Hamnet

The first chapter introduces Hamnet and his world. Hamnet is a clever, curious boy who lives with his mother and two sisters in a house that adjoins his grandparents’ home. His grandfather owns a glove workshop, and his father works in London where Hamnet has never been. At the beginning of the novel, Hamnet searches for the adults in his household in order to tell them that his twin sister, Judith, is sick.

In the main house, he finds his grandfather, John, in a private moment, drinking. John drinks alone ever since he was disgraced and lost his former high standing in the town. John lashes out at Hamnet, striking him below the eyebrow with the rim of a cup.

Hamnet goes upstairs to see his twin sister Judith, who is sick in bed with what appear to be “a pair of quail’s eggs” under her skin (15). He tells her that he will go to find the physician.

The twins’ mother, Agnes, is in her garden at Hewlands near the forest. Noticing that something disturbed the bees, she expects trouble. She later has the guilty thought that had she returned straight home, she “might have headed off what was coming” (17).

Hamnet arrives at the physician’s house. There, he encounters the physician’s wife who diagnoses Judith’s lumps as “buboes,” a term that Hamnet recognizes as ominous. The wife says that she will send the physician to their house.

Meanwhile, bedridden Judith has a fever dream. In it, she attempts to hold her older sister Susanna’s hand, but it slips from her grasp, and she is on the verge of ending up under the grass. She then dreams that she is on her father’s shoulders and fears that she will fall off and tip over into a smelly street brawl. When she wakes up, she is so disoriented that she is uncertain how she got onto the bed.

Hamnet’s father is in Bishopsgate, London, where he treats himself to a griddle cake, even though he is usually frugal.

The chapter ends with Hamnet reentering the house and calling to see if anyone is there to greet him and offer help.

In about 1581, John sends Hamnet’s father to Hewlands to be a Latin tutor to the sons of a deceased yeoman to whom John owes a debt. Hamnet’s father has a frosty relationship with authoritarian John, who insists that he tutor the boys twice a week.

Hamnet’s father finds tutoring dull until he spots a young woman carrying a bird. After the lesson, Hamnet’s father seeks out the girl, who he learns is the daughter of the deceased yeoman and a woman rumored to be a gypsy or sorceress. The daughter has a reputation for wandering and harvesting strange plants “to make dubious potions” (32). Considered too wild for any man, she completely captures Hamnet’s father’s imagination.

When they meet, Hamnet’s father asks to see the woman’s bird. She takes him to a storehouse and shows him her bird, a kestrel. He attempts to reach for the woman, imploring her to tell him her name. She lies and says it is Anne, as she grips the flesh between his thumb and forefinger in a way that is both painful and arousing. It is as though she is trying to divine something about him. She kisses him and tells him that her real name is Agnes. She slips away, leaving him alone and dumbfounded.

The next part of the chapter chronicles how Agnes’ mother, Rowan, was a girl who came out of the forest. The yeoman, Agnes’ father, fell in love with the forest-dweller and made her his wife. When she had children, she was exceptionally devoted to Agnes, whom she took everywhere with her. When the woman has her third child, she dies in childbirth. Her widower marries Joan, a hard-working woman who gives him six children and fears Agnes. From Joan’s perspective, Agnes is cursing her. However, from Agnes’ perspective, Joan is the interloper who gives her the worst chores. Agnes still remembers Rowan and her unconditional love.

One day, Agnes comes across the spectacle of her father exhuming her mother’s body as a priest performs a mystic rite over it. Her father exhorts Agnes to never tell anyone about what she saw. After this, Agnes stops believing in God.

Hungering for human touch, Agnes becomes fascinated with human hands, “drawn always to touch them, to feel them in hers” (48), as she reaches to feel the muscle between the thumb and forefinger. She uses this technique to divine the essence of every human she meets. Joan and Agnes’s father worry about this ability, feeling that it is unchristian, and exhort Agnes “to hide this odd gift” (49). Unable to fit in, Agnes longs to be loved for who she truly is, vowing that when she finds that love she will follow it. 

Hamnet is alarmed to return home and find that his mother is not there and his sister is weaker. He feels guilty, having failed in his goal to find someone who can help his sister.

His older sister Susanna comes in and, slumping in a chair, regrets the absence of both her parents. At nearly 14 years old, Susanna resents people’s curiosity about her mother’s healing powers. To Susanna it seems as though Agnes is continually surrounded by strangers who seek her help. Meanwhile, Susanna’s father only comes home five times a year. He sends them letters, which Hamnet, the best-educated child, reads to the rest of the family. Grandmother Mary interrupts Susanna’s reverie, insisting that Susanna help her with supper as the twins have shirked their duties.

The Latin tutor’s sister, Eliza, finds him mooning in the attic. She tells him that she knows he and Agnes have been out walking. Eliza warns him that their father is in debt to the deceased yeoman and is thus unlikely to approve of the match.

Later, Agnes and the Latin tutor make love in the apple barn. She feels as though she trusts him completely, especially since the time she took his hand and discovered a complex person who “had layers and strata, like a landscape” (69). She recalls that the last time they were out walking together they ran into Joan, who said she would never approve of Agnes’ match to the son of a man who was in debt to them.

When Joan discovers that Agnes is pregnant with the Latin tutor’s child, she threatens to throw her out. However, Bartholomew, Agnes’ biological brother and the rightful heir to the farm, says he will not permit it. Joan is eager to be rid of Agnes and see her humiliated, especially because she resembles her mother, whose hair was found in the yeoman’s pocket when they buried him.

When Agnes turns up at the Latin tutor’s house, the Latin tutor is surprised by the pregnancy but eager to marry her. However, while he fantasizes about a life independent of his father, John decides to use the pregnancy out of wedlock and the subsequent marriage as leverage, to clear the debts between him and Agnes’s deceased father. 

Hamnet, who is asleep near ailing Judith, wakes up with a start. He feels unwell, with a swollen tongue and a pain in the back of his head.

Agnes returns home and finds the twins are nowhere to be seen. Then, she spots Hamnet, pale and clinging to the stair rail. He signals that she needs to go and attend to Judith.

Eliza asks to make Agnes’s wedding crown. Agnes and the Latin tutor are to be married miles away from town by a priest known to Agnes. As Eliza gets to know her future sister-in-law, she finds that Agnes possesses clairvoyant powers and can give her messages from her dead sister, Anne.

The ceremony is attended by the couple’s families. Agnes imagines where her dead parents would sit if they were still alive. She asks for a sign that her mother, Rowan, is present, and a bunch of rowan berries drop from a tree and land onto Agnes’ shoulder. Bartholomew implores the Latin tutor to take good care of his sister.