[Sidenote: 1466(?) / NOV. 10]
Was at Snaylwell on Sunday, but could get no money. Most of the tenants
away at Canterbury or elsewhere. The rest said when you were there last
you had given them till Candlemas, ‘so that thei myght malt ther corn
and brynge it to the best preffe.’ Warned them to be ready by Tuesday
before St. Edmond the King, when Richard Calle would visit them.
A thrifty man beside Bery is willing to take the farm; but every one
says the last farmer was undone by it. Advises Paston not to overcharge
his farms. I have seen Catelyn’s corn, and your tenants say it is
sufficient to content you. Your shepherd wishes to know if you will
continue him, for no one has spoken to him since my master your father
died. Men of Fordham have occupied your ground these two years that my
master has been in trouble. I think you should speak to my Lord of
Worcester, as he and Woodhous are lords of the town. I have bid the
farmers at Snaylwell sow some wheat land, and have warned the tenants at
Sporle, Pagrave, and Cressingham to be ready to pay. Advises him to keep
up his place at Langham’s. If ‘my master’ had lived he would have
exchanged it for the parsonage. Supped on Monday night at a place of the
Duke of Suffolk’s with the parson of Causton, a chaplain of the Duchess,
‘and they talked sore of my Lady’s bargain, and were right sorry that
she should forsake it.’ The parson asserted that the feoffees had put
her in possession of the manors. Talk over this with your counsel; for
if the feoffees be compelled to release in Chancery it will be nought,
because of the estate they made before; so when you expect to be most
quiet you will be most troubled. There was also the parson of Brampston,
and he said W. Yelverton had sent a letter to the bailiff he has set at
Guton, but what it meant I could not find out. W. Yelverton has put the
parson of Heynford out of his farm. I did not speak with your mother
before writing this, as she was at Caister.
Norwich, St. Martin’s Even.
From the mention of John Paston the father as dead, and the trouble
he had been in for two years, it would appear that this letter must
have been written in 1466, the year of his death. The letter is
endorsed in a contemporary hand: ‘Literæ anno vj. et vij. Edwardi
iiij^ti.’
[Footnote 256.1: [From Paston MSS., B.M.]]
651