Lewis Hiccox and Shakespeare's birthplace.

The penultimate item of an inventory recently discovered at Worcester County Record Office reads

one Chattel & lease of the houses in henlye

street of the demise and grante of Will(ia)m

Shakespeare gent for lxiii yeares the time

therein yet to come and unexpired worth [lxv.sup.li 1]

The inventory is that of Lewis Hiccox, yeoman, of Stratford-upon-Avon, who is known to have kept the inn, originally called The Maidenhead and, later, The Swan and Maidenhead, which was situated in part of what is now known as Shakespeare's Birthplace in Henley Street in Stratford.

The inventory, dated 9 July 1627, lists in detail the rooms of the inn and their contents, as well as the cattle and crops which Hiccox had raised on rented ground outside the Borough, the inclusion of which explains the fact that Lewis Hiccox was referred to as `yeoman' in both the inventory and his will made on 27 June 1627. Two other documents have come to fight at the same time which help to extend our knowledge of the history of the Birthplace - the will of Henry Hiccox dated 14 December 1638 and the inventory of the goods of John Rutter made on 26 December 1648, in both of which the testator is referred to as `innholder'.(2)

A considerable amount of information is already known about Lewis Hiccox. In 1595 he was living in Wood Street where his wife was uttering two strikes of malt per week, an activity to which the authorities put a stop because of the shortage of barley.(3) In 1597 Lewis is listed as living in Bridge Street Ward.(4) In 1603 he is included in a list of victuallers in the memo book kept by Daniel Baker, Bailiff of the town.(5) A document dated 1604 also states that he was licensed to sell ale although it does not specify where he is living.(6) He is, however, listed under the same number as Robert Brooks and, in a similar document, made two years later and in which those licensed to sell ale are listed under the streets in which they live, both he and Robert Brooks appear under Henley Street.(7) It would seem then that he was innkeeper of the Maidenhead by 1603 and the likelihood is that William leased part of the property to him after John Shakespeare's death in 1601.

The item in the inventory referring to the lease of the property does not make it clear whether it was originally for sixty-three years and thus due to expire in 1664, or whether there are sixty-three years to run from 1627 and so expiring in 1690. The unexpired part of the lease is valued at 65[pounds]. If there were thirty-seven years unexpired, the value was calculated at 35s. per annum. With sixty-three years to run, the annual value becomes about 20s. In the first two decades of the seventeenth century tenements in Henley Street which were owned by the Corporation were being let at sums ranging from 14s. to 26s. 8d per annum and the periods of the leases were between twenty-one and sixty-one years.(8) Perhaps the most satisfactory explanation is that a new lease, say for seventy-one years, at 20s. per annum, was negotiated between Hiccox and Susannah Hall, Shakespeare's daughter, when she became owner of the property after her father's death. In his will, Shakespeare left the property in Henley Street to Susannah, stipulating that his sister, Joan Hart, should continue to live in that part of the property she already occupied, at a rent of 12d. per annum. A new lease for the remainder of the property which was already run as an inn by Lewis Hiccox, negotiated in, say, 1619, can, of course, only be a matter for speculation, but, in the absence of documentary proof, would appear a reasonable assumption.

The next documentary information we have about the Hiccox family concerns Lewis's wife, Alice or `old goodi hicox' as she is referred to by Jone Smith, `wyfe of Roger Smith late of Drayton in ye county of Lancaster, tinker, a Idle disordered p(er)son', who was examined on 24 December 1616 regarding an altercation she had with Alice.(9) In her examination on the same day Alice stated that she was in the backside of her house and Jone Smith `came up ye gilpitts & in at ye back gate'.(10) The garden of the Birthplace stretches to Guild Street which runs where the Gild pits were. Alice also mentions her son, Humphrey, who `was not within the howse'. Humphrey did not take over the lease of the inn when his father died in 1627. In Lewis's will Alice was left two thirds of all his goods for fife and the free disposal of half of these at her death. The profits from the remaining half and from the other third of the goods were to be administered by Lewis's `trusty friend and landlord' Richard Wright, parson of Exhall and the proceeds were to be paid half yearly to Lewis's only son, Humphrey, if he was still living, and, after Humphrey's death, to his wife Joan and her assigns. It would seem that Humphrey was not considered capable of dealing with his own legacy and, in fact, he died just two months after his father.

The next lessee of the inn was Henry Hiccox, son to Lewis's older brother, Thomas. Henry took over the lease of the inn some time between 1627 and 1637 when he was set down as paying a chief rent of 1s. 10d. for a property in Henley Street to the then Lord of the Manor, Lionel, Earl of Middlesex.(11) Widow Hart paid one shilling and it appears that, in this case, the tenants rather than the owner of the property, were responsible for the payment of the chief rent. Henry, born in 1603, had married in 1628 and may well have taken over the inn from Alice Hiccox then. When he made his will on 4 December 1638, although he referred to himself as `innholder', he did not specifically mention the inn. He did mention a house in Henley Street in which his mother, Elizabeth Wheeler, lived, but this was another property left to her until her sons were twenty-six, by her first husband, Thomas Hiccox senior, who owned and leased several properties in the street.(12) Henry did, however, leave 50[pounds] each to his two children, Thomas and Amye, both under age, and make his wife, Jane, his residuary legatee and executrix.

This is the Jane Hiccox, who, together with Joan Hart, both widows, is known to have been the tenant of the Henley Street property in May 1639. By 1647 the tenant of The Maidenhead was John Rutter, while Thomas Hart, Joan's son, occupied the adjacent property.(13) Jane died in October 1639 and the inn must have been run on behalf of her children until some time after 1643 since the last time we hear of the Hiccox family in connection with The Maidenhead is in a bill of 1647 for compensation to be paid by Parliament for various articles removed from the inn by Lord Brooke's soldiers when they drove the king's forces from Stratford.(14) This had occurred in 1643. The bill is `of the orphan children of Jane Hiccox: - Thomas and Amie'. The articles include seventeen silver spoons, two silver bowls, and a double silver salt amounting to 20[pounds]. A further item is for the payment of 8[pounds] 15s. 8d. made by the children's feoffees, for the house called The Maidenhead, to Warwick garrison, for thirty-three months. The bill is entered under Wood Street Ward, where, apparently, the children were living in 1647. Under `Henlie Street' another bill is entered. This is John Rutter's bill amounting to 36[pounds] 17s. 4d.

John Rutter died in 1648 and the inventory of his goods does not include the lease of the inn. The items included in inventories varied considerably and many made in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Stratford do not include leases even when they are known to have existed. The inventory does, however, enumerate the rooms of the inn which, although some of them have different names, can be seen, in the main, to correspond with those mentioned in the earlier inventory.

While the discovery of these documents adds to our knowledge of the history of the Henley Street property, the two inventories also present us with certain difficulties mainly with regard to the exact proportion of the property which was occupied by Joan Hart.

Lewis Hiccox's inventory lists ten rooms and a kitchen, cellar, and brew house. Two of the rooms, `the servantes chamber' and `the roome overhead' contain very little furniture and could well have been rooms on the second floor, one of which is still in existence and can be reached by a staircase leading out of the `starehead chamber'. This theory is reinforced by the fact that the servants' chamber, besides three bedsteads, contained wheat, malt, cheeses, and bacon, while the other room overhead contained oats, barley, and beans and just one bedstead. There is certainly room for three simple bedsteads in the present room under the eaves. If this was the case, and it is by no means certain that that is where these rooms were situated, this leaves eight rooms, each containing a considerable amount of furniture, which were counted as part of the inn. These are `the hall', `the Parlor', `his lodginge Chamber', `the Roome over ye Celler', `the best chamber', `the starehead Chamber', `the three Bed Chamber', and `a further parlor'.

The Birthplace, as it stands today, contains eleven rooms and a kitchen on the two floors which are open to the public. Since there have been several structural alterations to the building over the years, attempts to decide which rooms correspond with those listed in Lewis Hiccox's inventory have proved fruitless. At least two of the present rooms are too small to house the furniture listed in any of the inn chambers and `the Roome over ye Celler' is, in fact, the kitchen in the present building. Theories abound and the only consensus of opinion to emerge is that, unless parts of the seventeenth-century building have disappeared, Joan Hart's share of the property was small indeed, being, at the most, three rooms.

Yet, as we have already noted, in 1637, while Henry Hiccox was paying 1s. 10d. in Chief Rent, Widow Hart was paying 1s.. When the town of Stratford was laid out in 1196 it was divided into burgages approximately 3 1/2 perches by 12 perches (52 feet by 198 feet). Each burgage brought in a ground rent of 12d. per annum and, although by the seventeenth century many burgages had been divided up and some amalgamated, the chief rents remained the same. Widow Hart's share of the ground covered by the property was approximately one third of the whole. This would, of course, include the `backside' or garden stretching down to the Gild pits, and Joan Hart could well have had the use of a large proportion of this with any outhouses it contained.

By 1627 her household was probably small, since her two remaining sons, William and Thomas, were aged twenty-seven and twenty-two respectively, and were, in all likelihood, living elsewhere. Her daughter, Mary, had died in 1607 aged four, and her youngest son, Michael, had died in 1618 aged ten. Other inventories of the period reveal that larger households than that of Joan Hart were living in two or three rooms and these inventories were of the goods of people who were, by no means, among the poorest. It has been suggested that a cottage to the west of the property was used by the Harts and that this was where their kitchen was situated. Certainly the house as it stands at present, does not contain two kitchens, one for the inn and one for the Harts.

Joan Hart died in 1646 and, in 1647, the property adjacent to The Maidenhead was in the occupation of her son Thomas.(15) He was, by that time, married, with two sons, aged thirteen and eleven.

The ten rooms listed in John Rutter's 1648 inventory are - `his bedchamber', `the hall', `the litle parlour', `the parlour', `the lower parlour', `the chamber over the lower parlour', `the greate chamber', `the Chamber over the hall', `the chamber over the parlour' and `the chamber over the kitchin'. It is difficult to identify the two chambers which, in 1627, we have assumed were on the second floor, particularly as all the rooms, with the exception of the hall, the little parlour, and the chamber over the lower parlour, contain a considerable amount of furniture. However, once again, it appears that, unless some of the original building has disappeared, Thomas Hart and his family were living in a very small proportion of the building.

The contents of The Maidenhead in 1627 present us with a picture of a well-furnished and comfortable inn. All the rooms except the hall, kitchen and the room over the cellar contained bedsteads, all except the servants' bedsteads being described as `joined', four of them with curtains and rods. These were standing four posters with testers which would require a fair amount of space. There was one each in the parlour (which also contained a truckle bed which could be pushed under the main bed during the day) and `his lodginge Chamber', and two in `the best chamber'. `The further parlor' had a joined bedstead and a half head bed (one with just a headboard) and it is only in the servants' chamber that the three beds are referred to merely as bedsteads and would have been of the simplest type - a rectangle of wooden poles with a leg at each corner and rope or webbing threaded across on which to lay the flockbeds which, together with three blankets, are the only articles of bedding in the room. The three or more servants shared their sleeping accommodation with three strike (bushels) of wheat, four of malt, forty cheeses, and two flitches of bacon.

The hall seems to have been sparsely furnished although it did contain two joined tables which may very well have taken up a considerable amount of room. Seating arrangements consisted of three forms, a joined settle and two stools. The only other objects in the room were an iron chain, presumably in the chimney, and a brass candlestick. In 1648 there was even less furniture in the hall - one table, two forms, and a screen. There was also a jack, a grate, a fire shovel, and tongs. In 1627 only two rooms, the kitchen and the best chamber, contained fire irons compared with six rooms in 1648, but Hiccox's inventory was made in July when fire irons would only be needed for cooking and those that would be used in winter may well have been included in the final item of the inventory - `all other implementees of any kind not p(ar)ticularly specified or by us not valued_____[xx.sup.s]'.

`The best chamber' was well furnished with two joined beds, each with its curtains and rods. There was also a table, two benches, a form, and two chairs. `The three Bed Chamber' in spite of its name and `the starehead Chamber' each contained two joined beds but there are no curtains and rods listed so they may well have been of a simpler type. `The starehead Chamber' also contained six stools, a table, and a court cupboard and it is unlikely that the beds were large since the chamber which is at the head of the original stairs is not a large room.

Besides the joined bed with curtains and rods `his lodginge Chamber' was furnished with a form and a table. It also contained a chest, four coffers and four boxes in which were stored, besides his ready money - 20[pounds] 3s. 0d. - and his wearing apparel worth 50s., the linen of the inn - forty pairs of sheets of all sorts, eleven table cloths, six diaper napkins, five dozen table napkins, eight towels, and two pair of pillow cases.

If we compare the furniture listed in the two inventories, made twenty-one years apart, the amounts are very similar. In 1648 there were three more truckle beds. Four chairs replaced the eight benches of 1627. Rutter's inventory shows more beds (mattresses), bolsters, and pillows, both feather and flock, and the standing beds were more liberally provided with curtains and rods. Other additions were four extra cupboards, a looking glass, and two close stools. Only one chamber pot was kept (in the storehouse). Lewis Hiccox kept nine chamber pots for the convenience of his guests. They were stored in the cellar, together with four pipes and a hogshead of beer. Although it does not say they were in the cellar, Rutter's inventory lists fourteen hogsheads of beer worth 20[pounds]. In spite of the extra bedding and bed curtains in the later inventory, the Hiccox inn was by no means devoid of comfort. Items appearing in the 1627 inventory but not in the later one, include window curtains in both the parlour and `his lodginge Chamber', fifteen cushions and two pictures.

Some time between Lewis Hiccox's death and 1642 the lessee of the inn had acquired some silver since the articles `taken away by Lord Brooke's soldiers' included silver spoons, bowls, and a double salt. The only silver mentioned in Lewis Hiccox's inventory is a silver bowl pawned at 20s. Rutter apparently owned no silver and his entire goods, including three swine, totalled 218[pounds] 12s. 6d. Lewis Hiccox was worth 378[pounds] according to the inventory but this included not only the value of the lease - 65[pounds] - but also his livestock and cereals which were worth 148[pounds] 3s.4d. The arithmetic in neither inventory is completely accurate although Rutter's, which is in Arabic numerals, is much closer to the correct total than Hiccox's where the valuations are in Roman numerals. If, however, we use the totals as set out in the inventories, then, in 1627 the contents of the inn were worth 164[pounds] 16s. 8d. and, in 1648, they were worth 216[pounds] 12s.6d. (the 2[pounds] for the three swine having been deducted).

Although there is much about the early history of Shakespeare's Birthplace which must still remain a subject for conjecture, the discovery of these two inventories, together with the wills of Lewis Hiccox and his nephew, Henry, has allowed us to fit a few more pieces into the jigsaw and awakened the hope that, in spite of previous exhaustive searches, there might yet be other undiscovered documents which will provide information to complete the picture. Jeanne E. Jones

Stratford-upon-Avon

(1) Worcester County Record Office (WCRO), Index to Worcester Wills. ii (British Record Society), 130, No 104. (2) WCRO, Index to Worcester Wills, ii (British Record Society), 169 No 98 and 169 No 128. (3) Warwick County Record Office, Greville Papers BB711/2663, 7 December 1595. (4) Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office, Stratford-upon-Avon (SRO) BRU 15/1/106, Note on Corne, 4 February 1597/8. (5) SRO ER2/25, Daniel Baker's Memo book. (6) SRO BRU 15/3/23, Those licensed to sell ale 27 February 1604. (7) SRO BRU 15/12/75, Those licensed to sell ale 22 September 1606. (8) SRO BRU 8/8/15-22, Corporation leases. (9) SRO BRU 15/13/26. (10) SRO BRU 15/13/30. (11) Kent County Record Office, Maidstone, U2 69/E 249/6. (12) WCRO, Index to Worcester Wills, ii (British Record Society), 46 No 61 1611. (13) SRO TTD1/5 and TTD1/9. (14) British Library, MSS 28565, Register of bills of inhabitants of the Borough of Stratford-upon-Avon, Co. Warwick, entitled `A Book of Such Damages as hath beene sustained by such persons of the said Burrough as have put in their bills, from the Parliament forces, by free quarter, contribucion & otherwise' during the years 1642-6. (15) See n. 13.

Article Details

Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Author:	Jones, Jeanne E.
Publication:	Notes and Queries
Date:	Dec 1, 1994
Words:	3348
Previous Article:	Mock-trial or witch-trial in 'King Lear.'
Next Article:	Hudson and the Burbages.