John Weever and Shakespeare

Many years ago I bought a book published in 1998 by E. A. J. Honigmann, Professor of English Literature at Newcastle University. His theory was that Shakespeare lived and worked in Lancashire before moving to London. The book title was Shakespeare – the ‘lost years’. I had been very surprised on flicking through it in the bookshop to see a pedigree of my ancestors the Butlers of Rawcliffe Hall, including my 11th great grandfather Henry Butler who died in 1619.

Honigmann’s theory began by establishing the Lancashire connections of John Weever, an antiquarian and poet who published a book Epigrammes in 1599. It contained a sonnet in praise of Shakespeare, written in a new sonnet form that Shakespeare had created but not yet published, indicating that Weever had early access to Shakespeare’s work. Weever dedicated many of his epigrammes to Lancashire gentry, including his uncle Henry Butler.

Honigmann became the first student of Shakespeare to identify the Henry Butler in Epigrammes as being of Rawcliffe Hall. Honigmann had already published in 1987 a biography of John Weever, who had gone on to publish in 1631 Weever’s Funeral Monuments, an obscure collection of tomb inscriptions gathered on his travels in later life.

Earlier this week I was taking a guided tour of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Among the thousands of books I could see on the shelves available to readers my eye was inexplicably drawn to one with the title Weever’s Funeral Monuments. Sometimes genealogy emerges at the most unexpected moments to surprise you.