younger daughter and her marriage. I do not think these views at all
supported by his will. Three hundred pounds was a very large portion
indeed at the time. It was demised to her doubtless before her marriage,
but it was not altered in relation to her after her marriage. It would
be hard indeed to believe that such a ceremony, even without a license,
could be performed in the gossipy town of Stratford without the news of
it somehow reaching the father's ears, if there had been any attempt
really to deceive. There is no reason to imagine Shakespeare disapproved
of the alliance. The young man came of an old Stratford family. It is
possible, however, that the poet foresaw a certain degree of instability
of character in the youth, and therefore wished to make his will act as
a marriage settlement that would secure his daughter from starvation.
The second half of his bequest might only be touched by her husband, if
he had settled on her land of equal value. This Thomas Quiney does not
seem to have done.

Richard Quiney had died 1601-2, and his widow Elizabeth kept a tavern,
in which she was probably at one time assisted by her younger son
Thomas. In December, 1611, she conveyed a house to William Mountford for
L131, and Judith Shakespeare was a subscribing witness. But neither she
nor her future mother-in-law signed their names, nor even the customary
cross, but a strangely-penned device of their own. Thomas Quiney lived
in a small house in the High Street until after his marriage. It was
probably his wife's money that enabled him to lease the larger house on
the other side, called "The Cage," and to start therein business as a
vintner.

At first he was successful. He was made a burgess in 1617, and was
Chamberlain from 1621 to 1623. His accounts for the latter year are
headed by a French proverb, as to the happiness of those who become wise
through the experience of others, that might have had an opposite
meaning to his contemporaries. It shows us that he could not only read
and write English, but at least a little French. By 1630 he was involved
in lawsuits, left the town council, and tried to dispose of the lease of
his house. In 1633 Dr. Hall and Thomas Nash acted as trustees for his
estate. His fortunes seemed to have become worse and worse. In 1652 he
went to the Metropolis, where his elder brother Richard was a thriving
grocer in Bucklersbury, in company with Roger Sadler. Richard, in
August, 1655,[185] made a will,