Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/360

Shakespeare. His wife Joan, the chief legatee, was directed to carry on the farm with the aid of her eldest son, Bartholomew, to whom a share in its proceeds was assigned. Six other children—three sons and three daughters—received sums of money; Agnes, the eldest daughter, and Catherine, the second daughter, were each allotted 6l. 13s. 4d., ‘to be paid at the day of her marriage,’ a phrase common in wills of the period. Anne and Agnes were in the sixteenth century alternative spellings of the same christian name; and there is little doubt that the daughter ‘Agnes’ of Richard Hathaway's will became, within a few months of his death, Shakespeare's wife.

The house at Shottery, now known as Anne Hathaway's cottage, and reached from Stratford by field-paths, undoubtedly once formed part of Richard Hathaway's farmhouse, and, despite numerous alterations and renovations, still preserves many features of a thatched farmhouse of the Elizabethan period. The house remained in the Hathaway family till 1838, although the male line became extinct in 1746. It was purchased in behalf of the public by the Birthplace trustees in 1892.

No record of Shakespeare's marriage survives. Although the parish of Stratford included Shottery, and thus both bride and bridegroom were parishioners, the Stratford parish register is silent on the subject. A baseless tradition assigns the ceremony to the village of Luddington, of which neither the church nor parish registers exist. But in the registry of the bishop of the diocese (Worcester) a deed is extant by which Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, ‘husbandmen of Stratford,’ bound themselves in the bishop's consistory court, on 28 Nov. 1582, in sureties of 40l. each, to disclose any lawful impediment—‘by reason of any precontract’ [i.e. with a third party] or consanguinity—to the marriage of William Shakespeare with Anne Hathaway. In the absence of such impediment (the deed continued), and provided that Anne obtained the consent of her friends, the marriage might proceed ‘with once asking of the bannes of matrimony betwene them.’ The effect of the deed would be to expedite the ceremony, while protecting the clergy from the consequences of any possible breach of canonical law. The two sureties, Sandells and Richardson, were farmers of Shottery. Sandells was a ‘supervisor’ of the will of Anne's father, who there describes him as ‘my trustie friende and neighbour.’ He and Richardson, representing the lady's family, doubtless secured the deed on their own initiative, so that Shakespeare might have small opportunity of evading a step which his intimacy with their friends' daughter had rendered essential to her reputation. The wedding probably took place a few weeks after the signing of the deed. Within six months, in May 1583, a daughter was born to the poet, and was baptised in the name of Susanna at Stratford parish church on the 26th.

Shakespeare's apologists have endeavoured to show that the formal betrothal or ‘troth-plight’ which was at the time a common prelude to a wedding carried with it all the privileges of marriage. But neither Shakespeare's detailed description of a betrothal (Twelfth Night, act v. sc. i. ll. 160–4) nor his frequent notices of the solemn verbal contract that usually preceded marriage lend the contention much support (Measure for Measure, act i. sc. ii. 1. 155, act iv. sc. i. 1. 73); while the exceptional circumstance that the lady's friends alone were parties to the bond renders it improbable that Shakespeare had previously observed any of the more ordinary formalities.

A difficulty has been imported into the narration of the poet's matrimonial affairs by the assumption of his identity with one ‘William Shakespeare,’ to whom, according to an entry in the bishop of Worcester's register, a license was issued on 27 Nov. 1582 (the day before the signing of the Hathaway bond), authorising his marriage with Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton. The husband of Anne Whateley cannot reasonably be identified with the poet. He may well have been one of the numerous William Shakespeares who abounded in the parishes in the neighbourhood of Stratford. The theory that the maiden name of Shakespeare's wife was Whateley is quite untenable, and it is unsafe to assume that the bishop's clerk, when making out a license, erred so extensively as to write ‘Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton’ for ‘Anne Hathaway of Shottery.’ Had a license for the poet's marriage been secured on 27 Nov., it is unlikely that the Shottery husbandmen would have entered next day into a bond ‘against impediments.’

Anne Hathaway's seniority and the likelihood that the poet was forced into marrying her by her friends were not circumstances of happy augury. Although it is dangerous to read into Shakespeare's dramatic utterances allusions to his personal experience, the emphasis with which he insists that a woman should take in marriage an ‘elder than herself’ (‘Twelfth Night,’ act ii. sc. iv. l. 29), and that prenuptial intimacy is productive of ‘barren hate, sour-eyed disdain, and discord,’ suggest a personal interpretation (‘Tempest,’