-- to William Paston

15

ABSTRACT¹

—— —— TO WILLIAM PASTON.

     ‘Dear and well-beloved Cousin.’—Is in good health, but ill at ease, being
informed that she is in debt to Steyard for my lord’s debt, whose soul God
assoil, £7 and a pipe of wine. Knew nothing of it in my lord’s life, except of
2 pipes for herself, and one for her mother-in-law, of which she has paid 20s.
Since my Lord’s death, Steyard has never asked her for it. ‘For which time,
as I was at Jernemouth abiding in the Frere Carmes the time of the pestilence,
his wife came unto me,’ asking the writer to be good lady to him; and he asked
no more then than the above 3 pipes. He asked no more last harvest when he
was sick and like to die, when John of Berneye was present. Thinks, there-
fore, his asking is untrue. My Lord would have made me or some of his
council privy to such a debt. Hopes Paston, whom my Lord made one of
his feoffees, will see ‘that ye and I be discharged anemps the King as for the
debt of Steyard.’—Dated Castre, the day after the Conversion of St. Paul.
Addressed, ‘A mon tres cher et bien ame cousin, Will’m Paston soit donné.’

    a [This letter is endorsed in another hand, ‘W. Paston, j. feoffatorum et executorum
Johannis Rothnale per lit’ Cz.(?)’ It seems, therefore, to have been written by the
Lady Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Rothenhale, whose name occurs in No. 8 in
connection with William Steyard of Great Yarmouth. She was the daughter of
Sir Philip Branch, Kt., and had been previously married to John Clere of Ormesby.
She died at Caister, the place from which this letter is dated, in 1440; and by her will,
which was dated at Caister, 16th October 1438, she bequeathed all her goods at
Ormesby to her son Robert Clere, and all her goods at Horning Hall, in Caister, to her
son Edmund.—See Blomefield’s Norfolk, iv. 35, vi. 392, xi. 210.]

                        ¹ [From Paston MSS., B.M.]

1426(?)