Judith Quiney
Shakespeare himself died in April 1616, only a few weeks after Judith’s marriage and humiliation. In November Judith herself had a baby son, who was christened “Shakespeare”, after her father. The baby lived for only six months, dying in May 1617. Infant mortality was high, and several of Shakespeare’s own siblings had died as babies. Later, in 1618 and 1620, Judith had two more sons, Richard and Thomas. These two boys survived childhood but died within weeks of each other in 1639, aged 19 and 21, probably of plague. So Judith outlived all of her children, being buried on 9 February 1662 aged 77, while her husband died in 1662 or 1663. Thomas Quiney was by profession a vintner and tobacconist, and later became a leading member of the town’s governing council, holding its highest office, Chamberlain, in 1621 and 1622. But unlike her sister and brother-in-law who had graves in the chancel of the church, Judith and Thomas were buried in the churchyard, the site is now unknown.The house in which Judith and Thomas Quiney lived still stands, but unlike Susannah’s house Hall’s Croft Shakespeare’s Birthplace or the site of his grand house New Place it isn’t a museum. It used to be known as “The Cage”, and stands in the very centre of town at the junction of High Street and Bridge Street. In its time this building has been a prison, the “Shakespeare View Store”, the town’s Tourist Information Centre and now, a shop selling Crabtree and Evelyn toiletries.