Life of William Shakespeare of sheep, hide tanning and wool trading, as well as for malting to supply brewers of ale and beer. His parents were John Shakespeare, a successful glover originally from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, and Mary Arden, the youngest daughter of John's father's landlord, a member of the local gentry. The couple married around 1557 and lived on Henley Street when Shakespeare was born, purportedly in a house now known as Shakespeare's Birthplace. They had eight children: Joan (baptised 15 September 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (bap. 2 December 1562buried 30 April 1563), William, Gilbert (bap. 13 October 1566bur. 2 February 1612),
Religious views of William Shakespeare However, critics of the former point say that Church attendance cannot be taken as a conclusive proof because attendance at Protestant churches was mandatory in the epoch. Hence, Callaghan concludes that "we may not know decisively if Shakespeare was a Catholic, but crucially, neither do we know that he was a stalwart Protestant." Shakespeare’s Christianity is not universally accepted. William Birch of Oxford University was, in 1848, probably the first to suggest that Shakespeare could be an atheist, based on his interpretation of sentiments expressed in the works. His theory wasn't accepted by other scholars, however, and his contemporary H.