April 23 - Saint William, Chief Bard

St. William was born on this day in 1564 in Stratford to John and Mary (Arden), who had been married about 1557.  She was of the landed gentry, he a yeoman.  William likely attended the local grammar school and would have studied primarily Latin rhetoric, logic and literature.  In 1582 at the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, a local farmer’s daughter eight years his senior.  The couple had three children, Susanna, born six months after the wedding, and the twins Judith and Hamnet, who were born in 1585.  The boy died in 1596, at the age of 11.

About the time of the twins’ birth, St. William moved to London, where he lived for 25 years as an actor and playwright, producing over 30 plays and 100 poems.  In 1599, he became one of the partners in the new Globe Theater built by the Chamberlain’s Men, a group of fine actors, business partners and close personal friends.  A few friends published his work after his death, and humans have been enjoying St. William’s words ever since.

The final five years of his life were spent in retirement back in Stratford, where he enjoyed moderate wealth and the satisfaction of a productive life.  He died and was elevated to sainthood on this day in 1616, and was buried two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church where he had been baptized exactly 52 years earlier.  Let us honor the saint today with our souls and flesh.