Charlecote Park, Warkwickshire

Charlecote is the ancestral home of the Lucy family and was built between 1551 and 1558 by Thomas Lucy I. He was subsequently knighted here by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, deputy of Elizabeth I.

The house had many famous visitors, one of which was William Shakespeare. It is said that the reason for Shakespeare leaving Stratford was to escape prosecution for poaching deer on the lands of Sir Thomas Lucy, and that later he revenged himself on Lucy in The Merry Wives of Windsor who he portrayed as Justice Shallow.

However, in 1709, Rowe picked up the story in his Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare:

He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-steeling, engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this, he was prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a Ballad upon him. And tho' this, probably the first Essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his business and family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter himself in London.

The Essay to which Rowe refers is not The Merry Wives, but rather various Stratford ballads sung at the unpopular Sir Thomas' expense. An example reported by the eighteenth century Shakespeare scholar George Steevens, goes:

A parliament member, a justice of peace,
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an ass,
Is lousy is Lucy as some folks miscall it
Then Lucy is lousy whatever befall it...

The local Stratford sentiment is sufficient to explain any anti-Lucy puns in The Merry Wives.

The house is fully furnished with examples from many different periods and there are paintings by several famous artists. Members of the Lucy family still live in the house although the property is now in the care of The National Trust.

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