A secret parchment has resurfaced, rewriting the Bard’s sketchy family history.
In 1757, a bricklayer found a religious document hidden in the rafters of the Shakespeare House in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Historians have long attributed the document, which was signed, "J. Shakespeare," to William's father, John. In the tucked-away document, which heavily cites an obscure 17th century Italian religious tract called The Last Will and Testament of the Soul, the writer pledges to die a good Catholic death. If the writer was indeed John Shakespeare, who remained a devout Protestant until his death in 1601, it would have indicated a major shift in his beliefs and suggested a clandestine life during an era when secret allegiance to the Catholic Church in Elizabethan England could have been dangerous. For this reason, many experts have suspected the document to be forged. But in the recent study, Steggle used internet archives to track down early editions of The Last Will and Testament of the Soul in Italian and six other languages and concluded the document could have only been written after John Shakespeare's death. That left Steggle with just one other "J. Shakespeare": Joan. Joan, who was five years younger than William, survived for 30 years after her brother's death, and long resided in the family home where the document was found.
