Curious Wills Relating to Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue V, 31 January 1903, Page 337

Curious Wills Relating to Women.

A certain French merchant who died in the year 1601 left a very handsome legacy to a lady who h id refused to marry him 20 years -previously. The will stated that the testator made the request in order to express to the. legatee his gratitude for her forbearance in leaving him t<> lead a happy bachelor life of independence and freedom. A British sailor by his will directed his executors to pay to his wife t he sum of one shilling “to buy hazel nuts, as she had always preferred cracking these to mending stockThe will of .John George, of Lambeth, who died in 1791, runs thus: — “Seeing that I have had the misfortune to be married to the aforesaid Elizabeth, who ever since our union has tormented me in every possible way, that she has done all she (Oiild to render my life miserable; that Heaven seems to have sent her into the world solely to drive me out of it: that the strength of Samson, the genius of Homer, the prudence of Augustus, the skill of Pyrrhus, the patience of Job. the philosophy of Socrates, the subtlety of Hannibal, the vigilance of Hermogenes would not suffice to subdue the perversity of her character; that no power on earth can change her; weighing maturely and seriously’ all these considerations, I have bequeathed and hereby bequeath to my’ said wife Elizabeth the sum of one shilling to be paid to her within six months after my death.” A man named William Durdley. of Ash. Herefordshire, left to his wire. Mary, the sum of one shilling, the will bearing that the bequest was made “in recompense of her having picked my pocket of sixty’ guineas

and taken up money in my name without my license.” A certain John Parker. b< okseller. in London, left a legacy to his wife in the following terms: — “To one Elizabeth Parker, whom through fondness | married without regard to family, fame, or fortune, and who in return has not spared most unjustly to accuse me of every crime except highway robbery. 1 leave the sum of fifty pounds.” The following is an extract from the will of Henry, Earl of Stafford, dated at the end of the seventeenth century: “To the worst of women. < lande Charlotte de Grammont. unfortunately my wife, guilty, as she i<. of all crimes, I leave five-and-forty brass half-pence, which will buy a pullet for her supper a better gift than her father can make, for I have known when having not the nionev. neither had he the credit for such a purchase, he being the worst of men. and his wife the worst of women. Had I known their characters I had never married their daughter, and made myself unhappy.”—A.J.G.