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Death and birth

From the Roxburghe Ballads. University of Victoria Library.

Thou met'st with things dying, I with things new born.
(The Winter's Tale, 3.3.110-111.)

Shakespeare's first grandchild, Elizabeth*, was born in February 1608. She was the only child of his eldest daughter, Susanna, who had married Dr. John Hall* on 5 June 1607, at the age of 24.

Shakespeare's mother, Mary, died later that year; she was buried on September 9, "Mayry Shaxspere, wydowe."

One of Shakespeare's associates in the world of the theater died at about this time (1605). The actor Augustine Phillips' will states, in part: "Item I geve and bequeathe to my ffellowe william Shakespeare a Thirty shillings peece in gould."

Footnotes

  1. Elizabeth Hall

    Elizabeth Hall was the only grandchild Shakespeare ever knew, and the longest to survive. (Although his daughter Judith had three children, they were born after Shakespeare's death and all died young.)

    Elizabeth married twice, but had no children of her own; her death in 1670 ended Shakespeare's direct line.

  2. A good marriage?

    Susanna's marriage must have pleased her father. John Hall was a respected physician whose Select Observerations on English Bodies was printed posthumously in 1657. He was once fined £10 for refusing to buy a knighthood from Charles I. Dr. Hall was buried near his father-in-law in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.