The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509. Volume 6 (of 6), Part 1 (Letters, Chronological Table)

Note 120.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Henry VII.

Reading edition

[From Fenn, ii. 158.] This letter was unquestionably written in the reign of Henry VII., and not in that of Edward IV., to which Fenn assigned it. The writer, William Paston, was only born in the year 1459, and was still pursuing his studies at Eton so late in Edward’s reign as the year 1479, in the end of which year his eldest brother, Sir John Paston, died. The Sir John Paston to whom this is addressed must therefore be the second son of John Paston, Esquire, who was knighted at the battle of Stoke in 1487, and died in 1503. The year in which the letter was written is, however, still doubtful. I do not find by the Privy Seal dates of Henry VII. that such a progress as is here spoken of was ever carried out. Apparently it was intended that, beginning on Monday fortnight after the date of the letter, the King should occupy a fortnight on the way from London to Norwich, and arrive there on Palm Sunday Eve. The year must therefore have been one in which Palm Sunday Eve fell between the 5th and the 11th of April, and Easter Day between the 13th and 19th April. The earliest year that will suit these conditions is 1489, when Easter fell on the 19th April; and that this was the true date of the letter is made probable by several other circumstances. In 1489 the King was staying at Sheen during March. A great council had certainly met in the end of the year 1488 about the affairs of Brittany, and is very likely to have prolonged its meetings or renewed them from time to time to the 3rd March following. Moreover, if our date be correct, it supplies an interesting and highly probable fact with regard to Henry, Earl of Northumberland, the fourth of the line of Percy, who was slain in an insurrection in the north in April following, showing that he was with the King at Sheen in the beginning of March, and had undertaken by indenture to protect the Borders against the Scots, not long before he found himself called upon to put down the King’s rebellious subjects in Yorkshire.

120.2 Here follows some account relative to a grant from the Crown, etc.—F.

120.3 John, Lord Dynham.

121.1 Not Haveningham in Suffolk, but Heveningham, Hevingham, or, as it is now commonly written, Hedingham, in Essex, the seat of the Earl of Oxford.

121.2 11th April.

121.3 See vol. ii. p. 110, Note 1.

121.4 Elizabeth, wife of Sir William Calthorpe, was daughter and coheir of Sir Miles Stapleton.

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