Plays.  Shakespeare's final three plays were written in collaboration with the King's Men's new dramatist , John Fletcher.  Henry VIII (1613), Two Noble Kinsmen (probably also written in 1613 or 1614)   and the now lost Cardenio were the plays.  The former two are no one's favorites, combining elements of spectacle, romance, and tragicomedy.  Little is known of the last, except that in 1653 the printer Humphrey Moseley entered in the Stationers' Register several plays including "The History of Cardenio, by Mr. Fletcher and Shakespeare.", and that in 1613 Heminges received payment on two occasions for performances at court of a play at one time called "Cardenno" and another "Cardenna."  There are later supposed versions of the play, but little is known of the original.

Many have expressed the opinion that Shakespeare left the stage around 1611, after The Tempest,  and returned to Stratford, from where he wrote his parts of the final collaborations.  This may be true, but it is worth noting that in 1612 Shakespeare purchased the Blackfriars gate house in London.  On the other hand, perhaps it was only purchased as another investment.

During the summer of 1614 we find Shakespeare swept up in an enclosure dispute in Stratford, but his role is unclear, as are his views on enclosure in general.  In these final years Shakespeare seems to have been content to surround himself with his family and, as Rowe would have it,

The latter Part of his Life was spent, as all Men of good Sense will wish theirs may be, in Ease, Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends. He had the good Fortune to gather an Estate equal to his Occasion, and, in that, to his Wish; and is said to have spent some Years before his Death at his native Stratford. His pleasurable Wit, and good Nature, engag'd him in the Acquaintance, and entitled him to the Friendship of the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood  [Rowe sec. 13]

His eldest daughter Susanna, "Witty above her sexe" according to her memorialist, had married Dr. John Hall in 1607.  Hall had settled in Stratford around 1600, where he founded a prosperous medical practice and became one of the town's leading citizens.  His leanings were puritan.  He became widely famous for his skill as a doctor, and after his death, James Cooke published 200 of Hall's case histories in 1657 as Select Observations on English Bodies.  Dr. Hall and Susanna inherited and moved into New Place after Shakespeare's death.  The Halls had one child, Elizabeth. [See the Shakespeare genealogy].

Shakespeare's youngest daughter, Judith, who married in February of 1616, was not so lucky.  She, at age 31, married Thomas Quiney, age 27, a vintner in Stratford.   Though Quiney came from a good family, known to Shakespeare, the wedding began sadly.  Before marrying Judith Shakespeare, Quiney got another girl pregnant.  A month after the wedding, the girl died in childbirth with her child.  These terrible events were probably the cause of Shakespeare summoning his lawyer and modifying his will that month.  The Quineys had three children.  The first, named Shakespeare, died in infancy.  The other two sons, Richard and Thomas, died in 1639, at ages 21 and 19 respectively.  They left no heirs.

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