Shakespeare's family
To digg the dust encloased here;
Bleste be the man that spares thes stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."
Meanwhile Shakespeare's friends had been planning a monument to be
placed on the northern wall of the Chancel. The bust is said to have
been prepared from a death-mask, and to have been sculptured by one
Gerard Johnson, son and successor of the Amsterdam tomb-maker, whose
place of business lay between St. Saviour's Church and the Globe
Theatre. He may be presumed to have frequently seen Shakespeare in his
lifetime. The exact date of its erection is not known, but it would seem
to have been some time before 1623, as Leonard Digges refers to it in
his poem prefixed to the First Folio, "To the Memorie of the deceased
Authour, Maister W. Shakespeare":
"Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellowes give
The World thy Workes--thy Workes, by which outlive
Thy touche thy name must; when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still."
Crude and inartistic as it is, the bust must have had some likeness in
its earlier days to have satisfied critical eyes; but it has passed
through so many vicissitudes, and suffered so much restoration, that the
likeness may have entirely vanished by this time. Nevertheless, it
remains a witness to the affection of the surviving, and a witness,
Puritans though they were, that it was on account of the power of _his
pen_ that he deserved special remembrance.
Upon a mural tablet are other verses, which would seem not to have been
composed by his own friends, as they speak of Shakespeare's lying
"within this monument." Whoever wrote them, the family accepted them,
and the world has endorsed them:
William Camden had finished his "Britannia" by 1617 (commenced in 1597),
printed in 1625. He says of Stratford Church: "In the chancel lies
William Shakespeare, a native of this place, who has given ample proof
of his genius and great abilities in the forty-eight plays he has left
behind him."
It is evident that the First Folio, 1623, was _intended_ by his
"fellows" at the Globe to stand as their monument to his memory, built
of the plays that had become their private property by purchase. The
verses that preface it, written by W. Basse, suggest that Shakespeare
should have been buried by Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, in the Poets'
Corner of Westminster Abbey. But the author withdraws his wish.
"Sleep, Brave Tragedian, Shakspere, sleep alone
Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave
Possess as Lord, not tenant to thy grave," etc.
Archy's "Banquet of Jests," printed in 1630, tells of one travelling
through Stratford, "a town most remarkable for the birth of famous
William Shakespeare." In the same year is said to have been written
Milton's memorable epitaph (printed 1632), a noble testimony from the
Puritan genius to the power of his play-acting brother:
"What needs my Shakspere for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What needst thou such weak witness of thy fame?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a live-long monument," etc.
By 1651 had already been suggested an annual commemoration of his life
in Samuel Sheppard's "Epigram on Shakspere," verse 6:
"Where thy honoured bones do lie,
As Statius once to Maro's urn,
Thither every year will I
Slowly tread and sadly turn."
The State Papers even show the appreciation of his age.[174] But I was
pleased to find that the first recorded _student_ of Shakespeare was a
woman. On January 21, 1638,[175] Madam Anne Merrick, in the country,
wrote to a friend in London that she could not come to town, but "must
content herself with the study of Shakespeare and the 'History of
Women,'" which seem to have constituted all her country library. The
Judges of King Charles I. reproached him with the _study_ of
Shakespeare's Plays.[176]
These records also contain a bookseller's (Mr. Moseley's) account[177]
for books, probably provided to Lord Conway, among which are "Ben
Jonson's poems, 6d., Beaumont's poems, 6d., Shakespeare's poems, 1/-,"
etc.
Other references to Shakespeare's works occur in the same records. But
as this is not intended as a literary biography, I forbear to reproduce
them now.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] Bearley Registers.
[137] Worcester Marriage Licenses.
[138] Francis Throgmorton, son and heir of Sir John Throgmorton, of
Feckenham, to Anne Sutton, alias Dudley, daughter of Sir Edward Sutton,
June 3, 1571. See my "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries," p.
111.
[139] See July 13, 1895, p. 67.
[140] "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries," ii., p. 12. Sir
Thomas had no park, and Justice Shallow bore no resemblance to him, etc.
[141] _Ibid._, vi., p. 48; also _Athenaeum_, February 8, 1896, p. 190.
[142] "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries," i. Richard Field,
Stratford-on-Avon Press.
[143] Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit."
[144] See my articles "The Date of the Sonnets," _Athenaeum_, March 19
and 26, 1898, pp. 374, 403, and "Mr. W. H.," August 4, 1900, p. 154.
[145] Sonnets CX. and CXI.
[146] See my English article (reprinted) "The Earliest Official Record
of Shakespeare's Name," "Shakespeare Jahrbuch," vol. xxxii., Berlin,
1896.
[147] Declared Accounts, Treasury Chamber, Pipe Office, 542.
[148] August 11, 1596 (Stratford Burial Register).
[149] William Underhill, the Lord of Idlicote (by Barton-on-the-Heath),
conveyed New Place to Shakespeare at Easter, 1597, and died in July of
that year. His son Fulke died without issue, and his brother Hercules,
who succeeded, being under age, did not complete the transfer till 1602.
[150] Meres' "Wit's Treasury," second part of "Wit's Commonwealth."
[151] From the original at the birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon.
[152] Greenway was the Stratford carrier.
[153] State Papers, Dom. Ser., Eliz., cclx. 116.
[154] The Burbage and Benfield Case, the Lord Chamberlain's Papers,
1635, P.R.O. See also Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 312, and
Fleay, "Hist. of Stage," p. 325.
[155] See Accounts of Treasurer of the Chamber, etc.
[156] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 205; ii. 19. Court Rolls of
Rowington.
[157] State Papers, Dom. Ser., Eliz., Subsidy List., 1605.
[158] The title-page of "Hamlet" (Stat. Reg., July 26, 1602) implies
that the company had been travelling to Oxford and Cambridge.
[159] See Dibden's "History of the Edinburgh Stage."
[160] See my own paper on "The Scottish and English
Macbeth."--"Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature," 1897.
[161] Rymer's "Foedera," V. xvi. 505.
[162] Nichols's "Progresses of James I.," vol. i.
[163] See Letters and Proclamations in State Papers, Domestic Series, of
the time.
[164] Dec. Acc. Treasurer of the Chamber (November, 1603-4).
[165] Halliwell-Phillipps, "Outlines," i. 212.
[166] Ben Jonson's verses, 1623, folio.
[167] Fleay's "Life of Shakespeare," p. 7.
[168] This deed is preserved in the Guildhall Library, and an account of
it appears in the _Antiquary_, New Series, iv. 204.
[169] See Dr. Ingleby, "Shakespeare and the Welcombe Enclosures."
[170] Worcester Bishops' Books.
[171] Justice Shallow tells Anne Page that his cousin Slender will
maintain her as a gentlewoman: "He will make you a hundred and fifty
pounds jointure."--_The Merry Wives of Windsor_, III., 4.
[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 L6 13s. 4d. each; to his fourth son, William, L10; to
his daughters, Agnes (or Anne) and Catherine, L6 13s. 4d., to be paid on
the day of their marriage; and to his youngest daughter, Margaret, L6
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 associate Anne Shakespeare doubly with that particular family
of Hathaways.
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 L50 to Elizabeth