On the north, toward Warwick, are the Welcombe hills, here and there tufted with great trees, which may have mingled their boughs, in some early time, with the skirts of the forest of Arden; and from these heights, looking southwest, one can see the packed gray and red roofs of the town, the lines of lime-trees, the elms and the willows of the river’s margin, out of which rises the dainty steeple of Stratford church; while beyond, the eye leaps over the hazy hollows of the Red-horse valley, and lights upon the blue rim of hills in Gloucestershire, known as the Cotswolds (which have given name to one of the famous breeds of English sheep). More to the left, and nearer to a south line of view, crops up Edgehill (near to Pilot-Marston), an historic battle-field—wherefrom Shakespeare, on his way to London may have looked back—on spire, and alder copse, and river—with more or less of yearning. To the right, again, and more westerly than before, and on the hither side of the Red-horse valley and plain, one can catch sight of the rounded thickets of elms and of orcharding where nestles the hamlet of Shottery. Thence Shakespeare brought away his bride, Anne Hathaway, she being well toward the thirties, and he at that date a prankish young fellow not yet nineteen. What means he may have had of supporting a family at this time, we cannot now say; nor could his father-in-law tell then; on which score there was—as certain traditions run—some vain demurral. He may have been associated with his father in trade, whether as wool-dealer or glover; doubtless was; doubtless, too, had abandoned all schooling; doubtless was at all the wakes, and May festivals, and entertainments of strolling players, and had many a bout of heavy ale-drinking. There are stories too—of lesser authenticity—that he was over-familiar with the game in the near Park of Charlecote, whereby he came to ugly issue with its owner. We shall probably never know the truth about these stories. Charlecote House is still standing, a few miles out of the town (northeasterly), and its delightful park, and picturesque mossy walls—dappled with patches of shadow and with ivy leaves—look charmingly innocent of any harm their master could have done to William Shakespeare; but certain it is that the neighborhood grew too warm for him; and that he set off one day (being then about twenty-three years old) for London, to seek his fortune.
Family Relations.
His wife and three children[14] stayed behind. In fact—and it may as well be said here—they always stayed behind. It does not appear that throughout the twenty or more succeeding years, during which Shakespeare was mostly in London, that either wife or child was ever domiciled with him there for ever so little time. Indeed, for the nine years immediately following Shakespeare’s departure from Stratford, traces of his special whereabouts are very dim; we know that rising from humblest work in connection with companies of players, he was blazing a great and most noticeable path for himself; but whether through those nine years he was tied to the shadow of London houses, or was booked for up-country expeditions, or (as some reckon) made brief continental journeyings, we cannot surely tell. In 1596, however, on the occasion of his son Hamnet’s death, he appears in Stratford again, in the prime of his powers then, a well-to-do man (buying New Place the year following), his London fame very likely blazoning his path amid old towns-people—grieving over his lost boy, whom he can have seen but little—perhaps putting some of the color of his private sorrow upon the palette where he was then mingling the tints for his play of “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Oh, my love,
Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquered; Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
Why art thou yet so fair?”