This will seems entitled to find a place among those which may be regarded as abnormal, and when we come to the record of it in the simple and naïf style of that matchless old chronicler Froissard, we are irresistibly tempted to make a transcript of the few lines which in describing it carry us back to the days of that turbulent and brilliant monarch.
“Le bon roy,” he writes, “trépassa en la cité de Warvich. Et quend il mourut il fit appeler son aisné fils (Edouard II. qui après luy fust roy) pardeuant ses barons, et luy fit iurer sur les saincts, qu’aussitost qu’il seroit trespassé il le feroit bouilleir dans une chaudière, tant que la chair se departiroit des os: et après ferait mettre la chair en terre et garderoit les os: et toutes les fois que les Escoçois de rebelleroient contre luy, il semondroit ses gens et porteroit avesques luy les os de son père. Car il tenoit fermement que tant qu’il auroit ses os avesques luy les Escoçois n’auraient poinct de victoire contre luy. Lequel n’accomplit mie ce qu’il auait iuré: ains fit rapporter son père à Londres et là enseuelir; dont luy meschent.”
Will of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick
(1315)
“Will of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, dated at Warwick Castle, Monday next after the Feast of St. James the Apostle, 1315. My body to be buried in the Abbey of Bordsley, without any funeral pomp; to Alice, my wife, a proportion of plate, with a crystal cup and half my bedding, and also all the vestments and books belonging to my Chapel; the other half of my beds, rings, and jewels, I bequeath to my two daughters; to Maud, my daughter, a crystal cup; to Elizabeth, my daughter, the marriage of Astley’s heir; to Thomas, my son, my best coat of mail, helmet, and suit of harness, with all that belongs thereto; to John, my son, my second coat of mail, helmet, and harness; and I Will that all the rest of my armour, bows, and other warlike implements, shall remain in Warwick Castle for my heir.”
Dukes of Lancaster
(1360)
Henry, Duke of Lancaster, who died in 1360, thus begins the second clause of his will: “Item: we will that our body be not buried for three weeks after the departure of our soul.”
(1399)
John, Duke of Lancaster, better known as John of Gaunt, directs as follows in his will: “If I die out of London I desire that, the night my body arrives there, it be carried direct to the Friars Carmelites, in Fleet Street, and the next day be taken straight to St. Paul’s, and that it be not buried for forty days, during which I charge my executors that there be no embalming of my corpse.”
Will of Sir Robert Launde
(1367)
“Will of Sir Robert Launde, alias Atte Launde, Knt., Citizen of London, on our Lady’s Eve, 1367. My body to be buried in the quire of St. Mary’s, of the Charterhouse in London; to Christian, my wife; to Ada Launde, my mother; to Robert Watfield, late my servant, c l.; to Rose Pomfret, my sister, of Berdfield, CXL l.; to Richard, her son, and William, her brother; to Margaret Biernes, their sister; to Margaret, her sister, married to Aksted; to Agnes, my niece, at Hallewell; to the high altar of Hempsted, in Essex; to the poor there, by gift of Robert Watfield; to Joane Launde, of Cambridgeshire; to my noble Lady the Countess of Norfolk; to John Southcot, to find him at school; to the building of the cross in Cheapside; and I appoint Sir John Philpot, Knt., overseer of this my Will.”