Domestic affairs.
Meanwhile his own domestic affairs engaged some of his attention. Of his two surviving children—both daughters—the eldest, Susanna, had married, on June 5, 1607, John Hall (1575-1635), a rising physician of Puritan leanings, and in the following February there was born the poet’s only granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall. On September 9, 1608, the poet’s mother was buried in the parish church, and on February 4, 1613, his third brother Richard. On July 15, 1613, Mrs. Hall preferred,
with her father’s assistance, a charge of slander against one Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Worcester; the defendant, who had apparently charged the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did not appear, and was excommunicated.
