Note 113.2 — THE PASTON LETTERS Henry VI (continued 2)
Reading edition
[From the Castlecombe MSS. in the B.M., Add. MS. 28,212, No. 21.] According to the endorsement, this letter should have been written in the year 1449; but the reader will see by the footnotes that there are grounds for doubting the accuracy of this date.
114.1 The marriage of wards in those days used to be sold to men of property, who would compel them to marry their own sons or daughters, or whatever other persons suited them. The only restriction to this right was, that the ward might, on coming of age, have an action against his guardian in case of disparagement, that is to say, if he was married beneath his station.
114.2 Sir Reginald Cobham of Sterborough, in Surrey, who died in 1446. He was the father of the notorious Eleanor Cobham, the mistress, and afterwards wife, of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.—Brayley’s Hist. of Surrey, iv. 159.
114.3 Milicent, wife of Sir John Fastolf, is known to have been alive in the 24th year of Henry VI. (1446). William Worcester says the allowance for her chamber was paid until that date; but as he says nothing more, it has been supposed she did not live longer. Mr. Poulett Scrope also believes her to have died in 1446, on the authority of a contemporary MS., which says she and Fastolf lived together thirty-eight years.—Hist. Castlecombe, 263.
115.1 Thomas de Scales, 8th Lord.
115.2 John Kemp, Archbishop of York, afterwards of Canterbury; or, if this document be some years earlier, Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester.
116.1 Walter, 1st Lord Hungerford, died in August 1449, and was succeeded in the title by his son Robert.
116.2 The name is a little indistinct from the decay of the paper, but the first and last letters are clear, and it is scarcely possible to doubt that Rouen was the place here intended. Yet if this be so, the letter must be much earlier than the date assigned to it in the endorsement.