{"id":2381,"date":"2025-02-25T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=2381"},"modified":"2025-02-25T07:43:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T07:43:17","slug":"will-of-the-month-an-ex-con-examines-his-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2025\/02\/25\/will-of-the-month-an-ex-con-examines-his-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: an ex-con examines his conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month\u2019s featured testament belongs to John Pooke, a citizen and haberdasher of London who made his will in 1607.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was only once I sat down to read Pooke\u2019s will carefully, from start to finish, that it suddenly unfolded like a little novella before me, complete with knotty little plot twists. Perhaps this enlightenment was triggered by the intensity of focus that transcribing a written text involves. It was certainly inspired by conversations I\u2019ve been having with our new Arts and Culture Creative Fellow <\/a>\u2013 musician, composer, performer and educator Chris Hoban \u2013 about wills. About the fact that each will is like a story, dictated by the testator in a distinctive voice, a voice that can be detected in a will\u2019s terminology, turns of phrase, structural pattern and focus. Once your ear begins to be attuned to the blend of generic and distinctive in a will, the reader (a historian? a creative practitioner?) can draw the story out into the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of this month\u2019s will, when I stripped away the content to a mere list of the bequests, a latent structure was revealed. This process imparted to me a particularly strong sense of this will as an organised narrative, a man bequeathing his possessions in such a manner as to reflect what were to him the most important aspects of his identity and sense of self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the story I heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 1: The Good Citizen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Pooke began by leaving five pounds to the poor people in the parish of St Andrew by the Wardrobe, in whose church he asked to be buried, and five pounds to the poor people in the parish of St Benedict (St Benet) where he then lived. He also left \u00a34 to Christ\u2019s Hospital, an institution for the virtuous education and upbringing of orphaned children, and 20s to the poor prisoners in four of London\u2019s prisons \u2013 Newgate, Ludgate, and the 2 compters (or \u2018counters\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Wenceslaus Hollar, Map of London before the Fire of 1666, c. 1667, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University. Gift of George W. Davison (B.A. Wesleyan 1892). The red square roughly indicates Baynard Castle ward, where John Pooke resided. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

These sorts of charitable bequests to those less fortunate in and around a testator\u2019s home ward are familiar fare in wills of this period. They signify the head of a successful family serving his civic community, participating in a rhetoric of order, loyalty and obligation. This was a wealthy man supporting his fellow Christians in a display of devout good breeding. Bequests of \u00a35 to the stock of the Feltmakers Company of London and of \u2018a piece of plate worth \u00a35\u2019 to the London Haberdashers Company \u2018to remayne in theire hall for ever\u2019 functioned in similar ways, physical legacies alluding to a lifetime of contribution to these professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 2: The Trusty Kinsmen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along similar lines, Pooke next included a cluster of bequests to a male friend, female cousin, brother, sister and to two brothers-in-law. These were a mix of money and forgiveness of debts owed to Pooke. What did these gifts, to people who were probably of Pooke\u2019s own generation, mean to him? It\u2019s an extension of his good citizenship, but more too. It could be the recognition of a life travelled alongside others who perhaps weren\u2019t as blessed with good providence, a redistribution of Pooke\u2019s excellent fortune after Pooke himself no longer needs it. The vagaries of fortune do seem to be much in Pooke\u2019s mind \u2013 the will repeats the phrase \u2018if it should fortune<\/em> [a person] \u2026 to dye\u2019 \u2013 and in this same section Pooke also shared some of the benefits of his property ownership by forgiving his tenants in Southwark one quarters rent each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 3: Capital and Conscience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The will then comes to its weightiest part, with a long, complicated description of a debt associated with a Dorset property that Pooke had part owned alongside Bryan Langford, a now deceased feltmaker. In life, Pooke owed Langford about \u00a375, a sum of money that Langford bequeathed to his daughters in his will. However, soon after Langford died someone disputed Pooke\u2019s claim to the income from the property in the court of Chancery. Pooke was unhappy with the court\u2019s decree, which left him out of pocket and unable to recompense Langford\u2019s daughters as the will required. In fact, Pooke\u2019s will states that he felt so \u2018misused\u2019 by the court\u2019s decision that he disobeyed it, whereupon he was promptly thrown in the Fleet prison for contempt of court.<\/p>\n\n\n

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How Pooke may have looked when imprisoned in the Fleet. Woodcut from the ballad The Confession and Repentance of George Sanders, 1658-1664, from English Broadside Ballad Archive, ESTC R183246. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While this sorry tale might seem like a surprising inclusion in a will, Pooke\u2019s lengthy explanation was there to explicitly justify the bequest that follows: 200 marks to Joyce Langford, Bryan Langford\u2019s only surviving daughter. Pooke evidently felt that this was his means of finally paying his debt to Langford, for he explained that this very large bequest was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“in dischardge of my conscience in this behalfe and in performance
of the truste in me reposed by the sayed Bryan Langford And for the love and
good will which I had and did beare unto the same Bryan and unto Johane then
his wife and synce the wife of me the saied John Pooke who ys nowe also deceased”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here was the crux of things then \u2013 after Langford had died, John Pooke had married his business partner\u2019s widow Johane, in the process making Joyce Langford Pooke\u2019s stepdaughter, and further increasing his ties and obligations towards her. The language of the will here is deeply redolent \u2013 the mention of a troubled conscience, Pooke\u2019s need to \u2018perform\u2019 the trust that bonded these two men, the memorialisation of the love and goodwill that Pooke had borne to Bryan and Johane, now both dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sorry tale also inadvertently sheds a new light on Pooke\u2019s initial gifts to the four London prisons. Pooke did not leave money to the Fleet, the institution where he had experienced imprisonment, but Newgate, Ludgate and the two compters were all principal goals for civil debtors. These bequests are now revealed to be more personal, since they were directed to Pooke\u2019s fellow suffering debtors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter 4: The Loving Father<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the dramatic heart of Pooke\u2019s will, he ended with much more straightforward bequests to his close family, making generous provisions for his children and grandchildren. He gave his son Richard a mourning gown, and Richard\u2019s wife, mother-in-law and father-in-law received money \u2018to make each of them a ring\u2019. Once Pooke was dead, those in possession of these memorial items were enclosed in a little mourning community. Perhaps Joyce Langford was included in this fellowship of the rings, since she also received one: \u2018a turning Ringe of goulde with a Deathes hed\u2019. This was a very specific item of jewellery that may well have been worn by John Pooke in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A gold ring with flat hexagonal bezel containing an oval plate on a swivel mechanism, Joyce Langford’s ring was perhaps similar to this: on one side is a skull; on the other a merchant’s mark and monogram, 16th<\/sup>-century. British Museum, number 1871,0302.5.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mirroring this bequest Pooke also left a personal and very striking jewel to his son Richard \u2013 a \u2018Rynge of gould set with a Toadstone\u2019. According to tradition, this was a stone found in the head of a toad that was a remedy against many afflictions, from tumours to bewitchment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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An example of a toadstone ring: silver, with circular bezel set with a \u2018toadstone\u2019. Decorated with chased floral scrolls on a ground of niello. The rim of the setting is gold. British Museum, number 1858,0628.1.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Finally, Pooke turned his attention to his chief beneficiary, his son Abraham. He left substantial sums of money to Abraham\u2019s son and two daughters, and his dwelling house and the rest and residue of his estate went to Abraham himself, who was also made executor of the will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterword \/ Afterlives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are wills plebian works of philosophy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask because although wills are a practical legal device for the settling of earthly affairs, the process of making a will inevitably requires the testator to reflect on what they have done with their life and to face the hard cold reality of their ever-approaching death. Pooke\u2019s will lays this bare \u2013 it is constructed in such a way as to very strongly give a sense of him taking stock \u2013 of his worth, of his contribution to his community, his occupation, his kinfolk. He uses it to salve his conscience, and to try to shape people\u2019s behaviour after he is gone. The matter of what you leave behind when you depart this mortal coil, the things, the places, the people, take on a profound importance in the writing of will, and here we see them called into action as a means to shape and make sense of a life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps that is why Pooke ends with one final bequest to Mother Sibill, who received \u2018twelve pence a weeke during her life after suche tyme as she shall come to be past laboure\u2019. We don\u2019t know who Mother Sibill was, and what her relationship with John Pooke may have been, but given her bequest is grouped with his close family she may have been a servant in Pooke\u2019s household. Whoever she was, Pooke\u2019s careful provision for her future old age is in keeping with a will presenting a respectable citizen who heartily desired the advancement and welfare of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the story his will tells, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n