Roger Pringle
17 Mar 2014
Stratford-on-Avon, with its important river crossing, was a market town by the 14th century serving the Felden with its open fields to the south and Arden, more wooded, to the north. The present bridge was built in 1490 by Hugh Clopton, who also funded the Guild House and almshouses), a Stratford born Mercer (and Lord Mayor) of London. The Lord of the Manor was the Bishop of Worcester, who laid out the new mediaeval town on a grid in the 14th century to the east of the Old Town around Holy Trinity Church. The town’s population was 1,500 in the 1560s and 2,000 in the early 17th century – the largest in the county after Coventry.
William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in his parent’s house in Henley Street (now owned by the Birthplace Trust). His father, John, had moved from Snitterfield, where his father was a tenant farmer, and had married Mary, daughter of Robert Arden, a freehold farmer of Wilmcote. Robert died in 1556 and his inventory survives. John was a glover, making and selling gloves, purses and belts from his house. At its back he prepared the skins, using paring knives (circular and semi-circular). He also had other commercial interests, including the buying and selling of wool – but in 1572 he was arraigned before the court for doing so without a licence. It was a profitable business – in one year his turnover was £210, which compared with the (well paid) masters at the Grammar School on £20pa. John was a local Councillor who became Bailiff (ie Mayor) of Stratford.
William attended the ‘petty school’ for boys before going to the Grammar School when aged 7-8. There he was taught to read, write and speak in Latin with a sound grounding using William Lilley’s Latin Grammar. The masters were all Oxford graduates (often ex College Fellows) so standards were high. Books in English included The ABC, the Book of Common Prayer, Bible and the Catechism. Besides arithmetic, rhetoric and dialectic was also taught – the master would set a subject and the buys would argue for and against. There were acting classes which initiated William into his later career. As a playwright he drew frequently on his family and educational experiences, eg the paring knife in the Merchant of Venice, the wool trade (including use of the tod weight) in The Winters Tale, and the classroom scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Ovid was clearly his favourite poet as evidenced by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. William also used his knowledge of country life, eg falconry in The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet.
William left school, as was usual, about the age of 14 but did not appear to go, like some of his contemporaries, to Oxford or Cambridge. It is not known what he did, but it is possible that he became an assistant master at the Grammar School. He was involved in the thriving amateur dramatic scene, and may have performed before Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Kenilworth in 1575. He would have attended performances of London actors who visited Stratford, and other towns, annually during the summer. In 1587 no less than three London companies appeared, as shown by payments made to them by the local council ranging from 20shillings to 5s. It was probably these experiences which triggered William to go to London. He joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Company at the Globe. They performed regularly before the Queen at Whitehall and Richmond. The Company became King James’ favourites (he paid them twice what his predecessor had done), and were renamed The King’s Men. William lived in five different houses during the 25 years he acted and wrote in London, but he returned frequently to Stratford.
In winter 1582/3 at the age of 18 he had married Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s daughter from Shottery. She was 26 and pregnant with Susanna at the time of the marriage, whose location is unknown. Early in 1585 Anne gave birth to twins: Hamnet, their only son who died young, and Judith. By 1592, when the London theatres closed for two years because of the plague (and he turned to writing poetry), William had written several successful plays (including Titus Andronicus, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Henry VI). In 1597 he bought New Place, the second biggest house in Stratford, for Mary and the children. Sadly it was pulled down in the 18th century, but a drawing survives. His local ties remained strong, eg Fluellen and Bardolf appeared in the 1592 list of church absentees from Holy Trinity (as did William’s father, now very old), and he bought many acres of land to the north-east and south of the town. William also met the heavy expenses incurred when his father was granted a coat of arms in October 1596, with the device of a spear. No letters written by William survive and only one written to him – from Richard Quiney in 1598 asking for £30.
William lived a pressured life writing two plays each year, often to deadlines and involving research, over 20 years besides acting. He also became a shareholder, ie a member of the management team, of The Globe. Around 1610 he left London and returned permanently to Stratford. Susanna married Dr John Hall of Hall’s Croft in 1607; he was a Cambridge educated physician. Elizabeth, William’s grandchild, was born the following year; she died childless in 1670. William died on 23 April 1616, and was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity. His bust, in alabaster by Gerard Johnson, on the adjacent wall was erected within a year. His will was drawn up by Francis Collins, the Stratford solicitor, three months before William’s death.