go HARVARD LAW REVIEW, even as early as the will of Henry II., A. D. 1182,^ bequests are found " towards the marriage of poor and free women of England wanting aid ccc marks of gold ; towards the marriage of poor and free women of Normandy wanting aid c marks of gold and towards the marriage of poor and free women of the land of my father the Earl of Anjou c marks of gold ; " but gifts for a like object do not become frequent till long after, in the fifteenth century.^ So pro- visions for the relief of poor prisoners are found in the wills of Thomas Duke of Exeter, December 29, 1426; ^ Cardinal Beaufort, January 20, 1446; * William Hante, May 9, 1462;^ Richard Berne, April 20, 1461 ; ® Sir Thomas Bryan, February 7, 1495 5 ^ Sir Wil- liam Fitzwilliam, May 28, 1534; ^ and Sir Thomas Hastings, March 28, 1558 ; ^ while the repair of ways and bridges, besides the vari- ous instances already given in wills,^** is mentioned in the striking and popular poem of the Child of Bristowe,^^ circa 1400, — " Largely he did hem gave, wayes and brugges for to make, — " as an efficient means whereby the pious child ransoms the con- demned soul of his avaricious sire. We need indeed only to contrast the substantial good sense and excellent testamentary dispositions of two of the testators just named. Sir William Fitzwilliam and Lady Alice Wyche, with the wild superstitious terror of the will of Sir Thomas Wyndham, or the elaborate and selfish minuteness of that of Robert Fabyan, already given, to see how considerable an advance had been made in the direction of the statute. ,It is true that Lady Alice's dispo- sitions are said to be " for my soul and other souls as aforesaid ; " but besides bequests to relatives, the principal gifts are to — "poor husbands, ploughmen of the county such as have wives and chil- dren, and poor widows, to poor householders to have every of them a milch cow and xiii s iv d and in marriage of poor maidens of good con- versation in the county and in mending the highways cc £." 1 Nicolas, Test. Vet. i. 2-4. 2 Wills of Sir Thomas Sackville, December i, 1432, ib. 221 ; of Cardinal Heaufort, January 20, 1446, ib. 249; of Lady Alice Wyche, June 16, 1474, ib. 336; of Henry llatche, May 6, 1533, id. ii. 661; of Sir William Fitzwilliam, May 28, 1534, ib. 665; of Richard Fouler, 1473, '^^- i- 344! of Richard, Earl of Salisbury, May 10, 1458, ib. 286. 8 Nicolas, Test. Vet. i i. 207. « Ib. 292. 9 lb. 750.
- Ib. 249.
^ Id. ii. 449. 15 Atite, ' Ib. 300. 8 Ib.665. 11 Hazlitt, Early Pr^p. Poetry, i. 119, vv. 213-14.
