Thomas Quiney
Quiney held several municipal offices in the corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon, the highest being chamberlain in 1621 and 1622,[2][3] but was also fined for various minor offences.
The marriage took place during a season when a special licence was required by the church, and the couple had failed to obtain one, leading to Quiney's brief excommunication.
Quiney was also summoned before the Bawdy Court less than two months after the wedding to answer charges of "carnal copulation" with a Margaret Wheeler, who died in childbirth.
Scholars believe that as a result of these events William Shakespeare altered his will to favour his other daughter, Susanna Hall, and excluded Quiney from his inheritance.
[6] There is no record of Thomas Quiney's attendance at the local school, but he had sufficient education to write short passages in French, run a business, and hold several municipal offices in his life.
The original translates into English as "Happy is he who to become wise, serves his apprenticeship from other men's troubles" but Quiney's version "... is ungrammatical and without sense".
[2][7] Quiney's reputation was slightly spotted; he was fined for swearing and for "suffering townsmen to tipple in his house", and was at one point in danger of prosecution for "dispensing unwholesome and adulterated wine".
The marriage therefore required a special licence, issued by the Bishop of Worcester, which the couple had failed to obtain.
[15] (This same Walter Nixon was later involved in a Star Chamber case and was found guilty of forging signatures and taking bribes).
[7][15] The marriage did not begin well: Quiney had recently impregnated another woman, Margaret Wheeler,[16] who was to die in childbirth along with the child and was buried on 15 March 1616.
Judith owned her father's cottage on Chapel Lane, Stratford, while Thomas had held, since 1611, the lease on a tavern called "Atwood's" on High Street.
[18] Eventually, in November 1652, the lease to The Cage ended up in the hands of Thomas' eldest brother, Richard Quiney, a grocer in London.
[7][18] The inauspicious beginnings of Judith's marriage, in spite of her husband and his family being otherwise unexceptionable,[14] has led to speculation that this was the cause for William Shakespeare's hastily altered last will and testament.
[20] To this daughter he bequeathed £100 "in discharge of her marriage porcion"; another £50 if she were to relinquish the Chapel Lane cottage; and, if she or any of her children were still alive at the end of three years following the date of the will, a further £150, of which she was to receive the interest but not the principal.
His estate was bequeathed, in descending order of choice, to the following: This elaborate entail is usually taken to indicate that Thomas Quiney was not to be entrusted with Shakespeare's inheritance, although some have speculated that it may simply indicate that Susanna was the favoured child.
