C. C. Stopes

“ I have done what I could to avoid mistakes, and neither time nor trouble has been spared. I owe thanks to many who have helped me in my long-continued and careful researches, to the officials of the British Museum and the Public Record Office, to the Town Council of Stratford-on-Avon and Mr. Savage, Secretary of the Shakespeare Trust, to the Worshipful Company of the Haberdashers, for allowing me to study their records; to the late Earl of Warwick, for admission to his Shakespeare Library, and to many clergymen who have permitted me to search their registers. ”

“ Concerning Mary Arden's special inheritance at Asbies, there is a sadder story to tell. Whether John Shakespeare could read or not, he was certainly not a Latin scholar, and though not ignorant of many points of common law, was not up to all the technicalities used at times to confuse the truth. It is evident that there had been some verbal agreement between him and Edmund Lambert on which he relied, but that the written deed was all that John Lambert accepted. ”

“ None of the family seem to have risen above the heraldic horizon till John Shakespeare applied for his coat of arms. Into the contest over that application it is well to plunge at once, and thence work backwards and forwards. Four classes of writers wage war over the facts: the Baconians, like the late Mr. Donnelly, who deny everything; the Romanticists, who accept what is pleasant, and occasionally believe manufactured tradition to suit their inclinations ”

“ The only person who might have impaled the new Shakespeare arms, had he himself borne arms to make this possible, was William Hart, the hatter, who married Shakespeare's sister Joan, and who lived in Shakespeare's old house in Henley Street, and died a few days before the poet. ”

“ No doubt John Shakespeare was deeply impressed with the dignity of his wife's relatives, and wished, even then, to make himself and his family more worthy for her sake. The tradition of this draft, or the sight of it, may have stimulated the heart of the good son to honour his parents by having them enrolled among the Armigeri of the county. ”

“ We know that this Thomas was the father of Robert Arden, who was the father of Mary, Shakespeare's mother, and her six sisters. It does not seem unlikely he bore arms, and was the Esquire witness of Walter Arden's will, who has never been located elsewhere. If he bore arms, it is more than likely that, as a younger son, they were derived from the Beauchamps, and might even have been those found by Dugdale in the Aston Cantlow Church, where he was buried. It is probable that Robert bore the cross-crosslets with a difference, as did his contemporary, William Arden of Hawnes. ”

“ It has struck me as possible that John Shakespeare may have intended ancestors through the female line. The names of his mother and grandmother are as yet unknown, and the supposition has never been discussed. But in support of John Shakespeare's claim, and in opposition to Halliwell-Phillipps's contradiction, we can prove there were Shakespeares in direct service of the Crown, not merely as common soldiers, though in 28 Henry VIII. (1537) , Thomas, Richard, William and another Richard were mentioned as among the King's forces. ”

“ The title of Earl of Warwick was given by William the Conqueror to Henry de Novoborgo, or Newburgh, younger son of Roger de Bellomont, Earl of Mellent, and William Rufus added to the gift the whole of Turchil's lands, including even those given away by himself and his ancestors to the Church. It was a hard lesson to friendly Saxon noblemen. A gloss of justice, or at least of consideration, was shown in the marriage of Henry de Novoborgo to Margaret, one of the daughters of Turchil, and sister of Siward de Arderne. ”

“ The bond of John Shakespeare would not then have been good for £40, 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 £6 13s. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, Halliwell-Phillipps does not scruple to affirm that three heralds, [51] [Pg 18] the worthy ex-bailiff of Stratford, and the noblest poet the world has ever produced, were practically liars in this matter, because they make statements that do not harmonize with the limits of his knowledge and the colour of his opinions. From his grave the poet protests—
"Good name in man or woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls. ”

“ There were both Ardens and Shakespeares in London, and many Warwickshire men, and they thought that some place might be [Pg 65] 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. ”

“ 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 £6 13s. ”

“ Whatever may have been the fortunes of the other branches, it is very clear that the chief modern Shakespeares have descended from the Shadwell stock. John Shakespear, the second son of the Alderman, left a memorandum declaring his belief that the family was derived from the poet's grandfather. There has as yet, however, been found no proof of any such connection, though it is perfectly possible that it existed. If Richard, of Snitterfield, was the father of John, Henry, and Thomas, there were two possible lines of descent. ”

“ All students must regret that their labours have such comparatively meagre results. Though sharing in this regret, I have been able, besides adding minor details, to find at last a definite link of association between the Park Hall and the Wilmcote Ardens; and I have located a John Shakespeare in St. Clement's Danes, Strand, London, who is probably the poet's cousin. I have also somewhat cleared the ground by checking errors, such as those made by Halliwell-Phillipps, concerning John Shakespeare, of Ingon, and Gilbert Shakespeare, Haberdasher, of London (see page 226) . ”

“ It is too often taken for granted that individuals do not belong to a family because their names do not appear in the pedigrees collected at the Visitations. We know that the descendants of younger sons and daughters are frequently omitted, and the sons and daughters themselves occasionally ignored. For instance, the Sir Robert Arden who was executed in the time of Henry VI., 1451, is stated [459] to have left seven children, but the name of his heir, Walter, is alone preserved. ”

“ Yeatman found that an Alice Griffin, daughter of Edward, and sister of Francis Griffin of Braybrook, married a Shakespeare. He takes it for granted that she married Richard of Wroxall, and that it was he who came to Snitterfield. We must beware of drawing definite conclusions, of making over-hasty generalizations. We only collect the bricks to help future investigators to build the edifice.
The Sir Thomas Schakespeir, Curate, of Essex, Bristol and London, who died 1559, is treated later among the Essex Shakespeares. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fables that have grown around the memory of the hero do not invalidate the pedigree. Rohand was Earl of Warwick in the days of King Alfred and King Edward the Elder, when the title was an official one, not necessarily hereditary, save of the King's will. Rohand was a great warrior, and was enriched with great possessions. He dwelt in the Royal Castle of Warwick, [368] said by Rous to have been founded [Pg 163] by the British King Cymbeline, enlarged by his son Guiderius, and repaired by Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred, the Lady of Mercia. ”

“ 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 Joyce and Alice had apparently vanished from the scene. If they left no will, their shares would be divisible into equal parts among their surviving sisters by common law, and through her fraction of their shares Mary Shakespeare could step in as part owner of Snitterfield. Now, it is quite possible that the first sale of 1579 was an indefinite sale of Mary's share of Joyce's portion; and it is [Pg 44] possible that Alice died in that year, and increased the share of her sisters, so that the two portions were treated together in the deed of 1580. ”

“ 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 [Pg 60] 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. ”

“ Alexander Webbe, it is true, made John Shakespeare, his brother-in-law, the overseer of his will at his death in 1573.
Joyce Arden and Alice Arden seem both to have died unmarried, without leaving a will. There is no further mention of Alice, the wealthier of the two maiden sisters, resident at Aston Cantlow, neither has there hitherto been made any suggestion concerning Joyce, and her death does not appear in the parish registers. Now, it was an exceedingly common custom of the time for poorer single relatives to enter into the service of wealthier members of the family ”

“ 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." ”