logo
Shakespeare didn't abandon his wife in Stratford, letter suggests

Shakespeare didn't abandon his wife in Stratford, letter suggests

CNN24-04-2025

William Shakespeare's marriage to Anne Hathaway may have been happier than previously thought, according to new research.
It has been long believed that the playwright left his wife behind when he moved to London, but new findings from the University of Bristol suggest that the couple were living together in London for some period of time between 1600 and 1610.
Shakespeare married Hathaway in 1582 and the couple shared three children. Experts have long thought that Shakespeare then moved to London from his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, leaving his family behind.
Now, a long forgotten letter may turn that theory on its head, according to Matthew Steggle, a professor of English at Bristol University.
The fragments of the letter, addressed to 'good Mrs Shakspaire,' (the name's spelling at the time) were found sewn into the binding of a 1,000-page theological book in the city of Hereford, about 50 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Although the letter's writer hasn't been identified, they refer to a fatherless apprentice called John Butts.
Steggle found just one person by Butts' name who fit the criteria and lived in London at that time.
'The reason you think it's the Shakespeares is about the date and place of the letter – which you can establish largely by locating the boy at the center of it,' Steggle told CNN Thursday.
The letter writer accuses the husband of 'Mrs Shakspaire' of withholding money from Butts and asks her for the funds. In what may be a reply from Hathaway herself, the recipient stands by her husband and refuses to settle the claim.
The letter also refers to a 'Shakspaire' couple who lived in a place called Trinity Lane. Out of the four couples living in London with the surname, Steggle believes only the playwright and his wife could have afforded to live in the relatively prosperous area.
Steggle said the discovery opens the path to more revelations about the playwright's life.
'We know so little about exactly where Shakespeare lives in London, so it's another sort of data point for that,' he said. 'It's another kind of anchor on where he might have been living, how he might have been, and how he might have been living in his London career.'
As for challenging views about Shakespeare's relationship with his wife, Steggle credits a shift in attitudes towards women and greater academic work in this area.
'There's this narrative, like the film 'Shakespeare in Love,' where he's got this wife who's this kind of distant encumbrance in Stratford, and (Shakespeare is) having all these romantic love affairs in London separately,' he said, referring to the Oscar-winning 1998 movie.
The letter is a 'game-changer' that suggests Hathaway was not absent from her husband's London life, but present and engaged in his financial and social networks, argues Steggle.
'The reason it's gone unnoticed for so long is that it's not in London… where there's been a lot of quite intensive searching for Shakespeare,' Steggle said of the letter's discovery.
Looking outside the city – and in the binding of books printed by the Bard's old friend – could point the way 'towards the possibility of more discoveries.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Don't let a vocal minority silence Britain's ancient church bells
Don't let a vocal minority silence Britain's ancient church bells

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Don't let a vocal minority silence Britain's ancient church bells

There used to be a tradition that ringing church bells would drive out evil spirits. Now it's the bells that are being driven out. The latest set of chimes to fall foul of complainers are in Mytholmroyd. It's a small West Yorkshire village, best known as the birthplace of Ted Hughes. Perhaps it was the bells of St Michael's Church that inspired the late Poet Laureate to write in one of his rhymes for children about a bell's 'clang of mumbling boom'. But that clang was far from mumbling for three residents who said they were being kept awake all night by the chimes, ringing every 15 minutes. A noise abatement order imposed on the bells means they now can't be rung at all, so for the first time in 100 years they have fallen silent. There have been similar ding dongs over church bells elsewhere in the past few years: in both Witheridge and Kenton in Devon, in Helpringham in Lincolnshire, and in Beith in Ayrshire, usually by people saying that chimes through the night in these rural neighbourhoods are ruining their sleep. As someone who lives in a city, used to police helicopters overhead, ice cream vans blaring their tinny tunes, trains rattling past, and crowds of students staggering home at night under the influence of numerous intoxicants, I have to say I do find the noise of the countryside rather disturbing. Here in the city, these noises are part of a constant soundscape. In the country, there is an enveloping silence, but then you will be jolted into wakefulness by a cockerel's piercing crow, or a huge piece of farm machinery rattling past, or a herd of cattle lowing their way to milking. But a church bell chime, surely, is in a minor key compared to these other rural interruptions? For me the sound of bells is, well, music to my ears. Despite the planes flying into Heathrow over my head and the police sirens blaring outside my door, I can still hear the sound of a bell nearby, which rings regularly to mark Divine Office being said in a local monastery as well as the Angelus at noon. On Sundays, a peal of bells sounds out at a nearby church, and on weekday evenings too you can hear the ringing, as the tower captain and his team practise Plain Bob Major or Grandsire Triples or one of those other extraordinary mathematical formulas, known as changes, that make up bell-ringing. But the kind of change we don't want is something so quintessentially English as bell-ringing to disappear because after a few people make a fuss, officialdom steps in. The bells of Mytholmroyd were silenced when just three people objected – but the 1,200 residents who wanted the chimes to continue had their petition ignored. It's a growing pattern: a few complaints put an end to chimes that had been loved by communities for generations. Yet there's more at stake here than bells. It sounds a death-knell for our tradition of going with what the majority want. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store