Shakespeare's family
prudent in her opinion that the fewer papers that were produced the
shorter time would the suit last. No replication or decree is recorded.
The litigation apparently terminated in a compromise, doubtless hastened
by Mrs. Nash's second marriage. Perhaps Edward Nash by this time
realized the injustice or the impracticability of his claim. The only
further allusion to it occurs in Lady Barnard's will.[201] She directs
her trustees to dispose of New Place with the proviso "that my loving
cousin, Edward Nash, Esq., shall have the first offer or refusal
thereof, according to _my promise formerly made to him_."
Elizabeth Nash married Mr. John Barnard, of Abington, Northamptonshire,
at Billesley, a village four miles from Stratford, June 5, 1649, where
the Trussels resided. Why did she go there to be married? A puzzling
question indeed, which cannot be answered by the register, as it is
lost. Whether her marriage weakened her mother's health, or whether the
state of her mother's health had hastened her marriage, we know not; but
a month later, on July 11, 1649, Mrs. Hall died, and, being buried
beside her husband on the 16th, _made his tomb complete_. The Latin
scholars of the family were all gone, and it is not too much to suppose
that Elizabeth herself, Shakespeare's grandchild, composed her mother's
epitaph:
"Here lyeth the body of Susanna, wife of John Hall, gent., the daughter
of William Shakespeare, gent. She deceased the 11 day of July, Anno
1649, aged 66.
"Witty above her sex, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,
Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this
Wholly of him with whom she's now in blisse.
Then, passenger, hast nere a tear
To weep with her that wept with all
That wept, yet set herself to chere
Them up with comforts cordiall?
Her love shall live, her mercy spread
When thou hast nere a tear to shed."
A lozenge bore the arms of Hall and Shakespeare impaled. In the early
part of last century these verses were erased to make space for the
record of the death of one Richard Watts, who owned some of the tithes
and had the right to be buried in the chancel. But they, fortunately,
had been preserved by Dugdale;[202] and in 1844 the Watts record was
erased and Mrs. Hall's verses restored.
Her death limited Shakespeare's descendants to two--Judith Quiney,
daughter, and Elizabeth Barnard, granddaughter. A fine was levied on New
Place in 1650, in which John Barnard and Henry Smith were made trustees
to the settlement of 1647, instead of Richard Lane and William Smith. In
1652 a new settlement was made, devising it to the use of John Barnard
and his wife, and the longer liver of them, to the heirs of the body of
Elizabeth, failing whom to any persons she might name. In default of
such nomination, the property was to go to the right heirs of the
survivor. A fine was again levied on this settlement. Mr. John Barnard
was knighted by Charles II. in 1661. The Stratford Register of 1661-62
records the death of Elizabeth's aunt, Judith, "uxor Thomas Quiney,
gent., Feb. 9th, 1661-2." The use of the word "uxor" is no certain proof
that he was alive at the time.
Judith's death, at the age of seventy-seven, left Lady Elizabeth Barnard
the poet's sole survivor. She had no children by her second marriage,
about which we have no other detail. It has been surmised that it was
not a happy one. Sir John Barnard was a widower, and had already a
family. There is no mention of this family in Lady Barnard's will, and a
limitation to the barest law and justice towards her husband, whom she
did not leave her executor. The will was drawn up on January 29,
1669-70, and she died at Abington in February. "Madam Elizabeth Bernard,
wife of Sir John Bernard, Knight, was buried 17th Feb., 1669-70."[203]
No sepulchral monument was raised in memory of the granddaughter and
heir of Shakespeare, but she probably lay in the same tomb as her
husband, who died in 1674. A memorial slab still remains to his memory
in Abington Church, but the place of his burial is unknown, and the
vault below this stone is used by another family.
By his death his wife's will[204] came into force, written while she was
still "in perfect memory--blessed be God!--and mindful of mortality."
She recounted the settlement of April 18, 1653, to which the trustees
were Henry Smith, of Stratford, gent., and Job Dighton, of the Middle
Temple, London, Esquire. Henry Smith, her surviving trustee, or his
heirs, six months after the death of her husband, Sir John Barnard, was
to sell New Place, giving the first offer to her loving cousin, Edward
Nash, and the money was to be used in legacies. Her cousin, Thomas
Welles, of Carleton, in county Bedford, was to have L50 if he be alive,
and if he be dead, her kinsman, Edward Bagley, citizen of London, was to
receive the amount. How she was connected with these men I have been
unable to find out. "Judith Hathaway, one of the daughters of my
kinsman, Thomas Hathaway, late of Stratford," L5 a year or L40 in hand.
Unto Joane, the wife of Edward Kent, another daughter of the said Thomas
Hathaway, L50, failing whom to her heir, _Edward Kent the younger_, at
his coming of age. To this same Edward Kent she left L30 for his
apprenticeship. To Rose, Elizabeth, and Susanna, three other "daughters
of my kinsman, Thomas Hathaway, L40 a piece." Henry Smith was to have L5
for his pains, and Edward Bagley to be residuary legatee. "To my
kinsman, Thomas Hart, the son of Thomas Hart, late of Stratford, all
that my other messuage or Inne commonly called the Maydenhead, with the
next house thereto adjoining, with the barne belonging to the same, now
in the occupation of Michael Johnson; to Thomas Hart and his heirs,
failing whom to his brother George Hart and his heirs," failing whom to
her own right heirs for ever. She made her "loving kinsman Edward
Bagley" executor, "in witness of which I set my hand and seal." It may
be seen that she retained absolute power of the poet's purchases, but
justly left his inheritance from his father John to his sister's
descendants. But she did no more than justice.
It is not clear how the connection is traced between her and her other
legatees, but it is very noticeable her preference for the Hathaway
connections to those of the Shakespeare side.
Ere she died the poet's Blackfriars tenement had been reduced to ashes
in the Great Fire of 1666. What right in it or its site remained,
accrued to Edward Bagley, "citizen of London," her executor and
residuary legatee, who proved her will, March 4, 1669, though it is
stated to have been sold in Shakespeare's Biography in the Dictionary.
Edward Nash did not buy New Place, after all. It was bought by Sir
Edward Walker, at one time Secretary of War to Charles I., and then
Garter King-at-Arms. Halliwell-Phillipps states[205] it was sold by the
"surviving trustee," but Sir Edward Walker's own will[206] puts it a
little differently. He left to his dear daughter Barbara, wife of Sir
John Clopton, various bequests, among which appear "A yarde land in
Stratford field I bought of _Mr. Hall_, of the value of L12 10s. by year
... fyftly Land I bought of Sir John Clopton in the mannor of Clopton,
of the yearely value of L10. Sixtly 4 yard land lying in Stratford and
Bishopton fields which I bought of _Mr. Bagley_, and a house called the
New Place, situated in the Towne of Stratford upon Avon, of the yearely
value about fyfty fyve pounds ... my deare daughter and her husband Sir
John Clopton, sole executors, 30th June, 1676." He died early the
following year, and his will was proved March 10, 1676-77.
Thus, the property Shakespeare had put together became dispersed shortly
after his family became extinct, and New Place came back to the heirs of
the Cloptons, from whom it was purchased. I had hoped we might find
something from the will of Edward Bagley, but he died intestate,[207]
and the administration mentions nothing of interest to Shakespeare.
It is therefore quite clear that the whole period covered by
Shakespeare's life and that of his descendants was 105 years, _i.e._,
from 1564 to 1669, and that _no lineal descendants can survive_. Yet, as
if in illustration of the methods of fabrication of tradition, when it
is desired, I have heard of many of the name who boast a _lineal descent
from the poet_; and of one even who boasts of having inherited not only
_the Shakespeare's_ dinner-service, but his _teapot_! Yet that the
presence of the name is a certain bar to the descent, as above shown, no
such claimants seem to have taken the trouble to find out, as they
easily might do. I am told that in Verona, by the tomb of Romeo and
Juliet, a modern visitor has described himself as "Shakespeare,
_descendant_ of the poet who wrote the play." William Shakespeare's
poems alone are his posterity.
Even under another name they are not to be accepted.[208] In the
_Cambridge Chronicle_ obituary, January 1, 1842, appears: "Died on the
28th ult. at Exning, Suffolk, aged 87, Mrs. Hammond, mother of Mr. Wm.
Hammond, of No. 8, Scots Yard, Cannon Street, London, Indigo Merchant.
The deceased was one of the few remaining descendants of Shakespeare."
So lately as June, 1857, there was recorded the death of William
Hammond, Esq., of London, "one of the last lineal descendants of
Shakespeare."
Dr. Bigsby says that Colonel Gardner, descendant of the Barnards, had
some Shakespeare letters, and claimed descent from Lady Elizabeth
Barnard.[209]
A correspondent remembered to have seen when a boy the Shakespear Inn,
Lower Northgate Street, Gloucester, kept by an old gentleman named
Smith. Outside the passage to the inn was a signboard, "The Shakespear
Inn, by William Smith, descendant from and next of kin to that immortal
bard."[210]
* * * * *
JOHN SHAKESPEARE'S FAMILY.
Richard Shakespeare, = wife uncertain,
farmer, of Snitterfield, held land from |
Robert Arden, Mary Arden's father. |
|
-------------------------------------------------
| | |
Thomas. John, = Mary Arden. Henry.
| eldest son |
John |
b. March 10, 1581-2 |
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
Two | Gilbert Joan, = William Anne, Richard, Edmund,
daus., | b. 1566; b. 1569; Hart. b. 1571; b. 1573; b. 1580;
d. | d. 1611. d. 1646. d. 1579. d. 1612. d. 1607.
infants. |
|
William, = Anne
the poet.| Hathaway.
|
--------------------------------------------
| | |
Susanna, = John Hamnet, Judith, = Thomas
b.1583; | Hall. b.1585; b.1585; twin | Quiney.
d.1649. | d.1596. with Hamnet, |
| d.1662 |
| |
Elizabeth, m. 1st, Thomas Nash; ---------------------------
2nd, Sir John Barnard, b.1607-8; | | |
d. _s.p._ 1669. | | |
Shakespeare, Richard, Thomas,
b.1616; b.1617; b.1619-20;
d.1617. d.1638-9. d.1638-9.
_s.p._ _s.p._
FOOTNOTES: