England’s national saint

Shakespeare is all things to all people. The greatest writer we have, he was subtle to the extent of ambivalence. As a man he was sexually fluid, politically ambidextrous and not prepared to commit himself on anything, least of all religion. It’s sometimes said that the son of a provincial glove-maker could not have had sufficient knowledge or experience to write the plays and poems he is credited with. These people perhaps forget the quality of imagination. Shakespeare is imagination and he was naturally a master of disguises. Those who say his plays were written by Sir Francis Bacon may be forgiven: they weren’t, because Bacon didn’t have the imagination. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Shakespeare on occasion pretended to be Bacon.) He, after all, died of a chill contracted whilst trying to freeze chickens. The Bard on the other hand retired – and, let’s face it, it takes a special kind of artist to retire without endless comebacks – and died (relatively) peacefully in his best bed in Stratford.