Simon Hunt

{{Character }} Simon Hunt was Will's old schoolmaster.
 * name={{PAGENAME}}
 * image=Simon_Hunt_confronts_Will.png
 * imagecaption=Hunt confronts Will
 * portrayer=Geoffrey Whitehead
 * firstseen=I Know Thee Not, Old Man
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 * deathDate=(Real life} 1585 (In series) Unknown
 * deathPlace=(Real life} Rome (In series) Unknown
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 * associates=William Shakespeare (Former pupil)
 * species=Human
 * gender=Male
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In Real Life
He is listed as having worked as a teacher at the King Edward VI School in Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare was believed to have beeneducated for seven years from 1571 at the age of seven, and it is likely that Simon Hunt was his first teacher.

Known to be a zealous Catholic – a dangerous practice in the Elizabethan era - Hunt left the school to become a Catholic priest in 1575, travelling to Douai – now in France but formerly in the Spanish Netherlands – to begin his training at the English Catholic Seminary (which moved temporarily to Rheims in 1578 when all the English at Douai were expelled).

Sometime after this he travelled to Rome, joining the order of The Society of Jesus (known as the Jesuits), accompanied by Robert Debdale, a former Stratford pupil of his from Shottery, Anne Hathaway’s home village.

In 1580 Simon Hunt became Penitentiary of St Peter’s in Rome, dying there in 1585, having never returned to England.

In Upstart Crow
Hunt is shown visiting the Shakespeare residence in Stratford in the early 1590s, and forcing Will to provide him with shelter, in order to recieve a local female dignitary for a private mass.

Trivia
The series depiction of Hunt is similer to that of Robert Greene, in that both dislike Will, and both are shown being alive long after their deaths in real life.