just when I thot I'd already read the most ridiculous topic on nairaland I came across this one,

Isn't it OBVIOUS that you can spell ANYTHING with the bibles words? from your same Ps 46:


  [center]1G[b]O[/b]d is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trou[b]B[/b]le.
2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be remo[b]V[/b]ed, and though the mounta[b]I[/b]ns be carried int[b]O[/b] the midst of the sea;
3Tho[b]u[/b]gh the water[b]S[/b] thereof roar and be troubled, though the mount[b]A[/b]i[b]N[/b]s shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the cit[b]Y[/b] of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
5 God is wi[b]TH[/b]in her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, k[b]ING[/b]doms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
[/center]

 all other people who don't believe in the bible, that's your own kobo but at least show some respect instead of insinuating dogs could have co-written it and black people are stupid because they believe in it.

  Lafile:
   

Where is the Hiss icon?

 that was the funniest, most concise, brilliant response to a frivolous question I've seen on nairaland!

who cares , na the word of God wey dey bible be the dicoko

Is this Kuns Guy for real?
This guy just closes his eyes and types whatever his fingers touch on the keyboard. Mkaes claims with no proof.

The reason is so you can say well tynsdale died before the buybill (bible) was written.

The bible was first published in 1611, and authorised by King James, and translated by William Shakespare in Shakespearian English. William Tyndale was simply a front for the British freemasonary who planted information in public domains to deceive the illiterate masses.

The KJV not the Bible was written after the Death of Tyndale (and its Tyndale not Tynsdale)

Some of us are truly Niggers from the word "Necro" meaning dead

The English Dejorative term Nigger originates from the Spanish Negro and French Negre both of which originate from the Latin Niger which means Black. Simple. It can be found in the Bible. Check Acts 13:1.

William Tynsdale is a facticious character that was created by British freemasonary (Scottish Rites 32 degrees) to deceive and confuse you just like it is doing now. They planted this information (William Tynsdale 1494–October 6, 1536) there too confuse people, the illerate public, who are easily deceived.

The only person living is deception is conspiracy theorist kuns.

Another name of the devil is beliar and he gives you beliefs , or believe (be-lieing-to-eve) or be-lieing-to-the-descendants-of-eve which is who the negroid is.

You really have to laff at his play or words.

Kuns, do you have any more lies to offer?

shake+spare = shakespare

how nice


selah and amen are not counted while u take "i", "will" and "am"
whose rules would that be ?
the last time i checked, they were words just like shake and spare.

this is so pitiful ! how much do u guys get for putting up this sort of front !

@lafile & wormedup,

Please tell those [b]s[/b]hildren!

The Works (Play acting) of Josephus Flavius Piso is what is known as the New testament today.

There is ample evidence to support these facts.

http://www.konformist.com/blasphemy/piso.htm

http://www.fargonasphere.com/piso/

Don't believe me, do your own research.

Do you know who Josephus Flavius Piso was?

You will realize that it is you lot who has been made insane to base your live of a play?

Africans are the most gullible and ignorant people on the planet?
They believe everything and know nothing?
What, you think your slave master gave you this re-legion to really help you?
He was only trying to help himself to what you have, when are you people going to wake up from the spell of ignorance?

At the end of the day your Jesus (Eh- Zeus) has not come back yet,
While Religious Priest are still raping and molesting little children,
and Africa is still at the bottom of the pile when it come to world affairs,
so I have no time to SUGAR-COAT the facts.

@Kuns,

Lol. Nice try, but not smart enough. Those weblinks are the works of the same racist pretenders who twist events and words to their own ends. Please don't make us laugh.

Everyone (people of other races) knows this, except the negroids ,  If we go to Psalms 46 we can clearly see where William Shakespeare (William Tynsdale) left his make.


  1: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2: Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3: Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
4: There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
5: God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6: The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
7: The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
8: Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
9: He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10: Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11: The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

In bold you can clearly see the name William Shakespeare

Everyone (people of other races) knows this, except the negroids ,  If we go to 1 Kings 10;28 we can clearly see where kuns (Kunle Orejobi) left his make.

"Solomo[b]n's[/b] horses were imported from Egypt and from Ku[/b]e —the royal mercha[b]n[/b]t[b]s purchased them from Ku[/b]e"

In bold you can clearly see the name [b]kuns (ku + ns) (he even wrote it twice in one verse! )

Oh, now I get it! 

@ricadelide,

Since Kuns had re-arranged his fables to pretend that Williams Skakespeare left his mark in the KJV of the Bible, you decided to help us see that Kuns (ku + ns) also left his mark in the BBE of the Bible.

Well, this is another one on me O!  Somebody just told me that if you look at the same I kings 10:28 of the ASV (A[/b]merican [b]S[/b]tandard [b]V[/b]ersion) you will find where [b]Horus left his mark as well! Let's try counting forward:

              'And the hor[/b]ses which Solomon had were bro[b]u[/b]ght out of Egypt;
              and the king'[b]s merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price.'

Arrange the letters now:  hor + u' + s = Horus!


Now let's try counting backwards in the same verse in still the ASV:

               'And the horse[b]s[/b] which Solomo[b]n[/b] had were brought o[b]u[/b]t of Egypt;
               and the k[/b]ing's merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price.'

Arrange the letters now counting backwards:  [b]K + u' + N + S = Kuns!

Can anyone see how Horus and Kuns are both pretending to have left their marks in 1 Kings 10:28 of the ASV? 

@pilgrim
LOL, i decided to repay him in his own coin, just to show him how ridiculous his assertions sound.
And you even took it to another level - now we know that both horus and kuns 'left their make' (sic) in the bible!!
hopefully, he(they?) would get the message

murder !

fly guillotine m8 !!!

I have heard the same thing a member of the 5% NATION actually showed it to me baC in 1999 or 2000 and I can't remember exactly where it was that he showed me so I can't say that it is true but who ever came up with it if it's not true is very brilent . And if I remember correctly it was the first five letters of the first word spelled the first name and the last five letters of the same five words spelled the last name so I am a witness to that since every one is coming at homie head trying to make it like he's crazy he isn't !!!

@Kuns: Your facts are upside down. If what the op has written is correct, then it would be very consistent with character of the man who translated the bible for king james. While it is quite true that it was indeed the same man that wrote shakespear, that man was a polymath and a great genius of his time. That man was non other than Sir Francis Bacon.
William Shakespear just happens to be the fictitious character in this story.The Shakespearian plays did so much to enrich the english language(by more 60%) and culture ,so much so that a personal history was contrived just to give historical substance to an otherwise fictitious character dreamt up by sir Francis Bacon.
It is assumed that Francis Bacon wrote the shakespearian plays under a false name in order not to face persecution for his satirical attacks on the royal courts of Europe.
Sir Francis Bacon was known to consistently use anagrams in all his literary works, including the bible, as the op has shown.

The Real william shakspear(note the difference in spelling) was a tailor,illiterate, and never travelled out of his village. While searching for the mysterious william shakespear, royal historians came across the death certificate of man bearing william shakspear who lived in the same period. So they simply added salt and pepper, and , VoiLa! we have a new Willam Shakespear tailored to fit the new found fame and status of the fictitious nom de plume of Sir Francis Bacon.

Shakespeare spelt backwards reads = Eraepsekahs . Is that in the bible ? Mba.

Per Sir Francis Bacon "the genius". http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Meditationes_sacrae#Of_Atheism

OF THE MIRACLES OF OUR SAVIOUR.


"He hath done all things well."

A true confession and applause. God when he created all things saw that every thing in particular and all things in general were exceeding good; [b]God, the Word, [/b]in the miracles which he wrought, (now every miracle is a new creation, and not according to the first creation,) would do nothing which breathed not towards men favour and bounty: Moses wrought miracles, and scourged the Egyptians with many plagues: Elias wrought miracles, and shut up heaven, that no rain should fall upon the earth; and again brought down from heaven the fire of God upon the captains and their bands: Elizeus wrought also, and called bears out of the desert to devour young children: Peter struck Ananias, the sacrilegious hypocrite, with present death; and Paul, Elymas, the sorcerer, with blindness; but no such thing did Jesus, the Spirit of God descended down upon him in the form of a dove, of whom he said, "You know not of what spirit you are." [b]The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of a dove; those servants of God were as the oxen of God treading out the corn, and trampling the straw down under their feet; but Jesus is the Lamb of God, without wrath or judgments; all his miracles were consummate about man's body, as his doctrine respected the soul of man: the body of man needeth these things; sustenance, defence from out ward wrongs, and medicine; it was he that drew a multitude of fishes into the nets, that he might five unto men more liberal provision: He turned water, a less worthy nourishment of man's body, into wine, a more worthy, that glads the heart of man: He sentenced the fig-tree to wither for not doing that duty whereunto it was ordained, which is, to bear fruit for men's food: He multiplied the scarcity of a few loaves and fishes to a sufficiency to victual an host of people: He rebuked the winds that threatened destruction to the seafaring men: He restored motion to the lame, light to the blind, speech to the dumb, health to the sick, cleanness to the leprous, a right mind to those that were possessed, and life to the dead. No miracle of his is to be found to have been of judgment or revenge, but all of goodness and mercy, and respecting man's body; for as touching riches he did not vouchsafe to do any miracle, save one only, that tribute might be given to Cæsar.
[/b]

By the way the same Francis Bacon is also being discussed here: https://www.nairaland.com/926406/christ-foundation/1#10758552

Oh by the way, there is also the little matter of the below.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Meditationes_sacrae#10

OF ATHEISM.


"The fool hath said in his heart there is no God."

First, it is to be noted, that the Scripture saith, "The fool hath said in his heart, and not thought in his heart;" that is to say, he doth not so fully think it in judgment, as he hath a good will to be of that belief; for seeing it makes not for him that there should be a God, he doth seek by all means accordingly to persuade and resolve himself, and studies to affirm, prove, and verify it to himself as some theme or position: all which labour, notwithstanding that sparkle of our creation light, whereby men acknowledge a Deity burneth still within; and in vain doth he strive utterly to alienate it or put it out, so that it is out of the corruption of his heart and will, and not out of the natural apprehension of his brain and conceit, that he doth set down his opinion, as the comical poet saith, "Then came my mind to be of mine opinion," as if himself and his mind had been two divers things; therefore the atheist hath rather said, and held it in his heart, than thought or believed in his heart that there is no God; secondly, it is to be observed, that he hath said in his heart, and not spoken it with his mouth. But again you shall note, that this smothering of this persuasion within the heart cometh to pass tor fear of government and of speech amongst men; for, as he saith, "To deny God in a public argument were much, but in a familiar conference were current enough:" for if this bridle were removed, there is no heresy which would contend more to spread and multiply, and disseminate itself abroad, than atheism: neither shall you see those men which are drenched in this frenzy of mind to breathe almost any thing else, or to inculcate even without occasion any thing more than speech tending to atheism, as may appear in Lucrecius the epicure, who makes of his invectives against religion as it were a burden or verse of return to all his other discourses; the reason seems to be, for that the atheist not relying sufficiently upon himself, floating in mind and unsatisfied, and enduring within many faintings, and as it were fails of his opinion, desires by other men's opinions agreeing with his, to be recovered and brought again; for it is a true saying, "Whoso laboureth earnestly to prove an opinion to another, himself distrusts it:" thirdly, it is a fool that hath so said in his heart, which is most true; not only in respect that he hath no taste in those things which are supernatural and divine; but in respect of human and civil wisdom: for first of all, if you mark the wits and dispositions which are inclined to atheism, you shall find them light, scoffing, impudent, and vain; briefly of such a constitution as is most contrary to wisdom and moral gravity.

Secondly, amongst statesmen and politics, those which have been of greatest depths and compass, and of largest and most universal understanding, have not only in cunning made their profit in seeming religious to the people, but in truth have been touched with an inward sense of the knowledge of Deity, as they which you shall evermore note to have attributed much to fortune and providence.

Contrariwise, those who ascribed all things to their own cunning and practices, and to the immediate, and apparent causes, and as the prophet saith, "Have sacrificed to their own nets," have been always but petty counterfeit statesman, and not capable of the greatest actions.

Lastly, this I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy, and the first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading deep into it, will bring about men's minds to religion; wherefore atheism every way seems to be combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools than this, "There is no God"

plaetton: @Kuns: Your facts are upside down. If what the op has written is correct, then it would be very consistent with character of the man who translated the bible for king james. While it is quite true that it was indeed the same man that wrote shakespear, that man was a polymath and a great genius of his time. That man was non other than Sir Francis Bacon.
William Shakespear just happens to be the fictitious character in this story.The Shakespearian plays did so much to enrich the english language(by more 60%) and culture ,so much so that a personal history was contrived just to give historical substance to an otherwise fictitious character dreamt up by sir Francis Bacon.
It is assumed that Francis Bacon wrote the shakespearian plays under a false name in order not to face persecution for his satirical attacks on the royal courts of Europe.
Sir Francis Bacon was known to consistently use anagrams in all his literary works, including the bible, as the op has shown.
The Real william shakspear(note the difference in spelling) was a tailor,illiterate, and never travelled out of his village. While searching for the mysterious william shakespear, royal historians came across the death certificate of man bearing william shakspear who lived in the same period. So they simply added salt and pepper, and , VoiLa! we have a new Willam Shakespear tailored to fit the new found fame and status of the fictitious nom de plume of Sir Francis Bacon.

How did you come about this interesting piece of information?

Martian:

How did you come about this interesting piece of information?

I hve read many books and articles on the subject. The historicity of William Shakespear has always been in doubt. Whenever you have mystery and doubts,one uses conjectues to an attempt to fill in the gaps.

There are much info on this subject.

http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323

From the above link, it is obvious that the William Shakespear that we have al heard of was probably a fictitious character.
What do you think.

Here is another link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baconian_theory



The Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher, essayist and scientist, wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare, and that the historical Shakespeare was merely a front to shield the identity of Bacon, who could not take credit for the works because being known as a lowly playwright for the public stage would have impeded his ambition to hold high office.

Bacon was the first alternative candidate suggested as the true author of Shakespeare's plays. The theory was first put forth in the mid-nineteenth century, based on perceived correspondences between the philosophical ideas found in Bacon’s writings and the works of Shakespeare. Legal and autobiographical allusions and cryptographic ciphers and codes were later found in the plays and poems to buttress the theory. All but a few academic Shakespeare scholars reject the arguments for Bacon authorship, as well as those for all other alternative authors.

The Baconian theory gained great popularity and attention in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, although since the mid-twentieth century the primacy of his candidacy as the true author of the Shakespeare canon has been supplanted by that of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Despite the academic consensus that Shakespeare wrote the works bearing his name and the decline of the theory, supporters of Bacon continue to argue for his candidacy through organizations, books, newsletters, and websites.





Contents
[hide] 1 Terminology
2 History of Baconian theory
3 Autobiographical evidence
4 Credentials for authorship
5 The Tempest
6 Gray's Inn revels 1594–95
7 Verbal parallels 7.1 Gesta Grayorum
7.2 Promus
7.3 Published work

8 Raleigh's execution
9 Critical reception
10 References
11 Notes
12 External links


[edit] Terminology

See also: Spelling of Shakespeare's name

Sir Francis Bacon was a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618). Those who subscribe to the theory that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare work generally refer to themselves as "Baconians", while dubbing those who maintain the orthodox view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them "Stratfordians".

Baptised as "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere" (William son of John Shakspere), the traditionally-accepted author used several variants of his surname during his lifetime, including "Shakespeare". Baconians use "Shakspere"[1] or "Shakespeare" for the glover's son and actor from Stratford, and "Shake-speare" for the author to avoid the assumption that the Stratford man wrote the work.

[edit] History of Baconian theory

A pamphlet entitled The Story of the Learned Pig (c1786) and alleged research by James Wilmot have been claimed to be the earliest instances of the claim that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's work, but the Wilmot research has been exposed as a forgery and the pamphlet makes no reference to Bacon.[2]

The idea was first proposed by Delia Bacon in lectures and conversations with intellectuals in America and Britain. William Henry Smith was the first to publish the theory in a letter to Lord Ellesmere[3] published in the form of a sixteen-page pamphlet entitled Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?[4] Smith suggested that several letters to and from Francis Bacon that apparently hinted at his authorship. A year later, both Smith and Delia Bacon published books expounding the Baconian theory, though in Delia Bacon's model Francis worked in collaboration with other writers and scholars.[5][6] In the latter work, Shakespeare was represented as a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, whose agenda was to propagate an anti-monarchial system of philosophy by secreting it in the text.

In 1867, in the library of Northumberland House, one John Bruce happened upon a bundle of bound documents, some of whose sheets had been ripped away. It had comprised numerous of Bacon's oratories and disquisitions, had also apparently held copies of the plays Richard II and Richard III, The Isle of Dogs and Leicester's Commonwealth, but these had been removed. On the outer sheet was scrawled repeatedly the names of Bacon and Shakespeare along with the name of Thomas Nashe. There were several quotations from Shakespeare and a reference to the word Honorificabilitudinitatibus, which appears in Love's Labour's Lost and in Nashe's Lenten Stuff. The Earl of Northumberland sent the bundle to James Spedding, who subsequently penned a thesis on the subject, with which was published a facsimile of the aforementioned cover. Spedding hazarded a 1592 date, making it possibly the earliest extant mention of the Shakespeare.

After a diligent deciphering of the Elizabethan handwriting in Francis Bacon's wastebook, the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, Constance Mary Fearon Pott (1833–1915) noted that many of the ideas and figures of speech in Bacon's book could also be found in the Shakespearean plays. Pott founded the Francis Bacon Society in 1885 and published her Bacon-centered theory in 1891.[7] In this, Pott developed the view of W.F.C. Wigston,[8] that Francis Bacon was the founding member of the Rosicrucians, a secret society of occult philosophers, and claimed that they secretly created art, literature and drama, including the entire Shakespeare canon, before adding the symbols of the rose and cross to their work. William Comyns Beaumont also popularized the notion of Bacon's authorship.

The late 19th-century interest in the Baconian theory continued the theme that Bacon had hidden encoded messages in the plays. In 1888, Ignatius L. Donnelly, a U.S. Congressman, science fiction author and Atlantis theorist, set out his notion of ciphers in The Great Cryptogram.

Baconian theory developed a new twist in the writings of Orville Ward Owen and Elizabeth Wells Gallup. Owen's book Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story (1893–5) claimed to have discovered a secret history of the Elizabethan era hidden in cipher-form in Bacon/Shakespeare's works. The most remarkable revelation was that Bacon was the son of Queen Elizabeth. According to Owen, Bacon revealed that Elizabeth was secretly married to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who fathered both Bacon himself and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the latter ruthlessly executed by his own mother in 1601.[9] Bacon was the true heir to the throne of England, but had been excluded from his rightful place. This tragic life-story was the secret hidden in the plays.

Elizabeth Gallup developed Owen's views, arguing that a bi-literal cipher, which she had identified in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, revealed concealed messages confirming that Bacon was the queen's son. This argument was taken up by several other writers, notably Alfred Dodd in Francis Bacon’s Personal Life Story (1910) and C.Y.C. Dawbarn in Uncrowned (1913).[10][9] In Dodd's account Bacon was a national redeemer, who, deprived of his ordained public role as monarch, instead performed a spiritual transformation of the nation in private though his work: "He was born for England, to set the land he loved on new lines, 'to be a Servant to Posterity'".[11]

Much later the cryptographers William and Elizabeth Friedman, who spent many years with Mrs.Gallup, showed that the method is unlikely to have been employed.[12]

Friedrich Nietzsche expressed interest in and gave credence to the Baconian theory in his writings. The German mathematician Georg Cantor believed that Shakespeare was Bacon. He eventually published two pamphlets supporting the theory in 1896 and 1897.

Orville Ward Owen had such conviction in his own cipher method that, in 1909, he began excavating the bed of the River Wye, near Chepstow Castle, in the search of Bacon's original Shakespearean manuscripts. The project ended with his death in 1924. Nothing was found.

The American art collector Walter Conrad Arensberg (1878–1954) believed that Bacon had concealed messages in a variety of ciphers, relating to a secret history of the time and the esoteric secrets of the Rosicrucians, in the Shakespearean works. He published a variety of decipherments between 1922 and 1930, concluding finally that, although he had failed to find them, there certainly were concealed messages. He established the Francis Bacon Foundation in California in 1937 and left it his collection of Baconiana.

More recent Baconian theory ignores the esoteric following that the theory had earlier attracted.[13] Whereas, previously, the main proposed reason for secrecy was Bacon's desire for high office, this theory posits that his main motivation for concealment was the completion of his Great Instauration project.[14][15] The argument runs that, in order to advance the project's scientific component, he intended to set up new institutes of experimentation to gather the data (his scientific "Histories" to which his inductive method could be applied. He needed to attain high office, however, to gain the requisite influence,[16] and being known as a dramatist (a low-class profession) would have impeded his prospects (see Stigma of print). Realising that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue",[17] and being "strongly addicted to the theatre"[18] himself, he is claimed to have set out the otherwise-unpublished moral philosophical component of his Great Instauration project in the Shakespearean work (moral "Histories". In this way, he could influence the nobility through dramatic performance with his observations on what constitutes "good" government (as in Prince Hal's relationship with the Chief Justice in Henry IV, Part 2).

[edit] Autobiographical evidence

It is known that, as early as 1595, Bacon employed scriveners,[19] which, one could argue, would protect his anonymity and account for Heminge and Condell, two actors in Shakspeare's company, remarking about Shakspere that "wee [sic] have scarce received from him a blot in his papers".[20] Baconians point out that Bacon's rise to the post of Attorney General in 1613 coincided with the end of Shakespeare the author's output. They also stress that the First Folio was published in a period (1621–1626) when Bacon was publishing his work for posterity after his fall from office gave him the free time.

Henry VIII (1613) may be interpreted as alluding to Bacon's fall from office in 1621, suggesting that the play had been altered at least five years after Shakspere's death in 1616. The argument relates to Cardinal Wolsey's forfeiture of the Great Seal in the play, which might be construed as departing from the facts of history to mirror Bacon's own loss. Bacon lost office on a charge of accepting bribes to influence his judgment of legal cases, whereas Wolsey's crime was to petition the Pope to delay sanctioning King Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Nevertheless, in 3.2.125-8, just before the Great Seal is reclaimed, King Henry's main concern is an inventory of Wolsey's wealth that has inadvertently been delivered to him:
King Henry. [...] The several parcels of his Plate, his Treasure, Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household, which I find at such a proud rate, that it outspeaks Possession of a subject.
A few lines later, Wolsey loses the Seal with the stage direction:
Enter to Cardinal Wolsey the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlaine.
However, in history, only the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk performed this task,[21] and Shakespeare has inexplicably added the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlaine. In Bacon's case, King James "commissioned the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlaine, and the Earl of Arundel, to receive and take charge of it".[22] Given that Thomas Howard was the 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey, then the two noblemen that Shakespeare has added may be construed as references to two of the four that attended Bacon.

[edit] Credentials for authorship

"If we must look for an author outside of Shakespeare himself," said Caldecott, "the only possible candidate that presents himself is Francis Bacon."[23] Proposed the illustrious Shakespearean scholar Horace Howard Furness, "Had the plays come down to us anonymously – had the labour of discovering the author been imposed upon future generations – we could have found no one of that day but Francis Bacon to whom to assign the crown. In this case it would have been resting now upon his head by almost common consent."[24] "He was," agreed Caldecott, "all the things that the plays of Shakespeare demand that the author should be – a man of vast and boundless ambition and attainments, a philosopher, a poet, a lawyer, a statesman."[25]

In relation to the extensive vocabulary used in the plays, we have the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of the first dictionary: "[... A] Dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writing alone".[26] The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley testifies against the notion that Bacon's was an unwaveringly dry legal style: "Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his intellect satisfies the intellect [...]."[27] Ben Jonson writes in his First-Folio tribute to "The Author Mr William Shakespeare",
Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece and haughtie Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
"There can be no doubt," said Caldecott, "that Ben Jonson was in possession of the secret composition of Shakespeare's works." An intimate of both Bacon and Shakespeare – he was for a time the former's stenographer and Latin interpreter, and had his debut as a playwright produced by the latter[28] – he was placed perfectly to be in the know. He did not name Shakespeare among the sixteen greatest cards of the epoch but wrote of Bacon that he "hath filled up all the numbers,[29] and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or to haughty Rome [...] so that he may be named, and stand as the mark[30] and acme of our language."[31] "If Ben Jonson knew that the name 'Shakespeare' was a mere cloak for Bacon, it is easy enough to reconcile the application of the same language indifferently to one and the other. Otherwise," declared Caldecott, "it is not easily explicable."[32]

Some time subsequent to Shakespeare's expiry, Jonson tackled the panoptic task of setting down the First Folio and casting away the originals. This was in 1623, when Bacon had lapsed into penury. Jonson would have been keen to allay his friend's straits, and the folio's yield would have fitted the bill nicely.

In 1645 a satirical poem was published entitled The Great Assizes Holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours. This describes an imaginary trial of recent writers for crimes against literature. Apollo presides at a trial. Bacon ("The Lord Verulam, Chancellor of Parnassus" heads a group of scholars who act as the judges. The jury comprises poets and playwrights, including "William Shakespere". One of the convicted "criminals" challenges the court, attacking the credentials of the jury, including Shakespeare who is called a mere "mimic".

That Bacon took a keen interest in civil history is evidenced in his book History of the Reign of Henry VII (1621), his article the Memorial of Elizabeth (1608) and his letter to King James in 1610, lobbying for financial support to indite a history of Great Britain: "I shall have the advantage which almost no writer of history hath had, in that I shall write of times not only since I could remember, but since I could observe."[33]

Bacon and Shake-speare cover completely the monarchs of the period 1377 to 1603 without duplicating one another's historical ground. In 1623, Bacon gave different excuses to Prince Charles for not working on a commissioned treatise on Henry VIII (which had already been covered by the Shake-speare play in 1613).[34] In the end, he wrote only two pages.

[edit] The Tempest






This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2010)


Numerous scholars[who?] believe that the main source for Shakespeare's The Tempest was a letter written by William Strachey known as the True Reportory (TR)[35] sent back to the Virginia Company from the newly established Virginia colony in 1610, about a year before the play's first known performance.[36] It was discovered when Richard Hakluyt, one of the eight names on the First Virginia Charter (1606), died in 1616 and a copy was found among his papers. Scholars have suggested that the letter was “circulated in manuscript”[37] without restriction and that “there seems to have been an opportunity for Shakespeare to see the unpublished report, or even to have met Strachey”.[38] However, Baconians point to evidence that the letter was restricted to members of the Virginia Council which included Sir Francis Bacon (and 50 other Lords and Earls) but not William Shakspere. For example, Item 27 of the governing Council’s instructions to Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Gates before he set out for the colony charges him to “take especial care what relacions [accounts] come into England and what lettres are written and that all thinges of that nature may be boxed up and sealed and sent to first of [sic] the Council here, ... and that at the arrivall and retourne of every shippinge you endeavour to knowe all the particular passages and informacions given on both sides and to advise us accordingly."[39] Louis B. Wright explains why the Virginia Company was so keen to control information: “[the TR gave] a discouraging picture of Jamestown, but it is significant that it had to wait fifteen years to see print, for the Virginia Company just at that time was subsidising preachers and others to give glowing descriptions of Virginia and its prospects".[40] Baconians argue that it would have been against the interests of any Council member, whose investment was at risk, to present a copy of the TR to Shakspere, whose business was public.

On November 1610, conscious that the criticisms of the returning colonists might jeopardise the recruitment of new settlers and investment, the Virginia Company published the propagandist True Declaration (TD) which was designed to confute “such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise” and was intended to “wash away those spots, which foul mouths (to justify their own disloyalty) have cast upon so fruitful, so fertile, and so excellent a country”.[41] The TD relied on the TR and other minor sources and it is clear from its use of “I” that it had a single author. There are also verbal parallels between (a) the TD, and (b) Bacon's Advancement of Learning[42] that suggest that Sir Francis Bacon as Solicitor General might have written the TD and so, by implication, had access to the TR which sourced The Tempest. Some examples of these are presented together with their correspondence to (c) the Shake-speare work.

Parallel 1
(a) The next Fountaine of woes was secure negligence (b) but to drink indeed of the true fountains of learning (p.121) (c) Thersites. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! (1602-3 Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.305-6)
Parallel 2
(a) For if the country be barren or the situation contagious as famine and sickness destroy our nation, we strive against the stream of reason and make ourselves the subjects of scorn and derision. (b) whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art, as into a cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and derived from thence. (p.293) (c) Timon. Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth, That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive, And drown themselves in riot! (1604-7 Timon of Athens, 4.1.26- Lysander. scorn and derision never come in tears: (1594-5 A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3.2.123)
Parallel 3
(a) The emulation of Cæsar and Pompey watered the plains of Pharsaly with blood and distracted the sinews of the Roman monarchy. (b) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and distrust (p.273) (c) Henry V. Now are we well resolved; and, by God's help, And yours, the noble sinews of our power, France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe, Or break it all to pieces: (1599 Henry V, 1.2.222-5)
William Strachey went on to write The History of Travel into Virginia Britannica, a book that avoided duplicating the details of the TR. First published in 1849, three manuscript copies survive dedicated to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; Sir William Apsley, Purveyor of his Majesty’s Navy Royal; and Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor. In the dedication to Bacon, which must have been composed after he became Lord Chancellor in 1618, Strachey writes “Your Lordship ever approving himself a most noble fautor [supporter] of the Virginia Plantation, being from the beginning (with other lords and earls) of the principal counsel applied to propagate and guide it”.[43]

The 1610–11 dating of The Tempest however, has been challenged by a number of scholars, most recently by researchers Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky[44] who argue that Strachey's narrative could not have furnished an inspiration for Shakespeare, claiming that Strachey's letter was not put into its extant form until after The Tempest had already been performed on 1 Nov. 1611. The notion of an early date for The Tempest has in fact a long history in Shakespearean scholarship, going back to 19th century scholars such as Hunter[45] and Elze,[46] who both critiqued the widespread belief that the play depended on the Strachey letter. However, the cogency of their work has been challenged by Vaughan[47] and Reedy[48] who reaffirm the Strachey letter's use a source for The Tempest.

[edit] Gray's Inn revels 1594–95

Gray's Inn law school traditionally held revels over Christmas: dancing and feasting were complemented by plays and masques. The evidence suggests that, prior to the revels of 1594 and '95, all performed plays were amateur productions.[49] In his commentary on the Gesta Grayorum, a contemporary account of the 1594–95 revels, Desmond Bland[50] informs us that they were "intended as a training ground in all the manners that are learned by nobility [...:] dancing, music, declamation, acting." James Spedding, the Victorian editor of Bacon's Works, thought that Sir Francis Bacon was involved in the writing of this account.[51]





William Shakespeare remunerated for a performance at Whitehall on Innocents Day 1594.
The Gesta Grayorum[52] is a pamphlet of 68 pages first published in 1688. It informs us that The Comedy of Errors received its first known performance at these revels at 21:00 on 28 December 1594 (Innocents Day) when "a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the Players [...]." Whoever the players were, there is evidence that Shakespeare and his company were not among them: according to the royal Chamber accounts, dated 15 March 1595 – see Figure[53] – he and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing for the Queen at Greenwich on Innocents Day. E.K. Chambers[54] informs us that "the Court performances were always at night, beginning about 10pm and ending at 1am", so their presence at both performances is highly unlikely; furthermore, the Gray's Inn Pension Book, which recorded all payments made by the Gray's Inn committee, exhibits no payment either to a dramatist or to professional company for this play.[55] Baconians interpret this as a suggestion that, following precedent, The Comedy of Errors was both written and performed by members of the Inns of Court as part of their participation in the Gray's Inn celebrations. One problem with this argument is that the Gesta Grayorum refers to the players as "a Company of base and common fellows",[56] which would apply well to a professional theatre company, but not to law students. But, given the jovial tone of the Gesta, and that the description occurred during a skit in which a "Sorcerer or Conjuror" was accused of causing "disorders with a play of errors or confusions", Baconians interpret it as merely a comic description of the Gray's Inn players.

Gray's Inn actually had a company of players during the revels. The Gray's Inn Pension Book records on 11 February 1595 that "one hyndred marks [£66.67] [are] to be layd out & bestowyd upon the gentlemen for their sports and shewes this Shrovetyde at the court before the Queens Majestie ...."[57]





Francis Bacon's letter either to Lord Burghley (before 1598) or Lord Somerset (1613) "I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth".
There is, most importantly to the Baconians' argument, evidence that Bacon had control over the Gray's Inn players. In a letter either to Lord Burghley, dated before 1598, or to the Earl of Somerset in 1613,[58] he writes, "I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth [.... T]here are a dozen gentlemen of Gray's Inn that will be ready to furnish a masque".[59][verification needed] The dedication to a masque by Francis Beaumont performed at Whitehall in 1613 describes Bacon as the "chief contriver" of its performances at Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple.[60] He also appears to have been their treasurer prior to the 1594–95 revels.[61]

The discrepancy surrounding the whereabouts of the Chamberlain's Men is normally explained by theatre historians as an error in the Chamber Accounts. W.W. Greg suggested the following explanation:
"[T]he accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber show payments to this company [the Chamberlain's Men] for performances before the Court on both 26 Dec. and 28 Dec [...]. These accounts, however, also show a payment to the Lord Admiral's men in respect of 28 Dec. It is true that instances of two court performances on one night do occur elsewhere, but in view of the double difficulty involved, it is perhaps best to assume that in the Treasurer's accounts, 28 Dec. is an error for 27 Dec."[62]
[edit] Verbal parallels

[edit] Gesta Grayorum





'Greater lessens the smaller' figure from Gesta Grayorum.
The final paragraph of the Gesta Grayorum – see Figure – uses a "greater lessens the smaller" construction that occurs in an exchange from the Merchant of Venice (1594–97), 5.1.92–7:
Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less, A substitute shines brightly as a King Until a King be by, and then his state Empties itself, as doth an inland brooke Into the main of waters ...
The Merchant of Venice uses both the same theme as the Gesta Grayorum (see Figure) and the same three examples to illustrate it – a subject obscured by royalty, a small light overpowered by that of a heavenly body and a river diluted on reaching the sea. In an essay[63] from 1603, Bacon makes further use of two of these examples: "The second condition [of perfect mixture] is that the greater draws the less. So we see that when two lights do meet, the greater doth darken and drown the less. And when a small river runs into a greater, it loseth both the name and stream." A figure similar to "loseth both the name and stream" occurs in Hamlet (1600–01), 3.1.87–8:
Hamlet. With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.
Bacon was usually careful to cite his sources but does not mention Shakespeare once in any of his work. Baconians claim, furthermore, that, if the Gesta Grayorum was circulated prior to its publication in 1688 – and no one seems to know if it was – it was probably only among members of the Inns of Court.[citation needed]

[edit] Promus

In the 19th century, a notebook entitled the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies[64] was discovered. It contained 1,655 hand written proverbs, metaphors, aphorisms, salutations and other miscellany. Although some entries appear original, many are drawn from the Latin and Greek writers Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Ovid; John Heywood's Proverbes (1562); Michel de Montaigne's Essays (1575), and various other French, Italian and Spanish sources. A section at the end aside, the writing was, by Sir Edward Maunde-Thompson's reckoning, in Bacon's hand; indeed, his signature appears on folio 115 verso. Only two folios of the notebook were dated, the third sheet (5 December 1594) and the 32nd (27 January 1595 [that is, 1596]). Many of these entries also appear in Shakespeare's First Folio:

Parallel 1
Parolles. So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus (1603-5 All's Well That Ends Well, 2.3.11) Galens compositions not Paracelsus separations (Promus, folio 84, verso)
Parallel 2
Launce. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living (1589–93, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3.1.307- Now toe on her distaff then she can spynne/The world runs on wheels (Promus, folio 96, verso)
Parallel 3
Hostesse. O, that right should o'rcome might. Well of sufferance, comes ease (1598, Henry IV, Part 2, 5.4.24–5) Might overcomes right/Of sufferance cometh ease (Promus, folio 103, recto)
The orthodox view is that these were commonplace phrases; Baconians claim the occurrence in the last two examples of two ideas from the same Promus folio in the same Shakespeare speech is unlikely.[citation needed]

[edit] Published work

There is an example in Troilus and Cressida (2.2.163) which shows that Bacon and Shakespeare shared the same interpretation of an Aristotelian view:
Hector. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well, And on the cause and question now in hand Have glozed, but superficially: not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy: The reasons you allege do more conduce To the hot passion of distemper'd blood
Bacon's similar take reads thus: "Is not the opinion of Aristotle very wise and worthy to be regarded, 'that young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy', because the boiling heat of their affections is not yet settled, nor tempered with time and experience?"[65]

What Aristotle actually said was slightly different: "Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; [...] and further since he tends to follow his passions his study will be vain and unprofitable [...]."[66] The added coincidence of heat and passion and the replacement of "political science" with "moral philosophy" is employed by both Shakespeare and Bacon. However, Shakespeare's play precedes Bacon's publication, allowing the possibility of the latter borrowing from the former.

[edit] Raleigh's execution

Spedding suggests that lines in Macbeth refer to Sir Walter Raleigh's execution, which occurred two years after Shakespeare of Stratford's death and fourteen years after the Earl of Oxford's.[67] The lines in question are spoken by Malcolm about the execution of the "disloyall traytor / The Thane of Cawdor" (1.2.53):
King. Is execution done on Cawdor? Or not those in Commission yet return'd? Malcolme. My Liege, they are not yet come back, But I have spoke with one that saw him die: Who did report, that very frankly hee Confess'd his Treasons, implor'd your Highnesse Pardon And set forth a deepe Repentance: Nothing in his Life became him, Like the leaving it. He dy'de, As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, As 'twere a carelesse Trifle.(1.4.1)
Several sources have remarked upon Raleigh's frivolity in the face of his impending execution[68][69] and the assertion that "[the Commission who tried him] are not yet come back" could refer to the fact that his execution was swift: it took place the day after his trial for treason.[70] Raphael Holinshed, the main source for Macbeth, mentions "the thane of Cawder [sic] being condemned at Fores of treason against the king"[71] without further details about his execution, so whoever wrote the lines in the play went beyond the original source.

In Raleigh's trial at Winchester on 17 November 1603, his statement was read out: "Lord Cobham offered me 10,000 crowns for the furthering the peace between England and Spain".[72] In 1.2.60-4 of Macbeth, the King's messenger reports on the king of Norway, who has been assisted by the thane of Cawdor:
Rosse. That now Sweno, the Norwayes king, craves composition: Nor would we deigne him burial of his men, Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch, Ten thousand Dollars to our general use.
Shake-speare was known for his use of anagrams (e.g. the character Moth in Love's Labour's Lost represents Thomas Nashe)[73] and here he has altered Cawder to Cawdor, an anagram of "coward". Some Baconians see this as an allusion to Raleigh's poem the night before his execution.[citation needed]
Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout, Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.[74]
Some scholars[75] believe that Macbeth was later altered by Middleton, but a reference to Raleigh's execution would be particularly advantageous to the Baconian theory because Bacon was one of the six Commissioners from the Privy Council appointed to examine Raleigh's case.[76]

But more than one Elizabethan traitor put on a brave show for his execution. In 1793, George Steevens suggested that the speech was an allusion to the death of the Earl of Essex in 1601 (a date that does not conflict with Shakespeare's or Oxford's authorship): "The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stow, p. 793. His asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold are minutely described."[77] As Steevens notes, Essex was a close friend of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton.[78] Essex also employed Bacon as an adviser in the latter's early career in Parliament, until Essex fell out of favour and was prosecuted with Bacon's help.

Most editors of Macbeth simply assume the speech to be fictional and not a deliberate allusion to a specific event.

[edit] Critical reception

Mainstream Stratfordian academics reject the Baconian theory (along with other "alternative authorship" theories), citing a range of evidence – not least of all its reliance on a conspiracy theory. As far back as 1879, a New York Herald scribe bemoaned the waste of "considerable blank ammunition [...] in this ridiculous war between the Baconians and the Shakespearians",[79] while Richard Garnett declared that "Baconians talk as if Bacon had nothing to do but to write his play at his chambers and send it to his factotum, Shakespeare, at the other end of the town."[80]

Mainstream academics reject the anti-Stratfordian claim[81] that Shakespeare had not the education to write the plays. Shakespeare grew up in a family of some importance in Stratford; his father John Shakespeare, one of the wealthiest men in Stratford, was an Alderman and later High Bailiff of the corporation. It would be surprising had he not attended the local grammar school, as such institutions were founded to educate boys of Shakespeare's moderately well-to-do standing.[82]

Stratfordian scholars[who?] also cite Occam's razor, the principle that the simplest and best-evidenced explanation (in this case that the plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford) is most likely to be the correct one. A critique of all alternative authorship theories may be found in Samuel Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives.[83] Questioning Bacon's ability as a poet, Sidney Lee asserted: "[...] such authentic examples of Bacon's efforts to write verse as survive prove beyond all possibility of contradiction that, great as he was as a prose writer and a philosopher, he was incapable of penning any of the poetry assigned to Shakespeare."[84]

At least one Stratfordian scholar claims Bacon privately disavowed the idea he was a poet, and, seen in the context of Bacon's philosophy, the 'concealed poet' is something other than a dramatic or narrative poet.[85] A mainstream historian of authorship doubt, Frank Wadsworth, asserted that the 'essential pattern of the Baconian argument' consisted of:


'expressed dissatisfaction with the number of historical records of Shakespeare's career, followed by the substitution of a wealth of imaginative conjectures in their place.'[86]

[edit] References
Bacon, Delia: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857); The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded
Bacon, Francis: Advancement of Learning (1640)
Bacon, Francis, The Major Works (Oxford University Press: 2002)
Bland, Desmond: Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press, 1968)
Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740–1795
Caldecott, Harry Stratford: Our English Homer; or, the Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy (Johannesburg Times, 1895)
Chambers, Edmund Kerchever: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press: 1945)
Dean, Leonard: Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers, Brian, (ed.): Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick & Jackson: 1972)
Dobson, Michael, and Wells, Stanley, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford University Press: 2005)
Feil, J.P. (1967), "Bacon-Shakespeare: The Tobie Matthew Postscript", Shakespeare Quarterly (Folger Shakespeare Library) 18 (1): 73–76, doi:10.2307/2868068, JSTOR 2868068
Fletcher, Reginald (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (1901)
Friedman, William and Friedman, Elizabeth: The Shakespearian ciphers examined (Cambridge University Press, 1957)
Garnett, Richard, and Edmund Gosse. English Literature: An Illustrated Record. Vol. II. London: Heinemann, 1904.
Heminge, John; Condell, Henry: First Folio (1623)
Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587)
Jonson, Ben: Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell: 1889)
Hall, Joseph: Virgidemarium (1597–1598)
Jardine, Lisa, and Stewart, Alan: Hostage to Fortune, The Troubled Life of Sir Francis Bacon (Hill and Wang: 1999)
Kermode, F. (ed.), The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (London, Methuen: 1958)
Lambeth Palace MS 650.28
Lambeth Palace MS 976, folio 4
Marston, John: The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image And Certaine Satyres (1598)
Michell, John: Who Wrote Shakespeare (Thames and Hudson: 2000)
Morgan, Appleton: The Shakespearean Myth: William Shakespeare and Circumstantial Evidence (R. Clarke, 1888)
New York Herald. 19 September 1879.
Pott, Constance: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (London, Sampson, Low and Marston: 1891); Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott
Pott, Henry; Pott, Constance Mary Fearon: Did Francis Bacon Write "Shakespeare"? (R. Banks & Son, 1893)
Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542, f.107v
Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus posthumus; or, Purchas his pilgrimes (William Stansby, London: 1625)
Shelly, Percy Bysse: Defense of Poetry (1821)
Smith, William Henry: Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth (John Russell Smith, 1857)
Smith, William Henry, letter to Egerton, Francis: Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays? (William Skeffington, 1856)
Spedding, James: "Of the Interpretation of Nature" in Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, 1872
Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872)
Vaughan, V.M., and Vaughan A.T., The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning: 1999)
Various: A Mirror for Magistrates (1559)
Wigston, W.F.C.: Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (1890)
Wigston, W.F.C.: Hermes Stella or Notes and Jottings Upon the Bacon Cipher (London: G. Redway, 1890)
Wright, Louis B., A Voyage to Virginia 1609 (University Press of Virginia: 1904)
Wright, Louis B., The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (Courier Dover Publications: 2002)

[edit] Notes

1.^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 7.
2.^ James Shapiro, "Forgery on Forgery," TLS (March 26, 2010), 14–15. The argument concerning the pamphlet depends on the assumption that the "pig" is a coded reference to the name "bacon".
3.^ PDF download of letter from William Henry Smith to Lord Ellesmere.
4.^ Smith, William Henry: Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays?, a pamphlet-letter addressed to Lord Ellesmere (William Skeffington, 1856).
5.^ Smith, William Henry: Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth (John Russell Smith, 1857).
6.^ Bacon, Delia: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857); The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded.
7.^ Pott, Constance: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (London, Sampson, Low and Marston: 1891); Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott.
8.^ Wigston, W.F.C.: Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (1890).
9.^ a b Helen Hackett, Shakespeare and Elizabeth: the meeting of two myths, Princeton University Press, 2009, pp.157–60
10.^ Michael Dobson & Nicola J. Watson, England's Elizabeth: An Afterlife in Fame and Fantasy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, p.136.
11.^ Alfred Dodd, Francis Bacon's Personal Life Story, London: Rider, 1950, preface.
12.^ Friedman, William and Friedman, Elizabeth: The Shakespearian ciphers examined (Cambridge University Press, 1957).
13.^ Michell, John: Who Wrote Shakespeare (Thames and Hudson: 2000) pp. 258–259.
14.^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.4, p.112 (Bacon comments on whether his idea of compiling Histories (some of which he wrote up himself for the natural sciences) and then applying his inductive method to them, should only apply to natural science or whether Histories were also required for ethics and politics: "It may be asked [...] whether I speak of natural philosophy only, or whether I mean that the other sciences, logic, ethics, and politics, should be carried on by this method. Now I certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all [...]."
15.^ Dean, Leonard: Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers, Brian, (ed.): Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick & Jackson: 1972), p. 219: "Bacon believed that the chief functions of history are to provide the materials for a realistic treatment of psychology and ethics, and to give instruction by means of example and analysis in practical politics."
16.^ Spedding, James: "Of the Interpretation of Nature" in Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, 1872). Bacon writes, "I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the state, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to help me in my work [...]."
17.^ Bacon, Francis: Advancement of Learning (1640), Book 2, p. xiii.
18.^ Pott; Pott: Did Francis Bacon Write "Shakespeare"?, p. 7.
19.^ Lambeth Palace MS 650.28, written in Bacon's hand to his brother Anthony: "I have here an idle pen or two [...] thinking to have got some money this term; I pray send me somewhat else for them to write [...].') Some scholars believe that Anthony and others contributed to the composition of the Shakespearean plays, too, "content to see their work performed and preserved without the beggarly ambition of advertising their names on the title pages". See Caldecott: Our English Homer, pp. 10–11.
20.^ Heminge, John; Condell, Henry: First Folio (1623), dedication "To the great variety of Readers".
21.^ Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587), pp. 796–7: "the king sent the two dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to the cardinal's place at Westminster [...] that he should surrender up the greate [sic] seal into their hands".
22.^ Spedding, James, Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 7, p. 262.
23.^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 11. Caldecott held that the Shakespearean work was of such an incalculably higher calibre than that of such contemporaries as Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, George Peele, Robert Greene, [[John Marston (poet)|]], George Chapman and John Ford that it could not possibly have been the making of any of them.
24.^ Quoted in Morgan: The Shakespearean Myth, p. 201.
25.^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, pp. 11–12.
26.^ Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740–1795, Chapter 13.
27.^ Shelley, Percy Bysshe: Defense of Poetry (1821), p. 10.
28.^ Jonson's familiarity with Shakespeare is further evidenced in his communication with Drummond of Hawthornden.
29.^ Verses.
30.^ Target.
31.^ Jonson, Ben: Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell: 1889), pp. 60–61. (Definitions: number (n.) 1. (plural) verses, lines, e.g. "These numbers will I tear and write in prose", Hamlet II, ii, 119; mark (n.) 1. target, goal, aim, e.g. "that's the golden mark I seek to hit" (Henry VI, Part 2, I, i, 241). Source: Crystal, David; Crystal, Ben: Shakespeare's Words (Penguin Books, 2002).
32.^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 15.
33.^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 6, p. 274.
34.^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 6, p. 267. In a letter to his friend Tobie Matthew, dated 16 June 1623, Bacon writes, "Since you say the Prince hath not forgotten his commandment touching my history of Henry the Eighth, I may not forget my duty. But I find Sir Robert Cotton, who poured forth what he had in my former work, somewhat dainty in his materials in this". In a letter to Prince Charles in late October 1623, he continues, "For Henry the Eighth, to deal truly with your Highness, I did so despair of my health this summer, as I was glad to choose some such work as I might encompass within days: so far was I from entering into a work of any length".
35.^ Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus posthumus; or, Purchas his pilgrimes, (William Stansby, London: 1625), p.1758; in four volumes, beginning page 1734 in vol. IV. Published as Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. 19 (James MacLehose and Sons: 1904). Includes extracts from the True Declaration
36.^ Vaughan, V.M., and Vaughan A.T., The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning: 1999), pp.41
37.^ Dobson, Michael, and Wells, Stanley, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford University Press: 2005), p.470
38.^ Kermode, F. (ed.), The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (London, Methuen: 1958), p. xxviii
39.^ Swem, E.G., (Ed.), “The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London”, in Jamestown 30th Anniversary Historical Booklets 1–4 (Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation: 1957), p.66
40.^ Wright, Louis B., The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (Courier Dover Publications: 2002), p.156
41.^ A True Declaration of the estate of the Colony in Virginia, with a confutation of such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise. Published by advice and direction of the Council of Virginia, London. Printed for William Barret, and are to be sold at the Black Bear in Paul’s Church yard, 1610.
42.^ Bacon, Francis, The Major Works (Oxford University Press: 2002)
43.^ "A True Declaration of the state of the Colony in Virginia with a confutation of such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise" in Wright, Louis B., A Voyage to Virginia 1609 (University Press of Virginia: 1904), p.xvii
44.^ Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited, Stritmatter and Kositsky Review of English Studies, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007; 58, abbreviated Web version
45.^ Hunter, Rev. Joseph, Disquisition on the Scene, Origin, Date & etc. of Shakespeare's Tempest
46.^ Elze, Karl. "The Date of the Tempest" in Essays on Shakespeare, translated with the author's sanction by Dora L. Schmitz. London: Macmillan & Co., 1874
47.^ Vaughan, A., "William Strachey's True Reportory and Shakespeare: A closer look at the evidence", Shakespeare Quarterly, 59(2008), 245–73
48.^ Reedy, T., "Dating William Strachey's a True Reportory", Review of English Studies, Advance access published 16 January 2010
49.^ Chambers, E.K.: The Elizabethan Stage (Clarendon Press, 1945), Vols I-IV. Gordobuc was presented before the Queen at Whitehall on 12 January 1561, written and acted by members of the Inner Temple. Gray's Inn members were responsible for writing both Supposes and Jocasta five years later; Catiline was performed by 26 actors from Gray's Inn before Lord Burghley on 16 January 1588, see British Library Lansdowne MS. 55, No. iv )
50.^ Bland, Desmond: Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press: 1968), pp. xxiv–xxv.
51.^ Spedding, James: The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.1, p. 325: "his connexion with it, [al]though sufficiently obvious, has never so far been pointed out".
52.^ Gesta Grayorum, The History Of the High and Mighty Prince Henry (1688), printed by W. Canning in London, reprinted by The Malone Society (Oxford University Press: 1914)
53.^ Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542, f.107v, p. 40: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, & Richard Burbage, seruants [sic] to the Lord Chamberleyne [sic ...] upon the Councelle's [sic] warrant dated at Whitehall xv. to Marcij [sic] 1595, for twoe severall comedies or enterludes shewed by them before her majestie [sic] in Christmas tyme laste [sic] past viz St. Stephens Day and Innocents Day [...]."
54.^ Chambers, Edmund Kerchever: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press: 1945), p. 225.
55.^ Fletcher, Reginald, (Ed.) The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (1901).
56.^ W.W. Greg (ed.): Gesta Grayorum, p. 23.
57.^ Fletcher, Reginald (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (London: 1901), p. 107.
58.^ Spedding, James, Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, Vol. II (New York: 1890), p.370; Vol. IV (New York: 1868), pp.392–95
59.^ British Library, Lansdown MS 107, folio 8
60.^ Nichols, John: The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, Vol. II (AMS Press Inc, New York: 1828), pp. 589–92.
61.^ Fletcher, Reginald, (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (London: 1901), p.101.
62.^ W.W. Greg (ed.): Gesta Grayorum. Malone Society Reprints. Oxford University Press (1914), p. vi. This theory is echoed by Charles Whitworth (ed.) The Comedy of Errors (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 3.
63.^ Spedding, James: A Brief Discourse tounching the Happy Union of the Kingdom of England and Scotland (1603), in The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 3, p. 98.
64.^ British Library MS Harley 7017. A transcription can be found in Durning-Lawrence, Edward, Bacon is Shakespeare (Gay & Hancock, London 1910).
65.^ Bacon, Francis: De Augmentis, Book VII (1623).
66.^ Ross, W.D. (translator), Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, iii (Clarendon Press, 1908). The translation "political science" is given by Griffith, Tom (ed.): Aristotle: The Nichomachean Ethics (Wordsworth Editions: 1996), p. 5.
67.^ Spedding, James: Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol.6, p. 372.
68.^ Williams, Norman Lloyd, Sir Walter Raleigh (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1962), p. 254. The Dean of Westminster wrote to Sir John Isham, "when I began to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him [...]."
69.^ Spedding, James: Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol. 6, p. 373. Dudley Carelton wrote, "[H]e knew better how to die than to live; and his happiest hours were those of his arraignment and execution."
70.^ Stow, John: Annales, or Generall Chronicle of England (London, 1631), p. 1030.
71.^ Holinshed, Raphael: Chronicles, Vol. V: Scotland (1587 ), p. 170.
72.^ Williams, Norman Lloyd: Sir Walter Raleigh (Eyre and Spottiswoode: 1963), p. 188.
73.^ Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, and Dover Wilson, John, Love's Labour's Lost (Cambridge University Press: 1923), pp.xxi-xxiii
74.^ Raleigh's Remains, (edited 1661), p.258
75.^ Muir, Kenneth (Ed.), Macbeth, The Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning: 2005), p.xxxii
76.^ Spedding, James: The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol. 6 (1872), p. 356.
77.^ George Steevens's 1793 edition of Shakespeare, quoted in A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Vol. 2: Macbeth, ed. Horace Howard Furness (Philadelphia: Lipincott, 1873), p. 44.
78.^ Earls Southampton and Pembroke, to whom the poems of Shakespeare were dedicated, were both friends of Bacon, but there is no evidence (the dedications aside) that Shakespeare knew them. It is a notable fact that the dedication to Southampton was withdrawn from subsequent editions of the poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece", after he had ended his friendship with Bacon, whose involvement in Essex's schemes against the Queen riled him. See Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 12.
79.^ New York Herald 1879.
80.^ Garnett and Gosse 1904, p. 201.
81.^ that the author would have had to have had a keen understanding of foreign languages, modern sciences, warfare, aristocratic sports such as tennis, statesmanship, hunting, natural philosophy, history, falconry and the law to have written the plays ascribed to him. It is therefore significant, say Baconians,[who?] that Bacon, in his 1592 letter to Burghley, claims to have "taken all knowledge to be [his] province".
82.^ T.W. Baldwin, "William Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek", University of Illinois Press, 1944.
83.^ Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives (OUP, New York, 1970)
84.^ Bate, Jonathan, The Genius of Shakespeare, (Picador: 1997), p.88
85.^ Stopes 2003, pp. 65–67
86.^ Wadsworth 1958, p. 17

[edit] External links
The Francis Bacon Society
Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning
The Shakespeare Authorship Page






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Shakespeare authorship question (History)







A series on alternative authorship theories for the works of William Shakespeare






Theories


Declaration of Reasonable Doubt ·
Baconian theory ·
Derbyite theory ·
Oxfordian theory ·
Prince Tudor theory ·
Marlovian theory









Candidates


List of Shakespeare authorship candidates ·
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans ·
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford ·
Sir Edward Dyer ·
Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland ·
Christopher Marlowe ·
Sir Henry Neville ·
William Nugent ·
Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke ·
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby ·
Emilia Lanier ·
Anne Whateley






Supporters


Joseph C. Hart ·
Delia Bacon ·
Orville Ward Owen ·
James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance ·
George Greenwood ·
Mark Twain ·
Abel Lefranc ·
J. Thomas Looney ·
B. M. Ward ·
Alden Brooks ·
Charlton Greenwood Ogburn ·
Calvin Hoffman ·
Charlton Ogburn ·
Roger Stritmatter ·
Mark Anderson ·
Charles Beauclerk ·
Roland Emmerich ·
John Orloff ·
Bertram Fields ·
Henry Albert Seymour

Martian:

How did you come about this interesting piece of information?

Just one of the Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theories that have floated around for long. When you read the post above this you will see there are others, although plaetton gives much prominence to "Bacon is Shakespeare" which he obviously takes very seriously.

This is serious o.

Kuns:

How come everyone except black people know the bible is a fabrication of the truth.

Everyone (people of other races) knows this, except the negroids , If we go to Psalms 46 we can clearly see where William Shakespeare (William Tynsdale) left his make.


1: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2: Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3: Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
4: There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
5: God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6: The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
7: The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
8: Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
9: He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10: Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11: The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

In bold you can clearly see the name William Shakespeare

For the first time in my life, l see Africans as slaves.

Slaves have no mind of their own.

A white boy told you and you picked up your Bible and threw everything away from the chapter only to pick SPEAR AM and I WILL.

Check your name in the Bible you will see it. If its not spelt backwards, check sideways, downwards or even diagonal. You must find it.