Death
Little is known about the cause of Shakespeare’s
death. There is an entry in the diary of John Ward the vicar at the
site of his burial, Holy Trinity Church in Strafford. The entry states
"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems
drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted."This
diary was written more than fifty years after William’s death and
appears to be fiction. It should be noted though that a serious
outbreak of typhus, known as the "new fever", in 1616 (the year
Shakespeare died), lends credibility to Ward's story. Shakespeare died
at the age of 52, a relatively old age in a time when “plague,
syphilis, typhus, scurvy, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria, dysentery
and toothaches shortened life expectancy” to 35. He had lived a long
and full life
Mabillard, Amanda. Shakespeare's Death Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/deathofshakespeare.html >.