FOOTNOTES:
[19] Yet I find in the Vestry Minutes: “15th Dec. 1648 Mʳˢ Elizabeth Nashe for Shottery Corn Tithes being yearly value £100.”
[20] “Charges of Mr. Barbor and Mr. Jeffrey” in riding to London 15th May, 1590, “for search in the Rolles for my Lord of Essex’s patent.”
[21] I gave the story of William Combe more fully in “The Stratford-on-Avon Herald,” 23rd August 1912. See Note XI.
XII
OTHER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARES
Among Shakespeare’s contemporaries there were a good many bearing both of his names, and the few facts known concerning them become interesting, even when clearly shown not to refer to the poet.
I found one curious entry in London, among the burials in the registers of St. Clement Danes: “Jane Shackspeer, daughter of Willm., 8 Aug. 1609.” This Jane might have been the daughter of some country “William” temporarily in town—might even have been a daughter of the poet. But I think it much more likely that the father’s name was written in error for “John.” The bitmaker of that name had settled in the parish, and had a large family. He had baptized a daughter “Jane” on 16th July 1608, of whom no further notice appears in the register, if this entry does not record her death. (See my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 148.)
The Warwickshire Shakespeares seem to have favoured the name of William. Christopher Shakespeare, of Packwood, mentions in his will (proved 15th August 1558) a son William, who may be the subject of other later references.[22] A William priced the goods of “Robert Shakesper, of Wroxall,” on 19th March 1565; and one of the same name did the same duty to the goods of John Pardu, of Snitterfield, 1569. John Shakespeare, of Wroxall, labourer, in his will, 15th December 1574, speaks of his brothers William and Nicholas. A William signed and sealed, as one of the witnesses, a feoffment of lands in Wroxall, 27th June 1592; and a William of Wroxall made his will on 17th November 1609 (see Ryland’s “Records of Wroxall”).
A youth, probably the son of Thomas Shakespeare, shoemaker, of Warwick, was buried at St. Nicholas’s in that town, when the poet was fifteen years old. The clerk thought the manner of his death worth recording: “1579. July Sexto die huius mensis sepultus fuit Gulielmus Shaxper, qui demersus fuit in Rivulo aquæ qui vel vocatur Avona.”[23]
Another William, of Coventry, shoemaker, made his will 18th March 1605-6.
I see no evidence that the William Shakespeare of the Worcester Register, who applied for a marriage licence on 27th November 1582 was a different man from the poet, who, the next day, had a licence granted to marry Anne Hathaway. I have given my reasons elsewhere for believing them to be one and the same, and so has Mr. J. W. Gray in his “Shakespeare’s Marriage.” I have never come upon any other Anne or Agnes recorded as the wife of a William Shakespeare.
There was a William, however, of Hatton or Haseley, who married, 6th January 1589, Barbara Stiffe, and who is entitled “gentleman” when, on 14th March 1596, he baptized his daughter Susanna! “Barbara, wife of Mr. William Shakespeare,” was buried in February 1610. One can hardly think this the same person who was associated with John Weale: “John Weale granted to Job Throgmorton the cottage in which William Shakespeare dwelt at Haseley 4th March 1597” (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., App. II, Davenport MSS.).
In the Star Chamber proceedings there is the notice of a fine “inter Willielmum Shackspeare et Georgium Shackspeare, quer., et Thomam Spencer, arm., Christopherum Flecknoe, et Thomam Thompson, deforc., de octo acris pasturæ cum pertinentis in Claverdon alias Claredon, 12 Jac. I.”
Another William was in the habit of selling malt, lending money, and sometimes borrowing it. He might have been some of these others of the name, but he could not have been the poet, as some suppose, because his bills, preserved at Warwick Castle, continue until 1626.
The greatest number of Shakespeare entries in general, and of those concerning William in particular, are found in relation to Rowington. There had been residents of the name for a long time in the parish. The early registers are lost; but from the will of Richard Shakespeare, of Rowington, weaver, we know that he had a son William and a son Richard under twenty-three years of age on 15th June 1561. Another of the same name, called “Richard Shakspere of Rowington, the elder,” mentioned in his will, dated 6th September 1591, his sons John, Roger, Thomas, William; and a third Richard’s will, of 13th November 1613, show that he had four sons—William, Richard, Thomas, and John. The eldest, William, had at the date of the will a son John; the second, Richard, had four—Thomas, William, Richard, John; and after the registers commence, we find on 28th April 1619, William Shakespeare, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized; and on 13th August of the same year, “William, son of Thomas Shakespeare.”
The name of William Shakespeare appears in the list of the trained soldiers of Rowington taken by Sir Fulke Greville at Alcester on 23rd September 1605, probably the son of the second Richard, but erroneously, by some, supposed to have been the poet. Collier says that “we have intelligence regarding no other William Shakespeare at that date.”
The mark of a William Shakespere is found on a roll of the jurors at the Court of the Manor of Rowington in 1614, which is almost certainly that of William, son of the third Richard.
Mr. Ryland’s “Records of Rowington” show us that a lease was granted through feoffees to Richard Shakespeare, of Rowington, weaver, of the “Tyinges,” which may refer either to Richard the second or the third. The Customary rent of Rowington in 1605 mentions “Richard Shakespere, one messuage, half a yearde land (14 acres), 14s.; John Shakespeare one cottage and one quarter yard land (9 acres), 6s. 8d,.; Thomas Shakesper, one close, 2s.; one tofte and 16 acres, 13s. 4d.; one messuage, 10s. 4d.” It is not clear which “Thomas” it was. Richard and John are those referred to in the legal proceedings which give the story of their lives.
This Richard the third was evidently son of Richard the first, and, as he was under twenty-three in 1561, would be about seventy-six when he died in 1614. In consequence of his will and actions a protracted litigation commenced. The case somewhat resembles that of Jacob and Esau. The youngest son, in the absence of his eldest brother, prevailed on his father to disinherit him in his favour, and the dispossessed brother did not bear his loss with equanimity. Some of the facts were known to Malone, “Proleg.,” ii, 15, note 8; and Mr. Cecil Monro had included some of the references in his “Acta Cancellaria,” 1847. Mr. Knight discovered, and Mr. Bruce published, the Star Chamber Bill and answer in “Notes and Queries,” Third Series, xii, p. 81 (3rd August 1867); and a list of the official entries collected by Mr. Monro is given at p. 161 of the same volume.
The Catalogue which, within the last few years, has been drawn up of the Second Series of Chancery Proceedings has given us access to still another paper; and as so many minor illustrative details have turned up, it seems time to make a résumé of the whole mass of material. The story illustrates the domestic and legal life of the times.
Richard Shakespeare was of Turner’s End, or Church End, Rowington, when he made his will on 13th November 1613. He did not trust to its being sufficient of itself to go against the Customary of the manor, and during his lifetime he surrendered his copyhold estate into the hands of the steward by his attorneys, Thomas Ley and George Whome, in order to “settle it upon himself and his wife Elizabeth for their lives, and the longer liver of them, and after their decease, upon his youngest son John and his heirs,” provided that John paid to his brother William £4 a year. This deed of settlement was completed, and the fine paid into Court, in March 1613-14. Richard died within a month, and his wife followed him almost immediately, repenting of her share in the arrangement. William thereupon applied to be put on the homage of the manor, as his father’s eldest son and heir, probably at the time he made his mark; and also contested his mother’s will at Worcester. (See MS. Episc. Reg. Worcester, “per Wilielmus Shakespere, filium naturalem Elizabeth Shakespere nuper de Rowenton.”)[24] But the combination against him had been too powerful. He had no remedy but to eat humble-pie and accept the first instalment of his yearly fee from his brother John at Michaelmas 1614. When John had claimed his inheritance at the Manorial Court, the steward had bidden him be cautious with that proviso, or he would forfeit it, as it devised it to be paid in two portions, at the two half-yearly feasts of Lady Day and Michaelmas, between the hours of ten in the morning and two of the afternoon, in the church porch of Rowington. At Lady Day 1615 difficulties arose. Each said the other did not keep the appointment. William was not paid at the time specified in the settlement, and, assuming that the premises were thereby forfeited, made an entry into his father’s house as his natural heir, and was forcibly resisted. He thereupon instituted a case in Common Law. John went above him, and filed a bill in Chancery against him. Mr. Cecil Monro collected the following entries of this case:
1. Bill in Chancery, filed 1st May 1616, John contra William Shakespeare.
2. 11th May 1616, L. C. Ellesmere’s order to stay proceedings of defendant in Court Baron of Rowington until heard in Chancery. Mr. Richard Moore to consider it (Reg. Lib. B, 1615, fol. 747).
3. 16th May, Master Moore’s report (ibid.).
4. 8th June, a week given for plaintiff to reply (Reg. Lib. B, 1615, f. 824).
5. 10th June, Master Moore’s supplementary report, on a petition presented by defendant. Possession only established with plaintiff until the hearing of the case (Trinity Term Reports, 1616).
6. 11th November, Master of the Rolls allowed defendant to amend a clerical error in date (Lib. B, 1616, f. 146).
7. 31st January 1616-17, an order nisi for publication (ibid., f. 140).
8. 3rd November 1617, William files a bill against John, but, in respect of his poverty, is permitted to sue in forma pauperis (Reg. Lib., 1617, f. 132).
9. 18th November, Mr. Moore desired to consider the sufficiency of the answer of the defendants (ibid., f. 192).
10. Master Moore’s report in favour of plaintiff, Michaelmas Term, 1617 (Monro’s “Acta Cancellaria,” p. 222).
11. 22nd November 1619, an order for an injunction to restrain the defendant from putting plaintiff out of the possession of the premises at Rowington, and from suing plaintiff at Common Law upon a bond of £500, until defendant had answered plaintiff’s bill (Lib. B, 1619, f. 300).
12. 27th November 1619, an order for attachment against the defendant for not appearing.
Mr. Monro here omits the reply of William, filed on 6th May 1616, which should have come between 1 and 2. No. 4 refers to the reply to this, which should have appeared between 5 and 6; but it seems to have been lost.
Mr. Moore’s report of 16th May is favourable to John, whom he believes willing to pay, and the supposed forfeiture, if any, incurred by his reposing trust in another brother. Plaintiff might be relieved (Monro’s “Acta Cancellaria,” p. 221). But in his supplementary report he explains the “relief” to be only until decision. From the later Star Chamber case we know that the appointment of the commission of inquiry in Warwick should come in between 6 and 7 (13th January 1616-17). Mr. Moore’s report in Michaelmas Term 1617 is favourable to William, who should have the premises, if annuity not paid; and he finds the answers of the defendants defective (Monro’s “Acta Cancellaria,” p. 222).
In this counter case of “William contra John,” Mr. Monro omits to mention another paper, lately found by Mr. J. W. Gray and by myself, “The further answer of John Shakespeare, Edmund Fowler, and Thomas Sadler, defendants, to the bill of complaint of William Shakespeare, complainant.” It is not dated in the draft, but written across the top is a note in another hand, “Sworn 27th Jan., 1617 Matthew Carew,” i.e., 1617-18 (Chanc. Proc., Ser. II, Bundle 291, S. No. 108).
In spite of Mr. Moore’s favourable report, the case was evidently decided against William, in Easter Term 1618, by Sir Julius Cæsar, on the sworn evidence of Thomas Shakespeare, Fowler, and Sadler. William filed a bill in the Star Chamber as to their perjury, 9th June 1618, which was replied to on 11th June. The result is not preserved.
In the course of the depositions, both sides agreed as to preliminary facts; both allowed John to have been the father’s favourite son; they differed as to the cause of Richard’s action. John stated that “William had for many years been undutiful and disobedient, and taken very unnatural and wicked courses, to his father’s great grief.” William explained that until he was forty years of age he had worked as a labourer on his father’s farm without wages, only receiving his meat, drink, and garments. His father had never even allowed him any stock that he might raise up means to live on. He had done this, believing that the farm would later be his own, as his father always said it should. But about ten years before his father’s death he had gone into service, with his father’s permission, that he might earn some money, and “might be able to bestow his brothers and his sister, and fare in personal estate the better.” It is not so stated, but one can read between the lines, that he wanted to marry, and did marry, a certain well-to-do Mrs. Margery. When, through service on other people’s property, he “had gotten some money into his purse, he lent and bestowed much on his brother Richard, and did also, in all dutiful manner, respect and use his father and mother, and did him many services to his good liking.” But the ageing father had doubtless missed the strong arms of his son, all the more that they had not been duly appreciated. While William was away, working for money, John was at home, weaving, and not only John, but his sister Joan, whom his father loved exceedingly. Joan preferred her younger brother, and the two combined to obtain for him the property “by false information and other sinister means.” John used every means in his power to keep William away. Even when his father sent for him, John shut the door in his face and would violently assault him, threatening William that “if he hindered him from getting the premises, he would keep him in prison all his life for it.” The action of John and Joan “was very hardly spoken of among the neighbours.” Their mother had encouraged them at the time, but on her death-bed she bitterly repented, and “asked William to forgive her, and to pray to God to forgive her too.” William had submitted until John had broken the proviso. John’s bill in Chancery, 1st May 1616 (Bills and Answers, James I, Bundle S. 1457), is an appeal to be protected against the intrusions of William, who had injured him, and maltreated his cattle, turning them out of his pasture. He said he had fulfilled the conditions of the deed, and at the said Lady Day 1615 “did by himself, or some one for him, tender the money between the hours of 10 and 2.” He had gone to the church porch between 11 and 12, but, William not being there, he departed about other business, leaving the money with his brother Thomas, supposing that William would either come or send for it. Thomas waited in the church porch, but William did not come, and he sent it to his house the next day: but William, “being of a contentious and troublesome spirit, and seeking and endeavouring by all means to trouble your orator and put him to unnecessary expense, refused it.” “The said William Shakespeare, the 6th of April last, at a Court holden for the manor, did make claim to the messuage as the eldest son and heir of Richard Shakespeare,” pretending that it had been forfeited; and “except for the Equity of Chancery, your said orator is altogether remediless.” It may easily be seen that John’s statement as to the tender was somewhat indefinite. William’s answer is clear (filed 6th May, not included in Mr. Monro’s list). He had gone to the church porch of Rowington, not, indeed, at 10 o’clock, but shortly after 12, and waited until 3 o’clock. He had “openly published the cause of his coming there, and many took notice thereof”; but neither John, nor any one for him came thither to pay. John, indeed, had ridden off to Warwick, four miles away, on pleasure. William therefore, “considering how John, by indirect and undue means, had gotten the inheritance,” and believing that he by neglect of this proviso had forfeited it, lawfully entered into the premises as his father’s legal heir, in a peaceable manner, along with his wife. He had turned some cattle out of the pasture, but quite gently, and they did not belong to his brother, but to Thomas Ley. Here something is implied, which is not expressly stated. John was his own master, and could fix his own hours; William, still at service, was not master of his own time. Hence he was late at the appointment, and hence his wife, and not himself, made the later “forcible entries,” referred to as his. He goes on to say that he had heard that his “wife had been uncivilly beaten and buffeted about the head, and at one time was bruised upon the breast that it wrankled,” and her nursing child fell ill in consequence. This had been done by John, Thomas Ley helping him, “who, in a most violent and unchristian manner, did take the shoe from his foot” to strike her. John had falsely excused himself that Margery had attacked his wife. William confessed that he had laid claim to the premises at the Court held on 6th April last, and that by all lawful means he intends to have and to hold them. He is sure that he was not paid, and he knows nothing of John or his representative waiting in the church porch.
The further answer of John Shakespeare and others of 27th January 1617-18, also omitted by Mr. Monro, suggests either that by some curious but not impossible coincidence, one party went out of the church porch just the minute before the other came in, and that more than once, or that one or the other committed perjury. It is too long to transcribe, and most of it is recited in the Star Chamber case. John denied William’s statement that on Lady Day 1615, “relying on his craft and subtilty, accompanied only by Henry Clarke, minister, he did, near the church porch, tender the forty shillings,” and go off to Warwick on pleasure, leaving neither money nor representative. He stated that “about 12 of the clock he came into the church porch, and did tender the money, but neither William nor any one for him was there to receive it.” He had “heard it reported that the complainant had threatened to cut off an arm or a legg,” and he therefore went home to dinner, and afterwards went to Warwick, where he had business, as it was market day. Before he left, he gave the money to his brother Thomas, with direction and authority to pay it to William, or any other for him, and to stay at the church porch until the last instant, to be able to tender the money. Thomas Shakespeare had told him, and he thinks he can prove it, that he did stay until after two o’clock, and at the last instant did tender the money in presence of these two witnesses, Edmund Fowler and Thomas Sadler, who say that Thomas entreated them to be present with him. They met him, as they were coming to see him; about a quarter of a mile from Rowington, and went to the church porch about half-past one and they stayed until the last instant, or “neere thereabout,” and saw him tender the money at 2 o’clock; but neither William nor any for him was present. They deny that they or any of them have “contrived any secret estates, surrenders, articles, or agreements,” concerning this business. They are quite willing to answer further in any point “not sufficiently answered, confessed, avoided, and reversed or denied,” and trust this honourable Court may give them their reasonable costs and charges wrongfully sustained. It is signed by Ric. Weston.
The Star Chamber case six months later, 9th June 1618, transcribed in full in “Notes and Queries,” 3rd August 1867, after reciting the bulk of the Chancery proceedings, continues the plea. William’s complaint shows that John at first said he had stayed until 2 o’clock or near thereabout. He acknowledges there may have been a tender between 11 and 12, but there was none afterwards. He tells us that a commission from Chancery had been sent to John Norton, gent., Francis Collins, gent.,[25] Thomas Warner, clerk, and John Greene, gent., to examine the witnesses at Warwick, 13th January 1616. (This commission sat between the dates of Mr. Cecil Monro’s entries 6 and 7.) He there denounces “the wicked, ungodly, and corrupt subornacion of the said John and Thomas, of Edmund Fowler, tailor, Thomas Sadler, hempdresser, both of Coventry, who answered falsely, untruely, corruptly, and unlawfully” that they had come and seen Thomas tender the money between half-past 1 and 2 o’clock, and the money lay on the bench all the time until 2 o’clock, when they went away together, Thomas Shakespeare to Killingworth, Sadler and Fowler to Coventry. William declares their deposition false, untrue, and corrupt, to the displeasure of Almighty God, contrary to the laws of the “Realme,” and to the king’s peace, crown, and dignity, and to the great prejudice of him, whose case in Chancery was decreed against him by Sir Julius Cæsar in Easter Term last. He says he has no hope except the equity of the Star Chamber.
On the 11th of June John and the other defendants reply, supporting their previous assertions, saying that William was not present at 2 o’clock, and as “to all the perjuries, falsities, and corruptions, they are not guilty.”
The decision has not been preserved, nor the initiation of a third Chancery suit. But the two Chancery orders of 1619 referred to by Mr. Monro belong to this later series.
It is relevant to the question to return to the records of Rowington. The action does not seem to have prejudiced William with his neighbours, because in 1622, only three years after the last notice in Chancery, he was elected churchwarden. As a churchwarden had to be a “substantial householder,” this implies that William had been left in possession of his dearly bought inheritance. It also suggests a great change in his prospects from the time in which he sued in forma pauperis; or a desire of the neighbours to show their respect for him. John was buried 5th May 1635; William on 20th February 1646-7.[26]
Their long-continued litigation must have stirred not only Rowington, but Warwickshire, and it must have been well known to the poet. For he, too, was a homager of the manor of Rowington, for one of the only two tenements belonging to that manor in Stratford-on-Avon—the property in Chapel Lane taken over by his brother Gilbert for him in 1602. For that tenement, therefore, he should have been on the jury at Rowington, at the Court in April 1614, when, immediately after his father’s death, William claimed his inheritance; or in the following April, when he claimed it as forfeited. Though, from reasonable causes, he might have been excused attendance, the poet was certain to know of all the cases brought before the Court. It is probable that he sympathized with the elder brother, who had been ousted from the headship of the family, a man of his own name, exactly of his own age, possibly related to him in some degree, with the same number of brothers as he, and also with one sister, Joan. One trifling fact suggests acquaintanceship and sympathy—that William’s case was taken up by, and developed and signed by, Thomas Greene, the poet’s cousin and attorney of Stratford-on-Avon, when, a week after Shakespeare’s death, the younger brother interfered with the course of Common Law by throwing it into Chancery.
“Athenæum,” 18th and 25th August 1906.