John Fastolf - Death and Burial

Death and Burial

He died at Caister in November 1459. He was buried next to his wife Millicent in St Benet's Abbey in a specially built aisle on the South side of the abbey church. During the last decade of his life he was a close political ally and friend to John Paston, a Norfolk landowner, who came to fame through the Paston Letters, a collection of over 1,000 items of correspondence between members of the Paston family. His deathbed testament naming John Paston as his executor and heir led to many years of litigation. The ruins of St Benet's Abbey are hauntingly beautiful, and may still be visited, as may the ruins of Caister Castle. The Castle never became home to a chantry, as Fastolf intended. Instead, it passed to the Paston family. The bulk of Sir John's fortune passed to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he is remembered as a benefactor, and where there is a Fastolf Society.