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The Investment of Sir John Fastolf's Profits of War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

K. B. McFarlane
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Extract

If we may believe John Leyland, a tradition widely current throughout England in the 1530's attributed some of the costliest building of the later middle ages to warriors who had returned home laden with the spoils of France. Everywhere that the antiquary travelled, from Ampthill in Bedfordshire to Hampton Court near the Welsh border, from Streatlam in county Durham to Farleigh, Somerset, he was told of castles raised in stone and brick ‘ex spoliis nobilium bello Gallico captorurn’, sometimes of a whole mansion paid for from the proceeds of a single battle; and that not merely in the great days of Edward III and Henry V, but also when John of Bedford was ‘governor and regent’ of his dead brother's hard-pressed conquest. So Henry Vffl's subjects, not least those descended from the military captains of the Hundred Years War, were firmly convinced. Members of the Tudor nobility were willing, nay anxious, to swallow some very improbable stories about their family-origins and in a good many cases their faith in a particular forebear's achievement, indeed his very existence, may be open to question. But the fact remains that within a century of Bedford's death the spoils of France were generally regarded as at least a plausible explanation of a family's sudden wealth and of its capacity to embark upon a large-scale building project. There are signs that it had already won acceptance in the lifetime of Leyland's precursor, William Worcester, whose birth in the year of Agincourt and long residence in the household of Sir John Fastolf, the Regent's major-domo from 1422 to 1435, entitle him to speak with more authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 7 , January 1957 , pp. 91 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1957

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References

page 91 note 1 The Itinerary of John Leland…1535–1543, ed. Smith, L. Toulmin, i. 102–3 (Ampthill), 137–9Google Scholar (Farleigh Hungerfbrd), ii. 9 (Streatlam), 72 (Hampton Court), etc.

page 91 note 2 I have dealt with Worcester's uses of his master's recollections and evidences in a paper now in the press.

page 92 note 1 Itinerarium Symonis Simeonis et Wilhelmi de Worcestre, ed. Nasmith, J., pp. 86–9 and 352—3Google Scholar. From the measurements he gives it is clear that Worcester personally visited Hunsdon; that he failed to make the short journey thence to the Rye is unlikely. The builders of both houses were old friends and companions-in-arms of Sir John Fastolf. Worcester obtained a note of the cost of Hunsdon from a wardrobe officer of its builder, Sir William Oldhall. He claims to have heard about Warwick's numerous works from the earl's receiver-general.

page 92 note 2 Itinerary, ii. 9.

page 92 note 3 Hungerford was assessed at £911 p.a. for the income-tax of 1436 as against Fastolf's £600 [Gray, H. L., ‘Incomes from Land in England in 1436’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xlix (1934), 615 and 621]Google Scholar. His accounts, surviving among the public records [for which see Kirby, J. L., ‘The Hungerford Family in the Later Middle Ages’ (unpublished University of London M.A. thesis, 1939)]Google Scholar, throw scarcely any light upon his gains of war. Boteler's assessment for tax in 1436 has not been preserved, but his castle at Sudeley, according to Leyland (Itinerary, ii. 54–6), ‘had the price [i.e. prize] of all the buyldings in those days’.

page 93 note 1 Original Letters Written during the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III, ed. Fenn, J., iii (1789), 260–75Google Scholar; Paston Letters A.D. 1422–1509, ed. Gairdner, J. (Library edn., 1904), iii. 55–65Google Scholar.

page 93 note 2 This figure may be considerably in excess of the amount actually due to the knight himself since one of the largest items (5,082 marks 13s. 3½d.) was ‘for prests and wagys of hym and his retenues’. It is improbable that he had already discharged the king's debts to his men out of his own pocket. Certainly his friend and companion-in-arms Sir Andrew Ogard in his testament

page 94 note 1 Worcester says that he was constable ‘ad terminum vite Willelmi Faryngdon militis anno xijo regni regis Henrici quarti’ (Magdalen College, Oxford, Muniment-room, Fastolf Papers, no. 69, m. 4. These will be cited hereafter as FP 69, etc. Other documents concerned with Sir John's affairs are to be found in the boxes labelled ‘Norfolk and Suffolk’ and ‘Miscellanea’ as well as dispersed among the title-deeds of those of his manors which passed into the college's possession. All references in these notes to a place-name followed by a number are to these last; e.g. Caldecott 22 or Briggs and Beyton 24. The make-up of FP 69 is discussed more fully below, p. 101, n. 5); but on 23 March 1413 William Clifford was appointed to succeed Farington (Wylie, J. H., History of England under Henry the Fourth iv. 86Google Scholar; Reign of Henry the Fifth, i. 122–3), so that at most Fastolf's tenure of the office was only temporary.

page 94 note 2 FP 69, m. 5. This was ‘sub Humfrido duce Gloucestrie’ who had been granted the islands on 9 April 1437 (Dep. Keeper's Reports, xlviii. 317). Worcester adds: ‘Et ad festum Michaelis anno xviijo regis predicti vltimo venit in Angliam de predictis jnsulis.’ There is a reference to this ‘viagium domini vsque Jernesey et Garnesey’ in FP 26, m. 6.

page 95 note 1 Tanner, T., Bibliotheca Britannko-Hibernica sive de Scriptoribus, 115Google Scholar.

page 95 note 2 ‘Item creatus fuit apud bellum de Vernoyle in Perche per Johannem Regentem regni Francie miles banerettus et dicto die belli victoria habita contra Francos dicit se lucrari ex fortuna prelij circa viginti milia marcarum sterlingorum…’ (FP 69, m. 4). It seems that he never received 4,000 of the 5,000 marks he was promised by Bedford as his reward for the capture of the duke of Alençon at Verneuil [Paston Letts. (1904 edn.), iii. 58–9, 64 and 73–4]. Even if they were included in the total of 20,000 marks, which is by no means certain, the amount he actually enjoyed would still remain considerable.

page 95 note 3 Caldecott 22. This indenture of receipt is now missing. I owe my know-ledge of its contents to a summary in W. D. Macray's unprinted calendar of Caldecott deeds.

page 96 note 1 Sometime before the autumn of 1431 he paid £1,000 to Wells on Fastolf's account and this money reached Kirtling's hands at intervals during the next five years, £119 11s. od. in the year ending at Michaelmas 1431, £58 in 1431–2 and £542 in 1433–4. When Kittling ceased to be receiver-general on 7 July 1436 he was charged with the residue: £280 9s. od. (FP 9, m. 3; FP 14, m. 2 and schedule). This £1,000 could, but need not, have been part of the 1426 remittance.

page 96 note 2 FP 6. For ‘Johannes d’ Franchis Sachus’, the Paris banker responsible for this transfer (he received 2,000 saluts from Fastolf on 3 August 1429), see below, p. 101.

page 96 note 3 A file of six acquittances was returned to him on 7 June 1442 endorsed by Richard Waller, the archbishop's steward, in exchange for two bonds; it is now FP 19.

page 96 note 4 FP 9, m. 1. The manors that follow are exclusively English.

page 97 note 1 For the £1,000, see above, p. 96, n. 1; for the 2,000 marks, see FP 9, mm. 1 and 9, and below, p. 100. It is nowhere stated from whom Wells received the second sum.

page 97 note 2 From ‘Johannes Walence’ and ‘Amfryan Spynolf’ respectively (m. 3). The former is elsewhere described as ‘Johannes Valence lumbard’ (FP 14, m. 2); I have failed to identify him. Aumfry or Amphrion Spinola, a Genoese dwelling in London, appears frequently in the records, on one occasion as the factor of his namesake Bartolomeo (Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls of… London, 1413–1437, ed. Thomas, A. H., p. 272)Google Scholar.

page 97 note 3 Fastolf was in London in November, February, April and June; he visited Hellesdon in Norfolk and made oblations at two Norwich churches, probably at Easter (28 March); he seems to have left for France soon after 22 June (mm. 5–7).

page 97 note 4 m. 3. The cash was received ‘per manus Rogeri Frost camerarij domini’.

page 97 note 5 £466 13.S. 4d. was received from Richard Buckland, treasurer of Calais, and £60 from ‘Johannes Lukes lumbard’ (m. 3). But £200 was returned to Buckland and £10 to ‘Luke’ later in the year, perhaps at the time of Fastolf's departure (m. 7).

page 97 note 6 The most notable addition is the sum of £448 13s. 4d. in the hands of Sir Henry Inglose (FP 14, m. 1).

page 97 note 7 He is credited (m. 2) with the receipt of £1,000 from this source; the only new name is that of ‘Benedictus Burneys lumbard’ who had paid him 250 marks. I cannot identify this banker.

page 98 note 1 Ibid. Eastfield is called John, but the alderman's name was William (Beavan, A. B., Aldermen of the City of London, ii.6, etc.)Google Scholar and no John Eastfield is recorded in the city's printed records. Kirtling's foreign receipts also included £135 6s. Sd. ‘oneratis super diuersos debitos domini de partibus Francie hoc anno’ in the hands of Richard Woodville (£72), William earl of Suffolk (£60) and John FitzRauf (66s. 8d.) by obligation (m. 2).

page 98 note 2 FP 60. On parchment and carefully written in a formal hand, this can scarcely be a copy or a draft. It is not endorsed and perhaps may never have been presented. The punctuation and capitals are mine. For the date, see below, p. 99, n. 2.

page 98 note 3 The words in brackets are interlineated. There are no other interlineations or corrections.

page 99 note 1 The original of this will is now FP 65 and the clause comes on m. 2. For an inaccurate text see Paston Letts., iii. 155; what Gairdner there calls the ‘first draft’ of the will dated 3 November 1459 is a copy of the earlier will made in the course of drafting the nuncupative version put forward as genuine by John Paston and his supporters.

page 99 note 2 Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 39848, no. 42 (abstracted Paston Letts., iii. 109). The postscript reads: ‘Item, cosyn, I pray yow at ye will comon with William Worcestre to see by e meane of my lord of Caunterbury or oerwise t maister William Clyf and er of executor s of John Wellys may be spoken wt for e recouere of grete good at, as Worcestre knowt weel, it may be prouid at e seid Wellys ought me in his lyve &c. at I myght knowe sum answere Jserof in my daies and t my lord of Caunterbury may knowe & be prevy erto.’ This letter obviously precedes the petition in date, but the arguments used by Gairdner for assigning it to 1456 are far from conclusive. There is, for example, no reason to suppose that Fastolf was never at Caister before 1454.

page 99 note 3 Beaven, , op. clt., ii. 6Google Scholar.

page 99 note 4 Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas, N. H., v. 45Google Scholar; Hist. Collections of a Citqen of London, ed. Gairdner, J. (Camden Soc.), p. 180Google Scholar. Gregory calls him ‘The nobylle Aldyrman’ (ibid., p. 184).

page 99 note 5 Register of Henry Chichele ed. Jacob, E. F. and Johnson, H. C. (Cant. and York Soc.), ii. 615–20Google Scholar. This mentions (p. 618) that he was baptized in the church of St. George in Colegate, Norwich. Sir Henry Inglose of Dilham, Norfolk, whom he claims as kinsman (p. 617), died 1 July 1451(Paston Letts., ii. 251; his will, dated 20 June and proved 4 July 1451, is in the District

page 100 note 1 FP 65, m. 2.

page 100 note 2 FP 9, mm. 1 and 9. Cavendish was a mercer (Cal. Plea and Mem Rolls, London, 1413–1437, 35, etc.).

page 100 note 3 ibid., 180, etc.

page 100 note 4 He was bailiff of that town in 1423, 1427, 1430 and 1431 [ Blomefield, F. and Parkin, C., Topographical History of Norfolk, xi (1810), pp. 324–5]Google Scholar.

page 100 note 5 A cousin, servant and feoffee of his Caister namesake, he died, according to his brass formerly in Oulton church (Suckling, A., Hist, and Antiqs. of Suffolk, ii, pl. facing p. 40Google Scholar) on 31 January 1445/6. His will, dated 12 January 1444/5, is m the District Probate Registry, Norwich, Reg. Wilbye, fos. 64v.–65r.

page 101 note 1 On the other hand, the delay may have allowed the bankers to recover the cost of the exchange.

page 101 note 2 FP 65, m. 2; Paston Letts., iii. 157, where, by the way, William ‘Gunnour’ is a mistake for William ‘Gravere’. William Graver was ‘magister noui operis domini apud Castre’ (FP 9, m. 8); his accounts have been printed in translation by Barnes, H. D. and Simpson, W. D. in Norfolk Archaeology, xxx (1952), pp. 178–88Google Scholar; see also the same authors' ‘Casiter Castle in Antiquaries’ Journal, xxxii (1952), pp. 35–51Google Scholar.

page 101 note 3 Above, p. 96.

page 101 note 4 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1416–1422, p. 276, which has the spelling ‘de Francis Sachiis’.

page 101 note 5 FP 69, a roll of 8 membranes. The heading reads: ‘Incipit declaracio empcionum & perquisicionum omnium dominiorum, maneriorum, messuagiorum, terrarum, tenementorum & reddituum per Johannem Fastolf militem in comitatibus Norff’, Souff', Essex' & Surr' existencium cum custibus

page 102 note 1 For a brief discussion of the meaning of ‘reprises’ in a medieval valor, see Eng. Hist. Rev., lxix (1955), pp. 110–iiGoogle Scholar. They may include more than the costs of management and maintenance; their subtraction tends therefore unduly to depress our estimates of net income. The detailed valor of Fastolf's manor of Bentley, Yorks., for 1442–3 (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 28207, fos. 20r.-20v.) includes nothing among the reprises that could not be regarded as a necessary outgoing.

page 102 note 2 FP 28. In its clear values it agrees closely but not exactly with FP 69 and therefore helps to confirm the latter's accuracy for 1445.

page 102 note 3 FP 3. This appears to mention all the tenements then in Fastolf's occupation apart from his wife's inheritance.

page 103 note 1 This and all other figures are to the nearest £. Apart from the Tiptoft lands Fastolf's property was distributed as follows: Norfolk (£491 p.a.), Suffolk (£152 p.a.), Dedham and Pentlow, Essex (£76 p.a.) and Southwark, Surrey (£102 p.a.).

page 103 note 2 Brit. Mus., Add. Ch. 14597; Paston Letts., ii. 4.

page 103 note 3 It is a little difficult to disentangle the values of the inherited from the purchased tenements in Caister, but the possible error is small.

page 103 note 4 Distributed between Yorks. (£137 p.a.), Wilts. (£60 p.a.), Gloucs. (£35 p.a.) and Somerset (£8 p.a.). These had been settled on Milicent Tiptoft and her first husband Stephen Scrope jointly and afterwards on their issue in 1390 (Scrope, G. P., History of Castle Combe, pp. 144–5Google Scholar). In spite of this they were re-settled by fine in 11 Hen. IV on Fastolf and Milicent jointly and afterwards on her issue (ibid., pp. 169–70). Stephen, and Scrope, Robert, Milicent's sons by her first husband, confirmed their stepfather's estate for life in most of these manors on 19 07 1433 (Cal. Close Rolls, Henry VI, ii. 257)Google Scholar.

page 103 note 5 Those mentioned in the 1420 will (FP 3) had cost him £1,237 and in 1444–5 yielded £73 p.a.

page 103 note 6 Worcester (Itinerarium, p. 343) is our authority for his birth in 1380 and not in 1378 as is often stated. He was retained as an esquire by the king, 18 June 1415 (Fœdera, ed. Rymer, T., ix. 270)Google Scholar and is so called as late as 5 July (Beighton 5); by 29 January 1416 he had been knighted (Fœdera, ix. 329–30). The most important charge committed to him by Henry V was the keeping of the bastille of St. Antoine, Paris, on 24 January 1421 [FP 69, m. 4; Archaeo-logia, xliv (1873), pp. 113–22]Google Scholar. According to Worcester (FP 69, m. 4) Bedford appointed him lieutenant for Normandy at Henry VI's death.

page 104 note 1 He is said (Diet. Nat. Biog., s.n., on the authority of Blomefield) to have been ‘page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, before the duke's banishment, 13 Oct. 1398’. After his father's death in 1383, his mother married John Farwell, esquire in the household of Mowbray's grandmother, Margaret countess (afterwards duchess), of Norfolk (ob. 1399), and later ‘master and governor’ to John of Lancaster, the future Regent Bedford [Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 28207, fo. 18r (notes made by, but not in the handwriting of, Worcester; they are partly printed in Scrope, op. cit., pp. 170–2)]. By 1401 Fastolf was an esquire in the retinue of John of Lancaster's brother Thomas, lieutenant of Ireland [ Letters and Papers illustrative of the Wars of the English in France, ed. Stevenson, J. (Rolls Ser.), vol. ii, pt. ii, 758–9]Google Scholar.

page 104 note 2 FP 69, m. 4.

page 104 note 3 Beighton 101 (after 5 July 1415).

page 104 note 4 FP 69, mm. 4–5.

page 104 note 5 It was already building 1430–1 (FP 8, m. 5), so that Worcester's statement that it took thirty years need not be an exaggeration (Paston Letts., iv. 235).

page 104 note 6 His annual farms in 1433–4 cost him £96 (FP 9, m. 5), in 1435–6 only £5 (FP 14, m. 3).

page 105 note 1 FP 9, m. 5.

page 105 note 2 FP 14, m. 3.

page 105 note 3 Donley's for £319 on 1 December 1439 (Southwark 2); the Buck's Head for £162 on 20 April 1440 (Southwark 60); and Horseydown for £547 on 9 November 1446 (Southwark 36).

page 105 note 4 On 1 October 1450 after a good deal of negotiation (Southwark 170). The £1,227 Fastolf spent on land in Southwark not only gave him the site for a house but also an annual return of £102 (FP 69, m. 3).

page 105 note 5 FP 43. It has additional entries in Worcester's handwriting made in 1454–5

page 105 note 6 FP 69, m. 1. This justifies Worcester's statement after John Paston's death in 1466 that it had cost £6,000 (Paston Letts., iv. 235).

page 105 note 7 FP 69, m. 3.

page 105 note 8 Hellesdon £670 (ibid., m. 2), Cotton £418 (ibid., m. 3), Norwich £246 (ibid., m. 2), Dedham £200 (ibid., m. 3), Yarmouth £200 (ibid., m. 2).

page 105 note 9 FP 84. It cost £616.

page 105 note 10 FP 69, mm. 5–7.

page 106 note 1 The most valuable of these was the barony of Cilly-Guillaume granted him by Bedford to maintain his state as banneret (ibid., m. 6).

page 106 note 2 In particular lands worth 1,560 saluts (390 marks) p.a. granted 2 January 1433 as compensation for the loss of the ransom of Guillaume Remon captain of Pacy whom he had taken prisoner in 1423 and agreed to release for 20,000 saluts (5,000 marks). The grant is registered in Paris, Arch. Nat., Reg. JJ 175, no. cciii, fos. lxvir.-lxviir. (I owe this reference to DrHighfield, J. R. L..) See also Paston Letts., iii. 58Google Scholar and 64–5.

page 106 note 3 He obtained £847 for them, i.e. ten years’ purchase.

page 106 note 4 York's patent granting his ‘beloved councillor’ an annuity of £20 is Brit. Mus., Add. Ch. 14598. But Fastolf ‘fuit ad diuersa tempora de principali concilio diuersorum principum, videlicet Humfridi ducis Gloucestrie, Thome Beauford ducis Excestrie fratris regis Henrici quarti, Ricardi ducis Eboraci, Johannis ducis de Somerset, Johannis ducis de Norfolk et Thome ducis Clarencie necnon armiger electus inter alios pro corpore incliti regis Henrici vti’ (fp 69, m.5). It would be rash to prophesy on the basis of this list which side this hireling councillor would take in the Wars of the Roses.

page 107 note 1 The fullest list of Bedford's household and retinue is in Lambeth MS. 506, fos. 8r.–11r. (with Worcester's additions). A modern translation, from which much is omitted, was printed in Wars of the English in France, ii. 433–8. Compare the witnesses to York's charter to the Franciscans of Babwell, Edmunds, Bury St., 28 02 1447 (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1446–1452, p. 231)Google Scholar. For Oldhall, see Johnston, C. E., ‘Sir William Oldhall’, Eng. Hist. Rev. xxv (1910), 715–22Google Scholar. There are full, but not wholly accurate, biographies of him and Ogard in Wedgwood, J. C., History of Parliament, Biographies, 1439–1509Google Scholar s.n.

page 107 note 2 Fastolf stood pledge for a loan of £3,000 borrowed by York from Cardinal Beaufort's executors sometime before 18 December 1452 (Paston Letts., ii. 280–1; iv. 233).

page 107 note 3 FP 43, a parchment-covered book of thirty-two paper leaves, fifteen of which are blank. The inventory is on fos. 2V.–15r. and is dated ‘the laste day of October the xxvij yere of kyng Henr’ the sixte’. On fos. 17r.–19v. are additions made between November 1454 and July 1455. The most important omission from Gairdner's version (Paston Letts., iii. 174–89) is the list of books ‘in the stewe hous’ (fo. 11r.) printed in Hist. MSS. Com. 8th Rept., p. 268a.

page 108 note 1 FP 84: ‘a riche cloth of arras of ymagery work of Justice adminystryng wt another cloth of arras conteyngyng euery of the seid clothez about xvj yerdis long & v yerdis in brede whiche that cost mor an ccxxli. sterlingiz’. Arras was included in the goods sold to the bishop of Ely for over £400 after Fastolf's death (FP 91, m. 1). A rough list of stuff in John Paston's hands at Caister in 1461 or 1462 (FP 77) includes arras and tapestry-work of little value.

page 108 note 2 Paston Letts., ii. 166–74.

page 108 note 3 Made up of 15,628½ oz. silver and 121 oz. gold. The prices of the two metals are given by Worcester (Paston Letts., iii. 232 from FP 87).

page 108 note 4 Some of the pieces are described in fuller terms by Worcester in FP 79. The use of the word ‘goderoned’ is nearly 300 years earlier than the first quotation in the Oxford English Dictionary, s. v. FP 78 consists of three other partial inventories of Fastolf's plate.

page 108 note 5 For £271 spent on silver plate in 1433, see above, p. 97.

page 108 note 6 Especially in FP 79.

page 108 note 7 Paston Letts., ii. 280–1 and iii. 233. It is called ‘sperpoynted’ in FP 79.

page 108 note 8 The duke's debt was for a loan of £466 13s. 4J.; ‘et pro aliis justis causis’ £266–13–4. This accounts for the valuation (Paston Letts., iii. 233) at £733 6s. 8d., i.e. the amount it had cost Fastolf. Besides the White Rose, the duke gave him ‘a nowche of gold in facion of a ragged staf, with ij ymages of man and woman garnysshed with a ruby, a diamande and a greet peerle’ worth 500 marks and ‘a floure of gold’ worth £40 (ibid., ii. 280; FP 79).

page 109 note 1 FP 70.

page 110 note 1 Thus the only rent Fastolf himself bought, one of 25 marks p.a. payable by the prior of Hickling, cost him 500 marks (FP 69, m. 2). Unfortunately for him the vendor's title was disputable, there being enough doubt whether he held it to himself, heirs and assigns or only to himself and his heirs to encourage the prior to refuse Fastolf payment since he was only an assign. The purchase, which was made in 1428, was followed by a series of law-suits between 1445 and 1455 involving the purchaser in heavy legal expenses (FP 29 and 33; Hickling 59–157, passim).

page 110 note 2 The earliest use of this phrase known to me is in a deed of sale of 10 November 1517 (Cat. of Ancient Deeds, v, no. A 12210): ‘after xx yeers perchas accordyng to the trew and clere value of the said maner’. But the practice was much older.

page 110 note 8 It is, for example, that of Ralph Lord Cromwell's executors when they valued some of his manors for sale, 30 November 1466 (Miscellanea 355). On 22 August 1454 Thomas Ingledew gave £400 to Magdalen College to buy lands of the value of £20 yearly (Miscellanea 436); and on 16 October 1461 he gave a further sum of £482 to purchase lands worth £24 yearly (Magd. Coll., Register A, fos. 3iv.–33r.). But compare the promise in the verses quoted below, p. 112.

page 111 note 1 A letter of 12 May 1448 (FP 26) shows him very incensed with John Rafman until recently his ‘collector of monies’ at Yarmouth and now ‘hese prisoner’. The 1446 valor (FP 28) contains long lists of arrears of rent due, while FP 62 (c. 1459) provides a mass of evidence for the legal proceedings by which Fastolf tried to bring his ministers to account.

page 111 note 2 Paston Letts., iii. 89.

page 111 note 3 Apart from the well-known examples (ibid., passim), there are the complaints of his former receiver-general Nicholas Bocking and of Bocking's son John, who was also in his service, to his executor, Bishop Wainfleet (FP 98). A neighbour in Southwark once told Fastolf to his face that he was afraid to have the law on him because he was sure that the old knight with his great riches ‘s;wolde haue cruelly vexed hym’ (FP 39).

page 111 note 4 See, for example, his letter to Inglose, Henry and Berney, John [ Paston Letts., ii. 50Google Scholar; the date of this letter seems to be 1435 or earlier, since Inglose, , called an esquire, was knighted by 29 11 1435 (Cal. Close Rolls, Henry VI, iii. 9–10)]Google Scholar. When John Rafman was in trouble, Fastolf hoped ‘yt he wold brynk to mynde yt I payed for hese fynaunce and raunsom c marc and quptted him] ought of prison in Fraunce where alle the maysteres and frendz that ever he hadde wold nought a don it [for it was] nought the gyse ner costom of men of armes to acquite everye prisoner yt is take, as I reporte me; and ma[ny] frendly dedes I dede for hym at the reuerens of God’ (FP 26).

page 111 note 5 Two of Worcester's letters, though obscurely worded (Paston Letts., iii. 115–19) seem to hint that Fastolf's affairs were in considerable disorder, partly owing to the slackness of his officials, partly to his own senile optimism. And John Paston and Thomas Howes frankly told him so (ibid., iii. 129).

page 112 note 1 Bodleian Lib., MS. Lat. misc. c. 66, fo. 101 v. (early 16th cent.), where the poem is headed: ‘Fortescu’; ibid., MS. Rawlinson B. 252, fo. 1r. (early 17th cent.) has the heading: ‘Breue quoddam utile secundum Fortescu’ [printed by Clermont, Thomas lord, Sir John Fortescue Knight: His Life, Works and Family History (1869), i. 543–4]Google Scholar.

page 112 note 2 i.e. covert-baron.

page 112 note 3 The various manuscripts of this poem differ considerably in date and form. That printed here is from Brit. Mus., Royal MS. 17 B xlvii, fo. 59r. Most of the contents of this volume can be dated 1452–6. ‘xv yere’ appears in the last line but one of the version in Brit. Mus., Lansdowne MS. 762, fo. 2v., and of that in Brit. Mus., Lansdowne MS. 470, fo. 298r. (printed in the Catalogue of Lansdowne MSS., pt. ii, p. 130); both appear to have been written about 1500. The former has a verse not found elsewhere:

‘& so t the seller that therof seased be Stonde not owtelawed in maner degre’.

The early sixteenth-century text in Bodl. Lib., MS. Douce 54, fo. 64r., printed with a number of mistakes in Secular Lyrics of the XlVth and XVth Centuries, ed. R. H. Robbins, pp. 70–1, has ‘xiiii yeare’. Another, also early sixteenth century, in Balliol MS. 354, fo. 100v. [printed in Songs, Carols and other Miscellaneous Poems, ed. R. Dyboski (Early Eng. Text Soc), pp. 137–138] has ‘xv yere’, while Lambeth MS. 306, of much the same date, fo. 203r. [printed in Political, Religious and Love Poems, ed. F. J. Furnivall (Early Eng. Text Soc), p. 44, and in Three Fifteenth-century Chronicles, ed. J. Gairdner (Camden Soc), p. xxvi] has ‘tenne yere’, as has Bodl. Lib., MS. Ashmole 61 (late 15 th cent.), fo. 21v. The number of years seems to have nothing to do with date; some manuscripts were merely more hopeful than others; all appear to have been excessively hopeful, but the dangers they advised against were very real.

page 113 note 1 The Fastolf Papers contain much evidence that Worcester was regularly set by his master to investigate pedigrees and manorial descents. On one occasion he had a colleague, ‘Sir Andrew’, perhaps Sir Andrew Ogard, whom ‘it lykyd… to enserche the cronicles & pedegreys conveyng the fourme & ordre of such descentes as longeth to that matier whych I suppose he hath bokes redy & I shall seke vppon my partie’ [Fastolf to ? a member of the duke of York's household, 1443 (FP 40)].

page 113 note 2 FP 69 mm. 2 and 3

page 113 note 3 FP 42 is a long roll entitled ‘Custus et expense in lege pro Bradwell, Beyton et Tychewell’ from Michaelmas 1448 to Michaelmas 1458.

page 113 note 4 The case of the Hickling rent has already been mentioned, above, p. 110. That of the manor of Caldecott in Fritton, Suffolk, occupies a good many of the Caldecoot deeds and also FP 56; the Southwark deeds show similar trouble there.

page 114 note 1 Pas ton Letts., iii. 132.

page 114 note 2 The Fastolfs of Yarmouth were a prolific family and their kinships are not always clear. The will of Sir John's father, John Fastolf, son of Alexander and brother of Hugh, dated 28 September and proved 25 October 1383, is in District Probate Registry, Norwich, Reg. Harsyk, fos. 5v.–6r. He was in 1363 the earl of Warwick's esquire (Cal. Papal Registers, Petitions, i. 454) and received an annuity of £20 for life as Edward Ill's esquire on 28 January 1374 (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1370–1374, p. 405). On 7 March 1380 the brothers Hugh and John entered into recognisances to pay the king 600 marks if it were later proved that the goods in a captured ship of Barcelona were not enemy goods (.Cal. Close Rolls, 1377–1381, pp. 362 and 492–3). Their father Alexander, several times bailiff of Yarmouth, disappears from the court-rolls of the borough after 1343 when he was accused with others of robbery (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1343–1345, pp. 166, 168 and 385). He was dead by 1363 at latest (Yarmouth court-roll 37–8 Edw. Ill, Placita, roll 3V.).

page 115 note 1 Fœdera, xi. 44–5.

page 115 note 2 FP 26. This is unfortunately not a detailed trading account. John Rafman the accountant was ‘receptor denariorum’ and ‘custos diuersorum bonorum dicti Johannis Fastolf infra mesuagium suum nuper Deyngaynes in Jernemuth’. He refers frequently to a book ‘de reparacione nauium’ which is no longer among the Fastolf Papers. The account mentions 14 ships, but some of them are referred to by name and others by type and there may be a slight overlap. In 1446 (FP 28) there were said to be eight of the lord's ships at Yarmoudi at the date of the valor.

page 115 note 3 For grain and wool, see below. On 7 January 1451 he wrote to his servants in Norfolk from London: ‘I merveyle greedy that ye sende not the greet ship wt malt as I am wont to have’, and five days later: ‘I praye yow… that ye wold sende me heder my ship called the Blythe wt malt as ye have ben a customed by fore tyme as my trust is in yow’ (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 39848, nos. 14 and 15). See also Paston Letts., ii. 213 and 252; FP 51 (account-roll of Christopher Hanson, collector of rents, farms and foreign moneys, 21 April 1454–25 December 1456) and FP 62 (roll of debts c. 1459).

page 116 note 1 FP 28.

page 116 note 2 FP 98.