On October 6, 1531, Sir William Bulmer made his will, a long, elaborate document, full of tragic irony considering the later history of the family. The gold chain weighing 100 pounds which was to be an heirloom for the children of his eldest son must have disappeared into the King’s coffers when that son was attainted; the chantry of St Ellen where four poor bedesmen and one woman were to pray for ever for the founder’s soul can only have stood a few years. The supervisors of the will were “my especial good lord, my lord of Westmorland, my lord Conyers, and my son Sir Thomas Tempest.”[150] Westmorland had married the Duke of Buckingham’s daughter[151], and the Bulmers may have transferred their allegiance to the Earl on the Duke’s execution. Sir William made his three sons, who were all knighted by this time, his executors, but at the end of the will he added another clause: “Also, as I have named my son, Sir John Bulmer, to have been one of my executors, I will that he be none of them, but he to suffer his two brothers lovingly to occupy and minister all and every my goods favourably without any interruption of him and he to have for his so doing and suffering £300 and my chain and household stuff at Wilton, which before I have bequeathed him; and in like manner he to suffer his brothers to have melling at my chantry at Wilton, and to see the priests and bede men there to have that they should have, and all other my servants, according as I have bequeathed them.”[152] Sir John Bulmer, the heir, married Anne daughter of Sir Ralph Bigod, and their eldest son Ralph married before 1530 Anne daughter of Sir Thomas Tempest[153]. On 11 June 1532 it was stated that Sir John was forty years old and upwards[154]. Some examples have already been given of the marriage customs which prevailed at that time. In the case of heirs and heiresses, the contract was often drawn up while the parties concerned were still in their cradles, and the marriage was consummated as early as possible, before the young people acquired sufficient independence to upset the arrangements of their guardians. Much of the domestic unhappiness of the time may be traced to these child marriages, concluded without any regard for the character and feelings of the parties. It may be inferred that Sir John Bulmer’s was such a one, as five of his six children were married before 1530[155], when he was not much above forty years old. His conduct requires the excuse of this bad custom. His father’s position in the service of the Duke of Buckingham must have brought Sir John into contact with a girl named Margaret, who is frequently described as the illegitimate daughter of Buckingham himself[156]. But her son in 1584 stated that she was the illegitimate daughter of Henry Stafford[157]; if he could have glozed over the stain on her birth by the rank of her father he would probably have done so, and it is safer to conclude that Henry Stafford was some relative of the Duke.