Reference
J153
Title
Will of Oliver St John, Earl of Bolingbroke (copy), with probate.
Date free text
12 January 1669, codicil 16 May 1679, probate 11 August 1688
Production date
From: 1669 To: 1688
Scope and Content
-- lands mortgaged to Lady Hewitt, Mrs Eleanor Smith, Peter Barrick and others to be liable to payment of mortgage money, his personal estate not to be liable.
-- to wife Frances, Countess of Bolingbroke, jewels, plate and household goods. She is to pay servants’ wages and his debts (except mortgages) from his personal estate, and is to have £2000 for this. She is made executrix.
-- all manors, estates and mortgages to executrix for 41 years on condition that two-thirds of rents and profits go towards redemption of mortgages, and one-third to use of executrix. She has power to reassign mortgages if necessary.
-- to servant Bellett £40.
-- to Judith Parker £10 and right to continue to rent her cottage for £30 per annum.
-- her dowery of £2000, and residue of estate to wife.
-- to wife for her life:
(i) manor of Shelton and Dean, lands purchased there;
(ii) reversion of Warden after his mother’s death;
(iii) his right and interest in Ludgate Hill estate belonging to his brothers Frank and Powlett.
-- to male issue, and in default to brother Powlett and his male heirs, in default to uncle Anthony . . . . manor of Melchbourne and lands purchased of cousin Richard Elmes at Riseley.
-- to uncle Anthony: impropriation of Thurleigh.
-- to wife: estate in the Fens.
Codicil: Revoking bequests to wife and uncle Anthony, now dead.
-- £2000, impropriation of Thurleigh and house at Ludgate, to Sir St. Andrew St. John after his marriage.
-- his wife’s dowery of £2000, lent to the Duke of Newcastle: £1000 to the Duke for a Remembrance; £1000, and another £1000 to be raised out of his personal estate: to three persons nominated by the Common Council of Bedford to be employed ‘for making the River Ouse navigable up there that and so as none may pay but the C Charges of the Locks’.
Brother Powlett St John and Sir Andrew St John joint executors.
Level of description
item