#second best bed

[bluntshavingrazor]

Most people think of the Witch Trials as the time when a lot of people in small English villages were persecuted for being elderly women, possibly suffering from mental health issues without families to support them, however, in actual fact, most witch trials happened in Scotland. Witchcraft has varied in legal status throughout the years; when James VI and I (note: one person) took the throne of England he changed their more tolerant attitude to match his home country. This, in turn, led to the founding of the Witch's Union of the Union of Crowns (WUUC), designed to provide legal defence for both genuine witches and those falsely accused of harmful witchcraft. WUUC (now named WUBI) successfully campaigned for the 1735 Act of Parliament which made false acts of witchcraft by con-artists a crime instead. Let no one tell you that union action doesn't make a difference.

Many of the modern depictions of witches come from Shakespeare's writings in the play Macbeth. While it is possible that Shakespeare confused the witches of his reality with the experiences of another Shakespeare that formed part of the I.B.M. (see link for further details) it is more likely that he neither knew nor cared about genuine witchcraft and simply portrayed them in a manner he thought fitting. (If any one of you unholy fuckers of mothers tries to tell me that Shakespeare's list of potion ingredients was actually an old-timey list of herbs, I will invoke the fullest extent of my wrath upon you. Admittedly that is not much, I am not a member of WUBI, but it's the principle of the thing)

More Fun Facts

[shakespearenews]

Bequest: why did Shakespeare bequeath his wife a “second-best” bed? | OUPblog

In this OUPblog, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the "detailed and dazzling" 'The Private Life of William Shakespeare' explores why Shakespeare left Anne Hathaway his "second-best" bed - and what this tells us about their relationship.

To this legacy already settled in law, Shakespeare added a bed. In the wills of his time, beds and their accoutrements appeared frequently and were often pictured in loving detail. Since Shakespeare does not describe the bedframe, mattress, sheets, pillows, or coverlet, his family undoubtedly already knew which bed he meant. A best bed might have a full headboard and a mattress stuffed with feathers, while the second bed would have a half-headboard and a mattress stuffed with flocks. “Best” and “second best” were common ways of identifying beds; one man dictated that “I bequeath to John my said son the best featherbed and to Joan my wife the second, to Robert my son the third, and to Joan my daughter the fourth featherbed.” With “second-best” a testator did not insult his legatee; not even “worst” could do that. A principal heir might receive a valuable horse, a best cloak, a whole house, and a worst bed. Nor was the best bed always bestowed in affection. Some men who gave their best beds to their widows did so only if the women agreed “not to meddle nor make with no part of my goods.” Or the best bed might be conferred on condition that the widow vacated the family home within weeks of the testator’s death.

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Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, died at age 11. Once, Shakespeare would have expected the boy to grow into his apparel. He gave the clothing to his nephews instead. He had achieved gentle status, and, since only gentlemen were entitled to wear swords, he would have anticipated passing both the status and its symbol to Hamnet. He gave the sword to the son of a gentleman friend. Pieces of plate were baptismal gifts for people of substance. Shakespeare gave the silver-gilt bowl to the twin who was baptized with Hamnet, Judith. Was the second-best bed the bed in which Hamnet was born, even the bed from which he was taken to his grave? If so, the “random” bequests were all about the lost Hamnet, as every member of Shakespeare’s family—including Anne—would have known.

[shakespearenews]

Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed a page beneath his writer's hands...

From "Anne Hathaway", by Carol Ann Duffy from The World's Wife. Full poem here. 

[parisoftheeast-blog]

SONNET 73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 73. He's pretty on top of things.