COLLATERALS
John Shakespeare had other sons than William. There were three--Gilbert,
Richard and Edmund. These all died comparatively young, and none of them
was married.
Edmund, the youngest child of John and Mary Shakespeare, seems to have
been the only one who followed his eldest brother to London. He also
chose the stage as a profession, but we never hear of any success. From
London registers we know that on August 12, 1607, in the parish of St.
Giles', Cripplegate, was buried "Edward, the base-born son of Edward
Shakespeare, Player," and that on December 31 of the same year was
buried within the Church of St. Saviour's, Southwark,[211] "Edmund
Shakespeare, Player," "with a forenoon knell of the Great Bell."[212]
The poet paid every honour he could to his brother.
Gilbert, born two and a half years after William, seemed often to have
been his practical helper and representative in Stratford-on-Avon. Some
writers have imagined that because the clerk added the word "adolescens"
to the burial entry in 1611 of "Gilbert Shakespeare,"[213] that it could
not have been this Gilbert, but some other, probably a young son of his.
But there is no record of a marriage, of the birth of any child, of the
death of his wife, or of his own death, if this entry be given another
translation than the natural one. We may well imagine the clerk did not
fully understand the meaning of the word. Shakespeare often satirizes
the ignorant use of learned terms at his time. There is no saying what
hazy notions might have floated through the writer's brain of the age or
position of the defunct. He would be no worse than a Mrs. Malaprop if he
intended "adolescens" to represent "deeply regretted."
Of the last surviving brother, Richard, born 1573, we know nothing,
except that he died February 12, in the year 1612-13.[214]
The negative evidence of the registers is supported by the negative
evidence of the Shakespeare wills; there is no mention of a Shakespeare
in the wills of William Shakespeare (so anxious to perpetuate his family
and his name) or in those of his descendants.
We may therefore hold it as proved that there are no collateral lines of
Shakespeares descending from the poet's brothers, and therefore none
entitled to bear John Shakespeare's famous coat of arms without a new
grant. Yet we find some bearing the arms, and many claimants of such
descent. Sir Thomas Winnington asks if the Shaksperes of Fillongly are a
branch of the poet's family, as the well-known armorial bearings appear
on the tomb of George Shakespeare, who died there in 1690.[215]
The Rev. Mr. Dyer wrote to Mr. Duncombe from Coningsby, November 24,
1756: "My wife's name was Ensor, whose grandmother was a Shakespeare,
descended from the brother of everybody's Shakespeare."[216] Such claims
may be explained by a natural error. Another John Shakespeare has often
been mistaken for ours, and real pedigrees have been traced back to him.
But there _were_ collateral descents from Shakespeare's sister. The only
person who might have impaled the new Shakespeare arms, had he himself
borne arms to make this possible, was William Hart, the hatter, who
married Shakespeare's sister Joan, and who lived in Shakespeare's old
house in Henley Street, and died a few days before the poet.[217] The
pedigree of the Harts is printed in French's "Shakespeareana
Genealogica,"[218] and need not be repeated here. The Rev. Cornelius
Hallen[219] also gives a genealogical table of the various connections,
and thus provides us with the collateral descent nearly up to date.
Though the early members of this family seem to have been content with a
very modest position and very unromantic occupations, the later members
have become more ambitious.
The Harts thought of contesting the will of Lady Barnard, who, with her
mother, Mrs. Hall, had cut off the entail, or rather altered, as they
thought, the proviso of Shakespeare's will regarding his heirs. But, as
she left them the Henley Street house, and a contest for more would have
been attended with certain expense and uncertain results, they on full
consideration let the matter drop.
Even from this family sprang claimants for lineal descent. On a
tombstone in Tewkesbury appears: "In Memory of John Hart, the sixth
descendant from the poet Shakespeare, who died January 22, 1800, aged
45," etc.
[Illustration: SNITTERFIELD CHURCH.
_To face p. 113_]
FOOTNOTES:
[211] Registers of St. Saviour's, Southwark.
[212] Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Saviour's, Southwark.
[213] Stratford-on-Avon Registers.
[214] Stratford-on-Avon Registers.
[215] _Notes and Queries_ December, 1865, Third Series, viii. 501.
[216] _Ibid._, Sixth Series, xii. 424.
[217] April 17, 1616.
[218] P. 296.
[219] See "Descent of Hallen and Shakespeare."