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Saturday, July 14, 2018

Is John Shakespeare the Figure in the Stratford Monument?


Hollar Engraving of the Holy Trinity
Church Shakespeare Monument executed
from the sketch of William Dugdale.
Previously in this series on the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Monument:

1) Waugh-Bate Debate #2: the Facts of John Weever's Transcription.
2) What Hamlet’s Gravedigger Teaches Us.
3) Is John Shakespeare the Figure in the Stratford Monument?
4) Stratford Shakespeare’s Undersized Grave

 Several weeks ago, I posted Waugh-Bate Debate #2 [link] explaining why one of Dr. Bate’s “facts” in the Great Debate was in fact not a fact.  Relating, as it did, to the Stratford Shakespeare Monument, at Holy Trinity Church, I went on to discuss burial practices at the time of the Stratford man’s death, in my next post What Hamlet’s Gravedigger Teaches Us [Link]. 

In the latter post, I promised to next “examine the theory that the monument actually first belonged to William Shakspere’s father, John.”  Richard Kennedy first made the claim, in 2006, that the figure in the niche at Holy Trinity was not William Shakspere, of Stratford-upon-Avon, but his father John.  It gained such attention that even Dr. Bate and Stratford curmudgeon Stanley Wells were unable to remain silent on the matter [Link].  Letters were exchanged in The Times.

The John Shakspere "Woolpack Man" theory seems to have faded away.  Most of the Internet texts and chatter exist no longer.  I suspect that Mr. Kennedy and his supporters will feel that, under the circumstances, I cannot possibly do it justice.

But what remains does not so much suggest the theory needs to be refuted in its specifics but that positive facts need to be presented in favor of the monument having definitively been constructed for William.  Towards this end, a more probable alternative explanation for John Shakspere’s burial needs to be presented.  This I began with Hamlet’s Gravedigger.

There are small mysteries enough about the graves below the Shakespeare niche.  None of them, however, changes the fact that the niche is surrounded by the wife and children of William Shakspere, not John.  Mary Arden, John’s wife, is nowhere to be found.  Instead we find William’s wife Anne.  William’s brother, and business partner, Gilbert is nowhere to be found.  Only Susanna, adult daughter of William and Anne, and her spouse and son-in-law are found.

But it is a similar lack that tempts us to theorize that John Shakspere could rest somehow beneath the monument or in the grave beside Anne which goes without a name.  That and the need to explain the Dugdale sketch of the figure in the niche of the Shakespeare monument.  The imagination abhors a vacuum.  Or we can say that it “loves” a vacuum for giving it free play.  The vacuum, in this instance, was the lack of a grave for the elder Shakespeare, the lack of a specific name on the grave below the niche on the far side of Anne Hathaway-Shakespeare and the need to explain the anomalous “sack” upon which the figure in the niche was resting his arms.

I have referred to the sack in question as a sack of grain.  This cannot be placed entirely beyond dispute.  The woolsack of Mr. Kennedy’s theory is possible and could suggest John Shakspere who was a wool broker as well as a glover and a usurer.  William, on the other hand, was a grain broker, quite possibly a usurer, a real estate speculator and investor in theater shares.  For those who love the idea that the Stratford William wrote the works of Shakespeare, it is sacrilege to assert that the sack was ever anything but a writing cushion (whatever precisely might possess one to write upon a cushion).  So then, the sack could be any one of several things and can be of no determinative value.

William’s grain brokering, however, is of great importance here.  We are told for centuries, by the representatives of Holy Trinity Church, in Stratford, and our best Shakespeare scholars, that William Shakspere had a right to burial in the church by virtue of having purchased one Ralph Hubaud’s half-share of the Trinity Church tithes in 1605.  The reason there was a need to sell the tithes is that they were paid in kind.  The Great Tithe was paid in grain and hay.  The Lesser Tithe raised a much smaller amount and was paid in other farm products (including wool).  The church needed a quick and convenient way to turn the goods into cash for its coffers.[1]  The way they did this was to sell (i.e. lease the rights to) the goods to someone who would resell them for a profit.  For these reasons, I have grown in the habit of calling the sack a “sack of grain”.  It was the symbol of his right to burial within the church as well as his brokering wealth.[2]

But what of the statue William Dugdale sketched during his visit to Holy Trinity in 1634?  Even Oxfordians are shocked to think that the likeness is of William.  Surely it was an older, less sophisticated man.  Surely it was his father John.

But no.  The likeness is not necessarily inconsistent with an image of the sophisticated commoner of the time.  Dugdale’s sketch could be a very rough approximation of the Stratford man.  The epitaph that Shakspere chose for his gravestone rounds out a very recognizable scene:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forebeare
To digg the dust enclosed heare;
 Bleste be the man that spares thes stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones

I have already declared my understanding, in my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof,  that the old statue probably had little or nothing more than the bare name of its owner and the epitaph is original.  The rest declaring him “GENIO SOCRATEM,” etc., was later added to the monument.

But why, then, doesn’t John Shakspere have a tomb?  After all, he held prominent Stratford town offices.  Let's take a moment first to ask why the gravestone on the floor is too small to cover an adult grave.  [Next>>>]

[1] Shakespeare Documented.  “Assignment from Ralph Hubaud of Ipsley, esquire, to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman, of a lease of a half-share of the great tithes of Old Stratford, Welcombe and Bishopton, and the lesser tithes of the whole parish.”  http://www.shakespearedocumented.org/exhibition/document/assignment-ralph-hubaud-ipsley-esquire-william-shakespeare-stratford-upon-avon. 'the great tithes, on grain and hay, for Old Stratford, Bishopton and Welcombe, and what became known as the “lesser” tithes, on wool, lambs and other minor produce such as eggs and dairy produce of the whole parish'.  The wool still keeps the idea of the wool-sack alive as a Shakespeare family symbol.
[2] Ibid.  The description, here, of the various transactions correctly states that Shaksper’s son-in-law John Hall surrendered the lease in 1625 but gets the amount of the bond wrong by an order of ten.  Hubaud’s performance bond was for £80.

  • Waugh-Bate Debate #2: the Facts of John Weever's Transcription. June 24, 2018.  ‘“Let us begin with the facts,” Jonathan Bate quite rightly suggests as he launches the initial salvo of his argument for William Shaksper as the poet and playwright William Shakespeare.  His years of public speaking serve him well as he launches into his opening statement in the recent debate between himself and Alexander Waugh.  What could argue his case better, or more simply, than "the facts"?’



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