His heiress. Legacies to friends.
This elder daughter, Susanna Hall, was, according to the will, to become mistress of New Place, and practically of all the poet’s estate. She received (with remainder to her issue in strict entail) New Place, all the land, barns, and gardens at and near Stratford (except the tenement in Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London, while she and her husband were appointed executors and residuary legatees, with full rights over nearly all the poet’s household furniture and personal belongings. To their only child and the testator’s granddaughter, or ‘niece,’ Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed
the poet’s plate, with the exception of his broad silver and gilt bowl, which was reserved for his younger daughter, Judith. To his younger daughter he also left, with the tenement in Chapel Lane (in remainder to the elder daughter), £150 in money, of which £100, her marriage portion, was to be paid within a year, and another £150 to be paid to her if alive three years after the date of the will. [276a] To the poet’s sister, Joan Hart, whose husband, William Hart, predeceased the testator by only six days, he left, besides a contingent reversionary interest in Judith’s pecuniary legacy, his wearing apparel, £20 in money, a life interest in the Henley Street property, with £5 for each of her three sons, William, Thomas, and Michael. To the poor of Stratford he gave £10, and to Mr. Thomas Combe (apparently a brother of William, of the enclosure controversy) his sword. To each of his Stratford friends, Hamlett Sadler, William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash, and John Nash, and to each of his ‘fellows’ (i.e. theatrical colleagues in London), John Heming, Richard Burbage, and Henry Condell, he left xxvjs. viijd., with which to buy memorial rings. His godson, William Walker, received ‘xx’ shillings in gold.