Note 157.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Henry VII. (continued 2)
Reading edition
[From Paston MSS., B.M.] Fenn says, I cannot tell on what grounds, that this letter must have been written between 1491 and 1495. At the earlier of these dates the writer could not have been more than twelve years old, but as lads were sent to the university at a much earlier age in those days than in ours, even the earlier of these dates is not impossible. The style of the letter, however, is not boyish, and I should have been inclined to place it a year or two later even than Fenn’s latest date, but that there is no clear evidence to go by. The sweating sickness was prevalent in England at different times during the reign of Henry VII.; and there is no particular record of its visiting Cambridge.
157.2 Fordham in Cambridgeshire, north of Newmarket. Snailwell lies between.
157.3 Punsborne, near Hatfield, in Hertfordshire.