Oral wills with a bite

SIR – A change in the law to reinstate the legal status of a spoken will (report, July 13) is fraught with difficulties. Without the need to reflect carefully on what is said before thoughts are committed to paper, offensive remarks will inevitably slip through.

In March 1591, while William Shakespeare was putting the finishing touches to Two Gentlemen of Verona, my ancestor Robert Blundestone was uttering his deathbed will nuncupative. His priest noted in his own handwriting Robert’s dying words: that his wife expected to inherit everything; but in a sideswipe at his stepchildren he declared “becos I am not liable to give the reste aney thing that may doe them goode I will give them a crowne [25 pence] amongst them all being they are undutyful to their mother and that shall stop their mouthes”.

Human nature has not changed, but it is hard to imagine a solicitor advising a client to include such vitriol in a written will in the 21st century. Nicholas Young

London W13