DId Christopher Marlowe fake his death?

John Penry the Welsh Martyr

On May 29th in 1593, a Welsh divine with a poor impression of the Church of England was hustled off from dinner to be strung up for sedition.

Dismayed by the poor quality of pastors in his native Wales — men of poor character, poor education, and poor command of Welsh — John Penry was one of many calling for a reformed Episcopal clergy. Critiques of his type formed the germ of the Puritan movement already underway, which would blossom after his death.

Penry would have been around to see all that if he hadn’t hacked off the realm’s chief vicar by running a salty underground press, most notably publishing the pseudonymous Martin Marprelate.

The Oxford man dodged the law for a good three years in the Scottish reaches, until he couldn’t resist moving to London, where (fittingly) a local clergyman recognized him.

The mere draft — nasty, but uncirculated — of a petition sufficed for the condemnation on grounds of sedition, and the annoyed Archbishop had the pleasure of inking his John Hancock on the Welshman’s death warrant.

Penry seems to have had a few friends in high places and some hope of cheating the executioner; he must have been taken by surprise when the sheriff burst in during the late afternoon this day to haul him immediately to a gallows at St. Thomas a Watering — unannounced, the better to keep attendance down,* with the prisoner denied the customary parting speech.

But was Penry’s ill turn a boon to the world of literature?

The day after Penry’s execution, star English playwright Christopher Marlowe was killed in a fray whose timing some find a bit suspicious.

Some enthusiasts think Marlowe faked his death and went on to write Shakespeare under a pen name. And if he did that, his confederates would have needed a body to pass off as Marlowe’s … the body, perhaps, of a man of Marlowe’s age and class who’d just been hanged a couple of miles up the road.

The Truth Will Out Book Review

The Truth Will Out - Unmasking the Real Shakespeare
By Brenda James & William Rubenstein
Regan (Harper Collins) 2006

This book is somewhat scholarly and academic to read. But it is still very interesting. And it gives all the proof that Shakespeare was just a frontman for the real author. Although Shakespeare was very well paid.

The real author was related to Shakespeare through his mother Mary Arden. The real man had a cousin whose mother was from the Arden family.

There is absolutely NO proof whatsoever that William Shakespeare ever travelled to Europe. BUT the real author knew the languages and the traditions and customs of those countries. He also obviously knew the cities of which he wrote. The real author had to have travelled to Europe and spent some time there.

Other names put forward as the Real Author include
Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford - but he died in 1604 which was earlier than Shakespeare),
Sir Francis Bacon (but only by codes found in the plays - codes can be made to fit anything and to say anything).
Kit Marlow (he was killed in a bar brawl in 1593 and is said to have faked his death and moved to Europe - see next post) and lastly
Sir Philip Sidney or his sister Lady Mary Sidney. Philip wrote the Psalms as poems but didnt finish them all before he died. Mary completed her brothers project. But there is no proof that either of them wrote the plays.

But now that I have read The Truth Will Out, I am convinced that this man was the real author. He had the advantages that the other names mentioned did not. This man was NOT of the nobility, although he was descended from nobility. He was not an Earl or a Duke, although he was knighted as a Sir. He spent two years in France as Ambassador for England. He also spent two years in the Tower of London for his involvement in the Essex Rebellion. After he was released from the Tower, his plays became the darker tragedies (there were no more comedies written after 1601).

This man's name was Sir Henry Neville.

Here is some of the evidence from this book.

Neville names himself (covertly) in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Sir Henry’s birth and death dates (1564 - 1615) are virtually identical to those of his pseudonymic front-man, William Shakespeare.

The chronology of the plays meshes with the emergence of Neville’s life events

Sir Henry had many reasons to hide his identity - his political work, family inheritance, even his life, would have been endangered, had he been discovered. So Neville never published anything under his own name; yet he was sought out by his contemporaries - including Beaumont and Fletcher and King James I - for advice on their own writing. Neville must therefore have been a ‘concealed’ writer.

Neville was a well-connected politician, and a close friend of Southampton (dedicatee of The Sonnets). Additionally, the Shakespeares tried to prove a connection between William’s mother, Mary Arden, and the Ardens of Park Hall (Warwickshire), to whom Sir Henry was related by marriage. Neville’s grandfather owned the house in which Mary Arden was born.

Neville had access to restricted sources witnessed in the plays: e.g. the documents of his Plantagenet and other ancestors including John of Gaunt in Richard II, Warwick the King Maker in Henry VI parts II & III, and King Duncan of Scotland in Macbeth. As an officer in the Virginia Company, he was able to use a private letter as a source for The Tempest.

Neville was multi-lingual, (some sources used for the plays were only available in French/Italian/Greek/Spanish etc, which we have no reason to believe Shakespeare knew.)

Neville became French Ambassador at just the time the French-based Henry V was written.

1601 marks an abrupt change in the plays from histories/comedies to the great tragedies. In 1601 Neville was in the Tower - under threat of execution for his part in the Essex Uprising.

The Northumberland Manuscript, discovered in 1867, has Neville’s name and ‘family motto poem’ at the top, plus repeated practising of William Shakespeare's signature lower down.

In 1623, the writer Ben Jonson was involved in putting Shakespeare's name on the First Folio edition of the Plays. Jonson was then employed by a college in London associated with the Neville family. There is an extensive document (written) by Jonson suggesting he knew about the 'front man' arrangement and that he helped promote the fiction of Shakespeare's authorship at the behest of the Nevilles.

The character Falstaff was partly based on Neville himself. Falstaff was initially going to be called 'Oldcastle', an antonymic pun on Neville's (‘New Town’ or ‘New Villa’) name.

Neville was an international trader: this is reflected in The Merchant of Venice and The Comedy of Errors. Neville resided on the Continent (1578 - 1583). Research also proves that he had overwhelming reasons, during those years, to visit the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, and Elsinore (Denmark) in pursuit of his newly-inherited iron and ordnance business.

‘Steel’ is mentioned 74 times in the works; ‘iron’ 48 times; ‘cannons’, and ‘ordnance’ 30 times. The name ‘Touchstone’ (As You Like It ) is metallurgical too. Other such specialised terms - e.g. ‘dross’, ‘unaneal’d’ - are also present. Neville is the only person to combine this knowledge with all other ‘Shakespearean’ attributes. He was an aristocrat/merchant hybrid by ancestry: his father was a ‘royal’ Neville and his mother a ‘merchant’ Gresham. The Neville family business was making weapons.

Neville was the first Englishman to receive forward knowledge about the Count Orsino and his possible visit to the English Court. Only he had time to write Orsino into Twelfth Night.

Neville - unusually for his time - majored in Astronomy at Oxford. Knowledge of Astronomy is present in some of the plays. The Copernican concept of ‘infinite space’ (mentioned in Hamlet) was totally unknown outside of specialised circles in England at the time.

More Authorship Debate Books

I have 2 months to read 3 books about Shakespeare to finish my own challenge. I have recently purchased several books covering the Authorship debate, so I will be reading these.

Three of these books claim that the REAL authors were Christopher Marlowe, Sir Henry Neville or Edward De Vere (Duke of Oxford).

Christopher Marlowe

Sir Henry Neville

Edward De Vere (Duke of Oxford)

Shakespeare's Plays Were Written By A Jewish Woman

Thanks to Shakespeare Geek (see sidebar) for this article.

Here's eight kinds of proof Amelia Bassano was the real Bard

For hundreds of years, people have questioned whether William Shakespeare wrote the plays that bear his name. The mystery is fueled by the fact that his biography simply doesn't match the areas of knowledge and skill demonstrated in the plays. Nearly a hundred candidates have been suggested, but none of them fit much better. Now a new candidate named Amelia Bassano Lanier—the so-called 'Dark Lady' of the Sonnets and a member of an Italian/Jewish family—has been shown to be a perfect fit. Here are eight reasons that are sure to convince you...

See the link above for the 8 reasons why she (might be) the author.

I don't know anything about this at all, I have never heard of Amelia Bassano. I just report whatever I find on the authorship debate. Although I might do a litle research.

If you are wondering why I havent blogged here for a while - there are 2 reasons.

1 Is that I got a new job, and
2 I havent read any new shakespeare books in the last 2 months for this challenge. I have 2 months to go to read 3 books. I better get cracking. How can I not complete my own challenge. (GASP!!). Because I am too busy reading for everyone else's challenges. (LOL)

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson review by Athena

I listened to the audiobook. It's quite a short book about Shakespeare, but it covers many details and the lack there of of William Shakespeare's life. Bill Bryson is an author I've liked for years, and he is consistently an informative and shrewd writer. This was my first time reading a book of Shakespeare's life, but I've been aware of the debates of the doubts of his identity, sexuality, genius, etc. What Bryson sought out to do in the book is to avoid speculation that seems to run rampant among scholars and other biographies about Shakespeare. He evaluates and summarises the small amount of real information about Shakespeare we have at present. The book is a good as a brush up on the Elizabethan and early Jacobite eras. I learned quite a bit about the evolution of the human language, people, dress, and cities of the time. Bryson avoids making any big and blanket statements about the kind of man Shakespeare was, but he does shoot down theories about the idea that William Shakespeare was actually Bacon/ Marlowe/ Earl of Oxford/ your mother, etc. He also provides insights from historians and scholars either directly interviewing them or referencing their work. I think it is a really good introduction to Shakespeare that can provide grounding for further scholarly study about the man and the myth. A quick and recommended read. Crossposted from my blog aquatique.net.

More websites

More New websites about the Authorship debate.

Shakespeare Life and Times
Shakespeare, Marlowe and Hamlet

I am actually looking for more information about Mary Sidney Herbert and her family as well as her writings. I have not decided for or against her yet. I can't really do that until the Shakespeare Challenge starts and I can actually read some books.

Was the Bard a Woman?

Have discovered yet another possible author for the Shakespeare plays, and some new books as well. This new author may be well known to some of you, but not to me. I just found her tonight.

BOOKS
The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare (Hardcover)
by Brenda James (Author), William Rubinstein (Author)
About Sir Henry Neville
-----------------------------------------------------
Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?
By Robin P. Williams
About Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke
Website - Mary Sidney
Blog - Robin Williams Blog
-----------------------------------------------------
Tiger's Heart in Woman's Hide: Volume 1
by Fred Faulkes
Trafford Publishing
ISBN 1-4251-0739-7
Prices US$21.70, C$24.95, EUR17.82, £12.48
Website - Tiger Heart Chronicles

Naively drawn into the question of Shakespeare's authorship, a librarian gathers together the poet's documentary history. He is shocked to discover Elizabethans already knew what and who.

By relating what the bedrock documents of history have to tell us, we can determine that the question of Shakespeare’s authorship arose the moment the poet’s hand was first noticed in 1592 and remained a ‘newsworthy’ matter throughout the period. The record further indicates that Mary Sidney was the best prepared and best positioned to do what Shakespeare would do but that she, as a woman, was barred. But from the beginning it is clear that the poet’s contemporaries understood Mary Sidney to be the force behind the pen.
------------------------------------------------------
Mary Sidney Herbert - Wikipedia
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Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem
(Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies)
by Diana Price
------------------------------------------------------

Shakespeare by Another Name

WOW, Today I received an email from Mark Anderson, author of the book Shakespeare by Another Name. He was extending an invitation for me and my readers (blog and challenge) to join an IM chat about his book next year - in March 2008.

Mr Anderson's book advocates the theory that Edward de Vere was the real author of the Plays, precisely because most of the biographical details found in the plays, more closely fit Edward de Vere's life, not Will Shakespeare's.


I'm the author of one of the books on your Shakespeare Challenge list -- "Shakespeare" By Another Name -- and would like to extend an offer to you and your blog's readers to set up a time for a one- or two-hour long IM chat, say, halfway through the challenge in March sometime. [...] We can set up a public IM chat room that you and I and your blog's readers and my blog's readers could join in on at that time.

If anyone is interested in joing an IM (Instant Messaging) chat with Mr Anderson in March next year, please email me, or leave a comment, so I can arrange a date.

Mr Anderson's Blog is here.

The Shakespeare Debate

Also I am currently reading Players by Bertram Fields (A lawyer who represents most of todays rich & famous in Hollywood). I found a transcript of an interview he did on CNN with Larry King.

CNN interview April 16, 2005

And then Bert Fields, the high-powered entertainment lawyer who's repped everyone from Tom Cruise to Steven Spielberg. Now he's trying to get to the bottom of a 400-year old controversy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We now welcome to LARRY KING LIVE one of my favorite people. He is also my attorney, just for the record, Bert Fields, widely regarded as one of the most prominent entertainment attorneys in the world, author of a terrific new book "Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare." Bert has written novels, wrote another book called "Royal Blood," which was a terrific read. Are you a Shakespearian freak?

BERT FIELDS, ENTERTAINMENT ATTY: No, not really. I'm a history freak.

KING: What led you into this?

FIELDS: I was always curious about whether or not the guy from Stratford really wrote all those poems and plays, because he had almost no education, sixth grade education at best. He could barely write his name. We have six shaky signatures by the guy and yet, the fellow who wrote the poems and plays, spoke French, Italian, Greek and Latin, had great knowledge of legal terminology, naval...

KING: So you're saying it's obvious it wasn't him.

FIELDS: I'm not saying it's obvious but I'm saying...

KING: ... a good indication.

FIELDS: I'm saying it's pretty likely. The guy who wrote the plays had three times the vocabulary of anybody who was alive at the time. It is just -- it's very difficult to conceive of the guy from Stratford who, as far as we know, had never been out of England, knowing all these things. How do you know about foreign cities and foreign customs and etiquette in court?

KING: As you trace it back, was this a tough investigation?

FIELDS: I don't think it was tough. It was a lot of fun doing it. I enjoyed that. The British were great.

KING: getting over there, right.

FIELDS: Oh, yeah. I thought they would be resentful of an American taking on an English icon. They weren't at all. They were just terrific. I went to the College of Arms in Queen Victoria Street. I said, I'd like to look at William Shakespeare's application for a coat of arms. And they said, oh yeah, sure, bring down this box and set it in front of me, there the original documents and the guy says, will you excuse me. I have to go the men's room. And he's leaving me with these multi-billion dollar documents.

KING: Well, what do we know of the bard?

FIELDS: Well, we know, you got to separate the bard who wrote the poems and plays.

KING: And what do know of the man known as the bard?

FIELD: The Stratford guy?

KING: Yes, the Stratford guy.

FIELDS: He was born in '64, 1564. He went to the local grammar school we think. We don't think he finished.

KING: No biography of him?

FIELDS: Oh, there are dozens of biographies, but most of them talk about the guy who wrote the poems and plays and assume that it was the guy from Stratford. If you just look at what we know about the guy from Stratford, born in 1564, probably went to grammar school, got married because his wife was pregnant. She was eight years older than he was. After three years of marriage and three kids, left her, went to London for 12 years and went on the stage, became an actor. Then later in life went back to Stratford and did a lot of kind of petty selfish things. That's one of the problems you have is this guy didn't behave like the fellow who wrote those marvelous plays. He was very litigious. He sued people for a pound and 15 shillings. He hoarded grain so he could up the price at the time of great shortage. He just did all kinds of...

KING: Was he wealthy?

FIELDS: He was more wealthy than you would think an actor would be and yet if you look, there is no record of his ever being paid as a playwright.

KING: No.

FIELDS: No. He did plays for a guy named Henslow (ph) who kept meticulous records of every playwright he ever paid. There is not any record of this guy being paid.

KING: Then it's obvious, how did he get famous? How did he...

FIELDS: Well, it isn't obvious because no one will really ever be able to prove it, one way or another. T.S. Eliot said the best you could hope for in talking about Shakespeare is to be wrong in some new and different way, because you can never prove it. How did, why did this happen? It was not done for a nobleman or an aspiring politician like Francis Bacon.

KING: It wasn't Francis Bacon.

FIELDS: Well it could have been Francis Bacon. It could have been Oxford. It could have been Christopher Marlow. Some people say it was Queen Elizabeth. I don't think so. Wouldn't it be (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to think so. A nobleman or an aspiring politician like Bacon could not write for the public theater. Public theater was disreputable, officially frowned upon.

KING: Low class.

FIELDS: Yeah, you couldn't do it. So a guy like Oxford would write plays for his friends, couldn't do it for the public theater, but if he could find a young, venal actor from Stratford who would pretend that these were his plays and pay him a little money to do this, that would be fine.

KING: And you investigate all this mysterious identity. How old was Shakespeare when he died?

FIELDS: He was 52. That was old in those days.

KING: He did not live a long life by today's...

FIELDS: By today's standard no...

KING: Was he acclaimed in his time?

FIELDS: Oh yes and that's one of the curious things. By the time the Stratford guy died, William Shakespeare, the poet and playwright, was famous and yet when the Stratford guy died, there was no mention that the great Shakespeare had died. Why?

KING: Why?

FIELDS: Because maybe he wasn't the great Shakespeare. How could they not mention that he died? And yet there's nothing, not a word. When other authors died, there are huge, huge outpourings.

KING: Why didn't the person who was writing it, once the acclaim occurred, take credit?

FIELDS: Because it still wasn't done to write for the theater. If you're the Earl of Oxford, you don't want to be famous for writing for the theater.

KING: The Earl of Oxford doesn't want to be known as the guy who wrote "Hamlet."

FIELDS: That's right. He does not. He's doesn't mind if a couple of friends know. He likes that. That's good for his ego, but he can't publicly be known as the guy who writes for the theater. In the case of Christopher Marlowe, there's even a better reason. Christopher Marlowe was wanted. If they found the papers that were attributed to him and were heretical, were blasphemous, he was probably going to be burned at the stake and all of a sudden, he gets into a fight over a check in a restaurant (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and gets killed in this fight. He's with three buddies and all of sudden he's buried. They had a coroner's inquest. It's all covered up. Maybe Christopher Marlowe went to Italy and wrote Shakespeare, maybe.

KING: ...didn't die.

FIELDS: ... didn't die at all. That's one theory.

KING: We'll be right back with more of Bert Fields. The book is "Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare." We'll be right back with Bert Fields.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: His previous book was "Royal Blood," Richard III and the Mystery of the Princesses." It's the Richardian book of the year award from the Richardian Society. And now he brings this attorney's approach to history in "Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare." His name is Bert Fields. He's renowned throughout the entertainment industry. Do you think it may have been two people?

FIELDS: I think it was two people. I think that the basic author, who was a man of enormous learning, widely traveled, a sense of great humanity and a sensitivity, wrote a first draft, maybe a second draft, turned the play over to the front, who was the guy from Stratford and I think the guy from Stratford, who know a lot about the stage. He was a great realist, would say, hey, boss. This don't play. We got to change the ending here in let's say "Merchant of Venice." He said, we're going to make fun of the Jew at the end. You can't just let this guy go and so they added that he has to convert to Christianity, Shylock. When Portia, who makes that great speech about the quality of mercy is not strained and then immediately after, she merciless to Shylock. I think that the Stratford guy added that at the end, the conversion because that would play. The audience loved it.

KING: How did Shakespeare handle his fame?

FIELDS: Well, if you're talking about the Stratford guy...

KING: The Stratford guy. You can him in the book, the Stratford guy.

FIELDS: Well, because if you don't, you get confused. Many people who have written books on the subject say, keep talking about the things that Shakespeare did and they assume they were done by the Stratford man. But...

KING: The Stratford man is the puppet here.

FIELDS: Well, that's the theory. The theory is...

KING: What theory?

FIELDS: Well, as I say, I can't prove it, no one will ever prove it. No one will ever prove the other. But it's just what I think is more logical than not and I think that he went around -- he applied for a coat of armed as I told you, because he wanted to be a gentleman. If you have a coat of arms, then you could be called gentleman and after that, he was William Shakespeare, gentleman and he had a model, not without right and Ben Johnson, who was very funny guy, put on a shoe in which he made fun of Shakespeare and he had a pompous guy to update a coat of arms with the motto not without mustard. And Shakespeare knew this was for him and I suspect he was somewhat upset.

KING: Did the Stratford guy marry?

FIELDS: The Stratford guy married very early in life. I think that's when he left his wife after three years of marriage and went on to live in London, came back to Stratford at the very end, not at the very end, a few years before the end and I guess went back to his wife.

KING: Stories that he might have been the real writer, gay?

FIELDS: Yes. I say yes, not that was definitely gay, but it's a real issue. If you read the sonnets, he's writing to a beautiful young man and he says you're the master, mistress of my passion. Can I compare thee to a summer's day, things like that, which is not -- I don't say that to you when we meet or at least they don't know about it. So many people believe he was gay. Oscar Wilde believed he was gay, but Oscar Wilde was gay.

KING: How great a writer was whoever wrote this?

FIELDS: Incredible. I think he's...

KING: No one in his league.

FIELDS: No one in his league. I think you take those plays and the more I read them, the more I thought, this guy is just amazing.

KING: And we use his language all the time and we're not even knowing it.

FIELDS: All the time.

KING: Shakespeare's quoted every day and in everyday language.

FIELDS: Every day. In court I use it all the time, all the time. There's a wonderful story about a southern trial lawyer who quotes from Shakespeare and says to the jury, the Bible say and he gives a quote from Shakespeare and his friend, who was visiting from New York said, hey, that's Shakespeare. That's not the Bible. And the trial lawyer said, listen, I know my juries and I'm not going to tell them it's Shakespeare.

KING: Do you have two lives Bert.

FIELDS: At least.

KING: You're a lawyer by day, writer by night.

FIELDS: Writer by night.

KING: How do -- with all your clients and as busy as you are, how do you get the time?

FIELDS: I do it mostly weekends, vacations and occasional trips to London to do the research. I just love it and it's a hobby.

KING: Working on another one?

FIELDS: I'm about to start.

KING: On?

FIELDS: Television interviewers.

KING: What fascinates you about Richard III, Shakespeare? Why?

FIELDS: Mysteries -- they're historical mysteries. Remember Richard III, there was a big mystery. Did he kill his nephews in the tower of London? Was he this hunchbacked withered guy and so I wanted to find out if he really was and I paced the tower of London, did all kinds of stuff like that. But solving the mystery is part of the fun. As far as why English, because it's my basic language and I would hate to try and do research in French, because my French really extends to French plumbing and eating.

KING: Is it true that the actors have said, you can never really play Shakespeare? I mean you can attempt to. You can't master it.

FIELDS: I think people can master it. What's interesting about it is the really great rolls have so much room for interpretation. You take a role like Shylock. We were talking before. I mean Shylock has been played all the way from a monster.

KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

FIELDS: hugely sympathetic guy and you can read all...

KING: The same language.

FIELDS: The same language, the same words, the same lines and everything but you can interpret those lines in different ways and that's what's great about Shakespeare.

KING: Bert, it's an honor having you with us.

FIELDS: A pleasure to be with you Larry.

KING: The book is "Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare," written by one of the best lawyers there is, Bert Fields. It's published by Regan Books. More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)