Anne Hathaway (1556 – 6 August 1623) was the wife of
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. They were married in 1582 and Hathaway was widowed on Shakespeare's death in 1616. Very little is known about her, beyond a few references in legal documents, but her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by historians and creative writers.
Life
Anne Hathaway is believed to have grown up in
ShotteryShottery is a small village a mile west of Stratford-Upon-Avon; nowadays, it is considered a part of the town, but it retains the feeling of a distinct village.- History & Amenities :...
, a small village just to the west of
Stratford-upon-AvonStratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of the county town, Warwick. It is the main town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers a...
,
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. She is assumed to have grown up in the farmhouse that was the Hathaway family home, which is located at Shottery and is now a major tourist attraction for the village. Her father, Richard Hathaway, was a
yeomanYeoman refers to a farmer who cultivates his own land, historically a lesser freeholder of England, below the gentry but with political rights. More generally, yeoman can be an indicator of a position or social class, varying over time and place, or a diligent, dependable worker. A yeoman could...
farmer. He died in September 1581 and bequeathed Anne the sum of £6, 13s, 4d (six pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence) to be paid "at the day of her marriage".
Hathaway married Shakespeare in November 1582 while pregnant with the couple's first child, to whom she gave birth six months later. Hathaway was 26 years of age; Shakespeare was only eighteen. This age difference, together with Hathaway's antenuptial pregnancy, has been employed by some historians as evidence that it was a shotgun wedding, forced on a reluctant Shakespeare by Hathaway's family. There is, however, no reliable evidence for this inference.
The argument was apparently supported, though, by documents from the Episcopal Register at Worcester, which records in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
the issuing of a wedding licence to "Wm Shaxpere" and one "Annam Whateley" of
Temple GraftonTemple Grafton is a village near Alcester, which lies within the Stratford-upon-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. It is rumoured to be the place where William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway....
. The day afterwards, Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, relatives of Hathaway from Stratford, signed a
suretyA surety is a person who agrees to be responsible for the debt or obligation of another. Furthermore, a surety is also a "security against loss or damage or for the fulfillment of an obligation, the payment of a debt, etc.; a pledge, guaranty, or bond."The situation in which a surety is most...
of £40 as a financial guarantee for the wedding of "William Shakespere and Anne Hathwey".
Frank HarrisFrank Harris was an Irish author, editor, journalist and publisher who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
, in
The Man Shakespeare (
1909The year 1909 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*L. Frank Baum - The Road to Oz** - Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work *André Billy - La Derive*René Boylesve - La Jeune Fille bien élevée...
), argues that these documents are evidence that Shakespeare was involved with two women. He had chosen to marry one Anne Whatley, but, when this became known, he was immediately forced by Hathaway's family to marry their pregnant relative. According to the
Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, most modern scholars take the view that the name Whatley was "almost certainly the result of clerical error".
Germaine GreerGermaine Greer is an Australian-born writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
argues that the age difference between Shakespeare and Hathaway was typical of couples of their time. Women such as the orphaned Hathaway often stayed at home to care for younger siblings and married in their late twenties, often to younger eligible men. Furthermore, a "handfast" marriage and pregnancy were frequent precursors to legal marriage at the time. Shakespeare, certainly, was bound to marry Hathaway, having made her pregnant, but there is no reason to assume that this had not always been his intention. It is likely that the respective families of the bride and groom had known one another.
Three children were born to Anne, namely
SusannaSusanna Hall , was the eldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the older sister of Judith Quiney and Hamnet Shakespeare. Her name was taken from the Apocrypha and suggests purity and spotlessness, which appealed to the Puritans...
in 1583, and the twins
HamnetHamnet Shakespeare was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died at age eleven of unknown causes. There are several theories on the relationship, if any, between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet...
and
JudithJudith Quiney was the youngest daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. She married Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford-upon-Avon. The circumstances of the marriage, including Quiney's misconduct, may have prompted the rewriting of Shakespeare's will...
in 1585. It has often been inferred that Shakespeare came to dislike his wife, but there is no existing documentation or correspondence to support this supposition. For most of their married life, he lived in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, writing and performing his plays, while she remained in Stratford. However, according to
John AubreyJohn Aubrey was an English antiquary and writer, best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives and as the discoverer of the Aubrey holes in Stonehenge....
, he returned to Stratford for a period every year. When he retired from the theatre in 1613, he chose to live in Stratford rather than London.
Much has been read into the bequest that Shakespeare famously made in his will, leaving Anne only the "second-best bed". A few explanations have been offered: firstly, it has been claimed that, according to law, Hathaway was entitled to receive one third of her husband's estate, regardless of his will; secondly, it has been speculated that Hathaway was to be supported by her children; and, more recently, Greer has come up with a new explanation based on research into other wills and marriage settlements of the time and place. She disputes the claim that widows were automatically entitled to a third of the estate and suggests that a condition of the marriage of Shakespeare's eldest daughter Susanna to a financially sound husband was probably that Susanna (and thus her husband) inherited the bulk of Shakespeare's estate. This would also explain other examples of Shakespeare's will being apparently ungenerous, as in its treatment of his younger daughter Judith.
Greer also discusses some indications which tend to support speculation that Hathaway may have been financially secure in her own right. The National Archives states that "beds and other pieces of household furniture were often the sole bequest to a wife" and that, customarily, the children would receive the best items and the widow the second-best. In Shakespeare's time, the beds of prosperous citizens were expensive affairs, sometimes to the value of a small house. The bequest was thus not as minor as it might seem by modern standards. Finally, in Elizabethan custom, the best bed in the house was reserved for guests. Therefore, the bed that Shakespeare bequeathed to Anne could have been their marital bed, and thus significant. This idea is explored in the poem
'Anne Hathaway'Anne Hathaway is a poem by Carol Ann Duffy about Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare.This poem, a sonnet, appears in The World's Wife, published in 1999, a collection of poems. The poem is based on the famous passage from Shakespeare's will regarding his "second-best bed"...
written by Carol Ann Duffy.
The simple fact, though, is that Shakespeare, the last surviving of his brothers, was an old man for his time. Hathaway was eight years older than him and may well have been feeble and dependent on her daughters. Hathaway died in 1623 at the age of 67.
Shakespeare's sonnets
One of
Shakespeare's sonnetsShakespeare's sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years...
, number
145-Synopsis:The poet's lover seems to be about say she hates him despite his devotion to her. But as soon as she saw how sad he was, she repented, and changed the phrase "I hate" into "I hate not you"-Commentary:...
, has been claimed to make reference to Anne Hathaway; the words 'hate away' may be a pun (in Elizabethan pronunciation) on 'Hathaway'. It has also been suggested that the next words, "And saved my life", would have been indistinguishable in pronunciation from "Anne saved my life". The sonnet differs from all the others in the length of the lines. Its fairly simple language and syntax have led to suggestions that it was written much earlier than the other, more mature, sonnets.
- Those lips that Love's own hand did make
- Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
- To me that languish'd for her sake;
- But when she saw my woeful state
- Straight in her heart did mercy come,
- Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
- Was used in giving gentle doom,
- And taught it thus anew to greet:
- 'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
- That follow'd it as gentle day
- Doth follow night, who like a fiend
- From heaven to hell is flown away;
- 'I hate' from hate away she threw,
- And saved my life, saying 'not you.'
Other literature
The following poem about Anne has also been ascribed to Shakespeare, but its language and style are not typical of his verse. It is widely attributed to
Charles DibdinCharles Dibdin , British musician, dramatist, novelist, actor and songwriter, the son of a parish clerk, was born in Southampton on or before 4 March 1745, and was the youngest of a family of 18....
(1748-1814) and may have been written for the
Stratford-upon-AvonStratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of the county town, Warwick. It is the main town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers a...
Shakespeare Festival of 1769:
- But were it to my fancy given
- To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven;
- For though a mortal made of clay,
- Angels must love Anne Hathaway;
- She hath a way so to control,
- To rapture the imprisoned soul,
- And sweetest heaven on earth display,
- That to be heaven Anne hath a way;
- She hath a way,
- Anne Hathaway,–
- To be heaven's self Anne hath a way.
In literature after 1900
A trend in more recent literature on Hathaway is to imagine her as a sexually incontinent
cradle-snatcherSignificant age disparity in sexual relationships has been and remains a feature of couples in many cultures and societies. Historically the most common pattern in heterosexual couples is an older man with a younger woman, however the converse has increased significantly in many countries...
, or, alternatively, a frigid
shrewThe Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1594.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a drunken tinker named Sly is tricked into thinking he is a nobleman by a mischievous Lord...
.
An adulterous Anne is imagined by
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish expatriate author, playwright and poet of the 20th century. He is known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of...
's character
Stephen DedalusStephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, as well as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and an important character in Joyce's monumental Ulysses...
, who makes a number of references to Hathaway. In
Ulysses, he speculates that the gift of the infamous "second-best bed" was a punishment for her
adulteryAdultery is referred to as extramarital sex, philandery, or infidelity, but does not include fornication. The term "adultery" for many people carries a moral or religious association, while the term "extramarital sex" is morally or judgmentally neutral....
, and earlier in the same novel, Dedalus analyses Shakespeare's marriage with a
punA pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect...
: "He chose badly? He was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way." Anne also appears in
Hubert OsborneHubert Benjamin Osborne was a Canadian-born playwright and screenwriter who worked in the USA.He was born in Kingston, Ontario and attended Queen's University for two years before progressing to Harvard University...
's
The Shakespeare Play (c.1911) and its sequel
The Good Men Do (1917), which dramatises a meeting between the newly widowed Anne and her supposed old rival for William's love "Anne Whatley". Anne is depicted as shrewish in the first play, and as spiteful towards her former rival in the latter. A frosty relationship is also portrayed in
Edward BondEdward Bond is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of the play Saved , the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK...
's play
Bingo (1973), about Shakespeare's last days.
The World's Wife, a collection of poems by
Carol Ann DuffyCarol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL is a poet, playwright, and freelance writer, who currently holds the position of Britain's poet laureate. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University and Creative Director of the Manchester Writing School, based in the university's...
, features a sonnet entitled
Anne Hathaway, based on the passage from Shakespeare's will regarding his "second-best bed". Duffy chooses the view that this would be their marriage bed, and so a memento of their love, not a slight. Anne remembers their lovemaking as a form of "romance and drama", unlike the "prose" written on the best bed used by guests, "I hold him in the casket of my widow's head/ as he held me upon that next best bed". The couple's sexual adventures on the bed are also described in
Robert NyeRobert Nye is an English poet who has also written novels as well as stories for children.Robert Nye was born in London, England, on March 15, 1939. His father was a civil servant, his mother a farmer's daughter. He attended Southend High School and had published poems in the London Magazine by...
's novel
Mrs. Shakespeare: the Complete Works, which purports to be Anne's autobiographical reminiscences.
Through her long-running solo show
Mrs Shakespeare, Will's first and last love (1989) American actress-writer Yvonne Hudson may have the most constant and evolving relationship with both the historical and dramatic Anne Hathaway. She depicts Anne and Will as maintaining a friendship despite the challenges inherent to their long separations and tragedies. Mining early and recent scholarship and the complete works, Hudson concurs that evidence of the couple's mutual respect is indeed evident in the plays and sonnets, along with support for the writer's infatuations and possibly adulterous relationships. Hudson also chooses the positive view of the bed bequest, sharing that "it may have been only here that I possessed William."
Mrs Shakespeare explores the realities of keeping house without a husband while applying some dramatic license. This allows Anne to have at least a country wife's understanding of her educated spouse's work as she quotes sonnets and soliloquies to convey her feelings.
The 2005 play
Shakespeare's Will by Canadian playwright
Vern ThiessenVern Thiessen is a Canadian playwright.Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Thiessen studied at the University of Winnipeg and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. He later attended the University of Alberta, where he obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree.Thiessen currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta and was...
is similar in form. It is a one-woman piece that focuses on Anne Hathaway on the day of her husband's funeral.
The
romantic comedyRomantic comedy is a hybrid genre of fiction, especially motion pictures, in which a story about romance is presented in a comedic style. Works in this genre are generally considered light-hearted, and are sometimes associated with the vaguely derogatory terms "chick lit" or "chick flick", meaning...
film
Shakespeare in LoveShakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic comedy film. The film was directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard's first major success was with the Shakespeare-influenced play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.The film is largely fictional, although...
provides an example of the negative view, depicting the marriage as a cold and loveless bond that Shakespeare must escape to find love in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
. Germaine Greer's book,
Shakespeare's Wife, was published in 2007.
Anne Hathaway's Cottage
Anne Hathaway's childhood was spent in a house near Stratford in
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Although it is often called a
cottageIn modern usage, a cottage is a modest dwelling, typically in a rural, or semi-rural location...
, it is, in fact, a spacious twelve-roomed farmhouse, with several bedrooms, now set in extensive gardens. It was known as Newlands Farm in Shakespeare's day and had more than of land attached to it. As in many houses of the period, it has multiple chimneys to spread the heat evenly throughout the house during winter. The largest chimney was used for cooking. It also has visible
timber framingTimber framing , or half-timbering, is the method of creating framed structures of heavy timber jointed together with pegged mortise and tenon joints.- Naming :...
, a trademark of vernacular
Tudor style architectureThe Tudor style in architecture is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
.
After the death of Anne's father, the cottage was owned by Anne's brother Bartholomew, and was passed down the Hathaway family until 1846, when financial problems forced them to sell it. It is now owned and managed by the
Shakespeare Birthplace TrustThe Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is an independent registered educational charity based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, that came into existence in 1847 following the purchase of William Shakespeare's birthplace for preservation as a national memorial. It can also lay claim to be...
, and is now open to public visitors as a museum.
External links