The Mentor: Shakespeare's Country 2

The Mentor: Shakespeare's Country 2

Shakespeare’s Country

 

CHARLECOTE

 

Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course

 

 

The well-known tale of Shakespeare’s poaching on the preserves of

Sir Thomas Lucy and his subsequent punishment is doubted by many

authorities; yet this story has clung to the poet and has always been

associated with the house of Charlecote.

 

The legend runs that Shakespeare as a gay and heedless youth stole deer

from the park at Charlecote. The fact of the matter is that there were

no deer at Charlecote at the time; but there was a warren, and this

term legally covers a preserve for other animals than hares or rabbits.

At any rate, the young poet is said to have been called up before Sir

Thomas Lucy, who was then sheriff, and prosecuted in 1585. There is

added the statement that Shakespeare aggravated the offence by writing

a silly ballad on Sir Thomas and affixing it to his gate. This gave the

Knight great offence, and Shakespeare is said to have been driven from

Stratford to London. The ballad, however, is probably a forgery.

 

Shakespeare is generally supposed to have caricatured Sir Thomas Lucy

in his portrait of Justice Shallow in the second part of “Henry IV,”

and in the “Merry Wives of Windsor.” This may be true for, in the

coat-of-arms of Lucy there were three “luces”; while Slender remarks

of Robert Shallow that “the ancestors who come after him may give the

dozen white luces in their coat.”

 

Sir Thomas Lucy was born on April 24, 1532. Three of his ancestors had

been sheriffs of Warwickshire and Leicestershire: and on his father’s

death in 1552 Thomas inherited the estates of Sherborne and Hampton

Lucy, in addition to Charlecote, which was rebuilt for him by John of

Padua in about 1558. In 1565 he was knighted and a few years later he

became high sheriff of the county.

 

In 1558 Sir Thomas Lucy introduced into Parliament a bill for

the better preservation of game and grain; this, together with

his reputation as a preserver of game, gives some color to the

Shakespearian tradition connected with his name. He died at Charlecote

on July 7, 1600. The Charlecote estates eventually passed to the Rev.

John Hammond through his marriage with Alice Lucy, and in 1789 he

himself adopted the name of Lucy.

 

Charlecote is still occupied by one of his descendants. It contains a

good collection of old paintings, antique furniture, and many objects

of Shakespearian interest. The park is now well stocked with deer.

 

Charlecote Church, nearby, contains several monuments of the Lucy

family, including one to the wife of Sir Thomas Lucy with a fine

epitaph written by the Knight himself. This epitaph shows that Sheriff

Lucy could hardly have been otherwise than kind and gentle. He may have

been a severe magistrate and perhaps a haughty, disagreeable neighbor,

but in those lines there is a tone of manhood and high feeling that

wins a prompt response of sympathy. If Shakespeare stole the deer of

Sir Thomas Lucy, he received just punishment and the Knight was not to

blame.

 

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION

ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 4, No. 8, SERIAL No. 108

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

 

 

 

 

[Illustration: THE CHURCH AND THE RIVER, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON]

 

 

 

 

Shakespeare’s Country

 

THE CHURCH AND THE RIVER, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

 

Monograph Number Four In The Mentor Reading Course

 

 

Historians may deny it, statisticians may disprove it, yet Stratford

is the heart of England, and the little Avon is in a sense the most

famous of all English rivers. It is the goal of all Shakespeare lovers.

The poet and the river are Stratford’s two claims for distinction--but

what place could ask for more? The Avon gives it a setting, the beauty

of which can never entirely pass from the mind of the beholder;

Shakespeare, the man and the poet, is to be seen and heard everywhere.

 

Stratford-upon-Avon is a clean and well built little country town of

about 8,000 or 9,000 inhabitants. It has wide and pleasant streets

with numerous quaint half-timbered houses. It is a place of great

antiquity. Stratford is mentioned in a Saxon Charter of the eighth

century, and Roman coins have been found in the district showing that

it was inhabited in Roman times. Later it had some importance as

an agricultural center. In addition to this, the various trades of

weaving, glove-making, candle-making, and soap-making were carried on;

but now these have lost their importance, and the town owes its fame

almost entirely to the memory of Shakespeare, born there in 1564. Over

35,000 pilgrims annually visit Stratford.

 

The River Avon, gently flowing among meadows and forests, is navigable

only for small boats. At Stratford it is crossed by a stone bridge of

fourteen arches. This was built by Sir Hugh Clopton in the reign of

Henry VII.

 

On the bank of the river is the Church of the Holy Trinity. It occupies

the site of a Saxon monastery, and was probably completed in the

fifteenth century. It was greatly restored in 1890-1892 and 1898.

The central tower dates probably from the twelfth century. This is

surmounted by a lofty spire.

 

The interior of the church contains many things of interest, but

those that attract the visitor most strongly are, of course, the ones

connected with Shakespeare. There is his grave, and there on the wall

above is the bust which was executed soon after his death. The stained

glass window nearby, representing the Seven Ages, was erected with the

contributions of American visitors. Near Shakespeare’s tomb are those

of his wife, Anne Hathaway, of his daughter and son-in-law, and of

Thomas Nash, the first husband of his granddaughter, Elizabeth.

 

Shakespeare’s House, in which the poet was born in 1564, is now

national property.

 

The Shakespeare Memorial Building, the site for which was presented to

the town of Stratford by Charles Edward Flower, stands on the banks

of the Avon a little above Trinity Church. It was erected in 1879. It

includes a Theater in which annual performances are held in April, and

occasional performances during the winter. The “Droeshout Portrait”

of Shakespeare, an authentic portrait of the dramatist, is one of

the treasures kept in this building. In the adjoining grounds is the

Shakespeare Monument presented in 1888 by the sculptor Lord Ronald

Gower. On top of the Monument is a large seated figure of the poet, and

around the base are figures of Lady Macbeth, Prince Hal, Falstaff, and

Hamlet.

 

The Red Horse Hotel in Stratford contains a bedroom and a sitting-room

occupied by Washington Irving. There may still be seen the chair in

which he sat and the poker with which he meditatively stirred the fire.

 

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION

ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 4, No. 8, SERIAL No. 108

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

 

 

 

 

[Illustration: THE GUILD CHAPEL AND THE SITE OF NEW PLACE,

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON]

 

 

 

 

Shakespeare’s Country

 

THE GUILD CHAPEL, AND THE SITE OF NEW PLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

 

Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course

 

 

The earliest record of the house in which Shakespeare died at Stratford

is contained in these words of a visitor there in 1760:

 

“There stood here till lately the house in which Shakespeare lived,

and a mulberry-tree of his planting; the house was large, strong and

handsome; the tree so large that it would shade the grass-plot in your

garden, which I think is more than twenty yards square, and supply the

whole town with mulberries every year. As the curiosity of this house

and tree brought much fame, and more company and profit, to the town, a

certain man, on some disgust, has pulled the house down, so as not to

leave one stone upon another, and cut the tree, and piled it as a stack

of firewood, to the great vexation, loss, and disappointment of the

inhabitants; however, an honest silversmith bought the whole stack of

wood, and makes many odd things of this wood for the curious, some of

which I hope to bring with me to town.”

 

The “certain man” who pulled the house down was the Reverend Francis

Gastrell. Shakespeare bought New Place in 1597. It had been built by

Sir Hugh Clopton in 1483. After Shakespeare went to live in it we can

imagine him standing in his garden and watching the boys with their

“shining morning faces” going to the school nearby. Now, however,

nothing remains but the foundation of the house.

 

Shakespeare died there on April 23, 1616. He left the house to his

daughter, Susan Hall. She lived there until 1649, and her daughter in

turn kept it until 1670. In 1753 it came into the possession of the

Reverend Francis Gastrell. Visitors annoyed him so much that he cut

down the poet’s mulberry-tree that grew in the garden, and later razed

the house to the ground. The site was purchased by money raised through

public subscription and presented to the trustees of Shakespeare’s

birthplace in 1870. Only the foundations are now visible, covered over

by wire. The great garden at the back is now a public garden, and in it

on the central lawn is a mulberry-tree, descended from the poet’s own

tree.

 

Next to New Place is the house of Shakespeare’s grandson by marriage,

Thomas Nash. It has been restored so as to give it the appearance it

had in Shakespeare’s day. Thomas Nash was married to Elizabeth Hall,

Shakespeare’s only granddaughter and last surviving descendant.

 

Opposite New Place stands the Guild Chapel. This is externally much the