Note 275.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Edward IV

[Douce MS. 393, f. 85.] The date of this letter may, with great probability, be attributed to the year 1461. It certainly cannot be later, as the writer was executed for high treason in February 1462. He was found to have been corresponding with Margaret of Anjou for the restoration of Henry VI., but the discovery must have been much later than May 1461. Sir John Howard, who, for his services to the House of York, was afterwards made Duke of Norfolk, appears to have had great influence just after the accession of Edward IV., which he used in a very overbearing manner; and we have already seen, by the last letter, that the Earl of Oxford’s servant, Thomas Denyes, was at this very time suffering much persecution at his hands.