The Rev. Mr. Dyer wrote to Mr. Duncombe from Coningsby, November 24, 1756: "My wife's name was Ensor, whose grandmother was a Shakespeare, descended from the brother of everybody's Shakespeare."[216] Such claims may be explained by a natural error. Another John Shakespeare has often been mistaken for ours, and real pedigrees have been traced back to him. But there _were_ collateral descents from Shakespeare's sister. The only person who might have impaled the new Shakespeare arms, had he himself borne arms to make this possible, was William Hart, the hatter, who married Shakespeare's sister Joan, and who lived in Shakespeare's old house in Henley Street, and died a few days before the poet.[217] The pedigree of the Harts is printed in French's "Shakespeareana Genealogica,"[218] and need not be repeated here. The Rev. Cornelius Hallen[219] also gives a genealogical table of the various connections, and thus provides us with the collateral descent nearly up to date. Though the early members of this family seem to have been content with a very modest position and very unromantic occupations, the later members have become more ambitious. The Harts thought of contesting the will of Lady Barnard, who, with her mother, Mrs. Hall, had cut off the entail, or rather altered, as they thought, the proviso of Shakespeare's will regarding his heirs. But, as she left them the Henley Street house, and a contest for more would have been attended with certain expense and uncertain results, they on full consideration let the matter drop. Even from this family sprang claimants for lineal descent. On a tombstone in Tewkesbury appears: "In Memory of John Hart, the sixth descendant from the poet Shakespeare, who died January 22, 1800, aged 45," etc. [Illustration: SNITTERFIELD CHURCH. _To face p. 113_] FOOTNOTES: [211] Registers of St. Saviour's, Southwark. [212] Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Saviour's, Southwark. [213] Stratford-on-Avon Registers. [214] Stratford-on-Avon Registers. [215] _Notes and Queries_ December, 1865, Third Series, viii. 501. [216] _Ibid._, Sixth Series, xii. 424. [217] April 17, 1616. [218] P. 296. [219] See "Descent of Hallen and Shakespeare." CHAPTER XI COUSINS AND CONNECTIONS It is certain that Shakespeare had many cousins on the Arden side. A notice of the Stringers, the Lamberts, the Edkins, and the Webbes has been already given. The Hart family, as has also been noticed, provided a large number of relatives not of the name.