Although few records exist for Shakespeare’s youth, a fair amount of information has survived about his father, a glove-maker who also held a number of public offices over a twenty-year period, ranging from borough ale-taster to alderman (like a city council member) to high bailiff (the equivalent of mayor). Stratford was a market center for the county of Warwickshire in the rural heartland of England and a major center for the wool trade, England’s most profitable product, so holding the position of high baliff was an important marker of respect and influence.
Records of his business dealings and legal transactions indicate that John Shakespeare became a prosperous man through buying and selling wool, hides, leather, and land, as well as investing in property that he leased. He was twice fined for usury, meaning he charged interest on loans greater than the law allowed. His ability to lend large sums of money in the 1570s (£220, the equivalent of tens of thousands of pounds) indicates his success as a businessman.
About 1577, when William was 13, John Shakespeare suffered financial setbacks and ceased to play a part in local government. In 1575, John Shakespeare was wealthy enough to buy two houses, but by 1577 he had stopped attending council meetings, although he was an alderman. In 1578, he mortgaged a property of his wife’s and sold her share in another. Later, he faced various fines and lost his position as alderman. In 1592, he was listed among those who failed to attend church for fearre of process for debtte
, although other reasons for church avoidance may be possible.
Some scholars assert that John Shakespeare’s wool trade prospered from the mid-1580s onward, which may have supplied William’s funding for his purchase of a share in the Lord Chamberlain’s men. Some speculation exists that ties William’s move to London to the family’s thriving wool business.
In 1596, John Shakespeare applied for and was granted a coat of arms, which made him and his family members of the gentry. In 1597, William bought the splendid house New Place on the main street of Stratford. It seems likely that William’s success as a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in London allowed him to restore some of his father’s fortunes.
Some doubts exist about John Shakespeare’s religion, specifically about whether he truly converted to the Church of England as was required by law in 16th century England. In 1757, a six-page document with his signature on each page was found in the rafters of the Henley Street house in which William was born and the family lived for decades. It is a Catholic testament of faith. The document was examined at the time by the scholar Edmund Malone and he asserted it was a Tudor document, but doubted it belong to the playwright’s father. The original document was subsequently lost and most scholars came to believe it a forgery. However, in the 20th century, versions of similar documents with identical wording were discovered, one in Spanish and another printed version in English from 1634 of a testament written by a Spanish cardinal. John’s signature, combined with these other copies of similar testaments, seems to indicate that John Shakespeare’s failure to attend church in the early 1590s may have been because he wanted to avoid taking Holy Communion in a Protestant church.
John Shakespeare died in 1601 in the same town in which he’d been born and lived.
Shakespeare’s mother was born Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do landowner in a lesser branch of an aristocratic family. The family gave its name to the nearby Forest of Arden, the setting of Shakespeare’s
She married John Shakespeare when she was about 20 years old and bore him eight children. Little else is known about her, and no portrait of her has been identified. It is typical of the period that, though many references to John Shakespeare’s business and legal activities survive, only the date of Mary Shakespeare’s burial (9 September 1608) was recorded. She left no will.
- Joan, born 1558, died before 1569.
- Margaret, born 1562, died 1563 (aged 5 months).
- William, born 1564, died 1616.
- Gilbert, born 1566, haberdasher, died 1612. (A haberdasher sells hats, clothes, thread, ribbons, etc.)
- Joan, born 1569, married William Hart, died 1646. William left his sister
all his wearing Apparrell
and the house with the appurtenances in Stratford wherein she dwelleth. - Anne, born 1571, died 1579.
- Richard, born 1574, occupation unknown, died 1613.
- Edmund, born 1580,
player
, died 1607.