I wold ye shuld send me word howghe ye doo, and howghe ye have schevyfte for yourself syn ye departyd hens, be som trosty man, and that your fader have no knowlage therof. I durste not late hym knowe of the laste letter that ye wrot to me, be cause he was so sor dyspleasyd with me at that tyme.
Item, I wold ye shuld speke with Wekis, and knowe hys dysposysion to Jane Walsham. She hathe seyd, syn he departyd hens, but [unless] she myght have hym, she wold never maryd, hyr hert ys sor set on hym; she told me that he seyd to hyr that ther was no woman in the world he lovyd so welle. I wold not he shuld jape hyr, for she menythe good feythe; and yf he wolle not have hyr, late me wete in hast, and I shall purvey for hyr in othyr wysse.
As for your harneys and ger that ye left here, it ys in Daubeneys kepyng; it was never remevyd syn your departyng, be cause that he had not the keyes. I trowe it shall apeyer [get injured], but if it be take hed hate [unless it be taken heed at, or to] be tymys. Your fader knowythe not wher it is.
I sent your grey hors to Ruston to the ferror, and he seythe he shull never be nowght to rood, nowthyr ryght good to plowe nor to carte; he seyth he was splayyd, and hys shulder rent from the body. I wot not what to do with hym.
Your grandam wold fayne here sum tydyngs from yow. It wer welle do that ye sent a letter to hyr howe ye do, as astely as ye may. And God have you in Hys kepyng, and make yow a good man, and zyf yow grace to do as well as I wold ye shuld do.
Wretyn at Caster, ye Tewisday next befor Seynt Edmund the Kynge. Your moder, M. Paston.
I wold ye shuld make mech of the parson [of] Fylby, the berer herof, and make hym good cher yf ye may.
[84.2] [From Fenn, iv. 168.] As Sir John Paston was knighted in the year 1463, and his father died in May 1466, the date of this letter must lie between the years 1463 and 1465. I think the first of these years is probably the true date. Sir John Paston, it seems, had left home without letting his mother know of his intention. Whither had he gone? Not to London, because he addressed a letter to his father there; besides he had passed by Lynn. One would naturally suppose, therefore, that he had gone to wait upon the King, at a time when Edward was at a distance from the capital. And in this view we are confirmed by the passage in which Margaret desires her son to speak with Wykes, who, as we know by [Letter 514], was an usher of the King’s Chamber. Now Edward IV. was in Yorkshire, staying, for the most part, at Pomfret, during October and November 1463, while about the same time of year in 1464 he was at Reading, and in 1465 at Greenwich. Sir John would naturally have passed through Lynn on his road to the North.
wherby I conseyve that ye thynke ye ded not well
text has “thar”: corrected from Fenn