Anne Whateley
Encyclopedia
Anne Whateley is the name of a woman who is sometimes supposed to have been the intended wife of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 before he married Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare)
Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare. They were married in 1582. She outlived her husband by seven years...

. Most scholars believe that Whateley never existed, but that her name in a document concerning Shakespeare's marriage is merely a clerical error
Clerical error
A clerical error is an error on part of an office worker, often a secretary or personal assistant. It is a phrase which can also be used as an excuse to deflect blame away from specific individuals, such as high powered executives, and instead redirect it to the more anonymous clerical staff.A...

. However several writers on Shakespeare have taken the view that she was a real rival to Hathaway for Shakespeare's hand. She has also appeared in imaginative literature on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare authorship
Shakespeare authorship question
Image:ShakespeareCandidates1.jpg|thumb|alt=Portraits of Shakespeare and four proposed alternative authors.|Oxford, Bacon, Derby, and Marlowe have each been proposed as the true author...

 speculations. Shakespeare's biographer Russell A. Fraser describes her as "a ghost", "haunting the edges of Shakespeare's story". She has also been called "the first of the Shakespearean Dark Ladies".

Evidence

Her existence has been deduced from an entry in the Episcopal register at Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

 which states in Latin "Anno Domini 1582...Novembris...27 die eiusdem mensis. Item eodem die supradicto emanavit Licentia inter Wm Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton." The entry states that a marriage licence has been issued to Shakespeare and Anne Whateley to marry in the village of Temple Grafton
Temple Grafton
Temple Grafton is a village and civil parish in the Stratford district of Warwickshire, England, situated about east of Alcester and West of the county town of Warwick. The place name is misleading, the Knights Templar never having any association with the place but owing to a naming error made...

. The day afterwards, Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, friends of the Hathaway family from Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-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 Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...

, signed a surety
Surety
A surety or guarantee, in finance, is a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults...

 of £40 as a financial guarantee for the wedding of "William Shagspere and Anne Hathwey".

The entry in the register was discovered in the late nineteenth century by Reverend T.P. Wadley. Various explanations were offered. Initially it was assumed that Whateley was an alternative surname for Anne Hathaway herself. Wadley believed that it was probably an alias, used by Hathaway in order to keep the date of the marriage secret to obscure the fact that she was already pregnant. Another suggestion was that Anne Hathaway might legitimately have used the name, either because her father Richard Hathaway was in fact her step-father, her mother having previously been married to a man called Whateley, or because Anne herself may have previously been married to a man named Whateley. None of these suggestions gained support, since they contradicted other existing evidence.
The Whateley note is discussed in Sidney Lee
Sidney Lee
Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...

's 1898 book A Life of William Shakespeare. Lee argues that the "William Shakespeare" who is engaged to Whateley is probably a different person from the playwright, as there were "numerous William Shakespeares, who abounded in the diocese of Worcester". In 1905 Joseph William Gray in Shakespeare's Marriage gave a detailed argument for clerical error due to the existence of lawsuits involving Whateleys that were being written up by the same scribe. However in 1909 Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...

 in his book The Man Shakespeare ignored Gray's argument and dismissed Lee's suggestion that there were two William Shakespeares as wildly implausible. He insisted that these documents are evidence that Shakespeare was involved with two separate women. He intended to marry Anne Whateley, but, when this became known, he was immediately forced by Anne Hathaway's family to marry their relative, since he had already made her pregnant. Harris believed that Shakespeare despised his wife, and that his forced marriage was the spur to his creative work:

If Shakespeare had married Anne Whately he might never have gone to London or written a play. Shakespeare's hatred of his wife and his regret for having married her were alike foolish. Our brains are seldom the wisest part of us. It was well that he made love to Anne Hathaway; well, too, that he was forced to marry her; well, finally, that he should desert her. I am sorry he treated her badly and left her unsupplied with money; that was needlessly cruel; but it is just the kindliest men who have these extraordinary lapses; Shakespeare's loathing for his wife was measureless.


Some biographers, notably Ivor Brown
Ivor Brown
Ivor John Carnegie Brown was a British journalist and man of letters.-Biography:Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases, and his wife Jean Carnegie. At an early age he was sent to Britain, where he attended Suffolk...

 and Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

, followed Harris' lead, portraying Whateley as Shakespeare's true love. Brown argued that she was the Dark Lady of the sonnets. In 1970 Burgess wrote,
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 Shakespeares 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.


According to Stanley Wells
Stanley Wells
Stanley William Wells, CBE, is a Shakespeare scholar and Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.Wells took his first degree at University College, London, and was awarded an honorary DLitt by the University of Warwick in 2008...

 in the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, most modern scholars take the same view as Gray, that the name Whateley was "almost certainly the result of clerical error". It may have arisen because the clerk was also recording information about a tithe appeal by a vicar, which included a reference to a person named Whateley. Though there was a Whateley family in the area, no independent evidence has ever been found of the existence of an Anne Whateley in Temple Grafton or anywhere else nearby.

Authorship speculations

After Harris's initial argument a number of imaginative claims were made about Anne Whateley, most dramatically that she was the true author of Shakespeare's works. This argument was made by William Ross in his book The Story of Anne Whateley and William Shaxpere (1939), in which he asserted that Whateley was a nun who was his "lover and consort in their spiritual union". She was born in 1561, the daughter of the well-known seafarer Anthony Jenkinson
Anthony Jenkinson
Anthony Jenkinson was born at Market Harborough, Leicestershire. He was one of the first Britons to explore Muscovy and present day Russia. Jenkinson was a traveller and explorer on behalf of the Muscovy Company and the English crown. He also met Ivan the Terrible several times during his trips...

. She was living a secluded life among the nuns of the Order of St. Clare when she met Shakespeare. They fell in love, and Anne was about to leave the order to marry him when Hathaway revealed her pregnancy. Her authorship can be deduced from the sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...

, which she wrote as gifts to Shakespeare. They describe the history of her spiritual relationship with him. Hathaway is the Dark Lady of the sonnets, while Shakespeare himself is the Fair Youth. Their intimate friendship continued after his marriage to Hathaway; its deepening spirituality is explored in the later sonnets. Eventually the friendship was broken up by Hathaway's jealousy, and Shakespeare left for London. She wrote A Lover's Complaint
A Lover's Complaint
A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem published as an appendix to the original edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. It is given the title 'A Lover's Complaint' in the book, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609...

, which was appended to the sonnets, to express Anne Hathaway's point of view.

Whateley wished to dedicate the sonnets to Shakespeare, but wrote the dedication to Mr W.H. instead of "W.S", so that the identity of her lost love should remain mysterious. "W.H" was preferred because it was the initials of both her own surname and Hathaway's, implying that Shakespeare was, in a sense, both their husbands: Mr W and Mr H. According to Ross, "the initials therefore represent all three, and no better selection was possible". She gave him the full collection when he left for London, which explains the dedication to the "well-wishing adventurer in setting forth". She later wrote The Phoenix and the Turtle
The Phoenix and the Turtle
The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. It has also been called "the first great published metaphysical poem". The title "The...

to commemorate their spiritual union.

Ross emphasises that his discovery removes all suggestion of homoeroticism from the sonnets, and thus "the taint of perversion, so odious to all lovers of Shakespeare, has been dissipated". He has very little to say about the plays, but states that Whateley probably wrote Shakespeare's plays to help him make a living. Nevertheless he describes the playwriting as a "collaboration", though Shakespeare's role was probably "passive". Ross portrays Shakespeare himself as a talented writer, a worthy assistant to Whateley's "genius". After Anne's death he wrote "The Twenty-First and Last Book of the Ocean, to Cynthia", hitherto attributed to Walter Raleigh
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England....

.

Ross argues that the sonnets reveal that Whateley also knew Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

 and helped him to write The Shepherd's Calendar. She was also the sole author of The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...

and Amoretti
Amoretti
Amoretti was a sonnet cycle written by Edmund Spenser in the 16th century. The cycle describes his courtship and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle....

. In the 1580s she met and helped Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...

 and Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...

, probably inspiring the sonnet revival of the period. The poem Hero and Leander
Hero and Leander (poem)
Hero and Leander is a mythological poem by Christopher Marlowe. After Marlowe's death it was completed by George Chapman. Henry Petowe published an alternate completion to the poem.-Publication:...

, usually attributed to Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

, describes her relationship with Shakespeare. She also wrote Marlowe's plays. After her death in 1600 her unpublished works were published in the book Poetical Rhapsody, attributed to "A.W."

Ross's speculations were developed by his friend W.J. Fraser Hutcheson in his book Shakespeare's Other Anne (1950). He follows Ross's claim that Whateley's father was Jenkinson, adding that Whateley's real name was Elizabeth Anne Beck and that her mother was an Anne Beck who died in childbirth. She used the name Whateley because of the household in which she grew up. Falling in love with Shakespeare, she was broken-hearted when he married Hathaway. She fled to Italy, where she acquired the knowledge that would later be used in Shakespeare's Italian plays. Many of her works were published under the name "Ignotus". Hutcheson also claims to have identified a portrait of Whateley, the work of Sofonisba Anguissola
Sofonisba Anguissola
Sofonisba Anguissola was an Italian painter of the Renaissance.-The Anguissola family:...

, the several copies of which attest to the esteem in which she was held. Hutcheson suggests that Whateley is portrayed as Rosalind and other female characters in Shakespeare's plays. While insisting that she inspired the plays, he does not explicitly assert that she wrote them.

Neither Ross nor Hutcheson provide documentary evidence to support their theories. Ross relies on his readings of the poems while Hutcheson finds coded messages in texts and images. The portrait he identifies as Whateley is generally believed to depict the courtier and poet Girolamo Casio. It is attributed to Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio...

, rather than Anguissola, and its likely depiction of a member of the Casio family was accepted even in 1908.

Proponents of other alternative authorship theories have also used Frank Harris' version of the Anne Whateley story, typically to portray Shakespeare as a duplicitous scapegrace, traits which are supposed to disqualify him as an author of great poetry. Robert Frazer, who believed that The Earl of Derby
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby was an English nobleman. Stanley inherited a prominent social position that was both dangerous and unstable, as his mother was heir to Queen Elizabeth I under the Third Succession Act, a position that fell to his deceased brother's oldest daughter in 1596,...

 wrote the canon, argued that Shakespeare actually married Whateley, not Hathaway.

Literature

Anne has also appeared in imaginative literature about Shakespeare, typically portrayed as Shakespeare's true love, in contrast to a less appealing Anne Hathaway. Anne appears in Hubert Osborne
Hubert Osborne
Hubert 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 play The Good Men Do (1917), which dramatises a meeting between the newly widowed Anne Hathaway and Anne Whateley. Hathaway is depicted as viciously shrewish and spiteful, in contrast to her noble-minded former rival. Both women portray Shakespeare's life as an actor and playwright as morally degrading, Whateley insisting that he would have been saved from this shameful profession had he married her. Ivor Brown
Ivor Brown
Ivor John Carnegie Brown was a British journalist and man of letters.-Biography:Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases, and his wife Jean Carnegie. At an early age he was sent to Britain, where he attended Suffolk...

 also published a play, William's Other Anne (1947) in which Shakespeare returns from London to meet Anne Whateley eight years after their broken engagement, just as Anne is about to marry a priggish schoolmaster. Shakespeare and Anne are reconciled, and Shakespeare saves his father from bankruptcy at the hands of Anne's vengeful mother. The play was broadcast on BBC television in 1953 starring Irene Worth
Irene Worth
Irene Worth, CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the English and American theatre. -Early life:...

 as Anne and John Gregson
John Gregson
John Gregson was an English actor.He was born Harold Thomas Gregson, of Irish descent, and grew up in Wavertree, Liverpool, where he was educated at Greenbank Road primary school, later St Francis Xavier School...

 as Shakespeare.

She is mentioned in Late Mister Shakespeare (1998) by Robert Nye
Robert Nye
Robert Nye FRSL is an English poet who has also written novels and plays as well as stories for children. His bestselling novel Falstaff published in 1976 was described by Michael Ratcliffe as 'one of the most ambitious and seductive novels of the decade,' and went on to win both The Hawthornden...

, a novel in which an elderly actor who knew Shakespeare in his youth reconstructs the poet's life. He speculates about whether or not she actually existed.

She also appears in Graeme Johnstone's novel The Playmakers (2005) in which she is portrayed as an innocent girl with a "sweet nature", "perfect figure, perfect teeth...perfectly shaped nose, clear blue eyes and creamy skin". She is devastated by the discovery that her beloved William has made Hathaway pregnant. She and William are soulmates who plan to work together to improve William's father's leather-making business. Anne hangs herself with a leather rope after the manipulative Hathaway forces Shakespeare to abandon her. The image of his lost love haunts Shakespeare throughout his life. He leaves for London to become a front man for Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

's playwriting. He eventually finds a new love who is the mirror image of Whateley.

Laurie Lawlor's novel The Two Loves of Will Shakespeare (2006) depicts a teenage Shakespeare who seduces willing girls with his wit and charm. He is asked by his friend Richard Field
Richard Field (printer)
Richard Field was a printer and publisher in Elizabethan London, best known for his close association with the poems of William Shakespeare, with whom he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.-Life and career:...

 to help him woo the beautiful and devout Anne Whateley, but falls in love with her himself. He tries to reform his ways to become worthy of her, but can't resist his sexual urges, getting Hathaway pregnant.

In Karen Harper
Karen Harper
Karen Harper is an historical fiction and contemporary fiction author. She is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author.-Writing career:...

's novel Mistress Shakespeare (2008) Anne Whateley is the central character. She is once more portrayed as Shakespeare's true love. She narrates the story of her life as the dusky-skinned daughter of a Stratford businessman and an Italian acrobat. She and Shakespeare are married in a "handfast
Handfasting
Handfasting is a traditional European ceremony of betrothal or wedding. It usually involved the tying or binding of the right hands of the bride and groom with a cord or ribbon for the duration of the wedding ceremony.-Etymology:...

" ceremony which is known only to them. In London she carries on a secret parallel marriage with him while Hathaway and her children stay in Stratford. She inspires many of his works and shares his feelings, triumphs and fears.
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