The wills of the Paycockes tell the same story.  To whom beside his family does Thomas leave legacies but the good folk of the neighbourhood, who worked for him.  There is the Goodday family of cheerful name, two of whom were shearmen, or cloth finishers, and had substantial gifts.  ’I bequeth to Thomas Goodday Sherman xx s. and ych of his childryn iij s. iiij d. apece.  Item, I bequeth to Edward Goodday Sherman xvj s. viij d., and to his child iij s. iiij d.  He also left money to Robert Goodday of Sampford and to Robert’s brother John and to each of Robert’s sisters, with something extra for Grace, who was his goddaughter; and he did not forget Nicholas Goodday of Stisted and Robert Goodday of Coggeshall and their families, nor their relative John, who was a priest and had ten shillings for a trental.  All these Gooddays were doubtless bound to Thomas Paycocke by ties of work as well as of friendship.  They belonged to a well-known Coggeshall family, for generations connected with the cloth industry.  Thomas Paycocke’s namesake and grand-nephew, whose will is dated 1580, was still in close relations with them, and left ’to Edwarde Goodaye my godson Fourtie shillinges and to every brother and sister the saide Edwarde hath livinge at the tyme of my decease tenne shillinges a pece,’ and ’unto William Gooday thelder tenne shillinges.’  The hurrying, scattering generation of today can hardly imagine the immovable stability of the village of past centuries, when generation after generation grew from cradle to grave in the same houses, on the same cobbled streets, and folk of the same name were still friends, as their fathers and grandfathers had been before them.

Other friends and employees of Thomas Paycocke also had their legacies.  He leaves 6s. 8d. to Humphrey Stonor, ‘somtyme my prentis’.  We may see Humphrey Stonor, with sleepy eyes, making his way downstairs on a frosty morning, from those huge raftered attics, where perhaps the ’prentices used to sleep.  He was on terms of impudent friendship, no doubt, with the weavers and fullers whom his master set to work; withal a young man of good family, a relative perchance of those Stonors for whom Thomas Betson worked, for, as Deloney wrote, ’the yonger sons of knights and gentlemen, to whom their Fathers would leave no lands, were most commonly preferred to learn this trade, to the end that thereby they might live in good estate and drive forth their days in prosperity.’  Two of his friends got substantial legacies; apparently Thomas Paycocke had lent them money and wished to wipe out the debt upon his death-bed, for, says the will, ’I bequethe to John Beycham, my weyver, v li and [i.e. if] there be so moch bitwene vs and ells to make it vp v li, and a gowne and a doublett....  I bequeth and forgive Robert Taylor, fuller, all that is betwixt vs, and more I give him iij s. iiij d.’  Other legacies show even more clearly that his operations were on a larger scale.  ’I bequeth to all