Baconian theory
Encyclopedia
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Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, lawyer, philosopher, essayist and scientist, wrote the plays
Shakespeare's plays
William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the 37 plays are divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy; they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being...
conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, 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
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works....
. 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.
Terminology
Sir Francis Bacon was a major scientist, philosopher, courtierCourtier
A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General
Solicitor General for England and Wales
Her Majesty's Solicitor General for England and Wales, often known as the Solicitor General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and the deputy of the Attorney General, whose duty is to advise the Crown and Cabinet on the law...
(1607), Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
(1613) and Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
(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
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
of Stratford
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
wrote them "Stratfordians".
Baptised as "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere" (William son of John Shakspere), the traditionally-accepted author used several variants of his surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
during his lifetime, including "Shakespeare". Baconians use "Shakspere" 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.
History of Baconian theory
A pamphlet entitled The Story of the Learned PigLearned pig
The learned pig was a pig taught to respond to commands in such a way that it appeared to be able to answer questions by picking up cards in its mouth. By choosing cards it answered arithmetical problems and spelled out words. The "learned pig" caused a sensation in London during the 1780s...
(c1786) and alleged research by James Wilmot
James Wilmot
James Wilmot was an English clergyman and scholar from Warwickshire. During his lifetime, he was apparently unknown beyond his immediate circle....
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.
The idea was first proposed by Delia Bacon
Delia Bacon
Delia Bacon was an American writer of plays and short stories, a sister of the Congregational minister Leonard 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
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere
Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere KG, PC , known as Lord Francis Leveson-Gower until 1833, was a British politician, writer, traveller and patron of the arts...
published in the form of a sixteen-page pamphlet entitled Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays? 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. In the latter work, Shakespeare was represented as a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
, 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
Northumberland House
Northumberland House was a large Jacobean mansion in London, which was so called because for most of its history it was the London residence of the Percy family, who were the Earls and later Dukes of Northumberland, and one of England's richest and most prominent aristocratic dynasties for many...
, 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
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
and Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
, The Isle of Dogs
The Isle of Dogs (play)
The Isle of Dogs is a play by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson which was performed in 1597. It was immediately suppressed, and no copy of it is known to exist.-The Play:...
and Leicester's Commonwealth
Leicester's Commonwealth
Leicester's Commonwealth is a scurrilous tract that circulated in Elizabethan England and which attacked Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester...
, 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
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...
. There were several quotations from Shakespeare and a reference to the word Honorificabilitudinitatibus
Honorificabilitudinitatibus
Honorificabilitudinitatibus is the dative and ablative plural of the mediæval Latin word honorificabilitudinitas, which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours". It is mentioned by the character Costard in Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost...
, which appears in Love's Labour's Lost and in Nashe's Lenten Stuff. The Earl of Northumberland sent the bundle to James Spedding
James Spedding
James Spedding was an English author, chiefly known as the editor of the works of Francis Bacon.-Life:He was born in Cumberland, the younger son of a country squire, and was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Trinity College, Cambridge; where he took a second class in the classical tripos, and was...
, 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. In this, Pott developed the view of W.F.C. Wigston, that Francis Bacon was the founding member of the Rosicrucians, a secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
of occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
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
William Comyns Beaumont
William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, was a British journalist, author, and lecturer. Beaumont was a staff writer for the Daily Mail and eventually became editor of the Bystander in 1903 and then The Graphic in 1932.Beaumont was an eccentric with several unusual beliefs, many of...
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
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author and Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
theorist, set out his notion of ciphers in The Great Cryptogram.
Baconian theory developed a new twist in the writings of Orville Ward Owen
Orville Ward Owen
Dr. Orville Ward Owen was an American physician, and exponent of the Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship. Owen claimed to have discovered hidden messages contained in the works of Shakespeare/Bacon. He deciphered these using a device he invented called a "cipher wheel"...
and Elizabeth Wells Gallup
Elizabeth Wells Gallup
Elizabeth Wells Gallup was an American educator and exponent of the Baconian theory of Shakespearian authorship....
. 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
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...
, the latter ruthlessly executed by his own mother in 1601. 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
Bacon's cipher
Bacon's cipher or the Baconian cipher is a method of steganography devised by Francis Bacon. A message is concealed in the presentation of text, rather than its content.-Cipher details:...
, which she had identified in the First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as 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). 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'".
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.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
expressed interest in and gave credence to the Baconian theory in his writings. The German mathematician Georg Cantor
Georg Cantor
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a German mathematician, best known as the inventor of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets,...
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
River Wye
The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...
, near Chepstow Castle
Chepstow Castle
Chepstow Castle , located in Chepstow, Monmouthshire in Wales, on top of cliffs overlooking the River Wye, is the oldest surviving post-Roman stone fortification in Britain...
, 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. 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. 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, and being known as a dramatist (a low-class profession) would have impeded his prospects (see Stigma of print
Stigma of print
The stigma of print is the concept that an informal social convention restricted the literary works of aristocrats in the Tudor and Jacobean age to private and courtly audiences — as opposed to commercial endeavors — at the risk of social disgrace if violated, and which obliged the author to...
). Realising that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue", and being "strongly addicted to the theatre" 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
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.-Sources:...
).
Autobiographical evidence
It is known that, as early as 1595, Bacon employed scriveners, which, one could argue, would protect his anonymity and account for HemingeJohn Heminges
John Heminges was an English Renaissance actor. Most noted now as one of the editors of William Shakespeare's 1623 First Folio, Heminges served in his time as an actor and financial manager for the King's Men.-Life:Heminges was born in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire in 1556...
and Condell
Henry Condell
Henry Condell was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing the First Folio, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623....
, two actors in Shakspeare's company, remarking about Shakspere that "wee [sic] have scarce received from him a blot in his papers". 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
Henry VIII (play)
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight is a history play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication...
(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
Great Seal of the Realm
The Great Seal of the Realm or Great Seal of the United Kingdom is a seal that is used to symbolise the Sovereign's approval of important state documents...
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
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
. 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, 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". Given that Thomas Howard
Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel
Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel KG, was a prominent English courtier during the reigns of King James I and King Charles I, but he made his name as a Grand Tourist and art collector rather than as a politician. When he died he possessed 700 paintings, along with large collections of sculpture,...
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.
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 BaconFrancis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
." 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." "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."
In relation to the extensive vocabulary used in the plays, we have the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, author of the first dictionary: "[... A] Dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writing alone". The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
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 [...]." Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
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 [sic] 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
Every Man in His Humour
Every Man in His Humour is a 1598 play by the English playwright Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of the "humours comedy," in which each major character is dominated by an overriding humour or obsession.-Performance and Publication:...
as a playwright produced by the latter – 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, 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 and acme of our language." "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."
Some time subsequent to Shakespeare's expiry, Jonson tackled the panoptic task of setting down the First Folio
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as 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
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
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
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
(1621), his article the Memorial of Elizabeth (1608) and his letter to King James
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
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."
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
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
for not working on a commissioned treatise on Henry VIII (which had already been covered by the Shake-speare play in 1613). In the end, he wrote only two pages.
The Tempest
Numerous scholars believe that the main source for Shakespeare's The TempestThe Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
was a letter written by William Strachey
William Strachey
William Strachey was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America...
known as the True Reportory (TR) sent back to the Virginia Company from the newly established Virginia colony in 1610, about a year before the play's first known performance. It was discovered when Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt was an English writer. He is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and...
, 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” without restriction and that “there seems to have been an opportunity for Shakespeare to see the unpublished report, or even to have met Strachey”. 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." Louis B. Wright explains why the Virginia Company
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
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
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
just at that time was subsidising preachers and others to give glowing descriptions of Virginia and its prospects". 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
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
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”. 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 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
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
. Some examples of these are presented together with their correspondence to (c) the Shake-speare work.
Parallel 1 The next Fountaine [sic] of woes was secure negligence but to drink indeed of the true fountains of learning (p.121) 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 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. 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) 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, 4.1.26-8)
- Lysander. scorn and derision never come in tears:
- (1594-5 A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3.2.123)
Parallel 3 The emulation of Cæsar and Pompey watered the plains of Pharsaly
-
- with blood and distracted the sinews of the Roman monarchy. 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) 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
William Strachey
William Strachey was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America...
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”.
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 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 and Elze, 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 and Reedy who reaffirm the Strachey letter's use a source for The Tempest.
Gray's Inn revels 1594–95
Gray's Inn law school traditionally held revels over Christmas: dancing and feasting were complemented by plays and masqueMasque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
s. The evidence suggests that, prior to the revels of 1594 and '95, all performed plays were amateur productions. In his commentary on the Gesta Grayorum, a contemporary account of the 1594–95 revels, Desmond Bland 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
James Spedding
James Spedding was an English author, chiefly known as the editor of the works of Francis Bacon.-Life:He was born in Cumberland, the younger son of a country squire, and was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Trinity College, Cambridge; where he took a second class in the classical tripos, and was...
, the Victorian editor of Bacon's Works, thought that Sir Francis Bacon was involved in the writing of this account.
Massacre of the Innocents
The Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth...
) when "a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
his Menechmus
Menaechmus
Menaechmus was an ancient Greek mathematician and geometer born in Alopeconnesus in the Thracian Chersonese, who was known for his friendship with the renowned philosopher Plato and for his apparent discovery of conic sections and his solution to the then-long-standing problem of doubling the cube...
) 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 – he and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing for the Queen at Greenwich on Innocents Day. E.K. Chambers
Edmund Kerchever Chambers
Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....
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. 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", 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 ...."
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher....
performed at Whitehall
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
in 1613 describes Bacon as the "chief contriver" of its performances at Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple. He also appears to have been their treasurer prior to the 1594–95 revels.
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."
Gesta Grayorum
-
-
- 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 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.
-
- Hamlet. With this regard their currents turn awry
-
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.
Promus
In the 19th century, a notebook entitled the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies was discovered. It contained 1,655 hand written proverbProverb
A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
s, metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s, aphorism
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
s, salutation
Salutation (greeting)
A salutation is a greeting used in a letter or other written communication, such as an email. Salutations can be formal or informal. The most common form of salutation in a letter is Dear followed by the recipient's given name or title...
s and other miscellany. Although some entries appear original, many are drawn from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
writers Seneca
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
, Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
; John Heywood
John Heywood
John Heywood was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. Although he is best known as a playwright, he was also active as a musician and composer, though no works survive.-Life:...
's Proverbes (1562); Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...
'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
First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the 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, 3.1.307-8)
- 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.
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 AristotelianAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
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 philosophyEthicsEthics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
: - 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?"
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 [...]." 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.
Raleigh's execution
Spedding suggests that lines in Macbeth refer to Sir Walter RaleighWalter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England....
's execution, which occurred two years after Shakespeare of Stratford's death and fourteen years after the Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works....
's. The lines in question are spoken by Malcolm about the execution of the "disloyall traytor [sic] / 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 [sic]
- Confess'd his Treasons, implor'd your Highnesse [sic] Pardon
- And set forth a deepe [sic] Repentance:
- Nothing in his Life became him,
- Like the leaving it. He dy'de [sic],
- As one that had been studied in his death,
- To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
- As 'twere a carelesse [sic] Trifle.(1.4.1)
Several sources have remarked upon Raleigh's frivolity in the face of his impending execution 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. Raphael Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of his plays....
, the main source for Macbeth, mentions "the thane of Cawder [sic] being condemned at Fores of treason against the king" 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
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
on 17 November 1603, his statement was read out: "Lord Cobham
Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham
Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham was an English peer who was implicated in the Main Plot against the rule of James I of England.- Life :...
offered me 10,000 crowns for the furthering the peace between England and Spain". 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 [sic] king, craves composition:
- Nor would we deigne [sic] him burial of his men,
- Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch [sic],
- 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) 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.
-
- Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,
- Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
Some scholars 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.
But more than one Elizabethan traitor put on a brave show for his execution. In 1793, George Steevens
George Steevens
George Steevens was an English Shakespearean commentator.He was born at Poplar, the son of a captain and later director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton College and at King's College, Cambridge, where he remained from 1753 to 1756...
suggested that the speech was an allusion to the death of the Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...
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
John Stow
John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...
, p. 793. His asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold are minutely described." As Steevens notes, Essex was a close friend of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley , 3rd Earl of Southampton , was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife Mary Browne, Countess of Southampton, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu...
. 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.
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 HeraldNew York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
scribe bemoaned the waste of "considerable blank ammunition [...] in this ridiculous war between the Baconians and the Shakespearians", while Richard Garnett
Richard Garnett
Richard Garnett C.B. was a scholar, librarian, biographer and poet. He was son of Richard Garnett, an author, philologist and assistant keeper of printed books in the British Museum....
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."
Mainstream academics reject the anti-Stratfordian claim 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
John Shakespeare
John Shakespeare was the father of William Shakespeare. He was the son of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, a farmer. He moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and married Mary Arden, with whom he had eight children, five of whom survived into adulthood...
, one of the wealthiest men in Stratford, was an Alderman
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
and later High Bailiff
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
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.
Stratfordian scholars also cite Occam's razor
Occam's razor
Occam's razor, also known as Ockham's razor, and sometimes expressed in Latin as lex parsimoniae , is a principle that generally recommends from among competing hypotheses selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.-Overview:The principle is often summarized as "simpler explanations...
, 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
Samuel Schoenbaum
Samuel Schoenbaum was a leading 20th century Shakespearean biographer and scholar.Born in New York, Schoenbaum taught at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1975, serving for the last four years of this period as the Frank Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature. He later taught at the City...
's Shakespeare's Lives. Questioning Bacon's ability as a poet, Sidney Lee
Sidney Lee
Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...
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."
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. 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.'