cantankerousness. He refused to ring his swine and he let his stock run loose in the Clopton meadows. He was a husbandman, and lived by tilling the soil.
Richard Shakespeare lived at Snitterfield, to the north of Stratford, but he was not born there. The wildest Shakespeares came first from Balsall and Wroxall (where the prioress showed us her leg in the apple tree), and from a couple ofother villages in the Forest of Arden. I mean the hamlets of Rowington and Baddesley Clinton. Dick Shakespeare came from one of these – I am not sure which. When he died he left an estate that was valued at £38 17s. It is said that he bequeathed five shillings in his will specifically for his sons to get drunk for the last time at his expense.
Dick Shakespeare’s other son was christened Henry. He farmed at Ingon in the parish of Hampton Lucy, staying on the land after his father’s death (unlike his brother John). There’s plenty of evidence that Henry ran wild all his life. When young he was fined for brawling and drawing blood in an affray against the Constable. Then in his middle years he was fined again for wearing a hat to church instead of a cap. As an old man, he went to prison twice for not paying his debts. He was also involved in disputes over tithes and sued his own brother John. But after he died it was found he had money enough in his coffers, as well as a fine mare in his stable, and much corn and hay in his barn. This was our poet’s Uncle Henry, always known as ‘Harry’ or ‘Hal’.
I weary of these wild Shakespeares – But, note well, they had spunk in them. Also they were hardy men, makers, masters and sons of the soil. If you think poets do not descend from such strong lines, madam, then I have to beg to differ. I believe Chaucer’s father was a vintner. (True, Dante’s was a lawyer, but we’ll forgive that.) In any case, consider William Shakespeare’s total craft and trade. He was not just a poet. He was a playwright. And a playwright is a wright, or maker, like a boatwright or a cartwright or a wheelwright. Where they make boats and carts and wheels, he makes his plays. He leaves his mark, as they do, on the work.
Since I weary of the subject of this chapter, and swearit will be positively the last word about whittawers in my book, permit me a little note concerning that earthquake which Mr Shakespeare must have remembered from late in his fifteenth year.
There have not been so many earthquakes in England that a boy would ever forget one he had felt with his own feet.
Not that the dead rose from their graves in Trinity churchyard, but on that evening of Easter Wednesday, 1580, the whole of the south of England felt the shaking of the ground. In London, the great clock bell at Westminster struck two with the shock, and the bells of the churches in the city were all set jangling. It is reported that the playgoers rushed out of the theatres in consternation, and that the gentlemen of the Temple, quitting their suppers, ran out of the Temple Hall with their knives in their hands. Part of the Temple Church was cast down, some stones fell from St Paul’s, and two apprentices were killed at Christ Church by the fall of a gargoyle during sermon-time.
This earthquake was felt pretty generally throughout the queendom, and was the cause of much damage in Kent, where many castles and other buildings were injured; and at Dover a portion of a cliff fell, carrying with it part of the castle wall.
So alarmed were all classes, so I’ve heard tell, that Queen Elizabeth thought it advisable to cause a form of prayer to be used by all householders with their whole family, every evening before going to bed:
ALMIGHTY everlasting God, who lookest upon the earth, and makest it to tremble: spare them that fear thee, be merciful to them that call upon thee; that whereas we are sore afraid for thy wrath that shaketh the foundations of the earth, we may likewise feel thy mercy when thou healest the sores thereof.
O
Richard Shakespeare lived at Snitterfield, to the north of Stratford, but he was not born there. The wildest Shakespeares came first from Balsall and Wroxall (where the prioress showed us her leg in the apple tree), and from a couple ofother villages in the Forest of Arden. I mean the hamlets of Rowington and Baddesley Clinton. Dick Shakespeare came from one of these – I am not sure which. When he died he left an estate that was valued at £38 17s. It is said that he bequeathed five shillings in his will specifically for his sons to get drunk for the last time at his expense.
Dick Shakespeare’s other son was christened Henry. He farmed at Ingon in the parish of Hampton Lucy, staying on the land after his father’s death (unlike his brother John). There’s plenty of evidence that Henry ran wild all his life. When young he was fined for brawling and drawing blood in an affray against the Constable. Then in his middle years he was fined again for wearing a hat to church instead of a cap. As an old man, he went to prison twice for not paying his debts. He was also involved in disputes over tithes and sued his own brother John. But after he died it was found he had money enough in his coffers, as well as a fine mare in his stable, and much corn and hay in his barn. This was our poet’s Uncle Henry, always known as ‘Harry’ or ‘Hal’.
I weary of these wild Shakespeares – But, note well, they had spunk in them. Also they were hardy men, makers, masters and sons of the soil. If you think poets do not descend from such strong lines, madam, then I have to beg to differ. I believe Chaucer’s father was a vintner. (True, Dante’s was a lawyer, but we’ll forgive that.) In any case, consider William Shakespeare’s total craft and trade. He was not just a poet. He was a playwright. And a playwright is a wright, or maker, like a boatwright or a cartwright or a wheelwright. Where they make boats and carts and wheels, he makes his plays. He leaves his mark, as they do, on the work.
Since I weary of the subject of this chapter, and swearit will be positively the last word about whittawers in my book, permit me a little note concerning that earthquake which Mr Shakespeare must have remembered from late in his fifteenth year.
There have not been so many earthquakes in England that a boy would ever forget one he had felt with his own feet.
Not that the dead rose from their graves in Trinity churchyard, but on that evening of Easter Wednesday, 1580, the whole of the south of England felt the shaking of the ground. In London, the great clock bell at Westminster struck two with the shock, and the bells of the churches in the city were all set jangling. It is reported that the playgoers rushed out of the theatres in consternation, and that the gentlemen of the Temple, quitting their suppers, ran out of the Temple Hall with their knives in their hands. Part of the Temple Church was cast down, some stones fell from St Paul’s, and two apprentices were killed at Christ Church by the fall of a gargoyle during sermon-time.
This earthquake was felt pretty generally throughout the queendom, and was the cause of much damage in Kent, where many castles and other buildings were injured; and at Dover a portion of a cliff fell, carrying with it part of the castle wall.
So alarmed were all classes, so I’ve heard tell, that Queen Elizabeth thought it advisable to cause a form of prayer to be used by all householders with their whole family, every evening before going to bed:
ALMIGHTY everlasting God, who lookest upon the earth, and makest it to tremble: spare them that fear thee, be merciful to them that call upon thee; that whereas we are sore afraid for thy wrath that shaketh the foundations of the earth, we may likewise feel thy mercy when thou healest the sores thereof.
O
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