LXVII. SHAKESPEARE’S WILL (1616).
(Preserved in Somerset House, London.)
Vicesimo quinto die Martii anno regni domini nostri Jacobi nunc Regis Anglie &c. decimo quarto & Scotie xlixo Annoque Domini 1616.[1]
T. Wmi. Shackspeare.[2]
In the name of God, Amen. I, William Shackspeare of Stratford-upon-Avon in the county of Warwick, gent., in perfect health and memory, God be praised, do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following. That is to say: First I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour to be made partaker of life everlasting; and my body to the earth whereof it is made.
Item, I give and bequeath unto my daughter Judith one hundred and fifty pounds of lawful English money to be paid unto her in manner and form following, that is to say: one hundred pounds [in discharge of her marriage portion][3] within one year after my decease with consideration after the rate of two shillings in the pound for so long time as the same shall be unpaid unto her after my decease, and the fifty pounds’ residue thereof upon her surrendering [of] or giving of such sufficient security as the overseers of this my will shall like of to surrender or grant all her estate and right that shall descend or come unto her after my
- ↑ ‘On the 25th day of March in the year of the reign of our lord James, now King of England, etc., the fourteenth, and of Scotland the forty ninth, and in the year of our Lord, 1616.’ The month was originally given as Januarij, for which March was later substituted.
- ↑ ‘T[estamentum] of William Shackspeare.’
- ↑ The bracketed words, here and later, are written in above the lines.
