Hi All, Francine wrote: >>This relates to my earlier question concerning Giles Corey's reason for refusing to plead. If the property had already been conveyed to his sons-in-law, there was no need to use the strategem of not pleading in order to save the proerty from being seized. (and in fact, the sheriff tried other means to justify seizing the property). So, why did Giles Corey refuse to plead? Sheer cussedness?<< As you state, even though the property had already been conveyed, the sheriff STILL tried to find a way to seize it...perhaps Giles was trying to make DOUBLE certain that there would be no way for the property to be seized. It would be hard enough to seize property belonging to the family of the convicted, but even harder should the accused never be tried, thereby never convicted. Personally, I don't believe that the sole motivating factor in Giles' refusal to plea was safeguarding his properties. The entire situation had gotten completely out of control; Salem had entered "new legal territory" in allowing spectral evidence. Some of the accused were pleading guilty to avoid the noose, but what kind of a life was left for them in Salem AFTER their guilty pleas??? It's not difficult to imagine that Giles was an intelligent man, who saw that there was NO good solution to an accusation, so perhaps he decided to "try" NOT pleading, since none of the other alternatives had been overly beneficial to those who went before him. Alternatively, perhaps he was just a man who saw the hopelessness in the whole affair, and basically "refused to play the game"?!! If you saw NO WAY OUT, why not just refuse to play by "their" rules...or more correctly, USE their rules to upset the order of things? I think it would be far easier to send someone to the gallows than to slowly press them to death...maybe he believed, right up to the very end, that SOMEONE would see the insanity of it all before it was too late?!! >>He doesn't say "mentally competent" or "sound of mind"--he says "in perfect memory." To me that sounds like the sort of wording used by people who have been hearing people tell them that their memories are *not* perfect, and, as I noted earlier, his court testimony indicates that he changed his story.<< I've seen LOADS of wills worded very similar to Giles' will. They don't all say of "sound mind", and I've never seen one that refers to "mental competence". Many of the older wills that I have seen locally say, "of perfect memory", or something very similar. HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!! Joan