In his recent biography of William Shakespeare, the critic Jonathan Bate writes: “Gathering what we can from his plays and poems: that is how we will write a biography that is true to him’ (xix). This statement acknowledges a widely recognized truth—that a writer’s work reflects his milieu, his experiences, his thoughts, and his own personality. It was the remarkable gap between the known facts about Shakespeare of Stratford and the traits and characteristics of the author revealed in the Shakespeare canon that led an English schoolmaster to suppose that the real author was someone else, and to search for him in the backwaters of Elizabethan poetry.

This inquiry led him to conclude that ‘William Shakespeare’ was a nom de plume that concealed the identity of England’s greatest poet and dramatist, and that continued to hide it from readers, playgoers, and scholars for hundreds of years. In 1920, J. Thomas Looney published his unique work of investigative scholarship, demonstrating that the man behind the Shakespeare name and the Shakespeare canon was Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604).[1] Since then, hundreds of books and articles have augmented the evidence that this unconventional nobleman and courtier not only wrote the plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare, but concealed the fact of his authorship throughout his life. It appears that after his death his descendants and those in their service deliberately substituted an alternative author and fabricated physical and literary evidence to perpetuate the fable.

The web of evidence associating Oxford with the Shakespeare canon is robust and far-reaching, and grows stronger and more complex every year. Although he was recognized by his contemporaries as an outstanding writer of poetry and plays, he is the only leading dramatist of the time whose name is not associated with a single play. This fact, alone, about any other person would be sufficient to stimulate intense interest and considerable research. Yet the Shakespearean academic community has not only failed to undertake this research itself, it has willfully and consistently refused to allow presentations or to publish research on the Authorship Question by anyone who disputes the Stratford theory. What Oxfordian research it does not ignore, it routinely dismisses, usually with scorn and sarcasm, as unworthy of serious consideration.

However, during the ninety years since Looney’s revelations, the continuing and comprehensive investigation of the biography of the putative author, William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, has failed to produce any evidence of his connection to the Shakespeare canon, other than several ambiguous phrases in the prefatory material to the First Folio, published seven years after his death (Price, ‘Unorthodox,’ 190–1). In addition, repeated examinations of the documents of the Elizabethan theater have unearthed nothing that supports the theory of the Stratford man’s authorship, and have revealed that no one who knew him associated him with literature of any kind.[2] On the other hand, Looney’s conclusions, drawn from the plays and poems themselves, about the playwright’s personality, his education, his selection of plots and characters, his familiarity with foreign countries and languages, his attitudes about women, money, public order, and the crown, all comport with what we have learned about Edward de Vere.

Attributes of the Playwright

Walt Whitman was one of the first to doubt the Stratford theory and to suggest that the author was an aristocrat—‘one of the ‘wolfish earls’ so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower . . .’ (II 404). It is a truism that Shakespeare almost always writes from an aristocratic point of view and tends to support the interests and reflect the attitudes of the aristocracy. His heroes and his villains are members of royal families, the nobility, or the wealthy, and all but one of the plays are set in their royal courts or their homes. A great number of the images and metaphors that Shakespeare uses come from the hobbies and diversions of Elizabethan aristocrats and wealthy people: falconry; hunting, especially with dogs; fencing and dueling; archery; horsemanship; bowls; and card games. Shakespeare reveals not only a precise and comprehensive knowledge of all these activities, but a facile and consistent use of language, imagery, simile and metaphor based upon them (Spurgeon 26–7, 30–2, 110–11). There is little argument that the canon reflects these characteristics. The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper described Shakespeare as a ‘cultured, sophisticated aristocrat, fascinated alike by the comedy and tragedy of human life, but unquestioning in his social and religious conservatism’ (42).

Another distinctive characteristic of the playwright is his obvious interest and competence in music. ‘In no author are musical allusions more frequent than in Shakespeare’ (Squire 32). In the plays and poems there are hundreds of images, metaphors, and passages relating to music, as well as numerous ballads, love songs, folk songs, and drinking songs. The playwright demonstrates a clear technical knowledge of musical theory and practice, writing about the musicians, the instruments, and even the notes (Squire 32–49).

These attributes and characteristics comport precisely with those of the 17th Earl of Oxford—a courtier, aristocrat and Lord Great Chamberlain of England who was an intimate of both Queen Elizabeth and her Principal Secretary, William Cecil, whose daughter he married at his coming-of-age. Oxford was praised for his affection for and competence in music, and for his patronage of musicians and composers, notably John Farmer and William Byrd (Ward 203–4; Anderson 205). However, these are only the most obvious similarities between him and the playwright Shakespeare. The details of his education, his literary and theatrical activities, his personal experiences, his travels, and the people surrounding him all supply strong evidence that he is the author of the Shakespeare canon.

Oxford’s Early Environment and Education

Among Shakespeare scholars, there is general agreement that he was one of the best read and most broadly educated playwrights of the Renaissance. In the words of Emerson, ‘His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see’ (254). He displays a wide-ranging familiarity with the literature of Elizabethan England and the continent, as well as with the classics of ancient Rome and Greece. Besides literature, he was also obviously interested in and familiar with a variety of scholarly subjects, such as botany, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy. Scholars have identified hundreds of plays, poems, novels, histories, etc. by dozens of authors that he referred to, quoted, or used as sources (Gillespie 521–8). His use of untranslated works in Latin and Greek, as well as his frequent use of words from, and creation of words derived from, those languages, attest to his competence in both (Theobald 14–15).

The facts and circumstances surrounding Oxford’s childhood and adolescence suggest an environment and an upbringing that would have been an ideal preparation for a poet and dramatist, especially one who would write about the characters and subjects that dominate the Shakespeare canon. The tradition of sponsoring playing companies by the de Vere family was in place no later than 1490, during the tenure of John, the 13th Earl (Lancashire 106, 407)—a tradition maintained by Oxford’s father and Edward himself. The author of one of the earliest English history plays, John Bale, wrote it for Oxford’s grandfather in the 1530s and subsequently revised it for a performance for Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Ipswich in 1561 (Harris 71). It is likely that Oxford was in attendance. As a young child he lived with, and was tutored by, Sir Thomas Smith, one of England’s greatest scholars, and the owner of an extensive library (Hughes 1, 9). His father’s sister Frances was the widow of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, a major poet who is credited with the first sonnets written in the distinctive Shakespearean form, a modification of the Petrarchan sonnet.

Oxford matriculated at Cambridge at age eight, and was later awarded Masters’ Degrees by both Oxford and Cambridge Universities (Ward 11, 22, 27). In his collection of studies of the Elizabethan drama, Frederick A. Boas refers to ‘the curious fact that Shakespeare shows familiarity with certain distinctively Cambridge terms’ (47–9).[3] In 1562 Oxford’s father died, and the twelve-year-old became a royal ward. He was sent to London to live in the home of William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, Principal Secretary to the Queen. A surviving schedule of Oxford’s rigorous daily schooling in Cecil’s household (Ward 19–20) confirms that he was a student in what G. P. V. Akrigg has called ‘the best school for boys to be found in Elizabethan England’ (25).

The early environment and education of Oxford prepared him to be the writer Shakespeare was, and led him to fill his dramas with the same kings and queens, aristocrats, clergymen, and courtiers he saw about him.

By his early teens, Oxford had already been recognized as a precocious student. In 1563 his tutor, the antiquary, Laurence Nowell, advised Cecil that his services would not much longer be needed (Ward 20). In a translation from the Latin that was dedicated to him in 1564, Oxford was praised for ‘a certain pregnancy of wit and ripeness of understanding’ by his uncle, the classical translator Arthur Golding (Chiljan, ‘Dedications’ 4). As the heir to one of England’s oldest earldoms and a member of the Cecil household, Oxford was embedded in an environment that figured prominently in the Shakespeare canon—the royal court and the center of English culture, power, and wealth. ‘Cecil House was England’s nearest equivalent to a humanist salon… As a meeting place for the learned it had no parallel in early Elizabethan England’ (van Dorsten 195). Besides being the dedicatee of dozens of literary works, Cecil was also one of the premier book and manuscript collectors of the Elizabethan age, and modern scholars have described his extensive library (Jolly 6). There is clear documentation that Oxford purchased a Geneva Bible, and editions of Chaucer and Plutarch, all major sources of Shakespeare’s plays (Ward 33). When he was in his early teens, his uncle Arthur Golding translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses, probably Shakespeare’s most important source. Thus, the early environment and education of Oxford prepared him to be the writer Shakespeare was, and led him to fill his dramas with the same kings and queens, aristocrats, clergymen, and courtiers he saw about him.

Literary and Theatrical Activities

Evidence of Oxford’s literary activity and his association with the Elizabethan theater extends from his teen years to the end of his life. Beginning in 1564, he was the dedicatee of more than two dozen books, including a dozen works of translation and imaginative literature, produced by poets, playwrights, and translators, such as Thomas Watson, Robert Greene, and Arthur Golding. The interests of Shakespeare the playwright are reflected in several other books dedicated to the Earl of Oxford—on medicine, on music, and on the military.[4] The Earl was repeatedly cited as a generous patron and a keen reader of poetry and prose, foreign and English, both contemporary and classical.

Poems first appeared in print over the Earl of Oxford’s initials in a widely-read Elizabethan collection, The Paradise of Dainty Devices, published in 1576 and repeatedly reprinted for the rest of the century. These poems have been praised as experimental, innovative, and skilful. According to Stephen W. May, Oxford’s youthful poems in Paradise ‘create a dramatic break with everything known to have been written at the Elizabethan court up to that time’ (53). He describes poem 4, in which the author cries out against ‘this loss of my good name,’ as a ‘defiant lyric without precedent in English Renaissance verse’ (53). The charged subject of this eighteen-line cri de coeur has been associated with an accusation made by Oxford’s half-sister Katherine in 1563, when he was thirteen, that he was born of a bigamous marriage, and was therefore illegitimate (Anderson 24).

Oxford’s poems have been linked to Shakespeare by Joseph Sobran, who found some 250 phrases, lines, and images in 20 of his poems that are repeated one or more times in the Shakespeare canon, an average of about a dozen per poem (231–70). He found hundreds of similar echoes of the canon in Oxford’s letters (170–1).[5]

At the age of 21 the Earl of Oxford sponsored the translation into Latin of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano and wrote a prefatory note in Latin to the translator Bartholomew Clerke. The following year he commissioned and wrote an introductory letter to Thomas Bedingfield’s English translation of De Consolatione (Cardanus’s Comfort), a work recognized by orthodox scholars as ‘Hamlet’s book’ (Craig 17–37; Campbell 17, 133–4). He employed well-known literary men, such as John Lyly, Anthony Munday, and Abraham Fleming as his secretaries, the former two being playwrights (Anderson 482). For almost a decade he maintained an unconventional literary salon near the theater district that was a headquarters for impecunious poets and playwrights (Anderson 156–61).

In 1573 the Cambridge scholar Gabriel Harvey wrote that Oxford’s introduction to Cardanus’s Comfort was an example of ‘how greatly thou dost excel in letters,’ and praised him as the writer of ‘many Latin verses’ and ‘many more English verses’ (Anderson 139). He was cited by name in three different works of literary commentary as a leading poet and playwright. In A Discourse of English Poetry (1586) William Webbe praised the Earl of Oxford as the ‘most excellent’ of poets at court (Smith I, 243), and the anonymous author of The Arte of English Poesie (1589) asserted that he would be known as the best of the courtly poets ‘if their doings could be found out’ (Smith II, 65). This judgment is confirmed by more recent critics, such as A. B. Grosart, W. J. Courthope and Sidney Lee, who asserted that Oxford ‘wrote verse of much lyric beauty’ (Looney 124–5; Lee 228).

De Vere’s life-long association with the theater, with players, and with playwrights is unquestionable. During the 1580s, and as late as 1602, he sponsored his own playing companies, and in 1583 leased one of the earliest private Elizabethan theaters, the Blackfriars, for the use of his own troupe, the Earl of Oxford’s Boys (Anderson 187–8). In Palladis Tamia (1598), a commonplace book of similes, quotations, and observations on all manner of subjects, Francis Meres included him in a list of the best comic playwrights. However, no play bearing his name has survived, nor has his name ever been associated with any play.

Over a period of more than four decades, repeated opaque suggestions were made that there was an unknown writer behind the Shakespeare name who could not be revealed. In the ‘L’envoy’ to his poem ‘Narcissus’ (1595), Thomas Edwards devoted fifteen stanzas to describing several contemporary poets, identifying each of them by a name from one of their poems. In the three stanzas describing the author of ‘Adon’ (referring to Venus and Adonis), he used such phrases as ‘in purple robes destain’d,’ ‘one whose power floweth far,’ ‘the only object and the star,’ and ‘he differs much from men / Tilting under Frieries.’ These and other phrases have been shown to point in general to a leading nobleman, and particularly to the Earl of Oxford (Stritmatter, ‘Tilting’ 1, 18–20).

In his pamphlet The Scourge of Folly (1610), the poet John Davies of Hereford addressed ‘Shake-speare’ [sic] as ‘our English Terence’ (II, 26), a comparison very likely referring to the tradition that the comedies of the former slave and Roman playwright Terence were actually written by the aristocrats Scipio Africanus and Gaius Laelius. The assertion was first made in 50 BCE by Cicero in a letter to his friend Atticus (271), and again in the next century by the rhetorician Quintilian (IV 57).

In The Schoolmaster (1570) Roger Ascham repeated the assertion (143–4), as did Montaigne, whose essays were translated by John Florio in 1603 (199). Similar suggestions about a concealed poet were made in 1598 by John Marston in Scourge of Villanie (Ogburn 401–2) and in 1612 by Henry Peacham in Minerva Britannia (Stritmatter, Minerva).

These examples do not exhaust the abundant evidence that Oxford was a significant literary figure throughout his lifetime, and that he was referred to as the concealed author behind the Shakespeare pseudonym.

Legal Training and Experience in the Military

Shakespeare’s familiarity with the law and his frequent use of legal language has long been a subject of intense interest. The most recent analysis of the legal terms, concepts, and procedures occurring in the Shakespeare canon conclusively demonstrates that he had an extensive and accurate knowledge of the law (Alexander 110–11). He used more than two hundred legal terms and legal concepts in numerous ways—as case references, as similes and metaphors, images, examples, and even puns—with an aptness and accuracy that can no longer be questioned. In 1567 Oxford matriculated at Gray’s Inn, one of the Elizabethan law colleges. He was a member of the House of Lords for more than thirty years, a juror in two of the most important treason trials of the period, and was involved in legal matters and court suits throughout his life.

Shakespeare’s intimate knowledge of military affairs was noticed in the mid-nineteenth century, and has more recently been fully documented. According to the compiler of a dictionary of his military language, Shakespeare possessed ‘an extraordinarily detailed knowledge of warfare, both ancient and modern’ (Edelman 1). Nearly all the history plays, as well as Othello, Antony and Cleopatra and Troilus and Cressida, are set in a place and time of armed conflict, and numerous obscure military analogies and references can be found throughout the canon. Several of Shakespeare’s most enduring characters are soldiers or ex-soldiers, including the faux soldier Sir John Falstaff. One of Oxford’s most fervent wishes as a young man was to serve his Queen in the military against her enemies. After missing a chance because of illness, he rode with an English army in the Scottish campaign in 1570 before he was 20, and later faced the Spanish in the Netherlands as Commander of the Horse in 1585 (Anderson 41–3, 204–206).

Shakespeare’s knowledge of the sea and ships is just as striking and comprehensive. According to naval officer A. F. Falconer, there is a ‘surprisingly extensive and exact use of the technical terms belonging to sailing, anchor work, sounding, ship construction, navigation, gunnery and swimming’ in the Shakespeare canon. He adds that ‘Shakespeare does not invent sea terms and never misuses them’ (vii). Again, Oxford had ample opportunity to become familiar with ships and the sea. The trip from the de Vere home in Essex to London was routinely made by ship from the seaside town of Wivenhoe at the mouth of the Colne River, where the de Veres had had an estate for over a century. Oxford made at least two Channel crossings during his 20s and traveled extensively by water in and around Italy during his visit in 1575–6. There is also evidence that he was aboard ship in the preliminary maneuvers against the Spanish Armada in the summer of 1588 (Anderson 223–25).

Thus, three distinctive characteristics that the author of the Shakespeare canon displayed—an authoritative knowledge of the law, the military, and ships and the sea, are readily explained by the record of Oxford’s activities. No other candidate for the authorship, including Shakespeare of Stratford, had these kinds of personal experiences.

France and Italy Prominent in the Canon

The concordance between Shakespeare’s detailed knowledge of the language, culture, and geography of Italy and France and the travels of Edward de Vere in those countries is one of the strongest indicators that they were one and the same person. It is well-known that Elizabethan imaginative literature, especially its drama, was heavily indebted to Italian sources and models, and made use of such devices from Italian drama as the chorus, the dumb show, and the play-within-the play (Grillo 65). To no other writer did this apply more than to Shakespeare. Fully a third of the plays in the canon take place in Italy, including ancient Italy, and another half dozen in France. In addition, more than a dozen are wholly or partially derived from Italian plays or novels.

Scholars have repeatedly documented Shakespeare’s unexplained familiarity with the geography, social life, and local details of many places in Italy, especially northern Italy.[6] ‘When we consider that in the north of Italy he reveals a… profound knowledge of Milan, Bergamo, Verona, Mantua, Padua and Venice, the very limitation of the poet’s notion of geography proves that he derived his information from an actual journey through Italy and not from books’ (Grillo 146). Italian scholar Noemi Magri has identified the locales and documented the accuracy of numerous details in Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Merchant of Venice .[7]

Nor is Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italy limited to details of geography and local custom. It is clear that he directly observed and was profoundly affected by Italian painting and sculpture, and used several specific works—murals, sculptures, and paintings—as the bases for incidents, characters, and imagery in his plays and poems. For instance, the language and imagery in The Winter’s Tale, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece have been traced to the sculpture and murals of Giulio Romano in Mantua’s Ducal Palace and Palazzo Te, and elsewhere in the same city (Hamill, Ghosts 86–92). The original Italian paintings that inspired three of the ‘wanton pictures’ described in The Taming of the Shrew (Ind. 2.49–60) have been located and identified with a high degree of certainty.[8] During the 1570s they could be seen at three places on Oxford’s itinerary—Fontainebleau, Mantua, and Florence (Magri 4–12).

Among the most striking examples of Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italy are the acute observations he makes about Italian attitudes and behavior. As de Vere biographer Mark Anderson points out (xxx), the dramatist ‘knew that Florence’s citizens were recognized for their arithmetic and bookkeeping’ (Othello 1.1.19–31); ‘he knew that Padua was the “nursery of arts,” and that Lombardy was ‘the pleasant garden of great Italy’ (The Taming of the Shrew I.i.1–4); and he knew that ‘a dish of baked doves was a time-honored northern Italian gift’ (The Merchant of Venice II.ii.135–6). Moreover, these observations are made in a natural and unobtrusive way and are entirely appropriate in their context. Critics have observed that in plays by some other dramatists, such as Jonson and Webster, such details are intrusive and unsubtle, as if they were taken from books (Furness 72–3; Elze 270–7).

After waiting several years for permission from the Queen to leave England, Oxford was allowed to travel to Paris and then to Italy via Strasbourg in February 1575. After leasing quarters in Venice, he toured Italy for more than a year, visiting nearly all the locations in Shakespeare’s Italian plays, including Milan, Padua, Verona, Florence, Mantua, and Palermo (Anderson 74–107). Significantly, the Italian cities and city-states that Oxford did not visit, such as Bergamo, Naples, Ravenna, etc., are not mentioned in the Shakespeare canon. Shakespeare’s Italy, it turns out, is the Italy that Oxford visited.

Why the Anonymity?

One of the central questions about the case for Oxford that has not been definitively answered is why he concealed his authorship of the canon and used a pseudonym. Of the several possible reasons for this, the most obvious is the so-called ‘stigma of print,’ the idea that the creative work of self-respecting aristocrats, including most courtiers, was merely a pastime, a leisure activity. Allowing it to appear in print over their own names suggested a crass seeking of publicity or even monetary compensation.[9] The stigma applied especially to playwriting. Even late into Elizabeth’s reign ‘the condemnation of public plays and the people concerned with them was fairly general’ (Bentley 43).

Another reason for anonymity was simple custom. Most of the plays performed during Elizabeth’s reign were never published, and most of those printed appeared without an author’s name (Maxwell 5–6). Plays now attributed to Lyly, Peele, Greene, Kyd, Marlowe, Heywood, Drayton, Shakespeare, and dozens of others were first printed anonymously. As Alfred Hart wrote about Elizabethan printed plays, ‘It is correct to state that anonymity was the rule rather than the exception’ (6). There is no evidence that the author of the Shakespeare canon had any interest or role in the publication of his plays or poems. Nor is there any record that he objected or intervened when corrupt or allegedly ‘pirated’ editions were published (Price ‘Unorthodox,’ 129–30, 170). But it is possible that he had a hand in the publication of his two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594), both of which appear to have been carefully edited.

A third reason for anonymity, one that appears to apply directly to the Earl of Oxford, has to do with his position as hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England who had a close association with Queen Elizabeth. Many prominent figures in the court and in the highest levels of government were the targets of satire in the Shakespeare plays, some of it extremely disparaging. Knowledge that the author was a genuine insider who had a personal acquaintance with the subjects of his satire would make them easier to identify and would lend credence to his mocking portraits. In this case, it might have been William Cecil, or even the Queen, who required that Oxford remain anonymous.

Finally, Oxford may have imposed anonymity upon himself, or had it imposed by higher authorities, because of some aspect of his personal behavior. Late in 1580, he confessed to the Queen that he and some others had been reconciled to the Catholic Church. This led to the arrest of two of his acquaintances, Henry Howard and Charles Arundel, who then unleashed a lengthy screed of invective against him that accused him of everything from treason to pederasty (Anderson 165–9).

In March of the next year, Anne Vavasour, a 19-year-old lady-in-waiting to the Queen, gave birth to Oxford’s son, the pregnancy being actually her second by him. The three of them were sent to the Tower, where Oxford remained until released by the Queen in June, but he was banned from the court for another two years (Anderson 172–3). At the time, Oxford had been living apart from his wife for five years because of his suspicion that she had betrayed him with another man. Although he reunited with her in 1582, these scrapes and scandals, and certain other indignities, may have led him to consider himself in disrepute and disgrace, which, along with regret and awareness of imminent death, are the themes of a dozen or more of his sonnets (Cossolotto 8–12).

It appears that Oxford assented to the publication of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, and wrote the very personal dedications to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, who is widely believed to be the Fair Youth of the Sonnets. It may have been that he was anxious that his relationship with him, whatever it was, not be known to the public, and for this reason caused the dedications to be signed with the pseudonym ‘William Shakespeare.’ The name recalls the Greek goddess Athena, who was said to have sprung from the brow of Zeus brandishing a spear. She was the protector of Athens, the birthplace of classical drama, and was widely perceived as both a patron goddess of poets and fearless warrior in battle.[10] As such, she was most likely the inspiration behind a common English name that concealed a nobleman and a dramatist who had martial aspirations.

How, when, and why the pseudonym came to be associated with the man from Stratford with the same name is unknown. What is clear is that it continued to be used after Oxford’s death in 1604. The perpetrators appear to have been his surviving relatives, who may have had the same motivation as he did. Their roles in the production of the First Folio are described below.

Oxford’s Life and Circumstances in the Plays

Every work in the Shakespeare canon contains allusions to circumstances, events, and people in Oxford’s life. Portraits of him, his family, and his contemporaries have been identified in most of them by both orthodox and Oxfordian scholars. These allusions and portraits are ‘too numerous, consistent, complex and intimate to be mere coincidences’ (Malim, Will). Of all the plays, Hamlet contains the most autobiographical material, including characters that appear to represent Oxford’s father-in-law William Cecil (Polonius), his wife Anne Cecil (Ophelia), Cecil’s son Robert (Laertes) and Oxford himself, whose circumstances, interests, and experiences are clearly depicted in the portrait of Prince Hamlet (Sobran 189–95). Oxford can also be identified as Bertram in All’s Well That Ends Well (Ogburn 489–91) and Timon in Timon of Athens (Anderson 323–4). His street quarrel with the Knyvet family is echoed in Romeo and Juliet (Anderson 180–1).

Twelfth Night is perhaps the play that connects Oxford with the Shakespeare canon more strongly than any other, for two reasons. In the first place, the plot and the characters depict an episode in which Oxford had a strong interest—the courtship of Queen Elizabeth (Olivia) by the French Duc d’Alençon (Duke Orsino) in 1579. Also identifiable in the cast are Oxford’s sister Mary (Maria), his friend Peregrine Bertie (Sir Toby Belch), the poet Sir Philip Sidney (Sir Andrew Aguecheek), Sir Christopher Hatton (Malvolio), and Oxford himself, whom the dramatist portrayed in Feste, the professed fool in Olivia’s court (Clark 220–232).[11]

Secondly, in 1732 the antiquarian Francis Peck described a manuscript that he proposed to publish as ‘a pleasant conceit of Vere, earl of Oxford, discontented at the rising of a mean gentleman in the English court, circa 1580,’ a statement that particularly applies to Twelfth Night. Although this manuscript was never published and is probably lost, it was identified by Peck as belonging to the library of Abraham Fleming (c.1552–1607), a London translator, poet, historian, and clergyman who was a secretary to the Earl of Oxford, c.1580 (Anderson 486).

Oxford’s anger and despair at the infidelity of Anne, which he later came to doubt, is a recurring theme in at least four plays—Measure for Measure, Othello, Cymbeline, and The Winter’s Tale, in all of which a husband is deceived by slanders against his innocent wife (Ogburn 566–71). The hot-tempered and blunt talking Welshman Fluellen in Henry V has been identified by Oxfordian and orthodox scholars alike as Sir Roger Williams, a follower of the Earl of Oxford (Barrell 59–62). A prank ambush of two of Lord Burghley’s servants by three of Oxford’s men at Gad’s Hill near Rochester in 1573 is recapitulated in 1 Henry IV (II.ii) by Falstaff and three of Prince Hal’s servants (Ogburn 529). The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, and others contain names, incidents, and situations that can be found in the biography of Edward de Vere (Anderson xxvii).

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are an especially rich source of associations with Oxford. They are filled with autobiographical details and references that are directly linked to what is known about his life: the author’s intention that his identity remain unknown—‘My name be buried where my body is’ (72); his lameness, his shame and his ‘outcast state’ (89, 129, 29); his preoccupation with the ravages of time, old age and his own imminent death (16, 62, 73). Several sonnets suggest that the writer is a nobleman (91, 125), and Sonnet 76 contains an unmistakable reference to ‘E. Vere’—‘That every word doth almost tell my name.’ Most scholars and editors agree that the Sonnets are in some way autobiographical, but beyond that opinions vary widely as to their actual meaning.

Some scholars have found evidence of homosexual love of the Fair Youth by the Sonnets author, and evidence of the same predisposition in several of the plays (Sobran 98–100, 198–201; Hamill, Sexuality 49–53). Others detect a father-son relationship between them (Ogburn 342–6; Whittemore, ‘Chronicles’). There are several significant connections between Oxford and Henry Wriothesley, the presumed subject of the Fair Youth sonnets, but the role of the young man, whether patron, son, lover, or merely dear friend, is still a much-debated question. Regardless of these uncertainties, however, the basic facts about the Sonnets supply further evidence that they were written by Edward de Vere.

Dating the Plays and Oxford’s Death in 1604

Orthodox scholars typically dismiss the Oxfordian argument with the claim that several of Shakespeare’s plays, as many as a dozen, were written after 1604, the year of Oxford’s death. But no definite post-1604 allusion or source has been shown to be essential to any Shakespeare play. In no play is there a reference to any natural phenomenon, scientific discovery, or topical event that occurred after 1604, nor is there a reference to anything published after 1604 (Whalen 75–6).

Despite intense research and analysis, scholars have been unable to establish an unambiguous date of composition for any Shakespeare play. Registration, publication, and performance dates have been obtained from various documents, but they can only indicate a terminus ante quem, a date before which the play must have been written. It is clear that several canonical plays were written many years before they were mentioned anywhere (Sobran 161). Eighteen plays that appeared in the First Folio in 1623 had never been printed before, and for three of them, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, and All’s Well That Ends Well, there is no surviving record of any kind before that date.

There is evidence, however, that the playwright ceased writing in 1604. Critics have noted Shakespeare’s frequent references to contemporary astronomical events and scientific discoveries, such as the supernova of 1572, remarked upon by Bernardo in Hamlet (I.i.36–8), William Gilbert’s theory of geomagnetism, which he published in 1600, referred to twice in Troilus and Cressida (II.ii.179 and IV.ii.104–5), and the lines in 1 Henry VI that allude to the uncertainty of the orbit of Mars (I.ii.1–2).[12] But similar events and discoveries that occurred after 1604 are absent from the canon. The discovery of Jupiter’s moons (by Galileo in 1610), the explanation of sunspots (also by Galileo, in 1612), and the invention of the working telescope (1608), for instance, go unmentioned in the plays supposedly written after 1604.

Another indication that the author wrote nothing after 1604 is the fact that of 43 major sources of Shakespeare’s plays, all but one, the so-called ‘Strachey Letter’ (discussed below), were published before Edward de Vere died, in 1604 (Sobran 156–7). In fact, a few orthodox scholars have even concluded that Shakespeare stopped writing in 1604.[13]

The most persistent argument for a post-1604 Shakespeare play is that for The Tempest, which was mentioned for the first time in a record of its performance at court in 1611. Its earliest appearance in print was in the First Folio. For many decades, orthodox critics have routinely claimed that the travel narratives of Sylvester Jourdain (1610) and William Strachey were the sources for the storm and shipwreck material in The Tempest. But recent research has demonstrated convincingly that the ‘Strachey Letter’ (which was not actually published until 1625) could not have been written and taken to London in time to be used as a source for the play. The precise details and language of the storm and shipwreck scenes appear to have as their sources the play Naufragium by Erasmus, published in 1518, and a collection of travel narratives, The Decades of the New Worlde, translated from the Latin by Richard Eden.[14] Significantly, Eden was a friend and former student of Sir Thomas Smith, with whom Oxford was living in 1555, the year that Decades was published (Hughes 9).

Oxford and The First Folio

The evidence that the author of the canon was actually the Earl of Oxford continued to accumulate after his death in 1604. The mysterious dedication to Shake-speare’s Sonnets, published in 1609, with its enigmatic phrase—’our ever-living poet,’ suggested that the author was dead (Price ‘Unorthodox,’ 145–6). An even more pointed message appeared in the cryptic epistle titled ‘A never writer, to an ever reader. News’ that was added to the second version of the Troilus and Cressida quarto published in the same year. The phrase is easily read as ‘an E. Vere writer to an E. Vere reader.’ Moreover, the epistle refers to the ‘scape’ of the manuscript from certain ‘grand possessors,’ suggesting that, Oxford being dead, someone other than the author was in control of his plays.

The collection of Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623, the First Folio, gives every appearance of being the fruit of twenty years of association among Ben Jonson, the three de Vere daughters, Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan, and the Herbert brothers, William, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and Philip, 1st Earl of Montgomery. Both Oxford’s son, Henry Vere (b. 1593), and his friend and close ally Henry Wriothesley (b. 1573), 3rd Earl of Southampton and dedicatee of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, were also closely associated with the Herbert brothers.

In 1590, Elizabeth Vere, Oxford’s oldest daughter, was proposed by her grandfather William Cecil as the wife of Henry Wriothesley, who had entered Cecil’s household as a nine-year-old ward in 1582 (Akrigg 20–22). Wriothesley is generally regarded as the addressee of the first seventeen of Shakespeare’s sonnets—the marriage sonnets.

If this belief is correct, they failed to convince him, and he avoided the marriage. The parents of William Herbert, and Edward de Vere himself, favored the marriage of William to de Vere’s second daughter Bridget, but in 1598 she married someone else (Anderson 313–14). In 1604 the younger Herbert, Philip, married Oxford’s youngest daughter Susan. During the next few years, Susan, as well as other ladies of the court, performed in several of Jonson’s masques, and she was the subject of one of the epigrams that appeared in his Works (1616). The association of Jonson and William Herbert began about 1605, and a decade later Jonson dedicated to him the Epigrams section of his Folio (Riggs 179, 226). In 1615, after a determined campaign for the position, Herbert obtained the office of Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and gained control the Revels Office, as well as the playbooks of the King’s Men, who had performed many of the Shakespeare plays.

The orchestration and financing of the First Folio by the Herbert brothers, and editorial work by Ben Jonson are additional strong indications that Oxford was the author of the plays.

The names of two former King’s Men actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, appear under the dedication of the First Folio to the two Herbert Earls, who may have financed its publication. Although Heminges and Condell claim to have collected the plays, it is far more likely that this was done by the Folio’s publishers. And there is strong evidence that it was Ben Jonson who not only edited the plays but also wrote both the dedication and the subsequent epistle that also bore the two actors’ names (Price ‘Unorthodox’ 170–4).

The orchestration and financing of the First Folio by the Herbert brothers, and editorial work by Ben Jonson, who had a long-standing association with them and with Oxford’s daughter Susan, are additional strong indications that Oxford was the author of the plays. Furthermore, an extensive analysis of the prefatory material in the First Folio concludes that it is ‘littered with hints that the poet was a man of rank . . .’ (Price ‘Unorthodox’ 176). The deliberate concealment of the actual author and the allusions to Shakespeare of Stratford in the First Folio accord with the efforts made by Oxford during his lifetime to remain anonymous and, after 1593, to allow his work to be credited to a man whose name happened to be identical with his pseudonym.

It is only in, and not until, the First Folio of 1623 that the few ambiguous phrases appear that purport to connect the Shakespeare plays with the William Shakespeare of Stratford who died in 1616. There is substantial evidence that the only other connection—the putative monument to the author in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church—was originally a bust of John Shakespeare that was altered to represent his son (Kennedy). It is upon this scanty evidence that the entire case rests for the Stratford businessman’s authorship of the world’s most illustrious dramatic canon.

The Future of Oxford

Cases of mistaken or concealed identity of authors and the people they write about are relatively common in literature. But it is rare that a literary deception has had an impact as important and as widespread as the Shakespeare hoax. Emerson was one of the earliest to recognize its importance when he asserted, in 1854, that the Stratfordian narrative was improbable, and that the identity of the writer posed ‘the first of all literary problems’ (Deese 114). The accumulation of evidence for Oxford, here much condensed and summarized, is the most comprehensive and detailed solution to the ‘problem.’ It is hard to believe that it will not eventually result in the acceptance of Edward de Vere as the genuine Shakespeare.

When this occurs, all the biographies of the Stratford man, and at least one of Oxford, will become comical literary curiosities. Every Stratfordian analysis of every play and poem will have to be rewritten, and dozens of speculations about sources, meanings, characters, and allusions will prove to be incorrect. The canon will be expanded, and its beginning and ending dates corrected to coincide more closely with the reign of Elizabeth.

More than that, the history of Elizabethan drama and poetry will be drastically revised by the revelation that Sidney, Lyly, Watson, Daniel, Greene, Kyd, Lodge, and Marlowe, all younger and less talented than de Vere, did not influence, and were not precursors of, Shakespeare, but the reverse.[15] Most of the plays and poems will be redated at least fifteen years earlier, changing antecedents into derivations and lenders into borrowers. The map of Elizabethan creative literature will be turned upside-down or, more properly, right-side-up, and this extraordinary man will finally be accorded his rightful place in the history of drama, of poetry, and of the language itself.

Endnotes

Shakespeare’ Identified as Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. 1920.⇑
These facts are documented in Jiménez, ‘Eyewitnesses.’⇑
Although Boas claims that Shakespeare was more familiar with Oxford than anywhere else in England, except Stratford and London, he is able to cite only two references to it in the canon, both general in nature, in Henry VIII and The Taming of the Shrew (46–7). Furthermore, the Welsh-hating Dr. Caius, who is a significant character in The Merry Wives of Windsor, was obviously based on Dr. John Caius, a scholar and physician who had a long association with Gonville College, Cambridge (ODNB). See also Gilvary, ‘Queens’ College Cambridge.⇑
The Practice of New and Old Physic by George Baker (1599), Plainsong Diverse & sundry (1591) and English Madrigals (1599) by John Farmer, and Defense of the Military… (1579) by Geffrey Gates. See Chiljan, Dedications, pp. 41, 94, 98. John Harrison, the publisher of the Gates volume, also published Venus and Adonis and Lucrece.⇑
The most comprehensive treatment of the subject is Fowler, 1986.⇑
Among the earliest to write on the subject was Karl Elze in 1874.⇑
Magri’s articles can be found in Great Oxford, Richard Malim ed., pp. 66–78 and pp. 91–106.⇑
Quotations from Shakespeare are from The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed. G. Blakemore Evans, ed.S⇑
The concept is explained more fully in Price, ‘Stigma.’ See also Sheavyn at 162–3, 168.⇑
The Elizabethan association of Athena with spear-shaking and dramatic poetry is best explained in Paul, ‘Pallas-Minerva = Spear-Shaker.’⇑
See also Farina at 82–7.⇑
These are explained more fully in Altschuler, ‘Searching.’ ⇑
Anderson cites several at 397–8 and 572.⇑
See Stritmatter and Kositsky, ‘Voyagers.’⇑
Among the revelations of Michael Egan’s The Tragedy of Richard II, Part One (2006) is that Marlowe’s Edward II follows rather than precedes Shakespeare’s treatment of the Richard II story.⇑

Bibliography

Akrigg, George P.V. Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton. London: Hamish

Hamilton, 1968.

Alexander, Mark A. ‘Shakespeare’s Knowledge of Law: A Journey through the History of the Argument The Oxfordian 4 (2001) 51–113.

Altschuler, Eric. ‘Searching for Shakespeare in the Stars’ 23 Oct 1998. ——Online: www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/9810042

Anderson, Mark. Shakespeare by another Name. New York: Gotham Books, 2005 ——Online:
www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/Law/index.htm

Ascham, Roger. The Schoolmaster. (1570) Lawrence V. Ryan, ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967.

Barrell, Charles W. ‘Shakespeare’s Fluellen Identified as a Retainer of the Earl of Oxford.’ The Shakespeare Fellowship NewsLetter I II:5 (August 1941) 59–62. ——Online: www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/library/barrell/04fluellen.htm

Bate, Jonathan. Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare. New York: Viking, 2008.

Bentley, Gerald E. The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare’s Time, 1590–1642. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.

Boas, Frederick A. Shakespeare and the Universities. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1923.

Campbell, Lily B. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, slaves of passion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952.

Chiljan, Katherine. Book Dedications to the Earl of Oxford. San Francisco, 1994.

——Letters and Poems of Edward, Earl of Oxford. San Francisco, 1998.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Cicero’s Letters to Atticus. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978.

Clark, Eva Turner. Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays. New York: William Farquhar Payson, 1931.

Cossolotto, Mathew. ‘Shakespeare’s ‘Last Will’ Sonnets. Twelve Poems Convey the Poet’s Wishes,’ Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter 41:1 (Winter 2005) 8–12.

Craig, Hardin. ‘Hamlet’s Book.’ Huntington Library Bulletin. 6 (Nov. 1934) 17–37.

Davies, John. The Complete Works of John Davies of Hereford. 2 v. A. B. Grosart, ed. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1878.

Deese, Helen R. ‘Two Unpublished Emerson Letters: To George P. Putnam on Delia Bacon and to George B. Loring’ Essex Institute Historical Collections 122:2 (April 1986) 101–125.

van Dorsten, Jan. ‘Literary Patronage in Elizabethan England: The Early Phase.’ in Patronage in the Renaissance. Guy F. Lytle and Stephen Orgel, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. 191–206.

Edelman, Charles. Shakespeare’s Military Language: A Dictionary. London: Athlone Press, 2000.

Elze, Karl. Essays on Shakespeare. London: Macmillan & Co., 1874.

Emerson, R. W. Emerson’s Poetry and Prose. Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.

Evans, G. Blakemore, ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghten Mifflin, 1997.

Falconer, A. F. A Glossary of Shakespeare’s Sea and Naval Terms Including Gunnery. London: Constable, 1965.

Farina, William. De Vere as Shakespeare: an Oxfordian reading of the canon. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006.

Fowler, William Plumer. Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford’s Letters. Portsmouth, NH: W.P. Fowler, 1986.

Furness, H. H. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare,The Merchant of Venice. (1868) New York: American Scholar publications, 1965.

Gillespie, Stuart: Shakespeare’s Books: a dictionary of Shakepeare’s Sources. London: Athlone Press, 2001.

Gilvary, Kevin. ‘Queens’ College Cambridge and the Henry VI Plays.’ the De Vere Society Newsletter 15:2 (June 2008) 5–6.

Grillo, Ernesto. Shakespeare and Italy. Glasgow: Robert Maclehose, 1949.

Hart, Alfred. Stolne and Surreptitious Copies, A Comparative Study of Shakespeare’s Bad Quartos. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1942.

Hamill, John. ‘The Ten Restless Ghosts of Mantua: Shakespeare’s Specter Lingers over the Italian City.’ in ‘Report My Cause Aright’ The Shakespeare Oxford Society Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology. The Shakespeare Oxford Society, 2007. 86–102.

——‘Shakespeare’s Sexuality and how it affects the Authorship Issue.’ The Oxfordian 8 (2005) 25–59.

Harris, Jesse W. John Bale: A Study in the Minor Literature of the Reformation. Urbana: University of Ilinois Press, 1940.

Hughes, Stephanie Hopkins. ‘Oxford’s Childhood Part II: The first four years with Smith’ The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter 42:3 (Fall 2006) 1, 5–15.

Jiménez, Ramon. ‘Shakespeare in Stratford and London: Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing.’ in ‘Report My Cause Aright’ The Shakespeare Oxford Society Fiftieth Anniversary Anthology. The Shakespeare Oxford Society, 2007, 74–85.

Jolly, Eddi. ‘’Shakespeare’ and Burghley’s Library: Biblioteca Illustris: Sive Catalogus Variorum Librorum.’ The Oxfordian 3 (2000) 3–18.

Kennedy, Richard. ‘The Woolpack Man: John Shakespeare’s Monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon.’ Online:
http://webpages.charter.net/stairway/WOOLPACKMAN.htm

Lancashire, Ian. Dramatic Texts and Records of Britain: A Chronological Topography to 1558. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.

Lee, Sidney. ‘Vere, Edward de, seventeenth Earl of Oxford.’ Dictionary of National Biography. v. 58. London: Smith, Elder, 1885–1906.

Looney, John Thomas. Shakespeare’ Identified as Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. London: C. Palmer, 1920.

Magri, Noemi: ‘Shakespeare and Italian Renaissance Painting, the three wanton pictures in The Taming of the Shrew.’ The de Vere Society Newsletter. (May 2005) 4–12.

Malim, Richard. ‘They Haven’t The Necessary Will.’ Letter, The Spectator. 280 (9 January 1999) 24.

——(ed.) Great Oxford, Essays on the Life and Works of Edward de Vere. Tunbridge Wells: Parapress Ltd., 2004.

Maxwell, Baldwin. Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha. New York: Greenwood Press, 1956

May, Stephen W. The Elizabethan Courtier Poets, the Poems and their Contexts. Columbia: Missouri University Press, 1991.

Montaigne, Michel de. The Essayes of Montaigne. John Florio tr. New York: The Modern Library, 1933.

Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare, The Myth and The Reality. 2nd ed. McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1992.

Paul, Christopher. ‘Pallas-Minerva = Spear-Shaker.’ Online:
www.shakespearefellowship.org/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=8549&page=&vc=1

Price, Diana. Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.

——‘The Mythical ‘Myth’ Of The Stigma Of Print.’ Online: www.shakespeare-authorship.com/resources/stigma.asp

Quintilian. The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian. 4 v. H. E. Butler tr. New York: William Heinemann, 1922.

Riggs, David. Ben Jonson, A Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Sheavyn, Phoebe A.B. The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1909.

Smith, G. Gregory, ed. Elizabethan Critical Essays. 2 v. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904.

Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare, Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time. New York: Free Press, 1997.

Spurgeon, Caroline F. E. Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us. 1935. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.

Squire, W. Barclay. ‘Music’ in Shakespeare’s England. v. 2 Walter A. Raleigh, Sidney Lee, and C. T. Onions, eds. Oxford: Clarendeon Press, 1916. 15–49.

Stritmatter, Roger. ‘The not-too-hidden key to Minerva Britanna.’ The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter v.36:2 (Summer 2000) 1, 9–15, 17.

——‘’Tilting Under Frieries’: Narcissus (1595) and the Affair at Blackfriars.’ Cahiers Élisabéthains No. 70 (Autumn, 2006) 39–42; also Shakespeare Matters 6:2 (Winter 2007) 1, 18–20.

——and Lynne Kositsky. ‘Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited.’ Review of English Studies 58 (2007) 447–72.

Theobald, William. The Classic Element in the Shakespeare Plays. London: Robert Banks, 1909.

Trevor-Roper, Hugh. ‘What’s in a name?’ Réalités. No. 144 (Nov. 1962) 41–3.

Ward, B. M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) from Contemporary Documents. London: John Murray, 1928.

Whalen, Richard F. ‘A Dozen Shakespeare Plays Written after Oxford Died? Not Proven!’ The Oxfordian 10 (2007) 75–84.

Whitman, Walt. The Complete Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman. 2 v. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1948.

Whittemore, Hank. ‘Abstract and Brief Chronicles.’ The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter v.35:2 (Summer 1999) 1, 10–14, 22.

Scholars have never satisfactorily identified the mysterious individual known only as E.K. who collaborated with Spenser on The Shepheardes Calender of 1579 and was the author of a lost commentary on Spenser’s Dreames. The suggestion that E.K. was Edward Kirke (1553-1613), a Cambridge contemporary of Spenser’s, seems to go nowhere through lack of information (Oram 6). An alternative suggestion, that E.K. was Spenser’s friend, Gabriel Harvey, is incompatible with Harvey’s style, which is more ponderous and a good deal less effective than any of E.K.’s arguments or notes. A third theory, that E.K. is a Spenser persona, is ingeniously supported by the suggestion that the initials E.K. stand for “Edmundus Kedemon,” a translation of Spenser’s name into Greek (Oram 6). However, E.K.’s emphases suggest a textual presence distinct from Spenser’s (Hamilton 2805).

The question of E.K. ‘s identity is often discussed as though no evidence exists apart from the initials themselves and the information about E.K.’s academic and poetic pursuits revealed in the pages of The Shepheardes Calender. However, this assumption ignores Spenser’s own references to E.K. in two letters to Gabriel Harvey. The first of these letters was written on October 15th and 16th, 1579. Portions of four successive paragraphs are quoted below, illustrating the context in which Spenser’s reference to E.K. appears:

Your desire to heare of my late beeing with hir Majestie, muste dye in itselfe. As for the twoo worthy Gentlemen, Master Sidney and Master Dyer, they have me, I thanke them, in some use of familiarity: of whom, and to whome, what speache passeth for youre credite and estimation, I leave yourselfe to conceive. . . . Maister E.K. hartily desireth to be commended unto your Worshippe: of whome what accompte he maketh, your selfe shall hereafter perceive, by hys paynefull and dutifull verses of your selfe. Thus much was written at Westminster yesternight: but comming this morning, beeying the sixteenth of October, to Mystresse Kerkes, to have it delivered to the Carrier, I receyved youre letter, sente me the laste weeke: whereby I perceive you otherwhiles continue your old exercise of Versifying in English: whych glorie I had now thought shoulde have bene onely ours heere at London and the Court .. . I will impart yours [Harvey's verses} to Maister Sidney and Maister Dyer at my nexte going to the Courte.[italics indicate 16th-century quote] (Grosart 79)

The clues afforded by this letter are admittedly slender; however, they give rise to important inferences. The first two paragraphs, written at Westminster yesternight (ie., on October 15th), group together items of news from Court. Spenser mentions his audience with the Queen, his growing intimacy with Sidney and Dyer (who are residing at Court) and E.K.’s greetings to Gabriel Harvey. The third and fourth paragraphs, written on October 16th, after Spenser’s visit to Mystresse Kerke’s, show that Spenser expects to be at Court again in the near future, at which time he promises to show Harvey’s verses to Sidney and Dyer.

Two important inferences arise from these comments. In the first place, the fact that Spenser conveys commendations from E.K. to Harvey disposes unequivocally of the theories that E. K. was either Spenser himself or Gabriel Harvey. Secondly, it can be inferred from Spenser’s remarks that it was at Court that he met with E.K. Six months later, in a postscript to a letter written to Harvey from Westminster in April, 1580, Spenser again mentions E.K.:

I take best my Dreames shoulde come forth alone, being growen by meanes of the Glosse (running continually in maner of a Paraphrase) full as great as my Calendar. Therin be some things excellently, and many things wittily discoursed of E.K., and the pictures so singularly set forth, and purtrayed, as if Michael Angelo were there, he could (I think) nor amende the beste, nor reprehende the worst. (Grosart 38, Hamilton 737)

Again, the clues to E.K.’s identity are slender. However, it can safely be inferred from the context of the letter that E.K. exercises considerable influence over the publication of Spenser’s works. Spenser tells us that E.K. has prepared a lengthy gloss for the printed edition of the Dreames; in addition, it is seemingly E.K. who has arranged for the pictures, the beauty of which seems to have come as a complete surprise to Spenser. These two letters of Spenser’s leave the reader with the impression that E.K. is a very singular individual. He is someone connected with the Court. He is also someone with the knowledge, the leisure, and the financial means to provide glosses and appropriate illustrations for Spenser’s published works. He is someone to whose critical judgment Spenser is prepared to yield in certain respects. Finally, and most curiously, he is someone who can only be mentioned—even in personal letters from Spenser to Gabriel Harvey—under the mask of the cryptic initials E.K. This singular individual, we believe, was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Before examining further evidence that supports the identification of Oxford as E.K., however, it is necessary to glance at the role played by E.K. in The Shepheardes Calender. In this regard, Johnson makes the interesting analogy that E.K.’s role is like that of the sly pilgrim Geoffrey in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Johnson also suggests that E.K.’s role included the important task of shielding Spenser from the consequences of his use of topical satire:

Spenser’s possible reasons for prefacing a serious poem with a comic prologue must remain as mysterious as E. K.’s actual identity, but we can guess at several reasons for the decision. First, E.K.’s jocular tone, pedantry, and carefree handling of Immerito’s own metaphors are disarming. It may well be that Spenser felt certain that the eclogues glanced too sharply at the persons and issues of the late 1570′s; if so, E.K.—half clown, half capable exegete—served to screen the author from political reprisals. (Johnson 26, 30; Hamilton 231)

Johnson’s comment seems particularly apposite with respect to the February and May eclogues. In the argument to the February eclogue, E.K. cautions that this eclogue is “rather morall and generall, then bent to any secrete or particular purpose,” thus forestalling the temptation to interpret the fable of the Oak and Briar in terms of current religious or political events (Oram 39). Similarly, in the argument to the May eclogue, E.K. states cavalierly that “under the persons of two shepheards, Piers and Palinode, be represented two formes of pastoures or Ministers, or the protestant and the Catholique,” whereas, in fact, the eclogue deals, not with the opposition of Protestant and Catholic views, but with the much more dangerous debate between reforming and conservative factions of the Anglican church (Oram 87; Cullen 41-49, 131). Thus, E.K.’s disingenuous interpretation throws dust in the eyes of those of his contemporaries who might be inclined to accuse Spenser of criticizing the church of which his sovereign was the head.

But E.K.’s role in The Shepheardes Calender is not limited to the task of protecting Spenser from the consequences of comment on dangerous political or religious issues. As Oram points out, only about half of The Shepheardes Calender is poems. In other words, fully half of the materials that make up the Calender-the dedicatory epistle and general argument, the brief argument that prefaces each eclogue, and the extensive gloss that follows it are the work of E. K., who skillfully directs this disparate material toward a much more comprehensive objective, that of launching a new poet. In the dedicatory epistle, for example, E.K. tries to deflect the adverse criticism that he foresees will result from Spenser’s experimental style. He devotes three pages to a defense of Spenser’s use of archaic language, granting these ancient words to be “something hard,” but justifying their use as an attempt to garnish and beautify the English language. He concludes by likening those who would criticize this linguistic experiment to dogs in the manger whose “currish kind, though [they] cannot be kept from barking, yet I conne them thanke that they refrain from biting” (14,7). E.K.’s fear that Spenser’s use of archaic language would be objected to was well,founded: even Philip Sidney, to whom Spenser dedicated the work, criticized this feature in his Defence of Poesy: “That same framing of his style to an old rustic language I dare not allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazaro in Italian did affect it” (Shepherd 133).

To further assist in rendering Spenser intelligible to the reader, E.K. also thought well to take the pains upon himself of preparing a gloss to each of the eclogues. According to E.K., these glosses serve both for the exposition of old words and harder phrases and as a means of drawing attention to Spenser’s stylistic techniques (“forsomuch as I knew many excellent and proper devises both in words and matter would passe in the speedy course of reading, either as unknowen, or as not marked”) (Oram 19). In a further effort to smooth a path for the new poet, E.K. emphasizes that The Shepheardes Calender is Spenser’s first work, “the maydenhead of his Poetrie.” In an attractive simile, he points out that poets have traditionally written eclogues “at the first to trye their habilities: and as young birdes, that be newly crept out of the nest, by little first to prove theyr tender wyngs, before they make a greater flyght” (18). Thus, suggests E.K., allowances for Spenser’s poetic inexperience are to be made.

E.K. also undertakes to explain to the reader the underlying structure of The Shepheardes Calender, stating that the twelve eclogues, “everywhere answering to the seasons of the twelve months, can be divided into three formes or ranckes, plaintive, recreative and moral” (223). As Cullen, Johnson and others have shown, E.K.’s deceptively simple statement affords a key to the unity and design of the entire work (120147j 37-44). Finally, in a disarming display of erudition, E.K. clears away one remaining obstacle to the Elizabethan readers’ appreciation of The Shepheardes Calender: Spenser has made January the starting-point of the calendar year (which, for most, began on March 25th), and E.K. provides arguments justifying Spenser’s unorthodox choice (Oram 235). From the foregoing, it is clear that E.K. was some’ one who understood exactly what Spenser was attempting to do, and who facilitated the introduction of Spenser’s fledgling work by serving as an interpreter between the poet and his readers. This is a task that very few of Spenser’s contemporaries were equipped to undertake, and a task that Spenser himself would have entrusted only to someone whose judgment he trusted implicitly. The question then becomes whether that person—the individual known as E.K.—was Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford.

Internal evidence in The Shepheardes Calender makes it clear that Spenser and his collaborator, E.K., enjoyed a friendship based on shared literary Interestingly, evidence of a friendship of precisely this sort is found in Spenser’s dedicatory sonnet to Oxford in the 1590 edition of The Faerie Queen (see below left: Greenlaw V3 191): If E.K. is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, any surviving evidence of a friendship between Spenser and Oxford should contain the suggestion that it, too, was based on shared literary interests.

Spenser’s sonnet to Oxford is one of the original series of ten sonnets—dedicated to Hatton, Essex, Oxford, Northumberland, Ormond, Howard, Grey, Raleigh, Lady Carew, and the Ladies of the Court—that appeared in the first edition of The Faerie Queen. (Subsequently, the sonnets to Lady Carew and the Ladies of the Court were dropped, and seven new sonnets added, to make a total of fifteen. (Hamilton 259–292, 3)

Several of these dedicatory sonnets, including those dedicated to Essex, to Lady Carew, and to “the gratious and beautifull Ladies in the Court,” are merely exercises in graceful compliment. In others, however, Spenser singles out for praise specific achievements or qualities of the dedicatees. Thus, he draws attention to Lord Howard’s victory over the Spanish Armada, and to Sir Christopher Hatton’s counsel and policy. Similarly, the sonnets dedicated to the Earl of Ormond and to Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, acknowledge their patronage of literature (Greenlaw 190, 193–4). In only two of the original ten sonnets, however, does Spenser refer to the recipients as persons of literary accomplishment in their own right: Sir Walter Raleigh is “the sommers nightingale,” and the Earl of Oxford “bears love to the Heliconian ymps and is most de are to them” (Greenlaw 196).

According to Spenser, Raleigh is better qualified to write in praise of Queen Elizabeth than he; nonetheless, he begs his indulgence for his “rusticke Madrigale in faire Cinthias praise.” In his sonnet to Oxford, however, Spenser eschews comparisons and makes three points that establish a direct connection between Oxford and The Faerie Queen:

1. Spenser begins with the statement that he is relying on the Earl’s protection for his new work: “Which by thy countenaunce doth crave to bee/Defended from foule Envies poisnous bit.”

2. Spenser then points out two reasons why it right well befits Oxford to countenance and protect The Faerie Queen: first, the poem memorializes the de Veres and, more particularly, Oxford himself:

Which so to doe may thee right well befit,
Sith th’ antique glory of thine auncestry
Under a shady vele is therein writ,
And eke thine owne long living memory
Succeeding them in true nobility.

Second, it is fitting that Oxford should champion The Faerie Queen because of his love for the Muses, and theirs for him: “And also for the love, which thou doest beare/To th’ Heliconian ymps and they to thee.”

3. In the closing couplet, Spenser states that, as it behoves him to do, he loves and honours Oxford as dearly as Oxford loves himself. (The wording is admittedly elliptic and ambiguous, and ‘love’ perhaps refers to the Muses, rather than to Spenser; if so, then Spenser states that it “doth behove” the Muses to love Oxford as dearly as he loves himself.)” Deare as thou art unto thy selfe, so [he] love[s] That loves and honours thee, as doth behove.” Thus, the theme of this extraordinary sonnet is Spenser’s reliance on Oxford’s protection for The Faerie Queen because of its memorialization of the de Veres and because of Oxford’s love of literature.

Given the manner in which Spenser has personalized the relationship between Oxford and The Faerie Queen in this sonnet, it is not unreasonable to expect that Oxford would have reciprocated by writing a poem in praise of Spenser’s brilliant new work. If a poem of this sort has survived, it would seem logical to search for it among the commendatory verses printed in the first edition of The Faerie Queen.

Unfortunately, all seven commendatory poems in the first edition are signed with initials or pseudonyms, making identification of the authors problematic. However, one poem among the seven is signed with a pseudonym (Ignoto) first claimed for Oxford over 70 years ago. (see below left: Johnson 26, 30; Hamilton 231)

Ignoto’s verses in praise of Spenser and The Faerie Queen are remarkable for their graceful elegance and simplicity, and also for the rather marked absence of the extravagant praise of Queen Elizabeth that we see in a number of the other commendatory verses.

If the Ignoto poem was indeed written by Oxford, then Spenser’s dedicatory sonnet and Ignoto’s commendatory verses represent an exchange of sincere compliment of a very high order. Spenser claims that he has written of the antique glory of the de Veres and of Oxford himself in The Faerie Queen, and he praises Oxford as one beloved of the Muses. Oxford, in turn reciprocates with verses that pay Spenser and The Faerie Queen the ultimate compliment:

“I here pronounce this workmanship is such,
As that no pen can set it forth too much.”,

Spenser’s dedicatory sonnet to Oxford in the 1590 edition of The Faerie Queen provides evidence of a literary connection between the two men, and support for the hypothesis that Oxford, as “E.K.,” was the author of the critical apparatus for Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender. However, the Calender was published a decade earlier than The Faerie Queen, and it is therefore necessary to show that Oxford and Spenser could have been acquainted as early as 1579. Although the actual circumstances under which the two men first met will probably never be known, a likely point of contact between them in the 1570′s was their mutual relationship with the Spencers of Althorpe.

According to a pedigree given in the Visitation of Warwickshire, Sir John Spencer of Althorpe (d. 1586) came from an ancient family that could trace its lineage to the time of William the Conqueror. Sir John’s branch of the family was said to be descended from a younger brother of Hugh le Despenser, Chief Justice of England, grandfather of another Hugh le Despenser (d. 1326), the ill-fated favorite of King Edward II (Harleian 282–5). The authenticity of this pedigree has been disputed in modern times, however, by claims that, in the earliest years of the sixteenth century, the Spencers were simple sheep farmers (Fogle 5).

Whatever may be said of the authenticity of the pedigree, there is no dispute about the fact that Sir John Spencer of Althorpe was a very wealthy man. He left great estates to his sons, and the prestige of the family was considerably enhanced by the marriages of his daughters. This was particularly true of Elizabeth, Anne, and Alice, who married into families that numbered themselves among the kindred of Queen Elizabeth: the Careys, the Stanleys and the Sackvilles. Elizabeth Spencer (1557–1618) married, in 1574, George Carey (1556?–1603), eldest son of Queen Elizabeth’s cousin Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon (1526–1596) (GEC V6 630). Anne Spencer’s first and third marriages connected her with the Stanleys and the Sackvilles: in 1575, Anne married William Stanley, 3rd Lord Monteagle (1529?–1581), and in 1592 she took, as her third husband, Robert Sackville, later 1st Earl of Dorset (1561–1609) (GEC V9 116, V4 423). Perhaps the best match of all was made by Sir John Spencer’s youngest daughter, Alice (1556?–1637), who in 1579 married Ferdinando Stanley, later 5th Earl of Derby (1559?–1594) (GEC V4 212).

These alliances with families related to the Queen introduced the Spencer sisters into an intimate court circle that included among its members Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, himself a cousin of the Queen and a courtier from his earliest youth. Years later, Oxford and the Spencers of Althorpe were brought into an even closer connection when Oxford’s eldest daughter Elizabeth became the sister-in-law of Alice Spencer through her marriage in 1595 to William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby (1561–1642). But for the purposes of establishing the identity of Oxford as E.K., it may be sufficient to show that by 1579, when The Shepheards Calender was published, the three Spencer sisters had gained entree into the uppermost ranks of the Elizabethan nobility and would perforce have been well-known to Oxford, and he to them.

The significance of Oxford’s acquaintance with the Spencer sisters lies in the fact that the Spencers of Althorpe were related to the poet Edmund Spenser. The specific relationship between the two branches of the family has not been traced; however, Spenser himself seized a number of opportunities to make it abundantly clear in print that the relationship existed (Fogle 16–18; Collier VI xii–xiv). In his Complaints, published in 1591, he dedicated a separate long poem to each of the Spencer sisters: Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterfly to Elizabeth Spencer; Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberd’s Tale to Anne; and The Tears of the Muses to Alice (Oram 412, 334, 268). Spenser also dedicated one of the ten original dedicatory sonnets in The Faerie Queen to Elizabeth Spencer, Lady Carey (Hamilton 293). In addition, he sang the praises of all three sisters (as Phyllis, Charillis and sweet Amaryllis) in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again, published in 1595. In this poem, Spenser makes explicit reference to his relationship to the “sisters three” who are the “honor” of the “noble familie” of Spencer of Althorpe. He speaks of himself as the “meanest” of that family, and considers it an honor that “unto them I am so nie”:

No lesse praisworthie are the sisters three,
The honor of the noble familie:
Of which I meanest boast my selfe to be,
And most that unto them I am so nie.

Spencer then continues with a description of each of the three sisters (see below left) in which he refers to Anne Spencer’s marriage to Robert Sackville, and to the recent death of Alice’s husband, Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Derby.

Thus, the Spencer sisters, as intimate members of the Court circle, formed a link between Oxford and Edmund Spenser. And, although it may not have been this link which original ly drew Oxford and Spenser together, the fact of its existence lends plausibility to the hypoth esis that it was Oxford, writing under the pseudonym “E.K. ” who gave Spenser a helping hand in launching The Shepheardes Calender in 1579.

E.K.’s friendship with Gabriel Harvey is a prominent feature of The Shepheardes Calender. If Oxford was E.K., he, too, must have been on friendly terms with Gabriel Harvey. It is thus necessary to examine in some detail the historical evidence of the relationship between the two men. The Cambridge scholar Gabriel Harvey (1550?–1631) and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, were both born in Essex in 1550. Although their situations in life were vastly different, they had in common a fascination with books and learning and a mutual friendship with Sir Thomas Smith (1513–1577). Sir Thomas Smith and Gabriel Harvey’s father, John, were neighbors in Saffron Walden: “The town centre is marked by a broad Common . . .. At the western side of the Common on what is known as ‘Common Hill’ stood the nearly adjacent mansions of Sir Thomas Smyth (later to become Principal Secretary to Queen Elizabeth) and of Mr. John Harvey, father of Gabriel” (Stern 3).

Besides being neighbours, the Harvey and Smith families were also kin. The exact nature of the familial relationship has not been established; however, in Foure Letters, published in 1592, Harvey states that he is a cousin of Sir Thomas Smith’s illegitimate (and only) son. Gabriel Harvey and Master Thomas Smith were friends as youths, and there is a record of their mutual reading of Harvey’s copy of Livy shortly after Harvey’s sixteenth birthday. Harvey was also a close friend of Sir Thomas Smith’s favorite nephew, John Wood (14). But Gabriel Harvey’s friendship with the Smiths was not confined to the younger members of the family. A close friendship also existed between Harvey and Sir Thomas Smith himself. Since Sir Thomas was largely absent from England after 1571, Stern deduces that this relationship ripened during the years 1566–1571, when Smith was living in Essex:

Harvey would have had the opportunity to become intimate with Smith between April 1566 and March 1571, when he was living almost continuously in Essex. Before and after this and during a very brief trip to France in 1567, Smith was out of England on government service; but for most of the five years after Sir Philip Hoby succeeded him as ambassador, Smith was living either at his country estate at Theydon Mount or at his town residence in the central square of Walden close to the Harveys’ home. (13, 26)

Gabriel Harvey’s father, John, was a stern and demanding parent, and it was perhaps because of a lack of sympathy between father and son that an almost paternal relationship developed during these years between Sir Thomas and his brilliant protege:

By 1573, the elder statesman had certainly become intellectual father to the gifted young scholar. Harvey’s letters to Sir Thomas refer to the advice he has given him, his guidance in studies, and his orienting Harvey toward a life of service to the state. He visited him at his country home at Theydon Mount, studied with him, sought his counsel, and corresponded regularly. In a 1573 letter Harvey writes of the special “frendship that I alwais hetherto sins mi first cumming to Cambridg have found at your hands as suerly I do, and must neds remember it often, having continually had so ful trial thereof.” He refers to Smith’s having aided him in attaining his fellowship at Pembroke “not past thre yers ago,” and he discusses whether or not he should take up the study of civil law: “I know wel both your wisdum to be sutch, that you can easly discern what is best for me, and I assure mi self your gud affection to be sutch, that you wil gladly counsel me for the best.” (13, 26)

After Smith’s death in August, 1577 following “a long and painful illness,” Harvey was chief mourner at the funeral, as Thomas Nashe noted with satirical malice two decades later in Have With You To Saffron Walden:

Onely hee [Harvey] tells a foolish twittle twattle boasting tale (amidst his impudent brazen fac’d defamation of Doctor Perne,) of the Funerall of his kinsman, Sir Thomas Smith, (which word kinsman I wonderd he causd not to be set in great capitall letters,) and how in those Obsequies he was a chiefe Mourner. (McKerrow 58)

As Nashe parenthetically remarks, the funeral was the occasion of an unpleasant incident between Harvey and Doctor Andrew Perne. To Doctor Perne’s chagrin, Lady Smith bestowed on Harvey some “rare manuscript books” belonging to Sir Thomas. Perne desired these manuscripts for himself and, according to Harvey’s account in Pierces Supererogation, expressed his annoyance by calling Harvey a “Foxe”:

[Perne] once in a scoldes pollicie called me Foxe between jest, and earnest: (it was at the funerall of the honorable Sir Thomas Smith, where he preached, and where it pleased my Lady Smith, and the coexecutours to bestow certaine rare manuscript bookes upon me, which he desired). (Stern 38)

Lady Smith’s bestowal of her husband’s rare manuscripts on Gabriel Harvey is proof of the regard in which Harvey was held by Sir Thomas Smith and his family. And Harvey’s respect and affection for Sir Thomas are evidenced by the fact that he began, immediately after the funeral, to write the Latin elegies in memory of his former friend, counsellor, and benefactor that were published in January, 15 78, as Smithus: Vel Musarum Lachrymae (39).

Given the extraordinarily close relationship between Sir Thomas Smith and Gabriel Harvey, it is significant that it was none other than Sir Thomas Smith who served as the catalyst for a friendship between Harvey and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Smith had been one of Oxford’s childhood tutors (probably during the years 1556–1558) (Ward 10–11). Thus, it was likely in deference to Sir Thomas that Oxford went out of his way to offer financial help to Harvey during the latter’s undergraduate years at Cambridge. In Foure Letters, Harvey specifically identifies his kinship with the Smith family as the motive for Oxford’s generosity toward him:

In the prime of his [Oxford's] gallantest youth, hee bestowed Angels upon mee in Christes Colledge in Cambridge, and otherwise voutsafed me many gratious favours at the affectionate commendation of my Cosen, M. Thomas Smith, the sonne of Sir Thomas. (65–6)

The reference to Christ’s College dates Oxford’s benefactions to the years 1566–1570, when Harvey was an undergraduate, and these Cambridge years provide evidence of yet another link between Oxford and Gabriel Harvey. Harvey’s tutor at the university was William Lewin (d. 1598), who had formerly served as tutor to Anne Cecil, Oxford’s wife, and the daughter of Lord Burghley, his guardian. Harvey’s friendship with Lewin continued for many years (he dedicated Ciceronianus to him in 1577), and a friendship must also have developed between Lewin and Oxford, since the former tutor, now a student of the civil law, accompanied Oxford on the first stage of his continental tour in 1575; as a companion, Lewin was said to be “a Raphael … both discreet and of good years, and one that my Lord [Oxford] doth respect” (10–11; DNB VII 1048–9). Thus, the few historical records that have survived from this period bear witness to a developing friendship between Oxford and Harvey during the latter’s student years, based on mutual friendships with Sir Thomas Smith and William Lewin, and on Oxford’s generosity toward Harvey.

The records for the next eight years are a blank, so far as the relationship between Oxford Tand Harvey is concerned. In July of 1578, however, the two men are momentarily highlighted against the colorful backdrop of Queen Elizabeth’s summer progress. On July 26th and 27th, the royal party was at Audley End, three miles from Saffron Walden, where Cambridge dignitaries and scholars presented gifts and entertained Elizabeth and her courtiers with speeches and disputations. Harvey himself participated in a three-hour disputation and offered as a gift of his own, four manuscripts of Latin verse written on large folio-sized sheets in his ornamental Italian hand. The four manuscripts were later printed, with additions, as Gabrielis Harveii Gratulationum Valdinensium Libri Quatuor and presented by Harvey to the Queen on September 15th at Hadham Hall, the Hertfordshire estate of Harvey’s friend, Arthur Capel (Stern 65). The printed volume was “comprised of four books of Latin verse: Book I addressed to Elizabeth, Book II to Leicester, Book III to Burghley, and Book IV to Oxford, Hatton, and Sidney” (39–41; Nichols V2 109–14, 222). Harvey’s Latin verses to Oxford in Book IV praise the Earl as a poet and—in extravagant terms—as a potential military leader. Translated into English prose, Harvey’s encomium to Oxford reads, in part, as follows:

O great-hearted one, strong in thy mind and thy fiery will, thou wilt conquer thyself, thou wilt conquer others; thy glory will spread out in all directions beyond the Arctic Ocean; and England will put thee to the test and prove thee to be a native .. bom Achilles. Do thou but go forward boldly and without hesitation. Mars will obey thee, Hermes will be thy messenger, Pallas striking her shield with her spear shaft will attend thee. For a long time past Phoebus Apollo has cultivated thy mind in the arts. English poetical measures have been sung by thee long enough. Let that Courtly Epistle – more polished than the writings of Castiglione himself – witness how greatly thou dost excel in letters. I have seen many Latin verses of thine, yea, even more English verses are extant; thou hast drunk deep draughts not only of the muses of France and Italy, but hast learned the manners of many men, and the arts of foreign countries. It was not for nothing that Sturmius himself was visited by thee; neither in France, Italy, nor Germany are any such cultivated and polished men. 0 thou hero worthy of renown, throw away the insignificant pen, throw away bloodless books, and writings that serve no useful purpose; now must the sword be brought into play, now is the time for thee to sharpen the spear and to handle great engines of war …. In thy breast is noble blood, Courage animates thy brow, Mars lives in thy tongue, Minerva strengthens thy right hand, Bellona reigns in thy body, within thee bums the fire of Mars. Thine eyes flash fire, thy countenance shakes spears; who would not swear that Achilles had come to life again? (Ogburn 596–7)

The entertainment at Audley End, and the favour shown to him by the Earl of Leicester for a brief time thereafter, marked the high point of Harvey’s career. At some time during this period, he seems to have served as Leicester’s secretary and was “bending every effort toward securing a niche for himself at Court” (Stern 46, 50, 68). However, after a brief trial, according to Nashe’s admittedly biased account, Leicester told Harvey he was “fitter for the Universitie than for the Court”:

He that most patronizd him, prying more searchingly into him, and finding that he was more meete to make sport with than anie way deeply to be employd, with faire words shooke him of, & told him he was fitter for the Universitie than for the Court or his tume, and so bad God prosper his studies, & sent for another Secretarie to Oxford. (Stern 46; McKerrow 79)

Any further hope of preferment that Harvey might have entertained was dashed in the summer of 1580 with the anonymous and unauthorized publication of a part of his correspondence with his friend Edmund Spenser in Three Proper and Wittie Familiar Letters. This volume, entered in the Stationers’ Register on June 30th, 1580, included a letter from Harvey to Spenser containing Latin hexameter verses that Harvey himself characterized as a “bolde Satyriall libell.” In the letter, Harvey indicated that these verses, entitled Speculum Tuscanismi, had been “lately devised” at the instigation of a gentleman in Hertfordshire (perhaps Harvey’s friend, Arthur Capel) (Stem 40, 65, 251, 254):

But seeing I must needes bewray my store, and set open my shoppe wyndowes, nowe I pray thee, and coniure thee by all thy amorous Regardes, and exorcismes of Love, call a Parliament of thy Sensible, & Intelligible powers together, & tell me, in Tom Trothes earnest, what II secondo, & famoso Poeta, Master Immerito, sayth to this bolde Satyriall Libell lately devised at the instaunce of a certayne worshipfull Hartefordshyre Gentleman, of myne olde acquayntaunce: in Gratiam quorundam Illustrium Angofrancitalorum, hic & ubique apud nos voli, tantium. Agedum vero, nosti homines, tanquam tuam ipsius cutem.

        Speculum Tuscanismi.

        Since Galateo came in, and Tuscanisme gan usurpe,
        Vanitie above all: Villanie next her, Statelynes Empress.
        No man, but Minion, Stowte, Lowte, Plaine, Swayne, quoth a Lording:
        No wordes but valorous, no workes but woomanish onely.
        For life Magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in shew,
        In deede most frivolous, not a looke but Tuscanish alwayes.
        His cringing side necke, Eyes glauncing, Fisnamie smirking,
        With forefinger kisse, and brave embrace to the footewarde.
        Largebellied Kodpeasd Dublet, unkodpeased halfe hose,
        Strait to the dock, like a shirte, and close to the britch, like a diveling.
        A little Apish Flatte, cowched fast to the pate, like an Oyster,
        French Camarick Ruffes, deepe with a witnesse, starched to the purpose.

        Every one A per se A, his termes, and braveries in Print,
        Delicate in speach, queynte in araye: conceited in all poyntes:
        In Courtly guyles, a passing singular odde man
        For Gallantes a brave Myrrour, a Primerose of Honour,
        A Diamond for nonce, a fellowe perelesse in England.
        Not the like Discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out:
        Not the like resolute Man, for great and serious affayres,
        Not the like Lynx, to spie out secretes, and privities of States.

        Eyed, like to Argus, Earde, like to Midas, Nosd, like to Naso,
        Wingd, like to Mercury, fittst of a Thousand for to be employde,
        This, nay more than this doth practise of Italy in one yeare.
        None doe I name, but some doe I know, that a peece of a twelvemontth
        Hath so perfitted outly, and inly, both body, both soule,
        That none for sense, and senses, halfe matchable with them.
        A Vulturs smelling, Apes tasting, sight of an Eagle,
        A Spiders touching, Hartes hearing, might of a Lyon.
        Compoundes of wisedome, witte, prowes, bountie, behaviour,
        All gallant Vertues, all qualities of body and soule:
        o thrice tenne hundreth thousand times blessed and happy,
        Blessed and happy Travaile, travailer most blessed and happy.
        Penatibus Hetruscis laribusque nostris Inquilinis.

Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet wanted but a good patteme before his eyes, as it might be some delicate, and choyce elegant Poesie of good M. Sidneys, or M. Dyers (ouer very Castor & Pollux for such and many greater matters) when this trimme geere was in hatching. (Grosart VI 83–6)

Harvey’s reference to Sidney and Dyer hints discreetly that they might be a receptive audience for Speculum Tuscanismi, and in the closing paragraph of the letter, Harvey authorizes Spenser to “communicate” his letter to them:

You knowe my ordinarie Postscripte: you may communicate as much, or as little, as you list, of these Patcheries, and fragments, with the two Gentlemen [i.e., Sidney and Dyer]: but there a straw, and you love me: not with any else, friend or foe, one, or other: unlesse haply you have a special desire to imparte some parte hereof, to my good friend M. Daniel Rogers: whose curtesies are also registred in my Marble booke. You knowe my meaning. (Grosart 107)

Although Harvey’s letter containing the Speculum Tuscanismi verses is undated, its approximate date of composition can be fixed by the circumstances of its publication in Three Proper and Wittie Familiar Letters. The first of Harvey’s letters in this volume deals with the earthquake of April 6th, 1580 (Stem 54–5). His second letter, which contains Speculum Tuscanismi, dates from about the same time and cannot have been written later than the introductory epistle to Three Letters, that is dated June 19th, 1580 (Stem 54). Thus, Harvey must have written the poem Speculum Tuscanismi sometime between early April and mid-June, 1580.

Unfortunately for Harvey (and, probably, for Spenser), the publication of Three Letters caused a furor, and the matter came before the Privy Council (principally, it would seem, because of a remark of Harvey’s which was misinterpreted as an attack on Sir James Croft, Controller of the Household). Harvey himself admitted that “the sharpest part of those unlucky Letters was over-read at the Council Table” (Ogburn 631). And John Lyly, in Pap With A Hatchet, gleefully recalled in 1589 the punishment for libel which might have befallen Harvey:

And one will we conjure up, that writing a familiar Epistle about the naturall causes of an Earthquake, fell into the bowells of libelling, which made his eares quake for feare of clipping. (McKerrow V3 74)

The whole matter came back to haunt Harvey a decade and a half later in his famous quarrel with Nashe, whose ruthless exposition of the incident in Have With You To Saffron Walden clarifies much that would otherwise be obscure about the composition of Speculum Tuscanismi. In the first place, Nashe unambiguously imputes the composition of the poem to Harvey’s ambition (“his ambicious stratagem to aspire”) and his desire to ingratiate himself with the Earl of Leicester (“that Nobleman … for whome with his pen hee thus bladed”):

I had forgot to observe unto you, out of his first foure familiar Epistles, his ambicious stratagem to aspire, that whereas two great Pieres beeing at jarre, and their quarrell continued to bloudshed, he would needs, uncald and when it lay not in his way, steppe in on the one side, which indeede was the safer side (as the foole is crafty inough to sleepe in a whole skin) and hewe and slash with his Hexameters; but hewd and slasht he had beene as small as chippings, if he had not playd ducke Fryer and hid himselfe eight weeks in that N oblemans house for whome with his pen hee thus bladed. Yet neverthelesse Syr James a Croft, the olde Controwler, ferrited him out, and had him under hold in the Fleete a great while, taking that to be aimde & leveld against him, because he cald him his olde Controwler, which he had most venomously belched against Doctor Perne. Uppon his humble submission, and ample exposition of the ambiguous Text, and that his forementioned Mecenas mediation, matters were dispenst with and quallified, & some light countenance, like sunshine after a storme, it pleased him after this to let fall uppon him, and so dispatcht him to spurre Cut backe againe to Cambridge. (McKerrow V3 78)

Nashe’s account makes it clear that the composition of Speculum Tuscanismi was part of a larger quarrel (“two great Pieres beeing at jarre”), into which Harvey stepped, unasked, on the safer side (“uncald and when it lay not in his way, steppe in on the one side, which indeede was the safer side”). The “quarrel” to which Nashe alludes can be equated with the long-drawn-out conflict in 1579–80 over Queen Elizabeth’s proposed marriage to Francois, Duke of Alencon. The two peers who were “at jarre” were Leicester and Sussex; with Leicester, along with the Earl of Pembroke, Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Francis Walsingham, opposing the marriage, while Oxford and Burghley sided with Sussex, who favored it. In late August, 1579, animosity between the two sides flared up in the celebrated tennis court quarrel in which Oxford called Philip Sidney, Leicester’s nephew and heir apparent, a “puppy.” Sidney fiercely resented the insult (Duncan-Jones 164) . His friends—Harvey among them—doubtless did likewise, and it may have been partly to avenge this insult to the Leicester party that Harvey, in the early months of 1580, “bladed his pen” against Oxford (Stern 65).

In his exculpatory account in Foure Letters, written many years after the event, Harvey ascribed the writing of Speculum Tuscanismi to a combination of youthful indiscretion and the urging of friends who did not scruple to use him for their own purposes. At the time, he says, he was “yong in yeares, fresh in courage, greene in experience, and as the manner is, somewhat overweeninge in conceit.” He had been reading invectives and satires and had been exasperated by some “sharpe undeserved discourtesies” (Oxford’s insult to Sidney is perhaps referred to in line 3 of Speculum Tuscanismi). Moreover,

… some familiar friendes pricked me forward: and I neither fearing daunger, nor suspecting ill measure, (poore credulitie sone beguiled) was not unwilling to content them, to delight a few other, and to avenge, or satisfie my selfe, after the manner of shrewes, that cannot otherwise ease their curst hearts, but by their owne tongues, & their neighbours eares. (59)

He had not intended to publish the “infortunate Letters, which had fallen into the left handes of malicious enemies, or undiscreete friends: who adventured to imprint in earnest, that was scribbled in jest, for the moody fit was soone over.”

Understandably, Harvey also stoutly disputed the accusation that Speculum Tuscanismi was directed at Oxford:

[Lyly] would needs forsooth verye courtly perswade the Earle of Oxforde, that some thing in those Letters, and namely the Mirrour of Tuscanismo, was palpalby intended against him: whose noble Lordeship I protest, I never meante to dishonour with the least prejudicial word of my Tongue, or pen: but ever kept a mindefull reckoning of many bounden duties toward The-same: since in the prime of his gallantest youth, hee bestowed Angels upon mee in Christes Colledge in Cambridge, and otherwise voutsafed me many gratious favours at the affectionate commendation of my Cosen, M. Thomas Smith, the sonne of Sir Thomas, shortly after Colonel of the Ardes in Ireland. But the noble Earle, not disposed to trouble his Joviall mind with such Saturnine paltery, stil continued, like his magnificent selfe. (65–6)

Harvey’s assertion that he “never meante to dishonour” the Earl of Oxford with the “least prejudicial word of his tongue or pen” cannot be totally discounted; Speculum Tuscanismi takes some liberties with the Earl’s Italianate dress and mannerisms, but otherwise attributes many “remarkable gifts” to Oxford (Ogburn 630). However, Harvey’s own characterization of the verses as a “bolde Satyriall Libell,” taken in conjunction with some notes in his Letter-book, suggests that his intentions were “not altogether innocent”:

On folios 51 v and 52 v of Sloane MS.93 there is the draft of a discourse entitled a “dialogue in Cambridge between Master GH and his cumpanye at a midsumer Comencement, togither with certayne delicate sonnets and epigrammes in Inglish verse of his makinge.” One of the gentlemen in the company quotes the first twenty-three lines of the satirical poem which in 1580 was published as Speculum Tuscanismi. The discourse continues: “Nowe tell me … if this be not a noble verse and politique lesson … in effecte conteyning the argumente of his [Master GH's] curragious and warly[k]e apostrophe to my lorde of Oxenforde in his fourth booke of Gratulationum Valdinensium.(Stern 66)

Harvey’s account in Foure Letters conveys the impression that he regretted writing Speculum Tuscanismi. However, his evidence does not point to a permanent breach between himself and Oxford. In the first place, he states confidently that the Earl shrugged the matter off as beneath his notice (“the noble Earle, not disposed to trouble his Joviall mind with such Saturnine paltery, stil continued, like his magnificent selfe”). Secondly, he recalls, for the benefit of his readers, Oxford’s openhanded generosity towards him in his youth. Both these statements are incompatible with any long-lasting animosity between the two men. Moreover, when considering Oxford’s relationship with Harvey during the years 1579­80, it is necessary to keep the chronology of events clearly in focus. On April 10th, 1579, when E.K. signed and dated the dedicatory epistle to Harvey in The Shepheardes Calender, Speculum Tuscanismi was still a year in the future. There is, thus, every reason to believe that relations between Oxford and Harvey on April 10, 1579, were on the friendly basis that had obtained during the lifetime of their mutual friend, Sir Thomas Smith, and that E.K’s attitude toward Harvey in The Shepheardes Calender is entirely consistent with Oxford’s relationship with Harvey at that time.

At this point, it is necessary to consider the nature of E.K.’s friendship with Gabriel Harvey, as revealed in the dedicatory epistle and glosses in the Calender. In the first place, E.K. ‘s dedicatory epistle to Harvey is notably warm and courteous, and generous in its praise of Harvey’s abilities:

To the most excellent and learned both Orator and Poete, Mayster Gabriell Harvey, his Verie special and singular good frend E.K. commendeth the good lyking of this his labour, and the patronage of the new Poete. (Oram 13 )

The opening paragraph of the epistle is also remarkable for the informal manner in which E.K. draws Harvey, as it were, into a friendly discussion with the Reader:

Uncouthe unkiste, Sayde the olde famous Poete Chaucer. . . . Which proverbe, myne owne good friend Ma. Harvey, as in that good old Poete it served well Pandares purpose, for the bolstering of his baudy brocage, so very well taketh place in this our new Poete, who for that he is uncouthe as said Chaucer, is unkist, and unknown to most men, is regarded but of few. (13)

E.K. concludes the epistle by gracefully submitting his efforts to Harvey’s judgment and soliciting his protection for the work of the “new Poete.”

These my present paynes, if to any they be pleasurable or profitable, be you judge, mine own good Maister Harvey, to whom I have both in respect of your worthinesse generally, and otherwyse upon some particular and special considerations vowed this my labour, and the maydenhead of this our commen frends Poetrie, himselfe having already in the beginning dedicated it to the Noble and worthy Gentleman, the right worshipfull Ma. Phi. Sidney, a special favourer and maintainer of all kind of learning, Whose cause I pray you Sir, yf Envie shall stur up any wrongful accusasion, defend with your mighty Rhetorick and other your rare gifts of learning, as you can, and shield with your good wil, as you ought, against the malice and outrage of so many enemies, as I know wilbe set on fire with the sparks of his kindled glory. And thus recommending the Author unto you, as unto his most special good frend, and my selfe unto you both, as one making singuler account of two so very good and so choise frends, I bid you both most hartely farwel, and commit you and your most comendable studies to the tuicion of the greatest.(

Your owne assuredly to be commaunded E.K . (20)

This closing salutation is followed by a lengthy postscript urging Harvey to publish his own unpublished manuscripts (whether this postscript was written tongue,in,cheek by someone who had listened to Harvey’s extravagant praise of him at Audley End must be left to the judgment of the individual reader):

Now I trust M. Harvey, that upon sight of your speciall frends and fellow Poets doings, or els for envie of so many unworthy Quidams, which catch at the garlond, which to you alone is dewe, you will be perswaded to pluck out of the hateful darknesse, those so many excellent English poemes of yours, which lye hid, and bring them forth to eternall light. Trust me you doe both them great wrong, in depriving them of the desired sonne, and also your selfe, in smoothering your deserved prayses, and all men generally, in withholding from them so divine pleasures, which they might conceive of your gallant English verses, as they have already doen of your Latine Poemes, which in my opinion both for invention and Elocution are very deli .. cate, and superexcellent. And thus againe, I take my leave of my good Mayster Harvey from my lodging at London thys 10 of Aprill. 1579. (20–1)

The introductory epistle to The Shepheardes Calender thus suggests a friendship between E.K. and Gabriel Harvey that is generally consistent with what is known of the friendship between Harvey and Oxford in 1579. And E.K.’s glosses to the Calender take the identification between E.K. and Oxford a step further by linking E. K. with people and events which had mutual significance for both Oxford and Harvey.

In his gloss to the word “couthe” in the January eclogue, for example, E.K. mentions the very circumstance that gave rise to the friendship between Harvey and Oxford, namely Harvey’s kinship with Oxford’s old tutor, Sir Thomas Smith:

… couthe commeth of the verb Conne, that is, to know or to have skill. As well interpreteth the same the worthy Sir Tho. Smith in his booke of goverment: wherof I have a perfect copie in wryting, lent me by his kinseman, and my verye singular good freend, M. Gabriel Harvey: as also of some other his most grave and excellent wrytings. (33)

His gloss makes it clear that Sir Thomas Smith is a focal point of E.K.’s relationship with Gabriel Harvey. Moreover, E.K. has read not only Smith’s manuscript treatise on government, but also “other his most grave and excellent wrytings,” and his study of them has been so thorough as to enable him to recall Smith’s usage of a particular word: “couthe.” There may have been a number of reasons for E.K.’s interest in Smith’s works. If E.K. was Oxford, however, there is no mystery about the matter, and his interest in Smith’s published and unpublished works is readily accounted for by the fact that they came from the pen of his former tutor. Similarly, in a gloss to the September eclogue, E.K. mentions with approval Harvey’s elegiac verses on Sir Thomas Smith, Vel Musarum Lachrymae.

Even more significantly, E.K. refers in this gloss to the 1578 entertainment at Audley End in which Harvey and Oxford had played prominent parts. And E.K.’s reference to the entertainment is noteworthy for its completeness: not only does he mention the dedication of Gratulationum Valdinensium to the Queen at Audley End, but also Harvey’s subsequent presentation of a printed copy at “the worshipfull Maister Capells in Hertfordshire”:

Colin cloute: Nowe I thinke no man doubteth but by Colin is ever meante the Authour selfe, whose especiall good freend Hobbinoll sayth he is, or more rightly Mayster Gabriel Harvey: of whose speciall commendation, as well in Poetrye as Rhetorike and other choyce learning, we have lately had a sufficient tryall in diverse his workes, but specially in his Musarum Lachrymae, and his late Gratulationum Valdinensium which boke in the progresse at Audley in Essex, he dedicated in writing to her Majestie, afterward presenting the same in print unto her Highnesse at the worshipfull Maister Capells in Hertfordshire. Beside other his sundrye most rare and very notable writings, partly under unknown Tytles, and partly under counterfayt names, as his Tyrannomastix, his Ode Natalitia, his Rameidos, and esspecially that parte of Philomusus, his divine Anticosmopolita, and divers other of lyke importance. (163–4)

E.K.’s mention of Harvey’s presentation to Elizabeth of a printed copy of Gratulationum Valdinensium at Hadham Hall appears to be the sole historical reference to this event (Churchyard’s account of the 1578 progress merely records the royal party’s stop at “Mayster Kapel’s, where was excellent good cheere and entertaynement”) (Nichols V2 222). Moreover, Harvey’s presentation of his book to the Queen is likely to have been remarked upon only by an eyewitness to his minor triumph; in other words, someone within a small circle of courtiers, Cambridge officials, and personal friends of Gabriel Harvey. By his references to Gratulationum Valdinensium, E.K. necessarily includes himself in this limited group, suggesting once again that he and Oxford were one and the same individual. In summary, then, Oxford meets one of the most important tests for identification with E.K.: he was a friend of Gabriel Harvey in April, 1579. The friendship may have been weakened a year later by the publication of Three Letters, but at the time it was entirely consistent with the warm and generous attitude displayed toward Harvey by E.K. in The Shepheardes Calender.

Works Cited

Bond, R. Warwick, ed. The Complete Works of John Lyly. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973.

Collier, John Payne, ed. The Works of Edmund Spenser. London: Bell & Daldy, 1862.

Cullen, Patrick. Spenser, Marvell, and Renaissance Pastoral. Harvard UP, 1970.

Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet. New Haven: Yale UP, 1991.

Fogle, French R. Such a Rural Queen: The Countess Dowager of Derby as Patron in Patronage in Late Renaissance England. Los Angeles: UC Press, 1983.

GEC. The Complete Peerage. London: St. Catherine Press, 1926.

Greenlaw, Edwin, ed. The Works of Edmund Spenser. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1934.

Grosart, Alexander, ed. The Works of Gabriel Harvey. London: Hazell, 1884.

Hamilton, A.C., ed. The Spenser Encyclopedia. Toronto: Toronto UP, 1990.

Harleian Society. Visitation of Warwickshire.

Johnson, Lynn Staley. The Shepheardes Calender: An Introduction. Pennsylvania UP, 1990.

McKerrow, R.B. The Works of Thomas Nashe. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966.

McLane, Paul. Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender: A Study in Elizabethan Allegory. U of Notre Dame, 1961.

Miller, Ruth Loyd, ed. “Shakespeare” Identified in Edward De Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. 3rd ed. Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1975.

Nichols, John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth. New York: Franklin, 1823.

Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and The Reality. New York: Dodd, 1984.

Oram, William, ed. The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser. New Haven: Yale UP, 1989.

Shepherd, Geoffrey, ed. An Apology for Poetry, or The Defense of Poesy. London: Nelson, 1965.

Stern, Virginia F. Gabriel Harvey: His Life, Marginalia and Library. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.

Waldman, Louis. Spenser’s Pseudonym E.K. and Humanist Self-Naming, in Cullen, Patrick and Thomas P. Roche, eds. Spenser Studies: A Renaissance Poetry Annual. New York: AMS, 1991.

Stephen, Leslie, ed. The Dictionary of National Biography. London: Oxford UP, 1917–1968.

Ward, B.M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550–1604). London: John Murray, 1928.

There has long been controversy about who wrote what during the Elizabethan era because there was an extraordinary proclivity among Elizabethan authors to write anonymously or under pseudonyms, to collaborate, and to borrow (or to quote without attribution, what today we would call “to plagiarize”). Therefore, it is not surprising that this controversy has significantly touched on the works of that most beloved of all Elizabethans, William Shakespeare. As such, this topic is integral to our modern’ day approach to the Shakespeare authorship question. Given this labyrinth of possible multiple hands in works of disputed attribution throughout Elizabethan literature, how can we pick out, with reasonable assurance, who wrote what, and maybe even when? For most of the intervening centuries, stylistic discrimination had to depend exclusively on the arbitrary personal judgment of “experts.” The experts were often self-appointed scholars whose intensive studies of Shakespeare’s works somehow conferred upon them the ability to detect Shakespeare’s style and nuances, at least in their own minds. One example was Earnest A. Gerrard’s 1928 work (Elizabethan Drama and Dramatists 1583-1603) which unsatisfactorily claimed to be able to tell which parts of Shakespeare’s works were written by the various professional playwrights of the Elizabethan era. Another example more familiar to non-orthodox scholars was William Plumer Fowler’s massive 1986 book (Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford’s Letters) that stylistically compared most of the 17th Earl of Oxford’s letters, plus five letters of his son-in-law, the 6th Earl of Derby, to Shakespeare’s works. Fowler concluded that both had a hand in writing the works. Though we may respect Fowler’s conclusions and methods more than Gerrard’s, whether either “expert” was right remains personal opinion, no matter how many “credentials” each may have held.

Going one step better than merely resorting to authority have been those stalwarts who for centuries have viewed Shakespeare’s works from a statistical or enumerative standpoint. Typically, they would attach to a concordance, or put in an Appendix, a list of the occurrences of some word, phrase, or anomaly, piecework often astounding in their demonstrations of thoroughness and dedication during an era before automated tools could assist in such laborious efforts. When we run across one of these brave efforts, we should ask whether the underlying theory itself was valid; whether the word, phrase, or anomaly really had verifiable meaning with regard to the authorship question at hand.

An instructive case in point was the statistical system touted in 1901 by Dr. Thomas Mendenhall, who claimed that “frequency of word lengths” was a meaningful discriminator, and that Christopher Marlowe’s works match Shakespeare’s in this one criterion, but Bacon’s do not (Michell 228–231). However, over the many decades since this claim was first made, no convincing support for this particular statistical approach has emerged. And, except for panning Bacon, no really good extensions of the system to other authorship comparisons seem to have been made. Criticism of Mendenhall’s methods by H. N. Gibson is additionally instructive:

As a mere scientist, Mendenhall did not understand the conditions of Elizabethan literature; how old copyists and modern editors have tinkered with the lengths and spellings of words; how authors collaborated to such an extent that it is impossible to be sure of selecting pure samples of anyone’s work; how often revisions were made by other hands. Mendenhall’s samples were not large enough to be significant, nor did he test enough authors to be sure that the Marlowe-Shakespeare correspondence was really unique. It is unfair to compare Bacon’s prose with Shakespeare’s verse. Finally, Mendenhall did not double-check his results, so he and his tired assistants probably made mistakes in their counting. This [however] ignores the virtue of Mendenhall’s method: that a writer’s word-length pattern is unconscious and does not significantly vary, whatever the subject or style adopted. Yet no system is perfect. When Mendenhall analyzed “A Christmas Carol” he found that the number of seven-letter words in it was unusually high for a Dickens sample. That was because of the repetition of the name, Scrooge.” (229–30)

Many of the criticisms of Mendenhall above might also be applied to more modern dabblers in automated stylistic analysis, as we shall see. We must attempt to overcome these weaknesses in any system that we may wish to construct ourselves. But, seeing no great support for this methodology except among supporters of Marlowe as the author of Shakespeare, one must conclude that Mendenhall’s system does no better than to set the opinions of a few “experts” against those of the rest of the world.

This has been a common problem for all non-automated approaches to date: the need to achieve to the greatest extent possible objectivity, perfection, unassailability, and to weed out the human element prone to error and bias. This, then, has been the “Holy Grail” of all who wish to automate stylistic discrimination. It remains to be seen whether such a dependable system will remain forever romantically elusive, or whether it is, in fact, a real possibility.

With the emergence of modern statistical methods and primitive electronic computing, the best that could initially be done was to try to formalize the experts’ rules sufficiently to allow them to be put into partially-automated statistical systems. Such was Prof. Warren Austin’s 1969 effort, which claimed to have identified significant similarities between the style of Henry Chettle and the style used in the 1592 pamphlet published by Chettle, called Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance, which pretends to be Robert Greene’s deathbed work. Austin’s conclusion was that Greene made little if any contribution to the pamphlet, and more than likely it was a forgery by Chettle. It is a testament to how unpersuasive Austin’s methodology was (notwithstanding his use of statistics and computers) that a deep division continues in all circles of scholarship, especially over the Internet, as to whether Greene, Chettle, Nashe, or someone else wrote that pamphlet. Austin’s conclusion has been dismissed by many orthodox scholars for many reasons, not the least of which was that if Greene did not write Groatsworth, they may have to forfeit one of their few snippets of putative Shakespearean “biography” (see discussion of this in Hess 1996). Austin’s plight can be summed up in his own words from 1992, when he reported that:

I have recently had produced a much more comprehensive concordance to Greene’s prose, including over 300,000 words of Greene’s text from all periods of his publishing career. This provides a data base that should make it possible to establish vis-a-vis the whole Chettle corpus, previously concorded, the particular verbal, syntactical, and other usages which so consistently differentiate the Greene and Chettle styles, and thus to determine decisively the true author of Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit.

Thus, after several decades, poor Prof. Austin still had not “decisively” reached a conclusion about a relatively simple issue such as Greene vs. Chettle, let alone Shakespeare vs. anyone else. It is safe to say that Austin’s system was not “perfect” or “unassailable.”

Another instructive case was the statistical system enhanced by computers which was developed by political science Prof. Ward Elliott and his “clinic” of undergraduate students. This system was reviewed by Peter Moore in The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter (Summer 1990), was defended by Elliott in an unpublished article (October 1990), and finally explained in Elliott’s published article in Notes & Queries (December 1991), giving some insights into his methodology, findings, and conclusions, some of which will be discussed in the second part of this article [to be published in the 1999 Oxfordian]. Elliott’s system attempted to evaluate Shakespeare’s “linguistic tendencies” and characteristics in a way that he hoped would uniformly generate results to be run against other authors of the same era.

However, Moore’s 1990 review asserted that many of the criteria used by Elliott’s system turned out to be purely editorial-based or punctuation-based, not really related to authorship, while Elliott’s choices of texts to evaluate often had serious flaws which should have been avoided. (Does this sound similar to criticisms of Mendenhall by Gibson?) We should recognize that the English language, spelling, punctuation, printing technology, editorial habits, and many other aspects were in great flux during the time of the publication of Shakespeare’s works and the King James Bible, both of which did much to set the standards for our language thereafter (McCrum 90106, 11015). The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio was punctuated quite differently from the modern Riverside Shakespeare chosen by Elliott, and 16th-century punctuation was relatively slight compared to that of later eras. For example, Elliott’s system used occurrences of exclamation marks, when in fact the exclamation mark was not adopted into the English language until the 1590s, some time after the publication of many of the works Elliott compared against, such as the 1570s poems of the Earl of Oxford (Moore 9). Not surprisingly, Oxford’s punctuation and exclamation-deficient poems were rated by Elliott’s system as poorly matching Shakespeare’s 1609 and 1623 works with their 20th-century editing and punctuation. Elliott acknowledged in his unpublished 1990 article that “exclamation marks may [be] a weak test” (5); something of an understatement.

Such foibles make it clear that Elliott’s system is no more “perfect” or “unassailable” than Austin’s; that it is open to improvement and could be better accepted by his colleagues. Elliott has explained his methodology in more comprehensive articles in 1996 and 1997, even though his Shakespeare Clinic “closed down” in 1994. He now claims Shakespeare was probably not the author of Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, Pt. 3, or A Lover’s Complaint.

Elliott, however, remains active in criticizing his successor as king of the automated hill, Prof. Donald Foster. Foster’s hypotheses and preliminary conclusions were originally stated in his 1989 book identifying Shakespeare as the author of a 1612 poem known as “Elegy by W.S.” Foster hypothesized that William Shakepeare wrote this elegy to mourn the brutal murder of one William Peter (variously spelled Peeter and Petre) of Whipton near Exeter and then somehow managed to get it published only days afterwards in London, though Foster did acknowledge that the verse was far from Shakespeare’s best. Oxfordian author Joe Sobran jumped on these improbabilities in his entertaining 1996 article, where he argued that Oxford wrote “Elegy” as a youthful effort, which was set aside in shame, only to emerge when it was stolen from his widow’s estate by a pirate publisher in 1609 and then saved until the 1612 murder provided a pretext for publishing the poem (because of the poem’s featuring of the name “Peter” in certain lines).

Foster’s system, dubbed Shaxicon in his 1995 article, works from similarities, such as the use of the words “who” and “whom” in reference to inanimate objects, to maintain that Shakespeare was the author of “Elegy.” However, in a 1997 article, his fellow orthodox scholar Prof. Elliott questioned whether Foster’s use of “rare words and quirks” constituted sufficient proof. Further, Elliott prefers to emphasize elements that exclude Shakespeare’s authorship, rather than Foster’s elements, which are inclusive of it. Clearly Foster’s system is not “unassailable.”

The debate over whether Austin’s, Elliott’s, or Foster’s systems are acceptable rages on, with many scholars, orthodox or not, left scratching their heads, while publicity and egos have frequently skewed the debate. Foster used Shaxicon in 1996 to evaluate the style in the book Primary Colors by Anonymous, identifiing Joe Klein as the real author at least six months before Klein’s public confession (a feat which others could have duplicated simply by examining what sorts of things Anonymous appeared to know about the internal workings of the Clinton ’92 campaign).

This raises a general concern for us: If a system’s creator knows something specific, even subliminally, about the subject being searched for, in many cases the creator can “tweak” the system to specifically look for that something. For instance, Joe Klein may have been known to use unusual word contractions or endings also used by Anonymous, which Shaxicon then could conceivably have been tweaked to search out, not necessarily as a normal exercise. This might make the creator look brilliant when the system magically finds the something, but, if presented as a scientific methodology, it may have no more validity than the horse trainer who caused his horse to count to 20 without realizing that the horse was following the unintentional nods of the trainer’s head with each hoofbeat, so that when the trainer stopped nodding, the horse stopping counting.

Might Shaxicon have been tweaked with regard to its Shakespeare vs. “Elegy” evaluation? It is hard to say without detailed examination of the inner workings of Foster’s system; but one should be skeptical, if only because we know that Foster initially published a proposal of his “Elegy” theory in a book, then later created “Shaxicon,” which then validated his theory. More than just accurate, a system must be demonstrably objective in order to be “perfect” or “unassailable.”

Since Foster is the authority du jour, it is worthwhile looking into reasonable non-computer oriented alternatives to his theory about the “Elegy by W.S.” We might prefer either of two Oxfordian solutions. The first is the suggestion by Richard Desper in an article in The Elizabethan Review that “Elegy” was a youthful product by the Earl of Oxford, written in 1581 as a memorial to the brilliant Jesuit martyr, Edmund Campion. Desper notes that Oxford has often been taken for a closet Catholic, and suggests that the use of the name “Peter” is actually a reference to the Catholic Church as the heir to St. Peter.

Desper makes a strong case, one which readers should judge for themselves. Among other things, his theory has the virtue of explaining things that Foster could not, such as the fact that William Peter had not been married for nine years, as is stated in the poem, whereas Campion had been “married” to the Church for exactly that number of years when he was executed in 1581. On the other hand, he fails to establish a strong historical relationship between Oxford and Campion (though not surprising if Oxford felt forced to hide his Catholic sympathies). Most problematic is the quality of “Elegy,” which many feel is not even up to the Earl of Oxford’s early standards of poetry, let alone Shakespeare’s.

A second theory has been posited by Richard Kennedy on the Oxfordian Internet group, Phaeton. Kennedy believes “Elegy” was written in 1612 by the leading elegist of that time, John Ford, a known friend of the Peter family. Notably, Kennedy has support from the principal expert on John Ford’s works, Prof. Leo Stock, also a Shakespeare scholar. Stock has stated in a letter to Kennedy that he would “unhesitatingly” ascribe the “Elegy” to Ford, and not to Shakespeare, who is not known to have been an elegist at all.

There might be some middle ground between the Desper and Kennedy positions if it can be established that Ford adapted his elegy about William Peter from an earlier lost or anonymous elegy about Campion.[1] A clue to this might be certain key passages that Desper highlights as relating to Campion; if those prove to be poor matches to Ford’s style, while the rest of the elegy otherwise is shown to be a good match to Ford’s style, the case for a missing precursor will be supported. Foster’s failure to use Shaxicon to compare the elegy against Ford’s style and that of other early 17th-century elegists, and his failure to adequately seek peer review from subject authorities such as Prof. Stock, might be viewed as an unfortunate lack of objectivity and dubious professionalism. A.K. Dewdney’s 1996 book amusingly chronicles slightly similar vainglorious excesses by proponents of “Cold Fusion” and other absurd departures from the scientific method.

At the moment, Foster’s Shaxicon has edged to the front in the overall challenge to unlock the secrets of authorship, but for him to claim the prize, he will have to deal with the questions and suggestions of other scholars that haven’t been dealt with, including those of Oxfordians such as Desper and Kennedy.

Perhaps the Holy Grail of systems will never be achieved, one that is “objective,” “perfect,” or “unassailable,” but there are ways to make these computer systems more objective, less biased by their creators’ prejudices and less subject to being tweaked to get results satisfying their creators’ pet theories. One approach might be to more rigorously adopt an Expert System approach, and it would not be giving away too much to point out that Austin’s, Elliott’s, and Foster’s systems can be characterized as nothing more than primitive, marginally successful examples of expert systems, though certainly they are brave pioneers!

Decision-paths and knowledge are required for a human expert to do something that we would normally associate with human intelligence. Included in these are applications requiring “interpretation, prediction, diagnosis, design, planning, monitoring, debugging, repair, instruction, or control” (Turban 92-93). Moreover, an expert system “employs human knowledge captured in a computer to solve problems that ordinarily require human expertise” and will “imitate the reasoning processes experts use to solve specific problems” (74).

Most chess programs are expert systems, with large databases of rules, strategies, stored positions, computational routines, all of which rely on raw computing power to “look” ahead many moves into the game in order to select the best moves. Notably, chess programs rarely have a “learning” capability, which means that if one defeats the program today by use of a particular strategic line, one will likely be able to do so indefinitely with the same line. The basic reason why World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov appeared to explode in an unsportsman-like way after his famous loss to “Deep Blue” in 1997, was that he felt that somehow the IBM team had tweaked Blue into the ability to exploit Kasparov’s personal weaknesses; that they had managed to cover up specific program flaws, but that overall the program was still weaker than was claimed. The refusal of the IBM team to consent to a rematch or to allow wider examination of their system, and the close consultancy with that team by Chess Grandmaster Joel Benjamin, have led some to wonder if Kasparov might have been right to be upset. But the machine-beats-man syndrome captured the public attention; again perhaps more than it should have.[2]

So, if it is reasonable to expect human expertise to be able to pick out so-called “weak endings” {sometimes referred to as “feminine endings”} from Shakespeare’s plays and to tally those, certainly we can set up an expert system to do just that, and more besides. That is because an expert system can do boring, error-prone operations far faster and more consistently than a human can, assuming it is programmed properly. But what if weak endings really aren’t normal expertise; what if they are counter-intuitive? What if they are contrived criteria amounting to no more than a tweaking of the system to find something its creator already has biases and preconceived conclusions about? What if our expert system is merely a reflection of its creator’s mind? We’d be using our expert system to do things faster and come to more conclusions in a given time frame, but would they be better conclusions or, once again, just “garbage-in-garbage-out”?

Clearly, one disadvantage of expert systems is that they will always reflect the lapses, biases, preferences, and mistakes of the “experts” who constructed them. And given the heated debates surrounding all aspects of the Shakespeare authorship question, there are biases aplenty. The best hope for expert systems is that their creators will be adaptive and reasonable in use of outside criteria to objectively evaluate their results, employ wide peer review of their methods, and make appropriate modifications to iteratively and progressively render their systems more “objective,” “perfect” and “unassailable.”

Neural networks may be a significant improvement over expert systems in years to come. Neural networks are pattern-recognition programs that can be “taught” by trial and error to pick out correct patterns. With each wrong answer the program gets adjusted in a systematic way that can lead eventually to nearly flawless performance. Note that “systematic adjustments” are different from what I’ve been calling “tweaking,” because the former has been built into the system as part of the rules, whereas tweaking, or adjusting for a particular task based on what’s known about it, is really no better than cheating.

This “teaching” process found in neural networks deliberately mimics the biological function of the human brain in learning (Turban 621, 624), such as when a child is trained by a reward and deprivation strategy to pick out various patterns in learning the alphabet. The child’s brain is full of neurons and neural pathways that enable it to use trial and error to eventually distinguish the pattern.

Current applications for neural network include stock market-trading predicting for Mutual Funds, diagnosing diseases, identifying types of cars and airplanes, classifying galaxies by shape, spotting fake antique furniture, and deciding which customers will be good credit risks, among a number of others (Ripley 1,2). The newest fad in database management systems is “Data Mining,” which has at its core one or more neural network applications, the purpose of which is to assist a company in discovering hidden uses for its stored data. If Deep Blue was all that has been claimed for it, then it is very likely that it had a neural network component to help it learn from its experiences.[3]

Typically, a neural network is taught by running it through 90% of a data sample and doing thousands of “corrections” to multiple layers of decision paths designed into the program. Then the neural network is “self-validated” by running it against the remaining 10% of the sample. One key distinction between a neural network and an expert system (and a human “expert” for that matter): the former can be self-validated in such a way that any objective observer would be able to accept that its remarkable results are unbiased, accurate, and reflective of reality, not some human’s prejudicial tweaking, whereas the latter is always subject to errors and biases.

Indeed, neural networks are already being used for “stylometrics” purposes, albeit with mixed results. Strides are being made by Bradley Kjell, through use of neural networks to nail down identifications in such well-established literary material as the “Federalist Papers.” Another pioneer is Thomas V. N. Merriam, who has authored and co-authored a number of articles listed in our ‘Bibliography’ section, dealing with use of neural networks for evaluating Shakespeare vs. Fletcher or Shakespeare vs. Marlowe, but notably no attempt has been yet made to have a more complex comparison, such as Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Marlowe vs. each other. Merriam claimed to have identified works that were collaborations between Shakespeare and others, or to which Shakespeare had contributed.

As always with neural networks, the crux of the exercise lies first in how to teach the program and second in how to interpret the results. For instance, Merriam seems to have used one set of criteria for evaluating Fletcher and another for Marlowe (might this be akin to tweaking?). Then there is the underlying matter of dating the works, and with that the feasibility of the alleged collaborations being assumed (this factor will be discussed in more detail in Part II, where it will be shown that use of stylometrics to assign dates to works, followed by using the relative timing of works to evaluate stylometrics is “circular reasoning” fraught with error!). For instance, if the current trend continues in orthodox circles to accept earlier dating of Shakespeare’s works than had been established by such pillars as E.K. Chambers, then it is no longer likely that Shakespeare and Fletcher were creative contemporaries, an assumption which underlies much of Merriam’s reasoning (Matthews, New Science 27).

We may also be of the opinion that Merriam’s long-term approach is flawed, since he seems bent on piecemeal analysis of peripheral issues (such as whether Shakespeare had a hand in Edward III) when he should be first consolidating the full potential of the self-verification capability of neural networks for the whole of 16th and early 17th century literature in noncontroversial identifications before proceeding to the fringe areas where identifications are hotly debated. In short, Merriam risks discrediting neural networks over these peripheral issues before their wider potential has been fundamentally established. For instance, as critic M.W.A. Smith is paraphrased as having said in the 1995 British Humanities Index item 5546, with regard to Merriam’s peripheral investigations: “For more than a decade Merriam has been trying to impress on sceptical scholars that his stylometry has revealed that the conventional ascription of ‘Sir Thomas More’ to Munday is wrong, and that most of the play is by Shakespeare. [Smith's] critical review “… indicates that much needs to be corrected and reworked before a serious literary reassessment would be warranted.”

The most important task, in this author’s view, is to evaluate the styles of a much wider mix of 16th, 17th century authors using neural network comparisons; beyond only Shakespeare vs. one-at-a-time, we should evaluate him against a much broader mix of his era. Once we have this broader base of comparison (Jonson vs. Nashe, Watson vs. Munday, Greene vs. Chettle, de Vere vs. Sidney, Raleigh vs. Spenser, Lyly vs. Shakespeare, and each in this list with each other) to add to the basic non-controversial Shakespeare comparisons, only then can we begin to press the envelope into the peripheral areas where the Shakespeare authorship question dwells.

Results of certain neural network applications may conceivably be made admissible in legal matters someday. One such application might be DNA analysis, in which case one can imagine exhaustive, lawyerly probes into how well “educated” the application was, and about interpretation of the results, which, again, revolves around the human element in the process and its varying degrees of reliability. But in court the results from the Neural Network process itself will probably remain “unassailable.”

Another key distinction is this: Just because a neural network solves a problem doesn’t mean that we can define with precision how it arrived at the solution. This is similar to human pattern recognition, too. As Ripley says: One characteristic of human pattern recognition is that it is mainly learnt. We cannot describe the rules we use to recognize a particular face, and will probably be unable to describe it well enough for anyone else to use the description for recognition. On the other hand, botanists can give the rules they use to identify flowering plants.

Similarly, when you are shown a paper with dots apparently randomly scattered on it, statisticians might try to fit a “regression analysis” linear function to the dots to attempt to come as close as possible to describing the distribution mathematically, but the straight line of a regression analysis is only an approximation of the real-life distribution of the dots, which may be much closer to a squiggly line. Astoundingly, after enough trials and errors the neural network can actually arrive “by accident” at a high-level function describing a complex curve that matches the distribution of the dots far more accurately than statistical regression analysis can. Yet the function of the curve will only be simulated, not defined in a precise mathematical way.

The most valuable aspect of neural networks may be the frequently unexpected nature of their results. A well-established neural network can actually work within the rules to yield results that its human “teachers” did not foresee; it may “think outside of the paradigm” in ways that might almost be seen as creative. In effect, it may teach the teachers, in the way that data mining can be used to show novel ways for a company to reconnect its data pathways and interpersonal communications. So, from a neural network we may expect to learn things we didn’t expect to know about Shakespeare’s stylistic patterns.

While neural networks may show more long-term promise, expert systems still have one useful characteristic, as mentioned above: They can perform repetitive, boring tasks rapidly with few human-style errors. Because of this, this article proposes that an expert system be used to assist in selecting a random but educated sample of lines and phrases from Shakespeare and other Elizabethan and early 17th century authors, and to build a database with which to teach an appropriately designed neural network (let’s call it Cyber-Bard). This process is not trivial and could be expensive. Moreover, even among orthodox scholars there remains great debate over exactly which plays and parts of plays Shakespeare wrote, and which were written by others with whom he may have collaborated or from whom he may have “stolen.” Still, in spite of the limitations of expert systems, if objectivity can be scrupulously maintained, they can be very useful in speeding up those things that can be automated, and they may also help to impose a discipline and deeper thinking onto the process than that would normally be required for alternative human-hands-only processes.

After Cyber-Bard has been taught with a high success rate to distinguish Shakespeare’s lines from other authors’ lines, and has been self-validated, then it can be used for purposes related to the Shakespeare authorship question. The first task would be to run Cyber-Bard against representative samples of authors whose works span from the 1570s to 1630s to determine which of the authors get the highest match-rate scores against the pattern(s) recognized for Shakespeare. In fact we might wish also to consider checking out even earlier authors in order not to overlook early Elizabethan poets and playwrights such as Sackville, Norton, or the Earl of Surrey, from whom Shakespeare conceivably could have borrowed. Then Cyber-Bard can be run against Shakespeare’s own works to determine which sections might better correspond to other authors’ match-rate scores. These might support any theories that those Shakespeare sections reflect the styles of other authors and give us clues to further research and applications.

Ultimately, Cyber-Bard could be run against the vast body of anonymous and pen-named literature that has come down to us from that era. In this way, works now entirely unattributed to any known author may be identified as probably by a given author who chose to remain anonymous, and good matches might be added to the Shakespeare canon as probable additional works by him.
Touching on this, did Shakespeare suddenly appear from rural Warwickshire in about 1590, with a distinctive Warwickshire dialect (see Miller, Vol. II, 285)? More than just an accent, a dialect involves altogether different sets of nouns, verbs, idioms, and syntax to an extent where often the speaker cannot be easily understood by someone from a neighboring district. And then, only three years later, did he start writing polished poetry in an upper-class London dialect that we identify as Shakespearean? Or is it more likely that there is a body of earlier works by Shakespeare, which we might term “immature Shakespeare,” works which are seen as anonymous or incorrectly attributed to a variety of other, lesser writers? Cyber-Bard may be able to help us answer exciting questions like these!

In criticizing neural networks, A.K. Dewdney, in his very entertaining and educational 1997 book, felt that there was too much hype surrounding them back in the 1970-80s and that their promise has come up short. Still, the memory-management and other architectural advancements needed to improve upon the original approaches to neural networks are actually advancing all the time, with decreasing costs as well, and are likely to improve for the foreseeable future. The probability is that the problems cited by Dewdney will simply evaporate in the light of micro-miniaturization, parallel architectures, and other developing concepts.

In fact, neural networks appear to be literally the wave of the future. Bauer’s 1998 article states that “neural networks are making a comeback,” and lists the following applications where we might find them in the near future, if not already here: medicine, banking, astronomy, enhanced Internet search engines, “fuzzy logic,” genetic algorithms, developing legal strategies, analyzing real estate markets, modeling power outages, developing models that predict the size of the catch for Atlantic fisheries, finance, insurance, target marketing, voice recognition, optical character recognition, digital control systems for factory automation, customer relationship management, and monitoring events on a transaction basis. He even mentioned “Jeff Zeanah, a consultant whose Atlanta, GA, based company, Z. Solutions LLC, offers a neural network boot camp.” So, can we all hope to send our teenagers off to camp to return as neural network gurus? Maybe yes, since Bauer concludes:

Montgomery [an earlier-quoted expert] points out that with today’s sophisticated neural network tools, “The user doesn’t have to have any knowledge of neural networks. Anybody that wants to can do advanced modeling.” Experts agree that this factor alone will contribute significantly to market growth for neural networks. What’s more, Montgomery believes that most technical professionals could pick up neural networking without much difficulty. “Give me a good software programmer or engineer, and I can teach them the modeling,” he said. However, he adds that to be successful, they also need functional knowledge of the business where the software is used, as well as some “statistical common sense.”

Let us venture to predict that within the next decade we will see the hardware and software required for something approximating Cyber-Bard and so may actually begin to see some solutions to the complex Shakespeare authorship question. Of course, that still says nothing about the accuracy of the assumptions with which the material is chosen for educating and validating the program; nor the validity of the interpretation of any results. Nevertheless, the hope remains strong that such problems can be worked through to the satisfaction of most reasonable scholars, with the hoped-for result that almost anyone will be able to rerun the program and verify the results without having to resort to “expert opinion.”

It’s exciting to think of what can be accomplished in stylistic discrimination by objective application of expert systems and neural networks. But shall we allow these emerging tools of the Shakespeare authorship question to be left exclusively in the hands of those whose careers, academic tenure, self-esteem, and funding depend upon linkage to orthodox precepts and results? Or shall we forthrightly establish our own paradigm and do it the way it should be done? Are there open-minded scholars or an organization willing to back such scholars with the means, the faith, and the motivation necessary to fund such a project? This will be the Oxfordian challenge for the new millennium![4]

[Author's Updates: July 2011]

In 2002, Foster succumbed to his critics by agreeing that “Elegy” had not been written by Shakespeare and that he had erred in not considering Ford to have been its author. He said simply that he didn’t know why his Shaxicon system had identified it as a work of the Bard. But this 1998 article had predicted that he had not likely managed to divorce his preconceived notions from objective criterion for his system.⇑
Since the publication of this article in 1998, great advances have been made in “Expert System” Chess programs for personal computers. Grand Master level programs can be purchased for under $200, such as the “Fritz” product. Such products are routinely used for preparation and analysis by top players, and professional commentary on games are now often supplemented by notes like, “Fritz suggests …,” as if Fritz were another Grand Master of consummate skill. Of course the software has improved, but the greatest improvement has been in the hardware and memory improvements, allowing the computer to compute dozens of “plies” (or half-moves) deep in a matter of seconds, and do a much more accurate evaluation of who is winning in each possible position. Some players lament that “the Game of Kings” is essentially “dead” because computers have increasingly removed genius, intuition, and mystery. For most other players Chess is, after all, still “just a game!”⇑
Readers will have heard of the 2011 competition between IBM’s “Watson” system and 3 of the highest earning “Jeopardy” champions on TV. The “Watson” system is a neural networks application which learns from its errors and from a database of opponents’ right answers, plus a database of “facts” and web-searches relevant to the task of playing the game. It was most remarkable in its ability to understand spoken questions and to give human-like oral answers. As with Chess programs, this is a specialty application which has limited utility beyond its intended purpose—except that it illustrates very solidly what the power and potential of neural networks will be in the near future.⇑
In 2001 I was preparing an article on this subject in collaboration with Professor Lew Gilstrap, a pioneer in neural networks for military applications, who was a fellow adjunct professor with me at Johns Hopkins University Graduate School. In a proposal to set up the Cyber-Bard system described here, we applied for a $25,000 grant from Ambassador Nitze’s foundation, but got no reply, and the ambassador died a few years later. Unfortunately, I’ve now lost contact with Lew, believing him to be deceased.⇑

Bibliography

Austin, Warren B. “A Computer-aided Technique for Stylistic Discrimination: The Authorship of ‘Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit’.” U.S. Dept. of HEW. Washington, DC: 1969.
———”Groatsworth and Shake-scene.” The Shakespeare Newsletter Spring (1992).
Bentley, Gerald E. Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook. New Haven: Yale UP. 1961. Bauer, Claud J. “Neural Networks Are Making a Comeback.” The Washington Post High Tech Careers Advertising Supplement. 12 July 1998. Clark, Eva Turner. Hidden Al lusions in Shakespeare’s Plays: A Study of the Early Court Revels and Personalities of the ‘Times. 1930. Ed. Ruth Loyd Miller. New York: Kennikat Press: 1974.
Crain, Caleb. “The Bard’s Fingerprints.” Lingua Franca . July/August (1998): 29–39.
Desper, Richard. “An Alternate Solution to the Funeral Elegy.” The Elizabethan Review. 5.2(1997): 79–82.
Dewdney, A. K. Yes, We Have No Neutrons. New York: John Wiley. 1996. 79–97.
Elliott, Ward and Robert Valenza. “Computers and the Oxford Candidacy: A Response to Peter Moore’s Critique of The Shakespeare Clinic.” Unpublished distribution. October 1990.
———”Was the Earl of Oxford the True Shakespeare? A Computer-Aided Analysis.” Notes and Queries 38.4 (1991): 501–6.
———”And Then There Were None: Winnowing the Shakespeare Claimants.” Computers and the Humanities. 6 (1996): 191(–245.
———”Glass Slippers and Seven-League Boots Prompted Doubts About Ascribing ‘A Funeral Elegy’ and ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ to Shakespeare.” Shakespeare Quarterly. 48.2 (1997): 177–206.
Foster, Donald. “Elegy” by W.S.: A Study in Attribution. Cranbury, NJ: AUP, 1989.
———”Shaxicon 1995.” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter. 45 (1995), p. 2.
Fowler, William Plumer. Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford’s Letters. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, 1986.
Frazer, Winifred. Notes & Queries. 38 (old 236).1 (1991): 34–35.
Gerrard, Ernest A. Elizabethan Drama and Dramatists 1583–1603. Oxford: Oxford Up, 1928.
Hess, W. Ron. “Robert Greene’s Wit Re-evaluated.” The Elizabethan Review. 4.2 (1992): 41–48. Kjell, Bradley. “Authorship Determination Using Letter Pair Frequency Features with Neural Network
Classifiers.” Literary & Linguistic Computing. 9.2 (1994): 119–124.
Ledger, Gerard and Thomas Merriam. “Shakespeare, Fletcher, and the Two Noble Kinsmen. Literary & Linguistic Computing. 9.3 (1994): 235–248.
Matthews, Robert and Thomas Merriam. “A Bard by Any Other Name.” New Scientist. 141.1909 (1994): 23–27.
———”Neural Computation in Stylometry I: An Application to the Works of Shakespeare and Fletcher.” Literary & Linguistic Computing. 8,4 (1993): 203–209.
———”Neural Computation in Stylometry II: An Application to the Works of Shakespeare and Marlowe.” Literary & Linguistic Computing. 9.1 (1994): 16.
McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robin McNeil. The Story of English. New York: Viking, 1986. Merriam, T.V.N. “Marlowe’s Hand in Edward II.” Literary & Linguistic Computing. 8.2 (1993): 59–72.
Michell, John. Who Wrote Shakespeare? New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
Miller, Ruth, and J. Thomas Looney. Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. 3rd Edition. 1920. Jennings, LA: Minos, 1975.
Moore, Peter R. “Claremont McKenna College’s Shakespeare Clinic.” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter. 26A.3 (1990): 7–10.
Ripley, B.D. Pattern Recognition and Neural Networks. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Rushton, William L. Shakespeare’s Euphuism. 1871. London: Folcroft Library, 1973.
Sobran, Joseph. “The Problem of the Funeral Elegy.” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter. 1996, 32.1, (1996): 1, 8–10.
Turban, Efraim and Louis E. Frenzell Jr . Expert Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence. New York: MacMillan, 1992.

Among close to three hundred pieces contained in the most famous keyboard manuscript of the English Renaissance, now known as The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, is William Byrd's “The Earl of Oxford March” (Fitzwilliam II 402). The Oxford March has become well known to present day early music enthusiasts, and apparently was well known at the beginning of its life as well (Musica Britannica II 207). The most beautiful and best-preserved surviving manuscript of keyboard music from the period, My Lady Nevell's Book of 1591, includes it under the title “The March Before the Battle,” where it precedes and sets the mood for a group of nine individual sections called “The Battle” (Nevell 15). In Thomas Morley's The First Book of Consort Lessons of 1599, an unsigned, truncated version of the march, arranged for a mixed group of instruments, appears as “My Lord of Oxenfords Maske” (Morley 134). Anthony Munday's 1588 A banquet of daintie Conceits, a collection of his lyrics for various well-known tunes, contains verses to be sung to a melody he describes as “a gallant note” called the “Earle of Oxenford's March” (Munday 227).

Circumstances surrounding the Oxford March and the battle pieces suggest an association of at least ten years between the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford and William Byrd.

William Byrd (c. 1540 1623) is considered the greatest composer of the English Renaissance, and perhaps of the entire Renaissance. A fine singer and keyboard performer as well, Byrd was eager to rise in the world, and in this he was aided by influential patrons, including Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Oxford. He was a devout Catholic, and was officially named as a “recusant” a number of times, but nonetheless he continually escaped any serious consequences for openly professing his religion.

Byrd was born in London sometime between October 1539 and the end of September 1540, one of the seven children of Thomas and Margery Byrd (Harley, Byrd 4). By 1572, he was employed full time as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, the group of about twenty-four male singers and organists charged with providing church music for the royal household, who remained with the Queen as part of her entourage as she travelled from palace to palace. Byrd was a protégé of the noted composer Thomas Tallis, with whom he shared royal patronage, beginning in 1575 with an exclusive 21-year patent for printing music, and continuing with shared authorship of a book of sacred songs dedicated to the Queen. Throughout his active life, Byrd composed more than 500 works for diverse instruments and voices, ranging from short simple pieces to large works of great complexity.

Byrd was successful right from the beginning. His ambitions to own a country estate were realized by the early 90's when he moved to a manor at Stonden Massey in Essex, near some of his most important patrons, the Petre family of Thorndon and Ingatestone Halls (Bennett 129). This desire to acquire property involved him in at least six property-based lawsuits throughout his life, one lasting about twelve years. Nor was he unwilling to complain openly or become involved in disputes outside the courtroom. For example, when the music patent he shared with Thomas Tallis was not bringing in enough money for them, Byrd complained to the Queen, who then granted him a lease on a lucrative manor in Gloucestershire (Kerman 539).

Byrd was brave enough to write letters defending fellow Catholics and openly to publish Catholic sacred music as well as the Protestant music required by his job (Kerman 543). His lifelong patron Queen Elizabeth described him as “a stiff Papist and a good subject,” and he never suffered more than a moderate fine for the profession of his faith (Byrd, Nevell iii). Interestingly, it appears that the rest of Byrd's family was Protestant, which, as can be determined through written records, did not prevent him from remaining on good terms with them (Harley, Byrd 67).

Edward de Vere (1550–1604), acknowledged by students of the period as an accomplished courtier poet, gifted musician, and generous patron of writers and musicians, also got off to a notably successful start. In the early 1570's, for a brief while he appeared to be Queen Elizabeth's chief favorite at Court. The son of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury (the redoubtable Bess of Hardwick) observed in a letter to his father: “the Queen's Majesty delighteth more in his personage and his dancing and valiantness than any other” (Hibbert 126).

It is from this early period that we see the first indication of Oxford's patronage of Byrd, the grant in 1573 of a lease for 31 years (either through gift, or sale on favorable terms) of an Essex manor property variously called Battyshall, Battylshall, Battelshall or Batayles, to take effect at the death of Oxford's uncle Aubrey de Vere (Harley, Byrd 54). When Aubrey died in 1580, Byrd was sued by a man who claimed that Byrd had granted the lease to him, while Byrd claimed he had guaranteed it to his brother, John Byrd (Fellowes 4). Byrd lost in court and could have faced financial ruin if Oxford had not intervened by selling the manor to his brother (Harley, Byrd 84). This suggests that Byrd and Oxford remained on good terms throughout the 1570's and early 80's.

Was this the time that the march and battle pieces were composed? Although there are many musical indications that the pieces were not originally intended to be grouped together, they might nonetheless have been written separately around the same time. That their first known appearance is in the 1591 My Lady Nevell's Book virginal manuscript is certainly no reason to assume a composition date in the late 80's for either work, since both internal and external evidence indicate that the forty-two pieces included in Nevell cover a span of as much as twenty-five years (Neighbour 259). Further, they may well have appeared in a number of earlier manuscripts, now lost.

Byrd may have composed the march in honor of Oxford, either in response to a specific request or in gratitude for his patronage. It is dashing and military in character, and many of the passages sound like trumpet calls or drum beats. It is, indeed, almost onomatopoetic in its recreation of trumpet and drum sounds.

Like most of his fellow peers, Oxford was trained for commanding troops in the front lines, and it may have been through his jousting skills that he first rose to favor, by excelling in the tournaments that were considered a training ground for real battle by the Court community. Machiavelli's 1521 treatise The Art of War, written for his patron Lorenzo de' Medici, discusses the use of trumpet calls and drum beats for communication among the troops during battle, as well as to rouse their spirits and to frighten the enemy. Music has been used in battle since well before the time of Alexander the Great; it is mentioned in Homer. Alexander's favorite musical mode, the Phrygian, supposedly so arroused him that he would reach for his weapons whenever he heard it (Machiavelli 647).

The custom at all Renaissance Courts was to announce the entrance of high-ranking persons by playing a brief flourish on the trumpet and drums, known as a “tucket” (Randel 882). Such musical identifications were part of a system that identified persons of rank by the style and colors of their livery, the “badge” worn on the sleeve of the livery, as well as their crest, impressa and various mottos. The Shakespeare plays are full of tuckets (see King Lear, Henry V, Henry VIII, et aI). In Othello, when Iago hears “Othello's trumpets,” it means that he recognizes Othello by his “tucket.” The brief and open-ended tune that introduces Oxford's march has all the earmarks of this kind of semi-military identification.

In dedicating his The First Set of English Madrigals to Oxford in 1999, the composer John Farmer states that “using this science as a recreation, your Lordship has over-gone most of them that make it a profession” (Chiljan 95). Thus, Oxford himself could well have written his own tucket, with Byrd later devising an elaborate march around it.

The nine sections of “The Battle” are highly descriptive, rhythmically compelling and even more military than the march. The Englishman Francis Markham in 1622 published a treatise describing English military practices for the preceding century, this being the first written record with names and descriptions of various musical signals. The army used drums for the infantry and trumpets for the cavalry (Markham 36). There is, unfortunately, no musical notation for military melodies or rhythms in the treatise. I suggest that many of the passages in the “Oxford March” and “The Battle” that sound like drum beats or trumpet calls may be in fact real military calls.

In the “March to the Fight,” the words “tantara tan' tara” are written in the manuscript above one passage that certainly sounds like a trumpet call, and later the words “The battles be joined” appear over a passage that sounds like the insistent drum beat played when the infantry finally begins its charge (Byrd, Nevell 35, 36). Oxford, a veteran of real military action by the time he and Byrd met, would have known the military calls in use and could have supplied them to Byrd. Others among Byrd's noble patrons could also have supplied them; or Byrd might have heard them himself at tournament practices.

Nevell is the only surviving manuscript that presents the entire battle suite, concluding with “The Galliard for the Victory.” The galliard may have been written expressly for the manuscript to complete the suite, for it is much more complex and sophisticated than either the march or the nine battle sections. Further, there are no “calls” or military themes. Like the march, it is in G major (while “The Battle” is in C) and thus taken together with the march gives the suite as a whole a kind of symmetry.

By the 17th century, battle pieces had become a popular genre, so Byrd can be said to have launched a new keyboard genre in addition to composing the first English keyboard suite. All in C major, sections of “The Battle” are harmonically very simple; for the most part they alternate between the tonic and the dominant, using no more than a handful of chords. Like the march, they often suggest trumpets and drums, but they also quite successfully suggest the sounds of soldiers marching, of horses walking or running, of flutes, drones and bagpipes. Their presence in a number of later manuscripts indicates their popularity well into the 17th century (Byrd, Musica Britannica, II 207). Like the music used for silent films, they certainly seem intended as accompaniment for some sort of theatrical piece portraying military action.

All of these versions of the Earl of Oxford March that have come down to us, however, are arranged for the virginal (except for the short piece in the Morley collection), and in Elizabethan England the virginal was not used for accompaniment, either in the theater or for singers. The virginal was a solo instrument, one that was frequently found in noble households. Queen Elizabeth herself played an Italian virginal, adorned with the Boleyn arms; there are a number of descriptions of her as an excellent player (Williams 66; Somerset 371). If, as Farmer declared, Oxford was close to professional in his musical skill, that skill would imply instrumental proficiency, probably on both lute and keyboard. The likelihood is strong that both Oxford and the Queen would have played these pieces by the composer whom both had patronized.

Today the word virginal is used only to describe a small harpsichord with one set of strings and a single keyboard (although there are “double” virginals, and virginals with two sets of strings), usually enclosed in a rectangular box (Harley, Harpsichord 162). In England, however, well into the 17th century, the word virginal was used to describe all plucked keyboard instruments, including the kidney-shaped instrument that we now call a harpsichord (Ripin 411). Further, despite the association of virginals with Elizabethan England, there wasn’t a specifically English-designed virginal until 1641, and the last one was built in 1679 (Kottick 46). Thus, all the virginals in England during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I were made either on the continent or in England using continental designs.

Singers usually accompanied themselves on the lute, while music for dancing, some vocal accompaniment, and dinner music (there was always music as a back ground for the Queen's public meals) were provided by groups of instruments known as “consorts.” There were two types of consorts. In those called simply “a consort,” all the instruments were from the same family: viols, lutes, recorders, etc. In the other, known as “a broken consort,” instruments belonging to different families were combined (Ripin 199). When Shakespeare speaks of “broken music,” he means a broken consort. “My Lord of Oxenford's Maske” is an arrangement of the Oxford march for a broken consort of lutes, viols and flute (Morley 134).

In the smaller towns, on the other hand, music was provided by groups called “waits,” which were made up of wind instruments plus singers and dancers, and sometimes strings as well. The name “waits” had its origin in the Middle Ages with horn players who were paid to wait on the town parapets, watching the roads, ready to play as soon as they saw someone coming (Randel 930). Most of this music is lively, robust stuff, an amalgam perhaps of Court and countryside.

Music played by both consorts and waits would have been notated with a minimum of effort in a kind of shorthand. While the melodies would have come from well-known songs or dances, drum parts probably depended on the players' own rhythmic sense rather than on any sort of detailed notation, much like the “lead sheets” and improvisations of twentieth century jazz. Later, a skilled composer like Byrd might write a keyboard version of some of the more popular pieces, notating it exactly as it was to be played, a common practice at the time by many composers, including Giles Famaby and John Bull, as well as William Byrd.

Trumpets in the 16th century could only play the natural notes of the overtones, that ascending series of higher pitches that sound after a string is plucked or a pipe is blown. In practice, trumpeters focused on just one section of the overtones, the military players doing the larger, lower intervals—octaves, fifths, fourths, and major thirds, for the most part—while the smaller, higher-pitched intervals, which were considerably harder to blow, were reserved for the more highly skilled Court players. Queen Elizabeth had a group of sixteen trumpeters in her service under the command of a Sergeant Trumpeter (Borren 342). Like certain fabrics, colors and styles of clothing, high-pitched trumpet playing was considered to be the purview of the aristocracy.

A nobleman when travelling had a trumpeter called a harbinger among his retinue, whose job it was to precede the noble's train into town, playing flourishes on the trumpet so that the townsfolk could arrange a proper welcome for the Lord, a practice mentioned in The Taming of the Shrew. We know from a note in Burghley's hand that a harbinger was among the retinue that accompanied the Earl of Oxford in January of 1575 when he set forth on his tour of the Continent (Ward 101). On occasions like this, or on his entry into the lists of the various royal tournaments in which he competed, both in England and on the continent, audiences would become familiar with his tucket and would know who was coming.

The manuscript containing the entire battle suite, opening with the piece we call “The Earl of Oxford March,” is known as My Lady Nevell's Book and was most likely commissioned by one of Byrd's patrons. The 42 pieces that make up this manuscript were drawn from the previous twenty-five years of his oeuvre; the copyist was John Baldwin, Byrd's colleague from the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, noted for his beautiful music penmanship.

To date, no one knows for sure which “Lady Nevell” was the intended recipient, but the present owner of the manuscript, John Henry Guy Nevill, 5th Marquess of Abergavenny, may be her descendent. A member of his family, Edward Nevill, Fifth Baron Abergavenny (probably pronounced A-ber-gen'ny), known as “the Deaf,” was supposed to have presented it to Queen Elizabeth I, after which it moved among some private owners until its return in 1668 to the Nevill family. At some later point it again left the Nevill family, appearing in the library of the famed 18th-century music historian Charles Burney and returning to the Abergavenny family by the 1830's, where it has remained since (Fellowes 197).

Some mystery arises here. Edward Nevill, the deaf Baron Abergavenny, died in 1589, two years before the existing manuscript was copied, so it cannot be he who presented it to Elizabeth. Was it his son, also Edward? His widow, Grisold (Turbet 296)? Or was there another, earlier copy of the manuscript? Did anyone ever present it to Elizabeth?

We know that the Abergavenny Nevill family was Protestant at this time, while most of Byrd's patrons were Catholics. Could this particular Lady Nevill have been a member of one of the Catholic Nevill families? Byrd is known to have been friendly with a Catholic Nevill family from Cowley in Middlesex county, near where he lived until the early 1590's (Turbet 296). Further, one of the pieces in Nevell quotes from a well-known Catholic plainsong (“Salve Regina”) in honor of the Virgin Mary, making it even less likely that it was compiled for a Protestant patron (Harley, Byrd 259).

“The March Before the Battle” in My Lady Nevell's Book is essentially identical to “The Earl of Oxford March” in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. While its position introducing “The Battle” is the most probable reason for renaming the Oxford March in Nevell, it is worth noting that there had been enmity between the Abergavenny Nevills and the Earl of Oxford's family. Henry Nevill, Fourth Baron Abergavenny, was seriously reprimanded and “committed to ward” (imprisoned) for striking the 16th Earl of Oxford in the Chamber of Presence (Debrett 7). As an Earl, and one with an honorary office (Lord Great Chamberlain), Oxford outranked Baron Abergavenny by two degrees. Although Nevill was pardoned about a month after the incident, the Oxford name might not have been welcome on a manuscript dedicated to any Nevill family member. In addition, Oxford's loss of votes by the Garter Assembly, beginning in 1590, reveals him to have been in such disfavor with important members of the Court community that even Byrd, who had worked with him and benefitted by his patronage, may have been hesitant to use his name in 1591 (Moore 8,11).

To summarize: William Byrd and the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford were both at the Court of Elizabeth I from about 1572 on, both were involved in activities that provided music for the Court, and during this period Oxford saved Byrd from possible bankruptcy by selling a certain property to Byrd's brother.

A piece usually known as “The Earl of Oxford's March” has been preserved in at least four versions; thus, it was clearly well-known during the period. Since a number of William Byrd's keyboard works (including some in My Lady Nevell's Book) are, like this one, arrangements of well-known tunes, their originality lies in the quality of the keyboard writing.

Oxford was known for his musicianship. He was also a ranking Earl who would have had his own “tucket,” or musical signature, to signal his arrival at tournaments and while travel ling. The tune that lies at the heart of “The Earl of Oxford's March” has all the earmarks of such a tucket. In deference to his dreams of martial glory perhaps, or else to provide an entertainment at Court, at some point during their close association William Byrd worked Oxford's tucket into a musical setting that called up visions of battle. Because of its popularity, Byrd later decided to include it in My Lady Nevell's Book of 1591.

Nor was this the only piece composed by Byrd and based on something by Oxford, for his musical setting of a poem usually attributed to Oxford, “If Women Could Be Fair,” was included in a collection of Byrd's vocal works published in 1588 (Mosher 35). Since a great many manuscript collections remain unexamined, there may very well be more evidence of their collaboration to discover.

Note: Those who would like to hear “The Earl of Oxford March” and “The Battle” for themselves can obtain a CD recording through the website: www.NewMixMusic.com. These musical pieces are included on a CD titled William Byrd: Songs.Dances.Battles.Games.

Bibliography

Bennett, John. “Byrd and Jacobean consort music: a look at Richard Mico.” Byrd Studies. Ed. Alan Brown and Richard Turbet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.
Borren, Charles van den. The Sources of Keyboard Music in England. Trans. James E. Matthew. London: William Reeves, 1913.
Byrd, William. The Collected Vocal Works. Vol XII. Ed. Edmund H. Fellowes. London: Steiner & Bell, 1972.
Byrd, William. William Byrd: Keyboard Music. Vols I & II. Musica Britannica. London: Steiner & Bell, 1976.
Byrd, William. My Ladye Nevells Booke of Virginal Music, 1591. Ed. Hilda Andrews. New Introduction Blanche Winnogron. New York: Dover, 1969.
Chiljan, Katherine V., ed. Dedication Letters to the Earl of Oxford. 1994.
Kidd, Charles & David Williamson, eds. Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage. London: Debretts Peerage Ltd., 1985.
The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Vols. I & II. Compiled by Francis Tregian, c. 1609,1619. Ed. Blanche Winogren. New York: Dover, 1979.
Fellowes, Edmund H. William Byrd. Second Edition. London: Oxford UP, 1948.
Harley, John. British Harpsichord Music. Volume 2 History. Aldershot, UK: Scholar, 1994. Harley, John. William Byrd, Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Aldershot, UK: Scholar, 1997.
Hibbert, Christopher. The Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age. NY: Addison Wesley, 1991.
Kerman, Joseph. “William Byrd.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol III. London: Macmillan, 1980.
Kottick, Edward L. The Harpsichord Owner's Guide. Chapel Hill & London: UNC Press, 1987.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. “The Art of War.” Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, Vol. II. Trans. Allan Gilbert. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1965.
Markham, Francis. Five decades of Epistles of Warre. London: Augustine Matthews, 1622.
Moore, Peter. “Oxford, The Order of the Garter, and Shame.” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, Vol. 32, 1996.
Morley, Thomas (compiler). The First Book of Consort Lessons. Ed. Sydney Beck. New York: C.P. Peters, 1959. (First printed 1599; reissued 1611.)
Mosher, Sally E. “Was William Byrd's 'The Battell' Composed for the Theater?” The Elizabethan Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1995.
Munday, Anthony. A Banquet of daintie Conceits. (Quarto) London: J. C. for Edward White, 1588. (British Museum copy.)
Neighbour, Oliver. The Consort and Keyboard Music of William Byrd. Berkeley: UC Press, 1978.
Randel, Don Michael, ed. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1986. Ripin, Edward M. “Virginal.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol XX. London: Macmillan, 1980. Somerset, Anne. Elizabeth I. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Turbet, Richard. William Byrd: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland, 1987. Ward, B. M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550,1604; London: Murray, 1928. Williams, Neville. The Life and Times of Elizabeth 1. Cross River, New York: 1992.

Few tracts from Shakespeare's time have generated more study, comment and controversy than Greenes Groats-worth of Witte, Bought with a Million of Repentance, Describing the follie of youth, the falshoode of makeshift flatterers, the miserie of the negligent, and mischiefes of deceiuing Courtezans. This curious but important work, posthumously published by Henry Chettle in 1592, is generally hailed by Stratfordians as proof that Shakespeare (meaning Shakspere of Stratford) was a recognized, highly regarded actor and writer in the London theater world by the early 1590s.

The importance of Groatsworth to the authorship question thus cannot be denied. Several documents record Shakspere's legal and business activities, yet almost none refer to his literary career. Could Groatsworth be that text?

Robert Greene

Greene's own biography is uncertain and challenged by some Oxfordians, as we'll see. According to traditional sources (Kunitz 235-6; Ward 551-4; Collins 143; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Arata Ide 432-436), he was born in Norwich around 1560. His parentage is uncertain but he managed to matriculate at St John's College, Cambridge as a sizar[1] in 1575, taking his B.A. in 1579, and his M.A. from Clare Hall in 1583. In 1588 he received a Master of Arts at Oxford University. It is reported that he traveled extensively between 1578-1583, visiting France, Germany, Poland and Denmark, Italy and Spain.

Greene married 1585/6 and settled briefly in Norfolk but soon deserted his wife and child, moving to London. He began his career writing mostly love-pamphlets and plays in 1580, although the majority of his work was published in the last five years of his life. Most of his plays are lost. The major known works attributed to him include Alphonsus; The Looking Glasse; Orlando Furioso; Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay; Pandosto; and James IV.

According to Greene, himself, he lived a life of debauchery leading to his poverty and early death on September 3, 1592. Greene's own recognition of his errant ways led to his repentance that gives us this most important document, published posthumously by Henry Chettle.

Most students of Shakespeare are aware of Groatsworth and well acquainted with its "upstart crow," "Shake-scene" and "tyger's hart" references. Many don't go much beyond, however, though this context comprises less than 0.5% of the whole of Groatsworth.

As we have noted, Stratfordians point out that the "upstart crow" passage is the first reference to Shakespeare in London, indicating that he was by then already an established playwright as well as actor. They consider the letter's warning to be proof that he was successful and that Greene was jealous and bitter. This seems plausible, though as the Stratfordian scholar William Allan Neilson observes,

Greene was much given to the mingling of autobiography with his fiction, and this has resulted in a much larger body of possibly true biographical details than we possess concerning most of his contemporaries. (869)

In addition to this, it is remarkable to see how often orthodoxy has ignored the first and third parts of Groatsworth, or has failed to give the entire pamphlet a clear interpretation. It is also interesting to observe the difficulties caused by trying to reconcile Greene's second part with Chettle's "Apology" in his "To the Gentlemen Readers" published three months later as a preface to Kind-Hart's Dreame.

A Three-Part Statement

The complete tract of Groatsworth is divided into three parts, each summarized below. The first is the story of "Roberto," an autobiographical parody of Greene himself. Second is his celebrated letter warning of the "upstart crow," and the third is a parable derived from Aesop's fable of the grasshopper and the ant. This too is a thinly disguised autobiographical exercise. At the end of Groatsworth Chettle attaches Greene's final apologetic letter to his estranged wife.

Part 1

Roberto is an academic scholar (Robert Greene even uses his own Latinized name) whose father Gorinius and brother Lucanio are money lenders (usurers). At his death, Gorinius bequeaths Lucanio all his wealth, leaving Roberto only "a groat" to "buy a groats-worth of wit."
The two brothers set out to find wives and came upon Lamilia, a courtesan with whom Lucanio falls in love. As the three of them are talking, Lamilia tells a "fable" of a fox, a badger and the disgracing of a ewe. Roberto follows with his own story of a Squire's daughter and farmer's son who were in love and scheduled to be married. The bridegroom was deceived by a jealous rival using the "bed-trick," resulting in the rival winning his bride and the bridegroom having to marry another woman.

After the tales, Roberto, Lucanio and Lamilia gamble with dice and Lamilia wins all Lucanio's money. While Lucanio goes for more "crowns," Roberto tries to get Lamilia to give him part of her winnings. When Lucanio returns, Lamilia tells him of Roberto's deceit and Lucanio "disowns" his brother.

Roberto departs. Later, lying on the ground next to a hedge lamenting his bad luck and "sorrow," he is overheard by "a gentleman" who offers to help: "I suppose you are a scholler, and pittie it is men of learning should live in lacke." When Roberto asks, "What is your profession?" the gentleman answers, "Truly, sir, I am a player." Roberto is somewhat taken aback: "I tooke you rather for a Gentleman of great living."
Certainly he is a man of substance now, the gentleman replies, but it was not always so, especially when he was "faine to carry my playing Fardle a footebacke." Now his "very share in playing apparel will not be sold for two hundred pounds."

Roberto is surprised that the gentleman has prospered "in that vayne practice," and that "it seems to mee your voice is nothing gratious." The gentleman's answer is important for our analysis:

I mislike your judgement: why, I am as famous for Delphrigus and The King of Fairies, as ever was any of my time. The Twelve labors of Hercules have I terribly thundered on the Stage, and plaid three Scenes Of the Devill in the Highway to heaven. Have ye so? (saide Roberto) then I pray you pardon me. Nay more (quoth the Player) I can serve to make a pretie speech, for I was a countrey Author, passing at a Morall, twas I that pende the Morall of mans witte, the Dialogue of Dives, and for seven years space was absolute Interpreter to the puppets. But now my Almanacke is out of date: The people make no estimation / Of Morals teaching education. Was not this prettie for a plaine rime extempore? If ye will ye shall have More. Nay, its enough, said Roberto, but how meane you to use mee? Why, sir, in making Playes, said the other, for which you shall be well paid, if you will take the paines .[2]

Roberto goes with the Player who provides lodging for him "in a house of retayle." There he falls into one vice after another.

Meanwhile, all Lucanio's wealth has been consumed by Lamilia. When Roberto hears of this misfortune, he seeks his brother out and provides some meager assistance. This is perceived as demeaning by Lucanio, but by now Roberto is "famozed for an Arch-plaimaking-poet." His wealth fluctuates "like the sea" and he confesses that he is "contrarie to the world," and that if paid in advance, would "breake my promise." Roberto learns the craft of thieves and "high Lawyers."

His wife, a "Gentlewoman," tries to "recall him" but to no avail. Roberto's debauchery continues until he finds himself, "lying in poverty" with "but one groat." He cries: "O now it is too late, too late to buy witte with thee: and therefore will I see if I can sell to carelesse youth what I negligently forgot to buy." The author adds, clearly reinforcing the autobiographical nature of the tale:

Heereafter suppose me the saide Roberto Greene will send you now his groats-worth of wit, that never showed a mites-worth in his life: & though no man now bee by to doe me good: yet ere I die I will by my repentaunce indevour to doo all men good. (Greene 17)

The author continues with a poem describing his plight and regrets. He then proceeds to list ten rules for gentlemen to "be regarded in your lives" (Greene 1819).

Part 2

This section contains Greene's famous letter "To those Gentlemen his Quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making Plaies, R.G.wisheth a better exercise, and wisedome to prevent his extremities warning. Greene calls the first writer "thou famous gracer of Tragedians" who said, with Greene, "There is no God." He chastises the author for not recognizing that his "excellent wit" is a gift of God, admonishing him further for his "Machivilian policy" (19-20). This author is widely accepted to be Christopher Marlowe. In view of Greene's description, there should be little doubt.

The second writer is "yong juvenall, that byting Satyrist, that lastlie with mee together writ a Comedie." Greene also calls him a "Sweet boy," warning him not to get too "many enemies from bitter words" (20). The consensus is that this is Thomas Nashe, although there is no record of his having collaborated with Greene on a comedy. Thomas Lodge has also been suggested for the "yong juvenall," but it turns out he was absent from England, having sailed on August 26, 1591, and could not have returned much before June, 1593 (Simpson vol.2 382). Furthermore, Lodge was two years older than Greene and so is unlikely to be addressed as a "yong juvenall." Nashe on the other hand was Greene's junior by seven years.

To the third and final writer, Greene writes:

And thou no lesse deserving than the other two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferior; driven (as my selfe) to extreme shifts, a little have I to say to thee: and were it not an idolatrous oth, I would sweare by sweet S. George, thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so meane a stay (Greene 20).

Here there has been less uncertainty of identification. George Peele seems the likeliest candidate. Greene's famous warning about the upstart crow follows. It's clear from his references to "puppets" that speak from our mouths" and "Anticks" garnished "in our colours" that he is referring to actors. This becomes important when we analyze the rest of his statement.

Greene's advice is that the writers use their "rare wits" in "more profitable courses, & let those Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions" (21). Again, his use of "apes" reinforces the reference to actors. Greene makes a plea for them to seek "better Maisters" and not be "subject to the pleasure of such rude groomes," because their best "husbands" [agents] will never "prove a Usurer" [lend them money] and that the "kindest of them all" would never find them "a kind nurse" [to attend them in sickness] (21).

The next paragraph has received little attention. Greene says he could "insert [address] two more" [writers] that both have "writ against these buckram Gentlemen" but he will "leave them to the mercie of these painted monsters" (21). Again, "buckram" and "painted monsters" reference actors.

In the final paragraph of the letter Greene says, "But now returne I to you three," advising them not to make the same mistakes as himself, adding that he is "now at the last snuffe" and that "there is no substance left for life to feede on."

He ends with this salutation:

Part 3

Greene's farewell follows: "farewell in like sort, with this conceited Fable of that olde Comedian Aesope." This is Greene's rendition of the story of the ant and the grasshopper. The grasshopper calls the ant a "greedie miser" and the ant replies, "The thriftie husband spares what unthrift spends." The two separate, and while the grasshopper pursues his pleasures, the ant labors. When winter comes the ant is prepared but the grasshopper starves. He goes to the ant for help, but "Pack hense, thou idle lazie worme" is the retort.
"Foodlesse, helplesse, and strengthles," writes Greene, the grasshopper digs himself a pit in the sand and engraves his epitaph which describes his (and Greene's) life:

The grasshopper dies "comfortles without remedy. Like him my selfe: like me, shall al that trust to friends or times inconstancie. Now faint of my last infirmity, beseeching them that shal burie my bodie, to publish this last farewell written with my wretched hand" (23).

Groatsworth concludes with a letter which Chettle found "with/ This booke after his [Greene's] death." It's a mea culpa addressed to the writer's abandoned wife and child. Greene again describes his sorry state, complaining that he suffers hunger for his gluttony, thirst for his drunkenness, and ulcerous sores [syphilis?] from his adultery. He commits his soul to his "Saviour," and signs off, "Thy repentant husband for his dis / Loyaltie, Robert Greene."

Before analyzing Groatsworth, we should consider two other important documents. First, Nashe's quick show of displeasure and denunciation when in September, 1592, he wrote in an epistle prefixed to Pierce Pennilesse:

Other news I am advised of, that a scald, trivial, lying pamphlet, called Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, is given out to be my doing. God never have care of my soul, but utterly renounce me, if the least word or syllable in it proceeded from my pen, or if I were in any way privy to the writing or the printing of it (Looney/Miller vol.ii 342-3).

The second important document is Chettle's apologetic response in his Kind-Harts Dream printed some three months after Groatsworth. In his introduction, "To the Gentlemen Readers," Chettle claims that Groatsworth was the work of Greene and not himself. He denies responsibility, but does offer this all-important apology that has led to erroneous interpretations by many Stratfordians:

About three moneths since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in sundry Booke sellers hands, among others his Groats-worth of wit, in which a letter written to divers play-makers, is offensively by one or two of them taken, and because on the dead they cannot be avenged, they willfully forge in their conceites a living Author: and tossing it two and fro, no remedy, but it must light on me (Ibid., 343).

Chettle's statement makes it clear that Greene's letter in Groatsworth was a warning written to "divers play-makers," specifically to the three metaphorically identified writers. The warning was specifically about another individual, the "upstart crow" or "Shake-scene."
Chettle goes on to address the "one or two" offended playwrights:

With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I never be: the other, whome at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the heate of living writers, and might have used my owne discretion (especially in such a case) the Author being dead, that I did not, I am as sory, as if the originall fault had been my fault, because my selfe have seene his demeanor no lesse civill than he, exelent in the qualitie he professes: Besides, divers of worship have reported, his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting, that ap-rooves his Art. For the first, whose learning I reverence, and at the perusing of Greenes Booke, stroke our what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ: or had it beene true, yet to publish it, was intolerable: him I would wish to use me no worse than I deserve (Ibid., 343).

The first sentence quoted above indicates that there were two offended play-makers, one, believed to be Marlowe, he doesn't know (or care to know), the other, believed to be Nashe, he is sorry he didn't (using his own discretion) spare [remove him] from Greene's work. Chettle goes on to praise this second play-maker who had complained with his statements of "uprightness of dealing," "honesty" and "grace in writing."

Stratfordian Positions

It is curious how Stratfordians have interpreted Chettle's apology and praise to be for the "upstart crow," i.e., the very person Greene was warning against! But this is exactly what occurred over the years, beginning with Malone, and carried on by Chambers. Chambers believes the apology had to be to Shakespeare as the second writer (Marlowe being the first) because Peele and Nashe had no reason to be offended by what Greene had said (Chambers vol. 1, 58-9). This ignores Nashe's prompt and dramatic denial of having anything to do with the "scald trivial lying pamphlet." Nashe obviously "took offense." The myth of Chettle's apology being directed to Shakespeare has been propagated more by biographers",Schoenbaum 150-6, Greenblatt 212-15, Ackroyd 176-8, and Honan 158-162" than other Shakespearean scholars. In 1886 F.G. Fleay declared, "Shakespeare was not one of those who took offense; they are expressly stated to have been two of the three authors addressed by Greene" (111).

In his 1994 edition of Groatsworth, D. Allen Carroll presents a thorough evaluation, concluding with John Payne Collier and Warren Austin's computer-based work that Groatsworth was largely a forgery by Henry Chettle (Chettle 6,7,2427,105-6). Carroll comments: "Greene may have had something to do with the writing of Groatsworth, Chettle certainly did. If the book is indeed Chettle's, or largely his, as few have believed and as the evidence seems to suggest, then it ranks as one of the most successful hoaxes in our culture" (ix). Carroll later adds:

Though in the main a forgery, in my judgment, the book may contain some matter by Greene and/or someone else and thus be, in a minor way, a collaboration (30).

Carroll's discussion of the "Player-Patron" in Part One reports "that the portrait is a composite, suggesting a pattern of the highly successful actor," but concludes that "Shakespeare was too young, as was Richard Burbage and Edward Allyen" (115-6).

But why too young? Carroll doesn't explain, though he says that the ant in the third section of Groatsworth is accepted by Honigmann as likely to represent Shakespeare (147). Carroll says the equation of the ant with Shakespeare can only be a "good possibility," but he does not comment on Shakespeare being too young for this representation of the ant. Carroll notes that Dover Wilson believed Chettle's apology in Kind-Hearts Dream was directed toward Shakespeare, but he ends cautiously with:

In any case, it has been argued, Chettle's apology, as put, does not require an inference that he was confronted directly for the defense by Shakespeare or anyone (138).

A more recent important orthodox review of this "apology to Shakespeare" issue is found in a 1998 article by Professor Lukas Erne of the University of Geneva, who dispels the notion of Chettle's apology being written to Shakespeare. Erne concludes:

The cumulative effect of the evidence against Shakespeare [being the recipient of
the Chettle apology] is such that it partakes of mythology, rather than biography, to keep drawing inferences about Shakespeare's early years in London from Chettle's
apology (440). [Emphasis mine]

It is unfortunate that Stratfordian biographers still ignore or are unaware of Erne's 1998 work, basing their writings on what is prevalent in previous or even recent biographies.

Oxfordian Positions

Oxfordians also differ in their interpretations of Groatsworth. Ogburn goes to great lengths to discount both it and Greene's authorship, citing Nashe's statement that Groatsworth was "a scald, trivial, lying pamphlet" and Austin's 1969 computer analysis "proving" that Groatsworth is a forgery (55-67). However, a number of credible refutations to Austin's work can be found, including the more recent work of Westley (363-378).[3] Ogburn accepted Austin's conclusion that Groatsworth was written by Chettle alone. Ogburn also makes an interesting report on Professors G.B. Evans and Harry Levin, who rebutted his article on Groatsworth in the Harvard Magazine. "Mr. Ogburn seems baffled by the earliest allusion to him [Shakespeare] in Robert Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, which is clearly a protest against a mere actor who has presumed to become a dramatist" (63). Ogburn's final words on this subject are worth noting:

As to Henry Chettle, it occurs to me that the Stratfordians have unwittingly been right all along and that in warning the three unnamed playwrights against an actor who was in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country, a know-it-all with a tiger's heart, the forger of Groatsworth was putting the playwright we know as Shakespeare on guard, with his fellows, against the unnamed actor we also know as Shakespeare. If Chettle did not know it to begin with that the two were the same, he must soon have discovered it. How else are we to explain that later he found reason to express his regret and in doing so is apologetic not to the actor Shake-scene—who as a nobleman in disguise could not vent his ire without giving himself away—but to the playwright who Chettle said took offense, though nothing had been said against him and whom Chettle now finds to be of uprightness of dealing and of honesty, with a grace in writing that attests his art (67)?

Ogburn's belief is that the apology is to Shakespeare (i.e. Oxford), the true author. However, this theory requires unprovable assumptions about Chettle's state of mind. Ogburn seems to want to eliminate any possibility of Shakspere being an actor; he took this hard-line position because he held Shakspere was illiterate, so he could not be a writer, while being an actor would also suggest literacy.

On the other hand, "partial literacy" would likely suffice for being an actor—although certainly not for any writer of significance. There are quite a few documents that do support the contention of Shakspere being an actor (Davis). Also, if we are to believe that all three parts of Groatsworth are biographical, we have to consider that "Shake-scene" may indeed have attempted some writing. Note that the "gentleman" who assisted Roberto claimed to have written some "moral" plays ("twas I that pende The Morall of mans witte"). This comic parody no doubt accounts, in part at least, for why Stratfordians do not wish to correlate him with Shakespeare as they do in "part two" with "Shake-scene" and the warning letter.

Ruth Lloyd Miller also accepts that Chettle was the forger of Groatsworth; she sees the story of "Roberto" as a satire on the Cecils, Burghley and his two sons, Thomas and Robert (Looney/Miller 350-55). If true, this would be a monumental political risk. It is unlikely that ether Greene, Chettle, Shakspere or even Oxford would be willing to take such a chance.

Oxfordian Richard Whalen cautiously reports the usual Stratfordian positions as given above, and notes the substantial questions raised by Oxfordians and a few Stratfordians. Although not elaborating on of his own belief, Whalen does say: "Nothing says Shake-scene came from Stratford. Far from being a fairly clear identification, it [Groatsworth] is deliberately evasive and obscure" (44).

Sobran also says that Groatsworth is "probably" a forgery, presenting no definitive conclusions except that in regard to Chettle's apology, "Shakespeare might be either the playwright [one offended] or the crow [subject of the insult], but not both. In all probability, he was neither" (36). He approvingly cites Jay Hoster's Tiger's Heart, which "argues that the real "upstart" was the actor-manager Edward Alleyn, the greatest star of the Elizabethan stage (at least before Burbage), whom the real Greene had earlier attacked for underpaying playwrights" (34). This was first noticed in 1952 by Kunitz and Haycraft:

But an examination of the famous passage the "upstart crow beautified with our feathers" who is "in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country" makes it probable that the person alluded to is some unnamed actor, and not any of Greene's fellow-dramatists (236).

Hoster's position is also shared by Hughes (4). Both boost their arguments by reporting that Alleyn was a large man: one story says he broke boards on a stage with his heavy stomping (and hence "Shake-scene'). They also theorize that Alleyn may have played a part in 3 Henry VI, from which the "tiger's heart" parody is derived. Although there is no evidence of the latter, the Alleyn proposal is not entirely implausible. With less support, Will Kemp (Frazer) and even Ben Jonson (Green) have also been proposed as candidates for "Shake-scene."

On the other hand, Oxfordian Dick Lester, an experienced systems analyst and independent researcher, reached another conclusion when he presented his paper at the Second Edward de Vere Studies Conference in 1998. The "upstart crow," he proposed, was indeed likely to be William Shakspere of Stratford. Lester also refuted Austin's computer analysis that Groatsworth was a forgery by Chettle, concluding that Groatsworth was written at the very least by a combination of Greene and Chettle. Lester excludes Alleyn, one reason among several being that there is no evidence he ever wrote or pretended to be a writer (6).

A. D. Wraight disagrees, however, claiming that Alleyn was a indeed`writer (35), a position discredited previously by J. Payne Collier.[4] More recently, Mark Anderson, in his 2005 best-seller Shakespeare By Another Name, agrees with Lester that "Shake-scene" refers to Shakspere (256-8).

Also in 2005 Jonathan Dixon wrote an informative paper on this subject in Shakespeare Matters (12). He analyzes the Elizabethan recognition of the relationship of Aesop's "crow" and Batillus, the Roman "pretender." Dixon carefully and convincingly develops this line of thought, maintaining that Groatsworth supports the anti-Stratfordian position of Shakspere being a front man and a "money-lending entrepreneur." The theory that Shakspere was a "pretender" was reinforced by Dixon in the Spring, 2000 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter (7), where he argues that "supposes" was used in Elizabethan times to mean "pretends."

Vertues Common-wealth

Also important to our discussion of Groatsworth is Diana Price's review of Henry Crosse's 1603 Vertues Common-wealth (or High-way to honour) in a section she titles "An Elizabethan Interpretation of Groatsworth." Price (54-6) records from Crosse:

[T]hese copper-laced gentlemen [who] grow rich, purchase lands by adulterous plays, and not [a] few of them usurers and extortioners which they exhaust out of the purses of their haunters so they are puffed up in such pride as self-love as they envy their equals and scorn their inferiors (Crosse, 117). it were further to be wished, that those admired wits of this age, Tragedians, and Comedians, that garnish Theaters with their inventions, would spend their wits in more profitable studies, and leave off to maintain those Antics, and Puppets, that speak out of their mouths: for it is a pity such noble gifts, should be so basely employed, as to prostitute their ingenious labors to enrich such buckram gentlemen (Crosse, 122).
He that can but bombast out a blank verse, and make both the ends jump together in a rhyme, is forthwith a poet laureate, challenging the garland of bays, and in one slavering discourse or other, hang out the badge of his folly. Oh how weak and shallow much of their poetry is, for having no sooner laid the subject and ground of their matter, and in the Exordium moved attention, but over a verse or two run upon rocks and shelves, carrying their readers into a maze, now up, then down, one verse shorter than another by a foot, like an unskillful Pilot, never comes night the intended harbor: in so much that oftentimes they stick so fast in mud, they lose their wits ere they can get out, either like Chirillus, writing verse not worth the reading, or Battillus, arrogating to themselves, the well deserving labors of other ingenious spirits. Far from the decorum of Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, etc., or our honorable modern Poets, who are no whit to be touched with this, but reverent esteemed, and liberally rewarded (Crosse, 109).[5]

Price notes that "Henry Crosse" has never been identified, so the possibility of a pseudonym exists (54). What is evident is that Vertues is referring to Groats-worth by both the intent (e.g. warning; advising "more profitable studies') and wordage (e.g. puppets, usurers, buckram, bombast out a blank verse, etc). Note also Crosse's use of "Batillus" in view of Dixon's article relating this to Aesop's crow.

It should be pointed out, however, that Vertues addresses "gentlemen" and maintains a plural view of the offenders. This suggests that the "Batillus practice" may have been more widespread than the warning against just one "upstart crow." The concept of widespread Batillus practice is supported by Henslowe's Diary where several of his actors, including Alleyn, were paid for "boockes" [plays]. This seems, as Collier stated, to be for work done revising old plays for new presentations.[6]

"Shake-scene" as representing Shakspere is supported by Groatsworths' reference to "tiger's heart,'[7] likely parodying the anonymous The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York (1595) that subsequently became Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3. Sobran is not alone in maintaining that the "tyger's hart" reference would not have been recognized as significant to Shakespeare in 1592 because True Tragedy was not published until 1595 and even then anonymously (34). Shakespeare was not identified with this play until Henry VI, Part 3 in the First Folio of 1623. However, True Tragedy was already being performed by 1592, indicated by Philip Henslowe's notation about the playing of Henry VI and Harry of Cornwall (? Famous Victories), and likely had been staged even earlier. Significantly, Greene did not write his letter to the "public" even though some might have understood his references. Instead he directed it to fellow writers who could be expected to recognize the relationship.

Nina Green and Stephanie Hopkins Hughes both suggest that between 15801592 Oxford wrote under the pen-name, Robert Greene. Their theory is based on the fact that there were several "Robert Greenes" in England at the time, and no evidence has been found to definitely connect them with the authorship of the works attributed to Robert Greene.[8] Nina Green affirms that "considerable stylistic and other evidence in Greene's works strongly suggests that Greene was, in fact, one of Oxford's pen-names" (Green). Hughes even goes on to say in her Hypothesis in a Nutshell:

Robert Greene's rich biography could not be substantiated by the most diligent research because it was 100% fiction.
Robert Greene wrote like an aristocrat and not like a proletarian because he was an aristocrat (and not a proletarian).
Robert Greene sounds like early Shakespeare because he was early Shakespeare.
Robert Greene wasn't mentioned as a playwright until after his death because his true identity could not be revealed, and because plays, unlike pamphlets, did not require an author's name; that is not until such time as they had to be published, which in some cases did not occur for many years.
The peculiar charge which he hurled in Groatsworth at the actors and their manager of ingratitude rather than for some violation of business practice makes sense when seen as the viewpoint of one who saw his involvement in the newly created commercial theater as one of good fellowship based either on the common understandings of social intercourse, or the traditional service due a lord by his retainers; transactions which Alleyn and his fellow actors saw in the cold light of commercial necessity and perhaps also with an exhilarating (and reckless) awareness of a new-found freedom of enterprise (26-7).

Some of Hughes" hypotheses seem to be in opposition to statements made by Nashe, Harvey, Meres and Chettle regarding Greene's life and death.9 One also wonders whether the "love pamphlets" for which Greene was so famous would necessarily be classified as "aristocratic." In fact, Richardson remarked that Greene "wrote a number of racy low-life pamphlets" (178). But, in fairness, detailed analysis of Hughes" efforts should await their final publication.

Conclusions

Is it possible that Groatsworth is a literary biography of William Shakspere of Stratford? The first hurdle is obvious. It has to be decided whether the "upstart crow" is intended to characterize Shakspere, Alleyn, or someone else. The idea of an actor (other than Shakspere) has been around for quite some time, but it is difficult to ignore the "tyger's hart" reference in conjunction with "Shake-scene." If the "crow" was an actor other than Shakspere, then we have no authorship issue involved with Groatsworth. But it would still have significant ramifications for the Stratfordians in light of their continued claim that Groatsworth demonstrates Shakspere's importance as an actor and writer in 1592.

However, if it is assumed that the "upstart crow" is Shakspere of Stratford, then the implications are profound for Stratfordians and anti-Stratfordians. It is important to note that the references to the three playmakers in the part-two warning were metaphors for purposes of specific identification, so it is logical that "Shake-scene" and "tyger's heart" are also metaphorical identifiers. One can argue that these two identifiers could represent another actor that shook the stage and acted in 3 Henry VI, but their association with Shakespere has to be considered a more direct metaphorical possibility.

Additionally, there would seem to be little doubt that Greene intended the "gentleman" in the first part, and probably the ant in the third part, to be characterizations of the "upstart crow." Otherwise, why would these three apparent autobiographical stories be grouped together? The first and third parts echo the sentiment ascribed to the "crow," the "Iohannes factotum." The problem here for orthodoxy is that the portrait painted by Greene is that of a miserly, plagiarizing pretender.

What is implicitly stated in Chettle's apology is a real problem for Stratfordians because of their continued claim that it is directed to Shakespeare, the author-actor. But it has been conclusively recognized by a number of orthodox scholars, some mentioned here, that this is not the case. The biographers of Shakespeare who have stated, and continue to state otherwise, should be challenged at every instance by citing Erne's important work, for example. The continuation of biographers to use Chettle's apology to boost the reputation of Shakespeare is simply foolish deception.

But Dixon, Lester, Anderson and Price just may be right: Groatsworth is about Shakspere, and it marks him as a plagiarist, usurer, entrepreneur and likely front man play-broker. 10 As it turns out, however, it really doesn't make any difference whether Groatsworth was written by Greene, Chettle or more likely a combination of the two—or anyone else for that matter, even Oxford. The work stands by itself and the meaning is of no less importance regardless of authorship. Here, for a rare instance, Oxfordians can agree with Stratfordians: The "upstart crow" and "Shake-scene" references do signify Shakspere; therefore Groatsworth may be the only literary biography we have of William Shakspere of Stratford upon Avon, written during his lifetime.

Endnotes

A student who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job.*⇑
D. Allen Carroll has given a thorough examination of the different plays that the "gentleman stranger" speaks about: the "morral" dramas he has "pende" and others he was involved with. Carroll speculates about several of the plays mentioned in Groatsworth, identifying the Twelve labors of Hercules with the greatest certainty (noted also by Collier in Henslowe's Diary). Carroll wished to identify these different works, "not to reflect the experience of any specific individual but rather dramatic activity in general of the seventies and early eighties." He covers all the bases when he states: "The Player-Patron thus seems to be fictional…But it just may be that the portrait contains traces of someone specific, or several individuals, whom we cannot now identify." Carroll adds:

The case for Shakespeare, which involves the idea of him as a factotum or business manager for his company, has been offered a number of times, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and little success: by an anonymous author in The New Monthly Magazine (in 1840), by Richard Simpson, Alden Brooks, M.C. Bradbrook, and A.L.Rowse. But Shakespeare cannot have had anything like the long association with acting suggested in the profile (3,4).
We are asked to believe that without significant preliminary development, Shakspere ascended London's acting-playwriting scene, meteoric-fashion, producing the mature and fashionable Venus and Adonis the next year, and Lucrece the year afterwards along with The Comedy of Errors, 1-3 Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, and Richard III.⇑
A statement by Peter Moore, reported by Malim, that Greene's Groatsworth is a forgery by Chettle was founded in part on the misinformation given in Greene's letter to his wife and child. Moore states that Greene's child was, in fact, "Fortunatus', an illegitimate child by his mistress, not his wife. This is based on Gabriel Harvey's comment in his 1592 Four Letters and Certain Sonnets

…his keeping of the foresaid Ball’s sister, a sorry ragged quean, of whom he had his base son Infortunatus Greene, his forsaking of his own wife, too honest for such a husband…
Plus John Payne Collier's 1846 discovery of a burial record in Shoreditch of one "Fortunatus Greene', August 12, 1593 as reported by Crupi (9, 149).
This scenario is also thoroughly discussed in Carroll's 1994 book (Chettle, 10-11). Even assuming this is all true, it certainly does not rule out Greene having had another previous son by his lawful wife. As a matter of fact, some biographies of Greene say he deserted his wife and newborn child when he went to London, although this is not documented. What this "Fortunatus discovery" does, however, is give further support to Harvey's comments on Greene's life and death.⇑
"We have evidence in the theatrical Diary kept by Alleyn's father-in-law, Philip Henslowe, preserved among the Alleyn's papers, of a copious playwriting activity among the actors of the Lord Admiral's Men, who seem to have been a crew of scribbling actors, foremost of whom was Edward Alleyn himself." Wraight goes on to say: "Since the play Tambercam is certainly by Alleyn, and is so acknowledged by the Dictionary of National Biography, there is no reason to doubt that the [plays] he sold were all his own works" (35). Henslowe (227) records: (Henslowe, xxvi).

Pd unto my sonne, E. Alleyn, at the apoyntment of the company, for his boocke of Tambercam, the 2 of octobr 1602, the some of …..XXXXs
But Collier thought that Alleyn was paid for revising older plays to make them more useful, not for writing new plays:
The sum generally paid for putting an old play on the stage, on its revival, with such changes as seemed necessary, was 2 £ [40 s], and this sum Edward Alleyn obtained for Tambercam (of which he was not the author, as some have supposed) …(xxvi)
⇑
Some further explanation of Vertues Common-wealth is needed. Although Henry Crosse has not been identified, what can be certain is that he had Puritanical ideals. The original quarto consisted of 155 pages. The first 49 were about "Vertue', the remaining 106 dealt with "Vice" where every occupation or activity from lawyers to wearing makeup is chastised. Poets were treated more leniently but players and playwrights harshly so. Twelve pages (111-123) were devoted to plays and players, from whence these previous quotations were taken. Whereas Crosse obviously took phrases and intent of meaning from Groatsworth, his goal was to chastise actors and playwrights and warn the public about the evils of players, not just to warn playwrights against actor-playwrights. He related all the "vices" to the harm they cause the "Common-wealth'. To understand the author's intentions requires studying the entire book, not just looking at a few selected sentences.⇑
Collier thought that Alleyn was only paid for revising older plays to make them more useful, not for writing new plays as noted in endnote 4 above.⇑
I have heard it said by some Oxfordians that "tiger" was a name given to child actors during Elizabethan times; but I have not seen the documentation and the closest definition the OED gives is:

A smartly-liveried boy acting as groom or footman; formerly often provided with standing-room on a small platform behind the carriage, and a strap to hold on by; less strictly, an outdoor boy-servant. And the earliest date listed is 1817.
⇑
Much effort has been put into investigating the life and parentage of Greene, especially by the work of Brenda Richardson (160-180). Tracing back records in Norwich (where in Groatsworth Greene infers he was born) Richardson found two Robert Greenes, suitable for the period of time required. One was a saddler who did have two sons, and the other an innkeeper who only mentions one son in his will-perhaps agreeing with Groatsworth in the disinheritance of our writer. Carroll, however, reports that the life of Greene, as interpreted from Groatsworth, more consistently conforms to the life of Thomas Lodge (Chettle, 9).9 Nashe refers to Greene in his angry rebuttal of his authorship of Groatsworth (reported above) as well as in his 1593 Four Letters Confuted. Harvey's pertinent comments are also listed above in end note 2 from his Four Letters and Certain Sonnets. Meres also reported on Greene's death in his Palladis Tamia of 1598 where he stated Greene died of a surfeit of pickled herring and rheinish wine, repeating what Harvey had said in his Four Letters and Certain Sonnets. Also, it should be mentioned that Greene's book, Planetomachia, was dedicated to Leicester and there is a record of Leicester's payment to Greene for "a book." 10 The history of the issue of "plagiarism" associated with Groatsworth is most interesting and has been thoroughly reviewed by the eminent Oxfordian, Gwynneth Bowen (1-8). She notes that the "tyger's hart" allusion to True Tragedy was first noted by Thomas Tyrwhitt in 1766 and that other borrowing took place on a "colossal" scale; but it was thought at that time the two "Contention" plays (The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke) were both written by Shakespeare (as noted earlier by Dr. Samuel Johnson) and were just poor copies of the Henry VI trilogy. In 1790, Edmund Malone disagreed saying that 2 and 3 Henry VI were not "originals" by Shakespeare but were his revisions of the two anonymous Contention plays. He apparently was the first to claim that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of plagiarism with the "upstart crow" passage. Malone's theory apparently lasted 140 years until, as pointed out by Bowen, a 1929 book by Peter Alexander (Shakespeare's Henry VI and Richard III) changed opinions, reverting back to essentially what Johnson had said, the exception being that the "upstart crow" was the result of Greene's jealousy and "beautified with our feathers" referred to all the players. One can't help but wonder if the publication of Looney's work in 1920 might have influenced this change of orthodox opinion.⇑

Bibliography

Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Chatto & Windus, 2005. Anderson, Mark. Shakespeare By Another Name. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Bowen, Gwynneth. Purloined Plume. Shakespeare Authorship Review. No. 26, Summer 1972.
Carroll, D.Allen. "The player-patron in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592)," Studies In Philology. Chapel Hill: Summer 1994. Vol.91, Iss. 3; p..301.
Chambers, E.K. William Shakespeare. 2 Volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930.
Chettle, Henry and Greene, Robert. (D. Allen Carroll, editor). Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. Binghamton, New York: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994.
Collins, J. Churton. The Plays and Poems of Robert Greene. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.
Crosse, Henry. Vertues Common-wealth. (1603) Edited by A.B. Grosart, Manchester: Charles Sims, 1878.
Crupi, Charles W. Robert Greene. Boston: Twayne, 1986
Davis, F.M. William Shakspere, Oxford, Elizabethan Actors and Playhouses (Part One)The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, Vol.42:No.1. Winter 2006.
Dixon, Jonathan. "While counterfeit supposes bleared thine enes" Intertextual Evidence for Shakspere as an authorship front man. Shakespeare Matters, Vol.4: No.2, Winter 2005.
"The upstart Crow supposes". The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, Spring, 2000. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol XII. The Life of Robert Greene (c.15601592). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910.
Erne, Lukas. Biography and Mythography: Rereading Chettle's Alleged Apology to Shakespeare. English Studies, No. 5, pp. 430-440, 1998.
Fleay, F.G. A Chronical History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare. London, 1886.
Frazer, Winifred. William Kempe as "Upstart Crow". The Upstart Crow a Shakespeare Journal, Clemson:Vol. XV, 1995.
Green, Nina. Edward De Vere Newsletter, No.3. Kelowna, B.C: De Vere Press, May 1989.
Greene, Robert. Greene's Groatsworth of Witte (Transcribed by R.S. Bear), Renascence Editions: University of Oregon, 2000.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Will In The World. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2004.
Henslowe, Phillip and Collier, John P (editor). The Diary of Philip Henslowe From 1591 To 1609. London: Shoberl, 1845. Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing.
Honan, Park. Shakespeare A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Hughes, Stephanie Hopkins. King of the Paper Stage. As yet unpublished material, by personal communication, 2007.
Ide, Arata. "Robert Greene Nordovicensis, The Sadler's Son." Notes and Queries. Oxford: OUP, December 2006.
Kunitz, Stanley and Haycraft, Howard. British Authors Before 1800. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1952.
Lester, Dick. Who Was the Upstart Crow? Personal communication of his presentation at The Second Annual Edward de Vere Studies Conference. Portland, OR., 1998. .
Looney, J. Thomas. "Shakespeare" Identified in Edward De Vere and Oxfordian Vistas.
Ruth Lloyd Miller, editor. New York-London: Kinnikat Press, 3rd edition, 1975.
Malim, Richard. On Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/essays/greene/malim.html.
Neilson, William. The Chief Elizabethan Dramatists. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1911.
Ogburn, Charlton, Jr. The Mysterious William Shakespeare. McLean, VA.: EPM Publications, Second edition, 1992.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Greene, Robert, L.H. Newcomb. OUP, 2004.
Price, Diana. Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography. Westport Con.-London: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Richardson, Brenda. "Robert Greene's Yorkshire Connexions: A New Hypothesis."The Yearbook of English Studies 10, Leeds: Maney Pub., 1980.
Schoenbaum, Samuel. William Shakespeare A Compact Documentary Life. New New York: American Library, 1986.
Simpson, Richard. The School of Shakespeare. Two Volumes, Chatto and Windus, London, 1878. Republished, New York: AMS Press, 1973.
Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare. New York: The Free Press, 1997.
Ward, A.W. Robert Greene. English Prose, H. Craik, ed. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1893. Pg. 551-554
www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/essays/greene/greene1.htm).
Westley, Richard. Computing Error: Reassessing Austin's Study of Groatsworth of Wit. Literary and Linguistic Computing, Volume 21, No. 3, OUP, 2006.

You can always get a little more literature
if you are willing to go a little closer into
what has been left unsaid as unspeakable,
just as you can always get a little more
melon by going a little closer to the rind.

Robert Frost

The Oxford Book of English Verse, as one among several anthologies (The Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse, The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The Viking Book of Poetry of the English Speaking World, The Norton Anthology of Poetry), contains an anonymous poem that ought to be of great interest to those fascinated by the mystery of the true identity of William Shakespeare, and to all who love the works of Shakespeare. The poem has been suitably titled “A Pedlar” in The Oxford Book of English Verse, and so we shall refer to it. (But the corporeal seller of wares, him we shall refer to as a “peddler.”)

“A Pedlar” was first published in 1600, in John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs, where it was set to music. Dowland (l563.. 1626), was an English lutenist and composer, and immensely popular during his lifetime.

As we shall see, “A Pedlar” shows compelling links both to Shakespeare and to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The text below is faithful to the punctuation, spelling and capitalization of the poem as it appears in the publication of 1600 (Pollard). The line numbers have been added to facilitate subsequent examination and discussion.

1 Fine knacks for ladies, cheap choice, brave and new!
2 Good penniworths! But mony can..not move,
3 I keepe a faier but for the faier to view,
4 a begger may be liberall of love,
5 Though all my wares bee trash the hart is true,
      the hart is true,
      the hart is true.

6 Great gifts are guiles and looke for gifts againe,
7 My trifles come as treasures from my minde,
8 It is a precious Jewell to bee plaine,
9 Sometimes in shell th ‘ orienst pearles we finde,
10 Of others take a sheafe, of mee a graine,
      Of mee a graine,
      Of mee a graine.

11 Within this packe pinnes points laces & gloves,
12 And divers toies fitting a country faier,
13 But [in] my hart, where duety serves and loves,
14 Turtels & twins, courts brood, a heavenly paier,
15 Happy the hart that thincks of no removes,
      Of no removes,
      Of no removes.

The poem begins with the hawking shout of a peddler; but in line 2 we read that “mony can.. not move” his “fine knacks.” If his physical inventory cannot be purchased, even though it possesses value—the (figurative) “good penniworths”—it must be metaphorical, and the song, by implication, laden with a hidden meaning. Straight away we are tipped off that things are not to be as they first appear.

In line 3 the peddler turns into-the keeper of a fair, keeping it only for the “faier to view.” The second “faier” should alert the experienced reader of Shakespeare. The Fair Youth of the Sonnets comes quickly to mind. But beyond that, there is the great potency and widespread use of “fair” throughout the works of Shakespeare. Line 4 presents a third occupation, if beggary be regarded as such. Then line 5, with its reference to “wares,” makes of the stanza a small ring composition, by looking back to the peddler’s “fine knacks” in line 1.

An atmosphere of bitter irony and resignation sours the fair of the first stanza. The author, reacting to some misfortune, casts about for images that will convey a profound disappointment he has experienced, in effect soliloquizing: “What am I, a peddler?” “What am I, a fair keeper?” “What am I, a beggar?” (Although the word “peddle”r itself does not appear in the poem, it is so strongly implied that we may treat it as substantially present.) As they are metaphors, the author does not engage in these occupations, except in a symbolic and self, condemning way. Line 4 informs us that he perceives himself as impoverished, although obviously no genuine street beggar is speaking to us here. The acerbity behind the “liberality of love” hints at the need of the financially pinched to be accommodating, at the cost of pride. Such chafing at penury conforms to Oxford’s nearly lifelong financial difficulties.

Let us look by way of comparison at Sonnet 66 of Shakespeare, which begins with the following three lines:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity.

Then nine lines more ensue, conceived in grief and rage, commencing each time with the famously anaphoric “And,” until the ending couplet brings a merciful conclusion to this register of injury and offense.

But what heads the list after the cry for death? An image of destitution. The living realities provoking the verses in each poem are lack of funds, for which “beggar” in both, “needy nothing” in Sonnet 66; misvaluation of the author’s works, for which “desert a beggar born” stands in the Sonnet, and “though all my wares bee trash” in “A Pedlar”; and lastly, the enforced pretense of a cheerful mien, for which “needy nothing trimmed in jollity” in the Sonnet, and in “A Pedlar” the very notion of the “faier” in line 3, with its attendant associations of merriment and good times.

The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare cites ten uses of “peddler” as a noun. Fully six of these occur in The Winter’s Tale. The verb “peddle” is not used by Shakespeare. By comparison, the Concordance cites an astonishing 274 instances of “beg(gar)” as a singleton or in combinatory form. What does this huge disparity in the frequency of use between “peddler” in Shakespeare signify to us, if “A Pedlar” is from the hand of Shakespeare?—that the figure of the peddler is a deliberate creation, whereas the numerous images of beggary spring into the writer’s consciousness reflexively? The sudden appearance of the beggar in line 4 in “A Pedlar” looks very like that sort of unconscious irruption, as it is completely unconnected to the preceding line. “A Pedlar” is sonnet, like in its length of 15 lines, exceeding the sonnet by one, and in its unsonglike meter, iambic pentameter. I am unaware of any song in the Shakespeare canon written in iambic pentameter, which leads me to suppose that “A Pedlar” was first written as a poem, psychologically almost a kind of sonnet, in light of its confessional nature. It might then have passed into the hands of John Dowland, who could have set it to music. Oxford as a composer in his own right could also have composed the music. This is an issue for musicians to settle, if sufficient of de Vere’s music remains to warrant comparison against “A Pedlar” and the body of Dowland’s acknowledged compositions.

Line 4, “a beggar may be liberall of love,” appears almost verbatim in Henry VIII, “Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels” (2.1.126. Note: all emphases in quoted passages below have been added by the author). In line 5 the poet catches himself in the midst of his angry ruminations and deftly closes off the stanza with an elegant return to the implied opening figure of the song, the peddler. But what a change! The “fine knacks” in the peddler’s pack in line 1 have turned to trash in line 5. Yet may not those ironical knacks have been trash from the beginning, and all of line 1 a pose?

Let us assay an illumination of the first stanza of “A Pedlar,” supposing Oxford as Shakespeare as its author. The “ladies” of line 1 may be interpreted as an allusion to Elizabeth and the noble women at court. The “fine knacks” become the presentations and performances there of Oxford’s dramatic works. In this vein, the “faier to view” of line 3 would be consistent with a staged spectacle. The symbols fit. The peddler is openly ambivalent about the worth of his goods. Likewise, from the Sonnets we know that such was Shakespeare ‘s troubled state of mind with regard to his own creations. Set side by side, for example, “For I am shamed by that which I bring forth” (72.13) and “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme” (55.12).

“Though all my wares bee trash, the hart is true.” The language in line 5 is familiar. A favored term of Shakespeare for “trashing” something is “trash”: “Who steals my purse steals trash,” Othello (3.3.157); “What trash is Rome,” Julius Caesar (1.3.108). The like is also true for “true” in two striking passages from Troilus and Cressida: “And what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus?” (3.2.100); “But alas, / I am as true as truth’s simplicity” (3.2.170).

A year before his death, in a letter written in 1603 to Robert Cecil (Fowler 771), Oxford restates in a moving passage this constant concern for and devotion to truth: “but I hope truth is subject to no prescription, for truth is truth though never so old, and time cannot make that false which once was true.” Shakespeare shows exact parallels. In Measure for Measure: “for truth is truth to the end of knowing” (5.1.45). In King John: “but truth is truth” (1.1.105). In Henry IV, Part I: “is not the truth the truth?” (2.4.230).

While “trash” and “true” are antithetical in meaning and thought, they are at the same time knit together, like “trick or treat,” in the number of syllables they contain, and, more conspicuously, in their initial “tr” sounds. We can leap ahead here and cite the identical technique in line 6 with “gifts” and “guiles,” and in line 7 with “trifles” and “treasures.” One can, with a stretch, also include in this category the “faier” and “faier” of line 3. Such word play bespeaks a mind fascinated with the fusion of paired ironies and antitheses within an alliterative, hence unifying, vocabulary. The paradoxical nature of these pairs is the source of much of the poem’s power. The reader’s mind can never come entirely to rest in them; like atoms, they vibrate endlessly. They seem the natural expressions of a rueful, poetic, compendious, and reflective intellect.

In line 6 of the second stanza an allusion appears to the practiced insincerities of power politics. “Great gifts,” to wit: expensive objects or substantial bribes employed as tools of policy-”guiles,” in other words-can only have been available at the highest levels of society, Oxford’s milieu. Line 7 extends this conceit. The “Great gifts” of others are pointedly contrasted to the author’s trifles, as “Great gifts” heads up line 6, and “My trifles” line 7. They give great gifts. I can afford only trifles. But these trifles are treasures. Extending the Oxfordian conjecture, “trifles” consorts naturally with “knacks” and “wares” as standing for Oxford’s dramatic works; and observe once more the same ambivalence that attended “fine knacks” and “wares [of] trash.”

Line 7, my “trifles come as treasures from my mind,” is closely related by a kind of conceptual inversion to line 3 in Sonnet 110, which is given here with lines 1 and 2:

Alas ’tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored my own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear.

“Thoughts” come from the “mind,” “cheap” is the value of “trifles”; “dear” is the appraisal of “treasures.” Line 3 of Sonnet 110 may be read as the debasement that a grubbing peddler would inflict upon line 7 of “A Pedlar.” Selling cheap what is most dear puts us in mind as well of the wares of line 5 in “A Pedlar,” which may be only trash. Making a spectacle of one’ self, “a motley to the view,” if you will, recalls to us line 3 of “A Pedlar,” with its fair to divert the eye, and its sardonic fairkeeper.

In Venus and Adonis Shakespeare also shows us a collocation of “treasure” and “trifle”:

Fie, fie fond love, thou art as full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemmed with thieves;
Trifles unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves (11.1021,24).

As “A Pedlar” is a song of fifteen lines, line 8 marks the midpoint. Lines 1 through 7 describe a crescendo of tension and elevation of subject, commencing at the lowly station of peddler and rising up into the Court in line 6, and from there into the author’s own consciousness in line 7. At last the strain of paradox, which has built from line 1, is released, the pressure dissipates, and line 8 springs forth from the author’s mind as half .. remedy, half .. yearning: “It is a precious Jewell to bee plaine.”

The locution “precious jewel” can be found four times in Shakespeare. Once in Sonnet 131: “Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.” Once in The Merchant of Venice: “in that, and other precious, precious jewels” (3.1.87). Once in Venus and Adonis: “as one that unaware / Hath dropped a precious jewel in the flood” (824). But most memorably in the words of Duke Senior in As You Like It:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. (2.1.12.-14)

Before passing on, observe that Sonnet 48 brings together “jewel” and “trifle”: “But thou to whom my jewels trifles are.”

Line 9 is enigmatic; it seems to advise us that the rough or common exterior of a thing may conceal a pearl, in both the literal and figurative senses. “Th’orienst pearls” is odd. I read it as a clever superlative formed for the nonce and the meter, and meaning “the pearls from furthest east”; therefore, the most exotic pearls, the most valuable pearls, the rarest pearls.

It should be noted that none of the editors of the cited anthologies could stand the success of “th’orienst pearls.” They either modified the expression to the contextually less meaningful “the orient pearls”; or dismayed, one must suppose, at the novel accent on the neologistic “th’ orienst,” supplied instead the conventionally accented but unpronounceable “the orient’st.” In any case, the almost identical phrase “orient pearl(s)” was at home in Shakespeare, turning up four times. In A Midsummer Night ‘s Dream: “Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls” (4.1.54). In Richard III: “Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl” (4.4.322). In Antony and Cleopatra: “the last of many doubled kisses .. / This orient pearl” (1.5.41). In The Passionate Pilgrim: “Bright orient pearl alack too timely shaded” (10.3). Let us compare line 9 and lines 981 .. 82 from Venus and Adonis:

Sometimes in shell th ‘orienst pearls we finde.
Being prisoned in her eye, like pearls in glass;
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside.

The one poem has pearls in glass; the other, pearls in shell. In each case the pearls are “orient.” Lines 9 and 982 seem more than accidentally connected. “Sometimes” and “orient” are present in both lines. The final two syllables of each line, “we finde” / “beside,” show consecutive, parallel long .. e and long .. i sounds.

In line 10, why does the author suggest to us that we take less of him than of others? This line, too, is difficult to plumb. Lines 8, 9, and 10 each contains something that is small and valuable; respectively a jewel, a pearl, a grain. A sense of concealment is also present among the three. The first two stanzas of “A Pedlar” are foreshadowed, both in theme and language, by a passage in Oxford’s eloquent prefatory letter of 1573 to Thomas Bedingfield’s translation from the Latin, which Oxford had commissioned, of Cardanus Comfort. Oxford was then 23 years old. In the letter (Fowler 119), Oxford has dilated upon the admonition that talents not be kept hidden, and upon the primacy of “virtue” among the public attributes of a gentleman. “And in mine opinion,” he further declares, “as it beautifieth a fair woman to be decked with pearls and precious stones, so much the more it ornifieth a gentleman to be furnished in mind with glittering virtues.”

The Bedingfield letter and “A Pedlar” both treat of the ornamentation of women. In “A Pedlar” the theme is laced with irony, whereas in the letter it introduces the first part of a straightforward comparison with the accoutrements of a gentleman, which may imply an earlier date of composition for the latter. The second half of the Bedingfield sentence, “so much the more it ornifieth a gentleman to be furnished in mind with glittering virtues,” amounts to line 7 in “A Pedlar” wrought in prose. The “glittering” in “glittering virtues” implies the metaphor of virtues as adornments of precious stones or metals. They resemble the ambiguous “trifles” of line 7 of “A Pedlar,” which we may interpret as standing for Oxford’s literary works and which “come as treasures from [the] mind.”

From the aspect of structure and syntax, the unique personal tone of “A Pedlar” derives from its pronounced parataxis; that is, “the placing of related clauses … in a series without the use of connecting words” (Webster’s). Parataxis is the mode of internal thought and of unstudied speech and conversation, wherein mental constructions are simply added one to the next without great attention being paid to the relationships between the constituent elements. Much of the extraordinary immediacy of the song results from this seeming artless, non sequitur laden, everyday quality. The Sonnets achieve the same, or an even greater, depth of intimacy, but because of their more formal, rhetorical structure, cause us to keep a more respectful distance.

In the third stanza, lines 11 and 12 comprise one unit of thought and constitute the second and larger of the two ring compositions present in the song. “Packe,” in line 11, strikingly alliterative with “pinnes” and “points,” implies the return of the peddler while echoing the sound of “knacks” from line 1. But of course we understand that the peddler is not real, and the list of his goods a beguiling whimsy. There is no country fair, except in the figurative image of it.

Line 13 presents a sudden change of subject. (Note: in line 13 I fall in with the anthologies, supplying the bracketed [in] at “But [in] my heart.” Metrically, it appears that a word has fallen out, and the insertion of “in” mends both the meter and the sense.} The author begins to speak of himself personally, and of what is in his heart “where duty serves and loves”: namely, “turtles and twins.” Some connection is maintained with lines 11 and 12, as the heart is being compared to the pack on the common basis that both have contents. The pack, which is a fiction, holds items of potential reality. The heart, on the other hand, which is real and beating, contains only symbols. Lines 13 and 14 demonstrate unmistakable affinities with The Phoenix and the Turtle of Shakespeare. The “turtle” (dove) appears in both poems. “Twins” appears in “A Pedlar,” while The Phoenix and the Turtle itself stands a hymn to twinning and the concept of two in one, as we read in stanza 7:

So they loved as love in twain
Had the essence but in one,
Two distincts, Division none,
Number there in love was slain.

The Oxford Anthology of English Literature provides a useful explication of line 14 in “A Pedlar”: “turtle-doves and the ‘heavenly pair’ of twins Castor and Pollux of the constellation Gemini were emblems of true love and constancy; the latter were the ‘brood’ of Jove as the swan, and Leda” (Kermode 615, fn). Shakespeare, to whom the tales of classical mythology were second nature, would have heard these resonances as he com, posed the line. The commentator in the Oxford Anthology is very likely right, as far as he goes. He has, however, discreetly passed over “courts” in the expression “courts brood.” This omission is serious from the Oxfordian standpoint. “Courts” anchors the line in Tudor England with an imagery paralleling the classical antecedents of Castor and Pollux. Would Oxford, as’ Shakespeare have written so? Goethe implicitly says yes when he declares that “the very finest symbols are those which allow a multiple interpretation, while the visible object portrayed always remains the same” (Goethe cited by Karl Victor in Ogburn Star 236, fn).

The final line and tender suspiration of “A Pedlar,” “Happy the heart that thinks of no removes,” can be heard in the thought and language in stanza 8, line 1, of Phoenix and Turtle: “Hearts remote, yet not asunder.” It finds an echo in Sonnet 25: “Then happy I, that love and am beloved / Where I may not remove or be removed”; and also in Sonnet 116, which declares that love (the activity of the heart) does not “bend with the remover to remove.”

Let us now move to the final stanza of the threnody of Phoenix and Turtle:

To this urn let those repair,
That are either true or fair
for these dead Birds, sigh a prayer.

The author of “A Pedlar” has also used those hallmark Shakespearean words “true” and “fair” with Shakespeare’s characteristic proximity and profound import:

I keep a faier but for the faier to view …
Though all my wares be trash, the hart is true.

And, lastly, to cite as well lines 9 and 10 from Sonnet 105:

Fair, kind, and true is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words.

I submit for consideration the likelihood that one man is the author of all three passages.

Someone has remarked that in Shakespeare all dogs are curs. The peddler fares not much better in the Poet’s esteem, as we shall see in the following scenes.

In Richard III, when Earl Rivers swears to Richard as yet Duke of Gloucester that he would follow Richard faithfully if he were king, Richard responds, “If I should be? I had rather be a peddler” (1.3.148). In the Induction (2.19..21) to The Taming of the Shrew, Christopher Sly, seen among Oxfordians as a burlesque of William Shakspere of Stratford, is taxed as to his identity by a lord (Ogburn Shakespeare 102..08). Sly answers, “What, would you make me mad? Am I not Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of Burton-heath, by birth a peddler, by education a cardmaker, etc.?”

In Love’s Labor’s Lost, Biron scoffs at the departing Boyet:

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas,
And utters it again when God doth please.
He is wit’s peddler, and retails his wares,
At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs. (5.2.315,18)

Biron gives us “peddler,” “wares,” and “fairs,” and possibly a prefigurement of “A Pedlar.” In the Oxfordian attribution, Love’s Labor’s Lost was an exuberant product of Oxford’s young manhood (Clark 223..38). During reveries of self-inculpation and regret, Oxford in his later years may have flayed his performance in life as that of a Boyet, and, sucking on aching tooth, turned the theme against himself in the first stanza of “A Pedlar.”

The commentator in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, in his remarks on “A Pedlar,” describes it as “a magnificent poem, exemplifying a common genre,” and directs us by way of exemplification to Autolycus’s songs in The Winter’s Tale. He also observes that in “A Pedlar,” “an uncharacteristic elevation of the plain over the fancy arises” {Kermode 615, fn}. The fifth ode in Horace’s First Book of Odes is a famous advocacy of this esthetic philosophy. Ben Jonson takes from the Horatian ode a half-line, simplex munditiis, that is, “simple, or plain, in [thine] elegance,” to entitle a poem of his own on the same theme. But, as we shall explore below, the Oxfordian school of authorship produces a parallel and deeper meaning, which was the touchstone to Goethe of great art.

Let us examine more closely the editor’s comment that “A Pedlar” is noteworthy for “an uncharacteristic elevation of the plain over the fancy.” Logic compels “precious Jewell” to be metaphor, as a physical object cannot also be a non, material condition. A precious jewel may be a bauble, a trinket, a gem; but it cannot, for reason of its materiality, partake directly in a non-material condition, “plainness.” The logical order of thought must run, “to be plain is a precious jewel,” with the inversion explained in the author’s desire to begin the line with the drama of the jewel image and to complete it with the surprising equivalence of “plainness.”

What is he telling us, then, about the nature of plainness if we grant that some quality in the condition of plainness has governed the author’s decision to equate it at the level of metaphor to a precious jewel? If the author is merely ringing a change on the ancient and Horatian theme that an unembellished Jane can exceed in comeliness a dolled-up Joan, line 8 comes across as hyperbolic and trite, in making “a precious Jewell” of a transient condition and disputable esthetic of beauty, in its “uncharacteristic elevation” of Jane over Joan. The choice of simplicity of toilette as the meaning to attach to “plaine in line 8 appears at best incomplete.

However, there is another common meaning to plain, the sense of being plain of speech, which is the expression of the unfeigning heart. In line 8 of “A Pedlar,” a case can be made for the proposition that the author had in mind “plain” in the sense “to speak plainly,” with its implication of also being able to speak freely; for to be muzzled and thus unable to speak plainly, and freely, is surely to be deprived of “a precious Jewell.” Or as Jaques puts it to Duke Senior, “Give me leave to speak my mind.” It behooves us now to look back at the lines from As You Like It cited above:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Let us now see how the notion of “precious jewel” in the lines from As You Like It bears a similarity to the application of that image in line 8 of “A Pedlar”: “It is a precious Jewell to be plaine.”

Duke Senior declares in effect: “the use of adversity is a precious jewel”; in As You Like It, a mis- or un-prized non-material condition, adversity, is being likened to a precious jewel. The plainness in “A Pedlar” is an unvalued plainness to the degree that the observer fails to grasp its concealed reference to plain, free, and unimpeded speech, which in a just evaluation must be accounted “a precious jewel.” The symbolic “sweet” value of the uses of adversity, like plainness of speech sure to be overlooked by the uninsightful, is “a precious jewel” within its “ugly” setting of bleak adversity, the metaphoric image of the carbuncled toad.

Lines 4.4.101,08 from Troilus and Cressida may shed further light upon the concept of plainness in “A Pedlar” and why its author should account it “a precious Jewell.” To test it for suitability in Troilus, line 8 from “A Pedlar” has been inserted between lines 106 and 107.

Cressida: My lord, will you be true?

Troilus: Who? I? Alas it is my vice, my fault.
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
[It is a precious Jewell to be plaine.]
Fear not my truth; the moral of my wit
Is “plain and true”-there’s all the reach of it.

Cressida asks Troilus if he will be “true,” which in the context can only mean, “will you be loyal? will you be faithful?” In Troilus’s response, “true” or “truth” occurs four times, but with ambiguity or duality of meaning. In Shakespeare, the noun form “truth” with the sense of “fidelity” can be still be found, although it was probably becoming obsolete (as in Cymbeline, 5.5.127: “Briefly die their joys / that place them on the truth of girls and boys”). “Truth” with the exclusive meaning of “veracity” lies in the future.

In these same seven lines we also come upon “plainness” and “plain.” In the speech of Troilus, “plain” comes yoked with “true,” and “plainness” with “truth.” With “plain” and “plainness” so closely joined to the forms of “true,” what else can they be but the “plain” of direct, true-speaking language, the hidden essence of “plaine” in line 8 of “A Pedlar.” If any’ thing, the word “plain” in this context of Troilus is even less likely to be an allusion to physical appearance than it was in “A Pedlar.” Troilus can only mean that he is plain speaking; not only is he loyal, he also tells the truth.

Line 8 from “A Pedlar” disappears into the speech of Troilus without a ripple. Both make common use of the image of costly ornament, whether real or “gilded,” as metaphor. Both attach the significance of “plain-speaking” to “plain.” Not only do Shakespeare and the author of “A Pedlar” attach an identical denotation to “plain,” they both offer an uncommon veneration of this humble and homely virtue. Troilus tells us that “the moral of my wit is ‘plain and true.’” Plainness is raised up with truth as the joint guides of conscience and intellect. No less a votary, the author of “A Pedlar” makes of plainness “a precious Jewell.”

In King Lear, aggrieved that Cordelia will not vociferate her devotion to him beyond the acknowledgement of her filial bond, Lear complains, “So young and yet so un tender ?” ( 1.1.108). Cordelia responds:

So young, my lord, and true. (1.1.109)

Lear, enraged now, divides Cordelia’s third of the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, while declaring of Cordelia:

Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her. (1.1.131)

For the second time, “truth” and “plainness” are conjoined in a character: Cordelia. To her.. self Cordelia imputes “trueness.” But it is Lear, foolish Lear, who, in mistaking honesty for pridefulness and flattery for devotion, attributes “plainness” to Cordelia. “Plainness” is never heard on Cordelia’s lips; rather, it is an imputation on the part of Lear. And the nature of the play can only make of Cordelia’s “plainness” a spiritual property of the highest order. Too late will Lear discover the wisdom of the author of “A Pedlar”: “It is a precious Jewell to be plaine.”

In the fool of King Lear, as also in Cordelia, we may discover the perfection of Troilus, although that insight would hardly please the proud Trojan prince. For the fool, in his high office of Fool, fuses both senses of “truth” together, when, like Cordelia, in speaking true, he is true. Verum dicere, verus esse.

In the correspondences between the speech of Troilus and “A Pedlar,” the use both authors make—if two authors there be—of the idea of the counterfeit is worth examination. In “A Pedlar” we read in line 6 that “great gifts are guiles and look for gifts againe,” which is to say they are fraudulent, counterfeit, as a genuine gift seeks no recompense. In 4.4.105 of Troilus, Shakespeare, punning on the dual meaning of crowns as coins and regal headgear, creates a literal image of counterfeiting: “Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns.”

Let us now direct our attention to three couplets:

“A Pedlar” (2.6.. 7):

Great gifts are guiles and looke for gifts againe,
My trifles come as treasure from my mind.

Troilus (4.4.103..04):

Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity.

Troilus (4.4.105..06):

Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.

Note how in the first line of each couplet the authors cite in one way or another the conscious deceptions or stratagems of others. In line 6 of “A Pedlar” and line 103 of Troilus, enormity, in its precise denotation of enlarged wickedness, is injected, in the expressions “great gifts” and “great opinion.” In the second lines of the three couplets the authors contrast themselves or their works to the unidentified schemers or machiavels of the first lines in terms of their own relatively lesser size, but greater honesty or true worth, or both.

From the accumulated, foregoing evidence, I submit it for a likelihood that one man is the author of the three passages discussed above.

We close with a look at that confidence man and songster, Autolycus of The Winter’s Tale.

Autolycus is as deficient in verisimilitude as the peddler in “A Pedlar.” His inventory of goods in Act IV Scene 4 is absurdly extensive and costly. His peddlership is an imposture; the fellow is a thief, and by his own admission, his “revenue the silly cheat”; that is, the gullible victim. The Elizabethans were incorrigibly given to word play, to an extent unpracticed and unconceived today. If one reads the works of Shakespeare as written by Oxford, while keeping in mind the obsession of the age for jeux de mots, there are pregnant moments when “ever” seems a pun on “E. Ver[e], “Edward (de) Vere. “Ever” also anagrammatizes “Vere.”

Autolycus, pretending to be at death’s door, the better to snare a victim, cries out, “0, that ever I was born!” (4.3.51). A study of Autolycus’s lament produces equal parts amusement and logic. If we let “ever” stand for Edward de Vere, and the exclamation, “0″ for the man’s title, (Earl of) Oxford, we have his primary appellations and the order in which he acquired them: born de Vere, he took the title Oxford only on the death of his father. Might it not be that the raffish Autolycus is Oxford’s portrayal of the merryandrew side of his own personality? Granted, as an argument this is not the entree; still, it seems harmless enough to set it on the groaning board of dialectic as evidence, with a role commensurate to that of chutney at the feast.

In his early twenties Oxford may have been involved in a prankish highway robbery at Gad’s Hill. Oxfordians advance the proposition that this real incident was the source for the robbery scene at Gad’s Hill involving Prince Hal and Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I (Ogburn Star 77). If Oxford was anything like Hal and accustomed to running with the hounds and run, ning with the hare, a reasonable conjecture in light of his life,long association with the demi, monde of the theater, the perception of Autolycus as an aspect of Oxford’s psyche gains force.

The evidence of linkage between the Shakespeare character Autolycus and “A Pedlar” is recognized. The inference that “A Pedlar” may be from the hand of Shakespeare is supported by numerous and persuasive textual similarities. Written by an anonymous author, “A Pedlar” remains a mysterious beauty. However, if we attribute it to Shakespeare, and then place the mantle of Shakespeare’s identity upon the shoulders of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, the enigmas of “A Pedlar” are resolved. The poem achieves an integration and coherence which it previously lacked, having been a kind of lovely but half-assembled puzzle. With Oxford construed as its author, “A Pedlar” soars above its prior altitude to where now, wheeling in solitude, it holds its place among the great short poems of the English language. It is also among the most important.

Note: Not until after I had completed “A Pedlar” was I made aware of “An ‘Unconsidered Trifle’ Snapped Up,” an essay by Margaret K. Manwell, an essay that appeared in the December 1969 SOS Newsletter. In her brief, insightful examination of the poem, she made virtually identical Oxfordian connections that are broached in the essay above. Pleased am I, then, to hand over the laurels for first into print in exchange for the support of the graceful and informed observations of Margaret K. Manwell!

Works Cited

Clark, Eva Turner. Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays. Third revised edition. Ruth Lloyd Miller, editor. Port Washington: Kennikat Press 1974.

Fowler, William Plumer. Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford’s Letters. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, 1974.

Kermode, Hollander, Bloom, et aI, eds. The Oxford Anthology of English Literature (Vol. 1). New York: Oxford UP, 1973.

Ogburn, Dorothy, and Charlton Sr. This Star of England. New York: Coward-McCann, 1952.

Ogburn, Dorothy, and Charlton Jr. Shake-speare: The Man Behind the Name. New York: William Morrow, 1962.

Pollard, A. W., and O. R. Redgrave, eds. Short TItle Catalogue of Books printed in England, 1475,1640. Ed. W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and Katherine F. Pantzer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. 70 95. Early English Books. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI. Reel 33 7.

William Byrd’s “Battle” and the Earl of Oxford

A facsimile page from My Lady Nevell’s Book

The year 1593 saw the publication of the first work attributed to “William Shake-speare, ” the narrative poem Venus and Adonis. Subsequent years saw other publications with this attribution: another poem, a number of plays, a collection of sonnets, and finally, in 1623, a large volume entitled Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies appeared, containing thirty-six plays. This collection, usually referred to as the First Folio, contained introductory material eulogizing the deceased author, but provided remarkably little biographical information. Ben Jonson addresses the author as “Sweet Swan of Avon!” and Leonard Digges refers to “thy Stratford Moniment.” These references have been interpreted to mean that the author was William Shaksper, a native of the village of Stratford-on-Avon. This interpretation, bolstered by further events, such as the appearance of Nicholas Rowe’s biography (1709) and David Garrick’s Stratford Festival (1769), became the orthodox belief.

The first major public challenge to belief in the Stratfordian Shakespeare occurred in 1856 with the publication of Delia Bacon’s book, The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded. Bacon argued that the plays had been written by a group of Elizabethan courtiers including Francis Bacon (no relation), Walter Raleigh, and Edmund Spenser, an assertion that in public debate soon took on the simpler form, “Bacon wrote Shakespeare.” This debate stirred up interest in the authorship question, and several other candidates were proposed, e.g. Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Derby, and the Earl of Rutland. The paucity of evidence for the Stratfordian attribution was authoritatively summarized in George Greenwood’s book The Shakespeare Problem Restated (1908), a work which inspired Mark Twain’s essay “Is Shakespeare Dead?” (1911). Both Greenwood and Twain are careful to point out that they are not claiming that Bacon was the author; rather that it was impossible that it could be the Stratford man.

The modern phase of the authorship question began in 1920 with the publication of a book by John Thomas Looney, “Shakespeare” Identified. Looney was an English schoolmaster who had taught Shakespeare’s plays for many years and had grown skeptical of the traditional attribution. He embarked on a systematic search for the identity of the true author, armed with a set of characteristics (e.g., “A member of the higher aristocracy … Loose and improvident in money matters … “) gleaned from Looney’s study of the plays.

Looney’s special insight was that an author writing Shakespeare’s works pseudonymously would not have had time for a second career; thus he looked for someone who was relatively unknown, rather than a famous figure like Bacon or Raleigh. He started out by scanning an anthology of Elizabethan poetry, looking for contributors who wrote in the meter used in Venus and Adonis. He found a candidate in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, and further research showed that the set of required characteristics Looney had derived fit Oxford like a glove. He summarized his research in his book, which is still a thrilling account of a major discovery, beautifully written, cogently argued, and utterly compelling.

The subject I will examine here is the response to this book of the academic community, loosely defined as the ensemble of all professors teaching English literature in four-year degree-granting colleges, or in associated graduate studies. In accordance with current usage, those who are firmly committed to the view that Shaksper of Stratford was the author of Shakespeare’s works will be termed Stratfordians, while those convinced by Looney’s arguments will be designated Oxfordians. A further category comprises those who believe that Oxford wrote the works, but find it politically disadvantageous to admit it, the cryptoOxfordians. (As the term implies, the identities of crypto-Oxfordians are hidden, but I have my own favorite candidates, including Helen Vendler, author of The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, whose insistence that Shakespeare writes with the voice of a “fictive speaker” forestalls discussion of any possible autobiographical elements, and Louis Marder, who is surely aware that printed etchings reverse the original image.) To simplify the discussion, we will assume that all academics belong to one of these categories, so

where P is the population of academics, and the subscripted quantities correspond to the categories defined above. For further simplification, the variable we will be dealing with is

the fraction of the population composed of committed Stratfordians. Specifically, we will examine possible models of the time evolution of the Stratfordian population, p(t).

Figure 1 illustrates a possible model for academic behavior: we assume that prior to the appearance of Looney’s book, the population is entirely Stratfordian (p = 1). Then in 1920, professors start reading about the Oxfordian hypothesis, and realize that it solves many nagging questions raised by the Stratfordian attribution, and that in addition, it makes possible a depth and coherence of understanding of the works that was previously unattainable. The Stratfordian population then drops rapidly, so that after about a year, has declined to about 0.20. This model obviously does not account for the observed facts, so it must be termed the Naive Model of academic behavior. A more realistic model (the Actuarial Model) might be devised from the following scenario: we assume that the senior faculty (say 50 years old in 1920) guard the gates of orthodoxy while 20-year-old grad students read Looney on the sly. In about 30 years (-1950) the former grad students are the senior faculty, and the Oxfordian attribution has become orthodox. Again, this model fails to account for the fact that English departments are still (apparently) overwhelmingly Stratfordian.

A much more successful scheme is the Professional Advancement Über Alles Model, which assumes that the promotion of a young Shakespeare scholar depends on his or her writing a book that is well received by the Old Guard. Since the Old Guard is Stratfordian, the successful book will be written from a Stratfordian viewpoint, even if the authorship question is not explicitly discussed. Over time, as the successful young author him/herself becomes a member of the Old Guard, it will of course be impossible to disown the earlier work, so the Stratfordian orthodoxy is stable and self-perpetuating for all time, as indicated by the horizontal line p(t) = 1.0 at the top of Fig. 1.

While the above model is, sadly, the most accurate one considered so far, there are indications that it is unduly pessimistic: at the time of writing I am aware of at least two English departments (Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, and the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs) headed by Oxfordian scholars, and the de Vere Studies Conference, organized at Concordia University by Dr. Daniel Wright, is about to have its fourth annual meeting. So p(t) must be diminishing, at however glacial a pace. We therefore propose a Modified Professional Advancement Model. Again, we assume that the academic population consists of Stratfordians, Oxfordians, and crypto-Oxfordians, that p(t) is the fraction of committed Stratfordians, and that the time variable t is the number of years after 1920. We assume that p(O) = 1.0 (that is, in 1920, all academics were Stratfordians). We then assume there is a gradual decay in p(t) (that is, some academics become Oxfordians or crypto-Oxfordians) until p(t) = 0.5. That represents the point at which Oxfordians and crypto-Oxfordians are as numerous as Stratfordians, and there is thus little reason for hiding one’s Oxfordian proclivities. It is therefore a critical point initiating a change of phase in the system (analogous to a warming ice crystal when temperature T(t) reaches 0° Centigrade).

The Modified Professional Advancement Model is capable of yielding quantitative results if a suitable function is chosen to describe the decay of p(t). The function that comes immediately to mind is the exponential function,

where the notation “exp” indicates that the constant e (2.718 … ) is to be raised to the power represented by the quantity in parenthesis (this function is widely used to represent a number of physical processes, including radioactive decay). As noted above, t is the time in years since 1920; r

Time Evolution of Stratfordian Population

p(t) = exp(-rt) model

p (1999)	r	t½	Y½	ΔY
0.9	0.00135	513	2433	434
0.8	0.00286	242	2162	163
0.7	0.00479	152	2072	73
0.6	0.00665	106	2026	27
0.55	0.00767	90	2010	11
0.5	0.00889	79	1999	0
Table 1

is a rate constant which we will call the “academic rationality index,” a quantity which can range from 1 to 0. If r = 1 we get complete conversion to the Oxfordian attribution within a few months, thus reproducing the Naive Model illustrated in Fig. 1. If r = 0 the rate of Stratfordian decay is zero, reproducing the simple Professional Advancement Model (dashed horizontal line in Fig. 1). Since the former model is too optimistic and the latter is too pessimistic, we know that the value of r which best fits the actual situation is less than 1 and greater than 0. If we knew the value of p(t) for any given time, we could solve for r and use that value to predict the year in which p(t) would reach the critical value of 0.5. Unfortunately, estimating p(t) requires knowing the population of crypto-Oxfordians, P_cOx and no experimental method for determining this number has yet been devised (by the definition of a crypto-Oxfordian, questions about authorial orientation will not be answered candidly). The best we can do is assume a series of values of p for the year 1999, solve for r, then calculate the critical year in which p(t) 0.5. The results for a series of these calculations are shown in Table 1 and plotted in Figure 2. Table 1, for example, shows that if p(t) in 1999 were 0.7, it would reach 0.5 by the year 2072, 73 years from 1999, a discouraging prediction, since the author does not expect to be around in 2072.

As mentioned above, the exponential function is used for modeling the process of radioactive decay. One of the physical features of this process is that the radioactive nuclei do not interact with each other; the probability that any given nucleus will decay in any given period of time is entirely independent of what the other nuclei are doing, and from this standpoint, a sample of radioactive material can be regarded as a collection of noninteracting particles. It may be that the simple exponential function is inadequate to describe English departments, where there is at least the possibility that members might interact.

This possibility could be accounted for mathematically by increasing the time dependence of the describe the decay. function used to This can be done most simply by raising t in the exponent to a higher power:

Works Cited

Books:

Andrews, Mark Edwin. The Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice. Boulder: UCP, 1965.

Allen, Charles. Notes on the Bacon-Shakespeare Question. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900.

Barton, Sir Dunbar Plunket. Links Between the Law and Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929.

Campbell, Lord. Shakespeare’s Legal Acquirements. New York: Appleton, 1859.

Castle, Edward James. Shakespeare, Bacon, Jonson and Greene. London: Sampson Low, 1897.

Clarkson, Paul S. and Clyde T. Warren. The Law of Property in Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1942.

Collins, J. Churton. Studies in Shakespeare. Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1904.

David, Cushman K. The Law in Shakespeare. Washington, DC: Washington Law Book Co., 1883.

Devecmon, William C. IN RE Shakespeare’s “Legal Acquirements”: Notes by an Unbeliever Therein.
New York: Shakespeare Press, 1899.

Fuller, R.F. “Shakspere as a Lawyer.” Upper Canada Law Journal 9 (1863): 91–97.

Gibson, H.N. The Shakespeare Claimants. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962.

Greenwood, George. The Shakespeare Problem Restated. London: John Lane, 1908.

_________. Shakespeare’s Law and Latin. London: Watts, 1916.

_________. Is There a Shakespeare Problem? London: John Lane, 1916.

_________. Shakespeare’s Law. London: Cecil Palmer, 1920.

Guernsey, R.S. Ecclesiastical Law in Hamlet: The Burial of Ophelia. New York: The Shakespeare
Society of New York, 1885.

Heard, Franklin Fiske. Shakespeare as a Lawyer. Buffalo: Hein, 1987.

Keeton, George W. Shakespeare’s Legal and Political Background. London: Pitman, 1967.

Knight, W. Nicholas. Shakespeare’s Hidden Life: Shakespeare at the Law 1585–1595. New York: Mason
& Lipscomb, 1973.

Kornstein, Daniel J. Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeare’s Legal Appeal. Princeton: PUP, 1994.

McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language. Oxford: OUP, 2001.

McManaway, James G. The Authorship of Shakespeare. Washington: Folger, 1962.

Malone, Edmond, ed. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. 2 vols. London: 1790.

Matus, Irvin Leigh. Shakespeare, IN FACT. New York: Continuum, 1994.

Milward, Martin W. Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? New York: Cooper Square, 1965 Nashe, Thomas. The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works. New York: Penguin, 1972.

Nicoll, Allardyce. Shakespeare. London: Methuen, 1952.

Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare. 2nd ed. McLean, VA: EPM, Inc., 1992.

Oxford English Dictionary. CD-ROM. 2nd ed. 1995.

Penzance, Lord. (Sir James Plaisted Wilde.) The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy: A Judicial Summing Up. London: Sampson Low, 1902.

Phillips, O. Hood. Shakespeare and the Lawyers. London: Methuen, 1972.

Posner, Richard A., ed. The Essential Holmes. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1992.

Robertson, J.M. Did Shakespeare Write “Titus Andronicus”? London: Watts, 1905.

________. The Baconian Heresy. New York: Dutton, 1913.

________. An Introduction to the Shakespeare Canon. New York: Dutton, 1924.

Rowse, A.L. Shakespeare The Man. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

Rushton, William Lowes. Shakespeare A Lawyer. London: Longmans, 1858.

________. Shakespeare’s Legal Maxims (1859). Liverpool: Henry Young, 1907.

________. Shakespeare’s Testamentary Language. London: Longmans, 1869.

Sams, Eric. The Real Shakespeare. New Haven: Yale UP, 1995.

Saunders, J.W. A Biographical Dictionary of Renaissance Poets and Dramatists, 1520–1650. Brighton: Harvester, 1983.

Schoenbaum, S. Shakespeare’s Lives. New edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.

Twain, Mark. Is Shakespeare Dead? New York: Harper & Brothers, 1909.

Ward, B.M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. London: John Murray, 1929.

Webb, Judge. The Mystery of William Shakespeare. London: Longmans, 1902.

White, Edward J. Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare (1911). St. Louis: F.H. Thomas, 1913.

White, Richard Grant. Memoirs of the Life of Shakespeare. Boston: Little, Brown, 1865.

Wilkes, George. Shakespeare, From an American Point of View. (1877). London: Sampson Low, 1882.

Wilson, Ian. Shakespeare: The Evidence. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993.

Wu, John C.H. Fountain of Justice. London: Sheed and Ware, 1959.

Articles and letters:

Alexander, Mark. “Shakespeare’s ‘Bad Law.’” The Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter. 36.2 (2000): 1, 9–13.

[Dickens, Charles?] “Household Words.” (1858): 454–456.

Gohn, Jack Benoit. “Richard II: Shakespeare’s Legal Brief on the Royal Prerogative and the Succession to the Throne.” The Georgetown Law Journal 70.3 (1982): 943–973.

“Hales v. Petit.” Plowden 1 (1561): 253–265.

Hughes, Stephanie Hopkins. Shakespeare’s Mentors: the Education of Edward de Vere. Forthcoming.

________. “Shakespeare’s Tutor: Sir Thomas Smith (1513–1577).” The Oxfordian 3 (2000): 19–44.

Jolli, Eddi. “‘Shakespeare’ and Burghley’s Library.” The Oxfordian 3 (2000): 3–18.

Kathman, David. Letter. The Elizabethan Review 5.2 (1997): 21–23.

Marder, Louis. “Law in Shakespeare.” Renaissance Papers, 1954: University of South Carolina.

Moore, Peter. “Recent Developments in the Case for Oxford as Shakespeare.” Annual Shakespeare Oxford Society Conference, Minneapolis. 11 Oct. 1996. Online, www.shakespeare-oxford.com/progres1.htm.

Phillips, O. Hood. “The Law Relating to Shakespeare, 1564–1964.” The Law Quarterly Review 80 (1964): 172–202, 399–430.

“Review of Shakespeare’s Testamentary Language.” Law Magazine and Review 27 (1869): 162–163.

“Shakspeare a Lawyer.” Legal Observer. 1 (1830): 27–29.

Sprague, Homer B. “Shakespeare’s Alleged Blunders in Legal Terminology.” Yale Law Journal 2 (1902): 304–316.

Underhill, Arthur. “Law.” Shakespeare’s England: An account of the Life & Manners of his Age. Oxford: Clarendon, 1916.

White, Richard Grant. “William Shakespeare––Attorney at Law and Solicitor in Chancery.” Atlantic Monthly April 1859: 84–105.

Wright, Daniel L. “’He was a scholar and a ripe and good one’: The Education of the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, Mirrored in the Shakespeare Canon.” The Oxfordian 1 (1998): 64–85.

I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the center.

Hamlet: Act II Scene 2

Oxfordian scholars should be commended for excellent research in the past twenty-five years—a very productive quarter century. Other Oxfordians have either been content to wait in the wings for the inevitable paradigm shift or to expend their cerebral creativity fantasizing about long-lost play manuscripts—the supreme smoking gun, ignoring the advice of Matthew 7 verse 7: “Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” Most have neglected the potential harvest available in Elizabethan personal letters (Bethell 43-82). Literary history abounds with dramatic finds of extraordinary letters in private homes or unusual places. Even a trivial remark made in passing could be an important clue. Scholars dream of finding a letter from one courtier to another linking de Vere to Shakespeare. As a mere aside, the letter writer might say, “By the way, have you seen Oxford’s Othello? I saw it at Whitehall last week when it played before the Queen and it is stunning, full of great lines and social commentary. It’s now at The Theatre—do see it!” Or one University Wit might add in a postscript to another, “Has Oxford finished revising Hamlet yet? He’s been at it long enough!”

The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts

The general belief is that research on old letters requires exploration of attics and muniment rooms of English manor houses, disturbing centuries of dust and cobwebs. Unknown to most Oxfordians is England’s remarkable Historical Manuscripts Commission, established by Royal Warrant in 1869, whose mission has been to sleuth out these muniments and translate, edit, and print them, while the original documents remain undisturbed in the manor houses. Nor are all aware of how close the internet has brought us to documents so that much can be done now without ever leaving home. The Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) maintains the following informational centers:

1. National Register of Archives (NRA), gives information on records relating to British history, including 43,000 unpublished but indexed catalogs;

2. Manorial Document Register, an index to surviving manor house records in England and Wales;

3. ARCHON, an electronic directory of archival repositories;

4. Archives in Focus, a source for online archival resources.[1]

The Historical Manuscripts Commission indexes are a comprehensive summary of all letters written by individuals as well as all references to them, all so far catalogued. These indexes exist in two sets of volumes: Guide to the Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts 1870–1911, and Guide to the Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts 1911–1957. These are available in the British Library and in university libraries in the UK and the US.

A recent search by the author of HMC indexes for letters by Edward de Vere to any noble recipient (excluding the Cecils—already heavily researched), yielded nothing. There were, however, several references to de Vere in correspondence between members of noble families (other than the Rutlands and the Pembrokes, reviewed below). Most of these have long since been transcribed and recorded in books, and are now available online. For this last, special thanks are due to Prof. Alan Nelson of UC Berkeley, both for his recent book, containing his transcriptions of numerous documents relating to Oxford, and for the documents on his website; also to Oxfordian researcher Nina Green for her website (see Works Cited).

Documents listed by the HMC indexes that relate to Oxford (and can be found in full on Nelson’s website) are, briefly, as follows:

1. July 1, 1562: the Indenture of Covenants, i.e., the marriage contract between John, sixteenth Earl of Oxford, and Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, for the marriage of Edward de Vere, Lord Bulbeck, and either Elizabeth or Mary Hastings. The Huntingdon copy of this contract disappeared for 400 years only to show up at the Huntington Library in Pasadena among the Huntingdon family papers, which the Library had purchased.

2. 1575: a legal document regarding Edward de Vere’s estate, listing his debts and expressing his wishes for disposition of his holdings should he die during his tour to Europe in 1575–76. Annexed to this is a long schedule of the Earl’s debts, headed by £3457 owed to the Queen’s Majesty. Among Oxford’s creditors at this time were goldsmiths, jewelers, mercers, upholsterers, embroiderers, haberdashers, armorers, drapers, tailors and shoemakers. Burghley, Oxford’s father-in-law, is authorized to pay any debts omitted from the list.

3. 1580: Peregrine Bertie’s [pronounced Bartie] letter to Lady Mary Vere, sister of Edward de Vere, bemoans her brother’s uncourteous attitude towards their proposed marriage.

4. March 23, 1581: Francis Walsingham writes to Henry, third Earl of Huntingdon: “On Tuesday at night Anne Vavasor was brought to bed of a son in the maidens chamber. The E. of Oxford is avowed to be the father, who hath withdrawn himself with intent, as it is thought, to pass the seas.”

5. 1894: A narrative summary of the trial of Mary Queen of Scots, October, 1586, lists Edward de Vere as one of the judges.

6. Nov. 9, 1595: Rowland White writes to Sir Robert Sidney, the younger brother of Philip Sidney and nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose property he inherited. White was Robert Sidney’s trusted estate manager and friend. The HMC letter excerpt reads:

I have written at large by John Massy, who is sent to Mr. Bodeley with letters, as I hear, commanding him to forbear the demanding of the money. Your leave will be decided within ten days. Lady Rich thanks you for the hangings. Some say my Lord of Oxford is dead.

This last remark is curious indeed. Certainly “some say” is an odd way to phrase a rumor of actual death; the physical death of a person is a fact, not an opinion.

7. March 3, 1599: Robert Bertie, the seventeen-year-old son of Peregrine Bertie and Mary Vere, writes a letter in French to his uncle Edward de Vere, freely translated as follows:

Monseigneur, I desire greatly to reaffirm the great esteem I have for you, having always been well treated by you. But I have yet to find a subject of sufficient merit to distract you from your more important interests. Thus I have not dared to be bold enough to write you for fear of poor judgment on my part writing letters which don’t even deserve to be opened. I do want to assure you of the eternal service I vow to you and your entire family, humbly imploring you, Sir, kindly to understand that I am ready to do your bidding with such devotion that I will all of my life be your humble servant and nephew.[2]

These documents represent the total excerpts from letters listed in the 1870–1911 HMC volumes which mention Edward de Vere. None provide any suggestion of a smoking gun.

The HMC has done a fine job of cataloging and describing the vast family documents, including letters, of England’s noble families covering hundreds of years, including the Elizabethan era. Unfortunately, except for a few short letters, they have not been transcribed in full, but only excerpted or summarized, so who can say what Oxfordian insights remain undisclosed?

Where does letter research start?

The letters most likely to reveal personal information would be from the subject’s closest associates, friends and relatives. Who were de Vere’s best friends? Introductory letters in books dedicated to him and letters to his in-laws suggest friendships with Thomas Bedingfield, Bartholomew Clerke, and Lord Lumley, but no private letters have surfaced to connect them. As for childhood friends, because of his relative isolation either at Hedingham Castle or later, at the home of his childless tutor, Sir Thomas Smith, it seems unlikely that Oxford acquired enduring friendships in childhood. Close contacts with others of his own age and rank would have begun in 1562 at age twelve when he was removed to Cecil House upon the death of his father.

The young men that Cecil gathered for companions to his son Thomas would probably have been known to Oxford as well. These included his first ward, Arthur Hall, Alexander Neville (translator of Seneca), Barnabe Googe (translator of Palengenius), and the Cobham brothers (Hughes Tutors 83). These men were six to ten years older than Oxford, while Philip Sidney was four years younger. Although it is unlikely that he did not form friendships with some of these young men and boys, direct evidence has so far escaped us.

Cecil’s younger son, Robert Cecil, was born in 1563, the year Oxford spent at Cecil House without Rutland. As most Oxfordians are aware, we have a number of letters from Oxford to Robert Cecil written in the mid-to-late nineties (Fowler), though none (as yet) from Cecil to Oxford.

While head of the Court of Wards, William Cecil (Lord Burghley) had charge of a total of twelve wards, of whom nine were noblemen. The first four included: Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1562–1571); Edward Manners, third Earl of Rutland (1563–70); Edmund, third Lord Sheffield (1568–85); and Edward, Lord Zouch, acquired for Thomas Cecil (1569–77) (Hurstfield 249).

Edward Manners, Earl of Rutland (1549–1587), was a year older than de Vere but came to Cecil a year after Oxford, in 1563–4. Thus the two Edwards, de Vere and Manners, shared Cecil’s guardianship for seven years, from 1563 to 1570. We have little hard evidence of their friendship, but that two boys of equal rank, so close in age and with close family ties, must have formed a close and lasting bond under such circumstances seems highly likely. Burghley’s later wards, the earls of Essex, Southampton, and Rutland, shared a bond formed in similar circumstances, one that was an important factor in the passions that led to the Essex Rebellion. Although de Vere also shared some time at Cecil House with Lord Sheffield for three years and with Lord Zouch for two, nothing is known at this time about their relationships.

The other five noble wards were acquired by Burghley between 1572 and 1588, after de Vere was gone. These included Philip Howard, later Earl of Arundel (1572–78); Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex (1576–1587); Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton (1581–94); Roger Manners, later fifth Earl of Rutland (1588–97); and Lord Wharton, later second Baron Wharton (years unknown), all considerably younger than de Vere. Philip Howard, son of the executed Duke of Norfolk, was Oxford’s cousin, so it’s possible that they knew each other early on from family holiday gatherings, but of this we have no evidence. As for Essex, all we know (from Oxford’s October 20, 1595 letter to Cecil), is that by 1595, de Vere disliked him intensely (Nelson 483).

Of these early contacts, the relationship with Edward Manners would seem to be the most important, so the Manners family archives were searched first.

Manners documents at Belvoir Castle

Muniments belonging to the Earls of Rutland have been kept at Belvoir (pronounced Beaver) Castle in Leicestershire in central England for almost 500 years. Sir Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland, began rebuilding Belvoir Castle in 1523 at the site of a ruined castle first constructed by William the Conqueror’s standard bearer in the eleventh Century. It was completed by his son, the second Earl of Rutland, father of de Vere’s companion.

According to historians, Edward Manners had many outstanding virtues. Unfortunately he died in 1587 at the age of thirty-eight, six days before his installation as Lord Chancellor (EB). Since he had no sons, his brother John became the fourth Earl. John died the following year, and was followed by his son, Roger Manners (1576–1612), the fifth Earl, who became a ward of the Crown and was educated by Burghley. In 1703, John, the ninth Earl, was created first Duke of Rutland. Today it is the eleventh Duke of Rutland who lives at Belvoir Castle with his family.

The castle was severely damaged by Cromwell’s troops during the English Civil War in the 1640s. It was devastated by fire in 1816, although remarkably the family documents survived. The first cataloging of castle documents was carried out in 1869 by Alfred Horwood for the HMC. Frustrated by his limited access, he urged further research. Horwood was followed by H.C. Maxwell Lyte. Lyte was able to locate documents at thirteen locations in Belvoir Castle between 1885 and 1888. He describes a classic scene of document discovery:

In looking for the key of the lumber room . . . I came across a key bearing a label with the words “Key of old writings over stable.” I accordingly repaired to the stables, which are at the bottom of the hill on which the castle stands, and there, in a loft under the roof, discovered a vast mass of old papers. No one had entered the room for some years, a curtain of cobwebs hung from the rafters, and the floor was so covered with documents, piled to a height of three or four feet, that at first there was scarcely standing room. Over everything there was a thick layer of broken plaster and dirt, which made white paper indistinguishable from brown. In the course of the first half-hour I found a holograph letter of Lord Burghley . . . .

This disturbance of the surface caused a horrible stench, and it soon became evident that the loft had been tenanted by rats who had done lasting damage to valuable manuscripts by gnawing and staining them. Some documents had been reduced to powder, others had lost their dates or their signatures. The entire center of a long letter in the hand of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had entirely disappeared. Those that remained were of a very varied character.

A deed of the time of Henry II was found among some granary accounts of the eighteenth century, and gossiping letters from the Court of Elizabeth among modern vouchers. (Lyte ii–viii)

Despite these obstacles, Lyte did a superb job of analysis, chronological arranging, tabulation and transcription, after which all letters were cleaned, repaired, mounted on guards and bound. Lyte explains what he did and did not include in the published calendar or index of the HMC (RCHM vii–viii). The Calendar prepared for the use of the public mentions every letter which bears a date, original or supplied, down to the year 1600, and every letter down to the year 1787 which appears to contain any information of general interest. It does not include the contents of some of the old volumes, which, he claims, consist only of letters from ladies about purely domestic affairs.

Of course it is precisely in such domestic letters—excluded from the index—that nuggets of information are found in the most trivial comments, made in passing. Whether or not there is anything relevant to Oxfordian studies in these uncatalogued and untranscribed portions of these documents is a question that Oxfordian scholars are eager to resolve. Unfortunately it may be some time before this is possible.

Although many trivial letters from the period were kept, not a single letter from de Vere to Edward Manners has yet been found at Belvoir Castle, and only twelve letters have been found which mention him, most of them in passages already familiar to Oxfordians. However paltry the results, we must be grateful, for without these we would be lacking much of our picture of the youthful Oxford.

Rutland’s journey to the Cecil Household

One interesting letter is probably the earliest, dated January 9, 1564. In it William Cecil writes from Windsor to the Countess of Rutland, advising her of housing arrangements for her stepson, Edward Manners, as he makes his way to join Cecil’s household following a holiday spent with his family at Belvoir Castle. After several stopovers, he will arrive at “Hitcham near Burnham,” where Oxford is staying. Since this location is not far from Windsor Castle, one presumes that the two boys will reside there until lessons begin wherever they began, either at Cecil House in London, or some other place. Both were still too young to be permanently housed at Court, although de Vere’s proximity to Windsor at this time suggests that he may have spent the winter holiday of 15634 at Court. Since Manners’s father had died the previous September, it is interesting to consider that it may have been four months, or the following January, before Edward joined the Cecil household and connected with his younger cousin for the first time.

Cecil writes to Lady Rutland:

I wrote lately to you that Lord Rutland, your stepson, might be brought up hither by my cousin Disney, your officer, and I wrote the like to him. I understand by the steward of my house near Stamford that my letters have miscarried. I therefore pray that either Mr. Disney, or any other whom you shall think meet, may forthwith conduct my said Lord hither or to a place within three miles, near Maidenhead Bridge, where Lord Oxford is. It is called Hitcham next to Burnham. / In my letter to my cousin Disney, I offered this manner of journey for my Lord—first to my house near Stamford, next to Sir Robert Tyrwhitt’s house or Mr. Cromwell’s near Huntingdon, on the third day to Sir Robert Chester’s near Royston, on the fourth either to Mr. Sadler’s or to my house by Waltham. I would meet him at Mr. Sadler’s, or at my own house. Because the charge is mine, beside mine own good will to that house, I cannot forbear to be somewhat curious herein. If it shall be thought meet for my Lord to come by Northampton, let him be led to lodge in gentlemen’s houses and not in any inns for danger of sickness. / If the things necessary for his chamber and for his own person cannot be brought with him or before him, I shall make some shift to content his Lordship, although I lodge in another man’s house and am somewhat distant from mine own. I will give order for the payment of the charge sustained by you since the death of my Lord’s father, as also for his conduction hither. I thank you for your token of the New Year. (HMC 1.89)

A month later, on May 14, 1571, George Delves, writing from the Court to the Earl of Rutland in France, gives us one of our brief glimpses of Oxford:

Lord Oxford has performed his challenge at tilt, turn, and barriers far above the expectation of the world, and not much inferior to the other three challengers. Their furniture was very fair and costly. The Earl’s livery was crimson velvet, very costly. / He himself and the furniture was in some more colors, yet he was the Red Knight. Charles Howard was the White Knight; Sir Henry Lee the Green Knight. Mr. Hatton was the Black Knight, whose horses were all trimmed with caparisons of black feathers, which did passing well. There were twenty-seven defendants, whereof your servant was one. Twenty-six of them were fair and gallantly furnished, Lord Stafford and Lord Harry Seymour the chief. Henry Grey had the prize for the tilt, Lord Harry for the turn, Thomas Cecil for the barriers. Some there be that think they had not therein right judgment . . . . (HMC 1.92)

A month later Delves gives us another snapshot in writing again to Rutland: “There is no man of life and agility in every respect in Court, but the Earl of Oxford” (HMC 1.94). A month after that (July 28, 1571), comes another snapshot from Lord St. John, writing to Rutland:

The Earl of Oxenford hath gotten him a wife—or, at the least, a wife hath caught him—that is Mrs. [Mistress] Anne Cecil, whereunto the Queen hath given her consent, the which hath caused great weeping, wailing, and sorrowful cheer of those that hoped to have had that golden day. (HMC 1.94)

And the month after that, August 15, 1571, Lord Burghley writes to the Earl of Rutland, still at Paris:

I think it doth seem strange to your Lordship to hear of a purposed determination in my Lord of Oxford to marry with my daughter, and so before his Lordship moved it to me might I have thought it, if any other had moved it to me than himself. For at his own motion I could not well imagine what to think, considering I never meant to seek it, nor hoped of it. . . . Now that the matter is determined betwixt my Lord of Oxford and me, I confess to your Lordship I do honor him as much as I can any subject, and I love him so dearly from my heart as I do mine own son. . . . And surely, my Lord, by dealing with him I find that which I often heard of your Lordship, that there is much more in him of understanding than any stranger to him would think. And for mine own part, I find that whereof I take comfort. (HMC 1.95)

Two days later, on August 17, Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex writes to Rutland: “I doubt not you hear of a marriage concluded between my Lord of Oxford and my Lord of Burghley’s daughter” (HMC 1.96).

Five years later, in January 1576: Maid of Honor Eleanor Bridges writes to Rutland: “Lady Mary de Vere, sister of the Earl of Oxford, is sworn one of the Privy Chamber. The court is as full of malice and spite as when you left” (HMC 1.107).

On February 15, 1577: R. Brakinbury writes from the Court to the Earl of Rutland:

I hope to see you here this merry Shrovetide. Mrs. Borow makes her offering on Monday next. This will be a long Lent to Lady Mary Vere and Mrs. [Mistress] Sidney, for at Easter consummatum erit. I hope that two of your kinswomen will take up two more noblemen, as Mrs. Paston Lord Stourton and Mrs. Chaworth Lord Gormanston. Our new maids have not entered yet in love, but our old choose new servants because they wax merry. The last from Flanders says that it is yet likely to be peace, but I believe it not. France is in garboil [discord] in each part. We hear nothing yet from Sir John Smith in Spain. For all this in France there is nothing in the Court but dancing and triumphing by day and almost nightly executions. God amend them! Lord and Lady Talbot are here. Lord Pembroke is much made of and lodged in the house; Lord Oxford in the old sort [his usual accommodation] (HMC 1.110–11).

“Mistress Sidney” was Mary Sidney, soon to marry the Earl of Pembroke.

The following year, November 11, 1577, Thomas Screven writes to Rutland from London:

. . . The marriage of the Lady Mary Vere is deferred until after Christmas, for as yet neither has Her Majesty given license, nor has the Earl of Oxford wholly assented thereto. (HMC 1.115)

Six years later, on May 27, 1583, Roger Manners writes from Greenwich to his uncle:

I make myself ready to wait on her Majesty at Theobalds where, it is thought, Lord Oxford will work some grace. We are not likely to have any great progress this year. The Lord Chamberlain yet lives, but there is no great hope of his recovery. (HMC 1.150)

The Lord Chamberlain was Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex. It is thought that Sussex was Oxford’s mentor and role model during his early years at Court.

A few days later, on June 2, Roger Manners writes from the Savoy to his uncle:

Her Majesty came yesterday to Greenwich from my Lord Treasurer’s. She was never in any place better pleased and sure the house, garden and walks may compare with any delicate place in Italy. The day she came away, which was yesterday, my Lord of Oxford came to her presence, and after some bitter words and speeches, in the end all sins are forgiven and he may repair to the court at his pleasure. Mr. Raleigh was a great mean herein, whereat Pondus is angry for that he could not do so much. (HMC 1.150)

The “bitter speeches” were no doubt due to the reason for his banishment from Court, his impregnation three years earlier of Ann Vavasor, Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen. This letter contains the only known reference to William Cecil as “Pondus” (Altrocchi 10).

There is also a narrative of the treason trial (February 19 to March 5, 1601) of the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Oxford being listed as one of twenty-seven judges (HMC 1.370–1).

No smoking gun was encountered in the analyis of letters at Belvoir Castle to or about Edward Manners or his family. The total lack of letters from de Vere to one who was his companion for a large part of his teen years is a conspicuous void. Surely they wrote to each other during the early 1570s when Oxford was at Court and Rutland was in Paris. That none of these letters survives suggests that they were simply too personal to be allowed to fall into other hands. The likelihood of this is shown by the many letters that survive from this period inscribed: “burn this.”

Difficulties in Further Manners Research

Quite obviously, what is not considered meaningful in one historical epoch may carry immense significance to a future generation. It is not impossible that what the Historical Manuscript Commission excluded during their incomplete transcription of letters could include important information relevant to the authorship debate. It should be clear that for purposes of Oxfordian research, every letter in the Manners collection during the years from 1563 through 1587 should be reviewed in its original form and entirety. Unfortunately, that may not be possible any time soon.

All Manners family letters are now bound in chronological volumes. In 1888 an index was published entitled, The Manuscripts of His Grace The Duke of Rutland Preserved at Belvoir Castle. Researchers no longer need plow through the accumulated impedimenta of centuries in muniment rooms, attics or stables, but they do need to get special permission for access from the present Duke of Rutland. In recent years this has rarely been granted, and we would not encourage anyone to try at present. As with many English noble homes, scholarly access to the castle is restricted for diverse and often quite valid reasons, varying from a concern about divulging intimate secrets of honored ancestors to concerns over English income tax implications. Access to Belvoir Castle will require some delicate negotiations on the part of researchers with the kind of connections that few Oxfordians have at present.

Though results from the Rutland paper may seem disappointing, the even more disappointing results from the Sidney/Pembroke papers are actually more typical.

The Herbert Family Letters

Wilton House, situated southwest of London near Stonehenge, was the family home of the Earls of Pembroke and, for most of her life, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. Despite an age discrepancy of more than thirty years, in 1575 the widowed second Earl took sixteen-year-old Mary Sidney as his bride. Mary was a fine poet, a gifted and highly cultured woman. She was not only accomplished in French, having translated De Mornay, she was conversant with Italian as well. Her library at Wilton was richly stocked, containing a number of Italian works. All her biographers believe that her reputation as a writer suggests that she wrote far more than was published under her name (Hughes Sidney 71–108).

Beyond their obvious interest in literature and the theatre, Mary and her sons, the “incomparable paire of brethren” for whom Shakespeare’s First Folio was produced, had several obvious connections with the de Vere family. The eldest son, William Herbert, later third Earl of Pembroke, was at one time the leading candidate for the hand of Oxford’s second daughter, Bridget Vere, while his brother Philip, First Earl of Montgomery, later Fourth Earl of Pembroke, married Oxford’s youngest daughter, Susan. Thus Wilton House would seem to be a likely source for smoking guns.

Unfortunately a major house fire in 1647 destroyed all but the center of the east front and most of the contents of the house. Carol Druce, current Wilton House Curator, thinks only part of the first floor was destroyed, not including the muniment room, but states that no one is sure.[3] At the time of the fire, of the four (Mary, her sons and Susan Vere Herbert) only Philip was still alive.

For many years all Pembroke letters and most Wilton House documents have been stored at nearby County Hall, Trowbridge, a temperature controlled facility. But even here there is little to be found,[4] no more than twenty letters from the seventy-two years spanning 1553 to 1625—the period most likely to contain references to de Vere—and no letters at all to the Earls of Pembroke. For the following sixty-three years (1625–1688) there are only twelve letters, all on business matters. None contain a reference to Edward de Vere.

Why the Lack of Herbert Family Personal Letters?

English nobility was for centuries imbued with the importance of keeping family memorabilia, often designating special muniment rooms to harbor documents, both important and trivial. In a highly literary and prominent family in the late 1500s and early 1600s, one would expect a rich muniment harvest. So what happened to the missing Herbert family letters? Alas, no one can say. Fire, such as the 1647 fire that may have destroyed the muniment room of Wilton House, has been a constant threat to these great family archives over the centuries. However, in the case of the Pembroke papers no personal letters exist from after the fire either—not until 1688—so the 1647 fire can’t be the sole cause. It was fire that destroyed their city mansion, Baynard’s Castle, in the great London fire of 1666, which also destroyed another Herbert house in London. The Civil War of 1642 to ’49 brought another kind of threat. An intriguing legal warrant, dated November 3, 1643, from Philip Herbert reads:

These are to will and authorize you that, for their better security in these times of danger and distraction, you fail not to carry all my Evidences and Writings which concern my Estate in your Custody, to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight, there to remain until I give Order for their Removal, and this shall be your Warrant. Given under my Hand & Seal the 3rd of November 1643. To my Auditor Mr. Thomas Dennett

Pembroke & Montgomery (WSRO 2057/E1/1)

On the outside of the warrant is written the subject of the document: “Endorsed. My Lord wrote for sending Away his Evidences at Wilton into the Isle of Wight.” The Isle of Wight is just off the southern coast of England, not far from Wilton. From 1642 to 1647, Philip Herbert was Governor of Carisbrooke Castle, which is so secure that it was used by Cromwell’s Parliamentarians in 1647 to house King Charles I for eleven months prior to his execution. Today the castle is preserved as an important historical monument.

Had muniments been sent to Carisbrooke Castle in 1643 for safe-keeping they would have escaped the Wilton House fire of 1647. The present castle curator, however, states confidently that all castle rooms have been searched a number of times and no Pembroke or Herbert family documents have been found.[5]

In sum, this search of Herbert family archives was negative. Wilton House, the family seat since 1542, contains no letters from Edward de Vere or concerning him, nor does the Trowbridge storage facility, nor does Carisbrooke Castle. And so far the search of HMC files for letters mentioning de Vere in all other noble houses except those at Robert Cecil’s Hatfield House, already repeatedly analyzed, has yielded only one letter to him (in French) and six letters that mention him, none of them containing a smidgeon of evidence linking him to the works of Shakespeare.

This research discovered significantly fewer references to Edward de Vere than Oxfordians might postulate for their literary giant of the Elizabethan Golden Age of Language and Literature. Yet, despite this negative yield, it is altogether possible that there are still important Oxfordian secrets undiscovered among the letters and documents of England’s noble families. Oxfordians are encouraged to get involved in this type of historical literary sleuthing. .

Endnotes

These and many other archives, such as the county record offices, can be located on the Historical Manuscripts Commission web site: www.national archives.gov.uk or http://www.hmc.gov.uk [?]
The original letter in its entirety is as follows:
Monseigneur, je desire infiniement de vous faire paroistre par quelque effect l’honneur que je vous porte, ayant esté toujours bien veu de vous; mais d’autant que je n’ay trouvé encores aucun subject [sic] assez digné de vous divertir de vos plus serieux affaires, je n’osoy prendre la hardiesse do vous escrire, de peur d’estre trop mal advisé de vous importuner de lettres qui ne meriteroyent pas d’estre seulement overtes: si non en ce qu’elles vous asseureroyent de l’éternelle service que je vous ay vouë et a toute votre maison; vous suppliant très humblement, Monsieur, de l’avoir pour agréable et de me tenir pour celui qui est prest de recevoir vos commandemens de telle devotion que je seray toute ma vie vostre très humble serviteur et neveu.
Thanks to Julia Altrocchi Slatcher, Catherine Pettit and Bret Helvig for help with the translation, including some medieval French words.[?]
Personal communication from Carol Druce, Librarian and Custodian of Wilton House documents, 2002. [?]
Personal communication from Steve Hobbs, Archivist, County Hall, Trowbridge, England, 2002. [?]
Personal communication from Rosemary Cooper, Curator of Carisbrooke Castle, April, 2004. [?]

Works Cited

Abbreviations

EB Encyclopedia Brittanica. 1970.

HMC Historic Manuscripts Commission

WSRO Wiltshire Shropshire Record Office

WNID Websters New International Dictionary. 2nd Ed. 1934.

Books and Articles

Altrocchi, Rudolph. Sleuthing in the Stacks. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1944.

Bethell, Tom and Mattus, Irvin. “Looking for Shakespeare.” The Atlantic Monthly 268. 4 (1991) 48–82.

Green, Nina. www.oxford-shakespeare.com

Fowler, William Plumer. Shakespeare revealed in Oxford’s Letters. Portsmouth, NH: Randall, 1986.

Hughes, Stephanie Hopkins. Shakespeare’s Tutors. Unpublished manuscript. 2000.

________________. “No Spring ’till Now: Mary Sidney and the John Webster Canon.” The Oxfordian. 6.2003: 71–108.

Hurstfield, Joel. The Queens Wards. Wardship and Marriage Under Elizabeth I. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1958.

Lyte, H.C. Maxwell. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 12th Report. Appendix. “The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, Preserved at Belvoir Castle.” 1.3–8. London: HMSO, 1888.

Nelson, Alan H. Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Liverpool: LUP, 2003.

________________. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/oxdocs.html.

Ogburn, Charlton Jr. The Mysterious William Shakespeare, The Myth and the Reality. New York: Dodd Mead, 1984.

Read, Conyers. Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth. New York: Knopf, 1961.

Rutland, papers. “The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, Preserved at Belvoir Castle,” Vol. 1. HMC. 1888

Ward, Bernard M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550–1604). London: John Murray, 1928.