would indicate that it was mainly used for the storage of wool, grain, hides, and the like. At an early date the two houses were connected by inside doorways, as they are at present, and thus made into a single building. Together they must have formed one of the most pretentious business establishments in the village. The rise of John to a place of importance in Stratford » was accelerated in the autumn of the following year, GROUND PLAN OF THE SHAKESPEARE HOUSES IN (The "Wool Shop" at the right, the family residence at the left.) 1557, by his marriage to Mary Arden, daughter and chief heir of Robert Arden, his father's landlord. Robert Arden was a wealthy "gentleman of worship" living at Wilmecote, about three miles from Stratford. He owned two farmhouses at Snitterfield with more than a hundred acres of arable land, which he let to tenants; and at Wilmecote he owned two estates which he himself cultivated, namely, a copyhold estate of unknown extent, would indicate that it was mainly used for the storage of wool, grain, hides, and the like. At an early date the two houses were connected by inside doorways, as they are at present, and thus made into a single building. Together they must have formed one of the most pretentious business establishments in the village. The rise of John to a place of importance in Stratford · was accelerated in the autumn of the following year, GROUND PLAN OF THE SHAKESPEARE HOUSES IN (The "Wool Shop" at the right, the family residence at the left.) 1557, by his marriage to Mary Arden, daughter and chief heir of Robert Arden, his father's landlord. Robert Arden was a wealthy "gentleman of worship" living at Wilmecote, about three miles from Stratford. He owned two farmhouses at Snitterfield with more than a hundred acres of arable land, which he let to tenants; and at Wilmecote he owned two estates which he himself cultivated, namely, a copyhold estate of unknown extent, where he seems to have resided, and apparently the richest possession of all a valuable estate known as Asbies, consisting of a house and approximately sixty acres of land. But more important to us than the property he possessed was the gentle blood that flowed in his veins. For it is now virtually certain that through a younger branch he was descended, as the poet maintained, from the noble family of Ardens of Park Hall,1 who proudly traced their line back to the Sheriff Ailwin, Great Guy of Warwick, the Saxon King Athelstan, and Alfred the Great. Robert's father, Thomas Arden, was the second son of Walter Arden of Park Hall. This younger branch was settled at Wilmecote as early as 1501; and though Thomas Arden maintained his connection with the aristocratic families of the county, his son Robert seems to have been content to lead the life of a plain husbandman, and quietly till his estates at Wilmecote. Apparently he belonged to that splendid type of English franklin described by Sir Thomas Overbury: "Though he may give arms with the best gentlemen... he says not to his servants 'Go to the field,' but 'Let us go,'" and, happy in his own little world, remains throughout life "lord paramount within himself." His house in Wilmecote must have been large and wellfurnished. It was adorned, we know, with no fewer than 1 "That most ancient and worthy family," says Dugdale, who connects its name with the great Forest of Arden. 2 Mrs. Stopes has effectively presented the right of the poet to this pedigree, in her Shakespeare's Environment, 1914, and Shakespeare's Family, 1901. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his Life of Shakespeare, 1848, p. 8, states in error that the Arden property at Snitterfield was conveyed to Thomas Arden de Wylmecote in 16 Henry VI, i.e., 1438; this would render the above pedigree impossible. He should have said 16 Henry VII, i.e., 1501. The error has created no little confusion among students of the poet's ancestry. * See the documents printed by Mrs. Stopes in Shakespeare's Family, pp. 27-28, and Shakespeare's Environment, pp. 12–13. |