Note 71.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Henry VI (continued 2)

[From Fenn, iii. 16.] The writer of this letter was the widow of John Mowbray, second Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1432. After the Duke’s death, she married again no less than three times; and Fenn thinks this letter, which is dated from Epworth in Lincolnshire, a seat of the Duke of Norfolk’s, was probably written during her first widowhood. It must be remarked, however, that in 1432 John Paston was only twelve years old at the utmost, so that this letter could hardly have been written till at least ten years after. It is, besides, hardly probable that John Paston would have been addressed as the owner of a ‘place’ in London, before his father’s death in 1444. The exact year, however, is quite uncertain.