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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
The want of contemporary documents to illustrate the complicated events produced by the feuds of the Yorkists and Lancastrians, during the agitated reign of Henry the Sixth, has been a subject of complaint with more than one of our historians. Every portion, therefore, of information, derived from original sources, which enables us to obtain a clearer insight into the transactions of that period, must be considered as valuable, and should be placed on record. With this view it is, that I beg to lay before the Society, by your hands, the copy of a paper preserved among the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum, No. 914, which contains some notices of circumstances hitherto unknown to our annalists, and is also of considerable interest from the light it throws on the state of the adverse parties at the beginning of the year 1454.
page 305 note a The history of these Letters is curious, and it is deeply to be regretted that the originals should have so strangely disappeared. They remained in the Paston family till the death of the second Earl of Yarmouth of that name, in 1732, when they came into the possession of Peter le Neve, Norroy, and subsequently into the hands of Thomas Martin, of Palgrave, the well-known collector and antiquary. After his decease, which took place in 1771, they were sold by his widow to an apothecary of Diss, in Norfolk, named Worth; from whom, in 1774, they came to Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Fenn, of East Dereham. This gentleman made a selection from the mass, which he printed in 2 vols. 4to. 1787; and so interesting did the contents appear to the public, that a second edition was very shortly called for. In an advertisement prefixed to this second edition, the editor states, that the originals of the letters had been deposited in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, for general inspection. In 1789 two additional volumes appeared, containing a further selection from the correspondence, in the preface to which we are informed, that whilst the letters were in the library of the Society, it was intimated to the owner, that the King (George III.) had a wish to inspect them. They were accordingly sent to “the Queen's palace,” with a request from Sir John Fenn that his Majesty would accept them; to which request, adds the editor, “a most gracious answer was returned, and they are now in the Royal Library.” From that time to this they have never been heard of! They did not come to the British Museum as part of the library of George the Third, and all inquiries to ascertain if they are at Windsor have proved fruitless. It only remains to be added, that a fifth volume containing letters of a later period, which had been prepared by Sir John Fenn for the press, was given to the public in 1823, by Mr. Sergeant Frere, Master of Downing College, Cambridge, who states that he was unable to find the originals.
page 310 note b Fabyan, p. 628, ed. 1811.
page 311 note c Fenn, vol. i. p. 80, dat. Greenwich, 10 Jan. 1454–5.
page 311 note d Turner says 23d March, Hist. of Engl. vol. iii. p. 178, ed. 8°. 1830, from too hasty an inspection of Rolls Parl. v. 240. In vol. iii. 164, he says February, but this is probably a mere slip of the pen.
page 311 note e Fenn, vol. iii. p. 178. His death is mentioned in the same place, but the editor has falsely assigned the letter to 1452–3, instead of 1453–4.
page 311 note f Rolls Parl. v. 240.
page 311 note g Rymer, xi. 361,
page 312 note h Fenn, iv. 4.
page 312 note i Rolls Parl. v. 332, Privy Council Books, vi. p. lxxviii. For his previous history, see Sir H. Nicolas's Journal of Beckington, p. 107.
page 312 note k Vol. vi. 130, 179, 189.
page 312 note l Fenn, i. 77.
page 312 note m Privy Council Books, vi. 218, 234.
page 313 note n Fabyan, p. 632.
page 313 note o Rolls Parl. v. 239.
page 313 note p Annals, p. 400, ed. 1615.
page 313 note q This letter, dated 20th May, 1455, is printed in the Rolls of Parliament, vol. v. p. 280, together with the letter from the same Lords to the Archbishop of Canterbury, dated 21st May. Sir John Fenn was not aware of this, when he again printed the letter to the King, in the Paston Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 178. Contemporary copies of both letters are preserved in the Add. MS. 11,301, Brit. Mus. (from Craven Ord's sale, in 1829). It may be added, that Whethamstede gives a Latin translation of the first letter in his Chronicle, p. 370, ed. Hearne, 1732.
page 314 note r Rolls Parl. vi. 294. Hall, f. clxxvii. and Stowe, p. 414, but the latter says, he was killed at Highgate, “by the commons of Kent.”
page 314 note s 1b. v. 616. vi. 317.
page 314 note t 1b. v. 280, 282, 332, 342.
page 314 note u Ritson's Anc. Songs, p. 58.
page 314 note x Rolls Parl. v. 216.
page 314 note y Fenn, i. 286.
page 314 note z Excerpt. Hist. p. 159.—Trayne means fraudulent device.
page 314 note a Fenn, i. 24. The writer of the letter says, “As for tydynges, my Lord Chaunceler is discharged; in his stede is my Lord of Wynchestre. And my Lord of Shrewishury is Tresorer.” Shortly after, he adds, “Also it is seid the Duke of Buk' taketh right straungely, that bothe his brethren arn so sodeynly discharged from ther offices of Chauncellerie and Tresoryship.” Dated 18th October. Fenn assigns this letter to the year 1450, under the erroneous supposition, that the Chancellor dismissed was Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury; who is, indeed, in some pedigrees, set down as brother of the Duke of Buckingham. See MS. Harl. 1411. With regard to the Treasurer, he is silent. Then succeeds Sharon Turner, and with a precipitancy and carelessness inexcusable in a person professing to write history, first states, vol. iii. p. 63, under the year 1449, that “Suffolk continued in his elevation; but the two Staffords, the Chancellor and Treasurer, were dismissed, to the great displeasure of their brother, the Duke of Buckingham; and again, vol. iii. p. 166, under October, 1450, writes, that Buckingham “was at this juncture dissatisfied, that his two brothers had been dismissed from their high stations of Chancellor and Treasurer.” He refers in both instances to Fenn as his authority. Putting aside the discrepancy of these statements in point of date (the former of which is blindly copied by a writer in the Excerpta Historica, p. 161) it may be observed:—1. That the Duke of Buckingham had no brother of the name of Stafford, who ever was Lord Treasurer. 2. That the real date of the letter is October, 1456, at which period Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, succeeded Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, as Chancellor, and the Earl of Shrewsbury succeeded Henry, Viscount Bourchier, as Treasurer. 3. That the Bourehiers were properly called the Duke's brethren, since they were his half-brothers, by the remarriage of his mother Anne to Sir William Bourchier, Earl of Ewe. At the same period, Laurence Booth, Bishop of Chester, was made Privy Seal, a circumstance noticed also by the letter-writer in Fenn, p. 26. This long note has been rendered necessary, to prevent, if possible, a grave error from becoming more widely spread.
page 315 note b Fenn, i. 104.
page 315 note c Turner, iii. 183, who writes loosely, that he was confined for “fourteen months.” Nicolas, Privy Council Books, vi. xlviii. lix.
page 315 note d Vol. xi. 361. The warrant for his bail was dated 5th February, 1454–5, but he was not enlarged till the 7th, and was wholly set free 4th March following.
page 316 note e Compare similar statements in the years 1455, 1457–8, in Fenn, i. 112, 150.
page 316 note f Fenn, iii. 108.
page 317 note g Fenn, i. 78.