Chapter XXX: Sixteenth Century Women Students 295 (4)

I referred to the copy at the British Museum to save going down to Stratford to check my former notes made at the Record Office there. After a great deal of time spent through an unexpected confusion I found in it, I was forced to make a careful comparison, line by line, between the facsimile and the transcript. At first this did not clear up my difficulty; but, on my going through a second time, referring to the dates alone, the cause of the confusion flashed on me: _one of the pages of Greene’s Diary had been placed out of order in the facsimile_, and Dr. Scott, who was supposed to have worked from the original, must have followed the facsimile. I went down to check the original last month, and to see if there was anything to account for the mistake. But there was nothing. The four leaves are written down one side and up another, making in all eight pages. It could only be the photographer’s blunder by misnumbering the pages. Page seven should be read as page six, and the dates then read consecutively. My difficulty had lain in the fact that the year 1615 was made to have had _two springs_. My re-arrangement, which has been noted and initialed by Mr. Barwick in the Museum copy, restores order. But this late correction does not put right the blunder based on it by Dr. Ingleby, who says (p. vi, Introduction) that this entry “records, five months after the death of Shakespeare, the statement of Shakespeare himself.” Now this statement was not recorded five months _after_, but seven months _before_, the poet’s death.

Two other important points must be noted concerning this entry: first, that though it was somewhat crowded in, it was intended to be read straight on; and second, that the memorandum of a man’s death was associated with it, and has some relation to it. As it is written, it should be read:

14 Aug. 1615. Mr. Barker [?] died.

Sept. W. Shakspeares tellyng J. Greene that I was not able to beare the encloseinge of Welcombe.

5 Sept. his sendyng James for the executours of Mr. Barker [?] to agree as ys said with them for Mr. Barker’s [?] interest.

The subject of the old and only discussion about this was, Did the “I” refer to Shakespeare or to Greene? It is unlike the other letters of the first person generally used by Greene, but he does occasionally use that form as a capital. It could not be a mistake for “he” in writing; but it might be so in thought and word, as Greene’s style is very elliptical and careless in the Diary. The argument put forward by Dr. Ingleby was, Why should Shakespeare tell one brother what another said, as he was likely to know it, and why think this fact important enough to be recorded, unless it was a report that Shakespeare could not bear the enclosing of Welcombe? This is perfectly reasonable, but it may have been that gossip had said that Thomas Greene served the corporation when he gave them advice and wrote their letters, but that he naturally was friendly with the enclosers, and likely to benefit by the enclosure. It might be but a note of pleased surprise of Thomas Greene’s to find that the poet had read his honest heart better than his more worldly-minded brother had done.

But the new point I wish to add is that on 14th August there is the record of the death of an inhabitant, and the note for 5th September clearly carries on Shakespeare as the subject, and shows that he it was who sent for the executors to agree with them for the interest of the defunct. I wish I could accept Dr. Scott’s rendering, and read it as “Mr. Barker,” for the meaning would then be straight and clear--that, seeing Shakespeare had had so much trouble over that reserved rent of Mr. Barker for £27 13_s._ 4_d._ on the lease of the tithes, etc., he was about to buy this up and set his estate free from any future danger. But alas! on referring to the Stratford Burial Register I find the entry on the day after, 15 August 1615: “Burial. Mr. Thomas Barbor, gent.” I have had the entry tested by an expert, who assures me there can be no mistake _there_.

I referred to the baptisms, and found there were two children born to “Thomas Barbor, gent., of Shottery,” within a year or two before; and that five days before the burial of Thomas Barbor was entered the “Burial of Joane, wife of Thomas Barbor, gent.” So I am driven back to the earlier pages of original, and there I find, on

7th April, 1615, being Goodfryday, Mr. Barber commyng to Colledge to Mr. T. Combe about a debt he stood surety for Mris Quyney, W. Combe willed his brother to shew Mr. Barber noe favour, and threatned him that he should be served upp to London within a fortnight (and so yt fell out).

This is also rendered in the transcript as “Barker,” but is clearly “Barber” in the original, and it seems to me that the action here recorded broke Mr. Barber’s fortunes and health, his wife died, and he followed, and that William Shakespeare, still willing to invest in “an odd yard land at Shottery,” sent for the executors, to do what he could for the deceased and his children as well as for Mrs. Quyney, whose unlucky debt was the cause of Mr. Barber’s distress and ruin. Coming back from the registers and miscellaneous documents of Stratford-on-Avon, we must therefore read the name as “Barber,” and not as “Barker,” however like it may be. Mr. Barber had done some important work for the corporation previously, and may have been an attorney.[20]

It had always been a matter of surprise to me that Thomas Greene, who mentioned the death of Mr. Barber, did not mention the death of Shakespeare. Perhaps there was no need for him to make a memorandum of an event so important to the town and himself. He goes on in his dates regularly till he comes to the spring of 1616. Then he notes:

At Warwick Assises in Lent 1615-1616 my Lord Chief Justice willed him [_i.e._, W. Combe] to sett his heart at rest he should neyther enclose nor lay downe any earrable, nor plowe any auncient greensward.

And the last words which fell on Shakespeare’s ears were the news that his judgment was right, and “that nothing should be done.”

The Diary leaps on then till 4th September 1616, and says little more of interest, but sufficient to show that Mr. W. Combe was determined to defy the Lord Chief Justice as well as the corporation, and go on with the enclosures after Shakespeare’s death. Indeed, the details[21] of the struggles during the next two years, as gleaned from the corporation records, give the romantic tale how Stratford then

The little tyrant of its fields withstood.

The Combes raged at the corporation, defied their arguments, and threatened them with dire consequences for defending the rights they had sworn to hand down to their successors; the aldermen complained in every Court, and went in their own persons, rather than risk sending messengers, to throw down the fences and fill up the ditches made by Combe’s servants, and some were wounded in the free fight which ensued. William Combe was High Sheriff of the county for one year during the struggle, and was Justice of the Peace during its course, though he seemed to hold himself above law and successive legal decisions.

Finally, however, he was summoned for contumacy before the Privy Council, and, after he was brought to his knees, was granted “absolution” in 1618-19, So Shakespeare’s legal acumen was proved when in 1614 he said “he thought nothing would be done”; but it took a long time to prove it.

_“Athenæum,” 27th September 1913._

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Yet I find in the Vestry Minutes: “15th Dec. 1648 Mʳˢ Elizabeth Nashe for Shottery Corn Tithes being yearly value £100.”

[20] “Charges of Mr. Barbor and Mr. Jeffrey” in riding to London 15th May, 1590, “for search in the Rolles for my Lord of Essex’s patent.”

[21] I gave the story of William Combe more fully in “The Stratford-on-Avon Herald,” 23rd August 1912. See Note XI.

XII

OTHER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARES

Among Shakespeare’s contemporaries there were a good many bearing both of his names, and the few facts known concerning them become interesting, even when clearly shown not to refer to the poet.

I found one curious entry in London, among the burials in the registers of St. Clement Danes: “Jane Shackspeer, daughter of Willm., 8 Aug. 1609.” This Jane _might have been_ the daughter of some country “William” temporarily in town--_might_ even have been a daughter of the poet. But I think it much more likely that the father’s name was written in error for “John.” The bitmaker of that name had settled in the parish, and had a large family. He had baptized a daughter “Jane” on 16th July 1608, of whom no further notice appears in the register, if this entry does not record her death. (See my “Shakespeare’s Family,” p. 148.)

The Warwickshire Shakespeares seem to have favoured the name of William. Christopher Shakespeare, of Packwood, mentions in his will (proved 15th August 1558) a son William, who may be the subject of other later references.[22] A William priced the goods of “Robert Shakesper, of Wroxall,” on 19th March 1565; and one of the same name did the same duty to the goods of John Pardu, of Snitterfield, 1569. John Shakespeare, of Wroxall, labourer, in his will, 15th December 1574, speaks of his brothers William and Nicholas. A William signed and sealed, as one of the witnesses, a feoffment of lands in Wroxall, 27th June 1592; and a William of Wroxall made his will on 17th November 1609 (see Ryland’s “Records of Wroxall”).

A youth, probably the son of Thomas Shakespeare, shoemaker, of Warwick, was buried at St. Nicholas’s in that town, when the poet was fifteen years old. The clerk thought the manner of his death worth recording: “1579. July Sexto die huius mensis sepultus fuit Gulielmus Shaxper, qui demersus fuit in Rivulo aquæ qui vel vocatur Avona.”[23]

Another William, of Coventry, shoemaker, made his will 18th March 1605-6.

I see no evidence that the William Shakespeare of the Worcester Register, who applied for a marriage licence on 27th November 1582 was a different man from the poet, who, the next day, had a licence granted to marry Anne Hathaway. I have given my reasons elsewhere for believing them to be one and the same, and so has Mr. J. W. Gray in his “Shakespeare’s Marriage.” I have never come upon any other Anne or Agnes recorded as the wife of a William Shakespeare.

There was a William, however, of Hatton or Haseley, who married, 6th January 1589, Barbara Stiffe, and who is entitled “gentleman” when, on 14th March 1596, he baptized _his daughter Susanna_! “Barbara, wife of Mr. William Shakespeare,” was buried in February 1610. One can hardly think this the same person who was associated with John Weale: “John Weale granted to Job Throgmorton the cottage in which William Shakespeare dwelt at Haseley 4th March 1597” (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., App. II, Davenport MSS.).

In the Star Chamber proceedings there is the notice of a fine “inter Willielmum Shackspeare et Georgium Shackspeare, quer., et Thomam Spencer, arm., Christopherum Flecknoe, et Thomam Thompson, deforc., de octo acris pasturæ cum pertinentis in Claverdon alias Claredon, 12 Jac. I.”

Another William was in the habit of selling malt, lending money, and sometimes borrowing it. He might have been some of these others of the name, but he could not have been the poet, as some suppose, because his bills, preserved at Warwick Castle, continue until 1626.

The greatest number of Shakespeare entries in general, and of those concerning William in particular, are found in relation to Rowington. There had been residents of the name for a long time in the parish. The early registers are lost; but from the will of Richard Shakespeare, of Rowington, weaver, we know that he had a son William and a son Richard under twenty-three years of age on 15th June 1561. Another of the same name, called “Richard Shakspere of Rowington, the elder,” mentioned in his will, dated 6th September 1591, his sons John, Roger, Thomas, William; and a third Richard’s will, of 13th November 1613, show that he had four sons--William, Richard, Thomas, and John. The eldest, William, had at the date of the will a son John; the second, Richard, had four--Thomas, William, Richard, John; and after the registers commence, we find on 28th April 1619, William Shakespeare, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized; and on 13th August of the same year, “William, son of Thomas Shakespeare.”

The name of William Shakespeare appears in the list of the trained soldiers of Rowington taken by Sir Fulke Greville at Alcester on 23rd September 1605, probably the son of the second Richard, but erroneously, by some, supposed to have been the poet. Collier says that “we have intelligence regarding no other William Shakespeare at that date.”

The mark of a William Shakespere is found on a roll of the jurors at the Court of the Manor of Rowington in 1614, which is almost certainly that of William, son of the third Richard.

Mr. Ryland’s “Records of Rowington” show us that a lease was granted through feoffees to Richard Shakespeare, of Rowington, weaver, of the “Tyinges,” which may refer either to Richard the second or the third. The Customary rent of Rowington in 1605 mentions “Richard Shakespere, one messuage, half a yearde land (14 acres), 14_s._; John Shakespeare one cottage and one quarter yard land (9 acres), 6_s._ 8_d_,.; Thomas Shakesper, one close, 2_s._; one tofte and 16 acres, 13_s._ 4_d._; one messuage, 10_s._ 4_d._” It is not clear which “Thomas” it was. Richard and John are those referred to in the legal proceedings which give the story of their lives.

This Richard the third was evidently son of Richard the first, and, as he was under twenty-three in 1561, would be about seventy-six when he died in 1614. In consequence of his will and actions a protracted litigation commenced. The case somewhat resembles that of Jacob and Esau. The youngest son, in the absence of his eldest brother, prevailed on his father to disinherit him in his favour, and the dispossessed brother did not bear his loss with equanimity. Some of the facts were known to Malone, “Proleg.,” ii, 15, note 8; and Mr. Cecil Monro had included some of the references in his “Acta Cancellaria,” 1847. Mr. Knight discovered, and Mr. Bruce published, the Star Chamber Bill and answer in “Notes and Queries,” Third Series, xii, p. 81 (3rd August 1867); and a list of the official entries collected by Mr. Monro is given at p. 161 of the same volume.

The Catalogue which, within the last few years, has been drawn up of the Second Series of Chancery Proceedings has given us access to still another paper; and as so many minor illustrative details have turned up, it seems time to make a _résumé_ of the whole mass of material. The story illustrates the domestic and legal life of the times.

Richard Shakespeare was of Turner’s End, or Church End, Rowington, when he made his will on 13th November 1613. He did not trust to its being sufficient of itself to go against the Customary of the manor, and during his lifetime he surrendered his copyhold estate into the hands of the steward by his attorneys, Thomas Ley and George Whome, in order to “settle it upon himself and his wife Elizabeth for their lives, and the longer liver of them, and after their decease, upon his youngest son John and his heirs,” provided that John paid to his brother William £4 a year. This deed of settlement was completed, and the fine paid into Court, in March 1613-14. Richard died within a month, and his wife followed him almost immediately, repenting of her share in the arrangement. William thereupon applied to be put on the homage of the manor, as his father’s eldest son and heir, probably at the time he made his mark; and also contested his mother’s will at Worcester. (See MS. Episc. Reg. Worcester, “per Wilielmus Shakespere, filium naturalem Elizabeth Shakespere nuper de Rowenton.”)[24] But the combination against him had been too powerful. He had no remedy but to eat humble-pie and accept the first instalment of his yearly fee from his brother John at Michaelmas 1614. When John had claimed his inheritance at the Manorial Court, the steward had bidden him be cautious with that proviso, or he would forfeit it, as it devised it to be paid in two portions, at the two half-yearly feasts of Lady Day and Michaelmas, between the hours of ten in the morning and two of the afternoon, in the church porch of Rowington. At Lady Day 1615 difficulties arose. Each said the other did not keep the appointment. William was not paid at the time specified in the settlement, and, assuming that the premises were thereby forfeited, made an entry into his father’s house as his natural heir, and was forcibly resisted. He thereupon instituted a case in Common Law. John went above him, and filed a bill in Chancery against him. Mr. Cecil Monro collected the following entries of this case:

1. Bill in Chancery, filed 1st May 1616, John contra William Shakespeare.

2. 11th May 1616, L. C. Ellesmere’s order to stay proceedings of defendant in Court Baron of Rowington until heard in Chancery. Mr. Richard Moore to consider it (Reg. Lib. B, 1615, fol. 747).

3. 16th May, Master Moore’s report (_ibid._).

4. 8th June, a week given for plaintiff to reply (Reg. Lib. B, 1615, f. 824).

5. 10th June, Master Moore’s supplementary report, on a petition presented by defendant. Possession only established with plaintiff until the hearing of the case (Trinity Term Reports, 1616).

6. 11th November, Master of the Rolls allowed defendant to amend a clerical error in date (Lib. B, 1616, f. 146).

7. 31st January 1616-17, an order _nisi_ for publication (_ibid._, f. 140).

8. 3rd November 1617, William files a bill _against John_, but, in respect of his poverty, is permitted to sue _in forma pauperis_ (Reg. Lib., 1617, f. 132).

9. 18th November, Mr. Moore desired to consider the sufficiency of the answer of the defendants (_ibid._, f. 192).

10. Master Moore’s report in favour of plaintiff, Michaelmas Term, 1617 (Monro’s “Acta Cancellaria,” p. 222).

11. 22nd November 1619, an order for an injunction to restrain the defendant from putting plaintiff out of the possession of the premises at Rowington, and from suing plaintiff at Common Law upon a bond of £500, until defendant had answered plaintiff’s bill (Lib. B, 1619, f. 300).

12. 27th November 1619, an order for attachment against the defendant for not appearing.

Mr. Monro here omits the reply of William, filed on 6th May 1616, which should have come between 1 and 2. No. 4 refers to the reply to this, which should have appeared between 5 and 6; but it seems to have been lost.

Mr. Moore’s report of 16th May is favourable to John, whom he believes _willing_ to pay, and the supposed forfeiture, if any, incurred by his reposing trust in another brother. Plaintiff might be relieved (Monro’s “Acta Cancellaria,” p. 221). But in his supplementary report he explains the “relief” to be only until _decision_. From the later Star Chamber case we know that the appointment of the commission of inquiry in Warwick should come in between 6 and 7 (13th January 1616-17). Mr. Moore’s report in Michaelmas Term 1617 is favourable to William, who should have the premises, if annuity not paid; and he finds the answers of the defendants defective (Monro’s “Acta Cancellaria,” p. 222).

In this counter case of “William contra John,” Mr. Monro omits to mention another paper, lately found by Mr. J. W. Gray and by myself, “The further answer of John Shakespeare, Edmund Fowler, and Thomas Sadler, defendants, to the bill of complaint of William Shakespeare, complainant.” It is not dated in the draft, but written across the top is a note in another hand, “Sworn 27th Jan., 1617 Matthew Carew,” _i.e._, 1617-18 (Chanc. Proc., Ser. II, Bundle 291, S. No. 108).

In spite of Mr. Moore’s favourable report, the case was evidently decided against William, in Easter Term 1618, by Sir Julius Cæsar, on the sworn evidence of Thomas Shakespeare, Fowler, and Sadler. William filed a bill in the Star Chamber as to their perjury, 9th June 1618, which was replied to on 11th June. The result is not preserved.

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.

I had reached this stage when I consulted Dr. Richard Garnett. He reminded me that the little red lions that held the railings on the outer front pavement of the British Museum had been wont to be considered great works of art, but modern critics could not praise them. On their being taken down a few years ago, however, in order to broaden the pavement, one of them was subjected to a severe cleansing process, which proved that it was nothing but the successive coats of paint, liberally applied every three years, which had obscured the art of the original conception. His question therefore was, had Shakespeare’s bust been repainted frequently enough to cause the plump unpoetic appearance it now has. I could not think so, because no amount of painting would alter the position of the arms, the shape of the hands, or throw a mantle over the figure.

I had therefore to have recourse again to engravings, and went through those in the Print-room of the British Museum. There I found a curious engraving in the Slade collection, signed “Grignion sculps,” which support’s Dugdale’s rendering. I then went through every illustrated copy of Shakespeare in the British Museum, a large order for the attendants. Rowe, in his first edition of Shakespeare’s works, 1709, has a very bad representation of the tomb, which conveys the idea of a certain amount of decay in the original. There is absolutely no expression in the face, which is not quite so thin as Dugdale’s, but the figure agrees with the early rendering in all points in which it differs from the modern one. Rowe’s edition of 1714 presents a bad copy of his first edition. In Pope’s edition of 1725, we find a remarkable variation. Vertue did not go to Stratford but to Rowe for his copy. Finding it so very inartistic, he _improved_ the monument, making the little angels light-bearers rather than bearers of spade and hour-glass, and instead of the bust he _gives a composition from the Chandos portrait_, altering the arms and hands, and adding a cloak, pen, paper, and desk. It retains, however, the drooping moustache and slashed sleeves. In Sir Thomas Hanmer’s edition, 1744, Gravelot copies from Vertue the monument and the figure, while he alters the face into what seems to be the original of what is called _The Birthplace Portrait_.

Dr. Thomas in 1730 expanded Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” into two volumes, but used the original block of the tomb unaltered.

Before the middle of the eighteenth century we know that the tomb was “very much decayed.” Mr. John Ward, the grandfather of Mrs. Siddons, was in Stratford in 1746, and gave the whole proceeds of a representation of “Othello” in the Town Hall on 8th September towards the restoration of Shakespeare’s tomb. Orders were given “to beautify” as well as to repair it. We are left altogether in the dark as to the degree of decay and the amount of reconstruction, but that it was considerable seems evident. By 1749 the repairs were completed, and the colours repainted by Mr. John Hall, a limner of Stratford-on-Avon. Probably they worked with the _new_ edition of Shakespeare before them as a guide, depending upon Gravelot and Hanmer of 1744. Alas for the result! We may apply Browning’s words, in another sense than he meant them, to the fate of this honoured memorial:

Wherever a fresco peels and drops,
Wherever an outline weakens and wanes,
Till the latest life in the painting stops,
Stands one whom each fainter pulse-tick pains;
One wishful each scrap should clutch its brick
Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster
--A lion who dies of an ass’s kick
The wronged great soul of an ancient master.

Whoever the sculptor was who so much _improved_ the figure, it is more than likely he restored the face by the aid of some cement. It is curious that none of the other editions of the eighteenth century reproduce the tomb either as Vertue or Gravelot rendered it. None, indeed, reproduce it at all, until we come to the second edition of Bell’s “Shakespeare,” 1788, into which he introduces the “Life” from Rowe’s second edition of 1714, and in the “Life” the representation of the tombstone according to that edition. It was engraved by Reynold Grignion, and “printed for Bell’s ‘Shakespeare,’ 1st Dec. 1786.” This fact, printed on the plate itself, is important, as Grignion died in 1787, and the book came out in 1788. He rather improved on Rowe’s print, as Bell’s other engravers improved upon the Droeshout and the Marshall copies. Bad as it is, it represents the same figure as Dugdale did, falling into decay. This engraving is the same as that in the British Museum, “Grignion sculps,” so the latter may have been a proof copy.

All later renderings are of the modern type. Then commenced a new series of vicissitudes for the _restored_ bust. Not so very long after the repairs it was taken down from its pedestal, so that Mr. Malone might take a cast from it. More than likely that was the time when some accident removed the tip of the restored nose, which has left the “long upper lip” a marvel to many since the days of Sir Walter Scott. William Henry Ireland, in his “Confessions,” 1805, states that he had been down taking drawings from various tombs in Stratford, and “greatly reprehended the folly of having coloured the face and dress of the bust of Shakespeare, which was intended to beautify it, whereas it would have been much more preferable to have left the stone of the proper colour.” He applied for leave to “take a plaster-cast from the bust as Mr. Malone had done,” but the necessary delay in petitioning the Corporation for permission made him give up the idea. In his drawing of the bust, he makes Shakespeare an eighteenth-century gentleman, moustache turned up, a pen in one hand, paper in the other, and the cushion like a desk. An engraving was made by Mr. William Ward, A.R.A., from a painting by Thomas Phillips, R.A., after a cast taken by Bullock from the bust, and published by Lake on 23rd April 1816, the second centenary after the poet’s decease. This has the cloak, the pen, and the paper.

We are, therefore, in the bust likeness confronted by greater difficulties than the mere obscuring of the truth by paint, such as occurred in the case of the British Museum lions. We have to consider the much more serious question, the degree to which the features and surroundings of the original, deliberately or unconsciously, have been tampered with. It would seem that the sculptor who collaborated with Hall in 1746 was the culprit who deprived us of the original outlines of a memorial so dear, either through ignorance, vanity, or culpable carelessness. He had Dugdale to consult had he so pleased, but he contented himself with Hanmer. The decay must have been serious, and the alteration fundamental, to have so obscured the design. Mr. John Hall, who was responsible for the colouring, was believed to have followed the tints of the original. Be that as it may, Mr. Malone, like Mr. Ireland, disapproved of them, and in order to suit his own taste, and the fashion of his age, he persuaded the Corporation to have it painted white in 1793. One contemporary, however, wrote in the album of Stratford-on-Avon Church the lines:

Stranger, to whom this monument is shewn,
Invoke the Poet’s curse upon Malone
Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste displays
And daubs his tomb-stone as he marred his plays.

The bust was repainted in 1861 after the _original_ colouring by the artist who _discovered_ what has been called The Stratford Portrait, still reverently preserved at the birthplace, though it has no claim to authenticity. Its strong resemblance to the bust is of itself suspicious.