Mary Shakespeare (née Arden; c. 1537 — September 1608)^{[lower-alpha 1]} was the mother of William Shakespeare.

Mary was born about 1536 in Wilmcote, the daughter of Robert Arden, a gentleman farmer and junior descendant of the Arden family,^[4][5] who were prominent in Warwickshire. She was the youngest of eight daughters, and when her father died in 1556 she inherited land at Snitterfield and Wilmcote from him as a dowry. The house was left to her stepmother Agnes Hill. Richard Shakespeare, the father of John Shakespeare, was a tenant farmer on land owned by her father in Snitterfield. As the daughter of Richard's landlord, she may have known John since childhood.^[6] Mary married John Shakespeare in 1557, when she was 20 years old and her spouse was approximately 26 years old.^[6] She bore eight children: Joan (1558), Margaret (1562–1563), William (1564–1616), Gilbert (1566–1612), Joan (1569–1646), Anne (1571–1579), Richard (1574–1613), and Edmund (1580–1607).^[7] Though Mary gave birth to many children, several of them died young. Their first daughter, Joan, born 1558 died; the name being used again for their third daughter. Their second daughter, Margaret, also died in infancy.^[6] Some members of the wider Arden family were of the Catholic faith.^[6] John died in 1601 and Mary died in September 1608.^[3]

Mary was born into a family of status and her ancestors were well connected in society, including Thomas Arden, who fought in the Second Barons' War (1264–67) on the side of Simon de Montfort; Robert Arden who fought in the Wars of the Roses, and John Arden who served at the court of Henry VII.^[6]

Mary Arden's House in Wilmcote was maintained in good condition as a working farmhouse, until it was bought by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1930 and refurnished in the Tudor period style.^[8] In 2000 it was discovered that the building preserved as Mary Arden's house had belonged to a friend and neighbour, Adam Palmer, and the house was accordingly renamed Palmer's Farm. The house that had belonged to the Arden family – which was near to Palmer's Farm – had been acquired by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1968 for preservation as part of a farmyard, without knowing its true provenance.^[9] The house and farm are open as a historic museum displaying 16th-century life.