The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509. Volume 1 (of 6)
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Title: The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509. Volume 1 (of 6)
Editor: James Gairdner
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This edition, published by arrangement with Messrs. ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE
AND COMPANY, LIMITED, is strictly limited to 650 copies for Great
Britain and America, of which only 600 sets are for sale, and are
numbered 1 to 600.
No. 47
[[The number 47 is handwritten.]]
* * * * *
* * * *
THE PASTON LETTERS
A.D. 1422-1509
* * * *
* * * * *
The
PASTON LETTERS
A.D. 1422-1509
NEW COMPLETE LIBRARY EDITION
Edited with Notes and an Introduction
By
JAMES GAIRDNER
of the Public Record Office
_VOLUME I_
London
Chatto & Windus
[Decoration]
Exeter
James G. Commin
1904
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
PREFACE
[Sidenote: First publication of the Letters.] Public attention was first
drawn to the Paston Letters in the year 1787, when there issued from the
press two quarto volumes with a very lengthy title, setting forth that
the contents were original letters written ‘by various persons of rank
and consequence’ during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard
III. The materials were derived from autographs in the possession of the
Editor, a Mr. Fenn, of East Dereham, in Norfolk, who was well enough
known in society as a gentleman of literary and antiquarian tastes, but
who had not at that time attained any great degree of celebrity. Horace
Walpole had described him, thirteen years before, as ‘a smatterer in
antiquity, but a very good sort of man.’ What the great literary magnate
afterwards thought of him we are not informed, but we know that he took
a lively interest in the Paston Letters the moment they were published.
He appears, indeed, to have given some assistance in the progress of the
work through the press. On its appearance he expressed himself with
characteristic enthusiasm:--‘The letters of Henry VI.’s reign, etc., are
come out, and _to me_ make all other letters not worth reading. I have
gone through one volume, and cannot bear to be writing when I am so
eager to be reading. . . . There are letters from _all_ my acquaintance,
Lord Rivers, Lord Hastings, the Earl of Warwick, whom I remember still
better than Mrs. Strawbridge, though she died within these fifty years.
What antiquary would be answering a letter from a living countess, when
he may read one from Eleanor Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk?’[1-1]
[Footnote 1-1: _Walpole’s Letters_ (Cunningham’s ed.), ix. 92.]
So wrote the great literary exquisite and virtuoso, the man whose
opinion in those days was life or death to a young author or a new
publication. And in spite of all that was artificial and affected in his
character,--in spite even of the affectation of pretending a snobbish
interest in ancient duchesses--Walpole was one of the fittest men of
that day to appreciate such a publication. [Sidenote: What was thought
of them by some.] Miss Hannah More was less easily pleased, and she no
doubt was the type of many other readers. The letters, she declared,
were quite barbarous in style, with none of the elegance of their
supposed contemporary Rowley. They might perhaps be of some use to
correct history, but as letters and fine reading, nothing was to be said
for them.[2-1] It was natural enough that an age which took this view of
the matter should have preferred the forgeries of Chatterton to the most
genuine productions of the fifteenth century. The style of the Paston
Letters, even if it had been the most polished imaginable, of course
could not have exhibited the polish of the eighteenth century, unless a
Chatterton had had some hand in their composition.
[Footnote 2-1: Roberts’s _Memoirs of Hannah More_, ii. 50.]
[Sidenote: General interest in the work.] Yet the interest excited by
the work was such that the editor had no reason to complain of its
reception. The Paston Letters were soon in everybody’s hands. The work,
indeed, appeared under royal patronage, for Fenn had got leave
beforehand to dedicate it to the King as ‘the avowed patron’ of
antiquarian knowledge. This alone had doubtless some influence upon the
sale; but the novel character of the publication itself must have
excited curiosity still more. A whole edition was disposed of in a week,
and a second edition called for, which, after undergoing some little
revision, with the assistance of Mr. George Steevens, the Shakspearian
editor, was published the same year. Meanwhile, to gratify the curious,
the original MS. letters were deposited for a time in the Library of the
Society of Antiquaries; but the King having expressed a wish to see
them, Fenn sent them to Buckingham Palace, then called the Queen’s
Palace, requesting that, if they were thought worthy of a place in the
Royal Collection, His Majesty would be pleased to accept them. They were
accordingly, it would seem, added to the Royal Library; and as an
acknowledgment of the value of the gift, Fenn was summoned to Court, and
received the honour of knighthood.
But the two volumes hitherto published by Fenn contained only a small
selection out of a pretty considerable number of original letters of the
same period in his possession. The reception these two volumes had met
with now encouraged him to make a further selection, and he announced
with his second edition that another series of the Letters was in
preparation, which was to cover the same period as the first two
volumes, and to include also the reign of Henry VII. Accordingly a third
and fourth volume of the work were issued together in the year 1789,
containing the new letters down to the middle of Edward IV.’s reign. A
fifth and concluding volume, bringing the work down to the end of Henry
VII.’s reign, was left ready for publication at Sir John Fenn’s death in
1794, and was published by his nephew, Mr. Serjeant Frere, in 1823.
Of the original MSS. of these letters and their descent Fenn gives but a
brief account in the preface to his first volume, which we will
endeavour to supplement with additional facts to the best of our
ability. [Sidenote: The MSS.] The letters, it will be seen, were for the
most part written by or to particular members of the family of Paston in
Norfolk. Here and there, it is true, are to be found among them State
papers and other letters of great interest, which must have come to the
hands of the family through some indirect channel; but the great
majority are letters distinctly addressed to persons of the name of
Paston, and in the possession of the Pastons they remained for several
generations. In the days of Charles II. the head of the family, Sir
Robert Paston, was created Earl of Yarmouth; but his son William, the
second bearer of the title, having got into debt and encumbered his
inheritance, finally died without male issue, so that his title became
extinct. While living in reduced circumstances, he appears to have
parted with a portion of his family papers, which were purchased by the
great antiquary and collector, Peter Le Neve, Norroy King of Arms. Le
Neve was a Norfolk man, possessed of considerable estates at Witchingham
and elsewhere in the county; and he made it a special object to collect
MSS. and records relating to Norfolk and Suffolk. Just before his death
in 1729 he made a will,[4-1] by which he bequeathed his MSS. to the
erudite Dr. Tanner, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph’s, and Thomas Martin
of Palgrave; but this bequest was subject to the condition that within a
year after his death they should ‘procure a good and safe repository in
the Cathedral Church of Norwich, or in some other good and public
building in the said city’ for their preservation, the object being to
make them at all times accessible to those who wished to consult them.
The condition, however, was not fulfilled, and the bequest would
naturally have become null; but ‘honest Tom Martin of Palgrave’ (to give
him the familiar name by which he himself desired to be known) married
the widow of his friend, and thus became possessed of his MSS. by
another title.
[Footnote 4-1: _See_ Appendix after Introduction, No. I.]
The Le Neve collection, however, contained only a portion of the Paston
family papers. On the death, in 1732, of the Earl of Yarmouth, who
outlived Le Neve by three years, some thirty or forty chests of valuable
letters and documents still remained at the family seat at Oxnead. These
treasures the Rev. Francis Blomefield was allowed to examine three years
later with a view to his county history, for which purpose he boarded at
Oxnead for a fortnight.[4-2] Of the results of a general survey of the
papers he writes, on the 13th May 1735, to Major Weldon a number of
interesting particulars, of which the following may be quoted as bearing
upon the subject before us:--‘There is another box full of the pardons,
grants, and old deeds, freedoms, etc., belonging to the Paston family
only, which I laid by themselves, for fear you should think them proper
to be preserved with the family; they don’t relate to any estates. . . .
There are innumerable letters of good consequence in history still lying
among the loose papers, all which I laid up in a corner of the room on a
heap which contains several sacks full.’[5-1] But Blomefield afterwards
became the owner of a considerable portion of these papers; for he not
only wrote his initials on several of them, and marked a good many
others with a mark by which he was in the habit of distinguishing
original documents that he had examined and noted, but he also made a
present to a friend of one letter which must certainly have once been in
the Paston family archives. He himself refers to his ownership of
certain collections of documents in the Preface to his _History of
Norfolk_, where he informs the reader that he has made distinct
reference to the several authors and originals he had made use of in all
cases, ‘except’ (these are his words) ‘where the originals are either in
Mr. Le Neve’s or my own collections, which at present I design to join
to his, so that, being together, they may be consulted at all times.’
Apparently honest Tom Martin was still intending to carry out Le Neve’s
design, and Blomefield purposed to aid it further by adding his own
collections to the Le Neve MSS. But though Martin lived for nearly forty
years after his marriage with Le Neve’s widow, and always kept this
design in view, he failed to carry it out. His necessities compelled him
to part with some of his treasures, but these apparently were mainly
books enriched with MS. notes, not original ancient MSS., and even as he
grew old he did not altogether drop the project. He frequently formed
resolutions that he would, _next year_, arrange what remained, and make
a selection for public use. But at last, at the age of seventy-four, he
suddenly died in his chair without having given effect to his purpose.
[Footnote 4-2: _Cursory Notices of the Reverend Francis
Blomefield._ By J. Wilton Rix, Esq.]
[Footnote 5-1: _Norfolk Archæology_, ii. 210, 211.]
Neither did his friend Blomefield, who died nine years before him, in
January 1762, succeed in giving effect to _his_ good intention of
uniting his collections with the Le Neve MSS. For he died deeply in
debt, and by his will, made just before death, he directed all his
personal property to be sold in payment of his liabilities. His
executors, however, declined to act, and administration was granted to
two principal creditors. Of the Paston MSS. which were owned by him,
a few are now to be found in one of the volumes of the Douce Collection
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. These, it would seem, were first
purchased by the noted antiquary John Ives,[6-1] who acquired a number
of Le Neve’s, Martin’s, and Blomefield’s MSS.; and after his library was
sold by auction in March 1777, they became part of the collections
relating to the counties of Oxford and Cambridge, which Gough, in his
_British Topography_ (vol. ii. p. 5), informs us that he purchased at
the sale of Mr. Ives’ papers. To this same collection, probably,
belonged also a few of the scattered documents relating to the Paston
family which have been met with among the miscellaneous stores of the
Bodleian Library, for a knowledge of which I was indebted to the late
Mr. W. H. Turner of Oxford.
[Footnote 6-1: _See_ Nichols’s _Literary Anecdotes_, iii. 199.]
Martin’s executors seem to have done what they could to preserve the
integrity of his collections. A catalogue of his library was printed
at Lynn in 1771, in the hope that some purchaser would be found to take
the whole. Such a purchaser did present himself, but not in the interest
of the public. [Sidenote: By Mr. Worth.] A certain Mr. John Worth,
a chemist at Diss, bought both the library and the other collections,
as a speculation, for £630. The printed books he immediately sold to
a firm at Norwich, who disposed of them by auction; the pictures and
smaller curiosities he sold by auction at Diss, and certain portions
of the MSS. were sent, at different times, to the London market. But
before he had completed the sale of all the collections, Mr. Worth died
suddenly in December 1774. That portion of the MSS. which contained the
Paston Letters he had up to that time reserved. Mr. Fenn immediately
purchased them of his executors, and they had been twelve years in his
possession when he published his first two volumes of selections from
them.
So much for the early history of the MSS. Their subsequent fate is not a
little curious. On the 23rd May 1787, Fenn received his knighthood at
St. James’s, having then and there presented to the King three bound
volumes of MSS. which were the originals of his first two printed
volumes.[6-2] Yet, strange to say, these MSS. were afterwards lost sight
of so completely that for a whole century nobody could tell what had
become of them. They were not in the Royal Library afterwards given up
to the British Museum; they were not to be found in any of the Royal
Palaces. The late Prince Consort, just before his death, caused a
careful search to be made for them, but it proved quite ineffectual.
Their hiding-place remained unknown even when I first republished these
Letters in the years 1872-75.
[Footnote 6-2: The following announcement appears in the _Morning
Chronicle_ of the 24th May 1787: ‘Yesterday, John Fenn, Esq.,
attended the levee at St. James’s, and had the honour of
presenting to His Majesty (bound in three volumes) the original
letters of which he had before presented a printed copy; when His
Majesty, as a mark of his gracious acceptance, was pleased to
confer on him the honour of knighthood.’]
To this mystery succeeded another of the same kind. The originals of the
other three volumes were not presented to the king; but they, too,
disappeared, and remained for a long time equally undiscoverable. Even
Mr. Serjeant Frere, who edited the fifth volume from transcripts left by
Sir John Fenn after his death, declared that he had not been able to
find the originals of that volume any more than those of the others.
Strange to say, however, the originals of that volume were in his house
all the time, and were discovered by his son, Mr. Philip Frere, in the
year 1865, just after an ingenious _littérateur_ had made the complete
disappearance of _all_ the MSS. a ground for casting doubt on the
authenticity of the published letters. It is certainly a misfortune for
historical literature, or at all events was in those days, that the
owners of ancient MSS. commonly took so little pains to ascertain what
it was that they had got. Since then the proceedings of the Historical
MSS. Commission, which have brought to light vast stores of unsuspected
materials for history, have awakened much more interest in such matters.
Thus three distinct portions of MSS. that had been carefully edited had
all been lost sight of and remained undiscoverable for a long series of
years. The originals of the first two volumes presented to the King
could not be found. The originals of volumes iii. and iv. could not be
found. The originals of volume v. could not be found. These last,
however, after a time, came to light, as we have seen, in 1865, having
been discovered in the house of the late Mr. Philip Frere at Dungate, in
Cambridgeshire; and with them were found a large number of additional
MSS., also belonging to the Paston Collection, among which was the
original of one of the letters of volume iii. separated from all its
fellows, whose place of concealment remained still unknown.
This discovery, however, was important, and at once suggested to me the
possibility of producing a new edition of the Letters arranged in true
chronological order, and augmented by those hitherto unedited. It
suggested, moreover, that more of the originals might even yet be
discovered with a little further search, perhaps even in the same house.
But a further search at Dungate, though it brought to light a vast
quantity of papers of different ages, many of them very curious, did not
lead to the discovery of any other than the single document above
referred to belonging to any of the first four volumes. All that Mr.
Philip Frere could find belonging to the Paston Collection he sold to
the British Museum, and the rest he disposed of by auction.
The question then occurred: Since the originals of volumes iii. and iv.
had not been found at Dungate, might they be in the possession of the
head of the Frere family, the late Mr. George Frere of Roydon Hall, near
Diss, in Norfolk? This was suggested to me as probable by Mr. Philip
Frere, his cousin, and I wrote to him accordingly on the 3rd December
1867. I received an answer from him dated on the 6th, that he did not
see how such MSS. should have found their way to Roydon, but if they
turned up at any time he would let me know. Unluckily he seems to have
dismissed the subject from his mind, and I received no answer to further
inquiries repeated at various intervals. At last it appeared hopeless to
wait longer and defer my edition of the Letters indefinitely on the
chance of finding more originals anywhere. So the first volume of my
edition went to press, and the second, and the third. But just after I
had printed off two Appendices to vol. iii., a friend of Mr. George
Frere’s called upon me at the Record Office, and informed me that a
number of original Paston letters had been discovered at Roydon, which
he had conveyed up to London. After some further communication with Mr.
Frere himself I was allowed to inspect them at his son’s chambers in the
Temple, when I found among them those very originals of Fenn’s third and
fourth volumes which eight years before he could not believe were in his
possession! Every one of them, I think, was there with just two
exceptions--the first a document which, as already mentioned, was found
at Dungate; the second a letter (No. 52 in this edition) now preserved
at Holland House, the existence of which was made known to me before my
second volume was issued by a recent book of the Princess Marie
Liechtenstein.[9-1]
[Footnote 9-1: _Holland House._ By Princess Marie Liechtenstein,
vol. ii. p. 198.]
It was mortifying, I confess, not to have received earlier intelligence
of a fact that I had suspected all along. But it was better to have
learned it at the last moment than not till after my last volume was
published. So, having made two Appendices already to that volume, the
only thing to do was to add a third, in which the reader would find a
brief note of the discovery, with copies of some of the unpublished
letters, and as full an account of the others belonging to the same
period as circumstances would permit. Altogether there were no less than
ninety-five new original letters belonging to the period found at Roydon
Hall, along with the originals of Fenn’s third and fourth volumes.
In July 1888 these Roydon Hall MSS. were offered for sale at Christie’s.
They consisted then of 311 letters, mainly the originals of Fenn’s third
and fourth volumes, and of those described in my third Appendix. Of the
former set there were only four letters wanting, viz. the two in volume
iii. whose existence is accounted for elsewhere, and two in volume iv.
‘which,’ the sale catalogue observes, ‘are noted by Fenn himself as
being no longer in his possession.’ As to the letters in my Appendix the
catalogue goes on to say:--
‘Of the ninety-five additional letters above mentioned (Gairdner,
992-1086) _four_ are missing (Nos. 1016, 1029, 1077, 1085). On the
other hand, on collating the present collection with the printed
volumes, it was found to contain _four others_ of which no record
exists either in Fenn’s or Mr. Gairdner’s edition, and which
consequently appear to have escaped the notice of the latter
gentleman while examining the treasures at Roydon Hall.’
‘The latter gentleman’ begs leave to say here that he never was at
Roydon Hall in his life, and was only allowed to examine such of the
‘treasures’ found there as were placed before him in the year 1875 in a
certain chamber in the Temple. A well-known bookseller purchased the
MSS. offered at Christie’s for 500 guineas, and some years later (in
1896), sold them to the British Museum. They are thus, at length,
available for general consultation. The number of missing originals,
however, is not quite as given in Christie’s sale catalogue. There are
four, not two, lacking of volume iv. On the other hand, only two letters
of the Appendix are wanting.[10-1]
[Footnote 10-1: The missing letters of volume iv. are Nos. 24, 97,
99, and 105 (Nos. 551, 726, 735, and 758 of this edition). The
last never formed part of Fenn’s collection. I do not know of any
other noted by him as ‘no longer in his possession.’ The letters
missing of the Appendix are only Nos. 997 and 1019. Of the four
said to be missing in Christie’s catalogue, 1016 is not a document
at all, the number having been accidentally skipped in the
Inventory, and the other three are in the British Museum. No.
1077, however, is inaccurately described in the Appendix.]
About fifteen years after the discovery at Roydon there came another
discovery elsewhere. On the 29th March 1890 it was announced in the
_Athenæum_ that the missing originals of Fenn’s first and second
volumes--that is to say, the MSS. presented to King George III.--had
likewise come to light again. They were found at Orwell Park, in
Suffolk, in 1889, after the death of the late Colonel Tomline, and they
remain there in the possession of his cousin, Mr. E. G. Pretyman, M.P.,
now Secretary to the Admiralty, who kindly showed them to me at his
house soon after their discovery. They have come to him among family
papers and heirlooms of which, being only tenant for life, he is not
free to dispose until some doubts can be removed as to their past
history; and I accordingly forbear from saying more on this point except
that their place of deposit indicates that they may either have got
mixed with the private papers and books of Pitt, of which a large number
are in the Orwell library, or with those of his old tutor and secretary,
Dr. George Pretyman, better known as Bishop Tomline. Dr. Pretyman had
just been appointed Bishop of Lincoln when Fenn published his first two
volumes, and it was many years afterwards that he assumed the name of
Tomline. But whether these MSS. came to his hands or to Pitt’s, or under
what circumstances they were delivered to either, there is no evidence
to show. Possibly the King’s illness in 1788 prevented their being
placed, or, it may be, replaced, in the Royal Library, where they were
intended to remain.
The edition of these Letters published by Mr. Arber in 1872-75 was in
three volumes. It was printed from stereotype plates, and has been
reissued more than once by the Messrs. Constable with corrections, and
latterly with an additional volume containing the Preface and
Introduction by themselves, and a Supplement giving the full text of
those newly-found letters of which the reader had to be content with a
bare catalogue in 1875. My original aim to have a complete collection of
all extant Paston Letters had been defeated; and there seemed nothing
for it but to let them remain even at the last in a general series, an
Appendix and a Supplement. The present publishers, however, by
arrangement with Messrs. Constable, were anxious to meet the wants of
scholars who desired to possess the letters, now that the collection
seems to be as complete as it is ever likely to be, in a single series,
and in a more luxurious form than that in which they have hitherto
appeared. I have accordingly rearranged the letters as desired--a task
not altogether without its difficulties when nice chronological
questions had to be weighed and the story of the Pastons in all its
details had for so many years ceased to occupy a foremost place in my
thoughts; and I trust that the unity of the series will now give
satisfaction. At the same time, the opportunity has not been lost of
rectifying such errors as have been brought to my notice, which could
not have been conveniently corrected in the stereotype editions.
Notwithstanding the recovery of the originals of the letters printed by
Fenn, it has not been thought necessary to edit these anew from the MSS.
Whether such a thing would be altogether practicable even now may
perhaps be a question; at all events it would have delayed the work
unduly. Fenn’s editing is, as I have shown in previous editions, fairly
satisfactory on the whole, and it is not to be supposed that a
comparison of all the printed letters with the original MSS. would lead
to results of very material consequence. A large number have been
compared already, and the comparison inspires the greatest confidence in
his care and accuracy. His misreadings are really very few, his method
of procedure having been such as to prevent their being either many or
serious; while as to his suppressions I have found no reason to believe,
from what examination I have been able to make, that any of them were of
very material importance.
It was not editorial carelessness on Fenn’s part which made a new
edition desirable in 1872. It was, first of all, the advance of
historical criticism since his day--or rather, perhaps, I should say, of
the means of verifying many things by the publication of historical
sources and the greater accessibility of historical records. And
secondly, the discovery of such a large number of unprinted documents
belonging to the Paston Collection made it possible to study that
collection as a whole, and fill up the outlines of information which
they contained on matters both public and private. On this subject I may
be allowed simply to quote what I said in 1872 in the preface to the
first volume:--
‘The errors in Fenn’s chronology are numerous, and so exceedingly
misleading that, indispensable as these Letters now are to the
historian, there is not a single historian who has made use of them
but has misdated some event or other, owing to their inaccurate
arrangement. Even writers who have been most on their guard in some
places have suffered themselves to be misled in others. This is no
reproach to the former Editor, whose work is indeed a perfect model
of care and accuracy for the days in which he lived; but historical
criticism has advanced since that time, and facilities abound which
did not then exist for comparing one set of documents with another,
and testing the accuracy of dates by public records. The completion
of Blomefield’s _History of Norfolk_, and the admirable index added
to that work of late years by Mr. Chadwick, have also been of
eminent service in verifying minute facts. Moreover, the
comprehensive study of the whole correspondence, with the advantage
of having a part already published to refer to, has enabled me in
many cases to see the exact bearing of particular letters, which
before seemed to have no certain place in the chronology, not only
upon public events, but upon the Private affairs of the Paston
family. . . .
[Sidenote: Accuracy of Fenn’s text.] ‘The care taken by Sir John
Fenn to secure the accuracy of his text can be proved by many tests.
It might, indeed, be inferred from the elaborate plan of editing
that he adopted, exhibiting in every case two transcripts of the
same letter, the one to show the precise spelling and punctuation of
the original, the other to facilitate the perusal by modern
orthography. A work on which so much pains were bestowed, and which
was illustrated besides by numerous facsimiles of the original
handwritings, signatures, paper-marks, and seals of the letters, was
not likely to have been executed in a slovenly manner, in so far as
the text is concerned. But we are not left in this case to mere
presumptive evidence. The originals of the fifth volume have been
minutely examined by a committee of the Society of Antiquaries, and
compared all through with the printed text, and the general result
of this examination was that the errors are very few, and for the
most part trivial. Now, if this was the case with regard to that
volume, which it must be remembered was published after Fenn’s death
from transcripts prepared for the press, and had not the benefit of
a final revision of the proof-sheets by the editor, we have surely
every reason to suppose that the preceding volumes were at least not
less accurate.
‘At all events, any inaccuracies that may exist in them were
certainly not the result of negligence. I have been favoured by Mr.
Almack, of Melford, near Sudbury, in Suffolk, with the loan of
several sheets of MS. notes bequeathed to him by the late Mr.
Dalton, of Bury St. Edmunds, who transcribed a number of the
original MSS. for Sir John Fenn. These papers contain a host of
minute queries and criticisms, which were the result of a close
examination of the first four volumes, undertaken at Fenn’s request.
Those on the first two volumes are dated on the 3rd and 7th of May
1788, more than a year after the book was published. But on vols.
iii. and iv. there are two separate sets of observations, the first
of which were made on the transcripts before they were sent to
press, the other, like those on the two first volumes, on the
published letters. From an examination of these criticisms, and also
from the results of the examination of the fifth volume by the
committee of the Society of Antiquaries,[13-1] I have been led to
the opinion that the manner in which Sir John Fenn prepared his
materials for the press was as follows:-- [Sidenote: Mode in which
Fenn prepared the letters for publication.] Two copies were first
made of every letter, the one in the exact spelling and punctuation
of the original, the other in modern orthography. Both these copies
were taken direct from the original, and possibly in the case of the
first two volumes they were both made by Fenn himself. In vols. iii.
and iv., however, it is stated that many of the transcripts were
made by Mr. Dalton, while those of vol. v. were found to be almost
all in his handwriting when that volume was sent to press in
1823.[13-2] But this statement probably refers only to the copies in
the antique spelling. Those in modern spelling I believe to have
been made for the most part, if not altogether, by Fenn himself.
When completed, the two copies were placed side by side, and given
to Mr. Dalton to take home with him. Mr. Dalton then made a close
comparison of the two versions, and pointed out every instance in
which he found the slightest disagreement between them, or where he
thought an explanation might be usefully bracketed into the modern
version. These comments in the case of vol. iii. are upwards of 400
in number, and extend over eighteen closely written pages quarto. It
is clear that they one and all received the fullest consideration
from Sir John Fenn before the work was published. Every one of the
discrepancies pointed out between the two versions is rectified in
the printed volume, and there cannot be a doubt that in every such
case the original MS. was again referred to, to settle the disputed
reading.
‘One or two illustrations of this may not be unacceptable to the
reader. The following are among the observations made by Mr. Dalton
on the transcripts of vol. iii. as prepared for press. [Sidenote:
Examples.] In Letter viii. was a passage in which occurred the
words, “that had of your father certain lands _one_ seven years or
eight years agone.” Mr. Dalton’s experience as a transcriber appears
to have suggested to him that “one” was a very common misreading of
the word “over” in ancient MSS., and he accordingly suggested that
word as making better sense. His surmise turned out to be the true
reading, and the passage stands corrected accordingly in the printed
volume. In Letter xxiv. there was a discrepancy in the date between
the transcript in ancient spelling and the modern version. In the
latter it was “the 4th day of December,” whereas the former gave it
as the 3rd. On examination it appears that the _modern_ version was
found to be correct, a Roman “iiij.” having been misread in the
other as “iij.” Thus we have very sufficient evidence that the
modern copy could not have been taken from the ancient, but was made
independently from the original MS. Another instance of the same
thing occurs in the beginning of Letter xli., where the words “to my
power” had been omitted in the literal transcript, but were found in
the modern copy.
‘Mr. Dalton’s part in the work of transcription appears clearly in
several of his observations. One of the transcripts is frequently
referred to as “my copy”; and an observation made on Letter lxxxvi.
shows pretty clearly that the copy so referred to was the literal
one. At the bottom of that letter is the following brief
postscript:--“Utinam iste mundus malignus transiret et
concupiscentia ejus”; on which Mr. Dalton remarks as follows:--“I
have added this on _your_ copy as supposing it an oversight, and
hope it is properly inserted.” Thus it appears that Mr. Dalton’s own
transcript had the words which were deficient in the other, and
that, being tolerably certain they existed in the original, he
transferred them to the copy made by Fenn. Now when it is considered
that these words are written in the original MS. with peculiarly
crabbed contractions, which had to be preserved in the literal
version as exactly as they could be represented in type,[15-1] it
will, I think, appear evident that Mr. Dalton could never have
ventured to supply them in such a form without the original before
him. It is clear, therefore, that his copy was the literal
transcript, and that of Fenn the modern version.
‘Again, in Letter xxxi. of the same volume, on the second last line
of page 137, occur the words, “that he obey not the certiorari.” On
this passage occurs the following query--“The word for ‘obey’ seems
unintelligible. Have I not erred from the original in my copy?”
Another case will show how by this examination the errors of the
original transcripts were eliminated. In Letter xxxiv., at the
bottom of pp. 144-5, occurs the name of Will or William Staunton. It
appears this name was first transcribed as “Robert Fraunton” in the
right or modern version; on which Mr. Dalton remarks, “It is William
in orig.” (Mr. Dalton constantly speaks of the transcript in ancient
spelling as the “original” in these notes, though it is clear he had
not the real original before him at the time he made them).
Strangely enough, Mr. Dalton does not suspect the surname as well as
the Christian name, but it is clear that both were wrong, and that
they were set right in consequence of this query directing the
editor’s attention once more to the original MS.’
[Footnote 13-1: _Archæol._ vol. xli. p. 39.]
[Footnote 13-2: _See_ Advertisement in the beginning of the
volume, p. vii.]
[Footnote 15-1: The following is the exact form in which they
stand in the literal or left-hand version:--‘Utia’z iste mu’d
maligu{s} t’nsir{t} & c’up’ia e{s}.’]
[[‘The care taken by Sir John
_opening quotation mark missing_]]
To this I may add some further evidences of Fenn’s editorial care and
accuracy. When the second volume of my first edition was published in
1874, my attention was called, as already mentioned, to the existence at
Holland House of the original of one of those letters[15-2] which I had
reprinted from Fenn. It was one of the letters in Fenn’s third volume,
and only one[15-3] other letter in that volume had then turned up.
I carefully compared both these papers with the documents as printed,
and in both, as I remarked in the Preface to vol. ii., the exact spelling
was given with the most scrupulous accuracy, so that there was scarcely
the most trivial variation between the originals and the printed text.
But a more careful estimate, alike of Fenn’s merits and of his defects
as an editor, became possible when, on the publication of the third
volume of the same edition, I was able, as I have already shown, to
announce at the last moment the result of a cursory inspection of the
originals of his third and fourth volumes. And what I said at that time
may be here transcribed:--
‘The recovery of these long-lost originals, although, unfortunately,
too late to be of the use it might have been in this edition, is
important in two ways: first, as affording an additional means of
testing Fenn’s accuracy as an editor; and secondly, as a means of
testing the soundness of some occasional inferences which the
present Editor was obliged to draw for himself in the absence of the
originals. More than one instance occurs in this work in which it
will be seen that I have ventured to eliminate from the text as
spurious a heading printed by Fenn as if it were a part of the
document which it precedes. Thus, in No. 19,[16-1] I pointed out
that the title, in which Judge Paston is called “Sir William Paston,
knight,” could not possibly be contemporaneous; and the document
itself shows that this opinion was well founded. It bears, indeed,
a modern endorsement in a handwriting of the last century much to the
same effect as Sir John Fenn’s heading; but this, of course, is no
authority at all. In the same way I showed that the title printed by
Fenn, as a heading to No. 191,[16-2] was utterly erroneous, and
could not possibly have existed in the original MS. This conclusion
is also substantiated by the document, which, I may add, bears in
the margin the heading “Copia,” showing that it was a transcript.
The document itself being an important State Paper, there were
probably a number of copies made at the time; but as no others have
been preserved, it is only known to us as one of the Paston Letters.
‘Another State Paper (No. 238),[16-3] of which a copy was likewise
sent to John Paston, has a heading which Sir John Fenn very
curiously misread. It is printed in this edition[16-4] as it stands
in the first, _Vadatur J. P._, meaning apparently “John Paston gives
security, or stands pledged.” But it turns out on examination that
the reading of the original is _Tradatur J. P._ (Let this be
delivered to John Paston).
‘To return to No. 19, it will be seen that I was obliged to reprint
from Fenn in the preliminary note a few words which he had found
written on the back of the letter, of which it was difficult to make
any perfect sense, but which seemed to imply that the bill was
delivered to Parliament in the 13th year of Henry VI. I pointed out
that there seemed to be some error in this, as no Parliament
actually met in the 13th year of Henry VI. The original endorsement,
however, is perfectly intelligible and consistent with facts, when
once it has been accurately deciphered. The handwriting, indeed, is
very crabbed, and for a considerable time I was puzzled; but the
words are as follows:--“Falsa billa Will’i Dallyng ad parliamentum
tempore quo Henricus Grey fuit vicecomes, ante annum terciodecimum
Regis Henrici vj{ti}.” I find as a matter of fact that Henry Grey
was sheriff (_vicecomes_) of Norfolk, first in the 8th and 9th, and
again in the 12th and 13th year of Henry VI., and that Parliament
sat in November and December of the 12th year (1433); so that the
date of the document is one year earlier than that assigned to it.
‘Again, I ventured to question on internal evidence the authorship
of a letter (No. 910)[17-1] which Fenn had assigned to William
Paston, the uncle of Sir John Paston. At the end is the signature
“Wyll’m Paston,” with a reference in Fenn to a facsimile engraved in
a previous volume. But the evidence seemed to me very strong that
the William Paston who wrote this letter was not Sir John’s uncle,
but his brother. The inspection of the original letter itself has
proved to me that I was right. The signatures of the two Williams
were not altogether unlike each other; but the signature appended to
this letter is unquestionably that of the younger man, not of his
uncle; while the facsimile, to which Fenn erroneously refers the
reader, is that of the uncle’s signature taken from a different
letter.
‘It may perhaps be conceived that if even these few errors could be
detected in Fenn’s work by one who had not yet an opportunity of
consulting the original MSS., a large number of others would be
discovered by a minute comparison of the printed volumes with the
letters themselves. This suspicion, however, is scarcely borne out
by the facts. I cannot profess to have made anything like an
exhaustive examination, but so far as I have compared these MSS.
with the printed text, I find no evidence of more than very
occasional inaccuracy, and, generally speaking, in matters very
immaterial. On the contrary, an inspection of these last recovered
originals has greatly confirmed the opinion, which the originals
previously discovered enabled me to form, of the scrupulous fidelity
and care with which the letters were first edited. For the most
part, not only the words, but the exact spelling of the MSS. is
preserved, with merely the most trifling variations. Sir John,
indeed, was not a trained archivist, and there are what may be
called errors of system in his mode of reading, such as, for
instance, the omission of contractions that may be held to represent
a final _e_, or the rendering a final dash by _s_ instead of _es_.
In such things the plan that he pursued was obvious. But it is
manifest that in other respects he is very accurate indeed; for he
had made so careful a study of these MSS. that he was quite familiar
with most of the ancient modes of handwriting, and, on the whole,
very seldom mistook a reading.
‘I may add, that this recent discovery enables me to vindicate his
accuracy in one place, even where it seemed before to be very
strangely at fault. At the end of Letter iii. of the fifth
volume,[18-1] occurs in the original edition the following
postscript:--“I warn you keep this letter close, and lose it not;
rather burn it.” On comparing this letter with the original, the
Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, some years ago, were amazed
to find that there was no such postscript in the MS., and they were
a good deal at a loss to account for its insertion. It now appears,
however, that this letter was preserved in duplicate, for among the
newly-recovered MSS. I discovered a second copy, being a corrected
draft, in Margaret Paston’s own hand, at the end of which occurs the
P.S. in question.
‘It must be acknowledged, however, that Fenn’s mode of editing was
not in all respects quite so satisfactory. Defects, of which no one
could reasonably have complained in his own day, are now a serious
drawback, especially where the original MSS. are no longer
accessible. Occasionally, as we have seen, he inserts a heading of
his own in the text of a document without any intimation that it is
not in the original; but this is so rare a matter that little need
be said about it. A more serious fault is, that in vols. iii. and
iv. he has published occasionally mere extracts from a letter as if
it were the whole letter. In vols. i. and ii. he avowedly left out
passages of little interest, and marked the places where they
occurred with asterisks; but in the two succeeding volumes he has
not thought it necessary to be so particular, and he has made the
omissions _sub silentio_. For this indeed no one can seriously blame
him. The work itself, as he had planned it, was only a selection of
letters from a correspondence, and a liberal use of asterisks would
not have helped to make it more interesting to the public.
Occasionally he even inverts the order of his extracts, printing a
postscript, or part of a postscript, in the body of a letter, and
placing at the end some passage that occurs in the letter itself,
for no other reason apparently than that it might read better as a
whole.
‘Thus Letter 37 of this edition[18-2] (vol. iii., Letter vi., in
Fenn) is only a brief extract, the original being a very long
letter, though the subjects touched upon are not of very great
interest. So also Letter 171 (Letter xxx. in Fenn’s third
volume)[18-3] is a set of extracts. Letter 182 (vol. iii., Letter
xxxix., in Fenn)[18-4] is the same; and the first part of what is
given as a postscript is not a postscript in the original, but
actually comes before the first printed paragraph.
‘In short, it was the aim of Sir John Fenn to reproduce with
accuracy the spelling and the style of the MSS. he had before him;
but as for the substance, to give only so much as he thought would
be really interesting. The letters themselves he regarded rather as
specimens of epistolary art in the fifteenth century than as a
substantial contribution to our knowledge of the times. To have
given a complete transcript of every letter, or even a _résumé_ in
his own words of all that concerned lawsuits, leases, bailiffs’
accounts, and a number of other matters of equally little interest,
formed no part of his design; but the task that he had really set
himself he executed with admirable fidelity. He grudged no labour or
expense in tracing facsimiles of the signatures, the seals, and the
watermarks on the paper. All that could serve to illustrate the
manners of the period, either in the contents of the letters, or in
the handwritings, or the mode in which they were folded, he esteemed
most valuable; and for these things his edition will continue still
to be much prized. But as it was clearly impossible in that day to
think of printing the whole correspondence, and determining
precisely the chronology by an exhaustive study of minutiæ, there
seemed no good reason why he should not give two or three paragraphs
from a letter without feeling bound to specify that they were merely
extracts. Yet even these defects are not of frequent occurrence. The
omissions are by no means numerous, and the matter they contain is
generally unimportant in itself.’
[Footnote 15-2: No. 38 in that edition, No. 52 in this.]
[Footnote 15-3: It was Letter 1 in Fenn’s third volume, No. 18 in
my first edition, No. 24 in this.]
[Footnote 16-1: No. 25 in present edition.]
[Footnote 16-2: No. 230 in present edition.]
[Footnote 16-3: No. 282 in present edition.]
[Footnote 16-4: That is to say, in the edition published by Mr.
Arber in 1875, when it was impossible to correct the text.]
[Footnote 17-1: No. 1033 in present edition.]
[Footnote 18-1: No. 787 of this edition.]
[Footnote 18-2: No. 51 of present edition.]
[Footnote 18-3: No. 205.]
[Footnote 18-4: No. 221.]
I took advantage, however, at that time, of the recovery of so many of
the missing originals to make a cursory examination for the further
testing of Fenn’s editorial accuracy. Two or three letters I compared
carefully with the originals throughout, and in others I made special
reference to passages where doubts were naturally suggested, either from
the obscurity of the words or from any other cause as to the correctness
of the reading. The results of this examination I gave in an Appendix at
the end of the Introduction to the third volume in 1875, and such errors
as I was then able to detect are corrected in the present edition.
Apart from such corrections, the letters are here reproduced as they are
printed in previous editions, only in a better order. Fenn’s text has
been followed, where no corrections have been found, in all the letters
printed by him except those of his fifth volume. The exact transcript
given on the left-hand pages of Fenn’s edition has been strictly adhered
to, except that contractions have been extended; and even in this
process we have always been guided by the interpretation given by Fenn
himself in his modern version on the right-hand pages. All the other
letters in this publication are edited from the original MSS., with a
very few exceptions in which these cannot be found. In some places,
indeed, where the contents of a letter are of very little interest, it
has been thought sufficient merely to give an abstract instead of a
transcript, placing the abstract in what is believed to be its true
place in the series chronologically. Abstracts are also given of
documents that are too lengthy and formal to be printed, and, in one
case, of a letter sold at a public sale, of which a transcript is not
now procurable. In the same manner, wherever I have found the slightest
note or reference, whether in Fenn’s footnotes or in Blomefield’s
_Norfolk_--where a few such references may be met with--to any letter
that appears originally to have belonged to the Paston correspondence,
even though the original be now inaccessible, and our information about
the contents the most scanty, the reader will find a notice of all that
is known about the missing document in the present publication.
I wish it were in my power to make the present edition better still. But
there have been always formidable obstacles to completeness during the
thirty years and more since I first took up the business of editing the
letters; and though many of these obstacles have been removed, my
energies are naturally not quite what they once were. The publishers,
however, have thought it time for a more satisfactory edition, and I
hope I have done my best. It remains to say a few words about the
original MSS. and the places in which they now exist.
Of those at Orwell Park I have already spoken. They are contained in
three half-bound volumes, and are the originals of the letters printed
by Fenn in his first and second volumes.
In the British Museum are contained, first of all, four volumes of the
‘Additional MSS.’ numbered 27,443 to 27,446, consisting of the originals
of volume v. of Fenn’s edition which was published after his death, and
a number of other letters first printed by me in the edition of 1872-75.
The nine volumes which follow these, viz. ‘Additional MSS.,’
27,447-27,455, contain also Paston letters but of a later date, and
papers relating to Sir John Fenn’s publication. There is also a separate
volume of ‘Paston letters’ in ‘Additional MS.’ 33,597; but these, too,
are mostly of later date, only eight being of the fifteenth century.
Further, there are the Roydon Hall MSS. (including with, I believe, only
two exceptions the originals of Fenn’s third and fourth volumes), which
are contained in the volumes ‘Additional,’ 34,888-9. And finally there
are two Paston letters (included in this edition) in ‘Additional MS.’
35,251. These are all that are in the British Museum. Besides these
there are, as above noticed, a few MSS. in a volume of the Douce
Collection and the other stray MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford
above referred to. At Oxford, also, though not strictly belonging to the
Paston family correspondence, are a number of valuable papers, some of
which are included in this edition, having an important bearing on the
fortunes of the family. These are among the muniments contained in the
tower of Magdalene College. As the execution of Sir John Fastolf’s will
ultimately devolved upon Bishop Waynflete, who, instead of a college at
Caister, made provision for a foundation of seven priests and seven poor
scholars in Magdalene College, a number of papers relative to the
disputes between the executors and the arrangement between the Bishop
and John Paston’s sons have been preserved among the documents of that
college. My attention was first called to these many years ago by Mr.
Macray, through whom I obtained copies, in the first place, of some
entries from an old index of the deeds relating to Norfolk and Suffolk,
which had already been referred to by Chandler in his Life of Bishop
Waynflete. Afterwards Mr. Macray, who had for some time been engaged in
a catalogue of the whole collection, was obliging enough to send me one
or two abstracts of his own made from the original documents even before
he was able to refer me to his report on the muniments of Magdalene
College, printed in the Fourth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission.
It will be seen that I have transcribed several interesting entries from
this source.
Further, there are just a few Paston letters preserved in Pembroke
College, Cambridge.
What remains to be said is only the confession of personal obligations,
incurred mainly long ago in connection with this work. The lapse of
years since my first edition of these letters was issued, in 1872,
naturally reminds me of the loss of various friends who favoured and
assisted it in various ways. Among these were the late Colonel Chester,
Mr. H. C. Coote, Mr. Richard Almack of Melford, Mr. W. H. Turner of
Oxford, Mr. J. H. Gurney, Mr. Fitch, and Mr. L’Estrange of Norwich. On
the other hand, I am happy to reckon still among the living Dr. Jessopp,
Mr. Aldis Wright, Miss Toulmin Smith, and Mr. J. C. C. Smith, now a
retired official of the Probate Office at Somerset House, who all gave
me kindly help so long ago. And I have further to declare my obligations
to Mr. Walter Rye, a gentleman well known as the best living authority
on Norfolk topography and families, for most friendly and useful
assistance in the way of notes and suggestions towards later editions.
I have also quite recently received help (confessed elsewhere) from the
Rev. William Hudson of Eastbourne, and have further had my attention
called to significant documents in the Public Record Office by some of
my old friends and colleagues there.
But among the departed, there is one whom I have reserved for mention by
himself, not so much for any particular assistance given me long ago in
the preparation of this work as for the previous education in historical
study which I feel that I received from intercourse with him. I had been
years engaged in the public service, and always thought that the records
of the realm ought to be better utilised than they were in those days
for the purpose of historical research; but how even Record clerks were
to become well acquainted with them under the conditions then existing
it was difficult to see. For each of us had his own little task assigned
to him, and had really very little opportunity, if ever so willing, to
go beyond it. Nor was there too much encouragement given under official
regulations to anything like historical training; for the Record Office,
when first constituted, was supposed to exist for the sake of litigants
who wanted copies of documents, rather than for that of historical
students who wanted to read them with other objects. Besides, people did
not generally imagine then that past history could be rewritten, except
by able and graphic pens which, perhaps, could put new life into old
facts without a very large amount of additional research. The idea that
the country contained vast stores of long-neglected letters capable of
yielding up copious new information to supplement and to correct the old
story of our national annals had hardly dawned upon anybody--least of
all, perhaps, on humble officials bound to furnish office copies of
‘fines’ and ‘recoveries’ and antiquated legal processes. Even the State
Papers, at that time, were kept apart from the Public Records, and could
only be consulted by special permission from a Secretary of State. No
clerk, either of the Record or State Paper Department, knew more than
was contained within his own particular province. But by the wise policy
of the late Lord Romilly these red-tape bands were ultimately broken;
and just at that time I had the rare privilege of being appointed to
assist the late Reverend John S. Brewer in one of the great works which
his Lordship set on foot to enable the British public to understand the
value of its own MSS. It was to this association with Mr. Brewer that I
feel I owe all my historical training, and I made some acknowledgment of
that debt in 1872 when I dedicated to him my first edition of this work.
INTRODUCTION
_The Paston Family_
The little village of Paston, in Norfolk, lies not far from the sea,
where the land descends gently behind the elevated ground of Mundesley,
and the line of the shore, proceeding eastward from Cromer, begins to
tend a little more towards the south. It is about twenty miles north of
Norwich. The country, though destitute of any marked features, is not
uninteresting. Southwards, where it is low and flat, the ruins of
Bromholm Priory attract attention. But, on the whole, it is an
out-of-the-way district, unapproachable by sea, for the coast is
dangerous, and offering few attractions to those who visit it by land.
Indeed, till quite recently, no railways had come near it, and the means
of access were not superabundant. Here, however, lived for several
centuries a family which took its surname from the place, and whose
private correspondence at one particular epoch sheds no inconsiderable
light on the annals of their country.
Of the early history of this family our notices are scanty and
uncertain. A Norman descent was claimed for them not only by the county
historian Blomefield but by the laborious herald, Francis Sandford,
author of a _Genealogical History of the Kings of England_, on the
evidence of documents which have been since dispersed. Sandford’s
genealogy of the Paston family was drawn up in the year 1674, just after
Sir Robert Paston had been raised to the peerage by the title of
Viscount Yarmouth, before he was promoted to the higher dignity of earl.
It still remains in MS.; but a pretty full account of it will be found
in the fourth volume of _Norfolk Archæology_. The story of the early
ancestors, however, does not concern us here. At the time the family and
their doings become best known to us, their social position was merely
that of small gentry. One of these, however, was a justice of the Common
Pleas in the reign of Henry VI., whose uprightness of conduct caused him
to be commonly spoken of by the name of the Good Judge. He had a son,
John, brought up to the law, who became executor to the old soldier and
statesman, Sir John Fastolf. This John Paston had a considerable family,
of whom the two eldest sons, strange to say, both bore the same
Christian name as their father. They were also both of them soldiers,
and each, in his time, attained the dignity of knighthood. But of them
and their father, and their grandfather the judge, we shall have more to
say presently. After them came Sir William Paston, a lawyer, one of
whose daughters, Eleanor, married Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland.
He had also two sons, of whom the first, Erasmus, died before him.
[Sidenote: Clement Paston.] The second, whose name was Clement, was
perhaps the most illustrious of the whole line. Born at Paston Hall, in
the immediate neighbourhood of the sea, he had an early love for ships,
was admitted when young into the naval service of Henry VIII., and
became a great commander. In an engagement with the French he captured
their admiral, the Baron de St. Blankheare or Blankard, and kept him
prisoner at Caister, near Yarmouth, till he had paid 7000 crowns for his
ransom, besides giving up a number of valuables contained in his ship.
Of this event Clement Paston preserved till his death a curious memorial
among his household utensils, and we read in his will that he bequeathed
to his nephew his ‘standing bowl called the Baron St. Blankheare.’ He
served also by land as well as by sea, and was with the Protector
Somerset in Scotland at the battle of Pinkie. In Mary’s reign he is said
to have been the person to whom the rebel Sir Thomas Wyat surrendered.
In his later years he was more peacefully occupied in building a fine
family seat at Oxnead. He lived till near the close of the reign of
Elizabeth, having earned golden opinions from each of the sovereigns
under whom he served. ‘Henry VIII.,’ we are told, ‘called him his
champion; the Duke of Somerset, Protector in King Edward’s reign, called
him his soldier; Queen Mary, her seaman; and Queen Elizabeth, her
father.’[27-1]
[Footnote 27-1: Blomefield’s _History of Norfolk_, vi. 487, 488.]
Clement Paston died childless, and was succeeded by his nephew, another
Sir William, whose name is well known in Norfolk as the founder of North
Walsham School, and whose effigy in armour is visible in North Walsham
Church, with a Latin epitaph recording acts of munificence on his part,
not only to the grammar-school, but also to the cathedrals of Bath and
Norwich, to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and to the poor at
Yarmouth.
From Sir William the line descended through Christopher Paston (who, on
succeeding his father, was found to be an idiot, incapable of managing
his affairs), Sir Edmund and Sir William Paston, Baronet, to Sir Robert
Paston, who, in the reign of Charles II., was created, first Viscount
and afterwards Earl of Yarmouth. [Sidenote: The Earl of Yarmouth.] He is
described as a person of good learning, and a traveller who brought home
a number of curiosities collected in foreign countries. Before he was
raised to the peerage he sat in Parliament for Castle Rising. It was he
who, in the year 1664, was bold enough to propose to the House of
Commons the unprecedented grant of two and a half millions to the king
for a war against the Dutch.[27-2] This act not unnaturally brought him
into favour with the Court, and paved the way for his advancement.
Another incident in his life is too remarkable to be passed over. On the
9th of August 1676 he was waylaid while travelling in the night-time by
a band of ruffians, who shot five bullets into his coach, one of which
entered his body. The wound, however, was not mortal, and he lived six
years longer.
[Footnote 27-2: Clarendon’s _Life_, ii. 440.]
His relations with the Court were not altogether of good omen for his
family. We are told that he once entertained the king and queen, and the
king’s brother, James, Duke of York, with a number of the nobility, at
his family seat at Oxnead. His son, William, who became second Earl of
Yarmouth, married the Lady Charlotte Boyle, one of King Charles’s
natural daughters. This great alliance, and all the magnificence it
involved, was too much for his slender fortunes. Earl William was led
into a profuse expenditure which involved him in pecuniary difficulties.
He soon deeply encumbered his inheritance; the library and the
curiosities collected by his accomplished father had to be sold. The
magnificent seat at Oxnead was allowed to fall into ruin; and on the
death of this second earl it was pulled down, and the materials turned
into money to satisfy his creditors. The family line itself came to an
end, for Earl William had survived all his male issue, and the title
became extinct.
From this brief summary of the family history we must now turn to a more
specific account of William Paston, the old judge in the days of Henry
VI., and of his children. [Sidenote: Thrifty ancestors.] Of them, and of
their more immediate ancestor Clement, we have a description drawn by an
unfriendly hand some time after the judge’s death; and as it is,
notwithstanding its bias, our sole authority for some facts which should
engage our attention at the outset, we cannot do better than quote the
paper at length:--
‘_A remembrance of the worshipful kin and ancestry of Paston, born
in Paston in Gemyngham Soken._
‘First, There was one Clement Paston dwelling in Paston, and he was
a good, plain husband (_i.e._ husbandman), and lived upon his land
that he had in Paston, and kept thereon a plough all times in the
year, and sometimes in barlysell two ploughs. The said Clement yede
(_i.e._ went) at one plough both winter and summer, and he rode to
mill on the bare horseback with his corn under him, and brought home
meal again under him, and also drove his cart with divers corns to
Wynterton to sell, as a good husband[man] ought to do. Also, he had
in Paston a five score or a six score acres of land at the most, and
much thereof bond land to Gemyngham Hall, with a little poor
water-mill running by a little river there, as it appeareth there of
old time. Other livelode nor manors had he none there, nor in none
other place.
‘And he wedded Geoffrey of Somerton (whose true surname is Goneld)’s
sister, which was a bondwoman, to whom it is not unknown (to the
prior of Bromholm and Bakton also, as it is said) if that men will
inquire.
‘And as for Geoffrey Somerton, he was bond also, to whom, etc., he
was both a pardoner and an attorney; and then was a good world, for
he gathered many pence and half-pence, and therewith he made a fair
chapel at Somerton, as it appeareth, etc.
‘Also, the said Clement had a son William, which that he set to
school, and often he borrowed money to find him to school; and after
that he yede (went) to court with the help of Geoffrey Somerton, his
uncle, and learned the law, and there begat he much good; and then
he was made a serjeant, and afterwards made a justice, and a right
cunning man in the law. And he purchased much land in Paston, and
also he purchased the moiety of the fifth part of the manor of
Bakton, called either Latymer’s, or Styward’s, or Huntingfield,
which moiety stretched into Paston; and so with it, and with another
part of the said five parts he hath seignory in Paston, but no manor
place; and thereby would John Paston, son to the said William, make
himself a lordship there, to the Duke (qu. Duchy?) of Lancaster’s
great hurt.
‘And the said John would and hath untruly increased him by one
tenant, as where that the prior of Bromholm borrowed money of the
said William for to pay withal his dismes, the said William would
not lend it him unless the said prior would mortgage to the said
William one John Albon, the said prior’s bondsman, dwelling in
Paston, which was a stiff churl and a thrifty man, and would not
obey him unto the said William; and for that cause, and for evil
will that the said William had unto him, he desired him of the
prior. And now after the death of the said William, the said John
Albon died; and now John Paston, son to the said William, by force
of the mortgage sent for the son of the said John Albon to Norwich.’
The reader will probably be of opinion that several of the facts here
recorded are by no means so discreditable to the Pastons as the writer
certainly intended that they should appear. The object of the whole
paper is to cast a stigma on the family in general, as a crafty,
money-getting race who had risen above their natural rank and station.
It is insinuated that they were originally mere _adscripti glebæ_; that
Clement Paston was only a thrifty husbandman (note the original
signification of the word, ‘housebondman’), that he married a bondwoman,
and transmitted to his son and grandson lands held by a servile tenure;
and the writer further contends that they had no manorial rights in
Paston, although William Paston, the justice, had purchased land in the
neighbourhood, and his son John was endeavouring to ‘make himself a
lordship’ there to the prejudice of the rights of the Duchy of
Lancaster. It is altogether a singular statement, very interesting in
its bearing upon the obscure question of the origin of copyholds, and
the gradual emancipation of villeins. Whether it be true or false is
another question; if true, it appears to discredit entirely the supposed
Norman ancestry of the Pastons; but the remarkable thing is that an
imputation of this kind could have been preferred against a family who,
whatever may have been their origin, had certainly long before obtained
a recognised position in the county.
It would appear, however, from the accuser’s own statement, that Clement
Paston, the father of the justice, was an industrious peasant, who
tilled his own land, and who set so high a value on a good education
that he borrowed money to keep his son at school. With the help of his
brother-in-law, he also sent the young man to London to learn the law,
a profession which in that day, as in the present, was considered to
afford an excellent education for a gentleman.[30-1] The good education
was not thrown away. [Sidenote: William Paston the justice.] William
Paston rose in the profession and became one of its ornaments. He
improved his fortunes by marrying Agnes, daughter and heiress of Sir
Edmund Berry of Harlingbury Hall, in Hertfordshire. Some years before
his father’s death, Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich, appointed him
his steward. In 1414 he was called in, along with two others, to
mediate in a dispute which had for some time prevailed in the city of
Norwich, as to the mode in which the mayors should be elected; and
he had the good fortune with his coadjutors to adjust the matter
satisfactorily.[30-2] In 1421 he was made a serjeant, and in 1429 a
judge of the Common Pleas.[30-3] Before that time we find him acting
as trustee for various properties, as of the Appleyard family in
Dunston,[30-4] of Sir Richard Carbonel,[30-5] Sir Simon Felbrigg,[30-6]
John Berney,[31-1] Sir John Rothenhale,[31-2] Sir John Gyney of
Dilham,[31-3] Lord Cobham,[31-4] and Ralph Lord Cromwell.[31-5] He was
also executor to Sir William Calthorp.[31-6] The confidence reposed in
him by so many different persons is a remarkable testimony to the esteem
in which he was held. He was, moreover, appointed one of the king’s
council for the duchy of Lancaster, and on his elevation to the judicial
bench the king gave him a salary of 110 marks (£73, 6s. 8d.), with two
robes more than the ordinary allowance of the judges.
[Footnote 30-1: ‘Here everything good and virtuous is to be
learned; all vice is discouraged and banished. So that knights,
barons, and the greatest nobility of the kingdom, often place
their children in those Inns of Court; not so much to make the law
their study, much less to live by the profession (having large
patrimonies of their own), but to form their manners, and to
preserve them from the contagion of vice.’--_Fortescue de Laudibus
Legum Angliæ_ (ed. Amos), 185.]
[Footnote 30-2: Blomefield’s _Norfolk_, iii. 126.]
[Footnote 30-3: Dugdale’s _Origines_.]
[Footnote 30-4: Blomefield, v. 56.]
[Footnote 30-5: _Ibid._ ii. 257, 285; vii. 217.]
[Footnote 30-6: _Ibid._ viii. 109.]
[Footnote 31-1: Blomefield, x. 67.]
[Footnote 31-2: _See_ Letter 13.]
[Footnote 31-3: Blomefield, vi. 353.]
[Footnote 31-4: _Ibid._ x. 176.]
[Footnote 31-5: _Ibid._ v. 27.]
[Footnote 31-6: _Ibid._ vi. 517.]
In addition to all this he is supposed to have been a knight, and is
called Sir William Paston in Fenn’s publication. But this dignity was
never conferred upon him in his own day. [Sidenote: Not a knight.] There
is, indeed, one paper printed by Fenn from the MSS. which were for a
long time missing that speaks of him in the heading as ‘Sir William
Paston, Knight’; but the original MS. since recovered shows that the
heading so printed is taken from an endorsement of a more modern date.
This was, indeed, a confident surmise of mine at a time when the MS. was
inaccessible; for it was clear that William Paston never could have been
knighted. His name occurs over and over again on the patent rolls of
Henry VI. He is named in at least one commission of the peace every year
to his death, and in a good many other commissions besides, as justices
invariably were. He is named also in many of the other papers of the
same collection, simply as William Paston of Paston, Esquire; and even
in the body of the petition so inaccurately headed, he is simply styled
William Paston, one of the justices. Nor does there appear to be any
other foundation for the error than that single endorsement. He left a
name behind him of so great repute, that Fuller could not help giving
him a place among his ‘Worthies of England,’ although, as he remarks, it
did not fall strictly within the plan of his work to notice a lawyer who
was neither a chief justice nor an author.
[Sidenote: His character.] Of his personal character we are entitled to
form a favourable estimate, not only from the honourable name conferred
on him as a judge, but also from the evidences already alluded to of the
general confidence felt in his integrity. True it is that among these
papers we have a complaint against him for accepting fees and pensions
when he was justice, from various persons in the counties of Norfolk and
Suffolk;[32-1] but this only proves, what we might have expected, that
he had enemies and cavillers as well as friends. Of the justice of the
charges in themselves we have no means of forming an independent
judgment; but in days when all England, and not least so the county of
Norfolk, was full of party spirit and contention, it was not likely that
a man in the position of William Paston should escape imputations of
partiality and one-sidedness. Before his elevation to the bench, he had
already suffered for doing his duty to more than one client. Having
defended the Prior of Norwich in an action brought against him by a
certain Walter Aslak, touching the advowson of the church of Sprouston,
the latter appears to have pursued him with unrelenting hatred. The
county of Norfolk was at the time ringing with the news of an outrage
committed by a band of unknown rioters at Wighton. On the last day of
the year 1423, one John Grys of Wighton had been entertaining company,
and was heated with ‘wassail,’ when he was suddenly attacked in his own
house. [Sidenote: Outrage by William Aslak.] He and his son and a
servant were carried a mile from home and led to a pair of gallows,
where it was intended to hang them; but as ropes were not at once to be
had, they were murdered in another fashion, and their bodies horribly
mutilated before death.[32-2] For nearly three years the murderers went
unpunished, while the country stood aghast at the crime. But while it
was still recent, at a county court holden at Norwich, Aslak caused a
number of bills, partly in rhyme, to be posted on the gates of Norwich
priory, and of the Grey Friars, and some of the city gates, distinctly
threatening William Paston with the fate of John Grys, and insinuating
that even worse things were in store for him.
[Footnote 32-1: No. 25.]
[Footnote 32-2: _See_ No. 6. Compare J. Amundesham Annales, 16. In
the latter Grys’s Christian name is given as William, and the
outrage is said to have taken place on Christmas Day instead of
New Year’s Eve.]
Against open threats like these William Paston of course appealed to the
law; but law in those days was but a feeble protector. Aslak had the
powerful support of Sir Thomas Erpingham, by which he was enabled not
only to evade the execution of sentence passed against him, but even to
continue his persecution. He found means to deprive Paston of the favour
of the Duke of Norfolk, got bills introduced in Parliament to his
prejudice, and made it unsafe for him to stir abroad. The whole country
appears to have been disorganised by faction; quarrels at that very time
were rife in the king’s council-chamber itself, between Humphrey, Duke
of Gloucester, the Protector, and Bishop Beaufort; nor was anything so
firmly established by authority but that hopes might be entertained of
setting it aside by favour.
William Paston had two other enemies at this time. ‘I pray the Holy
Trinity,’ he writes in one place, ‘deliver me of my three adversaries,
this cursed Bishop for Bromholm, Aslak for Sprouston, and Julian Herberd
for Thornham.’ The bishop whom he mentions with so much vehemence,
claimed to be a kinsman of his own, and named himself John Paston, but
William Paston denied the relationship, maintaining that his true name
was John Wortes. [Sidenote: John Wortes.] He appears to have been in the
first place a monk of Bromholm, the prior of which monastery having
brought an action against him as an apostate from his order, engaged
William Paston as his counsel in the prosecution. Wortes, however,
escaped abroad, and brought the matter before the spiritual jurisdiction
of the court of Rome, bringing actions against both the prior and
William Paston, the latter of whom he got condemned in a penalty of
£205. On this William Paston was advised by friends at Rome to come at
once to an arrangement with him; but he determined to contest the
validity of the sentence, the result of which appears to have been that
he was excommunicated. His adversary, meanwhile, found interest to get
himself appointed and consecrated Bishop of Cork; and though his name
does not appear in the ordinary lists of bishops of that see, the
Vatican archives show that he was provided to it on the 23rd May
1425.[34-1]
[Footnote 34-1: Nos. 10, 11, 12. Maziere Brady in his book on the
_Episcopal Succession_, vol. ii. p. 79, gives the following entry
from the archives of the Vatican:--
‘Die 10{o} kal. Junii 1425, provisum est ecclesiæ Corcagen. in
Hibernia, vacanti per mortem Milis (_Milonis_), de persona Ven.
Fratris Johannis Pasten, prioris conventualis Prioratus Bromholm,
Ordinis Cluniacensis.’--_Vatican_.
Also on Sept. 14, 1425, ‘Johannes Paston, Dei gratia electus
Korkagen, solvit personaliter 120 florenos auri,’ etc.
--_Obligazioni_.]
[[Fratris Johannis Pasten ... Ordinis Cluniacensis.’
_text reads ‘Fratis ... Chuniacensis’_]]
As for Julian Herberd, William Paston’s third enemy, we have hitherto
known nothing of her but the name. It appears, however, by some Chancery
proceedings[34-2] recently discovered, that Julian Herberd was a widow
who considered herself to have been wronged by Paston as regards her
mother’s inheritance, of which he had kept her from the full use for no
less than forty years. Paston had, indeed, made her some pecuniary
offers which she did not think sufficient, and she had attempted to
pursue her rights against him at a Parliament at Westminster, when he
caused her to be imprisoned in the King’s Bench. There, as she
grievously complains, she lay a year, suffering much and ‘nigh dead from
cold, hunger, and thirst.’ The case was apparently one of parliamentary
privilege, which she had violated by her attempted action, though she
adds that he threatened to keep her in prison for life if she would not
release to him her right, and give him a full acquittance. She also
accuses him of having actually procured one from her by coercion, and of
having by false suggestion to the Lord Chancellor caused her committal
to the Fleet, where she was kept for a whole year, ‘beaten, fettered,
and stocked,’ that no man might know where she was. At another time,
also, she says he kept her three years in the pit within Norwich Castle
on starvation diet. The accusation culminates in a charge which seems
really inconceivable:--
‘Item, the said Paston did bring her out of the Round House into
your Palace and brought her afore your Chief Justice, and then the
said Paston commanded certain persons to bring her to prison to your
Bench, and bade at his peril certain persons to smite the brain out
of her head for suing of her right; and there being in grievous
prison during half year and more, fettered and chained, suffering
cold, hunger, thirst, in point of death, God and ye, gracious King,
help her to her right.’
[Footnote 34-2: Printed in Appendix to this introduction.]
What we are to think of all this, not having Paston’s reply, I cannot
say.
Scanty and disconnected as are the notices we possess of William Paston,
we must not pass by without comment his letter to the vicar of the abbot
of Clugny, in behalf of Bromholm Priory.[35-1] It was not, indeed, the
only occasion[35-2] on which we find that he exerted himself in behalf
of this ancient monastery, within a mile of which, he tells us, he was
born. [Sidenote: Bromholm Priory.] Bromholm Priory was, in fact, about
that distance from Paston Hall, as miles were reckoned then (though it
is nearer two of our statute miles), and must have been regarded with
special interest by the family. It was there that John Paston, the son
of the judge, was sumptuously buried in the reign of Edward IV. It was a
monastery of some celebrity. Though not, at least in its latter days,
one of the most wealthy religious houses, for it fell among the smaller
monasteries at the first parliamentary suppression of Henry VIII., its
ruins still attest that it was by no means insignificant. Situated by
the sea-shore, with a flat, unbroken country round about, they are
conspicuous from a distance both by sea and land. Among the numerous
monasteries of Norfolk, none but Walsingham was more visited by
strangers, and many of the pilgrims to Walsingham turned aside on their
way homeward to visit the Rood of Bromholm. For this was a very special
treasure brought from Constantinople two hundred years before, and
composed of a portion of the wood of the true Cross. Many were the
miracles recorded to have been wrought in the monastery since that
precious relic was set up; the blind had received their sight, the lame
had walked, and lepers had been cleansed; even the dead had been
restored to life. It was impossible that a native of Paston could be
uninterested in a place so renowned throughout all England.
[Footnote 35-1: No. 20.]
[Footnote 35-2: _See_ No. 47, p. 56.]
Yet about this time the priory must have been less prosperous than it
had once been. Its government and constitution were in a transition
state. It was one of the twenty-eight monasteries in England which
belonged to the Cluniac order, and were originally subject to the
visitation of the Abbot of Clugny in France. Subjection to a foreign
head did not tend at any time to make them popular in this country, and
in the reign of Henry V. that connection was suddenly broken off. An act
was passed suppressing at once all the alien priories, or religious
houses that acknowledged foreign superiors. The priors of several of the
Cluniac monasteries took out new foundation charters, and attached
themselves to other orders. Those that continued signed deeds of
surrender, and their monasteries were taken into the king’s hands. About
nine or ten years later, however, it would seem that a vicar of the
Abbot of Clugny was allowed to visit England, and to him William Paston
made an appeal to profess in due form a number of virtuous young men who
had joined the priory in the interval.
[Sidenote: Land purchased by Judge Paston.] From the statement already
quoted as to the history of the Paston family, it appears that William
Paston purchased a good deal of land in Paston besides what had
originally belonged to them. It was evidently his intention to make a
family residence, and transmit to his sons a more absolute ownership in
the land from which they derived their name. Much of his father’s land
in Paston had been copyhold belonging to the manor of Gimingham Hall;
but William Paston bought ‘a moiety of the fifth part’ of the adjacent
manor of Bacton, with free land extending into Paston. He thus
established himself as undoubted lord of the greater part of the soil,
and must have felt a pardonable pride in the improved position he
thereby bequeathed to his descendants. At Paston he apparently
contemplated building a manor house; for he made inquiry about getting
stone from Yorkshire conveyed by sea to Mundesley, where there was then
a small harbour[36-1] within two miles of Paston village. To carry out
the improvements [Sidenote: Highways diverted.] he proposed to make
there and on other parts of his property, he obtained licence from the
king a year before his death to divert two public highways, the one at
Paston and the other at Oxnead, a little from their course.[36-2] The
alterations do not appear to have been of a nature that any one had a
right to complain of. Full inquiry was made beforehand by an inquisition
_ad quod damnum_[37-1] whether they would be to the prejudice of
neighbours. At Paston the extent of roadway which he obtained leave to
enclose was only thirty-two and a half perches in length by one perch in
breadth. It ran on the south side of his mansion, and he agreed to make
a new highway of the same dimensions on the north side. The vicar of
Paston seems to have been the neighbour principally concerned in the
course that the new thoroughfare was to take, and all particulars had
been arranged with him a few months before William Paston died.
[Footnote 36-1: No. 7.]
[Footnote 36-2: Patent 6th July, 21 Henry VI., p. 1, m. 10.]
[Footnote 37-1: _Inquis. a. q. d._ (arranged with _Inquisitions
post-mortem_), 21 Henry VI., No. 53.]
[Sidenote: John Paston has disputes with his neighbours.] But it would
seem upon the judge’s death his great designs were for some time
interrupted. The family were looked upon by many as upstarts, and young
John Paston, who was only four-and-twenty, though bred to the law like
his father, could not expect to possess the same weight and influence
with his neighbours. A claim was revived by the lord of Gimingham Hall
to a rent of eight shillings from one of Paston’s tenants, which had
never been demanded so long as the judge was alive. The vicar of Paston
pulled up the ‘doles’ which were set to mark the new highway, and
various other disturbances were committed by the neighbours. It seems to
have required all the energies not only of John Paston upon the spot,
but also of his brother Edmund, who was in London at Clifford’s Inn, to
secure the rights of the family; insomuch that their mother, in writing
to the latter of the opposition to which they had been exposed,
expresses a fear lest she should make him weary of Paston.[37-2] And,
indeed, if Edmund Paston was not weary of the dispute, his mother
herself had cause to be; for it not only lasted years after this, but
for some years after Edmund Paston was dead the stopping of the king’s
highway was a fruitful theme of remonstrance. When Agnes Paston built a
wall it was thrown down before it was half completed; threats of heavy
amercements were addressed to her in church, and the men of Paston spoke
of showing their displeasure when they went in public procession on St.
Mark’s day.[37-3]
[Footnote 37-2: Letter 62.]
[Footnote 37-3: Nos. 194, 195, 196.]
[Sidenote: Oxnead.] The Manor of Oxnead, which in later times became the
principal seat of the family, was also among the possessions purchased
by Judge Paston. He bought it of William Clopton of Long Melford, and
settled it upon Agnes, his wife. But after his death her right to it was
disputed. It had formerly belonged to a family of the name of Hauteyn,
and there suddenly started up a claimant in the person of one John
Hauteyn, whose right to hold property of any kind was [Sidenote: John
Hauteyn.] supposed to have been entirely annulled by the fact of his
having entered the Order of Carmelite Friars. It seems, however, he had
succeeded in getting from the Pope a dispensation to renounce the Order
on the plea that he had been forced into it against his will when he was
under age, and being thus restored by the ecclesiastical power to the
condition of a layman, he next appealed to the civil courts to get back
his inheritance. This danger must have been seen by William Paston
before his death, and a paper was drawn up (No. 46) to show that Hauteyn
had been released from his vows on false pretences. Nevertheless he
pursued his claim at law, and although he complained of the difficulty
of getting counsel (owing, as he himself intimated, to the respect in
which the bar held the memory of Judge Paston, and the fact that his son
John was one of their own members), he seems to have had hopes of
succeeding through the influence of the Duke of Suffolk. His suit,
however, had not been brought to a successful determination at the date
of Suffolk’s fall. It was still going on in the succeeding summer; but
as we hear no more of it after that, we may presume that the altered
state of the political world induced him to abandon it. According to
Blomefield, he and others of the Hauteyn family released their rights to
Agnes Paston ‘about 1449’; but this date is certainly at least a year
too early.[38-1]
[Footnote 38-1: Nos. 63, 87, 93, 128; Blomefield, vi. 479.]
William Paston also purchased various other lands in the county of
Norfolk.[38-2] Among others, he purchased from Thomas Chaucer, a son of
the famous poet, the manor of Gresham,[39-1] of which we shall have
something more to say a little later. We also find that in the fourth
year of Henry VI. he obtained, in conjunction with one Thomas Poye,
a grant of a market, fair and free-warren in his manor of Shipden which
had belonged to his father Clement before him.[39-2]
[Footnote 38-2: It would appear that he had also an estate at
Therfield, in Hertfordshire, as shown by an inscription in the
east window of the north aisle of the parish church, in which were
portraits of himself and his wife underwritten with the words,
_Orate pro animabus domini Willelmi Paston et Agnetis uxoris ejus,
benefactorum hujus ecclesiæ_ (Chauncey’s _Hertfordshire_, 88).]
[Footnote 39-1: Blomefield, viii. 127.]
[Footnote 39-2: _Patent Roll_, 4 Henry VI., p. 2, m. 13;
Blomefield, viii. 102. A further notice relating to Judge Paston
has been given me by Sir James Ramsay in the following
memorandum:--‘£432 for arrears of salary due to late William
Paston, paid to his executor, John Paston, from _parva custuma_ of
the port of London. L.T.R. Enrolled Customs Account of Henry VI.
(entry 8 Nov. 37 Hen. VI.--Mich. 38 Hen. VI.)’ in Public Record
Office. So the arrears of the judge’s salary were only paid in
1458, fourteen years after his death.]
[Sidenote: John Paston’s marriage.] The notices of John Paston begin
when he was on the eve of marrying, a few years before his father’s
death. The match was evidently one that was arranged by the parents,
after the fashion of the times. The lady was of a good family--daughter
and heiress of John Mauteby, Esq. of Mauteby in Norfolk. The friends on
both sides must have been satisfied that the union was a good one; for
it had the one great merit which was then considered everything--it was
no disparagement to the fortunes or the rank of either family. Beyond
this hard business view, indeed, might have been found better arguments
to recommend it; but English men and women in those days did not read
novels, and had no great notion of cultivating sentiment for its own
sake. Agnes Paston writes to her husband to intimate ‘the bringing home
of the gentlewoman from Reedham,’ according to the arrangement he had
made about it. It was, in her words, ‘the first acquaintance between
John Paston and the said gentlewoman’ (one would think Dame Agnes must
have learned from her husband to express herself with something of the
formality of a lawyer); and we are glad to find that the young lady’s
sense of propriety did not spoil her natural affability. ‘She made him
gentle cheer in gentle wise, and said he was verily your son; and so I
hope there shall need no great treaty between them.’ Finally the judge
is requested by his wife to buy a gown for his future daughter-in-law,
to which her mother would add a goodly fur. ‘The gown,’ says Dame Agnes,
‘needeth for to be had; and of colour it would be a goodly blue, or else
a bright sanguine.’[40-1]
[Footnote 40-1: No. 34.]
[Sidenote: Character of his wife.] ‘The gentlewoman’ thus introduced to
John Paston and the reader proved to the former a most devoted wife
during about six-and-twenty years of married life. Her letters to her
husband form no inconsiderable portion of the correspondence in these
volumes, and it is impossible to peruse them without being convinced
that the writer was a woman not only of great force of character, but of
truly affectionate nature. It is true the ordinary style of these
epistles is very different from that of wives addressing their husbands
nowadays. There are no conventional expressions of tenderness--the
conventionality of the age seems to have required not tenderness but
humility on the part of women towards the head of a family; the subjects
of the letters, too, are for the most part matters of pure business; yet
the genuine womanly nature is seen bursting out whenever there is
occasion to call it forth. Very early in the correspondence we meet with
a letter of hers (No. 47) which in itself is pretty sufficient evidence
that women, at least, were human in the fifteenth century. Her husband
was at the time in London just beginning to recover from an illness
which seems to have been occasioned by some injury he had met with. His
mother had vowed to give an image of wax the weight of himself to Our
Lady of Walsingham on his recovery, and Margaret to go on a pilgrimage
thither, and also to St. Leonard’s at Norwich. That she did not
undertake a journey of a hundred miles to do more efficient service was
certainly not owing to any want of will on her part. The difficulties of
travelling in those days, and the care of a young child, sufficiently
account for her remaining in Norfolk; but apparently even these
considerations would not have deterred her from the journey had she not
been dissuaded from it by others. ‘If I might have had my will,’ she
writes, ‘I should have seen you ere this time. I would ye were at home,
if it were for your ease (and your sore might be as well looked to here
as it is there ye be), now liever than a gown, though it were of
scarlet.’ Could the sincerity of a woman’s wishes be more artlessly
expressed?
Let not the reader suppose, however, that Margaret Paston’s acknowledged
love of a scarlet gown indicates anything like frivolity of character or
inordinate love of display. We have little reason to believe from her
correspondence that dress was a ruling passion. The chief aim
discernible in all she writes--the chief motive that influenced
everything she did--was simply the desire to give her husband
satisfaction. And her will to do him service was, in general, only
equalled by her ability. During term time, when John Paston was in
London, she was his agent at home. It was she who negotiated with
farmers, receiving overtures for leases and threats of lawsuits, and
reported to her husband everything that might affect his interests, with
the news of the country generally. Nor were threats always the worst
thing she had to encounter on his account. For even domestic life, in
those days, was not always exempt from violence; and there were at least
two occasions when Margaret had to endure, in her husband’s absence,
things that a woman ought to have been spared.
[Sidenote: The Manor of Gresham.] One of these occasions we proceed to
notice. The manor of Gresham, which William Paston had purchased from
the son of the poet Chaucer, had been in the days of Edward II. the
property of one Edmund Bacon, who obtained from that king a licence to
embattle the manor-house. It descended from him to his two daughters,
Margaret and Margery. The former became the wife of Sir William de
Kerdeston, and her rights were inherited by a daughter named Maud, who
married Sir John Burghersh.[41-1] This moiety came to Thomas Chaucer by
his marriage with Maud Burghersh, the daughter of the Maud just
mentioned. The other became at first the property of Sir William
Molynes, who married Bacon’s second daughter Margery. But this Margery
having survived her husband, made a settlement of it by will, according
to which the reversion of it after the decease of one Philip Vache and
of Elizabeth his wife, was to be sold; and William, son of Robert
Molynes, was to have the first option of purchase. This William Molynes
at first declined to buy it, being apparently in want of funds; but he
afterwards got one Thomas Fauconer, a London merchant, to advance the
purchase-money, on an agreement that his son should marry Fauconer’s
daughter. The marriage, however, never took effect; the Molynes family
lost all claim upon the manor, and the same Thomas Chaucer who acquired
the other moiety by his wife, purchased this moiety also, and conveyed
both to William Paston.[42-1]
[Footnote 41-1: _Inquisitions post-mortem_, 27 Edw. III., No. 28,
and 30 Edw. III., No. 42. Blomefield inaccurately makes Maud,
whom Sir John Burghersh married, the daughter of Edmond Bacon
instead of his granddaughter.--(_Hist. of Norf._ viii. 127.)]
[Footnote 42-1: No. 16. Blomefield gives a somewhat different
account, founded doubtless on documents to which I have not had
access. He says that Margery, widow of Sir William Molynes,
settled her portion of the manor on one Thomas de la Lynde, with
the consent of her son Sir William Molynes, who resigned all claim
to it.]
[[Footnote 41-1: _Inquisitions post-mortem_, 27 Edw. III.,
_comma after “III.” missing_]]
The whole manor of Gresham thus descended to John Paston, as his
father’s heir. But a few years after his father’s death he was troubled
in the possession of it by Robert Hungerford, son of Lord Hungerford,
who, having married Eleanor Molynes, a descendant of the Sir William
Molynes above referred to, had been raised to the peerage as Lord
Molynes,and laid claim to the whole inheritance of the [Sidenote:
Claimed by Lord Molynes.] Molynes family. He was still but a young
man,[42-2] heir-apparent to another barony; and, with the prospect of a
great inheritance both from his father and from his mother, who was the
daughter and sole heir of William Lord Botraux, he certainly had little
occasion to covet lands that were not his own. Nevertheless he listened
to the counsels of John Heydon of Baconsthorpe, a lawyer who had been
sheriff and also recorder of Norwich, and whom the gentry of Norfolk
looked upon with anything but goodwill, regarding him as the ready tool
of every powerful oppressor. His chief patron, with whom his name was
constantly coupled, was Sir Thomas Tuddenham; and the two together,
especially during the unpopular ministry of the Duke of Suffolk,
exercised an ascendency in the county, of which we hear very numerous
complaints. Heydon persuaded Lord Molynes that he had a good claim to
the manor of Gresham; and Lord Molynes, without more ado, went in and
took possession on the 17th of February 1448.[43-1]
[Footnote 42-2: According to the inquisition taken on his father’s
death (_Inq. p. m._, 37 Hen. VI., No. 17), he was over thirty in
June 1459. If we are to understand that he was then only in his
thirty-first year, he could not have been twenty when he first
dispossessed John Paston of Gresham. But ‘over thirty’ may perhaps
mean two or three years over.]
[Footnote 43-1: No. 102.]
To recover his rights against a powerful young nobleman connected with
various wealthy and influential families required, as John Paston knew,
the exercise of great discretion. Instead of resorting at once to an
action at law, he made representations to Lord Molynes and his legal
advisers to show how indefensible was the title they had set up for him.
He secured some attention for his remonstrances by the intercession of
Waynflete, bishop of Winchester.[43-2] Conferences took place between
the counsel of both parties during the following summer, and the
weakness of Lord Molynes’ case was practically confessed by his
solicitors, who in the end told Paston to apply to his lordship
personally. Paston accordingly, at no small expense to himself, went and
waited upon him at Salisbury and elsewhere, but was continually put off.
At last, on the 6th of October, not, as I believe, the same year, but
the year following, he succeeded in doing to Lord Molynes to some extent
what Lord Molynes had already done to him. He took possession of ‘a
mansion within the said town,’ and occupied it himself, having doubtless
a sufficiency of servants to guard against any sudden surprise. After
this fashion he maintained his rights for a period of over three months.
The usual residence of Lord Molynes was in Wiltshire, and his agents
probably did not like the responsibility of attempting to remove John
Paston without express orders from their master. But on the 28th of
January 1450, while John Paston was away in London on business, there
came before the mansion at Gresham a company of a thousand persons, sent
to recover possession for Lord Molynes. They were armed with cuirasses
and brigandines, with guns, bows, and arrows, and with every kind of
offensive and defensive armour. They had also mining instruments, long
poles with hooks, called cromes, used for pulling down houses, ladders,
pickaxes, and pans with fire burning in them. With these formidable
implements they beset the house, at that time occupied only by Margaret
Paston and twelve other persons; and having broken open the outer gates,
they set to work undermining the very chamber in which Margaret was.
Resistance under the circumstances was impossible. Margaret was forcibly
carried out. The house was then thoroughly rifled of all that it
contained--property estimated by John Paston at £200[44-1]--the
doorposts were cut asunder, and the place was left little better than a
ruin. Further, that there might be no mistake about the spirit in which
the outrage was perpetrated, the rioters declared openly, that if they
had found John Paston, or his friend John Damme, who had aided him with
his counsel about these matters, neither of them should have escaped
alive.[44-2]
[Footnote 43-2: No. 79.]
[Footnote 44-1: A value probably equal to about £3000 of our
money.]
[Footnote 44-2: Nos. 102, 135.]
John Paston drew up a petition for redress to Parliament, and another to
the Lord Chancellor; but it was some months before his case could be
attended to, for that year was one of confusion and disorder
unparalleled. It was that year, in fact, which may be said to have
witnessed the first outbreak of a long, intermittent civil war. History
has not passed over in silence the troubles of 1450. [Sidenote: Troubled
times, A.D. 1450.] The rebellion of Jack Cade, and the murder of two
bishops in different parts of the country, were facts which no historian
could treat as wholly insignificant. Many writers have even repeated the
old slander, which there seems no good reason to believe, that Jack
Cade’s insurrection was promoted by the intrigues of the Duke of York;
but no one appears to me to have realised the precise nature of the
crisis that necessarily followed the removal of the Duke of Suffolk. And
as we have now arrived at the point where the Paston Letters begin to
have a most direct bearing on English history, we must endeavour in a
few words of historical retrospect to make the matter as clear as
possible.
_The Duke of Suffolk_
[Sidenote: Fall of the Duke of Suffolk.] As to the causes of Suffolk’s
fall we are not left in ignorance. Not only do we possess the full text
of the long indictment drawn up against him this year in Parliament, but
a number of political ballads and satires, in which he is continually
spoken of by the name of Jack Napes, help us to realise the feeling with
which he was generally regarded. Of his real merits as a statesman, it
is hard to pronounce an opinion; for though, obviously enough, his whole
policy was a failure, he himself seems to have been aware from the first
that it was not likely to be popular. Two great difficulties he had to
contend with, each sufficient to give serious anxiety to any minister
whatever: the first being the utter weakness of the king’s character;
the second, the practical impossibility of maintaining the English
conquests in France. To secure both himself and the nation against the
uncertainties which might arise from the vacillating counsels of one who
seems hardly ever to have been able to judge for himself in State
affairs, he may have thought it politic to ally the king with a woman of
stronger will than his own. At all events, if this was his intention, he
certainly achieved it. The marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou was
his work; and from Margaret he afterwards obtained a protection which he
would certainly not have received from her well-intentioned but
feeble-minded husband.
[Sidenote: The king’s marriage.] This marriage undoubtedly recommended
itself to Henry himself as a great means of promoting peace with France.
The pious, humane, and Christian character of the king disposed him
favourably towards all pacific counsels, and gave him a high opinion of
the statesman whose policy most obviously had in view the termination of
the disastrous war between France and England. King René, the father of
Margaret of Anjou, was the brother of the French king’s consort; so it
was conceived that by his and Margaret’s intercession a permanent peace
might be obtained, honourable to both countries. For this end, Henry was
willing to relinquish his barren title to the kingdom of France, if he
could have been secured in the possession of those lands only, such as
Guienne and Normandy, which he held irrespective of that title.[45-1] He
was willing to relinquish even the duchies of Anjou and Maine, King
René’s patrimony, though the latter had long been in the possession of
the English. It was of course out of the question that Henry should
continue to keep the father of his bride by force out of his own lands.
Suffolk therefore promised to give them up to the French king, for the
use of René and his brother, Charles of Anjou; so that instead of the
former giving his daughter a dower, England was called upon to part with
some of her conquests. But how would the English nation reconcile itself
to such a condition? Suffolk knew well he was treading in a dangerous
path, and took every possible precaution to secure himself. He pleaded
beforehand his own incompetency for the charge that was committed to
him. He urged that his familiarity with the Duke of Orleans and other
French prisoners lately detained in England brought him under suspicion
at home, and rendered him a less fitting ambassador for arranging
matters with France. Finally he obtained from the King and Council an
instrument under the Great Seal, pardoning him beforehand any error of
judgment he might possibly commit in conducting so critical a
negotiation.[46-1]
[Footnote 45-1: Stevenson’s _Wars of the English in France_, i.
132.]
[Footnote 46-1: Rymer, xi. 53.]
His success, if judged by the immediate result, seemed to show that so
much diffidence was unnecessary. The people at large rejoiced in the
marriage of their king; the bride, if poor, was beautiful and
attractive; the negotiator received the thanks of Parliament,
and there was not a man in all the kingdom,--at least in all the
legislature--durst wag his tongue in censure. The Duke of Gloucester,
his chief rival and opponent in the senate, was the first to rise from
his seat and recommend Suffolk, for his services, to the favour of the
Crown.[46-2] If he had really committed any mistakes, they were as yet
unknown, or at all events uncriticised. Even the cession of Maine and
Anjou at this time does not seem to have been spoken of.
[Footnote 46-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 73. That Gloucester secretly
disliked Suffolk’s policy, and thought the peace with France too
dearly bought, is more than probable. At the reception of the
French ambassadors in 1445, we learn from their report that Henry
looked exceedingly pleased, especially when his uncle the French
king was mentioned. ‘And on his left hand were my Lord of
Gloucester, at whom he looked at the time, and then he turned
round to the right to the chancellor, and the Earl of Suffolk, and
the Cardinal of York, who were there, smiling to them, and it was
very obvious that he made some signal. And it was afterwards
mentioned by-------- (_blank in orig._), that he pressed his
Chancellor’s hand and said to him in English, “I am very much
rejoiced that some who are present should hear these words. They
are not at their ease.”’--Stevenson’s _Wars of the English in
France_, i. 110-11.]
Happy in the confidence of his sovereign, Suffolk was promoted to more
distinguished honour. From an earl he was raised to the dignity of a
marquis; from a marquisate, a few years later, to a dukedom. He had
already supplanted older statesmen with far greater advantages of birth
and pre-eminence of rank. [Sidenote: Suffolk’s ascendency.] The two
great rivals, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Cardinal Beaufort, were
both eclipsed, and both died, within six weeks of each other, two years
after the king’s marriage, leaving Suffolk the only minister of mark.
But his position was not improved by this undisputed ascendency.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1447.] The death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
aroused suspicions in the public mind that were perhaps due merely to
time and circumstance. Duke Humphrey, with many defects in his
character, had always been a popular favourite, and just before his
death he had been arrested on a charge of treason. That he could not
possibly have remained quiet under the new _régime_ is a fact that we
might presume as a matter of course, but there is no clear evidence that
he was guilty of intrigue or conspiracy. The king, indeed, appears to
have thought he was so, but his opinions were formed by those of Suffolk
and the Queen; and both Suffolk and the Queen were such enemies of Duke
Humphrey, that they were vehemently suspected of having procured his
death.[47-1]
[Footnote 47-1: An interesting and valuable account of the death
of Duke Humphrey, from original sources, will be found in _The
Hall of Lawford Hall_, pp. 104-13.]
Complaints against the minister now began to be made more openly, and
his conduct touching the surrender of Anjou and Maine was so generally
censured, that he petitioned the king that a day might be appointed on
which he should have an opportunity of clearing himself before the
Council. On the 25th of May 1447 his wish was granted, and in the
presence of a full Council, including the Duke of York, and others who
might have been expected to be no very favourable critics, he gave a
detailed account of all that he had done. How far he made a really
favourable impression upon his hearers we do not know; but in the end he
was declared to have vindicated his integrity, and a proclamation was
issued forbidding the circulation of such slanders against him in
future, under penalty of the king’s displeasure.[48-1]
[Footnote 48-1: Rymer, xi. 173.]
The nature of the defence that he set up can only be a matter of
speculation; but it may be observed that as yet no formal delivery of
Anjou or Maine had really taken place at all. The former province,
though it had been before this overrun and laid waste by the English,
does not appear ever to have been permanently occupied by them. Delivery
of Anjou would therefore have been an idle form; all that was required
was that the English should forbear to invade it. But with Maine the
case was different. It had been for a long time in the hands of the
English, and pledges had certainly been given for its delivery by
Suffolk and by Henry himself in December 1445.[48-2] As yet, however,
nothing had been concluded by way of positive treaty. No definite peace
had been made with France. Difficulties had always started up in the
negotiations, and the ambassadors appointed on either side had been
unable to do more than prolong from time to time the existing truce,
leaving the matter in dispute to be adjusted at a personal interview
between the two kings, for which express provision was made at the time
of each new arrangement. But the personal interview never took place. In
August 1445 it was arranged for the following summer. In January 1446 it
was fixed to be before November. In February 1447 it was again to be in
the summer following. In July it was settled to be before May 1448; but
in October the time was again lengthened further.[48-3] There can be
little doubt that these perpetual delays were due merely to hesitation
on the part of England to carry out a policy to which she was already
pledged. Charles, of course, could not allow them to go on for ever. In
the treaty of July 1447, an express provision was for the first time
inserted, that the town and castle of Le Mans, and other places within
the county of Maine, should be delivered up to the French. It seems also
to have been privately arranged that this should be done before the 1st
of November; and that the further treaty made at Bourges on the 15th of
October should not be published until the surrender was
accomplished.[49-1] But the year 1447 had very nearly expired before
even the first steps were taken to give effect to this arrangement. At
length, on the 30th of December, an agreement was made by Matthew Gough,
who had the keeping of Le Mans, that the place should be surrendered by
the 15th of January, on receipt of letters patent from the King of
France, for compensation to be made to grantees of the English crown.
[Footnote 48-2: _See_ Stevenson’s _Wars of the English in France_,
ii. [639] to [642].]
[Footnote 48-3: Rymer, xi. 97, 108, 151, 182, 189, etc.]
[Footnote 49-1: Stevenson’s _Wars_, ii. [714, 715].]
Even this arrangement, however, was not adhered to. Matthew Gough still
found reasons for refusing or delaying the surrender, although the
English Government protested the sincerity of its intentions. But
Charles now began to take the matter into his own hands. [Sidenote:
Siege of Le Mans, A.D. 1448.] Count Dunois and others were sent to
besiege the place, with a force raised suddenly out of various towns;
for France had been carefully maturing, during those years of truce,
a system of conscription which was now becoming serviceable. At the first
rumour of these musters the English Government was alarmed, and Sir
Thomas Hoo, Lord Hastings, Henry’s Chancellor of France, wrote urgently
to Pierre de Brézé, seneschal of Poitou, who had been the chief
negotiator of the existing truce, deprecating the use of force against
a town which it was the full intention of his Government to yield up
honourably.[49-2] Such protests, however, availed nothing in the face
of the obvious fact that the surrender had not taken place at the time
agreed on. The French continued to muster forces. In great haste an
embassy was despatched from England, consisting of Adam de Moleyns,
Bishop of Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roos; but the conduct of the
garrison itself rendered further negotiation nugatory. By no means could
they be induced, even in obedience to their own king, to surrender the
city peacefully. Dunois and his army accordingly drew nearer. Three
sharp skirmishes took place before the siege could be formed; but at
length the garrison were fully closed in. All that they could now do was
to make a composition with the enemy; yet even this they would not have
attempted of themselves. The efforts of the English envoys, however,
secured for the besieged most favourable terms of surrender. Not only
were they permitted to march out with bag and baggage, but a sum of
money was delivered to each of the captains, by the French king’s
orders; with which, and a safe-conduct from Charles, they departed into
Normandy.[50-1]
[Footnote 49-2: Stevenson’s _Wars_, i. 198. _See_ also a letter of
the 18th Feb. 1448, of which an abstract is given in vol. ii. of
the same work, p. 576.]
[Footnote 50-1: _Chron. de Mat. de Coussy_ (in Buchon’s
collection), p. 34.]
It was on Friday, the 15th of March 1448, the day on which the truce
between the two countries was to have expired, that the brave Matthew
Gough, along with his colleague, Fulk Eton, formally delivered up to the
French, not only the town and castle of Le Mans, but also the whole
county of Maine except the lordship of Fresnay. [Sidenote: Its
surrender.] Standing on the outer bridge, they made a public protest
before their soldiers, and caused a notary to witness it by a formal
document, that what they did was only in obedience to their own king’s
commands, and that the king himself, in giving up possession of the
county of Maine, by no means parted with his sovereign rights therein;
that he only gave up actual possession in order that King René and his
brother, Charles of Anjou, might enjoy the fruits of their own lands,
and in the hope that a firm peace might be established between England
and France. Four days before this was done the truce had been prolonged
for two years more.[50-2]
[Footnote 50-2: Rymer, xi. 199, 204. Stevenson’s _Wars_, i. 207.]
The reluctant cession of such a valuable province as Maine boded ill for
the security of the neighbouring duchy of Normandy. The government of
Normandy was at this time committed to Edmund Beaufort, Marquis of
Dorset, who had just been created Duke of Somerset. His appointment to
the post had been due rather to favour than to merit. The Duke of York
was then Regent of France, and had given good proof of his competence to
take charge of the entire kingdom. But Somerset, who was head of the
house of Beaufort, nearly allied in blood to the Crown, and who had come
into possession of immense wealth by the death of his uncle, the
Cardinal of Winchester, had the ambition of an Englishman to show his
talent for governing. His influence with the king and Suffolk obtained
for him the government of Normandy; and that he might exercise it
undisturbed, York was recalled from France. The change was ill advised;
for the times demanded the best of generalship, and the utmost political
discretion. Somerset, though not without experience in war, had given no
evidence of the possession of such qualities; and they had been
notoriously wanting in his brother John, who was Duke of Somerset before
him, when his ambition, too, had been gratified by a command in France.
Duke John, we are told, absolutely refused to give any one his
confidence as to what he was going to do at any period of the campaign.
He used to say that if his shirt knew his plans he would burn it; and
so, with a great deal of manœuvring and mystery, he captured a small
place in Britanny called La Guerche, made a vain attempt to reduce
another fortress, and then returned to England.[51-1] It may have been
owing to public discontent at the small result of his great
preparations, that he was accused of treason on his return; when, unable
to endure so great a reproach, he was believed to have put an end to his
own life.[51-2]
[Footnote 51-1: Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII._ etc. i. 150-1.]
[Footnote 51-2: _Hist. Croylandensis Continuatio_ in Fulman’s
_Scriptores_, p. 519.]
With a full recollection of the indiscretions of his brother John, the
King’s Council must have hesitated to confide to Duke Edmund such an
important trust as the government of Normandy. They must have hesitated
all the more, as the appointment of Somerset involved the recall of the
Duke of York. And we are told that their acts at the time betrayed
symptoms of such irresolution; insomuch that one day a new governor of
Normandy was proclaimed at Rouen, and the next his commission was
revoked and another named in his stead.[51-3] But at last the influence
of Somerset prevailed. He was not, however, permitted to go abroad
without warning of the dangers against which he had to provide. The
veteran Sir John Fastolf drew up a paper for his guidance, pointing out
that it was now peculiarly important to strengthen the fortifications on
the new frontier, to protect the seaports, to preserve free
communication with England, and (what was quite as politic a suggestion
as any) to appoint a wise chancellor and a council for the impartial
administration of justice, so as to protect the inhabitants from
oppression.[52-1] From the comment made upon these suggestions, either
by Fastolf himself or by his secretary William Worcester, it would seem
that they were not acted upon; and to this cause he attributed the
disasters which soon followed in quick succession, and brought upon the
Duke of Somerset the indignation and contempt of a large number of his
countrymen. These feelings, probably, were not altogether just. The duke
had done good service before in France, and part of the blame of what
occurred may perhaps be attributed to divided management--more
especially to the unruly feelings of a number of the English soldiers.
[Footnote 51-3: Basin, i. 192.]
[Footnote 52-1: Stevenson’s _Wars_, ii. [592].]
The garrison which had been compelled against its will to give up Le
Mans found it hard to obtain quarters in Normandy. It was doubtful
whether they were not labouring under their own king’s displeasure, and
the captains of fortified towns were afraid to take them in. At last
they took possession of Pontorson and St. James de Beuvron, two towns
situated near the confines of Britanny which had been laid waste during
the previous wars and had since been abandoned. They began to victual
and fortify themselves in these positions, to the alarm of their
neighbours, until the Duke of Britanny felt it necessary to complain to
the Duke of Somerset, requesting that they might be dislodged. Somerset,
in reply, promised to caution them not to do anything in violation of
the truce, but declined to bid them evacuate their positions. Diplomatic
intercourse went on between one side and the other, always in the most
courteous terms, but every day it was becoming more apparent that all
confidence was gone.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1449.] At last, in March 1449, the English justified the
suspicions that had long been entertained of them. A detachment of about
600 men, under François de Surienne, popularly named L’Arragonois,
a leader in the pay of England,[53-1] who had, not long before, been
knighted by Henry, crossed the frontier southwards into Britanny,
[Sidenote: Capture of Fougères.] took by assault the town and castle of
Fougères, and made dreadful havoc and slaughter among the unsuspecting
inhabitants. The place was full of wealthy merchants, for it was the
centre of a considerable woollen manufacture, and the booty found in it
was estimated at no less than two millions of gold.[53-2] Such a prize
in legitimate warfare would undoubtedly have been well worth the taking;
but under the actual circumstances the deed was a glaring, perfidious
violation of the truce. Somerset had been only a few days before
protesting to the King of France that, even if all his towns were open
and undefended, they would be perfectly secure from any assault by the
English;[53-3] yet here was a town belonging to the Duke of Britanny,
a vassal of the King of France who had been expressly included in the
truce, assaulted and taken by fraud. Somerset disavowed the deed, but
refused to make restitution. He professed to write to the king for
instructions how to act; but he utterly destroyed his flimsy pretence of
neutrality by writing to the King of France, desiring him not to give
assistance to the Duke of Britanny.[53-4]
[Footnote 53-1: Stevenson’s _Wars_, i. 473; ii. 573.]
[Footnote 53-2: Stevenson’s _Reductio Normanniæ_, 406.]
[Footnote 53-3: _Ibid._ 402.]
[Footnote 53-4: _Ibid._ 406.]
The truth is that the expedition had been fully authorised, not only by
Somerset in Normandy, but by the king and the Duke of Suffolk in
England. It was suggested to L’Arragonois when he was in England by
Suffolk himself, who assured him that he would do the king a most
excellent service by taking a place of so much consequence. He was
further given to understand that he incurred no danger or
responsibility; for even if he were besieged by the Duke of Britanny,
ample succours would be despatched to relieve him. Unfortunately, during
the next few months, the English had too much to do to keep their word,
and L’Arragonois was compelled to surrender the place again to the Duke
of Britanny after a five weeks’ siege. Feeling himself then absolved
from every engagement to England, he next year sent back the Order of
the Garter to Henry, declaring himself from that time a subject of his
natural lord the King of Arragon, in whose country he proposed to spend
the remainder of his days.[54-1]
[Footnote 54-1: Stevenson’s _Wars_, i. 275, 278, etc.]
Notwithstanding the richness of the booty won by the capture of
Fougères, the English ought to have been aware that they would have a
heavy price to pay for it. The alienation of a friend in the Duke of
Britanny evidently did not grieve them, although that in itself should
have been a matter of some concern; for the duke, though nearly related
to the French king, had studied to keep himself neutral hitherto. To his
and his father’s pacific policy it was owing that the commerce of
Britanny had prospered and Fougères itself become rich, while
neighbouring districts were exposed to the ravages of war. But the
resentment of the Duke of Britanny was not a cause of much apprehension.
The effect of the outrage upon the French people was a much more serious
matter, and this was felt immediately. The King of France, when he heard
the news, was at Montils by Tours on the point of starting for Bourges.
He immediately changed his purpose and turned back to Chinon that he
might be nearer Britanny. A secret treaty was made between the king and
the duke to aid each other on the recommencement of hostilities with the
English. [Sidenote: Pont-de-l’Arche taken by the French.] A plot was
also laid to surprise the town of Pont-de-l’Arche on the Seine, just as
Fougères had been surprised by the English. It was completely
successful, and Pont-de-l’Arche was captured by stratagem early in the
morning of the 16th of May, by a body of adventurers professedly in the
service of Brittany. There could be no mistake about the significance of
the retribution. To the Duke of Britanny the capture of Pont-de-l’Arche
was of no value, except in the way of retaliation, for it was at a great
distance from his borders; while to France it was a most important gain
if used with a view to the recovery of Normandy. But France was quite as
free to disavow the deed as the English Government had been to disavow
the taking of Fougères.
Charles had, in fact, gained, in a strategic point of view, quite as
great an advantage as the English had gained in point of material
wealth. But morally his advantage was greater still, for he showed
himself perfectly open to treat for the redress of outrages on both
sides, and was willing to put Pont-de-l’Arche again into the hands of
the English if they would have restored Fougères. All conferences,
however, were ineffectual, and the French followed up their advantage by
taking Gerberoy and Conches. In the south they also won from the English
two places in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux.[55-1] Still, Charles had
not yet declared war, and these things were avowedly no more than the
acts of desultory marauders. His ambassadors still demanded the
restitution of Fougères, which possibly the English might now have been
willing to accord if they could have had the French captures restored to
them, but that in the surrender of the place they would have had to
acknowledge Britanny as a feudal dependency of Charles.[55-2]
Negotiations were accordingly broken off, and Charles having besides
received particulars of a breach of the truce with Scotland in the
preceding year, which even an English writer does not venture to
defend,[55-3] at length made a formal declaration of hostilities.[55-4]
[Footnote 55-1: _Reductio Normanniæ_, 251.]
[Footnote 55-2: _Ibid._ 503.]
[Footnote 55-3: ‘Eodem anno [26 Hen. VI.], Rex visitans boreales
partes Angliæ usque Donelmense monasterium, quasi omnes domini et
alii plebei illius patriæ in magna multitudine quotidie ei in
obviam ostendebant, quare, concilio habito, minus formidabant
interrumpere trugas inter ipsum et Regem Scotiæ prius suis
sigillis fidelitatis confirmatas; sed posterius hujus trugarum
interruptio vertebatur Anglicis multo magis in dispendium quam
honorem, quia recedente Rege Scoti magnam partem Northumbriæ bina
vice absque repulsu destruxerunt, et juxta Carlele erant ex
Anglicis capti et interfecti ad numerum duorum millium; et sic
tandem Rex Angliæ cum ejus concilio pro saniori deliberatione cum
damnis ad pacem inclinare reducitur.’--_Incerti Scriptoris
Chronicum_ (Ed. Giles), Hen. VI. p. 36.]
[Footnote 55-4: _Reductio Normanniæ_, 254.]
Never, it must be owned, did England incur the grave responsibilities of
war with a greater degree of foolhardiness. Somerset himself seemed only
now to have wakened up to the defenceless state of Normandy. He had just
sent over Lord Hastings and the Abbot of Gloucester with a message to
the English Parliament desiring immediate aid. The French, he said, were
daily reinforcing their garrisons upon the frontier, and committing
outrages against the truce. General musters were proclaimed throughout
the kingdom, and every thirty men of the whole population were required
to find a horseman fully equipped for war. Meanwhile, the English
garrisons in Normandy were too feeble to resist attack. Not a single
place was furnished with sufficient artillery, and the fortifications,
almost everywhere, had fallen into such decay that even if filled with
men and guns they could not possibly be defended. Besides this, the
whole province was in such extreme poverty that it could no longer
endure further imposts for the charges of its own defence.[56-1]
[Footnote 56-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 147.]
[Sidenote: Progress of the French.] No marvel, therefore, that the
progress of the French arms was, from this time, uninterrupted. On the
19th July the town of Verneuil was taken by the aid of a miller who had
been maltreated by some of the garrison; and, some time afterwards, the
castle also surrendered. In August operations were carried on in several
parts of the Duchy at once. Towns near the sea and towns near the French
frontier were attacked at the same time; and Pont-Audemer, Lisieux,
Mantes, Vernon, and other places were recovered from the English. Then
followed in quick succession the capture of Essay, Fécamp, Harcourt,
Chambrois, Roche-Guyon, and Coutances. In October, Rouen, the capital of
the province, was invested. On the 19th the inhabitants with one accord
rose in arms against the English, who found it necessary to retreat into
the castle. In this stronghold Somerset himself was assailed by the King
of France, and, after a vain attempt to secure better terms, agreed to
surrender not only it but the fortresses of Arques, Caudebec, and
several other places, leaving the gallant Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, as
a hostage until they were delivered up. Meanwhile, the Duke of Britanny
overran Lower Normandy and recovered his own Fougères after a siege of
little more than a month. François L’Arragonois, finding no hope of
succours, surrendered the place and afterwards went over to the French.
In short, before the end of the year, the English had lost nearly
everything in the North of France. The inhabitants everywhere conspired
to betray towns and garrisons, and every man not English-born took part
against the English. Even King René, Henry’s father-in-law, assisted
Charles at the siege of Rouen, and shared the honours of his triumphal
entry. At the end of the year 1449 the English held nothing in Normandy
except a few towns upon the sea-coast or a little way inland--the chief
of these being Honfleur, Bayeux, Caen, and Cherbourg. The last-named
fortress remained untaken till the 12th of August in the following year.
When it surrendered, the whole of Normandy was finally lost.
The news of these reverses so rapidly following each other of course
produced in England the most profound dissatisfaction. The Parliament to
which Somerset had applied for aid had been removed after Whitsunday to
Winchester on account of the insalubrity of the air in London and
Westminster, and had been finally dissolved on the 16th of July. A new
Parliament was then called for a winter session to provide for the
defence of Normandy, when, in fact, it was too late.[57-1] By the time
it had assembled Rouen was already lost. [Sidenote: Unpopularity of
Suffolk.] The secret odium with which the policy of Suffolk had been
viewed for years past could now no longer be restrained. It was
difficult to persuade the many that the disgrace which had befallen the
English arms was not due to treachery as much as to incompetence. The
cession of Maine and Anjou was more loudly blamed than ever, and Suffolk
was considered to have negotiated the king’s marriage mainly with a view
to his own advantage. It was remembered how he had once imprudently
boasted that he possessed no less weight in the counsels of the King of
France than in those of his own sovereign; it was again murmured that he
had been the cause of Gloucester’s death. And notwithstanding the
protection of the Court, these feelings found expression in Parliament.
[Footnote 57-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 143, 171. Even when the new
Parliament met at Westminster on the 6th November it was obliged
to adjourn to the City of London on account of the unhealthiness
of the air. We must remember that Westminster was then little
better than a flat muddy island, with a vast extent of marshy land
and stagnant pools between Pimlico and the Thames.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1450.] At the beginning of the New Year, an incident
occurred which served still further to precipitate his ruin. [Sidenote:
Murder of the Bishop of Chichester.] Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of
Chichester, keeper of the Privy Seal, who, as we have seen, had been
sent over to France in the beginning of 1448, to arrange the peaceful
cession of Le Mans, was at this time sent to Portsmouth to pay the wages
of certain soldiers and sailors. He was a scholar as well as a
statesman, and corresponded occasionally with the celebrated Æneas
Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II.[58-1] But, like Suffolk, he was
believed to make his own advantage out of public affairs. He had the
reputation of being very covetous; the king’s treasury was ill supplied
with money, and he endeavoured to force the men to be satisfied with
less than their due. On this they broke out into open mutiny, cried out
that he was one of those who had sold Normandy, and thereupon put him to
death.[58-2] This was on the 9th day of January 1450. During the
altercation he let fall some words, probably in justification of his own
conduct, which were considered to reflect most seriously upon that of
the Duke of Suffolk,[58-3] and a cry arose for the duke’s impeachment in
Parliament.
[Footnote 58-1: _Æneæ Sylvii Epp._ 80, 186.]
[Footnote 58-2: According to his friend, Æneas Sylvius, the mode
of death inflicted on him was decapitation. (_Opera_, 443.)]
[Footnote 58-3: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 176.]
It must certainly be acknowledged by any candid student of history that
the state of the English Constitution in early times did not admit of
true and impartial justice being done to an accused minister. So long as
a man in Suffolk’s position was upheld by the power of the Crown, it was
to the last degree dangerous to say anything against him; but when the
voice of complaint could no longer be restrained, the protection he had
before received ceased to be of any use to him. It became then quite as
dangerous to say anything in his favour as it had been formerly to
accuse him. The Crown could not make common cause with one whose conduct
was under suspicion; for the king could do no wrong, and the minister
must be the scapegoat. The party, therefore, which would insist on any
inquiry into the conduct of a minister, knew well that they must succeed
in getting him condemned, or be branded as traitors themselves. Such
proceedings accordingly began inevitably with intrigue. Lord Cromwell
was Suffolk’s enemy at the council-table, and used his influence
secretly with members of the House of Commons, to get them to bring
forward an impeachment in that chamber. That he was a dangerous opponent
Suffolk himself was very well aware. A little before Christmas, William
Tailboys, one of the duke’s principal supporters, had set a number of
armed men in wait for him at the door of the Star Chamber, where the
council met, and Lord Cromwell narrowly escaped being killed. The
attempt, however, failed, and Tailboys was committed to the Tower; from
which it would seem that he must soon afterwards have been released.
Cromwell then brought an action against him in the Court of Exchequer to
recover damages for the assault, and was awarded £3000; on which
Tailboys was committed to the Sheriff of London’s prison; and this was
all the redress obtained by Cromwell till, by a special Act in the
ensuing Parliament, Tailboys was removed from that place of confinement,
and lodged in the Tower once more, for a period of twelve months. Owing
to the king’s protection he was not brought to trial.[59-1]
[Footnote 59-1: W. Worc. _Rolls of Parl._ v. 200. I find by an
entry in the _Controlment Roll_, 30 Hen. VI., that on St.
Bartholomew’s Day, 1451, William Tailboys and nineteen other
persons belonging to South Kyme, in Lincolnshire, were outlawed at
the suit of Elizabeth, widow of John Saunderson, for the murder of
her husband.]
An evil day, nevertheless, had arrived for the Duke of Suffolk, which
not all the influence of the king, nor the still greater influence of
Margaret of Anjou, who owed to him her proud position as Henry’s
consort, was able to avert. On the 22nd of January the duke presented a
petition to the king that he might be allowed to clear himself before
Parliament of the imputations which had been cast on him in consequence
of the dying words of Bishop Moleyns. He begged the king to remember how
his father had died in the service of King Henry V. at Harfleur--how his
elder brother had been with that king at Agincourt--how two other
brothers had fallen in the king’s own days at Jargeau, when he himself
was taken prisoner and had to pay £20,000 for his ransom--how his fourth
brother had been a hostage for him in the enemies’ hands and died there.
He also reminded the king that he had borne arms for four-and-thirty
years, had been thirty years a Knight of the Garter, and had served in
the wars abroad for seventeen years at a time, without ever coming home.
Since then he had been fifteen years in England about the king’s person,
and he prayed God that if ever he died otherwise than in his bed, it
might be in maintaining the quarrel that he had been at all times true
to Henry.[60-1]
[Footnote 60-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 176.]
Four days after this a deputation from the Commons waited on the Lord
Chancellor, desiring that as Suffolk had confessed the prevalence of
injurious reports against him, he might be committed to custody. This
request was laid by the Chancellor before the king and council on the
following day, and the opinion of the judges being taken as to the
legality of the proposed arrest, he was allowed to remain at liberty
until a definite charge should be brought against him. Such a charge was
accordingly declared two days later by the Speaker, who did not hesitate
to tell the Lord Chancellor, in the name of the Commons, that Suffolk
was believed to be in league with the French king to promote an invasion
of England, and had fortified the castle of Wallingford with a view of
assisting the invaders. The duke, on this, was committed to the Tower.
[Sidenote: Suffolk impeached.] On the 7th of February he was formally
impeached by the Commons. A copy of the articles of impeachment will be
found in the Paston Letters (No. 76). Nothing was said in them of the
fortification of Wallingford Castle, but a number of specific charges
were made, many of them authenticated by the exact day and place when
the alleged treasonable acts were committed, tending to show that in his
communications with the French he had been invariably opposed to the
interests of his own country. It was alleged that he had been bribed to
deliver Anjou and Maine, and that as long ago as the year 1440 he was
influenced by corrupt motives to promote the liberation of the Duke of
Orleans; that he had disclosed the secrets of the English
council-chamber to the French king’s ambassadors; that he had even given
information by which France had profited in the war, and that he had
rendered peace negotiations nugatory by letting the French know
beforehand the instructions given to the English envoys. Further, in the
midst of invasion and national disgrace, he had hoped to gratify his own
ambition. The king, who was still childless, was to be deposed; and the
duke had actually hoped to make his own son king in his place. It seems
that he had obtained some time before a grant of the wardship of
Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the late Duke of Somerset, who was the
nearest heir to the Crown in the Lancastrian line, and since his arrest
he had caused her to be married to his own son, Lord John De la
Pole.[61-1] Such was the foundation on which the worst charge rested.
[Footnote 61-1: So it is stated in the impeachment. According to
the inquisition on Suffolk’s death, his son was born on the 27th
September 1442, and was therefore at this time only in his eighth
year.--Napier’s _Historical Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme_,
108.]
A month passed before he was heard in his own defence. The Commons
impeached, but it was for the Lords to try him. Meanwhile, another bill
of indictment had been prepared by the malice of his enemies, in which
all the failures of his policy were visited upon him as crimes, and
attributed to the worst and most selfish motives. For his own private
gain, he had caused the Crown to be prodigal of grants to other persons,
till it was so impoverished that the wages of the household were unpaid,
and the royal manors left to fall into decay. He had granted the earldom
of Kendal, with large possessions both in England and in Guienne, to a
Gascon, who ultimately sided with the French, but had happened to marry
his niece. He had weakened the king’s power in Guienne, alienated the
Count of Armagnac, and caused a band of English to attack the king’s
German allies; he had disposed of offices to unworthy persons without
consulting the council, granted important possessions in Normandy to the
French king’s councillors, given to the French queen £13,000 of the
revenues of England, appropriated and misapplied the king’s treasure and
the subsidies granted by Parliament for the keeping of the sea. These
and some minor charges formed the contents of the second bill of
indictment.[61-2]
[Footnote 61-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 179-182.]
He was brought from the Tower on the 9th day of March, and required to
make answer before the Lords to the contents of both bills. He requested
of the king that he might have copies, which were allowed him; and that
he might prepare his answer more at ease, he was removed for a few days
to a tower within the king’s palace at Westminster. [Sidenote: His
defence.] On the 13th he was sent for to make his answer before the king
and lords. Kneeling before the throne, he replied to each of the eight
articles in the first bill separately. He denied their truth entirely,
and offered to prove them false in whatever manner the king would
direct. He declared it absurd to consider Margaret Beaufort as
heir-presumptive to the Crown, and used other arguments to show the
improbability of his designs on the succession. In all else he showed
that the other lords of the council were quite as much committed as he;
and as to the delivery of Anjou and Maine, he laid the responsibility
entirely upon the murdered Bishop of Chichester.[62-1]
[Footnote 62-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 182.]
Next day, the Chief Justice, by the king’s command, asked the Lords what
advice they would give the king in the matter. It was a Saturday, and
the Lords deferred their answer till the following Monday; but on the
Monday nothing was done. On the Tuesday the king sent for all the Lords
then in London to attend him in his own palace, where they met in an
inner chamber. When they were assembled, Suffolk was sent for, and
kneeling down, was addressed briefly by the Lord Chancellor. He was
reminded that he had made answer to the first bill of the Commons
without claiming the right of being tried by the peers; and he was asked
if he had anything further to say upon the subject. He replied that the
accusations were too horrible to be further spoken of, and he hoped he
had sufficiently answered all that touched the king’s person, and the
state of his kingdom. Nevertheless, he submitted himself entirely to the
king, to do with him whatever he thought good.[62-2]
[Footnote 62-2: _Ibid._]
On this an answer was returned to him in the king’s name by the Lord
Chancellor. A miserably weak and evasive answer it was, showing clearly
that the king desired to protect his favourite, but had not the
manliness to avow he thought him worthy of protection. The Lord
Chancellor was commissioned to say, that as to the very serious charges
contained in the first bill, the king regarded Suffolk as not having
been proved either guilty or innocent; but touching those contained in
the second bill, which amounted only to misprisions, as Suffolk did not
put himself upon his peerage, but submitted entirely to the king, the
latter had determined, without consulting the Lords, and not in the way
of judgment (for he was not sitting in tribunal), but merely in virtue
of the duke’s own submission, [Sidenote: He is ordered to leave
England.] to bid him absent himself from England for five years, from
the first day of May ensuing.[63-1]
[Footnote 63-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 183.]
It is clear upon the face of the matter, that although the king was made
to take the sole responsibility of this decision, it was really a thing
arranged, and not arranged without difficulty, between the friends of
Suffolk and some of the leading members of the House of Lords.
Immediately after it was pronounced, Viscount Beaumont, who was one of
Suffolk’s principal allies, made a protest on behalf of the Lords, that
what the king had just done, he had done by his own authority, without
their advice and counsel. He accordingly besought the king that their
protest might be recorded in the rolls of Parliament, for their
protection, so that the case might not henceforth be made a precedent in
derogation of the privileges of the peerage.[63-2] Thus it was clearly
hoped on all sides a great crisis had been averted. Suffolk was got rid
of, but not condemned. A victim was given over to popular resentment,
but the rights of the Peers for the future were to be maintained. And
though the Crown lowered itself by an avowed dereliction of duty, it was
not severely censured for preferring expediency to justice.
[Footnote 63-2: _Ibid._]
On the following night the duke left Westminster for Suffolk. The people
of London were intensely excited, and about two thousand persons sallied
out to St. Giles’ hoping to intercept his departure, but they succeeded
only in capturing his horse and some of his servants, whom they
maltreated, as might have been expected. Even after this the excitement
was scarcely diminished. Seditious manifestoes were thrown about in
public and secretly posted on church doors.[64-1] The duke had more than
a month to prepare for leaving England, and seems to have spent the time
in the county of Suffolk. [Sidenote: He embarks for Flanders.] On
Thursday the 30th of April he embarked at Ipswich for Flanders; but
before going he assembled the gentlemen of the county, and, taking the
sacrament, swore he was innocent of the sale of Normandy and of the
other treasons imputed to him.[64-2] He also wrote an interesting letter
of general admonitions for the use of his young son, at that time not
eight years old, whom he was not to see again for at least five years,
and too probably not at all. This letter, which is known to us only by a
copy preserved in the Paston correspondence (No. 117), can hardly fail
to awaken sympathy with the writer. As an evidence of unaffected piety
to God and sincere loyalty to his king, it will probably outweigh with
most readers all the aspersions cast by Parliament on the purity of his
intentions.
[Footnote 64-1: Rymer, xi. 268.]
[Footnote 64-2: W. Worc. 468, 469.]
Two ships and a little pinnace conveyed him from the Suffolk coast
southwards till he stood off Dover, when he despatched the small vessel
with letters to certain persons in Calais to ascertain how he should be
received if he landed there. The pinnace was intercepted by some ships
which seem to have been lying in wait for his passage; and when it was
ascertained where the duke actually was, they immediately bore down upon
him. Foremost among the pursuers was a ship called the _Nicholas of the
Tower_, the master of which, on nearing Suffolk’s vessel, sent out a
boat to ask who they were. Suffolk made answer in person, and said that
he was going by the king’s command to Calais; on which they told him he
must speak with their master. They accordingly conveyed him and two or
three others in their boat to the _Nicholas_. When he came on board the
master saluted him with the words, ‘Welcome, traitor!’ and sent to know
if the shipmen meant to take part with the duke, which they at once
disowned all intention of doing. The duke was then informed that he must
die, but was allowed the whole of the next day and night to confess
himself and prepare for the event.[64-3] On Monday the 2nd of May the
rovers consummated their design. In sight of all his men Suffolk was
drawn out of the _Nicholas_ into a boat in which an axe and block were
prepared. [Sidenote: Is murdered at sea.] One of the crew, an Irish
churl, then bade him lay down his head, telling him in cruel mockery
that he should be fairly dealt with and die upon a sword. A rusty sword
was brought out accordingly, and with nearly half a dozen strokes the
fellow clumsily cut off his head. He was then stripped of his russet
gown and velvet doublet. His body was brought to land and thrown upon
the sands at Dover; and his men were at the same time allowed to
disembark.[65-1]
[Footnote 64-3: _English Chronicle_, ed. Davies, p. 69.]
[Footnote 65-1: _Paston Letters_, Nos. 120, 121.]
The source from which we learn most of these particulars is a letter of
William Lomner to John Paston written when the news was fresh. The
writer seems to have been quite overpowered by the tragic character of
the event, and declares he had so blurred the writing with tears that he
fears it would not be easy to decipher. Indications of genuine human
feeling like this are so rare in letters of an early date that we are in
danger of attributing to the men of those days a coldness and brutality
which were by no means so universal as we are apt to suppose. The truth
is that when men related facts they regarded their own feelings as an
impertinence having nothing whatever to do with the matter in
hand.[65-2] The art of letter-writing, besides, had not yet acquired the
freedom of later days. It was used, in the main, for business purposes
only. We shall meet, it is true, in this very correspondence, with one
or two early specimens of jesting epistles; but, on the whole, I suspect
paper was too valuable a commodity and writing too great a labour to be
wasted on things irrelevant.
[Footnote 65-2: Even the passage above referred to would probably
be an illustration of this if the original letter were examined.
As we have reprinted it from Fenn, it stands thus: ‘Right
worshipful Sir, I recommend me to you, and am right sorry of that
I shall say, _and have so wesshe this little bill with sorrowful
tears that uneathes ye shall read it_.’ The words in italics would
probably be found to be an interlineation in the original, for
though they stand at the beginning of the letter, they were
clearly written after it was penned, and the only reason why they
were inserted was to excuse the illegibility of the writing.]
But whatever feeling may have been excited by the news of Suffolk’s
murder in men like William Lomner, who possibly may have known the duke
personally, we may well believe that the nation at large was neither
afflicted nor very greatly shocked at the event. Even the prior of
Croyland, the head of a great religious community in Lincolnshire,
speaks of it as the just punishment of a traitor, and has not a word to
say in reprobation.[66-1] Mocking dirges were composed and spread
abroad, in which his partisans were represented as chanting his funeral
service, and a blessing was invoked on the heads of his murderers. These
were but the last of a host of satires in which the public indignation
had for months past found a vent.[66-2] Suffolk had been represented on
his imprisonment as a fox driven into his hole, who must on no account
be let out again. He had been rhymed at as the Ape with his Clog who had
tied Talbot our good dog, in allusion to the fact of Talbot, Earl of
Shrewsbury, having been given up as a hostage to the French after the
surrender of Rouen.[66-3] He had been reviled as an upstart who had
usurped the place of better men, and who systematically thwarted and
neutralised all that better men could do. If any one wept for the fall
of such a man, it was not on public grounds.
[Footnote 66-1: _Contin. of Croyland Chronicle_, p. 525.]
[Footnote 66-2: Wright’s _Political Poems_ (in Rolls series), ii.
232.]
[Footnote 66-3: _Ibid._ 222, 224.]
As a specimen of these political satires we cannot resist the temptation
to quote a short poem which must have been composed towards the close of
the year 1449, after the surrender of Rouen and before Suffolk’s fall.
It is far less personal than the others, being not so much an invective
against Suffolk as a wail over the loss of England’s great men, and the
decay of her fortunes. The leading statesmen and warriors of that and
the former age are here spoken of by their badges, which the reader will
find interpreted in the margin:--
‘The Root[a] is dead, the Swan[b] is gone,
The fiery Cresset[c] hath lost his light.
Therefore England may make great moan
Were not the help of God Almight’.
The Castle[d] is won where care begun,
The Portè-cullis[e] is laid adown;
Yclosèd we have our Velvet Hat[f]
That covered us from many stormes brown.
The White Lion[g] is laid to sleep,
Thorough the envy of th’ Apè[h] Clog;
And he is bounden that our door should keep;
That is Talbot, our good dog.
The Fisher[i] has lost his angle hook;
Get them again when it will be.
Our Millè-sail[k] will not about,
It hath so long gone empty.
The Bear[l] is bound that was so wild,
For he hath lost his Ragged Staff.
The Carte-nathe[m] is spoke-less
For the counsel that he gaf.
The Lily[n] is both fair and green;
The Conduit[o] runneth not, I wean.
The Cornish Chough[p] oft with his train
Hath made our Eagle[q] blind.
The White Hart[r] is put out of mind
Because he will not to them consent;
Therefore, the Commons saith, is both true and kind,
Both in Sussex and in Kent.
The Water Bouge[s] and the Wine Botell
With the Fetterlock’s[t] chain bene fast.
The Wheat Ear[u] will them sustain
As long as he may endure and last.
The Boar[w] is far into the West,
That should us help with shield and spear.
The Falcon[x] fleeth and hath no rest
Till he wit where to bigg his nest.’
[Footnote a: The Regent Bedford.]
[Footnote b: Humphrey, Duke of Glo’ster.]
[Footnote c: The last Duke of Exeter.]
[Footnote d: Rouen Castle.]
[Footnote e: The Duke of Somerset.]
[Footnote f: The Cardinal Beaufort.]
[Footnote g: The Duke of Norfolk, who had gone on pilgrimage to
Rome in 1447. (Dugdale.)]
[Footnote h: The Duke of Suffolk.]
[Footnote i: Lord Fauconberg who was taken prisoner by the French
at the capture of Pont-de-l’Arche.]
[Footnote k: Robert, Lord Willoughby.]
[Footnote l: The Earl of Warwick.]
[Footnote m: The Duke of Buckingham.]
[Footnote n: Thomas Daniel. He and the two next are courtiers.]
[Footnote o: John Norris.]
[Footnote p: John Trevilian.]
[Footnote q: The King.]
[Footnote r: Earl of Arundel.]
[Footnote s: Lord Bouchier.]
[Footnote t: Prior of St. John’s.]
[Footnote u: The Duke of Exeter.]
[Footnote w: The Earl of Devonshire.]
[Footnote x: The Duke of York, who had been sent into Ireland to
be out of the way.]
Almost concurrently with the news of Suffolk’s murder came tidings,
mentioned by William Lomner in the very same letter, of another disaster
in France, more gloomy, if possible, than any that had occurred before.
[Sidenote: Defeat of Sir T. Kiriel.] A force under Sir Thomas Kiriel had
been sent to the aid of the Duke of Somerset in Normandy after the loss
of Rouen. It disembarked at Cherbourg, and proceeding towards Caen,
where the duke had now taken up his position, besieged and took
Valognes. They were now in full communication with the garrisons of Caen
and Bayeux, when they were suddenly attacked at the village of
Fourmigni, and routed with great slaughter. Between three and four
thousand Englishmen were left dead upon the field; Kiriel himself was
taken prisoner; even the brave Matthew Gough (well known to Frenchmen of
that day as Matago) found it needful to fall back with his company of
1500 men for the safeguard of Bayeux, which a month afterwards he was
compelled after all to give up to the enemy.[68-1]
[Footnote 68-1: Berry’s narrative in Stevenson’s _Expulsion of the
English from Normandy_, 336. _Wars of the Engl._ ii. [360].
_Paston Letters_, No. 120.]
Meanwhile the Parliament, which had been prorogued over Easter, was
ordered to meet again at Leicester instead of Westminster. The reason
given for the change of place was still, as before, the unhealthiness of
the air about Westminster; and doubtless it was a very true reason. It
is possible, however, that the political atmosphere of London was quite
as oppressive to the Court as the physical atmosphere could be to the
Parliament. During their sitting at Leicester a much needed subsidy was
voted to the king, and an Act passed for the application of certain
revenues to the expenses of the Royal Household in order to stop the
exactions of purveyors. But they had hardly sat a month when the session
was suddenly put an end to from a cause which we proceed to notice.
_Rebellion of Jack Cade_
The murder of the Duke of Suffolk had not made things better than they
had been before. The ablest of the ministers, who had hitherto guided
the king’s counsels, was now removed, but his place was left for a time
altogether unsupplied. The men of Suffolk’s party, such as Lord Say,
Viscount Beaumont, and Thomas Daniel, still remained about the king, and
were nearly as unpopular as he had been. The offices formerly held by
Suffolk were divided among them and their particular friends.[68-2] Even
if the Court had desired to call in men of greater weight, they were not
then at hand. The Duke of Somerset was in France, and the Duke of York
in Ireland; so that some time must have elapsed before either of them
could have taken part in public affairs at home. Meanwhile it was said
that the resentment of the Court for Suffolk’s murder would be visited
upon the county of Kent; and the county of Kent was of opinion that it
suffered abuses enough already. The exactions of the king’s officers,
both in the way of taxation and purveyance, were felt to be extortionate
and capricious. The collectors of the revenue were appointed by the
knights of the shire, and these, instead of being freely chosen by the
people, were but the nominees of a few great men who compelled their
tenants to vote according to their pleasure. There were, besides, grave
cases of injustice in which people were accused of treason, and kept in
prison without trial, on the information of persons about the Court who
had influence to obtain grants of their lands from the Crown.
[Footnote 68-2: _See_ No. 123. William Worcester says Lord
Beauchamp was made treasurer, and Lord Cromwell the king’s
chamberlain. Lord Beauchamp’s appointment is on the _Patent
Rolls_. See _Calendarium Rot. Patent_, p. 294.]
[Sidenote: Cade’s Rebellion.] Hence arose Jack Cade’s rebellion,
a movement which we must not permit ourselves to look upon as a vulgar
outbreak of the rabble. Whole districts of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex rose
in arms, clamouring for redress of grievances; and it is certain that
the insurgents met with a large amount of sympathy, even from those who
did not actually take part with them.[69-1] As their leader, they
selected a man who called himself Mortimer, and who, besides some
experience in war, was evidently possessed of no small talent for
generalship. It afterwards turned out that his real name was Cade, that
he was a native of Ireland, and that he had been living a year before in
the household of Sir Thomas Dacre in Sussex, when he was obliged to
abjure the kingdom for killing a woman who was with child. He then
betook himself to France and served in the French war against England.
What induced him to return does not appear, unless we may suppose, which
is not unlikely, that some misdemeanour when in the service of France
made the French soil fully as dangerous to him as the English. In
England he seems to have assumed the name of Aylmer, and passed himself
off as a physician. He married a squire’s daughter, and dressed in
scarlet; and when the rebellion broke out in Kent he called himself John
Mortimer, a cousin of the Duke of York.
[Footnote 69-1: The late Mr. Durrant Cooper, in an interesting
paper read before a meeting of the Kent Archæological Society,
examined the long list of names given on the _Patent Roll_ of 28
Henry VI., and proved from them that the insurrection was by no
means of a very plebeian or disorderly character. ‘In several
hundreds,’ he says, ‘the constables duly, and as if legally,
summoned the men; and many parishes, particularly Marden,
Penshurst, Hawkhurst, Northfleet, Boughton-Malherbe, Smarden, and
Pluckley, furnished as many men as could be found in our day fit
for arms.’]
The first disturbances took place at Whitsuntide in the latter end of
May. In the second week of June[70-1] a considerable army from the
counties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex encamped upon Blackheath. The king,
who, on receiving news of the rising, had dissolved the parliament then
sitting at Leicester, arrived in London on Saturday the 13th, and took
up his quarters at the priory of St. John’s, near Smithfield. He had
with him 20,000 men under arms, but for some reason or other did not set
out against the rebels till the following Thursday, the 18th.[70-1]
They, meanwhile, had withdrawn in the night-time,[70-2] and the king and
his host occupied their position on Blackheath. The royal forces,
however, proceeded no further. Only a detachment, under Sir Humphrey
Stafford and his brother William, was sent to pursue the insurgents. An
encounter took place at Sevenoaks on the 18th,[70-3] in which both the
Staffords were killed. Their defeat spread dismay and disaffection in
the royal camp. The noblemen who had accompanied the king to Blackheath
could no longer keep their men together, the latter protesting that
unless justice were done on certain traitors who had misled the king,
they would go over to the Captain of Kent. To satisfy them, Lord Say was
arrested and sent to the Tower; but even with this concession the king
did not dare presume upon their loyalty. He withdrew to Greenwich, and
the whole of his army dispersed. The king himself returned to London by
water, and made preparations during the next two or three days to remove
to Kenilworth. The mayor and commons of the city went to him to beseech
him to remain, offering to live and die with him, and pay half a year’s
cost of his household. But all was to no purpose. The king had not even
the manliness of Richard II. at Smithfield, and he took his departure to
Kenilworth.[71-1]
[Footnote 70-1: These dates were given differently in previous
issues of this Introduction. For a rectification of the chronology
of the rebellion I am indebted to Kriehn’s _English Rising_ in
1450, pp. 125 and following.]
[Footnote 70-2: According to No. 119 of our collection this
retreat would appear to have been on the 22nd June, but that date
is certainly an error.]
[Footnote 70-3: The 18th June is given as the date of Sir Humphrey
Stafford’s death in _Inquis. post mortem_, 28 Henry VI. No. 7.]
[Footnote 71-1: W. Worc.--_Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_
(edited by me for the Camden Soc.), 67.--Chronicle in MS. Cott.
Vitell. A. xvi.]
The city, thus deserted by its sovereign, knew not for a time what to
do. A party within the Common Council itself ventured to open
negotiations with the insurgents, and Alderman Cooke passed to and fro
under the safe-conduct of the Captain.[71-2] To many it may have seemed
doubtful loyalty to support the government of Lord Say and his friends
against an oppressed population. On the 1st day of July[71-3] the
insurgents entered Southwark. On the 2nd a Common Council was called by
the Lord Mayor to provide means for resisting their entry into the city;
but the majority voted for their free admission, and Alderman Robert
Horne, who was the leading speaker against them, was committed to prison
for his boldness. [Sidenote: The rebels enter London.] That same
afternoon the so-called Mortimer and his followers passed over London
Bridge into the city. The Captain, after passing the drawbridge, hewed
the ropes asunder with his sword. His first proceedings were marked by
order and discipline. He issued proclamations in the king’s name against
robbery and forced requisitions, but he rode through the different
streets as if to place the capital under military government; and when
he came to London Stone, he struck it with his sword, saying, ‘Now is
Mortimer lord of this city.’ Finally, he gave instructions to the Lord
Mayor about the order to be kept within his jurisdiction, and returned
for the night to his quarters in Southwark. On the following morning,
Friday the 3rd, he again entered the city, when he caused Lord Say to be
sent for from the Tower. That no resistance was made to this demand by
Lord Scales, who had the keeping of the fortress, may seem strange. But
there was a reason for it which most of the chroniclers do not tell us.
The king had been obliged to listen to the grievances of his ‘Commons’
and to withdraw his protection from his favourites. He had granted a
commission ‘to certain lords and to the mayor and divers justices, to
inquire of all persons that were traitors, extortioners, or oppressors
of the king’s people.’[72-1] Lord Say was accordingly formally arraigned
at a regular sessions at the Guildhall. But when the unfortunate
nobleman claimed the constitutional privilege of being tried by his
peers, the pretence of law was finally laid aside. A company of the
insurgents took him from the officers and hurried him off to the
Standard in Cheap, where, before he was half shriven, his head was cut
off and stuck upon a long pole. A son-in-law of his named Crowmer, who
was then very unpopular as sheriff of Kent, met with a similar fate. He
was beheaded in Cade’s presence at Mile End. Barbarity now followed
violence. The lifeless heads of Say and Crowmer were carried through the
streets, and made to kiss each other. At the same time one Bailey was
beheaded at Whitechapel on a charge of necromancy, the real cause of his
death being, as it was reported, that he was an old acquaintance of
Cade’s who might have revealed something of his past history.
[Footnote 71-2: Holinshed, iii. 632.]
[Footnote 71-3: I leave this part of the story as it was
originally written, though here, too, the chronology seems to
require rectification, especially from sources since published,
for which the reader may consult Kriehn’s work, p. 129.]
[Footnote 72-1: MS. Vitellius A. xvi. fol. 107, quoted by Kriehn,
p. 92.]
It may have been the expectation of inevitable exposure that induced
Cade now to relax discipline, and set an example of spoliation himself.
He entered and pillaged the house of Philip Malpas, an alderman known as
a friend of the Court, and therefore unpopular in the city. Next day he
dined at a house in the parish of St. Margaret Pattens, and then robbed
his host. At each of these acts of robbery the rabble were sharers of
the spoil. But, of course, such proceedings completely alienated all who
had anything to lose, and the mayor and aldermen began to devise
measures for expelling Cade and his followers from the city. For this
end they negotiated with Lord Scales and Matthew Gough, who had then the
keeping of the Tower.
For three days successively Cade had entered the city with his men, and
retired in the evening to Southwark. But on Sunday, the 5th of July, he
for some reason remained in Southwark all day. In the evening the mayor
and citizens, with a force under Matthew Gough, came and occupied London
Bridge to prevent the Kentish men again entering the city. [Sidenote:
Battle on London Bridge.] The Captain called his men to arms, and
attacked the citizens with such impetuosity, that he drove them back
from the Southwark end of the bridge to the drawbridge in the centre.
This the insurgents set on fire, after inflicting great losses on the
citizens, many of whom were slain or drowned in defending it. Matthew
Gough himself was among those who perished. Still, the fight was
obstinately contested, the advantage being for the moment now with one
party and now with the other. It continued all through the night till
nine on the following morning; when at last the Kentish men began to
give way, and a truce was made for a certain number of hours.
[[Sidenote: Battle on London Bridge.
_final . missing_]]
A favourable opportunity now presented itself for mediation. Although
the king had retired to Kenilworth, he had left behind him in London
some leading members of his council, among whom were Cardinal Kemp,
Archbishop of York,[73-1] then Lord Chancellor, and Waynflete, Bishop of
Winchester. The former had taken refuge in the Tower, under the
protection of Lord Scales; and he called to him the latter, who lay
concealed at Holywell.[73-2] A conference was arranged between them and
the insurgents, and both the Cardinal and Bishop Waynflete[73-3] with
some others crossed the river and met with Cade in St. Margaret’s Church
in Southwark. In the end matters were satisfactorily arranged, and the
bishop produced two general pardons prepared by the Chancellor, the
first for the Captain himself, and the second for his followers. The
offer was embraced with eagerness. The men were by this time disgusted
with their leader, and alarmed at the result of their own acts. By
thousands they accepted the amnesty and began to return homewards. But
Cade, who knew that his pardon would avail him little when the history
of his past life came to be investigated, wisely made friends to himself
after the fashion of the Unjust Steward. He broke open the gaols of the
King’s Bench and Marshalsea, and formed a new company out of the
liberated prisoners.[74-1] He then despatched to Rochester a barge laden
with the goods he had taken from Malpas and others in London, and
prepared to go thither himself by land. He and his new following appear
to have been still in Southwark on the 8th of July, but to have passed
through Dartford to Rochester on the 9th, where they continued still in
arms against the king on the 10th and 11th.[74-2] An attempt they made
upon the castle of Queenborough was resisted by Sir Roger Chamberlain,
to whom a reward was given in the following year in acknowledgment of
his services.[74-3] Meanwhile a proclamation was issued offering a
reward of a thousand marks for Cade’s apprehension, and ten marks for
that of any of his followers; ‘for,’ says a contemporary chronicler, ‘it
was openly known that his name was not Mortimer; his name was John Cade;
and therefore his charter stood in no strength.’[74-4]
[Footnote 73-1: Inaccurately called Archbishop of Canterbury by
Fabyan and others. He was not translated to Canterbury till 1452.]
[Footnote 73-2: Hall’s _Chronicle_. Holy Well was a mineral spring
to the north of London, much frequented before the Reformation,
when it was stopped up as being considered a place of
superstitious resort. A century afterwards it was discovered anew
by a Mr. Sadler, from whom the locality is named to this day
Sadler’s Wells.]
[Footnote 73-3: Some doubt seems to be thrown on Hall’s statement
that both prelates crossed the river, as earlier writers say the
Chancellor _sent_ pardons under the Great Seal. William Worcester,
moreover, makes no mention of the cardinal, but says that the
Bishop of Winchester and others of the king’s council spoke with
the Captain of Kent. But the ‘Short English Chronicle’ in the
_Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, edited by me for the Camden
Society in 1880 (p. 68), does exactly the reverse, and omitting
all reference to the Bishop of Winchester, says: ‘And forthewithe
went the Chaunseler to the Capteyne and sessed him and gave him a
chartur and his men an other.’]
[Footnote 74-1: Hall’s _Chronicle_.]
[Footnote 74-2: See _Act of Attainder_, 29 Hen. VI. _Rolls of
Parl._ vi. 224.]
[Footnote 74-3: Devon’s _Issue Rolls_, 471. Davies’ _English
Chron._ 67.]
[Footnote 74-4: _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 68.]
The feeble remains of the rebellion were already quarrelling about the
booty Cade had conveyed out of London. Their leader now took horse and
escaped in disguise towards the woody country about Lewes. He was
pursued by Alexander Iden, a gentleman who had just been appointed
sheriff of Kent in place of the murdered Crowmer. [Sidenote: Capture and
death of Cade.] Iden overtook him in a garden at Heathfield, and made
him prisoner, not without a scuffle, in which Cade was mortally wounded,
so that on being conveyed to London he died on the way. It only remained
to use his carcass as a terror to evil-doers. His head was cut off and
placed upon London Bridge, with the face looking towards Kent. His body
was drawn through the streets of London, then quartered, and the
quarters sent to four different places very widely apart,--one of them
to Blackheath, one to Norwich, one to Salisbury, and one to
Gloucester.[75-1]
[Footnote 75-1: W. Worc. Fabyan. Davies’ _English Chronicle_
(Camden Soc.), 67. Ellis’ _Letters_, 2nd Series i. 115.]
If the dispersion of traitors’ limbs for exhibition in many places could
have effectually repressed disloyalty, the whole realm ought now to have
been at rest. The quarters of another Kentish rebel, who, under the name
of Bluebeard, had raised disturbances in the preceding February, were at
that moment undergoing public exhibition in London, Norwich, and the
Cinque Ports. Those of two others were about this time despatched by the
sheriffs of London to Chichester, Rochester, Portsmouth, Colchester,
Stamford, Coventry, Newbury, and Winchester. The heads of all these
wretches were set upon London Bridge, which in the course of this
miserable year bore no less than twenty-three such horrid
ornaments.[75-2]
[Footnote 75-2: Ellis, _ib._ MS. Vitell. A. xvi.]
[Sidenote: Further disturbances.] But with all this, sedition was not
put down, even in the county of Kent; for I find by the evidence of
authentic records that a new rising took place in August at Feversham,
under one William Parminter, who, undeterred by the fate of Cade,
gathered about him 400 men, and called himself _the second_ Captain of
Kent. This affair is quite unnoticed by historians, and all I know of it
is derived from a pardon to one of those engaged in it.[75-3] But even
Parminter was not the last ‘Captain of Kent’ that made his appearance
this year; for the very same title was immediately afterwards assumed by
one John Smyth, for whose capture a reward of £40 was ordered to be paid
to the Duke of Somerset on the 3rd of October.[75-4] And the
chroniclers, though they do not mention these disturbances, tell us that
such things were general over all the kingdom. In Wiltshire, at the time
that Cade was at Blackheath, William Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, had
one day said mass at Edington, when he was dragged from the altar by a
band of his own tenants and murdered in his alb and stole at the top of
a neighbouring hill. He was the second bishop who had been murdered that
year by the populace. Another insurrection in the same county in August
is mentioned in a letter of James Gresham’s, the number of the
insurgents being reported at nine or ten thousand men.[76-1] These
instances may suffice as evidence of the widespread troubles of the
time.
[Footnote 75-3: _See_ document in Appendix to this Introduction;
also Devon’s _Issue Rolls_, p. 472. It would seem as if the entry
there dated 5th August ought to have been 5th September, as
Parminter does not seem to have been taken even on the last day of
August.]
[Footnote 75-4: Nicolas’s _Proceedings of the Privy Council_, vi.
101.]
[Footnote 76-1: _See_ No. 131.]
[Sidenote: Sir John Fastolf.] Of the degree of private suffering and
misery inflicted in particular cases by these commotions we have a
lively picture in Letter 126. At the time when Cade and his followers
were encamped upon Blackheath, Sir John Fastolf, a noted warrior of the
time, of whom we shall have much to say hereafter, was residing at his
house in Southwark. He was a man who had not succeeded in standing well
with his contemporaries, and the fact may have contributed not a little
to the sensitiveness of a naturally irascible character. In one
engagement with the French[76-2] he was actually accused of cowardice,
a charge which he seems afterwards satisfactorily to have disproved. For
some years, however, he had given up soldiering and returned to his
native country, where he served the king in a different manner as a
member of his Privy Council. But in this capacity too he was unpopular.
His advice should have been valuable at least in reference to the
affairs of France; but it does not seem to have been taken. The warnings
and counsels which he gave with reference to the maintenance of the
English conquests in France he caused his secretary, William Worcester,
to put in writing for his justification; but though his admonitions were
neglected by those to whom they were addressed, popular rumour held him
partly accountable for the loss of Normandy. Of this opinion some
evidence was given in the course of Cade’s insurrection.
[Footnote 76-2: The Battle of Patay.]
As a member of the King’s Council Fastolf thought it right to send a
messenger to ascertain what were the demands of the insurgents.
[Sidenote: John Payn and the rebels.] He therefore commanded one John
Payn, who was in his service, to take a man with him and two of the best
horses of his stable, and ride to Blackheath. When he arrived there,
Cade ordered him to be taken prisoner. To save his master’s horses from
being stolen, Payn gave them to the attendant, who galloped away with
them as fast as he could, while he himself was brought before the
Captain. Cade then asked him what he had come for, and why he had caused
his fellow to run away with the horses. He answered that he had come to
join some brothers of his wife, and other companions who were among the
insurgents. On this some one called out to the Captain that he was a man
of Sir John Fastolf’s, and that the two horses were Sir John’s. The
Captain raised a cry of ‘Treason!’ and sent him through the camp with a
herald of the Duke of Exeter before him, in the duke’s coat-of-arms. At
four quarters of the field the herald proclaimed with an _Oyez_ that
Payn had been sent as a spy upon them by the greatest traitor in England
or France, namely, by one Sir John Fastolf, who had diminished all the
garrisons of Normandy, Le Mans, and Maine, and thereby caused the loss
of all the king’s inheritance beyond sea. It was added that Sir John had
garrisoned his place with the old soldiers of Normandy, to oppose the
Commons when they came to Southwark; and, as the emissary of such a
traitor, Payn was informed that he should lose his head.
He was brought to the Captain’s tent, where an axe and block were
produced. But fortunately he had friends among the host; and Robert
Poynings, Cade’s swordbearer and carver, who afterwards married John
Paston’s sister Elizabeth, declared plainly that there should die a
hundred or two others if Payn were put to death. He was therefore
allowed to live on taking an oath that he would go to Southwark and arm
himself, and return to join the Commons. He accordingly carried to
Fastolf a statement of their demands, advising him at the same time to
put away his old soldiers and withdraw himself into the Tower. The old
warrior felt that the advice was prudent; he left but two of his
servants in the place, and but for Payn the insurgents would have burned
it to the ground. The faithful dependant, however, had to pay the full
penalty of his master’s unpopularity. He seems to have entertained the
rioters for some time at his own cost. Afterwards the Captain took from
him some valuable clothes and armour, and sent men to ransack his
chamber of bonds, money, and other stores. The insurgents also robbed
his house in Kent, and threatened to hang his wife and children.
Finally, on the night of the battle on London Bridge, Cade thrust him
into the thickest of the combat, where he continued six hours unable to
extricate himself, and was dangerously wounded.
To have passed through all this was surely a severe enough trial; yet
after that commotion he had further trouble to endure. He was impeached
by the Bishop of Rochester, and thrown into the Marshalsea by command of
the queen. He was also threatened to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, in
order that he might accuse his master Fastolf of treason; but in the end
his friends succeeded in procuring for him a charter of pardon. To earn
this, however, as we find from the document itself, he had to appear
before the king in person, during a progress which he made in Kent the
year after the rebellion, and, amid a crowd of other supplicants whose
bodies were stripped naked down to their legs, humbly to beg for
mercy.[78-1]
[Footnote 78-1: _See_ Appendix to Introduction.]
_The Dukes of York and Somerset_
[Sidenote: The Duke of York.] Cade’s rebellion was attributed by the
Court to the machinations of the Duke of York. The disturbances that had
prevailed for some months previously seem to have been partly associated
with his name. When Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, was murdered
in the beginning of the year, the malcontents talked of inviting York
over from Ireland to redress the wrongs of the people. The exclusion of
York and other lords of royal blood from the king’s councils was also
made an express ground of complaint by the Kentish insurgents. The
repetition of his name in the mouths of the disaffected was anything but
grateful to the party then in power. It was construed as being in itself
an evidence of his disloyalty. But the popular complaints as to his
treatment were both just and reasonable, for it was a matter that
concerned the public weal. The rank, wealth, and lineage of the Duke of
York, his connection with the blood-royal, his large possessions, and
finally his well-proved ability both as a general and an
administrator--all marked him out as one who ought to have been invited
to take a leading part in the government of the realm; but a faction
about the king had taken care to keep him as much as possible at a
distance from the Court. Moreover, it had maligned and aspersed him in
his absence, so that it would have been positively insecure for himself
to allow the charges to accumulate. A time had clearly come when it was
no longer his duty to obey the orders of others. His enemies were
becoming more and more unpopular every day, and the only hope of
improving the administration of affairs depended upon his taking the
initiative.
[Sidenote: Comes over from Ireland.] He accordingly determined to avail
himself of the privilege due to his rank, and lay his requests at the
foot of the throne. A little before Michaelmas he came over from
Ireland, collected 4000 of his retainers upon the Welsh Marches, and
with them proceeded to London. His coming, although unsolicited by the
king and without leave asked, was nevertheless not altogether
unexpected. Attempts were made to stop his landing at Beaumaris, and
bodies of men lay in wait for him in various places to interrupt his
progress. For this, however, he could not have been unprepared. He knew
well the hatred entertained towards him at the Court, for he had
experienced pretty much the same thing years before in going to Ireland,
as now in coming from it. Although he was sent to that country in the
king’s service, and as the king’s lieutenant, there were persons
commissioned to apprehend him at several points in his journey thither;
and now on his return similar efforts were made to prevent his advance
to London. As regards himself they were altogether fruitless; but it is
not improbable that they succeeded in deterring many of his followers
from joining him. William Tresham, the Speaker of the last Parliament,
having received a summons from the duke to meet him, was waylaid and
murdered in Northamptonshire by a body of the retainers of Lord Grey of
Ruthin. For two months the murderers went at large. The sheriff of the
county durst not arrest them, and it was only on the meeting of
Parliament that a special act was passed for their punishment.[80-1]
[Footnote 80-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 211-12.]
York, however, pursued his way, in spite of all opposition, to the royal
presence, and great was the dismay of those then about the king.
According to an act passed against him nine years later, his approach
was not unaccompanied by violence. He and his followers, it is said,
came in warlike array to Westminster Palace, and ‘beat down the spears
and walls’ in the king’s chamber. If so, we should infer that his access
to the king was opposed even at the last moment. But the opposition was
ineffectual, and the reception he met with from Henry himself did not
indicate that the king at all resented his conduct.
It must have been on his first interview with Henry that he presented a
petition and received a reply from him, which are printed in Holinshed
as follows:--
_Richard, Duke of York: his letter to King Henry_[80-2]
Please it your Highness to conceive that since my departing out of
this your realm by your commandment, and being in your service in
your land of Ireland, I have been informed that divers language hath
been said of me to your most excellent estate which should sound to
my dishonour and reproach and charge of my person; howbeit that I
have been, and ever will be, your true liegeman and servant, and if
there be any man that will or dare say the contrary or charge me
otherwise, I beseech your rightwiseness to call him before your high
presence, and I will declare me for my discharge as a true knight
ought to do. And if I do not, as I doubt not but I shall, I beseech
you to punish me as the poorest man of your land. And if he be found
untrue in his suggestion and information, I beseech you of your
highness that he be punished after his desert in example of all
other.
Please it your Excellency to know that as well before my departing
out of this your realm for to go into your land of Ireland in your
full noble service, as since, certain persons have lain in wait for
to hearken upon me, as Sir John Talbot, knight, at the castle of
Holt, Sir Thomas Stanley, knight, in Cheshire, Pulford at Chester,
Elton at Worcester, Brooke at Gloucester, and Richard, groom of your
chamber, at Beaumaris; which had in charge, as I am informed, to
take me, and put me into your castle of Conway, and to strike off
the head of Sir William Oldhall, knight, and to have put in prison
Sir William Devereux, knight, and Sir Edmund Malso (Mulso), knight,
withouten enlarging until the time that your Highness had appointed
their deliverance.
Item, at such time as I was purposed for to have arrived at your
haven of Beaumaris, for to have come to your noble presence to
declare me your true man and subject, as my duty is, my landing was
stopped and forebarred by Henry Norris, Thomas Norris, William
Buckley, William Grust, and Bartholomew Bould, your officers in
North Wales, that I should not land there, nor have victuals nor
refreshing for me and my fellowship, as I have written to your
Excellency here before; so far forth, that Henry Norris, deputy to
the chamberlain of North Wales, said unto me that he had in
commandment that I should in no wise have landing, refreshing, nor
lodging, for men nor horse, nor other thing that might turn to my
worship or ease; putting the blame upon Sir William Say, usher of
your chamber, saying and affirming that I am against your intent and
[held] as a traitor, as I am informed. And, moreover, certain
letters were made and delivered unto Chester, Shrewsbury, and to
other places, for to let mine entry into the same.
Item, above all wrongs and injuries above said, done unto me of
malice without any cause, I being in your land of Ireland in your
honourable service, certain commissions were made and directed unto
divers persons, which for the execution of the same sat in certain
places, and the juries impanelled and charged. Unto the which juries
certain persons laboured instantly to have me indicted of treason,
to the intent for to have undone me and mine issue, and corrupted my
blood, as it is openly published. Beseeching your Majesty royal of
your righteousness to do examine these matters, and thereupon to do
such justice in this behalf as the cause requireth; for mine intent
is fully to pursue to your Highness for the conclusion of these
matters.
[Footnote 80-2: The whole of this correspondence is attributed by
Holinshed and Stow to the year 1452; but it appears to me clearly
to belong to the year 1450, when the Duke had just returned from
Ireland. See _Chronicle of London_, 136; though internal evidence
alone will, I think, satisfy the careful student.]
_The Answer of King Henry to the Duke of York_
Cousin, we have seen the bill that ye took us late, and also
understand the good humble obedience that ye in yourself show unto
us, as well in word as in deed; wherefore our intent is the more
hastily to ease you of such things as were in your said bill.
Howbeit that at our more leisure we might answer you to your said
bill, yet we let you wit that, for the causes aforesaid, we will
declare you now our intent in these matters. Sith it is that a long
time among the people hath been upon you many strange language, and
in especial anon after your [qu. their?][82-1] disordinate and
unlawful slaying of the bishop of Chichester,[82-2] divers and many
of the untrue shipmen and other said, in their manner, words against
our estate, making menace to our own person by your sayings, that ye
should be fetched with many thousands, and ye should take upon you
that which ye neither ought, nor, as we doubt not, ye will not
attempt; so far forth that it was said to our person by divers, and
especially, we remember, of one Wasnes which had like words unto us.
And also there were divers of such false people that went on and had
like language in divers of our towns of our land, which by our
subjects were taken and duly executed. Wherefore we sent to divers
of our courts and places to hearken and to take heed if any such
manner coming were, and if there had been, for to resist it; but
coming into our land our true subject as ye did, our intent was not
that ye, nor less of estate of our subjects, nor none of your
servants should not have been letted nor warned, but in goodly wise
received; howbeit that peradventure your sudden coming, without
certain warning, caused our servants to do as they did, considering
the causes abovesaid. And as to the indictment that ye spoke of, we
think verily and hold for certain, that there was none such. And if
ye may truly prove that any person was thereabouts, the matter shall
be demeaned as the case shall require, so that he shall know it is
to our great displeasure. Upon this, for the easing of your heart in
all such matters, we declare, repute and admit you as our true and
faithful subject, and as our faithful cousin.
[Footnote 82-1: I have no doubt this is a misreading of the
contracted form ‘y{r}’ which was intended for ‘their.’ To accuse
York of the murder of the Bishop of Chichester, and apparently as
a principal, not an accessory in that murder, when he was at the
time in Ireland, would have been absurd. Besides, the tenor of the
whole of this reply is to exculpate York of all charges.]
[Footnote 82-2: Misprinted ‘Chester’ in Holinshed.]
So far, York had gained his object. The charges against him were
repudiated by the highest authority in the kingdom. But it was
impossible that the matter could rest there. His own interests and those
of the public alike compelled him to demand a full inquiry into the
machinations of his adversaries, and when admitted to freer intercourse
with Henry he was able to support this request by most inconvenient
arguments. Town and country now listened with eagerness for news of a
long looked-for crisis, while, as it seemed, the old _régime_ was being
quietly laid aside at Westminster. [Sidenote: A change of government.]
‘Sir, and it please,’ writes one newsmonger, William Wayte, the clerk of
Justice Yelverton, ‘Sir, and it please, I was in my lord of York’s
house, and I heard much thing more than my master writeth unto you of.
I heard much thing in Fleet Street. But, sir, my lord was with the king,
and he visaged so the matter that all the king’s household was and is
afraid right sore. And my said lord hath put a bill to the king and
desired much thing which is much after the Commons’ desire; and all is
upon justice, and to put all those that be indicted under arrest without
surety or mainprise, and to be tried by law as law will; insomuch that
on Monday Sir William Oldhall was with the king at Westminster more than
two hours, and had of the king good cheer.’[83-1]
[Footnote 83-1: _See_ No. 142.]
Sir William Oldhall, a friend and companion-in-arms
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