ABSTRACT
We are now in a position to address ourselves directly to the question posed at the beginning of this book: what is the explanation for John Shakespeare’s fall from prosperity and status in the 1570’s? Falstaff hints at a solution to this riddle in act two, scene two of 7, Henry IV. He complains of Poins: “I am accurst to rob in that Theefe company . . . I haue forsworn his company hourley any time this two and twenty yeare, & yet I am bewitcht with the Rogues company. If the Rascall haue not given me medicines to make me loue him, lie behang’d; it could not be else: I have drunke Medicines . . . And ‘twere not as good a deed as to drinke to turne True-man ...” The first quarto of 2, Henry IV was published in 1598 - “two and twenty years” previous to this takes us back to 1576, the year in which the dramatic deterioration in John Shake speare’s fortunes took place. There was a Master Poins living in the Stratford area at that time, although virtually nothing is known about him.1 However, the importance of this passage is that it points us in the direction of an explanation of John Shakespeare’s fall.
