Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/468

 "384

NOTES AND QUERIES, pa s. vn. NOV. 13. 1920.

first child, also John, John Combe the Third, was born about the time of the Barlands

-.House dispute.

Adrian Quyny was litigious, keen for his

iiights, and had interest in a number of properties in Stratford. His first wife (possibly a daughter of Richard Symons) left him with three young children, Elizabeth, Richard, and Anne, when she

.died about 1557. Soon afterwards he


 * married Elizabeth Bainton, the widow

of Laurence Bainton, a Capital Burgess and mercer in High Street, who died between April 1556, when he served on the jury of Frankpledge, and April 1557, when his widow was fined for making a refuse- heap in Swine (or Ely) Street. She was left with property and one or two young children, and soon had a suitor in George Turner, clothier and yeoman and Capital Burgess, from whom John Shakespeare bought his house in Greenhill Street in 1556. Turner owed her late husband 101. She accepted him, while she declined to release him of the debt, and they were betrothed about the summer of 1557. Later, perhaps in consequence of dispute about the 10L, -they changed their mind?, and the lady married Adrian Quyny who was co-executor with her of her late husband's will. Quyny now carried on Lawrence Bainton 's business in the High Street, and let his own house in the same street to Margaret Rogers, before Oct. 14, 1557.

In April 1558, Adrian Quyny and Thomas' Knight, a corviser in Middle Row, sued John Shakespeare for 61. There was a battle royal in the little Court which lasted through May and June and for a twelvemonth. Shakespeare partly acknowledged the debt, and at length compounded for it by paying 5/., after more than one distrinc/as had oeen granted and a capias threatened.

John. Shakespeare on Apr. 23, 1558, though he served on the jury of Frankpl^dge that day, was fined with Adrian Quyny ^and with the Bailiff, Master Francis Herbage, tor not keeping his gutters clean. Another fined for the same offence was Master Hall, who seems to have been living next door to John Shakespeare, in the western house, the so-called Birthplace. John Shakespeare's children, with the possible exception of the youngest, were without doubt born in the eastern house purchased in 1556. On Sept. 15, 1558, between his election and swearing as a Constable, his first-born child was baptized. A christening was an important, family function, social as well as

religious, attended by friends and god- parents with the father and nurse. The mother was rarely present, the interval between birth and baptism being very short. She went later to her churching. On the day in question, which was Thursday and Fair-time, a little procession would follow the babjr in her embroidered " bear- ing-cloth " from Henley Street to the Parish Church, where Father Dyos named her Joan, probably after and in the presence of her aunt, Mary Arden's sister, Mistress Joan Lambert of Barton on the Heath. Part of the service was in the porch, some of it was in Latin, and the infant was both dipped and anointed with chrism. Congratulations and presents would follow with distribution of comfits and wine. EDGAR I. FRIPP.

[A few Corrigenda, which we regret arrived too late for insertion here, will appear in our next number.]

SQUANTO. 'A SPECIAL INSTRUMENT SENT OF GOD."

THE position of the Pilgrim Fathers for more than two years after their arrival in America was one of great hardship and danger. Of the 104 men women and children, who made up their company, no fewer than 53 died of "the sickness" within the first few months. The provisions they had brought with them were soon exhausted. They had no knowledge of the resources of the country. They lived in daily fear of the Indians. They came very near to affording another example of failure such as had befallen previous attempts at colonization. That they did not was due mainly to the character of the men, especially of then- leaders, Bradford, Winslow, Standish. But it was a struggle for life in which very small circumstances might have turned the scale one way or the other. That they did not succumb, was no doubt in some degree due to one whose name has received little recognition in history, but whose humble help was of very vital assistance to them. This was their Indian interpreter Squanto or Tisquantum. " About the 16th of March 1621 a certain Indian came boldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English which they could well understand but mar- velled at it." A few days later he came bringing with him another Indian who had actually been in England and who could speak English much better than himself. Thus Squanto was introduced to the Colonists