Mainly about the Duxbury to Standish to Shakespeare connections
The main connection was
Alexander Standish of Duxbury (1570/1-1622), whose mother was a Hoghton and who
himself was named after his uncle Alexander Hoghton, who wrote his will in
August 1581 naming William Shakeshafte. He was also a close friend of Dowager
Countess Alice, widow of Ferdinando, 5th Earl of Derby, who, as Lord and Lady
Strange in the early 1590s, were patrons of Strange's Players, who performed
some of Shakespeare's early plays. Alexander also had Duxbury blood flowing in
his veins and quartered the Duxbury arms in pride of second place (on the
magnificent oak Standish pew in St Laurence's, Chorley). He was Myles's closest
relative in Duxbury and several documents allow one to confidently assume that
Myles and Alexander knew each other rather well. One can also be certain that
Alexander Standish, with all his family connections, knew both William
Shakespeare when staying with his uncle Alexander Hoghton, and knew who William
Shakeshafte was. As Edmund
Spenser claimed kinship with Alice, it seems likely that he knew him
too. If only some letters from this period had survived among the Standish of
Duxbury MSS, the problem might have been solved once and for all, but alas,
none did.
Because she is named in his
will of 1621 (in the Lancashire Record
Office) as the only one not in his immediate family, and she was still
living, rent-free, in Alexander's neighbouring manor of Anglezarke the
following year at his inquisition post
mortem. I gave references to these in my articles.
Good question. She deserves a
biography in her own right. Briefly, she was one of the daughters of Sir John
Spencer of Althorpe in Northamptonshire (and we all know who another recent
member of this family was). They had their roots in Lancashire before the move
to the Midlands, and, true to form in staying allied to the same families,
often looked back in this direction for brides and grooms. She married
Ferdinando, Lord Strange and they had three daughters before he died, probably
poisoned, shortly after Catholic Lancashire exiles had offered Spanish and
papal support to put him on Elizabeth's throne (Bagley,
Coward). The earldom then went to
brother William and she later married Sir Thomas Egerton of Cheshire, Baron
Ellesmere and Elizabeth's Privy Seal. He died in 1617 and it was during her
second widowhood that, we now know, she moved to Anglezarke. All her adult life
she attracted dedications from poets, including Jonson and Milton
(Heywood) as well as her kinsman Spenser,
and it is impossible for her not to have known Shakespeare very early on, given
that her first husband's troupe of players put on some of his early plays. So
she is another one who would have known about the Shakespeare/ shafte puzzle.
Not directly, but there are so
many links stretching all over Lancashire and down to London to other people
who must have known him.
Because the gentry were
constantly on the move visiting friends and relatives and actors were constantly
on the move performing for the gentry. And when they were in London they all
met again at each others' houses and the theatre.
There are endless well
documented meetings in London in many diaries and letters of the period, and we
know that Ben Jonson,
one of his best friends, moved in circles at every level of society. One very
interesting Lancashire diary that survived was by Nicholas Assheton, the squire
of Downham, and first cousin of Alexander Standish's wife Alice Assheton, so we
know who many of his friends and what many of his activities were between 1617
and 1619 (Whitaker; Bagley, Diarists).
He thought nothing of riding half way across the county to visit his
gentlemen friends, to hunt with them, or attend a sermon by a noted preacher,
or theatricals or to attend a funeral; and travelled to London twice during
this period for a legal matter. Among many others he visited 'coz. Standish'
and hunted with William Stanley,
6th Earl of Derby. He also knew the Towneleys well, and the mother of Edward Alleyn,
may I remind you, was a Towneley. And he visited the Hoghtons, most importantly
during the three days when James I stayed in 1617 (and was drunk for the next
two days!). In short, he knew everyone in the Hoghton circle and all of these
appear on the lists of Preston Guild Rolls (Abram,
Preston) and all turned up on the
Earl of Derby's doorstep in groups (Raines). He
was born in the early 1590s, so wasn't around when young Shakespeare was with
the Hoghtons, but the theatricals he enjoyed must have included some
Shakespeare plays by some of the touring companies that passed through the
area. Unfortunately his diary starts the year after Shakespeare's death, but
the picture of Lancashire he left behind cannot have been too different for the
generation before him.
Return to Helen Moorwood’s Shakespeare
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