April 23 - William Shakespeare's birth and death

Hi, welcome to today's On This Day in Tudor History. I'm Claire Ridgway, I'm author of several Tudor history books and I also run the TudorSociety.com website, a hub of all things Tudor and the Amberlyn Fowles blog. Okay, today I am taking you back to 1616. Now you're wondering why am I taking you back to 1616? Because that's not exactly On This Day in Tudor History, that's On This Day in Stuart History. Well, actually it's about an Elizabethan man, a very famous Elizabethan man. Because the 23rd of April is the anniversary of the death of the bard, the playwright, the poet, the very famous man William Shakespeare. He died on the 23rd of April 1616. Now the 23rd of April is also the traditional date of his birth. We celebrate, especially in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is, I'm from that area, we celebrate his birthday on St George's Day on the 23rd of April. Now we don't know exactly when he was born, his birth wasn't registered, but we know he was baptised at the parish church in Stratford-upon-Avon, the family church of Holy Trinity, on the 26th of April 1564. And it was usual for a baby to be baptised in those days within sort of a few days of birth, about three days of birth. So hence the 23rd of April being his traditional birth date. Now I am a huge William Shakespeare fan. I grew up just 12 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare and Stratford were a huge part of my life growing up in the UK. I used to spend most weekends shopping in Stratford, meeting up with friends in Stratford. School trips were to the RST, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, to see plays put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Shakespeare attractions, I used to walk past his birthplace all the time, just take it all for granted because it was really my sort of hometown. I was very lucky to grow up in that area. Now as it's the Bard's birth and death day, I thought I'd share with you just a few facts about William Shakespeare. Now William was the third child of John Shakespeare. John Shakespeare was a glover and a wittwer, which is a dresser of light-coloured leather, so a leather worker. He was also an alderman, he was an important and influential man in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. He was an alderman and he hailed from Snitterfield, which is just outside of Stratford, and he was married to Mary Arden, who obviously was William Shakespeare's mother. Now the family home and the place of John Shakespeare's business in Stratford-upon-Avon was in Henley Street and you can see that house now, it's called Shakespeare's Birthplace. You can walk past it, you can go inside and visit it and just immerse yourself in the life of William Shakespeare there. It really is a wonderful place to visit. It is thought that William attended the town's grammar school, which was known as the King's New School. It's now, we used to call it Kess, it's King Edward VI's school, we used to shorten it to Kess. Today visitors can go into Shakespeare's school room, which is in the Guild Hall and that is where, at the time, boys of that age were educated. It's the room where Shakespeare is likely to have studied in the 1570s. Subjects studied would have included Latin literature and the classics that William Shakespeare was later inspired by, and also history, which he also used in his works. Now Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway in November 1582. He was just 18 years old, since she was 26, and Anne was pregnant at the time. The couple had three children, Susanna, who was a result of that pregnancy, and then they went on to have twins Hamnet, not Hamlet, but Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet sadly died at the age of 11. Now it is not known exactly when Shakespeare moved to London or when he started writing, but his plays were being performed in the city of London in 1592. Shakespeare wasn't just a playwright and poet, he was also an actor. He was a member of the company known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and they were the only company that were performing his plays from 1594. They soon became London's leading theatre company, and in 1599 they built the Globe Theatre in Southwark in London. You can go and see Shakespeare's Globe today. It is not the original, and it's near to the site of the original. Sam Wanamaker couldn't build his replica Globe actually on the site of the original, because there was already listed building on that site. So he built it as near to the site as possible, and you can go and see Shakespeare's Globe today. It's got a wonderful museum in it, and you can go and see Shakespeare's works performed there, which is, I really want to do that sometime. I've visited the Globe, but I've never seen a play from there. I'd love to do that. The company were rewarded a royal patent, sorry, were awarded a royal patent in 1603 by King James I, and at that point they changed their name to the King's Men because of this royal patent. Shakespeare divided his time between his work in London and his family in Stratford-upon-Avon. His family home was Newplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. When he died in 1616, he was laid to rest in the same church that he was baptised at, the Family Church of Holy Trinity Church. His wife Anne Hathaway is also buried in that church. Shakespeare's epitaph reads, Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, to dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he who moves my bones. So I love that epitaph. It's just fitting for William Shakespeare, isn't it? I've just had a dog come and join me. Shakespeare's works include 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and various other poems. His work lives on today, as you know. It's performed around the world, theatres around the world, his sonnets are read, children study them at school, and also his words and phrases have become part of our everyday English language. I've actually got a book of Shakespeare insults, which are great, but they're not ones really we use on a daily basis, they're just a bit of fun. But things, phrases and words that have become part of the English language are things like, all that glitters is not gold, baited breath, a charmed life, break the ice, cold comfort, dead as a doornail, brave new world, it's all Greek to me, he said it was Greek to me, heart of gold, love is blind, kill with kindness, and I could go on and on and on. I think at the Globe I saw a big poster with words and phrases that we get from Shakespeare. There's just absolutely stacks and they've just become part of our normal everyday language. So Shakespeare's work lives on. So that's the On This Day in History for today. It's the death of William Shakespeare on the 23rd of April, 1616, but also we mark his birth date on this day as well, because it is thought that he was born around this date, the 23rd of April, 1564, in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, and that could be found in the Midlands in the UK. I hope you're enjoying this series of videos. You can subscribe by just clicking there, and hit the bell to be notified as well of new videos as they go live. Thank you for joining me. See you tomorrow. Bye-bye.