Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/36

 24 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vm. JAN. 8, 1021. the Wold, taking an active share in the work. We see her in her " old coat " on week-days, with her head in a kerchief, .among her bees and milk-pails, grinding ms.lt and making cheese, and busy in the kitchen, aided by her servant and kins- woman, Alice Townsend, who after her death, we gather, married her son, William. "Thomas ploughed the fields with his team of oxen ; or followed the " ox-harrow with seventeen tines (or teeth) of iron." On, Sunday she went to church, where her husband was buried, in a hat or cap, wearing her beads and a silver ring, in a gown of velvet, a black kirtle and a red petticoat " over-bodied with red russels " (fox-skins), . and " a harnessed girdle of silver." She made her will on June 1, 1558, be- queathing the farm to Thomas, with " all the wood lying against the elms at the chamber end," and a cow and a few house- hold things, and all the remainder of her possessions, except some personal gifts, to William. Mistress W T aterman obtained her mother's cap; Thomas' wife had the "harnessed girdle of silver," and the rest of the Sunday garments ; a god-daughter, Margaret Phillips, daughter of William Phillips of Stratford (and cousin of the other Margaret Philiips, daughter of Mistress Waterman, now wife of Edward Walford of Evenlode) inherited the silver ring, and Alice Townsend, the prospective wife, as it appears, of William, a cow, a pair of sheets, a twilly (or coverlet), a caldron, two pewter dishes, a pair of tache-hooks and two "partlets." Mary Staunton's children re- ceived a memorial groat apiece, while her husband had the appointment of supervisor to the will. Thomas' right to seven gold pieces (two angels and five crowns), given to him one day by his mother in the barn, is acknowledged by William. On Oct. 10, 1558, the inventory of Widow 1 Townsend's goods was made by Thomas Palmer, Thomas Mayowe, and William Bett (or Bott), another resident on the Wold. Was it through the Townsends that young John Shakespeare was apprenticed to a glover and whittawer in Stratford ? And did he enter the service of Joan Town- send's husband, Thomas Dickson alias Waterman, and become a member of her household ? When a nephew of Joan and a grandson of Widow Townsend named John, son probably of Thomas Townsend, had a son Edward baptized on July 13, 1578, Edward Cornwall, brother-in-law of John Shakespeare, living in John Shakespeare's old home in Snitterfield, stood godfather ; and when eight years later, on Sept. 4, 1586, John Townsend's son Henry was baptized in Snitterfield Church, John Shakespeare's brother, Henry Shakespeare of Ingon, was sponsor. 3. Roger Lyncecombe. Another link between Snitterfield and Stratford was Roger Lyncecombe. He was a yeoman of Snitterfield with a small shop in Henley Street, Stratford, near the home of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His farm at Snitterfield was by the Lammas Close. He had land also at Yardley, which he purchased and bequeathed to his son Thomas. We get a glimpse of him in the year 1538 as overseer of the will of a Strat- ford man, William Facey, who also had land at Yardley. He had two sons, John and the aforesaid Thomas, and three daughters, one married to Thomas Warner of Wellesburn, the second to Henry Bowton of Pillardington, and the third, Agnes, who was not married in his lifetime. On Jan. 14, 1557, he was appointed overseer to the will of a Snitterfield neighbour, William Bracy, whose goods he helped to appraise on Feb. 7 following. An item in this will throws light on the "second best bed " in William Shakespeare's will sixty years later. William Bracy said : "My wife Margery shall have to her use all my household stuff except one bed, the second-best, the which I give and bequeath to John my son with three pair of sheets." He evidently wished his wife to retain the best bed, and his son to have the second- best after his death. As evidently Shakes- peare wanted his wife to keep her bed, which was the second-best at New Place, when his daughter and her husband, Doctor Hall, came into the house on his decease. On June 24, 1557, Roger Lyncecombe was made overseer of the will of another Snitter- field friend, Thomas Harding. He signed his own will on Aug. 13, 1558, and Richard Shakespeare helped to value his goods on Apr. 21, 1559. The widow maintained the connection with Stratford, where on June 22, 1560, her daughter Agnes married the young usher at the Grammar School, successor to old Dalam and assistant to Master William Smart, William Gilbert alias Higges (pro- noanced Hidges). They perhaps lived in a house in Rother Market, for which widow Lyncecombe paid rent until her death in 1570. William Gilbert alias Higges lived