William Shakespeare: Life Story

There is plenty of myth and speculation about what Shakespeare might have done in his youth, but no hard facts.

It was customary for boys to finish their schooldays at the age of about 16. Shakespeare did not attend either of the universities on leaving school and for the next few years there is no record of his activities. It has been suggested that he went to sea, that he went to be a soldier, that he worked in a legal office or that he remained in Stratford and spent quite a bit of his time poaching.

It is also been suggested that he was a player in the household of Alexander Hoghton of Lea in Lancashire, introduced through a Catholic nexus centred on the Stratford schoolmaster, John Cottom, whose brother was a missionary priest connected with Edmund Campion. The theory rests on a legacy of £2 per annum to a man named William Shakeshafte, in Hoghton’s will. The name difference is explained by Shakeshafte being a northern equivalent of Shakespeare. (Ed - No, I’m not convinced either)

According to the theory, Shakespeare passed from the Catholic recusant household of Hoghton to that of Sir Thomas Hesketh and then to that of Lord strange. Lord Strange was the son of the Earl of Derby and Lady Margaret Clifford, cousin to the Queen.

Whether or not Shakespeare was one of the Earl of Derby’s players, he presumably did not accompany them to London in 1581 as in the summer of 1582 he was in back in Stratford, courting, or conceivably, given his age, just dallying, with a young woman from the nearby village of Shottley, named Anne (or Agnes – the spelling and pronunciation of Anne and Agnes were interchangeable) Hathaway, daughter of a prosperous farmer. Whatever their initial intentions, the couple soon found out that they were to be parents.

The traditional view of this relationship is that Anne, some seven or eight years older than William, ‘ trapped’ him into marriage, but there is no evidence at all for their feelings for each other either at the time of their marriage – other than that they were sufficiently attracted to each other to sleep together – or later. Germaine Greer, in her reassessment of the Shakespeare marriage, has undertaken a good deal of research which demonstrates that Anne’s pregnancy at the time of marriage was not an unusual event.

The custom of a church ceremony had grown over time, and was almost ubiquitous by Shakespeare’s time, but it was not obligatory. In law, a couple who had promised to marry, and then consummated the match, were legally married and many young couples consummated their marriage before they went to church. In the decade of William and Anne’s marriage, some 40% of Stratford brides were already pregnant. We should therefore be cautious about perceiving their wedding as a ‘shot gun’ marriage.

What is unusual, is the decision to purchase a special licence, which allowed the couple to marry in church after a single reading of the banns, rather than the customary three. This cost Anne’s connections some £40 for surety – payable in case an impediment to the match were later discovered and blamed on the clergyman. The ceremony took place at the end of November 1582. Their daughter was born the following May and given the name Susanna, a name fashionable with the growing puritan movement.

What Shakespeare did to support his young family is unknown. He may have served an apprenticeship in his father’s glove making business, but there is no record of it – presumably he must have been doing something, or Anne’s connections might not have been in such haste to ensure their marriage. The couple had twins in 1584, named Judith and Hamnet, after the Shakespeares’ neighbours, Judith and Hamnet Sadler.

Nothing is known of Shakespeare’s life from the birth of his twins in 1585 to his reappearance in the records in 1592. As there is no evidence of why or when he left Stratford, whether he intended his absence to be long term, or how he came to be a player in London, there are multifarious theories.

The best guess seems to be that he joined one of the troupes of players who passed through Stratford in the period 1586-87. There is the suggestion that his first job in London was working at Burbage’s Theatre, possibly as an ostler or perhaps a prompter’s attendant.

It has been suggested, but not proven, that by 1588 Shakespeare was one of the company known as the Queen’s Men, who were largely reassembled from Lord Strange’s Men. His first known address was in Westminster and it was whilst he was in that district that he and his parents pursued a legal claim for lands which, according to the Shakespeare’s, had been appropriated by a relative. They had no luck with the action so Shakespeare had to continue to earn his living.