Mary Arden - Shakespeare's Mother

Mary Arden – a Tudor woman.

Mary Arden's son William

 

This is the story of a peasant’s daughter who rose to wealth and status, who buried three of her children and lived through four changes of her country’s religion, who survived the plague and gave birth to one of the world’s best known playwrights and poets. This is the story of Mary Arden, William Shakespeare’s mother.

Mary Arden was born into a time of change and turmoil, a time of radical transformation in both history and society. It was a time of war and violence, of class conflict and the tumult of the reformation overturning a thousand years of religious history and English Christianity in just twenty years.
 

What could it have been like to live through those times for any one, let alone a woman?

Mary Arden was one of eight daughters born to an old farming family in the heart of Warwickshire but Mary married out of life on the land for the challenges of the new world of the Tudor middle class.

Her children would become haberdashers and glovers, two even made names for themselves in the entertainment industry in London! and so Mary Arden’s own story can be likened to a mirror reflecting the changing times of the Tudor era.

Tudor England was a small country with only two and a half million people, ninety percent of whom worked on the land. Life expectancy was just 38! and a third of all children died before their tenth birthday. Mary’s father farmed in Wilmcote, just outside Stratford on Avon in the parish of Aston Cantlow.

The Farm

The Forest of Arden is still a name on the map and it was this place that gave Mary’s family her name. Although Mary’s father Robert was just a husbandman - a well to do peasant - her family could be traced back to before the Norman Conquest. Robert was born around 1480 effectively making him a man from the old world, whose daughters and descendants would welcome the new. Robert built his house in Wilmcote in 1515 and amazingly, under the skin of modernity, it is still surprisingly intact. Originally it was a traditional farming house, open to the ceiling, but the need for space, necessitated it being divided into an up and down stairs.




Mary Arden's House

 Robert and Mary’s mother, whose name is lost to history, were married in 1517 or 18 and the children started to appear very soon. Mary was the youngest of eight children: Agnes, Joan, Katherine, Margaret, Joyce, Elizabeth, Alice and then Mary, in about 1535 (some sources say as late as 1537) and was baptised in Aston Cantlow.  Although religiously it was a country in flux, England was still a Catholic country then and Mary could have been named after the Virgin Mary. The West Midlands is and was a deeply conservative area and religious change came slower there than to many places but after 1540 all this changed. In Aston Cantlow, the local guild was stripped of its silver plate and land. When the monasteries were dissolved all treasures and artefacts were confiscated to raise revenue for the king and realm. The change was also secular as the dissolution flooded the country with land and money, allowing the rise of a new middle class.

By a huge stroke of fortune a list of contents of Mary’s family house in Wilmcote survived, giving us a picture of her life at home. Animals, crops, 8 oxen, 2 bullocks, 7 cows, feather beds and mattresses, cushions, eleven painted cloths for the walls, miscellaneous chattels, total valuation £77 11 10

Mary grew up, as all girls did, multi skilling and was taught to do  essential tasks around the house hold, looking after children, cattle, swine, hens and sheep, then baking, brewing, making cheese, malting and all aspect of housekeeping.  Women and girls were also required to do harder labour, like helping with shearing, ploughing, gathering and threshing corn.

At meals, Mary and her sisters would sit on benches/forms as chairs were a sign of status. Robert, however, had three - one for him, one for his wife and one for an honoured guest. Her aesthetic sense would have been stimulated by the murals in the church, depicting religious scenes and almost three-d representations of ‘what would happen if you were bad’. These were whitewashed over when she was in her twenties, but revealed, still bright, in 1804. A favourite mural was also a pageant often enacted by the guilds at Stratford and that was St George and the Dragon and most people saw this at least once in their lifetime. In 1517 Robert joined the guild.

In 1547 King Henry VIII died and was followed by his pious but cold hearted son, Edward VI, who was surrounded by Protestant fundamentalists who would change the world forever. It was the beginning of the 'commotion time'. When Mary was in her teens, Mass was abolished and all the old rites and festivities were abolished.  The Ardens remained quietly loyal to the old faith. When Mary was about 12, Mary’s mother died and Robert remarried a younger widow, Agnes Hill, who brought he own brood of four children to live at Wilmcote. Joyce and Alice and Mary were still living at home . Living space was cramped and tensions ran high, so Robert drew up 'leases' to ensure his own daughters to ensure if he died they would still inherit.

In 1553, when Mary was about 18, Edward suddenly died and Mary Tudor came to the throne; she was a Catholic who was determined to turn the clock back!

In 1556 Mary’s father fell ill with what may be a fatal flu. He assembles his will. He invokes Virgin Mary and leaves his wordly good, surprisingly provides Mary with land and money - £6 13 4 ( a bit more than a skilled carpenter would earn in a year – roughly equating to £30,000 today.) Even more surprisingly  as she is the youngest, she is named as one of his executors, together with Alice, showing respect and trust and by implication, an acknowledgement that Mary is intelligent and honest. 

Amongst other items showing his generous and thoughtful nature, he leaves 4d to everyone in Aston Cantlow  who didn’t have a team of oxen

As legal executrix  she almost certainly had basic reading skills, but could she write? On later legal documents  she makes her signature with a beautiful calligraphy M. Her wax  seal has her personal emblem , a horse (some say a running horse.) The evidence suggests that she may have known how to write.  She would have been an attractive marriage proposition. There may have been a match already in mind with the son of one of her father’s tenants, John Shakespeare. John had moved from Snitterfield to Stratford  in the early 50s. He had done a 7 year  apprenticeship with a master glover Tom Dixon. He was a young man with prospects and would be an ideal catch. In Oct 1556 he buys 2 freehold properties in town.

Within weeks of his purchase he married Mary Arden in 1557. He was in his late 20s, she was about 22. Stratford then was a small market town with maybe 1200 people and a growing middle class serviced by tailors, and hatters and glovers. 'Home' at that point was just beginning to be a venue for social display and ambition... (i.e. beginning the keep up with the Joneses)  and he needed house to fit status.

They presumably wanted to start a family, but sadly Mary’s first two children died - little Joan aged just 2 months  and Margaret aged 1.

It may have been a comfort, who can tell how she would feel after the death of her babies? but at least her husband was doing well. His freehold in Henley Street entitled him join the corporation. Corporations had replaced the guilds in 1547 and they ran the town. His civic duties ranged from constable to ale taster and charity hand out to the poor. He was a man of credit. Someone they could trust.

In 1558 Mary Tudor died and Elizabeth came to throne, but she was Church of England and so the fourth change of religion in 20 years began. Soon there were risings against her religious policies and the government responded by removing all trappings of Catholicism. In 1563 Stratford council had to do the government bidding and in winter 2/- was paid for defacing images in the chapel so no memory of them remained and the chamberlain, John Shakespeare had to sign off the job.

In April 1564 William was born. On 28^th May, Mary was purified at church, but when he was 3 months old the plague came to Stratford. Soon the town was living in fear. At the end of August the corporation held their meeting in the open air, but by then the situation was desperate.  With baby William it was best to get out if she could and Mary rode out to her sister in Wilmcote, 5 miles away where there were no deaths. Luckily William and his parents survived.  

After William, other babies born  and remained healthy; Joan, Anne, Gilbert and Richard and Mary spent time teaching them their ABC and reading prior to them going to school and telling them stories. Years later William would remember  tales of their legendry ancestor, Guy of Warwick. There is also a strong possibility that William would have seen the mystery plays that were still held.

John continued his rise in the council and in 1568 he was elected as mayor, making Mary was the wife of Alderman and High Bailiff, Mr. John Shakespeare.

Now they set out to use John’s position to make real money, investing in wool. It was the mainstay of the economy and was government controlled to prevent illegal dealers undercutting the market – and that is just what John was doing.

John’s web of contacts spread from the Cotswolds to Nottingham and down to Wiltshire. Mary would have dealt with business contacts in an informal capacity. It worked because of trust. But trust was a big issue in Elizabethan England and Elizabeth’s network of spies recorded John’s activities in the Exchequer Memoranda Roll 1572. A government informer, James Langrake, informed on John. This was not the first  time that  Langrake informed on John. The first time he informed about his illegal money lending and then in 1571 he reported him for a wool scam to the value of £210. When you  bear in mind that a waged labourer earned maybe £10 per annum and a house could be bought for £30, it shows just what an enormous sum of money is involved. This time John was able to pay off the informaer and got off with it.

Meanwhile as an alderman John was able to send his son to the Grammar school, the gateway of to university. In late 1570s the government suddenly turned on the illegal wool dealers with the whole force of the law and John’s whole informal network collapsed. Suddenly he had a network of debt everywhere with no network of income!

As the financial difficulties piled up, in 1570 their 7 yr old Anne died. The corporation book has an insight into the tragedy: 'for the bell and pall for Mr Shakespeare’s daughter for her funeral, 8d (pence)'.

Desperate to save money William was taken out of school to help John, losing him the opportunity of University.

Soon they were trying to raise money any way they could. They borrowed from friends and neighbours, inlaws and relatives. Then they start selling off land, including Mary’s 30 or 40 acre and cottage inheritance. John even divided the house up and leased half of it to neighbours who open a pub! Using the house called Asbie’s as security Mary raises £40 from her brother in law, but could not pay it back regrettably she had to forfeit the property.

Four months after Anne’s death she got pregnant again  and although by then in her mid forties, gave birth to Edmund. A couple of years later the teenage William got a 26 year old girl, Anne Hathaway, pregnant first with a daughter and then twins. The family was then squeezed into a third of their old house with William’s new wife and four new children to feed.
 

Worse was to follow 1583 the government discovered a plot to assassinate Elizabeth, the instigator being Edward Arden, a relative of Mary. Edward was head of the most important Catholic family in Warwickshire and after his arrest was put into the chamber called ‘The little Ease’ where you could neither stand up nor lie down and then all the men were tortured on the rack and condemned to death.

Around Stratford the secret police interrogated suspected Catholics and as Mary was an Arden and married to an ex mayor her household was almost certainly one of them. In 1586, having been protected by his fellow councillors for 10 years, John was struck off for non attendance. Mary’s family was now ruined

But there is a twist to the plot. William went to London to try to make it in the theatre. How he did it, we do not know, but in autumn, 1592 a famous metropolitan critic Robert Green poured scorn on the country boy taking the stage by storm. There is no such thing as bad publicity and suddenly William had made it and his box office earnings restored the family fortunes. In 1596 he bought a coat of arms for his father to make him a gentlemen, with (of course) a few rewrites of history, saying of Mary that she had been the daughter and heiress of Robert Arden Esq. and gentleman.

The family could hold their heads high again. William bought the big house near the chapel and John and Mary lived out their days in Henley street with their daughter Joan and her children. Mary had lived from Henry VIIIs reign, through Edward’s, Mary’s, Lady Jane Gray’s, Elizabeth’s and on into James’. She had known grief and disappointment but had held her family together during the commotion time. John died in 1601

John's death recorded in the Parish record

and Mary followed him in 1608, in her early 70s and was buried in the churchyard in Stratford.

*

Shortly after her death William finally published poems he had worked on for most of his life. The poems are imbued with a sense of the destructive power of time and the redeeming power of love. It is tempting to think that it was his mother who taught him how to feel the emotions contained within.

*

This biography of Mary Arden was written from copious notes taken whilst watching a fascinating documentary about Mary Arden, presented by Michael Wood.

Photographs from: 

Biography. com

Stratford.co.uk Attractions 

Shakespeare's Birthplace trust 

© Diana Milne August 2017

Lisl Reviews: Who Killed William Shakespeare? by Simon Andrew Stirling

Please see below for giveaway information

Who Killed William Shakespeare? The Murderer, The Motive, The Means

Simon Andrew Stirling

When I first cracked open my copy of Who Killed William Shakespeare? and gave it my usual pre-reading examination, the exercise gave time for a flood of memories to wash through my mind: reading the plays in high school and university, of course, but also how teachers and professors taught them, what we discussed on the side, the high or low passions, variety of angles we came from with our comments and questions. It occurred to me that I, neither anti-Shakespeare nor aficionado, not only know very little about his life, but also his death. There were no memories of discussions or even lectures relating to his demise.

With this in mind I went to the Internet to see if I could learn more about this angle—or, more particularly, to see what exactly everyone else knew that I didn’t. I was in for a bit of a surprise because nowhere did I see even any allusions to homicide. I picked up lots of typhoid mentions, especially connected to the time in which he lived. Other possibilities included alcoholism, though with the supporting evidence of a “merry meeting” after which the playwright died, this seems a reach, given the long-term nature of this disease. Nevertheless, for whatever the condition speculated, many posters seemed to agree that Shakespeare knew he was seriously ill. Shaky signature, two wills within weeks of one another, etc.

Elizabethan England is not my chosen era of great study, but I did know it was a dangerous time in which to live, especially if you were the wrong religion. Prosecution for the crime of illegal worship was swift and consequences horrible—simply describing them out loud is painful to the mind. Therefore I wondered why no one seemed to consider that politics was just as much a hazard to one’s health as any disease on the rampage. Many are familiar with the need for Shakespeare to have written to please the queen; a civil war was looming and religious intolerance was rampant—all elements that continue to exist in our world today and so even if from a distance, most have some understanding of it.

To be fair, delving into those murky waters is challenging, to say the least, and, as Stirling quotes Shakespearean scholar Schoenbaum, “What we would not give for a single personal letter!” or even “one page of a diary!” Alas, this is not a luxury available, making the parts and the sum of Stirling’s research all the more impressive.

Opening with reference to the disappearance of the real Shakespeare to be replaced by a mythical figure, Stirling shifts to the personal Shakespeare and various interpretations of his life and legacy. Specifically he challenges the notion that nothing is known about the playwright and commences the laying out of his research, which over the course of the book shows how history was in the process of being re-written when he still lived, in the 18^th century and even today when Shakespeare continues to be celebrated as what the author refers to as a “trademark.”

But why would anyone need to re-invent who Shakespeare was? What needed to be covered up? Why would anyone murder him? And how could they get away with it? While part of the mystery rests within the who, readers shall not be let down when within the first section a suspect is revealed—in fact, the book’s blurb provides this information:

He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. . .

Like an investigator, Stirling turns to the method of collecting evidence to prove the means, motive and opportunity; without such, “knowing” is insufficient to support a successful criminal proceeding. Other elements are required, however: the presence of reasonable doubt as to the suspect’s guilt might wash away the strength of those three aspects. In three sections, titled after these elements, the author explores in great detail avenues of the crime, including what led to it and subsequent events.

Following an author’s note is the “Preamble: The Apotheosis of Shakespeare,” designed to provide background information for readers before they are led into the “Means,” which wastes little time in identifying central players and their significance to the main events. Scholarly in nature and non-linear, the narrative’s density may initially have a somewhat disconcerting affect, though readers may rest assured they will settle quickly into Stirling’s style: direct and smooth, the book reads like a mystery—a literary mystery in which clues to stage and governmental politics are contained in the plays themselves. Personal significance, such as motives and history behind particular lines are explained in a way so fluid that readers move in and out of events as if they had personal connections.

The amount of research that went into the book surely must have been staggering, though Stirling lays it all out in such a way we tend not to think of it as pieces fitted together. It is as if he has pieced together a puzzle but we cannot see the lines; rather there is an image before us so magnificent, its contours and colors matched so brilliantly it wipes away understanding or awareness of the labor required to perform the task.

For example, Henry Wallis’s painting, A Sculptor’s Workshop, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1617, exhibited in 1857, provides some interesting insight; the author utilizes, amongst other knowledge, Greek myth and another painting to show how the artist drops heavy hints about events that led to an assault and the assailant’s role in supervising the funerary monument:

The Greek myth recalls the ‘merry meeting’ [and a] strained epitaph game—the ‘Rhymes’ which, according to Michael Drayton, who was there, [were made] with Shakespeare[; his opponent became] angry when he was ‘out-gone’. Hercules had been similarly incapable of controlling his rage ‘as a hero should’. He attacked the river god. Achelous turned himself into a snake and then a bull. Hercules wrestled the bull to the ground and tore off one of its horns, mutilating the river god’s brow.

It is moments such as this, laid out so efficiently, with such artistry and accessibility that Stirling draws readers’ sustained attention and focus to what he shows us, and creates a gripping drama that captures and carries us on to the next scene, and the next, and the next. There are many familiar names—Catesby (descendant of the first in the “Catte, the Ratte and Lovell our dogge/rulyth all England under a hogge”), Throckmorton, Marlowe, Percy, Cobham, to name a few—that weave across time and consciousness, reminding us of the myriad connections between people and events, within their own time and others’.  

For this reason, I found it helpful about midway through the book to return to the author’s “Preamble” in order to refresh my own recollections and re-connect what I was reading with what Stirling had provided in this first section. This is by no means a shortcoming of any sort on the book or author’s part, and in fact I found that section very helpful to return to on occasion to re-capture links I’d lost track of.

There indeed is a great deal to absorb: Elizabethan and Jacobean politics, much of which (in education) stays hidden behind the curtain of “golden age” history; family and religious history and tensions; theatre and its obligations to the Crown; art and literature; government intrusion; family feuds; crime and punishment—it is as if the writing of the book required an author who is in part psychologist as well as detective, his forensic talents extending across all of the above to provide an examination of how this society affected one man—and all of us.

Though there are several segments I connected to more—including the portion in which the author examines Wallis’s painting—what I appreciated most about the book is Stirling’s honest and fair treatment of William Shakespeare. Popular culture tends to view him as upright and formal, laughing in disbelief at wooden-jaw caricatures or amazement at his appearance in other works of literature, acting out such ordinary human behavior as behaving impulsively or possessing sexuality.

Here we find a man who is real, in a society and era hostile to who he was, and governed by those who would destroy him. He responds to many instances in ways we might criticize or copy; discussing the reality of his person honors him far more than a created image that falsifies the man. Stirling, too would have it no other way: “During the course of our investigation, a picture of Will Shakespeare will emerge which differs from the familiar, squeaky-clean image of the Bard.

There will be no sweeping of vital evidence under the carpet. We owe him that.”

If you are a Shakespeare “fan” or not, familiar but not well-versed, lover of history or plainly inquisitive—and for many other reasons, this book is for you. It is a smooth read that will persuade your curiosity out into the open, sharpen the senses and bring into the light some painful truths about our own histories. As the author writes, the truth we owe Shakespeare must be brought out of hiding, as does that we owe to our children.

Simon Andrew Stirling is also the author of The King Arthur Conspiracy: How a Scottish Prince Became a Mythical Hero, and may be found at Art & Will.

Simon Stirling has so graciously offered a free copy of Who Killed William Shakespeare? for a lucky winner. To enter, simply comment below or at this entry's matching Facebook thread. 

If you would like Lisl to review your book or conduct an interview, please see our submissions tab above. Lisl can also be found at before the second sleep.

Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!

450 years young today!!

(I wouldn't worry too much about the argument that we don't know exactly when Shakespeare was born. It's more accurate to say that we don't know exactly where Will Shakespeare was born. But there's very little reason to imagine that he was born on any other date that 23 April - and, as I point out in my Who Killed William Shakespeare?, the likelihood that he died on the same date as he was born is not without significance.)

Today we celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest writers who ever lived. But who, or what, are we actually celebrating?

It might seem an odd question. And yet, if the answer were all that obvious, there wouldn't be so many people out there who seem determined to "prove" that William Shakespeare, Gent., of Stratford-upon-Avon could not have written the plays that made him famous.

There isn't a shred of evidence that Shakespeare himself did not write his plays. What is lacking is a credible biography of the great man. And so I can empathise (a little) with those who struggle to match the playwriting genius with the rather innocuous figure we read about in so many books.

Of course, 23 April is also the feast day of England's patron saint (I'm tempted to put, "England's other patron saint" - you know, the one who never set foot in England).  In many ways, this coincidence is part of the problem. When we celebrate Shakespeare's birthday (and his deathday) we're simultaneously celebrating St George and, by definition, everything that we think of as being essentially English. It's as if Robert Burns had succeeded in being born on St Andrew's Day. The national poet inevitably becomes slightly confused with the patron saint.

In fact, much of what we think we know (or what we think we don't know) about Shakespeare comes from a period many years after Shakespeare lived. Between 1769, when the actor-manager David Garrick hosted his farcical "Jubilee" for Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon, and 1785, when Rev. James Wilmot, a clergyman who had retired to a village near Stratford, first suggested that Will Shakespeare could not have written his own plays, all our notions about Shakespeare changed.

It was during that very period that the Warwickshire lad became "the god of our Idolatry". At the same time as Will Shakespeare became a kind of national figurehead - the secular patron saint of England - we forgot who he actually was. A scholar named George Steevens whittled the known facts of Shakespeare's biography down to a few notes. We know that he was born, got married, had children, went to London, wrote some plays, and then he went home. And that's all we know.

In the process of restricting the "known" facts about Shakespeare's life to the barest minimum, a huge amount of local knowledge was rejected. Personally, I blame David Garrick and his allies: they ridiculed the people of Stratford-upon-Avon at the same time as they put Shakespeare up on a rather cheap and nasty pedestal. What the Stratford folks remembered about their town's most famous son had no place in the "new" biography of Shakespeare. Best to know nothing at all about him than to remember the facts of his life.

Two years from now, on 23 April 2016, we shall be celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death.  And, frankly, I'm expecting that to be a much more interesting event. By then, we should have accessed the crypt beneath a church, 12 miles from Stratford, and had the chance to study a skull which might well be Shakespeare's. By comparing that skull with the portraits and busts of Shakespeare (including the "Wadlow" portrait, above, photographed by Chris Titmus of the Hamilton Kerr Institute), we should know for sure whether or not it is Shakespeare's skull. If it is, then we will know a great deal more about him - and especially how he died.

(I will also have published a new biography of Sir William Davenant, the poet laureate - born in 1606 - who claimed to be "the son of Shakespeare".  Unsurprisingly, Davenant's reputation took a dive at the same time as the revamped, reduced biography of Shakespeare was taking root.)

All that in itself will cause many problems. The Shakespeare we are taught at school, the Shakespeare who is written about in so many books, is still the Shakespeare who was invented in the late 18th century. Not the man of Stratford, but a national ideal: essentially, a myth. And a political one at that.

So I would like to suggest that today we celebrate the make-believe Shakespeare (the one we know so little about). At the same time, we should look forward. This could be one of the most exciting and intriguing periods in Shakespeare research. We might yet be able to rescue him from the cold, dead hand of the "official" myth, the Shakespeare "brand", which goes down well with tourists but leaves us all in the dark about him. And then we will have something to celebrate.

He was one of us - not a "demigod", as David Garrick tastelessly described him, but a truly sensitive, troubled, gifted individual.  A man who knew love, pain, grief, horror, fear, and who expressed those emotions more eloquently and convincingly than any other person ever has.

Happy Birthday, Shakespeare; your time is yet to come.

Simon Andrew Stirling is the author of The King Arthur Conspiracy (The History Press, 2012) and Who Killed William Shakespeare? (The History Press, 2013).  He will be talking about his work on Shakespeare at the Stratford Literary Festival, Stratford-upon-Avon, on Tuesday 29 April.

SIMON STIRLING - Special Feature - FACT OR FICTION ?

Simon Stirling author of Who Killed William Shakespeare and The King Arthur Conspiracy talks about one of the mysteries of William Shakespeare's life.

Before the magnificent Hive was erected in Worcester, the county records were stored in a fairly nondescript building near the County Council offices.  We went there several years ago to hunt down a 450-year-old will.
The eight-and-a-half page ‘Last Testament of John Whateley of Henley in Arden’ was brought out to us.  No white gloves, no rules – just don’t doodle or blow your nose on the document.  We settled down to decipher the cramped script, and there it was: a reference to ‘Agnes my daughter’!
Back in those days, the names Anne and Agnes were used interchangeably (the ‘g’ of Agnes was not pronounced).  So Agnes, the daughter of John Whateley, would also have been known as Anne Whateley.
William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582 (in her father’s will, she was named ‘Agnes’).  But only the day before two Stratford farmers rode to Worcester and laid down a substantial bond to ensure that young Will did marry ‘Anne Hathwey, maiden’, the bishop’s court at Worcester had issued a special licence allowing him to marry ‘Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton’.

Will of John Whateley

We eventually returned the document to the desk, where my wife couldn’t resist asking if anyone else had wanted to see John Whateley’s will.  When the staff looked nonplussed by this question, Kim – my wife – excitedly announced that the will identifies an Anne Whateley, the name of William Shakespeare’s original choice of bride.
Quick as a flash, a man zoomed across the room to assure us that the ‘official line’ had been established by Samuel Schoenbaum, who wrote that ‘Anne Whateley’ had been a historical accident, a mere slip of the clerical pen.  I ushered Kim out of there, highly amused at the thought that an ‘expert’ on the subject was referring us to the words of a scholar while ignoring the evidence in front of his own eyes.
For the record, Agnes Whateley’s brother – George Whateley – lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, a few doors away from the Shakespeare household.  He served on the Stratford Corporation with Shakespeare’s father.  So there is a strong chance that Will Shakespeare would have known of Agnes Whateley of nearby Temple Grafton.
The point, though, is this: there is an ‘official line’ on the subject of Anne Whateley.  Which is, she didn’t exist.  Even when you point out that an Anne Whateley with Shakespearean connections was named in her father’s will, she continues not to exist.  Because somebody once said so.
Since my book Who Killed William Shakespeare? The Murderer, the Motive, the Means was published a few weeks ago, one question has been put to me by several journalists – ‘Historians and Shakespeare experts have scoffed at the idea that he was murdered.  What do you say to that?’
To which I have responded – ‘Okay, so let them tell us what really happened, then.’
Only one written account of Shakespeare’s death survives.  It was noted down by the newly-installed vicar of Stratford in 1662, and it relates that Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton had a ‘merry meeting’, at which they ‘drank so hard’, it seems, that Shakespeare caught a ‘fever’, from which he died shortly afterwards.
It took forty-six years for the story of Shakespeare’s ‘merry meeting’ and his fatal ‘fever’ to come out.  Shakespeare’s son-in-law, John Hall, was a respected doctor of Stratford-upon-Avon who kept detailed notes on his clients and the treatments he had administered to them.  He left no record of Shakespeare’s death.
Neither did Shakespeare’s ‘cousin’, Thomas Greene, a trained lawyer and minor poet who knew Michael Drayton.  Greene was the town clerk of Stratford-upon-Avon.  He and his family had lived for several years at Shakespeare’s home of New Place.  But Thomas Greene made no mention of Shakespeare’s death.  Rather, he quickly resigned his post, sold his house, and moved to Bristol.
Shakespeare’s fellow poets, Drayton and Jonson, had nothing to say at the time about Will’s death.  Neither did that other Warwickshire poet, Fulke Greville, who – as Recorder of Stratford – was the town’s registrar and coroner.
This blanket of contemporary silence regarding Shakespeare’s death is not, of course, proof that he was murdered (that evidence exists elsewhere).  At the same time, though, it offers no evidence that he was not murdered.  Many people died of mysterious fevers in those days, and more than a few of them were victims of assassination.
So how can ‘historians and Shakespeare experts’ state so categorically that Shakespeare wasn’t murdered?  Realistically, they can’t.  They have no proof.  But they’re happy to scoff at the suggestion, because the theory flies on the face of everything they’d like to believe about William Shakespeare.
History is not written in stone: it’s more fluid than that.  New discoveries are made, new accounts written.  It behoves each generation to rediscover the past, not least of all because our understanding of the past can only be based on our view of the present, and as that evolves so must our attitude towards history.
More to the point, every historical account is, to a greater or lesser extent, a work of fiction – like a map, which illustrates the terrain and certain landmarks but is still only a selective, symbolic representation.  The assumption that Shakespeare’s first choice of wife, Anne Whateley, never existed is a convenient fiction (that is, as an explanation it might or might not be true).  It is not a ‘fact’, in the strictest sense of the word.  It is an opinion, an educated guess, which just happens to have been accepted as historical fact.  When new evidence emerges – like her father’s will – then we need to consider it carefully.  Most of all, we must be prepared to adjust our ideas to accommodate this new information.
Similarly, it might be appropriate to say ‘I don’t think Shakespeare was murdered’, but it is wholly inappropriate to insist point-blank that he wasn’t.  By doing so, scholars are really only defending their own comfortable fictions while refusing to examine the facts.
The bottom line, then, should be clear enough.  Much of what we think of as historical ‘fact’ (e.g. the remains of King Richard III were lost in a river) often turns out to be historical fiction.  At which point, everybody has a decision to make: do we stick with the fiction, to which we’ve grown so attached, or do we create an updated and – hopefully – more accurate narrative incorporating the latest evidence?
Ultimately, the choice is a political one.  Because the past and the present are intimately connected (or, at least, our views of them are), and if you are resistant to any form of change in the present, you’ll struggle to accept any alteration to your picture of the past. 

You can read more about Simon's investigation into William Shakespeare's death in his book here on Amazon in the UK and world wide. Simon is also giving away a hard-back of his book so join us on Facebook for a chance to win a copy!