Gardiner, William
Gardiner, William (1531–97),a wealthy and corrupt justice of the peace in Southwark. In 1596 Francis Langley, owner of the Swan theatre, accused him and his stepson William Wayte (d. 1603) of endangering his life; Wayte, apparently acting as Gardiner's agent, countered with similar accusations against Langley and William Shakespeare. Leslie Hotson (Shakespeare versus Shallow, 1931) found that Gardiner cheated Wayte of his inheritance, and proposes that in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare satirizes Gardiner as Shallow and Wayte as Slender. Wayte died of the plague.
Stanley Wells