Chapter 5

SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON

Of the landmarks that Shakespeare knew, the Great Fire of London destroyed many, and Time, dealing in rather gentler fashion, has effaced the most of those that the fire spared. A map made by Peter Van den Keere in 1593 shows us the old London Bridge, with the Church of St. Saviour's, then known as "St. Marye Overyes," facing the river on the Southwark side. This church, which would have been well known to the poet, is, with the exception of Westminster Abbey, the only ancient example of pure Gothic architecture in London. Its earliest name would have been St. Mary Over Rye, rye being perhaps the old name for ferry. When it was built there could have been no London Bridge, and St. Mary's was built upon the site of a still older priory founded by two Norman knights. In this church one finds a stone in the centre aisle marked "Edmond Shakespeare. Died December 1607."

=ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE=

This marks the mortal remains of a brother of the poet, said by some to have been concerned with the business side of his undertakings, and certainly his companion in London for some time. In St. Mary Over Rye or St. Saviour's, King James I. of Scotland was married; here the poet Gower, with whose works Shakespeare was undoubtedly familiar, was buried, and his monument is a fine one with many inscriptions, including one that describes him as "Anglorum Poeta celeberrimus." Beyond "St. Marye Overyes" on Van den Keere's map one sees the famous "Bears House," and below that the "Play House," and beyond this the town merges into gardens stretching up to "Lambeth Marsh." Across the river we see "More Feyldes" and "Spittlefeyldes," big open spaces, and then Islington, but there is no sign of another theatre. Had the worthy cartographer known what was to give his map an abiding interest three centuries after its making, he would doubtless have given more thought to the playhouses.

To-day the Church of St. Saviour's stands well-nigh smothered by factories, shops, and small houses. London, a muddy stream, has overflown its banks and spread on that side far into regions where birds and beasts of the chase flew or ran in the poet's day. Tradition tells us that the Thames sometimes rose above its boundaries and flooded the graveyard of St. Mary's, and in like fashion the town itself has spread beyond all limits, until the south side, within a very restricted area, holds more than all London held in the poet's day. Doubtless the old church fared better at the hands of the river than the town does now, for three hundred years ago the hands of Father Thames were clean; the river still ran sparkling under London Bridge, then a comparatively low structure, with houses on either side of it, like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

Shakespeare's London held about a quarter of a million souls, on generous computation, and it is said that about 15 per cent. of the number found employment and their means of livelihood on the river. The writ of the civic authorities did not run on the south side of the Thames, and it is to this that we owe the existence of so many houses of amusement in Southwark. Nor were they the only ones to be placed for choice beyond the eye of authority. The river Thames brought foreigners by the thousand to London, adventurers from all lands, men who said with ancient Pistol, "The world's my oyster, that I with sword will open." London held dangerous riverside slums.

Many associations whose members were banded together for protection against the lawful authorities throve on the south side of the Thames, and the numbers increased as the years went past. It is a fascinating chapter in London's life, this organised revolt against ever-growing authority, but one with which in this place there is no lawful occasion to deal at length. We know that when Shakespeare had settled in the metropolis he lived for a time in Southwark, near the "Bears House" marked on the map to which reference has been made. But he is also assessed as the owner of property in St. Helen's, Bishopgate, where a window given by some anonymous lover of the poet to St. Helen's Church records the association. It is likely that Shakespeare in his acting days took part in some of the plays given in the yard of the "Bull Inn," then the most important hostelry in Bishopgate Street. Old "Crosby Hall," the subject of such a prolonged discussion in the press a year or so back, was in Bishopgate Street, and Shakespeare lays one of the scenes there in his "Richard III." The poet's activity unites Southwark with St. Helen's, though in his day the distance between the two must have been regarded as considerable.

Many attempts have been made to find out what manner of life the poet lived in London, but the material for a reliable opinion is quite wanting. Some have imagined that he was a free liver and roysterer, after the fashion of his time, that he lived as Robert Greene and Christopher Marlowe and other dissipated writers. There is no more authority for such a suggestion than there is for the statements on the other side telling us that William Shakespeare was the personification of every virtue. We simply do not know; there is no record extant. We grope with dim eyes through the London of Shakespeare's time, glad to find any trace of his presence in some favoured spot, and content to make it a place of pilgrimage for his sake. It is to the history of the stage itself that we must turn in order to piece together some fragmentary record of his life in a city so changed by time and prosperity that if the poet could revisit the glimpses of the moon, and were to be set down in Bishopgate or Southwark to-day, he would not know where to turn, and the metropolis of which we are so proud would be no more to him than "the monstrous fabric of a vision."