INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

The Paston Family

The little village of Paston, in Norfolk, lies not far from the sea, where the land descends gently behind the elevated ground of Mundesley, and the line of the shore, proceeding eastward from Cromer, begins to tend a little more towards the south. It is about twenty miles north of Norwich. The country, though destitute of any marked features, is not uninteresting. Southwards, where it is low and flat, the ruins of Bromholm Priory attract attention. But, on the whole, it is an out-of-the-way district, unapproachable by sea, for the coast is dangerous, and offering few attractions to those who visit it by land. Indeed, till quite recently, no railways had come near it, and the means of access were not superabundant. Here, however, lived for several centuries a family which took its surname from the place, and whose private correspondence at one particular epoch sheds no inconsiderable light on the annals of their country.

Of the early history of this family our notices are scanty and uncertain. A Norman descent was claimed for them not only by the county historian Blomefield but by the laborious herald, Francis Sandford, author of a Genealogical History of the Kings of England, on the evidence of documents which have been since dispersed. Sandford’s genealogy of the Paston family was drawn up in the year 1674, just after Sir Robert Paston had been raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Yarmouth, before he was promoted to the higher dignity of earl. It still remains in MS.; but a pretty full account of it will be found in the fourth volume of Norfolk Archæology. The story of the early ancestors, however, does not concern us here. At the time the family and their doings become best known to us, their social position was merely that of small gentry. One of these, however, was a justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of Henry VI., whose uprightness of conduct caused him to be commonly spoken of by the name of the Good Judge. He had a son, John, brought up to the law, who became executor to the old soldier and statesman, Sir John Fastolf. This John Paston had a considerable family, of whom the two eldest sons, strange to say, both bore the same Christian name as their father. They were also both of them soldiers, and each, in his time, attained the dignity of knighthood. But of them and their father, and their grandfather the judge, we shall have more to say presently. After them came Sir William Paston, a lawyer, one of whose daughters, Eleanor, married Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland. He had also two sons, of whom the first, Erasmus, died before him. Clement Paston. The second, whose name was Clement, was perhaps the most illustrious of the whole line. Born at Paston Hall, in the immediate neighbourhood of the sea, he had an early love for ships, was admitted when young into the naval service of Henry VIII., and became a great commander. In an engagement with the French he captured their admiral, the Baron de St. Blankheare or Blankard, and kept him prisoner at Caister, near Yarmouth, till he had paid 7000 crowns for his ransom, besides giving up a number of valuables contained in his ship. Of this event Clement Paston preserved till his death a curious memorial among his household utensils, and we read in his will that he bequeathed to his nephew his ‘standing bowl called the Baron St. Blankheare.’ He served also by land as well as by sea, and was with the Protector Somerset in Scotland at the battle of Pinkie. In Mary’s reign he is said to have been the person to whom the rebel Sir Thomas Wyat surrendered. In his later years he was more peacefully occupied in building a fine family seat at Oxnead. He lived till near the close of the reign of Elizabeth, having earned golden opinions from each of the sovereigns under whom he served. ‘Henry VIII.,’ we are told, ‘called him his champion; the Duke of Somerset, Protector in King Edward’s reign, called him his soldier; Queen Mary, her seaman; and Queen Elizabeth, her father.’27.1

Clement Paston died childless, and was succeeded by his nephew, another Sir William, whose name is well known in Norfolk as the founder of North Walsham School, and whose effigy in armour is visible in North Walsham Church, with a Latin epitaph recording acts of munificence on his part, not only to the grammar-school, but also to the cathedrals of Bath and Norwich, to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and to the poor at Yarmouth.

From Sir William the line descended through Christopher Paston (who, on succeeding his father, was found to be an idiot, incapable of managing his affairs), Sir Edmund and Sir William Paston, Baronet, to Sir Robert Paston, who, in the reign of Charles II., was created, first Viscount and afterwards Earl of Yarmouth. The Earl of Yarmouth. He is described as a person of good learning, and a traveller who brought home a number of curiosities collected in foreign countries. Before he was raised to the peerage he sat in Parliament for Castle Rising. It was he who, in the year 1664, was bold enough to propose to the House of Commons the unprecedented grant of two and a half millions to the king for a war against the Dutch.27.2 This act not unnaturally brought him into favour with the Court, and paved the way for his advancement. Another incident in his life is too remarkable to be passed over. On the 9th of August 1676 he was waylaid while travelling in the night-time by a band of ruffians, who shot five bullets into his coach, one of which entered his body. The wound, however, was not mortal, and he lived six years longer.

His relations with the Court were not altogether of good omen for his family. We are told that he once entertained the king and queen, and the king’s brother, James, Duke of York, with a number of the nobility, at his family seat at Oxnead. His son, William, who became second Earl of Yarmouth, married the Lady Charlotte Boyle, one of King Charles’s natural daughters. This great alliance, and all the magnificence it involved, was too much for his slender fortunes. Earl William was led into a profuse expenditure which involved him in pecuniary difficulties. He soon deeply encumbered his inheritance; the library and the curiosities collected by his accomplished father had to be sold. The magnificent seat at Oxnead was allowed to fall into ruin; and on the death of this second earl it was pulled down, and the materials turned into money to satisfy his creditors. The family line itself came to an end, for Earl William had survived all his male issue, and the title became extinct.

From this brief summary of the family history we must now turn to a more specific account of William Paston, the old judge in the days of Henry VI., and of his children. Thrifty ancestors. Of them, and of their more immediate ancestor Clement, we have a description drawn by an unfriendly hand some time after the judge’s death; and as it is, notwithstanding its bias, our sole authority for some facts which should engage our attention at the outset, we cannot do better than quote the paper at length:—

‘A remembrance of the worshipful kin and ancestry of Paston, born in Paston in Gemyngham Soken.

‘First, There was one Clement Paston dwelling in Paston, and he was a good, plain husband (i.e. husbandman), and lived upon his land that he had in Paston, and kept thereon a plough all times in the year, and sometimes in barlysell two ploughs. The said Clement yede (i.e. went) at one plough both winter and summer, and he rode to mill on the bare horseback with his corn under him, and brought home meal again under him, and also drove his cart with divers corns to Wynterton to sell, as a good husband[man] ought to do. Also, he had in Paston a five score or a six score acres of land at the most, and much thereof bond land to Gemyngham Hall, with a little poor water-mill running by a little river there, as it appeareth there of old time. Other livelode nor manors had he none there, nor in none other place.

‘And he wedded Geoffrey of Somerton (whose true surname is Goneld)’s sister, which was a bondwoman, to whom it is not unknown (to the prior of Bromholm and Bakton also, as it is said) if that men will inquire.

‘And as for Geoffrey Somerton, he was bond also, to whom, etc., he was both a pardoner and an attorney; and then was a good world, for he gathered many pence and half-pence, and therewith he made a fair chapel at Somerton, as it appeareth, etc.

‘Also, the said Clement had a son William, which that he set to school, and often he borrowed money to find him to school; and after that he yede (went) to court with the help of Geoffrey Somerton, his uncle, and learned the law, and there begat he much good; and then he was made a serjeant, and afterwards made a justice, and a right cunning man in the law. And he purchased much land in Paston, and also he purchased the moiety of the fifth part of the manor of Bakton, called either Latymer’s, or Styward’s, or Huntingfield, which moiety stretched into Paston; and so with it, and with another part of the said five parts he hath seignory in Paston, but no manor place; and thereby would John Paston, son to the said William, make himself a lordship there, to the Duke (qu. Duchy?) of Lancaster’s great hurt.

‘And the said John would and hath untruly increased him by one tenant, as where that the prior of Bromholm borrowed money of the said William for to pay withal his dismes, the said William would not lend it him unless the said prior would mortgage to the said William one John Albon, the said prior’s bondsman, dwelling in Paston, which was a stiff churl and a thrifty man, and would not obey him unto the said William; and for that cause, and for evil will that the said William had unto him, he desired him of the prior. And now after the death of the said William, the said John Albon died; and now John Paston, son to the said William, by force of the mortgage sent for the son of the said John Albon to Norwich.’

The reader will probably be of opinion that several of the facts here recorded are by no means so discreditable to the Pastons as the writer certainly intended that they should appear. The object of the whole paper is to cast a stigma on the family in general, as a crafty, money-getting race who had risen above their natural rank and station. It is insinuated that they were originally mere adscripti glebæ; that Clement Paston was only a thrifty husbandman (note the original signification of the word, ‘housebondman’), that he married a bondwoman, and transmitted to his son and grandson lands held by a servile tenure; and the writer further contends that they had no manorial rights in Paston, although William Paston, the justice, had purchased land in the neighbourhood, and his son John was endeavouring to ‘make himself a lordship’ there to the prejudice of the rights of the Duchy of Lancaster. It is altogether a singular statement, very interesting in its bearing upon the obscure question of the origin of copyholds, and the gradual emancipation of villeins. Whether it be true or false is another question; if true, it appears to discredit entirely the supposed Norman ancestry of the Pastons; but the remarkable thing is that an imputation of this kind could have been preferred against a family who, whatever may have been their origin, had certainly long before obtained a recognised position in the county.

It would appear, however, from the accuser’s own statement, that Clement Paston, the father of the justice, was an industrious peasant, who tilled his own land, and who set so high a value on a good education that he borrowed money to keep his son at school. With the help of his brother-in-law, he also sent the young man to London to learn the law, a profession which in that day, as in the present, was considered to afford an excellent education for a gentleman.30.1 The good education was not thrown away. William Paston the justice. William Paston rose in the profession and became one of its ornaments. He improved his fortunes by marrying Agnes, daughter and heiress of Sir Edmund Berry of Harlingbury Hall, in Hertfordshire. Some years before his father’s death, Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich, appointed him his steward. In 1414 he was called in, along with two others, to mediate in a dispute which had for some time prevailed in the city of Norwich, as to the mode in which the mayors should be elected; and he had the good fortune with his coadjutors to adjust the matter satisfactorily.30.2 In 1421 he was made a serjeant, and in 1429 a judge of the Common Pleas.30.3 Before that time we find him acting as trustee for various properties, as of the Appleyard family in Dunston,30.4 of Sir Richard Carbonel,30.5 Sir Simon Felbrigg,30.6 John Berney,31.1 Sir John Rothenhale,31.2 Sir John Gyney of Dilham,31.3 Lord Cobham,31.4 and Ralph Lord Cromwell.31.5 He was also executor to Sir William Calthorp.31.6 The confidence reposed in him by so many different persons is a remarkable testimony to the esteem in which he was held. He was, moreover, appointed one of the king’s council for the duchy of Lancaster, and on his elevation to the judicial bench the king gave him a salary of 110 marks (£73, 6s. 8d.), with two robes more than the ordinary allowance of the judges.

In addition to all this he is supposed to have been a knight, and is called Sir William Paston in Fenn’s publication. But this dignity was never conferred upon him in his own day. Not a knight. There is, indeed, one paper printed by Fenn from the MSS. which were for a long time missing that speaks of him in the heading as ‘Sir William Paston, Knight’; but the original MS. since recovered shows that the heading so printed is taken from an endorsement of a more modern date. This was, indeed, a confident surmise of mine at a time when the MS. was inaccessible; for it was clear that William Paston never could have been knighted. His name occurs over and over again on the patent rolls of Henry VI. He is named in at least one commission of the peace every year to his death, and in a good many other commissions besides, as justices invariably were. He is named also in many of the other papers of the same collection, simply as William Paston of Paston, Esquire; and even in the body of the petition so inaccurately headed, he is simply styled William Paston, one of the justices. Nor does there appear to be any other foundation for the error than that single endorsement. He left a name behind him of so great repute, that Fuller could not help giving him a place among his ‘Worthies of England,’ although, as he remarks, it did not fall strictly within the plan of his work to notice a lawyer who was neither a chief justice nor an author.

His character.

Of his personal character we are entitled to form a favourable estimate, not only from the honourable name conferred on him as a judge, but also from the evidences already alluded to of the general confidence felt in his integrity. True it is that among these papers we have a complaint against him for accepting fees and pensions when he was justice, from various persons in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk;32.1 but this only proves, what we might have expected, that he had enemies and cavillers as well as friends. Of the justice of the charges in themselves we have no means of forming an independent judgment; but in days when all England, and not least so the county of Norfolk, was full of party spirit and contention, it was not likely that a man in the position of William Paston should escape imputations of partiality and one-sidedness. Before his elevation to the bench, he had already suffered for doing his duty to more than one client. Having defended the Prior of Norwich in an action brought against him by a certain Walter Aslak, touching the advowson of the church of Sprouston, the latter appears to have pursued him with unrelenting hatred. The county of Norfolk was at the time ringing with the news of an outrage committed by a band of unknown rioters at Wighton. On the last day of the year 1423, one John Grys of Wighton had been entertaining company, and was heated with ‘wassail,’ when he was suddenly attacked in his own house. Outrage by William Aslak. He and his son and a servant were carried a mile from home and led to a pair of gallows, where it was intended to hang them; but as ropes were not at once to be had, they were murdered in another fashion, and their bodies horribly mutilated before death.32.2 For nearly three years the murderers went unpunished, while the country stood aghast at the crime. But while it was still recent, at a county court holden at Norwich, Aslak caused a number of bills, partly in rhyme, to be posted on the gates of Norwich priory, and of the Grey Friars, and some of the city gates, distinctly threatening William Paston with the fate of John Grys, and insinuating that even worse things were in store for him.

Against open threats like these William Paston of course appealed to the law; but law in those days was but a feeble protector. Aslak had the powerful support of Sir Thomas Erpingham, by which he was enabled not only to evade the execution of sentence passed against him, but even to continue his persecution. He found means to deprive Paston of the favour of the Duke of Norfolk, got bills introduced in Parliament to his prejudice, and made it unsafe for him to stir abroad. The whole country appears to have been disorganised by faction; quarrels at that very time were rife in the king’s council-chamber itself, between Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the Protector, and Bishop Beaufort; nor was anything so firmly established by authority but that hopes might be entertained of setting it aside by favour.

William Paston had two other enemies at this time. ‘I pray the Holy Trinity,’ he writes in one place, ‘deliver me of my three adversaries, this cursed Bishop for Bromholm, Aslak for Sprouston, and Julian Herberd for Thornham.’ The bishop whom he mentions with so much vehemence, claimed to be a kinsman of his own, and named himself John Paston, but William Paston denied the relationship, maintaining that his true name was John Wortes. John Wortes. He appears to have been in the first place a monk of Bromholm, the prior of which monastery having brought an action against him as an apostate from his order, engaged William Paston as his counsel in the prosecution. Wortes, however, escaped abroad, and brought the matter before the spiritual jurisdiction of the court of Rome, bringing actions against both the prior and William Paston, the latter of whom he got condemned in a penalty of £205. On this William Paston was advised by friends at Rome to come at once to an arrangement with him; but he determined to contest the validity of the sentence, the result of which appears to have been that he was excommunicated. His adversary, meanwhile, found interest to get himself appointed and consecrated Bishop of Cork; and though his name does not appear in the ordinary lists of bishops of that see, the Vatican archives show that he was provided to it on the 23rd May 1425.34.1

As for Julian Herberd, William Paston’s third enemy, we have hitherto known nothing of her but the name. It appears, however, by some Chancery proceedings34.2 recently discovered, that Julian Herberd was a widow who considered herself to have been wronged by Paston as regards her mother’s inheritance, of which he had kept her from the full use for no less than forty years. Paston had, indeed, made her some pecuniary offers which she did not think sufficient, and she had attempted to pursue her rights against him at a Parliament at Westminster, when he caused her to be imprisoned in the King’s Bench. There, as she grievously complains, she lay a year, suffering much and ‘nigh dead from cold, hunger, and thirst.’ The case was apparently one of parliamentary privilege, which she had violated by her attempted action, though she adds that he threatened to keep her in prison for life if she would not release to him her right, and give him a full acquittance. She also accuses him of having actually procured one from her by coercion, and of having by false suggestion to the Lord Chancellor caused her committal to the Fleet, where she was kept for a whole year, ‘beaten, fettered, and stocked,’ that no man might know where she was. At another time, also, she says he kept her three years in the pit within Norwich Castle on starvation diet. The accusation culminates in a charge which seems really inconceivable:—

‘Item, the said Paston did bring her out of the Round House into your Palace and brought her afore your Chief Justice, and then the said Paston commanded certain persons to bring her to prison to your Bench, and bade at his peril certain persons to smite the brain out of her head for suing of her right; and there being in grievous prison during half year and more, fettered and chained, suffering cold, hunger, thirst, in point of death, God and ye, gracious King, help her to her right.’

What we are to think of all this, not having Paston’s reply, I cannot say.

Scanty and disconnected as are the notices we possess of William Paston, we must not pass by without comment his letter to the vicar of the abbot of Clugny, in behalf of Bromholm Priory.35.1 It was not, indeed, the only occasion35.2 on which we find that he exerted himself in behalf of this ancient monastery, within a mile of which, he tells us, he was born. Bromholm Priory. Bromholm Priory was, in fact, about that distance from Paston Hall, as miles were reckoned then (though it is nearer two of our statute miles), and must have been regarded with special interest by the family. It was there that John Paston, the son of the judge, was sumptuously buried in the reign of Edward IV. It was a monastery of some celebrity. Though not, at least in its latter days, one of the most wealthy religious houses, for it fell among the smaller monasteries at the first parliamentary suppression of Henry VIII., its ruins still attest that it was by no means insignificant. Situated by the sea-shore, with a flat, unbroken country round about, they are conspicuous from a distance both by sea and land. Among the numerous monasteries of Norfolk, none but Walsingham was more visited by strangers, and many of the pilgrims to Walsingham turned aside on their way homeward to visit the Rood of Bromholm. For this was a very special treasure brought from Constantinople two hundred years before, and composed of a portion of the wood of the true Cross. Many were the miracles recorded to have been wrought in the monastery since that precious relic was set up; the blind had received their sight, the lame had walked, and lepers had been cleansed; even the dead had been restored to life. It was impossible that a native of Paston could be uninterested in a place so renowned throughout all England.

Yet about this time the priory must have been less prosperous than it had once been. Its government and constitution were in a transition state. It was one of the twenty-eight monasteries in England which belonged to the Cluniac order, and were originally subject to the visitation of the Abbot of Clugny in France. Subjection to a foreign head did not tend at any time to make them popular in this country, and in the reign of Henry V. that connection was suddenly broken off. An act was passed suppressing at once all the alien priories, or religious houses that acknowledged foreign superiors. The priors of several of the Cluniac monasteries took out new foundation charters, and attached themselves to other orders. Those that continued signed deeds of surrender, and their monasteries were taken into the king’s hands. About nine or ten years later, however, it would seem that a vicar of the Abbot of Clugny was allowed to visit England, and to him William Paston made an appeal to profess in due form a number of virtuous young men who had joined the priory in the interval.

Land purchased by Judge Paston.

From the statement already quoted as to the history of the Paston family, it appears that William Paston purchased a good deal of land in Paston besides what had originally belonged to them. It was evidently his intention to make a family residence, and transmit to his sons a more absolute ownership in the land from which they derived their name. Much of his father’s land in Paston had been copyhold belonging to the manor of Gimingham Hall; but William Paston bought ‘a moiety of the fifth part’ of the adjacent manor of Bacton, with free land extending into Paston. He thus established himself as undoubted lord of the greater part of the soil, and must have felt a pardonable pride in the improved position he thereby bequeathed to his descendants. At Paston he apparently contemplated building a manor house; for he made inquiry about getting stone from Yorkshire conveyed by sea to Mundesley, where there was then a small harbour36.1 within two miles of Paston village. To carry out the improvements Highways diverted. he proposed to make there and on other parts of his property, he obtained licence from the king a year before his death to divert two public highways, the one at Paston and the other at Oxnead, a little from their course.36.2 The alterations do not appear to have been of a nature that any one had a right to complain of. Full inquiry was made beforehand by an inquisition ad quod damnum37.1 whether they would be to the prejudice of neighbours. At Paston the extent of roadway which he obtained leave to enclose was only thirty-two and a half perches in length by one perch in breadth. It ran on the south side of his mansion, and he agreed to make a new highway of the same dimensions on the north side. The vicar of Paston seems to have been the neighbour principally concerned in the course that the new thoroughfare was to take, and all particulars had been arranged with him a few months before William Paston died.

John Paston has disputes with his neighbours.

But it would seem upon the judge’s death his great designs were for some time interrupted. The family were looked upon by many as upstarts, and young John Paston, who was only four-and-twenty, though bred to the law like his father, could not expect to possess the same weight and influence with his neighbours. A claim was revived by the lord of Gimingham Hall to a rent of eight shillings from one of Paston’s tenants, which had never been demanded so long as the judge was alive. The vicar of Paston pulled up the ‘doles’ which were set to mark the new highway, and various other disturbances were committed by the neighbours. It seems to have required all the energies not only of John Paston upon the spot, but also of his brother Edmund, who was in London at Clifford’s Inn, to secure the rights of the family; insomuch that their mother, in writing to the latter of the opposition to which they had been exposed, expresses a fear lest she should make him weary of Paston.37.2 And, indeed, if Edmund Paston was not weary of the dispute, his mother herself had cause to be; for it not only lasted years after this, but for some years after Edmund Paston was dead the stopping of the king’s highway was a fruitful theme of remonstrance. When Agnes Paston built a wall it was thrown down before it was half completed; threats of heavy amercements were addressed to her in church, and the men of Paston spoke of showing their displeasure when they went in public procession on St. Mark’s day.37.3

Oxnead.

The Manor of Oxnead, which in later times became the principal seat of the family, was also among the possessions purchased by Judge Paston. He bought it of William Clopton of Long Melford, and settled it upon Agnes, his wife. But after his death her right to it was disputed. It had formerly belonged to a family of the name of Hauteyn, and there suddenly started up a claimant in the person of one John Hauteyn, whose right to hold property of any kind was John Hauteyn. supposed to have been entirely annulled by the fact of his having entered the Order of Carmelite Friars. It seems, however, he had succeeded in getting from the Pope a dispensation to renounce the Order on the plea that he had been forced into it against his will when he was under age, and being thus restored by the ecclesiastical power to the condition of a layman, he next appealed to the civil courts to get back his inheritance. This danger must have been seen by William Paston before his death, and a paper was drawn up (No. 46) to show that Hauteyn had been released from his vows on false pretences. Nevertheless he pursued his claim at law, and although he complained of the difficulty of getting counsel (owing, as he himself intimated, to the respect in which the bar held the memory of Judge Paston, and the fact that his son John was one of their own members), he seems to have had hopes of succeeding through the influence of the Duke of Suffolk. His suit, however, had not been brought to a successful determination at the date of Suffolk’s fall. It was still going on in the succeeding summer; but as we hear no more of it after that, we may presume that the altered state of the political world induced him to abandon it. According to Blomefield, he and others of the Hauteyn family released their rights to Agnes Paston ‘about 1449’; but this date is certainly at least a year too early.38.1

William Paston also purchased various other lands in the county of Norfolk.38.2 Among others, he purchased from Thomas Chaucer, a son of the famous poet, the manor of Gresham,39.1 of which we shall have something more to say a little later. We also find that in the fourth year of Henry VI. he obtained, in conjunction with one Thomas Poye, a grant of a market, fair and free-warren in his manor of Shipden which had belonged to his father Clement before him.39.2

John Paston’s marriage.

The notices of John Paston begin when he was on the eve of marrying, a few years before his father’s death. The match was evidently one that was arranged by the parents, after the fashion of the times. The lady was of a good family—daughter and heiress of John Mauteby, Esq. of Mauteby in Norfolk. The friends on both sides must have been satisfied that the union was a good one; for it had the one great merit which was then considered everything—it was no disparagement to the fortunes or the rank of either family. Beyond this hard business view, indeed, might have been found better arguments to recommend it; but English men and women in those days did not read novels, and had no great notion of cultivating sentiment for its own sake. Agnes Paston writes to her husband to intimate ‘the bringing home of the gentlewoman from Reedham,’ according to the arrangement he had made about it. It was, in her words, ‘the first acquaintance between John Paston and the said gentlewoman’ (one would think Dame Agnes must have learned from her husband to express herself with something of the formality of a lawyer); and we are glad to find that the young lady’s sense of propriety did not spoil her natural affability. ‘She made him gentle cheer in gentle wise, and said he was verily your son; and so I hope there shall need no great treaty between them.’ Finally the judge is requested by his wife to buy a gown for his future daughter-in-law, to which her mother would add a goodly fur. ‘The gown,’ says Dame Agnes, ‘needeth for to be had; and of colour it would be a goodly blue, or else a bright sanguine.’40.1

Character of his wife.

‘The gentlewoman’ thus introduced to John Paston and the reader proved to the former a most devoted wife during about six-and-twenty years of married life. Her letters to her husband form no inconsiderable portion of the correspondence in these volumes, and it is impossible to peruse them without being convinced that the writer was a woman not only of great force of character, but of truly affectionate nature. It is true the ordinary style of these epistles is very different from that of wives addressing their husbands nowadays. There are no conventional expressions of tenderness—the conventionality of the age seems to have required not tenderness but humility on the part of women towards the head of a family; the subjects of the letters, too, are for the most part matters of pure business; yet the genuine womanly nature is seen bursting out whenever there is occasion to call it forth. Very early in the correspondence we meet with a letter of hers (No. 47) which in itself is pretty sufficient evidence that women, at least, were human in the fifteenth century. Her husband was at the time in London just beginning to recover from an illness which seems to have been occasioned by some injury he had met with. His mother had vowed to give an image of wax the weight of himself to Our Lady of Walsingham on his recovery, and Margaret to go on a pilgrimage thither, and also to St. Leonard’s at Norwich. That she did not undertake a journey of a hundred miles to do more efficient service was certainly not owing to any want of will on her part. The difficulties of travelling in those days, and the care of a young child, sufficiently account for her remaining in Norfolk; but apparently even these considerations would not have deterred her from the journey had she not been dissuaded from it by others. ‘If I might have had my will,’ she writes, ‘I should have seen you ere this time. I would ye were at home, if it were for your ease (and your sore might be as well looked to here as it is there ye be), now liever than a gown, though it were of scarlet.’ Could the sincerity of a woman’s wishes be more artlessly expressed?

Let not the reader suppose, however, that Margaret Paston’s acknowledged love of a scarlet gown indicates anything like frivolity of character or inordinate love of display. We have little reason to believe from her correspondence that dress was a ruling passion. The chief aim discernible in all she writes—the chief motive that influenced everything she did—was simply the desire to give her husband satisfaction. And her will to do him service was, in general, only equalled by her ability. During term time, when John Paston was in London, she was his agent at home. It was she who negotiated with farmers, receiving overtures for leases and threats of lawsuits, and reported to her husband everything that might affect his interests, with the news of the country generally. Nor were threats always the worst thing she had to encounter on his account. For even domestic life, in those days, was not always exempt from violence; and there were at least two occasions when Margaret had to endure, in her husband’s absence, things that a woman ought to have been spared.

The Manor of Gresham.

One of these occasions we proceed to notice. The manor of Gresham, which William Paston had purchased from the son of the poet Chaucer, had been in the days of Edward II. the property of one Edmund Bacon, who obtained from that king a licence to embattle the manor-house. It descended from him to his two daughters, Margaret and Margery. The former became the wife of Sir William de Kerdeston, and her rights were inherited by a daughter named Maud, who married Sir John Burghersh.41.1 This moiety came to Thomas Chaucer by his marriage with Maud Burghersh, the daughter of the Maud just mentioned. The other became at first the property of Sir William Molynes, who married Bacon’s second daughter Margery. But this Margery having survived her husband, made a settlement of it by will, according to which the reversion of it after the decease of one Philip Vache and of Elizabeth his wife, was to be sold; and William, son of Robert Molynes, was to have the first option of purchase. This William Molynes at first declined to buy it, being apparently in want of funds; but he afterwards got one Thomas Fauconer, a London merchant, to advance the purchase-money, on an agreement that his son should marry Fauconer’s daughter. The marriage, however, never took effect; the Molynes family lost all claim upon the manor, and the same Thomas Chaucer who acquired the other moiety by his wife, purchased this moiety also, and conveyed both to William Paston.42.1

The whole manor of Gresham thus descended to John Paston, as his father’s heir. But a few years after his father’s death he was troubled in the possession of it by Robert Hungerford, son of Lord Hungerford, who, having married Eleanor Molynes, a descendant of the Sir William Molynes above referred to, had been raised to the peerage as Lord Molynes,and laid claim to the whole inheritance of the Claimed by Lord Molynes. Molynes family. He was still but a young man,42.2 heir-apparent to another barony; and, with the prospect of a great inheritance both from his father and from his mother, who was the daughter and sole heir of William Lord Botraux, he certainly had little occasion to covet lands that were not his own. Nevertheless he listened to the counsels of John Heydon of Baconsthorpe, a lawyer who had been sheriff and also recorder of Norwich, and whom the gentry of Norfolk looked upon with anything but goodwill, regarding him as the ready tool of every powerful oppressor. His chief patron, with whom his name was constantly coupled, was Sir Thomas Tuddenham; and the two together, especially during the unpopular ministry of the Duke of Suffolk, exercised an ascendency in the county, of which we hear very numerous complaints. Heydon persuaded Lord Molynes that he had a good claim to the manor of Gresham; and Lord Molynes, without more ado, went in and took possession on the 17th of February 1448.43.1

To recover his rights against a powerful young nobleman connected with various wealthy and influential families required, as John Paston knew, the exercise of great discretion. Instead of resorting at once to an action at law, he made representations to Lord Molynes and his legal advisers to show how indefensible was the title they had set up for him. He secured some attention for his remonstrances by the intercession of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester.43.2 Conferences took place between the counsel of both parties during the following summer, and the weakness of Lord Molynes’ case was practically confessed by his solicitors, who in the end told Paston to apply to his lordship personally. Paston accordingly, at no small expense to himself, went and waited upon him at Salisbury and elsewhere, but was continually put off. At last, on the 6th of October, not, as I believe, the same year, but the year following, he succeeded in doing to Lord Molynes to some extent what Lord Molynes had already done to him. He took possession of ‘a mansion within the said town,’ and occupied it himself, having doubtless a sufficiency of servants to guard against any sudden surprise. After this fashion he maintained his rights for a period of over three months. The usual residence of Lord Molynes was in Wiltshire, and his agents probably did not like the responsibility of attempting to remove John Paston without express orders from their master. But on the 28th of January 1450, while John Paston was away in London on business, there came before the mansion at Gresham a company of a thousand persons, sent to recover possession for Lord Molynes. They were armed with cuirasses and brigandines, with guns, bows, and arrows, and with every kind of offensive and defensive armour. They had also mining instruments, long poles with hooks, called cromes, used for pulling down houses, ladders, pickaxes, and pans with fire burning in them. With these formidable implements they beset the house, at that time occupied only by Margaret Paston and twelve other persons; and having broken open the outer gates, they set to work undermining the very chamber in which Margaret was. Resistance under the circumstances was impossible. Margaret was forcibly carried out. The house was then thoroughly rifled of all that it contained—property estimated by John Paston at £20044.1—the doorposts were cut asunder, and the place was left little better than a ruin. Further, that there might be no mistake about the spirit in which the outrage was perpetrated, the rioters declared openly, that if they had found John Paston, or his friend John Damme, who had aided him with his counsel about these matters, neither of them should have escaped alive.44.2

John Paston drew up a petition for redress to Parliament, and another to the Lord Chancellor; but it was some months before his case could be attended to, for that year was one of confusion and disorder unparalleled. It was that year, in fact, which may be said to have witnessed the first outbreak of a long, intermittent civil war. History has not passed over in silence the troubles of 1450. Troubled times, A.D. 1450. The rebellion of Jack Cade, and the murder of two bishops in different parts of the country, were facts which no historian could treat as wholly insignificant. Many writers have even repeated the old slander, which there seems no good reason to believe, that Jack Cade’s insurrection was promoted by the intrigues of the Duke of York; but no one appears to me to have realised the precise nature of the crisis that necessarily followed the removal of the Duke of Suffolk. And as we have now arrived at the point where the Paston Letters begin to have a most direct bearing on English history, we must endeavour in a few words of historical retrospect to make the matter as clear as possible.

Fratris Johannis Pasten ... Ordinis Cluniacensis.’ text reads ‘Fratis ... Chuniacensis’

Footnote 41.1: Inquisitions post-mortem, 27 Edw. III., comma after “III.” missing

The Duke of Suffolk

Fall of the Duke of Suffolk.

As to the causes of Suffolk’s fall we are not left in ignorance. Not only do we possess the full text of the long indictment drawn up against him this year in Parliament, but a number of political ballads and satires, in which he is continually spoken of by the name of Jack Napes, help us to realise the feeling with which he was generally regarded. Of his real merits as a statesman, it is hard to pronounce an opinion; for though, obviously enough, his whole policy was a failure, he himself seems to have been aware from the first that it was not likely to be popular. Two great difficulties he had to contend with, each sufficient to give serious anxiety to any minister whatever: the first being the utter weakness of the king’s character; the second, the practical impossibility of maintaining the English conquests in France. To secure both himself and the nation against the uncertainties which might arise from the vacillating counsels of one who seems hardly ever to have been able to judge for himself in State affairs, he may have thought it politic to ally the king with a woman of stronger will than his own. At all events, if this was his intention, he certainly achieved it. The marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou was his work; and from Margaret he afterwards obtained a protection which he would certainly not have received from her well-intentioned but feeble-minded husband.

The king’s marriage.

This marriage undoubtedly recommended itself to Henry himself as a great means of promoting peace with France. The pious, humane, and Christian character of the king disposed him favourably towards all pacific counsels, and gave him a high opinion of the statesman whose policy most obviously had in view the termination of the disastrous war between France and England. King René, the father of Margaret of Anjou, was the brother of the French king’s consort; so it was conceived that by his and Margaret’s intercession a permanent peace might be obtained, honourable to both countries. For this end, Henry was willing to relinquish his barren title to the kingdom of France, if he could have been secured in the possession of those lands only, such as Guienne and Normandy, which he held irrespective of that title.45.1 He was willing to relinquish even the duchies of Anjou and Maine, King René’s patrimony, though the latter had long been in the possession of the English. It was of course out of the question that Henry should continue to keep the father of his bride by force out of his own lands. Suffolk therefore promised to give them up to the French king, for the use of René and his brother, Charles of Anjou; so that instead of the former giving his daughter a dower, England was called upon to part with some of her conquests. But how would the English nation reconcile itself to such a condition? Suffolk knew well he was treading in a dangerous path, and took every possible precaution to secure himself. He pleaded beforehand his own incompetency for the charge that was committed to him. He urged that his familiarity with the Duke of Orleans and other French prisoners lately detained in England brought him under suspicion at home, and rendered him a less fitting ambassador for arranging matters with France. Finally he obtained from the King and Council an instrument under the Great Seal, pardoning him beforehand any error of judgment he might possibly commit in conducting so critical a negotiation.46.1

His success, if judged by the immediate result, seemed to show that so much diffidence was unnecessary. The people at large rejoiced in the marriage of their king; the bride, if poor, was beautiful and attractive; the negotiator received the thanks of Parliament, and there was not a man in all the kingdom,—at least in all the legislature—durst wag his tongue in censure. The Duke of Gloucester, his chief rival and opponent in the senate, was the first to rise from his seat and recommend Suffolk, for his services, to the favour of the Crown.46.2 If he had really committed any mistakes, they were as yet unknown, or at all events uncriticised. Even the cession of Maine and Anjou at this time does not seem to have been spoken of.

Happy in the confidence of his sovereign, Suffolk was promoted to more distinguished honour. From an earl he was raised to the dignity of a marquis; from a marquisate, a few years later, to a dukedom. He had already supplanted older statesmen with far greater advantages of birth and pre-eminence of rank. Suffolk’s ascendency. The two great rivals, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Cardinal Beaufort, were both eclipsed, and both died, within six weeks of each other, two years after the king’s marriage, leaving Suffolk the only minister of mark. But his position was not improved by this undisputed ascendency. A.D. 1447. The death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, aroused suspicions in the public mind that were perhaps due merely to time and circumstance. Duke Humphrey, with many defects in his character, had always been a popular favourite, and just before his death he had been arrested on a charge of treason. That he could not possibly have remained quiet under the new régime is a fact that we might presume as a matter of course, but there is no clear evidence that he was guilty of intrigue or conspiracy. The king, indeed, appears to have thought he was so, but his opinions were formed by those of Suffolk and the Queen; and both Suffolk and the Queen were such enemies of Duke Humphrey, that they were vehemently suspected of having procured his death.47.1

Complaints against the minister now began to be made more openly, and his conduct touching the surrender of Anjou and Maine was so generally censured, that he petitioned the king that a day might be appointed on which he should have an opportunity of clearing himself before the Council. On the 25th of May 1447 his wish was granted, and in the presence of a full Council, including the Duke of York, and others who might have been expected to be no very favourable critics, he gave a detailed account of all that he had done. How far he made a really favourable impression upon his hearers we do not know; but in the end he was declared to have vindicated his integrity, and a proclamation was issued forbidding the circulation of such slanders against him in future, under penalty of the king’s displeasure.48.1

The nature of the defence that he set up can only be a matter of speculation; but it may be observed that as yet no formal delivery of Anjou or Maine had really taken place at all. The former province, though it had been before this overrun and laid waste by the English, does not appear ever to have been permanently occupied by them. Delivery of Anjou would therefore have been an idle form; all that was required was that the English should forbear to invade it. But with Maine the case was different. It had been for a long time in the hands of the English, and pledges had certainly been given for its delivery by Suffolk and by Henry himself in December 1445.48.2 As yet, however, nothing had been concluded by way of positive treaty. No definite peace had been made with France. Difficulties had always started up in the negotiations, and the ambassadors appointed on either side had been unable to do more than prolong from time to time the existing truce, leaving the matter in dispute to be adjusted at a personal interview between the two kings, for which express provision was made at the time of each new arrangement. But the personal interview never took place. In August 1445 it was arranged for the following summer. In January 1446 it was fixed to be before November. In February 1447 it was again to be in the summer following. In July it was settled to be before May 1448; but in October the time was again lengthened further.48.3 There can be little doubt that these perpetual delays were due merely to hesitation on the part of England to carry out a policy to which she was already pledged. Charles, of course, could not allow them to go on for ever. In the treaty of July 1447, an express provision was for the first time inserted, that the town and castle of Le Mans, and other places within the county of Maine, should be delivered up to the French. It seems also to have been privately arranged that this should be done before the 1st of November; and that the further treaty made at Bourges on the 15th of October should not be published until the surrender was accomplished.49.1 But the year 1447 had very nearly expired before even the first steps were taken to give effect to this arrangement. At length, on the 30th of December, an agreement was made by Matthew Gough, who had the keeping of Le Mans, that the place should be surrendered by the 15th of January, on receipt of letters patent from the King of France, for compensation to be made to grantees of the English crown.

Even this arrangement, however, was not adhered to. Matthew Gough still found reasons for refusing or delaying the surrender, although the English Government protested the sincerity of its intentions. But Charles now began to take the matter into his own hands. Siege of Le Mans, A.D. 1448. Count Dunois and others were sent to besiege the place, with a force raised suddenly out of various towns; for France had been carefully maturing, during those years of truce, a system of conscription which was now becoming serviceable. At the first rumour of these musters the English Government was alarmed, and Sir Thomas Hoo, Lord Hastings, Henry’s Chancellor of France, wrote urgently to Pierre de Brézé, seneschal of Poitou, who had been the chief negotiator of the existing truce, deprecating the use of force against a town which it was the full intention of his Government to yield up honourably.49.2 Such protests, however, availed nothing in the face of the obvious fact that the surrender had not taken place at the time agreed on. The French continued to muster forces. In great haste an embassy was despatched from England, consisting of Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roos; but the conduct of the garrison itself rendered further negotiation nugatory. By no means could they be induced, even in obedience to their own king, to surrender the city peacefully. Dunois and his army accordingly drew nearer. Three sharp skirmishes took place before the siege could be formed; but at length the garrison were fully closed in. All that they could now do was to make a composition with the enemy; yet even this they would not have attempted of themselves. The efforts of the English envoys, however, secured for the besieged most favourable terms of surrender. Not only were they permitted to march out with bag and baggage, but a sum of money was delivered to each of the captains, by the French king’s orders; with which, and a safe-conduct from Charles, they departed into Normandy.50.1

It was on Friday, the 15th of March 1448, the day on which the truce between the two countries was to have expired, that the brave Matthew Gough, along with his colleague, Fulk Eton, formally delivered up to the French, not only the town and castle of Le Mans, but also the whole county of Maine except the lordship of Fresnay. Its surrender. Standing on the outer bridge, they made a public protest before their soldiers, and caused a notary to witness it by a formal document, that what they did was only in obedience to their own king’s commands, and that the king himself, in giving up possession of the county of Maine, by no means parted with his sovereign rights therein; that he only gave up actual possession in order that King René and his brother, Charles of Anjou, might enjoy the fruits of their own lands, and in the hope that a firm peace might be established between England and France. Four days before this was done the truce had been prolonged for two years more.50.2

The reluctant cession of such a valuable province as Maine boded ill for the security of the neighbouring duchy of Normandy. The government of Normandy was at this time committed to Edmund Beaufort, Marquis of Dorset, who had just been created Duke of Somerset. His appointment to the post had been due rather to favour than to merit. The Duke of York was then Regent of France, and had given good proof of his competence to take charge of the entire kingdom. But Somerset, who was head of the house of Beaufort, nearly allied in blood to the Crown, and who had come into possession of immense wealth by the death of his uncle, the Cardinal of Winchester, had the ambition of an Englishman to show his talent for governing. His influence with the king and Suffolk obtained for him the government of Normandy; and that he might exercise it undisturbed, York was recalled from France. The change was ill advised; for the times demanded the best of generalship, and the utmost political discretion. Somerset, though not without experience in war, had given no evidence of the possession of such qualities; and they had been notoriously wanting in his brother John, who was Duke of Somerset before him, when his ambition, too, had been gratified by a command in France. Duke John, we are told, absolutely refused to give any one his confidence as to what he was going to do at any period of the campaign. He used to say that if his shirt knew his plans he would burn it; and so, with a great deal of manœuvring and mystery, he captured a small place in Britanny called La Guerche, made a vain attempt to reduce another fortress, and then returned to England.51.1 It may have been owing to public discontent at the small result of his great preparations, that he was accused of treason on his return; when, unable to endure so great a reproach, he was believed to have put an end to his own life.51.2

With a full recollection of the indiscretions of his brother John, the King’s Council must have hesitated to confide to Duke Edmund such an important trust as the government of Normandy. They must have hesitated all the more, as the appointment of Somerset involved the recall of the Duke of York. And we are told that their acts at the time betrayed symptoms of such irresolution; insomuch that one day a new governor of Normandy was proclaimed at Rouen, and the next his commission was revoked and another named in his stead.51.3 But at last the influence of Somerset prevailed. He was not, however, permitted to go abroad without warning of the dangers against which he had to provide. The veteran Sir John Fastolf drew up a paper for his guidance, pointing out that it was now peculiarly important to strengthen the fortifications on the new frontier, to protect the seaports, to preserve free communication with England, and (what was quite as politic a suggestion as any) to appoint a wise chancellor and a council for the impartial administration of justice, so as to protect the inhabitants from oppression.52.1 From the comment made upon these suggestions, either by Fastolf himself or by his secretary William Worcester, it would seem that they were not acted upon; and to this cause he attributed the disasters which soon followed in quick succession, and brought upon the Duke of Somerset the indignation and contempt of a large number of his countrymen. These feelings, probably, were not altogether just. The duke had done good service before in France, and part of the blame of what occurred may perhaps be attributed to divided management—more especially to the unruly feelings of a number of the English soldiers.

The garrison which had been compelled against its will to give up Le Mans found it hard to obtain quarters in Normandy. It was doubtful whether they were not labouring under their own king’s displeasure, and the captains of fortified towns were afraid to take them in. At last they took possession of Pontorson and St. James de Beuvron, two towns situated near the confines of Britanny which had been laid waste during the previous wars and had since been abandoned. They began to victual and fortify themselves in these positions, to the alarm of their neighbours, until the Duke of Britanny felt it necessary to complain to the Duke of Somerset, requesting that they might be dislodged. Somerset, in reply, promised to caution them not to do anything in violation of the truce, but declined to bid them evacuate their positions. Diplomatic intercourse went on between one side and the other, always in the most courteous terms, but every day it was becoming more apparent that all confidence was gone.

A.D. 1449.

At last, in March 1449, the English justified the suspicions that had long been entertained of them. A detachment of about 600 men, under François de Surienne, popularly named L’Arragonois, a leader in the pay of England,53.1 who had, not long before, been knighted by Henry, crossed the frontier southwards into Britanny, Capture of Fougères. took by assault the town and castle of Fougères, and made dreadful havoc and slaughter among the unsuspecting inhabitants. The place was full of wealthy merchants, for it was the centre of a considerable woollen manufacture, and the booty found in it was estimated at no less than two millions of gold.53.2 Such a prize in legitimate warfare would undoubtedly have been well worth the taking; but under the actual circumstances the deed was a glaring, perfidious violation of the truce. Somerset had been only a few days before protesting to the King of France that, even if all his towns were open and undefended, they would be perfectly secure from any assault by the English;53.3 yet here was a town belonging to the Duke of Britanny, a vassal of the King of France who had been expressly included in the truce, assaulted and taken by fraud. Somerset disavowed the deed, but refused to make restitution. He professed to write to the king for instructions how to act; but he utterly destroyed his flimsy pretence of neutrality by writing to the King of France, desiring him not to give assistance to the Duke of Britanny.53.4

The truth is that the expedition had been fully authorised, not only by Somerset in Normandy, but by the king and the Duke of Suffolk in England. It was suggested to L’Arragonois when he was in England by Suffolk himself, who assured him that he would do the king a most excellent service by taking a place of so much consequence. He was further given to understand that he incurred no danger or responsibility; for even if he were besieged by the Duke of Britanny, ample succours would be despatched to relieve him. Unfortunately, during the next few months, the English had too much to do to keep their word, and L’Arragonois was compelled to surrender the place again to the Duke of Britanny after a five weeks’ siege. Feeling himself then absolved from every engagement to England, he next year sent back the Order of the Garter to Henry, declaring himself from that time a subject of his natural lord the King of Arragon, in whose country he proposed to spend the remainder of his days.54.1

Notwithstanding the richness of the booty won by the capture of Fougères, the English ought to have been aware that they would have a heavy price to pay for it. The alienation of a friend in the Duke of Britanny evidently did not grieve them, although that in itself should have been a matter of some concern; for the duke, though nearly related to the French king, had studied to keep himself neutral hitherto. To his and his father’s pacific policy it was owing that the commerce of Britanny had prospered and Fougères itself become rich, while neighbouring districts were exposed to the ravages of war. But the resentment of the Duke of Britanny was not a cause of much apprehension. The effect of the outrage upon the French people was a much more serious matter, and this was felt immediately. The King of France, when he heard the news, was at Montils by Tours on the point of starting for Bourges. He immediately changed his purpose and turned back to Chinon that he might be nearer Britanny. A secret treaty was made between the king and the duke to aid each other on the recommencement of hostilities with the English. Pont-de-l’Arche taken by the French. A plot was also laid to surprise the town of Pont-de-l’Arche on the Seine, just as Fougères had been surprised by the English. It was completely successful, and Pont-de-l’Arche was captured by stratagem early in the morning of the 16th of May, by a body of adventurers professedly in the service of Brittany. There could be no mistake about the significance of the retribution. To the Duke of Britanny the capture of Pont-de-l’Arche was of no value, except in the way of retaliation, for it was at a great distance from his borders; while to France it was a most important gain if used with a view to the recovery of Normandy. But France was quite as free to disavow the deed as the English Government had been to disavow the taking of Fougères.

Charles had, in fact, gained, in a strategic point of view, quite as great an advantage as the English had gained in point of material wealth. But morally his advantage was greater still, for he showed himself perfectly open to treat for the redress of outrages on both sides, and was willing to put Pont-de-l’Arche again into the hands of the English if they would have restored Fougères. All conferences, however, were ineffectual, and the French followed up their advantage by taking Gerberoy and Conches. In the south they also won from the English two places in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux.55.1 Still, Charles had not yet declared war, and these things were avowedly no more than the acts of desultory marauders. His ambassadors still demanded the restitution of Fougères, which possibly the English might now have been willing to accord if they could have had the French captures restored to them, but that in the surrender of the place they would have had to acknowledge Britanny as a feudal dependency of Charles.55.2 Negotiations were accordingly broken off, and Charles having besides received particulars of a breach of the truce with Scotland in the preceding year, which even an English writer does not venture to defend,55.3 at length made a formal declaration of hostilities.55.4

Never, it must be owned, did England incur the grave responsibilities of war with a greater degree of foolhardiness. Somerset himself seemed only now to have wakened up to the defenceless state of Normandy. He had just sent over Lord Hastings and the Abbot of Gloucester with a message to the English Parliament desiring immediate aid. The French, he said, were daily reinforcing their garrisons upon the frontier, and committing outrages against the truce. General musters were proclaimed throughout the kingdom, and every thirty men of the whole population were required to find a horseman fully equipped for war. Meanwhile, the English garrisons in Normandy were too feeble to resist attack. Not a single place was furnished with sufficient artillery, and the fortifications, almost everywhere, had fallen into such decay that even if filled with men and guns they could not possibly be defended. Besides this, the whole province was in such extreme poverty that it could no longer endure further imposts for the charges of its own defence.56.1

Progress of the French.

No marvel, therefore, that the progress of the French arms was, from this time, uninterrupted. On the 19th July the town of Verneuil was taken by the aid of a miller who had been maltreated by some of the garrison; and, some time afterwards, the castle also surrendered. In August operations were carried on in several parts of the Duchy at once. Towns near the sea and towns near the French frontier were attacked at the same time; and Pont-Audemer, Lisieux, Mantes, Vernon, and other places were recovered from the English. Then followed in quick succession the capture of Essay, Fécamp, Harcourt, Chambrois, Roche-Guyon, and Coutances. In October, Rouen, the capital of the province, was invested. On the 19th the inhabitants with one accord rose in arms against the English, who found it necessary to retreat into the castle. In this stronghold Somerset himself was assailed by the King of France, and, after a vain attempt to secure better terms, agreed to surrender not only it but the fortresses of Arques, Caudebec, and several other places, leaving the gallant Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, as a hostage until they were delivered up. Meanwhile, the Duke of Britanny overran Lower Normandy and recovered his own Fougères after a siege of little more than a month. François L’Arragonois, finding no hope of succours, surrendered the place and afterwards went over to the French.

In short, before the end of the year, the English had lost nearly everything in the North of France. The inhabitants everywhere conspired to betray towns and garrisons, and every man not English-born took part against the English. Even King René, Henry’s father-in-law, assisted Charles at the siege of Rouen, and shared the honours of his triumphal entry. At the end of the year 1449 the English held nothing in Normandy except a few towns upon the sea-coast or a little way inland—the chief of these being Honfleur, Bayeux, Caen, and Cherbourg. The last-named fortress remained untaken till the 12th of August in the following year. When it surrendered, the whole of Normandy was finally lost.

The news of these reverses so rapidly following each other of course produced in England the most profound dissatisfaction. The Parliament to which Somerset had applied for aid had been removed after Whitsunday to Winchester on account of the insalubrity of the air in London and Westminster, and had been finally dissolved on the 16th of July. A new Parliament was then called for a winter session to provide for the defence of Normandy, when, in fact, it was too late.57.1 By the time it had assembled Rouen was already lost. Unpopularity of Suffolk. The secret odium with which the policy of Suffolk had been viewed for years past could now no longer be restrained. It was difficult to persuade the many that the disgrace which had befallen the English arms was not due to treachery as much as to incompetence. The cession of Maine and Anjou was more loudly blamed than ever, and Suffolk was considered to have negotiated the king’s marriage mainly with a view to his own advantage. It was remembered how he had once imprudently boasted that he possessed no less weight in the counsels of the King of France than in those of his own sovereign; it was again murmured that he had been the cause of Gloucester’s death. And notwithstanding the protection of the Court, these feelings found expression in Parliament.

A.D. 1450.

At the beginning of the New Year, an incident occurred which served still further to precipitate his ruin. Murder of the Bishop of Chichester. Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, keeper of the Privy Seal, who, as we have seen, had been sent over to France in the beginning of 1448, to arrange the peaceful cession of Le Mans, was at this time sent to Portsmouth to pay the wages of certain soldiers and sailors. He was a scholar as well as a statesman, and corresponded occasionally with the celebrated Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II.58.1 But, like Suffolk, he was believed to make his own advantage out of public affairs. He had the reputation of being very covetous; the king’s treasury was ill supplied with money, and he endeavoured to force the men to be satisfied with less than their due. On this they broke out into open mutiny, cried out that he was one of those who had sold Normandy, and thereupon put him to death.58.2 This was on the 9th day of January 1450. During the altercation he let fall some words, probably in justification of his own conduct, which were considered to reflect most seriously upon that of the Duke of Suffolk,58.3 and a cry arose for the duke’s impeachment in Parliament.

It must certainly be acknowledged by any candid student of history that the state of the English Constitution in early times did not admit of true and impartial justice being done to an accused minister. So long as a man in Suffolk’s position was upheld by the power of the Crown, it was to the last degree dangerous to say anything against him; but when the voice of complaint could no longer be restrained, the protection he had before received ceased to be of any use to him. It became then quite as dangerous to say anything in his favour as it had been formerly to accuse him. The Crown could not make common cause with one whose conduct was under suspicion; for the king could do no wrong, and the minister must be the scapegoat. The party, therefore, which would insist on any inquiry into the conduct of a minister, knew well that they must succeed in getting him condemned, or be branded as traitors themselves. Such proceedings accordingly began inevitably with intrigue. Lord Cromwell was Suffolk’s enemy at the council-table, and used his influence secretly with members of the House of Commons, to get them to bring forward an impeachment in that chamber. That he was a dangerous opponent Suffolk himself was very well aware. A little before Christmas, William Tailboys, one of the duke’s principal supporters, had set a number of armed men in wait for him at the door of the Star Chamber, where the council met, and Lord Cromwell narrowly escaped being killed. The attempt, however, failed, and Tailboys was committed to the Tower; from which it would seem that he must soon afterwards have been released. Cromwell then brought an action against him in the Court of Exchequer to recover damages for the assault, and was awarded £3000; on which Tailboys was committed to the Sheriff of London’s prison; and this was all the redress obtained by Cromwell till, by a special Act in the ensuing Parliament, Tailboys was removed from that place of confinement, and lodged in the Tower once more, for a period of twelve months. Owing to the king’s protection he was not brought to trial.59.1

An evil day, nevertheless, had arrived for the Duke of Suffolk, which not all the influence of the king, nor the still greater influence of Margaret of Anjou, who owed to him her proud position as Henry’s consort, was able to avert. On the 22nd of January the duke presented a petition to the king that he might be allowed to clear himself before Parliament of the imputations which had been cast on him in consequence of the dying words of Bishop Moleyns. He begged the king to remember how his father had died in the service of King Henry V. at Harfleur—how his elder brother had been with that king at Agincourt—how two other brothers had fallen in the king’s own days at Jargeau, when he himself was taken prisoner and had to pay £20,000 for his ransom—how his fourth brother had been a hostage for him in the enemies’ hands and died there. He also reminded the king that he had borne arms for four-and-thirty years, had been thirty years a Knight of the Garter, and had served in the wars abroad for seventeen years at a time, without ever coming home. Since then he had been fifteen years in England about the king’s person, and he prayed God that if ever he died otherwise than in his bed, it might be in maintaining the quarrel that he had been at all times true to Henry.60.1

Four days after this a deputation from the Commons waited on the Lord Chancellor, desiring that as Suffolk had confessed the prevalence of injurious reports against him, he might be committed to custody. This request was laid by the Chancellor before the king and council on the following day, and the opinion of the judges being taken as to the legality of the proposed arrest, he was allowed to remain at liberty until a definite charge should be brought against him. Such a charge was accordingly declared two days later by the Speaker, who did not hesitate to tell the Lord Chancellor, in the name of the Commons, that Suffolk was believed to be in league with the French king to promote an invasion of England, and had fortified the castle of Wallingford with a view of assisting the invaders. The duke, on this, was committed to the Tower.

Suffolk impeached.

On the 7th of February he was formally impeached by the Commons. A copy of the articles of impeachment will be found in the Paston Letters (No. 76). Nothing was said in them of the fortification of Wallingford Castle, but a number of specific charges were made, many of them authenticated by the exact day and place when the alleged treasonable acts were committed, tending to show that in his communications with the French he had been invariably opposed to the interests of his own country. It was alleged that he had been bribed to deliver Anjou and Maine, and that as long ago as the year 1440 he was influenced by corrupt motives to promote the liberation of the Duke of Orleans; that he had disclosed the secrets of the English council-chamber to the French king’s ambassadors; that he had even given information by which France had profited in the war, and that he had rendered peace negotiations nugatory by letting the French know beforehand the instructions given to the English envoys. Further, in the midst of invasion and national disgrace, he had hoped to gratify his own ambition. The king, who was still childless, was to be deposed; and the duke had actually hoped to make his own son king in his place. It seems that he had obtained some time before a grant of the wardship of Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the late Duke of Somerset, who was the nearest heir to the Crown in the Lancastrian line, and since his arrest he had caused her to be married to his own son, Lord John De la Pole.61.1 Such was the foundation on which the worst charge rested.

A month passed before he was heard in his own defence. The Commons impeached, but it was for the Lords to try him. Meanwhile, another bill of indictment had been prepared by the malice of his enemies, in which all the failures of his policy were visited upon him as crimes, and attributed to the worst and most selfish motives. For his own private gain, he had caused the Crown to be prodigal of grants to other persons, till it was so impoverished that the wages of the household were unpaid, and the royal manors left to fall into decay. He had granted the earldom of Kendal, with large possessions both in England and in Guienne, to a Gascon, who ultimately sided with the French, but had happened to marry his niece. He had weakened the king’s power in Guienne, alienated the Count of Armagnac, and caused a band of English to attack the king’s German allies; he had disposed of offices to unworthy persons without consulting the council, granted important possessions in Normandy to the French king’s councillors, given to the French queen £13,000 of the revenues of England, appropriated and misapplied the king’s treasure and the subsidies granted by Parliament for the keeping of the sea. These and some minor charges formed the contents of the second bill of indictment.61.2

He was brought from the Tower on the 9th day of March, and required to make answer before the Lords to the contents of both bills. He requested of the king that he might have copies, which were allowed him; and that he might prepare his answer more at ease, he was removed for a few days to a tower within the king’s palace at Westminster. His defence. On the 13th he was sent for to make his answer before the king and lords. Kneeling before the throne, he replied to each of the eight articles in the first bill separately. He denied their truth entirely, and offered to prove them false in whatever manner the king would direct. He declared it absurd to consider Margaret Beaufort as heir-presumptive to the Crown, and used other arguments to show the improbability of his designs on the succession. In all else he showed that the other lords of the council were quite as much committed as he; and as to the delivery of Anjou and Maine, he laid the responsibility entirely upon the murdered Bishop of Chichester.62.1

Next day, the Chief Justice, by the king’s command, asked the Lords what advice they would give the king in the matter. It was a Saturday, and the Lords deferred their answer till the following Monday; but on the Monday nothing was done. On the Tuesday the king sent for all the Lords then in London to attend him in his own palace, where they met in an inner chamber. When they were assembled, Suffolk was sent for, and kneeling down, was addressed briefly by the Lord Chancellor. He was reminded that he had made answer to the first bill of the Commons without claiming the right of being tried by the peers; and he was asked if he had anything further to say upon the subject. He replied that the accusations were too horrible to be further spoken of, and he hoped he had sufficiently answered all that touched the king’s person, and the state of his kingdom. Nevertheless, he submitted himself entirely to the king, to do with him whatever he thought good.62.2

On this an answer was returned to him in the king’s name by the Lord Chancellor. A miserably weak and evasive answer it was, showing clearly that the king desired to protect his favourite, but had not the manliness to avow he thought him worthy of protection. The Lord Chancellor was commissioned to say, that as to the very serious charges contained in the first bill, the king regarded Suffolk as not having been proved either guilty or innocent; but touching those contained in the second bill, which amounted only to misprisions, as Suffolk did not put himself upon his peerage, but submitted entirely to the king, the latter had determined, without consulting the Lords, and not in the way of judgment (for he was not sitting in tribunal), but merely in virtue of the duke’s own submission, He is ordered to leave England. to bid him absent himself from England for five years, from the first day of May ensuing.63.1

It is clear upon the face of the matter, that although the king was made to take the sole responsibility of this decision, it was really a thing arranged, and not arranged without difficulty, between the friends of Suffolk and some of the leading members of the House of Lords. Immediately after it was pronounced, Viscount Beaumont, who was one of Suffolk’s principal allies, made a protest on behalf of the Lords, that what the king had just done, he had done by his own authority, without their advice and counsel. He accordingly besought the king that their protest might be recorded in the rolls of Parliament, for their protection, so that the case might not henceforth be made a precedent in derogation of the privileges of the peerage.63.2 Thus it was clearly hoped on all sides a great crisis had been averted. Suffolk was got rid of, but not condemned. A victim was given over to popular resentment, but the rights of the Peers for the future were to be maintained. And though the Crown lowered itself by an avowed dereliction of duty, it was not severely censured for preferring expediency to justice.

On the following night the duke left Westminster for Suffolk. The people of London were intensely excited, and about two thousand persons sallied out to St. Giles’ hoping to intercept his departure, but they succeeded only in capturing his horse and some of his servants, whom they maltreated, as might have been expected. Even after this the excitement was scarcely diminished. Seditious manifestoes were thrown about in public and secretly posted on church doors.64.1 The duke had more than a month to prepare for leaving England, and seems to have spent the time in the county of Suffolk. He embarks for Flanders. On Thursday the 30th of April he embarked at Ipswich for Flanders; but before going he assembled the gentlemen of the county, and, taking the sacrament, swore he was innocent of the sale of Normandy and of the other treasons imputed to him.64.2 He also wrote an interesting letter of general admonitions for the use of his young son, at that time not eight years old, whom he was not to see again for at least five years, and too probably not at all. This letter, which is known to us only by a copy preserved in the Paston correspondence (No. 117), can hardly fail to awaken sympathy with the writer. As an evidence of unaffected piety to God and sincere loyalty to his king, it will probably outweigh with most readers all the aspersions cast by Parliament on the purity of his intentions.

Two ships and a little pinnace conveyed him from the Suffolk coast southwards till he stood off Dover, when he despatched the small vessel with letters to certain persons in Calais to ascertain how he should be received if he landed there. The pinnace was intercepted by some ships which seem to have been lying in wait for his passage; and when it was ascertained where the duke actually was, they immediately bore down upon him. Foremost among the pursuers was a ship called the Nicholas of the Tower, the master of which, on nearing Suffolk’s vessel, sent out a boat to ask who they were. Suffolk made answer in person, and said that he was going by the king’s command to Calais; on which they told him he must speak with their master. They accordingly conveyed him and two or three others in their boat to the Nicholas. When he came on board the master saluted him with the words, ‘Welcome, traitor!’ and sent to know if the shipmen meant to take part with the duke, which they at once disowned all intention of doing. The duke was then informed that he must die, but was allowed the whole of the next day and night to confess himself and prepare for the event.64.3 On Monday the 2nd of May the rovers consummated their design. In sight of all his men Suffolk was drawn out of the Nicholas into a boat in which an axe and block were prepared. Is murdered at sea. One of the crew, an Irish churl, then bade him lay down his head, telling him in cruel mockery that he should be fairly dealt with and die upon a sword. A rusty sword was brought out accordingly, and with nearly half a dozen strokes the fellow clumsily cut off his head. He was then stripped of his russet gown and velvet doublet. His body was brought to land and thrown upon the sands at Dover; and his men were at the same time allowed to disembark.65.1

The source from which we learn most of these particulars is a letter of William Lomner to John Paston written when the news was fresh. The writer seems to have been quite overpowered by the tragic character of the event, and declares he had so blurred the writing with tears that he fears it would not be easy to decipher. Indications of genuine human feeling like this are so rare in letters of an early date that we are in danger of attributing to the men of those days a coldness and brutality which were by no means so universal as we are apt to suppose. The truth is that when men related facts they regarded their own feelings as an impertinence having nothing whatever to do with the matter in hand.65.2 The art of letter-writing, besides, had not yet acquired the freedom of later days. It was used, in the main, for business purposes only. We shall meet, it is true, in this very correspondence, with one or two early specimens of jesting epistles; but, on the whole, I suspect paper was too valuable a commodity and writing too great a labour to be wasted on things irrelevant.

But whatever feeling may have been excited by the news of Suffolk’s murder in men like William Lomner, who possibly may have known the duke personally, we may well believe that the nation at large was neither afflicted nor very greatly shocked at the event. Even the prior of Croyland, the head of a great religious community in Lincolnshire, speaks of it as the just punishment of a traitor, and has not a word to say in reprobation.66.1 Mocking dirges were composed and spread abroad, in which his partisans were represented as chanting his funeral service, and a blessing was invoked on the heads of his murderers. These were but the last of a host of satires in which the public indignation had for months past found a vent.66.2 Suffolk had been represented on his imprisonment as a fox driven into his hole, who must on no account be let out again. He had been rhymed at as the Ape with his Clog who had tied Talbot our good dog, in allusion to the fact of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, having been given up as a hostage to the French after the surrender of Rouen.66.3 He had been reviled as an upstart who had usurped the place of better men, and who systematically thwarted and neutralised all that better men could do. If any one wept for the fall of such a man, it was not on public grounds.

As a specimen of these political satires we cannot resist the temptation to quote a short poem which must have been composed towards the close of the year 1449, after the surrender of Rouen and before Suffolk’s fall. It is far less personal than the others, being not so much an invective against Suffolk as a wail over the loss of England’s great men, and the decay of her fortunes. The leading statesmen and warriors of that and the former age are here spoken of by their badges, which the reader will find interpreted in the margin:—

Almost concurrently with the news of Suffolk’s murder came tidings, mentioned by William Lomner in the very same letter, of another disaster in France, more gloomy, if possible, than any that had occurred before. Defeat of Sir T. Kiriel. A force under Sir Thomas Kiriel had been sent to the aid of the Duke of Somerset in Normandy after the loss of Rouen. It disembarked at Cherbourg, and proceeding towards Caen, where the duke had now taken up his position, besieged and took Valognes. They were now in full communication with the garrisons of Caen and Bayeux, when they were suddenly attacked at the village of Fourmigni, and routed with great slaughter. Between three and four thousand Englishmen were left dead upon the field; Kiriel himself was taken prisoner; even the brave Matthew Gough (well known to Frenchmen of that day as Matago) found it needful to fall back with his company of 1500 men for the safeguard of Bayeux, which a month afterwards he was compelled after all to give up to the enemy.68.1

Meanwhile the Parliament, which had been prorogued over Easter, was ordered to meet again at Leicester instead of Westminster. The reason given for the change of place was still, as before, the unhealthiness of the air about Westminster; and doubtless it was a very true reason. It is possible, however, that the political atmosphere of London was quite as oppressive to the Court as the physical atmosphere could be to the Parliament. During their sitting at Leicester a much needed subsidy was voted to the king, and an Act passed for the application of certain revenues to the expenses of the Royal Household in order to stop the exactions of purveyors. But they had hardly sat a month when the session was suddenly put an end to from a cause which we proceed to notice.

Rebellion of Jack Cade

The murder of the Duke of Suffolk had not made things better than they had been before. The ablest of the ministers, who had hitherto guided the king’s counsels, was now removed, but his place was left for a time altogether unsupplied. The men of Suffolk’s party, such as Lord Say, Viscount Beaumont, and Thomas Daniel, still remained about the king, and were nearly as unpopular as he had been. The offices formerly held by Suffolk were divided among them and their particular friends.68.2 Even if the Court had desired to call in men of greater weight, they were not then at hand. The Duke of Somerset was in France, and the Duke of York in Ireland; so that some time must have elapsed before either of them could have taken part in public affairs at home. Meanwhile it was said that the resentment of the Court for Suffolk’s murder would be visited upon the county of Kent; and the county of Kent was of opinion that it suffered abuses enough already. The exactions of the king’s officers, both in the way of taxation and purveyance, were felt to be extortionate and capricious. The collectors of the revenue were appointed by the knights of the shire, and these, instead of being freely chosen by the people, were but the nominees of a few great men who compelled their tenants to vote according to their pleasure. There were, besides, grave cases of injustice in which people were accused of treason, and kept in prison without trial, on the information of persons about the Court who had influence to obtain grants of their lands from the Crown.