[166.1] [From Paston MSS., B.M.] This letter is anonymous, but is in the handwriting of Sir John Paston, the younger of that name. From the mention of his wife and ‘the widow, her daughter Leghe,’ it was evidently written not during the life of Margery Brews, his first wife, who must have died about the year 1495, but after his marriage to another. This second wife was Agnes, daughter of Nicholas Morley, Esq., of the well-known family at Glynd, in Sussex, and had already been twice married before her marriage with Sir John. Her first husband was John Hervey, Esq. of Thurleigh, Beds, Usher of the Chamber to King Edward IV. Her second was John Isley of Sundridge, Kent. By the former she had a daughter, Isabel, married to John Leghe or Alyghe, Esq. of Addington, Surrey, who proved his father-in-law’s will in 1494. She herself survived her own third husband, Sir John Paston, and died in 1510. Her will, in which she calls herself ‘Dame Agnes Paston,’ is at the principal registry at Somerset House, dated the 31st May in that year, and proved on the 19th June following. For these particulars I was indebted to the genealogical researches of the late Colonel Chester, and Notes and Queries, 5th S. ix. 326, 370, 414, 512.
[166.2] The Earl of Oxford.
[1072]
THE EARL OF OXFORD TO SIR JOHN PASTON[167.1]
To the right worshipfull and my right entierly welbelovyd Sir John Paston, Knyght.
After 1503?
Right worshipfull and right intierly belovyd, I commaund me hartely to you. And where as your broder William, my servaunte, ys so troubelid with sekenes and crasid in his mynde, that I may not kepe hym aboute me, wherfor I am right sory, and at this tyme sende hym to you, prayng especially that he may be kepte surely and tendirly with you, to suche tyme as God fortune hym to be bettyr assurid of hym selfe and his myndes more sadly disposid, whiche I pray God may be in shorte tyme, and preserve you longe in gode prosperite.
Writen at my place in London, the xxvj. day of Juyn. Oxynford.
[167.1] [From Douce MS. 393, f. 86.] This letter is probably later in date than the last, as it would appear that when the last was written, William Paston was still in the Earl of Oxford’s service.
[1073]
THE EARL OF OXFORD’S STEWARD TO THE ‘BLACK KNIGHT’[168.1]
Sinescallus Comitis Oxoniæ Nigro Militi.