in an effort to restore his decaying fortunes. 'I have been told
heretofore,' wrote Aubrey, 'by some of the neighbours that when he was a
boy he exercised his father's trade,' which, according to the writer, was
that of a butcher. It is possible that John's ill-luck at the period
compelled him to confine himself to this occupation, which in happier
days formed only one branch of his business. His son may have been
formally apprenticed to him. An early Stratford tradition describes him
as 'a butcher's apprentice.' {18} 'When he kill'd a calf,' Aubrey
proceeds less convincingly, 'he would doe it in a high style and make a
speech. There was at that time another butcher's son in this towne, that
was held not at all inferior to him for a naturall witt, his
acquaintance, and coetanean, but dyed young.'

The poet's marriage.

At the end of 1582 Shakespeare, when little more than eighteen and a half
years old, took a step which was little calculated to lighten his
father's anxieties. He married. His wife, according to the inscription
on her tombstone, was his senior by eight years. Rowe states that she
'was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman
in the neighbourhood of Stratford.'

Richard Hathaway of Shottery. Anne Hathaway.

On September 1, 1581, Richard Hathaway, 'husbandman' of Shottery, a
hamlet in the parish of Old Stratford, made his will, which was proved on
July 9, 1582, and is now preserved at Somerset House. His house and
land, 'two and a half virgates,' had been long held in copyhold by his
family, and he died in fairly prosperous circumstances. His wife Joan,
the chief legatee, was directed to carry on the farm with the aid of her
eldest son, Bartholomew, to whom a share in its proceeds was assigned.
Six other children--three sons and three daughters--received sums of
money; Agnes, the eldest daughter, and Catherine, the second daughter,
were each allotted 6 pounds 13s. 4d, 'to be paid at the day of her
marriage,' a phrase common in wills of the period. Anne and Agnes were
in the sixteenth century alternative spellings of the same Christian
name; and there is little doubt that the daughter 'Agnes' of Richard
Hathaway's will became, within a few months of Richard Hathaway's death,
Shakespeare's wife.

Anne Hathaway's cottage.

The house at Shottery, now known as Anne Hathaway's cottage, and reached
from Stratford by field-paths, undoubtedly once for