[Footnote 279-1: No. 821. She repeats the request more than two years later, and desires that if it cannot be obtained of the Bishop of Norwich, John Paston should endeavour to get it of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'for that,' she says, 'is the most sure for all places.'--No. 866.]
[Footnote 279-2: We ought, perhaps, to have explained before that the prefix 'Sir' before a priest's name, as in Sir James Gloys and Sir Thomas Howes, was commonly used as equivalent to 'Reverend,' though strictly speaking it was applied to one who had taken no higher degree than bachelor.]
[Footnote 279-3: No. 825. Even so Erasmus says of More (Epp. lib. x. 30, col. 536). 'Maluit maritus esse castus quam sacerdos impurus.' The sentiment evidently was a very common one.]
[[(Epp. lib. x. 30, col. 536). _text unchanged: expected final comma_]]
[Sidenote: Sir James Gloys.] But the influence of this spiritual adviser over their mother was by no means agreeable to the two eldest sons. John Paston speaks of him in a letter to his brother as 'the proud, peevish, and ill-disposed priest to us all,' and complains grievously of his interference in family affairs. 'Many quarrels,' he writes, 'are picked to get my brother Edmund and me out of her house. We go not to bed unchidden lightly; all that we do is ill done, and all that Sir James and Pecock doth is well done. Sir James and I be twain. We fell out before my mother with "Thou proud priest," and "Thou proud squire," my mother taking his part; so I have almost beshut the bolt as for my mother's house; yet summer shall be done or I get me any master.'[280-1] John Paston, in fact, was obliged to put up with it for some months longer, and though he afterwards reports that Sir James was always 'chopping at him,' and seeking to irritate him in his mother's presence, he had found out that it was not altogether the best policy to rail at him in return. So he learned to smile a little at the most severe speeches, and remark quietly, 'It is good hearing of these old tales.'[280-2] This mode of meeting the attack, if it did not soften Sir James's bitterness, may have made Margaret Paston less willing to take his part against her son. At all events we hear no more of these encounters. Sir James Gloys, however, died about twelve months later.[280-3]