Sir John Paston to William Paston and Richard Lightfoote

1071

SIR JOHN PASTON TO WILLIAM PASTON
AND RICHARD LIGHTFOOTE¹

To my brother William Paston and my cosyn Richard Lightfoote,
and to iche of theym.

MASTYRS bothe, I recomand me to yow, and send yow
     closid herin a booke of the seying of dyvers folkis,
     whiche testyfiee ayenst Thomas Rutty and other. I
prey yow shewe it to my lordys² good lordshepe, and that I
may know hys plesur ferther in as hasty wyse as may be, that
I may ordre me ther aftyr. I had gret labore to come by the
woman that was in servyse with Rutty, whiche sie [saw] all
ther conversacyons many yeris. She is now in servyse with
Richard Calle. And I have Thomas Bange in prison at Nor-
wyche with the Shrevys of Norwych. The woman seythe he
is as bold a theffe as eny is in Ingland; but he wyll nowghte
confesse, nor I handelyd hym not sore to cause hym to con-
fesse. But and Ruty knewe that he and the woman be in hold,
and hathe told talis, I thynke it wyll cause Rutty to shewe the
pleynesse.

     Clerk and Roger Heron are endightid at this sessyons at
Norwyche, last holdyn on Twysday last past, for robbing of
the pardoner; and so is Rotty and all his felawshepe that the
woman hathe apechid. According to hir apechement, Raff
Taylour is over the see; Robert Fenne is dede; John Baker
and William Taylour ar yett untakyn. If my lord send for
T. Bange or the woman, some of my lordis servauntes had
need to come for theym; for I can not do in the cause for
lake of men and horse, for my wyff ridith this next week in to
Kente, to the wydow, hir doughtir Leghe.

     And as for Ramesey, liek a prowde, lewde, obstynat foole,
he wyll not come befor my brothe[r] Sir R. Clere, nor me,
but he seythe he wyll be with my lord hastyly, and shewe hys
mynde to his lordshepe, whiche I beleve not. The substan-
cyall marchantys of Norwyche hathe shewid ther myndys to
my brother Sir R. Clere and me that he entendith to William
Bayly gret wronge in his reknynges.

     ¹ [From Paston MSS., B.M.] This letter is anonymous, but is in the hand-
writing 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.

     ² The Earl of Oxford.

1503

1503