It was in this setting of hard and withal of interesting work that Thomas Betson's love story flowered into a happy marriage.

He was not destined to live long after his recovery from the serious illness of 1479; perhaps it left him permanently delicate, for he died some six years later, in 1486.

During her seven years of married life (beginning, be it remembered, at the age of fifteen), the diligent Katherine had borne him five children, two sons, Thomas and John, and three daughters, Elizabeth, Agnes, and Alice.

Fortunately Thomas died very comfortably off, as his will (still preserved in Somerset House) informs us.

He had become a member of the Fishmongers' Company as well as a Merchant of the Staple, for by his time the great city companies were no longer confined to persons actually engaged in the trade which each represented.