Nicholas Leveson's Will: Family and Property

Description:Nicholas Leveson’s will tells us that he was married and that he had a number of sons and daughters. A person’s will is extremely valuable for providing such information, particularly when researching people who lived so long ago and for whom few documents survive.

Nicholas Leveson’s will states that he had four sons named John, Thomas, Nicholas and William, and that he also had two daughters Gresill and Joane. The will also suggests that Nicholas was close to his brother James Leveson, who he made executor of his will.

It is evident from his will that Nicholas Leveson was an extensive landowner, possessing land and tenements in different regions of England. He refers in a broad overview of his property to ‘all my lande and tenementes…whiche I have in the Cittie of London and in the Countiee of Stafforde Essex and Kent’.

The extent of Nicholas’s property ownership is more apparent where he details his bequests. Nicholas Leveson’s will states that his son John Leveson was to inherit his father’s land and property ‘in the Countie of Stafford as came to me by inheritance after and by the decease of Richard Leveson my father’. The will indicates that the family property in Staffordshire passed down the Leveson family through the generations. The language used in the will, emphasising that the land was inherited from previous generations of the Leveson family, suggests that the inheritance of land was extremely important, ensuring the family’s lineage.

Attachments

Transcription of Nicholas Leveson's Will, 1539 (63 KB)