It is often noted, for instance, that Shakespeare’s plays are full of ocean metaphors (‘take arms against a sea of troubles’, ‘an ocean of salt tears’, ‘wild sea of my conscience’), and that every one of his plays has at least one reference to the sea in it somewhere. But the idea that this argues for a maritime spell in his life shrivels slightly when you realize that sailor appears just four times in his work, and seamen only twice.- P56
In 1580, when William was sixteen, Campion passed through Warwickshire on his way to the more safely Catholic north. He stayed with a distant relative of Shakespeare’s, Sir William Catesby, whose son Robert would later be a ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot.- P57
