"Jan. 10, in the 6th year of the reign of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, John Shakspeare passed his Chamberlain's accounts."
"At the Hall holden the eleventh day of September, in the eleventh year of the reign of our sovereign lady Elizabeth, 1569, were present Mr. John Shakspeare, High Bailiff."[2:A]
It was during the period of his filling this important office, that he first obtained a grant of arms; and, in a note annexed to the subsequent patent of 1596, now in the College of Arms[2:B], it is stated that he was likewise a justice of the peace, and possessed of lands and tenements to the amount of 500l. The final confirmation of this grant took place in 1599, in which his shield and coat are described to be, In a field of gould upon a bend sable, a speare of the first, the
poynt upward, hedded argent; and for his crest or cognisance, A falcon with his wyngs displayed, standing on a wrethe of his coullers, supporting a speare armed hedded, or steeled sylver.[3:A]
Mr. John Shakspeare married, though in what year is not accurately known, the daughter and heir of Robert Arden, of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick, who is termed, in the Grant of Arms of 1596, "a gentleman of worship." The Arden, or Ardern family, appears to have been of considerable antiquity; for, in Fuller's Worthies, Rob. Arden de Bromwich, ar. is among the names of the gentry of this county returned by the commissioners in the twelfth year of King Henry the Sixth, 1433; and in the eleventh and sixteenth years of Elizabeth, A. D. 1562 and 1568, Sim. Ardern, ar. and Edw. Ardrn, ar. are enumerated, by the same author, among the sheriffs of Warwickshire.[3:B] It is well known that the woodland part of this county was formerly denominated Ardern, though, for the sake of euphony, frequently softened towards the close of the sixteenth century, into the smoother appellation of Arden; hence it is not improbable, that the supposition of Mr. Jacob, who reprinted, in 1770, the Tragedy of Arden of Feversham, a play which was originally published in 1592, may be correct; namely that Shakspeare, the poet, was descended by the female line from the unfortunate individual whose tragical death is the subject of this drama; for though the name of this gentleman was originally Ardern, he seems early to have experienced the fate of the county district, and to have had his surname harmonized by a similar omission. In consequence of this marriage, Mr. John Shakspeare and his posterity were allowed, by the College of Heralds, to impale their arms with the ancient arms of the Ardrns of Wellingcote.[3:C]
Of the issue of John Shakspeare by this connection, the accounts are contradictory and perplexed; nor is it absolutely ascertained,
whether he had only one wife, or whether he might not have had two, or even three. Mr. Rowe, whose narrative has been usually followed, has given him ten children, among whom he considers William the poet, as the eldest son.[4:A] The Register, however, of the parish of Stratford-upon-Avon, which commences in 1558, is incompatible with this statement; for, we there find eleven children ascribed to John Shakspeare, ten baptized, and one, the baptism of which had taken place before the commencement of the Register, buried.[4:B] The dates of these baptisms, and of two or three other events, recorded in this Register, it will be necessary, for the sake of elucidation, to transcribe:
- "Jone, daughter of John Shakspere, was baptized Sept. 15, 1558.
- "Margaret, daughter of John Shakspere, was buried April 30, 1563.
- "William, son of John Shakspere, was baptized April 26, 1564.
- "Gilbert, son of John Shakspere, was baptized Oct. 3, 1566.
- "Jone[4:C], daughter of John Shakspere, was baptized April 15, 1569.
- "Anne, daughter of Mr. John Shakspere, was baptized Sept. 28, 1571.
- "Richard, son of Mr. John Shakspere, was baptized March 11, 1573-4.
- "Edmund, son of Mr. John Shakspere, was baptized May 3, 1580.
- "John Shakspere and Margery Roberts were married Nov. 25, 1584.
- "Margery, wife of John Shakspere, was buried Oct. 29, 1587.
- "Ursula, daughter of John Shakspere, was baptized March 11, 1588.
- "Humphrey, son of John Shakspere, was baptized May 24, 1590.
- "Philip, son of John Shakspere, was baptized Sept. 21, 1591.
- "Mr. John Shakspere was buried Sept. 8, 1601.
- "Mary Shakspere, widow, was buried Sept. 9, 1608."
Now it is evident, that if the ten children which were baptized, according to this Register, between the years 1558 and 1591, are to be ascribed to the father of our poet, he must necessarily have had eleven, in consequence of the record of the decease of his daughter Margaret. He must also have had three wives, for we find his second wife, Margery, died in 1587, and the death of a third, Mary, a widow, is noticed in 1608.
It was suggested to Mr. Malone[5:A], that very probably, Mr. John Shakspeare had a son born to him, as well as a daughter, before the commencement of the Register, and that this his eldest son, was, as is customary, named after his father, John; a supposition which, (as no other child was baptized by the Christian name of the old gentleman,) carries some credibility with it, and was subsequently acquiesced in by Mr. Malone himself.