It is not clear how the connection is traced between her and her other legatees, but it is very noticeable her preference for the Hathaway connections to those of the Shakespeare side. Ere she died the poet's Blackfriars tenement had been reduced to ashes in the Great Fire of 1666. What right in it or its site remained, accrued to Edward Bagley, "citizen of London," her executor and residuary legatee, who proved her will, March 4, 1669, though it is stated to have been sold in Shakespeare's Biography in the Dictionary. Edward Nash did not buy New Place, after all. It was bought by Sir Edward Walker, at one time Secretary of War to Charles I., and then Garter King-at-Arms. Halliwell-Phillipps states[205] it was sold by the "surviving trustee," but Sir Edward Walker's own will[206] puts it a little differently. He left to his dear daughter Barbara, wife of Sir John Clopton, various bequests, among which appear "A yarde land in Stratford field I bought of _Mr. Hall_, of the value of L12 10s. by year ... fyftly Land I bought of Sir John Clopton in the mannor of Clopton, of the yearely value of L10. Sixtly 4 yard land lying in Stratford and Bishopton fields which I bought of _Mr. Bagley_, and a house called the New Place, situated in the Towne of Stratford upon Avon, of the yearely value about fyfty fyve pounds ... my deare daughter and her husband Sir John Clopton, sole executors, 30th June, 1676." He died early the following year, and his will was proved March 10, 1676-77. Thus, the property Shakespeare had put together became dispersed shortly after his family became extinct, and New Place came back to the heirs of the Cloptons, from whom it was purchased. I had hoped we might find something from the will of Edward Bagley, but he died intestate,[207] and the administration mentions nothing of interest to Shakespeare. It is therefore quite clear that the whole period covered by Shakespeare's life and that of his descendants was 105 years, _i.e._, from 1564 to 1669, and that _no lineal descendants can survive_. Yet, as if in illustration of the methods of fabrication of tradition, when it is desired, I have heard of many of the name who boast a _lineal descent from the poet_; and of one even who boasts of having inherited not only _the Shakespeare's_ dinner-service, but his _teapot_! Yet that the presence of the name is a certain bar to the descent, as above shown, no such claimants seem to have taken the trouble to find out, as they easily might do. I am told that in Verona, by the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, a modern visitor has described himself as "Shakespeare, _descendant_ of the poet who wrote the play." William Shakespeare's poems alone are his posterity.