John Paston

“ Margaret Paston survived her son Sir John five years, and died in 1484, in the reign of Richard III.310.3 In her very interesting will, made two years before her decease, a number of bequests of a religious and charitable kind show how strongly she felt the claims of the poor, the sick, and the needy, as well as those of hospitals, friars, anchoresses, and parish churches. From the bequests she makes to her own family, it appears that not only John Paston, her eldest surviving son, but his brother Edmund also, was by that time married, and had children. ”

“ A weak king surrounded by turbulent nobles was incapable of discharging the duties of government, and only the strong man armed could hope to keep his goods in peace. A lawyer like his father, Paston spent much time in London, leaving his wife to look after his business in Norfolk; and many of the Letters were written by Margaret to her husband, detailing the progress of affairs in the county. It is during the lifetimes of John Paston and his eldest son that the Letters are most numerous and valuable, not only for family matters, but also for the history of England. ”

“ The family, indeed, seem at first to have built rather extravagant expectations upon the new turn of affairs, which John Paston felt it necessary to repress in writing to his mother. ‘As for the offices that ye wrote to my brother for and to me, they be for no poor men, but I trust we shall speed of other offices meetly for us, for my master the Earl of Oxford biddeth me ask and have. I trow my brother Sir John shall have the constableship of Norwich Castle, with £20 of fee. ”

“ But some of them with their newly-opened eyes saw a sight which shocked them—the grave of John Paston in Bromholm Priory without a tombstone. The news spread over the country-side. The Pastons had fallen; they that had been so powerful could no longer afford a stone to put above John Paston’s head. Margaret, his widow, could not pay her debts; the eldest son, Sir John, wasted his property upon women and tournaments, while the younger, John also, though a man of greater parts, thought more of his hawks than of his harvests. ”

“ We will make all other men beware by him how they shall disobey our writing. A servant of ours hath made a complaint of him. I cannot think that he hath informed us all truly. Yet not for that we will not suffer him to disobey our writing; but sithence he disobeyeth our writing, we may believe the better his guiding is as we be informed.’208.2
These terrible words were reported to John Paston by his brother Clement, then in London, who urged him to come up from Norfolk in all possible haste, and to be sure that he had some very weighty excuse for having neglected the previous messages. ”

“ In the spring of 1478 Sir John Paston was again involved in a dispute with a powerful nobleman. The Duke of Suffolk revived his old claim to Hellesdon and Drayton, and ventured to sell the woods to Richard Ferror, the Mayor of Norwich, who thereupon began to cut them down. Sir John brought the matter into Chancery, and hastened up to London. Ferror professed great regret, and said he had no idea but that the manor was in peaceable possession of the duke, adding that if Sir John had sent him the slightest warning, he would have refrained from making such a bargain. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Sir John Paston, apparently, had been caught napping as usual, and knew nothing of the transaction. His mother wrote to him in dismay on the 5th June. Young Heydon had already taken possession. ‘We beat the bushes,’ said Margaret Paston, ‘and have the loss and the disworship, and other men have the birds. My lord hath false counsel and simple that adviseth him thereto. And, as it is told me, Guton is like to go the same way in haste. And as for Hellesdon and Drayton, I trow it is there it shall be. ”

“ And as for the matter, so they overcome you not with force or boasting, I shall have the manor surelier to me and mine than the duke shall have Cossey, doubt ye not.’ In fact, if it were a question of law, John Paston’s title seems to have been greatly superior to any that could possibly have been advanced by the duke: in proof of which he points out a few facts which he tells his wife she may if she think proper lay before the Bishop of Norwich. The manor of Drayton had belonged to a merchant of London called John Hellesdon, long before any of the De la Poles held land in Norfolk or Suffolk. ”

“ Paston had become very intimate with the wealthy knight. Sir John Fastolf, who was probably related to his wife, and who had employed him on several matters of business. In 1459 Sir John died without children, leaving his affairs in rather a tangled condition. In accordance with the custom of the time, he had conveyed many of his estates in Norfolk and Suffolk to trustees, among whom were John Paston and his brother William, retaining the revenues for himself, and probably intending his trustees after his death to devote the property to the foundation of a college. ”

“ The will on which John Paston founded his claim to Caister, as well as to the manors of Drayton and Hellesdon, Cotton, Calcotes, and the whole of Fastolf’s lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, was denounced by them as a fabrication and not the genuine will of Sir John Fastolf. And we must own that there are many things which seem to make the imputation credible. ”

“ And I wyse, madam, I am ryght sory that John Paston is no more fortunate then he is in that mater; for, as I undyrstand by your lettyr, my cosyn your husbond wyll geve but an Cli., whyche is no money lyek for syche a joyntore as is desyred of my son, thow hys possybylyte wer ryght easy. But, madam, when I mad that large grant in the maner of Sperham that I have mad to hym and my cosyn your doughter, he told me of an other some that he shold have with hyr then of an Cli. He hathe befor thys be wont to tell me none untrowthe ”

“ That many pretenders would lay claim to the different portions of those rich domains, John Paston and his brother knew full well. The Duke of Exeter had already set up a claim to Fastolf’s place in Southwark, on what grounds it is impossible to say. Others, who had no hope of proving title to any part of the property themselves, expected to win favour at court by offering to establish the rights of the crown in all the goods and chattels. William Paston accordingly endeavoured to secure the friendship of the Lord Treasurer, James, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond ”

“ 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.
The Manor of Gresham. ”

“ John Paston returned to Parliament. He was apparently in good favour with the king, and had been since the accession of Edward for a short time resident in his household.206.1 The king also obtained from him the redelivery of the jewels pawned by his father, the Duke of York, to Sir John Fastolf,206.2 in consideration of which he granted John Paston an assignment of 700 marks206.3 on the fee-farm of the city of Norwich, and on the issues of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. But his election as knight of the shire for Norfolk did not pass altogether without question. ”

“ Sir J. Fastolf goes to reside in Norfolk. William Paston now reported to his brother that Sir John Fastolf was about to take his journey into Norfolk within a few days, and proposed to take up his residence at Caister. His going thither must have been regarded as an event not only in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth but even in the city of Norwich. At all events it was highly important to John Paston, whose advice the old knight valued in many matters. ‘He saith,’ wrote William Paston to his brother, ‘ye are the heartiest kinsman and friend that he knoweth. ”

“ Sir James Gloys.
But the influence of this spiritual adviser over their mother was by no means agreeable to the two eldest sons. John Paston speaks of him in a letter to his brother as ‘the proud, peevish, and ill-disposed priest to us all,’ and complains grievously of his interference in family affairs. ‘Many quarrels,’ he writes, ‘are picked to get my brother Edmund and me out of her house. We go not to bed unchidden lightly; all that we do is ill done, and all that Sir James and Pecock doth is well done. ”

“ As soon as the news of his death arrived in Norfolk, John Paston wrote to his mother, desiring that his brother Edmund would ride to Marlingford, Oxnead, Paston, Cromer, and 309 Caister, to intimate his right of succession to the tenants of these different manors, and to warn those of Marlingford and Oxnead to pay no rents to the servants or officers of his uncle William.309.1 These two manors, the reader will remember, belonged to Agnes Paston ”

“ But to do this she required the services of one or more faithful dependants who did not mind incurring a little personal risk in the interest of John Paston. Not many, certainly, were disposed to undertake the task. John Paston had written to his wife to have a body of men to escort the officer that would keep the court for him. But upon consultation it was thought better to keep all the men they could in reserve, as the duke’s officers had no less than 500 men ready to take advantage of the opportunity to force an entry into Hellesdon. ”

“ Acts of very much the same character had been seen before—the reader will not have forgotten the forcible ejection of John Paston’s wife from Gresham. But they had been due more especially to the weak and incompetent rule of Henry VI., and not even then do we hear of a place being taken from one of the king’s subjects after a five weeks’ siege by a rival claimant. It was evident that the rebellion of Robin of Redesdale had destroyed King Edward’s power. The king had been actually made a prisoner, and the ascendency of the Woodvilles had been abolished. ”

“ Sir John Paston had now lost the fairest gem of his inheritance—or, as he and his contemporaries called it, of his ‘livelode.’254.3 Hence it was become all the more important that he should see to the remainder. Just before the surrender of Caister, in answer to his appeal to see what money she could raise, his mother by a great effort obtained for him £10 on sureties, but it was all spent immediately in paying the discharged garrison and some other matters. ”

“ So, on the morning of Tuesday the 15th of October, one Bottisforth, who was bailiff for the duke at Eye, came to Hellesdon, arrested four of John Paston’s servants, and carried them off to Cossey without a warrant from any justice of the peace. His intention, he said, was to convey them to Eye prison along with as many more of Paston’s adherents as he could lay his hands on. That same day the duke came to Norwich with a retinue of 500 men. ”

“ Then the other trustees of Sir John Fastolf enfeoffed the same Sir John Paston, Fairfax, and the others in the same way; so that these last became seised to Sir John’s use of the whole property—not merely of the three-eighths originally demised by Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes, but also of the remaining five-eighths—until they were violently disseised by the duke, who enfeoffed thereof Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, William, Bishop of Winchester, Henry, Earl of Essex, Richard Southwell, James Hobert, Richard Darby, clerk, and John York. ”

“ Among other things, it was contended that in the autumn of the year 1457, two years before his death, Sir John Fastolf had actually made estate to John Paston of the manor of Caister and other lands in Norfolk, and thereupon given him livery of seisin with a view to the foundation of the college:237.1 also that the will made in 1459 was an imperfect document, in which no executors were named, and to which no seal was attached.237.2 If these allegations were true, there was, after all, no great alteration in Sir John’s intentions during the last two years of his life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whetley, a servant of Sir John Paston, who had been sent down from London on the business, writes on that day to his master that the duke had made a formal entry into Hellesdon on Wednesday in Whitsun week. He dined at the manor-house, ‘drew a stew, and took plenty of fish.’ I suppose from what follows that he also held a court as lord of the manor. ‘At his being there that day,’ writes Whetley, ‘there was never no man that played Herod in Corpus Christi play better and more agreeable to his pageant than he did. ”