William’s mother, Mary Arden was the daughter of a local farmer, a very wealthy family. William’s parents – Mary Arden and John Shakespeare, were married in 1557, seven years before William’s birth. William being the first child to survive birth was the eldest child in the family. William was the third of eight children. He was educated in the local grammar school; ‘The Kings New School’.
Shakespeare later wrote a scene in the play, ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’. This could have been what inspired him to go on to be an English dramatist and poet!
William, like the rest of his class mates; worked long hours at school. Lessons began at sunrise (6:00 or 7:00 depending on the time of year) and went on throughout the day with gaps in between for meals. This continued six days a week.
His boyhood was fascinating there was no doubt about it; Stratford was a lively town and in the holidays it was well known to hold pageants and popular shows. Also during the year it was a town in which several fairs were held. Shakespeare’s poems show his love of nature and rural life which stood out in his earlier childhood.
In the year 1577, John Shakespeare suffered from financial loss; the outcome of this meant that he was made redundant of several governmental positional mentioned earlier on in the text. Later on, he lost his aldermanic seat and in 1592 he was one of whom had been accused of not attending church ‘for feare of process for debtte.’ However his life improved from 1596 when he applied for and was given, a coat of arms, which would raise them into the ‘important’ class of people. In the future William being shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (his company of actors) allowed him to restore his father’s fortunes.
There is not much information on William between the times when he left Stratford and his appearance in London as an actor and a poet. These times were called the lost years.
The Globe Theatre in London was where most of William Shakespeare’s plays were first shown. It was built in 1599 by two brothers, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage. The brothers owned the previous theatre named “The Theatre” at Shoreditch in north London. Before the Globe the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed in public usually at the theatre.
In 1598 the lease on the globe ran out because the rents were too much for the Globe’s Company to afford. They were unable to agree a rent however the company owned the timber the theatre was built from. Therefore they pulled it to pieces bit by bit, shipped it across the Thames to Southwark and rebuilt it there. This reconstruction was completed in 1599 and the theatre was renamed “The Globe”. It was built by carpenter Peter Smith and was the most magnificent theatre that London had ever seen. It was situated just a few hundred metres away from the Rose Theatre (run by Philip Henslowe and his son-in-law Edward Alleyn, the famous actor of the time).
The exact physical structure of the Globe is unknown although scholars are pretty certain of some details because of drawings and paintings from that period of history. The theatre itself was a closed structure with an open courtyard where the stage stood. Tiered galleries around the open area accommodated the wealthier people who could afford seats, and those of the lower classes – ‘the groundlings’. They stood around the stage during the performance of a play. The space under and behind the stage was used for special effects, storage and costume changes. The entire structure of the Globe was not very big compared to modern day standards although it is thought to hold fairly large crowds. As many as 2000 people could fit inside.
The Globe is said to have been shaped like a cylinder with a thatched gallery roof which was made out of straw. The roof had to be coated with fire-protectant in case of fire. Funnily enough, in 1613, the roof was accidentally set on fire by a cannon firing during a performance of Henry VIII. The entire theatre burned down in about an hour, (obviously the fire protectant didn’t do a very good job!).
The Globe was re-built a year later in 1614 but with a tilted gallery roof and more circular in shape. In 1644, 30 years after in was re-built, the Globe was demolished by the Puritans. A brewery now stands in its place.