ly 7, 1597, the original transfer of the property
was left at the time incomplete. Underhill's son Fulk died a felon, and
he was succeeded in the family estates by his brother Hercules, who on
coming of age, May 1602, completed in a new deed the transfer of New
Place to Shakespeare. {194a} On February 4, 1597-8, Shakespeare was
described as a householder in Chapel Street ward, in which New Place was
situated, and as the owner of ten quarters of corn. The inventory was
made owing to the presence of famine in the town, and only two
inhabitants were credited with a larger holding. In the same year (1598)
he procured stone for the repair of the house, and before 1602 had
planted a fruit orchard. He is traditionally said to have interested
himself in the garden, and to have planted with his own hands a
mulberry-tree, which was long a prominent feature of it. When this was
cut down, in 1758, numerous relics were made from it, and were treated
with an almost superstitious veneration. {194b} Shakespeare does not
appear to have permanently settled at New Place till 1611. In 1609 the
house, or part of it, was occupied by the town clerk, Thomas Greene,
'alias Shakespeare,' who claimed to be the poet's cousin. His
grandmother seems to have been a Shakespeare. He often acted as the
poet's legal adviser.

It was doubtless under their son's guidance that Shakespeare's father and
mother set on foot in November 1597--six months after his acquisition of
New Place--a lawsuit against John Lambert for the recovery of the
mortgaged estate of Asbies in Wilmcote. The litigation dragged on for
some years without result.

Appeals for aid from his fellow-townsmen.

Three letters written during 1598 by leading men at Stratford are still
extant among the Corporation's archives, and leave no doubt of the
reputation for wealth and influence with which the purchase of New Place
invested the poet in his fellow-townsmen's eyes. Abraham Sturley, who
was once bailiff, writing early in 1598, apparently to a brother in
London, says: 'This is one special remembrance from our father's motion.
It seemeth by him that our countryman, Mr. Shakspere, is willing to
disburse some money upon some odd yardland 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