Marlowe really wrote Shakespeare Part 1

Now we know that neither Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford nor Sir Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare, so who did?

How about a young but nationally recognised playwright who was a tearaway and iconoclast of the 1580-1590s and whose plays are still read and performed today, that is... (sound of drum roll)...  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE? 

Let us start with a story:
Once upon a time, actually in 1953, a young man was walking down the road in Cambridge when he stubbed his foot on some builders' rubble that was lying on the pavement. Bending down to rub his injured foot, he noticed the frame of a picture sticking out from the lumps of concrete and wood. Seeing that he was standing outside the Master's Lodge of Corpus Christi College, he naturally pulled out the picture frame, looked at the portrait that it enclosed and had it sent away to be cleaned up and identified. No doubt he was delighted to hear that the picture (probably) was of none other than the top playwright of the 1580-90 world of drama, Christopher (Kit) Marlowe.

This conclusion was reached by the experts especially after they had studied the motto in the corner, "Quod me nutrit me destruit" - What feeds me destroys me. Today the portrait hangs proudly in the chancellor's off ice in Corpus Christi College and most books about Marlowe and the Elizabethan theatre say that this is the alleged portrait of this playwright.

So how could it be that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare? First of all, they were both born in 1564: Marlowe, on February 26 and Shakespeare two months later in April. Both were sons of artisans: Marlowe's father was a shoemaker and Shakespeare's was a glove-maker. Both CM and WS were literate and received a good classic education (proved in Marlowe's case but assumed in Shakespeare's) and there is evidence that they both were involved in the London theatre at the end of the Elizabethan era. This being the case, many lit.crit experts and others, including Calvin Hoffman, A.D. Wraight and Wilbur Ziegler claim that Marlowe is Shakespeare. 

              The only known existing signature by Marlowe, found on a document 
                                        when he was a witness to a property deal.
  
But how can that be so, I hear you say? Marlowe was killed in 1593 in a brawl whereas the Bard continued writing for another twenty years until (about) 1613. The answer to this puzzle will be revealed next time.
Until then, I'll be pleased to receive your comments at: wsdavidyoung@gmail. Thank you.      

Shakespeare, Earl of Oxford & a Fart. Part 3

As I said in my last blog, one of the main objections to Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford being the real writer of Shakespeare's work is that he died in 1604 and was buried in Hackney, then a small village east of London. According to the lit. crit. experts, Shakespeare continued writing  until about 1613; his last two plays being The Tempest and Henry VIII.

No problem say the Oxfordians, led by J.Thomas Looney (remember, according to him, pronounced 'Loney'). While it is true that our hero died twelve years before the Bard, before he died, he must have left several plays unfinished. These were later completed by his followers. This sounds possible but not all of the Oxfordians are happy with this idea. They say that the plays were written by Oxford, but before the dates that the aforementioned lit. crit. experts put forward.

Another Oxfordian detail which proves that the Earl of Oxford wrote the Bard's plays comes from this family crest:

Oxford had the subsidiary title of Viscount Bolobec, and the above crest, with its broken spear implies Shake-shaft and then on to Shakespeare. The Oxfordians back up this theory by quoting a speech made in London in 1587 by the Elizabethan scholar and poet, Gabriel Harvey. (see Jon Michell, Who Wrote Shakespeare, p.172 for the actual speech)

Finally, a little piece of smelly trivia in connection with the Earl of Oxford. According to the 17th cent. diarist and gossip, John Aubrey (1626-1697), he wrote the following in his book, Brief Lives..

This Earl of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to fart, at which he was so abashed that he went to travel for seven years. On his return the queen welcomed him home and said, "My lord, I had forgotten the fart."

And on this gaseous note, I will finish with the Earl of Oxford and next time deal with another famous Elizabethan best-selling playwright who wrote Shakespeare: Christopher Marlowe.

Read, enjoy and comment on: dlwhy08@gmail.com. Thank you.

Did the Earl of Oxford Really write Shakespeare? - Part 2

To continue with the bio of the Earl of Oxford: In 1586, after his return from Italy (where he allegedly obtained ideas for his "Italian" flavoured Shakespearean plays, such as "Romeo & Juliet," "Much Ado" etc.) he took part in the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. Then two years later, he paid for one of Queen Elizabeth I's ships that fought against the Spanish Armada and was honoured by the queen as a result.

In 1591 he married Elizabeth Trentham and became a patron of literature and the theatre. In 1603 he officiated at the coronation of King James I, a known lover of the theatre, and then one year later, our literary earl died of the plague in Hackney, east London where he was buried. Note: he died twelve years before Shakespeare did, and according to the experts, such great plays as "Macbeth," "King Lear", "The Tempest" and "Coriolanus" were still waiting to be written. 

Now we take a fast-forward from 1604 to 1920. In this last-mentioned year, an English school teacher from Gateshead in NE England, called J. Thomas Looney (pronounced as he insisted, Loney for obvious reasons) wrote a 476-page book called"Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford." In it, our author claims that WS's plays were written by the earl and backs up his theory by stating that the writer of these plays had to have had the following qualifications:

maturity
eccentric and mysterious
intense sensibility and unconventional
had pronounced and literary tastes
an enthusiast of world drama
a lyric poet with a classical education
had feudal connections and loved Italy
an upper aristocrat and lover of falconry
careless with money
doubtful and somewhat conflicting attitudes re. women
a probable and sceptical (?) Catholic

The person who fulfilled all of the above was none other than Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, according to J.T. Looney. And not only that, but one of this lit. crit's greatest fans was Sigmund Freud. He read Looney's book three years after he published it and became convinced that our northern English school teacher was right. Freud loved King Lear and noted that both the earl and Oxford both had three daughters.

                        My copy of Looney's book (1948 edition).

Looney also found support from other men-of-letters such as Prof. Abel Lefranc Canon Rendall, Percy Allen and Colonel B.R. Ward and his son. Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn wrote a very comprehensive 1297-page tome called This star of England supporting the Oxfordian theory in 1952 and in 1984, their son, Ogden Jnr published an even more comprehensive volume, The Mysterious William Shakespeare.

But so far, none of the above has answered one basic question: How could it be that the Earl of Oxford, a known writer and traveller had written WS when it is a proved fact that he died in 1604 and yet the Bard's new plays continued to appear until about 1613, nine years later?

I will try and answer this intriguing question next time in my last chapter on "Oxford is Shakespeare."
Read, enjoy and comment at dlwhy08@gmail.com  

The Earl of Oxford Really Wrote Shakespeare - Part 1

OK, then if you don't think that Sir Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare, then like many others, you may agree that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was the real writer of the Bard's works. After all, this aristocrat (1550-1604) lived at the right time (more or less), was a well-travelled and well-educated gentleman and was known to have written literary pieces for the Elizabethan court.

He was born in Essex and educated at Cambridge and by the time he was 27 he'd been admitted to Gray's Inn to study law. He was also such a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I that when he asked for permission to serve in the army in Flanders, she refused. However he did see action in 1570 when, under the Earl of Sussex he fought in a campaign against the Scottish Catholic nobles. 

When he sneaked abroad to Flanders in 1574 without the queen's permission, he was brought home ignominiously by her agents. In the following year he was given leave of absence from the court and travelled to France and Italy where he visited Venice, Padua, Florence and Sicily. He was so impressed by what he saw in Italy that he readily adapted many Italian ways and fashions. Is it a surprise then to read that Italy features in about one third of Shakespeare's plays?

Next time I will continue with his biography and show how the Oxfordians - those who claim that the Earl of Oxford wrote the Bard's plays - were also supported by several important people. One of these was Sigmund Freud.

Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare - Part 3

Last time I promised to show how the Chicago Tribune, 1916 proved that Sir Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare. Unfortunately, the print was too small and indecipherable for me to read, so I will have to abandon this idea. Please accept my apologies.

In the meanwhile we will see how Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence in Bacon is Shakespeare (1910) proved his theory by referring to the book Cryptomenytices et Cryptographie by Gustavi Seleni, (Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, 1579-1666).

                             From "Who Wrote Shakespeare?" by John Michell

If you study the bottom panel, you will see the standing figure of WS raising the seated Bacon's hat and claiming the glory for having written the latter's plays.

In the left-hand panel, you can see the old and shaking WS look-alike receiving a book (of WS works?) from Bacon, while on the right hand panel, you can see a horseman galloping away trumpeting the glory of Shake-spur's works.

Finally, in the top panel, the many lighted beacons represent the enlightened Bacon. According to Durning-Lawrence, the word 'bacon' was pronounced'beacon' in the 16th century.

So did Bacon write Shakespeare? I'll leave you to decide. If you are still not sure, write to me at: wsdavidyoung@gmail.com or wait until next time when I'll show you that the real writer of WS plays was Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.
  

Who Really Wrote Shakespeare? Part 2

To continue with the "(Sir Francis) Bacon is Shakespeare" theory I started writing about last time, here is an interesting story:

Found among Bacon's papers after he died was a page containing the word:

                  
                  HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS

A Dr. Platt wrote that it was a Latin anagram saying:
                    HI LUDI, TUITI SIBI, FR. BACONO NATI
which means: "These plays, produced by Francis Bacon, guarded for themselves." Not so, said Sir Edwin Durning- Lawrence, the author of Bacon is Shakespeare. He said it meant: 
          HI LUDI F.BACONIS NATI TUTTI ORBIS
which means: "These plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world." Then Durning-Lawrence offered 100 guineas to anyone who had a better solution to the meaning of this long word used in Love's Labour's Lost.

The best answer came from a Mr. Beevor, from St. Albans (nr, London) who won the prize and said the correct meaning is:
          ABI INIVIT F. BACON HISTRIO LUDIT 
which is Latin for: "Be off, F. Bacon, the actor has entered and is playing." 

And, if that isn't enough for the Baconians (the supporters of 'Bacon is Shakespeare'), how about the following phrases which appear word for word in both Shakespeare's plays and Promus of Formularies and Elegancies by Francis Bacon:
                          
                          Good wine needs no bush.
                          Thought is free.
                          The world (runs) on wheels.
                          Make use of thy salt hours.

But that is not all. Jon Michell in Who Wrote Shakespeare quotes ten more examples which are almost the same, word for word.

Of course, this may be explained by the fact that when our William (and Francis) were busy scribbling, there were no copyright laws. This meant that authors and playwrights could (and did) happily steal their rivals' best lines and use them as their own.

Next time I will bring more about the 'Bacon is Shakespeare' question with 'proof' quoted in an article from the based on an 
article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 1916.

I would like to finish by thanking Michael Vinograd who pointed out a typo in my blog, Shakespeare was a Lousy Historian, Part 2. He pointed out that Henry V married Catherine in 1420 and not in 1520.

For further comments, please comment here or write to me at: dlwhy08@gmail.com

Who Really Wrote Shakespeare? - Part 1

One of the main questions that is often asked about my friend, Mr. William Shakespeare is, did he really write his plays?

This might not be such a dumb question as it sounds as many famous people, including those connected with the theatre, such as the actor, Derek Jacobi, don't believe he did. Sigmund Freud is another example of this. He believed that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) wrote them, while Mark Twain believed that Sir Francis Bacon(1561-1626) wrote Macbeth and Hamlet etc.

But let us start at the beginning. First of all, the question 'Who Wrote Shakespeare?' is not one that is confined to a few sceptic disbelievers. Look it up on Google and you will find over 376,000 (!) references to it. This question is also not a new one. It was started by a Warwickshire clergyman, Rev. James Wilmot (1726-1808) about 250 years ago. 

This worthy man of the cloth lived at Barton-on-the-Heath a few miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon and he decided to write a biography about his famous, now deceased fellow county man. To carry out the necessary research, he travelled around the area, checking out local private libraries and collections looking for copies of Shakespeare's plays and books that had belonged to the bard. He didn't find a single one. After carrying out some exhaustive searches, he didn't find any written or positive proof that WS had written any of his plays. As a result, Rev. Wilmot came to the conclusion that:
       
      1) The plays must have been written by a well-travelled,
            well-educated aristocrat who had the time and money.
      2) The writer of the play must have been knowledgeable
           about law, medicine, science and military matters.
      3) The only man who could have fit the above bill had to be
           Viscount St. Albans, Sir Francis Bacon.

After all, this well-connected courtly aristocrat was also a well-known author and essayist.

However, there is one major problem with this theory. Even though his life-span paralleled that of Shakespeare's, this highly educated polymath was far too busy with his legal and scientific work to have had the time to sit down and pen Othello, and Much Ado etc.

It is true that he did write various works, including Promus, but if you look at the following basic details of his life's work you will agree with me (and others) that Bacon is not Shakespeare.

                       From: "Who Wrote Shakespeare?" by John Michell

During his adult life he was an MP (1584), was a private tutor to the Earl of Essex (1591), was imprisoned for his part in Essex's failed rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I (1601), worked as a negotiator for James I re. an Anglo-Scottish reunion (1604), Solicitor-General (1607), Attorney-General (1613), Privy Councillor (1616), Lord Keeper (1617), Lord Chancellor (1618) and then was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a while having been found guilty of bribery and corruption.

However, this is not the end of the 'Bacon is Shakespeare' story and next time I will tell you how it played out.

In the meanwhile, if you wish to know more soon, have a look at my detective novel, Will the Real William Shakespeare Please Step Forward?

Hoping you enjoyed this and for remarks and comments, please write to me at:  dlwhy08@gmail.com          
    

Shakespeare's "Lost Years" & Other Mysteries

One of the fascinating and intriguing facts about my friend, Will Shakespeare, is that we don't really know much about his personal life. From the church records in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, we know when he was christened, April 26th 1564, a date which had led the experts to assume that he was born three days earlier on April 23rd. This is also England's patron saint, St. George's Day. (Oh, what a happy coincidence!) In addition, the same church records also tell us that the Bard died on April 23rd 1616, aged 52. 

However, we do not know what he died from. Some say it was from a cold or 'flu while according to John Ward, the Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon (1662-1681), "Shakespeare, [Michael] Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted." But remember, this was written some seventy years after Shakespeare's death.

We also know that he left six signatures, but none of them are to be found on any of his plays, poems or sonnets. The only written proof we have of him as a playwright appears on a list compiled by Edmund Tilney, the Queen's Master of the Revels in 1604/5 who wrote that 'Shaxberd' wrote Measure For Measure and The Comedy of Errors. Another playwright, Robert Greene also refers to him but see below for this.

                     
This last point also tells us that we don't even know how he really spelled his name! In his fascinating book, Who Wrote Shakespeare? John Michell lists '57 Varieties of Shakespeare's Family Name.' These range from 'Chacspere' to 'Shaxpere' via 'Shaxkespere' and 'Saxpere.'

Another mystery is that we don't even know what the man looked like. The iconic engraving by Dooeshout which appears at the front of the First Folio was made in 1623, seven years after the Bard's death, and by a man who didn't even know him. The other portraits we have such as the 'Flower' and the 'Chesterfield' portraits were also painted after Shakespeare's death by artists who obviously had never met him.

                       Shakespeare's portraits (from top left clockwise): Chandos (early 17th cent.,                            Grafton, 1588, found in 1907, Cornelius Janssen, (born 1593) and the Felton                                                             portrait bought in 1792.

              Martin Droeshout's iconic engraving of Shakespeare which first appeared in the                                    "First Folio" in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare died.

In addition to all of these mysteries, one of the most intriguing is called the "Lost Years." Although we know, more or less, what Shakespeare was doing for most of his life, we do not know what he was doing or where he was between 1585, when his twins, Hamnet (no, not Hamlet) and Judith were born, and 1592, when Robert Greene, a fellow-playwright, wrote about him in a contemporary pamphlet.

The questions raised about these Lost Years include: Where was he during this period and what was he doing there? Was he helping daddy in his glove shop or was he working as a private teacher somewhere? Did he work in a lawyer's office or as Duff Cooper suggests in his book, Sergeant Shakespeare, was our hero a soldier fighting in the Low Countries (hence his knowledge of the army etc)? Why did this married man with three small children leave Stratford? Had he broken the law? Had his Catholic background caused him problems in Protestant England? Had he been offered a writing job in London? We just don't know. And until someone finds a missing document which will solve this mystery, it looks like that the 'Lost Years' will always remain just that, a mystery.

But ah! there is some light on the horizon. If you read my novel, Welcome to London, Mr. Shakespeare (published by GMTA/Ravenswood Publishing, NC, USA and available on Amazon.co/co.uk) you will read that I have solved the 'Lost Years' mystery. There you will read how he became a personal tutor in the north of England; had a brief acting role in Stratford and then came to London where he worked for James Burbage, the owner of the "Theatre." He also met the alluring Dark Lady of the Sonnets, but I'm not going to tell you any more about her here. You'll have to buy the book (print or Kindle version) to learn the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

I hope you enjoyed this, and for comments, please write to: dlwhy08@gmail.com
Thank you.  

More insurance claims for watching "Macbeth", Part 2

For those who are all agog to see even more reasons why it's dangerous to watch the Scottish or the "M" play, read on!

In 2004 at the Cambridge Co. production, Macduff hurt his back, Lady Macbeth bashed her head, Ross broke his toe and two trees (scenery) crashed to the ground and destroyed the set. Three years later in 2004 at the RSC, the producer at an "M" play production, distributed a questionnaire to the cast which included a question asking how superstitious they were. I wonder why?

                 
                                                 Roy Marsden playing Macbeth

In the summer, 2004, one of the witches tried to exorcise the curse by trying to raise the spirit of Macbeth at Inverness castle but Lady Macbeth of Cawdor Castle refused to co-operate. The ceremony was nearly cancelled when a cameraman fell ill and several real witches cancelled their part due to other mysterious happenings.

Diana Rigg ("The Avengers") playing lady Macbeth at the National Theatre in 1972.

In another production, actor, Charlton Heston suffered from severe burns when his tights caught fire after being accidentally soaked in kerosene. Somewhere else, actress Sybil Thorndyke was nearly strangled by another actor playing Lady Macbeth. In addition at yet another production of this famous play, Paul Scofield, Orson Welles and Stanislavski were also injured or witnessed the 'curse' in action.

However, all of the above palls in contrast to what happened one night in New York in 1849. Here, during two rival performances of the play, riots broke out at the Astor Palace theater. TWENTY people were killed and HUNDREDS more were injured!!!

Moral of the story: Make sure you have paid all of your insurance payments before you go and watch "Macbeth"!

Is there a cure for this curse, I hear you ask? And the answer is, Yes. If anyone is found saying the 'M' word in a dressing room, he has to leave the room, turn around three times and ask for permission to re-enter. Then he may have to quote a line from Hamlet: (Act I,sc.iv.) - "Angels and ministers of grace defend us."

Next time we will have a less cursed time when I write about one or several of my own Shakespeare novels. As usual, please send your comments to me at: dlwhy08@gmail.com
Thank you,
David

Be sure you're insured when you next watch "Macbeth."

Going to watch "Macbeth" can be fatal! Part of the way to save yourself from shuffling off this mortal coil in an untimely way is not to call this play, "Macbeth," but to call it the "M" or "the Scottish play." Perhaps it is because of the abundance of the motifs of evil, blood, magic and murder that there are so many superstitions about this play - probably more than in any other play that Shakespeare wrote. At the end of this 2-part article I will tell you how to protect yourself from this play's deadly influences.

Below is a list of what happened to various unfortunate people who took part in the play or who came to watch it. All of the following incidents are true so you have been warned! 

When it was first acted on 7 August 1606, Hal Berridge, the boy playing Lady Macbeth, died backstage and it is said that Shakespeare took over and played the part himself. In 1672 the actor playing Macbeth in Amsterdam used a real dagger and fatally stabbed King Duncan on stage.

In 1865, President Lincoln met up with some friends to read the play. Next day he went to Ford's theatre...

In 1937 at the Old Vic theatre, London, a 25 pound weight came crashing down from above the stage and just missed hitting Laurence Olivier who was playing Macbeth. Also during this production, the actress playing Lady Macbeth and the producer were involved in a car crash while the famous actress, Lillian Bayliss, died of a heart-attack on the day of the dress rehearsal.

                Macbeth (Orson Welles) instructing the two murderers in the 1949 film 
                                            version which he, Welles, directed. 

Five years later in 1942 three actors playing Duncan and two of the witches died during John Gielguid's production and the set designer committed suicide! In 1947, actor Harold Newman was also stabbed to death when someone substituted a real dagger for a fake one.

In Moscow in the fifties, actor Paul Rogers who was playing Macbeth clashed so violently with Macduff in the final scene that his sword flew out of his hand. It stuck in the seat where USSR President Kruschev was destined to sit three hours later.

Nearer home to England, the Dublin theatre company manager broke both of his legs during a production of the play, the stage electrician electrocuted himself and the actor playing Banquo committed suicide.

It was during this period that while the scenery for the play was being unloaded in Cape Town, a stranger asked which play was being made ready. "Macbeth" came the answer. As soon as the cursed name was said, a bundle of spears was dislodged from the ramp and the stranger was speared to death!

1971 was almost a fatal year. Two fires and seven robberies occured during David Learie's production and Roman Polanski's filming of the play was also riddled with danger. A cameraman was nearly killed on location during the first day of filming. In addition, Kenneth Tynan, the theatre critic noted that when one little girl on the set when Lady Macduff and her son were murdered was asked, "What is your name?"
she replied, "Sharon." (Tate?)

This list goes on unto the 21st century which I'll deal with next time as well as giving you a FREE "Anti-Macbeth" insurance policy.

For comments write to: wsdavidyoung@gmail.com 

More About Saint Macbeth of Lumphanan

We can never know the reason why artists and painters produce their specific works unless they tell us. Shakespeare never told us why he wrote Macbeth so all we can do is make educated guesses about his reasons.

We know that as one of the principle share-holders in the Globe theatre, Shakespeare had vested interests in writing “a hit, a palpable hit.” But why write one about a long dead Scottish king and his over-ambitious wife?

              Macbeth being crowned King of Scotland. Holinshed's Chronicles, 1587

The reason may be that this play was probably written in 1605-06 (Shakespeare never dated his plays) and King James I of England (a.k.a. King James VI of Scotland) had been sitting on the throne of England for two or three years by then. We also know that this king loved the theatre and our William was an important member of the 'King’s Men' theatre company. So why not write a Scottish flavoured play that would keep the company’s chief patron happy?

In addition, the king fancied that he was a direct descendant of the eight kingly apparitions who appear at the end of the second terrific Witches scene. This is the one where they are busy making soup chanting:

                            Double, double toil and trouble;

                            Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

     Macbeth meeting "womenin straunge & ferly apparell resembling creatures of an elder                                                 worlde." Holinshed's Chronicles, 1587.

In addition, it was also very fashionable then to write about witches. Two popular plays of the time included, The Witch of Edmonton and The Late Lancashire Witches. Also, Shakespeare’s contemporary playwright (and possible literary partner?) Thomas Middleton, had written The Witch. In addition, following the (in)famous North Berwick witch trials which were held in 1590-01 on the Anglo-Scottish border, the king himself had become obsessed with the topic of witchcraft. In 1597 he had written his own treatise on the subject, Demonologie.  

So what better could Shakespeare do than to stroke the royal ego and write a play about Scottish kings and witches? Success should be guaranteed and the Bard should make a profit. Not only was he a great dramatist, but obviously the Bard knew the value of good PR.

             At the foot of the oldest tree in Birnham Wood today. The witches were alleged to have                                        lived in the hollow at the foot of the trunk!

And if we are talking about the witches, we should also mention one of their predictions when “Great Birnham Wood will come to high Dunsinane hill.” This moving forest ploy was of course not new. In the Bible we read that  King David had used it to fool the Philistines while two hundred years before Shakespeare, Andrew Wyntoun had used it in his Orygynale Cronykil.

Next time I will tell you what were Shakespeare's sources for this play and why it can be fatal to play a part in it. I'll also say why it can be dangerous even to go to the theatre merely to watch this popular "Scottish play."

For comments on this and my other blogs, please write to:

wsdavidyoung@gmail.com

Thank you

Saint Macbeth! Shakespeare Got It Wrong - Again!

Everybody knows the story of Macbeth. Once upon a time there was a brave Scottish general called Macbeth who, together with his best friend, Banquo, beat the Norweyans. On their way home they were accosted by three witches who promised among other things, that Macbeth would one day become king. At home in his castle, he tells this to Mrs. Macbeth and soon after he kills the "gracious and meek" King Duncan and takes over the throne. 

However, things don't go as planned. Many of Macbeth's Scottish lords suspecting what happened, desert him and join the English enemy instead. In the end, Duncan's son, Malcolm, together with many disaffected Scottish lords and the English army march on Macbeth's castle at Dunsinane. In the ensuing battle, Macbeth, "with his black and deep desires" is beheaded by Malcolm's friend, Macduff, and Malcolm becomes king - all as the three witches promised Macbeth at the beginning. 

But the above version is what happened according to our William. It is nowhere near the truth. Here is what really happened.

Macbeth, a Scottish noble, was born in c.1005. In 1032 he married Lady Gruoch who became Lady Macbeth. This lady had already been married but her first husband, Gille Coemgain, had been killed in battle. She was left with his son, Lulach. It was through his wife that Macbeth had a legal claim to the Scottish throne.

The ruling king at the time, Duncan was killed in battle at Pitgaveny in 1040, (not murdered in bed,) and Macbeth was democratically elected by his fellow lords and thanes to be their next king. Duncan's two very young sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, were then taken to England. Not a coup d'etat in sight. 


Macbeth was in fact a very good and strong ruler. He was so sure of his throne that in 1050, he left Scotland to pay a visit to Pope Leo IX in Rome. While he was there, the chronicles of the time recorded that he scattered money and presents "like seed" before returning home to take up his rule once again. (Does this sound like Shakespeare's Macbeth?) He continued ruling peacefully for another four years and then his troubles started.

Macbeth's Castle? (Picture in Lumphanan pub)

By now, Malcolm was twenty-three years old and wished to succeed his dead father. He was supported by the English king, Edward the Confessor, and a battle was fought out in the open (no woods around) probably east of Dundee on 27 July 1054. In this battle, Malcolm did gain some ground but Macbeth continued to rule despite a civil war for another three years.

The remains of Macbeth's castle at Lumphahan today

Finally, Malcolm's army, again supported by the English and certain Scottish tribes, fought Macbeth's forces at Lumphanan. (This is a wee village some twenty miles west of Aberdeen (and nowhere near Dunsinane). Macbeth was killed and his body was buried at Iona, a small island off the west coast of Scotland. Lady Macbeth's son, Lulach then became king, but reigned for only one year before being usurped by Malcolm who became Malcolm III, or Malcolm Canmore (Bighead).  

The only obvious evidence that Macbeth was here in Lumphanan

Next time we will go into the whys and wherefores how and why   Shakespeare chose to write this play this way. But whatever the reasons were, we can see that even though our William was a brilliant dramatist and "Macbeth" is easily my favourite play, the Bard was a lousy historian!

For comments, please write to wsdavidyoung@gmail.com
Thank you.

Shakespeare was a Lousy Historian - Part 2

As I wrote in my last blog, our Will was a lousy historian and one of the prime examples of this can be seen in his ever-popular play Henry V. The iconic picture of this medieval warrior-king (1387-1422) may be seen here below.

At the end of the play, when it comes to counting up the casualties on both sides in that "royal fellowship of death," Shakespeare, as before, was more accurate in counting up the enemy French dead than in counting up his own English soldiers k.i.a. In Act IV, sc. 8 he writes of the hundreds of "knights, esquires and gallant gentlemen" who were killed in addition to the thousands of mercenaries, barons, lords, squires "and gentlemen of blood and quality." In all, Shakespeare says that "ten thousand they [the French] have lost."

In contrast, the English lost only twenty-nine men, of whom three were nobles and one, Davy Gam, was an esquire.
Now although the Battle of Agincourt was a fantastic and unexpected English victory, these English casualty numbers are nowhere near the truth. While I was researching my university project, King Henry & Sergeant Shakespeare, I trawled though nineteen relevant English and French history books ranging from Monstrelet's Chronicles (c.1440) and Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) to the most recent books written by such experts as David Chandler and Anne Curry. 

Even though all of these books say that the French army was much larger and suffered many more casualties than their English opponents, they also say that Henry's army must have suffered at least several hundred casualties. We know that as was prevalent at the time, no strict lists of "all other men" killed in action was made. However, to think that the French lost thousands of men in contrast to a paltry twenty-nine English fighters is completely incredible!  

Another problem in this play consists of timing, or rather, the passage of time. The October 1415 battle ends in Act IV. sc. 8 and yet two scenes later, our brave Henry is marrying the French princess, Katherine. In fact over five years were to pass. During this time Henry returned to France and among other acts of war, brutally attacked and ransacked the town of Rouen before he married Katherine in 1520. This five-year gap is never hinted at in any way in the play.

Finally, even though the bulk of Henry's army consisted of archers, they and the critical tremendous arrow-storm that they fired at the beginning of the battle are never mentioned. Shakespeare refers to the "nimble gunner," "the develish cannon" and the "armourers with busy hammers", but nowhere do the archers never get a mention. As shown below, even the French remember them today in the town of Agincourt (Azincourt in French).

Here there is a museum which graphically recalls " the blasts of war" that echoed over the nearby fields and woods six hundred years ago. 

Next time we'll talk about "the Scottish play" and how, even though it's my favourite play, our William made some horrible historical blunders!

For comments: wsdavidyoung@gmail.com 

Shakespeare Was a Lousy Historian - Part 1!

Even though I admire my friend,  Mr. Shakespeare, a great deal, he was a lousy historian! He wrote about a dozen historical plays about England and Scotland and a few more about ancient Greece and Rome. However, due to his reputation as England's greatest writer, these often historically inaccurate plays have influenced how we refer to several (in)famous personalities and events of the past.

Of course, it must be remembered before I tell you about several English kings such as Henry V, Richard III and others that our Will was writing for the theatre, an institution in which he had shares, i.e. a serious financial interest therein. Therefore it must be remembered that despite my remarks below, he was writing as a dramatist and not as a history teacher. He had to make his plays popular as 'bums on seats meant cash in pockets.' And that is what he did - and very successfully too.

He also had to succeed as a playwright simply because he wasn't the only playwright on the scene (or on the stage). His chief rivals included Christopher Marlowe, before he was killed in a pub brawl in 1593, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont (who died a week before WS did) and John Webster. There were also many other minor scribblers around whose names and plays have disappeared o'er the passage of time.  

But now I wish to deal with one of his most performed plays about one of England's most famous soldier-kings: King Henry the Fifth. This valiant man was put up on his pedestal by the Bard in about 1598/99 (to the chagrin of lit. crit. scholars ever since, WS never dated his plays so we have to date them through internal clues and incidents) and this king has stayed high up there ever since. 

Of course, Henry V's claim to fame is based on leading his "poor and starved band" (French pre-battle opinion) of five to nine thousand sickly men against a much larger French army of thousands of well-armoured mounted knights. As history and the Bard tell us, by the time that cold October day was over, Henry had absolutely wiped the floor with his French opponents. So what is wrong with this play?

The answer is not in the main action; it is in the details. In the king's well-known pre-battle warm-up speech beginning, "If we are marked to die..." Henry refers to "the happy few" - the nobles who were due to fight with him that day. These included the Dukes of Bedford, Gloucester, Exeter and York as well as the Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, Warwick and Sir Thomas Erpingham. Please note: Shakespeare got this list completely wrong! Of the eight nobles mentioned here, only three of them, the Dukes of Gloucester and York and Sir Thomas Erpingham were there on that fateful day. Of these three, the Duke of York, Henry's younger brother was (probably) smothered to death by other bodies lying on him in the mud in the heat of battle, the Duke of Gloucester was severely wounded 'to the hams' and only the sixty year old Sir Thomas survived that grim battle relatively unscathed.

Where were the other members of the "happy few?" Some were left behind in England to 'look after the shop,' i.e. to make sure that France's allies, the Scots, didn't attack from the north during Henry's absence, while some of the others were left behind to make sure the king's recent victory at Harfleur ("Once more into the breach, dear friends..." didn't unravel.

To be honest, Shakespeare was more historically accurate when dealing with the French aristocrats who were present on that October day. However, he did make a mistake mentioning that the French King Charles VI's oldest son, the Dauphin, also fought at the Battle of Agincourt. He didn't. He was presumably back home with daddy, getting himself ready to meet Joan of Arc some fifteen years later.

Enough for today. Next time I will tell you that not only was our William a lousy historian, he also wasn't very good at military statistics!

For more about Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt, see: Website:www.dly-books.weebly.com
and also my novel, "ARROWS OVER AGINCOURT" available through amazon.com/co.uk etc

Writing Historical Novels---Part 4

Dear all,
In this blog I plan to finish this series about writing historical novels by dealing with three remaining problems: dialogue, background and source material.

Dialogue
First of all, you must make your dialogue sound natural and authentic for the the period you are writing about. Therefore you will not be able to use such modern expressions as 'O.K.', 'cool' and 'yeah, right' when dealing with Tudor England, Abraham Lincoln or Davy Crockett. If you are not sure, have a look at some historical novels written by Philippa Gregory, Josephine Tey and Sharon Penman et al and they should be able to help you solve this problem.

And while we're talking about dialogue, if you use a local dialect, e.g. Cockney (working-class London) or Geordie, (Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland, N.E. England) or any other Scottish, Irish or American one, do not exaggerate. You don't have to remove every 'h' from your Cockney 'ave,' 'as' or 'ouse.' In the same way there is no need to remove every 'g' from 'goin', walkin' and talkin'. Similarly, overdoing such Geordie, or other local expressions such as, 'Ah wes palatick' (I enjoyed myself), and 'Wordaz on the buroo' (My father is unemployed) make it very hard reading for any reader who is not familiar with these dialects. This does not mean that all of your characters must speak standard British, American or Canadian English. All you need to do is include a few key slang or dialectical words to give the necessary flavour and whet your reader's appetite. 

Background
At the same time as you are trying to use suitable dialogue, you must also make sure that the same is true for your background.
This means you must know when certain technological features first appeared. Your heroes can't jump onto a train before the 1820s, and neither can they fly abroad until after the First World War when civil aviation first began. Similarly, they can't use computers to solve a problem before the 1970s or call someone on the phone before 1877. 

To make your background sound more authentic, it is useful to consult Google or to use books relating to the relevant time period you are writing about. Two books I have consulted in my writing are The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, and Shakespeare's London On Five Groats a Day by Richard Tames. I have also found children's illustrated history books very useful. Furthermore there have been occasions when I have checked out souvenir books that I've bought at castles, cathedrals, battlefields and palaces.

Source material
Checking source material can be one of your biggest problems. This is especially true if you are writing about a period that is new to you or one that you are not an expert on. This happened to me when I was checking up some dates while writing my novel about England's medieval King John. As the following will show, even (allegedly) simple facts such as dates and places of birth can present problems. 

Virtually all the books and internet sources I consulted said that this king was born in Oxford in 1167. Not so, says Stephen Church in King John: England, Magna Carta and the Making of a Tyrant (2015). He says that John was born in the Tower of London at the end of 1166 or early 1167. On page 1 he says most emphatically: "The date of John's death is traditionally set as 24 December 1167 at Oxford...but this is wrong on almost every count." From here he goes on to quote his sources which explain why he disagrees with almost everyone else.

Another example concerning this much maligned king concerns the Treaty of Montmirail. This was an important document which referred to how John's father, Henry II, planned to divide up his English and French lands once he had shuffled off this mortal coil. Most of the books (including Stephen Church) and many internet sites state that this treaty was signed in 1169. However, Ralph V. Turner in King John writes that it was only after Henry had put down a rebellion among his squabbling sons that he signed such a treaty in 1174. 

Are these points important? Does it matter if John or anyone else was born in London or Oxford or that a treaty was signed in 1169 or five years later? The answer is a definite 'yes' if you want your readers to have faith in your writing. And after all is said and done, that is what you want. To write good stories and have your readers coming back for more, no?

I will be very happy to read your responses to this blog and the other ones on my website:   www.dly-books.weebly.com  or
wsdavidyoung@gmail.com

Thank you. 

More on writing historical novels

Dear all,
First of all, please accept my apologies for writing a couple of typos in my last blog. As a writer of historical novels (and as one who writes that accuracy is important) this is a cardinal sin! 

In my last blog I referred to several problems that writers of historical novels encounter, such as your POV, point of view, writing in  the first or third person (I've never tried the second person) and being accurate, especially when referring to dates, actions and names of people and places.

Now I wish to continue and write about a few more problems which have to be considered when writing historical novels.

One of these is the question of suspense. How can you write (and hopefully sell) a novel when the reader knows what the end will be? For example, in my novel, Gunpowder, Treason & Plot about Guy Fawkes, the 17th century would be blower-up of the Houses of Parliament, was as everyone knows, caught before he could set light to the thirty-six barrels of gunpowder he'd hidden underneath the Houses of Parliament. So what's the point of writing/reading about this failed plot? Surely, the answer is that it is more fun to travel than to arrive. It is learning to find out why (in this particular story) that he failed rather than just know that he did so. 

The same can be said for my novel, Six Million Accusers: Catching Adolf Eichmann. It is known that in 1960 this top Nazi who was responsible for the murder of six millions Jews and millions of non-Jews was found hiding out in Buenos Aires. It is also known that the Israeli secret service "Mossad" was responsible for this and also for bringing this terrible monster back to Israel where he was tried and hanged. So why write a novel about it? Because the novel adds many of the details how the "Mossad" caught him and how he was smuggled back to Israel and because above all, it makes a very good, exciting and true story.

Similarly, what happened to Henry VIII's fourth and fifth wives, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard are also very well-documented in history books. What I hope I have done in Anne of Cleves: Henry's Luckiest Wife and Catherine Howard: Henry's Fifth Failure is to tell these stories of Henry's marital problems in an interesting way even though we know what happened to these two ladies in the end.

Another problem  that comes with writing such novels is that the author (especially those like me who are retired teachers and lecturers) do not become too heavy and pedantic with the historical facts and background. The novels you write are written to be read and enjoyed and should not read like school textbooks. Recently I was reminded of this when I started reading a novel about the Scottish King James II. The well-known Scottish author insisted on including so many facts about the various lords, ladies and other people involved that reading it seemed like reading a book for a course on Medieval Scottish history. I gave up after the first sixty pages. All that was missing was a list of specimen exam questions at the end. If I want a textbook, I'll buy a textbook, if I want a novel, I'll buy a novel.

Background credibility is also a problem. You want your readers to believe in what they read and that you as the author, know what you are talking about. This means you should immerse yourself in your topic and learn as much as you can about the people and period involved. This also includes learning about buildings, transport, food, armour, dress, language and tens of other aspects of the past. It is imperative for example to read more than one account about a person or a place when carrying out your basic research. Was King Richard III the evil man who, according to Shakespeare and others, murdered the poor Princes in the Tower or not? Did the Tower of London look the same six hundred years ago, and did it fulfill the same functions that it does today?

Travelling to places that you write about is also important, though not always imperative. However, there is a problem with this. In several of my novels I have referred to various battlegrounds in England and Europe which I have visited. These have included the Civil War battlefield of Naseby, Northants. (1645) or Towton, Yorks. (1461) and Agincourt, France (1415). 

On arriving at these sites I have been sorely disappointed. I wasn't expecting to find bodies rotting there or pieces of rusting armour or anything like that, but seeing these places looking so peaceful and pastoral made it very difficult to imagine that hundreds of years ago, thousands of men had met there, clashing arms, and cutting and spearing their fellow men to death. And all of this was accompanied by blood-curdling yells, cries of pain and shouts of victory. This contrast was made even clearer when I visited Bannockburn, (1314) where Edward II was thrashed by Robert the Bruce. Apart from seeing a stylised statue of the Scottish king sitting astride a massive horse, much of the battlefield has been taken over by a housing estate!

However, enough of the blood and guts of history and next time I'll talk about using various sources to find out what really happened.

For more: www.dly-books.weebly.com

              A Few Notes on Writing Historical Novels.

"It must be easy for you to write your historical novels, " a friend said to me recently. "You know how your plot is going to end; who your main characters are, and if you get your facts right - no problems," he said, flicking his fingers with a dismissive gesture.
       "Not so," I replied. "There's loads of problems to deal with." 
       "Yeah? Like what?"
       Like what I'm going to tell you here.

One of the basic problems is: which angle are you going to write your story from? Which POV, point of view are you going to use? Are you going to write about Queen Elizabeth I's Tudor court from a courtier, say Sir Walter Raleigh's point of view or are you going to have one of the kitchen scullery-maids tell the story? And what about it coming from the horse's mouth - from Queen Elizabeth hereslf?

And then, once you've decided how to answer that question, how are you going to treat your narrator: as a hero/ine? a villain? a straight-forward raconteur or as someone who is telling this particular tale because they have an axe to grind?
For example, are you going to describe Colonel Blood, the 17th century adventurer who almost succeeded in stealing the Crown jewels from the Tower of London in 1671 as a thief or as a swashbuckling daredevil?

And if we're dealing with the POV question, how are you going to write your story? In the first or third person? Both are perfectly kosher. I have just finished reading a Philippa Gregory Tudor-flavoured novel and it is all in the third person. 
In contrast, Two Bullets in Sarajevo, my novel about the assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife just before the First World War was written entirely in the first person.
Sometimes you can use both first and third persons.

In my first Tudor novel about Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves: Henry's Luckiest Wife, I started in the third person and then half-way through, I switched to the first person, with Anne telling her own story. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. If you ook at amazon.com, you will see that among the 146 reviews(!) and still counting, some people like this and others didn't. It's all a matter of taste.

And if we're talking about taste, there is a trend today for historical writers to describe the past using the present simple. Both Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel have done this. I don't like it. Maybe I'm a bit square and old fashioned. For me the past is the past and the present is the present. An exception to this use of the present tense for relating to past incidents, for me at least, are the short stories by Damon Runyon. I think his descriptions of Spanish John and Harry the Horse et al and how they talk are brilliant. But then again, they are not historical novels. When he was writing them in the 1940's that was the present.

Then once you have solved this question, you must make sure that any historical fact is as correct as possible. If you write that the Declaration of Independence was signed in New York on July 3rd 1776 or that William the Conqueror invaded England in 1065 you are guaranteed in killing your readers' credibility in the rest of your novel. Similarly, you can't write that your medieval captain fired his musket during the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Two hundred years were to pass before muskets were used on the battlefield. In other words, every specific detail must be correct, including: dates, names and technology.

However, in your effort to achieve credibility, you must be careful how you use your historical facts and information. Too few may result in a weak story, but too many will lead you to sound as if you are writing a history textbook in disguise. I recently gave up reading an historical novel about a Scottish king (one of the Jameses) because apart from one or two lines of conversation, the rest was pure and unadulterated history. If I'd wanted to read about the history James I, II or II for light relief, then I would have bought such an historical book and not a novel.

Anyway, enough about this for now and I'll add a bit more in my next blog.

Looking forward to receiving some feedback about this either via my website:  www.dly-books.weebly.com or  wsdavidyoung@gmail.com

Keep enjoying your reading and writing of history,
David Lawrence-Young