INTRODUCTION (continued 5)

The escheator of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk was Richard Southwell, a friend of John Paston’s, and if the writs of diem clausit extremum had been issued at once, the latter doubtless hoped that the rights of Fastolf’s trustees would have been immediately acknowledged by two different juries, the one in Norfolk and the other in Suffolk. But the efforts of William Paston were not crowned with such speedy success as he and his brother could have wished. Already, on the 10th November, writs of diem clausit extremum had issued without his applying for them, but they were only for the counties of Surrey and Essex, in which John Paston was not interested. Special commissions to the same effect for the counties of Wilts and Yorkshire were procured from the king at Coventry eighteen days later. A.D. 1460. But for Norfolk and Suffolk the writs were not issued till the 13th May in the following year.200.1 The delay was most probably owing to representations on the part of Paston’s enemies; and to the same cause we may attribute the fact that even after the writ was issued it was not acted on for five months longer, so that nearly a whole year had elapsed since Sir John Fastolf’s death before the Norfolk and Suffolk inquisitions were held. But at length the opposition was overcome. ‘A great day’ was holden at Acle before the under-sheriff and the under-escheator, in presence of some of the most substantial gentlemen of Norfolk; ‘and the matter,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘is well sped after your intent.’200.2

Already John Paston’s increased importance in his native county had come to be acknowledged. He was at this time knight of the shire for Norfolk. His wife was living at Hellesdon, on the Fastolf estates, two miles out of Norwich; and the mayor and mayoress paid her the compliment of sending thither their dinners and inviting themselves out to dine with her. The mills at Hellesdon and the lands at Caister were let by his agents, and apparently, in spite of his opponents, whoever they may have been, he had succeeded in obtaining quiet possession of all Fastolf’s lands in Norfolk.200.3 Equally little resistance seems to have been made to his claims in the county of Suffolk, where an inquisition was taken at Bungay nine days after that which had been taken at Acle. In each county the jury limited themselves to declaring the names of the trustees in whose hands the property remained at Fastolf’s death, and nothing was said about the will. A will, in itself, could convey no title to lands, and the juries had nothing to do with it. But in both counties John Paston, either as executor or as one of the trustees, was allowed to assume at this time the entire control of the property.

But now came the renewal of civil war—the battle of Wakefield, soon avenged by the proclamation of Edward IV. as king, and the bloody victory of Towton. A.D. 1461. The kingdom was convulsed from end to end, and there was little chance for doubtful titles and disputed claims, except when supported by the strong arm of power. Long before the time at which we have now arrived, The Duke of Norfolk. the Duke of Norfolk had set covetous eyes upon Sir John Fastolf’s magnificent new castle of Caister, and he had spread a report in the country that the owner had given it to him.201.1 But it would seem that Sir John himself had never entertained such an idea, and if ever in conversation with the duke he had let fall something that might have encouraged the hope, he had taken special care before his death to show that it was unfounded. For the duke had visited Sir John in September before he died, and had proposed to purchase of him the reversion of the manor; but Sir John distinctly told him he had given it to Paston for the purpose of founding a college.201.2 Indeed, it is perfectly clear that for years he had intended it to be turned into an abode of priests, and not made a residence for any such powerful nobleman. And this intention, which is apparent enough in several of the letters written during his lifetime, was expressed in the most unambiguous language in the document which John Paston declared to have been his last will.201.3 Indeed, if we believe John Paston’s testimony, interested though it no doubt may be, it was chiefly from a fear that his executors might sell the place, not, indeed, to the duke, of whom he seems at that time to have ceased to entertain any apprehension, but to the Viscount Beaumont, the Duke of Somerset, or the Earl of Warwick, that the old knight determined to make Paston his principal executor.201.4 So, ‘to avoid that no lord, nor great estate, should inhabit in time coming within the great mansion,’ he made a covenant with Paston by which the latter was to have in fee-simple all his lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, subject only to the payment of a sum of 4000 marks and the duty of establishing in Caister Castle ‘a college of seven religious men, monks, or secular priests, and seven poor folk, to pray for his soul and the souls of his wife, his father, and mother, and other that he was behold to, in perpetuity.’ And if in endeavouring to carry out this object John Paston was interfered with by any one attempting to obtain possession of the place by force, he was enjoined to ‘pull down the said mansion, and every stone and stick thereof, and do found three of the said seven priests or monks at St. Benet’s, and one at Yarmouth, one at Attleborough, and one at St. Olave’s Church at Southwark.’202.1

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the Duke of Norfolk, within three months after the accession of Edward IV., and little more than a year and a half after Sir John Fastolf’s death,202.2 had certainly taken possession of the great mansion of Caister. The confusion of the time undoubtedly favoured the act, and redress might well have been a troublesome matter, as the Duke of Norfolk was a nobleman whom perhaps even the king would not care to displease. But Edward was a king who, with many faults, was most honourably anxious from the first to do justice even to the meanest of his subjects.202.3 Paston repaired to the royal presence, and obtained letters from the king to the duke, which his servant, Richard Calle, conveyed to Framlingham. They were delivered to his lordship at the lodge of his demesne, but the messenger was not admitted to his presence. The duke, however, wrote an answer to the king, promising shortly to repair to Court, when he offered to prove that some of the statements in Paston’s letters were erroneous, and that he himself was the person who had the best claim to the manor. It appears there was one other claimant besides, viz. Thomas Fastolf of Cowhaw; but he, not expecting to make his title good against Paston himself, and having need of a powerful friend in some other matters, gave up his claim to the duke, and brought documents to justify the latter in taking possession by the right derived from him.203.1

In the end, however, Paston’s appeal to the king must have been successful. Caister was certainly restored to him, and in all probability it was restored within a month or two before the Duke of Norfolk’s death, which occurred that same year, in the beginning of November.203.2

The Beginning of Edward IV.’s Reign

But notwithstanding the even-handed justice of the king, the times were wild and unsettled. The revolution by which Henry was deposed was not a thing calculated to bring sudden peace and quiet. Troubled times. On the Patent Rolls of this year we have innumerable evidences of the state of alarm, confusion, and tumult which prevailed continuously for at least a twelvemonth over the whole kingdom. Commissions of array,203.3 commissions to put down insurrections,203.4 and to punish outrages,203.5 to arrest seditious persons,203.6 to resist the king’s enemies at sea,203.7 or to prepare beacons on the coast to give warning of apprehended invasion,204.1 are continually met with. Our Letters also tell the same tale. Margaret Paston writes at one time about ‘Will. Lynys that was with Master Fastolf, and such other as he is with him,’ who went about the country accusing men of being Scots, and only letting them go on payment of considerable bribes. ‘He took last week the parson of Freton, and but for my cousin Jerningham the younger, there would have led him forth with him; and he told them plainly, if they made any such doings there, unless they had the letter to show for them, they should have laid on204.2 on their bodies.’204.3 A still more flagrant instance of lawlessness had occurred just before, of which our old acquaintance Thomas Denys was the victim. Thomas Denys. He was at this time coroner of Norfolk. If not in Edward IV.’s service before he was king, he became a member of the royal household immediately afterwards, and accompanied the new king to York before his coronation. It appears that he had some complaints to make to the king of one Twyer, in Norfolk, and also of Sir John Howard, the sheriff of the county, a relation of the Duke of Norfolk, of whom we have already spoken,204.4 and shall have more to say presently. But scarcely had he returned home when he was pulled out of his house by the parson of Snoring, a friend of Twyer’s, who accused him of having procured indictments against Twyer and himself, and carried him off, we are not told whither.204.5 All we know is that in the beginning of July Thomas Denys was murdered, and that there were various reports as to who had instigated the crime. William Lomner believed that some men of the Duke of Norfolk’s council were implicated. Sir Miles Stapleton factiously endeavoured to lay the blame on John Berney of Witchingham. The parson of Snoring was put in the stocks, with four of his associates, but what further punishment they underwent does not appear. John Paston was entreated to use his influence to get them tried by a special commission.204.6 The most precise account of the crime is found in the records of the King’s Bench, which give us the date and place where it occurred. One Robert Grey of Warham, labourer, was indicted for having, along with others, attacked Denys on Thursday the 2nd July, and dragged him from his house at Gately to Egmere, not far from Walsingham, where they killed him on the Saturday following.

Elizabeth Poynings, too, John Paston’s sister, has some experience of the bitterness of the times. She has by this time become a widow, having lost her husband at the second battle of St. Albans, and her lands are occupied by the Countess of Northumberland and Robert Fenys, in disregard of her rights.205.1 In times of revolution and tumult the weak must go to the wall.

Besides these illustrations of the social condition of the times, our Letters still abound with information not to be found elsewhere as to the chief political events. Political events. Here we have the record of the battle of Towton, of those who fell, and of those who were wounded;205.2 after which we find Henry VI. shut up in Yorkshire, in a place the name of which is doubtful.205.3 Then we hear of the beheading of the Earl of Wiltshire, and of his head being placed on London Bridge.205.4 Then come matters relating to the coronation of Edward IV., which was delayed on account of the siege of Carlisle.205.5 On this occasion, it seems, John Paston was to have received the honour of knighthood,205.6 which he doubtless declined, having already compounded with Henry VI. not to be made a knight.205.7 Two years later, however, his eldest son was made one, very probably as a substitute for himself, apparently just at the time when he attained the age of twenty-one.205.8 To the father such an honour would evidently have been a burden rather than a satisfaction.

But on the whole John Paston stood well with his countrymen, and the change of kings was an event from which he had no reason to anticipate bad consequences to himself. Since the death of Sir John Fastolf he had become a man of much greater importance, and he had been returned to Parliament in the last year of Henry VI. as a supporter of the Duke of York. He was now, in the first year of Edward IV., returned to Parliament again. John Paston returned to Parliament. He was apparently in good favour with the king, and had been since the accession of Edward for a short time resident in his household.206.1 The king also obtained from him the redelivery of the jewels pawned by his father, the Duke of York, to Sir John Fastolf,206.2 in consideration of which he granted John Paston an assignment of 700 marks206.3 on the fee-farm of the city of Norwich, and on the issues of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. But his election as knight of the shire for Norfolk did not pass altogether without question. Paston’s wife’s cousin, John Berney of Witchingham, whom Sir Miles Stapleton accused of being implicated in the murder of Denys, had taken a leading part in the proceedings, and Stapleton alleged that he was meditating further outrages. The people had appeared ‘jacked and saletted’ at the shire house, the under-sheriff was put in suspicion of Berney, and the sheriff, Sir John Howard, conceived it would be necessary to have a new election. To this neither Berney nor Paston very much objected. Berney was willing to give every assurance that he would do the under-sheriff no bodily hurt, but he considered his conduct that at the election had not been creditable, and he desired that he would either intimate to the people that the election should stand, or procure a new writ, and publicly announce the day on which another election should be holden. As for Paston, he was perfectly satisfied, provided that he were not put to further expense, as he believed it was the general desire of the people to ratify what they had done; he only wished that it might be on a holiday, so as not to interfere with the people’s work. The matter was discussed before the king himself, John Paston and the under-sheriff being present, each to answer for his part in the affair, and a writ was finally granted for a new election on St. Laurence’s Day. But from what he had seen of the conduct of the under-sheriff, Paston seems to have been afraid the day might yet be changed, to his prejudice; so, in a personal interview with that functionary, he got him to place the writ in his hands, and sent it down to his wife to keep until the new day of election came round, charging her to see that the under-sheriff had it again that day.207.1

His suspicions of unfair dealing were probably too well founded. At all events, the new election did not pass over peacefully any more than the previous one, perhaps not so much so. We do not, indeed, hear any more of John Berney and Sir Miles Stapleton; John Paston and Sir John Howard. but the sheriff, Sir John Howard, had a violent altercation with Paston himself in the shire house, and one of Howard’s men struck Paston twice with a dagger, so that he would have been severely wounded but for the protection of a good doublet that he wore on the occasion.207.2

The occurrence was an awkward one. The feuds in the county of Norfolk had already occupied the king’s attention once, and that which it was supposed would have been a settlement had proved no settlement at all. Perhaps Edward had been too lenient towards old offenders; for Sir Miles Stapleton was but an ally of Sir Thomas Tuddenham and John Heydon, of whom we have heard so much in the days of Henry VI., and these two personages were almost as influential as ever. Some time before the king’s coronation, they had received a royal pardon, on the strength of which, as we learn by a letter at that time, they intended going up to London with the Duchess of Suffolk to be present at the ceremony.207.3 And very soon afterwards we have a renewal of the old complaints that ‘the world was right wild, and had been sithence Heydon’s safeguard was proclaimed at Walsingham.’207.4 But whoever was in fault, it was a serious thing for John Paston—who by this time hoped that he was in favour with the king, and had actually got his eldest son introduced into the king’s household208.1—that royal influence itself could not still the angry feelings that had arisen about his election. The dispute must now once more come before the king, and his adversary, in consequence of his relation to the Duke of Norfolk, was doubtless a man of considerable influence. Paston himself, it is true, was in the position of the injured party, but he forbore to complain. The subject, however, was brought by others under the notice of the king, who commanded both Paston and Howard to appear before him, and was even incensed at the former for delaying to obey his summons. On the 11th of October the king said to one of John Paston’s friends: ‘We have sent two privy seals to Paston by two yeomen of our chamber, and he disobeyeth them; but we will send him another to-morrow, and, by God’s mercy, if he come not then, he shall die for it. We will make all other men beware by him how they shall disobey our writing. A servant of ours hath made a complaint of him. I cannot think that he hath informed us all truly. Yet not for that we will not suffer him to disobey our writing; but sithence he disobeyeth our writing, we may believe the better his guiding is as we be informed.’208.2

These terrible words were reported to John Paston by his brother Clement, then in London, who urged him to come up from Norfolk in all possible haste, and to be sure that he had some very weighty excuse for having neglected the previous messages. But besides great despatch in coming, and a very weighty excuse, one thing more was very necessary to be attended to, and this further admonition was added: ‘Also, if ye do well, come right strong; for Howard’s wife made her boast that if any of her husband’s men might come to you, there should go no penny for your life, and Howard hath with the king a great fellowship.’208.3

It was clear this advice was not to be neglected. Paston seems to have been detained in Norfolk by a dispute he had with his co-executors Judge Yelverton209.1 and William Jenney, who refused to acknowledge his claims as chief administrator of Fastolf’s will, and had entered on the possession of some of Sir John’s manors in Suffolk, near the borders of Norfolk.209.2 But his absence from London had done great mischief. Not only Howard, but the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were endeavouring to put him out of the king’s favour; and it was said that Caister would be given to the king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.209.3 Worst of all, however, was the fact that the king, who had evidently had a good opinion of Paston hitherto, was beginning to alter his tone so seriously. John Paston imprisoned. No time, therefore, was to be lost in going up to London, and no marvel though, when he got there, he was immediately committed to the Fleet.209.4

John Paston’s enemies, acting in several ways, had now done their worst. While the news of his dispute with Howard was reported to the king in the most unfavourable terms, Judge Yelverton (he had been made Sir William Yelverton at the coronation)209.5 and William Jenney entered Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Cotton in Suffolk, Manor of Cotton. and distrained upon the tenants for rent. John Paston’s faithful servant, Richard Calle, at first interrupted their proceedings, and when Jenney went to hold a court at Cotton, entered the place before he came, along with Paston’s eldest son. By Calle’s activity and watchfulness the court was holden in Paston’s name, although it had been summoned in Jenney’s; and young John Paston next day, to requite the enemy for the trouble they had occasioned, took with him thirty men, and rode to Jenney’s place, where he carried off thirty-six head of neat, and brought them into Norfolk. This was a bold exploit, for the enemy had threatened to drag him and Calle out of the place by violence; but Calle still remained, and twelve men with him, and kept possession for five whole days, during which time he visited the farmers and tenants of the manor, and ascertained that they were all well disposed towards Paston, and would pay no money to any one else. But, unfortunately, just at this point came the summons to Paston which he did not dare to disobey; and his opponents knew how to profit by his absence and imprisonment in London. Yelverton and Jenney did not re-enter the manor themselves; but Jenney sold his interest in it to one Gilbert Debenham, who intended to give it to his son, Sir Gilbert, for a dwelling-house. Accordingly, by the encouragement of Jenney and Debenham, a body of unknown men took possession of the place, and garrisoned it against all comers as strongly as they could. They broke down the drawbridge over the moat, so that no one could enter the place except by means of a ladder. They melted lead, and damaged the property in various ways, while John Paston was a prisoner in the Fleet. At the same time Yelverton and Jenney took proceedings against Richard Calle. They succeeded in getting him imprisoned upon an indictment for felony in Norfolk; and, fearing lest he should be acquitted upon that charge, they ‘certified insurrections’ against him in the King’s Bench, and sent the sheriff a writ to bring him up to London in the beginning of November.210.1

John Paston released from prison.

But before the day that Richard Calle was to appear in the King’s Bench John Paston was delivered from the Fleet, and his adversary Howard was sent to prison in his place. The whole circumstances of the controversy had been laid before the king, and Paston was released after about a fortnight’s imprisonment. The news that he had got into trouble had excited much sympathy in Norwich, for he was highly popular, and Howard’s attempt to set aside his election met with very little approbation. Margaret Paston, especially, was sad and downcast at home, and though her husband had sent her comfortable messages and letters showing that his case was not so bad as it appeared to be, ‘yet I could not be merry,’ she wrote to him, ‘till this day that the Mayor sent to me, and sent me word that he had knowledge for very truth that ye were delivered out of the Fleet.’211.1

The king was much interested in the dispute, and was laudably determined to insist upon justice and fair dealing. He appointed Sir Thomas Montgomery, one of the knights of his own household, in whom he had special confidence, sheriff of Norfolk for the ensuing year. And when Sir Thomas went down into Norfolk, he sent Sir William Yelverton along with him, who, though not very favourably disposed towards Paston, was still one of the justices, and bound to be impartial. Edward gave them both a very explicit message from his own mouth to declare to the people in the shire house, and Yelverton was made the spokesman. Message from the king to the people of Norfolk. He said the king had been greatly displeased to hear that there had been ‘a riotous fellowship’ in the county, but that he understood it was not owing to disaffection on the part of the people generally—that it had been stirred up only by two or three evil-disposed persons—that he and the sheriff were there by the king’s command, ready to receive complaints from any man against any one whomsoever—and that if they could not prevail upon the wrongdoer to make restitution, the bills should be sent to the king; moreover, that if any man was afraid to set forth his grievances, he should have full protection. At this point Yelverton asked the sheriff if he remembered anything more in the king’s message, and requested him in that case to declare it himself. The sheriff said Sir William had set forth everything, except that the king had made special reference to two persons, Sir Thomas Tuddenham and Heydon. ‘Ah, that is truth,’ said Yelverton; and he explained that any one who wished to complain of them should be protected also. The sheriff then added a few words for his part, in which he promised faithfully before all the people, ‘and swore by great oaths,’ that neither by fear nor by favour would he be restrained from communicating to the king the truth as he found it to be.212.1

A.D. 1462.

All this was reassuring; but yet it was remarked that John Paston did not come home again into Norfolk, and neither did his colleague in the representation of the county, John Berney of Witchingham. This alone caused Margaret Paston still to entertain apprehensions for her husband’s safety, and her suspicions were shared by many, who feared that they and Paston alike were involved in some new charges of sedition. Busybodies, it was thought, had been insinuating to the king that a very rebellious spirit prevailed in Norfolk, and report said that the Dukes of Clarence and Suffolk would come down with certain judges commissioned to try such persons as were ‘noised riotous.’ The rumour scarcely tended to pacify discontent. If it were true, people said they might as well go up to the king in a body to complain of those who had done them wrong, and not wait quietly to be hanged at their own doors. The Duke of Suffolk and his mother were the maintainers of those who oppressed the country most, and nothing but severity could be expected from a commission of which the duke was a member, unless his influence were counteracted by that of more popular persons.212.2 These misgivings, however, were happily soon after set at rest. The election of John Paston was confirmed, and no such dreaded commission appears to have been sent into Norfolk. ‘The people of that country,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘be right glad that the day went with you on Monday as it did. You were never so welcome into Norfolk as ye shall be when ye come home, I trow.’212.3 Paston, in fact, appears to have gained a complete triumph over his adversaries, and it was said that Howard was likely to lose his head.212.4

But the dispute with Yelverton and Jenney was still unsettled. Writs were sent down into Norfolk to attach John Paston’s eldest son and Richard Calle upon indictments of trespass, and Debenham threatened to hold a court at Calcot in defiance of Paston’s agents.212.5 It is evident, too, that he made good his word, and John Paston in consequence got his tenants to bring actions against him.213.1 Cross pleas between the parties occupied the courts at Westminster for a year or more, during which time we find it suggested to John Paston that he would never get leave to live in peace, unless he could by some means obtain ‘the good lordship’ of the Duke of Suffolk.213.2 Appeals to law and justice were all very well, and no one fought his battle in the courts with more unflinching energy than Paston; but unless he wished to be always fighting, the best way for him was to obtain the favour of the great.

It is a question, indeed, whether in this eternal turmoil of litigation at Westminster, and watch to keep out intruders in his Suffolk manors, John Paston had not to some extent neglected his duty to his children at home. Such, at least, was the world’s opinion, and there were candid friends who did not hesitate to tell him so. Sir John Paston. His eldest son now attained the age of twenty-one, and received the dignity of knighthood—probably, as we have before suggested, as a substitute for himself. A.D. 1463. The young man had been summoned four years before to attend and do military service to King Henry VI.213.3 He had since been for some little time a member of King Edward’s household, travelling about with the court from place to place.213.4 But he had scarcely seen the usual amount of service, and though now of full age, and known as Sir John Paston, knight, he was living again under his father’s roof, wasting his time, as it was considered, in inglorious ease. ‘At reverence of God, take heed,’ wrote some one to his father, ‘for I hear much talking thereof. . . . Some say that he and ye stand both out of the king’s good grace, and some say that ye keep him at home for niggardship, and will nothing spend upon him; and so each man says his advice as it pleases him to talk. And I have inquired and said the most cause is in party for cause ye are so much out, that he is rather at home for the safeguard of the coasts.’213.5

The protection of the coast, especially about Yarmouth, might well be an object in which John Paston was specially concerned, for close to Yarmouth lay Caister Castle. And he had actually procured a commission for his son to be captain of a ship in the king’s service, called the Barge of Yarmouth. But here again he was brought into collision with Gilbert Debenham, who had already procured a commission to the same effect for himself, and this field of usefulness seems to have been cut off.214.1 Confinement at home, to superintend his father’s servants, did not suit the young man’s tastes. Once before he had displeased his father, probably by seeking too much liberty.214.2 He now not only sought it, but took it without leave. He leaves home. Without signifying his intention to any one, he stole away from Caister, apparently with the view of joining himself again to the king’s household. In passing by Lynn, he wrote a penitent letter to his mother, expressing his fear that he had done wrong, and given her uneasiness. And, in truth, she was by no means pleased; for hitherto in their little disagreements she had stood between him and his father, and now her own past efforts at conciliation caused his father to suspect that she had been privy to his escape. If on any occasion Margaret Paston ever deceived her husband, it must have been for the sake of shielding one of her sons; but we are not warranted in believing even this. The imputation in this instance was certainly untrue; but so great was the offence taken by the father, that she durst not even let him know that she had received a letter from her son since his departure. She, however, wrote to the runaway, and charged him, as he valued her blessing, to do all in his power to recover his father’s goodwill. He must write to his offended parent again and again in the most humble terms he could think of, giving him all the news from court, and taking far more pains than he had done at home to avoid incurring expenses.214.3

John Paston the youngest.

For his second son John’s setting out in life, the father had made better provision than for his eldest. He had succeeded in getting him placed in the household of the new Duke of Norfolk, the last of the Mowbrays, who succeeded his father towards the close of the year 1461, the first year of King Edward’s reign. It was the preceding duke who had occupied Caister just before the coronation; but he died on the 6th November following, at the beginning of Edward’s first Parliament, when his son and heir had just attained the age of seventeen.215.1 John Paston the father evidently hoped to have the young duke for his friend, and so to maintain himself in undisturbed possession of the lands which he claimed under Sir John Fastolf’s will. His son must have been as nearly as possible of the same age as the young nobleman, in whose service he was placed, and he was soon made familiar with the stir and bustle of life. At first he went down with the duke to his castle of Holt, in Wales, where he expected to keep his Christmas. The young duke, who was already married, being desired by the king to repair thither for the quiet of the country, had left his wife behind him, but after a while proposed to send for her to keep Christmas in Wales along with him. This intention, however, he was compelled to abandon. At that very time Queen Margaret had come out of France, and had won the castle of Bamborough: Bamborough Castle taken by Margaret of Anjou. and though Warwick was sent to the north as the king’s lieutenant, and the king himself was following with an army of his own, it was shortly afterwards determined that the Duke of Norfolk also should repair into Northumberland. A.D. 1462. Oct. The castles of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamborough were invested by the royal forces; but it was fully expected the Scots would make a strong attempt to rescue them. The Earl of Warwick’s headquarters were at Warkworth, three miles out of Alnwick, but he rode daily to each of the three castles to superintend the siege operations at each. The Duke of Norfolk had the task assigned him to conduct the victuals and ordnance from Newcastle. The king himself lay at Durham; and young John Paston had an opportunity of making acquaintance with a number of influential persons, including the Lord Hastings and Lord Dacres, who had continual access to the presence of their sovereign. Altogether, John Paston the youngest had certainly begun the world well.215.2

Of the other children of John and Margaret Paston it is unnecessary to say anything at present. At the time of which we now treat there was hardly one of them far advanced beyond childhood; nor do they, in fact, occupy very much attention even in later years, although we shall meet with casual notices of one or two of them.

but he considered his conduct that at the election text unchanged: 1st edition has same word order

Footnote 208.1: Nos. 477, 478. text reads “No.”

Troubles of John Paston

On the whole, though the conduct of one of them had not given him entire satisfaction, the two eldest sons of John Paston had probably both been of some service to their father in maintaining his influence at court. And this must have been a matter of no small consequence in the continued struggle that he was obliged to maintain with adversaries like Yelverton and Jenney. The dispute with them had now assumed another form. A.D. 1464. Litigation touching Fastolf’s will. Sir William Yelverton, in conjunction with our old friend William Worcester, was contesting in the spiritual court of Canterbury the claim put forward by Paston to be the chief executor under Sir John Fastolf’s will; while at the same time William Jenney, and one William Hogan, by Jenney’s procurement, took actions for trespass against him in the Suffolk county court. Paston trusted to his influence with the king to deliver him from these vexatious suits. He neglected to put in an appearance at four several county courts, and allowed himself to be put in exigent, while he followed the king to Marlborough, and obtained from him a licence for the erection of the college at Caister provided for in Fastolf’s will. Along with this the king covenanted to give him a free pardon when required for all offences against the peace, to save him harmless against Yelverton and Jenney; but undertook at the same time to cause inquiry to be made into the substance of their accusations, and if these proved to be unfounded, to compel them to make Paston compensation.216.1

Paston had partly trusted to the friendship of William Calthorpe, who was at this time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to protect him against outlawry. His servant Richard Calle offered surety that Paston would save the sheriff harmless, either by making an appearance at a later date or by producing a supersedeas; and he requested that upon this assurance the sheriff would return that his master had appeared the first day. Calthorpe had every wish to do Paston a kindness; though he confessed that Jenney had been his good friend and legal adviser for two years past, Paston was still more his friend than Jenney, and he promised to do all that was required.217.1 But this promise he failed to fulfil. Paston’s non-appearance was proclaimed at four successive county courts at Ipswich; and a writ of exigent was granted against him. Paston obtained a supersedeas from the king at Fotheringay on the 3rd August; John Paston outlawed. but in the end judgment was given against him in Suffolk on the 10th September, and he was proclaimed an outlaw. On the 3rd November following he was committed to the Fleet prison.217.2

This was his second experience of captivity since the death of Sir John Fastolf. We do not know that he ever suffered it before that time; but he was now paying the penalty of increased importance. His detention on this occasion does not seem to have been of long duration; but if we are right in the interpretation of a sarcastic anonymous letter217.3 found among his correspondence, his fellow-prisoners threw out surmises when he left that the Fleet would see him yet a third time within its walls. At least, this may or may not have been the purport of what is certainly an ironical and ambiguous epistle addressed to him, we cannot tell by whom. If it was so, the prediction was verified before another twelvemonth had passed away.

How matters went during the winter we have very little indication, except that Paston’s friend John Wykes, an officer of the king’s household, A.D. 1465. Feb. 7. writes to Margaret Paston on the 7th February from London, ‘that my master your husband, my mistress your mother, my master Sir John, Mr. William, Mr. Clement, and all their men, were in good health when this letter was written, thanked be Jesu; and also their matters be in a good way, for my Lord Chancellor is their singular good lord.’ The crisis in the affairs of the family was certainly very serious, when old Agnes Paston, the judge’s widow (for I have never found any other lady spoken of as Margaret Paston’s ‘mother’), took the trouble to go up to London to see them settled. It appears that there was a little family council on the occasion, and John Paston’s two brothers, William and Clement, together with his son Sir John, were also present.218.1 What kind of arrangement they all succeeded in making we have no means of ascertaining; but the next occasion of trouble to John Paston was not given by Yelverton and Jenney.

The Duke of Suffolk lays claim to Drayton.

The first indications of it appear in a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband, written on the 8th April 1465, by which we find that the Duke of Suffolk had now set up a claim to Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Drayton, about four miles north-west of Norwich. Margaret had also heard that he had bought up the rights of a person named Brytyeff or Bryghtylhed, who laid claim to the neighbouring manor of Hellesdon, a little nearer the city, and that he intended to take possession after Easter.218.2 The claim appears to have been very ill founded, and the tenants, all but one or two, were favourable to Paston.218.3 Nevertheless Philip Lipyate, the duke’s bailiff, began taking distresses, and carried off the horses of one Dorlet as he was about to yoke them to his plough. But Margaret Paston, who had been staying at Caister, after waiting till her son Sir John could come to her, and leaving him to keep the castle, went over to Hellesdon to collect the rents for her husband, and put a stop, if possible, to the proceedings of the duke’s officers. She soon began to feel that there was more need of a captain like her son Sir John at Hellesdon than at Caister. One single tenant named Piers Warin gave her servants a little trouble, and they took from him two mares as security for the rent. Warin made his complaint to Philip Lipyate and the duke’s bailiff of Cossey, who came with a body of eightscore men in armour, and took away the plough-horses of the parson and another tenant, intimating that the beasts should not be restored unless their owners would appear and give answer to certain matters at Drayton on the Tuesday following. The duke’s men further threatened that if Paston’s servants ventured to take any further distresses in Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a hen, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon.219.1

John Paston, though not at this time in confinement, seems to have been unable to leave London. But it was impossible that he could underestimate the danger in which his property stood from the pretensions of such a formidable neighbour as the Duke of Suffolk. The letters written to him at this period by his wife are annotated all down the margin with very brief rough jottings in his own handwriting, for the most part only calling attention to the subjects touched upon in the letter, but occasionally indicating what he was about to say in his reply. He expressed, indeed, no great respect for the big threats of Suffolk’s officers about taking the value of an ox for that of a hen, which he characterised in the margin by the simple monosyllable ‘crack’; but he noted, in the brief words ‘Periculum Heylesdon,’ the fact that there was real cause for anxiety lest the duke, who had already occupied Drayton, should drive him out of Hellesdon as well.219.2

The Bishop of Norwich had been appealed to, as chief justice of the peace for the county, to use his influence with the Duke of Suffolk’s officers, and especially with Philip Lipyate, who was a priest, and subject to his jurisdiction, to bring the dispute to a peaceful settlement. But John Paston probably trusted more to the fact that he had men of his own ready to repel force by force. The parishes of Hellesdon and Drayton are situated on the northern bank of the river Wensum, partly on a low ridge which slopes downward towards the stream. Opposite to Drayton, on the other side of the river, lay the Duke of Suffolk’s mansion of Cossey,219.3 from which, at any time that was thought advisable, an armed band could be sent along with a distraining officer to assert the duke’s alleged rights over the tenants. It was really a case of two hostile camps keeping watch upon each other, and each of them ready to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Not that either of them pretended to be above the law, but the duke and Paston each claimed to be lawful owner of the lordships of Hellesdon and Drayton, and, until any legal settlement could be come to, each was well aware of the importance of maintaining his claim by corresponding acts. If the duke could levy a distress, so could Paston. His officers made an inroad, undeterred by the menaces of the duke’s men, into Drayton, took 77 neat, and brought them home to Hellesdon. The tenants followed, petitioning to have their cattle back again, but Margaret Paston told them they must first pay such duties as they owed to her husband, or find security to pay at such a day as she could agree to. An officer of the duke named Harleston was at Norwich, and told them that if they either paid or gave such surety they should be put out of their holdings. Harleston had a conference with Margaret Paston in the evening, but she refused to redeliver the distress on any other terms than those she had already intimated. This was on a Saturday evening. On Monday following a replevin was served upon her in the name of Harleston, who was under-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, on the ground that the cattle had been taken within the fee of the duchy. Margaret refused to deliver them until she had ascertained whether this was actually the case, and on inquiry she found that it was not so. The beasts were accordingly still detained in Hellesdon pin-fold, and Pynchemore, the officer who had brought the replevin, was obliged to return to his master. But in the afternoon he came again with a replevin under the seal of the sheriff of Norfolk, which it was impossible lawfully to disobey. So the beasts were at last taken out of the pin-fold and redelivered to the tenants.220.1

This sort of quasi-legal warfare continued for weeks and for months. At one time there would be a lull; but again it was reported that the duke’s men were busier. The duke himself was coming to Cossey, and his servants boasted openly that he would have Drayton in peace and then Hellesdon.221.1 And not very long after the duke did come to Norfolk, raising people on his way both in Norfolk and Suffolk,—for an attack, as every one knew, on Paston’s stronghold at Hellesdon, which was now placed in the keeping of his son Sir John.221.2

Attempt of the duke’s men on Hellesdon.

On Monday the 8th July, Philip Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey, with about 300 men, came before Hellesdon, but, finding Sir John Paston quite prepared for them, professed they had no intention of attempting to force an entry. For Sir John had a garrison of 60 men within the place, and such a quantity of guns and ordnance that the assailants would certainly have had the worst of it. Lipyate and the bailiff, however, informed Sir John that they had a warrant to attach John Daubeney, Wykes, Richard Calle, and some others. Sir John replied that they were not within, and if they had been he would not have delivered them. Afterwards it was mutually agreed that the Duke of Suffolk should dismiss his men and Sir John Paston should do the same. But this only transferred the scene of action to Norwich, where Richard Calle was attacked by twelve men in the streets and only rescued by the sheriff; nor did he escape without the pleasant assurance that if he were caught another time he would be put to death, so that he did not dare ride out without an escort. Daubeney and Wykes were in a similar state of apprehension, and to crown all, it was said that there was to be a special commission to inquire of riots, in which the Duke of Suffolk and Yelverton would be commissioners. If so, every man that had taken Paston’s part was pretty sure of being hanged.221.3

Sir John Paston, however, acquired great credit for having withstood so numerous a force as Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey had brought against him. It will be readily understood that his position must have been a strong one. He and his mother were then living at a mansion in Hellesdon, which probably stood on comparatively low ground near the river.222.1 But on the brow of the hill, nearer Drayton, stood a quadrangular fortress of which the ruins still exist, known at this day by the name of Drayton Lodge. This lodge lay within what was then called Hellesdon Warren, and commanded the entrance to the property. From its elevated position it must have been peculiarly difficult to attack. The country around was open heath, and the approach of an enemy could be descried distinctly in the distance. From the mansion below, where he had quartered his garrison of 60 men, he could doubtless bring up with ease at any time as many as seemed necessary for the defence of the lodge;222.2 while from the battlements of the lodge a heavy fire could be opened on the advancing foe.222.3

Living within a house that was threatened with siege, Margaret Paston, at this juncture, seems to have taken an active part along with her son in the preparations for defence. Her husband in London writes to her as a commander-in-chief might do to the governor of a besieged fort:—‘In good faith ye acquit you right well and discreetly, and heartily to your worship and mine, and to the shame of your adversaries: and I am well content that ye avowed that ye kept possession at Drayton and so would do.’ But the task imposed upon her had impaired her health; and John Paston, though for some potent reasons he was not able even now to come to her aid, was anxious to give her every comfort and encouragement in his power. ‘Take what may do your ease and spare not,’ he says in the same letter; ‘and in any wise take no thought nor too much labour for these matters, nor set it not so to your heart that ye fare the worse for it. And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law, John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. It had descended to his daughter Alice, and John Paston was able to show his title to her property. On the other hand he traced the pedigree of the Duke of Suffolk from ‘one William Poole of Hull, which was a worshipful man grown by fortune of the world,’ and whose son Michael, the first Earl of Suffolk, had been so created by King Richard II. since Paston’s father was born; and if any of their lineage held the manor of Drayton he would lose £100, if the duke would be bound in as much to prove the contrary. But the duke must not expect him to show his title to one who tried to oust him by violence. On this point John Paston was resolute. ‘Let my lord of Norwich wit that it is not profitable, nor the common weal of gentlemen, that any gentleman should be compelled by an entry of a lord to show his evidence or title to his land, nor I will not begin that example ne thraldom, of gentlemen nor of other. It is good a lord take sad counsel ere he begin any such matter.’223.1

It might have been supposed that after the duke’s attempt on Hellesdon, nothing but impediments of the most serious kind would have prevented John Paston from going down to Norfolk to take charge of his own interests and relieve his wife’s anxiety. But it appears that he hardly expected to be able to leave London, and in the same letter from which we have just been quoting he desires that if he be not home within three weeks his wife will come to him. In that case she is, before leaving, to put everything under proper rule both at Caister and Hellesdon, ‘if the war hold.’ The state of matters between him and Suffolk was such as could only be spoken of as a state of war, even by plain matter-of-fact John Paston. And if the enemy offered peace his wife was to send him word.

What could have been the obstacle that prevented John Paston leaving London? It appears for one thing that he was at this time called upon to undergo an examination before the spiritual court of Canterbury, in defence of his claim to be Sir John Fastolf’s executor. This alone was, perhaps, sufficient to detain him, for it was a thing on which his most important interests depended. But there is no doubt that additional obstacles were raised up for him expressly by the malice of his enemies; John Paston imprisoned a third time. for it could not have been many weeks after his first examination that John Paston again found himself a prisoner in the Fleet, and within the walls of that prison his further depositions were taken.224.1

It was the malicious ingenuity of Judge Yelverton that had devised the means to inflict upon him this new incarceration. And the means employed were such as to make captivity doubly painful and humiliating. The king’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in May of the preceding year. At Michaelmas it was openly avowed; and if it displeased, as no doubt it did, Warwick and the old nobility, even from the first, it informed a whole world of time-servers and place-hunters that there was a new avenue to fortune in securing the favour of the Woodvilles. Already Rivers had been created Lord Treasurer and advanced to the dignity of an earldom. Already marriages had been made for the queen’s brothers and sisters, which were evidently provocative of envy, jealousy, and indignation.224.2 The king’s liberality towards his new relations was unbounded, and sycophants were not wanting to suggest to him how he might gratify their cupidity, sometimes at the expense of others than himself. Sir William Yelverton, accordingly, contrived to whisper in the royal ear that the king might fairly dispose of some fine property in Norfolk and Suffolk; for John Paston, who claimed to be the owner, was come of servile blood, and was really the king’s bondman.225.1

The reader will remember the curious paper225.2 in which it is set forth that the grandfather and father of John Paston had held lands in the village of Paston, by servile tenures, and that John Paston himself, without having any manor place, was endeavouring to ‘make himself a lordship there,’ to the prejudice of the duchy of Lancaster. There can be little doubt that this statement was drawn up in the year 1465 and that its author was Judge Yelverton. He had been at this time endeavouring to ingratiate himself with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, the queen’s brother, and it was in the interest of that nobleman that he made this attempt to asperse the lineage of the Pastons. Lord Scales seeks to obtain Caister. For Lord Scales had begun to cast covetous eyes on the magnificent castle at Caister; and if it were but satisfactorily shown that John Paston was disqualified from possessing it, no doubt the king, his brother-in-law, would be only too willing to grant it to himself. The case was already prejudged; Caister and the lordship of Cotton as well were his by anticipation, and some time before Paston was committed to prison it was known that Lord Scales meant to ride down into Norfolk and oust him from his property.225.3

Although John Paston was thus unable to go home, as he wished to do, neither was Margaret Paston able for some time to go up and see him in London, as he had desired her. Wykes, who had promised to keep possession of the place at Hellesdon in her absence, did not go down into Norfolk so soon as he had intended, but remained in London taking care of Paston’s interests in another fashion in conferences with Nevill, Archbishop of York, at that time Lord Chancellor. Perhaps already the influence of Archbishop Nevill, like that of his brother the Earl of Warwick, had begun to decline, and Wykes was really wasting his labour in complaining to his lordship of the riotous attempt made by the Duke of Suffolk’s men at Hellesdon. There was but one pretext on which the outrage could be justified,—a matter concerning the payment of 100 marks, but the money had been paid long ago. His lordship, however, durst swear the Duchess of Suffolk had no knowledge of it; and with that he left town, promising an answer when he came back next Tuesday.226.1

But Margaret Paston, though she could not yet come up to London, did not spend the time at home unprofitably. The judges had come down to Norwich on their circuit, when Margaret endeavoured to secure the advantage she had already gained in keeping possession at Drayton by getting a manor court held there in her husband’s name. But to do this she required the services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many, certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an entry into Hellesdon.

Attempt of Margaret Paston to hold a court at Drayton.

Thomas Bond and an attached and confidential priest named Sir James Gloys were adventurous enough to go to Drayton alone for the purpose of holding a court on Lammas Day. They found, as might have been expected, that officers of the Duke of Suffolk were there before them. Harleston, along with Philip Lipyate, the parson of Salle, and William Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, who was to sit as steward, were in the courtyard of the manor, prepared to hold the court in the Duke of Suffolk’s name. They were accompanied by about sixty persons or more, besides the tenants of Drayton, some having rusty poleaxes and bills to enforce respect for the duke’s authority. In the face of this array, however, Bond and Gloys announced that they came to keep the court in the name of John Paston; on which the former was immediately delivered into the custody of William Ducket, a new bailiff of Drayton appointed by the duke, and was carried off to Cossey, his arms bound behind him with whipcord like a thief. But Margaret Paston spoke with the judges next morning before they went to the shirehouse, in presence of the bailiff of Cossey and the whole of the duke’s council; and the judges calling the bailiff before them, gave him a severe reproof, and sent the sheriff to see what company had been mustered at Drayton. The sheriff rode first to Hellesdon, and expressed himself satisfied with the demeanour of Paston’s men there. When he came to Drayton, the bands of Suffolk’s retainers had disappeared. He demanded that Thomas Bond should be delivered to him, and was told that he had been sent to the Duke of Suffolk; but he was afterwards delivered to him at Norwich, with a request that he should not be set at liberty without a fine, as he had troubled the king’s leet. The judges, however, on being informed of the real state of the case, commanded him to be set at liberty, and pronounced a very strong censure on the conduct of Suffolk’s officers.227.1

As for the manors of Caister and Cotton, it does not appear that Lord Scales ever carried out his intention so far as the latter was concerned; nor had he taken possession even of the former some time after John Paston was committed to the Fleet. That occurrence must have taken place about the middle of the month of August,227.2 and towards the end of September we have evidence that Sir John Paston was in Caister Castle keeping possession for his father.227.3 But the Paston family had been warned of the danger, and we may be well assured that they did not neglect the warning in either case. Indeed, the question how to make matters secure at Caister seems to have been the principal difficulty that caused Margaret to delay her journey up to London. As to Cotton, we shall see ere long that very effectual means were taken to secure possession there.

Margaret Paston visits her husband in prison.

It would appear that when Margaret knew her husband was in prison she determined to delay no longer, but to visit him in London at all costs. Early in September she had already gone to him, and her son, John Paston the youngest, wrote to her from Norwich on the 14th, advising her, among other things, to visit the Rood of North-door (a cross beside St. Paul’s Cathedral), and St. Saviour’s at Bermondsey, during her stay in the capital. ‘And let my sister Margery,’ he suggests, ‘go with you, to pray to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.’ It is difficult to tell whether this means devotion or sightseeing, jest or earnest. The young man had already seen a good deal of life, and was familiar with the principal attractions of the great city, to which in all probability his mother was as great a stranger as his young sister. Even the dame who had the care of his father’s apartments in the prison was not unknown apparently to John Paston the youngest. ‘And the Holy Trinity,’ he writes, ‘have you in keeping, and my fair Mistress of the Fleet.’

John Paston the father does not seem to have been very uncomfortable in prison. He made friends in the place of his confinement, and among other persons became acquainted with Henry, Lord Percy, son of the attainted Earl of Northumberland, who was afterwards restored by King Edward to his father’s earldom. His spirits, indeed, if we may judge from his correspondence, were at this time particularly buoyant; for after his wife had taken leave of him to return homeward he wrote her a letter the latter half of which was composed of doggerel rhyme, jesting about having robbed her portmanteau, and referring her for redress to Richard Calle, whose ears he bade her nail to the post if he did not pay her the value. In none of his previous correspondence does he indulge in verse or betray anything of this rollicking humour. The only subject on which he even insinuates a complaint is the weather, which seems to have been unnaturally cold for September. He speaks of it satirically as ‘this cold winter,’ and wishes his wife to send him some worsted for doublets in which to protect himself from the severity of the season. But even in this we can tell that he is jesting, for he explains himself that he wishes to have a doublet entirely composed of the wool manufactured at Worsted, for the credit of his native county. And so far is he from wishing it for the sake of warmth, that he particularly desires to procure a fine quality of worsted ‘almost like silk,’ of which William Paston’s tippet was composed.229.1

Margaret Paston enters Cotton.

On her way back to Norfolk, Margaret Paston entered the manor of Cotton and remained in it for three days. She had sent a message to her son John Paston the youngest at Hellesdon to come and meet her there,229.2 and he came along with Wykes and twelve others, whom she had left at her departure to keep possession and collect the rents. It was within a week of Michaelmas Day, when rents fell due. As yet Lord Scales had made no attempt to seize upon this property. Sir Gilbert Debenham had occupied the manor for some years undisturbed, and he was doubtless considerably taken by surprise when he found that a lady on her way home from London had entered and taken possession in the name of John Paston. But when he heard that young John Paston was gathering money of the tenants, he raised a body of 300 men to expel the intruder. Young John Paston was expecting reinforcements to his little band from Caister or elsewhere, but they did not come; so that his position would have been a critical one had not some one been his friend in the household of the Duke of Norfolk. Sir Gilbert was the duke’s steward, and John Paston the youngest was still in the duke’s service. A yeoman of his lordship’s chamber represented to that nobleman that there was imminent risk of a quarrel between two of his men, which would be a great ‘disworship’ to his grace. The duke sent for the two immediately to attend upon him at Framlingham Castle, and proposed to them terms of compromise until the matter could be thoroughly investigated. He desired that neither party should muster men, that the court should be ‘continued’—that is to say, adjourned—till he himself should have had an opportunity of speaking both with John Paston the father and on the other side with Yelverton and Jenney, who had conveyed to Debenham the title on which he founded his claim to the manor. Meanwhile he proposed that the place should be kept by some indifferent person to be chosen by both parties.

To these terms John Paston the youngest would not assent without consulting his mother, who had again come over from Norwich, or perhaps from Caister, to see how matters went. But after a conference, they sent an answer to the duke, declaring that they could not give up possession of the place, but out of their anxiety for peace, and to satisfy his lordship, they were willing to desist meanwhile from collecting rents, if the opposite party would engage not to distrain or keep courts there either. To this compromise Sir Gilbert said that he agreed, provided it met with the approval of Yelverton and Jenney; and the Duke of Norfolk, who was going up to London in anticipation of his birthday when he attained his majority, left all the sooner in the hope of bringing this matter to a favourable settlement.230.1

Thus far, at least, the entry into Cotton had been a distinct success. The compromise was greatly in favour of the Pastons, for an appeal to force would almost certainly have gone against them, and, though they engaged for the time to abstain from taking more money of the tenants, they had already succeeded in collecting almost all that they expected to receive for Michaelmas term.230.2 So Margaret Paston on her return to Norfolk, and her son, when he was summoned to London shortly afterwards, to attend the duke on his coming of age,231.1 may each have left Cotton with feelings akin to triumph. But scarcely had the former returned to Norwich when she discovered to her dismay that her clever manœuvre in Suffolk had left the family interests insufficiently protected elsewhere. The Duke of Suffolk had not only a great number of men at Cossey, but he had a powerful friend within the city of Norwich. Thomas Elys, the new mayor, was so flagrantly partial, that he had said at Drayton he would supply my lord of Suffolk with a hundred men whenever he should require them, and if any men of the city went to Paston he would lay them fast in prison.231.2 Hellesdon, unfortunately, lay midway between Cossey and the city of Norwich, and as it was not now assize time there was practically no control over such magnates as the Duke of Suffolk and the mayor. So, on the morning of Tuesday the 15th of October, one Bottisforth, who was bailiff for the duke at Eye, came to Hellesdon, arrested four of John Paston’s servants, and carried them off to Cossey without a warrant from any justice of the peace. His intention, he said, was to convey them to Eye prison along with as many more of Paston’s adherents as he could lay his hands on. That same day the duke came to Norwich with a retinue of 500 men. He sent for the mayor and aldermen with the sheriffs, and desired them in the king’s name to make inquiry of the constables in every ward of the city what men had taken part with Paston in recent gatherings. Any such persons he requested that they would arrest and punish, and send their names to him by eight o’clock on the following day. On this the mayor arrested one Robert Lovegold, brasier, and threatened him that he should be hanged, though he had only been with Margaret Paston at Lammas, when she was menaced by the companies of Harleston and the bailiff of Cossey.231.3

Attack on Hellesdon.

Scarcely one of Paston’s servants now durst openly show himself abroad, and, the duke having the city at his command, his followers made, that same Tuesday, a regular assault on the place at Hellesdon. The slender garrison knew that it was madness to resist, and no opposition was offered. The duke’s men took possession, and set John Paston’s own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston’s own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors, or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the work of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now.232.1

This was carrying things with the high hand; but it did not improve the Duke of Suffolk’s popularity at Norwich, and it created no small sympathy with Paston and his tenants. ‘There cometh much people daily,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘to wonder thereupon, both of Norwich and of other places, and they speak shamefully thereof. The duke had been better than a thousand pound that it had never been done; and ye have the more good will of the people that it is so foully done.’ Margaret was anxious that the effects of the outrage should be seen before winter came on by some one specially sent from the king to view and report upon the ruin. But no redress was obtained while her husband lived, and even some years after his death his sons petitioned for it in vain.

Footnote 217.2: ... Mich. and Hil. 4 Edw. iv. typography unchanged: expected form “Edw. IV.”

John Paston’s Latter Days

The chagrin and mortification inflicted upon John Paston by an injury like this may not unlikely have contributed to shorten his days. The correspondence is scanty from the end of October 1465 till some time after his death, which occurred in London in May of the following year. We know nothing of the nature of the illness which carried him off; but three imprisonments in the course of five years, accompanied with a great deal of anxiety about his newly acquired property, the intrigues of lawyers and the enmity of great men, must have exercised a depressing influence even on the stoutest heart. He appears to have been released from prison some time before his death, A.D. 1466. and was so far well in February that he had a conference in Westminster Hall with William Jenney, who desired at last to come to some agreement with him. But the great lawsuit about Fastolf’s will remained still undecided, and he left to his son Sir John an inheritance troubled by a disputed claim. He died on the 21st or 22nd May233.1 1466. His remains were carried down into Norfolk and buried with great magnificence in Bromholm Abbey.233.2

Of his character we see fewer indications than might have been expected in a correspondence extending over more than twenty years, and perhaps we are in danger of judging him too much from the negative point of view. A man of business habits and of little humour, but apparently of elastic spirits and thorough knowledge of the world, he was not easily conquered by any difficulties or overwhelmed by misfortunes. His early experience in that dispute with Lord Molynes about Gresham must have taught him, if he needed teaching, the crookedness of the times in which he lived, and the hopelessness of trusting to mere abstract right and justice for the protection of his own interests. But by unwearied energy, by constant watchfulness, by cultivating the friendship of Sir John Fastolf and the goodwill of the world in general, he succeeded in asserting for himself a position of some importance in his native county. That he was, at the same time, grasping and selfish to some extent, is no more than what we might be prepared to expect; and it would seem there were complaints to this effect even among the members of his own family.233.3 As a parent he appears to have been somewhat unamiable and cold-hearted. Yet it is mainly to his self-seeking, businesslike character that we owe the preservation of so valuable a correspondence. He knew well the importance of letters and of documents when rights came to be contested, and he was far more anxious about their security than about all the rest of his goods and chattels.234.1

Sir John Fastolf’s will.

Such being the nature of the man, and his personal history being as we have seen, what are we to say of the dark suspicion thrown upon his conduct in one important matter by his personal enemy Sir William Yelverton, and even by his quondam friend William Worcester? If their contention was true, the great addition made to the fortunes of the Paston family on the death of Sir John Fastolf was only due to a successful forgery. The will on which John Paston founded his claim to Caister, as well as to the manors of Drayton and Hellesdon, Cotton, Calcotes, and the whole of Fastolf’s lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, was denounced by them as a fabrication and not the genuine will of Sir John Fastolf. And we must own that there are many things which seem to make the imputation credible. We have, unfortunately, only a portion of the depositions taken in the lawsuit, and these are entirely those of the adverse party, with the exception of two separate and individual testimonies given in Paston’s favour.234.2 We ought, therefore, undoubtedly to be on our guard against attaching undue weight to the many allegations of perjury and corruption against Paston’s witnesses, as it is certainly quite conceivable that the interested testimony was on the other side, and it is truly shown in John Paston’s own comments upon the evidence that the proofs given were insufficient. But, on the other hand, it is a very suspicious circumstance that a will drawn up by Fastolf on the 14th June before his death, was altered on the 3rd November so as to confer special powers in the administration to John Paston and Thomas Howes, and to give a large beneficiary interest to the former.234.3 It is also singular that there should be three separate instruments of this latter date, each professing to be Fastolf’s will.234.4 And it by no means tends to allay suspicion when we find that two years after John Paston’s death, and very shortly before his own, the parson Thomas Howes, a Grey Friar, and partner with him in the principal charge of the administration of the alleged last will, made a declaration ‘for the discharge of his conscience’ that the document was a fabrication.235.1

This evidence might seem at first sight decisive and extremely damaging to the character of John Paston. But even here we must not be too precipitate in our conclusion. It is, for one thing, fairly open to remark that if this subsequent declaration of Sir Thomas Howes was an impeachment of Paston’s honesty, it was no less so of his own; so that it becomes a question whether he was more honest at the time he was acting in concurrence with Paston or at the time of his professed repentance when he made this declaration. But on the whole we may admit that the latter alternative is more probable, and we frankly own it as our belief that Sir Thomas Howes, in his latter days, felt scruples of conscience with regard to the part he had taken in defending for his master Paston the validity of what, after all, he considered to be a questionable document. Yet what are we to say, in this case, to the testimony of another Grey Friar, our old friend Dr. Brackley, who had drawn up the final agreement between Fastolf and Paston relative to the college, got it engrossed on indented parchment, read it to Sir John, and saw him put his seal to it?235.2 It was Brackley’s dying testimony, when he was shriven by Friar Mowth, and informed that there were serious imputations on his conduct in reference to this matter, that as he would answer before God, in whose presence he was soon to appear, the will which John Paston produced in court was the genuine will of Sir John Fastolf. This testimony, too, he repeated unsolicited when, after seeming to rally for a day or two, he sank again, and saw himself once more in the presence of death.235.3 Truly, if it seem hard to doubt the declaration of Sir Thomas Howes, it is harder still to cast suspicion on Brackley’s dying evidence.

The true explanation of these discrepancies may, however, involve less serious charges against the character either of Paston, Brackley, or Howes than would at first sight appear inevitable. The question was not really one about the authenticity of a document, but about the exact nature of a dying man’s will. The document avowedly had not Fastolf’s signature attached; it seems that he was too ill to write. For some years before his death I do not find Fastolf’s own signature attached to any of his letters. The point in dispute was whether it really represented Fastolf’s latest intentions as to the disposal of his property. True, it bore Fastolf’s seal of arms, which Yelverton and Worcester at first endeavoured to prove must have been affixed to it after his death. But Paston seems to have shown most successfully that this was impossible, as Fastolf’s seal of arms was at his death contained in a purse sealed with his signet, and the signet itself was at that time taken off his finger, and sealed up in a chest under the seals of several of the executors.236.1 Moreover, Paston’s statements went to show that the terms of the will were settled in various conferences with Sir John during the months of September, October, and the beginning of November, and that corrections had been made in it by his express desire. With all this, however, it may have been a delicate question whether the latest corrections were truly in accordance with Fastolf’s mind, and doubts may have been fairly entertained on the subject by Sir Thomas Howes; especially when we consider that on the day the will was dated Fastolf was utterly unable to speak articulately, so that no one could hear him without putting his ear close to the mouth of the dying man.236.2 With regard to John Paston’s part in the matter, he was not present when Fastolf’s seal was put to the document, so that the validity of that act rested entirely upon the testimony of others, particularly Dr. Brackley. And as to the charge of his ‘fabricating’ the will, it was never denied that he drew it up, or took a considerable part in doing so; the only question is how far he did so in accordance with Sir John Fastolf’s own instructions.

Some important matters of fact, indeed, were asserted by Paston in support of his case, and contested by the opposite side. Among other things, it was contended that in the autumn of the year 1457, two years before his death, Sir John Fastolf had actually made estate to John Paston of the manor of Caister and other lands in Norfolk, and thereupon given him livery of seisin with a view to the foundation of the college:237.1 also that the will made in 1459 was an imperfect document, in which no executors were named, and to which no seal was attached.237.2 If these allegations were true, there was, after all, no great alteration in Sir John’s intentions during the last two years of his life. On the other hand, Sir Thomas Howes, in his later declaration, asserts that only a year before Fastolf’s death he had, at Paston’s desire, urged Sir John to allow Paston to buy three of his manors and live in his college; at which proposition the old knight started with indignation, and declared with a great oath, ‘An I knew that Paston would buy any of my lands or my goods, he should never be my feoffee, nor mine executor.’ But even Howes acknowledges that he was willing to allow Paston a lodging for term of his life within the manor of Caister.237.3

The whole controversy affords certainly an admirable illustration of the inconvenient state of the law before the passing of the Statute of Uses in the days of Henry VIII. The hearing of all causes touching the wills of dead men belonged to the spiritual courts of the Church, which did not own the king’s jurisdiction. The king’s courts, on the other hand, had cognisance of everything affecting real property. No lands or tenements could be bequeathed by will, because the courts of common law would not give effect to such an instrument. But legal ingenuity had found the means to enable wealthy persons to bequeath their lands as well as their goods to whomsoever they pleased. A man had only to execute a conveyance of his lands to a body of trustees, who thereupon became in law the owners, express provision being made at the same time that they were to hold it for his use so long as he lived, and after his death for the use of certain other persons named in his will, or for such purposes as might therein be indicated. By this indirect means a title in lands was very effectually conveyed to a legatee without any abatement of the original owner’s control over his own property so long as he lived. But the practice gave rise to a multitude of inconveniences. Private bargains, legal quibbles and subtleties, crafty influences brought to bear upon dying men, great uncertainty as to the destination of certain properties, were among its frequent results. At the very last moment, when the dying man, perhaps, was in imperfect possession of his faculties, mere words, or even a nod or sign, might affect the title to very large estates. And almost by the very nature of the case, wherever a trust was instituted like that of Sir John Fastolf, all the pettifogging devices of legal chicanery were necessarily brought into play, either to establish a title or to contest it.238.1

Sir John Paston

Sir John Paston now stepped into his father’s place, as heir to Caister and to Fastolf’s other possessions in Norfolk and Suffolk. But before he could vindicate his rights in any part of them it was necessary that he should wipe out that stain upon his pedigree which had been devised by calumny in bar of the claims made by his father. The case came before the king himself in council. An array of court rolls and other ancient records was produced by the family, to show that they had been lords of the soil in Paston from a very remote period. Some of their title-deeds went back as far as the reign of Henry III., and it was shown that their ancestors had given lands to religious houses in that reign. Indeed, so little truth was there in the imputation that John Paston the father was a bondman, that his ancestors, certainly by the mother’s side if not by the father’s also, had been the owners of bondmen. The evidences were considered satisfactory, and the family were declared by the king’s council to be fully cleared of the imputation. The lands, of which Lord Scales had taken possession for about half a year,239.1 were restored to Sir John Paston by a warrant under the king’s signet, dated on the 26th July, little more than two months after the death of John Paston the father.239.2

Tournament at Eltham.

After this Sir John Paston was much at court, and Lord Scales became his special friend. Even as early as the following April we find Sir John taking part in a tournament at Eltham, in which the king, Lord Scales, and himself were upon one side.239.3 But the favour with which he was regarded at court both by the king and the Lord Scales appeared more evidently one year later, A.D. 1468. when the king’s sister Margaret went over to the Low Countries to be married to Charles, Duke of Burgundy. Marriage of Margaret, sister of Edward IV., to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. This match had been more than a year in contemplation, and was highly popular in cementing the friendship of England and Burgundy in opposition to France. On the 1st May 1467 a curious bargain or wager was made by Sir John Paston as to the probability of its taking effect within two years.239.4 But on the 18th April 1468 he received a summons from the king to be prepared to give his attendance on the princess by the 1st June following, and to accompany her into Flanders.239.5 Not only he, but his brother John Paston the younger, crossed the sea in the Lady Margaret’s train; and we are indebted to the latter for an interesting account of the marriage and of the tournaments which followed in honour of it. Young John Paston was greatly struck with the splendour of the Burgundian court. He had never heard of anything like it, he said, except the court of King Arthur.239.6 But his brother seems to have found another attraction abroad which fascinated him quite as much as all the pageants and the tournaments in honour of the Lady Margaret.

Sir John Paston and Anne Haute.

There lived, probably in the town of Calais, a certain Mrs. Anne Haute, a lady of English extraction and related to Lord Scales, whom Sir John Paston seems on this occasion to have met for the first time. Having been perhaps all her life abroad, she appears to have had an imperfect command of the English language; at least Sir John, in proposing to open a correspondence, wrote to her, ‘Mistress Annes, I am proud that ye can read English.’ For the rest we must not attempt to portray the lady, of whose appearance and qualities of mind or body we have no account whatever. But perhaps we may take it for granted that she was really beautiful; for though Sir John was a susceptible person, and had once been smitten before, his friend Daverse declared him to be the best chooser of a gentlewoman that he knew.240.1 It is a pity that with this qualification his suit was not more successful. It went on for several years, but was in the end broken off, and Sir John Paston lived and died a bachelor.

A troubled inheritance.

But Sir John was heir to the troubles of a lawsuit, and his property was continually threatened by various claimants both at Hellesdon and at Caister. His mother writes to him on one occasion that Blickling of Hellesdon had come from London, ‘and maketh his boast that within this fortnight at Hellesdon should be both new lords and new officers. And also this day Rysing of Fretton should have heard said in divers places, there as he was in Suffolk, that Fastolf of Cowhaw maketh all the strength that he may, and proposeth him to assault Caister and to enter there if he may, insomuch that it is said that he hath a five-score men ready, and sendeth daily espies to understand what fellowship keep the place.’ For which reason Margaret Paston urges her son to send home either his brothers or Daubeney to command the garrison, for, as he well knew, she had been ‘affrayed’240.2 there before this time, and she could not ‘well guide nor rule soldiers.’240.3 Another time it is intimated to Sir John that the Duchess of Suffolk means to enter into Cotton suddenly at some time when few men should know what she is going to do.240.4 And this intention she seems to have fully accomplished, for in the beginning of the year 1469 the Earl of Oxford sends Sir John a friendly warning that she means to hold a court there next Monday with a view to proving that the manor of Cotton Hemnales is holden of her by knight’s service.241.1 So that altogether Sir John Paston’s inheritance was held by a very precarious tenure, and his mother, like a prudent woman, advises him ‘not to be too hasty to be married till ye were more sure of your livelode.’241.2

The old dispute with the executors, however, was compromised in the court of audience: and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Waynflete, and Lord Beauchamp granted to Sir John full right in the manor of Caister, and a number of other lands both in Norfolk and Suffolk.241.3 Sir John soon afterwards conveyed a portion of the Suffolk property called Hemnales in Cotton and the manor of Haynford to the Duke of Norfolk and others.241.4 William Worcester became friends with John Paston’s widow, imputed his old misunderstanding with her husband to the interference of others between them, and expressed himself well pleased that Caister was to be at her command. ‘A rich jewel it is at need,’ writes Worcester, ‘for all the country in time of war; and my master Fastolf would rather he had never builded it than it should be in the governance of any sovereign that would oppress the country.’ At the same time it seemed very doubtful whether Fastolf’s intention of founding the college there could be carried out, and Worcester had some conferences with Sir John Paston about establishing it at Cambridge. Bishop Waynflete had already proposed doing so at Oxford; but Cambridge was nearer to the county of Norfolk, and by buying a few advowsons of wealthy parsonages an additional foundation might be established there at considerably less cost than by the purchase of manors. In this opinion Sir John Paston and William Worcester coincided, and the former promised to urge it upon Bishop Waynflete.241.5

Sir John Paston had now some reason to expect that with the settlement of this controversy he would have been left for life in peaceful possession of Caister. That which his father had not been able to attain was now apparently conceded to him: and even if Sir William Yelverton was still dissatisfied, the other executors had formally recognised his rights in the court of audience. But before many months had passed it appeared that Yelverton could still be troublesome, and he found an ally in one who had hitherto been his opponent. Sir Thomas Howes unites with Yelverton, Sir Thomas Howes was probably failing in health—for he seems to have died about the end of the year 1468242.1—when he made that declaration ‘for the discharge of his conscience’ to which we have already alluded. Scruples seem to have arisen in his mind as to the part he had taken with Sir John Paston’s father in reference to the administration of Fastolf’s will, and he now maintained that the will nuncupative which he himself had propounded along with John Paston in opposition to an earlier will propounded by Yelverton and Worcester, was a fabrication which did not truly express the mind of the deceased. We may observe, though the subject is exceedingly obscure, that of the three wills242.2 printed in Volume III., each of which professes to be the will of Sir John Fastolf, the third, which is in Latin, is clearly a will nuncupative declaring the testator’s mind in the third person, and defining the powers of the executors in regard to his goods and chattels.242.3

It was apparently this nuncupative will that Howes declared to be spurious. The validity of the others touching his lands depended upon the genuineness of a previous bargain made by Fastolf with John Paston, which was also disputed. But it was the nuncupative will that appointed ten executors and yet gave John Paston and Thomas Howes sole powers of administration, except in cases where those two thought fit to ask their assistance. This will seems to have been drawn up mainly by the instrumentality of one Master John Smyth, whom Howes afterwards denounced as ‘none wholesome counsellor.’243.1 Howes now combined with Yelverton in declaring it to be spurious.243.2

and they sell Caister to the Duke of Norfolk.

The result of this allegation was that Yelverton and Howes took it upon them, as executors of Sir John Fastolf, to recommend to Archbishop Bourchier that the Duke of Norfolk should be allowed to purchase the manor of Caister and certain other lands in Norfolk, and that the money received for it should be spent in charitable deeds for the good of Fastolf’s soul. The transaction was not yet completed,243.3 but the duke immediately proceeded to act upon it just as if it were. He did not, indeed, at once take possession of the place, but he warned the tenants of the manor to pay no money to Sir John, and his agents even spoke as if they had the king’s authority. On the other hand, Sir John had the support of powerful men in the king’s council—no less persons than the great Earl of Warwick and his brother, the Archbishop of York, who had lately been Lord Chancellor, and was hoping to be so again. The Earl of Warwick had spoken about the matter to the duke even in the king’s chamber, and the archbishop had said, ‘rather than the land should go so, he would come and dwell there himself.’ Archbishop Nevill. ‘Ye would marvel,’ adds the correspondent who communicates the news to Sir John Paston, ‘ye would marvel what hearts my lord hath gotten and how this language put people in comfort.’ It had its effect upon the Duke of Norfolk, who saw that he must not be too precipitate. He was urged on, it seems, by the duchess his wife, but he would go and speak to her and entreat her.243.4

On the other hand, Yelverton and Howes seem to have been pretty confident that my Lord of York would not be chancellor again unless their bargain with the duke was ratified. The Nevills were no longer regarded with favour at court. The coolness which had existed between the king and Warwick ever since the marriage with Elizabeth Woodville had last year come to an open rupture, and the Archbishop of York had been at the same time dismissed from the office of chancellor. Soon after the new year a reconciliation was effected through the medium of private friends, and the archbishop conducted his brother the Earl of Warwick to the king at Coventry.244.1 But real confidence was not restored, and party spirit was anxious that it never should be. Nor could the public at large, perhaps, imagine the deep grounds of distrust that Warwick had already given to his sovereign.