There was a Thomas Shakespeare—probably the same—who married on June 21, 1598, Elizabeth Letherbarrow, daughter of the Mayor of Coventry. He became Bailiff of Warwick November 1, 10 Jac. I., 1613. The only notice of the name in the "Visitation of Warwickshire" in 1619 is that of "Thomas Shakespeere, gent., one of the principal Aldermen of Warwick."
It is not clear whether or not he was the son of Thomas Shakespeare, the shoemaker, who held land of the manor of Wroxall, and died in 1557, leaving William, Thomas, John, and Joan, ux. Francis Ley.[265]
In Birmingham Registers there was a William, 1637, and an Anne Shakespeare of Knowle, 1743.
More might be said of the Shakespeares of Coventry and Fillongley. There is a tablet recording Shakespeare benefactions in Fillongley Church, and many still bear the name among the neighbouring peasantry. But to complete the pedigrees of the Warwickshire families, we must follow them to other abodes.
FOOTNOTES:
[231] November 25, 1584, Stratford-on-Avon Register. Mr. R. B. Wheeler, writing in the Gentleman's Magazine, September, 1816, takes for granted the poet's father had three wives; a belief which Rowe also held. See Reed's ed., vol. i., p. 136.
[232] "Ursula, daughter of John Shakespeare, bapt. March 11, 1588-89; Humphrey, son of John Shakespeare, bapt. May 24, 1590; Philip, son of John Shakespeare, bapt. September 21, 1591."—Stratford-on-Avon Register.
"This Humphrey was ancestor to the George Shakespeare living in Henley-in-Arden in 1864, and since in Wolverhampton." See French's "Shakespeareana Genealogica."
[233] See "Rot. Claus.," 23 Elizabeth.
[234] See St. Nicholas' Churchwardens' Accounts, transcribed and printed by Mr. Richard Savage, of Stratford-on-Avon. The register states: "1579. July Sexto die huius mensis, sepultus fuit Gulielmus Shaxper, qui demersus fuit in Rivulo aquæ, qui vel vocatur Avona."