Note 252.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Henry VI (continued 5)
Reading edition
[From Fenn, iii. 412.] ‘This letter,’ says Fenn, ‘has no direction, and lest it should be opened, the paper which fastens the seal is, along the edge, marked with lines by a pen, which communicate with the latter (qu. with the letter?), by which means the receiver might easily have discovered any attempts to have opened it, as the lines would not then have exactly coincided again. On the back of it, but in a later hand, is written, “A lettre to J. Paston, ar., from his wife.”’
Fenn considers, I think with great probability, that this letter was written ‘just before the important crisis that finished Henry’s reign, and placed Edward on the throne,’ when Margaret of Anjou was expected in London after winning the second battle of St. Albans. Giles Saint Loe was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1458.
252.2 This title is taken from an endorsement in a later hand.