Any hint about William Shakespeare’s living generally excites scholars, but one piece of evidence had been neglected for ages. Nowadays, a new study of that neglected document seems to destroy a long-standing storyline about the Bard’s poor marriage.
Shakespeare was 18 in 1582 when he married Anne Hathaway, daughter of a household friend in Stratford-upon-Avon, in her mid-20s and expectant. For generations, it was thought he left his wife and children behind for a intellectual life in London, seeking to avoid” the disgrace of domestic rivalries”, as one 19th-century author put it. This perspective of Shakespeare’s family as a “distant attachment” suited scientists who thought” Shakespeare was far too exciting to be a wedded guy”, said Matthew Steggle, a professor at University of Bristol, England. The view was bolstered by the fact that Shakespeare had left her his” following best sleep” in his will. But Steggle’s study, expected to get published this week in the book Shakespeare, suggests the poet was not detached from his relationship after all.
The glimpse lies in a part of a 17th-century email addressing a” Mrs Shakspaire”, found in the bound of a book published in 1608. The email was noted in 1978 by an amateur writer, but got little consideration, even after the book was freed in 2016, revealing what appeared to be component 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 fresh facts about their marriage, and suggests Mrs Shakespeare lived for a time in London with her father. If she did live in London, she was perhaps again in Stratford by the time she received the letter, around 1607- though not always because her father 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.
