Note 155.3 — THE PASTON LETTERS Henry VII. (continued 2)

[From Paston MSS., B.M.] The writer of this letter was the widow of John Mowbray, the last Duke of Norfolk of that name, who died in 1475. She survived her husband many years, and Fenn says, though I know not on what authority, that she was alive in 1496. Sir Harry Grey, it appears, made his will on the 28th September 1492 (Blomefield, v. 93), and one might imagine this letter was written in the same month and year. The inquisition upon his death, however, was only taken on the 26th October, 12 Hen. VII. (1496), and it does not state the day on which he died. The jurors found Thomas Martyn, who was then thirty years old and over, to be his kinsman and next heir, but that Ketteringham Hall was devised to the use of his wife Jane and of others after her death. It is certain, moreover, that this letter could not have been written before the year 1495 when Sir Robert Clere was knighted; and that is probably the very year, as Sir Harry Grey was dead at least in October 1496, and most likely a month or two earlier.