Shakespeare's environment

by C. C. Stopes

III
SHAKESPEARE AND ASBIES
A NEW DETAIL IN JOHN’S LIFE

The story of Shakespeare’s lost inheritance is the clue to the shaping of the poet’s life, and therefore it is worth gleaning every scrap of information concerning it. What is commonly known is, that Robert Arden, of Snitterfield and Wilmecote, had made his will in 1556, leaving the first (or the reversion of it after his wife’s death) to be divided among six of his daughters.[7] Another daughter, Elizabeth Scarlet, seems to have been otherwise provided for, and the youngest daughter Mary, either because she was his favourite, or because of the old Saxon preference for the youngest child, was given the sole right in the freehold at Wilmecote called Asbies. There is no record of its purchase. My own opinion is that Thomas Arden, the father of this Robert, was the second son of Sir Walter Arden of Park Hall, who was to receive, by his father’s will in 1502, ten marks a year for life, his younger brothers receiving five marks a year. They all seem to have been provided for beyond this meagre allowance. At the date of the will Thomas was already resident in Wilmecote. How and why he went there is the question. Aston Cantlow had long been part of the inheritance of the Beauchamps, who intermarried with the Nevilles, and some connection of the Beauchamps with the Ardens can be proved by the family pedigree. Elizabeth Beauchamp was godmother to Elizabeth Arden, Thomas Arden’s sister (as French believes), and it is quite probable this little farm was given to, or bought for, the settlement of, Thomas Arden. What I wish to suggest is that Asbies was to the family the cherished heirloom, the visible link of connection between their branch and the historic family from which they sprang, and that some family jealousy may have arisen through its being absolutely left to the youngest child.

We know little about this Thomas, but much more about his younger brother Robert. He was yeoman of the King’s Chamber in Henry VII’s reign, and received many royal patents and grants during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Leland mentions him: “Arden of the Court, is younger brother to Sir John Arden of Park Hall” (“Itin.,” vi, 20). Among the Feet of Fines for Warwickshire, Trinity Term 18 Henry VIII, is an entry to the effect that Robert Arden, Arm., settled an annuity on Antonio Fitzherbert “from the Manor of Ward Barnes, formerly Wilmecote”; whether this refers to the uncle, “Robert, of the Court,” or the nephew, Robert of Wilmecote, it refers to the district.

Now, it is not a little remarkable that the Shakespeares’ little property had only “a local habitation and a name” of Asbies, during the life of Mary Arden and her immediate Arden relatives. It is not known before, it has not been known since. Either it changed its name, or was swamped in a larger estate. We cannot give its boundaries. Halliwell-Phillipps shows that it could not have been by the cottage now called Mary Arden’s Cottage[8] at Wilmecote, for he had traced other owners back to 1561, but he seems to think that Robert Arden had lived in Asbies. Now it is quite clear from his will that his widow Agnes was to have his copy-hold in Wilmecote, so that she allowed his daughter Alice quietly to enjoy half, and it seemed they had occupied that property. This copyhold was probably for three lives, as it lapsed at Agnes Arden’s death in 1581, after the trouble at Asbies.

On Mary’s marriage an interest in Asbies would accrue to her husband, which by the courtesy of England he would retain for life. During Shakespeare’s youth it would be the basis of his father’s farming industries, and perhaps, after the common fashion of the time, the prospective source of support for the family, in a manner stigmatized by the Earl of Leicester as lazy, selfish, and without public spirit or family pride.[9] It is perfectly certain it was intended to be the inheritance of William Shakespeare, and that he was prepared to be a small farmer, for which reason he was not trained to any profession, nor apprenticed to any trade. (All “traditions” on this question are untrustworthy.)

John Shakespeare had purchased in 1556, the year of the settlement of Asbies, a house and garden in Greenhill Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, and another in Henley Street, where he had been living since 1552 (see View of Frankpledge, Borough of Stratford, P.R.O., Portfolio 207), so he had a town home to offer the heiress of Asbies when he married her the following year. He seemed, having been Bailiff and Chief Alderman, to go on in prosperity till October 1575, when he again purchased two houses in Stratford, one of them also in Henley Street. From that date his fortunes declined. Whether it was failure in the wool industry, or the misfortunes of his brother Henry at Ingon, or special losses of his own, John Shakespeare was in money trouble by 1578. Some have suggested it was through recusancy, because a much later State Paper list gives his name among recusants. I have elsewhere shown the John Shakespeare there mentioned was much more likely to have been the shoemaker who disappeared shortly after from the town. That the ex-Bailiff John’s difficulties were well known, and that his fellow aldermen sympathized with him, is shown in the Chamberlain’s accounts, where John is excused by his brethren from the burdens they put on themselves. He required money, and must have it somehow. His nephew Robert Webbe had been prospering in Snitterfield while he was declining, was, indeed, stimulated by the ambition and help of a prospective father-in-law, beginning to buy up the shares of his aunts in Snitterfield. Mary Arden had been left no share there, as Halliwell-Phillipps suggests, but apparently by this date, through the death of her two next youngest sisters, had become possessed of the share of the one by will, and of the share of the other, without a will, by partition.

It is nearly certain that John and Mary Shakespeare would have gone to Robert Webbe first for a loan on the security of Snitterfield, or even to sell it outright. But he had just bought in the share of the Stringers (see Feet of Fines, Easter, 21 Eliz.), and would be short of money. They turned to their brother-in-law Edmund Lambert, who had sufficient money, but he would not trust it with John Shakespeare in his depressed state on any lesser security than that of the family jewel, of Asbies. He drew up an indenture, purporting to be an absolute sale, for £40, with this condition, that if the money was repaid on Michaelmas Day 1580 at Barton-on-the-Heath the sale was to be void. But in the final concord, as preserved among the Feet of Fines for Warwickshire, Easter 1579, there is no allusion to this condition. Hence arose the trouble. When he had secured the money, John made a very complex arrangement. Asbies had evidently been leased to George Gibbes. He found Thomas Webbe and Humphrey Hooper willing to buy the lease from John and Mary Shakespeare and George Gibbes for twenty-one years from 1580, and to hand it back to George Gibbes. There must have been money paid down for that lease, as it was clinched by a fine in Feet of Fines, Hilary Term 1579 (230).

Though John had received the £40 from Lambert, plus the fine from Webbe and Hooper, he was evidently still in need, as we may learn from Roger Sadler’s will. Among the debts due to him were “Item of Edmonde Lamberte and —— Cornish for the debte of Mʳ John Shaksper £5” (Prin. Prob. Reg. Som. House 1 Bakon. 17th January 1578-9). We have had no information concerning the events of the following two years. But it appears that John must have committed some indiscretion about that time, which must seriously have affected his fortunes. Many years ago I had discovered a fine against his name in the Coram Rege Rolls, but laid it aside until I had leisure to work up the case. Not long since, with the help and advice of Mr. Baildon, I spent some weeks investigating likely papers, but found no further facts than those first gleaned, two separate yet connected cases among the unnumbered pages of the “fines” at the end of Coram Rege Roll, Trinity 22 Eliz. (a few pages from the end, half way down “Anglia” on the right). There we are told that John Shakespeare of Stratford super Avon in Co. Warr., yeoman, because he had not appeared before the Lady the Queen in her court at Westminster, as summoned, to be bound over to keep the peace, at a day now past, was due to pay £20, and that his two sureties were to pay a fine of £10 each, for not having produced him. His sureties were John Awdley of the town of Nottingham, co. Notts, Hatmaker, and Thomas Colley of Stoke in co. Stafford, yeoman. This becomes more serious, because the next case is against John Awdelay Hatmaker of the town of Nottingham co. Notts. Because he did not appear before the Court of the Queen when summoned at a day now past, bringing sufficient security, to be bound over to keep the peace, he was to be fined £40. And John Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon yeoman, one of the two securities for John Awdelay, because he had not brought him before the Queen on the day appointed, was to pay £20, and Thomas Colley, another of the securities, was also to be fined £20.

I looked through several terms before and after to see if there were any suit in the Coram Rege Rolls on which this may have been based, a difficult job, as I had no clue to the name of a plaintiff or a county to guide me. The only further reference was in the Exchequer accounts, where, under “Anglia,” “Warr.,” “Villa Notts,” and “Staff.” the same parties are entered for the same fines, Exchequer K. R. accounts 109/13, m. 22. d. Fines and Amerciaments Coram Regina Trinity Term 22 Eliz. Here, then, John had another £40 to pay, evidently unexpectedly, in association with two men who have not yet been connected with his biography. Whether he did not appear as defendant, or as witness in some case when summoned, or whether he had committed some trespass, or had a free fight with some one, as his brother Henry had with Edward Cornwall in 1587, I have not been able to prove. In searching the Controlment Rolls, Mich. 22 Eliz., I had a surprise. Among a number of names from various counties of persons who “indicati sunt de eo qud Corpes felonici interfecere et murderfare” was “John Shakespeare.” The very date. It was a relief to see that he was “late of Balsall, co. Warr.” I was allowed to get out some bundles of “ancient Indictments” which had not been searched, and found in No. 650 that the said John Shakespeare, by the instigation of the Devil, and his own malice, made a noose of rope fast to a beam in his house and hanged himself on 23rd July 21 Eliz. He had goods only to the value of £3 14s. 4d. which John Piers, the Bishop of Winchester, as chief almoner to the Queen, granted by way of alms to the widow, Matilda Shakespeare. (In the inventory of the goods are included some painted cloths.)

Though John of Stratford’s fortunes were nothing so tragic as those of John of Balsall, he was in a bad enough way. His fine was money entirely lost, through some folly; and he seems to have lost money otherwise. He had to sell both the Snitterfield shares to Robert Webbe outright, and he went down on Michaelmas 1580 to Barton-on-the-Heath with the redemption money of Asbies in his pocket. Edmund Lambert refused to receive it and release the mortgage until John paid him also other debts he owed him; but we know from later litigation that he had promised, when these other debts were paid, to take the £40 and release the mortgage at any time. And again John Shakespeare trusted his brother-in-law’s word.