Note o — Chapter VIII · (continued 4)
Reading edition
From a passage in the Paston Letters (vol. ii. p. 23) it appears that, far from these acts being regarded, it was considered as a mark of respect to the king, when he came into a county, for the noblemen and gentry to meet him with as many attendants in livery as they could muster. Sir John Paston was to provide twenty men in their livery-gowns, and the duke of Norfolk two hundred. This illustrates the well-known story of Henry VII. and the earl of Oxford, and shows the mean and oppressive conduct of the king in that affair, which Hume has pretended to justify.
In the first of Edward IV. it is said in the roll of parliament (vol. v. p. 407), that, "by yeving of liveries and signets, contrary to the statutes and ordinances made aforetyme maintenaunce of quarrels, extortions, robberies, murders been multiplied and continued within this reame, to the grete disturbaunce and inquietation of the same."