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had its habitat in a spot favourable to the des Sciences, des Arts, et des Métiers (ed. propagation of its species, for the country | Neufchâtel, 1765), is very short :— was not only marshy but also covered Haesbrouk, petite ville de Flandre, à deux with woods and forests." The theory that lieues d'Aire. Longit. 20.4, latit. 50.40." Hazebrouck owes its name to a Lord of the At whet date the spelling of the name name of Haza, who is supposed to have became fixed in its present form I cannot founded the church, is now abandoned. say, but the following variations occur It finds mention, however, in Blaeu's before the beginning of the last century: Theatrum Urbium Belgicae' (1649), in Hasbruc, Hasbroc, Hasbroec, Hasbroucq, which the town is thus described :Hasbourg, Haesbroecke, Haesebrouck, Haesebroucq, Hazebrouc, Hazebreuc, Hazebruch, Hazebruec, Hazebruck, and Hazebrouck. The earliest of these is found in ar charter of 1122 by which Charles le Bon, Count of Flanders, notifies that Lambert, Provost of Cassel, has given to the church of Oxelaere a certain piece of land situated near to the town of Hasbruc (apud villam Hasbruc).

“Hazebrouck is a fair and populous municipality in western Flanders, enjoying the rights and privileges, as well as the name, of a town, with a special jurisdiction of its own. It received laws from Philip of Alsace (Count of Flanders), its fairs in June and market on Monday from another Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and its name, according to Gramaye,* from Haza, a former magnate and founder of the church (curialis ecclesia). It stands on a very marshy site, and owes its reputation to linen weaving and cloth making. At one time it attained great wealth by means of the canal cut through the forest of Nieppe to the river Lys. In addition to all its rights as a town, it has a Senate of seven men, and a special law for the regulation of measures and of fairs: it has also a guild of archers and one of rhetoric. The people are divided according to their occupations into trade guilds, and had not the town been afflicted by civil wars, they would have attained a prosperity equal to any. The parish church, which has a splendid tower, is dedicated to St. Eloi. The patronage belongs to the Bishop of Ypres, by right of succession from the see of Thérouanne. A small nunnery and hospital of Grey Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis was founded here two hundred years ago by two pious sisters. The friars of the Order of St. Augustine were admitted to the town under certain conditions, their house being founded and endowed by the Senate and people. It maintains a school of polite letters, which has received confirmation from the Catholic King, Philip IV." This description dates from a time when Hazebrouck formed part of the Spanish Netherlands, Philip IV. being the reigning sovereign. Accompanying it is viewplan of the town, which shows the lines of the principal streets exactly as they are to-day, though the space covered by buildings is very much less. The fields then encroached on what is now the centre of the town, and a large garden is shown attached to almost every house. It was nearly thirty years after Blaeu's book appeared that Hazebrouck became definitely French (1678).

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A century later Hazebrouck seems to have been considered a place of small importance. The reference to the town in the 'Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné

* Jan Bapt. Gramaye, Flemish traveller, poet, and historian, c. 1580-1635.

At this period, says M. Taverne de Tersud (from whom the above is cited) :"la ville n'était qu'une agglomeration de quelques habitations bâties au milieu des eaux et des bois. ...Sa situation a été une cause d'empêchement à sa développement."

M. de Tersud's was the only book on Hazebrouck that I was able to discover during a residence in the town of some months immediately before the evacuation of 1918 and again during the winter of 1918-19. It is true that life was then abnormal and the times not well fitted for the pursuit of the study of local history. But inquiry at the principal stationer and booksellers' shops failed to produce any volume dealing with the history or institutions of the townnot even a guide-book. In the Bibliothèque Communale at St. Omer, however, I found M. de Tersud's volume :—

"Hazebrouck, depuis son origine jusqu'à nos jours; par Charles Taverne de Tersud. 4to. Hazebrouck, 1890. 454 pp." Though published in 1890 the book seems to have been written at least three years earlier, as the preface is dated May, 1887. In the thirty years that have elapsed since the appearance of this work some changes have, of course, taken place in Hazebrouck, but generally speaking M. de Tersud's description held good down to the outbreak of the war.

The outstanding events in the history of the town may be summarized as follows :—

1213. Philip Augustus, in order to avenge the disasters inflicted on his fleet off the coast of Flanders, ravaged the adjacent country, in the course of which action Hazebrouck and other towns were burned.

This was the year before the battle of Bouvines.

1347. Philip of Valois, intending to repair the defeat of Crécy and with the object of obliging Edward III. to raise the siege of Calais, put on foot a formidable army, which appeared before Arras in May, 1347. Hazebrouck was burnt and pillaged shortly after, and the development of the town was arrested a second time by the events of war. Calais surrendered on Aug. 4.

1436. In May of this year the English, in order to revictual Calais, raided the country round Hazebrouck and Cassel, from which they carried off large numbers of cattle, sheep, goats, grain and forage. To prevent a recurrence of these incursions the militia of the communes was called out and a battle fought at Looberghe in which the English were victorious. The Flemish loss

is said to have been 300 killed and 120 taken prisoners. The total English loss is given as 70. The town of Hazebrouck, however, did not suffer any material damage. 1524-5. The winter was made memorable by the occurrence of famine and pestilence, and by the beginning of religious troubles. These latter culminated in the war of the Gueux in 1566, during the course of which the church at Hazebrouck was pillaged (Aug. 15-16), the altars being broken and the sepulchral monuments carried away. Many other churches in the neighbourhood also suffered at this time.

1578. The church at Hazebrouck was again pillaged by the Gueux (Sept. 24), the bells on this occasion being carried off.

1582. Hazebrouck again suffered severely when the soldiers of Philip II., on their way to Ypres, passed through the town (July 27), setting it on fire at various points. The church was again pillaged. The destruction at this time was very great, the old Town Hall in the Market Place being burnt down, and many years elapsed before the town was able to recover.

1587. Wandering bands of Gueux from Holland again set fire to Hazebrouck. The misery of the inhabitants at this time was great. The building of the new town hall was stopped for lack of funds, and the banks of the canal, the construction of which had only recently been begun, were falling in. Money was only about a quarter of its former value.

a number of whom took refuge in the church.

1677. The battle of Cassel was fought on the plain below Mont Cassel 12 kilometres to the north-west of Hazebrouck, on Apr. 11. As a result this part of Flanders was definitely restored to the French crown in the following year.* Henceforward Hazebrouck is a French town, and its history till the end of the eighteenth century and the coming of the Revolution, is one of peaceful development, if of little progress.

The linen industry, mentioned by Blaeu, dated back to the fourteenth century. The Lynwaet Halle, where the linen was exposed on Saturdays, stood on the north side of the Market Place on the site of the present town hall, but was pulled down about 1793. The industry declined from the end of the seventeenth century, as already mentioned, and about 1789 was confined to table linen. A little flannel appears also to have been manufactured in Hazebrouck at this time. The old town hall stood in the centre of the Market Place. After its destruction by the Spaniards in 1582, something like seven years elapsed before its successor was completed. This is the building shown on Blaeu's plan. It had a belfry and carillon of eight bells, but was destroyed by fire in February, 1801, and was never rebuilt. The present town hall on the north side of the Square dates from 1806–20.

The Market Place, or Grand' Place, which measures roughly 220 paces in length by 100 in breadth, was in existence in the fourteenth century, at which period, according to M. de Tersud, it was :

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une grande place non pavée au milieu de laquelle existait une fosse entourée d'une haie: les maisons n'avaient presque toutes qu'un rez-de-chaussée, elles étaient couvertes en paille et enduites d'une couche de torches."

The only buildings of antiquarian interest are the now remaining in Hazebrouck parish church of St. Eloi, and the Hospice-Hôpital (formerly the convent of the Augustines). The rest of the town has been rebuilt at different times, mostly in the nineteenth century, such houses of earlier date as remain being of little or no architectural interest. According to M. de Tersud the church is a rebuilding at the close of the fifteenth century of an older structure which suffered from fire in 1492, the interior being then wholly destroyed. The

1644. In October, Hazebrouck, still Spanish, was invaded by a French army, which occupied the town for eight days, *For battle of Cassel see inscriptions recorded.

-tower is said to have been completed in 1512, and is surmounted by a spire of openwork, the total height of which is 278 ft. The building is of red brick with stone dressings, and consists of choir, transepts, aisled nave, and west tower. A smaller spire, which stood originally at the intersection of nave and transepts, was demolished in 1767. Except for the disappearance of this feature the church is to-day externally pretty much as shewn in Blaeu's view. Internally, however, it underwent a somewhat drastic change in the last century, when plaster ceilings were erected and other alterations of a like nature made. The structure suffered little or nothing during the bombardment of 1918.

The buildings of the Hospice-Hôpital are also of red-brick. The older wing, which is an excellent example of Flemish Renaissance design, is dated 1616, and the later and smaller wing 1718. The whole was restored in 1868 and again in 1895-6. The convent was suppressed in 1793, and for some years the building was used as a kind of tenement house by all sorts and conditions of people. Considerable damage was done to the interior and it was not till 1800 that the building was cleared, and put to other uses. After the destruction of the old town hall in 1801 the convent was used for municipal purposes till the new town hall was completed (1820), since when it has served as a hospital.

The earlier convent of the Grey Sisters mentioned by Blaeu, founded in the fifteenth century, stood on a site behind the present town hall, now occupied by the Maison d'Arrêt. It was suppressed in the Revolution and the buildings demolished.

In February, 1814, a corps of Saxons and Cossacks staved three days in Hazebrouck, camping in the open air, but appear to have left the town unharmed. After the final overthrow of Napoleon Hazebrouck was occupied for two years (1815-17) by an English dragoon regiment. The name of the regiment is not given by M. de Tersud, but it is gratifying to know that

AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE

ARCHIVES.

(See ante, pp. 23, 45, 66, 83.)

THE DEATH OF RICHARD SHAKESPEARE. ATTENTION was drawn to Snitterfield in Dec., 1559, by the death of Master Thomas Robins of Northbrooke. His will was signed on the 7th of that month, and proved in London on the 23rd by Richard Charnock on behalf of the executor, Edward Grant. The testator's prayer to the Trinity and bequest of his soul to Jesus Christ, and his instruction that his body should be buried without pomp before the choir-door in have been accustomed to walk in," point to the parish-church "in the place which I his being a Protestant. But his son-in-law and heir, Edward Grant, was a Catholic, and the will was witnessed and supervised by that unlearned and stubborn priest " whom Bishop Sandys soon after deprived, William

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Burton. Master Robins was a widower at the time of his death and had lost his daughter, his only child, wife of Edward Grant. This Edward Grant was son to Master Richard Grant of Briary Lands, and father by Master Robins' daughter of three children, Mary, Thomas and Richard. He had married again, taking for his second wife Anne Somerville, daughter to Master Robert Somerville of Edstone. She bore him a son, Edward. To the four children of his son-in-law Master Robins made bequests -to Mary of 401, a gilt bowl and a ring of gold which was my wife's wedding-ring, to be delivered when she shall be married or at her father's pleasure," and to the three The residue of the boys of 61 13s. 4d. apiece. estate after their father's death was to be

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bestowed "so that Mary have two kine more besides her own two in my keeping and six pair of flaxen sheets," and Edward

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"all such household stuff whatsoever that I have in Northbrooke, the standing beds, cupboards, tables, forms and joined-stools excepted. To his son-in-law's second wife, whom he calls his " daughter-in-law," Anne "les documents qui reposent à la mairie attest-Grant née Somerville, he left "my little et les soldats n'étaient pas tendus et que de part silver salt which I bought lately at Coventry et d'autre on se faisait toutes les concessions possibles pour vivre en bonne intelligence."

ent que les rapports entre les habitants, les officiers

A century later British troops were once more in occupation of Hazebrouck, but under conditions at once more pleasing and more difficult. F. H. CHEETHAM. (To be continued.)

Fair." We shall hear of the Grants and their connections the Somervilles. Thomas Grant inherited Northbrooke, Edward Grant his mother's property of Kingswood at Rowington. Edward Grant's cousin, John Somerville, born about the time of Master Robins' death, married an Arden of Park

Hall, a kinswoman of John Shakespeare's wife, Mary Arden. These events were in the future. At present, 1559, we will note that John Arden, prebendary of Worcester, and a determined Catholic, was probably a relative of Mary Arden.

The care of his father at Snitterfield may have added to the growing responsibilities of John Shakespeare. On May 21, 1560, Robert Arden's widow, Agnes née Webbe, leased her late husband's property at Snitterfield to her brother, Alexander Webbe of Bearley, husband of her step-daughter, Margaret Arden. It consisted of "two messuages with a cottage, in the occupation of Richard Shakespeare, John Henley and John Hargreave. The lease was for forty years from Mar. 25, 1561, or so long as Agnes Arden should live, at the rental of 40s. per annum. There was probably no intention of disturbing Richard Shakespeare. In view of the fact that he died before Mar. 25, 1561, it is likely that he was infirm and unwilling to renew his lease in May, 1560. He may have contemplated removal to Ingon with his son Henry, or even to Stratford, to join the household of his son John in Henley Street.

On June 1, 1560, he and William Bott and others valued the goods of Henry Cole the blacksmith. We get a glimpse of Henry Cole in an entry in the Churchwardens Account of St. Nicholas, Warwick, for the year 1554: "to Coles of Snit'field for his painstaking to come into the parish to give counsel to the filing of the third quarter bell, and spent on him and upon one that did fetch him, 7d." His daughter married Thomas Eggleston of St. Nicholas' parish, probably the son of the late vicar of St. Nicholas, Master John Eggleston. His son, Edward Cole, was partner with him in the smithy. Edward died before his father, on or shortly after Sept. 22, 1558, when he made his will. He died a Catholic, bequeathing his soul to Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Company of Heaven, 12d. to Snitterfield Church, 4d. to the Mother Church of Worcester and 12d. to the Vicar of Snitterfield, William Burton. The Vicar witnessed and probably wrote the will, and acted as overseer with Richard Wilmore of the Heath. To his brother-in-law, Thomas Eggleston, who was not yet nineteen, Edward Cole left his russet coat of frieze. His young widow died almost immediately. His goods were valued on Jan. 22, 1559, by Robert Pardy, Robert Nicholson, Henry

possessions were appraised some time previously by Nicholson, Burgess and Perks with the help of Richard Shakespeare. Administration was granted on Mar. 23, the widow having "died before the will was proved. Henry Cole the father made his will probably before the decease of Queen Mary on Nov. 17, 1558. He also died a Romanist. He bequeathed 4d. to the Mother Church of Worcester, a strike of wheat to the Church of Wolverton, 4d. towards the reparations of the Church of Norton Linsey, and to Snitterfield Church "two strike of wheat and a stall of been to help to maintain two tapers, one before the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar and the other before the image of Our Lady of a pound and a quarter apiece." Most of his little property he left to his son's children, Edward and Anne, and to his son-in-law, Thomas Eggleston, the executor. Queen Elizabeth had come to the throne, the PrayerBook had been re-introduced, tapers and images and the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar were abolished and supposed to be all gone when he signed this will unrevised on Jan. 23, 1560, in the presence of William Burton the vicar, Robert Pardy and John Hargreave, the day after the making of the inventory of the goods and chattels of his son. It is possible that the vicar and his churchwardens had not carried out the Injunctions. William Burton, who Sir William, a graduate of Oxford (supplicated for B.A. June 9, 1527, determined 1528), was deprived before Sept. 26, 1561, when the Puritan, John Pedder, a Marian exile, was instituted in his room. The valuation of Henry Coles' goods on June 1, 1560, by William Bott, Richard Shakespeare, William Perks, Henry Burgess alias Parsons, and John Hargreave, amounted to 167. Os. 6d.

was

Richard Shakespeare helped to appraise the goods of his old neighbour, Richard Maids, on Sept. 13, 1560. None stood higher in the regard of his fellow-villagers than Richard Maids. His name appears continually in the local wills and inventories. He witnessed the release by John Palmer of his tenement to Master Arden Oct. 1, 1529, was fined with Richard Shakespeare for overburdening the Common pasture Oct. 1, 1535, was executor of the will of Sir John Donne, vicar, Feb. 1, 1541, 'praised the goods of William Mayowe and Thomasin Palmer (whose will he witnessed) in 1551, and the goods of Hugh Greene on Mar. 27, 1553, was overseer of the will of Hugh Porter Jan. 31,

goods of the vicar Sir Thomas Hargreaves May 5, 1557, was overseer of the will of Thomas Harding June 24, 1557, 'praised the goods of Henry Walker July 11, 1558, witressed with Richard Shakespeare the will of Henry Walker on Aug. 31, 1558, and 'praised the goods of Walter Nicholson on Feb. 7, 1559.

Apparently he died without issue, in the summer of 1560, but left a number of nephews and nieces, children of Rafe Maids. One of these nephews, Richard, was known in 1557 as Richard Maids the Younger to distinguish him from his uncle. Another nephew, Robert, married the daughter of Hugh Porter. A third nephew, William Maids, became a close friend of Alexander Webbe and his son Robert Webbe, the brother-in-law and nephew of John Shakespeare.

At the View of Frankpledge at Snitterfield on Oct. 3, 1560, Richard Shakespeare was fined 4d. for keeping his beasts upon the Leas contrary to order, and was one of the lord's tenants instructed "to make their hedge and ditch between the end of Richard Shakespeare's lane and Dawkins' hedge before the Feast of St. Luke's," i.e. Oct. 18.

In the meantime at the Court Leet at Stratford on Oct. 5 John Shakespeare and his fellow Constables presented their list of offenders since April. Master Thomas Trussell, a lawyer, living in Bridge Street, aged about thirty, a connection of the Trussells of Billesley, and therefore perhaps of Mary Shakespeare, was fined for drawing blood on Roger Brunt, Thomas Featherstone for a fray on Thomas Walford, Thomas Holiday alias Drudge, for drawing blood on Luke Hurst, Humfrey Holmes for drawing blood on one not named, Thomas Merrick for a fray on John Henshaw, Alderman Rafe Cawdrey for a fray on George Green of Wotton Wawen, Master Harbage's man, Thomas, for a fray upon "the other of Master Harbage's men the Irishman," and Richard Court, alias Smith, for opprobrious words and reviling against the Constables. John Shakespeare and John Taylor were probably not sorry to bring their second year of office to a close.

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Other offences reported have their interest. William Smith, haberdasher of Henley Street, complained that "a piece of aproning, colour russett" had been stolen from him by a stranger and then taken from the stranger by one Bradley of Evesham. A Welsh nan "using archery in Sheep Street" was presented for "living idly and suspiciously," and Anna Shurton for being

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common scold and an unquiet woman." Anna Shurton, who was doubtless hoisted in the Market Place or ducked in the Avon, in the cuckstool, was wife of William Shurton alias Adams, a tailor, living in a cottage in Ely Street. She had three children, one of whom died in the Plague of 1564. She herself died in April, 1567, and her husband promptly married, on June 3, a second wife, with the promising name Anne Primrose.

At the same Court Leet, of Oct. 5, 1560, Roger Sadler was elected Bailiff and Rafe Cawdrey High Alderman. William Smith and William Tyler (colleagues of John Shakespeare and John Taylor in the year past) entered on their second twelvemonth as Constables with William Perrott (brother of Robert Perrott) and John Bell as their juniors. Humfrey Plymley and John Wheeler were re-elected Chamberlains. To John Wheeler, yeoman, son of John Wheeler who died in April, 1558, and father of John Wheeler born about the year 1557, was leased by the new Bailiff and his colleagues, on Oct. 10, 1560, two small houses in Henley Street in his occupation, for sixty-one years at a rent of 10s. per annum. This pair of tenements stood on the site of the present Free Library near the Birthplace. John Shakespeare and John Wheeler had been neighbours probably for ten years past, and they remained such for the next thirty-six years. They were of one mind in religion and became Puritan recusants.

On Feb. 10, 1561, John Shakespeare cbtained at Worcester letters of administration of his father's estate, on the exhibition of an inventory of his goods and cattels valued at 381. 78. Od. Richard Shakespeare had died a short time previously. In the bond father and son are described as of Snitterfield, and John is called agricola. John retained for a few months an interest in his father's holding and was held responsible for the condition of the hedges, being fined 12d. on Oct. 1, 1561, for the nonfulfilment of the order of Oct. 3, 1560. About this time (Michaelmas 1561) Alexander Webbe, John Shakespeare's brother-in-law, entered into possession. He brought with him from Bearley his wife Margaret (née Arden, sister of Mary Shakespeare) and four young children-Anne, Robert. Elizaceth and Mary. Anne, born after April, 1555, was probably named after Widow Arden (who was her father's sister and her mother's step-mother): Robert, born about Oct. 1558, was probably named after his grandfather,

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