Women's Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603 by Susan E. James

Author:Susan E. James [James, Susan E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, 17th Century, Social Science, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781134780945
Google: 6HK1CwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-09T16:13:20+00:00

Fig. 4.2 Elizabeth Brooke, Lady Cecil(?) (British School, c.1590–96), Hatfield House, Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Source: Courtesy of the Marquess of Salisbury.

Such complicated patterns of responsibility were emulated by non-elite women who controlled smaller holdings. Mawde Wodington of Bristol, daughter of William Wodington, came from a mercantile family and married as her first husband, John Hutton, a mercer and burgess of the town with a house in Old Corn Street.54 Together they had three sons, of whom only one, John Hutton, Jr., outlived his mother. Hutton, Sr., died in 1485 leaving the family home to Mawde for her lifetime and his estate to his three sons.55 Upon his death, Mawde remarried a grocer named Thomas Baker and produced six daughters and one son in seven years. In Baker’s will dated 1492, he left 100 marks to each of his children, 100s each to his two surviving stepsons and ordered Mawde to guarantee a bond with the city for the payment of those bequests.56 Now probably in her mid-thirties, Mawde was left with nine children, all underage, and the management of their comparatively modest inheritances. Using her widow’s portion from each of her husbands, combined with her control over the estates of her underage children, Mawde grew the grocery business into an extremely prosperous enterprise, taking on apprentices and running it on her own for another 11 years. During that time, she acquired subsidiary properties, purchased wardships to acquire suitable husbands for her daughters, and greatly expanded her commercial network of clients as evidenced by the number of debts that many of them still owed her recorded in her will.

At her death, Mawde owned, among other properties, houses in Small Street and High Street, the latter residence where she lived and conducted her business. Mawde had betrothed her eldest daughter, Alice Baker, while still a child, to the son of her brother Thomas Wodington, paying out Alice’s inheritance to her brother, one of several indications that Mawde went to considerable lengths to use her children’s inheritance and her own profits to secure the futures of the Wodington family. In her 1503 will, Mawde dedicated numerous legacies to her own family, her brothers and sisters, their spouses and children. The High Street house with all of ‘his owne stok goodes and cattals’ she bequeathed to the underage son of her second marriage, Thomas Baker, Jr., leaving his guardianship and apprenticeship in the grocer’s trade in the hands of her son-in-law.57 For her surviving son from her first marriage, John Hutton, Jr., Mawde set up an enfeoffment of 12 men to control the income and property of a house and lands in Small Street then being rented out by a merchant.58 A portion of the money was to pay for an annual obit for Mawde on the anniversary of her death and the remainder to go to the upkeep of the house with any surplus to be banked in All Hallows Church. Title to the property was ultimately to revert to young Hutton with reversion to his half-brother, Thomas Baker.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.