Shakespeare's Family Part 10

[172] See Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 312.

[173] See next chapter, p. 98.

[174] See Dr. Ingleby's "Century of Praise," and my own "Bacon-Shakespeare Question Answered."

[175] State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles I., 409 (167).

[176] J. Cooke's appeal to all rational men, 1649.

[177] _Ibid._, 478 (16).

CHAPTER IX

SHAKESPEARE'S DESCENDANTS

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, of a respectable family, supposed to be of Shottery. He had three children: Susanna, and Hamnet and Judith, twins. The boy died young, in 1596, _before_ the grant of arms was completed. Anne Hathaway is described as of Stratford in the marriage bond, but so were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, the bondsmen, known to be of Shottery. Indeed, the village lay within the parish of Stratford.

Gwillim mentions arms,[178] "Sable, a bugle, or hunter's horn, garnished and furnished argent. This coat-armour is of very ancient erection in the church of Rewardine, in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and pertained to the family of Hatheway of the same place." Again he says, "Paleways of six, Argent and sable, on a bend Or, three pheons[179] of the second, by the name of Hatheway."[180]

The Hathaways from whom Anne Shakespeare descended have not been proved to be of the Gloucestershire stock, nor is it absolutely certain to which of the three Shottery families she belonged. In the Warwickshire Survey (Philip and Mary) it is stated that John Hathaway held part of a property at Shottery, called Hewlands, by copy of Court Roll dated April 20, 1542. He was possibly the same as the archer of that name, mentioned in the Muster Roll 28 Henry VIII., and was probably father of the Richard befriended by John Shakespeare in 1566. The Stratford registers record the birth of Thomas, son of Richard Hathaway, April 12, 1569; John, February 3, 1574, and William, November 30, 1578. Anne Hathaway, we know, from the words on her tombstone, must have been born before the register commenced (1558). There is not another Agnes, or Anne, recorded that could represent the legatee of Richard Hathaway's will of September, 1581. To his eldest son, Bartholomew, he left the farm,[181]

to be carried on with his mother; to his second and third sons, Thomas and John, he left 6 13s. 4d. each; to his fourth son, William, 10; to his daughters, Agnes (or Anne) and Catherine, 6 13s. 4d., to be paid on the day of their marriage; and to his youngest daughter, Margaret, 6 13s. 4d. when she was seventeen. Witnessed by Sir William Gilbert, clerk and curate of Stratford.

The farm was not a freehold; Bartholomew did not become its owner until 1610, when he purchased it from William Whitmore and John Randall.

Richard Hathaway mentions in his will his "shepherd, Thomas Whittington of Shottery." This man died in 1601, and by his will bequeathed to the poor "Forty shillings that is in the hand of Anne Shaxspere, wife unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxspere, and is debt due to me." It was a common custom of the days before savings-banks, for poor earners to deposit their savings in the charge of rich and trustworthy friends, and this little link seems to a.s.sociate Anne Shakespeare doubly with that particular family of Hathaways.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE.

_To face p. 88._]

Shakespeare does not mention any of his wife's relatives in his will, but that does not necessarily imply coldness of feeling. Dr. John Hall, his son-in-law, was made overseer of Bartholomew Hathaway's will in 1621, and in 1625 he was one of the trustees at the marriage of Isabel, his granddaughter, the daughter of Richard Hathaway of Bridge Street. A Richard is mentioned in the registers as being baptized in 1559 (but it is not clear that he was the son of this Richard or of Bartholomew), who became a baker in Bridge Street, an important member of the Town Council, and Constable in 1605. He was elected High Bailiff of Stratford in 1526, and was styled "gent." Many of the name are buried in Trinity Church, Stratford.

In the rather remarkable testament of Thomas Nash,[182] first husband of Shakespeare's only granddaughter, Elizabeth, he left 50 to Elizabeth Hathaway, 50 to Thomas Hathaway, and 10 to Judith Hathaway. His wife also remembered them, as will be afterwards shown. William Hathaway, of Weston-upon-Avon, in the county of Gloucester, yeoman, and Thomas Hathaway, of Stratford-upon-Avon, joiner, were parties to the New Place settlement of 1647.

All this shows that the Shakespeares were not ashamed of their mother's relatives. We do not know anything about Anne Shakespeare after her husband's death until we reach the record of her own, "August 8th, 1623, Mrs. Shakespeare."[183]

Tradition says that she earnestly desired to be buried in her husband's grave. The survivors were not able to secure this, but they buried her as near him as they could. Her daughter Susanna's grief is recorded in touching lines, probably Latinized by Dr. Hall, placed on her tombstone:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Thou, my mother, gave me life, thy breast and milk; alas!

for such great bounty to me I shall give thee a tomb. How much rather I would entreat the good angel to move the stone, so that thy figure might come forth, as did the body of Christ; but my prayers avail nothing. Come quickly, O Christ; so that my mother, closed in the tomb, may rise again and seek the stars."[184]

Of Anne Shakespeare's children we have already spoken. Susannah was born May 26, 1583, Hamnet and Judith, February 2, 1584-85. Hamnet--surely the model of Shakespeare's sweet boys--had died on August 11, 1596. So the name Shakespeare had glorified was doomed to die with himself, and was not to be borne by lesser men. His property the poet could and did devise.

Much discussion has taken place concerning the poet's views of his younger daughter and her marriage. I do not think these views at all supported by his will. Three hundred pounds was a very large portion indeed at the time. It was demised to her doubtless before her marriage, but it was not altered in relation to her after her marriage. It would be hard indeed to believe that such a ceremony, even without a license, could be performed in the gossipy town of Stratford without the news of it somehow reaching the father's ears, if there had been any attempt really to deceive. There is no reason to imagine Shakespeare disapproved of the alliance. The young man came of an old Stratford family. It is possible, however, that the poet foresaw a certain degree of instability of character in the youth, and therefore wished to make his will act as a marriage settlement that would secure his daughter from starvation.

The second half of his bequest might only be touched by her husband, if he had settled on her land of equal value. This Thomas Quiney does not seem to have done.

Richard Quiney had died 1601-2, and his widow Elizabeth kept a tavern, in which she was probably at one time a.s.sisted by her younger son Thomas. In December, 1611, she conveyed a house to William Mountford for 131, and Judith Shakespeare was a subscribing witness. But neither she nor her future mother-in-law signed their names, nor even the customary cross, but a strangely-penned device of their own. Thomas Quiney lived in a small house in the High Street until after his marriage. It was probably his wife's money that enabled him to lease the larger house on the other side, called "The Cage," and to start therein business as a vintner.

At first he was successful. He was made a burgess in 1617, and was Chamberlain from 1621 to 1623. His accounts for the latter year are headed by a French proverb, as to the happiness of those who become wise through the experience of others, that might have had an opposite meaning to his contemporaries. It shows us that he could not only read and write English, but at least a little French. By 1630 he was involved in lawsuits, left the town council, and tried to dispose of the lease of his house. In 1633 Dr. Hall and Thomas Nash acted as trustees for his estate. His fortunes seemed to have become worse and worse. In 1652 he went to the Metropolis, where his elder brother Richard was a thriving grocer in Bucklersbury, in company with Roger Sadler. Richard, in August, 1655,[185] made a will, in which he left, besides handsome provision for his children--Richard, Adrian, Thomas, William and Sarah--his brother Thomas 12 a year for life, and 5 for the expenses of his funeral, out of his messuages at Shottery. The Quiney coat of arms is entered among those of the London burgesses at Guildhall,[186]

"Mr. Quiney of ye Red Lyon in Bucklersbury."

The family of Thomas Quiney and his wife Judith was not a large one. In the year that the poet died they christened their eldest son, "Shaksper, filius Thomas Quyny gent.," November 23, 1616. But the child died in a few months. On May 8, 1617, was buried "Shakespere, filius Thomas Quyny, gent."

On February 9, 1617-18, "Richard filius Thomas Quinee" was baptized, and on January 23, 1619-20, "Thomas, filius Thomas Queeny." These lads may have followed to the grave their grandmother, Mrs. Shakespeare, and their uncle, Dr. Hall; and they may have been present at the marriage of their cousin, Mrs. Elizabeth Hall, to Mr. Thomas Nash. But they died within a month of each other, probably of some infectious fever, the younger first--"Thomas filius Thomae Quiney, Jan. 28th, 1638-9"; "Richardus filius Tho. Quiney, Feb. 26th, 1638-9." There were no other children, and no prospect of more, and these early deaths affected the devolution of the poet's property, as may hereafter be seen.

Unfortunately, we know nothing concerning Dr. John Hall before his marriage to the poet's elder daughter Susanna on June 5, 1607, he being then thirty-two and she twenty-five. He cannot have been the son of Dr.

John Hall, of Maidstone, Kent, whose translation of Lanfranc's "Chirurgerie," with portrait of the translator, appeared in 1565. He would have been an eminently suitable father, distinguished alike in his art and his character, author of "The Court of Virtue," and many metrical Bible translations; but he died in 1566, and the Stratford Dr.

John Hall was born in 1575. Halliwell-Phillipps[187] suggests that he may have been connected with the Halls of Acton, Middles.e.x, because he left his only daughter his "house and meadow at Acton." A John Hall was married in that parish, it is true, on September 19, 1574,[188] to Margaret Archer. But he had a daughter Elizabeth christened on June 5, 1575, about the very date at which the Stratford "John" must have been born. Any connection, therefore, must have been further off than filial, and the name is too common to be easily followed.

There were Halls in Worcester,[189] in Rowington, and in Coventry, and it may be remembered that a John Hall supplanted Richard Shakespeare as Bailiff of the Priory of Wroxall during the last year of its existence.

There was a Richard Hall of Stratford in the list of the gentry 12 Henry VI., 1433. There was also a Richard Hall, gentleman,[190] of Idlicote, in the sixteenth century, who seems to have moved about a good deal, as there is a record of "Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Hall, Generosus, bapt. February 14th, 1560," at Idlicote, and of "Maria filia Richardi Hall, Generosus, March 17th, 1561," in Stratford. I have not traced any of the name of John christened in Idlicote or elsewhere at the date.

The Idlicote Halls were suspected recusants, as may be proved by the search made in their house when Edward Arden was dragged away from Park Hall in 1583.[191] There was a "Mr. Hall" Alderman of Stratford 1558, and in 1575 Edmund Hall and Emma his wife sold two messuages to John Shakespeare. Were they contemplating going abroad at the time? They are not further referred to in Stratford records. In a ma.n.u.script of the British Museum a table is sketched of the Halls of Henwick in Hallow.

John Hall of Henwick had a son Thomas, who married, first, Anne, daughter of William Staple, and, second, a daughter of Hardwick. He had at least two sons, John, who married Margaret, daughter of William Grovelight, of London, and Edmund, who married Emma, daughter of ----(?). John had Edward, Anne, Elizabeth, and Emma, and the descendants of Edmund are not entered.[192] Catholicism might have been a reason for realizing their property and going abroad.

Now, John Hall expressly calls himself a Master of Arts, though his name is not recorded in the Books of the English Universities. He would not have done so had he not taken his degree. It possibly might have been in Paris, and he might have followed it up with foreign study. This would quite accord with his appearance in Stratford after the death of Elizabeth. A Warwickshire gentle origin[193] may somewhat account for the degree of intimacy he seems to have had with the county families, both Puritan and Catholic. His fame as a physician rapidly spread. He resided in a house in Old Town, on the way from the church to the chapel. His only daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized at Stratford on February 21, 1607-8,[194] during her grandfather's (William Shakespeare's) life. His name occurs in the town records in 1611,[195]

among the supporters to a Highway Bill, and he leased from the Corporation a small stretch of wooded land on the outskirts of the town in 1612. He must have remained on friendly terms with his father-in-law, as he and his wife Susanna were left residuary legatees and executors of Shakespeare's will, which he proved in June of that year, in the Archbishop of Canterbury's Registry at London.

He shortly afterwards moved to New Place, beside his mother-in-law, where the vestry notes of February 3, 1617-1618, record him as resident.

He was elected a Burgess of Stratford in 1617, and again in 1623, but was excused from taking office on account of his professional engagements. On April 22, 1626, Mr. Thomas Nash married his daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Hall. Hall gave the church a costly new pulpit, and in 1628 was appointed a borough churchwarden, in 1629 a sidesman, and in 1632 was compelled to become a burgess, and was soon after fined for non-attendance at the council meetings.

In 1633 he was made the Vicar's churchwarden, and in that year the Vicar, Thomas Wilson, induced him to join in a Chancery action against the town. He was already in trouble with his fellow councillors, who in October of that year expelled him for his "breach of orders, sundry other misdemeanours, and for his continual disturbance at our Halles."

Evidently Dr. John had opinions of his own, and had the courage to express them. He was a deeply religious man, and, though he has been supposed to have shown Puritan tendencies in later life, it was a Puritanism that did not eschew Catholicism. His was a religion of constant reference to the Unseen. He was always a helper of those in trouble for conscience' sake; and probably this was the reason he supported the unpopular Vicar.

Shortly after, in 1635, there was a pet.i.tion sent up from the Corporation of Stratford for their wives to have the pew in Stratford Church occupied by Dr. Hall, his wife, and his son-in-law and his wife.

Each family had a pew at each side of the church, while there was not room for the burgesses' wives to sit or kneel in. It was true that the said Mr. Hall had been a great benefactor to the church, and the Bishop of the diocese had appointed him his pew; but his family were asked to choose which of their large pews they preferred to keep, along with Mrs.

Woodward and Mrs. Lane, so that they might allow the aldermen's wives to have the other.

John Hall died on November 25, 1635, and was buried next day in the chancel of the parish church, though he had already disposed of the lease of the t.i.thes purchased by his father-in-law.

The burial register of the next day describes him as "Medicus Peritissimus." By a nuncupative will, he left a house in London to his wife, a house in Acton and a meadow to his daughter Elizabeth, and his study of books to his son-in-law Thomas Nash. The ma.n.u.scripts he would have given to Mr. Boles had he been present, but Nash was to keep them and use them as he pleased. It is probable that Mr. Boles was Richard Boles, Rector of Whitnash, not far from Stratford--an eccentric person, a writer of epitaphs, who had set up his own in his church while he yet lived.[196]

On the monumental slab of Dr. Hall is a shield of arms: "Sable, three talbots' heads erased or" for Hall, impaling Shakespeare or on a bend "sable, a spear of the first, the point steeled." "Here lyeth ye Body of John Hall, gent: Hee marr: Susanna ye daughter and coheire of Will: Shakespeare, gent., Hee deceased Nov^r 25, Anno 1635, aged 60.

"Hallius sic situs est, medica celeberrimus arte Expectans regni Gaudia laeta Dei; Dignus erat meritis qui nestora vinceret annis, In terris omnes, sed capit aequa dies; Ne tumulo quid desit adest fidessima conjux Est vitae comitem nunc quoq. mortis habet."[197]

It has been thought that this proves the epitaph was not written until after Mrs. Hall's death. She may have wished the words set up, to determine her resting-place; or Mr. Boles may have helped Thomas Nash with the Latin.

After his death his son-in-law, Thomas Nash, came to reside at New Place, and took the position of head of the family. Indeed, in one of his letters he speaks of "Mrs. Hall, my mother-in-law, who lives with me." But the house and everything in it, saving the study of books, belonged to Mrs. Hall, of course.

We know nothing of the nature or the fate of the bulk of these ma.n.u.scripts, though many have longed to trace them. Possibly among them, though it is not likely (being in bound volumes) were two notebooks of Dr. John Hall's observations, from which James Cooke, a physician introduced later to Mrs. Hall, translated the materials for a little book ent.i.tled, "Select Observations on English Bodies; or, Cures both Empericall and Historicall Performed on very Eminent Persons in Desperate Diseases, first written in Latine by Mr. John Hall, Physician living at Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire where he was very famous, as also in the counties adjacent, as appears by these observations, drawn out of severall hundreds of his as choycest, now put into English for common benefit by James Cooke, pract.i.tioner in Physick and Surgery, 1657." Cooke, in the introduction, relates the strange manner in which he became possessed of them, Mrs. Hall not knowing they were in her husband's handwriting, and, believing they were part of a poor scholar's mortgage, transferred them to him with other books. Cooke used the books as guides in his own practice, and then expanded the contractions, translated and published them, "being acquainted with his apothecary."

It is no slight compliment to a physician to have his cures published twenty-two years after his death, and to have them run through more than one edition. Cooke mentions: "Mr. John Hall had the happiness to lead the way to that practice almost generally used now by the most knowing of mixing s...o...b..tics to most remedies." It is to Cooke we owe information concerning Hall's education abroad; concerning the physician, his relative, on terms of intimacy with Mrs. Hall, who introduced him to New Place; and concerning the "other book" of Dr. John Hall, also prepared for the press. We wonder what it contained.