The King to John Nedham and Thomas Litilton

411

ABSTRACT¹

THE KING TO JOHN NEDHAM AND THOMAS LITILTON, JUSTICES
OF THE COUNTY PALATINE OF LANCASTER

     Desires them to show favour to the defendants in an appeal of robbery sued
before them out of malice by Thomas Bury against John Berney of Redham,
Norf., Junior, Esq., John Paston of Norwich, Esq., John Berney of Redham,
Norf., Senior, Esq., John Hevenyngham, of Norwich, Esq., and Christopher

Lords. It certainly was not, as Fenn supposes, in 1455, after the battle of St. Albans,
when the Earl of March was only thirteen years old and the Duke of York, his father,
was made Protector. York had not come over from Ireland in July 1460, and is
consequently not named in this document.

Norwich of Brundehale. They are to receive no writ returned in the name of
the Sheriff of Norfolk touching that matter except by the hands of the sheriff
himself, or of John Bernarde his under-sheriff.

     London, 26 July.

     II. Another letter, similar in substance, in which no justices’ names are
given.

     [These documents cannot be later than 1460, as the younger John Berney died
in July of that year (see next letter). But as Judge Littleton was only made a
King’s Serjeant in 1455, they cannot be many years earlier, and they are not unlikely
to be of the year 1460 itself.]

     ¹ [From Paston MSS., B.M.]

1460(?)
JULY 26

1460(?)
JULY 26