SECTION 17 - Michael Drayton

Summary

I hold that it is more than probable that Shakespeare at some early age was a page in Sir Henry Goodere's household: that he received his schooling at Polesworth: and that that school in his day was carried on in the same place where it existed in the monastic time—the old, unaltered room on the upper floor of the gatehouse range, about a hundred yards from the Hall. Possibly he slept in one of the smaller rooms on the lower floor.

But I do not romance about the place, as Stratford school has been romanticised. He may, very likely, have learnt his ‘absey’ from a horn-book at Stratford. Simply we do not know: there is no shred of evidence to warrant even a surmise. To prove the superiority of Stratford school a good deal has been made of the fact that the master received from the Corporation the unusually high wage of £20 per annum. Nevertheless, the masters made haste to exchange their posts for better ones: between 1569 and 1582 there were at least five successive holders of the office.

In the sixteenth century Warwickshire was well provided with schools. The most famous was that of Coventry. The town of Warwick maintained a school of considerable note. Robert Burton, of the Anatomy of Melancholy, was taught successively at Sutton Coldfield and at Nuneaton. There were schools at Birmingham, Solihull, Atherstone and Rugby.