Myths about Shakespeare’s Life

Most of the myths about Shakespeare’s life have been disproved, and the rest do not have a shred of evidence to corroborate them. Yet, the myths continue.

1. He was a deer poacher. Not too long after Shakespeare’s death, an obscure clergyman, Richard Davies, noted that Shakespeare was “much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits” Furthermore, he was “oft whipped and sometimes imprisonedand at last made him fly his native country…”

2. He was a schoolmaster. Half a century after Shakespeare’s death, John Aubrey reported this as fact in his Brief Lives.

3. As a young man, Shakespeare and his companions set out to the neighboring town of Bidford to compete in a drinking competition. After being soundly defeated, Shakespeare fell asleep under a crab-tree along the road. (This tree, later known as Shakespeare’s Canopy, became a tourist attraction and was torn to bits by souvenir-hunters in 1824.)

4. During the Lost Years he was a conveyancer’s clerk in the office of a prosperous country lawyer.

5. During the Lost Years he was a scrivener.

6. During the Lost Years he served as a foot soldier in the campaigns in the Low Countries

7. During the Lost Years he visited Italy.

8. He helped write the King James Bible and if you look at the Psalm 46 and count 46 words from the beginning, you arrive at the word “Shake.” Then if you count 46 words from the end (excluding the word “Selah”) you arrive at the word “Spear.”

9. When he arrived in London, he was employed at the theater as a horse holder, according to Nicholas Rowe and Dr. Samuel Johnson. In 1765, Johnson wrote that Shakespeare “was to wait at the door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those that had no servants, that they might be ready again after the performance.

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