Anonymous SHAKE-SPEARE. Kurt Kreiler

      In September 1596 there is documentation of a court case involving moneylenders; “William Shaksper” and “Francis Langley” on one side and “William Wayte” and “William Gardiner” on the other side. The textile merchant and pawnbroker Francis Langley and his business partner William Shaksper had just built a theatre- The Swan. William Wayte and his step father William Gardiner had come to wealth through moneylending and financial manipulations. Gardiner had tried to sabotage Langley‘s theatre, Langley publicly called Gardiner and his stepfather “lying scoundrels”. The contesting parties reached a “surety of peace”. This was a legal tool used in Elizabethan England to prevent physical violence. Both parties deposited a sum of money with the court which would be forfeit in the case of an attack of any kind.

      Will Shaksper of Stratford, now a theatre financier purchased “New Place”, the second largest house in Stratford on 4th May 1597, for the astonishingly low price of £ 60. At the same time he was 5 shillings in arrears with his taxes in Bishopsgate in London. (Tax records from 15-11-1597).

      In 1598 Will Shaksper had a role in the play “Every Man in his Humour” in London as documented eighteen years later by the play’s author, Ben Jonson. There are letters in existence from the family Quiney-Sturley that show that Will Shaksper was also active as a moneylender. In 1598 the “countriman” Master Shaksper or “Schackespre” was approached for the sum of £ 30 against the usual securities. It was recorded on 4 February 1598 that Will Shaksper of Stratford also hoarded over three tons (“x quarters”) of malt in “New Place” in defiance of the law. Obviously, Shaksper commuted between London and Stratford during this period.

      At the end of 1598, in a clandestine operation, the theatre company “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men” dissolved their old play house and used the timber to erect a new play house on the other side of the Thames. This was the birth of the famous “Globe” theatre.

      The original lease agreement from 21 February 1599 is still in existence. The tenancy was divided as follows: Nicholas Brent (main tenant) 25%, Richard Burbage 12.5%, Cuthbert Burbage 12.5%; the remaining 50% was divided between five wealthy members of the Chamberlain’s Men: William Shaksper 10%, John Heminge(s) 10%, Augustine Phillips 10%, Thomas Pope 10% and William Kempe 10%. William Shaksper’s 10% brought him an income of £ 200 per annum. His acting talent not being impressive Will Shaksper centered his activities around Stratford (Nicholas Rowe writes in 1709: “Though I have inquired, I could never meet with any further account of him this way than that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet.”)

      The tax records in Stratford reveal that, in the years that follow, Will Shaksper’s main activity was trading with various goods in Stratford. His involvement in the theatre seems to have declined. In 1603, after the death of Queen Elizabeth and the coronation of King James, the new King took over the patronage of the Chamberlain’s Men and their name was changed to “The King’s Men”. On 17 May 1603 warrants were written authorizing “Fletcher, Shakespeare... and the rest of theire Assosiates freely to use and exercise the Arte and faculty of playinge Comedies Tragedies histories Enterludes moralls pastoralls Stageplaies and suche others” both at the court of King James and for the general public.

      Ben Jonson records that Will Shaksper was also in the cast of Ben Jonson’s “Sejanus” in 1603 — in 1616 Jonson says so.

      Will Shaksper’s last public appearance, was in the royal procession of 15 March 1604. He marched along with Augustine Phillips, Lawrence Fletcher, John Heminge and Richard Burbage- they were allowed to march behind the King in the ranks of the servants.

      In 1604 “Williemus Shexpere” takes the apothecary Philip Rogers to court to recover a debt of one pound fifteen shillings and ten pence. In August 1608 “Willielmo Shackespeare” takes John Addenbrooke to court over the sum of 6 pounds.

      In either May or June of 1612 the “gentleman of Stratford upon Aven in the Countye of Warwicke” appeared before a court of law in London as a witness in a civil law case. Christopher Mountjoy, a tyre-marker in whose house Shaksper had temporarily lodged, was sued by his son-in-law and former apprentice Stephen Bellot over the amount of a portion for Mary Belott, née Mountjoy. Shaksper had negotiated the amount with Stephen Belott but could no longer remember the exact sum. He signed his testimony with “”Willm Shackp”.

      Shaksper’s last recorded financial transaction was in 1613: together with William Johnson, John Jackson and John Heminge as trustees he bought the gate house from Blackfriars for the sum of £ 140. (The building is not be confused with the theatre in the liberty of the Blackfriars.)

      The wealthy man made his last will and testament on 25 March 1616 and on 25 April 1616, notice of his burial was entered into the parish records.

      The house “New Place”, along with all other properties, land and objects of value were left to Will Shaksper’s daughter, Susanna and her husband, the physician Dr. John Hall. The sum of £ 300 and a large silver-plated bowl were bequeathed to his other daughter, Judith. His wife, Anne became “his second best bed with the furniture”. In the second draft of the testament William Shaksper left the sum of one pound fifteen shillings and eight pence to each of his colleagues, John Heminge, Richard Burbage and Henry Condell to buy commemoration rings. There is no mention at all of books or manuscripts.

      Will Shaksper’s last will and testament made the famous author Mark Twain laugh.

      It named in minute detail every item of property that he owned in the world – houses, lands, sword, silver-gilt bowl, and so on – all the way down to his ‘second-best bed’ and its furniture. It carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches among the members of his family, overlooking no individual of it. Not even his wife. He left her that ‘second-best bed.’ And NOT ANOTHER THING; not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood with. It was eminently and conspicuously a business man’s will, not a poet’s. ... If Shakspere had owned a dog – but we need not go into that: we know he would have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog, Susanna would have got it; if an inferior one his wife would have got a dower interest in it. I wish he had had a dog, just so we could see how painstakingly he would have divided that dog among the family, in his careful business way.

      You have every right to ask: “Is that all?” Doesn’t any document exist from William Shaksper’s life time that proves that he wrote anything more than a shopping list? Does anything prove his authorship of such a huge and important body of work?

      Does anything show that Will Shaksper assumed the nom de plume Shakespeare or Shake-speare -the bearer of the spear? The only answer that I can give to this question is: NO. The first time that William Shaksper was brought into connection with any form of authorship was the year 1623, seven years after his death. Before this time there had not been a syllable written about the matter. No praise, no criticism, no private correspondence, nothing- which is most astounding this age so full of dialogue and discussion.

      Only Ben Jonson suggested in 1623 that William Shaksper, the actor, was also William Shakespeare, the author, when he spoke of “true filed lines,/ in each of them he seemed to shake a lance”.