Free Shakespeare: A Life by Park Honan

1570s, would have found it harder to get
contracts for June shearings without risk of heavy fines. John had
farming as well as his shop to fall back on. With acreage at Asbyes, an
interest in 100 acres at Snitterfield, and a lease on 14 acres, in
1568, at Ingon Meadow, he was involved in corn-growing. He had sued
the tanner Henry Field for a debt owing on eighteen quarters of barley
(nearly 5 hundredweight), and he had at least 22 acres of meadow and
pasture suitable for grazing; not all of his land was arable. Also, he
was still buying land. In 1575 he paid to Edmund and Emma Hall, of
Hallow, the sum of £40 for two houses with gardens and orchards at
Stratford -- his last recorded property purchase. In that year or the
next, his application to the Heralds' College for a coat of arms and
hence for gentlehood came to nothing, though he got a 'pattern' or
sketch of his arms, before the matter was broken off. 16 In October 1576, the Privy Council ordered wool-buyers from London,
Northampton, and other locales in for questioning. Wool middlemen
were then being blamed for a sharp rise in wool prices (following a
resumption of normal trade with the Netherlands, after some four
years' interruption), and legal dealers of the Staple raged for the
heads of broggers. Intervention and questioning by the Privy Council,
just then, could be dangerous for Catholic families. Though he had
married one of the strongly Catholic Ardens, John, it is true, was
reticent about his own belief. Catholics had been accommodated in
Elizabeth's tolerant Church, but, increasingly, the nation's climate of
opinion had turned against the old faith.
    How defiant in religion John truly was, we do not know; but he added
to his troubles by not attending Anglican services. Did a Jesuit
missionary in the 1580s persuade him to declare his faith? A paper
booklet of six leaves stitched together, found by a bricklayer in April
1757 between the rafters and tiling of what had been John's western
house at Henley Street, has turned out to be an authentic formulary; a
' John Shakspear' here makes a Catholic profession of faith, and
appears to sign, as the last paragraph indicates, in his own hand. The
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formulary found in the rafters follows Borromeo's Last Will of the
Soul, which Jesuit missionaries in England were making use of by 1581.
But the booklet itself has vanished; and if John did mark or sign it,
he kept his religious feelings as well hidden as the testament in his
rafters. When cited in 1592 for recusancy, or failure to attend
church, he evidently declared he had stayed away from Anglican service
to avoid his creditors. 'It is sayd that', the wardens' not very
rigorously enquiring 'Seconde Certificat' states, 'Mr John
Shackespere' among eight others 'coom not to Churche for feare of
processe for Debtte.' 17 But by then almost any creditor could have caught him at the Court of
Record juries on which he served; he was not in fact in hiding, but
available to make probate inventories and press claims at law.
    It is true that his practical, financial position was poor by 1576. In a
new effort to stamp out brogging, the Privy Council temporarily
suspended all licensed wool-dealing that November; thus six months
before the whole network of justices of the peace became involved in
collecting £100 bonds from the broggers as security against their
dealing in wool, 18 John Shakespeare -- if he had any large debts -- would have found his
hands tied. By then a marked man and known offender at the Exchequer,
he could not with impunity have made good to any of his creditors by
buying or selling wool after about December 1576.
    This was a turning-point for the Shakespeare family. We have good
evidence that John failed to meet claims on his funds, and that his
downfall was known in the Gild hall. He avoided borough council
meetings. His affairs were so poor that when a levy to equip soldiers
was passed, John was