Women of England Part 5

A great deal of light is thrown upon the manners and thought of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by a body of literature which arose during those centuries. The estimation in which the cla.s.ses of society were held is indicated by one of these _fabliaux_. A party of knights pa.s.sed through a pleasant and shady meadow, in the midst of exquisite scenery; they were enchanted by the spot, and wished for meat and wine that they might tarry there and dine on the gra.s.s. There followed them a party of clerks, whose feelings were also aroused by the beauty of the place; and, in accord with the frivolous character given them throughout the _fabliaux_, they exclaimed: "Had we fair maidens here, how pleasant a spot for play!" After they had pa.s.sed on, there came a party of villains, who, with their grosser ideas, thought not of the beauty of the place at all, but proceeded to indulge themselves in carnal pleasures and to use it for mean purposes.

These _fabliaux_ show us that Cupid disdained conventional restraint then as now; for in them the marriage of persons in different cla.s.ses often furnishes a theme for the story--this, too, notwithstanding the sharp caste distinctions which existed. Usually, the maiden is possessed of more beauty than wealth and belongs to the poor-knight cla.s.s; she is wedded to a peasant or villain who has become wealthy.

The husband turns out to be a brute; the lady is crafty and cunning.

He beats and abuses her, according to the instincts of his boorish nature; she, on the other hand, proves faithless as often as opportunity presents. The writers never visit condemnation upon her, for her husband is considered as undeserving of the possession of such a prize. It is a curious commentary on the manner of the times that upon the same ma.n.u.script, written by the same person, appear _fabliaux_ of this sort and stories of holy women dying in defence of their chast.i.ty. This contradiction runs throughout the literature of the period--the praise of virtue and the narration of gross immorality without an effort to condemn it. One of the most peculiar facts of the age is the extreme to which was carried the adoration of the Virgin and the strange things she is made to do and to countenance, in the mythology of the Middle Ages--for so we must cla.s.s most of the mediaeval stories of the saints and of the Virgin--to ardent and imaginative temperaments the Virgin took the character of Venus, and is frequently represented as the patroness of love. One of the religious stories tells us that some young men, while playing ball in front of a church, approached the porch of the edifice, upon which was a beautiful statue of Our Lady. One of them laid down his ring, which he had received from his lady-love. Then, to his amazement, he saw the image, which was "fresh and new," fix its eyes upon the ring. He became enamored of it, and, after due obeisance, he addressed Our Lady thus:

"I promise duly, That all my life I'll serve thee truly; For never saw I maiden fair Whose beauty could with thine compare, So courtly and so debonaire: And she who gave this ring to me, Though fair and sweet herself, than thee A hundred times less fair, I trow, Shall yield to thee her empire now.

'Tis true I've loved her long and well, As many a fond caress can tell; But now, forgotten and neglected, Her meaner charms for thine rejected, I give her ring--a lasting token Of faith which never shall be broken, Nor shared with maid or wife shall be The love I proffer unto thee.'"

With this address, he placed the ring upon the finger of the image.

Our Lady appeared flattered by the conquest she had made, and bent the finger on which the ring had been placed in order that it might not be withdrawn. The lover was astounded by the miracle, and was advised by his friends to retire from the world and to devote himself to the adoration and service of the Blessed Virgin. Neglecting this advice, he allowed love to resume its place and led to the altar the maiden who had given him the ring. But Our Lady was not to be deprived of her adorer, and when he laid himself upon the nuptial couch she immediately threw him into a profound slumber, and when he awoke he found her lying between him and his bride:

"She showed him straight her finger, where Was still the ring he'd given her; And well became her hand that ring Upon her soft skin glittering.

'Instead of love, thou'st shown,' said she, 'But falseness and disloyalty.

And ill hast kept thy faith to me.

Behold the ring thou gavest, for token And pledge of love fore'er unbroken, And call'd me a hundred times more fair Than ever earthly maidens were.

I have been ever true, but thou Hast taken a meaner leman now; Hast left for stinking nettle the rose, Sweet eglantine for flower more gross.'"

In the end, Our Lady forces him to leave his wife that he may dedicate himself entirely to her service. In other _fabliaux_ and in the chronicles, Mary is represented under the guise of the Lady Venus, who often appears in these romances. In this adoration of the Virgin as a maiden impelled by the same loves and hates as any mortal woman, it is not difficult to see the spirit of chivalry in its sensual expression.

Surely, if every lady had her knight, the Blessed Virgin, also, must have her devoted admirers; and by the height of her position and greater worthiness as the Queen of Heaven, by so much should she rise above any other woman in her right to command such adorers.

When we pa.s.s from the status of woman in the Middle Ages to her occupations, the subject becomes narrowed, not only by the lesser importance of the facts which merely ill.u.s.trate rather than demonstrate her position, but also because we shall exclude from our general consideration the women of the manors, the nuns, and, in their industrial capacities, the women of the guilds. These important cla.s.ses demand separate treatment.

After the middle of the twelfth century, it is easier to study the domestic manners of the people. We can, for instance, obtain very precise information as to the style of the dwellings in which they lived. There was a general uniformity in the houses, however they might vary in particulars. In the twelfth century, the hall continued to be the main part of the dwelling. Adjoining it at one end was the chamber, while at the other end might be found the stable. The whole building stood in an enclosure consisting of a yard in front and a garden in the rear, surrounded by a hedge and ditch. The house had a door in the front, and within, one door led to the chamber, and another to the stable. The chamber, also, frequently had a door leading out to the garden. There were usually windows in the hall, the stable and the chamber being lighted by openings in the part.i.tions between them and the hall, as well as by slits in the outer walls.

The windows themselves were commonly merely openings, which might be closed by wooden shutters. There was usually one such window in the chamber, besides those in the hall, so that it was better lighted than the stable.

From the _fabliaux_ we can obtain very precise ideas of the distribution of the rooms in the houses of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thus, in one of the _fabliaux_, an old woman of mean condition of life is represented as visiting a burgher's wife, who, from a feeling of vanity, takes her into the chamber to show her the new bed, a very handsome affair. Afterward, when this lady takes refuge with the old dame, the latter conducts her from the hall to the chamber adjoining. The outer door of the chamber, by which egress could be had from the house without going through the hall, often figures in the stories as aiding the escape of the lovers of guilty wives, on the unexpected entrance of the husbands into the hall. It was in the chamber that fireplaces and chimneys were first introduced into mediaeval houses.

As the grouping of the rooms upon the ground floor made the house less compact and more susceptible to successful attack, the custom arose of having upper chambers. The upper room was called the solar, because it received much light from the sun. At first it was but a small chamber, approached from the outside. These outer stairs are often referred to in the _fabliaux_, as in the _fabliau_ of D'Estourmi, where a burgher and his wife deceive three monks of a neighboring abbey, who make love to the lady; she conceals her husband in the upper chamber, to which he goes by an outer staircase. The monks enter the hall, and the husband sees from the upper room, through a lattice, all that happens.

In another _fabliau_, a lady uses the solar as a hiding place for her husband, who has disguised himself as a gallant in order to test his wife's faithfulness. She penetrates his disguise, and, after closing the door of the solar upon him, sends a servant to give him a good beating, as an importunate suitor whom she desires to cure of his annoying pa.s.sion. The husband, too mortified to reveal his ident.i.ty and disclose his doubts as to his wife, has no redress but to sustain his a.s.sumed character and to escape down the outer stairs, pursued by the servants. The chamber soon came to be the most important part of the house, and frequently its name was given to the whole dwelling, a house with a solar being called an upper-storied chamber. The more considerable manors and castles differed from the ordinary houses only in having a greater a.s.semblage of rooms and more details than were found in the smaller dwellings.

Toward the fourteenth century, the rooms of houses generally began to be numerous, and the houses were often built around a court, the additions being chiefly to the number of offices and chambers. Wood continued to be the usual material for their construction. A new apartment was added to the house--the parlor, so called because it was the talking room. It was derived from the religious houses, in which the parlor was the reception room. As furniture was scanty, the rooms of the mediaeval house were almost bare. Chairs were very few, and seats in the masonry of the wall continued for centuries to be the princ.i.p.al accommodation of the kind; benches for seats and places of deposit of personal or household articles were usually made of a few boards laid across trestles. In the thirteenth century, the beds in the chamber came to be part.i.tioned off by curtains, which showed an advance in modesty, as it was customary to sleep wholly undressed.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the comforts of the houses were quite primitive; even the houses themselves were generally without architectural grace and frequently very unsubstantial. When watchmen were appointed in the towns, they were provided with a "hook" with which to pull down a house when on fire, if its proximity to others threatened their destruction. As there was an absence of luxury in the houses and their furnishings, much value was placed on plate, which came to be a sign of wealth and social distinction. Dress, also, aided in marking distinctions between the wealthy and those in less fortunate circ.u.mstances, as did the luxuries found upon the tables of the former.

This fact of the general character of the discomforts of living, without regard to rank or condition, gave occasion for sumptuary laws--"the toe of the peasant pressed closely on the heel of the lord, and the gulf that parted them was the number of dishes upon their table, the quality of the cloth they put on, and the kind of fur they might wear to keep off the cold."

Gla.s.s began to be introduced into dwelling houses in the time of Henry III., but was regarded as a great luxury. Pipes for carrying the refuse water and slops from the houses to sewers or cesspools were one of the great sanitary reforms of the reign of Edward I. The same able monarch made the use of baths popular among his people. The floors of the houses continued to be covered with an armful of hay, or a bundle of birch boughs or of rushes, although during the fourteenth century some of the wealthier farmers and persons of the trading cla.s.ses and the n.o.bility had begun to use imported carpets and hangings. Table linen and napkins were also coming into service. The use of forks was confined to royalty.

When the fine ladies went abroad in their vehicles or were carried in their chairs, they had to plow through streets deep with mire and filth; so much so, that it was not unusual for coaches to stick fast and depend upon the aid of some friendly teamster to extricate them.

The sanitation of the dwellings was little better than that of the streets. The stench of the houses of the poor was so great that the priests made it an excuse for failure to pay parochial visits to them.

The better cla.s.s of houses were, of course, kept much cleaner.

The impression that food in the Middle Ages was coa.r.s.e and not elaborate is not borne out, as we have seen, by the facts; for, from Anglo-Saxon times down, the people were very fond of the table, and in the higher circles elaborate banquets stood as one of the most usual resources of a hospitality which had to make up for its barrenness in other ways by the bounties of elaborate feasts, so that we are quite prepared for Alexander Neckam's list of kitchen requisites. This ecclesiastic of the latter half of the twelfth century has left us a list of the things to be found in a well-ordered kitchen. Besides his list, we have the testimony of cookbooks of the time, which give directions for making dishes that are both complicated and toothsome.

Indeed, the position of cook was one of importance, and upon him often rested, in great houses, the honor of the establishment.

In this connection may be given some of the curious injunctions of the Anglo-Saxon penitentials, which continued to be quoted throughout the Middle Ages, becoming superst.i.tious beliefs after they had lost their ecclesiastical character and undergone the changes which, with the lapse of time, develop folklore. One of the oddest prescribed that in case a "mouse fall into liquor, let it be taken out, and sprinkle the liquor with holy-water, and if it be alive, the liquor may be used, but if it be dead, throw the liquor out and cleanse the vessel."

Another said: "He who uses anything a dog or mouse has eaten of, or a weasel polluted, if he do it knowingly, let him sing a hundred psalms; and if he knew it not, let him sing fifty psalms." These are but samples of many superst.i.tions with which the thought of the Middle Ages was tinctured.

A considerable treatise might be written upon the superst.i.tions of the English women; it would contain astonishing disclosures as to the effect of the unreal world of fairies, goblins, and the like upon woman's development and status during the Middle Ages. She was undoubtedly influenced in her daily life, in almost all her duties and undertakings, by the terrors with which her superst.i.tions filled her.

The legacy of a pagan system was slowly thrown off, and, with all the credulity of the religion of the times, it is to the credit of the Church that, by its proscriptions as well as by its healthier teaching, superst.i.tion in many of its forms lessened its hold upon the minds of the people. And yet it was needful, if historical fact denotes a social necessity, that these superst.i.tions should culminate in a belief in witchcraft, and woman, because of her credulity, become the scapegoat of the gnomes and witches which existed in her simple faith. Even so cultured a person as Augustine, one of the most prominent of the Church Fathers of his time, declared it to be insolent to doubt the existence of fauns, satyrs, and suchlike demoniac beings, which lie in wait for women and have intercourse with them and children by them. It was this belief which extended into a labyrinth of darkness and superst.i.tion throughout the Middle Ages.

The reasoning of the Church was perfectly simple: if the miracles of the Apostles and of Christ were of divine agency, then the marvels performed by magicians before the astonished eyes of the heathen were to be accredited to Satan. The Church never doubted the existence of malignant spirits, but bent its endeavors toward persuading the people to give up converse with them. If a woman gave herself over to Satan or any of his minions, the only resource was to put her to death.

Horrible as were the witch burnings of the Middle Ages, the Church sincerely believed that it was exorcising the Devil from the lives of the people; and by the terrible examples it made of those who were accounted as having sold themselves to the Evil One, it believed it was placing a deterrent upon others who might be minded to yield themselves to diabolical possession. The Church was but sharing the universal belief of the times, and, as the guardian of the spiritual interests of mankind, it sought the purification of society by severe measures which, it felt, were alone suited to the gravity of the subject. From this belief in devil possession arose a veritable system of Christian magic; charms, amulets, exorcisms, abounded; thus, white magic was opposed to black magic.

But when the belief in witchcraft led to papal promulgations against it and against all who dared entertain doubts upon the subject, and when it led also to the appointment of tribunals for the trying of "witches," there was placed in the hands of malice and ignorance a power from which no woman, however exalted in rank or pure in character, was secure, provided only she incurred the enmity of someone bent upon effecting her ruin.

The genesis of the belief lies even back of the prevailing superst.i.tions of the times, and is to be found in the lower regard in which the female s.e.x was held. As we have said, chivalry did not cover with its aegis all women, but only those of a certain cla.s.s; in the Middle Ages, the opinion held of women in general was not flattering to the s.e.x. The descriptions of witch trials and the processes for the extortion of confessions; the indignities of many sorts to which women were subjected; the horrors of a system which virtually made one become an informer upon her neighbor, lest she be antic.i.p.ated by charges preferred against herself; the whole dreary round of the subject and its literature: all these are too uninviting to permit of detail. It is sufficient for our purpose to say that throughout Europe--for the delusion was so widespread--certainly not less than a million persons were burned, or otherwise put to death, as witches during the Middle Ages. So great a holocaust had to be offered up by women as a sin offering for their s.e.x!

The state of education had much to do with the manners and opinions of the Middle Ages. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there was a feeling of the necessity for extending and improving education.

There was spread abroad a degree of popular instruction. It was not an uncommon thing for ladies to be able to read and write. Among the amus.e.m.e.nts of their leisure hours, reading began to have a very much larger place than formerly. Yet, popular literature--the tales, ballads, and songs--was still communicated orally rather than in writing, though books were more extensively circulated. Often persons of wealth and culture had extensive libraries. Excepting in the case of those who followed or desired to follow the career of scholars, the women were less illiterate than the men.

In considering the dress of the women of England during the Middle Ages, the sumptuary laws pa.s.sed for its regulation are of interest in themselves as affording a view of the dress of the several cla.s.ses of society, and they also serve to ill.u.s.trate upon what simple lines the distinctions of society were drawn.

In the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Edward III., a curious complaint was submitted to Parliament by the Commons against general extravagance in the use of apparel; whereupon an act was pa.s.sed in regulation of the matter. One of the provisions of this act, as it related to women, prescribed that the wives and children of the grooms and servants of the lords and of tradesmen and artificers should not wear veils costing more than twelvepence each. The wives and children of the tradesmen and artificers themselves should wear no veils excepting those made with thread and manufactured in the kingdom; nor any kind of furs excepting those of lambs, rabbits, cats, and foxes.

The cloth for their dresses was also to be of a prescribed kind.

The wives and children of esquires--gentlemen under the estate of knighthood--might not wear cloth of gold, of silk, or of silver; nor any ornaments of precious stones, nor furs of any kind; nor any purfling or facings upon their garments; neither should they use _esclaires_, _crinales_, or _trosles_--certain forms of hairpins, and suchlike ornaments.

In the case of knights of a certain income, their wives and children were prohibited from wearing miniver or ermine as linings for their garments or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g for their sleeves. The lower cla.s.ses were restricted to blankets and russets for their attire, and these were not to cost more than twelvepence per yard, unless the income of the man was above forty shillings. It is not probable that these enactments were rigidly enforced, and when Henry IV. came to the throne he found it necessary to revive the prohibiting statutes of his predecessor. A number of such sumptuary laws were pa.s.sed during succeeding reigns, but it is not probable that they were ever really effective. Nor were the satires and witticisms of the poets and other writers of the day more effectual than legislation in correcting the extravagances and vices of dress. Whether the poet or the moralist pointed their shafts against them, the dames and the dandies of the time continued to dress as pleased them.

Some of these criticisms so sum up the dress of the day, that to quote them is to see the fine lady attired in all her bewildering array of beautiful stuffs. William de Lorris, in his celebrated poem, the _Romance of the Rose_, has drawn the character of Jealousy, and represents him as reproaching his wife for her insatiable love of finery, which, he tells her, is solely to make her attractive in the eyes of her gallants. He then enumerates the parts of her dress, consisting of mantles lined with sable, surcoats, neck linens, wimples, petticoats, shifts, pelices, jewels, chaplets of fresh flowers, buckles of gold, rings, robes, and rich furs. Then he adds: "You carry the worth of one hundred pounds in gold and silver upon your head--such garlands, such coiffures with gilt ribbons, such mirrors framed in gold, so fair, so beautifully polished; such tissues and girdles, with expensive fastenings of gold, set with precious stones of smaller size; and your feet shod so primly, that the robe must be often lifted up to show them." And in a subsequent part of the poem the ladies are advised, satirically, if their ankles be not handsome and their feet small and delicate, to hide them by wearing long robes, trailing upon the pavement. Those, on the contrary, who were more favored in this respect were advised to elevate their robes, as if it were to give access to air, that the pa.s.ser-by might see and admire their trim feet and ankles.

Such were some of the adornments of the fine ladies of the thirteenth century. It is instructive to turn to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and study the costumes of some of the characters as they are interpreted by Strutt. This will afford a view of the dress of typical persons in the ordinary ranks of life. The Wife of Bath is drawn by Chaucer at full length as a shameless woman, pert, loquacious, and bold, whose favorite occupation is gossiping and rambling abroad in search of fashionable diversions, in the absence of her husband. She had the art of making fine cloth. Her dress materials were expensive, for she had kerchiefs, or head linen, which she wore on Sunday, so fine that they were equal in value to ten pounds; and her stockings were made of fine red scarlet cloth, and "straightway gartered upon her legs"; her shoes were also new, and to them she had a pair of spurs attached, because she was to ride upon horseback; she wore a hat as broad as a buckler or a target; and she herself informs us that upon holidays she was accustomed to wear gay scarlet gowns.

The Carpenter's Wife, the heroine of the Miller's Tale, has her dress partly described: the collar of her shift was embroidered both before and behind with black silk; her girdle was barred or striped with silk; her ap.r.o.n, bound about her hips, was clean and white, and full of plaits. The tapes of her white headdress were embroidered in the same manner as the collar of her shift; her fillet, or headband, was broad and was made of silk, and "set full high"; probably meaning with a bow or topknot on the upper part of her head. Attached to her girdle was a purse of leather, ta.s.selled or fringed with silk, and ornamented with _latoun_--a kind of copper alloy of which ornaments were made--in the shape of pearls. She wore a brooch or fibula upon "her low collar," as broad, says the poet, as the boss of a buckler; her shoes "were laced high upon her legs."

In addition to these characters of Chaucer, it may be added that the country Ale-Wife is thus described by a contemporary writer: "She put on her fairest smocke; her petticoat of a good broad red; her gowne of grey, faced with buckram; her square-thrumed hat; and before her she hung a clean white ap.r.o.n."

The subject of public entertainment in the Middle Ages brings to light curious practices. In the towns, the burghers were not willing to entertain strangers gratuitously, notwithstanding the Scriptural injunction to do so, reinforced by the reminder that thereby some have entertained angels unawares. The custom of offering entertainment to travellers was, however, still practised in the country districts, but the Anglo-Saxon notion of three days as a reasonable limit for the tarrying of wayfarers seems still to have obtained. Aside from the public inns, rich burghers opened their homes, with their superior comforts, to royal personages and to rich barons, for an honorarium.

They frequently practised extortion upon their accidental guests, and had arts to allure such to their homes. While having the appearance of great exclusiveness, they nevertheless employed persons to be on the watch for travellers. These would approach such strangers, engage them in conversation, and, on pretence of being from the same part of the country, offer guidance and advice to the stranger, who was usually glad to be directed to an "exclusive" place for entertainment. In some of these places, as well as in the public inns, the guest would be beguiled into contracting gambling or other debts beyond his ability to pay in money, whereupon his belongings were seized, although their value might be greatly in excess of his obligation. The manners and morals of the women in these private places of entertainment were not always commendable.

The tavern was the place of resort for a large part of the middle cla.s.s and practically all the lower cla.s.s of mediaeval society.

Even the women spent much of their time gossiping and drinking in such places, where they found great lat.i.tude for carrying out low intrigues. The tavern was, in short, the great rendezvous for those who sought amus.e.m.e.nt of any sort. It was the ordinary haunt of gamblers. In one of the _fabliaux_, a young profligate is represented as turning into a tavern before which the tavern boy is calling out the price of the beverages on tap there. After inquiring the price of the wines, and receiving the information from the host, the latter goes on to enumerate the attractions of his house: "Within are all sorts of comforts; painted chambers, and soft beds, raised high with white straw, and made soft with feathers; here within is hostel for love affairs, and when bedtime comes you will have pillows of violets to hold your head more softly; and, finally, you will have electuaries and rose-water, to wash your mouth and face." He orders a gallon of wine, and immediately afterward a _belle demoiselle_ makes her appearance, for such in those times were reckoned among the attractions of the tavern. It is soon arranged that she shall share his apartment with him, and then a general carousal ensues in which he loses all his money and has to leave even his clothes in payment of his bill. These alewives were looked upon as past masters in deceit, and were heartily despised by those who did not fall into their clutches. In a carved _miserere_ in Ludlow Church, representing Doomsday, one of these characters is depicted as about to be cast into the jaws of h.e.l.l, carrying with her nothing but the finery of her enticement and her short ale measure. The amus.e.m.e.nts of the times, excepting those of a grosser order, or such as have already been mentioned in the previous chapter, centred around the n.o.bility and persons of position; so that their consideration can be deferred for the time being and be taken up in connection with the sports and pastimes of the ladies of rank, as treated in the chapter following.

CHAPTER VI

THE WOMEN OF THE MANORS

The limited means of travel and communication caused the lives of the women of the early English manors to be secluded and, in a sense, protected the wives and daughters of the t.i.tled n.o.bility. The manor house was a world to itself, a centre of law, of society, of industry, and, ofttimes, of culture.

On account of the bad state of the roads and the lack of the modern convenience of quick transmittal of information, the turmoils and upheavals of the cities left the manors unaffected by more than a ripple of their excitement. The manor had its own social and administrative system, which provided for the performance of duties by the various elements of the manorial establishment. In times of wide social disorder, the manor, by reason of its isolation, was often subject to attack; then the courage and fort.i.tude of its female occupants were called forth to the uttermost. Women whose names might otherwise have pa.s.sed into obscurity have been enrolled among England's heroines by reason of just such circ.u.mstances; one such, whose fame carries us back to the Wars of the Roses, was Lady Joan Pelham, wife of Sir John Pelham, Constable of Pevensey Castle. While Sir John was in Yorkshire with the Lancastrian Duke Henry, fighting against Richard II., Pevensey Castle was fiercely attacked by Yorkist forces. The continuance of the siege brought on a scarcity of provisions; in this strait, Lady Joan addressed a letter to her husband, which, besides displaying the courage of a n.o.ble English lady, has the additional interest of being the earliest letter extant written by an English woman of quality. It reads as follows:

"MY DERE LORDE:

"I recommande me to yowr his Lordeshippe wyth heart and body and all my pore myght, and wyth all this I think zou, as my dere Lorde, derest and best yloved of all earth lyche Lordes; I say for me and thanke yhow me der Lorde, with all thys that I say before, off your comfortable lettre, that ze send me from Pownefraite that com to me on Mary Magdaleyn day; ffor by my trowth I was never so gladd as when I herd by your lettre that ye was stronge ynogh wyth the grace off G.o.d for to kepe you fro the malyce of your ennemys. And dere Lorde iff it lyk to your hyee Lordeshippe that als ye myght, that smythe her off your gracious spede whych G.o.d Allmyghty contynue and encresse. And my dere Lorde, if is lyk zow for to know of my ffare, I am here by layd in a manner off a sege, wyth the counte of Suss.e.x, Sudray, and a green parsyll off Kentte; so that I ne may nogth out, nor none vitayles gette me, hot wyth my die hard. Wharfore my dere if it lyk zow, by the awyse off zowr wyse counsel for to sett remadye off the salvation off yhower castells wt. stand the malyce off ther sehures foresayde. And also that ye be fullyehe enformede off there grett malyce wyker's in these schyres whyche yt haffes so dispytfful wrogth to zow, and to zowl contell, to zhowr men, and zuor tenaunts ffore this c.u.n.tree, have yai wastede for grett whyle. Farewell my dere Lorde, the Holy Tryn zow kepe fro zour ennemys and son send me gud tythyng off yhow. Ywryten at Pevensey in the castell, on Saynt Jacobe day last past.

"By yhowr awnn pore,