Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Shakespeare's familyThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Shakespeare's family This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Shakespeare's family Author: C. C. Stopes Release date: August 14, 2008 [eBook #26315] Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26315 Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE'S FAMILY *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) SHAKESPEARE'S FAMILY [Illustration] [Illustration: William Shakespeare from the Drocshout painting now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-on-Avon.] SHAKESPEARE'S FAMILY BEING A Record of the Ancestors and Descendants of William Shakespeare WITH _SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ARDENS_ BY MRS. C. C. STOPES AUTHOR OF "THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE QUESTION ANSWERED," "SHAKESPEARE'S WARWICKSHIRE CONTEMPORARIES," "BRITISH FREEWOMEN," ETC. LONDON ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. NEW YORK JAMES POTT & COMPANY 1901 Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the chapter. Letters that are preceeded by a caret (^) are superscripted in the text. PREFACE When I was invited to reprint in book-form the articles which had appeared in the _Genealogical Magazine_ under the titles of "Shakespeare's Family" and the "Warwickshire Ardens," I carefully corrected them, and expanded them where expansion could be made interesting. Thus to the bald entries of Shakespeare's birth and burial I added a short life. Perhaps never before has anyone attempted to write a life of the poet with so little allusion to his plays and poems. My reason is clear; it is only the genealogical details of certain Warwickshire families of which I now treat, and it is only as an interesting Warwickshire gentleman that the poet is here included. Much of the chaotic nonsense that has of late years been written to disparage his character and contest his claims to our reverence and respect are based on the assumption that he was a man of low origin and of mean occupation. I deny any relevance to arguments based on such an assumption, for genius is restricted to no class, and we have a Burns as well as a Chaucer, a Keats as well as a Gower, yet I am glad that the result of my studies tends to prove that it is but an unfounded assumption. By the Spear-side his family was at least respectable, and by the Spindle-side his pedigree can be traced straight back to Guy of Warwick and the good King Alfred. There is something in fallen fortune that lends a subtler romance to the consciousness of a noble ancestry, and we may be sure this played no small part in the making of the poet. All that bear his name gain a certain interest through him, and therefore I have collected every notice I can find of the Shakespeares, though we are all aware none can be his descendants, and that the family of his sister can alone now enter into the poet's pedigree with any degree of certainty. The time for romancing has gone by, and nothing more can be done concerning the poet's life except through careful study and through patient research. All students must regret that their labours have such comparatively meagre results. Though sharing in this regret, I have been able, besides adding minor details, to find at last a definite link of association between the Park Hall and the Wilmcote Ardens; and I have located a John Shakespeare in St. Clement's Danes, Strand, London, who is probably the poet's cousin. I have also somewhat cleared the ground by checking errors, such as those made by Halliwell-Phillipps, concerning John Shakespeare, of Ingon, and Gilbert Shakespeare, Haberdasher, of London (see page 226). I hope that every contribution to our store of real knowledge may bring forward new suggestions and additional facts. In regard to his mother's family, I thought it important to clear the earlier connections. But it must not be forgotten that until modern times no Shakespeare but himself was connected with the Ardens. Yet, having commenced with the family, I may be pardoned for adding to their history before the sixteenth century the few notes I have gleaned concerning the later branches. The order I have preferred has been chronological, limited by the advisability of completing the notices of a family in special localities. Disputed questions I have placed in chapters apart, as they would bulk too largely in a short biography to be proportionate. Hence the Coat of Arms and the Arden Connections are treated as family matters, apart from John Shakespeare's special biography. I have done what I could to avoid mistakes, and neither time nor trouble has been spared. I owe thanks to many who have helped me in my long-continued and careful researches, to the officials of the British Museum and the Public Record Office, to the Town Council of Stratford-on-Avon and Mr. Savage, Secretary of the Shakespeare Trust, to the Worshipful Company of the Haberdashers, for allowing me to study their records; to the late Earl of Warwick, for admission to his Shakespeare Library, and to many clergymen who have permitted me to search their registers. CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES. CONTENTS PART I CHAPTER PAGE I. THE NAME OF SHAKESPEARE 1 II. THE LOCALITIES OF EARLY SHAKESPEARES 4 III. LATER SHAKESPEARES BEFORE THE POET'S TIME 10 IV. THE SHAKESPEARE COAT OF ARMS 17 V. THE IMPALEMENT OF THE ARDEN ARMS 24 VI. THE ARDENS OF WILMECOTE 35 VII. JOHN SHAKESPEARE 50 VIII. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 61 IX. SHAKESPEARE'S DESCENDANTS 87 X. COLLATERALS 110 XI. COUSINS AND CONNECTIONS 113 XII. CONTEMPORARY WARWICKSHIRE SHAKESPEARES 118 XIII. SHAKESPEARES IN OTHER COUNTIES 132 XIV. LONDON SHAKESPEARES 142 PART II I. THE PARK HALL ARDENS 162 II. THE ARDENS OF LONGCROFT 183 III. OTHER WARWICKSHIRE ARDENS 188 IV. THE ARDENS OF CHESHIRE 196 V. BRANCHES IN OTHER COUNTIES 213 TERMINAL NOTES 222 INDEX 239 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE _Frontispiece_ SHAKESPEARE'S ARMS 17 OLD HOUSE AT WILMECOTE, BY SOME SUPPOSED TO BE ROBERT ARDEN'S _To face_ 35 PRESENT VIEW OF SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE " 55 THE GUILD CHAPEL, FROM THE SITE OF NEW |