POLITICAL HISTORY arm at the battle of Barnet.' On the restoration of Edward, the duke of Norfolk again got possession of Caister, and the Pastons were not finally- reinstated until 1476,^ In 1470, Edward, being deserted by his followers, fled to Lynn and escaped thence to Flanders. When returning in the next year from Zeeland he again touched the Norfolk coast, and on 1 2 March when off Cromer sent Sir Robert Chamberlain (himself a Norfolk man) ashore to see if he could safely land, but the report being unfavourable he kept on north and landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. The battle of Barnet and the death of Warwick followed in exactly a month, and in a short time the battle of Tewkesbury and the murder of Henry VI in the Tower placed Edward securely on the throne till his death in 1483. The concluding years of the reign were not of any great importance locally. In 1477 there was a riot on the land of Roger Townshend at Ludham, during which two ' shooting butts ' were destroyed,' this being probably an enclosure riot. In 1478 the duke of Suffolk was again annoying Paston. He revived his claims to Hellesden and Drayton, and sold Drayton Wood to Richard Ferror, mayor of Norwich, who proceeded to cut it down. Paston took the matter into Chancery, and Ferror declared that he had no idea that Suffolk was not in peaceable possession of the property, though as Paston said, this must have been pure pretence.* The duke paid another hostile visit to Hellesden, luckily while Paston was absent. He appears to have held a court there, and, no doubt to annoy, he ' drew a stew and took plenty of fish.' The steward who wrote an account of these proceedings to Paston adds, apparently with some satisfaction, that the duke was so feeble in the hot weather that he had to be kept on his feet by two retainers. He left the pleasant message for Paston that he wanted no better than to meet him with a spear and have his heart's blood. ^ During the short reign of Richard III no very memorable events took place in Norfolk. The king is said to have visited Norwich Mn 1483, and he certainly had a strong local supporter in Sir John Howard, whom he created earl of Norfolk on account of his maternal descent from the Mowbrays and who shared his fate at Bosworth in 1485, his name being imbedded in the rhyme : — Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold, For Dickon thy master is bought and sold. It may be convenient to point out here that though the Howards were of some antiquity in the county, their first ancestor who can be traced being William Heyward, Haward, or Howard, Chief Justice of Common Pleas in the reign of Edward I, yet they were not of the highest position in it until, partly by ability but chiefly through the great match made by Sir Thomas Howard with the heiress of the Mowbrays, they came to the front in the fifteenth century. That this is the case is shown by the curious letter pro- duced in the Paston Letters when the duchess of Norfolk^ wrote that her husband found it necessary that he should have in Parliament only such ' Paston Letters, No. 668. ' Ibid. Nos. 778, 779. ' Gurney MSS. xxii, fol. I.
- Paston Letters, Nos. 814, 815. ' Ibid. No. 817.
' Blomefield, op. cit. iv, 173. ' Paston Letters, No. 244. 491
