William Shakespeare: Life Story

Shakespeare now took up life in Stratford. The town was again convulsed with the serious issue of enclosures. Whilst Arthur Manwairing, Steward to the Lord Chancellor, and William Coombe, a local gentleman, sought to enclose the Commons of Wellfield, the Town Corporation were violently resisting the idea. Shakespeare himself had interest in some of the land – holding the tithes of a number of plots, and whilst the Corporation was attempting to prevent enclosures by legal means he did a side deal with Manwairing’s cousin, William Replingham for compensation in the event of enclosure.

The opposition was led by Thomas Green, the Town Clerk, who refers to Shakespeare as his cousin, although the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. There are a number of incidents of civic disorder as ditches and fences made by the enclosers were torn down by the townsfolk but Shakespeare seems to have held aloof from direct involvement. Eventually the plans were defeated.

In 1613 Shakespeare was, presumably, troubled by the scandal that enveloped his daughter Susanna. She had been married to Dr Hall for some years but she was accused by John Lane of Galveston Manor, not only of committing adultery with a man by the name of Ralph Smith but also of contracting gonorrhoea from him. Coincidentally or not, Ralph Smith was the brother-in-law of Thomas Green so perhaps the matter was related in some way to the enclosure issue.

Susanna and her husband sued Lane for slander in the Consistory court at Worcester Cathedral. Lane failed to give evidence and was excommunicated, with Susanna’s name being cleared. Nevertheless, it must have been embarrassing incident for a respectable wife of a puritan Doctor.

Shakespeare’s daughter Judith was also the subject of some scandal. In February 1616, she married Thomas Quiney. The bride and groom were 31 and 26 respectively and therefore we might suppose beyond the age of unthinking lust, but they married in Lent without the necessary licence – leading to them being excommunicated. Quiney had been accused shortly before the wedding of having impregnated a lady named Margaret Wheeler. He pleaded guilty but his initial punishment of public penance to be performed on three successive Sundays was commuted to a fine. Margaret Wheeler died in childbed with her baby.

It has been suggested that Shakespeare felt himself to be in declining health and that that is the reason for him drawing up a will in late 1615. As regular will writing seems to have been rather a feature of Tudor society this is probably not conclusive, but in March 1616 he updated it to take account of Judith’s marriage. He must then have known the end was near as on 26 April, 1616 he died.

The will is complicated and favours his daughter Susanna. Judith does not receive more than £150, of which only £100 was be paid over and £50 held in trust. She was to receive a similar sum in addition should she have any children within the following three years or survive Shakespeare for that period. Apparently Shakespeare did not want his new son-in-law to get his hands on Judith’s money. In the event, Judith lived until 1662 but none of her children lived to adulthood. He left various other bequests but New Place and the remainder of his not inconsiderable estate to his daughter Susanna.

He left no financial bequest to his wife, a matter that has exercised historians for hundreds of years, his only request to her being the second-best bed. It is likely in fact the second-best bed was the marital bed and therefore not an insulting gift. He may have assumed that Susanna would provide for her mother or it may be that lands and goods had been alienated to her use prior to his death.

None of Shakespeare’s grandchildren had issue and thus the comfortable inheritance that he had created was dissipated.

On 8 November 1623, the First Folio as it is known was published. This contained ‘Mister William Shakespeare’s comedies, histories and tragedies’ and was published by Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard. The dedication was to William and Philip Herbert, Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery respectively.

Although Shakespeare rather fell out of fashion in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by the early nineteenth century he was being hailed as a genius, and this view of him is certainly prevalent today. But whilst his works span the depth and width of human emotion and experience, the reality is that we know almost nothing of his own life.

In 1999 Shakespeare was voted as the British Man of the Millennium. This is perhaps a fitting tribute to a man who has shaped our national consciousness for 400 years. His interpretation of the history of England in the cycle of plays that covered the period from 1399 to 1533 have profoundly influenced the view that the English have of themselves and their country.