William Shakespeare\u2019s marriage to Anne Hathaway may have been happier than previously thought, according to new research. <\/p>\n
It has been long believed that the playwright left his wife behind when he moved to London, but new findings from the University of Bristol suggest that the couple were living together in London for some period of time between 1600 and 1610. <\/p>\n
Shakespeare married Hathaway in 1582 and the couple shared three children. Experts have long thought that Shakespeare then moved to London from his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, leaving his family behind. <\/p>\n
Now, a long forgotten letter may turn that theory on its head, according to Matthew Steggle, a professor of English at Bristol University. <\/p>\n
The fragments of the letter, addressed to \u201cgood Mrs Shakspaire,\u201d (the name\u2019s spelling at the time) were found sewn into the binding of a 1,000-page theological book in the city of Hereford, about 50 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. <\/p>\n
Although the letter\u2019s writer hasn\u2019t been identified, they refer to a fatherless apprentice called John Butts. <\/p>\n
Steggle found just one person by Butts\u2019 name who fit the criteria and lived in London at that time. <\/p>\n
The letter writer accuses the husband of \u201cMrs Shakspaire\u201d of withholding money from Butts and asks her for the funds. In what may be a reply from Hathaway herself, the recipient stands by her husband and refuses to settle the claim. <\/p>\n
The letter also refers to a \u201cShakspaire\u201d couple who lived in a place called Trinity Lane. Out of the four couples living in London with the surname, Steggle believes only the playwright and his wife could have afforded to live in the relatively prosperous area. <\/p>\n
Steggle said the discovery opens the path to more revelations about the playwright\u2019s life. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know so little about exactly where Shakespeare lives in London, so it\u2019s another sort of data point for that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s another kind of anchor on where he might have been living, how he might have been, and how he might have been living in his London career.\u201d <\/p>\n
As for challenging views about Shakespeare\u2019s relationship with his wife, Steggle credits a shift in attitudes towards women and greater academic work in this area. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s this narrative, like the film \u2018Shakespeare in Love,\u2019 where he\u2019s got this wife who\u2019s this kind of distant encumbrance in Stratford, and (Shakespeare is) having all these romantic love affairs in London separately,\u201d he said, referring to the Oscar-winning 1998 movie. <\/p>\n
The letter is a \u201cgame-changer\u201d that suggests Hathaway was not absent from her husband\u2019s London life, but present and engaged in his financial and social networks, argues Steggle. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason it\u2019s gone unnoticed for so long is that it\u2019s not in London\u2026 where there\u2019s been a lot of quite intensive searching for Shakespeare,\u201d Steggle said of the letter\u2019s discovery. <\/p>\n
Looking outside the city \u2013 and in the binding of books printed by the Bard\u2019s old friend \u2013 could point the way \u201ctowards the possibility of more discoveries.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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William Shakespeare\u2019s marriage to Anne Hathaway may have been happier than previously thought, according to new research. It has been long believed that the playwright left his wife behind when he moved to London, but new findings from the University of Bristol suggest that the couple were living together in London for some period of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}