The Late Mr Shakespeare

Chapter Forty-Seven How Shakespeare went to teach in Lancashire

In this box I have kept two extracts from a will. It is the will of a Papist gentleman of Lancashire. His name was Alexander Hoghton, Esq., of Lea, near Preston. Lea Hall was not his principal residence. That was Hoghton Tower. Mr Hoghton, who seems to have been the same age as his century, died in 1581. He was by all accounts a wealthy fellow.

He was in fact something of a provincial Maecenas, this Hoghton of Hoghton Tower, a patron of the arts, for here in his will (dated 3rd August 1581, and proved one month later) we find him bequeathing his stock of play-costumes and all his musical instruments to his brother Thomas, or, if brother Thomas does not choose to keep players, to his neighbour Sir Thomas Hesketh.

There follows this sentence: 'And I most heartily require the said Sir Thomas to be friendly unto Fulke Gyllome and William Shakeshafte now dwelling with me and either to take them into his service or else to help them to some good master, as my trust is he will.' (Pickleherring's italics.)

Later, Hoghton names William Shakeshafte twice as among his 'servants', and bequeaths him forty shillings (Fulke Gyllome gets the same).

After that earthquake in southern England, did Shakespeare go to work in Lancashire? It is not impossible. I have heard Mr Aubrey saying that our author worked when young as a schoolmaster in the country. If Shakespeare and Shakeshafte are the same, then he went to work for Hoghton at Hoghton Tower, first perhaps as a Latin tutor to the grandchildren or great-grandchildren in that rich man's large household, then perhaps as a player in Hoghton's private company of actors.

I don't know if this is what happened, but I do know that it is arresting to see a William Shakeshafte being mentioned in a play-acting connection as early as 1581.

I know too that John Cotton, the boy William's last teacher at the Grammar School, the one who superseded Taffy Jenkins, came originally from Tarnacre, in Lancashire, and that Tarnacre is only about ten miles away from Lea. John Cotton is also remembered in Hoghton's will.

Might this Lancastrian school-teacher have recommended his brightest ex-pupil to his old friend the master of Hoghton Tower? And might Shakespeare then have found playing rather more to his taste than tutoring?

The answer to the second question is yes.

To the other one, maybe.