Paston Letters 1422-1509 (Complete)

But the two volumes hitherto published by Fenn contained only a small selection out of a pretty considerable number of original letters of the same period in his possession. The reception these two volumes had met with now encouraged him to make a further selection, and he announced with his second edition that another series of the Letters was in preparation, which was to cover the same period as the first two volumes, and to include also the reign of Henry VII. Accordingly a third and fourth volume of the work were issued together in the year 1789, containing the new letters down to the middle of Edward IV.’s reign. A fifth and concluding volume, bringing the work down to the end of Henry VII.’s reign, was left ready for publication at Sir John Fenn’s death in 1794, and was published by his nephew, Mr. Serjeant Frere, in 1823.

Of the original MSS. of these letters and their descent Fenn gives but a brief account in the preface to his first volume, which we will endeavour to supplement with additional facts to the best of our ability. The MSS.The letters, it will be seen, were for the most part written by or to particular members of the family of Paston in Norfolk. Here and there, it is true, are to be found among them State papers and other letters of great interest, which must have come to the hands of the family through some indirect channel; but the great majority are letters distinctly addressed to persons of the name of Paston, and in the possession of the Pastons they remained for several generations. In the days of Charles II. the head of the family, Sir Robert Paston, was created Earl of Yarmouth; but his son William, the second bearer of the title, having got into debt and encumbered his inheritance, finally died without male issue, so that his title became extinct. While living in reduced circumstances, he appears to have parted with a portion of his family papers, which were purchased by the great antiquary and collector, Peter Le Neve, Norroy King of Arms. Le Neve was a Norfolk man, possessed of considerable estates at Witchingham and elsewhere in the county; and he made it a special object to collect MSS.and records relating to Norfolk and Suffolk. Just before his death in 1729 he made a will, by which he bequeathed his MSS. to the erudite Dr. Tanner, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph’s, and Thomas Martin of Palgrave; but this bequest was subject to the condition that within a year after his death they should ‘procure a good and safe repository in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, or in some other good and public building in the said city’ for their preservation, the object being to make them at all times accessible to those who wished to consult them. The condition, however, was not fulfilled, and the bequest would naturally have become null; but ‘honest Tom Martin of Palgrave’ (to give him the familiar name by which he himself desired to be known) married the widow of his friend, and thus became possessed of his MSS. by another title.