Anne Hathaway

“ For my part I do not see that any excuse is needed: if Shakespeare had married Anne Whately he might never have gone to London or written a play. Shakespeare's hatred of his wife and his regret for having married her were alike foolish. Our brains are seldom the wisest part of us. It was well that he made love to Anne Hathaway ”

“ Seventeen years ago, at the age of eighteen, Shakespeare had made a hasty and ill-assorted marriage. Anne Hathaway, his senior in years, his inferior in position, was no fit mate for the impetuous, ambitious youth. A father at nineteen, with neither employment nor source of income, he had chafed and fretted for five years against the consequences of his own rash folly: at twenty-three, he found the position intolerable. He quitted Stratford, and had never returned, save for brief and flying visits. ”

“ The fair Clara remained buried in thought for some time after the departure of Anne Hathaway.
At length she arose from her seat, and her eye fell upon the sonnet she had received from Martin. "The verse is indeed beautiful," she said. "Happy, happy Anne, how much is thy lot to be envied! In thy rank in life there is little impediment to the affections. Thou lovest and art beloved again: there is no drawback in regard to inequality, or matching in degree. The village lad loves and chooses his mate as the turtle, unembarrassed by wealth or worldly interest. ”

“ To Anne Hathaway, I have little doubt, were addressed, in his early morn of love, three sonnets playing on the author's name, which are hardly good enough to have been his work at any time; certainly none too good to have been the work of his boyhood. And I have met with no conjecture on the point that bears greater likelihoods of truth, than that another three, far different in merit, were addressed, much later in life, to the same object. The prevailing tone and imagery of them are such as he would hardly have used but with a woman in his thoughts ”

“ He was maintaining them in comfort, he was purchasing a fine house in Stratford, whither he would eventually retire and play the parts of husband and father. But—blame him or not, as you will—there are limits beyond which human nature cannot be forced: and the illiterate, ill-tempered, incompatible Anne Hathaway was the skeleton in Shakespeare's cupboard: not to be explained away—the thought of whom left a bitter taste at the bottom of every pleasure. ”

“ She then turned her horse towards Anne Hathaway's cottage, and, as the road ran close beside it, she resolved to pass the dwelling of her rustic friend, and perhaps see her for a moment and bid her again farewell. As she did so, she observed two youths advancing along the road. They carried cross-bows in their hands, and seemed bound for the woodlands.
"Is not the slighter of those youth's Anne's lover?" inquired Clara of an attendant, as the young men entered the garden of old Hathaway's cottage.
"It is, lady," said the attendant. "Yon handsome lad is William Shakespeare." ”

“ William sought out his father and mother, and then Anne Hathaway and the children, who still resided at the old Hathaway cottage at Shottery. I remained at the tavern for contemplation. [93]
Time and age mellow the most violent spirits; and the temper of Anne had become modified by family troubles, inducing an inward survey of self, which brings a reasonable person to the realization of the fact that he or she is not the only stubborn oak in the forest of humanity.
A practical stubborn wife and a lofty poet never can assimilate. ”

“ Anne probably seduced him; for woman is more frequently the huntress and the chooser, and man is a very helpless creature before her wiles.
The extravagances of the Baconians may well be illustrated here, for although the subject of Shakespeare’s marriage has no bearing upon the famous cryptogram and the authorship of the plays, Donnelly spreads himself generously all over Shakespeare’s life, and lightheartedly settles 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. ”

“ William Shakspeare pleased her eye; and the gentleness of his nature made him an apt subject for female blandishments, possibly for female arts. Without imputing, however, to this Anne Hathaway any thing so hateful as a settled plot for insnaring him, it was easy enough for a mature woman, armed with such inevitable advantages of experience and of self-possession, to draw onward a blushing novice; and, without directly creating opportunities, to place him in the way of turning to account such as naturally offered. Young boys are generally flattered by the condescending notice of grown-up women ”

“ The reason for the hurried visit of the two farmers to Worcester, to hasten on the marriage with but one “asking” in church now becomes evident. They 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 say? Well, no. There have been many moralists excessively shocked at this pre-nuptial intimacy, and they assert that Shakespeare seduced Anne Hathaway.
But young men of just over eighteen years of age do not, I think, beguile young women nearly eight years older. ”

“ Overhead are old oaken beams and joists, and the rough walls are partly panelled. There are pictures without number of this old-world interior, the most characteristic of them that showing Mrs. Baker, who for many years received visitors, sitting by the fireside, in company with her old family Bible, in which the births, marriages and deaths of many Hathaways are recorded. She proved her descent from them by way of a niece of Anne Hathaway; whom, it is rather curious to reflect, no one ever thinks of styling by her married name, “Mrs. Shakespeare.” ”

“ The house at Shottery, now shown as Anne Hathaway's cottage, once formed part of Richard Hathaway's farmhouse, and there, and in the neighbouring lanes, the lovers did their courting. The wooing on Shakespeare's side was nothing but pastime, though it led to marriage.
His marriage is perhaps the first serious mistake that Shakespeare made, and it certainly influenced his whole life. It is needful, therefore, to understand it as accurately as may be, however we may judge it. A man's life, like a great river, may be limpid-pure in the beginning, and when near its source ”

“ CHAPTER IX SHAKESPEARE'S DESCENDANTS
William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, of a respectable family, supposed to be of Shottery. He had three children: Susanna, and Hamnet and Judith, twins. The boy died young, in 1596, before the grant of arms was completed. Anne Hathaway is described as of Stratford in the marriage bond, but so were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, the bondsmen, known to be of Shottery. Indeed, the village lay within the parish of Stratford. ”

“ Samuel Erin had provided himself in that armchair with a relic and not a weapon.
This invaluable acquisition—which, when it was brought to London, was placed on a little elevation made on purpose for it in his study, with a brass plate at its foot (after the manner of chairs in our Madam Tussaud’s) with the words ‘Anne Hathaway’s Chair’ upon it—had the effect of putting its possessor into good humour for the remainder of his stay at Stratford, a circumstance which had the happiest results for those about him. William Henry, for his part, was in the seventh heaven. ”

“ Now, it is a well-known fact that almost all very young men fancy girls older than themselves, and it is an artistic fact that a woman under thirty does look younger, and not older, than a man of the same age, if she has led a natural and simple life. It is much more than likely that the well-grown, responsible eldest son of anxious John Shakespeare looked quite as old as Anne Hathaway, seven years his senior, especially if she was slight and fair and delicate, as there is every reason to believe she was. ”

“ Stratford-on-Avon, too, belongs to this part of the country,—a little old-world town, where the bust of Shakespeare looks down upon you from every coign of vantage. Mysterious being! who sprang from impenetrable obscurity in that quiet village to light the beacon of an immortal fame, and sink back into the uncertain shades of his native place until he rests definitely in the beautiful parish church, so still among its trees, with the Avon laving the wall of the church-yard.
Anne Hathaway’s cottage remains in good preservation, a picturesque object among the fields ”

“ All the research of the last one hundred years has added but very little to this meager record. He was married, very young, to Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior; was joint proprietor of Blackfriar's Theater in 1589, and seems to have accumulated property, and retired three or four years before his death. He was buried in Stratford Church, where a monument has been erected to his memory; he also has a monument, in "Poet's Corner" of Westminster Abbey. His family soon became extinct. From all we can learn, he seems to have been highly respected and esteemed by his cotemporaries. ”

“ Had a license for the poet’s marriage been secured on November 27, [24] it is unlikely that the Shottery husbandmen would have entered next day into a bond ‘against impediments,’ the execution of which might well have been demanded as a preliminary to the grant of a license but was wholly supererogatory after the grant was made.
p. 25III—THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD
Anne Hathaway’s greater burden of years and the likelihood that the poet was forced into marrying her by her friends were not circumstances of happy augury. ”

“ His hope of securing his inheritance of Asbies was fading. He did not marry an heiress. Many vials of wrath have been poured on the devoted head of Anne Hathaway by those who do not consider all sides of the question. Harrowing pictures of the relations of young Shakespeare and "his aged wife" are drawn, even by such writers as Dr. ”

“ Pye, the poet laureate, combining the air of a man of letters with the importance belonging to a Government official; and half a dozen other grave and reverend signors. The room was specially arranged for their reception. Mr. Samuel Erin sat at the head of the table in the Shakespearean chair [225] that he had purchased at Anne Hathaway’s cottage. The Profession of Faith was spread before the learned epicures as though it was something to eat. Their eyes devoured it. William Henry had a chair to himself a little removed, ready to answer all inquiries. ”

“ And the masterful spirit marks its own age when it goes forth to woo, and determines to win the first real fancy of his life. It must not be forgotten, in association with the situation, that Richard Hathaway of Shottery (for whom John Shakespeare had stood surety in 1566) had made his will on September 1, 1581, and died between that time and July 9, 1582, when it was proved, leaving his daughter Agnes, or Anne, the small but very common marriage portion of £6 13s. ”

“ William Hathaway, of Weston-upon-Avon, in the county of Gloucester, yeoman, and Thomas Hathaway, of Stratford-upon-Avon, joiner, were parties to the New Place settlement of 1647.
All this shows that the Shakespeares were not ashamed of their mother's relatives. We do not know anything about Anne Shakespeare after her husband's death until we reach the record of her own, "August 8th, 1623, Mrs. Shakespeare." [183]
Tradition says that she earnestly desired to be buried in her husband's grave. The survivors were not able to secure this, but they buried her as near him as they could. ”

“ There is not another Agnes, or Anne, recorded that could represent the legatee of Richard Hathaway's will of September, 1581. To his eldest son, Bartholomew, he left the farm, [181] to be carried on with his mother; to his second and third sons, Thomas and John, he left £6 13s. 4d. each; to his fourth son, William, £10; to his daughters, Agnes (or Anne) and Catherine, £6 13s. 4d., to be paid on the day of their marriage; and to his youngest daughter, Margaret, £6 13s. 4d. when she was seventeen. Witnessed by Sir William Gilbert, clerk and curate of Stratford. ”

“ It is no new thing to go to Shottery with or without Mother for a day at the Hathaways'. There always has been rebellion in the blood of Will Shakespeare, and there is a slender, wayward, grown-up somebody at Shottery who understands. Ann Hathaway has stayed often in Stratford with the Shakespeare household. Mother loves Ann; Father teases and twits her; the young men, swains and would-be sweethearts, swarm about her like [84] bumblebees about the honeysuckle at the garden gate. ”

“ The Shakespearean connection with the cottage at Shottery is thus not altogether so intimate or so continuous as would at first be supposed.
p. 106
p. 107The Hathaways would appear to have executed numerous repairs to the farmhouse which Bartholomew had acquired, and to this day we may see a stone tablet let into one of the chimneys, bearing the initials “I H” (for John Hathaway) and the date 1697; while the same initials and date, together with those of “E H” which doubtless stand for Elizabeth Hathaway, his wife, occur on the bacon-cupboard in the ingle-nook of the living-room. ”

“ Probably that wretched servant is down on her for some reason. Madeleine Talbot! Why, she's the proudest creature that ever lived."
"She might have the bluest blood of the South in her veins," conceded Mrs. Ballinger handsomely. "I pride myself on my imagination but I simply cannot see her in such a condition."
"If it's true, it's Masters, of course," said Miss Hathaway. "The only reason I didn't fall in love with him was because it was no use. But he's the sort of man—there are not many of them!—who would make a woman love him to desperation if he loved her himself. ”