following children: Alice (bapt. 10 November 1590, married John Atkins 11 February 1612), Mary (bapt. 26 May 1592, bur. 9 August 1592), Judith (bapt. 29 August 1593), Thomasine (bapt. 15 January 1595), Joan (bapt. 2 May 1596), John (bapt. 12 August 1599), Beavis (bapt. 24 May 1601), William (bapt. 3 October 1602), George (bapt. 12 Feb. 1604), Rebecca (bapt. 4 February 1605), Elizabeth (bapt. 6 March 1608), Mary (bapt. 21 June 1611, bur. 23 July 1611).[1] In the same parish 'John Heminge, player' was himself buried on 12 October 1630, beside his wife Rebecca, who preceded him on 2 September 1619. He is registered as a 'stranger' and was therefore probably residing elsewhere. In his will, made on 9 October, he describes himself as 'citizen and grocer of London', appoints his son William executor and trustee for his unmarried and unadvanced children, and Cuthbert Burbadge and 'Mr. Rice', possibly the actor, overseers, and leaves legacies to his daughters Rebecca, wife of Captain William Smith, Margaret, wife of Mr. Thomas Sheppard, who is not mentioned in the register, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Merefield, and to his son-in-law Atkins 'and his now wife', and his grandchild Richard Atkins. He also leaves 10s. for a ring 'unto every of my fellows and sharers, his majesties servants.[2] William Heminges went to Westminster and Christ Church, and became a playwright.[3] Unnamed in the will is Thomasine, who may have been dead, but certainly had quarrelled seriously with her father. She had married William Ostler of the King's men in 1611 and her son Beaumont was baptized at St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, on 18 May 1612. Ostler died intestate on 16 December 1614 in possession of shares in the leases both of the Globe and the Blackfriars. These passed of right to Thomasine as his administratrix, and formed all the provision left for her maintenance and her husband's debts. The leases, however, passed into the hands of Heminges, who retained them and asserted that Ostler had created a trust, of which Thomasine declared that she knew nothing. On 20 September 1615 she entered a bill in Chancery against her father, and subpœnaed him to appear during the coming Michaelmas term. On 26 September Heminges promised that if she would withdraw her suit, and would also 'doe her dutie' to him and to her mother Rebecca, he would satisfy her to the value of the shares. Thomasine states that on the same day kneeling and in tears she made her submission at her father's house in Aldermanbury. She also stayed her suit, but Heminges, although called upon to fulfil his promise on 5 October, failed to do so, and on 9 October Thomasine brought a common law action against him for damages to the amount of £600, which she estimated to be the value of the shares.[4] The issue of the case is unknown, but it would seem probable from the Sharers Papers of 1635 that Heminges succeeded in retaining the shares, and that at his death they passed
- ↑ Variorum, iii. 198, 475; Collier, iii. 308; P. C. Carter, St. Mary, Aldermanbury, 11, 58, 86, 87. Malone misread Beavis as Beatrice. An earlier John (1598) and a Swynnerton (1613) died as infants.
- ↑ Variorum, iii. 191.
- ↑ D. N. B. s.v.; Wood, Athenae, iii. 277.
- ↑ O. v. H. 16; cf. C. W. Wallace, in The Times for 2 and 4 Oct. 1909.
