The Death of Shakespeare (Part 3)

7.

We were roused from our post-sexual slumbers by a most vigorous knocking on the front door as well as shouting from outside the house. Judith implored me to return to my own
room and I did so, still giddy after our many hours of lovemaking, she eager to cover her slender naked form and discover what news warranted such alarm. After a short exchange at the front door I heard her wail in a most unsatisfactory manner and, from the window of my room, watched as she hurried in the direction of her parents’ house. Having dressed I too rushed outdoors. Verily a crowd had assembled, all a-gossip with rumours of death, and I now realised that it was Mr Shakespeare they referred to and that his illness had proved fatal.

I waited with the crowd until Ann Shakespeare emerged, her eyes tearful, her head covered in a mourning scarf, to confirm that her husband had indeed passed away during the night. Along with Judith’s elder sister, Susannah, and her husband, the rather
severe looking doctor John Hall, they made haste to the registry office to give formal notice of what had occurred. It was now that I attempted to enter the Shakespeare
house but was barred from doing so by two burly men armed with scythes. They
had been placed under orders by Ann Shakespeare to prevent unwanted intrusion -
a precaution to stop the chancer Thomas Quiney interfering with the family’s
grief. I pleaded with the two men to let me enter to no avail, our exchanges
becoming more and more heated until one of them pushed me to the floor and
threated to slice off my nose and ears. Judith came to my rescue. “Allow this
gentleman entry to the house” she said. “He is my lodger and I wish for his company
at this grave time.”

I followed her inside. The main room was heavily scented and a fire blazed giving off much uncontrolled heat. On a bed made up and placed by the fire, lay the husk of the
famous Bard, covered in a white lace sheet, the eyes gently shut by two coins, such
is the custom. His hair had been brushed and was spread evenly on a white pillow,
the cheeks, once red and filled with vigour, cold and grey and even now, barely
a few hours after his demise, subject to decay.

“Sweet lady, I can only offer my sincerest condolences” I said in a whisper as Judith gazed longingly at her father’s visage. “There is no time for mourning” she said. “We
must act quickly before my husband arrives. Go look in that chest and tell me what you find.”

She pointed in the direction of a window beneath which lay an oak chest of considerable size. It was engraved with the familiar masks of tragedy and comedy. I opened the lid
and saw that it contained perhaps twenty five manuscripts, each tightly bound
with ribbon.

“Is this your father’s handy work?”

Judith nodded: "His ‘foul papers’ as he called them. They will be the subject of my husband’s desires once he arrives, to be sold to the highest bidder, my father’s name scratched from the cover. You must take them to London. Seek out Mr John Heminges and Mr Henry Condell and pass the manuscripts to them. They will reward you handsomely when you do so.”

I took out the manuscripts and found a large sack to put them in. “Sweet Judith” I said when I was done, the events of the previous night still inflaming my emotions. “I cannot
leave you alone. I beg you - do not discard me so easily after our time together.”

She ignored my entreaties, such was her grief, her mood sullied and distant as the implications of her father’s death became clear. “If you are frightened of your husband I
promise he will do you no harm. Judith, I beg you, hear what I say.”

She looked me tenderly in the eyes now. “Sweet friend, take my father’s works” she said “and make your way to London as soon as you can. If you love me in any way at all, I
beg you to do this.”

We kissed, a sensuous kiss worthy of our parting. I asked her once more to follow me but
received no answer. “Hurry” she said and handed me a bag filled with coin. And so, tearfully, as if acknowledging a final parting, I went on my way.

8.

Five and twenty years have passed since I took my leave that day. I made good my promise and delivered the manuscripts to Mr Heminges and Mr Condell. As Judith
declared, I was well rewarded and went on to enjoy success in the theatre, not least with Lucan and Poppea which, thanks to my father and Mr Jonson’s efforts, became a favourite at court.

Now the year is 1642 and all is madness and revolution. Mr Shakespeare’s Globe has been destroyed and the city’s theatres silenced. A darkness has fallen across our
nation. England, I must report, has been turned upside down.

And so I am preparing to flee abroad. With this account I only wish to record my small part in preserving Mr Shakespeare’s legacy for our great nation. The theatres will
one day be re-opened, of that I have no doubt, and the Bard’s characters will once
again be resurrected to strut the stage. What happened to Judith Shakespeare I know not. She did not seek me out; I, in turn, have never since travelled to Stratford. I have thought long and hard about the circumstances that took me to her and cannot help but feel that I was a pawn, a cipher, used by Judith in order to provoke a greater good. I once heard from a traveller’s mouth that Judith fled from her brutish husband and married a rich Duke, although the teller of the story was well cut in his cups when he told me and this is an age in which tales grow taller in the telling. Verily, though, he said one thing that struck the tenderest nerve: that Judith gave birth to a son, christened Shakespeare, barely nine months after I left her standing over her father’s remains. “Twas near Christmas, the year 1616, the brat was born.”

Could it be, dear reader ? Could it ? It is said the sins of the father follow his son just
as dark night follows bright day. Pray, let me not think on it…let me not think.

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