Religious views of William Shakespeare the Anglican church in Stratford in order for his wedding to be performed as a Catholic sacrament. He was thought to have rushed his marriage ceremony, as Anne was three months pregnant. In 1611 the historian John Speed asserted Shakespeare's links with Catholicism, accusing him of satirising in "Henry IV" the Lollard (or proto-Protestant) martyr John Oldcastle (first portrayed by Shakespeare under his character's real name, then the alias John Falstaff after complaints from Oldcastle's descendants) and linking the playwright with Jesuit Robert Persons, describing them together as "the Papist and his poet". Modern critics have attributed other motives for
Memorials to William Shakespeare is thought to have posed for the statue. It was bequeathed, along with Garrick's books, to the British Museum in 1779; in 2005 it was transferred to the British Library. Garrick later commissioned Roubiliac to produce a bust of the poet for his Shakespeare festival in Stratford in 1769; this is now in the Garrick Club in London. In 1788, in the exterior wall of John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery building, the architect George Dance the Younger placed Thomas Banks's sculpture "Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry", for which the artist was paid 500 guineas. The sculpture depicted Shakespeare, reclining against