‘But by the Eyes of His Trustees’: the Emotions and Post-Mortem Strategies of Will-Writing in Restoration London, 1660–1700’

Abstract

Wills made in the English probate system during the seventeenth century were emotion-filled documents that allowed their testators to continue to speak and influence the living after their deaths. Read aloud during the probate process, their terms carried out by representatives appointed in an emotionally reciprocal exchange, and made available for public consumption in records offices after the death of the will-maker, wills allowed the words used and their self-fashioning to linger in minds and memories. Beyond words, early modern testators left bequests of personal items, charitable gifts, and material goods, all grounded in emotional meaning. This article examines a sample of seventeenth-century wills written by Londoners during the restoration of the English monarchy (1660–1700). Through linguistic and socio-cultural analysis, it finds that early modern Londoners intentionally utilised their wills to express expectations of their surviving kin which were grounded in emotional terms, and to maintain post-mortem relationships with their living executors from their positions in death in order to ensure their ongoing influence.