Summer Days in Shakespeare Land

sty marriage-Shakespeare's wild young day

not exist. It is claimed that Shakespeare was married at Temple Grafton, Luddington, Billesley, and elsewhere, but no shadow of evidence can be adduced for any of these places. All we know is that on November 28th, 1582, Fulke Sandells and John Richardson, farmers, of Stratford, who had been respectively one of the "supervisors" and one of the witnesses of Richard Hathaway's will, went to Worcester and there entered into a "Bond in ￡40 against Impediments, to defend and save harmless the right reverend father in God, John, Lord Bushop of Worcester" from any complaint or process that might by any possibility arise out of his licensing the marriage with only once asking the banns. These two bondsmen declared that "William Shagspere, one thone partie and Anne Hathaway of Stratford" (Shottery was and is a hamlet in the parish of Stratford-on-Avon) "in the dioces of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize marriage together." This document, discovered in the W

was born, for we see in the register of baptis

sanna, daughter to

were friends of the late Richard Hathaway, and were determined that young Shakespeare should not get out of marrying the girl he had-wronged, shall we

en nearly eight years older. Anne probably seduced him; for woman is more frequentl

es for us the mystery of the bond re the marriage of Anne Hathaway and the license to marry Anne Whateley by suggesting that both names are correct and refer to the same persons. He says Anne Hathaway married a Whateley and that it was as a widow she married William Shakespeare,

nne "to be paide unto her at the daie of her marriage." She was a single young woman then, and yet acco

of secret worship. But there is no basis for forming any theory as to Shakespeare's religious convictions. A yet more favourite assumption is that Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway went through the ceremony of "hand-fasting," a formal betrothal which, although not a complete marriage and not carrying with it the privil

ndon. At the close of January 1585, his twin son and daughter, Hamnet and Judith were born, and they were baptized at Stratford church on February 2nd. Whether he assisted his father in his business of

utcher, and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy he exercise

and as a member of the town council. In 1569 two such troupes, who called themselves the "Queen's servants," and "servants of the Earl of Warwick," gave performances before the corporation and were paid out of the public monies; a forecast of the municipal theatre! And no doubt John Shakespe

iged to mortgage some of the property that had been his wife's, and now he was deprived of his alderman's gown. William about this time, whether

hed. In 1587, Nicholas Lane, one of his father's creditors, sought to distrain upon John Shakespeare's goods, but the sheriff's officers returned the doleful tale of "no effects," and so he had his t

rted with the wilder young men of the town and went on drinking bouts with them. Sometimes, with them, he raided the neighbouring parks and killed the deer and poached other game; and the old tradition hints that on these occasions the oth

nd in 1587, about this time when Shakespeare left home, had set up in business for himself and become a member of the Stationers' Company. Shakespeare may quite reasonably have sought his help or advice; and certainly Field six year

nd reaching town with them, gradually drifted into regular employment at one of the only

d, Beaconsfield and through High Wycombe and Uxbridge, 95 miles; or he might have chosen to go by Ettington, Pillerton Priors, Sunrising Hill, Wroxton and Banbury, through Aynho, Bicester, Aylesbury, Tring and Watford to London, 92? miles. Such an one as he would probably first go to London by way of Oxford, for, like Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure," he would doubtless think it "a city of light." There are tr

nwode" as it is styled in old re

t town that

hatever may once have been its

and is said to have formerly been even larger. If, however, we refer to old maps of the district, it will he found that, for some unexplained reason, the ancient forthright Roman road had gone out of use, and that instead of proceeding direct, along the Akeman Street, the wayfarers of old went a circuitous course, through Grendon Underwood. When this deviation took place does not appear; but it was obviously one of long standing. The first available map showing the roads of the district is that by Emanuel Bowen, 1756, in which the Akeman Street is not shown; the only roa

s down to us through John Aubr

in Bucks-I thinke it was Midsomer night that he happened to lye there-which is the roade from L

owe, son of the rector, born at Grendon, March 29th, 1612, died

adition points, is not now occupied, and is, in fact, in a very dilapidated condition, occasional floorboards, and even some of the stairs, being missing. Where the wearied guests of long ago rested, broody hens are set by t