Eastnor Probate Material 1541-1560

There are probate records for eight Eastnor people in this period. For three of them the actual wills survive. For the remainder, there are only the entries in the Calendar of Probate and Administration Acts 1407-1541 and Abstracts of Wills 1541-1581 in the Court Books of the Bishop of Hereford, edited by M.A. Faraday and E.J.L. Coles with introduction and index compiled by M.A. Faraday British Record Society, London, 1989. This period covers the first stages of the Protestant Reformation in England. The shift in beliefs can be seen in the religious preambles and bequests in the three wills. James Rogge in 1545 and John Bache in 1547 made very simple  and traditional statements of faith and both still left goods to their wives to be disposed 'for the wealth of my soul and hers'. In 1549, Robert Webley made a clearly Protestant expression of faith, his 'soul to Almighty God the father of heaven, trusting through his great mercy and by the merits of the passion and blood shedding of his only son my saviour and redeemer Jesus Christ to have remission and forgiveness of all my sins' and made no bequests overtly for the benefit of his soul, although he did leave 12d to the 'poor men's box'.

James Rogge, 1545, Calendar entry and will

Anne Turner, 1545, Calendar entry

Robert Jackson, 1545, Calendar entry

Robert Sclycer, 1545, Calendar entry

Thomas James, 1545, Calendar entry

John Bache, 1547, Calendar entry and will

Robert Webley, 1549, will

Margaret Wye, 1550, Calendar entry