As for the tidings that is here, I trust to God it shall be very good.  On Thursday my lady Croke came to Stepney and brought with her Master Brinkley to see Betson, and in faith he was a very sick man; and ere he departed he gave him plasters to his head, to his stomach and to his belly, [so] that he all that night was in a quiet rest.  And he came to him again on Friday ... and he was well amended and so said all the people that were about him.  Notwithstanding he will not determine him whether he shall live or die as yet, but he may keep him alive till Tuesday noon, he will undertake him.  The cause that I write to you now rather was because I had no certainty.  Sir, there hath been many special labours and secret i-made, sithen mistress Jane and I were come, to the contrary disposition that we come for.  I cannot write the plain[nes]s of them as yet, for my mistress Betson attendeth, all things and counsels laid apart, to abide and trust in your good fatherhood and in my lady, and furthermore if he depart the world, ye shall hear tidings of her in as goodly haste as we may purvey for her.  And whether he die or live, it is necessary and behoveful that mistress Jane depart not from her into [i.e. until] such time as the certainty be knowen, for in truth divers folks, which ye shall know hereafter and my lady, both thus hath and would exhort her to a contrarier disposition, had not we been here by time.  And mistress Jane is worthy of much thank.[29]

However, all the schemings were premature, for Betson happily recovered.  On October 10 the ‘prentice’ Henham writes:  ’My master Betson is right well amended, blessed be Jesus, and he is past all doubts of sickness and he takes the sustenance right well, and as for physicians, there come none unto him, for he hath no need of them.’[30] But another death was at hand to break the close association between Thomas Betson and the Stonors, for at the end of the year the kind, extravagant, affectionate Dame Elizabeth died.  It is a surprising fact that her death seems to have brought to a close the business partnership between her husband and her son-in-law.  Henceforth the only references to Thomas Betson in the Stonor papers are occasional notes of his debts to Stonor:  doubtless he had bought Sir William’s share in their joint business.  On March 10, 1480, he acknowledged obligations of L2,835 9s. 0d. to Stonor, and in 1482 he still owed L1,200.[31] It is impossible to guess why the relationship, which was an affectionate personal friendship as well as a business tie, should have come to such a sudden end.  As the editor of the Stonor Letters remarks, ’The sincerity and honesty of Betson’s character as revealed in his letters, forbids one to suppose that he was to blame.’