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Anne Whateley (fl. 1580s; or 1561–1600) is the name of a woman who is sometimes supposed to have been the intended wife of William Shakespeare before he married Anne Hathaway. Most scholars believe that Whateley never existed, but that her name in a document concerning Shakespeare's marriage is merely a clerical error. However several writers on Shakespeare have taken the view that she was a real rival to Hathaway for Shakespeare's hand. She has also appeared in imaginative literature on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare authorship speculations. Shakespeare's biographer Russell A. Fraser describes her as "a ghost", "haunting the edges of Shakespeare's story".〔Russell Fraser, ''Shakespeare: A Life in Art'', Transaction Publishers, 2007, p.66.〕 She has also been called "the first of the Shakespearean Dark Ladies".〔Ivor Brown and George Fearon, ''Amazing monument : a short history of the Shakespeare industry'', Heinemann, 1939, p.18〕 ==Evidence== Her existence has been deduced from an entry in the Episcopal register at Worcester which states in Latin "Anno Domini 1582...Novembris...27 die eiusdem mensis. Item eodem die supradicto emanavit Licentia inter Wm Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton." The entry states that a marriage licence has been issued to Shakespeare and Anne Whateley to marry in the village of Temple Grafton. The day afterwards, Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, friends of the Hathaway family from Stratford-upon-Avon, signed a surety of £40 as a financial guarantee for the wedding of "William Shagspere and Anne Hathwey".〔Samuel Schoenbaum, ''William Shakespeare: a compact documentary life'', Oxford University Press, 1977, pp.84-7.〕〔E. K. Chambers, ''William Shakespeare: A Study of the Facts and Problems'', Oxford University Press, 1989, pp.41-42. The marriage was registered in Worcester because Stratford-upon-Avon formed part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester, which included southern Warwickshire.〕 The entry in the register was discovered in the late nineteenth century by Reverend T.P. Wadley. Various explanations were offered. Initially it was assumed that Whateley was an alternative surname for Anne Hathaway herself. Wadley believed that it was probably an alias, used by Hathaway in order to keep the date of the marriage secret to obscure the fact that she was already pregnant. Another suggestion was that Anne Hathaway might legitimately have used the name, either because her father Richard Hathaway was in fact her step-father, her mother having previously been married to a man called Whateley, or because Anne herself may have previously been married to a man named Whateley.〔Joseph William Gray, ''Shakespeare's Marriage: His Departure from Stratford and Other Incidents in His Life'', Chapman and Hall, 1905, pp.13-18; 27-28〕 None of these suggestions gained support, since they contradicted other existing evidence. The Whateley note is discussed in Sidney Lee's 1898 book ''A Life of William Shakespeare''. Lee argues that the "William Shakespeare" who is engaged to Whateley is probably a different person from the playwright, as there were "numerous William Shakespeares, who abounded in the diocese of Worcester".〔Sidney Lee, ''A life of William Shakespeare'', 1915 edition, p. 30.〕 In 1905 Joseph William Gray in ''Shakespeare's Marriage'' gave a detailed argument for clerical error due to the existence of lawsuits involving Whateleys that were being written up by the same scribe.〔〔William Ingram, ''The business of playing: the beginnings of the adult professional theater in Elizabethan London'', Cornell University Press, 1992, p.24.〕 However in 1909 Frank Harris in his book ''The Man Shakespeare'' ignored Gray's argument and dismissed Lee's suggestion that there were two William Shakespeares as wildly implausible. He insisted that these documents are evidence that Shakespeare was involved with two separate women. He intended to marry Anne Whateley, but, when this became known, he was immediately forced by Anne Hathaway's family to marry their relative, since he had already made her pregnant. Harris believed that Shakespeare despised his wife, and that his forced marriage was the spur to his creative work: If Shakespeare had married Anne Whately he might never have gone to London or written a play. Shakespeare's hatred of his wife and his regret for having married her were alike foolish. Our brains are seldom the wisest part of us. It was well that he made love to Anne Hathaway; well, too, that he was forced to marry her; well, finally, that he should desert her. I am sorry he treated her badly and left her unsupplied with money; that was needlessly cruel; but it is just the kindliest men who have these extraordinary lapses; Shakespeare's loathing for his wife was measureless.〔Frank Harris, ''The Man Shakespeare'', BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2007, (reprint) p.362. Harris's spelling "Whatley" with one "e" is followed by several other authors, sometimes with the "e" before the "l". However, "Whateley" is the most common form of the name.〕 Some biographers, notably Ivor Brown and Anthony Burgess, followed Harris' lead, portraying Whateley as Shakespeare's true love. Brown argued that she was the Dark Lady of the sonnets. In 1970 Burgess wrote, It is reasonable to believe that Will wished to marry a girl named Anne Whateley. The name is common enough in the Midlands and is even attached to a four-star hotel in Horse Fair, Banbury. Her father may have been a friend of John Shakespeare's, he may have sold kidskin cheap, there are various reasons why the Shakespeares and the Whateleys, or their nubile children, might become friendly. Sent on skin-buying errands to Temple Grafton, Will could have fallen for a comely daughter, sweet as May and shy as a fawn. He was eighteen and highly susceptible. Knowing something about girls, he would know that this was the real thing. Something, perhaps, quite different from what he felt about Mistress Hathaway of Shottery. But why, attempting to marry Anne Whateley, had he put himself in the position of having to marry the other Anne? I suggest that, to use the crude but convenient properties of the old women's-magazine morality-stories, he was exercised by love for the one and lust for the other.〔〔Anthony Burgess, ''Shakespeare'', London: Jonathan Cape, 1970, p. 57.〕 According to Stanley Wells in the ''Oxford Companion to Shakespeare'', most modern scholars take the same view as Gray, that the name Whateley was "almost certainly the result of clerical error".〔Stanley Wells, "Whateley, Anne". ''Oxford Companion to Shakespeare'', Oxford University Press, 2005, p.185; p.518. See also Park Honan, ''Shakespeare: a life'', Oxford University Press, 2000, p.84.〕 It may have arisen because the clerk was also recording information about a tithe appeal by a vicar, which included a reference to a person named Whateley.〔Peter Levi, ''The Life and Times of William Shakespeare'', London: Macmillan, 1988, p.37.〕 Though there was a Whateley family in the area, no independent evidence has ever been found of the existence of an Anne Whateley in Temple Grafton or anywhere else nearby. As for Lee's claim that there were "numerous" other William Shakespeare's in the diocese, later researchers have found no surviving records of any other William Shakespeares of marriageable age in the diocese of Worcester.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anne Whateley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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