Shakespeare the Catholic?

There has been recent discussion concerning the possibility that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic. The evidence is circumstantial, but intriguing. John Freeman’s contribution to Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England (Fordham, 2003), summarizes the evidence.

One piece of evidence concerns his father’s “spiritual will and testament,” discovered in the Shakespeare home in the 18th century. According to Schoenbaum, “In April 1757 the then owner, Thomas Hart, fifth lineal descendant of the poet’s sister Joan, was employing labourers to retile his roof. On the 29th Joseph Moseley, a master bricklayer described as of ‘very honest, sober, industrious character,’ found, while working with his man, a small paper-book between the rafters and the tiling. This book or (more properly) booklet, consisted of six leaves stitched together. A Catholic profession of faith in fourteen articles, it has come to be known as the Spiritual Last Will and Testament of John Shakespeare.”

One passage from this document reads: “I, John Shakespear, do in like manner pray and beseech all my dear friends, parents, and kinfolks, by the bowels of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that since it is uncertain what lot will befall me, for fear notwithstanding lest by reason of my sins I be to pass and stay a long while in Purgatory, they will vouchsafe to assist and succour me with their holy prayers and satisfactory works.” He also expresses the desire to “pass out of this life with the last sacrament of extreme unction” and to receive with “senses both internal and external” the “sacred oil of His infinite mercy.”

If John Shakespeare was a secret Catholic, he covered himself pretty well – covered himself pretty cynically. Serving on the council in Stratford, he voted for the defacing of Catholic images and the destruction of a rood. He also voted to get rid of Robert Dyos, curate of Holy Trinity. It’s possible that John Shakespeare went along with these actions to maintain a pretense of Protestantism, and that his last will and testament expresses his regret at such compromise.

Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna is found in a list of non-communicants at the Easter service of 1606, and failure to attend Anglican services was the single most important visible indicator of Catholic sympathies. Hamnet and Judith Sadler were also cited for non-attendance; Hamnet Sadler was a friend of Shakespeare’s own son Hamnet.

Freeman accounts for Shakespeare’s “lost years” with the theory that he was placed with the openly Catholic Hoghton family. Drawing on the work of Garry O’Connor, he suggests that “young Shakespeare may have spent his formative years at Hoghton Tower,” serving as a schoolmaster to the children. A “Shakeshafte” is listed as a member of the household during the appropriate years, and Shakeshafte was Shakespeare’s grandfather’s name. Freeman suggests that “the young Shakespeare’s sojourn at the Hoghton Manor as an unlicensed schoolmaster would be a logical extension of his own tutelage under Catholic masters” in Stratford.