CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
|---|---|---|
| I. | Introductory: The Fortunes of Shakespeare | [1] |
| II. | Shakespeare’s Aunts and the SnitterfieldProperty | [11] |
| III. | Shakespeare and Asbies: A New Detail in John’sLife | [37] |
| IV. | Mary Arden’s Arms | [47] |
| V. | Stratford’s “Bookless Neighbourhood” | [55] |
| VI. | “Mr. Shaxpere, One Book,” 1595 | [61] |
| VII. | John Shakespeare, of Ingon, and Gilbert, ofSt. Bridgets | [62] |
| VIII. | Henry Shakespeare’s Death | [66] |
| IX. | “Mrs. Shaxspere” in the Law Courts | [72] |
| X. | “Honorificabilitudinitatibus” in Warwickshire:Pillerton Registers | [74] |
| XI. | Shakespeare and the Welcombe Enclosures:A New Detail in His Life | [81] |
| XII. | Other William Shakespeares | [91] |
| XIII. | The True Story of the Stratford Bust | [104] |
| XIV. | Sixteenth Century Locks and Weirs on theThames | [123] |
| XV. | The Friends in Shakespeare’s Sonnets | [135] |
| XVI. | William Hunnis, Gentleman of the ChapelRoyal | [161] |
| XVII. | Burbage’s “Theatre” | [176] |
| XVIII. | The Transportation of Burbage’s “Theatre” | [193] |
| XIX. | Early Piccadilly | [205] |
| XX. | Literary Expenses in St. Margaret’s, Westminster,1530-1610 | [215] |
| XXI. | Old Workings at Tintern Abbey | [225] |
| XXII. | “Mr. Shakspeare about my Lorde’s Impreso” | [229] |
| XXIII. | “The Queen’s Players” in 1536 | [235] |
| XXIV. | Mary’s Chapel Royal and Her CoronationPlay | [238] |
| XXV. | Sir Andrew Dudley and Lady MargaretClifford, 1553 | [247] |
| XXVI. | Jane, the Queen’s Fool | [258] |
| XXVII. | Elizabeth’s Fools and Dwarfs | [269] |
| XXVIII. | The Roll of Coventry: The Arrest of PrinceHenry | [275] |
| XXIX. | The Stratford Poet | [285] |
| XXX. | Sixteenth Century Women Students | [295] |
| Notes Terminal: | ||
| To Art. III | [331] | |
| Art. VII | [332] | |
| Art. XI (1) | [336] | |
| Art. XI (2) | [343] | |
| Art. XIII | [346] | |
| Index | [355] | |
Shakespeare’s Environment
I
INTRODUCTORY
THE FORTUNES OF SHAKESPEARE
IN REMEMBRANCE OF 23RD APRIL 1564-1616
It is so much the fashion to write and speak of Shakespeare’s misfortunes, his disabilities, disadvantages, and lack of preparedness for becoming great, that perhaps I may best fit my opportunity by touching upon what I believe to be his good fortunes. It is all very true to say, that “poets are born, not made,” but there is a converse possibility, too finely expressed in Gray’s elegy to need repeating. Shakespeare might have been born a poet, and he might have been drowned in the Avon, as his contemporary of the same name was drowned in 1575; or he might have been carried by compelling currents of his life, away from the fruition of the high possibilities of his genius, instead of directly towards them. The whole truth is, that great poets are both born and made, and it is worth pausing to dwell on some of the steps in the making of this “Maker.” In no life is it more clear than in his that
There’s a divinity doth shape our ends,
Rough hew them as we will.
Shakespeare was fortunate in the place of his birth. Warwickshire was in the very heart of England. The whole shire was haunted by legends and stories of a romantic past from the time when it was the Mercia of the Saxons down to the desolating Wars of the Roses. His birthplace was but seven miles from the castled city of Warwick, glorified by traditions of Cymbeline, Guiderius, Ethelfleda, Phillis, and Guy, one of the seven champions of Christendom. Stratford was not far from the tragic Vale of Evesham, from the holiday making of the Cotswolds, and it lay amid gently swelling hills and dales, the richly cultivated Feldon to east and south, the stretches of woodland to north and west, sufficient to satisfy an artist, a dreamer, or a poet. It was of much more relative importance in the sixteenth century than it is to-day. It stood at the crossing of the two great thoroughfares of the whole country, its Avon was another highway, for water transit was much more used in olden days than now. The river was spanned at Stratford by a noble bridge, safe even in floods (thanks to Sir Hugh Clopton); it had important markets, a prosperous trade in wool, manufactures of cloth and leather and other things, and was rich in agricultural commodities. It was a spirited and independent little town, and many important families lived in its neighbourhood. The house in Henley Street in which the poet was born (three houses combined), made a roomy and comfortable home for his youth.
He was fortunate in the date of his birth, on or about 23rd April, 1564. I say on or about, as it might have been a day or two earlier or later. He was baptized on the 26th, and it was then usual enough to baptize infants on the third day after birth. Tradition has always given us the 23rd as the birthday, St. George’s day. In those days, before the reformation of the Calendar, the 23rd of April fell later in the season than it does to-day. There were twelve more days of sunshine to open the May blossoms, and to encourage the nightingales to sing in welcome of another sweet singer. The poet always loved the spring; he was a May-blossom himself.
He was fortunate also in the period in which he arrived. England’s heart was heaving. Great spiritual movements had stirred men’s souls to their depths, and given them inspiration to think for themselves amid diverse creeds; the literary renaissance had brought their intellects in touch with the great minds of other times, and diverse countries; learning had become a hunger as well as a fashion; students translated, imitated, emulated the philosophers and poets of Greece, Italy, and France. England was in the high tide of fervour through its emancipation from the Pope’s authority, its new sense of independence, its command of the sea, and its ever-widening geographical horizons; the romance of a maiden Queen, fortunate since her accession, made a new development in the spirit of patriotism. Poets born in the previous reigns shed their glories on Elizabeth’s. The very atmosphere was charged with negative poetical electricity, which only waited for a positive stimulus to flash forth in light.
He was fortunate in his parents. We know only too little of them, but we do know something. John Shakespeare had sprung from an honest yeoman family, which evidently had seen better days. It had contributed a Prioress and a Sub-Prioress to the venerated Priory of Wroxall, and it had its family legends concerning royal service and royal grants, not necessarily unfounded, but frustrated somehow, perhaps by an Empson or a Dudley. There is a possibility that he had had a Welsh mother, and inherited blue blood from a Cymric past. He evidently had some special charm in person, manner, or wit, because all his life he seems to have been popular among his fellows, and he managed to win the heart and the hand of the youngest daughter of a “gentleman of worship” in the neighbourhood, who was the ground landlord of his father’s farm in Snitterfield. The only definite notice we have of him is “that he was a merry-cheeked old man who said ‘Will was a good honest fellow; but he darest have crakt a jesst with him at any time’” (Dr. Andrew Clark, from the Plume MS. at Maldon). John had risen through all the grades of honour in the town, had shown his predilection for the drama by his payments to players, a predilection not shared by the majority of his townsmen, and we may take it he could tell a story and be good company. The mothers of men are more important to their youth than their fathers are. Mary Arden had descended from the Ardens of Park Hall, a storied Saxon line, counting amidst its ancestors no less a hero than King Alfred. She evidently had the Saxon virtues, was prudent and capable, or her father would not have left her executrix at his death. She is said to have been beautiful; we may believe it, if we realize the verbal descriptions, not the painted portraits of her son. A strong woman, whom we see reflected in the poet’s noble women’s characters, and yet romantic enough to marry where she loved, though doubtless many men of better position and of greater wealth in the country, would have been glad enough of such a well-dowered gentle bride. Hers was evidently a happy marriage, and she ensured her son the benefits of a happy home.
He was fortunate in his school. Stratford had once had a College of Priests with its Collegiate Church, an honourable Guild of the Holy Cross, and a notable grammar school; but all had vanished before the exterminating Henry. John Shakespeare and many of his contemporaries had suffered through the suppression, and had grown up weak in English, lacking in Latin, and unable to write, for their sovereign’s sins. But the school had been restored by King Edward VI, and was in good working order by the time John’s eldest son was ready for it. The post of the master of the Stratford Grammar School was one of the plums of the profession, as he had twice the salary of the Master of Eton. We are sure from the Chamberlain’s accounts, that the best men to be had, graduates in a university, were selected by the town councillors. The grammar school was free to all the sons of burgesses, so that no consideration of expense could have kept back William Shakespeare from its advantages, even at the time of his father’s difficulties. He would meet there not only the boys of the town about his own age, but the sons of the neighbouring gentry. We know from several sources the books then in use for each form of a grammar school, and we may reckon what training would be offered young Shakespeare in classic literature to form his English style. A little better than the average, we should presume it to have been. Becon, some years before, had proclaimed Warwickshire to be the most intellectual of the English Counties, and there is some witness to show it still could hold its own.
He was fortunate in his seeming misfortunes. It was all very well to be born in the little town, with its sweet country surroundings, but Shakespeare would never have been the world-poet had he spent his life in Stratford. The place was not big enough for his expansion. But the cloth manufacturers of Stratford suffered heavily from the importation of foreign manufactured goods, and the great farmers and engrossers did what they could to kill its trade in wool. John Shakespeare lost heavily, he sold Snitterfield, probably meant as the portion of his younger children, he mortgaged and lost Asbies, destined by him as the inheritance and future living of his eldest son. And young Shakespeare was thus saved from being a little country farmer, and forced to go to seek his fortunes in London, where he developed into what was in him to be. In London was literary culture from books and men. In London also he was faced with difficulties. He had hoped for so many things; nothing happened to him which he expected or desired; no door was opened to him except that of the stage. Though he pitifully cries:
O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
That doth not better for my life provide
Than public means, which public manners breed;
yet that led him to the very line of life in which he was best fitted to excel, through which he became what he was.
He was fortunate even in his marriage. I know that an opposite view is generally accepted, but I do not believe it. The only reason suggested is that Anne Hathaway was seven years older than himself. Did any one ever meet a bold, masterful, well-grown lad of eighteen whose first love was not a woman older than himself? Many happy marriages have been made with this difference of age, and I do not think Shakespeare’s an exception. I believe she was a timid, delicate, fair-haired girl, type of the submissive wives he paints. There is reason to believe that he took his family with him to London as soon as he found a home. When fortune came he bought them the best house in Stratford, and came to dwell beside them, as soon as he could give up the acting part of his work. There he died among them, away from the world of business, envy, and of strife. There is nothing to warrant the blot on his good name and that of his wife so much insisted on by those who have not studied the question. Mr. J. S. Gray, in “Shakespeare’s Marriage,” is the only writer who has put it straight, and he speaks with authority.
There is nothing derogatory in the legacy of the second-best bed; it was evidently her own last request. She was sure of her widow’s third; she was sure of her daughters’ love and care, but she wanted the bed she had been accustomed to, before the grandeur at New Place came to her.
He was fortunate in the family she brought him, though unfortunately, his only son was a twin, apparently delicate like his mother, and he died young. For his sake Shakespeare called all boys sweet. His daughters lived a longer life, the elder is recorded as “witty above her sex,” because she was like her father, a devoted daughter, a loving wife, a public benefactor. She brought him for his son-in-law the physician Dr. John Hall, great not only in his own county, who first used anti-scorbutics. He must have been a congenial companion to his father-in-law. Then the little granddaughter came, who must have been his joy.
He was fortunate in his friends. London was then but a little city, after all; it could easily be crossed and compassed on foot; its inhabitants did not reach the sum total of 300,000. On arrival he would study London and Westminster, twin-cities, so great and so story-laden, the clear shining Thames, its haunted Bridge, its Tower, its Churches, and the Northern and Southern heights, where he could revel in Nature, as he did at home. He may have gone to London with high hopes, and many introductions. We do not know of those who mocked him, of those who gave him no direct help. We do not know what he aimed at, but we know he failed. Perhaps he hoped to be made a Yeoman of the Privy Chamber, like Roger Shakespeare and Robert Arden, a Royal Messenger like Thomas Shakespeare, a Royal Letter Carrier, like Edmund Spenser. Possibly he meant to volunteer his help against the Spaniard, but they did without him. Possibly his ambitions sank to a share in the grocery business of Sadler and Quiney at Bucklersbury. Long waiting at the doors of negligent patrons seems to have been his share. But through all he had one friend at least, during his period of toil and preparation. We know that he knew his townsman, Richard Field (his senior by three years), who had been at Stratford Grammar School, and entered life on the solid lines of an apprentice to Thomas Vautrollier, the great French printer, and became his son-in-law and successor. Doubtless Shakespeare went at first to reside with him; certainly he was much with him. His shop was the poet’s university, where he read for his degree, by the inclusions and exclusions of the bookshelves. The firm was licensed to keep foreign journeymen printers, and had many monopolies of classical works. From these alone did Shakespeare quote, and Field’s publications account for the most of his learning. There he was inspired by “Plutarch’s Lives Englished by North,” trained by “Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie,” in the canons of literature and a taste for blank verse. There he found books on music, philosophy, science, travels, medicine, language, and literature, which we know he read. It was Richard Field who printed and published Shakespeare’s two poems, the only works which we are sure he published and corrected himself. By this publication, the friend of his everyday life became associated with the friend of his higher dreams, who patronized, criticised, inspired, glorified Shakespeare, and helped to shape his genius. It is something to hear from his contemporary Webster, the praise of Shakespeare’s “right happy and copious industry.” For he must have been hard at work, in his early days in the metropolis to have been able to publish a poem by 1593, which put him at once among the highest group of contemporary poets over which Spenser reigned supreme. That took the sting out of the dying Greene’s scorn the year before concerning the upstart playwright who “thought he could bumbast out a blank verse as well as the best of us.” The young Earl of Southampton had supplied the one thing hitherto wanting in the culture of the Stratford stranger. He was the ideal man of rank, young, learned, refined, untrammelled, wealthy, impulsive, susceptible to genius, critical in judgement. Next year, ere he came of age, Shakespeare had written for him the “Rape of Lucrece,” and dedicated it to him as the “Lord of his Love.” Through the same time he was writing the sonnets, the witnesses of the thoughts, hopes, feelings, fears, joys, he had passed through with his special friend.
He was fortunate, too, in his “fellows.” He had found no doors open to him but those of James Burbage and his theatre. Play-acting was repugnant alike to his taste and his pride: we can learn that from the Sonnets.
But having been received into the company, having been trained in the “quality,” he did his best to conquer. He was singularly fitted for the stage, as John Davies says, “Wit, courage, good shape, good parts, and all good.” From a performer he went on to be a writer of plays. His company always stood as the best in the metropolis, the members were attached to each other, trusting each other through life, leaving each other legacies at death. How much did he owe to the expression and inspiration of his fellows, especially of Richard Burbage?
It is not too much to believe that without Richard to translate him, he would not have thought of putting on paper his great tragic characters, Othello, Hamlet, Richard III.
He was fortunate, too, in his theatres. The best of their time, they were worth writing for. Unhampered by much stage mechanism, and with no scene shifting, he made his audience co-operate with him through their imagination, and create for themselves the scenery from his suggestions. No interruptions, no intervals for irrelevant conversation drifted men away from the developments of the central and side plots which animated the stage continuously. The progress of a play necessitated one continued process of attention; and through educating his hearers to his level, he came to reign supreme, playing upon their heart strings, and moving them to mirth, woe, sympathy, wonder, repulsion, or admiration as he pleased, in a way that we do not understand to-day.
In another, laudable but more prosaic, aspect, Shakespeare was fortunate, in making money. Trained by the pinch of early poverty, by the humiliations of his father’s debts, by the constant demands of a young family, to estimate its value as a means to any end, he seems to have lost no chance of earning money, and by a self-denying life, to have economized his gains. Thereby he was able to rehabilitate his parents in their old position, to secure them a grant of arms, to place his own family out of the reach of the deprivations he must have suffered himself, and to have lived and died in dignity and honour.
Fortunate in the decline of his life, when his warfare was over and his conquest won, he came back to dwell in the place of his birth, beside the wife of his youth, his daughters, and his wide circle of friends. And when the end came, it was fortunate too. He had been allowed to finish his task, and yet he had not overlived his powers. He did not live too long, as Bacon did. His fellow townsmen did not approve of plays any more than did the Corporation of London, but they saw the playwriter reverently laid to rest in the chancel of their parish church as owner of their tithes. The inartistic monument, and the artistic epitaph were raised by loving hearts to “Shakespeare, with whome Quick nature dide.”
Need more be said as to Shakespeare’s fortunes? It is not given to all great men to fit the time and to find the chance to prove what is in them, and to win success. It is not the fortune of every genius even, however associated with great deeds, to reveal the spirit of his country, and to be the voice of his age, which he helped to make what it was. Yet that was Shakespeare’s fortune and our inheritance, and for this the whole world honours him to-day.
Impromptu speech at the dinner of the “Shakespeare Commemoration League,” 23rd April, 1908.
II
SHAKESPEARE’S AUNTS AND THE SNITTERFIELD PROPERTY
Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps did much for the general reading public in bringing to their attention so many of the estate records which help to clear the position and the relations of the Arden and Shakespeare families. Having done so much, it were well that he had done more. Though he devoted his life and means to collecting information, he published many of his discoveries in little books of limited issue, accessible only to few, and he did not always carry them over to his “Life of Shakespeare,” or to his much more exhaustive “Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare.” Even in the last edition of that great work we suffer somewhat from the method of arrangement, from a very imperfect and unsatisfactory Index, from an absence of definite references, and even, it must be confessed, from occasional carelessness and incompleteness in his research among, and analyses of, the documents. He had the great good fortune to have early access to the Stratford records. Some of these were then in loose bundles, others bound in books, without any attention to order or date. He made a Calendar of these, but only in the order he found them, and did not provide an index of any kind, beyond, as I found later, a separate private booklet, limited to “ten copies,” so that any student who wishes to know what has been preserved must read through the whole bulky folio volume. Probably on account of these difficulties, or through blind faith in his work, none of his successors—not even the industrious G. R. French—has followed him to his originals or checked his inferences by facts.
It seemed therefore worth while to go back to the manuscripts themselves, and to work through them collectively and chronologically, separating the results apart from the mere verbiage of legal documents. Something has been gained thereby, not only in exactitude, and in the recognition of the bearing of one fact upon another, but also several new papers have been unearthed and a few facts have been gleaned, even at this late day, and in this well-worked field.
The earliest record of the Snitterfield property which concerns the Ardens, is, as Halliwell-Phillipps states (“Outlines,” 9th edit., ii, 207), Mayowe’s transfer of land in Snitterfield, May, 16 Hen. VII, i.e. 1501. This is not given in extenso in the “Outlines,” and I made a translation of it for “The Genealogical Magazine,” 1899, p. 401, reproduced in my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 29. I afterwards found that it had appeared in “A New Boke about Shakespeare, J. O. Halliwell, 1850.” But its importance was not explained. A messuage with all its appurtenances, situated between the land of John Palmer on one side, and a lane called Merellane on the other, and extending from the king’s highway to the rivulet, had been handed over by John Mayowe, through his attorneys, Thomas Clopton of Snitterfield, gent., and John Porter of Ardern, to six men, named in full. The witnesses were John Wagstaff of Aston Cantlowe, Robert Porter of Snitterfield, Richard Rushby of Snitterfield, Richard Atkyns of Wilmecote, John Alcokkes of Newnham, and others. The names of the six feoffees were Robert Throckmorton, arm. (knighted that same year); Thomas Trussell of Billesley, arm.; Roger Reynolds of Henley-in-Arden; William Wood or Woodhouse; Thomas Arden of Wilmecote, and Robert Arden, his son. After events make it seem probable that this was a purchase desired by Thomas Arden for his son, who may then have been under age and required trustees. No one has noted fully that the others must have been the most trusted friends of Thomas Arden, if not relatives or connections by marriage. Indeed, if we might read into this the ordinary meaning of such arrangements, it might be supposed that the unknown wife of Thomas Arden was a Throckmorton, and the unknown first wife of Robert Arden a Trussell. This same Robert Throckmorton was, about the same time, made trustee for his children, by Sir John Arden of Park Hall (see my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 184). Thomas Trussell was of a distinguished old family, and the other two feoffees were gentlemen; so when Halliwell-Phillipps scorned the notion of the Ardens of Wilmecote being associated with gentility, he showed that he had missed the full import of this deed, Misc. Doc., ii, 83.
The meaning of two other deeds was not revealed to him at all, because each bore an error on its brow. The first is among the Birthplace Deeds, in duplicate 424 and 425, and dated “19 Hen. VI.,” rendered in pencil 1440. Therefore it has been neglected. It seemed of too old date to concern the Ardens. But it can be proved that the date should have been entered rather as 19 Hen. VII, a mistake having been made somehow.
It is the grant from William Mayowe to John Mayowe of Snitterfield, son and heir of Richard Mayowe, of a messuage with appurtenances lying between Marye Lane on the one hand, and the land of John Palmer on the other. The witnesses were William Wylmecote of the Wold, William Ketall, “Richard Parson of Heyth,” Thomas Palmer of Snitterfield, and William Wormbarn; dated Snitterfield, Tuesday after Christmas, 27th December, 19 Hen. VII, i.e. 1503. As this is later than the deed by which John Mayowe transferred this property to the feoffees, it would seem to imply that John Mayowe was under age in 1501, or that some doubt as to his title had arisen. This opinion is supported by the next deed, which Halliwell-Phillipps must have glanced at, as he has calendared it, but cannot have read, because he describes it without comment as “Grant from John Mayhow of Snitterfield to Thomas Arthur,” Misc. Doc., ii, 4. This has been referred to by no one else. But it is evidently the real sale, the final concord. The property is the same. Here are no trustees, no attorneys; it is the definite deed of man to man. John Mayowe, probably surrendering William Mayowe’s grant to himself made six months before, confirmed to Thomas Arthurn (not Arthur) of Wilmecote and his heirs the messuage, with eighty acres of land in Snitterfield, with the same boundaries as before, the only variation being between “the land held by William Palmer on the one hand, and the lane called Mary’s Lane on the other.” John Mayowe set his seal to this before the witnesses, Thomas Clopton, gent. (who had been his attorney in 1501), Robert Porter, Thomas Nicholson, Hugh Townsend, John Scoryer, John Palmer, jun., John Pardy, and many others, 6th July 19 Hen. VII (i.e. 1504). The spelling of the name need perplex no one who understands the loose orthography of the time, and knows that “Arden” was frequently spelt “Arderne.”
This was evidently the most important purchase made by Thomas Arden. It was the property let, at some unascertained date between this and 1529, to Richard Shakespeare, and concerning which, nigh eighty years afterwards, John and Henry Shakespeare, sons of Richard, were summoned to give evidence in the Chancery suit brought by Thomas Mayowe against the Ardens.
The next purchase was by Robert Arden, though we know from the Subsidies and the Court Rolls that his father was yet alive. Richard Rushby and his wife Agnes, daughter and heiress of William Harvey, yielded to Robert Arden a tenement and lands between the tenement of Richard Hardyng on the one side, and the land of the Lord of the manor upon the other. The witnesses were Richard Grant, gent.; “Rogero Palmer, chapelin”; John Pardy, and many others. Dated at Snitterfield 14th December 11 Hen. VIII, i.e., 1519 (Misc. Doc., ii, 9). Another copy of the same date is preserved as Misc. Doc., ii, 59; and still another among the Wheler MSS. at the Birthplace, i, 23 (S. 172), dated 21st December 11 Hen. VIII. Two years later Richard Rushby of Snitterfield handed over to Robert Arden of Wylmecote a general release of this same property, dated at Wilmecote 29th December 13 Hen. VIII, i.e. 1521 (Misc. Doc., ii, 81).
There is no suggestion of the third and fourth boundaries of this purchase, except through the description of the next. Birthplace Deed 428 is a release from John Palmer of Snitterfield, son and heir of John Palmer and Elizabeth his wife, daughter of John Harvey, formerly of Snitterfield, to Robert Ardern, of one tenement and divers lands and pastures between the tenement of Richard Hardyng on the one side, and the land of the Lord on the other—the third and fourth boundaries being again omitted. Witnesses, Richard Hawe of Warwick, gent.; Richard Fyssher, Under-Bailiff of Warwick; Will Holbache, John Parker of Grove Park, Walter Nicholson, John Townsend, and Richard Maydes, 1st October 21 Hen. VIII, i.e. 1529. This land was the fourth boundary of the purchase from Mayowe, and probably united it with the Rushby purchase, coming also through the Harveys. Both properties lay between the tenement of Harding and the land of the Lord of the manor, and seem to have been side by side. The addition must have greatly improved the value of the Mayowe inheritance. Fragments of information come to us from the Subsidy Rolls (192/128) and the Court Rolls of the College of St. Mary in Warwick, Portfolio 207, 88. Richard Rushby and William Mayowe seem to have stayed on in the village. John Palmer was generally “tithing-man.” In 17 Hen. VIII Thomas Arden was presented for owing suit of court, and William Mayowe because he should cut Eight Leas Hedge. We do not know how much sooner he had come to reside in Snitterfield, but we find that Richard Shackspere was presented by John Palmer in 20 Hen. VIII, for owing suit of court. He was again presented for the same neglect, 22 Hen. VIII, excused 23 Hen. VIII, and John Palmer reported that “all was well” till 28 Hen. VIII. Then Thomas Palmer presented “William Mayhew and Rich. Shakspere for default of suit of court.” Again in 30 Hen. VIII, “Robine Ardern, Richard Shackspere, and William Mayhew owe suit of court, and are amerced; and Richard Shakespeare must mend the hedge between him and Thomas Palmer under a penalty of 40 pence.” In 33 Hen. VIII, “William Mayhewe, Richard Shakeschafte, and Roben Ardern owe suit of court, and are amerced; and Roben Ardern must mend his hedge between him and John Palmer under a penalty of 20 pence.”
Meanwhile Robert Arden had married, and was bringing up a large family of daughters, and his wife died while some of them were yet young. The next thing I have learnt of him is through the Court Rolls of Katharine the Queen at Balsale, Portfolio 207 (9), the View of Frankpledge, 21st April 2 Ed. VI (1548): “To this court came Agnes Hill, widow, and prayed licence to marry one Robert Ardern, which was granted in the name of the Lady the Queen, by her seneschal,” on the payment of a fee of five shillings. Her husband John Hill of Bearley had died in 1545, leaving her executrix. Her marriage probably took place very soon after the licence was granted.
Robert Arden may have made other arrangements before this, but nothing is preserved earlier than the settlement of 17th July 4 Ed. VI (1550). He then enfeoffed Adam Palmer of Aston Cantlow and Hugh Porter of Snitterfield in the tenement and land now in the occupation of Richard Shakespeare, in trust for himself and his wife Agnes for life, with the remainder of a third part to his daughter Agnes Stringer,[1] now wife of Thomas Stringer, formerly wife of John Hewins, defunct, of Bearley; another third part to his daughter Joan, the wife of Edmund Lambert, Barton-on-the-Heath; and another third to his daughter Katharine, wife of Thomas Edkins of Wylmecote (Misc. Doc., ii, 21; see also Misc. Doc., ii, 79). These three elder daughters evidently had the best part of their father’s property, bordering on the high road, a stream, and a lane,—all conveniences; its size about 80 acres.
On the same day, 17th July 1550, there was drawn up a tripartite indenture by Robert Arden, confirming Adam Palmer and Hugh Porter in the possession of a messuage and three “quatrones terre,” etc., now in the tenure of Richard Henley, to the use of Robert Arden himself and his wife Agnes for their lives, and after that a third part to go to his daughter Margaret Webbe, the wife of Alexander Webbe of Bearley; another third to his daughter Joyce; and another third to his daughter Alice (Misc. Doc., ii, 77). Another copy is preserved in the same series, ii, 79. A similar deed in Misc. Doc., ii, 73, is dated six months later (17th December, 4 Ed. VI, 1550). This seems to have been the property Robert had bought from the Rushbys, but whether it included that formerly owned by the Palmers is not quite clear. The boundary line and the number of acres are not defined, and sometimes there were three tenants, and sometimes two, in the combined property.
Robert Arden made his will 24th November 1556, and died before 17th December following. He left his wife Agnes, as we have seen, a life interest in the shares of all his daughters at Snitterfield, and a place of residence in the copyhold of Wilmecote, to be shared “peaceably” with his daughter Alice, under a penalty. Mary was to inherit Asbies, an independent farm of over 60 acres in Wilmecote, and she and Alice were to be joint executors of their father’s will. This shows that they were both grown up, though still unmarried, and suggests that Arden had had some disappointment in his second marriage, thus to pass over his wife to leave things in charge of his daughters.
John Shakespeare must shortly after have married Mary Arden, though no record of the marriage has as yet been found.[2] Hugh Porter, one of the feoffees, died in 1557, leaving Adam Palmer alone as trustee.
On 21st May 2 Eliz. (1560), Agnes Arden granted to her brother Alexander Webbe of Bearley, husband of her stepdaughter Margaret, a lease[3] for forty years, at 40s. a year, of the Snitterfield estate, two messuages, a cottage, and a yard and a half of arable land, etc., “in the occupation of Richard Shakespeare, John Henley, and John Hargreave,” in presence of John Somerville and other witnesses (Birthplace Deeds, 429).
No one has noted how seriously this may have affected Richard Shakespeare. He may have been an aged man, ready to resign his life-work, or he may not. It is not likely that Webbe’s removal from Bearley to Snitterfield could have taken place before November of that year; possibly another year’s grace was granted. But we do know that either in December 1560 or January 1560-1 Richard Shackspere of Snytterfield died, and his goods were administered by his son John, then called “Agricola” 10th February 1560-1 (see Worcester Probate Registry, “Testamenta”).
There is proof that Alexander Webbe did leave Bearley and settle down on his lease farm at Snitterfield, a share of which would revert to himself, through his wife Margaret, on the death of his sister Agnes. He strengthened his position when, on 12th February 11 Eliz. (1568-9), Thomas Stringer of Stocton in the county of Salop, yeoman, let to Alexander Webbe of Snitterfield, husbandman, and Margaret his wife, the third part of one messuage, etc., with a yard of land, etc. now in the occupation of the said Alexander, with all the interest he has in another tenement and half yardland now in the occupation of John Henley, to hold, after the decease of Agnes Arden, for the term of twenty-one years. Webbe was to pay to Thomas Stringer and his heirs 6s. 8d. at the two terms of the year. If Alexander Webbe failed to pay, the Stringers might eject him. “Witnesses, John Shakespere, Henry Russell, Richard Boyse, and James Hilman, this writer” (Misc. Doc., ii, 15, not signed by the Stringers). A bond is also drawn up between them that if Thomas Stringer does not fulfil his agreement, he should forfeit £7; same date, with same witnesses (Misc. Doc., ii, 78).
Alexander Webbe was buried at Snitterfield 17th April 1573, and “John Shackspere” was the overseer of his will. His widow Margaret shortly afterwards married Edward Cornwell. The first reference I have found to him is in a deed of exchange (Misc. Doc., vii, 41), which has not been noted, between Bartholomew Hales, Lord of the Manor, and certain freeholders in Snitterfield, i.e., “Sir John Spencer; Thomas Feryman, ‘clarke,’ Vicar of the Parish Church; Edward Graunt, gent.; John Pardy; Robert Maydes; John Tombes and Elizabeth his wife; John Walker; Edward Cornewell and Margaret his wife; Thomas Stringer; Thomas Palmer; William Perckes and Marjory his wife, Thomas Harding, and Edward Watersonne, freeholders of and within the said manor, 23rd January 17 Eliz. (1575).”
There had been certain exchanges of the common lands between the farmers and the manor, but they were unsure in law. By this indenture it is covenanted that Bartholomew Hales and Mary his wife and their heirs shall grant to the freeholders and their heirs, by way of exchange, all the lands, meadows, commons, pastures, and feeding commodities now in the tenure of Edward Grant in Rowley Field; and the “four yarde land,” late in the occupation of Bartholomew Hales, lying in Gallow Hill Field, Rowley Field, and Brookfield (except as reserved for certain tenants in beast pasture and three-horse pasture during their several terms); and all the lands in the common called Griswold or Bushe Field, and all the meadow ground with the “hades” in Aston Meadow and Errymarsh Meadow. And the Lord agreed that after the hay is mown and carried away from the common meadow called Broad Meadow, the customary tenants, without let, shall enjoy the aftermath of the said parcel of meadows for ever: And as there are so many conies in Rowley Field, to the annoyance of the tenants, they shall be allowed to kill and destroy or take the said conies wherever their corn shall grow. He further grants that one “hade land” (10 ridges) being in Coplowes next Parsons, otherwise called Burges Hedge there, and shooting down into the way after Luscombe Hedge, shall be for ever a common way to bring, lead, or carry hay out of Aston Meadow with horse, cart, or “wayne.” The freeholders grant in exchange certain ground called Common Fields or Wallfields, one close called the Parkepitt, one field called the New Lessowe or Brunthill, a pasture called Coplow and a meadow, a parcel of ground called Hollowe Meadowe, and one Lammas Close near the house of Margery Lynsycombe; also the Common Leys lying between Hollow Meadow and Ingon Gate, shooting up by Stratford Way Pit to the ground of William Cookes, containing by estimation 200 acres; and certain ground lying in the Hillfield where the windmill standeth, and the parish meadow, and all other commons, woods, furzes, etc., of the said freeholders. If either party break the agreement, the other may enter into the possession of the old lands so exchanged.
A long series of deeds follow this, most of which were known to Halliwell-Phillipps. On 12th October 18 Eliz. (1576), Edward Cornwell of Snitterfield, husbandman, and Margaret his wife, assigned to Robert Webbe, husbandman, their interest in two messuages with a cottage, and the lease granted by Agnes Arden to his father (see Birthplace Deeds, 429). The witnesses were Gualterus Roche, Nicholas Knolles, clerk, and Thomas Nycolls (Birthplace Deeds, 430).
On 16th October 18 Eliz. (1576), Thomas Stringer of Stockton, co. Salop, and his sons John and Arden Stringer, bargained and sold to Edward Cornwell and Margaret his wife all the reversion which was the inheritance of Agnes, late wife of Thomas Stringer, and daughter of Robert Arden, deceased. A curious complexity comes in here, for they also sell, as if they had bought it, “the residue of the said tenements which late were the inheritance of Thomas Edkyne and Katharine his wife, in the right of the said Katharine.” The Stringers sell this double share for £68, to be paid beforehand, and they agree that at Christmas term next they shall sue out a fine of the parcel of the premises of the said Thomas Edkins and his wife Katharine, “if the said Katherine do so long live.” They have full power to sell all, except the life interest of Agnes Arden. They set their hands and seals to this, in the presence of the same witnesses as last deed (Misc. Doc., ii, 10).
Another important step was taken on 20th November 21 Eliz. (1578), when Edward Cornwell of Snitterfield, yeoman, and Margaret his wife, sold to Robert Webbe their moiety of three messuages in Snitterfield for £100. This seems to refer back to the last two agreements. Witnesses, John Dafferne, Nicholas Knolles, Thomas Chamberlayne, Hastings Aston, Will Cookes, Henry Talbot, and Thomas Nicholson (Birthplace Deeds, 431). The bond from Edward Cornwell to ensure the performance of the covenant was signed the same day, before the same witnesses (Wheler Papers, i, 34).
Another deed was drawn up on 23rd December 21 Eliz. (1578), in which Thomas, John, and Arden Stringer, and Thomas Edkins, gave up in perpetuity all their rights in the third part of these messuages and lands to Robert Webbe, the son of Margaret Cornwell. The signs of Thomas and Arden Stringer with seals, and the signature of John Stringer, follow this, but no allusion to Edkins (Misc. Doc., ii, 20).
There was a fine made between Robert Webbe and Thomas Stringer the following Easter (Public Record Office, Feet of Fines, Warr. Pasche, 15th June 21 Eliz., 1579). The Stringers received £40 thereby; perhaps this was only for their own share. There was no allusion to the Edkins, so perhaps Katharine “did not so long live.” An abstract of this fine is preserved in Misc. Doc., i, 92.
On the same day as the Stringers’ covenant, 23rd December 21 Eliz. (1578), there was a sale by Edward Cornwell to Robert Webbe of all his goods and chattels in Snitterfield or elsewhere, except “one young mare of color baye, and one coaffer, parcel of the premises”—two pieces of pewter being delivered in sign of possession. It was signed by the mark and seal of witnesses, Anthony Osbaston, William Round, Ardenne Stringer, and John Bronde (Birthplace Deed, 432).[4]
The next deeds concern the Shakespeare transfer, about which there is much contentious matter. Halliwell-Phillipps says, “Outlines,” i, 29, “Arden had reserved to his daughter Mary a portion of a large estate at Snitterfield.” Now this is a pure supposition, unsupported by any deed or transfer, and besides, it is an unnecessary supposition. It may be noted that there is no allusion to Joyce and Alice, or their shares, among the transfers. It is probable that they died without heirs of their body, and that their shares were divided among their sisters. It is possible that Alice, with whom she had been most associated, might have left her share to her sister Mary. However it happened, Mary was empowered to sell. In “Outlines,” ii, 179, the indenture is given in extenso, as drawn up on the 15th day of October 21 Eliz. (i.e., 1579), between John Shackspere of Stratford-on-Avon, yeoman, and Mary his wife, and Robert Webbe of Snitterfield, witnessing that for the sum of “foure pounds” paid by Robert Webbe to John and Mary Shakespeare they should sell him “all that their moiety, part or partes, be it more or lesse, of and in two tenements” with the appurtenances in Snitterfield, all reversions, remainders, grants (the rents to the chief lord alone excepted), and all charters and evidences concerning them; and that John and Mary should cause and suffer to be done every device for the more perfect assurance of the aforesaid moiety to Robert Webbe, “by his or their counsell learned in the law.” They also agreed to deliver to Robert Webbe by the following Easter all their “evidences.” In witness whereof the parties put their hands and seals, John Shackspere, Mary Shackspere, in presence of Nicholas Knooles, Vicar of Auston, William Maydes, Anthony Osbaston, and others. This long paper, written in English, has no reference, but hangs framed on the west wall in the Birthplace Museum. A bond was also signed concerning this on 25th October in the same year, by the same parties, and witnesses, that if John and Mary Shackspere fail in the performance of their agreement, they will pay 20 marks to Robert Webbe; but if they perform the conditions, the bond will be held void. This bond also hangs framed on the west wall among the Birthplace Deeds in the Museum. The final concord is found among the Feet of Fines in the Record Office,“Warr. Pasche in quindecim dies 22 Eliz.” (i.e. 1580), six months after the agreement. “Robert Webbe qu., John Shackespere and Mary his wife def., ... of the sixth part of two parts of two messuages,” etc., in Snitterfield; they yielding up their share entirely to Robert Webbe, on the death of Agnes Arden, for forty pounds.
This is transcribed in full by Halliwell-Phillipps, “Outlines,” ii, 176; but he says, “The indenture leading the uses of this fine has not been discovered,” assuming that there is no connection between this fine and the agreement of 15th October, which he takes to be a sale by John Shakespeare alone of some property of his own, in which he only uses his wife’s name to bar dower. Careful study will show that these three documents all concern the same sale. The puzzle is, Why did the English scribe write “foure” pounds, while the Latin foot gives “forty.” It may in one case have been merely a scribe’s error of “foure” for “fouretie”; it may, in another case, point to the result of some increase of the part to be sold, possibly by the death of another sister within the six months; it may be that Robert Webbe wished to let John Shakespeare have enough to pay the mortgage on Asbies, trusting to future good offices; it may be that the “learned counsel” employed put up the price for his clients before the final concord. Or it may be that the “foure pounds” referred to the share by division of one sister’s property; and the other to the whole share by will. An abstract of the fine remains, incorrectly dated, in Misc. Doc., i, 90.
Among the Fines de Banco, “Warr. 22 Eliz., pro termino Pasche,” is the note of one due to George Digby, arm., for a licence to Robert Webbe to agree with John Shakespeare and others for his share of the property in Snitterfield, 6s. 8d. “Recepta per me, Johannem Cowper Sub-Vice-comitum.”
Mrs. Arden renewed the lease she had made to her brother Alexander to his son Robert Webbe, 5th July 1580 (Misc. Doc., i, 88). Witnesses John Somerville, Thomas Osbardistone.
It would seem that the question of the ownership of the Snitterfield property was perplexing enough to Robert Webbe, when a new claimant appeared. Thomas Mayowe of Shireburne, grandson of the William Mayowe who had granted it to John at the beginning of the century, laid claim to it now, and having no title deeds, appealed to Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor. He stated that his grandfather William was lawfully seised in one messuage with about 80 acres in Snitterfield by ancient gift in tail made to him by Richard Mayowe his father; and that this descended to Roger Mayowe, son and heir of William, and should have descended to the suppliant Thomas, son and heir of Roger. But
the deeds and charters concerning the premises of right belonging to your suppliant have casually come into the hands of Edward Cornewell, Agnes Arden, and Robert Webbe, who, by colour thereof, daily devise and practise to convey to themselves sundry estates in those by inheritance to persons unknown to your suppliant, minding, through delays, wrongfully to disinherit him.
He did not know the dates of the old deeds, nor the certain number of them, “whether in chiste locked, or boxe sealed”; and therefore he is without all remedies by the ordinary course of the common law. He knows not with certainty against whom to bring the action, for “they so covertly and secretly do use the matter that he cannot certeynely know who is the tenant of the premises or receiver of the rents.” So he appeals to the Chancellor to issue a writ of subpœna, that Edward Cornewell, Agnes Arden, and Robert Webbe should appear personally before his Honour, to give an account of their claims. This is not dated (Misc. Doc., vii, 154). It must have fallen like a bomb into the camp in 1580. Agnes Arden was still alive, but she was ill. A commission was granted to Bartholomew Hales, gent., Lord of the Manor of Snitterfield, and Nicholas Knolles, clerk, to take the deposition of Agnes Arden, now impotent, for the use of Chancery, in answer to a bill by Thomas Mayowe, 25th November 23 Eliz., 1580 (Misc. Doc., ii, 13).
As they lived so near, this was probably seen to at once. Agnes Arden died shortly afterwards, and was buried at Aston Cantlow, 29th December 1580, Her death caused a re-arrangement of claims. From tenants, the Ardens had become owners in each part. Robert Webbe, already owner of the bulk of the estate, proceeded to purchase more. Edmund Lambert, who had not been pressed by poverty to realize his reversion, agreed to sell his share. On 1st May 23 Eliz. (1581), there was granted to Robert Webbe, by Edmund Lambert of Barton in Henmarche, and his wife Joan, one of the daughters of Robert Arden, all their moiety, part, pourpart, or share of the property for £40 (Misc. Doc., ii, 80).
On the 2nd of May a subordinate deed was drawn up, signed by the marks and seals of Edmund and Joan Lambert, appointing their well-beloved William Cookes and William Meades their true and legitimate attorneys to hand over their third part to Robert Webbe, or any attorney he may choose. This was signed in the presence of William Cookes, Thomas Nicholson, William Maydes, John Perkes, and Edward Cornewell (Misc. Doc., ii, 12).
On the same date, with the same witnesses, Edmund Lambert executed a bond of £80 in favour of Robert Webbe if he should not fulfil the conditions agreed upon (Misc. Doc., vii, 153).
A general release by Edmund Lambert to Robert Webbe of the interest of him and his wife in the Snitterfield property was handed over on 1st June 23 Eliz. (1581), before the witnesses John Dafferne, John Scarlett, Edward Cornewell, Henry Talbot, and John Butler. The seal has H. T. on it, probably being that of Henry Talbot (Misc. Doc., ii, 84). See also Birthplace Deeds, Appendix 276.
The final concord appears in the Feet of Fines, P.R.O., “Warr. Pasche, 24 Eliz.,” between “Robert Webbe, qu., et Edmund Lambert et aliis deforc., de terre,” etc. Robert Webbe had by this time become apparent owner of the whole of the old Mayowe property, and empowered to face the lagging Chancery suit alone.
But another complexity had arisen, and a new set of deeds, which have not yet been fully worked out. Robert Webbe was about to marry Mary, the daughter of John Perkes of Snitterfield, evidently a prosperous farmer and an affectionate father. The arrangements were extraordinary. There is an undated deed (with pieces cut out) providing that William Perkes should enjoy one tenement, one orchard, and all appurtenances, etc., now in the possession of Edward Cornewell, with no claims from the Ardens, for the sum of £20; that if William Perkes or his assigns do not enjoy the same and pay for it at the rate of £3 6s. 8d. a year, and do depart, then the said Edward Cornwell to have the same again (Misc. Doc., ii, 7). This seems to have been some first draft.[5] The “settlement” in extenso is preserved between Robert Webbe and Mary Perkes, 1st September 23 Eliz. (1581). In consideration of a marriage hereafter to be held between them, and also in consideration of £35 of lawful English money to be paid him by John Perkes, Robert Webbe devised and let to farm two messuages with the appurtenances, and one yard land and a half, to John Perkes from the feast of St. Michael for six years, to have and to hold, paying to Robert Webbe or his executors the sum of fourpence at each term. John Perkes was to repair the premises at his own cost, and at the end of the term to yield them to Robert Webbe. During that term Robert Webbe should have twenty sheep kept for him during the winter months by John Perkes;
and the said John Perkes shall find and allow for the said Robert Webbe; Mary the daughter of John Perkes, his wife; Margaret, mother to the said Robert; and Edward Cornell, father-in-law to the said Robert, during the term, within the dwellinghouse of the said John Perkes, necessary, convenient, and holesome meate, drinke, chamber lodging, and fier, at the proper cost and charge of the said John Perkes, the said Edward Cornell paying for his bording as aforesaid, yearelie to John Perkes, the some of three pounds of English money. And if it haps that the said Robert Webbe and Mary his wife have any child or children during the said term, John Perkes shall find and allow for the same, meat, drink, chamber lodging, and fier, with free entry in and out of the said chamber, to and for the said Robert, Mary, Margaret, Edward, and the said children.
At the end of the term John Perkes was to yield up the land sown with all manner of corn and grain at his own charge, so that the said Robert and Mary should have it for their own use after the six years. In witness whereof both parties set their hands and seals in the presence of Thomas Nicholson, Edward Cornewell, and Thomas Pittes (Misc. Doc., ii, 14). On the same day, and before the same witnesses, Robert Webbe signed a covenant, on his marriage with Mary, daughter of John Perkes, to hold a messuage in Snitterfield to the use of himself for life, with remainder to Mary for life, with remainder to the right heirs.
It is evident that grim economy was necessary to Robert Webbe, after his efforts to buy up the other shares, and sit free on his grandfathers property. This was intensified by the unknown dangers and expenses of the Chancery suit hanging over him. John Perkes had done what he could to help him.
Still one other purchase, at least, had Robert Webbe to make. Halliwell-Phillipps, “Outlines,” ii, 173, says: “How Robert Arden’s other two daughters, Elizabeth Scarlett and Mary Shakespeare, became entitled to portions, is not known; but that this was the case can be shown by the conveyances to Robert Webbe.” Elizabeth Scarlett is referred to neither in Robert Arden’s will nor in the settlement of 1550. It may be she was an elder daughter who had received her portion at her marriage. She might still share by common law in the inheritance of sisters who died. Halliwell-Phillipps suggests that she had married John Scarlett; but both the John Scarlett of Henry VIII and the John of Elizabeth had wives named Joan. Halliwell-Phillipps enters Elizabeth’s death in the Ardens’ pedigree table as in 1588, giving no authority. But John would not have been heir to his mother in 1582 if she had been alive. The Birthplace Deed 433 shows that
John Skarlett of Newnham in the Parish of Aston Cantlow, husbandman, son and heir of Elizabeth Skarlett, one of the daughters and coheirs of Robert Arden of Wilmecote, in consideration of 20 marks paid him by Robert Webbe of Snitterfield, agreed that all his part and interest in two messuages and their appurtenances
in Snitterfield should be delivered for ever to Robert Webbe, 18th March 24 Eliz. (1581-2); witnesses John Dafferne, John Butler, Edward Cornwell, and Edmund Lamberde.
On the same day was sealed a bond for 40 marks, for the completion of the sale between Robert Webbe and John Scarlett of “all the part, purparte, title, and interest, in two messuages in Snitterfield in the tenure of Robert Webbe, of which John Skarlett and Joane his now wiefe, or one of them, be lawful owners in fee simple”; the deed of release to cover all rents due, that of the chief lord excepted. The above-named John Scarlett and the said Joane his wife to hand over all deeds and evidences (Misc. Doc., ii, 74).
I came on this deed first (evidently unknown to Halliwell-Phillipps), and naturally thought the inheritance lay in Joane the wife; but in the light of the previous deed it is clear that it came through his mother to John, and Joane’s name was used only to bar dower. John Scarlett received very much less than the Shakespeares did, which strengthens my belief that Mary inherited a share of one dead sister’s portion, but was left the whole portion of another sister by some form of will. I find no mention of the Scarletts’ sale among the Feet of Fines.
The most painstaking research among records, wills, and registers has given me no clue to further information; indeed, rather clouds what we already have. It is known that the Aston Cantlow registers do not begin early (1560). Among the burials appear Joane, “wyff of John Scarlett,” 9th December 1580; and on 9th December 1581, John Scarlett. The will of John Scarlett of Newnam is dated 10th December 1581; in this he mentions his brother William, and John, the son of Adam Scarlett. The date given is the day after his burial; and the deed is drawn up three months after both. This seems to prove that it was another John Scarlett. Adam Scarlett, the richest yeoman[6] in the parish, had a brother John, who might, by common law, as the second son, have been heir to his mother, and who survived some time after this. But no such explanation comes as to the “now wife Joan,” who had died a year and more before the agreement was made in which she is concerned. I have been unable, as yet, to trace the cause of the discrepancies.
Robert Webbe had now got into his own hands all which had been owned by his aunts and his mother. But the Chancery proceedings were dragging their slow length along. He could, however, have little fear, further than the waste of time and money, as he would hold among his evidences the two early papers which I have brought forward for the first time. A paper in Misc. Doc., i, 89, gives the list of “Witnesses to be examined for Robert Webbe.” Among these is “Hary Shexspere.” Another (Misc. Doc., ii, 85) is the subpœna of John Shakspere, John Wager, Adam Palmer, and others, in the case of Mayowe versus Robert Webbe, to appear before a special commission appointed by Chancery, Sir Fulke Greville, Sir Thomas Lucy, Humphrey Peto, and William Clopton, 24 Eliz.
No one has hitherto taken any further trouble about this Chancery suit, but, knowing that it might lead to unexpected revelations, I made a diligent search at the Record Office, and was rewarded to a limited extent; that is, I found some information, but not so much as I had hoped.
I found that a commission had been granted to hear the case of Mayowe con. Cornwell and others, in the Quindene of Trinity, to Sir Fulke Greville and Sir Thomas Lucy, Knights, Humphrey Peto, Esq., and Thomas Clopton, Arm., or any two of them, to hear the witnesses on the plaintiffs’ side; record their answers, and give the defendants a fortnight to reply, 12th June 23 Eliz. (1581).
Thomas Mayowe claimed to be the son of Roger, and that Roger was the son and heir of William, on whom Richard his father had entailed the property. Apparently William had granted it to John, son and heir of Richard. This John would be William’s brother. The interrogatories to be put on behalf of Mayowe were necessarily long, but they may be summarized. Do you know the tenement in question, “lying between the house which was sometime the house of William Palmer on the one side, and a lane called Merrel Lane on the other, and doth abut on the High Street”; and if one John Mayowe did sometime dwell in it? Do you know that one Richard Mayowe deceased, father of William Mayowe, likewise deceased, was seised in this domain as of fee of inheritance, and did entail it on the said William and the heirs of his body? Do you know that William was grandfather of the complainant, that his son and heir was Roger, and that Thomas was the son and heir of Roger? Chancery is proverbially slow. The depositions were taken at Warwick 13th June, 24 Eliz. (1582), before Sir Foulk Greville, Sir Thomas Lucy, and Humfrey Peto, Esq. (Chanc. Dep. M. VIII, 22). The question of entail is not cleared.
Richard Welmore of Norton Curlew, of the age of 60 years or thereabouts, did know the tenement, but could not answer the other queries. He had heard Roger Mayowe say he was the eldest son of William. He knew that Thomas was the son and heir of Roger.
Robert Nichols of Lillington, aged 67 years, knew the plaintiff, the defendants, and the tenement, and “that it abuts itself against the High Street.” He had heard by credible report that John Mayowe did sometime dwell there. He had also heard that Richard was seised in the demesne as of fee of inheritance; that William was the son of Richard, that Roger was the son of William, and Thomas was son of Roger.
Thomas Lyncycome of Yardeley in the county of Worcester, tilemaker, 58 years of age, only knew that Thomas was eldest son and heir of Roger.
The depositions were signed by Fulke Greville and Humphrey Peto. Rather an unsatisfactory plea against possession for nigh eighty years! Doubtless the two deeds were in court—the grant of William Mayowe to John, son of Richard; and the sale by John Mayowe to Thomas Arden.
Then follow “Interrogatories to be ministered on the part and behalf of Edward Cornell, Robert Webbe, Edmund Lambert, and Joane his wife.” These also must be contracted, How many tenements are there in controversy? How many inhabited them? How long have you known them? Whose inheritance was it accounted? Was it the inheritance of Arden? What was the name of Arden? Have you ever known the ancestors of Mayowe occupy the premises? How long since they did so? Do you know if Robert Arderne of Wilmecote was seised in fee simple of said premises? Do you know if said Robert made any conveyance, and to what uses? Do you know if the persons to whom the grant was made peaceably succeeded on his death? Did Agnes Arderne, wife of the said Robert, occupy the premises or receive rent for it? The replies were clear.
1. Adam Palmer of Aston Cantlow, yeoman, of the age of 60 or thereabout, said that he knew both plaintiff and defendant, that he has known the messuage in controversy forty years and upwards, and that he was one of the feoffees about thirty-six years ago. He knew one Richard Shaxpere did occupy the same messuage as tenant to Robert Arderne als Arden, and also Saunder Webbe and his wife, one Cornwell, and now Robert Webbe, son to Saunder. He hath known the said messuage and land to have been in the quiet possession of Robert Arden and his wife Agnes, as his own inheritance, and after his decease, of Saunder Webbe, who married the daughter of Arden, and now of Robert Webbe, who is in possession as heir to Saunder Webbe. He never knew any of the ancestors of the complainant dwell in the premises. Robert Arden was seised in fee simple, and did in his lifetime make a conveyance to Joan Lambert, Katherine Edkins, and Joyce Edkins, his daughters and coheirs by the feoffment. The wife of Robert Arderne quietly enjoyed the premises till of late, within this two or three years, this complainant did make some title thereto. To his remembrance Robert Arderne died twenty-eight years since or thereabout. He knew that Agnes, the wife of Robert Ardern, received the rents and profits of the said messuage, 40s. by the yeare, and since it hath been improved to £4 by the year, and that she died about two years since.
2. The next witness called was John Henley of Snitterfield, husbandman, of the age of eighty years or thereabout. He knew both complainant and defendant, had known the messuage for about sixty-six years, that it had been in the quiet possession of Thomas Arderne alias Arden, father to Robert Arderne; and concerning Robert Arden, he said all that Adam Palmer said. He knew the inheritance to be in the possession of Thomas Arderne, and afterward of Robert Arden; he was witness to the possession-taking, but cannot remember the time of the death of Arden.
3. Next was called John Wager of Snitterfield, husbandman, of the age of 60 or thereabout. He knew both complainant, defendants, and property. He knew one Rushby and one Richard Shaxpere, one Alexander Webbe and his wife, Cornwell and his wife, and Robert Webbe, son to Alexander, to occupy the property. He hath known it to be in the Ardens for fifty years, and that Robert was seised in fee simple. He said the same as Adam Palmer, though he was neither a feoffee nor was at the delivery of seisin.
I had hoped to be able to turn the page and read details of John Shakespeare’s age and status, and what he had to say concerning Arden’s inheritance and his father’s tenure. But the paper abruptly ends, without further witness, and without signatures. No decree or order has been preserved. Either the Court considered the Ardens’ case too strong to need further proof, or John too interested for a witness, or the page was lost that bore his testimony, as so much is lost concerning his family. The evidence of continued possession shows what the decision of the Court was.
There is only one perplexing statement of Adam Palmer’s further to note. We have the deeds, and we know that this, formerly Mayowe’s property, when in the tenure of Richard Shakespeare was settled by Robert Arden on his daughters Agnes Stringer, Joane Lambert, and Katherine Edkins; while Palmer names them as Joan Lambert, Katherine Edkins, and Joyce Edkins. It was easy at the end of thirty-six years to forget which of the daughters had her share in this messuage, seeing they all really treated their shares, not as the third part of one, but as the sixth part of the two properties. Agnes Stringer had died long before, and her family lived in Shropshire.
But it is more puzzling to hear Palmer name “Joyce Edkins,” as it seems to imply that Joyce, as well as Katharine, had married an Edkins. I have made careful researches in every possible direction, but have been unable to trace a Joyce Edkins, except the sister of William Hill. I am inclined, therefore, to think that either Adam Palmer or the clerk slipped in giving the name of Edkins to Joyce, as well as to Katharine. She should have been Joyce Arden with her share in the other property. The fate of Joyce has yet to be discovered, if she was not buried, as I suggested was possible, in Pedmore, in 1557 (see my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 181).
Perhaps Adam Palmer’s responsibilities had worn him out, and he had begun to mix things up, though in other points his testimony was clear. It was well for Robert Webbe that he was then alive. He was buried at Aston Cantlow, 13th July 1584.
Though this Chancery case does not yield us much new matter, it makes real our somewhat hazy notions of the property settled on Shakespeare’s aunts. But the whole series of documents, taken together, teach us a great many important points regarding the poet’s family and surroundings. It lets us picture the house abutting on the High Street where John Shakespeare was doubtless born, the extent of the united properties, and the stretches of the common fields which the poet doubtless haunted in his youth to catch the conies, permitted to the freeholders. But, above all, it answers conclusively the question, so mockingly put by the Baconians, Where did the Stratford man learn his law? There are more legal documents concerning this Snitterfield property than were drawn up for any other family of the time in Warwickshire, as anyone may test who wades through the “Feet of Fines,” and as few of his relatives could write, it is possible they could not read. William Shakespeare may have had but little Latin, but he was very likely esteemed as the scholar of the family, and doubtless had all these deeds by heart, through reading them to his anxious and careful relatives when they were brought out of the “box of evidences,” to strengthen the case for the defendant against Thomas Mayowe. The law papers of the Ardens, and the litigation of his father, prepared him alike for his many later personal associations with the law, and for the conduct of the Chancery case which he hugged to his heart during ten years at least. I trust soon to follow this out.
“Athenæum,” 24th July and 14th August 1909.