Post by John Green on Sept 13, 2018 21:12:30 GMT
"Parry, who is co-writing a book about Shakespeare’s life up until 1592, said that until he began digging into the National Archives, 150 years of research had produced fewer than 15 documents relating to John Shakespeare. He was “not happy” with the story that John had settled his prosecution for usury and wool-dealing out of court, around 1573, so delved into the National Archives’ list of Exchequer documents.
He began ordering boxes of documents down from the salt mines in Cheshire where little-used papers are sent for safe-keeping, and started going through the writs for Warwickshire, beginning with the dates of John’s court cases.
“I had identified just over 100 possible boxes, and inside each box there could be between 100 and 1,000 writs and associated documents, depending on how many had survived,” he said. “Quite quickly I turned up one writ, then more, working through May into early June. In August I found more … It was very exciting to have an educated hunch pay off, which is quite rare when working in the less-used parts of any archive. It’s a bit like that Christmas morning feeling as a child, unwrapping the box and finding the perfect, longed-for present.” www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/13/william-shakespeare-father-legal-skirmishes-john-shakespeare-national-archives-glyn-parry
He began ordering boxes of documents down from the salt mines in Cheshire where little-used papers are sent for safe-keeping, and started going through the writs for Warwickshire, beginning with the dates of John’s court cases.
“I had identified just over 100 possible boxes, and inside each box there could be between 100 and 1,000 writs and associated documents, depending on how many had survived,” he said. “Quite quickly I turned up one writ, then more, working through May into early June. In August I found more … It was very exciting to have an educated hunch pay off, which is quite rare when working in the less-used parts of any archive. It’s a bit like that Christmas morning feeling as a child, unwrapping the box and finding the perfect, longed-for present.” www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/13/william-shakespeare-father-legal-skirmishes-john-shakespeare-national-archives-glyn-parry