Page:Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) Yale.djvu/20

4 maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony together, and in the same afterwards remain and continue like man and wife according unto the laws in that behalf provided; and moreover if there be not at this present time any action, suit, quarrel, or demand moved or depending before any judge ecclesiastical or temporal for and concerning any such lawful let or impediment; and moreover if the said Willm do not proceed to solemnization of marriage with the said Anne Hathwey without the consent of her friends; and also if the said Willm do upon his own proper costs and expenses defend and save harmless the right reverend Father in God, Lord John Bishop of Worcester and his officers for licensing them the said Willm and Anne to be married together with once asking of the bans of matrimony between them and for all other causes which may ensue by reason or occasion thereof: that then the said obligation to be void and of none effect or else to stand and abide in full force and virtue.

Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton.

It is probable, but not certain, that the Anne Whateley mentioned in document A as the intended wife of Wm. Shaxpere is the same as the Anne Hathwey of document B, and that both records therefore refer to the poet. Sir Sidney Lee (Life of Shakespeare, 1922, pp. 30 f.) argues against the identity of the two; Mrs. Stopes (Shakespeare’s Family, p. 63), J. W. Gray (Shakespeare’s Marriage, p. 28), and Professor J. Q. Adams (Life of Shakespeare, p. 76), cite good reasons for accepting it. Whateley was a name of not infrequent occurrence in the Worcester neighborhood and might be misread or otherwise inadvertently substituted by the clerk for Hathwey. Temple Grafton is a village