Sir John Paston and Caister

William Paston.

When Sir John Paston returned to England, the first thing that he had to consider was how to meet a debt to his uncle William which was due at Michaelmas.291.4 William Paston is a member of the family of whom we totally lose sight for many years after the very beginning of Edward’s reign; but his pecuniary relations with his nephew about this time cause him again to be spoken of and to take part in the correspondence.291.5 He was, doubtless, a rich man, although we find him pledging some of his plate to Elizabeth Clere of Ormesby.291.6 He was one of the trustees of Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, the mother of the banished earl.291.7 He had married, probably since the decease of his brother the eldest John Paston, the Lady Anne Beaufort, third daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, a lady of a wealthy family; and he occupied the great mansion called Warwick’s Inn, near Newgate, which had been the town-house of the mighty Kingmaker. His mother, Agnes Paston, lived there along with him.292.1 Of his family we may mention here that the first child he had by the Lady Anne was a daughter named Mary, born, as we know from an old register, on St. Wolstan’s Day, the 19th January 1470. The second, more than four years later, was also a daughter, and having been born on Tuesday the 19th July 1474, the eve of St. Margaret’s Day,292.2 was christened Margaret next day at St. Sepulchre’s Church, having for her godfather the Duke of Buckingham, and for her godmothers, Margaret, Duchess of Somerset,292.3 and Anne, Countess of Beaumont.292.4 Neither of these two daughters, however, survived him. The second, Margaret, died four months after her birth, at a time when her father was absent from London, and was buried before he came home.292.5 In the end, the lands of William Paston descended to two other daughters, for he had no sons.

Money matters.

At this time Sir John had only borrowed of his uncle £4, a sum not quite so inconsiderable in those days as it is now, but still a mere trifle for a man of landed property, being perhaps equivalent to £50 or £60 at the present day. He repaid the money about November 1474, and his uncle, being perhaps agreeably surprised, inquired how he was going to redeem a mortgage of 400 marks held by one Townsend on the manor of Sporle. William Paston was already aware that Sir John had received a windfall of £100 from the executors of Walter Lyhart, Bishop of Norwich, who died two years before, and that some one else had offered to advance another £100, which left only 100 marks still to be raised. He was afraid his nephew had been compelled to offer an exorbitant rate of interest for the loan. Sir John, however, being pressed with his questions, told him that his mother had agreed to stand surety for the sum he had borrowed; on which William Paston, to save him from the usurers, offered to advance the remaining 100 marks himself, and with this view placed, apparently unsolicited, 500 marks’ worth of his own plate in pawn. Sir John thought the plate was in safer custody than it would have been at Warwick’s Inn, where, in his uncle’s absence, it remained in the keeping of his aged grandmother; but he was anxious, if possible, not to lay himself under this kind of obligation to his uncle.293.1

The manor of Sporle was redeemed, but apparently not without his uncle William’s assistance. Some other land was mortgaged to his uncle instead; but the transaction was no sooner completed than Sir John declared he felt as much anxiety about the land in his uncle’s hand as he had before about that which was in Townsend’s. His mother, too, was not a little afraid, both for the land and for her own securities. She suspected William Paston was only too anxious to gain some advantage over them. She was jealous also of the influence he exercised over his aged mother, who had recently recovered from an illness, and she wished the old lady were again in Norfolk instead of living with her son in London.293.2

Sir John remained in debt to his uncle for at least a year,293.3 and whether he repaid him at the end of that time I cannot tell; but certainly, if out of debt to his uncle, he was two or three years later in debt to other men. In 1477 he was unable to meet promptly the claims of one named Cocket, and was labouring once more to redeem the manor of Sporle, which he had been obliged to mortgage to Townsend a second time. His mother, annoyed by his importunity for assistance, told him flatly she did not mean to pay his debts, and said she grieved to think what he was likely to do with her lands after her decease, seeing that he had wasted so shamefully what had been left him by his father.294.1

Sir John Paston’s claim to Caister.

But, however careless about his other property, Sir John, as we have already remarked, always showed himself particularly anxious for the recovery of Caister. During the whole of the year 1475, when he was abroad at Calais and with the army, he makes frequent reference to the matter in his letters. His brother John and his uncle William had undertaken to urge his suit in his absence to my lord and lady of Norfolk; but he would have come home and brought it before the king in Parliament, had not the French king at that time come to the confines of Picardy, and made the Council of Calais anxious to retain the services of every available soldier on that side of the sea.294.2 He was impatient at the non-fulfilment of a promise by Bishop Waynflete—‘the slow Bishop of Winchester,’ as he called him—to entreat the duke and duchess in his favour.294.3 But he was consoled by news which reached him before he came home, that the king himself had spoken to the Duke of Norfolk on the subject, and that, though the matter was delayed till next term, the king had commanded the duke to take good advice on the subject and be sure of the validity of his title, for justice would certainly be done without favour to either party.294.4 This report, however, was rather too highly coloured. The Duchess of Norfolk denied its accuracy to John Paston. The king, she said, had only asked the duke at his departure from Calais how he would deal with Caister, and my lord made him no answer. The king then asked Sir William Brandon, one of the duke’s principal councillors, what my lord meant to do about it. Brandon had already received the king’s commands to speak to the duke on the subject, and he said that he had done so; but that my lord’s answer was ‘that the king should as soon have his life as that place.’ The king then inquired of the duke if he had actually said so, and the duke said yes. On this the king simply turned his back without another word, although, as my lady informed John Paston, if he had spoken one word more, the duke would have made no refusal. John Paston, however, informed her ladyship that he would no longer be retained in the duke’s service.295.1

His petition to the king.

Sir John drew up a petition to the king upon the subject. He showed that the duke had been originally led to lay claim to Caister by the malice of Sir William Yelverton, William Jenney, and Thomas Howes, who were enfeoffed of that and other lands to his use; that upon their suggestion the duke had entered the manor by force, and also taken from him 600 sheep and 30 neat, besides one hundred pounds’ worth of furniture; that he had done damage to the place itself which 200 marks would not suffice to repair, and that he had collected the revenues of the lands for three years to the value of £140. By the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, the duke had afterwards restored him to possession of the manor on payment of 500 marks, and released to him his estate and interest therein by a deed under the seals of himself and his co-feoffees, and of the Bishop of Winchester. Sir John, however, had remained in possession only half a year, during which time he had laid out 100 marks in repairs, and £40 for the ‘outrents’ due for the three years preceding, when the duke again forcibly entered the manor, and had kept possession from that time for the space of four years and more, refusing to hear any remonstrances on the subject, or to allow Sir John to come to his presence. Moreover, when Sir John had applied to any of my lord’s council, requesting them to bring the matter before his lordship, they told him that they had mentioned his request, but that he was always so exceedingly displeased with them that they did not dare to urge it. Thus Sir John had lost all his cost and trouble for four years, and thrown away 500 marks to no purpose.295.2

A.D. 1476, 16th Jan.

This petition was probably never presented to the king. Death of the Duke of Norfolk. It must have been drawn up in the end of the year 1475, and in the middle of January 1476 the Duke of Norfolk suddenly died.295.3 The event seems to have occurred at his seat at Framlingham, and Sir John Paston, who writes to notify it to his brother, must have been there at the time,296.1 intending perhaps to have made one last effort with the duke’s council or himself, before applying for justice to the king. But matters now stood on a different footing, and Sir John, after making his intention known to the duke’s council, sent a messenger named Whetley to Caister to assert his rights there. Considering all that had passed, the act could not reasonably have been wondered at; but his brother John intimated to him a few days later that it was resented by some of the late duke’s servants, as showing great want of respect for their master.296.2 This imputation Sir John repudiated, pointing out most truly that no wise man could have blamed him, even if he had anticipated the duke’s decease, and entered Caister an hour before it took place. Indeed, considering the justice of his claim, no one could be sorry to see Sir John in possession, who was a real friend to the duke, and loved the weal of his soul.296.3

It is curious to see the notions entertained in that day of the respect due to a duke, even from those whom he had very seriously wronged. However, Sir John Paston was not backward in yielding all that was conventionally due; and in the very letter in which he intimated the duke’s death to his brother, he says he had promised his council the loan of some cloth of gold for the funeral. The article was one which it was difficult to procure in the country, and he proposed to lend them some that he had bought for his father’s tomb.296.4 His mother afterwards authorised him to sell it to them, if he could get a sufficient price for it.296.5

Sir John, however, after a brief visit to Norwich, hastened up to London. Now was the time that application must be made to the king; for it would be found by the inquisition that the Duke of Norfolk had actually died seised of the manor of Caister, and, unless efficient protest were made, the title would be confirmed to his widow.297.1 Sir John’s chief fear seems to have been that writs of diem clausit extremum would be issued before he had an opportunity of urging reasons for delay; in which case the inquisition would speedily be taken, and all that he could do would be to set forth his claim to the escheator before whom it was held. But he soon found that he need not be over anxious on this account. The duchess herself was anxious that the writs should not be issued too precipitately, and John Paston told his brother that he ‘need not deal over largely with the escheators.’297.2 The duchess, on the other hand, was suspicious of Sir John, and was warned to be upon her guard lest he should attempt to retake Caister by the strong hand. A favourable opportunity might have been found for such an attempt at that time, as the moat was frozen and could have been crossed with ease. John Paston, however, assured the duchess that his brother intended to make no entry without her knowledge and assent. The matter at last was brought before the king’s council, and was decided in Sir John Paston’s favour in May following, all the lords, judges, and serjeants pronouncing his title good. Recovery of Caister. Privy seals were then made out for the duchess’s officers to give up possession, and seven years after the siege of Caister, Sir John was once more the acknowledged master of the place.297.3

The whole story of the duke’s claim to Caister and of his injustice towards Sir John was finally recorded in the inquisition, which was taken, after an unusual delay, in October of the year following. It was shown that Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes, acting without the assent and against the will of the other trustees of Sir John Fastolf’s lands, but in their names, had made a charter granting to the duke and to Thomas Hoo, Sir Richard Southwell, William Brandon, Ralph Asheton, John Tymperley, and James Hobert, the manors of Caister in Flegg, by Great Yarmouth, called Redham Hall, Vaux, and Bosouns. This charter, which was not sealed, was shown to the jury, and it appeared that the said Yelverton, Jenney, and Howes had thereby demised what had belonged to them, that is to say, three out of eight parts of the same manors, to the said duke and the others. Afterwards the same duke and his co-feoffees, by the mediation of the Bishop of Winchester, seeing that the said demise and enfeoffment was against conscience, and in consideration of 500 marks paid by the bishop at the charge of Sir John Paston, enfeoffed John, Bishop of Hereford, John, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and nine others, to the use of Sir John Paston. These again, by another deed, gave up their trust to Sir John Paston, and to Guy Fairfax and Richard Pigot, serjeants-at-law, John Paston, Esquire, and Roger Townsend, whom they enfeoffed to the use of Sir John Paston and his heirs for ever. 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. After this the duke died; but while he lived, Sir John Paston had continually laid claim to the manors in his own name and in that of the said Guy Fairfax and others, sometimes entering the same, and sometimes going as near as he could with safety to himself. Finally, he entered after the duke’s death, and had been seised for a long time when the inquisition was taken. The duke, therefore, it was found, did not die seised of the manors. It was further found that these manors were holden of the Abbey of St. Benet’s, Hulme.298.1