On 24th July, William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, bought of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe for £440, subject to a rent payable to the corporation of £17, and £5 to John Barker. This, at the rate of interest then prevalent, was a dear purchase. In 1598 his "purchasing these tithes" had been mooted at Stratford.
As to Shakespeare's dramatic work during this year I have no doubt that Lear was on the stage in May, when the old play was published. I cannot otherwise account for the description of the latter in S. R. as a tragical history. Until Shakespeare's play this story had always been treated as a comedy.
Macbeth was probably produced in the winter, or in the following year. When James I. was at Oxford in August, he had been addressed in Latin by the three witches in this story, at an entertainment given by the University. No doubt James would be pleased by their prophecies, and desirous that they should be promulgated in the vulgar tongue. No more likely date can be found for the holograph letter which he is said to have addressed to Shakespeare. It may possibly be that that letter was a command to write this play. But, putting conjecture aside, Oldys says that Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, told Lintot that he had a letter from the King to the dramatist.
On October 9, Shakespeare's company performed before the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford. It may have been on this occasion that Shakespeare made the acquaintance of the Davenants, and stopped for the first time at the Crown, the license for which inn had only been taken out by Davenant in the preceding year. Enough has been written by others as to the scandal about Mrs. Davenant, and the tradition that William Davenant the poet, the godson of Shakespeare, was really his son. No foundation beyond a Joe Miller joke has been discovered for this report.
At Court, ten plays were acted in the Christmas season by the King's men; among them the revived Mucedorus, which, as we have seen, was an apology for Jonson's satire in Volpone.
1606.
In this year, Shakespeare's portion of Timon of Athens, and that part of Cymbeline which is founded on so-called British history, were probably written.
A play called The Puritan (Widow), evidently by Middleton, was acted by the Paul's boys this year, in which we find direct allusion to Richard III. and Macbeth, both of which were probably on the stage. The same scene contains a palpable parody of the action of the scene in Pericles in which Thaisa is recovered to life. That play must then have also been on the stage. It does not follow that it was the play as we have it. It may have been, and I believe was, Wilkins' play before Shakespeare's improvement had been introduced.
During July or August, the King's men had performed three plays before the King of Denmark and his Majesty—two at Greenwich, one at Hampton Court; and at Christmas they performed at Court nine plays: on December 26, 29; January 4, 6, 8; February 2, 5, 15, 27. That on 26th December was Lear, as we have it in the Quarto version. The Folio is that used on the stage of the same date.