Recordings in the Episcopal
register at Worcester on the dates of November 27 and 28, 1582, reveal
that Shakespeare desired to marry a young girl named Anne. There are,
however, two different documents regarding this matter, and their contents
have raised a debate over just whom Shakespeare first intended to wed.
To consider the occurrences properly, we should look at the documents
in question. The first entry in the register is the following record of
the issue of a marriage license to one Wm Shakespeare:
Anno Domini 1582...Novembris...27 die
eiusdem mensis. Item eodem die supradicto emanavit Licentia inter Wm
Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton.1
The next entry in the episcopal register
records the marriage bond granted to one Wm Shakespeare:
Noverint universi per praesentes nos
Fulconem Sandells de Stratford in comitatu Warwici agricolam et Johannem
Rychardson ibidem agricolam, teneri et firmiter obligari Ricardo Cosin
generoso et Roberto Warmstry notario publico in quadraginta libris bonae
et legalis monetae Angliae solvend. eisdem Ricardoet Roberto haered.
execut. et assignat. suis ad quam quidem solucionem bene et fideliter
faciend. obligamus nos et utrumque nostrum per se pro toto et in solid.
haered. executor. et administrator. nostros firmiter per praesentes
sigillis nostris sigillat. Dat. 28 die Novem. Anno regni dominae nostrae
Eliz. Dei gratia Angliae Franc. et Hiberniae Reginae fidei defensor
&c.25.2 The condition of this obligation is such that if hereafter
there shall not appear any lawful let or impediment by reason of any
precontract, consanguinity, affinity or by any other lawful means whatsoever,
but that William Shagspere on the one party and Anne Hathwey of Stratford
in the diocese of Worcester, 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...
Three possible conclusions can be reached
from the above records:
1) The Anne Whateley in the first record
and the Anne Hathwey in the second record are the same woman. Some scholars
believe that the name Whateley was substituted accidentally for Hathwey
into the register by the careless clerk. "The clerk was a nincompoop:
he wrote Baker for Barber in his register, and Darby for Bradeley, and
Edgock for Elcock, and Anne Whateley for Anne Hathaway. A lot of ingenious
ink has been spilt over this error, but it is surely a simple one: the
name Whateley occurs in a tithe appeal by a vicar on the same page of
the register; the clerk could not follow his own notes, or he was distracted"
(Levi, 37). Moreover, some believe that the couple selected Temple Grafton
as the place for the wedding for reasons of privacy and that is why
it is recorded in the register instead of Stratford.
2) The Wm Shaxpere and the Annam Whateley
who wished to marry in Temple Grafton were two different people entirely
from the Wm Shagspere and Anne Hathwey who were married in Stratford.
This argument relies on the assumption that there was a relative of
Shakespeare's living in Temple Grafton, or a man unrelated but sharing
Shakespeare's name (which would be extremely unlikely), and that there
is no trace of this relative after the issue of his marriage license.
3) The woman Shakespeare loved and the
woman Shakespeare finally married were two different Annes. Not many
critics support this hypothesis, but those that do use it to portray
Shakespeare as a young man torn between the love he felt for Anne Whateley
and the obligation he felt toward Anne Hathwey and the child she was
carrying, which was surely his. In Shakespeare, Anthony Burgess constructs
a vivid scenario to this effect:
It is reasonable to believe that Will wished
to marry a girl named Anne Whateley. The name is common enough in the
Midlands and is even attached to a four-star hotel in Horse Fair, Banbury.
Her father may have been a friend of John Shakespeare's, he may have sold
kidskin cheap, there are various reasons why the Shakespeare's and the
Whateleys, or their nubile children, might become friendly. Sent on skin-buying
errands to Temple Grafton, Will could have fallen for a comely daughter,
sweet as May and shy as a fawn. He was eighteen and highly susceptible.
Knowing something about girls, he would know that this was the real thing.
Something, perhaps, quite different from what he felt about Mistress Hathaway
of Shottery. But why, attempting to marry Anne Whateley, had he put himself
in the position of having to marry the other Anne? I suggest that, to
use the crude but convenient properties of the old women's-magazine morality-stories,
he was exercised by love for the one and lust for the other. I find it
convenient to imagine that he knew Anne Hathaway carnally, for the first
time, in the spring of 1582... (57)
Whichever argument one chooses to accept,
On November 27, 1582, Shakespeare, 18, received a marriage license to
marry Anne Hathaway, 26, and already several months pregnant.
Anne was the eldest daughter, and one of
the seven children of Richard Hathaway, a twice-married farmer in Shottery.
Her home, Hewland Farm, now known as Anne Hathaway's Cottage, still stands
in the village of Shottery, a village about 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) from
Stratford.
When Richard died in 1581, he requested his
son, Bartholomew, move into the house, and maintain the property for his
mother, Richard's second wife and Anne's stepmother. Anne lived in the
cottage with Bartholomew, her step-mother, and her other siblings. After
her marriage to Shakespeare, Anne left Hewland Farm to live in John Shakespeare's
house on Henley Street, as was the custom of the day. Preparations for
the new bride were made, and for reasons unknown, her arrival greatly
bothered John Shakespeare's current tenant in the house, William Burbage.
A heated fight ensued, and John refused to release Burbage from his lease,
so Burbage decided to take the matter to a London court. On July 24, 1582,
lawyers representing both sides met and reached an agreement - John would
release Burbage from his lease.
The Shakespeare's' first child was Susanna,
christened on May 26th, 1583, and twins arrived in January, 1585. They
were baptized on February 2 of that year and named after two very close
friends of William -- the baker Hamnet Sadler and his wife, Judith. The
Sadlers became the godparents of the twins and, in 1598, they, in turn,
named their own son William. Not much information is known about the life
of Anne and her children after this date, except for the tragic fact that
Hamnet Shakespeare died of an unknown cause on August 11, 1596, at the
age of eleven. By this time Shakespeare had long since moved to London
to realize his dreams on the English stage -- a time in the Bard's life
that will be covered in depth later on -- and we do not know if he was
present at Hamnet's funeral in Stratford. We can only imagine how deeply
the loss of his only son touched the sensitive poet, but his sorrow is
undeniably reflected in his later work, and, particularly, in a passage
from King John, written between 1595 and 1597:
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;
For being not mad but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I should forget my son,
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity....
I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud
'O that these hands could so redeem my son,
As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
But now I envy at their liberty,
And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prisoner.
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek
And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. (III.iv.45-91)