So Then Where is William Shakespeare Buried? p. 2.

Returning to Judith’s monument inscription, read literally it must mean that her body is buried in the monument itself or the wall below it.  Between 1840 and 1891, an extremely literal researcher would have to present that as his incontrovertible finding.  Moreover, even being able to see the gravestone inscription, on the floor, he would have to declare the grave on the floor below the monument  to house an anonymous occupant.

Inter'd beneath this marble, lyes at rest,

Vntimely pluckt from her beloued's brest;

Desires nil vltra nature's quintessence,

In whom, perfections in their excellence,

Their stations kept:—her life unspotted was;

Her soule vnstained, unto heauen did pas.

Could birth or beauty, loue or to be lov'd.

Of powers diuine, this sad decree have mov'd;

Might many thousand sighs, large streams of tears

Brought fourth vvith prayers, haue added to her yeares;

Epithalamions might have joy'd our eares.

No name appears on the stone.  The antiquaries have pronounced the grave to belong to Judith Combe for these centuries without proof perfect.

On the south wall of the chancel, directly across from Judith, appears a wall plaque from much the same  time.  It is a memorial to a number of Combe family members:

NEAR VNTO THIS PLACE, LIE INTERRED THE BODIES OF WILL. COMBE, OF OVLD STRATFORD ESQ.. WHO DIED THE 3oth DAY OF JANVARY ANº. 1666. & OF KATHERINE HIS WIFE, DAVGHTER OF EDWARD BOVGHT ON OF LAW FORD IN THIS COVNTY OF WARWICK ESQ. BY WHOM HE HAE ONE SONNE & NINE, DAVGHTERS, OF WHICH TVO ONLY HAD ISSVE, VIZ. MARY WHO MARRIED WITH THOMAS WAGSTAFF OF TACHBROOK IN THIS COVNTY ESQ. AND CATHERINE, WHO MARRIED WITH Sr. THOMAS STEPHENS OF SODBVRY IN THE COVNTY OF GLOVC. Kt. THE SONNE, AND ALL THE, OTHER DAVGHTERS DECEASED VNMARRIED, WHEREOF FIVE LYE. HERE ALSO INTERRED WITH ONE DAVGHTER of Sr THOMAS STEPHENS BVRIED IN THE SAME GRAVE WITH HER GRANDMOTHER.[1]

The perfectly literal researcher can only take from this that there are a number of the aforementioned persons buried in the wall.  What can be made of “near unto this place,” regarding others named, even the more interpretive investigator cannot be perfectly sure.  Presumably all the bodies mentioned on the plaque are buried in the chancel under one or another layer of pavement.  What can be said with absolute certainty is that the further back into history the researcher goes the less consistency (s)he will find in the memorials or the church records.

Check out the Virtual Vanaprastha Author Page!

In the final analysis, then, by best evidence and methods, the Stratford Monument is meant to rise above the traditional grave of Shakspere of Stratford.  Why the grave is not directly against the wall, no one can yet be perfectly certain.  Anne, Shakspere’s wife, may have requested to be buried on his right hand, the position of highest honor in an age that such symbols greatly mattered.[2]  Anne’s grave may have displaced a previous occupant (the size of the available space suggests a physically much bigger person) while the graves on the other side may not yet have been available.

As for the lack of a nameplate on the Shakspere grave, I have pointed out that the grave was partially overlaid with the edging of the expanded altar apron.[3]  Objections have been made that the church clergy and vestry would not possibly choose to cover over the name of The Bard as part of any expansion.  As I have pointed out, in my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof, there is no sign  that anyone in Stratford thought the Stratford man could write much less write great plays.

xxix.  Prior to 1623, the playwright and poet Shake-speare had no flesh and blood.  Shakspere’s frauds were known only by a very few, among the general public, and probably believed by fewer still.  With the publication of a “collected plays,” questions were sure to be asked, and persisted in, about who this Shake-speare had been, why there was no record at all of the man behind the name.  For this reason, and several others, Pavier was effectively ordered to cease publication and the Herberts set about “doing the thing right”.

xxx.  It was probably at this time, while checking out the actual fate of the player, since his exit from London, that the group became aware that he had a funerary monument and a crypt in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.  A plaque was struck declaring him to have been the Immortal Bard and quietly appeared below the likeness.[4]

It seems to have taken the locals until the 1630s to begin to understand the business opportunity that had fallen in their lap.  The clergy did not know, in mid-1623, that the man in the grave was passing for the popular playwright, therefore they would have felt no particular compunction.

Regardless, there were no names on the floor graves associated with the wall monuments or plaques of any of the other graves in the chancel at Holy Trinity.  The swatch of embarrassing doggerel on the floor grave is so expressive that I am delighted to have Shakspere’s body in the grave.  It screams out that the body is not William Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language.

So then, do I claim that the Stratford Monument as it exists now is the monument as it has always existed?  That there’s nothing to find?  Of course not.  I’ve just mentioned the one most important change.  There are others.  But that’s a matter for another day.

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[1] Dugdale, 686.

[2] On the floor-tomb effigies at Holy Trinity, it must be admitted, the wife is portrayed uniformly on the left.

[3] Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Stratford Shakespeare’s Undersized Grave” Virtual Grub Street, http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2018/07/stratford-shakespeares-short-grave.html [Accessed 7/29/18].

[4] Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof.  Richmond, VA: The Virtual Vanaprastha, 2013.  xxix – xxx.

• Thomas Churchyard in The Merry Wives of Windsor. June 04, 2018. “The idea of this stratagem, &c. might have been adopted from part of the entertainment prepared by Thomas Churchyard for Queen Elizabeth at Norwich:…”

• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

Click here to visit my "Edward de Vere, Shakespeare and Elizabethan Subjects Information Exchange" Facebook Group.  Join us!  It's fun!

So Then Where is William Shakespeare Buried?

Memorial for Judith Combe,
Church of the Holy Trinity,
Stratford-upon-Avon.

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

There have also been claims that the wording of the Stratford Shakespeare Memorial plaque betrays a secret that it is not the body of Shakspere (or the actual Shakespeare) that is buried in the floor-grave traditionally assigned to Shakespeare at all.  The evidence cited in support of this seems to be the Latin “terra tegit” (implying an earthen grave without further mention of monuments, stone floors, etc.) and the English “Death hath plast  / Within this monument Shakspeare”.  These together with the lack of a name on the floor grave traditionally assigned to Shakespeare have led to theories that the Stratford man or the playwright are buried in the monument itself, in the wall beneath the monument or that neither is buried anywhere nearer the monument than the graveyard outside.

As I mentioned in a previous section, I see no use in seeking to overcome the above readings of the brief text of the monument.[1]  Instead I will look at positive evidence for the location of the body of the Stratford man.  The playwright — reasons being what precisely they might have been — was buried in St. Augustine Church, Hackney, by best evidence.  No identifying stone survives.

The first place I suggest we look, in order to clarify these matters, is at the wall monument one up from Shakespeare’s on the north side of the Holy Trinity chancel.  This monument is dedicated to Judith Combe.  The plaque on her monument is made of touchstone.  She died in 1649, some 15 years after the first notices of the Shakespeare tomb — identified as the tomb of the playwright — began to appear, which may explain the use of matching touchstone however much her family easily had the wealth for better.  Regardless, touchstone was common at the time.

The first lines inscribed on the touchstone plaque are those that are to our point:

HERE LYETH THE BODY OF JVDITH COMBE (DAVGHTER OF WILLIAM COMBE OF OLD STRATFORD IN THE COVNTY OF WARWICK ESQ.)[2]

On the face of the inscription, Judith was buried in the monument or the wall right below it.  To show how matters can be more difficult still, even if the researcher isn’t far more literal than period inscriptions will support, sometime shortly after 1824, a researcher would have found no associated floor grave.

I have already mentioned the 1617 and 1619-23 renovations to the “ruinous” Church of the Holy Trinity, which houses the Shakespeare Monument.  Other  renovations periodically followed.  There was another renovation, in 1839:

In 1839 the body of the church was bepewed and galleried with square horse boxes on either side, and plain forms with backs up the centre. In front of the tower stood a high "three-decker," and the candelabrum now in the north transept hung from the centre; the organ was built on a gallery over the tower arch, which had a screen, as well as that across the chancel arch.

At this period the second restoration commenced. The middle aisle received a new roof, the tower new pinnacles, while the organ was removed to the west end, and in all about £3,392 were spent. The reopening took place on the Feast of SS. Simon and Jude, 1840. It was at this period too that the new altar was built and the pavement was laid down,…[3]

It is for this reason that the world received notice in 1891, that the floor grave of Judith Combe had been discovered:

Some interesting discoveries have recently been made in connection with the restoration of the parish church, Stratford-upon-Avon.  In taking up some of the pavement within the altar rails the old flooring was discovered buried about six inches below the modern.  Within a few feet of Shakespeare’s tombstone has been unearthed a beautifully inlaid marble tablet in memory of Judith Combe,…  This slab, with others which have been found, the committee intend to raise level with the pavement.[4]

Published accounts of the marble tablet begin with the 1730 second edition of William Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire and seem to have ended around 1824[5].  Apparently, even in that more modern and precise time, the church records did not reveal that gravestones had been covered over with six inches of raised pavement around the chancel altar.  The “committee” does not yet seem to have acquitted upon the promise to “to raise [the gravestones] level with the pavement”.

Returning to Judith’s monument inscription, read literally it must mean... [Next page >>>]

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[1] Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Is John Shakespeare the Figure in the Stratford Monument?” Virtual Grub Street, http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2018/07/is-john-shakespeare-figure-in-stratford.html [Accessed 7/29/18].

[2] Dugdale, William.  The antiquities of Warwickshire illustrated from records, leiger ..., Volume 2.  London: Osborn and Longman, 1730. 686.

[3] Bloom, J. Harvey.  Shakespeare's Church, Otherwise the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity…  London: Unwin, 1902. 20-1.  Italics mine.

[4] The Publishers' Circular, Jan. 24, '91. Vol. LIV.  (January to June, 1891).  London: Low, Marston & Co., 1891.  97.

[5] Moncrieff, William Thomas.  Excursion to Warwick.  London: Longman, Hurst & Co., 1824.  11-2.

• The Great Waugh-Bate Debate #1: Steven Steinburg’s Rebuttal and Alexander Waugh’s Encrypted Polimanteia. February 01, 2018. “All of this said, I felt that Alexander Waugh started off slowly but continually grew stronger as the debate proceeded.  He did well.  Jonathan Bate, on the other hand, is a much more effective public speaker.  For all of his many errors, he probably appeared to the general public to be the more knowledgeable party.”

• Dating Edward de Vere’s Sonnet 110 + 1.  May 28, 2018.  “By 1589, the lands of the Earldom of Oxford had been put under the control of De Vere’s father-in-law William Cecil, the Queen’s Treasurer and closest advisor, in order to save them from being sold by the deeply indebted Earl for ready money.”

• Edward de Vere's Memorial For His Son, Who Died at Birth May 1583.  July 5, 2017.  "The brief Viscount Bulbeck being the son of the renowned poet and playwright Edward de Vere, we might have hoped to have the text of the father’s own memorial poem.  As far as traditional literary history is concerned, no such poem has yet been discovered."

• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

Stratford Shakespeare’s Undersized Grave

Standard Citation: Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Stratford Shakespeare’s Undersized Grave”. Virtual Grub Street, http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2018/07/stratford-shakespeares-short-grave.html [state date accessed].

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

This series of short articles on the Stratford Shakespeare Monument began by analyzing the claim, by Dr. Jonathan Bate that the existence of the monument, as we know it now, was recorded within a year or two of the Stratford Shakspere’s death. [Link]  Having made clear that the claim was not supported by verifiable evidence, the second installment began to address whether the figure in the Stratford Monument could possibly depict Shakspere of Stratford’s father, John. [Link]

The remaining evidence concerning John, however, will have to wait.  Another persistent area of Monument conspiracy theory has been momentarily revived, I note, in response to my raising the subject.  This reminded me that I’d promised myself to look into it.

It has long been known that the purported grave of the playwright William Shakespeare in the floor of the chancel at Holy Trinity, Stratford, is much too short for an adult occupant.  As with all quirks in the historical record surrounding the works of Shakespeare, and their context, this has led to one or more radical theories in one or another quarter.  Those radical theories have branched off into new radical theories necessary in order for the first theory to prove out.

It has taken a good bit of time to run down enough pieces of legitimate evidence in order to address a few of these theories.  First with myself and now with the world.

We learn from the Stratford Vestry Book,

The 24th of October, 1617.

xs. viij d. js. vj d. Item, we were scited to Worcester because the Church and Belles were out of order... [1]

A History of the County of Warwick, provides essential context:

The church suffered many vicissitudes after the Reformation, when the rood, the chantry-chapels, &c., were abolished and many of the carvings were mutilated and glass destroyed. The chancel was boarded off from the rest of the church and it was in a bad condition at the end of the 16th century. The corporation in 1593 petitioned Lord Burleigh to use his influence for its repair, but apparently without success as it was pronounced 'ruinous' in 1618 (two years after Shakespeare's burial in the chancel). Some repairs were executed in 1621–2, the walls 'mended' and painted and the windows glazed.[2]

The chancel in which the bones of Shakspere, of Stratford, repose was a wreck.  Quite possibly, it was used as little more than a mausoleum.

Following notice of the citation,  the Vestry-Book shows over three months of entries recording payment for repairs to the church and its appurtenances.  No repairs are shown for the Chancel, which may well have remained boarded up.

The first mention I have found of the Chancel, from one of the town council books, is dated  “4 December, 1618”:

At this Hall yt is agreed that the  chamberleynes shall dischardge Mr. Rodgers from receyveing any more benefite by burials in the Chansell, and that the Chamberleynes shalle receyve it from henceforth towardes the repair of the Chansell, the High Churche, and also to demand of Mr. Rogers so much as he haith receyved within this last year.[3]

Discharging Mr. Rogers was but a single step toward a daunting task.  Another step is recorded in the Vestry-Book, under the 17 of March, 1619:

The Decayes of the Parish Church of Stratford uppon Avon was vewed by William Combe Eſq., etc.,... Churchwardens, and they have apoynted theis thinges hereafter mencioned to be done.[4]

Among the items in the list of repairs that follows is “Item, the seates in the Chancell to be repayred.”  The second round of repairs clearly involved the chancel in something of a major way.

While I have yet to find a specific order to extend out the apron around the altar, there are a number of indications that this was included along with the repairs.  For example, Shakspere’s was not the only short grave.  A recent Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) scan showed that his wife Anne’s grave was also longer than her gravestone.[5]  All indications are that none of the other graves along the step up to the apron are truncated.

Anne Shakspere died on August 6, 1623.  The date could easily have fallen during the work on the chancel.  By all indications it must have.  The others buried along the apron edge died between 1633 and 1704, long after the work on the chancel had been completed.  Therefore they were buried with their heads at the step of the new extended apron and their gravestones were intact across the full lengths of their bodies.

The radar scan, it turns out, found other evidence. 

Kevin Colls, the archaeologist who led the team, said the grave was not as they had expected. “We came across this very odd, strange thing at the head end. It was very obvious, within all the data we were getting, that there was something different going on at that particular spot. We have concluded it is signs of disturbance, of material being dug out and put back again.”

There is also “a very strange brick structure” that cuts across the head end of the grave, he said.[6]

Mr. Coll’s considers this evidence to support an old rumor that Shakspere’s head had been stolen in 1794.  But I submit that he is merely making his observation based upon a coincidence.

These findings are in exactly the location where the new, thick stone edge was installed.  There is much more basis to suggest that the weight of the construction caused the head of the grave to cave in causing damage to the head. The repair crew built a protective brick cowl over the head in order to hold up the heavy apron and protect the head of the grave from caving in again and doing more damage to the corpse.

But what about the theory that the floor grave doesn't even belong to the Shakespeare Monument? [Next>>>] 

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[1] Extracts Taken from the Vestry-Book of the Church of the Holy Trinity, At Stratford-upon-Avon (1865), ed. Halliwell, J. O. 19. 

[2] 'The borough of Stratford-upon-Avon: Churches and charities', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 3, Barlichway Hundred, ed. Philip Styles (London, 1945), pp. 269-282. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol3/pp269-282 [accessed 22 July 2018].

[3] Times of The Shakespeares, Illustrated by Extracts from the Council Books of the Corporation. London. ed. Halliwell, J. O. Adlard & Close, 1864. 115.

[4] Vestry-Book, 27.

[5] “Secret History: Shakespeare's Tomb”, 23 Mar 2016. Channel Four Television Corporation.  London.  http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/secret-history-shakespeares-tomb

[6] Brown, Mark. “Shakespeare's skull probably stolen by grave robbers, study finds.”  26 Mar. 2016.  The Guardian.  U.S. Edition.  https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/23/shakespeare-stolen-skull-grave-robbing-tale-true

• The Great Waugh-Bate Debate #1: Steven Steinburg’s Rebuttal and Alexander Waugh’s Encrypted Polimanteia. February 01, 2018. “All of this said, I felt that Alexander Waugh started off slowly but continually grew stronger as the debate proceeded.  He did well.  Jonathan Bate, on the other hand, is a much more effective public speaker.  For all of his many errors, he probably appeared to the general public to be the more knowledgeable party.”

• Thomas Churchyard in The Merry Wives of Windsor. June 04, 2018. “The idea of this stratagem, &c. might have been adopted from part of the entertainment prepared by Thomas Churchyard for Queen Elizabeth at Norwich:…”

• Let the sky rain potatoes! December 16, 2017. "In fact, the sweet potato had only just begun to be a delicacy within the reach of splurging poets and playwrights and members of the middle classes at the time that The Merry Wives of Windsor (the play from which Falstaff is quoted) was written.  The old soldier liked to keep abreast of the new fads."

• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

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>>>]

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[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"?’

• The Great Waugh-Bate Debate #1: Steven Steinburg’s Rebuttal and Alexander Waugh’s Encrypted Polimanteia. February 01, 2018. “All of this said, I felt that Alexander Waugh started off slowly but continually grew stronger as the debate proceeded.  He did well.  Jonathan Bate, on the other hand, is a much more effective public speaker.  For all of his many errors, he probably appeared to the general public to be the more knowledgeable party.”

• Thomas Churchyard in The Merry Wives of Windsor. June 04, 2018. “The idea of this stratagem, &c. might have been adopted from part of the entertainment prepared by Thomas Churchyard for Queen Elizabeth at Norwich:…”

• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

Click here to visit my "Edward de Vere, Shakespeare and Elizabethan Subjects Information Exchange" Facebook Group.  Join us!  It's fun!

What Hamlet’s Gravedigger Teaches Us.

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

In my previous post — “Waugh-Bate Debate #2: the Facts ofJohn Weever's Transcription” [link] — I address Jonathan Bate’s erroneous claim that “[the Stratford Shakespeare] monument was transcribed within a year of [Shaksper’s] death [in 1616].”  In this post, I begin a further exploration of the probable facts regarding the Monument.

“How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?” Hamlet asks the gravedigger in the play Hamlet.  He receives an extended answer that is not only highly amusing but informative.  But how did this  gravedigger know so much about how bodies preserve in the grave?  Was he some kind of ghoul who surreptitiously went around exhuming bodies?

At a point he presents Hamlet with the skull of Yorrick the one time court jester.  But how, out of all skulls in England, did he know to whom that particular skull belonged?

Actually, he was just a much funnier than usual but otherwise normal practitioner of his craft.  In England land was at a premium.  Land to expand graveyards simply was not available. Gravedigger’s dug up as many bodies as they buried.  In this instance, the gravedigger was digging up Yorrick’s grave, as he conversed with Hamlet, in order for it to host a new occupant.

Graves were continually reused.  The less the family of the dead could donate, the shorter their loved one’s lease on his or her bit of ground.  For this reason, 19^th century accounts of the “God’s Acre” graveyard, beside ancient Holy Trinity Church, in Stratford-upon-Avon, recount no earlier date on any gravestone than 1672.  While reference was often made, in those days, to rising from one’s grave to meet one’s final judgment, for the vast majority of people it was a euphemism, a comforting myth.

Graves within the church building, however, were a different matter.  First of all, they cost a lot of money.  Even then, other factors must be met.  Shakespeare’s monument, for example, is said to have been permitted to him in lieu of having purchased church tithes for the last 10 or so years of his life.  While no documentary evidence of such a custom seems to be available, it has long been spoken of as an established fact even by Trinity historians.  Regardless, he had to have donated a lot of money, in addition, in order to be provided a grave within the church.  More still to have space assigned to host a monument.  Even then, it is quite possible that he would have been removed before now if he hadn’t become such a lucrative source of post-mortem income.

Historians have regularly observed, over the centuries, that Shakespeare’s monument was not at all the result of his having been The Bard but rather of his having purchased the tithes.  I’ve made my position clear, in my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof [link], that the monument existed for the memory of a wealthy man of the town who had sufficient funds to buy the space and material and to engage the sculptor.  That man put no touches on his monument to indicate that he had written so much as a single line of a single play or poem.  What he did compose as a swatch of doggerel for his grave that makes clear that he was barely literate.

The William Shakspere of the monument proudly presented a bag of grain to the world, the source, together with usury, real estate, and theater shares, of most of his considerable wealth and of his right to a grave within the chancel.  He had every right to  be proud.  Barely able to write, he had proved to be a highly energetic, industrious and wily investor.  He was a man constantly on the watch for opportunity and able to recognize it when he saw it.  In today’s money, at the end of his life he was a millionaire.

As for what followed, I quote from my  Edward de Vere was Shakespeare:

Prior to 1623, the playwright and poet Shake-speare had no flesh and blood.  Shakspere’s frauds [selling the playwright’s manuscripts as his own — one of his less savory revenue streams] were known only by a very few, among the general public, and probably believed by fewer still.  With the publication of a “collected plays,” questions were sure to be asked, and persisted in, about who this Shake-speare had been, why there was no record at all of the man behind the name.  For this reason, and several others, Pavier was effectively ordered to cease publication and the Herberts set about “doing the thing right”.

It was probably at this time, while checking out the actual fate of the player, since his exit from London, that the group became aware that he had a funerary monument and a crypt in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.  A plaque was struck declaring him to have been the Immortal Bard and quietly appeared below the likeness.[1]

Mine is not the majority opinion as to the nature of the monument.  In the posts to follow, I will present the evidence of the matter.  I submit that the evidence will powerfully support my position and no other.

First I will examine the theory that the monument actually first belonged to William Shakspere’s father, John. [Next>>>]

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[1] Purdy, Gilbert Wesley.  Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof. Richmond, VA.: The Virtual Vanaprastha, 2013. xxix & xxx.

• 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"?’
• The Great Waugh-Bate Debate #1: Steven Steinburg’s Rebuttal and Alexander Waugh’s Encrypted Polimanteia. February 01, 2018. “All of this said, I felt that Alexander Waugh started off slowly but continually grew stronger as the debate proceeded.  He did well.  Jonathan Bate, on the other hand, is a much more effective public speaker.  For all of his many errors, he probably appeared to the general public to be the more knowledgeable party.”
• Falstaff's Sack. August 7, 2017.  'The question Mr. Hart addresses is “Just what is sack?”.  This is not the first time the question has been addressed but his is a particularly thorough attempt at an answer.'
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

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