William Shakespeare might not have been an absent husband after all. While it has long been believed that the playwright left his family in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to go work in London, a newly recovered letter to his wife, Anne Hathaway, suggests that the couple lived together in London for years.
A fragment of the 17th century letter, addressed to the “Good Mrs. Shakspaire,” was first discovered in the binding of a theological book at Hereford Cathedral in the 1970s, but a recent scholarly analysis of its contents indicates it was written about The Bard himself.
According to University of Bristol Professor Matthew Steggle, the letter writer accuses Shakespeare of withholding money from an orphaned boy named John Butts and requests that Hathaway pay him the money owed for his apprenticeship. In his research, published in the journal Shakespeare on Thursday, Steggle found only one reference of a fatherless apprentice named John Butts living in London in 1599 and 1607.
The letter also suggests that the couple lived at an address on Trinity Lane at the time. While there was no such street in Stratford-upon-Avon, there was one in London. Of the four “Shakspaire” couples who lived in the city, Steggle claims William and Anne were the most likely to have lived on Trinity Lane at the time given their wealth and the length of their marriage.
“Since this letter… is the first reference of any sort to Anne Shakespeare in London, and since the absence hitherto of any such references is the mainstay of the argument that she was entirely based in Stratford, it opens the door to considering the possibility that she did indeed spend significant time with her husband in London,” he wrote in his paper.
On the flip side of the letter fragment appears to be a reply, likely from Hathaway, standing by her husband and refusing to pay the boy. Not only would this would be the first recorded writing from Hathaway, but it would also mean she was involved in her husband’s social and financial affairs.
If Steggle is correct, Shakespeare and his wife could have lived in central London together from around 1600 to 1610, suggesting that their marriage wasn’t as distant or unhappy as previously thought.
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Shakespeare’s marriage has been the subject of much scholarly speculation. For more than 200 years, it has been assumed that the playwright and actor left his wife and children in Stratford-upon-Avon after the birth of their twins, Judith and Hamnet, in 1585 and didn’t move back in with her until his retirement in 1613.
This, along with the fact that Shakespeare left Hathaway only his “second-best bed with the furniture” in his will, has led many historians to believe that their marriage was loveless. Now, however, everything we know bout his marriage to Hathaway could be turned on its head.
“This letter, if it belongs to them, offers a glimpse of the Shakespeares together in London, both involved in social networks and business matters, and, on the occasion of this request, presenting a united front against importunate requests to help poor orphans,” Steggle wrote. “For Shakespeare biographers who favor the narrative of the ‘disastrous marriage’—in fact, for all Shakespeare biographers—the Hereford document should be a horrible, difficult problem.”
Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.