The Late Mr Shakespeare

Chapter Four About John Shakespeare and the miller's daughter

William Shakespeare was born in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon on St George's Day, Sunday the 23rd of April, 1564. His father was a butcher. His father's name was John. JOHN SHAKESPEARE said the sign over the door of his shop on the northern side of Henley Street, Stratford, JOHN SHAKESPEARE: BUTCHER & WHITTAWER. It was a busy crowded omnium gatherum of a shop, the sort of place where people like to stand and pass the time of day. Dealing in skins and leather as well as meat, Mr John Shakespeare was master of his trade, and a popular man.

Our hero's mother was born Mary Arden. She was a farmer's daughter, and she grew up under the apple-boughs in the sweet village of Wincot, which lies three miles to the north-west of Stratford in leafy Warwickshire. But this Mary was almost not Mr Shakespeare's mother. How so? It came about like this.

Near by John Shakespeare's butcher shop, on a small tributary of the River Avon, there stands a mill. It is ruined now, that mill, another casualty of the late Civil Wars. The place closed down for a lack not of corn but of men who knew how to grind it, in the old ways, to the ancient specifications, with water and stones, furrows and thumbs. In Shakespeare's day there was always a miller there.

The miller's taste was in his thumb. The art, on the other hand, is in the stone. It looks crude, it looks easy, two girt stones grinding together, what could be simpler? But in the cut and clarity of the furrow, the way the miller marks his stone, or the miller's man, his amanuensis, there you have it, the whole lost art.

When he opens the gate the stream runs straight. If he opened it full it would bring the mill down. So he opens it half, and the water flows through, the green water, and round and round the wheel goes, and the chalky walls shake and you can smell the flour fly, the oatmeal in the air, in the low gloom, though it's a long while now since they bore sacks up the thin stair, spread corn to warm on the worn stones, lit the fire under, and let the wind spin the chimney as it would. When you look up it still moves slightly, that chimney, then the whole twisted roof moves, and you're lost. Have you noticed millers always have bad breath?

Now when young Mr John Shakespeare was first making his way in the butchery business, the miller in that mill had a beautiful daughter. She had long, silky hair and her lips pressed together like two red rose petals. Her name was Juliet, wouldn't you know. John and Juliet did not marry because their fathers spoilt it. How did they spoil it? By plotting matrimony.

'Listen, John,' said his father to him, 'I want you to marry the miller's daughter.'

'Juliet, listen,' her father said to her, 'I want you to make a good catch for yourself - that John Shakespeare, the butcher boy, for instance.'

'Speak nicely to her,' said Shakespeare's father's father.

'Be agreeable to the man,' commanded the miller.

Next day the would-be lovers met.

'Mr Shagsper,' said Juliet, 'my father told me to marry you.'

'Is that so?' said John Shakespeare. 'Well, in that case I think we should sleep together first to find out if we're suited.'

The miller's daughter did not demur or delay. That night they lay together in her bed above the mill wheel. The air was salty with flour. His eyes pricked. She gnawed her lower lip in the blue darkness.

'Mr Shagsper,' she whispered at last.

'Yes, my love?' John whispered back.

'Did you come round the mill pond by the dovecots?' Juliet asks him.

'Yes, my darling,' John says, panting.

'And did you notice a great big heap of dung under the wall?' asks Juliet.

'I did,' John Shakespeare answers, somewhat surprised by the question.

'Well,' says Juliet, 'that's mine.'

'Yours?' John Shakespeare said.

'I did it,' Juliet told him, 'every bit.'

The miller's daughter was a lovely lovely creature, but she did have the one shortcoming which makes me glad she was not our hero's mother - she lacked conversation.