Jerusalem Post

ByMAITAL ROZENBOIM

A 1642 will linked to William Shakespeare’s final home was rediscovered in an unlabelled box at the National Archives by Dr. Dan Gosling, a principal legal records specialist, while he sorted uncatalogued chancery papers, according to The Guardian. “It was an incredible find,” said Gosling. It wasn’t listed, and then was left there for about 150 years or so, Gosling explained.
The document was a will dated August 25, 1642, concerning the succession of New Place, the house owned by Shakespeare. It was made by Thomas Nash, who was married to Shakespeare’s granddaughter and last direct descendant Elizabeth Hall, and it bequeathed New Place to his cousin Edward Nash. He had no right to make that bequest because the house was left by Shakespeare to his daughter and granddaughter, Susanna and Elizabeth Hall. After Thomas Nash’s death in 1647 the Hall ladies refused to honor his will, as they were still residing in New Place and did not plan to leave, according to NOS.
It is possible that Thomas Nash drafted the will assuming he will outlive Susanna and Elizabeth, said Gosling. However, he died young and Elizabeth, who was only 39, outlived him and even remarried. Edward Nash took Elizabeth to court to gain possession of New Place, claiming she should be bound by her late husband’s will, as the executrix. It is unclear what was the full result of the proceedings, but Edward Nash was never the owner of New Place.

Because of the lawsuit, the contested will entered a legal archive where a 19th-century Shakespeare scholar had read it and made comment of it, but at some point when documents were sorted it ended up in an unmarked box, lost for more than a century.

Elizabeth Hall’s will suggested Nash be allowed to purchase New Place “according to my promise formally made to him”, noted Gosling, who said the wording suggested some spoken arrangements regarding Edward Nash’s inheritance. Susanna Hall died in 1649, and after Elizabeth Hall’s death in 1670 without children, New Place passed to the Clopton family, and was later demolished.
Shakespeare bought New Place, a three-storied timber and brick dwelling, for £60 in 1597 and lived there until his death in 1616. The house had ten fireplaces and grounds large enough for two barns and an orchard.
The National Archives said the Shakespeare archive was on the UNESCO World Heritage List and included Shakespeare’s own will and a 1603 royal decree allowing his theater company to perform as the infections for the plague decreased. The rediscovered 1642 will was documented, catalogued, and made available to the public for the first time in more than a century.