0:00:15 > 0:00:20"Everything hath a time," as the Tudors liked to say...
0:00:21 > 0:00:24..good Bible reading Christians as they were.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31"There is a time to be born. And a time to die.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38"A time to win. And a time to lose.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42"To everything is due time.
0:00:43 > 0:00:47This is the extraordinary tale of a peasant's daughter
0:00:47 > 0:00:50who rose to wealth and status.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52But lost it all.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56She survived the plague,
0:00:56 > 0:00:59and lived through four changes of the state religion.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02She buried three of her children,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06but she gave birth to the world's most famous poet.
0:01:08 > 0:01:14This is a story of family and love in a time of revolution.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20The Tudor age was a time of radical transformation
0:01:20 > 0:01:22in English history and society.
0:01:22 > 0:01:29It was a time of violence and war, of class conflict and social unrest.
0:01:29 > 0:01:34The Protestant Reformation turned upside down 1,000 years
0:01:34 > 0:01:38of English Christianity in a mere 20 years.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46We see that tale more than anything else through the lives
0:01:46 > 0:01:51of the great rulers - Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58But what was it like to live through those times at the grass roots?
0:01:58 > 0:02:00For ordinary people?
0:02:00 > 0:02:03And especially, for a woman?
0:02:24 > 0:02:26Mary Arden was one of eight daughters born to
0:02:26 > 0:02:30an old farming family here in the heart of Warwickshire.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38But Mary would leave life on the land for the new world
0:02:38 > 0:02:40of the Tudor middle class.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45Her children would become haberdashers and glovers.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49Two of them made it in the entertainment industry in London.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54So her family story is a mirror of the Tudors' changing times.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03Tudor England was a small country,
0:03:03 > 0:03:06only 2.5 million people.
0:03:06 > 0:03:08An agricultural society
0:03:08 > 0:03:11where 90% of the population worked on the land.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16Life expectancy then was 38.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18A third of all children died before they were ten.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24Mary's father farmed in Wilmcote in the parish of Aston Cantlow,
0:03:24 > 0:03:27just outside Stratford-upon-Avon.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31You can see Stratford down there, in the Avon Valley,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35the spire of Holy Trinity peeping above the trees,
0:03:35 > 0:03:39and the Avon divides the West Midlands landscape here.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44To the south was the land of open field farming and sheep grazing -
0:03:44 > 0:03:47what they called the feldom.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51And to the north, stretching towards Birmingham,
0:03:51 > 0:03:55a more wild, uncultivated, wooded landscape -
0:03:55 > 0:03:57the Arden.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00And that's where Mary's story begins.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11The Forest of Arden is still a name on the map today,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13and it gave Mary her name.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16She had well to do Arden relatives
0:04:16 > 0:04:19who could trace their family tree back before the Norman Conquest,
0:04:19 > 0:04:23to local heroes like the legendary Sir Guy of Warwick.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31But Mary's father Robert Arden was just a husbandman,
0:04:31 > 0:04:33a well-to-do peasant.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39Born around 1480 at the end of the Wars Of The Roses,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42among his first childhood memories would have been news
0:04:42 > 0:04:45of the death of Richard III at the Battle Of Bosworth.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50So Mary's father Robert was a man from the old world
0:04:50 > 0:04:53whose daughters would move into the new.
0:04:58 > 0:05:02Robert built his house here in Wilmcote in 1515.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05It was identified recently,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08astonishingly intact behind its skin of Victorian brick.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17I feel like a Tudor estate agent here.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21This is the barn area and the yard,
0:05:21 > 0:05:25just the same dimensions that it would have been in the 16th century.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29The barns, the brewery, the dairy for making cheese
0:05:29 > 0:05:32and all that around here. Much larger space than
0:05:32 > 0:05:35would actually have been the living space of the house.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Now come in here.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40Here's a later extension to the kitchen,
0:05:40 > 0:05:43but the really interesting space is upstairs.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50It was a traditional peasant house, open to the ceiling,
0:05:50 > 0:05:52the bedroom floor was put in later.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54Just come and have a look through here.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01Robert and his wife raised eight daughters here.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03Mary was the youngest.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07Forget the floor, as I said before, there's nothing there.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10This is open to the roof, a fire on the ground floor level,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13going out through a vent in the roof
0:06:13 > 0:06:16and nicely seasoning the bacon, which is about there.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22It's a typical, open, communal medieval house,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25a single open hall with the kitchen at one end
0:06:25 > 0:06:28and the chamber at another.
0:06:28 > 0:06:29At the chamber end
0:06:29 > 0:06:34the mum and dad would have slept downstairs and all the sisters,
0:06:34 > 0:06:36and all the servants, the maidservants,
0:06:36 > 0:06:40would have slept on a platform above mum and dad's chamber
0:06:40 > 0:06:42that you got to by a ladder.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45Pretty...pretty close and intimate,
0:06:45 > 0:06:50not much privacy, but this is the world in which Mary grew up.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01She was born in around 1535. We can't be sure exactly when
0:07:01 > 0:07:05as parish registers don't start this early,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08but she was baptised here in the church of Aston Cantlow.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13This would have been her parish church.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15Wilmcote, where she was born, didn't have a church,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18didn't have it until 19th century - it was only a little hamlet.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21So she'd have been born, she was born and then baptised
0:07:21 > 0:07:23probably about three or four days later
0:07:23 > 0:07:25in this church, in the font which is still there.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29England was still a Catholic country then
0:07:29 > 0:07:32and Mary was named after the Virgin Mary,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35the patron saint of the village guild, whose chapel was in
0:07:35 > 0:07:38the side aisle of the church.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40So this is where Mary was baptised,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43the medieval font here in Aston Cantlow.
0:07:44 > 0:07:50And she's born into the world of old-fashioned English country Catholicism -
0:07:50 > 0:07:54the world of the saints and the old stories.
0:07:56 > 0:08:01A distant kinsman of hers, John Arden, in his will in 1526
0:08:01 > 0:08:06leaves, "my best damask gown to be made into a cope for the priest,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10"my suit of armour to dress an image of St George
0:08:10 > 0:08:14"to be hung above the pew where I was accustomed to sit,
0:08:14 > 0:08:19"and two heifers for the maintenance of the church bells."
0:08:19 > 0:08:22That's young Mary's world,
0:08:22 > 0:08:25an intensely local community,
0:08:25 > 0:08:30with that sense of the "dear, familiar place," as they put it.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34On the very eve of King Henry VIII's great Reformation.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Mary was born at a crucial time in our history.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47In 1531, King Henry VIII had split with the Pope,
0:08:47 > 0:08:50and declared himself Head of the Church of England.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54It was the beginning of a vast change, the Protestant Reformation,
0:08:54 > 0:08:57but they don't know that yet.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01It's a world in flux, religiously speaking.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05Henry discouraged some aspects of Catholic cult.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08He got twitchy in the late 1530s
0:09:08 > 0:09:12about people lighting candles in front of saints' images,
0:09:12 > 0:09:15but not a lot else changed.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18The Mass went on exactly as before.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24In the West Midlands, it's a deeply conservative area,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28so what youth culture there was would have been Catholic.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32It would have been focused around the ritual calendar
0:09:32 > 0:09:35which was broadly religious but also festive.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41So at first at the grass roots not much changed,
0:09:41 > 0:09:45but in Mary's early childhood, events began to gather speed.
0:09:49 > 0:09:55Between 1536 and 1540, King Henry ordered the dissolution of the monasteries.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58Centres of enormous wealth and privilege,
0:09:58 > 0:10:01they held a third of all the land in England.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09In Mary's village, Aston Cantlow,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12the local guild was stripped of its land and silver plate.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16When the monasteries were dissolved,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20those religious institutions disappeared as well.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24Property sold off... Their property was sold, their land was sold,
0:10:24 > 0:10:27some of their artefacts, obviously.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30Everything was sold to raise money for the crown.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36A Victorian teacher here in the village
0:10:36 > 0:10:38recorded details of the plunder.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42Two towels, altar cloths,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46a pix, a cope, a worsted cope.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49And vestments, one of them in silk.
0:10:49 > 0:10:54These would have been the things the priests wore... For the mass.
0:10:54 > 0:10:56And here, one chalice.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00But your chalice was saved.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04It may be that Henry VIII's commissioners sold it
0:11:04 > 0:11:07back to the parish, just a little bit of gain.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11A piece of extortion! Absolutely, yes.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17'That precious chalice was saved by the villagers...'
0:11:17 > 0:11:20Oh, goodness! That is absolutely beautiful, isn't it?
0:11:20 > 0:11:23'..and incredibly they've still got it."
0:11:23 > 0:11:25It would be used in a nuptial Mass.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27For her wedding.
0:11:27 > 0:11:29She would have held it? Yes.
0:11:29 > 0:11:30It's absolutely wonderful, isn't it?
0:11:32 > 0:11:37So when Mary was a girl, England was still a Catholic country.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41But her world was poised between old and new.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46In society, too, change was in the air.
0:11:46 > 0:11:51The dissolution of the monasteries flooded the market with land and money
0:11:51 > 0:11:54which would give rise to a new middle class.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09But the Ardens and their neighbours were working people
0:12:09 > 0:12:10and they got on with life.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15By a huge stroke of luck,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18a list of contents has survived for Mary's house in Wilmcote,
0:12:18 > 0:12:22which gives us a picture of her life at home.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26What comes across is that this is a mixed farm.
0:12:26 > 0:12:28They're keeping animals, they're growing crops,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30and the two are fairly balanced.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37He's got eight oxen, that's not an accident.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40You need eight oxen to pull a plough.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45He's not going in for beef very much, he's only got two bullocks.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47But he is dairying.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49I mean, seven cows is above average.
0:12:53 > 0:12:58The end of the inventory we have a total valuation of... 77...
0:12:58 > 0:13:02?77 11s 10d, That's right. Was that a lot of money then?
0:13:02 > 0:13:05Well, it's quite a lot for a husbandman.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13Most women then were a working class -
0:13:13 > 0:13:16in the fields, in the house and in the kitchen -
0:13:16 > 0:13:18so Mary grew up multi-skilling.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23Mary would have been taught from a very early age
0:13:23 > 0:13:27how to do all the things that were essential.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32It wasn't just the household and the children,
0:13:32 > 0:13:36it was the swine, the dairy cattle,
0:13:36 > 0:13:41the fowl, brewing, baking, making cheese.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44And she had to be a wonderful planner as well.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49She wasn't just planning next week's meals,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52she was planning a year in advance.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54If she hadn't got her rennet made,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56she wouldn't be making cheese next year.
0:13:58 > 0:14:04From Mary's time, self-help manuals gave women tips on how to be a good housewife.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08"The knowledge of dairies, malting,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11"oats and their excellent uses in families."
0:14:11 > 0:14:13What about hard agricultural labour?
0:14:13 > 0:14:17I mean, Robert doesn't have any sons. what does he do when it comes
0:14:17 > 0:14:20to ploughing time and harrowing and all those sort of heavier jobs?
0:14:20 > 0:14:23The women would be expected to muck in,
0:14:23 > 0:14:28so if the sheep were being sheared, they might be rolling the fleeces
0:14:28 > 0:14:31and taking them off to be prepared.
0:14:31 > 0:14:34The men would cut the corn, and it would be the women
0:14:34 > 0:14:38gathering them up and making them into stooks
0:14:38 > 0:14:41and picking up any bits that had been left.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45So they were expected not only to run the household and look after
0:14:45 > 0:14:48the children and everything directly around the farm house.
0:14:48 > 0:14:55But they also were there at the busy times as well, helping out.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00Women were very strong. You wouldn't survive very long
0:15:00 > 0:15:03if you were a bit weak, shall we say?
0:15:05 > 0:15:08But even in Mary's house in Wilmcote, there are hints
0:15:08 > 0:15:12of the new middle class taste creeping into the countryside,
0:15:12 > 0:15:16the world to which, as a grown-up, Mary would aspire.
0:15:16 > 0:15:23At meals, Mary and her sisters would sit on benches, on forms,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26as a chair was a mark of status.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30Many households only had one chair. Robert Arden actually has three.
0:15:30 > 0:15:36So, one for him, one for his wife,
0:15:36 > 0:15:40another for a guest, you know. A guest chair. That's right.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43Feather beds and mattresses? Yes, yes, yes.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46Bolsters and things - you don't quite imagine that.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49Is this new taste coming in, Chris? Middle class taste?
0:15:49 > 0:15:52Well, the feather beds aren't that new, but it's certainly...
0:15:52 > 0:15:55there's a certain emphasis on comfort.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58You know, there are feather beds, there's references to cushions.
0:15:58 > 0:16:02You know, it's not a bare, austere house.
0:16:04 > 0:16:09To have 11 painted cloths is quite unusual.
0:16:09 > 0:16:13Most of the walls internally have a painted cloth on them.
0:16:13 > 0:16:19You could think of it as being like a sort of wallpaper, really.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21You know, it's decorative.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25And what we would love to know is what's painted on these cloths.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28I mean, it could be scenes from the Bible,
0:16:28 > 0:16:31it could be scenes from literature and mythology.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35Bright colours and, you know, interesting scenes.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38So she grew up with stories? Exactly. In one form or other. Exactly.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43And for Mary as a devout Catholic,
0:16:43 > 0:16:46the most important stories were religious.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49You can still get a sense of her world
0:16:49 > 0:16:51here in Stratford's guild chapel.
0:16:51 > 0:16:56It's very hard to imagine it now, because it's a pale shadow of what it would have been.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59But every surface covered in images and stories
0:16:59 > 0:17:04and warnings. With the Christian souls being reborn
0:17:04 > 0:17:07and the dead... Going down into the mouth of hell.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12Yeah, yeah. A bit like a graphic strip cartoon of how to behave in life, or else.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16These were painted in her father's lifetime,
0:17:16 > 0:17:19and whitewashed when Mary was in her 20s.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23Uncovered in 1804, they were copied
0:17:23 > 0:17:25while their colours were still bright.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31The blessings of heaven and the terrors of hell.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35Such images must have filled her young imagination
0:17:35 > 0:17:38along with the great tales -
0:17:38 > 0:17:41the murder of St Thomas Becket,
0:17:41 > 0:17:43and a favourite story in Stratford...
0:17:43 > 0:17:45Wow! Look at that!
0:17:45 > 0:17:48George And The Dragon. I love St George And The Dragon.
0:17:48 > 0:17:50Yeah, yeah. But everybody knew that story,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54and the guild's pageant was the pageant of St George.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56So Robert might have brought his girls over,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00to stand in the crowd and see the great dragon with its tail
0:18:00 > 0:18:02like a Chinese New Year festival.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05Well, it clearly was like a Chinese dragon
0:18:05 > 0:18:09because there were payments in the accounts for bearing the dragon.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13So I imagine lots of little men on sticks underneath this thing
0:18:13 > 0:18:15leading it through the street.
0:18:17 > 0:18:22There were guilds like this in every town - social and religious clubs.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27The Stratford Guild Book shows that Mary's father joined in 1517.
0:18:27 > 0:18:29There he is, right at the top, third entry.
0:18:29 > 0:18:35Robertus Ardren in Wilmcote.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39And this is going to take us from the chapel, the religious side,
0:18:39 > 0:18:44out into the social and administrative area, which is through here.
0:18:44 > 0:18:48So the guilds were centres of social life
0:18:48 > 0:18:50for men and women before the reformation.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54They helped shape the ethos of Mary's childhood world.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58The Guildhall. Yeah, great.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02Ladies and gentlemen, may I ask you to charge your glasses?
0:19:03 > 0:19:07The main thing that happened here would be the annual feast.
0:19:07 > 0:19:11The feast was the classic networking opportunity,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14because this is when everybody would be here.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18You forget about the admin,
0:19:18 > 0:19:20you forget about the routine,
0:19:20 > 0:19:22you just enjoy yourselves and relax and chat.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27Because you are all officially equal brothers and sisters, there is
0:19:27 > 0:19:30the opportunity to meet a brother of a different social status.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32And even a sister!
0:19:32 > 0:19:36And even a sister or potentially a spouse! Perhaps a wife to be.
0:19:39 > 0:19:45But now the revolutions of the time begin to turn faster.
0:19:52 > 0:19:58In January 1547, when Mary was 12, King Henry VIII died.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05He was succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Edward.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08Precocious, pious, cold-hearted,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Edward was surrounded by Protestant fundamentalists
0:20:11 > 0:20:14and they began the real religious revolution.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21Mary's childhood world was about to change forever.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27So the real religious trauma for Mary Arden
0:20:27 > 0:20:30would have occurred in her early teens, when
0:20:30 > 0:20:35the Mass was abolished, the churches were stripped bare, whitewashed.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41I suppose people moved from a world in which
0:20:41 > 0:20:44everything religiously could be taken for granted
0:20:44 > 0:20:48to a world in which everything religiously was contested.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56In 1549, the government ordered the Catholic Mass to be abolished,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59and then the old rites for birth and death,
0:20:59 > 0:21:03the old festivals, even dancing round the maypole was forbidden.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08Every parish was told to smash its images in wood and stone
0:21:08 > 0:21:10and stained glass.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18They were to whitewash the painted walls, the Bible of the poor,
0:21:18 > 0:21:20and, "Do it properly," the government said,
0:21:20 > 0:21:24"not slobbered over with lime that could be washed off tomorrow.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26"So that no memory remain."
0:21:29 > 0:21:33It was the beginning of what they called "the commotion time".
0:21:40 > 0:21:42But out in Warwickshire,
0:21:42 > 0:21:46families like the Ardens remained loyal to the old faith.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52It would take 40 years for things to change in the countryside.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59When Mary was about 12, her mother died.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Mary's father was now in his late 60s,
0:22:02 > 0:22:04but a year or two later he remarried -
0:22:04 > 0:22:08Agnes Hill, a younger widow who brought her own four children
0:22:08 > 0:22:13to live in Wilmcote, along with Mary and her sisters Joyce and Alice.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18The living space was cramped,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21and relations with their new stepmother would become strained.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29So Robert drew up leases to protect his own daughters,
0:22:29 > 0:22:33to make sure that if he died they would still inherit.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36Tudor people were hard-headed when it came to property,
0:22:36 > 0:22:39and for Robert, family came first.
0:22:49 > 0:22:55Then in 1553, when Mary was 18, King Edward suddenly died,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00and Henry VIII's daughter Mary Tudor came to the throne.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04A convinced Catholic, she set out to turn the clock back.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15But in winter 1556, Mary's father fell ill.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22Well, I'm afraid you've got to imagine Robert in bed.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26He has probably caught a bad attack of the flu,
0:23:26 > 0:23:31because there's an influenza epidemic going on at this time
0:23:31 > 0:23:35and it's fatal flu, he knows it's fatal, he knows he's going to die,
0:23:35 > 0:23:37and so he assembles his will.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43The first thing he thinks about is the salvation of his soul,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47and so he expresses his religious views by invoking
0:23:47 > 0:23:49the Virgin Mary.
0:23:50 > 0:23:55"Our blessed lady, St Mary, and the holy company of heaven."
0:23:56 > 0:23:59These are the phrases which a Catholic layman
0:23:59 > 0:24:01would use in these circumstances.
0:24:07 > 0:24:13Having looked after his soul, he then disposes of his worldly goods.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16But singles out his youngest daughter?
0:24:16 > 0:24:18Yes, that's the extraordinary thing, that he obviously
0:24:18 > 0:24:21thinks very well of Mary, I think.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25You know, because the first thing he thinks of is providing her
0:24:25 > 0:24:28with land and with money,
0:24:28 > 0:24:32and it's a very substantial sum of money that he's giving her.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34?6 13s 4d.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39That's a bit more than a skilled carpenter would earn in a year.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43So he's leaving her, say, ?30,000.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Wow. Which is not bad. Not bad.
0:24:46 > 0:24:51And, rather surprisingly, as she is the youngest daughter,
0:24:51 > 0:24:54she is named as one of his executors.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58"Alice and Mary my daughters."
0:24:58 > 0:25:02He obviously perhaps has some affection for her,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05or he certainly has some respect for her as well.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09He obviously trusts her, he thinks she's a responsible person
0:25:09 > 0:25:15who will look after his, the affairs following on from his will.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18Does that mean she's got to ride over to Worcester
0:25:18 > 0:25:21to see the will approved, then? I mean, how did it work in those days?
0:25:21 > 0:25:23Yeah, I think she did.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27And she would also have to negotiate with various other people
0:25:27 > 0:25:30who received sums of money and so on.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34After all, right at the end he leaves fourpence
0:25:34 > 0:25:38to everybody in the parish of Aston Cantlow
0:25:38 > 0:25:40who doesn't have a team.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44That means someone who doesn't have a team of oxen.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46So he's saying those sort of labourers
0:25:46 > 0:25:49and small holders of the parish are going to get fourpence each, so
0:25:49 > 0:25:54presumably Mary has to go around the houses saying, "Do you have a team?"
0:25:54 > 0:25:57And then pressing fourpences into their hands.
0:26:06 > 0:26:12As her father's legal executor, Mary surely had basic reading skills,
0:26:12 > 0:26:16like many Tudor women of her class, but could she write?
0:26:16 > 0:26:21On later legal documents, she makes her mark with her initial.
0:26:22 > 0:26:27And the wax seal has her personal emblem from her seal ring -
0:26:27 > 0:26:28the horse.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34The mark of Mary is a beautifully penned M.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37That's how you were taught to do your capital letters
0:26:37 > 0:26:40in what was called "secretary hand".
0:26:41 > 0:26:44And that possibility becomes a likelihood
0:26:44 > 0:26:49when you look at this document, drawn up on the same day in 1579.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54And there on the little tag of parchment to the side,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57messed up because it's over the crinkle of the parchment,
0:26:57 > 0:27:01and what looks like an abbreviated signature.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06You put those two together and it looks very much
0:27:06 > 0:27:10as if she knew not only how to read, but how to write.
0:27:13 > 0:27:18She's quite a catch then - multi-skilled, literate maybe,
0:27:18 > 0:27:21set up by her dad with money and land,
0:27:21 > 0:27:24and maybe she had a match already in mind -
0:27:24 > 0:27:29with the son of one of her father's tenants - John Shakespeare.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36John Shakespeare of Snitterfield had moved to Stratford
0:27:36 > 0:27:38from the countryside in the early '50s.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42The son of a husbandman, he'd done a seven year apprenticeship
0:27:42 > 0:27:45to the master glover, Tom Dixon.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50So John was a young man with prospects.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57In October 1556, John buys two freehold properties
0:27:57 > 0:28:01here in the town - one down the road in Greenhill Street,
0:28:01 > 0:28:03and one here in Henley Street.
0:28:03 > 0:28:09This is a young man with fantastic drive and determination.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13And as for the date when he bought this house,
0:28:13 > 0:28:17it makes you wonder whether in fact he already had marriage in mind,
0:28:17 > 0:28:22because within weeks of purchasing it, he marries Mary Arden.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30They marry in 1557.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34He's in his late twenties, she's maybe 22.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37I pray you, all that are gathered here,
0:28:37 > 0:28:40on behalf of these souls, John and Mary
0:28:40 > 0:28:43to hear and witness that which they intend.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49First there'd be a troth plighting in front of family and friends,
0:28:49 > 0:28:52and later a church service.
0:28:52 > 0:28:54And with Mary Tudor on the throne,
0:28:54 > 0:28:58it's a Catholic wedding with a Latin Mass.
0:28:59 > 0:29:04Then a feast, with music, dancing and lots of drink.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10No puritan reserve yet here in Aston Cantlow!
0:29:19 > 0:29:24And then the newlyweds rode off to begin a new life in Stratford.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32Stratford then was a small market town with maybe 1,200 people
0:29:32 > 0:29:35and a growing middle class, serviced by
0:29:35 > 0:29:38tailors, drapers and glovers.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41THEY CHATTER
0:29:41 > 0:29:44It was a place where you could rise in the world.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49Ah, lovely! The world of Elizabethan interiors. Indeed.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55I think that the time that Mary marries in the 1560s
0:29:55 > 0:29:58is an interesting time, because everything's shifting,
0:29:58 > 0:30:02everything's changing - the effects of the religious Reformation,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05and then this massive social change as well.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09And there's a shift towards ornamenting interiors,
0:30:09 > 0:30:13investment in the home in the form of wall decoration,
0:30:13 > 0:30:17in material furnishings and fabrics and textile items.
0:30:17 > 0:30:22Let me ask you about this. Yes. I can hand it over to you.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25So this is sort of late Elizabethan, something like that.
0:30:25 > 0:30:27Yeah. Mary may have worn something like this.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30It's difficult to know, I mean certainly Mary would have wanted
0:30:30 > 0:30:34to wear something like this, because it's got very fine decoration.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38It's called blackwork. And, interestingly, even though it's got all of this decoration,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42it's a garment to be worn informally, in the house.
0:30:42 > 0:30:47And again I think that really gets to the heart of the significance of the household.
0:30:47 > 0:30:52If you're worried about wearing something as beautiful as this in your home,
0:30:52 > 0:30:57then it indicates just how important a space for social display, and
0:30:57 > 0:31:01perhaps some social competition, that the household was in this period.
0:31:03 > 0:31:07Are we allowed to talk about middle class taste
0:31:07 > 0:31:10and sort of rising up in the world and, you know, competitiveness
0:31:10 > 0:31:13with your neighbours or I mean... Yeah, I think so.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16I think definitely. I think, you know, you've got a little bit of extra money
0:31:16 > 0:31:20and you use that money to embellish your immediate environment,
0:31:20 > 0:31:24your clothing and, of course, your house.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28So, and, yeah, in an urban setting you are going to be thinking about
0:31:28 > 0:31:31keeping up with the Joneses. There's going to be that sense of wanting to
0:31:31 > 0:31:33have a house that fits with your status.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41Like most young couples, they wanted to start a family,
0:31:41 > 0:31:45but in Tudor England having children was fraught with danger.
0:31:47 > 0:31:49A third of all babies died in the first year.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54And Mary's first two children both died.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59Joan, in 1558, aged two months,
0:31:59 > 0:32:04and then Margaret, who died in 1563, aged one.
0:32:06 > 0:32:101563, Margaret, daughter of John Shakespeare.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19Unfortunately, it wouldn't have been that unusual.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22There's an expectation now that children will outlive their parents
0:32:22 > 0:32:25and that, unfortunately, wasn't the case in the past.
0:32:26 > 0:32:30The first reliable statistics on the causes of death come from London
0:32:30 > 0:32:32in the early 1600s.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36The biggest cause of death is actually this category called
0:32:36 > 0:32:39"Chrisoms and Infants", which is, you know, is babies,
0:32:39 > 0:32:42it's children that are within a couple of months of birth.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48And it's almost 2,400 deaths in one year. Wow.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51So a quarter of all the deaths in London are
0:32:51 > 0:32:54children in their first few months. That's Mary's first two kids.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56People sometimes tell you that,
0:32:56 > 0:32:59"Oh, they can't have felt as much as we do,"
0:32:59 > 0:33:02because they had lots of children and lots of children died,
0:33:02 > 0:33:04but is that the case? I think that a lot of historians
0:33:04 > 0:33:10have altered their thinking on this, because we have found,
0:33:10 > 0:33:13there are some really striking accounts of people grieving
0:33:13 > 0:33:16for their children, trying to deal with the pain of that.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20There are manuals from the period that help you, help you
0:33:20 > 0:33:23work to be the healthiest kind of person you can be
0:33:23 > 0:33:24and that includes the emotions.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27So interestingly, it gives guidelines about how you should
0:33:27 > 0:33:30try to manage your emotions and a lot of the manuals say that
0:33:30 > 0:33:33grief is the emotion that is most devastating,
0:33:33 > 0:33:36not just to the mind and soul but to the body.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38And, in fact, if we look in this bill,
0:33:38 > 0:33:43compared to, you know, infant deaths it's a very small category,
0:33:43 > 0:33:45but there is a category for "Griefe" here -
0:33:45 > 0:33:4820 people who died of "Griefe" in London, in this year.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52But nevertheless, we've also found documents that suggest that,
0:33:52 > 0:33:55while people were aware of the fact that they were supposed to
0:33:55 > 0:33:59ideally moderate their emotions, that they also felt very deeply.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02And there are people who say things like,
0:34:02 > 0:34:05"I know that I shouldn't be grieving this extremely,
0:34:05 > 0:34:08"I know that, you know, my child was never really mine, because
0:34:08 > 0:34:12"my child belongs to God and God has decided to take him or her back.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16"But nevertheless, I can't, I can't stop feeling the way I do."
0:34:19 > 0:34:22So the first years of marriage were hard for Mary,
0:34:22 > 0:34:24but at least her husband was doing well.
0:34:24 > 0:34:26BELL RINGS
0:34:29 > 0:34:32His freehold in Henley Street
0:34:32 > 0:34:35entitled him to join the town elite.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38The corporation had replaced the guild,
0:34:38 > 0:34:43which was shut down under Edward in 1547, and they ran the town.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46The council books show that John's civic duties range from
0:34:46 > 0:34:51ale taster to constable, and charity doles to the poor.
0:34:51 > 0:34:54Meeting of the Stratford-upon-Avon corporation,
0:34:54 > 0:35:00at the hall held in our garden, the 30th day of August, anno 1564.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04Money paid by us towards the relief of the poor -
0:35:04 > 0:35:07from the mayor, Mr Wakeley, two shillings and fourpence...
0:35:09 > 0:35:12..from John Shakespeare, twelve pence.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16He was a man they could trust,
0:35:16 > 0:35:18a man of credit.
0:35:24 > 0:35:29God bless Queen Elizabeth! Wassail!
0:35:29 > 0:35:34But in winter 1558, Mary Tudor suddenly died
0:35:34 > 0:35:38and Henry VIII's daughter Elizabeth came to the throne.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43In Warwickshire, they greeted her accession with bonfires
0:35:43 > 0:35:46and doles of cakes and ale to the poor.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49They sang Latin Masses for the new Queen,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51but Elizabeth was a Protestant,
0:35:51 > 0:35:55and within the year she reversed Mary's return to Catholicism.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02We tend to think of the Elizabethan settlement
0:36:02 > 0:36:04as a period in which the Reformation finds itself,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07it beds down.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11It didn't look like that to people in the 1560s.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13Everything was up for grabs.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21There was a great sense of anxiety on the part of
0:36:21 > 0:36:25those responsible for enforcing what is, quite certainly,
0:36:25 > 0:36:28in 1558 a minority religion.
0:36:28 > 0:36:32The Queen's Protestantism is a minority religion.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38It was the fourth change of religion in 20 years,
0:36:38 > 0:36:42and at this moment no-one knew how long Elizabeth would live,
0:36:42 > 0:36:45or what would happen next.
0:36:48 > 0:36:52Soon there were risings against her religious policies,
0:36:52 > 0:36:55and in response the government demanded the removal of
0:36:55 > 0:36:58all outward trappings of the old faith.
0:36:59 > 0:37:01There's a pogrom to get rid of this stuff
0:37:01 > 0:37:04because during the rebellion in the north,
0:37:04 > 0:37:08the alter stones had reappeared, the mass books had come out,
0:37:08 > 0:37:10the holy water pots had come out,
0:37:10 > 0:37:12women had started queueing to be churched.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18So there is a tremendous determination to remove
0:37:18 > 0:37:23these physical anchors for backward-looking sentiment.
0:37:25 > 0:37:31In winter 1563, the Stratford council had to do the government's bidding.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37Final act in the story is entered into the council minutes
0:37:37 > 0:37:40for the winter of 1563.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44Among various expenditures is this,
0:37:44 > 0:37:51"Item paid for defacing the images in the chapel - two shillings."
0:37:53 > 0:37:57That's for the whitewashing of all the paintings
0:37:57 > 0:38:02in this chapel, so that "no memory remains", as the government said.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07And the person who signed off on it is the chamberlain,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10Mary's husband, John Shakespeare.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17What Mary thought, we don't know,
0:38:17 > 0:38:22but in April 1564 her third child was born, a boy.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24They called him William.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27And after losing her first two children,
0:38:27 > 0:38:30you'd imagine he was the apple of her eye.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35Mary would have stayed at home for the first month
0:38:35 > 0:38:40to regain her strength before the traditional purification ceremony
0:38:40 > 0:38:43at church on the 28th May.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49But when Mary's baby was three months old,
0:38:49 > 0:38:51the plague came to Stratford.
0:38:52 > 0:38:551564, "Here began the plague".
0:38:57 > 0:39:01London was already reeling with thousands of deaths,
0:39:01 > 0:39:07when on 11th July the apprentice Oliver Gunn died of the pestilence.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11Soon the town was living in fear.
0:39:13 > 0:39:14At the end of August,
0:39:14 > 0:39:19the town corporation held their meeting out here in the open air
0:39:19 > 0:39:21in the garden behind the Guildhall,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24to try to lessen the risk of contagion,
0:39:24 > 0:39:29because they believed that plague was passed by infected airs.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32But by then, seven weeks since the first case,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35the situation for the town was becoming desperate.
0:39:36 > 0:39:41Over 200 people died in Stratford, a sixth of the town.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45Richard Simmons, the town clerk, lost two sons and a daughter.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49The Greens, three doors down from Mary in Henley Street,
0:39:49 > 0:39:50four children.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57With a young baby, it was best to get out if you could,
0:39:57 > 0:40:02and Mary you'd guess rode out to her sister in Wilmcote.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05Only five miles away,
0:40:05 > 0:40:09but here in the country air there wasn't a single death.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18So luckily for Mary, and for the rest of us, William survived.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22And the next few years were good times for Mary and her husband.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27She had more children - Joan, Anne, Gilbert and Richard.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29K, L...
0:40:29 > 0:40:33She would have had an important role in their pre-school education,
0:40:33 > 0:40:37teaching them the alphabet and basic reading at home.
0:40:37 > 0:40:41W. P. P. Q... Q...
0:40:43 > 0:40:48But of course, like all mothers, she also told stories.
0:40:48 > 0:40:51Merrier than a nightingale, that I shall sing.
0:40:51 > 0:40:56There's no television, there's no radio, there are no DVDs.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59What you do, and especially in the long winter evenings,
0:40:59 > 0:41:01is tell stories.
0:41:01 > 0:41:07His name, it was Sir Guy of Warwick. Brave and wise.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11And years later her son William would remember the tales
0:41:11 > 0:41:14of their legendary ancestor, Guy of Warwick.
0:41:14 > 0:41:20He came to England, where Athelstan the King he found.
0:41:20 > 0:41:24There were a lot of printed texts around of what you might call
0:41:24 > 0:41:27the pulp fiction of the Tudor age,
0:41:27 > 0:41:31which, indeed, tended to be prints of these old medieval romances,
0:41:31 > 0:41:35many of them already well over 200 years old.
0:41:35 > 0:41:41And for his love, I understand, he slew the dragon in Northumberland,
0:41:41 > 0:41:45full far in the north country.
0:41:45 > 0:41:50Coventry kept its mystery cycle going until 1579,
0:41:50 > 0:41:55and so plenty of opportunities for both Mary and her children
0:41:55 > 0:41:59to have seen them. And I think we can be 90% certain,
0:41:59 > 0:42:0295% certain, that Shakespeare had.
0:42:02 > 0:42:08And therefore at this ending day, he went to joy that lasteth, eh?
0:42:08 > 0:42:11It's speculation, but with evidence,
0:42:11 > 0:42:15about where Shakespeare's imagination really got laid down...
0:42:15 > 0:42:18Amen, and charity.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20Again!
0:42:20 > 0:42:23..and it wasn't in Stratford grammar school, reading
0:42:23 > 0:42:26Ovid and Virgil, however much influence those had on him,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29it was something much earlier and much deeper.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33His mum. His mum. His mum.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35Yes. I think she was a good storyteller.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44John, meanwhile, continued his rise in the council.
0:42:44 > 0:42:45All those in favour...
0:42:45 > 0:42:48Ale taster, constable, chamberlain,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51and in 1568, he's elected Mayor.
0:42:53 > 0:42:55Anybody against?
0:42:55 > 0:42:59So Mary was now the wife of alderman and high bailiff, Mr Shakespeare.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08And now they set out to use John's position to make real money.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11And in Tudor England,
0:43:11 > 0:43:13that didn't mean hedge funds or commodity futures,
0:43:13 > 0:43:15it meant wool.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20In those days it was a very valuable commodity.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22Everybody wore wool.
0:43:23 > 0:43:25And on Sundays if you didn't have a woollen hat on
0:43:25 > 0:43:27then you would be in trouble.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31And even when you died you had to be buried in a woollen shroud.
0:43:32 > 0:43:35Wool was the mainstay of the economy,
0:43:35 > 0:43:39so the government controlled it to prevent illegal dealers
0:43:39 > 0:43:41undercutting the market -
0:43:41 > 0:43:43and that's what John was doing.
0:43:45 > 0:43:49There's no big profit in sewing gloves all day.
0:43:49 > 0:43:54But buy a sack of wool for ?8 and sell it for ten,
0:43:54 > 0:43:57you know, that's ?2 without any work at all.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06The sellers won't come to him he'll go to the sellers,
0:44:06 > 0:44:08so he'll be travelling around the countryside
0:44:11 > 0:44:15John's web of contacts spread out into the Cotswolds,
0:44:15 > 0:44:18up to Nottingham and down into Wiltshire.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23And would Mary have been keeping his books while he was away travelling?
0:44:23 > 0:44:27Well... Did woman do that? Did they have a hand in the business?
0:44:27 > 0:44:31Well, it seems to be perfectly normal for wives
0:44:31 > 0:44:36and other members of the families to deal with business contacts.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40If someone knocked on the door to pay money, for example, the wife
0:44:40 > 0:44:43would take it, and perhaps even joining in the bargaining process.
0:44:43 > 0:44:46But a risky business from what you're saying,
0:44:46 > 0:44:48when it's shady side of the law,
0:44:48 > 0:44:51and you're not quite sure that the quality of the wool's going to be
0:44:51 > 0:44:53what you thought it would be. Yes.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57But it's all very, as you say, it's all very informal,
0:44:57 > 0:45:02but what makes it work is that level of trust that people have.
0:45:05 > 0:45:11But trust was a big issue in Elizabeth's surveillance society,
0:45:11 > 0:45:14where a network of informers - bounty hunters -
0:45:14 > 0:45:17snooped on everything from your business and your religion
0:45:17 > 0:45:19to your sex life.
0:45:20 > 0:45:26And, astonishingly, the details of John's shady wheeler dealings
0:45:26 > 0:45:30were discovered not long ago in the National Archives.
0:45:31 > 0:45:36Here's the case - early 1571
0:45:36 > 0:45:38and a government informer,
0:45:38 > 0:45:43James Langrake of Whittlebury in Northamptonshire,
0:45:43 > 0:45:48has done John for illegal wool dealing, he's reported him to the Exchequer.
0:45:48 > 0:45:51These informers, working for the government,
0:45:51 > 0:45:54and they get a cut of the fines which were imposed on the victims.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57And Langrake's got something against John.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01He reported him the previous year for illegal money lending
0:46:01 > 0:46:05and now he gets him twice for illegal wool dealing.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07And here's the key to the document,
0:46:07 > 0:46:10it's the amounts involved.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13300 tods of wool in these two cases.
0:46:13 > 0:46:17That's about 8,000 or 9,000 pounds in weight,
0:46:17 > 0:46:22but in monetary terms, ?210 in Tudor money,
0:46:22 > 0:46:25when a good house could be bought for 30
0:46:25 > 0:46:29and a wage labourer would earn ?10 a year.
0:46:29 > 0:46:31These are enormous sums of money,
0:46:31 > 0:46:37which just shows you how deep John was in all this business,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40and how dangerous the business was.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47This time John was able to pay off the informer
0:46:47 > 0:46:49and he got away with it.
0:46:49 > 0:46:54Meanwhile, back in Stratford, as an alderman, John was entitled to
0:46:54 > 0:46:56send William to grammar school.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00The gateway to university and a career in the law or local office.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05What a proud mother Mary must have been.
0:47:07 > 0:47:11But her husband was now on the government's watch list.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17In the late 1570s,
0:47:17 > 0:47:20fate suddenly closed in on the family.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25The government turned on the illegal wool dealers with the full force of the law...
0:47:27 > 0:47:30..and John's whole informal network collapsed.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36Suddenly you realise he's got a network of debt everywhere. Yes.
0:47:36 > 0:47:38This is a catastrophe for him really.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41Well, he's always got a network of debt,
0:47:41 > 0:47:43but he's usually got a flow of income,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45which can keep on servicing that debt.
0:47:49 > 0:47:54When we use the phrase "losing credit",
0:47:54 > 0:47:56in the 16th century losing credit meant that you could
0:47:56 > 0:48:00no longer function in business, because losing credit would mean
0:48:00 > 0:48:02that people had stopped trusting you.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05They didn't trust you to pay up, and so they would no longer
0:48:05 > 0:48:08deal with you, so your business was ruined.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16Then, as their money troubles piled up,
0:48:16 > 0:48:21in 1579, Mary's seven-year-old daughter Anne died.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33There's a note in the corporation book which gives you another insight
0:48:33 > 0:48:35into that moment of tragedy for the family.
0:48:37 > 0:48:43"Item for the bell and pall for Mr Shakespeare's daughter."
0:48:43 > 0:48:46For her funeral. Eight pence.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50As Mary's eldest son would later write,
0:48:50 > 0:48:54"When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, but in battalions."
0:48:57 > 0:48:59Desperate now to save money,
0:48:59 > 0:49:03they take William out of school to help John at work.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06So he loses his chance of university.
0:49:07 > 0:49:10And soon they are trying to raise money any way they can.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17You can imagine John and Mary sitting at their table
0:49:17 > 0:49:22here in the parlour, doing the sums as the debts mounted up.
0:49:23 > 0:49:28They borrowed money from friends and neighbours, from in-laws and family.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34Then they start selling off pieces of their inheritance.
0:49:34 > 0:49:38Mary gets rid of her portion of the land at Snitterfield
0:49:38 > 0:49:39that had come down to her through the family.
0:49:41 > 0:49:43John even divides the house up
0:49:43 > 0:49:47and leases out that side to neighbours down Henley Street.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49The Burbages, who turned it into a pub.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55And, worst of all, Mary has to finally give up the land
0:49:55 > 0:49:58that she'd inherited from her father.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01The 30 or 40 acres, with the little cottage
0:50:01 > 0:50:05that she and John had built on it for their tenant in Wilmcote.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11Using the house, called Aspies, as security,
0:50:11 > 0:50:14she raises ?40 from her brother-in-law,
0:50:14 > 0:50:16but it all went badly wrong.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19When Shakespeare's father got into difficulties
0:50:19 > 0:50:22and he took out a mortgage on the property with his brother-in-law,
0:50:22 > 0:50:24obviously they fell out
0:50:24 > 0:50:26or there was some difficulty that
0:50:26 > 0:50:29he wanted his money back and Shakespeare's father couldn't
0:50:29 > 0:50:31come up with the goods and so
0:50:31 > 0:50:35he actually forfeited the property.
0:50:35 > 0:50:39They never got it back? No, they never lived here. Ooh!
0:50:39 > 0:50:44I wonder what Mary thought about the collapse of John's finances,
0:50:44 > 0:50:48depriving her of her inheritance?
0:50:48 > 0:50:51Not very pleased, I shouldn't think. No.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58But just four months after Anne's death,
0:50:58 > 0:51:03Mary got pregnant again, after a gap of more than six years.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06She was in her mid-40s.
0:51:06 > 0:51:11Her eighth child, Edmund, was christened on May 3rd, 1580.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15And a couple of years later
0:51:15 > 0:51:19her teenage son, William, got a 26-year-old local girl pregnant
0:51:19 > 0:51:22first with a daughter, and then twins.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26So the family was now squeezed into a third of the old house,
0:51:26 > 0:51:31with William's new wife Anne, and four new mouths to feed...
0:51:32 > 0:51:36..and a depressed husband, living in fear of being writs for debt.
0:51:36 > 0:51:41Mary, you'd guess, was the one who held it all together.
0:51:47 > 0:51:48But worse was to follow.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52In the winter of 1583,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56the government discovered a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.
0:51:56 > 0:51:58The would-be assassin was the son-in-law of a Warwickshire
0:51:58 > 0:52:01gentleman called Edward Arden,
0:52:01 > 0:52:04one of Mary's distant relatives.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07The whole story may have been a sting,
0:52:07 > 0:52:12but to the Elizabethan state no charge was more grave than treason.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19Edward was head of the most important Catholic family in Warwickshire.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22He was immediately put into the chamber known as the Little Ease,
0:52:22 > 0:52:26where you could neither lie down, nor stand up.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32And then all the men were tortured on the rack.
0:52:33 > 0:52:37Agonisingly stretched in order to extract a confession.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41And eventually the Ardens were shopped by their priest
0:52:41 > 0:52:43and condemned to death.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52The night before the execution day,
0:52:52 > 0:52:55John Somerville, Arden's son-in-law,
0:52:55 > 0:52:57who was clearly insane,
0:52:57 > 0:53:00was taken to Newgate, where the government announced that
0:53:00 > 0:53:03during the night he'd strangled himself.
0:53:04 > 0:53:07The next day Edward Arden was hanged,
0:53:07 > 0:53:09taken down whilst still alive,
0:53:09 > 0:53:13disembowelled, beheaded, quartered -
0:53:13 > 0:53:16five days before Christmas.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27Around Stratford the secret police interrogated known Catholics,
0:53:27 > 0:53:32searching their houses for incriminating books and writings.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37And as Mary was an Arden, and married to an ex-Mayor,
0:53:37 > 0:53:40her house was surely one of them.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49Finally in 1586,
0:53:49 > 0:53:53having been protected by his fellow councillors for ten years,
0:53:53 > 0:53:58John was struck off the town council for long-term non-attendance.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02"At this hall it was decided that William Smith
0:54:02 > 0:54:05"and Richard Court should be chosen to be aldermen
0:54:05 > 0:54:08"in the place of John Wheeler and John Shakespeare...
0:54:09 > 0:54:13"..for that Mr Wheeler doth desire to be put out of the company,
0:54:13 > 0:54:17"and Mr Shakespeare doth not come to the halls
0:54:17 > 0:54:21"when they be warned or hath not done for long time."
0:54:24 > 0:54:28So, nearly 20 years after her husband had been mayor of Stratford,
0:54:28 > 0:54:31Mary's family was ruined.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45But, like all the best stories, there's one more twist in the plot.
0:54:45 > 0:54:49William now goes to London to try to make it in the theatre.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53How exactly he did it we still don't know...
0:54:54 > 0:54:59..but in autumn 1592, a famous metropolitan critic,
0:54:59 > 0:55:03Robert Greene, pours scorn on a provincial newcomer
0:55:03 > 0:55:04taking the stage by storm.
0:55:07 > 0:55:08An "upstart crow",
0:55:08 > 0:55:12who thought himself "the only shake scene" in the country!'
0:55:14 > 0:55:19Greene's attack on William was a howl of anger and envy,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22but there's no such thing as bad publicity.
0:55:22 > 0:55:25The very moment that the family had reached rock bottom
0:55:25 > 0:55:32in Stratford, here in London Mary's eldest son had made it!
0:55:32 > 0:55:34APPLAUSE
0:55:38 > 0:55:42And William's box office earnings restored the family fortunes.
0:55:43 > 0:55:47In autumn 1596 he went to the College Of Arms in London
0:55:47 > 0:55:50to buy a coat of arms for his father
0:55:50 > 0:55:52to make him a gentleman...
0:55:53 > 0:55:56..with a few rewrites of the family history on the application.
0:55:58 > 0:55:59John, his father, he says,
0:55:59 > 0:56:03some 25 years back had been a man of standing in society.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06A JP, a Mayor of the town,
0:56:06 > 0:56:10and an Officer Of The Queen, which technically he had been as coroner.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13And of his mother, William said this,
0:56:13 > 0:56:18that Mary had been the daughter and heiress of Robert Arden
0:56:18 > 0:56:24of Wilmcote in the county of Warwickshire, esquire and gentleman.
0:56:32 > 0:56:35So the family could hold their heads high again
0:56:35 > 0:56:37in the streets of Stratford.
0:56:37 > 0:56:40William bought the big house by the chapel.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43Mary and John lived out their days in Henley Street,
0:56:43 > 0:56:45with their daughter Joan and her children.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54Mary had lived from Henry VIII's time,
0:56:54 > 0:56:57through the reigns of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth
0:56:57 > 0:56:58and on into James.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03She'd had eight children in this house,
0:57:03 > 0:57:05three girls had died young,
0:57:05 > 0:57:07so had William's only boy,
0:57:07 > 0:57:10so she'd known grief and disappointment.
0:57:10 > 0:57:15But she'd steered the family through the "commotion time".
0:57:23 > 0:57:27After 44 years of marriage John died in 1601.
0:57:27 > 0:57:32Mary followed him in 1608 in her early 70s.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35She was buried here in the churchyard in Stratford.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41There's one last clue to Mary's life, if it is a clue.
0:57:41 > 0:57:45Only a few months after she died, William finally published
0:57:45 > 0:57:49a collection of poems that he'd worked on for most of his life.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53The earliest of them going back to his teens here in Stratford,
0:57:53 > 0:57:57and they'll become the most famous poems about love in the language.
0:57:57 > 0:57:59In fact, in the whole world.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04And the poems are shot through with a sense of
0:58:04 > 0:58:08the destructive power of time
0:58:08 > 0:58:10and the redeeming power of love.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17Now he learned how to say those things at school...
0:58:18 > 0:58:23..but perhaps it was his mother who taught him how to feel them.
0:59:01 > 0:59:02When you look at yourselves,