Note 264.2 — INTRODUCTION (continued 6)
Reading edition
No. 780.
265.1 Nos. 780, 781, 795.
265.2 See p. 257, note 3.
265.3 The widow of a lord’s vassal was called the lord’s widow, and could only marry again by his leave.
265.4 Nos. 782, 783.
266.1 Nos. 796, 797.
266.2 No. 782.
267.1 No. 781.
267.2 No. 787.
268.1 Nos. 787, 791. In justice to Sir John Paston it should be mentioned that he had been making inquiries two months before as to the dimensions of the space over his father’s grave at Bromholm available for a monument.—See No. 782. More than five years, however, had elapsed since his father’s death, and even two years after this the tomb was not attended to, as we find by repeated comments on the subject.—See Nos. 843 and 878. This last letter has been accidentally misplaced, and is really of the year 1472, as will be shown hereafter.
268.2 No. 781.
269.1 No. 784.
269.2 No. 798.
269.3 No. 831.
269.4 No. 842.
270.1 No. 863. Some months before the time when he himself expressed that hope of being delivered from his engagement, I meet with a passage of rather doubtful meaning in a letter to Sir John Paston from his brother. There is a lady in the case, but the lady is not named. John Paston has delivered to her a ring which he had much difficulty in inducing her to take. But he promises that Sir John shall be her true knight, and she in return promises to be more at his commandment than at any knight’s in England, ‘my lord’ excepted. ‘And that ye shall well understand’ (so John Paston reports the message) ‘if ye have aught to do wherein she may be an helper; for there was never knight did so much cost on her as ye have done.’ (No. 817.) Is this anonymous lady Anne Haulte once more? Was the ring an engagement ring returned? And did they thus break off relations with each other, retaining mutual esteem? Let us hope this is the explanation, which indeed I should even think probable, but that the lady must have been at this time residing in the county of Norfolk, and I have no notice of Anne Haulte having been there at any time.
270.2 No. 900.
270.3 No. 916.
270.4 No. 933.
270.5 Nos. 781, 800.
271.1 Contin. Chron. of Croyland, 557.
271.2 No. 798.
272.1 No. 841.
272.2 No. 842.
272.3 Rolls of Parl. vi. 100.
272.4 ‘Beweley Seyntwarye’ in Fenn; but the reading is ‘Beverley sanctuary’ in the right-hand version. Which is correct?
272.5 No. 834.
272.6 No. 779.
273.1 No. 796.
273.2 No. 801.
273.3 No. 803.
274.1 No. 804.
274.2 No. 802.
274.3 Nos. 798, 804, 819, 820.—No. 819 is a little out of its place, the exact date of the letter being the 9th May.
274.4 No. 803.
274.5 No. 795.
274.6 No. 800.
275.1 No. 809.
275.2 Nos. 812, 813.
276.1 Nos. 813, 814, 815, 817, 824. See also No. 878, which by a strange inadvertence has been put in the year 1475 instead of 1472. The preliminary note is correct except as to the year.
276.2 No. 823.
276.3 No. 808.
277.1 No. 809.
277.2 His name does not appear in any of the original returns preserved in the Record Office; but they are certainly very imperfect, and some of them are not very legible. The two burgesses returned for Maldon were William Pestell and William Albon. I find, however, that William Paston, probably Sir John’s uncle, was returned for Newcastle-under-Lyne.
277.3 No. 812.
277.4 He could scarcely have returned from Calais in time for the opening of that session on the 8th February, as he was at Calais on the 3rd, and says nothing about coming home at that date.—No. 826.
277.5 No. 795.
277.6 Patent, 7th March, 12 Edw. IV., p. 1, membs. 25 and 26 in dorso; and 10th May, p. 1, m. 13 in dorso.
277.7 Even on the 1st June, four months before Parliament met, we find commissions issued to certain masters of ships to take sailors for the army going over sea.—Patent Roll, 12 Edw. IV., p. 1, m. 10 in dorso.
278.1 Rolls of Parl. vi. 4.
278.2 No. 829.
278.3 Rolls of Parl. vi. 39.
279.1 No. 821. She repeats the request more than two years later, and desires that if it cannot be obtained of the Bishop of Norwich, John Paston should endeavour to get it of the Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘for that,’ she says, ‘is the most sure for all places.’—No. 866.
279.2 We ought, perhaps, to have explained before that the prefix ‘Sir’ before a priest’s name, as in Sir James Gloys and Sir Thomas Howes, was commonly used as equivalent to ‘Reverend,’ though strictly speaking it was applied to one who had taken no higher degree than bachelor.
279.3 No. 825. Even so Erasmus says of More (Epp. lib. x. 30, col. 536). ‘Maluit maritus esse castus quam sacerdos impurus.’ The sentiment evidently was a very common one.
280.1 No. 805.
280.2 No. 810.
280.3 No. 842.