Will writing has been around since ancient times. Ancient Greek and Roman citizens divided up their property after death using a complex legal system of wills. This had a huge influence on the development of legal culture in western society. In the Arab world, legal culture also developed, reaching particular complexity and organizational thoroughness during the Caliphates.
At first glance, a will might seem like a passive document – just a list of assets and debts and instructions for their use. However, wills quite often tell complicated stories of love, betrayal, fury, and humor. Over the years, wills have been written that leave ripples long after their authors have passed away.
It isn’t generally advised to write bizarre things into your will. If you need help with will writing, it is probably best to seek professional guidance. Legal counsel, as well as charitable foundations for helping people with legal affairs at the end of their lives is readily available.
For some though, bequeathment is a weapon, a token, a multifaceted gesture. A strange will can act like a final defiant stone thrown against the rational inevitability of death. Here are four of the strangest bequests ever set to paper:
Leave It All To The Dogs
Leona Helmsley was a ruthless hotel billionaire known as the ‘queen of mean’. Her will did not include any payments to her two children. Instead, her entire 5-billion-dollar trust was earmarked for ‘the care of dogs’. This included 12 million dollars for her pug Trouble.
This might not have been the best idea – the valuable pooch was threatened with kidnapping and had to be sent into hiding in Florida.
It is hard to say whether Leona Helmsley’s love of dogs or her distain for humans was the real driving factor behind her peculiar will. Regardless, she may have done some good through her misanthropy: her last wishes included donations to many animal shelters, as well as her beloved Trouble.
Bitter Love
Some people go to their graves hating their spouses. Some people have chosen to make sure that their bitterness is felt long after they are gone.
Heinrich ‘Henry’ Heine was a German poet who died in 1856. His will stipulated that his entire estate was given to his wife – on one condition. The estate was only to be handed over if his wife remarried, so that ‘there will be at least one man to regret (Heinrich’s) death’. The joke, of course, was that he hated his wife so much that he was sure any future husband would regret marrying her.
To be honest, this all sounds a little petty.
Randomized Kindness
Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camar was a famously eccentric Portuguese aristocrat. He was un unmarried bachelor at the time of his death, which left him free to distribute his wealth in any way he chose. In his final will and testament, Camar decided to spread some joy – at random.
He instructed 70 people to be picked at random from the Lisbon phone book. These completely random people were to be the inheritors of his entire estate. The recipients were chosen 13 years before the death of the aristocrat in front of two witnesses during a legally binding ceremony in a Lisbon registry office.
Soon after the death of Camar, the 70 people were called out of the blue and informed of their peculiar luck. None of them knew that they had been chosen beforehand. It must have seemed like a scam, or the improbable plot of some movie.
The Bitter Bard
William Shakespeare was arguably the greatest playwright that has ever lived. He saw great success during his lifetime running the globe theatre and could count the queen of England as one of his patrons.
When he wrote his will in 1616, the great bard left a rather bitter gift to his long-term lover Anne Hathaway. His daughter was to receive much of his money as well as ‘all my barns, stables, orchards, gardens, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, whatsoever, situate, lying, and being, or to be had, received, perceived, or taken, within the towns, hamlets, villages, fields, and grounds, of Stratford-upon-Avon, Old Stratford, Bushopton, and Welcombe, or in any of them in the said county of Warwick’. Pretty generous, wouldn’t you agree?
And what For Anne, who supported Shakespeare throughout his career? She was to be given ‘the second-best bed’. An unbelievable snub aimed at one of the most influential women in his life.
It is thought that the great writer had become increasingly bitter about his relationship with Anne throughout their partnership. Whether or not this was true doesn’t affect how nasty it was. A word of advice: don’t use your last will and testament as a weapon to hurt the people that love you.
