Favourite letter from the Pastons

This month's Bear Blog Carnival is organised by Kami on the topic of Your favorite ____ in your niche hobby. I love people getting nerdy about their niche hobbies, what a great theme. I'm not sure reading medieval letters is a niche hobby, I'm not sure I have a niche hobby, but here we go. The Paston Letters start in 1422 and feature generations of the family, the rise and fall of fortunes, the War of the Roses, Sir John Fastolf, family dramas, chicanery, legal problems, and sieges of castles. The letters are often written by or on behalf of women, to their husbands and sons off elsewhere. Asking for money, for cloth, for crossbows. As you do. I did my dissertation on the Pastons so I've been reading them for some time. This early letter is probably my favourite. While there are other hilarities and horrors this letter written by Agnes to her husband William in 1440 contains a lot of bang for your buck. Agnes, the most matriarch of matriarchs, writes to her husband about their future…