The hissstory lessons he missed
■ Antony and Cleopatra: The Egyptian queen dies peacefully and quickly from a snake bite to the breast. In reality it would cause a long, painful death.
■ Julius Caesar: The Roman dictator is stabbed 33 times in the play – it was actually 23.
■ Hamlet: Poison in the ear is an inefficient way to kill Hamlet’s father, because ear wax would impede the poison getting into the blood.
■ Romeo and Juliet: Juliet takes a potion to appear dead. Poison from a puffer fish might achieve this, although the fish were unlikely to have been widely known in Shakespeare’s England.
■ King John: The unpopular king is poisoned by a monk, a story that circulated at the time of his death. It is now thought he was killed by dysentery.
■ King Henry VI, Part Two: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, is poisoned. In fact, Henry VI’s uncle probably died of a stroke, say historians.