The entry for this date in Chamber’s Book of Days, a wonderful 19th-century miscellany, includes a number of remarkable wills. Here is one that takes a pot-shot at non-Catholics from beyond the grave.
True Copy of the Last Will and Testament of Mr. Benjamin Dod, Citizen and Linen Draper, who lately fell from his Horse, and Dy’d soon after.
‘In the Name of God, Amen. I, Benjamin Dod, citizen and mercer of London, being in health of body, and good and perfect memory, do make this my last will and Testament in manner and form following (that is to say): First, my soul I commend to Almighty God that gave it me, and my body to the earth from whence it came. I desire to be interr’d in the parish church of St. John, Hackney, in the county of Middlesex, about eleven o’clock at night, in a decent and frugal manner, as to Mr. Robert Atkins shall seem meet, the management whereof I leave to him. I desire Mr. Brown to preach my funeral sermon; but if he should happen to be absent or dead, then such other persons as Mr. Robert Atkins shall appoint: and to such minister that preaches my funeral sermon I give five guineas.
‘Item: I desire four and twenty persons to be at my burial, out of which Messrs J. Low, &c. naming six persons to be pall bearers: but if any of them be absent or dead, I desire Mr. Robert Atkins to appoint others in their room, to every of which four and twenty persons so to be invited to my funeral, I give a pair of white gloves, a ring of ten shillings’ value, a bottle of wine at my funeral, and half a crown to spent at their return that night, to drink my soul’s health, then on her journey to purification in order to eternal rest. I appoint the room where my corps shall lye, to be hung with black, and four and twenty wax candles to be burning. On my coffin to be affixed a cross, and this inscription –
Jesus Hominum Salvator
I also appoint my corps to be carried in a hearse, drawn with six white horses, with white feathers, and follow’d by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, to carry the four and twenty persons. I desire Mr. John Spicer may make the escutcheons, and appoint an undertaker, who shall be a noted churchman. What relations have a mind to come to my funeral may do it without invitation.
‘Item: I give to forty of my particular acquaintance, not at my funeral, to every of them a gold ring of ten shillings’ value; the said forty persons to be named by Mr. Robert Atkins. As for mourning, I leave that to my executors hereafter named; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I shall leave a legacy.’
After enumerating a number of legacies, &c., the testator concludes thus:
‘I will have no Presbyterians, moderate Low churchmen, or occasional Conformists, to be at, or have anything to do with, my funeral. I die in the faith of the true Catholick Church. I desire to have a Tombstone over me, with a Latin inscription; and a lamp, or six wax candles, to burn seven days and nights together thereon.’