1582, his eldest son, William, added to his embarrassments, by
premature and forced marriage. It is the practice of Shakespere’s
biographers to pass hurriedly over this event in the young man’s life,
for there is nothing commendable in his marital relations. There
is expressed in it irregularity of conduct and probable desertion
on his part; pressure was brought to bear on the young man by his
wife’s relations, and he was forced to marry the woman whom he had
wronged. Who can believe that their marriage was a happy one, when
the only written words contained in his will are not words expressive
of connubial endearment, such as “dear wife” or “sweet wife,” but “my
wife?” He had forgotten her, but by an interlineation in the final
draft, she received his second best bed with its furniture. This was
the sole bequest made to her.
We are by no means sure of the identity of his wife. We do not know
that she and Shakespere ever went through the actual ceremony of
marriage, unless her identity is traceable through Anne Wateley, as a
regular license was issued for the marriage of William Shaxpere and
Anne Wateley of Temple Grafton, November 27, 1583. Richard Hathaway,
the reputed father of Shakspere’s wife, Anne, in his will dated
September 1, 1581, bequeathed his property to seven children, his
daughters being Catherin, Margaret and Agnes. No Anne was mentioned.
The first published notice of the name of William Shakspere’s
(supposed) wife appears in Rowe’s “Life of Shakespere” (1709), wherein
it is stated that she “was the daughter of one Hathaway said to have
been a substantial yeoman in the neighborhood of Stratford.” This
was all that Betterton, the actor Rowe’s informant, could learn at
the time of his visit to Stratford-on-Avon. The exact time of this
visit is unknown, but it was probably about the year 1690. This lack
of knowledge in regard to the Hathaways shows that the locality of
Anne Hathaway’s residence, or that of her parents, was not known at
Stratford. The house at Shottery, now known as Anne Hathaway’s cottage,
and reached from Stratford by fieldpaths, may have been the home of
Anne Hathaway, wife of William Shakspere, before his marriage, but of
this there is no proof.
Shakspere was married under the name “Shagspere,” but the place of
marriage is unknown, as his place of residence is not mentioned in
the bond. In the registry of the bishop of the diocese (Worcester)
is contained a deed wherein Sandells and Richardson, husbandmen of
Stratford, bound themselves in the bishop’s consistory court on
November 28, 1582, as a surety for forty pounds, to free the bishop
of all liability should any lawful impediment, by reason of any
precontract, or consanguinity, be subsequently disclosed to imperil
the validity of the contemplated marriage of William Shakspere with
Anne Hathaway. Provided, that Anne obtained the consent of her friends,
the marriage might proceed with at once proclaiming the bans of
matrimony. The wording of the bond shows that, despite the fact that
the bridegroom was a minor by nearly three years, the consent of his
parents was neither called for, nor obtained, though necessary “for
strictly regular procedure.” Sandells and Richardson, representing
the lady’s family, ignored the bridegroom’s family completely. In
having secured the deed, they forced Shakspere to marry their friend’s
daughter in order to save her reputation. Soon afterwards—within six
months—a daughter was born. Moreover, the whole circumstances of
the case render it highly probable that Shakspere had no thought of
marriage, for the waning fortune of his father had made him acquainted
with the “cares of bread.” He was a penniless youth, not yet of age,
having neither trade, nor means of livelihood, and was forced by her
friends into marrying her—a woman eight years older than himself. In
1585 she presented him with twins.
When he left Stratford for London we do not know positively, but the
advent of the twins is the approximate date of the youth’s Hegira.
He lived apart from his wife for more than twenty-five years. The
breath of slander never touched the good name of Anne (or Agnes), the
neglected wife of William Shakspere. There is _prima-facie_ evidence
that the playbroker’s wife fared in his absence no better than his
father and mother, who, dying intestate in 1601 and 1608, respectively,
were buried somewhere by the Stratford church, but there is no trace
of any sepulchral monument, or memorial. If anything of the kind had
been set up by their wealthy son, William Shakspere, it would certainly
have been found by someone. The only contemporary mention made of the
wife of Shakspere, between her marriage in 1582 and her husband’s
death in 1616, was as the borrower, at an unascertained date, of forty
shillings from Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her father’s
shepherd. The money was unpaid when Whittington died in 1601, and his
executor was directed to recover the sum from Shakspere and distribute
it among the poor of Stratford. There is disclosed in this pecuniary
transaction, coupled with the slight mention of her in the will and the
barring of her dower, _prima facie_ evidence of William Shakspere’s
indifference to, and neglect of, if not dislike for, his wife. All
this is in striking contrast with the conduct of Sir Thomas Lucy, whom
the biographers of Shakespere have attempted to disparage, and whose
endearment for his wife is so feelingly expressed in his will. And, in
contrast also, is the conduct of Edward Alleyn, famous as an actor, and
as the founder of Dulwich College, who lived with his wife in London,
and called her “sweet mouse.”
The tangibility of this Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon is very much in
evidence along pecuniary lines, especially as money lender, land-owner,
speculator and litigant. In 1597 he bought New Place in Stratford
for sixty pounds; also mentioned as a holder of grain at Stratford X
quarters. The following entry is in Chamberlain’s accounts at Stratford
in 1598: “Paid to Mr. Shaxpere for one lode of stone xd;” in the same
year Richard Quiney wrote to William Shakspere for a loan of thirty or
forty pounds; in 1599 William Shakspere was taken into the new Globe
Theatre Company as partner; in 1602 Shakspere bought one hundred seven
acres of arable land at Stratford for three hundred two pounds (in
his absence the conveyance was given over to his brother, Gilbert);
in the same year he bought a house with barns, orchards, and gardens,
from Hercules Underhill for sixty pounds; also a cottage close to his
house, New Place; in 1605 Shakspere bought the thirty-two-year lease of
half Stratford tithes for four hundred forty pounds; in 1613 Shakspere
bought a house near Blackfriars’ Theatre for one hundred and forty
pounds, and mortgaged it next day for sixty pounds; in 1612 Shakspere
is mentioned in a law suit brought before Lord Ellsimore about
Stratford tithes; in 1611 Hamnet, his only son, died at Stratford at
the age of eleven and half years. The father, however, set up no stone
to tell where the boy lay.
In the autumn of the year 1614 Shakspere became implicated with the
landowners, William Combe and Arthur Mannering, in the conspiracy to
enclose the common field in the vicinity of Stratford. The success of
this rapacious scheme would have advantaged Shakspere in his freehold
interest, but might have affected adversely his interest in the tithes,
so he secured himself against all possible loss by obtaining from
Riplingham, Combe’s agent, in October, 1614, a deed of indemnification;
then, in the spirit of his agreement, he acted in unison with the two
greedy land-sharks to rob the poor people of their ancient rights of
pasturage. The unholy coalition caused great excitement. The humble
citizens of Stratford were thoroughly aroused, and the town corporation
put up a sharp and vigorous opposition to the scheme, for enclosure
would have caused decay of tillage, idleness, penury, depopulation, and
the subversion of homes. Happily, the three greedy cormorants Combe,
Mannering and Shakspere failed in their efforts and the common field
was unenclosed.
Shakspere is thought to have been penurious for his litigious strivings
point in that direction, but this feature of his character was not
disclosed in 1596 and 1599, when he sought to have his family enrolled
among the gentry, as shown by his extravagance in bribing the officers
of the Herald College to issue a grant of arms to his father, “a
transaction which involved,” says Dr. Farmer, “the falsehood and
venality of the father, the son and two kings-at-arms, and did not
escape protest, for if ever a coat was cut from whole cloth we may be
sure that this coat-of-arms was the one.” Shakspere himself was not in
a position to apply for a coat-of-arms—“a player stood far too low in
the social scale for the cognizance of heraldry.” Nevertheless, recent
writers on the subject of Shakespeare stamp this bogus coat-of-arms on
the covers of their books. We know that the Shaksperes did not belong
to the Armigerous part of the population, and that they stood somewhat
lower in the social scale than either the Halls or Quineys, who bore
marital relations with them.
Shakspere’s son-in-law, John Hall, was a master of arts and an eminent
physician. He was summoned more than once to attend the Earl and
Countess of Northampton at Ludlow Castle. He was of the French Court
School, and was opposed to the indiscriminate process of bleeding. On
June 5, 1607, Dr. Hall was married at Stratford-on-Avon to Shakspere’s
eldest daughter, Susanna. Stratford then contained about fifteen
hundred inhabitants. One hundred sixty-two years later, Garrick gave
his unsavory description of Stratford-on-Avon as “the most dirty,
unseemly, ill-paved, wretched-looking town in all Britain.” Cottages of
that day in Stratford consisted of mud walls and thatched roofs. “At
this period and for many generations afterwards the sanitary conditions
of the thoroughfares of Stratford-on-Avon were simply terrible.”
On February 10, 1616, Thomas Quiney, a vintner, and also an
accomplished scholar and penman, was married at Stratford church to
Judith, Shakspere’s younger daughter, who could neither read nor write.
The marriage ceremony took place without a license or proclaiming the
bans. For this breach of ecclesiastical procedure both the parties were
summoned to the court at Worcester and threatened with excommunication.
When the fortune hunter goes forth to woe, and is determined to win,
he is content to wade through reeking refuse and muckheaps to marry a
rich heiress and does not much care if her histrionic father by XXXIX
Elizabeth were a vagabond.
If “there is a soul of truth in things erroneous,” so there may be a
soul of truth in the creditableness of the Shakspere traditions, for
in them are revealed the environment in which they had their genesis,
and the character of the inventor or fabricator. All of the traditions
are comparatively recent or modern, and were made current by people
who were, with few exceptions, coarse and densely ignorant. These
apocryphal accounts serve to show also how little educated people knew,
or cared, about writing with literary or historical accuracy when
Shakspere was the subject. Unfortunately all of the traditions about
Shakspere are of a degrading character.
The poaching escapade of his having robbed a park is one of the
invented stories of fancy-mongers. There is very little likelihood
that the young husband, with a wife and three babies to support, would
voluntarily place himself in a position where he would have to flee
from Sir Thomas Lucy’s prosecution; thereby degrading the lowermost
rank of life by bringing disgrace upon himself, his wife and children,
while his parents in straitened circumstances were struggling to keep
the wolf from the door. The records show that Sir Thomas Lucy had no
park either at Charlecote or Fulbroke, still the Lucys of a later day
were not anxious to lose the honor of having spanked Shakspere for
poaching on the ancestral preserves.
England was called in those days “The toper’s paradise,” and tradition
informs us that Shakspere was one of the Bedford topers. However,
we should not infer from this that William Shakspere, a firm man of
business, was at any time a drunken sot. The only story recorded during
Shakspere’s life is contained in John Manningham’s note-book. It savors
strongly of the tavern, the diarist criminating Shakspere’s morals.
This entry was made on March 13, 1601, the reference being to player
Shakspere.
No wonder that such eminent votaries of Shakspere as Stevens, Hallam,
Dyce and Emerson are disappointed and perplexed, for, while the
record concerning the life of the player, money-lender, landowner,
play-broker, speculator and litigant are ample, they disclose nothing
of a literary character; but the pecuniary litigation evidence, growing
out of Shakspere’s devotion to money-getting in London and Stratford,
does unfold his true life and character. The records do not furnish a
single instance of friendship, kindness or generosity, but upon the
delinquent borrower of money he rigidly evoked the law, which gave a
generous advantage to the creditor, and its vile prison to the debtor.
In 1600 Shakspere brought action against John Clayton for seven pounds
and got judgment in his favor. He sued Philip Rogers, a neighbor in
Stratford Court, for one pound, fifteen shillings and six pence due
for malt sold, and two shillings loaned. In August, 1608, Shakspere
prosecuted John Addenbroke to recover a debt of six pounds. He
prosecuted this last suit for a couple of years until he got the
defendant into prison. The prisoner was bailed out by Horneby.
Addenbroke, running away, escaped from the clutches of his tormentor,
who then bore down on his security, Horneby.
“The pursuit of an impoverished man for the sake of imprisoning him,
and depriving him both of the power of paying his debts and supporting
his family, grate upon our feelings,” says Richard Grant White, “and,”
adds this eminent Shakspearean, “we hunger and we receive these husks,
we open our mouths for food and we break our teeth against these
stones.” We may be sure that there was left in the impoverished home
of John Addenbroke little more palatable than husks and stones, when
the father fled to escape from the clutches of his insistent creditor,
William Shakspere of Stratford.
The paltry suits he brought to recover debts do not tend to disclose
this Shakspere’s “radiant temperament,” or fit him to receive the
adjective, “gentle,” except in contumely for his claim to gentility. It
is not known that Shakspere ever gave hospitality to the necessities
of the poor of his native shire, for whom, it appears, there beat no
pulse of tenderness. A man of scanty sensibilities he must have been.
The poor working people of Stratford, we may be sure, shed no tear at
this Shakspere’s departure from the world.
We do not envy the man, who can regard these harsh pecuniary practices
in this Shakspere, as commendable traits of his worldly wisdom, for
he was shrewd in money matters, and could have invested his money in
London and Stratford so as not to have brought sorrow and distress upon
his poor neighbors. These matters are small in themselves, but they
suggest a good deal, for they bear witness to sorrow-stricken mothers,
hungry children and fathers in loathsome prisons, powerless to provide
food, warmth and light for the home. The diary, or note-book, of Philip
Henslowe, the theatrical manager and play-broker, shows that Henslowe
was himself a very penurious and grasping man, who, taking advantage
of starving play-makers’ necessities, became very wealthy. William
Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon, as a theatrical manager, became rich
also, but his note-book has not been preserved, so nothing is known
of his business methods in dealing with the poor play-makers; but the
literary antiquarians, by ransacking corporations’ records and other
public archives, have proven that Shakspere was very much such a man as
the old pawnbroker and play-broker, Philip Henslowe, of a rival house.
The biographers should record these facts, and not strive to shun
them, for the literary antiquaries have unearthed and brought them
forward, and they tell the true story of Shakspere’s life, though we
do not linger lovingly over them, for, like Hallam, “we as little feel
the power of identifying the young man who came up from Stratford,
was afterward an indifferent player in a London theatre, and retired
to his native place in middle life, with the author of ‘Macbeth’ and
‘Lear,’” for the Stratford records are as barren of literary matter as
the lodgings in Silver street, London. Not a crumb for the literary
biographer in either place!
Professor Wallace has added another non-literary document in the matter
of Shakspere’s deposition in the case of Bellot vs. Mountjoy, which he
discovered in the public record office, but it in no way contributes to
a literary biography. The truth is that, with all their industry, the
antiquarians have in this regard not brought to light a single proven
fact to sustain the claim that this Shakespere was either the author of
poems or plays. This bit of new knowledge gives us a glimpse of this
William Shakspere as an evasive witness, having a conveniently short
memory. These depositions disclose his intermediation in the matter of
making two hearts happy, but not the faintest glimpse of the author
of poems or plays. When the claim of authorship is challenged, new
particulars of the life of Shakspere, such as this and others that have
been unearthed by antiquarians, whether in the public record office
or corporation archives, are alike worthless so far as establishing
the poet Shakspere’s identity. They fail to confirm the identity of
the actor Shakspere with the author of the plays and poems that are
associated with his name. There are no family traditions, no books,
manuscripts, or letters, addressed to him, or by him, to poet, peer
or peasant. The credible evidence supplied by contemporaneous, or
antiquarian, research do not identify the player and landowner with the
author of “Hamlet,” “Lear” and “Othello.”
Our belief in the pseudonymity of the author of the poems and
plays, called Shakespeare, is strengthened by the absence of verse
commemorative of concurrent events, such as the strivings of his
boldest countrymen in the great Elizabethan age. There is, from
his pen, neither word of cheer, nor sympathy, with the daring
and suffering warriors and adventurers of that time, although his
contemporaries versified eulogies to the heroes of those days for their
stirring deeds. There is, in the poems and plays, no elegiac lay in
memory of Elizabeth, “the glorious daughter of the illustrious Henry,”
as Robert Greene calls her, nor is there one line of mourning verse at
the death of Prince Henry, the noblest among the children of the king,
by a writer who was always a strenuous and consistent supporter of
prerogative against the conception of freedom. This is another evidence
of the secrecy maintained as to the authorship of the poems and plays.
We cannot discover a single laudatory poem or commendatory verse,
or a line of praise of any publication, or writer of his time. All
this is in contrast with his contemporaries, whose personalities are
identifiable with their literary work, and, so liberal of commendation
were they, that they literally showered commendatory verses on literary
works of merit, or those thought to have merit. Of these, thirty-five
were bestowed on Fletcher, a score or more on Beaumont, Chapman and
Ford, while Massinger received nineteen. Ben Jonson’s published works
contain thirty-seven pieces of commendation. His Roman tragedy,
“Sejanus,” was acclaimed by ten contemporary poets. In praise of his
comedy, “Volpone,” there are seven poems. The versified compliments
bestowed on him by his fellow craftsmen embrace many of the most
celebrated names antecedent to his death, which occurred in 1637. Early
in 1638 a collection of some thirty elegies were published under the
title of “Jonsonus Virbius,” or “The Memory of Ben Jonson,” in which
nearly all the leading poets of the day, except Milton, took part.
It must appear strange to the votaries of Shakspere that Jonson should
have received so many crowns of mourning verse, while for Shakspere
of Stratford-on-Avon, the reputed author of “Hamlet,” “Lear” and
“Macbeth,” there wailed no dirge. Not a single commendatory verse
was bestowed by a contemporary poet antecedent to his death, nor
was a single elegiac poem written of him in the year of his death,
1616. Already in that fatal year there had been mourning for Francis
Beaumont, who received immediate posthumous honors by many poets, in
memorial odes, sighing forth the requiem to his name in mournful elegy.
Eight and forty days after the death of Francis Beaumont, all that was
mortal of William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon was buried in the
chancel of his parish church, in which, as part owner of the tithes and
consequently one of the lay rectors, he had the right of interment.
Over the spot where his body was laid, there was placed a slab with the
inscription imprecating a curse on the man who should disturb his bones,
“Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed here
Bless be ye man yt spares this stown
And curst be he yt moves my bones.”
This rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph has given much trouble to
writers on the subject of Shakespeare. The usual explanation of the
threat is given that the Puritans thought that the church had been
profaned by the ashes of an actor. These ignorant words could not have
been written as a deterrent to the Puritans, for they did not belong to
the ignorant section of the population, but to the middle class, nor
would they have been deterred from invading Shakspere’s tomb by the
superstitious fear of a threat contained in doggerel verse cut on the
tomb. There was not the least danger that the actor’s grave would be
violated by the Puritans, for Dr. John Hall, Shakspere’s son-in-law,
was a Puritan. If he had had this warning epitaph cut on the tomb it
would have been written in scholarly English. The doggerel lines, rude
as they are, satisfied, doubtless, the widow and daughters, themselves
ignorant. The most pleasing epitaph, it seems to us, would have been
one expressing a known wish of their “dear departed” in words, when
read by others, that would best suit their understandings, for the
Shakspere family were uncultured. They could not read the stupid
epitaph on his tomb, and so their hearts were not saddened as they
gazed upon an inscription of barbaric rudeness.
Some slight circumstance may have given rise to William Hall’s
conjecture, during his visit to Stratford, in 1694, that Shakspere
authored his own epitaph, and that these lines were written to suit
the capacity of clerks and sextons, who, according to Hall, in course
of time would have removed Shakspere’s dust to the bone house. This is
not improbable from the point of view taken by those who believe that
Shakspere of Stratford wrote the doggerel epigram on John Combe, money
lender, and the vituperative ballad abusing the gentleman whose park he
(Shakspere) robbed, for the three compositions are of the same grade
of ignorant nonsense. But we do know that had the author of “Hamlet”
written his own epitaph, it would have been as deathless as the one
over the Countess of Pembroke:
“Underneath this sable hearst
Lies the subject of all verse
Sidney’s sister—Pembroke’s mother
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Learned and fair and good as she
Time shall throw a dart at thee.”
It should be borne in mind that clerks and sextons were not the only
ignorant people in and about Stratford. There were some that had a
grievance, or thought they had, which parish clerks and sextons had
not. We have reference to the poor debtors, who regarded Shakspere of
Stratford as a grasping usurer, hard upon poor people in his power, so
the curse inscribed slab was placed over Shakspere’s grave as a shield
to protect his ashes from those who would not hesitate to invade the
tomb of one whose memory had become hateful to them. If in pressing
his claim the money lender elects to be a tormentor, his name will be
execrated while living and a hateful memory when dead.