Judith Quiney
On the 10th February 1616 Shakespeare’s younger daughter Judith married a local man, Thomas Quiney. At the start of 1616 her impending marriage must have been the cause of celebration in the family. Shakespeare first saw his lawyer to draft his will in January 1616. This is often taken to mean he was already ill, but with his daughters married or betrothed it was also a good time to ensure they would be provided for.Things started to go wrong soon after that first session with the lawyer. In the first drafting of the will, he is mentioned specifically with a bequest “vnto my sonne in L[aw]”. The marriage occurred outside the usual period for marriages (as Shakespeare’s own had been). Anne Hathaway was already pregnant. This wasn’t the case with Judith.Shakespeare’s marriage had been arranged by license from Worcester, but in Judith’s case no license was granted. Marrying without going through the proper procedures was frowned on, and both Judith and Thomas were excommunicated. None of this sounds like respectable behaviour, but worse was to come. Thomas might well have been in a hurry to marry Judith, because after the marriage it soon came out that he had previously had a mistress, Margaret Wheeler, who was pregnant with his child. To make matters worse, both Margaret and her baby died. Thomas was tried by the church court and sentenced to stand in front of the congregation of Holy Trinity church clad in a white sheet, for three Sundays.