One of the earliest wills, with executors, that the older books refer to, is that of King Henry II.,[32] made at Waltham, in the year 1182 in the presence of ten witnesses, among whom we note the name of Ranulf Glanville, his justiciar, the author of the first English law book. The English bishops and Glanville were to make division among the religious houses of five thousand marks; Norman bishops were to make division of certain sums among Norman elemosinary institutions; his sons were charged with the distribution of a fund to be expended in providing marriages for poor free women; God’s curse was invoked upon all those who violate his laws and the Pope was said to have confirmed the devise, no doubt because all the legacies were for pious purposes. The will, however, had executors,[33] for one set of the trustees looked after the English behests; another set after the Norman legacies; others, still, those left to institutions in Maine and Anjou, and all of these several executors, save only Glanville, were from among the clergy, and this evidences the high regard in which this monarch held his learned justiciar. But few of the thirteenth century wills have come down to us, although we have an ampler supply in the fourteenth century. In the thirteenth century, the will was usually made in Latin and wills written in the English language first began to appear generally in the second half of the fourteen century.[34] In the year 1268, or the 53 year of Henry III., William de Beauchamp executed a will[35] that looks very like the modern documents, except that it only provided for specific legacies and behests of personalty other than to the church. It provided that his horse, fully harnessed, with all military caparisons, should precede the hearse bearing his corpse; provided for masses for his soul; gave a house to the church for his own soul and that of his wife; a behest to his son, Walter, to defray his expenses in a pilgrimage to the holy-land; to his daughter, Joane, a canopy and a book of Lancelot; a silver cup to his daughter Isabel, rings for his friends, with small legacies to others and a house for the church, are the principal features of this ancient will. The testator finally closed this interesting old will, in the following form: “And I appoint my eldest son, William, Earl of Warwick, Sir Roger Mortimer, Sir Bartholomew de Sudley, and the Abbots of Evesham and of Great Malverne, my executors.” So here we have, in modern form, the recognition of the custom to appoint executors, by testamentary devise, just as today.