How Did Shakespeare Die?
Is it possible the whole Shakespeare-death-question-thing has been misconstrued for 400 years? Has the world been led astray? Shakespeare, interestingly, once referred to the fact a whole country was fooled as to a person’s cause of death. Shakespeare has Hamlet’s dead father, the Ghost, prior King of Denmark, explain to Hamlet the alleged cause of his death is false:
Now, Hamlet, hear:
‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abus’d;[1]
Hamlet’s father didn’t die by way of a serpent sting – he was murdered. But the whole country of Denmark had by a forged process been led to believe he died from a snake bite. Has the whole world been rankly abused as to Shakespeare’s possible hangover or illness as his cause of death?
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust states the cause of Shakespeare’s death is unknown. To date, an alleged illness is almost – almost – viewed by many scholars as sacrosanct as to the cause; with very little research supporting that suggestion and, interestingly, zero facts to back it up. Not only that, recent scholarship by Bevan and her team now seems to have put an end to the many – and dizzying – illness conjectures. Now, if there is any merit to the Project’s research, suicide can’t be ruled out either. When someone researches if Shakespeare fell off his horse that potential cause might be added to the mix at a later date. It might be time to line the evidence up for the various suppositions. And, just for the sake of completeness, the merry meeting-induced fever cause of death will join in.
Circumstantial Evidence Showing Shakespeare Might Have Died From Illness
1. Differing signatures on his will – potentially showing he might have been infirm. Or, the different signatures might have been due to other reasons.
2. Evidence of an illness circulating in Stratford in 1616 that other people died from.
Circumstantial Evidence Showing Shakespeare Might Have Died From A Fever Contracted After The Merry Meeting
1. Differing signatures on his will – potentially showing he might have caught a fever after drinking. Or, the different signatures might have been due to other reasons.
2. A hearsay diary entry writ 47 years after he died.
Circumstantial Evidence Showing Shakespeare Might Have Committed Suicide
1. Differing signatures on his will – potentially showing he might have been lethargic or depressed. Or, the different signatures might have been due to other reasons.
2. The silence surrounding Shakespeare’s death fits the circumstances of a suicidal death given the catastrophic results his family would have faced if he was identified as a suicide. They would have lost everything – and the Shakespeares had much to lose.
3. There would be very good reason for those in Stratford in April 1616 – his family, son-in-law John Hall and note-maker Thomas Greene – to stay silent if he committed suicide.
4. There would be no reason – none – for any of Shakespeare’s literary friends not to write or tell others about his death and cause thereof if he died of natural causes or illness or a fevered hangover.
5. The quirky funeral, burial and grave-marker oddities are characteristics of a partial Christian burial under irregular circumstances.
6. Shakespeare wrote about suicide, a lot. If suicide was never far from Shakespeare’s mind during his life it might not have been far from his mind near the end.
7. Shakespeare held a positive view of suicide and in his plays, if his characters were faced with circumstances which amounted to a sea of troubles or outrageous fortune, he saw suicide as the preferred, noble option.
8. He went through and had to endure a family scandal that tarnished the Shakespeare family name and his reputation just prior to his death.
9. Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, explicitly brings into unequivocal focus an idemjour-suicide – taking one’s own life on their birthday.
10. Shakespeare died on 23 April. Though modernity doesn’t know with certainty the date of his birth, he knew. If his birthday was 23 April, his death date of 23 April takes on new, increased significance and symbolism and, corollary to that, points back to a possible preferred reason why 23 April might be winning the Shakespeare Birthday Gambit.
11. Shakespeare’s son-in-law was a doctor; possibly being of some use to his father-in-law if medical assistance towards the end of his life was requested.
12. In his 1623 Folio elegy, Digges identified and celebrated various characters and scenes of Shakespeare’s. All the characters he referred to died by suicide. Only identifying characters who killed themselves is not a coincidence; Digges was referring to, and defending, suicide. No other characters were mentioned – by Digges or anyone else.
Should someone want to argue Shakespeare took his own life the supported narrative might go something like this:
The timing of his last will signature and late mourning ring additions coupled with how Shakespeare viewed suicide lends itself to the possibility suicide can’t be ruled out; especially if he knew he was going to take his own life. Shakespeare was going through a difficult time just before his death; he changed his will a second time, perhaps knowing the eventual date of his own death was going to be on his birthday. There are no contemporaneous extant, primary source records writ of his death, which is somewhat curious considering who Shakespeare was. Contemporary evidence of a funeral is interestingly absent in the historical record. Nobody said a thing, which fits the attitudes towards suicide in the 17th century; indeed, silence permeates suicide to this day.
In 1623’s Folio, there are clear suicide references in Digges’s elegy and some interesting language from Heminges and Condell. Other elegists in 1623 and subsequent years make it clear Shakespeare was a literary monument without a tomb; you couldn’t get a tombed, Christian burial if you died by suicide. In order to satisfy the vicar of the day in 1663 the drinking story was either concocted as a joke or it had become the “unofficial official” cause of Shakespeare’s death.
Shakespeare wrote a lot about suicide and considered it noble and in his most famous speech wondered why it wasn’t done more often. If there was anyone who would commit suicide, based on what they thought about the subject during their life, it would be Shakespeare. If there was anyone who had thought it through and was prepared to shuffle off the mortal coil at the appropriate time, it would be Shakespeare. If he did commit suicide the conclusion might read thusly: Shakespeare’s hand destined his life and, so too, his death.
Suppose for one moment, just as a fun exercise, suppose someone committed suicide in the 17th century; then, think how that death might be reflected in the historical record. By way of a test, line up the known, factual, historical record characteristics surrounding Shakespeare’s death next to it. The comparative might go something like this:
- the death would be shrouded in silence: check.
- there would be no contemporaneous comment about the cause of death: check.
- there might be no record of a funeral occurring: check.
- there might not have been a funeral: check.
- there might be grave or burial oddities: check.
- they certainly couldn’t be buried at Westminster Abbey: check.
- had the deceased ever let their views on suicide be known: check.
- did the deceased hold a positive view of suicide: check.
- somebody who knew the cause of death – wanting to ensure the deceased wouldn’t be remembered as a sinner or criminal or be seen as a polluted corpse – might write an elegy referring to, and defending, suicide without letting on he was doing so and in the process cleverly and surreptitiously defend the person’s decision to commit suicide: check.
Somewhat curiously, everything fits. Everything. And, fits perfectly. And, makes perfect sense. No revisionist, contorted conjectures needed. That Everything has has been in the open and in plain sight for 400 years. Everything. And that analysis is only taking into consideration the direct facts, facts that are unimpeachable; it is not counting all the other periphery facts that support the direct facts.
Rather than focusing on a rumoured-diary-entry writ almost 50 years after the event or trying to come up with – yet another – poor 21st century, extrapolated illness conjecture – one of which describes Shakespeare as “the invalid”[2] – modernity might do well, for starters, by 1) try having a look at the existing historical record, including researching characteristics of death in 17th century England and 2) listen to what Shakespeare wrote about, and how he portrayed, suicide then 3) pay attention to a contemporary of Shakespeare’s: one who knew him personally, knew the cause of his death and made it patently clear he wanted to remember Shakespeare in a distinguished, gracious manner. Compared to conjectures and rumours, going directly to the source rarely leads one astray; as all readers of Shakespeare know it is from Rumours tongues/they bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.[3]
In his Folio elegy, Digges wrote what he wrote for a specific reason: his 1623 references to only suicides, his mention of the suicide weapon for two of them and his explicit use of ‘nobly’ were meticulously calculated; as were his carefully chosen 1640 words describing how the audience reacted to the suicide deaths of Brutus and Cassius. But please, please, be under no illusion that specific reason was to inform modernity 400 years hence – or his contemporaries – how Shakespeare died.[4] It was writ for – to honour and defend – his deceased friend; words couched in deep respect and revered dignity. It was writ to let his contemporaries know how he viewed his friend, post-death. Regardless – and quite possibly in the face of – how some of contemporary society might have viewed his dead friend. Can Digges’s words sweep away the dust on antique time’s mountainous error so truth can o’erpeer? Are the fevered hangover and illness conjectures smooth comforts false? Could it be the whole ear of modernity for 400 years has been by a forged process of his death rankly abus’d?
So, how did Shakespeare die? That, is the question.[5] Shakespeare knows, but he’s not sharing.[6] Others know too – his family, his son-in-law doctor John Hall, Thomas Greene, Heminges and Condell, Burbage and the rest of the usual suspects – but they’re not sharing either. Perhaps one guy didn’t get the memo.
SDRP
[1] 1.5.34-37, 1036.
[2] Schoenbaum, Compact Documentary Life, 297.
[3] King Henry IV Part 2, Induction, 39-40, 515.
[4] They knew.
[5] The other, better known one might – thanks to Leonard Digges – take on some new, added significance and come full circle; if so, fascinatingly, Hamlet may never be read the same again.
[6] Unless, he has.