William Shakespeare's Religion - Shakespeare's Family

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 not only the Roman Catholic Mass, but also any service not found in the Book of Common Prayer. In Shakespeare's lifetime there was a substantial and widespread quiet resistance to the newly imposed reforms. Some scholars, using both historical and literary evidence, have argued that Shakespeare was one of these recusants.

Some scholars claim that there is evidence that 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. Although the tract document itself has been lost, 20th century evidence has linked Malone's reported wording of the tract definitively to a testament written by Charles Borromeo and circulated in England by Edmund Campion, copies of which still exist in Italian and English. However other research suggests that the Borromeo testament is an 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. 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.

Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was a member of a conspicuous and determinedly Catholic family in Warwickshire. In 1606, his 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. It may, however, also be a sign of Puritan sympathies; Susannah's sister Judith was, according to some statements, of a Puritanical bent.