Shakespeare's will available online.

In his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616 (about one month before his death), William Shakespeare bequeathed his "second-best" bed to his wife.

Anyone can now search and download the wills of Shakespeare, poet William Wordsworth, Napoleon Bonaparte, and other famous figures via DocumentsOnline (formerly PRO-Online). At www.documentsonline.pro. gov.uk/wills.asp, individuals can search and download the Prerogative Court of Canterbury's (PCC) entire collection of wills--more than 1 million--from the years 1384 to 1858.

Until 1858, all wills had to be formally approved by the church and other courts. The PCC, the most important of these courts, dealt with the relatively wealthy individuals living mainly in the south of England and most of Wales (what was originally the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury).

DocumentsOnline allows online access to the Public Record Office's collection of digitized public records, including both academic and genealogical sources. Users can search records that have recently opened up to the public after being locked away for 30 years, including Winston Churchill's wartime telegrams and T.E. Lawrence's papers.

Wills are searchable by first and last name, place, occupation, and date. Searching the index is free, but it costs 3 [pounds sterling] U.K. (a little more than $5) to download a digital image of a will in PDF format. Wills are on average one page long, although they can range from a mere five lines to more than 20 pages. You can download a sample image of a will free of charge.