The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story Part 39

Shakespeare was a common name in Warwickshire; other Shakespeares besides the poet's family were known there in the sixteenth century, and at least one other William Shakespeare in the neighbourhood of Stratford. The poet's father, John Shakespeare, was of farmer stock, and seems to have had an adventurous spirit: he left Snitterfield, his birthplace, as a young man, for the neighbouring town of Stratford, where he set up in business for himself. Aubrey says he was a butcher; he certainly dealt in meat, skins, and leather, as well as in corn, wool, and malt--an adaptable, quick man, who turned his hand to anything--a Jack-of-all-trades. He appears to have been successful at first, for in 1556, five years after coming to Stratford, he purchased two freehold tenements, one with a garden in Henley Street, and the other in Greenhill Street, with an orchard. In 1557 he was elected burgess, or town councillor, and shortly afterwards did the best stroke of business in his life by marrying Mary Arden, whose father had been a substantial farmer. Mary inherited the fee simple of Asbies, a house with some fifty acres of land at Wilmcote, and an interest in property at Snitterfield; the whole perhaps worth some 80 or 90, or, say, 600 of our money. His marriage turned John Shakespeare into a well-to-do citizen; he filled various offices in the borough, and in 1568 became a bailiff, the highest position in the corporation. During his year of office, we are told, he entertained two companies of actors at Stratford.

Mary Arden seems to have been her father's favourite child, and though she could not sign her own name, must have possessed rare qualities; for the poet, as we learn from "Coriola.n.u.s," held her in extraordinary esteem and affection, and mourned her after her death as "the n.o.blest mother in the world."

William Shakespeare, the first son and third child of this couple, was born on the 22nd or 23rd April, 1564, no one knows which day; the Stratford parish registers prove that he was baptized on 26th April. And if the date of his birth is not known, neither is the place of it; his father owned two houses in Henley Street, and it is uncertain which he was born in.

John Shakespeare had, fortunately, nothing to pay for the education of his sons. They had free tuition at the Grammar School at Stratford. The poet went to school when he was seven or eight years of age, and received an ordinary education together with some grounding in Latin. He probably spent most of his time at first making stories out of the frescoes on the walls. There can be no doubt that he learned easily all he was taught, and still less doubt that he was not taught much. He mastered Lyly's "Latin Grammar," and was taken through some conversation books like the "Sententiae Pueriles," and not much further, for he puts Latin phrases in the mouth of the schoolmasters, Holofernes in "Love's Labour's Lost," and Hugh Evans in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and all these phrases are taken word for word either from Lyly's Grammar or from the "Sententiae Pueriles." In "t.i.tus Andronicus," too, one of Tamora's sons, on reading a Latin couplet, says it is a verse of Horace, but he "read it in the grammar," which was probably the author's case. Ben Jonson's sneer was well-founded, Shakespeare had "little Latine and lesse Greeke." His French, as shown in his "Henry V.," was anything but good, and his Italian was probably still slighter.

It was lucky for Shakespeare that his father's increasing poverty withdrew him from school early, and forced him into contact with life.

Aubrey says that "when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade [of butcher]; but when he kill'd a calfe he would doe it in high style and make a speech." I daresay young Will flourished about with a knife and made romantic speeches; but I am pretty sure he never killed a calf.

Killing a calf is not the easiest part of a butcher's business; nor a task which Shakespeare at any time would have selected. The tradition is simply sufficient to prove that the town folk had already noticed the eager, quick, spouting lad.

Of Shakespeare's life after he left school, say from thirteen to eighteen, we know almost nothing. He probably did odd jobs for his father from time to time; but his father's business seems to have run rapidly from bad to worse; for in 1586 a creditor informed the local Court that John Shakespeare had no goods on which distraint could be levied, and on 6th September of the same year he was deprived of his alderman's gown. During this period of steadily increasing poverty in the house it was only to be expected that young Will Shakespeare would run wild.

The tradition as given by Rowe says that he fell "into low company, and amongst them some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing engaged him with them more than once in robbing the park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he then thought somewhat too severely, and in order to revenge that ill-usage he made a ballad upon him."

Another story has it that Sir Thomas Lucy got a lawyer from Warwick to prosecute the boys, and that Shakespeare stuck his satirical ballad to the park gates at Charlecot. The ballad is said to have been lost, but certain verses were preserved which fit the circ.u.mstances and suit Shakespeare's character so perfectly that I for one am content to accept them. I give the first and the last verses as most characteristic:

SONG

"A parliament member, a Justice of peace, At home a poor scarecrow, in London an a.s.se, If Lowsie is lucy, as some volke miscalle it Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befalle it.

He thinks himself greate Yet an a.s.se in his state, We allowe by his ears but with a.s.ses to mate.

If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it Sing lowsie Lucy whatever befalle it.

- - - - - - - - - - "If a juvenile frolick he cannot forgive, We'll sing lowsie Lucy as long as we live, And Lucy, the lowsie, a libel may calle it Sing lowsie Lucy whatever befalle it.

He thinks himself greate Yet an a.s.se in his state, We allowe by his ears but with a.s.ses to mate.

If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it Sing lowsie Lucy, Whatever befalle it."

The last verse, so out of keeping in its curious impartiality with the scurrilous refrain, appears to me to carry its own signature. There can be no doubt that the verses give us young Shakespeare's feelings in the matter. It was probably reading ballads and tales of "Merrie Sherwood"

that first inclined him to deer-stealing; and we have already seen from his "Richard II." and "Henry IV." and "Henry V." that he had been led astray by low companions.

In his idle, high-spirited youth, Shakespeare did worse than break bounds and kill deer; he was at a loose end and up to all sorts of mischief. At eighteen he had already courted and won Anne Hathaway, a farmer's daughter of the neighbouring village of Shottery. Anne was nearly eight years older than he was. Her father had died a short time before and left Anne, his eldest daughter, 6 13_s_. 4_d_., or, say, 50 of our money. The house at Shottery, now shown as Anne Hathaway's cottage, once formed part of Richard Hathaway's farmhouse, and there, and in the neighbouring lanes, the lovers did their courting.

The wooing on Shakespeare's side was nothing but pastime, though it led to marriage.

His marriage is perhaps the first serious mistake that Shakespeare made, and it certainly influenced his whole life. It is needful, therefore, to understand it as accurately as may be, however we may judge it. A man's life, like a great river, may be limpid-pure in the beginning, and when near its source; as it grows and gains strength it is inevitably sullied and stained with earth's soilure.

The ordinary apologists would have us believe that the marriage was happy; they know that Shakespeare was not married in Stratford, and, though a minor, his parents' consent to the marriage was not obtained; but they persist in talking about his love for his wife, and his wife's devoted affection for him. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, the bell-wether of the flock, has gone so far as to tell us how on the morning of the day he died "his wife, who had smoothed the pillow beneath his head for the last time, felt that her right hand was taken from her." Let us see if there is any foundation for this sentimental balderdash. Here are some of the facts.

In the Bishop of Worcester's register a licence was issued on 27th November, 1582, authorizing the marriage of William Shakespeare with Anne Whately, of Temple Grafton. On the very next day in the register of the same Bishop there is a deed, wherein Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, farmers of Shottery, bound themselves in the Bishop's court under a surety of 40 to free the Bishop of all liability should a lawful impediment--"by reason of any pre-contract or consanguinity"--be subsequently disclosed to imperil the validity of the marriage, then in contemplation, of William Shakespeare with Anne Hathaway.

Dryasdust, of course, argues that there is no connection whatever between these two events. He is able to persuade himself easily that the William Shakespeare who got a licence to marry Anne Whately, of Temple Grafton, on 27th November, 1582, is not the same William Shakespeare who is being forced to marry Anne Hathaway on the next day by two friends of Anne Hathaway's father. Yet such a coincidence as two William Shakespeares seeking to be married by special licence in the same court at the same moment of time is too extraordinary to be admitted. Besides, why should Sandells and Richardson bind themselves as sureties in 40 to free the Bishop of liability by reason of any pre-contract if there were no pre-contract? The two William Shakespeares are clearly one and the same person. Sandells was a supervisor of the will of Richard Hathaway, and was described in the will as "my trustie friende and neighbour." He showed himself a trusty friend of the usual sort to his friend's daughter, and when he heard that loose Will Shakespeare was attempting to marry Anne Whately, he forthwith went to the same Bishop's court which had granted the licence, pledged himself and his neighbour, Richardson, as sureties that there was no pre-contract, and so induced the Bishop, who no doubt then learned the unholy circ.u.mstances for the first time, to grant a licence in order that the marriage with Anne Hathaway could be celebrated, "with once asking of the bannes" and without the consent of the father of the bridegroom, which was usually required when the bridegroom was a minor.

Clearly Fulk Sandells was a masterful man; young Will Shakespeare was forced to give up Anne Whately, poor la.s.s, and marry Anne Hathaway, much against his will. Like many another man, Shakespeare married at leisure, and repented in hot haste. Six months later a daughter was born to him, and was baptized in the name of Susanna at Stratford Parish Church on the 26th of May, 1583. There was, therefore, an importunate reason for the wedding, as Sandells, no doubt, made the Bishop understand.

The whole story, it seems to me, is in perfect consonance with Shakespeare's impulsive, sensual nature; is, indeed, an excellent ill.u.s.tration of it. Hot, impatient, idle Will got Anne Hathaway into trouble, was forced to marry her, and at once came to regret. Let us see how far these inferences from plain facts are borne out from his works.

The most important pa.s.sages seem to have escaped critical scholarship. I have already said that the earliest works of Shakespeare, and the latest, are the most fruitful in details about his private life. In the earliest works he was compelled to use his own experience, having no observation of life to help him, and at the end of his life, having said almost everything he had to say, he again went back to his early experience for little vital facts to lend a colour to the fainter pictures of age. In "The Winter's Tale," a shepherd finds the child Perdita, who has been exposed; one would expect him to stumble on the child by chance and express surprise; but this shepherd of Shakespeare begins to talk in this way:

"I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.

Hark you now! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?"

Now this pa.s.sage has nothing to do with the play, nor with the shepherd's occupation; nor is it at all characteristic of a shepherd boy. Between ten and three-and-twenty a poor shepherd boy is likely to be kept hard at work; he is not idle and at a loose end like young Shakespeare, free to rob the ancientry, steal, fight, and get wenches with child. That, in my opinion, is Shakespeare's own confession.

Of course, every one has noticed how Shakespeare again and again in his plays declares that a woman should take in marriage an "elder than herself," and that intimacy before marriage is productive of nothing but "barren hate and discord." In "Twelfth Night" he says:

"Let still the woman take An elder than herself: so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart."

In "The Tempest" he writes again:

"If thou dost break her virgin knot before All sanctimonious ceremonies may With full and holy rite be minister'd, No sweet aspersions shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow; but barren hate, Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew The union of your bed with weeds so loathly That you shall hate it both."

These admonitions are so far-fetched and so emphatic that they plainly discover personal feeling. We have, besides, those quaint, angry pa.s.sages in the "Comedy of Errors," to which we have already drawn attention, which show that the poet detested his wife.

The known facts, too, all corroborate this inference: let us consider them a little. The first child was born within six months of the marriage; twins followed in 1585; a little later Shakespeare left Stratford not to return to it for eight or nine years, and when he did return there was probably no further intimacy with his wife; at any rate, there were no more children. Yet Shakespeare, one fancies, was fond of children. When his son Hamnet died his grief showed itself in his work--in "King John" and in "The Winter's Tale." He was full of loving kindness to his daughters, too, in later life; it was his wife alone for whom he had no affection, no forgiveness.

There are other facts which establish this conclusion. While Shakespeare was in London he allowed his wife to suffer the extremes of poverty.

Sometime between 1585 and 1595 she appears to have borrowed forty shillings from Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her father's shepherd. The money was still unpaid when Whittington died, in 1601, and he directed his executor to recover the sum from the poet, and distribute it among the poor of Stratford. Now Shakespeare was rich when he returned to Stratford in 1595, and always generous. He paid off his father's heavy debts; how came it that he did not pay this trifling debt of his wife? The mere fact proves beyond doubt that Shakespeare disliked her and would have nothing to do with her.

Even towards the end of his life, when he was suffering from increasing weakness, which would have made most men sympathetic, even if it did not induce them completely to relent, Shakespeare shows the same aversion to his poor wife. In 1613, when on a short visit to London, he bought a house in Blackfriars for 140; in the purchase he barred his wife's dower, which proceeding seems even to Dryasdust "pretty conclusive proof that he had the intention of excluding her from the enjoyment of his possessions after his death."

In the first draft of his will Shakespeare did not mention his wife. The apologists explain this by saying that, of course, he had already given her all that she ought to have. But if he loved her he would have mentioned her with affection, if only to console her in her widowhood.

Before the will was signed he inserted a bequest to her of his "second-best bed," and the apologists have been at pains to explain that the best bed was kept for guests, and that Shakespeare willed to his wife the bed they both occupied. How inarticulate poor William Shakespeare must have become! Could the master of language find no better word than the contemptuous one? Had he said "our bed" it would have been enough; "the second-best bed" admits of but one interpretation. His daughters, who had lived with their mother, and who had not been afflicted by her jealousy and scolding tongue, begged the dying man to put in some mention of her, and he wrote in that "second-best bed"--bitter to the last. If his own plain words and these inferences, drawn from indisputable facts, are not sufficient, then let us take one fact more, and consider its significance; one fact, so to speak, from the grave.

When Shakespeare died he left some lines to be placed over his tomb.

Here they are:

"Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare To Digg the dust enclosed heare.

Blessed be ye man yt spares thes stones And Curst be ye yt moves my bones."

Now, why did Shakespeare make this peculiar request? No one seems to have seen any meaning in it. It looks to me as if Shakespeare wrote the verses in order to prevent his wife being buried with him. He wanted to be free of her in death as in life. At any rate, the fact is that she was not buried with him, but apart from him; he had seen to that. His grave was never opened, though his wife expressed a desire to be buried with him. The man who needs further proofs would not be persuaded though one came from the dead to convince him.

The marriage was an unfortunate one for many reasons, as an enforced marriage is apt to be, even when it is not the marriage of a boy in his teens to a woman some eight years his senior. Shakespeare takes trouble to tell us in "The Comedy of Errors" that his wife was spitefully jealous, and a bitter scold. She must have injured him, poisoned his life with her jealous nagging, or Shakespeare would have forgiven her.

There is some excuse for him, if excuse be needed. At the time the marriage must have seemed the wildest folly to him, seething as he was with inordinate conceit. He was wise beyond his years, and yet he had been forced to give hostages to fortune before he had any means of livelihood, before he had even found a place in life. What a position for a poet--penniless, saddled with a jealous wife and three children before he was twenty-one. And this poet was proud, and vain, and in love with all distinctions.

But why did Shakespeare nurse such persistent enmity all through his life to jealous, scolding Anne Hathaway? Shakespeare had wronged her; the keener his moral sense, the more certain he was to blame his partner in the fault, for in no other way could he excuse himself.

It was overpowering sensuality and rashness which had led Shakespeare into the noose, and now there was nothing for it but to cut the rope. He had either to be true to his higher nature or to the conventional view of his duty; he was true to himself and fled to London, and the world is the richer for his decision. The only excuse he ever made is to be found in the sonnet-line:

"Love is too young to know what conscience is."

For my part I do not see that any excuse is needed: if Shakespeare had married Anne Whately he might never have gone to London or written a play. Shakespeare's hatred of his wife and his regret for having married her were alike foolish. Our brains are seldom the wisest part of us. It was well that he made love to Anne Hathaway; well, too, that he was forced to marry her; well, finally, that he should desert her. I am sorry he treated her badly and left her unsupplied with money; that was needlessly cruel; but it is just the kindliest men who have these extraordinary lapses; Shakespeare's loathing for his wife was measureless, was a part of his own self-esteem, and his self-esteem was founded on sn.o.bbish non-essentials for many years, if not, indeed, throughout his life.

There is a tradition preserved by Rowe that before going to London young Shakespeare taught school in the country; it may be; but he did not teach for long, we can be sure, and what he had to teach there were few scholars in the English country then or now capable of learning. Another tradition a.s.serts that he obtained employment as a lawyer's clerk, probably because of the frequent use of legal phrases in his plays. But these apologists all forget that they are speaking of men like themselves, and of times like ours. Politics is the main theme of talk in our day; but in the time of Elizabeth it was rather dangerous to show one's wisdom by criticizing the government: law was then the chief staple of conversation: every educated man was therefore familiar with law and its phraseology, as men are familiar in our day with the jargon of politics.

When did Shakespeare fly to London? Some say when he was twenty-one, as soon as his wife presented him with twins, in 1585. Others say as soon as Sir Thomas Lucy's persecution became intolerable. Both causes no doubt worked together, and yet another cause, given in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," was the real _causa causans_. Shakespeare was naturally ambitious; eager to measure himself with the best and try his powers. London was the arena where all great prizes were to be won: Shakespeare strained towards the Court like a greyhound in leash. But when did he go? Again in doubt I take the shepherd's words in "The Winter's Tale" as a guide. Most men would have said from fourteen to twenty was the dangerous age for a youth; but Shakespeare had perhaps a personal reason for the peculiar "ten to twenty-three." He was, no doubt, astoundingly precocious, and probably even at ten he had learned everything of value that the grammar school had to teach, and his thoughts had begun to play truant. Twenty-three, too, is a significant date in his life; in 1587, when he was twenty-three, two companies of actors, under the nominal patronage of the Queen and Lord Leicester, returned to London from a provincial tour, during which they visited Stratford. In Lord Leicester's company were Burbage and Heminge, with whom we know that Shakespeare was closely connected in later life. It seems to me probable that he returned with this company to London, and arrived in London, as he tells us in "The Comedy of Errors," "stiff and weary with long travel," and at once went out to view the town and "peruse the traders."

There is a tradition that when he came to London in 1587 he held horses outside the doors of the theatre. This story was first put about by the compiler of "The Lives of the Poets," in 1753. According to the author the story was related by D'Avenant to Betterton; but Rowe, to whom Betterton must have told it, does not transmit it. Rowe was perhaps right to forget it or leave it out; though the story is not in itself incredible. Such work must have been infinitely distasteful to Shakespeare, but necessity is a hard master, and Greene, who talks of him later as "Shake-scene," also speaks in the same connection of these "grooms." The curious amplified version of the story that Shakespeare organized a service of boys to hold the horses is hardly to be believed.

The great Doctor was anything but a poet, or a good judge of the poetic temperament.

The Shakespeares of this world are not apt to take up menial employs, and this one had already shown that he preferred idle musings and parasitic dependence to uncongenial labour. Whoever reads the second scene of the second act of "The Comedy of Errors," will see that Shakespeare, even at the beginning, had an uncommonly good opinion of himself. He plays gentleman from the first, and despises trade; he snubs his servant and will not brook familiarity from him. In "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," he tells us that he left the country and came to London seeking "honour," intending, no doubt, to make a name for himself by his writings. He had probably "Venus and Adonis" in his pocket when he first reached London. This would inspire a poet with the self-confidence which a well-filled purse lends to an ordinary man.