| Notes |
- Edward inherited the proceeds of the sale of Shakespeare's home via his granddaughter whom then owned his estate. Edward is the executor and "loveing kinsman" in Shakespeare's granddaughter's will. An archivist historian, John Taplin,e SBT has extensively studied Edward's "kinship" to Dame Elizabeth Hall Bernard, Shakespeare's granddaughter and found it to be a very complicated path. Elizabeth Hall who was married to Sir John Bernard. Under the terms of Elizabeth Bernard's 1669 will, "once they were both dead, her property in Stratford was to be offered for purchase to Edward Nash, a nephew of her first husband, Thomas Nash. But if declined the offer to buy, her trustees were to sell the property for the best they could obtain and then pay certain legacies to various relations before the residue went to Edward Bagley, citizen and pewterer of London (her executor and loveing kinsman)". In the sale of properties, Edward Bagley is listed as a citizen and pewterer of London. (There was another Edward Bagley of the time who can be distinguished as a laborer of Lower Gounal instead and has been mixed up with this Edward when he received a cow and servant from his Uncle Dudley Bagley in a 1685 will.) (C-1364, EL-from John Taplin)
Our Edward is in the following apprenticeship records after his father had died. "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.., and ...6 October 1664: Edward Bagley, apprentice to Robert Orme sworne and made free 6s 8d." He was about 15 years old when he was apprenticed.
John Taplin has found many avenues by which Dame Bernard would have known Edward Bagley though the kinship is quite distant. I will quote him here from his scholarly site at http://www.blackcountrysociety.co.uk/articles/bagley.htm. "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.
133. In her nuncupative will, Elizabeth Tomlinson left various amounts from ? 30 to 20 shillings to John Bagley's children. See Grazebrook History of Staffordshire, Vol. X Part II.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." A last note comes from the fact that John Taplin can follow this Edward Bagley through his signature on several legal documents throughout time. Edward Bagley had obviously hit hard times by 1703 when he is last mentioned in the Pewterer's Company records as receiving 30 shillings for relief in that year. I highly recommend reading John Taplin's work in its entirety at http://www.blackcountrysociety.co.uk/articles/bagley.htm if one is interested in this familial connection.
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1641 - Aft 1702 (~ 62 years)
