When William Shakespeare died, he left on his gravestone a formidable curse, warning anyone who dared steal his bones after death. You can see this curse today on his gravestone inside Holy Trinity Church and it reads

 

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebear

To dig the dust enclosed here

Blessed be the man who spares these stones

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Sinister, and comical today when grave robbing seems like a far fetched idea, for the 17th century when Shakespeare was buried, stealing someone’s bones comes up alot! But how effective were these curses at deterring the theft of the graves? To explore the history of grave robbing,the rumors that someone could have stolen Shakespeare’s skull, as well as to explain the tradition of gravestone curses in Elizabethan England, we turn to Shakespeare expert and professor of English at the University of Exeter, Philip Schwyzer.