Shakespeare: poacher, player, playwright?

One of the most persistent, though apocryphal, stories about William Shakespeare's youth is that he was once caught poaching deer on the estate of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote near Stratford. The tale often begins with the pedantic observation that young William had fallen in with bad company, out to make mischief at the expense of the puritanical Lucy, who was active in local affairs and regarded as a bit of a prig.

As the story goes, Shakespeare was caught stealing deer, and Lucy supposedly had him beaten for the deed. Shakespeare is said to have later retaliated by writing a ribald ballad about Lucy before hitting the road to London and fame:

                   If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it,
                  Then Lucy is lowsie whatever befall it:
                  He thinks himself greate,
                  Yet an asse in his state,
                  We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate....."

Literary tradition also holds that the ridiculous Justice Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor (now being performed at The Richmond Shakespeare Festival at Agecroft Hall through July 29th) is a caricature of Sir Thomas Lucy. The irony is that were it not for the deer-stealing tale, Lucy's name might have long since been swept into the ash bin of history.

Pictured above is one of the many deer that frequent the woods and often explore the grounds of Agecroft Hall, where they usually find forage aplenty. In the hours before dawn and on misty, drizzly days, as many as a dozen or more are sometimes seen together.