Edmund Lambert died in 1587, and his son John seems to have been threatened by the Shakespeares with a law-suit for the recovery of Asbies, and proposed as a compromise to pay a further sum of L20, thereby securing Asbies as by purchase. To this, however, the consent, not only of Mary, but of William, her heir, was necessary, and the poet is supposed to have come down to Stratford on the occasion to act with his parents. But probably there was some other hitch: the L20 may have been held to be covered by the "other debts," which already had done service for Edmund Lambert; or the Shakespeares weighed their desire to have back the land, which they probably then wished, with their growing family, to farm themselves. Nothing seems then to have been settled, and they were too poor to risk the perils of a great law-suit. Doubtless, with sad hearts and bitter retrospect, they regretted their unlucky purchases in 1575, which seemed to have pinched them so, and wished at least they had been contented with the half, with the one tenement in Henley Street that formed part of their residence. For, had they only spent L20 then instead of L40, they could have repaid their hard-dealing relative not only the smaller mortgage, but the "other debts," out of the L40 they received for Snitterfield from the more liberal Robert Webbe.

Finding John Lambert even harder to deal with than his father, John Shakespeare brought a Bill of Complaint against him in the Court of Queen's Bench,[115] 1589, by John Harborne, attorney, in which his wife and son are mentioned. Nothing seems then to have been done. On November 24, 1597, backed by their son's influence and money, John and Mary Shakespeare, plaintiffs, without associating their son's name, made a formal complaint to the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Egerton,[116] stating that Edmund Lambert was to hold it only until repaid the loan, that the money had been duly tendered to him on the agreed date, that he had refused it, and that his son John holds the land still, and makes secret estates of the premises, the nature of which they cannot describe, as the papers have been withheld them; that their papers and evidences are open to the court. They add further that "the sayde John Lamberte ys of greate wealthe and abilitie, and well frended and allied amongst gentlemen and freeholders of the county ... and your saide oratores are of small wealthe and very fewe frendes and alyance in the said countie. They pray a writ of subpoena to be directed to John Lambert to appear in the Court of Chancery."

John Lambert, pointing out the uncertainty and insufficiency of the plaintiff's bill, also that the bill had already been exhibited against him in the same court, and he had fully answered it, asserts that the arrangement was a deed of sale, with the conditional proviso that if John Shakespeare should pay L40 on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 1580, to Edmund Lambert, in Barton-on-the-Heath, the bill of sale should be void. He did not pay the money on the day, and therefore his father was legally seized of the estate.

To this John and Mary Shakespeare replied, and again explained that the money was tendered at the date, and that Edmund Lambert refused to receive it unless other moneys also were paid, of which no condition had been fixed; that on the death of Edmund, John had stepped into possession, and refused to hear anything from them.[117] John Lambert had another quibble, that John Shakespeare had exhibited two bills against him, one in his own name, and one associating his wife's. On July 5, 1598, July 10, 1598, and May 18, 1599, further steps were taken, but still no decision was reached. Therefore, on June 27, 1599, a commission was appointed to examine both parties. In the Index Trin. Term, 41 Elizabeth, there is the entry "Shackspeere contra Lambert," but the page that contained further notice is lost.

On October 23, 1599, another entry of the case is recorded: "Yf the defendant show no cause for stay of publicacion by this day sevenight, then publicacion ys granted"; but nothing more has come to us. Probably delay helped the more powerful, certainly possession proved nine-tenths of the law, and the expenses of legal action even then were paralyzing.[118] It is strange that the fate of Asbies as a property is unknown. There are traces of its being in the possession of Adam Edkins in 1668, of one John Smith after him, and of Clement Edkins in 1699,[119] but the name seems to have vanished, and with it all remembrance of the boundary of the inheritance of the Ardens of Wilmcote.

* * * * *

MARY ARDEN'S FAMILY.

Walter Arden, = Eleanor, 2nd dauther and coheiress of Park Hall, 16th in descent from of John Hampden of the Saxon Sheriff Ailwin. See his Great Hampden, co. Bucks. tomb at Aston juxta Birmingham. - - - Sir John. Thomas, = wife Martin. Robert. Henry. William. Alicia. Margaret. 2nd son unknown Of Aston Cantlow; bought Snitter- field 1501. Robert Arden = 1st wife unknown 2nd wife, Agnes Webbe, widow of W. Hill - - 1st dau., 2nd dau., 3rd dau., 4th dau., 5th dau., 6th dau., 7th dau., Agnes Arden, Joan Arden, Katharine Margaret Joyce Alice Mary m. 1st, John m. Edmund Arden, m. Arden, m. Arden. Arden. Arden, Hewyns: Lambert, of Thomas 1st, m. John Barton-on- Edkins, of Alexander Shake- Thomas. the-Heath Wilmecote. Webbe, of speare. Margaret. Snitterfield; 2nd, Thomas John Lam- Thomas 2nd, Stringer. bert. Edkins. Edward Cornwall Ellice. (had a son, John Stringer. Robert Arden Stringer. Webbe, m. Mary Perkes). - - - - Joan, Margaret, William Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard, Edmund, b. 1558; b. 1562; Shakespeare, b. 1566; b. 1569; b. 1571; b. 1573; b. 1580; d. infant. d. infant. the poet d. 1611. d. 1646. d. 1579. d. 1612. d. 1607. b. April 23, s.p. s.p. s.p. 1564; d. April 23, 1616.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] See "Survey of Birmingham," 1553, Clement Throckmorton, p. 3, edition by Mr. W. B. Bickley.

[84] Stratford Miscellaneous Records, No. 436.

[85] Ibid.

[86] Halliwell Phillipps mentions Elizabeth Skerlett as an eighth, surely in error.

[87] I believe that I have found the register of her death in association with the Ardens of Park Hall, see p. 41.

[88] This supposition is strengthened by the language of the lease which Mrs. Arden granted her brother of a farm in Snitterfield, May 21, 1560, of which "estate was made to me the said Agnes by my late husband in the fourth year of the raigne of the late King Ed. VI., 1550;... now in tenure of Richard Shakespeare, John Henley, and John Hargrave."

[89] See Records of Stratford-on-Avon.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Worcester Wills. Consistory Court.

[92] See Sir George Nichols' "History of the English Poor Law."

[93] See "Release from Thomas Stringer of Stockton, co. Salop, to Alexander Webbe of Snitterfield, husbandman, 12th Feb., 11 Eliz., witness John Shaxpere," confirmed after the marriage of Margaret to Edward Cornwall, October 16, 18 Elizabeth. "A transfer from John Shakespeare and Mary his wife" of her shares of Snitterfield, 21 Eliz., for L4; 15 Oct., 22 Eliz., for L40; and 23 Eliz., 6s. 8d. "Release from Thomas Stringer and Thomas Edkins to Robert Webbe, 23rd Dec., 21 Eliz." "A grant from Edmund Lambert and Joane his wife to Robert Webbe of their interest in Snitterfield, 2nd May, 23 Eliz." (Stratford-on-Avon Records).

[94] Stratford-on-Avon Miscellaneous Papers.

[95] Chamberlain's Accounts, Stratford-on-Avon.

[96] Worcester Wills.

[97] Reply of John Lambert in 1597, Chancery Proceedings.

[98] Note of the fine (Halliwell-Phillipps' "Outlines," ii., 11 and 202).

[99] Notes and Queries, 8th Series, vol. v., pp. 127, 296, 498.

[100] West's "Symboleography Concords," pp. 10, 11.

[101] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," ii. 202. Wilmcote Fines, Hilary term, 21 Eliz.

[102] Halliwell-Phillipps points out that it is for L4, which is an evident error ("Outlines," ii. 179).

[103] Ibid., p. 179.

[104] "Sealed in the presence of Nycholas Knooles, Vicar of Auston."

[105] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," ii. 182. Dugdale, Alveston.

[106] Ibid., ii. 176.

[107] Warr. Fines. "In onere Georgii Digbie Armigeri Vicecomitis comitatu praedicti de anno vicesimo tercio Regine Elizabethe, fines de Banco anno vicesimo secundo Regine Elizabethe pro termino Pasche," etc. "Recepta per me Johannem Cowper sub vice comitem."

[108] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," ii. 179.

[109] Stratford-on-Avon Miscellaneous Documents.

[110] Ibid.

[111] Stratford Miscellaneous Papers.

[112] Ibid.

[113] Court of Chancery Records.

[114] French, "Genealogica Shakespeareana," p. 484.

[115] Coram Rege Rolls, Term Mich., 31 and 32 Elizabeth; also Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 11.

[116] Chancery Cases, 40-41 Elizabeth, S.s. 24 (21), Stratford, P. R. O.; also Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 14.

[117] Chancery Papers, S.s. 24 (21), Stratford, in dorso, "40-41 Eliz."; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 204.

[118] Notes and Queries, 8th Series, v. 127, 296, 478.

[119] Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 205.



CHAPTER VII

JOHN SHAKESPEARE

Richard Shakespeare was in tenure of the property at Snitterfield, which Robert Arden settled on his wife and daughters July 17, 4 Edward VI., Adam Palmer and Hugh Porter being trustees. On November 26, 1557, he, along with the executors of Robert Arden and Thomas Stringer, was returned as indebted to the late Hugh Porter of Snitterfield. On September 13 he prised the goods of Richard Maydes, and on June 1, 1560, of Henry Cole, of Snitterfield. He is believed to have been the father of John, Henry, and possibly of Thomas Shakespeare.

John Shakespeare must have come to Stratford-on-Avon, probably from Snitterfield, some time before 1552, for in that year he is described as a resident in Henley Street, and fined for a breach of the municipal sanitary regulations, along with Humphrey Reynolds and Adrian Quyney, twelvepence a piece.[120] This relatively large sum implies that he must have been even then a substantial householder. The determination of the house he then dwelt in becomes interesting in its bearing on the tradition as to the poet's birthplace. Nothing is recorded of John for the next few years, but he seems to have prospered in business, trading in farmers' produce. In a law-suit of 1556, with Thomas Siche of Arscot, Worcester, he was styled a "glover." In that year he bought from George Turner a freehold tenement in Greenhill Street, with garden and croft, which is not mentioned in any of his later transactions, and from Edward West a freehold tenement and garden in Henley Street, the eastern half of the birthplace messuage. Each of these was held by the payment of sixpence a year to the lord of the manor and suit of court. Whether he had previously lived in this eastern tenement, or in the western half, as a tenant has not been absolutely decided.

He was summoned on the Court of Record Jury this year, and was party to several small suits, in all of which he was successful. In 1557 he was elected ale-taster, and curiously enough he was amerced for not keeping his gutters clean, in company with Francis Harbage, Chief Bailiff, Adrian Quyney, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Clopton. He is believed to have married Mary Arden in 1557. The registers of Aston Cantlow, where it is likely that Mary was married, do not begin so early. She was single at the time of her father's death in 1556, and on September 15, 1558, "Jone[121] Shakespeare, daughter to John Shakespeare, was christened at Stratford by Roger Divos, minister." In 1558 John Shakespeare was elected one of the four Constables of the town,[122] and, in 1559, one of the affeerors or officers appointed to determine the imposition of small arbitrary fines. In 1561 he was elected one of the Chamberlains, as well as one of the affeerors. He remained Chamberlain for two years, and apparently so well did he discharge his financial duties in that office that he was called on to assist later Chamberlains in making up their accounts. It is generally supposed that he could not write, because in attesting documents he made his mark. But I am not sure that this habit is a certain sign of his ignorance of the art. Camden himself chose a mark as a signature based on his horoscope. (See his letter to Ortelius, Sept. 14, 1577.)

In 1561 Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield died, and his goods were administered by his son, "John Shakespeare, Agricola, of Snitterfield," Feb. 10, 1561-62.[123] Many doubt that, even if he had any interest in Richard's property, such a description would have been given of the Chamberlain of Stratford-on-Avon. It must not be forgotten that there had been a John Shakespeare presented and fined twelvepence on October 1, 1561, in Snitterfield Court, but he may have been the Stratford John. In the description of a neighbouring property in 1570, we learn that there was a "John Shakespeare of Ingon," a farm in the neighbourhood of Snitterfield; and John Shakespeare of Ingon was buried September 25, 1589, according to Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps.[124] Hence arose reasonable doubts of the identity of John of Stratford with John, the heir of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield. Still, the evidence is much stronger in support of his identity than against it.

On December 2, 1562, the Stratford baptismal register records the christening of "Margaret, daughter of John Shakspere." At the making up of the Chamberlain's accounts for 1562-63 in January, 1563-64, the Chamber was found in debt to John Shakespeare 25s. 8d., as if he had been the finance Chamberlain of the two. Both of his daughters were dead when, on April 26, he christened his firstborn son William. That summer the plague raged in Stratford; the Council meetings were held in the garden, to avoid infection, and collections were made among the burgesses for the relief of the poor, to each of which John Shakespeare contributed.

In 1565 he was chosen alderman, and not only rendered the Chamberlain's accounts, but seems to have borne their financial liabilities, as in the accounts for the year is noted, "Item, payd to Shakspeyr for a rest of old det L3, 2, 7-1/2," the sum which was really entered as a debt in favour of the acting Chamberlains. The following year he again made up the accounts for the Chamberlains, and the Chamber was found to be in debt to him 6s. 8d., a sum that was not repaid until January, 1568.

From the number of petty actions for debt in which he appeared, either as plaintiff or defendant, one would believe that the business men of Stratford did not care to pay up until they were obliged to do so. In 1566 there occurs an interesting suit, which shows that John Shakespeare was even then acquainted with the Hathaways. In two actions against Richard Hathaway—one for L8, and one for L11—John Shakespeare had been security, and his name was substituted in the later proceedings for that of the defendant.

On October 13, 1566, his son Gilbert was christened.

In 1567 he was assessed on goods to the value of L4[125] for the subsidy 3s. 4d.; and in another entry on L3, 2s. 6d. This was not at all a small entry for a tradesman of the time. Everyone tried to make his estimate as small as possible, as men do to-day, when taxes depend on it. He was nominated that year, though not elected, to the post of High Bailiff, to which office, however, he was elected on September 4, 1568. In the precepts that he issued he is styled "Justice of the peace and Bailiff of the Town."[126] In the Chamberlain's accounts of January 26, 1568-69, there is mentioned, "Item to Mr. Balyf that now is 14/-," a sum not explained or accounted for; and in 1570 the Chamberlains "praye allowance of money delivered to Mr. Shaxpere at sundry times L6," during their year 1569-70, as if he had been doing work for the town.[127] On April 15, 1569, another daughter Joan was christened; and on September 28, 1571, his daughter Anna. After his year of office, John Shakespeare was always called "Master," a point to be remembered in determining the meaning of various little records in a town where others of the name came to reside. In 1571 he was elected Chief Alderman, and in 1572 he attained what may really be considered as his chief honour. "At this Hall yt is agreed by the asent and consent of the Aldermen and burgeses aforesaid, that Mr. Adrian Queney now bailif and Mr. John Shakespeare, shall at Hilary term next ensuing deale in the affairs concerninge the commen wealthe of the Borroughe according to their discrecions." This was an important consideration to devolve on the shoulders of a man if he could not read or write, and it very probably involved a visit to London.[128] In 1574, March 11, his son Richard was born; and in 1575 we find the locality of his house in Henley Street determined by William Wedgewood's sale, September 20, to Edward Willis for L44, of his two tenements "betwyne the tenement of Richard Hornbee on the east part, and the tenement of 'John Shakesper yeoman' on the weste part"—the street on the south, and the waste ground called Gilpittes on the north. This shows, therefore, that the east tenement of the birthplace was then in his occupation, and that somehow he was entitled yeoman. But in October he himself also bought two houses for L40 from Edmund and Emma Hall, the locality not specified. One of these has been supposed by some to have been the birthplace, or perhaps both, seeing that later entries make John Shakespeare responsible to the lord of the manor for 13d. for his western tenement, and the garden or toft to the west of it, as against the 6d. due for his eastern tenement.



We must then face the question, either John Shakespeare owned the birthplace in 1552, and resided in it until he added the wool-shop in 1556; or he rented the wool-shop in 1552, which he purchased in 1556; or he rented the birthplace in 1552, which he purchased in 1575 from the Halls. Under whatever circumstances he secured these, both remained free to him during all his financial difficulties, and descended to his son. But these uncertainties create the doubt that remains in the mind of some, Was the poet really born in the birthplace which tradition has assigned to him, or not? To me it seems that the balance of all considerations remains in favour of the birthplace. It is hard to account for a purchase in 1575 (that evidently galled him) of any other premises save those in which he resided. Little is known of John Shakespeare or his family during 1576 and 1577, but in 1578 begin the records of his temporary poverty, which I have noted under the account of his relations to his wife's relatives. For the Town Council, doubtless in consideration of his past services, excused him paying 3s. 4d., as his share of "the furniture of the pikemen," etc.; and, along with Mr. Robert Bratt (the poorest member of the Corporation), he was excused the 4d. a week imposed on the aldermen for relief of the poor. Then came the mortgage of Asbies in 1578-79.[129] The following year he again left unpaid his share of the levy for armour—3s. 4d.; and he began, probably through shamefacedness, not to show himself at the Halls, though the State Papers still enter him among the gentlemen and freeholders of Warwickshire. But another influence began to affect his circumstances prejudicially about this time, and that is, the evil fortunes of his brother Henry of Snitterfield. How his biographer, in the "Dictionary of National Biography," could call this brother "a prosperous farmer," I know not.

In 1574 there had been a free fight, wherein blood was drawn, between him and Edward Cornwall, who afterwards became the second husband of his brother's sister-in-law, Margaret Webbe, nee Arden. In the year 1580 there was an extra long series of actions against him for debt; threats of excommunication for withholding tithes; fines for refusing to wear the statute caps on Sunday; fines for not doing suit of court. Altogether he seems to have been a high-spirited fellow, who brought on himself, through lack of prudence, much of his ill-luck, and who had the unfortunate knack of involving other people in his troubles.

In 1582 both brothers were summoned as witnesses in support of Robert Webbe against the Mayowe appeal.

In November of that year John's eldest son William, of whom no earlier direct mention had been preserved, added to his embarrassments by a premature marriage, and in the following year John was made a grandfather by the birth of Susanna Shakespeare. In 1584 the twins Hamnet and Judith were added to his anxieties. About this time the Stratford Records notice how a John Shakespeare was worried by suits brought against him by John Brown, in whose favour a writ of distraint was issued against Shakespeare in 1586. But the answer was returned that "he had nothing whereon to distrain."

There are several reasons for believing that this John was not the poet's father. The prefix Mr. is not used in the entries; it is certain that he retained his freeholds in Henley Street all his life, and if he had "no goods whereon to distrain," he could hardly have been received as sufficient bail at Coventry, on July 19 of that year, for Michael Price, tinker, of Stratford-on-Avon, or as security for his brother Henry's debts. In 1586 he was removed from his office of alderman.[130]

Just in the year of the death of Edmund Lambert, when the possession of money would have given him power to have renewed his efforts to regain Asbies, Henry Shakespeare became a defaulter, and Nicholas Lane, by Thomas Trussell, his attorney, sued John Shakespeare in his place, 1587. William Court was his attorney in a weary case, which must have led both sides into heavy costs, over the recovery of L22.[131]

On September 1, 1588, he paid a visit to John Lambert at Barton-on-the-Heath, in the vain hope of inducing him to surrender Asbies; instituted proceedings against those who owed him money in Stratford, and, in 1589, against Lambert in the Queen's Bench at London, probably acting in the latter case through William. From the inquisition post-mortem of the Earl of Warwick, in 1590, we know Mr. John Shakespeare still owned the two houses in Henley Street.

In 1592 Mr. John Shakespeare appraised the goods of two important neighbours—of Ralph Shawe, wool-driver, July 23, and Henry Field, tanner, August 21. Thomas Trussell, the attorney, drew up the inventory, and denominated his associate as Mr. John Shaksper, Senior, for no clear reason, but possibly to distinguish him from the shoemaker John. The attestation is witnessed only by a cross. During this year Sir Thomas Lucy and others were drawing up the lists of Warwickshire recusants[132] that had been "heretofore presented." Among these they included several members of the sorely-oppressed family of the Ardens of Park Hall, and in Stratford-on-Avon "Mr. John Shackspere" and eight others. Probably some friendly clerk, wishing to spare them fines, added: "it is sayd that these last nine coom not to Churche for feare of process for debte." But it is quite possible it might refer to John Shakespeare the shoemaker, who, having been Master of the Shoemakers' Company, might have been called "Mr."[133] In the earlier undated draught from which this was taken the Commissioners state: "wee suspect theese nyne persons next ensuinge absent themselves for feare of processes, Mr. John Wheeler, John his son, Mr. John Shackespeere," etc.

Away up in London in 1593 the tide was beginning to turn for the family through the efforts of the poet and the affection of the Earl of Southampton.

In this year Richard Tyler sued a John Shakespeare for a debt, but it is not at all certain it was not one of the others of the name. In a case brought by Adrian Quyney and Thomas Barker against Philip Green, chandler, Henry Rogers, butcher, and John Shaxspere, in 1595, for a debt of L5, the absence of a trade after Shakespeare's name has made Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps suppose that he had retired by this date. A John Shakespeare attested by a cross the marriage settlement of Robert Fulwood and Elizabeth Hill in 1596, which represents probably the name of the poet's father. In 1597 he sold, to oblige his neighbour, George Badger, a narrow strip of land at the western side of his Henley Street garden, 1-1/2 feet in breadth, but 86 feet in length. For this he received L2 10s., and his ground-rent was reduced from 13d. to 12d., the odd penny becoming Badger's responsibility. He also sold a plat, 17 feet square, in the garden, behind the wool-shop, to oblige his neighbour on the other side, Edward Willis.

The application made for coat-armour, initiated in 1596, ostensibly by John Shakespeare, but really by William Shakespeare, as well as the Lambert case, dragged on through the later years of the century.

That he had not lost credit with his fellow-townsmen may be seen by John's latest recorded piece of work.

Early in 1601 an action was brought by Sir Edward Greville[134] against the Corporation respecting the toll-corn; and John Shakespeare, with Adrian Quyney and others, assisted to draw up suggestions for the use of the counsel for the defendants. On September 8 of that year the funeral of the old burgess took place at Stratford-on-Avon, but there is no trace now left of any sepulchral monument or memorial of any kind. No will or inventory, or even inquisition post-mortem, has come down to us.

It is quite possible that the Henley Street houses were entailed upon his eldest son, or that he may have bought up all rights during his father's lifetime to such an extent that "inheritance" could hardly be talked of. He seems to have indeed supported all the family, as there is no trace[135] of any of them, except Edmund the player, engaging in any trade or profession. Whether his mother resided in Henley Street or at New Place is not clear. There is nothing further known of her save the register of her burial: "September 9th, 1608, Mayry Shaxspere Wydowe."

No sepulchre or memorial of her has come down to our time. We only know that somewhere in the consecrated ground by Stratford Church lies the dust of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, the parents of the poet.



FOOTNOTES:

[120] Stratford-on-Avon Chamberlain's Accounts, April 29, 6 Edward VI.

[121] Stratford-on-Avon Baptismal Register.

[122] All these references are from the Chamberlain's Accounts, and accounts of the Halls at Stratford-on-Avon. Those who have not had access to them may refer to Halliwell-Phillipps's "Outlines," i. 29; ii. 179 et seq.

[123] Worcester administration bonds, 1561. Notes and Queries, 8th Series, xii. 413.

[124] This statement is, however, evidently erroneous.

[125] Roll for Stratford, Longridge MS.

[126] Stratford Borough Records.

[127] The first notice of municipal employment of players appears during his year of office, the Queen's Company and that of the Earl of Worcester having performed before the council. A case was tried at the Warwick assizes, Easter, 11 Elizabeth, concerning the tithes of Rowington, and John Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon, was on the jury.—Ryland's "Records of Rowington."

[128] See Chamberlain's accounts for "the expenses of Mr. Queeney in London," also for the expenses of the dinner given to Sir Thomas Lucy and others, at which Quiney and Shakespeare presided.

[129] In 1579 he buried his daughter Anne "with the pall and the great bell." On May 3, 1580, his youngest child Edmund was christened.

[130] "At this halle William Smythe and Richard Court are chosen Aldermen in the places of John Wheler and John Shaxspere, for that Mr. Wheler doth desire to be put out of the company, and Mr. Shaxspere doth not come to the Halles when they be warned, nor hath not done of long tyme."—Borough Reports. It is noteworthy that he was never fined for absenting himself as others were.

[131] Controlment Rolls, 29 Elizabeth, Stratford-on-Avon.

[132] State Papers, Domestic Series, Elizabeth. It may be noted that there was no Mrs. Shakespeare among the recusants. Other wives were noted, as Mrs. Wheeler.

[133] It remains a fact that John Shakespeare, shoemaker, is heard of no more in Stratford-on-Avon, and shortly afterwards his house was tenanted by another man.

[134] Stratford Corporation Records.

[135] Halliwell-Phillips is in error in stating that Gilbert was a London haberdasher.



CHAPTER VIII

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was thirty-seven when he became head of the family in 1601. His previous life must have been a stirring one, though we know only too little about it. Still, certain inferences may be soundly based on known facts. He must have been educated at the Stratford Grammar School, free to the sons of the burgesses, a high-class school for the time. Its head-master had a salary then double that of the Master of Eton. A taste for learning had certainly imbued William's spirit even in early years, but he doubtless warmly shared in the difficulties of his father's life, and knew the anxieties of debt, the oppression of the strong hand—the "cares of bread," as Mazzini calls it—and the sickening weariness of the law's uncertainty and delay. Most of his relatives were farmers, and his actions show that he would gladly have followed the same course of life, with the relaxation of field sports, of course, if he could have attained his desire. But the genius within him was to be welded by fiery trials, and he was driven on a course that seemed at discord with his nature, and yet led to its own fulfilment. In the enthusiasm of a first love, he married early, not, it must emphatically be noted, over-early for the custom of the period, when the means of support were assured, but over-early, as it would then have been considered, solely from a financial standpoint. He had no assured means of support. His hope of securing his inheritance of Asbies was fading. He did not marry an heiress. Many vials of wrath have been poured on the devoted head of Anne Hathaway by those who do not consider all sides of the question. Harrowing pictures of the relations of young Shakespeare and "his aged wife" are drawn, even by such writers as Dr. Furnivall. Now, it is a well-known fact that almost all very young men fancy girls older than themselves, and it is an artistic fact that a woman under thirty does look younger, and not older, than a man of the same age, if she has led a natural and simple life. It is much more than likely that the well-grown, responsible eldest son of anxious John Shakespeare looked quite as old as Anne Hathaway, seven years his senior, especially if she was slight and fair and delicate, as there is every reason to believe she was. And the masterful spirit marks its own age when it goes forth to woo, and determines to win the first real fancy of his life. It must not be forgotten, in association with the situation, that Richard Hathaway of Shottery (for whom John Shakespeare had stood surety in 1566) had made his will on September 1, 1581, and died between that time and July 9, 1582, when it was proved, leaving his daughter Agnes, or Anne, the small but very common marriage portion of L6 13s. 4d. A break had come into her home life; doubtless she went off to visit some friends, and the young lover felt he could not live without his betrothed, and determined to clinch the matter.

Much unnecessarily unfavourable comment has been made on the peculiar circumstances of the marriage. People forget the complexity of religious and social customs of the time, the binding force of betrothals, the oppression of Catholics. In Robert Arden's settlement of July 17, 1550, he speaks of his daughter Agnes as the wife of Thomas Stringer, though she did not marry him until October 15, 1550.[136] The perplexity is increased by the entry of the marriage license of a William Shakespeare and Anne Whately of Templegrafton, the day previous to that of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway of Stratford, November 28, 1582.[137] It all seems possible to explain. Travelling was inconvenient on November roads; Will set out for the license alone, as bridegrooms were often wont to do, when they could afford the expense of a special license. He might give his own name, and that of his intended wife, at a temporary address. The clerk made an error in the spelling, which might have been corrected; but meanwhile discovered that Shakespeare was under age, was acting without his parents—that the bride was not in her own home, and that no marriage settlement was in the air. No risk might be run by an official in such a case; the license was stayed; sureties must be found for a penalty in case of error. So poor Will would have to find, in post-haste, the nearest friends he could find to trust him and his story. And who so likely to ask as Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, friends of the Hathaways—the one supervisor, and the other witness to the will of Anne's father Richard? They might have been at Worcester market with him.

They were both "good men" in the financial sense, and their bond for L40 was accepted at the Bishop of Worcester's Registry in support of the assertion that there was no impediment against this marriage by ground of consanguinity or pre-contract. If this were all right, and if the bride's friends were willing, by which must have been intended her mother and brothers, then the marriage might be solemnized. It was clearly a question in which the woman's friends were the proper parties to summon. The bond of John Shakespeare would not then have been good for L40, and the would-be bridegroom had nothing of his own. The place where they were married has not yet been discovered; it is quite possible to have been at "a private mass," as was the case in another marriage with a similar bond at the same registry.[138] But they were married somehow, and William probably brought home his fatherless bride to his father's house, and there her little portion of L6 13s. 4d. might go the further. But a wife and a family of three children sorely handicapped a penniless youth, not yet of age, bred to no trade, heir to no fortune, whose father was himself in trouble.

The after-date gossip of wild courses, deer-stealing, and combats with Sir Thomas Lucy, are, I think, quite unfounded on fact. I have discussed this fully in my article in the Athenaeum[139] on "Sir Thomas Lucy," and in my chapter on "The Traditional Sir Thomas and the Real."[140] It is much more than likely Shakespeare was concerned in the religious turmoil of the times, was somewhat suspected, and was indignant at the cruel treatment of Edward Arden, head of the house, the first victim of the Royal Commission[141] in 1583.

Eventually he went to London, probably with introductions to many people supposed to be able and willing to help him. There were both Ardens and Shakespeares in London, and many Warwickshire men, and they thought that some place might be found even for him, the landless, unapprenticed, untrained son of a straitened father. But there were so many in a similar case. It is evident he succeeded in nothing that he hoped or wished for. His own works prove that. He was unable to act the gentleman, but was determined to play the man. He may have dwelt with, and certainly frequently visited, his old Stratford friend Richard Field, the apprentice, son-in-law, and successor of Vautrollier, the great printer. In his shop he learned not only much technical detail of his art, but refreshed his education—or, rather, went through another course, reading with a new inspiration and a kindled enthusiasm.

I have shown elsewhere how very much his mental development owed to books published by Vautrollier and Field,[142] sole publishers of many Latin works, including Ovid, of Puttenham's "Art of Poetrie," of Plutarch's "Lives," and many another book whose spirit has been transfused into Shakespeare's works. We know that he had tried his hand at altering plays, at rewriting them, and making them popular; we know that he had translated them upon the stage before 1592, because of Greene's notice then published by Chettle, of "the upstart crow."[143] And he probably had written some. But his first firm step on the staircase of fame was taken in the publication of his "Venus and Adonis" by his friend Richard Field in April, 1593, and his first grip of success in his dedication thereof to the young Earl of Southampton. The kindness of his patron between 1593 and 1594 had ripened his admiration into love; and the dedication of the "Rape of Lucrece" in the latter year placed the relations of the two men clearly before the world. A careful study of the two dedications leads to the conviction that the "Sonnets" could only have been addressed to the same[144] patron. A study of the poems and sonnets together shows much of the character, training, and culture of the author—love of nature, delight in open-air exercise and in the chase, sympathy with the Renaissance culture, and a moral standard of no common order.

In his first poem he shows how preoccupation preserves Adonis from temptation; in the second how the spiritual chastity of Lucrece is triumphant over evil. The one poem completes the conception of the other, and both lead into the sonnets. In these the author explains much of his thought and circumstance—

"Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view; Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new."

"Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That doth not better for my life provide Than public means, which public manners breeds."[145]

Southampton did not only chide with Fortune, but took her place. Through his stepfather, Sir Thomas Henneage, who had succeeded Sir Christopher Hatton in 1589[146] as Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household, he was able to assist the players, and Shakespeare is for the first time recorded as having played twice before the Queen, at Greenwich on St. Stephen's Day, December 26, 1594, and on Innocents' Day, December 28 of the same year.[147] On the latter day at night, amid the turmoil of the Gray's Inn revels, Shakespeare's play of the "Comedy of Errors" was represented by his company, doubtless through the interest of the Earl of Southampton, then a student at Gray's Inn. At his coming of age in October, 1594, the young nobleman would be the better able to assist his poet. Tradition has reported that he gave Shakespeare a large sum of money, generally said to be L1,000.



However it was, the tide of Shakespeare's fortunes turned with his introduction to the Earl of Southampton, and his exertions during the remaining years of the century began to tell in financial returns. It is significant that the first known use to which he put his money was the application for the coat of arms. In that same year fortune gave him a cruel buffet in the death of his only son.[148] Nevertheless, he went on with his purchase of the largest house in his native town; so that, if the bride of his youth had waited long for a home of her own, he did what he could to make up for the delay by giving her the best he could find.[149] That he was cautious in his investments was evident. He had seen too much suffering through rashness in money affairs not to benefit by the experience. Thereby he made clear his desire for the rehabilitation of himself and family in the place where he was born. By 1598 we have irrefragable testimony to the position he had already taken, alike in the world of letters as in the social life of Stratford. In the autumn of that year appeared the perennial advertisement of Meres, the Professor of Rhetoric at Oxford, Master of Arts of both Universities, who ranks him among the first of his day, as an epic and lyric poet, and as a writer of both tragedy and comedy. "As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare.... As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare ... among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage ... witness his 'Gentlemen of Verona,' his 'Errors,' his 'Love's Labour's Lost,' his 'Love's Labour Wonne,' his 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and his 'Merchante of Venice'; for tragedy his 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and 'Romeo and Juliet.'"[150]

On the other hand, the Quiney correspondence shows the estimation in which his fellow-townsmen held him—that he had money, that he wanted to invest, and was already styled "master." He was considering the policy of buying "an odd yard land or other" in Stratford, when Richard Quiney, who was in the Metropolis, was urged by his brother-in-law, Abraham Sturley, to induce Shakespeare to buy one of the tithe leases. "By the friends he can make therefore, we think it a fair mark for him to shoot at; it obtained, would advance him in deed, and would do us much good." Richard Quiney was in the Metropolis at the end of 1598 on affairs of the town, trying to secure the grant of a new charter, and relief from subsidy; but either on his own account, or the affairs of the town, he applied to Shakespeare for a loan. As there are no letters of Shakespeare's extant, and this is the only one addressed to him, it is worth noting very specially. It could hardly have been sent, as it was found among the Corporation Records. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps suggests that Shakespeare may have called to see Quiney before the letter was sent off, and given his reply verbally.

"Loveinge contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with xxx^li uppon Mr. Bushells and my securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me. Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, and I have especiall cawse. Yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeing me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke God, and muche quyet my mynde, which wolde nott be indebeted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatch of my buysness. Yow shall nether loase creddytt nor monney by me, the Lord wyllinge; and nowe butt persuade yourselfe soe, as I hope, and you shall nott need to feare, butt, with all hartie thanckefullness, I wyll holde my tyme, and content yowr ffrende, and yf we bargaine farther, you shal be the paie-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hastene to an ende, and soe I comitt thys (to) yowr care, and hope of yowr helpe. I feare I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste. The Lorde be with yow and with us all, Amen. From the Bell in Carter Lane the 25th October, 1598. Yowrs in all kyndeness Ryc. Quyney.

"To my loveinge good frend and contreymann Mr. Wm. Shackespere deliver thees."[151]

And Shakespeare then befriended the man whose son was to marry his daughter. The reply seems to have been as prompt as satisfactory, for on the very same day Quiney wrote to his brother-in-law Sturley, who replied on November 4: "Your letter of the 25th of October came to my hands, the last of the same at night per Greenway,[152] which imported that our Countryman Mr. William Shakespeare would procure us money; which I will like of, as I shall hear when and where and how; and I pray let not go that occasion, if it may sort to any indifferent conditions."

It is evident that Shakespeare had at some time or other associated himself with Burbage's company. Now, James Burbage, "was the first builder of playhouses" who had planned in 1576, and in spite of evil report and professional rivalry, of municipal and royal restrictions, legal and other expenses, had successfully carried on "The Theatre" in Finsbury Fields. In 1596 he had purchased the house in Blackfriars, against the use of which as a theatre was sent up to the Privy Council a petition, which Richard Field signed.[153] The Burbages let this house for a time to a company of "children," but eventually resumed it for their own use, and in it placed "men-players, which were Hemings, Condell, Shakespeare," etc. On Burbage's death in 1597, there was a dispute about "The Theater" lease, and his sons transferred the materials to Southwark, and built the Globe in 1599. On the rearing of the Globe at heavy cost, they joined to themselves "those deserving men Shakespeare, Hemings, Condell, Philips and others, partners in the Profits of what they call the House, but making the leases for twenty-one years hath been the destruction of ourselves and others, for they, dying at the expiration of three or four years of their lease, the subsequent yeares became dissolved to strangers, as by marrying with theire widdowes, and the like by their children." (See the papers concerning the shares in the Globe, 1535: 1. Petition of Benfield, Swanston and Pollard to the Lord Chamberlain Pembroke (April). 2. A further petition. 3. The answer of Shank. 4. The answer of C. Burbage, Winifred, his brother's widow, and William his son. 5. Pembroke's judgment thereon (July 12). 6. Shanke's petition (August 7). 7. Pembroke's final decision.)[154]

Burbage, Shakespeare, Condell, Hemings had been housekeepers with four shares each. These originally died with the owner, but in later years could be inherited. Shakespeare's income therefore arose from:

1. Possibly some small sum allowed him by Richard Field and the publishers for various editions of his poems, as well as the liberality of the Earl of Southampton on their account.

2. Direct payments by the proprietors for altering and writing plays. Shares in their publication he never seems to have had.

3. His share as a player of the money taken at the doors.

4. His share as a partner in the house of the money taken in the galleries, etc.

5. His share of royal largesse in performances before the Queen, or similar gifts from noblemen.[155]

6. His share of performances in various performing tours.

And thence he acquired money enough to buy New Place; to appeal to the heralds for his father's coat of arms, and to pay the costs; to contest the Lamberts' claim through successive applications for Asbies; and to buy land and tithe leases. The death of his only son Hamnet did not deter him in his earnest efforts to regain social position, and to restore the fortunes of his family. An almost exact parallel may be found in the efforts and aims of Sir Walter Scott. But Shakespeare, having borne the yoke in youth, had acquired the experience and prudence necessary to steer himself past the dangers of speculation and the rashness of exceeding his assured income, which proved fatal to the less severely-trained novelist.

In May, 1602, he purchased from the Combes for L320 about 107 acres of land near Stratford-on-Avon, of which, as he was not in the town, seisin was granted to his brother Gilbert. On September 28, 1602, Walter Getley transferred to him a cottage and garden situated in Chapel Lane, opposite the lower gardens of New Place, quite possibly intended for the use of his brothers. It appears from the roll that he did not appear at the Manorial Court in person,[156] then held at Rowington, there being a stipulation that the estate should remain in the hands of the lady of the manor, the Countess of Warwick, until he appeared to complete the transaction with the usual formalities. On completing these, he surrendered the property to his own use for life, with remainder to his two daughters, a settlement rearranged afterwards in his will. It is mentioned as in his possession in a subsequent subsidy roll of the town.[157]

The only time in which he touched politics and State affairs he was unfortunate. There is no doubt he must have trembled at the time of the Essex Conspiracy, not only for his friend Southampton's life, but even for his own; for Philips, the manager of his company, was called before the Privy Council to account for the performances of the obnoxious play of "Richard II."

The danger passed. Probably the Privy Council thought it futile to attack the "Puppets." Nevertheless, after fulfilling their engagements they hastened from the Metropolis.[158] Some of his company went to play in Scotland, as far north as Aberdeen.[159] I am inclined to think Shakespeare went with them. The scenery in "Macbeth"[160] suggests vivid visual impressions, and the favour of James VI. must have been secured before his accession to the throne of England, for almost the first act the King did on his arrival at the Metropolis, May 7, 1603, was to execute a series of Acts that practically gave his company a monopoly.

"Pat. I., Jac. I., p. 2, m. 4. Pro Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare et aliis.[161]

"James by the grace of God, etc., to all Justices, Maiors, Sheriffs, Constables, Hedboroughs, and other our Officers and lovinge Subjects, Greetinge. Knowe ye that wee, of our Speciall Grace, certeine knowledge and mere motion, have licensed and authorized, and by these presentes doe license and authorize theise our Servaunts, Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustyne Philippes, John Hemings, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their Associates Freely to use and exercise the Arte and Facultie of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morals, Pastoralls, Stage-plaies, and such others like as theie have alreadie studied or hereafter shall use or studie, as well for the Recreation of our loveinge Subjects as for our Solace and Pleasure, when wee shall thincke good to see them, during our pleasure; and the said Commedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Moralls, Pastoralls, Stage-playes, and suchelike, to shewe and exercise publiquely to their best Commoditie, when the Infection of the Plague shall decrease, as well within theire nowe usuall House called the Globe within our Countie of Surrey, as also within anie Toune Halls or Moute Halls, or other convenient Places within the Liberties and Freedom of anie other Cittie, Universitie, Toune or Boroughe whatsoever, within our said Realmes and Dominions.

"Willing and commanding you and everie of you, as you tender our Pleasure, not onelie to permit and suffer them herein, without anie your Letts, Hindrances, or Molestations, during our said Pleasure, but also to be aiding and assistinge to them if anie Wrong be to them offered, and to allow them such former Curtesies as hath been given to men of their Place and Qualitie; and also what further Favour you shall shewe to theise our Servaunts for our sake, Wee shall take Kindlie at your Handes. In witnesse whereof, etc.

"Witnesse our selfe at Westminster the nynetenth Daye of Maye.

"PER BREVE DE PRIVATO SIGILLO."

[The privy seal for this issued on May 17.]

As James made more stringent the laws concerning "vagabonds," as he took from the nobles the power of patronage of players, reserving it only for the Royal Family, this passport gave enormous power to the players, favoured by the King in Scotland.

Shakespeare's early patron, the Earl of Southampton, had been released from the Tower on April 10, and had gone to meet his new Sovereign, doubtless speaking a good word for the company of players. His later patron, the Earl of Pembroke, was recalled to Court favour. The King visited him in his royal progress August 30 and 31, 1603, and held his Court at Wilton, Winchester,[162] and Basing during most of October, November,[163] and December, during which time the players were summoned on December 2. "To John Hemyngs on 3rd December, for a play before the King, by the King's men at Wilton, and for coming from Mortlake in Surrey, L30."[164]

On March 15, 1603-1604, the King's players were summoned to the Triumphant Royal Procession, received robes for the occasion, and took rank at Court[165] with the Grooms of the Chamber. Henceforth Shakespeare's genius revelled in the opportunities fortune had made for him, and in the taste he had himself educated. The world appreciated his work the better "that so did take Eliza and our James."[166] The snarls of envy witnessed his success; the eulogiums of admirers perpetuated his appreciation. On May 4, 1605, Augustine Phillips died, leaving by will "to my fellow William Shakespeare a thirty-shilling piece in gold." In July of that year (July 24, 1605) Shakespeare completed his largest purchase, in buying for L440 the unexpired term of the moiety of the tithe-lease of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe.

In that year John Davenant took out the lease of the Crown Inn at Oxford, where the following year his son William was born. Gossip, supported, if not originated, by himself, suggests that William Davenant was the son rather than the godson of Shakespeare, an unfounded slander disposed of by Halliwell-Phillipps.

On June 5, 1607, Susanna Shakespeare married Dr. Hall. Elizabeth, their only child, and the only grandchild Shakespeare saw, was born in February, 1607-1608, and in September of that year John Shakespeare's widow—Shakespeare's mother—died.

It is probable Shakespeare returned home to his mother's funeral, as he was chief godfather on October 16 to the William Walker of Stratford to whom he bequeathed 20s. in gold in 1616. In 1608 and 1609 Shakespeare instituted a process for debt against John Addenbroke and his security Hornebie. His attorney was his cousin, Thomas Greene, then residing, under unknown conditions, at New Place. In the latter year he instituted more important proceedings concerning the tithes. The papers of the complaint by Lane, Green, and Shakespeare to Lord Ellesmere in 1612, concerning other lessees, give details of the income he derived therefrom.[167]

In 1610 he purchased 20 acres of pasture-land from the Combes to add to his freeholds. The concord of the fine is dated April 13, 1610, and, as it was acknowledged before the Commissioners, he is believed to have been in Stratford at the time. In a subscription list drawn up at Stratford September 11, 1611, his name is the only one entered on the margin, as if it were a later insertion, "towards the charge of prosecuting the Bill in Parliament for the better repair of Highways." A Parliament was then expected to meet, but it was not summoned till long afterwards. In 1612 Lane, Green, and Shakespeare filed a new bill of complaint concerning the tithes before Lord Ellesmere.

In March, 1613, he made a curious purchase of a tenement and yard, one or two hundred yards to the east of the Blackfriars Theatre. The lower part had long been in use as a haberdasher's shop. The vendor was Henry Walker, a musician, who had paid L100 for it in 1604, and who asked then the price of L140. Shakespeare, however, at this raised price secured it, leaving L60 of it on mortgage. The date of the conveyance deed is March 10, 1613,[168] probably signed on the 11th, on which day it was enrolled in the Court of Chancery. Besides the witnesses to this document, there was present Henry Lawrence, the scrivener who had drawn it up, who unfortunately lent his seal to the poet, which still exists, bearing the initials "H. L."

Shakespeare is believed to have written two plays a year while he was a shareholder. On June 29, 1613, the Globe Theatre was destroyed by fire while the history of Henry VIII. was being enacted. Burbage, Hemings, Condell, and the Fool were so long in leaving the theatre that the spectators feared for their safety. It is not known whether this fire would prove a loss to him. In June of that year a malicious piece of gossip was circulating in Stratford against the good name of Shakespeare's daughter, Susanna Hall. The rumour was traced to a man called Lane, who was summoned to appear before the Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester on July 15, 1613. He did not venture to appear, and he was duly excommunicated for perjury.

It was the custom for the Corporation then to make complimentary offerings of wine to those whom they wished to honour, and thus they honoured an itinerant preacher, quartered at New Place, in the spring of 1614, with a quart of sack and another of claret, and this has been supposed to prove that the poet had turned Puritan. John Combe, one of the chief men of the neighbourhood, died in July, 1614, leaving Shakespeare L5. Shakespeare would probably never receive it. The will, dated January 28, 1612-13, was not proved till November, 1616. It is clear, however, that these men were friendly at that time, and that the mock elegy, attributed to Shakespeare, could not then have been written, or, if written, was only laughed at. The Globe Theatre was rebuilt at great cost that year. Chamberlain, writing to a lady in Venice, said: "I hear much speech of this new playhouse, which is sayde to be the fayrest that ever was in England" (June 30, 1614).

In the same year, William Combe, the new Squire of Welcombe, attempted enclosure of some of the common fields, a design resisted by the Corporation. This scheme materially affected Shakespeare through his tithes, and much discussion has been waged over the true meaning of the entries of his cousin, Thomas Green, the Town Clerk of Stratford-on-Avon, and his attorney. Unfortunately, these are badly written, and the composition is dubious; but to my mind it seems clear that Green meant to say that Mr. Shakespeare could not bear the enclosing of Welcombe.[169]

In the opening of 1615-16 Shakespeare found himself "in perfect healthe and memorie—God be praised"; and yet, for some reason, he wished to make a new will, "revoking all other wills," and his solicitor, Francis Collins of Warwick, drew up a draft. Halliwell-Phillipps thinks this was done in January, and that it was intended to have been signed on the 25th of that month. I own that the date, erased to be replaced by "March," looks to me more like "February." An important difference it would be, because in January he might not have known that his daughter, Judith Shakespeare, aged 32, had made up her mind to marry Thomas Quiney, aged 28. By February 25 she had already done it. On February 10, 1616, Thomas Quiney was married, at Stratford-on-Avon, to Judith Shakespeare without a license, an irregularity for which both the parties were summoned to appear[170] before the Ecclesiastical Courts some weeks afterwards, and threatened with excommunication, but probably the fact of Shakespeare's illness and death would act as an excuse in high quarters.

Though it seems to me that the will must have been drawn up before Judith's marriage, the possibility of such a change of state is clearly considered. There is no sign of indignation at the later date of the signing of the will, and L300 was a large portion; and there are no alterations in his bequests to her, except a curious one. The first bequest was originally intended to have been in favour of "my sonne and daughter Judith," but the "sonne" was erased. Of course, this possibly arose from the scrivener intending to start with the Halls. But the less important bequests came first. One hundred and fifty pounds was to be paid to Judith within a year, in two instalments, the L100 in discharge of her marriage portion, and the L50 on her surrendering her share in the copyhold tenement in Stratford-on-Avon (once Getley's) to her sister, Susanna Hall. Another L150[171] was to be paid Judith, or any of her heirs alive at the date of three years after the testator's death. If she had died without issue at that date, L100 thereof was to go to Elizabeth Hall, and L50 to his sister Joan and her children. If Judith were alive, the stock was to be invested by the executors, and only the interest paid her as long as she was married, unless her husband had "assured her in lands answerable to her portion."

Sister Joan was to have L20, the testator's wearing apparel, and a life-rent in the Henley Street house, under the yearly payment of one shilling. Five pounds a piece were left to her sons. Elizabeth Hall was to have all the plate, except his broad silver-gilt bowl, which he left to Judith. Ten pounds he left to the poor, his sword to Mr. Thomas Combe, L5 to Thomas Russell, L13 6s. 8d. to Francis Collins. Rings of the value of 26s. 8d. each were left to Hamnet Sadler, William Reynolds, gent., Antony Marsh, gent., Mr. John Marsh; and in interpolation "to my fellows, John Heming, Richard Burbage, and Henry Condell," and to William Walker, his godson, 20s. in gold.

To enable his daughter Susanna to perform all this, she received "the Capital Messuage called New Place, wherein I now dwell, two messuages in Henley Street, and all my Barns, Stables, Orchards, Gardens, Lands, Tenements and hereditaments whatsoever lying in Stratford-upon-Avon, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, in the County of Warwick"; and "that Messuage in Blackfriars in London near the Wardrobe wherein one John Robinson now dwelleth."

The descent was to be to her sons if she had any, failing whom to the sons of his grand-daughter Elizabeth, failing whom to the sons of his daughter Judith, failing whom "to the right heires of me William Shakespeare for ever."

Item interpolated: "I give unto my wife my second-best bed, with the furniture."

Everything else to his "sonne-in-law John Hall, gent., and to his daughter Susanna, his wife," whom he made executors.

Thomas Russell, Esq., and Francis Collins, gent., were to be overseers. There were several witnesses. It was proved June 22, 1616, by John Hall, at Westminster, but the inventory is unfortunately lost.

Much discussion has taken place over Shakespeare's legacy to his wife. It may very simply and naturally have arisen from some conversation in which a reference had been made to giving her "the best bed." But that was the visitor's couch. "The second-best" would have been her own, that which she had used through the years, and he wished her to feel that that was not included in the "residue." That was to be her very own. As to any provision for her, it must have taken the form of a settlement, a jointure, or a dower. There is no trace of the first or second. But the English law then assured a widow in a third of her husband's property for life and the use of the capital messuage, if another was not provided her. The absence of all special provision for Mrs. Shakespeare seems to have arisen from her husband's knowledge of this and his trust in the honour of Mr. John Hall, and the love of his daughters for their mother. It also supports my opinion of her extreme delicacy of constitution. She was not to be overweighted by mournful responsibilities.

The indefiniteness of the residuary inheritance leaves room for surmise. A curious reference, not, it seems to me, hitherto sufficiently noted, occurs in the Burbage Case of 1635. Cuthbert, Winifred, the widow of Richard, and William his son, recite facts concerning their father James, who was the first builder of playhouses. "And to ourselves we joined those deserving men, Shakspere, Hemings, Condell, Phillips, and others, partners[172] in the profittes of that they call the House; but makeing the leases for twenty-one yeares hath been the destruction of ourselves and others, for they dying at the expiration of three or four yeares of their lease, the subsequent yeeres became dissolved to strangers, as by marrying with their widdowes and the like by their children."

If Shakespeare's "lease" had not then expired, which seems to me implied, it would have been "dissolved to a stranger" in the person of Dr. Hall.

Some ready money would be required for the carrying out of the will. Three hundred pounds left to Judith, and L73 13s. 4d. in smaller bequests, would certainly run up to L400 by the payment of debts and funeral expenses. The eagerness to leave all land to his own children is another proof of Shakespeare's earnest desire to found a family.

Shakespeare did not immediately die after the signing of his will. Probably the devoted care of his wife and daughters and the skill of his son-in-law soothed his dying moments. But one cannot but have a lurking suspicion of maltreatment through the crude medical notions of the time: of bleeding when there should have been feeding; of vile medicines when Nature should have been supported and not undermined by art. At all events, Dr. John Hall had not the happiness and honour to record the name of his illustrious father-in-law in his book of "Cures."[173] This was the one great failure of his life.



The April 23 on which Shakespeare closed his eyes completed his cycle of fifty-two years, according to ordinary reckoning. But strangely enough there is entered on his tombstone "AEtatis 53," and this suggests that he had been born on April 22. No records of his funeral have come down to us, but it must have made a stir in his native place. He was a native of the town, known to all in his youth, and loved by many. Yet, on the other hand, he had offended all the traditions of the borough. He had descended from the safe levels of trade to the vagabond life of a "common player," especially detested in Stratford-on-Avon (see notes); he had made money somehow in the city, and had returned to spend it in his native town, but he had never taken office, and had never been "one of them." And at the end he was to be buried in the Chancel, the select spot for nobles and prelates and "great men." Verily the tongues of the gossips of Stratford would wag on April 25, 1616. The authorship of the doggerel lines on his tomb has been attributed to various people. Probably they were a part of the stock-in-trade of the stone-cutter, that satisfied Shakespeare's widow as expressing a known wish of her "dear departed." Rude as they are, they have fulfilled their end:

"Good Frend, for Jesus' sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased here; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones."

Meanwhile Shakespeare's friends had been planning a monument to be placed on the northern wall of the Chancel. The bust is said to have been prepared from a death-mask, and to have been sculptured by one Gerard Johnson, son and successor of the Amsterdam tomb-maker, whose place of business lay between St. Saviour's Church and the Globe Theatre. He may be presumed to have frequently seen Shakespeare in his lifetime. The exact date of its erection is not known, but it would seem to have been some time before 1623, as Leonard Digges refers to it in his poem prefixed to the First Folio, "To the Memorie of the deceased Authour, Maister W. Shakespeare":

"Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellowes give The World thy Workes—thy Workes, by which outlive Thy touche thy name must; when that stone is rent, And Time dissolves thy Stratford monument, Here we alive shall view thee still."

Crude and inartistic as it is, the bust must have had some likeness in its earlier days to have satisfied critical eyes; but it has passed through so many vicissitudes, and suffered so much restoration, that the likeness may have entirely vanished by this time. Nevertheless, it remains a witness to the affection of the surviving, and a witness, Puritans though they were, that it was on account of the power of his pen that he deserved special remembrance.

Upon a mural tablet are other verses, which would seem not to have been composed by his own friends, as they speak of Shakespeare's lying "within this monument." Whoever wrote them, the family accepted them, and the world has endorsed them:



William Camden had finished his "Britannia" by 1617 (commenced in 1597), printed in 1625. He says of Stratford Church: "In the chancel lies William Shakespeare, a native of this place, who has given ample proof of his genius and great abilities in the forty-eight plays he has left behind him."

It is evident that the First Folio, 1623, was intended by his "fellows" at the Globe to stand as their monument to his memory, built of the plays that had become their private property by purchase. The verses that preface it, written by W. Basse, suggest that Shakespeare should have been buried by Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. But the author withdraws his wish.

"Sleep, Brave Tragedian, Shakspere, sleep alone Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave Possess as Lord, not tenant to thy grave," etc.

Archy's "Banquet of Jests," printed in 1630, tells of one travelling through Stratford, "a town most remarkable for the birth of famous William Shakespeare." In the same year is said to have been written Milton's memorable epitaph (printed 1632), a noble testimony from the Puritan genius to the power of his play-acting brother:

"What needs my Shakspere for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What needst thou such weak witness of thy fame? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Hast built thyself a live-long monument," etc.

By 1651 had already been suggested an annual commemoration of his life in Samuel Sheppard's "Epigram on Shakspere," verse 6:

"Where thy honoured bones do lie, As Statius once to Maro's urn, Thither every year will I Slowly tread and sadly turn."

The State Papers even show the appreciation of his age.[174] But I was pleased to find that the first recorded student of Shakespeare was a woman. On January 21, 1638,[175] Madam Anne Merrick, in the country, wrote to a friend in London that she could not come to town, but "must content herself with the study of Shakespeare and the 'History of Women,'" which seem to have constituted all her country library. The Judges of King Charles I. reproached him with the study of Shakespeare's Plays.[176]

These records also contain a bookseller's (Mr. Moseley's) account[177] for books, probably provided to Lord Conway, among which are "Ben Jonson's poems, 6d., Beaumont's poems, 6d., Shakespeare's poems, 1/-," etc.

Other references to Shakespeare's works occur in the same records. But as this is not intended as a literary biography, I forbear to reproduce them now.

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Bearley Registers.

[137] Worcester Marriage Licenses.

[138] Francis Throgmorton, son and heir of Sir John Throgmorton, of Feckenham, to Anne Sutton, alias Dudley, daughter of Sir Edward Sutton, June 3, 1571. See my "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries," p. 111.

[139] See July 13, 1895, p. 67.

[140] "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries," ii., p. 12. Sir Thomas had no park, and Justice Shallow bore no resemblance to him, etc.

[141] Ibid., vi., p. 48; also Athenaeum, February 8, 1896, p. 190.

[142] "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries," i. Richard Field, Stratford-on-Avon Press.

[143] Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit."

[144] See my articles "The Date of the Sonnets," Athenaeum, March 19 and 26, 1898, pp. 374, 403, and "Mr. W. H.," August 4, 1900, p. 154.

[145] Sonnets CX. and CXI.

[146] See my English article (reprinted) "The Earliest Official Record of Shakespeare's Name," "Shakespeare Jahrbuch," vol. xxxii., Berlin, 1896.

[147] Declared Accounts, Treasury Chamber, Pipe Office, 542.

[148] August 11, 1596 (Stratford Burial Register).

[149] William Underhill, the Lord of Idlicote (by Barton-on-the-Heath), conveyed New Place to Shakespeare at Easter, 1597, and died in July of that year. His son Fulke died without issue, and his brother Hercules, who succeeded, being under age, did not complete the transfer till 1602.

[150] Meres' "Wit's Treasury," second part of "Wit's Commonwealth."

[151] From the original at the birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon.

[152] Greenway was the Stratford carrier.

[153] State Papers, Dom. Ser., Eliz., cclx. 116.

[154] The Burbage and Benfield Case, the Lord Chamberlain's Papers, 1635, P.R.O. See also Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 312, and Fleay, "Hist. of Stage," p. 325.

[155] See Accounts of Treasurer of the Chamber, etc.

[156] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 205; ii. 19. Court Rolls of Rowington.

[157] State Papers, Dom. Ser., Eliz., Subsidy List., 1605.

[158] The title-page of "Hamlet" (Stat. Reg., July 26, 1602) implies that the company had been travelling to Oxford and Cambridge.

[159] See Dibden's "History of the Edinburgh Stage."

[160] See my own paper on "The Scottish and English Macbeth."—"Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature," 1897.

[161] Rymer's "Foedera," V. xvi. 505.

[162] Nichols's "Progresses of James I.," vol. i.

[163] See Letters and Proclamations in State Papers, Domestic Series, of the time.

[164] Dec. Acc. Treasurer of the Chamber (November, 1603-4).

[165] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 212.

[166] Ben Jonson's verses, 1623, folio.

[167] Fleay's "Life of Shakespeare," p. 7.

[168] This deed is preserved in the Guildhall Library, and an account of it appears in the Antiquary, New Series, iv. 204.

[169] See Dr. Ingleby, "Shakespeare and the Welcombe Enclosures."

[170] Worcester Bishops' Books.

[171] Justice Shallow tells Anne Page that his cousin Slender will maintain her as a gentlewoman: "He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure."—The Merry Wives of Windsor, III., 4.

[172] See Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 312.

[173] See next chapter, p. 98.

[174] See Dr. Ingleby's "Century of Praise," and my own "Bacon-Shakespeare Question Answered."

[175] State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles I., 409 (167).

[176] J. Cooke's appeal to all rational men, 1649.

[177] Ibid., 478 (16).



CHAPTER IX

SHAKESPEARE'S DESCENDANTS

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, of a respectable family, supposed to be of Shottery. He had three children: Susanna, and Hamnet and Judith, twins. The boy died young, in 1596, before the grant of arms was completed. Anne Hathaway is described as of Stratford in the marriage bond, but so were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, the bondsmen, known to be of Shottery. Indeed, the village lay within the parish of Stratford.

Gwillim mentions arms,[178] "Sable, a bugle, or hunter's horn, garnished and furnished argent. This coat-armour is of very ancient erection in the church of Rewardine, in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and pertained to the family of Hatheway of the same place." Again he says, "Paleways of six, Argent and sable, on a bend Or, three pheons[179] of the second, by the name of Hatheway."[180]

The Hathaways from whom Anne Shakespeare descended have not been proved to be of the Gloucestershire stock, nor is it absolutely certain to which of the three Shottery families she belonged. In the Warwickshire Survey (Philip and Mary) it is stated that John Hathaway held part of a property at Shottery, called Hewlands, by copy of Court Roll dated April 20, 1542. He was possibly the same as the archer of that name, mentioned in the Muster Roll 28 Henry VIII., and was probably father of the Richard befriended by John Shakespeare in 1566. The Stratford registers record the birth of Thomas, son of Richard Hathaway, April 12, 1569; John, February 3, 1574, and William, November 30, 1578. Anne Hathaway, we know, from the words on her tombstone, must have been born before the register commenced (1558). There is not another Agnes, or Anne, recorded that could represent the legatee of Richard Hathaway's will of September, 1581. To his eldest son, Bartholomew, he left the farm,[181] to be carried on with his mother; to his second and third sons, Thomas and John, he left L6 13s. 4d. each; to his fourth son, William, L10; to his daughters, Agnes (or Anne) and Catherine, L6 13s. 4d., to be paid on the day of their marriage; and to his youngest daughter, Margaret, L6 13s. 4d. when she was seventeen. Witnessed by Sir William Gilbert, clerk and curate of Stratford.

The farm was not a freehold; Bartholomew did not become its owner until 1610, when he purchased it from William Whitmore and John Randall. Richard Hathaway mentions in his will his "shepherd, Thomas Whittington of Shottery." This man died in 1601, and by his will bequeathed to the poor "Forty shillings that is in the hand of Anne Shaxspere, wife unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxspere, and is debt due to me." It was a common custom of the days before savings-banks, for poor earners to deposit their savings in the charge of rich and trustworthy friends, and this little link seems to associate Anne Shakespeare doubly with that particular family of Hathaways.



Shakespeare does not mention any of his wife's relatives in his will, but that does not necessarily imply coldness of feeling. Dr. John Hall, his son-in-law, was made overseer of Bartholomew Hathaway's will in 1621, and in 1625 he was one of the trustees at the marriage of Isabel, his granddaughter, the daughter of Richard Hathaway of Bridge Street. A Richard is mentioned in the registers as being baptized in 1559 (but it is not clear that he was the son of this Richard or of Bartholomew), who became a baker in Bridge Street, an important member of the Town Council, and Constable in 1605. He was elected High Bailiff of Stratford in 1526, and was styled "gent." Many of the name are buried in Trinity Church, Stratford.

In the rather remarkable testament of Thomas Nash,[182] first husband of Shakespeare's only granddaughter, Elizabeth, he left L50 to Elizabeth Hathaway, L50 to Thomas Hathaway, and L10 to Judith Hathaway. His wife also remembered them, as will be afterwards shown. William Hathaway, of Weston-upon-Avon, in the county of Gloucester, yeoman, and Thomas Hathaway, of Stratford-upon-Avon, joiner, were parties to the New Place settlement of 1647.

All this shows that the Shakespeares were not ashamed of their mother's relatives. We do not know anything about Anne Shakespeare after her husband's death until we reach the record of her own, "August 8th, 1623, Mrs. Shakespeare."[183]

Tradition says that she earnestly desired to be buried in her husband's grave. The survivors were not able to secure this, but they buried her as near him as they could. Her daughter Susanna's grief is recorded in touching lines, probably Latinized by Dr. Hall, placed on her tombstone:



"Thou, my mother, gave me life, thy breast and milk; alas! for such great bounty to me I shall give thee a tomb. How much rather I would entreat the good angel to move the stone, so that thy figure might come forth, as did the body of Christ; but my prayers avail nothing. Come quickly, O Christ; so that my mother, closed in the tomb, may rise again and seek the stars."[184]

Of Anne Shakespeare's children we have already spoken. Susannah was born May 26, 1583, Hamnet and Judith, February 2, 1584-85. Hamnet—surely the model of Shakespeare's sweet boys—had died on August 11, 1596. So the name Shakespeare had glorified was doomed to die with himself, and was not to be borne by lesser men. His property the poet could and did devise.

Much discussion has taken place concerning the poet's views of his younger daughter and her marriage. I do not think these views at all supported by his will. Three hundred pounds was a very large portion indeed at the time. It was demised to her doubtless before her marriage, but it was not altered in relation to her after her marriage. It would be hard indeed to believe that such a ceremony, even without a license, could be performed in the gossipy town of Stratford without the news of it somehow reaching the father's ears, if there had been any attempt really to deceive. There is no reason to imagine Shakespeare disapproved of the alliance. The young man came of an old Stratford family. It is possible, however, that the poet foresaw a certain degree of instability of character in the youth, and therefore wished to make his will act as a marriage settlement that would secure his daughter from starvation. The second half of his bequest might only be touched by her husband, if he had settled on her land of equal value. This Thomas Quiney does not seem to have done.

Richard Quiney had died 1601-2, and his widow Elizabeth kept a tavern, in which she was probably at one time assisted by her younger son Thomas. In December, 1611, she conveyed a house to William Mountford for L131, and Judith Shakespeare was a subscribing witness. But neither she nor her future mother-in-law signed their names, nor even the customary cross, but a strangely-penned device of their own. Thomas Quiney lived in a small house in the High Street until after his marriage. It was probably his wife's money that enabled him to lease the larger house on the other side, called "The Cage," and to start therein business as a vintner.

At first he was successful. He was made a burgess in 1617, and was Chamberlain from 1621 to 1623. His accounts for the latter year are headed by a French proverb, as to the happiness of those who become wise through the experience of others, that might have had an opposite meaning to his contemporaries. It shows us that he could not only read and write English, but at least a little French. By 1630 he was involved in lawsuits, left the town council, and tried to dispose of the lease of his house. In 1633 Dr. Hall and Thomas Nash acted as trustees for his estate. His fortunes seemed to have become worse and worse. In 1652 he went to the Metropolis, where his elder brother Richard was a thriving grocer in Bucklersbury, in company with Roger Sadler. Richard, in August, 1655,[185] made a will, in which he left, besides handsome provision for his children—Richard, Adrian, Thomas, William and Sarah—his brother Thomas L12 a year for life, and L5 for the expenses of his funeral, out of his messuages at Shottery. The Quiney coat of arms is entered among those of the London burgesses at Guildhall,[186] "Mr. Quiney of ye Red Lyon in Bucklersbury."

The family of Thomas Quiney and his wife Judith was not a large one. In the year that the poet died they christened their eldest son, "Shaksper, filius Thomas Quyny gent.," November 23, 1616. But the child died in a few months. On May 8, 1617, was buried "Shakespere, filius Thomas Quyny, gent."

On February 9, 1617-18, "Richard filius Thomas Quinee" was baptized, and on January 23, 1619-20, "Thomas, filius Thomas Queeny." These lads may have followed to the grave their grandmother, Mrs. Shakespeare, and their uncle, Dr. Hall; and they may have been present at the marriage of their cousin, Mrs. Elizabeth Hall, to Mr. Thomas Nash. But they died within a month of each other, probably of some infectious fever, the younger first—"Thomas filius Thomae Quiney, Jan. 28th, 1638-9"; "Richardus filius Tho. Quiney, Feb. 26th, 1638-9." There were no other children, and no prospect of more, and these early deaths affected the devolution of the poet's property, as may hereafter be seen.

Unfortunately, we know nothing concerning Dr. John Hall before his marriage to the poet's elder daughter Susanna on June 5, 1607, he being then thirty-two and she twenty-five. He cannot have been the son of Dr. John Hall, of Maidstone, Kent, whose translation of Lanfranc's "Chirurgerie," with portrait of the translator, appeared in 1565. He would have been an eminently suitable father, distinguished alike in his art and his character, author of "The Court of Virtue," and many metrical Bible translations; but he died in 1566, and the Stratford Dr. John Hall was born in 1575. Halliwell-Phillipps[187] suggests that he may have been connected with the Halls of Acton, Middlesex, because he left his only daughter his "house and meadow at Acton." A John Hall was married in that parish, it is true, on September 19, 1574,[188] to Margaret Archer. But he had a daughter Elizabeth christened on June 5, 1575, about the very date at which the Stratford "John" must have been born. Any connection, therefore, must have been further off than filial, and the name is too common to be easily followed.

There were Halls in Worcester,[189] in Rowington, and in Coventry, and it may be remembered that a John Hall supplanted Richard Shakespeare as Bailiff of the Priory of Wroxall during the last year of its existence. There was a Richard Hall of Stratford in the list of the gentry 12 Henry VI., 1433. There was also a Richard Hall, gentleman,[190] of Idlicote, in the sixteenth century, who seems to have moved about a good deal, as there is a record of "Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Hall, Generosus, bapt. February 14th, 1560," at Idlicote, and of "Maria filia Richardi Hall, Generosus, March 17th, 1561," in Stratford. I have not traced any of the name of John christened in Idlicote or elsewhere at the date.

The Idlicote Halls were suspected recusants, as may be proved by the search made in their house when Edward Arden was dragged away from Park Hall in 1583.[191] There was a "Mr. Hall" Alderman of Stratford 1558, and in 1575 Edmund Hall and Emma his wife sold two messuages to John Shakespeare. Were they contemplating going abroad at the time? They are not further referred to in Stratford records. In a manuscript of the British Museum a table is sketched of the Halls of Henwick in Hallow. John Hall of Henwick had a son Thomas, who married, first, Anne, daughter of William Staple, and, second, a daughter of Hardwick. He had at least two sons, John, who married Margaret, daughter of William Grovelight, of London, and Edmund, who married Emma, daughter of ——(?). John had Edward, Anne, Elizabeth, and Emma, and the descendants of Edmund are not entered.[192] Catholicism might have been a reason for realizing their property and going abroad.

Now, John Hall expressly calls himself a Master of Arts, though his name is not recorded in the Books of the English Universities. He would not have done so had he not taken his degree. It possibly might have been in Paris, and he might have followed it up with foreign study. This would quite accord with his appearance in Stratford after the death of Elizabeth. A Warwickshire gentle origin[193] may somewhat account for the degree of intimacy he seems to have had with the county families, both Puritan and Catholic. His fame as a physician rapidly spread. He resided in a house in Old Town, on the way from the church to the chapel. His only daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized at Stratford on February 21, 1607-8,[194] during her grandfather's (William Shakespeare's) life. His name occurs in the town records in 1611,[195] among the supporters to a Highway Bill, and he leased from the Corporation a small stretch of wooded land on the outskirts of the town in 1612. He must have remained on friendly terms with his father-in-law, as he and his wife Susanna were left residuary legatees and executors of Shakespeare's will, which he proved in June of that year, in the Archbishop of Canterbury's Registry at London.

He shortly afterwards moved to New Place, beside his mother-in-law, where the vestry notes of February 3, 1617-1618, record him as resident. He was elected a Burgess of Stratford in 1617, and again in 1623, but was excused from taking office on account of his professional engagements. On April 22, 1626, Mr. Thomas Nash married his daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Hall. Hall gave the church a costly new pulpit, and in 1628 was appointed a borough churchwarden, in 1629 a sidesman, and in 1632 was compelled to become a burgess, and was soon after fined for non-attendance at the council meetings.

In 1633 he was made the Vicar's churchwarden, and in that year the Vicar, Thomas Wilson, induced him to join in a Chancery action against the town. He was already in trouble with his fellow councillors, who in October of that year expelled him for his "breach of orders, sundry other misdemeanours, and for his continual disturbance at our Halles." Evidently Dr. John had opinions of his own, and had the courage to express them. He was a deeply religious man, and, though he has been supposed to have shown Puritan tendencies in later life, it was a Puritanism that did not eschew Catholicism. His was a religion of constant reference to the Unseen. He was always a helper of those in trouble for conscience' sake; and probably this was the reason he supported the unpopular Vicar.

Shortly after, in 1635, there was a petition sent up from the Corporation of Stratford for their wives to have the pew in Stratford Church occupied by Dr. Hall, his wife, and his son-in-law and his wife. Each family had a pew at each side of the church, while there was not room for the burgesses' wives to sit or kneel in. It was true that the said Mr. Hall had been a great benefactor to the church, and the Bishop of the diocese had appointed him his pew; but his family were asked to choose which of their large pews they preferred to keep, along with Mrs. Woodward and Mrs. Lane, so that they might allow the aldermen's wives to have the other.

John Hall died on November 25, 1635, and was buried next day in the chancel of the parish church, though he had already disposed of the lease of the tithes purchased by his father-in-law.

The burial register of the next day describes him as "Medicus Peritissimus." By a nuncupative will, he left a house in London to his wife, a house in Acton and a meadow to his daughter Elizabeth, and his study of books to his son-in-law Thomas Nash. The manuscripts he would have given to Mr. Boles had he been present, but Nash was to keep them and use them as he pleased. It is probable that Mr. Boles was Richard Boles, Rector of Whitnash, not far from Stratford—an eccentric person, a writer of epitaphs, who had set up his own in his church while he yet lived.[196]

On the monumental slab of Dr. Hall is a shield of arms: "Sable, three talbots' heads erased or" for Hall, impaling Shakespeare or on a bend "sable, a spear of the first, the point steeled." "Here lyeth ye Body of John Hall, gent: Hee marr: Susanna ye daughter and coheire of Will: Shakespeare, gent., Hee deceased Nov^r 25, Anno 1635, aged 60.

"Hallius sic situs est, medica celeberrimus arte Expectans regni Gaudia laeta Dei; Dignus erat meritis qui nestora vinceret annis, In terris omnes, sed capit aequa dies; Ne tumulo quid desit adest fidessima conjux Est vitae comitem nunc quoq. mortis habet."[197]

It has been thought that this proves the epitaph was not written until after Mrs. Hall's death. She may have wished the words set up, to determine her resting-place; or Mr. Boles may have helped Thomas Nash with the Latin.

After his death his son-in-law, Thomas Nash, came to reside at New Place, and took the position of head of the family. Indeed, in one of his letters he speaks of "Mrs. Hall, my mother-in-law, who lives with me." But the house and everything in it, saving the study of books, belonged to Mrs. Hall, of course.