On the 22nd of August, 1485, there was a battle fought for the crown of England, a short battle ending in a decisive victory. The battle-field was Bosworth. Was there in that victorious army of the Earl of Richmond an Englishman bearing the name of Chacksper, or Shakespeyre, or Schakspere, or Schakespeire, or Schakspere, or Shakespere, or Shakespere,*-a martial name, however spelt? Of the warlike achievements of this Shakspere there is no record: his name or his deeds would have no interest for us unless there had been born, eighty years after this battle-day, a direct descendant from him *A list of the brethren and sisters of the Guild of Knowle, near Rowington, in Warwickshire, exhibits a great number of the name of Shakspere in that fraternity, from about 1460 to 1527; and the names are spelt with the diversity here given, Shakspere being the latest. "Whose muse, full of high thought's invention, a Shakspere of whom it was also said— "He seems to shake a lance As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance."† An A public document bearing the date of 1596 affirms of John Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon, the father of William Shakspere, that his "parent and late antecessors were, for their valiant and faithful services, advanced and rewarded of the most prudent prince King Henry VII. of famous memory; " and it adds, "sithence which time they have continued at those parts [Warwickshire] in good reputation and credit." other document of a similar character, bearing the date of 1599, also affirms upon "creditable report," of "John Shakspere, now of Stratford-upon-Avon in the county of Warwick, gentleman," that his " parent and greatgrandfather, late antecessor, for his faithful and approved service to the late most prudent prince King Henry VII. of famous memory, was advanced and rewarded with lands and tenements, given to him in those parts of Warwickshire, where they have continued by some descents in good reputation and credit." Such are the recitals of two several grants of arms to John Shakspere, confirming a previous grant made to him in 1569. The great-grandson of the faithful and approved servant of Henry VII., John Shakspere, was a burgess of the corporation of Stratford, and was in all probability born about 1530. The family had continued in those parts, "by some descents; but how they were occupied in the business of life, what was their station in society, how they branched out into other lines of Shaksperes, we have no record. In 1599 John Shakspere a second time went to the College of Arms, and producing his own "ancient coat of arms," said that he had "married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden, of Wellingcote:" and * Spenser. † Ben Jonson, then the heralds say "We have likewise upon one other escutcheon impaled the same with the ancient arms of the said Arden of Wellingcote.' They add that John Shakspere, and his children, issue, and posterity, may bear and use the same shield of arms, single or impaled. The family of Arden was one of the highest antiquity in Warwickshire. Dugdale traces its pedigree uninterruptedly up to the time of Edward the Confessor. The pedigree which Dugdale gives of the Arden family brings us no nearer in the direct line to the mother of Shakspere than to Robert Arden, her great-grandfather: he was the third son of Walter Arden, who married Eleanor the daughter of John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire; and he was brother of Sir John Arden, squire for the body to Henry VII. Robert's son, also called Robert, was groom of the chamber to Henry VII. He married, and he had a son, also Robert, who married Agnes Webbe. Their youngest daughter was Mary, the mother of William Shakspere. High as was her descent, wealthy and powerful as were the numerous branches of her family, Mary Arden, we doubt not, led a life of usefulness as well as innocence, within her native forest hamlet. She had three sisters, and they all, with their mother Agnes, survived their father, who died in December, 1556. His will is dated the 24th of November in the same year, and the testator styles himself "Robert Arden, of Wylmcote, in the paryche of Aston Cauntlow." Mary, his youngest daughter, from superiority of mind, or some other cause of her father's confidence, occupies the most prominent position in the will. She has an undivided estate and a sum of money; and, from the crop being also bequeathed to her, it is evident that she was considered able to continue the tillage. The estate thus bequeathed to her consisted of about sixty acres of arable and pasture, and a house; and was called Asbies. In the winter of 1556 was Mary Arden left without the guidance of a father, under this somewhat naked roof-tree, now become her own. Her sister Alice was to occupy another property in Wilmecote with her mother, provided the widow would so consent; and she did consent. And so she lived a somewhat lonely life, till a young yeoman of Stratford, who had probably some acquaintance with her father, came to sit oftener and oftener upon the wooden benches in the old hall-a substantial yeoman, a burgess of the corporation in 1557 or 1558; and then in due season Mary Arden and John Shakspere were standing before the altar of the parish church of Aston Cantlow, and the house and lands of Asbies became administered by one who took possession "by the right of the said Mary," who thenceforward abided for half a century in the good town of Stratford. There have been endless theories, old and new, affirmations, contradictions, as to the worldly calling of John Shakspere. There are ancient registers in Stratford, minutes of the Common Hall, proceedings of the Court-leet, pleas of the Court of Record, writs which have been hunted over with unwearied diligence,_and yet they tell us nothing, or next to nothing, of John Shakspere. When he was elected an alderman in 1565, we can trace out the occupations of his brother aldermen, and readily come to the conclusion that the municipal authority of Stratford was vested, as we may naturally suppose it to have been, in the hands of substantial tradesmen, brewers, bakers, butchers, grocers, victuallers, mercers, woollen-drapers. Prying into the secrets of time, we are enabled to form some notion of the literary acquirements of this worshipful body. On rare, very rare occasions, the aldermen and burgesses constituting the town council affixed their signatures, for greater solemnity, to some order of the court; and on the 29th of September, in the seventh of Elizabeth, upon an order that John Wheler should take the office of bailiff, we have nineteen names subscribed, aldermen and burgesses. There is something in this document which suggests a motive higher than mere curiosity for calling up these dignitaries from their happy oblivion, saying to each, "Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself like an honest plain-dealing man?" I Alas! out of the nineteen, seven only can answer, 6.6 thank God I have been so well brought up that I can write my name." It is a matter of controversy whether John Shakspere was one of the more clerkly corporators. In 1556, the year that Robert, the father of Mary Arden, died, John Shakspere was admitted at the court-leet to two copyhold estates in Stratford. The jurors of the leet present that George Turner had alienated to John Shakspere and his heirs one tenement, with a garden and croft, and other premises, in Grenehyll-street, held of the lord at an annual quit-rent; and John Shakspere, who is present in court and does fealty, is admitted to the same. The same jurors present that Edward West has alienated to John Shakspere one tenement and a garden adjacent in Henley Street, who is in the same way admitted upon fealty done to the lord. Here then is John Shakspere, before his marriage, the purchaser of two copyholds in Stratford, both with gardens, and one with a croft, or small enclosed field. In 1570 John Shakspere is holding, as tenant under William Clopton, a meadow of fourteen acres, with its appurtenances, called Ingon, at the annual rent of eight pounds. This rent, equivalent to at least forty pounds of our present money, would indicate that the appurtenance included a house,—and a very good house. This meadow of Ingon forms part of a large property known by that name near Clopton House. When John Shakspere married, the estate of Asbies, within a short ride of Stratford, came also into his possession. With these facts before us, scanty as they are, can we reasonably doubt that John Shakspere was living upon his own land, renting the land of others, actively engaged in the business of cultivation, in an age when tillage was becoming rapidly profitable,-so much so that men of wealth very often thought it better to take the profits direct than to share them with the tenant? And is all this, it may be said, of any importance in looking at the life of William Shakspere-a man who stands above all other individual men, above all ranks of men; in comparison with whom, in his permanent VOL. V. C |