Shakespeare's Family Part 1

Shakespeare's Family.

by Mrs. C. C. Stopes.

PREFACE

When I was invited to reprint in book-form the articles which had appeared in the _Genealogical Magazine_ under the t.i.tles of "Shakespeare's Family" and the "Warwickshire Ardens," I carefully corrected them, and expanded them where expansion could be made interesting. Thus to the bald entries of Shakespeare's birth and burial I added a short life. Perhaps never before has anyone attempted to write a life of the poet with so little allusion to his plays and poems. My reason is clear; it is only the genealogical details of certain Warwickshire families of which I now treat, and it is only as an interesting Warwickshire gentleman that the poet is here included.

Much of the chaotic nonsense that has of late years been written to disparage his character and contest his claims to our reverence and respect are based on the a.s.sumption that he was a man of low origin and of mean occupation. I deny any relevance to arguments based on such an a.s.sumption, for genius is restricted to no cla.s.s, and we have a Burns as well as a Chaucer, a Keats as well as a Gower, yet I am glad that the result of my studies tends to prove that it is but an unfounded a.s.sumption. By the Spear-side his family was at least respectable, and by the Spindle-side his pedigree can be traced straight back to Guy of Warwick and the good King Alfred. There is something in fallen fortune that lends a subtler romance to the consciousness of a n.o.ble ancestry, and we may be sure this played no small part in the making of the poet.

All that bear his name gain a certain interest through him, and therefore I have collected every notice I can find of the Shakespeares, though we are all aware none can be his descendants, and that the family of his sister can alone now enter into the poet's pedigree with any degree of certainty.

The time for romancing has gone by, and nothing more can be done concerning the poet's life except through careful study and through patient research. All students must regret that their labours have such comparatively meagre results. Though sharing in this regret, I have been able, besides adding minor details, to find at last a definite link of a.s.sociation between the Park Hall and the Wilmcote Ardens; and I have located a John Shakespeare in St. Clement's Danes, Strand, London, who is probably the poet's cousin. I have also somewhat cleared the ground by checking errors, such as those made by Halliwell-Phillipps, concerning John Shakespeare, of Ingon, and Gilbert Shakespeare, Haberdasher, of London (see page 226). I hope that every contribution to our store of real knowledge may bring forward new suggestions and additional facts.

In regard to his mother's family, I thought it important to clear the earlier connections. But it must not be forgotten that until modern times no Shakespeare but himself was connected with the Ardens. Yet, having commenced with the family, I may be pardoned for adding to their history before the sixteenth century the few notes I have gleaned concerning the later branches.

The order I have preferred has been chronological, limited by the advisability of completing the notices of a family in special localities.

Disputed questions I have placed in chapters apart, as they would bulk too largely in a short biography to be proportionate. Hence the Coat of Arms and the Arden Connections are treated as family matters, apart from John Shakespeare's special biography. I have done what I could to avoid mistakes, and neither time nor trouble has been spared. I owe thanks to many who have helped me in my long-continued and careful researches, to the officials of the British Museum and the Public Record Office, to the Town Council of Stratford-on-Avon and Mr. Savage, Secretary of the Shakespeare Trust, to the Worshipful Company of the Haberdashers, for allowing me to study their records; to the late Earl of Warwick, for admission to his Shakespeare Library, and to many clergymen who have permitted me to search their registers.

CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES.

_PART I_

CHAPTER I

THE NAME OF SHAKESPEARE

The origin of the name of "Shakespeare" is hidden in the mists of antiquity. Writers in _Notes and Queries_ have formed it from Sigisbert, or from Jacques Pierre,[1] or from "Haste-vibrans." Whatever it was at its initiation, it may safely be held to have been an intentionally significant appellation in later years. That it referred to feats of arms may be argued from a.n.a.logy. Italian heraldry[2] ill.u.s.trates a name with an exactly similar meaning and use in the Italian language, that of Crollalanza.

English authors use it as an example of their theories. Verstegan says[3]: "Breakspear, Shakespeare, and the like, have bin surnames imposed upon the first bearers of them for valour and feates of armes;"

and Camden[4] also notes: "Some are named from that they carried, as Palmer ... Long-sword, Broadspear, and in some respects Shakespear."

In "The Polydoron"[5] it is stated that "Names were first questionlesse given for distinction, facultie, consanguinity, desert, quality ... as Armestrong, Shakespeare, of high quality."

That it was so understood by his contemporaries we may learn from Spenser's allusion, evidently intended for him, seeing no other poet of his time had an "heroic name"[6]:

"And there, though last, not least is Aetion; A gentler shepherd[7] may nowhere be found, Whose Muse, full of high thought's invention, Doth like himself heroically sound."

If the parts of the name be significant, I take it that the correct spelling at any period is that of the contemporary spelling of the parts. Therefore, when spear was spelt "spere," the cognomen should be spelt "Shakespere"; when spear was spelt "speare," as it was in the sixteenth century, the name should be spelt "Shakespeare." Other methods of spelling depended upon the taste or education of the writers, during transition periods, when they seemed actually to _prefer_ varieties, as one sometimes finds a proper name spelt in three different ways by the same writer on the same page. "Shakespeare" was the contemporary form of the name that the author himself pa.s.sed in correcting the proofs of the "first heirs of his invention" in 1593 and 1594; and "Shakespeare" was the Court spelling of the period, as may be seen by the first official record of the name. When Mary, Countess of Southampton, made out the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber after the death of her second husband, Sir Thomas Heneage, in 1594, she wrote: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare,[8] and Richard Burbage," etc.

I know that Dr. Furnivall[9] wrote anathemas against those who dared to spell the name thus, while the poet wrote it otherwise. But a man's spelling of his own name counted very little then. He might have held romantically to the quainter spelling of the olden time as many others did, such as "Duddeley," "Crumwell," "Elmer."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Notes and Queries_, 2nd Series, ix. 459, x. 15, 86, 122; 7th Series, iv. 66; 8th Series, vii. 295; 5th Series, ii. 2.

[2] See Works of Goffredo di Crollalanza, Segretario-Archivista dell'

Accademia Araldica Italiana, which were brought to my notice by Dr.

Richard Garnett.

[3] Verstegan's "Rest.i.tution of Decayed Intelligence," ed. 1605, p. 254.

[4] Camden's "Remains," ed. 1605, p. 111.

[5] Undated, but contemporary. _Notes and Queries_, 3rd Series, i. 266.

[6] Spenser's "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," 1595.

[7] It was a fashion of the day to call all poets "shepherds."

[8] "Declared Accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber," Pipe Office, 542 (1594). See my English article, "The Earliest Official Record of Shakespeare's Name."--"Shakespeare Jahrbuch," Berlin, 1896, reprinted in pamphlet form.

[9] "On Shakespere's Signatures," by Dr. F.J. Furnivall, in the _Journal of the Society of Archivists and Autograph Collectors_, No. I., June, 1895.

CHAPTER II

THE LOCALITIES OF EARLY SHAKESPEARES

We find the name occurs in widely scattered localities from very early times. Perhaps a resembling name ought to be noted "in the hamlet of Pruslbury, Gloucestershire,[10] where there were four tenants. This was at one time an escheat of the King, who gave it to his valet, Simon _Shakespeye_, who afterwards gave it to Constantia de Legh, who gave it to William Solar, the defendant." If this represents a 1260 "Shakespere," as there is every reason to believe it does, this is the earliest record of the name yet found. This belief is strengthened by the discovery that a _Simon Sakesper_ was in the service of the Crown in 1278, as herderer of the Forest of Ess.e.x,[11] in the Hundred of Wauthorn, 7 Edward I. Between these two dates Mr. J. W. Rylands[12] has found a Geoffrey Shakespeare on the jury in the Hundred of Brixton, co.

Surrey, in 1268.[13]

The next[14] I have noted occurs in Kent in the thirteenth century, where a John Shakespeare appears in a judicial case, 1278-79, at Freyndon.

The fifth notice is in the north.[15] The Hospital of St. Nicholas, Carlisle, had from its foundation been endowed with a thrave of corn from every ploughland in c.u.mberland. These were withheld by the landowners in the reign of Edward III., for some reason, and an inquiry was inst.i.tuted in 1357. The jury decided that the corn was due. It had been withheld for eight years by various persons, among whom was "Henry Shakespere, of the Parish of Kirkland," east of Penrith. This gives, therefore, really an entry of this Shakespere's existence at that place as early as 1349, and an examination of Court Records may prove an earlier settlement of the family.

There was a transfer of lands in Penrith described as "next the land of Allan Shakespeare," and amongst the witnesses was William Shakespeare,[16] April, 21 Richard II., 1398.

In the "Records of the Borough of Nottingham,"[17] we find a John Shakespere plaintiff against Richard de Cotgrave, spicer, for deceit in sale of dye-wood on November 8, 31 Edward III. (1357); Richard, the servant of Robert le Spondon, plaintiff against John Shakespere for a.s.sault. John proves himself in the right, and receives damages, October 21, 1360.

The first appearance yet found of the name in Warwickshire is in 1359, when Thomas Sheppey and Henry Dilc.o.c.k, Bailiffs of Coventry, account for the property of Thomas Shakespere,[18] felon, who had left his goods and fled.

Halliwell-Phillipps[19] notes as his earliest entry of the name a Thomas Shakespere, of Youghal, 49 Edward III. (1375). A writer in _Notes and Queries_[20] gives a date two years later when "Thomas Shakespere and Richard Portingale" were appointed Comptrollers of the Customs in Youghal, 51 Edward III. (1377). This would imply that he was a highly trustworthy man. Yet, by some turn of fortune's wheel, he may have been the same man as the felon.

In Controlment Rolls, 2 Richard II. (June, 1377, to June, 1379), there is an entry of "Walter Shakespere, formerly in gaol in Colchester Castle."[21] John Shakespeare was imprisoned in Colchester gaol as a perturbator of the King's peace, March 3rd, 4 Richard II., 1381.[22] At Pontefract, Robert Schaksper, Couper, and Emma his wife are mentioned as paying poll-tax, 2 Rich. II.[23]

The Rev. Mr. Norris,[24] working from original doc.u.ments, notes that on November 24 (13 Richard II.), 1389, Adam Shakespere, who is described as son and heir of Adam of Oldediche, held lands within the manor of Baddesley Clinton by military service, and probably had only just then obtained them. Oldediche, or Woldich, now commonly called Old Ditch Lane, lies within the parish of Temple Balsall, not far from the manor of Baddesley.