There is one other piece of evidence that confirms Shakespeare’s standing among the “younger sort.” In this period some students at St. John’s College, Cambridge, devised a trilogy of satirical plays on current literary fashions. They have become known as the Parnassus Plays and the second of them, The Second Part of the Returne from Parnassus, has a considerable interest for the student of Shakespeare. In this play a feeble character named Gullio, who may or may not be a satirical portrait of Southampton, sings aloud the praises of Shakespeare to the amusement of the more alert Inge-nioso. “We shall have nothing but pure Shakspeare,” Ingenioso declares at an outpouring by Gullio, “and shreds of poetrie that he hath gathered at the the-ators.” When Ingenioso is obliged to attend to Gullio’s verses he cries out, sarcastically, “Sweete Mr. Shakspeare!” and “Marke, Romeo and Juliet! O monstrous theft!” Gullio then goes on to ask: “Let mee heare Mr. Shakspear’s veyne” which suggests that his “vein” was well enough known to be admired, imitated and occasionally disparaged. “Let this duncified world esteeme of Spencer and Chaucer,” Gullio goes on, ‘Tie worship sweet Mr. Shakspeare, and to honour him will lay his Venus and Adonis under my pillowe.”5 There is no doubt, then, that Shakespeare was indeed the “fashion.” Another character in the Parnassus trilogy seems designed to be a parody of the dramatist himself. Studioso is both playwright and schoolteacher, and he speaks in the accents of Shakespeare with plentiful natural analogies and melodious conceits. A recognisably Shakespearian style could be parodied in front of an audience, who would know precisely the object of the parody.
In 1599 a student of another Cambridge college, Queens’, wrote an encomium on “honie-tong’d Shakespeare” in which he praises the two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, as well as Romeo and Juliet. That same play was also mentioned in The Second Part of the Returne from Parnassus, which suggests that it was very popular indeed among the young scholars of the university. Shakespeare was known for his “sweetness,” but the next play of the Parnassus trilogy also mentions Richard III. The fact that Gabriel Harvey names Hamlet as one of his principal productions suggests that the dramatist was now being taken seriously on a number of levels. In the same year John Marston satirises a contemporary from whose lips flow “naught but pure Iuliat and Romio.”6 All in all, Shakespeare had become a phenomenon.
CHAPTER 58
A Loyall Just and Vpright Gentleman
Shakespeare’s purchase of New Place located the dramatist firmly at the centre of Stratford’s life. His wife and daughters moved into their newly refurbished residence, and perhaps looked forward to spending more time with the head of the household. He was of course de facto the guiding hand of the family’s own finances. He must have been instrumental in November 1597, for example, for re-entering at Westminster Hall the Shakespeares’ suit for the recovery of Arden property in his mother’s native village of Wilmcote; they were pressing their case against their relatives, the Lamberts, who had refused to hand over a house there. It was a difficult and somewhat technical legal challenge, apparently hanging upon a dispute over actual payment of, or promise to pay, the sum of £40. In the deposition John and Mary Shakespeare are described as “of small wealthe and verey fewe frendes and alyance.”1 It may have been “small wealth” that persuaded John Shakespeare, in this same year, to sell a strip of land beside his property in Henley Street to a neighbour for the sum of 50 shillings.
The witnesses brought forward in the case against the Lamberts were in fact colleagues of William, rather than John, Shakespeare, which argues the dramatist’s personal investment in the matter. Amongst this tangled procedure it is clear that the Shakespeares were assiduously and energetically pursuing their case, to the extent that John Lambert accused them of harassment. He claimed that they “doe now trowble and moleste this defendante by unjuste juste sutes in law”;2 “sutes” implies that he was being accused in other courts as well. The case dragged on for more than two and a half years, eventually to be settled, apparently in Lambert’s favour, out of court. In the course of the proceedings, however, the Shakespeares were rebuked for “wasting Chancery’s time.” 3 It is an indication of how far Shakespeare would go in defence of family honour and in pursuit of family property. He may have been relentless in such matters. He forfeited 40 acres with the loss of the Wilmcote property, but soon enough he was buying up more Stratford land.
At the very beginning of 1598 the bailiff of Stratford, Abraham Sturley, was ready to approach Shakespeare with news of a likely investment. He had informed a close relative, Richard Quiney, alderman, “that our countriman mr Shaksper is willinge to disburse some monei vpon some od yardeland or other att Shottri or neare about vs; he thinketh it a veri fitt patterne to move him to deale in the matter of our tithes.” Sturley went on to say that “Bi the instruccions you can geve him theareof, we thinke it a faire mark for him to shoote att, and not unpossible to hitt. It obtained would advance him in deede, and would do vs muche good.”4
So the new owner of New Place was already a gentleman of financial consequence in Stratford. It seems likely that he was being asked to consider the purchase of the house and land of his wife’s stepmother, Joan Hathaway, in Shottery; the old woman died in the following year, leaving 21/2 yardlands (a yardland being approximately 30 acres) as well as the farmhouse now known as “Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.” He was also considered to be in the market for the purchase of “tithes,” money in lieu of a percentage of crops or farm-stock on land possessed by tithe-holders; it had once been a religious obligation which had become a matter of lay ownership.
It is not clear which particular tithes Quiney and Sturley had in mind— although they were the “farmers” of the “Clopton tithe-hay”—but the essential point is that Shakespeare did not take up their offer. He did not in fact purchase tithes until 1605, which suggests a measure of prudence on his part. In the 1590s, Stratford was in a condition of economic and social depression. In the same letter Abraham Sturley notes that “our neighbours are grown, with the wants they feel through the dearness of corn, malcontent.” The succession of bad harvests had weakened the financial strength of the town, and there had been two recent widespread and devastating fires that had further depressed the price of property. It was one of the reasons why Shakespeare had been able to purchase New Place so cheaply. Richard Quiney was in fact in London on pressing local business when he received the letter from Abraham Sturley. As alderman he had been charged with the responsibility of pleading Stratford’s case with the national administration. The town asked to be made exempt from certain taxes, and wished to be given more ample provision from a fire-relief fund.
And then later in the year Richard Quiney decided to approach Shakespeare on another matter. He needed a loan on behalf of the Stratford Corporation. Who else to ask but the man who was arguably now the wealthiest householder in Stratford? So in October 1598, from his London lodgings at the Bell Inn in Carter Lane, he wrote a letter to his “Loveinge Countreyman” declaring that “I am bolde of yowe as of a ffrende, craveing yowre helpe with xxx li [£30] … Yowe shall ffrende me muche in helpeinge me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke god, & muche quiet my mynde.” He then noted that he had gone to “Cowrte” at Richmond over Stratford affairs and pledged that Shakespeare “shall neither loase creddytt nor monney by me, the Lord wyllinge … & yf we Bargaine farther yowe shalbe the paiemaster yowre self.” It seems likely that Richard Quiney needed the money to sustain his advocacy of Stratford’s business in the capital. News of his attempts to borrow money from Shakespeare reached Stratford itself, and eleven days later (the speed of the post was not great) Abraham Sturley wrote to him saying that he had heard “our countriman Mr. Wm Shak, would procure vs monei, which I will like of as I shall heare when, and wheare, and howe.”5 It does not take an over-sensitive ear to detect a note of scepticism or caution on Sturley’s part. Did Shakespeare have a reputation for meanness or avariciousness? It is not an impossible assumption. He took small debtors to court. Yet it is more likely that his financial reputation, if such it was, was that of canniness rather than avarice. The idea that Shakespeare would “procure” the requisite sum suggests that Shakespeare may have been ready to deal with a money-lender on Quiney’s behalf. There have even been suggestions that, like his father, Shakespeare himself acted as a part-time moneylender. In the conditions of the time, and in the absence of banks, this was not an unusual activity for a wealthy man. It will seem inappropriate only to those who hold an excessively romantic opinion of eminent writers.