Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/160

 126 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.vm.FBB.i2.i92i. May 5, 1557, was overseer of the will of Thomas Harding June 24, 1557, 'praised the ^oods of Henry Walker July 11, 1558, wit- nessed with Richard Shakespeare the will of Henry Walker on Aug. 31, 1558, and 'praised -the goods of Walter Nicholson on Feb. 7. 1559. Apparently he died without issue, in. the summer of 1560, but left a number of nephews -and nieces, children of Rafe Maids. One of these nephews, Richard, was known in 1557 -as Richard Maids the Younger to distinguish him from his uncle. Another nephew, Pobert, married the daughter of Hugh Porter. A third nephew, William Maids, became a close friend of Alexander Webbe and his son Robert Webbe, the brother-in-law and nephew of John Shakespeare. At the View of Frankpledge at Snitterfield on Oct. 3, 1560, Richard Shakespeare was fined 4d. for keeping his beasts upon the Lea<?, contrary to order, and was one of the lord's tenants instructed "to make their hedge and ditch between the end of Richard Shakespeare's lane and Dawkins' hedge before the Feast of St. Luke's," i.e. Oct. 18.' In the meantime at the Court Leet at 'Stratford on Oct. 5 John Shakespeare and his fellow Constables presented their list of offenders since April. Master Thomas Trassell, a lawyer, living in Bridge Street, agect about thirty, a connection of the Trussells of Billesley, and therefore perhaps of Mary Shakespeare, was fined for drawing 'blood on Roger Brunt, Thomas Featherstone for a fray on Thomas Walford, Thomas Holiday alias Drudge, for drawing blood on Luke Hurst, Humfrey Holmes for drawing blood on one not named, Thomas Merrick for a fray on John Henshaw, Alderman Rafe Cawdrey for a fray on George Green of Wotton Wawen, Master Harbage's man, Thomas, for a fray upon "the other of M .^er Harbage's men the Irishman," and Richard Court, alias Smith, for " oppro- brious words and reviling " against the Constables. John Shakespeare and John Taylor were probably not sorry to bring their second year of office to a close. Other offences reported have their interest. William Smith, haberdasher of Henley Street, complained that "a piece of aproning, colour russett " had been stolen from him by a stranger and then taken from the stranger by one Bradley of Evesham. A Welsh Tian "using archery in Sheep Street " was presented for " living idly and sus- piciously," and Anna Shurton for being "a common scold and an unquiet woman." Anna Shurton, who was doubtless hoisted in the Market Place or ducked in the Avon, in the cuckstooi, was wife of William Shurton alias Adams, a tailor, living in a cottage in Ely Street. She had three children, one of whom died in the Plague of 1564. She herself died in April, 1567, and her husband promptly married, on June 3, a second wife, with the promising name Anne Primrose. At the same Court Leet, of Oct. 5, 1560, Roger Sadler was elected Bailiff and Rafe Cawdrey High Alderman. William Smith and William Tyler (colleagues of John Shakespeare and John Taylor in the year past) entered on their second twelvemonth as Constables with William Perrott (brother of Robert Perrott) and John Bell as their juniors. Humfrey Plymlej^ and John Wheeler were re-elected Chamberlains. To John Wheeler, yeoman, son of John Wheeler who died in April, 1558, and father of John Wheeler born about the year 1557, was leased by the new Bailiff and his colleagues, on Oct. 10, 1560, two small houses in Henley Street in his occupation, for sixty-one years at a rent of 10s. per annum. This pair of tenements stood on the site of the present Free Library near the Birthplace. John Shakespeare and John Wheeler had been neighbours probably for ten years past, and they remained such for the next thirty-six years. They were of one mind in religion and became Puritan recusants. On Feb. 10, 1561, John Shakespeare c btained at Worcester letters of administra- tion of his father's estate, on the exhibition of an inventory of his goods and cattels valued at 38Z. la. Od. Richard Shakespeare had died a short time previously. In the bond father and son are described as of Snitterfield, and John is called agricola. John retained for a few months an interest in his father's holding and was held respon- sible for the condition of the hedges, being fined I2d. on Oct. 1, 1561, for the non- fulfilment of the order of Oct. 3, 1560. About this time (Michaelmas 1561) Alexander Webbe, John Shakespeare's brother-in-law, entered into possession. He brought with him from Bearley his wife Margaret (nee Arden, sister of Mary Shakespeare) and four young children Anne, Robert. Elizabeth and Mary. Anne, born after April, 1555, was probably named after Widow Arden (who was her father's sister and her mother's step-mother) ; Robert, born about Oct. 1558, was probably named after his grandfather,
 * goods of the vicar Sir Thomas Hargreaves