Shakespeares are also found as tenants on the manors belonging to the convent, and at the time of the Dissolution in 1534 one Richard Shakespeare was its bailiff and collector of rents. Con jectural attempts have been made on the one hand to connect the ancestors of this Richard Shakespeare with a family of the same name who held land by military tenure at Baddesley Clinton in the i4th and 15th centuries, and on the other to identify him with the poet's grandfather, Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield. But Shakespeares are to be traced at Wroxall nearly as far back as at Baddesley Clinton, and Richard the bailiff seems to have retired to a farm at Haseley, which he had held since 1523. Probably he died there about 1558. It is not likely that he had also since 1529 been farming land at Snitterfield.
With the breaking of this link, the hope of giving Shakespeare anything more than a grandfather on the father's side must be laid aside for the present. On the mother's side he was connected with a family of some distinction. Part at least of Richard Shake speare's land at Snitterfield was held from Robert Arden of Wilm cote in the adjoining parish of Aston Cantlow, probably a cadet of the Ardens of Parkhall, who counted amongst the leading gen try of Warwickshire. Robert Arden married his second wife, Agnes Hill, formerly Webbe, in 1548, and had then no less than eight daughters by his first wife. To the youngest of these, Mary Arden, he left in 1556 a freehold in Aston Cantlow consisting of a farm of about so or 6o acres in extent, known as Asbies. It is possible that he had already settled upon her other property in Wilmcote. At some date later than Nov. 1556, and probably before the end of 1557, Mary Arden became the wife of John Shakespeare. In Oct. 1556 John Shakespeare had bought two freehold houses, one in Greenhill street, the other in Henley street.
The latter, known as the wool shop, was the easternmost of the two tenements now combined in the so-called Shakespeare's birth place. The western tenement, locally regarded as the birthplace proper, may have been already in John Shakespeare's hands, as he seems to have been living in Henley street in 1552. It has sometimes been thought to have been one of two houses which formed a later purchase in 1575, but there is no evidence that these were in Henley street at all.
William Shakespeare was not the first child. A Joan was bap tized in 1558 and a Margaret in 1562. The latter was buried in 1563 and the former must also have died young, although her burial is not recorded, as a second Joan was baptized in 1569. A Gilbert was baptized in 1566, an Anne in 1571, a Richard in 1574 and an Edmund in 1580. Anne died in Edmund, who, like his brother, became an actor, in 1607; Gilbert in 1612; Richard in 1613. Tradition has it that a relative of Shakespeare's used to visit London in the 17th century as quite an old man. One form of this makes him a brother, which is impossible.
During the years that followed his marriage, John Shakespeare became prominent in Stratford life. In 1565 he was chosen as an alderman, and in 1568 he held the chief municipal office, that of high bailiff. This carried with it the dignity of justice of the peace. John Shakespeare seems to have contemplated the assump tion of arms, and usually appears in corporation documents as "Mr." Shakespeare, whereby he may be distinguished from an other John Shakespeare, a "corviser" or shoemaker, who dwelt in Stratford about 1586-92. In 1571 as an ex-bailiff he began another year of office as chief alderman.
One may think, therefore, of Shakespeare in his boyhood as the son of one of the leading citizens of a not unimportant pro vincial market-town, with a vigorous life of its own, which, in spite of the dunghills, was probably not much unlike the life of a similar town to-day, and with constant reminders of its past in the shape of the stately buildings formerly belonging to its col lege and its gild, both of which had been suppressed at the Ref ormation. Stratford stands on the Avon, in the midst of an agri cultural country, throughout which in those days enclosed orchards and meadows alternated with open fields for tillage, and not far from the wilder and wooded district known as the Forest of Arden. The middle ages had left it an heritage in the shape of a free grammar-school, and here it is natural to suppose that Wil liam Shakespeare obtained a sound enough education, with a working knowledge of "Mantuan" and Ovid in the original, even though to such a thorough scholar as Ben Jonson it might seem no more than "small Latin and less Greek." In 1577, when
Shakespeare was about 13, his father's fortunes began to take a turn for the worse. He became irregular in his contributions to town levies, and had to give a mortgage on property of his wife at Wilmcote as security for a loan from her brother-in-law, Edmund Lambert. Money was raised to pay this off, partly by the sale of a small interest in land at Snitterfield which had come to Mary Shakespeare from her sisters, partly perhaps by that of the Greenhill street house and other property in Stratford out side Henley street, none of which seems to have ever come into William Shakespeare's hands. Lambert, however, refused to sur render the mortgage on the plea of older debts, and an attempt to recover the Wilmcote property by litigation proved ineffectual. John'Shakespeare's difficulties increased. He had long ceased to attend the meetings of the corporation, and as a consequence he was removed in 1586 from the list of aldermen. In this state of domestic affairs it is not likely that Shakespeare's school life was unduly prolonged. The chances are that he was apprenticed to some local trade. Aubrey says that he killed calves for his father, and "would do it in a high style, and make a speech." Marriage.—Whatever his circumstances, they did not deter him at the early age of 18 from the adventure of marriage. Rowe recorded the name of Shakespeare's wife as Hathaway, and Joseph Greene succeeded in tracing her to a family of that name dwelling in Shottery, one of the hamlets of Stratford. Her monu ment gives her first name as Anne, and her age as 67 in 1623. She must, therefore, have been about eight years older than Shakespeare. Various small trains of evidence point to her identi fication with the daughter Agnes mentioned in the will of a Rich ard Hathaway of Shottery, who died in 1581, being then in pos session of the farmhouse now known as "Anne Hathaway's Cot tage." Agnes was legally a distinct name from Anne, but there can be no doubt that ordinary custom treated them as identical. The principal record of the marriage is a bond dated Nov. 28, 1582, and executed by Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, two yeomen of Stratford who also figure in Richard Hathaway's will, as a security to the bishop for the issue of a licence for the mar riage of William Shakespeare and "Anne Hathwey of Stratford," upon the consent of her friends, with one asking of the banns. There is no reason to suppose, as has been suggested, that the procedure adopted was due to dislike of the marriage on the part of John Shakespeare, since, the bridegroom being a minor, it would not have been in accordance with the practice of the bishop's officials to issue the licence without evidence of the father's consent. The explanation probably lies in the fact that Anne was already with child, and in the near neighbourhood of Advent, within which marriages were prohibited, so that the ordinary pro cedure by banns would have entailed a delay until after Christ mas. A kindly sentiment has suggested that some form of civil marriage, or at least contract of espousals, had already taken place, so that a canonical marriage was really only required in order to enable Anne to secure the legacy left her by her father "at the day of her marriage." But such a theory is not rigidly required by the facts. It is singular that, upon the day before that on which the bond was executed, an entry was made in the bishop's register of the issue of a licence for a marriage between William Shakespeare and "Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton." Of this it can only be said that the bond, as an original document, is infinitely the better authority, and that a scribal error of "Whateley" for "Hathaway" is quite a possible solution. Temple Grafton may have been indicated in the licence as the place of marriage, although Worcester licences usually named the place of residence of the bride. There are no contemporary registers for Temple Grafton, and there is no entry of the marriage in those for Stratford-on-Avon. There is a tradition that such a record was seen during the 19th century in the registers for Luddington, a chapelry within the parish, which are now destroyed. Shake speare's first child, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and was followed on Feb. 2, 1585, by twins, Hamnet and Judith.