Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/406

Shanks reasonably holds that the piece was no more than the entertainment called a jig, in the delivery of which Shanks seems to have won some reputation. In a ballad dated 1662, and supposed to belong to 1625–30, called ‘Turner's Dish of Stuff, or a Gallimaufry,’ are the lines: That's the fat fool of the Curtain, And the lean fool of the Bull: Since Schanke did learn to sing his rhimes, He is counted but a gull. This suggests that he was a successor of Tarleton, Kempe, Armin, and others. From the Ashmolean Museum Collier quotes a manuscript entitled ‘Shanke's Song,’ intended to ridicule Irish catholics, and having a burden, ‘O hone!’ Shanks lived in Golden Lane, in which Henslowe's playhouse stood. After the death of John Heming [q. v.], one of the ‘housekeepers’ of the Globe, his shares in that theatre and the Blackfriars were sold in 1633 surreptitiously by his son William. From this William Shanks bought, according to his own statement, ‘one part hee had in the Blackfriers for about six years then to come at the yearly rent of 6l. 5s., and another part hee then had in the Globe for about two years to come, and payd him for the same two partes 156l.’ A year subsequently he bought for 35l. one further part in the Blackfriars and two in the Globe, his entire purchase costing him 506l. Benfield, Swanston, and Pollard petitioned the lord chamberlain, Pembroke, for a compulsory sale to them of one share each from the largest shareholders, Shanks and the Burbages. In spite of the counter petitions of Shanks—in one of which he complains that his fellows not only refused him satisfaction, but restrained him from the stage, and in another declared that in his long time he had made no provision for himself in his old age, nor for his wife, children, and grandchild—the application was granted, and the shares of Shanks in the Globe were reduced to two instead of three, and in the Blackfriars to one instead of two. According to the registers of St. Giles, a John Shancke married Elizabeth Martin on 26 Jan. 1630, while ‘John Schanke, player,’ was buried on 27 Jan. 1635 [i.e. 1636]. According to the ‘Perfect Diurnal,’ 24 Oct. 1642, another Shanke, a player, was one of three officers of the lord general (Essex) who, having run away from the army at the beginning of a fight, were sent to the gatehouse for punishment according to martial law. Shanks's name is spelt seven different ways.

[Collier's English Dramatic Poetry always open to some mistrust; Fleay's Chronicle History of the London Stage; Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines; Wright's Historia Histrionica; Malone's Historical Account of the English Stage; the 1623 folio of Shakespeare and the 1679 folio of Beaumont and Fletcher. The documents respecting Shanks's litigation are given in Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (ed. 1886, i. 286 et seq.), and are well summarised in Fleay's Chronicle History of the London Stage.]

 SHANNON, EARL. [See, 1682–1764.]

SHARDELOWE or SCHERDELOW, JOHN  (d. 1344?), judge, appears as an advocate in the reign of Edward II, and on 28 Jan. 1332 was appointed a judge of the court of common pleas and received knighthood. Dugdale says that in 1339 he exchanged courts with a justice of the king's bench, but this must have been only some temporary arrangement, for he was sitting in the common pleas in 1340 (ib.; Year Book, Edward III, Mich. 1340). In December of that year he, in common with other judges, was arrested and committed to custody (see, Constitutional History, vol. ii. c. 16). He was afterwards restored to office, and sat in his court in 1342. He was a trier of petitions in the parliament of 28 April 1343, and died either in that or the following year. During his lifetime he settled his manor of Thompson, Norfolk, upon his elder son, Sir John de Shardelowe, and, in addition, died seised of the manor of Fulbourn and of lands in Leverington and Wisbeach in Cambridgeshire, of the manors of Barrow and Cowlinge or Cooling, and of lands in Brandon, Cavenham, and elsewhere in Suffolk, and of land in Downham in Norfolk. He and his wife Agnes were buried in the parish church of Thompson. His younger son, Sir Thomas de Shardelowe, who appears to have been attorney-general in 1366, became heir to his elder brother, Sir John, was a commissioner of array in 1376 (Fœdera, iii. 1045), and was buried at Thompson. The two brothers founded a perpetual chantry or college, of a master and five clerks, in the church of Thompson in honour of St. Martin, the Virgin, and All Saints, and for the souls of their father and mother, and also joined in giving the advowson of the church of Cooling to the master and scholars of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The elder brother, Sir John, appears to have died about 1369, for on 28 April of that year his widow Joan took a vow of chastity before Thomas Percy, bishop of Norwich, and remained until her death attached to the college at Thompson. The arms of Shardelowe, adopted by the college of Thompson, and represented in the church,