Mary Arden seems to have been her father's favourite child, and though
she could not sign her own name, must have possessed rare qualities; for
the poet, as we learn from "Coriolanus," held her in extraordinary
esteem and affection, and mourned her after her death as "the noblest
mother in the world."
William Shakespeare, the first son and third child of this couple, was
born on the 22nd or 23rd April, 1564, no one knows which day; the
Stratford parish registers prove that he was baptized on 26th April. And
if the date of his birth is not known, neither is the place of it; his
father owned two houses in Henley Street, and it is uncertain which he
was born in.
John Shakespeare had, fortunately, nothing to pay for the education of
his sons. They had free tuition at the Grammar School at Stratford. The
poet went to school when he was seven or eight years of age, and
received an ordinary education together with some grounding in Latin. He
probably spent most of his time at first making stories out of the
frescoes on the walls.
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