203.3Patent Roll, 1 EdwardIV.p. 1, m. 18d., dated March 16; and m. 19d., dated May 10; p. 4, m. 22d., February 24 and March 1 (1462); also p. 2, m. 12d.(against the Scots), Nov. 13.203.4Ib.p. 1, m. 27d., March 28, and p. 3, m. 3d., July 8.203.5Ib.p. 2, m. 10d., Aug. 17.203.6Ib.p. 2, m. 12d., Nov. 4; and p. 4, m. 22d., Feb. 28 (1462).203.7Ib.p. 3, m. 3d., July 12.204.1Ib.p. 3, m. 3d.and 27d., Aug. 6 and 12; also m. 8d., Jan. 29.204.2Such, I think, must be the meaning intended. The expression in the original is, ‘they shuld aley (qu.should a’ laid?) on her bodyys.’204.3No. 469.204.4Seep. 164.204.5Nos. 455, 463.204.6No. 472.205.1No. 461.205.2No. 450.205.3No. 451.205.4Nos. 451, 452.205.5No. 457.205.6Nos. 457, 460.205.7No. 373.205.8Sir John Paston must have been born in 1442. At the inquisition taken in October 1466, after his father’s death, he was found to be twenty-four years old and more.206.1No. 459.206.2No. 473. Compare No. 223. It is striking that, notwithstanding his large possessions in land, the Duke of York should have been unable for eight years to redeem these jewels.206.3This was less than the sum (£487) for which the jewels were pledged, and yet it was the whole compensation granted both for the jewels and for a bond of 100 marks given by the Duke of York to Fastolf, which Paston also surrendered.207.1466-8, 471, 475.207.2Nos. 477, 478.207.3No. 458.207.4No. 465.208.1Nos.477, 478.208.2No. 484.208.3Ibid.209.1I have already indicated my belief that Judge Yelverton was the real person nicknamed Colinus Gallicus in Friar Brackley’s letters. It is quite clear by No. 404 (one of the letters found after the text of Mr. Arber’s edition had passed through the press) that Colinus Gallicus not only could not have been Worcester, but that he was a man of some social standing on familiar terms with the Earl of Wiltshire. This, and the fact that he was one of Fastolf’s executors, seem to prove his identity. It is a satisfaction to find that, though Brackley did not love William Worcester, the bitter words in No. 383 were not levelled at him. Thus he wrote while Sir John Fastolf was on his deathbed: ‘Colinus Gallicus says in Yarmouth and other places that he is an executor. He said also yesterday before several persons, if once he were in London, he wishes never to see Norfolk. He says also, whereas the executors think they will have keys, after the death others will have keys as well as they. He is a very deceitful man (falsissimus). . . . That same Gallicus intensely hates the rector (Howes), and would like to supplant him.’209.2No. 481.209.3Nos. 482, 484.209.4No. 488.209.5No. 457.210.1485-487.211.1No. 488.212.1Nos. 497, 500.212.2No. 504.212.3No. 505.212.4No. 510.212.5No. 538.213.1No. 540.213.2No. 544.213.3No. 377.213.4Nos. 477, 478, 511.213.5No. 550.214.1521-3.214.2Nos. 375, 377.214.3No. 552.215.1Fabyan.Inquisition p. m., 1 EdwardIV., No. 46.215.2Nos. 532, 533.but he considered his conduct that at the electiontext unchanged: 1st edition has same word orderFootnote 208.1:Nos. 477, 478.text reads “No.”Troubles of John PastonOn the whole, though the conduct of one of them had not given him entire satisfaction, the two eldest sons of John Paston had probably both been of some service to their father in maintaining his influence at court. And this must have been a matter of no small consequence in the continued struggle that he was obliged to maintain with adversaries like Yelverton and Jenney. The dispute with them had now assumed another form.A.D.1464.Litigation touching Fastolf’s will.Sir William Yelverton, in conjunction with our old friend William Worcester, was contesting in the spiritual court of Canterbury the claim put forward by Paston to be the chief executor under Sir John Fastolf’s will; while at the same time William Jenney, and one William Hogan, by Jenney’s procurement, took actions for trespass against him in the Suffolk county court. Paston trusted to his influence with the king to deliver him from these vexatious suits. He neglected to put in an appearance at four several county courts, and allowed himself to be put in exigent, while he followed the king to Marlborough, and obtained from him a licence for the erection of the college at Caister provided for in Fastolf’s will. Along with this the king covenanted to give him a free pardon when required for all offences against the peace, to save him harmless against Yelverton and Jenney; but undertook at the same time to cause inquiry to be made into the substance of their accusations, and if these proved to be unfounded, to compel them to make Paston compensation.216.1Paston had partly trusted to the friendship of William Calthorpe, who was at this time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to protect him against outlawry. His servant Richard Calle217offered surety that Paston would save the sheriff harmless, either by making an appearance at a later date or by producing asupersedeas; and he requested that upon this assurance the sheriff would return that his master had appeared the first day. Calthorpe had every wish to do Paston a kindness; though he confessed that Jenney had been his good friend and legal adviser for two years past, Paston was still more his friend than Jenney, and he promised to do all that was required.217.1But this promise he failed to fulfil. Paston’s non-appearance was proclaimed at four successive county courts at Ipswich; and a writ of exigent was granted against him. Paston obtained asupersedeasfrom the king at Fotheringay on the 3rd August;John Paston outlawed.but in the end judgment was given against him in Suffolk on the 10th September, and he was proclaimed an outlaw. On the 3rd November following he was committed to the Fleet prison.217.2This was his second experience of captivity since the death of Sir John Fastolf. We do not know that he ever suffered it before that time; but he was now paying the penalty of increased importance. His detention on this occasion does not seem to have been of long duration; but if we are right in the interpretation of a sarcastic anonymous letter217.3found among his correspondence, his fellow-prisoners threw out surmises when he left that the Fleet would see him yet a third time within its walls. At least, this may or may not have been the purport of what is certainly an ironical and ambiguous epistle addressed to him, we cannot tell by whom. If it was so, the prediction was verified before another twelvemonth had passed away.How matters went during the winter we have very little indication, except that Paston’s friend John Wykes, an officer of the king’s household,A.D.1465. Feb. 7.writes to Margaret Paston on the 7th February from London, ‘that my master your husband, my mistress your mother, my master Sir John, Mr. William, Mr.218Clement, and all their men, were in good health when this letter was written, thanked be Jesu; and also their matters be in a good way, for my Lord Chancellor is their singular good lord.’ The crisis in the affairs of the family was certainly very serious, when old Agnes Paston, the judge’s widow (for I have never found any other lady spoken of as Margaret Paston’s ‘mother’), took the trouble to go up to London to see them settled. It appears that there was a little family council on the occasion, and John Paston’s two brothers, William and Clement, together with his son Sir John, were also present.218.1What kind of arrangement they all succeeded in making we have no means of ascertaining; but the next occasion of trouble to John Paston was not given by Yelverton and Jenney.The Duke of Suffolk lays claim to Drayton.The first indications of it appear in a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband, written on the 8th April 1465, by which we find that the Duke of Suffolk had now set up a claim to Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Drayton, about four miles north-west of Norwich. Margaret had also heard that he had bought up the rights of a person named Brytyeff or Bryghtylhed, who laid claim to the neighbouring manor of Hellesdon, a little nearer the city, and that he intended to take possession after Easter.218.2The claim appears to have been very ill founded, and the tenants, all but one or two, were favourable to Paston.218.3Nevertheless Philip Lipyate, the duke’s bailiff, began taking distresses, and carried off the horses of one Dorlet as he was about to yoke them to his plough. But Margaret Paston, who had been staying at Caister, after waiting till her son Sir John could come to her, and leaving him to keep the castle, went over to Hellesdon to collect the rents for her husband, and put a stop, if possible, to the proceedings of the duke’s officers. She soon began to feel that there was more need of a captain like her son Sir John at Hellesdon than at Caister. One single tenant named Piers Warin gave her servants a little trouble, and they took from him two mares as security for the rent. Warin made his complaint to Philip Lipyate and the duke’s bailiff of Cossey,219who came with a body of eightscore men in armour, and took away the plough-horses of the parson and another tenant, intimating that the beasts should not be restored unless their owners would appear and give answer to certain matters at Drayton on the Tuesday following. The duke’s men further threatened that if Paston’s servants ventured to take any further distresses in Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a hen, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon.219.1John Paston, though not at this time in confinement, seems to have been unable to leave London. But it was impossible that he could underestimate the danger in which his property stood from the pretensions of such a formidable neighbour as the Duke of Suffolk. The letters written to him at this period by his wife are annotated all down the margin with very brief rough jottings in his own handwriting, for the most part only calling attention to the subjects touched upon in the letter, but occasionally indicating what he was about to say in his reply. He expressed, indeed, no great respect for the big threats of Suffolk’s officers about taking the value of an ox for that of a hen, which he characterised in the margin by the simple monosyllable ‘crack’; but he noted, in the brief words ‘Periculum Heylesdon,’ the fact that there was real cause for anxiety lest the duke, who had already occupied Drayton, should drive him out of Hellesdon as well.219.2The Bishop of Norwich had been appealed to, as chief justice of the peace for the county, to use his influence with the Duke of Suffolk’s officers, and especially with Philip Lipyate, who was a priest, and subject to his jurisdiction, to bring the dispute to a peaceful settlement. But John Paston probably trusted more to the fact that he had men of his own ready to repel force by force. The parishes of Hellesdon and Drayton are situated on the northern bank of the river Wensum, partly on a low ridge which slopes downward towards the stream. Opposite to Drayton, on the other side of the river, lay the Duke of Suffolk’s mansion of Cossey,219.3220from which, at any time that was thought advisable, an armed band could be sent along with a distraining officer to assert the duke’s alleged rights over the tenants. It was really a case of two hostile camps keeping watch upon each other, and each of them ready to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Not that either of them pretended to be above the law, but the duke and Paston each claimed to be lawful owner of the lordships of Hellesdon and Drayton, and, until any legal settlement could be come to, each was well aware of the importance of maintaining his claim by corresponding acts. If the duke could levy a distress, so could Paston. His officers made an inroad, undeterred by the menaces of the duke’s men, into Drayton, took 77 neat, and brought them home to Hellesdon. The tenants followed, petitioning to have their cattle back again, but Margaret Paston told them they must first pay such duties as they owed to her husband, or find security to pay at such a day as she could agree to. An officer of the duke named Harleston was at Norwich, and told them that if they either paid or gave such surety they should be put out of their holdings. Harleston had a conference with Margaret Paston in the evening, but she refused to redeliver the distress on any other terms than those she had already intimated. This was on a Saturday evening. On Monday following a replevin was served upon her in the name of Harleston, who was under-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, on the ground that the cattle had been taken within the fee of the duchy. Margaret refused to deliver them until she had ascertained whether this was actually the case, and on inquiry she found that it was not so. The beasts were accordingly still detained in Hellesdon pin-fold, and Pynchemore, the officer who had brought the replevin, was obliged to return to his master. But in the afternoon he came again with a replevin under the seal of the sheriff of Norfolk, which it was impossible lawfully to disobey. So the beasts were at last taken out of the pin-fold and redelivered to the tenants.220.1This sort of quasi-legal warfare continued for weeks and221for months. At one time there would be a lull; but again it was reported that the duke’s men were busier. The duke himself was coming to Cossey, and his servants boasted openly that he would have Drayton in peace and then Hellesdon.221.1And not very long after the duke did come to Norfolk, raising people on his way both in Norfolk and Suffolk,—for an attack, as every one knew, on Paston’s stronghold at Hellesdon, which was now placed in the keeping of his son Sir John.221.2Attempt of the duke’s men on Hellesdon.On Monday the 8th July, Philip Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey, with about 300 men, came before Hellesdon, but, finding Sir John Paston quite prepared for them, professed they had no intention of attempting to force an entry. For Sir John had a garrison of 60 men within the place, and such a quantity of guns and ordnance that the assailants would certainly have had the worst of it. Lipyate and the bailiff, however, informed Sir John that they had a warrant to attach John Daubeney, Wykes, Richard Calle, and some others. Sir John replied that they were not within, and if they had been he would not have delivered them. Afterwards it was mutually agreed that the Duke of Suffolk should dismiss his men and Sir John Paston should do the same. But this only transferred the scene of action to Norwich, where Richard Calle was attacked by twelve men in the streets and only rescued by the sheriff; nor did he escape without the pleasant assurance that if he were caught another time he would be put to death, so that he did not dare ride out without an escort. Daubeney and Wykes were in a similar state of apprehension, and to crown all, it was said that there was to be a special commission to inquire of riots, in which the Duke of Suffolk and Yelverton would be commissioners. If so, every man that had taken Paston’s part was pretty sure of being hanged.221.3Sir John Paston, however, acquired great credit for having withstood so numerous a force as Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey had brought against him. It will be readily understood that his position must have been a strong one. He and222his mother were then living at a mansion in Hellesdon, which probably stood on comparatively low ground near the river.222.1But on the brow of the hill, nearer Drayton, stood a quadrangular fortress of which the ruins still exist, known at this day by the name of Drayton Lodge. This lodge lay within what was then called Hellesdon Warren, and commanded the entrance to the property. From its elevated position it must have been peculiarly difficult to attack. The country around was open heath, and the approach of an enemy could be descried distinctly in the distance. From the mansion below, where he had quartered his garrison of 60 men, he could doubtless bring up with ease at any time as many as seemed necessary for the defence of the lodge;222.2while from the battlements of the lodge a heavy fire could be opened on the advancing foe.222.3Living within a house that was threatened with siege, Margaret Paston, at this juncture, seems to have taken an active part along with her son in the preparations for defence. Her husband in London writes to her as a commander-in-chief might do to the governor of a besieged fort:—‘In good faith ye acquit you right well and discreetly, and heartily to your worship and mine, and to the shame of your adversaries: and I am well content that ye avowed that ye kept possession at Drayton and so would do.’ But the task imposed upon her had impaired her health; and John Paston, though for some potent reasons he was not able even now to come to her aid, was anxious to give her every comfort and encouragement in his power. ‘Take what may do your ease and spare not,’ he says in the same letter; ‘and in any wise take no thought nor too much labour for these matters, nor set it not so to223your heart that ye fare the worse for it. And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law, John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. It had descended to his daughter Alice, and John Paston was able to show his title to her property. On the other hand he traced the pedigree of the Duke of Suffolk from ‘one William Poole of Hull, which was a worshipful man grown by fortune of the world,’ and whose son Michael, the first Earl of Suffolk, had been so created by King RichardII.since Paston’s father was born; and if any of their lineage held the manor of Drayton he would lose £100, if the duke would be bound in as much to prove the contrary. But the duke must not expect him to show his title to one who tried to oust him by violence. On this point John Paston was resolute. ‘Let my lord of Norwich wit that it is not profitable, nor the common weal of gentlemen, that any gentleman should be compelled by an entry of a lord to show his evidence or title to his land, nor I will not begin that example ne thraldom, of gentlemen nor of other. It is good a lord take sad counsel ere he begin any such matter.’223.1It might have been supposed that after the duke’s attempt on Hellesdon, nothing but impediments of the most serious kind would have prevented John Paston from going down to Norfolk to take charge of his own interests and relieve his wife’s anxiety. But it appears that he hardly expected to be able to leave London, and in the same letter from which we have just been quoting he desires that if he be not home within three weeks his wife will come to him. In that case she is, before leaving, to put everything under proper rule224both at Caister and Hellesdon, ‘if the war hold.’ The state of matters between him and Suffolk was such as could only be spoken of as a state of war, even by plain matter-of-fact John Paston. And if the enemy offered peace his wife was to send him word.What could have been the obstacle that prevented John Paston leaving London? It appears for one thing that he was at this time called upon to undergo an examination before the spiritual court of Canterbury, in defence of his claim to be Sir John Fastolf’s executor. This alone was, perhaps, sufficient to detain him, for it was a thing on which his most important interests depended. But there is no doubt that additional obstacles were raised up for him expressly by the malice of his enemies;John Paston imprisoned a third time.for it could not have been many weeks after his first examination that John Paston again found himself a prisoner in the Fleet, and within the walls of that prison his further depositions were taken.224.1It was the malicious ingenuity of Judge Yelverton that had devised the means to inflict upon him this new incarceration. And the means employed were such as to make captivity doubly painful and humiliating. The king’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in May of the preceding year. At Michaelmas it was openly avowed; and if it displeased, as no doubt it did, Warwick and the old nobility, even from the first, it informed a whole world of time-servers and place-hunters that there was a new avenue to fortune in securing the favour of the Woodvilles. Already Rivers had been created Lord Treasurer and advanced to the dignity of an earldom. Already marriages had been made for the queen’s brothers and sisters, which were evidently provocative of envy, jealousy, and indignation.224.2The king’s liberality towards his new relations was unbounded, and sycophants were not wanting to suggest to him how he might gratify their cupidity, sometimes at the expense of others than himself. Sir William Yelverton, accordingly, contrived to whisper in the royal ear that the king might fairly dispose of some fine property in Norfolk and Suffolk; for John225Paston, who claimed to be the owner, was come of servile blood, and was really the king’s bondman.225.1The reader will remember the curious paper225.2in which it is set forth that the grandfather and father of John Paston had held lands in the village of Paston, by servile tenures, and that John Paston himself, without having any manor place, was endeavouring to ‘make himself a lordship there,’ to the prejudice of the duchy of Lancaster. There can be little doubt that this statement was drawn up in the year 1465 and that its author was Judge Yelverton. He had been at this time endeavouring to ingratiate himself with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, the queen’s brother, and it was in the interest of that nobleman that he made this attempt to asperse the lineage of the Pastons.Lord Scales seeks to obtain Caister.For Lord Scales had begun to cast covetous eyes on the magnificent castle at Caister; and if it were but satisfactorily shown that John Paston was disqualified from possessing it, no doubt the king, his brother-in-law, would be only too willing to grant it to himself. The case was already prejudged; Caister and the lordship of Cotton as well were his by anticipation, and some time before Paston was committed to prison it was known that Lord Scales meant to ride down into Norfolk and oust him from his property.225.3Although John Paston was thus unable to go home, as he wished to do, neither was Margaret Paston able for some time to go up and see him in London, as he had desired her. Wykes, who had promised to keep possession of the place at226Hellesdon in her absence, did not go down into Norfolk so soon as he had intended, but remained in London taking care of Paston’s interests in another fashion in conferences with Nevill, Archbishop of York, at that time Lord Chancellor. Perhaps already the influence of Archbishop Nevill, like that of his brother the Earl of Warwick, had begun to decline, and Wykes was really wasting his labour in complaining to his lordship of the riotous attempt made by the Duke of Suffolk’s men at Hellesdon. There was but one pretext on which the outrage could be justified,—a matter concerning the payment of 100 marks, but the money had been paid long ago. His lordship, however, durst swear the Duchess of Suffolk had no knowledge of it; and with that he left town, promising an answer when he came back next Tuesday.226.1But Margaret Paston, though she could not yet come up to London, did not spend the time at home unprofitably. The judges had come down to Norwich on their circuit, when Margaret endeavoured to secure the advantage she had already gained in keeping possession at Drayton by getting a manor court held there in her husband’s name. But to do this she required the services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many, certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an entry into Hellesdon.Attempt of Margaret Paston to hold a court at Drayton.Thomas Bond and an attached and confidential priest named Sir James Gloys were adventurous enough to go to Drayton alone for the purpose of holding a court on Lammas Day. They found, as might have been expected, that officers of the Duke of Suffolk were there before them. Harleston, along with Philip Lipyate, the parson of Salle, and William Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, who was to sit as steward, were in the courtyard of the manor, prepared to hold the227court in the Duke of Suffolk’s name. They were accompanied by about sixty persons or more, besides the tenants of Drayton, some having rusty poleaxes and bills to enforce respect for the duke’s authority. In the face of this array, however, Bond and Gloys announced that they came to keep the court in the name of John Paston; on which the former was immediately delivered into the custody of William Ducket, a new bailiff of Drayton appointed by the duke, and was carried off to Cossey, his arms bound behind him with whipcord like a thief. But Margaret Paston spoke with the judges next morning before they went to the shirehouse, in presence of the bailiff of Cossey and the whole of the duke’s council; and the judges calling the bailiff before them, gave him a severe reproof, and sent the sheriff to see what company had been mustered at Drayton. The sheriff rode first to Hellesdon, and expressed himself satisfied with the demeanour of Paston’s men there. When he came to Drayton, the bands of Suffolk’s retainers had disappeared. He demanded that Thomas Bond should be delivered to him, and was told that he had been sent to the Duke of Suffolk; but he was afterwards delivered to him at Norwich, with a request that he should not be set at liberty without a fine, as he had troubled the king’s leet. The judges, however, on being informed of the real state of the case, commanded him to be set at liberty, and pronounced a very strong censure on the conduct of Suffolk’s officers.227.1As for the manors of Caister and Cotton, it does not appear that Lord Scales ever carried out his intention so far as the latter was concerned; nor had he taken possession even of the former some time after John Paston was committed to the Fleet. That occurrence must have taken place about the middle of the month of August,227.2and towards the end of September we have evidence that Sir John Paston was in Caister Castle keeping possession for his father.227.3But the228Paston family had been warned of the danger, and we may be well assured that they did not neglect the warning in either case. Indeed, the question how to make matters secure at Caister seems to have been the principal difficulty that caused Margaret to delay her journey up to London. As to Cotton, we shall see ere long that very effectual means were taken to secure possession there.Margaret Paston visits her husband in prison.It would appear that when Margaret knew her husband was in prison she determined to delay no longer, but to visit him in London at all costs. Early in September she had already gone to him, and her son, John Paston the youngest, wrote to her from Norwich on the 14th, advising her, among other things, to visit the Rood of North-door (a cross beside St. Paul’s Cathedral), and St. Saviour’s at Bermondsey, during her stay in the capital. ‘And let my sister Margery,’ he suggests, ‘go with you, to pray to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.’ It is difficult to tell whether this means devotion or sightseeing, jest or earnest. The young man had already seen a good deal of life, and was familiar with the principal attractions of the great city, to which in all probability his mother was as great a stranger as his young sister. Even the dame who had the care of his father’s apartments in the prison was not unknown apparently to John Paston the youngest. ‘And the Holy Trinity,’ he writes, ‘have you in keeping, and my fair Mistress of the Fleet.’John Paston the father does not seem to have been very uncomfortable in prison. He made friends in the place of his confinement, and among other persons became acquainted with Henry, Lord Percy, son of the attainted Earl of Northumberland, who was afterwards restored by King Edward to his father’s earldom. His spirits, indeed, if we may judge from his correspondence, were at this time particularly buoyant; for after his wife had taken leave of him to return homeward he wrote her a letter the latter half of which was composed of doggerel rhyme, jesting about having robbed her portmanteau, and referring her for redress to Richard Calle, whose ears he bade her nail to the post if he did not pay her the value. In none of his previous correspondence does he indulge in verse229or betray anything of this rollicking humour. The only subject on which he even insinuates a complaint is the weather, which seems to have been unnaturally cold for September. He speaks of it satirically as ‘this cold winter,’ and wishes his wife to send him some worsted for doublets in which to protect himself from the severity of the season. But even in this we can tell that he is jesting, for he explains himself that he wishes to have a doublet entirely composed of the wool manufactured at Worsted, for the credit of his native county. And so far is he from wishing it for the sake of warmth, that he particularly desires to procure a fine quality of worsted ‘almost like silk,’ of which William Paston’s tippet was composed.229.1Margaret Paston enters Cotton.On her way back to Norfolk, Margaret Paston entered the manor of Cotton and remained in it for three days. She had sent a message to her son John Paston the youngest at Hellesdon to come and meet her there,229.2and he came along with Wykes and twelve others, whom she had left at her departure to keep possession and collect the rents. It was within a week of Michaelmas Day, when rents fell due. As yet Lord Scales had made no attempt to seize upon this property. Sir Gilbert Debenham had occupied the manor for some years undisturbed, and he was doubtless considerably taken by surprise when he found that a lady on her way home from London had entered and taken possession in the name of John Paston. But when he heard that young John Paston was gathering money of the tenants, he raised a body of 300 men to expel the intruder. Young John Paston was expecting reinforcements to his little band from Caister or elsewhere, but they did not come; so that his position would have been a critical one had not some one been his friend in the household of the Duke of Norfolk. Sir Gilbert was the duke’s230steward, and John Paston the youngest was still in the duke’s service. A yeoman of his lordship’s chamber represented to that nobleman that there was imminent risk of a quarrel between two of his men, which would be a great ‘disworship’ to his grace. The duke sent for the two immediately to attend upon him at Framlingham Castle, and proposed to them terms of compromise until the matter could be thoroughly investigated. He desired that neither party should muster men, that the court should be ‘continued’—that is to say, adjourned—till he himself should have had an opportunity of speaking both with John Paston the father and on the other side with Yelverton and Jenney, who had conveyed to Debenham the title on which he founded his claim to the manor. Meanwhile he proposed that the place should be kept by some indifferent person to be chosen by both parties.To these terms John Paston the youngest would not assent without consulting his mother, who had again come over from Norwich, or perhaps from Caister, to see how matters went. But after a conference, they sent an answer to the duke, declaring that they could not give up possession of the place, but out of their anxiety for peace, and to satisfy his lordship, they were willing to desist meanwhile from collecting rents, if the opposite party would engage not to distrain or keep courts there either. To this compromise Sir Gilbert said that he agreed, provided it met with the approval of Yelverton and Jenney; and the Duke of Norfolk, who was going up to London in anticipation of his birthday when he attained his majority, left all the sooner in the hope of bringing this matter to a favourable settlement.230.1Thus far, at least, the entry into Cotton had been a distinct success. The compromise was greatly in favour of the Pastons, for an appeal to force would almost certainly have gone against them, and, though they engaged for the time to abstain from taking more money of the tenants, they had already succeeded in collecting almost all that they expected to receive for Michaelmas term.230.2So Margaret Paston on her return to Norfolk, and her son, when he was summoned to London231shortly afterwards, to attend the duke on his coming of age,231.1may each have left Cotton with feelings akin to triumph. But scarcely had the former returned to Norwich when she discovered to her dismay that her clever manœuvre in Suffolk had left the family interests insufficiently protected elsewhere. The Duke of Suffolk had not only a great number of men at Cossey, but he had a powerful friend within the city of Norwich. Thomas Elys, the new mayor, was so flagrantly partial, that he had said at Drayton he would supply my lord of Suffolk with a hundred men whenever he should require them, and if any men of the city went to Paston he would lay them fast in prison.231.2Hellesdon, unfortunately, lay midway between Cossey and the city of Norwich, and as it was not now assize time there was practically no control over such magnates as the Duke of Suffolk and the mayor. So, on the morning of Tuesday the 15th of October, one Bottisforth, who was bailiff for the duke at Eye, came to Hellesdon, arrested four of John Paston’s servants, and carried them off to Cossey without a warrant from any justice of the peace. His intention, he said, was to convey them to Eye prison along with as many more of Paston’s adherents as he could lay his hands on. That same day the duke came to Norwich with a retinue of 500 men. He sent for the mayor and aldermen with the sheriffs, and desired them in the king’s name to make inquiry of the constables in every ward of the city what men had taken part with Paston in recent gatherings. Any such persons he requested that they would arrest and punish, and send their names to him by eight o’clock on the following day. On this the mayor arrested one Robert Lovegold, brasier, and threatened him that he should be hanged, though he had only been with Margaret Paston at Lammas, when she was menaced by the companies of Harleston and the bailiff of Cossey.231.3Attack on Hellesdon.Scarcely one of Paston’s servants now durst openly show himself abroad, and, the duke having the city at his command, his followers made, that same Tuesday, a regular assault on the place at Hellesdon. The slender garrison knew that it was madness to resist, and no opposition was offered. The232duke’s men took possession, and set John Paston’s own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston’s own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors, or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the work of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now.232.1This was carrying things with the high hand; but it did not improve the Duke of Suffolk’s popularity at Norwich, and it created no small sympathy with Paston and his tenants. ‘There cometh much people daily,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘to wonder thereupon, both of Norwich and of other places, and they speak shamefully thereof. The duke had been better than a thousand pound that it had never been done; and ye have the more good will of the people that it is so foully done.’ Margaret was anxious that the effects of the outrage should be seen before winter came on by some one specially sent from the king to view and report upon the ruin. But no redress was obtained while her husband lived, and even some years after his death his sons petitioned for it in vain.
203.3Patent Roll, 1 EdwardIV.p. 1, m. 18d., dated March 16; and m. 19d., dated May 10; p. 4, m. 22d., February 24 and March 1 (1462); also p. 2, m. 12d.(against the Scots), Nov. 13.203.4Ib.p. 1, m. 27d., March 28, and p. 3, m. 3d., July 8.203.5Ib.p. 2, m. 10d., Aug. 17.203.6Ib.p. 2, m. 12d., Nov. 4; and p. 4, m. 22d., Feb. 28 (1462).203.7Ib.p. 3, m. 3d., July 12.204.1Ib.p. 3, m. 3d.and 27d., Aug. 6 and 12; also m. 8d., Jan. 29.204.2Such, I think, must be the meaning intended. The expression in the original is, ‘they shuld aley (qu.should a’ laid?) on her bodyys.’204.3No. 469.204.4Seep. 164.204.5Nos. 455, 463.204.6No. 472.205.1No. 461.205.2No. 450.205.3No. 451.205.4Nos. 451, 452.205.5No. 457.205.6Nos. 457, 460.205.7No. 373.205.8Sir John Paston must have been born in 1442. At the inquisition taken in October 1466, after his father’s death, he was found to be twenty-four years old and more.206.1No. 459.206.2No. 473. Compare No. 223. It is striking that, notwithstanding his large possessions in land, the Duke of York should have been unable for eight years to redeem these jewels.206.3This was less than the sum (£487) for which the jewels were pledged, and yet it was the whole compensation granted both for the jewels and for a bond of 100 marks given by the Duke of York to Fastolf, which Paston also surrendered.207.1466-8, 471, 475.207.2Nos. 477, 478.207.3No. 458.207.4No. 465.208.1Nos.477, 478.208.2No. 484.208.3Ibid.209.1I have already indicated my belief that Judge Yelverton was the real person nicknamed Colinus Gallicus in Friar Brackley’s letters. It is quite clear by No. 404 (one of the letters found after the text of Mr. Arber’s edition had passed through the press) that Colinus Gallicus not only could not have been Worcester, but that he was a man of some social standing on familiar terms with the Earl of Wiltshire. This, and the fact that he was one of Fastolf’s executors, seem to prove his identity. It is a satisfaction to find that, though Brackley did not love William Worcester, the bitter words in No. 383 were not levelled at him. Thus he wrote while Sir John Fastolf was on his deathbed: ‘Colinus Gallicus says in Yarmouth and other places that he is an executor. He said also yesterday before several persons, if once he were in London, he wishes never to see Norfolk. He says also, whereas the executors think they will have keys, after the death others will have keys as well as they. He is a very deceitful man (falsissimus). . . . That same Gallicus intensely hates the rector (Howes), and would like to supplant him.’209.2No. 481.209.3Nos. 482, 484.209.4No. 488.209.5No. 457.210.1485-487.211.1No. 488.212.1Nos. 497, 500.212.2No. 504.212.3No. 505.212.4No. 510.212.5No. 538.213.1No. 540.213.2No. 544.213.3No. 377.213.4Nos. 477, 478, 511.213.5No. 550.214.1521-3.214.2Nos. 375, 377.214.3No. 552.215.1Fabyan.Inquisition p. m., 1 EdwardIV., No. 46.215.2Nos. 532, 533.but he considered his conduct that at the electiontext unchanged: 1st edition has same word orderFootnote 208.1:Nos. 477, 478.text reads “No.”Troubles of John PastonOn the whole, though the conduct of one of them had not given him entire satisfaction, the two eldest sons of John Paston had probably both been of some service to their father in maintaining his influence at court. And this must have been a matter of no small consequence in the continued struggle that he was obliged to maintain with adversaries like Yelverton and Jenney. The dispute with them had now assumed another form.A.D.1464.Litigation touching Fastolf’s will.Sir William Yelverton, in conjunction with our old friend William Worcester, was contesting in the spiritual court of Canterbury the claim put forward by Paston to be the chief executor under Sir John Fastolf’s will; while at the same time William Jenney, and one William Hogan, by Jenney’s procurement, took actions for trespass against him in the Suffolk county court. Paston trusted to his influence with the king to deliver him from these vexatious suits. He neglected to put in an appearance at four several county courts, and allowed himself to be put in exigent, while he followed the king to Marlborough, and obtained from him a licence for the erection of the college at Caister provided for in Fastolf’s will. Along with this the king covenanted to give him a free pardon when required for all offences against the peace, to save him harmless against Yelverton and Jenney; but undertook at the same time to cause inquiry to be made into the substance of their accusations, and if these proved to be unfounded, to compel them to make Paston compensation.216.1Paston had partly trusted to the friendship of William Calthorpe, who was at this time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to protect him against outlawry. His servant Richard Calle217offered surety that Paston would save the sheriff harmless, either by making an appearance at a later date or by producing asupersedeas; and he requested that upon this assurance the sheriff would return that his master had appeared the first day. Calthorpe had every wish to do Paston a kindness; though he confessed that Jenney had been his good friend and legal adviser for two years past, Paston was still more his friend than Jenney, and he promised to do all that was required.217.1But this promise he failed to fulfil. Paston’s non-appearance was proclaimed at four successive county courts at Ipswich; and a writ of exigent was granted against him. Paston obtained asupersedeasfrom the king at Fotheringay on the 3rd August;John Paston outlawed.but in the end judgment was given against him in Suffolk on the 10th September, and he was proclaimed an outlaw. On the 3rd November following he was committed to the Fleet prison.217.2This was his second experience of captivity since the death of Sir John Fastolf. We do not know that he ever suffered it before that time; but he was now paying the penalty of increased importance. His detention on this occasion does not seem to have been of long duration; but if we are right in the interpretation of a sarcastic anonymous letter217.3found among his correspondence, his fellow-prisoners threw out surmises when he left that the Fleet would see him yet a third time within its walls. At least, this may or may not have been the purport of what is certainly an ironical and ambiguous epistle addressed to him, we cannot tell by whom. If it was so, the prediction was verified before another twelvemonth had passed away.How matters went during the winter we have very little indication, except that Paston’s friend John Wykes, an officer of the king’s household,A.D.1465. Feb. 7.writes to Margaret Paston on the 7th February from London, ‘that my master your husband, my mistress your mother, my master Sir John, Mr. William, Mr.218Clement, and all their men, were in good health when this letter was written, thanked be Jesu; and also their matters be in a good way, for my Lord Chancellor is their singular good lord.’ The crisis in the affairs of the family was certainly very serious, when old Agnes Paston, the judge’s widow (for I have never found any other lady spoken of as Margaret Paston’s ‘mother’), took the trouble to go up to London to see them settled. It appears that there was a little family council on the occasion, and John Paston’s two brothers, William and Clement, together with his son Sir John, were also present.218.1What kind of arrangement they all succeeded in making we have no means of ascertaining; but the next occasion of trouble to John Paston was not given by Yelverton and Jenney.The Duke of Suffolk lays claim to Drayton.The first indications of it appear in a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband, written on the 8th April 1465, by which we find that the Duke of Suffolk had now set up a claim to Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Drayton, about four miles north-west of Norwich. Margaret had also heard that he had bought up the rights of a person named Brytyeff or Bryghtylhed, who laid claim to the neighbouring manor of Hellesdon, a little nearer the city, and that he intended to take possession after Easter.218.2The claim appears to have been very ill founded, and the tenants, all but one or two, were favourable to Paston.218.3Nevertheless Philip Lipyate, the duke’s bailiff, began taking distresses, and carried off the horses of one Dorlet as he was about to yoke them to his plough. But Margaret Paston, who had been staying at Caister, after waiting till her son Sir John could come to her, and leaving him to keep the castle, went over to Hellesdon to collect the rents for her husband, and put a stop, if possible, to the proceedings of the duke’s officers. She soon began to feel that there was more need of a captain like her son Sir John at Hellesdon than at Caister. One single tenant named Piers Warin gave her servants a little trouble, and they took from him two mares as security for the rent. Warin made his complaint to Philip Lipyate and the duke’s bailiff of Cossey,219who came with a body of eightscore men in armour, and took away the plough-horses of the parson and another tenant, intimating that the beasts should not be restored unless their owners would appear and give answer to certain matters at Drayton on the Tuesday following. The duke’s men further threatened that if Paston’s servants ventured to take any further distresses in Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a hen, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon.219.1John Paston, though not at this time in confinement, seems to have been unable to leave London. But it was impossible that he could underestimate the danger in which his property stood from the pretensions of such a formidable neighbour as the Duke of Suffolk. The letters written to him at this period by his wife are annotated all down the margin with very brief rough jottings in his own handwriting, for the most part only calling attention to the subjects touched upon in the letter, but occasionally indicating what he was about to say in his reply. He expressed, indeed, no great respect for the big threats of Suffolk’s officers about taking the value of an ox for that of a hen, which he characterised in the margin by the simple monosyllable ‘crack’; but he noted, in the brief words ‘Periculum Heylesdon,’ the fact that there was real cause for anxiety lest the duke, who had already occupied Drayton, should drive him out of Hellesdon as well.219.2The Bishop of Norwich had been appealed to, as chief justice of the peace for the county, to use his influence with the Duke of Suffolk’s officers, and especially with Philip Lipyate, who was a priest, and subject to his jurisdiction, to bring the dispute to a peaceful settlement. But John Paston probably trusted more to the fact that he had men of his own ready to repel force by force. The parishes of Hellesdon and Drayton are situated on the northern bank of the river Wensum, partly on a low ridge which slopes downward towards the stream. Opposite to Drayton, on the other side of the river, lay the Duke of Suffolk’s mansion of Cossey,219.3220from which, at any time that was thought advisable, an armed band could be sent along with a distraining officer to assert the duke’s alleged rights over the tenants. It was really a case of two hostile camps keeping watch upon each other, and each of them ready to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Not that either of them pretended to be above the law, but the duke and Paston each claimed to be lawful owner of the lordships of Hellesdon and Drayton, and, until any legal settlement could be come to, each was well aware of the importance of maintaining his claim by corresponding acts. If the duke could levy a distress, so could Paston. His officers made an inroad, undeterred by the menaces of the duke’s men, into Drayton, took 77 neat, and brought them home to Hellesdon. The tenants followed, petitioning to have their cattle back again, but Margaret Paston told them they must first pay such duties as they owed to her husband, or find security to pay at such a day as she could agree to. An officer of the duke named Harleston was at Norwich, and told them that if they either paid or gave such surety they should be put out of their holdings. Harleston had a conference with Margaret Paston in the evening, but she refused to redeliver the distress on any other terms than those she had already intimated. This was on a Saturday evening. On Monday following a replevin was served upon her in the name of Harleston, who was under-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, on the ground that the cattle had been taken within the fee of the duchy. Margaret refused to deliver them until she had ascertained whether this was actually the case, and on inquiry she found that it was not so. The beasts were accordingly still detained in Hellesdon pin-fold, and Pynchemore, the officer who had brought the replevin, was obliged to return to his master. But in the afternoon he came again with a replevin under the seal of the sheriff of Norfolk, which it was impossible lawfully to disobey. So the beasts were at last taken out of the pin-fold and redelivered to the tenants.220.1This sort of quasi-legal warfare continued for weeks and221for months. At one time there would be a lull; but again it was reported that the duke’s men were busier. The duke himself was coming to Cossey, and his servants boasted openly that he would have Drayton in peace and then Hellesdon.221.1And not very long after the duke did come to Norfolk, raising people on his way both in Norfolk and Suffolk,—for an attack, as every one knew, on Paston’s stronghold at Hellesdon, which was now placed in the keeping of his son Sir John.221.2Attempt of the duke’s men on Hellesdon.On Monday the 8th July, Philip Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey, with about 300 men, came before Hellesdon, but, finding Sir John Paston quite prepared for them, professed they had no intention of attempting to force an entry. For Sir John had a garrison of 60 men within the place, and such a quantity of guns and ordnance that the assailants would certainly have had the worst of it. Lipyate and the bailiff, however, informed Sir John that they had a warrant to attach John Daubeney, Wykes, Richard Calle, and some others. Sir John replied that they were not within, and if they had been he would not have delivered them. Afterwards it was mutually agreed that the Duke of Suffolk should dismiss his men and Sir John Paston should do the same. But this only transferred the scene of action to Norwich, where Richard Calle was attacked by twelve men in the streets and only rescued by the sheriff; nor did he escape without the pleasant assurance that if he were caught another time he would be put to death, so that he did not dare ride out without an escort. Daubeney and Wykes were in a similar state of apprehension, and to crown all, it was said that there was to be a special commission to inquire of riots, in which the Duke of Suffolk and Yelverton would be commissioners. If so, every man that had taken Paston’s part was pretty sure of being hanged.221.3Sir John Paston, however, acquired great credit for having withstood so numerous a force as Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey had brought against him. It will be readily understood that his position must have been a strong one. He and222his mother were then living at a mansion in Hellesdon, which probably stood on comparatively low ground near the river.222.1But on the brow of the hill, nearer Drayton, stood a quadrangular fortress of which the ruins still exist, known at this day by the name of Drayton Lodge. This lodge lay within what was then called Hellesdon Warren, and commanded the entrance to the property. From its elevated position it must have been peculiarly difficult to attack. The country around was open heath, and the approach of an enemy could be descried distinctly in the distance. From the mansion below, where he had quartered his garrison of 60 men, he could doubtless bring up with ease at any time as many as seemed necessary for the defence of the lodge;222.2while from the battlements of the lodge a heavy fire could be opened on the advancing foe.222.3Living within a house that was threatened with siege, Margaret Paston, at this juncture, seems to have taken an active part along with her son in the preparations for defence. Her husband in London writes to her as a commander-in-chief might do to the governor of a besieged fort:—‘In good faith ye acquit you right well and discreetly, and heartily to your worship and mine, and to the shame of your adversaries: and I am well content that ye avowed that ye kept possession at Drayton and so would do.’ But the task imposed upon her had impaired her health; and John Paston, though for some potent reasons he was not able even now to come to her aid, was anxious to give her every comfort and encouragement in his power. ‘Take what may do your ease and spare not,’ he says in the same letter; ‘and in any wise take no thought nor too much labour for these matters, nor set it not so to223your heart that ye fare the worse for it. And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law, John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. It had descended to his daughter Alice, and John Paston was able to show his title to her property. On the other hand he traced the pedigree of the Duke of Suffolk from ‘one William Poole of Hull, which was a worshipful man grown by fortune of the world,’ and whose son Michael, the first Earl of Suffolk, had been so created by King RichardII.since Paston’s father was born; and if any of their lineage held the manor of Drayton he would lose £100, if the duke would be bound in as much to prove the contrary. But the duke must not expect him to show his title to one who tried to oust him by violence. On this point John Paston was resolute. ‘Let my lord of Norwich wit that it is not profitable, nor the common weal of gentlemen, that any gentleman should be compelled by an entry of a lord to show his evidence or title to his land, nor I will not begin that example ne thraldom, of gentlemen nor of other. It is good a lord take sad counsel ere he begin any such matter.’223.1It might have been supposed that after the duke’s attempt on Hellesdon, nothing but impediments of the most serious kind would have prevented John Paston from going down to Norfolk to take charge of his own interests and relieve his wife’s anxiety. But it appears that he hardly expected to be able to leave London, and in the same letter from which we have just been quoting he desires that if he be not home within three weeks his wife will come to him. In that case she is, before leaving, to put everything under proper rule224both at Caister and Hellesdon, ‘if the war hold.’ The state of matters between him and Suffolk was such as could only be spoken of as a state of war, even by plain matter-of-fact John Paston. And if the enemy offered peace his wife was to send him word.What could have been the obstacle that prevented John Paston leaving London? It appears for one thing that he was at this time called upon to undergo an examination before the spiritual court of Canterbury, in defence of his claim to be Sir John Fastolf’s executor. This alone was, perhaps, sufficient to detain him, for it was a thing on which his most important interests depended. But there is no doubt that additional obstacles were raised up for him expressly by the malice of his enemies;John Paston imprisoned a third time.for it could not have been many weeks after his first examination that John Paston again found himself a prisoner in the Fleet, and within the walls of that prison his further depositions were taken.224.1It was the malicious ingenuity of Judge Yelverton that had devised the means to inflict upon him this new incarceration. And the means employed were such as to make captivity doubly painful and humiliating. The king’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in May of the preceding year. At Michaelmas it was openly avowed; and if it displeased, as no doubt it did, Warwick and the old nobility, even from the first, it informed a whole world of time-servers and place-hunters that there was a new avenue to fortune in securing the favour of the Woodvilles. Already Rivers had been created Lord Treasurer and advanced to the dignity of an earldom. Already marriages had been made for the queen’s brothers and sisters, which were evidently provocative of envy, jealousy, and indignation.224.2The king’s liberality towards his new relations was unbounded, and sycophants were not wanting to suggest to him how he might gratify their cupidity, sometimes at the expense of others than himself. Sir William Yelverton, accordingly, contrived to whisper in the royal ear that the king might fairly dispose of some fine property in Norfolk and Suffolk; for John225Paston, who claimed to be the owner, was come of servile blood, and was really the king’s bondman.225.1The reader will remember the curious paper225.2in which it is set forth that the grandfather and father of John Paston had held lands in the village of Paston, by servile tenures, and that John Paston himself, without having any manor place, was endeavouring to ‘make himself a lordship there,’ to the prejudice of the duchy of Lancaster. There can be little doubt that this statement was drawn up in the year 1465 and that its author was Judge Yelverton. He had been at this time endeavouring to ingratiate himself with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, the queen’s brother, and it was in the interest of that nobleman that he made this attempt to asperse the lineage of the Pastons.Lord Scales seeks to obtain Caister.For Lord Scales had begun to cast covetous eyes on the magnificent castle at Caister; and if it were but satisfactorily shown that John Paston was disqualified from possessing it, no doubt the king, his brother-in-law, would be only too willing to grant it to himself. The case was already prejudged; Caister and the lordship of Cotton as well were his by anticipation, and some time before Paston was committed to prison it was known that Lord Scales meant to ride down into Norfolk and oust him from his property.225.3Although John Paston was thus unable to go home, as he wished to do, neither was Margaret Paston able for some time to go up and see him in London, as he had desired her. Wykes, who had promised to keep possession of the place at226Hellesdon in her absence, did not go down into Norfolk so soon as he had intended, but remained in London taking care of Paston’s interests in another fashion in conferences with Nevill, Archbishop of York, at that time Lord Chancellor. Perhaps already the influence of Archbishop Nevill, like that of his brother the Earl of Warwick, had begun to decline, and Wykes was really wasting his labour in complaining to his lordship of the riotous attempt made by the Duke of Suffolk’s men at Hellesdon. There was but one pretext on which the outrage could be justified,—a matter concerning the payment of 100 marks, but the money had been paid long ago. His lordship, however, durst swear the Duchess of Suffolk had no knowledge of it; and with that he left town, promising an answer when he came back next Tuesday.226.1But Margaret Paston, though she could not yet come up to London, did not spend the time at home unprofitably. The judges had come down to Norwich on their circuit, when Margaret endeavoured to secure the advantage she had already gained in keeping possession at Drayton by getting a manor court held there in her husband’s name. But to do this she required the services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many, certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an entry into Hellesdon.Attempt of Margaret Paston to hold a court at Drayton.Thomas Bond and an attached and confidential priest named Sir James Gloys were adventurous enough to go to Drayton alone for the purpose of holding a court on Lammas Day. They found, as might have been expected, that officers of the Duke of Suffolk were there before them. Harleston, along with Philip Lipyate, the parson of Salle, and William Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, who was to sit as steward, were in the courtyard of the manor, prepared to hold the227court in the Duke of Suffolk’s name. They were accompanied by about sixty persons or more, besides the tenants of Drayton, some having rusty poleaxes and bills to enforce respect for the duke’s authority. In the face of this array, however, Bond and Gloys announced that they came to keep the court in the name of John Paston; on which the former was immediately delivered into the custody of William Ducket, a new bailiff of Drayton appointed by the duke, and was carried off to Cossey, his arms bound behind him with whipcord like a thief. But Margaret Paston spoke with the judges next morning before they went to the shirehouse, in presence of the bailiff of Cossey and the whole of the duke’s council; and the judges calling the bailiff before them, gave him a severe reproof, and sent the sheriff to see what company had been mustered at Drayton. The sheriff rode first to Hellesdon, and expressed himself satisfied with the demeanour of Paston’s men there. When he came to Drayton, the bands of Suffolk’s retainers had disappeared. He demanded that Thomas Bond should be delivered to him, and was told that he had been sent to the Duke of Suffolk; but he was afterwards delivered to him at Norwich, with a request that he should not be set at liberty without a fine, as he had troubled the king’s leet. The judges, however, on being informed of the real state of the case, commanded him to be set at liberty, and pronounced a very strong censure on the conduct of Suffolk’s officers.227.1As for the manors of Caister and Cotton, it does not appear that Lord Scales ever carried out his intention so far as the latter was concerned; nor had he taken possession even of the former some time after John Paston was committed to the Fleet. That occurrence must have taken place about the middle of the month of August,227.2and towards the end of September we have evidence that Sir John Paston was in Caister Castle keeping possession for his father.227.3But the228Paston family had been warned of the danger, and we may be well assured that they did not neglect the warning in either case. Indeed, the question how to make matters secure at Caister seems to have been the principal difficulty that caused Margaret to delay her journey up to London. As to Cotton, we shall see ere long that very effectual means were taken to secure possession there.Margaret Paston visits her husband in prison.It would appear that when Margaret knew her husband was in prison she determined to delay no longer, but to visit him in London at all costs. Early in September she had already gone to him, and her son, John Paston the youngest, wrote to her from Norwich on the 14th, advising her, among other things, to visit the Rood of North-door (a cross beside St. Paul’s Cathedral), and St. Saviour’s at Bermondsey, during her stay in the capital. ‘And let my sister Margery,’ he suggests, ‘go with you, to pray to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.’ It is difficult to tell whether this means devotion or sightseeing, jest or earnest. The young man had already seen a good deal of life, and was familiar with the principal attractions of the great city, to which in all probability his mother was as great a stranger as his young sister. Even the dame who had the care of his father’s apartments in the prison was not unknown apparently to John Paston the youngest. ‘And the Holy Trinity,’ he writes, ‘have you in keeping, and my fair Mistress of the Fleet.’John Paston the father does not seem to have been very uncomfortable in prison. He made friends in the place of his confinement, and among other persons became acquainted with Henry, Lord Percy, son of the attainted Earl of Northumberland, who was afterwards restored by King Edward to his father’s earldom. His spirits, indeed, if we may judge from his correspondence, were at this time particularly buoyant; for after his wife had taken leave of him to return homeward he wrote her a letter the latter half of which was composed of doggerel rhyme, jesting about having robbed her portmanteau, and referring her for redress to Richard Calle, whose ears he bade her nail to the post if he did not pay her the value. In none of his previous correspondence does he indulge in verse229or betray anything of this rollicking humour. The only subject on which he even insinuates a complaint is the weather, which seems to have been unnaturally cold for September. He speaks of it satirically as ‘this cold winter,’ and wishes his wife to send him some worsted for doublets in which to protect himself from the severity of the season. But even in this we can tell that he is jesting, for he explains himself that he wishes to have a doublet entirely composed of the wool manufactured at Worsted, for the credit of his native county. And so far is he from wishing it for the sake of warmth, that he particularly desires to procure a fine quality of worsted ‘almost like silk,’ of which William Paston’s tippet was composed.229.1Margaret Paston enters Cotton.On her way back to Norfolk, Margaret Paston entered the manor of Cotton and remained in it for three days. She had sent a message to her son John Paston the youngest at Hellesdon to come and meet her there,229.2and he came along with Wykes and twelve others, whom she had left at her departure to keep possession and collect the rents. It was within a week of Michaelmas Day, when rents fell due. As yet Lord Scales had made no attempt to seize upon this property. Sir Gilbert Debenham had occupied the manor for some years undisturbed, and he was doubtless considerably taken by surprise when he found that a lady on her way home from London had entered and taken possession in the name of John Paston. But when he heard that young John Paston was gathering money of the tenants, he raised a body of 300 men to expel the intruder. Young John Paston was expecting reinforcements to his little band from Caister or elsewhere, but they did not come; so that his position would have been a critical one had not some one been his friend in the household of the Duke of Norfolk. Sir Gilbert was the duke’s230steward, and John Paston the youngest was still in the duke’s service. A yeoman of his lordship’s chamber represented to that nobleman that there was imminent risk of a quarrel between two of his men, which would be a great ‘disworship’ to his grace. The duke sent for the two immediately to attend upon him at Framlingham Castle, and proposed to them terms of compromise until the matter could be thoroughly investigated. He desired that neither party should muster men, that the court should be ‘continued’—that is to say, adjourned—till he himself should have had an opportunity of speaking both with John Paston the father and on the other side with Yelverton and Jenney, who had conveyed to Debenham the title on which he founded his claim to the manor. Meanwhile he proposed that the place should be kept by some indifferent person to be chosen by both parties.To these terms John Paston the youngest would not assent without consulting his mother, who had again come over from Norwich, or perhaps from Caister, to see how matters went. But after a conference, they sent an answer to the duke, declaring that they could not give up possession of the place, but out of their anxiety for peace, and to satisfy his lordship, they were willing to desist meanwhile from collecting rents, if the opposite party would engage not to distrain or keep courts there either. To this compromise Sir Gilbert said that he agreed, provided it met with the approval of Yelverton and Jenney; and the Duke of Norfolk, who was going up to London in anticipation of his birthday when he attained his majority, left all the sooner in the hope of bringing this matter to a favourable settlement.230.1Thus far, at least, the entry into Cotton had been a distinct success. The compromise was greatly in favour of the Pastons, for an appeal to force would almost certainly have gone against them, and, though they engaged for the time to abstain from taking more money of the tenants, they had already succeeded in collecting almost all that they expected to receive for Michaelmas term.230.2So Margaret Paston on her return to Norfolk, and her son, when he was summoned to London231shortly afterwards, to attend the duke on his coming of age,231.1may each have left Cotton with feelings akin to triumph. But scarcely had the former returned to Norwich when she discovered to her dismay that her clever manœuvre in Suffolk had left the family interests insufficiently protected elsewhere. The Duke of Suffolk had not only a great number of men at Cossey, but he had a powerful friend within the city of Norwich. Thomas Elys, the new mayor, was so flagrantly partial, that he had said at Drayton he would supply my lord of Suffolk with a hundred men whenever he should require them, and if any men of the city went to Paston he would lay them fast in prison.231.2Hellesdon, unfortunately, lay midway between Cossey and the city of Norwich, and as it was not now assize time there was practically no control over such magnates as the Duke of Suffolk and the mayor. So, on the morning of Tuesday the 15th of October, one Bottisforth, who was bailiff for the duke at Eye, came to Hellesdon, arrested four of John Paston’s servants, and carried them off to Cossey without a warrant from any justice of the peace. His intention, he said, was to convey them to Eye prison along with as many more of Paston’s adherents as he could lay his hands on. That same day the duke came to Norwich with a retinue of 500 men. He sent for the mayor and aldermen with the sheriffs, and desired them in the king’s name to make inquiry of the constables in every ward of the city what men had taken part with Paston in recent gatherings. Any such persons he requested that they would arrest and punish, and send their names to him by eight o’clock on the following day. On this the mayor arrested one Robert Lovegold, brasier, and threatened him that he should be hanged, though he had only been with Margaret Paston at Lammas, when she was menaced by the companies of Harleston and the bailiff of Cossey.231.3Attack on Hellesdon.Scarcely one of Paston’s servants now durst openly show himself abroad, and, the duke having the city at his command, his followers made, that same Tuesday, a regular assault on the place at Hellesdon. The slender garrison knew that it was madness to resist, and no opposition was offered. The232duke’s men took possession, and set John Paston’s own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston’s own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors, or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the work of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now.232.1This was carrying things with the high hand; but it did not improve the Duke of Suffolk’s popularity at Norwich, and it created no small sympathy with Paston and his tenants. ‘There cometh much people daily,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘to wonder thereupon, both of Norwich and of other places, and they speak shamefully thereof. The duke had been better than a thousand pound that it had never been done; and ye have the more good will of the people that it is so foully done.’ Margaret was anxious that the effects of the outrage should be seen before winter came on by some one specially sent from the king to view and report upon the ruin. But no redress was obtained while her husband lived, and even some years after his death his sons petitioned for it in vain.
203.3Patent Roll, 1 EdwardIV.p. 1, m. 18d., dated March 16; and m. 19d., dated May 10; p. 4, m. 22d., February 24 and March 1 (1462); also p. 2, m. 12d.(against the Scots), Nov. 13.203.4Ib.p. 1, m. 27d., March 28, and p. 3, m. 3d., July 8.203.5Ib.p. 2, m. 10d., Aug. 17.203.6Ib.p. 2, m. 12d., Nov. 4; and p. 4, m. 22d., Feb. 28 (1462).203.7Ib.p. 3, m. 3d., July 12.204.1Ib.p. 3, m. 3d.and 27d., Aug. 6 and 12; also m. 8d., Jan. 29.204.2Such, I think, must be the meaning intended. The expression in the original is, ‘they shuld aley (qu.should a’ laid?) on her bodyys.’204.3No. 469.204.4Seep. 164.204.5Nos. 455, 463.204.6No. 472.205.1No. 461.205.2No. 450.205.3No. 451.205.4Nos. 451, 452.205.5No. 457.205.6Nos. 457, 460.205.7No. 373.205.8Sir John Paston must have been born in 1442. At the inquisition taken in October 1466, after his father’s death, he was found to be twenty-four years old and more.206.1No. 459.206.2No. 473. Compare No. 223. It is striking that, notwithstanding his large possessions in land, the Duke of York should have been unable for eight years to redeem these jewels.206.3This was less than the sum (£487) for which the jewels were pledged, and yet it was the whole compensation granted both for the jewels and for a bond of 100 marks given by the Duke of York to Fastolf, which Paston also surrendered.207.1466-8, 471, 475.207.2Nos. 477, 478.207.3No. 458.207.4No. 465.208.1Nos.477, 478.208.2No. 484.208.3Ibid.209.1I have already indicated my belief that Judge Yelverton was the real person nicknamed Colinus Gallicus in Friar Brackley’s letters. It is quite clear by No. 404 (one of the letters found after the text of Mr. Arber’s edition had passed through the press) that Colinus Gallicus not only could not have been Worcester, but that he was a man of some social standing on familiar terms with the Earl of Wiltshire. This, and the fact that he was one of Fastolf’s executors, seem to prove his identity. It is a satisfaction to find that, though Brackley did not love William Worcester, the bitter words in No. 383 were not levelled at him. Thus he wrote while Sir John Fastolf was on his deathbed: ‘Colinus Gallicus says in Yarmouth and other places that he is an executor. He said also yesterday before several persons, if once he were in London, he wishes never to see Norfolk. He says also, whereas the executors think they will have keys, after the death others will have keys as well as they. He is a very deceitful man (falsissimus). . . . That same Gallicus intensely hates the rector (Howes), and would like to supplant him.’209.2No. 481.209.3Nos. 482, 484.209.4No. 488.209.5No. 457.210.1485-487.211.1No. 488.212.1Nos. 497, 500.212.2No. 504.212.3No. 505.212.4No. 510.212.5No. 538.213.1No. 540.213.2No. 544.213.3No. 377.213.4Nos. 477, 478, 511.213.5No. 550.214.1521-3.214.2Nos. 375, 377.214.3No. 552.215.1Fabyan.Inquisition p. m., 1 EdwardIV., No. 46.215.2Nos. 532, 533.
203.3Patent Roll, 1 EdwardIV.p. 1, m. 18d., dated March 16; and m. 19d., dated May 10; p. 4, m. 22d., February 24 and March 1 (1462); also p. 2, m. 12d.(against the Scots), Nov. 13.
203.4Ib.p. 1, m. 27d., March 28, and p. 3, m. 3d., July 8.
203.5Ib.p. 2, m. 10d., Aug. 17.
203.6Ib.p. 2, m. 12d., Nov. 4; and p. 4, m. 22d., Feb. 28 (1462).
203.7Ib.p. 3, m. 3d., July 12.
204.1Ib.p. 3, m. 3d.and 27d., Aug. 6 and 12; also m. 8d., Jan. 29.
204.2Such, I think, must be the meaning intended. The expression in the original is, ‘they shuld aley (qu.should a’ laid?) on her bodyys.’
204.3No. 469.
204.4Seep. 164.
204.5Nos. 455, 463.
204.6No. 472.
205.1No. 461.
205.2No. 450.
205.3No. 451.
205.4Nos. 451, 452.
205.5No. 457.
205.6Nos. 457, 460.
205.7No. 373.
205.8Sir John Paston must have been born in 1442. At the inquisition taken in October 1466, after his father’s death, he was found to be twenty-four years old and more.
206.1No. 459.
206.2No. 473. Compare No. 223. It is striking that, notwithstanding his large possessions in land, the Duke of York should have been unable for eight years to redeem these jewels.
206.3This was less than the sum (£487) for which the jewels were pledged, and yet it was the whole compensation granted both for the jewels and for a bond of 100 marks given by the Duke of York to Fastolf, which Paston also surrendered.
207.1466-8, 471, 475.
207.2Nos. 477, 478.
207.3No. 458.
207.4No. 465.
208.1Nos.477, 478.
208.2No. 484.
208.3Ibid.
209.1I have already indicated my belief that Judge Yelverton was the real person nicknamed Colinus Gallicus in Friar Brackley’s letters. It is quite clear by No. 404 (one of the letters found after the text of Mr. Arber’s edition had passed through the press) that Colinus Gallicus not only could not have been Worcester, but that he was a man of some social standing on familiar terms with the Earl of Wiltshire. This, and the fact that he was one of Fastolf’s executors, seem to prove his identity. It is a satisfaction to find that, though Brackley did not love William Worcester, the bitter words in No. 383 were not levelled at him. Thus he wrote while Sir John Fastolf was on his deathbed: ‘Colinus Gallicus says in Yarmouth and other places that he is an executor. He said also yesterday before several persons, if once he were in London, he wishes never to see Norfolk. He says also, whereas the executors think they will have keys, after the death others will have keys as well as they. He is a very deceitful man (falsissimus). . . . That same Gallicus intensely hates the rector (Howes), and would like to supplant him.’
209.2No. 481.
209.3Nos. 482, 484.
209.4No. 488.
209.5No. 457.
210.1485-487.
211.1No. 488.
212.1Nos. 497, 500.
212.2No. 504.
212.3No. 505.
212.4No. 510.
212.5No. 538.
213.1No. 540.
213.2No. 544.
213.3No. 377.
213.4Nos. 477, 478, 511.
213.5No. 550.
214.1521-3.
214.2Nos. 375, 377.
214.3No. 552.
215.1Fabyan.Inquisition p. m., 1 EdwardIV., No. 46.
215.2Nos. 532, 533.
but he considered his conduct that at the electiontext unchanged: 1st edition has same word orderFootnote 208.1:Nos. 477, 478.text reads “No.”
but he considered his conduct that at the electiontext unchanged: 1st edition has same word order
Footnote 208.1:Nos. 477, 478.text reads “No.”
On the whole, though the conduct of one of them had not given him entire satisfaction, the two eldest sons of John Paston had probably both been of some service to their father in maintaining his influence at court. And this must have been a matter of no small consequence in the continued struggle that he was obliged to maintain with adversaries like Yelverton and Jenney. The dispute with them had now assumed another form.A.D.1464.Litigation touching Fastolf’s will.Sir William Yelverton, in conjunction with our old friend William Worcester, was contesting in the spiritual court of Canterbury the claim put forward by Paston to be the chief executor under Sir John Fastolf’s will; while at the same time William Jenney, and one William Hogan, by Jenney’s procurement, took actions for trespass against him in the Suffolk county court. Paston trusted to his influence with the king to deliver him from these vexatious suits. He neglected to put in an appearance at four several county courts, and allowed himself to be put in exigent, while he followed the king to Marlborough, and obtained from him a licence for the erection of the college at Caister provided for in Fastolf’s will. Along with this the king covenanted to give him a free pardon when required for all offences against the peace, to save him harmless against Yelverton and Jenney; but undertook at the same time to cause inquiry to be made into the substance of their accusations, and if these proved to be unfounded, to compel them to make Paston compensation.216.1
Paston had partly trusted to the friendship of William Calthorpe, who was at this time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to protect him against outlawry. His servant Richard Calle217offered surety that Paston would save the sheriff harmless, either by making an appearance at a later date or by producing asupersedeas; and he requested that upon this assurance the sheriff would return that his master had appeared the first day. Calthorpe had every wish to do Paston a kindness; though he confessed that Jenney had been his good friend and legal adviser for two years past, Paston was still more his friend than Jenney, and he promised to do all that was required.217.1But this promise he failed to fulfil. Paston’s non-appearance was proclaimed at four successive county courts at Ipswich; and a writ of exigent was granted against him. Paston obtained asupersedeasfrom the king at Fotheringay on the 3rd August;John Paston outlawed.but in the end judgment was given against him in Suffolk on the 10th September, and he was proclaimed an outlaw. On the 3rd November following he was committed to the Fleet prison.217.2
This was his second experience of captivity since the death of Sir John Fastolf. We do not know that he ever suffered it before that time; but he was now paying the penalty of increased importance. His detention on this occasion does not seem to have been of long duration; but if we are right in the interpretation of a sarcastic anonymous letter217.3found among his correspondence, his fellow-prisoners threw out surmises when he left that the Fleet would see him yet a third time within its walls. At least, this may or may not have been the purport of what is certainly an ironical and ambiguous epistle addressed to him, we cannot tell by whom. If it was so, the prediction was verified before another twelvemonth had passed away.
How matters went during the winter we have very little indication, except that Paston’s friend John Wykes, an officer of the king’s household,A.D.1465. Feb. 7.writes to Margaret Paston on the 7th February from London, ‘that my master your husband, my mistress your mother, my master Sir John, Mr. William, Mr.218Clement, and all their men, were in good health when this letter was written, thanked be Jesu; and also their matters be in a good way, for my Lord Chancellor is their singular good lord.’ The crisis in the affairs of the family was certainly very serious, when old Agnes Paston, the judge’s widow (for I have never found any other lady spoken of as Margaret Paston’s ‘mother’), took the trouble to go up to London to see them settled. It appears that there was a little family council on the occasion, and John Paston’s two brothers, William and Clement, together with his son Sir John, were also present.218.1What kind of arrangement they all succeeded in making we have no means of ascertaining; but the next occasion of trouble to John Paston was not given by Yelverton and Jenney.
The Duke of Suffolk lays claim to Drayton.
The first indications of it appear in a letter of Margaret Paston to her husband, written on the 8th April 1465, by which we find that the Duke of Suffolk had now set up a claim to Sir John Fastolf’s manor of Drayton, about four miles north-west of Norwich. Margaret had also heard that he had bought up the rights of a person named Brytyeff or Bryghtylhed, who laid claim to the neighbouring manor of Hellesdon, a little nearer the city, and that he intended to take possession after Easter.218.2The claim appears to have been very ill founded, and the tenants, all but one or two, were favourable to Paston.218.3Nevertheless Philip Lipyate, the duke’s bailiff, began taking distresses, and carried off the horses of one Dorlet as he was about to yoke them to his plough. But Margaret Paston, who had been staying at Caister, after waiting till her son Sir John could come to her, and leaving him to keep the castle, went over to Hellesdon to collect the rents for her husband, and put a stop, if possible, to the proceedings of the duke’s officers. She soon began to feel that there was more need of a captain like her son Sir John at Hellesdon than at Caister. One single tenant named Piers Warin gave her servants a little trouble, and they took from him two mares as security for the rent. Warin made his complaint to Philip Lipyate and the duke’s bailiff of Cossey,219who came with a body of eightscore men in armour, and took away the plough-horses of the parson and another tenant, intimating that the beasts should not be restored unless their owners would appear and give answer to certain matters at Drayton on the Tuesday following. The duke’s men further threatened that if Paston’s servants ventured to take any further distresses in Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a hen, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon.219.1
John Paston, though not at this time in confinement, seems to have been unable to leave London. But it was impossible that he could underestimate the danger in which his property stood from the pretensions of such a formidable neighbour as the Duke of Suffolk. The letters written to him at this period by his wife are annotated all down the margin with very brief rough jottings in his own handwriting, for the most part only calling attention to the subjects touched upon in the letter, but occasionally indicating what he was about to say in his reply. He expressed, indeed, no great respect for the big threats of Suffolk’s officers about taking the value of an ox for that of a hen, which he characterised in the margin by the simple monosyllable ‘crack’; but he noted, in the brief words ‘Periculum Heylesdon,’ the fact that there was real cause for anxiety lest the duke, who had already occupied Drayton, should drive him out of Hellesdon as well.219.2
The Bishop of Norwich had been appealed to, as chief justice of the peace for the county, to use his influence with the Duke of Suffolk’s officers, and especially with Philip Lipyate, who was a priest, and subject to his jurisdiction, to bring the dispute to a peaceful settlement. But John Paston probably trusted more to the fact that he had men of his own ready to repel force by force. The parishes of Hellesdon and Drayton are situated on the northern bank of the river Wensum, partly on a low ridge which slopes downward towards the stream. Opposite to Drayton, on the other side of the river, lay the Duke of Suffolk’s mansion of Cossey,219.3220from which, at any time that was thought advisable, an armed band could be sent along with a distraining officer to assert the duke’s alleged rights over the tenants. It was really a case of two hostile camps keeping watch upon each other, and each of them ready to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Not that either of them pretended to be above the law, but the duke and Paston each claimed to be lawful owner of the lordships of Hellesdon and Drayton, and, until any legal settlement could be come to, each was well aware of the importance of maintaining his claim by corresponding acts. If the duke could levy a distress, so could Paston. His officers made an inroad, undeterred by the menaces of the duke’s men, into Drayton, took 77 neat, and brought them home to Hellesdon. The tenants followed, petitioning to have their cattle back again, but Margaret Paston told them they must first pay such duties as they owed to her husband, or find security to pay at such a day as she could agree to. An officer of the duke named Harleston was at Norwich, and told them that if they either paid or gave such surety they should be put out of their holdings. Harleston had a conference with Margaret Paston in the evening, but she refused to redeliver the distress on any other terms than those she had already intimated. This was on a Saturday evening. On Monday following a replevin was served upon her in the name of Harleston, who was under-steward of the duchy of Lancaster, on the ground that the cattle had been taken within the fee of the duchy. Margaret refused to deliver them until she had ascertained whether this was actually the case, and on inquiry she found that it was not so. The beasts were accordingly still detained in Hellesdon pin-fold, and Pynchemore, the officer who had brought the replevin, was obliged to return to his master. But in the afternoon he came again with a replevin under the seal of the sheriff of Norfolk, which it was impossible lawfully to disobey. So the beasts were at last taken out of the pin-fold and redelivered to the tenants.220.1
This sort of quasi-legal warfare continued for weeks and221for months. At one time there would be a lull; but again it was reported that the duke’s men were busier. The duke himself was coming to Cossey, and his servants boasted openly that he would have Drayton in peace and then Hellesdon.221.1And not very long after the duke did come to Norfolk, raising people on his way both in Norfolk and Suffolk,—for an attack, as every one knew, on Paston’s stronghold at Hellesdon, which was now placed in the keeping of his son Sir John.221.2
Attempt of the duke’s men on Hellesdon.
On Monday the 8th July, Philip Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey, with about 300 men, came before Hellesdon, but, finding Sir John Paston quite prepared for them, professed they had no intention of attempting to force an entry. For Sir John had a garrison of 60 men within the place, and such a quantity of guns and ordnance that the assailants would certainly have had the worst of it. Lipyate and the bailiff, however, informed Sir John that they had a warrant to attach John Daubeney, Wykes, Richard Calle, and some others. Sir John replied that they were not within, and if they had been he would not have delivered them. Afterwards it was mutually agreed that the Duke of Suffolk should dismiss his men and Sir John Paston should do the same. But this only transferred the scene of action to Norwich, where Richard Calle was attacked by twelve men in the streets and only rescued by the sheriff; nor did he escape without the pleasant assurance that if he were caught another time he would be put to death, so that he did not dare ride out without an escort. Daubeney and Wykes were in a similar state of apprehension, and to crown all, it was said that there was to be a special commission to inquire of riots, in which the Duke of Suffolk and Yelverton would be commissioners. If so, every man that had taken Paston’s part was pretty sure of being hanged.221.3
Sir John Paston, however, acquired great credit for having withstood so numerous a force as Lipyate and the bailiff of Cossey had brought against him. It will be readily understood that his position must have been a strong one. He and222his mother were then living at a mansion in Hellesdon, which probably stood on comparatively low ground near the river.222.1But on the brow of the hill, nearer Drayton, stood a quadrangular fortress of which the ruins still exist, known at this day by the name of Drayton Lodge. This lodge lay within what was then called Hellesdon Warren, and commanded the entrance to the property. From its elevated position it must have been peculiarly difficult to attack. The country around was open heath, and the approach of an enemy could be descried distinctly in the distance. From the mansion below, where he had quartered his garrison of 60 men, he could doubtless bring up with ease at any time as many as seemed necessary for the defence of the lodge;222.2while from the battlements of the lodge a heavy fire could be opened on the advancing foe.222.3
Living within a house that was threatened with siege, Margaret Paston, at this juncture, seems to have taken an active part along with her son in the preparations for defence. Her husband in London writes to her as a commander-in-chief might do to the governor of a besieged fort:—‘In good faith ye acquit you right well and discreetly, and heartily to your worship and mine, and to the shame of your adversaries: and I am well content that ye avowed that ye kept possession at Drayton and so would do.’ But the task imposed upon her had impaired her health; and John Paston, though for some potent reasons he was not able even now to come to her aid, was anxious to give her every comfort and encouragement in his power. ‘Take what may do your ease and spare not,’ he says in the same letter; ‘and in any wise take no thought nor too much labour for these matters, nor set it not so to223your heart that ye fare the worse for it. And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law, John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. It had descended to his daughter Alice, and John Paston was able to show his title to her property. On the other hand he traced the pedigree of the Duke of Suffolk from ‘one William Poole of Hull, which was a worshipful man grown by fortune of the world,’ and whose son Michael, the first Earl of Suffolk, had been so created by King RichardII.since Paston’s father was born; and if any of their lineage held the manor of Drayton he would lose £100, if the duke would be bound in as much to prove the contrary. But the duke must not expect him to show his title to one who tried to oust him by violence. On this point John Paston was resolute. ‘Let my lord of Norwich wit that it is not profitable, nor the common weal of gentlemen, that any gentleman should be compelled by an entry of a lord to show his evidence or title to his land, nor I will not begin that example ne thraldom, of gentlemen nor of other. It is good a lord take sad counsel ere he begin any such matter.’223.1
It might have been supposed that after the duke’s attempt on Hellesdon, nothing but impediments of the most serious kind would have prevented John Paston from going down to Norfolk to take charge of his own interests and relieve his wife’s anxiety. But it appears that he hardly expected to be able to leave London, and in the same letter from which we have just been quoting he desires that if he be not home within three weeks his wife will come to him. In that case she is, before leaving, to put everything under proper rule224both at Caister and Hellesdon, ‘if the war hold.’ The state of matters between him and Suffolk was such as could only be spoken of as a state of war, even by plain matter-of-fact John Paston. And if the enemy offered peace his wife was to send him word.
What could have been the obstacle that prevented John Paston leaving London? It appears for one thing that he was at this time called upon to undergo an examination before the spiritual court of Canterbury, in defence of his claim to be Sir John Fastolf’s executor. This alone was, perhaps, sufficient to detain him, for it was a thing on which his most important interests depended. But there is no doubt that additional obstacles were raised up for him expressly by the malice of his enemies;John Paston imprisoned a third time.for it could not have been many weeks after his first examination that John Paston again found himself a prisoner in the Fleet, and within the walls of that prison his further depositions were taken.224.1
It was the malicious ingenuity of Judge Yelverton that had devised the means to inflict upon him this new incarceration. And the means employed were such as to make captivity doubly painful and humiliating. The king’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had taken place in May of the preceding year. At Michaelmas it was openly avowed; and if it displeased, as no doubt it did, Warwick and the old nobility, even from the first, it informed a whole world of time-servers and place-hunters that there was a new avenue to fortune in securing the favour of the Woodvilles. Already Rivers had been created Lord Treasurer and advanced to the dignity of an earldom. Already marriages had been made for the queen’s brothers and sisters, which were evidently provocative of envy, jealousy, and indignation.224.2The king’s liberality towards his new relations was unbounded, and sycophants were not wanting to suggest to him how he might gratify their cupidity, sometimes at the expense of others than himself. Sir William Yelverton, accordingly, contrived to whisper in the royal ear that the king might fairly dispose of some fine property in Norfolk and Suffolk; for John225Paston, who claimed to be the owner, was come of servile blood, and was really the king’s bondman.225.1
The reader will remember the curious paper225.2in which it is set forth that the grandfather and father of John Paston had held lands in the village of Paston, by servile tenures, and that John Paston himself, without having any manor place, was endeavouring to ‘make himself a lordship there,’ to the prejudice of the duchy of Lancaster. There can be little doubt that this statement was drawn up in the year 1465 and that its author was Judge Yelverton. He had been at this time endeavouring to ingratiate himself with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, the queen’s brother, and it was in the interest of that nobleman that he made this attempt to asperse the lineage of the Pastons.Lord Scales seeks to obtain Caister.For Lord Scales had begun to cast covetous eyes on the magnificent castle at Caister; and if it were but satisfactorily shown that John Paston was disqualified from possessing it, no doubt the king, his brother-in-law, would be only too willing to grant it to himself. The case was already prejudged; Caister and the lordship of Cotton as well were his by anticipation, and some time before Paston was committed to prison it was known that Lord Scales meant to ride down into Norfolk and oust him from his property.225.3
Although John Paston was thus unable to go home, as he wished to do, neither was Margaret Paston able for some time to go up and see him in London, as he had desired her. Wykes, who had promised to keep possession of the place at226Hellesdon in her absence, did not go down into Norfolk so soon as he had intended, but remained in London taking care of Paston’s interests in another fashion in conferences with Nevill, Archbishop of York, at that time Lord Chancellor. Perhaps already the influence of Archbishop Nevill, like that of his brother the Earl of Warwick, had begun to decline, and Wykes was really wasting his labour in complaining to his lordship of the riotous attempt made by the Duke of Suffolk’s men at Hellesdon. There was but one pretext on which the outrage could be justified,—a matter concerning the payment of 100 marks, but the money had been paid long ago. His lordship, however, durst swear the Duchess of Suffolk had no knowledge of it; and with that he left town, promising an answer when he came back next Tuesday.226.1
But Margaret Paston, though she could not yet come up to London, did not spend the time at home unprofitably. The judges had come down to Norwich on their circuit, when Margaret endeavoured to secure the advantage she had already gained in keeping possession at Drayton by getting a manor court held there in her husband’s name. But to do this she required the services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many, certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an entry into Hellesdon.
Attempt of Margaret Paston to hold a court at Drayton.
Thomas Bond and an attached and confidential priest named Sir James Gloys were adventurous enough to go to Drayton alone for the purpose of holding a court on Lammas Day. They found, as might have been expected, that officers of the Duke of Suffolk were there before them. Harleston, along with Philip Lipyate, the parson of Salle, and William Yelverton, a grandson of the judge, who was to sit as steward, were in the courtyard of the manor, prepared to hold the227court in the Duke of Suffolk’s name. They were accompanied by about sixty persons or more, besides the tenants of Drayton, some having rusty poleaxes and bills to enforce respect for the duke’s authority. In the face of this array, however, Bond and Gloys announced that they came to keep the court in the name of John Paston; on which the former was immediately delivered into the custody of William Ducket, a new bailiff of Drayton appointed by the duke, and was carried off to Cossey, his arms bound behind him with whipcord like a thief. But Margaret Paston spoke with the judges next morning before they went to the shirehouse, in presence of the bailiff of Cossey and the whole of the duke’s council; and the judges calling the bailiff before them, gave him a severe reproof, and sent the sheriff to see what company had been mustered at Drayton. The sheriff rode first to Hellesdon, and expressed himself satisfied with the demeanour of Paston’s men there. When he came to Drayton, the bands of Suffolk’s retainers had disappeared. He demanded that Thomas Bond should be delivered to him, and was told that he had been sent to the Duke of Suffolk; but he was afterwards delivered to him at Norwich, with a request that he should not be set at liberty without a fine, as he had troubled the king’s leet. The judges, however, on being informed of the real state of the case, commanded him to be set at liberty, and pronounced a very strong censure on the conduct of Suffolk’s officers.227.1
As for the manors of Caister and Cotton, it does not appear that Lord Scales ever carried out his intention so far as the latter was concerned; nor had he taken possession even of the former some time after John Paston was committed to the Fleet. That occurrence must have taken place about the middle of the month of August,227.2and towards the end of September we have evidence that Sir John Paston was in Caister Castle keeping possession for his father.227.3But the228Paston family had been warned of the danger, and we may be well assured that they did not neglect the warning in either case. Indeed, the question how to make matters secure at Caister seems to have been the principal difficulty that caused Margaret to delay her journey up to London. As to Cotton, we shall see ere long that very effectual means were taken to secure possession there.
Margaret Paston visits her husband in prison.
It would appear that when Margaret knew her husband was in prison she determined to delay no longer, but to visit him in London at all costs. Early in September she had already gone to him, and her son, John Paston the youngest, wrote to her from Norwich on the 14th, advising her, among other things, to visit the Rood of North-door (a cross beside St. Paul’s Cathedral), and St. Saviour’s at Bermondsey, during her stay in the capital. ‘And let my sister Margery,’ he suggests, ‘go with you, to pray to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.’ It is difficult to tell whether this means devotion or sightseeing, jest or earnest. The young man had already seen a good deal of life, and was familiar with the principal attractions of the great city, to which in all probability his mother was as great a stranger as his young sister. Even the dame who had the care of his father’s apartments in the prison was not unknown apparently to John Paston the youngest. ‘And the Holy Trinity,’ he writes, ‘have you in keeping, and my fair Mistress of the Fleet.’
John Paston the father does not seem to have been very uncomfortable in prison. He made friends in the place of his confinement, and among other persons became acquainted with Henry, Lord Percy, son of the attainted Earl of Northumberland, who was afterwards restored by King Edward to his father’s earldom. His spirits, indeed, if we may judge from his correspondence, were at this time particularly buoyant; for after his wife had taken leave of him to return homeward he wrote her a letter the latter half of which was composed of doggerel rhyme, jesting about having robbed her portmanteau, and referring her for redress to Richard Calle, whose ears he bade her nail to the post if he did not pay her the value. In none of his previous correspondence does he indulge in verse229or betray anything of this rollicking humour. The only subject on which he even insinuates a complaint is the weather, which seems to have been unnaturally cold for September. He speaks of it satirically as ‘this cold winter,’ and wishes his wife to send him some worsted for doublets in which to protect himself from the severity of the season. But even in this we can tell that he is jesting, for he explains himself that he wishes to have a doublet entirely composed of the wool manufactured at Worsted, for the credit of his native county. And so far is he from wishing it for the sake of warmth, that he particularly desires to procure a fine quality of worsted ‘almost like silk,’ of which William Paston’s tippet was composed.229.1
Margaret Paston enters Cotton.
On her way back to Norfolk, Margaret Paston entered the manor of Cotton and remained in it for three days. She had sent a message to her son John Paston the youngest at Hellesdon to come and meet her there,229.2and he came along with Wykes and twelve others, whom she had left at her departure to keep possession and collect the rents. It was within a week of Michaelmas Day, when rents fell due. As yet Lord Scales had made no attempt to seize upon this property. Sir Gilbert Debenham had occupied the manor for some years undisturbed, and he was doubtless considerably taken by surprise when he found that a lady on her way home from London had entered and taken possession in the name of John Paston. But when he heard that young John Paston was gathering money of the tenants, he raised a body of 300 men to expel the intruder. Young John Paston was expecting reinforcements to his little band from Caister or elsewhere, but they did not come; so that his position would have been a critical one had not some one been his friend in the household of the Duke of Norfolk. Sir Gilbert was the duke’s230steward, and John Paston the youngest was still in the duke’s service. A yeoman of his lordship’s chamber represented to that nobleman that there was imminent risk of a quarrel between two of his men, which would be a great ‘disworship’ to his grace. The duke sent for the two immediately to attend upon him at Framlingham Castle, and proposed to them terms of compromise until the matter could be thoroughly investigated. He desired that neither party should muster men, that the court should be ‘continued’—that is to say, adjourned—till he himself should have had an opportunity of speaking both with John Paston the father and on the other side with Yelverton and Jenney, who had conveyed to Debenham the title on which he founded his claim to the manor. Meanwhile he proposed that the place should be kept by some indifferent person to be chosen by both parties.
To these terms John Paston the youngest would not assent without consulting his mother, who had again come over from Norwich, or perhaps from Caister, to see how matters went. But after a conference, they sent an answer to the duke, declaring that they could not give up possession of the place, but out of their anxiety for peace, and to satisfy his lordship, they were willing to desist meanwhile from collecting rents, if the opposite party would engage not to distrain or keep courts there either. To this compromise Sir Gilbert said that he agreed, provided it met with the approval of Yelverton and Jenney; and the Duke of Norfolk, who was going up to London in anticipation of his birthday when he attained his majority, left all the sooner in the hope of bringing this matter to a favourable settlement.230.1
Thus far, at least, the entry into Cotton had been a distinct success. The compromise was greatly in favour of the Pastons, for an appeal to force would almost certainly have gone against them, and, though they engaged for the time to abstain from taking more money of the tenants, they had already succeeded in collecting almost all that they expected to receive for Michaelmas term.230.2So Margaret Paston on her return to Norfolk, and her son, when he was summoned to London231shortly afterwards, to attend the duke on his coming of age,231.1may each have left Cotton with feelings akin to triumph. But scarcely had the former returned to Norwich when she discovered to her dismay that her clever manœuvre in Suffolk had left the family interests insufficiently protected elsewhere. The Duke of Suffolk had not only a great number of men at Cossey, but he had a powerful friend within the city of Norwich. Thomas Elys, the new mayor, was so flagrantly partial, that he had said at Drayton he would supply my lord of Suffolk with a hundred men whenever he should require them, and if any men of the city went to Paston he would lay them fast in prison.231.2Hellesdon, unfortunately, lay midway between Cossey and the city of Norwich, and as it was not now assize time there was practically no control over such magnates as the Duke of Suffolk and the mayor. So, on the morning of Tuesday the 15th of October, one Bottisforth, who was bailiff for the duke at Eye, came to Hellesdon, arrested four of John Paston’s servants, and carried them off to Cossey without a warrant from any justice of the peace. His intention, he said, was to convey them to Eye prison along with as many more of Paston’s adherents as he could lay his hands on. That same day the duke came to Norwich with a retinue of 500 men. He sent for the mayor and aldermen with the sheriffs, and desired them in the king’s name to make inquiry of the constables in every ward of the city what men had taken part with Paston in recent gatherings. Any such persons he requested that they would arrest and punish, and send their names to him by eight o’clock on the following day. On this the mayor arrested one Robert Lovegold, brasier, and threatened him that he should be hanged, though he had only been with Margaret Paston at Lammas, when she was menaced by the companies of Harleston and the bailiff of Cossey.231.3
Attack on Hellesdon.
Scarcely one of Paston’s servants now durst openly show himself abroad, and, the duke having the city at his command, his followers made, that same Tuesday, a regular assault on the place at Hellesdon. The slender garrison knew that it was madness to resist, and no opposition was offered. The232duke’s men took possession, and set John Paston’s own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston’s own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors, or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the work of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now.232.1
This was carrying things with the high hand; but it did not improve the Duke of Suffolk’s popularity at Norwich, and it created no small sympathy with Paston and his tenants. ‘There cometh much people daily,’ wrote Margaret Paston to her husband, ‘to wonder thereupon, both of Norwich and of other places, and they speak shamefully thereof. The duke had been better than a thousand pound that it had never been done; and ye have the more good will of the people that it is so foully done.’ Margaret was anxious that the effects of the outrage should be seen before winter came on by some one specially sent from the king to view and report upon the ruin. But no redress was obtained while her husband lived, and even some years after his death his sons petitioned for it in vain.