Derbyite theory of Shakespeare authorship
Encyclopedia
The Derbyite theory of Shakespeare authorship is the view that William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby
(1561–1642) was the true author of the works of William Shakespeare
. Derby is one of several individuals who have been claimed by advocates of the Shakespeare authorship question
to be the true author of Shakespeare's works.
The theory was first proposed in 1891, and was taken up predominantly by French writers in the mid-twentieth century. Its popularity has since declined.
Mainstream scholarship dismisses all alternative candidates for authorship of the works, but accepts that Shakespeare sometimes worked in collaborations with other professional playwrights such as George Peele
and John Fletcher
. Some mainstream writers have taken the view that Derby may have had links to Shakespeare. Some of the Derbyite arguments about Love's Labour's Lost
and A Midsummer Night's Dream
have also been integrated into mainstream scholarship.
Greenstreet argued that Fenner's dismissive comment revealed that unknown works were penned by Derby. He argued that these could be identified with the Shakespeare canon. He suggested that the comic scenes in Love's Labour's Lost
were influenced by a pageant of the Nine Worthies
only ever performed in Derby's home town of Chester. He also argued that the comic character of the pedant Holferenes in the play is based on Derby's tutor Richard Lloyd, who wrote a dramatic poem about the Nine Worthies that appears to be parodied in Holofernes' own production on the topic in the play. Greenstreet attempted to develop his ideas in a second paper, but died suddenly at the age of forty five in 1892, leaving his arguments incomplete.
published his 1918 book Sous le masque de William Shakespeare: William Stanley, VIe comte de Derby. Lefranc added to Greenstreet's arguments, providing scholarly details.
He argued that the events on which the play was based occurred between 1578 and 1584. The "scintillating episode" was the visit of Marguerite de Valois
and her companions to her estranged husband Henry of Navarre, the future king Henry IV of France
. Henry was accompanied by "a handsome troupe of lords and gentlemen", while Catherine was accompanied by her mother Catherine de' Medici
and a large entourage. The visit occasioned elaborate festivities. Disputes about the control of Aquitaine
and the rights to a dowry, alluded to in the play, were the motivation for the visit.
Lefranc also provided further details on the role of the Nine Worthies, arguing that the play referred to tapestries depicting the subject in Navarre. The satirical comment that one of the badly-acted worthies in the play "will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this" implies a reference to the tapestries. Lefranc also expanded on the similarities between Lloyd's poem about the worthies and the pageant in the play.
. The Pyramus and Thisbe section was "evidently modelled on one of the popular plays performed by the artisans of Chester".
Lefranc believed that Hamlet contained coded references to the story of Mary, Queen of Scots and her first husband Lord Darnley
. Ophelia in Hamlet was a portrait of Hélène de Tournon, a young woman who is supposed to have died of love and whose story was told by Pierre de Ronsard
. Lefranc interpreted Hamlets relationship with the Players as a reference to Derby's own involvement with the theatre, discerning in the figure of Hamlet a self-portrait, in which Hamlet's travels away from Denmark represent Derby's sojourn in continental Europe. Jacques in As You Like It was also a self portrait. Both figures are aristocrats, but also outsiders with a "tendency to melancholia".
The Merry Wives of Windsor was based on events in Derby's life and the character of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was a parody of William ffarrington, a steward who worked for the Stanley family.
Prospero in The Tempest was based on John Dee
, with whom Derby was well acquainted. The play is unusual for portraying the use of magic in a positive way, which suggesed to Lefranc that Derby was justifying the activities of his friend. He argued that the name Ariel
derived from Dee's invocation of the spirits "Anael and Uriel
".
had formed a group of players
which evolved into Shakespeare's troupe The King's Men. Derby also patronized this troupe, which became "Derby's Men", and he gave financial support to the Children of Paul's
. Stanley may have been deterred from publishing in his own name because of the sensitive content of the works and the aristocratic "stigma of print
", which associated publication with vulgar commercialism.
Lefranc noted that Derby was also closely associated with William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
and his brother Philip Herbert
, Earl of Montgomery and later 4th Earl of Pembroke, the two dedicatees of the 1623 Shakespearean folio. Around 1628 to 1629, when Derby released his estates to his son James, who became the 7th Earl, the named trustees were Pembroke and Montgomery. Derby appears to have supported Richard Barnfield
, two of whose works were published under Shakespeare's name. His second volume of poems, Cynthia, with certain Sonnets, and the legend of Cassandra was dedicated to Derby in terms which imply close personal relations.
Lefranc believed that Derby may have had an affair with Mary Fitton
, a candidate for the Dark Lady of the sonnets. Lefranc considered Derby to be sympathetic to France and to Catholicism, views he also believed to be present in the plays. Derby's proficiency in French would explain Shakespeare's use of the language in Henry V
. Lefranc also noted that Derby's own name is strikingly similar to the name 'William Shakespeare'; Stanley's first name was William, his initials were W.S., and he was known to sign himself, 'Will'.
Lefranc continued to publish arguments for his theory until shortly before his death in 1952. Subsequent publications included La réalité dans le 'Songe d'une Nuit d'été' (Geneva, 1920), Le Secret de William Stanley (Brussels, 1923) and A la découverte de Shakespeare (Paris, 1945–50).
After Lefranc, several authors took up Derby's cause, including Jacques Boulenger, J. Depoin, and Mathias Morhardt in France and Belgium. Other supporters included R. Macdonald Lucas and J. le Roy White.
between the prince and the players indicates that such collaboration was not unlikely. The argument for a link to the events of 1578 still continues to be used, though it has been noted that Lefranc did not originate it. It was first suggested in 1899 by John Phelps. Other of Lefranc's arguments were disputed. The claim that Shakespeare parodied Lloyd's literary work was soon attacked on the grounds that Shakespeare's worthies do not correspond to Lloyd's. E. A. J. Honigmann argued that the first production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
was performed at Derby's wedding banquet.
was written by the same person who wrote Shakespeare's published works. He argued that analysis proved the handwriting to be Derby's. He then claimed that Derby's descent from various noble families proved that he had the genetic inheritance lacking in the Stratford Shakespeare.
Titherley also attempted to disprove the claims of other alternative candidates, declaring that Francis Bacon
and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
were both incapable of writing the plays. Bacon was not an imaginative writer at all. Oxford's surviving poetry indicates that he was "usually clogged by personal feelings" and "knew not the magic of verbal enchantment, never soared into the infinite or plumbed philosophic depths, nor did he ever achieve Shakespeare's peculiar imagery".
Titherley published editions of sonnets and plays as Derby's work.
J. Thomas Looney
, who created the alternative Oxfordian theory
, was convinced that his candidate, the Earl of Oxford, would never have written The Tempest
. He later joined with George Greenwood
to establish The Shakespeare Fellowship
, accepting Greenwood's view that Derby probably wrote The Tempest. Some later followers of Oxford concurred. In his biography of Oxford, B.M. Ward
suggested that the two artistocrats collaborated, accepting aspects of both Lefranc's and Looney's views, arguing that Derby must have at least contributed to Love's Labour's Lost and other plays.
A. J. Evans in Shakespeare's Magic Circle (1956) argued that Derby and Oxford were the principal authors of the plays, but that they passed the drafts to other leading men of the day, including Francis Bacon
and Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland
, for emendations and additions. Evans drew on a recent argument that the plot of Measure for Measure
was similar to the events that occurred in Paris in 1582, when the king Henry III of France
was absent. In his place, the governor Jerome Angenouste condemned an individual called Claude Tonart to death for fornication, just as Claudio is in the play. Tonart had seduced the daughter of the president of the Parlement of Paris. Like Claudio he was eventually pardoned. Evans argues that Derby was in Paris during these events, and that the play could only have been written by an eyewitness.
While accepting Shakespeare's own authorship of the canon, Leo Daugherty, who wrote Stanley's life for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), has argued in a recent book that Stanley is the Fair Youth of Shakespeare's sonnets
and that Barnfield is the "Rival Poet
".
The theory plays a significant role in the 2007 novel Interred with their Bones
in which the search for the lost manuscript of the play Cardenio
is linked to authorship issues communicated obliquely in newly discovered letters from Derby.
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby was an English nobleman. Stanley inherited a prominent social position that was both dangerous and unstable, as his mother was heir to Queen Elizabeth I under the Third Succession Act, a position that fell to his deceased brother's oldest daughter in 1596,...
(1561–1642) was the true author of the works of 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"...
. Derby is one of several individuals who have been claimed by advocates of the Shakespeare authorship question
Shakespeare authorship question
Image:ShakespeareCandidates1.jpg|thumb|alt=Portraits of Shakespeare and four proposed alternative authors.|Oxford, Bacon, Derby, and Marlowe have each been proposed as the true author...
to be the true author of Shakespeare's works.
The theory was first proposed in 1891, and was taken up predominantly by French writers in the mid-twentieth century. Its popularity has since declined.
Mainstream scholarship dismisses all alternative candidates for authorship of the works, but accepts that Shakespeare sometimes worked in collaborations with other professional playwrights such as George Peele
George Peele
George Peele , was an English dramatist.-Life:Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping...
and John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
. Some mainstream writers have taken the view that Derby may have had links to Shakespeare. Some of the Derbyite arguments about Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598.-Title:...
and A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
have also been integrated into mainstream scholarship.
Greenstreet
Derby's candidacy was first raised as a possibility in 1891 by the archivist James H. Greenstreet, who identified a pair of 1599 letters by the Jesuit spy George Fenner in which he reported that Derby was "busy penning plays for the common players." Fenner was disappointed that Derby was devoting himself to cultural pursuits rather than politics because his family were thought to be sympathetic to the Catholic cause and were possible claimants of the throne in the event of Queen Elizabeth's death.Greenstreet argued that Fenner's dismissive comment revealed that unknown works were penned by Derby. He argued that these could be identified with the Shakespeare canon. He suggested that the comic scenes in Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598.-Title:...
were influenced by a pageant of the Nine Worthies
Nine Worthies
The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural and legendary personages who personify the ideals of chivalry as were established in the Middle Ages. All are commonly referred to as 'Princes' in their own right, despite whatever true titles each man may have held...
only ever performed in Derby's home town of Chester. He also argued that the comic character of the pedant Holferenes in the play is based on Derby's tutor Richard Lloyd, who wrote a dramatic poem about the Nine Worthies that appears to be parodied in Holofernes' own production on the topic in the play. Greenstreet attempted to develop his ideas in a second paper, but died suddenly at the age of forty five in 1892, leaving his arguments incomplete.
Frazer
Greenstreet's theory was revived by the American writer Robert Frazer, who argued in The Silent Shakespeare (1915) that the actor William Shakespeare merely commercialised the productions of other authors, mainly by adding vulgar comic scenes. He believed that Derby was the principal author of the more elevated material in the Shakespeare plays, though both he and Shakespeare were probably adapting older works. Derby was responsible for "those fine passages which Will Shakespeare and his fellows sometimes omitted in representation in order to make room for their own buffooneries". He was, however, the sole author of the sonnets and narrative poems. Frazer concludes that "William Stanley was William Shakespeare".Lefranc
The idea was then taken up in France and was first advocated in scholarly detail when the Rabelais expert Abel LefrancAbel Lefranc
Maurice Jules Abel Lefranc , was a historian of French literature, expert on Rabelais, and the principal advocate of the Derbyite theory of Shakespeare authorship.-Early life:Lefranc was born in Élincourt-Sainte-Marguerite...
published his 1918 book Sous le masque de William Shakespeare: William Stanley, VIe comte de Derby. Lefranc added to Greenstreet's arguments, providing scholarly details.
Love's Labour's Lost
Lefranc drew on the fact that Derby had spent some years travelling in Europe, during which time he may have witnessed events in the Court of Navarre that are reflected in the more serious portions of Love's Labour's Lost. Lefranc stated that the play is a "reflection of a scintillating episode in our [France's] history ...The very substance of the play, far more than scholars have imagined, is impregnated with quite recognisable French elements." He insisted that the author must have had "virtually impeccable and absolutely amazing acquaintance with aspects France and Navarre of the period that could have been known only to a very limited number of people".He argued that the events on which the play was based occurred between 1578 and 1584. The "scintillating episode" was the visit of Marguerite de Valois
Marguerite de Valois
Margaret of Valois was Queen of France and of Navarre during the late sixteenth century...
and her companions to her estranged husband Henry of Navarre, the future king Henry IV of France
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
. Henry was accompanied by "a handsome troupe of lords and gentlemen", while Catherine was accompanied by her mother Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen consort of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II of France....
and a large entourage. The visit occasioned elaborate festivities. Disputes about the control of Aquitaine
Aquitaine
Aquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
and the rights to a dowry, alluded to in the play, were the motivation for the visit.
Lefranc also provided further details on the role of the Nine Worthies, arguing that the play referred to tapestries depicting the subject in Navarre. The satirical comment that one of the badly-acted worthies in the play "will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this" implies a reference to the tapestries. Lefranc also expanded on the similarities between Lloyd's poem about the worthies and the pageant in the play.
Other plays
Lefranc identified a number of other links between Derby and characters in Shakespeare's plays. In addition to Love's Labour's Lost, he concentrated on A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and The Tempest. He argued that A Midsummer Night's Dream was written for Derby's own marriage to Elizabeth de VereElizabeth de Vere, Countess of Derby
Elizabeth de Vere, Countess of Derby, Lord of Mann was an English noblewoman and the eldest daughter of Elizabethan courtier, poet, and playwright Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford....
. The Pyramus and Thisbe section was "evidently modelled on one of the popular plays performed by the artisans of Chester".
Lefranc believed that Hamlet contained coded references to the story of Mary, Queen of Scots and her first husband Lord Darnley
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley
Henry Stewart or Stuart, 1st Duke of Albany , styled Lord Darnley before 1565, was king consort of Scotland and murdered at Kirk o'Field...
. Ophelia in Hamlet was a portrait of Hélène de Tournon, a young woman who is supposed to have died of love and whose story was told by Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .-Early life:...
. Lefranc interpreted Hamlets relationship with the Players as a reference to Derby's own involvement with the theatre, discerning in the figure of Hamlet a self-portrait, in which Hamlet's travels away from Denmark represent Derby's sojourn in continental Europe. Jacques in As You Like It was also a self portrait. Both figures are aristocrats, but also outsiders with a "tendency to melancholia".
The Merry Wives of Windsor was based on events in Derby's life and the character of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was a parody of William ffarrington, a steward who worked for the Stanley family.
Prospero in The Tempest was based on John Dee
John Dee
John Dee was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.John Dee may also refer to:* John Dee , Basketball coach...
, with whom Derby was well acquainted. The play is unusual for portraying the use of magic in a positive way, which suggesed to Lefranc that Derby was justifying the activities of his friend. He argued that the name Ariel
Ariel (The Tempest)
Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved...
derived from Dee's invocation of the spirits "Anael and Uriel
Uriel
Uriel is one of the archangels of post-Exilic Rabbinic tradition, and also of certain Christian traditions...
".
Other evidence
Lefranc also discussed Stanley's long-standing connections to the theatre. His older brother Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of DerbyFerdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby
Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby was the son of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby and Lady Margaret Clifford. According to the will of Henry VIII, his mother was heiress presumptive of Elizabeth I of England from 1578 to her own death in 1596...
had formed a group of players
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
which evolved into Shakespeare's troupe The King's Men. Derby also patronized this troupe, which became "Derby's Men", and he gave financial support to the Children of Paul's
Children of Paul's
The Children of Paul's was the name of a troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Along with the Children of the Chapel, the Children of Paul's were the most important of the companies of boy players that constituted a distinctive feature of English Renaissance theatre.St...
. Stanley may have been deterred from publishing in his own name because of the sensitive content of the works and the aristocratic "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...
", which associated publication with vulgar commercialism.
Lefranc noted that Derby was also closely associated with William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, KG, PC was the son of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and his third wife Mary Sidney. Chancellor of the University of Oxford, he founded Pembroke College, Oxford with King James. He was warden of the Forest of Dean, and constable of St Briavels from 1608...
and his brother Philip Herbert
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and 1st Earl of Montgomery KG was an English courtier and politician active during the reigns of James I and Charles I...
, Earl of Montgomery and later 4th Earl of Pembroke, the two dedicatees of the 1623 Shakespearean folio. Around 1628 to 1629, when Derby released his estates to his son James, who became the 7th Earl, the named trustees were Pembroke and Montgomery. Derby appears to have supported Richard Barnfield
Richard Barnfield
Richard Barnfield , English poet, was born at Norbury, Staffordshire, and brought up in Newport, Shropshire.He was baptized on 13 June 1574, the son of Richard Barnfield, gentleman. His obscure though close relationship with Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars...
, two of whose works were published under Shakespeare's name. His second volume of poems, Cynthia, with certain Sonnets, and the legend of Cassandra was dedicated to Derby in terms which imply close personal relations.
Lefranc believed that Derby may have had an affair with Mary Fitton
Mary Fitton
Mary Fitton was the daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire and Alice Halcroft, and is considered by some to be the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets. Her elder sister, Anne, married John Newdigate in 1587, at the age of fourteen...
, a candidate for the Dark Lady of the sonnets. Lefranc considered Derby to be sympathetic to France and to Catholicism, views he also believed to be present in the plays. Derby's proficiency in French would explain Shakespeare's use of the language in Henry V
Henry V (play)
Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...
. Lefranc also noted that Derby's own name is strikingly similar to the name 'William Shakespeare'; Stanley's first name was William, his initials were W.S., and he was known to sign himself, 'Will'.
Lefranc continued to publish arguments for his theory until shortly before his death in 1952. Subsequent publications included La réalité dans le 'Songe d'une Nuit d'été' (Geneva, 1920), Le Secret de William Stanley (Brussels, 1923) and A la découverte de Shakespeare (Paris, 1945–50).
After Lefranc, several authors took up Derby's cause, including Jacques Boulenger, J. Depoin, and Mathias Morhardt in France and Belgium. Other supporters included R. Macdonald Lucas and J. le Roy White.
Mainstream response
Some of Lefranc's arguments were taken seriously by mainstream commentators, though without accepting his claims regarding authorship. In 1925 Oscar J. Campbell approved his theory that Love's Labour's Lost was based on the 1578 events at the court of Navarre, arguing that it was a fact "quite beyond proof". Campbell suggests that Shakespeare probably collaborated with an aristocrat, arguing that the intimacy portrayed in HamletHamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
between the prince and the players indicates that such collaboration was not unlikely. The argument for a link to the events of 1578 still continues to be used, though it has been noted that Lefranc did not originate it. It was first suggested in 1899 by John Phelps. Other of Lefranc's arguments were disputed. The claim that Shakespeare parodied Lloyd's literary work was soon attacked on the grounds that Shakespeare's worthies do not correspond to Lloyd's. E. A. J. Honigmann argued that the first production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
was performed at Derby's wedding banquet.
Titherley
The most energetic Derbyite after Lefranc was the chemist Arthur Walsh Titherley, who became Derby's principal advocate in the mid 20th century. In his book Shakespeare's Identity he accuses Shakespeare of abusing his position as Derby's frontman by illicitly selling plays for publication and then blackmailing Derby by threatening to reveal his secret. No evidence is offered for these assertions. Titherley also used handwriting evidence and even genetics to support his views. In particular Titherley took up the widespread view that part of the manuscript of the play Sir Thomas MoreSir Thomas More (play)
Sir Thomas More is a collaborative Elizabethan play by Anthony Munday and others depicting the life and death of Thomas More. It survives only in a single manuscript, now owned by the British Library...
was written by the same person who wrote Shakespeare's published works. He argued that analysis proved the handwriting to be Derby's. He then claimed that Derby's descent from various noble families proved that he had the genetic inheritance lacking in the Stratford Shakespeare.
Titherley also attempted to disprove the claims of other alternative candidates, declaring that Francis Bacon
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...
and 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....
were both incapable of writing the plays. Bacon was not an imaginative writer at all. Oxford's surviving poetry indicates that he was "usually clogged by personal feelings" and "knew not the magic of verbal enchantment, never soared into the infinite or plumbed philosophic depths, nor did he ever achieve Shakespeare's peculiar imagery".
Titherley published editions of sonnets and plays as Derby's work.
Other theories
When not identified as the sole author of the canon, Stanley is often mentioned as a leader or participant in the "group theory" of Shakespearean authorship, according to which several individuals contributed to the works.J. Thomas Looney
J. Thomas Looney
John Thomas Looney . was an English school teacher who is best known for having originated the Oxfordian theory, which claims that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was the true author of Shakespeare's plays.-Life:Looney was born in South Shields...
, who created the alternative Oxfordian theory
Oxfordian theory
The Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship proposes that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford , wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. While a large majority of scholars reject all alternative candidates for authorship, popular...
, was convinced that his candidate, the Earl of Oxford, would never have written 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,...
. He later joined with George Greenwood
George Greenwood
Sir George Greenwood , was a British lawyer, politician, cricketer, animal welfare reformer and Shakespearean scholar.-Life and work:...
to establish The Shakespeare Fellowship
The Shakespeare Fellowship
The Shakespeare Fellowship is an organization devoted to promoting Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the works of William Shakespeare....
, accepting Greenwood's view that Derby probably wrote The Tempest. Some later followers of Oxford concurred. In his biography of Oxford, B.M. Ward
Bernard Mordaunt Ward
Bernard Mordaunt Ward was an author and third-generation British soldier most noted for his support of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship and writing the first documentary biography of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.-Biography:He was born in Madras, India into a military family,...
suggested that the two artistocrats collaborated, accepting aspects of both Lefranc's and Looney's views, arguing that Derby must have at least contributed to Love's Labour's Lost and other plays.
A. J. Evans in Shakespeare's Magic Circle (1956) argued that Derby and Oxford were the principal authors of the plays, but that they passed the drafts to other leading men of the day, including Francis Bacon
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...
and Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland
Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland
Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland was the son of John Manners, 4th Earl of Rutland.He married Elizabeth Sidney , on 5 March 1599....
, for emendations and additions. Evans drew on a recent argument that the plot of Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays...
was similar to the events that occurred in Paris in 1582, when the king Henry III of France
Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...
was absent. In his place, the governor Jerome Angenouste condemned an individual called Claude Tonart to death for fornication, just as Claudio is in the play. Tonart had seduced the daughter of the president of the Parlement of Paris. Like Claudio he was eventually pardoned. Evans argues that Derby was in Paris during these events, and that the play could only have been written by an eyewitness.
While accepting Shakespeare's own authorship of the canon, Leo Daugherty, who wrote Stanley's life for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), has argued in a recent book that Stanley is the Fair Youth of Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...
and that Barnfield is the "Rival Poet
Rival Poet
The Rival Poet is one of several 'characters,' either fictional or real persons, featured in William Shakespeare's sonnets. The sonnets most commonly identified as the Rival Poet group exist within the Fair Youth group in sonnets 78-86...
".
Cultural references
In 1998 the Spanish impressario Jaime Salom produced the play El otro William (The Other William), which portrays Derby as the true author and Shakespeare himself as a "rascally, opportunistic actor". The play has been widely produced around Europe.The theory plays a significant role in the 2007 novel Interred with their Bones
Interred with Their Bones
Interred With Their Bones is a novel by Jennifer Lee Carrell published in 2007. It was published in the United Kingdom as The Shakespeare Secret...
in which the search for the lost manuscript of the play Cardenio
Cardenio
The History of Cardenio, often referred to as merely Cardenio, is a lost play, known to have been performed by The King's Men, a London theatre company, in 1613. It was attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher in a Stationers' Register entry of 1653...
is linked to authorship issues communicated obliquely in newly discovered letters from Derby.