Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 14
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]
(B) Assessment paper, October 1, 1598.
This indenture, made the first day of October, in the fortieth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady, Elizabeth . . . Witnesseth that the said Ferdinando Clutterbooke and Thomas Symons so named, deputed, appointed, and chosen to be petty collectors in the said ward [i.e. Bishopsgate], and authorized thereunto by these presents, shall receive, levy, collect, and gather of all and every the several persons hereafter named to the Queen’s Majesty’s use all such several sums of money as in this present extract been taxed and assessed upon them and every of them, for their several values and substances, rated, specified, and contained as hereafter followeth; that is to say, of
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St. Helen’s Parish.
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Affid. William Shakespeare, V li.—xiiis ivd.[2]
(C) Residuum, or back-tax, account for London, 1598.
William Shakspeare in the parish of St. Helen’s in Bishopsgate Ward owes 13s. 4d. of the subsidy; and he answers in the following roll[3] in Residuum Sussex.
(D) Residuum account for Sussex (which included also the Bankside district in Surrey), 1599.
William Shakspeare in the parish of St. Helen, 13s. 4d. of the whole subsidy aforesaid granted in the said 39th year. Which is required upon the same roll there.
This is annotated in the margin, ‘Episcopo Wintonensi,’ meaning that the person referred to was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, who controlled the Bankside district.
Note. The second of these documents was first pointed out by Joseph Hunter, Illustrations of Shakespeare, 1845, 76–79; the others by J. W. Hales, Athenaeum, March 26, 1904. They indicate that Shakespeare had resided, probably for a number of years, in St. Helen’s parish, which was near the Shoreditch theatres (‘Theatre’ and ‘Curtain’), but that he had removed before 1597 and by 1599 had been traced by the inefficient tax collectors to the Bishop of Winchester’s liberty (i.e. the Bankside in Southwark). He seems then to have discharged the debt, as his name does not appear in the list of delinquents for the next year.
Confirmation of Shakespeare’s removal to Southwark is found in an uncorroborated note by Malone: ‘From a paper now before me, which formerly belonged to Edward Alleyn, the player, our poet appears to have lived in Southwark, near the Bear Garden, in 1596.’
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ The meaning of ‘Affid.’ is uncertain. Hales interprets it as signifying that Shakespeare protested the tax. It is affixed to the names of six other residents of St. Helen’s and to the names of thirteen persons listed as ‘strangers’ in the parish. The tax in this case was at the rate of two shillings and eightpence in the pound.
- ↑ This means that in the tax lists of the following year he will be found in the Residuum for Sussex, not London,