Thomas Greene, Stratford-upon-Avon’s town clerk, or steward, notes that he "might stay another yere at newe place"

Thomas Greene, a Middle Temple lawyer, was appointed Stratford’s steward in August 1603. He clearly settled in the town at that point, but until September 1609 there is no record of where he lived. However, in 1609, Greene drew up these notes, indicating that he was living at New Place where he “might stay another yere” while waiting to take occupation of a house he had purchased adjoining the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church. Whether he was lodging at New Place as a tenant or guest is not clear, nor how long he had been there. However, given that he is not known to have lived elsewhere, it is possible that he had been living at New Place since arriving in town six years earlier.

In 1609, Greene entered into negotiations to purchase a large house adjoining the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church. Before the Reformation, the Stratford College had held the house, but the Crown confiscated it, and then sold it off to speculators in 1607. Precisely when Greene completed the purchase is not currently known but there were clearly problems with securing vacant possession. On September 9 Greene therefore drafted his version of the complications, in his difficult hand, on two sides of a sheet of paper and sent it to his patron, Sir Henry Rainsford at Clifford Chambers. Rainsford’s note at the bottom of the second page confirms he received it the same day: “The Day aboue named videlicet the 9th of September 1609 M^r Thomas Greene deliverd mee this note. H.R^d.”

Greene begins his notes on the first leaf with a list of eight numbered points which came up in an interview with Thomas Peters “before my brother [John Greene] & one of my Clarkes.” Another nine points follow below, these arising out of a conversation with “M^r [William] Wyett the same day after Peters was gone.” Both men, it seems, had been involved in the leasehold interest of the sitting tenant, George Browne. Overleaf Greene then lists a further seven reasons “to prove that G. Browne ment before this to have bene gone...” which included Browne allowing Greene to pull down walnut trees and plant peas, though Browne himself appears to have wanted to sow seed in the garden in the spring. This, Greene remarks, he “was content to permytt yt without contradiccion & the rather because I perceyved I might stay another yere at new place.” He concludes with a request that he may have possession by Lady Day the following year (March 25, 1610) so that he could move in by Michaelmas (September 29). However, he may have remained at New Place for a little longer. Greene apparently appealed to his patron for help because Rainsford’s step-father, William Barnes, who lived with him at Clifford Chambers, was related to the wife of George Browne, the sitting tenant.