Magpie 46

This week's prompt reminds us of the very important part gloves played in the life of William Shakespeare.
This bumpkin from a country town, who had started out on life’s ladder on one of its lowest rungs, went on to become the most prominent playwright of the London theatre as well as the greatest figure in the history of English literature.
You don’t usually hear much about his dad’s career, but in its own way it too was amazing. John Shakespeare, an illiterate farm laborer, was driven and ambitious. His business -- making gloves -- became successful.

There was a need on the part of the English gentry for gloves, exquisitely made gloves, often of white leather, and John specialized in such items.
He was known as a “whittawer,” someone who whitened leather, but that was just one of the irons in his fire; he came to be what we would call an entrepreneur, involved in quite a number of money-making deals. He must have achieved, over the years, a certain degree of literacy.

And he began climbing the local social and political ladder. He was on the town council; one of the first positions the town gave him was as ale-taster – which sounds like a joke, but it was a serious position. Everyone drank ale (you shouldn’t drink the water), so it was important that it be of safe quality.
John S. went on to rise rapidly: from making gloves to chamberlain to alderman and right on up to the highest rank, bailiff. The bailiff was the equivalent of mayor of the town.
What a time that must have been for his son! 11-year-old Will must have stood in awe when his dad prepared to go to the guild hall. The bailiff didn’t just stroll to work; this was Elizabethan England, which meant ceremony. John Shakespeare would wear his expensive scarlet gown and official ring and would wait by the door for the arrival of two colorfully uniformed sergeants, who would then escort the mayor through the streets, the whole town watching in admiration.
John had moved on up; he could now apply, and he did, to the Court of Heralds in London to be granted the coat of arms that would make him a gentleman.
But he never got it. Something happened.
What happened is one of those fascinating Shakespearean mysteries. Young Will Shakespeare was 13 or so years of age and had to stand by and watch as his dad’s marvelous career crashed and burned. And no one today is sure why.
The records show that his parents began selling things, including the acres of land John had received as dowry, and before long they didn’t have anything else to sell. Shakespeare senior was unable to pay his debts. The man who had been mayor of Stratford didn’t go to church – although church attendance was a legal requirement for everyone – because his creditors could get at him there. He didn’t even pay the four pennies a week for poor relief, which he had always paid before.
There are theories. When it comes to the Shakespeare story, there are always plenty of theories.
John had become an alcoholic, and spent most of his time dead drunk – except there isn’t a shred of evidence for such a supposition. A gambler? No evidence. He had a stroke, a heart attack? Again, no such evidence. He was a secret Catholic who had decided to proclaim his religious belief openly (which would have been a fatal mistake, politically speaking, in that Puritan town as well as in Elizabeth’s Protestant England)? But that too is just a guess. Or perhaps he was the victim of a general recession -- sounds familiar – the market for beautiful gloves having dried up.

Fortunately for his son, young Will, the grammar school, the King’s New School of Stratford, one of the best schools of its kind in the country, was free.

Laid-Back Shakespeare #4

Will Shakespeare's Social Climb

“We’re movin’ on up to the east side,
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin’ on up to the east side;
We finally got a piece of the pie.” (Theme song of “The Jeffersons”)

The story of Will and his father, John Shakespeare, is the story of two men who struggled to leave the low position they had been born into and to “move on up” to a higher class. To that degree they were both lifelong social climbers.

Let’s talk for a moment about social class in Elizabethan England. The rank both Will and his dad sought was “Gentleman.” That word did not then mean someone who held doors open for ladies. “Gentleman” was a legal rank. If you were born into it, you were fortunate. If you weren’t, if you were born into a lower class – as were both Will and his father – moving on up to that grade was extremely difficult.

John Shakespeare spent a good portion of his life trying, but he never made it.

The Elizabethan hierarchy was rigid, and carefully spelled out. The pecking order went like this: the Sovereign at the top, followed by Duke, Earl, Viscount, Baron and Knight. That was the nobility.

Below this came the rank the Shakespeare men aspired to: Gentleman. Legally, a gentleman was a person of good birth and independent means, and neither Shakespeare, pere or fils, fit that description. You could officially became a “Gentleman” when a coat of arms was granted to you by the College of Heralds.

As far as “good birth” was concerned, William Shakespeare knew well that if anyone were to investigate his family, the truth would come out: his father had begun life in a very low position – in fact, at just about the bottom of the barrel.



John Shakespeare had been a farmer, but not really. The word “farmer” implies someone with a farm; young John S. had been merely a share-cropper, a farm hand, working on a rich man’s farm. There had been no school in John’s home town, Snitterfield, so he was probably illiterate.

Not content with raising crops and pasturing herds, John left the farm and moved to Stratford to learn a trade and open a business. To work as a craftsman you had to spend seven years as apprentice; John did this to become a glover, a person who made and sold gloves and all kinds of leather goods.

Once more or less settled, he looked about for a bride. He aimed high. He began courting the daughter of the wealthy man whose farm he had worked: her name was Mary Arden. She was to become Our Will’s mother.



Shakespeare's dad really moved on up. The Ardens possessed one of the most important and respected names in Warwickshire. In ordinary circumstances, an illiterate farm hand would never have been considered by the Arden family. However, Mary’s father, Robert Arden, had eight daughters and he had to find husbands for them; John had a chance.

It would seem that Mary, the youngest of the daughters, had been her dad’s favorite: when she married Shakespeare she was provided with a large dowry. John not only improved his social standing by marrying into the Arden family, he greatly improved his financial situation too.



He opened a shop in town. He was now a tradesman, which meant he was a solid step above his former position: the lowest, laborer class. He also became active as a member of the town council. But he was not yet a “Gentleman.”

Was John Shakespeare’s son, William, able to make it to that exalted rank? Stay tuned. All will be revealed in future installments. :-)