ye! as they were just-living people, and free from all heresy, it may be that they are well nigh out of limbo already, so that a little matter may have them free of the fet locks; and in that case, look ye, ye will say I desire to take out the balance of the gold in curses upon a generation called the Ogilvies of Angusshire in what way soever the Church may best come at them." This is the spirit in which masses were commonly ordered. The testator's main object was to get what he thought money's worth for his money. Thus Sir Thomas Littleton (the author of the " Treatise on Tenures," rendered famous by Coke's com mentary) leaves a sum of money for masses "for the souls of my feeler and moder, and for the soul of William Burley, my fatherin-law; and for the soul of Sir Philip Chaturn, and for all souls that I am most bounden to pray for. " The average cost of masses may be collected from a clause in the will of Joan, Lady Cobham, in 1369: "I will that vii. thousand masses be said for my soul by the Canons of Tunbrugge and Tanfuggc, and the four orders of Friars in London, viz., the Friar Preachers, Minors, Augustines, and Carmelites, who for so doing shall have ¿xxix. iii.s. iv.d." This is rather less than three halfpence per mass. The Fiarl of Salisbury, the son of Henry II. by the fair Rosamond, bequeaths for the building of a monastery (inter alia) "a thousand sheep, three hundred muttons, forty-eight oxen, and fifteen bulls." The Earl of Warwick, in 1369, leaves: "To every church within each of my manors the best beast which should there be found, in satisfaction of my tithes forgotten and not paid; and I desire that my executors make full satisfaction to every man that I have in any sort wronged." The object of bequests to the church, or for pious uses, was not ex
clusively superstitious, for wills were seldom set aside or evaded when the priesthood had a direct interest in upholding them. Prior to the invention of printing, books, or copies of manuscripts made by hand, were very dear and scarce. They are par ticularized as carefully as plate or jewels, and the quality of the reading of the higher orders may be collected from the literary treasures they bequeath. Bequests for the erection of statues and monuments are of frequent occurrence, and the directions are sometimes both curious and minute, as in the 1439: will—of Isabel, Countess of Warwick, in "Also I will that my statue be made all naked, with my hair cast backwards, ac cording to the design and model which Thomas Porchabon has for that purpose, with Mary Magdalen laying her hand across, and St. John the Evangelist on the right side, and St. Anthony on the left; at my feet a scutcheon, impaling my arms with those of the Earl, my husband, supported by two griffins, but on the sides thereof the statues of poor men and women in their poor array with their beads in their hands." • Guichard, Earl of Huntingdon, wills that his heart be taken out of his body and pre served with spices, to be deposited in the Church of Engle. The preservation of the nobler members, especially the heart, was frequently enjoined. Since the Revolution of 1688 the wills of English sovereigns have been practically re garded very nearly in the same light as those of private persons, and by 39 and 40 Geo. 3, c. 88, it was enacted that all such personal estate of His Majesty and his suc cessors respectively as shall not come in the right of the Crown, shall be subject to dis position by last will and testament under the sign manual. — The Law Times.
