common, and it was rare for persons in the comparatively humble position in life of Anne Hathaway and young Shakespeare to adopt such cumbrous formalities when there was always available the simpler, less expensive, and more leisurely method of marriage by 'thrice asking of the banns.' Moreover, the wording of the bond which was drawn before Shakespeare's marriage differs in important respects from that adopted in all other known examples. In the latter it is invariably provided that the marriage shall not take place without the consent of the parents or governors of both bride and bridegroom. In the case of the marriage of an 'infant' bridegroom the formal consent of his parents was absolutely essential to strictly regular procedure, although clergymen might be found who were ready to shut their eyes to the facts of the situation and to run the risk of solemnising the marriage of an 'infant' without inquiry as to the parents' consent. The clergyman who united Shakespeare in wedlock to Anne Hathaway was obviously of this easy temper. Despite the circumstance that Shakespeare's bride was of full age and he himself was by nearly three years a minor, the Shakespeare bond stipulated merely for the consent of the bride's 'friends,' and ignored the bridegroom's parents altogether. Nor was this the only irregularity in the document. In other pre-matrimonial covenants 1 These conclusions are drawn from an examination of like documents in the Worcester diocesan registry. Many formal declarations of consent on the part of parents to their children's marriages are also extant there among the sixteenth-century archives. of the kind the name either of the bridegroom himself or of the bridegroom's father figures as one of the two sureties, and is mentioned first of the two. Had the usual form been followed, Shakespeare's father would have been the chief party to the transaction in behalf of his 'infant' son. But in the Shakespeare bond the sole sureties, Sandells and Richardson, were farmers of Shottery, the bride's native place. Sandells was a supervisor' of the will of the bride's father, who there describes him as 'my trustie friende and neighbour.' The prominence of the Shottery husbandmen in the negotiations preceding Shakespeare's marriage suggests the true position of affairs. Sandells and Richardson, representing the lady's family, doubtless secured the deed on their own initiative, so that Shakespeare might have small opportunity of evading a step which his intimacy with their friend's daughter had rendered essential to her reputation. The wedding probably took place, without the consent of the bridegroom's parents-it may be without their knowledge--soon after the signing of the deed. Within six months-in May 1583-a daughter was born to the poet, and was baptised daughter. in the name of Susanna at Stratford parish church on the 26th. Birth of a Shakespeare's apologists have endeavoured to show that the public betrothal or formal' troth-plight' which was at the time a common prelude to a wedding carried with it all the privileges of marriage. But neither Shakespeare's detailed description of a Formal betrothal nor of the solemn verbal contract that ordinarily preceded marriage lends the contention much support. Moreover, the whole circumbetrothal stances of the case render it highly improbably dispensed probable that Shakespeare and his bride with. submitted to the formal preliminaries of a betrothal. In that ceremony the parents of both contracting parties invariably played foremost parts, but the wording of the bond precludes the assumption that the bridegroom's parents were actors in any scene of the hurriedly planned drama of his marriage. A difficulty has been imported into the narration of the poet's matrimonial affairs by the assumption of his identity with one 'William Shakespeare,' to whom, according to an entry in the Bishop of Worcester's register, a license was issued on November 27, 1582 (the day before the signing of the Hathaway bond), authorising his marriage with Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton. The theory that the maiden name of Shakespeare's wife was Whateley is quite untenable, and it is unsafe to assume that the bishop's clerk, when making a note of the grant of the license in his register, erred so extensively as to write 'Anne 1 Twelfth Night, act v. sc. i. ll. 160-4: A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings; And all the ceremony of this compact Seal'd in my [i.e. the priest's] function by my testimony. In Measure for Measure Claudio's offence is intimacy with the Lady Julia after the contract of betrothal and before the formality of marriage (cf. act i. sc. ii. 1. 155, act iv. sc. i. 1. 73). Whateley of Temple Grafton' for 'Anne Hathaway of Shottery.' The husband of Anne Whateley cannot reasonably be identified with the poet. He was doubtless another of the numerous William Shakespeares who abounded in the diocese of Worcester. Had a license for the poet's marriage been secured on November 27, 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. No marriage registers of the period are extant at Temple Grafton to inform us whether Anne Whately actually married her William Shakespeare or who precisely the parties were. A Whateley family resided in Stratford, but there is nothing to show that Anne of Temple Grafton was connected with it. The chief argument against the conclusion that the marriage license and the marriage bond concerned different couples lies in the apparent improbability that two persons, both named William Shakespeare, should on two successive days not only be arranging with the Bishop of Worcester's official to marry, but should be involving themselves, whether on their own initiative or on that of their friends, in more elaborate and expensive forms of procedure than were habitual to the humbler ranks of contemporary society. But the Worcester diocese covered a very wide area, and was honeycombed with Shakespeare families of all degrees of gentility. The William Shakespeare whom Anne Whately was licensed to marry may have been of a superior station, to which marriage by license was deemed appropriate. On the unwarranted assumption of the identity of the William Shakespeare of the marriage bond with the William Shakespeare of the marriage license, a romantic theory has been based to the effect that Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton,' believing herself to have a just claim to the poet's hand, secured the license on hearing of the proposed action of Anne Hathaway's friends, and hoped, by moving in the matter a day before the Shottery husbandmen, to insure Shakespeare's fidelity to his alleged pledges. 25 III 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. Although it is dangerous to read into Shakespeare's dramatic utterances allusions to his personal experience, the emphasis with which he insists that a woman should take in marriage an 'elder than herself,' and that prenuptial intimacy is productive of 'barren hate, sour-eyed disdain, and discord,' suggest a personal interpretation. To both these unpromising features was added, in the poet's case, the absence of a means of livelihood, and his course of life in the 1 2 Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. iv. 1. 29: Let still the woman take 2 Tempest, act iv. sc. i. ll. 15-22: If thou dost break her virgin knot before |