Shakespeare's Granddaughter and the Bagleys of Dudley:

(An investigation of their relationship and that of others to the last direct descendant of William Shakespeare, by John Taplin)

[Editor's note - This article - without photographs and genealogies - appears in issues 38/4, 39/1 and 39/2 of The Blackcountryman. This work is very thorough, but there are questions asked and someone may disagree with some of John's research. If that is the case please contact me and I will pass your comments to John. John and I hope you enjoy this work and that it makes the link the title suggests]

Introduction:

Several Shakespearian biographers have speculated that of all the avenues left open to us to progress our understanding of the Poet himself, discovering more of those he knew or was associated with during his life may prove the most fruitful and, of course, much has been done in this regard already, upon which I have drawn heavily. As a small contribution to this effort, I have examined one such avenue which, as it developed, broadened to illustrate the intricate structure of the society within which the last of Shakespeare's direct descendants must have moved and been familiar.

The starting point for my research was an effort to cast light on a man who was made known to us by his appearance as her executor in the will of Shakespeare's granddaughter, Lady or Dame Elizabeth Bernard. The relationship of this man, Edward Bagley, to Lady Bernard has, surprisingly given the attention that has been lavished on much minutia concerning anything remotely touching on Shakespearian biography, been largely ignored. In the early 20th Century Charlotte Stopes tried to trace Bagley's connection to her, but failed to find anything substantive (1). A manuscript document, probably dating from the late 19th or early 20th Century, identified Bagley's potential importance, stating that:

'This person (who it is believed, was not related to Shakespeare, but kinsman either of Sir John Barnard or to the family of Hall or Nash) must have become possessed of all her Coffers & Cabinets in which undoubtedly were several of her gfathers papers. When & where Mr. Bagley died, is uncertain, no will of his having been discovered in the Prerog. Office tho' search has been made there for 50 yrs subseqt. to 1670.' (2)

In most recent works, however, it is unusual to even find a passing reference to this man, almost as if he has been airbrushed out of existence. So who was he? However, before we examine that, it is necessary to provide some background to his origins and establish who he was not.

Black Country Beginnings:

Many students of the Black Country will be aware of the history of the Lords Dudley and of these that of the last of the male Sutton dynasty is perhaps one of the better known. Edward Sutton, 9th Lord Dudley, has gone down to posterity has a wastrel and philanderer, largely responsible for the ruination of his family's wealth and prosperity. Whether or not this perception of him as a wastrel is fair or not is a matter of opinion, as a case may be made for him as an entrepreneurial industrial pioneer ahead of his time. However, what is less arguable is that his involvement in mining and, together with his son Dud Dudley's attempts to improve the productivity and quality of iron production, proved financially disastrous. Indeed, the unrelenting demands Sutton placed upon his finances necessitated him selling, mortgaging or otherwise raising funds to satisfy his business adventures. Of those who benefited from Lord Dudley's financial predicament, none did so more than the Ward family. William Ward, a wealthy jeweller from London, married his son Humble to Edward Sutton's granddaughter Frances and when Charles I created Humble Ward Lord Ward of Birmingham in 1644, the Ward and Dudley titles passed down to the successors of this marriage. Edward Sutton's vision of the wealth to be made from industry was proved correct with the subsequent incredible fortune acquired by the Wards in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

However, it is the other aspect of Sutton's character as a philanderer that has more of a bearing on this investigation than his business acumen or lack of it. Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley, married Theodosia Harrington (3) in June 1581 (4) and she bore him some five children (5), but he also maintained a mistress in Elizabeth Tomlinson and some eleven known children (6) were born of their liaison, including Dud Dudley. Elizabeth, Lord Dudley's 'concubine' (7), was the daughter of William Tomlinson and her relation, probably her sister Ann, married a man called John Bagley. Bagley who described himself in his will (8) as a yeoman, and was in the service of Lord Dudley possibly in a land management capacity as warden and later lessee of his deer park and 'connigree', or rabbit warren, at Old Park in Dudley. John Bagley had several children (9) of whom the eldest was Edward and it is his son, also Edward, who is the subject of this inquiry regarding his connection to Shakespeare's granddaughter. However, before examining this in more detail, it is worth introducing at this point the fact that Edward Bagley junior had an elder sister, Ann, whose own story is relevant in that her antecedents and descendants have been the topic of much research and interest, mainly in America, but this has singularly not identified the Shakespearian link to the Bagleys that will be demonstrated later.

Edward Bagley: A case of mistaken identity:

In 1996 an article appeared in The American Genealogist (10) by Colonel Charles M. Hansen entitled The Ancestry of William and Ann (Bagley) Brinton, which discussed the origins of the Brinton and Bagley families of Dudley, Worcestershire and environs. It is necessary to study this article itself and the various sources referenced there to fully appreciate its scope, but in brief Colonel Hansen's article built on previous research into the Brinton ancestors and descendants, and in particular the ancestry of William Brinton and Ann Bagley who were married, it is believed, about 1659 (11) before later emigrating from England to America (12). Hansen stated that Ann's father, Edward Bagley, was the son of John Bagley who was believed to have married a woman called Tomlinson, who herself was believed to have been related in some way to Elizabeth Tomlinson, the 'concubine' of Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley. The relationship of John Bagley's wife, Tomlinson, to Lord Dudley and his mistress is therefore important to those looking to demonstrate a connection to the Sutton alias Dudley nobility, and to others because of future connections to at least one famous American (13).

Hansen's major contribution to this debate was his discovery of an index to administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1634-1637 (14), citing Edward Bagley senior as the administrator of Elizabeth Tomlinson's nuncupative will, describing him as 'fili…', but then striking this out and over-writing it with the words 'nepoti ex matre'. This ambiguous term can be interpreted in a number of ways e.g. maternal grandson, maternal nephew or simply relative. Hansen was of the opinion that Edward Bagley was the child of a sister of Elizabeth and most likely Agnes or Ann Bagley, and although others have speculated that John Bagley's wife was another sister, Joan, or even another illegitimate daughter of Edward Sutton and Elizabeth, for the purposes of this discussion, Hansen's conclusion will be assumed correct.

Before I was personally aware of Hansen's research and the work of others on the Brinton and Bagley pedigrees, my own research had brought me into contact with the Bagleys of Dudley, but for quite a different reason to those that had motivated them. My area of interest began with the fact that an Edward Bagley had been named as executor and a major beneficiary in the will of Lady or Dame Elizabeth Bernard (15) (or Barnard), the granddaughter and last direct descendant of William Shakespeare. As my research quickly led to the Bagleys of Dudley and the substantial work that had been done into them and their connections to the Sutton-Dudley family by previous researchers, I was initially surprised to find that none had established another and, possibly to many, more interesting connection, that being to the family of Shakespeare. However, upon reflection there was nothing obvious to the researchers of the Brinton and Bagley families to have suggested a Shakespearian connection. Even Hansen, who had so thoroughly researched the Bagley pedigree, made an assumption which would have prevented his finding such a connection by his perceiving that the Edward Bagley, son of Edward and grandson of John Bagley, was one and the same as the Edward Bagley granted 'one Cowe' and named as a kinsman to Dudley Bagley in the latter's 1685 will (16).

In fact the Edward of Dudley Bagley's will is almost certainly the Edward Bagley of Over Gournall who appears on a number of occasions from 1672 onwards in the Sedgley parish records (17), together with his wife Mary and their children. In several of these entries he is referred to as Edward Bagley 'of Over Gor. labourer'. The Edward Bagley baptised at St. Thomas, Dudley on 6 June 1641 (18), son of Edward Bagley and his wife Olive was, I contend, quite a different person.

Lady Bernard's Will:

Nash's House, Chapel St, Stratford. (Courtesy John Taplin)

When William Shakespeare's granddaughter Lady Elizabeth Bernard died in February 1670 (19) she decreed in her will (20) that after the death of her second husband Sir John Bernard (21), her trustees Henry Smyth or Smith (22) and Job Dighton (23) should sell off her estate in and around Stratford upon Avon. This included the lands in Welcombe and Bishopton, near Stratford, which had come down from her grandfather and also his house, New Place. The estate had also originally included several properties formerly belonging to her first husband Thomas Nash, including that now known as Nash's House in Chapel Street, Stratford, adjacent to New Place, as well as land in Old Stratford and tithes for the Manor of Shottery, which Thomas had left her when he died in 1647 (24). Some of her Hathaway relatives were left monetary amounts, whilst the Hart family into which her mother's aunt Joan, Shakespeare's sister, had married received property in Henley Street, including the cottages now known as the Shakespeare Birthplace.

Side view of Nash's house from the site of New Place (Courtesy of John Taplin)

Thomas Nash's cousin Edward Nash (25) was, by previous arrangement, given first refusal on Lady Bernard's Stratford estate, not otherwise bequeathed, after Sir John's death in March 1674. However, if Edward Nash declined the offer to purchase the estate, the trustees were instructed to sell the inheritance and, after the settlement of the various legacies, the rest of the monies so raised were to pass to Edward Bagley, whom she refers to as her 'loveing kinsman' and who she made her sole executor. In 1675, Henry Smyth, or Smith, and Edward Bagley are cited in a conveyance indenture (26) as one of the parties to the sale of New Place and other land to Sir Edward Walker, Bagley being described as a 'Citizen and Pewterer of London'.

Edward Bagley Citizen and Pewterer of London:

Research by archivists at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford upon Avon has provided references to an Edward Bagley found in the records of the Pewterers' Company, being presented for apprenticeship in London, namely:

12 September 1656: Robert Orme presented Edward Bagley son of Edward, deceased, of Dudly (sic) in Staffordshire, gentleman, for 8 years from All Saints Day - 2s

And again, later:

6 October 1664: Edward Bagley, apprentice to Robert Orme sworne and made free 6s 8d (26a)

Another recent publication (27) gives slightly differing dates within the same years for Bagley's apprenticeship and freedom dates, but confirms he was the son of Edward Bagley of Dudley. His birth in 1641 would make Edward 15 years old when entering upon his apprenticeship, a reasonable age. Robert Orme (28), his apprentice master, appears in catalogue references in the London Metropolitan Archives on at least two occasions, as the citizen and pewterer husband of Elizabeth (29), recipient of a legacy from her brother William Street of Harrow-on-the-Hill, yeoman, and also as Robert Orme, pewterer and Churchwarden (30) of St. Mildred, 'Breadstreete'.

New Place Garden with a mulberry tree (Courtesy John Taplin)

In concluding from the reference in the conveyance documents of New Place in 1675 to one Edward Bagley, citizen and pewterer of London, and the Pewterers' Company records of the young Bagley apprenticed to Orme as one and the same person, then the placing of Edward as from Dudley, actually in Worcestershire not Staffordshire, though this is an understandable slip, demanded closer inspection of the parish records from the 16th and 17th Century to find out more of this family, which in due course resulted in my research path eventually crossing that of the Brinton-Bagley researchers' work. As much of my own research and that of others into the Bagley family's relationship with the Lord Dudley and his mistress concurs, I do not intend to add greatly to it here, other than for two points. Firstly, two documents traced in the Dudley Estate archives referring to George Bagley, John Bagley's (elder?) brother, show him to have also been closely associated with Edward Sutton (31), and secondly to point out that the Churchwardens Book for St. Thomas, Dudley provides some other valuable references to the Bagley family that are not evident from the parish record itself. Various entries refer to levies for poor rates and Edward Bagley senior and his brother Dudley are coupled together on occasions, which suggests that the property the rate was levied upon was of common ownership (32). In April 1645 Edward is shown as elected one of the Overseers for the Poor (33), however, this is the last reference to him apart from his burial entry at St. Thomas in November the same year. The same parish register shows his father, John Bagley being buried in May 1648 (34), who is undoubtedly the John Bagley of the will proved in the August of that year. Sutton(e) Bagley, as the eldest son of Edward, becomes the only child of his to be a beneficiary of John Bagley's will.

Portrait reputed to be of Sir John Bernard. By kind permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust'.

The Guild Chapel from Nash's House and New Place (Courtesy John Taplin)

None of this, however, provides a pointer to how or why Edward Bagley junior came to be a kinsman of Shakespeare's granddaughter, and sufficiently regarded to inherit the bulk of the proceeds for the sale of her estate in 1675 (35). To appreciate how this connection comes about requires examination of a number of families associated with Elizabeth's own ancestry, her life in Stratford, as well of those she became involved with through marriage. Firstly, let us examine the Bernard family connections that probably led to her second marriage in 1649.

The Bernard Family:

Portrait reputed to be of Lady or Dame Elizabeth Bernard. On display at Nash's House, Stratford-On-Avon. ' By kind permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust'.

The Bernard connection to the Shakespeares comes through the second marriage of Robert Arden to Agnes Webbe. Robert was a direct ancestor of William Shakespeare, being his maternal grandfather. Agnes Webbe, who thus became the stepmother of William Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was through her first marriage to a man called Hill, the great grandmother of Eleanor Fullwood. Eleanor Fullwood of Ford Hall, Warwickshire, became the second wife of Baldwin Bernard of Abington, Northamptonshire and the mother of John Bernard, who was to marry secondly Elizabeth Nash, nee Hall, William Shakespeare's granddaughter.

Baldwin Bernard's sister was Anne D'Oyley or Doyley, widow of John Doyley of Merton, Oxfordshire. She married secondly a widower, Sir James Harrington 1st Baronet Ridlington. Sir James Harrington was a brother of Theodosia Harrington who married Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley who, as we have seen, maintained Elizabeth Tomlinson as his mistress and through whom comes the connection to the Bagley family. This shows not only how Elizabeth herself would have been suitably placed to become the wife of John Bernard but also how she would have been, through his aunt's marriage to James Harrington and Harrington's sister Theodisia's marriage, part of the wider kinship of Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley. In turn this most probably accounts for her knowledge of the Bagley family. It is important too, to examine at this point the extent of the Harrington relationship to the Sutton-Dudleys and its relevance to Elizabeth Bernard and the Bagleys.

The Harrington Family:

(As this image is difficult to read I have attached a higher resolution pdf file. Simply click on the image "harrington Genealogy" below to open the image in a new window - Editor)

The Harrington (36) lineage is a long and, for the most part, a distinguished one. Early generations came from Cumbria in the north west of England, having settled there after the Conquest, claiming, through the marriage to William of Normandy's niece Matilda, royal kinship. By the 14th Century the main Harrington family was established around Morecombe Bay in Lancashire, though they held land as far afield as Ireland, with other family branches in the English Midlands. The northern family's fortunes prospered under John of Gaunt, and later Harringtons distinguished themselves with Henry V on the field of Agincourt (37). Though they had been such stout supporters of the Lancastrian kings previously, the ineffectual rule of Henry VI persuaded them to support the Yorkist cause in the struggle of the Roses, resulting in catastrophic disaster for the northern Harringtons. The deaths of several of the principal males of the family resulted in most of their property and land being acquired through marital connivance by the Stanley family after the defeat of Richard III at Bosworth, an event the outcome of which had itself swung on the decision of Lord Stanley to change sides at the critical point of the battle. The northern Harringtons re-emerged under Henry VIII with one of their number, John Harrington of Stepney, marrying Ethelreda Malte, daughter of Henry's tailor, though generally regarded as an illegitimate daughter of the king himself. Though this marriage was childless, the estates Henry generously granted his tailor and Ethelreda in Somerset provided the foundation for the Harringtons of Kelston. John Harrington's son John (38) by his second marriage to Isabella Markham was a godson of Elizabeth I and was a poet of controversial distinction, though history remembers him better, unfortunately, as the inventor of an early water closet.

In contrast to the actions of their northern cousins, the Harringtons who had settled further south had had a relatively tranquil time. By the 16th Century the principal branches of these families were located in east Midlands counties, mainly Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire. Sir James Harrington of Exton, Rutland married around 1540 Lucy Sidney. She was the daughter of Sir William Sidney of Penshurst, Kent. In 1552 Edward VI made a gift of Penshurst to his steward and tutor, Sir William Sidney. The Sidney fortunes increased further when Sir William's son, Henry Sidney, married Lady Mary Dudley, whose powerful family included John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and his sons Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Henry Sidney's son Sir Philip Sidney was to achieve great fame as a poet, soldier and the singular noblest example of the ideals of the 'age of Gloriana'. Lucy Sidney's sister, Frances married Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex and she became the foundress of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. At her death in 1589 she left £5000 and other gifts to help establish the college, though this proved inadequate. The main executors of her will, supervised by Whitgift (39), were Sir John Harrington and the lawyer Henry Grey, Earl of Kent. Sir John Harrington was instrumental in progressing, at personal expense, the foundation of Sidney Sussex College in 1594 after his aunt Frances' death.

Several of the children of the marriage of Sir James Harrington and Lucy Sidney were to establish distinct branches of the family that are of interest in terms of connections to the 'Shakespeare' families. The eldest son, Sir John Harrington, created 1st Baron Harrington by James I in 1603 (40) to whom he was distantly related, was charged with the protection and tutorship of Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James I at Combe Abbey, his house near Coventry. During her time there she became a target for the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. She later married Frederick, Elector Palatine of the Rhine and Sir John accompanied her to Germany after her marriage at Whitehall in February 1613. He succumbed to exhaustion on his return home to England six months later, dying at Worms on 23rd August. Sir John Harrington's son, also Sir John and 2nd Baron of Exton, a man of devout, almost saintly nature, was the companion and great friend of the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, both of whom were destined to die young (41). One can only wonder at the course of history had these two survived.

Sir John Harrington, 2nd Baron of Exton, died unmarried in 1614 shortly after his father (42). He left £200 to Dr. John Burgess (43) and Thomas Dighton (44) of Ashby de la Zouch, clerk, for some purpose he had written to Burgess about earlier (45). Dighton is, as will be recalled, a name that appears in connection with Lady Bernard as a trustee of hers in later years, and this will be examined further in due course. Burgess was a controversial Protestant divine who had displeased King James and left England for Leyden where he qualified in medicine. On his return he treated Lucy, Countess Bedford, Sir John Harrington's sister, and is mentioned in her correspondence concerning her political intrigues at court (46). Lucy, Lady Bedford was a significant presence at the court of James I. She was one of Queen Anne of Denmark's ladies and having been raised in the same household as the Princess Elizabeth, maintained her influence within royal circles after her brother's death. Her younger sister, Frances, was also present at court and appeared in Ben Jonson's Masque of Beauty in 1607 (47).

Sir Henry Harrington (48), the second son of Sir James, married Cecilia Agar, daughter of John Agar of Elmsthorpe. He seems to have received little by way of favour from his father and his fortunes were dampened further when he suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of the forces of the Earl of Tyrone during the Earl of Essex's ill-fated expedition to Ireland in 1599. Sir Henry's son, Sir John Harrington of Bagworth, Leicestershire married Mary Offley (49) at St. Lawrence Pountney, London in January 1602. Around 1617 John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law treated their daughter and only child, Sara, after a bout of smallpox (50). Sara or Sarah attended her father's (51) cousin, Lucy, Lady Bedford who later oversaw Sarah becoming a Maid of Honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. During the early campaigns of the English Civil War the Queen stayed at New Place in Stratford upon Avon, the home of Elizabeth Nash (later to become Bernard) and Susanna Hall, widow of John Hall and Shakespeare's daughter. Later with the court at its wartime base at Oxford, Sarah, who became Lady Freschville through her marriage to John Freschville, Lord Staveley, endeavoured to engineer a barony for her husband and when this was not forthcoming, left the Queen's service and persuaded her husband likewise to abandon the King.

Sir James Harrington 1st Baronet Ridlington (52), the third son of Sir James, married firstly Frances Sapcote by whom all his children were born (53). Following her death in 1599 he married Anne D'Oyley or Doyley, widow of John Doyley of Merton, Oxfordshire. She, as has been noted earlier, was a sister of Baldwin Bernard of Abington, Northamptonshire and aunt to his son John Bernard. John Bernard, later Sir John, married secondly Elizabeth Nash, the widow of Thomas Nash of Stratford-upon-Avon, and Shakespeare's granddaughter. It is worth noting that after the death of Sir James Harrington, Anne Doyley, married for a third time. In 1532 Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon had married Katherine Pole and Anne's new husband Sir Henry Pole, was most probably related to her family, which had also included Cardinal Reginald Pole, papal legate to the court of Queen Mary I. Sir James Harrington's eldest son, Edward, married John Doyley's daughter and heiress Margery, and through that marriage obtained the Doyley estate at Merton (54). Margery Doyley was a first cousin of John Bernard and her marriage to Sir Edward Harrington, 2nd Baronet Ridlington provided continuity of the Bernard connection to the Harrington family into the next generation. Their son, Sir James Harrington, 3rd Baronet Ridlington, was one of the judges of Charles I, though not a signatory to his death warrant. He continued to serve under Cromwell throughout the Interregnum, becoming at one stage President of the Council. After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, James along with others was by Act of Parliament 'attained, degraded and rendered incapable of bearing arms' (55). He fled to the Continent and it was left to his wife to secure what she could for their numerous children. An oversight in the Act did not prevent, however, his title and the baronetcy continuing through his children.

Sarah Harrington, one of Sir James Harrington and Lucy Sidney's daughters married Francis, Lord Hastings, son of George Hastings 4th Earl of Huntingdon, whose own mother had been Catherine Dudley, daughter of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. John Dudley, from a junior branch of the Sutton-Dudley family, had acquired the Sutton titles and Dudley Castle in the first half of the 16th Century. He rose to great eminence as Duke of Northumberland, Earl of Warwick and Protector to Edward VI. His conspiring to put his daughter-in-law, the Lady Jane Grey, on the throne after Edward's death lead to his downfall and execution under Queen Mary and the restoration of the estates to the Sutton family in the person of Edward Sutton, 8th Baron Lord of Dudley. Sarah's sister, Theodosia Harrington, married his son, Edward Sutton, 9th Baron Lord Dudley in June 1581, who had the extra-martial relationship with Elizabeth Tomlinson.

Finally, returning to John Hall's mention in connection to the Harringtons, Hall was a respected doctor with a practise that extended into several counties and embraced a wide range of clientele, from ordinary townsfolk and even servants, to gentry and aristocratic families (56). His treating Sarah Harrington may simply have been one such example of this, however, it may also reflect the kinship ties described above. There is another possibility that may further draw together not only the Sutton-Dudley, Harrington, and Bernard connections, but also demonstrate closer ties to the Hall family itself.

The Hall family:

The ancestors of John Hall, physician husband of Susanna Shakespeare, have not been positively identified. Various families have been suggested as being the source of Hall's lineage including Halls of Worcester, Idicote in Warwickshire, Swerford in Oxfordshire and Acton, Middlesex (57). However, the publication of Frank Marcham's William Shakespeare and His Daughter Susannah (58) in 1931 brought most Shakespearean biographers to agree that the most probable of these was the family of William Hall of Acton, whose will was written shortly before his death in December 1607. In his own, nuncupative will in 1635 John Hall left a house in Acton to his daughter, Elizabeth. William Hall's will mentions sons Dive and John, of whom Dive seems to have been the proverbial prodigal son, whilst John, the steady, obedient, studious one. They attended Queens' College, Cambridge and the Alumni Cambrigienses shows the brothers both entering the university at Michaelmas 1589, being described as 'of Bedfordshire'. Dive would appear to have failed to achieve his degree, but John went on to gain his BA in 1593-4 and his MA, not necessarily an indication of his continued attendance at the university, in 1597 (58a). In William Hall's will (59), as transcribed by Frank Marcham, there appears a reference to an un-named daughter (60) married to a Michael Welles (61). Also, another of his daughters, Elizabeth, is cited as married to a man named Sutton. In his discussion of Hall's will in his Shakespeare Documents (1940), B. Roland Lewis speculates that this man was a William Sutton, possibly because his son William is mentioned as a beneficiary of 'tenne pounds to bybde hym an apprentise', the assumption being that the eldest son was named after his father. In fact the man who married Elizabeth Hall at Carlton, Bedfordshire on 27 August 1590 was Edmund Sutton (62).

Carlton had close associations with the Hall family as evidenced from its parish register (63), being most probably William Hall's country residence. It appears again in a reference to the distribution of the monies from the sale of her Stratford estate, by John Hall's daughter, Elizabeth Bernard, where she leaves the sum of fifty pounds to her 'cousen' Thomas Welles of Carlton in Bedfordshire (64). Elizabeth put a proviso in her will that should Thomas Welles die before such time as the legacy was paid to him, then it should pass to her 'kinsman' Edward Bagley.

Portrait believed to be of Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's granddaughter, and Thomas Nash c.1626. On display at Nash's House, Stratford-On-Avon. ' By kind permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust'.

In his mid-1930s article, Shakespeare's Son-in-Law, The Antecedents of Doctor John Hall (65) Irvine Gray provided a likely pedigree for the Michael Welles of William Hall's 1607 will. He found a Thomas Welles being inducted as the rector of the combined benefices of Carlton and the adjacent village of Chellington in January 1576-7. Gray also found the baptisms of Thomas Welles' children, including Michael most probably the son-in-law of William Hall. He also points to Thomas, a possible son of Michael matriculating at Oxford in November 1621, suggesting that he was the cousin referred to in Lady Bernard's will (66). As to the ancestry of William Hall himself, Gray considers he may have been the son of Robert Hall, who is mentioned in the will his brother William of the parish of St. Paul, Bedford. This William may have been the William Hall, mayor of Bedford in 1547 and 1554, who nominated Thomas Dive as one of his executors when he died in 1557.

Whilst the Hall ancestry is uncertain, in light of the family's later links to the Bernards of Abington and the Shakespeare connection to the same family, the possibility is that William, John Hall's father, was from a Lincolnshire Hall family. Such a hypothesis would run as follows:

Henry Sutton of the Aram or Averham, Nottingham branch of the Sutton-Dudley family, married Alice Hall about 1533 (67). She was the daughter of Francis Hall of Hall Place (68), Grantham, Lincolnshire, who had held the position of Comptroller of Calais, and Elizabeth Wingfield. Henry and Alice had four children before Alice's death. He then re-married to one Alice Harrington, who was from the same wider family as Theodosia Harrington, Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley's wife. Henry and Alice Harrington had six children of whom one was Edmund Sutton. Francis Hall and Elizabeth Wingfield also had six sons. Francis, the eldest, married Ursula Sherington. They had two daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, but no sons. No record has yet been found of the other five sons of Francis Hall and Elizabeth Wingfield, or any marriages or children of theirs, but it is certainly a possibility that one of them may be the parent of William Hall of Acton, and that it may have been Henry Sutton's son, Edmund, from his second marriage who married Elizabeth Hall, William's daughter at Carlton in 1590.

Carlton lies about 5 miles north east of Bedford and nearby are the villages of Stevington and Bromham. Bromham was the home of the Dive (or Dyve) family and this may explain the somewhat unusual name with which William Hall baptised his eldest son (69). Sir Lewis Dive of Bromham died in 1592. There is no specific mention in his will to the Halls that would indicate a relationship of some kind, however, one of the witnesses to the will was a Mr. Welles (70), perhaps the son-in-law of William Hall or his father, Thomas, the Rector of Carlton. Dive Hall of London, gent., appears briefly again in records for the locality, as in receipt of a consideration of £76 13s 4d from Thomas Barrenger the younger of Stevington, yeoman, for the purchase of 42 acres of land which were 'the inheritance of William Hall, gent., deceased, the late father of the said Dive Hall' (71).

In 1592 Sir Lewis Dive bequeathed his lands and property to his son John Dive. In his will he also mentions his brothers Thomas and John, nephew Dive Downes, son of his sister Elizabeth Downes and Lewis Goodfellow, his godson. Forty pounds is entrusted to John Dive, to be 'imploied to suche lawfull use and profitt for the saide Lewis Goodfellow'. In 1601 another John Dive left forty shillings to his niece Goodfellow 'to make her a ring' and to his nephew 'maister Dyve Downes, a phillie' (71a). That this John Dive was the brother of Sir Lewis is apparent from the common references in their wills. He does not appear to leave lands or wealth of great consequence. However, the possibility of a connection between the Halls of Carlton and the Dives of Bromham becomes of further interest by the fact that Sir Lewis Dive's brother describes himself as 'John Dive of Ridlington Parke'.

Ridlington in Rutland was one of the estates of Sir James Harrington of Exton (72), father of Theodosia Harrington the wife of Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley. He was also the father of Sir James Harrington of Ridlington (73), who, as has been stated, married secondly Anne Bernard, widow of John Doyley of Merton, Oxfordshire and aunt of John Bernard. The Halls of Carlton being associated with the Harringtons and Suttons in the 16th Century, perhaps through their connections to the Dive family or through the Lincolnshire hypothesis put forward earlier, would allow another avenue through which Elizabeth, Shakespeare's granddaughter would have been familiar with the Suttons of Dudley and hence, the Bagleys.

John Hall's own arrival in Stratford has not been fully explained and little is known of him after his time at Cambridge until his first recorded appearance at Stratford in 1607 (74). It is supposed he travelled on the Continent and that he may have acquired his medical expertise and acknowledged understanding of the French language during this time (75). Again it has been suggested that he may have chosen Stratford through university connections (76). However, whatever the reasons, the Warwickshire town became his home for the rest of his life. His marriage to Susanna Shakespeare, eldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, is recorded at Holy Trinity, Stratford upon Avon on 5 June 1607, with the baptism of their only child, Elizabeth, entered into the parish record on 21 February 1608.

Thomas Nash (77), Elizabeth Hall's first husband, descended from Michael Nash of Old Woodstock, mentioned in the Visitation of Oxford 1566. His son, another Thomas Nash, married Anne Bulstrode (78), she being a daughter and coheiress of Godith Bulstrode of Nether Worton in Oxfordshire (79) and her deceased husband, James Bulstrode. Thomas and Anne sold the Nether Worton estate in 1575 (80) after the death of her mother, and their eldest son Anthony was established at Stratford by the time his son Thomas was baptised there at Holy Trinity church in 1593 (81). Thomas Nash, aged 32, married 18-year-old Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's granddaughter, in Stratford on 22 April 1626. Nash, though trained in the law at Lincoln's Inn, seems largely to have acted as a land agent as his father had done. He and Elizabeth lived, not always quietly as will be seen, at New Place with Susanna Hall after her husband's death in 1635, and it may be as a result of the legal wranglings subsequent to John Hall's demise that eventually resulted in their association with the men who were to become trustees to Elizabeth's will.

The Trustees: Job Dighton and Henry Smith

Elizabeth Bernard nominated Job Dighton and Henry Smith as the trustees of her will and called upon Smith, and possibly Dighton, on other occasions in legal matters. Dighton was a member of the Middle Temple in London (82) and appears to have acted for Baldwin Brookes, mercer of Stratford, in an action against Susanna Hall in 1636 to recover money owing him by John Hall, deceased. This affair dragged on with counter proceedings by Susanna and eventually resulted in Brookes and others forcing entry to New Place and removing items, including books, from John Hall's study, which Susanna valued at £1000, 'att the least' (83). However, later Dighton may well have acted for Elizabeth and her mother in their action against Edward Nash in 1648. In February of that year Edward Nash filed a Bill in Chancery to uphold the terms of Elizabeth's first husband, Thomas Nash's controversial will, a synopsis of salient points of which follows.

Thomas Nash made his will on 25 August 1642. He left to Elizabeth his wife the house in Chapel Street, probably the house now called Nash's House, a meadow called the Square Meadow in Old Stratford, another meadow in Old Stratford called the Wash Meadow with an adjourning little meadow. He also left her all the tithes he was entitled to in the Manor and Lordship of Shottery. After Elizabeth's death he willed all the above to go to his cousin Edward Nash. He also willed New Place with all its associated buildings, orchards, barns, stables and gardens to Edward Nash as well as substantial land in Old Stratford (four yardland). Edward was also left a house in London, possibly the Blackfriars Gatehouse, and property and land at Barton, about 8 miles south west of Stratford, mortgaged to the Broade family. He specifically states that the money issuing from this latter conveyance should go to Edward directly and not to Elizabeth, his wife, or her assigns.

Elizabeth Nash was left the rest of his goods and chattels and nominated her as his Executrix with Edmund Rawlings, William Smith and John Easton as the Overseers of his will, granting them 40 shillings apiece for their 'paines'. On 4 April 1647, the day he died, Nash made a codicil to his will principally containing further grants of cash to various relatives and others. Finally, he instructed that the inheritance of his cousin Edward Nash should, upon his death, pass to his son Thomas. The will was proved on 5 June 1647, just two months after Thomas Nash's death.

The likelihood is that the contents of Thomas's will were unknown to Elizabeth and her mother until after Nash's death. Elizabeth and Susanna pursued their objection to the will and Edward Nash's claim to what Elizabeth, quite rightly, saw as her inheritance and she was successful to the extent that an apparent compromise was reached whereby she and her mother retained their home, property and lands, with Edward receiving the promise of the opportunity to purchase them in due course after Elizabeth's death (84). Whether Dighton acted for Elizabeth in this matter or not, he was certainly involved in other deeds made out in respect of her wishes for her Stratford property after her marriage to John Bernard (85).

Job Dighton was most probably the son of the Thomas Dighton, clerk of Ashby de la Zouch, mentioned in the will of Sir John Harrington, 2nd Baron Harrington of Exton. What position Thomas Dighton held at Ashby is not clear as he does not appear in the listings of vicars for the church there, St. Helen's, though it is possible he has not yet been identified as such (86). Job was by the time of his death in 1659, the new holder of the manor of Clifford Chambers (87), near Stratford, but his death meant that Henry Smith was left as the sole trustee to Lady Bernard's will.

Henry Smith, from his will, seems not to have married. He was the son of Anthony Smith and Frances, his wife, originally of Preston on Stour, a few miles from Stratford. Anthony Smith probably relocated to Stratford upon Avon sometime between 1613 and 1615, becoming Bailiff or mayor there in 1630-1. He may have been related to Margarett Smith who married Thomas Dighton, Job Dighton's brother, at Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon on 19 August 1627. She was the daughter of another Henry Smith (88) and Anne (probably Shaw), baptised 25 August 1603 at Holy Trinity, Stratford upon Avon. John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law, and Anthony Smith were Churchwardens of Holy Trinity, Stratford upon Avon in the year of Margaret's marriage to Thomas Dighton.

Henry Smith, the trustee, had brothers Robert and Richard, both of whom were grocers in London, probably in partnership together. One of Robert's daughters, Anne, married a Robert Orme, and it will be recalled that a man of that name was the apprentice master of Edward Bagley of Dudley. It is probable that the Robert Orme who married Ann or Anne Smith on 16 December 1655 at St. Margaret Moses, Friday Street, London, was related to Robert Orme or possibly was himself, Bagley's apprentice master, though the fact that he is repeatedly described as a Salter, throws some doubt upon this suggestion (89). However, Orme may well still have been a member of the Pewterers' Company, as many practised trades other than that of their guild. Orme's ancestry is not known, but he may have descended from the Orme family who appear in Dugdale's Staffordshire Visitation of 1663-4 (90). If so, his being from a Staffordshire gentry family could account for his being the choice of apprentice master to young Edward Bagley. Another of Robert Smith's daughters, Margarett, may, as will be discussed later, have married Edward Bagley and this presents the intriguing possibility of Bagley and Orme being brothers-in-law, and a connection both to Lady Bernard and Stratford through her trustee, Henry Smith.

The Fate of the Bagleys:

Having investigated the various kinship avenues through which Elizabeth Bernard would or could have known the Bagleys of Dudley, there remains the question of what became of them? Of Edward Bagley senior's four children, Ann Bagley, the eldest, moved to Pennsylvania around 1684 with her Quaker husband William Brinton and their children, except for a daughter Ann who initially remained in England with her husband, John Bennett (91). Ann Brinton died in 1699, aged 64, her husband dying shortly afterwards. Sutton Bagley, the only child of Edward to benefit from his grandfather John's will, appears on a number of occasions in the Churchwardens Book for St. Thomas, Dudley, with the last entries being as Overseer for the Poor with his kinsman Jevon Harper in March 1695 and again as a Churchwarden for 1696 (92). Edward, the second son, is discussed below, but of the youngest child, John, nothing appears to have survived.

Edward Bagley, Lady Bernard's executor, completed his apprenticeship to Robert Orme in 1664, and again we know from the Pewterers' Company records that he was still in London in 1666, having bound one Owen Buckingham (93) to him as apprentice. Halliwell-Phillips mentions the conveyance of property from Edward Bagley to Sir Heneage Fetherson in 1667 (94). This seems to refer to the land on which the Blackfriars tenement purchased by Shakespeare in 1613 (95) had stood before the Great Fire, the year prior its sale in 1667. Another recent publication of the records of the Pewterers' Company apprentices shows Bagley taking another apprentice in 1671 (96). Also, of course, we have the reference to him in the sale indenture for New Place in 1675 with the description as Citizen and Pewterer, of London. The same document tells us, somewhat pointlessly in terms of the conveyance itself, that he was married and that his wife's name was Margarett. This may, however, indicate another association in that Margarett or Margaret Smith could have been from one of the Smith families of Stratford and, possibly related to the trustee, Henry Smith. Henry Smith's brother Robert's surviving children appear in Henry's will and their baptisms, together with other siblings, can be traced to London (97). One of these was Margaret (98) baptised in November 1640 and possibly the wife of Edward Bagley (99). Recently, evidence has re-emerged from The Pewterers' Company records for 1678 showing a bond for £15 taken out by Bagley from a fellow pewterer and letters the following year between Bagley in Dublin and Thomas Tarlton, the Company's Clerk in London, regarding the outstanding repayment of this bond (99a). This has shed light on a previously regarding Bagley as 'now in Ireland' in 1679 (100). The signatures of Edward Bagley on these(click to see signature) letters match precisely the signature on the 1675 (click to see signature) conveyance document for the sale of New Place, hence proof conclusive that these men were one and the same. A final comment from the Pewterer's Company Records tells us that, as a Liveryman (100a) he was granted 30 shillings for relief in 1703. After this there is silence (101). The granting of relief suggests that his fortunes were at low ebb by 1703, but as no trace has been found of a will for either him or his wife or for their burials, this is open to conjecture.

Whilst we are left, at least for the present, with the unresolved fate of Edward Bagley, Edward's uncle, Dudley Bagley, provides, through his descendants, the most relevant clue to the continuing relationship between the Bagleys and the successors to the lordship of Dudley. The marriage of Edward Sutton's granddaughter, Frances, to Humble Ward resulted in the lordship of Dudley passing to their descendants, and the Bagley association to the new Dudley succession continued through the marriage of Dudley Bagley's son, John Bagley to Mary Ashenhurst. The Ashenhursts had close links to the Lord Ward and also to the Harringtons, while the Bagleys reflected their connection to these families in the names they gave to subsequent generations of Bagley children. To see how the Bagley association to the new Dudley succession continued requires probing more deeply into the Ashenhursts.

The Ashenhurst family:

Dudley Bagley, son of 'old' John Bagley, younger brother of Edward and uncle of Edward Bagley the residuary legatee of Lady Bernard's will, died in 1685 (101). He left the bulk of his estate, including all his land in Sedgley and Dudley to his only son, John and after his demise, to his grandson, Dudley Ashenhurst Bagley. Dudley's son, John Bagley had married Mary Ashenhurst, a daughter of Edmund Ashenhurst of Old Park, Sedgley. Old or 'Ould' Park (102) had been in the tenure or supervision of 'old' John Bagley earlier in the 17th Century, but is not specifically mentioned as part of the inheritance he passed on to his son, Dudley (103). It is probable that he had a lease on Old Park, rather than its ownership, which most likely had remained in the hands of the Lord Dudley, Edward Sutton and after his death, passed into the ownership of his granddaughter Frances, Baroness Dudley and her husband, Humble Ward. The poor state of Edward Sutton's finances were rescued temporarily by the marriage of his granddaughter to Humble Ward whose father William, a wealthy London goldsmith and jeweller to Charles I, had taken over much of Lord Dudley's estate under a mortgage deed of 1628 (104), no doubt a part of the marriage settlement. However, Dudley Castle and the Wren's Nest were specifically excluded from the lands and property mortgaged. Another, earlier document, reveals that at the Wren's Nest there was a mansion within Old Park (105). Today the Wren's Nest Nature Reserve is a site of special scientific interest adjoining Old Park, which itself has became housing during the first half of the twentieth century.

By 1669 Old Park was held by Edmund Ashenhurst as, in his will (106), he refers to the lease of Old Park, which, whilst leaving him all his personal estate, he withholds from his son-in-law John Bagley. His lands he divides between his five elder daughters, but the destiny of the Old Park lease is unclear. It could be that this was to pass to his youngest daughter, Rebecca whom he also made sole executrix of his will, or that with Edmund's death the lease may have reverted to Frances and Humble Ward. Edmund's only son Francis, although mentioned, is not a beneficiary of the will. The marriage of John Bagley to Mary Ashenhurst gives an indication of the improved social standing of the Bagley family locally that had seemingly taken place during the 17th Century. The Ashenhurst connection may also point to an ongoing relationship with the Sutton line and the lordship of Dudley, which now passed through Frances Sutton's marriage into the Ward family.

The Ashenhursts had been resident at Ashenhurst, near Bradnop (107) in Staffordshire, since the 13th Century when Henry of Ashenhurst held an estate there. In the 1583 Visitation by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald, the Ashenhurst pedigree was recorded, but John Ashenhurst was publicly disclaimed, along with others at Uttoxeter, as having 'made noe proofe of theire Gentry, bearing of Armes, and yet, before tyme, had called and written themselves Gentlemen', and in the Herald's original documentation, the pedigree was crossed out (108). The fortunes of the family seem to have improved under John Ashenhurst's son and heir, Rauf or Ralph Ashenhurst, especially through his marriage circa 1589 to Elizabeth Beard, daughter and heir of William Beard of Beard (109) in Derbyshire. In 1625 Randle Ashenhurst of Ashenhurst, Esq. was called to make his composition for Knighthood on the accession of Charles 1. His response was to 'saith that he had compounded in Darbyshire, and hath there paid five and twenty pounds for his composition' (110). As a Justice of the High Peak Hundred of Derbyshire in 1631, he was charged with enforcing controls to alleviate the effects of the shortage of grain and limit exploitation of prices, which threatened famine among the poor (111). During the Civil War he sided with Parliament, being a member of the committee for Commonwealth Assessments for Derbyshire in 1644 (112) and he continued to act in his capacity as a Justice of the Peace throughout the Commonwealth period (113).

Edmund Ashenhurst's precise relationship to the Ashenhursts of Ashenhurst and Beard has not been identified, though this was certainly close, as subsequent events demonstrate. Also, his lease of Old Park, Sedgley may indicate more than a mere business relationship with the Ward family. He is referred to in the baptism entries at St. Edmund, Dudley for his earlier children as of the Wren's Nest (114). At least one child born to Humble Ward and Frances Sutton, Baroness Dudley, is likewise referred to as baptised at Wren's Nest about the same time (115). That Edmund's eldest son is called Humble, doubtless after Lord Ward, is suggestive of the families' involvement with each other and Edmund's witnessing of a 1655 will of Humble Ward (116) suggests that it is likely that he and Lord Ward were genuinely on good terms with one another. The lease of Old Park had traditionally been in the grant of the Lords Dudley, and thus would have been in the hands of Humble and Frances Ward by this time. Its lease being held by Edmund Ashenhurst at the time of his death would also support the view of their relationship being close, though it has to be said that, in the absence of further evidence, it is difficult to be certain of the precise nature of the relationship between the Ashenhursts and the Wards in such turbulent times.

It is apparent that at least some of the Ashenhursts were active on the side of Parliament during the Great Rebellion, and we know that the King honoured Humble Ward in 1644, by his creation as Baron Ward of Birmingham. Equally, Dudley Castle was garrisoned by the King's troops and besieged by Lord Denbigh for Parliament. Although the siege was lifted, after the defeat of the King at Naseby, Parliament ordered the castle sleighted, probably resulting in the Wards ceasing to use the castle as their home (117). The marriage of two of Humble's children (118), including his heir Edward, to children of Sir William Brereton may also be seen as an attempt at shoring up his dynasty. Brereton had been a senior Parliamentarian commander in the northwest of England and it was to him that Dudley Castle surrendered in 1646. These marriages may have been the price demanded to prevent Ward losing everything he and his father had achieved (119).

Edmund Ashenhurst's only surviving son at the time of his death in 1669 was Francis. Educated at Oxford (120), Francis had a successful ecclesiastic career and was a wealthy man as evidenced by his will at his death in 1704 (121). Through his marriage to Anna Whitehall, sole daughter and heir of John Whitehall of Pipe Ridware, his father-in-law settled the estate of Park Hall at Leigh, Staffordshire upon Francis (122). He also succeeded in purchasing the Beard estate from the Derbyshire Ashenhursts (123), possibly fulfilling a long held ambition of this cadet branch of the family. Through one of his sons, Ward Gray Ashenhurst (124), a physician, he continued the trend of naming children after the Wards, and the use of 'Gray' strongly suggests another link to the Wards in that their daughter Catherine had married John Gray (or Grey), 3rd son of Henry, Earl of Stamford (125) in 1683, the year before Ward Gray's birth.

Francis died aged about 60 years in late 1704 and was succeeded by his son James. An entry in the Alumni Oxenicences shows James Ashenhurst, matriculating at Pembroke College 11 March 1699-1700, aged 17, son of Francis of Kingswinford, Stafford, clerk. James and his wife, Hannah (126), had sons James and Edward, both of whom attended Cambridge (127). James and Hannah also had at least one daughter as Anna Ashenhurst is found entering into a marriage settlement in 1749 to James Harrington (128), son and heir of Sir James Harrington of Merton, Oxfordshire (129). Merton is mentioned in the 1613 will of Sir James Harrington of 1st Baronet of Ridlington (130), who had married Anne Bernard (131). Theirs had been a second marriage for both of them and the Merton estate had, as has been noted earlier, been acquired by the Harringtons through the marriage of a daughter of Anne Bernard by first husband, John Doyley, who had his estate there (132).

Summary:

The seemingly complex series of associations discussed here demonstrates how inter-twined were the various families investigated over a considerable period, and this complexity no doubt accounts for the difficulty previously experienced in determining the relationship of Lady Bernard to her executor Edward Bagley. The fact that John Bernard's aunt had been married to a brother of Theodosia Harrington, wife of Edward Sutton, whose long time mistress, Elizabeth Tomlinson, was so closely connected to the Bagleys, may in itself have been sufficient for Elizabeth Bernard in her will to describe Edward Bagley, her executor, as a 'loveing kinsman', despite the fact that the kinship may have been the wrong side of the blanket. It should be noted that although Edward Sutton had sired his children with Elizabeth Tomlinson outside of wedlock, they were not hidden away and most married into landed gentry families. Also, John Bagley's children had been the legatees of Elizabeth Tomlinson's will (133), such as it was, and Elizabeth Bernard could hardly have been unaware of Bagley's own children and grandchildren, including his grandson, Edward Bagley the pewterer. John Bernard's own cousin, Margery Doyley was married to Theodosia's nephew, Sir Edward Harrington, 2nd Baronet Ridlington, and so the Bernard-Harrington-Sutton connection extended to Elizabeth Nash on her marriage to John Bernard, if it had not already been established through the existing links between the Bernard and Shakespeare families.

The association of the Halls to the Dive and Harrington families in the 16th Century seems sufficiently strong to permit this also to provide an avenue through Elizabeth Bernard's father to the Lord Dudley, especially if the Lincolnshire Halls hypothesis is accepted. The significance of John Hall's medical treatment of Sarah Harrington is open to speculation, but it has to be weighed against the various other associations raised to be dismissed as mere coincidence. Again the choice of New Place as a stopover in Stratford by Henrietta Maria, probably with Sarah among her retinue, raises the question of whether this was not influenced by its being the home of her kinswomen Susanna Hall and Elizabeth Nash.

The mention of Thomas Dighton in Sir John Harrington's will, whilst almost insignificant in some ways, provides continuity in terms of the Job Dighton's later association to Lady Bernard. Again, the possibility that Edward Bagley was married to a niece of her other trustee could provide another avenue, perhaps the strongest, through which what was almost certainly an established relationship, could have matured. The connections examined, both empiric and hypothetic, between the various families makes a substantial case for one, or more likely more, of them being avenues through which Elizabeth Bernard would have known Edward Bagley. It is tempting to see her, some 33 years his senior, and Edward in a relationship similar to wardship, though this must remain purely speculative.

The Ashenhurst and Ward association to the Bagleys continued to be reflected in the naming of subsequent generations descending from John Bagley and Mary Ashenhurst. Their son is named Dudley Ashenhurst Bagley, his three sons are named Jevon Ashenhurst Bagley, Humble Bagley and Ferdinando Ward Bagley; Ferdinando being the name of the last of the male Sutton line, whose premature death (134) had led to the Dudley title passing, through his daughter Frances, to Humble Ward. Jevon Ashenhust Bagley is described among the many entries at Sedgley for his numerous children of two marriages, as a yeoman, and that this was probably the social level at which this branch of the family remained into the 18th Century. Interestingly, Jevon's second wife was Sarah Cave (135) and it will be noted that John Bernard, younger brother of Baldwin, had married a Dorothy Cave (136).

Anna Ashenhurst's marriage in the mid-18th Century to Sir James Harrington, 7th Baronet Ridlington, may be no more than coincidence, though the history of long term relationships between families who knew and married people of their own social standing, would suggest otherwise. By this time the Harringtons were, in Grimble's words, 'slipping into the estimable ranks of the professional classes'.

On beginning this investigation of the relationship between Edward Bagley and Elizabeth Bernard it did not seem likely that some of the great families of England would feature in it. However, the fact that men of relatively low social rank, such as were the Bagleys of Dudley and indeed Shakespeare's own family in the 16th Century, became associated so closely with families of the importance as the Sutton-Dudleys, the Harringtons and others, illustrations the extent to which the old feudal barriers to social advancement changed during the Tudor reigns.

	Front of Hall's Croft in Old Stratford (courtesy John Taplin)
	Hall's Croft Garden (courtesy John Taplin)
	Rear of Hall's Croft (courtesy John Taplin)

Finally, I hope that this revision of Edward Bagley's place in the Bagley pedigree and the illustration of his connection to Lady Bernard will add an extra element to the already intriguing story of the Bagley family of Dudley. If it has done nothing else, I believe it has shown the otherwise unrecognised connection by Brinton-Bagley researchers of Lady Bernard's executor to these families. As we have seen in Hansen's investigation of the Brinton-Bagley families, he did not identify young Edward Bagley other than as a kinsman and servant of Dudley Bagley, rather than the citizen and pewterer of London he actually became. Also, the importance of the Harrington family link is, I believe, something not previously appreciated by Shakespearian biographers. Likewise, Grimble in his relating the Harrington story, whilst mentioning Anne Doyley as wife of Sir James Harrington and the mother from her first marriage of the wife of his son and heir, does not connect her Bernard origins to Elizabeth Bernard and her Shakespeare ancestry.

email the web master Mick Pearson:
Anti Spam code provided by Eagle Technological Developments (www.eagletec.co.uk)