The religious views of William Shakespeare are the subject of an ongoing scholarly debate dating back more than 150 years. The general assumption about William Shakespeare's religious affiliation is that he was a conforming member of the established Church of England. However, many scholars have speculated about his personal religious beliefs, based on analysis of the historical record and of his published work, with claims that Shakespeare's family may have had Catholic sympathies and that he himself was a secret Catholic.
Shakespeare's known religious affiliation
Shakespeare and his immediate family were conforming members of the established Church of England. When Shakespeare was young, his father, John Shakespeare, was elected to several municipal offices, serving as an alderman and culminating in a term as bailiff, the chief magistrate of the town council, all of which required being a church member in good standing, and he participated in whitewashing over the Catholic images in the Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross and taking down the rood screen some time in the 1560s or 1570s.
Shakespeare's baptism and those of his siblings were entered into the parish church register, as were the births of his three children and the burials of family members. His brother Edmund, who followed him to London as an actor and died there, was buried in St Saviour's in Southwark "with a forenoone knell of the great bell", most likely paid for by the poet. As leaser of the parish tithes in Stratford, he was a lay rector of the church. He and his wife were buried in the church chancel, and a monument that included a half-figure bust of the poet was set into the north wall of the chancel.
Shakespeare failed twice to pay his taxes for St Helen's parish, Bishopsgate, London, where he is listed by name for the year 1596/7, and he is not among those "in any of the annual lists of residents of the Clink parish (St Saviour's) compiled by the officers who made the rounds to collect tokens purchased by churchgoers for Easter Communion, which was compulsory."Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, 221-23. An explanation is offered by historian Walter Godfrey, who suggests that the playwright's default at Bishopsgate was simply because he had moved to the Clink parish at the end of that year, where taxes were collected by the landowner (the bishop of Winchester) and not parish officials. The bishop then remitted the outstanding sum to Shakespeare's former parish "as a matter of convenience".
Shakespeare's family In 1559, five years before Shakespeare's birth, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement finally severed the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. In the ensuing years, extreme pressure was placed on England's Catholics to accept the practices of the Church of England, and recusancy laws made illegal any service not found in the Book of Common Prayer, including the Roman Catholic Mass. In Shakespeare's lifetime there was a substantial and widespread quiet resistance to the newly imposed reforms.The Shakespeares and "the Old Faith" (1946) by John Henry de Groot; Die Verborgene Existenz Des William Shakespeare: Dichter Und Rebell Im Katholischen Untergrund (2001) by Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel; Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare (2005) by Clare Asquith. Some scholars, using both historical and literary evidence, have argued that Shakespeare was one of these recusants. Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, thinks that Shakespeare had a "recusant Catholic background."
Some scholars also believe there is evidence that several members of Shakespeare's family were recusant Catholics. The strongest evidence is a tract professing secret Catholicism signed by John Shakespeare, father of the poet. The tract was found in the 18th century in the rafters of a house which had once been John Shakespeare's, and was seen and described by the reputable scholar Edmond Malone. Malone later changed his mind and declared that he thought the tract was a forgery.Quoted in Schoenbaum (1977: 49) "In my conjecture concerning the writer of that paper I certainly was mistaken". Although the document has since been lost, Anthony Holden writes that Malone's reported wording of the tract is linked to a testament written by Charles Borromeo and circulated in England by Edmund Campion, copies of which still exist in Italian and English.Holden, Anthony. William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius Little, Brown (2000). Other research, however, suggests that the Borromeo testament is a 17th-century artefact (at the earliest dated from 1638), was not printed for missionary work, and could never have been in the possession of John Shakespeare.Bearman, R., "John Shakespeare's Spiritual Testament, a reappraisal", Shakespeare Survey 56 pp.. 184–204. As of 2024, new research has attributed the tract to William's sister Joan (1569 – 1646), which could make it a genuine copy of Borromeo's document. John Shakespeare was listed as one who did not attend church services, but this was "for feare of processe for Debtte", according to the commissioners, not because he was a recusant.Mutschmann, H. and Wentersdorf, K., Shakespeare and Catholicism, Sheed and Ward: New York, 1952, p. 401.
Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was a member of a conspicuous and determinedly Catholic family in Warwickshire. In 1606, Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was listed as one of the residents of Stratford who failed to take (Anglican) Holy Communion at Easter, which may suggest Catholic sympathies.Ackroyd (2005: 451) It may, however, also be a sign of Puritan sympathies; Susanna was, according to some statements, of a Puritanical bent.
Shakespeare's schooling
Four of the six schoolmasters at the grammar school of Shakespeare's youth, King's New School in Stratford, were Catholic sympathisers,Ackroyd (2005: 63–64) and Simon Hunt, who may have been one of Shakespeare's teachers, later became a Jesuit priest.Hammerschmidt-Hummel, H. "The most important subject that can possibly be": A Reply to E. A. J. Honigmann , Connotations, 2002–03. Retrieved 3 November 2011. Thomas Jenkins, who succeeded Hunt as teacher in the grammar school, was a student of Edmund Campion at St John's College, Oxford. Jenkins's successor at the grammar school in 1579, John Cottam, was the brother of Jesuit priest Thomas Cottam.
The "lost years" (1585–1592)
John Aubrey, in 1693, reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster,Schoenbaum (1977: 110–11) a tale augmented in the 20th century with the theory that his employer might have been Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire,Oakes, Edward T. "Shakespeare’s Millennium" First Things, December 1999. Retrieved 3 November 2011. a prominent Catholic landowner who left money in his will to a certain "William Shakeshafte", referencing theatrical costumes and paraphernalia. The Lancashire family of Shakespeare's schoolmaster, Cottam, (above) was associated with Hoghton's family.Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xvii. Shakespeare's grandfather Richard had also once used the name Shakeshafte. Peter Ackroyd adds that examinations of the marginal notes in the Hoghton family copy of Edward Hall's Chronicles, an important source for Shakespeare's early histories, "indicate the probability that Shakespeare and the annotator were the same man, but do not by any means prove it."Ackroyd (2005: 76)
Catholic sympathies
Possible Catholic wedding Shakespeare's marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582 may have been officiated by, amongst other candidates, John Frith in the town of Temple Grafton a few miles from Stratford.Schoenbaum (1977: 87) In 1586 the crown named Frith, who maintained the appearance of Protestantism, as a Catholic priest.William marries Anne Hathaway In Search of Shakespeare, PBS. (MayaVision International 2003) Some surmise Shakespeare married in Temple Grafton rather than the Anglican church in Stratford in order for his wedding to be performed as a Catholic sacrament. He was thought to have rushed his marriage ceremony, as Anne was three months pregnant.
Historical sources In 1611 the historian John Speed asserted Shakespeare's links with Catholicism, accusing him of satirising in Henry IV the Lollard (or proto-Protestant) martyr John Oldcastle (first portrayed by Shakespeare under his character's real name, then the alias John Falstaff after complaints from Oldcastle's descendants) and linking the playwright with the Jesuit Robert Persons, describing them together as "the Papist and his poet". Jean Christophe Mayer explains that Speed's jibe stems from nothing more than both men writing on the same subject: the English royal succession. Other modern critics have attributed other motives for Shakespeare's portrayal; the story of Oldcastle was a popular one and telling the tale from the "Papist" perspective (while acknowledging that perhaps this was a perspective with which Shakespeare already had some affinity) was an effective and familiar way to bring it to his audience. A direct explanation, however, comes from the facts of the original story: Prince Henry had left his dear friend Oldcastle to his fate after he had failed to persuade the stubborn old knight to recant when he was imprisoned for lollardry.
Archdeacon Richard Davies, an 18th-century Anglican cleric, wrote of Shakespeare: "He dyed a Papyst". The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) states that "Davies, an Anglican clergyman, could have had no conceivable motive for misrepresenting the matter in these private notes and as he lived in the neighbouring county of Gloucestershire he may be echoing a local tradition" but concludes that Davies' comment "is by no means incredible, but it would obviously be foolish to build too much upon an unverifiable tradition of this kind".Thurston, Herbert."The Religion of Shakespeare" Catholic Encyclopedia (1912). Accessed 17 February 2012.
Following E. K. Chambers and Ian Wilson, Joseph Pearce maintains that one of the most compelling pieces of evidence is Shakespeare's purchase of Blackfriars Gatehouse, a place that had remained in Catholic hands since the time of the Reformation, and was notorious for Jesuit conspiracies, priest holes to hide fugitives, and covert Catholic activity in London.E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1930. 2:165–69; and Ian Wilson, Shakespeare: The Evidence. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1993, pp. 396–97, 412. Pearce (2008: 158–63. 165, 167)Wilson, Richard, Secret Shakespeare, p. 5, Manchester University Press, 2004 The same year that one John Robinson was named as Shakespeare's tenant there, Robinson's brother Edward entered the seminary at the English College in Rome;Pearce 158–63 Shakespeare ensured that the tenant Robinson remained in the house. Shakespeare's daughter Susanna, who inherited the house, continued his tenancy until 1639.Beauregard, David (2008). Catholic Theology in Shakespeare’s Plays. Newark: U Delaware P. p. 87. . Schoenbaum, however, assigns a purely fiscal motive to the purchase: after examining the complex financial arrangements surrounding the transaction he concludes, "an investment, pure and simple".Schoenbaum (1977: 272)
Textual evidence