Part 5

John Shakspere, the father apparently of William Shakspere, is first discovered and described as a resident of Henley Street, where our first glimpse is had of him in April, 1552. In that year he was fined the sum of twelve pence for a breach of the municipal sanitary regulations. Nothing is known in regard to the place of his birth and nurture, nor in regard to his ancestry. The evidence is, _prima-facie_, that the Shaksperes were of the parvenu class. John Shakspere seems to have been a chapman, trading in farmer’s produce. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, the seventh and youngest daughter of Robert Arden, who had left to her fifty-three acres and a house, called “Ashbies” at Wilmecote. He had also left to her other land at Wilmecote, and an interest in two houses at Smitterfield.

This step gave John Shakspere a reputation among his neighbors of having married an heiress, and he was not slow to take advantage of it. His official career commenced at once by his election in 1557, as one of the ale-tasters, to see to the quality of bread and ale; and again in 1568 he was made high bailiff of Stratford. John Shakspere was the only member of the Shakspere family who was honored with civic preferment and confidence, serving the corporation for the ninth time in several functions. However, the time of his declination was at hand, for in the autumn of 1578 the wife’s property at Ashbies was mortgaged for forty pounds. The money subsequently tendered in repayment of the loan was refused until other sums due to the same creditor were repaid. John Shakspere was deprived of his aldermanship September 6, 1580, because he did not come to the hall when notified. On March 29, he produced a writ of habeas corpus, which shows he had been in prison for debt. Notwithstanding his inability to read and write, he had more or less capacity for official business, but so managed his private affairs as to wreck his own and his wife’s fortune.

At the time of the habeas corpus matter William Shakspere was thirteen years old. “In all probability,” says his biographer, “the lad was removed from school, his father requiring his assistance.” There was a grammar school in Stratford which was reconstructed on a medieval foundation by Edward VI, though the first English grammar was not published until 1586. This was after Shakespere had finished his education. “No Stratford record nor Stratford tradition says that Shakspere attended the Stratford grammar school.” But, had the waning fortune of his father made it possible, he might have been a student there from his seventh year—the probable age of admission—until his improvident marriage when little more than eighteen and a half years old. However, a provincial grammar school is a convenient place for the lad about whose activities we know nothing, and whose education is made to impinge on conjecture and fanciful might-have-been.

We are told that Shakspere must have been sent to the free school at Stratford, as his parents and all the relatives were unlearned persons, and there was no other public education available; nevertheless, it was the practice of that age to teach the boy no more than his father knew. One thing is certain, that the scholastic awakening in the Shakspere family was of short duration, for it began and ended with William Shakspere. His youngest daughter, Judith, was as illiterate as were her grandparents. She could not even write her name, although her father at the time of her school age had become wealthy, and his eldest daughter “the little premature Susanna,” as De Quincy calls her, could barely scrawl her name, being unable to identify her husband’s (Dr. Hall) handwriting, which no one but an illiterate could mistake. Her contention with the army surgeon, Dr. James Cook, respecting her husband’s manuscripts, is proof that William Shakspere was true to his antecedents by conferring illiteracy upon his daughters. The Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon was not exceptionally liberal and broad minded in the matter of education in contrast with many of his contemporaries, notably Richard Mulcaster, (1531-1611), who says that “the girl should be as well educated as her brother,” while the real author of the immortal plays had also written, “Ignorance is the curse of God,” and, “There is no darkness but ignorance.”

It was not the least of John Shakspere’s misfortunes that in November, 1582, his eldest son, William, added to his embarrassments, by premature and forced marriage. It is the practice of Shakespere’s biographers to pass hurriedly over this event in the young man’s life, for there is nothing commendable in his marital relations. There is expressed in it irregularity of conduct and probable desertion on his part; pressure was brought to bear on the young man by his wife’s relations, and he was forced to marry the woman whom he had wronged. Who can believe that their marriage was a happy one, when the only written words contained in his will are not words expressive of connubial endearment, such as “dear wife” or “sweet wife,” but “my wife?” He had forgotten her, but by an interlineation in the final draft, she received his second best bed with its furniture. This was the sole bequest made to her.

We are by no means sure of the identity of his wife. We do not know that she and Shakespere ever went through the actual ceremony of marriage, unless her identity is traceable through Anne Wateley, as a regular license was issued for the marriage of William Shaxpere and Anne Wateley of Temple Grafton, November 27, 1583. Richard Hathaway, the reputed father of Shakspere’s wife, Anne, in his will dated September 1, 1581, bequeathed his property to seven children, his daughters being Catherin, Margaret and Agnes. No Anne was mentioned. The first published notice of the name of William Shakspere’s (supposed) wife appears in Rowe’s “Life of Shakespere” (1709), wherein it is stated that she “was the daughter of one Hathaway said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighborhood of Stratford.” This was all that Betterton, the actor Rowe’s informant, could learn at the time of his visit to Stratford-on-Avon. The exact time of this visit is unknown, but it was probably about the year 1690. This lack of knowledge in regard to the Hathaways shows that the locality of Anne Hathaway’s residence, or that of her parents, was not known at Stratford. The house at Shottery, now known as Anne Hathaway’s cottage, and reached from Stratford by fieldpaths, may have been the home of Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakspere, before his marriage, but of this there is no proof.

Shakspere was married under the name “Shagspere,” but the place of marriage is unknown, as his place of residence is not mentioned in the bond. In the registry of the bishop of the diocese (Worcester) is contained a deed wherein Sandells and Richardson, husbandmen of Stratford, bound themselves in the bishop’s consistory court on November 28, 1582, as a surety for forty pounds, to free the bishop of all liability should any lawful impediment, by reason of any precontract, or consanguinity, be subsequently disclosed to imperil the validity of the contemplated marriage of William Shakspere with Anne Hathaway. Provided, that Anne obtained the consent of her friends, the marriage might proceed with at once proclaiming the bans of matrimony. The wording of the bond shows that, despite the fact that the bridegroom was a minor by nearly three years, the consent of his parents was neither called for, nor obtained, though necessary “for strictly regular procedure.” Sandells and Richardson, representing the lady’s family, ignored the bridegroom’s family completely. In having secured the deed, they forced Shakspere to marry their friend’s daughter in order to save her reputation. Soon afterwards—within six months—a daughter was born. Moreover, the whole circumstances of the case render it highly probable that Shakspere had no thought of marriage, for the waning fortune of his father had made him acquainted with the “cares of bread.” He was a penniless youth, not yet of age, having neither trade, nor means of livelihood, and was forced by her friends into marrying her—a woman eight years older than himself. In 1585 she presented him with twins.

When he left Stratford for London we do not know positively, but the advent of the twins is the approximate date of the youth’s Hegira. He lived apart from his wife for more than twenty-five years. The breath of slander never touched the good name of Anne (or Agnes), the neglected wife of William Shakspere. There is _prima-facie_ evidence that the playbroker’s wife fared in his absence no better than his father and mother, who, dying intestate in 1601 and 1608, respectively, were buried somewhere by the Stratford church, but there is no trace of any sepulchral monument, or memorial. If anything of the kind had been set up by their wealthy son, William Shakspere, it would certainly have been found by someone. The only contemporary mention made of the wife of Shakspere, between her marriage in 1582 and her husband’s death in 1616, was as the borrower, at an unascertained date, of forty shillings from Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her father’s shepherd. The money was unpaid when Whittington died in 1601, and his executor was directed to recover the sum from Shakspere and distribute it among the poor of Stratford. There is disclosed in this pecuniary transaction, coupled with the slight mention of her in the will and the barring of her dower, _prima facie_ evidence of William Shakspere’s indifference to, and neglect of, if not dislike for, his wife. All this is in striking contrast with the conduct of Sir Thomas Lucy, whom the biographers of Shakespere have attempted to disparage, and whose endearment for his wife is so feelingly expressed in his will. And, in contrast also, is the conduct of Edward Alleyn, famous as an actor, and as the founder of Dulwich College, who lived with his wife in London, and called her “sweet mouse.”

The tangibility of this Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon is very much in evidence along pecuniary lines, especially as money lender, land-owner, speculator and litigant. In 1597 he bought New Place in Stratford for sixty pounds; also mentioned as a holder of grain at Stratford X quarters. The following entry is in Chamberlain’s accounts at Stratford in 1598: “Paid to Mr. Shaxpere for one lode of stone xd;” in the same year Richard Quiney wrote to William Shakspere for a loan of thirty or forty pounds; in 1599 William Shakspere was taken into the new Globe Theatre Company as partner; in 1602 Shakspere bought one hundred seven acres of arable land at Stratford for three hundred two pounds (in his absence the conveyance was given over to his brother, Gilbert); in the same year he bought a house with barns, orchards, and gardens, from Hercules Underhill for sixty pounds; also a cottage close to his house, New Place; in 1605 Shakspere bought the thirty-two-year lease of half Stratford tithes for four hundred forty pounds; in 1613 Shakspere bought a house near Blackfriars’ Theatre for one hundred and forty pounds, and mortgaged it next day for sixty pounds; in 1612 Shakspere is mentioned in a law suit brought before Lord Ellsimore about Stratford tithes; in 1611 Hamnet, his only son, died at Stratford at the age of eleven and half years. The father, however, set up no stone to tell where the boy lay.

In the autumn of the year 1614 Shakspere became implicated with the landowners, William Combe and Arthur Mannering, in the conspiracy to enclose the common field in the vicinity of Stratford. The success of this rapacious scheme would have advantaged Shakspere in his freehold interest, but might have affected adversely his interest in the tithes, so he secured himself against all possible loss by obtaining from Riplingham, Combe’s agent, in October, 1614, a deed of indemnification; then, in the spirit of his agreement, he acted in unison with the two greedy land-sharks to rob the poor people of their ancient rights of pasturage. The unholy coalition caused great excitement. The humble citizens of Stratford were thoroughly aroused, and the town corporation put up a sharp and vigorous opposition to the scheme, for enclosure would have caused decay of tillage, idleness, penury, depopulation, and the subversion of homes. Happily, the three greedy cormorants Combe, Mannering and Shakspere failed in their efforts and the common field was unenclosed.

Shakspere is thought to have been penurious for his litigious strivings point in that direction, but this feature of his character was not disclosed in 1596 and 1599, when he sought to have his family enrolled among the gentry, as shown by his extravagance in bribing the officers of the Herald College to issue a grant of arms to his father, “a transaction which involved,” says Dr. Farmer, “the falsehood and venality of the father, the son and two kings-at-arms, and did not escape protest, for if ever a coat was cut from whole cloth we may be sure that this coat-of-arms was the one.” Shakspere himself was not in a position to apply for a coat-of-arms—“a player stood far too low in the social scale for the cognizance of heraldry.” Nevertheless, recent writers on the subject of Shakespeare stamp this bogus coat-of-arms on the covers of their books. We know that the Shaksperes did not belong to the Armigerous part of the population, and that they stood somewhat lower in the social scale than either the Halls or Quineys, who bore marital relations with them.

Shakspere’s son-in-law, John Hall, was a master of arts and an eminent physician. He was summoned more than once to attend the Earl and Countess of Northampton at Ludlow Castle. He was of the French Court School, and was opposed to the indiscriminate process of bleeding. On June 5, 1607, Dr. Hall was married at Stratford-on-Avon to Shakspere’s eldest daughter, Susanna. Stratford then contained about fifteen hundred inhabitants. One hundred sixty-two years later, Garrick gave his unsavory description of Stratford-on-Avon as “the most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved, wretched-looking town in all Britain.” Cottages of that day in Stratford consisted of mud walls and thatched roofs. “At this period and for many generations afterwards the sanitary conditions of the thoroughfares of Stratford-on-Avon were simply terrible.”

On February 10, 1616, Thomas Quiney, a vintner, and also an accomplished scholar and penman, was married at Stratford church to Judith, Shakspere’s younger daughter, who could neither read nor write. The marriage ceremony took place without a license or proclaiming the bans. For this breach of ecclesiastical procedure both the parties were summoned to the court at Worcester and threatened with excommunication. When the fortune hunter goes forth to woe, and is determined to win, he is content to wade through reeking refuse and muckheaps to marry a rich heiress and does not much care if her histrionic father by XXXIX Elizabeth were a vagabond.

If “there is a soul of truth in things erroneous,” so there may be a soul of truth in the creditableness of the Shakspere traditions, for in them are revealed the environment in which they had their genesis, and the character of the inventor or fabricator. All of the traditions are comparatively recent or modern, and were made current by people who were, with few exceptions, coarse and densely ignorant. These apocryphal accounts serve to show also how little educated people knew, or cared, about writing with literary or historical accuracy when Shakspere was the subject. Unfortunately all of the traditions about Shakspere are of a degrading character.

The poaching escapade of his having robbed a park is one of the invented stories of fancy-mongers. There is very little likelihood that the young husband, with a wife and three babies to support, would voluntarily place himself in a position where he would have to flee from Sir Thomas Lucy’s prosecution; thereby degrading the lowermost rank of life by bringing disgrace upon himself, his wife and children, while his parents in straitened circumstances were struggling to keep the wolf from the door. The records show that Sir Thomas Lucy had no park either at Charlecote or Fulbroke, still the Lucys of a later day were not anxious to lose the honor of having spanked Shakspere for poaching on the ancestral preserves.

England was called in those days “The toper’s paradise,” and tradition informs us that Shakspere was one of the Bedford topers. However, we should not infer from this that William Shakspere, a firm man of business, was at any time a drunken sot. The only story recorded during Shakspere’s life is contained in John Manningham’s note-book. It savors strongly of the tavern, the diarist criminating Shakspere’s morals. This entry was made on March 13, 1601, the reference being to player Shakspere.

No wonder that such eminent votaries of Shakspere as Stevens, Hallam, Dyce and Emerson are disappointed and perplexed, for, while the record concerning the life of the player, money-lender, landowner, play-broker, speculator and litigant are ample, they disclose nothing of a literary character; but the pecuniary litigation evidence, growing out of Shakspere’s devotion to money-getting in London and Stratford, does unfold his true life and character. The records do not furnish a single instance of friendship, kindness or generosity, but upon the delinquent borrower of money he rigidly evoked the law, which gave a generous advantage to the creditor, and its vile prison to the debtor.

In 1600 Shakspere brought action against John Clayton for seven pounds and got judgment in his favor. He sued Philip Rogers, a neighbor in Stratford Court, for one pound, fifteen shillings and six pence due for malt sold, and two shillings loaned. In August, 1608, Shakspere prosecuted John Addenbroke to recover a debt of six pounds. He prosecuted this last suit for a couple of years until he got the defendant into prison. The prisoner was bailed out by Horneby. Addenbroke, running away, escaped from the clutches of his tormentor, who then bore down on his security, Horneby.

“The pursuit of an impoverished man for the sake of imprisoning him, and depriving him both of the power of paying his debts and supporting his family, grate upon our feelings,” says Richard Grant White, “and,” adds this eminent Shakspearean, “we hunger and we receive these husks, we open our mouths for food and we break our teeth against these stones.” We may be sure that there was left in the impoverished home of John Addenbroke little more palatable than husks and stones, when the father fled to escape from the clutches of his insistent creditor, William Shakspere of Stratford.

The paltry suits he brought to recover debts do not tend to disclose this Shakspere’s “radiant temperament,” or fit him to receive the adjective, “gentle,” except in contumely for his claim to gentility. It is not known that Shakspere ever gave hospitality to the necessities of the poor of his native shire, for whom, it appears, there beat no pulse of tenderness. A man of scanty sensibilities he must have been. The poor working people of Stratford, we may be sure, shed no tear at this Shakspere’s departure from the world.

We do not envy the man, who can regard these harsh pecuniary practices in this Shakspere, as commendable traits of his worldly wisdom, for he was shrewd in money matters, and could have invested his money in London and Stratford so as not to have brought sorrow and distress upon his poor neighbors. These matters are small in themselves, but they suggest a good deal, for they bear witness to sorrow-stricken mothers, hungry children and fathers in loathsome prisons, powerless to provide food, warmth and light for the home. The diary, or note-book, of Philip Henslowe, the theatrical manager and play-broker, shows that Henslowe was himself a very penurious and grasping man, who, taking advantage of starving play-makers’ necessities, became very wealthy. William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon, as a theatrical manager, became rich also, but his note-book has not been preserved, so nothing is known of his business methods in dealing with the poor play-makers; but the literary antiquarians, by ransacking corporations’ records and other public archives, have proven that Shakspere was very much such a man as the old pawnbroker and play-broker, Philip Henslowe, of a rival house.

The biographers should record these facts, and not strive to shun them, for the literary antiquaries have unearthed and brought them forward, and they tell the true story of Shakspere’s life, though we do not linger lovingly over them, for, like Hallam, “we as little feel the power of identifying the young man who came up from Stratford, was afterward an indifferent player in a London theatre, and retired to his native place in middle life, with the author of ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Lear,’” for the Stratford records are as barren of literary matter as the lodgings in Silver street, London. Not a crumb for the literary biographer in either place!

Professor Wallace has added another non-literary document in the matter of Shakspere’s deposition in the case of Bellot vs. Mountjoy, which he discovered in the public record office, but it in no way contributes to a literary biography. The truth is that, with all their industry, the antiquarians have in this regard not brought to light a single proven fact to sustain the claim that this Shakespere was either the author of poems or plays. This bit of new knowledge gives us a glimpse of this William Shakspere as an evasive witness, having a conveniently short memory. These depositions disclose his intermediation in the matter of making two hearts happy, but not the faintest glimpse of the author of poems or plays. When the claim of authorship is challenged, new particulars of the life of Shakspere, such as this and others that have been unearthed by antiquarians, whether in the public record office or corporation archives, are alike worthless so far as establishing the poet Shakspere’s identity. They fail to confirm the identity of the actor Shakspere with the author of the plays and poems that are associated with his name. There are no family traditions, no books, manuscripts, or letters, addressed to him, or by him, to poet, peer or peasant. The credible evidence supplied by contemporaneous, or antiquarian, research do not identify the player and landowner with the author of “Hamlet,” “Lear” and “Othello.”