Part 2
He was _fortunate_ in his friends. London was then but a little city, after all; it could easily be crossed and compassed on foot; its inhabitants did not reach the sum total of 300,000. On arrival he would _study_ London and Westminster, twin-cities, so great and so story-laden, the clear shining Thames, its haunted Bridge, its Tower, its Churches, and the Northern and Southern heights, where he could revel in Nature, as he did at home. He may have gone to London with high hopes, and many introductions. We do not know of those who mocked him, of those who gave him no direct help. We do not know what he aimed at, but we know he failed. Perhaps he hoped to be made a Yeoman of the Privy Chamber, like Roger Shakespeare and Robert Arden, a Royal Messenger like Thomas Shakespeare, a Royal Letter Carrier, like Edmund Spenser. Possibly he meant to volunteer his help against the Spaniard, but they did without him. Possibly his ambitions sank to a share in the grocery business of Sadler and Quiney at Bucklersbury. Long waiting at the doors of negligent patrons seems to have been his share. But through all he had _one friend_ at least, during his period of toil and preparation. We know that he knew his townsman, Richard Field (his senior by three years), who had been at Stratford Grammar School, and entered life on the solid lines of an apprentice to Thomas Vautrollier, the great French printer, and became his son-in-law and successor. Doubtless Shakespeare went at first to reside with him; certainly he was much with him. His shop was the poet’s university, where he read for his degree, by the inclusions and exclusions of the bookshelves. The firm was licensed to keep foreign journeymen printers, and had many monopolies of classical works. From these alone did Shakespeare quote, and Field’s publications account for the most of his learning. There he was inspired by “Plutarch’s Lives Englished by North,” trained by “Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie,” in the canons of literature and a taste for blank verse. There he found books on music, philosophy, science, travels, medicine, language, and literature, which we _know_ he read. It was Richard Field who printed and published Shakespeare’s two poems, the only works which we are sure he published and corrected himself. By this publication, the friend of his everyday life became associated with the friend of his higher dreams, who patronized, criticised, inspired, glorified Shakespeare, and helped to shape his genius. It is something to hear from his contemporary Webster, the praise of Shakespeare’s “right happy and copious _industry_.” For he must have been hard at work, in his early days in the metropolis to have been able to publish a poem by 1593, which put him at once among the highest group of contemporary poets over which Spenser reigned supreme. That took the sting out of the dying Greene’s scorn the year before concerning the upstart playwright who “thought he could bumbast out a blank verse as well as the best of us.” The young Earl of Southampton had supplied the one thing hitherto wanting in the culture of the Stratford stranger. He was the ideal man of rank, young, learned, refined, untrammelled, wealthy, impulsive, susceptible to genius, critical in judgement. Next year, ere he came of age, Shakespeare had written for him the “Rape of Lucrece,” and dedicated it to him as the “Lord of his Love.” Through the same time he was writing the sonnets, the witnesses of the thoughts, hopes, feelings, fears, joys, he had passed through with his special friend.
He was _fortunate_, too, in his “fellows.” He had found no doors open to him but those of James Burbage and his theatre. Play-acting was repugnant alike to his taste and his pride: we can learn that from the Sonnets.
But having been received into the company, having been trained in the “_quality_,” he did his best to conquer. He was singularly fitted for the stage, as John Davies says, “Wit, courage, good shape, good parts, and all good.” From a performer he went on to be a writer of plays. His company always stood as the best in the metropolis, the members were attached to each other, trusting each other through life, leaving each other legacies at death. How much did he owe to the expression and inspiration of his fellows, especially of Richard Burbage?
It is not too much to believe that without Richard to translate him, he would not have thought of putting on paper his great tragic characters, Othello, Hamlet, Richard III.
He was _fortunate_, too, in his theatres. The best of their time, they were worth writing for. Unhampered by much stage mechanism, and with no scene shifting, he made his audience co-operate with him through their imagination, and create for themselves the scenery from his suggestions. No interruptions, no intervals for irrelevant conversation drifted men away from the developments of the central and side plots which animated the stage continuously. The progress of a play necessitated one continued process of attention; and through educating his hearers to his level, he came to reign supreme, playing upon their heart strings, and moving them to mirth, woe, sympathy, wonder, repulsion, or admiration as he pleased, in a way that we do not understand to-day.
In another, laudable but more prosaic, aspect, Shakespeare was _fortunate_, in making money. Trained by the pinch of early poverty, by the humiliations of his father’s debts, by the constant demands of a young family, to estimate its value as a means to any end, he seems to have lost no chance of earning money, and by a self-denying life, to have economized his gains. Thereby he was able to rehabilitate his parents in their old position, to secure them a grant of arms, to place his own family out of the reach of the deprivations he must have suffered himself, and to have lived and died in dignity and honour.
_Fortunate_ in the decline of his life, when his warfare was over and his conquest won, he came back to dwell in the place of his birth, beside the wife of his youth, his daughters, and his wide circle of friends. And when the end came, it was fortunate too. He had been allowed to finish his task, and yet he had not overlived his powers. He did not live _too long_, as Bacon did. His fellow townsmen did not approve of plays any more than did the Corporation of London, but they saw the playwriter reverently laid to rest in the chancel of their parish church as owner of their tithes. The inartistic monument, and the artistic epitaph were raised by loving hearts to “Shakespeare, with whome Quick nature dide.”
Need more be said as to Shakespeare’s fortunes? It is not given to all great men to fit the time and to find the chance to prove what is in them, and to win success. It is not the fortune of every genius even, however associated with great deeds, to reveal the spirit of his country, and to be the voice of his age, which he helped to make what it was. Yet that was Shakespeare’s fortune and our inheritance, and for this the whole world honours him to-day.
* * * * *
_Impromptu speech at the dinner of the “Shakespeare Commemoration League,” 23rd April, 1908._
II
SHAKESPEARE’S AUNTS AND THE SNITTERFIELD PROPERTY
Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps did much for the general reading public in bringing to their attention so many of the estate records which help to clear the position and the relations of the Arden and Shakespeare families. Having done so much, it were well that he had done more. Though he devoted his life and means to collecting information, he published many of his discoveries in little books of limited issue, accessible only to few, and he did not always carry them over to his “Life of Shakespeare,” or to his much more exhaustive “Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare.” Even in the last edition of that great work we suffer somewhat from the method of arrangement, from a very imperfect and unsatisfactory Index, from an absence of definite references, and even, it must be confessed, from occasional carelessness and incompleteness in his research among, and analyses of, the documents. He had the great good fortune to have early access to the Stratford records. Some of these were then in loose bundles, others bound in books, without any attention to order or date. He made a Calendar of these, but only in the order he found them, and did not provide an index of any kind, beyond, as I found later, a separate private booklet, limited to “ten copies,” so that any student who wishes to know what has been preserved must read through the whole bulky folio volume. Probably on account of these difficulties, or through blind faith in his work, none of his successors--not even the industrious G. R. French--has followed him to his originals or checked his inferences by facts.
It seemed therefore worth while to go back to the manuscripts themselves, and to work through them collectively and chronologically, separating the results apart from the mere verbiage of legal documents. Something has been gained thereby, not only in exactitude, and in the recognition of the bearing of one fact upon another, but also several new papers have been unearthed and a few facts have been gleaned, even at this late day, and in this well-worked field.
The earliest record of the Snitterfield property which concerns the Ardens, is, as Halliwell-Phillipps states (“Outlines,” 9th edit., ii, 207), Mayowe’s transfer of land in Snitterfield, May, 16 Hen. VII, _i.e._ 1501. This is not given _in extenso_ in the “Outlines,” and I made a translation of it for “The Genealogical Magazine,” 1899, p. 401, reproduced in my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 29. I afterwards found that it had appeared in “A New Boke about Shakespeare, J. O. Halliwell, 1850.” But its importance was not explained. A messuage with all its appurtenances, situated between the land of John Palmer on one side, and a lane called Merellane on the other, and extending from the king’s highway to the rivulet, had been handed over by John Mayowe, through his attorneys, Thomas Clopton of Snitterfield, gent., and John Porter of Ardern, to six men, named in full. The witnesses were John Wagstaff of Aston Cantlowe, Robert Porter of Snitterfield, Richard Rushby of Snitterfield, Richard Atkyns of Wilmecote, John Alcokkes of Newnham, and others. The names of the six feoffees were Robert Throckmorton, arm. (knighted that same year); Thomas Trussell of Billesley, arm.; Roger Reynolds of Henley-in-Arden; William Wood or Woodhouse; Thomas Arden of Wilmecote, and Robert Arden, his son. After events make it seem probable that this was a purchase desired by Thomas Arden for his son, who may then have been under age and required trustees. No one has noted fully that the others must have been the most trusted friends of Thomas Arden, if not relatives or connections by marriage. Indeed, if we might read into this the ordinary meaning of such arrangements, it might be supposed that the unknown wife of Thomas Arden was a Throckmorton, and the unknown first wife of Robert Arden a Trussell. This same Robert Throckmorton was, about the same time, made trustee for his children, by Sir John Arden of Park Hall (see my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 184). Thomas Trussell was of a distinguished old family, and the other two feoffees were gentlemen; so when Halliwell-Phillipps scorned the notion of the Ardens of Wilmecote being associated with gentility, he showed that he had missed the full import of this deed, Misc. Doc., ii, 83.
The meaning of two other deeds was not revealed to him at all, because each bore an error on its brow. The first is among the Birthplace Deeds, in duplicate 424 and 425, and dated “19 Hen. VI.,” rendered in pencil 1440. Therefore it has been neglected. It seemed of too old date to concern the Ardens. But it can be proved that the date should have been entered rather as 19 Hen. VII, a mistake having been made somehow.
It is the grant from William Mayowe to John Mayowe of Snitterfield, son and heir of Richard Mayowe, of a messuage with appurtenances lying between Marye Lane on the one hand, and the land of John Palmer on the other. The witnesses were William Wylmecote of the Wold, William Ketall, “Richard Parson of Heyth,” Thomas Palmer of Snitterfield, and William Wormbarn; dated Snitterfield, Tuesday after Christmas, 27th December, 19 Hen. VII, _i.e._ 1503. As this is _later_ than the deed by which John Mayowe transferred this property to the feoffees, it would seem to imply that John Mayowe was under age in 1501, or that some doubt as to his title had arisen. This opinion is supported by the next deed, which Halliwell-Phillipps must have glanced at, as he has calendared it, but cannot have read, because he describes it without comment as “Grant from John Mayhow of Snitterfield to _Thomas Arthur_,” Misc. Doc., ii, 4. This has been referred to by no one else. But it is evidently the real sale, the final concord. The property is the same. Here are no trustees, no attorneys; it is the definite deed of man to man. John Mayowe, probably surrendering William Mayowe’s grant to himself made six months before, confirmed to _Thomas Arthurn_ (not Arthur) of Wilmecote and his heirs the messuage, with eighty acres of land in Snitterfield, with the same boundaries as before, the only variation being between “the land held by _William_ Palmer on the one hand, and the lane called _Mary’s Lane_ on the other.” John Mayowe set his seal to this before the witnesses, Thomas Clopton, gent. (who had been his attorney in 1501), Robert Porter, Thomas Nicholson, Hugh Townsend, John Scoryer, John Palmer, jun., John Pardy, and many others, 6th July 19 Hen. VII (_i.e._ 1504). The spelling of the name need perplex no one who understands the loose orthography of the time, and knows that “Arden” was frequently spelt “Arderne.”
This was evidently the most important purchase made by Thomas Arden. It was the property let, at some unascertained date between this and 1529, to Richard Shakespeare, and concerning which, nigh eighty years afterwards, John and Henry Shakespeare, sons of Richard, were summoned to give evidence in the Chancery suit brought by Thomas Mayowe against the Ardens.
The next purchase was by Robert Arden, though we know from the Subsidies and the Court Rolls that his father was yet alive. Richard Rushby and his wife Agnes, daughter and heiress of William Harvey, yielded to Robert Arden a tenement and lands between the tenement of Richard Hardyng on the one side, and the land of the Lord of the manor upon the other. The witnesses were Richard Grant, gent.; “Rogero Palmer, chapelin”; John Pardy, and many others. Dated at Snitterfield 14th December 11 Hen. VIII, _i.e._, 1519 (Misc. Doc., ii, 9). Another copy of the same date is preserved as Misc. Doc., ii, 59; and still another among the Wheler MSS. at the Birthplace, i, 23 (S. 172), dated 21st December 11 Hen. VIII. Two years later Richard Rushby of Snitterfield handed over to Robert Arden of Wylmecote a general release of this same property, dated at Wilmecote 29th December 13 Hen. VIII, _i.e._ 1521 (Misc. Doc., ii, 81).
There is no suggestion of the third and fourth boundaries of this purchase, except through the description of the next. Birthplace Deed 428 is a release from John Palmer of Snitterfield, son and heir of John Palmer and Elizabeth his wife, daughter of John Harvey, formerly of Snitterfield, to Robert Ardern, of one tenement and divers lands and pastures between the tenement of Richard Hardyng on the one side, and the land of the Lord on the other--the third and fourth boundaries being again omitted. Witnesses, Richard Hawe of Warwick, gent.; Richard Fyssher, Under-Bailiff of Warwick; Will Holbache, John Parker of Grove Park, Walter Nicholson, John Townsend, and Richard Maydes, 1st October 21 Hen. VIII, _i.e._ 1529. This land was the fourth boundary of the purchase from Mayowe, and probably united it with the Rushby purchase, coming also through the Harveys. Both properties lay between the tenement of Harding and the land of the Lord of the manor, and seem to have been side by side. The addition must have greatly improved the value of the Mayowe inheritance. Fragments of information come to us from the Subsidy Rolls (192/128) and the Court Rolls of the College of St. Mary in Warwick, Portfolio 207, 88. Richard Rushby and William Mayowe seem to have stayed on in the village. John Palmer was generally “tithing-man.” In 17 Hen. VIII Thomas Arden was presented for owing suit of court, and William Mayowe because he should cut Eight Leas Hedge. We do not know how much sooner he had come to reside in Snitterfield, but we find that Richard Shackspere was presented by John Palmer in 20 Hen. VIII, for owing suit of court. He was again presented for the same neglect, 22 Hen. VIII, excused 23 Hen. VIII, and John Palmer reported that “all was well” till 28 Hen. VIII. Then Thomas Palmer presented “William Mayhew and Rich. Shakspere for default of suit of court.” Again in 30 Hen. VIII, “Robine Ardern, Richard Shackspere, and William Mayhew owe suit of court, and are amerced; and Richard Shakespeare must mend the hedge between him and Thomas Palmer under a penalty of 40 pence.” In 33 Hen. VIII, “William Mayhewe, Richard _Shakeschafte_, and Roben Ardern owe suit of court, and are amerced; and Roben Ardern must mend his hedge between him and John Palmer under a penalty of 20 pence.”
Meanwhile Robert Arden had married, and was bringing up a large family of daughters, and his wife died while some of them were yet young. The next thing I have learnt of him is through the Court Rolls of Katharine the Queen at Balsale, Portfolio 207 (9), the View of Frankpledge, 21st April 2 Ed. VI (1548): “To this court came Agnes Hill, widow, and prayed licence to marry one Robert Ardern, which was granted in the name of the Lady the Queen, by her seneschal,” on the payment of a fee of five shillings. Her husband John Hill of Bearley had died in 1545, leaving her executrix. Her marriage probably took place very soon after the licence was granted.
Robert Arden may have made other arrangements before this, but nothing is preserved earlier than the settlement of 17th July 4 Ed. VI (1550). He then enfeoffed Adam Palmer of Aston Cantlow and Hugh Porter of Snitterfield in the tenement and land now in the occupation of Richard Shakespeare, in trust for himself and his wife Agnes for life, with the remainder of a third part to his daughter Agnes Stringer,[1] now wife of Thomas Stringer, formerly wife of John Hewins, defunct, of Bearley; another third part to his daughter Joan, the wife of Edmund Lambert, Barton-on-the-Heath; and another third to his daughter Katharine, wife of Thomas Edkins of Wylmecote (Misc. Doc., ii, 21; see also Misc. Doc., ii, 79). These three elder daughters evidently had the best part of their father’s property, bordering on the high road, a stream, and a lane,--all conveniences; its size about 80 acres.
On the same day, 17th July 1550, there was drawn up a tripartite indenture by Robert Arden, confirming Adam Palmer and Hugh Porter in the possession of a messuage and three “quatrones terre,” etc., now in the tenure of Richard Henley, to the use of Robert Arden himself and his wife Agnes for their lives, and after that a third part to go to his daughter Margaret Webbe, the wife of Alexander Webbe of Bearley; another third to his daughter Joyce; and another third to his daughter Alice (Misc. Doc., ii, 77). Another copy is preserved in the same series, ii, 79. A similar deed in Misc. Doc., ii, 73, is dated six months later (17th December, 4 Ed. VI, 1550). This seems to have been the property Robert had bought from the Rushbys, but whether it included that formerly owned by the Palmers is not quite clear. The boundary line and the number of acres are not defined, and sometimes there were three tenants, and sometimes two, in the combined property.
Robert Arden made his will 24th November 1556, and died before 17th December following. He left his wife Agnes, as we have seen, a life interest in the shares of all his daughters at Snitterfield, and a place of residence in the copyhold of Wilmecote, to be shared “peaceably” with his daughter Alice, under a penalty. Mary was to inherit Asbies, an independent farm of over 60 acres in Wilmecote, and she and Alice were to be joint executors of their father’s will. This shows that they were both grown up, though still unmarried, and suggests that Arden had had some disappointment in his second marriage, thus to pass over his wife to leave things in charge of his daughters.
John Shakespeare must shortly after have married Mary Arden, though no record of the marriage has as yet been found.[2] Hugh Porter, one of the feoffees, died in 1557, leaving Adam Palmer alone as trustee.
On 21st May 2 Eliz. (1560), Agnes Arden granted to her brother Alexander Webbe of Bearley, husband of her stepdaughter Margaret, a lease[3] for forty years, at 40_s._ a year, of the Snitterfield estate, two messuages, a cottage, and a yard and a half of arable land, etc., “in the occupation of Richard Shakespeare, John Henley, and John Hargreave,” in presence of John Somerville and other witnesses (Birthplace Deeds, 429).
No one has noted how seriously this may have affected Richard Shakespeare. He may have been an aged man, ready to resign his life-work, or he may not. It is not likely that Webbe’s removal from Bearley to Snitterfield could have taken place before November of that year; possibly another year’s grace was granted. But we do know that either in December 1560 or January 1560-1 Richard Shackspere of Snytterfield died, and his goods were administered by his son John, then called “Agricola” 10th February 1560-1 (see Worcester Probate Registry, “Testamenta”).
There is proof that Alexander Webbe did leave Bearley and settle down on his lease farm at Snitterfield, a share of which would revert to himself, through his wife Margaret, on the death of his sister Agnes. He strengthened his position when, on 12th February 11 Eliz. (1568-9), Thomas Stringer of Stocton in the county of Salop, yeoman, let to Alexander Webbe of Snitterfield, husbandman, and Margaret his wife, the third part of one messuage, etc., with a yard of land, etc. now in the occupation of the said Alexander, with all the interest he has in another tenement and half yardland now in the occupation of John Henley, to hold, after the decease of Agnes Arden, for the term of twenty-one years. Webbe was to pay to Thomas Stringer and his heirs 6_s._ 8_d._ at the two terms of the year. If Alexander Webbe failed to pay, the Stringers might eject him. “Witnesses, John Shakespere, Henry Russell, Richard Boyse, and James Hilman, this writer” (Misc. Doc., ii, 15, not signed by the Stringers). A bond is also drawn up between them that if Thomas Stringer does not fulfil his agreement, he should forfeit £7; same date, with same witnesses (Misc. Doc., ii, 78).
Alexander Webbe was buried at Snitterfield 17th April 1573, and “John Shackspere” was the overseer of his will. His widow Margaret shortly afterwards married Edward Cornwell. The first reference I have found to him is in a deed of exchange (Misc. Doc., vii, 41), which has not been noted, between Bartholomew Hales, Lord of the Manor, and certain freeholders in Snitterfield, _i.e._, “Sir John Spencer; Thomas Feryman, ‘clarke,’ Vicar of the Parish Church; Edward Graunt, gent.; John Pardy; Robert Maydes; John Tombes and Elizabeth his wife; John Walker; Edward Cornewell and Margaret his wife; Thomas Stringer; Thomas Palmer; William Perckes and Marjory his wife, Thomas Harding, and Edward Watersonne, freeholders of and within the said manor, 23rd January 17 Eliz. (1575).”