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The Earl of Oxford and the Making of ‘Shakespeare’:
The Literary life of Edward De Vere in Context
for
1 Jan 2017
CUMULATIVE ADDENDA
Since 2012 when my book was published a number of topics have appeared in Oxfordians'
various publications, facebook and blogs which have rendered obselete, expanded upon, or
been totally new, to some of the things I wrote. The Addenda is therefore an effort to bring up
to date (i.e. as at January 1st 2017) those topics by reference to my original versions.
I have endeavoured to put in comprehensive attributions (apologies to anyone missed!) in the
Chapter Notes amendments: otherwise the indexed references to the Chapter Notes only
introduce additional comments and comparisons. I hope no one will be grieved if I single out
the contributions of Jan Cole, Robert Detobel, Earl Showerman and Alexander Waugh.
The ‘secret’ Facebook group Orthodoxfordians is at the time of writing Dec 2016 conducting
an in-depth research into Spenser’s Shepheards Calender and its relationship if any to Oxford.
While I touch on this (p.44 below), rather than enter anything here at half cock, I would hope
to produce something more digestible by 1/1/18.
INDEX
Errors corrected , emendations 5; 31; 162; 259; 262; 269 n.49; 294 n.70, 84a
Acting Companies 175; 189; 254; 265 n.9; 294 n.6
Aristocrats, fear of 268 n.14
Banditry in Italy 59
Dialects of English 15
English attitude to Italy 266 n.15;
Essex, Earl of 138; 164A; 182; 278 n 95a; 283 nn.32, 32a, 40
Field, R 186; 283 n.38b; 294 n.73
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Gascar, H. (painter) 176
Hand D 291 n.15
Henrietta Maria, Queen 295 n.90
Henry Prince of Wales - elegies 285 n.2; 290 n.1
Italian attitude to English 18; 271n.18
Leicester, Earl of 122; 270 n.54; 285 n.11
Norfolk, Thomas Duke of 35; 269 n.49
O’Heere, L. (painter) 22
Russell, Sir T. 193; 213, 287 n.33:
Southampton, Earl of 171; 211; 254;269 n.30
Theatre History 163; 188
Oxford's Biography:
'apis lapis' 281 n.8a
Apollo 282 n.13a
'ass' 282 n.14
autobiographical references 268 n.14
Berkeley, gift to 52
contemporary views 173; 275 n.10
Crewe LJ 195
dating, publishing 200
'Ever' refs 184; 283 n.34a
Greek 271 nn. 7,12
Health 53, 168, 281 n.0
Hebrew 271 n.13
'idle' 168,171
in Italy 27, 53, 55, 272 n.29a, 277 n.68a
Labeo 282 n.13b
'latten spoons' 164
Medicine 272 n.24a
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Music 272 n.23
and Duke of Norfolk 35
1594 payment 254; 293 n.57
pseudonym 275 n.7; 291 n.3
Plato 287 n.27a
Smith , Sir T. 14; 267 n.6
son's death 92; 276 n.31a
and Southwell 197
Spy 28, 87
tennis court quarrel 280 n.132
The Theatre financing 273 n.4
Theocritus 271 n.12
tin mining letters 283 n.26
Poems 39; 5; 88; 269 n.64a; 277 n.45
Metamorphoses 31, 174
Sonnet Dedication 283 n.34; 286 n.12;
no.11 177
no. 76 282 n.23
no. 107 292 n.34a
no.114 184; 292 n.34b
no.125 283 n.32
no.138 283 n.45a
no.144 283 n. 45a
Venus and Adonis 283 n.34; 286 n.12; 294 n.73
Rape of Lucrece 188, 286 n.12
Plays:
Appendix A Tables rewritten 232-4
Juvenilia : 15; 35; 267 n.10a , 278 n.101
Religious attitudes in 294 n.79
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All's Well that Ends Well 83; 84; 97; 138; 276 n.41; 282 n.23
Arden of Feversham 292 n.27
As You Like It 107, 275 n.11
Comedy of Errors 254
Coriolanus: 155
Famous Victories 33
Hamlet 110; 111; 199; 254; 265 n.9; 287 n.34; 293 n.56a
1 Henry IV 283 n.32
2 Henry IV 191; 281 n.153; 282 n32
Henry V 278 n.95a
1 Henry VI 119, 134, 282 n.32
3 Henry VI 282 n.32
Henry VIII 294 n.74a
John 138; 280 n.124a
Lear 193; 278 nn.89; 279 n. 109; 292 n.39a
Love's Labours Lost 76; 99; 124; 275nn 0, 25; 277 n.45; 279 n.109; 282 n.13; 283 n.45a
Macbeth 114; 193; 285 n.2;
Merchant of Venice 101; 271 n.13
Merry Wives of Windsor 254
Othello 194; 271 n.18a
Romeo and Juliet 105; 149; 283 n.44a; 292 n.42
Taming of the Shrew 274 n.34; 292n.38
Tempest 284 n.54
Thomas of Woodstock 267 n.38; 2699 n.49
Timon of Athens 270 n.54
Titus Andronicus 35; 95
Troilus and Cressida 163; 283 n.34; 286 n.12
Twelfth Night 103; 276 n.58a
Two Noble Kinsmen 115; 204; 269 n.41; 286 n.18a
Yorkshire Tragedy 280 n.129b; 285 n.11
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Shaksper/Shakespeare William:
Absence of contemporary references 198
arms, family 249; 292 nn. 40, 43
authorship claim 294 n.84a
Blackfriars' Gate 294 nn.78a, 81
caricatures: 258; 291 n 10a; 292 n 38
C17 references 262
Dugdale and monument 262; 287 n.33a; 294 n.86
1623 folio 281 n.167; 293 n.57a;
Protestant 261; 294 n.80
sonnets 258
spelling, signatures, Hand D 191; 235, 291 n.15; 292 n.24
Theatre shareholder etc 211, 261, 294 nn.71, 72
Contemporary ( i.e. pre 1700) Writers and Criticisms:
Bacon 150
Barnfield 198
Basse 204; 287 n.35
Baxter 200; 285 n.8b
Beaumont 206; 256; 258; 286 nn.21, 22b
Bedingfield 292 n.27
Benson 217; 288 n.43
Berkenhead 283 n.53a
Blount, Sir T.P. 283 n.53a
Bodenham 198
Brome 288 n.42
Brook 206
Brooke, Arthur 267 n.10
Browne, William 206;
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Bruno 272 n.37
Buc 286 n.25
Buckhurst 273 n.1; 283 n.53a
Burton 283 n.22
Castelvetro and Classicism 59; 280 n.135
Chapman 275 n.9a; 276 n.27a
Chettle 292 n.24;
Clitophon and Leucippe 283 n22
Coryat 21
Covell 198
Davenant 217
Davies, J. of Hereford 162
Davies, Sir J. of Tisbury 162
Dennis J. 283 n.53a; 288 n.51
Digges 193; 287 n.33
Drake J. 283 53a
Drayton 289 nn.39, 51
Drummond 286 n.21
Dryden 288 nn.51, 53a
Dugdale 294 n.86
Dyer 44
Fletcher 205; 286 n.21; 288 n.42
Gager 135, 275 n.25
Gl’ Ingannati (52 omitted in original index); 103
Greene 292 n.32
Griffin 44
Guilpin 164A; 196; 283 n32
Guy of Warwick 258; 291 n.6; 293 n.58
Harthacanute 137
Heywood 284 n.45a
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Histriomastix 167
Howes 288 n.39
Jonson: 'latten spoons' 164
'silver Trent ' 204
Brome 288 n.42
Drummond 272 n.28a; 286 n.21
Epigrams 205; 281
Every Man Out of His Humour 33; 291 n.10a, 292 n.43a
1623 folio 211; 214; 215; 281 n.167; 287 nn.27a, 33a, 34a; 293 n.57a
King Daryus 22, 134
Langbaine 283 n.53a
Langham Letter 25
L'Estrange 164
Leicester's Commonwealth 25
Marlowe 146; 280 n.142a
Manningham 103
Marston 163; 167; 174; 283 n.32a
Meres 193; 198; 283 n.44a
Montaigne 284 n.56
Mulcaster 291 n.8
Naunton 163, 218
Oldmixon, J. 283 n.53a
Palamon and Arcite 21, 269 n.41
Palmer 15, 232
Parnassus plays 198; 254; 285 n.4a; 287 n.28a; 293 n.58
Peele 292 n.25
Preatty Interlude 22
Puttenham 128; 131; 135; 275 nn.10, 25; 279 nn.110, 111, 112, 113
Ratsies Ghost 163; 200
Scott 198; 200
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Sheppard, S. 283 n 53a
Sidney 44;163; 266 n.6; 280 n.135
I Sir John Oldcastle 33; 191
Sir Thomas Smith's Voyage… to Russia 200
Soothern 135; 275 n.10; 276 n.31a
Southwell 197
Spenser 44; 146; 214; 226; 280 n.142a; 287 n.34a.
. see introductory note above
Strachey 284 n.54
Temple Sir W. 288 n.53a
Turberville 267 n.10
Vicars 288 n.38
Watson 91, 276 n.29
Weever 285 n.3; 288 n.38a
Whetstone 139; 266,n.6
Later Criticism etc.
Chorus and Masques 278 n.95a
collaboration 277 n.45; 286 n.15
Drama development, companies etc. 139-141; 218; 282 n.16; 285 n.11; 290 n.73
Greek plays 95
obscenities 37; 257 n.7
priority in time 265 n.8; 288 n.53a
question marks 288 n.43
stylometrics 23; 277 n.45; 286 n.15
Alexander on Sidney 280 n.135
Clemen 280 n.134a; 285 n.11
Coleridge 265 n.8; 280 n129c; 289 n.70
Collier forgeries 285 n.3; 290 n.75
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Duncan Jones 291 n.10a
Ellis, D. 6
Freud 229
Granville Barker 280 n.128
Grillo 53
Hazlitt 280 n.129c; 282 n.14
Holderness 287 n.27a
Ingleby 271 n.1; 288 n.53a
Johnson Dr. S. 188
Laoutaris 284 n.43a
Madigan Fr. P. 265 n.3
Malone 217; 226
May, S.W. 269 n.64a
Percy, T. , Bp. 217
Prince, F.T. 188
Santayana 196
Schlegel 227; 265n.8 ; 280 n.129c
Shakespeare Allusion Book 271 n.1; 288 n.53a
Taylor,G. 1576 plays 70; 277 n.45
Vickers 286 n.15
Whitman 6
Wiggins, M. 275 n.25
Wilson, F. P. on Whetstone 72
Wilson J. Dover 292 n.29a
Wood, M. 287 n
BIBLIOGRAPHY altered accordingly
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Page ix Acknowledgments : Omitted in Error : Stephanie Hughes.
Further 'helpers' to whom my profound thanks are due: Robert Bearman, W.
Burdleson, Jan Cole, M.Cossolotto, G.Eyre, L. Fox, J.A. Goldstone, A. Hosking,
Dr. Eddi M. Jolly, M.Johnson, R. Kennedy, B. McDonald, J. McGrath, M.
Marcus, ‘Mystikel’, S. Phillips, L. Power, M. Preston, W.J. Ray, T. Regnier, W.
Rubinstein, J. Shahan, A. Shickman, R. Waugaman, A. Waugh, H. Wilkinson,
and the late Marion Peel, Sir Ian McGeoch and Michael Le Gassick. Oxfordians
are now the beneficiaries of the inestimable contributions in the past five years,
including Stephanie Hughes in her blogspot Politicworm; “Rambler” (Michael
Marcus) on his blogspot Quakespeare Shorterly; Christopher Carolan whose
blogspot is The Festival Robe; the late Michael Le Gassick on his
shakespeare.org.; Mark Anderson on his ShakesVere; and Kurt Kreiler and his
website Anonymous Shake-speare. My thanks are also due to them and all the
contributors to the Facebook group Orthodoxfordians
Page 4 : Introduction : new penultimate para.: It is permissible
for a biographer using his/her knowledge of the background of the subject’s life
to employ imagination which must be based on facts. However, when no fact is
presented at the time or subsequently to justify the construct on which the exercise
of the imagination is based (let alone once a contrary one imputing a defect in it),
then that construct should be discarded completely - a fortiori if there has been
applied to it two centuries and more specific searching. Professor Stanley Wells,
doyen of modern critics, effectively makes a clear admission that his construct is
defective when he agreed that the earliest piece of evidence for William
Shakespeare as the author is posthumous17a, so unlike the great company of lesser
writers of the period he is the sole example of a postulated writer for whom there
is no evidence at all for his genius during his lifetime. This seems so preposterous
that any reasonable scholar would surely doubt the reliability of his own construct
let alone the construct inherited from two centuries of scholarship. This book
should help to dispel the magnificent fog of imagination on which the remainder
of the construct is said to be based.
Page 11
Page 5 Introduction : line 9: Error : An actor friend of mine to my
embarrassment points out Malvolio is in Twelfth Night not As You Like It.
Page 6 : insert before last paragraph :
Recently however Professor David Ellis has in his book raised at
least his periscope if not his head above the ‘orthodox’ parapet. In effect he is
saying that the Emperor has no clothes: that modern biographers fall
catastrophically below proper academic standards, which should be those of a
scientific academic historian. “Because so little is known about Shakespeare and
all authors of his ‘life’ are bound to speculate, one of their problems is how to
acknowledge this uncomfortable fact without giving their readers the impression
that they might just as well have opened an historical novel…The weasel words
(‘perhaps’, ‘if’, probably’, ‘could have’ and so on are hints that a chronicle of his
life is not possible) acknowledge the rules in the very moment when they are
being broken”. Their distinctive use in the case of Shakespeare is that “they
vanish on the subsequent occasions these [speculative] answers are subsequently
taken as essential building blocks.”29
There are sophisticated covers to these defects deployed: the
“kernel of truth” behind a non-qualifying ‘tradition’; “representative” rather than
factual truth; and the enveloping scene setting argument (concealing any (non-
existent) Shakespeare particularities) of the academic’s expertise on the
Elizabethan background: all these are essential and are used in order to construct
a ‘biography’ acceptable to publishers whom they wish to maintain their grip on
the Shakespeare-loving public.
Whether the modern ‘orthodox’ critic will digest this and reform is
unlikely, just as the chance that he/she will read this book may well be remote.
Next to that critique however, we can place the manifest tone of the
canon: as Walt Whitman referred to its in effect non-acceptable anti-democratic
mindset, and worse:
“Conceiv’d out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism – personifying
in unparallel’d ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and
gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) – only
one of the “wolfish earls” so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some
descendant or knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works
– works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded literature.”30
Until that aspect is taken on board, the likelihood of correcting four
centuries of error will remain remote.
Page 14 Ch 2 : last para.: There must be some doubt that Oxford was in Sir
Thomas Smith’s household from as early as five years old.
Page 12
Page 15: 1. new fourth para.: One scholar would attribute Orlando Furioso
and Gwydonius, A Card of Fancy (both more usually attributed to Robert Greene)
to Oxford. Likewise he upgrades A Knack to Know a Knave, and also connects
the 1606 quarto of Wily Beguiled with the 'lost' play of similar name Wily Beguily
1566-710a , but Wiggins 2012 p.1 suggests that since Beguiled is passive and
Beguily active, the two plays are different works.
2. new penultimate para.: We ought
however to consider The Emblems of Thomas Palmer, a manuscript book dated
1564-7 in the British Library 10oN. It is suggested a boy aged about 12 to 14 tore
out of an emblem book in the University library some 69 pages to piece out his
own emblem book which he called 200 Poosees. Below these ripped out pictures,
he adds his own fourteeners - seven foot iambics (mostly) with a wealth of
references to Bible and Erasmus. Only an untouchable sprig of nobility and talent
would dare to have committed such an act of vandalism, and then go on to
produce a work of superior cultural value to that of the original. The manuscript
is dedicated to the Earl of Leicester and titled to be by Thomas Palmer (who is
probably responsible for the Dedication) and the handwriting may well be the
young Oxford’s: there are also 21 anonymous pen and ink drawings. Oxford and
Thomas Palmer were attending St. John’s College Oxford together at the time the
Poosees were pasted up. The modern editor discovers that “Moral seriousness is
mixed with the nugatory, the festive and the comic; implicit gratulation with puns;
the learned and erudite with satiric coarseness….”
In the Poosees there are a few dozen words from (or repeated in) Arthur Brooke’s
Romeus and Juliet which fortifies the view that this work could be an original by
Oxford. In the Poosees: no.177 is an obituary to a lost friend (Brooke was
drowned in 1562) which from the pen of one so young sounds like Oxford:
“Of Destiny the ladies three
Sit spinning in a row;
Man’s life it is which they so twist,
Which lasteth but a throw.
But out alas, one of their threads
Is suddenly in two:
And I here say, my friend is dead,
For whom I am full woe.”
Page 21: rewrite beginning of last para: “The following year 1565
Oxford received a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University. In
September 1566 the Queen went on a ‘progress’ to Oxford where Oxford was
awarded the same degree by the University. There an oration in Latin in
Page 13
celebration of the sixteen year old Oxford himself was given by George Coryat
and in the same week the play Palamon and Arcite (see page 31) was
performed.20a
The plays in the canon have some
reference to Cambridge jargon……………………”
Page 22 : 1. para 3 ; Errors - three references are incorrect: they should
read :
2 Henry IV IV, ii, ll.112,113;
King Lear II, ii, l.348;
Sonnet 117.
2. new last para: In 1565 King Daryus was
published. The advocates of Oxford’s authorship draw attention to the
idiosyncratic spelling which mirrors that found in Oxford’s letters21a which
follows that in A Preaty Interlude: Nice Wanton published in 1560. However it
contains an obscenity which might be considered rather advanced for a ten year
old. See also page 134N below.
Page 23 : 1. reference for first line omitted: R. Jimenez (my apologies
to him).
. 2. new third para: Oxford’s patronage was
not limited to literature. The exiled Flemish portrait-painter Lucas d’Heere came
to England and wrote a poem to Oxford in French of appreciation for his support
and shelter when he had to flee for safety from the Spanish in the Netherlands in
156722a
Page 25 : add new last para: Leicester, as the Queen’s favourite and
despoiler Oxford’s estates, was a particular object of Oxford’s hatred, notably for
his extreme Protestantism (see page 28), his military incompetence (pages 24,
89), the murder of his wife (page 35) and even his parvenu ancestry (page 251).
Some think Oxford had at least a hand in Leicester’s Commonwealth (see note on
Table B below). There is also the contentious Langham Letter which doubles as
satire and an attack on Leicester’s arrangements for entertaining the Queen at
Kenilworth in Summer 1575. The main problem is that Oxford was in Italy at the
time and the letter was suppressed by the time he returned to England in Spring
1576. However Oxford had been present at an earlier function in 1572, and he
would be aware before his departure in February 1575 of the preparations. Nina
Green presents an excellent case for saying that Oxford wrote the letter in advance
of his departure, both in style and topical content, pointing out the concealed
evaluation of Leicester and the comparisons with Leicester’s Commonwealth 27a
Page 14
Page 27: add to para 2 second sentence: “He was
given permission to travel abroad the following year” - in terms that repay
specific study. On the 27th February 1574/5 The Queen supplied with two letters
of recommendation in Latin: the first addressed to “all individual kings, etc. …..”
and recommends him thus: “An illustrious and highly accomplished young man,
our beloved cousin Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford …. plans (with our good grace)
to travel overseas….” and asks these sovereigns to accord him assistance etc.” so
that we may see your friendship and benevolence towards us reflected in your
treatment of this most noble earl, our kinsman (whom we favour not in the
ordinary way, but in all sincerity [ex animo], on account of his outstanding
intellect [praestantes animi] and virtue)….”. The second is addressed to the
Emperor Maximilian similarly31a
Page 28 : Linceus is also the look-out man on Jason’s Argo. For a further
reference to lynx, spying and Oxford, there is this line attributed to Anne
Vavasour at the time of her parting from Oxford (see page 88) from her poem:
“Though I seem strange, sweet friend, be thou not so…”:-
“Thou seest me live amongst the Lynxes eyes…..” - - l.5 32a
Page 31: 1. new second para: An early example of Oxford’s
love of the ever (E VERe) with or without the nEVER contrast (see page 283N
n.23) can be found at the end of Book XV of Metamorphoses:
“…… Nomen erit indelibile nostrum Quaque….” - ll. 876, 877 (literally: “ Our name shall be indestructible: wherever…”) becomes in
‘Golding’:
“ ………….. And all the world shall never Be able to quench my name. For look how far so ever….” . - - ll. 1000, 1001 And the last word (l.879): “vivam” (“I shall live”) is stretched to become:
“My life shall everlastingly be lengthened still by fame”
. - - l. 1005
2. Error: third paragraph, first sentence: It was not
Castiglione's Latin that Harvey said Oxford's was superior to but that it was “more
polished” than Castiglione's own Italian: nevertheless it is interesting that the
translator Clerke one of the leading academics of the period, should select the
very young Oxford to write the Prologue, and in Latin.
Page 33 : Famous Victories: This play also represents “Shakespeare’s”
first attempt at satire. First, it is a lampoon at the expense of Sir John Oldcastle
otherwise William Lord Cobham (1527-97): he became a Crown (prosecution)
Page 15
witness against and betrayer of the Duke of Norfolk, Oxford’s admired cousin,
executed after the Ridolfi plot in 1572, and as such a ready target of Oxford’s.
There seems to have been a regular practice on Cobham’s part, connived at by
Burghley, of assaulting foreign messengers on Cobham’s lands in Kent on their
way between London and the port of Dover, particularly at Gadshill, and relieving
them of their papers, which were then read and returned. Cobham’s reputation in
the play is denigrated to the same extent as that of Oxford’s own ancestor is
elevated, with one further element. The original Sir John Oldcastle (executed in
1417) was a disciple of proto-Protestant reformer Wycliffe and the Lollards and
as such a Protestant martyr to the Puritans; so there was considerable mileage in
showing that up for those such as Oxford who were at the time (say, 1572) either
Catholics or Anglican supporters of the new state Church. The second target was
Sir Gilbert Dethick (1503-84), Garter King of Arms, a notoriously venal and
violent man portrayed as Derick (Dethick’s original Dutch surname), whose
grandfather was a cobbler. Derick appears wearing ‘silk apparel’ in his first scene
(Scene 2), clearly a herald’s tabard, and tries to put himself at the head of the
deceased Duke of York’s funeral cortège (Scene 19) and as a collector of shoes
as booty after Agincourt (same scene). Derick is also a considerable trencherman
(Scene 4). The practices of his son Sir William Dethick as a subsequent Garter
King of Arms are apparently smeared by Jonson in Every Man Out Of His
Humour (see p.249).
The two characters (Oldcastle and Sir Gilbert Dethick) are conflated and polished
in the later plays as Sir John Falstaff (at first, Oldcastle), and the ultra-Protestant
Lollard element comes in for much more emphasis. Quite how the early items of
satire tie in with the career of the teenage William Shakespeare, I leave to others
to explain (or how he dared to mock the powerful Dethick and Cobham).
I Sir John Oldcastle was clearly written as a reply to the appearance of that
character in both Famous Victories and 1 and 2 Henry IV: this is obvious from
The Prologue to the Play whose full title is The True And Honourable History of
The Life Of Sir John Oldcastle: The Good Lord Cobham includes the
(unShakespearean) lines:
“It is no pampered glutton we present,
Nor aged Councellor to youthful sin
But one, whose vertue shone above the rest,
. A valiant martyr and a virtuous peer. ……..
……Let fair Truth be graced
Since forg’d invention former time disgraced.”
. – ll.6-9, 13-14
“forged invention” : the earlier Oxford plays
Further confirmation that Sir John Oldcastle is not Shakespearean will be
found from Henslowe’s diaries of productions of non-‘Shakespearean’ plays - see
addition to page 175 below.
Page 16
In the circumstances outlined on page 190 below, the Lord Chamberlain’s
Men in effect issued a disclaimer that Falstaff was not the “martyred” Cobham in
the shape of the final paragraph to the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV, but the promoters
saw I Sir John Oldcastle as in their interest to use “William Shakespeare” (in this
spelling) as the author to associate it with the genuine masterpieces. The second
part may never have appeared because of the subsequent rapprochement between
the players and Oxford. (see (new) pages 190 and 191 below). Furthermore the
first quarto is curiously anonymous and in the second in that same year 1600 has
“by William Shakespeare” on its title page.
Page 35 : 1 Titus Andronicus: the connections between the life of Titus and
the second Duke of Norfolk the victor of Flodden in 1513 by which Henry VIII’s
kingdom was not only saved from humiliation but enhanced by a great triumph
are well brought by Marie Merkel54a. The contrast between that and the Queen’s
ruthless disposal of the fourth Duke in 1572 seems another cause of Oxford’s
resentment and the writing of this play.
2 new last para: Ramon Jimenez has added to
my listings confirming the inclusion of Leir, Macbeth, the Taming of A Shrew
and Two Noble Kinsman (Palamon and Arcite) and adding versions of Pericles,
a rewritten Richard III and Comedy of Errors, and others more arguably,
including Locrine. While he puts Cymbeline in the late 1590s, it is tempting to
think of that play (with its reliance on the ancient Classical trick of Deus ex
Machina for the appearance of Jupiter to put Postumus on the right road), Locrine
and a version of Leir as a pre-Roman British History trio written at roughly the
same very early time in Oxford’s career. Michael Le Gassick has studied five in-
house dramas he believes shown at Burghley’s residence Cecil House and written
and produced by the teenage Oxford, beginning with (following Robert Prechter)
No-body and Some-body: the other four are Common Conditions, Clyomon and
Clamides, Marriage of Wit and Science and Marriage of Wit and Wisdome.58a
Later (in correspondence) he would add The Merry Devil of Edmonton: the host
of the George Inn at Waltham is one Blague whose constant refrain is that he
serves the Duke of Norfolk, but in V,ii he says:
“I’ll tickle his Catastrophe for this; if I do not indite him at the next Assisses for
Burglary, let me die of the yellowes; for I see no boote [profit] in these days to
serve the Duke of Norfolke”
Dangerous talk, I suggest (see page 25) – and not far from Dogberry. Nina
Green58a points out that the locus of the play is right near the Cecil estate at
Theobalds at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, with which during his wardship Oxford
would have become very familiar. One of the heroes is one Jerningham, the name
of a colleague who was caught planning to spring Norfolk from the Tower: he
was condemned to death but reprieved in 1570
For “I’ll tickle your catastrophe” - see also 2 Henry IV II, I, l.62
Page 17
Page 37 : para 1. Michael Le Gassick points out that there are plenty of
double entendres and obscenities in the 1560s ‘in-house’ plays (see page 35 -2
above): perhaps the early public plays were ‘cleaned up.’
Page 39 :
There are on-going studies of Oxford’s poetry and so I cannot post the most up
to date review at this stage. This section will be rewritten.
Professor Steven W. May, an acknowledged expert on Oxford’s poetry, has made
an assessment of the poems in this list - see page 270 n.64a below. Dryden has
interesting comments on Shakespeare’s development which are quoted on page
288 n. 52, and on (new) page 139 below. Nina Green would have us add from the
Langham Letter (see page 25 above) The Ballad of King Arthur
Page 40: Error: there is no no. 34 in the list
Page 41: first para sixth line: after “Shakespeare”, add 66a
Page 44: 1 add in penultimate para.: Some Oxfordians claim
‘Bartholomew Griffin’ is a pen-name of Oxford’s, as almost nothing is known of
this poet whose critically acclaimed cycle of Sonnets Fidessa was published in
1596, but possibly written considerably earlier
2 add new last para: Oxford’s contemporary
standing as a poet can be shown from Spenser’s Shepheards’ Calendar 1579 8th
Eclogue, where ‘Cuddie’ is invited to adjudicate a ‘delectable controversie, made
in imitation of Theocritus’ between the shepherds ‘Willie’ (thought to be Sidney)
and ‘Perigot’ (Dyer ?) in these terms;
Willy : “But who shall judge the wager wonne or lost?”
Perigot: “That shall yonder heardgrome, and none other, /chief shepherd
Which over the pousse hetheward doth post”
Willy: “But for the Sunbeame so sore doth us beat
Were not better to shunne the scorching heate?”
/avoid being judged by the superior poet
Perigot: “Well agreed, Willie: then sitte thee down, swain;
Sike a song never heardest thou but Colin sing. /Spenser himself
Cuddie: “[Be]ginne when ye lyst, ye jolly shepherds twain,
Sike a judge as Cuddie were for a king.”
Page 18
And then in the 10th Eclogue: the headnote begins : “In Cuddie is set out the
perfect pattern of a Poete” and Cuddie complains that while he has tired himself
out writing to feed “youths fancie”,
They han the pleasure, I a sclender prise
I beat the bush, the birds to them do fly”,
A thought found in Oxford’s poems nos. 1 and 8 listed on page 39 73a
Page 45: To the additional poems by Oxford we should certainly add the Epitaph
on Sir Thomas Stanley’s tomb in Tong Church Shropshire: Sir Thomas died in
1576. Although the date is of considerable embarrassment to the orthodox critic
with William Shakespeare being only twelve in 1576, “Stylistically there is no
reason to doubt Shakespeare’s authorship of the verses.”74
From the same period Richard Waugaman75 adds:
“In yielding every wight his own, true justice doth consist….” (a poem
commending a treatise on book-keeping)
“Who seekes the way to winne renowne….” entitled “A young Gentleman willing
to travel into foreign parts being entreated to stay in England….”
“Imagine where these blurred lines, thus scribbled out of fame…” (“A Letter
written by a yonge gentilwoman and sent to her husband unawares (by a Freend
of hers) into Italy”[why Italy?]);
“The deepe turmoiled wight, that lives devoid of ease… (In Praise of the Snail)
Then perhaps rather later: (A ribald poem by Ignoto - whom see again page
214) “I love thee not for sacred chastity…”. It contains these autobiographical
lines:
“ I cannot dally, caper, daunce and sing,
Oyling my saint [?suit] with supple sonneting….”
This may reflect Oxford’s injury which is clearly to this poet’s leg (see page 88)
Page 52 Ch 3 : 1. add after the quotation from Chappuy: 18a
2. new third paragraph: In addition
there is Giovanni Bartiletto’s Herodoto Halicarnaseo Historia delle Guerre de
Greci et de Persi 1565 which has this manuscript note on the flyleaf: “Th.
Burkelei ex dono Illustriss[imi] Ed[uardi] Comitis Oxoniae” 20a
Page 53 add: 1. add to para 2: Oxford’s knowledge of contemporary
medicine has not been faulted. A medical academic writes: “Shakespeare’s plays
bear witness to a profound knowledge of contemporary physiology and
Page 19
psychology, and he employed medical terms in a manner which would have been
beyond the powers of any ordinary playwright or physician.”24a
2. Italy: while Philip Johnson’s account of Oxford’s actual
journeys is still reliable, the considerably expanded version of the places visited
and their effect on Oxford and the plays generally has been revolutionised by
Richard Roe’s book. For instance he has uncovered the connection between
Sabbioneta, 25 miles southwest of Mantua, known locally as “Little Athens”, and
“Athens” the seat of the Duke in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and located there
the Duke’s Oak, where the rustics are to rehearse their playlet ( I, ii, l.102). Roe’s
principal value for which all later scholars will be in his debt is in his researches
and descriptions of the routes of the journeys taken by the characters which he
exactly plots by references in the plays, as well as amazing revelations as to the
quays and buildings in Verona, Venice and Milan and the even more scintillating
revelations surrounding Bertram’s return route through Florence as watched by
Helen and the Widow (All’s Well That Ends Well III, v).
A reference missed by Roe refers to the author of Othello’s clear
knowledge of the topography of Bassano Del Grappa, a small town 40 miles
northwest of Venice where there is a fresco now in the local museum reflecting
the passage in the play where Othello demands proof of Iago’s accusation (III, iii,
ll.265-271). The fresco taken from a shop in the “Piazzotto del Sale” depicts
elements from that passage including a goat, a monkey, salt, drunkenness,
jealousy and Truth depicted as a naked woman. The adjoining shop was owned
by one Giovanni Otello.26a
(new fourth para.):- The question arises: do the plays show
that the author must have visited Italy? ‘Orthodox’ scholars are quite happy to
accept that William Shakespeare did not. However the Italian scholar and
anglophile Ernesto Grillo, professor of comparative literature and finally head of
Italian studies at Glasgow University, put it thus (my emphasis):
“Is it possible that Shakespeare visited Italy? From the very start of his career the
land of the Renaissance had exercised a great fascination over him, and the critics
have rightly marvelled at the profound knowledge of the whole Italian peninsula
which his plays reveal; but several whose scenes which are laid in Italy have given
rise to misconceptions and disputes. Italy with its private and public life, its laws
and customs, its ceremonial and other characteristics, pulsates in every line of our
dramatist, while the atmosphere of many scenes is Italian in the truest sense of
the word. We cannot but wonder how Shakespeare obtained such accurate
information, and we have no hesitation in affirming that on at least one occasion
he must have visited Italy.” See page 272 n.24b below.
Coming from such a source, such an opinion should represent closure on any
debate as to whether the author actually visited Italy. Professor Grillo instances
numerous examples of Italian expressions, proverbs (some in translations) as well
Page 20
as literary sources to be found in the plays which are repeated in this and many
other books.
Finally what passes for Stratfordian scholarship on the question is
completely and utterly crushed by Alexander Waugh’s Chapter 7, pp.72-85
of Shahan and Waugh. The question will only from now on be raised by those
who have not read him.
Page 54: first para: delete “suggestions” and substitute
“evidence”
Page 55: new first para: The Doge’s (or rather that
of the Venice Council of Ten, who voted unanimously) approval on the 27th June
1575 to Oxford to view the interior of the Doge’s Palace with all the sumptuous
artwork in it has been uncovered29a
Page 59 : new first para: : Oxford is likely to be influenced
by Italian ideas about tragedy particularly those advanced by Castelvetro in his
Theory of Tragedy 1570 which he could have only read in the original Italian
(perhaps it was in Burghley’s library – in the partial auction of 1687 it might be
comprised in the entry for described as “Books on Aristotle”). See page 139 [as
rewritten and amended below]
Richard Roe’s book well brings out the geographical and topical connections, and
others notably Noemi Magri in her essays have brought out the political ones as
well. In addition there is an example of a social aspect recorded by Oxford:
Braudel (pp.743ff.) sets out the debilitating economic situation which led to
endemic banditry throughout Italy at the time, fuelled by the absconding, decayed
or exiled members of the aristocracy, who regularly appear as the leaders of these
bands preying on the rich and travellers and tacitly supported by/bullying the
poverty-stricken peasantry. This was probably not information which would
readily (if at all) be to hand in England, and perhaps not to the average sheltered
aristocratic wealthy foreign tourist (who would travel inland by river and canal).
Nevertheless Oxford portrays, in Two Gentlemen of Verona Act IV i, just that
scenario in such a detail as would probably only be available to an observer
present in Italy at the time, and, while common to most Mediterranean countries,
would perhaps be a matter of comment to an Englishman coming from his much
less afflicted country. Perhaps Braudel should have cited the play as a
contemporary authority!
Page 54: first para: delete “suggestions” and substitute
“evidence”
Page 55: new first para: The Doge’s (or rather that
of the Venice Council of Ten, who voted unanimously) approval on the 27th June
Page 21
1575 to Oxford to view the interior of the Doge’s Palace with all the sumptuous
artwork in it has been uncovered29a
Page 69: Ch.5 (The Revolution in the Theatre) begins: The
summary of one ‘orthodox’ critic0 sets the scene: “One generalisation about
Elizabethan drama which would perhaps be near the truth could be formulated in
these terms: Elizabethan drama is great because it draws its lifeblood from a
culture which is in a state of unity within itself. During Shakespeare’s working
life time, or at any rate at most during the year 1585 to 1615 [notice how the dates
are manipulated so as not to be too early for Oxford], it is a form of art which
appears to have been accessible to almost every rank in the rather rigidly
maintained social hierarchy. That social hierarchy, although subject to all sorts of
disintegrating pressures, is, generally and for a brief moment in history, agreed
upon as a suitable solution to the theological and social problem; therefore, it can
equably and with the agreement of most, be reflected in the drama. The drama, in
fact, is itself the aesthetic expression of the common culture. Consequently, the
dramatists, who for the moment become the representatives of the people in the
widest sense, have an eagle eye for the manifestation of the disintegrating
processes which threaten – and do, in fact, finally overwhelm – the cultural
unity.” It is interesting that the datings roughly correspond to the period of
general appreciation of Oxford as author before his reputation begins gradually
to disappear (see page 218N)
Page 70 : new penultimate para.: Gary Taylor makes a
revealing point in comparing the situation in 1660, when the theatres were
reopened, with that in 1576. In 1660, “old plays were plentiful and the authors
did not need to be paid for their work.” With no new playwrights emerging for
twenty years, after 1660 “the first new plays to appear were translations or
works by aristocrats who did not need to worry about supporting themselves on
the profits of play making, No playwright made a living from the theatre for the
first five years after the Restoration, …”. By contrast, in 1576, he suggests, “there
was no significant pre-existing repertoire [by which he means that he knows of
no evidence for such repertoire]. The theatres, actors and audiences all needed
plays, and a class of professional playwrights arose to supply them.” This skews
the argument by ignoring the possible elements available in 1576: if it took five
years for playwrights to emerge in the 1660’s with all the exemplars they had
before them, how much more difficult would be the situation and longer required
for the emergence of enough of this new class in the late 1570s without any
exemplars with track records for proven theatrical skills. The reliance on
translators and experimenting aristocrats then therefore has to be infinitely
greater for a public theatre with in effect a standing start.
Page 22
Page 72 : new penultimate para: Gosson’s views are also supported
from a literary-critical angle by George Whetstone. In the Epistle Dedicatory to
his Promos and Cassandra of 1578 (a very early date which supports my
argument), he wrote:
“An Englishman in this quality [i.e. a writer of plays] is most vain, indiscreet and
out of order: he first grounds his work on impossibilities: then in three hours’ runs
he throws the world, marries, gets children, makes children men, men to conquer
kingdoms, murder monsters, and brings gods from heaven, and fetches divels
from hell; and (that which is worst) their ground is not so unperfect as their
working indiscreet: not weighing, so the people laugh, though they laugh them
(for their follies) to scorn. Many times (to make mirth) they make clowns
[peasants] companion with a King: in their grave Councils they allow the advice
of fools: yea, they use one order of speech for all persons: a gross indecorum for
a crow will ill counterfeit the nightingale’s sweet voice: even so affected speech
will misbecome a clown.”
There is a clear reference to The Famous Victories of Henry V, as well as support
for Gosson’s view as to the dangerously good quality of the productions (“and
(that which is worst) their ground is not so unperfect……”). The same thoughts
reappear in Sydney’s own critique – see pages 141-2.
In support of my ‘revolution’ thesis, F. P. Wilson, the leading
English drama scholar of the period to his death in 1963, wrote: “Allow
something for a pamphleteer’s inflation of his [Gosson’s] case, and even so
enough is left to suggest that the lost material might wholly change our
estimate of the drama of this period.” (page 274 n.13a).
When one can see that these hostile comments of Gosson,
Whetstone and Sidney are evidence of the Revolution, and ally them to the views
of R.F. Jones quoted on page 7, C.S. Lewis at pages 1 n.2 and 273 n.5, and F.P.
Wilson above, then it becomes clearer with such evidence and the critique of it
propounded that the Revolution is a fact, and not some miracle causing
Elizabethan drama apparently “to spring fully formed into existence in the 1580s”
(as one critic makes out – page 70). See also pages 142 and 265 n.3 below.
Page 76 : headnote; “the character of Berowne is sometimes thought…. to be a
self-portrait of the young Shakespeare”. o
Page 79 Ch 6 : Chapman – for effect of his admiration of Essex, see
page 278 n.95a below.
Page 81: new last paragraph: Anthony Munday wrote a similar
highly eulogistic twelve line acrostic poem The Mirror of Mutabilitie 1579
Page 83 : All’s Well That Ends Well: no public performance of this play is
recorded before 1741 (Gilvary: Noemi Magri’s essay on p.159). The suspicion
Page 23
that the play was virtually suppressed because of its open dealing with a Cecil
family secret (cf. Clitophon and Leucippe on p.178), and somehow ‘escaped’ into
the 1623 folio, is fortified when Gilvary’s Tables are considered (Gilvary
pp.480ff). The play is the only comedy that is not mentioned by Meres or listed
in the Stationers’ Register before it appears in the 1623 folio. Two other (non-
comedy) plays appear similarly deficient in contemporary references: Coriolanus
(although there is a fairly obvious reference to it in 1601 – Gilvary p.339 – and it
may have become later a political hot potato) and Timon of Athens (which looks
like an autobiographical comment rather than a work for the contemporary stage
and apparently first performed in 1674). : And Bertram’s last words
in the play:
“I’ll love her dearly, ever ever dearly” - - V, iii, l.318
remind us of the other autobiographical uses of EVERe in the canon (see pages
27N and 283N n.23)13a
Consider also:
Messenger (of Benedick): “Oh, he’s returned, and as pleasant as ever [E-Vere] he
was” .
. - - Much Ado About Nothing I, i. l.36
Page 87 : My suggestion that Oxford was a Government spy in English
Catholic circles is not generally accepted. I should have pointed out here that
Oxford had ample opportunity to ‘defect’ in 1573, when he was on the Continent
illegally, as well as in 1575-6. Apart from his Court ‘confession’ in 1581, there
is no evidence that Oxford was ever a Roman Catholic, though he does show
some sympathy with older Christian practices evidenced in the Sonnets and the
plays. He would never have been allowed to go to Italy in 1575, without a quid
pro quo. The ‘spy’ explanation is neat and logical, and therefore likely to be right.
See also pages 195-6.
Page 88: fourth para: there is also the poem ascribed to Oxford referred
to on page 45 above.
Page 89: penultimate para: end second sentence “….writers”. 27A
Page 91: add at end of para 1: In the introductory body to
Hecatompathia Watson put in a Latin poem addressed to his book of poems
which contains the lines (in translation):
“….. Also if you cross Sidney’s desk, or Dyer’s, two fields that lie open for the
Muses, say that…… you have been shown to Vere, a man who deserves great
things for his virtue and true nobility. Both of these gentlemen will then remove
Page 24
the frown from their brows and read you kindly, both will ignore your blemishes.
Then as a servant you will accompany Vere to the golden roofed house of Apollo
[the palace of the god of poetry], let duty (to him) always be your concern”
Page 92: after “His son died a baby in 1583” 31a
Page 95 : The Greek play similarities, in particular Sophocles’ Oedipus
at Colonus have recently been well brought out by Earl Showerman. The so-
called Old Timon has been revealed by Professor Fox as a later satire on
Shakespeare’s play 36a.
Page 96 : 1. delete 2nd para 5th line : “serve me, and myself not mine.”
2. line 10: The quotation from Thomas Cecil is scrambled.
It should read that Lady Mary “will be beaten with that rod she prepared for
others”.
Page 97 : Error: St Jacques Le Grand shrine is at the Church of San
Jacopo sopr’Arno in Florence itself - pointed out by Alexander Waugh. Also
there is this autobiographical joke:
Interpreter: “What say you to his [First Lord Dumaine’s] expertise in war?”
Parolles: “Faith, sir, he’s led the drum before the English tragedians….”
. - - IV, iii, ll.268-70
This is a good joke because, as well as making the point of Oxford’s priority in
time (“before the English tragedians…”), the thought of his lordship leading a
touring troop of players from town to town drumming to signify its arrival would
surely have amused the author even if the play may never have been produced in
his lifetime (see addition to page 83 above).
Page 99 : lines 2, 4 : Monarcho was the subject of an epitaph in Churchyard’s
A Pleasant Laborinth of Churchyard’s Chances published in 1580.
Page 101 : Roe (pp.148 – 151) points out that the tranect is in a completely
different place from where the traghetti operated: an example of local knowledge
available to an actual visitor. Note also noted that an English Andrew presumably
like the one owned by Antonio in Act I, iv was detained by the Spanish authorities
in Cadiz for three months, the period of Shylock’s bond, until with its cargo of
salt sold on the spot at a good profit, when no doubt it returned “richly come to
harbour suddenly” (V, i, l.277). See page 277 n.49 below and also Roe p.118.
The ‘orthodox’ dating for The Merchant of Venice is the mid-
1590s. In 1589 in a major reform the Venice Senate decreed that Jewish residents
became full citizens of the Republic: this is not reflected in Portia’s speech:
“…………………………Tarry, Jew.
The law hath yet another hold on you.
Page 25
It is enacted in the laws of Venice,
If it be proved against an alien
That by direct or indirect attempts
He seek the life of any citizen, ….” . - - IV, i, ll. 343-8
Thus on the narrowest perception the play must have as one of its sources an item
of pre-1589 content.
Because Shylock is apparently allowed to dine in the evening outside the Ghetto
(I, iii, l.30), this points to the source for the story Il Pecorone (written at the end
of the fourteenth century and first published in 1558) referring to a time before
the Ghetto (which is not mentioned by Shakespeare) in which the Jewish
population were shut up at night was instituted in 1514
Page 103: add to the section on Twelfth Night: Oxfordians
have speculated as to whether Oxford actually visited the city of Dubrovnik
(Ragusa) in 'Illyria', the classicist name for Croatia/Dalmatia. The evidence is by
not quite conclusive but the clear depiction of Antonio the saviour both of
Sebastian and Viola as an uskok, a species of privateer in the area, his capture
and the fact that Orsino does not pardon him, indicates Oxford's command of the
arcane political situation of the Ragusa in the 1570s.58a
Manningham (see also page 251) a theatre aficionado
records seeing a performance at the Globe 1602 “Most like and neere to that
Italian [Gl’] Ingann[at]i.” Gl’ Ingannati was a comedy of separated identical
twins performed in Sienna and published in Venice in 1540, and not by then
translated into English.
Page 105: add to the section on Romeo and Juliet: Mercutio's lines on
Tybalt (II, iii, ll.18-24 and especially the reference to “the very butcher of a silk
button” are thought to refer to Bonetti the proprietor of a London fencing school
who died in 1587 with financial embarrassment from 1584 on. This would further
date the play.61a The Bonetti family at the instance of Leicester were granted a
coat of arms which could account for Oxford's mockery. 61b
Page 107: 1. new first para; Oxford’s self-identification with
Jaques can be taken further when the exchange quoted at page 275 n.11 (and N)
is considered new third para.: From (As You Like It) Act IV, iii:
Oliver: “Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you, if you know,
Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
A sheepcote fenced about with olive trees?
Celia West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom,
Page 26
The rank of osiers in the murmuring stream,
Left on the right bank brings you to the place.” . . - - ll. 76 - 81
This is an exact description of how to get to Sheepcote Field (now called
Sheepcote Lane) from Hedingham Castle (the Oxford ancestral home).
Neighbour bottom refers to the parish boundary between Castle Hedingham and
Sible Hedingham; osiers were grown by the river Colne (the stream on that
boundary) until the earlier twentieth century.65a
2. Julius Caesar: Delete “the mistranscription….Serpedon
earlier”.
Page 110 : 1. Add to end of second para: That Hamlet might well have
been known to Sidney is borne out by several apparent references in An Apology
for Poetry. Sidney writes, “and so caught up certain swelling phrases which hang
together like a man who once told me that the wind was at north—west by
south,….” which reeks of Hamlet: ..
“I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from
a handsaw [Essex dialect: harnser, a heron].” (II, ii, ll.380,1).
2. In third para: delete “Horatio is clearly the soldier Horace
de Vere, Oxford’s cousin, who is bid in a later version”, and substitute:
“Horatio may be Oxford’s warrior cousin Horace Vere, but is most likely to be a
reference to Jonson78, who is commanded: [put in quotation]”. Amend the next
sentence to read: “We will see how well the commission was fulfilled”
Page 111: Hamlet: add new para: While in Paris in April 1575, Oxford wrote to
Burghley after thanking him for bills of credit no doubt handed on by Reymondo:
“I am also beholding here unto Mr. Reymondo, that has helped me with a great
number of Favours whom I shall desire your Lordship when you have leisure and
occasion to give him thanks, for I know that the greatest part of his friendship
towards me has been respect of your Lordship”, which en clair means “I well
know he is your private spy on my activities”. Then there is this little vignette
from Hamlet:
Polonius: “Give him (Laertes then in Paris) this money and these notes,
. Reynaldo.”
Reynaldo: “I will, my Lord.”
Polonius: “You shall do marv’lous wisely, good Reynaldo.
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behaviour.”
Reynaldo: “My lord, I did intend it. “
. - - II, i, ll.1-6
There can be little doubt that Reynaldo (who receives specific instructions in the
scene) stands in for Reymondo82a
Page 27
Page 114: 1. new second para: There is a long-service
debate about the famous quotation: “Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’
Tiger”, which can now confidently related to the only voyage of the Tiger to
Aleppo in 1583 under the command of Ralph Fitch (/?Witch)88a
2. conclude the section on Macbeth: There is a case for
suggesting that the play is a warning to the Queen to keep Mary Queen of Scots
alive, with the possible fate of Lady Macbeth for regicide. This is an attractive
idea, and it dates the play prior to 1587 – there would no point in portraying her
in this way after the execution 88a
Page 115 : Palamon and Arsett in Henslowe’s diary is an ‘Admiral’s’ play
and unlikely to be ‘Shakespearean’ – see page 175 below.
Page 117 : End of para: Chorus speeches: see page 278 n.95a below
Page 119: new first para: 1 Henry VI: Shakespeare’s authorship is
sometimes questioned, but this quotation seems ‘young Oxfordian’:
Joan La Pucelle: “These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,
Through which our policy must make a breach.
Take heed. Be wary how you place your words.
Talk like the vulgar sort of market men
That come to gather money for their corn.” 97a
. - - III, ii, ll. 1-5
This presents a social superiority slant which lies ill the mouth of the farm-girl, and shows the young author striking a false note
Page 122 : 1. New first para: Some including Nina Green suggest
Oxford may have written Leicester’s Commonwealth and A Conference 1593
which is a treatise on the succession to the Queen.
2. line 10 (and other references on Pages 137 and 202):
Harthacanute is almost certainly not a Shakespeare play – see page 175 below.
Page 124: New fifth para: We can deduce from the quotation from
Nashe on page 171 that Oxford’s “special enemies” were “small beer and
grammar rules”, and it is reasonable to suggest that Armado’s remarkable letter
to the peasant-girl Jacquenetta in Love’s Labours Lost Act IV,I, ll. 60 – 92 is a
post-Puttenham insert into the play by way of derision of Puttenham’s ‘Grammar
Rules’ as a type of scholarship, including as the letter does examples of
Puttenham’s figures, Asyndeton, Sinathrismus, Anthypophora, Emphasis,
Page 28
Parenthesis and Periergia, and no doubt others (if one had the energy and
ingenuity to track them down).
Page 128 : “A young man married is a man that’s marred” – see page 279
n.112a below.
Page 131 : : the full Arte quotation (which I compare to Timon of Athens V,v.
ll.86-89) reads:
“Antimetabole, or the counter-change. Ye have a figure which takes a couple of
words to play with a verse, and by making them to change and shift one into
another’s place they do very prettily exchange and shift the sense, as …..
(Alexander’s omission) thus:
We wish not peace to maintain cruel war
. But we make war to maintain us in peace.” [3.19]
Page 134: New first para: In Book 1 Chapter 8 of Arte Puttenham commends
the recognition and generosity of princes towards poets: “In what price the noble
poems were held with Alexander the Great, …. , were carried in the rich jewel
coffer of Darius…” which seems a direct lift from 1 Henry VI, where the Dauphin
says of Joan of Arc:
“In memory of her, when she is dead,
Her ashes, in an urn more precious
Than the rich-jewelled coffer of Darius,”
. - - I, viii, ll.23-5114b
Page 135: delete first para, and substitute: The 'quotation' is a free translation
of lines from William Gager's Latin play (1583 - a pre 1589 play) Dido IV, ii,
ll.862ff , perhaps by Puttenham himself. A full translation of the Latin and the
thought in it reads: “Go, follow the winds, seek your kingdom by crossing the
waves, the ocean to the land promised to you by the fates. If prayers and entreaties
have any power, I am confident you will pay the penalty for this outrage,
grounded on shoals and reefs, or bobbing your head among your smashed hulls
crying out for me...”.
Puttenham (3,22) launches an attack on John Soothern for
his poem on De Vere (extract on pages 80-1) for his misuse, as he sees it of French
words in the poem, and gives examples such as “freddon; egar; superbous” and
others not included in the extract quoted but missing obvious ones: “brute [bruit];
digne; louanges”; and this gives force to the contention that Puttenham was using
his memory both of the words and of Soothern’s spelling of “Fredone” and
“Superbus”, differing from Puttenham’s “freddon” and superbous”.
Page 29
So we can see precisely Puttenham's technique: recall
to memory a phrase or line or more from an existing play or a poem; in Gager's
case translate it and re-versify into English; then use it as an example for one of
the 'figures': and this is the process that the 'Shakespeare' examples I set out
exactly follows.116
Page 137: Harthacanute: delete reference in line 6.
Page 138 : add as new second para : King John : new second paragraph:
I refer to the Essex character in King John below (pages 182 and 202): its near-
absence in the play is a factor in dating King John after the Troublesome Raigne
of King John. The Troublesome Raigne quarto was first produced in 1591 and
King John first appeared in the 1623 Folio. Both plays were not registered in the
Stationers’ Register (probably because the editor in 1623 thought King John had
already been registered as The Troublesome Raigne and was by the same author
and did not need re-registering). Some critics have sought to show that
Troublesome Raigne is later than the much more sophisticated King John and
borrows from Peele, Greene, Marlowe and Kydd as well as Holinshed 1587
second edition. This would require the writer to be familiar with the post-
revolution plays, Peele’s The Arraignment of Paris 1584 and Alcazar 1591,
Kidd’s Spanish Tragedy 1589, Marlowe’s I Tamurlaine 1587 and Edward II 1593
and Greene Selimus 1594, and to borrow freely from 3 Henry VI and Richard III
with occasional references to four other Shakespeare plays. While the verbal
parallels with King John may be limited the parallels in plotting are all persuasive
of the Oxford’s authorship of both versions124a.
King John's Chief Justice in the Troublesome Reign Quartos
(1591 and later) is the Earl of Essex with 120 lines. Although Oxford's bête noir
the Tudor Earl is no apparent relation, his part in King John his part is debased to
three lines (? kept in by oversight), and replaced by Lord Bigot, a Norfolk Earl
married to the sister of one of Oxford's ancestors 122a. From this it is clear that the
Troublesome Reign is the earlier version. See page 182.
The contrary proposition, that the plays were not rewritten at all,
leads ‘orthodox’ critics down illogical paths. Thus one writes: “His (i.e.
Shakespeare’s) genius is growing so fast that there are times when it seems to
make a jump forward within the course of a single play (The last act of Love’s
Labours Lost, for instance seems more mature than the first act).” (Wain p.30).
Compare the reference on page 98 to Kenneth Branagh’s opinion.
Page 139 : add in second para : Whetstone
Pages 139 (last para) – 141: [Further studies show that Clemen’s argument
receives support and adaptation: so that the full impact of the revised argument
can be seen, the relevant pages have been rewritten in toto, rather than simply
inserting here amendments which would reduce the full force]
Page 30
Wolfgang Clemen in a chapter titled “ Popular Drama and
History Plays” (before “Shakespeare”, as he sees it) comments on this Cambises,
and also on an anonymous play Jack Straw dated to 1592 but actually probably
much earlier and “much less impressive than Famous Victories”129. The
remainder of Clemen’s chapter treats of this play and four other “anonymous”
plays, namely, The Troublesome Reign of King John, The True Tragedie of
Richard the Third, Thomas of Woodstock and King Leir and His Three
Daughters. Clemen demonstrates that these plays (and he could have added
Edmund Ironside, Edward III, Arden of Feversham, A Yorkshire Tragedy,
Horestes and Sir Thomas More) are the steps by which drama evolved into the
glory of “Shakespeare”: “The transition from the rhetorical tragedy of the early
period to the Shakespearian type of drama is bound up with the most striking
and impressive developments in form that English drama has undergone in the
whole of its history” (my emphasis)129a. He does not consider whether these
plays were “Shakespeare’s” apprentice efforts, by which he taught himself
(there could be no English mentors for him) the groundblocks of his art.
Clemen is nevertheless profoundly impressed by the strides away from the earlier
crudities, both in writing and presentation, which these plays represent in that
evolution, so that it is logical for his readers to see them as such apprentice efforts
of a writer teaching himself without exemplars and feeling his way towards the
more mature works we find in the “Shakespeare” canon. For even earlier efforts
by the teen-age Oxford, see page 35 (as amended - 2 above).
Clemen does not take into account also the probability that
the author must have read or at least been aware of that part of Castelvetro’s
Theory of Tragedy, and the extent to which his thought must have been influenced
Just as we may think Oxford advances the thought of Bruno, so he may have
considered Castelvetro. While Castelvetro was the critic who saddled the study
of drama with the unities theory - of time, of place and of action i.e. one (or,
anyway never more than two related ones) plot -, he was also unique at the time
in his conception of tragedy. His British critic, who points out that there was a
lack of a sufficient body of Italian [or, indeed, any modern] tragic drama then
available to him, writes: “But (Castelvetro’s theory of tragedy) is not fully
developed. He justly asserts that the hero’s fate must be desperate, and must have
an ultimate compulsion. Unfortunately he does not so far elaborate his notion as
to what this ultimate compulsion consists. But he does indicate that it is to be
found in the individual himself, in his nature and his will. And in this he is
unconsciously linking up the idea of Greek tragedy to that of Shakespeare’s and
the Romantics. ………. The Greeks have no tragedy in which the hero is
absolutely criminal [examples the critic gives: Oedipus, Antigone and Orestes].
But Macbeth is absolutely a criminal and so is Richard [Shakespeare advancing
the original thought, again with no body of tragedy in English or any other
modern language to mentor him]. Yet all these characters have one thing in
common, a majestic greatness of soul.”129b
Page 31
To which one may add, by way of comparison of Shakespeare’s attitude to
comedy, from Arthos:
“One thing is evident, that his thought is as subtle as his poetry, he is thinking for
himself, his conclusions are his own. It is this very independence that makes it so
necessary to explore the full range of traditions in which Platonism and
Christianity are engaged with each other, for Shakespeare evidently knew the
main lines. Whatever he absorbed from his reading and his associates, he was
certainly absorbing the full fruits of Petrarch and the Platonists and the
theologians. His commitments as well as his withholding of commitment are to
be understood in the light of the state of thought in Europe.”129c
The “orthodox” critic is confronted with, to him (but not to me) a paradox. At
every stage in “Shakespeare’s” early and middle plays there are conventional
usages, forms of style, literary artifices, and so on, which have their origins and
parallels in “pre-Shakespearian” drama, which make them appear to be merely an
evolutionary phenomenon. Clemen notes this would be an entirely wrong
conclusion: “We constantly feel that we are in the presence of something entirely
new and unexpected, something that belongs to him alone …… One of the
distinctive features of Shakespeare’s development is his constant modification of
the existing dramatic kinds and of the styles of expression that lay ready to
hand.”129d The paradox disappears if you discard all those authors and works
which Clemen thinks are “pre-Shakespeare”, but which are post-revolution (e.g.
Marlowe) and consider only those works, perhaps juvenile or experimental, that
are referred to in the previous paragraph.
Of course individually, especially if dated to be
contemporaneous with the “orthodox” Shakespeare of the 1590s, these works are
perhaps correctly not highly rated artistically: put in as a group as fore-runners to
the “orthodox” canon, they are immensely significant to the development of
drama, since they have no predecessors worthy of the name. They are important
foundation elements of Shakespeare’s Revolution. If the eleven plays mentioned
earlier are Shakespeare’s early efforts, they are not particularly like the more
finished article (but there is nothing more similar, even remotely so), however
much they resemble in terms of plot, use of vernacular and naturalism, and
rejection of the Seneca-Gorboduc school. It is tempting to suggest that the young
Oxford realised their deficiencies and sought additional inspiration from foreign
sources, whence he profited to such an extent he was able to rewrite his earlier
plays and begin his career as “the best for comedies”; this is precisely how his
life developed as we have seen. Any dramatist needs time and experience to
develop, as Dryden suggests:
“Shakespeare’s own Muse his Pericles first bore
The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor.
. / before Othello
’Tis a miracle to see a first good play
All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas Day,
Page 32
A slender poet must have time to grow
And spread and burnish as his Brothers do,
. Who looks still lean, save with some pox is curst,
But no man can be Falstaff fat at first.”
- An Epilogue in Miscellany Poems 1684
Dryden’s view is backed by the principal German Romanticism
critic A.W.Schlegel who, writing in 1811, is quoted with approval by Hazlitt
in translation (with my emphases):-
“Let anyone place himself in Shakespeare’s situation on the commencement of
his career. He found only a few indifferent models, …. Must not this situation
have had its influence upon him before he learned to make higher demands on
himself, and by digging deeper in his own mind, discovered the richest vein of
a noble metal? It is even probable that he must have made several failures before
getting into the right path. Genius is in a certain sense infallible, and has nothing
to learn; but art has to be learned, and must be acquired by practice and
experience. In Shakespeare’s acknowledged works, we find hardly any traces of
his apprenticeship [i.e. ‘apprenticeship’ in a metaphorical sense], yet an
apprenticeship he certainly had. This every artist must have, and especially in
a period where he has not before him the example of a school already formed.
I consider it extremely probable [für wahrscheinlich], that Shakespeare began
to write for the theatre at a much earlier period than the one that is generally
stated, namely, not until after the year 1590.”129e
However Clemen, by placing the beginning of
Shakespeare’s career in 1590, brings in as his predecessors instead of his
followers the author of Locrine, Thomas Hughes, Lodge, Marlowe, Peele and
Greene, and demonstrates that these authors, although sometimes superior in
poetic terms, are much less advanced in the techniques of drama than that
Shakespeare, the author of the eleven, (some) pre 1575, plays listed above.
Schlegel, writing 150 years earlier than Clemen, does take his fellow
countryman’s argument a step further in logic:
“Shakespeare’s competitors in the dramatic walk are pretty well known, and if
those of them who have acquired a considerable name, a Lyly, a Marlowe, a
Heywood, are still so very far below him, we can hardly imagine the author of
a work [i.e. such as any one of the 14 anonymous plays he lists] which rises so
high beyond theirs, would have remained unknown.”129f
He thus pushes along the logic of Clemen’s argument, and Hazlitt again agrees.
In logic therefore the question inevitably becomes: “Who then was the author?”
Hazlitt continues, “But [his assent to Schlegel’s argument is] not
to the justice of its application to some of the plays” 129g which Schlegel prays in
aid. But even with a cull, the inclusion in the canon of Pericles, A Yorkshire
Page 33
Tragedy, Edward III and Arden of Feversham (which are in Schlegel’s list) can
be supported, along with others not discussed by or unknown to him.
In addition Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (2013) would have
us include and attribute to Shakespeare the superior passages in Arden of
Feversham, Edward III and Sir Thomas More with possibly Cardenio and some
revisions of Locrine and Mucedorus (listed by Schlegel) as well as parts of The
Spanish Tragedy. They identify a “close but baffling” relationship between three
of Clemen’s plays and their canonical rewrites, and when the possibilities of
dating the plays are considered their rejection of A Yorkshire Tragedy, Edmund
Ironside and Thomas of Woodstock is not persuasive.
In effect therefore by deduction from the evidence we do have
a body of immature, early works representing Shakespeare’s early efforts
some dating back to 1575 or earlier, and there is critical support for this
argument. See pages 22, 32-37, 72 with amendments above and 280 n.135.
Clemen apparently cannot find/deliberately does not select a candidate or
candidates for any of the five plays he mentions, and then there are the six I add
to his list.
We should note that these early efforts might not by themselves
cause the Revolution, save that they might provide encouragement and examples
to a body of lesser writers. There were no permanent public theatres before 1576.
It is a nice point as to whether there were sufficient plays for the public theatres
then, or did theatres come first as a speculative leap in the dark by their
entrepreneurs, or (more likely) did these entrepreneurs know that a sufficient
volume of adequate plays would be forthcoming?
This chapter shows the course of the Revolution, and some of the
contemporary evidence for it, with some criticism. ……………….. [page
141, second para.]
Page 142 : third paragraph: put in ‘eleven plays’ for ‘seven plays’
Page 146 : Marlowe’s only predecessor Oxford : But see page 280
n.142a
Page 149: new first para: Another borrowing 142a
Romeo: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.” . - - Romeo and Juliet II, i, ll. 44, 45
Barabas: “But stay! What star shines yonder in the East?
The lodestar of my life, if Abigail” . - - The Jew of Malta II, i, ll. 41, 42
Page 34
Page 150 : Note on Marlowe. While I have not written a similar note
about Bacon and Oxford, I should have noted Oxford’s error in Troilus and
Cressida, where Hector says:
“………………………………………………not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passions of distempered blood…..”
- - II,ii, ll.164-8
It was not moral, but political philosophy, which Aristotle thought the young
were unfit to hear. Bacon that careful and profound scholar makes the same error
in The Advancement of Learning (1605), quoting Aristotle direct with that same
error in translation:
“Young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy”, because “they are not settled
from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and
experience”.
Both scholars may well have known the original Greek by heart, and both make
the same mistake, Bacon’s, I suggest, being influenced by Oxford’s earlier
reference – even to the extent of using the distempered/attempered root.
Page 155 : Perhaps I should add from Coriolanus :
“Like a dull actor
I have forgot my part, and am out
Even to a full disgrace.” - - V, iii ll.40-2
Page 156: Horatio 156a
Page 162: ERROR: Para 1: It was the same John Davies
(not to be confused with Sir John Davies of Tisbury) who wrote “Although the
stage doth stain pure gentle blood.”
Sir John Davies of Tisbury 164a in his Orchestra 1596 edition: verse 129:
“Oh, could I, sweet Companion, sing like you,
Oh that your brains were mingled all with mine,
T’inlarge my wit for this great work divine.”
Companion: i.e. comes in Latin, Earl
great work divine: cf. “For I must more than mortall glory show “ (from
verse 127)
Page 35
And then from Verse 131:
“O, that I might that singing Swallow hear
To whom I owe my service and my love!
His sugared tunes would show entrance mine ear,
And in my mind such sacred fury move,
As I should knock at heaven’s gate above,
With my proud rimes, while of this heav’nly state
I do aspire the shadow to relate”
Sugared: Compare Mere’s sugared (with the inference that they are rich, high
class) Sonnets - page 198
Page 163 : 1. Oxford and the stage: new first para: Then
there is the splendid self mock in All's Well That Ends Well where Parolles is
conned into traducing First Lord Dumaine's soldierly repute:
“Faith, sir, he has led the drum before the English tragedians...” (IV, iii, l.268), a
thought of infinite merriment (not least to the writer) that Lord Oxford should
front up the drummer of the touring actor company as it approaches each town on
its progress.
2. Add after line 2: There is a curious reference
Histriomastix (date somewhere between 1601 and 1609) by Marston whose
loyalty to Oxford is shown at page 175. In it there is a character (and caricature)
Posthaste who is an upper-class scholar-playwright. His name implies he could
churn stuff out at short notice. “This time, however, the problem isn’t an over-
bumptious leading actor [wanting to do the Prologue], but an overly pretentious
[some other description might be I suggest more applicable!] principal dramatist
whose new [caricature-] Prologue seems to expect its audience to imaginatively
see the horses to which it refers, piecing out the players’ imperfections with their
thoughts. ……….. [The Prologue extract makes a comparison between a blind
old nag with] Alexander the Great’s legendarily agile mount by the fluently
creative Master Posthaste. (Who can Marston have been thinking of?)” 165a
Oxfordians have no trouble with Professor’s question,:
Prologue: “Begin: rehearse, etc.
Gentlemen, in this envious age we bring
For Bucephalus: if mierd, bogg'd
Draw him forth with your favours
So promising we never meane to performance
Page 36
Our Prologue peaceth…” /pisseth
. Gulch: Peaceth? What peaking pagenter pend that?
Belsh; Who, but Master Posthaste?
Gulch: It is as dangerous to read his [Posthaste’s] name at .
a play-door as a printed bill on a plague-door!”
. - - IV, i
(note the quick, urgent change to prose for this last speech)
What can have been the danger? The players might have been in political or
social danger if a name identifiable with Oxford had received any publicity,
especially as their ‘cover’ William Shakespeare had probably disappeared back
to Stratford by 1600.
Posthaste puts on a parody of a play in which the character Troilus says:
“That when he [Troilus] shakes his furious spear
The foe in shivering fearful sort
May lay him down in death to snort.” - - II ,i
(splendidly awful stuff )
This appears to be the only direct caricature of the writings of
Oxford possibly during his life time
2. : Insert new second paragraph: In addition, the
anonymous pamphlet Ratseis Ghost 1605 has this interesting piece of advice by
Ratsey to an actor in the year following Oxford’s death:
“Get thee to London, for if one man [actor (and/)or playwright ?] were dead, they
will have* much need of one such as thou art. There would be none in my opinion
fitter than thyself to play his parts [the particular parts of a deceased actor,
(and/)or, those written by a deceased playwright]: my conceipt is such of thee,
that I durst venture all the money in my purse on thy head to play Hamlet with
him [i.e. with the ghost of Oxford as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father?] for a wager.”
* indicative mood, probably showing the condition has been fulfilled.
3: add to end of para 4: This attitude persisted long after
Oxford’s death in 1604 See the quotation from Sir Robert Naunton on page 218.
4. : Insert new fifth paragraph: There
is a contemporary example of a similar cover-up, which a modern commentator
might mis-label a “conspiracy”. The identity of Sidney’s Stella, a married
aristocrat, whose subsequent career might reflect badly on the national hero, is
concealed. See n.167
Page 37
5: add at end:
POSTSCRIPT: When at last the Puritans at last in 1602 persuaded the Privy
Council to order the City Fathers to clear the playhouses as the resort of idle and
disorderly persons and press them for the army, they found to their
embarrassment “not only….Gentlemen, and servingmen, but lawyers, clerks,
country men that had law causes, aye the Queen’s men, knights, and it was
credibly reported one Earl.”, who can only have been Oxford.168
Page 164: Ch. 7: new second para.: There is a direct reference to
Oxford's health and melancholy state dating to 1598 in Everard Guilpin's
Skialetheia or Shadow of a Truth 1598, which placed significantly directly after
the denunciation of Essex and his admirers which is set out on page 283 n.32 (as
amended):-
“………………….. But see yonder,
One like the unfrequented Theatre
Walks in dark silence and vast solitude,
Suited to those black fancies which intrude,
Upon possession of his troubled breast:
But for black's sake he would look like a jest,
For he's clean out of fashion: what he?
I think the Genius of antiquity /Homer
Come now to complain of our variety
Of tickle fashions: then you jest, I see.
What needs you know? He is a malcontent:
A Papist? No, nor yet a Protestant,
But a discarded intelligencer.” /intermediary
. - - Satyre V
2.add to first para.: There is also the health and
possible breakdown reference in the account by Sir Nicholas L’Estrange of
Oxford’s joke about the translation (transmutation) of the ‘latten spoons’ as a
present for Jonson’s son, Oxford’s godchild, which begins: “Shake-speare (sic,
with hyphen) was Godfather to one of Ben Jonson’s children, and after the
christening being in a deep study, Jonson came to cheere him up, and askt him
Page 38
why he was so Melancholy ? No faith Ben: (says he) not I,……” While the writing
of the account is dated to 1650-5, Sir Nicholas is considered a reliable collector
of such snippets.
Page 168: penultimate line of quotation: idle: delete my gloss and insert:
[“idle” does not necessarily mean 'lazy' but something closer to 'non-productive']
Page 170 Ch 7 : Error: para 4, line 5 : Atchelow; at least 2 poems are known by
“Achelley”.
Page 171: delete [Apis, the Egyptian bull god, Lapis, a stone but also an idle
fellow: Oxford in idleness]
Insert after first para of quotation: 8a
Page 172 : Error: delete “The next edition has the Epistle Dedicatorie in
very small type and later ones drop it altogether.” [There were no such ‘next’ or
‘later editions’.]
Page 173 : New penult. para : “Ass”: The author of “The Third Blast of
Retrait from Plays and Theatres” 1580 has a take on the attitude towards the
nobility –see page 72:
“An objection: But some will perhaps say. The noble man delighteth in such
things, whose humours must be contented, partly for fear and partly for
commodity: and if they write matters pleasant, they are best preferred at Court
among the cunning heads.
Answer; Cunning heads, whose wits are never well exercised, but in the practice
of such exploits! But are those things to be suffered and praised, because they
please the rich, and content the Noble man, that always lives in ease? Not so. A
two legged Ass may be clothed in gold, a man of honour be corrupt of judgement,
though by his authority he may seem wiser than Socrates, whom Phoebus judged
the bel [best]……
Who meddles with nettles cannot escape pass unstinged: and he that deals with
men of authority otherwise than they may like [please] them, cannot scape from
danger without hurt. I may not stay longer on this point [coward, for fear no
doubt, but understandable! See pages 29 and 275 n.15] As I have a saying to these
versifying playmakers : so must I deal with shameless inactors” (quoted by W.C.
Hazlitt).
I take these remarks as personal to Oxford the playwright in 1580. There is a
good case for linking the Ass note clothed in gold, under whose commendation
“so many singular men have laboured”, with the Golden Ass the transmogrified
hero of Apuleius’s romance The Golden Ass, which itself had become an epithet
of poetic excellence. Harvey’s reply to Pierce Penniless deals with young
Apuleius (i.e. Nashe) and his ‘father’ (Oxford), in effect, the old Ass.
Page 39
New last para: In Have With you to Saffron Walden 1596 p.44-45
Nashe paints a picture of the extreme Italianate Harvey who without
“reverence”:-
“…… would make no bones to take the wall of Sir Philip Sidney and another
honourable knight (his companion) about court yet attending, to whom I wish no
better fortune than the forelock of Fortune he had hold in his youth, and no higher
fame than he has purchased himself by his pen, being the first (in our language)
I have encountered that repurified poetry from art’s pedantism, and to
speak courtly. Our patron, our Phoebus, our first Orpheus or quintessence
of invention he is, wherefore let us jointly [i.e. Harvey and Nashe together, an
unlikely combination] invent some worthy subject to eternize him, or let war call
back barbarism from the Danes, Picts and Saxon to suppress our frolic spirits,
…..” 13a
That other “honourable knight (his companion)” – Latin comes: a companion,
count or Earl - is of course Oxford, whose achievement is shown as independent
of that of Sidney’s which is not commented on. Nashe also recognises that Oxford
is the first in time.
Labeo: see page 282 n.13b below
Page 174: insert as new penultimate sentence: At the end of his The
Metamorphosis (a word that instantly evokes Ovid’s Metamorphoses as
translated by Oxford –see page 30ff) of Pygmalion ostensibly in praise of his own
work, Marston puts in a short poem containing the lines:
“So Labeo did complain his love was stone,
Obdurate, flinty, so relentless none”
which are a purposed direct ‘lift’ from Venus and Adonis where Venus complains:
“Art thou obdurate, flinty hard as steel?
Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth….”
. - - ll. 199, 200
conveniently connecting Hall, Marston and Oxford, adopting Hall’s Labeo (see
page 173 -4 with the linking reference to Phoebus Apollo, the god of poetry) and
Edwards’ “Adon defly masking” (page 153), and Hall’s denunciation of
Oxford’s acting (pages 159, 160)14a.
There is a case for suggesting that Labeo is Marston himself: the confusion could
be intentional if anyone might have suggested publicly that Oxford was Hall’s
real target
Page 40
Page 175: 1. delete “Then in quotation marks….voice” line: the
remainder is in italics in the original. The previous sentence may be sarcastic (as
if Mutius would lend himself to such a performance) or sound a note of criticism
that such speech debased his standing (compare the reference in Satyre X to
Torquatus - see page 282 n.16)
2: add new first para: There is a further interesting
reference, to Posthaste (see page 163N – 2 above) in Histriomastix Act III, i:
Gulch (?): “Chrisoganus, faith what’s the lowest price”
Chrysiganus (Jonson): “You know as well as I: ten pound a play.”
Gulch: “Our Company’s hard of hearing of that side”
Chrysiganus: “And will not this book pass, alas for pride
I hope to see you starve and storm for books,
And in the dearth of rich invention,
When sweet smooth lines are held for precious
Then will fawn and crouch for Poesie.”
Clout: “Not while goosequillian Posthaste holds his pen.”
Gut: “Will not our own stuff serve the multitude?”
Chrisoganus: “Write on, cry on, yawl to the common sort
Of thickskin’d auditours: such rotten fluffs
More fit to fill the paunch of Esquiline /Nero
Than feed the hearing of judicial cares,
Yet shades triumph, while foggy ignorance
Clouds bright Apollo’s beauty..” . . . / (probably refers to Oxford)
Note that the Company can have a play from Posthaste apparently for nothing
and the exchange ignores Clout’s remark, while Jonson goes on to denounce the
Company’s “own stuff”
Page 176 : first para and last line: delete “Sir Peter Lely” and insert “Henri
Gascar (c.1680)” – see Page 282 n.18 below.
Page 177: Before last sentence, insert new para: What is the true
interpretation of the last line of Sonnet 11: “You had a father, let your son say
so”? With his ostensible father the second Earl dead, Southampton saying “I have
a father” is apparently true genetically but no longer true of the present at the time
of writing. His son will be able to say “I have a father”, or, in indirect speech, he
Page 41
will say, re-using the sub-clause (“so”), that he had a father: likewise
Southampton acknowledges “I have a father (i.e. Oxford, now living)” or, indirect
speech, that he had a father.
Page 182: new last paragraph: The quarto The Troublesome Raigne of King
John (1591, 1611 and 1622) gives a substantial part to the Earl of Essex, King
John’s chief justice (and no known relation of the Elizabethan Earls): however in
the First Folio King John the part is reduced to three lines in the first scene and
perhaps these were ascribed to the character by oversight, since the rest of the
part goes to Bigot. See pages 138 above and 202 below.
Page 183: second para line 11: delete “by Essex” and
insert “by Essex’s friends which he names as ‘Sir Charles Percy, Sir Jocelyn
Percy and Lord Monteagle with three others’.”
Page 184: “our EVERliving poet” 34a
New penultimate para: The link has been made
between Oxford's petition reminding the Court of his duties as Lord Great
Chamberlain at the forthcoming coronation of James I in July 1603 and Sonnet
114 which specifically refers to the detail of those duties: thus Sonnet 114 can
be dated to that year.34b
Page 186 : add at bottom of page: Stratfordians rely on the fact that
William Shakespeare and Richard Field, the printer of the editions of Venus and
Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, were both of an age and from Stratford-upon-
Avon as proof that it was the Stratfordian who wrote the two poems. As usual
such evidence lends credence to an opposing view: why would the printer from
Stratford alter the name of the writer from that known to him as “Shaksper” to
“Shakespeare”? Unless of course Field well knew that the two spellings
covered two different people and “Shaksper” was not the author38b. See also
page 294 n.73 below
Page 188 (2nd para) to page 190 : Considerably rewritten:
second para: “ The works appearing anonymously in print before Burghley's
death on 4th August 1598 (with their subsequent non – (or pre-) 1623 folio editions
added: note that the 1598 editions are given an author: they are probably
immediately post- Burghley), are:-
1591 – The Troublesome Reign of King John: anonymous; the 1611 edition “by
W. Sha.”; 1622 ”written by W. Shakespeare”
1592 – Arden of Feversham: 1599 and 1633 anonymous
1594 – Titus Andronicus: 1600 and 1611 anonymous
Page 42
1594 – The Taming of A Shrew: anonymous
1594 - 2 Henry VI: 1600 anonymous; 1619 “written by W. Shakespeare Gent.”
1595 - 3 Henry VI: 1600 and 1619 anonymous
1596 - Edward III: 1599 anonymous
1597 – Richard III: 1598 “by William Shake-speare”; 1602 “Newly augmented.
By William Shakespeare; 1605, 1612 and 1622 “Newly augmented, By William
Shake-speare”
1597– Romeo and Juliet: 1599 and 1609 anonymous; after 1609 “Written by W.
Shakespeare”
1597 - Richard II: 1598 Q2 and Q3 “By William Shake-speare”; 1608 and 1615
“with new additions.”
The distinguished poet and critic
F. T. Prince writes: “(Dr. Johnson’s) critical summary …. easily sweeps Lucrece
into its scope, pointing to his faults, and enabling us to look at them in the light
of the poet’s other achievements. For if Lucrece is a tragedy, it is of course a
tragedy by the author of Titus Andronicus and not by the author of Lear or
Othello.”38a As Oxfordians may date Titus to as early as 1577 it may be that
Lucrece is earlier than Venus And Adonis which makes the discussion of the
meaning of “the first heir of my invention” in the ‘Dedication’ of the former
clearer: it is almost evidence that it refers to the first use of “William
Shakespeare” by Oxford as a pseudonym.
As from June 1594 it was decided to licence
only the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and the Admiral’s Men as a duopoly for the
presentation of plays. Oxford with the ‘Shakespeare’ Plays joined the former, and
for the Admiral’s we have the invaluable Henslowe’s diary which proves that,
while Henslowe had the use of some early plays of ‘Shakespeare’ up to June
1594, these came under the control of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men after that date.
They include (versions of) Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, The Taming of A Shrew,
King Lear, 1 Henry VI and 2 Henry VI (these are the ones of which there is a
record of pre-July 1594 performances)16a. The very proximity of other
‘Shakespeare’ titles goes to prove that the version of Hamlet in particular was
written by ‘Shakespeare’ by that date. Probably indeed all the plays or versions
of them mentioned on page 136 as being already written by 1589 i.e. by the date
of Puttenham’s Arte: none of these were staged by the Admiral’s Men after June
1594. A Stratfordian may wonder why the up-market Lord Chamberlain’s
players took on as part of their share of the division the oeuvre of a mere
provincial with no apparent social backing, and apparently obvious (but only to
the Stratfordians) educational deficiencies.
After 1589 the postulated nervous breakdown for
Oxford would account for the apparent non-appearance of any fresh plays up to
Page 43
1594. The Admiral’s (which was awarded the Marlowe oeuvre) was responsible
for Palamon and Arcite (thought generally to be the basis of Two Noble Kinsmen
but the evidence is not convincing – see page 282 n.16a) with three performances
in September and October 1594, and also for Harthacanute 1597 and I Sir John
Oldcastle 1599 (see Page 268 n.26): all three are apparently post the 1594 divide-
up, and therefore too late to be by ‘Shakespeare’.
A recent book 43a has brilliantly exposed the machinations
of Elizabeth Lady Russell in preventing the (re-)opening of the Blackfriars
Theatre as indoor premises for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1596. From her
standpoint of extreme Protestantism she launched a petition to the Privy Council
which was successful because the Cecils (and Oxford) who were her religious
opponents were unable to oppose her. Oxford was apparently unable to defend
the Company and this may have resulted in a split between them with the
Company attaching itself to Essex (and with him Southampton). This would
account for: 1) the apology in the last paragraph of the Epilogue of 2 Henry IV to
the relatives of Lady Russell including the Cobhams for the caricature of the
Puritan hero Lord Cobham executed by Henry V in 1417; 2) the production of
Henry V to laud Essex on his departure to Ireland in 1599 (see page 117; 3) the
apparent importance of the illiterate provincial William Shakespeare needed as a
frontman/cover for the anti-Oxford Essex and Puritan factions in command 1596-
1599 of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men); 4) the production of Richard II on the eve
of Essex’s putsch in 1601 (see page 183). After this last episode Oxford (the only
person around who fits the scenario) must have had sufficient clout to plead for
the reprieve of Southampton and effect the escape of the Lord Chamberlain’s
Men from punishment. In the meantime, say between 1596 and 1601, Oxford
could have been concerned with other acting enterprises; observe that it is the
“eyrie of children” who are “tyrannically clapped” in Hamlet and frighten off
ersatz gentlemen like William (see page 253-4).
Incidentally there is uncovered a nice piece of evidence that
William cannot have been the Shakespeare who wrote Hamlet: while William has
some interest in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the writer is clearly seeking to
boost the “eyrie of children..[who] are now the fashion”:
Hamlet: “Do the boys carry it away?”
Rosencrantz: “Ay, that they do, my lord, Hercules and his load too”
. - - II, ii, ll. 361-2
“Hercules and his load”, i.e. Hercules supporting the globe - the sign above the
theatre: “the boys” are just as good as players as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
By 1597 The Lord Chamberlain's company was in
deep financial trouble…...”
Page 44
Page 190: 1. line 26: “…… or Meres lifted a lid which was meant
to be closed.” 44a.
2. New last full para: By 1599 the duopoly of the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men and the Admiral’s Men was clearly breaking down. A new
Company of Paul’s Boys was back in operation by 1599 and Henry Evans (whom
we have met before (see pages 91 and 109) as an associate of Oxford’s took a
long lease of the Blackfriars premises from the Burbage sons, with I suspect
Oxford’s encouragement. The quotation from Hamlet shows how seriously the
Globe was affected. First division playwrights were beginning their careers at
Blackfriars and with Paul’s Boys (? in the same Blackfriars premises): the list
includes Beaumont, Chapman, Daniel’s Philotas 1604 (which attracted political
attention), Dekker, Webster, Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels 1601 and Poetaster 1601
(perhaps he had been kicked out the Globe after Every Man Out of His Humour),
Marston (including Histriomastix with the character Posthaste (pages 163N-2 and
175N above), Middleton, and the anonymous (but /resurrected Oxford) The
Wisdom of Doctor Doddypoll. Perhaps the rapprochement between Oxford and
the Globe after the death of Essex is evidence by the decline in these companies
by 1608 when the Burbages re-took over Blackfriars.44b
3. In 1604 list: The Passionate Pilgrim see p.284 n.45a.
Page 191 : At end of the play list, I note that along with John Shahan and
other Oxfordians that all the plays published before 1604 are either anonymous
or by “William Shakespe(a)re” (with or without hyphen), which would seem,
some say deliberately, to distinguish the writer from William Shaksper (however
spelled, but never with a medial ‘e’ – see p.235 below) and possibly to show
Oxford having some control over the publications that bore his pseudonym while
he was alive. The only anonymous plays are Famous Victories and Henry V and
the absence of the Shakespeare name could reflect Oxford’s desire not to be
associated with Essex who with his followers had appropriated certainly Henry V
for his greater glory – see page 182.
There is however a mystery. In the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV in the last
paragraph “our humble author will continue the story with Sir John in it” (ll.25-
6) i.e. in Henry V, and yet we learn speedily in Henry V that Falstaff is dead.
Rather than let the Essex faction have the use of the character for their 1598
production (or, knowing that the Cobham-allied faction would seek to 'ameliorate'
it or squash it), Oxford it would appear trumped them both by killing Falstaff off
and kept the use of the 'William Shakespeare' name away from any printed
versions.
The reconciliation between Oxford and the Lord Chamberlain's Men is
evidenced by the absence in the 1603 Quarto and its inclusion in the Good Quarto
Page 45
of Hamlet's speech of welcome to the Players (II, ii, ll.420ff): gracious and
familiar, and reconciliatory, I suggest.
Page 193 : 1. New second paragraph: Then there is Middleton’s
clear plagiarisation in his Blurt, Master Constable 1602:-
“And when the lamb bleating doth bid good night
Unto the closing day, then tears begin
To keep quick time unto the owl, whose voice
Shrieks like the bellman in the lovers’ ears” - - III, i
from: -
“It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman
Which gives the stern’st good-night. …” - - II, ii, ll.3,4
2. new third paragraph: References in King Lear (e.g.
Gloucester: “These late eclipses of the sun and moon portend no good to us” – I,
ii, l.57, and others) are used by some to suggest that the phenomenon referred to
happened in 1606, and to date the play to after Oxford’s death in 1604: in point
of fact the eclipse in that year with its zone of totality across the southern half of
France would have no stir at all in England: an earlier eclipse in 1598 with its
zone across the western half of England would have been quite marked in all parts
of England - see page 284 n.53a -, and clearly Gloucester’s reference would be to
that eclipse – even if the whole reference had not anyway been put in on a rewrite
or polishing of the play.
3. add to end of next para: [ (Thomas Russell) Overseer
of William Shakespeare’s Will] : (but see page 213) :
Page 195 : add to end of para 2: 1. There is a similar reference in Othello
I,iii, ll.142-144. .
2. last paragraph on Oxford's death: finish
the sentence: at which point it is right to record Lord Justice Crewe's opinion
in the Oxford Peerage case 1626: “No monarch in Europe ever had a subject
like Lord Oxford”
Page 196 : To the satirist Guilpin in 1598, the Oxford figure:
“………………………….. He is a malcontent:
A Papist? No, nor yet a Protestant, ...” - - Satyre V
quoted more fully on page 164A as amended
Page 197 Ch 8 : 1. My Publishers did not want the word “Revolution”
in the title of the book. Chapter Eight for accuracy should have been entitled
AFTERMATH OF THE REVOLUTION.
Page 46
2. new para 4: The
Catholic martyr Robert Southwell prepared a book for publication of his religious
poems with a dedication in the second edition published after his execution in
February 1594/5 entitled “The Authour to the Reader”, from which this is an
extract:
“Still finest wits are ‘stilling Venus’s rose /distilling
In paynim toys the sweetest veins are spent /pagan . . To Christian works few have their talents lent
License my single pen to seek a phere / a companion
You heavenly sparks of wit show native light;….
I move the suit, the rest grants in your will.” / ? Shakespeare
These lines appear to be a direct plea to the author of Venus And Adonis to turn
to writing Christian works; which is supported by the Dedicatory Letter headed
in this and subsequent editions “The Author to his Loving Cousin” containing a
denunciation of writers employing “such passions as only serve for testimonies
to what unworthy affections they have wedded their wills” (such as in Oxford’s
Comedies and Tragedies). In the 1616 edition this superscription becomes, “To
my worthy good cousin Master W. S.” and the letter is signed off “Your loving
cousin R.S.” The exact relationship between Oxford and Southwell is first cousin
twice removed (see page 276 n.18). Then in one of the nights before his execution
Southwell is visited by a “nobleman of high rank”, who interrogates him as to his
attitude towards the Queen and is astounded by Southwell’s answers (to the effect
that Southwell merely wished to restore the Catholic religion without harm to the
Queen or any of her subjects), which his visitor reports to the Queen. There is
little doubt that this is a true account as it can only been authored and preserved
by the nobleman in question, and he by process of elimination can only have been
Oxford.1a
Page 198 : add as new last paragraph: 1. It is a settled point among the
‘orthodox’ that Meres’ listing as the ‘best for Comedy’ includes both the Earl of
Oxford and Shakespeare as if for his purpose they were two different people.
Picking up on Emma Jolly’s pioneering work, Robert Detobel and K. C. Ligon
(2010, pp. 40ff) proved that by counting the examples from modern English
literature as balanced by an equal number from earlier literatures, Meres’
reference to Oxford and Shakespeare must be to the same person – see page 190
. The reference reads:
Page 47
“The best for Comedy among the Greeks are [16 names]. So the best for Comedy
amongst us be Edward Earl of Oxford [first, followed by seven names, and then
in ninth position] Shakespeare [followed by 8 other names]”
Thus the 16 ‘ancient’ names are apparently balanced by 17 English names, save
that at nos. 1 and 9 there are two names, Oxford and Shakespeare, who are the
same person. Detobel and Ligon show that this example is not the only one where
Meres plays tricks of the same type, i.e. with his lists of satirists, tragedians,
modern poets in Latin, epigrammatists and translators. The conclusion is that as
with his comedy writers he corrected imbalances (e.g. by inventing the fictitious
play Love’s Labours Won, or created apparent deliberate imbalances to keep his
artistic framework in order, at the same time in this instance indicating his
knowledge that two of the Comedy writers were one, the author and his
pseudonym – rather cleverer than we all thought!
Alexander Waugh has produced an interesting chart to
show that there are numerous connections, by way of letters, references and other
mentions, between twenty one of the contemporary writers referred to by Meres.
Only one William Shakespeare has no recorded connection at all. 4a
There is a further apparent reference to Oxford and
William Shakespeare being two different writers in the Letter to the Reader to
Bodenham’s Bel-vedere: The Garden of the Muses (first edition 1600): “….I have
set down both how, whence and where these flowers had their first springing till
they were thus drawn together into the Muses’ Garden…….”, but then some
disappointingly all he does is to set out his own poetry. The introductory Letter
concludes merely with lists, from which may be extracted:-
[The first list is of four names]
“Thomas Earle of Surrey
The Lord Marquess of Winchester
Mary Countess of Pembroke
Sir Philip Sidney
From poems and works of these noble personages extant.”
[Then a second list of six names beginning with]
“Edward Earle of Oxenford
From divers of essays of their Poetrie: some extant among other
Honourable personages’ writings [e.g. those by Oxford in the name of the
armigerous William Shakspeare] some from private labours and translations.”
Page 48
[Then a third list with]
“William Shakspeare [sic] [thirteenth in the list]
These being Modern and extant poets that have liv’d together [i.e.
contemporaries]; from many of their extant works and some kept in privat”
The second edition of Bodenham 1610 omits the Letter to
the Reader and the lists, which may indicate that the desire not to continue with
any confusion of the two persons
Bodenham comes in for some wicked criticism in Act 1
scene ii of The Return to Parnassus Part 1 [the second Parnassus play – see
below] which suggests that the papers containing his poetry should be consigned
to the cloaca or public sewer but has a passage of praise of Shakespeare.. The
passage about “William Shakespeare” (so spelt) reads:
“Who loves not Adon’s love or Lucre’s rape
His sweeter verse contains hart robbing life
Could but a graver subject him content
Without loves foolish languishment.”
There might an interesting concealed meaning in the second line.4b
There are other minor references to Shakespeare which the
orthodox pray in aid for William Shakespeare’s candidature. The ones from
Willobie His Avisa 1594 (but see my mention on page 233 and the note above),
Anthony Skoloker (Diaphantus 1604) and Thomas Freeman (Epigrams 1614) are
of no biographical value, and this extract from Richard Barnfield (A
Remembrance of Some English Poets 1598) is thought to be too general :
“And Shakespeare, thou, whose hony flowing Vaine,
(Pleasing the World) thy praises doth obtaine,
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece (sweet and Chaste),
Thy name in fames immortall booke have plac’t.
Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever:
Well may thy Bodye dye, but Fame dies never.”
The emphasis on “ever/never” and conjoined to “Fame” might relate to Oxford
(De Vere)4b.
Alexander Waugh has uncovered a most striking and important cryptogram in
William Covell’s Polimanteia 1595, where against a marginal reference to
“William Shak-speare”, there appears in the main text the phrase “court deare
verse” - an anagram of ‘our secret De Vere’ - a torpedo for the ‘orthodox’ cause!
Page 49
“Our” harks back to the references in the lines before to “my Virgil” and “thy
Petrarch.”4c
Similarly William Camden refers to Shakespeare in Remains 1605 (“whom
succeeding ages may [or may not?] justly admire”), but not in Britannia 1607,
where his account of Stratford-Upon-Avon omits any mention of William
Shakespeare as the town’s foremost inhabitant, let alone ones to be admired by
“succeeding ages”.
Then in 1599, William Scott M.P. and grandson of Thomas
Wyatt wrote “The Model of Poesy or the Art of Poesy drawn into a Short or
Summary Discourse” 4d, which Professor Wells applauds as the first example of
precise close criticism of Shakespeare’s style. Praise (“well-penned” well-
conceited”) with some quite valueless opinion is given for The Rape of Lucrece
and Richard II. Although other authors including “Mr. Spenser” and “our Mr.
Daniel” are mentioned by name, Shakespeare does not appear by name, a
reflection perhaps of the real (exalted) status of the actual author, or anxiety on
the part of the writer not to bear any contradiction of the literary principles of his
idol (and distant relative) Sir Philip Sidney. Conceivably the monograph was
intended as a weapon for the Seneca-Gorboduc school of poets and dramatists
against the ‘freer’ styles of Shakespeare and his followers. In order to get round
the absence of anything in the nature of a criticism (notwithstanding Professor
Wells’ applause above), the editor writes in his introduction (p.lxi): “Though
Shakespeare was not yet being seen as a writer of the significance of Sidney or
Spenser his stock was rising fast….” By as late as 1599? - of course.
The three Parnassus plays were written and performed at
Cambridge in the five years 1598 to 1602. The writers heap praise on
“Shakespeare” as the writer of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. They
know that the same writer is the author of Romeo and Juliet and Richard III and
would know of the other plays which were appearing in print, and they use
material from Shakespeare to put down a Court fop called Gullio. Some have
suggested this person to be a caricature of William Shakespeare and in their
favour I point out that he makes no appearance in the third play, dated to 1601-2
by which time I suggest that William had decamped from London and the
theatrical scene and become irrelevant and pointless as a target. However the
object of the caricature with his successful social striving and his pretences at
culture (to which there would no way anybody would expect William
Shakespeare as Ben Jonson depicts him in Every Man Out Of His Humour to
aspire) is more likely to be Southampton4c.
The undergraduate mind has its bit of fun with the great
Author in the third play when ‘Kemp’ (actually a well-educated and well-
connected man in reality) says:
Page 50
“Few of the University men pen play well: they smell too much of that writer
Ovid, and that writer Metamorphoses and talk too much of Proserpina and
Jupiter. Why here’s our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down – ay and Ben
Jonson too. O Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace, giving the
poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare [the cheek of it!] has given him a purge
that made him bewray his credit”.
Critics have not found the reference in Shakespeare to anything approximating
the last cut. The suspicion must be that Jonson as editor excised any critical
reference to himself in the 1623 folio. add Oxford, clearly a separate person,
(“sweet Mr. Shakespeare” in Return Part I, IV, i, l.1201), receives high praise in
both plays. He is also the writer – see the quotation on page 255, and actor, the
“fellow” of Kempe and Burbage.
A fascinating piece of evidence is in Return Part 1,
where Gullio says, after hearing Studioso’s effort at Shakespeare: “I am one that
can judge according to the proverb bovem ex unguibus”, which is a deliberate
take on leonem ex unguibus , ‘you can tell a lion from its (claws) footprints’ :
‘you can tell an OX …’ (IV, 1, l.1219) – conversation with Alexander Waugh –
ascribed to Admiral H. H. Holland
Page 199: add: In addition one of the soldiers in
scene i of Hamlet is Francisco: Horace and Francis recall the “Fighting Vere
brothers”, Horace and Francis. ‘Horatio’ is the repeated sobriquet, to tie in with
Horace the Roman poet, by Jonson to himself. It may be that Oxford had two
targets, Horatio Vere and Jonson, for his final command to ‘Horatio’. In favour
of Jonson being the more likely sole target is the fact that Horace de Vere was
fighting in the Netherlands for all the relevant period. Francis had retired in 1602
and would have been more likely relative – certainly more available – as such
target (in which case one might have expected the Horatio character to be called
Francisco)4d . However one of Horace’s grandchildren was named ‘Horatio’
which seems a nod to Horace de Vere as a remembrance of his cousin Oxford’s
glory (Mystikel – correspondence). Again Horatio is saluted as a “scholar” (l.40),
and does not seem to be shown as a soldier. When Horatio comments, “Half a
share.” on Hamlet’s claim to theatrical success (page 156), and to “a fellowship
with a cry of players” [i.e. a share in the Globe], he seems to be doing this as an
insider like Jonson, almost as a self-stuck on joke. Jonson certainly seems to have
done everything possible to keep Oxford’s memory alive.
Page 200 : 1.post 1604 references: insert new paragraph 4 : In addition
see the (new) reference to Ratseis Ghost on page 163 (above).
2. In 1605 there was published an account of the chaotic
Russian political scene: Sir Thomas Smythe’s Voyage and Entertainment in
Page 51
Russia, in which the anonymous author says there is now no-one in England to
do justice to the situation: “It was but as the Poetical Fury in a stage-play,
compleat yet with horrid woeful Tragedies: It was a first but no second to any
Hamlet:” it was apparently beyond the pen of du Bartas, Fulke Greville and
Jonson. Shakespeare does not get a mention, save that the author goes on to say:
“I am no Apollo nor Apelles….”, and begins the next paragraph: “I am with the
late English quick-spirited, clearsighted Ovid…, which seems to mean that this
late poet (i.e. Oxford dying in 1604) would have been the writer’s candidate for
the task.7a Scott (page 198) is reasonably suggested as the author, but it would
represent a shift in his apparent attitude towards Shakespeare
3. put in new fourth para [taking in third para from page 258] :-
In addition there is a fine piece of “absence” evidence. There was no
Shakespeare to write or polish up a comedy at short notice, shown in a letter from
the Chamberlain of the Exchequer to Sir Robert Cecil in January 1605;
“Burbage is come and says there is no new play that the Queen (i.e. Anne, wife
of James I) hath not seen, but they have revived an old one called Love’s Labours
Lost which for wit and mirth will please her exceedingly, and this is appointed to
be played tomorrow night at my Lord of Southampton’s”7b
4. Add new fifth paragraph :
In 1606 Nathaniel Baxter produced “Sir Philip Sidney
Ouránia”, wherein he salutes Susan, Oxford's Daughter, the wife of Philip Earl
of Montgomery, as “the first of Cynthia's ladies”, thus:
“The first was Vera, daughter to an Earl,
Whilom a paragon of mickle mightier
And worthily he's termed Albion's Pearl…..
Only some think he spent too much in vain (on .
. vanities, e.g. the stage)
That was his fault, but give his honour due,
Learned he was, just, affable and plain……
No traitor, but ever gratious and true
His learning made him honourable then
As trees their goodness by their fruits do show”
Page 52
In a poem to the Sidneys and Herbert families, the poet could go no further
towards mentioning the plays which were socially beneath these arriviste
families.8b
Page 201: Troilus and Cressida: last line of page: insert 12a
Page 202: Plays that would have been lost : delete I Henry VI
New last para: How far the first folio and the Registration dates assist
any play dating scheme order for the plays is problematic. Of the eighteen plays
listed in the previous paragraph, As You Like It was registered in 1600, and
Anthony and Cleopatra in 1608: but no quartos survive or are recorded. It is clear
that the folio Taming of The Shrew and King John did not need (or were thought
not to need) to be registered: the logical reason would be because they were
considered adaptations of the original work by the original author. King John is
particularly interesting because there is no record of an original registration for
its predecessor The Troublesome Reign (with its three quarto editions – see above
pages 138 and 182) – the giveaway being the almost total deletion of Essex’s
part in the Folio King John). I Henry VI was registered in 1623 notwithstanding
its clear connection with the 1600 quarto of that play. Taming of The Shrew’s
predecessor Taming of A Shrew was registered in 1594 with a quarto edition in
the same year.
Page 203: 1. The new Oxford Shakespeare (October 2016) would have us add
to the list of plays with a collaborative element:
I Henry VI jointly authored by Marlowe
Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well and Macbeth with portions by
Middleton. All’s Well That Ends Well for the reasons set out on page 83 is a
particularly ridiculous suggestion as a collaborative play;
Titus Andronicus with portions by Peele;
Sixty per cent of Edward III was written by Kyd, Middleton or Peele, who with
Marlowe and Wilkins need not detain us
2. quotation from Two Noble Kinsmen: add 19a
Page 204 : 3rd para : add after ‘silver Trent’ : (a direct lift from 1 Henry
IV , III, i, l.99)
Page 205 : Should there be a doubt that Jonson’s Epigram LVI is aimed at
Fletcher, note further that the immediately preceding extremely laudatory LV is
addressed to his collaborator Beaumont.
Page 206 : 1. new first para: Jan Cole makes a strong case for
the inclusion of a passage on an unnamed poet from Song 2 William Browne’s
Britannia’s Pastorals Vol II 1616, where the goddess Thetis swims up the
Thames to discover “a jocund crew of youthful swains” i.e. English Poets (all the
Page 53
others being named, and no reference to Shakespeare) – an idea that smacks of
Ronsard’s figment - see page 20 - the unnamed leader being superior to Orpheus,
completely overcoming Apollo and the other gods 22a.
2. Beaumont’s letter: a further portion of the letter is
interesting as it clearly shows Shakespeare the writer as dead (before Beaumont’s
own death in March 1616):
“….’tis to me
A help to write of nothing: and as free
As he whose text was1, god made all that
I mean to speak: what do you think of his
State, who hath now the last he could make
In white and orrenge tawny on his back
At Windsor2? Is not this man’s miseries more
Than a fallen sharer, that now keeps a door3.
Hath not his state almost as wretched been
As his, that is ordained to write the ginne
After the fawne and fleer should be4? As sure
Some one there is allotted to endure that Cross.”
1. free, /As he whose text was : he is dead
2. i.e. finally missed out on receiving the Garter (another point for the writing of
this poem soon after De Vere’s death in 1604). White or argent being the colour
of the star and orrenge tawny being the principal colour of the mantling in De
Vere’s coat of arms. Chambers (II p.226) tries to link this reference to the grant
of the Garter to German minor royalty in 1615, but otherwise cannot identify it.
Tawny brings to mind the reference to Nashe’s Epistle Dedicatory to Strange
News (see page 171)
3. this man can in the grammar of the poem only be a reference back to
Shakespeare. The fallen sharer could be a reference to an unknown sharer who
was unable to raise sufficient funds for the rebuilding of the Globe after the Henry
VIII performance fire. This would seem rather late when compared to the
references in the next note. Could it actually be a crack at William Shakespeare
who might have started his London career with just such a menial job?
4. Hath not his state almost as wretched been…past, he is now dead, as wretched
as one now employed to write the gin, i.e. the sequel after the two (no doubt,
considered terrible) plays The Fawne by Marston 1604-5 and Fleere by Sharpham
1606-7. These references would seem to date the poem close to 1607 rather than
the more usual date suggested by Chambers of 1615, by which time some more
modern terrible plays would have been produced.22b
Page 208 : add: Add this extract from The Ghost of Richard The Third (1614,
i.e. while William Shakespeare was still alive) by Christopher Brooke (d.1628) :
Page 54
“ To him that impt my fame with Clio’s quill; /“my fame” i.e. .
. that of Richard III
Whose magic raised me from Oblivion’s den;
That writ my story on the Muses’ Hill;
And with by actions dignified his pen: / acting ?
He that from Helicon sends many a rill; /dead, with the Muses
. on Mount Helicon
Whose nectared veins, are drunk by thirsty men: /plagiarists?
. Crowned be his style, with fame: his head, with bays;
And none detract, but gratulate his praise.” - - D2R
[“impt”: from falconry (used by Oxford - Richard II II, I, l.294), meaning
“supplied with new feathers” i.e. in “Clio’s quill”, i.e. the pen of Clio, the muse
of History].
Page 211 : 1. in para 2 : after “editor of the volume”, add 27a 3
And amend to read:
“prevent the project [the production of the 1623 folio] from being aborted for
overexposure of things they [Earls Pembroke and Montgomery] would wish
concealed.” Page 287 n.27a below.
2: New third paragraph: By
1622-3 when the First Folio publication enterprise was being planned the name
William Shakespeare was the obvious one for a cover for the actual author.
William had apparently left London for good in 1599/1600 (except for his
appearance in Silver Street – see page 257). He had disappeared off the cultural
radar, except as a name on the title pages of reprints and certain other productions
after 1604 when Oxford died (and the promoters would have known both the
exact circumstances, as well as exactly what they were putting across for
copyright and profit purposes), and personally, as his death passed wholly
unremarked in London in 1616. Over twenty years after that departure his
deficiencies would be only in the memory of a decreasing number of theatrical
savants, and the selection of the name might be thought (erroneously) to cause no
embarrassment and indeed to produce short term advantages.
Page 213 : Delete 3rd para and substitute: Some critics think there is
a link between Leonard Digges and his well-connected family, and William
Shakespeare. In 1574 Thomas Russell then aged 4 inherited the income of the
leasehold manor Alderminster (four miles South of Stratford) and he appears to
have gone to live there about 1600. He was still in receipt of the income in 1615.
Sometime in 1603/4 he appears to have married the very well connected Anne
Digges the widow of the great scientist and astronomer Thomas Digges, and
sometime later they went to live at her (again leasehold) manor at Rushock some
Page 55
25 miles from Stratford. There is no evidence that any of the family had any social
connection with William Shakespeare, but in 1616 William Shakespeare
appointed as overseer of his Will this Thomas Russell – one may think this is a
typical effort by a would-be social climber to associate himself with the highest
echelon in the area. Thomas Russell in effect became stepfather to Sir Dudley
Digges and the poet Leonard Digges: while Sir Dudley had already begun his
substantial career at Oxford by then, his younger brother Leonard might well have
been at home with his mother and stepfather until he too went to Oxford in 1603.
Pointon believes that the Thomas Russell of Rushock who
married (eventually) Anne Digges is a different Thomas from the one at
Alderminster. It hardly seems to matter to anti-Stratfordians as there could have
been only for a short time when there was any chance that William Shakespeare
might have known the young Digges as purported stepson of the Alderminster
Thomas Russell, and twenty four years Shakespeare’s junior. Anyway there was
bad blood between the two Digges brothers and their purported stepfather.
Nevertheless Wood (p.321), for one, fantasizes that Leonard’s older brother Sir
Dudley Digges, a member of the Council of the Virginia Company came to
Alderminster (where Thomas Russell probably no longer lived) and there told of
the Bermuda shipwreck to William Shakespeare, “a tale to set the imagination
afire” (Wood, p.321), and give birth to The Tempest, and incidentally ignoring all
questions (and sworn oaths) of investment confidentiality and secrecy. Leonard
Digges was certainly known to the “Incomparable Pair” of dedicatees of the 1623
folio, to whom he addressed his translation of a Spanish novel the previous year.
It is clear however from the 1623 quotation above that Leonard Digges well knew
that William Shaksper and “Shake-speare” were two very different people. Here
in 1632 he is writing to his Oxford College roommate Philip Washington (a
cousin to the great statesman of Charles I Thomas Wentworth Earl Strafford)
from Quinton, a village some three miles west of Alderminster where he was
staying with another university friend John Davies (not to be confused with any
other John Davies): “I could write you mad relations of the town of Stratford
where I was last week, but they are too tedious [irksome]…..” You would think
that the poet might have recorded any visit he might have made to the tomb of
the great William Shakespeare, but perhaps he had no wish to broadcast those
“mad relations” [idiot stories] circulating there: this reference is more likely to
the William-Shakespeare-poet-and-dramatist concoction in contrast to his
prefatory ode (reproduced on page 167) in the 1623 folio to the Memory of
William Shakespeare whom he never shall “believe or think thee dead”, whose
“Stratford moniment” (perhaps Digges was being ironic) will dissolve, but, “Here
[now, and in this volume i.e. the 1623 folio] we alive will view thee still”. See
page 287 n.33 below.
Page 214 : 1. add after The Faerie Queene : (The
Faerie Queene) : The 1596 edition also contains as part of an introduction
Spenser’s poem to Oxford written in very different tones from the other poems to
Page 56
members of the nobility and praising him for ‘the love which thou dost beare/ To
th’ Heliconian ymps, and they to thee’ : the ‘ymps’ being the servants of the nine
Muses residing on mount Helicon.)34a For Spenser’s reference to Oxford as
Aetion in Colin Clout Comes Home Again (1595) see amended note to page 226
below.
2. I should have looked at the Jonson quotation more
carefully;
“My Shakespeare, rise: I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a room….”
In this notional exercise there would have been no need to require Beaumont to
move to make a space, if William Shaksper were the fourth corpse to be buries
with the other three: they would have been in date order of death (1399, 1599,
1615 and 1616 respectively) but as Oxford is implied, Beaumont would have to
move to keep the dates in order (1399, 1599, 1604 and 1615)
3. add (after Basse quotation): From line 9 Basse’s
poem differs in tone:
“But if precedency in death doth bar
A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre….”
This would seem to mean that as the putative tomb cannot be opened to take
William Shakespeare in, then he cannot be admitted. He died on April 23rd 1616,
and Beaumont had died the previous year. The conditional “if” is unnecessary as
a clear fact is involved (Basse uses the present indicative “doth” - Chaucer,
Spenser and Beaumont were already dead before William Shakespeare), and, as
Peter Dickson has pointed out, it has to be Oxford’s death in 1604, precedent in
time to the creation of the putative joint tomb for the other three, that is the
potential conditional (“if…”) bar.
If the ‘precedency’ is intended to imply cultural superiority, then a metaphorical
element tells us that Shakespeare already has a ‘carved marble’ tomb, which he
possesses as ‘lord, not tenant’:
“That unto us or others it may be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee.”
i.e. the putative tomb has space for the reputations of later literary high-fliers,
who are more honoured by being laid by Shakespeare than in the ‘existing’
Chaucer/Spenser/ Beaumont tomb.
Again Basse’s cleverness in concealing yet revealing the true position matches
Jonson’s and the others’ in the Introductory poems to the 1623 folio.
Page 57
Swan of Avon: Avon is the old name for Hampton Court (and so an
essential piece of ‘orthodox’ evidence can be questioned).33a Consider from
Jonson’s 1623 Ode:
“Sweet swan of Avon! What a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James”
Which makes indifferent sense until it is realised that Jonson was satisfying the
promoters of the 1623 folio by apparently referring (almost as a joke) to the
Warwickshire Avon and its swan, and yet he could still put across Oxford’s works
and acting appearances which came to ‘our waters’, and ‘make those flights upon
the banks of Thames’ i.e. the performances of the plays at Whitehall and
occasionally at Hampton Court. It is probably tempting for an ‘orthodox’ scholar
to suggest that the word ‘yet’ means ‘at length’ (as if there were some transition
from the Warwickshire river Avon to ‘our waters’): the meaning is ‘then’; the
sighting occurred at the same time as the making of ‘those flights’ – the ‘swan’ is
a local Hampton Court bird.
Page 215 : In the third Jonson quotation there should be a row of dots after:
“He was not of an age, but for all time,”
and I should have gone on to put in before the dots at that point:
“And all the muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like Mercury to charm!”
Heward Wilkinson makes the point that Jonson clearly is saying that
‘Shakespeare’ is the first in time in English (‘prime’), as well as the best
(‘Apollo’). Then perhaps the ‘literalist’ element in me should also include:
“ ….. Look how the father’s face
Lives in his issue, ….. ”.
This obviously includes the literary productions but also perhaps the actual issue
(with disguised flattery to the actual issue or, more likely, a signal to later
interpreters), whereas there is no evidence that Jonson met either of William
Shakespeare’s daughters or his granddaughter.
Page 217 : 1. New first para. Sir William Davenant
in his In Remembrance of William Shakespeare 1637 write this ambiguous
tribute: it warns poets “not to tread / The banks of Avon”, for:
“The piteous river wept itself away,
Long since, alas, to such decay
Page 58
That reach the map and look
If you a river there can spy,
And for a river your mocked eye
Will find a shallow brook”
“shallow brook” refers to Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628), politician
and minor poet and writer of Seneca-type tragedies, and also Recorder (local
judge) of Stratford upon Avon 41a. Davenant was only too well acquainted with
Greville: he was his secretary for a short period in the 1620s
In 1639 Bancroft wrote his Epigrams: two are addressed to Shakespeare:
“Thy Muse’s sugared dainties seem to us
Like fam’d apples of old Tantalus:
For we (admiring) see and hear thy strains
But none I see or hear those sweets attains.” - - 118
Sugared , i.e. sweet, rich, high class: the adjective Meres and Davies use of the
Sonnets - see p.162N and page 19
“Thou hast so used thy pen or shook thy spear
That poets startle, not thy wit come near.” - - 119
2. Benson’s edition of the poems: as
Peter Dickson points out, Benson also wrote an Introductory Letter, which after
confirming the accuracy of the versions of the poems (a lie – all the first 126
Sonnets are addressed to The Earl of Southampton and are ‘heterosexualised’ by
Benson), gives out apparently another lie:
“They had not the fortune by reason of their infancy in his death, to have the due
accommodation of proportionable glory with the rest of his everliving works…”
While there were several editions of Venus and Adonis, the Sonnets had only the
one edition in 1609 (with the use of ‘everliving’ in the opening Dedication), and
Benson uses the same formula as Jonson (“he not having the fate……. to be
executor to his own writings” in the letter to the two Earls purportedly by
Hemmings and Condell). The Sonnets were in circulation seven years before
William Shakespeare’s death, and the other poems much longer, and cannot be
said to be in ‘infancy’ as far as the date of William Shakespeare’s death in 1616
is concerned, as Benson must have well known. This second lie hides a real truth:
the Sonnets could be said to be in “infancy” at Oxford’s death in 1604, having
then yet to be published. The real reason for the poems not receiving their
‘proportionable glory’ and being published with the 1623 folio is shown at page
209.
Page 59
This quotation from Sir Robert Naunton’s
Fragmenta Regalia of c.1630 (a study of twenty-two “servants of Queen
Elizabeth’s state and favour”) is clearly relevant to the disappearance of Oxford
from the literary scene:
“Modesty in me forbids defacement of men departed, whose posterity
[descendants] yet remaining enjoys the merit of their virtues and do still live in
their honour. And I had rather incur the censure of abruption [criticism for
omission], than to be conscious and taken in the manner of eruption, and of
trampling upon the graves of persons at rest, which living we durst not look in the
face, nor make our addresses to them otherwise than with due regard to their
honours and renown of their virtues.”
Translation: he was leant on/deemed it wise to leave Oxford out: my italicised
portion indicates the status of one (perhaps the only one) of the omitted
‘servants’43a.
. Then a new generation springs up with different
demands from and tastes in its theatre, and ignorant of its predecessors’ concerns.
This is reflected in Anthony Wood’s references44 in 1691 to Oxford, the most full
one being to “an excellent poet and Comedian as several matters of his
composition, which were made public, did shew, which I presume are now lost
or worn out.”
In the eighteenth century, Horace Walpole the
critic45 (1717-97) wrote, “The Earl of Oxford and Dorset (Buckhurst) struck out
new lights for drama without making the multitude laugh or weep at the ridiculous
representations of Scripture…we owe… to the latter two Taste – what do we not
owe to (Buckhurst); our historic plays are allowed to have been found on the
heroic narratives in the Mirrour for Magistrates; to that plan and the boldness of
Lord Buckhurst’s new scenes perhaps we owe Shakespeare…” Apart from some
references to Oxford the poet and some repeatings of his name taken from Meres
and Puttenham, the silence is complete.
There are two other ‘late’ references to Oxford:-
Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) quotes three poems of
Oxford’s, one anonymously, and another with a derogatory and inaccurate
comment.
Malone refers to Oxford (see p.226 note below)
However it may be simplistic or even plain wrong
to imply that it was only the deaths of Jonson and his contemporaries with the
closure of the theatres in 1642 which “buries Oxford as the concealed poet-
dramatist”. While Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria were avid fans of
Page 60
Shakespeare’s works, with the Queen there came over from France a strongly
neoclassical influence to the study of criticism generally with particular influence
on the tastes of the literati of the period (which in effect resurrected the 'orthodox'
perceptions of Castelvetro and Sidney as to the three unities in drama – see page
59 above): in addition the noble and wealthy exiles on the continent after 1642
were with their children subject to the same influences. French neoclassicists
insisted on the strictly ordered rules for poetry and drama: Shakespeare on the
other side of the fence was to be avoided 44a. Thus there arose, it may be
suggested, a climate in which the study of Shakespeare was not thought of value
to the student, and questions of his identity presumably even less so.
Furthermore, as one critic writes: “Indeed, the more one looks into it,
the clearer it becomes that the closing of the theatres by the Puritans in 1642 does
not mark any decisive break in the continuity of the English drama. It is true that
the restoration audience, especially at the beginning, was the most cliquish ever
to have patronized the English stage. ..… But the narrowing of the audience to an
upper class élite had gone a long way in the reign of the first King Charles. The
only important theatres left to be closed in 1642 were all 'private' theatres catering
to those who could afford a shilling or more for admission [i.e. the price of a
modest ballet ticket in today's terms]. The Elizabethan hey-day when the theatre
was a truly national pastime had long passed” 44aa. This change, and not just the
suppression of the theatres 1642-1660, was more likely principal in relegating the
memory of Oxford's contribution towards oblivion, as while Oxford's rôle might
be remembered by his class and education peers up to 1642, it would fade in the
perception of the middle class of literati. Indeed it may be that Oxford was
fortunate in writing for a predominately middle class audience, priced out by the
new Blackfriars Theatre after 1608 whose richer audience demanded more to its
taste
A further element be that anyone campaigning for the re-opening of
the theatres in the post-1642 era, as the producers of The Actors' Remonstrance
tried in 1643, would not be disposed to emphasise to the anti-Royalists the
Oxfordian leadership in the field of drama – so further suppressing his memory
(Waugh - correspondence).
As for William Shakespeare, he became “one of the Famous Poets of
these later times” (Dugdale’s manuscript comment on Shakespeare’s tomb in
Stratford Church in his notes for page 520 of his Antiquities of Warwickshire
1656), and, as the author “Shakespeare”, he was no longer seen as Jonson’s “the
Soul of the Age”.
Page 61
From the Restoration in 1660, Dryden, Rowe, Addison, Pope and
Johnson were to a greater or lesser extent fighting those establishment influences
from at first an outsider’s position: their final triumph comes with Garrick,
Malone and the Romantics. The author’s identity was in effect a casualty in that
war. At the same time the later seventeenth century poets Milton and Dryden
(being purveyors more of the concrete ‘common sense’ approach) were not
interested in the multilayering metaphysical investigations and effects sought and
achieved by Shakespeare and his immediate successors, which went out of
fashion44b.
So then Oxford is dead, and for three hundred years
his reputation is underground. Above ground are the innumerable artefacts of his
Revolution, waiting for literary archaeologists to rediscover and re-analyse.
…………………………………
Page 226 : Malone: 1. expanded third sentence: Perhaps
Malone realised the potential inanity of the exercise: at any rate unlike the modern
school of historical novelist biographers he did not (or perhaps find it in himself
to) indulge his imagination in baseless constructs about the life of William
Shakespeare: he could have tested his imaginative constructs and found them
non-productive or that there was no evidence to back them. Anyway Malone
entrusted the completion of the biographical work ……
2. new second para:
Note that the reference to Aetion comes after references to the 5th Earl of Derby
formerly Lord Strange, a patron of the poets (by 1595, when Spenser’s poem was
finally published, the reference takes on board Derby’s death). In line 18: a line
in the quotation is missed out:
“A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found” /nobler
Malone suggests that rather than put in Derby just before Aetion, Spenser would
have done better to include either Buckhurst or Oxford, “whose poetry has much
more elegance and vigour than that of Derby”. In Spenser’s system last but
effectively not least is the place of honour for the best living poet and, in
Malone’s clever (but, of course, subsequently ignored) interpretation, “Aetion”
is the Greek α-ηττιων ,“not the least” (Malone II pp.272-276). It must be strange
that if the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece as well as
dramatic poetry is not Aetion then William Shakespeare is apparently overlooked
by Spenser as late as 1595.
Page 227 : second para.: Schlegel appears to be the first to cast
doubt on the Malone misconception that the plays must be dated from 1590 on
(giving rise to the erroneous deduction that he would have had exemplars such as
Marlowe, Kydd, Peele and Greene)– see (new) page 139 above.
Page 62
Page 229 : new first para: While the earliest English doubter of Malone appears
to have been the forger John Payne Collier in 183875a., the palm should go to
Schlegel as quoted on pages 139-141 [as rewritten, above]
insert in first para line 8: “Freud himself was, above all, a literary critic (page
289 n. 76a below)”
Page 231: Afterword : second sentence amend part to read: “my target
is the failure of their [ i.e. modern literary critics’] biographical method,
especially when they apply it to try to justify the modern fads of collaboration
and stylometrics.”
Page 232 : Appendix A : delete from Table A: Palamon and Arcite 1594,
Harthacanute and Sir John Oldfield.
Add Common Conditions, Clyomon and Clamides, Marriage of Wit and Science,
Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, Locrine, and The Merry Devill of Edmonton.
Table B. The note on page 278 n.101 should be cross
referenced here as Penny McCarthy lists with persuasive argument some more
anonymous works and those by “RL”, “AW” “William Smith”, “Robert Chester”
and “Humphrey King”.
Theocritus; the shortened title of the translation is Sixe Idillia out of Theocritus.
Some authorities (including Nina Green) claim for Oxford:
200 Poosees 1564 (see page 15N)
Langham Letter 1575 (see page 25)
Leicester’s Commonwealth 1584: a vicious (and justified) diatribe on the
career and character of the Earl of Leicester; and
A Conference 1592: A discussion of the claims to succeed the Queen c. 1592
attributed to the Jesuit Robert Persons, it has recently been convincingly shown
by Nina Green to be the work of a non-Catholic English Nobleman resident in
England and full of Shakespearean usages.
Table C: alter entry for Apollo:
Apollo (Phoebus etc.) (Ronsard) (Marston) (Nashe) (Hall)(Browne) 19, 28,
173, 174, 206
Willoughby, His Avisa : Barboura Flues’ recent study puts forward
a solid case for Oxford being the author ([email protected] ).
Page 234 : Table F: Additions and amendments to Table F:
Oxford William
Page 63
appears as appears as
1. Oxford:
In 2 Henry IV (several) Williams
In Two Gentlemen of Verona Valentine Lance
2. other works:
In Every Man Out Of His Humour (Jonson) Puntarvolo Sogliardo/Sordido
In The Return From Parnassus (Part 2) “Shakespeare”
. . (deliberately
. confused)
In Virgedemarium IV (Hall) “crafty cuttle” “another’s .
. name”
In Verse Letter 1627 (Drayton) “Shakespeare” (ignored, even
. . though the
. father-in- law of
. his doctor)
.
In Diary (Manningham) William Shakspeare
In Guy of Warwick (passage by Jonson) Sparrow
In The Woman-Hater (Beaumont) the owner
. of a pair of sockless
. feet, heir apparent
. to a glover
In Poems (Lane) Batillus
In Rosicrucian pamphlet “hominem ad
. imponendum”
Add a Table G: a list of contemporary writers who (seem
to) identify Oxford and/or his pseudonym as a writer (in distinction from or
contrary to William Shakespeare):
Anton, Barnfield, Basse, Beaumont (see below at page 286 n.22a), Benson,
Bodenham (see below at page 285 n.4 - 2), Brome, C. Brooke (see above at page
208), W. Browne (see above at page 206), Bruno, Camden, Chapman, Chettle,
Covell (see below at page 285 n.4B), J. Davies, Sir J. Davies, L. Digges, Drayton,
Page 64
T. Edwards, Gascoigne, Gosson, Greene, Hall, T. Heywood (see below at page
283 n 36), G. Harvey, Holland, Howes (see below at page 288 n.39), ‘I.M.’,
Jonson, Lane, Lyly, Marston, Meres (see below at page 285 n.4 - 1), Nashe, H.
Peacham jnr, Riche, Ronsard, Scott (see above at page 198), Soothern,
Southwell, Spenser, Vicars, the Parnassus plays’ author(s), and the authors of
Guy of Warwick (see below at page 258 -1) the Ratseis Ghost pamphlet (see
page 163 - 2 above), and Sir Thomas Smythe’s Voyages and Entertainment in
Russia (see above at page 200)
[This list includes Jonson, Holland, Digges and ‘I.M.’ (who could be James
Mabbe or possibly John Marston) all the writers of letters and poetry at the front
of the 1623 folio. Although Hemmings and Condell are named as the writers of
the two letters, a substantial consensus thinks Ben Jonson wrote both.]
In a lower category the writers of dedications to Oxford referring to his writings
etc. might be included, e.g. Munday, Underdown. In addition non-writers such as
the printer Richard Field (see below page 283 n.38) and Gilbert Talbot would
know as well.
All (save the new additions) are listed in the Index, with the additions referenced
in the list.
Page 235 Appendix B : The conclusions of Tony Pointon’s book imply
that I was less than resolute in not laying more emphasis on the fact that William’s
real name and how he was always thought of in Stratford was William
SHAKSPER(E)(all spelling variants have no medial ‘e’): only when he comes to
London does the ‘ShakEspeare’ type spelling appear, perhaps to match the real
author’s pseudonym ‘Willy Shake-speare’. Perhaps Appendix B should be
entitled: WILLIAM SHAKSPERE : AN IRRELEVANT LIFE. See page 283
n.38 below. : Equally if the name “Will Shake-speare” connoted an obscenity (see
page 78), he might have been anxious to be sure that he was always known as
William Shaksper. For the purposes of APPENDIX B I refer to the man from
Stratford-upon-Avon as William Shaksper and where appropriate Oxford by his
apparent pen-name “Shakespeare”
Page 238 : add to first paragraph 10a
Page 239 : add to the list in the first para : contemporary medical
knowledge.
Page 244 : “divers of worthship….”: see note 29a
Page 247: line 2 : add 34a
Page 249 : Arden family: Some Shakspere biographers (e.g. Laoutaris
p.148) seek to show a relationship between the aristocratic Catholic Arden family
and Shakspere’s illiterate mother Mary – even Dethick the venal Garter King of
Page 65
Arms would not buy that contention. According to the Grant of Arms in 1596 to
John Shakespeare, he “married the daughter and one of the heirs of Robert Arden
of Wilmcoote”: no mention of the Catholic Arden Warwickshire gentry.
(Rubinstein)39a
Page 254 : 1.line 8: add: (after Rosencrantz’s exposé of William)
- page 293 n.56a below.
2. line 24: Gesta Grayorum records the (Lord
Chamberlain’s) players performing a Comedy of Errors at Gray’s Inn on
December 28th 1594 (Gilvary p.83), while the Admiral’s were before the Queen
at Greenwich on the same day (Henslow’s Diaries – Gurr p.293). This
performance was probably the first one by the Admiral’s at Court, and it could
not have been a performance of a Shakespeare play – see note to page 175 above.
The sum of the evidence is that by 1600 William had been
driven out or withdrawn permanently to Stratford: apart from the Mountjoy
episode (page 257) there is no further London record incontrovertibly referable
to him. There are two interesting pieces of supporting evidence from the canon:
A. From The Merry Wives of Windsor. There are two versions of this play: the Q
1601 and the 1623 Folio. The Folio has the farcical William Page education scene
(page 236-7), but Q omits the whole passage. Wells and Taylor 1998 demonstrate
that the two versions come from two separate intermediate sources, and so it
might well be the case that the Folio is taken from an earlier version and Q does
away with the scene as the object of it was by 1601 no longer around in London.
B. For the same reason, it is suggested, the only substantial passage which is cut
in Hamlet Q2 1604 from Q1 1602 is part of this speech against one-track comics
(perhaps Kemp?):
Hamlet to the players: “And then you have some again [actors who play clowns]
that keep one suit of jests, …….. and Gentlemen quotes his jests down in their
tables [commonplace books], before they come to the play, as thus; 'Cannot you
stay until I eat my porridge?' And 'You owe me a quarter's wages': And 'My coat
wants a cullison': And 'Your beer is sowre'……..”
which contains the apparent joke about the would-be man-about-town not having
a cullisen (the badge worn by servants on their suits), which seems near enough
to a cullion (or testicle) and appears (or is taken from) in Every Man Out Of His
Humour I, i., where Sogliardo regrets he does not have one ( “...and I'll give [my
men] coats, that's my humour: but I lack a cullisen.”). There is a similar reference
in the early play The Case Is Altered IV, iv (ll.147ff)
Page 66
In addition, it is notable that in the last
Parnassus play 1602 there is no reference to a Will Shaksper theatrical but: by
this date the point had disappeared – he had absented himself
3. Delete the last four lines and the
first ten lines of page 255. The Parnassus plays are dealt with at page 198N above
Page 256 : New first para: An amusing reference to
William’s theatrical career is found in Beaumont : The Woman Hater 1606:
Count (to his sister): “ I’ll tell what you shall see, you shall see many faces of
man making, for you will see very few as God left them: and behold, you will see
many legs; among the rest you behold one pair, the feet of which, were in times
past, sockless [i.e. not even up to being an actor], but are now through the change
of time (that alters all things) very strangely become the legs of a Knight and a
Courtier; another pair you shall see, that were heir apparent to a Glover, these
legs hope shortly to be honourable: when they pass by they will bow, and the
mouth to these legs, will seem to offer you some Courtship: it [will] swear, but
[it] will lye, hear it not.” -I, iii
It may be that Beaumont’s effort and Jonson’s
production of Every Man Out Of His Humour were part of a campaign in 1604/5
to keep William Shakespeare from even thinking of returning to live in London.
Page 258 : 1. Guy of Warwick: A commentator on this play
says there is no parallel for this scene in any other version of the story. There is
no plot requirement for it: “there is no particular reason within the play why the
Sparrow should think himself “high mounting lofty minded” or any particular
need to name Stratford-upon-Avon, unless there was some immediate allusion
intended, and it is hard to imagine what that might be unless (William)
Shakespeare were the subject.” The reference “seems altogether too pointed …to
be a random formulation.” Sparrows in contemporary literature are distinctly
noisy, low-class birds – in fact the scene is dragged in to make a point about
William and his social aspirations.
2. At the time of the preparation of the (apparently
unauthorised) printing of the Sonnets which appeared in May 1609, William was
trying to enforce the judgement he had obtained in respect of a debt of six pounds
–clearly the publication was not his concern.68a
3. delete third para – becomes fourth para on page 200
Page 259 : ERROR : end of first para delete last two sentences as
irrelevant. Nina Green kindly points out that the phrase “generosis defunctis”
only refers to Phillips and Pope, and not to “Wilhelmo Shakespeare”.
Page 67
Page 260: second para, second sentence, Purchase of New Place: add 74a
Page 261 : 1. add at end of first para: 78a. – see p.294 n.78a below.
2 new second paragraph: It seems
clear that after 1600 William steered well clear of London. Indeed one critic
confesses: “We cannot formally prove that Shakespeare was in London between
autumn 1604 and early summer 1612” 78a. It follows that residence at Stratford
upon Avon and collaboration between Shakespeare and other writers must be
mutually exclusive. Another ‘orthodox’ critic reviews the efforts at reconciliation
of these two mutually exclusive ideas and brands these efforts “highly
speculative” 78aa
3. Rewrite third (old second) para from “John Shakespeare
absented [from Church attendance] himself probably as a mark of his disapproval
of the non-Puritan tendencies of the priest (rather than the more usual suggestion
in fear of process of debt). Susanna, William’s daughter, likewise absented
herself in 1606, and subsequently married the Puritan Dr. Hall. William had the
right to be buried in the Church, which would not be available to anyone
suspected of Catholic tendencies. In effect the clear evidence of William’s
Protestantism, even Puritanism, buries irretrievably any connection with the
playwright, who throughout the plays and in the Sonnets demonstrates a
clear sympathy with England’s Catholic heritage and practices80.
Page 262 : 1. para 2. Error: see page 294 n.84a
2. Consider the Hollar engraving of the monument (with the
deceased behind a shop counter but without a pen) in Stratford upon Avon Church
(in Dugdale: The Antiquities of Warwickshire 1656 at p.523 and repeated in the
1730 edition at Vol II p.688, and effectively reproduced for Rowe’s Life of
Shakespeare 1709): either it is a reasonably correct representation of a local
merchant with no apparent cultural connection, or it is a forgery/caricature,
in which case the unanswerable questions are why was it made and what was
the purpose (? to point up the utter nonsense of the man as the nation’s cultural
icon). Neither scenario lends any credibility to the status of William Shakespeare
as such cultural icon.
The original drawing from which the engraving came is reproduced by Shahan
and Waugh (essay by Richard Whalen) p.137. :
3. There are a number of seventeenth century (post 1623)
references to William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon which are relied on
as evidence by ‘orthodox’ scholars. As Alexander Waugh has demonstrated these
are not impressive88a. See also my essay: “Seventeenth Century Biographical
References to Shakespeare”88b.
Page 68
CHAPTER NOTES :
Page 265 Introduction n.3 : An academic reviewer quotes my next
paragraph to the effect that the book demonstrates conclusively that by 1580 the
literary revolution had already happened; later on, “We are thus left gaping at the
protracted brilliance and secondary effects of a supernova that exploded before
our time and has since disappeared; at its centre today lies a black hole…”; and
“I don’t believe anything further needs to be written: for those who are open the
conclusion becomes self-evident” (Madigan). He then, as a Jesuit priest,
introduces me to Newman’s conception “illiative sense” which means that the
writer can only be that particular man, which he infers I have correctly [but
unconsciously] applied to Oxford as the principal mover of that literary
revolution.
n.6 add : Also Whetstone on the death of Sir Philip Sidney
(1586), who visited Italy in 1574:
“In Italy his youth was not beguiled,
By virtue he their vices did forbear
Of this bic-Speache [?] he evermore had care
An Englishman that is Italianate:
Doth lightly [likely?] prove a Devil incarnate.”
A direct cut at Oxford (Gerit Quealy - correspondence)
n. 8 : add: The realisation throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries up to Malone, and including Schegel and Coleridge into the
nineteenth century - see pages 139 and 280 n.129b - of Shakespeare’s priority in
time makes it extraordinary that anyone would prefer the modern Malone idea of
the dates of the first versions of the plays, and tolerate the theories of
collaboration and stylometrics which depend on that misconception - see also
page 288 n.53a below
n.9 : The theatre at Newington Butts produced three plays in
succession: Titus Andronicus, Hamlet and The Taming of A Shrew, all
anonymous, as was the custom in the listing: it is difficult to imagine that this
Hamlet was by a different author than that of the adjacent plays
n.17a: Diana Price’s account of her conversation with Wells -
Price 2016 p.330
Page 266 n.29 : Ellis p.12
Page 69
n.30 : Whitman: V. November Boughs 5 and 6
Page 266 Ch 1 n.15 : add: After the exposure of the Ridolfi plot 1571
the danger was even more apparent.
Page 267 Ch.2 n.5.: Essex and Warwickshire dialects: add:
Conversely Rosalind Barber (pp. 91-117) has completely demolished the
‘orthodox’ canard that the plays demonstrate a dialect connection to
Warwickshire and Goldstein has restated and fortified the Essex dialect argument.
n.6 : for residence at Ankerwicke : S.H. Hughes.
n.10 : Arthur Brooke: there is an epitaph by George
Turberville specifically referring to “Juliet” (Marcus - correspondence)
n.10oN: Richard Kennedy’s
revealing of the Poosees is a most valuable contribution. The dedication to
Leicester might be an effort by Oxford to butter up Leicester who was responsible
for a large part of his estates during his minority, or (at a later stage?) by Palmer
away from Oxford’s intense aversion to the powerful Leicester.
n.10a : Orlando Furioso and Wily Beguiled: Michael Le
Gassick makes out a case in his website for Oxford's authorship: they are not
included as a Lord Admiral's play in Henslowe's Diary, although a copy of the
1594 folio of Orlando Furioso has annotations by Alleyn (Gurr 2009 p.142).
Page 268 n.14 : add: autobiographical references; some might consider
curious that the many autobiographical references did not appear to attract notice
at the time. The answer would appear to be that such was the status and fear of
the power of aristocrats, no one would be seen raising their heads see pages 26,
173 (above) and 275 n.15. Report on “Shakespeare: From Rowe to Shapiro”
(Malim and Gilvary 2010)
n.20a: Researches by A.Waugh and J. Cole (correspondence)
n.21a: King Daryus and Nice Wanton: Richard Kennedy
correspondence
n.22a: Lucas d’Heere : Frederica van Dam
correspondence with Jan Cole
n.26 : again delete the reference to I Sir John Oldcastle
n.27a : Green July 1989 –reprised throughout her series of
Newsletters, especially August 1994
Page 269 n.30 : Because I favour the argument for Oxford being the
father of the 3rd Earl of Southampton, there was an effort in America to show that
Page 70
I am sympathetic to one or other of the “Prince Tudor” theories (and nothing
could be more inaccurate). There can be little doubt that had the birth of a bastard
to the Queen become public knowledge, the Queen would have forfeited most of
her political support both at home and abroad and probably lost her throne (even
if there was no particular anti-Catholic candidate to replace her) or been so
severely damaged as to be unable to support England’s friends abroad: to suggest
that she would entrust the bastard to an aristocratic rock-ribbed Catholic family,
representative of the one particular element of society that was her most powerful
opponent, must be, in historical terms, ludicrous.
I have tried to find out to whom the credit for the
explanation in my book (that Southampton was the child of an affair of Oxford’s
with the Countess of Southampton, wife of the 2nd Earl). I remember discussing
this version with the late Sir Ian McGeoch at a meeting of the De Vere Society at
Henley-on-Thames in September 2005, before he published his essay. Ron Hess
has a date of 2002 for his same argument. Earlier in January 2000 I corresponded
with Mark Anderson on the subject. Furthermore there is Sir Ian McGeoch’s own
letter in the DVSNL January 2001 p.18. Perhaps we all arrived at the same
(obvious) solution independently.
The likeness between the Countess of Southampton
and the third Earl is discussed with side-by-side portraits by Elizabeth Imlay, and
some see similar likeness between Oxford and the third Earl.
n.31a: Nelson p.119 recorded the existence of
these letters, but could not see his way to transcribing them or translating them
fully. This has now been done by Alexander Waugh
n.32a Derran Charlton –correspondence
n.38: Golding: add: Perhaps young Oxford has a
cut on his uncle Golding the nominal translator of Metamorphoses. Consider this
exchange from Thomas of Woodstock (plain-dressing uncle Thomas has come to
Court for the king’s wedding, expensively dressed and complaining bitterly):
King Richard: “I am glad you are grown so careless: now by my crown
I swear, good Uncles York and Lancaster,
When you this morning came to visit me
I did not know him in this strange attire.
How come this golden metamorphosis
From homespun housewifery? Speak good uncle!
I never saw you hatched and gilded thus.”
. - - I, iii, ll. 72-78
Page 71
- Hosking pp.32-3
Egan also argues that the play should be known as 1 Richard II. Thomas of
Woodstock was the name assigned on the discovery of the untitled manuscript to
distance it in authorship from Shakespeare’s Richard II as a piece of (someone
else’s) juvenilia.
n.41 : add: a lost version of Palamon and Arcite 1594 appears in
Henslowe’s Diaries of his control of the Admiral’s Company. Oxford and
William Shakespeare were not concerned, as the Admiral’s did not put on
“Shakespeare’s” plays. See the references at pages 31, 203 and 286 n.19.
n.47: For further evidence that Oxford is the author of
Thomas of Woodstock see (addition to) n.38 above
n.49 : Error: second sentence should be corrected to:-
Thomas of Woodstock’s fate may be compared to that of the Duke of Norfolk,
who was executed by Elizabeth in 1571 (see page 25). [They
were not directly related]
n.51a : A-L. Scoufos passim.
Page 270 n.54: add: (Leicester's 'epitaph') : Compare:
. “Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate”
- - Timon of Athens (v, v, l.75).
A version of the Leicester obituary is attributed to Raleigh
n.54a : Merkel: The Oxfordian
n.57 : add reference: Calendar of State Papers – Venetian viii
(1581-91) 182.
n.58a : Jimenez and Le Gassick - The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter
Vol 50 no.1. ; Green - March 1989. Her case for the authorship of The Puritan or
The Widow of Watling Street is not thought as strong –June 1989
n.64a : Professor May accepts from the list on pages 39 and 40
Poems nos. 1 to 11, 13, 14, 16 and 27 as Oxford’s, and suggests that no.15
(possibly by Dyer), no.17 (with Anne Vavasour), no. 18 and no.19 (possibly by
Churchyard) are doubtful. He rejects nos. 20 as being by Lyly; 21 (Fulke
Greville); 22 and 23 (Thomas Campion); and 25 (Queen Elizabeth). I do not have
his opinion on the remainder.
Errors: no.30 appears to be a duplicate of no.16. The second sentence of no.10
belongs to no.4.
Page 72
It is noticeable that May (an English literature professional) has a good deal more
respect for Oxford as a poet and for his intellectual attainments than many of his
critics, especially Nelson – see page 40. Green – September 1990
n.66a: Sobran: Sobran’s book is now supplemented by Gary
Goldstein’s book containing the essay : Is This Shakespeare’s Juvenilia? with the
generally high standard of appreciation of Oxford’s verse.
n.73a: Stritmatter Waugh and others -correspondence
Page 271 Ch.3 n.1 : add : The study of the sources of the plays and poems
is outside the scope of this book. To see an account of the hundreds of sources
apparently used by Oxford, some in languages not then translated into English,
and therefore read by him in their original language, please refer to B.Flues
website ([email protected] ). Then the Shakespeare Allusion Book draws attention
to the dozens of plagiarisations, borrowings etc during the period.
n. 7: add: The 'orthodox' position on Shakespeare's
knowledge of ancient Greek language and drama currently seems to be in a state
of disarray and is summarised by Earl Showerman in his introductory paragraphs
to his masterly A Midsummer Night's Dream – Shakespeare's Aristophanic
Comedy.
n.11 : Greek: note also Earl Showerman’s view – see note on
page 95 above.
n.12 : add : (on Theocritus translation), insert:
C.S. Lewis describes that anonymous translator as “a
sensitive and original metrist…..[two examples]….. Both modifications really
create new metres, whose possibilities have not even yet [1953] been fully
exploited” (ibid.)
At the World Shakespeare Conference in 2011 Professor Stanley Wells gave
backhanded credit to Andrew Werth and in effect Earl Showerman for their
studies of Greek sources in Shakespeare, acknowledging that the author must
have known Greek to a high degree of competence, as shown by his student-type
translations in Sonnets 153 and 154 (see page 185). Professor Wells did not reveal
how William Shakespeare might have been supplied with the original texts, and
was rather scornful of the suggestion that someone might have supplied him with
a translation. As for the plays, “some” (another weasel word) references are those
from those say-so ‘collaboration’ plays (see page 203 and note below) with the
insinuation that the collaborator supplied the translation, but Wells did not
identify these or those from the other, presumably ‘non-collaborative’ plays. But
only Timon of Athens of the eight plays in the note on page 203 gets a mention
by Werth as owing a debt to a then untranslated Greek source.
Page 73
add: It may be that Antonio is also a concealed convert as well
– see the inferences from Act I, iii : Graziani(o) is a noted Jewish name - Detobel
(correspondence)
n.13a : Hebrew: Cormican points out the superior use which
Shakespeare makes of Hebrew literature and its effect on the plays, as compared
to that by his contemporaries, indicating perhaps a greater familiarity with the
original texts.
n.18 : add : The general continental attitude to England and the
English (which no doubt Oxford was met with) is summed up by the Italian
(living in France) critic Scaliger (d. 1558) who is quoted by H.B. Charlton p.104:
“Angli, perfidi, inflati, feri, contemptores, stolidi, amentes, inertes, inhospitales,
immanes.” I forbear to translate.
Page 272 n.20a: Bariletto: This copy was sold at Sotheby’s New York
in November 2015. Thomas Berkeley was the son of a cousin of Oxford’s.
n.23 : the cross-reference should be to page 87 not 96. Add:
As evidence of Shakespeare’s aristocratic tastes, it is suggested that he preferred
music that required notation over music learned by ear (Price p.261).
n.24a : contemporary medicine – (Kail p.14). See also
F.Davis (2000) : In addition to his medical knowledge it is
suggested that Oxford would have had some knowledge of poisons. Modern
research has shown that it would be possible to introduce a poison into a sleeping
victim’s ear without waking him as in Hamlet. It cannot yet be established
Oxford relies on contemporary science rather than poetic licence
n.24b : Grillo, p.132.
n.26a : Prior.- : see Malim 2016. Perhaps the most compelling piece
of evidence for a visit by Oxford would be the reference to Antonio’s boat:
“A baubling vessel was he captain of /contemptible
For shallow draft and bulk unprizeable…”
- - Twelfth Night V, i, ll.51,52
Unprizeable: of no sale value to its conqueror
This seems to be clear evidence of an eye witness of the type of pirate boat as
opposed to the Venetians galleys which were its opponents: and unlikely to come
to Venice anyway.
n.28 : My essay on “The Bohemian Shore” can now be
found on the De Vere Society website under Archives - 2008
Page 74
n.28a: The Drummond Conversations have now been demonstrated
to be a work of fiction: Scottish nationalist propaganda from c. 1711 – Malim in
Brief Chronicles VI .
n.29a: Oxford’s access to the Doge’s Palace:
Research by Professor Delahoyde p.31. This picture hardly fits with the version
of Oxford which Nelson p.140 wishes us to digest
n.37 : add: By reading between the lines of Bruno’s Dialogue
IV, one can see that when it came to a discussion of Copernicus, the aristocratic
beer-loving scholar Torquato (Oxford) runs out a comfortable winner over Bruno
(Teofilo); which Bruno successfully conceals beneath a slab of verbiage and
insult. See also my essay “Torquatus and the Twisted Necklace”
Page 273 Ch 5 n.0: Ure p.64 in an essay on Senecan and
Elizabethan Tragedy. How the drama ceased to be ‘populist’ is explained at page
218N
n.1 : Buckhurst: there is even a small band who think Buckhurst,
the part-author of Gorboduc, wrote (parts of) Shakespeare.
Page 274 n.4 : Oxford’s possible involvement in The Theatre: according
to Ward (p. 353) Oxford sold 5 estates in 1576 presumably to pay off borrowings
incurred on his Italian expedition: he might also have then possibly raised the
£500 (say £300,000 or $450,000 today) loan to Burbage.
n.8 : delete the quotation from Taylor (now fully set out on page 70
above), but keep the reference (p.25). Professor Wiggins may be amending his
view in the light of his British Drama 1633-1642 A Catalogue referred to in
n.25N below
Professor Wiggins may be amending his view in the light of his British
Drama 1633-1642 A Catalogue referred to in n.25N below
Page 275 n.11: Hosking p.55 reminds me that I should have expanded this note
by adding Rosalind’s farewell to Jaques:
“Farewell Monsieur Traveller. Look you lisp and wear strange suits; disable all
the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost
chide God for making you that countenance you arte, or I will scarcely think you
have swam in a gondola.” - - IV, i, ll.31 - 35
(It must be difficult for a non-Oxfordian to make any sense of this passage, which
clearly is autobiographical with its gondola link)
n.13a : F. P. Wilson p.118.
Page 75
Page 275 Ch 6 n.o: The Arms of Biron are, without the mullet or star in the first
quarter, a mirror image of Oxford’s, which are rouge (red) first and fourth
quarters, or (gold) second and third (Jan Cole)
n.7: if “Will Shakespear” were an obscenity that would account
for the absence of its recorded use (except inside Harvey’s Latin - see page 78)
in full during Oxford’s lifetime: no doubt severe penalties (see page 275 n.15)
would have been visited on anyone lesser born who would use it. Oxford used it
for his own works and that is an argument for the suggestion that he is W.S., the
author of Willoughby His Avisa
n.9a : Chapman: my essay Oxford and Essex (DVSNL
submitted), building on pages 116-7 and 181-3 and the notes below, suggests that
Chapman became a convert from his outright eulogy of Essex/Achilles as in his
(bent) translation of Homer to the praise of Oxford in the quotation from the
Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois. From Chapman’s point of view there could be no
material gain in such praise of the long dead powerless Oxford, thus lending
authenticity to Chapman’s portrayal.
n.10: add: Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie 1589 Book 3
Chapter XXII has this interesting comment in a critique deploring Soothern's use
of French words: “Another of reasonable facility in translation finding certain
of the hymns of Pindarus and of Anacreon's odes, and other lyrics among the
Greeks, well translated by Rounsard [sic] the French poet and applied to the
honour of a great Prince in France, comes our minion and translated the same out
of French into English, and applieth them to the honour of a great noble man in
England (wherein I commend his [i.e. Soothern's] reverend mind and duty)….”
The French words Puttenham selects as so used are considered on page 135N.
above
n.12a: add : See also the note on All’s Well That Ends Well
(Malim 2016)
n. 13a: Warren Burdleson pointed out the second example
(correspondence).
n.25: 1. add: All scholars owe a
considerable debt to Professor Martin Wiggins who has now tabulated all the
recorded Elizabethan and Jacobean plays in his books. Of course as an ‘orthodox’
academic he gives no dates or attribution which would contradict the ‘orthodox’
Shakespeare mindset. He was caught by the example from Gager showing
Puttenham’s method of work – his ‘borrowings’ for examples in his Arte of
English Poesy (1589) both from Gager and then existing plays of Shakespeare
(Page 135N, and 124ff). I made the point to Professor Wiggins confessing
eventually I was an Oxfordian: his response is instructive:
Page 76
“Congratulations on the most successful ambush I have ever been caught by. ……
So it is interesting that you express an expectation that I will not have time to
engage with you in debate. Quite right I don’t. ….. Such a debate would be
futile, or at best a political act in which, as it happens, I have no interest…….
Your approach to me worked because you made a genuine discovery which has
implications for our understanding of the early circulation of Gager’s plays (or at
least one of them). I’m interested in this and won’t discount it simply because of
its origins and broader research context, but I am not going to be drawn into a
fruitless discussion of that research at large.”
I concluded:
“So Puttenham’s Shakespeare references must be either not from Shakespeare
and you will have to destroy every one severally: or from plays that were written
and performed so Puttenham could hear them prior to 1589. Then you have the
hard [i.e. impossible] task of proving your case that these examples are not
Shakespeare-related.”
Equally if none of them come from Shakespeare then the Oxford-wrote-
‘Shakespeare’ thesis is without examples of pre-1589 references in the canon
totally wrecked.
2. Love’s Labours Lost IV, i. 60-92 (Armado’s letter to
Jaquenetta), in derision I suggest of Arte, includes examples of Puttenham’s
figures, including Asyndeton, Synarithsmus, Anthypopora, Emphasis,
Parenthesis, Periergia and no doubt others if one had the energy and ingenuity to
track them down, and no doubt put in as part of Oxford’s war against
grammarians
Page 276 n.19a : “Masque not danced…” Chambers IV p.96.
n.20: Murderous Michael and Arden of Feversham: E.
T. Clark p.252ff first puts forward the connection with a wealth of historic
references and stylistic comparisons
n.27a: £1,000 annuity: The perception that the annuity was
for cultural purposes at least in part is borne out by a quotation from Chapman's
The Tragedy of Philip Chabot, Admiral of France. Although not printed until
1639, it bears signs of a similar date to Chapman's other French plays, i.e. 1605-
1615. The verbosely comic State Prosecutor tells us that:
“… the corruption [i.e. ruin] of one must conclude the generation [result in the
benefit] of another, though not always in the same profession…...the corruption
of an alderman may be the generation of a country justice, whose corrupt
Page 77
ignorance may beget a tumult: a tumult may beget a captain, and the corruption
of a captain may beget a gentleman-usher, and [that of] a gentleman-usher may
beget a lord, whose wit may beget a poet, and a poet may beget a thousand a
year; but nothing without [someone else's] corruption.” - - V
(correspondence – Michael Marcus)
n.29: Hecatompathia : with Geoffrey Eyre (p.53) I note that Edward
Arber (as well as Collier) over a century ago proposed Oxford as the person most
likely to have written the annotations. Also Waugh correspondence;
Dana Sutton translation (slightly amended)
n.31a Soothern puts the Countess's Four Epitaphs for her son at the end
of Pandora (see pages 81-82)
n.36a : Fox p.25
n.40a: Oxford actually leaves Sly alone on the stage at the close of
The Taming of the Shrew in charge of all the lord's riches – a clear allegory for
William Shakespeare's title to the canon. Oxford uses a similar device in Twelfth
Night to demonstrate his command of the politics of 'Illyria' by leaving the
privateer Antonio who has saved from danger both Sebastian and Orsino's
intended wife Viola unpardoned and ready for Orsino's justice and certain
execution -see addition to page 103 above
n. 41 : Clark p.121 also. Georges Lambin makes sense of the
reference to “four or five removes” (V, iii, l.133) from Marseilles to this
Rousillon, and lists them as Lançon, Avignon, Montelimar and Valence (review
by Sir John Russell in Shakespearean Authorship Review no.9, spring 1963 p.13.)
Other autobiographical matter is studied at page 83 and is considered at page 275
n.12aN (Malim 2016)
Page 277 n.42 : add: Waugh p.77
n.45 : topicalities in Love’s Labours Lost: add: Jan Cole
has turned up a fascinating reference to the Frenchman Denny (alias John
Soothern and a colleague of Oxford’s at Gads Hill and the writer of the encomium
in 1584– see pages 33 and 80) who was embedded as a spy in the Guise ultra-
Catholic faction at the Nerac peace negotiations in 1578-9, and reporting to the
English Ambassador in Paris
Honigmann 1995-8 pp.64ff identifies Ferdinando Lord Strange heir to
the Earl of Derby with Ferdinand King of Navarre: the easy familiarity of the
playwright with the noble characters is noted and indicates the familiarity and
admiration that De Vere apparently had for the Derby family: Ferdinando’s
brother later marries De Vere’s daughter Elizabeth. The King invites Rosaline to
dance:
Page 78
“Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change
Thou bid’st me beg: this begging is not strange. - V, ii, ll.208-9
And Honigmann notes that a Derby motto is “Sans changer ma
verité” was inscribed by Ferdinando on his portrait. Honigmann 1998 (p.78)
quotes Sir William Dugdale and the two epitaphs to Ferdinand’s uncle Sir
Thomas Stanley d. 1576 in Tong Church Shropshire both by “William
Shakespeare, the late famous tragedian” (The Baronage of England 1664) – see
page 45 (above).
Honigmann’s views on the chronology of the plays are dismissed by
Professor Gary Taylor. But Taylor seems to be unaware of how his own
arguments for ‘revisionism’ (the correct realisation that Shakespeare frequently
amended his original texts) destroys those collaboration and stylometric ideas
which he espouses (page 286 n.15 below). See Malim “Comment on Waugaman
and Taylor”. See also page 279 n.109 (below)
n.49 : For “Andrew” : Marjorie Bowen
n.58a: my essay Twelfth Night and Dubrovnik reviewing the evidence
for Oxford's putative visit to Dubrovnik BC 7
n.61a: Romeo and Juliet: N. Green correspondence
n.61b: Bonetti family arms: J. Cole correspond
n.65a: J. Cole DVSNL: October 2015
n.68: Sagittary: B.R. Saunders who points out that Saggiatore
means an assayer or trialist, and the word appears in Florio’s 1611 Dictionary
with this meaning (Alexander Waugh - correspondence). Roe pp.167ff is in error
with his suggested location
Page 278 n.82a : Reynaldo and Reymondo: this splendid connection is down to
Robert Detobel
n.88a: Macbeth: N. Green correspondence
n.89 : The name Cordelia clearly comes from Cordeilla in
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account in his Historia Regum Britanniae (c.1136).
n.95a : Chorus and dumb-show are distinctly old fashioned
ideas (to set the scene or explain and push the action along) and (certainly dumb-
show) dated by 1600. Chorus is found elsewhere in Shakespeare in Romeo and
Juliet and Troilus and Cressida, as Rumour in 2 Henry IV, Time in A Winter’s
Tale, Cupid in Timon of Athens, Prologue in the playlets in Hamlet and
Midsummer Night’s Dream and Gower in Pericles. De Somogyi pp. 5-16.
Page 79
While it appears that Henry V was written about 1584, the use of the parts
including the Chorus speeches to glorify Essex in 1599 would have riled Oxford
considerably (see pp. 181ff., 283 n.32 as amended below).
The next two lines of the speech on p.117 read in most modern texts:
“How many would the peaceful city quit
To welcome him! ….”
with a final exclamation mark; but the first three folios 1623, 1632 and 1664 all
put a question mark. Obviously at least for the first two the speech would still be
thought to the glory of Essex before his Irish débacle, and so the cunning editor
(Jonson, I suggest, with his loyalty to Oxford’s memory, see pages 204, 205, 206
and 211ff.) seems to insert a question mark to devalue the glory of Oxford’s bête
noir, repeated in 1664 (where by then the devaluation element of using a question
mark would be more evident). See on question marks generally page 288 n.43
below
n.101: Dr. Doddypoll: M. Le Gassick in his website and Charles
Graves make a very good case for Oxford's authorship: It is not included as a
Lord Admiral's play in Henslowe's Diary.
n.105a: Jan Cole who is a local inhabitant.
Page 279 n.109 : Love's Labours Lost: add: Honigmann 1998
p.68, realising the problem, attempts to square this circle with this feeble slither:
“Early in late 1592 or 1593 [when plague raged in London] Shakespeare might
well have been tempted to write an 'allusive' comedy with many 'in' jokes for a
largely [largely: 'weasel' word] private audience, deprived as he was of his public
audience in London. I do not mean that Love's Labours Lost was intended solely
for Lord Strange and his immediate circle, for that would not make economic
sense [my point conceded], but merely that the play's excessive freight of private
jokes intelligible to a modern reader is best accounted for in some such way. [my
italics]”
and then:
“Shakespeare leaves us in no doubt that he admires these courtiers, and, in so far
as the play as a whole adopts Berowne's 'point of view', that he is [my underlining]
or would like to be one of them; one could even say that the writing of the play
seeks to prove that he is [Honigmann's italics] one of them, displaying as it does
his 'inside' awareness of every kind of courtly formality and informality, and his
astonishing ease in this world.”
Page 80
The Oxfordian might inquire what the writer had to prove and why should not he
call the King Ferdinand after Ferdinando Lord Strange (which excites an amazed
comment from Honigmann at the writer's presumption). Honigmann seems to be
conceding that the play began life as an indoor play for private consumption (see
page 200 - amendment). See also p.274 n.45 – amendment.
A propos these comments, “Madness is in King Lear a philosophy, a conscious
crossing over to the position of the Clown [the Fool, the outsider, the writer].
Leszek Kolakowski writes:
'The Clown is he who, although moving in high society, is not part of it, and tells
unpleasant things to everybody in it: he, who disputes everything regarded as
evident….The Clown must stand aside and observe good society from outside, in
order to discover the non-evidence of evidence, the non-finality of finality. At the
same time he must move in good society in order to get to know its sacred cows,
and have occasion to tell unpleasant things……'” Kott pp.130-1.
n.110 : Quotations are from Gavin Alexander’s edition save where he
mentions the ‘figures’ only in Chapter headings where Rushton is relied on.
Alexander, an ‘orthodox’ critic does not pick on the ‘Shakespeare’ originations,
but includes Antimetabole , or the counter-change see page 131 [above].
n.111: add: I have now expanded my argument that Arte is
an essential dating tool for pre-1589 writings with an essay submitted for
publication, The Arte of English Poesie and Oxford
n.112a : 5. Atanaclasis or Rebound. As All’s Well That Ends Well
was not performed until 1741 (see page 83), perhaps the idea that young man or
maid married is soon marred passes for just common wit of the period.
n.113: “jet”: another example from Thomas of Woodstock:
“If thus I jet in pride, I shall lose” - - I, iii, l.109
n.114b: referenced by Richard Waugmann
n.116: delete and substitute : confirmed by no less an authority
than Martin Wiggins in correspondence. The full translation is by Professor
Dana Sutton of Irvine University of California. The assistance of Nina Green for
Soothern's Pandora is acknowledged.
n. 122a: J.Cole
Page 280 n.124a: King John and Troublesome Raigne – see Honigmann 1982
(p.78ff.) who writes: “Are we to suppose that Peele, Marlowe, Shakespeare and
others all pilfered phrases and ideas from T[roublesome] R[aigne], a play
strangely uncelebrated by its contemporaries if its impact was so widespread?
Such a hypothesis is inherently unlikely, and is not helped by the fact that Peele’s
Page 81
Arraignment was published in 1584. No; all the signs are that the author of TR
was the debtor”. While Gilvary suggests the date for writing might be as early as
1587 because of the Holinshed second edition 1587 references, it seems that if
that edition is in debt to Oxford – see page 118 - It is tortuous to imagine that the
author trawled so many works rather than that it was he who was the creditor to
all of them including the Holinshed second edition. – see the reference to Nashe
on borrowers from Oxford on page 169
n.127 : Clemen p.13
n.128 : id. p.193. Granville-Barker would agree with Dryden when he
writes of Love's Labour Lost: “We find in it Shakespeare the dramatist learning
his art. To students the most interesting about the play thing is the evidence of
this; of the trial and error, his discovery of fruitful soil and fruitless” (IV, p.2)
n.129 : id. p.197
n.129a : id. p.25
n.129b: H.B. Charlton pp.166,208,210
n.129c : Arthos p.170. It is not understood how anyone
can imagine that such influences and rationalisations are within the compass of
William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon
n.129d : id. p.290. add: An example of this “ constant
modification of ……. styles of expression” (led, as is argued, by Shakespeare at
an early period) is in the changes made to the conventional lament passages
exemplified in A Yorkshire Tragedy – see page 285 n.11 below
n.129e : Schlegel: Lectures on Dramatic Literature ii, p.252, quoted by
W. Hazlitt p.206 (and translation of the last sentence checked and verified for me
by Hanno Wember). Hazlitt on Schlegel on Shakespeare: “Certainly no writer
among ourselves [i.e. in English] has shown either the same admiration of his
genius, or the same philosophical acuteness in pointing out his characteristic
excellences.” (p. xiv)
We can ally him to Coleridge – see pages 226-7 where Coleridge suggests that
Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were written “many years earlier”
than their publication dates of 1593 and 1594.
n.129f: ibid.
n.129g: W.Hazlitt p.209
Page 280 n.134a: add: See note Page 290 n.73: Clemen p.290 backs the
view that it was the playwright's conscious initiative that caused the evolutionary
change.
Page 82
n.135 : To this argument (that Shakespeare’s plays were the product of
the Revolution which is dated to 1575-80) there can be no adequate ‘orthodox’
answer. Gary Alexander writes (Kindle version location 873): “Outlined in
Castelvetro’s 1570 edition of the Poetics, the unities [in drama, of time, place and
action] were recommended [a weasel word for the total denunciations employed
by Sidney of the non-unities plays already in existence by 1585] by Sidney and
acknowledged by subsequent by subsequent writers, but only came to dominate
critical discourse in the later seventeenth century under the influence of the more
rigorous French [see page 218 above]. For the committed neoclassical critic,
Shakespeare simply wouldn’t do, and only plays written strictly in accordance
with the unities were acceptable. When Shakespeare himself was writing [i.e. in
Alexander’s argument, 1590 on], the attitude to rules was more relaxed, and this
contributes to the distinctive and varied achievement of late sixteenth-century and
early seventeenth-century English literature [‘more relaxed’, ‘contributes' –
either a failure of perception or a clear attempt to water down the obvious impact
of the Revolution !].”
Alexander points out that Sidney was not printed until the 1590s, by which time
most of the Shakespeare oeuvre and that of Marlowe, Greene, Peel and Kidd as
well had also been written: it was those writings of Oxford pre 1586 which
attracted the ire of Sidney and caused the ‘relaxation’ of the rules. By the 1590s
the unities had very little influence on the plays then being written: Sidney’s
dramatic criticism may well have been viewed by then as hopelessly out of date
except to his dedicated admirers such as Fulke Greville and William Scott.
Alexander does not ask himself what were the process and time-line by which
his Stratfordian Shakespeare divorced himself from this Sidney-led
approach, and the ‘rules’ became ‘more relaxed’. Who influenced Marlowe,
Greene, Peele and Kidd, let alone Jonson and the other Jacobeans, to defy the
pressure and break away from them? One imagines these ideas must occur to the
critic and therefore he/she dodges them as too difficult for the “Shakespeare”
scenario. I have quoted Alexander on page 64; “The Renaissance achievement
had been sudden and substantial”, which cannot be fitted in with the quotation
above.
For the wider implications of the influences and rationalisations of Shakespeare’s
thought both as applied to Comedy as well as Tragedy see page 59 and 139 and
the notes on page 280 nn. 129e, f and g.
n.142 : For a reference to Marlowe writing after “Willi
Shakespeare” (which looks like a full version of Oxford’s pseudonym) see page
288 amended note 39 below
n.142a : By way of evidence of Marlowe’s habit of
borrowing, see below from Spenser (notwithstanding the respective printing dates
it is unlikely to have been the other way round)::
Page 83
“Like to an almond tree y-mounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At every little breath that under heaven is blowne”
. - - The Faerie Queene I, vii, 32-6
“Like to an almond tree y-mounted high
Upon the lofty and celestial mount
Of ever-green Selinus, quaintly deck’d
With blooms more white than Herycina’s brows,
And tender blossoms tremble every one
As every little breath through heaven is blown.”
. - - 2 Tamburlaine IV, iii, ll.119-124
- Hosking p.39
Page 281 n.153 : add: the third paragraph of the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV
contains an apology to the Cobham family and the extreme Protestant party
headed by Lady Russell; “for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this [Falstaff] is not
the man”: no doubt added by the players to turn away that party’s wrath.
n. 161: Hall’s reference can readily be tied to his
Labeo – see page 174N above
n.164a: Chiljan pp.254-7
n.165a : de Somogyi p.91
n.167: add: Indeed the only conspiracy theory relevant to the
authorship question is the one which suggests that it was necessary to 'square' the
“noble and incomparable” pair by resurrecting William Shakespeare to fit the
author of the 1623 folio to cancel out any reference to Oxford. Between 1600 and
1623 there was no cultural reference to William – presumably a figure almost
forgotten, along with the ridicule he attracted.
n.168: Gurr 1980 p.197
Page 281 Ch 7 n.0: Nelson however does quote at length (p.394) from Oxford's
letter July 1601 to Robert Cecil: “Although my bad success, in former suits to her
Majesty, have given me cause to bury my hopes, in the deep Abyss and bottom
of despair….”. Oxford would be unlikely to try and sell an untruth as to his mental
health to Cecil who would know the situation anyway
n.8a: Apis Lapis: “Idle bee”: Lapis has the connotation 'idle' (i.e.
perhaps 'non-productive' - see page 168) ,which seems slightly odd after the
Page 84
reference to “the most copious carminist of our time”. It might be a reference to
Oxford's depression. Again it might be a reference to the practice advocated by
Virgil's Georgics IV ll.284ff of killing a steer (or ox….) and sewing in a bee's
nest so that sweetness comes forth from the ox.: and possibly illustrated in 2
Henry IV:
“ 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
In the dead carrion.” – IV, iii, ll.79-80
This is a comment on Warwick's suggestion that past evils (Prince Hal's conduct)
are turned to present advantages (when he becomes king): possibly also a
comment by Oxford on his divorce from the Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1596
when the canon is left in the control of the Lord Chamberlain's Men – see pages
188N ff above
M. Apis Lapis is described by Harvey (Pierce's Supererogation 1593 - Grosart
edn. II p. 322) as one of Nashe's patrons so perhaps the name was quite widely
known as a description of Oxford
William Page is exhorted in the education scene in Merry Wives of Windsor to
remember 'Lapis' in his “prain” (IV, I, ll. 28-34). Latinists will think this third
declension word a trifle advanced for a Latin student who is scarcely the master
of hic. See page 236. (Correspondence: A. Waugh; J.Rollett; R. Detobel ; J.Cole
and others)
Page 282 n.11: For Oxford’s opinion of ‘Grammar Rules’, see page 124N above
n.13: add para: Robert Detobel points out that one can from inserted
passages in Love's Labours Lost identify Moth as Nashe, Don Armado as Harvey
and perhaps Holofernes as Puttenham the author of Arte of English Poesie.
n.13a : Nina Green’s transcription, but the actual reference and its
interpretation I owe to Robert Detobel. The references to “Phoebus” or Phoebus
Apollo are matched by Ronsard (pages 19-21), Marston (page 28) and Hall (page
174): and also associated by Harvey (page 78). For further references to Nashe
and his support of Oxford and his ideas, see pages 168ff.
n.13b : Labeo: Alexander Waugh identifies Labeo as another of the
suggested writers for whom Terence was the front, Quintus Fabius Labeo
n.14 : W. C.Hazlitt pp.146-7. Golden Ass : see Robert Detobel and K.
Ligon (2010, pp.160ff) 'Ass' in early Renaissance England did not connote
stupidity but rather possession of superfine male sexual organ, cf. Bottom in
Midsummer Night's Dream (Kott p.182)
Page 85
n.14a: Hall, Marston and Oxford : Kreiler website
Anonymous Shake-speare 3.5.2
n.15 : “understands not the least part of it”: delete ‘takes on board not
one word of it’, substituting ‘understands even the smallest reference’.
n.16a : Gurr passim. See also Dr. Jolly. While Henslowe's theatre
at The Rose was shut for plague in June 1594, he put on nine performances at
Newington Butts to the South of London including three recognisably
Shakespeare plays “andronicus”, “hamlet”, “the tamynge of A Shrowe”: all
presumably to stuffed in as his last chance to produce before the 'duopoly' came
into force.
n.18 : Lady Cullen: The owner tells me in correspondence
that the painting has been expertised and is not by Lely, but by Henri Gascar
(1635-1701).
n.20: add: Southampton was the object of a
campaign by Burghley and probably by his own mother to become engaged to
Oxford’s putative daughter Elizabeth (see page 82)
Page 283 n.22 : Clitophon and Leucippe: Compare the apparent treatment
of All’s Well That Ends Well – see page 83 (as amended) above.
n.23 : Sonnet 76: perhaps see also other E-VER mentions as
references to De Vere which attract derision without contrary explanation: All’s
Well That Ends Well I, i, l.3 (page 17), Marston (page 175) and Barnfield (see
page 285 n.4B below). see also page 84 (added above)
n.26 : add: Anti-Oxfordians have seized on the tin mining letters
as evidence of Oxford’s incompetence as a stylist so as to rule him out as the
author of “Shakespeare”. Their case was effectively demolished in advance by
Nina Green 1993
n.32 : add: It is not difficult to imagine Oxford’s agreement
in regard to Essex when one reads Everard Guilpin’s Satire V in his Skialethia or
Shadow of a Truth 1598:
“There comes one in a muffler of Cad’z beard,
Frowning as if he would make the world afeard,
With him a troupe all in gold-daubed suits,
Looking like Talbots, Percies and Montacutes,
As if their very countenances would swear,
The Spaniard should conclude a peace for fear;
A number of portraits show Essex with a great beard apparently grown during or
after the Cadiz expedition of 1596. Talbot is the hero of I Henry VI, Hotspur is
Henry Percy in I Henry IV, and Montacute or Montague appears as a brave
Page 86
character in 3 Henry VI, and the comparison of these men with Essex’s troupe
with Southampton one of them (mocked in The Return From Parnassus Part I –
see page 254 above) would excite Oxford’s derision, even so as the next two lines
might illustrate it :
“But bring them to the charge, then see the luck,
Though but a false fire, they their plumes will duck.
What marvel, since life's sweet……..”
Even after Essex’s execution, Oxford continues to attack his reputation and to
point a moral for Southampton. Roger Stritmatter points out the lines in Sonnet
125:
“Have I not seen dwellers in form and favour
Lose all and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?”
refer to the loss by Essex in the course of his fall at Court of his concession for
the import of sweet wines after all his effort in obtaining it in the first place.
Essex is reported as twitting Raleigh and Robert Cecil during his trial where
Oxford served as a juror, but after the sentence of death was pronounced Essex
said, “I am indifferent how I speed. I owe God a death.” (Neale p.374), repeating,
in the hearing of its author, 2 Henry IV, III, ii, l.231.– indicative of the author’s
sublime cast of mind - this spirited response of the miserable conscript Feeble.
n.32a: Essex’s great beard comes in for more derision in Marston
Satyre VI and also in IX (the passage identifiable with Oxford - ll.38 to 52):
The references to “Apes” and “Jack” as Essex
merit further consideration. In the first place the Satyre is contemporaneous with
Everard Guilpin’s (and it is to “E.G.” to whom Marston addresses Satyra Nova -
a coda to Satyre IX) whose own comparable Satyre V on Essex is quoted at page
283 n.32N - a dig at Essex and “his muffler of Cad’z beard”. Marston
apostrophises:
“Come down ye apes, or I will strip you quite,
Baring your bald tails to the people’s sight:
Ye mimic slaves, why are you percht so high ?
Down Jack an Apes from thy fained royalty.
What furred with beard, cas’d in a satin suit
Judicial Jack? How hast thou got repute
Page 87
Of a sound censure? O idiot times,
When gawdy monkeys mow o’er sprightly
O world of fools, when all men’s judgment set
And rests upon some mumping marmoset.” . . - - ll. 11 - 20
[the last lines apparently refer to Essex’s quite respectable poetry. As the rival
poet of Sonnets 78 et seq., his clique might well overpraise him to the rage of
Oxford and his friends – Guilpin, Jonson and Marston)
There follow a few more similar lines before Marston turns to Oxford in his guise
of sage Mutius (quoted on page 175) as Kreiler notes in Anonymous Shake-
speare website 3.5.2.
Then he turns back to Hall and Essex with his supporters:
“Then, Jack, troop among our gallants, kiss thy fist
And call them brothers.” - - ll.81, 82
These references to “Jack” are particularly useful when considering Oxford’s
rueful remark on the execution of Essex, as the Queen played her virginals;
“When jacks [wooden headpieces attached to the instrument’s keys] go up, heads
go down”
n.33 : John Rollett subsequently thought his cryptogram falsely based
on a web not invented until fairly recently: the coincidences must be enormous.
n.34a: “everliving poet”: the suggestion that Oxford devised the
dedication cryptogram to the Sonnets himself has received support from
Alexander Waugh (correspondence), who thinks may have written it after writing
Sonnet 107, when threatened by a serious illness. “Everliving” usually refers to
someone already dead: see the quotations from Barksted and Marston ( pages
200, 201); Ratseis Ghost (page 163N) and Sir Thomas Smythe's Voyage and
Entertainment in Russia (page 200N) and Beaumont (page 206N)
n.34b: Ward p.345 quotes the actual petition and Canon Rendall p.284
makes the link to Sonnet 114. I am indebted to Michael Preston for the reference
n.38 : Pointon p.151.
n.38a: F.T. Prince 1960 p.xxxv
n.38b: Richard Field was originally apprenticed to a printer in Blackfriars
at the age of eighteen in 1579 and as the printing premises was practically next
door to the theatre premises rented to Oxford in the 1580s, he becomes the
obvious/most convenient printer for Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
Page 88
He was carrying out a number of Government contracts as well at the same time.
(N. Green – correspondence). In 1594 he sold on his publishing rights and later
on joined the anti-Burbage petition against the public use of the Theatre premises
in 1596 (see pages 188N ff). Earlier in 1589 he had been the printer of
Puttenham's Arte with its praise of Oxford' poetry and Comedy and dedicated to
Burghley.
Page 284 n.43a : C. Laoutaris. The book is flawed so far as its account of Lady
Russell’s joust with the Lord Chamberlain’s men is concerned, in that it does not
distinguish between Shakespeare the author and Shakspere, and identifies the
joint-character solely with the interests of the acting Company. There is however
a related piece of evidence. In the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV in the last paragraph
“our humble author will continue the story with Sir John in it” (ll.25-6) i.e. in
Henry V, and yet we learn speedily in Henry V that Falstaff is dead. Rather than
let the Essex faction have the use of the character for their 1598 production (or,
knowing that the Cobham-allied faction would seek to 'ameliorate' it or squash
it), Oxford it would appear trumped them both by killing Falstaff off and kept the
use of the 'William Shakespeare' name away from any printed versions.
n.44a : Brazil pp.91-95 comments that while Meres identifies
William Shakespeare as the author of Romeo and Juliet, the folios of 1597 and
1599 leave it as an anonymous production: this fortifies the speculation that
Meres lifted a lid that was meant to be closed.
n.44b: Paul’s Boys and Blackfriars: Gurr 1980 p.49 and Appendix A
(List of Plays and where they were shown), which clearly shows Oxford’s second
generation successors cutting their dramatic teeth and getting experience in
writing for an indoor playhouse under Evans’ (and his successors’) regime at
Blackfriars 1599 on, before being taken on by the Burbages for the public theatre
at Blackfriars after 1608.
n.45a : The Passionate Pilgrim: on the strength of Heywood’s protest
on the publication of the second edition in 1612 at the inclusion of some of his
poems in the collection in that edition, the ‘orthodox’ claim that the reference is
to William Shakespeare, when clearly it is Oxford who makes the initial 1599
complaint on the inclusion of (versions of) Sonnets 138 and 144 and three
passages from Love’s Labours Lost (IV, ii, ll.106ff and iii, ll.57ff and 99ff.). The
printer did not produce this new second edition until well after Oxford’s death,
and not a word is heard from the living William Shakespeare on the subject (Price
p.131). As the reference is important to the ‘orthodox’ and Heywood’s use of
pronouns is tortuous, here is Heywood’s protest with comment with explanation
inserted in brackets :
“ Here likewise I must insert a manifest injury done me in that work, by taking
two Epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris [from Heywood’s work
Brytan’s Troye 1609], and printing them in a less volume, under the name of
another [“Shakespeare” i.e. Oxford], which might put the world in opinion that I
Page 89
might steal [might be the kind of person who would have stolen these poems]
from him [Oxford]; and he [Jaggard] to do himself right [make a profit and/or
perhaps recoup any loss which any early withdrawal of the 1599 edition might
have involved], hath published them [the two Epistles] in his [i.e. the pseudonym
“ William Shakespeare’s”] own name: but I must acknowledge my lines not
worthy [of] his patronage [Oxford’s authorship/ use of his pseudonym “William
Shakespeare”], under whom he [Jaggard] hath [originally in 1599] published
them, so the Author [capital A , Oxford] I know much offended with M. Jaggard
that altogether unknown to him [Oxford]) presumed [ i.e. dared] to make so bold
with his name [ i.e. the pseudonym “ William Shakespeare”].”
- - An Apology for Actors 1612, G4r-v.
The meaning becomes absolutely clear to reader of the present day if we put in
the word was, so that the phrase reads, “so that the Author I know was much
offended with M.Jaggard that presumed…… ”. Note also “I know”- of course
Heywood knew, and that without the Oxford element the passage is beyond
elucidation into sense.
Some ‘orthodox’ scholars also place evidential reliance on their case for the last
two lines of the following quotation from Heywood (He has been discussing the
propensity of Latin poets to acquire three names (e.g. Publius Virgilius Maro,
Publius Ovidius Naso etc.):
“Our modern Poets to that passe are driven,
Those names are curtal’d which they first had given;
And, as we wisht to have their memories drown’d
We scarcely can afford them halfe their sound…”
Here Heywood inserts a list of some ten poets, each with their truncated first
names Robin Greene, Kit Marlowe, etc : no.7 is:
“Mellifluous Shake-speare (sic, with hyphen), whose inchanting Quill
Commanded Mirth or passion, was but Will…”
Hierarchie of The Blessed Angels…. 1635 p.206
These lines are approaching drivel: what does “we wisht to have their memories
drown’d” refer to? However Heywood does set out Oxford’s pseudonym “Will
Shake-speare” accurately enough, and that is the passage’s evidential value.
n.53a : Macbeth repugnant to James I: H. Wember p. 31ff.
n.54: add: I think that The Tempest was a source for Strachey's letter
which bears the marks of a literary concoction rather than a factual account
n.56: add: Montaigne seems to have been a particular favourite of
Oxford's: his Essays are cited in study notes for King Lear, Timon of Athens and
Hamlet (Eyre p.88)
Page 90
Page 285 Ch 8 n.1a: Southwell and Oxford: I have submitted an
essay for publication to the editor of the De Vere Newsletter with the full evidence
and conclusions from it (with comment on the pathetic ‘orthodox’ effort to
identify Southwell’s “W.S.” with William Shakespeare). Robert Detobel believes
that Shakespeare’s reply to Southwell’s plea for religious emphasis is answered
in Sonnet 105 (correspondence) .
. n.2 : Stratfordians will no doubt have an answer to Matthew
Cossolotto’s point: Why was there no poem from William Shakespeare on the
death of Henry Prince of Wales in 1612, when there were 32 such eulogies from
other poets? Why also was there no poem of criticism for that failure? Why was
the treatment of the poet different in 1612 from 1603? (see page 290 n.1 below)
n. 3 : For some ‘orthodox’ commentators (notably Kathman
in his Essay in Wells and Edmondson), Weever provides a strong piece of
evidence that William Shakespeare was recognised as “the famous poet”. In
Weever’s manuscript notes on Church monuments there is incorporated others by
a later researcher (on paper with a Commonwealth type watermark) for the
diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, which incorporated the north part of
Warwickshire. Within them there is a description of the inscriptions in Stratford
upon Avon Church which is in the southern part of Warwickshire then in the
Worcester diocese with a marginal note linking the Shakespeare monument with
“Willm Shakspeare the famous poet”. Unfortunately J. P. Collier, the infamous
Shakespeare forger had access to the original manuscript notes and the document
as incorporated and amended has all the marks of his attentions: it may be safely
discounted, (Conversation with Alexander Waugh), along with the possibility
that it was the product of the notes from an anonymous researcher a decade or
two after Weever (to fall in with the Commonwealth paper watermark).
See also and contrast the quotation at page 288 n.
38 -2 below.
n.4a : Bodenham: Brian Macdonald (correspondence) and see
Anderson p.329, and Waugh 2016
n.4b : W. J. Ray (correspondence) see page 283 n.23 above. :
Bodenham: Waugh 2016. It is significant that the passage did not appear in
subsequent editions (J. McGrath)
n.4c : Alexander Waugh : London Sunday Times 13th October 2013
p.17 The Parnassus plays are discussed by Price (p.81) who suggests Gullio is
William Shakespeare, while Strittmatter and Mark Johnson (an ‘orthodox’
partisan) favour Southampton and I think more convincing. They are
strengthened in their view by the absence of any mention of a similar character
in the third play dated to 1601-2, which suggests that Southampton’s involvement
with Essex’s attempted putsch in 1601 was a subject to be avoided
While I also thought Gullio might be a caricature of William Shakespeare. I am
Page 91
convinced by Roger Stritmatter and Mark Johnson (correspondence) that the
object of the caricature is Southampton and that the Parnassus plays have much
less relevance: but see the glaring reference at Return From Parnassus part I at
page 198N above.
n.4d : Scott: British Museum : Add MS 81083 (1593 – 1603). Gavin
Alexander is the editor of the now published version. R. Kennedy
(correspondence)
n.7a : English Ovid: Jan Cole correspondence. See Scott above (note
4d and page 198 as amended above ).
n.7b: Cecil's letter quoted on page 258 is further evidence of the
existence of plays for indoor premises, and of the non-availability / irrelevance
of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon
n.8b: Baxter's poem (Nelson, p.430 as “the nearest approximation to a
printed eulogy”) noted by Jan Cole. Baxter also is Nelson's source for the
allegation that Oxford contracted syphilis in Venice ( p.138: “Hopping Helena
with her warbling sting”), which the very references in Baxter make quite beyond
any support.
n.11 : insert as new penultimate sentence: A Yorkshire Tragedy:
since this play has attracted recent critical attention, it is worth revisiting Nina
Green’s case for a much earlier date than 1608. There are ‘orthodox’ critics who
think it was by William Shakespeare (which if the 1608 date was correct would
rule out Oxford’s claim to have written it) and the Oxford case is that was written
by Oxford at a much earlier date.
The dating point is the easier to resolve and it was well dealt with by Nina Green
(Edward De Vere Newsletter – November 1990). It turns on the Examination of
Calverley (the murdering father) by a local magistrate on 24th April 1605, the day
after the murders. Calverley admits the murder which he says he had been
contemplating for the past two years, because his wife had indicated many times
that the children were not his.
The play is said to be founded on a pamphlet issued in 1605 entitled Two
Unnatural Murders. This places a large part of the causes of the murders on
Calverley’s excessive gambling which had brought ruination to the family, his
drinking and vicious temper. In this it matches the play, but there is no evidence
in the Examination of any of these factors and Nina Green correctly establishes
that the pamphlet is just a dolled-up version of the play. The pamphlet contains
reports of conversations between the husband and his wife, which would have
been entirely private: the pamphlet is a literary invention based on the much older
play spliced on to the actual events of the 1605 murders.
There will be arguments as to whether the language in the play is (sufficiently)
Oxfordian to be by him, since it does not have the benefit of any rewriting
Page 92
passages (like e.g. Arden of Feversham), and I am not competent to make a
judgment, save that I would expect to find it numbered with the other plays I refer
to on pages 139-141 (as rewritten above). Clemen (p.285), after drawing
attention of the early dramatic conventional lament passages with examples from
Gorboduc, Locrine, The Spanish Tragedy and others, shows the convention was
changing in such plays as King Leir and His Three Daughters, Thomas of
Woodstock and some of Marlowe to a ‘review of the situation’ form. This type
appears in four occasions in A Yorkshire Tragedy, II, ll. 1-25; III, ll.81-98; IV, ll.
56-81 and VIII, ll. 36-47. From the last this passage would appear to me to be
‘early Shakespearean’:-
[The corpses of the children are laid out before the husband as he goes to his
execution]
“Oh, were it lawful that your pretty souls1 Might look from heaven into your father’s eyes’2
Then would you see the penitent glasses3 melt
And both your murders shoot upon my cheeks.
But you are playing in the angels’ laps
And will not look on me - - viii, ll. 36 – 41
1. “pretty souls”: cf. Midsummer Night’s Dream II, ii, l.82
2. Direct contradiction of the Examination as to the paternity of the children.
3. “glass” for eye-ball – examples in Richard II (I, iii, l.201) and Coriolanus
(III, ii, l.117).
In support of Oxfordian authorship there is the swipe at the wife-murdering Earl
of Leicester reproduced in the play at v, ll, 13,14, which no other playwright
would dare to refer to - see page 34.
Page 286 n.12 : add: While Robert Detobel believes
the Preface to Q2 was written by Jonson, Alexander Waugh and Allan Shickman
suggest that Oxford wrote the appeal at the beginning of Troilus and Cressida
himself at a time when he thought his death near (he was very ill in 1595), which
accounts for the phrase about ‘scrambling’ for it after his death. He points out
that the Stationers’ Register enters it for 1603 and says it had already been
performed, so it had been “clapper clawed with the palm of the vulgar”, i.e.
produced publicly prior to that date. In addition his comedies “seem to be born in
that sea that brought forth Venus”, a clear reference to Venus and Adonis whose
author was printed as “William Shakespeare” (Waugh suggests that Oxford was
preparing the play for an anonymous printing perhaps before 1598). (Waugh:
correspondence). The reference to “grand possessors” would therefore seem to
be to those interested in Oxford’s estate including the plays etc. after his death,
rather the contemporary censors.
The author uses “clapper-claw(ing)” at Troilus and Cressida V, iv, l.1.
Page 93
Henslowe also records the performance of a play of the same name by Dekker
and Chettle in April 1599: this is sent up in Marston’s Histriomastix 1600 (see
page 163 above).
Compare with the case for Oxford’s own authorship of the Dedications to Venus
and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, as well to the 1609 edition to the Sonnets
(page 184).
n.15 : add: With the publication of the New Oxford Shakespeare
in October 2016 some (but not all) elements of ‘orthodox’ scholarship have now
pinned their colours to the mast of stylometrics and collaboration – possibly it is
now realised that the original contention that Shakespeare wrote, virtually solely,
after 1589 all the plays can no longer be relied on. Now ‘evidence’ of
collaboration between Shakespeare and a living contemporary is adduced for
seventeen of forty four plays. While Meres in 1598 named twenty two
contemporary authors, none of the other twenty one have any contact, in writing
or reported, with Shakespeare. The stylometric element relies on as a basis the
idea that the bulk of a particular play was all written as a one-off and/or at one
finite time after 1589, not taking on board the clear constant revision by the author
element (see pages 37ff, 122, 135, 284 n.44) nor the John Middleton Murry view
discussed on p.290 n.77. Any suggested dates prior to 1589 for the original
version of each play can now be ignored by them, and, with them the inference
that the style examples from these original versions may well have been adopted
into the works of much younger writers, so that modern critics can now be happy
to be misled into collaboration misappreciation. However their defective
judgment makes not the slightest difference to the contention that the first
versions of many of the plays were in fact written in the 1580s or earlier.
The whole house of cards instantly collapses when we see the second basic error,
which denies the rôle of Shakespeare as the leader in time and exemplar (and not
the imitator, successor or contemporary) which all critics up to and including
Malone whether directly or by inference admitted.
We are asked to accept the measurements adduced by the bean-counting
academics and their computers: the problem is that the computers are fed with
incomplete data or data skewed to produce the ‘right’ answer which these
academics wish to put forward.
No contemporary ever suggested that there was more than one writer of any of
Shakespeare’s plays before Two Noble Kinsmen (if that play is to be considered
for the canon) in 1634, certainly not Jonson (let alone Hemmings and Condell),
in the 1623 First Folio (Green and Cossolotto - correspondence)
Professor Gary Taylor is one of the principal editors of this new compilation. He
has obviously forgotten what he originally wrote by way of corroboration and
Page 94
total destruction of the one-off and closure basis of stylometrics and with it
collaboration theory (pp.359, 361):
“Revisionism insists that texts are made; they become – they do not flash into
instantaneously into perfect and unalterable being. Over a certain period an author
makes a text; during a later period, in response to internal and external stimuli,
the author remakes the same text and the revised text results from a kind of
posthumous collaboration between a deceased younger self and a living older
self.”
And
“……. fewer and fewer critics believe in closure. Shakespeare may at some time
have closed the book; but he could open it whenever he wanted. There is no Last
Judgment anymore.”
n.19a: add: The reference to the deceased 'twin' may have been
put in by Jonson at a late stage (after Fletcher's death in 1625?) to make a
deliberate debasing link to the bogus author of the 1623 folio
n.21 : add; It is clear that Conversations is a work of fiction –
see my essay (Ben Jonson and the Drummond Informations And Why It Matters
To Oxfordians –DVSNL November 2012). Without it, a clearer picture emerges
of Jonson’s view of Oxford as the real writer of ‘Shakespeare’, more readily
contrasting it with the vicious denunciation of William Shakespeare as Sogliardo
and Sordido in Every Man Out Of His Humour. Conversations makes a clear error
in making Jonson ascribe The Faithful Shepherdess to Beaumont and Fletcher
jointly, when less than ten years earlier he wrote his sympathetic verse to Fletcher:
furthermore, in 1616 Jonson published his Epigrams containing Epigram LV an
encomium to Beaumont immediately followed by LVI a denunciation of Fletcher,
the “Poor poet ape…” (see page 205)
n.21A: My essay Ben Jonson and the Drummond 'Informations':
Why It Matters now appears in Brief Chronicles VI
n.22a : Cole : DVSNL January 2014 pp.20-24
n.22b : It is fair to add that there must be some doubt over the poem’s
authorship as Alexander Waugh for one thinks it poor stuff for Beaumont
(correspondence). If it were early less accomplished Beaumont then this would
be in keeping with an early 1606-7 date.
Another reference comes from Edward Howes - see page 288 n.39 1 below
n.25 : It is a matter of comment neither Bate nor Shapiro p.255
nor Honan p.204 chose to give the full manuscript quotation from the title page
of George A’ Green, The Pinner Of Wakefield, which reads “Written by
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………… a minister [sic], who ac[ted] the pinners part himself. Teste W.
Shakespe[re]. (then on a new line). Ed Juby saith the play was made by Ro.
Gree[ne]”. Edward Juby was a long-serving member of the Admiral’s players
from 1594 to his death in 1618, and as such a reliable source. Juby (who was one
of the original Shareholders in the Admiral’s Company in 1594 – Gurr, p.33 - ,
and therefore an actor with a prior track record) had been on the scene in Greene’s
lifetime: Greene died in 1592 before there is any evidence that William
Shakespeare had even come to London. Buck may have suspected that his leg
was being pulled by “Shakespeare” over the matter of a minister (of religion)
both writing and acting in a play, and checked his ‘testis’ (witness) by consulting
Juby.
The inclusion of the second sentence omitted by the three authorities does further
damage to one of the principal pieces of evidence for the cultural standing of
William Shakespeare, who would hardly dare to mislead the well-connected
Buck, especially after he became deputy Master of the Revels in 1606. Bate
concludes his review of the first manuscript sentence: “This is hard evidence that
(William) Shakespeare was known to be a central figure in the London theatre
world, intimately acquainted with the dramatic repertoire.” Bate goes on: “It is
inconceivable that Buc would have sought out (William) Shakespeare for
information concerning authorship had he been the mere bit-player of the
Oxfordian fantasy.” (nearly right, Professor – save that the probabilities are that
William Shakespeare was not present in London at the time and did not do any
serious (or even “bit-”) acting at any stage.)
Page 287 n.27a : 1. Jonson as editor : An interesting ‘orthodox’ comment
gives Jonson’s game away : “the prefatory material gathered to open the First
Folio…. acts in a completely contrary way to anonymize the author of the
plays” (Holderness p.184)
2. An article by the late Ruth Loyd Miller in 1988
(which I am unable to reference since I only have an unreferenced phostat) draws
attention to that there is in the Chetham Library in Manchester a three volume
copy of Henricus Stephanus’ translation into Latin of Plato’s Complete Works
1578 inscribed in Latin probably by Jonson himself: “I [i.e. the books] belong to
Ben Jonson , the gift of the most generous and noble hero Henry Earl of Oxford.”
It is probable that these very valuable volumes were originally in the ownership
of his father and given by Henry in gratitude for Jonson’s rôle in the production
of the 1623 folio or (more likely in the time scale) by way of encouragement
towards the production of the First Folio.
3. For a tiny dot of evidence of Jonson’s editorship of the
1623 folio, we can consider this reference in the Second Part of Return from
Parnassus:
Page 96
“O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace [Jonson himself]
giving the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that
made him bewray his credit.”
Scholars have tried endlessly to find a specific passage in Shakespeare to identify
with this passage without success. If however Jonson was the editor of the 1623
folio, he might have exercised his editorial prerogative and deleted the reference,
and this does seem the most likely scenario.
n.31 : Pointon p.91
n.32 : Spenser: The Faerie Queen II ix l.59
n.33 : add: 1. See Hotson p. 251. The ‘link’ between Russell,
Digges and William Shakespeare becomes to Wood (pp. 321, 326) “an attractive
speculation” which slides into fact in the hands of a modern ‘biographer’: Hotson
(a writer of “genuine exuberance” – Schoenbaum p.747, but his actual research
seems reliable enough) cannot find anything specific to link Digges and William
Shakespeare nor to evidence the “great friendship” between Russell and him,
which Hotson trumpets exhaustively in his book. Pointon (p.91ff) suggests that
there were two different Thomas Russells, but even if correct it does not seem to
matter much (see page 213 amendment above).
2. “…mad relations” – British Museum Mss Lansdowne
841 ff 29,30:
3. John Davies of Quinton, Leonard Digges’ host in 1632, was
a patient of Dr. John Hall, William Shakespeare’s son-in-law, and yet no
connection or disconnection let alone identification was made between the
Stratford man and the playwright by Digges the writer of one of the Prologue
poems
n.33a: “sweet Swan of Avon”: Alexander Waugh (Shakespeare In
Court location 1350 recites the evidence) points out that the antiquarian Leyland
a hundred years earlier maintained not necessarily correctly that the old name for
Hampton Court was “Avon”, which makes more sense with the reference to
“Thames”. Leyland’s view was accepted right or wrong and repeated in the
interim period as Waugh shows.
n.33A: add: Lt. Hammond in 1634 records his inspection of
the monument in the Church and takes on board/swallows the “mad relations”
castigated by Digges.
n.34: add: Jolly p.66ff compares Jonson’s apparently imitative
practices in his revision of Every Man In His Humour for his 1616 Works with
that of Oxford in revising Hamlet Q2 from Q1 in 1603-4 with the implication that
Page 97
in both cases the much longer version was prepared for a reading public than a
theatre audience. Dr. Jolly quotes a complaint from Heywood to that effect.
n.34a: A critic of Ignoto's lines 17 and 18 comments, “The writer
has hardly set forth any praise at all, but in hailing the poet's workmanship and
not his poem, he follows the principle set out in Stanza two and avoids the
suggestion of 'secret doubt'.” (Ty Buckman in Erikson p.25
n.35 : Date of Basse’s poem: the poem first appears in Donne’s
poems of 1633, although there are undated manuscripts which might be earlier.
There is nothing to suggest that it might have been written immediately after
William Shakespeare’s death; the 1640 heading “On the death of William
Shakespeare who died in April 1616” seems a hamfisted, but naive, (again there
is no need for a conspiracy theory) editorial effort to link the poem to William
Shakespeare (as opposed to the real author): presumably necessary to squelch the
effect of the Benson question marks –see page 288 n.43 as amended. Basse names
Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont: Jonson’s influence is evident again, there is (to
be) no space for Fletcher (see pp.203ff and 214 above).
Page 288 n.38 : Vicars: Vicar’s Latin confirmation that
“Shake-speare” was a pseudonym contradicts the suggestion that any member of
the London culture set was likely to be gulled into thinking that William
Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon was any sort of author.
n.38a : My feeble joke about “Shakespurius” on page 216 had been
capped over four hundred years earlier by John Weever in his Epigrams 1598. In
his Fourth Week: Epigram 11 he writes:-
“But thy bald rimes of Venus favour so
That I dare swear thou dost all Venus know.”
The heading reads “In Spurium quendam scriptorem”: ‘Against a writer, one
Spurius’.
n.39 : 1. In contrast, Edmund Howes in editing Stow’s Annals in
1615 writes:
“….according to their [i.e. “our modern and … excellent poets’”] priorities as
near as I could, I have orderly set down, viz. ……..M. Willi Shakespeare
gentleman, Samuel Daniel Esquire, Michael Drayton Esquire of the Bath, M.
Christopher Marlo, gent…” (folio 811).
It is noticeable he calls ‘Willi Shakespeare’ apparently by the full Oxfordian two-
name pseudonym, both ‘ Willi’ and ‘Shakespeare’ with a medial ‘e’, which
William Shaksper never seems to have used. The alleged confusion with William
Shaksper is maintained by adding the word ‘gentleman.’ (Pointon p.138)
2. Earlier Drayton (Matilda 1594 - at that early date
writing of Oxford as the author) noted:
Page 98
“Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long,
Lately revived to live another age……………..”
For Oxford as author of The Rape of Lucrece see page 188ff.
n.42 : add: Richard Brome also wrote one of the contributory
odes to Fletcher in the preface to the 1647 edition to Fletcher: it is in marked
contrasts to the overflowings of the other contributors and finishes with I believe
a deliberately erroneous glance at Jonson’s Epigram LV to Beaumont :
“Most knowing Jonson (proud to call him son) /ostensibly
Fletcher
In friendly envy swore he had outdone
His very self….”
Jonson had written:
“How do I fear myself, that am not worth
The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth………. /
i.e.Beaumont’s
For writing better, I must envy thee.”
Brome, like Digges and Basse was a Jonson supporter and perhaps had the same
attitude towards Fletcher (see pages 203ff.).
n.43 : I have not yet uncovered the academic evidence for the
proposition that the question mark could equal the exclamation mark: is it an
academic guess, to try and negate the effect of the question marks? See my essay
The Benson Question Marks (DVSNL submitted).
n.43a: Naunton: quoted by Ward p.385 (Waugh correspondence)
n.44a: see J. W. H. Atkins pp.1 - 105 ; also page 280 n.135 [addition
above]; G. Salgado: Introduction p.13
n.44b: correspondence with Heward Wilkinson, whose assistance
is gratefully acknowledged
n.51: add: Dryden claimed that Shakespeare was the inventor
of dramatic blank verse (Atkins p.53); In this he is followed by Dennis 1711 (id
p.244) and Johnson –see page 223, and there are no contradictions until we have
those modern critics who, with their defective dating Schedules, credit the later
Marlowe as the first exemplar.
n.52: add: Dryden is further quoted at page 280 n.135 above.
n. 52a: Tate: quote by J. R. Brown p.26
Page 99
n.53a: Dryden (born within thirty years of Oxford’s death) quoted with
extreme disapproval by Lois Potter (born at least 300 years later and knowing so
much better) who writes: “The dramatists who began writing in the 1580s and
90s [among whom she would list Shakespeare] benefited from a professional
theatre sufficiently developed and specialized to allow them to continue writing.”
– Times Literary Supplement 12th June 2013. A study of criticism up to and to
an extent including Malone makes it crystal clear that the primacy and priority of
Shakespeare both in excellence and chronology were at that time acknowledged
universally: modern scholarship is hopelessly distorted by its failure to take on
board that simple proposition. From the Shakespeare Allusion Book we may take
these authors who acknowledge Shakespeare’s priority in time:
Vol I p.512 : J. Berkenhead 1647
Vol 2 p.13 : Samuel Sheppard 1651
p.265: Sir William Temple 1690 quoted with approval (p.398) by Sir
Thomas Pope Blount
p. 348 : Gerard Langbaine 1691 – also 353, where he points out the actual
priority in terms of blank verse of Gorboduc
p.396 : John Dennis 1693
p.404 : John Oldmixon 1695
p.424 : J. Drake 1699
n.70 : add: Coleridge is also important, for, in discussing
Shakespeare’s political outlook, he writes, “…he should be styled a philosophical
aristocrat….. you will observe the good nature with which he seems always to
make sport with the passions and follies of a mob, as with an irrational animal.
He is never angry with it, but hugely content with holding its absurdities to its
face; and sometimes you may trace a tone of almost affectionate superiority…”
(p.282) and “Shakspere (sic) (was) a philosopher; - if aught personal, an
aristocrat.” (p.429)
G. Salgado: Introduction p.13
Page 290 n.73: add new para:
In contrast to the literary critics, it is instructive to see the
views of practitioners (directors and actors) in John Barton's seminal book which
is a reprise on a television series made with the help of Peggy Ashcroft, Judi
Dench, Sheila Hancock, Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen, Donald Sinden, Patrick
Stewart, David Suchet and thirteen other distinguished actors and gives these
views added authority:
Page 100
“Yet Shakespeare wrote for the Elizabethan theatre, and he wrote these infinitely
rich and complex plays with great psychological depth. …. I also believe that
Shakespeare both accepted his own theatrical tradition [in fact a contemporary
school] and yet transformed it. In a sense I think that he is the unconscious
[perhaps he began so, but became fully conscious] inventor both of
characterisation in depth and of naturalistic speech. There's not much of it in the
theatre before him….”
Barton then goes on to discuss that contemporary fashion which he “inherited”
with quotations from Marlowe, Kydd and Lily, and comments that there may be
high but sometimes monotonous language, but the characters are two-
dimensional. The actual theatrical fashion tradition was in effect in critical terms
a desert on to which Oxford, and, in their later, but lesser parallel fashion,
Marlowe, Peele and Kydd were the pioneers.
“Yet in Shakespeare our traditions, both the modern [1984 – with its emphasis on
relationships character and intentions] and the Elizabethan, come together. I
believe our tradition actually derives from him. In a sense Shakespeare himself,
with his teeming gift or characterisation and his frequent use of naturalistic
language, though he didn't of course know he was doing so at the time, [and that
is doubtful – it is probable that with experience Shakespeare fully understood and
intended what he was doing – see also Clemen quoted on page 142] invented it.”
. - - Barton pp.13-15
(John Barton is a co-founder of The Royal Shakespeare Company where he
directed for over 40 years: his teaching is acknowledged as one of the lasting
reasons for the Company's success and he is regarded as one of the most
influential directors of Shakespeare)
n.75a: Peter Dickson on Collier. But the fear grows: if Collier tampered with and
forged documents, how many did he actually destroy to preserve the “William
Shakespeare” myth?
n.76a: Taylor p.263
n.77: add new para: Fortunately the publication in October 2016
of the New Oxford Shakespeare shows the editors and their researchers fully
committing themselves to stylometrics and the consequent arguments about
collaboration. On a narrow view of stylometrics there can be no doubt that there
is scientific value in the collations and comparisons undertaken: what wrecks it
as a science is the unscientific method applied to those collations and
comparisons. If you persist in suggesting that every “Shakespearean” work can
only have been written after 1590 you will discount everything “Shakespearean”
written before that date. The answers produced by your computer will be quite
Page 101
valueless. The challenge therefore is to expand the “Shakespeare” corpus, collate
and compare as with the later works, ditch the references to the Stratford man and
then insert Oxford’s real dates.
Page 290 Afterword n.1 : add ; “immaculate absenteeism”: the point is nicely
brought out by the reviewer Rachel Campbell-Johnson) in the (London) Times
17th October 2012 of an exhibition commemorating the 400th anniversary of the
death of Henry Prince of Wales in 1612: “ Almost every important writer and
poet in the kingdom (Shakespeare was a notable absence) penned elegies to the
lost prince, Ben Jonson, Webster, john Donne and George Herbert among them.
William Byrd wrote an anthem…” Even the argument that William Shakespeare
was too much a Catholic sympathiser to write anything is negated by the presence
in this list of the Catholic William Byrd and the (then) crypto-Catholics, Jonson
and Donne. Likewise there is no, poem on the otherwise widely eulogised
wedding of the Princess Elizabeth, the “Winter Queen” in 1613.
Page 291 Appendix B n.3: Pseudonym: Equally it is clear that
the use of the pseudonym had nothing to do with William – see page 288 n.38 as
amended above
n.6 : Error: substitute: Honan p.435 n.12
add : Also the references in Guy of Warwick to Sparrow
(see pages 254 and 258) appear to indicate that William deserted his wife (Wood
p. 146, Ackroyd p. 222) when he went to London.
n.8 : add: Contemporary evidence as to the marvellous
national standard of education in 1580 is rather less convincing. Mulcaster writes
in his Elementarie 1582 (my underlining):
“In a natural body there is then too little when either some necessary thing
wanteth [is lacking], or that which is not wanting is too weak to serve the turn.
And be not the same defects diseases in learning and disquieters to a State? When
necessary professors want, either for number as too few, or for value as too
feeble? When shew is shrined, where stuff [serious material] should be enstalled?
When sound learning is little sought for, but only surface, sufficient to shift with?
When some necessary professions are quite contemned, and lain underfoot,
because the cursory student is to pass away in post. Where want of needful books,
because they be not to be had, proves as good not had for insufficiency in handling
[is just as good as if they were available because they would not be consulted],
and lameness to learn by? This corruption in learning any man may see, who is
desirous to seek both for the malady and the amendment.” (p. 262).
n.9a: Cecil's letter – see page 281 n.8a above
n.10a: critics (both ‘orthodox’ and Oxfordian) suggest that the
caricatures are a general type and not specific, let alone to William Shakspere.
Katherine Duncan-Jones writes (p.122): “Jonson’s depiction of the ‘hob-nailed
Page 102
chuff’ Sordido is of course no more a portrait of Shakespeare than it is of his
brother the ‘essential clown’ Sogliardo”: she enlightens us no further. This
‘general type’, if it be so, has become rich by the gifts of others, seeks to climb
socially, is a cultural nonentity who is an incompetent actor and generally is
suitable for lampooning and appreciation on the public stage, to say nothing of
his grain speculations: however only William supplies an example. In addition
Macilente, Jonson’s caricature of Marston in the play, displays a visceral loathing
and envy of Sogliardo which backs Marston’s own support for Oxford (see page
200)
n.15 : In addition to the suggestion that “by me William” is in
a more competent hand than the “Shaksper” on the last page of the Will, I also
think that on the Blackfriars’ Gate purchase the “William” is similarly superior
again compared to the “Shaksper”. The mortgage Deed “Wm” is a crude effort
like the surname.
n.16: Hand D: the contention that Hand D in Sir Thomas More is
William Shaksper's is becoming the official position of 'orthodox' argument. As
Pointon (pp.245-6) points out it was completely disproved as long ago as 1927
by S. Tannenbaum Pointon in his Appendix E p.242ff completely
eviscerates the arguments of all those authorities who suggest that Hand D and
the six signatures are by the same hand, that of William, starting from the point
the signatures are not even by the same hand themselves. The test should not be
how they match but how they do not: The demolition of (yet) more modern
arguments for Hand D being in the handwriting of William Shaksper is completed
by Diana Price 2016
n.17a : “nescience” : Chambers I p. 26
Page 292 n.24 : Chettle: Chettle is sometimes suggested as the
scribe of Hand A of the manuscript Sir Thomas More. He is likely to have arrived
on the scene too late for this comparatively menial task for a stationer. Possibly
the fake epistle to Munday's Gerileon signed T.N. (to foist it onto Thomas Nashe)
by Chettle may be somewhat earlier: it shows up Chettle as a serial literary cuckoo
in other author's nests. It is just possible that there was some political or literary-
political reason rather than sheer ignorance for Chettle to have imported the
allusions in Groatsworth, but there is no evidence in an area where there are
plenty of extant contemporary literary polemics. In the first place the tone of Kind
Heart's Dream and its apology would appear to contradict this alternative
suggestion, and the basic explanation for the genesis for the two papers seems
anyway untouched. It may be that Chettle was put up to apologise by the 'divers
of worthship': certainly the reference to Groatsworth being 'offensively by one
or two [of the divers playmakers] taken' would seem to indicate that the third
playwright, i.e. Oxford, was not known to Chettle to require the apology
personally (R. Detobel - correspondence)
Page 103
n. 25: add (second sentence): Peele has no record as an
actor and cannot therefore be the playwright being apologised to by Chettle (see
page 244) - Detobel correspondence
n.27: add: Oxford uses “baseminded” in his
Preface to Bedingfield’s translation of Cardanus Comfort (Sobran p.280)
n.29a: J. Dover Wilson writes: “Why should men of rank in that age
of rigid class distinction go out of their way to make representations to an obscure
printer on behalf of a player-poet? Such things are not done without good
cause…….” (SS4 p.61) _Detobel correspondence.
n.32 : add: Brian McDonald makes this point: “Groatsworth
complains of an upstart playwright, and months later two long poems appear.
Everyone is impressed with the poetry until five years later when this guy has
twelve monster plays to his credit. Something’s a bit off with the PR department.”
(correspondence)
n.34a: Nina Green points out that “friends”
can refer to close relatives, but the substance of the caricature is not materially
affected. Macilente in the same scene refers to “blind Fortune” as Sogliardo’s
benefactor.
n.38 : alter the last sentence to read: This is also a swipe at
William’s academic and cultural standing, and his attempts at social climbing.
For another such revelation effort, consider (my italics):
Sly: “ Is [the entertainment] not a commonty
A Christmas gambol, or a tumbling trick?”
Page: “No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.”
Sly: “What, household stuff?”
Page: “It is a kind of history.” .
. - - Induction 2, ll. 133-6.
A history, indeed
The Lord/Oxford instructs the players about Sly :
“but I am doubtful of your modesties
Lest, over-eyeing of his odd behaviour –
For yet his honour never heard a play –
You break into some merry passion,
And so offend him.” .
. - - Induction 1, ll. 92-6.
n.39a: (“gentleman…..before my father”): and see 1623 folio Lear
III, vi, l.6:
Fool: “Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a gentleman or a yeoman”
Page 104
Lear: “A king, a king!”
Fool: “No, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he’s a mad
yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.”
The fool’s second speech is not in the 1608 quarto, proving if that date be right
that the cut down version was written before Shaksper was on the scene c. 1596
n.40: add: Some ‘orthodox’ commentators have
tried to rely on a copy of William Shakespeare’s arms with the inscription
“Shakespear ye Player by Garter” allegedly in the hand of Ralph Brook the York
Herald. Nina Green has proved by orthographical comparison that the writing is
in the hand of John Lucas, who wrote “John Lucas his booke 1642” on a
preliminary sheet of Dethick’s papers. And anyway the inscription if
contemporary would surely have noted that the original grant would be made to
William’s still-living father; and Lucas seems to be distinguishing “ye player”
from the actual playwright.
n.42 : Roe (p. 24 - 25) points out that there is no “balcony scene”
in Romeo and Juliet. Juliet appears at a window. The house in Verona may be
authentic, but the balcony is added having been some eighty years ago re-cycled
from another old building. Roe’s contention is borne out by Jonson in Everyman
Out Of His Humour where both waiting-gentlewoman and Lady Puntarvolo both
appear at a ‘window’ in the Romeo and Juliet parody ( II, i).
n.43: add: Sean Phillips suggests that Jonson
was being even cleverer, constructing “an elaborate joke written entirely in the
language of heraldry. “Gyrony of eight” means the background is split into eight
pieces radiating from the centre alternating in blue and red, wildly clashing with
the rest and strongly reminiscent of a fool’s motley. A chevron is symbolic of
the peak of a roof, from the French meaning “rafter”. Chevrons were granted to
those who had participated in some noble enterprise ….. or had accomplished
some faithful service. The chevron is surrounded by silver circles that almost have
to be coins. Inside the chevron is a chequer-board pattern including green, gold
and ermine. Ermine was strictly forbidden in any heraldry except for nobility.
Sogliardo’s heraldry marks him as a motley fool who has received silver coins
for faithful service to a nobleman whose colours [?] are green and gold” This
interpretation adds weight to the evidence that William Shakespeare’s noble
benefactors benefited him by direct gift.
Page 293 n.55 : add: Antony and Cleopatra V, ii, ll.207-209
n.57: the fee of £20 is suspiciously double the usual rate of £10.
Page 105
n.57a: If (it may be suggested) Oxford with Jonson had not been so
successful in ridding London of Shaksper in 1599/1600, perhaps, if he had hung
around longer, his manifest deficiencies would have been remembered longer and
been a total block to the attribution of “William Shakespeare” to the authorship
of the 1623 folio following the “William Shakespeare” on some of the folio title
pages. Jonson (if it be he) as editor of the 1623 folio might have found it more
difficult to find another barely remembered genius to pose as the author and
satisfy the requirements of “the most Noble and incomparable Pair”.
n.58: Parnassus plays – see page 198N above
Such is the volume of ridicule which is set out in Appendix B that,
as shown in my essay Shaksper The Nonentity (DVSNL submitted), it may be
that the writers, Oxford, Jonson, and the author of the relevant ‘Sparrow’ parts of
Guy of Warwick (if not Jonson) might have conspired to make William
Shakespeare even more of a fool than he was, with the object of ridding
themselves of him for good by driving him back to Stratford-upon-Avon. I have
also consulted the informative blog of an Australian 'orthodox' scholar John
Peachman (guyofwarwick.blogspot.com) where he suggests with good reason
that the Sparrow scenes in Guy of Warwick were in fact written by Jonson. While
I suggest that the references to Oxford as Puntarvolo in Every Man Out Of His
Humour (with the parodies of The Taming Of The Shrew and Romeo and Juliet)
are intended to be mildly and unexceptionally amusing, Peachman takes them as
a serious attack on William Shakespeare as the dramatist. He backs this by
suggesting that Guy of Warwick with its reference to the stealing by Sparrow’s
dog of a leg of pork from Sparrow’s back pocket (which Sparrow had helped
himself to earlier) may be compared to (and likewise borrowed from) Two
Gentlemen of Verona and Lance’s dog Crab’s theft of a capon’s leg from Sylvia’s
plate (Act IV, iv). However the references seem to be further denigration of
William Shakespeare, and suggest that they and Lance’s general uselessness are
a further reflection on William Shakespeare inserted at a later stage by Oxford.
Sparrow concludes his account of his embarrassment, by saying, “I was fain to
go out edgling like a crab”, while Lance took the blame for the smell of the dog
Crab’s urine and was whipped out of the dining room. The use by Jonson of
incidents in the first two plays (The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet)
in Every Man Out Of His Humour is directly comparable with that from Two
Gentlemen of Verona in Guy of Warwick (whoever was the author). It may be the
devotion of Puntarvolo to his dog in Jonson’s play represents some in-house joke
at Oxford’s expense, especially as Shakespeare’s plays exhibit an aversion to
them generally.
See also Beaumont (page 256 above)
Page 294 n.67 : Helen Cooper p.129
Page 106
n.70 : Error: delete Ostler v. Hemmings : Clark p.889 (probably
not E.T. Clark’s own error – I am using the Kennicat reprint with its additions to
her text)
n.71 : While Schoenbaum fails to pick up that William Shakespeare
is not named as a defendant or at all in Keysar v. Burbage, Diana Price (p.66n)
spotted the point earlier than I did. Because I followed Schoenbaum, I did not
realise that Keysar was actually suing (spuriously, as the Court found) for a share
in the profits which he alleged were due to him as the proprietor of the then (1610)
defunct Children of the Queen’s Revels. There were only two other defendants
namely Hemmings and Condell – another indication that William had no interest
in the Blackfriars’ Theatre (see Stopes p.107)
n.72 : Earlier in the same document Cuthbert Burbage talks of the
financing of the building of the Globe in 1599: “to ourselves (i.e. his father
Richard, James and himself) we joined those deserving men, Shakspere,
Heminges, Condell, Philips and other partners”. It is worth pointing out how
irreconcilable is Jonson’s description in the 1623 folio “ Soul of the Age” with
the lumping epithet “deserving” man in 1635
n.73 : Venus and Adonis: new para: ‘Orthodox’ critics set
some store on the fact that the printer of Venus and Adonis in 1593 was Richard
Field who was a native of Stratford-upon-Avon. On 15th June 1594 he transferred
his rights to sell it to John Harrison the elder, who later that year offered The Rape
of Lucrece: not evidence of much rapport from Field with his fellow-townsman
(although Harrison did commission Field to print The Rape of Lucrece). The time
scale between William’s arrival in London and Field beginning the process of
setting up the type for Venus and Adonis must have been at best only a few
months, at worst an interval with no overlap at all (L. Power - correspondence).
In 1596 Field was a signatory to a petition to the Privy Council (Kew SP 2/260 –
see page 190 above)) to block the opening of a new theatre in Blackfriars,
instigated by Burghley’s sister-in-law: this looks a distinctly unfavourable act
towards William. John Shaksper had cause to sue Richard Field’s father Henry
Field in 1556 and acted as valuer presumably on behalf of the creditors of Henry
Field’s apparently insolvent estate in 1592 (Pointon p.151 who also deals with
the Richard du Champ reference in Cymbeline IV,ii, l.379). It seems unlikely
that the Field and Shaksper families were on good terms.
Report on “Shakespeare: From Rowe to Shapiro” Malim and
Gilvary 2010.
Shakespeare was engaged in debt-collecting while the Sonnets were
being prepared for printed – Matthew Cossolotto’s point.
n.74a: Purchase of New Place: Here is a piece to show a
clutching of straws by an ‘orthodox’ scholar, who would have us believe that the
character of Doctor Butts introduced in Henry VIII V, ii to block the fallen
Page 107
Cranmer’s access to the king: he “who is introduced rather particularly, had been
the owner of Shakespeare’s New Place. These hidden personal touches [she
mentions no others] are like tiny portraits of the artist found in a corner of a large
Renaissance painting.” (Bradbrook p.251 n.2). New Place was built and owned
by the Clopton family who in 1543 leased it for forty years to a surgeon named
Bentley, which is the sole medical connection: in 1563 the freehold was sold to
the current tenant William Bott, who sold it on in 1567 to William Underhill
whose son sold it to William Shakespeare in 1597. I fear the Professor erred.
n.78 : add: By ‘slips of paper’ I mis-refer to the vellum tabs
by which the seals were attached to the Deed. Normally the signature would be
clear of the tab, or signed across the tab so that there was always at least part of
the signature on the Deed – necessary for authentication in case the seal became
detached. In the Blackfriars Deeds both the William (or Wm) Shaksper signatures
are confined solely to the tab (Detobel: The Shakespeare Signatures Analysed –
Shakespeare Fellowship website). This curious procedure would seem to prove
William Shakespeare’s absence from London when the Deed was ostensibly
executed by him. See also n.81 below
n.78a : Add : impresa: “a device to conceal the identity” of the
wearer. A better explanation is that there was at Court a John Shakespeare, who
may or may not have been a Snittersfield cousin of William’s: he “was in the
habit of preparing decorations for tournaments” (Stopes p.109)
n.78a: Bate 2008 p.358. From 1600 the only appearance in London
which is documented is the clearly private visit to London c. 1604 – see page 293
n.66 (when the ‘orthodox’ have to say he was at the height of his fame with eight
plays at the Court Christmas Revels 1604-5).
n.78aa: Katherine Scheil: p.88
n.79 : Report on 2008 Conference “Catholic Shakespeare” Malim and Gilvary
2008. Note also that Professor Alison Shell there showed that Catholic writers
were hostile to Shakespeare the author.
n.80 : Substitute “non-attenders” for “recusants” in the original note.
Marion Peel has demonstrated that it is a fiction that the family’s finances were
in a dangerous state in 1590. Tony Pointon (p.14) shows that Hamnett and Judith
Sadler were Protestants too. Ivor Brown (1949 p.65) discusses John
Shakespeare’s Protestantism, following Edgar Fripp and J.M. Murry (2nd edition
Introduction). There is now an excellent case for suggesting that the Shaksperes
of Stratford were in fact fairly extreme Protestants, and that the appearance of
John Shakspere and Susanna (who goes on to marry a Protestant) on lists of non-
attenders is actually evidence of that (Pointon p. 37ff, 49). For the playwright’s
Catholic sympathies and command of Catholic practices, see Asquith – passim,
Page 108
and the references to Southwell page 197N above Peter
Dickson has identified over twenty of the twenty four Lord Chamberlain’s men
listed in the Preface to the First Folio as conforming Anglicans each with a
London parish base. One of the exceptions is William Shakespeare who is not
listed at all – compare his absence as a local ratepayer referred to at page 251
n.81 : William’s apparent Protestantism might serve as a cover for
the activities of the Catholic safe house at Blackfriars Gate, but perhaps he was
just a convenient, yet distant dupe of the real financiers of the purchase.
n.83 : for “Thomas Russell esquier” appointed as second overseer
- see page 213.
[n.84a : I was misled by Ogburn (p.101) into thinking such eulogies
of Beaumont as were written on Beaumont’s death were produced
contemporaneously: bad point (as Kathman’s website explains). Beaumont was
buried in Westminster Abbey, and notice was taken of the deaths of some other
writers of the time, but not William Shakespeare (Price pp.301ff). “We may
contrast the poetic outpourings on the death of Beaumont….”: this is overstated.
Apart from Jonson’s Epigram LV, the only published tributes addressed to
Beaumont alone are in the 1647 edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Plays
Preface, an elegy by Fletcher, two others written “presumably after his death” or
“then newly dead” and one undatable by George Lisle to “my most honoured
kinsman”. None of these three appear to have been published before 1647.]
n.86 : add The monument and inscriptions have come in for
considerable investigation, principally because of the half-length statue. There
can be little doubt that it has come in for substantial amendment over the
centuries. It was first reproduced in a drawing for Dugdale’s Antiquities of
Warwickshire 1656, which has come in for criticism as it shows no possible
relationship with the greatest cultural icon of the time, even to the extent of
suggesting that it was a fake or incompetent memory reconstruction. But why
would anybody wish to put out a detrimental portrait, and for what purpose?
The conclusion is that this drawing is a reliable reproduction of the original
monument statue, and this is borne out by the substantial repeat of it in Rowe
1709 (see page 219). Study of the Latin couplet on the Monument is almost
certainly the work of Jonson, being yet another effort by him to point up the
difference between William Shakespeare and Oxford. Translated, the first line
reads in translation: “In judgment a Nestor [whose unreliable advice resulted in
Patroclus, Achilles’ lover, being killed at Troy], in genius a Socrates [whose
opinion of playwriting Plato shows to be derogatory], and in art a Maro [probably
not Virgil, but to a similarly named grammarian parodist of c.650 AD]” (Jack
Goldstone). The couplet contains other nuances and references not compatible
with Jonson’s praise to the deceased as the greatest literary figure “not for an age,
Page 109
but for all time!” : Dugdale’s slightly dismissive reference to
Shakespeare in 1656 as “one of the famous poets of these later times” may be
contrasted with his full blown reference in his later manuscript notes to “William
Shakespeare, the late famous tragedian”, when discussing the monument to Sir
Thomas Stanley at Tong (reference owed to Helen Moorwood) – see page 44.
Perhaps it may indicate the idea that only in these later times has William
Shakespeare achieved some celebrity
294 n.88a: Waugh: “Shakespeare in Court”
n.88b: Malim: “Seventeenth Century References to William Shakespeare
as Author”
Page 295 n.90 : Queen Henrietta Maria. Add: Hamper (p.52)
records the Queen’s two day stay in Stratford in July 1647, which was reported
in 1733 by the then owner as three week holding of her Court at New Place. It is
exceedingly unlikely that the house was made available to the Roman Catholic
Queen by the Puritan daughter of William Shakespeare voluntarily, especially as
her son-in-law was the largest contributor in cash to the Parliamentary side in
Stratford. (Correspondence with Professor Robert Bearman, who rightly
questions whether the Queen did in fact stay at New Place at all).
n.90a : add: However in his paper 2015 Social Network Theory
and the Claim that Shakespeare of Stratford Was the Famous Dramatist, Professor
Donald P. Hayes in an uncritical examination of the Stratfordian evidence that
William Shakespeare was a member of the literary and dramatic social network
(much of which Oxfordians might refute, and Hayes himself describes the
'orthodox' identity contentions as “already a modest and heavily disputed
evidentiary case”) nevertheless concludes: “Unless a new, well documented and
far more plausible explanation can be developed for this silence of his peers [i.e.
the absence of any surviving contemporary tributes], the odds that the man from
Stratford grew up to be the master poet-dramatist William Shakespeare have
fallen to the level of the improbable.”
Page 297 ff. : Additional Bibliography :
[SON is the Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter of the Shakespeare Oxford
Fellowship]
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Page 110
*Barber, Rosalind: Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect: Journal of Early
Modern Studies 5 (2016) (Firenze University Press 2016) pp.91 - 117
Barton, John: Playing Shakespeare (Methuen, London 1984)
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*Brazil, R.: Edward de Vere and the Shakespeare Printers (Createspace,
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*Chiljan, Katherine: Shakespeare Suppressed (Faire Editions, San Francisco,
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Cole J.: “Britannia’s Pastorals”, DVSNL (January 2014); Oxford's Land Sales:
Castle Hedingham and the Sheepcote in As You Like It (DVSNL October 2015)
Cormican, L. A.: Medieval Idiom in Shakespeare: Scrutiny xvii (Autumn 1950)
The full entry for Dr. Frank Davis should read:
*Davis, F. “Shakespeare’s Medical Knowledge: How Did he Acquire It?” The
Oxfordian III (October 2000)
---------------“Leass for making” SOSNL (Spring 2007)
*Chiljan, Katherine: Shakespeare Suppressed (Faire Editions, San Francisco,
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*Delahoyd. M.: New Evidence For Oxford in Venice (SON Winter 2016)
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*Detobel, R.: An Overlooked Allusion to Hamlet in One of Oxford’s Letters
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*Detobel R. and Ligon K. C.: Shakespeare: The Concealed Poet (2010,
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Ellis, D.: The Truth About William Shakespeare (Edinburgh U.P. 2012)Erikson,
W. (ed.): The 1590 Faerie Queene: Paratexts in Publishing: Studies in Literary
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*Eyre, G.: The Case For Edward de Vere as Shakespeare (CreateSpace 2015)
*Flues, B. – website www.elizabethanauthors.org
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Page 111
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–September 1989; also nos . 19 – September 1990 and 66 – August 1994
“The Lexical Vocabulary” Edward De Vere Newsletters 57,58 and
59 – November 1993-January 1994
“The Merry Devil of Edmonton” Edward De Vere Newsletter 1 -
March 1989
“The Puritan or The Widow of Watling Street” Edward De Vere
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“A Yorkshire Tragedy” Edward De Vere Newsletter 21– November
1990
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Hayes Donald P.: Social Network Theory and the Claim that Shakespeare of
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“Twelfth Night and Dubrovnik” : The Oxfordian 18
“Seventeenth Century References to William Shakespeare as
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Shakespeare’s Missing Connections (DVSNL, July 2016)
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Page 114
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*Wember, H.: Illuminating Eclipses – Brief Chronicles II
*Whalen, Richard F.: Macbeth 2nd edn. (Llumina Press, Plantation, FL. 2013)
Whitman, W.: Complete Prose Works (McKay, Philadelphia 1892)
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Wood, M.: [ERROR IN ENTRY corrected] In Search of Shakespeare (BBC
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Wyndham Lewis, D.B.: Ronsard (Sheed and Ward, London 1944)
NOTES: Diana Price has published a revised edition of Shakespeare’s
Unorthodox Biography 2012: the references used in my book are not much
removed from the original edition and so I have not substituted the second edition
versions.
† Parapress Ltd.: Books published by this company may be obtained
through The De Vere Society (subject to availability).
DVSNL (De Vere Society Newsletter) articles can be found on the De
Vere Society website (www.deveresociety.co.uk) under ‘Archive’
REVIEWS of my book may be found on Amazon either at Amazon.com Richard
Malim or Amazon.co.uk Richard Malim: others are by :-
*Michael Egan : The Oxfordian 14 (2012);*Fr. Patrick Madigan SJ – see
above;*Earl Showerman : Shakespeare Matters Spring 2012;*Hank Whittemore
: blog – January 2012;*Heward Wilkinson : blog - 3rd January 2012.
