According to an inquisition post mortem at the Public Record Office in London, he died on the 22nd of May, 1574. Will was dated May 16, 1574, and was proved at Lincoln on the 24th of the same month.

As the inquisition post mortem mentioned is a fair illustration of an ancient legal proceeding, abolished more than 200 years ago, and as it moreover contains a rare example of the customs of "gavelkind" and "borough-English," a free translation from the original latin may prove interesting. The inquisition was taken at Horncastle, in Lincolnshire on the 16th of August, 1574, and was of William Wentworth, late of Waltham, Gentleman, who was found to be in his lifetime seized in demesne as of fee of two messuages, 100 acres of land, 20 of meadow, and 30 or pasture, etc., in Waltham, purchased of George Gilby; one messuage being in the tenure of Thomas Gilby and Andrew Wilson, and the other in the tenure of John Paynter, late the possession of John Hyde and another, by the gift of King Henry VIII (evidently some portion of the possessions wrenched by that monarch from some abbey or monastery): the first mentioned messuage and the land in Waltham and held in socage of Edmund Skerne, Esq., as of his manor of Waltham, and by the custom of the said manor descend to the younger son, and are worth 10 pounds per annum; and the last mentioned messuage is held of the Queen by fealty only, and is worth ten shillings and four pence per annum; also of one messuage and certain land in Winterton, held of the Queen as of her manor of Kirton, in gavelkind, which descend to Thomas Wentworth and Christopher Wentworth as two sons and one heir ("ut duobus filiis et uni heredi"), and are worth 5 pounds per annum. The Escheator also found that the said William Wentworth died on the preceeding 22d day of May, and that Thomas Wentworth was his son and next heir, and was aged, at the date of the inquisition, twenty years, three months and upwards.

He had when he died, another wife, named Anne, with whom, from various evidences, he does not appear to have been on the best of terms. He was living at Waltham, and she at Kirton, in a distant part of lIncolnshire, and the only bequest he makes to her in his will is of "such goods and implementes as she hath in my house in Kirton." He left a few trifling legacies to several servants, and to the poor; and his will concludes by placing his eldest son Thomas under the guardianship of Edmund Skerne, Esq. (who is mentioned in the inquisition, and who was the Lord of the manor of Waltham:, and his youngest son Christopher under that of Garrett Southill, Esq. (of whom nothing further is known.).