The bulk of Shakespeare's estate was left, in an elaborate fee tail, to his elder daughter Susanna and her male heirs.

She has been depicted in several works of fiction as part of an attempt to piece together unknown portions of her father's life.

[1][2] Their baptisms on 2 February 1585 were recorded as "Hamnet & Judeth sonne & daughter to William Shakspere" by the vicar, Richard Barton of Coventry, in the parish register for Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

[1][2][3] The twins were named after a husband and wife, Hamnet and Judith Sadler,[1] who were friends of the parents.

[5][6] On 10 February 1616, Judith Shakespeare married Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford, in Holy Trinity Church.

Hence the marriage required a special licence issued by the Bishop of Worcester, which the couple had failed to obtain.

(This same Walter Nixon was later involved in a Star Chamber case and was found guilty of forging signatures and taking bribes.)

Quiney had recently impregnated another woman, Margaret Wheeler, who died in childbirth along with her child; both were buried on 15 March 1616.

A few days later, on 26 March, Quiney appeared before the Bawdy Court, which dealt, among other things, with "whoredom and uncleanliness."

Judith owned her father's cottage on Chapel Lane, Stratford; while Thomas had held, since 1611, the lease on a tavern called "Atwood's" on High Street.

Eventually, in November 1652, the lease to The Cage ended up in the hands of Thomas' eldest brother, Richard Quiney, a grocer in London.

[12] The inauspicious beginnings of Judith's marriage, in spite of her husband and his family being otherwise unexceptional,[7] has led to speculation that this was the cause for William Shakespeare's hastily altered last will and testament.

[14] To this daughter he bequeathed £100 (equivalent to £23,712 in 2023) "in discharge of her marriage porcion"; another £50 (£11,856 in 2023) if she were to relinquish the Chapel Lane cottage; and, if she or any of her children were still alive at the end of three years following the date of the will, a further £150 (£35,567 in 2023), of which she was to receive the interest but not the principal.

This elaborate entail is usually taken to indicate that Thomas Quiney was not to be entrusted with Shakespeare's inheritance, although some have speculated that it might simply indicate that Susanna was the favoured child.

She is one of the main characters in Edward Bond's 1973 play Bingo, which portrays the last years of her father, in retirement in Stratford on Avon.

[20] The radio play Judith Shakespeare by Nan Woodhouse portrays her as "a loner, yearning to be a part of her playwright father's life".

[21] "Shakespeare's Daughter" is the title of a short story by Mary Burke that was short-listed for a 2007 Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Irish Writer prize.

[24] In Kenneth Branagh's 2018 Sony Pictures release All Is True, Kathryn Wilder plays Judith as a rebellious and angry young woman who resents her father's love for her dead twin.