With over one thousand surviving letters, the Paston family is one of the best-known from late-medieval England. A genteel family from Norfolk, England, they participated in what would later be called the Wars of the Roses, but they also became embroiled in local politics, especially related to their family’s questionable ancestry. It’s this latter conflict that defines the family history and, in particular, the events surrounding the family during the fifteenth century. Their story began, however, with a plowman from East Anglia named Clement Paston.
Not much is known about Clement Paston, and even what survives is dubious. It seems that he was more than likely a yeoman farmer–the Pastons’ enemies referred to him much later as a plowman2–but certainly he gained even more prestige after his marriage to Beatrice in 1375. Beatrice’s family, the Cleres, were important local leaders around the city of Yarmouth; her brother even served as a Member of Parliament for Yarmouth. In 1381, though, at 26 years old, Clement Paston participated in the infamous Peasants’ Revolt, stealing legal documents like court rolls, as well as lumber and wool from the local abbot of St. Benet. It would seem that causing trouble with neighbors was a Paston trait, as time would eventually tell. By the time he died in 1419 at 64 years old, he had over 100 acres of land and his own mill. Not just securing a decent holding of land, Clement and Beatrice had prepared for their family’s future significantly by sending their son, William Paston, to law school.
Like his father, little is known of William’s early life, other than that he attended the Inns of Court around 1392, eventually becoming an attorney in the Court of Common Pleas. By 1415, he was made justice of the peace for Norfolk and, in 1421, sergeant-at-law. Leveraging his impressive career in the law, he was able to purchase many manors around East Anglia, notably around the town of Paston. The most significant manors he purchased included Oxnead, Cromer, and Gresham. William’s acquisition of land raised some suspicion from local gentlemen who either viewed William’s successes with some jealousy, or wanted long-lost ancestral back that the Pastons had managed to pull into their ever increasing estates. While William Paston assembled the great land holdings for his family, it would be up to his sons and grandsons to keep them.
Born around the height of Judge William’s successes in 1421, John PastonNot much is known about Clement Paston, and even what survives is dubious. It seems that he was more than likely a yeoman farmer–the Pastons’ enemies referred to him much later as a plowman2–but certainly he gained even more prestige after his marriage to Beatrice in 1375. Beatrice’s family, the Cleres, were important local leaders around the city of Yarmouth; her brother even served as a Member of Parliament for Yarmouth. In 1381, though, at 26 years old, Clement Paston participated in the infamous Peasants’ Revolt, stealing legal documents like court rolls, as well as lumber and wool from the local abbot of St. Benet. It would seem that causing trouble with neighbors was a Paston trait, as time would eventually tell. By the time he died in 1419 at 64 years old, he had over 100 acres of land and his own mill. Not just securing a decent holding of land, Clement and Beatrice had prepared for their family’s future significantly by sending their son, William Paston, to law school.
Like his father, little is known of William’s early life, other than that he attended the Inns of Court around 1392, eventually becoming an attorney in the Court of Common Pleas. By 1415, he was made justice of the peace for Norfolk and, in 1421, sergeant-at-law. Leveraging his impressive career in the law, he was able to purchase many manors around East Anglia, notably around the town of Paston. The most significant manors he purchased included Oxnead, Cromer, and Gresham. William’s acquisition of land raised some suspicion from local gentlemen who either viewed William’s successes with some jealousy, or wanted long-lost ancestral back that the Pastons had managed to pull into their ever increasing estates. While William Paston assembled the great land holdings for his family, it would be up to his sons and grandsons to keep them.
Born around the height of Judge William’s successes in 1421, John Paston I was destined for the law, like his father. Not the only By 1442, John entered the Inns of Court. A decade later, in 1455, he was elected a Knight of the Shire, and two years later, turned down an offer for knighthood (paying a small fee for the inconvenience). His career continued to blossom as he was elected a Member of Parliament for Norfolk twice after 1460. Despite his successes, John faced many challenges too, notably with the land he and his father had been collecting.
In 1444 Judge William passed away, ending a de facto hold on judicial power in the region. Recognizing this, the local Paston enemy, Robert Hungerford, the Lord Moleyns, seized his opportunity and demanded the Pastons return the manor (and castle) of Gresham to his family. His claim to the land was dubious at best: purchased by William Paston in 1426 from Thomas Chaucer as executor of the Moleyns’ estate, the land was legally and rightfully owned by the Pastons. At the time of the sale, the surviving member of the Moleyns family, Elanor, was not quite one year old, and Chaucer as executor and guardian was acting upon her father’s will to sell the land. After her marriage in 1441 to Robert Hungerford, the third Baron Hungerford, the title of Moleyns was artificially passed to him. So when Lord Moleyns argued in 1448 that the land belonged to his ancestors, that was, strictly speaking, not true as he was not a true Moleyns, having adopted the title from his wife. However, following Judge William Paston’s death, and amid some smaller land-claim crises, the Pastons found themselves in a weaker position. Adding weight to his argument, in February 1448, Moleyns forced his way into the manor of Gresham Castle with his armed retainers, and collected rents from the tenants. Determined to regain control, John Paston reoccupied the castle that October with no apparent resistance, leaving his wife Margaret to look after things. Lord Moleyns and his men still stayed in the area though, moving to a nearby house and fortifying it, stockpiling weapons and armor there. After seething for a few months, Lord Moleyns assaulted Gresham Castle with a force of up to one thousand well-armed men in January 1449. Defending the castle with only twelve servants, Margaret stood no chance of repelling the attack. She and her men were physically removed from the castle, but the Pastons would continue the battle in the courts for another two years. When King Henry VI confirmed the Pastons’ ownership of Gresham in 1451, they returned to their castle only to find it in ruins. Despite regaining their manor and surrounding land, the Pastons’ troubles were still not over.
In 1436, Judge William had entered into the service of Sir John Fastolf as his legal advisor. By this point, Fastolf had a storied military career fighting in the Hundred Years’ War (his reputation would only increase for the better or for the worse later), but had also amassed a fortune in both land and material wealth. Perhaps it was a result of this connection between William Paston and Sir John Fastolf that, four years later, Fastolf’s cousin, Margaret Mautby, would marry John I, cementing an alliance between the two families. The connection between the Fastolfs and the Pastons strengthened further over the ensuing decades until Fastolf died in 1459. During the siege of Gresham Castle in early 1449, Margaret wrote to her husband, asking him to send poleaxes, quilted jacks, crossbows, and crossbow supplies, and that he should “get such things from Sir John Fastolf if you were to send to him.”3 Such was their relationship with Fastolf that the Pastons felt comfortable asking him for military resources.
Throughout the 1450s, John Paston I grew close to Sir John Fastolf, helping him with his own land and wealth disputes. In June of 1459, following a bout with severe illness, Fastolf created a will and assigned to it ten executors, one of whom was John Paston. Then, on November 3–two days before he ultimately died–Fastolf curiously had a change of heart 3 Margaret Paston to John Paston I. Letter dated 1449. and, with John Paston at his sickbed writing out the new will, completely revised it. He granted all of his moveable property as well as his estates to John Paston. Further, he assigned John I as the sole executor. Exceptions were made to pay debts, servants, and clergy, as well as one other notable exception: Caister Castle would be turned into a college or, failing that, torn down and six smaller colleges built in other specified locations. At least, this is the story that John Paston told. His enemies cried foul, and for good reason, considering that the entire will was changed with only two witnesses (Paston being one), and everything went to the Pastons. Over the next seventeen years, the family saw the forceful confiscation of most of their Fastolf lands by powerful local rivals including the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, Sir William Scales, and Sir William Yelverton
John Paston I passed away in 1466, never seeing the Fastolf lands returned to his family. He did however witness, and undoubtedly pay for, his eldest son’s knighthood in 1463. John Paston II (also referred to by historians as “Sir John” to distinguish him from his brother, John III, and his father, John I) was unlike his father or grandfather before him. While he was educated (though it is unknown if he followed in their footsteps at the Inns of Court), his family sent him to the court of King Edward IV in 1461 in order to advance his family’s and his own reputation and influence. In 1464, Sir John ran off north with King Edward to suppress a minor rebellion there. Probably due to his military career, John seemed to be recognized as a good fighter, but especially so in tournaments, which helped him secure a place in the famous tournament of 1467 between Anthony Woodville, the Earl Rivers, and the Duke of Burgundy’s son, Anthony the Bastard of Burgundy. Four years later, in 1471, Sir John and his younger brother, John III were called up for service by the Earl of Oxford. At this point, the Lancastrians, under Henry VI, had regained control of England, forcing Edward to flee to the Low Countries. In April, Edward returned to England, to once more contest the ownership of the crown. Serving the Earl of Oxford, the Paston brothers fought against King Edward at the Battle of Barnet. Unfortunately for them, not only did their–Lancastrian–side lose the battle, but John III sustained an injury during the battle. Predicting their mother’s concern, Sir John wrote to Margaret following the battle: “[John III] is injured with an arrow in his right arm below the elbow, and I have sent him a surgeon who has dressed the wound, and he tells me he will be all right before long.”4 Groveling before the victorious King Edward, the Pastons were forgiven and Sir John was once more welcomed into the king’s court. Sir John continued his military career, serving Edward in Calais off-and-on for four years. While he did serve in political and administrative positions including as a Member of Parliament for Norfolk, John II is best known for his martial skills.
Around a year after Sir John joined King Edward to suppress a rebellion in the north of England in 1464, Margaret Paston was thrust into a leadership role she probably never expected. In the spring of 1465, she moved into her manor house at Hellesdon, just a few miles north of Norwich. Margaret had received word that one of her tenants there, a man named Dorlet, had his plow horse confiscated by the Duke of Suffolk’s bailiff. The manors of Hellesdon and nearby Drayton had been given to the Pastons in Sir John Fastolf’s will, six years earlier. However, John de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk attempted to lay claim to the manors, arguing that they were the ancestral lands of the Poles, from whom he was descended. Using distraint–the act of confiscating a tenant’s property until they pay their rent–Suffolk pressed his claim to the manors of Hellesdon and Drayton. Suffolk’s claim was dubious at best, and Margaret batted it away and affirmed her ownership by setting herself up at Hellesdon. Reciprocating the act of distraint against her tenant earlier, and exacerbating the feud further, Margaret sent a servant to Drayton–where it seemed Suffolk’s loyalty was strongest–to take two plow horses from a farmer loyal to Suffolk. Suffolk’s bailiff, in turn, sent upwards of 160 armored men to Hellesdon where they confiscated four horses. Angered by this move, Margaret increased her efforts and sent some servants to Drayton to confiscate 77 cattle from the tenants there. Declaring herself “captensse here”5 to her husband, she held the cattle at Hellesdon, informing the tenants that they could have the cattle back once they paid their rents to her. The Duke of Suffolk’s agents warned the tenants, though, that if they paid rent to the Pastons, he would eject them from their land. She held onto the cattle for another week, during the resulting standoff, until Suffolk handed her a legal document–a writ of replevin–that required her to return the cattle as they were taken unlawfully on the duke’s (non-Drayton) land. Confirming that was not the case, she declined the demand. Suffolk doubled-down and sent another, this time with the sheriff’s seal. Margaret was now forced to comply and return the cattle or face imprisonment. A couple weeks later, Suffolk’s men distrained a flock of her tenants’ sheep in Drayton. When Margaret applied to the sheriff for a writ of replevin of her own, the sheriff refused her flatly. While the contest was clearly ready to boil over, still no blood had been shed.
A month later, in July 1465, Margaret received word that could very well change that. Rumor circulated that Suffolk was amassing a large army to dispossess her of her manors altogether. She prepared the defense of Hellesdon by transferring some of her men from Caister (then held by Sir John) and hiring others, to the number of 60 “men… and guns, and such ordnance, so that if they were attacked, [the attackers] would be destroyed.”6 The Duke of Suffolk’s sheriff arrived at Hellesdon with three hundred fully armed men, far outnumbering her own, demanding a number of the Pastons’ servants for whom they had arrest warrants. Mustering her confidence, Margaret refused them, but ultimately compromised by offering another servant in their place; Suffolk’s men took him, seemingly as a hostage. Within a couple days, the Bishop of Norwich arbitrated a truce, temporarily diffusing the situation, and prompting Suffolks’ small army to disband.
Tensions simmered until October, when Suffolk waited for John Paston III to leave Norwich on a mission for the Duke of Norfolk. Assembling an army of around 500 men, Suffolk swiftly captured Hellesdon without bloodshed. He then proceeded to burn the manor house and outbuildings and loot the church, to the horror of the Pastons and the entire region. It is not clear from the Paston Letters, but it seems like Margaret Paston may have been residing in her house in Norwich when this happened. Writing to her husband (who incidentally was in jail in London at the time) ten days later, Margaret explained that “no one seeing it would not think it a terrible sight. People come every day from Norwich and other places and they all say the same… you have peoples’ sympathy here.”7 Despite the local sympathy, they were never able to recover the manors or the lost property from the attack. The episode does, however, highlight the important role Margaret played throughout the Paston family’s history. Bullied and threatened, she did not shrink from the attacks, but rather on multiple occasions fought back. She even styled herself “captainess” of Hellesdon, running the military operations in defense of her estates. Her defense of the family’s manors no doubt proved invaluable four years later when the Duke of Norfolk besieged their home at Caister Castle.
At this point, in 1465, Margaret’s son John III was 21 years old. Just two years younger than Sir John, John III was destined to pick up his father’s mantle and return the Fastolf’s land to the Pastons. Around the age of 18, his parents set him up as a page in the Duke of Norfolk’s service where he would serve for six or seven years (he also occasionally served under the Duchess with whom it seemed he cultivated a good relationship). John III was well-placed among the household of the Norfolks to pass along valuable information to his family about their interests in the Pastons’ lands. Doubtless meant to repair the sour relations between the Duke Norfolk and the Pastons, the connection proved fruitful as, on multiple occasions, the Duke of Norfolk actually assisted the Pastons in settling disputes with other regional gentry, as at the manor of Cotton in 1465. It was also around this time that the Pastons had been unequivocally declared gentry via a royal proclamation in 1466. This proclamation decried an earlier rebuke of the Paston genealogy, entitled Remembrance of the wurshypfull Kyn and Auncetrye of Paston, as false, and granted the family all of the rights of the gentry. Despite this good turn for the Pastons, the foundation of friendship between them and the Duke of Norfolk proved unstable as, in 1469, Norfolk laid siege to Caister Castle and its defender, John III.
Entering what may have been his seventh year of service to the Duke of Norfolk in 1469, John III received a message he must have anticipated: his services were no longer required. Not receiving livery for the year, John III understood that he had been dismissed, but he still tried to remain in the household by offering his service to the Duchess, but she too declined him. Returning to Caister Castle, John III and his older brother, Sir John, prepared to defend their manor. Months earlier, in November 1468, Sir John had hired four professional soldiers who were “cunning in war and feats of arms, and they can shoot guns and crossbows well; they can mend and string them; they can build defenses or anything else that is needed to strengthen the place.”8 The word was that Norfolk had designs on taking the castle. In May 1469, John III wrote to his brother asking for a skilled craftsman who could repair four or five steel crossbows, having broken that many, theoretically practicing with them. The Pastons did what they could to make Caister Castle defensible, but little could have prepared them and their twenty seven men for Norfolk’s siege later that summer.
In July 1469, King Edward IV had traveled to Yorkshire to suppress the infamous Robin of Redesdale rebellion. Probably engineered by a disgruntled Earl of Warwick, the rebels defeated the king at the Battle of Edgcote, taking him prisoner. All of England held their breath; Warwick held the king as a prisoner and thus also the fate of the realm. For the next month, England had no king. Seizing his opportunity, the Duke of Norfolk assembled an army of up to 3,000 men armed with crossbows, longbows, handguns, and cannons and marched on Caister on the 21st of August. Up until this point, the conflicts between the Pastons and their regional rivals ended with little to no violence. While the parties involved regularly amassed groups of armed men, nearly all of the confrontations ended with few injuries and certainly no deaths. However, up until this point, the Pastons never truly resisted the armed opposition, being surprised, significantly outnumbered, or simply unprepared. This time, John III and his mother, Margaret, were both prepared and unsurprised, albeit outnumbered. The siege lasted for thirty-seven days, resulting in the loss of one longtime Paston servant (John Daubney) and two of Norfolk’s besiegers, but also the injury of many others. They ultimately were forced to surrender due to their low supply of food and dwindling ammunition. The terms of surrender, agreed to on 26 September, gave safe conduct to John III and his men, allowing them to march out with their personal belongings and armor, but leaving behind arms, ammunition, and all of the castle’s furnishings. The Pastons would not return to Caister for another seven years until the Duke of Norfolk died without a male heir in 1476, and a royal council granted the Pastons official ownership.
The same year as the siege of Caister Castle, the Paston family was rocked by controversy. In 1469, John I and his wife Margaret discovered that their daughter, Margery, was engaged in an affair with the family’s bailiff, Richard Calle. They had apparently gone so far as to have been secretly married. Disappointing both of her parents–even being forbidden to return home at one point–Margery and Richard Calle gained validity for their marriage via the Bishop’s Court. While he had been dismissed by the Pastons upon the affair’s discovery, Calle was reappointed as bailiff during the siege of Caister due to the Pastons’ need and Calle’s apparent abilities.
While the 1470s saw Caister returned to the Paston family (1476), the decade also saw substantial loss for them. One of the main features of the letters during this time was the frequent despair over their lack of money. The loss of land and resources due to conflicts with rivals and gifting of land through dowries and inheritances saw ever dwindling finances. This made marriage prospects difficult for John III, who would eventually marry Margery Brews in 1477, but only after her family increased the size of their dowry. Disaster struck the Paston family that year however as Clement II passed away, aged 27. The next year, Judge William’s wife Agnes (aged 81), John II (aged 37), and Walter II (aged 23) all passed away; the first from old age and the last two probably from the plague which was running rampant through England that year
The decade saw both losses and gains for the Pastons, but their letters also reveal a typical family trying to survive and get along. In one rather down-to-earth moment in 1472, Sir John recalled an embarrassing moment when he insensitively told the pregnant Duchess of Norfolk that she “was large and fat, and that [the baby] should have room enough to go out at.”9 Apparently what he meant to say was that she looked healthy and should easily handle the future birth, but how it came out was unfortunate, and yet today it stands as evidence of a fairly human moment. For all that Sir John was a bit of a swaggering gentleman, he still made his deal of social faux pas. While his younger brother, John III pursued his romantic interest, Sir John pursued an annulment. While he had not married Anne Haute (first cousin of Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England), they had previously signed a marital contract. Apparently things did not work out and they asked the pope to intercede to end the contract in 1471. Ultimately, Sir John would die eight years later, unmarried, but survived by an illegitimate daughter, Constance. More successful in love, John III, received what is considered the first Valentine from Margery Brews in 1477, just months before they were married. Starting the letter with “My dear beloved Valentine,” Margery beseeched John to write her back, arguing that “if you love me, as I hope very much you do, you will not leave me because [my father refuses to increase the dowry]. I can say that even if you were half as wealthy as you are, and I had to work twice as hard as any woman alive to help support us, I would not forsake you.” Finally, she concludes the letter with: “Please do not show this letter to anyone. It is for your eyes only.”10 Ironically, this is probably the most well-read Valentine letters in history, and thanks to the Pastons’ record keeping, historians have one more piece of evidence of the deeply human and personal experiences of medieval life.
One other significant moment in the Pastons’ lives during the 1470s occurred in 1475. It was that year that King Edward IV determined to renew the Hundred Years’ War and England’s claim to territories in France. Sir John arranged for a retinue to accompany him to Flanders where he would have a suit of armor made for him. John III, Edmund, and William also joined the king, bringing the total Paston participation in the campaign to four. Luckily for them, nothing became of the campaign, and Edward was paid off by the king of France, Louis XI. However, because of this attempted campaign, historians now have a valuable piece of Paston history: the indenture of Edmund to Richard Duke of Gloucester (who would claim the title of King Richard III just ten years later). The indenture bound Edmund to Gloucester for one year, serving the duke as a man-at-arms supported by a retinue of three mounted archers, all armed, armored, and horsed at Edmund’s own expense. Edmund would receive 18d as his daily income while his archers would each receive 6d. Since war was averted, all of the Paston men had returned home by September of that year and Edmund thus only had to serve Gloucester for four months.
The Pastons would be called on again eight years later for military service. In October 1483, the Duke of Bukingham initiated a series of uprisings to unseat the newly crowned Richard III. Initially supporting Edward V’s claim to the throne, Buckingham changed course and offered his allegiance to Henry Tudor (future Henry VII) as king, following the news of Edward V’s death. In support of King Richard III, John Howard, the Duke of Norfolk sent letters to all of the genteel families of the county asking for their military assistance. To John III, he asked him to “make ready and come hither, and bring with you six tall fellows in harness.”11 Needless to say, John did not respond, and neither did he turn out with six men. Norfolk apparently bore him no ill will, perhaps due to the speed at which the uprisings were suppressed. In less than a month, the Duke of Buckingham was captured and beheaded along with a number of his co-conspirators.
Whether John III predicted the outcome of the future Battle of Bosworth or much more likely, he was just good at picking his battles, he once more evaded a summons from his duke in 1485. That August, Henry Tudor landed in Wales with a small army intent on claiming the throne for himself. Richard III wasted no time, and immediately called upon his lords and subjects to join him in defense of the realm. As the king’s vassal, the Duke of Norfolk sent letters around his county to assemble an army. John III received his letter from the duke which asked him to “Bring with you such a company of able-bodied men as you can find at my cost, as well as those you have promised the King. Dress them in jackets with my livery, and I shall repay you when we meet.”12 John ignored the summons and, in hindsight, wisely so. While he might have supported his duke, he would not only have lost the battle, but he would have also lost the favor of his old patron, the Earl of Oxford, with whom he fought alongside (and was injured) at Barnet. By supporting Oxford, though, he would be fighting against the duke to whom he swore fealty. In the end, John avoided the decision by simply avoiding to engage either way. Richard III was killed in the battle, leaving the throne empty for Henry to be declared Henry VII, King of England. Of note for the Pastons, Norfolk was killed in the battle and Oxford survived. It seems not supporting Norfolk was a good decision after all. While he also did not fight alongside Oxford in the battle, John was still awarded for his longtime support of the earl with the title of Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk as well as the steward of Oxford’s estates.
Two years later, in 1487, John III’s loyalty would be tested by the Earl of Oxford when summoned to suppress a rebellion led by the Earl of Lincoln. Claiming to be the son of George, Duke of Clarence (Edward IV’s brother), and thus a rival to the throne, Lambert Simnel was propped up by the earl as the figurehead for a popular uprising during the summer of 1487. The rebellion was decisively defeated at the Battle of Stoke Field, and Simnel was captured. King Henry VII declared Simnel an imposter, but instead of beheading him as a traitor, he employed Simnel as a turnspit in his kitchens. For John Paston III, the battle elevated his social standing: he was knighted on the field among a handful of other gentlemen. His fortunes rose ever higher in the service of the Earl of Oxford as, two years later, John III was made his deputy in the earl’s capacity as the Lord High Admiral. His younger brother, William, also entered Oxford’s service that year as the earl’s secretary.
The next ten years proved to be relatively quiet and peaceful for the Paston family. Over the previous decades, they survived attacks by rivals, outlived their greatest enemy and sometime-friend, the Duke of Norfolk, and managed to either stay on the reigning monarch’s side, or gain their forgiveness. The 1490s gave them the chance to enjoy their successes. Since Judge William Paston’s death in 1444, the principal heir, John I, and his brother, William, feuded over money and land in their father’s will. The rift, which was passed down to John I’s eldest son, Sir John, and then his second son, John II, was finally settled in 1490–just six years before William’s death–by John III. John paid his uncle William and granted him revenues from his own lands. Additionally, John III’s daughter’s father-in-law (and former rival) Sir Henry Heydon, worked out a deal with the Duchess of Norfolk to renounce Norfolk’s claim to a manor that was disputed between her and William. At long last, William was at peace with the main branch of his family.
Around the same time, Margery Paston enjoyed some fame as a healer, when her husband, John III, wrote asking for her recipe for a medicinal plaster. Referring to it as “flose ungwentorum,”13 he also requested directions in its application and use in order to heal James Hobart, the king’s attorney. In the letter, he reminds his wife that it was this same Hobart who introduced them around thirty years earlier. Apparently Hobart had a severe ache in his knee that was causing him pain. Whether or not the plaster worked, historians cannot be sure, but certainly Hobart lived for another twenty years or so.
Despite the successes enjoyed by the family, the 1490s also saw more loss for the Pastons. In 1491, Edmund’s wife, Catherine passed away. John III’s sister Anne followed her in 1495, and then, a year later, so did his uncle William. Surviving the occasional outbreak of plague, the month-long siege of Caister Castle in 1469, an injury at the Battle of Barnet in 1471, and the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487, John III passed away in 1504 at the age of 60. He was succeeded by his son, William IV, who continued the Paston line (and fame–apparently he was knighted before 1520 as he attended the infamous Field of the Cloth of Gold event put on by Henry VIII and Francis I). I was destined for the law, like his father. Not the only By 1442, John entered the Inns of Court. A decade later, in 1455, he was elected a Knight of the Shire, and two years later, turned down an offer for knighthood (paying a small fee for the inconvenience). His career continued to blossom as he was elected a Member of Parliament for Norfolk twice after 1460. Despite his successes, John faced many challenges too, notably with the land he and his father had been collecting.
In 1444 Judge William passed away, ending a de facto hold on judicial power in the region. Recognizing this, the local Paston enemy, Robert Hungerford, the Lord Moleyns, seized his opportunity and demanded the Pastons return the manor (and castle) of Gresham to his family. His claim to the land was dubious at best: purchased by William Paston in 1426 from Thomas Chaucer as executor of the Moleyns’ estate, the land was legally and rightfully owned by the Pastons. At the time of the sale, the surviving member of the Moleyns family, Elanor, was not quite one year old, and Chaucer as executor and guardian was acting upon her father’s will to sell the land. After her marriage in 1441 to Robert Hungerford, the third Baron Hungerford, the title of Moleyns was artificially passed to him. So when Lord Moleyns argued in 1448 that the land belonged to his ancestors, that was, strictly speaking, not true as he was not a true Moleyns, having adopted the title from his wife. However, following Judge William Paston’s death, and amid some smaller land-claim crises, the Pastons found themselves in a weaker position. Adding weight to his argument, in February 1448, Moleyns forced his way into the manor of Gresham Castle with his armed retainers, and collected rents from the tenants. Determined to regain control, John Paston reoccupied the castle that October with no apparent resistance, leaving his wife Margaret to look after things. Lord Moleyns and his men still stayed in the area though, moving to a nearby house and fortifying it, stockpiling weapons and armor there. After seething for a few months, Lord Moleyns assaulted Gresham Castle with a force of up to one thousand well-armed men in January 1449. Defending the castle with only twelve servants, Margaret stood no chance of repelling the attack. She and her men were physically removed from the castle, but the Pastons would continue the battle in the courts for another two years. When King Henry VI confirmed the Pastons’ ownership of Gresham in 1451, they returned to their castle only to find it in ruins. Despite regaining their manor and surrounding land, the Pastons’ troubles were still not over.
In 1436, Judge William had entered into the service of Sir John Fastolf as his legal advisor. By this point, Fastolf had a storied military career fighting in the Hundred Years’ War (his reputation would only increase for the better or for the worse later), but had also amassed a fortune in both land and material wealth. Perhaps it was a result of this connection between William Paston and Sir John Fastolf that, four years later, Fastolf’s cousin, Margaret Mautby, would marry John I, cementing an alliance between the two families. The connection between the Fastolfs and the Pastons strengthened further over the ensuing decades until Fastolf died in 1459. During the siege of Gresham Castle in early 1449, Margaret wrote to her husband, asking him to send poleaxes, quilted jacks, crossbows, and crossbow supplies, and that he should “get such things from Sir John Fastolf if you were to send to him.”3 Such was their relationship with Fastolf that the Pastons felt comfortable asking him for military resources.
Throughout the 1450s, John Paston I grew close to Sir John Fastolf, helping him with his own land and wealth disputes. In June of 1459, following a bout with severe illness, Fastolf created a will and assigned to it ten executors, one of whom was John Paston. Then, on November 3–two days before he ultimately died–Fastolf curiously had a change of heart 3 Margaret Paston to John Paston I. Letter dated 1449. and, with John Paston at his sickbed writing out the new will, completely revised it. He granted all of his moveable property as well as his estates to John Paston. Further, he assigned John I as the sole executor. Exceptions were made to pay debts, servants, and clergy, as well as one other notable exception: Caister Castle would be turned into a college or, failing that, torn down and six smaller colleges built in other specified locations. At least, this is the story that John Paston told. His enemies cried foul, and for good reason, considering that the entire will was changed with only two witnesses (Paston being one), and everything went to the Pastons. Over the next seventeen years, the family saw the forceful confiscation of most of their Fastolf lands by powerful local rivals including the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, Sir William Scales, and Sir William Yelverton
John Paston I passed away in 1466, never seeing the Fastolf lands returned to his family. He did however witness, and undoubtedly pay for, his eldest son’s knighthood in 1463. John Paston II (also referred to by historians as “Sir John” to distinguish him from his brother, John III, and his father, John I) was unlike his father or grandfather before him. While he was educated (though it is unknown if he followed in their footsteps at the Inns of Court), his family sent him to the court of King Edward IV in 1461 in order to advance his family’s and his own reputation and influence. In 1464, Sir John ran off north with King Edward to suppress a minor rebellion there. Probably due to his military career, John seemed to be recognized as a good fighter, but especially so in tournaments, which helped him secure a place in the famous tournament of 1467 between Anthony Woodville, the Earl Rivers, and the Duke of Burgundy’s son, Anthony the Bastard of Burgundy. Four years later, in 1471, Sir John and his younger brother, John III were called up for service by the Earl of Oxford. At this point, the Lancastrians, under Henry VI, had regained control of England, forcing Edward to flee to the Low Countries. In April, Edward returned to England, to once more contest the ownership of the crown. Serving the Earl of Oxford, the Paston brothers fought against King Edward at the Battle of Barnet. Unfortunately for them, not only did their–Lancastrian–side lose the battle, but John III sustained an injury during the battle. Predicting their mother’s concern, Sir John wrote to Margaret following the battle: “[John III] is injured with an arrow in his right arm below the elbow, and I have sent him a surgeon who has dressed the wound, and he tells me he will be all right before long.”4 Groveling before the victorious King Edward, the Pastons were forgiven and Sir John was once more welcomed into the king’s court. Sir John continued his military career, serving Edward in Calais off-and-on for four years. While he did serve in political and administrative positions including as a Member of Parliament for Norfolk, John II is best known for his martial skills.
Around a year after Sir John joined King Edward to suppress a rebellion in the north of England in 1464, Margaret Paston was thrust into a leadership role she probably never expected. In the spring of 1465, she moved into her manor house at Hellesdon, just a few miles north of Norwich. Margaret had received word that one of her tenants there, a man named Dorlet, had his plow horse confiscated by the Duke of Suffolk’s bailiff. The manors of Hellesdon and nearby Drayton had been given to the Pastons in Sir John Fastolf’s will, six years earlier. However, John de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk attempted to lay claim to the manors, arguing that they were the ancestral lands of the Poles, from whom he was descended. Using distraint–the act of confiscating a tenant’s property until they pay their rent–Suffolk pressed his claim to the manors of Hellesdon and Drayton. Suffolk’s claim was dubious at best, and Margaret batted it away and affirmed her ownership by setting herself up at Hellesdon. Reciprocating the act of distraint against her tenant earlier, and exacerbating the feud further, Margaret sent a servant to Drayton–where it seemed Suffolk’s loyalty was strongest–to take two plow horses from a farmer loyal to Suffolk. Suffolk’s bailiff, in turn, sent upwards of 160 armored men to Hellesdon where they confiscated four horses. Angered by this move, Margaret increased her efforts and sent some servants to Drayton to confiscate 77 cattle from the tenants there. Declaring herself “captensse here”5 to her husband, she held the cattle at Hellesdon, informing the tenants that they could have the cattle back once they paid their rents to her. The Duke of Suffolk’s agents warned the tenants, though, that if they paid rent to the Pastons, he would eject them from their land. She held onto the cattle for another week, during the resulting standoff, until Suffolk handed her a legal document–a writ of replevin–that required her to return the cattle as they were taken unlawfully on the duke’s (non-Drayton) land. Confirming that was not the case, she declined the demand. Suffolk doubled-down and sent another, this time with the sheriff’s seal. Margaret was now forced to comply and return the cattle or face imprisonment. A couple weeks later, Suffolk’s men distrained a flock of her tenants’ sheep in Drayton. When Margaret applied to the sheriff for a writ of replevin of her own, the sheriff refused her flatly. While the contest was clearly ready to boil over, still no blood had been shed.
A month later, in July 1465, Margaret received word that could very well change that. Rumor circulated that Suffolk was amassing a large army to dispossess her of her manors altogether. She prepared the defense of Hellesdon by transferring some of her men from Caister (then held by Sir John) and hiring others, to the number of 60 “men… and guns, and such ordnance, so that if they were attacked, [the attackers] would be destroyed.”6 The Duke of Suffolk’s sheriff arrived at Hellesdon with three hundred fully armed men, far outnumbering her own, demanding a number of the Pastons’ servants for whom they had arrest warrants. Mustering her confidence, Margaret refused them, but ultimately compromised by offering another servant in their place; Suffolk’s men took him, seemingly as a hostage. Within a couple days, the Bishop of Norwich arbitrated a truce, temporarily diffusing the situation, and prompting Suffolks’ small army to disband.
Tensions simmered until October, when Suffolk waited for John Paston III to leave Norwich on a mission for the Duke of Norfolk. Assembling an army of around 500 men, Suffolk swiftly captured Hellesdon without bloodshed. He then proceeded to burn the manor house and outbuildings and loot the church, to the horror of the Pastons and the entire region. It is not clear from the Paston Letters, but it seems like Margaret Paston may have been residing in her house in Norwich when this happened. Writing to her husband (who incidentally was in jail in London at the time) ten days later, Margaret explained that “no one seeing it would not think it a terrible sight. People come every day from Norwich and other places and they all say the same… you have peoples’ sympathy here.”7 Despite the local sympathy, they were never able to recover the manors or the lost property from the attack. The episode does, however, highlight the important role Margaret played throughout the Paston family’s history. Bullied and threatened, she did not shrink from the attacks, but rather on multiple occasions fought back. She even styled herself “captainess” of Hellesdon, running the military operations in defense of her estates. Her defense of the family’s manors no doubt proved invaluable four years later when the Duke of Norfolk besieged their home at Caister Castle.
At this point, in 1465, Margaret’s son John III was 21 years old. Just two years younger than Sir John, John III was destined to pick up his father’s mantle and return the Fastolf’s land to the Pastons. Around the age of 18, his parents set him up as a page in the Duke of Norfolk’s service where he would serve for six or seven years (he also occasionally served under the Duchess with whom it seemed he cultivated a good relationship). John III was well-placed among the household of the Norfolks to pass along valuable information to his family about their interests in the Pastons’ lands. Doubtless meant to repair the sour relations between the Duke Norfolk and the Pastons, the connection proved fruitful as, on multiple occasions, the Duke of Norfolk actually assisted the Pastons in settling disputes with other regional gentry, as at the manor of Cotton in 1465. It was also around this time that the Pastons had been unequivocally declared gentry via a royal proclamation in 1466. This proclamation decried an earlier rebuke of the Paston genealogy, entitled Remembrance of the wurshypfull Kyn and Auncetrye of Paston, as false, and granted the family all of the rights of the gentry. Despite this good turn for the Pastons, the foundation of friendship between them and the Duke of Norfolk proved unstable as, in 1469, Norfolk laid siege to Caister Castle and its defender, John III.
Entering what may have been his seventh year of service to the Duke of Norfolk in 1469, John III received a message he must have anticipated: his services were no longer required. Not receiving livery for the year, John III understood that he had been dismissed, but he still tried to remain in the household by offering his service to the Duchess, but she too declined him. Returning to Caister Castle, John III and his older brother, Sir John, prepared to defend their manor. Months earlier, in November 1468, Sir John had hired four professional soldiers who were “cunning in war and feats of arms, and they can shoot guns and crossbows well; they can mend and string them; they can build defenses or anything else that is needed to strengthen the place.”8 The word was that Norfolk had designs on taking the castle. In May 1469, John III wrote to his brother asking for a skilled craftsman who could repair four or five steel crossbows, having broken that many, theoretically practicing with them. The Pastons did what they could to make Caister Castle defensible, but little could have prepared them and their twenty seven men for Norfolk’s siege later that summer.
In July 1469, King Edward IV had traveled to Yorkshire to suppress the infamous Robin of Redesdale rebellion. Probably engineered by a disgruntled Earl of Warwick, the rebels defeated the king at the Battle of Edgcote, taking him prisoner. All of England held their breath; Warwick held the king as a prisoner and thus also the fate of the realm. For the next month, England had no king. Seizing his opportunity, the Duke of Norfolk assembled an army of up to 3,000 men armed with crossbows, longbows, handguns, and cannons and marched on Caister on the 21st of August. Up until this point, the conflicts between the Pastons and their regional rivals ended with little to no violence. While the parties involved regularly amassed groups of armed men, nearly all of the confrontations ended with few injuries and certainly no deaths. However, up until this point, the Pastons never truly resisted the armed opposition, being surprised, significantly outnumbered, or simply unprepared. This time, John III and his mother, Margaret, were both prepared and unsurprised, albeit outnumbered. The siege lasted for thirty-seven days, resulting in the loss of one longtime Paston servant (John Daubney) and two of Norfolk’s besiegers, but also the injury of many others. They ultimately were forced to surrender due to their low supply of food and dwindling ammunition. The terms of surrender, agreed to on 26 September, gave safe conduct to John III and his men, allowing them to march out with their personal belongings and armor, but leaving behind arms, ammunition, and all of the castle’s furnishings. The Pastons would not return to Caister for another seven years until the Duke of Norfolk died without a male heir in 1476, and a royal council granted the Pastons official ownership.
The same year as the siege of Caister Castle, the Paston family was rocked by controversy. In 1469, John I and his wife Margaret discovered that their daughter, Margery, was engaged in an affair with the family’s bailiff, Richard Calle. They had apparently gone so far as to have been secretly married. Disappointing both of her parents–even being forbidden to return home at one point–Margery and Richard Calle gained validity for their marriage via the Bishop’s Court. While he had been dismissed by the Pastons upon the affair’s discovery, Calle was reappointed as bailiff during the siege of Caister due to the Pastons’ need and Calle’s apparent abilities.
While the 1470s saw Caister returned to the Paston family (1476), the decade also saw substantial loss for them. One of the main features of the letters during this time was the frequent despair over their lack of money. The loss of land and resources due to conflicts with rivals and gifting of land through dowries and inheritances saw ever dwindling finances. This made marriage prospects difficult for John III, who would eventually marry Margery Brews in 1477, but only after her family increased the size of their dowry. Disaster struck the Paston family that year however as Clement II passed away, aged 27. The next year, Judge William’s wife Agnes (aged 81), John II (aged 37), and Walter II (aged 23) all passed away; the first from old age and the last two probably from the plague which was running rampant through England that year
The decade saw both losses and gains for the Pastons, but their letters also reveal a typical family trying to survive and get along. In one rather down-to-earth moment in 1472, Sir John recalled an embarrassing moment when he insensitively told the pregnant Duchess of Norfolk that she “was large and fat, and that [the baby] should have room enough to go out at.”9 Apparently what he meant to say was that she looked healthy and should easily handle the future birth, but how it came out was unfortunate, and yet today it stands as evidence of a fairly human moment. For all that Sir John was a bit of a swaggering gentleman, he still made his deal of social faux pas. While his younger brother, John III pursued his romantic interest, Sir John pursued an annulment. While he had not married Anne Haute (first cousin of Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England), they had previously signed a marital contract. Apparently things did not work out and they asked the pope to intercede to end the contract in 1471. Ultimately, Sir John would die eight years later, unmarried, but survived by an illegitimate daughter, Constance. More successful in love, John III, received what is considered the first Valentine from Margery Brews in 1477, just months before they were married. Starting the letter with “My dear beloved Valentine,” Margery beseeched John to write her back, arguing that “if you love me, as I hope very much you do, you will not leave me because [my father refuses to increase the dowry]. I can say that even if you were half as wealthy as you are, and I had to work twice as hard as any woman alive to help support us, I would not forsake you.” Finally, she concludes the letter with: “Please do not show this letter to anyone. It is for your eyes only.”10 Ironically, this is probably the most well-read Valentine letters in history, and thanks to the Pastons’ record keeping, historians have one more piece of evidence of the deeply human and personal experiences of medieval life.
One other significant moment in the Pastons’ lives during the 1470s occurred in 1475. It was that year that King Edward IV determined to renew the Hundred Years’ War and England’s claim to territories in France. Sir John arranged for a retinue to accompany him to Flanders where he would have a suit of armor made for him. John III, Edmund, and William also joined the king, bringing the total Paston participation in the campaign to four. Luckily for them, nothing became of the campaign, and Edward was paid off by the king of France, Louis XI. However, because of this attempted campaign, historians now have a valuable piece of Paston history: the indenture of Edmund to Richard Duke of Gloucester (who would claim the title of King Richard III just ten years later). The indenture bound Edmund to Gloucester for one year, serving the duke as a man-at-arms supported by a retinue of three mounted archers, all armed, armored, and horsed at Edmund’s own expense. Edmund would receive 18d as his daily income while his archers would each receive 6d. Since war was averted, all of the Paston men had returned home by September of that year and Edmund thus only had to serve Gloucester for four months.
The Pastons would be called on again eight years later for military service. In October 1483, the Duke of Bukingham initiated a series of uprisings to unseat the newly crowned Richard III. Initially supporting Edward V’s claim to the throne, Buckingham changed course and offered his allegiance to Henry Tudor (future Henry VII) as king, following the news of Edward V’s death. In support of King Richard III, John Howard, the Duke of Norfolk sent letters to all of the genteel families of the county asking for their military assistance. To John III, he asked him to “make ready and come hither, and bring with you six tall fellows in harness.”11 Needless to say, John did not respond, and neither did he turn out with six men. Norfolk apparently bore him no ill will, perhaps due to the speed at which the uprisings were suppressed. In less than a month, the Duke of Buckingham was captured and beheaded along with a number of his co-conspirators.
Whether John III predicted the outcome of the future Battle of Bosworth or much more likely, he was just good at picking his battles, he once more evaded a summons from his duke in 1485. That August, Henry Tudor landed in Wales with a small army intent on claiming the throne for himself. Richard III wasted no time, and immediately called upon his lords and subjects to join him in defense of the realm. As the king’s vassal, the Duke of Norfolk sent letters around his county to assemble an army. John III received his letter from the duke which asked him to “Bring with you such a company of able-bodied men as you can find at my cost, as well as those you have promised the King. Dress them in jackets with my livery, and I shall repay you when we meet.”12 John ignored the summons and, in hindsight, wisely so. While he might have supported his duke, he would not only have lost the battle, but he would have also lost the favor of his old patron, the Earl of Oxford, with whom he fought alongside (and was injured) at Barnet. By supporting Oxford, though, he would be fighting against the duke to whom he swore fealty. In the end, John avoided the decision by simply avoiding to engage either way. Richard III was killed in the battle, leaving the throne empty for Henry to be declared Henry VII, King of England. Of note for the Pastons, Norfolk was killed in the battle and Oxford survived. It seems not supporting Norfolk was a good decision after all. While he also did not fight alongside Oxford in the battle, John was still awarded for his longtime support of the earl with the title of Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk as well as the steward of Oxford’s estates.
Two years later, in 1487, John III’s loyalty would be tested by the Earl of Oxford when summoned to suppress a rebellion led by the Earl of Lincoln. Claiming to be the son of George, Duke of Clarence (Edward IV’s brother), and thus a rival to the throne, Lambert Simnel was propped up by the earl as the figurehead for a popular uprising during the summer of 1487. The rebellion was decisively defeated at the Battle of Stoke Field, and Simnel was captured. King Henry VII declared Simnel an imposter, but instead of beheading him as a traitor, he employed Simnel as a turnspit in his kitchens. For John Paston III, the battle elevated his social standing: he was knighted on the field among a handful of other gentlemen. His fortunes rose ever higher in the service of the Earl of Oxford as, two years later, John III was made his deputy in the earl’s capacity as the Lord High Admiral. His younger brother, William, also entered Oxford’s service that year as the earl’s secretary.
The next ten years proved to be relatively quiet and peaceful for the Paston family. Over the previous decades, they survived attacks by rivals, outlived their greatest enemy and sometime-friend, the Duke of Norfolk, and managed to either stay on the reigning monarch’s side, or gain their forgiveness. The 1490s gave them the chance to enjoy their successes. Since Judge William Paston’s death in 1444, the principal heir, John I, and his brother, William, feuded over money and land in their father’s will. The rift, which was passed down to John I’s eldest son, Sir John, and then his second son, John II, was finally settled in 1490–just six years before William’s death–by John III. John paid his uncle William and granted him revenues from his own lands. Additionally, John III’s daughter’s father-in-law (and former rival) Sir Henry Heydon, worked out a deal with the Duchess of Norfolk to renounce Norfolk’s claim to a manor that was disputed between her and William. At long last, William was at peace with the main branch of his family.
Around the same time, Margery Paston enjoyed some fame as a healer, when her husband, John III, wrote asking for her recipe for a medicinal plaster. Referring to it as “flose ungwentorum,”13 he also requested directions in its application and use in order to heal James Hobart, the king’s attorney. In the letter, he reminds his wife that it was this same Hobart who introduced them around thirty years earlier. Apparently Hobart had a severe ache in his knee that was causing him pain. Whether or not the plaster worked, historians cannot be sure, but certainly Hobart lived for another twenty years or so.
Despite the successes enjoyed by the family, the 1490s also saw more loss for the Pastons. In 1491, Edmund’s wife, Catherine passed away. John III’s sister Anne followed her in 1495, and then, a year later, so did his uncle William. Surviving the occasional outbreak of plague, the month-long siege of Caister Castle in 1469, an injury at the Battle of Barnet in 1471, and the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487, John III passed away in 1504 at the age of 60. He was succeeded by his son, William IV, who continued the Paston line (and fame–apparently he was knighted before 1520 as he attended the infamous Field of the Cloth of Gold event put on by Henry VIII and Francis I).