Warning: My speculations are in italics. The rest is accepted historical fact. Despite his great expectations for the son, Allen had a more immediate interest in the father. John Shakespeare was chamberlain (treasurer) for the Stratford government. He had considerable influence on the selection of teachers for the Gild School, and William Allen needed that influence. Allen wouldn’t establish his seminary for missionaries until four years later, but with John’s help, Allen hoped to turn the Stratford Gild school into almost a pre-seminary. Over the next decades, several of the Gild teachers would be devout Catholics.