Greville advised them on a precedent. But William Combe went on
determinedly. “The Miscellaneous Documents” and reports of the Council
meetings at the Hall give details of his actions. Thomas Greene says
in his Diary on the 23rd December 1614, that at the Hall that day the
company had written through him to Mr. Mainwaring and Mr. Shakespeare
(and he himself wrote a private letter “to his cosen Shakespeare”)
to prove the “inconvenience” of the proposed enclosure. Neither of
the letters to Shakespeare has been preserved, but that to Mainwaring
has, and from it we may have some notion of the arguments of the
other. (Wheler MS., i, 109.) This Mr. Mainwaring was the steward and
agent of the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who seems to have had some
interest in local affairs, and who in the earlier stages at least
seems to have co-operated with William Combe. It was addressed “To
the Worshipfull Arthur Mainwaring, Esq., at the Rt. Hon. the Lord
Chancellor his howse.” The Bailiff and the company showed him that by
the Charter of Edward VI the tithes were allowed them for the support
of the almshouses, the school, and the bridge. “We hear that some
land is conveyed to you in Welcombe, and that you intend enclosure.
We entreat you to call to mind the manifold great and often miseries
this Borough hath sustained by casualties of fires fresh in memory,
and now of late one dying in the ashes of desolacion, and in your
Christian meditations to bethink you that such inclosure will tend to
the great disabling of performance of those good meanings of that godly
king, to the ruyne of this Borough wherein live above seven hundred
poor which receive almes, whose curses and clamours will be poured out
to God against the enterprise of such a thing.” That was the way the
Corporation looked at the enclosure. They “could not fulfil their trust
to do the best possible for the town” without opposing it tooth and
nail. And Thomas Greene could not fulfil his duty to the Corporation
without working along with them, and we may be sure that his letter to
Shakespeare was strong enough to convince the poet also. The Christmas
of 1614 was a gloomy one for Stratford, with the ruins of blackened
houses lying around, the poor calling for shelter and food, and the
great dread of this new disaster looming all the more largely before
them because of the general depression. The year 1615 saw a pitched
battle. The aldermen took what legal action they could in their own
right; they filed their “complaints” in many courts; they were driven
into unnecessary expenses of various kinds; they sent Thomas Greene
often to Warwick and to London; and all because of William Combe’s
unsettling whim. He had sent his own servants and employed others,
Stephen Sly among them, to dig ditches round the land he wished to
enclose, and Thomas Greene writes that on 7th January “William Combe
had told Baylis that some of the better sort meant to go and throw down
the ditches, and said ‘I would they durst’ in a threatening manner with
very great passion and anger.” Two days after some of the Corporation
did, indeed, send on their spades to avoid a riot, and they went
themselves and filled in the ditches. They were personally injured by
Combe’s servants. William Combe said, “They were a company of factious
knaves, and he will do them all the harm he can,” and added, “they were
puritan knaves, and underlings in their colour.” Next day Mr. Archer
was appealed to as a justice of the peace and a commoner to prevent a
breach of the peace. He proposed for the preventing of tumults that
there should be a stay of proceedings; that no further ditching or
ploughing should be done till the 24th March, and no further ditches
to be thrown down before that date. (While they were discussing these
matters, however, the remainder of the ditches were being filled in
by women and children.) On the 11th of January 1614-15 they took an
attorney’s opinion as to what constituted a riot; and on the 12th Mr.
Replingham came to the Hall, hoping to talk the company over. The
Bailiff said he would never agree to the enclosures as long as he
lived. Then Mr. Replingham wanted him to bind some of the inhabitants
over to good behaviour. Thomas Greene said he would not bind them for
all his clerk’s fees. On the 16th Mr. Combe went to London to push his
cause as he might. He then rated the value of the enclosure at £250
per annum. On the 25th of January Mr. Chandler and Mr. Daniel Baker
went to London to take advice on their side. A lull seemed to come
into the proceedings, probably because of Mr. Archer’s decision above
noted. On the 24th of February they resolved to take Sir Edward Coke’s
opinion. On the 22nd of March Mr. Chandler for the Corporation did
present a petition to the Lord Chief Justice at Coventry, and Mr. Combe
called him a knave and a liar to his face. The Lord Chief Justice bade
Chandler remind him of the case when he came to Warwick on the 27th.
There he definitely said that it was against the laws of the realm
and must be stopped. Thomas Greene says in his Diary, 1st April 1615:
“Mr. Baker told me at his shop-house that the day before he was in
Sir William Somerville’s and Mr. Combe’s company a-hunting in Awston
fields, and Mr. Combe told him he might thank me for the petition,
and offered to sell him lands to the amount of £50 per annum lying in
Bridgetown among the Lord Carew’s land there, and that he never meant
to inclose.” On the 2nd of April Mr. Combe asked Mr. Alderman Parsons
why he was against the enclosures, and he said, “We are all sworn
men for the good of the Borough and to preserve their inheritance,
therefore they would not have it said in future time they were the men
which gave way to the undoing of the town; and that all three fires
were not so great a loss to the town as the enclosures would be.” On
the 12th of April Mr. Parsons reported that he had been beaten by Mr.
Combe’s men.
On the 19th April Laurence Wheeler and Lewis Hiccox started ploughing
on their own land within the intended enclosure, and Mr. Combe railed
at them; but the next day they returned, and Mr. Nash and many other
tenants did the same, and Mr. Combe became still more wrathful. Mr.
Combe’s next move was to try to get Sir Edward Greville and Sir Arthur
Ingram to sell him the royalty of the town; but Sir Henry Rainsford
told Greene he would never get that, and added that he was going to
sue Mr. Combe on his own account in an action for trespass, and would
sue him in the Star Chamber for riots, and he was going to sue Thomas
Combe on a bond for £40, and so the bitterness spread. September saw
fresh quarrels with Mr. Combe. On 14th December Greene notes, “Mr.
Francis Smith told me that Mr. Thomas Combe told him that his brother
would plow this year for his own good, but next year would lay it down
to spite me. The Combes questioned my Lord Chief Justice’s authority
to make any such order as was made, there being nothing before him.”
And again there was another Christmas clouded by threatened enclosures,
Shakespeare’s last Christmas upon earth.
On 21st February 1615-16, the Corporation agreed that the enclosure
should be “made a Town Cause,” and the charges defrayed out of the
revenue, for the battle was becoming fiercer than ever. Their opponent,
Mr. William Combe, had been made High Sheriff of the county, the very
officer delegated by the Crown to _prevent_ riots, etc., which he was
really rousing. Mr. Baker on the 24th told him and his brother “at
the Bridge end towards the woodyard that he marvelled they would,
contrary to my Lord’s order, enclose and dig in the Common. They said
they hoped my Lord would not hinder them from doing what they would
with their own, and Mr. William Combe said the ditch was made to save
his corn.” The Combes retorted on Mr. Baker that “the Corporation had
given money to my lord’s gentleman to work my lord, _i.e._, Sir Edward
Coke, and that was no good employment for the Town revenue!” In Mr.
Sheriff’s absence Mr. Thomas Combe set some workmen to work, and when
the Sheriff came home he approved of it, and promised the workmen they
should come to no harm. On the 1st of March some members of the Council
went to inspect and found workmen “finishing twenty-seven ridges of the
enclosure, acre’s length a-piece.” “Mr. Sheriff told Morrell that if he
were not out of authority he would send him to gaol, and having divers
times impounded his sheep, bade him tell my Lord Coke that for every
several trespass he would have a several action, and for every sixpence
damage he would recover against him six pounds.”
On the 2nd of March 1615-16, Mr. Chandler having sent his man Michael
Ward to the place where Combe’s men were digging to fling down the
ditches, they assaulted him, and would not let him proceed, and Stephen
Sly said that “if the best in Stratford were to go there to throw the
ditch down he would bury his head at the bottom.”
No wonder that in the petition of the 27th of March 1616, the
Corporation stated, “Mr. Combe being of such an unbridled disposition
he should be restrained.” In that Lent term at the Assize Court my Lord
Coke delivered his final decision, and told Combe to set his mind at
rest, for he would “neither enclose nor lay down any arable land, nor
plough up any ancient greensward.” The Corporation told Mr. Combe that
they desired his goodwill, but they would ever withstand the enclosure:
and on the 10th of April Mr. High Sheriff told Mr. John Greene that he
was out of hope now ever to enclose.
So Shakespeare sank to rest that month with the belief that the
struggle was over, and there would be no enclosure in Welcombe. But it
was not over yet by a long way. Mr. William Combe made up his mind to
defy the Lord Chief Justice as well as the Corporation. He moved gently
now, however. On the 24th of June 1616, he wrote to the Corporation
from Abchurch, desiring their loves, and showing how he would remedy
all their objections, a long letter still among the records. They
replied that they were desirous of his love and of peace, but they
prayed him against the enclosure, and said they would by all lawful
means hinder it. The miscellaneous documents of Stratford-on-Avon show
that the Bailiff and Burgesses of Stratford also complained to the
Court of Common Pleas against William Combe for enclosing. Their notes
show “The points to be complayned of and contayned in our petition are
that Mr. Combe hath not laid down meres according to my Lord Hobart’s
order, and the certificates of the justices upon the reference. And
that he hath decayed 117 ridges of tilling and neglecting the farming
thereof contrary to the order and contrary to his own word and promise
made to the judges and justices at the tyme of their conference. My
Lord Coke at Lent Assizes 13 James I, and my Lord Hobart confirmed this
assize. The grief for decaying is the destruction of our common, and
the decaying of the tilling is the losse of our tythes with which our
poor are free.” They also presented “My Lord Coke and my Lord Hubbard
their orders for the restraint of enclosier and decay of tillage in the
feeldes of Stratford, 1617.”
But the struggle continued during 1618, though more warily on Combe’s
side. The Privy Council had become interested. It had dawned on them
that they had had to excuse the subsidies from Stratford more than once
on account of the fires, and if it happened, as a petition from the
Corporation suggested, they might have to excuse them again on account
of Combe’s enclosure. On the 14th of February 1618 the Privy Council
referred the consideration of the Stratford petition to the Master of
the Rolls and Sir Edward Coke, and wrote officially to William Combe in
a very sharp way. He was to restore the enclosures to their pristine
condition, and whatever the judges decided to do with him in regard to
the course he had taken in defiance of the order of the justices in
assize and the certificate of Sir Richard Verney he must not fail to
obey, or he would answer it at his peril.
Apparently Combe was at last alarmed, and gave in, not too soon, for
decisions had gone against him in every court, and orders were out
against him for “contempt of court” also. Influence saved him from some
of the consequences. In the Stratford Miscellaneous Documents there
is one called “Dispensation to William Combe for enclosing,” or “Mr.
Combe, his pardon for enclosing.” But he had to pay a fine of £4 for
that, and to go to all the expense of putting the land back as the
people were used to see it. By the summer of 1619 Stratford-on-Avon and
its Corporation were at rest as to Combe’s enclosure.
I have found that the final award for the Stratford enclosures, under
the Act of Parliament for enclosures, 15 George III, was signed 21st
January 1775. They amounted to 1,635 acres, 1 rood, 18 perches.
_“Stratford-on-Avon Herald,” 23rd August 1912._
NOTE TO ARTICLE XI (2)
FIRES AND THATCH IN STRATFORD
The distressing fires which so frequently raged in Stratford-on-Avon
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be considered among
the causes likely to account somewhat for the fact that no letters
of Shakespeare’s have come down to us. These fires (1594-6, 1598,
1614) were almost of national importance, as they were serious enough
to force the Corporation to petition the Queen for the remission of
taxes--which was granted (Wheeler MS. i. 46); and sometimes also they
had permission to collect for their poor in the neighbouring towns and
counties. A touching letter in 1598 from Richard Quiney as “the poor
suitor from Stratford,” whose purse is weakened by long sojourning in
London “shews that the Collector was retaining £24 10_s._, while the
poor needed it,” is in Wheler MS., i, 54.
In the petition of 1598 they state that the town had lost £12,000 by
two very grievous fires, on which petition the Queen was graciously
pleased to instruct the Attorney-General to give a book of discharge
for the subsidy, 17th December 1598. They again petitioned to be
relieved of their duties to the Queen and to the poor in 1601 (7th
June). Again a dreadful fire took place in 1614, at the time of the
death of John Combe, when eighty-five houses were burned down, besides
many smaller edifices, and again petitions went up to the Queen for the
remission of taxes, as they had 700 poor on their hands. Their distress
and anxiety were intensified just at that time by William Combe’s
determined efforts to start enclosures at Welcombe. They naturally saw
in this a reduction of tithes, from which were endowed their school
and almshouses, and in their many petitions against his high-handed
action they always referred to their town as “being greatly ruinated
by fire.” At last it seems to have struck some of the members of the
Privy Council that they should inquire why Stratford should have more
than its share of fires. Some one in Stratford found the cause in the
thatched roofs of the period, and the Corporation forbade any more
houses to be built with thatched roofs; indeed, ordered the thatch of
old houses to be exchanged for the greater safety of tiles and slates.
This would materially change the appearance of Stratford, not improving
it in an artistic sense, but making it much safer. Now, there are
papers in London which often fill out the information preserved among
the valuable records of Stratford-on-Avon. I have come across some
letters in the unpublished Register of the Privy Council, which may
be added to the history of the town. They show that some one, or some
party of inhabitants, had complained to the Privy Council against three
men, who persisted in using thatch, and they tell their own story, so I
give them in full.
16th March, 1618-19. To the Bayliffe, Chief Aldermen, and Towne
Clarcke for the tyme being of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Wee sende you heere enclosed a petition exhibited unto us on the
behalf of that Burrough of Stratford-upon-Haven, wherein is humbly
represented unto us the greate and lamentable losse happened to
that towne by casualty of Fyer, which of late years hath been very
frequently occasioned by means of thatched cottages, stacks of straw,
furze, and such-like combustible stuffe, which are suffered to be
erected, and made confusedly in most of the principal parts of the
town without restraint: and which being still continewed cannot but
prove very dangerous and subject to the like inconveniences. And,
therefore, wee have thought meete for the better safety and securing
that towne from future dainger, hereby to authorize and require you to
take order that from henceforward there be not any house or cottage
that shall be erected by any owner of land or other, suffered to be
thatched, nor any stacks or pyles of strawe or furzes made in any part
of that towne, either upon the streetes or elsewhere, that may in any
way endanger the same by fyer as formerly, but that all the houses
and cottages to be hereafter built within the towne be covered with
tyles or slates, and the foresayd stacks and pyles removed to fitt and
convenient places without the towne. And for the houses and cottages
already built and covered with strawe there, wee do likewise require
you to cause the same to be altered and reformed according to theis
directions with as much expedition as may stand with convenience,
and as the safety and wellfare of that towne may any way require.
Herein wee require you to take order accordingly, and in case of any
opposition to theis our directions, whereby the performance of the
same may be interrupted or stayed to make certificate unto us of the
names of such as shall not conforme themselves accordingly that such
further order may be taken therein as shall be expedient.
10th November, 1619. A warrant to John Foster, one of the messingers
of his Majesties’ Chamber, to bring before their lordships, George
Badger, William Shawe, and John Beesley alias Coxey, inhabitants in
the Burrow of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick.
26th November, 1619. A letter to [no name added]. You shall understand
that complaint was made unto us by a petitioner in the name of the
Baliffe and Burgesses of the Town of Stratford-upon-Haven that
whereas there was an order lately made at this Board restrayning
the use of thatching of houses and cottages in the towne to prevent
and avoyd the danger and great losse by fier that of late tyme hath
often happened there by means of such thatched houses to the utter
ruyne and overthrow of many of the inhabitants: Theis three parties,
George Badger, William Shaw, and John Beesley, refusing to conforme
themselves to our said order, had in contempt thereof erected certain
thatched houses and cottages to the ill example of others, and the
endangering of the towne by the like casualty of fire. Whereuppon they
being convented before us, forasmuch as they do absolutely deny that
they have shewed any such disobedience at all to our said order nor
committed any manner of act contrary thereunto since the publication
of the same in that towne. And that the partie that exhibited the
complaint against them in the name of the towne did not appear to
make good his informacion, wee have thought good to dismiss the said
Badger, Shaw, and Beesley for the present, and withall to pray and
require you to take due examynacion of the foresaid complaint, which
you shall receive here enclosed, and upon full informacion of the
truth thereof to make certificate unto us of what you find therein
that such further order may be taken as shall be meete.
The complaint has not been preserved, but it would have been
interesting to us to have known who sent it up, and what were the
arguments used.
_“Stratford-on-Avon Herald,” 12th April 1912._
NOTE TO ARTICLE XIII
SHAKSPEARE’S BUST AT STRATFORD
ITS RESTORATION IN 1749
I had been searching for years for contemporary notices of the
alteration, in every possible direction, but I only discovered what I
wanted a few months ago, viz., the letters of those concerned in the
restoration.
The figures are not so large, nor the details quite so full, as I
had hoped they would be; but, such as they are, they ought to be
laid before the public. They are taken from the Wheler Collection,
Stratford-on-Avon, a number of copies from the MSS. of the Rev. Joseph
Greene, Master of the Grammar School. The series begins with the
account of the reasons for the movement towards restoration:
As the generous proposals of the proprietors of the two greatest
playhouses in this Kingdom were kindly accepted and encouraged,
in relation to each of them acting a play for the sole purpose of
erecting a new monument to the memory of Shakespeare in Westminster
Abbey, and as the curious original monument and bust of that
incomparable poet, erected above the tomb that enshrines his dust in
the Church of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, is through length of
years and other accidents become much impaired and decayed, an offer
has been kindly made by the judicious and much esteemed Mr. John Ward
and his company to act one of Shakespeare’s plays, vizt., “Othello;
or, The Moor of Venice” (in the Town Hall) at Stratford, on Tuesday,
the ninth of this instant, September, 1746, the receipts arising from
which representation are to be solely appropriated to the repairing of
the original monument aforesaid.
Then follows a “copy of an old play-bill at the time of repairing and
beautifying Shakespeare’s monument, with the Rev. Joseph Greene’s
remarks on the performers. The printed bill was drawn up by Greene
himself, and somewhat corrected by Mr. John Ward, grandfather of
the present celebrated Mrs. Siddons (MSS. penes Mr. George).” The
annotations by Greene give some suggestions of the quality of the
players.
The part of Othello to be performed by Mr. Ward.
Iago } { Mr. Elrington (_a young man, acts well_).
Cassio } { Mr. Redman (_a middle-aged man, too indifferent in
} { acting_).
Brabantio } by { Mr. Woodward (_an elderly man; some things well,
} { others wretchedly_).
Montano } { Mr. Butler (_an old man; comic parts very well_).
Roderigo } { Mr. Butcher (_a young man, low humour pretty well_).
Gratiano } { Mr. Bourne (_an elderly man, low humour very well_).
Doge of Venice by Dts.
Desdemona } { Mrs. Elrington (_a second wife, but young; a very
} by { agreeable actress_).
Emilia } { Mrs. Ward (_a middle-aged woman, a good actress_).
With several Entertainments of singing between the acts by Mrs.
Elrington and Mrs. Wilson[112] (_Mrs. Elrington’s voice is rather more
agreeable than Mrs. Wilson’s, but Mrs. Wilson has most judgment in
music_).
It is therefore humbly wished that such persons as have a taste
for the inimitable thoughts, the sublime expressions, the natural
and lively descriptions and characters of that great genius, and
consequently a value for his memory, will encourage the proposed
method of perpetuating it by attending the play at that juncture for
the laudable purpose of rebeautifying his venerable monument and
effigies.
N.B.--The money received on this occasion is to be deposited in the
hands of the churchwardens.
In these days of Shakespeare Memorial Schemes, Shakespeare Societies,
and Shakespeare Exhibitions, it is well to remember the simple aims
and methods of eighteenth-century Memorial Committees in their early
proceedings, and take warning from the results of delay, the causes for
which are not clearly explained. It was not the fault of the players
that there was even so much delay as there was.
By the following copies from Greene’s MSS. it appears “that some
disputes arose between the cashier-churchwardens for 1746, and the
contributors towards repairing Shakespeare’s Monument, which reparation
did not take place till 1748. Meetings took place, and forms were
proposed for the churchwardens’ signatures to compel the cashier to pay
the money to the artist when he had completed his undertaking.”
* * * * *
Copy of a notice published on Sunday, November 20, 1748, in Stratford
Parish Church by the clerk, _me ibid concionant_. MSS. Greene:--
“I am desired to give notice that on Friday, 25th Nov. next, there
will be a meeting at the Market Hall in Stratford of those persons who
contributed for the repairing of Shakspeare’s monument, in order to
resolve upon a proper method of repairing and beautifying the monument
aforesaid.”
It seems that few or none attended, and that nothing was then done.
There was, however, a form drawn up which was meant to be signed by
those present:
We whose names are hereunder written or annexed, contributors to the
sum raised at the Town Hall of Stratford-upon-Avon, for repairing
and beautifying the original monument of Shakspeare the poet, agree
that the direction and execution of that work shall be committed to
Mr. John Hall, Limner; and (provided he takes care, according to his
ability, that the monument shall become as like as possible to what
it was, when first erected) that then the money already raised for
the purpose aforesaid shall be forthwith paid him upon finishing the
work. We will also use our endeavours that such further money shall be
collected and given him as, with the former collections, may make up
the whole sum of sixteen pounds.
This was not then and there signed, but apparently was brought forward
again at a meeting held at the Falcon Inn, at which were “present
Sir Hugh Clopton, Rev. Mr. Kenwrick, Rev. Mr. Preston, ye Master of
the Free School (Greene), Mr. Alderman Haynes, Mr. Joseph Broom, Mr.
John Hall. A form proposed by Mr. Greene to the gentlemen at the
Falcon, but rejected by Mr. Kenwrick (the vicar), who thought it did
not sufficiently limit what was to be done by Mr. Hall, as a form
which he himself had drawn up. November 30, 1748.” The differences
were trifling. “Agreed: That Mr. John Hall, Limner, shall repair and
beautify, or have the direction of repairing and beautifying, the
original monument of Shakespeare the poet, etc.”
Mr. Joseph Greene, who seems to have had the work of restoration very
much at heart, had before the meetings at the Falcon written a letter
to Mr. John Ward, who was then at Hereford:
I believe you are by this time no stranger to the disputes arisen on
this side the country concerning the disposal of the money collected
at your representation of ‘Othello’ and generously given by you for
the repairing of Shakespeare’s original monument. That it should lye
as useless in our churchwardens’ hands, as cash in the trunk of a
miser, is making it not current, but dormant coin, an impropriety
which many of us can by no means approve of: wherefore to set aside
all idle surmises which any may chance to entertain of knavishly
mismanaging, or foolishly not managing, the devoted sum, some
gentlemen in our neighbourhood have requested by me that you would
speedily by letter, or some way which you think most proper, signify
to the parties concerned what your intentions are, or what directions
you would choose to give concerning the money, that it may once more
make its public appearance in open daylight, and that a blacksmith’s
sable apron may no longer be used as a napkin wherein to hide your
talents.