STRANGE WILLS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 5 March 1927, Page 11

STRANGE WILLS

OLIAK ES PE ARE ’S will was full of interlineations and erasures. Hie wife’s name was omitted from the original draft, and was in the final draft only by an interlineation assigning to her his .seeond-l>est bed with its furniture. Nothing else was bequeathed to her. This slender bequest set speculation going. but probably her ignorance of business affairs, and the fact that she was then over GO, led the poet t<> trie conclusion that she was unfit for the control of property. He committed her to the care of his eldest •.laughter, who inherited some of his own shrewdness

sacred relic was brought to Scot lane and buried in the monastery of Melrose.

Old John oi Gaunt, unhappy, and with reason, about his soul, made a will which idled rnteen quattn pu._«o. ft directed that his body should u<r kept above ground for forty stays, and that on each of those da.*«s loity mams of silver should be distributed among the poor. “I devise to be burnt. ro..n<-. my body on the day of my buriai, nr.-d ten great tapers, in the name of tne Ten Commandments of our Lord, w.d.ii I have too wickedly transgiessed; and besides these ten, that tnere be placed seven great taper*. in the memory «>. the seven wows of chanty cvhicn i have negle-ted; and besides ti.ese seven 1 will that there be me great tapers in honour of the me priiieipa. wounds of our Lord Jesus Ch.ist, and or in,- ti.e senses, which 1 nave >~o negligently wasted, lor wliicii t pi'ay . oil's mercy.”

The mention of the bed recalls that eds were a luxury. Edward the Blade Prince left to his eldest son “a new bed of red camak, and a, great bed embroideie'l with angels.” Game Maude Parr le t to her daughter Anne a .our-poster of green tiii'-el and white satin, em b. oidered with b.ue velvet, l.adv Hastings haring borrowed money from her friend. Cecilia. Marchioness of Dorset, directed in her will "that die said Cecilia, in full contentation of such sums that I owe unto her, shall ha>e m.v great bed of arras, which she latelv borrowed or me.”

Bequests to images were quite common. and make them loo.t like primes in their p.oud apparel. Thomas Dieson. of i e.erley. weaver, bequeatned to "the image of the most sweet \ irgm Marve his belt of ted silk, embroidered with .silver, and one good napkin.’ Wealthy ladies bequeathed jewels and la es to t.he Virgin, and humbler folk with oo.y one treasure to cal. their own id t e same.

The iast will and . testament of ('eeil>'. Duchess o. \ork, has a catalogue o. peculiar t ensures. "I gi\e to my lord I’rincr a bedde of arras ot the w’ole of fortune and canopy of Ihe same, a c-ountei point of arras, and a taopett of arras with the Pope.” The oldest English will on record is that of Alfred the Gieat in the original Saxon. In the Middle Ages wills a ten po.ide-d for the preservation of testator’s heait. The Earl of Huntingdon directed that his should be embalmed in spices and reverently deposited in the church. Robert the Bruce willed that his heart be ve ed to Palestine, a bequest which cost Lord .Tames of Douglas his life, for on the journey to Jerusalem he fell fighting with the Moors in .Spain. The

SOME ANCIENT REQUESTS FROM ALFRED THE GREAT ONWARDS

In 1388 a Mayor of llristol. Y\ alter Krainplon. lol’t a fortune to his wile. I,tit. to be liers only on condition that Mie led a sober life, devoid oi vanity, if she indulged in wanton mirth, or was too affable to the young men, the executors were pedged to dispossess he.- a ter ‘‘three proclamations of the trumpet at tie High Altar,” so that her neighbours might know and take warning. Not m ich chance for a merry wi ’ow under that will. A will which ’oko s seems entirely out of place, but the fouith Earl of Pembro e was not afraid to let his wit and mirth flow into his last will and testa-' i s near

Uieiit: “Item Igi ve all my deer to the Ear! ot Salisbury, who .1 know wih preserve them, because lie denied the King a buck out of one of his own paras. item. I gi*e nothing to Lora Say, which legacy L gi>e to him because 1 know lie will bestow it on t.ie poor. item. To Tom May 1 giie tivc shiliings; I intended li mi more; fcv.t whoever lias se’en his -History of the Parliament’ tninks hve shillings too much. 1 give Lieutenant-v.ene a. Cromwell one word of mine, because hitheito he never kept, his own. item 1 give up the gaost. ” To come to more modern times, Vos well tells us Johnson was not fiee from tlie general weakness of being averse to execute a will, and lieedet. repeated urging before he did it “hearing this night may put an end t.. my life, 1 do ordain this my last uil. and testament J bequeath to God a soul polluted by many sins, but I lK.p<purified by Jesus C hrist. lie le. tan annuity tor bis manservant, a nog <>. To a gentleman who bad assisted his father when he became bankrupt, lie left two hundred pounds, considering it an obligation. To some friends he left a l:oo!< named specially by himself : to others a book at their o.vn election. The faith'ul Roswell is earefill to disabuse the reader's mind of any idea that the word “polluted” implies more than ordinary contamination. The word was used of themselves by pieople of undoubted piety. j Mazlilt thinks that few things show the human character in a more ridieu-s oils light tlmii the circumstance of wil, making. “This last act of our lives seldom”belies th? f-nnier tenor of them or stupidity, capri e. and unmeaning spite.” On the other hand, Pliny the Younger thought it was certainly false, though generally believed, that a mail s will is the reflection of liis character. But the strangest thing of all is that the moment some men make a will they 'wo-Im to think the day of their death