on the of a house in Black London, Shakespeare invested a small sum of money in a Purchase new property. This was his last investment in real estate. He then purchased a house, the ground-floor of which was friars. a haberdasher's shop, with a yard attached. It was situated within six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre · west side of St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed Puddle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neighbourhood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought the propery for 100l. in 1604. Shakespeare in 1613 agreed to pay him 140/. The deeds of conveyance bear the date of March 10 in that year. Next day, on March 11, Shakespeare executed another deed (now in the British Museum) which stipulated that 60%. of the purchase-money was to remain on mortgage until the following Michaelmas. The money was unpaid at Shakepeare's death. In both purchase-deed and mortgage-deed Shakespeare's signature was witnessed by (among others) Henry Lawrence, 'servant' or clerk to Robert Andrewes, the scrivener who drew the deeds, and Lawrence's seal, bearing his initials 'H. L.,' was stamped in each case on the parchment-tag, across the head of which Shakespeare wrote his name. In all three documents - the two indentures and the mortgage-deed - Shakespeare is described as 'of Stratford-on-Avon, in the Countie of Warwick, Gentleman.' There is no reason to suppose that he acquired the house for his own residence. He at once leased the property to John Robinson, already a resident in the neighbourhood. With puritans and puritanism Shakespeare was not in sympathy. His references to puritans in the plays of his middle and late life are so uniformly discourteous that they must be judged to reflect his personal feeling. The discussion between Maria and Sir Andrew Aguecheek regarding Malvolio's character in 'Twelfth Night' (II. iii. 153 et seq.) runs: MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan. SIR ANDREW. O! if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. SIR TOBY. What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight. SIR ANDREW. I have no exquisite reason for 't, but I have reason good enough. In 'Winter's Tale' (Iv. iii. 46) the Clown, after making contemptuous references to the character of the shearers, remarks that there is 'but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.' Shakespeare could hardly therefore have viewed with unvarying composure the steady progress that puritanism was making among his fellowtownsmen. The town council of Stratford-on-Avon, whose meeting-chamber almost overlooked Shakespeare's residence of New Place, gave curious proof of their puritanic suspicion of the drama on February 7, 1612, when they passed a resolution that plays were unlawful and 'the sufferance of them against the orders heretofore made and against the example of other well-governed cities and boroughs,' and the council was therefore 'content,' the resolution ran, that 'the penalty of xs. imposed [on players heretofore] be xli. henceforward.' Nevertheless a preacher, doubtless of puritan proclivities, was entertained at Shakespeare's residence, New Place, after delivering a sermon in the spring of 1614. The incident might serve to illustrate Shakespeare's characteristic placability, but his son-in-law Hall, who avowed sympathy with puritanism, was probably in the main responsible for the civility. In July John Combe, a rich inhabitant of Stratford, died and left 57. to Shakespeare. The legend that Shakespeare alienated him by composing some doggerel on his practice of lending money at ten or twelve per cent. seems apocryphal, although it is quoted by Aubrey and accepted by Rowe. The lines as quoted by Aubrey ('Lives,' ed. Clark, ii. 226) run: Ten-in-the-hundred the Devil allows, But Combe will have twelve he sweares and he vowes; Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe. Rowe's version opens somewhat differently: Ten-in-the-hundred lies here ingrav'd. 'Tis a hundred to ten, his soul is not sav'd. Shakespeare's responsibility for the jingle is confuted by the fact that in one form or another it was widely familiar in Shakespeare's lifetime, but was never ascribed to him. The first couplet in Rowe's version was printed in the epigrams by H[enry] P[arrot] in 1608, and again in Camden's 'Remaines in 1614. The whole first appeared in Richard Brathwaite's 'Remains' in 1618 under the heading: 'Upon one John Combe of Stratford upon Aven, a notable Usurer, fastened upon a Tombe that he had Caused to be built in his Life Time.' the Strat ford com mon fields. Combe's death involved Shakespeare more conspicuously than before in civic affairs. Combe's heir William no sooner succeeded to his father's lands than he, with a neighbouring owner, Arthur Mannering, steward of Lord-chancellor Ellesmere (who was ex-officio lord of the manor), attempted to Attempt enclose the common fields, which belonged to the corpora- to enclose tion of Stratford, about his estate at Welcombe. The corporation resolved to offer the scheme a stout resistance. Shakespeare had a twofold interest in the matter by virtue of his owning the freehold of 106 acres at Welcombe and Old Stratford, and as joint owner- now with Thomas Greene, the town clerk of the tithes of Old Stratford, Welcombe, and Bishopton. His interest in his freeholds could not have been prejudicially affected, but his interest in the tithes might be depreciated by the proposed enclosure. Shakespeare consequently joined with his fellow-owner Greene in obtaining from Combe's agent Replingham in October 1614 a deed indemnifying both against any injury they might suffer from the enclosure. But having thus secured himself against all possible loss, Shakespeare threw his influence into Combe's scale. In November 1614 he was on a last visit to London, and Greene, whose official position as town clerk compelled him to support the corporation in defiance of his private interests, visited him there to discuss the position of affairs. On December 23, 1614, the corporation in formal meeting drew up a letter to Shakespeare imploring him to aid them. Greene himself sent to the dramatist 'a note of inconveniences [to the corporation that] would happen by the enclosure.' But although an ambiguous entry of a later date (September 1615) in the few extant pages of Greene's ungrammatical diary has been unjustifiably tortured into an expression of disgust on Shakespeare's part at Combe's conduct, it is plain that, in the spirit of his agreement with Combe's agent, he continued to lend Combe his countenance. Happily Combe's efforts failed, and the common lands remain unenclosed. At the beginning of 1616 Shakespeare's health was failing. He directed Francis Collins, a solicitor of Warwick, to draft his will, but though it was prepared for signature on January 25, it was for the time laid aside. On February 10, 1616, Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith, married, Death. Burial. at Stratford parish church, Thomas Quiney, four years her junior, a son of an old friend of the poet. The ceremony took place apparently without public asking of the banns and before a license was procured. The irregularity led to the summons of the bride and bridegroom to the ecclesiastical court at Worcester and the imposition of a fine. According to the testimony of John Ward, the vicar, Shakespeare entertained at New Place his two friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson, in this same spring of 1616, and ‘had a merry meeting,' but 'itt seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted.' A popular local legend, which was not recorded till 1762, credited Shakespeare with engaging at an earlier date in a prolonged and violent drinking bout at Bidford, a neighbouring village, but his achievements as a hard drinker may be dismissed as unproven. The cause of his death is undetermined, but probably his illness seemed likely to take a fatal turn in March, when he revised and signed the will that had been drafted in the previous January. On Tuesday, April 23, he died at the age of fifty-two. (The date is in the old style, and is equivalent to May 3 in the new; the great Spanish author Cervantes, whose death is often described as simultaneous, died at Madrid ten days earlier on April 13 in the old style, or April 23, 1616, in the new.) On Thursday, April 25 (O.S.), the poet was buried inside Stratford Church, near the northern wall of the chancel, in which, as part-owner of the tithes, and consequently one of the lay-rectors, he had a right of interment. Hard by was the charnel-house, where bones dug up from the churchyard were deposited. Over the poet's grave were inscribed the lines: GOOD FREND FOR İESVS SAKE FORBEARE, TO DIGG HE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE: According to one William Hall, who described a visit to Stratford in 1694, these verses were penned by Shakespeare 'to suit the capacity of clerks and sextons, for the most part a very ignorant set of people.' Had this curse not threatened them, Hall proceeds, the sexton would not have hesitated in course of time to remove Shakespeare's dust to 'the bone-house.' As it was, the grave was made seventeen feet deep, and was never opened, even to receive his wife, although she expressed a desire to be buried with her husband. wife. Shakespeare's will, the first draft of which was drawn up The will. before January 25, 1616, received many interlineations and erasures before it was signed in the ensuing March. Francis Collins, the solicitor of Warwick, and Thomas Russell, 'esquier,' of Stratford, were the overseers; it was proved by John Hall, the poet's son-in-law and jointexecutor with Mrs. Hall, in London on June 22 following. The religious exordium is in conventional phraseology, and gives no clue to Shakespeare's personal religious opinions. What those opinions were, we have neither the means nor the warrant for discussing. But while it is possible to quote from the plays many contemptuous references to the puritans and their doctrines, we may dismiss as idle gossip Davies's irresponsible report that 'he dyed a papist.' The Bequest name of Shakespeare's wife was omitted from the original to his draft of the will, but by an interlineation in the final draft she received his second best bed with its furniture. No other bequest was made her. Several wills of the period have been discovered in which a bedstead or other article of household furniture formed part of a wife's inheritance, but none except Shakespeare's is forthcoming in which a bed forms the sole bequest. At the same time the precision with which Shakespeare's will accounts for and assigns to other legatees every known item of his property refutes the conjecture that he had set aside any portion of it under a previous settlement or jointure with a view to making independent provision for his wife. Her right to a widow's dower-i.e. to a third share for life in freehold estate was not subject to testamentary disposition, but Shakespeare had taken steps to prevent her from benefitingto the full extent by that legal arrangement. He had barred her dower in the case of his latest purchase of freehold estate, viz. the house at Blackfriars. Such procedure is pretty conclusive proof that he had the intention of excluding her from the enjoyment of his possessions after his death. But, however plausible the theory that his relations with her were from first to last wanting in sympathy, it is improbable that either the slender mention of her in the will or the barring of her dower was designed by Shakespeare L at any rate |