A Life of William Shakespeare | Page 7

twelve-pence for having a dirt-heap in front of his house. His frequent
appearances in the years that follow as either plaintiff or defendant in
suits heard in the local court of record for the recovery of small debts
suggest that he was a keen man of business. In early life he prospered
in trade, and in October 1556 purchased two freehold tenements at
Stratford--one, with a garden, in Henley Street (it adjoins that now
known as the poet's birthplace), and the other in Greenhill Street with a
garden and croft. Thenceforth he played a prominent part in municipal
affairs. In 1557 he was elected an ale-taster, whose duty it was to test
the quality of malt liquors and bread. About the same time he was
elected a burgess or town councillor, and in September 1558, and again
on October 6, 1559, he was appointed one of the four petty constables
by a vote of the jury of the court-leet. Twice--in 1559 and 1561--he was
chosen one of the affeerors--officers appointed to determine the fines
for those offences which were punishable arbitrarily, and for which no
express penalties were prescribed by statute. In 1561 he was elected
one of the two chamberlains of the borough, an office of responsibility
which he held for two years. He delivered his second statement of
accounts to the corporation in January 1564. When attesting documents
he occasionally made his mark, but there is evidence in the Stratford
archives that he could write with facility; and he was credited with
financial aptitude. The municipal accounts, which were checked by
tallies and counters, were audited by him after he ceased to be
chamberlain, and he more than once advanced small sums of money to
the corporation.

The poet's mother.

With characteristic shrewdness he chose a wife of assured
fortune--Mary, youngest daughter of Robert Arden, a wealthy farmer of
Wilmcote in the parish of Aston Cantlowe, near Stratford. The Arden
family in its chief branch, which was settled at Parkhall, Warwickshire,
ranked with the most influential of the county. Robert Arden, a
progenitor of that branch, was sheriff of Warwickshire and
Leicestershire in 1438 (16 Hen. VI), and this sheriff's direct descendant,
Edward Arden, who was himself high sheriff of Warwickshire in 1575,
was executed in 1583 for alleged complicity in a Roman Catholic plot
against the life of Queen Elizabeth. {6} John Shakespeare's wife
belonged to a humbler branch of the family, and there is no trustworthy
evidence to determine the exact degree of kinship between the two
branches. Her grandfather, Thomas Arden, purchased in 1501 an estate
at Snitterfield, which passed, with other property, to her father Robert;
John Shakespeare's father, Richard, was one of this Robert Arden's
Snitterfield tenants. By his first wife, whose name is not known, Robert
Arden had seven daughters, of whom all but two married; John
Shakespeare's wife seems to have been the youngest. Robert Arden's
second wife, Agnes or Anne, widow of John Hill (d. 1545), a
substantial farmer of Bearley, survived him; but by her he had no issue.
When he died at the end of 1556, he owned a farmhouse at Wilmcote
and many acres, besides some hundred acres at Snitterfield, with two
farmhouses which he let out to tenants. The post-mortem inventory of
his goods, which was made on December 9, 1556, shows that he had
lived in comfort; his house was adorned by as many as eleven 'painted
cloths,' which then did duty for tapestries among the middle class. The
exordium of his will, which was drawn up on November 24, 1556, and
proved on December 16 following, indicates that he was an observant
Catholic. For his two youngest daughters, Alice and Mary, he showed
especial affection by nominating them his executors. Mary received not
only 6 pounds 13s. 4d. in money, but the fee-simple of Asbies, his chief
property at Wilmcote, consisting of a house with some fifty acres of
land. She also acquired, under an earlier settlement, an interest in two
messuages at Snitterfield. {7} But, although she was well provided
with worldly goods, she was apparently without education; several
extant documents bear her mark, and there is no proof that she could
sign her name.

The poet's birth and baptism.
John Shakespeare's marriage with Mary Arden doubtless took place at
Aston Cantlowe, the parish church of Wilmcote, in the autumn of 1557
(the church registers begin at a later date). On September 15, 1558, his
first child, a daughter, Joan, was baptised in the church of Stratford. A
second child, another daughter, Margaret, was baptised on December 2,
1562; but both these children died in infancy. The poet William, the
first son and third child, was born on April 22 or 23, 1564. The latter
date is generally accepted as his birthday, mainly (it