WAS SHAKESPEARE A CRIMINAL?

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 107, 27 June 1911, Page 2

WAS SHAKESPEARE A CRIMINAL?

AN AMEiiI(JA N I.\ 1)1 CTM ENT. WHOLESALE MURDER ADDEDEJ). Poor old Shakespeare! Whilst Dr. Owen is industriously endeavotii ing to dig a grave lor the ruinous post unit playwright's reputation in the muddy oank oi the river Wye, another American—a lady— is seeking to prove that the Bard oi Avon was not only a literary thief, but a homicide hignly qualilied for a place in the Chamber ,pl Horrors at Ala dame Tussard’s alongside jswocncy ’Todd the immortal, if mficinons, barber of Elect Street. Miss Chet stow, who hails from Bos ton, U.S.A., claims to have discovoied, through the falling in of the walls oi her ancestral home, a long-missing document which shows that Shakespeare " as a confirmed murderer. ‘From tire height at which he might i avo boon happy as a most successful orania-tist and the husband of an almost divine woman,” writes Miss Clcrsbow, “Mr. Shakespeare fell into the depths of secret criminal homicide, assisted, in the latter parts of his career, by a blood-relation. “From henceforth this fearful, guilty secret, bcearao the ruling force of his life, holding him with a morbid fascination, yet filling him with remorse, and anguish and insane dread of detection. His various friends, seeing that lie was wretched, pressed marriage upon him.” So, to put an end to their matrimonial importunities, he espouse,- - ! Anne Hathaway, who, as Miss CJherstow puts it, “discovered in the first hours of-her marriage tire horrid soe- - ret of guilt.” ■ “In one of her moonlight walks,” Miss Cher stow continues, “near the crab troe which ■ has been connected with Shakespeare's name, there came an hour of revelation, an hour when nr a manner which left no room for doubt, she behold her husband interring the corpse of one of those unfortunate minor playwrights, whom he had a morbid passion for destroying, ■liter purloining their inferior dramas, which his genius then rendered immortal—and saw the full depth of the abtss of infamy, which her marriage was expected to cover, and understood that she was expected to be the cloak and accomplice of tins villainy.” Miss Cberstow suggests that Shakespeare's daughter Susannah helped kirn to do away with the unfortunate dramatists, and declares that—“On one occasion, after their removal to Now Place, Anno came upon him sitting with the partner of his guilt beneath the fatal mulberry tree. Stic wont up to them, and he, looking down upon the grave, said, ‘When will those three down there meet us again ?’ She answered, 'Not in hca\> cn, I fear.' ”

An 'ancestress- of Miss Chorstow—so her story goes—paid a visit to Wanviokshire before siic embarked on the Mayflower, 1 and spent a day with Mrs. Shakespeare, who was sick unto death. The dramatist’s wife not only told the ancestress the story, but also gave her a memorandum" of the various murders with the dates. The ancestress decided “that consideration for "The morals and feelings of the people of-England, and for the reputation of Shakespeare’s daughter and her family, poemed to call for p suppression of clip facts.” ( And snnprcssjjd they seem to,,hare been until ro,t''pet in at the Boston home, and brought the document into Miss Chorstow’s hands. Meanwhile Dr. Owen is continuing Ins search in the mud and none of the Myc. He has found something which may turn out to ho the Baconian literary cache he is seeking for, but is ionic likely to prove to he thp remains of some ancient and forgotten wharf or quay.