"7 Feb., 1611-12, 45 Eliz."
"... The inconvenience of plaies being verie seriouslie considered of, with their unlawfulness, and how contrarie the sufferance of them is against the orders heretofore made, and against the examples of other well-governed cities and burrowes the Compaine here are contented, and they conclude that the penaltie of 10s. imposed in Mr. Baker's year, for breaking of the order shall from henceforth be £10 upon breakers of that order, and this to holde until the next common council, and from henceforth for ever, excepted that be then finally revoked and made void." This was the period of Shakespeare's retirement to Stratford-on-Avon.
Page 84.—It may be noted as a coincidence that the plays were published in folio the year of Mrs. Shakespeare's death. Some change among the leases, or the termination of the connection with his family through the death of his widow, may have suggested this.
Page 93.—A Robert Hall rented the old School House in Stratford-on-Avon, and paved the Guild Hall, 1568. A Richard Hall was churchwarden of St. Nicholas, Warwick, in 1552, who died in 1558, and among the churchwarden's accounts are notices of Richard Hall the younger, Nicholas Hall, John, Alice, Simon and "Eme Hall." "Received of Ric. Hawle the younger for the benevolence that Richard Hawle gave unto the poor out of his lands in Church Street, World without end," 1566-67. Richard Hall was churchwarden in 1600 and in 1606 (Churchwarden's Accounts, St. Nicholas, Warwick, Mr. Richard Savage).
Page 99.—Michael Drayton frequently visited Sir Henry Rainsford at the Manor House, Clifford Chambers. This gentleman had married Anne Goodyere of Polesworth, whose parents were Drayton's patrons. She was the "Idea" of his sonnets. (See introduction to "Michael Drayton," by Oliver Elton, 1895.)
Page 103.—Susanna Hall's signature appears on the settlements of 1639, and on that of 1647, in which her daughter joined.
Page 104.—"15th Dec., 1648. Tithes: Mrs. Elizabeth Nashe for Shottery Corne Tithes, being of the yearly value of one hundred pounds, £5." "28th June, 1650. Mrs. Elizabeth Barnard for Shotterie Corn tythes of the yearly value of one hundred and twentie pounds, £6." (Wheler's Notes, Stratford-on-Avon.)
Page 107.—There are many Bagleys in the parish registers of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and also Hathaways. It may be they were connections.
Page 110.—Halliwell-Phillipps states that in the "Coram Rege Roll of 1597, Gilbert Shakespeare is named as one of those standing bail for a clockmaker of Stratford"; and adds that he is described as "Haberdasher of St. Bridget's Parish, London." Through the kind permission of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, I have been allowed to go through their books at leisure, and find that there is no trace of a Shakespeare anywhere, and in the sixteenth century, no trace even of a Gilbert, except "Gilbert Shepherd," who took up his freedom in 1579. Neither is there any trace of him in the registers of St. Bridget's or St. Bride's, nor in the Subsidy Rolls, but in both places appear Gilbert Shepherd. I am, therefore, forced to the conclusion that Halliwell-Phillipps misread "Shepherd" as "Shakespeare." See my article in the Athenæum, Dec. 22, 1900, "John Shakespeare, of Ingon, and Gilbert of St. Bride's."
Page 112.—William Hart, the hatter, died a week before his brother-in-law, probably of the same epidemic. Joan Hart, his widow, survived till November 4, 1646. Their eldest son William was an actor. (See Royal Warrant, May 17, 1636; Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 129.) In William Hewitt's "Visits to Remarkable Places," 1839, he mentions Stratford and a boy whom he had noticed from his likeness to the poet. He turned out to be a descendant of his sister Joan Hart, and was called William Shakespeare Smith (Notes and Queries, 5th Series, VIII. 475). Probably the same referred to on page 109.