when he was living in Henley Street-records that he was fined twelve pence for not keeping his gutters clean.' The lesson was not without effect, as he seems to have reformed for a time; but in 1558 he is fined fourpence for the same offence, together with no less a person than the masterbailiff, Francis Burbage. Justice was evenhanded in Stratford, reaching to the bailiff himself,-a hard case, inasmuch as one of his predecessors, five years before, was, by orders emanating from the Court of Aldermen, specially allowed the privilege of keeping a dunghill. It is a curious coincidence, that the first notices of the Shakespeares in Stratford, both of John the butcher and John the glover, should be thus associated with the name of Burbage, afterwards so linked with that of the poet. More curious still, that the association should begin in a gutter! If the dust of Cæsar may end in patching a wall, from what may it not rise!

The fine of fourpence did not press heavily on John Shakespeare, who was now a thriving man, having in 1556 acquired from George Turner, a publican and burgess, the copyhold of a tenement in Greenhill Street, with a garden, a croft, or small field, and other appurtenances; and from Edward West, a tenement and garden in Henley Street. But we must not be misled as to the nature of these acquisitions and their marketable value. The two tenements could have been nothing but miserable hovels, supporting a roof of thatch on walls of mud; and the copyhold may have been purchased for a couple of pounds, about ten of our present money, which, however, was no small sum for John Shakespeare to have laid by, and indicates a young man of sober and thrifty habits.

There is other evidence that he had now established a good character in the town; for in the same year he was

This is the entry discovered by Mr. Hunter, in a court roll of April 25, 1552, in the Carlton Ride Record Office.

elected a juror of the court-leet, a stepping-stone to the highest offices of the corporation. The jury was composed of twelve good men and true, who were not only empowered to dispense justice in certain causes, but were charged with the function of nominating more important officers than themselves, the ale-tasters and affeerors. In 1557 the office of ale-taster was imposed on John Shakespeare, and he was sworn to watch over the assize of bread, ale, and beer.

The regulations to be enforced are embodied in the orders of the Stratford Court of Aldermen, promulgated in 1553; and, for once, make us feel a passing regret for the good old days of Philip and Mary. It was John Shakespeare's business to see that the bakers made bread of three different kinds or sizes, which were to be sold respectively for a penny a loaf, and two and three loaves a penny; any default entailing a fine of twenty shillings. The two a penny are evidently those of which Jack Cade promised "there shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny." The same heavy penalty was imposed on the brewers, if they failed to sell new ale at twopence the gallon, the gallons being sold thirteen for twelve, which would thus seem to be a brewer's as well as a baker's dozen. Not more than a penny was to be charged for two gallons of small drink, "good and wholesome." But this liquor never acquired repute with our ancestors; for Jack Cade declared "I will make it felony to drink small beer." The brewers of Stratford were enjoined to sell their beer "in a pot " encircled by three hoops, which was also abjured by Jack, who solemnly promised that "the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops."3 Englishmen have always complained of the hard times.

As a part of his functions, John Shakespeare was to make himself acquainted, not only with the dimensions, but 'King Henry IV., Part II.,' act iv. 2.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

the contents of the pot, which was often done by something more than tasting. But this young tradesman would seem to have been less partial to malt than Sir Toby Belch; for he did not avail himself of his opportunities. An entry in the register of the Court of Record notifies that he was fined for non-attendance on the 2nd of June, 1557. He could no doubt have satisfactorily accounted for his absence; for he was at this time under the influence of a more powerful attraction than cakes and ale, as we shall see in the following chapter.

17

II.

THE MOTHER OF SHAKESPEARE.

ABOUT four miles from Snitterfield, where John Shakespeare was born, and as many from Stratford, stands the hamlet of Wilmcote, a nook of the parish of Aston Cantlow. It lies in the forest of Arden, the remains of which still dot the surrounding country, crown Great Horn Hill, and look from the Ditchcote ridge over meadow and corn-field. So late as forty years ago, as we learnt from old inhabitants, great part of the land was waste; but it has now been reclaimed by the plough, and brought within the pale of canal and railway. Nothing of the olden times survives but cottages and oaks.

Wilmcote was the residence of Robert Arden, the landlord of old Richard Shakespeare, and connected with his descendants by a still nearer tie. His pedigree, though looked upon as established, is far from being so clearly made out as that of his tenant, as presented in this work; and both rest equally on conjecture. The Norman invasion found in Warwickshire an old Saxon family, the chief of which soon afterwards assumed the surname of Eardene, or Arden, which, according to Dugdale, had been given to that region on account of its woodiness: hence the forest of Arden. The supposed descent of Robert Arden from this magnate is only carried back to Walter Arden, who, from the identity of their coat-armour, is supposed to have been the father of John Arden, squire of the body to Henry the Seventh. John's will mentions his brothers, Thomas, Martin, and

C

Robert; and in the Arden pedigree the names of John, Robert, Thomas, and Martin are borne by the sons of Walter Arden, by his wife Eleanor, daughter of John Hampden in Buckinghamshire, though another account represents the maiden name of their mother as Bracebridge. The arms of Arden, impaled in the herald's draft with the coat afterwards granted to John Shakespeare, bear the martlet, the distinctive mark of a fourth son; and Mr. Hunter conjectures that Robert was the fourth son of Walter Arden, because John Arden, in the will already mentioned, names him the last of his three younger brothers. This order, however, is not preserved in the pedigrees, in one of which Robert appears as the second, and in the other as the third son; and, what is more conclusive, the arms thus quoted were never really borne by Robert Arden of Wilmcote. Armorial bearings always conferred the rank of gentleman, a rank which the heralds certainly assign to Robert Arden, styling him "a gentleman of worship," but old Robert himself was content with the humbler title of “husbandman." Such he describes himself in the legal documents bearing his name, and these carry more authority than the whole College of Heralds.

There is nothing in what we know of Robert Arden, then, to show that he was even remotely connected with the old family of that name. When he first comes under notice he is just raised above the condition of a labourer, being assessed on only ten pounds in the subsidy roll of 1546. An interval of twenty years presents him as the possessor of considerable landed property, which is to be accounted for by his enclosing and reclaiming tracts of the surrounding

1 A pedigree in Harl, 1110, f. 24, quoted by Mr. Hunter. The wife of Walter Arden is there said to have been the daughter of William Bracebridge of Kilsbury, in co. Warwick, esquire, and the names of their sons are given as John Martin, Robert and Henry.