pedigree, stretching past the Conqueror away beyond the reign of the Confessor. And to us of English race it is a matter of some interest to know that Shakespeare came of pure English blood, and not upon his mother's side of Norman, as some have concluded, because of her gentle and ancient lineage, and because, to use the words of one of them, Arden "sounds like a Norman name." But Ardern, which became Arden, is Celtic, and the name was given to the northern part of Warwickshire by the ancient Britons. And as there has even been a book written to show that Shakespeare was a Celt, it may be well to say here, that the Turchill * de Arden who is above mentioned was the first of his family who assumed a surname. His father's name was Alwin, which, like his own, was common enough of old among the English. He called himself, from the place in which he lived, Turchill de Ardern; but the Normans called him Turchill de Warwick, because of the office which he held under Edward the Confessor, and which the Conqueror allowed him to retain in spite of his English, or possibly Danish blood, because, like many other powerful Englishmen, he had not helped Harold, and did not oppose Duke William's title. For it should * The ch is hard in this name, which was often written Turkill. "This Turchill resided here at Warwick, and had great possessions in this county when William Duke of Normandy invaded always be remembered that, according to the loose dynastic notions of that day, the Norman bastard. had some claim to the throne of England, and that it was the land of a divided people that he successfully invaded. From this people, who swallowed up their conquerors (like themselves, of Teutonic family), and imposed upon them their language, their customs, and their very mental traits, came the man in whose origin we have so great an interest; and, to all intents and purposes, from this people only, even on the mother's side; for the Ardens, in spite of their position, seem to have intermarried almost altogether with English families.* But to return to the humbler members of the Arden family, with whom we have more immediate concern. Whether Robert Arden consented to the marriage of the daughter who has given .... England and vanquisht King Harold; and though he were then a man of especial note and power, yet did he give no assistance to Harold in that battail, as may be easily seen from the favor he received at the hands of the Conqueror. . . . . And though he had so much respect from the victorious Norman as to possess these during his life, yet is it most clear that his son [Siward] enjoyed none of them as his heir, but by the favor of the Conqueror..... By which instance we may partly see how hardly the native English were dealt with; viz., not to enjoy their inheritances though they did not at all oppose the Conqueror's title, as by that trust committed to this Turchill for enlarging of Warwick Castle may be inferred.” — Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, PP. 302, 303. * See Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, passim. him a consequence in the eyes of posterity that he little dreamed of, or whether the pedigree and the charms of the fair Mary were the only motives of John Shakespeare's choice, we cannot tell; because the wedding did not take place until after, and probably not until a full year after, the death of the young lady's father, by which event she became the inheritress of a pretty fortune in possession and in reversion. Her father had bequeathed her a farm, of between fifty and sixty acres, in Wilmecote, called Ashbies, with a crop upon the ground, and £6 13s. 4d. in money, beside her share in what was left after legacies were paid; and she had also a reversionary interest of far greater value than Ashbies in a stepmother's dower estate at Snitterfield, and in some other land at Wilmecote. The small sum of money set down to the young heiress (though in the end she doubtless had much more) may excite a smile, until we remember that money had then nearly six times its present value, and also how very little of actual money is got, or in fact needed, by agricultural people, even of comparatively large possessions. Robert Arden died about the 1st of December, 1556, and the first child of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden was baptized on September 15, 1558. Joan Shakespeare received her name in the Church of the Holy Trinity, the parish church of Stratford on Avon, where her father had for some years been settled, and had become a prosperous and rising man. When he went thither, we do not know; but he was there, and a householder in Henley Street, in 1552. His chief occupation seems to have been that of a glover; for he is so styled in a law document issued in June, 1556. But he was also engaged in husbandry, and in company with another person; for on the 19th of November in the same year he brought a suit against Henry Field, who unjustly kept from him eighteen quarters of barley. John Shakespeare's private and public fortunes advanced steadily and rapidly for twenty years from the time when he first appears in Stratford. It is true that he could not write his name; but that was no disgrace, and little impediment, at a time when men much above him in social position were equally incapable. In 1556 he purchased the copyhold of two houses, one with a garden and croft, and one-that in Henley Street — with a garden only. In the course of the next year he acquired other property (how considerable for a man in his station, we have already seen) by his marriage. In this year he was regarded as of sufficient substance and importance to be marked as one of the jury of the court-leet, upon which he served soon afterward; and at this date he was also appointed ale-taster, — an office of which, in spite of its humble name, the mighty consumption of that fluid in Old England must have made the duties arduous, though pleasant, and the perquisites acceptable. He must have given the burgesses of Stratford cause to speak well of him over the liquor that they loved; for in 1557 they elected him one of their number, and they were only fourteen. The next year saw him a constable, and also the father of the girl who was called after him; and in 1559 he was reelected one of the keepers of the Queen's peace in Stratford. About this time he appears to have dropped his glover's trade. It was, indeed, quite inconsistent with the notions of propriety in that day that the husband of an Arden and an heiress should be an artisan; and this consideration could not but have its weight with the young burgess, now that he had land and beeves. The year 1561 saw him made an affeeror in the spring, and before the leaves began to fall, elected chamberlain. It was the duty of an affeeror to impose fines upon offenders who were punishable arbitrarily for misdemeanors to which no express penalty was attached by statute,—an office only to be filled by a man of discretion and integrity; and as John Shakespeare, according to the date when he is with good reason believed to have been born, was at this time but thirty or thirty-one years old, his appointment to this office by the court indicates, not only soundness of character on his part, but somewhat unusual ripeness of judgment. He served as chamberlain two years, in the second |