During this busy time in the theatre, there was tragedy at home in Stratford. Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, died in August 1596 at the age of eleven. We do not know how Shakespeare felt but it surely affected his view of life. Two months after that, he was given a coat of arms, which was the sign of a gentleman. His father had asked for one a long time before, when he was the leader of the council in Stratford. John Shakespeare was probably pleased, but William made a joke about it in The Merry Wives of Windsor. It would not now belong to his family after his own death, though, because he had no son to follow him.