Like the two Williams before him, this William Gardiner was a very
wealthy man. His will provided that his tenants (there were
literally hundreds of them) would own their homes, free of
encumberance, upon his death. He was also credited with financing
Sir Walter Raleigh's, Roanoke Colony, in VA in 1592 to the tune of
six thousand punds sterling, or about 3.5 million dollars in today's
world. Shortly after he was first married he came upon a teen-ager,
named William Shakespeare in the act of poaching a pet deer on his
father-in-law's estate near London. William Shakespear's father was
doing some legal work for robert Luce at the time, and William was
enjoying 'self-proclaimed hunting privileges' while his father was
employed. William Gardiner happened to be the local Justice at the
time and sentenced him to three moderate lashes at the whipping post,
at the recomendation of his father, John Shakespeare. William
Shakespeare, although revered for his acting and writing ability in
later life, was a troublesome, headstrong child, of whom his father
had apparently lost control. William Shakespeare, while an actor,
had some differences with William Gardiner over some operational
matters in the theatrical business, which led to Shakespeare's
protrayal of William Gardiner as an unsavor character, Justice of
Shallow, in the Merry Wives of Windsor. As late as the twentieth
century an unknown writer, Leslie Hotson attempted to make a few
bucks in resurecting this fued in a book entitled 'Shakespear Vs.
Shallow', coming down very hard on the side of Shakespeare. His
slander is so intense that it becomes an aborted comedy, not worth
the time to read.