Note 44.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Edward IV

[From Paston MSS., B.M.] Fenn dates this letter 1479-80, suggesting that it must have been written very soon after Edmund Paston’s marriage with the widow of William Clippesby, as it seems to imply that he had not yet carried his bride to pay her duty to his mother. I do not, for my part, know the date of this marriage, and I suspect Fenn had no other clue to it than the fact that William Clippesby, the lady’s first husband, died on the 24th September 1479; but I presume his widow was still unmarried when she proved his will on the 18th May 1480 (see Blomefield, xi. 144). I consider, therefore, that the letter must have been written between the years 1481 and 1484, as Margaret Paston died in November of the latter year.