It is curious how quickly a man turns to his will in the event of coolness or misunderstanding. Cardinal Vaughan has told how his friendship with Cardinal Manning died down. “We consulted one another and told one another everything. Well, he had appointed me to be one of his executors. On one occasion when I was staying with him in London, we got into a discussion; I could not accept his views, and I suppose, on the contrary, strongly maintained my own. I saw he was a little bit put out—but what do you think he did? He went upstairs, took out his will, and struck his pen through my name as executor.”
An uninitiated reader of Elizabeth Stow’s will would never have known what bitterness lay behind that £5 legacy; but sometimes such bitterness is evident enough. Harry Staple, of Ospring, Kent, whose will is dated February 19, 1691, is curt and downright: “To the widow Hall of Ospring and unto my three undutiful daughters, Mary and Elizabeth and Martha one shilling apiece.” John Braibroke, of Cooling, in 1535 requested his son Thomas “not to meddle with nothing of my testament or last will, nor my wife Alice to meddle with nothing that is or hath been between me and my son Thomas from the beginning of the world unto the present day.” A startling bequest was that of 3½d. to a son for the purchase of a rope for his wife, to be used as soon as possible. And another son to reap trouble was Freeman Ellis, whose father’s will was proved in 1664.
“Memo. that Freeman Ellis late of the parish of St. James Clerkenwell ... having a very great love and affection for Bridget Fanny and Judith Ellis who had always been very kind and loving to him, and being very much displeased with his son Freeman Ellis, who had been undutiful to him and married without his consent and was gone away from his wife, would and did several times in his life time ... say and declare that whenever he died he would make his said sisters ... his executrixes and leave his estate to their sole ordering and disposing.”
Wives fall under a full share of abuse. A London bookseller, in 1785, left a legacy of £50 to “Elizabeth whom through my foolish fondness I made my wife, without regard to family fame or fortune, and who in return has not spared most unjustly to accuse me of every crime regarding human nature, save highway robbery.” Robert Frampton also had unhappy experiences. He describes himself as of Woodley, in the parish of Sonning and county of Berks, and his will was dated in London December 18, 1677. “I do devise and bequeath to my wife Ann £1000 to be paid her out of my personal estate, not being able to leave her more by reason of her extravagancy in all things, embezzling the money given her for her apparel and leaving what she bought for that use upon the score, which I was forced to pay, and her running me into debt a good sum besides whereof she would never give any account. She hath also from time to time given her gossips a great part of what bought for herself the children and necessaries for the house and of the provisions thereof to the huge increase of my expenses and great damage of my estate; yea, in all things she hath ever been a profuse imperious and unkind wife unto me, and sundry times bound herself under a curse to ruin me if she could and necessitate the children to beg and starve.”
Sir Humphrey Style, in 1658, was more reticent in his misfortune. He gave to his wife £20 to buy mourning for him if she pleased, and a further sum of 5s. only “for good reasons best known unto myself, but not for her honour to be published.” But doubtless the gossips wagged their tongues no less.
A Spanish lady, not long since, included all her relations in one condemnation. “Nothing shall come to them from me, but a bag of sand to rub themselves with. None deserves even a goodbye. I do not recognise a single one of them.” But not only within the family is animosity shown. John Bacon Sweeting, of Honiton, surgeon, whose will was proved November 10, 1803, in a codicil thus complains: “Be it remembered that whereas I am unhappily so situated as to have Samuel Lott, Esquire, as possessor of a spot of waste land adjoining some lands which I bought ... and situate on the north side of the Borough of Honiton, and the said Samuel Lott has set up a claim to a certain space behind the same which he has refused to leave to be referred to the arbitration of Wm. Tucker of Croydon, Esquire, from a consciousness, I conceive, of the injustice of his pretensions, this as a serious man and a Christian I would not assert if the same conduct had not been notoriously observed by him wherever he had a prospect of over-reaching his neighbour, and feeling that this conduct will as [illegible] prevent my selling the property at a fair and just value, as most people wish to avoid law, it is my will that the same shall not be sold during the lifetime of the said Samuel Lott for a less sum than £120, and it is further my will that if the said Samuel Lott shall encroach any building on the spot alluded to, that then my said executors shall pull down such encroachments and defend the act as they shall be advised, and the expenses paid out of my property.” More recently a testator thus gave vent to his feelings: “My estate would have been considerably larger if it had not been for my association with this perambulating human vinegar cruet and the cleverest known legal daylight robber.”
But a transition to the subject next appearing may conveniently be made by mention of the will of Robert Halliday (dated May 6, 1491), who gave 5s. issuing out of an estate in St. Leonard, Eastcheap, to make an entertainment once a year for persons at variance with one another, that peace and love might be promoted and prevail.
CHAPTER XI
LOVE AND GRATITUDE
It is easy to discover such ugly facts as have just been disclosed. But love and gratitude are certainly more frequent. In many cases we see a picture of sweet and gentle family life, or of tender and affectionate regard. It is delightful to meet in modern wills, as one often may, expressions of passionate devotion and admiration for a wife or husband. And in old wills we have many a charming picture suggested. Sir Hugh Cholmley, a prominent figure in Whitby in the seventeenth century, gives “to my dear brother, Sir Henry Cholmley, my bay bald Barbary mare, called Spanker,” “to my dear daughter-in-law, wife to my son William Cholmley, the green cloth hangings wrought with needlework, which I desire her to esteem because they were wrought by my dear wife and her servants when we were first housekeepers,” and “to my dear sister, Mrs. Jane Twysden, wife to my brother Serjeant Twysden, a little gold pot of ten pounds price, with hearty thanks and acknowledgments for her many favours and kindnesses to myself and children.”