Yet, notwithstanding all this, the Duke of Norfolk, within three months after the accession of Edward IV., and little more than a year and a half after Sir John Fastolf's death,[202-2] had certainly taken possession of the great mansion of Caister. The confusion of the time undoubtedly favoured the act, and redress might well have been a troublesome matter, as the Duke of Norfolk was a nobleman whom perhaps even the king would not care to displease. But Edward was a king who, with many faults, was most honourably anxious from the first to do justice even to the meanest of his subjects.[202-3] Paston repaired to the royal presence, and obtained letters from the king to the duke, which his servant, Richard Calle, conveyed to Framlingham. They were delivered to his lordship at the lodge of his demesne, but the messenger was not admitted to his presence. The duke, however, wrote an answer to the king, promising shortly to repair to Court, when he offered to prove that some of the statements in Paston's letters were erroneous, and that he himself was the person who had the best claim to the manor. It appears there was one other claimant besides, viz. Thomas Fastolf of Cowhaw; but he, not expecting to make his title good against Paston himself, and having need of a powerful friend in some other matters, gave up his claim to the duke, and brought documents to justify the latter in taking possession by the right derived from him.[203-1]
[Footnote 202-2: He had probably done so before by authority of Henry VI., for in the beginning of 1460 Friar Brackley writes: 'A man of my Lord Norfolk told me here he came from London, and there he had commonly voiced that the Duke of Norfolk should, by the king's commandment, keep his Easter at Caister for safeguard of the country against Warwick and other such of the king's enemies.'--Vol. iii. p. 212.]
[[iii. 212 = second-to-last paragraph of letter 403]]
[Footnote 202-3: Edward's reply to another suit preferred by John Paston this same year is an excellent example of this spirit of impartiality. John Paston's eldest son writes to his father as follows, touching an interview he had had with the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Essex: 'And now of late I, remembering him of the same matter, inquired if he had moved the king's highness therein. And he answered me that he had felt and moved the king therein, rehearsing the king's answer therein: how that when he had moved the king in the said manor of Dedham, beseeching him to be your good lord therein, considering the service and true part that ye have done and ought to him, and in especial the right that ye have thereto, he said he would be your good lord therein, as he would to the poorest man in England. He would hold with you in your right; and as for favour, he will not be understood that he shall show favour more to one man than to another, not to one in England.']