Margaret Paston

Margaret Paston was a fifteenth-century Norfolk gentlewoman and one of the principal writers represented in the Paston Letters. She managed estates, finances, servants and legal disputes during her husband’s absences, and her correspondence gives an unusually detailed view of family strategy and domestic resilience during the Wars of the Roses.

Margaret Paston was born in Reedham and died in England. Margaret managed estates, legal disputes and family business while her husband John Paston was often away; her letters form a major part of the Paston correspondence and provide unusually direct evidence of gentry life during the Wars of the Roses.

In Anne O’Brien’s A Marriage of Fortune, The Pastons have lost possession of Caister Castle, and Margaret Paston must preserve the family’s position while civil conflict makes every alliance uncertain. In Anne O’Brien’s The Royal Game, The Pastons are a rising Norfolk gentry family whose claim to land and influence remains vulnerable to older and more powerful neighbours.