Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 16

by Tucker Brooke

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XVI. SHAKESPEARE INTERESTED IN PURCHASES OF LAND AT SHOTTERY (1598).

Letter of Abraham Sturley of Stratford to Richard Quyny, temporarily in London, January 24, 1598. (Stratford Corporation Records.)

Most loving and beloved in the Lord, in plain English we remember you in the Lord and ourselves unto you. I would write nothing unto you now but ‘Come home!’ I pray God send you comfortably home. This is one special remembrance from your father’s^[1] motion: It seemeth by him that our countryman, Mr. Shaksper, is willing to disburse some money upon some odd yardland^[2] or other at Shottery or near about us. He thinketh it a very fit pattern to move him to deal in the matter of our tithes. By the instructions you can give him thereof, and by the friends he can make therefor, we think it a fair mark for him to shoot at, and not unpossible to hit. It obtained would advance him indeed, and would do us much good. Hoc movere et, quantum in te est, permovere ne negligas: hoc enim et sibi et nobis maximi erit momenti. Hic labor, hic opus esset eximie et gloriae et laudis sibi.^[3]

You shall understand, brother, that our neighbors are grown, with the wants they feel through the dearness of corn, which here is beyond all other countries^[4] that I can hear of dear and over-dear, malcontent. They have assembled together in a great number, and travelled to Sir Thomas Lucy on Friday last to complain of our maltsters; on Sunday to Sir Fulke Greville and Sir John Conway. I should have said on Wednesday to Sir Edward Greville first. There is a meeting here expected to-morrow. The Lord knoweth to what end it will sort.^[5]

Note. Richard Quyny, to whom this letter is addressed, is the writer of the only extant letter addressed to Shakespeare (see document XXI). His life has been written by E. I. Fripp: Master Richard Quyny, Bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon and Friend of William Shakespeare (1924). Abraham Sturley had been a student at Queens’ College, Cambridge, had been elected Bailiff of Stratford in 1596. He was a legal and business agent, doing business for Sir Thomas Lucy among others.

1. Richard Quyny’s father, Adrian Quyny, a neighbor and close associate of John Shakespeare from 1552. Like the poet’s father he had served as Bailiff of the town, and in 1572 was joined with John Shakespeare in a mission to London on corporation business.
2. A yardland was a section of about thirty acres.
3. ‘Do not fail to urge this and, as far as you can, to urge it thoroughly; for this will be of the greatest consequence both to him and to us. This would be a labor, this a work, of surpassing honor and credit to him [i.e. Shakespeare].’
4. I.e. districts, counties.
5. In connection with this paragraph of Sturley’s letter see the next document.