Childhood of William Shakespeare

Contrary to many traditions and speculations practically nothing is known about Shakespeare’s childhood. There is every reason to believe that he was a scholar at the local grammar school where he commenced his studies.

Unfortunately, no early lists of pupils survive who would have studied with him. The school was maintained by the Corporation of Stratford on lines laid by the medieval gild and examining its curriculum and teachers, must have been very good in standards during Shakespeare’s days.

It is also fascinating to know that the tender Shakespeare would have witnessed some of the plays produced by touring companies and actors in Stratford during his boyhood.

These experiences would have fired off his imagination and led him to be what he was to stun the world. Some plays were staged when his father was the Bailiff which places his age at five.

Such players were officially welcomed at the Gildhall and the Chamberlain’s accounts disclose payments made to them out of borough funds as much as for thirty occasions. No wonder that Shakespeare was seeped in the theatre unconsciously at so tender an age.

The companies that visited Stratford more frequently were the Earl or Worcester’s players who paid six visits between 1568 and 1584, the Queen’s players with five visits between 1568 and 1597 and the Earl of Leicester’s Company with three visits from 1572 to 1587.

May be Shakespeare was digesting dialogue as a tootles boy which accounts for the powerful, iconic dialogue found in his plays. Carrying all these in his little undeveloped brain, was the source for the extraordinary Shakespearean English we study in our curriculum.

He spent his infancy, stretching to boyhood to half-timbered house in Henley Street. He was born in 1564 and spent his early years, the house that was to be the citadel of English language, literature and drama.

The house had been preserved with utmost care in its original form with the exterior undergoing some careful restoration. The room in which the poet was born is well preserved with its half-headed bedstead and seventeenth century cradle. All the timber work is original which I have seen over and over again.

No documentary evidence has been found yet to show what the young Shakespeare did when he left the elementary school which conforms his education may have ceased from that point. Then again, from where did he amass his wisdom. The wisdom that was going to take the literary world by storm.

Shakespeare hailed from a good middle-class parentage from both sides. His mother was one of the eight daughters of Robert Arden who was a substantial yeoman farmer from Wilmcote where the Arden farmstead can still be seen.

His father, John Shakespeare was a prosperous, respected tradesman who took an active part in municipal affairs and held various offices under the Court Leet. He was later, appointed as the Bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon.

William was the eldest son and third child of John and Mary Arden. His father’s decline in his fortune in later years is thought to have been associated with his adherence to the Catholic faith.

However, he received a grant from the College of Heralds in 1596 and seems likely that by this time the poet had come to the assistance of his family. He also received the Grant of Arms the same year.

All these prove that William Shakespeare did have a comfortable life as a youngster contrary to impressions given in some of older biographies.

The Clopton saga

Young Shakespeare was attracted to the beauty of nature from childhood and wandered through the fields that were around his home and at times, deeper into the forests of Arden not through curiosity but to feel and touch the freshness of the day.

He had the habit of observing the lush beauty of flora and fauna that were later to be featured in his plays. He loved to feel the change of seasons and all these done unto himself, the young explorer he was.

He had heard about the mysteries of the Clopton Mansion nearby and the legend associated with it. The luxurious lives enjoyed by its inmates until tragedy struck them. Now, what the curious young Shakespeare saw was somewhat haunted looking enigma, on the oft visited by elders around the area.

He was determined to learn more about the mysteries lay hidden within its walls, especially since it was linked to the plague that had devastated and killed many in and around Stratford in 1564, the year that Wil Shakespeare was born.

He was rewarded for his quest even before he left his primary school.

Tragic sisters who live on his plays

Fear ruled out a proper funeral ceremony to mark the death of Charlotte Clopton, a beautiful young heiress of the Clopton Mansion. The plague had struck Stratford. Charlotte was one of its first victims. To prevent the contagion her coffin was hastily removed from the Clopton Mansion and sealed up in the family vault at Holy Trinity Church.

Within a fortnight, another member of family died of the dreaded disease and the vault was re-opened. A terrible sight sent the burial party reeling back in horror.

Charlotte’s coffin had been forced open and her lifeless body stood leaning against the wall, torn fingers clawing the stone-work where she had tried in vain to escape.

Charlotte had been buried alive.

Not much later here sister Margaret committed suicide. Forbidden to see the man she loved, Margaret drowned herself in a shallow fish pond.

As a young boy growing up in Stratford, he kept these tragedies locked in his heart.

He used the sad stories of Charlotte and Margaret as a base for the characters of Juliet and Ophelia, two of the greatest love stories he wrote.

The ghosts of the tragic sisters are said still to haunt Clopton Mansion.

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