The whole subject is still up for debate just as whether or not William was a drinker. To be sure, hemp was used way before real tobacco hit Great Britain and Europe and was smoked in its stead. Being of the same genus as pot (cannabis), hemp might be the culprit found in 4 clay pipes but the truth is, I doubt seriously if anyone will ever know the truth of the matter.
Maybe the original name of one of my favorites of his was The Hempest. Also, there was a man named John Aigs who was rumoured to have written most of Shakespeare's plays. Roger Bacon is also suspected of being the real author. I have my own theory that these two collaborated and that the plays were written by Bacon and Aigs.
This is a repost of an observation I made on the thread Word Origins. .It seems to apply here also. I had forgotten all this and looked it up again. This is a Danish site. The country, not the baked good. https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/e...n/viking-age-people/the-names-of-the-weekdays Sunday and Monday are named after the celestial bodies, Sun and Moon, but the other days are named after Norse gods; Tyrs's day, (W)odin's day, Thor's day and Frigg's day. Saturday does not follow the same pattern, and the name actually means 'hot water day', which can be translated as 'washing day' or 'bathing day'. The English 'Saturday' originates from the Roman god Saturn, and can be recognized from Latin, where the day is called 'Dies Saturni'. I guess it used to be the custom or practice to bathe only once a week. The lowest classes probably didn't even reach this modest plateau. No wonder that the common crowd at Shakespeare's plays were called 'stinkards'.
The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It’s said by a character called Dick the Butcher in Act IV, Scene II of William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, written between 1596 and 1599. https://lithub.com/what-did-shakespeare-mean-when-he-wrote-lets-kill-all-the-lawyers/ Noting that, at the time, the term "lawyer" really referred to politicians. In this day and age I guess we have to assert that it was hyperbole, humor...not an actual call for violence!
Shakespeare just added more confusion to the English language. Only people like you and @John Brunner understand what the heck he is saying.