Shakespeare's environment

by C. C. Stopes

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.