Shakespeare

The larger part of his bequest did indeed go to his older daughter, Susannah, and to her husband. They are nominated by Shakespeare as the ones to hold together his estate. He left the Halls “All the rest of my goods Chattels Leases plate Jewels amp; household stuffe whatsoever.” The “leases” may have included his shares in the Globe and in Blackfriars, if he still in fact retained them. He left his daughter New Place and the two houses in Henley Street as well as the gatehouse in Blackfriars; in addition Shakespeare bequeathed her all the lands that he had gradually purchased over the last few years. The bequest was to be held entire and in turn left to the first male son of the Halls, or to the son of the second son, going down through the generations of males in the putative Shakespearian genealogy. His patriarchal instincts were clear, even though nature thwarted his intentions.

There were other gifts to relatives and to neighbours, as well as the price of three gold rings for three of his colleagues from the King’s Men – Richard Burbage, John Heminges and Henry Condell. Since Heminges and Condell were the begetters of the subsequent Folio edition of his plays, the rings can be considered to be a “forget not” token. It makes it more, rather than less, likely that in Stratford he had been revising his plays for future publication.

He left £10 for the relief of the poor of Stratford, by no means an extravagant sum, and his processional sword to Thomas Combe. It has been considered odd or singular that Shakespeare mentions no books or play-manuscripts in this will, but they may have been included in the “goods” generally inherited by the Halls. They could also have formed part of an inventory that is now lost. In his own will, at a later date, John Hall refers to his “study of Bookes” which were entirely scattered to the winds. There was also a report that Shakespeare’s granddaughter (he had no male heirs) “carried away with her from Stratford many of her grand-father’s papers,”⁷ but this cannot now be verified.

It is a sensible and business-like document, evincing Shakespeare’s eminently practical temperament. It is true that other early seventeenth-century testators are more effusive in their allusions to family and friends, but they had not spent a lifetime writing plays. When one eighteenth-century antiquary complained that the will was “absolutely void of the least particle of that Spirit which Animated our Great Poet,”⁸ he forgot that he was dealing with a legal document rather than a work of art. The distinction would not have been lost on Shakespeare himself. He signed the first two sheets of the will “Shakspere,” and the final sheet was completed with the words “By me William Shakspeare.” The surname trails off, as if the hand could hardly hold or direct the pen. These were the last words he ever wrote.

Shakespeare lingered for four weeks from March into April; if he was indeed suffering from typhoid fever, the period is right. He would have experienced insomnia, fatigue and overwhelming thirst which no amount of liquid could reasonably assuage. It is reported from no very reliable source that “he caught his death through leaving his bed when ill, because some of his old friends had called on him.”⁹ We have had cause to note the belief that “he dyed a Papist,” which may mean that he was given extreme unction according to the old Catholic rite. As death approached, the passing bell was rung in the Stratford church. He died on 23 April and, having been born on the same day, he had just entered his fifty-third year.

He was embalmed and laid upon the bed, wrapped in flowers and herbs in the process known as “winding” the corpse. His friends and neighbours walked solemnly through New Place to view the body; the principal rooms and staircases were draped with black cloths. The corpse was then “watched” until interment. He was wrapped in a linen winding sheet and, two days later, carried down the well-worn “burying path” to the old church. It was sometimes the custom to accompany the burial procession with music. He was said to have been buried at a depth of some 17 feet; this seems a deep pit indeed but it may have been dug out of fear of contagion from the typhus. He was placed beneath the floor of the chancel, beside the north wall, as his status as lay rector and receiver of tithes required. It is likely to have been Shakespeare himself who wrote the epitaph:

GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE,

TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE!

BLEST BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES,

AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.

He gave the world his works, and his good fellowship, not his body or his name.

The mourners carried small bunches of rosemary or bay to throw into the grave which, to this day, is visited by thousands of admirers and pilgrims.

CHAPTER 91. To Heare the Story of Your Life