To the King, our Sovereign Lord, and to the right wise and discreet Lords, assembled in this present Parliament.
Beseecheth meekly your humble liegeman, John Paston, that where [as] he and other ... have be peaceably possessed of the manor of Gresham, within the county of Norfolk xx year and more, till the xxij day of February, the year of your noble reign xxvi, that Robert Hungerford, Knight, the Lord Molyns, entered in to the said manor ... the said Lord sent to the mansion a riotous people, to the number of a thousand persons ... arrayed in manner of war, with cuirasse, briganders, jacks, salettes, glaives, bowes, arrows, pavyse (shields) pans with fire burning therein, long cromes (hooks) to draw down houses, ladders, pikes, with which they mined down the walls, and long trees with which they broke up gates and doors, and so came into the said mansion, the wife of your beseecher being at that time therein, and xlj persons with her; the which persons they drove out of the said mansion, and mined down the wall of the chamber wherein the wife of your said beseecher was, and bare her out at the gates, and cut asunder the posts of the houses and let them fall, and broke up all the chambers and coffers within the said mansion, and rifled, and in manner of robbery bare away all the stuffe, array, and money that your said beseecher and his servants had there, unto the value of ccli ... saying openly that if they might have found there your said beseecher and one John Damme, which is of council with him, and divers others of the servants of your said beseecher, they should have died. And yet [i.e. still] divers of the said misdoers and riotous people unknown, contrary to your laws, daily keep the said manor with force, and lie in wait.... And also they compel poor tenants of the said manor, now within their danger, against their will, to take feigned plaints in the courts of the hundred there against the ... servants of your said beseecher, who dare not appear to answer for fear of bodily harm, nor can get no copies of the said plaints, to remedy them by the law, because he that keepeth the said courts is of covyn with the said misdoers and was one of the said risers....
Please it your highness, ... to purvey ... that your said beseecher may be restored to the said goods and chattels thus riotously taken away ... and that the said Lord Molynes and his servants be set in such a rule, that your said beseecher, his friends, tenants and servants may be sure and safe from hurt of their persons, and peaceably occupy their lands and tenements under your laws without oppression or unrightful vexation of any of them; and that the said risers and causers thereof may be punished, that other may eschew to make any such rising in this your land of peace in time coming. And he shall pray to God for you.
PETITION OF THE COMMONS TO HENRY VI IN 1460 ON BEHALF OF WALTER CLERK, M.P.
(Antiquarian Repertory, Vol. III, p. 265)
To the King our Sovereign Lord; Prayen the Commons,
Forasmuch that great delay has been in this Parlement, by that Walter Clerk, Burgess of Chippenham in the shire of Wilts, which came by your high commandment to this your present Parlement, and attending to the same in the House for the Commons accustomed, the freedom of which Commons so called, hath ever before this time been and oweth to be, the same Commons to have free coming, going and there abiding: against which freedom the said Walter was, after his said coming, and during this your present Parlement, arrested at your suit for a fine to be made to your Highness, and imprisoned in the Counter of London, and from thence removed into your Exchequer, and then committed into your prison of Fleet ... and sithen that committing, the said Walter was outlawed.... Please it your Highness ... him to dismiss at large ... so that the said Walter may daily tend of this your Parlement, as his duty is to do.... Saving also to your said Commons called now to this your Parlement, and their successors, their whole Liberties, Franchises and Privileges in as ample form and manner, as your said Commons at any time afore this day have had, used and enjoyed and oweth to have, use and enjoy....
Response:—Le Roy le voelt.