William, Earl of Pembroke, 1469—“In nomine Jesu, &c. And wyfe, that ye remember your promise to me, that ye take the ordre of widowhood, as ye may the better mayster your owne * * * * Wyfe pray for me, and take the said ordre, that ye promised me, as ye had, in my lyfe, my hert and love.” This lady, who was the daughter of Sir Walter Devereux, observed her vow, and died the widow of the Earl; which is the more remarkable, as these injunctions have often produced an opposite effect, and abbreviated the term of continency.
Sir Harry Stafford, Kt., 1471—“To my son-in-law, the Earl of Richmond, a trappur, four new horse harness of velvet; to my brother, John, Earl of Wiltshire, my bay courser; to Reynold Bray, my Receiver General, my grizzled horse.”
Cecilia Lady Kirriel, 1472—“In my pure widowhood, &c. To John Kirriel, bastard, &c.”
It is not unusual for the consciences of men, in a dying hour, to clutch, for security, at the veriest straws. It is instructive to consider the evidences, exhibited in these ancient testaments, of superfluous compunction. Sir Walter Moyle, Knt., 1479, directs his feoffees “to make an estate, in two acres of land, more or less, lying in the parish of Estwell, in a field called Calinglond, and deliver the same, in fee simple, to three or four honest men, to the use and behoof of the Church of Estwell aforesaid, in recompense of a certain annual rent of £2 of wax, by me wrested and detained from the said Church, against my conscience.”
It was not unusual, to appoint overseers, to have an eye upon executors; a provision, which may not be without its advantages, occasionally, even in these days of more perfect morality, and higher law. Sir Ralph Verney, Knt., 1478, appoints four executors, and “my trewe lover, John Browne, Alderman of London, to be one of the overseers of this my present testament, and to have a remembrance upon my soul, one of my cups, covered with silver gilt.”
Monks and Friars were pleasant fellows in the olden time, and Nuns are not supposed to have been without their holy comforts. Landseer’s fine picture of Bolton Abbey is a faithful illustration. The fat of the land, when offered to idols, has commonly been eaten up by deputy. However shadowy and attenuated the souls of their humble and confiding tributaries, the carcasses of abbots are commonly represented as superlatively fat and rubicund.
Bequests and devises to Lights and Altars were very common. Eustace Greville, Esquire, 1479, bequeaths “to the Light of the Blessed Mary, in the said Church of Wolton, three pounds of wax in candles and two torches; to the Altar of the Blessed Mary in the said church, one bushel of wheat and as much of barley; and to the Lights of the Holy Cross there one bushel of barley and as much of beans; and the same to the Light of St. Katherine there.”
FINIS.