Sir John Paston now stepped into his father’s place, as heir to Caister and to Fastolf’s other possessions in Norfolk and Suffolk. But before he could vindicate his rights in any part of them it was necessary that he should wipe out that stain upon his pedigree which had been devised by calumny in bar of the claims made by his father. The case came before the king himself in council. An array of court rolls and other ancient records was produced by the family, to show that they had been lords of the soil in Paston from a very remote period. Some of their title-deeds went back as far as the reign of Henry III., and it was shown that their ancestors had given lands to religious houses in that reign. Indeed, so little truth was there in the imputation that John Paston the father was a bondman, that his ancestors, certainly by the mother’s side if not by the father’s also, had been the owners of bondmen. The evidences were considered satisfactory, and the family were declared by the king’s council to be fully cleared of the imputation. The lands, of which Lord Scales had taken [239] possession for about half a year,[239.1] were restored to Sir John Paston by a warrant under the king’s signet, dated on the 26th July, little more than two months after the death of John Paston the father.[239.2]
Tournament at Eltham.
After this Sir John Paston was much at court, and Lord Scales became his special friend. Even as early as the following April we find Sir John taking part in a tournament at Eltham, in which the king, Lord Scales, and himself were upon one side.[239.3] But the favour with which he was regarded at court both by the king and the Lord Scales appeared more evidently one year later, A.D. 1468. when the king’s sister Margaret went over to the Low Countries to be married to Charles, Duke of Burgundy. Marriage of Margaret, sister of Edward IV., to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. This match had been more than a year in contemplation, and was highly popular in cementing the friendship of England and Burgundy in opposition to France. On the 1st May 1467 a curious bargain or wager was made by Sir John Paston as to the probability of its taking effect within two years.[239.4] But on the 18th April 1468 he received a summons from the king to be prepared to give his attendance on the princess by the 1st June following, and to accompany her into Flanders.[239.5] Not only he, but his brother John Paston the younger, crossed the sea in the Lady Margaret’s train; and we are indebted to the latter for an interesting account of the marriage and of the tournaments which followed in honour of it. Young John Paston was greatly struck with the splendour of the Burgundian court. He had never heard of anything like it, he said, except the court of King Arthur.[239.6] But his brother seems to have found another attraction abroad which fascinated him quite as much as all the pageants and the tournaments in honour of the Lady Margaret.
Sir John Paston and Anne Haute.
There lived, probably in the town of Calais, a certain Mrs. Anne Haute, a lady of English extraction and related to Lord Scales, whom Sir John Paston seems on this occasion to have met for the first time. Having been perhaps all her life [240] abroad, she appears to have had an imperfect command of the English language; at least Sir John, in proposing to open a correspondence, wrote to her, ‘Mistress Annes, I am proud that ye can read English.’ For the rest we must not attempt to portray the lady, of whose appearance and qualities of mind or body we have no account whatever. But perhaps we may take it for granted that she was really beautiful; for though Sir John was a susceptible person, and had once been smitten before, his friend Daverse declared him to be the best chooser of a gentlewoman that he knew.[240.1] It is a pity that with this qualification his suit was not more successful. It went on for several years, but was in the end broken off, and Sir John Paston lived and died a bachelor.
A troubled inheritance.
But Sir John was heir to the troubles of a lawsuit, and his property was continually threatened by various claimants both at Hellesdon and at Caister. His mother writes to him on one occasion that Blickling of Hellesdon had come from London, ‘and maketh his boast that within this fortnight at Hellesdon should be both new lords and new officers. And also this day Rysing of Fretton should have heard said in divers places, there as he was in Suffolk, that Fastolf of Cowhaw maketh all the strength that he may, and proposeth him to assault Caister and to enter there if he may, insomuch that it is said that he hath a five-score men ready, and sendeth daily espies to understand what fellowship keep the place.’ For which reason Margaret Paston urges her son to send home either his brothers or Daubeney to command the garrison, for, as he well knew, she had been ‘affrayed’[240.2] there before this time, and she could not ‘well guide nor rule soldiers.’[240.3] Another time it is intimated to Sir John that the Duchess of Suffolk means to enter into Cotton suddenly at some time when few men should know what she is going to do.[240.4] And this intention she seems to have fully accomplished, for in the beginning of the year 1469 the Earl of Oxford sends Sir John a friendly warning that she means to [241] hold a court there next Monday with a view to proving that the manor of Cotton Hemnales is holden of her by knight’s service.[241.1] So that altogether Sir John Paston’s inheritance was held by a very precarious tenure, and his mother, like a prudent woman, advises him ‘not to be too hasty to be married till ye were more sure of your livelode.’[241.2]
The old dispute with the executors, however, was compromised in the court of audience: and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Waynflete, and Lord Beauchamp granted to Sir John full right in the manor of Caister, and a number of other lands both in Norfolk and Suffolk.[241.3] Sir John soon afterwards conveyed a portion of the Suffolk property called Hemnales in Cotton and the manor of Haynford to the Duke of Norfolk and others.[241.4] William Worcester became friends with John Paston’s widow, imputed his old misunderstanding with her husband to the interference of others between them, and expressed himself well pleased that Caister was to be at her command. ‘A rich jewel it is at need,’ writes Worcester, ‘for all the country in time of war; and my master Fastolf would rather he had never builded it than it should be in the governance of any sovereign that would oppress the country.’ At the same time it seemed very doubtful whether Fastolf’s intention of founding the college there could be carried out, and Worcester had some conferences with Sir John Paston about establishing it at Cambridge. Bishop Waynflete had already proposed doing so at Oxford; but Cambridge was nearer to the county of Norfolk, and by buying a few advowsons of wealthy parsonages an additional foundation might be established there at considerably less cost than by the purchase of manors. In this opinion Sir John Paston and William Worcester coincided, and the former promised to urge it upon Bishop Waynflete.[241.5]
Sir John Paston had now some reason to expect that with the settlement of this controversy he would have been left for life in peaceful possession of Caister. That which his father [242] had not been able to attain was now apparently conceded to him: and even if Sir William Yelverton was still dissatisfied, the other executors had formally recognised his rights in the court of audience. But before many months had passed it appeared that Yelverton could still be troublesome, and he found an ally in one who had hitherto been his opponent. Sir Thomas Howes unites with Yelverton, Sir Thomas Howes was probably failing in health—for he seems to have died about the end of the year 1468[242.1]—when he made that declaration ‘for the discharge of his conscience’ to which we have already alluded. Scruples seem to have arisen in his mind as to the part he had taken with Sir John Paston’s father in reference to the administration of Fastolf’s will, and he now maintained that the will nuncupative which he himself had propounded along with John Paston in opposition to an earlier will propounded by Yelverton and Worcester, was a fabrication which did not truly express the mind of the deceased. We may observe, though the subject is exceedingly obscure, that of the three wills[242.2] printed in Volume III., each of which professes to be the will of Sir John Fastolf, the third, which is in Latin, is clearly a will nuncupative declaring the testator’s mind in the third person, and defining the powers of the executors in regard to his goods and chattels.[242.3]
It was apparently this nuncupative will that Howes declared to be spurious. The validity of the others touching his lands depended upon the genuineness of a previous bargain made by Fastolf with John Paston, which was also disputed. But it was the nuncupative will that appointed ten executors and yet gave John Paston and Thomas Howes sole powers of administration, except in cases where those two thought fit to ask their assistance. This will seems to have been drawn up mainly by the instrumentality of one Master John Smyth, whom Howes [243] afterwards denounced as ‘none wholesome counsellor.’[243.1] Howes now combined with Yelverton in declaring it to be spurious.[243.2]