CURIOUS WILLS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19769, 17 February 1927, Page 10

CURIOUS WILLS

THE TESTAMENT OF SHAKESPEARE SLENDER BEQUEST TO WIDOW JESTS IN AN EARL’S WILL Shakespeare’s will was full of interlineations and erasions. His wife's name was omitted from the original draft, and was in the final draft only by an interlineation assigning to her his second-best 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 60 led the poet to the con- , elusion that she was unfit for the control of property. He committed her to the care of his eldest daughter, who i inherited some of hi s own shrewdness. The mention of the bed recalls that , beds were a luxury. Edward the Black Prince left eldest son “a new bed of red camak, and a great bed embroidered with angels.” Dame Maude Parr left to her daughter Anne a four-poster of green tinel and white satin, embroidered with blue velvet. Lady Hastings having borrowed money from her friend, Cecilia, Marchioness of Dorset, directed in her will “that the said Cecilia, in full contentation of such sums that I owe unto her, shall have my great bed of arras, which she lately borrowed of me.” The last will and testament of Cecily, Duches s of York, has a catalogue of peculiar treasures. “I give to my lord Priner a bedde of arras of the whole of fortune and canopy of the same, a counterpoint of arras, and a tappett of arras with the Pope.” Oldest on Record The oldest English will on record is that of Alfred the Great in the original Saxon. In the Middle Ages wills often provided for the preservation of testator’s heart. The Earl of Huntingdon directed that his should be embalmed in spice s and reverently deposited in the church. Robert the Bruce willed that his heart be conveyed to Palestine, a bequest which cost Lord James of Douglas his life, for on the journey to Jerusalem he £ell fighting with the Moors in Spain. The sabred relic was brought to Scotland and buried in the monastery of Melrose. The most grim and loathsome deed connected with the disposal of a physical organ is from France. Seigneur de Fayel intercepted a package addressed to his wife, and found it contained the heart of her trouvere lover. Raoul de Coney. One might have forgiven the husband if he had cast it to the dogs, but he set the world shuddering by serving it up as a ragout. Old John of Gaunt, unhappy, and with reason, about his soul, made a will •which filled fifteen quarto pages. It directed that his body should be kept above ground for forty days, and that on each of those days, forty marks of silver should be distributed among the poor. “I devise to be burnt round my body on the day of my burial, first ten great tapers, in the name of the Ten Commandments of our Lord, which I have too wickedly transgressed; and besides these ten, that there be placed seven great tapers in the memory of the seven work s or charity which I have neglected; and besides these seven I will that there be five great tapers in honour of the five principal wounds of our Lord Jesus, and for my five senses which I have so negligently wasted, for which I pray God’s mercy. ’ ’ Gifts to the Virgin Bequests to Images were quite common. and made them look like princes in their proud apparel. Thomas Dieson, of Beverley, weaver, bequeathed to “the image of the most sweet Virgin Maryc his belt of red silk, embroidered with silver, and on e good napkin.” Wealthy ladies bequeathed jewels and laces to the Virgin, and humbler folk with only one treasure to call their own ' did the sam,e. In 1388 a mayor of Bristol, Walter Frampton left a fortune to his wife, but to be hers only on condition that she led a sober life, devoid of vanity. If she indulged in wanton mirth, or was too affable to the young men, the executors were pledged to dispossess her after “three proclamations of the trumpet at the High Altar,” so that her neighbours might know and take warning. Not much chance for a merry widow under that will. A will which jokes seems entirely out of place, but the fourth Earl of Pembroke was not afraid to let his wit and mirth flow into his last will and testament:—“ltem. I give all my deer to the Earl of Salisbury, who I know will preserve them, because he denied the King a buck out of one of his own parks. Item. I give nothing to Lord Say, which legacy I give to him because I know he will bestow it on the poor. Item. To Tom May I give five shillings; I intended him more; but whoever has seen his ‘ History of the Parlia. ment’ thinks five shillings too much. I give Lieutenant-Gentral Cromwell one word of mine, because hitherto he never kept his own. Item. I give up the ghost.” To come to more modern times, Boswell tells us Johnson wa s not free from the general weakness of being averse to execute a will, and needed repeated urging before he did it. “Fearing this night may put an end to my life, I do ordain this my last will and testament. I bequeath to God a soul polluted by many sins, but I hope purified by Jesus Christ.” He left an annuity for his manservant, a negro. To a gentleman who had assisted his father when he,became bankrupt, he left two hundred pounds, considering it an obligation. To some friends he left a book named specially by himself; to others a book at their own election. The faithful Boswell is careful 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 people of undoubted piety. Hazlitt thinks that few things show the human character in a more ridiculou 8 light than the circumstance of will making. “This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite.” On the other hand, Pliny the Younger thought it was certainly false, though generally believed, that a man’ s will is the reflection of his character. But the strangest thing of all is that the moment some men make a will they begin to think the day of their dcatM is near.