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When his first wife died and when he re-married is as yet unknown to us. But this latter could hardly have taken place until the latter end, at earliest, of 1584, since in that year he, as already quoted, describes himself as, “having his foot under your [Sir Th. Scot’s] table”, etc., or in other words, as being a dependant not worth one groat. Nor do we know more of this second wife beyond these slight particulars that we gather from Reynold’s will: that her Christian name was Alice—given in “The Memorials” instead of Jane, to Cobbe, the first wife—that she was a widow with a daughter by her former husband; and that she had some land, either in her own right or derived from her former husband. That she was a widow at the time of her remarriage is shown by Reynold’s bequest of “six poundes thirteene shillings foure pence to my daughter in Lawe Marie Collyar for apparell [? mourning] desiring that her mother’s hand be not anie thinge the shorter towards her in that respect.” Whether Collyar were this daughter’s maiden name, and therefore the name of her mother’s first husband, or whether it were the name of her own husband, is doubtful, though from the words just quoted I rather incline to this second supposition, and that the husband was not a man of much means. With regard to what I have said as to the mother’s possession of property, it has been suggested to me by one of good judgment, and a solicitor, that Reynold’s expression as to not dying worth a groat was merely an excuse for leaving the bulk of his property to his wife; as also that these concluding words of the will, and the resistance of probate to it made by Elizabeth, his daughter by his first wife, indicate the existence of family differences, probably attributable to this second marriage having been entered into with one of a social rank inferior to his own. I cannot, however, deduce this latter supposition from anything we know, neither can I thus interpret the last words of his will, nor believe him guilty of such a perversion of the truth. Reading his will attentively, I think we find that Scot, with his usual fine sense of justice, gives all the lands in “Aldington, Ruckinge, and Sellinge”, which had become his by his marriage with Alice, “to her and to her [not to his] heires”, while he only gives his lands in Romney Marsh and his lease of Brabourne Rectory to her for her life, and then the lease at least, which had come to him “from his Cozen Charles”, to his daughter Elizabeth. Reading the last words of his will verbatim, I think it consistent with justice to hold, that though he may have obtained these lands in Romney Marsh through the use of what had been his wife’s former property, but was during his marriage his own, he was entitled to leave them to his wife only for her life, they then proceeding not, as did the others, to her heirs, but to his. I strongly suspect, also, that his casual omission of any directions as to whom these Romney Marsh lands were to go after her death was the real cause of the probate of the will being resisted by his daughter Elizabeth, so as to definitely raise this point.

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