Уильям Шекспир мен әйелінің үлкен баласы – Сюзанна Холл

Eldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway

Susanna Hall (née Shakespeare; baptised 26 May 1583 – 11 July 1649) was the oldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway and the older sister of twins Judith and Hamnet Shakespeare. Susanna married John Hall, a local physician, in 1607. They had one daughter, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth married Thomas Nash, son of Anthony Nash on 22 April 1626 at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford upon Avon.

Susanna was baptised in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford upon Avon on Trinity Sunday (a church feast day), 26 May 1583. Shakespeare's wife Anne was already pregnant with Susanna when the couple were married. The name "Susanna" derives from the apocryphal story of Susanna and the elders in the Book of Daniel and suggests "purity and spotlessness", John Hall's Select Observations, case studies of his patients, was published in 1657, 22 years after his death. The earliest case, a local one, dates from 1611, making it almost certain that he lived and worked in Stratford from at least the time of his marriage. Their one child, Elizabeth was baptised on 21 February 1608 in Holy Trinity Church. The couple had no other children, and Elizabeth was the only grandchild Shakespeare knew, as Judith's children with Thomas Quiney were born after his death.

In June 1613, a man named John Lane, Jr., 23, accused Susanna of adultery with Rafe Smith, a 35 year old haberdasher, and claimed she had caught a venereal disease from Smith. As a notable Puritan of the community, Hall supported the Puritan vicar, Thomas Wilson, against whom Lane would later participate in a riot, and it is possible that Lane's charges had political motives in defaming Susanna. On 15 July the Halls brought suit for slander against Lane in the Consistory court at Worcester. Robert Whatcott, who three years later witnessed Shakespeare's will, testified for the Halls, but Lane failed to appear. Lane was found guilty of slander and excommunicated.

When Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, he left the bulk of his estate, in an elaborate fee tail, to Susanna and her male heirs, which included his main house, New Place, his two houses on Henley Street, and various lands in and around Stratford, and all his "" to her and her husband. In the case of Susanna's death, the estate was bequeathed, in descending order of choice, "to the first sonne of her bodie lawfullie yssueing & to the heires Males of the bodie of the saied first Sonne lawfullie yssueing"; and in default of such issue, to her second son and his male heirs and to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sons and their male heirs. In case no sons were born or they died, the estate would then go to her daughter Elizabeth Hall and her male heirs; to Judith and her male heirs; or to whatever lawful heirs survived.

Peter Whelan's 1996 play The Herbal Bed is a fictionalization of the events surrounding Hall's slander suit. In the 2016 sitcom Upstart Crow, Susanna is played by Helen Monks. In the 2017 drama Will, Susanna is played by Phoebe Austen. In the 2019 film All Is True, Susanna is played by Lydia Wilson.