Ye Olde King’s Head

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Introduction
Issued at the Talents Event in 2007, with a few of the collectors shown right. In cobbled Church Street just across from Windsor Castle, it is now an Italian Restaurant called La Locanda.
In 1597 Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor here in fourteen days, apparently by command of Queen Elizabeth 1. The play was probably first performed that year at the Garter Feast in the Castle, in the Queen’s presence.

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 Built in 1525 and once The King’s Head inn, loyal to the Crown. Aptly King Charles II visited his mistress Nell Gwynn just next door! A copy of Charles I’s 1648 death warrant is on the wall, signed at 2 Curfew Yard. Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752 to match Europe, so Hazle puts the date as 1649.

Hazle Ceramics
Ye Olde King’s Head
on Windsor King’s Head

UK/Europe £45
Rest of World £38.30

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 Anne Hathaway’s cottage, where Shakespeare courted her in 1582. It may be available as a pastille burner by special order. Please email us.

The Ermine Portrait of Elizabeth 1 (1533-1603) from 1585. Attributed to William Segar, it is in a private collection. 

William Shakespeare
1564-1616
His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets plus other poems. At 18 he married Anne Hathaway and had three children. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as a writer, actor and part owner of a theatre company playing at The Globe. He probably semi-retired to his home in Stratford upon Avon around 1613. Respected in his own time, his reputation really took off in the 19th century.

 The Chandos painting in London’s National Portrait Gallery has the strongest claim to be Shakespeare - and resembles the 1623 engraving right. An earring was added and the beard and hair lengthened by later painters.