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By Root 19960 0

by the most prudent prince King Henry the Seventh of famous memories sythence whiche tyme they have continewed at those partes [i.e. Warwickshire] in good reputacion and credit;’ and that ‘the said John [had] maryed Mary, daughter and heiress of Robert Arden, of Wilmcote, gent.’ In consideration of these titles to honour, Garter declared that he assigned to Shakespeare this shield, viz.: ‘Gold, on a bend sable, a spear of the first, and for his crest or cognizance a falcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreath of his colours, supporting a spear gold steeled as aforesaid.’ In the margin of this draft-grant there is a pen sketch of the arms and crest, and above them is written the motto, ‘Non Sans Droict.’ A second copy of the draft, also dated in 1596, is extant at the College. The only alterations are the substitution of the word ‘grandfather’ for ‘antecessors’ in the account of John Shakespeare’s ancestry, and the substitution of the word ‘esquire’ for ‘gent’ in the description of his wife’s father, Robert Arden. At the foot of this draft, however, appeared some disconnected and unverifiable memoranda which John Shakespeare or his son had supplied to the heralds, to the effect that John had been bailiff of Stratford, had received a ‘pattern’ of a shield from Clarenceux Cook, was a man of substance, and had married into a worshipful family.

Neither of these drafts was fully executed. It may have been that the unduly favourable representations made to the College respecting John Shakespeare’s social and pecuniary position excited suspicion even in the habitually credulous minds of the heralds, or those officers may have deemed the profession of the son, who was conducting the negotiation, a bar to completing the transaction. At any rate, Shakespeare and his father allowed three years to elapse before (as far as extant documents show) they made a further endeavour to secure the coveted distinction. In 1599 their efforts were crowned with success. Changes in the interval among the officials at the College may have facilitated the proceedings. In 1597 the Earl of Essex had become Earl Marshal and chief of the Heralds’ College (the office had been in commission in 1596); while the great scholar and antiquary, William Camden, had joined the College, also in 1597, as Clarenceux King-of-Arms. The poet was favourably known to both Camden and the Earl of Essex, the close friend of the Earl of Southampton. His father’s application now took a new form. No grant of arms was asked for. It was asserted without qualification that the coat, as set out in the draft-grants of 1596, had been assigned to John Shakespeare while he was bailiff, and the heralds were merely invited to give him a ‘recognition’ or ‘exemplification’ of it. At the same time he asked permission for himself to impale, and his eldest son and other children to quarter, on ‘his ancient coat-of-arms’ that of the Ardens of Wilmcote, his wife’s family. The College officers were characteristically complacent. A draft was prepared under the hands of Dethick, the Garter King, and of Camden, the Clarenceux King, granting the required ‘exemplification’ and authorising the required impalement and quartering. On one point only did Dethick and Camden betray conscientious scruples. Shakespeare and his father obviously desired the heralds to recognise the title of Mary Shakespeare (the poet’s mother) to bear the arms of the great Warwickshire family of Arden, then seated at Park Hall. But the relationship, if it existed, was undetermined; the Warwickshire Ardens were gentry of influence in the county, and were certain to protest against any hasty assumption of identity between their line and that of the humble farmer of Wilmcote. After tricking the Warwickshire Arden coat in the margin of the draft-grant for the purpose of indicating the manner of its impalement, the heralds on second thoughts erased it. They substituted in their sketch the arms of an Arden family living at Alvanley in the distant county of Cheshire. With that stock there was no pretence that Robert Arden