Judith Quiney

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Judith Shakespeare's "pigtail" signature. The surname was added by a scribe.

"Judith Shakespeare" redirects here. For Virginia Woolf's fictional Judith, see A Room of One's Own

Judith Quiney (née Shakespeare) (baptised February 2, 1585 – buried February 9, 1662) was the daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Hamnet Shakespeare. She was married February 10, 1616 to Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford-upon-Avon, in Holy Trinity Church. The marriage was called into question for failing to obtain the necessary license, but this was quickly resolved in the Consistory court. On March 26, 1616, Thomas was again brought to court, only a month after the marriage, for impregnating a Margaret Wheeler, who at the time was quite a bit younger than Anne and Thomas. The marriage and Thomas' conduct caused William Shakespeare to rewrite his will: Thomas was struck out and Judith's inheritance attached with provisions to safeguard it from her husband, and the bulk of Shakespeare's estate was left—in an elaborate fee tail—to his elder daughter Susanna and her male heirs. Strangely enough the couple remained together and it is said that this was to avoid the humiliation of divorce.

Eventually, the couple settled in Stratford-upon-Avon; Thomas may have left the town some years before his death, but Judith lived in Stratford until she died. Judith brought a cottage in Chapel Lane into the marriage, and Thomas held the lease to a house called “Atwood's”. The cottage passed to Judith's sister Susanna as part of the settlement of their father's will, and Thomas traded Atwood's to his brother-in-law in return for a house known as “The Cage”. Around 1630, Thomas tried to sell the lease but was stopped by kinsmen, and the house was settled in trust with Judith's relatives.

[edit] Birth and early life

Judith Shakespeare was the younger sister of Susanna Hall and the twin sister of Hamnet Shakespeare.^[1][2] Her baptism February 2, 1585 is recorded, by vicar Richard Barton of Coventry, in the parish register for Holy Trinity Church.^[1][2] Judith and Hamnet were named after Hamnet Sadler and his wife, Judith.^[1] Sadler was a baker in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the couple were friends of Judith and Hamnet's parents.

Despite being the daughter of the world's greatest playwright, Judith was probably illiterate.^[3] In 1611, when asked to witness a deed of sale for a house belonging to her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Quiney, and her son, Adrian Quiney, she twice signed with a simple mark, rather than her name.^[4][5]

[edit] Marriage to Thomas Quiney

Rough blueprint of Stratford's Holy Trinity Church, where Judith was married.

On February 10, 1616 Judith married Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford-upon-Avon, in Holy Trinity Church; the assistant vicar Richard Watts, who later married Thomas's sister Mary, probably officiated.^[6] The wedding took place during the Lenten prohibited season, which in 1616 started on January 23rd (Septuagesima Sunday) and ended on April 7th (Sunday after Easter), and hence required a special license from the Bishop of Worcester that the couple failed to obtain.^[6] They presumably posted the required banns in church since a Walter Wright of Stratford-upon-Avon was cited for marrying without banns or license, but this was not sufficient.^[6] The infraction was a minor one, and apparently caused by the minister as three other couples were also wed that February, but Thomas Quiney was still summoned by Walter Nixon to appear before the Consistory court in Worcester.^[7] The same Walter Nixon later appears in a Star Chamber case where he is found guilty of signature forgery and taking bribes.^[7] Thomas failed to appear on the requisite date and the register records the judgement as excommunication on or about March 12, 1616.^[7] It is not known whether Judith was also excommunicated, but in any case it did not last long; in November of the same year they were back in church for the baptism of their first-born child.^[7]

The marriage did not start on the best of terms; before marrying Judith, Thomas had impregnated a Margaret Wheeler.^[8] Both mother and child died in childbirth and were buried on March 15, 1616, and on March 26, 1616 Thomas appeared before the Bawdy Court that, among other things, dealt with “whoredom and uncleanliness”.^[8] Thomas confessed in open court to “carnal copulation” with Margaret Wheeler and submitted himself for correction.^[8] He was sentenced to open penance “in a white sheet (according to custom)” three Sundays before the Congregation, and to admit to his crime — this time in ordinary clothes — before the Minister of Bishopton.^[8] The first part of the sentence was remitted, essentially letting him off with a five shilling fine given to use for the parish's poor, and since Bishopton had no church, only a chapel, he was spared public humiliation.^[8]

[edit] Chapel Lane, Atwood's and The Cage

Judith was in possession of her father's cottage on the street known as Chapel Lane in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Thomas Quiney had, since 1611, had the lease on the tavern called “Atwood's” on High Street.^[9] The cottage in Chapel Lane passed from Judith to her older sister as part of the settlement in William Shakespeare's will, and in July 1616 Thomas swapped houses with his brother-in-law, William Chandler, and moved his vintner shop to the upper half of a house at the corner of High Street and Bridge Street.^[10] This house was known as “The Cage” and is the house traditionally associated with Judith.^[11] In the 20th century “The Cage” was for a time a Wimpy Bar, before being turned into the Stratford Information Office.^[11]

“The Cage” provides further insights into why Judith's father did not trust his son-in-law. Around 1630 Thomas tried to sell the lease on the house, but was prevented by his kinsmen.^[12] In 1633, to protect the interests of Judith and the children, the lease was signed over to the trust of John Hall (Judith's brother-in-law), Thomas Nash (her niece Elizabeth's husband), and the vicar of nearby Harbury, Richard Watts (Thomas' brother-in-law, and the vicar who officiated at Thomas and Judith's wedding) in order to protect the interests of Judith and the children.^[12] Eventually, in November 1652, the lease to “The Cage” ended up in the hands of Thomas' eldest brother, Richard Quiney, who was a grocer in London.^[12]

[edit] William Shakespeare's last will and testament

Nash's House, standing adjacent to the site of New Place

The inauspicious beginning of Judith's marriage ^[6] has led to speculation that this was the cause for William Shakespeare's hastily altered last will and testament.^[13] He first summoned his lawyer Francis Collins in January, and then on March 25, 1616 made further alterations; probably because he was dying and his son-in-law's actions were not inspiring much confidence.^[13]

In his will, in the first bequest, is written “vnto my sonne in L[aw]” but the “sonne in L[aw]” is struck out and Judith inserted in its stead.^[14] To his daughter he bequeaths £100 “in discharge of her marriage porcion”, another £50 on the condition that she relinquish all interest in the Chapel Lane cottage, and, if she or any of her children are still alive at the end of three years following the date of his will, a further £150 of which she is to receive the interest, but not the principal.^[14] He explicitly holds this money away from Thomas Quiney, unless he bestows on Judith lands of equal value. In a separate bequest he also gives Judith “my broad silver gilt bole”.^[14]

Finally, for the bulk of his estate — including his main house “New Place”, his two houses on Henley Street, and various lands in and around Stratford-upon-Avon — he sets up an entail; giving the estate to his other daughter Susanna Hall, and after her death “to the first sonne of her bodie lawfullie yssueing & to the heires Males of the bodie of the saied first Sonne lawfullie yssueing”, or for default to the second son and his male heirs, or to the third son and his male heirs, or the same for her “ffourth … ffyfth sixte & Seaventh sonnes” and their male heirs, or for default to Elizabeth Hall — Susanna and John Hall's only child — and her male heirs, and only then to Judith and her male heirs, or finally to whatever heirs the law would normally recognise.^[14] This rather elaborate entail is usually taken to indicate that Judith's husband was not to be trusted with Shakespeare's inheritance, though some speculate that it may simply indicate that Susanna was the favoured daughter.^[14]

[edit] Children

Judith and Thomas had three children: Shakespeare (baptised November 23, 1616 — buried May 8, 1617), Richard (baptised February 9, 1618 — buried February 6, 1639), and Thomas (baptised January 23, 1620 — buried January 28, 1639).^[15] Shakespeare was named for his famous grandfather, and Richard was a common name in the Quiney family; his grandfather was named Richard, and he had an uncle named Richard who worked as a grocer in London.^[15]

Judith outlived all of her children. Shakespeare died at the age of six months and was buried on May 8, 1617.^[15] Richard and Thomas were both buried within a month of each other (they likely died of the plague), in 1639; 19 and 21 years old.^[15] The death of Judith's last child had legal consequences; the entail on her father's inheritance led her sister Susanna Hall, with her daughter and son-in-law, to make a settlement — in a rather elaborate legal device — of the inheritance on that part of the family.^[16] This legal wrangling continued for another thirteen years, until 1652.

[edit] Death

Judith was buried on February 9, 1662; outliving her last child by twenty-two years.^[17][18] She was buried on the grounds of Holy Trinity Church, but the exact location of her grave is not known.^[18] Of Thomas Quiney the records show little. It is speculated that he may have died in 1662 or 1663 when the parish burial records are incomplete, or that he may have left Stratford.^[17][18] He certainly had a nephew in London, who by this time held the lease to The Cage.

[edit] Literary references

Shakespeare's second daughter unwisely allows a young man to have a preliminary look at her father's manuscript of The Tempest, a scene from William Black's Judith Shakespeare, illustrated by Edwin Austin Abbey

Judith is the subject of the novel My Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare's Tale by Grace Tiffany.^[19] She is portrayed in William Black's Judith Shakespeare: Her Love Affairs and Other Adventures, published serially in Harper's Magazine in 1884. Judith also appears in one of the final stories in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novel. Gaiman draws allusions between Judith and the character of Miranda in The Tempest.^[20]

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf created a 'Judith Shakespeare' to make a point about the struggle a female poet and playwright would have had in the Elizabethan period. Woolf wondered why there were so few talented females from the era: "What I find deplorable," she once observed, "is that nothing is known about women before the eighteenth century." Woolf's Judith was created in an attempt to fill this historical gap. Hers is the story of William Shakespeare's sister, denied the education of her brother despite her obvious talent. When her father tries to marry her off, she runs away to join a theatre company but is ultimately rejected because of her sex. She becomes pregnant, is abandoned by her partner, and commits suicide. Besides their similar names and setting, there is no direct connection between Judith, Shakespeare's daughter, and Woolf's fictional creation.^[21]

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Chambers, Edmund Kerchever (1930). William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 353406. 
• Chambers, Edmund Kerchever (1970). Sources for a Biography of Shakespeare. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 59179182. 
• Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard (1882). Outlines of the life of Shakespeare. London: Longmans. OCLC 5190346. 
• Schoenbaum, Samuel (1991). Shakespeare's Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198186185. 
• Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0195051610. 

[edit] External links

• Basic information
• Genealogical information
• Complete text of William Black's novel
• Edwin Austin Abbey's portrayal of Judith (created after her death)