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William's schoolteachers, John Cottom ( himself a Lancashire man), that John Shakespeare entrusted his son's future.

John Cottom and William set off by horse in the summer of 1580 toward Hoghton Tower, a fortified house on the top of a treeless hill some 700 feet above sea-level, just a few miles from Preston. When Shakespeare first saw the house he would have been thrilled and terrified, but would have stored that first image for later use: because Hoghton Tower is Elsinor, and the countryside around it is the land of King Lear and Macbeth. This part of Lancashire - with its high hills, valleys, estuaries, hidden villages and flashing rivers - and the more gentle countryside of Warwickshire, plus the bustle and dirt of London, would become part of Shakespeare's dramatic landscape.

The Hoghton family ( second only to Lord Derby in importance in that part of the world) - who knew John Cottom's family well - had many residences in Lancashire, the principle ones being Lea Hall and Hoghton Tower, and although the family couldn't employ Shakespeare formally as a teacher ( that would have needed permission from the Bishop, which would have given the game away) they did employ him as a servant, which enabled him to spend virtually all of his time teaching the Hoghton children, which included a good deal of play writing and play acting, with many evening performances for the whole family.

Shakespeare's writing and acting ability soon brought him to the attention of the local thespian community, which meant, eventually, working for Lord Strange's Men, which was Shakespeare's intro to London's acting scene a handful of years later.

In other words William Shakespeare had become well connected.

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