The Plumpton Letters and Papers provides a day-by-day record of Sir William Plumpton's struggle to maintain his local influence and, by devious means, pass his entire inheritance to a younger son, the future Sir Robert, who may have been illegitimate. The letters detail the protracted legal proceedings through which his granddaughter obtained these rights while Sir Robert was reduced to near penury, until a final arbitration at length reinstated him in his ancestral manor of Plumpton. Intermingled are fascinating glimpses of medieval life.

The Plumpton Letters and Papers provides a day-by-day record of Sir William Plumpton's struggle to maintain his local influence and, by devious means, pass his entire inheritance to a younger son, the future Sir Robert, who may have been illegitimate. The letters detail the protracted legal proceedings through which his granddaughter obtained these rights while Sir Robert was reduced to near penury, until a final arbitration at length reinstated him in his ancestral manor of Plumpton. Intermingled are fascinating glimpses of medieval life.