"There was never a claimant that couldn't get a hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be." Mark Twain

In the absence of any material facts that connect anyone but William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon to the authorship of the works of William Shakespeare, it is not unusual for alternative author proponents to revert to celebrity endorsement to sponsor their cause. Apparently, if you are a famous Hollywood actor you become immediately qualified as an expert on Elizabethan and Jacobean literature in general, and Shakespeare in particular. And if you are an acknowledged authority in psychology, you are equally an authority on the life and times of William Shakespeare of Stratford.

The following are "celebrities" who have expressed some scepticism about William Shakespeare's authorship. In large part, they are justifiably renowned for what they've achieved in their own fields of expertise, but by their own words, are strikingly deficient in their knowledge and understanding of Shakespeare's life and works. In proving the old adage "garbage in = garbage out", they only succeed in discrediting their cases rather than advancing them:

1.    Mark Twain
2.    Charlie Chaplin
3.    Sigmund Freud
4.    Henry James
5.    Walt Whitman
6.    Malcolm X
7.    J. Thomas Looney
8.    Delia Bacon

1.    Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) was the American author of novels such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written of course under the pseudonym of "Mark Twain". In commenting on the Shakespeare Authorship issue he said that "there was never a claimant that couldn't get a hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be". Perhaps one of the most ironic and unwitting comments by a sceptical commentator on their own position.

In a chapter in his autobiography entitled Is Shakespeare Dead?, characterised by an almost screaming and derisory tone, Twain made a number of observations and concluded that he believed Sir Francis Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's works, principally on the basis of the expert knowledge of law that Shakespeare allegedly demonstrates in the canon.

Twain's salient points are as follows:

“[William Shakespeare was] of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names.”

Twain here displays surprising ignorance of William Shakespeare’s father actually being a glover for which a 7-year apprenticeship had to be served to become a member of the Craft of Glovers, Whitetawers & Collarmakers. In the year of his marriage, John Shakespeare was elected to Stratford's Common Council, served as Chamberlain for 4 years (a term of office without precedent), and as Bailiff. William Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of the local landowner Richard Arden, a descendant of the Ardens of Park Hall. Contrary to Twain's invention, neither of Shakespeare's parents were farmers nor were they of "farmer-class". They were clearly middle-class.

Neither is there any evidence that Shakespeare's parents couldn't read or write. Both John Shakespeare and his colleague John Taylor were appointed to administer borough property and revenues and make official audits at the end of each year for which an ability to read was an obvious pre-requisite. The accounts of 1566 were made by John Shakespeare alone, for which he had to be singularly capable of at least reading. As far as writing is concerned, we are not able to conclude in whose handwriting the accounts were made to conclusively confirm John Shakespeare being their writer, but we do have surviving documentation in which he made his mark. "Making your mark" was a method of signing documents by those who could not write, or as a form of shorthand by authorised individuals who could write to signify they have verified a document, or as a sign that a document was signed in the name and presence of God (the cross symbolising the crucifix). Sceptics selectively choose to regard John Shakespeare's mark as evidence of him not being able to write but writers making their mark was not an unusual practice: Adrian Quiney preferred on occasion to use a mark rather than his signature to sign the official council records although we have surviving letters written in Quiney's hand, and Christopher Marlowe's father, John, made his mark in his own will, even though he signed his name on other documents.

As well as inventing false data about Shakespeare's class, Twain selectively chooses the least favourable scenario regarding John Shakespeare's literacy by ignoring contemporary evidence and practice in his favour.

“At Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and unclean, and densely illiterate.”

Stratford actually was not a "small back settlement" but became a corporate borough under a Bailiff, Alderman and Burgesses by Royal Charter in 1553. What Stratford's allegedly "shabby and unclean" state has to do with literacy is unclear but at the very least the description compares rather more favourably with the plague-ridden capital. And Twain again resorts to a myth of a "densely illiterate" town that is contradicted by the contemporary evidence.

“Next day William Shakespeare took out a licence to marry Anne Hathaway. She was eight years his senior.”

Whilst not being particularly significant, this is another example of Twain's inclination to invent, or resort to, false data. We cannot be certain of Anne Hathaway's age.

“Some of these [plays], in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no protest.”

Twain here displays ignorance of the fact that copyright laws did not exist in Elizabethan times making the practice of text-pirating a commonplace activity. He also uniquely claims that Shakespeare expressed “no protest” whilst providing no evidence that he didn't and also failing to identify those who did.

“He left her that "second-best bed". And not another thing; not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood with.”

Twain here displays his ignorance of the default inheritance rights of a surviving wife that makes Shakespeare's will unremarkable in the context of others' wills. He is also unaware of Joyce Rogers’ cogent reasoning that “second best” was an Elizabethan term that signified reparation for neglected duties.

“It was eminently and conspicuously a business man's will, not a poet's.”

It is difficult to comprehend what Twain expects from Shakespeare's will. Perhaps one written in blank verse.

“The will mentioned NOT A PLAY, NOT A POEM, NOT AN UNFINISHED LITERARY WORK, NOT A SCRAP OF MANUSCRIPT OF ANY KIND.”

Twain here displays ignorance that manuscripts were owned by the acting company of which Shakespeare was a co-owner and its principal writer. That was who the plays were specifically written for. This is quite evident from the later publication of the First Folio that Heminges & Condell made who were also co-owners of the acting company.

“Many poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that has died THIS poor; the others all left literary remains behind. Also a book. Maybe two.”

This is an extraordinary act of ignorant hypocrisy from Twain. Sir Francis Bacon, the person whom Twain “strongly suspects” wrote the works, himself didn't leave a single book in his will. Once again, there's one standard of a perfectly complete history required for Shakespeare, but a completely different standard of an imperfect and incomplete history that is considered quite acceptable for everyone else.

“These five signatures still exist. There are NO OTHER SPECIMENS OF HIS PENMANSHIP IN EXISTENCE. Not a line.”

Again, a false account of the facts from Twain: there are at least 6 surviving Shakespeare signatures, which is more than we have for Greene, Webster, Beaumont, Marlowe and many other notable literary figures of his time. Twain is also ignorant of the existence of the “Sir Thomas More” manuscript now in the British Library and its convincing attribution to Shakespeare.

“The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an unchanging and immutable law: which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon any other basis. With the Baconian it is different. If you place before him the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any case get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will get just the proper 31.”

This is perhaps the most bizarre formula determining authorship ever contrived.

“Yet his death was not an event. It made no stir, it attracted no attention.”

Twain here displays his ignorance of the existence of commendatory poems and the Monument itself in Stratford that celebrates him, and pretends to know what people did or did not do at the time of Shakespeare’s death in Stratford before newspapers and TV could record such activity.

“There is no EVIDENCE in existence that he ever went to school at all.”

Twain uniquely requires surviving documentary evidence for Shakespeare's schooling yet is untroubled by no documentary records having survived for any contemporary having attended the Stratford Grammar school. The issue is simply that the documentary evidence hasn't survived 400 years yet Twain insinuates a problem by speaking as though Shakespeare’s records should have uniquely survived even if others' have perished. He also betrays his jaundiced assessment of the contemporary situation: that the Stratford Grammar School existed, what that says about the attitudes and priorities of the people of Stratford, that John Shakespeare's official positions in the town meant he was instrumental in providing and maintaining that academic establishment, and that his official positions meant William had the right to free schooling there, somehow leads Twain to conclude that William Shakespeare could not have gone there. All the evidence Twain wants to formulate an objective, unjaundiced and rational judgement is there but he chooses instead to complain about the survival of a piece of paper.

“The Plays and Poems of Shakespeare supply ample evidence that their author not only had a very extensive and accurate knowledge of law, but that he was well acquainted with the manners and customs of members of the Inns of Court and with legal life generally.”

Twain here has irrational difficulty in reconciling Shakespeare of Stratford, who in Twain’s own words “busied himself in suing, being counter-sued, trading in tithes, trading in land and houses” with Shakespeare the playwright who was a man familiar with “conveyancer’s jargon” and other legal terminology associated with these activities.

“It is SURMISED that he travelled in Italy and Germany and around, and qualified himself to put their scenic and social aspects upon paper.”

Twain here displays extraordinary ignorance of Shakespeare’s evident lack of personal knowledge of Italy that the plays manifestly demonstrate.

“When I examine my own case--but let us do that, and see if it will not be recognizable as exhibiting a condition of things quite likely to result, most likely to result, indeed substantially SURE to result in the case of a celebrated person, a benefactor of the human race. Like me.”

Twain, a self-appointed "benefactor of the human race", digressing for a moment to his most favourite subject: self-aggrandisement.

“Take the word 'purchase' for instance, which, in ordinary use, means to acquire by giving value, but applies in law to all legal modes of obtaining property except by inheritance or descent, and in this peculiar sense the word occurs five times in Shakespeare's thirty-four plays, and only in one single instance in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher.”

Twain here adopts one of the most bizarre reasons for consolidating the main premise on which he believes Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare: legal knowledge. By quoting Richard Grant White he shows that the legal term "purchase" was current and used by other playwrights, just as legal terms are generally commonplace in the works of Ben Jonson and others. But because Shakespeare used the term 5 times instead of Beaumont & Fletcher's once, Twain classifies Shakespeare as a qualified lawyer. Evidently, it's not what legal terms you use that matters to Twain, it's how many times you use them. So, if I wrote a play that referred to the legal practice of “purchasing” 6 times I would, by Twain’s bizarre estimation, be demonstrating a more expert knowledge of law than Shakespeare.

In fact, J. M. Robertson conducted a thorough analysis of this matter by taking all the passages in Shakespeare's plays that have legal references, no matter how slight, and comparing them to similar passages in the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries. He has convincingly demonstrated that Shakespeare's use of legal terminology was as standard for Elizabethan playwrights.

 “But this supposition not only fails to account for Shakespeare's peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that phraseology, it does not even place him in the way of learning those terms his use of which is most remarkable, which are not such as he would have heard at ordinary proceedings at NISI PRIUS, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real property, 'fine and recovery,' 'statutes merchant,' 'purchase,' 'indenture,' 'tenure,' 'double voucher,' 'fee simple,' 'fee farm,' 'remainder,' 'reversion,' 'forfeiture,' etc.

Twain again has difficulty here in reconciling Shakespeare of Stratford's activity in the tenure & transfer of property, fine & recovery, etc., with the plays’ references to tenure & transfer of property, fine & recovery, etc..

 “The only lines he ever wrote, so far as we know, are substantially barren of them-- barren of all of them.

     Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare

     To digg the dust encloased heare:

     Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
     And curst be he yt moves my bones.”

Twain here fails to recognise that these very words are from the Shakespeare canon, e.g.

Arthur of Britain: "O me! My uncle’s spirit is in these stones.
Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!"

King John, Act 4, Scene 3

and

Third Lord: "I feel ’t upon my bones."
Fourth Lord: "One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones."

Timon of Athens, Act 3, Scene 7

and

Bottom: "Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me"

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5, Scene 1

and

"When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover"

Sonnet 32

and

"Shall curse my bones and hold it for no sin"

Rape of Lucrece

and

"Ask who lies here, but do not weep.

He is not dead; he doth but sleep.

This stony register is for his bones;

His fame is more perpetual than these stones,

And his own goodness, with himself being gone,
Shall live when earthly monument is none."

on the Stanley tomb attributed to Shakespeare by Dugdale and others not least due to Shakespeare's known professional connections to the family.

Twain is also evidently unaware of the contemporary practice of unearthing the deceaseds' bones in Stratford Church after a period of time has passed, that the verse is virtually certainly inspired by.

On reflection then, Mark Twain asks far more questions of himself than of Shakespeare's authorship.

2.    Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) was, of course, the famous English actor, comedian and film producer who was a leader of the silent film era and later the "talkies". Chaplin's appreciation of Shakespeare's works was not great, in fact in his autobiography he admitted to contempt for virtually everything Shakespearean:

"I cannot pretend to enjoy Shakespeare in the theatre...it requires a special panache type of acting which I do not like, and in which I am not interested...I dislike Shakespearean themes...Hamlet's mother could have slept with everyone at court and I would still feel indifferent to the hurt it would have inflicted on Hamlet...[and that Shakespeare allegedly had an] utter disregard for grammar".

His view on the authorship issue is that a nobleman must have written the works based on what he admits he "heard" was Shakespeare's "desultory boyhood" and Shakespeare's "indifferent school record".

The major problem with this to start with is that Chaplin formed his view on what he had "heard" rather than exploration of the facts and the works themselves. The second major problem is that what he heard was fundamentally false: we don't have the surviving school records for Shakespeare nor any of his peers in order to classify them as "indifferent" and we have insufficient data relating to virtually every Elizabethan literary figure who ever lived to determine whether or not their childhood was "desultory".

Chaplin, in his own words, didn't care for Shakespeare and formed a false conclusion from false information.

3.    Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was famous for formulating various influential theories regarding human nature and psychology. His view on the Shakespeare authorship issue is illuminated in Ernest Jones' book The Life & Work of Sigmund Freud:

"Shakespeare, whom [Freud] started reading at the age of eight, he read over and over again and was always ready with an apt quotation from his plays. He admired his superb power of expression, and even more, his extensive understanding of human nature. Yet I recall some faddist ideas he had about Shakespeare's personality. He insisted that his countenance could not be that of an Anglo-Saxon but must be French, and he suggested that the name was a corruption of "Jacques Pierre". He pooh-poohed the Baconian theories, but in later life he was greatly taken with the idea of the Earl of Oxford being the author of the plays and was rather disappointed at my scepticism."

This is perhaps one of the most bizarre reasons for believing someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Freud's principal objection was to Shakespeare's face and he extended this bizarre notion to Shakespeare's name being a corruption of the French "Jacques Pierre". All of Shakespeare's documentary records regarding his acting, plays, property, land, shares, coat of arms, will, birth certificate, marriage licence and death certificate, plus the sonnets that repeatedly play on his name being "Will" are ignored in favour of the fanciful notion that the poet's name was really "Jacques Pierre" on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

Later, Freud himself is quoted as having said:

"I no longer believe that... the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him. Since reading Shakespeare Identified by J. Thomas Looney, I am almost convinced that the assumed name conceals the personality of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford... The man of Stratford seems to have nothing at all to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has almost everything."

This statement naturally has to be approached with extreme caution given Freud's own "Jacques Pierre" invention that he later abandoned in favour of Oxford. But his belief in Looney's faulty deducement of Oxford being the author (see below) is at least partly redeemed by his cautionary qualifications of "almost convinced" and "seems".

  4.    Henry James

Henry James (1843-1916), the American novelist, in a 1903 letter to Miss Violet Hunt wrote:

"I am 'a sort of' haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practised on a patient world."

Yet nothing more is said of the matter by James. The enormity of Shakespeare's status and reputation coupled with the 19th. Century fancy to question Shakespeare's authorship seems to have given him cause to reflect on "what if someone else wrote Shakespeare?" but provided no incentive to explore the matter in any more depth than one sentence. It is notable, however, that anti-Stratfordians who quote James's single sentence on the issue selectively omit "a sort of" to remove the casual tone that those words provide to the rest of the sentence.

  6.  Malcolm X

Malcolm X (1925-1965), the American black politicist said in his autobiography:

"Another hot debate I remember I was in had to do with the identity of Shakespeare. No colour was involved there; I just got intrigued over the Shakespearean dilemma. The King James translation of the Bible is considered the greatest piece of literature in English...They say that from 1604 to 1611, King James got poets to translate, to write the Bible. Well, if Shakespeare existed, he was then the top poet around. But Shakespeare is nowhere reported connected with the Bible. If he existed, why didn't King James use him?"

This again betrays an incredible level of ignorance in the sceptic. Malcolm X says "they say...King James got poets to translate, to write the Bible". He accepts this statement to be the truth just because some unidentified, and evidently ill-informed people, "say" that's what happened. The thought apparently never crossed Malcolm X's mind that the KJV Bible was not the work of "poets" but was the product of linguists who were expert in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and Latin. In addition, no-one in Shakespeare's time "wrote" the KJV Bible, it was a translation. Malcolm X only had to consult the Translators' Dedication and Preface to the KJV to establish these simple facts. If Malcolm X's autobiography were translated into Latin, presumably he would have employed a poet to complete the task rather than a person who could translate English into Latin.

After this, it is perhaps not as surprising as it would otherwise have been that Malcolm X then goes on to question whether Shakespeare even existed.

  7.  J. Thomas Looney

Thomas Looney was an English schoolmaster who originated the idea of Edward de Vere being the author of the Shakespeare canon in his turgid book "Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, published in 1920. He described himself as "not a recognized authority or an expert in literature" and because of, rather than in spite of that lack of qualification, considered de Vere's candidacy to be neither "possible or probable", but "definite". He conceded that it "will seem to some like sheer hallucination" and went on to demonstrate this by making the same naive complaints that Twain had done before, including the will resembling a will instead of an item of poetry, the will not bequeathing any books just as Sir Francis Bacon's didn't, the will not referring to Shakespeare's manuscripts which were obviously owned by the theatre company, etc. His amateurism is perhaps best defined by himself:

"Whether the scantiness of my own knowledge of this department of literature at the time was a hindrance or a help it is impossible now to say positively. Certainly, it was the very imperfection of my knowledge that decided the method of search, and this, along with a fortunate chance, was the immediate cause of whatever success has been achieved. In addition to Shakespeare's works, parts of Edmund Spenser's and Philip Sidney's poems were all that I could claim to know of Elizabethan poetry at the time. Beyond this I had only a dim sense of a vast, rich literary region that I had not explored, but in which a number of names were indiscriminately scattered."

So by Looney's own admission, he was a novice wandering into a field he barely knew anything about.

One of Looney's most oddly duplicitous and distorted perspectives about Shakespeare is one where he compares Shakespeare of "dirty" Stratford to Robert Burns who had a no better "peasant life in Scotland":

"the distinctive literary qualities of Shakespeare are the direct antithesis of those which belong to a great poetic genius, such as Burns, whose genius enables him to attain eminence in spite of homely beginnings."

So, according to Looney, Burns, who for much of his childhood was a farmhand, achieves his eminence through genius despite his homely beginnings. But for no justifiable reason, Shakespeare is not allowed to achieve his eminence through genius despite his own homely beginnings. As is usual in anti-Stratfordian logic: there's one unique rule for Shakespeare and another rule for everyone else.

Regarding the works of Shakespeare, Looney was particularly taken by The Merchant of Venice, of which he said:

"This particular play on the contrary bespoke a writer who knew Italy at first hand and was touched with the life and spirit of the country."

One might reasonably conclude that Looney had only ever read The Merchant of Venice. The fact that Shakespeare's other plays, such as Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew have the inland Italian towns of Mantua, Verona, Padua and Milan as major sea-ports which betrays no "first hand" knowledge of the country, obviously escaped him. This is not surprising because Looney himself never visited Italy. Just as Twain, who was not a lawyer, waxes lyrical about Shakespeare's legal competence, Looney, who never visited Italy, waxes lyrical about Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy. Unsurprisingly then, he gets it all wrong. Instead, he relies on hearsay:

"Those who know Italy and are familiar with The Merchant of Venice tell us that there are clear indications that Shakespeare knew Venice and Milan personally."

Evidently those whom Looney says were "familiar" with Italy were actually only remotely familiar with either Italy, Shakespeare, or both, as they failed to notice that Shakespeare's own lack of familiarity with Milan moved it from its inland location to being a major sea-port.

Looney excels himself by speaking of the author's evident personal passion for Italy that is manifested in the plays:

"it is impossible for those who have had, at any time, an interest in nothing more than the language and literature of Italy, to resist the feeling that there is thrown about these plays an Italian atmosphere suggestive of one who knew and felt attracted towards the country. Everything bespeaks an Italian enthusiast."

Having asserted this, Looney is hoisted by his own petard by failing to notice the fact that the author's "interest in nothing more than the language...of Italy" is manifested nowhere in the plays. Where is enthusiasm for the Italian language demonstrated in the canon?

But his biggest blunder is to wax lyrical about the author's obvious passion for Italy which itself does not reconcile with what we know his candidate thought of Italy. In a letter from Oxford to Burghley on 24 September 1575, Oxford says:

"for my liking of Italy, my Lord I am glad I have seen it, and I care not ever to see it any more".

As to travelling elsewhere in Europe, Oxford says in the same letter:

"for my intention to travel, I am desirous to see more of Germany"

demonstrating that he wasn't travel-weary, but specifically unimpressed by Italy. And in case there is any remaining doubt, Oxford concludes with:

"I thought to have seen Spain, but by Italy, I guess the worse."

He even calls off his plans to tour Spain as he expects the worse after his experience of that other Latinate country, Italy.

Looney speculates on Oxford's time in Italy:

"The records give no indication as to how his time was spent in Italy. This could only be learnt accurately from himself, and as a large reserve and secretiveness in respect to his doings seem to have been characteristic of him throughout, we can only surmise what his occupation would be during the six months of his stay."

Looney just plucks "six months" out of thin air despite Oxford's and other contemporaries' surviving personal letters showing a stay of 10 months in Italy between May 1575 and March 5, 1576. On what Oxford did in Italy, Looney speculates:

"Considering, however, the literary and dramatic movement in Italy at the time, his own particular bent, and the course his life took after his return to England, there can be little doubt as to his chief interest whilst in that country. He would be much more likely to be found cultivating the acquaintance of those literary and play-acting people of whom his father-in-law would disapprove, than mixing in the political and diplomatic circles that the great minister would consider proper to an eminent English nobleman."

Yet again, Looney gets it all wrong. Whilst he rightly expects Oxford's "chief interest", if he were Shakespeare, would be "cultivating the acquaintance of those literary and play-acting people" Oxford's letters contain no references whatsoever to Italian culture or art. Instead his letters do speak of his "mixing in the political and diplomatic circles" of Kings, Ambassadors and Dukes, whilst contemporary independent correspondence states he spent much of his time in Venice consorting with prostitutes, a sixteen-year-old Venetian choirboy named Orazio Cogno, another Italian boy named Rocco, and others.

On what treasures Oxford brought home from Italy, Looney speculates:

"secret treasures would, no doubt, include also those Italian plays and other important  documents which we now know were freely used by the great dramatist in the composition of his works. That De Vere would bring back such things from Italy it is impossible to doubt. The number and expensiveness of the articles he brought home from his Italian tour is dwelt upon at length, and in much detail, in the account from which many of our facts are taken. It is almost absurd to suppose that he brought back all these goods and omitted to bring with him just those things that touched his own keenest interest most directly. And it would be just such literary treasures that, as Shakespeare, he would guard"

Looney refers to the detailed inventory of articles that Oxford brought back with him from Italy that was conspicuously absent of anything remotely to do with Italian literature. At the same time, he claims that there is "no doubt", "it is impossible to doubt" and "it is almost absurd to suppose that he...omitted to bring with him...such literary treasures that, as Shakespeare, he would guard". The only thing we cannot doubt is that this is the most extraordinary and bare-faced superimposition of Shakespeare onto Oxford ever, founded on the complete absence of any material to support it, as the main reason to believe it.

On Oxford's business interests, Looney goes on:

"Again the play [The Merchant of Venice] suggested an author with no great respect for money and business methods, but rather one to whom material possessions would be in the nature of an encumbrance to be easily and lightly disposed of: at any rate one who was by no means of an acquisitive disposition."

Looney here selectively ignores Oxford's extensive tin mining business interests and his letters from Italy that are preoccupied with the selling of his lands. In addition, Looney has a blind spot on Oxford's almost obsessive acquisitive disposition evidenced by his desire to add as many titles to his name as possible, lobbying annually until he died for the prestigious Order of the Garter.

In assessing Oxford's personality, Looney makes sure he has all sides covered. He says:

"His impressionability is testified by his quickness to detect a slight and his readiness to resent it...his violent and perverse temper...Oxford's poetry does indeed display a capacity for fierce outbursts"

but then that:

"it all seems to suggest that there had been about his personality something of that mildness of manner which dominating men are apt to mistake for weakness."

So, Oxford schizophrenically had a "violent and perverse temper" and a "mildness of manner".

Looney then takes the description of Oxford in the Dictionary of National Biography and proceeds to elaborate on it to create his man. For example, he embellishes the DNB entry "[Oxford's] violent and perverse temper, his eccentric taste in dress" into:

"his evident susceptibility to perfumes and the elegancies of dress, involving, no doubt, colour sensitiveness, bespeak that keenness of the senses which contributes so largely to extreme general sensibility."

Whilst one pauses for breath at the temerity of Looney's inclination to elaborate and invent Oxford's "colour sensitiveness" and "susceptibility to perfumes" it is worth noting yet again how this conflicts with what Shakespeare felt about those with a "susceptibility...to the elegancies of dress":

Sonnet 91:

"Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,...

Some in their garments (though new-fangled ill),...
But these particulars are not my measure..."

Sonnet 66:

"Tired with all these, for restful death I cry:

As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,..."

In his mission to aggrandise Oxford, Looney proceeds to enthuse about Oxford's noble pride in his ancestry, via hearsay of course:

"Though no statement of his actual sympathies with the Lancastrian cause has been found, we are assured by several writers that he was proud of his ancient lineage which...may be accepted as conclusive on the subject."

Yet Oxford's pride in his ancient lineage stumbles in Henry VI Part 3, where the battle at Tewkesbury is portrayed at which the Lancastrians are defeated and John de Vere, 13th. Earl of Oxford (1443-1513) is captured and imprisoned. The enormous difficulty Looney has here is that John de Vere never fought at Tewkesbury as he was in France during that time and didn't return to England until 2 years after the Tewkesbury battle. Looney enthuses:

"in the last act, even such a detail as his place of imprisonment is remembered and named: 'Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight.'"

Looney completely overlooks the author's glaring error in this statement which would require him to reconcile the author's obvious lack of knowledge of the de Vere lineage with de Vere's own pride in it. He cluelessly cites a passage that is entirely incompatible with de Vere's involvement in the work as rock-solid proof of it, insisting the author demonstrates:

"a precise acquaintance with details pertaining to its [the Oxford lineage's] several members"

Looney then finds apparent parallels between the life of Oxford and Shakespeare's works. In December 1571, Oxford married Anne Cecil which Looney believes has a striking resemblance to Bertram and Helena's relationship in All's Well that Ends Well:

"As we have already had occasion to point out the remarkable parallelism between the case of the Earl of Oxford and Bertram in "All's Well," we must now add to it this fact of his marriage with a young woman with whom he had been brought up. In Bertram's case, however, they had lived together at his own home, whereas in Oxford's case they had lived together in the home of the lady. If we are to believe contemporary report on the matter the resemblance between the two cases extends to even more interesting particulars. Helena was socially inferior to Bertram. In the early part of the play he shows no inclination towards this young woman who is in love with him, and it is she who pursues the young man until she succeeds in winning him as her husband. Now, not only did Anne Cecil belong to the newly emerging middle class, so much held in contempt by the few remaining representatives of the ancient aristocracy, but we have it reported by a contemporary, Lord St. John, that, "the Erle of Oxenforde hath gotten himself a wyffe, or, at leste a wyffe hath caught him. This is the mistress Anne Cycille, whereunto the Queen hath given her consent." One may conclude, therefore, that the Earl of Oxford was not supposed to have been very active himself in bringing about the marriage. Rightly or wrongly others regarded Oxford's marriage with Burleigh's daughter in much the same light as is represented by the marriage of Bertram with Helena."

And as usual, they thought wrongly because Shakespeare based the story of Bertram and Helen on a tale from Boccaccio’s (1313-75) Decameron, Day 3, Novella 9 written in 1349-51. In that tale Juliet persuades the King to marry her to Bertrand just as Looney supposes Burleigh arranged Anne Cecil's marriage to Oxford; Juliet is of "mean birth" just as Looney describes Anne to be "socially inferior" to Oxford; Bertrand was a royal ward of court just as Looney points out that Oxford was; Bertrand married reluctantly just as Looney supposed Oxford did; Bertrand fled to battle in Tuscany just as Looney says Oxford left for the Netherlands unauthorised, although Oxford never went to battle. Looney says:

"We venture to say that it would be difficult to find in English literature a closer analogy anywhere between the particulars narrated of a fictitious personage and the detailed records of a living contemporary than we have here between Bertram and the Earl of Oxford. Shakespeare's partiality for the Earls of Oxford has already been pointed out ("Henry VI", part 3). His interest in the particular Earl who was then living, and who was a poet and dramatist, is the most natural assumption. Whether, therefore, the Earl of Oxford was the writer of the play, "All's Well," or not, one cannot doubt, in the face of such a continued parallelism, that the man who wrote the play had the Earl of Oxford in his mind as the prototype of Bertram."

Looney again "supposes" much, ignores what doesn't fit, and finds unique parallels between Oxford's life and Shakespeare's stories that actually pre-date Oxford's life by over 200 years in Boccaccio's famous Decameron that was so influential to Elizabethan writers.

In the climax to the correlations he finds between Oxford's life and All's Well that Ends Well he reveals a "sensational discovery":

"Speaking of the rupture between the Earl of Oxford and his wife, Wright tells us that, "He (Oxford) forsook his lady's, bed, (but) the father of Lady Anne by stratagem, contrived that her husband should unknowingly sleep with her, believing her to be another woman, and she bore a son to him in consequence of this meeting" (Wright's "History of Essex," vol. 1, P. 5 17)...Thus even in the most extraordinary feature of this play; a feature which hardly one person in a million would for a moment have suspected of being anything else but an extravagant invention, the records of Oxford are at one with the representation of Bertram. It is not necessary that we should believe the story to be true, for no authority for it is vouchsafed...The point which matters is that this extraordinary story should be circulated in reference to the Earl of Oxford; making it quite clear that either Oxford was the actual prototype of Bertram, in which case false as well as true stories of the Earl might be worked into the play, or he was supposed to be the prototype and was saddled with the story in consequence. In any case, the connection between the two is now as complete as accumulated evidence can make it. We hesitate to make reflections upon prospective dissentients; but we feel entitled to assert that the man who does not now acknowledge a connection of some sort between Edward de Vere and Bertram in "All's Well," has not the proper faculty for weighing evidence."

Yet this story is in fact, again, straight out of Shakespeare's source for All's Well that Ends Well, Boccaccio's Decameron, Day 3, Novella 9:

"Observe me then Madame, replied the Countesse. It is most convenient for my purpose, that by some trusty and faithfull messenger, you should advertise the Count my husband, that your daughter is, and shall be at his command: but that she may remaine absolutely assured, that his love is constant to her, and above all other: shee must entreat him, to send her (as a testimony thereof) the Ring which he weareth upon his little finger, albeit shee hath heard, that he loveth it deerly. If he send the Ring, you shall give it me, and afterward send him word, that your daughter is ready to accomplish his pleasure; but, for the more safety and secrecie, he must repaire hither to your house, where I being in bed insteed of your daughter, faire Fortune may so favour mee, that (unknowne to him) I may conceive with childe...Within few dayes after, verie ingeniously, and according to the instructed order, the Ring was obtayned, albeit much against the Counts will; and the Countesse, in sted of the Ladies vertuous daughter, was embraced by him in bed: the houre proving so auspicious, and juno being Lady of the ascendent, conjoyned with the witty Mercury, shee conceived of two goodly Sonnes."

With further "supposing" and ignoring of things that don't fit, Looney finds Oxford's life as the basis for "continued parallelism" yet the whole story he finds unique to Oxford predates Oxford in a landmark publication written over 200 years previously. It's like anyone today finding parallels of their own life in a Dickens novel and bizarrely believing Dickens was inspired by their life.

Having established such affection between Bertram and Helena and correlating that with Oxford and Anne Cecil's relationship, Looney says:

"What the actual inward relationships of Oxford and his wife may have been, is one of the secrets over which the grave has closed for ever. We have impressions recorded, however, which are derived evidently from hostile Cecil sources. Oxford himself, on the other hand, preserves an almost complete silence, proof against all provocation; his enemies call it sulkiness."

He sees no inconsistency between the idyllic fantasy he has manufactured and the facts that while Oxford was on the Continent his wife had a baby that he suspected was by another man; that on his return from the Continent in a letter of 27th. April 1576, Oxford vented his anger concerning Anne Cecil insisting that she should move into Burleigh's house and support herself; that Oxford separated from his wife; and that when Oxford was 29 he began a long and passionate affair with Anne Vavasor by whom he had a son. Looney discounts all testimony from independent sources despite them being corroborated by Oxford's own letter of 27th. April 1576 and his subsequent behaviour. Instead, he believes that after all of this, Oxford went on to write All's Well that Ends Well with its "sweet Helena" in the image of Anne Cecil.

Looney then elaborates his groundless theory by assuming that Juliet of Romeo & Juliet is also based on Anne Cecil:

"Anne was born on December 5th, 1556. Like Juliet she was, therefore, but fourteen years of age at the time when the courting alluded to took place, and when all the wedding arrangements were made. The marriage itself seems merely to have been delayed until the moment when she could be spoken of as being fifteen. This combination of extreme youthfulness and the bearing and conduct of a matured woman, [is] common to Juliet and Anne Cecil"

Because Anne Cecil was "of extreme youthfulness" at 14 (though actually more probably 15) on her marriage to Oxford, Looney believes she must be a template for Juliet. But yet again, we need only to return to Boccaccio's landmark Decameron, Day 3, Novella 10, a source for Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well and several other works of the Elizabethan era, to find a literary precedent in the story of Alibech who was married at just 14 years of age. In addition, we have Hostensius stating that once a girl or boy was physically ready to consummate a sexual relationship, they were ready for marriage and that since females reach puberty earlier than males, girls are ready to marry at age 12 and boys at age 14. These age limits also come from Canon law and were the guidelines all over Europe even after the Reformation, and in Elizabethan times, marriage at that age was also not unusual, Looney himself noting the original marriage arrangements made for Anne Cecil to Philip Sidney when she was just 12. Shakespeare has Juliet marrying Romeo at the age of 13 (Nurse: "she’s not fourteen"), Anne Cecil marries at 15, but Looney claims Juliet must be based on Anne Cecil.

For Looney, the Shakespeare canon is extremely class-conscious in favour of the aristocracy:

"Every word bespeaks the special interests of De Vere, and pulsates with that excessive respect for high birth which is common to De Vere and Shakespeare."

Yet the Shakespeare canon is full of examples that are dismissive of those who have "excessive respect for high birth": Falconbridge in Merchant of Venice, Looney's favourite play, is laughed at as a "dumb show" nobleman who is linguistically and sartorially inept; the Prince of Aragon in the same play speaks extensively on the importance of high birth and on opening the wrong casket is presented with a portrait of a "blinking idiot...a fool's head"; in King Lear the King is portrayed with less acumen than the character of the Fool by losing his kingdom and being reduced to living in a cave; Sonnets 25 and 91 speak of "those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast", and those that "glory in their birth" which are particulars not of the author's measure.

Turning to the Sonnets, Looney finds great parallels between Shakespeare's and Oxford's verse:

Sonnet 29

"When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I, all alone, beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,"

"When the reader has made himself familiar with the numerous passages in the sonnets dealing with the same theme...let him compare them...with the following from De Vere's poem on the loss of his good name, published between 1576 and 1578:"

"Fram'd in the front of forlorn hope past all recovery,
I stayless stand to abide the shock of shame and infamy."

"My spirits, my heart, my wit and force in deep distress are drown'd,
The only loss of my good name is of those griefs the ground."

"Help crave I must, and crave I will, with tears upon my face,
Of all that may in heaven or hell, in earth or air be found,
To wail with me this loss of mine, as of those griefs the ground."

"Personally I find it utterly impossible to read this poem of Edward De Vere's and the sonnets in which Shakespeare harps upon the same theme, without an overwhelming sense of there being but one mind behind the two utterances. Indeed this fact of "Shakespeare" being a man who had lost his good name ought to have appeared in our original characterization. Inattention, and some remnants, of the influence of the Stratfordian tradition, which has treated this insistent idea as a mere poetic pose, probably accounts for its not appearing there. Edward de Vere's poem on the loss of his good name, and Shakespeare's sonnets on the same theme, are the only poems of their kind with which we have met in our reading of Elizabethan poetry-the only poems of their kind, we believe, to be found in English literature...Is this all mere chance coincidence?"

Well, in a word: "Yes". This may well be a "mere poetic pose" and mere chance coincidence, and it is certainly an example of Looney's extremely narrow knowledge of literature. The father of the sonnet form is Petrarch, and Looney needed to look no further than Petrarch's Sonnet 1 to find the exact same theme that Looney bestows uniquely on Shakespeare and Oxford:

"O you who hear in scattered rhymes the sound
 Of that wailing with which I fed my heart
 In my first youthful error, when in part
 I was not the same man who treads this ground,
 May I find mercy, also forgiveness,
 Where, after trial, science of love is deep,
 For all the ways in which I talk and weep
 Between vain hopes, between throes of distress.
 But I have seen enough that in this land
 To the whole people like a tale I seem,
 So that I feel ashamed of my own name;
 Of all my raving the harvest is shame,
 And to repent, and clearly understand
 That what pleases on earth is a swift dream."

Looney hits another dead-end without knowing it, which is typical of his self-confessed "scantiness of knowledge of literature". And in commenting on Sonnet 72's

"My name be buried where my body is"

he adds:

"Imagine any man publishing, or allowing the publication under his own name, of documents in which he specifically states that he wished his name to be buried with his body!"

while trying to claim that such a poem could only have beeen published after the author had died, i.e. that the Quarto was published in 1609 after Oxford had died in 1604. Yet in Sonnet 82 Petrarch articulates the same sentiment in wishing his name to be a blank on his own grave and instead replaced by his mistress's name:

"I have never been weary of this love,
My Lady, nor shall be while last my years,
But of hating myself I have enough,
And I am tired of my continuous tears;
And I demand a grave handsome and white,
That your name for my punishment be writ
Into the marble where without delight
My flesh will be, to remain still with it.
Then if a heart full of amorous sighs
Can make you glad, without tearing your prey,
Be kind enough to pity my soul's breath.
If your contempt wants in some other way
To vent itself, it will remain a blank;
For which Love and myself I have to thank."

Having assembled a conspiracy theory that Shakespeare was a pseudonym for Oxford, a conspiracy so successful and involving so many of the key figures of the Elizabethan era that there is literally no evidence that it ever did or could happen, Looney searches for the much-needed motive and concludes that:

"it is made as clear as anything can be that he was one who had elected his own self-effacement, and that disrepute was one, if not the principal, motive."

Despite this being "as clear as anything can be", Looney then experiences instant doubt that this is in fact a viable explanation:

"We may, if we wish, question the sufficiency or reasonableness of the motive."

And then just as instantly, dismisses any requirement to justify the notion:

"That, however, is his business, not ours."

In just 3 successive sentences, Looney speculates on a "clear as anything can be" motive, immediately questions whether it's reasonable, then instantly abandons all responsibility for justifying it. For Looney, Oxford writing Shakespeare was "definite", but Looney provides no plausible reason nor motive for it. Perhaps as an indication of just how guilty he felt at this cowardly evasion, Looney later returns to excuse himself just one more time:

"we must make it clear that no obligation to furnish motives rests upon an investigator in such a case as this. Motives are sometimes altogether impenetrable."

In short, Looney cannot provide any motive for his elaborate scenario to have come about, despite having originally claimed that it was "as clear as anything can be".

Of Oxford's character and life, Looney takes the extraordinary liberty of filtering any material that doesn't fit his belief or suit his purpose:

"We shall avoid, therefore, all unauthenticated stories which seem to have had their roots in personal animosity...When, therefore, we find great admirers of Philip Sidney, like Fulke Greville, Sidney's biographer, promulgating impossible stories about projected assassinations, and another antagonist making, almost in so many words, the same false charges that Oliver makes against Orlando in "As You Like It," we begin to realize the type of men with whom we are dealing; what freedoms the group of court adventurers, to whom Oxford was clearly hostile, had taken with his name and reputation; and how little reliance is to be placed generally upon their records either of their friends or of their enemies."

Thus are contemporary biographical data regarding Oxford effortlessly dismissed if they don't fit Looney's pre-conceived notions of who he wants Oxford to have been. Pieces of the Oxford jigsaw are just thrown out of the window, if they don't fit. He jaw-droppingly goes on:

"It is unfortunate, then, that the names which predominate in the article upon which we are dependent for so many of the facts of Oxford's life are those of people antagonistic to him, and most of the facts bear evidence of having come to us through these unfriendly channels. Anything which bears the mark of Burleigh, Fulke Greville, or Raleigh, the true type of the picturesque but unscrupulous adventurer of those days, must be suspect in so far as it touches Edward de Vere"

In short then, it is unfortunate for Looney that the facts of Oxford's life are that he was such an obnoxious and unpopular man, therefore Looney must dismiss those facts. Looney feels far more comfort in retreating to his own elaborate invention than the cold, hard, contemporary facts. He cannot find "honey-tongued Shakespeare", "gentle Shakespeare", "sweet swan of Avon" in Oxford, so he resorts to painting and garnishing the Oxford weed and objecting to anyone naturally deducing Oxford's character from his behaviour:

"The quarrels are mentioned with the evident object of proving him quarrelsome."

It never occurs to Looney either that all these major figures of the Elizabethan era had every motive, means and opportunity to attack Oxford, as they often did, yet none of them ever noticed that Oxford was allegedly masquerading as William Shakespeare for over a decade. They are the insurmountable contemporary obstacles to Looney's bizarre conspiracy theory of Oxford secretly being Shakespeare having any hope of succeeding.

Looney goes on to manufacture his version of Oxford by only admitting as evidence anything that was favourable:

"and anything which research may be able to recover, that shall furnish us with the names and the opinions of his friends about the court, and, more important still, his dealings with men of letters, and with playwrights and actors, will be invaluable as tending to furnish us with a truer view of the man. So far as we can make out up to the present, however, his friends seem to have respected loyally his desire for personal oblivion, and have remained silent about him; thus, of course, allowing free currency to all that his enemies have been able to circulate to his discredit."

So Oxford's friends were so loyal they obediently stood back and watched him crash and burn. They never let it slip, not one of them, not one word, at any time, in the face of Oxford's detractors, that Oxford authored some plays and poems, as he was already publicly known to have done under his own name.

Turning to Oxford's education, Looney notes that:

"In addition to the advantages of the best private tuition he had also a university education; first at Queens' College, Cambridge, then at St. John's College. Subsequently he received degrees from both universities."

and also notes:

"the almost negligible part that college and university matters occupy in the plays."

It never occurs to Looney that the absence of college and University references in the plays might be indicative of an author in whose life college and University did not feature. Instead he conveniently back-peddles on Oxford's "advantages of the best private tuition and university education" by saying:

"The references to this matter are, however, peculiarly slight, and leave the impression of his having been one who had merely trifled for a short time with university life, and to whom it did not count for much. Even the dates of his residence are not given, and the degrees we judge to have been honorary degrees in both cases, given in after years."

In one fell swoop, Oxford is simultaneously a person advantaged by "the best private tuition and university education" and one "who had merely trifled...and to whom it did not count for much".

8.  Delia Bacon

Delia Bacon (1811-1859) was an American lady who was the first published proponent of her name-sake, Sir Francis Bacon, being party to the authorship of Shakespeare's works. In her article Shakespeare and His Plays: An Inquiry Concerning Them and her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded she presents a an enormously confused and confusing presentation of her beliefs during which she effectively deifies the author of Shakespeare's works. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who subsidised the book's publication, pleaded with her to "shovel the excesses out of the book" before its publication and classified it as a "ponderous volume" after its publication. As the daughter of a founding patriarch of a utopian theocracy and part of an extended family of clergymen, her drive for producing her theory was based on her having:

"faith that special interpositions of Providence were forwarding her human efforts...[and that] every leaf and line...was sacred, for all had been written under so deep a conviction of truth as to assume, in her eyes, the aspect of inspiration."

In plain English, she believed she was doing the work of God in revealing who she believed were the true authors of Shakespeare's works. Coupled with this was a strong personal conviction that she was a genius.

Ms. Bacon was convinced that the Shakespeare canon was the product of a secret group of several authors initially led by Sir Walter Raleigh and then by Sir Francis Bacon comprising a bewildering array of other poets including Oxford, Spenser, Sidney, Paget, and Thomas Sackville. She argued that the plays were not dramatic entertainment but were instead a complex political message designed to undermine the current monarchy, given in coded form to the general public, who were presumably better equipped to read and interpret these covert messages than the monarchy itself to whom the plays were also presented at court.

The logistics of such a group of Elizabethan poets creating the Shakespeare canon by committee is quite bewildering. The notion requires an elaborate explanation of how these men of various ages and deaths with conflicting extra-literary commitments including war campaigns and European tours were able to collude in this great unwieldy literary adventure. It fails to take proper account of the distracting and limiting burden of these poets' own independent literary activities and takes no account of the clearly evident development of the author's technique and style as each play in the canon was produced. In a classic example of the confusion that even like-sceptics get themselves into, Delia Bacon insists that a group of poets led by Sir Francis Bacon wrote the works whilst Mark Twain, himself a Baconian, insists: "There has been only one Shakespeare. There couldn't be two; certainly there couldn't be two at the same time. It takes ages to bring forth a Shakespeare, and some more ages to match him."

Ms. Bacon presented absolutely no evidence atall for her claims and fruitlessly searched graveyards and crypts to find material evidence to endorse her wild theories. Every part of her work is a combination of sheer invention and illogical interpretation from her own intense and obsessive but fertile imagination. As Hawthorne, the subsidiser of her book said:

"To have based such a system on fancy, and unconsciously elaborated it for herself, was almost as wonderful as really to have found it in the plays."

Delia Bacon was committed to a mental institution shortly after publication of her book.

References:

Is Shakespeare Dead? - Mark Twain

My Autobiography - Charles Chaplin - Penguin
Life & Work of Sigmund Freud - Ernest Jones - Hogarth Press
The Autobiography of Malcom X - Malcolm X - Penguin
"Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford - Thomas Looney - Frederick A. Stokes
also available online here.
Shakespeare and His Plays: An Inquiry Concerning Them & The
Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded - Delia Bacon
The Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works of William Shakespeare -  Oxford University Press - W.J. Craig

Recommended Website: Complete Works