Would you leave a Hogshead in your Will? In 1665 Turnpikes were owned by Trusts (we call them Concessionaires today)

Family trees, we all came from somewhere.  Most of us know of our Parents and Grandparents, but beyond????? them?

Anne, not my Anne (1665 - 1714)

Way back in 1665, My Great Great Great Great Grand Mother Anne understood the spoken word, but not the written word, so she put her trust in her lawyers to do her bidding on legal matters.

This 1665 ancestor of mine knew that an X was her written authority that said she understood that her lawyer had acted on her behalf, and here we are into the tenth year of the BC Liberals being the Government of British Columbia, and we're still signing with an X, and not  trusting their lawyers how they spend our tax dollars.

Our family has one document from 1665, signed with an X by Grandmother Anne, it is her Will:

"In witness whereof I have here unto set my hand and seal this three and twentieth day of February in the eighteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King Charles the Second over England Anno Domini 1665."  Anne _______,X

Interesting isn't it, that way back in 1665, 346 years ago, it was a requirement of lawyers to know that they were in the Eighteenth year of the Sovereign Lord King Charles II.... and now, if Wills were signed in the same fashion, it would be Queen Elizabeth the Second reign  ....let's see, every BC MLA in their landslide victory of 2001 gave themselves the Queens Jubilee Medal in 2002 based on her 50th year of ascension to the throne of England in 1952.... plus nine  years.... makes it 59 years 5 months 26 days as of August 2, 2011.    Let's just call it Sixtieth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second over England Anno Domini 2011.

Charles II was restored as King of England in 1660.

However, as you read further here, there is a partial timeline of English History.   You'll discover that King Charles the Second became King in 1660, which sort of puts a lie to his reign over England as being 18 years... Right?  To explain, and I'm no Historian, but a guy by the name of Cromwell, Oliver Cromwell, came along after the death of Charles the Second's Father (Charles I) and disrupted the normal procedure of King to King.

Maybe that's being a tad too polite.

Charles Father was EXECUTED at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War.

Cromwell then defeats Charles II in battle (He's called Charles II because the Parliaments of Scotland and Ireland voted in favour of Charles as King, but the English Parliament, run by Cromwell, over-ruled those two.)

Charles II flees to France with Cromwell assuming a Dictatorship of England until his death in 1658.  Richard Cromwell steps in as the Dictator of England after his Father's death and within a year "Tumbledown Dick" is gone.

As to the math not being right:

"After 1660, all legal documents were dated as if Charles had succeeded his father as king in 1649."

At this point I'm starting to wonder why Anne took so long to make a Will, or maybe she had to.



My Will's contents are far different than what Anne left, especially where it came to assets in her Will:

Item I give unto my daughter Mary the sum of Three Pounds, one
          Emptio half hogshead and one pair of sheets.

(Emptio meaning to give via a contract eg. a will)
(A Hogshead = 52.5 Imperial gallons of wine, therefore half would be 26.25 Gal)  not bad!

And for the princely sum of Three Pounds that Anne left, one pound could buy:  Click on this next link to find other products that could be purchased:  17th Century Prices in New England
 
Malt, one hogshead          1£

One Pound!!!!!

Item I give unto my grandson John the sum of Three Pounds to be paid out of the money which is due to me from my son-in-law John.
Item I give unto my grandchild Christian the other Three Pounds which is in John hands
Item I give unto my grandson Thomas Twenty Shillings to be paid him out of the Forty Shillings which is in his father's hands.
Item I give unto my grandson John the other Twenty Shillings which is in my son Thomas his hands.

You might be asking here .... isn't Anne planning on clawing back, from her grave, money that was borrowed by her Son and Son-in-Law, but never returned, when she was alive, and needed?   Yes!

///////////////////////////////////////////////

Item I give unto John S   five children which he had to my daughter Susannah Five Shillings each of them one.
Item I give unto my son Thomas the bedstead which is in my fore chamber
          and half a crown in money.

Hmmmmm, I give my son in law John S. five children ........   Gee whiz, I think I know how I would react if I was told by my mother-in-law that she gave me five children.

And the bedstead, just what were people sleeping on if it wasn't a bed or a bedstead?











  A half crown in 1665 is best explained here:

Milled halfcrowns were issued with the portrait of Oliver Cromwell in 1656 and 1658. Those of Charles II started in 1663, and the halfcrown was issued regularly until 1751, during the reign of George II. All in this period have the regal year inscribed on the edge.

Oliver Cromwell Half Crown

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I'd say it's similar to how the BC Liberals have put our children's children into debt (when they promised not to in 2001) with all their billions of dollars of infrastructure programs going on.    Payments will be coming from our pockets to the day we die, and our children's children too, via tolls and shadow taxes.

And now the HST repayment program, YES or NO, written by Finance Minister Kevin Falcon, will take the gouging to the third generation of British Columbians!

If you're wondering as to what else was happening in Jolly Old England in 1665 which might have driven Anne to write a Will......you've seen a bit of it above regarding Charles I through to Charles II:

1661
Robert Boyle publishes his great work The Sceptical Chemist

1662
The Royal Society (a Scientific organization) is given its charter by Charles II Charles II marries a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza
The Act of Uniformity is passed

1663
The first turnpike road is opened. (Turnpike roads were owned by turnpike trusts that maintained them. You had to pay to use them).

1665-1667
Plague in London. This is the last outbreak of bubonic plague in England. The second Anglo-Dutch war

1666
The Great Fire of London. Most of the city is destroyed but it is soon rebuilt. 1667 John Milton publishes Paradise Lost

1670
Hudsons Bay Company is formed

1694
The Bank of England was founded. Which probably means that GrandMother Anne had no way of having a Bank Account to save her money in 1665, therefore she lent the money to her Son, and Son-in-law, knowing that one day it would be "collected" by her Grandchildren from them.

For enthusiasts of the Napoleonic era and much later, the writings of Douglas Reeman/Alexander Kent series on Bolitho:

The Battle of Trafalgar Admiral Lord Nelson at the helm... didn't happen until October 21, 1805