John Shakespeare: A papist or just penniless?

Shakespeare Quarterly

Volumn 56, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 411-433

  Bearman, Robert ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61149574284     PISSN: 00373222     EISSN: 15383555     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/shq.2006.0015     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. This theory was championed by Richard Wilson in an article in the Times Literary Supplement (19 December 1997, 11-13)
2. uncritically repeated by Anthony Holden in William Shakespeare: His Life and Work ([London: Little, Brown and Company, 1999], 53-62)
3. and enthusiastically endorsed by Michael Wood in In Search of Shakespeare (London: BBC Worldwide Ltd, 2003)
4. These, bolstered to some extent by E.A.J. Honigmann's arguments in Shakespeare: the 'lost years' (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1985)
5. all expand on the more sober assessments of earlier writers, particularly Peter Milward, Shakespeare's Religious Background (Bloomington and London: Indiana UP, 1973)
6. and Ian Wilson, Shakespeare: The Evidence: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and his Work (London: Headline, 1993)
7. Stephen Greenblatt, in Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), presents a more complex character, but a man still much preoccupied by his religious beliefs
8. I have given my reasons for this substantial reservation in "'Was William Shakespeare William Shakeshaft' Revisited," Shakespeare Quarterly 53 (2002): 83-94
9. Richard Wilsons defense of this theory (in Secret Shakespeare [Manchester, UK: Manchester UP, 2004], 60), avoids the main issues and depends on a version of the Gillom family tree (Hugh and his three sons, Jasper, Thomas, and Fulk) which, in addition to other shortcomings and unsafe assumptions, is contradicted by one of the sources he cites, namely The Rolls of the Freemen of the City of Chester, 1392-1700, ed. J.H.E. Bennet, Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, 51 (1906), 76. This gives Fulk as the son of Thomas, not Hugh, probably aged only twenty-one, instead of in his thirties as Wilson proposes
10. See Edmond Malone, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments (London, 1796), 198-99
11. and Robert Bearman, "John Shakespeare's 'Spiritual Testament': A Reappraisal," Shakespeare Survey 56 (2003): 184-202
12. Modern biographers with an interest in John Shakespeare's business affairs are greatly indebted to Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: a Documentary Life (London: Oxford UP, 1975)
13. and notably include Park Honan, Shakespeare: a Life (Oxford; Oxford UP, 1998)
14. See, for example, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, C.1400-C.1580 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale UP, 1992)
15. and Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford; Oxford UP, 1993)
16. See J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th ed., 2 vols. (London: Longman, Green, and Co., 1898), 2:215
17. Minutes and Accounts of the Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon and other records, 1553-1620, ed. Edgar I. Fripp, 4 vols. (Oxford: Dugdale Society, 1921-29), 2:57. Mary Arden was unmarried when her father, Robert, made his will on 24 November 1556, and her first recorded child was baptized on 15 September 1558
18. It is not entirely clear when John Shakespeare was elected a capital burgess, as the records are incomplete. He was not a capital burgess in April 1554 (James O. Halliwell, A Descriptive Calendar of the Ancient Manuscripts and Records in the Possession of the Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon [London: James Evan Adlard, 1863], 118)
19. nor, apparently, in the autumn of 1556 (Levi Fox, The Borough Town of Stratford-upon-Avon [Norwich: Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon, 1953], Plate XII)
20. Surveys of 1580 and 1590 list only thirty-eight and seventy-seven freeholders in Stratford respectively (Minutes and Accounts, 3:57-58, 4:92-110)
21. John Shakespeare did make an appearance in 1566 but only as surety for Richard Hathaway of Shottery, whose daughter Ann would later marry Shakespeare's son William (Halliwell-Phillipps, 2:227, 230)
22. Leslie Hotson, Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated and Other Essays (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1949), 231-33. The case was not brought until 1599
23. D. L. Thomas and N. E. Evans, "John Shakespeare in The Exchequer," SQ 35 (1984): 317-18, esp. 315-16. Musshem was a substantial yeoman in Walton, but there appear to have been two men of the same name at around this time, presumably father and son. John, husband of Barbara, died intestate in 1585. The other John, husband of Miriam, died in 1588 (Worcestershire County Record Office, 008.7; 64/1588; 008.7, BA3590/2)
24. J. Leslie Hotson, Shakespeare v Shallow (London: Nonesuch Press, 1931), 38. Judgment was given in his favor, but we do not know that he recovered the money. Examination of the relevant plea roll (The National Archives [cited hereafter as TNA], CP 40/1303, m.1410) has revealed that the sum of £50 was due under a bond into which Luther had entered for the sum of £26 13s. 4d. on which he had defaulted. His sureties, apparently, were Robert Phipps and Richard Quiney
25. Minutes and Accounts, 2:70-71
26. Minutes and Accounts, 4:96
27. Frederick C. Wellstood, Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts . . . Exhibited in Shakespeare's Birthplace (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1944), 163, no. 25a
28. For a similar case, see N. W. Alcock, Warwickshire Grazier and London Skinner, 1532-1555: the Account Book of Peter Temple and Thomas Heritage (British Academy, Records of Social and Economic History, ns 4, 1981), 99-112
29. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547-80, ed. Robert Lemon and M.A.E. Green, 12 vols. (London: Longman, 1856), 1:558
30. and Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare: The Biography (London; Chatto and Windus, 2005), 63
31. See also Patrick Ryan, "Diocesan Returns of Recusants for England and Wales 1577," Miscellanea XII (London: Catholic Record Society 22, 1921), 64-66
32. John Strype, The Life and Acts of. . .John Whitgift, . . Archbishop of Canterbury, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1822), 1:181-82
33. Minutes and Accounts, 1:130; 3:21-24. Bratt's death is not recorded in the burial register, but his name had been removed from the lists of burgesses by the time of the next recorded meeting of the Corporation on 23 April 1579
34. The original deed to the Wilmcote property has not survived but was cited in a legal case of 1588, brought by John Shakespeare against Lambert, and was not disputed (E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: a Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930], 2:35-37)
35. and C. and R. Page, "The Location of Richard Shakespeare's Farm in Snitterfield," Warwickshire History 5.3 (1982): 95-102
36. Jeanne E. Jones, "Lewis Hiccox and Shakespeare's Birthplace," Notes & Queries, ns 41.4 (1994): 497-502
37. Proponents of this alternative explanation include, for example, Fripp (Minutes and Accounts, 3:xxxiv-xxxvi)
38. and his fellow nonconformist minister, T Carter (Shakespeare, Puritan and Recusant [Edinburgh: Oliphant, 1897], 95)
39. E. Vine Hall, Testamentary Papers II; Wills from Shakespeare's Town and Time (London: Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, 1933), 10-14
40. See Thomas Powell, The Attourneys Academie (London, 1623), 93-108
41. and Alfred Beesley, The History of Banbury (London: Nichols and Son, 1841), 229-30
42. For a recent account of common-law proceedings, see Sir John Baker, The Oxford History of the Laws of England, Volume VI, 1483-1558 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003), 323-49
43. Of the amount, we know nothing; but in Brown's inventory, drawn up in August, he had sums owing to him of £356 6s. 7d., of which £157 1s. 2d. worth were described as "desperate" (Stratfordupon-Avon Inventories, 1538-1699, ed. Jeanne Jones, 2 vols. [Oxford: Dugdale Society, 2002, 2003], 1:74)
44. This was generally used as a purely evasive tactic and legislation of James I's reign restricted the frivolous removal of cases in this way. See Giles Jacob, The Law Dictionary, rev. T. E. Tomlins, 2d ed., 2 vols. (London: J. Johnson, 1809), 1:unpaginated (sub Habeas Corpus)
45. Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols. (London; Record. Commission [G. Eyre and A. Strahan], 1810-28) 2:512
46. Wiltshire County Records: Minutes of Proceedings in Sessions, 1563 and 1574 to 1592, ed. H. C.Johnson (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Records Branch IV, 1949), 24-25, 31, 34, 36
47. TNA, KB 27/1231, m. 4r
48. TNA, KB27/1254, m. 8r
49. TNA, KB29/210, m. 32
50. Hotson, Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated, 224-29, esp. 224-25
51. Peter J, Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Macmillan and Co., 1962), especially chapters 4 and 5
52. Tudor Royal Proclamations, ed. Paul L. Hughes and James E Larkin, 3 vols. (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale UP, 1969), 2:414-15
53. CSPD, 1547-1580, 547
54. CSPD, 1547-1580, 554
55. Acts of the Privy Council, n.s., 32 vols. (London: HMSO, 1890-1907), 9:366, 386
56. Tudor Royal Proclamations, 2:440-41
57. See TNA, SP12/114/31
58. See, for instance, Jonathan Barry, "Civility and. Civic Culture in Early Modern England: the Meanings of Urban Freedom" in: Civil Histories; Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas, Peter Burke et al., eds. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000), 181-96
59. and has been edited by John Tobias, "New Light on Recusancy in Warwickshire, 1592," Worcester Recusant 36 (December 1980): 8-27, esp. 20-21. Precise dating is impossible, but it must predate 25 April, when one of those listed, William Clopton, was buried
60. For Bardell's further misfortunes, see Mark Eccles, Shakespeare in Warwickshire (Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 1961), 34
61. The Registers of Stratford-on-Avon; . . . Burials, 1558-1652/3, ed. Richard Savage, Parish Register Society, 55 (1905), 49, 51-52
62. See Eccles, 33-34. There is, for instance, no evidence for the immediately concurrent indebtedness of the remaining four in the list, William Bainton, Richard Harrington, William Fluellen, and John Wheeler the younger, though Wheeler and Harrington were sued in 1593 and Bainton in 1594
63. Stratford-upon-Avon Inventories, I, 114, 116
64. The nonattendance of a few non-Stratford residents was also put down to debt. Thomas Bartlet of Middleton was "thought to forbear coming to church for debt or for some worse cause rather than of any popish devotion." Thomas Olney the elder of Bishop's Tachbrook was "thought to forbear coming to church for debt only" (Hodgetts, ed., "Certificate of Warwickshire Recusants," 13-14). Even if nonattendance by reason of debt were an excuse, rather than a reason, the fact that it was accepted implies a minimum level of dissent by those to whom it was applied and not one ever likely to have involved discrimination against them
65. On this subject generally, see Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists; Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1993), esp. chapter 4
66. E.R.C. Brinkworth, Shakespeare and the Bawdy Court of Stratford (Chichester: Phillimore, 1972), 120
67. For these returns, see"Return of Recusants in Kineton and Barlichway Hundreds, 1605-1606," ed. E. Guise-Berrow and A. M. Hodgson, Worcester Recusant 18 (1971): 19
68. Robert Bearman, Shakespeare in the Stratford Records (Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton, 1994), 15-19, 25-26