"A 1642 will that bequeathed William Shakespeare's home to someone entirely unrelated to him that caused much courtroom drama has been rediscovered in the U.K.'s National Archives. Legal records specialist Dan Gosling found the will in a box of unlabeled chancery court documents dating from the 17th century and earlier. It was first described by a Shakespeare scholar in the mid-19th century. He had discovered it in the Rolls Chapel, the repository of the Court of Chancery's document records from 1484 until 1856."
"Known as New Place, Shakespeare had bought it in 1597 for the hefty sum of 60. It was three stories high with timber and brick construction and had 20 rooms, 10 fireplaces, a courtyard and a sizeable property that contained two bards and an orchard. It was the second largest private home in Stratford at the time and obviously a very desirable piece of real estate."
"After he died in 1616, he left the bulk of his possessions, including his extensive properties, to Susanna, entailed to her sons upon her death, and in the case there were no sons, to her daughter Elizabeth and her male heirs. For reasons unknown, perhaps because Nash assumed erroneously that he would outlive his wife and his mother-in-law and somehow handwaved away the whole question of Shakespeare's complex entailment measures, he left the home to his cousin Edward Nash."
A 1642 will naming an unrelated cousin as heir to William Shakespeare's Stratford home New Place has been rediscovered among unlabeled Chancery documents in the U.K. National Archives. Legal records specialist Dan Gosling located the will in a box of unlabeled documents; the will had been first noted by a 19th-century Shakespeare scholar in the Rolls Chapel. New Place had been purchased by Shakespeare in 1597 and was a large, valuable property. Shakespeare's 1616 estate left New Place to his daughter Susanna with entail to her sons, and failing sons to daughter Elizabeth and her male heirs; Thomas Nash's 1642 bequest to his cousin Edward Nash contradicted those entails.
Read at www.thehistoryblog.com
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