A 1642 will that bequeathed William Shakespeare’s house to somebody fully unrelated to him that induced a lot courtroom drama has been rediscovered within the U.Okay.’s Nationwide Archives. Authorized information specialist Dan Gosling discovered the desire in a field of unlabeled chancery court docket paperwork relationship from the seventeenth century and earlier. It was first described by a Shakespeare scholar within the mid-Nineteenth century. He had found it within the Rolls Chapel, the repository of the Court docket of Chancery’s doc information from 1484 till 1856 when the rolls had been moved to the brand new Public File Workplace constructing. We now know that the unique will was absorbed into the Nationwide Archives with out being catalogued.
The desire was made by Thomas Nash, husband of Shakespeare’s granddaughter Elizabeth, who lived along with her and her mom, Shakespeare’s eldest daughter from his first spouse, Susanna Corridor, within the playwright’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon. Often known as New Place, Shakespeare had purchased it in 1597 for the hefty sum of £60. It was three tales excessive with timber and brick development and had 20 rooms, 10 fireplaces, a courtyard and a sizeable property that contained two bards and an orchard. It was the second largest non-public house in Stratford on the time and clearly a really fascinating piece of actual property. After he died in 1616, he left the majority of his possessions, together with his in depth properties, to Susanna, entailed to her sons upon her demise, and within the case there have been no sons, to her daughter Elizabeth and her male heirs.
For causes unknown, maybe as a result of Nash assumed erroneously that he would outlive his spouse and his mother-in-law and by some means handwaved away the entire query of Shakespeare’s complicated entailment measures, he left the house to his cousin Edward Nash. Even when Thomas Nash didn’t know that New Place was entailed, it was rashly optimistic, to say the least, to suppose that he would outlive his spouse and mother-in-law as he was 59 when he wrote the desire and so was Susanna. Elizabeth was 34.
When Thomas Nash died in 1647, authorized confusion ensued. Elizabeth and Susanna needed to receive a deed of settlement to show that they nonetheless owned the home they actually lived in together with all the opposite properties that Shakespeare had willed to his daughter. Edward Nash took umbrage and being disadvantaged of a home that had been willed to him by somebody who by no means owned it, and sued Elizabeth within the Court docket of Chancery.
“He argues the desire of Thomas Nash was proved within the property court docket of Canterbury, and Elizabeth Nash, because the widow and executrix, was obligation sure to abide by the phrases of the desire and provides New Place to Edward Nash,” [says Dan Gosling.]
Elizabeth appeared on the chancery court docket to clarify the lands and property had been granted to her and her mom by “my grandfather William Shakespeare”. As a part of proceedings she was requested to supply Thomas’s will, which is how the doc ultimately ended up within the chancery archives, now held by the Nationwide Archives.
The upshot of the proceedings just isn’t clear, however, Gosling stated, it seems Edward by no means bought to personal the property. When Elizabeth died in 1670, having had no youngsters and ending Shakespeare’s direct line of descendants, her will stipulated Edward Nash would have the correct to accumulate New Place.
“She makes use of the phrases ‘based on my promise formally made to him’, which suggests some spoken procedures had been made,” stated Gosling. Within the occasion, there is no such thing as a recorded point out of Edward as proprietor of New Place, which went to the rich landowning Clopton household after Elizabeth’s demise and was demolished in 1702.
