[135] Halliwell-Phillips is in error in stating that Gilbert was a London haberdasher.
CHAPTER VIII
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare was thirty-seven when he became head of the family in 1601. His previous life must have been a stirring one, though we know only too little about it. Still, certain inferences may be soundly based on known facts. He must have been educated at the Stratford Grammar School, free to the sons of the burgesses, a high-class school for the time. Its head-master had a salary then double that of the Master of Eton. A taste for learning had certainly imbued William's spirit even in early years, but he doubtless warmly shared in the difficulties of his father's life, and knew the anxieties of debt, the oppression of the strong hand—the "cares of bread," as Mazzini calls it—and the sickening weariness of the law's uncertainty and delay. Most of his relatives were farmers, and his actions show that he would gladly have followed the same course of life, with the relaxation of field sports, of course, if he could have attained his desire. But the genius within him was to be welded by fiery trials, and he was driven on a course that seemed at discord with his nature, and yet led to its own fulfilment. In the enthusiasm of a first love, he married early, not, it must emphatically be noted, over-early for the custom of the period, when the means of support were assured, but over-early, as it would then have been considered, solely from a financial standpoint. He had no assured means of support. His hope of securing his inheritance of Asbies was fading. He did not marry an heiress. Many vials of wrath have been poured on the devoted head of Anne Hathaway by those who do not consider all sides of the question. Harrowing pictures of the relations of young Shakespeare and "his aged wife" are drawn, even by such writers as Dr. Furnivall. Now, it is a well-known fact that almost all very young men fancy girls older than themselves, and it is an artistic fact that a woman under thirty does look younger, and not older, than a man of the same age, if she has led a natural and simple life. It is much more than likely that the well-grown, responsible eldest son of anxious John Shakespeare looked quite as old as Anne Hathaway, seven years his senior, especially if she was slight and fair and delicate, as there is every reason to believe she was. And the masterful spirit marks its own age when it goes forth to woo, and determines to win the first real fancy of his life. It must not be forgotten, in association with the situation, that Richard Hathaway of Shottery (for whom John Shakespeare had stood surety in 1566) had made his will on September 1, 1581, and died between that time and July 9, 1582, when it was proved, leaving his daughter Agnes, or Anne, the small but very common marriage portion of £6 13s. 4d. A break had come into her home life; doubtless she went off to visit some friends, and the young lover felt he could not live without his betrothed, and determined to clinch the matter.
Much unnecessarily unfavourable comment has been made on the peculiar circumstances of the marriage. People forget the complexity of religious and social customs of the time, the binding force of betrothals, the oppression of Catholics. In Robert Arden's settlement of July 17, 1550, he speaks of his daughter Agnes as the wife of Thomas Stringer, though she did not marry him until October 15, 1550.[136] The perplexity is increased by the entry of the marriage license of a William Shakespeare and Anne Whately of Templegrafton, the day previous to that of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway of Stratford, November 28, 1582.[137] It all seems possible to explain. Travelling was inconvenient on November roads; Will set out for the license alone, as bridegrooms were often wont to do, when they could afford the expense of a special license. He might give his own name, and that of his intended wife, at a temporary address. The clerk made an error in the spelling, which might have been corrected; but meanwhile discovered that Shakespeare was under age, was acting without his parents—that the bride was not in her own home, and that no marriage settlement was in the air. No risk might be run by an official in such a case; the license was stayed; sureties must be found for a penalty in case of error. So poor Will would have to find, in post-haste, the nearest friends he could find to trust him and his story. And who so likely to ask as Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, friends of the Hathaways—the one supervisor, and the other witness to the will of Anne's father Richard? They might have been at Worcester market with him.
They were both "good men" in the financial sense, and their bond for £40 was accepted at the Bishop of Worcester's Registry in support of the assertion that there was no impediment against this marriage by ground of consanguinity or pre-contract. If this were all right, and if the bride's friends were willing, by which must have been intended her mother and brothers, then the marriage might be solemnized. It was clearly a question in which the woman's friends were the proper parties to summon. The bond of John Shakespeare would not then have been good for £40, and the would-be bridegroom had nothing of his own. The place where they were married has not yet been discovered; it is quite possible to have been at "a private mass," as was the case in another marriage with a similar bond at the same registry.[138] But they were married somehow, and William probably brought home his fatherless bride to his father's house, and there her little portion of £6 13s. 4d. might go the further. But a wife and a family of three children sorely handicapped a penniless youth, not yet of age, bred to no trade, heir to no fortune, whose father was himself in trouble.
The after-date gossip of wild courses, deer-stealing, and combats with Sir Thomas Lucy, are, I think, quite unfounded on fact. I have discussed this fully in my article in the Athenæum[139] on "Sir Thomas Lucy," and in my chapter on "The Traditional Sir Thomas and the Real."[140] It is much more than likely Shakespeare was concerned in the religious turmoil of the times, was somewhat suspected, and was indignant at the cruel treatment of Edward Arden, head of the house, the first victim of the Royal Commission[141] in 1583.
Eventually he went to London, probably with introductions to many people supposed to be able and willing to help him. There were both Ardens and Shakespeares in London, and many Warwickshire men, and they thought that some place might be found even for him, the landless, unapprenticed, untrained son of a straitened father. But there were so many in a similar case. It is evident he succeeded in nothing that he hoped or wished for. His own works prove that. He was unable to act the gentleman, but was determined to play the man. He may have dwelt with, and certainly frequently visited, his old Stratford friend Richard Field, the apprentice, son-in-law, and successor of Vautrollier, the great printer. In his shop he learned not only much technical detail of his art, but refreshed his education—or, rather, went through another course, reading with a new inspiration and a kindled enthusiasm.