Life of William Shakespeare of the career actor, rather than a member of the learned professions or from scholarly book-learning. The Shakespeare family had long sought armorial bearings and the status of gentleman. William's father John, a bailiff of Stratford with a wife of good birth, was eligible for a coat of arms and applied to the College of Heralds, but evidently his worsening financial status prevented him from obtaining it. The application was successfully renewed in 1596, most probably at the instigation of William himself as he was the more prosperous at the time. The motto "Non sanz droict" ("Not without right") was
Reputation of William Shakespeare by William Henry Ireland. Ireland claimed to have found in a trunk a goldmine of lost documents of Shakespeare's including two plays, "Vortigern and Rowena" and "Henry II". These documents appeared to demonstrate a number of unknown facts about Shakespeare that shaped opinion of his works, including a Profession of Faith demonstrating Shakespeare was a Protestant and that he had an illegitimate child. Although there were many believers in the provenance of the Papers they soon came under fierce attack from scholars who pointed out numerous inaccuracies. "Vortigern" had only one performance at the Drury Lane Theatre before Ireland admitted