Shakespeare

For women are as Roses, whose faire flowre

Being once displaid, doth fall that verie howre.

But it is probably best to refrain from maladroit interpretation. In the Duke, Shakespeare has created a notorious sentimentalist. It could just as well be argued that, because the females in Shakespeare’s drama are literate, so must have been the women around him.

It is not known whether Anne Hathaway could read or write. There was no real opportunity which would have enabled her to learn how to do so and, in any case, 90 per cent of the female population of England were illiterate at that time. It has often been supposed that Shakespeare’s two daughters were also illiterate, and so we are faced with the irony of the greatest dramatist in the history of the world surrounded by women who could not read a word he wrote.

There is a sonnet placed as the 145th in Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, which seems oddly situated and out of context. The last two lines suggest that it was in fact composed for Anne Hathaway and has some claim to being the first extant work of William Shakespeare-

“I hate” from “hate” away she threw,

And saued my life, saying “not you.”

Hate away is equal to Hathaway. The entire poem is a conventional and youthful paean to a kind and loving mistress, with “lips that Loues owne hand did make.” It is interesting as a token of Shakespeare’s early ambitions as a poet. He must have borrowed the sonnet form from a contemporary collection such as Tottel’s Miscellany , where the work of Wyatt and Surrey was to be found, or perhaps from the first published sonnet sequence in English, Thomas Watson’s Hekatompathia , which was published in the summer of 1582. It may have proved the spur to Shakespeare’s invention. He reached for the form naturally and instinctively; this early poem is fluent and forceful, a harbinger of his triumphant mastery of that genre.

It is to be hoped that “Loues owne hand” had something to do with the match, since Anne Hathaway was four months pregnant by the time of their marriage day. It was not unusual in this period for couples to cohabit before their wedding. Their Stratford neighbours, George Badger and Alice Court, Robert Young and Margery Field, had a similar arrangement. It was also customary for both parties to make a “troth-plight,” a verbal contract of marriage before witnesses which was also known as “hand-fasting” or “making sure.” So Alice Shaw of Warwickshire declared to William Holder, of the same county, that “I do confesse that I am your wief and have forsaken all my frendes for your sake and I hope you will use me well.” 1The man took the woman’s hand, and repeated the same pledge. Only after such a “troth-plight” could the woman give up her virginity. The marriage ceremony came later. It was a code of honour, marked out by both social and sexual discipline; there were of course different forms of “making sure,” varying from a private pledge to a ceremony with a prayer book. But its ubiquity can be measured in the fact that between 20 and 30 per cent of all brides bore children within the first eight months of marriage.

This informal contract remained firmly in Shakespeare’s consciousness. There are many allusions to it in his plays, ranging from Claudio’s plea in Measure for Measure that “she is fast my wife” to Olivia’s demand to Sebastian in Twelfth Night that he “Plight me the full assurance of your faith.” It would also have affected the Elizabethan understanding of dramatic action. When Troilus and Cressida plight themselves, Pandarus exclaims: “Go to a bargaine made, seale it, seale it ile bee the witnes here I hold your hand, here my Cozens” (1768-70). He is effectively sealing a “hand-fasting,” thus rendering Cressida’s subsequent unfaithfulness more execrable. When Orlando declares to Rosalind, in the guise of Ganymede, “I take thee Rosalind for wife” he is committing himself much further and more deeply than he supposes. It is a social custom, now long since discarded and forgotten, but it had profound implications for Shakespeare and for Shakespeare’s audience.

There was also a custom of exchanging rings during this informal ceremony (other pre-contract gifts included a bent sixpence and a pair of gloves), a charming ritual which anticipates a no less charming “find” in the early nineteenth century. In 1810 the wife of a Stratford labourer was working in a field, next to the churchyard, when she found a heavily encrusted ring. It was of gold and, when it was cleaned, it was discovered to bear the initials “W S” separated by a lover’s knot. The dating is that of the sixteenth century, and a local antiquarian believed that “no other Stratfordian of that period [was] so likely to own such a ring as Shakespeare.” 2There is one other intriguing connection. Shakespeare may have owned a seal-ring, but his will has no seal. The phrase “in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal” has been altered; the word “seal” has been struck out, as if Shakespeare had lost his ring before signing the document.

The “cottage” in which William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway are popularly supposed to have courted was in fact a relatively large farmhouse constructed of timber and of wattle-and-daub (hazel twigs and dried mud can still be seen embedded within the walls) with rooms at different levels, low ceilings and uneven floors. Its timber construction means that it is a box of noise, so courtship would have been untenable as well as uncomfortable. From the upstairs bedchambers you can hear everything in the rooms below and, through the cracks in the floorboards, see everything as well. It was fortunate that there were meadows, and a forest, nearby. He may not have visited her there in the crucial period, in any case, since after the death of her father in 1581 she went to live with her mother’s family in the nearby village of Temple Grafton. She may have wished to remove herself from the company of her stepmother and four surviving children. The absence of paternal watchfulness, however, may have hastened the fruition of the match.

There is one odd incident concerning the wider family in this year of betrothal and marriage. In September 1582, John Shakespeare attended a council meeting in the guildhall in order to vote for his friend, John Sadler, as mayor of Stratford. Sadler declined to serve, on the grounds of ill-health (he died six months later), but John Shakespeare’s reappearance after an absence of almost six years is somewhat puzzling. It may have been a sudden decision, or a desire to be seen to support an old friend, but it may conceivably be connected with his other appearance in the public records at this time. Three months previously he had entered a petition against four men – Ralph Cawdrey the butcher among them-“for fear of death and mutilation of his limbs.” This was a ritual formula and need not be taken as token of a literal threat to John Shakespeare’s life, but the circumstances are obscure. It could not have been a partisan religious quarrel, since Cawdrey himself was a staunch Catholic. It is more likely to have been some kind of trade or financial dispute. One of the other men, against whom John Shakespeare complained, was a local dyer. By attending the council meeting John Shakespeare may have hoped to revive something of his old authority.

The first child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway was probably conceived in the last two weeks of September, for at the end of November the young man or Anne Hathaway’s guardians hastened to Worcester in order to obtain a special marriage licence. Anne Hathaway had been left £6 13 s 4 d by her father, equivalent to a blacksmith’s or a butcher’s annual wage and enough for her dowry. The licence permitted marriage after a single publication of the banns, and did not specify any particular parish in which the ceremony must take place. The haste was necessary since the period of Advent was at hand, in which marriages were very largely restricted. Another period of prohibition began on 27 January and lasted until 7 April. It was possible, then, that their child might be born when its parents were not formally wedded. Anne’s interesting condition may have become evident, and neither she nor her guardians may have wished her child to be illegitimate.