Welcome to the new home of Big Optimism! I think it just makes more sense to fold it into Understandably like this, and make it our regular weekly feature.
Bonus: We get comments again, and I have some ideas on how to take advantage of some of the other features on Substack. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones, and that’s what I think I’m going for here.
William and Anne
“Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed wth the furniture.”
— William Shakespeare’s will, 1616
She was 26, pregnant, and from a respectable family. He was 18—still legally a minor in Elizabethan England—and his family had fallen on hard times.
On November 28, 1582, they paid a 40-pound bond for their marriage license in Stratford-upon-Avon. The ceremony needed to happen quickly. She was three months along, and Advent was coming. Church rules forbade marriages during Advent, which started December 2nd. The usual three readings of the banns were waived. Just one would do.
Her name was Anne Hathaway. His was William Shakespeare.
The historical record is thin: legal documents, a few mentions, fragments. No letters between them survive, no diary entries. For most of their marriage, we’re left with speculation, historians and novelists filling in the blanks.
But one thing we’re pretty sure of: On the day of their marriage 443 years ago this week, she was the catch, not him.
Anne came from a solid yeoman farming family in Shottery, just outside Stratford. Her father left her money in his will. She was eight years older than William, which was unusual. William Shakespeare, meanwhile, was the son of John Shakespeare, whose fortunes had declined dramatically. An 18-year-old from a struggling family wasn’t exactly a prize catch.
Some historians have called it a shotgun wedding—Anne’s family forcing the marriage once she got pregnant. Maybe young William felt trapped, setting up decades of resentment.
The evidence? After their first daughter Susanna was born in May 1583, Anne gave birth to twins in February 1585—Hamnet and Judith. Shortly after, William left for London. He spent the next two decades there, building his career as an actor and playwright, while Anne stayed in Stratford raising their children.
They lived apart for twenty years. When Shakespeare died in 1616, he left Anne his “second best bed.” One line. Centuries of scholars have pointed to this as proof the marriage was cold.
We should be careful about filling in blanks with assumptions.
Scholar Germaine Greer argues the opposite. The age difference wasn’t evidence that Anne trapped him, but that he pursued her. Women like Anne—eldest daughters who’d lost parents—often stayed home to care for younger siblings and married later. Pre-marital pregnancy wasn’t scandalous in Elizabethan England. Handfasting—a binding pre-marriage ceremony where couples clasped hands, sometimes tied together with ribbon, and made promises to each other—was legally recognized, and pregnancy frequently came before the formal church wedding.
The “second best bed”? The best bed was reserved for guests. The second-best bed was the marriage bed. Shakespeare was leaving her the bed they’d shared.
They did lose a child. In August 1596, their son Hamnet died at age eleven. Four years later, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. The names were interchangeable in that era. Scholars have spent centuries debating whether the play contains Shakespeare’s grief.
In King John, written around the time Hamnet died, Shakespeare has a mother lament her dead son: “Grief fills the room up of my absent child, / Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me.”
Irish novelist Maggie O’Farrell was fascinated by how little attention Hamnet received in Shakespeare biographies. In 2020, she published Hamnet, imagining the boy’s death and its impact on his family. O’Farrell doesn’t even name Shakespeare in the novel. When Hamnet dies, Anne (called Agnes) bears the immediate weight of the grief. Years later, she watches her husband perform in a play named after their dead son.
One thing I’ve learned: You can never know what’s going on in somebody else’s marriage. It’s almost the opposite of Tolstoy: All unhappy marriages are alike, but every loving marriage is loving in its own way.
In 2025, a newly analyzed 17th-century letter overturned centuries of assumptions. The letter, addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire,” suggests the couple lived together in London on Trinity Lane between 1600 and 1610.
When Shakespeare retired from the theater around 1613, he didn’t stay in London. He moved back to Stratford. Back to Anne. He lived with her for the last three years of his life.
After Shakespeare died in 1616, Anne lived seven more years. They’re buried side by side in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Four hundred forty-three years after that quick marriage in November 1582, we’re left with fragments. They stayed married for 34 years. He came home to her. They’re buried together.
Finding the right person to be with matters. Even if we might never know all the details, it feels better to conclude that William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway were exactly right, for each other.
7 more optimistic things from this week
Sunday, November 23: “Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.” — Charles Darwin, reflecting years later on the initial reception of his work On the Origin of Species on this day in 1859. All 1,250 copies selling out immediately; Darwin had delayed publishing for 20 years, calling it “like confessing a murder.”
Monday, November 24: “Here is the letter that destroyed my universe.” — Astronomer Harlow Shapley, after receiving Edwin Hubble’s letter with proof that the Andromeda “nebula” was actually a separate galaxy. Hubble’s discovery was made public this day in 1924, proving that the Milky Way was just one of countless galaxies and expanding the known universe by at least a million times.
Tuesday, November 25: “The boldest dreams of my life have now been fulfilled.” — Albert Einstein, in a letter to his friend Michele Besso shortly after presenting the final form of his General Theory of Relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences on this day in 1915.
Wednesday, November 26: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” — Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains in Casablanca, which premiered on this day in 1942. The film became one of Hollywood’s most-revered classics, winning three Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Thursday, November 27: “We did not dare dream its success would be so great.” — Advertisement from Macy’s the day after the first Macy’s Christmas Parade (later renamed Thanksgiving Day Parade) on this day in 1924. Over 250,000 spectators lined the route, and Macy’s immediately announced it would become an annual tradition.
Friday, November 28: “We are tired of having a ‘sphere’ doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is ‘unwomanly.’” — Kate Sheppard, leader of New Zealand’s suffrage movement. On this day in 1893, women in New Zealand became the first country in the world where women could vote in parliamentary elections. About 90,290 women cast their votes—an 82% turnout.
Saturday, November 29: “We wanted something that was simple enough that any drunk could play.” — Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari, on the creation of Pong, the first commercially successful video game, which was released on this day in 1972.
Thanks for reading. See you in the comments!
This was powerful. Not only because of the context of story, but also the lesson of avoiding judgement in the absence of evidence.
Love Casablanca, it is an outstanding movie! But then I love Humphrey Bogart as well. I am finding that I enjoy movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's more than the stuff they are putting out today.
Shakespeare, not really interested, as are we not all entitled to a private life? What does it matter all these centuries later what his relationship with his wife was? Maybe that was the whole intent, that no one else needs to know what their relationship was like. We really need to lose this fascination with other people's private lives.
Lots of big things happened this week in the past. In our house, we had to send our cat of 11 years over the rainbow bridge due to heart failure. Doesn't measure as big as Darwin or Hubble but was pretty devastating to our family.