Hamnet Shakespeare

Hamnet Shakespeare
Born	Baptised 21 February 1585 Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Died	Buried 11 August 1596 (aged 11) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Nationality	English
Known for	Being the son of William Shakespeare

Hamnet Shakespeare (baptised 2 February 1585 – buried 11 August 1596) was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died at age 11. Some Shakespearean scholars speculate on the relationship between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet, as well as on possible connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night.

Little is known about Hamnet. Hamnet and his twin sister Judith were born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised on 2 February 1585 in Holy Trinity Church by Richard Barton of Coventry. The twins were probably named for Hamnet Sadler, a baker, who witnessed Shakespeare's will, and his wife, Judith. According to the record of his baptism on 23 March 1560 in the Register of Solihull he was christened 'Hamlette Sadler', and Shakespeare himself spelled Sadler's first name as "Hamlett" in his will.

He was probably raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging to his grandfather.

By the time Hamnet was four, his father was already a London playwright, and as his popularity grew, he was probably not regularly at home in Stratford with his family. Honan believes that Hamnet may have completed Lower School, which would have been normal, before his death at the age of eleven (possibly from the Bubonic Plague). He was buried in Stratford on 11 August 1596. At that time in England about a third of all children died before age 10.

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