Chapter Five The Search for Royal Favour

DOI: 10.4324/9781315883625-5

For the member of the upper classes, who in the land wars was unable to take or keep what he took to be rightfully his on account of the power his opponent wielded in that part of the country, it was an attractive strategy to seek to outflank him by gaining support at the highest level, that is to say from the king, the ultimate source of good lordship.

To supplicate to the king usually meant to go to Court. In essence, the Court was the social side of the activities of the king's (and the queen's) household in which the high-ranking members of those households were joined by the king's ministers (when present) and by those of the upper classes currently staying in that milieu. The king's household, which in the later fifteenth century probably numbered 500 or 600 persons holding positions, provided for the daily necessities of the king and the Court in the form of sustenance and valeting. Periodically the English kings issued ordinances to regulate their households, as for example in 1318, 1445, 1471–2, 1526, and 1604.¹ The intention was to define the duties of all those who held posts there, to set a total establishment in order to eliminate the tendency for numbers continually to increase, and to ensure all departments accounted with the countinghouse. Although we might hope to find in the ordinances information which would throw light on the functioning of the Court in the period under review, in fact they provide relatively few insights because they deal primarily with household affairs â€?below stairs’ and not with upper-class life in and around the royal chamber.

Those who held appointments in the inner or privy chamber were of major importance in the functioning of the Court. Technically they were members of the household, which had in addition another role of importance. Persons of the upper classes who came to Court and stayed for any length of time sought not infrequently to obtain for their servants room and rations there beyond what was allowed, an abuse which was indeed one of the causes of the formulation of the household ordinances. These were full of references to bouche au court, as it was known, the lodging allowance of bread, wine, clothing, and fuel.³ Those at Court who held important offices, the king's ministers, used the household in another way. William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, when dominant at the Court of Henry VI in the later 1440s, found household posts of the superior type for many of his own retinue. Thomas Cromwell in the 1530s staffed the privy chamber with men he chose himself. Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, when a leading favourite of Elizabeth I, so a contemporary if hostile commentator tells us, was careful to ensure that all those with positions in the privy chamber were his own creatures. Furthermore, doubtless in order to give additional strength to his influence with the queen, he interfered in appointments and promotions at lower levels in the royal household. Into vacant â€?roumes’, as positions were called, he thrust â€?any person whatsoever so he like his inclination or feele his rewarde’, even if the appointee was unfit for the post and had not held what was regarded as a suitable preparatory appointment in that milieu.⁴ Favourites and ministers were not alone in searching for posts in the upper levels of the royal household.

In addition to the royal family, members of the household, favourites, and certain of those who held great offices of the kingdom, there were present at Court a good number of other persons whom history knows simply as â€?courtiers’. These were members of the upper classes, but whether they came to Court as they thought fit or needed some form of invitation or approval is unclear.⁶ We do know that on occasion they might be told their attendance was no longer required. Perhaps it is best to regard them as supplicants, who visited Court in order to offer the king their services, a polite way of indicating they wanted him to grant them favour, usually a financial one. Since it was the right of every person in England to petition the king if the opportunity presented itself, and the obvious inconvenience this would cause at Court if large numbers of the lower classes came for that purpose, there must have been a screening process to keep out undesirable suitors. Indeed in 1594 a system of licensing by masters of requests was proposed, incorporating a stipulation that suitors should leave the Court as soon as they received an answer.⁷ Those of the upper classes who visited the Court to supplicate the king claimed in their correspondence to be â€?waiting on’ or â€?attending on’ him. What we cannot tell is if those who undertook this exercise had any prior intimation, either from the king himself or more probably from a third party, that the time was propitious for the would-be supplicant to come to Court. Perhaps it was hinted to him that his offence might soon be forgiven him, or his known quest for payment or property acceded to.

Whatever brought the supplicant of gentle blood to Court he was rarely going to gain success in his quest overnight. After the verdict had gone against them in their case in the court of the exchequer in 14 Elizabeth I, Lord Henry Berkeley and his wife â€?all the year after … kept London and the Court as petitioners for pardon’ of part of what had been adjudged against them. In 1539 or 1540 Henry Willoughby, son and heir of Sir John Willoughby, mentioned in a letter that he had â€?gyffen attendaunce at the courte this terme for the space of vii weekes. And I do truste too opteyne sume thyng of the kyngis grace this next terme of Candylmes’. There were times when the king was on the move, but this did not stop the giving of attendance by an eager supplicant. In October 1475 Sir John Paston, who hoped to obtain a letter in his favour from Edward IV, was advised by his brother â€?to awayte on the Kyng all the wey …’ to Walsingham.⁹ What â€?attendance on’ and â€?waiting on’ amounted to in the Court environment is never indicated. Maybe the supplicant assisted the king's personal servants in dressing him, bringing him food and drink, carrying his messages around the Court and so forth, but this supposes the supplicant was allowed into the recesses of the chamber which would require high rank. Perhaps it was sufficient simply to be one of the throng always about the monarch, thereby, as was the belief of the times, adding to the royal glory.¹⁰

Frequently the seeker of a favour at Court must have found the path of supplication was a difficult one. To achieve a meeting face to face with the monarch was fraught with difficulty, as the second John Paston discovered on his first visit to the Court of Edward IV.¹¹ This was because access to the king was not there for the asking but under fairly strict control.

Many supplicants for royal favour must have recognized the difficulty of getting to meet the monarch face to face and planned their tactics accordingly. They seem to have decided that intermediaries were the solution. A connection through a blood relationship with anyone in the upper levels of the king's household was probably seen as being a particularly promising route.

How did one approach an intermediary who was to assist in getting the desired favour? Probably it was very much in the same way as when the approach was directly to the putative benefactor himself. The supplicant with or without his servants â€?waited upon’ the intermediary showing a willingness to do him service. If the intermediary promised assistance there might still have to be a series of reminders. When the second John Paston was labouring the earl of Essex to speak to Edward IV about Dedham manor and the duke of Suffolk, he spoke to him every day before the earl went to the king, â€?and often tymys inqueryd of hym and he had mevyd the Kyng in these matyers'. Essex always answered that he had not but Paston â€?lawberyd to hym continually’ and prayed Barronners hys man to remembyr hym of it’. Barronners told Paston that his father, the first John, â€?must nedys do sum wate for my Lord and hys’ and suggested that it might take the form of paying back the sum of money he owed to â€?a jantylman of Estsexe called Dyrward, seyying that ther is a myche be wern [between] my seyd Lord and the seyd jantylman of the wyche mony he desieryth your part’. The mention by the second John Paston of his making use of Essex's â€?man’, Barronners, is probably of considerable significance. Sir William Stonor, in April 1481, was told as though it were a matter of some importance, that the Marquess of Dorset's servants reported him to be, when he had been attending on their master, the most courteous knight they had ever known. Richard Germyn, Stonor's correspondent, made another important comment about Sir William's relationship with Dorset. It was not simply his attendance which made him â€?the grettist man with my lord, and in his consaite’. It was also because of a gift he had made: â€?because of your hors geven’.¹⁶

The making of gifts to intermediaries by parties seeking favours was probably a common occurrence. Little could be accomplished around the Court without free spending, as the second John Paston must have discovered in 1461. His father was told in August of that year that although his son was â€?well in acqueyntaunce and be lovyd with jentilmen aboute the Kyng’ he might be handicapped by his father's failure to provide him with sufficient money. Without it he could not â€?reasonably spende among hem’ and as a result they would not sit by him.¹⁷ This was a form of hospitality, a necessary business expense as we say nowadays. The practice of giving direct reward of a calculated value to those who would further one's search for favour and profit from the king must also have been prevalent. The extant correspondence of Sir John Gates provides some very clear examples of this from the years 1542–6. Gates, a page of the wardrobe of robes from 1537 and from 1542 a groom of the privy chamber, received requests for assistance in the procuring of a wide range of material benefits. Among the things he was asked to obtain by intercession with the king were offices such as the customership of Bridgewater and the deanery of Peterborough, the farmership of a benefice, licences such as for the export of cheese wey, the purchase of lead and of religious land, as well as the success of mere â€?honest suits’ whose nature the beseecher would define after Gates had agreed to the size of the payment for his services.¹⁸ In almost every instance the requester offered a reward which was substantial. A tun of Gascon wine, a dozen of kersy cloth, were promised by two suitors. â€?Your friendship herein I will consider with 100 marks sterling’, said another. This sum was matched in a similar instance, while on another occasion Gates was promised 20 marks a year. Gates may have had a weakness for horses since one correspondent offered him £20 â€?to buy a nag’ while another had apparently sent a similar amount at the time he made his request: â€?I trust the horse you had of me proves good,’ he wrote. Only one correspondent whose letter survives failed to offer Gates a substantial douceur and that was his own sister, who sent a bracelet of silk saying she was sorry it was not of gold.¹⁹

In most of the cases mentioned Gates was expected to â€?move the king’, as it was put, by speaking with him. One of the supplicants, we notice, admitted to having already tried to gain the favour required from the king by a direct approach on his own part. He had failed despite one of his attempts having had the backing of the chancellor. Two supplicants sent bills on behalf of third parties for which Gates was asked to obtain the king's signature. Another supplicant assumed that Gates's position as a gentleman of the privy chamber was so important that he could personally bring about the desired end simply by speaking with the party in question himself and therefore that there was no need to bring the king into it at all.²⁰ How Gates was expected to broach these requests to the monarch, how he was actually to phrase the supplication, we are not usually told, but in two instances the correspondents themselves suggested tactics which they felt would assist in obtaining royal approval. The supplicant who wished to purchase land from the Crown made it clear that he was willing to pay as much as 100 marks (much more than the normal entry fine) to ensure that the king viewed his request with favour. He suggested to Gates, doubtless as information to be passed on to the king, that the lands in question were â€?mean things, incapable of improvement, and … were it not that they lie intermingled with my own lands I would never require them’. There was another letter to Gates in a similar vein. It shows how those who knew Henry VIII reckoned it was wise to ask for nothing as a gift pure and simple but to offer hard cash; also, if seeking land near one's own, to explain that it was desired because of proximity which provided convenience in administration or because it rounded off the supplicant's estates.²¹ There is no reference in Gates's correspondence to him being offered a percentage of the value of the grant or office he was to request from the king but the practice certainly existed in the sixteenth century. It may have derived from the device of earlier centuries whereby one party enfeoffed a great man of part of the land at issue prior to the commencement of a land war.²²

A good number of those who sought Gates's intercession must have been courtiers, persons who spent extended periods in proximity to the king, although they probably did not hold an office which compelled them to do so. They were hardly there for good company or simply to encourage the king in his rule. Often they were at Court as part of an extended campaign to profit themselves or their clients by acquiring offices or grants of other sorts, developing connections with the powerful, or marrying off their children. In essence a courtier was one who was waging a war of supplication and for this there was a manner of behaviour, which, if adopted, would make success the more likely. It might be imagined that a smooth tongue, the ability to flatter, was the talent which was all important. At the Court of Elizabeth I it was indeed reckoned a profitable practice to commend everything the queen did, yet in most reigns flattery does not seem to have been regarded as an absolute essential. Modesty in a courtier's speech was of little value, as was skill in rhetoric. On the other hand boldness of conversation and suppleness and quickness of mind, â€?ingenuity’ as it was called, were reckoned great assets.²³ These qualities, if they were combined with a handsomeness of person, would go a long way towards producing the arrogance of attitude which was of great value amongst other courtiers and no handicap when in the presence of the king himself. Few courtiers can have been persons of humble mien and without the facility of making astringent responses. Also held in high esteem at Court was bearing, physical deportment of a particular sort. Generally admired was the ability to be neat and nimble when providing services, like attending on the king in his chamber; so too were fine manners, which were taken as proof of being brought up in a magnate's household. No yeoman's son, it was reckoned, because he would lack the bearing and the courtesy, was suited to be a servant in a nobleman's household.²⁴ Athletic ability was also highly regarded. Skill at dancing drew appreciative comments from Elizabeth I. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was proud of his expertise at â€?stoball’, and Henry VIII clearly admired those who were good archers.²⁵ The most prestigious skill, however, was horsemanship and its application to the hunt and warfare, particularly the latter. Until the later sixteenth century there were opportunities to demonstrate one's mastery of the dexterities of war (upper-class warfare of course) by participation in tournaments and performance in the tilt yard, where horsemanship, strength, technique with weapons, and sheer nerve could be evaluated by knowledgeable onlookers. The risk of injury, serious injury, was always high and thus the degree of glory for the successful participant the greater. Willingness to go on military expeditions was usually greatly valued by the monarch and any success in that milieu a fairly sure way of gaining royal favour, at least for a time.²⁶

By the sixteenth century theatrical, musical, and writing skills were recognized as being beneficial in gaining attention and winning prestige at Court, even as they were at the lesser level of the nobleman's household. The esquires of the king's household were expected in afternoons and evenings, for the purpose of occupying the Court and entertaining strangers, â€?to draw to lords’ chambers within the court, there to keep honest company after their cunning in talking of chronicles of kings and other policies or in piping, or harping, singing …’.²⁷ Castiglione's Il Cortegiano, translated by Sir Thomas Hoby in 1561, advised courtiers to study famous poets and write verse themselves. If in fact the royal household was similar in this respect to those of prominent noblemen, and surely it was, then a good number of those who served the monarch must have possessed skills in music. A list dating from 1538 of the marquess of Exeter's servants, including his gentlemen, gentlewomen, yeomen and grooms, shows that it was thought meritorious (and worthy of recording) in that household to play well on musical instruments such as the viol, lute, harp, or virginals, to â€?sing properly in three-man songs’, or to teach music.²⁸

One way to be certain of gaining the king's attention, and indeed his confidence, was to be in a position to provide gratification for his sexual whims. This might be done by bringing to the king's notice an attractive woman belonging to the courtier's own family and encouraging his interest in her and hers in him. It was a rare woman, whatever her marital status, who refused the king's advances and a rarer man who took offence at the sexual liaison between the king and his wife or daughter. A courtier might bring to the king's attention an attractive woman who had no familial connection with him, and he might become engaged in arranging times and places when she could meet with the king. Such a role, what medieval Englishmen identified as that of the â€?common bawde’, may have been what Sir Thomas More had in mind when he noted that Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV's queen, disliked William, Lord Hastings because he was â€?secretly familiar with the king in wanton company’. Dominic Mancini tells us further that Hastings and the queen's own sons by her earlier marriage, the marquess of Dorset and Sir Richard Grey, together with her brother Sir Edward Woodville, were the leading â€?promoters and companions’ of Edward IV's vices.²⁹

Traditionally the king sought the company of his nobility to hear their counsel, although in any period few who came to provide counsel can have received tangible reward or gained favour for so doing. He also affected to believe that having members of the upper classes around him kept him in touch with what was happening in the shires, but again providing such information would bring little profit for the attenders. The times when the king had the greatest need of the upper classes were when he was threatened by invasion or rebellion, or was about to undertake a campaign on foreign soil, and required military assistance; yet neither could he do without them on ceremonial occasions. These were when he felt the need to impress foreign dignitaries by giving demonstration of the wealth of his subjects of gentle blood as well as of their loyalty. Such events were costly for the attenders. Lord Henry Berkeley and his wife were commanded by Queen Elizabeth in 1581 to be present at Court for the visit of the duke of Alengon. Their attendance lasted thirteen weeks and cost them the very substantial sum of £2,500; it brought them no material advantage or favour.³⁰ This must have been a fairly common experience. To bring a campaign of supplication for a favour of any size to a successful conclusion it was of only marginal use to prove one's loyalty, to provide the king with the support that others of similar rank did, or even to have superior manners and social accomplishments. It was foolish for a male courtier to hope to become the king's personal friend, for those he acquired in his youth or early manhood, but there was sometimes the chance of marriage with a female relative of the king or queen.³¹ Given the right circumstances a supplicant might be able to move the king by claiming the public weal demanded he intercede to prevent feud or the collapse of public order in a locality. There was a much greater chance of success, however, if the supplicant, either through an intermediary or in his own person, could interest the monarch in a scheme which, while gaining the supplicant the assent he required, also profited the king financially, provided him with a political advantage or alternative policy, or, at the very least, improved his image and prestige. Such private deals with the king, for such in fact is what they amounted to, were by far the best route to success in the search of favour.

As an example of what prompted men of the upper classes to go to Court in their search to gain advantage over local rivals, and the pitfalls, expenses, and profits this avenue led them to, the career of Sir John Paston (1442–79) is worthy of close study. He is perhaps the only person of the period whose Court experiences can be reconstructed in any detail. The founder of the Paston family's fortunes was William Paston (1378–1444), a judge of common pleas, but advancement beyond the social level of the squirarchy was the result of services undertaken on behalf of Sir John Fastolf in his declining years by William's eldest son, the first John Paston. John, whose wife Margaret was a cousin of Fastolf, was rewarded by being made chief beneficiary in the knight's last will and chief executor of the same in addition.³² Given the relatively turbulent times and the first John Paston's hitherto modest social position, it was obviously going to be difficult for him to hold on to the property he had acquired so fortunately but he set about the task with dexterity and determination. He seems to have decided to present a higher profile, perhaps prompted by a belief that predators would be more hesitant about attacking a person with more than a local reputation. Paston refused knighthood but sat as a knight of the shire in the Parliaments which met in October 1460 and November 1461.³³ Between these two sessions, early June 1461, the duke of Norfolk occupied Caister castle, the most desirable property Paston had inherited from Fastolf, and almost at the same time the former appeared at Court, two events which cannot have been without a connection, although we are not told if Paston made supplication to the king or his council for remedy. Despite what must have been a disastrous blow to his pride and pocket, he sought friendly relations with the dispossessor by placing his second son (the third John) in the duke's service.³⁴ The third John served with Norfolk in the campaign in the northern counties of 1462–4, and was mentioned as a servant of his household in October 1465. He remained a servant of the duke for most of the time until the latter's death, despite the Pastons being engaged in a feud with the duke over Caister.³⁵

On 27 July 1461 the first John Paston and his co-executor Thomas Howes were granted a payment of 1,200 marks in return for handing over to Edward IV jewels pledged by his father, the duke of York, to Fastolf. There can have been no option for Paston here but the completion of this piece of intimate business would have brought him to the king's notice for certain. By late August of the same year Paston had sent to Court his eldest son, the second John Paston (later to be Sir John Paston), intending perhaps he might obtain a position in the king's household.³⁶ There he could maintain a watch over his father's interests, seek out a suitable patron amongst those highly placed, and supplicate to the king through his intercession. The second John sought assiduously to get the earl of Essex, treasurer of England, to speak with the king on his father's behalf but Essex was not to become his patron. John's uncle reported that his nephew was unable to find success at Court because he was not bold enough. It was also suggested that he might meet with more success if his father were to allow him more money. How long the eldest Paston son stayed at this time in the environment of the king's household cannot be determined with any accuracy. All we can glean is that, despite warnings by those who knew the Court that to bring him home might be taken as an insult by the king or alternatively give the appearance that he was no longer persona grata at Court, he was back home by January 1463.³⁷

Despite this, the second John Paston had found life in the king's entourage to his liking and intended to go back. In May 1464 he joined King Edward on his expedition to the north-east, and after his father's death (May 1466) he was at Court frequently. There he became a friend of Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, the brother-in-law of the king, which must have been the key to the acceptance in royal circles for which he had been searching. He was invited in April 1467 to a tournament at Eltham where he fought on the same side as Scales and the king, a signal honour and testimony to his skill at arms. In 1469 Paston consolidated the connection with Scales by becoming engaged to his cousin, Anne Hawte. He was soon grateful for Scales' support, for John and his brother the third John, rather surprisingly, fought on the Lancastrian side at Barnet in April 1471; Scales it was who interceded to obtain pardons for them.³⁸ The explanation of their desertion of the Yorkist cause is probably to be found in their continuing struggle with the duke of Norfolk to hold on to Caister castle. The duke had seized it once more from the Pastons in September 1469, and by October 1470 the second John had become a client of the earl of Oxford, a staunch supporter of the house of Lancaster, who was believed to have a hold over Norfolk. Furthermore, Oxford promised the second John (who had been Sir John from 1463) the constableship of Norwich castle.³⁹

What we know of Sir John's career to this point suggests that, in contrast with his father, he had the open-handedness and the assurance of the truly privileged, the noble class. He possessed the skills and graces which that group admired and in good measure. He was accomplished in the use of arms and the handling of horses; he was at his ease on military expeditions and when travelling abroad. He was very much at his ease in female company and, judging by his badinage with the duchess of Norfolk, able to jest with social superiors of the opposite sex without giving offence. He seems to have been athletically handsome, and a friend said that he was the best chooser of a gentlewoman he ever knew, which suggests that he was, in nineteenth-century jargon, a â€?womanizer’. Sir John also possessed a considerable library and had a book containing chivalric treatises compiled for him. He appears to have had the type of literary interests which would be a definite asset in the Court environment.⁴⁰ These were qualities and interests which would have drawn him towards the Court of Edward IV even if his father had not sent him there. Persons with the personality traits which Sir John possessed often incline towards extraversion and seek a life of style and individual prominence. To them external appearances matter a great deal, while the pettifogging detail and matters of small moment, which clutter everyday existence, are often thought by them unworthy of persistent and serious attention.

Yet despite what appear from the Paston correspondence to be weaknesses of character, Sir John's career was no disaster to the fortunes of his family, as the last seven or eight years of his life were to prove. Historians have tended to ascribe any improvement in his family's circumstances to sheer luck, yet the case can be made that Sir John's strategy was by no means unsound and that his execution of it was commendable. The year which saw Edward IV's triumphant return from exile found Sir John and his brother the third John fighting on the losing side at the battle of Barnet, and thus being forced to purchase a pardon for their palpable treason. Although the pardons themselves may not have cost a great deal, regaining possession of one's lands, technically forfeit through opposing the king in battle, could be expensive. In the years which followed, Margaret Paston, Sir John's penny-conscious mother, complained bitterly about the family's shortage of cash for paying off its debts and her eldest son's plans to remedy the situation, but he was seemingly not moved.⁴¹ From 1472 Sir John appears to have been a client of William, Lord Hastings, whose prestige at Court was rising steadily. Hastings was lieutenant of Calais and may have been responsible for the employment of Paston on a mission to the Court of Burgundy at Ghent early in 1473. In January 1475 Sir John took steps to enlarge his retinue, bought himself a new horse and harness, and visited the Burgundian army then besieging Neuss in the archbishopric of Cologne, though in what capacity is unclear. As part of the forces stationed at Calais he and his younger brothers may have served in Edward IV's expedition into France in the summer of 1475, and Sir John travelled with Hastings to Calais in March 1476.⁴²

While engaged in the military life in this period Sir John Paston found time to supplicate, either in person or through others, to the duke and duchess of Norfolk, the duke's council, and even to members of the Norfolk household, to remind them of his grievance over Caister.⁴³ According to the third John Paston, the council of the duke accepted the validity of his brother's claim to Caister, but knowing it could not get its master to see reason its members hinted that the Pastons ought to get some great man to put pressure on him. Sir John's attempt to enter Parliament in 1472 may have been an effort to achieve such an alliance, or at least to provide a point d'appui to petition the king or his council. At about the same time the two Paston brothers comforted themselves with the belief that they had secured the support of the duchess of Norfolk in their quest. The younger of the pair visited her at Framlingham, and the duchess, who was pregnant, expressed the hope that Margaret Paston would be with at her forthcoming confinement. Sir John made a further major effort at supplication but in another direction. Either by the impressive nature of his military service, or by means of astute lobbying, he was able to remind the king of his grievance over Caister even during the campaign in France in 1475. As King Edward returned from the expedition he spoke with the duke of Norfolk, who had accompanied him, telling him to take the advice of his legal counsel over Caister â€?and to be sywer that hys tytle be goode’, for if he did not do the right thing by Paston he would lose royal favour.⁴⁴

There was no satisfactory result from this royal intervention and therefore in October 1475 the third John Paston told his elder brother that he ought to get letters from the king to each of the members of Norfolk's council telling them how the king had brought up the matter of Caister with the duke when they were overseas that summer, and how the latter had promised to discuss it with them. They must see to it that such discussion occurred and then certify the result to the king. The younger Paston also advised his brother to â€?awayte on the Kyng all the wey’ on his forthcoming journey to Walsingham. Towards the end of the month the Pastons were beginning to force the issue and the third John told the duchess bluntly that he would do the duke no more service, although he was apparently ready soon after to suggest to his mother she should be attendant on the duchess at the forthcoming birth. As it turned out, the need to put pressure on the duke came to an end at the beginning of 1476 when he died. Sir John, on receiving news of Norfolk's demise, immediately made a technical entry into Caister regretting only that he had not heard of the duke's expected death before the event. If he had, he might have entered earlier and avoided the danger of descent cast jeopardizing his claim. In the event it did not matter since the question of title to Caister was settled before the king's council. There, late in May 1476, wrote Sir John, â€?alle the Lordes, Juges, and Serjauntes … affermyd my title goode’. â€?Item, blissed be God, I have Castre at my will. God holde it better than it doone her to foore’, so reads a letter he sent to his brother at the end of June.⁴⁵

Had the struggle been worth it? The most frequently expressed view has been that a feckless Sir John had beggared himself to hold on to a property which was too magnificent for a man of his station. A better interpretation is that he could not do otherwise. To surrender Caister without a fight would be the signal for all those with remote, even fraudulent, claims to the erstwhile Fastolf lands to try to seize them. Others might be encouraged to seek to recover other Paston property. Overmatched, Sir John conducted his campaign against the duke of Norfolk not in the county but at Court. It was the only sensible option open to him, because there was no uncommitted nobleman with sufficient influence in East Anglia to whom he could turn for effective assistance. The earl of Oxford may have provided a little indirectly on occasions but he never intervened in the Norfolk land wars to any effect. The duke of Suffolk laid claim to the ex-Fastolf manors of Hellesdon and Drayton in April 1465 and was thus a second major foe for the Pastons to face. Fortunately the two ducal families never made an alliance against them.⁴⁶

When a member of the upper classes was subjected to claims on his lands by a dangerous and more powerful rival, or if he needed the support of such a party to further his own territorial ambitions, the proper tactic was for him to buy support by enfeoffing such parties in part of the property in dispute. Although there is no letter in the Paston correspondence which actually comments on the matter, Sir John appears to have been trying to buy off the duke of Norfolk in October 1467 when he granted him the manor of Henmales in Cotton, but unfortunately for Paston the duke wanted something more substantial.⁴⁷ Despite their relatively meagre holdings of land in Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir John appears to have been angling for the support of Queen Elizabeth and others of the Woodville family when in March 1469 he gave the free chapel at Caister to her chaplain Master John Yotton. By this time Paston was an associate and probably even a friend of Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, and by April 1469 at the latest he was engaged to his relative, Anne Hawte. No marriage resulted however, and there must be some suspicion that Sir John used the arrangement to get assistance from Scales against the duke of Norfolk. The Pastons' adherence to the Lancastrian cause in 1470–1 may have prevented the marriage, but the alliance with the Woodvilles was restored in July 1471 and probably continued until Sir John's death in 1479, for it was rumoured in May 1478 that he â€?shuld mary rygth nygth of the Qwenys blood’. The success of Sir John Paston's alliances with the nobility and the social stature he had acquired are attested to in the same letter for his mother noted that it was reported that the eldest son might â€?do as meche with the Kyng, as any knygth that is longyng to the corte’. This rise in Sir John's influence and weight in political circles seems to be reflected in his litigation against the duke of Suffolk over title to the manors of Hellesdon and Drayton at this time. Sir John showed no trepidation about the outcome of the suit; indeed he was confident. Suffolk, on the other hand, appears to have been rather desperate. He offered to meet Paston in individual combat and declared that he would have to be killed before the latter would get the two manors. Margaret Paston, a persistent pessimist where her eldest son's land wars were concerned, was confident that he would win the suit even though his adversary was a duke.⁴⁸ All the signs are, then, that had not Sir John died at the age of thirty-seven or thereabouts in November 1479 he might well have risen to greater heights of favour and acquired royal offices which would have recompensed him for his financial outlay in the years preceding. We may conclude, therefore, that the Court-based strategy of Sir John met with a good measure of success.

The king's role at this time as the receiver of supplications is full of interest, yet historians have told us very little about it.⁴⁹ Virtually everywhere the king went in the fourteenth century he must have been exposed to those who wanted to request a favour of him either by word of mouth or by pressing a written petition in his hand. His withdrawal for part of the day to the recesses of the inner chamber in the fifteenth century must have been prompted, at least in part, by the desire to avoid much of such supplication. Another way of placing some sort of control on petitioning in the Court environment was to limit it to a particular hour of the day and to a particular location. Stow, the Elizabethan chronicler, tells us that Henry V, like his father Henry IV, after dinner on days â€?when no state was kept’, had a cushion put on a cupboard where he placed himself for an hour or more â€?to receive bils and heare complaints of whomsoever would come’. Whether the need for such control ceased when the king made his withdrawal into the inner chamber later in the century is not clear. There is some evidence that supplicants expected that the vital access to the king would necessitate careful planning and considerable waiting. Thus the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, had an intermediary at Court whose job it was to lie in wait to catch the king in his leisure moments in order to get his signature on a grant. There may well have been a relatively greater number of opportunities to seek favour of the king when he was travelling about the kingdom on business. William Paston, uncle of Sir John, seems to have found the opportunity to speak to Edward IV in June 1469 concerning his nephew's quarrel with the duke of Norfolk when the king was at a sessions of oyer and terminer.⁵⁰

The opportunity to supplicate to the king, infrequent as it must have been for all except ministers, favourites, and the gentlemen who served the monarch in his privy chamber, was sometimes of no great benefit to the petitioner if the king was not in an amenable mood, something all those with experience around the Court were well aware of. The seeker of favour or his intermediary, if he knew his business, was careful therefore to make his move only when he had sure information that the king was currently of a giving or forgiving disposition. To lighten the burden for the king, it was wise for the supplicant to have his request in written form, and preferably already counter-signed by officials who might be affected should it be granted. The second John Paston, in August 1461, when supplicating over the manor of Dedham, presented a bill into which his father had incorporated a copy of a section of the court roll of that manor, no doubt to show that the Paston family or its servants had held the sessions there.⁵¹ Petitions delivered in person to the monarch in the later Middle Ages seem to have been shaped much as were parliamentary petitions, that is to say phrased so that when approved they provided the relief or advancement required without further process. If we judge by what is written in the Paston correspondence, a king was capable of taking a great deal of interest in what the petitioner said and proferred to him. Edward IV is a prime example. He seems to have enjoyed contact with his people more than most monarchs, as his personal appearances in the king's bench and other courts testify. He had, furthermore, a good memory for names, where land was, and to whom it belonged. Because he was interested in a suit, he visited the scene of a destructive riot three and a half years after the event.⁵² Like Henry V, Edward took it as one of his chief duties to try to compose feuds among the upper classes, which was what in essence a large number of petitions were about. Not infrequently the king must have found it politic to do nothing about the petition he had received. There is a reference to Edward IV actually agreeing to a request by a supplicant for the repayment of 400 marks owed him by the Crown but no further satisfaction being given; it must always have been difficult to extract hard cash from the king. The monarch in the fifteenth century, as in the sixteenth, was more likely to agree to, and act on, a supplication where he could see some benefit accruing to himself or where there was at least the certainty that it would not put him out of pocket, a fact which was recognized by supplicants. For example, when in 1479 the third John Paston asked Sir John to obtain from the king for their younger brother Edmund the wardship of John Clippesby, he suggested that their intermediary Sir George Brown might point out to the king that the grant would cost him very little in income, since the child could not have the land during the lifetime of his mother who was still young.⁵³

Should the king receive a petition from someone of relatively modest rank against the misbehaviour of a magnate he would not ignore it out of favour to the nobility, nor yet, if we judge by Edward IV, go to the other extreme of immediately disciplining the great man. Early in 1475 Sir John Paston used John Morton, master of the rolls, and Sir Thomas Montgomery, knight of the body, as intermediaries in his suit to King Edward to get the duke of Norfolk to restore Caister to him. The account of the third John Paston as to what then happened is revealing. The king, he says, himself asked Norfolk what he was going to do about Caister, but the duke would not answer. Edward then asked Sir William Brandon, one of Norfolk's affinity, who was present, what his lord was intending, reminding him that he had asked him to bring the matter to the duke's attention on an earlier occasion. Brandon answered that he had indeed done so; and when Edward pressed him as to what the duke had answered he was told that he had said, â€?the Kyng shold as soone have hys lyff as that place’. When Edward asked him if this was true the duke admitted it was. Edward, we are told, â€?seyd not a woord ayen but tornyd hys bak, and went hys wey’. However, added Paston, the duchess of Norfolk had told him that had the king spoken to her husband about the matter again the duke â€?wold not have seyd hym nay’.⁵⁴ That the king was unable to have his way in this confrontation with one of his nobles is at first sight surprising but much less so on further consideration. The crucial feature of this case was that it concerned title to land and everyone knew the king could not deprive a man of his land unless he had been convicted of felony or treason. When kings were petitioned over title to land they would often suggest a treaty, or that the matter should go to the courts or the council. What seems to have happened in the Caister case was that Edward IV had become personally convinced of the rightfulness of Sir John Paston's cause and therefore took it upon himself to hint to Norfolk he should listen to good legal advice, which would inevitably be that his claim was legally indefensible. When rebuffed, the king could only let the duke understand that his future requests for favour would be unsuccessful, which by itself would have been sufficient to bring most magnates to heel since those members of the upper classes known to be out of royal favour were likely to begin to lose more than their fair share of cases in the courts.

To manoeuvre in search of the king's favour as did Sir John Paston in the 1460s and 1470s cannot have been uncommon in fifteenth-century England, although comparable examples are denied us by the failure of contemporary correspondence to survive. Very likely the same scheming was practised extensively in the fourteenth century also, and even earlier. The royal household in the fourteenth century, although less sophisticated, appears to have operated according to the same principles as prevailed later on, and local politics with their factions, feuds, and land-hungry upper classes were essentially of the same substance as in the sixteenth century, the period from which most examples of supplicatory manoeuvring have usually been drawn by historians. As to their outcome, what we are reminded of by Sir John Paston's machinations is that the king, when his interest and favour were won, would dare to interfere in the processes of the common law only very rarely. All he might do, and all the supplicant probably expected him to do, was either to reproach the magnate or faction which was said to be the cause of mischief, or to entertain and settle the issues before his council where decisions might be arrived at through consideration of political as well as legal factors.