y 6 pounds 13s.
4d. in money, but the fee-simple of Asbies, his chief property at
Wilmcote, consisting of a house with some fifty acres of land. She also
acquired, under an earlier settlement, an interest in two messuages at
Snitterfield. {7} But, although she was well provided with worldly
goods, she was apparently without education; several extant documents
bear her mark, and there is no proof that she could sign her name.

The poet's birth and baptism.

John Shakespeare's marriage with Mary Arden doubtless took place at Aston
Cantlowe, the parish church of Wilmcote, in the autumn of 1557 (the
church registers begin at a later date). On September 15, 1558, his
first child, a daughter, Joan, was baptised in the church of Stratford.
A second child, another daughter, Margaret, was baptised on December 2,
1562; but both these children died in infancy. The poet William, the
first son and third child, was born on April 22 or 23, 1564. The latter
date is generally accepted as his birthday, mainly (it would appear) on
the ground that it was the day of his death. There is no positive
evidence on the subject, but the Stratford parish registers attest that
he was baptised on April 26.

Alleged birthplace.

Some doubt is justifiable as to the ordinarily accepted scene of his
birth. Of two adjoining houses forming a detached building on the north
side of Henley Street, that to the east was purchased by John Shakespeare
in 1556, but there is no evidence that he owned or occupied the house to
the west before 1575. Yet this western house has been known since 1759
as the poet's birthplace, and a room on the first floor is claimed as
that in which he was born. {8} The two houses subsequently came by
bequest of the poet's granddaughter to the family of the poet's sister,
Joan Hart, and while the eastern tenement was let out to strangers for
more than two centuries, and by them converted into an inn, the
'birthplace' was until 1806 occupied by the Harts, who latterly carried
on there the trade of butcher. The fact of its long occupancy by the
poet's collateral descendants accounts for the identification of the
western rather than the eastern tenement with his birthplace. Both
houses were purchased in behalf of subscribers to a public fund on
September 16, 1847, and, after extensive restoration, were converted into
a single domicile for the purposes of a public museum. They were
presented under a deed of trust