Richard Sackett the elder

Richard Sackett, of St Peter in Thanet, Kent, son of Robert Sakett of St Peter in Thanet and Joan ___, was born probably before 1477.² He died between October 1548 (when he made his will) and March 1549 (will proved.) He married Margaret ___.
     Richard was named as a beneficiary in his father's will made at St Peter in Thanet on 22 November 1498. Richard is assumed to have been Robert’s eldest son as he was left his land and tenement, subject to the use of half being retained by Richard's mother Joan while she remained unmarried. Richard's inheritance was also conditional upon his paying to his brother John £1 each year for five years.¹
     Richard made his will at St Peter in Thanet^G on 12 October 1548, naming as beneficiaries his wife Margaret and a cousin John Sackett.³ The will was proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury, Kent^G, on 21 March 1549.³ Margaret was left half his lands for her lifetime, with reversion to cousin John Sackett, and the residue of his goods after bequests of barley to unnamed godchildren, £1 in money or goods to his servant Joan Bennet, and sums of 3s 4d to Katherine Allyne and 12d to each of John Walter and John Spracklyne. It is presumed that Katherine Allyne was Richard’s sister. John Walter may have been his brother-in-law, married to his sister Alice (she was named as Alice Walter in her father’s will), or he may have been a son of Alice's. Cousin John Sackett was probably John Sakett, son of William Sakett of the 1498 will.⁴
     A "Richard Sackete the elder" is named as a witness to the will, made in 1545, of Richard Saket, husbandman of St Peter's. On that scant evidence it is deduced that this Richard and the Richard of the 1545 will were father and son, the son predeceasing the father by three years. This would explain the omission of a son Richard from the father's will. (Against this deduction, however, is the fact that the elder Richard did not provide in his will for John and Margery, the children of Richard the younger—an unlikely omission had these indeed been his young grandchildren who had lost their father just three years earlier.)
     Richard's widow Margaret made her wiill at St Peter in Thanet^G on 28 December 1551.⁵ She made a number of bequests to godchildren (it is not known whether these were family members) and left the residue of her estate to John Sackett who she also appointed as her executor. This would have been the same John Sackett who was described as "cousin John Sackett" in her husband Richard's will.