QuickCheck: Did Shakespeare's wife really get his 'second best' bed?

Shakespeare (left) and his wife Hathaway (drawing by Nathaniel Curzon, dated 1708).

WILLIAM Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest playwrights in history. Some of his most famous works are Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Tempest, Hamlet, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

He died on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52 and at the point of his passing had been married to Anne Hathaway – who coincidentally shares a name with an actress from several centuries later – for about 34 years.