discussions about the mills and weirs of Chester, 1607, and precedents
were brought forward showing how divers had been “presented” for
obstructing the Thames, and had been acquitted. This shows that in
Easter, 3 Hen. IV, John Shelforde, Lord of Gatehampton, held one lock
on the Thames and one at Rumford, Berks; and the “Priorissa de Goring”
held one weir in the same river. In 5 Hen. IV, Thomas Camoys narrowed
the Thames at Chiselhampton, and in 6 Hen. IV, Elizabeth, Prioress of
Goring, proved that all her predecessors had a right to a lock on the
Thames.
In Stow’s Survey, Book I, p. 30 (ed. 1598, revised by Strype), he says
of the Thames, that “it is lamentable to see how it is and hath been
choaked of late with lands and shelves by the penning and wresting
of the course of the water for commodities’ sake”; and at page 39 he
speaks of Bishop’s complaints.
I had found these and several other manuscripts on the subject in the
British Museum, before I turned to Stow. They seem to be the same that
he referred to; but the originals are so interesting, both to the
historian and to the lover of the river, that, as they have never been
reproduced, I think it would interest all to read the words themselves.
The first “complaint” does not seem to have been preserved, but the
“reply” appears in Lansdowne Manuscript, XVIII, 62, endorsed “The
Reasons of the Mylls, Locks and Weares to be uppon the River of Thames,
1574.” It runs thus:
A declaration of what is to be said and proved for the maytenance of
Mylles, Lockes, and Weares, within the River of Thamys.
Fyrst the said Mylles, Locks, and Weres were erected and made, and
so have contynewed for manye hundred yeres beyonde the memorye of
anie man nowe livinge, without any challendge or interrupcion. The
Lawes and Statutes of this Reallme, whereof the last was made in
the XIIth yere of Edward the Fowerth that towcht the Reformacion of
Locks and Weares, extends onelie to such as then were erected, to the
disturbance of barges and other vessells, whereas at that tyme there
was no comon passaige for barges, so farre as Marlowe or Byssham, as
it is upon vehement presumpcion thought. And it is further to be moost
manyfestlie proved that within the memorye of such as be yet liveinge,
there were not above the nomber of fower barges, that passed so ferre
into the Ryver of Thamyse as the said Marlowe or Byssham. And that
such as then so passed were not above half the burden of such as nowe
comonlie passe by the said River, beinge neare abowte the nomber of
three score.
Item, it is most certeyne and true that such inconsiderate people, and
namelie of the said Bargemen as wishe or desier the decaye or pulling
downe of the said Lockes and Weares, desier therein but their owne
greate hindrance, or rather undoinge, considering that it is most
manifestlie to be proved, that without the said lockes and weares they
could not passe. And that many tymes, and specyallie at lowe waters,
they are inforced to desier the shuttinge of the said Locks to thende
to convey water for the removinge of their barges when they are sett
on grownde. And it is also very certeyne that if the said weares
should be pulled downe there be such quantities of chalke and other
rubbyshe therein, as that by the losinge thereof, such hills would
growe in many places within the River of Thamyse, as that a small bote
in many places thereof would hardly passe.
Item, that in case the said passaige should be disturbed, yt should
not onelie tende to the greate lett and hindraunce of the Queenes
Maties. provision and of her Highnes Cyttie of London, but also of
divers of her subjects and people.
Item, that the provision for gryndynge of a greate parte of the
Inhabitants corne within the counties of Bucks, Berks, and Oxon,
resteth upon the mylles, that ben scituate and beinge within the
said Ryver, which, without the said Locks and Weares could not be
mainteyned, or grynde anye thinge, which, in case they did decaye,
shoulde tende to be to the greate losse and hindraunce of the said
inhabytaunts, who without the said mylls should be to seeke where to
grynde their corne.
Item, in all the commissions of Sewers, that in anye aige or tyme have
been awarded, theis Mylls, Locks and Weares were never thought to be
within the precyncts of anye Lawes or in anye respecte meete to be
reformed.
Item, that the said Mylles, Lockes and Weares are the inherytaunce
some of the Queenes Highnes, and others of dyvers personaiges,
wherein, if any disorder were, the same is to be reformed by the
ordinarye proceedinge of the Queenes Maties. Lawes and not otherwise.
In Lansdowne MS., xxx, 16 and 20, are preserved two petitions which
are entered as if in the same year, but which can be seen, from slight
differences among general resemblances, not to be exactly contemporary.
The one was probably written by John Bishop, the other certainly was
so. “To Sir William Burleigh, Lord High Treasurer,” the first complaint
is presented of the dangers, and a list is given of “the holders of the
locks and wears, and of the Keepers of the same, which sell the Queenes
Majesties watter in the same river.”
The number of locks given is twenty-five between Maidenhead and
Abingdon, and the paper is indorsed by another hand “Sept. 6, 1580.”
The second is addressed to “Sir William Cecill, Lorde High Treasurer,”
and more forcibly brings forward the danger and losses of property and
life of the Queen’s subjects; being signed by “John Bishop, 1580.” The
list varies in number, as there are thirty-six mentioned; and there
are several slight variations in facts, and many in detail. The parish
of each is given, and the names of the owners have a genealogical
interest. Rea Locke belonged to Harry Merrye, a yeoman of the Queen’s
Chamber; Hedgeworth Wear to Hugh Cotterell. Marlowe Locke, belonging to
Thomas Farmer, gent., is by all reckoned to be the most dangerous.
Temple Locke belonged to John Brinkys, gent., and Newe Locke to Mr.
Bowde and Mr. Lovelace; Mr. Scroope’s Locke at Hambledon was “kept
by Thomas Bulter, a seller of water”; Fraunces Stonor, gent., at the
Marsh, held one locke, and Robert Wolley, yeoman, another; Bowney
Weare (Mr. Anthony Elmes), Waregroves Weare, Shiplacke Weare followed;
Sunning Locke, belonging to Mr. Richard Blunte, was kept by two sellers
of water. Then came Cawsam Locke, Chansey Weare; Mapledurham Locke,
said to belong to Mr. William Blunte in one petition, and to Mr.
Michael Blunt in the other; Whitchurch, to Harry Knappes in both; Harte
Lock, Goringe Lock, and another, owners unnamed. Cleve Locke was the
Earl of Derby’s; of South Mill Weare the owner is unnamed; North Stock
Weare and Wallingford Lock belonged to Raphe Pollington, another locke
and Benson Locke belonging to Robert George (one of the keepers being
named Jacob Buishoppe). At Little Witenham, a locke and two weares, one
owned by Edmund Fettiplace, the other by Mr. William Dunshe; a weare
at Long Witenham, belonging to Widow Sanger; Thomas Trullock’s Lock
of Appleforde; an old, ruinous wear belonging to Clement Dabnet; two
locks and one weare, called Sutton Weare; Collombe Weare, belonging to
Edward Wilmott, gent.; Abingdon Locke, “being Mr. William Blackmanne’s
Locke”; three locks, at Newnam, Samford Locke, and “Ifle Lock, being
kept by one Mrs. Pitte.” “Every one of these being most perillous for
all passengers, and the Kepers of every locke making sale of the water,
keping the same severall which ought to be comon to all her Matⁱᵉˢ
subjects, and whereunto in truth they have noe right.”
The petitioner then goes on to state, and mentions witnesses ready to
prove, that fifteen men had been drowned within four years, and all
their goods lost, and begs his lordship’s earnest attention to this
serious state of affairs. Neither of these petitions seems to have been
very successful. Local interests had outweighed travelling necessities.
But Bishop was not crushed. He designed a more elaborate composition on
a larger sheet of paper, and addressed it directly to Queen Elizabeth
herself. Believing in her poetic sympathies, he wrote it in verse,
which, though nearly as bad as it could be, was full of earnest
feeling and a certain original quaintness. He spoke movingly of the
“exceeding loss and spoil” of the goods and commodities of poor men,
of £300 a year spent by them in buying water, of the “murthers” of Her
Majesty’s loving subjects, and of the sorrows of many woeful widows and
fatherless children. Twenty men had been drowned during the last seven
years. The great wrongs he had seen had moved his heart to write. He
had previously complained to many and found no remedy, though good laws
had been made by many kings “against the mills, wears, and locks that
doe annoy this worthie streame.” Some men neither care for laws nor for
drowning men, and have no fear of hell before their eyes. The worst of
these is Thomas Farmer, who is as great a persecutor as Pharaoh. To the
widow of one drowned at his lock he had given, in lieu of life, the sum
of 5s. Another man had been cast into prison by him for complaining,
but had been drowned in his lock at last. Farmer’s Lock at Marlow alone
has cost the poor bargemen a thousand pounds and more. The water falls
so high it often sinks ships and men, and it is a wonder any escape.
Four City aldermen had come to view it, and Bishop refers to them in
proof of his words. He is willing to die if they be proved false. He
had complained four years or more before to the Lord Treasurer in
vain, and since then seven men had been drowned. For his interference
Farmer had tried to work him mischief, and had complained of him to
his captain, whom he loved much, but who had apparently dismissed him.
Bishop was well acquainted with the perils of the river. He brings them
before the notice of the Queen because he was her faithful subject
born; and the murder of her people, and loss of their goods, was
her loss. He was sure that if she knew the truth her merciful heart
would find means to help, and that she would command the Lords that
understood the Laws of Parliament to look into the matter before more
blood was spent.
He then gives a list of the men that had been drowned, and another of
his witnesses. This is signed by him, and is endorsed 13th October 1585.
I have been able to find out nothing more about Bishop than what he
himself relates. If really _born_ a subject of Elizabeth’s, as he
states, he could not have been more than twenty-seven years old; he
was evidently a bargeman, and Farmer had undone him by complaining
of him to his “captain.” The lock-keeper at Benson is Jacob Bishop,
and may have been a connection. About Fermor more may be known. The
Archæological Institute of Oxford in 1850 published “The expenses of
the Fermor family on the death of Thomas Fermor or Farmer of Somerton,
County Oxford, who died Aug. 8, 1580.” If he was the “Pharaoh” above
alluded to, there is some discrepancy in the dates assigned to the
petitions. An official answer sent up to this petition is preserved in
Lansdowne MS., xliv, f. 40, but it is in such an imperfect condition
that I could only understand it by collating it with the paper of
1574, already referred to, “Reasons alleged for the maintenance of the
Locks, Wears, etc., on the River Thames, 1584.” They are of as great
antiquity as any town or village; that many of the inhabitants of the
villages between Maidenhead and Oxford would not know where to grind
their corn without them; that the water is preserved for the passage
of barges; that, notwithstanding divers laws made for the advantage
of ships and barges, “yet were the milles, lockes, and weares never
impeached as things repugnant to lawe or offensive to the Commonwealth
before one _Busshop_ begonne outragious attempt therein.” That, though
they number in all about seventy, they are in part the Queen’s royal
inheritance; that the residue are the inheritance of others of the
subjects of the Queen, having only a way for the passage of herself and
her people through the said Locks. Touching Marlow Lock, that it was
as well maintained as it had been in any age past. This lock had been
obtained from the Queen in the tenth year of her reign, and had been
as carefully used as it ever had been, as may be proved by depositions
taken before the Commissioners of Sewers, and preserved in the Star
Chamber. The Causes that the passage of this Lock has become so much
more perilous are, that the Barges are laden with greater burdens than
formerly, sometimes nearly double. They used to carry eight or ten
loads, now they carry twenty loads; they lade and unlade with little
care; and are often up and down so late and so early that they cannot
see where they are going. “They commonly observe neyther Sabbath dayes
nor other dayes, besides many evil demeanours too long to narrate”; the
number of barges has increased from ten or twelve to about forty.
The statements of Bishop about the men drowned are criticized, and
opinions brought on the other side. The accidents were often caused by
neglect of the watermen’s duties, and the lock-keepers often helped
them in ways that could not otherwise be provided for.
Another perplexity not much alluded to in these papers arose from
the fact that, though the bed of the _stream_ was a highway for the
people, the _banks_ belonged to the owners of the adjoining lands;
hence many struggles between the bargemen and landowners over the use
of the towpaths. In 1605 (3 Jac. I, c. 20) it was decreed that the Lord
Chancellor might appoint commissioners to clear the Thames so that it
might carry barges to Oxford and beyond, cutting down the banks if
necessary. In 21 Jac. I, c. 32, fuller powers were granted them. They
were to make compensation to owners of land required, and to assess the
University and city of Oxford for reasonable sums; and as the passage
up against the stream made it necessary that the barges “should be
haled up by the strength of men, horses, winches, engines, &c., that
it should be lawful for them to use the banks” for this purpose, if
they did no harm. The ancient right to tow on the Thames had been
brought forward in a case heard before Lord Chief Justice Popham as to
a similar right upon the river Lea, which was contested (State Papers,
Domestic Series, 1594; see Calendar, pp. 499-501).
John Taylor, the self-styled “water poet,” a contemporary of
Shakespeare, though writing a little after his date, published in 1632
“A description of the two famous Rivers of Thames and Isis ... with all
the Flats, Shoales, Shelves, Sands, Weares, Stops, Rivers, Brooks, &c.,
as also a discovery of the Hindrances which doe impeach the passage
of Boats and Barges between the famous University of Oxford and the
City of London.” Taylor commences by regretting the death of Lord
Dorchester, who had determined to make the river passable, and then
enumerates the dangers and difficulties in verses and spirit somewhat
resembling those of Bishop’s petition. He refers to “learned Camden,
Speed and Holinshead, and Drayton’s painfull Poly Olbion,” and then
describes his own journey down. At Sutton Lock they were nearly upset,
the water fell with such violence; after Cullam they ran aground; at
Clifden there were rocks and sands and flats; and everywhere were
shoals and piles. More than once a sunken tree nearly cleft his barge.
Near Goring the party was entertained by “Master Cotton,” and near
Henley by “Judge Whitlocke.” The river did not want much repair below
Staines Bridge, for that was under the power of the Mayor of London.
To Taylor also Marlow Lock was the worst, though he anathematizes many
others:
Shall Thames be barr’d its course with stops and locks,
With Mils and Hils, with gravell beds and rocks,
With weares and weedes, and forced Ilands made
To spoile a publike for a private Trade?
Shame fall the doers, and Almighty’s blessing
Be heaped upon their heads that seek redressing.
Thus John Taylor ends, like John Bishop.[30]
These old discussions are interesting, not only to the historian and
antiquarian, but to engineers and boating men of to-day, as they have
never been collected, and the Thames Conservancy have no papers of so
old a date.
The old system of “flashing” was probably the method used in those
days at the locks mentioned as dangerous. The chamber-lock is said
to have been invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1497, but there is no
clear notice of the date of its introduction into English rivers. The
beautiful mechanical invention of working the sluices lately placed at
Richmond Lock opens a new era in the river navigation, and under the
Thames Conservators the dangers of the water are reduced to a minimum.
But we must not forget that, but for the outlet of the railway and the
high-road, and the relief of the heavy traffic carried thereon, this
waterway would present a very different aspect to-day from that which
so often soothes the worried, rests the weary, and calms the troubled
soul.
_“The Field,” 9th February 1895._
FOOTNOTES:
[30] I reproduced the whole of Bishop’s poem at the end of the fourth
volume of Harrison’s “England,” edited by Dr. Furnivall.
XV
THE FRIENDS IN SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS
I take it, until proof yields a better date, that Shakespeare came to
London in 1587. We know nothing definitely about him, until 1592, when
Greene’s address to his fellow actors makes it clear that some time
before that date he must have turned to the stage as a profession,
and must have achieved some degree of success, for Greene bitterly
describes him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that
with _his tiger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide_, supposes he is
as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you, and
being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit, the only
Shakescene in a countrie.”[31]
When Shakespeare had come to London he had found theatres built,
players performing, and dramatists writing for them, Lyly, Peele,
Lodge, Greene, and Marlowe, who, had Shakespeare never come, would
have been the greatest of all. But Shakespeare did come, and developed
the perfect flower and fruit of the English Romantic Drama.
This remark would have been irrelevant to the subject in hand, but that
I hold that the poet bore the same relation to the sonnet that he did
to the Drama.
The Sonnet was not, as the Drama was, of native growth; it had been
imported from Italy early in the century by the Earl of Surrey and his
friend, Sir Thomas Wyat. They did not closely adhere to their Italian
models, but varied them somewhat to suit the English language and
taste. They had a group of courtly imitators, and various miscellanies
appeared of verses, often but loosely called “sonnets,” poems written
to be said or sung, which we now would rather call lyrics.
There were “The Court of Venus,”[32] much reprobated by serious writers,
no copy of which has come down to us, “The Newe Court of Venus,”[32]
which seems to have been an attempt to improve the old songs in tone,
while adhering to their form, some of the verses having been written
by Sir Thomas Wyat himself; “The Book of Songs and Sonnets,” 1557, or
“Tottell’s Miscellany,” a collection chiefly of poems written by Wyat
and Surrey, but also including some of the works of their imitators. We
know that Shakespeare had read this volume, because he gave a copy to
Slender (“Merry Wives,” i, 1).
It is interesting to know that Van der Noodt published a series,
avowedly translated from the sonnets of Petrarch and Du Bellay, a
translation of which, into English, in blank verse, was produced by
Spenser in 1569, which were included in his works in 1591. Spenser’s
“Shepherd’s Kalendar” came out in 1572.
The most important later miscellany was “The Paradise of Dainty
Devises,” 1576, which we also may be sure that Shakespeare had read.
The harbinger of the new harvest of Elizabethan Sonnet Literature was
Thomas Watson, who, in 1582, published his “Hecatompathia, or the
Passionate Century of Love.” Two points may be noted concerning this:
(1) That he named each sonnet a “Passion,” which explains Shakespeare’s
use of the word in the phrase, “The Master-mistress of my passion;”[33]
(2) that W. C., in his “Polimanteia,” 1595, in a marginal reference,
not very clear in its bearing, said, “All praiseworthy Lucrecia, sweet
Shakespeare, wanton Adonis, Watson’s heir.”
Puttenham’s “Art of English Poetry” was printed by Field, 1589. The
first three books of Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” appeared in 1590, and
Sir Philip Sidney’s “Arcadia” in the same year, which, quite as much as
any sonnets, affected the thought of Shakespeare’s early works.
In 1591 was published Sidney’s “Astrophel and Stella,” with some of
Daniel’s Sonnets, and in 1592 Daniel published a collection of “Sonnets
to Delia,” after French models, dedicated to Sidney’s sister, the
Countess of Pembroke. At the same time Henry Constable brought out
“Diana: the Praises of his Mistress in certain Sonnets,” and “Four
Letters and certain Sonnets” were published by Gabriel Harvey, the
friend of Spenser.
Here I must pause, having reached the time of Shakespeare’s proved
association with the Stage, in order to trace his career up to that
date in his private life, and make clear my reasons for my main
proposition concerning the necessarily early date of the Sonnets.
Starting with Shakespeare’s arrival in London we must remember that the
traditions concerning his being driven from Stratford by Thomas Lucy
or by anybody else, can be disproved by fact and legitimate inference.
The only two facts we are sure of are, that he had married a wife and
had a family before he was able to support them; and that neither his
father nor he was in financial prosperity. His mother’s inheritance of
Asbies, which, it is clear, his father meant as the sphere of his son’s
career, had been lost through a mortgage and some juggling on the part
of Edmund Lambert. In 1587 the Shakespeares, in despair of regaining
it, had offered to sell it outright to John Lambert for another £20,
and to this the poet, then of age and the heir apparent, had agreed,
but that the money had never been paid is clear from later litigation.
We cannot _prove_ to the sceptical anything concerning the poet for the
next five years. But as Tennyson’s lover says of Maud,
I know the way she went
Home with her maiden posy,
For her feet have touched the meadows
And have left the daisies rosy:
a student may, with the fine sense acquired by patient loving study,
read signs into known facts as clearly as that of Tennyson, that the
morning daisies and buds when trodden on, lay their crimson under
petals to the side, and the path is _really made rosy_. Our poet’s path
may be traced in printer’s ink.
I believe that Shakespeare went to London in 1587 hoping to earn his
fortune there, but that his plans were somewhat guided by business
concerning this desired arrangement with John Lambert. There is little
doubt he would first go to take counsel with Richard Field, the
apprentice, who was about to become the son-in-law and successor of
Thomas Vautrollier the great French printer. But the following morning,
when he started on his mission, I venture to put forward a suggestion
that his footsteps took a very different direction from what has
usually been accepted; indeed, that Shakespeare began by seeking his
fortune not at the play-house, but at the Court!
I find that a John Lambert, possibly the poet’s cousin, was a Yeoman
of the Chamber at the time, and young Shakespeare might have hoped to
persuade him to agree to the payment of that extra £20, or make up
for it in Court influence. Why not? John Arden of Park Hall had been
Esquire of the Body to Henry VII, his younger brother Robert, Yeoman
of the Chamber to Henry VII and Henry VIII, his nephew or relative
William held the same office to Queen Elizabeth down to 1584, and
his son Robert was associated with him; John Scarlet, so friendly
with the Ardens of Wilmcote, had been also Yeoman of the Chamber;
Roger Shakespeare had held the same office in the reign of Mary, and
Thomas Shakespeare was the Royal Messenger, at least down to 1575,
possibly later. William Shakespeare was a man of good appearance and of
manly courage, the two essentials for the post; he may have had many
introductions, and evidently had high hopes. But he failed. We may
realize his feelings during his first months in London by his works.
It was not Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who had learned by personal
experience:
Who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
... the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns,
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.