PROVING SHAKESPEARE
Introduction
The title, Proving Shakespeare, was chosen because it so appropriately describes what is contained in this book. For the first time in the history of Shakespearian studies, it has been possible to find not just one person who knew the true identity of the poet, William Shakespeare , and was prepared to say so, but several. Why, then, has it taken more than four centuries for these contemporaries of the great dramatist to be recognized for what they said? The answer is because those who knew the truth lived in the most devious age in English history: an age controlled by repression, censorship, and a spy network that penetrated into every corner of the country, and at every level. Those disobeying higher authority were subjected to a variety of punishments, including amputation, torture, public flogging, imprisonment, exile, or even execution, depending upon the severity of the offence.
Physical pain, exile, and incarceration are powerful reasons for remaining mute, and if the poet, himself, agreed to remain silent, there was even less of an incentive to do otherwise than obey his wish, and observe the imposed censorship. Let one or two generations pass, and those who were party to the secret would be dead. Consequently, with no written record of what had happened, Shakespeare’s true identity became lost to future historians. Hugh Trevor-Roper , former Regius Professor of History at Oxford University found this absence of records “exasperating and almost incredible”, especially since Shakespeare “lived in the full daylight of the English Renaissance in the well documented reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I”.
The reason for censoring Shakespeare’s identity is at the root of the authorship question, and is dealt with fully in this book. However, some have found it impossible to believe that a government would seek to divert the future course of history by laying a false trail. William Camden , writing in 1625, was of a different mettle. In the preface to his Latin Annals of English and Irish Affairs in the Reign of Elizabeth, he made two interesting statements; firstly, he confirmed there were “those who think the memory of succeeding ages may be extinguished by present power”, and secondly, somewhat more wisely, he confessed, “things secret and abstruse I have not pried into”. The first part of his Annals was published in 1615, but with greater discretion he deferred publishing the second half until after his death.
Camden was a friend of Ben Jonson , having formally been his mentor at Westminster. Jonson, too, was in close contact with Shakespeare, thus providing a central link that united the three together.
The admiration Jonson had for Shakespeare is evident from his tribute at the front of the First Folio, and from the comment he made, in which he disclosed his love for the man this side of idolatry. Jonson therefore stands out from all others in that age as the person most likely to have felt the need to honour his friend with the truth. And since Jonson also admitted honesty was the one quality he most wished to be recognised by, he had an added reason for salving his conscience by disclosing the truth about Shakespeare to a later age: one that might be drawn to doubt the credentials and educational background of the man gifted with the works of poetic genius.
Most people enjoy a good puzzle, and the opportunity to trawl through the works of Shakespeare looking for previously unconsidered trifles in the hope of discovering some cryptic signal of authorship embedded in a statement has lured many an unwary mind into a slough of folly. Nor does exposure to ridicule seem to dampen the enthusiasm of these would-be riddle-solvers. They have their own reasons, even if the reason of others is in complete disagreement, for such was the situation that came to pass during the nineteenth century. This period saw the emergence of anti-Stratford sentiment in favour of the unlikely person of Sir Francis Bacon —an unlikely candidate for authorship because he was still alive after tributes to Shakespeare’s death were published in the First Folio . To overcome this inconvenience, his advocates looked to the plays and the power of pseudo-cryptology to prove these reports of his demise were premature.
Fortunately for everyone, except Bacon’s advocates, the so-called codes failed to withstand inspection. In the middle of the twentieth century, fresh from being decorated by a grateful American government for breaking the Japanese Purple Code during the Second World War, William F. Friedman joined forces with his wife Elizebeth (spelt with a middle ‘e’ to prevent her being called Eliza), and together they demolished the main arguments from cryptology proposed by the Baconians (The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined , Cambridge, 1957), for which the grateful Folger Shakespeare Library awarded the author their annual prize.
Baconian cryptology is now no more than a footnote in books that refer to the Shakespeare authorship debate. It is to be regretted, however, that in the wake of this victory, a new set of would-be ‘savants’ have appeared. These are the direct opposites of their Baconian antecedents. Instead of seeking to discover possible examples of a genuine encryption, they set themselves up to debunk anyone who dares suggest that such things exist. Although their abilities are as amateurish as were those of the Baconians before them, they nevertheless feel empowered by the work of the Friedmans to use their book and its criticisms, in order to apply them willy-nilly to whatever bears the name code or cipher.
This is unfortunate. The Friedmans directed their objections solely to the systems that were placed before them. The flaws they exposed in Baconian codes were not catchall solutions for debunking every decryption then or thereafter. Yet, many today believe they are entitled to treat the Friedmans’ work as though it were.
In point of fact, the Friedmans admitted that were an encryption to be proposed for which “independent investigation shows the answer to be unique, and to have been reached by valid means, we shall accept it, however much we shock the learned world by doing so.” This admission is vitally important, for the criteria they set out for a true encryption have now been met.
Although proof of Shakespeare’s identity as Edward de Vere has been established scientifically, the traditional view of Shakespeare is so embedded in the psyche of his many aficionados that it will be difficult to expunge. A similar situation occurred shortly after the close of Elizabeth I’s reign, when Galileo began to explain the Copernican idea that it was not the Sun moving across the sky, but the Earth revolving around the Sun that gave this body the impression of movement. Every possible argument, from the Bible, common sense, and philosophy, was hurled against the mathematics supporting Galileo, but all to no avail; in the end, numerical arguments proved superior to literary ones.
A similar reaction can be expected from the many academics trained in Shakespeare studies; and therein lays the fault. Studies in Shakespearian theatre and literature are distinguishable from research into the authorship debate; each pursuit follows a separate course, although they interconnect. Unfortunately, the vast majority of biographers, teachers, and media reporters have confused these two activities, believing that expertise and academic recognition in the former, confers qualification in the latter. It does not. Similarly, authorship studies do not confer a qualification in literary criticism. Because of this confusion, it has led to some very prominent experts in theatre and literary studies to protest that only they have the qualifications to speak authoritatively upon the subject of Shakespeare’s authorship. This is incorrect. The authorship problem requires a different approach to that of literary criticism. It is therefore distinguishable, and being distinguishable it is separable.
Fortunately, this distinction has slowly begun to be recognised. Courses in Authorship Studies, both in England at Brunel University, and in the U.S.A. at Concordia, in Portland, Oregon, have begun to address the problem of Shakespeare’s alleged authorship: and with good reason; for even orthodox opinion, which governs what is taught in schools and universities, is aware of the persisting doubts, the gaping holes, the apparent contradictions, and the total lack of any documentary evidence that is both necessary and sufficient to establish Shakespeare as a man of letters.
Biographers of the man overcome all difficulties by writing about the established facts of Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s parents; Shakespeare’s neighbourhood; Shakespeare’s business deals; Shakespeare’s court appearances (legal that is); Shakespeare’s children; Shakespeare’s last will. Then, onto this they graft the literary works of ‘Shakespeare’, for which there is no substantive evidence that the name ‘Shakespeare’ was anything other than a penname used by someone else. This may sound extreme, and denied by traditionalists who will point to the cornerstones of their belief: the Stratford monument, Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, The First Folio, Jonson’s reference to Sweet Swan of Avon, and the name that appeared on many pirated quartos of the plays as well as two major narrative poems.
But these cornerstones no longer exist to support orthodox opinion. Each one in turn has been set aside to show that de Vere was always the intended subject. This, together with Ben Jonson’s avowal that de Vere was Shakespeare, and Thomas Thorpe’s enigmatic dedication confirming de Vere was the poet of the Sonnets, not to mention many other innuendos by other writers of that time, each acknowledging the same truth, are now sufficient to establish, once and for all, the true identity of the mysterious Elizabethan who wrote works of sublime genius under the penname, William Shakespeare.