Part 21

Such was the state of hope, fear, and expectation which the new turn of affairs awakened in some, and particularly in the friends of John Paston. The next great move in the political game perhaps exceeded the anticipations even of Friar Brackley. [Sidenote: York challenges the Crown.] Yet though the step was undoubtedly a bold one, never, perhaps, was a high course of action more strongly suggested by the results of past experience. After ten miserable years of fluctuating policy, the attainted Yorkists were now for the fourth time in possession of power; but who could tell that they would not be a fourth time set aside and proclaimed as traitors? For yet a fourth time since the fall of Suffolk, England might be subjected to the odious rule of favourites under a well-intentioned king, whose word was not to be relied on. To the commonweal the prospect was serious enough; to the Duke of York and his friends it was absolute and hopeless ruin. But York had now determined what to do. On the 10th of October, the third day of the Parliament, he came to Westminster with a body of 500 armed men, and took up quarters for himself within the royal palace. On the 16th he entered the House of Lords, and having sat down in the king’s throne, he delivered to the Lord Chancellor a writing in which he distinctly claimed that he, and not Henry, was by inheritance rightful king of England.[191-1]

[Footnote 191-1: W. Worc., 483; Fabyan; _Rolls of Parl._ v. 375.]

The reader is of course aware of the fact on which this claim was based, namely, that York, through the female line, was descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., while King Henry, his father, and his grandfather had all derived their rights from John of Gaunt, who was Lionel’s younger brother. Henry IV. indeed was an undoubted usurper; but to set aside his family after they had been in possession of the throne for three generations must have seemed a very questionable proceeding. Very few of the lords at first appeared to regard it with favour. The greater number stayed away from the House.[191-2] But the duke’s counsel insisting upon an answer, the House represented the matter to the king, desiring to know what he could allege in opposition to the claim of York. The king, however, left the lords to inquire into it themselves; and as it was one of the gravest questions of law, the lords consulted the justices. But the justices declined the responsibility of advising in a matter of so high a nature. They were the king’s justices, and could not be of counsel where the king himself was a party. The king’s serjeants and attorney were then applied to, but were equally unwilling to commit themselves; so that the lords themselves brought forward and discussed of their own accord a number of objections to the Duke of York’s claim. At length it was declared as the opinion of the whole body of the peers that his title could not be defeated, but a compromise was suggested and mutually agreed to that the king should be allowed to retain his crown for life, the succession reverting to the duke and his heirs immediately after Henry’s death.[191-3]

[Footnote 191-2: W. Worc., 484.]

[Footnote 191-3: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 375-9.]

So the matter was settled by a great and solemn act of state. But even a parliamentary settlement, produced by a display of armed force, will scarcely command the respect that it ought to do if there is armed force to overthrow it. The king himself, it is true, appears to have been treated with respect, and with no more abridgment of personal liberty than was natural to the situation.[192-1] Nor could it be said that the peers were insensible of the responsibility they incurred in a grave constitutional crisis. But respect for constitutional safeguards had been severely shaken, and no securities now could bridle the spirit of faction: suspicion also of itself produced new dangers. The Duke of York, after all the willingness he had shown in Parliament to accept a compromise, seems to have been accused of violating the settlement as soon as it was made; for on that very night on which it was arranged (31st October), we are told by a contemporary writer that ‘the king removed unto London against his will to the bishop’s palace, and the Duke of York came unto him that same night by torchlight and took upon him as king, and said in many places that “This is ours by right.”’[192-2] Perhaps the facts looked worse than they were really; for it had been agreed in Parliament, though not formally expressed in the Accord, that the duke should be once more Protector and have the actual government.[192-3] But it is not surprising that Margaret and her friends would recognise nothing of what had been done in Parliament. Since the battle of Northampton she had been separated from her husband. She fled with her son first into Cheshire, afterwards into Wales, to Harlech Castle, and then to Denbigh, which Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, had just won for the House of Lancaster.[192-4] Her flight had been attended with difficulties, especially near Malpas, where she was robbed by a servant of her own, who met her and put her in fear of the lives of herself and her child.[192-5] In Wales she was joined by the Duke of Exeter, who was with her in October.[192-6] From thence she sailed to Scotland, where the enemies of the Duke of York were specially welcome. For James II., profiting, as might be expected, by the dissensions of England, a month after the battle of Northampton, had laid siege to Roxburgh, where he was killed by the bursting of a cannon. Margaret, with her son, arrived at Dumfries in January 1461, and met his widow, Mary of Gueldres, at Lincluden Abbey.[193-1] Meanwhile her adherents in the North of England held a council at York, and the Earl of Northumberland, with Lords Clifford, Dacres, and Nevill, ravaged the lands of the duke and of the Earl of Salisbury. The duke on this dissolved Parliament after obtaining from it powers to put down the rebellion,[193-2] and marched northwards with the Earl of Salisbury. A few days before Christmas they reached the duke’s castle of Sandal, where they kept the festival, the enemy being not far off at Pomfret.[193-3] On the 30th December was fought the disastrous battle of Wakefield, [Sidenote: The battle of Wakefield.] when the Yorkists were defeated, the duke and the Earl of Salisbury being slain in the field, and the duke’s son, the Earl of Rutland, ruthlessly murdered by Lord Clifford after the battle.

[Footnote 192-1: Though he was taken prisoner at the battle of Northampton, and had ever since been in the power of the victors, he does not appear to have been placed under any kind of restraint. In October, before the Parliament met, he was spending the time in hunting at Greenwich and Eltham.--No. 419.]

[Footnote 192-2: _Collections of a London Citizen_, 208 (Camden Society).]

[Footnote 192-3: _English Chronicle_ (Davies), 106; Fabyan; Hall, 249.]

[Footnote 192-4: _Privy Council Proceedings_, vi. 303.]

[Footnote 192-5: _Collections of a London Citizen_, 209.]

[Footnote 192-6: No. 419.]

[Footnote 193-1: _Auchinleck Chronicle_, 21. _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, vii. 8, 39, 157.]

[Footnote 193-2: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 382.]

[Footnote 193-3: W. Worc., 484.]

The story of poor young Rutland’s butchery is graphically described by an historian of the succeeding age who, though perhaps with some inaccuracies of detail as to fact, is a witness to the strong impression left by this beginning of barbarities. The account of it given by Hall, the chronicler, is as follows:--

‘While this battle was in fighting, a priest called Sir Robert Aspall, chaplain and schoolmaster to the young Earl of Rutland, second son to the above-named Duke of York, scarce of the age of twelve years [he was really in his eighteenth year], a fair gentleman and a maiden-like person, perceiving that flight was more safeguard than tarrying, both for him and his master, secretly conveyed the Earl out of the field by the Lord Clifford’s band towards the town. But or he could enter into a house, he was by the said Lord Clifford espied, followed, and taken, and, by reason of his apparel, demanded what he was. The young gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees, imploring mercy and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. “Save him,” said his chaplain, “for he is a prince’s son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter.” With that word, the Lord Clifford marked him and said--“By God’s blood, thy father slew mine; and so will I do thee and all thy kin”; and with that word stack the Earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade his chaplain bear the Earl’s mother word what he had done and said.’

Another illustration which the chronicler goes on to give of Clifford’s bloodthirsty spirit may be true in fact, but is certainly wrong as regards time. For he represents Queen Margaret as ‘not far from the field’ when the battle had been fought, and says that Clifford having caused the duke’s head to be cut off and crowned in derision with a paper crown, presented the ghastly object to her upon a pole with the words:--‘Madam, your war is done; here is your king’s ransom.’ Margaret, as we have seen, was really in Scotland at the time, where she negotiated an alliance with the Scots, to whom she agreed to deliver up Berwick for aid to her husband’s cause. But soon afterwards she came to York, where, at a council of war, she and her adherents determined to march on London. So it may have been a fact that Clifford presented to her the head of York upon a pole with the words recorded. But never was prophecy more unhappy; for instead of the war being ended, or the king being ransomed, there cannot be a doubt these deeds of wickedness imparted a new ferocity to the strife and hastened on the termination of Henry’s imbecile, unhappy reign. Within little more than two months after the battle of Wakefield the son of the murdered Duke of York was proclaimed king in London, by the title of Edward IV., and at the end of the third month the bloody victory of Towton almost destroyed, for a long time, the hopes of the House of Lancaster. From that day Henry led a wretched existence, now as an exile, now as a prisoner, for eleven unhappy years, saving only a few months’ interval, during which he was made king again by the Earl of Warwick, without the reality of power, and finally fell a victim, as was generally believed, to political assassination. As for Margaret, she survived her husband, but she also survived her son, and the cause for which she had fought with so much pertinacity was lost to her for ever.

And now we must halt in our political survey. Henceforth, though public affairs must still require attention, we shall scarcely require to follow them with quite so great minuteness. We here take leave, for the most part, of matters, both public and private, contained in the Letters during the reign of Henry VI. But one event which affected greatly the domestic history of the Pastons in the succeeding reign, must be mentioned before we go further. It was not long after the commencement of those later troubles--more precisely, it was on the 5th November 1459, six weeks after the battle of Bloreheath, and little more than three after the dispersion of the Yorkists at Ludlow--that the aged Sir John Fastolf breathed his last, within the walls of that castle which it had been his pride to rear and to occupy in the place of his birth. [Sidenote: Death of Sir John Fastolf.] By his will, of which, as will be seen, no less than three different instruments were drawn up, he bequeathed to John Paston and his chaplain, Sir Thomas Howes, all his lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, for the purpose of founding that college or religious community at Caister, on the erection of which he had bestowed latterly so much thought. The manner in which this bequest affected the fortunes of the Paston family has now to be considered.

_Fastolf’s Lands_

Under the feudal system, as is well known, on the death of any tenant _in capite_ of the crown, his lands were seized in the king’s name by an officer called the escheator, until it was ascertained by a jury of the county who was the next heir that should succeed to the property, and whether the king had any right of wardship by reason of his being under age. [Sidenote: A.D. 1459.] But when Sir John Fastolf died, he left no heir, nor was he, strictly speaking, at his death a tenant _in capite_ of the crown. [Sidenote: The lands of Sir John Fastolf.] He had at different times handed over all his landed property to trustees, who were to hold it to his use so long as he lived, and to apply it after his death to the purposes mentioned in his will. For the greater part of his lands in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey, he had appointed one body of trustees as early as the year 1449, ten years before his death.[196-1] This body consisted of five bishops, including the two primates, three lords, two justices of the King’s Bench, two knights, and ten other persons. But of these original trustees a good number were already dead, when, in the year 1457, a new trust was created, and the greater part of the Norfolk and Suffolk property was vested in the names of Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, William Yelverton, Justice of the King’s Bench, John Paston, Esq., Henry Fylongley, Esq., Thomas Howes, clerk, and William Paston. In the preceding year he had already created these same persons, with the addition of William Jenney, his trustees for the manor of Titchwell, in Norfolk, and the same again, with Jenney, but without Bishop Waynflete, for the manor of Beighton. The trust-deed for the former manor was dated 1st April 34 Henry VI., and that for the latter 26th March 34 Henry VI.[196-2]

[Footnote 196-1: The deed is dated 7 July 27 Hen. VI., and inrolled on the _Close Roll_, 29 Hen. VI. m., 39, _in dorso_.]

[Footnote 196-2: _Inquisition post mortem_, 38 and 39 Henry VI., No. 48.]

Thus it appears that as early as the month of March 1456, about a year and a half after Sir John Fastolf had taken up his abode in Norfolk, John Paston and his brother William were already named by him as trustees for some of his property. [Sidenote: John and William Paston, trustees.] From that time the influence of John Paston with the old knight continued to increase till, as it was evident that the latter drew near his end, it became a subject of jealousy and suspicion. Of course, these feelings were not diminished when it was found after Fastolf’s death that, subject only to the obligation of founding his college at Caister, and paying 4000 marks to his other executors, he had in effect bequeathed to John Paston the whole of his lands in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Yet it does not appear that in Fastolf’s latter days John Paston was about him more than usual. He was just as frequently away in London as he had been in any previous year.[197-1] But even when absent, he had a very staunch and hearty friend in Friar Brackley, who frequently visited the sick chamber, and took every opportunity to preserve and augment the high esteem that Fastolf entertained for him. At the last Brackley wrote to urge him to come down to Norfolk, as the patient evidently could not live much longer. ‘It is high time; he draweth fast homeward, and is right low brought, and sore weakened and feebled.’ Paston must bring with him a draft petition to the king about the foundation of the college at Caister, and an arrangement with the monks of St. Benet’s, for the dying man’s satisfaction. ‘Every day this five days he saith, “God send me soon my good cousin Paston, for I hold him a faithful man, and ever one man.” _Cui ego_: “That is sooth,” &c. _Et ille_: “Show me not the meat, show me the man.”’ Such is the curious report written by Dr. Brackley to Paston himself of the anxiety with which the old knight expected him shortly before his death.[197-2]

[Footnote 197-1: _See_ Nos. 376, 377, 379, 380, 383.]

[Footnote 197-2: No. 383.]

[Sidenote: William Worcester.] On the other hand, William Worcester, who had so long acted as Fastolf’s private secretary, was perhaps a little jealous at the closer intimacy and greater influence of Paston with his master. At least, if this was not his feeling before Sir John Fastolf’s death, he expressed it plainly shortly afterwards. It was, he considered, owing to himself that John Paston had stood so high in Fastolf’s favour;[197-3] and it seemed scarcely reasonable that Paston should have the principal share in the administration of the property while he, who had been so long in Fastolf’s service, so devoted to his interests, and yet so ill rewarded during his master’s life, found no kind of provision made for him in the will. It was, indeed, perfectly true that Fastolf had named him one of his executors. But this executorship, as it turned out, was not a thing likely to yield him either profit or importance. For by the last will, made immediately before the testator’s death, a body of ten executors was constituted, of whom two were to have the sole and absolute administration, the others having nothing whatever to do except when those two thought fit to ask for their advice. The two acting executors were to be John Paston and Thomas Howes. William Worcester was one of the other eight.[198-1]

[Footnote 197-3: No. 401.]

[Footnote 198-1: No. 387.]

Yet, at first, he refrained from expressing dissatisfaction, and showed himself ready to co-operate with John Paston. Within a week after Fastolf’s death, he accompanied William Paston up to London, and joined him in an interview with Bishop Waynflete, at that time Lord Chancellor, who was one of the other executors. In accordance with Bishop Waynflete’s advice, he and William Paston proceeded to collect and sequester the goods of the deceased in different parts of London until the time that John Paston could have an interview with the bishop. They managed to have goods out of the Abbey of Bermondsey that no one knew about, except William Paston and Worcester themselves, and another man named Plomer. In short, William Worcester acted at this time as a most confidential and trusty friend to John Paston’s interests, being either entirely ignorant how little provision was made for his own, or trusting to Paston’s benevolence and sense of justice for that reward which was not expressly ‘nominated in the bond.’ And William Paston felt his claims so strongly that he could not help insinuating to his brother that he was bound in honour to make him a provision for life. ‘I understand by him,’ wrote William Paston, ‘he will never have other master but his old master; and to my conceit it were pity but if he should stand in such case by my master he should never need service, considering how my master trusted him, and the long years that he hath been with him in and many shrewd journeys for his sake.’[198-2]

[Footnote 198-2: Nos. 391, 393.]

But very shortly afterwards the manner in which Worcester spoke of Paston revealed a bitter sense of disappointment and injustice. He asserted that Fastolf had actually granted him a portion of land to live upon, and that Sir Thomas Howes, Fastolf’s confessor, who was his wife’s uncle, had been present in the chapel at Caister when this gift was conceded. Worcester’s wife had in fact asked Sir Thomas to choose the land. Nevertheless, when he came to demand of Paston that to which he considered he had a lawful claim, the latter was displeased with him; nor did the two come to a good understanding again during Paston’s life.[199-1]

[Footnote 199-1: No. 401. It appears by a document inrolled in the _Close Roll_ of 39 Henry VI., m. 13, _in dorso_, that Worcester on the 28th August 1460 executed a deed making over all his goods and chattels (_bona mea et catalla mobilia et immobilia, viva et mortua, ubicumque et in quorumcumque manibus_), and all debts due to him from whatever persons, to Henry Everyngham, Esq., Hugh Fenne, gentleman, Henry Wyndesore, gentleman, Robert Toppes, jun., gentleman, and John Bokkyng, gentleman; which deed he acknowledged in Chancery on the 1st September following (_see_ Appendix to this Introduction). Apparently the object of this was to give others an interest in vindicating what he supposed to be his rights.]

It was but nine days after Sir John Fastolf’s death, and three days after his first interview with the chancellor, Bishop Waynflete, that William Paston, in writing to his brother, expressed his intention of going to the bishop again for writs of _diem clausit extremum_. These writs were the ordinary authority under which the escheators of the different counties wherein the deceased had held lands would proceed to inquire what the manors were, and to whom they ought to descend. [Sidenote: Claimants of Fastolf’s property.] 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; but though the earl gave him fair words, William Paston was advised to put no trust in him.[199-2] In point of fact, soon after Christmas, the earl entered Sir John’s mansion in Southwark, and occupied it for a time as if it had been his own dwelling-house.[199-3]

[Footnote 199-2: No. 391.]

[Footnote 199-3: W. Worcester’s _Annals_.]