THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES PROB 11/63, ff. 179 1 Modern

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES PROB 11/63, ff. 179 2
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Italian, while Oxford’s ties to members of the testator’s family, as well as his father-inlaw,
Lord Burghley’s, ties to members of the Guicciardini family, suggest that Oxford
may have visited members of the Guicciardini family on his continental tour in 1575-6.
For additional discussion of the testator’s will, including the identification of the Francis
Bacon mentioned by the testator as Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), first cousin of
Oxford’s first wife, Anne Cecil (d.1588), see Sisson, Charles J., ed., Thomas Lodge and
Other Elizabethans (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), pp. 292-3.
RM: Testamentum vincentij Guiceiardini
In the name of God, Amen. The fourth day of the month of April in the year of Our Lord
God a thousand five hundred fourscore and one, and in the three and twentieth year of the
reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth by the grace of God Queen of England, France and
Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., I, Vincent Guicciardini, merchant Florentine dwelling
in London, being sick of body but in good and perfect mind, sense and remembrance (laud
and praise be given unto Almighty God), and calling to remembrance the fragility and
short time of man’s life, and how certain and sure death is to all mankind, and the hour
and time thereof most uncertain, do make, ordain and dispose this my present testament
and last will in manner and form following that is to say:
First and principally I give and commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, by whom and by the merits, precious death,
bloodshedding and glorious resurrection of the Second Person in Trinity, Jesus Christ, I
trust and most assuredly believe to arise again, and to have full and clear remission and
forgiveness of all my sins, and to be saved and to be inheritor of the kingdom of heaven;
And my body I commit to the earth, desiring to be buried in the parish church where I
dwell, without pomp, at the discretion of Lucretia Guicciardini, my well-beloved wife;
And so coming to the disposition of my temporal goods, I do give and bequeath to Anna
Colliours, my maidservant, twenty pounds of lawful money of England;
Item, I do give and bequeath to every one of my other servants 20s and a mourning gown;
Item, I do give and bequeath to Camilla Guicciardini, my eldest daughter, the sum of nine
hundred pounds of good and lawful money of England towards her marriage, and to
Elizabeth and Mary Guicciardini, also my daughters, I do give and bequeath to either of
them one thousand marks of lawful money of England towards their marriage, so that the
same Camilla, Elizabeth and Mary, my daughters, shall not marry without their mother’s
consent;
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