10] _Ibid._

[111] Stratford Miscellaneous Papers.

[112] _Ibid._

[113] Court of Chancery Records.

[114] French, "Genealogica Shakespeareana," p. 484.

[115] Coram Rege Rolls, Term Mich., 31 and 32 Elizabeth; also
Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 11.

[116] Chancery Cases, 40-41 Elizabeth, S.s. 24 (21), Stratford, P. R.
O.; also Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 14.

[117] Chancery Papers, S.s. 24 (21), Stratford, _in dorso_, "40-41
Eliz."; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 204.

[118] _Notes and Queries_, 8th Series, v. 127, 296, 478.

[119] Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 205.

CHAPTER VII

JOHN SHAKESPEARE

Richard Shakespeare was in tenure of the property at Snitterfield, which
Robert Arden settled on his wife and daughters July 17, 4 Edward VI.,
Adam Palmer and Hugh Porter being trustees. On November 26, 1557, he,
along with the executors of Robert Arden and Thomas Stringer, was
returned as indebted to the late Hugh Porter of Snitterfield. On
September 13 he prised the goods of Richard Maydes, and on June 1, 1560,
of Henry Cole, of Snitterfield. He is believed to have been the father
of John, Henry, and possibly of Thomas Shakespeare.

John Shakespeare must have come to Stratford-on-Avon, probably from
Snitterfield, some time before 1552, for in that year he is described as
a resident in Henley Street, and fined for a breach of the municipal
sanitary regulations, along with Humphrey Reynolds and Adrian Quyney,
twelvepence a piece.[120] This relatively large sum implies that he must
have been even then a _substantial_ householder. The determination of
the house he then dwelt in becomes interesting in its bearing on the
tradition as to the poet's birthplace. Nothing is recorded of John for
the next few years, but he seems to have prospered in business, trading
in farmers' produce. In a law-suit of 1556, with Thomas Siche of Arscot,
Worcester, he was styled a "glover." In that year he bought from George
Turner a freehold tenement in Greenhill Street, with garden and croft,
which is not mentioned in any of his later transactions, and from Edward
West a freehold tenement and garden in Henley Street, the eastern half
of the birthplace messuage. Each of these was held by the payment of
sixpence a year to the lord of the manor and suit of court. Whether he
had previously lived in this eastern tenement, or in the western half,
as a tenant has not been absolutely decided.

He was summoned on the Court of Record Jury this year, an