Worldwide sensation: William Shakespeare’s secret sister discovered

The biography, creativity and the figure of William Shakespeare itself are covered in many mysteries. And here’s another discovery: according to a scientist from the University of Bristol, the English playwright had a sister. There is “no doubt” about this, according to the researcher. The girl herself, by the way, was also interested in writing.

Most people don’t know or even think about Shakespeare’s siblings. It’s more interesting to immerse yourself in creativity. But you can also delve into the biography of the English playwright.

There is “no doubt” that William had a sister, according to University of Bristol scholar Matthew Steggle. The long-lost document on which the researcher’s conclusion is based suggests that she was also interested in writing.

Joan Shakespeare, who was five years younger than her brother William, wrote a religious document called the Spiritual Testament, research shows.

Until now, scholars believed that the document was written by William’s father, John, but this misconception could be due to transcription errors and gender prejudices of the time.

Joan Shakespeare was William’s only significant relative other than his wife and daughters. All her life Joan lived in the family home on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, famous as the playwright’s birthplace. It is believed that she married a poor merchant, after which her name changed to Joan Hart.

She had four children and outlived both her husband and her famous brother by 30 years, living quietly in part of the old Shakespeare family home.

Professor Steggle’s research focused on an important document known as the Spiritual Testament, found by a mason under the rafters of Shakespeare’s house around 1770, but sadly now lost.

“It was last recorded in 1790 and sent back to its owner, who owned a pub in Stratford. I think it ended up being displayed in his pub and then it was thrown out or something,” explains Matthew Steggle.

There is a transcription of the document, printed in 1790, which the scholar describes as “the closest to the original.”

In the 1790 transcription, the author refers to himself in the first person as “John”, but Professor Steggle believes this was an error: “We have a 1790 transcription in which the name is transcribed as ‘John’ every time.” But a fairly common mistake among people copying seventeenth-century documents is to misread the name “Joan” as “John.”

“Spiritual Testament” is actually an English translation of the religious Italian text “The Last Will and Testament of the Soul.” In it, the writer promises to die a good Catholic death, which was controversial at the time.

For example, one passage reads: “I will willingly accept death, in whatever manner it may come, submitting my will to the will of God; accepting the same as satisfaction for my sins and thanking his divine majesty for the life he has given me.”

For centuries, speculation that the author was Shakespeare’s father John fueled the belief that he was a closet Catholic. Professor Steggle’s investigation used Internet archives to track down early editions of the text in Italian and six other languages, many of which survive in only a single copy and are scattered among libraries across Europe.

According to Professor Steggle, the Spiritual Testament could not have been written by John since the Last Will and Testament of the Soul was published in 1613, more than ten years after his death in 1601. That is why the only possible author of the Testament was Joan, who lived from 1569 to 1646.

In his research, Professor Steggle argues that Joan adapted the Last Will and Testament of the Soul to create the Spiritual Testament in the 1630s.

“Until now, no one has claimed that it belonged to her, because no one thought that such a document could belong to a woman. She has become something of a symbol of all the lost voices of early modern women. There are hundreds of thousands of words from her brother, but not a single one from her,” Steggle laments.