Thomas Penistone, in the preamble to his will quoted in “The Way of All Flesh,” insists on the confusion or disputation an intestacy might cause. The regular formula, occurring over and over, is that the will is made for avoiding controversies after death; or, as one John Nabbs says (1665), “the unhappy controversies usual in default of such settlements.” Robert Collyer, whose will was proved November 8, 1665, makes a peculiarly interesting addendum as to the law in his day: “the reason why I trouble not myself with witnesses is because a will so made by a man himself, although many imperfections in regard of form and the like may be in it, yet it is as good in law as if it were published and declared before many witnesses; which if people did but take notice of, many wills would be made that are not and much contention prevented; which I heard Serjeant Maynard plead for law in a case between Master Christopher Coles and Master Walter Bartellott at Westminster Hall.”

There is a pathetic fallacy in this expectation. Some controversies may be avoided, but bitter disputes too often are aroused—disputes about the will’s validity, the meaning of its provisions, the capacity of the testator, the legality or interpretation of a bequest, its justice or injustice, and so on interminably. Such a work as Theobald’s “Law of Wills” illustrates, by the thousands of decisions it brings together, what questions and queries arise on the legal and interpretative sides alone.

Some seem to foresee trouble, or “fuss in the way of quarrel,” as one testator puts it. A clause is frequently inserted barring disputants from any benefit. George Spence (1587) expresses this well: “I will that if any person or persons shall not be content with such gifts as given to them by virtue of this my will and testament, shall be clearly and utterly voided out of the same, and they shall have no commodity or profit by virtue of the same.” And Anthony Wayte, of Clapham, whose will is dated September 10, 1558, believes in an original remedy—a short way with disputants. “If any dispute as to the meaning of my will, I will two or three unlearned husbandmen of my parish of Clapham to interpret my meaning as they or two of them shall think in their conscience.” It is a delightful touch of sarcasm and sagacity.

It was no wonder that Sir George Hervey, of Thurleigh, Bedfordshire, who died about 1536, took his friends and even his servants into his confidence, acquainting them with the tenor of his will. For it was found, when the will was taken from its place of custody in a coffer “standing in the house of one Richard Holt, draper, dwelling in Watling Street,” that he had left his estates, his manors, and lands in Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckingham, Hertford, and Oxford, to his reputed son Gerard, to the exclusion of his generally recognised son and daughter, Nicholas and Elizabeth. Needless to say the will was called in question, but the affidavits of Sir George’s friends and servants, in whom he had confided, secured its admission to probate.

Thus one witness said that “about ten or twelve days before the death of the said Sir George, this deponent was eftsoons in hand again with the said Sir George, that he should be good unto Nicholas Hervey; to whom the said Sir George answering this deponent, showed of a displeasure that was grown between him and the said Nicholas, and said that he had given him a dash with a pen, and that he should never have groat of him, and this deponent saith also that he was present when the late Abbess of Elstow went unto the said Sir George instanted and moved the said Sir George to be good unto the said Elizabeth, whereunto the said Sir George utterly refused to do her any manner of good, saying that she was not his daughter.”

Thomas Smith Panuwell, of Tonbridge, seems not to have had much faith in peaceableness and honesty: to his will is appended the following: “As the above written was copied from a will written by me some time before the above date, (1779) but not witnessed as I lay very ill of a fever, I was dubious and revolving it in my mind whether it was authentic, I had it written afresh by an attorney in form of law; ... but as I am now sensible my brain was then in perplexity through weakness, the authenticity of this will might be questioned and possibly for the benefit of trade by the man who wrote it, I hereby declare it is my will, now it has pleased the merciful Almighty to raise me from the jaws of Death and bless me with opportunity to endeavour to attain through a sincere repentance and reform the salvation of my spirit; and I am in perfect and sound mind and memory. Witness my hand and seal this 20th day of February, 1780.”

Few cases in the courts are more interesting than doubtful or disputed wills. But, however romantic, there is much that is sordid and miserable in probate actions, much lamentable bitterness of spirit. It may be hoped that when these cases are heard the testator has drunk deep of the Lethean stream. But the controversy may begin before the testator’s death, and cruel such wrangling is.

The story of the last days in the life of Elizabeth, mother of John Stow, is a curious tale at once comic and distressing. John appears not to have been on the best of terms with his family, and especially to have irritated his younger brother Thomas. Elizabeth Stow, in 1568, was living with Thomas and his wife, but one day chanced to go and visit her son John. She was refreshed with the “best ale and bread, and a cold leg of mutton was put before her, whereof she ate very hungerly, and thereafter fell both to butter and to cheese.” On leaving, she promised John not to slight him, as he was her eldest son. But Thomas and his wife would give her no rest till she had told them all that she and John had spoken together. It leaked out that John had insulted Thomas’s wife, whereupon he “would never let my mother rest” (John tells the story himself) “till he had forced her to break her will, wherein she bequeathed me X li., (equal with all the younger children, except Thomas, which had all indeed) and to put me in nothing at all.” But she found that her friends would not witness the will, nor did they until Thomas pretended he had restored the £10, though he put down £5, in fact. “And so they set their hands to it, and after heard it read, wherein they found the V li. and would have withdrawn their hands again, but it was too late.”

Thomas took great offence at John’s insult to his wife: but soon afterwards he himself thrust her out of doors, and she, getting in again, “he beat her and threw her again into the street; and all the neighbours could not get him to take her in again, yet again she was conveyed into the house, and at X of the clock at night, he being bare-legged searched and found her and then fell again a-beating of her, so that my mother lying sick on a pallet was fain to creep up, and felt about the chamber for Thomas his hosen and shoes; and crept down the stairs with them as well as she could, and prayed him to put them on lest he should catch cold. So my mother stood in her smock more than an hour entreating him for the Lord’s sake to be more quiet: so that at this time my mother took such a cold that she never rose after, but he and his wife went to bed and agreed well enough.”

Then began a long wrangling about the will, the minister who attended her much misliking it, and Thomas and his wife neglecting no device to keep the poor mother to the will. Her son-in-law, Rolfe, a priest, also tried to persuade her to do justice to John, but “she always bade him hold his peace, or else speak softly, for her son’s wife was in one corner or other hearkening, and she should have a life ten times worse than death if Thomas or his wife should know of any such talk.” Soon after this the brothers professed to patch up the quarrel, and John mustered courage himself to entreat his mother to put him back for £10, and he read her the 133rd Psalm, asking her to persuade Thomas to read it too, “which she said she dared not do. The psalm beginneth thus: ‘Behold how pleasant and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together and to be of one mind,’ &c., and this is a special note to be marked; all the time that I was talking with her, to break me of my talk she lay as she had been more afeared than of death, lest her son Thomas or his wife should hear any of our talk. And still she cried to me: ‘Peace, she cometh; speak softly; she is on the stairs hearkening,’” &c.

Still the storm raged round the unhappy woman’s couch; her brother, and the overseer of the will, both protested against its provisions. But in vain; at last she died, worn out and embittered, we may very well imagine, by the broils of her last days on earth. Truly a pitiable tale, but perhaps not unparalleled. We may still read how £5 only was given to John, for the will is extant. It suggests what feuds and sorrows lie behind the phrases of many a will.

Such feuds and sorrows struck the imagination of Dickens, when he visited Doctors’ Commons, where the wills which now rest at Somerset House were stored in his day. “We naturally fell into a train of reflection as we walked homewards, upon the curious old records of likings and dislikings; of jealousies and revenges; of affection defying the power of death, and hatred pursued beyond the grave, which these depositories contain: eloquent by striking tokens, some of them, of excellence of heart and nobleness of soul; melancholy examples, others, of the worst passions of human nature. How many men as they lay speechless and helpless on the bed of death, would have given worlds but for the strength and power to blot out the silent evidence of animosity and bitterness, which now stands registered against them in Doctors’ Commons!”

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.