Shakespeare's family
situation, that Richard Hathaway of Shottery (for whom John Shakespeare
had stood surety in 1566) had made his will on September 1, 1581, and
died between that time and July 9, 1582, when it was proved, leaving his
daughter Agnes, or Anne, the small but very common marriage portion of
L6 13s. 4d. A break had come into her home life; doubtless she went off
to visit some friends, and the young lover felt he could not live
without his betrothed, and determined to clinch the matter.
Much unnecessarily unfavourable comment has been made on the peculiar
circumstances of the marriage. People forget the complexity of religious
and social customs of the time, the binding force of betrothals, the
oppression of Catholics. In Robert Arden's settlement of July 17, 1550,
he speaks of his daughter Agnes as the _wife_ of Thomas Stringer, though
she did not marry him until October 15, 1550.[136] The perplexity is
increased by the entry of the marriage license of a William Shakespeare
and Anne Whately of Templegrafton, the day previous to that of William
Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway of Stratford, November 28, 1582.[137] It
all seems possible to explain. Travelling was inconvenient on November
roads; Will set out for the license alone, as bridegrooms were often
wont to do, when they could afford the expense of a special license. He
might give his own name, and that of his intended wife, at a temporary
address. The clerk made an error in the spelling, which might have been
corrected; but meanwhile discovered that Shakespeare was under age, was
acting without his parents--that the bride was not in her own home, and
that no marriage settlement was in the air. No risk might be run by an
official in such a case; the license was stayed; sureties must be found
for a penalty in case of error. So poor Will would have to find, in
post-haste, the nearest friends he could find to trust him and his
story. And who so likely to ask as Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,
friends of the Hathaways--the one supervisor, and the other witness to
the will of Anne's father Richard? They might have been at Worcester
market with him.
They were both "good men" in the financial sense, and their bond for L40
was accepted at the Bishop of Worcester's Registry in support of the
assertion that there was no impediment against this marriage by ground
of consanguinity or pre-contract. If this were all right, and if the
bride's friends were willing, by which must have been intended her
mother and brothers, then the marriage might be solemnized. It was
clearly a question in which the woman's friends were the proper parties
to summon. The bond of John Shakespeare would not then have been good
for L40, and the would-be bridegroom had nothing of his own. The place
where they were married has not yet been discovered; it is quite
possible to have been at "a private mass," as was the case in another
marriage with a similar bond at the same registry.[138] But they were
married somehow, and William probably brought home his fatherless bride
to his father's house, and there her little portion of L6 13s. 4d. might
go the further. But a wife and a family of three children sorely
handicapped a penniless youth, not yet of age, bred to no trade, heir to
no fortune, whose father was himself in trouble.
The after-date gossip of wild courses, deer-stealing, and combats with
Sir Thomas Lucy, are, I think, quite unfounded on fact. I have discussed
this fully in my article in the _Athenaeum_[139] on "Sir Thomas Lucy,"
and in my chapter on "The Traditional Sir Thomas and the Real."[140] It
is much more than likely Shakespeare was concerned in the religious
turmoil of the times, was somewhat suspected, and was indignant at the
cruel treatment of Edward Arden, head of the house, the first victim of
the Royal Commission[141] in 1583.
Eventually he went to London, probably with introductions to many people
supposed to be able and willing to help him. There were both Ardens and
Shakespeares in London, and many Warwickshire men, and they thought that
some place might be found even for him, the landless, unapprenticed,
untrained son of a straitened father. But there were so many in a
similar case. It is evident he succeeded in nothing that he hoped or
wished for. His own works prove that. He was unable to act the
gentleman, but was determined to play the man. He may have dwelt with,
and certainly frequently visited, his old Stratford friend Richard
Field, the apprentice, son-in-law, and successor of Vautrollier, the
great printer. In his shop he learned not only much technical detail of
his art, but refreshed his education--or, rather, went through another
course, reading with a new inspiration and a kindled enthusiasm.
I have shown elsewhere how very much his mental development owed to
books published by Vautrollier and Field,[142] sole publishers of many
Latin works, including Ovid, of Puttenham's "Art of Poetrie," of
Plutarch's "Lives," and many another book whose spirit has been
transfused into Shakespeare's works. We know that he had tried his hand
at altering plays, at rewriting them, and making them popular; we know
that he had translated them upon the stage before 1592, because of
Greene's notice then published by Chettle, of "the upstart crow."[143]
And he probably had written some. But his first firm step on the
staircase of fame was taken in the publication of his "Venus and Adonis"
by his friend Richard Field in April, 1593, and his first grip of
success in his dedication thereof to the young Earl of Southampton. The
kindness of his patron between 1593 and 1594 had ripened his admiration
into love; and the dedication of the "Rape of Lucrece" in the latter
year placed the relations of the two men clearly before the world. A
careful study of the two dedications leads to the conviction that the
"Sonnets" could only have been addressed to the same[144] patron. A
study of the poems and sonnets together shows much of the character,
training, and culture of the author--love of nature, delight in open-air
exercise and in the chase, sympathy with the Renaissance culture, and a
moral standard of no common order.
In his first poem he shows how preoccupation preserves Adonis from
temptation; in the second how the spiritual chastity of Lucrece is
triumphant over evil. The one poem completes the conception of the
other, and both lead into the sonnets. In these the author explains much
of his thought and circumstance--
"Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view;
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new."
"Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That doth not better for my life provide
Than public means, which public manners breeds."[145]
Southampton did not only chide with Fortune, but took her place. Through
his stepfather, Sir Thomas Henneage, who had succeeded Sir Christopher
Hatton in 1589[146] as Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household, he was
able to assist the players, and Shakespeare is for the first time
recorded as having played twice before the Queen, at Greenwich on St.
Stephen's Day, December 26, 1594, and on Innocents' Day, December 28 of
the same year.[147] On the latter day at night, amid the turmoil of the
Gray's Inn revels, Shakespeare's play of the "Comedy of Errors" was
represented by his company, doubtless through the interest of the Earl
of Southampton, then a student at Gray's Inn. At his coming of age in
October, 1594, the young nobleman would be the better able to assist his
poet. Tradition has reported that he gave Shakespeare a large sum of
money, generally said to be L1,000.
However it was, the tide of Shakespeare's fortunes turned with his
introduction to the Earl of Southampton, and his exertions during the
remaining years of the century began to tell in financial returns. It is
significant that the first known use to which he put his money was the
application for the _coat of arms_. In that same year fortune gave him a
cruel buffet in the death of his only son.[148] Nevertheless, he went on
with his purchase of the largest house in his native town; so that, if
the bride of his youth had waited long for a home of her own, he did
what he could to make up for the delay by giving her the best he could
find.[149] That he was cautious in his investments was evident. He had
seen too much suffering through rashness in money affairs not to benefit
by the experience. Thereby he made clear his desire for the
rehabilitation of himself and family in the place where he was born. By
1598 we have irrefragable testimony to the position he had already
taken, alike in the world of letters as in the social life of Stratford.
In the autumn of that year appeared the perennial advertisement of
Meres, the Professor of Rhetoric at Oxford, Master of Arts of both
Universities, who ranks him among the first of his day, as an epic and
lyric poet, and as a writer of both tragedy and comedy. "As the soule of
Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet wittie soul of
Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare.... As Plautus
and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the
Latins, so Shakespeare ... among the English is the most excellent in
both kinds for the stage ... witness his 'Gentlemen of Verona,' his
'Errors,' his 'Love's Labour's Lost,' his 'Love's Labour Wonne,' his
'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and his 'Merchante of Venice'; for tragedy
his 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 'Titus
Andronicus,' and 'Romeo and Juliet.'"[150]
On the other hand, the Quiney correspondence shows the estimation in
which his fellow-townsmen held him--that he had money, that he wanted to
invest, and was already styled "master." He was considering the policy
of buying "an odd yard land or other" in Stratford, when Richard Quiney,
who was in the Metropolis, was urged by his brother-in-law, Abraham
Sturley, to induce Shakespeare to buy one of the tithe leases. "By the
friends he can make therefore, we think it a fair mark for him to shoot
at; it obtained, would advance him in deed, and would _do us much
good_." Richard Quiney was in the Metropolis at the end of 1598 on
affairs of the town, trying to secure the grant of a new charter, and
relief from subsidy; but either on his own account, or the affairs of
the town, he applied to Shakespeare for a loan. As there are no letters
of Shakespeare's extant, and this is the only one addressed to him, it
is worth noting very specially. It could hardly have been sent, as it
was found among the Corporation Records. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps
suggests that Shakespeare may have called to see Quiney before the
letter was sent off, and given his reply verbally.
"Loveinge contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge yowr
helpe with xxx^li uppon Mr. Bushells and my securytee, or Mr. Myttons
with me. Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, and I have
especiall cawse. Yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeing me out of all
the debettes I owe in London, I thancke God, and muche quyet my mynde,
which wolde nott be indebeted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of
answer for the dispatch of my buysness. Yow shall nether loase creddytt
nor monney by me, the Lord wyllinge; and nowe butt persuade yourselfe
soe, as I hope, and you shall nott need to feare, butt, with all hartie
thanckefullness, I wyll holde my tyme, and content yowr ffrende, and yf
we bargaine farther, you shal be the paie-master yowrselfe. My tyme
biddes me hastene to an ende, and soe I comitt thys (to) yowr care, and