SHAKESPEARES OF STRATFORD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 224, 21 August 1935, Page 5

SHAKESPEARES OF STRATFORD.

A HOLINSHED LINK

DISCOVERIES FROM A LAWSUIT.

The following are extracts from an article in the Times, London, by Dr Leslie Hotson:—

Was John Shakespeare, the father of William, the first Shakespeare to live in Stratford-on-Avon ? " Everyone knows that in the first chapter of his monumental study of Shakespeare Sir Edmund Chambers, the most cautious and reliable of the poet’s biographers, has the following passage: “His father, John Shakespeare, was not of native Stratford stock; there are no Shakespeares in the gild register. John makes his first appearance in Stratford at a leet of 29 April, 1552. when lie was fined one shilling for having an unauthorized dunghill in Henley St.” All Shakespeare biographers, indeed, apparently believe that the poet’s father was the firet of the Warwickshire Shakespeares (who were plentiful in the country north of Stratford) to find lus way to the town. Recent research is at hand to shake this belief. Thanks to the assistance of my friend Mr J. H. Morrison, 1 can announce the discovery of two hitherto unknown John Shakespeares of Stratford.

NEED OF RESEARCH. The first of these is a certain “John Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon, yeoman.” under the date of Easter, 1533. The date 1533—19 years before the first mention of Shakespeare’s father, and 23 or 24 years before the marriage with Alary Arden—makes it extremely improbable that tin’s new John Shakespeare of Stratford, already in 1533 grown to manhood and in business, can be identified with Shakespeare’s father, or with John Shakespeare of Ingon. or with John Shakespeare of Clifford Chambers, or with the corvizer John Shakespeare found in Stratford between 1586 and 1595. It seems clear, than, that we are here confronted with another John Shakespeare of Stratford. In the present state of our Knowledge we cannot he certain what, if any, was the relation of this earlier John of Stratford to the poet’s father. But since Sir Edmund Chambers, after a critical examination of all the evidence, admits that we are not sure that Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield was the poet’s grandfather, it is evident that we must push our researches further before we can he satisfied that wo know even the second step in the pedigree of the greatest English man of letters. HOLINSHED AT PACKAVOOD.

The second clue relates not only to another new John Shakespeare, but to Raphael Holinshed. It is hardly necessary to repeat that it was Shakespeare’s use of Holinslied’s compilation that has made the chronicler’s name a household word.

In the legal archives in the Public Record Office I have found not only i sworn answer of Holinshed to a bill if complaint in Chancery, but an original signature of the chronicler to die engrossed document: “Bv me 11 a pirn ell Holenshed.” This is, so far is I know, the only scrap of writing in his own hand.

The importance of this Chancery suit, however, is not that it contains an autograph of Holinshed, but what is revealed about his activities. It will bo remembered that Holinshed lived with his master, Thomas Burdett, esquire, at Bramcote in AA’arwickshire, some distance north and east of Stratford. But this suit reveals that Burdett was lord of the AJanor of Packwood, situated in and about the small village of Packwood. a place much closer to Shakespeare’s town ; it also reveals that Raphael Holinshed, as Burdott’s steward, used for mini'' years to come regularly to Packwood to preside over the manor court, grant copyhold leases, and look after his master’s interests.

It has long been known that in the first half of the sixteenth century a family of Shakespeares lived in the village of Packwood. I have now found proof in a lawsuit of 1561 that John Shakespeare had moved to Stratford-on-Avon. John Shakespeare of Packwood was living in Stratford three years before the birth of William Shakespeare, the future poet, to John and Alary Shakespeare. Here then is a connection between the Shakespeares of Packwood, where Holinshed, the (chronicler, was steward of the manor, I and a Shakespeare of Stratford. ! Tam not rash enough to claim that lAVilliam Shakespeare’s propensity, (when he was seeking material for a play, to turn to the four heavy folios put together by his learned neighbour Holinshed proves that they were on terms of intimate friendship. But for the possibility of such a friendship there now seems something to l>e said; and I hope that future research will supply us with more.