Maybe. We would still need to see what his writing is like. It's also possible that those letters are his handwriting (with either or both R's dictating)
Gerald R. McMenamin on Donald Foster pg 84-88
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Maybe. We would still need to see what his writing is like. It's also possible that those letters are his handwriting (with either or both R's dictating)
Actually, he was still 9. He was 2 weeks away from his 10th birthday. So even less likely to have been the author of the note or the staging.
i bet if you slowly spell the letters outloud to a 9 y/o they could write it out.
Sophie
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I guess a problem with psycho-linguistics is that psychiatry is nowhere near as advanced other fields of medicine and when it comes to pyschology, looking for a consensus is like looking for an atom with a pair of reading specs. Against this backdrop, it'll be incredibly difficult to get it legally accepted.
Gerald himself seems confident the best way to do this is to use quantifiable variables like # words in sentence, average length of sentence, types of words use, frequency of words use, frequency of phrases use, spelling of words, etc., total of 18-20, translate to numbers and then do statistical analysis.
Sophie
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This certainly makes it more scientific but, then, aren't you trying to reduce the human mind to a set of equations?
I mean, there was a piece of software which claimed it could identify certain things about any author, especially gender. The latter was based (if memory serves) on females using more adjectives and dialogue while men used more verbs and nouns. We ran this test on an unrelated website, asking the guys to write a friendly letter to a mate then a factual work piece and the women to do likewise. With the informal chatty letter, the test worked quite well although not perfectly. With the work piece, it was spectacularly wrong - identifying most of us as male.
The tests also aren't that sensitive to people who are actively trying to disguise themselves or who are accustomed to adapting (eg. the bright, socially mobile person who may have gone through several changes in language and circumstances).
Having said all of that, I thought 'A Mother Gone Bad' was fascinating although it actually used a lot of evidence that was extrinisic to the RN.
Ironically, re gender computer test, I used a similar argument against those RDI who argue that the RN has a motherly tone to it. Not your everyday mother talks about the killing won't be difficult.
If hypothetically speaking half the passage in RN was JR and the other half PR, shouldn't the gender test show even 50%?
I am curious as to what other expert forensic linguists have to say on this, and on McM methodology.
The problem I have though w/Foster and other interpretative methods is that if you have any suspicion as to who the suspect is, you can then marshal evidence in the writing in favor of your conclusion, and ignore or explain away evidence on the contrary.
for whatever it's worth here's a wiki article
-- the way McM describes his methodology on the JB letter (it was my first post! did anyone read it??) is similar to what is described for Derek Bentley
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_linguistics[/ame]
Forensic linguistics is a field of applied linguistics involving the relationship between language, the law, and crime.
Linguistic evidence in legal proceedings
Linguists have provided evidence in:
* trademark and other intellectual property disputes
* disputes of meaning and use
* identification of the author of anonymous texts (such as threat letters, mobile phone texts, emails)
* identifying cases of plagiarism
* tracing the linguistic history of asylum seekers
* reconstructing mobile phone text conversations
and a number of other areas. Some areas are more controversial than others. The identification of whether a given individual said or wrote something relies on analysis of their idiolect or particular patterns of language use (vocabulary, collocations, pronunciation, spelling, grammar, etc). The idiolect is a theoretical construct based on the idea that there is linguistic variation at the group level and hence there may also be linguistic variation at the individual level. As the well-respected variationist William Labov pointed out thirty years ago, nobody has yet found "homogenous data" in idiolects.[1] There are many reasons why it is difficult to provide such evidence. Firstly, language is not an inherited property, but one which is socially acquired. The acquisition process is continuous throughout life. This means that an individual's use of language is always susceptible to variation from a variety of sources, including other speakers, the media and macro-social changes. Education can have a profoundly homogenizing effect on language use.[2] In formal texts, such as newspaper articles, novels, academic papers, etc., the effect of the genre on the structure of language can be one of homogenising or, indeed, one of confounding, given that a genre is a "socially constructed...typified response to recurrent rhetorical situations".[3] Research is ongoing into authorship identification. The term authorship attribution is now felt to be too deterministic.[4] Specialist databases (corpora) of language are now frequently being used by forensic linguists, including corpora of suicide notes, mobile phone texts, police statements, police interview records and witness statements.
[edit] Examples
Forensic linguists have given expert evidence in a wide variety of cases, including abuse of process, where police statements were found to be too similar to have been independently produced by police officers; the authorship of hate mail; the authorship of letters to an Internet child *advertiser censored* service; the contemporaneity of an arsonist's diary; the comparison between a set of mobile phone texts and a suspect's police interview, and the reconstruction of a mobile phone text conversation. Forensic linguist John Olsson gave evidence in a murder trial on the meaning of 'jooking' in connection with a stabbing, Trial of Rehan Asghar, Central Criminal Court, London, January 2008. Earlier cases included an appeal against the conviction of Derek Bentley and the identification of Theodore Kaczynski as the so-called "Unabomber". During the appeal against the conviction of the Bridgewater Four, the forensic linguist examined the written confession of Patrick Molloy, one of the defendants a confession which he had retracted immediately and a written record of an interview which the police claimed had taken place immediately before the confession was dictated. Molloy denied that the interview had ever taken place, and the analysis indicated that the answers in the interview were not consistent with the questions being asked. The linguist came to the conclusion that the interview had been fabricated by police. Later the conviction against the Bridgewater Four was quashed before the linguist in the case Malcolm Coulthard could produce his evidence. Additionally, in an Australian case reported by Eagleson, a "farewell letter" had apparently been written by a woman prior to her disappearance. The letter was compared with a sample of her previous writing and that of her husband. Eagleson came to the conclusion that the letter had been written by the husband of the missing woman, who subsequently confessed to having written it and to having killed his wife. The features analysed included sentence breaks, marked themes, and deletion of prepositions.[5]
[edit] Derek Bentley
Forensic linguistics contributed to the overturning of Derek Bentley's conviction for murder in 1998 although there were other, non-linguistic issues. Nineteen-year-old Bentley was hanged in 1953 for his part in the murder of PC Sidney Miles; the fatal shot had been fired by Bentley's sixteen-year-old friend, Christopher Craig, when Bentley was already in police custody. Bentley, who had a mental age of eleven and was functionally illiterate, was convicted partly on the basis of his statement to police, allegedly transcribed verbatim from a spoken monologue. Linguist Malcolm Coulthard examined the text when the case was reopened, and found a number of features which indicated police co-authorship, and which suggested that at least part of the statement resulted from questions and answers, as Bentley claimed, and was not, as police claimed, a "verbatim record of dictated monologue".[6] One such feature was the use of the word "then", which Coulthard and his colleague David Woolls found to be the eighth most frequently-occurring word in Bentley's text, as compared with the 58th most frequent word in spoken English, and the 83rd most frequent word in English in general (according to the 1.5-million-word Bank of English corpus they were using). Feeling that the use of that word could be expected to be higher than average in witness statements (which generally report a sequence of events and show concern for accuracy about time), Two corpora were compiled, one of witness statements and one of police statements. The word "then" occurred once every 930 words in the former but once every 78 words in the latter, compared with the Bank of English corpus where it occurred once every 500 words, and Bentley's text where it occurred once every 53 words. The focus then turned to the use of the word "then". The frequent post-positioning of temporal (time-related) "then" after the grammatical subject ("I then" rather than "then I"), which occurred seven times in the 582-word text, was also noted. The Bank of English spoken corpus showed "then I" to occur ten times more frequently than "I then", the latter occurring only once every 165,000 words. That structure did not occur at all in the corpus of witness statements, but occurred once every 119 words in the corpus of police statements. These features, combined with many others, contributed to a successful argument that the Bentley "confession" was, in part, the written work of police officers, and not simply a word-for-word transcript of Bentley's spoken statement as the police alleged.
[edit] The "Unabomber"
In the case of Theodore Kaczynski, who was eventually convicted of being the "Unabomber", family members recognized his writing style from the published 35,000-word Industrial Society and Its Future (commonly called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), and notified the authorities. FBI agents searching Kaczynski's hut found hundreds of documents written by Kaczynski, but not published anywhere. An analysis produced by FBI Supervisory Special Agent James R. Fitzgerald identified numerous lexical items and phrases common to the two documents. Some were more distinctive than others, but the prosecution (assisted by Vassar Professor of English Donald Foster) successfully argued that even the more common words and phrases being used by Kaczynski became distinctive when used in combination with each other.[7]
[edit] Julie Turner
Julie Turner, a 40 year old woman living in Yorkshire, went missing one summer evening in 2005. Relatives became concerned when she did not return after an appointment with a male friend. She was reported missing on 8 June 2005 and the following afternoon her partner received this mobile phone text: "Stopping at jills, back later need to sort my head out". Two days after Julie went missing another text was received: "Tell kids not to worry. sorting my life out. (sic) be in touch to get some things". Her partner thought it odd that she had not contacted the children. Police interviewed Howard Simmerson, a male friend, at his place of work on 10 June 2005. He denied any knowledge of her whereabouts. After analysis of many hours of close circuit television footage police observed Simmerson driving a four-wheel drive vehicle with a barrel secured to the rear of the vehicle. Similar references in letters Simmerson had written to the language of the mobile phone texts were found, as well as several unusual orthographic and punctuation features. Olsson suggested to police that this evidence indicated a possibility of Simmerson being aware of the contents of the text messages. On being confronted with this intelligence Simmerson admitted that Julie had been in his vehicle, but claimed that she had opened his glove compartment and found a weapon in there with which she had accidentally shot herself. Her body was in the barrel that had been on the back of his four-wheel drive vehicle. Police eventually found the barrel and recovered the body. Simmerson was found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court on 8 November, 2005, of Ms Turner's murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by Mr Justice Pitcher.
-- the way McM describes his methodology on the JB letter (it was my first post! did anyone read it??) is similar to what is described for Derek Bentley
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_linguistics[/ame]
Forensic linguistics is a field of applied linguistics involving the relationship between language, the law, and crime.
Linguistic evidence in legal proceedings
Linguists have provided evidence in:
* trademark and other intellectual property disputes
* disputes of meaning and use
* identification of the author of anonymous texts (such as threat letters, mobile phone texts, emails)
* identifying cases of plagiarism
* tracing the linguistic history of asylum seekers
* reconstructing mobile phone text conversations
and a number of other areas. Some areas are more controversial than others. The identification of whether a given individual said or wrote something relies on analysis of their idiolect or particular patterns of language use (vocabulary, collocations, pronunciation, spelling, grammar, etc). The idiolect is a theoretical construct based on the idea that there is linguistic variation at the group level and hence there may also be linguistic variation at the individual level. As the well-respected variationist William Labov pointed out thirty years ago, nobody has yet found "homogenous data" in idiolects.[1] There are many reasons why it is difficult to provide such evidence. Firstly, language is not an inherited property, but one which is socially acquired. The acquisition process is continuous throughout life. This means that an individual's use of language is always susceptible to variation from a variety of sources, including other speakers, the media and macro-social changes. Education can have a profoundly homogenizing effect on language use.[2] In formal texts, such as newspaper articles, novels, academic papers, etc., the effect of the genre on the structure of language can be one of homogenising or, indeed, one of confounding, given that a genre is a "socially constructed...typified response to recurrent rhetorical situations".[3] Research is ongoing into authorship identification. The term authorship attribution is now felt to be too deterministic.[4] Specialist databases (corpora) of language are now frequently being used by forensic linguists, including corpora of suicide notes, mobile phone texts, police statements, police interview records and witness statements.
[edit] Examples
Forensic linguists have given expert evidence in a wide variety of cases, including abuse of process, where police statements were found to be too similar to have been independently produced by police officers; the authorship of hate mail; the authorship of letters to an Internet child *advertiser censored* service; the contemporaneity of an arsonist's diary; the comparison between a set of mobile phone texts and a suspect's police interview, and the reconstruction of a mobile phone text conversation. Forensic linguist John Olsson gave evidence in a murder trial on the meaning of 'jooking' in connection with a stabbing, Trial of Rehan Asghar, Central Criminal Court, London, January 2008. Earlier cases included an appeal against the conviction of Derek Bentley and the identification of Theodore Kaczynski as the so-called "Unabomber". During the appeal against the conviction of the Bridgewater Four, the forensic linguist examined the written confession of Patrick Molloy, one of the defendants a confession which he had retracted immediately and a written record of an interview which the police claimed had taken place immediately before the confession was dictated. Molloy denied that the interview had ever taken place, and the analysis indicated that the answers in the interview were not consistent with the questions being asked. The linguist came to the conclusion that the interview had been fabricated by police. Later the conviction against the Bridgewater Four was quashed before the linguist in the case Malcolm Coulthard could produce his evidence. Additionally, in an Australian case reported by Eagleson, a "farewell letter" had apparently been written by a woman prior to her disappearance. The letter was compared with a sample of her previous writing and that of her husband. Eagleson came to the conclusion that the letter had been written by the husband of the missing woman, who subsequently confessed to having written it and to having killed his wife. The features analysed included sentence breaks, marked themes, and deletion of prepositions.[5]
[edit] Derek Bentley
Forensic linguistics contributed to the overturning of Derek Bentley's conviction for murder in 1998 although there were other, non-linguistic issues. Nineteen-year-old Bentley was hanged in 1953 for his part in the murder of PC Sidney Miles; the fatal shot had been fired by Bentley's sixteen-year-old friend, Christopher Craig, when Bentley was already in police custody. Bentley, who had a mental age of eleven and was functionally illiterate, was convicted partly on the basis of his statement to police, allegedly transcribed verbatim from a spoken monologue. Linguist Malcolm Coulthard examined the text when the case was reopened, and found a number of features which indicated police co-authorship, and which suggested that at least part of the statement resulted from questions and answers, as Bentley claimed, and was not, as police claimed, a "verbatim record of dictated monologue".[6] One such feature was the use of the word "then", which Coulthard and his colleague David Woolls found to be the eighth most frequently-occurring word in Bentley's text, as compared with the 58th most frequent word in spoken English, and the 83rd most frequent word in English in general (according to the 1.5-million-word Bank of English corpus they were using). Feeling that the use of that word could be expected to be higher than average in witness statements (which generally report a sequence of events and show concern for accuracy about time), Two corpora were compiled, one of witness statements and one of police statements. The word "then" occurred once every 930 words in the former but once every 78 words in the latter, compared with the Bank of English corpus where it occurred once every 500 words, and Bentley's text where it occurred once every 53 words. The focus then turned to the use of the word "then". The frequent post-positioning of temporal (time-related) "then" after the grammatical subject ("I then" rather than "then I"), which occurred seven times in the 582-word text, was also noted. The Bank of English spoken corpus showed "then I" to occur ten times more frequently than "I then", the latter occurring only once every 165,000 words. That structure did not occur at all in the corpus of witness statements, but occurred once every 119 words in the corpus of police statements. These features, combined with many others, contributed to a successful argument that the Bentley "confession" was, in part, the written work of police officers, and not simply a word-for-word transcript of Bentley's spoken statement as the police alleged.
[edit] The "Unabomber"
In the case of Theodore Kaczynski, who was eventually convicted of being the "Unabomber", family members recognized his writing style from the published 35,000-word Industrial Society and Its Future (commonly called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), and notified the authorities. FBI agents searching Kaczynski's hut found hundreds of documents written by Kaczynski, but not published anywhere. An analysis produced by FBI Supervisory Special Agent James R. Fitzgerald identified numerous lexical items and phrases common to the two documents. Some were more distinctive than others, but the prosecution (assisted by Vassar Professor of English Donald Foster) successfully argued that even the more common words and phrases being used by Kaczynski became distinctive when used in combination with each other.[7]
[edit] Julie Turner
Julie Turner, a 40 year old woman living in Yorkshire, went missing one summer evening in 2005. Relatives became concerned when she did not return after an appointment with a male friend. She was reported missing on 8 June 2005 and the following afternoon her partner received this mobile phone text: "Stopping at jills, back later need to sort my head out". Two days after Julie went missing another text was received: "Tell kids not to worry. sorting my life out. (sic) be in touch to get some things". Her partner thought it odd that she had not contacted the children. Police interviewed Howard Simmerson, a male friend, at his place of work on 10 June 2005. He denied any knowledge of her whereabouts. After analysis of many hours of close circuit television footage police observed Simmerson driving a four-wheel drive vehicle with a barrel secured to the rear of the vehicle. Similar references in letters Simmerson had written to the language of the mobile phone texts were found, as well as several unusual orthographic and punctuation features. Olsson suggested to police that this evidence indicated a possibility of Simmerson being aware of the contents of the text messages. On being confronted with this intelligence Simmerson admitted that Julie had been in his vehicle, but claimed that she had opened his glove compartment and found a weapon in there with which she had accidentally shot herself. Her body was in the barrel that had been on the back of his four-wheel drive vehicle. Police eventually found the barrel and recovered the body. Simmerson was found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court on 8 November, 2005, of Ms Turner's murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by Mr Justice Pitcher.
JMO8778
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killing won't be difficult...that line was directed at JR by Patsy,after her threat of telling him not to grow a brain (because she had something on him).iow-it wasn't literally talking about killing JB,it was a veiled threat to JR that bringing him down,if he told on her...would not be a difficult thing for her to do.
I don't see how such sentences could be clearly labelled female-gendered as opposed to male-gendered.
How would a MAN write such a sentence?
Maybe something like this...
"Tell anyone and we'll blow her *advertiser censored**king head off".
Men are much more to the point and blunt. Men don't usually feel the need to explain, and would not care about whether the victim's parents were "rested" or whether they brought an "adequately-sized attache"
Bring the $$$= get your kid back. The end.
Sophie
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TY Voynich, that's really interesting. I must admit that I never really saw any motherliness in that note - the 'well-rested' bit I was inclined to attribute to sarcasm or someone feigning sarcasm. To me, the journalese, melodrama and slightly inconsistent language are what point to Patsy (or in my IDI alternative 'theory', a slightly smartarsed undergraduate who thinks he is very clever and hilariously funny). Given that she was ultra-feminine and genteel, almost cucumber sandwich, in some ways, Patsy could also be very vulgar and had a training in objective writing so if she wrote it, it's easy to account for the personality differences that are apparent in the RN.
Do you know whether any old-fashioned graphologists examined the note? They have become obsolete now that we all use computers to write letters but they used to be taken very seriously by some employers at one time - they could, apparently, assess a candidate's personality purely on the basis of a the handwriting on a covering letter. In fact, there was a French woman who was used by a great number of multi-nationals. I wonder what she'd have made of the note?
Regarding JMO's very interesting post, that part of the note is always interesting - suggests to the reader that the writer certainly had a hold over John and was capable of blackmailing him.
Do you know whether any old-fashioned graphologists examined the note? They have become obsolete now that we all use computers to write letters but they used to be taken very seriously by some employers at one time - they could, apparently, assess a candidate's personality purely on the basis of a the handwriting on a covering letter. In fact, there was a French woman who was used by a great number of multi-nationals. I wonder what she'd have made of the note?
Regarding JMO's very interesting post, that part of the note is always interesting - suggests to the reader that the writer certainly had a hold over John and was capable of blackmailing him.
Sophie
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Sophie
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Voynich, was trying to find that link to the gender software for you but the forum on which we discussed it is down for maintenance. I'll try to think on and find it tomorrow since I think you'll find it interesting.
ETA: I guess you saw my link to 'Counterfeiting Shakespeare' which discussed Foster and Steve Thomas? It's a shocking bit of academic biatchery (and, while I think Foster was teh aces, he was as much an academic biatch as anyone) but it is all part of the linguistic scholarship on this case.
[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0521772435/ref=sib_rdr_dp"]'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's Funerall Elegye: Evidence, Authorship, and John Ford's Funerall Elegye: Amazon.co.uk: Brian Vickers: Books[/ame]
ETA: I guess you saw my link to 'Counterfeiting Shakespeare' which discussed Foster and Steve Thomas? It's a shocking bit of academic biatchery (and, while I think Foster was teh aces, he was as much an academic biatch as anyone) but it is all part of the linguistic scholarship on this case.
[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0521772435/ref=sib_rdr_dp"]'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's Funerall Elegye: Evidence, Authorship, and John Ford's Funerall Elegye: Amazon.co.uk: Brian Vickers: Books[/ame]
I don't know that but how "scientific" is graphology?
I know SD knows the link to it, and it was alluded to in Cherokee's analysis. I've seen the link.
I personally wonder whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays, which if you've read his will, final testament, you'll see why.
I *STRONGLY* suspect if McM & Foster and other linguistic analysts were to compare Shakespeare's will to his plays and sonnets, would conclude they were NOT the same author.
icesimo Quinto die Januarii Martii Anno Regni Domini nostri Jacobi nucn Regis Angliae etc decimo quarto & Scotie xlixo Annoque Domini 1616
Testamentum
Willemi Shackspeare
Registretur
In the name of god Amen I William Shackspeare of Stratford upon Avon in the countrie of Warr' gent in perfect health and memorie god by praysed doe make and Ordayne this my last will and testament in manner and forme followeing that ys to saye first I Comend my Soule into the hands of god my Creator hoping and assuredlie beleeving through thonelie merittes of Jesus Christe my Saviour to be made partaker of lyfe everlastinge And my bodye to the Earthe whereof yt ys made.
Item I Gyve and bequeath unto my sonne in Law and Daughter Judyth One Hundred and fyftie pounds of lawfull English money to be paied unto her in manner and forme follewing That ys to saye One Hundred Poundes in discharge of her marriage porcion within one yeare after my deceas with consideracion after the Rate of twoe shillinges in the pound for soe long tyme as the same shalbe unpaid unto her after my deceas & the fyftie pounds Residewe therof upon her surrendering of or gyving of such sufficient securitie as the overseers of this my will shall like of to Surrender or graunte All her estate and Right that shall discend or come unto her after my deceas or that she nowe hath of in or to one Copiehold tenemente with theappertenances lyeing & being in Stratford upon Avon aforesaied in the saide countie of warr' being parcell or holden of the mannor of Rowington unto my daughter Susanna Hall and her heires for ever.
Item I gyve and bequeath unto my saied Daughter Judyth One Hundred and ffyftie Poundes more if shee or Anie issue of her bodie Lyvinge att thend of three yeares next ensueing the daie of the date of this my will during which tyme my executors to paie her consideracion from my deceas according to the Rate afore saied. And if she dye within the saied terme without issue of her bodye then my will ys and and I doe gyve and bequeath One Hundred Poundes therof to my Neece Eliabeth Hall and ffiftie Poundes to be sett fourth by my executors during the lief of my Sister Johane Harte and the use and proffitt therof cominge shalbe payed to my saied Sister Jone and after her deceas the saied L li shall Remaine Amongst the childredn of my saied Sister Equallie to be devided Amongst them. But if my saied daughter Judith be lyving att thend of the saeid three yeares or anie issue of her bodye then my will ys and soe I devise and bequeath the saied Hundred and ffyftie poundes to be sett out by my executors and overseers for the best benefit of her and her issue and the stock not to be paied unto her soe long as she shalbe marryed and Covert Baron by my executors and overseers but my will ys that she shall have the consideracion yearelie paied unto her during her lief and after her deceas the saied stock and condieracion to bee paid to her children if she have Anie and if not to her executors or Assignes she lyving the saied terme after my deceas provided that if such husbond as she shall att thend of the saied three yeares by marryed unto or attain after doe sufficiently Assure unto her and thissue of her bodie landes answereable to the portion gyven unto her and to be adjudged soe by my executors and overseers then my will ys that the saied CL li shalbe paied to such husbond as shall make such assurance to his owne use.
Item I gyve and bequeath unto my saied sister Jone XX li and all my wearing Apprell to be paied and delivered within one yeare after my deceas. And I doe will and devise unto her the house with thappurtenances in Stratford where in she dwelleth for her naturall lief under the yearelie Rent of xiid
Item I gyve and bequeath unto her three sonnes William HartHart and Michaell Harte ffyve pounds A peece to be payed within one yeare after my decease to be sett out for her within one yeare after my deceas by my executors with thadvise and direccons of my overseers for her best proffitt untill her marriage and then the same with the increase thereof to be paied unto her.
Item I gyve and bequath unto her the said Elizabeth Hall All my Plate (except my brod silver and gilt bole) that I now have att the date of this my will.
Item I gyve and bequeath unto the Poore of Stratford aforesaied tenn poundes; to Mr Thomas Combe my Sword; to Thomas Russell Esquier ffyve poundes and to ffrauncis collins of the Borough of Warr' in the countie of Warr' gent. thriteene poundes Sixe shillinges and Eight pence to be paied within one yeare after my deceas.
Item I gyve and bequeath to mr richard Hamlett Sadler Tyler thelder XXVIs VIIId to buy him A Ringe; to William Raynoldes gent XXVIs VIIId to buy him a Ringe; to my godson William Walker XXVIs VIIId in gold and to my ffellowes John Hemynges, Richard Burbage and Heny Cundell XXVIs VIIId A peece to buy them Ringes.
Item I Gyve Will Bequeth and Devise unto my Daughter Susanna Hall for better enabling of her to performe this my will and towardes the performans thereof All that Capitall Messuage or tenemente with thappertenaces in Stratford aforesaid called the newe plase wherein I now Dwell and two messuags or tenementes with thappurtenances scituat lyeing and being in Henley Streete within the borough of Stratford aforesaied. And all my barnes, stables, Orchardes, gardens, landes, tenementes and herediaments whatsoever scituat lyeing and being or to be had receyved, perceyved or taken within the townes and Hamletts, villages, ffieldes and groundes of Stratford upon Avon, Oldstratford, Bushopton and Welcombe or in anie of them in the saied countie of warr And alsoe All that Messuage or tenemente with thappurtenances wherein one John Robinson dwelleth, scituat, lyeing and being in the blackfriers in London nere the Wardrobe and all other my landes tenementes and hereditamentes whatsoever. To Have and to hold All and singular the saied premisses with their Appurtenances unto the saied Susanna Hall for and during the terme of her naturall lief and after her deceas to the first sonne of her bodie lawfullie yssueing and to the heiries Males of the bodie of the saied Second Sonne lawfullie yssyeinge and for defalt of such heires Males of the bodie of the saied third sonne lawfullie yssye ing And for defalt of such issue the same soe to be Reamine to the ffourth sonne, ffythe, sixte and seaventh sonnes of her bodie lawfullie issueing one after Another and and to the heires Males of the bodies of the saied ffourth, ffythe, Sixte and Seaventh sonnes lawfullie yssueing in such mamer as yt ys before Lymitted to be and remaine to the first, second and third Sonns of her bodie and to their heires males. And for defalt of such issue the saied premisses to be and Remaine to my sayed Neede Hall and the heires Males of her bodie Lawfully yssueing for default of...such issue to my daughter Judith and the heires of me the saied William Sahckspere for ever.
Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture; Item I gyve and bequeath to my saied daughter Judith my broad silver gilt bole.
All the rest of my goodes Chattels, Leases, plate, jewles and Household stuffe whatsoever after my dettes and Legasies paied and my funerall expences discharged, I gyve devise and bequeath to my Sonne in Lawe John Hall gent and my daughter Susanna his wief whom I ordaine and make executors of this my Last will and testament. And I doe intreat and Appoint the saied Thomas Russell Esquier and ffrauncis Collins gent to be overseers herof And doe Revoke All former wills and publishe this to be my last will and testament. In witnes whereof I have hereunto put my Seale hand the Daie and Yeare first above Written.
Witness to the publishing hereof: Fra: Collyns, Juilyus Shawe, John Robinson, Hamnet Sadler, robert Whattcott.
By me William Shakespeare
Probatum coram Magistro Williamo Byrde legum doctore Commissario etc xxiido die mensis Junii Anno domini 1616 Juramento Jahannis Hall unius executorum etc. Cui etc de bene etc Jurati Reservata potestate etc Sussane Hall alteri executorum etc *advertiser censored* venerit etc petitur.
Inventarium exhibitum.
hmm, maybe I should ask you to write an RN
Sophie
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I have no idea? You used to be able to buys books on it and occasionally the girls' magazines would carry 'what your handwriting says about you' articles which were fun but meant to be taken with a bucket of salt. On the other hand, this French woman was taken very seriously by the investment banks, law firms etc at one point. Admittedly, in view of recent banking developments, you might take the view that she was an eeejit
Sophie
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Is it known that Shakespeare actually wrote his will and that it wasn't drafted by one of his many lawyer friends? Bear in mind that copyright laws didn't really exist then so he wouldn't make much reference to his plays in his will...
Actually, I've always favoured the writing syndicate idea for Shakespeare but my sister would eat me alive for saying that
Actually, I've always favoured the writing syndicate idea for Shakespeare but my sister would eat me alive for saying that