Edward De Vere: The Man Who Was Shakespeare

Like many of my contemporaries , I started my investigation by doing a search on the internet and going to the most reputable sites for their recommended reading lists on the subject. I quickly learned that Shakespearean scholarship is divided into two major camps: the Stratfordians (those subscribing to the conventional representation of the the man from Stratford was the true author of the works of Shakespeare) and anti-Stratfordians (those who don't).

Early on, I came across the transcript of a PBS program, Frontline, which addressed the subject in the venue of a mock trial. Amused, I read further and was taken aback by the logic of the anti-Stratfordian arguments. However, the feebleness of the Stratfordian defense made me suspect that this was surely an unfair representation; certainly staged entertainment, not a serious or scholarly investigation, and so I believed that it was not to be taken seriously.

The reason I mention this is that this event precipitated an unexpected discovery on my part: I began to take note of a peculiar defensiveness in myself that I had never even suspected existed. The challenge to the Stratford man felt to me, on some fundamental level, like an attack on the democratic as well as quixotic ideals I hold very dear. Whether this had any influence on my approach at this point or not, I cannot truthfully say; but I chose, without conscious or deliberate forethought, my first source: the reverentially Stratfordian biography, William Shakespeare: A Biography, written by A. L. Rowse.

Mr. Rowse is regarded as being "the greatest living authority on Elizabethan England" with an impressive resume of works. As I read chapter after chapter, I became increasingly uneasy. I went on to my next source. As I read book after book, I was as shocked and amazed as I had been that providential day long ago when I first realized that the vitamins in bread are not all located in the crust.

It was not the strength of the anti-Stratfordian argument that had first arrested me, but rather the shocking absence of logical and reasonable cause to connect the man from Stratford to Shakespeare's plays in the first place. As my research continued, I was indeed impressed by the caliber as well as the weight of evidence residing in the anti-Stratfordian camp.

(photo credit: Public domain image courtsey of Wiki Commons)

Edward De Vere at The Literati Shoppe

Dare To Be Oxfordian Men's T (Shakespeare Quote on Back)

Oxfordian Tote

Oxfordian Woman's T (Shakespeare Quote on Back)

What Fools These Mortals Be Magnet

De Vere is Shakespeare Keychain

Truth Is Truth Bumpersticker

De Vere is Shakespeare Button

Sonnet 29 with De Vere Portrait

Edward De Vere Portrait Magnet

William's father, John Shakspere, makes his first appearance in the records of Stratford on April 29, 1552, when he was fined one shilling for having an unauthorized dunghill in Henley Street.

His name later appears in documents as a "yeoman;" a term meaning a freeholder of land with an annual value of fifty shillings, and there is record of his being a member of the "Mystery of the Glovers, Whittawers and Collarmakers," which is one of the Stratford trade guilds. He is otherwise mentioned as being a seller of both barley and timber and belonging to various other trades including spending some of his time as a butcher. In addition, documents indicate that he, at one point in his career, owned several houses justifying the supposition that he was at one time a moderately successful businessman. The record also indicates that he held a variety of civic posts, reaching the position of bailiff in 1568.

It is undisputed even by the Stratfordian votaries, that John Shakspere was illiterate. Although there are no less than twenty variants of the spelling of his name in numerous legal documents, there is not a single one that bears a signature; all are authenticated by a simple mark, either that of a cross or a pair of glover's dividers.

According to official records, John Shakspere apparently fell on hard times; he was involved in many lawsuits over the years from 1571 - 1592 including one warrant for his arrest for debt, as well as some evidence that he was involved in illegal wool-dealing. It is probable that he was arrested in 1592. John's brother, Henry, was a landholder in Snitterfield and died much in debt in 1596.

John Shakspere married Mary Arden and they had ten children, of which William, christened on April 26, 1564: Gulielmus [Latin for William] filius Johannes Shakspere, was the eldest child to survive infancy.

It is assumed by scholars that William attended a grammar school in Stratford, although there is no record of it. Grammar schools of the day were of the one room variety with few books and only one teacher instructing several grades at once. It is known however, that William did not go to a university or receive any further formal education.

Nothing exists as to documentation of William's early life, other than he left Stratford in 1582 as a result of "deer-stealing, " and that he married Anne Hathwey almost immediately afterwards on November 27, 1582.

Anne gave birth to their daughter Susanna six months later on May 26, 1583 and this event was followed in the record by the birth of twins, Hamnet and Judeth, on February 2, 1585, named after a couple who were friends of the Shakspere's. (Hamnet was to die eleven years later, on August 11, 1596).

(photo credit: image of Will Shaksper's Stratford House. Public domain image courtsey of Wiki commons)

Buy This at Allposters.com

Only once is the family's last name recorded as "Shakespeare;" that was the name ascribed by a clerk to Will's daughter, Susanna upon the occasion of her christening. When she was married twenty years later, her name was entered as "Shaxpere." It should be noted that the variant spellings, in and of themselves provide insufficient evidence for any conclusions to be drawn, as each clerk seemed to have his own opinion about the language. In Elizabethan times, spelling was chaotic. Indeed, as long as the spelling of a word represented the sound of the word, it was considered acceptable.

But it is not only the spelling of the name that has been the subject of much analytical debate, but also the signatures of the Stratford man, of which only six examples exist; three on his will and three on other legal documents. He not only uses different spellings in each of them, but none of the spellings are the one by which he supposedly won fame and fortune in London. All of them are awkwardly written. The question is obvious: Can the man who penned nearly a million words of the most highly regarded poetry in the history of the language never have developed a distinctive, personal signature?

The records that do exist paint an unsavory picture of the Stratford man. In 1596 a writ of attachment was issued against him, meaning that the plaintiff feared that "William Shakspere" might inflict bodily harm on him.

In 1597 Shakspere purchased a home (which he imaginatively dubbed "New Place") in Stratford for sixty pounds. The following year he is cited for hoarding grain during a famine.

Although there is some documentation that William Shakespeare was a shareholder in the Globe and Blackfriars theatres in London, other documents, such as the Stratford man's last will and testament, make it difficult to reconcile that the two similar names, in fact, belong to the same man. The Stratford man's will makes no mention of the valuable interest in the London theaters, and his will is meticulously detailed down to every piece of clothing.

The last will of William Shakspere is a point of contention for Oxfordians and an object of sensitivity for Stratfordians for as "most of the wills of this period are personal and affectionate," scholar Marchette Chute writes, sighting even other actors with whom Shakspere is known to have associated, "Shakspere was one member of the company whose will does not show a flicker of personal feeling."

"Wmj Shackspeare," as his name appears on the document, revised his will on March 25, 1616 wherein he disinherited his son-in-law, Thomas Quincy (husband to his daughter Judith), by crossing out his name. (The day before, Thomas Quincy had been called before the ecclesiastical court where he confessed to having had "carnal intercourse" with a certain Margaret Wheeler who had died, the burial record shows, ten days prior along with her as yet un-named child). Judith had evidently fallen out of favor with her father as well for she was to receive only a "broad, silver gilt bowl" and a small allowance, contingent upon her resigning her right to her father's other property.

His wife, to whom, by law, should have gone their house of residence as well as one-third of all his heritable properties, received only "the second best bed." She was not even allowed to dispose of her husband's clothes as every piece of it was willed away. The document, three pages in length, is minutely specific as to every article and contingency of inheritance. His daughter Susanna received all his real property as well as all the rest of his "goods chattels Leases plate Jewels and household stuffs whatsoever." Since the law required that his wife could not be left homeless, she was reduced to the position of her daughter's tenant, for her husband had not even granted her lifetime possession of her own home.

He left small amounts of money to four friends and twenty shillings to a godson. Orthodox scholars have placed much significance on three of those four friends: John Hemynge, Richard Burbage and Henry Cundell as they were actors at the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. He willed them twenty-six shillings, eight pence each and referred to them as his "fellows." No mention was made of any shares in the theatres themselves that the theatre record shows belonging to a "William Shakespeare." As it is estimated that such shares would have brought in about two hundred pounds annually, it is inconceivable that they would not have been mentioned had they belonged to this Shakspere. Even the orthodox scholars concede that the shares never turned up in the records of any of Shakspere's heirs thus giving further credence to the speculation that the William Shakespeare who owned shares in the Globe and Blackfriars theatres was not the William Shakspere of Stratford.

Shakspere made no provisions in his will for his granddaughter's education even though, like his parents before him and even his own wife, his children were illiterate. This shows more than a want of feeling; it is completely out of character for a literary man, and conspicuously inconsistent with his contemporaries. Louis P. Benezet, professor at Dartmouth College and author of the book, Shakespeare and de Vere (1937) writes:

"The wills of Heminge, who dies in 1630, aged 75, and of Condell, who was deceased in 1627, in literary style and clearness are so far above the rambling, unpunctuated scrawl that is today worshipped as the final literary composition of the world's greatest author-genius as to suggest that they belonged to a monde at least two strata above him. Heminge speaks of his books, specifies that five pounds shall be spent in purchasing volumes for the education of grandchild, and writes again and again of his income from the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses and its disposal. Condell wills to his son his yearly dividend from the "Blackfriars" and the "Bankside."

Although every article of clothing is accounted for, no mention is made of any books or manuscripts in Shakspere's will. Stratfordians contend that such treasures would have been included under "goods chattels . . . and household stuffs," but it defies all reason as well as imagination to think that the once impoverished villager of humble origins, who had soared to the highest pinnacle of literary achievement in spite of a woefully inadequate education, would have so little regard for the beloved library that would necessarily have to have been instrumental to his accomplishment. Suggesting that he could completely ignore his own legacy of that triumph is nothing less than impossible.

(photo credit: This portrait is known as the Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare, a public domain image. Courtesy of Wiki Commons).

If Shakespeare was really a man from an illiterate family, born and bred in a provincial market-town, with next to no education and no connection to literary or courtly society -- as Stratfordians claim that he was -- how did he learn to write so prolifically from an aristocratic perspective?

When he penned Juliet, sighing after her Romeo, "O for the falconer's voice / To lure this tassel-gentle back again," he is using technical terminology to create a metaphor, evoking imagery drawn from the privileged sport of falconry. To "lure" is to recall the hawk after it has struck or missed the target and the "tassel-gentle" is the male peregrine, a falcon favored by the Elizabethan aristocracy. Shakespeare's poetic imagery is copious with such specialized language; it stands on its own as compelling evidence that it could only come from someone to whom such terminology is second-nature.

Statisticians tell us that the vocabulary of the average university graduate is something less than four thousand words; of some of the most renowned literary scholars, around ten thousand words. Shakespeare employed more than fifteen thousand words in composing his body of work. Such a vocabulary, the scope of which has never even been approached by any other writer, could only be acquired by constant and consistent reading from early childhood to old age.

It is not a matter of speculation: Shakespeare must have loved books.

He must have had an extensive library. With the exception of Love's Labor Lost, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, all of his plays have plots from known sources. To have had the level of familiarity with literature so that he would have known where to go for thirty-four borrowed plots, and utilize his incomparable vocabulary, it is speculated that he would have had to have read practically everything published in English, French, Italian, Greek and Latin of his day.

But only a very small segment of the nobility had or had access to such a collection of books. There were no libraries.

And yet we are asked to believe that this same man made no provisions for the education of his grandchildren, made no mention of any teachers or mentors, left no letters and left no evidence whatsoever that he ever owned a single book.

photo credit: courtsey of Flickr

Shakespeare at The Literati Shoppe

Aaron from Titus Andronicus on iPad

What's To Come Is Still Unsure Infant Creeper

Weighest Thou Words Before Thou Givest Them Breath T

Why This Is Very Midsummer Madness Apron

Sonnet 116 Magnet

If Love Be Blind Love Cannot Hit the Mark T

My Heart Suspects More Than Mine Eye Can See

Sonnet 116 iPhone Case

Night At The Globe Magnet

Buy This at Allposters.com

The fact of the matter is, no one of the time ever identifies Shakespeare, the admired dramatist, as making a personal appearance or claims to have any intimate knowledge of him. His name never appears in print until after 15 of the plays we know as his have appeared, and then he is suddenly acclaimed as being the nation's best and brightest in both comedy and tragedy. But after this single accolade there is virtual silence for the next twenty-five years.

In as much as the fact that there is a conspicuous absence of evidence that anyone related to or knowing Will Shakspere of Stratford ever claimed or even hinted at being in any way connected to William Shakespeare, the respected and renown playwright and poet, there always exists the proverbial up-hill battle associated with changing an ingrained belief; made all the more intimidating when the argument challenges academic doctrine and treads upon the sensitivities of many respected scholars who perhaps feel that their intellectual and academic reputations are at risk. It is in this climate that the debate has raged on for literally hundreds of years.

The scanty evidence that does exist, provided by contemporaries of the great dramatist, confirms the already strong case that no one in his time believed that William Shakespeare the playwright was in any way connected to Will Shakspere of Stratford.

(photo credit:Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of William Shakespeare, containing scenes and characters from several of William Shakespeare's plays. Public domain image courtsey of Wiki Commons).

In the face of these facts and circumstance, the question that is perhaps the most obvious in need of asking is: if no one during Shakspere's lifetime, or indeed for a long time after his death, identified the Stratford man as the famous playwright, how and when was the correlation made?

Firstly, it is clear that Will Shakspere of Stratford never claimed in his lifetime to be the author William Shakespeare nor did any of his friends, relatives or descendants after his death. Shakespeare's folio of works had gone into their third edition by the time Shakspere's granddaughter had married and yet none of his heirs had any connection to them.

Secondly, it appears that there was no interest in biographical information on the dramatist-poet for two generations after his death. It is speculated that those within the literary circle of the Elizabethan court knew the real identity of the author and so highly respected him and his need for anonymity (and, as will be discussed later, the wishes of the queen) that they kept his secret.

One anonymous epigram contained in Wits Recreation of 1640 provides an elusive and mysterious clue that continues to haunt:

"To Mr. William Shake-spear
Shake-speare, we must be silent in thy praise,
'Cause our encomions will but blast thy bays
Which envy could not, that thou didst so well;
Let thine own histories prove thy Chronicle."

Why should praise destroy Shakespeare's fame where envy over his successes could not? The first line of the author's quatrain makes it clear that Shakespeare's admirers had to keep silent for a reason. The last line tells us that Shakespeare's life is to be learned from his works.

Thirdly, it seems that the events of history took an early hand in entrenching William Shakspere of Stratford in the role of the renowned playwright. From 1642 - 1660 public theatres were closed under Puritan rule. For twenty years, theatre was an anathema. No one showed interest in Shakespeare's life story. There were no literary biographies written, although there are three men who left brief biographical references concerning Shakespeare at the end of the seventeenth century. Thomas Fuller, in his work Worthies, in 1662 has only a few sentences referring to Shakespeare. Reverend John Ward, vicar of the Stratford church in 1660, left exactly four ambiguous sentences in his diary which have been interpreted to make the case both for and against Shakspere being Shakespeare; and John Aubrey, recognized by scholars as being an antiquarian and a gossipmonger, wrote a short, anecdotal book entitled Brief Lives which was not published until 1813.

Even most Stratfordian scholars do not regard these very brief anecdotal notes as reliable.

It was not until 1709 -- nearly a century after the death of Will Shakspere -- that there appeared a short biographical sketch written by Nicholas Rowe that was included in his edition of the collected plays. However, Edmund Malone, the late-eighteenth century Shakespearean, counted a total of eleven biographical facts in Rowe's biography and found eight out of the eleven to be wrong. Despite its brevity and inaccuracy, Rowe's account remained the standard for a hundred years.

In 1769, Shakespeare's plays began their revival, largely due to the efforts of David Garrick, a consummate self-promoter and the most famous actor/director of the eighteenth century. He made Shakespeare into a marketable commodity by staging the first Shakespeare festival, putting Stratford-on-Avon on the tourist map. The concept caught on, spreading like wildfire; before the end of the century Shakespeare had been deified and Bardolatry was born.

In the 1780s, a clergyman, Reverend James Wilmot, who was rector of a village near Stratford, launched his own investigation and concluded that William of Stratford was not William Shakespeare, writer of plays and poems, but he would not allow publication of his findings. He considered his findings so dangerous that he directed that his notes be burned upon his death. His work survived only because the friend to whom he confided did not carry out that instruction and reported on it in confidence to a literary society twenty years later. The literary society kept his confidence and Wilmot's work did not come to light until 1932, long after others had taken up the authorship question independently.

There's Lots More of the Bard at The Literati Shoppe

I Am Not Bound To Please Thee With My Answers

Doubts Are Traitors Tote

The Globe Canvas Print in Many Sizes

In 1592, a pamphlet was published entitled Groatsworth of Wit, reputedly authored by Robert Green. Green was dead at the time; Henry Chettle, a printer, editor and writer, was said to have found the manuscript and to have taken it upon himself to have the work printed (although this representation has been challenged, claiming that Chettle was in fact the author). The pamphlet was directed to three playwrights and is an epithet against an actor. The author warns the playwrights not to trust the actor:

". . . Yes trust him not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified by with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Joannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

Biographers of all persuasions generally identify the three playwrights to whom the letter was addressed as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and George Peele. The role of "Shake-scene," the disreputable actor, has been attributed to Will Shakspere as later records seem to offer a degree of corroboration for his activities as a shareholder and actor. The full text describes the "upstart Crow" as more than an obnoxious actor; it goes into detail about how he is a usurer who pays playwrights to write for him.

A usury in Elizabethan times meant money-lending at interest, regardless of the rate charged. In 1571, the Act Against Usury was enacted which sanctioned the charging of interest at a rate of ten percent or less, but this legitimatizing of the practice did not improve the public's opinion of usurers. By the early seventeenth century, usury came to mean charging an exorbitant amount of interest and was identified as a crime of the social-climbing nouveaux riche. Shakspere was certainly a moneylender; most of the existing records that document his life involve his suing to collect a debt.

As the story of Groatsworth of Wit goes, the three playwrights resented the publication of the letter as it also contained some insults aimed at their profession and their association with immoral players. Chettle responded a few months later by directing an apology to the three playwrights:

"About three months since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in sundry bookseller's hands, among other[s] his Groats-worth of wit, in which a letter written to divers play-makers [i.e. Marlowe, Nashe, Peele] is offensively by one of two of them taken, and because on the dead they cannot be avenged, they willfully forge in their conceits a living Author: and after tossing it to and fro, no remedy, but it must light on me. . . With neither of them that take offense was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I never be: The other, whom at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had . . . I am sorry, as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes: Besides, diverse of worship have reported, his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that proves his Art."

What some biographers of Stratfordian persuasion have done with this piece of evidence is no less than astonishing. It is unequivocally clear that Chettle's apology is explicitly directed to the two of the three playwrights and yet orthodox biographers have represented this letter as an apology directed at Shakspere, transforming him from being the subject of the letter into being one of the addressees! This sleight-of-hand resulted in what one critic described as "mythography at its best." Orthodox biographers such as E.K. Chambers have misappropriated this apology and then used it to build a character profile for Shakspere, claiming it as evidence that he was appreciated in his own time for his "uprightness of dealing," "honesty," and "facetious grace." They further used this misdirection as proof that Shakspere was officially referred to by one of his contemporaries as a dramatist.

Chambers, while admitting that his interpretation "implies some looseness in Chettle's language, since Greene's letter was obviously not written to Shakespeare," he nonetheless concludes that "Greene's letter in itself is sufficient to show that by September 1592 Shakespeare was both a player and a maker of plays." What is evident is that traditional biographers have repeatedly edited out distasteful as well as inconsistent information and, in this case, even embezzled a compliment meant for someone else in order to paint a portrait of a gentle playwright.

The definitive study on the monument to the Stratford man was done by Diana Price and published in her book, Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography. Will Shakspere was buried at the Holy Trinity Church under a poorly chiseled, anonymous slab. Shakspere had purchased tithes from the church in 1605 which would have automatically made him a lay rector and entitled him to burial in the church chancel.

The Stratford Monument was constructed sometime before 1623 and is mounted on the wall of the Holy Trinity Church. It was first referred to in a collection of Shakespeare's plays published in 1623 and its epitaph was first transcribed by the antiquarian John Weever in 1626. The first known sketch of the monument was made in 1634 by Sir William Dugdale for inclusion in his book Antiquities of Warwickshire published in 1656.

Dugdale's sketch served as a model for Wenceslaus Hollar's engraving that was published in the book.

An engraving of the monument made by George Vertue, later appeared in Alexander Pope's edition of Shakespeare in 1725, however the bust of Shakespeare was now made to resemble the so-called "Chandos" portrait - right down to the earring, the collar and angle of the body.

(photo credit: Shakespeare monument images are public domain images courtsey of the Library of Congress)

In addition, a striking alteration was made: the Bard now holds a quill pen and a piece of paper and the sack he was clutching was converted to a cushion. "While I can understand," writes Charlton Ogburn, "how a cushion might have been substituted for the bulging sack in a replacement, faute de mieux, to convert a grain-dealer to an author, I cannot comprehend having a cushion as a writing surface to begin with."

(photo credit: Chandos Portrait, public domain image courtsey of Wiki Commons)

In 1746, the monument was in a state of deterioration and plans were made for its repair (and embellishment). Other restoration projects were undertaken in the late 1830s and in 1861 giving us the monument we have today. The published images of the monument have provoked much contention regarding its authenticity and the epitaph does nothing to belay them.

The Latin inscription compares Shakespeare to the classical figures of Nestor, Socrates and Virgil. These references have aroused bewilderment among scholars for centuries. While Nestor was wise and Socrates a great thinker, neither had anything to do with writing, much less dramatic literature; and Virgil, while coming closest to having relevance for a literary epitaph, has been considered an inappropriate choice for a comparative to Shakespeare as the playwright had much more in common with Ovid.

Further, there is an uncommon absence of biographical references. The epitaph of Johannes Hall, Will Shakspere's son-in-law, reads (from the Latin) "most celebrated in the medical arts." How could it be, observes biographer Diana Price, "that Hall elicited more explicit professional recognition than did his supposedly more illustrious father-in-law?"

Compare Shakespeare's epitaph with those of other celebrated writers of the age:

Edmund Spencer: "With thee our English verse was rais'd on high. . ."

Francis Beaumont: "He that can write so well . . . "

Michael Drayton: "A Memorable Poet of his Age . . ."

John Taylor: "Here lies the Water Poet . . ."

George Chapman: "A Christian Philosopher and Homericall Poet . . ."

Following the two Latin lines are six lines in English imploring the visitor to linger awhile as if to betray skepticism as to the importance of the site. STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST? "Why should it be assumed that the visitor will hurry by too fast to take in what he is seeing?" asks biographer Charlton Ogburn. "If there is any monument in the English-speaking world which should arrest the visitor's attention . . . it would surely be one to William Shakespeare."

So what can we make of all this? A few posthumous legends supported by some stray documentary evidence shed some light on the possible origins of the Stratford Monument. One such report claims that Will Shakspere of Stratford was known to have written other tombstone doggerel, like the jingle on the original stone covering his own grave, for usurer John Combe, who died in 1614. (Combe is one of the few personal relationships biographers can trace in Shakspere's life. They were involved in several real estate deals and Combe bequeathed five pounds to Shakspere in his will; Shakspere likewise willed his sword to Combe's nephew, Thomas).

According to the extant diary of Lieutenant Hammond, who traveled to Stratford in 1634, Hammond was told by the townsfolk that the "famous English poet Mr. William Shakespeare . . . did fan up some witty and facetious verses." He was shown an example of the local poet's work: the monument marking the grave of the local moneylender, John Combe:

"Ten in the Hundred the Devil allows
But Combes will have twelve, he swears and vows:
If any one asks who lies in this tombe:
Hoh! quoth the Devil 'Tis my John o'Combe"

This account is corroborated by the fact that Combe provided sixty pounds in his will for the construction of his monument and the same stonemason, Gheerart Janssen whose shop was situated in the precinct of the Globe theatre, constructed Shakspere's monument as well.
Providing for a monument to oneself was generally the prerogative of the titled classes and men of means but during that time the persistence of the socially ambitious to improve their standing was known to have met with sympathetic interest in certain quarters by those who could facilitate such aspirations. Will Shakspere's father, John, had twice applied for a coat of arms and another application was made by Will, the latter being successful as it was accompanied by a bribe to Sir William Dethick, the Garter King-of-Arms. Charges against Dethick were filed in 1602, accusing him of carelessness and dishonesty in elevating unworthy candidates. Will Shakspere's name was fourth on the list of twenty-three names cited in the complaint.

It is speculated that Shakspere also ordered his monument during his lifetime. Charlton Ogburn writes:

"His widow and daughters were certainly not responsible for the memorial. They would not have approved an inscription that put the body in the monument when they had buried it years before under the floor. Moreover, to the immediate family a member's first name is of particular importance, since the last name is common to all. And no "William" appears on the monument."

"What's more," argues Diana Price, "Shakspere was a common surname in Warwickshire, and William was the last existing male in his line." She discusses the theory that the monument was originally designed to sit on top of a sarcophagus, not as a wall mounting. This would account for the reference, "with in this monvement" in the inscription as well as other design inconsistencies, and the crowding in of the date of death at the bottom. She suggests that only the top section of the monument had been completed at the time of Shakspere's death and his family attempted to economize on his instructions by scrapping the remaining plans for a sarcophagus.

In April 1786, two American diplomats by the names of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson stopped for a night in Stratford-on-Avon; two tourists visiting the small town that was becoming famous as the birthplace of the Bard of Avon. David Garrick's Shakespeare Jubilee Celebration had been staged there seventeen years earlier. John Adams made the following entry in his diary:

"There is nothing preserved of this great genius which is worth knowing - nothing which might inform us what education, what company, what accident turned his mind to letters and drama. His name is not even on his gravestone. An ill-sculptured head is set up by his wife by the side of his grave in the church."

The word folio refers to the way a manuscript is laid out and printed; specifically, four large pages printed on both sides of a single piece of paper and folded once. Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, Published According to the True Original Copies, much later nicknamed by scholars as the First Folio, is a thick volume of just over nine hundred pages consisting of thirty-six plays by William Shakespeare, half of them were being printed for the first time.

Beginning in 1621, five years after the Stratford man's death, and continuing through 1623, four printers in London were working on the major publishing project. Nine different compositors hand-set the type; each one of them had their own unique way of spelling. Errors and variations in spelling and punctuation are prevalent through all the extant copies. (It is estimated that between 750 and 1,200 copies were run, however only 240 have survived). The introductory items in the First Folio provide undoubtedly the most powerful evidence for the Stratfordian case and comprise the following issues:

The Portrait. The now very recognizable portrait on the title page of the First Folio appeared, like the half-length bust in the Stratford monument, within seven years after the Stratford man's death. It apparently did not draw objections from those who must have known the author. There exists no straightforward record of anyone who might have known or seen the author or any other contemporary expressly saying that the portrait and the bust did not depict the true author.

The Commendatory Poems. The first poem, written by Ben Johnson, the de facto poet laureate of the day, appears opposite the portrait and in it he praises the author, calling him the "sweet swan of Avon."

The second poem, written by Leonard Digges, whose step-father was overseer of Will Shakspere's will, writes that Shakespeare's name will live on even when "time dissolves thy Stratford moniment." When the two author's references are put together, "Stratford-on-Avon," the author's hometown is identified.

Two epistles. Two short epistles To the Great Variety of Readers appear over the names of Heminge and Condell and claim that the collection of plays was not assembled for profit, but as homage to so "worthy a Friend, & Fellow . . . as our Shakespeare." Renown Stratfordian biographer Samuel Schoenbaum considered this testimony "the most crucial single document in the annals of authorship attribution."

Anti-Stratfordians draw different conclusions. They note that the writings of third parties in the First Folio provide no biographical information, that the references that are made are ambiguous and that the authorship is unreliable and is suspect on several levels.

Before examining the specific elements, we will take a look at Ben Jonson's role in the publication.

Will Shakspere died the year Jonson became poet laureate and Jonson wrote not a word marking the passing of the man whom he heralded in the dedicatory poems in the First Folio seven years later as "the soul of the age . . . the wonder of our stage!" (Indeed, no one wrote anything to mark the Stratford's man death). Yet in that same year, Jonson published poems addressed to Peele, Beaumont, and Greene. Stratfordians speculate that Jonson and Shakespeare were rivals and that this would justify Jonson's silence but anti-Stratfordians point out that Jonson was never shy about criticizing or commenting on other writers. In fact, he made one comment in earlier years that has been attributed to being an allusion to Will Shakspere; but it is both satirical and derogatory. It mocks Shakspere's pretension to a coat-of-arms and his chosen motto, "Not Without Right," which a character in one of Jonson's plays says should be "Not Without Mustard." There is another reference: a poem authored by Jonson entitled "On Poet-Ape" that ridicules an unnamed playwright, but scholarly opinion is divided as to whom Jonson was referring.

Shakespeare Greeting Cards at The Literati Shoppe

Sonnet 116 with Juliet On Her Balcony

Miranda From The Tempest with Sonnet 116 Inside

Postcard with Shakespeare's Quote About What Conversation Should Be

The engraving on the title page was done by Marcus Droeshout, who was only fifteen at the time of Will Shakspere's death. There is no reason to believe that he ever met Shakspere and just as little reason to believe that his work resembles its subject. Jonson wrote in a message that appears in the Folio opposite the portrait:

To the Reader
This figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:
O, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpass
All, that was ever writ in brass.
But since he cannot, Reader, look
Not on his Picture, but his Book.

Some have observed it odd that an obscure artist (little of his reputation is known beyond this one assignment), obviously lacking in accomplishment should be chosen to render the "star of poets." Much criticism has been levied as to the quality of the work, among other things: the fact that the right front doublet depicts what would be the back of the left doublet, the disproportionately large head that seems to be disengaged from the body, the sections that are asymmetrical, and the face appears to have two right eyes.

If this engraving is compared to those of other literary figures such as Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton or George Chapman among others, we find it not only uncommonly bland but curiously inconsistent. The others include wreaths of laurel about the heads of the subjects (a symbol of the literary profession) or prominently featured books and all are more skillfully executed.

Anti-Stratfordians speculate that Jonson, both in the short poem above and the longer eulogy to William Shakespeare included in the Folio, is purposely being ambiguous with his language, leaving clues for posterity to unravel. Among far too many interpretations to include here are ones drawing attention to the language which states that it is not a portrait of Shakespeare, but a figure cut "for" him; in the phrase "as he hath hit his face," the word "hit" being used as the past tense of "hide," so that the meaning would be that the engraver has hidden the face of the subject.

The references in the two poems to the River Avon by one author and to Stratford by the other author would seem to be direct links to Will Shakspere if one takes them out of context and does not ask too many questions. One has to splice the two references together and add the preposition "on" to come up with the reference to Shakspere's hometown, "Stratford-on-Avon," coined by Stratfordians. Oxfordians point out that Edward de Vere owned a large estate on the banks of the River Avon about twenty miles upstream from the obscure Stratford. And a very different Stratford, a well known suburb of London, was the town nearest to the house where, evidence suggests, Edward spent the last decade of his life revising and completing his plays.

Both Digges and Jonson referred to the playwright's "moniment;" specifically, Digges called it "thy Stratford moniment" and Jonson, ""Thou art a moniment without a tomb." The later immediately raises curiosity as Shakspere did have a tomb - under the un-named slab in Stratford (although, as will be discussed later, the leading contender, Edward de Vere does not have a tomb and the place of his burial is uncertain). Oxfordian scholar Ruth Loyd Miller points out that Digges and Jonson, both Latinists, would have been well aware of the meanings of the two words: "moniment" and "monument." The word "moniment," not usual in Elizabethan times, was not exactly synonymous with "monument." Edmund Spencer used "moniment" in The Fairy Queen to mean a body of written work. The word usage could be deliberately ambiguous (as shall be demonstrated later, this subtlety in word usage could, in actuality, be referring to Edward de Vere and the work in which he was engaged before his death). It is interesting to note that in the original text of the First Folio, the "i" was set in bold type.

The Two Epistles. "Biographers have persisted in representing the Folio epistles as straightforward testimony by Hemings and Condell," writes Diana Price, "yet the testimony is neither straightforward nor that of the two actors." Similarities to Ben Jonson's literary style as well as parallels and paraphrasing from Jonson's then unpublished translation of a tract by Pliny gives rise to claims that it was really Jonson who wrote the epistles, not the two actors. Stratfordian scholars themselves discovered this deception and drew this conclusion.

In the epistles it states that the "maimed and deformed" versions of the plays and are now offering them up in this folio "cured and perfect" as the author would have wanted them to be. All scholars recognize this not only an exaggerated claim for promotional purposes but also that it is completely false. Many of the texts are based on corrupt versions, are full of errors and misprints, and the earlier quarto editions provide texts that are superior. These two actors would hardly have the requisite talent or experience to prepare such a massive work for publication, Heminge, being a grocer and Condell, manager of a pub.

In spite of the declaration of altruistic intentions, the epistles implore readers emphatically several times to buy the book: "But, whatever you do, Buy." However, the book, had it been published with the need to recover costs, would have been prohibitively expensive for the average reader. It is far more likely that a patron would have covered the costs. Further, it claims that the actors themselves collected the plays for publication, but this could not possibly be construed as true. Even to suggest that they had had, on behalf of the Kings Men (the group of players who staged Shakespeare's plays), provided the plays for publication, it is highly inconsistent with the practices of the day for acting companies to sell, much less give away, plays from their repertory to publishers. Indeed, Henslowe's agent paid forty shillings to "stay the printing" of Patient Grissell lest it then be produced by other companies. There is no record of how the publishers obtained the plays in the First Folio.

What's more, in the epistles is made the express wish that the author had lived to set forth and oversee the publication of his plays. There is offered the lament that Shakespeare did not have "the fate, common with some, to be executor to his own writings." But we know that Will Shakspere lived the last years of his life in Stratford enjoying good health in affluent retirement with no obstruction to his preparing the plays for publication had he wanted to, if indeed they were his.

The passage that has been perhaps the most exploited by the Stratfordians is the one in which Jonson refers to Shakespeare as having "little Latin and less Greek." Anti-Stratfordians point out that the Stratfordian scholars have been remiss in their selective extraction of the phrase and loose with their grammar. The actual passage reads:

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Æschilus,
Euripedes, and Sophocles to us,
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova [Seneca] dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a Stage . . .

On this matter, there are several points that require examination:

The word, "though" is a conjunction that means "even if" or "even supposing that" as well as "notwithstanding," which is the application applied by Stratfordians. (Oxford Universal Dictionary).

"Hadst" is the subjunctive, not past tense.

The conditional tense of "would" is used in the next line rather than an expression of mere futurity such as "shall." (The conditional tense is what Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines as "the conclusion of sentences of rejected condition," such as "If he were here, we would know." But since he is not here, we do not know).

C.M. Ingleby, author of Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse, written one hundred years ago, pointed out that Jonson did not assert that Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek. He paraphrased the passage to illustrate his point:

"Even if thou hadst little scholarship, I would not seek to honour thee by calling thee, as others have done, Ovid, Plautus, Terence, &c., i.e., by the names of the classical poets, but would rather invite them to witness how far thou dost outshine them."

It is apparent that Jonson's intention was to be ambiguous, permitting the reader to take his statement just as the Stratfordians have done, and do; otherwise there would have been no reason to make it. It seems to be designed to have one meaning for the superficial reader and another for the more probing; as though he is giving just enough indication that there exists some insider information he cannot reveal.

There are almost no biographical facts in the introductory poems; this can hardly be an oversight. The sparse references that are made are just enough to suggest clues while, at the same time, just enough to discredit the very clues they provide.

So, what was Ben Jonson up to? Charlton Ogburn suggests that Jonson was merely performing as he was being expected to do "and lent himself to the proposition that Shakespeare was such as to have been an ill-schooled friend and fellow of Heminge and Condell; and, revolted, he took his revenge. He did all that a brave man could have been expected to do in the circumstances to sabotage his own endeavor and tip posterity off to the sham."

(photo credit: Ben Jonson portrait, public domain image courtesy of Wiki Commons)

Buy This at Allposters.com

"The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest something should turn up." -- Charles Dickens

Walt Whitman, a foremost poet of the common man, rejected the Stratford man as being the famous playwright saying that he was "firm against Shaksper - I mean the Avon man, the actor." Whitman said that he considered Shakespeare's plays "essentially the plays of the aristocracy," claiming "only one of the wolfish earls so plenteous in the works themselves, or some born knower and descendent, would seem to be the true author of these amazing works."

Walt Whitman was not alone in his conclusions. Leading figures in nineteenth-century American literature who shared his view include Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier and Mark Twain. Henry James once wrote in a letter:

"I am 'a sort of' haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world."

Enter Thomas Looney, schoolmaster in northern England, circa 1920. Looney had studied and taught Shakespeare and was widely read on the authorship question as well a follower of August Comte, the founder of logical positivism, an approach to general problem solving using scientific methodology. He approached his research by assuming that the identity of the author was unknown and constructed a profile based upon what would be expected from the author of Shakespeare's works.

Then, he began studying lyric poets who used Shakespeare's stanza form in Venus and Adonis. Not long afterward, he found a match.

Edward de Vere was born on April 12, 1550. His father held vast properties in southeast England and was an avid sportsman. He also was a patron of acting companies that produced plays and masques for family and friends.

Edward's father died when Edward was twelve years old. His mother quickly remarried to Charles Tyrrell. (Reminiscent of Hamlet; although Tyrrell did not murder Edward's father, the young boy's reaction can find an echo in Hamlet's cry, "O God! A beast that wants a discourse of reason / Would have mourned longer").

In spite of the fact that his mother was very much alive, young Edward became a ward of the crown and was placed under the guardianship of William Cecil, who was later made Lord Burghley, secretary, treasurer and chief minister to Queen Elizabeth. (Lord Burghley has long been recognized by even orthodox scholarship as the subject caricatured as Polonius in Hamlet). Edward went to live at Burghley's estate where he grew up with Burghley's other children, among them, Anne, who was six years old at the time of Edward's arrival.

At Burghley's estate, Edward continued his privileged education, studying under the tutelage of, among others, his uncle Arthur Golding, the translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses (which is recognized by scholars of all persuasions as having a major influence on Shakespeare's work).
During Edward's years as a member of the Burghley household, Lord Burghley employed the leading horticulturalist of the time to manage his extensive gardens. (A nineteenth century botanist cited as many as fifty different flowers and plants referred to in poetical terms in Shakespeare's works, and another hundred in a more prosaic way, all recognized as being accurate and sensitive).

Edward graduated from Cambridge and then Oxford and studied law at Gray's Inn, which was also noted for its amateur theatricals.
When he reached the age of twenty-one, he married Anne, then fifteen. The wedding took place in Westminster Abbey and was attended by the Queen. There is speculation that this was not a marriage of youthful romance. Rumors circulated at the time regarding the fact that it took more than three years for Anne to conceive their first child and there was widespread belief that the daughter, when she did arrive, was not Edward's. Edward himself denied paternity and estranged himself from his wife and her family for years. However, there is evidence that the rumors were the instigation of Edward's ill-reputed cousin, Lord Henry Howard who had ample reason to want to drive a wedge between Edward and his in-laws. (Edward appears to have been as easily manipulated by his cousin into believing in the infidelity of his wife and as exacting in his judgment against her as was Hamlet against Ophelia and Othello against Desdemona).

Edward was an active patron of writers and many dedicated their works to him, sometimes in terms suggesting that he directed their work. Edward himself began to write poetry and prose while in his early twenties, sometimes using his own name, sometimes using his initials or pseudonyms. His contemporaries highly praised his work and literary talent.

When Edward was thirty, he leased the first Blackfriars Theatre. His private secretary, John Lyly, produced plays there that were performed for the queen and her court.

(photo credit: The Cobbe Portrait c. 1610; public domain image courtsey of Wiki Commons)

Shakespeare's...

Walter Crane

10 in. x 13 in.

Buy This at Allposters.com

It was at this time that William Webbe wrote in his Discourse of English Poetry, commending the poetic skills of the lords and gentlemen in the queen's court and mentioned Edward specifically saying that he was "the most excellent among the rest."

George Puttenham, author of The Art of English Poesy, claimed to know courtiers who wrote exceptionally well but suppressed their work "or else suffered it to be published without their own names to it, as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned and to show himself amorous of any good art."

Some noblemen, he went on to say, "have written excellently well, as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest, of which number is first that noble gentleman Edward, Earl of Oxford."

Evidence of his literary activities under his own name ceases at about the same time as the plays of Shakespeare appear.

Edward had intimate, inner-circle knowledge of the military actions of the queen's army and was obsessed with getting a military commission; however the queen repeatedly refused to grant him one. Nonetheless, he was involved in three armed conflicts, one of which was the Battle of the Armada. (G.B. Harrison, leading Stratfordian scholar, writes of Shakespeare saying that, "It is clear that he had an extraordinary knowledge of soldiers. . . This intimate knowledge is seen again and again." However, Will Shakspere has no military record).

Edward was forty-four when Venus and Adonis, inspired from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and The Rape of Lucrece, based upon Ovid and Livy's History of Rome, were published. (Shakspere was twenty-eight). The narrative poems are polished, sophisticated works, demonstrating an easy familiarity with Latin literature and skill with classic imagery and rhetorical devices. They simply could not have been the first efforts of a budding part-time playwright.

The Shakespeare byline does appear on the published work, however not on the title pages where it would customarily be placed. It appears instead on the dedication page addressed to the third Earl of Southampton. Southampton was well known to Edward throughout his life; he too was a ward of Lord Burghley and was about nineteen at the time of the dedications. A few years earlier Burghley had attempted to arrange a marriage between Edward's oldest daughter, Elizabeth (who was fifteen at the time), and Southampton, but the young Southampton refused. Moreover, these dedications were not those of a commoner addressing a nobleman.

Regarding the assumption of the Stratford man being Shakespeare, Richard F. Whalen writes, "It's difficult to understand how he could have gotten away with it. Only by positing a tremendous, undocumented rise in status can scholars explain how a twenty-nine year old, unpublished, unacclaimed commoner could suddenly address an earl in the gracious and familiar terms of the dedications. The rigid class system of Elizabethan times would not have allowed it." Despite intensive research, no connection between Southampton and Will Shakspere has ever been found, either before or after the dedications.

Edward's finances came into disarray. Although there is no evidence of extravagant expenditures, historians generally characterize him as being financially improvident because he seemed to be always short of cash. Some Oxfordian scholars suggest that Lord Burghley may have manipulated the funds of his wealthy young wards even after they reached the age of twenty-one. Whatever the cause, at the age of thirty-six, Edward's financial problems were solved.

Although notoriously tightfisted with money, Queen Elizabeth granted Edward one thousand pounds a year for life to be paid from the state treasury. (Although money-value comparisons are difficult to make, one thousand pounds in Elizabethan England is generally estimated to be the equivalent of several hundred thousand dollars today). No reason for the grant was given; he performed no public service, held no position of great authority or command in the queen's government. What is more, the queen expressly directed that no accounting of it was to be required. As she was famous for her love of literature and the theatre, most Oxfordians do not think it a stretch to infer that with Edward as her intermediary and one of the principle playwrights, she became a major patroness of the theatre, even though Edward's authorship could never be openly acknowledged.

(photo credit: public domain image courtsey of Wiki Commons)

Buy This at Allposters.com

This brings up another point of contention with Shakespearean historians. Stratfordian biographer Ian Wilson writes that there is "hardly a play or poem whose date or composition by Shakespeare is beyond dispute." This is disproved, however by numerous volumes analyzing every detail of every word. There are scarcely any two scholars who agree on the dating of the works; and for good reason.

Dating the plays is a hazardous business. Stratfordian scholarship, although it may differ as to the order the plays were written, find reason to date nine major plays plus Venus and Adonis plus 154 sonnets in a four to five year span when their author was between twenty-four and twenty-eight years old.

Genius (that being their sole justification for such a miraculous achievement) notwithstanding, it is quite a concept to accept given what we know of their author's life. Could he really have instantly excelled to such proficiency in comedy, tragedy, history and lyric poetry in his mid-twenties while earning a living and supporting and wife and infant twins? Presumably he was also off observing the goings-on at Queen Elizabeth's court, absorbing all the manners and intimate pursuits of the nobility and constructing the most immense vocabulary ever known in English literature as well. Writing while dead would seem a more surmountable challenge than that.

But Oxfordians simply do not concede that any of the works were written after Edward de Vere's death. Schoenbaum has said that "the principle drawback of the entire argument" for de Vere authorship is that ten of the plays appeared on the stage after Oxford was buried; the Encyclopedia Britannica, which refers to Oxford as the strongest contender for authorship other than Shakspere, states that fourteen of the plays were "first staged" after Oxford's death. The fallacy of the argument is obvious: the issue is when the plays were written, not when they were first staged. What's more, if the argument were valid, it would preclude their author as well; three of the plays were not staged, nor were they mentioned in any record, until after Will Shakspere had died.

Joseph Sobran, author of Alias Shakespeare published an article in the Spring, 2000 issue of Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter in which he posed the following question:

"Suppose the Shakespeare works had been ascribed to Oxford by the First Folio in 1623, and that his authorship had been accepted for four centuries. What in those works would have led you to break with the herd and challenge Oxford's authorship? And what in those works would have led you to believe that the real author was William of Stratford?"

"For truth is truth to the end of reckoning."
William Shakespeare

"For truth is truth, though never so old, and time cannot make that false which once was true."
Edward De Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford

I am so grateful to all here at Squidoo who have so generously lent me a helping hand along the way and offered me so much of their support and encouragement.-- and now this treasured honor of a Purple Star. Thank you.

photo credit: courtsey of Tags For Kids www.squidoo.com/purple-star-art