A contemporary herald, Ralph Brooke, mentions Shakespeare as one of twenty-three persons charged with obtaining coats of arms to which they were not entitled. (For an answer to this accusation see Mrs. Stopes, Shakespeare’s Family, pp. 22 f.) The arms here granted are displayed on the monument above Shakespeare’s grave and on the tombstone of his daughter Susanna. For a later document granting heraldic honors to Shakespeare see no. XXVI.
XIV. SHAKESPEARE ASSESSED FOR TAXES AS A RESIDENT OF ST. HELEN’S PARISH, BISHOPSGATE (1596–1598).
The following documents are in the Public Record Office, London.
(A) Report of collectors of the subsidy, November 15, 1597.
The petty collectors of the said second payment of the said last subsidy within the ward of Bishopsgate, London . . . did say and affirm that the persons hereunder named are all either dead, departed, and gone out of the said ward, or their goods so eloigned or conveyed out of the same or in such a private or covert manner kept, whereby the several sums of money on them severally taxed and assessed towards the said second payment of the said last subsidy neither might nor could by any means by them the said petty collectors, or either of them, be levied of them, or any of them, to her Majesty’s use.
Among the defaulters in St. Ellen’s parish is listed William Shackspere V li.—v s.[1]
- ↑ The meaning of this is that Shakespeare was assessed as owning personal property to the value of five pounds in the parish and was taxed at the rate of one shilling in the pound. He had evidently removed from the parish before the collectors called.
