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Edward de Vere

 
Who2 Biography: Edward de Vere, Writer
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  • Born: April 1550
  • Birthplace: Hedingham Castle, Essex, England
  • Died: June 1604
  • Best Known As: 17th Earl of Oxford and maybe the real Shakespeare

Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was a poet and dramatist who, in recent years, has become a key figure in the debate about the authorship of the works of William Shakespeare. De Vere was a well-educated and well-traveled member of the court of England's Elizabeth I, praised by his contemporaries for his poems and plays. In the 1920s scholars began to consider him as the author of most, if not all, of the sonnets and plays attributed to William of Stratford-on-Avon (traditionally known as William Shakespeare). Since the 1990s the debate has heated up, with loyal Stratfordians defending William against arguments from Oxfordians who think de Vere's background makes him a more likely candidate. De Vere supporters point to a number of clues, including his education at Cambridge and Oxford; his extensive travels in France, Germany and Italy; his knowledge of court customs; his involvement with actors and his lease on the Blackfriars Theater in London; and the fact that his maternal uncle was Arthur Golding, a well-known translator of Ovid, and his paternal uncle was Henry Howard, the "inventor" of the sonnet.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Edward de Vere 17th earl of Oxford
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(born April 12, 1550, Castle Hedingham, Essex, Eng. — died June 24, 1604, Newington, Middlesex) English lyric poet. A brilliantly gifted linguist and one of the most dashing figures of his time, Oxford was also reckless, hot-tempered, and disastrously spendthrift. He was the patron of an acting company, Oxford's Men, and possibly later of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (as hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England), as well as of such writers as John Lyly and Edmund Spenser. He wrote highly praised poems and plays in his earlier years, though none of the plays are known to have survived. A 1920 book by J. Thomas Looney made Oxford the leading candidate, next to William Shakespeare himself, for the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, a theory supported by the coincidence that Oxford's literary output apparently ceased just before Shakespeare's work began to appear. A major difficulty in the Oxfordian theory, however, is his death date (1604), because, according to standard chronology, 14 of Shakespeare's plays, including many of the most important ones, were apparently written after that time. The debate, however, remained lively into the 21st century.

For more information on Edward de Vere 17th earl of Oxford, visit Britannica.com.

Biography: Edward de Vere
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British courtier Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550 - 1604), was an accomplished sixteenth - century English poet and literary patron as well as an official and member of the court of Elizabeth I. "Oxford," wrote "Dictionary of Literary Biography" contributor Dennis Kay, "was the first Elizabethan courtier to make a name as a published writer." Some critics believe that he was also the pseudonymous author of plays attributed to William Shakespeare.

De Vere, these critics have argued, makes a much more believable author of the famous series of plays because of his birth, breeding, and familiarity with foreign literature and events. Shakespeare, the son of an illiterate glove - maker in the small village of Stratford - upon - Avon, the critics have stated, did not have the education or the experience to compose the plays that are usually attributed to him. De Vere, on the other hand, had both the education and the experience, and he was sponsor for a time of a dramatic troupe. He also encouraged the careers of other writers, most notably John Lyly, who served as his personal secretary for some years.

Edward de Vere, unlike Shakespeare, was a child of privilege and a member of the traditional English aristocracy. He was born on April 2, 1550, at Castle Hedingham, in Essex county, England, into a family of distinguished lineage. His ancestors had accompanied William the Conqueror in the invasion of England in 1066, and one of them held a command at the battle of Agincourt in 1415. De Vere was given the title Lord Bulbeck at birth, and he inherited the family earldom of Oxford upon his father's death in 1562. He was well - educated (he received degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge and studied law at Gray's Inn), and he was widely traveled, having spent time in Europe in both Italy and the Netherlands. He was also associated with many prominent sixteenth - century figures, most notably Elizabeth I's principal secretary and Lord Treasurer William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

By the time de Vere died on June 24, 1604, at his home in Newington, Middlesex, he had served as Lord Great Chamberlain (a largely ceremonial office) to Elizabeth I and to James I, and he had fathered a single son and heir. He also left behind a reputation as one of the most celebrated early Elizabethan courtier poets - a reputation that, in the 1920s, would lead the schoolmaster J. Thomas Looney to decide that de Vere must have written the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. Since then, supporters of the Looney thesis (known as "Oxfordians") have clashed with Shakespeare supporters (known as "Stratfordians") over the question of authorship.

Elizabethan Courtier and Renaissance Man

The seventeenth Earl of Oxford first entered the historical record as a royal ward assigned to the household of William Cecil. Because John de Vere, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford, had died when his son Edward was still a minor, Elizabeth I assumed responsibility for the care and raising of the seventeenth Earl. She assigned him to the household of her favorite William Cecil, who saw to it that the young man received a thorough Renaissance education, designed to perfect both his mind and his body. In fact, one of the earliest records in which de Vere appears dates to 1567 and deals with the accidental death of his manservant during sword practice at Cecil's house.

De Vere soon became one of Queen Elizabeth's favorites and remained part of the royal court (although he slipped in and out of favor) for almost twenty years. In December of 1571 he married Cecil's daughter Anne, an event solemnized in front of the Queen herself. The following year, however, he distanced himself from the queen over her treatment of Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk. In 1569 Norfolk had announced his intention to marry Elizabeth's Catholic cousin Mary Queen of Scots, who had fled her native country two years earlier. Elizabeth, alarmed at the idea of one of her subjects becoming king of a neighboring country, withheld her permission for the marriage to take place and ordered Norfolk to return to court. Although the Duke obeyed the order, the north of England rose in a rebellion that was suppressed only after some 800 people were executed. In 1572 Norfolk was again caught up in a Catholic plot, and he was executed. De Vere's response to Norfolk's death - to leave England for the Continent - suggests that he himself may have had Catholic sympathies.

Despite de Vere's extended stay in the Netherlands in 1572, there is evidence that he sought a reconciliation with the queen. In 1574 records indicate that he was living at court, where he was fed and housed at Elizabeth's expense. Although he left the country again in 1575, traveling to Italy, Elizabeth served as godmother to his daughter, born during his absence. Following his return he became associated with the reorganization of theatrical companies and served as patron of the group of players known as "Oxford's Men." De Vere himself is listed as a player in a Lenten pageant performed at court in the spring of 1578, along with Philip Howard, Thomas Howard, and Lord Windsor. He may also (the evidence is not clear) have written plays that were performed at court.

Character Flaws Led to Fall

The Earl's status with the queen began to slip again in the late 1570s. In August of 1579 he started a quarrel with Sir Philip Sidney over the use of a tennis court. The incident provoked a challenge to a duel from the insulted Sidney, and the queen herself had to intervene to prevent her two favorites from killing one another. In the winter of 1580 de Vere had a falling - out with some of his friends and associates who supported the proposed marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the French Duke of Anjou, and he accused them of various treasonous conspiracies, leading to their arrests. The incidents demonstrate the great flaws in de Vere's character: his inability to control either his behavior or his temper. The most serious break with the queen, however, occurred in 1581, when it was discovered that de Vere had been having an affair with one of Elizabeth's maids - in - waiting, Anne Vavasour. Vavasour bore de Vere a child in March of 1581, and the birth led first to de Vere's imprisonment and then to a series of vendetta - like murders involving de Vere's supporters on one side and those of Vavasour's uncle, Thomas Knyvett, on the other. The vendetta eventually culminated in another challenge to a duel issued by Knyvett, but there is no evidence that Oxford responded to the challenge.

De Vere's erratic temperament, his Catholic sympathies, and his lack of political understanding contributed to his fall from grace just as much as his sexual impropriety did. He was reconciled with his wife Anne in 1583, and the Queen rewarded him with a pension in 1586. He also served in the campaign against the Spanish Armada in 1588. By that time, however, his extravagant spending had exhausted the lands and fortune he had inherited. Although de Vere continued to serve on various commissions by virtue of his rank and office as Lord Great Chamberlain, he never recovered the status he had held at court during the 1570s. By the 1590s his star had waned, and he lost whatever influence he had had with the queen. When he died, probably from plague, in 1604, he was succeeded by his son Henry, born from his second marriage to Elizabeth Trentham. He left behind him a scattered handful of poems and a reputation among contemporaries as one of the foremost poets of the Elizabethan era.

Author of Shakespearean Plays

Although contemporaries celebrated de Vere's literary abilities - a list of great Elizabethan writers published sixteen years after his death placed him first among all the English writers of the age - the seventeenth Earl of Oxford remained a little - known Renaissance poet for nearly three hundred years. The man who resuscitated de Vere and enhanced his reputation was an English schoolmaster named J. Thomas Looney. After years of teaching Shakespearean works to his students, Looney became convinced that the son of an illiterate glover from Stratford, who had received at best a grammar - school education, could never have the breadth of knowledge of the world demonstrated in plays like The Merchant of Venice. Only a person who was widely traveled and who had extensive acquaintances at court could have composed plays and poems of the quality of those attributed to Shakespeare. Such a person would have been celebrated as a major talent by his contemporaries and the man from Stratford, Looney believed, was not such a person.

Looney approached the problem of identifying the author of the Shakespearean plays methodically. Based on elements contained within the plays themselves, the schoolmaster created a list of characteristics that he believed the author must have had. In addition to a classical education, familiarity with Elizabeth's court, and extensive travel, Looney believed that the author of the plays must have been a member of the aristocracy, have had a strong enthusiasm for theater, have been financially improvident, and that he must have been ambivalent about both women and Catholicism. Looney then trolled through the Dictionary of National Biography, an encyclopedia of short biographies in British history, and came up with the name of Edward de Vere. De Vere fit all the criteria Looney had identified, but for such a prominent writer his body of work was astoundingly small. "At first it seemed that he had written only a few youthful poems, then stopped writing," declared a "Frontline" contributor. "And yet literary critics of the period called de Vere one of the greatest Elizabethan poets and 'the best for comedy.' If he did write comedies and great poems, what happened to them?" The answer, Looney decided, was that de Vere was the real author of Shakespeare's plays.

There were several other coincidences that linked de Vere to Shakespeare's plays in Looney's mind. The Earl of Oxford maintained a group of actors known as "Oxford's Men," for whom he wrote plays and even acted in them. He was also a stockholder in Blackfriar's Theatre, a rival to Shakespeare's Globe. In addition, Shakespeare's long poem Venus and Adonis was written in a peculiar stanza form, and the only other contemporary poet known to have used that form was de Vere himself. Finally, the name "Shakespeare" was associated with de Vere on several occasions. He was saluted at court on at least one occasion with the toast, "Thy countenance shakes a spear." This may have been in recognition of his prowess on the jousting field, but it may also have been a pun on Oxford's coat of arms, which featured a lion brandishing a spear.

Looney's theory has attracted many believers in the decades since he published his findings in "Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford in 1920. Most Shakespearean scholars and historians of Elizabethan England, however, do not accept his theory. They point out that de Vere died in 1604, before almost a third of the Shakespearean plays were written. In addition, although Looney and his followers suggested that de Vere had to use the pseudonym Shakespeare to avoid the stigma associated with the Elizabethan theater, recent scholarship has discovered that prohibitions against aristocrats and courtiers publishing their works were weakly enforced, and that they lapsed entirely during the period in which de Vere was actively writing and publishing. Finally, the Shakespeare Clinic, a computerized analysis of Shakespeare's works and language conducted between 1987 and 1994, discovered few semantic similarities between Shakespeare's works and those of the Earl of Oxford. The question of de Vere's supposed authorship of the plays remains unresolved.

Books

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 172: Sixteenth - Century British Nondramatic Writers, Gale, 1996.

Looney, J. Thomas, "Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, Stokes, 1920.

Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality, 2nd edition, EPM Publications, 1992.

Taylor, Gary, Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present, Hogarth Press, 1989.

Ward, B. M., The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, John Murray, 1928.

Online

"Frontline: The Shakespeare Mystery," PBS Online,http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/tapes/shakespearescript.html (December 17, 2004).

"The Case for Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford," Absolute Shakespeare, http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/authorship/authorship - de - vere.htm (December 17, 2004).

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford
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Oxford, Edward de Vere, 17th earl of, 1550-1604, English poet, b. Castle Heddingham, Essex, educated at Queens' and St. John's colleges, Cambridge. He traveled in Italy, acted in and produced plays, and was one of the court circle of writers. On the theory that he wrote Shakespeare's plays, see studies by E. T. Clark (1937) and L. P. Bénézet (1958).

Bibliography

See his poems (ed. by J. T. Looney, 1921).

Wikipedia: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
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Edward de Vere - 17th Earl of Oxford - from an engraving by J. Brown after G.P. Harding 1575

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (12 April 1550 – 24 June 1604) was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, poet, sportsman, patron of numerous writers, and sponsor of at least two acting companies, Oxford's Men and Oxford's Boys,[1] and a company of musicians.[2] He was born at Castle Hedingham to the 16th Earl of Oxford and the former Margery Golding.

Oxford was one of the leading patrons of the Elizabethan age and, during his lifetime, 33 works were dedicated to the Earl, including publications on religion, philosophy, medicine and music. The focus of his patronage, however, was literary, with 13 of the books presented to him either original or translated works of world literature. Authors dedicating their works to de Vere include Edmund Spenser, Arthur Golding, John Lyly, Anthony Munday, and Thomas Churchyard, the latter three writers all having been employed by de Vere for various periods of time. He also patronized musicians, including the composers William Byrd and John Farmer. His extensive patronage, as well as possible mismanagement of his estates,[3] forced the sale of his ancestral lands. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth I granted the Earl an annuity of £1,000. De Vere was awarded military commands in 1585 in Flanders and in 1588 during the Spanish Armada.

Oxford is most famous today as the strongest alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's plays,[4] a claim that most historians and literary scholars reject but which is supported by a number of researchers and theatre practitioners.[5] For further information on this topic, see Oxfordian theory.

Contents

Early life

After his father died unexpectedly on 3 August 1562, the twelve-year-old Lord Bulbeck (as he had been styled from birth) became the 17th Earl of Oxford and Lord Great Chamberlain of England, and inherited an annual income of approximately £2250.[6] At some point during the next fourteen months his mother, Margery (Golding), married a Gentleman Pensioner named Charles Tyrrell.[7] In his last will and testament, the 16th Earl appointed six executors, including his widow and his only son and heir; however administration of the will was granted on 29 May 1563 to only one of the executors, the 16th Earl's former servant, Robert Christmas.[8] Because his father, the 16th Earl, held land from the Crown by knight service, Oxford became a royal ward and was placed in the household of Sir William Cecil, the Secretary of State, leading member of Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, and one of her chief advisors. In view of Oxford's theatrical activities, it is interesting to note that Cecil is regarded by most Elizabethan scholars as the prototype for the character of Polonius in Hamlet. While he was a ward, Oxford's mother, Margery Golding, died on 2 December 1568.[9]

On 14 November 1558 Oxford, at eight years of age, had matriculated at Queens' College, Cambridge.[10] As a ward under Sir William Cecil's supervision, his program of studies included French, Latin, writing, drawing, cosmography, dancing, riding and shooting.[11] His tutors included Thomas Fowle of St John's College, Cambridge, a classical scholar and diplomat, Sir Thomas Smith, and Laurence Nowell, one of the founding fathers of Anglo-Saxon studies.[12] Nowell was Oxford's tutor in 1563,[13] the same year that Nowell signed his name on the only known copy of the Beowulf manuscript (also known as the "Nowell Codex"). There has been speculation that Oxford was taught Latin by his maternal uncle, Arthur Golding, and may have even assisted him in the first English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.[14] In 1564, while both were living at Cecil House in the Strand, Golding wrote of his young nephew in the dedicatory epistle to Th’ Abridgement of the Histories of Trogus Pompeius, collected and written in the Latin tongue by the famous historiographer Justin:

"It is not unknown to others, and I have had experience thereof myself, how earnest a desire Your Honor hath naturally graffed in you to read, peruse, and communicate with others, as well as the histories of ancient times and things done long ago, as also the present estate of things in our days, and that not without a certain pregnancy of wit and ripeness of understanding." (STC 24290)

During the Queen's visits to Cambridge and Oxford universities in 1564 and 1566, Oxford was awarded a BA by the University of Cambridge on 10 August 1564 [15] and an MA from the University of Oxford on 6 September 1566.[16] On 1 February 1566 he was admitted to Gray's Inn.[17] Alan Nelson, a Stratfordian Oxford biographer, points out that the Oxford and Cambridge university degrees were awarded to numerous other persons of rank in the same royal visits and thus were merely honorary and “unearned”, and that “no academic accomplishment or dessert is to be imputed to any recipient”.[18] Oxfordian biographers of Oxford disagree with that assessment and point to what John Brooke had to say of Oxford in his dedicatory epistle of The Staff of Christian Faith, published in 1577:

"For if in the opinion of all men, there can be found no one more fitte, for patronage and defence of learning, then the skilfull: for that he is both wyse and able to iudge and discerne truly thereof. I vnderstanding righte well that your honor hathe continually, euen from your tender yeares, bestowed your time and trauayle towards the attayning of the same, as also the vniuersitie of Cambridge hath acknowledged in graunting and giuing vnto you such commendation and prayse thereof, as verily by righte was due vnto your excellent vertue and rare learning. Wherin verily Cambridge the mother of learning, and learned men, hath openly confessed: and in this hir confessing made knowen vnto al men, that your honor being learned and able to iudge as a safe harbor and defence of learning, and therefore one most fitte to whose honorable patronage I might safely commit this my poore and simple labours." (STC 12476)

On 23 July 1567, the seventeen-year-old Oxford accidentally killed an unarmed under-cook, Thomas Brincknell, while practising fencing with Edward Baynham, a merchant tailor, in the backyard of Cecil House in the Strand. The finding of the coroner's inquest was that Brincknell, being intoxicated, had run upon the point of Oxford's sword and was thereby condemned as a suicide.[19] (Interestingly, the English chronicler and Shakespeare source Raphael Holinshed was one of the jurors at this trial.)

Court years

Oxford became a courtier in the early 1570s. In a letter of 11 May 1573, one contemporary, Gilbert Talbot, wrote that Oxford had lately grown in great credit with the Queen, and "were it not for his fickle head he would pass any of them shortly".[20] Oxford remained in favour for a time, and won prizes in several tilting tournaments at court.[21]

By indenture of 1 July 1562, Oxford's father, the 16th Earl, had arranged a marriage for him with one of the sisters of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon.[22] However when Oxford became a royal ward, this contract was allowed to lapse, and on 16 December 1571 he married Lord Burghley's fifteen-year-old daughter, Anne Cecil — a surprising choice since Oxford was of the oldest nobility in the kingdom whereas Anne was not originally of noble birth, her father having only been raised to the peerage that year by Queen Elizabeth to enable the marriage of social inequals.[23] His marriage produced five children, a son and daughter who died young, and three daughters who survived infancy. The Earl's daughters all married into the peerage: Elizabeth married William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby; Bridget married Francis Norris, 1st Earl of Berkshire; and Susan married Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, one of the “INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN” to whom William Shakespeare's First Folio would be dedicated. Shortly after his marriage, at the age of twenty-two, Oxford was licensed to enter on his lands by the Queen's letters patent of 30 May 1572.[24]

He toured France, Germany and Italy in 1575-6, and was thought to be of Roman Catholic sympathies, as were many of the old nobility.

On his return across the English Channel in April 1576, Oxford's ship was hijacked by pirates, who stripped him naked, apparently with the intention of murdering him, until they were made aware of his noble status, upon which he was allowed to go free, albeit without most of his possessions.[25] Further controversy ensued after he found that his wife had given birth to a daughter during his journey, and separated from her on grounds of adultery, complaining that she had become "the fable of the world". Francis Osborne (1593–1659) included a bed-trick anecdote about Oxford in his Historical Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James (1658). According to Osborne (who had been a servant to the Herberts), the Earl of Montgomery was struck in the face by a Scottish courtier named Ramsey at a horse race at Croydon. Montgomery, who did not strike back, "was left nothing to testifie his Manhood but a Beard and Children, by that Daughter of the last great Earl of Oxford, whose Lady was brought to his Bed under the notion of his Mistress, and from such a vertuous deceit she [that is, Montgomery's wife] is said to proceed."

In January 1581, Oxford accused two of his Catholic friends, Lord Henry Howard and Charles Arundel, of treason, and denounced them to the Queen, asking mercy for his own Catholicism, which he repudiated.[26] Both Howard and Arundel later received pensions from Philip II, and furnished Spain with intelligence against England, suggesting that Oxford's allegations against them in 1581 were not without merit.[27] After fleeing to the house of the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, on the night of 25 December 1580, Howard and Arundel gave themselves up to the authorities, were placed under arrest,[28] and in turn denounced Oxford, accusing him of a laundry list of crimes, including plotting to murder a host of courtiers, such as Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of Leicester. The charges against Oxford were not taken seriously, although Oxford never completely recovered the Queen's favour and his reputation was thereafter tarnished. Charles Arundel later fled England in December 1583 for fear of arrest,[29] was declared guilty of high treason in 1585,[30] and died in exile in Paris in 1587. Lord Henry Howard was again arrested in 1583 and 1585,[31] but remained in England throughout Queen Elizabeth's reign, and was created Earl of Northampton by her successor, King James I.

Oxford fathered an illegitimate son by Anne Vavasour, Sir Edward Vere, in 1581, and for this offence was imprisoned in the Tower of London for several months, and later placed under house arrest and banished from court. He was not permitted to return to court until 1 June 1583.[32] By Christmas of 1581, after a five year separation, Oxford had reconciled with his wife, Anne Cecil.[33] However his affair with Anne Vavasour led to frays in the streets of London in 1582 with Anne Vavasour's uncle, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a courtier in favour with the Queen.[34] On 3 March 1582, Oxford fought with Knyvet, and both men were 'hurt', Oxford 'more dangerously, and Oxford's man 'Gerret' was slain.[33] Oxford's injury perhaps resulted in the lameness mentioned in his letter to Lord Burghley of 25 March 1595.[35]

Later years

Portrait of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, by Marcus Gheeraedts

In 1585, Lord Oxford was given a military command in Flanders,[30] and served during the Battle of the Spanish Armada in 1588. His first wife Anne Cecil died in 1588 at the age of 32. In 1591, Oxford married Elizabeth Trentham, one of the Queen's Maids of Honour. This marriage produced his heir, Henry, Lord Vere, later the 18th Earl of Oxford.

Extensive patronage, as well as possible mismanagement of his finances reduced Oxford to straightened financial circumstances, and in 1586 he was granted an annual pension of £1,000 by the Queen.[36] It has been suggested that the annuity may also have been granted for his services in maintaining a group of writers and a company of actors (from 1580), and that the obscurity of his later life is to be explained by his immersion in literary and dramatic pursuits. He was indeed a notable patron of writers including Edmund Spenser, as well as Arthur Golding, Robert Greene, Thomas Churchyard, Thomas Watson and John Lyly (author of the novel Euphues), and Anthony Munday, both whom he employed as secretaries for many years.[37] Interestingly, orthodox scholars have named both Lyly and Munday as Shakespearean sources.

Oxford seemed destined to enjoy greater favour under King James, whose accession he supported,[38] than he had during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. On 18 July 1603, the King granted Oxford's decades-long suit to be restored to the offices of steward of Waltham Forest and keeper of the King's house and park at Havering,[39] and on 2 August 1603 the King confirmed Oxford's annuity of £1000.[40] Less than a year later, Oxford died on 24 June 1604[41] of unknown causes at Brooke House in Hackney. He was buried on 6 July at St John-at-Hackney,[42] although his cousin, Percival Golding (son of Arthur Golding), reported a few years later that he was buried at Westminster Abbey.

Writing

Oxford was described as both a poet and a playwright in his own lifetime, but little of his poetry,[43] and none of his plays has survived, at least under his own name, bearing in mind the testament of the anonymously published Arte of English Poesie (1589), in which the author, possibly George Puttenham, observed:

"So as I know very many notable gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably and suppressed it agayne, or els sufred it to be publisht without their own names to it, as it were a discredit for a gentleman, to seeme learned, and to show himselfe amorous of any good Art."

Further along in the book, the author continued:

"And in her Majesties time that now is are sprong up an other crew of Courtly makers Noble men and Gentlemen of her Majesties owne servauntes, who have written excellently well as it would appeare if their doings could be found out and made publicke with the rest, of which number is first that noble Gentleman Edward Earle of Oxford” (STC 20519).

Oxford's status as a dramatist is also based on the testimony of Francis Meres, in whose Palladis Tamia (1598) Oxford is listed among "the best for comedy" (STC 17834).

Only a small corpus of Oxford’s poems and songs are extant under his own name, the dates of which (and, in some cases, the authorship) are uncertain; most of these are signed "Earle of Oxenforde" or "E.O.".[44] During his lifetime, Oxford was lauded by other English poets, though mostly in regard to his patronage (for example, see one of the epistolary sonnets to Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene). Oxford’s existing letters are focused mainly on business affairs concerning such matters as the Cornish tin monopoly and his ongoing desire for several royal monopolies and stewardships.[45] Oxford maintained both adult and children's theatre companies, and a letter from the Privy Council in March 1602 shows his active involvement on behalf of a "third" acting company who liked to play at "the Bores head":[46]

"beinge joyned by agreement togeather in on Companie (to whom, upon noteice of her Maiesties pleasure at the suit of the Earl of Oxford, tolleracion hath ben thought meete to be graunted, notwithstandinge the restraint of our said former Orders), doe no tye them selfs to one certaine place and howse, but do chainge their place at there owne disposition, which is as disorderly and offensive as the former offence of many howses, and as the other Companies that are allowed . . . be appointed there certine howses and one and no more to each Company. Soe we do straighly require that this third Companie be likewise to one place and because we are informed the house called the Bores head is the place they have especially used and doe best like of, we doe pray and require yow that the said howse . . . may be assigned to them, and that they be very straightlie Charged to use and exercise there plays in no other but that howse, as they looke to have that tolleracion continued and avoid farther displeasure."

Two of Oxford’s "literary" letters were published in 1571 (1572 (New style)) and 1573. The first of these was written in Latin as a dedicatory epistle to Bartholomew Clerke's Latin translation of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), while the second, written in English with accompanying verses, was an epistle to Thomas Bedingfield's English translation of Cardanus' Comfort (from the Latin of De consolatione libri tres by the Italian mathematician and physician Girolamo Cardano). The latter book, published at Oxford’s command, has sometimes been cited by scholars as “Hamlet’s book” (possibly the same book where Hamlet found “words, words, words”) due to several close verbal parallels between it and Shakespeare’s play, particularly a passage on the unsavoriness of old men’s company, to which Hamlet seems to refer in his satirical banter with Polonius (re: plum-tree gum, plentiful lack of wit, most weak hams, etc), as well a passage with remarkable similarities to Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy.

The Shakespearean authorship question

Main article: Oxfordian theory

The Shakespeare authorship question is the debate, dating back to the 18th century, about whether the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually written by another writer, or a group of writers.[47] In 1920, J. Thomas Looney advanced the hypothesis that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was the actual author of Shakespeare's plays due to: Oxford's advanced education including foreign languages; background in the theatre; the praise accorded Oxford's plays and poems; his knowledge of aristocratic life, history, the military, and the law; and the numerous similarities between Oxford's life and the plots of the plays themselves. According to this hypothesis, Oxford had no choice but to publish under a pseudonym, since it would have been considered disgraceful for an aristocrat to write openly for the public theatre, a claim considered by Renaissance scholar Steven W. May to be incongruous with Elizabethan print histories, but which has been defended by both orthodox scholars and anti-Stratfordians (those who doubt the standard theory of Shakespeare authorship).

Oxfordian researcher Diana Price states, "Many members on the top rungs of the Tudor aristocracy had outstanding reputations as poets. But none of them published their creative work. The earl of Surrey's attributed poems were published in miscellanies after his death. None of Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Edward Dyer, and Sir Fulke Greville, all of whom also earned reputations as writers, published his work either. Like those of their social betters, the relatively few poems that appeared in print turned up in miscellanies".[48]

Notable Oxfordians include Sigmund Freud, diplomat and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Paul Nitze, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, columnist Joseph Sobran, former British judge Christmas Humphreys, biographer and historian David McCullough, as well as actors Orson Welles, Sir John Gielgud, Michael York, Jeremy Irons, Mark Rylance (former Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre) and Sir Derek Jacobi, who supports the "group theory" with Oxford as the lead writer.[49]

Debate over the Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship remains contentious. Evidentiary gaps within the Oxfordian hypothesis have prevented many academics from considering its viability. For example, Stratfordians argue that Oxford's 1604 death prevents him from witnessing certain events (for instance the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the wreck of the Sea Venture in Bermuda in 1609) thought to be alluded to in Shakespearean dramas such as Macbeth and The Tempest, respectively. Stratfordians also believe that contemporary poetic tributes to Shakespeare from writers such as Ben Jonson and Leonard Digges (who refer to Shakespeare as "Sweet swan of Avon!" and mention his "Stratford Moniment" in the First Folio), and William Basse (who explicitly mentions Shakespeare dying in 1616),[50] provide some of the clearest evidence supporting Shakespeare of Stratford's status as the author of the Shakespearean canon.

Oxfordians respond that modern research shows that not one of Shakespeare's plays has a proven source published after 1604, the year of Oxford's death. Furthermore, Oxfordian biographers William Farina[51] and Mark Anderson[52] have provided research demonstrating that regular publication of new Shakespeare plays stopped in 1604. Also, Oxfordians have long cited printed examples which they think imply the author known as "Shake-speare" died prior to 1609, when SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS were published without the authors permission, with a preface referring to "our ever-living poet", "ever-living" being a phrase regularly used to describe someone who was already deceased.[53] In Henry V, for example, the dead king Henry is referred to as "that ever-living man of memory".

Other candidates who have been put forward as the actual author of the Shakespeare works include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Oxford's son-in-law, the Earl of Derby. All of the primary candidates (except Shakespeare of Stratford) were known to each other and traveled in the same circles, and are also mentioned as members of a "group" that may have been responsible for the Shakespearean canon. All candidates and theories are predominantly rejected by the academic establishment, although interest by academics and theatre practitioners continues to increase.[54]

Sample poems by Oxford

“ (Untitled)

Were I a king I might command content;
Were I obscure unknown should be my cares,
And were I dead no thoughts should me torment,
Nor words, nor wrongs, nor love, nor hate, nor fears
A doubtful choice for me of three things one to crave,
A kingdom or a cottage or a grave.

 ”
“ Love Thy Choice

Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart ?
Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint ?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart ?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint ?
Who first did paint with colours pale thy face ?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest ?
Above the rest in court who gave thee grace ?
Who made thee strive in honour to be best ?
In constant truth to bide so firm and sure,
To scorn the world regarding but thy friends ?
With patient mind each passion to endure,
In one desire to settle to the end ?
Love then thy choice wherein such choice thou bind,
As nought but death may ever change thy mind.

 ”
“ Woman's Changeableness

If women could be fair and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm not fickle, still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond,
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I muse that men forget themselves so far.
To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
How oft from Phoebus do they flee to Pan,
Unsettled still like haggards wild they range,
These gentle birds that fly from man to man;
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist
And let them fly fair fools which way they list.
Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both,
To pass the time when nothing else can please,
And train them to our lure with subtle oath,
Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease;
And then we say when we their fancy try,
To play with fools, O what a fool was I.[55]

 ”

Footnotes

  1. ^ "The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604)". Luminarium.org. http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/deverebio.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  2. ^ "REED - Patrons and Performances". Link.library.utoronto.ca. http://link.library.utoronto.ca/reed/troupehits.cfm?PeopleListID=550. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  3. ^ Green, Nina, "An Earl in Bondage", The Shakespeare Oxford Society Newsletter (Summer 2004), vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 1-17.
  4. ^ Gibson, H.N. (2005). The Shakespeare Claimants: A Critical Survey of the Four Principle Theories Concerning the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays. Routledge. pp. 48, 72, 124. ISBN 0415352908. ; Kathman, David (2003). "The Question of Authorship". InShakespeare: An Oxford Guide. Wells, Stanley (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 620, 625–626. ISBN 0199245223.
    • Love, Harold (2002). Attributing Authorship: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 194–209. ISBN 0521789486.
    • Schoenbaum, Lives, 430–40.
    • Holderness, Graham (1988). The Shakespeare Myth. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 137, 173. ISBN 0719026350. 
  5. ^ http://doubtaboutwill.org/signatories/notable
  6. ^ The National Archives C 142/136/12, WARD 8/13; Paul, Christopher, "A Crisis of Scholarship: Misreading the Earl of Oxford", The Oxfordian, Vol. 9 (2006), pp. 91-112.
  7. ^ Nelson, p.41
  8. ^ The National Archives PROB 11/46, ff. 174-6
  9. ^ Morant, Philip, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (1748) ii, p. 328
  10. ^ Cambridge University Archives Matriculation Book I, p. 169
  11. ^ The National Archives SP 12/26/50
  12. ^ Nelson p. 25
  13. ^ British Library MS Lansdowne 6/54, f. 135
  14. ^ Charlton Ogburn, The Mystery of Willam Shakespeare, 1984, pgs. 384-393
  15. ^ Bulbeck, Edward in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
  16. ^ Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Philip Bliss (1813-20), iii, p. 178
  17. ^ Foster, Joseph (1889), Register of Gray's Inn: Admissions 1521-1669, col. 36
  18. ^ Nelson, pp. 43, 45
  19. ^ The National Archives KB 9/619(part 1)/13
  20. ^ Talbot Papers, Vol. F, f. 79
  21. ^ Segar, William, The Book of Honor and Armes (New York: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1975) pp. 94-6, 99-100
  22. ^ Huntington Library HAP o/s Box 3(19)
  23. ^ Essex Record Office D/DRg 2/24
  24. ^ The National Archives C 66/1090, mm. 29-30
  25. ^ The National Archives 31/3/27
  26. ^ Bibliotheque Nationale 15973, ff. 387v-392v
  27. ^ Archivo General de Simancas, Leg. 835, ff. 121-4; Paris Archives K.1447.130; Paris Archives K.1448.49
  28. ^ Archivo General de Simancas, Leg. 835, ff. 121-4
  29. ^ Paris Archives K.1561
  30. ^ a b Paris Archives K.1563.122
  31. ^ Paris Archives K.1562, K.1563.72
  32. ^ HMC Rutland, i, p. 150
  33. ^ a b British Library MS Cotton App 47, f. 7
  34. ^ Lambeth Palace MS 647, f. 123
  35. ^ Cecil Papers 31/45
  36. ^ The National Archives E 403/2597, ff. 104v-105
  37. ^ "Oxford and Shakespeare". Authorshipstudies.org. http://www.authorshipstudies.org/articles/oxford_shakespeare.cfm. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  38. ^ Folger Library MX X.d.30(42)
  39. ^ The National Archives SP 14/2/63, f. 160; The National Archives C 66/1612, mbs. 27-28
  40. ^ The National Archives E 403/2598, part I, f. 27v
  41. ^ The National Archives C 142/286/165
  42. ^ London Metropolitan Archive P79/JN1/21, f. 197v
  43. ^ "Poems of Edward de Vere". Elizabethan Authors. http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/oxfordpoems.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  44. ^ The Poems of Edward de Vere[dead link]
  45. ^ "Oxford Letters (oxlets)". Socrates.berkeley.edu. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/oxlets.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  46. ^ Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 4, p. 334, cxxx.
  47. ^ McMichael, George; Edgar M. Glenn (1962). Shakespeare and His Rivals, A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. New York: Odyssey Press. 
  48. ^ "Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography - New Evidence of an Authorship Problem by Diana Price". Shakespeare-authorship.com. 2002-02-08. http://www.shakespeare-authorship.com/resources/stigma.asp. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  49. ^ Honor Roll of Skeptics[dead link]
  50. ^ "The Shakspere Allusion-Book: a collection of allusions to Shakspere from 1591-1700. / Originally compiled by C. M. Ingleby, Miss L. Toulmin Smith, and Dr. F. J. Furnivall, with the assistance of the New Shakspere Society: re-edited, rev., and re-arr., with an introd., by John Munro (1909), and now re-issued with a pref. by Sir Edmund Chambers" (1932), Vol. 1, p. 286.
  51. ^ "McFarland - Publisher of Reference and Scholarly Books". Mcfarlandpub.com. http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2383-8. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  52. ^ ""Shakespeare" By Another Name by Mark Anderson". Shakespearebyanothername.com. http://shakespearebyanothername.com/index.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  53. ^ Farina, "De Vere as Shakespeare, An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon" (2006), 280pp; Anderson, "Shakespeare by Another Name" (2005), pp. 397-403.
  54. ^ "Shakespeare Authorship Coalition". Doubtaboutwill.org. http://www.doubtaboutwill.org/. Retrieved 2009-07-30.  Further debating points from the Stratfordian perspective may be viewed at Shakespeare Authorship website and from the Oxfordian perspective at The Shakespeare Fellowship website. "State of the Debate". Shakespearefellowship.org. http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/State%20of%20the%20Debate.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-30. 
  55. ^ Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies' Library, Vol. IV, #19 (1872)

References

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
The Earl of Oxford		 Lord Great Chamberlain
1562–1604		 Succeeded by
The Earl of Oxford
Peerage of England
Preceded by
John de Vere		 Earl of Oxford
1562–1604		 Succeeded by
Henry de Vere
v • d • e
Shakespeare Authorship Question
Theories
Candidates
Theorists and supporters

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