Will of Richard Cullen, Husbandman of Upton: 1579/80

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Will of Richard Cullen
Husbandman of Upton 1580
Jim Cullen

For many years it was accepted that Richard Cullen was the earliest known Cullen living in Upton that exists in the records. It was also believed that not much more could be learned from the reading of Richard's will. Having obtained a copy of his will and spent some time transcribing it - I find that we were quite mistaken. Before I comment on what the will is telling us, I'll let you read it for yourself. The document itself is short and simple but the below transcription and image of the will of Richard Cullen is a beautiful example of Secretary Hand from the Elizabethan era in late 16'th century England.

The Will of Richard Cullen, Husbandman of Upton, Nottinghamshire
Written Feb 11, 1579 & Proved April 18, 1580

In the name of God Amen. The 12th day of February in the year of our Lord God 1579. I, Richard Cullen of Upton in the county of Nottingham, husbandman, being sick in body but of good and perfect remembrance (laud and praise be unto Almighty God), make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following.
First, I bequeath my soul unto Almighty God my maker and redeemer, and my body to be buried in the churchyard of Upton aforesaid near to my father and my first wife.
Item, I give to Agnes my wife my farm for 13 years to bring up my children on.
Item, I give and bequeath unto my daughters Margery Cullen and Jennett Cullen house that Forrest dwells in for 13 years.
Item, I give and bequeath unto my son William that house that Lytlewood’s wife dwells in for 13 years.
Item, I give and bequeath unto Alice Cullen and Jonye Cullen my daughters that house that Christopher [Xpfer] Baker dwells in for 13 years.
Item, I give and bequeath to Katherine Cullen my daughter for a legacy 3 sheep and one quarter of corn.
Item, I give and bequeath unto Margaret Cullen my daughter for a legacy one heifer [quie].
Item, my will is that Agnes my wife and all my children shall have all my goods unbequeathed divided amongst them all.
Item, my will is that Agnes my wife, Katherine Cullen, and Margery Cullen my daughters be my executors of this my last will and testament.
These being witness: William Gill, John Plowman, and Richard Lambe.

There is then the middle section added by the clerk:

"Probatum fuit hujusmodi testamentum in domo capitulari etc. 18 die mensis Aprilis anno domini 1580 coram Magistro Thoma Wethered canonico residentiario etc. Commissioque fuit administrandi bonorum etc. Katherine et Margerie Cullen filiabus dicti defuncti et executoribus in hujusmodi testamento nominatis in forma juris juratis etc. Salvo jure cujuscunque etc."

Which translates as:

This testament was proved in the Chapter House etc. on the 18th day of the month of April in the year of our Lord 1580 before Master Thomas Wethered, Canon Residentiary etc. And a commission was granted to administer the goods etc. to Katherine and Margery Cullen, daughters of the said deceased and executors named in this testament, they having been sworn in form of law etc. Saving the rights of anyone else [who might have a claim] etc.

There's one more bit of text at the very bottom below the probate clause:

"Eisdem die et loco Agnes Cullen vidua dicti defuncti renunciavit executioni hujusmodi testamenti presentis in domo capitulari etc. coram prefato Magistro Thoma Wethered canonico residentiario etc."

Which translates as:

On the same day and place [April 18, 1580, at the Chapter House], Agnes Cullen, widow of the said deceased, renounced the execution of this present testament in the Chapter House etc. before the aforementioned Master Thomas Wethered, Canon Residentiary etc.

Source: DGS#: 8073104, Register of Wills 1567-1592, Image#: 111/277
Original record digitized by Family Search, a non-profit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The most surprising detail that seems to have been missed is found in the following phrase: "...and my body to be buried in the churchyard of Upton aforesaid near to my father and my first wife". I couldn't believe it when I first read it and I had to carefully look at the text several times to be certain the transcription was correct. Later on, I managed to find the will abstract and the recorder, who was certainly more adept at reading these documents than I am, wrote that Richard requested the burial place as: "Upton Church yd near my father & my 1'st wife". We can now show, with documentation, that there was certainly at least one generation in Upton prior to Richard Cullen. Such a possibility had long been suspected since contemporaries of Richard's are known in Upton but no evidence connecting these Cullens to Richard have been found.

The will abstract of Richard Cullen verifies much of what we know. Library Call No. Notts 3 (25912) pt 6. It gives the deceased as Richard Cullen, Husbandman of Upton, Nottinghamshire. The date of the will is given as Feb 11, 1579 and the probate was granted on Apr 18, 1580. The children are listed as: Margerie, Jennett, William, Alice, Janye, Katherine, and Margaret. There is of course Agnes who's relationship is given as "my now wife". Executors of Richards will were: "Agnes, Katherine, and Margerie Cullen". The witnesses were listed as: "Wm Gyll, John Plowman, Richard Lamb", all well known names in Upton at the time.

Another surprise was finding the two previously unknown daughters, Alice and Janye. Now the name 'Janye' I do not accept. I had to do a very careful inspection of each letter in the name, comparing each in combinations in other places on the page in easily identified words. The letters 'J' and 'e' are certain. The third letter I have to say is certainly a 'y' (the recorders handwriting style was particularly clean and consistent). The second letter I am now confident is 'o', based on comparison to other appearances of the letter in the will, especially in the phrase "manner and form following" - that instance is practically a carbon copy. The name was then identified as 'Jonye' which seemed unusual at first. In the will abstract the name is given as 'Janye' which is understandable given the difficulty of the script. After some digging I found that the name Jonye was quite popular in those times, with the added 'ye being an affectionate suffix like how we now add a -y or -ie to some of our names. The name Jonye is a variation of Joan, just as Janye is a variation of Jane, both of which derive from Johanna. The name would have been pronounced similar to "Joe-nee".

Alice was still a bit uncertain and I had to carefully study the difficult handwriting in the will to determine the proper spelling. Long story short. Looking at the 'ce' at the end of the word 'rememberance' at the beginning of the will, and the 'ne' at the end of the name 'Katherine' at the end of the will, and also the stray dot above the 'L' in the name in question, I'm nearly certain now that the name is indeed 'Alice', which also agrees with the name that appears in the will abstract.

The complete list of children otherwise line up perfectly with the names as given in the will: daughters Margerie and Jennett, son William, daughters Alice and Jonye, and daughters Katherine and Margaret. Years ago, when Cliff Cullen of New Zealand first introduced me to the details of the family of Richard Cullen, he listed the children as: Margerie, Jennett, William, Katherine, Margaret, and Thomas. Cliff did not mention the two daughters Alice and Jonye, nor did he mention the fact that Richard requested to be buried in Upton Church yard next to his father (and first wife). He did mention the son Thomas though, when moving on to the second generation in Upton. Cliff wrote that: "It appears that Richard's wife Agnes, left the farm to her son Thomas Cullyn, yeoman, of Upton". I've always found it concerning that this son Thomas was not mentioned in the will nor the abstract. I find it most likely that he had already been provided for if he was the eldest son. At the time of his father's passing, Thomas may have possibly been out on his own anyway. This is plausible given that Thomas the churchwarden of Upton died in 1628, placing his birth up to possibly thirty years or so before his father's passing. At any rate, thirteen years later, per Richard's will, Agnes held the farm, at which point she passes it on to her son Thomas.

Probate Reconstruction of Richard Cullen's Family

For many years the estimate has been that Richard Cullen was born in approximately the year 1540, which was always a rough estimate at best. I had estimated that he had died earlier than was usual for Cullens in that time and place. Now we have a little more information to go on and I suspect we can make a much better estimate of some relevant dates in Richard's life. Notice that Richard said in his will that he gives "unto my daughters Margery Cullen and Jennett Cullen house that Forrest dwells in for 13 years". He also gave "unto Alice Cullen and Jonye Cullen my daughters that house that Christopher [Xpfer] Baker dwells in for 13 years". Most importantly, Richard said that he gave "to Agnes my wife my farm for 13 years to bring up my children on". Those 13 years were specific and served a strategic purpose. The farm was the family business and was entrusted to his wife Agnes in order to provide for his children until they attained the age where they could begin to make their own way into the world. In those days that happened at a younger age than today. A child of 15 could be expected to begin pulling their weight. The youngest child in the household would reach that age 13 years from Richard's death so we may estimate the youngest child in the family was born in 1578 and was only two years old in 1580. You have to really feel for Richard Cullen at this point. He was facing what he knew to be his early demise with a house full of young children - and yet he conducted business, made tough decisions, and cared for his family up to the very end.

The eldest son Thomas was not mentioned in the will nor did he need to be. He was, under the law, the chief heir of his father's estate. He would need to wait until the end of the 13 years to claim his inheritance from his mother Agnes. The year would have been right about 1593. What else does Thomas do that year? He was married, in Upton, to Agnes Kitchen, on Nov 17, 1593. This is where I had the realization that we could use the practices under the laws of the time, as well as the socio-economic practices, to determine a better timeline for Richard's life as well as his son Thomas'. There were eight children in the family and, based on some calculations regarding the spacing of children's births in other Cullen families of Nottinghamshire at the time, we can estimate 1.82 years between each child on average. We've already assumed that the youngest child was born in 1578, two years before Richard's death. Steppping back 1.82 years for each child, through the remaining seven children, and adding an additional 1.82 years gap to account for Richard's marriage to his second wife, puts the first child born (eldest son Thomas) at right around 1563. Given that Thomas himself died in 1628, that would put his age at the time at 65 years. Not an unbelievable figure. If we estimate further that, at the time of Thomas' birth, his father Richard was 27 years old, then we can place Richard's birth year at right around 1536. This means that Richard died at about 44 years of age. This is still an estimate and not far at all from the prior guess of 1540 but this time we have something solid to base our estimation on.

This is a just a portion of the image of Richard Cullen's will from 1580.

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