poet's brothers, and therefore none
entitled to bear John Shakespeare's famous coat of arms without a new
grant. Yet we find some bearing the arms, and many claimants of such
descent. Sir Thomas Winnington asks if the Shaksperes of Fillongly are a
branch of the poet's family, as the well-known armorial bearings appear
on the tomb of George Shakespeare, who died there in 1690.[215]

The Rev. Mr. Dyer wrote to Mr. Duncombe from Coningsby, November 24,
1756: "My wife's name was Ensor, whose grandmother was a Shakespeare,
descended from the brother of everybody's Shakespeare."[216] Such claims
may be explained by a natural error. Another John Shakespeare has often
been mistaken for ours, and real pedigrees have been traced back to him.

But there _were_ collateral descents from Shakespeare's sister. The only
person who might have impaled the new Shakespeare arms, had he himself
borne arms to make this possible, was William Hart, the hatter, who
married Shakespeare's sister Joan, and who lived in Shakespeare's old
house in Henley Street, and died a few days before the poet.[217] The
pedigree of the Harts is printed in French's "Shakespeareana
Genealogica,"[218] and need not be repeated here. The Rev. Cornelius
Hallen[219] also gives a genealogical table of the various connections,
and thus provides us with the collateral descent nearly up to date.

Though the early members of this family seem to have been content with a
very modest position and very unromantic occupations, the later members
have become more ambitious.

The Harts thought of contesting the will of Lady Barnard, who, with her
mother, Mrs. Hall, had cut off the entail, or rather altered, as they
thought, the proviso of Shakespeare's will regarding his heirs. But, as
she left them the Henley Street house, and a contest for more would have
been attended with certain expense and uncertain results, they on full
consideration let the matter drop.

Even from this family sprang claimants for lineal descent. On a
tombstone in Tewkesbury appears: "In Memory of John Hart, the sixth
descendant from the poet Shakespeare, who died January 22, 1800, aged
45," etc.

[Illustration: SNITTERFIELD CHURCH.

_To face p. 113_]

FOOTNOTES:

[211] Registers of St. Saviour's, Southwark.

[212] Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Saviour's, Southwark.

[213] Stratford-on-Avon Registers.

[214] Stratford-on-Avon Registers.

[215] _Notes and Queries_ December, 1865, Third Series,