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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Administration]

The group asks if one man alone could have come up with his works

Actors question Bard's authorship

Actors including Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance have launched a debate over who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare.

Almost 300 people have signed a "declaration of reasonable doubt", which they hope will prompt further research into the issue.

"I subscribe to the group theory. I don't think anybody could do it on their own," Sir Derek said.

The group says there are no records of Shakespeare being paid for his work.

While documents do exist for Shakespeare, who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, all are non-literary.

In particular, his will, in which he left his wife "my second best bed with the furniture" contains none of his famous turns of phrase and it does not mention any books, plays or poems.

Illiterate household

The 287-strong Shakespeare Authorship Coalition says it is not possible that the bard's plays - with their emphasis on law - could have been penned by a 16th Century commoner raised in an illiterate household.

It asks why most of his plays are set among the upper classes, and why Stratford-upon-Avon is never referred to in any of his plays.

"How did he become so familiar with all things Italian so that even obscure details in these plays are accurate?" the group adds.

Conspiracy theories have circulated since the 18th Century about a number of figures who could have used Shakespeare as a pen-name, including playwright Christopher Marlowe, nobleman Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon.

"I think the leading light was probably de Vere as I agree that an author writes about his own experience, his own life and personalities," Sir Derek said.

The declaration, unveiled at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester, West Sussex, also names 20 prominent doubters of the past, including Mark Twain, Orson Welles, Sir John Gielgud and Charlie Chaplin.

'Legitimate question'

A copy was presented to Dr William Leahy, head of English at London's Brunel University and convenor of the first MA in Shakespeare authorship studies, to be launched later this month.

"It has been a battle of mine for the last couple of years to get this into academia," Dr Leahy said.

"It's a legitimate question, it has a mystery at its centre and intellectual discussion will bring us closer to that centre.

"That's not to say we will answer anything, that's not the point. It is, of course, to question."

[Administration]

The "Chandos" portrait is one of the most famous of the portraits that may depict William Shakespeare (1564�1616). The portrait is named after James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, who owned the portrait. The portrait was given to the National Portrait Gallery, London on its foundation in 1856 and is listed no.1 in its collection.

It has not been possible to solve the question of who painted the portrait (although it is attributed to John Taylor[1]) or whether it really depicts Shakespeare. The playwright's other known contemporary image is the engraving in the posthumous First Folio (1623), made by Martin Droeshout and probably commissioned by Shakespeare's friends and family; it is considered likely that the Droeshout engraving is a reasonably accurate likeness[2], and the man in the Chandos portrait resembles the one in the engraving, which lends an indirect legitimacy to the portrait. Studies indicate that the beard and hair in the portrait were lengthened by later painters, but the earring was part of the original painting[3].

Some claim that Shakespeare's friend Richard Burbage (1567�1619) painted the Chandos portrait. It is known that before the Duke of Chandos acquired it, the portrait was owned by Shakespeare's godson, William Davenant (1606�1668), who claimed to be the playwright's illegitimate son, according to the gossip chronicler John Aubrey.

The Chandos portrait inspired a grander, more embellished mid-17th century imaginary portrait, called the "Chesterfield portrait" from a former owner.

In 2006, Tarnya Cooper of the National Portrait Gallery completed a three-and-a-half-year study of the purported Shakespeare portraits and concluded that the Chandos portrait was the most likely to be a representation of Shakespeare. Cooper points to the earring and the loose shirt-ties of the sitter, which were emblematic of a poet (the poet John Donne and Shakespeare's patron the Earl of Pembroke sported similar fashions). However, she acknowledges that the painting's authenticity cannot be proven. [4]

Notes

   1. Yale Center for British Art
   2. Yale Center for British Art
   3. Yale Center for British Art
   4. Higgins, Charlotte. 'The only true painting of Shakespeare - probably. The Guardian. March 2, 2006

[Administration]

John Shakespeare's House in Stratford-Upon-Avon, adjacent to the headquarters of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 � 23 April 1616)[a] was an English poet and playwright, now widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[1] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays,(b) 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[2]

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. He travelled to London sometime between 1585 and 1592 and began a successful career as an actor, writer, and part-owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later known as the King's Men). It appears he retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive and considerable speculation has been poured into this void,[3] including questions concerning his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were actually written by others.[4]

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, producing plays, such as Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime; and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day; but his reputation would not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed his artistry; and George Bernard Shaw mocked the nineteenth-century reverence for Shakespeare among Victorians as "bardolatry".[5] In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today, constantly performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Early life

William Shakespeare (also spelled Shaxpere, Shakespere, Shakspere, Shak-speare, and Shake-speare)[c] was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.[6] He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised on 26 April 1564. His unknown birthday is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George's Day.[7] This date, which can be traced back to an eighteenth-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616.[8] He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.[9]

Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was educated at the King's New School in Stratford,[10] a free school chartered in 1553,[11] about a quarter of a mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England,[12] and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics.[13] At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. Two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds the next day as surety that there were no impediments to the marriage.[14] The couple may have arranged the ceremony in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times.[15] Anne's pregnancy could have been the reason for any hurry. Six months after the marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, who was baptised on 26 May 1583.[16] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised on 2 February 1585.[17] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried on 11 August 1596.[18]

After the birth of the twins, there are few historical traces of Shakespeare until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. Owing to this gap in the records, scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".[19] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare�s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching.[20] Another eighteenth-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.[21] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.[22] Some twentieth-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.[23] No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death.[24]

London and theatrical career

It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[25] He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene:

    ...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.[26]

Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words,[27] but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers, such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself.[28] The italicised line parodying the phrase "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare�s Henry VI, part 3 along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene�s target.[29]

Greene�s attack is the first recorded mention of Shakespeare�s career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene�s remarks.[31] From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London.[32] After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.[33]

In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the Thames, which they called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man.[34] In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.[35]

Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages.[36] Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus, His Fall (1603).[37] The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson�s Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end.[38] The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain what roles he played.[39] In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles.[40] In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father.[41] Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the Chorus in Henry V,[42] though scholars doubt the sources of the information.[43]

Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames.[44] He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there.[45] By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs and other headgear.[46] In 1612, he was called as a witness in a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary.[47] In March 1613, he bought a gatehouse in the Blackfriars priory;[48] and from November 1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall.[49]

After 1606�7, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613.[50] His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher,[51] who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King�s Men.[52]


Shakespeare's funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon

Death

Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death;[53] but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time,[54] and Shakespeare continued to visit London.[53] He died on 23 April 1616,[55] and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607,[56] and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare�s death.[57]


Title page of the First Folio, 1623. Copper engraving of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout

In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna.[58] The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body".[59] The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying.[60] The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare�s direct line.[61] Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation.[62] Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.[63]

Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death.[64] Sometime before 1623, a monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to Nestor, Socrates, and Virgil.[65]

References
   1. Greenblatt, Stephen (2005). Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. London: Pimlico, 11. ISBN 0712600981.
      � Bevington, David (2002) Shakespeare, 1�3. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0631227199.
      � Wells, Stanley (1997). Shakespeare: A Life in Drama. New York: W. W. Norton, 399. ISBN 0393315622.
   2. Craig, Leon Harold (2003). Of Philosophers and Kings: Political Philosophy in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and "King Lear". Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 3. ISBN 0802086055.
   3. Shapiro, James (2005). 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. London: Faber and Faber, xvii�xviii. ISBN 0571214800.
      � Schoenbaum, S. (1991). Shakespeare's Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 41, 66, 397�98, 402, 409. ISBN 0198186185.
   4. Taylor, Gary (1990). Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present. London: Hogarth Press, 145, 210�23, 261�5. ISBN 0701208880.
   5. Bertolini, John Anthony (1993). Shaw and Other Playwrights. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 119. ISBN 027100908X.
   6. Schoenbaum, Compact, 14�22.
   7. Schoenbaum, Compact, 24�6.
   8. Schoenbaum, Compact, 24, 296.
      � Honan, 15�16.
   9. Schoenbaum, Compact, 23�24.
  10. Schoenbaum, Compact, 62�63.
      � Ackroyd, Peter (2006). Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Vintage, 53. ISBN 0749386558.
      � Wells, Stanley, et al (2005). The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xv�xvi. ISBN 0199267170.
  11. Baldwin, T.W. (1944). William Shakspere's Small Latine & Lesse Greek. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 464. OCLC 359037.
  12. Baldwin, 164�84.
      � Cressy, David (1975). Education in Tudor and Stuart England. New York: St Martin's Press, 28, 29. OCLC 2148260.
  13. Baldwin, 164�66.
      � Cressy, 80�82.
      � Ackroyd, 545.
      � Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xvi.
  14. Schoenbaum, Compact, 77�78.
  15. Wood, Michael (2003). Shakespeare. New York: Basic Books, 84. ISBN 0465092640.
      � Schoenbaum, Compact, 78�79.
  16. Schoenbaum, Compact, 93
  17. Schoenbaum, Compact, 94.
  18. Schoenbaum, Compact, 224.
  19. Schoenbaum, Compact, 95.
  20. Schoenbaum, Compact, 97�108.
      � Rowe, Nicholas (1709). Some Account of the Life &c. of Mr. William Shakespear. Reproduced by Terry A. Gray (1997) at: Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
  21. Schoenbaum, Compact, 144�45.
  22. Schoenbaum, Compact, 110�11.
  23. Honigmann, E. A. J. (1999). Shakespeare: The Lost Years. Revised Edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1. ISBN 0719054257.
      � Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xvii.
  24. Schoenbaum, Compact, 95�117.
      � Wood, 97�109.
  25. Chambers, E.K. (1930). William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 287, 292. OCLC 353406.
  26. Greenblatt, 213.
  27. Greenblatt, 213.
      � Schoenbaum, 153.
  28. Ackroyd, 176.
  29. Schoenbaum, Compact, 151�52.
  30. Wells, Oxford, 666.
  31. Wells, Stanley (2006). Shakespeare & Co. New York: Pantheon, 28. ISBN 0375424946.
      � Schoenbaum, Compact, 144�46.
      � Chambers, William Shakespeare, Vol 1: 59.
  32. Schoenbaum, Compact, 184.
  33. Chambers, E.K. (1923). The Elizabethan Stage. Vol 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 208�209. OCLC 336379.
  34. Chambers, William Shakespeare, Vol 2: 67�71.
  35. Bentley, G. E (1961). Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook. New Haven: Yale University Press, 36. OCLC 356416.
  36. Schoenbaum, Compact, 188.
      � Kastan, David Scott (1999). Shakespeare After Theory. London; New York: Routledge, 37. ISBN 041590112X.
      � Knutson, Roslyn (2001). Playing Companies and Commerce in Shakespeare's Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 17. ISBN 0521772427.
  37. Adams, Joseph Quincy (1923). A Life of William Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 275. OCLC 1935264.
  38. Wells, Shakespeare & Co., 28.
  39. Schoenbaum, Compact, 200.
  40. Schoenbaum, Compact, 200�201.
  41. Rowe, N., Account.
  42. Ackroyd, 357.
      � Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xxii.
  43. Schoenbaum, Compact, 202�3.
  44. Honan, Park (1998). Shakespeare: A Life. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 121. ISBN 0198117922.
  45. Shapiro, 122.
  46. Honan, 325; Greenblatt, 405.
  47. Honan, 326.
      � Ackroyd, 462�464.
  48. Schoenbaum, Compact, 272�274.
  49. Honan, 387.
  50. Schoenbaum, Compact, 279.
  51. Honan, 375�78.
  52. Schoenbaum, Compact, 276.
  53. a b Ackroyd, 476.
  54. Honan, 382�83.
  55. Schoenbaum, Compact, 25, 296.
  56. Schoenbaum, Compact, 287.
  57. Schoenbaum, Compact, 292, 294.
  58. Schoenbaum, Compact, 304.
  59. Honan, 395�96.
  60. Chambers, William Shakespeare, Vol 2: 8, 11, 104.
      � Schoenbaum, Compact, 296.
  61. Chambers, William Shakespeare, Vol 2: 7, 9, 13.
      � Schoenbaum, Compact, 289, 318�19.
  62. Ackroyd, 483.
      � Frye, Roland Mushat (2005 ). The Art of the Dramatist. London; New York: Routledge, 16. ISBN 0415352894.
      � Greenblatt, 145�6.
  63. Schoenbaum, 301�3.
  64. Schoenbaum, Compact, 306�07.
      � Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xviii.
  65. Schoenbaum, Compact, 308�10.

[Administration]

Lord Chamberlain's Men

The Lord Chamberlain's Men was the playing company that William Shakespeare worked for as actor and playwright for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronized by James I.

It was founded during the reign of Queen Elizabeth in 1594, under the patronage of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, the then Lord Chamberlain, who was in charge of court entertainments. After its patron's death on July 23, 1596, the company came under the patronage of his son, George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, for whom it was briefly known as Lord Hunsdon's Men until he in turn became Lord Chamberlain on March 17, 1597, whereupon it reverted to its previous name. The company became the King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.

Playhouses

The company, eventually the most successful in London, began playing in the comparatively humble circumstances of the Newington Butts theater and Cross Keys Inn. It eventually found a permanent home in the playhouse called The Theatre northeast of the city. By the end of the 1590s, however, the owner of that land had become firmly opposed to letting plays continue at the Theatre. James Burbage attempted to secure a new venue by leasing the old theater in Blackfriars. Even though that theatre had been the site of plays in the 1580s, and even though it lay in a liberty outside the Mayor's jurisdiction, this plan did not immediately benefit the company. The wealthy and influential residents of the neighborhood, including both the Lord Chamberlain and Baron Hunsdon, petitioned the Privy Council to forbid playing in Blackfriars.[1] Thus, the company entered the late 1590s without a regular playhouse; they appear to have performed at the Curtain Theatre from 1597 to 1599, while planning a permanent home.[2] They spent close to two years performing in rented spaces. This situation changed when the company leased lands in Southwark and, taking the framing timbers from the Theater, constructed the new Globe Theatre. That same year, the company sublet its interest in the Blackfriars Theatre to Henry Evans, who used it for performances by his children's company. The Blackfriars residents do not have appeared to oppose this move, perhaps because of the difference perceived between "public" theater audiences and the more select clientele of the "private" playhouse. When the children's companies collapsed between 1606 and 1608, the adult company (by then patronized by the King) assumed the lease again, and used it for winter performances.

The economic organization of the Chamberlain's Men after the construction of the Globe was one of the fundamental causes for the stability of the company both under Elizabeth and after.[3] Presumably it was the cost associated with erecting the Globe that persuaded the company to make the key actors shareholders in that project.[4] Because it tied the fortunes of particular actors to those of a particular company and venue, this decision was one of the factors that allowed the Chamberlain's Men to avoid the instability that had plagued troupes of the 1580s and earlier 1590s. It began, like other companies of the day, as a group organized around a central group of players who "shared" in revenues and expenses. This central group was itself organized under an impresario (in this case, the elder Burbage) who provided loans, procured and controlled the playing space, and generally directed the organization. The purpose of the sharing system was to provide stability to the company; actors put up a bond upon beginning as sharers, and forfeited it if they left without the company's agreement. The extension of profit-sharing to include the "keeping" of the theater itself gave the sharers in the company an additional share in the profits (traditionally, receipts were split between the acting company and the venue's lease-holder). In addition to making the company more profitable for a core of actors, this arrangement freed the players from reliance on an impresario/manager�a relationship that the careers of Philip Henslowe and Christopher Beeston demonstrate could be fraught with tension. The sharing was extended to the Blackfriars in 1608; the stability this arrangement provided certainly contributed to the stability of the company throughout the early Stuart period. It was in this context of stability that Shakespeare and others wrote their most highly-regarded plays.

Personnel

The initial form of the Chamberlain's men arose largely from the departure of Edward Alleyn from Lord Strange's Men and the subsequent death of Lord Strange himself, in the spring of 1594. Yet the ultimate success of the company was largely determined by the Burbage family. James Burbage was the impresario who assembled the company and directed its activities until his death in 1597; his sons Richard and Cuthbert were members of the company, though Cuthbert did not act. This connection with the Burbages makes the Chamberlain's Men the central link in a chain that extends from the beginning of professional theater (in 1574, James Burbage led the first group of actors to be protected under the 1572 statute against rogues and vagabonds) in Renaissance London to its end. (In 1642, the King's Men were among the acting companies whose lives were ended by Parliament's prohibition of the stage.)

The Chamberlain's Men comprised a core of between six and eight "sharers," who split profits and debts; perhaps an equal number of hired men who acted minor and doubled parts; and a slightly smaller number of boy players, who were sometimes bound apprentices to an adult actor. The original sharers in the Chamberlain's were eight. Probably the most famous in the mid-1590s was William Kempe, who had been in the company of the Earl of Leicester in the 1580s, and had later joined Strange's Men. As the company's clown, he presumably took the broadest comic role in every play; he is identified with Peter in the quarto of Romeo and Juliet, and probably also originated Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Kempe has traditionally been viewed as the object of Hamlet's complaint about extemporizing clowns; whether this association is right or wrong, Kempe had left the company by 1601. Another two sharers from Strange's Men had a long-standing association with Kempe. George Bryan had been in Leicester's Men in the 1580s, and at Elsinore with Kempe in 1586; because he is not mentioned in later Chamberlain's or King's Men documents, it is assumed that Bryan retired from the stage in 1597 or 1598. (Bryan lived on for some years; in the reign of James, he is listed as a Groom of the Chamber, with household duties, as late as 1613.) Thomas Pope, another Leicester's veteran, retired in 1600 and died in 1603. Both Bryan and Pope came to the company from Lord Strange's Men. Augustine Phillips also came from Strange's Men. He remained with the troupe until his death in 1605.

Two younger actors who came from Strange's, Henry Condell and John Heminges, are most famous now for collecting and editing the plays of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623). Both were relatively young in 1594, and both remained with the company until after the death of King James; their presence provided an element of continuity across decades of changing taste and commercial uncertainty.

(Some scholars have theorized that the company maintained its original eight-sharer structure, and that as any man left, through retirement or death, his place as sharer was filled by someone else. So, Bryan was replaced by William Sly, ca. 1597; Kempe was replaced by Robert Armin, ca. 1599; Pope was replaced by Condell, ca. 1600.[5] But this schema, while possible, is not proven by the available evidence.)

The two sharers who would contribute the most to the Chamberlain's Men did not come from Strange's Men. Shakespeare's activities before 1594 have been a matter of considerable inquiry; he may have been with Pembroke's Men in the early 1590s. As a sharer, he was at first equally important as actor and playwright. At an uncertain but probably early date, his writing became more important, although he continued to act at least until 1603, when he performed in Ben Jonson's Sejanus.

No less important was Richard Burbage. He was the lead actor of the Chamberlain's Men, who played Hamlet and Othello, and would go on to play King Lear and Macbeth in the new reign of King James, among many other roles. Though relatively little-known in 1594, he would become one of the most famous of Renaissance actors, achieving a fame and wealth exceeded only by Alleyn's.

Among the hired men were some who eventually became sharers. William Sly, who performed occasionally with the Admiral's Men during the 1590s, acted for the Chamberlain's by 1598, and perhaps before; he became a sharer after Phillips's death in 1605. Richard Cowley, identified as Verges by the quarto of Much Ado About Nothing, became a sharer in the King's Men. Nicholas Tooley, at one point apprenticed to Burbage, stayed with the company until his death in 1623. John Sincler (or Sincklo) may have specialized in playing thin characters; he seems to have remained a hired man. John Duke was a hired man who went to Worcester's Men early in James's reign.

At least two of the boys had distinguished careers. Alexander Cooke is associated with a number of Shakespeare's female characters, while Christopher Beeston went on to become a wealthy impresario in the seventeenth century.

Later sharers

The core members of the company changed in both major and minor ways before James's accession. The most famous change is that of Will Kempe, the circumstances of which remain unclear. Kempe was among the stakeholders in the Globe property, and he may have performed in that theater in its first year. His famous morris dance to Norwich took place during Lent, when the company lay idle; not until the hastily-added epilogue to Nine Days' Wonder (his account of the stunt) does he refer to his plan to return to individual performances. He may have had a hand in the bad quartos of Hamlet and The London Prodigal, in which the clown parts are unusually accurate.

Whatever the reason for his departure, Kempe was replaced by Robert Armin, formerly of Chandos's Men and an author in his own right. Small and fanciful, Armin offered significantly different options for Shakespeare, and the change is seen in the last Elizabethan and first Jacobean plays. Armin is generally credited with originating such characters as Feste in Twelfth Night, Touchstone in As You Like It, and the fool in King Lear.

Thus, by 1603 the core of the troupe was in some respects younger than it had been in 1594. Bryan, Pope, and Kempe, veterans of the 1580s, had left, and the remaining sharers (with the probably exception of Phillips), were roughly within a decade of 40.

Repertory and performances

Shakespeare's work undoubtedly formed the great bulk of the company's repertory. In their first year of performance, they may have staged such of Shakespeare's older plays as remained in the author's possession, including Henry VI, part 2, Henry VI, part 3, as well as Titus Andronicus. A Midsummer Night's Dream may have been the first play Shakespeare wrote for the new company; it was followed over the next two years by a concentrated burst of creativity that resulted in Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labours Lost, The Merchant of Venice, and the plays in the so-called second tetralogy. The extent and nature of the non-Shakespearean repertory in the first is not known; plays such as Locrine, The Troublesome Reign of King John, and Christopher Marlowe's Edward II have somewhat cautiously been advanced as likely candidates. The earliest non-Shakespearean play known to have been performed by the company is Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, which was onstage in the middle of 1598; they also staged the thematic sequel, Every Man Out of His Humour, the next year.

On the strength of these plays, the company quickly rivaled Alleyn's troupe for preeminence in London; already in 1595, they gave four performances at court, following that with six the next year and four in 1597. These years were, typically for an Elizabethan company, also fraught with uncertainty. The company suffered along with the others in the summer of 1597, when the uproar over The Isle of Dogs temporarily closed the theaters; records from Dover and Bristol indicate that at least some of the company toured that summer. The character of Falstaff, though immensely popular from the start, aroused the ire of Lord Cobham, who objected to the character's original name (Oldcastle), which derived from a member of Cobham's family.


Saint Crispin's Day

In the last years of the century, the company continued to stage Shakespeare's new plays, including Julius Caesar and Henry V, which may have opened the Globe, and Hamlet, which may well have appeared first at the Curtain. Among non-Shakespearean drama, A Warning for Fair Women was certainly performed, as was the Tudor history Thomas Lord Cromwell, sometimes seen as a salvo in a theatrical feud with the Admiral's Men, whose lost plays on Wolsey date from the same year.

In 1601, in addition to their tangential involvement with the Essex rebellion, the company played a role in a less serious conflict, the so-called War of the Theatres. They produced Thomas Dekker's Satiromastix, a satire on Ben Jonson which seems to have ended the dispute. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Jonson does not appear to have held a grudge against the company; in 1603, they staged his Sejanus, with dissatisfying results. They also performed The London Prodigal, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, and The Fair Maid of Bristow, the last a rarity in that it is a Chamberlain's play that has never been attributed in any part to Shakespeare.

Controversies

The Lord Chamberlain's Men, and its individual members, largely avoided the scandals and turbulence in which other companies and actors sometimes involved themselves. Their most serious difficulty with the government came about as a result of their tangental involvement in the February 1601 insurrection of the Earl of Essex. Some of Essex's supporters had commssioned a special performance of Shakespeare's Richard II, in the hope that the spectacle of that king's overthrow might make the public more amenable to the overthrow of Elizabeth (who once remarked, "I am Richard II, know ye not that?"). Augustine Phillips was deposed on the matter by the investigating authorities; he testified that the actors had been offered 40 shillings more than their usual fee, and for that reason alone had performed the play on Feb. 7, the day before Essex's farcical uprising. The explanation was accepted; the company and its members went unpunished, and even performed for Elizabeth at Whitehall on Feb. 24, the day before Essex's execution.

The following year, 1602, saw Christopher Beeston's rape charge. Probably some of the Lord Chamberlain's Men were among the actors who accompanied Beeston to his pretrial hearing at Bridewell and caused a disturbance there; but little can be said for certain.[6]

Notes

   1. Gurr, p. 45.
   2. Adams, p. 200.
   3. Gurr, p. 56.
   4. Chambers. Vol. 1, pp. 357ff.
   5. Halliday, Shakespeare Companion, pp. 90-1.
   6. Duncan Salkeld, "Literary Traces in Bridewell and Bethlem, 1602-1624," Review of English Studies, Vol. 56 No. 225, pp. 279-85.

References

    * Adams, J. Q. Shakespearean Playhouses: A History of English Playhouses from the Beginnings to the Restoration. Boston, Mass.: Houghton-Mifflin, 1917.
    * Baldwin, T.W. The Organization and Personnel of Shakespeare's Company. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1927.
    * Chambers, E. K.. The Elizabethan Stage. Four Volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
    * Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare's London, 1576�1642. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
    * Greg, W. W. Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses. Two volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931.
    * Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage, 1574�1642. 3rd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
    * Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564�1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
    * Nunzeger, Edwin. A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated With the Public Presentation of Plays in England Before 1642. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929.

[Administration]

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition runs this website so anyone who cares about Shakespeare, as we do, can easily see why his identity has long been in doubt, and sign a definitive declaration addressing the issue � the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare, located on this site. We have nothing against the man from Stratford-on-Avon, but we doubt that he was the author of the works. Our goal is to legitimize the issue in academia so students, teachers and professors can feel free to pursue it. This is necessary because the issue is widely viewed as settled in academia and is treated as a taboo subject. We believe that an open-minded examination of the evidence shows that the issue should be taken seriously. Your signature on the Declaration will help us make the case that there is reasonable doubt about the author.

The Declaration was written not just to advocate, but also to educate. It provides an introduction to the issue. Many scholars with knowledge of the issue, including those on our advisory board, contributed to writing it. We hope thousands will sign it and millions will read it. To achieve the latter, we need help with the former. Our lists of signatories are normally updated four times per year. The next updated lists will appear on the signatories page on Monday, October 15, 2007. To qualify, sign the Declaration here by 12:00 midnight GMT (London) on Sunday, October 14, 2007. After signing it, you may wish to download a free copy to share with others who may also find it interesting. You may also wish to purchase one or more products from our online Store to help increase the visibility of the SAC, and the Declaration. We plan to operate this website through the 400th anniversary of the death of the traditional author, the Stratford man, on April 23, 2016.

Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference

We are the academic home of annual assemblies that bring together professors, teachers, students, playwrights, actors, directors and lovers of Shakespeare from all over the world to share research about and insights into the Elizabethan world's most acclaimed poet-playwright with the primary goals of establishing who the writer the world knows as Shakespeare was and exploring why he wrote anonymously and probably pseudonymously.

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The First Web Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Works
KING HENRY VIII
SCENE London; Westminster; Kimbolton

The courtyard of Kimbolton Castle, where I performed in the first-ever production of this play in its historical setting.

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Shakespeare in Love
Putting flesh on the bones and making the blood course.

[Bart]

Summary of Baconian Evidence for Shakespeare Authorship

"Tragedies & Comedies are made of one Alphabet."   Francis Bacon

"There be some whose lives are as if they perpetually played a part upon a stage, disguised to all others,
open only to themselves." Francis Bacon from The Essay of Friendship found only in the 1607 & 1612 edition

The clearest indication of Bacon using another name for his work is in Tobie Matthew's letter to Bacon , in 1623, written from France:

"The most prodigious wit, that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another."

In 1603, Bacon wrote to a friend of his, the poet, John Davies, who had gone north to meet the King:

"So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue, yours very assured, Fr. Bacon."[/i]"The wisdom displayed in Shakespeare was equal in profoundness to the great Lord Bacon's Novum Organum." -William Hazlitt

"Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any country, ever produced."Alexander Pope , 1741

"In Shakespeare's plays we have Thought, History, Exposition, Philosophy, all within the round of the poet. It is as if into a mind poetical in form there had been poured all the matter which existed in the mind of his contemporary Bacon. The only difference between him and Bacon sometimes is that Bacon writes an Essay and calls it his own, while Shakespeare writes a similar essay and puts it into the mouth of a Ulysses or a Polonius." orthodox Professor David Mason

"...The subjects which most engrossed the mind of Bacon, the opinions which he most strongly expressed, the ideas which he desired especially to inculcate, are those which are found chiefly pervading the plays. Those things which are explained in the prose works of Bacon are to be found repeated, or alluded to, or forming the basis of beautiful metaphors and similes, in the Plays. And the vocabulary of Bacon and Shakespeare is to a suprising degree the same." Constance Pott

"Two things were strenuously avoided by Bacon; the direct mention of the name of Shakespeare, and the literal quotation of any passages from the Plays. This man of genius, coming forward in the essays as commentator on his own works, always clothed his elucidations in words other than those he chose as the poet & as Shakespeare. The poet clothes the thoughts of the philosopher in gorgeous robes: the language of the scholar must be plainer in style, the pictures he draws must be simpler and yet in spite of all, not only in the thoughts, but in the wording and manner of expressing himself, Bacon could not avoid telling us a great deal that carries the mind back to the Plays." EMB, The Day Star Of The Muses, essay in Baconiana 1968

"Directly as men were aware that the main purpose of the published plays was not so much to entertain them as to put them to school, the New Method was certain to become a failure. Long and patient trial of the system could alone attain success. To disclose the author was to reveal the schoolmaster, whose work would be resented as an impertinence by those for whom it was most fit."Parker Woodward (Baconiana, Oct. 1905):

"Without a mask, Bacon's plan for his Instauratio Magna would not have been possible; William Shakespeare was a necessary feature in the vast scheme of Bacon's philosophic experiment which had the world for its theatre, ages for its accomplishment, and posterity for its beneficiaries."Introduction to facsimile of Manes Verulamiani, by W.G.C. Gundry, Barrister-at-Law (Chiswick Press, London 1956).

A comparison of the writings of contemporary authors in prose and verse, proves that no other writer of that age, but Bacon, can come into any competition for the authorship. Judge Nathaniel Holmes 1884

Bacon's style varied almost as much as his handwriting; but it was influenced more by the subject matter than by youth or old age. Few men have shown equal versatility in adapting their language to the slightest shade of circumstance and purpose. Dr. Edwin Abbott

There are far more allusions to the stage and acting in Bacon's works than there are in Shakespeare. R. Eagle,, New Views for Old,1930

"This play (Love's Labour's Lost) is tailor-made for Bacon's authorship" Nigel Cockburn, author of The Bacon-Shakespeare Question 1998

" To write with powerful effect, he must write out the life he has led, as did Bacon when he wrote Shakespeare." Mark Twain

"Will be ready to furnish a Masque" Francis Bacon in Letter to his Uncle, Lord Burleigh .
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1. The only Shakespeare notebook, a collection of expressions, phrases, and sentences, many of which appear in the Shakespeare plays. This is the Promus, written by Francis Bacon. This notebook has not been mentioned by a single Shakespeare biographer. (There is a very good psychological reason why orthodox scholarship is so concerned to repudiate any suggestion of Lord Bacon's connection with Shake-speare. This is to protect the Bard (whom all admire, whoever he was) from the stigma of Lord Bacon's supposed corruption, which they in their ignorance take for granted.-Martin Pares)

2. The only contemporary document bearing the names of Shakespeare and Bacon and the titles of two Shakespeare plays (Richard II and Richard III) and Shakespeare phrases. The Northumberland Manuscript which resides where it was discovered in Alnwick Castle, can be found an interesting juxtaposition of Bacon's Christian name and William Shakespeare. The page consists of a contents list of speeches and other manuscripts. Underneath "by ffrancis William Shakespeare" we read "Richard II and Richard III." Over the word 'ffrancis' is written another word which it is impossible to read until the whole page is turned upside down. Then it is seen that the word is 'ffrancis ' and next to it , also upside down, are the words, 'your sovereign.' The long word in Love's Labour's Lost also appears in the Northumberland Manuscript. The probable date of the Manuscript is 1597.

3. Bacon -Shakespeare Coincidences

4. The Manes Verulamiani, a collection of obituary poems written in honor of Bacon by his friends, in Latin, some of which quote the expressions used on the Shakespeare monument in the Stratford church. Several of these tributes praise Bacon for his comedies, tragedies and poetry.

5. Bacon's royal parentage, may be considered one of several reasons for his anonymity as author.

6. Bacon's knowledge of Hermetic, Rosicrucian, Neoplatonic and Kabbalistic teaching. Rosicrucian themes are found in:

Bacon's New Atlantis
As You Like It
Love's Labour's Lost
Venus and Adonis
The Shakespeare Sonnets

7. That Bacon was known as a poet by his contemporaries is validated by their tributes.(Yet this prodigious writer left hardly any poetry printed under his own name.) Perhaps the most important proof of the esteem in which he was held is exhibited in the "Great Assizes Holden in Parnassus" published in 1645.

a) Bacon as a concealed Poet : Contemporary Evidence

b) Bacon as a concealed Poet : Posthumous Eulogies

c) Bacon as a concealed Poet : His own Admission

8. The nonsense word in Love's Labour's Lost, honorificabilitudinitatibus.

9. Letter from Bacon to King James,Nov.1622:

"...for my pen, if contemplative, going on with The Historie of Henry the Eighth."

Letter from Bacon to the Duke of Buckingham, 21 February 1623:
...Prince Charles "who, I hope, ere long will make me leave King Henry VIII and set me on work in relation to His Majesty's adventures."

Letter from Bacon to the Duke of Buckingham, 26 June 1623:
"...since you say the Prince hath not forgot his commandment touching my history of Henry VIII."

January 1623. Bacon applied to the records office for the loan of archive documents relating to the reign of Henry VIII.

December 1623 ' The Histori of King Henry VIIIprinted for the first time in the Shakespeare First Folio.

A brief, 30-line summary of Henry's reign was printed after Bacon's death under his own name.

10. The St.Albans Mural, in the White Hart Inn, dated 1600 illustrating scenes from Venus and Adonis. At least six details have been found which link this large painting with Bacon, his nearby house at Gorhambury, the Rosicrucians, led by Bacon, and the Shakespeare plays. One of the six rules imposed on members of the Rosicrucian order, was anonymity for a hundred years. If this mural had been discovered in Stratford, or Bankside, it would have been mentioned in all books on the life of Shakespeare since its discovery in 1985. It has not been mentioned once.

11. how the Shakespeare Plays Fit Bacon's Life-Story

12. See Bacon's influence behind 'The Comedy of Errors', 'Julius Caesar' & 'Anthony and Cleopatra'

13. Thirty-Two reasons for believing that Bacon wrote Shakespeare

14. Frances Bacon and Timon of Athens

15. A Perspective on Bacon & Hamlet

16. Another viewpoint on Bacon and Hamlet

17. The Ghost or Spirit in Hamlet and Bacon's Scientific Observations on the nature of Spirit

18. Contemporary evidence of Bacon linked to the Stage & Bacon's integration of Stagecraft with his other Writings

19. Frequent references made by Bacon regarding the Theatre and Stage

20. Mutual Themes (Manners, Mind and Morals) are found in the works of Bacon & the Shakespeare Plays

21. Mutual thoughts and subjects can be found in the works of Bacon and Shakespeare collated by W.F.C .Wigston in his book Francis Bacon : Poet, Prophet, Philosopher,Versus Phantom Captain Shakespeare The Rosicrucian Mask

22. Transcript from a lecture given on April 28, 1910 in St. Albans : Bacon wrote Shakespeare

23. Bacon's Essay of Gardens and the Shakespeare play, the Winter's Tale

24. Bacon's writings on Hope , Wonder and Love can be found throughout the Shake-Speare plays and poems.

25. After the 1622 Quarto edition was first printed many changes to Othello could be found a year later in the 1623 Folio edition. Find out how these changes suggest that the author was Francis Bacon.

26. The Shakespeare Myth

27. The Medicine in Shakespeare-  medical references in various Shakespeare plays are attributed to Dr.William Harvey who was Bacon's physician and teacher when they met at Caius College, hence the character Master Doctor Caius in the Merry Wives of Windsor. Dr.Harvey is noted for a discovery about blood circulation which was made after William Shaksper's death in 1616 and yet his discovery is in the the play Merry Wives.

28. The Tempest and Bacon's History of the Winds

29. Francis Bacon and Macbeth, & King James

30. Francis Bacon and Richard II

31. The Tempest uses details from a private letter from one William Strachey to which Bacon, but not Shakspere, had access. Bacon almost certainly drafted a report of the Virginia Company which likewise draws on the letter.

32. Outline and Summary : What evidence points to Bacon as the author of the Shakespeare Plays?

                                                                     

    *****

Many more links located at this site: http://www.sirbacon.org/links/evidence.htm

[Bart]

After reading this page, one concludes that the author of made everything up, or did a tremendous amount of research to make his assertions. The sheer volume of material for Bacon as Shakespere leaves little room for doubt.

Bart
***

    Many of the Royal colleges of science and learning could trace their origin to Bacon or his Societies, if they were interested, but so few realise today what the world owes to the greatest man of all time.

From 1576 to 1623, the English language developed from barbarous crudeness to the highest pitch, but when Bacon died we read in the records of the time "things daily fall, wits grow downward and eloquence grows backward."

Title Page of Bacon's Advancement of Learning
In The First Continental Editions of 1645, 1652,1654,1662

It was a period of fracton, intrigue, plot, counter-plot and sudden death, and every man who entered public life realised that he walked in the shadows of the Tower or the block. Very few escaped one or the other. What greater reason could Bacon have for secrecy? He was working out his vast project of educating the people to which the Queen had repeatedly registered her disapproval. Had the truth been known, his chance of any judicial appointment, essential in many ways to the working of his scheme, would have been irretrievably lost, apart from the fact that many had gone to execution for far less disobedience. Concealed and feigned authorship was not an unheard of thing in those days by any means. There were many ever watchful for heresies and many more for treason. The incident with the Queen concerning the play Richard II bears out that fact.

Fed on pap history few people realise the actual workings and trend of Elizabethan times. The Queen had the right of life or death over every subject in the country. Lady Mary Gray, torn from her husband, was doomed to life long imprisonment by the Queen for no greater crime than stealing a love-match.

Lady Katherine Gray was incarcerated apart from her husband and children till released by death seven years later�for marrying secretly. These are only two minor examples.

The play, Richard II, was performed�anonymously�the afternoon before Essex broke into rebellion. It was denounced by the Queen as an act of treason. Bacon, as Solicitor-Extraordinary, was commanded to seek out the author of the play that he might be put on the rack. This alone proves that the authorship was not generally known.

Bacon's embarrassment can be well imagined. A scapegoat had to be found, someone outside the political arena and without motive for intrigue. All the data available point to the fact that the huckster Shagsper of Stratford was cited as the author, bribed with a thousand pounds through Bacon's friend Southampton, and despatched to his home in Warwickshire. His sudden acquisition of wealth supports the story, from which undoubtedly has sprung the germ of the present day myth and Stratfordian obsession. Remember always that theoretically Stratford was as far from London as Canada is to-day.

The rest of the story calls only for common sense. Distort it as you will, there is no mystery, no puzzle�the pieces fit at any angle.

Bacon's note-book (The Promus) can be seen in the British Museum. It is a unique collection of phrases and elegancies of language both English and foreign, and mostly new to the period. Obviously very few of them were suitable for inclusion in his essays, and most of them have been traced in the Shakespeare Plays.

If not intended for the Plays, for what purpose did Bacon make notes of "Good morrow," "Good matins," "Bon jour," "Good day to me and good morrow to you," and other expressions not then in common use in England?
Volumes have been filled with thousands of parallelisms between Bacon's acknowledged works and the Plays. The philosophy, the phrases, the forms of expression, the classical allusions, the learning and opinions are again and again identical. Of fifty-three points of style selected by Mr. Cowden Clarke as being " characteristic" of Shakespeare, all have been found in the prose works by Bacon.

"Good dawning" entered in Bacon's note book circa 1596 has since appeared but once in English print viz. in "King Lear" first published 1608.

Shakespeare: "Many men that stumble at the threshold"
Bacon : "To stumble at the threshold"

Shak.: "Thought is free"
Bac.: "Thought is free"

Shak.:"He will fence with his own shadow"
Bac.: "To fight with a shadow"

Shak.: "What's done cannot be undone"
Bac.: Things done cannot be undone"

Shak.: "Loan oft loses both itself and friend"
Bac.: "He who loans to a friend loses double"

Shak.: "Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind"
Bac.: "We usually try which way the wind bloweth by casting up grass"

Shak.: "Sense sure you have, else could you not have motion"
Bac.: The ancients could not conceive how there can be motion without sense"

Shak.: "The ill wind which blows no man to good"
Bac.: "An ill wind that bloweth no man to good"

Shak.: "Call me not fool, till Heaven hath sent me good fortune."

Bac.: "God sendeth fortune to fools."

These are only a few suggested brevities: there are hundreds more. There is scarcely a sentiment or opinion expressed in the plays which has not its counterpart in the acknowledged works of Bacon.
"Both authors" call the sun by the exceptional name of Titan.
The earliest work attributed to the Stratford butcher-boy is dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, one of Bacon's friends. Comment is superfluous.

The great folio published in 1623 was dedicated to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, again Bacon's intimates. Surely dedication demands some preliminary courtesy, and Shakespeare had been dead seven years?
The same folio of 1623 contains thirty-six plays. Several had been published previously, but now reappeared with voluminous alterations , new scenes and hundreds of new lines. Five of the plays had never been heard of before. Who would have seen the necessity of all this work, who would have been capable�Shakespeare dead seven years? Bacon was very much alive and published some of his acknowledged works at the same time.
Philip Henslowe, the greatest theatrical manager and producer of his day, kept a diary(which is preserved) in which he set down the sums of money paid to authors for their work. We find in this diary the names of practically all the dramatic writers of that day excepting Shakespeare, his name being entirely ignored. Neither does Shaksper, Shaxspur, or Shagsper figure anywhere in this historic list of Henslowe's.

After 1594, all plays were required to be registered before publication. Nothing was ever registered in Shakespeare's name, nor is there any trace of the actual writer with the various people who effected the registrations at Stationer's Hall. Bacon had his reasons for secrecy. Shakespeare none.
"Venus and Adonis" was enrolled on the Stationers' Register under the special authority of Dr. Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had previously closed the register against very many books of the same licentious character. Why this favouritism? The Archbishop was very friendly to Bacon having been his tutor at Cambridge. He knew nothing of the man Shaksper.

If Bacon did not write the plays, the pen of this great man was more or less idle between the ages of fifteeen and forty-four. Can anyone believe that a brilliant writer filled with a tremendous purpose accomplished nothing during the best years of his life, especially when all the records testify to his unceasing industry? William Rawley states "that he would suffer no moment of time to slip from him without some present improvement." Again his "idle years" fit in with the dates of the plays.

Most authors write about people and things they understand and take colour from their surroundings. Why should an unlettered rustic of Stratford select for his themes in nearly every instance the lives of Kings and courtiers, with scenes laid in foreign courts and distant places? How could he know the precedence of the nobles, or the technical procedure of a legatine exclestiastical court? It was Bacon's life in England and abroad. Bismark wrote that the author must have been in touch with the great affairs of State, and behind the scenes in political life.

There is no record of Shakespeare's early immature work, but Bacon wrote masques and plays at an early age.
There is a letter from his uncle wherein he deprecates "a waste of time over sonnets, plays and such frivolities." There are similiar letters to the young Francis from his mother.

Loves Labour's Lost is considered to be the first play produced. It teems with Bacon's educational purpose. The scene is laid at the King's Court of Navarre, and three of the characters are the identical names on the passports in the British Museum. Shakespeare could never have heard of them : Francis and his brother Anthony had been honoured guests at that distant court. The play also reveals court secrets which could not possibly have been known by Shakespeare.

"But" says a bigoted actor "how did Bacon acquire a technical knowledge of the stage?" Besides writing masques and plays at an early age he had a prolonged acquaintance with French and Italian plays in France. In fact more experience than many of the English dramatists and certainly more than Shaksper who wrote his first play, after being in London for only two or three years, moving in the lowest section of Society.

Further, there were no dramas in the English language to serve as models for the Author of any plays. Bacon originated a new dramatic style founded on the Attic and Roman plays which he had read, studied and copiously annotated.

The other plays contain the History of England and the Wars of the Roses from Richard II to Henry VIII, omitting Henry VII. Bacon fills the gap and writes a prose history of Henry VII. Is it not remarkable that he should write a history of the one reign omitted in the Plays? Mr. Bengough, a student of Shakespeare, compared the prose history with Shakespeare's King John and found in these two works alone twenty-two metaphors used in both,several catch words, nine or ten peculiar phrases used in both, twenty or more words used in an unusual sense and twenty-one passages in one scene of the play with corresponding passages in three pages of the history. And what is more the History begins at the precise point at which the Shakespeare play of Henry VI ends, and closes at the precise point at which the Shakespeare play Henry VIII begins.

The themes of nearly all the plays were taken from foreign works not translated at that time. They show no point of contact with Shakespeare's life, but fit into the life of Bacon in date,episode, thought and feeling.
Twelfth Night was a satire on the English Court. The arrogant Malvolio's counterpart is easily discernible in the Queen's Chamberlain, ect.

Love's Labour's Lost is clearly a travesty of the French Court of Navarre, which Bacon had visited and Shakespeare had not.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona was founded on the Spanish romance of "Diana." We know that Bacon had a knowledge of Spanish from his Promus notebook. A dramatist may have to read fifty stories before he finds one suitable for adaptation. Was Shakespeare capable of this work without books or travel?
All the scenes in France in the historical series of the plays had been visited by Bacon. He lived at St. Albans and all the secret history of that place appears in the Plays.

In 1593 Bacon was in money straits, having borrowed from the moneylender Spencer. His brother Anthony came to his relief. The incident with the names slightly altered appears in The Merchant of Venice.

Antonio delivers Bassanio from the clutches of Shylock. The story was founded on an Italian novel which was only accessible in the original Italian Francis was devoted to his brother Anthony and his name occurs in eight or nine of the Plays. Again Romeo and Juliet was founded on an Italian story, and Othello and Measure for Measure, all with foreign scenes. In 1610, Bacon joined with the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery in an enterprise to the West Indies. Their ship Admiral was wrecked on the Bermudas.

His co-directors Pembroke and Montgomery, appear later in the dedication of the 1623 folio.

In 1611 The Tempest appeared whose scene was " the still vexed Bermoothes". The sea-faring terms show an accurate technical knowledge, and contain many allusions to Bacon's treatise on the sailing of ships "The History of the Winds," "Ebb and flow of the sea" etc. Shakespeare had already left London, and there is every reason to affirm that he never saw the sea. Surely this calls for two minutes silence.

The Author of the plays was quite familiar with the rival schools of Medicine and with the great medical names of antiquity.

In All's well that ends Well Act II scene 3. read about Galen and Paracelsus; the former is mentioned several times in other plays. Where�where could the author have secured this knowledge? The literature of Stratford was probably a horn book or two, where few of the Town Council could write their own names, and where the most appalling filth and depravity reigned supreme.

Where could Shakespeare have gained this knowledge? There is only one answer. In 1573 Trinity College received little Francis Bacon who was frail in health and loved to doctor himself; he took a keen interest in the science of medicine (Spedding). At Cambridge there was a lectureship for the students in the lore of Hippocrates and Galen. Linaicre, founder of the course of study, had been succeeded by one John Caius; one of the most learned men of the time. Need more be said. Further, en passant, the University idioms and expressions occur again and again in the plays. And Shakespeare did not study at a University.

William Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood in 1619. The fact appears in the plays. But Shakespeare died in 1616, and therefore could not possibly have written those lines. Could anything be more conclusive?
Timon of Athens was taken from the story of Plutarch, and the untranslated Greek of Lucian.

One entire scene in Henry VI is written in idiomatic French. There is no scrap of evidence that Shakespeare was so gifted. His time for reading and study must have been limited, his access to books even more so, and without travel of any description it would have been the greatest miracle of all.

The Comedy of Errors, taken from Plautus, not then translated, was played before the Queen in 1576. Shakespeare had not left Stratford and would be only thirteen years of age. The next time it was acted was in 1594 at Francis Bacon's Inn, Grays Inn, under his direction.

Macbeth shows a wonderful knowledge of the locality and Scottish legal proceedings.

Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bart., writes that he has seen a rare copy of Buchanan's "Historia Scotia" in which the story of Duncan, Banquo and Macbeth is told. It contains many marginal notes by Bacon which point unmistakably to his preparation to the play.

Two thousand books annotated by Bacon have also been discovered, and nothing of course from Shakespeare.
The dileneation of madness in King Lear and Hamlet reflects the latter-day mental state of Bacon's mother. There is much data to show that the departed "Yorick" in Hamlet was formerly a jester at the Elizabethan Court. The young Francis was constantly with the Queen and must have joined with the merry Andrew in childish merriment at all times. The speech tells the story very plainly.

In As you LIke It Act V is a scene between Touchstone, Audrey (who represents the Plays) and "William". The scene is obviously "dragged in" and tells the story very clearly. It should be read. At every point one finds in the Plays a mirror of Bacon's life; but, although they reflect all the learning and philosophy which we find in Bacon's prose works, he never mentions the Plays, nor the author, which fact can only lead to one conclusion.
That Bacon and Shakespeare should live for years in the same city and neither know nor mention each other is an astonishing fact. But not only does Bacon never mention Shakespeare; but, a great many contemporaries never once mention his name. There is nothing in Shakespeare's recorded or traditional life which in any way connects the writings of the plays with him, and never did he claim the authorship of one line of the plays known as those of "Shakespeare." The only document in existence addressed to him is a letter from Richard Quiney asking for a loan �30 and none exists from him. Would a man as the writer of the Sonnets and Plays with all the self-confidenc and consciousness of superiority over his fellows, desert in the early ripeness of his career the very theatre of his triumphs to hide away in commonplace Stratford without books or manuscripts, to brew beer and lend money? Now take the evidence. There is not one letter of the time from anybody to anybody extolling Shaksper's poetic faculty, and he died unnoticed in every way. On Bacon's death 32 elegies were published......

Here are a few more "coincidences."

In the first part of Henry the Sixth Jeanne d'Arc addresses the Duke of Burgundy in a speech of thirty-three lines. The speech is an absolutely faithful version of a letter in France written by the Maid of Orleans to the then Duke of Burgundy and dated July 17th , 1429. There is no historical authority for this letter which never saw the light of print till discovered by the Historian of the House of Burgundy in 1780. Bacon in his travels might easily have seen this letter : in fact the Author of the play must have done so. Shakespeare was never within miles of it.

In the play HenryVIII the Author shows a profound intimacy with Cardinal Wolsey's personal character. Shakespeare's friends of the rogue and vagabond class would scarcely be helpful in matters of this kind. Apart from mixing with people who would know something of their predecessors, Bacon's grandmother was the daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam, who had been in the Prelate's service and who had entertained him at Milton after his disgrace. Lady Anne Bacon would have transmitted a great deal of Wolsey's private life and character to her son Francis. In Henry VIII two of the peers sent to relieve Cardinal Wolsey of the Great Seal bear the titles of those who waited on Lord Verulam (Bacon) for a similar purpose. Strange!

Every phase of Bacon's fall, clearly defined in his letters and papers appears in the Sonnets. Read them carefully. Shakespeare was never "impeached" or "attainted"; and Bacon was the only writer of his age who suffered "impeachment."

Bacon became Secretary of State 1612, Attorney-General 1613, Privy Councillor 1616, Lord Keeper 1617, Lord Chancellor 1618, and was made Viscount St. Albans 1621. From 1611�during these busy years the output of plays ceased. Shaksper was still alive. But in 1621 after Bacon's fall they were resumed although Shaksper had been dead five years.

Aristotle wrote of political philosophy and he is wrongly quoted in Troilus and Cressida ....."unfit to hear moral philosophy" Bacon makes identically the same misquotation in his great work "The Advancement of Learning."
Was Bacon or Shakespeare the more likely man to depict accurately and to the very life the many Aristocrats by birth and intellect that figure so frequently in the dramas? And what could have put it into the head of Will Shak, fresh from a provincial town to talk of nothing else but foreign parts, lf which he could know little or nothing.

Two lines in I Henry VI

Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens

That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.

Critics were long puzzled to trace this legend. It has been found in Plato's "Phaedrus" which Bacon knew but which was not translanted in Shakespeare's time. "Adonis Gardens" is also in Bacon's notebook in the British Museum.

It is quite the orthodox belief that many of the plays were founded upon earlier works by various authors. Edwin Reed in his book "Francis Bacon, our Shakespeare" has clearly shown that these early versions were written by the same author and subsequently rewritten by him. Why then, is this fact not acknowledged? For a very good reason. If "Shakespeare" was the author of the early version of Hamlet he could not have been William Shaksper of Stratford by reason of the dates.

Othello was published in 1622, and appeared as "newly augmented" although Shaksper had been dead six years. In the following year it appeared again in the great Folio with a further 160 lines of the same wonderful character. Shaksper still dead.

There were many piracies of the plays, and the name Shakespeare was used frequently to sell inferior works, but there was never a word of complaint from the litigious Shaksper who had sued one man for two shillings. Bacon had to guard his own secret.

Again speaks the bigoted actor. Without troubling to investigate in any way he affirms that the man who wrote the Bacon Essay On Love could not have written Romeo and Juliet . Yet, in the history of literature no "two minds" have ever shown such complete agreement on the subject of "Love."

Shak.: Love moderately: long love doth so.
Bac.: Love me little: love me long

Shak.: Is not love a Hercules?
Bac.: What fortune can be such a Hercules as love?

Shak.: Why to love I can allege no cause.
Bac.: Love has no cause.

Shak.: O, flatter me, for love delights in praises.
Bac.:There is no flatterer like a lover

Shak. : He's mad that trusts in......a boys' love
Bac.: A boy's love doth not endure

Shak.: Love will creep in service where it cannot go.
Bac. : Love must creep in service where it cannot go.

Shak.: Love gives to every power a double power.
Bac.: Love gives the mind power to exceed itself.

Shak.: Love.....with the motion of all elements.
Bac.: Love is the motion that animateth all things.

Shak.: Love is first learned in a women's eyes.
Bac.: The eye where love beginneth.

Shak.: I shall be lov'd when I am lack'd
Bac.: When he is dead he will be loved.

Shak.:By love the young and tender wit is turned to folly.
Bac.: Love is the child of folly.

Shak. : Love is merely a madness.
Bac. : Transported to the mad degree of love.
What do these lines mean from the Shakespeare Sonnets? :�

Why write I still all one, ever the same
And keep Invention in a Noted Weed,
That every Word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their Birth, and Where they did Proceed?

The word "Invention" is used in this sense by Bacon again and again. "Weed" means a cloak or disguise.

In his prayer to God�the pregnant phrase :�

"I have , though in a despised weed (disguise) procurred the good of all men."

http://www.sirbacon.org/shakespearemyth.htm

[Wopper]

Howdy History Hunters,

I wish to add this story about Sir Francis Bacon, not to sidetrack the topic but to merely add to the mystique that already surrounds this great man. It appears that a legend of great treasure is associated with Sir Francis Bacon. So if I may, I present to you the legend of Sir Francis Bacon, and the Bruton vault. By David Allen Rivera

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an English Lord, the son of Elizabeth I, was recognized as the "founder of Free Masonry...the guiding light of the Rosicrucian Order, the members of which kept the torch of the true universal knowledge, the Secret Doctrine of the Ages, alive during the dark night of the Middle Ages." Fluent in many languages, he was known to have edited the King James Version of the Bible, and is believed to be the true author of the William Shakespeare plays. He had been initiated by a secret society of intellectuals dedicated to civil and religious freedom. In his book Instauratio Magna, he wrote of a movement to "reorganize the sciences and restore man to the mastery over nature that he was conceived to have lost by the fall of Adam."

Bacon's novel, New Atlantis, published in 1627, a year after his death, by his secretary William Rawley, represented his vision for a new "Golden Age." It was about a crew of shipwrecked sailors who arrived on the shores a mysterious, unknown land, whose people had a much higher developed culture and possessed a technology unlike anything they had ever seen. He talked about buildings a half a mile high, flying machines, underwater vehicles, and a government of philosopher-scientists working on behalf of an enlightened group of people who were committed to learning, and a higher level of achievement.

Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990), founder of the Philosophical Research Society in 1934, and one of the foremost experts in the realm of the metaphysical and the occult, authored over 200 books, and in six decades delivered more than 8,000 lectures. In his 1944 book The Secret Destiny of America, he revealed that even though the New Atlantis had been completed, the entire version was never published. He wrote: "The final (unpublished) chapters revealed the entire pattern secret societies had been working on for thousands of years to achieve the ideal commonwealth in the political world." It included details for nurturing the "New Order of the Ages," how this long range "Great Plan" would restore mankind to the original state that was intended to reflect the inner philosophical tradition of Freemasonry, and proposed timetables.

In The Secret Destiny of America Hall also wrote: "There exists in the world today, and has existed for thousands of years, a body of enlightened humans united in what might be termed, an Order of the Quest. It is composed of those whose intellectual and spiritual perceptions have revealed to them that civilization has a secret destiny...The outcome of this 'secret destiny' is a World Order ruled by a King with supernatural powers. This King was descended of a divine race, that is, he belonged to the Order of the Illumined for those who come to a state of wisdom that belong to a family of heroes - perfected human beings."

The full-length version (which included the missing chapters) was taken to Jamestown in 1635 by his descendant Nathaniel Bacon, where it was buried under the altar of the old brick church. In 1676, it was moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, where it was buried "in a great vault beneath the tower center of the first brick church in Bruton Parish." The current church, known as the Bruton Parish Church (which was declared a National Historic Landmark), was built in 1715, and within the grounds of its graveyard (the site of the original church), that is where the Bruton Vault is located.

It is believed by many serious researchers that Sir Francis Bacon faked his death (actually dying in 1684), and constructed the vault with the help of his Wild Goose Club. It is a 10 ft. by 10 ft. brick vault, possibly part of an underground Freemasonry Lodge, that is buried 20 ft. deep, and marked by certain strategically placed encoded memorials in the cemetery above.

The reason for the Rockefellers making such an investment to restore the town of Colonial Williamsburg, was the prospect of locating the fabled vault, which had three tunnels leading to it from homes in the area. Fortunately, ownership of the grounds remain in the hands of the Page and Bray families.

Deposited along with the unabridged copy of the New Atlantis were other secret documents, including ancient writings that had been in the possession of certain secret societies. One such artifact was the "Book of Thoth," which had been retrieved from a golden box out of an inner sanctuary in an ancient Egyptian temple. Known as the Sacred Torch, the most important document ever given to Man, it is believed that anyone who is able to decipher it will have their consciousness enhanced to the point that they will be able to see the invisible Immortals and enter the presence of the Superior Gods. Manley Hall wrote in his book, The Secret Teachings of All Ages that the Book "was lost to the Ancient World with the decay of the Mysteries, but its faithful initiates carried it sealed to another land. The book is still in existence..."

The vault also contains instructions, maps, and documents that lead to 144 sacred burial sites of certain forefathers, patriots and early leaders in our country that in turn contain original writings, diaries and documentation that will prove how history has been rewritten today to reflect the biased political views of certain leaders in this country. Hall wrote in the The Secret Destiny of America: "Not only were the founders of the United States Government Masons, but they received aid from a secret and august body existing in Europe, which helped them to establish this country for a peculiar and particular purpose known only to the initiated few."

Masonry was not always as it appears today. Many early Christian patriots during the foundational period of American history were part of the predominant York Rite, which promoted values, ethics, and brotherhood among its members. It has been reported that true Freemasonry Lodges were established in the cellars of Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches. It was the Illuminati infiltration of the American Fraternal Lodges by the Jesuit-spawned Scottish Rite that moved through the ranks like a virus to take them over from within.

It is believed that the vault also contains a quantity of gold, an original edition of the Bacon-edited King James Bible, inventions that were ahead of its time, and a device that will enable their codes to be deciphered.

There is some evidence to indicate that handwritten copies of certain documents were made during the administration of President Washington and hidden at a remote location in Virginia.

According to Colin Dyer in his book Symbolism in Craft Masonry, in 1804, Thomas Jefferson (3rd President) was the last person to examine the contents of this vault. It was believed that the contents were removed and placed in a secret location either at the University of Virginia (founded by Jefferson), or the capitol building in Washington, D.C. However, Manley Hall became a leading proponent for the Bruton Vault as being the location of this sacred repository. His quest to protect it from falling into the wrong hands cost him his life, because he was strangled to death by two members of the Skull and Bones Society - Morgan Brandt and Daniel Fritz. Luckily all of his research notes, documents, maps, books, photos, and artifacts relating to 50 years of work on the vault had already been sent to a secret location in Russia.

In The Secret Destiny of America Hall wrote: "America's true destiny will remain a secret as long as great masses of people have no knowledge whatsoever that enlightened humanitarians through thousands of years have in their own and succeeding generations remained united on the high purpose of eventually instituting democratic rule throughout the world. It is necessary to know, too, that it was anciently planned that leadership would fall to America- to a nation established on the Northern continent of the Western Hemisphere...Long before Columbus, they were aware of the existence of the Western hemisphere, and selected it to be the site of the philosophic empire. The American continent was set apart for establishing here a great democratic nation, centuries before the founding fathers and colonists envisioned the Union...

When President Theodore Roosevelt visited the site, and learned of its significance, he vowed to protect it, and out of appreciation, he was honored by having his image placed on Mount Rushmore. David Rockefeller and Queen Elizabeth have shown a particular interest in the vault's contents.

The contents of the Bruton Vault are priceless, and considered so important that it is referred to as the "Seventh Seal."

A group known as Sir Francis Bacon's Sages of the Seventh Seal have been the driving force behind the movement to uncover the vault. Though there were unsuccessful attempts in 1938 (which did discover the original church foundations) and 1992, they now believe that a spiral staircase exists beneath the pyramid-shaped monument that marks the centuries-old graves of David and Elizabeth Bray, and leads to the vault, which they refer to as a "Freemasonry library." Armed with new evidence from their continued research, the group has lobbied the Rev. Herman Hollerith IV, rector of the Episcopal church, to authorize a new, controlled, archeological dig, to raise the vault, so that its contents can be studied, and protected from forces hostile to the information it contains.

 
See web site, http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/final_warning/freemasonry.htm

Sincerely,

Wopper

[Administration]

That Shakespeare was the author of the works bearing his name was unquestioned in his lifetime and for a century and a half afterwards.

No matter how strong arguments may appear for a different auhorship, and there are many (possible authors and arguments), it seems reasonable to me to first prove the opportunity: is there no good reason to accept Shakespeare as the author?

Our first post:

While documents do exist for Shakespeare, who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, all are non-literary.

That makes the case, but how true is it?

Our next post:

It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene:

    "...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words, but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers, such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself. The italicised line parodying the phrase "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare�s Henry VI, part 3 along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene�s target.


Greene and Shakespeare

He is most familiar to Shakespeare scholars for his pamphlet Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit (full title: Greene's Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance), which most scholars agree contains the earliest known mention of Shakespeare as a member of the London dramatic community. In it, Greene disparages Shakespeare, for being an actor who has the temerity to write plays, and for committing plagiarism.

Though anti-Stratfordians argue that the early date of Greene's remark precludes a reference to Shakespeare (who in 1592 had no published works to his name), most scholars feel that Greene's comment refers to Shakespeare, who would in this period be an "upstart" new to the scene as an actor and contributor to plays such as Henry VI, Parts 1-3 and King John, which were most likely written and produced (though not published) before Greene's death.

In any case, it should be noted that all or part of the Groats-Worth may have in fact been written shortly after Greene's death by one of his fellow writers (the pamphlet's printer, Henry Chettle, is one candidate) hoping to capitalize on it with a lurid tale of death-bed repentance.

Greene's colorful and irresponsible character have led some, for example Stephen Greenblatt, to speculate that Greene may have served as the model for Shakespeare's Falstaff.

GREENE'S JEALOUSY OF SHAKESPEARE
As early as 1592 Shakespeare is publicly recognized, not only as an actor of distinction, but as a dramatist whose work had excited the envy and indignation of his contemporaries, and especially of one so accomplished and eminent, so good a scholar and master of the playwright's craft, as Robert Greene.

Then there is Shakespeare the actor:

Lord Chamberlain's Men

The Lord Chamberlain's Men was the playing company that William Shakespeare worked for as actor and playwright for most of his career.

These evidences belie the claim against his authorship.