Shakespeare's family
Hathaway, L50 to Thomas Hathaway, and L10 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:
"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 assisted by her younger son
Thomas. In December, 1611, she conveyed a house to William Mountford for
L131, 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 L12 a year for life, and L5 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, Middlesex, 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 manuscript 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 petition 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 tithes purchased by his father-in-law.
The burial register of the next day describes him as "Medicus