The Diary leaps on then till 4th September 1616, and says little more of interest, but sufficient to show that Mr. W. Combe was determined to defy the Lord Chief Justice as well as the corporation, and go on with the enclosures after Shakespeare’s death. Indeed, the details[21] of the struggles during the next two years, as gleaned from the corporation records, give the romantic tale how Stratford then
The little tyrant of its fields withstood.
The Combes raged at the corporation, defied their arguments, and threatened them with dire consequences for defending the rights they had sworn to hand down to their successors; the aldermen complained in every Court, and went in their own persons, rather than risk sending messengers, to throw down the fences and fill up the ditches made by Combe’s servants, and some were wounded in the free fight which ensued. William Combe was High Sheriff of the county for one year during the struggle, and was Justice of the Peace during its course, though he seemed to hold himself above law and successive legal decisions.
Finally, however, he was summoned for contumacy before the Privy Council, and, after he was brought to his knees, was granted “absolution” in 1618-19, So Shakespeare’s legal acumen was proved when in 1614 he said “he thought nothing would be done”; but it took a long time to prove it.
“Athenæum,” 27th September 1913.
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.