William Shakespeare was born in April 1564, the oldest son of John Shakespeare. His father, a glover, trader, and landowner, married Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowner of Wilmcote. John Shakespeare was ambitious, and he filled many municipal offices in Stratford including that of burgess, which privileged him to educate his children without charge at the King's New School in Stratford. He rose by election to the position of Alderman in 1565; and in 1568 he …showed first 75 words of 497 total…

…showed last 75 words of 497 total…Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote Hamlet and King Lear, but then no such document exists for any other playwright of the time either. The evidence is cumulative and interconnected, and taken as a whole it leaves no doubt that a single man was actor, author, and Stratford property owner. In this essay we summarize this evidence in order to illustrate the speciousness of anti-Stratfordian claims that there is some "mystery" about the authorship of Shakespeare's works.