The last implicit sign of the family possession of Asbies is preserved in a little book among the State Papers, April 1580 (which none of the Baconians appear to have noted). This is a list of “the Gentlemen and Freeholders of the County of Warwick.” Among these appear John Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon (the name spelt so) and Thomas Shakespeare of Rowington. In another list the contracted form of the name is used. But the freehold was slipping from him. He could not find sufficient money to pay everything at once. There is no doubt that his son’s impulsive marriage would increase his money difficulties. So time passed on, and he was fighting from hand to mouth, until on 1st March 1587 Edmund Lambert died, still holding Asbies. Though John Lambert, the heir, seems to have been offered the money, he refused it, and took possession. He was not going to be bound by a mere verbal promise of his father, even if it had ever been made. There seem to have been family councils, friendly, logical, and legal pressure applied. John Lambert refused to give up the desirable family property. But a counter proposition was made to him, and under pressure, to secure peace, he seems to have agreed on 26th September 1587, at the house of Anthony Ingram, gent., at Walford Parva, to pay £20 extra by instalments, beginning on 18th November 1587, and again the Shakespeares trusted a Lambert’s word.
Now it cannot be too carefully considered, that it was the private discussions and decisions about the return of Asbies, that were the deciding factors in John and William Shakespeare’s life. Then they learnt that John Lambert was determined not to give up Asbies; they knew they could not go to Common Law, having for testimony only the word of a dead man. And William Shakespeare, already the father of three children, felt that he must make a career somewhere, and determined on trying London. Why not? Many of his friends had gone there and prospered. His father would have the £40 he was ready to pay for Asbies. He would have introductions enough, and he probably reckoned on the £20 that John Lambert was to pay to make up the sale-value of Asbies to a more just proportion as likely to come to himself. We know that he suffered disillusionment; we know that John Lambert did not pay that £20, denied even that he had promised it, and the next step taken was the commencement of proceedings against him for £20 at the Common Law. It is certain that, however it might be entered in his parents’ name, William Shakespeare, as the heir apparent, was associated formally with it, probably instructed the attorneys, and did all the personal duties of a “complainant.” And thus, by a peculiar combination of circumstances, the first time William Shakespeare’s name was written in London, the first time it was spoken in London, was in the Law-Courts![10] The case teaches us certain details, which have not yet been made the most of, but it seemed to die out, possibly from lack of funds among the complainants. Lambert did not pay. And the fierce fight with fate which Shakespeare made took place during the next few years.
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.” Fortune turned in time. Shakespeare found work at the theatre, seems to have been liberally treated, though at first servitor or apprentice, and soon had a house in Bishopsgate Street, on which he was assessed higher than either of the Burbages. So it may reasonably be inferred he had his family by him at least by 1594, for a time. He never forgot Asbies. So when he did prosper he applied for arms for his father, bought the best house in Stratford for his wife and got his father and mother to have another fight for Asbies, this time in a court in which he thought he had a better chance of success. The Complaint on 24th November 1597 of John Shackespeare and Mary his wife and Answer have been printed among Special Proceedings in Chancery, Halliwell-Phillipps has them, and also the Decrees and Orders, but the details have not been worked out. Again John Shakespeare committed an indiscretion. Either his attorney mistook, or John, thinking that William was putting himself in power too much, had put forward a second complaint in his own name only. Of course, Lambert complained of this, and was supported. John had to withdraw one of his complaints and pay the expenses of both parties in it, and Lambert had permission to change his commissioners if he pleased. In Decrees and Orders, 18th May 1598, John Lambert’s Counsel said that John had exhibited a bill in the name of himself and his wife, and then a bill in his own name, had taken out his commission but examined no witnesses (D. and O. A. 1598, Trin. 706). On 27th June they had powers given to elect a commission to examine witnesses by the octaves of Michaelmas, directed to Richard Lane, John Combes, William Berry and John Warner. On 6th July 1598 (B. Book, 133), a new commission was appointed, and John Lambert changed his commissioners, probably finding those chosen first too much in favour of the Shakespeares. The new commission reads, Richard Lane, John Combes, Thomas Underhill, and Francis Woodward. The interesting part in such cases is the examination of witnesses. But the depositions have not been preserved; (I have sought for them very carefully both in Stratford and P.R.O.). That they had been taken, and had been in favour of the Shakespeares may be inferred by the entry,
“John Shakespeere and Mary his wife:—Yf the defendant shew no cause for stay of publication by this day sennight then publication is granted” (23rd October, Mich. 41 & 42 Eliz. D. and O. B. 1599).
This is the last word concerning the case, and we are left to surmise the sequel. Whether John Lambert, finding himself about to be beaten, put as a bar the Coram Rege case, and the Shakespeares’ offer to accept £20 in lieu of the property, and acknowledged his willingness to pay it now; or whether the waning fortunes of the Essex party withdrew what court influence might have come through the poet, we know not. But we know that there was never more a “Shakespeare of Asbies”; and that even on the death of his father in 1601 (curiously enough at the very time of the end of the twenty-one years lease he had drawn up from 1580), William instituted no further proceedings in his own name, and contented himself by purchasing other lands and leases of tithes.
One point I should have noticed is, that the final concord which Edward Lambert had drawn up in 1578, and had enrolled in 1579, was endorsed with the records of fifteen proclamations. The first could only have been at the Easter Assizes 1581, at Warwick, after the forfeiture of Michaelmas 1580; it was repeated every year, until the Shakespeares began to take proceedings in Chancery. It was stayed while the case was running, and never resumed, for John Lambert remained in possession at the now-vanished Asbies.
“Athenæum,” 14th and 21st March, 1914.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See the paper reprinted above, [p. 17].
[8] The illustrations in my “Shakespeare’s Family,” including one of this cottage, were put in by Mr. Elliot Stock, without my knowledge, and against my will.