Religious views of William Shakespeare evidence, no general agreement has been reached. Shakespeare and his immediate family were conforming members of the established Church of England. When Shakespeare was young, his father, John Shakespeare, was elected to several municipal offices, serving as an alderman and culminating in a term as bailiff, the chief magistrate of the town council, all of which required being a church member in good standing, and he participated in whitewashing over the Catholic images in the chapel and taking down the rood screen. Shakespeare's birth and that of his siblings were entered into the church register, as were the births of
William Shakespeare Burton William Shakespeare Burton William Shakespeare Burton (1 June 1824 – 26 January 1916) was an English genre and historical painter of the Victorian era. He is now remembered mainly for "The Wounded Cavalier" (1855). Burton's grandfather was a printer, and his father was William Evans Burton, a comic actor and playwright who found popular success in the United States — while leaving his wife and son behind in London, with little money. An only child, the younger Burton worked at copying prints as a teenager. The dramatist and critic Tom Taylor was his sponsor and patron. Taylor helped the teen