Good, old Sir William Dugdale was certainly the prince of antiquaries. His labors and their products were greater, than could have been anticipated, even from his long and ever busy life. He was born, Sept. 12, 1605, and died, in his eighty-first year, while sitting quietly, in his antiquarian chair, Feb. 6, 1686.

It seemed not to have occurred, so impressively, to other men, how very important was the diligent study of ancient wills, not only to the antiquarian, but to the historian, of any age or nation. Dugdale’s annotations, upon the royal and noble wills of England, are eminently useful and curious. A collection of “royal wills” was published, by Mr. John Nicholls, the historian of Leicestershire, and the “Testamenta Vetusta,” by Mr. Nicolas. These works are in very few hands, and some of them almost as rarely to be met with, as those of Du Cange, Charpentiere, Spelman, or Lacombe.

There is no small amount of information and amusement, to be gathered from these ancient declarations of the purposes of men, contemplating death, at a distance, or about to die; though it cannot be denied, that the wills of our immediate ancestors, especially, if they have amassed great wealth, and, after a few unimportant legacies to others, have made us their residuary legatees, furnish a far more interesting species of reading, to the rising generation.

There are worthy persons, who entertain a superstitious horror, upon the subject of making a will: they seem to have an actual fear, that the execution of a will is very much in the nature of a dying speech; that it is an expression of their willingness to go; and that the King of Terrors may possibly take them, at their word.

There are others, who are so far from being oppressed, by any apprehension, of this nature, that one of their most common amusements consists in the making, and mending of their wills.

“Who,” says the compiler of the Testamenta Vetusta, “would have the hardihood to stain with those evil passions, which actuate mankind, in this world, that deed, which cannot take effect, until he is before the Supreme Judge, and consequently immediately responsible for his conduct?” To this grave inquiry I, unhesitatingly answer—thousands! The secret motives of men, upon such occasions, if fairly brought to light, would present a very curious record. That record would, by no means, sustain the sentiment, implied, in the preceding interrogatory. Malice and caprice, notoriously, have governed the testator’s pen, upon numberless occasions. The old phrase—cutting off with a shilling—has been reduced to practice, in a multitude of instances, for considerations of mere hatred and revenge, or of pique and displeasure. The malevolent testator, who would be heartily ashamed, to avow what he had done, on this side the grave, is regardless of his reputation, on the other.

Goldsmith places in the mouth of one of his characters, a declaration, that he was disinherited, for liking gravy. This, however it may have been intended as a pleasantry, by the author, is, by no means, beyond the region of probability. Considerations, equally absurd and frivolous, have, occasionally, operated upon the minds of passionate and capricious people, especially in the decline of life; and, though they are sensible of the Bible truth, that they can carry nothing with them, they may, yet a little while, enjoy the prospective disappointment of another.

The Testamenta Vetusta contain abstracts of numerous wills of the English kings, and of the nobility, and gentry, for several centuries, from the time of Henry second, who began to reign, in 1154. The work, as I have stated, is rare; and I am mistaken, if the general reader, any more than he, who has an antiquarian diathesis, will complain of the exhumation I propose to make of some, among the “reliques of thae antient dayes.”

It is almost impossible, to glance over one of these venerable testaments of the old English nobility, without perceiving, that the testator’s thoughts were pretty equally divided, between beds, masses, and wax tapers. Beds, with the gorgeous trappings, appurtenant thereto, form a common subject of bequest, and of entailment, as heir-looms.

Edward, the Black Prince, son of Edward III., died June 8, 1376. In his will, dated the day before his death, he bequeaths “To our son Richard,[6] the bed, which the King our father gave us. To Sir Roger de Clarendon,[7] a silk bed. To Sir Robert de Walsham, our confessor, a large bed of red camora, with our arms embroidered at each corner; also embroidered with the arms of Hereford. To Monsr. Allayne Cheyne our bed of camora, powdered with blue eagles. And we bequeath all our goods and chattels, jewels, &c., for the payment of our funeral and debts; after which we will, that our executors pay certain legacies to our poor servants. All annuities, which we have given to our Knights, Esquires, and other, our followers, we desire to be fully paid. And we charge our son Richard, on our blessing, that he fulfil our bequests to them. And we appoint our very dear and beloved brother of Spain, Duke of Lancaster,[8] &c., &c., executors,” &c.

Joan, Princess of Wales, was daughter of Edmund Plantagenet. From her extreme beauty, she was styled the “Fair Maid of Kent.” I find the following record in regard to Joan—“She entered into a contract of marriage with Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury; but Sir Thomas Holland, H. G., on a petition to Pope Clement VI. alleged a precontract, consensus et concubitus, but that, he being abroad, the Earl of Salisbury unjustly kept her from him; and his Holiness gave her to Sir Thomas.”

Joan seems to have been a wilful body, and the reader may like to know what sort of a will she made, four hundred and sixty-six years ago. She finally became the wife of Edward, the Black Prince, and, by him, the mother of Richard II. An abstract of her will runs thus—“In the year of our Lord, 1385, and of the reign of my dear son, Richard, King of England and France, the 9th at my castle of Walyngford, in the Diocese of Salisbury, the 7th of August, I, Joan, Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Countess of Chester, and Lady Wake. My body to be buried, in my chapel, at Stanford, near the monument of our late lord and father, the Earl of Kent. To my dear son, the King, my new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths. To my dear son, Thomas, Earl of Kent, my bed of red camak, paied with red and rays of gold. To my dear son, John Holland, a bed of red camak.”

Katherine of Arragon wills, inter alia—“I supplicate, that my body be buried in a convent of Observant Friars. Item, that for my soul be said C. masses. Item, that some personage go to our Lady of Walsingham, in pilgrimage, and in going by the way, dole XX nobles. Item, I ordain that the collar of gold, that I brought out of Spain be to my daughter. * * * Item, if it may please the King, my good Lord, that the house ornaments of the church be made of my gowns, which he holdeth, for to serve the convent thereat I shall be buried. And the furs of the same I give for my daughter.”

William de Longspee, Earl of Salisbury, was a natural son of Henry II., by Fair Rosamond, daughter of Walter de Clifford, and distinguished himself in the Holy Land. He bequeaths to the Monastery of the Carthusians—“A cup of gold, set with emeralds and rubies; also a pix of gold with XLII. s. and two goblets of silver, one of which is gilt; likewise a chesible and cope of red silk; a tunicle and dalmatick of yellow cendal; an alba, amice, and stole; also a favon and towel, and all my reliques; likewise a thousand sheep, three hundred muttons, forty-eight oxen, and fifteen bulls.”

It was not unusual, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to dedicate children, at the hour of their baptism, to the military service of God, in Palestine. An example of this may be found, in the will of William de Beauchamp, who was the father of the first Earl of Warwick, and died before 1269—“My body to be buried in the Church of Friars Minors at Worcester. I will, that a horse, completely harnessed with all military caparisons, precede my corpse: to a priest to sing mass daily, in my chapel without the city of Worcester, near unto that house of Friars, which I gave for the health of my soul, and for the soul of Isabel my wife, Isabel de Mortimer, and all the faithful deceased, all my rent of the fee of Richard Bruli, in Wiche and Winchester, with supply of what should be short, out of my own proper goods. * * * To William, my oldest son, the cup and horns of St. Hugh. * * * To Isabel, my wife, ten marks[9]: to the Church and nuns of Westwood one mark: to the Church and nuns without Worcester one mark: to every Anchorite in Worcester and the parts adjacent four shillings: to the Church of Salewarp, a house and garden, near the parsonage, to find a lamp to burn continually therein to the honor of God, the blessed Virgins St. Katherine, and St. Margaret.”

The will of his son, the Earl of Warwick, is full of the spirit of the age. He died in 1298—“My heart to be buried wheresoever the Countess, my dear consort, may, herself, resolve to be interred: to the place, where I may be buried two great horses, viz., those which shall carry my armor at my funeral, for the solemnizing of which, I bequeath two hundred pounds: to the maintenance of two soldiers in the Holy Land one hundred pounds: to Maud, my wife, all my silver vessels, with the cross, wherein is contained part of the wood of the very cross, on which our Saviour died. * * * To my said wife a cup, which the Bishop of Worcester gave me, and all my other cups, with my lesser sort of jewels and rings, to distribute for the health of my soul, where she may think best: to my two daughters, nuns at Shouldham, fifty marks.”

Elizabeth De Burgh, Lady of Clare, was the daughter of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, by Joan D’Acres, daughter of Edward I. She was thrice married. Her will is a curious affair, and bears date Sept. 25, 1355. She leaves legacies to her “servants” numbering, about one hundred and forty, and among whom are several knights and “peres.”—“My body to be buried in the Sisters Minories, beyond Aldgate. I devise c. c. lb. of wax, to burn round my corpse. I will that my body be not buried for fifteen days after my decease. * * * For masses to be sung for the souls of Monsr. John de Bourg, Monsr. Theobaud de Verdon, and Monsr. Roger Dammory, my lords, my soul, and for the souls of all my good and loyal servants, who have died or may die in my service CXL., li.: To find five men for the Holy Land C. marks, to be spent, in the service of God and destruction of his enemies, if any general voyage be made within seven years after my decease: To my daughter Bardoff my bed of green velvet.”

Elizabeth, Countess of Northampton, wife of William de Bohnn, made her will, in 1356. To the Church of the Friars Preachers, in London, she bequeaths: “C. marks sterling, and also the cross, made of the very wood of our Saviour’s cross which I was wont to carry about me, and wherein is contained one of the thorns of his crown; and I bequeath to the said Church two fair altar cloths of one suit, two of cloth of gold, one chalice, one missal, one graille,[10] and one silver bell; likewise thirty-one ells of linen cloth for making of albes, one pulpitory, one portfory,[11] and a holy water pot of silver.” She also wills, that “one hundred and fifty marks be distributed to several other convents of Friars Preachers, in such manner as Friar David de Stirrington shall think best, for my soul’s health: To the Grey Friars, in London five marks: To the Carmelites five marks: and to the Augustines five marks * * * to Elizabeth my daughter a bed of red worsted embroidered: To my sister, the Countess of Oxford a black horse and a nonche.[12]”

Believers in the doctrine of transubstantation must extend their faith to the very cross; for, to comprehend all the wood, in possession of the faithful, it must have consisted of many cords of substantial timber.