A Wife by Any Other Name...

Shakespeare was married to both Ann Hathaway and Agnes Gardner of Shottery. At the same time!

The only evidence that Richard Hathaway alias Gardner of Shottery had a daughter called Ann is a reference in his will to a daughter called Agnes. Scholars have demonstrated convincingly that in this period Agnes and Ann were simply treated as versions of the same name, pointing out dozens of examples where Agnes, pronounced 'Annis', gradually becomes 'Ann'. Richard Hathaway left a sheep to a great-niece he calls Agnes, though according to the parish record she was actually christened Annys; in 1600 she was buried as Ann. Theatre manager Philip Henslowe called his wife Agnes in his will but she was buried as Ann. Ann's brother Bartholomew called a daughter Annys, but she was buried as Ann. The curate William Gilbert alias Higgs who wrote Hathaway's will married Agnes Lyncian, but she was buried as Ann Gilbert. This is not simply serendipitous. Agnes was the name of a fourth-century virgin martyr of the kind whose lurid and preposterous adventures are the stuff of The Golden Legend, justly ridiculed by protestant reformers. Ann (or Hannah) was the solid biblical name of the Redeemer's grandmother. It is only to be expected that as protestantism gained hearts and minds Agnes would be silently driven out by Ann. We may accept that the child born Agnes Hathaway grew up to be Ann Shakespeare. [Link]

Unstable Bacon Should Not Be Trusted

There's an old joke that the plays of William Shakespeare were not written by him, but by someone else of the same name. The notion that Shakespeare was not the author of the works attributed to him originated in a log cabin in Tallmadge, Ohio.

The story begins, a little unexpectedly, with an odd and frankly unlikely American woman named Delia Bacon. Bacon was born in 1811 in the frontier country of Ohio, into a large family and a small log cabin.

Delia was bright and apparently very pretty but not terribly stable.

Gradually, for reasons that are not clear, she became convinced that Francis Bacon, her distinguished namesake, was the true author of the works of William Shakespeare. Though she had no known genealogical connection to Francis Bacon, the correspondence of names was almost certainly more than coincidental.

In 1852 she travelled to England and embarked on a long and fixated quest to prove William Shakespeare a fraud. [Link]

He Knew How to Write a Good Curse

The curse that William Shakespeare had engraved on his tomb ("Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare,/ To digg the dust encloased heare./ Bleste be y^e man y^t spares thes stones,/ And curst be he y^t moves my bones.") actually worked.

Philip Schwyzer, a senior lecturer at Exeter University, said: "Shakespeare had an unusual obsession with burial and a fear of exhumation. The stern inscription on the slab has been at least partially responsible for the fact that there have been no successful projects to open the grave."

Anxiety about the mistreatment or exhumation of corpses is found in at least 16 of his 37 plays, with this concern often being more pronounced than the fear of death itself. [Link]

[Photo credit: Shakespeare's cursed grave by James Macdonald]

Don't Crawl on Shakespeare's Grave

The Washington Post has a nice piece today about a spot I'd like to visit one of these days: Shakespeare's resting place inside Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-Upon-Avon.

"I thought he was buried at Westminster Abbey," [Cath Blann] said, referring to the London landmark where Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling and other giants of English literature lie. Maybe, she said, the British take some of their history for granted because they are "surrounded by it all the time."

As she spoke, her giggling son began to crawl under the brass railing, and she gently pulled him back. "Aidan, darling," she said, "don't crawl on Shakespeare's grave." [Link]

[Photo credit: Shakespeare's grave by Carleton Atwater]

Bard Beyond Belief?

A Canadian man thinks genealogy will help prove that a portrait he owns is an authentic sketch of William Shakespeare.

The Sanders Portrait, believed to have been sketched in 1603 by a friend of a then 39-year-old Shakespeare, is the property of Ottawa resident Lloyd Sullivan, 73, who says his heritage can be traced back to the portrait-painter John Sanders.

The retired engineer has put his portrait through tree-ring dating of the wood it was sketched on, radiographic testing of the canvas and radiocarbon testing of the paper label on the back of the painting. He also tracked his genealogy back to 1607, which he says makes it almost certain that his painting is authentic.

All that's left is to trace his heritage into the 1500s and to date the ink of the painting. But Sullivan was told to wait for the technology to improve so a smaller sample of the painting could be used.

"If the ink dates back to that time, it proves that my ancestor knew when Shakespeare was born, knew when he died," Sullivan said. [Link]

It's too bad his ancestor didn't use some of that ink to write down when Shakespeare was born, because no one else seems to know.

Is This a Whitewash Which I See Before Me?

From (Aberdeen, Scotland) Grampian TV:

Deeside community campaign to clear Macbeth's name

15/09/2005 17:38

A Deeside community's leading a campaign to clear the name of one of Scotland's most infamous characters.

The people of Lumphanan are rallying to the aid of Macbeth, who was killed near their village - and who they claim has been disgraced by Shakespeare.

The gravestones at St Finnan's Church in Lumphanan tell stories dating back hundreds of years.

And yet, there is no monument or marker to this cemetery's most famous resident.

[snip]

Macbeth's name was immortalised by Shakespeare, who's tragedy has been performed on stage and the big screen.

But the people of Lumphanan believe the murderous monarch portrayed in the play is far removed from the truth.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]