Curious, Ancient & Famous Wills

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Ancient,& Curious Wills
Part 1

The Will of Rabelais (1553 excerpt)
I have no available property, I owe a great deal; the rest I give to the poor.

Old English Farmer:
It is recorded of an old English farmer, that, in giving instructions for his will, he directed a legacy of one hundred pounds to be given to his widow. Being informed that some distinction was usually made in case the widow married again, he doubled the sum; and when told that this was quite contrary to custom, he said, with heartfelt sympathy for his possible successor, "Aye, but him as gets her'll deserve it."

The Will of Alessandro Tassoni (1635 excerpt, Italian diplomat, poet and critic)
I leave my soul--the most precious thing I posses--to its first great cause, the invisible, ineffable, eternal.

As for my body, destined as it is to corruption, my own desires would have been that it should be burned; but that being contrary to the custom of the religion in which I was born, I beg those in whose house I should die--for I have non of my own--to bury me by preference in consecrated ground; or if I should be found dead, without any other roof over me than the vault o heaven, I entreat the charitable neighbors of passers-by to render me this last service.

My wish would be that my funeral should only employ one priest, that there should be simply the small cross and a single candle, and that as regards expense no more shall be incurred than will pay for a sack to stuff my remains into, and a porter to carry it.

I give twelve gold crowns to the parish, because I cannot carry them away.

A Gentleman of Surrey England, 1772:

"Whereas, it was my misfortune to be maid very uneasy by ______, my wife, for many years from our marriage, by her turbulent behavior, for she was not content to despise my admonitions, but she contrived every method to make me unhappy; she was so perverse in her nature that she would not be reclaimed, but seemed only to be born to be a plague to me; the strength of Sampson, the knowledge of Homer, the prudence of Agustus, the cunning Pyrrhus, the patience of Job, the subtlety of Hannibal and the watchfulness of Hermogenes could not have been sufficient to subdue her; for no skill or force in the world would make her good; and as we have lived separate and apart from each other for eight years, and, she having perverted her son to leave and totally abandon me, therefore I give her a shilling."

Henry, Earl of Stafford (followed the fortunes of his Royal master James II into France and married there the daughter of the Duc de Grammont at the end of the 17th century)

"To the worst of women, Claude Charlotte de Grammont, unfortunately my wife, guilty as she is of all crimes, I leave five-and-forty brass halfpence, which will buy a pullet for her supper. A better gift than her father can make her; for I have known when having not the money, neither had he the credit for such a purchase; he being the worst of men, and his wife the worst of women in all debaucheries. Had I known their characters I had never married their daughter, and made myself unhappy."

A Rich Man . . .
making his will, left legacies to all his servants except his steward, to whom he gave nothing, on the plea that, "having been in my service in that capacity twenty years I have too high an opinion of his shrewdness to suppose he has not sufficiently enriched himself."

A Glasgow Doctor . . .

A certain Glasgow doctor died some ten years ago, and left his whole estate to his sisters. In his will appeared this unusual clause: "To my wife, as a recompense for deserting me and leaving me in peace, I expect the said sister, Elizabeth, to make her a gift of ten shillings sterling, to buy her a pocket handkerchief to weep after my decease."

Should ye kind readers have enjoyed this little discourse, it shall be continued within a later issue...

Ancient Curious And Famous Wills, Virgil M. Harris, St. Louis Institute of Law, Boston, Little Brown, And Company, 1911.