342 THE WILL OF HUMPHREY DE BOHUN,

had belonged to St. Edmund de Ponnteny^, and a gold ring with a ruby, which his wife devised to him, " and which is all covered with bruises, and is in a little casket in a great box at the end of the lower wardrobe^." To the persons who had the care of his sons and daughters, the earl leaves sums varying in amount. Yet it is singular, that although he mentions John, his son and heir, no particular bequest is made to hiuL The will notices also JMaud Bascreville "my sister," a personage who does not appear in Dug- dale's account of the Bohun family^. His bequests to religious communities are numerous, but need not be here detailed : his various servants in every grade are remem- bered, and among them occur the names of the constables of his castles of Brecknock and Plessy. To each of his gars(;ons who should have been in his service more than a year on the day of his death he left twenty shillings, and, finally, he ordained that his best horses shoidd be selected as an offer- tory at his interment. The abbot of Walden was nominated one of his four executors. This document is in a fair state of preservation, and a good impression of the earl's seal', of which a cut, the full size, is annexed, is still pen- dant to it. There were other seals, which have been broken. I have now to notice the Inventory. The circumstances under which it was pre- pared cannot be ascertained. We may assume either that the abbot of Walden had the cliarge of the earl's effects as one of his executors, or that, in accordance with the usage of those times, they had been deposited in the abbey for safe custody. It seems pro- bable also, that Sir Nicholas de la Beche received these effects as an agent of the crown, which would take possession of the earl's property after his death ; and it was possibly owing to such seizure that his will was not proved. But in the absence of all information it is useless to indulge in mere conjectm-et. ' Archbishop of Canterbury, who died ' His arms were — ws. a bend ar. between in exile at Ponti{i;ny, A.D. 1240. He was two cotises and six lions rampant, or. canonized l)y Innocent IV. '^ The sheriff of Essex was present at s Prohahly tlie identical ring mentioned the delivery, yet this does not ahsolutely in the Inventory. prove that the document was the result of ^ According to Dngdale the earl's a fiscal process on behalf of the crown, mother was " Maud Fienles."