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Most historians agree that William Shakespeare -- actor, playwright and poet -- was a single person for whom we have considerable historical evidence. (Note that Elizabethan English did not use standardised spelling; although his surname most commonly appears as Shakespeare, it frequently appears as Shakespere too, and sometimes as Shakespear, Shaksper or even Shaxberd).
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker, and of Mary Arden. His baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year. Because baptisms were performed within a few days of birth, tradition has settled on April 23 as his birthday. It provides a convenient symmetry: he died on that day in 1616, and, perhaps appropriately for a playwright considered to be England's greatest, it is also the Feast Day of Saint George, patron saint of England.
Shakespeare's father, prosperous at the time of William's birth, was prosecuted for participating in the black market in wool, and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence exists that both sides of the family had Roman Catholic sympathies.
As the son of a prominent town official, William Shakespeare probably attended the Stratford grammar school, which provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. There is no evidence that his formal education extended beyond this.
Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, on November 28, 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford. Two neighbors of Anne, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony: Anne was three months pregnant. After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London literary scene.
On May 26, 1583 Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptised at Stratford. A son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptized soon after on February 2, 1585.
By 1592 Shakespeare had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as "an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicised line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" which Shakespeare used in Henry VI, part 3.)
In 1596 Hamnet died; he was buried on August 11, 1596. Because of the similarities of their names, some suspect that his death inspired Shakespeare's The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
By 1598 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and appeared top of a list of actors in Every man in his Humour written by Ben Jonson.
Shakespeare became an actor, writer and finally part-owner of an acting company known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men — the company took its name, like others of the period, from its aristocratic sponsor, the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as The King's Men.
In 1604, Shakespeare acted as a matchmaker for his landlord's daughter. Legal documents from 1612, when the case was brought to trial, show that in 1604, Shakespeare was a tenant of Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker [a maker of ornamental headdresses] in the northwest quarter of London. Mountjoy's apprentice Stephen Belott wanted to marry Mountjoy's daughter. Shakespeare was enlisted as a go-between, to help negotiate the details of the dowry. On Shakespeare's assurances, the couple married. Eight years later, Belott sued his father-in-law for delivering only part of the dowry. Shakespeare was called to testify, but remembered little of the circumstances.
Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew rich enough during his stay in London years to buy a property in Blackfriars, London and own the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place.
In 1609 he published his sonnets, love poems variously addressed: most, replete with homoerotic innuendo, to a youth (or 'fair lord'); the remainder to a 'dark lady'.
Shakespeare retired in about 1611. His retirement was not entirely without controversy. He was drawn into a legal quarrel regarding the enclosure of common lands. (Enclosure enabled land to be converted to pasture for sheep, but removed it as a resource for the poor.) Shakespeare had a financial interest in the land, and to the chagrin of some, he took a neutral position, making sure only that his own income from the land was protected.
In the last few weeks of Shakespeare's life, the man who was to marry his younger daughter Judith -- a tavern-keeper named Thomas Quiney -- was charged in the local church court with "fornication." A woman named Margaret Wheeler had given birth to a child and claimed it was Quiney's; she and the child both died soon after. Quiney was disgraced, and Shakespeare revised his will to ensure that Judith's interest in his estate was protected from possible malfeasance on Quiney's part.
Shakespeare died in 1616, on April 23 — perhaps part of the reason behind the tradition of his birthday being the same day. He remained married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters Susannah and Judith. Susannah married Dr John Hall, and later became the subject of a court case.
William Shakespeare is buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. His grave carries his well-known epitaph:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
But cursed be he that moves my bones.
Popular legend claims that unpublished works by Shakespeare may lie inside his tomb, but no-one has ever verified these claims, perhaps for fear of the curse included in the quoted epitaph.
