New Place

Abstract

The Globe was rebuilt even finer than before, with no thatch to its roof. Meanwhile, the King’s men went off on tour to familiar ground in Kent, where they have been traced at Folkestone, thence through the south country to Oxford and up to Shrewsbury.¹ It is unlikely that Shakespeare accompanied them, or that he had acted for some time. More and more he was at Stratford : his presence there is recorded in September 1611, October 1614, September 1615, in January, March and April 1616, when he died.² We know that in May 1612 he was in London to testify at the Court of Requests in Westminster Hall in the Mountjoy case, in which he did not appear again, as expected in June — so presumably he was back at Stratford. In March 1613 he was again in London. On 17 November 1614 Thomas Greene, steward and town clerk of Stratford, who was living at New Place in 1609, wrote of ‘my cousin Shakespeare coming to town yesterday’ with his son-in-law Dr. John Hall ; and Shakespeare was away from home still at Christmas.