William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in a little English town called Stratford-Upon-Avon, about 100 miles northwest of London, two days’ hard journey by horseback.
He was born in the 6th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the 1st, daughter of Henry VIII, whom you might remember being famous for his 6 wives, and also having broken with Rome and the Catholic church over the issue of his divorces.
Shakespeare was born into an England that was no longer officially Catholic, but it also wasn’t quite Protestant.