The Late Mr Shakespeare

Chapter Fifteen

What this book is doing

Was there really a sign over John Shakespeare's shop saying BUTCHER & WHITTAWER?

Of course not. Well, it's highly unlikely, to say the least.

But it's made you think, hasn't it? I made you remember it.

That's what Pickleherring is about. That's what this book is doing.

I make you remember certain things I tell you about the late great Mr William Shakespeare and those round about him. I want you to think for yourself about all of them.

For instance, take that matter of Shakespeare's mother and what she may have done to him. Perhaps she did awaken her son's first passions. Perhaps she did not, perhaps she did no such thing. What is certain is that Shakespeare was precocious in what he has Hamlet call 'country matters', and someone must have taken him in hand. He was only eighteen years old when he came to marry. His bride was eight years his senior. And their first child, Susanna, was born less than six months after the date of the marriage.

I have heard it said that WS married an older woman. But the truth is that Anne Hathaway married a younger man. The average age of marriage for women in parishes in the Forest of Arden in the period from 1575 to 1599 was 26.3 years old. The average age for men was 29.7. So while Anne was exactly punctual to the nuptial pattern, Will was eleven years early. Think it out for yourself. Then read Venus and Adonis over again.

It's wonderful what you can prove with the facts in parish registers.

Besides which, BUTCHER & WHITTAWER is only philosophically true.

Though I believe myself that John Shakespeare was more likely a glover. Or a dealer in skins, and in wool perhaps. And in timber and in barley and in leather.

And, later, without question, more than a bit of a usurer. (I'll be coming to that.)