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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/shakpuritOOcart 
 
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 2S. 6d., 
 
 1 ' The Early History of the 
 Scottish Union Question!' 
 
 By G. W. T. Omond. 
 
 " A careful piece of research work. Authorities and documentary 
 evidence have received due attention, and Mr. Omond always gives 
 the impression of knowing thoroughly what he is writing about." — 
 A berdeen Journal. 
 
 "A brief and readable study of the political movement which, 
 after centuries of warfare, jealousy, and mutual misunderstandings, 
 at last brought England and Scotland into a united kingdom." — 
 Scotsman* 
 
 11 He writes with very great charm. The subject may not possess 
 absorbing interest for its own sake, but Mr. Omond's handling of it 
 is so winning that you will soon find yourself riveted. And you 
 will get no release till you have read his delightful volume through." 
 — Expository Times. 
 
 "A clear and careful history of the long and often interrupted 
 movement, and brings well into notice the theological and mercantile 
 sides of the question." — Scots Pictorial. 
 
 11 The story he has to tell is full of interest, and it is well told." — 
 N. B. Daily Mail. _ 
 
 " In relating his history, Mr. Omond has to traverse the familiar 
 ground of the ecclesiastical troubles in Scotland under Mary, Crom- 
 well, and Charles, and to note the rise of the trading spirit in 
 Scotland, and the opposition it received at the hands of the English 
 merchants. Nothing is more clear, from a study of this prolonged 
 effort, than that the great compelling force in bringing the two 
 nations together politically was an economic one — not the economics 
 of poverty, but the economics of prosperity." — New Age. 
 
 "A most valuable contribution to Scottish history, and is specially 
 interesting in the light which it throws on the Church question in 
 connection with the Revolution settlement." — Kilmarnock Standard. 
 
 " Mr. Omond has laid students of British history under a debt of 
 gratitude to him for his work on the Scottish Union question." — 
 Leeds Merctiry. 
 
 11 Mr. Omond has probed deeply into the records of the Union 
 negotiations, and his history of that stirring time is both interesting 
 and instructive." — People's Journal. 
 
 " A useful and opportune work." — Northern Ensign. 
 
 11 A handy, well-written little volume." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "A concise and eminently readable account of the varying currents 
 of social and political feeling which preceded the formation of 
 England and Scotland into a united kingdom." — Dundee Courier. 
 
 " An impartial and well-written description of the progress of the 
 great controversy ; it is composed with a nice discrimination of the 
 proportion of things, and will probably give, even to the close 
 student of history, more real enlightenment than some more 
 ambitious works on the same subject." — Weekly Scotsman. 
 
 "A genuine contribution to British history." — Dumfries Courier. 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER, 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
Shakesp 
 
 eare 
 
 'Puritan and c I{ecusant 
 

Shakespeare 
 
 0T\ 
 
 OCT 27 1937 
 
 <2. 
 
 - 
 
 . $> 
 
 Turitan and Recusant 
 
 'By the 
 
 Rev. T. Carter 
 
 With a Trefatory CNj/te by the 
 
 Rev. Trincipal J. Oswald T)ykes, D.D 
 
 Edinburgh &? London 
 
 Oliphant Anderson fc? Ferrier 
 
 1897 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH 
 
 FOR 
 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 I 
 
To 
 
 The Countess of Warwick 
 
 Whose ancestors rendered many and eminent 
 
 services to the Puritan cause 
 
 and whose gracious qualities have added 
 
 lustre to the honoured names of 
 
 " Brooke ' and u Warwick ' 
 
 This "Book is 
 by her Ladyship's kind permission 
 dedicated with all respect 
 
^Acknowledgment 
 
 A word of acknowledgment of their uniform courtesy is 
 
 due to the Librarian and Officials of the 
 
 Birmingham Shakespeare Library 
 
Prefatory Note 
 
 The lifetime of England's greatest poet covered 
 a period, from 1564 to 1616, when the country was 
 agitated from end to end by religious strife. In 
 Hazlitt's words, "There was a mighty fermentation : 
 the waters were out." When Shakespeare was 
 born, the kingdom had just been passing through 
 a series of revolutions in faith and worship, the 
 most violent which it has ever sustained since its 
 conversion to Christianity. During the whole of 
 Elizabeth's reign the public mind was disturbed 
 by the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to 
 recover through treasonable intrigue its lost 
 ascendency. Meanwhile, the Reformed Church 
 of England was settling down into the constitution, 
 and shaping the formularies, which it still retains. 
 But it was doing this amid the party strife of 
 Churchmen. The prelatic majority was content 
 
2 Prefatory Note 
 
 to accept, even if reluctantly, the measure of reform 
 which satisfied the Queen, and enjoyed in conse- 
 quence the favour of the Government. But a 
 minority of Churchmen, not inconsiderable either 
 for numbers, for learning, or for social position, 
 advocated a more thorough rejection of Catholic 
 usages, and were driven by their conscientious 
 scruples into recusancy or nonconformity. 
 
 Shakespeare was no recluse, but a man of the 
 world, familiar with affairs, who led the busy life of 
 a prosperous citizen. Yet of these heated contests 
 going on around him between the old and the 
 new Faiths, his plays and poems offer scarcely a 
 trace. No critic has been able from his writings 
 to infer with confidence to which side the poet's 
 convictions inclined. It is a singular instance 
 how the imaginative artist, moving in the 
 elemental region of human passion, and breathing 
 the serener air of poetic inspiration, may hold 
 his art aloof from the storms which agitate his 
 age. 
 
 Even from this seeming indifference to Church 
 reform, as well as from the tone of his rare allusions 
 to the party of change, Roman Catholic writers 
 
Prefatory Note 3 
 
 have argued that Shakespeare's secret sympathies 
 must have lain with the old Faith. Precarious at 
 the best, this conclusion becomes more than 
 doubtful if the argument of the present volume 
 can be maintained. For it is the aim of my friend, 
 Mr. Carter, in the following pages, to make it 
 probable, from a re-examination of the data which 
 we possess respecting the poet's father, that John 
 Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon was not only 
 no Papist, but an adherent of the most advanced 
 section of Protestants. 
 
 To bestow on this party in the earlier years of 
 the English Reformation the epithet of " Puritan," 
 is to antedate, though only by a little, the in- 
 troduction of that nickname. Curiously enough, 
 the earliest instance of its employment occurs in 
 the very year of the poet's birth. At that date, 
 the friends of a more drastic reform, reinforced by 
 the return from abroad of the Marian exiles, were 
 on the point of advancing from the question of 
 ceremonies and vestments, which in Henry's reign 
 had been chiefly debated, to some deeper matters 
 of Church discipline and polity which for a century 
 to come were to divide English Churchmen into 
 
4 Prefatory Note 
 
 two camps. It was an advance which had im- 
 portant consequences ; but it marked no change 
 in the principles by which the party was guided. 
 In substance the " harried " Puritans of Cartwright's 
 school under Elizabeth and James represented the 
 party which in a preceding reign had scrupled at 
 sacerdotal vestments ; just as in their turn Hooper 
 and Latimer and Foxe had inherited the Lollard 
 tradition of a still earlier generation. There is 
 evidence indeed that the very name of " Lollard ' 
 lived on till it was exchanged in popular usage 
 for the newer nickname of " Puritan/' which took 
 its place." x 
 
 If Mr. Carter's reading of the elder Shakespeare's 
 life can be justified, the poet was at all events 
 reared in a " Puritan " home. The presumption 
 which would thence arise, that the aims of the 
 advanced Protestants, as they commanded the 
 sympathy of Shakespeare's earlier contemporary, 
 Edmund Spenser, and claimed the powerful pen 
 of his younger contemporary, John Milton, so they 
 retained a hold on the mature intelligence of a 
 
 1 See Hist, MSS, Commission s Eleventh Report, part vii. p. 253 : 
 H Discourse against profane Lollardes, commonly called Puritans. 
 
Prefatory Note 5 
 
 greater than either, is one which there is little or 
 
 nothing that I know of in his writings to outweigh. 
 
 Of course it must be left to the judgment of 
 
 historical critics, and especially of Shakespearian 
 
 students, to estimate the weight of the evidence on 
 
 which Mr. Carter relies. But the point is one 
 
 which, like everything bearing on the formation 
 
 of Shakespeare's mind, has interest for all 
 
 educated Englishmen. Those who recognise in 
 
 the advanced Protestants or early Puritans under 
 
 the Tudors, the men who in their day embraced 
 
 most faithfully the ideas of the new era, the men 
 
 of freest thought and keenest sympathy with pure 
 
 and true religion, will find the suggestion no less 
 
 natural than welcome that William Shakespeare 
 
 was the child of a Puritan and Bible-loving home. 
 
 For many a day the Elizabethan Puritan shared 
 
 with his successor under the Commonwealth in 
 
 the odium and derision with which from the 
 
 Restoration onwards party rancour delighted to 
 
 load the memory of a great, though in the end 
 
 unsuccessful, party. Recent historians have passed 
 
 a more favourable judgment. "Among their ranks," 
 
 says Mr. S. R. Gardiner, " were to be found some 
 
6 Prefatory Note 
 
 of the most learned men and the ablest preachers 
 in England." 1 Among them were men who had 
 drunk in Reformed teaching at the feet of scholars 
 like Bucer at Cambridge and Peter Martyr at 
 Oxford, and who kept up close relations with the 
 leading Continental Reformers, with Bullinger, with 
 Calvin, with Beza, and with A'Lasco. Their 
 chief strength lay in the younger generation growing 
 up in the Universities ; at Cambridge especially, 
 where Cartwright held the Lady Margaret Pro- 
 fessorship of Divinity. Not only in Emmanuel 
 College, founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, 
 with a Puritan for its first Master, but in older 
 foundations as well, such as Trinity and St. John's, 
 a large number of the younger Regents gave trouble 
 to the authorities by overt acts of nonconformity. 
 Nor did the policy in Church matters of the Queen 
 and of her prelates commend itself to the wisest 
 of her statesmen. The words of Mr. Mullingar sum 
 up the facts with substantial correctness when he 
 affirms : " Nearly all Elizabeth's ministers, Cecil, 
 Leicester, Knolles, Bedford and Walsingham, had 
 Puritanical sympathies and lent their party sub- 
 
 1 History of England \ 2nd ed. i. 21. 
 
Prefatory Note 7 
 
 stantial aid." 1 It is more difficult to ascertain 
 on sure evidence what measure of support the 
 party enjoyed among the substantial middle classes 
 to which Shakespeare belonged — the yeomen and 
 well-to-do burghers. It is certain at least that 
 Shakespeare's own county of Warwick was in this 
 respect one of the most Puritan in England. If 
 it be true that two-thirds of King James' first 
 Parliament were of this way of thinking, 2 it is 
 evident enough that the repressive measures of 
 the great Queen had been successful merely in 
 restraining the open resistance of the advanced or 
 11 Puritan " Protestants in the Church, but by no 
 means in reconciling England to her ecclesiastical 
 policy. 
 
 All this, of course, does not strengthen the 
 probability that John Shakespeare of Stratford-on- 
 Avon was a Puritan. That must be left to rest 
 on its proper evidence, which it is the design of 
 this volume to set forth. But if Mr. Carter's 
 reading of the facts be accepted, it is of consequence 
 to remember that the stream of influence which 
 
 1 Cambridge Characteristics in the Seventeenth Centtiry, 1867. 
 
 2 State Papers {Dom.), vii. 2. 
 
8 Prefatory Note 
 
 in that case must have told powerfully on the 
 boyhood of the future dramatist, was no side 
 current, still less a reactionary eddy in the religious 
 life of England, but a genuine, deep, and healthful 
 movement of the nation's life, running in the line 
 of what was sanest, and noblest, and fullest of 
 promise for the national character in the future. 
 If it was in a Puritan household Shakespeare grew 
 to manhood, then the reverent temper of such a 
 home, its familiarity with Holy Writ, its spirit of 
 freedom in opinion, its grave conscientiousness 
 and loyalty to principle under the frown of 
 authority in Church and State, were all elements 
 worthy to enter into the poet's moral and in- 
 tellectual structure. They will have to be reckoned 
 with by those who would understand aright the 
 later work done by the most imperial intellect of 
 all time. 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Earlier Years of John Shakespeare, 
 
 Puritan and Recusant . . . .11 
 
 II. "Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan against Roman 
 
 Catholic" ...... 49 
 
 III. The Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare . 81 
 
 IV. Active Persecution of Puritans, and John- 
 
 Shakespeare's INCREASING DIFFICULTIES. . IO9 
 
 V. Marked down as a Puritan Recusant . 133 
 
 VI. William Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 171 
 
 Appendices ...... 199 
 
 Index ....... 205 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EARLIER YEARS OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE, 
 PURITAN AND RECUSANT 
 
 John Shakespeare, father of the poet, came 
 
 into the town of Stratford, from the neighbouring 
 
 village of Snitterfield, in the year 1551. He was 
 
 then a young man of twenty. The times were 
 
 stirring ones, for the Protector Somerset had fallen, 
 
 and the Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke of 
 
 Northumberland, was taking the leading part in 
 
 the Government of the day, and identifying himself 
 
 most actively with those reformers in religion 
 
 who took their theology from Calvin, Knox, and 
 
 Bucer. Possibly owing to his influence with 
 
 the King, letters of incorporation were granted 
 
 by Edward VI. whereby Stratford borough became 
 
 subject to the rule of a bailiff or chief magistrate, 
 
 fourteen aldermen, and fourteen burgesses. But 
 
 13 
 
1 4 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 the following year saw Mary ascend the throne 
 of England, and the Roman Catholic faith become 
 once more the established religion of the realm. 
 With many men in those days of ecclesiastical 
 confusion and unrest, belief was too often a matter 
 of convenience rather than of conviction, and 
 multitudes of the people quietly changed their 
 religion and obeyed the Queen. Reformers who 
 were in earnest protested and went into exile. It 
 has been accepted, without much proof, however, 
 that John Shakespeare, although born in Protest- 
 antism, had become, and remained all his life, 
 a staunch adherent and professor of the ancient 
 Faith, and that, in the words of Carlyle, William 
 Shakespeare " was the noblest product of Middle- 
 Age Catholicism." There is, however, no docu- 
 mentary witness of this Roman Catholicism of 
 John Shakespeare, and the evidence of his life 
 points conclusively in an opposite direction, 
 namely, to the steadfast section of the Protestant 
 Reformation which afterwards became so widely 
 known as the Puritan. In order to present 
 this evidence as clearly as possible it will be 
 necessary to follow somewhat carefully the record 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 1 5 
 
 of John Shakespeare's life, and at the same time 
 place him in his true religious environment and 
 historical setting. 
 
 In the early years of his residence in the 
 borough, business matters evidently absorbed all 
 his attention, and the Stratford Records are prin- 
 cipally of these. In 1556 he had made enough 
 money to purchase one of the best dwellings in 
 the town, the house in Henley Street annexed to 
 that which is now shown as the birthplace, and 
 another little property in Greenhill Street or More 
 Towns End. 
 
 The record of the sale is in the legal Latin of the 
 time, and runs as follows : — " Item, quod Edwardus 
 West alienavit predicto Johanni Shakespere unum 
 tenementum cum gardino adjacente in Henley 
 Stret per redditum inde domino per annum vjd 
 et sectam curie, et idem Johannes presens in curia 
 fecit fidelitatem visus etc." 
 
 The next year, 1557, probably saw him bring a 
 fair maiden to the house in Henley Street, for in 
 the preceding autumn there had died at Wilmcote, 
 three miles from Stratford, a country gentleman of 
 worshipful descent named Robert Arden, whose 
 
1 6 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 youngest and favourite daughter, Mary, was be- 
 trothed to John Shakespeare. A fairly large 
 inheritance had fallen to her by her father's death ; 
 and the reversion of two farmhouses at Snitterfield, 
 with about one hundred acres of land, an estate at 
 the Asbies, Wilmcote, of sixty acres, and a substan- 
 tial pecuniary legacy would come as a welcome 
 help to one whose rapidly increasing business 
 was most likely calling for more capital. By 
 this time John Shakespeare had established him- 
 self as a Stratford wool-stapler, and was evidently 
 building up a respectable business and making a 
 steady advance in wealth and civic importance. 
 His avocation covered a variety of occupations, 
 such as glover, gauntlet-maker, leather-curer 
 and bootmaker, cattle and corn merchant, grazier, 
 butcher, and fellmonger. The wool-staple was 
 one of the most important industries in Warwick- 
 shire, and Stratford and Warwick were well-known 
 centres ; the ancient arms of the borough contained 
 those of the Merchants of the Staple, and the 
 popular estimation of the trade may be judged 
 from the writer of the Golden Fleece *, who, in 1657, 
 terms it " the flower and strength, the revenue and 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 17 
 
 bloud of England, the milk and honey of the 
 grasier and countryman, in a word, the very 
 exchequer of wealth." This business, with its 
 many modes of activity, would account for the 
 glove-making and calf-killing legends with which 
 we are all so familiar, and also explains the rapid 
 advance of this worthy Merchant of the Staple. 
 The year 1557 marks also his first step upon the 
 civic ladder, in his appointment to the supervision 
 of breweries and bakeries within the borough ; 
 and during the next twelve years he filled inter- 
 vening posts, until he reached the highest honour 
 in 1569, and became High Bailiff of the Borough. 
 
 Early in 1557, the Government of Philip and 
 Mary, carrying out a policy which had for its 
 object the complete ascendency of the old Faith in 
 the public as well as the private lives of the 
 citizens of England, granted a commission to 
 Bonner wherein the widest powers of coercion and 
 persecution were committed to his discretion. 
 Courts of Inquisition were established in every 
 borough, and all justices of the peace and men in 
 authority were compelled to take oath on the 
 matter of their own faithfulness, and swear to 
 
1 8 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 aid the commissioners in the prosecution of those 
 who refused to attend church or abstained from 
 worship according to the rites of the Roman 
 Catholic faith. The Englishman's instinctive 
 hatred of intolerant persecution had made many 
 men in office shield their reforming brethren and 
 caused others to refuse to accept positions under 
 Bonner's persecuting commissions. It was obvious 
 that the policy could not be carried out success- 
 fully unless determined Roman Catholics were in 
 positions of authority, hence Bonner sent down 
 injunctions to the effect that steadfast men were 
 to be placed in office, and that attendance at the 
 borough meetings was to be strictly enforced. 
 Reluctant councillors were compelled by enact- 
 ment to accept office and discharge the duties 
 thereof faithfully. We have the traces of this 
 movement in the borough enactments of Septem- 
 ber 29th, 1557, when the following rules were 
 framed to compel the attendance of reluctant 
 councillors : — 
 
 "Stratford Records, 29M Sept. 1557. 
 
 " A fine of xxs. is to be imposed upon Aldermen and xs. 
 for capytall burgesez who do not attend the yearly election 
 of Bailiff. 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 19 
 
 " Fine for refusal of the office of Bailiff, xli. (£10). l 
 
 " Fine for refusal of the office of Chief Alderman vnjli. 
 
 (£*)■ 
 
 " Item, that ther be ones every monethe yn the yere at 
 least a hall to be kept in the Councell Chambur, and that 
 every Alderman and capytall burgese be then and ther 
 present under the peyn to forfeit every offender vjs. vnjd. 
 and that to be payd at or before the next hall then and 
 ther holden to the use of the Chamber except a lawfull 
 cawse or lycence unto hym or them given by the Belyf. 
 
 " Item, that every Alderman and capytall burgese be 
 personally at every hall upon warning to them geven or els 
 to shewe a lawfull cawse why they cannot be ther, unto 
 the Baylyffe before the Halle be gathered and to agree unto 
 all such orders as shalbe ther made in his absence, in payne 
 of forfettynge for every default xijd." 
 
 It will be clearly seen that enactments such as 
 these go much deeper than mere resolutions 
 of Council for the purpose of ensuring a fair 
 attendance. Men were wilfully holding back 
 from office, and it had become necessary for 
 authority to be applied with severity. 
 
 During this year one Robert Perrot was Bailiff 
 of Stratford, and it may be taken for granted 
 that before so important an office was offered to 
 
 1 " The relative value of money in Shakspere's time and 
 ours may be roughly computed at one-twelfth in articles of 
 trade, and one-twentieth in landed or house property." — 
 Halliwell Phillipps. 
 
20 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 and accepted by him in times of bitter persecu- 
 tion under a most bigoted King and Queen, it 
 was well known that he was sound in the faith 
 and an ardent and pronounced Roman Catholic. 
 It was intended that he should take part, as chief 
 magistrate of a borough, in Bonner's policy of 
 enforcing conformity, and therefore it would be 
 necessary for him to be of the ancient Faith. 
 
 But the country was nearer release than 
 anyone anticipated ; the death of Mary in 
 November 1558 brought her Protestant sister 
 Elizabeth to the throne, and immediately there was 
 a return of exiles and a popular rising against 
 Roman Catholicism. People and Queen alike had 
 cause to resent Papal supremacy, and for a time 
 full vent was given to revengeful feelings. 
 
 Elizabeth could not forgive the insulting words of 
 Pope Paul IV., who contemptuously said on the news 
 of her accession, "that she could not succeed, being a 
 bastard, and that the Crown of England being a fief 
 of the Popedom, she had been guilty of great pre- 
 sumption in assuming it without his consent." And 
 her people could not forget the fires of Smithfield. 
 
 The Queen entered upon her policy of defiance 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 2 1 
 
 with all the Tudor spirit ; and the Acts of Supremacy 
 and Uniformity of Worship were one answer to the 
 Pope, and the Commission to destroy all Altars, 
 Crosses, and Vaine Symbols another. Zeal soon 
 outruns discretion in a crusade of destruction, and 
 bigoted Protestants began to lay themselves open 
 to charges as severe as those urged against Bonner's 
 inquisitors during the late reign. The Queen 
 found it necessary to forbid any further demolition 
 of images and symbols. The county of Warwick- 
 shire was one of the first to become conspicuous 
 for its adherence to the tenets of the more 
 thoroughgoing among the Reformers. Puritan 
 ministers were so plentiful in Coventry that at one 
 time the Mayor levied a tax upon every house- 
 holder for their maintenance. In 1560 Mass was 
 put down in the town amid scenes of great enthusi- 
 asm, and images and popish relics were burnt in the 
 public streets. The Puritan party in the county 
 was of a most influential character. The Earl of 
 Leicester, the Earl of Warwick, Job Throgmorton 
 of Haseley, Robert Wigston of Woolston, John 
 Hales of Coventry, were prominent laymen ; 
 Humphrey Fenn for forty years preached the 
 
22 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 gospel in Coventry ; Thomas Lever was arch- 
 deacon in the same town ; Edward Lord and Hugh 
 Clark were vicars of Woolston, John Hooke and 
 Ephraim Hewet vicars of Wroxhall, Samuel Clark 
 of Alcester, John Oxenbridge of Coventry, Richard 
 Byfield of Stratford, and Thomas Cartwright (leader 
 of the movement) of Warwick. Some of the most 
 eminent leaders of the Puritans were ministers of 
 Warwickshire. It must be remembered that with 
 the exception of some strong Gospellers, descend- 
 ants of Wycliffe's preaching brothers, and professing 
 generally the principles of what is now known as the 
 Baptist Church, there were no Dissenters in England 
 at this time. Despite the persecutions and confusion 
 all parties were gathered within the one National 
 Church. Papist, Prelatist, and Puritan were each 
 fighting for the supremacy, and each hoped 
 to force the others to adopt his views. It 
 was not until the year of the Papal Excom- 
 munication of Elizabeth in 1570 that the Roman 
 Catholic broke away entirely from the Established 
 Church. Repressive and intolerant measures were 
 destroying the hopes raised in Mary's reign, 
 but English Romanists clung most devotedly 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 2 3 
 
 to the Church until persecution and the Papal 
 Excommunication rendered any further tolerance 
 impossible. 
 
 On the other side, the Prelatist, or Queen's 
 Churchman, was gradually gaining power, for the 
 Queen's actions showed that all her thoughts lay in 
 the direction of assuming ecclesiastical supremacy 
 in the realm of England. She showed her hand 
 cautiously, for the Puritan bulwark was too strong 
 to be thrown aside suddenly ; but as years went on 
 it was clearly seen that the growth of Puritanism 
 was distasteful to her, and the repressive measures 
 adopted proved that she was prepared to go almost 
 any length in her efforts to crush it out. But in the 
 first years of her reign English refugees from the 
 Presbyterian Churches of the Continent had been 
 brought over to officiate in high ecclesiastical 
 duties, and the English people looked naturally to 
 the various Reformed Churches of Europe for ex- 
 ample and guidance. Popular feeling was against 
 High Church doctrines and anything that savoured 
 of Rome ; the Universities were Puritan to the 
 core ; and even those men who afterwards became 
 notorious for their Prelacy, like Whitgift of Canter- 
 
24 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 bury, Sandys of Worcester, and Aylmer of London, 
 " that gote heard prowde," were Puritan enough to 
 protest against the "unlawfulness of the habits," 
 and to declaim against " the relics of the Amorites." 
 Elizabeth knew her own mind on the subject of 
 religion, and revealed it as policy dictated. She 
 needed a strong defence against the vigorous 
 Roman Catholicism of the North of England, as 
 well as against the aggressive and murderous 
 fanaticism of Spain and France, and she found this 
 in the sturdy hater of Rome, the Puritan. Papal 
 intrigues both at home and abroad forced her to 
 keep an ever - watchful eye upon her enemies ; 
 and deeming it not politic to alienate a 
 powerful section of her subjects, she gave hopes 
 of a reformation of the Church on thorough 
 lines. She thus won the Puritan almost entirely 
 over to her side, and among her subjects she 
 could reckon no more earnest and enthusiastic 
 supporter. 
 
 In the year 1559, the first year of Elizabeth, and 
 a strongly Protestant one, Adrian Quyney became 
 Bailiff of Stratford, and his lifelong friend John 
 Shakespeare also accepted office in the Court Leet, 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 25 
 
 and became one of the adjudicators ot fines for 
 offences treated summarily. 
 
 In 1563 John Tayler and John Shakespeare sub- 
 mit the borough accounts as chamberlains. In the 
 autumn of the same year John Shakespeare is fined 
 for a breach of borough sanitary byelaws, and on 
 20th December he is first mentioned as a " capytall 
 burgese " in a deed relating to a " tenneimente in 
 the Rother Street." 
 
 The annual accounts as submitted by the cham- 
 berlains are full of interest because John Shakes- 
 peare is mentioned for four successive years, 
 and in connection with business which throws a 
 revealing sidelight upon the question of his religious 
 sympathies. 
 
 The chamberlains were appointed for the purpose 
 of transacting Council business and keeping the 
 various accounts of the year; they submitted their 
 abstracts year by year, signed and sealed for the 
 sanction of the Council. 
 
 On 10th January 1 564 the accounts are presented 
 in the names of John Tayler and John Shakes- 
 peare, and an indication of strong Protestant feeling 
 is given in the attention directed to the refitting of 
 
26 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 the old Chapel, a place of worship which was 
 directly under the supervision of the Town Council. 
 It was a case of alteration rather than of renovation. 
 Timber was purchased for the seating of the place, 
 Roman Catholic emblems were torn down or de- 
 faced, and from the state of the mutilations as 
 recorded by Dugdale it is clear that these alter- 
 ations were carried out in a thoroughly Puritan 
 spirit. 
 
 " The most ancient pictures," writes Dugdale (p. 
 103), " were in the chancel, and many parts of them, 
 particularly the crosses, had been evidently mutil- 
 ated with a sharp instrument by the ill-directed 
 zeal of our early reformers." " The lower compart- 
 ment was one of those intentionally mutilated, a 
 cross, an altar, and a crucifix. ,, 
 
 Further significance is given to the proceedings 
 in that they took place two years after the pro- 
 clamation which the Queen issued (2nd Eliz.) 
 against a recurrence of the outbreak which occurred 
 on her accession, and this shows that a more 
 vigorous Puritan element was working in the 
 Council, wherein Adrian Quiney, Richard Hill, 
 John Wheler, John Tayler, and John Shakespeare 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 27 
 
 were prominent members ; and from the fact that 
 John Shakespeare supplied the timber, claimed a 
 fee, had a standing account, and submitted the 
 yearly accounts on four occasions, it seems more 
 than probable that the alterations were carried out 
 under his active supervision. It is not necessary 
 to point out that the demolition of a Roman 
 Catholic place of worship would not have been 
 undertaken by Roman Catholics, for this would 
 naturally be most abhorrent work to them, and the 
 man would be a disgrace to the old Faith who 
 took an active and leading part in it. 
 
 The accounts as submitted contained the follow- 
 ing:— 
 
 "/an. \oth) 1564. 
 
 " Item, peyd to Shakspeyr for a pece tymbur njs. 
 
 " Item, payd for defasyng ymages in the Chapell ijs. 
 
 " Item, Chamburlens fee xxs. 
 
 " Sicut remaynythe vs. ixd. which is delyvered into the 
 handes of William Tyler and William Smythe, newe 
 Chamburlens so that they befor named John Taylor and 
 John Shaky sper have made a true and lawful accompt for 
 ther tyme beyng Chamburlens 
 " Et sic quieti sunt Johannes Taylor et Johannes Shakspeyr. 
 
 "Jan. 24M, 1564. 
 
 " Item, at this Hall the Chamber ys found in arrerage and 
 ys in det unto John Shakysper xxvs. vnjd.' 
 
28 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Two new chamberlains had been appointed for 
 the year 1564, but in submitting the accounts for 
 March 21st, 1565, they evidently defer to the ex- 
 perience of John Shakysper and John Taylor and 
 allow them to make out the accounts. 
 
 "March 21st, 1565. The accompt of William Tyler and 
 William Smythe, Chamburlens, made by John Shakysper 
 and John Tayler, for one whol yere endyng at the Feest of 
 Sent Mychell Archaungell now past. 
 
 " Item, payd for taking doune rood loft in the Chapell ijs." 
 
 In the next year John Shakespeare again made 
 out the accounts, and this time his name stands 
 alone. 
 
 "Feb. 13th, 1566. 
 
 "The accompt of William Tylor and William Smythe, 
 made by John Shaksper the xvth day of February, in the 
 eighth yere of the reigne of our sovereign Lady Elizabeth 
 by the Grace of God of Englond, Fraunce, and Irelonde, 
 Quene, Defender of the feith etc. for one yere ending at the 
 Feest of Sent Mychell thararchangell now last past, ut 
 sequitur." 
 
 The list ot payments which follows is chiefly 
 for repairs at the Chapel and Schoolhouse, showing 
 that the work was still proceeding under the 
 direction of John Shakespeare. An item which 
 occurs in this account is worth noting, inasmuch 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 29 
 
 as it shows light on several controverted points. 
 The words are — 
 
 " Item, payd to Shakspeyr for a rest of old det £3, 2s. yd." 
 
 It has been readily accepted by many that John 
 Shakespeare was an illiterate man, and that the 
 fact of a writ being issued against a tradesman is 
 enough to stamp him as poverty-stricken. Let us 
 take the latter point first. In 1586, under date 
 January 19th, a writ was issued against John 
 Shakespeare, and it was returned to the Court with 
 the words written upon it "quod praedictus 
 Johannes Shackspere nihil habet unde distringere 
 potest." This writ has been considered a strong link 
 in a chain of evidence by which John Shakespeare 
 is supposed in 1586 to have been meshed in inex- 
 tricable financial difficulties, plunged into a poverty 
 so complete that it has ended his civic life, caused 
 his eldest son to be removed prematurely from a 
 free school in order to eke out a livelihood for a 
 bankrupt father and mother, and cast so deep a 
 shadow upon the erstwhile successful merchant's 
 life that he has to skulk in byways to avoid 
 arrest, and even to forsake the public worship of 
 
30 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 God. And yet it is incontestable that at the 
 time the " nihil habet unde distringere potest " was 
 written he was holding valuable property in 
 Stratford and the neighbourhood, was witnessing 
 wills and fulfilling positions of trust, and had not a 
 single action for debt against him. 
 
 We cannot at this day explain the meaning of 
 the words, or how far the writ had power, but it is 
 undeniable that so far as landed property was 
 concerned John Shakespeare had plenty to distrain 
 upon. 
 
 Mr. Halliwell Phillipps says, regarding the writ 
 of 1586: "The reader must be warned from these, 
 which might appear in the brief record as convey- 
 ing inferences against the prosperity of John 
 Shakespeare's circumstances, but which do not 
 when thus exhibited in particulars, that he 
 cannot use these entries in every case as a history 
 of his pecuniary affairs. The ancient forms of 
 process in actions for debt must also be considered, 
 and it will, I think, be found that even the most 
 formidable circumstance which is entered under 
 the date of January 19th, 1586, 'quod praedictus 
 Johannes Shackspere nihil habet unde distringere 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 3 1 
 
 potest' must be construed in great measure by 
 legal formality, not necessarily as an actual fact." 
 
 And if the words " nihil habet " must be con- 
 strued in great measure by legal formality, the 
 fact of having a writ served upon him would not 
 in any way support the poverty theory of John 
 Shakespeare's life ; and here we return to our 
 argument derived from the annual accounts of the 
 chamberlains twenty years before this date, that is 
 in 1566. In that year Mr. Alderman Shakespeare's 
 financial position was a most stable one, for besides 
 the pecuniary legacy and the reversions under 
 Robert Arden's will, and his own property in and 
 about Stratford, his business was prospering so 
 well that he could afford to have a running account 
 with the borough without troubling much about 
 " arrerages." As a matter of fact the town owed 
 him a fair sum. His civic position had been 
 attested by his election to the position of Alderman 
 in July 1 565, yet in September 1 566 a precept to the 
 Sergeants at Mace was issued to distrain on his goods 
 and chattels to answer the suit of one Joan Pagge. 
 
 11 Preceptum est servientibus ad clavam quod 
 distringatis, seu unum vestrum distringat Johan- 
 
3 2 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 nem Shakespere per omnia bona et cattalla sua, 
 ita quod sit apud proximam curiam de recordo 
 tentam ibidem ad respondendum Johanne Pagge 
 de placito debiti etc. 
 
 " Datum sub sigillo mea xj mo die Septembris 
 anno regni domine Elizabethe Dei gracia Anglie 
 etc. Octavo. 
 
 " HENRICUS HYGFORD, Senescallus." 
 
 It is obvious from Alderman Shakespeare's known 
 possessions at this time that it would be ridiculous 
 to accept this writ as an evidence of his poverty. 
 Writs are not uncommon with business men of a 
 litigious nature, and John Shakespeare was a man 
 who usually fought a question to the bitter end, 
 as witness his actions to recover the estate ot 
 Asbies from his kinsman Lambart, his stubborn 
 fight against Nicholas Lane, and his threescore 
 and ten recorded lawsuits. 
 
 Rightly considered, the writ of 1586 with its 
 " nihil habet " ought to be taken as an evidence of 
 times of dangerous persecution and accompanying 
 necessary safeguarding, instead of a proof of 
 poverty, for religious intolerance and ecclesiastical 
 
 1 See Appendix B. 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 33 
 
 espionage had made suspected men cautious ; and 
 the Puritan spirit which conceived and carried out 
 the demolition of Roman Catholic symbols and the 
 sale of Papist vestments would be apt to find itself 
 endangered by the terribly severe laws passed by 
 Elizabeth to enforce Protestant conformity. 
 
 Again returning to the line which appears in 
 the accounts, " payd to Shakspeyr for a rest of old 
 det," let us consider the question of the alleged 
 illiterateness of the Shakespeares. 
 
 Most biographers agree with Halliwell Phillipps 
 when he writes (p. 38) : " Although both his parents 
 were absolutely illiterate, they had the sagacity to 
 appreciate the importance of an education for 
 their son, and the poet somehow or other was 
 taught to read and write, the necessary pre- 
 liminaries to admission into the free school." 
 
 " Fortunately for us, the youthful dramatist had, 
 excepting in the schoolroom, little opportunity of 
 studying anything but a grander volume, the 
 Infinite book of Nature." 
 
 " Removed prematurely from school, residing 
 
 in a bookless neighbourhood, thrown into the 
 
 midst of occupations adverse to scholastic progress, 
 3 
 
34 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 it is difficult to believe that when he first left 
 Stratford, he was not all but destitute of polished 
 accomplishments." 
 
 These are sweeping deductions when we consider 
 that the sole ground upon which they are made is 
 the fact that John Shakespeare and his wife attested 
 documents by a mark instead of a signature, a 
 common enough practice in earlier and later days 
 which by no means implies absolute illiterateness. 
 
 It is absurd to single out Stratford as a bookless 
 and illiterate neighbourhood ; it was neither more 
 nor less than any other country town within easy 
 reach of Oxford ; it had its scholars, its preachers, 
 and its schoolmasters; honest burghers, kinsmen 
 of Shakespeare, could write Latin as an ordinary 
 means of correspondence, and there are many 
 evidences which go to show that Stratford took a 
 
 keen and intelligent interest in the religious, 
 
 to 
 
 political, and literary movements of the day. 
 
 So far as the father of William Shakespeare was 
 concerned, he was looked upon by those who 
 knew him best as a prosperous and able man, a 
 skilful accountant, a capable speaker, and one who 
 could be trusted to represent the interests of the 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 35 
 
 town in the Parliamentary Councils at London ; 
 an honoured chief magistrate and bailiff; his 
 numerous lawsuits show that his business transac- 
 tions covered a wide area, and the legal knowledge 
 required for many of the functions he performed 
 could not have been gained entirely by experience. 
 Here, in the case of the chamberlain's accounts 
 before us, he is either the supervisor of the Puritan 
 alterations in the Chapel, or his skill as a public 
 accountant is being acknowledged ; and if one were 
 trying to emulate the victories of textual criticism, 
 an argument might be adduced to show that he 
 himself was the writer of these accounts from the 
 fact that the words " paid to Shakspeyr for a rest 
 of old det" occur. Aldermen were always 
 designated in writing by the prefix " Mr." ; un- 
 observant people may assert that newly-fledged 
 aldermen are not usually insistent upon the due 
 recognition of their new dignity, yet clerks and 
 scriveners would be mindful of it, especially to one 
 employing them. If Tylor and Smythe, the 
 chamberlains, were good penmen but poor 
 accountants, trusting to clearer heads for guidance 
 through figures, they would naturally, and as a 
 
36 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 matter of ordinary courtesy, have written the 
 customary " Mr." before Alderman Shakespeare's 
 name. It was his official designation, and would 
 certainly have been inserted by them, and, indeed, 
 by any man who had cause to write it, except the 
 alderman himself. 
 
 Again, was the wife of John Shakespeare, the 
 gentle Mary Arden, bookless and absolutely 
 illiterate, and did she turn her eldest son out into 
 the world " destitute of polished accomplishments," 
 and having had but " little opportunity of studying 
 anything"? or is this only another gratuitous 
 assumption? The phrase "destitute of polished 
 accomplishments" is capable of many interpreta- 
 tions, but it is certain that in twelve years, from 
 the time he quitted Stratford, William Shakespeare 
 did what few men before or since have ever 
 succeeded in doing, he made a fortune, wrote 
 marvellous books, and educated himself at the 
 same time. Most men find that the struggle with 
 the world leaves little time for polished accomplish- 
 ment unless the education is there to begin with. 
 If a man makes money he usually finds its 
 possession his sole accomplishment. But William 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare ^ 
 
 Shakespeare, it may be objected, was the possessor 
 of unequalled genius, and therefore achievements 
 were possible to him which were impossible to the 
 ordinary man. 
 
 That is true, but there is at least one thing 
 which the most brilliant intellect cannot give a 
 man, and which even the mighty Shakespeare 
 would have lacked if he had had to obtain it after 
 he began writing. We mean the power of accurate 
 and literal quotation, in the poet's case not exhibited 
 in classical learning, but in an extensive and 
 zvonderfully accurate knowledge of the actual words 
 of Holy Scripture} 
 
 The most cursory study of his works reveals 
 his power of biblical quotation ; and it is clear 
 that his mind must have been literally steeped in 
 scriptural thought and language, for Bible thoughts 
 in Bible words are worked into the very warp and 
 woof of his plays. Now, a man may learn much 
 in later life and be able to quote with some degree 
 of freedom, but he never attains the power 
 evidenced by Shakespeare, unless he has from 
 his earliest days been trained in Bible study. 
 
 1 See Appendix A. 
 
38 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Before words and phrases rise instinctively to the 
 thought and pen as vehicles of expression, they 
 must have been lodged in the mind in the earliest 
 days of youth ; and it is no exaggeration to say 
 that if William Shakespeare had spent the whole 
 of his first twelve years in London in exclusive 
 study of the Word of God, it is questionable if 
 even then he could have attained the perfect ease 
 of quotation he manifests. 
 
 There is only one time in life when this power 
 may be won, and the best place to learn it is at 
 that point and focus of all scriptural attainments, 
 the mother's knee and in the home circle, when, as 
 a little child, the words of the Bible are dropped 
 into the heart and memory. 
 
 If Mary Shakespeare could not read and write 
 her own name, she could at least teach her son the 
 "polished accomplishment" of insight into the 
 words of the Revelation of God. 
 
 And this raises a wider and more important 
 question still as to the character of the home where- 
 in daily Bible instruction in the vulgar tongue 
 must have been made the rule of the household. 
 
 Was it a Roman Catholic home? Was this 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 39 
 
 feature then, or is it now, a prominent characteristic 
 of Roman Catholic teaching? If Shakespeare 
 learned his Scripture from the Vulgate, how comes 
 it that he does not quote it with his own words of 
 translation and refrain from using the very words 
 of the English Bible? The Douai Bible was not 
 published until 1609, when Shakespeare was a man 
 of over fifty years of age, with most of his work 
 done, so this version is out of the question. Had 
 the poet the gift of prophecy as well as of genius, 
 that he could quote in the common speech the 
 very words of English translators from his reading 
 of a Romish Bible ? 
 
 Again, is it not an established fact that through- 
 out the whole of these religious controversies the 
 bitterest animosity was shown to the Bible by the 
 Papal authorities and Romish priesthood and laity ? 
 The Bible typified to the Papist the Puritan 
 religion, just as images and crosses typified Roman 
 Catholicism to the Puritan. Wherever a popular 
 rising occurred, the Protestant broke the images 
 and tore down the crosses, and the Papist burned 
 the Bibles. The Roman Catholic insurgents in 
 Durham Cathedral showed their hatred to 
 
4-0 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Protestantism by slashing the hateful books with 
 their daggers and burning all the Bibles they 
 could lay hands upon in the sacred precincts. 
 Domestic piety of a high character was certainly 
 known and cherished in the homes of earnest and 
 godly Roman Catholics, but it was a piety 
 fostered by books other than the Bible in the 
 English tongue, and founded upon priestly in- 
 struction and missals and books of devotions. 
 From 1560 there was only one great Bible of the 
 households of England, and that, as we shall show 
 later, was the Puritan Bible of Geneva, and more 
 than once in the years of Elizabeth even this 
 book was unpossessed (because of prohibitions) 
 save by the households of earnest Puritans. Nor 
 must we overlook the fact that the Bible in the 
 vulgar tongue has always been a strictly prohibited 
 book to the Roman Catholic. Despite denials 
 and explanations, the fourth rule of the Council 
 of Trent seems to be explicit enough on this 
 point. 
 
 " Whereas it is manifest by experience that if 
 the Holy Bible translated into the vulgar tongue 
 be allowed indifferently to anybody, then on 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 4 1 
 
 account of men's rashness will arise from hence a 
 greater detriment than advantage. 
 
 " If any one without a licence presume to read 
 or keep by him the Bible he shall be disqualified 
 to receive the absolution of his sins till he deliver 
 it up to the ordinary" (Regulae Indices S.S. 
 Synodi Tridentinae jussu editae. De lib. prohib. 
 reg. 4). 
 
 Pope Clement VIII., commenting upon the rule 
 of Pius IV., adds in reference to the sentence 
 "without a licence" explanatory words full of 
 significance. 
 
 " This law is not to be understood as if by it the 
 Bishops, Inquisitors, or heads of Convents were 
 invested with power to grant licences, read, buy, 
 or keep the Bible translated into the vulgar 
 language, seeing hitherto by the order and practice 
 of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition the 
 power had been taken away from them to grant 
 licences to read or keep the whole Bible in the 
 vulgar tongue, or any other part of the Holy 
 Scriptures of the Old or New Testaments published 
 in any vulgar language, all which is to be 
 inviolably observed" (Index lib. Prohib. S.D.N. 
 
42 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Clementus P.P. vill. jussu recognitus et 
 publicatus). 
 
 We need not trouble about Protestant witnesses 
 on this matter, for Rome herself has always been 
 outspoken, and is the best testimony as to the way 
 in which this antagonism to the spread of a 
 vernacular Bible among her people has been 
 fostered and commended ; she is frankly and 
 continually antagonistic, as may be seen by little 
 study. 
 
 Cardinal Bellarmine, the great Papist authority, 
 says : 
 
 " We maintain that the Scriptures ought not to 
 be read publicly in the vulgar tongue, nor allowed 
 to be read indifferently by everybody." 
 
 In the present century Pope Pius VII., in 1816, in 
 a Bull issued against Bible Societies, said : 
 
 " Agreeably to the Index, the Bible printed by 
 heretics is to be numbered among other prohibited 
 books, for it is evident from experience that the 
 Holy Scriptures when circulated in the vulgar 
 tongue have, through the temerity of men, pro- 
 duced more harm than benefit/' He then goes on 
 to describe the operations of the Bible Societies as 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 43 
 
 " pestilential and defiling, a crafty device by which 
 the very foundations of religion are undermined. 
 A pestilence which must be remedied and abolished, 
 a defilement of the faith, eminently dangerous to 
 souls, impious machinations of innovators, wicked- 
 ness of a nefarious scheme, snares prepared for 
 men's souls, everlasting ruin. A new species of 
 tares which an adversary has abundantly sown." 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman has followed in the same line 
 in his book the Catholic Doctrine of the Bible \ he 
 does not pretend for one moment to obscure the 
 issue, and not only avows the shutting up of God's 
 Word to the people, but glories in avowing it, and 
 rejoices in the policy. 
 
 " If therefore we be asked," he says (p. 20), " why 
 we do not give the Bible indifferently to all, and 
 the shutting up of God's Word be disdainfully 
 thrown in our face, we will not seek to elude the 
 question, or meet the taunts by denial or by 
 attempts to prove that our principles on the subject 
 are not antagonistic to those of Protestants. They 
 are antagonistic, and we glory in avowing it." 
 
 In the Roman Catholic newspaper the Tablet, 
 under date December 17th, 185 3, a priest is reported 
 
44 Shakespeare : Puritan and Remsant 
 
 to have said that, "he would rather a Catholic 
 should read the worst works of immorality than the 
 Protestant Bible, that forgery of God's Word, that 
 slander of Christ." 
 
 It is no straining of argument to use these 
 opinions of pope, cardinal, and priest, as indicating 
 the strong feeling which has always existed in the 
 Roman Catholic Church against a free study of the 
 Bible in the vernacular; and if it is true to-day ? 
 when religious liberty is assured, and Bibles may 
 be obtained by everyone, what must it have been 
 in the days of Elizabeth, a day's march from the 
 Reformation, when Protestant and Papist were 
 hounding each other to the death ? It would be 
 an astonishing thing, and one absolutely unique, to 
 find a Roman Catholic training his child in the 
 very book that his fellow-religionists hated and his 
 Church proscribed. Even if a Papist obtained a 
 Bible out of curiosity, much as a Puritan might 
 become possessed of a Manual of Devotions, it is 
 inconceivable that he would immediately adopt the 
 proscribed book as a basis for his own household 
 training, and personally instruct his children in its 
 words, in defiance of his own religious sentiments 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 45 
 
 and the unchanging and most bitter denunciations 
 of his Church. It is a poor theory which is forced 
 to make John Shakespeare an utter scoundrel 
 before it can present him as a fellow-religionist; 
 indeed, the Roman Catholic who despoils chapels 
 of their religious symbols, tears down crosses and 
 mutilates sacred images in the discharge of public 
 duty, and trains his household in Puritan methods 
 with a Protestant Bible, is one whom the present 
 day might possibly understand and tolerate, but 
 who would be incomprehensible to that sterner age 
 which produced the religious bitternesses of the 
 days of Elizabeth and the earlier Stuarts. It is 
 hard to believe that the Bible knowledge of William 
 Shakespeare and the iconoclastic tendencies of 
 his father were derived from the Roman Catholic 
 Church. This is a long digression from the 
 chamberlain accounts of 1563-66, but the 
 questions arise naturally from the subject. We 
 return to the events of 1 564 as recorded in Stratford 
 history. On April 26th of this year, " Gulielmus, 
 filius Johannes Shakspere" was baptized in the 
 Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford. 
 
 During the year the plague visited the town, and 
 
46 Shakespeare : Pttritan and Recusant 
 
 carried off many of its leading inhabitants ; sub- 
 scriptions were raised for the relief of the poor. A 
 very interesting peep into the informal nature of 
 some of the Council meetings is given in the record 
 of August 30th, 1564, where a pleasing picture is 
 conjured up of the fathers of the borough meeting 
 under the pleasant shades of the trees, while the 
 sunlit Avon flowed gently before them. They had 
 met for a good purpose. 
 
 " At a Hall holdyn in oure garden the 30th daye 
 of Auguste, A 1564, moneye payd towardes the 
 relefif of the povre." 
 
 Mr. Balye leads off with a subscription of 3s. 6d. 
 Mr. Alderman John Wheler gives 2s. 6d. ; the 
 burgesses follow suit with subscriptions of varying 
 amounts, John Shakespeare giving I2d., and the 
 poorest or thriftiest putting himself down for 4d. 
 
 Then on September 6th another collection is 
 made, being " money gathered towards the releff of 
 those that be vysyted." 
 
 Mr. Quyney gives I7d., John Shakespeare 6d., 
 and Richard Hylle (a well-to-do man) 2d. The 
 heavy visitation does not seem to have decreased 
 much, and a few days later, September 27th (at what 
 
Earlier Years of John Shakespeare 47 
 
 were evidently emergency Council meetings), 
 another subscription was taken " towards the povre 
 of oure town." Mr. Balye gives I2d., John Shake- 
 speare 6d., and Richard Hylle, who on this occasion 
 evidently remembered his purse, contributed I2d. 
 
 At the Council meeting in September it was 
 usual for the borough to elect the officers to serve 
 during the ensuing year, and on the 27th September 
 Mr. John Wheler was elected bailiff, but managed to 
 postpone his service for another year, and Richard 
 Hylle was chosen in his place. 
 
 On October 20th Mr. Hylle contributes to the poor 
 fund 16 pence, Alderman John Wheler 12 pence, 
 while Burgess John Shakespeare gives 8 pence. 
 
 A few months pass by and John Shakespeare rises 
 a step on the civic ladder, and is appointed an 
 alderman of the borough. On September 12th it is 
 recorded that he took the necessary oaths of 
 allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 "July 4t/i, 1565. At thys halle John Shakspeyr 
 is appointed an Alderman." 
 
 "Sept. 12th. Johne Shakspeyr jur. on this 
 day " {i.e. took the oaths). 
 
 October 4th brings the nomination of a new bailiff 
 
48 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 to the front once more, and Mr. Alderman John 
 Wheler, who had been offered the position the 
 previous year, was again nominated, and this time 
 accepts the office. Mr. Wheler was an intimate 
 and lifelong friend of John Shakespeare, and 
 throughout the whole of his life in Stratford was 
 closely associated with him. Early in the Council 
 the names of the two men are bracketed together, 
 and the connection thus formed continues through 
 the Town Council records. We find them associ- 
 ated together at Council meetings, upon public 
 committees, in civic and national causes ; and after 
 taking part in many of the most pronounced 
 Puritan movements of the town, are together dis- 
 missed the Council on the same day, and a few 
 years later are returned as Recusants in the well- 
 known Recusancy Return of Sir Thomas Lucy 
 in 1592. 
 
II 
 
 u £%ueen^ Prelatist^ and Puritan 
 against Roman Catholic" 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 " QUEEN, TRELATIST, AND PURITAN AGAINST 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC 
 
 n 
 
 The year 1567 saw Elizabeth dealing skilfully 
 with the difficult questions which made the early 
 period of her government a ceaseless anxiety. 
 Religious antipathy was being still further accen- 
 tuated by reason of the never-ending Papal in- 
 trigues, and the unfortunate Roman Catholics were 
 subjected to an antagonism which was bitter, cruel, 
 and constant. The Queen, dominating her Council, 
 was launching schemes intended for the enforce- 
 ment of absolute conformity within the Established 
 Church ; it was commanded that exact prder 
 and uniformity was to be maintained in all 
 external rites and ceremonies, none were to be 
 admitted to ecclesiastical preferment unless they 
 had first of all promised to comply with the 
 
 51 
 
52 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 demands of the law, and the laity were ordered 
 on pain of severe penalty to keep in faithful 
 attendance at their parish churches. A case 
 of opposition soon arose in London, where 
 some thirty persons were arrested in Plumbers' 
 Hall, Anchor Lane, and charged with contra- 
 vening the ecclesiastical laws and using a Service 
 Book other than that of the Common Prayer. 
 They had set up a separate conventicle, and 
 expected sympathy from the Reformers on the 
 Continent, but it is noteworthy that Knox, Beza, 
 Bullinger, and others deprecated any separation 
 from the National Church. Neal sums it up aptly 
 when he says : " Most of the Puritans were un- 
 willing to separate from a Church where the Word 
 and Sacraments were truly administered, though 
 defiled with some popish superstitions." But 
 although Elizabeth was inclined to deal harshly 
 with her own nonconforming subjects, she ex- 
 tended a hearty welcome to those sufferers for 
 religion who had been driven out of the Netherlands 
 and France by the cruelties of Alva, and the 
 victories of the Henri's of Guise and Anjou ; 
 she granted full privileges of worship to them, 
 
 . L 
 
" Qtteen, Prelatist, and P tertian' 53 
 
 but at the same time intimated that they 
 would forfeit these if they received into their 
 Presbyterian communion any of her subjects of 
 England. 
 
 Their coming to England made a deep im- 
 pression upon the people, and gave emphasis to 
 the dread of Romish ascendency. The public 
 mind was at this time greatly excited. Mary of 
 Scotland had been deposed and detained a virtual 
 prisoner in England ; assassins were known to 
 be on the track of William the Silent and 
 Coligny ; and disturbing rumours of Papal de- 
 position and excommunication of Elizabeth had 
 more than once disturbed England. 
 
 The first move was made in the North by the 
 Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland, who 
 gathered the Roman Catholic gentry together 
 in a plot which had for its object the uniting 
 of all Papists in proclaiming Mary of Scots Queen 
 of England. 
 
 The insurrection rapidly assumed threatening 
 proportions, but Elizabeth met the danger with 
 her accustomed coolness and promptitude. In 
 the first place, levies were drawn principally from 
 
54 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Warwickshire and Worcestershire for service in 
 the North (see county records), and the Puritan 
 Earl of Warwick was placed in command. 
 Opportunity was then taken to test the faith- 
 fulness of men in official positions, and a profession 
 of allegiance to Elizabeth was required from all 
 justices of the peace and officers in commission 
 throughout all the counties of England ; they 
 were ordered to subscribe their names to an 
 instrument professing their conformity and obedi- 
 ence to the Act of Uniformity. 
 
 On November ioth, a certain Dr. Norton, who 
 had been a prebendary of York in Queen Mary's 
 time, came from Rome with the title of Apostolic 
 Penitentiary, and went about the northern counties 
 inciting the Roman Catholics to rebellion by 
 stating that the Pope was about to issue a bull 
 of excommunication against Elizabeth. 
 
 On November 14th the insurgents marched 
 to Durham Cathedral and took possession of it. 
 They hunted out all the English Bibles and 
 Prayer Books, and slashed them in pieces with 
 their daggers, and then in a fervour of devotion 
 knelt while Mass was said for the last time 
 
" Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 55 
 
 in any of the old cathedrals of England. A 
 few days later, the Earl of Warwick came up 
 with his levies, and the rising was dispersed 
 without the striking of a blow. Measures were 
 at once adopted to safeguard the cause of this 
 disturbance ; Mary of Scotland was removed from 
 Tutbury in Staffordshire to the safer keeping 
 of the Puritan stronghold of Coventry, and all 
 access to her was strictly prohibited. 
 
 Warwickshire as a county had evidenced intense 
 loyalty in this juncture. Was Stratford slumbering 
 while all these alarms and excursions were pro- 
 ceeding, and when Mary, the Roman Catholic hope, 
 was a prisoner a few miles away ? 
 
 It is significant that in the midst of these 
 disturbances in 1568, John Shakespeare was nomi- 
 nated and made Bailiff of the Borough. Almost 
 the first enactment of his year was one directed 
 against those citizens and office-bearers who were 
 beginning to feel the severity of the restrictions 
 against the old Faith. 
 
 It will be remembered that in the persecuting 
 year of Bonner's commission, Robert Perrot 
 had been made Bailiff of Stratford, and that 
 
56 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 measures were then taken to enforce Roman 
 Catholicism with the acceptance of office. 
 
 On October 1st, 1 568, the Stratford Council, under 
 the active superintendence of John Shakespeare 
 as bailiff, and John Wheler and Adrian Quyney 
 as aldermen, passed the following enactment con- 
 cerning the fines to be levied upon recalcitrant 
 aldermen and burgesses : — 
 
 " Anyone refusing shall forfect to the use of the 
 Bayliffe and Burgesses £3, 6s. 8d., and if the same 
 person or persons that soe doe forfecte the sayd 
 sum doe nat pay the same to the Chamberleynes 
 of the said Burrowe for the time being within 
 three days after demande made, that then he or 
 they that so do shall make defaulte to forfecte to 
 the use of the sayd Chamber the some of fortye 
 shyllings in nomine pene to be forfeited and 
 payd from hall to hall untyll the same person 
 or persons callyd as ys afforesaid doe yelde hym- 
 self to be a burges, and the lyke forfecture and 
 peyne shall be levied upon Aldermen for neglect." 
 
 This enactment is much more severe than that 
 of Perrot's in that the penalty is made a concurrent 
 one " to be payd from hall to hall," the object 
 
" Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 57 
 
 plainly being to compel attendance by heavy 
 monthly fines. It was aimed chiefly at what 
 may be termed passive resistance on the part of 
 Roman Catholics, for active hostility to Elizabeth 
 would have been terminated in a quicker fashion 
 than warnings and fines. 
 
 Was it the irony of fate that the ex-Bailiff 
 of Stratford who had held office in the last 
 year of the persecuting Mary should be the 
 first to feel the sting of an enactment which was 
 directed exclusively against the Roman Catholics ? 
 for it was Mr. Robert Perrot who was the first 
 man to fall beneath the Puritan enthusiasm of 
 the Council of which John Shakespeare was 
 chief magistrate. And it is significant of John 
 Shakespeare's energy that this prosecution was 
 carried through with rather more earnestness 
 than one would expect from one neighbour 
 towards another. 
 
 Mr. Robert Perrot had made himself conspicuous 
 by his absence from Council meetings in the stirring 
 days which led up to the Northern disturbances, and 
 in the months of 1569, when the persecution of 
 Roman Catholics had received such an impetus. 
 
58 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 The Stratford Records tell us how John Shakes- 
 peare dealt with him. 
 
 " Sept. 7tk, 1569. 
 
 "Before Mr. John Shakysper, Hyzgh Balyf and Mr. John 
 Wheler, Alderman. 
 
 " Mr. Perrot for his wilfull absentyng of hymself, hys fine 
 
 is £5." 
 
 And then follows this most important state- 
 ment : — 
 
 " Mr Perrot hathe byn dyvers tymes requyred and by 
 the said Mr. Balyfe's commandment warned to make his 
 apparaunce at the hall and Councell howse for the sayd 
 burrowe to accompanye the sayd Balyf and others burgesses 
 to consyder of such matters as in that place we have usyd to 
 doe, chefely for the servyce unto the Quenes Maieste, when 
 wee be requyred to the same, the said Mr. Perrot nothing 
 regarding his duty to our sayd Quene, wylfully, frowardly, 
 and obstynately refusyth to repayre to the sayd Chamber." 
 
 Here the charge against Perrot is one of passive 
 opposition and withdrawal ; when severe measures 
 are being enforced against Roman Catholics, he 
 was forgetting " his duty to our sayd Quene." 
 
 Such a charge could not possibly have been 
 made against a Queen's Churchman, for the 
 essence of his creed was unquestioning loyalty to 
 the Queen in matters spiritual and temporal ; 
 nor could it have been made against a Puritan, 
 
"Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan' 59 
 
 for Elizabeth had not yet entered upon her 
 course of repression and persecution, and the 
 Puritan, always loyal, was heart and soul with 
 Elizabeth against popish intrigues, and looked 
 for much from her as a reward of faithfulness. 
 It could only apply to the Roman Catholics, 
 against whom severe enactments were being put 
 into force, and who, at this time, were thoroughly 
 distrusted, and hated as traitors and would-be 
 assassins by the majority of Englishmen. Bailiff 
 John Shakespeare and Alderman John Wheler 
 acted with stern promptitude in dealing with 
 their old colleague and fellow-tow r nsman. 
 
 The meeting of the 7th September w r as adjourned 
 from the Wednesday to the Friday in order to give 
 Mr. Perrot an opportunity of putting in his attend- 
 ance, and to make sure the sergeants were ordered 
 to arrest him and bring him to the meeting. If 
 Mr. Perrot managed to elude the vigilance of the 
 sergeants, and still persisted in his obstinacy, the 
 penalty was declared against him. 
 
 " Upon peyne to forfectto the use of the Chamber, 
 if he make default, twentye pounds, and fyve 
 pounds at everye hall hereafter to be holden within 
 
6o Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 the said Burrow until he doe yelde hymself, and 
 also if any of the bretherne of the sayd corporation 
 and their successors shall wylfully refuse to come 
 to their assemblies, that they shall forfeit to the 
 Chamber for everye defaulte fyve pounds, onless he 
 be sycke or in the Quenes Majesty's service." 
 
 On Friday, 9th September, the fateful day for 
 Mr. Perrot, it is recorded in the Stratford Records : 
 
 " Before Mr. Shakysper, hyzgh Balyf. 
 "At thys Hall the sayd Mr. Robert Perrot wylfully made 
 default and forfected the sayd peyne of xx £. v 
 
 We need not dwell upon the heaviness of this 
 fine, nor upon the fact of the recurrent penalty for 
 non-attendance, for it is evident that a prosecution 
 carried forward with such fervour would not be 
 likely to err on the side of mercy. A more interesting 
 portion of the enactment is given in the words " if 
 any of the bretherne of the sayd corporation and 
 their successors shall wylfully refuse to come to 
 their assemblies, that they shall forfect to the 
 Chamber for everye defaulte fyve pounds, onless he 
 be sycke or in the Quenes Majesty's service," for 
 this is levelled at more than the individual case of 
 Robert Perrot. It was a menace at all peace-loving 
 
u Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan' 61 
 
 Roman Catholics who favoured passive opposition 
 and refused to set the machinery of persecution 
 against members of their own Faith, but it was also 
 a weapon which was used against the Protestant 
 when the Puritan was being harried, and both John 
 Shakespeare and John Wheler felt the pain of it 
 when in later years they wilfully and obstinately 
 refused to attend Council meetings where measures 
 to compel Puritan conformity were under discussion; 
 and when because they would not join in this per- 
 secution they were compelled to risk and meet 
 heavy recurrent fines, and in the end be dismissed 
 the Council. 
 
 But the Puritan of 1569 could hardly have 
 realised that in 1590 Elizabeth would proceed to 
 extremities in her insistence upon conformity in 
 worship. 
 
 Seven months after Robert Perrot was fined, 
 in April 1570, the excommunication from Rome 
 which finally and completely forced the English 
 Roman Catholics out of the National Church was 
 promulgated in England. The sentence held in 
 suspense by Popes Paul IV. and Pius IV. was 
 launched by Pope Pius v., and Elizabeth was de- 
 
62 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 clared excommunicate and her subjects absolved 
 from their allegiance ; she was further anathematised 
 as a heretic and pretended queen, and her tenure 
 of the Crown declared null and void. 
 
 " We do out of the fulness of our apostolic power, 
 declare the aforesaid Elizabeth, being heretic and 
 a favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the 
 matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of 
 anathema and to be cut off from the unity of the 
 Body of Christ." 
 
 The anathema of the Church was and is looked 
 upon as an awful thing by Roman Catholics ; it is 
 feared by Protestants because of the devilish malice 
 it lets loose upon the excommunicated, for the 
 Canon Law of the Roman Church expresses the 
 mind of the Church clearly enough, and history has 
 marked the pages with bloody fingers. " We judge 
 that they are not murderers who, burning with zeal 
 for their Catholic Mother against the excommuni- 
 cated, should happen to kill one of them." (Can. 
 Excomm. 47, Cans, xxiii. qu v.) 
 
 In 1572 the Pope and his Cardinals went 
 solemnly to Church and sang a Te Deum of 
 thanksgiving for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 
"Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan' 63 
 
 when the excommunicate Huguenots were butchered 
 in the streets of Paris. 
 
 In 1580 Philip of Spain and Cardinal Granvelle 
 issued their infamous " Ban " against the anathema- 
 tised William the Silent. " We expose him as an 
 enemy of the human race ; if any of our subjects or 
 any stranger should be found to rid us of this pest, 
 dead or alive, we will cause to be delivered to him 
 the sum of twenty-five thousand crowns in gold. If 
 he have committed any crime however heinous we 
 promise to pardon him, and if he be not already 
 noble, we will ennoble him for his valour." 
 
 Gerard, the murderer of William the Silent, 
 craved forgiveness and absolution from His Holiness 
 because " he was about to keep company with 
 heretics," and went about his odious work without 
 one single thought except that by this " ridding of 
 the pest" he would win paradise and be immor- 
 talised as a champion of the Holy Mother Church. 
 
 In May a fanatic named Felton (since declared 
 a martyr of the cause of Christ and beatified by 
 Pope Leo XIII. in 1887) affixed a copy of the bull 
 to the door of the Bishop of London's palace. It 
 created a tremendous excitement throughout the 
 
64 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 kingdom ; a law was immediately passed making 
 it high treason " to declare the Queen to be Heretic, 
 Schismatick, Tyrant, Infidel and Usurper, to publish 
 or put in use the Pope's bulls, to be reconciled to the 
 Church of Rome, or to receive absolution by virtue 
 of them." 
 
 Protestations of loyalty were signed all over Eng- 
 land, " That Queen Elizabeth my sovereign lady, 
 now reigning in England, is rightfully and ought 
 to be and continue Queen, and lawfully beareth 
 the Imperial Crown, notwithstanding any act or 
 sentence that any Pope or Bishop has done or 
 given or can do or give, and that if any Pope or 
 other say or judge to the contrary, whether he 
 say it as Pope, or howsoever, he erreth and affirmeth, 
 holdeth and teacheth error." 
 
 In April 1571 the feelings of alarm and distrust 
 rose almost to panic height by the discovery of 
 the intrigues of the Italian banker, Ridolfi, who, 
 with the Duke of Norfolk on the one hand and 
 Alva on the other, was arranging for the landing of 
 6000 veteran Spanish cut -throats in England. 
 
 The plotters in England were arrested and 
 executed in 1572. 
 
" Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 65 
 
 Parliament was summoned in April, and great 
 hopes were entertained by all sections of the 
 Puritans that some pronounced legislation would 
 be enacted in their favour. It was expected from 
 the known state of the country that there 
 would be a strong Puritan representation in the 
 Commons, and as a matter of fact this proved 
 to be the case. 
 
 Hallam says : " It is agreed on all hands and is 
 
 quite manifest that the Puritans predominated in 
 
 the House of Commons " {Cons. His., note, chap. iv.). 
 
 Gardiner writes : " The House of Lords wanted her 
 
 to go backwards, to declare Mary her successor 
 
 and to restore the Mass. The House of Commons 
 
 wanted her to go forwards, to marry and have 
 
 children of her own, and to alter the Prayer Book 
 
 in a Puritan direction. Her temporising policy 
 
 had naturally strengthened the Calvinism of the 
 
 Calvinistic clergy. If Roman Catholics were to 
 
 be kept out of the House of Commons, there was 
 
 nothing to be done but to favour the election of 
 
 Puritans, or at least those who had a leaning to 
 
 Puritanism." 
 
 When Parliament met in the spring of 157 1, the 
 5 
 
66 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Puritan strength of it was soon made manifest. 
 Mr. Strickland introduced his Church Reform Bill, 
 and supported it with a speech in which he showed 
 how the Prayer Book might advantageously be 
 altered without endangering any fundamental 
 principle. A committee was appointed to consider 
 the matter, and amongst other names that of Sir 
 Thomas Lucy of Warwickshire appears {UEive's 
 Journal, 156). Again, on the question "touching 
 the Bill against priests disguising themselves in 
 serving-men's apparel," Lucy is on the committee ; 
 and in another Bill which was sent up to the Lords 
 on May 6th " for coming to Church and receiving 
 Communion," his name appears. 
 
 The most important Bill, however, which received 
 the Royal Assent May 29th, 1571, was one which 
 was recognised as a distinct favouring of the 
 Puritans, and which implicitly acknowledged the 
 validity of presbyterial ordination. It was called 
 " An Act for Ministers of the Church to be of 
 sound religion, or for Reformation of disorders in 
 the Ministers of the Church." 
 
 Travers successfully pleaded the Statute in 
 defence of his presbyterial ordination at Antwerp, 
 
" Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 67 
 
 and Archbishop Grindal regulated his practice by 
 it when he licensed John Morrison, a Scottish 
 Presbyterian, to ministerial work in England. 
 
 When the Session came to an end the Puritan 
 outlook was decidedly brighter, although as yet 
 none of the deeper questions had been dealt with ; 
 1572 would bring them into line for settlement one 
 way or the other. 
 
 " The future character of the Church of England 
 was the real question at issue. Should the 
 Reformed Church of England expand itself, and 
 generously, or rashly it might be, cast itself on the 
 affections of the people, and adapt itself to the 
 growing passion for religious teaching, a passion 
 which it might hope to lead and which it was 
 wicked and insane to attempt to quench? This 
 was one alternative. On the other hand, should it 
 risk all hazards, resist every innovation and subdue 
 by authority rather than conciliate by gentleness 
 and love ? In a word, should the Church be made 
 more popular or more imperious ?" (Marsden, 
 Puritans, 109). 
 
 This was the problem which was agitating 
 England. Deputations were sent up to London 
 
68 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 from counties and boroughs, and the opening of 
 Parliament in 1572 was awaited with keenest 
 interest. Alderman John Shakespeare, if one may 
 judge by the chamberlains' reports of January 1 571, 
 was taking an active part in the discussions before 
 Parliament, for several sums of money are recorded 
 as being paid over to him ; and if our assumption 
 be correct, this money was for his travelling 
 expenses to London and back. Altogether the 
 sum of £wi was paid over at sundry times, the 
 usual travelling expenses being XXs. 
 
 "Jan. 1 57 1. Item, allowance of money delyvered to Mr. 
 Shaxpere at sundrie times, £vi." 
 
 Thomas Barber and Nicholas Barneshurst were 
 the borough chamberlains, and on September 5th, 
 1 571, Adrian Quyney, whom we have seen in 
 office in the strongly Protestant first year of 
 Elizabeth, was again made bailiff, and John 
 Shakespeare continued to hold a high position in 
 the post of chief alderman. 
 
 It is worth while here to note the significant 
 conjunction of names : Adrian Quyney is bailiff, 
 John Shakespeare, chief alderman, John Wheler 
 is an alderman and Thomas Barber and Nicholas 
 
"Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan' 69 
 
 Barneshurst are chamberlains. Now, whenever 
 we have seen these men occupying positions of 
 influence in the Council, there have been undeni- 
 able evidences of strong Puritan feeling manifesting 
 itself against Roman Catholicism. 
 
 Ouyney was first mayor under Elizabeth ; 
 Shakespeare and Wheler were the active workers 
 in the old Chapel renovations when the cross 
 was torn down, the rood - loft destroyed, and the 
 images and pictures defaced ; they were the chief 
 movers in the severe prosecution of Robert Perrot, 
 and, as we shall show later, took a strong attitude 
 of opposition in movements directed against the 
 Puritans. Is it not significant that Shakespeare, 
 Wheler, Barber, and Barneshurst are included as 
 persistent Recusants in the return made by Sir 
 Thomas Lucy in 1592, when the enactments 
 against nonconforming Puritans were at their 
 height ? 
 
 What do we find here to be among the first 
 official acts of Adrian Quyney and John Shakes- 
 peare ? The Record is so conclusive that it only 
 needs to be given to show its importance in our 
 line of argument. 
 
70 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Within a month of Quyney's election, the follow- 
 ing was passed : — 
 
 "Yt is agreed at this Hall by the Balie, Aldermen, and 
 capital burgeses herein assembled that Mr. Adrian Queny, 
 now balye of the boroughe above seid, should sell the copes 
 and vestements here under wrytten and thereof to yeld 
 accompt of all suche money as shall receive for the same to 
 the seid Chamber. 
 
 " Imprimis, one suit of blew velvytt vestements, being thre 
 in number. 
 
 " Item, one sute of red velvytt, thre in number. 
 
 " Item, one sute of whyt damaske, thre in number. 
 
 " Item, ij coopes of tauny velvytt. 
 
 " Item, j cope of whyte damask. 
 
 " Item, j cope of blew velvytt. 
 
 " Item, ij stoles and iij for the handes." 
 
 There can be only one interpretation to this 
 most interesting Record, and that is, that this sale 
 of the vestments (one of the cardinal points in 
 the Puritan agitation) is part of that vigorous 
 anti-papist policy which began with the chief 
 magistracy of Quyney and was continued by John 
 Shakespeare, and that it forms a suitable climax in 
 that it is the sweeping away of what a Puritan 
 would term " the last relics of the Amorites." 
 
 If this is not the action of Puritans, in what 
 category are we to place John Shakespeare and 
 
" Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 7 1 
 
 his friends? In the face of the Recusancy Return 
 it is impossible to include them in the ranks of 
 Oueen's Churchmen ; and if we ascribed their 
 doings to extreme fervour in the Reformed religion, 
 those very actions would be sufficient to stamp 
 them Puritan. Nor can we after our study of their 
 official acts number them among the Roman 
 Catholics. Indeed, the question immediately 
 suggests itself, By what abuse of charity could the 
 Roman Catholic Church consider as her faithful 
 sons men who denied their religious faith, shirked 
 their responsibilities, took oaths to maintain a 
 grievous schism, ranked themselves with the active 
 persecutors of their brethren, and not only took 
 service under a perjured, illegitimate, and 
 excommunicated sovereign, but made themselves 
 conspicuous by unswerving fidelity to her? It has 
 been urged that the fact of their names being 
 returned as Recusants is sufficient evidence of their 
 Roman Catholicism ; but they were returned as 
 refraining from church attendance. Is it likely 
 that men who had acted in defiance of every 
 principle of their Church rather than be numbered 
 among their suffering Papist brethren, would 
 
72 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 persistently expose themselves to imprisonment 
 and death for the comparatively trifling matter of 
 church attendance? Would men who had so 
 grievously disgraced their Catholicism by shameful 
 betrayal, have stopped short on the score of church 
 attendance ? It is almost absurd to think so, and 
 therefore once again the only reasonable conclusion 
 is, that John Shakespeare and his colleagues were 
 not dishonest knaves and hypocrites, Papist or 
 Prelatist, but that they were firmly, consistently, 
 and persistently Puritan ; and with this view the 
 various events of their lives fall naturally into place, 
 and we get an interesting picture of a sturdy group 
 of Puritans working strenuously in the country 
 borough of Stratford for what they would term liberty 
 of conscience, but which meant fine, imprisonment, 
 and death to their Roman Catholic fellow-country- 
 men. It was a narrow view, but in the main it was 
 the Protestant view of Elizabeth's day. 
 
 In January 1572 a complimentary dinner was 
 given by the borough to Sir Thomas Lucy, Sir 
 Fulke Greville, Mr. Clement Throgmorton, and 
 Mr. Goodeare, who had just returned from London. 
 The expenses of this festive hobnobbing were met 
 
" Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 73 
 
 by subscription ; and one notes the pathos or irony 
 of the situation in the words of the Record, which 
 tells us that the persecuted " Mr. Perrot by the 
 hands of Richard Woodward sends his contribution 
 (xvs.) towards the charges of the dinner." 
 
 It is characteristic of both Quyney and Shake- 
 speare that the persecution is aimed at the purse, 
 for each worthy alderman was of that thrifty 
 disposition which feels keenly any attack on the 
 financial quarter. 
 
 Six days later, January 1 8th, 1572, a light is 
 thrown upon the evident value of John Shake- 
 speare's civic and political activity. ■ 
 
 " At thys Hall yt is agreed by the asent and 
 consent of the Aldermen and burgesses aforesaid 
 that Mr. Adrian Queney now balyf and Mr. John 
 Shakespere shall at Hillarii term next ensueing 
 deale in the affayres concerninge the common- 
 wealthe of the boroughe aforeseid accordinge to 
 their discrecions. Yt ys lykwise agreed at this 
 Hall that Mr. Thomas Barber, one of the 
 Chamberlins of the said borough shal deliver to 
 Mr. Baylif aforesaid at the seid Hillarii term the 
 above wryten at London £vi" 
 
74 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 The Hilary term came, and Puritan England 
 sent up its representatives to make earnest efforts 
 for greater reforms in the Church; Stratford, in 
 addition to its Parliamentary representatives, sent 
 up Shakespeare, Quyney, and Barber. 
 
 But the hopes of the Puritans were doomed to 
 disappointment. Sir Peter Wentworth, who had 
 introduced two Bills which were designed to cut 
 away certain ceremonies and bring the English 
 Reformation nearer the Geneva pattern, was 
 arrested for "certain undutiful and irreverent 
 words," and sent by order of the Queen to the 
 Tower; and the Commons received a message 
 " that henceforth no Bills concerning religion be 
 received in this House until the same had been 
 first considered and liked by the clergy." 
 
 Elizabeth had shown more of her intentions 
 than was prudent for the time being, but the 
 fearful news of the 24th August made her once 
 more act so as to remove any Puritan alienation. 
 The massacre on St. Bartholomew's day sent a 
 thrill of indignant horror through the heart of 
 Protestant Europe. The Queen put the whole 
 Court into mourning, and received with haughtiest 
 
11 Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan ' 75 
 
 coldness the explanation of Charles of France by 
 the French Ambassador. And yet she did not 
 break with France, and even allowed the rumour 
 to be renewed which linked her name in marriage 
 with that of the Duke of Alen$on (afterwards 
 Duke of Anjou). 
 
 Thus repulsed in Parliament, Puritan attention 
 became directed to spiritual reformation within 
 the Church as constituted, and a desire was 
 manifested to make the best of the forms they 
 had got. Religion had reached a very low ebb, 
 the Lord's day was greatly profaned, Common 
 Prayers were not frequented, many people, accord- 
 ing to the Bishop of Worcester, " did not hear a 
 sermon in seven years, or I might even say in 
 seventeen." With the exception of the Puritan 
 clergy, the ministers of the Church were a disgrace 
 to their calling. Froude, who was no Puritan, says : 
 11 It would have fared ill with England had there 
 been no hotter blood there than filtered in the 
 sluggish veins of the officials of the Establishment. 
 There was needed an enthusiasm fiercer far to 
 encounter the revival of Catholic fanaticism ; and 
 if the young Puritans, in the heat and glow of 
 
J 6 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 their convictions, snapped their traces and flung 
 off their harness, it was they after all who saved 
 the Church which attempted to disown them" 
 (vol. ix. 55 ch.). 
 
 In order to deal with the prevailing spiritual 
 deadness, conferences for prayer and Bible in- 
 struction were established in ten dioceses. They 
 were widely attended and were in no sense the 
 outcome of a sectarian spirit; but they were put 
 down by order of the Queen, and a proclamation 
 was soon issued strictly commanding all men in 
 authority to enforce with all severity and diligence 
 the Act of Uniformity, neither favouring nor 
 dissembling with anyone. 
 
 "All who shall be found non- conformable in 
 the smallest matter shall be immediately appre- 
 hended and cast into prison ; all who shall forbear 
 coming to the Common Prayer and receiving the 
 Sacraments according to the said Book shall be 
 immediately prosecuted and punished ; and all who 
 shall in private houses or in public assemblies use 
 any other rites of Common Prayer and administra- 
 tion of Sacraments, or shall maintain in their 
 houses any persons guilty of these things, shall 
 
"Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan' JJ 
 
 be punished with the greatest severity" {Sparrowes 
 Collection, 169, 170). In order to carry out the 
 penal laws against Papists and nonconforming 
 ministers, commissioners were appointed in every 
 shire, and in 1573 a form of subscription was drawn 
 up for the laity, wherein the parishioner, after 
 acknowledging the Queen to be Chief Governor 
 of the Church under Christ and accepting the 
 Prayer Book, adds : " And whereas I have absented 
 myself from my parish Church and have refused 
 to join with the congregation in publick prayer 
 and in receiving the Sacrament according to the 
 public order set down, I am right sorry for it and 
 pray that this my fault may be pardoned, and I do 
 promise that henceforth I will frequent my parish 
 Church. And to witness this my promise I do 
 hereunto willingly subscribe my name." The 
 meshes of persecution were being drawn more 
 closely around the Puritan, but as yet there was 
 little cause to fear; the administration of the law 
 had not been given into the hands of any vigorous 
 opponent of Puritanism, so that the possibilities of 
 a persecution exceeding that of the Roman 
 Catholics was hardly dreamed of. But the cloud 
 
78 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 no bigger than the man's hand had appeared, and 
 the Queen had on numerous occasions expressed 
 her determination to root out Puritanism. 
 
 In 1575 affairs were quietly progressing in 
 Stratford, John Wheler had again accepted the 
 position of bailiff, and Alderman John Shakspeare 
 is marked as one of the most regular attenders of 
 the Council meetings. He had lately purchased 
 from Edmond Hall two properties adjoining or 
 near to the house he occupied in Henley Street, 
 and from various entries it is clear that his business 
 schemes were prospering, and that he was con- 
 sidered to be one of the most influential men of 
 the town. His children were growing up around 
 him, and his son William, now a scholar of the 
 Grammar School, under the tuition of the well- 
 known Thomas Hunt (afterwards deprived curate 
 of Luddington), was laying the foundation of that 
 scholarship which was destined to enrich so greatly 
 the intellectual heritage of the world. So far the 
 influences which went to form the budding 
 character of the lad were those of the sylvan 
 beauties of his own sweet county of Warwick ; but 
 the fiery discipline and strenuous thought which 
 
 » 
 
u Queen, Prelatist, and Puritan' 79 
 
 gave to the world a Spenser, a Milton, and a 
 Bunyan were also destined to have their share in 
 the moulding of his own character, and to make 
 him realise in the depths of his own soul the 
 intensity of those ideals which marked the 
 greatest movement of our island story. The 
 Puritanism which gave us Spenser, Milton, and 
 Bunyan was not to pass over the great heart of 
 William Shakespeare and leave it untouched and 
 uninspired. 
 
Ill 
 
 "The ^Alleged Poverty of John 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ALLEGED POVERTY OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The year 1577 marked a new era in Elizabeth's 
 dealing with the Puritans, and by a strange 
 coincidence it marked also what has been con- 
 sidered the serious decline of John Shakespeare's 
 fortune. We now approach that period in his 
 life which has always presented most difficulty to 
 his biographers. No matter how smoothly the 
 voyage of their story has run on up to this point, 
 henceforward it is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
 It is easy to understand how that the life becomes 
 inexplicable to biographers, who hedge themselves 
 in on the one side by a presumed Roman 
 Catholicism, and on the other by a theory of deep 
 poverty. Halliwell Phillipps may be taken as 
 representative when he says : " The conflict of 
 
 evidences now becomes so exceedingly perplexing 
 
 83 
 
84 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 that it is hardly possible to reconcile them." If our 
 argument so far has been correct respecting the 
 strong Puritanism of John Shakespeare, it is only 
 to be expected that the year 1577 would mark the 
 beginning of a series of difficulties for him as it 
 did for other Puritans. Active persecution in 
 Warwickshire was initiated under the energetic 
 leadership of Whitgift, who was afterwards pro- 
 moted to the See of Canterbury, and the Courts of 
 Star Chamber and High Commission made the 
 life of the Puritan no less hunted than that of his 
 Papist brother. Elizabeth had begun the second 
 stage of the conflict by suppressing the Prophesy- 
 ings : " Be vigilant," she wrote from her Manor of 
 Greenwich on the 7th May, with that domineering 
 tone she was apt to use to her divinely-appointed 
 bishops, " lest we be forced to make some example 
 of reforming of you according to your deserts." 
 This blunt message won unwilling compliance 
 from many bishops and drew a letter from Grindal, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, to the effect that the 
 Exercises were useful spiritual agencies and ought 
 to be continued. An Order of Star Chamber 
 confined the Primate to his residence, and he was 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 85 
 
 sequestrated from all archiepiscopal functions for 
 six months. He never regained the Queen's 
 favour, and his sequestration was continued until 
 about a year from his death. 
 
 Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar^ refers to 
 him when he writes : 
 
 " She weened the shell-fish to have broke 
 But therewith bruized his brain ; 
 So now astonied with the stroke 
 He lies in lingering payne." 
 
 The Queen's action was not misconstrued by 
 the Puritans ; they read its meaning clearly. 
 Edward Deering, who was afterwards arrested for 
 Puritanism, lost all Court favour about this time by 
 making use of the following illustration before the 
 Queen. " When Her Majesty was under persecu- 
 tion," said he, " her motto was ' Tanquam ovis/ but 
 now it might be { Tanquam indomita Juvenca' as 
 an untamed heifer." How far he was justified 
 may be judged from the Queen's remark to the 
 French Ambassador in 1579, to the effect that 
 " she would maintain the religion she was crowned 
 in and baptized in ; and would suppress the 
 papistical religion, that it should not grow ; but 
 
86 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 that she would root out Puritanism and the 
 favourers thereof" {Strype's Annals ', ii. p. 568). 
 In order to carry out this intention the bishops 
 were warned to be on the alert, justices of 
 the peace were instructed, a special staff of 
 inquisitors organised, and all the machinery of the 
 Star Chamber made ready. Before long the 
 prisons were full of godly ministers of the gospel 
 and Puritan laymen. So many men were arrested 
 that petitions began to flow in from all parts, — 
 London, Essex, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Norfolk, 
 Cheshire, and Cornwall, — and complaints against 
 the vexatious character of the prosecutions were 
 received from all over the land. " The conduct of 
 the commissioners," writes Neal, " was high and 
 imperious, their under officers were ravenous and 
 greedy of grain : the fees of the Court were 
 exorbitant, so that if an honest Puritan fell into 
 their hands he was sure to be half ruined before he 
 got out, even though he was cleared of the charge. 
 The commissioners treated those that came 
 before them neither like men nor Christians." 
 
 " The messenger of the Court was paid by the 
 mile," corroborates Brooks, "and the fees were 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 87 
 
 exorbitant which the prisoner must satisfy before 
 he is discharged. The method of proceeding was 
 dilatory and vexatious ; if the prisoner was dis- 
 missed he was almost ruined with the charges and 
 bound in a recognizance to appear again when- 
 soever the Court should send for him." 
 
 Warwickshire was under the ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction of Whitgift. He had the appointing of 
 the justices of the peace also, as the State Papers 
 of Worcestershire for 1580 show, for authority had 
 been given whereby the appointments were left to 
 the discretion of the bishop, " and such others as 
 the bishop shall think meet" runs the record 
 (State Papers, Eliz., Worcester 1580). And 
 concerning the county of Warwick, Strype 
 corroborates this testimony in his life of Whitgift, 
 by quoting (p. 188), in reference to the nominations 
 for justices, " such as the Lord Bishop shall think 
 meet." With a bench of justices nominated and 
 approved by a bitter and persecuting Prelatist, it 
 is manifest that the nonconforming party would 
 not be allowed to rest quietly. Froude dismisses 
 Whitgift with the caustic judgment : " Of all types 
 of human beings who were generated by the 
 
88 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 English Reformation, men like Whitgift are the 
 least interesting. There is something in the 
 constitution of the Establishment which forces 
 them into the administration of it ; yet but for the 
 statesmen to whom they refused to listen, and the 
 Puritans whom they endeavoured to destroy, the 
 old religion would have come back on the country 
 like a returning tide. The Puritans would have 
 furnished new martyrs; the statesmen, through 
 good and evil, would have watched over liberty, 
 but the High Church clergy would have slunk 
 back into conformity or dwindled to their proper 
 insignificance." 
 
 John Shakespeare was a man who held con- 
 siderable property; and an owner of real estate 
 gives hostages to persecution. He was well known 
 as a public man of no mean capacity, and his name 
 had been identified with movements of religious 
 reform. We have seen how vitally interested 
 he was in all that concerned the borough, 
 therefore it is to the highest degree unlikely that 
 a man of his capacity and wide activities could 
 have been untouched by the stirring religious 
 events of the year. In those days politics and 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 89 
 
 religion went hand-in-hand, usually religion was 
 the essence of politics. But Alderman Shakespeare 
 was also a man who was careful of his money; he 
 seldom let his heart overcome his head, as witness 
 his steady cautious givings to the poor, and he 
 knew how to make a good bargain. In time of 
 storm, then, it is to be anticipated that he would take 
 steps to make his property secure. As a prudent 
 man he would foresee the danger and turn aside, 
 although as a Puritan he would not be likely to 
 forsake what seemed to him to be the plain path 
 of duty. And here it is well to remember that the 
 Reformer of Elizabeth's day was not the caricature 
 some writers assume him to be : " Little Bethels ' 
 and pious saints of the Stiggins type were utterly 
 and entirely unknown in that day; the men who 
 held most tenaciously to the Puritan ideals were 
 English gentlemen and yeomen of highest Christian 
 character ; the clergymen were all University men 
 of high distinction, able to defend with widest and 
 soundest scholarship the views they advocated, 
 and always adorning their doctrine w r ith earnest, 
 godly lives. The snuffling hypocrite was a 
 fungus growth upon Puritanism, and too frequently 
 
90 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 the product of Cavalier potations and imaginings 
 or the extravagances of an arid and debased 
 sectarianism. 
 
 From the year 1576 John Shakespeare's attend- 
 ances at the Council begin to be very irregular. 
 He seems to have lost all interest in civic life, and 
 only attends when business of a special nature is 
 under consideration. 
 
 On January 29th, 1578, a subscription was levied 
 upon members of the Council for the equipment of 
 some soldiers. 
 
 " At this Hall yt ys agreed that every Alderman except 
 suche underwryten excepted shall paye towardes the 
 furniture of thre pikemen, ij billmen and one archer vjs. 
 vnjd. and every burgese except suche underwryten excepted 
 shall pay iljs. Ilijd. 
 
 Mr Plumley, vs. ^ 
 
 Mr. Shaxpere, njs. ivd. \ Aldermen." 
 
 John Walker, ijs. vjd. ' 
 
 It is difficult to say why there should be any 
 exception made in these cases, or why Alderman 
 John Shakespeare is allowed to get off by paying a 
 burgess's subscription. It has been explained that 
 perhaps at this time John Shakespeare was living 
 outside the borough boundaries; but the assess- 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 91 
 
 ment is on individuals rather than on householders, 
 so this suggestfon does not help very much. 
 But in any case this fact does not necessarily 
 imply poverty, for as a trader John Shakespeare's 
 credit would be worth more to him than the 
 3s. 4d. assessment ; and the way in which the 
 matter is recorded does not seem to indicate 
 that the three were accepting anything that was 
 not perfectly legitimate and straightforward. 
 
 Again, on November 19th, 1578, another sub- 
 scription is made for the poor. " Yt ys ordered that 
 every Alderman shall paye weekly towardes the 
 releef of the poor Illjd. savinge John Shaxpeare 
 and Robert Bratt who shall not be taxed to paye 
 anythinge." 
 
 It has been questioned whether this John 
 Shaxpeare is Mr. Alderman Shakespeare or not, 
 and in any case fourpence a week either one way or 
 the other does not amount to much as an argument 
 of poverty, but the ominous announcement which 
 follows this exemption in the Record is far more 
 important. 
 
 " Item, it is ordened at this Hall that every 
 Alderman and burgess that hath made default not 
 
92 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 comminge to this Hall accordinge to the order shall 
 paye their amerciament." It will be remembered 
 how severe the enactments were which were passed 
 by the Council when John Shakespeare was bailiff, 
 in order to enforce attendance. There would be 
 men on the Council who would remember how 
 rigorously Robert Perrot's fine had been enforced, 
 and it was not likely that the Puritan would 
 be spared now the Prelatist was having the 
 upper hand. If John Shakespeare by his poverty 
 was escaping a levy of fourpence a week for poor 
 relief, he was also by his intentional absence from 
 the Court laying himself open to the infliction of 
 a heavy and concurrent fine. The Record shows 
 us that the " amerciament " would have to be 
 paid. And there is no doubt that John Shake- 
 speare had sufficient personal property and real 
 estate to make his prosecution worth taking up. 
 Commissioners, spies, and informers were only 
 too glad to snare a man whose possessions made 
 him worth the plucking ; and even though his 
 colleagues on the Council were inclined to be 
 lenient, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were not 
 likely to be so merciful. 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 93 
 
 In the beginning of 1580 Alderman John 
 Shakespeare undoubtedly held the following pos- 
 sessions : — 
 
 ici) The property purchased from Edward West 
 in 1556, situated in Henley Street. 
 
 (J?) A house in Greenhill Street, by the end of 
 the Rother Street. 
 
 (c) The property bought in 1575 from Edmund 
 Hall, situated in Henley Street. 
 
 (d) Reversionary interests in the freehold estate 
 of the " Asbies " in Wilmcote, consisting of house, 
 appurtenances, and about 60 acres of land, and 
 in the property at Snitterfield, an estate of over 100 
 acres. In 1570 he held under Clopton a freehold 
 and 14 acres called "the Ingon," a short distance 
 out of Stratford, for which he paid eight pounds a 
 year rent ; it may have passed out of his tenancy 
 before 1579, but it is instructive to note the 
 rental paid by him for 14 acres, about eighteen 
 months after a writ had been issued against 
 him. 
 
 Now, assuming that John Shakespeare was 
 a Puritan, these outlying estates would be a 
 constant source of anxiety to him, because they 
 
94 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 always presented a vulnerable point of attack to 
 that Court which he feared most, namely, the 
 Bishops. Within the borough, influential friends 
 might possibly shield him, but beyond its confines 
 Whitgift reigned supreme. It was only to be 
 expected that the Wilmcote and Snitterfield 
 estates would be doubly valuable to him because 
 of their tender associations, — they were a portion 
 of his wife's inheritance. How then could he 
 best safeguard their possession ? The Lansdowne 
 MSS. gives us an insight into the methods 
 adopted by Papist and Puritan Recusants for 
 the protection of their property. A trusted man 
 was usually chosen to be the purchaser or lease- 
 holder ; and while the documents were drawn up 
 in strictly legal form, sometimes exaggerated to 
 the point of confusion (for the spies of the Courts 
 were very keen), it was an understood thing that 
 when the storm blew over, or a change in 
 government and religion occurred, the estates 
 would be handed back to the true owner. It 
 will easily be seen that this was only a choice 
 between two evils, for everything depended upon 
 the integrity of the receiver of the property ; and 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 95 
 
 the very strictness with which the legal docu- 
 ments were drawn up placed the Puritan or 
 Papist in hopeless case if his claim were disputed. 
 Very far-seeing men drew up conditional docu- 
 ments which they retained as a security, but few 
 receivers w r ould accept this evidence of distrust in 
 their own bona-fides> so the Recusant was compelled 
 to take his chances. 
 
 " The Recusants convey all their lands and 
 goods to friends of theirs before their convictions, 
 and are relieved by those that have the same 
 lands" (Lan. MSS., 153, 232.) 
 
 In 1579 Agnes Arden, the widow of the Roman 
 Catholic Robert Arden and holder of the Snitter- 
 field estate, was spoken of as being " aged and 
 impotent," and it was evident that the property 
 must soon fall into John Shakespeare's hands, 
 as representing his wife, Mary Arden. Agnes 
 Arden died December 1580. She had, however, 
 on the 2 1st May, in the second year of Elizabeth, 
 entered into an agreement with her brother, 
 Alexander Webbe, whereby she granted him a 
 forty years' lease of the Snitterfield property. 
 
 " Unto the said Alexander Webbe for a terme 
 
96 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 of fourtie years next and immediately following, 
 fully to be completed and ended yff the said 
 Agnes Arderne so long do lyve, yeldinge and 
 paying therefor yearely during the said terme unto 
 the said Agnes Arderne or her assignes, fourtie 
 shillynges of lawful money of Englande, to be 
 payd at two termes of the yere by equall portions." 
 Alexander Webbe died in 1573, after appointing 
 as one of the overseers of his will his friend and 
 kinsman, John Shakespeare of Stratford. Robert 
 Webbe presumably received the benefit of the 
 lease, for on October 15th, 1579, while all England 
 was in a ferment over the exciting incidents which 
 followed the Puritan outburst against the Queen's 
 intended marriage with the Duke of Anjou, John 
 Shakespeare quietly entered into an agreement 
 with him in regard to the future of the property, 
 for it was manifest that the aged and impotent 
 Agnes Arden could not live very long, and 
 therefore John Shakespeare, as heir-at-law through 
 his wife, must needs be consulted. The document 
 is a mystifying one to the non-legal mind, and can 
 only be fairly appraised by men well posted in 
 the conveyances of Elizabeth's day, but certain 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 97 
 
 features strike even non-legal students as peculiar. 
 The wearisome fulness, the curious entries of fine, 
 forfeiture, etc., and the accompanying conditional 
 documents all make up what Halliwell Phillipps 
 terms a very curious transaction. Alexander 
 Webbe paid a merely nominal rental of " fourtie 
 shillynges a year" for a farm of over 100 acres, 
 — certainly a lease on the most favourable terms 
 possible, and evidently a nominal payment from a 
 brother to a sister. How does Robert Webbe 
 fare at the hands of the new owner, John Shake- 
 speare ? As well, if not better than the preceding 
 leaseholder, " for and in consideration of the somme 
 of foure poundes of goode and lawfull Englishe 
 money by the aforesaid Robert Webbe, the 
 property etc. maye and shall lawfully and right- 
 fully come be and remayne unto thaforesaid Robert 
 Webbe, his heires and assignes according to 
 the true tenour and effecte of the graunte thereof 
 before made in these presentes, free, cleire, and 
 voyde, or otherwise well and sufficiently saved 
 harmlesse by the foresaid John Shakespeare and 
 Marye his wyeffe, their heires and the heires 
 
 of eyther of them, and their assignes of and from 
 7 
 
98 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 all and singular bargains, sales, feoffments, grauntes, 
 intayles, joyntures, dowars, leases, willes, uses, rent 
 charges, rent sects, arrerages of rent, recognizaunce, 
 statute marchant and of the staple, obligations, 
 judgements, executions, condempnacions, yssues, 
 fynes, amercements, intrusions, forfeitures, aliena- 
 cyons without lycens, etc." 
 
 Accompanying this was a still more peculiar con- 
 ditional document which was sealed and delivered 
 in the presence of Nycholas Knooles, vicar of 
 Auston, whereby in certain contingencies " this 
 present obligacion to be utterlye voyde and of none 
 effect or ells to stande, remayne, and be in full 
 power, strengthe, force and vertue." (See Hall. 
 Phil., vol. ii. 182, 49 for full copies.) 
 
 Now, in whatever light we may regard this 
 agreement, whether as a genuine sale or as a con- 
 tingent lease (like the lease entered into by Alex- 
 ander Webbe in 1569 with one Thomas Stringer, 
 the witness thereof being John Shakespeare), at 
 least two important considerations claim our atten- 
 tion. In the first place, it is clear that as Alexander 
 Webbe died in 1573, that is, six years before the 
 date under notice, that therefore Robert Webbe 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 99 
 
 was not immediately stepping into the dead man's 
 shoes, nor does he make the agreement with the 
 present holder of the property, Agnes Arden, who 
 was still alive on October 15th, 1579, when the 
 arrangement was made. It is manifest that both 
 sides were providing against any contingency which 
 might arise in reference to John Shakespeare before 
 the reversionary interests had actually fallen into 
 his hands. The property was safeguarded against 
 any " condempnacions, yssues, fynes, amercements, 
 intrusions, forfeitures, alienacyons," by being vested 
 in other hands ; and the spies of the Ecclesiastical 
 Courts, ever ready to swoop down upon the property 
 of Puritans, would find when the tidings of Agnes 
 Arden's death was brought to them, that Robert 
 Webbe (presumably a safe man) was in possession. 
 And secondly, the propounders of the destitution 
 theory adduce this transaction as an evidence of 
 the pressing needs of Alderman Shakespeare at 
 this time, and say that the overwhelming nature of 
 these pecuniary difficulties may be understood from 
 the fact that a husband is being forced to part with 
 what ought to have been his dearest possession, 
 namely, his wife's heritage. 
 
ioo Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 But if Alderman John Shakespeare, after waiting 
 many years for this property to fall into his hands, 
 disposed of it to Robert Webbe for the " somme of 
 foure poundes of goode and lawfull Englishe money," 
 his act would be that of an " incapable " and not of 
 a " poor " man. The transaction might with greater 
 justice have been made to buttress up a theory of 
 insanity. There is nothing of the aptitude of the 
 business man about it, and from all we know of 
 John Shakespeare we have no cause to doubt the 
 keenness of his commercial instincts nor the quality 
 of his mercantile abilities ; but to sell a valuable 
 property and his wife's heritage for half the yearly 
 rental he paid for fourteen acres at the " Ingon " 
 would be a contradiction of his whole life. And 
 how could it possibly be the action of a poor man 
 who was striving to extricate himself from a maze 
 of financial difficulties? A man in straits would 
 naturally make the most of such an opportunity to 
 secure the best possible bargain. To fling away 
 the estate for a trifle would be an act of insanity, 
 or, if more charitably construed, might be taken as 
 the action of a very rich man, who was anxious to 
 perform an act of grace towards a poor relative. 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 101 
 
 The only satisfactory explanation seems to be on 
 the lines of our argument, that it was a contingent 
 lease on the most favourable terms in order to 
 safeguard the property for Alderman John Shake- 
 speare, who was living under the dread of alienation 
 for recusancy. 
 
 Regarding the Wilmcote property, the " Asbies," 
 the way is clearer, because the documentary 
 evidence is that which was laid before the Court of 
 Chancery some twenty years after the events had 
 transpired, when John Shakespeare was claiming 
 the estate from the Lambarts, whom he accused of 
 swindling. 
 
 In the will of Robert Arden the bequest ran : " I 
 geve and bequeth to my youngste dowghter Marye 
 all my lande in Willmcote, cawlide Asbies, and the 
 crop upon the ground sown and tyllede as hit is." 
 Near Wilmcote, at Barton -on -the- Heath, Joan 
 Arden, sister of Mary, lived with her husband, 
 Edmond Lambart. They were to all appearance on 
 good terms with their Stratford relatives, in spite of 
 the fact that Mary had received by far the largest 
 share of the inheritance, for the name Joan had 
 already been given to John Shakespeare's little 
 
102 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recttsant 
 
 daughter, and in 1580 the youngest son had been 
 called " Edmond " after his uncle. 
 
 With this brother-in-law John Shakespeare 
 entered into an agreement whereby, for the pay- 
 ment of ^40, Lambart was to enter into possession 
 of the "Asbies," — at that time evidently an un- 
 occupied property, — and remain until the money 
 was refunded to him at the Feast of St. Michael 
 Archangel 1580. It was expressly stated by John 
 Lambart, the son, in his evidence later, that a " con- 
 ditional privisoe" was in the deed. So far the 
 property was safeguarded until Michaelmas 1580, 
 but there is ground to infer that John Shakespeare 
 had a shrewd suspicion that Edmond Lambart felt 
 sore about the matter of the inheritance, and that 
 he might play him a knave's trick, for in the Hilary 
 term of the same year 1579 he granted a twenty- 
 one years' lease of the same property to one George 
 Gibbes, dating from the Feast of Michaelmas 1580, 
 that is, the very day on which Edmond Lambart s 
 lien on the property would be removed by the payment 
 of the ^40. The terms were exceedingly favourable 
 to Gibbes, being " the moiety of one quarter of 
 wheat and the moiety of one quarter of barley' 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 103 
 
 (Stratford Record). The arrangement does not 
 seem to have been carried out so far as George 
 Gibbes was concerned, but that his interest con- 
 tinued is seen by a fine levied on the Asbies in 
 1597, wherein George Gibbes transfers his right to 
 Thomas Webbe and Humphrey Hooper. Robert 
 Webbe was the trusted holder of the Snitterfield 
 property, Thomas Webbe was to safeguard John 
 Shakespeare's interest in the " Asbies." 
 
 " Thomam Webbe et Humfridum Hooper, 
 querentes, et Johannem Shakespere et Mariam 
 uxorem ejus et Georgium Gybbes, deforciantes etc." 
 
 But the scheme failed because of Edmond Lam- 
 bart, for on September 29th, 1580, when Alderman 
 Shakespeare paid his visit to the " Asbies " to pay 
 over to his kinsman the ,£40 advanced on the 
 property, Lambart refused to surrender the holding 
 until certain other moneys had been forwarded. 
 The agreement distinctly stipulated " that if the 
 sum was payd before a certain day it should be 
 void," but Lambart declined to hand over the 
 property, and Alderman Shakespeare was forced 
 to acquiesce. 
 
 Edmond Lambart died in 1589, and John 
 
104 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Shakespeare lodged a complaint against John 
 Lambart, the son, succeeding to the estate, but 
 nothing was done. It was not until November 24th, 
 1597, after the days of persecution were over, that 
 the defrauded John Shakespeare dared fight the 
 question in the Court of Chancery. He appealed, 
 stating the transaction with Edmond Lambart, 
 and pointing out how he (Lambart) had broken 
 the agreement. " After which your seide orators 
 did tender unto the saide Edmunde the sayd 
 sum of fowertie pounds and desired that they 
 might have agayne the sayd premisses accordinge 
 to their agreement, which money he the sayde 
 Edmunde then refused to receive, saying that he 
 would not receive the same nor suffer your sayd 
 orators to have the saide premisses agayne, unless 
 they woulde paye unto him certayne other 
 money which they did owe unto him for other 
 matters." 
 
 John Lambart replied that John Shakspeare had 
 not fulfilled the conditions agreed upon, and that 
 therefore the estate on his father's death legally 
 reverted to him, against which John Shakespeare 
 urged in a further statement that on the Feast of 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespeare 105 
 
 St. Michael Archangel 1580 he had gone with 
 the ,£40 to Edmond Lambart, and that the 
 payment had been persistently refused ; he further 
 stated that his present appeal was not due to a 
 desire to profit from the increased value of the 
 property, as insinuated by John Lambart, but that 
 it had come to his knowledge that the said 
 Lambart was secretly selling portions of the 
 estate, and that he was in illegal possession of 
 documents of great importance which rightly 
 belonged to the Shakespeares, " by reasone that 
 certaine deeds and other evydences concerninge 
 the premises and that of righte belong to your 
 saide orators, are comme into the handes and 
 possession of the sayde John, he wrongfully still 
 keepeth and detaineth the possession of the sayde 
 premisses." It is not clear how the matter ended 
 finally; the chances are that John Lambart kept 
 possession by reason of the documents having 
 passed into his hands, but it is very plain that 
 John Shakespeare never contemplated a transfer- 
 ence of the property to Edmond Lambart. He 
 was not a poor man when he made the agreement, 
 for it was about the year 1575 ("he did enjoye 
 
106 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 the same for the space of three or four years"), 
 a time of acknowledged prosperity with Alder- 
 man Shakespeare, and he was not destitute at 
 Michaelmas 1580, or he would not have been 
 able to offer the £\o to Lambart. Therefore 
 the supporters of the "destitution" theory are 
 once again forced from the position that poverty 
 was the cause of these transactions. Neither side 
 hints that a sale of the property was effected ; and 
 the fact that John Shakespeare accepted the ^40 
 when he was well off, and had it in hand to repay 
 when the date came round, is conclusive enough 
 against the idea of financial difficulty. The 
 estate was lost to the Shakespeares by a piece of 
 sharp practice on the part of the Lambarts, a 
 deceit which the keenness of the persecution of 
 the Recusants rendered comparatively easy. In 
 safeguarding himself against the possible attacks 
 of the Ecclesiastical Courts, John Shakespeare was 
 forced to trust to the good faith of a kinsman. He 
 was betrayed by his dishonesty, and the calamity 
 he dreaded was thus brought about. It was 
 treachery from a quarter more or less suspected 
 by himself, yet events had so transpired that he 
 
Alleged Poverty of John Shakespcai'e 107 
 
 had found it impossible to transfer the property to 
 the safer hands of Thomas Webbe. Lambart by 
 his clever roguery thus lorded it over an estate 
 which did not belong to him. It may be that 
 there is a local reference in the somewhat 
 unnecessary Induction to the Taming of the 
 Shrew } where the angry landlord upbraids the 
 rogue Sly. 
 
 Host. A pair of stocks, you rogue. 
 
 Sly. Y'are a baggage ; the Slys are no rogues : Look in 
 the Chronicles, we came in with Richard Conqueror. 
 
 Host. I know my remedy ; I must go fetch the third- 
 borough. 
 
 Sly. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, /'// answer him by 
 law : I'll not budge an inch, boy ; let him come. [Falls asleep. 
 
 And again the same rogue says when he is 
 acknowledged lord of the great estate and hand- 
 some house he awakes in — 
 
 "Call me not 'honour' nor ' lordship.' Am not I Chris- 
 topher Sly, . . . old Sly s son of Burton-heath" 
 
 William Shakespeare was without doubt behind 
 his father in the suit against John Lambart to 
 recover the property, and would feel keenly the 
 treachery which deprived him of so valuable an 
 
108 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 estate. So whether this idea of a local reference 
 be empty surmise or no, it is certain that the cap 
 fitted the Lambarts of Barton Heath, and that 
 from John Shakespeare's standpoint John Lambart 
 was indeed " old Sly's son of Burton Heath." 
 
IV 
 
 ^Active Persecution of Puritans 
 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ACTIVE PERSECUTION OF PURITANS AND JOHN 
 SHAKESPEARE'S INCREASING DIFFICULTIES 
 
 It was significant that Alderman John Shakespeare 
 was anxiously endeavouring to safeguard his 
 outlying possessions in the later months of the 
 year 1579, for, as mentioned in the last chapter, 
 this was a time of keen excitement in England 
 because of the acute state of feeling aroused in the 
 Puritan party by reason of the Queen's projected 
 marriage with the brother of the monarch who 
 was responsible for the massacre of the Huguenots 
 in France on St. Bartholomew's black day. The 
 Duke of Anjou had paid a visit to Elizabeth at 
 Greenwich, and had been received with such 
 significant marks of favour that the Queen's 
 supposed Papist leanings had filled her Protestant 
 subjects with deep apprehensions. The political 
 
 in 
 
 
U2 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 outlook no doubt made Elizabeth inclined to play 
 a deep game against her opponents, and statecraft 
 necessitated an apparent alliance with France, but 
 her subjects had not the statesman's knowledge of 
 the case, and were consequently filled with dread. 
 Hume says : " Spain was formidable, Scotland was 
 uncertain, Ireland was prepared for rebellion, and 
 seminary priests were everywhere disseminating 
 treason and disaffection throughout the Queen's 
 dominions." An alliance with France might 
 possibly have commended itself to many politicians, 
 but the murmurs of dissatisfaction against having 
 "a Protestant body under a Popish head" cul- 
 minated in a stirring pamphlet entitled " The 
 Gaping Gulph in which England will be swallowed 
 up by the French marriage," wherein the feelings 
 of the extremer section of the Puritans found 
 expression. Curiously enough, Warwickshire was 
 closely interested in the author of the pamphlet, 
 John Stubbe, the famous Puritan lawyer; who was 
 brother-in-law to Thomas Cartwright, the friend of 
 the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, and afterwards 
 the leader of the Warwickshire Puritans. Stubbe 
 was immediately arrested and sentenced to have 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 1 1 3 
 
 the guilty right hand struck off; waving the 
 bleeding stump, he raised his hat with the left 
 hand, and cried, " Long live the Queen." The 
 agitation spread throughout the kingdom, and 
 disturbances were reported from all parts. Puritan 
 feeling expressed itself so strongly that the 
 authorities took measures to keep the peace and 
 repress any dangerous excitement. Additional 
 soldiers were enlisted in the boroughs, and levies 
 were ordered to be raised to overawe the Puritans. 
 In Stratford the strong feeling aroused is sufficiently 
 attested by the fact that a rate was levied for the 
 equipment of additional pikemen, and special 
 meetings of the Council were summoned in order 
 to cope with the difficulty. Aldermen and 
 councillors were divided, and it became necessary 
 to issue threats of the enforcement of penalties 
 in order to obtain an assembly. The whole Hall 
 was proclaimed on one occasion, and several well- 
 known aldermen were severely fined for non- 
 attendance. Alderman John Shakespeare and 
 Alderman John Wheler were the most prominent 
 among them. 
 
 The rate was levied for the purpose of providing 
 8 
 
114 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 arms and equipment for additional pikemen. John 
 Shakespeare as a property owner was included in 
 the levy, but his name is returned with a number 
 of others as a defaulter. It was only a matter of a 
 few shillings, but he allowed his name to be 
 published as a defaulting alderman. That this is 
 a case of refusal, and not of inability to pay, is 
 sufficiently attested by the fact that the names of 
 known well-to-do people are included in the list. 
 Mr. Halliwell Phillipps, who accepts the general 
 theory of John Shakespeare's poverty, says : " I 
 cannot imagine that it shows anything further 
 beyond the fact that he was rated as if he were a 
 man of good property and styled ' Mr.' in very 
 good company." It stands to reason that John 
 Shakespeare could easily have afforded the few 
 shillings required, for he was rated as a property 
 owner, and therefore the fact of his known ability 
 and possession of property was the reason why 
 the levy was made upon him as a qualified rate- 
 payer. Hence his non-payment was a refusal. 
 We have seen that when the Roman Catholic 
 rising in the north of England had to be put 
 down with the strong hand, John Shakespeare was 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans i 15 
 
 the leading spirit in the Stratford Town Council, 
 
 compelling all the burghers to rally to the support 
 
 of the Queen's cause, and severely punishing 
 
 Alderman Robert Perrot for his non-attendance 
 
 at the meetings. Now, when it is a question of 
 
 Puritan repression, we find him absolutely refusing 
 
 to take any hand in the matter, and with his 
 
 friend John Wheler laying himself open to all the 
 
 penalties of non-compliance. Indeed the Puritan 
 
 feeling of the town was so thoroughly aroused that 
 
 all sections of the community seem to have taken 
 
 the alarm. On July 15th the whole Council was 
 
 proclaimed, and John Wheler was fined. " The 
 
 woole hall to be proclaimed, Mr. Wheler hath 
 
 made default not appearinge at this hall, according 
 
 to this order, therefore to be amersed." Nor was 
 
 the agitation confined to the borough itself, but 
 
 from every village in the countryside Puritan 
 
 sympathisers hastened to avow themselves on the 
 
 Puritan side, every market cart which rolled into 
 
 Stratford brought some excited Boanerges with it, 
 
 and these rural sons of thunder brought weapons 
 
 with them, so that when the tongue failed a keener 
 
 edge might take part in the discussion. The 
 
1 1 6 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Records are sufficiently plain on the matter. One 
 resolution of Council of August 2nd, 1579, says: 
 
 " Hyt hys agreed this daye that proclamacyon 
 be mayd to-moro in the Market place that all 
 persons commyng to oure market, that they kepe 
 the Quenes Majesties peace within the borrow, 
 and that they leve ther wepons at ther innes, that 
 all inhabytense to assyste the ofifycers in kepinge 
 the peace in payne of imprisonment and they 
 losse ther fredome " (Strat. Records, Book A). 
 
 On September 9th the usual Council meeting was 
 called, but as only six aldermen and four burgesses 
 attended, there was " No act donne at thys Hall 
 for lacke of the Companye." 
 
 Numerous arrests were made. Sir Thomas 
 Lucy and Sir William Catesby came into the 
 borough as magistrates, and the old Town prison 
 was fitted with new chains and staples to secure 
 the prisoners. The picture of this stirring time is 
 made complete for us in the accounts submitted 
 in January 1581, when we have the following 
 significant items : — 
 
 " Paid to Richard Hernbe for linckes and staples for the 
 serjauntes to make fast their prisoners, xijd. 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 1 1 7 
 
 i( Paid for wine that was given to Sir Thomas Lucy and 
 Sir William Catesby, IIjs. mjd. 
 
 " Pottell of sack for the Justices, xvjd. 
 "Wine for the Justices, ijs." 
 
 All this meant active repression, and it was 
 directed against the Puritans ; indeed, from this 
 date the hostility of the Queen and the Prelatic 
 party towards Puritanism swept to its full height. 
 The Parliament of 1580 began its deliberations 
 smarting under a keen sense of humiliation by 
 reason of the sharp reproof administered by the 
 Queen on the occasion of the proposed meeting of 
 the members of the House for the purpose of 
 united prayer at the Temple Church, when Alvey 
 the Puritan was master. 
 
 Hatton, the vice -chamberlain, conveyed the 
 Queen's prohibition of the Assembly. " She did 
 much admire," the ironical message ran, " the 
 great rashness in that House, as to put in execu- 
 tion such an innovation without her privity and 
 pleasure first made known to them." 
 
 The House acknowledged the error of daring to 
 assemble for special prayer to the King of kings 
 without the permission of the daughter of Henry 
 
1 1 8 Shakespeare : Pttritan and Rectisant 
 
 VIII., and proceeded soon afterwards, under the 
 masterful force of the Queen, to pass a measure 
 which tacked the Puritans to the Papists, and 
 subjected them to the same penal laws. " All 
 persons that do not come to church or chapel or 
 other place where Common Prayer is said according 
 to the Act of Uniformity, shall forfeit £20 a 
 month to the Queen, being thereof lawfully 
 convict, and suffer imprisonment till paid. Those 
 that are absent for twelve months shall upon 
 certificate made thereof unto the King's Bench, 
 besides their former fine, be bound with two 
 sufficient sureties in a bond of £200 for their good 
 behaviour. Every schoolmaster that does not 
 come to Common Prayer shall forfeit ^ioa month, 
 be disabled from teaching school, and suffer a 
 year's imprisonment." A full conformity was 
 further enjoined, and half-conformists, who evaded 
 punishment by coming to the services when they 
 were nearly over, were ordered to be specially 
 looked after. 
 
 On September 23rd, 1583, Whitgift of Worcester 
 was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and the 
 persecutor of a diocese became the tyrant of a 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 1 19 
 
 kingdom — " there was no danger of his Grindaliz- 
 ing," as his biographer writes. 
 
 He brought a heart-whole subserviency to the 
 wishes of the Queen, and received her exhortation 
 " to restore the discipline of the Church, and the 
 Uniformity established by Law, which, through 
 the connivance of some Prelates, the obstinacy of 
 the Puritans, and the power of some noblemen, is 
 run out of square." 
 
 The first step was the famous Whitgift Test 
 Articles, whereby the Archbishop sought to 
 establish the principle that canons enacted by 
 Convocation and assented to by the Crown were 
 binding on all holding clerical office, even although 
 such canons had not received the assent of 
 Parliament. Having placed the Crown and 
 Convocation above Constitutional Law, Whitgift 
 was forced to create new machinery for the 
 carrying out of unconstitutional enactments. This 
 he did by forty-four High Commissioners, twelve 
 of whom were to be bishops, and the rest chief 
 officers of the Crown. Any three could act 
 provided a bishop were present. They received 
 unlimited powers of coercion, and were " to enquire 
 
1 20 Shakespeare : Ptiritan and Recusant 
 
 from time to time during our pleasure as well by 
 the oaths of twelve good and lawful men, as also 
 by witnesses, and all other means and ways you 
 can devise, of all offences, contempts, mis- 
 demeanours, done and committed contrary to the 
 tenor of the said several Acts and Statutes, 
 and also to enquire of all heretical opinions, 
 seditious books, contempts, conspiracies, false 
 rumour or talks, slanderous words or sayings 
 contrary to the aforesaid laws." 
 
 "Also to take order that the penalties and 
 forfeitures may be duly levied upon the goods, 
 lands, and tenements of such offenders, by way of 
 distress." 
 
 " Also to examine such person suspected on their 
 corporal oaths for the better trial and opening of 
 truth, and to punish those that refused the oath by 
 fine or imprisonment according to their discretions!* 
 
 We have underlined the passages of the Statute 
 which especially reveal the malignant determination 
 of the authorities to put down Puritan non- 
 conformity. The clause " by all other means and 
 ways you can devise " opened up the way for the 
 rack and torture. 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 1 2 1 
 
 " According to their discretions " usurped the 
 place of the usual formula, " according to the 
 power and authority limited and appointed by 
 the laws, ordinances, and Statutes of this 
 Realm;" while the infamous "oath officio mero " 
 by which a man might be made to condemn himself 
 or others, or be punished by continuous fine and 
 imprisonment, was a power exceeding that given 
 to the Roman Inquisition in its worst days. Henry 
 VIII. had repealed it, Elizabeth in her first year 
 had declared it illegal, the Popes only allowed it 
 in cases of heresy, Whitgift levelled it against 
 every paltry misdemeanour. 
 
 The effect of the Test Articles upon responsible 
 statesmen may be judged from the appeals of 
 the Lords of the Council, Warwick, Leicester, 
 Shrewsbury, Lord Charles Howard, Sir James 
 Crofts, Sir Francis Walsingham, and many 
 others. 
 
 The Lord Treasurer Burleigh protested in a 
 letter dated July 15th, 1584: "I favour no sensual 
 and wilful Recusant, but I conclude according to 
 my simple judgment, that this kind of proceeding 
 is too much favouring of the Romish Inquisition, 
 
122 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recttsant 
 
 and is a device rather to seek for offenders than to 
 reform." 
 
 The voice of the country also made itself 
 heard in petitions from county associations, from 
 professors, clergymen, and laymen of all classes of 
 the Protestant Church of England, who recognised 
 that these wide-reaching powers were meant for 
 the compulsion of those Protestants who were 
 absenting themselves from their parish churches. 
 Papists had throughout the Queen's reign been 
 persecuted because of their adherence to Rome, 
 but now Puritan Recusants were to be forced and 
 harried into complete conformity. 
 
 It would have gone terribly hard with the 
 Puritans in 1585 had not new intrigues on the 
 part of the Jesuits in some measure withdrawn 
 the attention of the authorities ; and the cruel 
 murder of William the Silent at Delft and sinister 
 rumours from Spain united Englishmen, Puritan 
 and Prelatist, into an association (confirmed by 
 Parliament) pledged to defend Elizabeth and 
 England from vengeful and fanatical intrigues. 
 
 The edge of the weapon was turned for the time 
 being, but it remained in the hands of the High 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 123 
 
 Commissioners, and the dread of it lay like the 
 fear of death on every village in England. Town 
 councils were forced into co-operation with the 
 local commissioners, ecclesiastical spies and 
 informers were on the look-out for victims, the 
 prisons were being filled with Puritans awaiting 
 trial, many families were preparing to leave the 
 old country altogether. 
 
 John Shakespeare had made a comfortable 
 fortune and won a high position during the period 
 when the laws against the Roman Catholics were 
 being rigorously enforced ; it is instructive to note 
 the change that comes over his political and civic 
 activity when the Puritan is being harried through- 
 out the land. He avoids all legal controversies, 
 ceases to attend the Council meetings, and finally 
 allows his name to be struck off the rolls as an 
 alderman. Before this he had absented himself from 
 eighteen consecutive meetings of the Council, and 
 only put in an appearance when an old friend, 
 John Sadler, was about to be nominated for 
 bailiff. 
 
 In 1582 his son William Shakespeare was 
 married to Ann Hathaway. 
 
124 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 In 1585 Thomas Cartwright, the famous Puritan 
 leader and controversialist, returned from exile in 
 Antwerp, and after a short imprisonment was 
 made Warden of the Leycester Hospital in 
 Warwick, a few miles from John Shakespeare's 
 home. Here Sunday after Sunday he preached to 
 large congregations drawn from the surrounding 
 districts, and it is recorded that Puritans for twelve 
 and even twenty miles left their parish churches 
 to hear Cartwright preach 
 
 On January 19th, 1586, the writ upon which so 
 much reliance is made as an evidence of poverty 
 was issued against Alderman Shakespeare ; it was 
 returned to the Court with the note written across 
 it "quod praedictus Johannes Shakspere nihil 
 habet unde distringere potest habet." As we have 
 pointed out, John Shakespeare would not be un- 
 accustomed to writs in the course of his business 
 transactions, and from his well-known legal adroit- 
 ness would no doubt be able to prepare himself 
 against distraint ; at anyrate, he is still in posses- 
 sion of his Stratford property, and, as a recalcitrant 
 alderman, evidently paying a heavy fine for 
 persistent non-attendance at the Council, for, as 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans i 25 
 
 Halliwell Phillipps points out in reference to his 
 absence, this implies rather the possession of 
 abundant means than the lack of it. " This is 
 not an evidence of falling off in circumstances, but 
 rather the opposite, for it implies on the contrary 
 the ability to pay the fines for non-attendance, for 
 we cannot doubt if he had not paid them some 
 notice would have appeared in the books/' 
 
 In May, Alderman John Shakespeare is sum- 
 moned as a juryman in an important case, and a 
 few months later his official connection with the 
 Stratford Council was brought to a close by the 
 removal of his name for persistent non-attendance. 
 His long absence had doubtless made it clear that 
 he was hopelessly at variance with the repressive 
 measures of the Council, and consequently his 
 name was struck off. 
 
 "Sept. 6, 1586. At thys hall William Smythe 
 and Richard Courte are chosen to be Aldermen 
 in the places of John Wheler and John Shaxpere, 
 for that Mr. Wheler doth desyre to be put out 
 of the Companye and Mr. Shaxpere doth not 
 come to the halles when they be warned nor hath 
 not done of longe tyme " 
 
126 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 And so the long and honourable career reached 
 its climax in what was practically self-exclusion. 
 Mr. Wheler had lost all heart for Council work, 
 and Mr. Shakespeare was treating it with a silent 
 contempt. 
 
 It is an easy solution of the problem to say that 
 this abstention had its root in a deep poverty 
 which made old associations painful and a position 
 of influence irksome and contradictory. The easy- 
 going critic of the " destitute theory " school finds 
 the circumstances of Alderman Shakespeare's later 
 days fit in wonderfully. What can be more con- 
 clusive ? A man sells two valuable estates which 
 ought to have had a high sentimental value, he is 
 exempted from a certain subscription, he owes his 
 relative Lambart money, he cannot pay a levy, he 
 has a writ of distraint issued against him which is 
 returned with the remark that he has nothing to 
 distrain upon, he is put out of the Council and 
 deprived of his office as alderman, and finally, as 
 a ruined man and a bankrupt, his home is broken 
 up and he is thrown into prison for debt. So 
 runs the argument. 
 
 We have endeavoured to show what we believe 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 127 
 
 to be the correct and relative values of most of 
 these incidents, and would point out several im- 
 portant considerations in this leaving of the 
 Council. It is clear that so far as John Shake- 
 speare was concerned he had excluded himself and 
 practically resigned his office many months before 
 the meeting in September 1586. Mr. John Wheler 
 is excluded by the same resolution of the Council 
 on his own request. 
 
 Again we have the two names together, the 
 significant conjunction of which we have pointed 
 out more than once. Were these worthy citizens 
 both put out of the Council because of poverty? 
 No one has yet attempted to show that John 
 Wheler was a poor man at this or any other time ; 
 he was always spoken of in terms which imply the 
 possession of ample properties, and is returned as 
 an owner of real estate in various Exchequer 
 returns; four years after this date, in 1590, he is 
 recorded as an owner, and in the same Exchequer 
 return, for the Survey of Properties, John Shake- 
 speare is also mentioned as still holding the Henley 
 Street property and its appurtenances. Why, then, 
 is John Shakespeare, in spite of this fact, singled 
 
128 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 out to be the victim of misfortune and penury, and 
 why is abject poverty accepted as the cause of 
 the close of his civic career? We would remind 
 theorists who find the " conflict of evidences so 
 exceedingly perplexing that it is hardly possible 
 to reconcile them," that the perplexity lies in their 
 own theories and not in the facts themselves, and 
 that the linking together of the names of John 
 Shakespeare and John Wheler, still "worshipful 
 men of property," is not because of poverty, but on 
 account of that religious association which we have 
 seen uniting them from the earliest years of 
 Elizabeth, that Puritan sentiment which was now 
 being cemented into closest fellowship by reason 
 of the fierce persecution which was filling countless 
 dungeons and graves and causing Englishmen to 
 gaze with wistful longing across the wild waves of 
 the Atlantic to where the New World offered 
 religious freedom and liberty of conscience. 
 Puritans in all parts of England were abstaining 
 from attendance at the Halls "when they be 
 summoned." It is an extremely narrow view 
 which can only explain this abstention on the 
 score of bankruptcy and business incapacity. 
 
Active Persecution of Pitritans 129 
 
 But there is still the matter of the imprisonment 
 to deal with, and without a clear knowledge of the 
 facts of the case the hard way of poverty seems 
 to have ended in the shame of the debtor's prison. 
 
 Early in 1587 an action was raised against John 
 Shakespeare by one Nicholas Lane. 1 The matter 
 arose from a dispute regarding a transaction which 
 took place in June 1586. Henry Shakespeare of 
 Snitterfield owed a sum of £22 to Lane, and it 
 was asserted that in conference with the parties 
 John Shakespeare had promised to make himself 
 responsible to Nicholas Lane for a sum of £\o ) in 
 the event of his brother Henry Shakespeare failing 
 to pay the amount owing. On Michaelmas Day 
 1586, the day on which the sum was due, Henry 
 Shakespeare failed to discharge the debt, and 
 consequently Lane claimed the money from John 
 Shakespeare, as the alleged surety for his brother. 
 This liability was denied, and Lane apparently 
 fell back upon the security of the sponging-house, 
 and had John Shakespeare arrested and flung 
 into prison, for on March 29th a writ of liabeas 
 corpus was issued, — " Johannes Shakesper protulit 
 
 1 See Appendix C. 
 
1 30 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 breve dominae reginae de habeas corpus cum 
 causa coram domina regina r. in curia prox. post 
 XVIII Pascoe," — in order that plaintiff and defendant 
 might fight out the matter in open Court. 
 
 The action lasted over five months, and was 
 contested every step of the way by John Shake- 
 speare, and, so far as we have been able to trace, it 
 is by no means clear that Lane proved his con- 
 tention and won the case. But be the end what 
 it may, it proves John Shakespeare's financial 
 stability rather than his poverty. He was put 
 into prison because he had money to meet Lane's 
 claim, not because he was penniless, for the 
 plaintiff, who had all the circumstances before 
 him, must have known John Shakespeare's position 
 to be a satisfactory one, or he would not have 
 accepted him as security, and he would not after- 
 wards have claimed the debt unless he had 
 knowledge that it could easily have been paid 
 him. It is absurd to think that Nicholas Lane 
 would have taken the word of, and proceeded 
 against, a broken man. And, on the other hand, 
 John Shakespeare proves his ability to afford what 
 must have been considerable law expenses in 
 
Active Persecution of Puritans 131 
 
 defending himself from what he evidently con- 
 sidered to be an imposition. The writ of habeas 
 corpus was the means whereby he was freed 
 from the confinement of the sponging-house in 
 order that he might fight the question of his 
 liability in open Court. Lane wanted his money, 
 not his incarceration, for a word to the Ecclesi- 
 astical Commissioners would have been far more 
 effective in the way of securing imprisonment. 
 By his action he makes it clear that John Shake- 
 speare could have discharged the debt had he been 
 so inclined, and the whole transaction is a telling 
 argument against the destitution theory. It is 
 poor reasoning to say that because a man is 
 accepted as security, and afterwards proceeded 
 against for the recovery of a brother's debt, that 
 therefore that man must have been a bankrupt. 
 
V 
 
 Marked down as a Puritan 
 
 Recusant 
 
 ' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MARKED DOWN AS A PURITAN RECUSANT 
 
 The year 1586 is a notable one for all Shake- 
 speareans. It marked the close of the official career 
 of Alderman John Shakespeare the father, and the 
 opening of the much greater career of his son, for, 
 according to common assent, William Shakespeare 
 left Stratford about this time to try his fortune in 
 London. The too readily accepted gossip of a 
 century later says that he left home under circum- 
 stances of poverty and shame. 
 
 According to Rowe (1709), nimble fingers and a 
 bitter tongue made him powerful enemies in Sir 
 Thomas Lucy and the Laws, and he was con- 
 sequently obliged to shelter himself in London. 
 " By a misfortune common enough to young fellows 
 he had fallen into ill company, and amongst them 
 
 some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing ; 
 
 135 
 
136 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 he engaged with them more than once in robbing 
 a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of 
 Charlecote, near Stratford ; for this he was pro- 
 secuted by that gentleman, as he thought, some- 
 what too severely, and in order to revenge that ill- 
 usage he made a ballad upon him, and though this, 
 probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it 
 is said to be so very bitter that it redoubled the 
 prosecution against him to that degree that he 
 was obliged to leave his business and family in 
 Warwickshire for some time and shelter himself in 
 London." 
 
 In 1708 a worthy archdeacon named Davies had 
 given even stronger testimony than that repeated by 
 Rowe. According to him, Shakespeare was given 
 " to all unluckinesse in stealing venison and rabbits, 
 particularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him 
 oft whipped and sometimes imprisoned." Here 
 the archdeacon enables us to test the veracity 
 of the statement he makes, for, on questions of 
 whipping and imprisonments, one Court Record of 
 the time is worth more than the word of even a 
 bench of bishops of one hundred years later ; but 
 there has never been the slightest documentary 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 137 
 
 evidence of a conviction recorded against William 
 Shakespeare, nor does anything appear in any 
 contemporary Stratford Records against the man 
 who in less than fourteen years after he left home 
 became one of the leading inhabitants of the 
 borough, owner of the best house in it, leaseholder 
 of the tithes of three important parishes, one who 
 entertained preachers of the gospel at his own 
 house when they came to do Sunday duty, whose 
 minister was the famous Puritan, Dr. Richard 
 Byfield, and whose favourite daughter Susannah 
 married one of the best known religious enthusiasts 
 in Warwickshire. Success and prominence have 
 always had their detractors, and in a small country 
 town surely some envious busybody would have 
 unearthed the fact of these " oft whippings and 
 imprisonments " and flung them as a stone at 
 William Shakespeare. That there was bitter feel- 
 ing between William Shakespeare and Sir Thomas 
 Lucy there is no doubt, but the clearest intimation 
 of its existence is to be found in the well-known 
 passages of the poet's own writings. Shakespeare 
 himself reveals to us its strength and bitterness, 
 and Sir Thomas Lucy to the end of time will have 
 
138 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recttsant 
 
 to bear the sting of his lashing satire. But the 
 animus is not that of the man who has been justly- 
 punished for a drunken or a thievish freak, nor does 
 the successful man in the days of his prosperity 
 care to revive in his native village stories of well- 
 deserved punishments and imprisonments. A wise 
 man would let the dead past bury its dead, and Sir 
 Thomas Lucy would have been left alone. But 
 Shakespeare did neither, — he pilloried his enemy, 
 and made him the laughing-stock of the world. 
 There can be no two opinions regarding the hein- 
 ousness of deer-stealing, and without doubt Sir 
 Thomas Lucy could have punished Shakespeare 
 severely had he been brought before him. 
 
 But there is another side to the question, and 
 one which has played a prominent part in days of 
 religious coercion, when deer destruction was as 
 common as the houghing and maiming of cattle 
 in these later days of political coercion. It was a 
 common act of revenge or retribution. 
 
 In 1556, Queen Mary's Chancellor, Heath, had 
 his deer destroyed by men who hated him for 
 religious intolerance ; the High Constable of 
 Lancashire had his deer crippled by Papists in 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 139 
 
 1600. Outrages of a like nature were continually 
 occurring in times of popular excitement and party 
 feeling. It is no unlikely thing that a high-spirited 
 youth, driven to recklessness by the harsh treat- 
 ment of his father under heavy Recusancy Laws 
 by a renegade justice of the peace, may have taken 
 this step in reprisal. If John Shakespeare was 
 feeling the severity of the Ecclesiastical Uniformity 
 Laws as administered by Lucy (the man who had 
 hobnobbed with a Puritan Council when Puritan 
 feeling was high in England and much was ex- 
 pected from the Queen), there must have been 
 vengeful feelings against the traitorous justice, and 
 young men might easily let their feelings carry 
 them to the extent of deer destruction. Justice 
 Shallow threatens to make a Council matter of it, 
 a Star Chamber business ; but Parson Evans says : 
 " It is not meet the Council hear of a riot, there is 
 no fear of God in a riot." Professor Dowden, in 
 his admirable little book on William Shakespeare, 
 mentions a presumed cause for the animosity of 
 Lucy : " It has been suggested that he may have felt 
 some animosity against the Shakespeare family as 
 possibly having sympathy with the old religion, for 
 
1 40 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Sir Thomas Lucy was not only a game-preserver, 
 but also a zealous Protestant." 
 
 Here Professor Dowden assumes that the Shake- 
 speares were Roman Catholic, and Sir Thomas 
 Lucy a Puritan, forgetful that the term " zealous 
 Protestant " is too loose for the time of which it is 
 used, for both Prelatist and Puritan would claim 
 the title, and also that Sir Thomas Lucy, if a 
 " zealous " Puritan, would not be likely to be the 
 head of the Commission whose chief duty was to 
 hunt down the Puritans. A great deal depends 
 upon a correct understanding of Sir Thomas Lucy's 
 position, for many commentators, following an 
 absurd mistake of Malone, have taken for granted 
 that Lucy was a Puritan. He was a man zealous 
 for religion, and may have begun as a Puritan, but 
 certainly the evidence of his later days points to a 
 vigorous Prelatism. He was knighted by Elizabeth 
 in 1565 after he had entertained her at Charlecote 
 on her way to Kenilworth. In 1586 he was one of 
 the nobles and gentlemen appointed to escort Mary 
 of Scots from Tutbury to Fotheringay. 
 
 In 1 57 1 he was returned to Parliament, and took 
 an important part in the religious discussions of the 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 141 
 
 House, being appointed upon Committees which 
 had for their object reforms in the Church. In 
 1572, the year when the Puritans were gathering 
 all their forces, Mr. William Devereux and Mr. 
 Clement Throckmorton were elected ; and on the 
 death of the first named, Sir John Huband was 
 chosen in his place. In 1584, when the Acts of 
 Uniformity were being more vigorously enforced, 
 Sir Thomas is again returned to Parliament, and at 
 once shows his zeal in matters ecclesiastical by 
 being appointed to present a petition to the House 
 of Lords respecting the "liberty of godly preachers" 
 (JJ Ewes' Journal), 
 
 Malone, on the basis of these facts, dubs Lucy a 
 Puritan, and does so in the following brilliant piece 
 of historical criticism : " He appears to have taken 
 an active part in the House of Commons in several 
 matters of importance, and to have been one of that 
 Puritanical party who about the middle of the 
 Queen's reign, while they resisted some unwarrant- 
 able extensions of prerogative, began to broach 
 those republican doctrines, and to attempt those 
 innovations which, at a subsequent period, after 
 having been duly matured in the detestable school 
 
142 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 of Geneva, contributed under the management of a 
 band of wicked and artful hypocrites to destroy 
 at once the Church, the Nobility, and even the 
 Monarchy itself." 
 
 After which Malone hastens to pick up his be- 
 smirched Sir Thomas Lucy by saying " but he was 
 sturdily attached to his Sovereign." 
 
 Again quoting from UEwei Journals ', page 355, 
 in reference to the case of Dr. Parry of Queen- 
 borough, Malone gives us another example of his 
 keen and logical insight. 
 
 Under date of Tuesday, Febuary 23 rd, 1584, the 
 Journal records — 
 
 " Upon a motion began by Sir Thomas Lucy and 
 continued by Sir Thomas Moore, ' that those of 
 this House which are of Her Majesty's Privy 
 Council, may in the name of this whole House be 
 humble suitors unto Her Majesty, that forasmuch 
 as that villainous traitor Parry was a member of 
 this House in the time of some of his most horrible 
 and traitorous conspiracies and attempts against 
 Her Majesty's most royal person (whom Almighty 
 God long preserve), Her Majesty would vouchsafe 
 to give Licence to this House, for that many are of 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 143 
 
 the fellowship of this Association, to proceed to the 
 devising and making of some law for his execution 
 after his conviction, as may be thought fittest for 
 his so extraordinary and horrible treason/ 
 
 The language is a trifle ambiguous, but the object 
 of both mover and seconder is clear enough. Sir 
 Thomas Lucy was seeking a stringent law to deal 
 with members of Parliament who like Parry might 
 be persuaded by cunning Jesuits to join them in the 
 numerous conspiracies against the life of the Queen. 
 Already Coligny had perished in Paris in 1572, 
 William the Silent had been shot down with 
 poisoned bullets by Gerard in Delft, 1584, numer- 
 ous seminary priests and Jesuits were inciting 
 fanatics against an excommunicated Queen, and 
 the plots which resulted in John Savage's mission 
 of assassination, and John Ballard's intrigue with 
 Anthony Babington for the deposition and murder 
 of Elizabeth, were more than set afoot. 
 
 The discovery of Parry's treachery revealed the 
 disquieting truth that this widespread association 
 of intrigue and assassination had its representatives 
 in the very House of Commons itself, and therefore 
 honest Sir Thomas Lucy, who was sturdily attached 
 
144 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 to his Sovereign, desired to see some enactment 
 which would deal adequately with the danger. 
 Surely if Malone had had one grain of pity for the 
 unfortunate man who must for ever bear the weight 
 of Shakespeare's scorn, he would not have added 
 the utterly ridiculous line, " Sir Thomas Lucy was 
 without doubt one of the Associators above 
 mentioned." 
 
 Lucy was not on the best of terms with Leicester 
 and the House of Warwick (well-known supporters 
 of Puritanism), and in the chronicles of the Lucy 
 family there is a statement which confirms this : 
 " To please the Earl of Leicester, Shakespeare wrote 
 the Merry Wives of Windsor, and took off Sir 
 Thomas Lucy as Justice Shallow." 
 
 As is well known, in the first copy of the Merry 
 Wives there is no mention of the dignities of 
 Justice Shallow, and Falstaff appears under the 
 name of Sir John Oldcastle, the well-known sufferer 
 for conscience' sake in 1417, but in later editions, 
 when James of Scotland, a Presbyterian, was next 
 in succession to the throne, and active persecution 
 had died away, Shakespeare makes amends for the 
 light use of Oldcastle's name, and calls him a "valiant 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 145 
 
 martyr and a virtuous peer." " Oldcastle died a 
 martyr, and this is not the man," In November 
 1604 the Merry Wives was played before James I., 
 and the full satire as it now appears was in the 
 text. Some idea of the bitterness which prompted 
 its insertion may be gained from the fact that at 
 this time Sir Thomas Lucy had been dead for some 
 four years. It is very clear that something deeper 
 than a prosecution for a youthful escapade must 
 have roused the antagonism in the mind of Shake- 
 speare, and the most reasonable deduction is that 
 his indignation was roused at the sight of his own 
 father being harassed and hunted by persecuting 
 justices, ever under the shadow of imprisonment 
 and death and a mark for every vindictive spy 
 and informer. There is more than one cry for 
 vengeance against tyrannical justices of the period. 
 Perhaps the most pathetic of all is that which was 
 placed as an inscription on the coffin of Roger 
 Rippon, a Puritan who died of gaol fever in New- 
 gate, 1592. 
 
 " This is the corpse of Roger Rippon, a servant of 
 Christ, and Her Majesty's faithful subject, who is 
 
 the last of sixteen or seventeen which that great 
 10 
 
146 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 enemy of God, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with 
 his High Commissioners, have murdered in New- 
 gate within these five years, manifestly for the 
 testimony of Jesus Christ. His soul is now with the 
 Lord, and his blood crieth for speedy vengeance 
 against that great enemy of the Saints and against 
 Mr. Richard Young, a justice of the peace in 
 London, who in this and many like points hath 
 abused his power for the upholding of the Romish 
 Antichrist, Prelacy and Priesthood." 
 
 But even if the deer-destroying incident never 
 happened, it is not absolutely necessary to pre- 
 suppose folly or crime because a young man of 
 twenty-two leaves a country town like Stratford 
 and makes a bid for fortune in the metropolis. The 
 road to London has always been a well-worn one, 
 and Stratford was in the direct line. If we take 
 the immediate friends of the Shakespeares, we find 
 that as a rule one representative of the various 
 families after his education was finished set out for 
 London. 
 
 Adrian Quyney, John Sadler, Henry Field, each 
 had sons in London. Young Quyney built up an 
 independence for himself. Richard Field, as a 
 
Marked down as a Ptiritan Recusant 147 
 
 young printer, turned out William Shakespeare's 
 first literary venture ; and Greene, another Stratford 
 youth, was a member of a London company of 
 actors. 
 
 John Sadler the younger became a grocer in 
 Bucklersbury, and when fortune smiled upon him, 
 with Richard Quyney, " as gentlemen and citizens 
 of London," he gave £150 to be lent out, the 
 interest of the fund to be given to the poor of 
 Stratford for ever (see the Bequest) ; but when he 
 left home he started out with nothing more than a 
 horse to ride on and enough money to buy food on 
 the journey. u He joined himself to a carrier and 
 came to London, w r here he had never been before, 
 and sold his horse in Smithfield ; and having no 
 acquaintance in London to assist him, he went 
 from street to street and house to house asking if 
 they wanted an apprentice, and though he met with 
 many discouraging scorns and a thousand denials, 
 he went on until he light on a Mr. Brokesbank, 
 a grocer in Bucklersbury, who though he long 
 denied him for want of sureties for his fidelity and 
 because the money he had (but ten pounds) was so 
 disproportionable to what he used to receive with 
 
148 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 apprentices, yet upon his discreet account he gave 
 of himself and the motives which put him on that 
 course, he ventured to receive him on trial, in which 
 he so approved himself that he accepted him into 
 his service, to which he bound him for eight years." 
 No one feels called upon to invent discreditable 
 reasons for the departure of these young com- 
 panions of William Shakespeare from Stratford. 
 The proceeding is a perfectly natural one, and 
 therefore needs no explanation. Why, then, is it 
 necessary to assume in the case of the greatest 
 genius of them all that drunkenness and knavery 
 were the compelling causes of his sojourn in 
 London? The argument is based upon the idea 
 that drunkenness and knavish recklessness alone 
 account for the destruction of a justice's deer, and 
 one can easily understand how the stories of 
 whippings and imprisonments and reckless drink- 
 ing bouts came to be handed down by Betterton, 
 Rowe, Davies, and other pickers-up of ill-considered 
 trifles on the basis of the bitter satire upon Lucy 
 in the Merry Wives of Windsor \ and it is not 
 difficult to perceive how readily men, whom it may 
 fairly be supposed were not authorities on the 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 149 
 
 religious struggles of Elizabeth's day, would light 
 upon a very commonplace and everyday explana- 
 tion for an exploit which involved the destruction 
 of deer. It may have been clear to the mind of 
 William Shakespeare that any chance of a success- 
 ful career in Stratford was practically closed to him 
 while the fearfully repressive measures were being 
 put in force against Puritans, and when every 
 suspected household lived in hourly dread of 
 confiscation and imprisonment, and he may have 
 determined, like Greene, Quyney, Sadler, and 
 other young men of his acquaintance, to make an 
 attempt to push his fortunes in London ; but so 
 far as one can judge from the testimony of his 
 own pen, this resolve was more quickly realised by 
 the hasty act and extreme measure into which 
 religious intolerance and a bitter contempt for the 
 persecuting Sir Thomas Lucy had hurried him. 
 In any case, when the storm of persecution had 
 blown over, he had no fear in returning to Stratford ; 
 he occupied a most honourable position in it ; not a 
 whisper was breathed against him on the score of 
 youthful wickednesses ; and if he had not himself 
 recorded the incident in his own play, it is question- 
 
150 Shakespeare; Puritan and Recusant 
 
 able if the world would ever have heard the 
 story of his " unluckinesse in stealing venison 
 and rabbits, particularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, 
 who had him oft whipped and sometimes im- 
 prisoned." That his departure was a wise step 
 there can be no doubt, for there was a grave 
 danger attending any manifestation of Puritan 
 feeling. The activity of Whitgift's Commissioners 
 had increased tenfold, and it soon became a 
 difficulty to provide prison accommodation for the 
 numberless Puritans arrested. From 1586 to the 
 time of the coming of the Spanish Armada the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts were in almost daily session. 
 
 In one respect the sailing of the Fleet caused 
 the tide of religious persecution to be stayed. Men 
 of all conditions forgot that they were Papist, 
 Puritan, or Prelatist in remembering that they were 
 Englishmen, and volunteers from every county and 
 every church flocked to the Queen's standard 
 to man the ships or trail the pike. Success 
 crowned their efforts, and the flag of Spain sank, 
 with hundreds of doomed vessels, into the depths of 
 its greatest humiliation, and all England breathed 
 freely. The united stand against the Armada 
 
Marked down as a Ptiritan Rcatsant 1 5 1 
 
 touched the hearts of all except the clerical 
 advocates of persecution, and in 1592, when the 
 Whitgift Tests were once more cramming the 
 prisons, a stream of petitions from the counties 
 flowed in against the tyrannies of the High 
 Commission. 
 
 Parliament was preparing to take up the 
 question when a peremptory message from the 
 Queen directed " that the House might redress 
 such popular grievances as were complained of in 
 their several counties, but should leave all matters 
 of State to herself and her Council, and all matters 
 relating to the Church to herself and the 
 Bishops." 
 
 Mr. Attorney Morrice, Puritan Chancellor of 
 the Duchy of Lancaster, nothing daunted by this 
 grave menace to constitutional freedom, and 
 supported by Francis Knollys and Oliver St. John, 
 moved " that the House do enquire into the pro- 
 ceedings of the Bishops in their spiritual Courts ' 
 (Heylin, Strype, D'Ewes, 474). 
 
 He was arrested almost immediately in the 
 precincts of the House by order of the Queen, 
 deprived of office, dismissed his profession, and 
 
1 5 2 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 committed a close prisoner to Tutbury Castle. 
 The next day Elizabeth sent a message to the 
 House wherein she expressed her will as follows : — 
 
 That it was wholly in her power to call, 
 determine, assent or dissent to anything done in 
 Parliament. 
 
 That they were not to meddle with matters 
 of State or causes ecclesiastical, and that she 
 wondered that they should attempt such a thing, 
 and grievously offend her. 
 
 And finally, that it was her Royal pleasure that 
 no Bill touching any matters of State and causes 
 ecclesiastical should be there exhibited. 
 
 Then came the discovery of Hackett's mad 
 treason, and in the consequent excitement Parlia- 
 ment proceeded to pass one of the severest and 
 most disgraceful Acts that ever sullied the Statute 
 Book of England. It gave full rein to fanatical 
 cruelty, and was merciless in its extreme severity. 
 
 It was entitled " An act for the punishment of 
 persons obstinately refusing to come to Church 
 and persuading others to impugn the Queen's 
 authority in Ecclesiastical causes." 
 
 It was directed against Puritan nonconformity, and 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 153 
 
 it was meant to most effectually prevent the stray- 
 ing away of Puritans from their parish churches. 
 It conferred upon the Commissioners powers of 
 perpetual imprisonment, perpetual banishment, and 
 death without benefit of clergy (this latter privilege 
 one which even the vilest felon might claim). 
 
 "If any person above the age of 16 shall 
 obstinately refuse to repair to some Church, Chapel, 
 or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Divine 
 Service, for the space of one month, without lawful 
 cause, or shall dissuade any of her Majesty's 
 subjects from coming to Church to hear Divine 
 Service or receive the Communion according as 
 the Law directs, or shall be present at any unlaw- 
 ful assembly, conventicle or meeting under colour 
 or pretence of any exercise of religion, that every 
 person so offending and lawfully convicted shall 
 be committed to prison without bail till they shall 
 conform and yield themselves to come to Church 
 and make written declaration of their conformity. 
 
 " But in case the offenders against the Statute 
 being lawfully convict shall not submit and sign the 
 declaration within three months then they shall 
 adjure the realm and go into perpetual banishment. 
 
154 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 And if they do not depart within the time limited 
 by the Quarter Sessions or Justices of the Peace, 
 or if they return at any time afterwards without 
 the Queen's Licence, they shall suffer death without 
 benefit of clergy." 
 
 This and other statutes would have led to a 
 revolution if all their provisions had been carried 
 out in the spirit which created them, but fortun- 
 ately sympathy was aroused everywhere for the 
 threatened Recusants, and numbers were quietly 
 shielded by conforming neighbours and townsmen. 
 " Tis hard to get witnesses against the Puritans," 
 wrote one ecclesiastic, " because most of the parish 
 favour them, and therefore will not appear against 
 them." But the anxious life of the Nonconformists 
 may be easily appreciated when we consider the 
 tremendous forces arrayed against them, and the 
 sufferers of the time have made their sorrows re-echo 
 even to this day. " Their manner of pursueing 
 and apprehending us is with no less violence and 
 outrage, their pursuevants with their assistants 
 break into our houses at all times of the night and 
 break open, ransack and rifle at their pleasure." 
 
 In a petition to Parliament a prisoner writes : — 
 
Jllarked down as a Puritan Recusant 155 
 
 " Some of us had not one penny about us when 
 we were sent to prison, nor anything to procure a 
 maintenance for ourselves and families but our 
 handy labour and trades, by which not only 
 we ourselves but our families and children are 
 undone and starved. Their unbridled slander, 
 their lawless privy searches, their violent breaking 
 open houses, their taking away whatever they think 
 meet, and their barbarous usage of women and 
 children we are forced to omit lest we be tedious. 
 
 " That which we crave for us all, is the liberty 
 to die openly or live openly in the land of our 
 nativity ; if we deserve death, let us not be closely 
 murdered, yea starved to death with hunger and 
 cold, and stifled in loathsome dungeons." 
 
 These are but typical cases, and the death 
 records of the persecutions only add their testi- 
 mony to the black business. It was the Queen's 
 supreme effort to root out the Puritanism she 
 hated. Much capital for Roman Catholicism 
 has been made out by some writers in connection 
 with these statutes, and it has been taken for granted 
 that the poor and ever-faithful Romanist was 
 the chief sufferer by the Elizabethan persecutions. 
 
156 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 He suffered terribly, it is true, and had to bear 
 the weight of the malice of Puritan and Prelatist, 
 but he was hated more for his subserviency to 
 intriguing and traitorous Rome than for his religion. 
 The Queen's sympathies ran more in his direction 
 than in that of the Puritan, and after the crushing 
 defeat of the Armada and Elizabeth's diplomatic 
 triumphs all along the line, his secret worship was 
 not so much the object of the attack of the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts as that of the Protestant 
 Nonconformist. Elizabeth looked upon Roman 
 Catholicism as loyalty to the Pope, a State 
 religion in many parts of Europe which she 
 could understand, but Protestant nonconformity 
 she considered rebellion against herself, a new 
 assertion of individual rights of conscience which 
 meant unfailing antagonism to her own claims 
 of ecclesiastical supremacy. Malone's description 
 of the Puritan movement may be adopted as 
 expressing the view of Elizabeth. " Matured in 
 the detestable school of Geneva, it contributed 
 under the management of a band of wicked and 
 artful hypocrites to destroy at once the Church, 
 the Nobility, and even the Monarchy itself." 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 157 
 
 Elizabeth was a strong-willed sovereign, and 
 she entered with all the pride of her strength 
 into the conflict with the Puritan, little dreaming 
 that in spite of every tyranny his principles would 
 finally win the battle, and that the divine right of 
 liberty of conscience would sweep its way through 
 prison and death, as a few years later the axe 
 shore through her own fondly-cherished delusion 
 of the divine right of kings. Hence the true 
 phase of the conflict must be borne in mind in 
 discussing these later persecutions of Elizabeth, 
 and it must not be forgotten that these statutes 
 were directed mainly against the Puritan. 
 
 In Warwickshire, Cartwright of Warwick was 
 arrested in 1590 and released two years later. 
 Humphrey Fenn of Coventry had been often 
 cited before the Courts. John Udall, who in 1586 
 had been deprived for Puritanism, but restored 
 through the influence of the Countess of Warwick, 
 had been tried and sentenced for his alleged 
 connection with the Martin Marprelate Tracts, 
 and died a prisoner in the Marshalsea Prison in 
 1592. 
 
 John Hales of Coventry, Robert Wigston of 
 
158 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Woolston, and Job Throgmorton of Haseley were 
 suspects, on account of the secret printing press 
 which was causing so much excitement through 
 the land, for it is significant of the strength of 
 the Warwickshire Puritanism that the Marprelate 
 Tracts were printed at three places in the county, 
 and all within a short distance of the town of 
 Stratford. 
 
 The bitterness aroused against the hidden 
 railers was such that inquisition was made in 
 every county, and most diligent search failed 
 to discover the whereabouts of the press, but, 
 as is well known, it was proved to have been 
 working at White Friars in Coventry, the residence 
 of John Hales, at Woolston, Robert Wigston's 
 house, and Haseley, the residence of Job Throg- 
 morton ; and even after its seizure at Manchester, 
 the controversy was continued by Throgmorton, 
 first by another press at Haseley, and finally by 
 one worked by Waldegrave, Penry, and Throg- 
 morton from the Puritan centres of Edinburgh 
 and Rochelle. 
 
 John Shakespeare seems to have been keeping 
 himself in the background during all these years. 
 
Marked down as a Pitritan Recusant 159 
 
 He was taking part in some public duties, but 
 they were only such as serving on juries and 
 witnessing wills. Twice in 1 591 he served as 
 a juryman, and in 1592 we find him engaged in 
 two instances in making inventories of the goods 
 of deceased persons, a task which, according to old 
 law books, must only be performed by trustworthy 
 and credible men. 
 
 With regard to his position as a property owner, 
 the Exchequer Court Returns furnish reliable data. 
 In 1590 he was returned as holding the Henley 
 Street property, and his possession of it is still 
 further attested in the fact that in 1597 he sold a 
 strip of the land to George Badger, his neighbour, 
 and about the same time another strip of the same 
 property to one named Willis, a piece of land 
 14 conteyninge seventene footes square, that is to 
 say, seventene footes everye way." These sales 
 are interesting as proving that the Henley Street 
 property, at least, never passed out of the pos- 
 session of John Shakespeare until his son William 
 succeeded him as heir, and they have also a 
 bearing on the " poverty theory " of his life, for 
 here without doubt we have bond-fide sales of 
 
1 60 Shakespeare : Puritan and Remsant 
 
 property, business transactions in which John 
 Shakespeare is making a fairly good bargain 
 although lessening the amount of his real estate. 
 A pathetic picture might be drawn of the poor old 
 man, weary with the confinement of the debtor's 
 prison, parting with his strips of land in order 
 to scrape together a little money, for they are 
 certainly more powerful evidences of poverty 
 than the Snitterfield and Asbies transactions, if 
 the selling of a possession is to be accounted 
 a proof of destitution. But the year in which 
 this transaction took place, namely, 1597, is 
 one in which no one can assert destitution for 
 the old man, because his son William had returned 
 to Stratford a wealthy man, having bought the 
 well-known residence at New Place ; his granaries, 
 when corn was at famine prices, were well-stocked 
 with grain, and he was about to purchase the 
 important tithe leases of Stratford, Old Stratford, 
 Bishopton, and Welcombe for the very consider- 
 able sum of £440. 
 
 In 1592 Sir Thomas Lucy, Sir Fulke Greville 
 (the elder), and other justices of the peace had 
 been appointed under the Recusancy Act of 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 1 6 1 
 
 that year, to make diligent inquiry as to the 
 monthly attendances at the parish churches, 
 because, as will be remembered, the Act was 
 especially concerned with the enforcing of attend- 
 ance. " Anyone over sixteen years of age who 
 shall refuse for the space of one month without 
 lawful cause, shall be committed to prison without 
 bail till they shall conform and yield themselves 
 to come to Church and make written declaration of 
 their conformity." Officers and spies of the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts had the districts under super- 
 vision, and regular reports were obliged to be 
 submitted. Many well-known persons refused to 
 attend the services of the parish church, many 
 pleaded old age and sickness, and some made 
 fear of process their excuse. As a rule the officials 
 inquired into each case, and the justices added the 
 testimony of their seals or signatures to the reports 
 sent up to the Court. 
 
 The well-known document, which is signed 
 and attested on every page by Sir Thomas Lucy, 
 is as follows : — 
 
 " The seconde Certificat of the Commissioners 
 
 for the Countie of Warwicke touching all such 
 ii 
 
1 62 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 persons as either have bene presented to them, or 
 have bene otherwise fownde owt by the endevoire 
 of the sayd Commissioners, to be Jhesuites, 
 seminarye preestes, fugitives, or recusants within 
 the sayd Countie of Warwick, or vehementlye 
 suspected to be sutche, together with a true note 
 of so manye of them as are alreadye indicted 
 for thear obstinate and wilfull persisting in their 
 recusancye ; sett down at Warwicke the xxvth day 
 of September in the 34th yere of her Majesty's 
 most happy raigne and sent upp to the lord- 
 shipps of her Majesty's most honourable Privye 
 Councell. 
 
 " The names of sutch recusantes as have bene 
 heartofore presented for not comminge monethlie 
 to the Churche according to her Majesty's laws 
 and yet are thoughte to forbeare the Church for 
 debtt and for feare of processe, or for some other 
 worse faultes, or for age, sickness or impotencye 
 of bodie." 
 
 Then follows a long list of names, conclud- 
 ing with fifteen concerning which explanatory 
 notes are given. Nine come not to church 
 for fear of process for debt. Six are kept back 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 1 6 
 
 i 
 
 by age or infirmity. The list of nine is as we 
 enumerate : — 
 
 " Mr. John Wheeler. 
 John Wheeler his soon. 
 Mr. John Shackspere. 
 Mr Nicholas Barneshurste. 
 Thomas James alias Gyles. 
 William Bainton. 
 Richard Harrington. 
 William Fluellan. 
 George Bardolfe. 
 
 It is said that these laste nine coom not to Churche 
 for fear of process for debtte. 
 
 Mistress Geffreyes, vid. 
 Mris Barber. 
 Julian Coorte. 
 Gryffen ap Roberts. 
 Joane Welche. 
 Mris Wheeler. 
 
 Weare all here presented for recusantes, and doo 
 soo all so continewe saving Mris Wheeler who 
 is conformed, and Gryffen ap Roberts, now deide. 
 
1 64 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 But the presenters say that all or most of theese 
 cannot come to the Churche for age or other 
 infirmities." 
 
 The section upon which the names appear 
 is that devoted to Puritan Recusants, not to that 
 occupied by Jhesuites, seminarye preestes, fugitives, 
 and Papists. 
 
 The names are those of persons who were 
 forbearing attendance at their parish church, 
 and who unless they could show a lawful excuse 
 would be imprisoned as nonconforming Puritans. 
 Such terms would not, and could not be used 
 of the Roman Catholics. Papists were persecuted 
 for being Papists, not for forbearing attendance at 
 the parish church. The names quoted are 
 considered by the presenters to be bond-fide 
 members of the Established Church who are 
 breaking the law which insisted on a monthly 
 attendance at Church services, and the excuses 
 tendered might possibly have been of service to 
 a non-attending Puritan, but would not have been 
 accepted for one moment from a Papist. 
 
 That the explanation concerning the fear of 
 process for debt was no more than an excuse is 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Recusant 165 
 
 apparent from the fact that there is no record of 
 such processes being in force against any of the 
 individuals, and also that among the names are 
 those of three men and the wife of another who have 
 held office as Aldermen and Bailiff of Stratford. 
 
 Mr John Wheler and his son are keeping 
 away for fear of debt, but Mrs Wheler, in a later 
 return, even after her conformity in the second 
 return, as recorded above, Is given as persisting in 
 her absence from church, " Johne Wheyllers wyffe 
 in Henlie Streytte." 
 
 Mr John Wheler, as we have seen, was twice 
 Bailiff of Stratford ; he was always a man of 
 property, and to the end of his life is recorded 
 as possessing lands and houses. His association 
 with Alderman John Shakespeare in all matters 
 of Puritan reform we have already traced. Mistress 
 Barber was the wife of Thomas Barber, who was 
 several times Bailiff of Stratford, in 1586 and again 
 in 1594, that is, two years after his wife has been 
 returned as a Recusant. He was borough chamber- 
 lain with Nicholas Barneshurst, whom we have seen 
 in 1 572 deputed to deliver the sum of £\l to Adrian 
 Quiney and John Shakespeare when they were 
 
1 66 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 appointed to arrange matters in London touching 
 the affairs of the town and the commonwealth, 
 before the assembling of the Puritan Parliament. 
 
 In all movements of Puritan energy in Stratford 
 we have had a certain number of names recurring, 
 Shakespeare, Wheler, Barber, Barneshurste, 
 Ouiney; it is not astonishing, therefore, when 
 Puritan extinction is being aimed at that we should 
 discover the names on a return sent up to the Privy 
 Council as persistent forbearers from Church. 
 
 That John Shakespeare w T as not forbearing 
 church for fear of process for debt is clearly 
 shown by the Court of Record returns. He 
 was one of the most litigious of men, but he 
 has no cases whatever from 1591 to 1593. From 
 July, 2 Phil, and Mary, to March, 37 Elizabeth, 
 there are no less than 67 entries of cases in 
 which his name appears on one side or the 
 other, and some of his actions are with his best 
 friends, as Adrian Quiney, Francis Herbage, 
 Thomas Knight, and Roger Sadler; but in 1591 
 there is only one entry, and that is of a case 
 wherein John Shakespeare sued as plaintiff in a 
 debt recovery action and won with costs. Mr. 
 
Marked doivn as a Puritan Recusant 167 
 
 Halliwell Phillipps says (Notes, 7th ed., p. 397) : 
 11 The alleged suspicion so far as regards John 
 Shakespeare was a mere device, this being 
 abundantly clear from the fact that there was no 
 action of any kind against him in the Court of 
 Record throughout the year in question ; and from 
 the last day in June to the end of 1 591 the only 
 suit that affected him was one in which he was 
 the plaintiff and recovered a debt with costs." 
 
 This Recusancy Certificate shows Sir Thomas 
 Lucy to be an enthusiastic Queen's Churchman 
 actively engaged in putting into force the stern 
 enactments of Parliament. It also shows us that 
 there was in the town of Stratford a group of those 
 sturdy religionists who forbore attendance at the 
 parish church because of conscientious objections to 
 obnoxious doctrines and ceremonies, who preferred 
 a mode of Protestant worship other than that 
 enforced by the law, and were prepared to suffer 
 hardship and imprisonment for the Crown Rights 
 of King Jesus and for liberty of conscience. The 
 significant incidents we have marked in the lives 
 of John Shakespeare, John Wheler, Thomas 
 Barber, and Nicholas Barneshurste fall naturally 
 
1 68 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 into line when viewed from their proper standpoint 
 of Puritan earnestness, and the Recusancy Return 
 is but the fitting climax to careers against which 
 the laws represented by the return were pro- 
 mulgated. It was precisely for such men that the 
 Act of 1 592 was passed ; it is no wonder, then, that 
 it sufficed to bring them within sweep of the law. 
 But there were also other good reasons for Puritan 
 non-attendance at church beside the powerful plea 
 of conscientious scruple, for at that very time one 
 of the greatest Puritan preachers of the day was 
 holding services only a few miles from Stratford. 
 
 Thomas Cartwright had been made Warden of 
 the Leycester Hospital at Warwick. Sir Francis 
 Walsingham sent him a hundred pounds to buy 
 books, and his friends the Earls of Warwick and 
 Leicester did all they could to make his position a 
 safe one. His career had been a brilliant but 
 stormy one. Froude calls his appearance at Court 
 " the apparition of a man of genius." Beza said of 
 him that " the sun doth not see a more learned 
 man." In 1569 he had been made Lady Margaret 
 Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, but because of 
 his Puritanism he had been silenced and deprived. 
 
Marked down as a Puritan Reaisant 169 
 
 He was the foremost controversialist of his day, — a 
 fact amply attested by the judicious Hooker in his 
 great work. After eleven years' exile in Antwerp 
 he returned to England in 1585, but was arrested 
 on landing by Bishop Aylmer " by Her Majesty's 
 commandment." After a short imprisonment he 
 was released, and found shelter in Warwickshire. 
 The Leycester Hospital was exempt from Episcopal 
 jurisdiction, and Cartwright could preach there 
 without a bishop's licence and in defiance of all 
 ecclesiastical deprivation. Here he attracted to 
 his able ministry the earnest men for many miles 
 around ; it is recorded " that there was not a 
 nobleman or gentleman of quality in all the 
 country that looked heavenward or was of any 
 account for religious learning but sought his 
 company." In addition to his duties, he preached 
 every Sunday at 7 a.m., and frequently in the 
 afternoons, and when it was known he was to hold 
 a service, grave men ran like boys to get a place 
 in the church. It is certain that Puritans who 
 were dissatisfied with the meagre and unspiritual 
 services of their parish churches would be sure to 
 flock to Warwick to hear Cartwright, for as 
 
170 Shakespeare : Pttritan and Recusant 
 
 Humphrey Fenn wrote : " If persons would hear a 
 sermon they must go, in some places, five, seven, 
 twelve, yea, in some counties twenty miles, and at 
 the same time be fined twelve pence a Sabbath 
 for being absent from their own parish church, 
 though it be proved they were hearing a sermon 
 elsewhere." 
 
 This was before the final enactment of 1592, but 
 it is not at all unlikely that before the terribly 
 severe Recusancy Act became the law of the 
 land, John Shakespeare, John Wheler, Adrian 
 Quiney, Thomas Barber, Nicholas Barneshurste, 
 and other well-known Stratford men might have 
 been seen Sunday after Sunday wending their 
 way along the pleasant country lanes which lie 
 between the town and Warwick, to listen to the 
 eloquence of a man who was one of the ripest 
 scholars in England and the foremost Presbyterian 
 Puritan of his day. 
 
VI 
 
 William Shakespeare and 
 Puritan Influences 
 

 
 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND PURITAN 
 
 INFLUENCES 
 
 After two years of the Recusancy Act the 
 persecution of Puritans relaxed somewhat, and 
 cases of prosecution were transferred from the 
 jurisdiction of the spiritual courts to be dealt 
 with by the common law of the land in the 
 temporal courts. This was a great privilege, but 
 a still more valuable one was given in 1598, when 
 the Puritans were allowed to remove their causes 
 from local and Episcopal jurisdiction to West- 
 minster Hall. There was what seemed to be a 
 worldly wisdom in this toleration, for James of 
 Scotland, presumably a strong Presbyterian, was 
 acknowledged to be the successor of the aged 
 Elizabeth, and he had more than once interceded 
 
 on behalf of the persecuted Puritans. " From this 
 
 173 
 
1 74 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 time until the Queen's death there was a kind of 
 cessation of arms between the Church and the 
 Puritans; the combatants were out of breath, 
 or willing to wait for better times. Some 
 apprehended that the Puritans were vanquished, 
 and their numbers lessened by the severe execution 
 of the penal laws. But the true reason was this : 
 the Queen was advanced in years, and could not 
 live long in the course of nature, and the next 
 heir to the Crown being a Puritan (James VI. of 
 Scotland), the bishops were cautious of acting 
 against a party for whom His Majesty had 
 declared, not knowing what revenge he might 
 take when he was fixed on the throne ; and the 
 Puritans were quiet, in hopes of great matters to 
 be done for them upon the expected change." 
 
 The storm had passed over the land although 
 the clouds had not disappeared. In the sunshine 
 Prelatist and Puritan began once more to harry 
 the unfortunate Papist. With the passing of the 
 tempest renewed prosperity came into the life of 
 John Shakespeare, and the old man, now about 
 sixty-four years of age, entered upon the last stage 
 of life under circumstances which seemed to 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 175 
 
 promise rest and quietness. His own affairs were 
 prosperous enough, and in any case the rapidly 
 accumulating wealth of his son removed him from 
 any fear of change of fortune. In 1597 William 
 Shakespeare bought the house in New Place, and 
 engaged in numerous business transactions in the 
 neighbourhood of Stratford, and at the request 
 of a number of his friends invested some ^440 in 
 the purchase of the tithe leases of Stratford, 
 Bishopton, and Welcombe. In view of the oft- 
 asserted Roman Catholicism of the Shakespeares, 
 this purchase of the tithe leases is noteworthy. 
 Would a Papist have been allowed to invest his 
 money in this way? And if allowed by the 
 Prelatist and Puritan opponents, would the Roman 
 Catholic Church have held him guiltless in thus 
 trafficking in sacred things ? for in the eyes of 
 devoted Papists this was spoliation with a 
 vengeance. William Shakespeare may doubtless 
 be a great gain to their Church in Roman Catholic 
 eyes, but surely the heroism of Papists during the 
 long dark years of Elizabeth is something far 
 better and nobler. The Romish Church records 
 are full of splendid examples of heroism for 
 
176 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 conscience' sake during these truly awful times ; 
 hedges, byways, secret chambers, dungeons and 
 martyrdoms, bore witness to the devoted constancy 
 of members of the old Faith. But what can be 
 said of the claimed Roman Catholicism of the 
 Shakespeares ? It was a disgrace to the annals of 
 the Church of Rome, and it is a very wide charity 
 indeed which, after a knowledge of the undeniable 
 acts which they committed in antagonism to 
 Papistry, still claims to number them among the 
 Faithful. If John Shakespeare was a Roman 
 Catholic, he was a dishonest hypocrite of the 
 worst type, and one whom it is exceedingly 
 difficult to believe could have continued so long to 
 hold the affections of the Stratford people. In the 
 face of his official and private acts and undoubted 
 leadership among his fellow-townsmen, it is in- 
 comprehensible how anyone could dub him Papist. 
 It is only on the lines of Puritanism that his 
 career becomes intelligible and inspiring and all the 
 facts of his life seem to marshal themselves in proper 
 order, and show him to be a man of sterling 
 honesty and integrity, a sufferer for conscience' 
 sake, and one who would dare every risk of 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences i jj 
 
 imprisonment and death rather than be coerced 
 into what he considered ceremonialism and 
 dishonesty. 
 
 In 1596 John Shakespeare applied a second 
 time for a grant of arms, and is described as a 
 justice of peace, " and was Bayliffe Officer and 
 Cheffe of the town of Stratford uppo Avon xv 
 or xvj years past. That he hathe landes and 
 tenements, of good wealth and substance £500. 
 That he married a daughter and heyre of Arden 
 a gentleman of worship " ; and at the bottom of the 
 grant (Herald Off. MSS.) there is a note: "This 
 John sheweth a patent thereof under Clarence 
 Cook's hands in paper xx years past." 
 
 In 1596 Henry Shakespeare of Snitterfield died. 
 In the next year we have the last record of 
 transactions in land, when, as before stated, John 
 Shakespeare sold strips of his Henley Street 
 property to his neighbours, Willis and Badger, and 
 then all record of the father's life seemed to be 
 merged in the greater career of his son. 
 
 In 1 60 1 the end came, and from the town which 
 
 had seen so much of his happiness, activity, and 
 
 suffering the soul of John Shakespeare passed 
 12 
 
178 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 beyond the shadows into peace. He was buried on 
 September 8th, aged seventy, and about seven years 
 afterwards, almost to the very day, September 9th, 
 1608, was followed by his true love and gentle 
 consort Mary Arden, whom he had wooed and 
 won in the leafy lanes of Warwickshire beside the 
 sweet banks of the swiftly flowing Avon. 
 
 They have passed into that silent land where 
 the strifes and differences which separate men are 
 resolved into their true significance before the 
 throne of the God of Love, and where Puritan, 
 Prelatist, and Papist are no longer distinguishing 
 battle-cries; but we are compelled to ask in the 
 interests of historical truth questions as to the 
 principles which animated and controlled John 
 Shakespeare's life. From all we have adduced it 
 is manifest that he could have been no Roman 
 Catholic; his actions, associations, friends, offices, 
 public career, as recorded in the Town Records, all 
 negative the idea of his being of the old Faith, and 
 his persecutions equally show that he was no 
 Prelatist. What was he, then? What was that 
 man who first came to the front in the strongly 
 Protestant first years of Elizabeth; who super- 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 1 79 
 
 intended the alterations of the Town Chapel, 
 defacing images, destroying sacred pictures and 
 tearing down crosses and rood-lofts ; who as 
 chief magistrate was especially active in the 
 suppression of a Roman Catholic rising and the 
 persecution of Robert Perrot ; who with Adrian 
 Quiney cleared away the Romish vestments, and 
 with the same friend represented the interests of 
 Stratford when the Puritan Parliament of 1572 
 was assembling; who refused to participate in a 
 levy which had for its object the repression of 
 Puritans, allowing his name to be published as a 
 defaulter ; who trained his household in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord so excellently that 
 his son stands unrivalled in literature for his power 
 of biblical quotation ; who was the lifelong friend 
 of John Wheler, Thomas Barber, and Nicholas 
 Barneshurste, men identified with him in Puritan 
 movements and coupled with him in Puritan 
 Recusancy returns ? 
 
 What was the religion of the man whose business 
 capacities carried him into the front rank of his 
 townsmen when Puritanism was tolerated and 
 Roman Catholicism terribly persecuted, but whose 
 
1 80 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 career became a continual struggle when the iron 
 hand of intolerance was laid upon the Puritan ? 
 
 The stream of evidence runs consistently in one 
 direction and leads to one conclusion, and that is, 
 that John Shakespeare was one of those stalwart 
 Protestants who took their theology from the 
 school which produced a Calvin, a Knox, a 
 Tyndale, and a Cartwright, and was of those who 
 under the name of Puritan contributed to one of 
 the most glorious pages of England's history. 
 
 We turn now to a consideration of the influences 
 of the home life of William Shakespeare, in order 
 to trace if possible the secret of his powers as a 
 biblical student, and to seek indications of the 
 precise nature of the home in which he was 
 trained. 
 
 That his early surroundings were eminently 
 religious we cannot doubt. Shakespeare is the 
 poet of humanity because he strikes the deepest 
 notes of human nature, but he strikes them as a 
 man of intense religious feeling; he is above all a 
 teacher of true righteousness, and beneath the light 
 laughter of the Elizabethan poet there is always 
 the deep earnestness of the Hebrew prophet. 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 1 8 1 
 
 Biographers present divergent views according to 
 their own theories. Halliwell Phillipps writes : 
 11 The poet was educated under the Protestant 
 direction, or he would not have been educated at 
 all. But there is no doubt that John Shakespeare 
 nourished all the while a latent attachment to the 
 old religion, and although like most unconverted 
 conformists of ordinary discretion who were ex- 
 posed to the inquisitorial tactics of the authorities, 
 he may have attempted to conceal his views even 
 from the members of his own household, yet 
 however determinately he may have refrained from 
 giving them expression it generally happens in 
 such cases that a wave from the religious spirit of 
 a parent will imperceptibly reach the hearts of 
 the children and exercise more or less influence on 
 their perceptions." 
 
 Knight says : " With the great Bible before her, 
 the mother would read aloud to her little ones the 
 beautiful stories of the Bible." 
 
 "We believe that the education of William 
 Shakespeare was grounded upon the Book, and 
 that if this Book had been sealed to his childhood 
 he might have been the poet of Nature and of 
 
1 82 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 passion ; his humour might have been as rich as 
 we find it and his wit as pointed, but he would not 
 have been the poet of the most profound as well as 
 the most tolerant philosophy ; his insight into the 
 nature of man, his meanness and his grandeur, his 
 weakness and his strength, would not have been 
 what it is." 
 
 Once again quoting from Halliwell Phillipps : 
 " Fortunately for us the youthful dramatist had, 
 excepting in the schoolroom, little opportunity of 
 studying any but a grander volume, the Infinite 
 book of Nature, the pages of which were ready to 
 be unfolded to him in the lane and field, amongst 
 the copses of Snitterfield, by the side of the river 
 or of his uncle's hedgerows." It is true that the 
 Infinite book of Nature might have taught William 
 Shakespeare how to become an expert poacher or 
 deer-stealer, but it is difficult to perceive how it 
 would help him to quote ipsissima verba from Holy 
 Scripture without the aid of a grander volume. 
 
 From 1570 to 1572 Walter Roche was head- 
 master of Stratford School. He was followed, 1572 
 to 1577, by Thomas Hunt, afterwards deprived 
 curate of Luddington, who died in 161 2, four years 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 183 
 
 before his old pupil, but not before he had seen 
 him become one of the most prominent citizens of 
 the borough. He was appointed to the school in 
 1572, the year when Adrian Quiney was bailiff 
 and John Shakspeare was chief alderman, about 
 the time when the Romish vestments were cleared 
 away. He was suspended for open contumacy on 
 September 2nd, 1584. William Shakespeare was 
 under his care from the age of eight to that of thirteen. 
 
 In 1577 Thomas Jenkins was appointed, and 
 held office until 1580, when he was succeeded by 
 John Cotton ; hence in the most susceptible periods 
 of his childhood William Shakespeare was under 
 the tuition of two lifelong friends of his father, — 
 Walter Roche, appointed when the prosecution of 
 Robert Perrot had just been carried through by 
 John Shakespeare and the Papal Excommunication 
 had been launched against England, and Thomas 
 Hunt, curate of Luddington. Children usually 
 went to the Grammar School about six, or, at latest, 
 seven years of age. It seems certain that both at 
 home and at school William Shakespeare came 
 under strongly Puritan influences. 
 
 Which Bible would be put into his hands, from 
 
I S4 Shakespeare : Puritan and Recusant 
 
 the pages of which he would learn the words and 
 phrases afterwards used so freely by him in his 
 writings ? Was it the " Great Bible," as indicated 
 by Knight, or the Puritan Bible, as evidenced by 
 Mr. Halliwell Phillipps? for, despite the "Infinite 
 book of Nature," he does give Shakespeare the 
 Genevan Bible. The first complete Bible published 
 in England was that of Coverdale in 1535, but the 
 edition was disposed of with some difficulty. It 
 was followed by the Great Bible, or Cranmer's, in 
 1540; yet here again the prejudice against a 
 vernacular Bible was so great that a number of 
 injunctions and even penal laws were required to 
 force it into circulation. Henry VIII. issued a 
 proclamation regarding it, and the Vicar-General 
 ordered " that one book of the whole Bible of the 
 largest volume in English should be set up in some 
 convenient place within the churches, that the 
 parishioners might commodiously resort to the 
 same and read it." 
 
 In 1557 Whittinghame revised Tyndale's New 
 Testament, but it was not until 1560 that the book 
 which became in the widest sense the household 
 Bible of the nation was introduced from Geneva. 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 185 
 
 The Queen, after some changes, granted a seven 
 years' patent for printing it in England. It was 
 published in a handy quarto size, in Roman type 
 instead of black letter, and divided into chapter 
 and verse. Afterwards the Common Prayers and 
 Psalms were printed with it. 
 
 It had a wonderful circulation, and was eagerly 
 bought up in all the Puritan households throughout 
 the country ; chapmen hawked them, traders carried 
 them to and fro, and even in remote farmhouses and 
 solitary cottages the Word of God was earnestly 
 studied. Of eighty-five editions of the Bible 
 published during the reign of Elizabeth, no less 
 than sixty were of the Genevan Version. 
 
 In 1568 Archbishop Parker superintended the 
 production of what is known as the Bishops' Bible ; 
 it was intended to supersede the Genevan, and did 
 so in the public services of the Church, but it never 
 displaced the Genevan in private use, and " we find 
 that the Puritans who held so many livings in the 
 Church of England, often in defiance of all authority, 
 took their texts from the Breeches Bible." 
 
 In 1582 the New Testament was translated by 
 the Roman Catholics at Rheims. 
 
1 86 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recttsant 
 
 In 1609 what is known as the Douai Bible 
 was published from the English Roman Catholic 
 " College of Doway the Octaves of al Sainctes 
 1609." 
 
 William Shakespeare was a child of two years 
 when the Genevan Bible was published, of ten when 
 the Bishops' Bible was sent down, and a man of 
 over fifty when the Douai came from France. It 
 is difficult to see how a Roman Catholic English 
 version could in any way have contributed to the 
 wonderful biblical knowledge of the poet, or any 
 Bible, however great, which was not in the fullest 
 sense of the word a household Bible. 
 
 Roman Catholic piety has never been a piety 
 founded primarily upon the Word of God ; there 
 are certain distinguishing marks which always 
 differentiate the Papist from the Puritan ideals of 
 righteousness. Dante and Shakespeare may be 
 taken as examples of the different methods of 
 training. Shakespeare draws all his religion from 
 the Bible, Dante from the literature of Roman 
 Catholicism, such as books of devotion, the Fathers, 
 and traditionary sources. Free thinker though 
 he was in many ways, and shaken loose from many 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 1 87 
 
 of the binding superstitions of his day, Dante never 
 released himself from his earliest training. His great 
 poem from first to last breathes the life of Mediaeval 
 Catholicism, and from it the theology, fancies, 
 theories, and beliefs of the Romish Church might 
 be built up into a system, even though every other 
 manual were destroyed. Despite his criticism of 
 some of the popes, Dante was never placed in the 
 list of proscribed authors, and, to quote the words of 
 a Roman Catholic writer, " the Divina Commedia 
 remains substantially a magnificent exposition of 
 the Catholic faith, and has thus been studied and 
 extolled by theologians and popes." 
 
 In order to illustrate the point more fully, the 
 words of Father Bowden of the Oratory, in his 
 preface to Dr. Franz Hettinger's Divina Commedia 
 (Burns & Oates, 1887), may be quoted : "Though 
 the poet knows no guide but the Church and her 
 teachers, he by no means disparages reason. The 
 idea in its development embraces the whole circle 
 of Catholic theology. In politics, philosophy, and 
 theology, Dante is essentially Catholic and 
 orthodox." 
 
 " The structure of Heaven is determined by the 
 
 
1 88 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 nine orders of angels, as described by the Fathers 
 and Schoolmen. From Holy Scripture, from the- 
 ology, from the revelations of the Saints, Dante 
 thus drew his most precious materials, and con- 
 stantly e7nploys the Church y s liturgy and office as their 
 most fitting expression? This last phrase as under- 
 lined exactly illustrates the point of difference 
 between the Papist and the Puritan, between Dante 
 and Shakespeare. When the well-trained Roman 
 Catholic desired to illustrate or intensify his 
 meaning, the words of the Church's liturgy and 
 office immediately presented themselves as the 
 fittest vehicle of expression. When the Puritan 
 desired the same result, instinctively and with like 
 readiness the words of the Bible sprang up in his 
 mind. In both Dante and Shakespeare we have 
 the result of a systematic and careful training in 
 earliest youth, the one on strictly Roman Catholic 
 lines and the other on strictly Puritan. Whatever 
 Shakespeare may have been in his manhood, there 
 can be no doubt as to the careful religious and 
 Puritan training of his childhood, and it is in- 
 structive to note that he never entirely broke away 
 from Puritan surroundings and influences. His 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Infltiences 1 89 
 
 father's friends became his associates and kins- 
 men, — the Whelers, Quineys, Sadlers, Barbers and 
 Sturleys. With his house in New Place a pew was 
 appropriated to him in the Chapel, and the famous 
 Dr. Byfield and his no less famous sons became 
 his minister and friends. Richard Byfield was 
 minister of Stratford in 1596, and Nicholas Byfield, 
 the well-known Puritan commentator, and Adoni- 
 ram Byfield, the fighting Chaplain of the Parlia- 
 mentary Army and one of the secretaries of the 
 Westminster Assembly of Divines, were young men 
 of Stratford. 
 
 When ministers came to visit or relieve Dr. 
 Byfield, hospitality was offered them at New Place, 
 and they made their temporary home with William 
 Shakespeare. It was something to entertain a 
 minister of the Gospel in those days ; and one can 
 imagine the astonishment of the worthy Dr. Byfield 
 and his fanatical kinsmen if they had been told 
 that they were sending their ministerial friends to 
 a Roman Catholic household. The Puritans of the 
 days of Elizabeth had not the abhorrence of the 
 stage which the corruptions of Charles Il.'s reign 
 called forth, and they could quarter a minister of the 
 
190 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 Gospel in the house of an actor and dramatist with 
 a good conscience, but they drew the line at a 
 Papist's. 
 
 Again, the favourite daughter of Shakespeare 
 was married to Mr. John Hall, M.A., a medical man, 
 who was perhaps as well known for his religion as 
 for his medicine. 
 
 Led astray by a sentence in the preface of a 
 book by a certain James Cooke, some supporters of 
 the Roman Catholic theory have made John Hall 
 a Papist ; the phrase is, " nay such as hated him for 
 his religion often made use of him. ,, It occurs in 
 a book entitled " Select observations on English 
 bodies, first written in Latine by Mr. John Hall, 
 Physician, living at Stratford upon Avon in 
 Warwickshire where he was very famous. Now 
 put into English for common benefit by James 
 Cooke 1657." 
 
 " The learned author " says James Cooke, " lived 
 in our time in great fame for his skill far and near. 
 Those who seemed highly to esteem him and whom 
 by God's blessing he wrought these cures upon, 
 you shall find to be among others, persons noble, 
 rich and learned. And this I take to be a great 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 1 9 1 
 
 signe of his ability that such who spare not for 
 cost, and they who have more than ordinary under- 
 standing, nay such as hated him for his religion 
 often made use of him." 
 
 He was employed by the Northumberland 
 family, the Warwicks, Leycesters, Comptons, 
 Northamptons, and several of the High Church 
 and Roman Catholic aristocracy ; he was the friend 
 and associate of the well-known Puritan divines 
 John Trapp and Thomas Wilson, and when the 
 latter was vicar of Stratford, John Hall was made 
 churchwarden in 1628 and sidesman in the next 
 year. The vicar and his Puritan associates dis- 
 cussed religious affairs at New Place, and the 
 Vicarial Courts were occasionally held there. 
 When Rev. Thomas Wilson was accused of holding 
 conventicles, John Hall was one of his most vigorous 
 supporters. A thanksgiving prayer after a severe 
 illness is well worth recording as an indication of 
 the piety of the man to whom William Shakespeare 
 intrusted his favourite daughter Susannah as wife. 
 
 "Thou, O Lord, which hast the power of life and 
 death and drawest from the gates of death, I con- 
 fesse without any art or counsell of man but only 
 
192 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 from Thy goodnesse and clemency Thou hast saved 
 me from the bitter and deadly symptoms of a 
 deadly fever, beyond the expectation of all about 
 me, restoring me as it were from the very jaws of 
 death to former health, for which I praise Thy 
 name, O most Merciful God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, praying Thee to give me a most 
 thankfull heart for this great favour, for which I 
 have cause to admire Thee." 
 
 Susannah Hall, as her epitaph testified, was also 
 noted for her piety. William Shakespeare at New 
 Place was thus in a deeply religious atmosphere, 
 and those who were nearest to him and dwellers 
 under his own roof were conspicuous for their 
 devotion to Puritan worship. It is not likely that 
 a Roman Catholic in Elizabeth's day would re- 
 ceive Puritan ministers into his house, attend the 
 ministry of a Puritan like Dr. Byfield, and marry 
 his daughter to John Hall. It may be urged that 
 Shakespeare was a man of wide charity and 
 marvellous intellectual outlook, and possibly so 
 great in his sympathies that he could see the good 
 points and enjoy the fellowship of Puritans, even 
 although he himself belonged to the persecuted 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 19 
 
 1 
 
 Church of Rome, but the same could not be urged 
 in favour of Hall, Trapp, Byfield, and Wilson, for 
 it would be a miracle of toleration to find them 
 seeking the friendship of Papists. However easy 
 it might have been for Shakespeare, it would have 
 been impossible for them. 
 
 Again, the wording of Shakespeare's will is worth 
 a little notice, for there was a Puritan and a Papist 
 method of phrasing a will, and many men took the 
 opportunity of declaring their faith in this manner. 
 Humphrey Fenn of Coventry and numerous sufferers 
 for conscience' sake did so. Robert Arden's will, 
 made in the reign of Philip and Mary, runs: "Fyrste 
 I bequethe my solle to Allmightie God and to our 
 blesside Ladye Sent Marye and to all the holye 
 companye of heven." 
 
 A Puritan's will usually began as Shakespeare's 
 
 did: " First, I commend my soule unto the handes 
 
 of God my Creator, hoping and assuredlie believing 
 
 that through thonelie merits of Jesus Christe my 
 
 Saviour to be made partaker of lyfe everlasting." 
 
 The internal evidences of Shakespeare's works 
 
 as pointing to his Protestantism form a separate 
 
 field, but it is not out of place to mention one or 
 13 
 
194 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 two facts which seem to bear upon his Puritanism : 
 his eulogies of Henry of Navarre, the Huguenot 
 leader : his use of a very well-known Puritan book 
 published in 1603, Harsnett's Declaration of 
 egregious Popish Impostures, from which he has 
 collected most of the names and allusions he puts 
 into the mouths of Lear and Edgar respecting 
 the demons of the earth and storm : and a 
 passage from the Taming of the Shrew, Act 
 iii. sc. 1, 60-80: — 
 
 " Hortensio — Madam, before you touch the instrument, 
 To learn the order of my fingering, 
 I must begin with rudiments of art ; 
 To teach you gamut in a briefer sort, 
 More pleasant, pithy, and effectual, 
 Than hath been taught by any of my trade : 
 And there it is in writing fairly drawn." 
 
 And then follows, Ut, Re, Mi, fa, Sol, la, etc. 
 
 The sense of this passage is taken almost literally 
 from the page which prefaces the Psalms in the 
 Genevan Bible and Prayer Book, where Sternhold 
 and Hopkins give their setting of some of Marot's 
 ballad tunes. 
 
 " Thou shalt understand, gentle Reader, that I 
 have (for the helpe of those that are desirous to 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 195 
 
 learn to sing) caused a new print of note to be 
 made with letters to be joyned to everye note : 
 whereby thou maiest know how to call everie 
 note by his right name, so that with a verie little 
 diligence thou mayest the more easilie by the 
 viewing of these letters, come to the knowledge 
 of perfect solfaying whereby thou mayest sing the 
 Psalms more easilee and readily. The letters be 
 these, Ut, Re, My, fa, Sol, la." 
 
 Concerning the question of the version of the 
 Bible used by Shakespeare, the question can only 
 be positively settled by a careful comparison of the 
 earliest folios with the various Bibles, so that the 
 exact quotations may be identified and localised. 
 This is a task calling for much patient research and 
 careful study, which would amply repay any earnest 
 investigator. So far as we have been able to follow 
 in this direction, we have, under the guidance of a 
 booklet by Halliwell Phillipps, found enough to 
 justify us in saying that our views concerning the 
 Puritan upbringing of the poet receive rather 
 striking corroboration. Many of the passages 
 quoted by Shakespeare are found only in the 
 Genevan Version, and cannot be traced in any 
 
196 Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant 
 
 other Bible, — for instance, the well-known text in 
 Jeremiah xiii. 23, "Can the Ethiopian change his 
 skin or the leopard his spots? " Shakespeare says : 
 
 " Lions make leopards tame ; 
 Yea, but not change their spots ; " 
 
 evidently based upon the text. Coverdale, 
 Matthew, the Bishops', the Great Bible, as well as 
 Cranmer's, render the passage, " Can the Man of 
 Inde change his skin and the cat of the mountayne 
 her spottes ? " 
 
 The Genevan is the only version which 
 speaks of the animal as the leopard : " Can the 
 blacke moor change his skin, or the leopard his 
 spots ? " 
 
 In Henry IV., Part I., Shakespeare says, 
 referring to the Prodigal in Luke xv. 16, "from 
 eating draff and huskes." 
 
 The word " huskes " is not found in Coverdale, 
 Matthew's, Cranmer's, the Bishops', nor the Great 
 Bible, but in the Genevan the passage runs : " And he 
 would fain have filled his belly with the husks the 
 swine ate." 
 
 Shakespeare, with the Genevan, writes ( Tscariot" ; 
 the other versions have " Iscarioth." 
 
Shakespeare and Puritan Influences 197 
 
 In the Merchant of Venice the strategy of the 
 patriarch Jacob is instanced in the passage : — 
 
 "That all the earlings which were streaked and pied 
 Should fall to Jacob's share, 
 The skilful shepherd peeled me certain wands, 
 And stuck them up before the fulsome ewes, 
 Who when conceiving, did in eaning time 
 Fall parti-coloured lambs." 
 
 The words used by the versions is " ring- 
 straked"; the Genevan alone uses the term parti- 
 coloured : " They brought forth yong of particolor 
 and with great and small spots." 
 
 Many other instances are quoted and compared 
 by Mr. Phillipps in his little book, The Version 
 Shakespeare used^ and in the preface he writes 
 the following important opinions, especially in- 
 teresting to us in the light of the Puritanism which 
 we have endeavoured to show is undoubtedly in 
 the public acts of John Shakespeare, and perhaps 
 entitled to more weight because the writer of 
 them seemed to favour the theory of the Roman 
 Catholicism of the Shakespeares. 
 
 11 The contents of the following pages will it is 
 thought tend to the impression that the Version of 
 
198 Shakespeare: Pztr it an and Recusant 
 
 the Bible usually read by Shakespeare was that 
 known as the Genevan. That Version first ap- 
 peared in the year 1560, and was the one chiefly 
 read in family circles during the youth of the great 
 dramatist." 
 
Appendices 
 
 A.— ON SHAKESPEARE'S BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE 1 
 
 Mr. F. J. FURNIVALL, summarising from Bishop Words- 
 worth, says : — 
 
 " No Book is so often quoted or alluded to by Shakspere 
 as the Bible. Not only does he mention ' Holy Writ' four 
 times, ' Scripture' three times, 'the Word' three times, 
 'the Book of Life' once, 'the Book' nine times, and 'it is 
 written ' once ; not only does he quote Bible passages in his 
 plays ; not only has he references to Pilate washing his 
 hands, to ' sacrificing Abel's blood,' to the Psalmist, to 
 the Prodigal Son, to Jacob grazing his Uncle Laban's 
 sheep, to ' Lazarus and Dives that lived in purple,' and to 
 Abraham's bosom ; not only does he mention Adam 
 twenty-two times, Eve six times, Cain six times, 
 Abel, Noah, and Job twice, Christ nine times, Jesus 
 sixteen times ; but he accepts, or makes his characters 
 accept, the whole 'scheme of salvation' set forth in the 
 Jewish and Christian Testaments, and the stories of the 
 Apocrypha too. 'From the Creation to the general Doom' 
 Shakspere, dramatically at least, takes the Bible's word as 
 to the beginning, the life, and the end of the heavens, the 
 earth, and man. He has angels good and bad, Satan and 
 
 1 Ete page 37. 
 199 
 
200 Appendices 
 
 the devils ; Paradise and the state of innocency, with Adam 
 digging his garden, the serpent tempting Eve, the fall of 
 man, the curse of the Serpent, Abel's murder by Cain, 
 Noah's flood, Job's poverty, Jacob's staff, Pharaoh's dreams, 
 the plagues of Egypt, the manna in the wilderness, a law 
 from the Book of Numbers, the sword of Deborah, Jephtha's 
 love for his daughter, Samson's temptation and carrying 
 away of the town gates, Goliath, Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel. 
 
 " From the New Testament, Shakespeare gives us the 
 slaughter of the Innocents, the Gadarene swine, the Last 
 Supper, Judas's kissing and betrayal, Pilate's washing his 
 hands and delivering Christ to be crucified, the robber 
 Barabbas, Christ's words on the Cross, ' they know not what 
 they do,' the field of Golgotha, and the sepulchre of the 
 Lord. In the speeches of certain of the characters the whole 
 ' scheme of salvation ' is unhesitatingly accepted. Paradise 
 and the Fall, the doctrine of Original Sin, Miracles, the need 
 of the sacrifice of Christ's life to work the atonement between 
 God and man, 'to free us from His Father's wrathful curse'; 
 the Resurrection and the Judgment, the Hell, the Heaven, 
 etc. ; Immortality of the Just, the efficacy of prayer." 
 
 #.-ON WRITS OF DISTRAINT 1 
 
 Procedure by "Distringas" was one of the commonest 
 methods in the monthly Court of Record, and nearly every 
 business man in Stratford had been proceeded against in 
 this way. It carries no weight in deciding for or against 
 a man's financial position. Writs of distraint were as 
 common as business greetings even among well-tried friends. 
 We cite a few instances from the Court Records : — 
 May 6M, 1558. 
 
 "Adrianus Quyny et Thomas Knyght petunt distringas 
 versus Johannem Shakspeyr in placito debiti." 
 
 1 See page 32. 
 
Appendices 201 
 
 June yh, 1558. 
 
 " Willielmus Malpas ad hunc diem petit distringas 
 versus Johannem Shakespere in placito debiti pro 
 
 VIIJS. 
 
 June gt/i, 1585. 
 
 " Fiat distringas versus Thomam Lytleton." 
 A month after this — 
 
 "W. Parsons v. Thomas Lytleton — actio continuatur." 
 June 20th) 1588. 
 
 "Johannes Shaxpere queritur versus Johannem Tomson 
 in placito debiti." 
 April 1589. 
 
 " Johannes Shakespere queritur versus Willielmum 
 Grene de placito debiti." 
 October 22nd, 1589. 
 "Johannes Shaxpere queritur versus Ricardum Sutton 
 in placito debiti." 
 November yh, 1589. 
 
 " Fiat distringas versus Johannem Tomson ad sectam 
 
 Johannis Shaxpere in placito debiti." 
 11 Fiat distringas versus Ricardum Sutton ad sectam 
 Johannis Shaxpere in placito debiti." 
 October 26///, 1586. 
 
 "Johannes Hathawaie queritur versus Thomam Hatha- 
 
 waie in placito debiti : distringas." 
 On February 1st, 1587, three months after the writ is 
 issued, 
 
 " Johannes Hatheway et Thomas Hatheway concor- 
 
 date sunt." 
 The 1586 distraint issued against John Shakespeare was 
 led up to in the following way : — 
 
 On October 27th, 1585, John Brown takes action. 
 " Item, Johannes [Browne] queritur versus Johannem 
 Shakesper defendentem de placito debiti " 
 
202 Appendices 
 
 The case was a disputed one. In November a writ was 
 applied for and obtained. 
 
 November lot/i, 1585. 
 
 " Fiat distringas versus Johannem Shaxpeare." 
 
 Fourteen days later a second writ was applied for. 
 November 24M, 1585. 
 
 " Fiat alias distringas versus Johannem Shaxpere ad 
 sectam Johannis Browne in placito debiti." 
 
 Why was this second writ needed? On January 19th 
 the sheriff's officers returned the writ of distraint " because 
 the aforesaid John Shakespere has nothing that can be dis- 
 trained upon, therefore an order of capias may be made 
 against the same John Shakespere." 
 
 January \g//i y 28 Eliz, 1586. 
 
 "Ad hunc diem servientes ad clavam burgi predicti 
 retornavit preceptum de distringas eis directum versus 
 Johannem Shackspere ad sectam Johannis Browne, 
 quod predictus Johannes Shackspere nihil habet unde 
 distringere potest. Ideo fiat capias versus eundem 
 Johannem Shackspere ad sectam predicti Johannis 
 Browne, si petatur." 
 
 February i6th, 1586. 
 
 " Fiat capias versus Johannem Shaxspere ad sectam 
 Johannis Browne in placito debiti." 
 
 This " capias " seems to be the next step in this disputed 
 case, for Shakespeare seems somehow or other to have 
 evaded the operations of the writs of distraint ; because he 
 is a penniless man, say the poverty theorists, having no 
 property he could not be distrained upon. But he had 
 landed property, as the Exchequer Returns show. 
 
 However, a " fiat capias " was granted, but he somehow 
 managed to evade its operations, and on March 2nd, 1586, 
 another " capias " was applied for. 
 
Appendices 20 
 
 «? 
 
 " Fiat alias capias versus Johannem Shaxspere ad sectam 
 Johannis Browne in placito debiti." 
 
 After this there is no further record either of "concordate 
 sunt" or of drawing a pen through the name, as in the case 
 of the Quiney writ of 1558 for £6, but the case was pro- 
 bably settled in due form, for three months afterwards, July 
 20th, 1586, John Shakespeare was summoned and served 
 as a juryman in an important case. 
 
 C— ON NICHOLAS LANE'S ACTION 1 
 
 Stratford Court of Record, 
 January \Zth % 29 Eliz. 1587. 
 
 "Johannes Shaxpere attachiatus fuit per servientes ad 
 clavam ibidem ad respondendum Nicolas Lane in 
 placito transgressionis super casum." 
 February 29///, 1587. 
 
 " Nicolaus Lane narrat versus Johannem Shaxpere in 
 placito transgressionis super casum, et defendens, 
 licentia loquendi (?)." 
 March \st y 29 Eliz. 1587. 
 
 11 Johannes Shakesper per Willielmum Courte venit &c. 
 et dicit quod non assumpsit prefato Nicolas Lane, 
 modo et forma prout predictus Nicholaus eum narrat." 
 March 29M, 1587. 
 
 11 Johannes Shakesper protulit breve domine Regine de 
 
 habeas corpus cum causa coram domina Regina. 
 " Mercurio proximo post xviij Pasce." 
 
 1 See page 129. 
 
Index 
 
 + — 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Anathema of Rome 62, 63 
 
 Arden, Agnes 95 
 
 Arden, Mary . . . . 15, 33, 36, 95, 177, 178, 181 
 
 Arden, Robert 16, 93, 1 01, 193 
 
 Arguments based on chamberlain's accounts . 26, 28, 35 
 
 Bible (Douai) 
 
 Bible (Genevan) 184 
 
 Bible Versions .... 
 
 Biblical quotation . . . . 36 et seq. an< 
 
 Biblical reference in Taming of the Shrew 
 
 Bonner's Inquisition .... 
 
 Book by John Hall .... 
 
 Byfields, The ..... 
 
 Calf-killing legend .... 
 
 Carlyle on Shakespeare 
 
 Cartwright, Thomas . . . 22, 1 
 
 Chamberlain's accounts 
 
 Close of John Shakespeare's civic career 
 
 Collections for the poor 
 
 Council enactments (attendance) . 
 
 Coventry Puritans .... 
 
 12, 1 
 
 Dante and Shakespeare 
 Death of Agnes Arden 
 Death of Henry Shakespeare 
 Death of John Shakespeare . 
 Death of Robert Arden 
 
 39, 186 
 194 et seq. 
 
 . 184 
 Appendix 
 
 . 194 
 
 • 17 
 
 . 190 
 
 189, 192 
 
 • 17 
 . 14 
 
 4, 168, 180 
 
 25, 28 
 
 . 125 
 
 46 
 
 19, 58 
 21 
 
 . 186 
 
 • 95 
 . 128 
 
 . 176 
 
 . 16 
 
 205 
 
206 
 
 Index 
 
 Death of Udall 
 Debtors' Prison 
 Deer destruction . 
 Demolition of Popish symbols 
 Distraint writs 
 Douai Bible .... 
 Dugdale's Record of Old Chapel 
 Duplicity of the Lambarts . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 157 
 . 129 
 
 . I38 
 
 . 26, 27, 28 
 
 29, 31, 124, and Appendix 
 
 39, 186 
 26 
 
 • • • • — ■ \j 
 
 . 103 
 65,85,119 
 
 Elizabeth and Puritanism .... 
 Enactments to compel uniformity, 
 
 52, 54, 76, 84, 87, 119, 122, 152, 161, 174 
 Enthusiasm for Elizabeth . . . . 64, 112, 150 
 
 Excommunication of Elizabeth 
 
 Froude on Cartwright 
 
 Froude on Whitgift .... 
 
 Genevan Bible 
 
 Gossip concerning William Shakespeare 
 
 Hall, John 
 
 Halliwell Phillipps . 30, 33, 97, 114, 1 
 
 Harsnett's Popish Impostures 
 How property was protected 
 
 Lane's prosecution 
 
 Lansdowne MSS. . 
 
 Lease by Agnes Arden 
 
 Local reference in Taming of the Shrew 
 
 Lucy and Malone . 
 
 Lucy and Shakespeare 
 
 Lucy, Sir Thomas 
 
 Malone mistaken 
 Malone on Lucy . 
 Malone on Puritanism 
 Mary Arden . 
 Mary of Scotland . 
 Marprelate Tracts. 
 
 Northumberland rising 
 Oath "officio mero" . 
 
 61, 62 
 
 . 168 
 . 87 
 
 184, 194 ft seq. 
 . 136 
 
 . 1 90 et seq. 
 67, 181, 182, 197 
 . 194 
 95, 97 et seq. 
 
 129 
 
 95 
 
 95 
 107 
 
 144 
 
 137, 145 
 66, 116, 136, 140, 145, 161 
 
 . 144 
 
 144 
 
 141 
 
 i5> 33, 36,95, 177, 178, 181 
 
 55, 140 
 . . . .1 58 
 
 54 
 120 
 
Index 
 
 207 
 
 TAGE 
 
 Perrot, Robert 19, 56, 60, 73 
 
 Phillipps, Halliwell, quotations from, 
 
 3o 5 33, 97, 114, 167, 181, 182, 197 
 Pope insults Elizabeth . . . . . 20, 61 
 
 Popish Impostures . . . . . . .194 
 
 Poverty theory of John Shakespeare's life, 
 
 29, 90, 98 et seq., 129 
 
 Prayer by John Hall 190 
 
 Properties in Wilmcote and Snitterfield 16,95,97^/^. 
 Property in Henley Street . . . . 1 5, 78, 1 59 
 
 Property of John Shakespeare, 
 
 16, 93, 78, 90, 97 et scq., 159, 160, 177 
 
 Prosecution by Nicholas Lane 129 
 
 . 95, 97 et seq. 
 espeare . 175, 189 
 
 21 
 . 66, 140 et scq. 
 
 Protection of property . 
 Puritan influences upon William Shak 
 Puritan zeal in Coventry 
 Puritanism (alleged) of Lucy 
 Puritanism of John Shakespeare — 
 
 Bible training at home 
 
 Ministers and schoolmasters 
 
 Prosecution of Perrot 
 
 Protection of estates . 
 
 Puritan Parliament of 1572 
 
 Recusancy Return 
 
 Refusal to attend Council . 
 
 Refusal to pay levy . 
 
 Remarks on proofs of Puritanism, 
 
 71, 72, 88, 115, 128, 167, 175, 178 et seq. 
 
 Sale of vestments 70 
 
 School and Chapel alterations . . . 26 et seq. 
 Puritanism of Spenser, Milton, and Bunyan . 85, 79 
 
 Puritans in prison . . . . . . 155 
 
 Puritans in Warwickshire 22, 59, 69, 112, 116, 137, 157, 162, 
 
 169, 179, 183, 189, 192 
 
 38, 45, 186 
 
 78, 182, 189, 191 
 
 . 19 et seq. 
 
 . 96, 1 01 et seq. 
 
 68 
 
 . 162 
 
 . 127 
 
 . 114 
 
 Recusancy Return 
 Reformer of Elizabethan days 
 Relics burned 
 
 Rising in Northumberland . 
 Rome and the Bible 
 Rood-loft destroyed 
 
 . 162 
 
 . 89 
 
 21 
 
 • 54 
 38-45, 54, 186 
 
 . 28 
 
 Sadler's journey to London 
 Schoolmasters of William Shakespeare 
 Shakespeare, Henry .... 
 
 . 147 
 
 78, 182, 183 
 
 128, 129, 177 
 
208 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Shakespeare, John — 
 
 Close of civic career 125 
 
 His appointments . 17, 25, 31, 47, 55, 68, 73, 125 
 
 His character . . .27, 45, 57, 71, 72, 88, 176 
 
 His death 176 
 
 His difficulty with Lane 129 
 
 His political activity ... ... 68 
 
 His possessions. (See Property.) 
 His religion. (See Puritanism.) 
 
 His trade 16 
 
 Remarks on his life, 
 
 71, 72, 88, 115, 128, 167, 175, 178 et seq. 
 
 Shakespeare, Mary 
 
 Shakespeare, William- 
 Associates . 
 Bible knowledge . 
 Education . 
 Puritan influences 
 Quarrel with Lucy 
 Schoolmasters 
 Wealth 
 
 Stratford accounts 
 
 Stratford appointments . 
 
 Stratford incorporated . 
 
 Stratford opinion . 
 
 Spanish Armada . 
 
 Spenser 
 
 Test Articles of Whitgift 
 
 15, 33> 3^,95) *77, 178, 181 
 
 189 
 
 38, 45, 181, 186 et seq., 195 
 33, 181, 186 
 175, 189 
 137, 145 
 78, 182, 183 
 . 160 
 25, 28, 46 
 17, 25, 31,47, 55,68, 73, 125 
 
 13 
 
 34,35 
 150 
 
 85,79 
 
 119 
 157 
 
 Udall's death 
 Uniformity enactments, 
 
 52, 54, 76, 84, S7, 119, 122, 152, 161, 174 
 
 Writs of distraint 
 
 29, 31, 124, and Appendix 
 
FAMOUS 
 •SCOTS* 
 •SERIES- 
 
 TV/TESSRS. OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER 
 have much pleasure in announcing the arrange- 
 ments they have made for the continuation of this 
 Series. 
 
 The very favourable reception given to the early 
 volumes, not only at home but in America and the 
 Colonies, has encouraged them to take advantage of 
 valuable suggestions made by friends who have expressed 
 a warm interest in their scheme, and as a result they 
 have decided to considerably widen its scope. With 
 help that has been promised to the Editors, they foresee 
 the possibility of a series of most valuable volumes on 
 Scots who have made their mark not only on the 
 Literature, Religion, Science, and Art of the country, 
 but who have been famous in Politics, Arms, Commerce, 
 and Social Life. 
 
 Variety of interest and freshness of presentation, along 
 with accuracy and finish of detail, will be carefully 
 studied, so that these little books may form a library 
 in which the History of their Country will be available 
 for the Scottish people, glowing with the personal 
 interest which gathers round the biographies of those 
 who have made that history. 
 
 Post 8vo, antique laid paper, art canvas binding, 
 is. 6d. per Volume. 
 Extra gilt binding, gilt top, uncut, 2s. 6d. per Volume. 
 Any three is. 6d. Volumes in Case, 5s. 
 Any seven is. 6d. Volumes in Case, 10s. 6d. 
 
FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES 
 
 The following Volumes are now ready — 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
 HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask 
 JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. 
 ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. 
 THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. 
 RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie. 
 JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask. 
 TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton. 
 FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond. 
 THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas. 
 NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood. 
 SIR Wx\LTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury. 
 
 The following Volumes are in preparation — 
 
 KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louisa Barbe. 
 
 ADAM SMITH. By Hector C. Macpherson. 
 
 MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan. 
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN. By Robert Wallace, M.P. 
 
 JEFFREY AND THE EDINBURGH REVIEWERS. By 
 Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid. 
 
 ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. By William Bayne. 
 
 DAVID HUME. By Professor Calderwood. 
 
 THOMAS REID. By Professor Campbell Fraser. 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE 
 "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES. 
 
 Of THOMAS CARLYLE, by H. C. Macpherson, the 
 British Weekly says : — 
 
 "We congratulate the publishers on the in every way attractive 
 appearance of the first volume of their new series. The typography 
 is everything that could be wished, and the binding is most tasteful. 
 . . . We heartily congratulate author and publishers on the happy 
 commencement of this admirable enterprise." 
 
 The Literary World says : — 
 
 "One of the very best little books on Carlyle yet written, far out- 
 weighing in value some more pretentious works with which we are 
 familiar." 
 
 The Scotsman says : — 
 
 "As an estimate of the Carlylean philosophy, and of Carlyle's place 
 in literature and his influence in the domains of morals, politics, and 
 social ethics, the volume reveals not only care and fairness, but insight 
 and a large capacity for original thought and judgment." 
 
 The Glasgow Daily Record says : — 
 
 " Is distinctly creditable to the publishers, and worthy of a national 
 series such as they have projected." 
 
 The Educational News says : — 
 
 11 The book is written in an able, masterly, and painstaking manner." 
 
 Of ALLAN RAMSAY, by Oliphant Smeaton, the 
 Scotsman says : — 
 
 11 It is not a patchwork picture, but one in which the writer, taking 
 genuine interest in his subject, and bestowing conscientious pains on 
 his task, has his materials well in hand, and has used them to produce 
 a portrait that is both lifelike and well balanced." 
 
 The Peoples Friend says : — 
 
 " Presents a very interesting sketch of the life of the poet, as well as 
 a well-b danced estimate and review of his woiks." 
 
 The Edinburgh Dispatch says : — 
 
 11 The author has shown scholarship and much enthusiasm in his task." 
 
 The Daily Record says : — 
 
 " The kindly, vain, and pompous little wig-maker lives for us in Mr. 
 Smeaton's pages." 
 
 The Glasgow Herald says : — 
 
 " A careful and intelligent study." 
 
 Of HUGH MILLER, by W. Keith Leask, the 
 
 Expository Times says : — 
 
 " It is a right good book and a right true biography. . . . There is 
 a very fine sense of Hugh Miller's greatness as a man and a Scots- 
 man ; there is also a fine choice of language in making it ours." 
 
 The Bookseller says : — 
 
 " Mr. Leask gives the reader a clear impression of the simplicity, and 
 yet the greatness, of his hero, and the broad result of his life's work 
 is very plainly and carefully set forth. A short appreciation of his 
 scientific labours, from the competent pen of Sir Archibald Geikie, 
 and a useful bibliography of his works, complete a volume which is 
 well worth reading for its own sake, and which forms a worthy instal- 
 ment in an admirable series." 
 
 The Daily News says : — 
 
 " Leaves on us a very vivid impression." 
 
Press Opinions on il Famous Scots" Series— cohL 
 
 Of JOHN KNOX, by A. Taylor Innes, Mr. Hay 
 Fleming, in the Bookman, says : — 
 
 11 A masterly delineation of those stirring times in Scotland, and of 
 that famous Scot who helped so much to shape them." 
 
 The Freeman says : — 
 
 "It is a concise, well written, and admirable narrative of the great 
 Reformer's life, and in its estimate of his character and work it is 
 calm, dispassionate, and well balanced. . . . It is a welcome addition 
 to our Knox literature." 
 
 The Speaker says : — 
 
 11 There is vision in this book, as well as knowledge." 
 
 The Sunday School Chronicle says : — 
 
 44 Everybody who is acquainted with Mr. Taylor Innes's exquisite 
 lecture on Samuel Rutherford will feel instinctively that he is just the 
 man to do justice to the great Reformer, who is more to Scotland 
 4 than any million of unblameable Scotsmen who need no forgiveness.' 
 His literary skill, his thorough acquaintance with Scottish ecclesiasti- 
 cal life, his religious insight, his chastened enthusiasm, have enabled 
 the author to produce an excellent piece of work. ... It is a noble 
 and inspiring theme, and Mr. Taylor Innes has handled it to per- 
 fection." 
 
 Of ROBERT BURNS, by Gabriel Setoun, the 
 New Age says : — 
 
 44 It is the best thing on Burns we have yet had, almost as good as 
 Carlyle's Essay and the pamphlet published by Dr. Nichol of 
 Glasgow." 
 
 The Methodist Times says : — 
 
 44 We are inclined to regard it as the very best that has yet been pro- 
 duced. There is a proper perspective, and Mr. Setoun does neither 
 praise nor blame too copiously. ... A difficult bit of work has been 
 well done, and with fine literary and ethical discrimination." 
 
 Youth says : — 
 
 44 It is written with knowledge, judgment, and skill. . . . The 
 author's estimate of the moral character of Burns is temperate anjl 
 discriminating ; he sees and states his evil qualities, and beside these 
 he places his good ones in their fulness, depth, and splendour. The 
 exposition of the special features marking the genius of the poet is 
 able and penetrating. 
 
 Of THE BALLAD ISTS, by John Geddie, the 
 Birmingham Daily Gazette says : — 
 
 44 As a popular sketch of an intensely popular theme, Mr. Geddie's 
 contribution to the 4 Famous Scots Series ' is most excellent." 
 
 The Publishers^ Circular says : — 
 
 44 It may be predicted that lovers of romantic literature will re-peruse 
 the old ballads with a quickened zest after reading Mr. Geddie's book. 
 We have not had a more welcome little volume for many a day." 
 
 The New Age says : — 
 
 44 One of the most delightful and eloquent appreciations of the ballad 
 literature of Scotland that has ever seen the light." 
 
 The Spectator says : — 
 
 44 The author has certainly made a contribution of remarkable value 
 to the literary history of Scotland. We do not know of a book in 
 which the subject has been treated with deeper sympathy or out of a 
 fuller knowledge." 
 
Press Opinions on "Famous Scots" Series — cont. 
 
 Of RICHARD CAMERON, by Professor Herkless, 
 The Freeman says : — 
 
 "Professor Herkless has made us all his debtors by his thorough- 
 going and unwearied research, by his collecting materials from out-of- 
 the-way quarters, and making much that was previously vague and 
 shadowy clear and distinct." 
 
 The ChristiciJi News says : — 
 
 "This volume is ably written, is full of interest and instruction, and 
 enables the reader to form a conception of the man who in his day and 
 generation gave his life for Christ's cause and kingdom." 
 
 The Dundee Courier says : — 
 
 11 In selecting Professor Herkless to prepare this addition to the 
 
 I Famous Scots Series ' of books, the publishers have made an excellent 
 choice. The vigorous, manly style adopted is exactly suited to the 
 subject, and Richard Cameron is presented to the reader in a manner 
 as interesting as it is impressive. . . . Professor Herkless has done 
 remarkably well, and the portrait he has so cleverly delineated of one 
 of Scotland's most cherished heroes is one that will never fade." 
 
 Of SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, by Eve 
 Blantyre Simpson, the Speaker says : — 
 
 "This little book is full of insight and knowledge, and by many 
 picturesque incidents and pithy sayings it helps us to understand in a 
 vivid and intimate sense the high qualities and golden deeds which 
 rendered Sir James Simpson's strenuous life impressive and 
 memorable." 
 
 The Daily Chronicle says : — 
 
 II It is indeed long since we have read such a charmingly-written 
 biography as this little Life of the most typical and ' Famous Scot' that 
 his countrymen have been proud of since the time of Sir Walter. . . . 
 There is not a dull, irrelevant, or superfluous page in all Miss Simpson's 
 booklet, and she has performed the biographer's chief duty — that of 
 selection— with consummate skill and judgment." 
 
 The Leeds Mercury says : — 
 
 "The narrative throughout is well balanced, and the biographer has 
 been wisely advised in giving prominence to her father's great achieve- 
 ment — the introduction of chloroform — and what led to it." 
 
 Of THOMAS CHALMERS, by W. Garden Blaikie, 
 the Spectator says : — 
 
 " The most notable feature of Professor Blaikie's book — and none 
 could be more commendable — is its perfect balance and proportion. 
 In other words, justice is done equally to the private and to the public 
 life of Chalmers, if possible greater justice than has been done by 
 Mrs. Oliphant. 
 
 The Scottish Congregationalist says : — 
 
 "No one can read the admirable and vivid sketch of his life which 
 Dr. Blaikie has written without feeling admiration for the man, and 
 gaining inspiration from his example." 
 
 Of JAMES BOSWELL, by W. Keith Leask, the 
 Spectator says : — 
 
 "This is one of the best volumes of the excellent 'Famous Scots 
 Series,' and one of the fairest and most discriminating biographies of 
 Boswell that have ever appeared." 
 
 The Dujidee Advertiser says : — 
 
 11 It is the admirable manner in which the very complexity of the man 
 is indicated that makes W. Keith Leask's biography of him one of 
 peculiar merit and interest. ... It is not only a life of Boswell, but 
 a picture of his time— vivid, faithful, impressive." 
 
Press Opinions on "Famous Scots" Series — cont 
 The Morning Leader says : — 
 
 11 Mr. W. K. Leask has approached the biographer of Johnson in the 
 only possible way by which a really interesting book could have been 
 arrived at — by way of the open mind. . . . The defence of Boswell in 
 the concluding chapter of his delightful study is one of the finest and 
 most convincing passages that have recently appeared in the field of 
 British biography." 
 
 Of TOBIAS SMOLLETT, by Oliphant Smeaton, 
 the Dundee Courier says : — 
 
 " It is impossible to read the pages of this little work without being 
 struck not only by its historical value, but by the fairness of its 
 criticism." 
 
 The Weekly Scotsman says : — 
 
 " The book is written in a crisp and lively style. . . . The picture of 
 the great novelist is complete and lifelike. Not only does Mr. 
 Smeaton give a scholarly sketch and estimate of Smollett's literary 
 career, he constantly keeps the reader in conscious touch and 
 sympathy with his personality, and produces a portrait of the man as 
 a man which is not likely to be readily forgotten." 
 
 The Newsagent and Booksellers 3 Review says : — 
 
 "Tobias Smollett was versatile enough to deserve a distinguished 
 place in any gallery of gifted Scots, such as the one to which Mr. 
 Smeaton has contributed this clever and lifelike portrait." 
 
 Of FLETCHER OF SALTOUN, by W. G. T. Omond, 
 the Edinburgh Evening News says : — 
 
 " The writer has given us in brief compass the pith of what is known 
 about an able and patriotic if somewhat dogmatic and impracticable 
 Scotsman who lived in stormy times. . . . Mr. Omond describes, in a 
 clear, terse, vigorous way, the constitution of the Old Scots Parlia- 
 ment, and the part taken by Fletcher as a public man in the stormy 
 debates that took place piior to the union of the Parliaments in 1707. 
 This part of the book gives an admirable summary of the state of 
 Scottish politics and of the national feeling at an important period." 
 
 The Leeds Mercury says : — 
 
 "Unmistakably the most interesting and complete story of the life of 
 Fletcher of Saltoun that has yet appeared. Mr. Omond has had 
 many facilities placed at his disposal, and of these he has made 
 excellent use." 
 
 The Speaker says : — 
 
 " Mr. Omond has told the story of Fletcher of Saltoun in this mono- 
 graph with ability and judgment." 
 
 Of THE BLACKWOOD GROUP, by Sir GEORGE 
 Douglas, the Scotsman says : — 
 
 "In brief compass, Sir George Douglas gives us skilfully blended 
 together much pleasantly written biography and just and judicious 
 criticism." 
 
 The Weekly Citizen says : — 
 
 " It need not be said that to everyone interested in the literature of 
 the first half of the century, and especially to every Scotsman^ so 
 interested, ' The Blackwood Group ' is a phrase abounding in promise. 
 And really Sir George Douglas fulfils the promise he tacitly makes in 
 his title. He is intimately acquainted not only with the books of the 
 different members of the 'group,' but also with their environment, 
 social and otherwise. Besides, he writes with sympathy as well as 
 knowledge." 
 
 
Post 8vo, on antique laid faper, cloth extra. Price 2s. 6d, 
 
 The 
 Life and Letters of James Renwick, 
 
 the Last Scottish Martyr. 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. CARSLAW, M.A., Helensburgh. 
 
 With Facsimile of one of his Letters. 
 
 " Renwick was a strange and interesting figure in the 
 annals of the Scottish Church, and this tribute to his memory 
 will find many willing readers." — Scottish Leader. 
 
 "The first complete edition of Renwick's letters." — North 
 British Daily Mail. 
 
 "The letters reveal a singularly religious and devout spirit, 
 and give us a striking insight into the sweetness and light that 
 existed in the rugged depths of these stern and uncompromising 
 pillars of the Covenant." — Scottish Weekly. 
 
 "James Renwick's letters were greatly in need of re-editing, 
 and Mr. Carslaw has proved himself the man to do it. He has 
 spared no pains, for he is enthusiastic in the subject. And his 
 pains have been well rewarded. An enormous number of 
 disfiguring errors have been removed ; and now the letters are 
 offered to us in a shape and condition that is worthy. The story 
 of the life is interwoven with them, so that one may read the 
 history of time as well as the spiritual history of the man who 
 lived in it. The volume is very handsomely produced, and 
 there is an excellent facsimile of one of Renwick's letters." — 
 Expository Times. 
 
 "The biographical portions are written in a perspicuous, 
 energetic, and graceful style, and Mr. Carslaw has not allowed 
 his enthusiasm for Renwick to interfere to any extent with the 
 requirements of historical accuracy." — Aberdeen Journal. 
 
 "The most complete yet published of the correspondence of 
 this noble and manly Scotchman." — Govan Press. 
 
 "The Rev. Mr. Carslaw has skilfully interweaved the 
 martyr's letters with the details of his life, and produced a 
 thrilling picture of bloody and bygone days." — Dumfries 
 Courier. 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 OLIPIIANT ANDERSON & FERRIER 
 
 And ail Booksellers. 
 
Post %vo, on antique laid paper, cloth extra. Price zs. 6d. 
 
 The Covenanters of the Merse, 
 
 their History and Sufferings, as found 
 in the Records of that Time. 
 
 By the Rev. J. WOOD BROWN, M.A., Gordon. 
 
 11 Mr. Brown has not been content to chronicle still surviving 
 traditions of the Covenanting period. He has gone to the 
 historical records of the time, and his researches have been 
 abundantly rewarded ; so much so that the volume he has 
 written, modest though it be in size and scope, forms a not 
 unimportant addition to the interesting Border literature of 
 the period. " — Scotsman, 
 
 "Wherever the heroic witness of the Covenanters is ap- 
 preciated this book will be warmly welcomed." — Sword and 
 Trowel, 
 
 " Mr. Wood Brown has gathered the scattered records of the 
 district with a loving hand." — British Weekly. 
 
 "A book which treats of the Covenanters is always sure to 
 gain a respectful hearing. When to the merits of its subject 
 such a volume adds clearness of style and an orderly presenta 
 tion of facts, it is safe of a fair popularity. Mr. Brown writes 
 well and clearly, not without a certain picturesqueness, which 
 should recommend his book." — Glasgow Herald* 
 
 " Mr. Brown has rendered a service to the student of history 
 which deserves grateful acknowledgment." — Aberdeen Journal, 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER 
 
 And all Booksellers. 
 

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