Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/358

 at a later date). On 15 Sept. 1558 his first child, a daughter, Joan, was baptised in the church of Stratford. A second child, another daughter, Margaret, was baptised on 2 Dec. 1562; but both these children died in infancy. The poet William, the first son and third child, was born on 22 or 23 April 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 26 April.

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 (cf., Letter to Elze, 1888). 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 so-called 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 in 1846, 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 to the corporation of Stratford in 1866. Much of the Elizabethan timber and stone work survives, but a cellar under the so-called birthplace is the only portion which remains as it was at the date of the poet's birth (cf. documents and sketches in, i. 377–94).

In July 1564, when William was three months old, the plague raged with unwonted vehemence at Stratford, and his father liberally contributed to the relief of its poverty-stricken victims. Fortune still favoured him. On 4 July 1565 he reached the dignity of an alderman. From 1567 onwards he was accorded in the corporation archives the honourable prefix of ‘Mr.’ At Michaelmas 1568 he attained the highest office in the corporation gift, that of bailiff, and during his year of office the corporation for the first time entertained actors at Stratford. The queen's company and the Earl of Worcester's company each received from John Shakespeare an official welcome. On 5 Sept. 1571 he was chief alderman, a post which he retained till 3 Sept. of the following year. In 1573 Alexander Webbe, the husband of his wife's sister Agnes, made him overseer of his will; in 1575 he bought two houses in Stratford, one of them doubtless the alleged birthplace in Henley Street; in 1576 he contributed twelve pence to the beadle's salary. But after Michaelmas 1572 he took a less active part in municipal affairs; he grew irregular in his attendance at the council meetings, and signs were soon apparent that his luck had turned. In 1578 he was unable to pay, with his colleagues, either the sum of fourpence for the relief of the poor, or his contribution ‘towards the furniture of three pikemen, two bellmen, and one archer,’ who were sent by the corporation to attend a muster of the trained bands of the county. Meanwhile his family was increasing. A daughter Ann (bapt. 28 Sept. 1571) was buried on 4 April 1579; but four children besides the poet—three sons, Gilbert (bapt. 13 Oct. 1566), Richard (bapt. 11 March 1574), and Edmund (bapt. 3 May 1580), with a daughter Joan (bapt. 15 April 1569)—reached maturity. To meet his growing liabilities, the father borrowed money from his wife's kinsfolk, and he and his wife mortgaged, on 14 Nov. 1578, Asbies, her valuable property at Wilmcote, for 40l. to Edmund Lambert of Barton-on-the-Heath, who had married her sister, Joan Arden. Lambert was to receive no interest on his loan, but was to take the ‘rents and profits’ of the estate. Asbies was thereby alienated for ever. Next year, on 15 Oct. 1579, John and his wife made over to Robert Webbe, doubtless a relative of Alexander Webbe, for the sum of 4l., his wife's property at Snitterfield (, ii. 407–8). John Shakespeare obviously chafed under the humiliation of having parted, although as he hoped only temporarily, with his wife's property of Asbies, and in the autumn of 1580 offered to pay off the mortgage; but his brother-in-law, Lambert, retorted that other sums were owing, and he would accept all or none. The negotiation, which proved the beginning of much litigation, thus proved abortive. Through 1585 and 1586 a creditor, John Brown, was embarrassingly importunate, and, after obtaining a writ of distraint, Brown informed the local court that the debtor had nothing