File NLW MS 9064E/1945. - Bill in Chancery in a suit re. the will of Archbishop Williams,

Draft, in the autograph of Sir Owen Wynn of Gwydir, of a bill in Chancery, in a suit between Sir Owen, plt., and John and Gruffith Williams, defts., concerning the will of Archbishop Williams. Refers to a treaty of marriage between the plaintiff and Sir John Wynn, his father, on the one part, and the late Archbishop of York, then Bishop of Lincoln, on the other part, for a match between the said Sir Owen and Grace Williams, the Archbishop's niece. The Archbishop to give £3,500 portion as well as land for the benefit of the young couple, within two years of the marriage. Ellis Wynn, the plaintiff's uncle, gave £1,000 to the Archbishop to help on the match. According to this agreement a marriage was made and had between the plaintiff and the said Grace Williams, the Bishop's niece. The money paid into the Archbishop's hands, on the plaintiff's behalf, amounted to £7,000, who bought lands, worth £500 a year, in trust for the plaintiff and his wife, in the town of Huntingdon, to the use of the defendant, John Williams, and others, as well as lands in Wales from one Trafford. And the Archbishop made an entail of the said lands, to satisfy the plaintiff for all his wife's jointure, and for those moneys had from the said Ellis Wynn. His Lordship, desiring to know where the said entail lay, sent the plaintiff a note, a little before his death, saying there was an entail of those lands and that the defendant, John Williams, one of the trustees, knew where his writings should remain, in or about London; and his Lordship, being then sick, desired the plaintiff to perfect the setting up of his estate by deeds then drawn in paper books for charitable uses in England and Wales. The Archbishop died suddenly in Wales, within the compass of 11 hours, having intended to come within a fortnight to the plaintiff's house to seal those deeds, the most of his estate being intended for charitable uses, and specified under his own handwriting in his Lordship's Bible, wherein he studied most part of his abode in Wales, being about five years, and where at last his Lordship died. That, by reason of the extremity of his sickness, his Lordship was not then in case to be questioned where his testament and writings lay sealed by him already; but said (then at his dying hour), 'My kinsman, John Williams, knows I made a will and, being one of the trustees of my lands in Huntingdon, to him I fully expressed my mind two years ago when I scribbled out my will at Gwydir, especially touching my niece' (the plaintiff's wife). The defendant Gruffith Williams, heir at common law to the Archbishop, doth now pretend that he died intestate, and has seized upon all the Archbishop's real and personal estate, and upon his Lordship's last will, and upon all other writings which his Lordship had in Wales, and defrauds the plaintiff of all his just demands out of the Archbishop's estate, particularly of the lands in Huntingdon and Wales aforesaid.