Shakespeare's Family Part 7

No sepulchre or memorial of her has come down to our time. We only know that somewhere in the consecrated ground by Stratford Church lies the dust of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, the parents of the poet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTH-HOUSE BEFORE THE RESTORATION IN 1857.]

FOOTNOTES:

[120] Stratford-on-Avon Chamberlain's Accounts, April 29, 6 Edward VI.

[121] Stratford-on-Avon Baptismal Register.

[122] All these references are from the Chamberlain's Accounts, and accounts of the Halls at Stratford-on-Avon. Those who have not had access to them may refer to Halliwell-Phillipps's "Outlines," i. 29; ii.

179 _et seq._

[123] Worcester administration bonds, 1561. _Notes and Queries_, 8th Series, xii. 413.

[124] This statement is, however, evidently erroneous.

[125] Roll for Stratford, Longridge MS.

[126] Stratford Borough Records.

[127] The first notice of munic.i.p.al employment of players appears during his year of office, the Queen's Company and that of the Earl of Worcester having performed before the council. A case was tried at the Warwick a.s.sizes, Easter, 11 Elizabeth, concerning the t.i.thes of Rowington, and John Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon, was on the jury.--Ryland's "Records of Rowington."

[128] See Chamberlain's accounts for "the expenses of Mr. Queeney in London," also for the expenses of the dinner given to Sir Thomas Lucy and others, at which Quiney and Shakespeare presided.

[129] In 1579 he buried his daughter Anne "with the pall and the great bell." On May 3, 1580, his youngest child Edmund was christened.

[130] "At this halle William Smythe and Richard Court are chosen Aldermen in the places of John Wheler and John Shaxspere, for that Mr.

Wheler doth desire to be put out of the company, and Mr. Shaxspere doth not come to the Halles when they be warned, nor hath not done of long tyme."--Borough Reports. It is noteworthy that he was never fined for absenting himself as others were.

[131] Controlment Rolls, 29 Elizabeth, Stratford-on-Avon.

[132] State Papers, Domestic Series, Elizabeth. It may be noted that there was no Mrs. Shakespeare among the recusants. Other wives were noted, as Mrs. Wheeler.

[133] It remains a fact that John Shakespeare, shoemaker, is heard of no more in Stratford-on-Avon, and shortly afterwards his house was tenanted by another man.

[134] Stratford Corporation Records.

[135] Halliwell-Phillips is in error in stating that Gilbert was a London haberdasher.

CHAPTER VIII

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was thirty-seven when he became head of the family in 1601. His previous life must have been a stirring one, though we know only too little about it. Still, certain inferences may be soundly based on known facts. He must have been educated at the Stratford Grammar School, free to the sons of the burgesses, a high-cla.s.s school for the time. Its head-master had a salary then double that of the Master of Eton. A taste for learning had certainly imbued William's spirit even in early years, but he doubtless warmly shared in the difficulties of his father's life, and knew the anxieties of debt, the oppression of the strong hand--the "cares of bread," as Mazzini calls it--and the sickening weariness of the law's uncertainty and delay. Most of his relatives were farmers, and his actions show that he would gladly have followed the same course of life, with the relaxation of field sports, of course, if he could have attained his desire. But the genius within him was to be welded by fiery trials, and he was driven on a course that seemed at discord with his nature, and yet led to its own fulfilment. In the enthusiasm of a first love, he married early, not, it must emphatically be noted, over-early for the custom of the period, when the means of support were a.s.sured, but over-early, as it would then have been considered, solely from a financial standpoint. He had no a.s.sured means of support. His hope of securing his inheritance of Asbies was fading. He did not marry an heiress. Many vials of wrath have been poured on the devoted head of Anne Hathaway by those who do not consider all sides of the question. Harrowing pictures of the relations of young Shakespeare and "his aged wife" are drawn, even by such writers as Dr.

Furnivall. Now, it is a well-known fact that almost all very young men fancy girls older than themselves, and it is an artistic fact that a woman under thirty does look younger, and not older, than a man of the same age, if she has led a natural and simple life. It is much more than likely that the well-grown, responsible eldest son of anxious John Shakespeare looked quite as old as Anne Hathaway, seven years his senior, especially if she was slight and fair and _delicate_, as there is every reason to believe she was. And the masterful spirit marks its own age when it goes forth to woo, and determines to win the first real fancy of his life. It must not be forgotten, in a.s.sociation with the situation, that Richard Hathaway of Shottery (for whom John Shakespeare had stood surety in 1566) had made his will on September 1, 1581, and died between that time and July 9, 1582, when it was proved, leaving his daughter Agnes, or Anne, the small but very common marriage portion of 6 13s. 4d. A break had come into her home life; doubtless she went off to visit some friends, and the young lover felt he could not live without his betrothed, and determined to clinch the matter.

Much unnecessarily unfavourable comment has been made on the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the marriage. People forget the complexity of religious and social customs of the time, the binding force of betrothals, the oppression of Catholics. In Robert Arden's settlement of July 17, 1550, he speaks of his daughter Agnes as the _wife_ of Thomas Stringer, though she did not marry him until October 15, 1550.[136] The perplexity is increased by the entry of the marriage license of a William Shakespeare and Anne Whately of Templegrafton, the day previous to that of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway of Stratford, November 28, 1582.[137] It all seems possible to explain. Travelling was inconvenient on November roads; Will set out for the license alone, as bridegrooms were often wont to do, when they could afford the expense of a special license. He might give his own name, and that of his intended wife, at a temporary address. The clerk made an error in the spelling, which might have been corrected; but meanwhile discovered that Shakespeare was under age, was acting without his parents--that the bride was not in her own home, and that no marriage settlement was in the air. No risk might be run by an official in such a case; the license was stayed; sureties must be found for a penalty in case of error. So poor Will would have to find, in post-haste, the nearest friends he could find to trust him and his story. And who so likely to ask as Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, friends of the Hathaways--the one supervisor, and the other witness to the will of Anne's father Richard? They might have been at Worcester market with him.

They were both "good men" in the financial sense, and their bond for 40 was accepted at the Bishop of Worcester's Registry in support of the a.s.sertion that there was no impediment against this marriage by ground of consanguinity or pre-contract. If this were all right, and if the bride's friends were willing, by which must have been intended her mother and brothers, then the marriage might be solemnized. It was clearly a question in which the woman's friends were the proper parties to summon. The bond of John Shakespeare would not then have been good for 40, and the would-be bridegroom had nothing of his own. The place where they were married has not yet been discovered; it is quite possible to have been at "a private ma.s.s," as was the case in another marriage with a similar bond at the same registry.[138] But they were married somehow, and William probably brought home his fatherless bride to his father's house, and there her little portion of 6 13s. 4d. might go the further. But a wife and a family of three children sorely handicapped a penniless youth, not yet of age, bred to no trade, heir to no fortune, whose father was himself in trouble.

The after-date gossip of wild courses, deer-stealing, and combats with Sir Thomas Lucy, are, I think, quite unfounded on fact. I have discussed this fully in my article in the _Athenaeum_[139] on "Sir Thomas Lucy,"

and in my chapter on "The Traditional Sir Thomas and the Real."[140] It is much more than likely Shakespeare was concerned in the religious turmoil of the times, was somewhat suspected, and was indignant at the cruel treatment of Edward Arden, head of the house, the first victim of the Royal Commission[141] in 1583.

Eventually he went to London, probably with introductions to many people supposed to be able and willing to help him. There were both Ardens and Shakespeares in London, and many Warwicks.h.i.+re men, and they thought that some place might be found even for him, the landless, unapprenticed, untrained son of a straitened father. But there were so many in a similar case. It is evident he succeeded in nothing that he hoped or wished for. His own works prove that. He was unable to act the gentleman, but was determined to play the man. He may have dwelt with, and certainly frequently visited, his old Stratford friend Richard Field, the apprentice, son-in-law, and successor of Vautrollier, the great printer. In his shop he learned not only much technical detail of his art, but refreshed his education--or, rather, went through another course, reading with a new inspiration and a kindled enthusiasm.

I have shown elsewhere how very much his mental development owed to books published by Vautrollier and Field,[142] sole publishers of many Latin works, including Ovid, of Puttenham's "Art of Poetrie," of Plutarch's "Lives," and many another book whose spirit has been transfused into Shakespeare's works. We know that he had tried his hand at altering plays, at rewriting them, and making them popular; we know that he had translated them upon the stage before 1592, because of Greene's notice then published by Chettle, of "the upstart crow."[143]

And he probably had written some. But his first firm step on the staircase of fame was taken in the publication of his "Venus and Adonis"

by his friend Richard Field in April, 1593, and his first grip of success in his dedication thereof to the young Earl of Southampton. The kindness of his patron between 1593 and 1594 had ripened his admiration into love; and the dedication of the "Rape of Lucrece" in the latter year placed the relations of the two men clearly before the world. A careful study of the two dedications leads to the conviction that the "Sonnets" could only have been addressed to the same[144] patron. A study of the poems and sonnets together shows much of the character, training, and culture of the author--love of nature, delight in open-air exercise and in the chase, sympathy with the Renaissance culture, and a moral standard of no common order.

In his first poem he shows how preoccupation preserves Adonis from temptation; in the second how the spiritual chast.i.ty of Lucrece is triumphant over evil. The one poem completes the conception of the other, and both lead into the sonnets. In these the author explains much of his thought and circ.u.mstance--

"Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view; Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new."

"Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty G.o.ddess of my harmful deeds, That doth not better for my life provide Than public means, which public manners breeds."[145]

Southampton did not only chide with Fortune, but took her place. Through his stepfather, Sir Thomas Henneage, who had succeeded Sir Christopher Hatton in 1589[146] as Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household, he was able to a.s.sist the players, and Shakespeare is for the first time recorded as having played twice before the Queen, at Greenwich on St.

Stephen's Day, December 26, 1594, and on Innocents' Day, December 28 of the same year.[147] On the latter day at night, amid the turmoil of the Gray's Inn revels, Shakespeare's play of the "Comedy of Errors" was represented by his company, doubtless through the interest of the Earl of Southampton, then a student at Gray's Inn. At his coming of age in October, 1594, the young n.o.bleman would be the better able to a.s.sist his poet. Tradition has reported that he gave Shakespeare a large sum of money, generally said to be 1,000.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GUILD CHAPEL, FROM THE SITE OF NEW PLACE.

_To face p. 67._]

However it was, the tide of Shakespeare's fortunes turned with his introduction to the Earl of Southampton, and his exertions during the remaining years of the century began to tell in financial returns. It is significant that the first known use to which he put his money was the application for the _coat of arms_. In that same year fortune gave him a cruel buffet in the death of his only son.[148] Nevertheless, he went on with his purchase of the largest house in his native town; so that, if the bride of his youth had waited long for a home of her own, he did what he could to make up for the delay by giving her the best he could find.[149] That he was cautious in his investments was evident. He had seen too much suffering through rashness in money affairs not to benefit by the experience. Thereby he made clear his desire for the rehabilitation of himself and family in the place where he was born. By 1598 we have irrefragable testimony to the position he had already taken, alike in the world of letters as in the social life of Stratford.

In the autumn of that year appeared the perennial advertis.e.m.e.nt of Meres, the Professor of Rhetoric at Oxford, Master of Arts of both Universities, who ranks him among the first of his day, as an epic and lyric poet, and as a writer of both tragedy and comedy. "As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare.... As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare ... among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage ... witness his 'Gentlemen of Verona,' his 'Errors,' his 'Love's Labour's Lost,' his 'Love's Labour Wonne,' his 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and his 'Merchante of Venice'; for tragedy his 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 't.i.tus Andronicus,' and 'Romeo and Juliet.'"[150]

On the other hand, the Quiney correspondence shows the estimation in which his fellow-townsmen held him--that he had money, that he wanted to invest, and was already styled "master." He was considering the policy of buying "an odd yard land or other" in Stratford, when Richard Quiney, who was in the Metropolis, was urged by his brother-in-law, Abraham Sturley, to induce Shakespeare to buy one of the t.i.the leases. "By the friends he can make therefore, we think it a fair mark for him to shoot at; it obtained, would advance him in deed, and would _do us much good_." Richard Quiney was in the Metropolis at the end of 1598 on affairs of the town, trying to secure the grant of a new charter, and relief from subsidy; but either on his own account, or the affairs of the town, he applied to Shakespeare for a loan. As there are no letters of Shakespeare's extant, and this is the only one addressed to him, it is worth noting very specially. It could hardly have been sent, as it was found among the Corporation Records. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps suggests that Shakespeare may have called to see Quiney before the letter was sent off, and given his reply verbally.

"Loveinge contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with x.x.x^li uppon Mr. Bush.e.l.ls and my securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me. Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, and I have especiall cawse. Yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeing me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke G.o.d, and muche quyet my mynde, which wolde nott be indebeted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatch of my buysness. Yow shall nether loase creddytt nor monney by me, the Lord wyllinge; and nowe b.u.t.t persuade yourselfe soe, as I hope, and you shall nott need to feare, b.u.t.t, with all hartie thanckefullness, I wyll holde my tyme, and content yowr ffrende, and yf we bargaine farther, you shal be the paie-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hastene to an ende, and soe I comitt thys (to) yowr care, and hope of yowr helpe. I feare I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste. The Lorde be with yow and with us all, Amen. From the Bell in Carter Lane the 25th October, 1598. Yowrs in all kyndeness Ryc.

Quyney.

"To my loveinge good frend and contreymann Mr. Wm. Shackespere deliver thees."[151]

And Shakespeare then befriended the man whose son was to marry his daughter. The reply seems to have been as prompt as satisfactory, for on the very same day Quiney wrote to his brother-in-law Sturley, who replied on November 4: "Your letter of the 25th of October came to my hands, the last of the same at night per Greenway,[152] which imported that our Countryman Mr. William Shakespeare would procure us money; which I will like of, as I shall hear when and where and how; and I pray let not go that occasion, if it may sort to any indifferent conditions."

It is evident that Shakespeare had at some time or other a.s.sociated himself with Burbage's company. Now, James Burbage, "was the first builder of playhouses" who had planned in 1576, and in spite of evil report and professional rivalry, of munic.i.p.al and royal restrictions, legal and other expenses, had successfully carried on "The Theatre" in Finsbury Fields. In 1596 he had purchased the house in Blackfriars, against the use of which as a theatre was sent up to the Privy Council a pet.i.tion, which Richard Field signed.[153] The Burbages let this house for a time to a company of "children," but eventually resumed it for their own use, and in it placed "men-players, which were Hemings, Condell, Shakespeare," etc. On Burbage's death in 1597, there was a dispute about "The Theater" lease, and his sons transferred the materials to Southwark, and built the Globe in 1599. On the rearing of the Globe at heavy cost, they joined to themselves "those deserving men Shakespeare, Hemings, Condell, Philips and others, partners in the Profits of what they call the House, but making the leases for twenty-one years hath been the destruction of ourselves and others, for they, dying at the expiration of three or four years of their lease, the subsequent yeares became dissolved to strangers, as by marrying with theire widdowes, and the like by their children." (See the papers concerning the shares in the Globe, 1535: 1. Pet.i.tion of Benfield, Swanston and Pollard to the Lord Chamberlain Pembroke (April). 2. A further pet.i.tion. 3. The answer of Shank. 4. The answer of C. Burbage, Winifred, his brother's widow, and William his son. 5. Pembroke's judgment thereon (July 12). 6. Shanke's pet.i.tion (August 7). 7.

Pembroke's final decision.)[154]

Burbage, Shakespeare, Condell, Hemings had been housekeepers with four shares each. These originally died with the owner, but in later years could be inherited. Shakespeare's income therefore arose from:

1. Possibly some small sum allowed him by Richard Field and the publishers for various editions of his poems, as well as the liberality of the Earl of Southampton on their account.

2. Direct payments by the proprietors for altering and writing plays.

Shares in their publication he never seems to have had.