Times without number the most insistent thought of mortal man must be, whether his wife and children will be kindly treated when he is gone. How can a parent endure the thought of such scorn and suffering as a Jane Eyre is forced to undergo? “As I remember, Adam,” says Orlando in the opening of “As You Like It,” “it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but a poor thousand crowns; and, as thou say’st, charged my brother on his blessing to breed me well: and there begins my sadness.” _Hinc illae lacrimae._ There indeed begins the sadness, it may be feared, of many outside fiction and the drama, in spite of prayer or threat.
Elenor Clarke (_Cp._ p. 52), widow of Bartholomew Clarke, of Clapham, whose will was proved in 1594, gave the custody of her son Francis to her brother John Haselrigge, “charging my said brother as he will answer before the Tribunal seat of God to deal honestly and faithfully with him and by him.” But how he fared we do not know. “And I charge you Ed. Lascelles my sole executor before God to be punctual,” says Robert Knox, for twenty years a captive in Ceylon, “in performing all this that I have given, lest the cries of the widow and fatherless come up to heaven against you, and your lot be a curse instead of a blessing” (1711: died 1720).
Bishops and kings of old were next to none in the vigour of their language. Theodred, Bishop of London in Edgar’s reign, is aggressively violent: “And whosoever takes from my testament, may God take him from the Kingdom of Heaven, unless he amend it before his death.” In the same spirit, if with less directness, Henry VI. requires the fulfilment of his will: “And that this my said will in every point before rehearsed may the more effectually be executed ... I ... not only pray and desire, but also exhort in Christ require and charge, all and every of my said feoffees, my executors and surveyor or surveyors, in virtue of the aspersion of Christ’s blessed blood and of His painful passion that they having God and mine intention before their eyes, not letting for dread or favour of any person living of what estate degree or condition that he be, truly faithfully and diligently execute my same will and every part thereof, as they will answer before the blessed and dreadful visage of our Lord Jesu in His most fearful and last doom, when every man shall most strictly be examined and deemed after his demerits. And, furthermore, for the more sure accomplishment of this my said will, I in the most entire and most fervent wise pray my said heirs and successors and every one of them, that they show themselves well willing faithful and tender lovers of my desire in this behalf; and in the bowels of Christ our altogether just and strict judge exhort them to remember the terrible comminations and full fearful imprecations of Holy Scripture against the breakers of the law of God, and the letters of good and holy works.”