"1716, Dec. 4. William Shakespere, Blacksmith."
Page 131.—In "The Book of John Fisher, Bailiff of Warwick in 1580," edited by Mr. Thomas Kemp, deputy-Mayor of Warwick, are several notices of Shakespeare. In the first page he is mentioned, and later on we find that he lived in the Market-Place Ward, and was assessed 1d. weekly for relief of the poor.
A "Thomas Shakesper" lived at the same time in West Street Ward, and was assessed the same amount. These may be the Thomas and John, sons of Thomas Shakespeare, shoemaker, of Warwick, who made his will in 1557. There is also a casual allusion to Shakespeare the turner, of Rowington; and in 1580-81 John Fisher notes: "I paid to —— Shakesper, servant to Mr. Humphrey Catheryns, for fees for the discharge of 39/7-1/2 charged upon the Church of St. Maryes, in Mr. Boughton's account for subsidy supposed to be due in the 5th yere of Queen Elizabeth, 9/-."
"Thomas Shakespeare of Warwick's son John was apprenticed to William Jaggard the Stationer of London 1609" (Rylands's "Records of Rowington").
"John, son of Thomas Shakespeare of Coventry, co. Warwick, pleb. p.p. St. John's Coll., matric. 18th Oct., 1662, aged 18; B.A. from St. Mary Hall 1666 (subscribes serv.)"—(Oxford Alumni and graduates). "Vicar of Anstrey, co. Warwick, 1670" (Foster's "Index Eccles.").
Page 134.—The registers of All Saints', Oxford, date from 1549; St. Michael's, 1559; St. Peter's-in-the-East, 1563; St. Martin's Carfax, 1569; St. Giles', 1576; St. Peter-le-Bailey, 1585; St. Mary's, 1599; St. John Baptist's, 1616.
Page 134.—"Thomas Shakespeare and Jane Toupe married ye 2nd Maie, 1625." (Register of Mere. Notes and Queries, 9th Series, iii. 109.) The county not named. It may be either Cheshire, Wiltshire or Lincolnshire.
Page 141.—One, at least, of the Irish Shakespeares was a suspicious character. "William Shakespeyre, formerly of Kilmaynham Hibernia, laborer, arrested for suspected felony 6 Ed. VI." ("Chester in the Plantagenet and Tudor Reigns," Canon Rupert Morris; also Notes and Queries, 8th Series, x. 192).
Page 147.—I find that "Gutheridge" was a Stratford-on-Avon name. Mr. Gutheridge was a dealer in leather there (see will of Joyce Hobday, 1602); and John Milburn was a Rowington man (see the Records of Rowington)—which two facts much increase the likelihood of John, of St. Clement's Danes, being at least a Warwickshire man, if not the Snitterfield one.
Page 151.—"Edward Shakespear, Clare, A.B. 1728; A.M. 1736" ("Cantabrigensis Graduati").