Reference
WE1217
Title
Will of John Bryan of Ampthill, gentleman [copy].
Date free text
4 Aug 1655
Production date
From: 1655 To: 1655
Scope and Content
“I commend my soul into the hands of its Creator.... my body I commit to the earth”
To wife Hester, executrix; and to overseers of Will, Matthew Denton of Houghton Conquest gentleman, Anthony Carpenter of Newport Pagnell gentleman, Gilbert Staughton of Marston Moretaine gentleman, Richard Read of Clophill.
... A messuage and close in Ampthill with cottage adjoining, to be sold;
... £300 Mortgage from William Wells of Simpson;
... £100 due on Mortgage from Edmund Wingate and Button Wingate of Ampthill esquire.
With this £700 trustees are to buy so much enclosed pasture as will let for £35 per annum; which they are to let in their own names and those of 6 other feoffees.
Proceeds to be applied as follows:
£5 to churchwardens and overseers of Whittlebury, Northamptonshire (birthplace), of which £4..10s is to buy 4 gowns bearing letters J B on sleeve and 4 pairs of shoes for widows of good and honest conversation for Christmas Day; and 10s for the poor at Christmas.
£5 to North Crawley (wife’s birthplace); £4..10s to Ampthill; £5 to Clophill; £7 to Maulden (50s to buy bread on Sundays); 50s for bread for the poor of Marston; the like to those of Houghton Conquest; 10s for anniversary sermon in parish of burial [Ampthill] [19 October 1655]. Remaining £3 either for taxes or for encouragement of tenant.
The feoffees are to appoint one Treasurer; and when they diminish to four, the number to be made up to 10.
To poor of all the above £1 at death; and 50s to poor of Stony Stratford and of Parsenham with Dunshanger.
During wife’s lifetime only half these legacies are payable.
To brother Ezekiel Bryan in Kent, who has a great estate, a gold angel for a token of love, also best suit and cloak; a gold angel to kinswoman Elizabeth Emerton; to her brother Thomas £20 if he live to be 21.
To children of Joseph Emerton £5.
To nephew and nieces of wife (children of John, Josias and Daniel Mobly) sums of money; also to wife’s brothers and sister-in-law Mary (payable on wife’s death).
Other sums to John Shawe, son of John Shawe [wife’s great nephew?]; Winefred Chappell of London; 5 children of John Chewe (named); Elizabeth and Alice (daughters of William Wilson of Clophill); and remaining godchildren, not named.
To William Wilson 2nd best suit, and to his daughters Elizabeth and Ann £20 each.
To Ethel and Judith, daughters of Matthew Denton £50 each.
To 6 daughters of Richard Jones of Lidlington £10 each.
Residue to wife.
Witnesses: John Franklin, Thomas Nashe, Richard Fowkes, Christopher Whitamore
Level of description
item