Birth

Stratford-upon-Avon

1564 Shakespeare's Birth

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in April 1564, the eldest child of John Shakespeare and Mary (née Arden). He was baptised on 26 April of that year. His birthday is generally celebrated on 23 April.

Shakespeare's birthplace

Plan of Stratford-upon-Avon dating from c 1759

So, what was happening around the time of William Shakespeare's birth?

1525 Henry VIII, King of England, tries to get his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, but his request is refused by the Pope. This is the start of the schism with the Church of Rome.

1529 Henry VIII declares himself the head of the Church of England.

1534 The first Act of Supremacy is passed. This establishes Henry VIII and subsequent monarchs as head of the Church of England.

1534 The Treasons Act is passed. This makes it treason, punishable by death, for anyone to disavow the Act of Supremacy.

1536 - 1541 Using his powers as head of the Church, Henry suppresses the monasteries, priories, convents and friaries of England, appropriating their land, property and income, and, where he finds active resistance, executing the recalcitrants.

1547 Edward VI, Henry VIII's only son, is crowned king on Henry's death. The Treason's Act is repealed.

1553 On the death of Edward VI, the Duke of Northumberland tries to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne, but the throne passes to Mary, Henry VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, a Catholic. The Duke of Northumberland and Lady Jane Grey are executed and Robert Dudley, Northumberland's youngest son, is condemned to death, but eventually reprieved. He later becomes Elizabeth I's favourite. She creates him Earl of Leicester in 1564. His seat is at Kenilworth, just 14 miles from Stratford-on-Avon.

1555 Mary repeals the Act of Supremacy.

1558 Elizabeth I accedes to the throne on the death of her half-sister.

1558 The Recusancy Acts provide for fines, property confiscation and imprisonment for those who failed to take part in Church of England services.

1559 The Act of Supremacy is re-instated.

1564 Robert Dudley is created Earl of Leicester.

1568 Mary Queen of Scots abdicates and flees to England, where she is kept under house arrest.

1571 The Treason's Act is re-instated.

1587 Mary Queen of Scots is executed.

1588 The Spanish Armada is defeated.

Effectively, most people, including John Shakespeare, would have been happy to carry on as they were, ie continue in the 'Old Faith' of Catholicism, and it took something of an earthquake to eradicate this Old Faith. Even with the savage penalties that were applied to practising Catholics after 1570, people still maintained their faith. But why was it so important to change? The differences between the Catholic Church and the new Church of England were absolutely minor: the Church of England eschewed confession and miracles. Apart from that, the two religions were practically the same. It was rather the fact that now all power resided in the State. For the time being that meant the monarch, but it would gradually pass to Parliament over the next hundred or so years. And all the properties that had been taken from the Church during the dissolution of the monasteries could stay in the hands of the rogues who had acquired them. A class of fervent opponents to the restoration of the Catholic Church in England had been created, amongst them Sir Thomas Lucy.

In September 1592 we see the report of Sir Thomas Lucy relating to recusants in Stratford:

The third name on the list of recusants is 'Mr John Shakespere'.

So the attempt to eradicate Catholicism from England began in earnest in 1570, when William was just six years old, triggered by the Pope's excommunication of the Queen. He let it be known that any Catholic who succeeded in assassinating her would be immediately pardoned. This, in effect, made every practising Catholic an enemy of the state. It became a treasonable offence to celebrate the Catholic mass or to harbour a Catholic priest, leading to some one hundred and fifty executions of Catholics during the next thirty years. And this brutal suppression was in part played out in Warwickshire, with Jesuit priests visiting, strong links between the masters of Shakespeare's grammar school with Catholic recusants and the arrest and execution of the son of Shakespeare's mother's second cousin.