The female part of the family now passed in the parlour much of the time which had been formerly passed in their chambers. It was often their place of work. Young ladies, even of great families, were brought up not only strictly, but even tyrannically, by their mothers, who kept them constantly at work, exacted from them almost slavish deference and respect, and even counted upon their earnings. The parental authority was indeed carried to an almost extravagant extent. There are some curious instances of this in the correspondence of the Paston family. Agnes Paston, the wife of sir William Paston, the judge, appears to have been a very harsh mother. At the end of June 1454, Elizabeth Clere, a kinswoman who appears to have lived in great intimacy with the family, sent to John Paston, the lady’s eldest son, the following account of the treatment of his sister Elizabeth, who was of marriageable age, and for whom a man of the name of Scroope had been proposed as a husband. “Therefore, cousin,” writes Jane Clere, “meseemeth he were go for my cousin your sister, without that ye might get her a better; and if ye can get a better, I would advise you to labour it in as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so great a sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, nor even may see nor speak with my man, nor with servants of her mother’s, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week, or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and her head broken in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by friar Newton in great counsel, and prayeth me that I would send to you a letter of her heaviness, and pray you to be her good brother, as her trust is in you.” In spite of her anxiety to be married, Elizabeth Paston did not succeed at this time, but she was soon afterwards transferred from her paternal roof to the household of the lady Pole. It was still the custom to send young ladies of family to the houses of the great to learn manners, and it was not only a matter of pride and ostentation to be thus surrounded by a numerous train, but the noble lady whom they served did not disdain to receive payment for their board as well as employing them in profitable work. In a memorandum of errands to London, written by Agnes Paston on the 28th of January, 1457, one is a message to “Elizabeth Paston that she must use herself to work readily, as other gentlewomen do, and somewhat to help herself therewith. Item, to pay the lady Pole twenty-six shillings and eightpence for her board.” Margaret Paston, the wife of John Paston, just mentioned, and daughter-in-law of Agnes, seems to have been equally strict with her daughters. At the beginning of the reign of Edward IV., she wrote to her son John concerning his sister Anne, who had been placed in the house of a kinsman of the name of Calthorpe.