The Paston Letters, Volume I (of 6)

Charles

rks. Defeat of the Duke of Burgundy by the Swiss. In the same letter mention is made of the conquest of Lorraine by the Duke of Burgundy, and his disastrous expedition into Switzerland immediately after. By the first of these events the prospects of Margaret of Anjou were seriously impaired, and the French king paid less attention to her interests. In the second, the victorious career of Charles the Bold had been already checked by the first great defeat at Grandson. His

A.D. 1477

hich, though nominally in feudal subjection to France, had been in his day a first-rate European power, now fell to a female. The greatness of Burgundy had already departed, and the days of its feudal independence were numbered. To England the state of matters was one of deep concern, for, should France 300 turn hostile again, the keeping of Calais might not be so easy, unless the young Duchess Mary could s

1 No

1 No

of the Fa

n and Marg

John might negotiate a match for him in that quarter;300.2 but the affair fell through, apparently because his brother refused to stand surety that he would make her a jointure of 50 marks a year.300.3 Not many months, however, passed away, when he and Dame Elizabeth Brews were in correspondence about his proposed marriage with her daughter. He had promised the mother not to speak

1477,

culty made by her husband to terms that had been already offered, said it was but a simple oak that was cut down at the first stroke.301.1 Thus encouraged, John Paston persevered in his suit, and Margery wrote him very warm and ardent letters, calling him her well-beloved valentine, and vowing that she would accept him with half the 'livelode' he actually possessed.301.2 The question, however, was how much the father could afford to give along with his daughter, and what Margare

t it would be a pity the match should be broken off, and did not wonder at what his mother had done; but he saw reasons why he could not 'with his honesty' confirm it. He did not, however, mean to raise any objection. 'The Pope,' he said, 'will suffer a thing to be used, but he will not license, nor grant it to be used

the like duty even after John Paston had begun to carve for himself. For it is clear that after receiving those warm letters from Margery Brews, in which she called him her valentine, and was willing to share his lot if it were with half his actual means, he had commissioned his brother once more to make inquiries about a certain Mistress Barly. Sir John

up his mind before, he seems really to have made it up now, and he steered his way between difficulties on the one side and on the other with a good deal of curious diplomacy, for which we may refer the reader to the letters th

go about with ease.302.7 Their eldest child was born in the following summer, and received the name of Christopher.302.8 Other 303 children followed very soon,303.1 and by the time they had been seven years married, John and Margery Past

uffolk again

tainly have spoken about the matter beforehand with some well-informed men in Norwich, who would have set him right.303.4 At all events Ferror went on with what he had begun, and nearly the whole of Drayton wood was felled by Corpus Christi Day, the 20th day of May. Whetley, a servant of Sir John Paston, who had been sent down from London on the business, writes on that day to his master that the duke had made a formal entry into Hellesdon on Wednesday in Whitsun week. He dined at the manor-house, 'drew a stew, and took plenty of fish.' I suppose from what follows that he also held a court as lord of the manor. 'At his being there that day,' writes Whe

marry some one nearly related to the queen's family; and Margaret Paston thought it a strong argument for the match, if her son could find it in his heart to love the lady, that it would probably set at rest the question of his title to Hellesdon and Drayton.30

nor of

therewith now at the vacation of the benefice, as they did with the benefice of Drayton, which by the help of Mr. John Salett and Donne, his men, there was a quest made by the said Donne that found that the Duke of Suffolk was very patron, which was false; yet they did it for an evidence.' Whether the duke's council attempted the same policy on this occasion, we cannot say; but by some means or other the Paston family 305 were hindered from exercising their right of presentation, so that they very nearly lost it. A rector named Thomas, presented to the living by Agnes Paston three years before, died in March 1478. On the 5th August following, Agn

er P

ght of conferring it upon him, and took advice upon the matter of Dr. Pykenham, Judge of the Court of Arches. She was told, however, that her intention was quite against the canon law for three reasons: first, because her son had not received the tonsure, which was popularly called Benet; secondly, he had not attained the lawful age of four-and-twenty; and thirdly, he would require to 306 take priest's orders within a twelvemonth after presentation to the benefice, unless he had a dispensation from the Pope, which Dr. Pykenham felt sure he could never obtain.306.1 His progress at Oxford, however, seems to have given satisfaction to his tutor, Edmund Alyard, who reports on the 4th March 1479 that he might take a bachelor's degree

em

ther brother, was probably of about the same age as Walter, perhaps a year or two older; and the youngest of the family was William, who in the beginning of the year 1479 was learning to make Latin verses at Eton.306.5 He must have been at this time barely nineteen years of age;306.6 but he had precociously fallen in love with a certain Margaret Alborow. He writes to his brother John 307 Paston how he first became acquainted with her at the marriage of her elder sister,-that she was not more than eighteen or nineteen (which was just about his own age); that she was to hav

her friends, and got their consent to her marrying his brother. She was a mercer's daughter, and was to have a portion of ￡200 in ready money, and 20 marks a year in land after the dece

f Agnes

London on business, partly, it would seem, about his dispute with the Duke of Suffolk, and partly, perhaps, to keep 308 watch on the proceedings of his uncle William with regard to the lands of his grandmother; for it appears that his uncle, who immediately on his mother's death laid claim to the manor of Marlingford,308.1 had been making certain applications to the escheator on the subject, which were naturally viewed with jealousy. On his arrival in town, Sir John found his chamber ill ventilated, and his 'stuff not so clean' as he h

lties. Unsuccessful in love himself, he yet does a good deal of wooing and courting disinterestedly in behalf of a younger brother. He receives sprightly letters from his friends, with touches of broad humour occasionally, which are not worse than might be expected of the unrestrained freedom of the age.308.4 He patronises literature too, and a transcrib

Marlingford

icate his claim to them as soon as the event occurred.309.2 The manors, however, having been entailed under Judge Paston's will, properly descended to Sir John Paston, and after his death to his brother John. In accordance, therefore, with his brother's instructions, Edmund Paston rode to Marlingford on Sunday before St. Andrew's Day, 'and before all the tenants examined one James, keeper there for William Paston, where he was the week next before St. Andrew; and there he said that he was not at Marlingford from the Monday unto the Thursday at even, and so there was no man there but your brother's

eath and that of Sir John, the tenants at Cromer had been uncertain who was to be their lord, and at Paston there was a similar perplexity.309.5 Sir John's 310 bailiff ordered the Paston tenants to pay no rents to Mr. William Paston; but one Henry Warns wrote to Mr. William of the occurrence, and ordered them to pay none to any

Margare

ied, and had children. To Edmund she gives 'a standing piece white covered, with a garlick head upon the knop,' 'a gilt piece covered, with a unicorn,' a feather bed and a 'transom,' and some tapestry. To his wife Catherine she leaves a purple girdle 'harnessed with silver and gilt,' and some other articles; and to their son Robert, who must have been quite an infant, all her swans marked with 'Daubeney's mark,' to remain with him and his heirs for ever. Various other articles are left to her daughter Anne, wife of William Yelverto

2 No

3 No

s. 894,

1 No

Nos. 8

Nos. 9

Nos. 9

1 No

2 No

901, 904, 9

4 No

5 No

.6

7 No

8 No

1 No

2 No

nd was Sheriff of Norfolk in 1517-18. He died in 1554. It was his grandson, another Sir Willi

Nos. 9

1 No

2 No

3 No

934, 935, 9

Nos. 9

3 No

n to Dr. Pykenham, was in her mother-in-law Agnes Paston's gift; but it is not at all unlikely that this was the livi

1 No

2 No

Nos. 9

4 No

s schooling as early as August 1477, when Margaret Paston writes to Sir John

6 No

1 No

2 No

ly 1481, and no later, as Margaret Paston in her will makes bequests not only to Edmund and his

4 No

1 No

2 No

3 No

4 90

5 No

1 No

2 No

3 No

s. 970,

5 No

year 1474. They are undoubtedly of the year 1479, the former being

2 No

1484 in a calendar prefixed to an old MS. missal

1 No

hard III. an

ard

s. The brief and troubled reign of Richard III. receives illustration from two letters of the Duke of Norfolk to John Paston. The first was written in anticipation of Buckingham's rebellion, requiring him to make ready and come to London immediately with 'six tall fellows in harness,' as the Kentish men were up in the We

ry

apsed after the battle of Bosworth when we find him Sheriff of Norfolk. The Duke of Suffolk writes to him to issue proclamations in the king's name against certain rebels who were in confederacy with the Scots.311.5 The Countess of Surrey writes to him to intercede with my Lord Fitzwalter and the Earl of Oxford in behalf of her imprisoned husband.311.6 Lady Fitzhugh, a daughter of the great Kingmaker, calls him her 312 son, and

imnel's r

ay towards Kent, when they received advice which induced them to return. Sir Edmund Bedingfield wrote to John Paston, he believed that they would not go if the king wanted them. But there were similar rumours about John Paston himself, and it was even said that he meditated mischief. It is true he had actually waited on the king, in the train, apparently, of the Earl of Oxford, one of the two generals to whom the military powers of the whole kingdom were

asion on th

ing had made a progress through Suffolk and Norfolk to animate the people to loyalty. Commissions of array had been issued for the Eastern Counties on the 7th April. On the 15th Henry kept his Easter at Norwich; after which he went on to Walsingham, and thence to Coventry.313.1 News came, however, that s

e of

by sober-minded Englishmen. The news, indeed, could scarcely have reached England very much in advance of the rebel hosts themselves, which presently crossed the sea and landed at Furness in Lancashire.313.3 In less than a fortnight they penetrated into the heart of England, where they were met by the king's forces and suffered a complete overthrow in the

Earl of Oxfo

upon him at Caister from the corporation of Yarmouth,314.2 besides some correspondence with the earl as Admiral.314.3 He got his brother William into the earl's service; and though ultimately the earl was obliged to dismiss him as being 'troubled with sickness and crased in his mind,'314.4 William Paston ce

r in B

nology, had been a good deal confused and mis-stated until the late Mr. Spedding, in editing Lord Bacon's History of Henry VII., compared the testimony of the Paston Letters with that of other original sources.314.7 But it would take up too much space, and involve writing a complete history of the time

of Northu

for some reason not explained. The Great Council which Henry had summoned on the affairs of Britanny appears to have been dissolved on the 3rd March 1489. Two days before it separated, the Earl of Northumberland was appointed to protect the kingdom against the Scots, and entered

oyal visit

come to him with the same number of men 'defensably arrayed' as he had before granted to do the king service;315.3 and in anticipation of the royal visit to Norfolk, William Paston sent orders to the Bailiff of Mautby to have his horse Bayard well fed, whatever it cost, that the animal might look fat and sleek when the king came.315.4 This order, however, it must be observed, is provisional, 'if Bayard be

rince Henry a

of the Bath on the creation of Henry, the king's 316 second son

n War

o their mercy, sailed away, only creating a little disquietude as to where he would next make his appearance. One of the captains taken, whose name was Belt, said he knew he had no hope of mercy, and therefore did not mind revealing the plans of his comrades. They meant to gain possession of Yarmouth or to die for it.316.2 If this was said in good faith, the rebels must have been so discouraged by their reception at Deal, that they changed

de la

er wrote to Sir John Paston on the 20th August to make inquiry what persons had accompanied the fugitive, or were privy to his departure, commanding him to take into 317 custody every one whom he could find to have been any way concerned in the mat

erine of Arrag

the affianced bride of Arthur, Prince of Wales, was expected in England in the following May. Sir John Paston was required to be rea

ry VII. and Ph

ewer, near Windsor, in January 1506. It is well known how Philip, who until the death of his mother-in-law, Isabella of Spain, was only Archduke of Austria, had set out from Flanders to take possession of his new dominions, when, meeting with a storm at sea, he was driven upon the coast of England, and was for some time entertained by Henry at h

2 No

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

s in Bacon's Henry VII.-W

No.

the rebels landed in Ireland. On the 4th June they had crossed the Channel and landed in Lancashire

and Note at p.

os. 102

2 No

. 1049, 1

4 No

5 No

n allusion to this war occurs in

ne, perchance i

landers, or to

quere, of some

tins in stead

dly to hear t

an the service

Bacon, vi. 68, 72

os. 103

No.

No.

No.

ides some variations in spelling and a difference in one place as to the Christian name, this list includes the names of Lords Harington and Clifford, who are not only not mentioned in the oth

No.

No.

No.

rs Ric. III. and Hen.

No.

John Pasto

ed at beginnin

ote 3

ng "2

spect of

of s

their social or in their political bearings. Indeed, to whatever length we should prolong these observations, we could not but leave an ample harvest of facts to be gathered in by others, nor have we attempted more than to bring the leading points of the story in

cat

ase. But it must be remembered that the majority of these letters were not written by members of the Paston family, but were only addressed to them; and they show that friends, neighbours, lords, commoners, and domestic servants possessed the art of writing, as well as the Pastons themselves. No person of any rank or station in society above mere labouring men seems to have been wholly illiterate. All could write letters; most persons could express themselves in writing with ease and fluency. Not perhaps that the accomplishment was one in which it was considered an honour to excel. Hands that had been accustomed to grasp the sword were doubtless easily fatigued with the pen. Old Sir John Fastolf evidently feels it a trouble even to sign his name, and in his la

Col

entameters there in 1479. His progress, it is true, seems to have been but indifferent. What was to be expected of a young gentleman of nineteen, whose attention, even while at school, was distracted by the thought that he had already met with one who might be a partner for life? Nevertheless, in that same letter in which he writes to his brother John what he

fo

riod of probably half a year they amounted to no more than ￡6: 5 s.: 5? d.320.1 Yet when he became B.A. he gave a banquet, as graduates have been accustomed to do since his day, for which he was promised some venison from Lady Harcourt, but was disappointed.320.2 Even the expenses attending the graduation, however, do not appear to h

iberal education not only to take a degree in arts but to proceed afterwards in the faculty of law. At the

computin

y the year at all, and when they did it was not by the year of our Lord, but by the year of the king's reign. Chronicles and annals of the period, which give the year of our Lord, are almost always full of inaccuracies in the figures; and altogether it is evident that an exact computation of years was a thing for which there was considered to be little practical use. As to months and days, the same remark does not apply. Letters were very 321 frequently dated in this respect according to what is the general

f reck

t, had a totally different method of reckoning. They used counters, and had a counting-board or abacus, on which they set up the totals.321.2 An instance of this occurs in the first volume, where John Paston, in superintending the works at Caister Castle, or, as we now rather suspect, at Mautby, thought it advisable to change the room in which his coffers and his 'countewery' should be set. In connection with this incident one other point is worthy of observation. On taking the measure of the new room, John P

r of

Innumerable patent kinds of artificial light did not tempt them to waste the natural hours of rest either in study or in dissipation. Their meals too were earlier. Their dinner was at noon, if not before; and after dinner, in the long summer days, it was customary to take some additional repose. Thus Henry Windsor concludes a letter to Joh

g dinn

we have another illustration in More's History of Richard III. It is well known how, when just after the death of Edward IV. the Earl of Rivers and Lord Richard Grey were conducting the boy king Edward V. up to London, they were overtaken by the Duke of Gloucester at Stony Stratford, and placed under arrest. As the story is reported by More, Gloucester at first treated his prisoners with courtesy, and at dinner sent a dish from

y and c

t and tournaments,' and the like.323.1 His library, or that of his brother John, contained also 'the Death of Arthur,' the story of Guy of Warwick, chronicles of the English kings from C?ur de Lion to Edward III., the legend of Guy and Colbrand, and various other chronicles and fictions suited to knightly culture; besides moral treatises, like Bishop Alcock's Abbey of the Holy Ghost, and poetical and imaginative books, such as the poems of Chaucer-at least his Troilus and Cre

ning of

It was the same also, to some extent, with the daughters of a family, as we find Margaret Paston writing to her son Sir John to get his sister placed in the household either of the Countess of Oxford or of the Duchess of Bedford, or else 'in some other worshipful place.'324.1 This we have supposed to be his sister Margery, who (no doubt for want of being thus taken care of) shortly after married Richard Calle, to the scandal and disgust of the whole family. His other sister, Anne, was placed in the household of a gentleman named Calthorpe, who, however, afterwards desired to get rid of her, alleging that he wished to reduce his household, and suggested that she 'waxed

domestic

r the most part it amounted to little more than this. Children, and especially daughters, were a mere burden to their parents. 325 They must be sent away from home to learn manners, and to be out of the way. As soon as they grew up, efforts must be made to marry them, and get them off their parents' hands for good. If they could not be g

s by a loss of natural affection, for which their high sense of external order afforded but imperfect compensation. Admirable as the feudal system was in maintaining the necessary subordination of different classes, it acted most injuriously upon the homes, where all that makes up a nation's real worth must be carefully tended in the first instance. Wardships. The very foundation of domestic life was in many cases vitiated by a system which put the wardship and marriage of heirs under age at the disposal of their superior lords

Venetian on

husbands towards their wives, the mercenary way in which marriages were contracted by parents or guardians for the young people under their charge, was such as to shock the sensibility of strangers from the warmer lands of the South. To the Italian mind it seemed as if there was no real human nature in Englishmen at all. There was licentiousness among them, to be sure, but our Venetian almost doubted whether i

m of m

d not for, and did not deign to notice. While feudalism still kept down the natural emotions, insisting on a high respect for order, there was a freedom in social intercourse, and in England more than elsewhere, which has long ago been chilled among ourselves by the severity of Puritanism. In his own amusing way Erasmus tells us how in this delightful island ladies and gentlemen kissed each other freely whenever they met, in the streets or in their houses. There were kisses when you came, and kisses when you went away-delicate, fragrant kisses that would assuredly tempt a poet from abroad to stay in England

ani

they resembled his own countrymen. The hard schooling which they received at home, the after-training elsewhere in the houses of 'worshipful' persons, had taught them from their early years to consider above all things what was due to others. In every relation of life, in the freest social intercourse, the honour due to parents, to strangers, to noblemen, o

f maintainin

old authority, to preserve honour for whom it was due, to maintain social and political order in spite of influences which were conspicuously at work breaking it up before men's eyes, was a true and wholesome feeling, to the strength of which we owe a debt unspeakable even in these days of progress. At no time in England's history was there a stronger

f Warwick'

Stow informs us that the flesh of six entire oxen was sometimes consumed in a single meal. With the profuse hospitality of the Middle Ages, he entertained not only all his regular dependants, but all chance comers who had any acquaintance in his household. 329 Visitors were also allowed to carry off joints from his table, and the taverns in the neighbour

udor

before, and never have done since. Every branch of the royal family, except the reigning dynasty, was on one pretext or another lopped away. Every powerful nobleman knew that just in proportion as he was great, it was necessary for him to be circumspect. Under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, birth and rank counted for ve

inted in my Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII. His successor in title, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,

1 No

2 No

3 No

1 No

wgrym. Thus Palsgrave gives as an example of the use of the word-'I shall reken it syx

3 No

1 No

te 6 Hen. V

Nos. 6

1 No

2 No

nd p. 155 of th

d the redemption being equally against the will of Stephen Scrope himself, who complained that Fastolf had 'bought and sold him like a beast.' The particulars of these transactions are not obtained from the Paston Letters, but there will be found several notices of another wardsh

ion of England (Cam

sm. Epp.

ambassador, De Puebla, always took off his hat when the names of Ferdinand and Isabella were mentioned

w's Chron

See No

ote 3

ng "2