Any clue about William Shakespeare’s life usually excites scholars, but one piece of evidence had been neglected for decades. Now, a new analysis of that overlooked document seems to shatter a long-standing narrative about the Bard’s bad marriage.
Shakespeare was 18 in 1582 when he married Anne Hathaway, daughter of a family friend in Stratford-upon-Avon, in her mid-20s and pregnant. For centuries, it was thought he left his wife and children behind for a literary life in London, seeking to avoid “the humiliation of domestic feuds”, as one 19th-century essayist put it. This view of Shakespeare’s wife as a “distant encumbrance” suited scholars who thought “Shakespeare was far too interesting to be a married guy,” said Matthew Steggle, a professor at University of Bristol, England. The perception was bolstered by the fact that Shakespeare had left her his “second best bed” in his will. But Steggle’s research, expected to be published this week in the journal Shakespeare, suggests the writer was not detached from his marriage after all.
The hint lies in a fragment of a 17th-century letter addressing a “Mrs Shakspaire,” found in the binding of a book published in 1608. The letter was noted in 1978 by an amateur historian, but got minimal attention, even after the book was unbound in 2016, revealing what appeared to be part of a reply from Shakespeare’s wife, Steggle said.
If it really was addressed to Mrs Shakespeare, “it is self-evidently remarkable,” Steggle said – it offers new clues about their relationship, and suggests Mrs Shakespeare lived for a time in London with her husband. If she did live in London, she was possibly back in Stratford by the time she received the letter, around 1607 – though not necessarily because her husband wanted independence. Steggle says “there is an obvious reason to avoid London in 1603-4, namely the very bad wave of plague”. Also, the upcoming arrival of their first grandchild after daughter Susanna’s 1607 marriage “would surely be a good time” for Hathaway to be back in Stratford.
Steggle says her movements should be reconsidered with an eye to her “possible absences from London rather than her perpetual absence”. The letter concerned money for a fatherless child named John. It called upon her to pay money, most likely held in trust for him, a pledge her husband may have undertaken, and referred to a time when she “dwelt in trinitie lane,” which Steggle believes refers to a location in London.
