When the notable will was opened, and proved in the following June, the widow declined to follow out its provisions as concerned her own property, which Thomas Nash had treated as if entirely his own. "Item, I give, dispose and bequeath, unto my Kinsman Edward Nash, and to his heires and assignes for ever, one messuage or tenement with the appurtenances comonly called or knowne by the name of The New Place ... together with all and singular howses, outhowses, barnes, stables, orchards, gardens, etc, esteemed or enjoyed as thereto belonging ... also fower yards of arable land meadowe and pasture ... in old Stratford, and also one other tenement with the appurtenances in the parish of —— London; called or known by the name of the Wardropp, and now in the tenure of one —— Dickes."
Mrs. Nash had soldiers quartered on her at New Place during the very month of her husband's death, one of whom was implicated in the robbery of deer from the park of Sir Greville Verney on April 30, 1647. But she did not fail in legal knowledge of what she ought to do under the unexpected provisions of her husband's will, of which she was left sole executrix and residuary legatee. She and her mother combined in levying a fine on the property,[200] and reconveying it to the sole use of her mother and herself, and their heirs for ever. She was not yet thirty-nine years of age, and did not feel inclined even then to take it for granted she would not marry again, even if Edward Nash agreed, as he could be made to agree, that his inheritance could only come to him on her decease without issue.
But Edward Nash did not like her proceedings, and filed a Bill in Chancery on February, 1647-48, against Elizabeth Nash, and other legatees, to compel them to produce his uncle's will in court, and execute its provisions. Mrs. Nash admitted its contents, but averred the testator had no power to demise property which had belonged to her grandfather, and had been left to herself. She explained that her mother was still living, and that in conjunction they had levied the fine. She only disputed that part of her husband's will concerning her own property, and mentioned her deeds and evidences. Her answer was taken by commission, at Stratford, in April, 1648, and in June it was ordered that the defendants should bring into court the will and other evidences, and the writ was personally served on Mrs. Nash.
The will of Thomas Nash was produced before the Examiners in Chancery in November, but Mrs. Nash defied all orders concerning the other "evidences," as may be seen from the affidavit filed at the Six Clerks' Office in December, 1649. She was brave in her determination that her own rights and her mother's should not be assailed, and she was perhaps prudent in her opinion that the fewer papers that were produced the shorter time would the suit last. No replication or decree is recorded. The litigation apparently terminated in a compromise, doubtless hastened by Mrs. Nash's second marriage. Perhaps Edward Nash by this time realized the injustice or the impracticability of his claim. The only further allusion to it occurs in Lady Barnard's will.[201] She directs her trustees to dispose of New Place with the proviso "that my loving cousin, Edward Nash, Esq., shall have the first offer or refusal thereof, according to my promise formerly made to him."
Elizabeth Nash married Mr. John Barnard, of Abington, Northamptonshire, at Billesley, a village four miles from Stratford, June 5, 1649, where the Trussels resided. Why did she go there to be married? A puzzling question indeed, which cannot be answered by the register, as it is lost. Whether her marriage weakened her mother's health, or whether the state of her mother's health had hastened her marriage, we know not; but a month later, on July 11, 1649, Mrs. Hall died, and, being buried beside her husband on the 16th, made his tomb complete. The Latin scholars of the family were all gone, and it is not too much to suppose that Elizabeth herself, Shakespeare's grandchild, composed her mother's epitaph:
"Here lyeth the body of Susanna, wife of John Hall, gent., the daughter of William Shakespeare, gent. She deceased the 11 day of July, Anno 1649, aged 66.
"Witty above her sex, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,
Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this
Wholly of him with whom she's now in blisse.
Then, passenger, hast nere a tear
To weep with her that wept with all
That wept, yet set herself to chere
Them up with comforts cordiall?
Her love shall live, her mercy spread
When thou hast nere a tear to shed."
A lozenge bore the arms of Hall and Shakespeare impaled. In the early part of last century these verses were erased to make space for the record of the death of one Richard Watts, who owned some of the tithes and had the right to be buried in the chancel. But they, fortunately, had been preserved by Dugdale;[202] and in 1844 the Watts record was erased and Mrs. Hall's verses restored.
Her death limited Shakespeare's descendants to two—Judith Quiney, daughter, and Elizabeth Barnard, granddaughter. A fine was levied on New Place in 1650, in which John Barnard and Henry Smith were made trustees to the settlement of 1647, instead of Richard Lane and William Smith. In 1652 a new settlement was made, devising it to the use of John Barnard and his wife, and the longer liver of them, to the heirs of the body of Elizabeth, failing whom to any persons she might name. In default of such nomination, the property was to go to the right heirs of the survivor. A fine was again levied on this settlement. Mr. John Barnard was knighted by Charles II. in 1661. The Stratford Register of 1661-62 records the death of Elizabeth's aunt, Judith, "uxor Thomas Quiney, gent., Feb. 9th, 1661-2." The use of the word "uxor" is no certain proof that he was alive at the time.
Judith's death, at the age of seventy-seven, left Lady Elizabeth Barnard the poet's sole survivor. She had no children by her second marriage, about which we have no other detail. It has been surmised that it was not a happy one. Sir John Barnard was a widower, and had already a family. There is no mention of this family in Lady Barnard's will, and a limitation to the barest law and justice towards her husband, whom she did not leave her executor. The will was drawn up on January 29, 1669-70, and she died at Abington in February. "Madam Elizabeth Bernard, wife of Sir John Bernard, Knight, was buried 17th Feb., 1669-70."[203] No sepulchral monument was raised in memory of the granddaughter and heir of Shakespeare, but she probably lay in the same tomb as her husband, who died in 1674. A memorial slab still remains to his memory in Abington Church, but the place of his burial is unknown, and the vault below this stone is used by another family.