twenty pounds a year of his own estate, "pro notabili et laudabili servicio, ac bono consilio;" which is sufficient to shew this duke's sentiments also of his merits. In 1436, and for about four years longer, he seems to have been well settled at his government in Normandy; after which, in 1440, he made his final return home, and, loaden with the laurels he had gathered in France, became as illustrious in his domestic as he had been in his foreign character. The late Mr. Gough, by whom this article was much enlarged, had an inventory of all the rich jewels, plate, furniture, &c. that he either had, or left in France, at his return to England. In 1450 he conveyed to John Kemp, cardinal archbishop of York, and others, his manor of Castre in Fleg, and several other lands specified in the deed of conveyance. The same year, Nov. 8, the king by writ directed Richard Waller, esq. David John William Needham, and John Ingoldsby, to cause Thomas Danyell, esq. to pay to sir John Fastolff, knight, the 100%. that he was indebted to him for provisions, and for his ship called the George of Prussia, alias Danyell's Hulk, which ship the said Danyell took on the sea as a prize, and never had it condemned; so that the king seized it, ordered it to be sold, and sir John to be paid out of it. At length being arrived, in 1459, beyond the age of fourscore years, he says of himself, that he was "in good remembrance, albeit I am gretly vexed with sickenesse, and thurgh age infebelyd." He lingered under an hectic fever and asthma for an hundred and forty-eight days; but before he departed he made his will on the fifth of November in that year, and died at his seat at Castre the next day after, being the festival of St. Leonard, or the eve before, as appears in the escheats, in the 39th or last year of king Henry the VIth's reign, and no less than thirty-six years beyond the extravagant period assigned by Fuller. He was buried with great solemnity under an arch, in a chapel of our lady of his own building, on the south side of the choir at the abbey-church of St. Bennet in the Holm, in Norfolk, which was ruined at the dissolution; and so much was he respected after his decease, that John Beauchamp, lord of Powyke, in his last will dated the 15th of Edward IV. appointed a chantry, more especially for the soul of sir John Fastolff.

The ruins of his house at Castre still remaining, shew it to have been alike capacious and strong. It was moated

round, but the moat is now for the most part filled up. The grand entrance was on the West. The house formed a rectangled parallelogram; the south and north sides longer than east and west; the stables in front; the best rooms on the right hand of the square, under which side is a noble vault, and over it probably the hall. The embattled brick tower at the north west corner is standing, above one hundred feet high; and over one of the windows were carved his arms in the garter as above described, supported by angels, now removed; on one of the doors a saltire engrailed. To it adjoined a dining-parlour, fifty-nine feet long, and twenty-eight broad. East from the castle stood the college, forming three sides of a square larger than the former, with two round towers; the whole converted into barns and stables. The castle moat is said to have communicated with a navigable creek, and in a farm house north west of the mansion, called the barge-house, is shewn a large arch, capable of receiving a boat of considerable burthen. Weever says he had licence from Henry VI. to build his house castle-wise as a fortification on that side of Yarmouth, to which perhaps relates the licence granted him 1443, 22 Hen. VI. to employ some of the king's ships to carry materials for building and furnishing one of his mansion-houses. The current tradition is, that this house was erected by a French nobleman, who was taken prisoner by our famous knight, according to the model and architecture of his own castle in France, as the price of his

ransom.

Sir John Fastolff had by his will appointed John Paston, esq. eldest son and heir of sir William Paston, the judge, one of his executors; and had given to them all his manors, lands, &c. in trust, to found the college of the seven priests, and seven poor men, in the manor-house at Castre, &c. "For the singular trust and love," says sir John, "that I have to my cousin John Paston before all others, being in every belief that he will execute this my last will." Edward IV. 1464, for 300 marks, 100 in hand, and the remainder when the foundation takes place, granted John Paston, sen. esq, licence to found the college before mentioned, and his favour and protection against Yelverton, Jenney, and others; but it appears that this John Paston, esq. had entered on this manor of Castre, and was imprisoned in the Fleet of London by Nevill, bishop of Exeter, (on Nov. 3, 1464,) then chancellor, On his death, in 1466,

he left it to his eldest son sir John Paston. July 6, 1460, the king granted him a warrant under his hand and privy seal, to take possession of all the lands and inheritance of his late father, or of Agnes his grandmother, or of Margaret his mother, or of William Paston, and Clement Paston, his uncles; also the manor and place of Castre, or of any other estate which his father had, by way of gift, or purchase, of the late sir John Fastolff; which lands had been seized by the king, on evil surmises made to him, against his deceased father, himself and uncles, of all which they were sufficiently, openly, and worshipfully cleared before the king. "So that all yee now being in the said place of Caster, or in any liflihode, late the sir John Paston's, by way of gift or purchase, of the late sir John Fastolff, that was seized into our hands, avoid the possession of the same, and suffer our truly and well beloved knight, sir John Paston, to enjoy the profits thereof, with all the goods and chattels there, and pay all the issues and profits thereof, as yee did unto his father, at any time in his life."

Soon after this, on Monday before St. Bartholomew's day, 1469, John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, laid pretensions to it; and sent sir John Heveningham, a cousin of sir John Fastolff's, to require John Paston, esq. governor of it, being a castle well fortified, in the absence of his eldest brother sir John Paston, to deliver it up to him; maintaining that the said duke had purchased the said castle of William Yelverton (that cursed Norfolk justice, as Worcester styles him), whereas sir John had ordered it not to be sold, but to be a college for priests, and an hospital for poor men. The said John Paston refusing to surrender it, the duke came before it with 3000 armed men, and with guns, culverines, and other artillery, and laid siege to it immediately. The siege continued five weeks and three days.

February 10, 1474, 13 Edw. IV. an indenture was made between sir William Yelverton, William Jenny, serjeant at law, and William Worcester, executors of sir John on one part, and Thomas Cager and Robert Kytton on the other, whereby the said Robert was appointed surveyor of the lands and tenements in Southwark, and other places in Surrey, late sir John's, to perform his last will, and also receiver of the rents; who was to have six marks per annum, and to be allowed, besides all reasonable costs, that

he shall do in the defence and keeping out John Paston, esq. and of all others claiming by him. Anthony lord Scales, at another time, took possession of it in the name of king Edward IV. under pretence that Paston was the king's villan (though absolutely false), all which proved a great destruction to the goods and effects in the same; but sir John Paston, through the favour and protection of king Edward IV. had afterwards possession. Another misfortune also happened to this seat or castle about the same time, owing to the negligence of a girl, who in making a bed set fire to it by her candle, and did considerable damage. Sir John Fastolff had a house at Norwich in Pokethorp opposite St. James's church, called Fastolff's place; in the windows of which Mr. Blomefield saw several paintings of saints and scripture worthies, and two knights fighting, which he imagined represented sir John and his French prisoner. He likewise built a splendid seat in Yarmouth, and a palace in Southwark.

As sir John Falstoff's valour made him a terror in war, his humanity made him a blessing in peace: all we can find in his retirement, being elegant, hospitable, and generous, either as to the places of his abode, or those persons and foundations on which he showered his bounty. At his death he possessed lands and estates in Norfolk, Suffolk, Yorkshire, and Wiltshire. He was a benefactor to both the universities; bequeathing a considerable legacy to Cambridge, for building the schools of philosophy and law, for which the first order under their chancellor Laurence, bishop of Durham, is dated in June 1458; and, at Oxford, he was so bountiful to Magdalen college, through the affection he had for his friend William Wainfleet, the founder thereof two years before, that his name is commemorated in an anniversary speech; and though the particulars of his bounty are not now remembered, because he enfeoffed the said founder in his life-time, yet it is known, that the boar's head in Southwark, now divided into tenements, yielding one hundred and fifty pounds yearly, together with Caldecot manor in Suffolk, were part of the lands he bestowed thereon; and Lovingland in that county. is conceived also to have been another part of his donation, There had been an ancient free chapel of St. John the Baptist in the manor house at Castre, the ancient seat of his family, as early as the reign of Edward I. Sir John intended to have erected a college for seven monks

or secular priests (one of whom to be head), and seven poor men; and to endow it with 120 marks rent charge, out of several manors which he gave or sold to his cousin John Paston, senior, esq. charged with this charity. Mr. Paston laboured to establish this pious foundation till his death, 6 Ed. IV. as did his son sir John Paston, knight, but whether it was ever incorporated and fully settled, bishop Tanner doubts, as there is no farther mention of it in the rolis or the bishop of Norwich's registry. Only in the valuation, 26 Hen. VIII. there is said to have been in Castrehall a chantry of the foundation of sir John Fastolff, knight, worth 2l. 13s. 4d. per annum. 6 Ed. IV. from receipts it appears that the priests had in money, besides their diet, 40l. per annum, and the poor men 40s. per annum each. The foundation was certainly not completed till after his decease; for William Worcester, in a letter to Margaret Paston in 1466, tells her he had communed with her. son whether it should not be at Cambridge in case it shall not be at Castre, neither at St. Benet's (in the Holme), and that the bishop of Winchester (Wainflete) was disposed to found a college in Oxford for his sayd mayster to be prayed for, yet with much less cost he might make some other memorial in Cambridge.'

FATIO. See FACCIO.

FAUCHET (CLAUDE), a French antiquary of great fame, whose laborious researches into the earliest and most obscure parts of the history of his country, obtained him more celebrity than profit, was born at Paris in 1529. Having gone to Italy with cardinal de Tournon, his eminence often sent him with dispatches to the French court, which served to introduce him there with advantage, and procured him the place of first president of the Cour des Monnoies; and he is said by some to have obtained a pension from Henry IV. with the title of historiographer. He died in 1601, overwhelmed with debts. His works were collected in 4to at Paris, in 1610. The principal of them are, 1. His "Gaulish and French antiquities," the first part of which treats chiefly of matters anterior to the arrival of the Franks, the second is extended to Hugh Capet. 2. "A treatise on the Liberties of the Gallican church.” 3. "On the origin of knights, armorial bearings, and heralds." 4.

1 Biog. Brit. much enlarged by Mr. Gough, from the account given by Oldys in the first edition of the Biog. Brit. Mr. Gough had all Oldys's manuscripts on the subject.