John Paston (died 1479)

Although long betrothed to Anne Haute, a first cousin of Elizabeth Woodville, he never married, and was succeeded by his younger brother, also named John.

[6] However his claim to the Fastolf lands was challenged by John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, by William Yelverton and Gilbert Debenham, by John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, and by Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and in 1464 a legal challenge to Paston's executorship under the nuncupative will was mounted by William Yelverton;[6][6] the lawsuit was still undecided at the time of his death.

[1] According to Tait, however, he was temperamentally ill-suited to the task, and although in July 1466, only two months after his father's death, he was confirmed in his possession of Caister and other lands by Edward IV,[3][1] he was seldom afterwards in Norfolk, although he was occasionally appointed to administrative offices there, serving as Member of Parliament in 1467 and as a Justice of the Peace in 1469.

[3][1] He preferred to reside in London, first in Fleet Street, and then at the George near Paul's Wharf, and left the task of defending the family's East Anglian possessions to his mother and younger brother, John.

In August 1469 Norfolk laid siege to Caister Castle, and after five weeks Paston's younger brother, John, was forced to surrender it.

The agreement provided that Paston would be entitled to the manors of Caister, Hellesdon and Drayton, as well as certain other properties, while Waynflete would take possession of the rest of the Fastolf lands to provide payment to priests and poor men to pray for Fastolf's soul as part of the Bishop's new foundation of Magdalen College, Oxford.

[1][4] According to Tait, Paston's correspondence is the liveliest in the Paston Letters, and his literary interests ranged from Ovid's Ars Amatoria to works of theology:[3] His letters and those of his friends, with their touches of sprightly if somewhat broad humour, light up the grave and decorous pages of the Paston ‘Correspondence.’ Disliking the business details forced upon him by his position, he is happier when matchmaking for his brother, or stealing a lady's muskball on his behalf, sending his mother salad oil or treacle of Genoa with appropriate comments, or rallying the Duchess of Norfolk not over delicately on her interesting condition.

His taste for literature seems to have been real and catholic, ranging from the ‘Ars Amoris’ to treatises on wisdom, not excluding theology; on the death of his mother's chaplain he wrote to secure his library.

He employed a transcriber, one piece of whose handiwork, a ‘great book’ containing treatises on knighthood and war, an account of the tournament between Lord Scales and the Bastard and other items, is still preserved in the British Museum (Lansdowne MS. 285).Paston never married.