the words weren't mine

Addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire”, the letter mentions the death of a Mr Butts and a son, John, who is left “fatherles”, as well as a Mrs Butts, who had asked “Mr Shakspaire” to look after money for his children until they came of age. It suggests the playwright had resisted attempts to pay money that the young Butts was owed.

Steggle said: “The letter writer thinks that ‘Mrs Shakspaire’ has independent access to money. They hope that Mrs Shakspaire might ‘paye your husbands debte’.

“They do not ask Mrs Shakspaire to intercede with her husband, but actually to do the paying herself, like Adriana in The Comedy of Errors, who undertakes to pay a debt on her husband’s behalf, even though she was previously unaware of it: ‘Knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.’”

Steggle added: “For about the last 200 years, the prevailing view has been that Anne Shakespeare stayed in Stratford all her life and perhaps never even went to London.” read more

IMAGE: Charles Brabin