27 November – William Shakespeare gets married

On this day in Tudor history, 27th November 1582, eighteen year-old William Shakespeare, the famous playwright and a man known as the Bard, married twenty-six year-old Anne (also known as Agnes) Hathaway, at Temple Grafton, near Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire.

Anne Hathaway was pregnant at the time of their marriage and went on to give birth to a daughter, Susannah, the following May. The couple went on to have twins, Hamnet and Judith, in 1585.

Find out more about William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and their marriage, and also what happened to them, in today's talk:

Find out more about William Shakespeare in this video from April 23:

More Shakespeare resources:

• You can find out about Shakespeare's resting place in my Claire Chats talk on Holy Trinity Church - click here
• Philippa did a Roving Reporter video on Shakespeare's Stratford and Schoolroom - click here.
• Cassidy Cash did an expert talk on The Life of William Shakespeare - click here.
• And you can find out more about Anne Hathaway here.

Also on this day in history:

• 1531 (some say 4th December) – Burning of Richard Bayfield, Benedictine monk and reformist, at Smithfield for heresy. Sir Thomas More caught Bayfield importing Lutheran books into England, and he was tried by John Stokesley, Bishop of London, at St Paul's on 10th November 1531, and convicted.
• 1544 – Death of Sir Edward Baynton, soldier, courtier and Vice-Chamberlain to five of Henry VIII's wives, in France. His cause of death is unknown, but he may have been wounded while serving as a soldier in France. Baynton had arranged to be buried at Bromham, but it appears that he was buried in France.
• 1556 – Death of Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley, nobleman, diplomat, translator and father of Jane Boleyn (wife of George Boleyn), at his home, Hallingbury Place, Great Hallingbury, Essex. He was in his late seventies at the time of his death. He was buried at St Giles's Church, Great Hallingbury. Morley grew up in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, and although he was a prominent courtier, he is remembered more for his literary translations from Latin and Italian, which he gave to Henry VIII and Mary I as New Year's gifts. His translations include Petrarch's “Trionfi”, the “Life of Thesius” and the “Lyfe of Paulus Emelius”. You can read all about the Parker Family tomb complex here.
• 1556 (27th or 28th November) – Death of Sir Nicholas Poyntz, soldier, courtier and landowner. Poyntz was a reformer and was visited at his home at Iron Acton, in Gloucestershire, in 1535 by King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. He actually built a whole new wing to impress the royal couple.
• 1575 – Death of Sir Peter Carew, soldier, adventurer and conspirator, at Ross in County Waterford, Ireland. He was buried at Waterford Church, beside the altar. Carew had gone to Ireland in 1568 to lay claim to lands there, and this had put him at loggerheads with the powerful Butler family. Carew had been involved in plotting with the leaders of Wyatt's Rebellion, but had deserted and fled to France in disguise when Mary I's Privy Council got wind of the rebellion.