Wreten the xiiije day of Octobr. Youre preest and chapeleyn, John, Priour of Bromholm.
[41.3] [From Fenn, iii. 400.] On the date of this letter Fenn remarks as follows:—‘John Titleshale was prior of Bromholm from 1460 for about twenty years. This letter must have been written therefore either on the 14th October 1460, or on the same day in 1465, as Edward IV. married in that year, and J. Paston died in May 1466. If it was written in the former, the request [for timber] must have been to Queen Margaret; if in the latter, to Elizabeth, the Queen of Edward IV.’ In these observations Fenn overlooks the possibility of the letter having been addressed to any other John Paston than the first of that name; and neither of the two years, which alone suit that supposition, has much internal probability. It is inconceivable that the letter could have been written in 1460, when Queen Margaret had retired into Wales after the battle of Northampton, and it is almost equally improbable that the date could have been 1465, when John Paston, the father, was in prison. We have very little doubt that the letter was addressed to John Paston the youngest, called of Gelston, long after his father’s death, and after that of his brother Sir John also. John Tytleshale, who was Prior of Bromholm in 1460, was succeeded, at what date we are not informed, by John Macham; and after him John Underwood, Bishop of Chalcedon, suffragan of the Bishop of Norwich, was prior in 1509. The date of this letter, however, must lie between 1480 and 1487, in which latter year
John Paston the youngest was created a knight for his services at the battle of Stoke.
[973]
ABSTRACT[43.1]
Not after 1481
Appointment touching ‘Ayeseldys wyff.’ Her friends to labour for her acquittal of the felony, without letting of Wremmegey’s wife, etc. £20 to be deposited ‘in mene hand’ by the friends of A’s wife, to be delivered on her acquittal to Darby and other frends of W.’s wife. Also Master Yelverton shall have his £3 due to him from Ayseldys wife paid by both parties.
Signed—John Yelverton.
[I can find no other reference to the matter referred to in this paper, and cannot tell the date; but as John Yelverton, the son of the judge, died on the 9th July 1481 (Blomefield, x. 31), it cannot be later than that year.]
[43.1] [From Paston MSS., B.M.]