comforted him as heartily as we could in your name and in my lady’s, and so we departed from the chamber down into the hall, and he fell into a great slumbering and was busily moved in his spirits.  And at eleven of the clock I called his uncle out of his bed into the gentleman’s chamber, and I asked his advice and my mistress his wife, of the stock and of the demeanour thereof for the year and the half that is last past.  And touching the stock he confessed that it was L1,160, wherein at the sight of your acquittance in discharging of him and all his doers that shall be behind him, the said stock shall be ready.  And as for the occupation of it, as he will answer between God and devil, the book that he bought it by ye shall be privy thereto; and the book that he sold by ye shall be also privy to, which two books shall be his judges, which remain in the keeping of my mistress his wife’s hands under lock and key and other bills and obligations according, concerning the surety for divers payments to be made to divers merchants, as the said lord saith....  And as for the plate my mistress Jane [probably Jane Riche, the younger sister of Katherine] and I have caused it to be taken up and set in surety, save that that must needs by occupied.

He sends to Sir William for information about two sums of L80 each owed by Betson to his master and mistress, and adds: 

I trust to Jesu he shall endure till the messenger come again; longer the physicians have not determined.  The executors be three persons, my mistress his wife, Humphrey Starkey, Recorder of London, Robert Tate, merchant of Calais; notwithstanding I moved him, between him and me and mistress Jane, that he should break this testament and make my mistress his wife sole executrix.  What will be done therein as yet I cannot speak, but I shall do as I can, with God’s grace.[28]

There is something unexpected and a little vulture-like about this gathering of creditors and seizing of plate about the death-bed of a man who had always, after all, shown himself exceedingly affectionate towards the Stonors and devoted to their interests, and who was now my lady’s son-in-law.  The attempt to make the young wife of sixteen sole executrix, so that she might be completely in her family’s hands and without the counsel of two experienced and disinterested merchants, has a somewhat sinister air.  The intrigues went on, and three days later the agent writes again.  It is pleasant to observe that bad-tempered old Mistress Croke, Dame Elizabeth’s mother, was not unmindful of Betson’s forbearance during those visits when she had railed upon him with her sharp tongue: