ferred his property to Robert Throgmorton, Armiger,[403]
afterwards knight, Thomas Trussell[404] of Billesley, Roger Reynolds of
Henley in Arden, William Wood of Woodhouse, Thomas Arden of Wilmecote,
and Robert Arden, the son of this Thomas Arden. We know that Robert
Throgmorton was an intimate friend of the Ardens of Park Hall, and his
association with Thomas of Wilmecote strengthens the supposition that
the latter was the son of Walter. We know that this Thomas was the
father of Robert Arden, who was the father of Mary, Shakespeare's
mother, and her six sisters. It does not seem unlikely he bore arms, and
was the Esquire witness of Walter Arden's will, _who has never been
located elsewhere_. If he bore arms, it is more than likely that, as a
younger son, they were derived from _the Beauchamps_, and might even
have been those found by Dugdale in the Aston Cantlow Church, where he
was buried. It is probable that Robert bore the cross-crosslets with a
difference, as did his contemporary, William Arden of Hawnes. We have at
least Glover's[405] testimony that among the arms of Warwickshire and
Bedfordshire are "Arden or Arderne gu, three cross-crosslets fitchee or;
on a chief of the second a martlet of the first. Crest, a plume of
feathers charged with a martlet or." When, therefore, John Shakespeare
made application to impale the arms of his wife in his new coat, it
might seem natural that the fesse chequy, arms of the head of the house,
should be struck out, and those substituted more customary for a younger
son, and probably borne by Thomas, his wife's grandfather, or by Robert
Arden, his wife's father.

Thomas Arden, the son of Sir John, succeeded to Park Hall and the other
family estates in 1526. He married Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Andrew
of Charnelton, by whom he had a large family: William, the eldest;
Simon, the second; George, the third, slain at Boulogne; Thomas, a
student of law; and Edward. His daughter Jocosa, or Joyce, married
Richard Cade, of London (see visitation of Hertfordshire, 1634);
Elizabeth married--Beaupre, Cicely married Henry Shirley, Mary married
Francis Waferer.

William, the eldest son, died before his father. Simon, the second son
of Thomas of Park Hall, was a wonderful man, of whom there will be more
to say elsewhere. He was elected Sheriff of the County in 1569,
and bore, while in Warwickshire at least, the arms three
cross-crosslets[406] and a chief or, without a difference. Shortly a