Note p. 84, Note 2 — THE PASTON LETTERS Edward IV (continued 2)

84.2 [From Fenn, iv. 168.] As Sir John Paston was knighted in the year 1463, and his father died in May 1466, the date of this letter must lie between the years 1463 and 1465. I think the first of these years is probably the true date. Sir John Paston, it seems, had left home without letting his mother know of his intention. Whither had he gone? Not to London, because he addressed a letter to his father there; besides he had passed by Lynn. One would naturally suppose, therefore, that he had gone to wait upon the King, at a time when Edward was at a distance from the capital. And in this view we are confirmed by the passage in which Margaret desires her son to speak with Wykes, who, as we know by Letter 514, was an usher of the King’s Chamber. Now Edward IV. was in Yorkshire, staying, for the most part, at Pomfret, during October and November 1463, while about the same time of year in 1464 he was at Reading, and in 1465 at Greenwich. Sir John would naturally have passed through Lynn on his road to the North.