Evening Star Newspaper, December 13, 1931, Page 87

[ on s THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 13, 1931. 31 =t —_— SHAKESPEARE'S LOVE AFFAIR AND LAWSUIT An old picture by the distinguished artist, Thomas Brooks, showing the sup- posed scene when Shakespeare was arrested for poaching, an incident which, Dr. Hotson noiv proves, did not happen at all. BY MADELIN BLITZSTEIN. HE courtship and the marriage of William Shakespeare and Anne Hath- away have lain hidden in mysterious ok rity for three and a half cen- turies. But this year the sensational discovery of some long-buried, worm- eaten documents in the Public Record Office in London discloses the fact that Shakespeare’s romance blossomed the more brightly and in-, tensely because it grew in the midst of financial distress and disturbing quarrels in his own home, Digging and delving into the thousands of 350-year-old yellowed papers and parchments to find out about the private life and family surroundings in which Shakespeare grew up and fell in love, has been a favorite pastime of Englishmen thcse many years. But to a young American, equipped with extraordinary detective ability, belongs the credit for unearthing new and important facts about the doings of John Shakespeare, Will’s father, at the very time when young love sprouted in the poet’s heart. A native of Snitterfield, a town near Strat- ford, John Shakespeare came to live on the Avon as a glovemaker by trade. He also dealt from time to time in farm produce, managing to make a comfortable living and buy several good- sized properties. For sume time, it has been known that the slder Shakespeare, before the birth of his genius son, was appointed one of the two town cham- berlains to whom the finances of the provin- cial town of Stratford were intrusted. The year after young Will’'s birth his father became high bailiff and justice of the peace, a job like that of mayor today HIS John Shakespeare was well established as one of the leading citizens of a not un- fmportant English market town in the 1570’s. His wife, the former Mary Arden, came of a wealthy family. It was no wonder then that the boy Will, growing up in a well-to-do home, attended an excellent grammar school, where he learned some Latin and French. When William Shakespeare reached the age of 13, however, his father's fortune took a sud- den downward turn. Report has it that Will was put to work in his father’s shop. John Shakespeare was forced to mortgage his home and he found himself plunged into a series of financial difficulties. There is no record of a general depression in England at the time, and scholars have search- ed in vain for a clue that would clear up the mystery of why the name of John Shakespeare, 8 burgess who had been rich and honored in high places, should have been removed abruptly and completely from the list of alder- men of Stratford in 1586. Dr. Leslie Hotson, who this Fall began to give courses in Shakespeare and English liter- ature at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, is the literary Sherlock Holmes who has had the good fortune to solve the puzzling mystery. For two years he had been burrowing in the Controlment Rolls of the Court of Queen’s Bench for the reigns of Elizabeth and Janes I of England. Suddenly he came upon a petition for sureties of the peace which explained what had befallen the elder Shakespeare and made a new setting for the courtship of the 18-year- old poet and Anne Hathaway. " E know that after 1577,” Dr. Hotson ex- plained, “Alderman Shakespeare sud- denly stopped attending town meetings in the ‘halls of the corporation.’” Financial straits were advanced as the cause of this retirement from public life, but the rea- son was not a satisfactory one. The document which Dr. Hotson found, however, throws an entirely new and startling light upon the sit- uation It proves that in the Spring of 1582, the very year when the pair of lovers were strolling through the luxuriant meadows and blossoming country orchards together., John Shakespeare was engaged in a violent quarrel with a nunber of Stratford’s most influential townsmen. The exciting document is one of many records of quarrels in which blows were perhaps given and threats of violence uttered. The offended party was allowed to take his oath in court to the effect that he was in actual fear of death and violence and then the court would bind the offender to keep the peace by making him entér 8 bond against breaking it. Dr. Hotson was lucky enough to find just such a bond with the name of Johannes Bhakespeare upon it. Translated from the legal In her father’s low cottage of timber and plaster, the young poet met and wooed Anne Hathaway while his father fought a bitter lawsuit. An American Literary Sleuth Discovers Clues to Upset the Old "Fheories AboutIncidents in the Life of the Bard of Avon. William Shakespeare, from a sketch made by a contemporary artist. Latin, the entry, dated June 15 to July 4, 1582, reads like this: “England. Be it known that John Shake- speare craves sureties of the peace against Ralph Cawdrey, William Russell, Thomas Log- ginge, and Robert Young, for fear of death and mutilation of his limbs.” HO were these men who threatened John Shakespeare? Ralph Cawdrey was a dominant personage known for his money and bad temper. He had held the office of high bailiff before that honor fell to Will Shakespeare’s father. He had had a fight with Alexander Webbe of Bearley, the brother-in-law of Mary Arden Shakespeare, the poet’s mother, and although he had plainly been at fault he had been punished only by a fine when haled into court. And when John Shakespeare, in the late Spring of 1562, took his oath that the “belli- cose butcher,” Ralph Cawdrey, had threatened him with physical violence, Cawdrey was again sitting in the chair of high bailiff of the borough. - Of the other three men whom the elder Shakespeare named, only one is known today. He is Robert Young, the renowned town dyer. In the face of this bitter quarrel between his father, who had lost his prestige as well as his prosperity, and a quartet of powerful village folk led by a fiery-tempered butcher-bailiff, Shakespeare’s young love bloomed. It was but a half hour’s walk from Strat- ford, where the Shakespeares lived, to Shottery, where Anne Hathaway dwelt in her father’s low cottage of timber and plaster. Irritated by the bickerings he heard at home, young Will betook himself in the evenings through the late Spring fields to the orchards where apricot and peach trees were laden with white blossoms. His lcve sometimes awaited him there, and often their trysting-place was under a walnut tree in the rustic English garden back of Anne’s house. WHO knows how many of Shakespeare’s passionate love sonnets were inspired by the feeling of relief he experienced when he ran from family unpleasantness to the arms of his healthy country girl? It is only natural to think that the young lovers should have drunk in the beauties of the English countryside and their love for each other in the peace and quiet of the night; and It is certainly natural that the eager courtship should have resulted in a speedy marriage in the very same year in which the older Shake- speare had his great quarrel. Father Shakespeare’s declining years were more peaceful than his middle age. He is mentioned as a “merry-cheekt” man who liked to crack a joke with his son, for after 1596 young William was successful enough to keep his father from money worries, There is another important document which Dr. Hotson unearthed. This one brings new light upon the character of the poet himself, He, too, as well as his father, had his name upon the court records. But in young Will’s case sureties of the peace were asked against him as the offending party. N the roll of entries for the Autumn term of 1596, when William Shakespeare was 32, there appeared, among the records of numerous brawls which Dr. Hotson was studying, one which reads as follows: “England. Be it known that William Wayte craves sureties of the peace against William Shakespeare, Francis Langley, Dorothy Soer, wife of John Soer, and Anne Lee, for fear of death and so forth.” Now Shakespeare enthusiasts have for a long tinte known that Francis Langley owned the Swan Theater where Shakespeare plays were performed, but it was Dr. Hotson who discoy= ered that Langley and the playwright were friends. Who the two women were has not as yet been found out. Under the cross-reference system employed by all good detectives, Dr. Hotson uncovered a surety of the peace that had been sworn eut by Francis Langley against this same William Wayte some time before the one containing Shakespeare’s name. Wayte turned out to be the stepson of Wil- liam Gardiner, high sheriff of Surrey and SBussex, who had a reputation for being a usurer, a scoundrel and a mean liar. Gardiner cheated Wayte out of his rightful inheritance and used him in his own private quarrel against Langley and Shakespeare, who were then living and performing in Surrey. Gardiner wanted Langley’s Swan ‘Theater pulled down. He managed to have his stepson, who was stupid enough to do his bidding blindly and admire him all the while, threaten Langley and then be thredtened by him in turn. NATURALLY, Shakespeare, who was Lang- ley’s friend, was incensed against Justice Gardiner. Dr. Hotson goes still further. For many years gossip has been current to the effect that Will Shakespeare poached red deer on the inclosed park of Sir Thomas Lucy, squire of Charlecdte, an offense for which it was thought he was “whipt and imprisoned.” He is supposed to have written a ballad called “Lousy Lucy” after his punishment. From this rumor it was concluded that the malicious portrait of Justice” Shallow in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” which Shakespeare wrote and performed in 1597, was the dra- matist'’s revenge. Slander’s flattering reference to the “luces” in Justice Shallow’s coat of arms were thought to allude to the three fish—the white pike or “luces” in the coat of arms of Sir Thomas Lucy. Whether Shakespeare ever poached or net, Dr. Hotson makes it certain that he could never have poached on Sir Thomas Lucy’s park, for this noble knight never had an inclosed estate until long after Shakespeare wrote “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Dr. Hotson concludes that it was William Gardiner whom Shakespeare lampooned with his witty pen as the character Justice Shallow, and not the man of spotless reputation, Sir Thomas Lucy. Furthermore, when Dr. Hotson remembered that William Wayte's mother and Gardiner's wife was born a Luce, he rushed to the British Museum and there he found that William Gar- diner used his wife’s three white luces or pike on his coat of arms along with his own griffin. This explained the luces in Justice Shallow’s coat of arms and proved even more conclusively what Shakespeare meant to do. “Finding new facts about the life of Eng- land’s greatest poet and playwright, discover- ing the environment which led to his 150 son- nets of passionate love and his gallery of famous scoundrels,” says Dr. Hotson, “is fasci- nating work, requiring all the detective ability that one can muster, in knowing where to look and what to search for.”