nd was a Baylife of Stratford uppo Avon xv. or
xvj. years past.

That he hathe lands and tenements of good wealth and substance [500
li.]

That he mar[ried a daughter and heyre of Arden, a gent. of worship.]'

{191} 'An exemplification' was invariably secured more easily than a new
grant of arms. The heralds might, if they chose, tacitly accept, without
examination, the applicant's statement that his family had borne arms
long ago, and they thereby regarded themselves as relieved of the
obligation of close inquiry into his present status.

{192a} On the gravestone of John Hall, Shakespeare's elder son-in-law,
the Shakespeare arms are similarly impaled with those of Hall.

{192b} French, _Genealogica Shakespeareana_, p. 413.

{193} The details of Brooke's accusation are not extant, and are only to
be deduced from the answer of Garter and Clarenceux to Brooke's
complaint, two copies of which are accessible: one is in the vol. W-Z at
the Heralds' College, f. 276; and the other, slightly differing, is in
Ashmole MS. 846, ix. f. 50. Both are printed in the _Herald and
Genealogist_, i. 514.

{194a} _Notes and Queries_, 8th ser. v. 478.

{194b} The tradition that Shakespeare planted the mulberry tree was not
put on record till it was cut down in 1758. In 1760 mention is made of
it in a letter of thanks in the corporation's archives from the Steward
of the Court of Record to the corporation of Stratford for presenting him
with a standish made from the wood. But, according to the testimony of
old inhabitants confided to Malone (cf. his _Life of Shakespeare_, 1790,
p. 118), the legend had been orally current in Stratford since
Shakespeare's lifetime. The tree was perhaps planted in 1609, when a
Frenchman named Veron distributed a number of young mulberry trees
through the midland counties by order of James I, who desired to
encourage the culture of silkworms (cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 134,
411-16).

{197a} I do not think we shall over-estimate the present value of
Shakespeare's income if we multiply each of its items by eight, but it is
difficult to state authoritatively the ratio between the value of money
in Shakespeare's time and in our own. The money value of corn then and
now is nearly identical; but other necessaries of life--meat, milk, eggs,
wool, building materials, and the like--were by comparison ludicrously
cheap in Shakespeare's day. If we strike the average between the low