that the balance of all
considerations remains in favour of the birthplace. It is hard to
account for a purchase in 1575 (that evidently galled him) of any other
premises save those in which he resided. Little is known of John
Shakespeare or his family during 1576 and 1577, but in 1578 begin the
records of his temporary poverty, which I have noted under the account
of his relations to his wife's relatives. For the Town Council,
doubtless in consideration of his past services, excused him paying 3s.
4d., as his share of "the furniture of the pikemen," etc.; and, along
with Mr. Robert Bratt (the poorest member of the Corporation), he was
excused the 4d. a week imposed on the aldermen for relief of the poor.
Then came the mortgage of Asbies in 1578-79.[129] The following year he
again left unpaid his share of the levy for armour--3s. 4d.; and he
began, probably through shamefacedness, not to show himself at the
Halls, though the State Papers still enter him among the gentlemen and
freeholders of Warwickshire. But another influence began to affect his
circumstances prejudicially about this time, and that is, the evil
fortunes of his brother Henry of Snitterfield. How his biographer, in
the "Dictionary of National Biography," could call this brother "_a
prosperous farmer_," I know not.

In 1574 there had been a free fight, wherein blood was drawn, between
him and Edward Cornwall, who afterwards became the second husband of his
brother's sister-in-law, Margaret Webbe, _nee_ Arden. In the year 1580
there was an extra long series of actions against him for debt; threats
of excommunication for withholding tithes; fines for refusing to wear
the statute caps on Sunday; fines for not doing suit of court.
Altogether he seems to have been a high-spirited fellow, who brought on
himself, through lack of prudence, much of his ill-luck, and who had the
unfortunate knack of involving other people in his troubles.

In 1582 both brothers were summoned as witnesses in support of Robert
Webbe against the Mayowe appeal.

In November of that year John's eldest son William, of whom no earlier
direct mention had been preserved, added to his embarrassments by a
premature marriage, and in the following year John was made a
grandfather by the birth of Susanna Shakespeare. In 1584 the twins
Hamnet and Judith were added to his anxieties. About this time the
Stratford Records notice how a John Shakespeare was worried by suits
brought against him by