of whom was John, Lord Scrope of
Bolton, was buried by her own desire beside her first husband, in
the chancel of Herling Church.]
[Footnote 2.4: John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, died at
Paris in 1435.--F.]
[Footnote 3.1: _Query_, if Sir William Calthorpe, Knight, High
Sheriff of Norfolk, etc., in 1464, and died very old in 1494.--F.]
[Footnote 3.2: Thomas Hert was instituted to the Rectory of
Hellesdon in 1448.--F.]
[Footnote 3.3: Thomas Gurney of Norwich, Esq., died in 1471.--F.]
[Footnote 3.4: ‘Woud’ in Fenn in the original text, but this is
evidently a misprint. The right-hand copy reads ‘wend,’ _i.e._
weened or thought, and the note immediately following shows that
this was the reading intended.]
[Footnote 3.5: The word ‘not’ seems here to have been omitted in
the original letter.--F.]
[Footnote 3.6: The word ‘He’ occurs in the text before ‘Sche,’ but
is evidently a mistake.]
[Footnote 4.1: All Souls’, otherwise Soulmas Day, 2nd of
November.--F.]
[[Footnote 2.3: ... Herling Church _final . missing or invisible_]]
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