field all his life, and died a prosperous farmer in December 1596. John, the younger son of Richard, was the poet's father.
About 1551 John Shakespeare left Snitterfield, which was probably his birthplace,The poet's
father. for the neighbouring borough of Stratford-on-Avon. There he set up as a trader in all manner of agricultural produce. Corn, wool, malt, meat, skins, and leather were soon among the commodities in which he dealt. Contemporary documents often describe him as a glover. Aubrey, Shakespeare's first biographer, reported the tradition that he was a butcher. But though both designations doubtless indicated important branches of his business, neither can be regarded as disclosing its full extent. In April 1552 he was living in Henley Street, a thoroughfare leading to the market town of Henley-in-Arden, and he is first mentioned in the borough records as paying in that month a fine of twelvepence for having a dirt-heap in front of his house. His frequent appearances in the years that follow as either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard in the local court of record for the recovery of small debts suggest that he was a keen man of business. In early life he prospered in trade, and in October 1556 purchased two freehold tenements at Stratford—one in Henley Street with a garden (it adjoins that now known as the poet's birthplace), and the other in Greenhill Street with a garden and croft. Thenceforth he played a prominent part in municipal affairs. In 1557 he was elected an ale-taster, whose duty it was to test the quality of malt liquors and bread. About the same time he was elected a burgess or town councillor, and in September 1558, and again on 6 Oct. 1559, he was appointed one of the four petty constables by a vote of the jury of the court-leet. Twice—in 1559 and 1561—he was chosen one of the affeerors—officers appointed to determine the fines for those offences which were punishable arbitrarily, and for which no express penalties were prescribed by statute. In 1561 he was elected one of the two chamberlains of the borough, an office of responsibility which he held for two years. He delivered his second statement of account to the corporation in January 1564. When attesting documents he made his mark, and there is no evidence that he could write; but he was credited with financial aptitude. The municipal accounts, which were checked by tallies and counters, were audited by him after he ceased to be chamberlain, and he more than once advanced small sums of money to the corporation.
With characteristic shrewdness he chose a wife of assured fortune—Mary, youngest daughterThe poet's mother. of Robert Arden, a wealthy farmer of Wilmcote in the parish of Aston Cantlowe, near Stratford. The Arden family in its eldest branch ranked among the most influential of the county. Robert's great-grandfather has been identified with Robert Arden (d. 1452), who was sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire in 1438 (16 Hen. VI), and the latter's descendant, Edward Arden [q. v.], who was high sheriff of Warwickshire in 1575, was executed in 1583 for alleged complicity in a Roman catholic plot against the life of Queen Elizabeth (French, Genealogica Shakespeareana, pp. 458 seq.) John Shakespeare's wife belonged to a younger branch of the family (ib. pp. 465 seq.) Her grandfather, Thomas Arden, purchased in 1501 an estate at Snitterfield, which passed, with other property, to her father Robert, and John Shakespeare's father, Richard, was one of Robert Arden's Snitterfield tenants. By his first wife, whose name is not known, Robert Arden had seven daughters, of whom all but two married; John Shakespeare's wife seems to have been the youngest. Robert Arden's second wife, Agnes or Anne, widow of John Hill (d. 1545), a substantial farmer of Bearley, survived him; but by her he had no issue. When he died at the end of 1556 he owned a farmhouse at Wilmcote and many acres of land, besides some hundred acres of land at Snitterfield, with two farmhouses which he let out to tenants. The post-mortem inventory of his goods, which was made on 9 Dec. 1556, shows that he had lived in comfort; his house was adorned by as many as eleven ‘painted cloths,’ which then did duty for tapestries among the middle classes. The exordium of his will, which was drawn up on 24 Nov. 1556, and proved on 16 Dec. following, indicates that he was an observant catholic. For his two youngest daughters, Alice and Mary, he showed especial affection by nominating them his executors. Mary received not only 6l. 13s. 4d. in money, but the fee-simple of Asbies, his chief property at Wilmcote, which consisted of a house with some fifty acres of land. She also acquired, under an earlier settlement, an interest in two messuages at Snitterfield (Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 179). But however well she was provided for, she was only able, like her husband, to make her mark in lieu of signing her name.
John Shakespeare's marriage with Mary Arden doubtless took place at Aston Cantlowe, the parish church of Wilmcote, in the autumn of 1557 (the church registers begin
