Records. See
also Ingleby's "Shakespeare and the Enclosure of Welcombe." Thomas Green
was a Councillor of Middle Temple and a solicitor. (See Quyney's Town
Accounts, January and February, 1600-1.) He was appointed Steward of the
Court of Record, Stratford-on-Avon, on September 7, 1603. There was no
Town Clerk then, and the Steward did the duties until the Charter
granted to the town by James I., July 8, 1610, created the office of
Town Clerk. He held part of the remainder of the tithes, the half of
which were held by Shakespeare.

CHAPTER XII

CONTEMPORARY WARWICKSHIRE SHAKESPEARES

Outside the immediate family of the poet there were many contemporaries
in Warwickshire, who may have been connected in some far-off degree.

There was the John Shakespeare, shoemaker, who came to Stratford about
1580, probably as apprentice or journeyman of Roberts, the shoemaker, in
whose house he dwelt till 1594, and whose daughter Margery he
married.[231] He became Member of the Company of Shoemakers and
Saddlers, paying L3, in 1580, and Master of the Shoemakers' Company, and
was elected Ale-taster for the town in 1585. He paid 30s. for his
freedom January 19, 1585-86, and became Constable in the autumn of 1586.
His wife was buried on October 29, 1587, but he must shortly afterwards
have married again, as he had three children christened[232] in the
parish church. On February 17, 1587, he was in receipt of Thomas Oken's
money, and in 1588 became guardian to Thomas Roberts's sons. The poet's
father, after 1570, was always mentioned as Mr. John Shakespeare; this
other appears simply as John, or John the Shoemaker, or Corvizer, or
some other epithet (see Records of Stratford-on-Avon). Hunter thinks
that he was the third son of Thomas Shakespeare, a shoemaker, of
Warwick, who held land under the manor of Balsall, and mentioned in his
will, 1557, four children--William, Thomas, John and Joan, ux. Francis
Ley, mentioned in Warwick registers.

This John of Stratford seems to have left the town before 1595, as his
house was inhabited by others then, and no further mention appears of
him in record or register.

Beside John Shakespeare's _double_ of Stratford-on-Avon, there was a
John Shakespeare of Clifford Chambers, a village a mile or two out of
Stratford, who has also been confused with him. He married there, on
October 15, 1560, Julian Hobbyns, widow. He sued William Smith, of
Stratford, for debt, in 1572; and in the will of Jo