Shakespeare's Marriage Bond
On this day · 28 November 1582
A single surviving slip of parchment is one of the only documents that places the young playwright firmly in the historical record.
On 28 November 1582, an 18-year-old William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway secured the paperwork for their wedding through the Diocese of Worcester. The surviving document, known as the marriage bond, declared there was no lawful impediment to the union and protected the bishop who issued the licence from any later objection.
Two Stratford farmers, Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, stood as sureties, each pledging the substantial sum of £40. The bond also waived the usual public reading of the banns, letting the couple marry after a single announcement rather than the customary three.
The haste has long fuelled speculation that Anne, then about 26, was already expecting.
The timing supports it: their daughter Susanna was baptised roughly six months later, in May 1583. With so few records of Shakespeare’s personal life surviving, this brief legal instrument remains one of the clearest documentary traces of the man behind the plays.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
