In November of that year John's eldest son William, of whom no earlier direct mention had been preserved, added to his embarrassments by a premature marriage, and in the following year John was made a grandfather by the birth of Susanna Shakespeare. In 1584 the twins Hamnet and Judith were added to his anxieties. About this time the Stratford Records notice how a John Shakespeare was worried by suits brought against him by John Brown, in whose favour a writ of distraint was issued against Shakespeare in 1586. But the answer was returned that "he had nothing whereon to distrain."
There are several reasons for believing that this John was not the poet's father. The prefix Mr. is not used in the entries; it is certain that he retained his freeholds in Henley Street all his life, and if he had "no goods whereon to distrain," he could hardly have been received as sufficient bail at Coventry, on July 19 of that year, for Michael Price, tinker, of Stratford-on-Avon, or as security for his brother Henry's debts. In 1586 he was removed from his office of alderman.[130]
Just in the year of the death of Edmund Lambert, when the possession of money would have given him power to have renewed his efforts to regain Asbies, Henry Shakespeare became a defaulter, and Nicholas Lane, by Thomas Trussell, his attorney, sued John Shakespeare in his place, 1587. William Court was his attorney in a weary case, which must have led both sides into heavy costs, over the recovery of £22.[131]
On September 1, 1588, he paid a visit to John Lambert at Barton-on-the-Heath, in the vain hope of inducing him to surrender Asbies; instituted proceedings against those who owed him money in Stratford, and, in 1589, against Lambert in the Queen's Bench at London, probably acting in the latter case through William. From the inquisition post-mortem of the Earl of Warwick, in 1590, we know Mr. John Shakespeare still owned the two houses in Henley Street.
In 1592 Mr. John Shakespeare appraised the goods of two important neighbours—of Ralph Shawe, wool-driver, July 23, and Henry Field, tanner, August 21. Thomas Trussell, the attorney, drew up the inventory, and denominated his associate as Mr. John Shaksper, Senior, for no clear reason, but possibly to distinguish him from the shoemaker John. The attestation is witnessed only by a cross. During this year Sir Thomas Lucy and others were drawing up the lists of Warwickshire recusants[132] that had been "heretofore presented." Among these they included several members of the sorely-oppressed family of the Ardens of Park Hall, and in Stratford-on-Avon "Mr. John Shackspere" and eight others. Probably some friendly clerk, wishing to spare them fines, added: "it is sayd that these last nine coom not to Churche for feare of process for debte." But it is quite possible it might refer to John Shakespeare the shoemaker, who, having been Master of the Shoemakers' Company, might have been called "Mr."[133] In the earlier undated draught from which this was taken the Commissioners state: "wee suspect theese nyne persons next ensuinge absent themselves for feare of processes, Mr. John Wheeler, John his son, Mr. John Shackespeere," etc.
Away up in London in 1593 the tide was beginning to turn for the family through the efforts of the poet and the affection of the Earl of Southampton.
In this year Richard Tyler sued a John Shakespeare for a debt, but it is not at all certain it was not one of the others of the name. In a case brought by Adrian Quyney and Thomas Barker against Philip Green, chandler, Henry Rogers, butcher, and John Shaxspere, in 1595, for a debt of £5, the absence of a trade after Shakespeare's name has made Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps suppose that he had retired by this date. A John Shakespeare attested by a cross the marriage settlement of Robert Fulwood and Elizabeth Hill in 1596, which represents probably the name of the poet's father. In 1597 he sold, to oblige his neighbour, George Badger, a narrow strip of land at the western side of his Henley Street garden, 1-1/2 feet in breadth, but 86 feet in length. For this he received £2 10s., and his ground-rent was reduced from 13d. to 12d., the odd penny becoming Badger's responsibility. He also sold a plat, 17 feet square, in the garden, behind the wool-shop, to oblige his neighbour on the other side, Edward Willis.
The application made for coat-armour, initiated in 1596, ostensibly by John Shakespeare, but really by William Shakespeare, as well as the Lambert case, dragged on through the later years of the century.
That he had not lost credit with his fellow-townsmen may be seen by John's latest recorded piece of work.
Early in 1601 an action was brought by Sir Edward Greville[134] against the Corporation respecting the toll-corn; and John Shakespeare, with Adrian Quyney and others, assisted to draw up suggestions for the use of the counsel for the defendants. On September 8 of that year the funeral of the old burgess took place at Stratford-on-Avon, but there is no trace now left of any sepulchral monument or memorial of any kind. No will or inventory, or even inquisition post-mortem, has come down to us.