Online Shakespeare

Contents  The Life and Times of William Shakespeare

The Autumnal Years

After about 1608 Shakespeare's dramatic production lessened and it seems that he spent more time in retirement in Stratford, where he had established his family in an imposing house called New Place and had become a leading local citizen.

It is often thought that Shakespeare left the stage completely by 1611 after writing The Tempest, and returned to Stratford, from where he wrote his parts of the final collaborations. This may be true, but it is worth noting that in 1612 Shakespeare purchased the Blackfriars gate house in London. On the other hand, perhaps it was only purchased as another investment.

During the summer of 1614 Shakespeare was swept up in an enclosure dispute in Stratford, but his role is unclear, as are his views on enclosure in general. In these final years Shakespeare seems to have been content to surround himself with his family and, as Rowe (section 13) states:

"The latter Part of his Life was spent, as all Men of good Sense will wish theirs may be, in Ease, Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends. He had the good Fortune to gather an Estate equal to his Occasion, and, in that, to his Wish; and is said to have spent some Years before his Death at his native Stratford. His pleasurable Wit, and good Nature, engag'd him in the Acquaintance, and entitled him to the Friendship of the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood."

His eldest daughter Susanna, "Witty above her sexe" according to her memorialist, had married Dr. John Hall in 1607. Hall had settled in Stratford around 1600, where he founded a prosperous medical practice and had become one of the town's leading citizens. His leanings were puritan. He became widely famous for his skill as a doctor and after his death, James Cooke published 200 of Hall's case histories in 1657 as 'Select Observations on English Bodies'. Dr. Hall and Susanna inherited and moved into New Place after Shakespeare's death. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth.

Shakespeare's youngest daughter Judith, who married in February of 1616, was not so lucky. At the age of 31 she married Thomas Quiney, aged 27, a vintner in Stratford. Though Quiney came from a good family and known to Shakespeare, the wedding began on the wrong foot. Before marrying Judith Shakespeare, Quiney got another girl pregnant. A month after the wedding, the girl died in childbirth with her child. These upsetting events were probably the cause of Shakespeare summoning his lawyer and modifying his will that month. The Quineys had three children. The first, named Shakespeare, died in infancy. The other two sons, Richard and Thomas died in 1639, at ages 21 and 19 respectively. They left no heirs.

Contents