Shakespeare's family

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. 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 PLACE " 67

THE CHANCEL, TRINITY CHURCH " 83

SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH 84

ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE To face 88

ANNE SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH 90

SNITTERFIELD CHURCH To face 113

NORDEN'S MAP OF LONDON, 1593 " 142

WARWICK CASTLE " 162

SWAN THEATRE (BY DR. GAIDERTY) " 214

THE BEAR GARDEN AND HOPE THEATRE " 216

SWAN THEATRE " 216

When, from the midst of a people, there riseth a man Who voices the life of its life, the dreams of its soul, The Nation's Ideal takes shape, on Nature's old plan, Expressing, informing, impelling, the fashioning force of the whole.

The Spirit of England, thus Shakespeare our Poet arose; For England made Shakespeare, as Shakespeare makes England anew. His people's ideals should clearly their kinship disclose, To England, themselves, the more true, in that they to their Shakespeare are true.

Shakespeare's Family