Shakespeare’s Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman

Michael Wood tells the extraordinary story of an ordinary woman born in a time of revolution under Henry VIII. Mary Arden; the daughter of a Warwickshire farmer, marries into a new life as part the rising Tudor middle class in Stratford upon Avon. Of her eight children, three die young. Her husband becomes mayor but then bankrupted by shady business dealings. Faced with financial ruin, religious persecution, and power politics, the family is the glue that keeps them together until they are rescued by Mary’s eldest son – William Shakespeare!