‘The care taken by Sir John
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the tower of Magdalene College.
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[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 [26] 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. 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, [27] Protector in King Edward’s reign, called him his soldier; Queen Mary, her seaman; and Queen Elizabeth, her father.’[27.1]
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. 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.
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 [28] 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. 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:—