Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) while already pregnant with the couple's first child, to whom she gave birth six months later. This age difference, added to Hathaway's antenuptial pregnancy, has been employed by some historians as evidence that it was a "shotgun wedding", forced on a somewhat reluctant Shakespeare by the Hathaway family. There is, however, no other evidence for this inference. For a time it was believed that this view was supported by documents from the Episcopal Register at Worcester, which records in Latin the issuing of a wedding licence to "Wm Shaxpere" and one "Annam Whateley" of Temple Grafton. The following day, Fulk
Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) there is no reason to assume that this had not always been his intention. It is nearly certain that the respective families of the bride and groom had known one another. Three children were born to Hathaway and her husband: Susanna in 1583 and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. Hamnet died at 11 years old during one of the frequent outbreaks of the bubonic plague and was buried in Stratford upon Avon on 11 August 1596. Apart from documents related to her marriage and the birth of her children, the only recorded reference to Hathaway in her lifetime