Part 9

In the course of the depositions, both sides agreed as to preliminary facts; both allowed John to have been the father’s favourite son; they differed as to the cause of Richard’s action. John stated that “William had for many years been undutiful and disobedient, and taken very unnatural and wicked courses, to his father’s great grief.” William explained that until he was forty years of age he had worked as a labourer on his father’s farm without wages, only receiving his meat, drink, and garments. His father had never even allowed him any stock that he might raise up means to live on. He had done this, believing that the farm would later be his own, as his father always said it should. But about ten years before his father’s death he had gone into service, with his father’s permission, that he might earn some money, and “might be able to bestow his brothers and his sister, and fare in personal estate the better.” It is not so stated, but one can read between the lines, that he wanted to marry, and did marry, a certain well-to-do Mrs. Margery. When, through service on other people’s property, he “had gotten some money into his purse, he lent and bestowed much on his brother Richard, and did also, in all dutiful manner, respect and use his father and mother, and did him many services to his good liking.” But the ageing father had doubtless missed the strong arms of his son, all the more that they had not been duly appreciated. While William was away, working for money, John was at home, weaving, and not only John, but his sister Joan, whom his father loved exceedingly. Joan preferred her younger brother, and the two combined to obtain for him the property “by false information and other sinister means.” John used every means in his power to keep William away. Even when his father sent for him, John shut the door in his face and would violently assault him, threatening William that “if he hindered him from getting the premises, he would keep him in prison all his life for it.” The action of John and Joan “was very hardly spoken of among the neighbours.” Their mother had encouraged them at the time, but on her death-bed she bitterly repented, and “asked William to forgive her, and to pray to God to forgive her too.” William had submitted until John had broken the proviso. John’s bill in Chancery, 1st May 1616 (Bills and Answers, James I, Bundle S. 1457), is an appeal to be protected against the intrusions of William, who had injured him, and maltreated his cattle, turning them out of his pasture. He said he had fulfilled the conditions of the deed, and at the said Lady Day 1615 “did by himself, or some one for him, tender the money between the hours of 10 and 2.” He had gone to the church porch between 11 and 12, but, William not being there, he departed about other business, leaving the money with his brother Thomas, supposing that William would either come or send for it. Thomas waited in the church porch, but William did not come, and he sent it to his house the next day: but William, “being of a contentious and troublesome spirit, and seeking and endeavouring by all means to trouble your orator and put him to unnecessary expense, refused it.” “The said William Shakespeare, the _6th of April last_, at a Court holden for the manor, did make claim to the messuage as the eldest son and heir of Richard Shakespeare,” pretending that it had been forfeited; and “except for the Equity of Chancery, your said orator is altogether remediless.” It may easily be seen that John’s statement as to the tender was somewhat indefinite. William’s answer is clear (filed 6th May, not included in Mr. Monro’s list). He had gone to the church porch of Rowington, not, indeed, at 10 o’clock, but shortly after 12, and waited until 3 o’clock. He had “openly published the cause of his coming there, and many took notice thereof”; but neither John, nor any one for him came thither to pay. John, indeed, had ridden off to Warwick, four miles away, on pleasure. William therefore, “considering how John, by indirect and undue means, had gotten the inheritance,” and believing that he by neglect of this proviso had forfeited it, lawfully entered into the premises as his father’s legal heir, in a peaceable manner, along with his wife. He _had_ turned some cattle out of the pasture, but quite gently, and they did not belong to his brother, but to Thomas Ley. Here something is implied, which is not expressly stated. John was his own master, and could fix his own hours; William, still at service, was not master of his own time. Hence he was late at the appointment, and hence his wife, and not himself, made the later “forcible entries,” referred to as his. He goes on to say that he had heard that his “wife had been uncivilly beaten and buffeted about the head, and at one time was bruised upon the breast that it wrankled,” and her nursing child fell ill in consequence. This had been done by John, Thomas Ley helping him, “who, in a most violent and unchristian manner, did take the shoe from his foot” to strike her. John had falsely excused himself that Margery had attacked his wife. William confessed that he had laid claim to the premises at the Court held on 6th April last, and that by all lawful means he intends to have and to hold them. He is sure that he was not paid, and he knows nothing of John or his representative waiting in the church porch.

The further answer of John Shakespeare and others of 27th January 1617-18, also omitted by Mr. Monro, suggests either that by some curious but not impossible coincidence, one party went out of the church porch just the minute before the other came in, and that more than once, or that one or the other committed perjury. It is too long to transcribe, and most of it is recited in the Star Chamber case. John denied William’s statement that on Lady Day 1615, “relying on his craft and subtilty, accompanied only by Henry Clarke, minister, he did, near the church porch, tender the forty shillings,” and go off to Warwick on pleasure, leaving neither money nor representative. He stated that “about 12 of the clock he came into the church porch, and did tender the money, but neither William nor any one for him was there to receive it.” He had “heard it reported that the complainant had threatened to cut off an arm or a legg,” and he therefore went home to dinner, and afterwards went to Warwick, where he had business, as it was market day. Before he left, he gave the money to his brother Thomas, with direction and authority to pay it to William, or any other for him, and to stay at the church porch until the last instant, to be able to tender the money. Thomas Shakespeare had told him, and he thinks he can prove it, that he did stay until after two o’clock, and at the last instant did tender the money in presence of these two witnesses, Edmund Fowler and Thomas Sadler, who say that Thomas entreated them to be present with him. They met him, as they were coming to see him; about a quarter of a mile from Rowington, and went to the church porch about half-past one and they stayed until the last instant, or “neere thereabout,” and saw him tender the money at 2 o’clock; but neither William nor any for him was present. They deny that they or any of them have “contrived any secret estates, surrenders, articles, or agreements,” concerning this business. They are quite willing to answer further in any point “not sufficiently answered, confessed, avoided, and reversed or denied,” and trust this honourable Court may give them their reasonable costs and charges wrongfully sustained. It is signed by Ric. Weston.

The Star Chamber case six months later, 9th June 1618, transcribed in full in “Notes and Queries,” 3rd August 1867, after reciting the bulk of the Chancery proceedings, continues the plea. William’s complaint shows that John at first said _he_ had stayed until 2 o’clock or near thereabout. He acknowledges there may have been a tender between 11 and 12, but there was none afterwards. He tells us that a commission from Chancery had been sent to John Norton, gent., Francis Collins, gent.,[25] Thomas Warner, clerk, and John Greene, gent., to examine the witnesses at Warwick, 13th January 1616. (This commission sat between the dates of Mr. Cecil Monro’s entries 6 and 7.) He there denounces “the wicked, ungodly, and corrupt subornacion of the said John and Thomas, of Edmund Fowler, tailor, Thomas Sadler, hempdresser, both of Coventry, who answered falsely, untruely, corruptly, and unlawfully” that they had come and seen Thomas tender the money between half-past 1 and 2 o’clock, and the money lay on the bench all the time until 2 o’clock, when they went away together, Thomas Shakespeare to Killingworth, Sadler and Fowler to Coventry. William declares their deposition false, untrue, and corrupt, to the displeasure of Almighty God, contrary to the laws of the “Realme,” and to the king’s peace, crown, and dignity, and to the great prejudice of him, whose case in Chancery was decreed against him by Sir Julius Cæsar in Easter Term last. He says he has no hope except the equity of the Star Chamber.

On the 11th of June John and the other defendants reply, supporting their previous assertions, saying that William was not present at 2 o’clock, and as “to all the perjuries, falsities, and corruptions, they are not guilty.”

The decision has not been preserved, nor the initiation of a third Chancery suit. But the two Chancery orders of 1619 referred to by Mr. Monro belong to this later series.

It is relevant to the question to return to the records of Rowington. The action does not seem to have prejudiced William with his neighbours, because in 1622, only three years after the last notice in Chancery, he was elected churchwarden. As a churchwarden had to be a “substantial householder,” this implies that William had been left in possession of his dearly bought inheritance. It also suggests a great change in his prospects from the time in which he sued _in forma pauperis_; or a desire of the neighbours to show their respect for him. John was buried 5th May 1635; William on 20th February 1646-7.[26]

Their long-continued litigation must have stirred not only Rowington, but Warwickshire, and it must have been well known to the poet. For he, too, was a homager of the manor of Rowington, for one of the only two tenements belonging to that manor in Stratford-on-Avon--the property in Chapel Lane taken over by his brother Gilbert for him in 1602. For that tenement, therefore, he should have been on the jury at Rowington, at the Court in April 1614, when, immediately after his father’s death, William claimed his inheritance; or in the following April, when he claimed it as forfeited. Though, from reasonable causes, he might have been excused attendance, the poet was certain to know of all the cases brought before the Court. It is probable that he sympathized with the elder brother, who had been ousted from the headship of the family, a man of his own name, exactly of his own age, possibly related to him in some degree, with the same number of brothers as he, and also with one sister, Joan. One trifling fact suggests acquaintanceship and sympathy--that William’s case was taken up by, and developed and signed by, Thomas Greene, the poet’s cousin and attorney of Stratford-on-Avon, when, a week after Shakespeare’s death, the younger brother interfered with the course of Common Law by throwing it into Chancery.

_“Athenæum,” 18th and 25th August 1906._

FOOTNOTES:

[22] A William Shakespeare “paid 8/ to the Lay Subsidy, Walton super Olde ... Co. Leicester,” 36 Hen. VIII, 133/144.

[23] Since writing above I have found among “Early Indictments,” 650, the account of the death of William Shakespeare, shoemaker of Warwick, by slipping into the Avon. “Coroner’s Inquests.”

[24] I find that reports of the case at issue are to be found in Act Book No. 9, Consistory Court, on 22nd June 1614; 7th July 1614; 15th July 1614; 28th July; 9th September and 23rd September 1614. And in Act Book No. 10 the discussion is again resumed on 6th October 1614.

[25] Mentioned in the poet’s will and the overseer thereof.

[26] Some light is thrown on his position by the Sequestration books of Warwickshire, 1646, Add. M.S. 35098, f. 12. There it is ordered that “the rents payable out of the lands of Mʳ Betham, Mʳ Atwood, Mʳ Hunt; and William Shackspere in Rowington shall be payed since the same was sequestered.” On f. 38, 3rd March 1546-7, it was ordered that “William Shackspere of Rowington shall hould all his lands which is given in by ye oath of John Milburne to be £38 per annum ... for one yeare at £32.” But they were too late. Sequestered for loyalty, he had departed beyond their “orders” by that time.

XIII

THE TRUE STORY OF THE STRATFORD BUST

Our poverty in respect of authenticated likenesses of our great dramatist, makes us the more eager to learn all that we can concerning the only two that have been universally accepted, and even makes us patient in hearing what can be said in favour of others more or less doubtful in their pedigree. Therefore, it is all the more surprising that one authentic rendering, produced by a Warwickshire man, who was eleven years of age when the poet died, should have been entirely ignored by all the numerous writers on “Shakespeare’s Portraits,” especially as it has a most important bearing on the determination of the facial characteristics of the great dramatist. To understand this fully, due consideration must first be given to what are recognized as the “undoubted portraits.”

That which was publicly put forward as the poet’s likeness, and accepted as such by his contemporaries, was the inartistically designed, and coarsely executed engraving of Droeshout, appearing as frontispiece to the First Folio Edition of the Plays, brought out by his fellows, Heminge and Condell, in 1623.

There was no English _art_ at the time worthy of the name, and probably for this reason the people found a double charm in theatrical representations. The actors supplied them with concrete images of the characters whose life-stories interested them, and became to them more closely identified than any historical portraits are to-day with their originals. Artistic taste and judgment were unknown amongst ordinary people, and even literary men, except such as had had special training, could not be held as art-critics of any importance. Hence, we may be justified in considering Ben Jonson’s fulsome praise of Droeshout, in his desire to help the editors, as only possible to him through his deficiency in artistic sense.

Bad art as Droeshout’s is, it nevertheless conveys to us the information that Shakespeare had a high forehead, prematurely bald, fine eyes, long straight nose, small moustache and beard, clean-shaven cheeks, oval face, and rather long hair. The dress is of rather less importance, as it might have been his own, or that of some character in which he had acted. The painting from which the engraving was taken has long been sought for. Some thought it had been found in the so-called Felton portrait. The right panel of this had been split off in the middle of the collar, and the foot shortened to make it fit a frame. It has some details _similar_ to, but not identical with, those of the engraving, though it has a little more art in the workmanship, and a little more expression in the features. On the back is written, “Guil. Shakespeare 1597,” and two letters, “R.B.,” supposed to stand for Richard Burbage. Notwithstanding much that was unsatisfactory in its pedigree, Richardson restored the hair, collar, and dress after Droeshout, and published it, whence have arisen many reproductions.

A much more important rival has, comparatively lately, turned up. Though its pedigree also is hazy, the likeness to the Droeshout print is undoubted, and Mrs. Flower of Stratford-on-Avon purchased it, and presented it to the Memorial Picture Gallery in 1895. Mr. Lionel Cust, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, read a paper about it before the Society of Antiquaries, 12th December 1895, in which he accepted it as genuine. It is, of course, open to the questions whether the picture was painted _for_ the engraving or _from_ the engraving, and whether it had been painted before or after the poet’s death. The expression is better than that of the engraving.

The first reproduction of Droeshout, after the Second Folio, is that which appeared as frontispiece to “Shakespeare’s Poems” in 1640. The engraver, Marshall, turned the face the other way, increased the inanity of the expression, flung a cloak over one shoulder, and put a spray of laurel in the poet’s hand. “This shadow is renowned Shakespeare’s,” etc. William Faithorne introduced it into the frontispiece of “The Rape of Lucrece,” 1658. Very many varieties of these two engravings have appeared.

The chief rival of the Felton and Flower Portraits is the Chandos portrait, which has a long pedigree. If there is any weakness in the chain of evidence for the authenticity of this portrait, it is only in the first links. It was _said_ to have been painted either by Burbage, or by Taylor, the player, to have remained in the possession of the latter until his death, and to have been left by him to Sir William Davenant. It is no objection to this likeness that it should have rings in the ear, because the custom of wearing a rose in the ear was so common among the _jeunesse dorée_ of Elizabethan times, that it was quite natural that an actor should have his ears pierced. But one always feels a little in doubt of the good faith of Davenant, because of his known desire to be thought like Shakespeare. The picture passed from Davenant to Betterton. While in that actor’s possession, Kneller painted a _portrait_ from it, which was presented to Dryden. This came afterwards into the possession of Earl Fitzwilliam. The original passed from Betterton to Mrs. Barry, Mr. Keck, Mr. Nicholls, whose daughter married the Marquis of Carnarvon, afterwards Duke of Chandos, and thence to his daughter, who married the Duke of Buckingham. The picture was bought by the Earl of Ellesmere in 1848, and presented to the nation on the founding of the National Portrait Gallery.

The first engraving taken from it was by Van der Gucht for Rowe’s “Shakespeare,” 1709.

Many other oil paintings and miniatures of unproven authenticity have been put forward as likenesses of the poet, but so diverse are they in their characteristics, that it is impossible that they can be all genuine.

Some fine conceptions based upon composite ideas, others avowedly works of imagination, have been evolved in stone, glass, and oil paintings through the centuries. There is dignity in the Kent and Scheemacher’s statue at Westminster, in the Roubiliac statue, genius in Lord Ronald Gower’s group, and there is pre-Raphaelite art in Ford Madox Brown’s rendering of 1849, but there is no space here to discuss these and other artistic productions. They teach us no _facts_.

The Stratford bust should possess a stronger claim to antiquity and authenticity even than the Droeshout engraving. It is referred to in the First Folio by Leonard Digges, as having been already set up by the time he wrote. It was designed under the supervision of Shakespeare’s widow, daughters, and sons-in-law, amidst his friends and kinsfolk, who knew him as a man, not as an actor, and they had it _coloured_, so that the likeness, if at all good, should have been much more striking than the work of the engraver. They, too, suffered from a plentiful lack of art in their sculptor, Gerard Johnson, and from their own deficiency in critical judgement. But there is every reason to believe that they did their best to represent him to the life. They loved him, and they were rich enough to pay for the best they could get.

Yet every one who approaches the Stratford bust is more disappointed in it, as a revelation of the poet, than even in the crude lines of Droeshout. There is an entire lack of the faintest suggestion of poetic or spiritual inspiration in its plump earthliness. The designer has put a pen and paper into the hands, after the manner of the school-boy, who wrote under the drawing of something-on-four-legs, “this is a horse.” The pen strives to write “this is a literary man,” but there is nothing to support the attribution. The intensely disappointing nature of this supposed simulacrum of the poet, made me, years ago, commence a careful study of all his known representations, whether founded on fact or based on imagination. A good deal has been written on the subject from the time of Boaden’s “Inquiry,” 1824. In 1827 Mr. Abraham Wivell brought out a book upon Shakespeare’s portraits, criticizing the opinions of Steevens, Malone, and Boaden, and since then many successive writers have more fully classified and illustrated the varieties, and brought our knowledge of them up to date. But none of them gave me what I wanted, an early representation of the Stratford original bust. I therefore commenced to search with a purpose, and in the very first book I opened I found what I sought, a representation of the tomb as it appeared little more than twenty years after its erection.

This was, of course, in Sir William Dugdale’s great “History of the Antiquities of Warwickshire.” He seems, judging from the notes in his diary, to have prepared his work in the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon about 1636, though the publication was delayed by the civil wars for twenty years.

His representation of Shakespeare’s bust is therefore entitled to respect as the earliest known engraving, though it has never been calendared, compared, or criticized. The unsatisfactory, or rather, in some aspects, the satisfactory fact is, that _it differs in all important details from the bust as it appears now_. We have here also, doubtless, to grapple with the lack of art-perception in the draughtsman and of the engraver, but there are simple leading distinctions, that could not have been imagined, if there had not been something to suggest them. Far from resembling the self-contented fleshy man of to-day, the large and full dark eyes look out of cheeks hollow to emaciation. The moustache drops down softly and naturally instead of perking upwards, there is no mantle on the shoulders, no pen in the hand, no cushioned desk. The arms are bent awkwardly, the hands are laid stiffly, palms downward, on a large cushion, suspiciously resembling a _woolsack_. It is not unlike an older Droeshout, and the Death-mask might be considered anew beside it. The engraving is, of course, open to the interpretation that Dugdale, or his draughtsman, was careless and inexact in details. In order to compare his work in other examples, I asked a friend to take a photograph of Sir Thomas Lucy’s tomb, as pictured in Dugdale, and another from the original, which has been very little restored since it was sculptured in Shakespeare’s time. He took that from the book, but found that the tomb itself was in a very bad light for photography, and sent me instead a pencil outline. This supports Dugdale’s rendering of important details, though he failed somewhat, naturally, in catching the expression. It allows us to believe that he reproduced Shakespeare’s bust with some degree of fidelity. He was appreciative of his fellow countryman’s fame, and would not pass him by as a nobody. It is quite possible, indeed, that he had seen the poet in habit as he lived, and any divergence from the tomb would be more than likely to be in the direction of the reality.