[3.1] [From MS. Phillipps, 9735, No. 227.]
[262]
RICHARD SOUTHWELL TO JOHN PASTON[3.2]
To the right reverent and worshippfull John Paston, in haste.
1454(?)
OCT. 6
Right reverent and worshippfull Sir, and my right trusti and welbelovid cosin, I recomaund me unto you, praiyng you hertily to remembr me unto my Master Radclyff, so that by your gode meanes I shall mowe have his gode mastershipp, the whiche I have effectuelly to [m]y power sewed fore iij. yer, and never deserved the contrarye to my knowlegge, by my trouth; and if it can or may be founden that I have, I will obeye me, and offre me to abyde the rewle of you and my cosin your brothir, &c.
Also my Lord of Caunterbury[4.1] Master Waltier Bl[a]kette will help forthe, if nede be; and as to the remenant of the Lordes, if the case requir that ye may understand by your wysdum thei be displeased with me—as I trust to God thei be not,—I beseche you to remembr that I have aforetyme b[en] accused unto the Kings Highnesse and the Quenes for owyng my pore gode will and service unto my Lord of York and other, &c. Wherof I suppose that Thomas Bagham is remembred that I brought hym oones from my Lady a purs and v. marc therin, and to Sir Phelipp Wenteworth an other and a Cs. [100s.] therin for their gode will and advise therin to my Lady and all us that were appelled for that cause, notwithstanding the King wrote to my Lord by the meanes of the Duc of Somersette,[4.2] that we shuld be avoyded from hym, &c. And within this ij. yer we wer in like wise laboured ageyns to the Quene, so that she wrote to my Lord[4.3] to avoyde us, saiyng that the King and she coude nor myght in no wyse be assured of hym and my Lady as long as we wer aboute hym, with much other thing, as may be sufficiently proved by the Quenes writing under herr own signett and signe manuell, the whiche I shewd to my Lord of Caunterbury and other Lordes, &c.
I prey you have me excused that I encombr you with thees matiers at this tyme, for me thinketh ye shuld will and desire me to do any thing to your honour and pleaser at any tyme, wherto I shal be redy and welwilled to my power by the grace of God, who have you ever in his keping, and all youres.
Writon at Norwiche, on Seint Feithes day, in haste. Youres, Ric. Suthwell.
[3.2] [From Fenn, iii. 376.] This letter must have been written during one of the periods of the Duke of York’s ascendency, and on a comparison of possible years I am inclined to assign it to 1454. The date 1460, to which Fenn ascribes it, would have been highly probable but for the fact that John Paston, who was returned to Parliament in that year, does not appear to have arrived in London even on the 12th October, so that probably he had not left Norwich on the 6th.
[4.1] Thomas Bourchier.