Note 300.2 — THE PASTON LETTERS Edward IV (continued 7)

[From Fenn, ii. 294.] The Mrs. Anne to whom this letter was addressed seems to have been a Mrs. Anne Haute, to whom Sir John was for a long time engaged. That it was written before the year 1469 will appear probable on referring to Margaret Paston’s letter written on Easter Monday (3rd April) in that year, in which she wishes to know for certain if he be engaged; and we have therefore little difficulty in referring it to the year 1468, when Sir John was over in Flanders at the marriage of the Princess Margaret to Charles of Burgundy. Mrs. Anne appears to have been a lady of English extraction, who was either born abroad or had passed most of her life on the Continent. She was, moreover, related to Lord Scales, and is therefore not unlikely to have been the daughter of one William Haute of Kent, who married at Calais, in 1429, the daughter of a certain Richard Wydeville. (See Excerpta Historica, p. 249.) But she could speak and even read English; and Sir John, who was now returning homewards to England, designed in this letter to open a correspondence with her. He appears, however, not to have despatched it, as the original remained among the papers of the Paston family; or else perhaps it was returned to him on the breaking off of the engagement.