Shakespeare

This informal contract remained firmly in Shakespeare’s consciousness. There are many allusions to it in his plays, ranging from Claudio’s plea in Measure for Measure that “she is fast my wife” to Olivia’s demand to Sebastian in Twelfth Night that he “Plight me the full assurance of your faith.” It would also have affected the Elizabethan understanding of dramatic action. When Troilus and Cressida plight themselves, Pandarus exclaims: “Go to a bargaine made, seale it, seale it ile bee the witnes here I hold your hand, here my Cozens” (1768-70). He is effectively sealing a “hand-fasting,” thus rendering Cressida’s subsequent unfaithfulness more execrable. When Orlando declares to Rosalind, in the guise of Ganymede, “I take thee Rosalind for wife” he is committing himself much further and more deeply than he supposes. It is a social custom, now long since discarded and forgotten, but it had profound implications for Shakespeare and for Shakespeare’s audience.

There was also a custom of exchanging rings during this informal ceremony (other pre-contract gifts included a bent sixpence and a pair of gloves), a charming ritual which anticipates a no less charming “find” in the early nineteenth century. In 1810 the wife of a Stratford labourer was working in a field, next to the churchyard, when she found a heavily encrusted ring. It was of gold and, when it was cleaned, it was discovered to bear the initials “W S” separated by a lover’s knot. The dating is that of the sixteenth century, and a local antiquarian believed that “no other Stratfordian of that period [was] so likely to own such a ring as Shakespeare.”² There is one other intriguing connection. Shakespeare may have owned a seal-ring, but his will has no seal. The phrase “in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal” has been altered; the word “seal” has been struck out, as if Shakespeare had lost his ring before signing the document.

The “cottage” in which William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway are popularly supposed to have courted was in fact a relatively large farmhouse constructed of timber and of wattle-and-daub (hazel twigs and dried mud can still be seen embedded within the walls) with rooms at different levels, low ceilings and uneven floors. Its timber construction means that it is a box of noise, so courtship would have been untenable as well as uncomfortable. From the upstairs bedchambers you can hear everything in the rooms below and, through the cracks in the floorboards, see everything as well. It was fortunate that there were meadows, and a forest, nearby. He may not have visited her there in the crucial period, in any case, since after the death of her father in 1581 she went to live with her mother’s family in the nearby village of Temple Grafton. She may have wished to remove herself from the company of her stepmother and four surviving children. The absence of paternal watchfulness, however, may have hastened the fruition of the match.

There is one odd incident concerning the wider family in this year of betrothal and marriage. In September 1582, John Shakespeare attended a council meeting in the guildhall in order to vote for his friend, John Sadler, as mayor of Stratford. Sadler declined to serve, on the grounds of ill-health (he died six months later), but John Shakespeare’s reappearance after an absence of almost six years is somewhat puzzling. It may have been a sudden decision, or a desire to be seen to support an old friend, but it may conceivably be connected with his other appearance in the public records at this time. Three months previously he had entered a petition against four men – Ralph Cawdrey the butcher among them-“for fear of death and mutilation of his limbs.” This was a ritual formula and need not be taken as token of a literal threat to John Shakespeare’s life, but the circumstances are obscure. It could not have been a partisan religious quarrel, since Cawdrey himself was a staunch Catholic. It is more likely to have been some kind of trade or financial dispute. One of the other men, against whom John Shakespeare complained, was a local dyer. By attending the council meeting John Shakespeare may have hoped to revive something of his old authority.