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
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
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.
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
