When my master Sir John’s baily was at Paston he scared your tenants, bidding them pay no rents to Mr. William Paston. On which Harry Warns wrote to Mr. William, who bade him warn them not to pay money to any one else; otherwise he would meet them at London ‘as the law would,’ or at some market or fair, and make them pay arrears to Midsummer. Beware of Warns, for he made Master William privy to all the examinations of the tenants by my master your son. He also charged the tenants not to sell as my master desired, else Master William would undo them. ‘Ideo, putte no trost in hym, quia duobus dominis nemo potest servire.’ Pastun, 3 Nov.
[This and the letter following both appear to have been written at the time of Sir John Paston’s dispute with his uncle William, at the end of the year 1474.]
[208.3] Ibid.
[853]
ABSTRACT[209.1]
[The Vicar of Paston] to Mrs. [Margaret Paston]
1474
John Qwale, farmer of Paston, is distressed by things that Herry Warns has done and said against him. Warns carried home ‘an esse’ [ash] blown down by the wind, and says it is your will, because Master John Paston has given him power over all that he has in Paston. ‘More awre he stondes in grete dowte to ery or to sawe’ [to harrow or to sow], for John of Bactun says he shall have no land, unless he find surety, ‘and it were no resun that he suld somerlay and compace hys londes to a noder mans hand.’ Warns says if Qwale put out any cattle at the gates, he will take it for the grain that Master William delivered to him. He says Mrs. Margaret Paston[209.2] has no rule there, and shall have none; also that John Qwale shall not have Gyns close nor the Chyrche close, as he has taken them to farm. ‘Qwere fore, bott ze gyfe hym oderwas power, he wyll gefe up all.’
[209.1] [From Paston MSS., B.M.]
[209.2] Mrs. Margaret Paston is here spoken of by name and in the third person, but the letter can hardly be addressed to any one else.