Source.—Paston Letters, vol. iii., No. 829.

Edmund Alyard to Margaret Paston.

Right worshipful mistress, I recommend me unto you as lowly as I can, thanking you for your goodness at all times; God grant me to deserve it, and do that may please you.

As for your son Walter, his labour and learning hath been and is in the Faculty of Art, and is well sped therein, and may be Bachelor at such time as shall like you, and then to go to law. I can think it to his preferring, but it is not good he know it until the time he shall change; and as I conceive there shall none have that Exhibition to the Faculty of Law. Therefore move the executors that at such time as he shall leave it, ye may put another in his place, such as shall like you to prefer. If he shall go to law, and be made Bachelor of Art before, and ye will have him home this year, then may he be Bachelor at Midsummer, and be with you in the vacation, and go to law at Michaelmas. What it shall like you to command me in this or any other, ye shall have mine service ready.

I pray you by the next messenger to send me your intent, that such as shall be necessary may be purveyed in season.

And Jesu preserve you.

Written at Oxford, the iv day of March.

Your scholar,
Edmund Alyard.