Anthony Bacon

[Guest Ryan Murtha]

This is a paragraph on Anthony Bacon from the late Brian McClinton's Shakespeare Conspiracies, which addresses other candidates like Oxford, Marlowe etc. I thought it was worth posting here, as Anthony very likely did contribute to the canon (this possibility is discussed in Simon Miles's talk on Merchant of Venice). Of particular note is the issue of Anthony's passport, with names from LLL. 

Anthony Bacon

The first piece of evidence in his favour is a letter to him from Nicholas Faunt in 1583 in which he thanks Anthony for his ‘enclosed sonnets’. No sonnets under his name have survived. Another letter, from his mother's chaplain, pastor Wyborn, wished him 'success in literature'. Part of his time in France was spent at the court of King Henry of Navarre. In 1917 the passports of Anthony and three of his entourage were discovered in the British Museum. They are signed ‘Biron’, ‘Dumain’, ‘Longaville’ and ‘Boyesse’. The fact that they are four of the characters in Love’s Labour’s Lost, also set in Navarre, clearly links the play with Anthony's visit. It does not prove that he wrote the play. It rather points us again in the direction of his younger brother Francis, who had visited Navarre earlier and with whom he assuredly discussed his travels on his return to England in 1592. At any rate, this passport evidence is important and so far has elicited no satisfactory explanation from orthodox scholars. The next item brings Anthony into close physical proximity to William of Stratford. In April or early May 1594 Anthony took up lodgings in London’s Bishopsgate Street, almost next door to the Bull Inn, where plays were performed. The records clearly show that William Shaksper, then one of the actors in the Burbage company, was also lodging in Bishopsgate at this time. Did Anthony meet William and did he arrange for the Stratford man to act as a go-between for the plays? Two facts, however, are sufficient to discount Anthony Bacon's sole authorship of Shakespeare. He died in 1601, so on this ground alone his claim is even weaker than that of Oxford. The second disclaimer is his style as displayed in his letters, many of which are published in Daphne du Maurier's Golden Lads (1975), a biography of the Bacon brothers. Reading them makes it obvious that Anthony lacked the poetry and intellect of Francis. Examples from both brothers are quoted in the book and it is apparent that, while Francis is forever clothing his thoughts in the most splendid dress, Anthony is content to write in a dry, matter-of-fact style. Despite the eulogy of 'La Jessée', there is not the slightest hint that he was capable of writing great poetry. On the Northumberland Manuscript front cover are scribbled the words 'Anthony comfort and consorte'. This may imply that Anthony was a minor partner with Francis in the writing of works under the Shakespeare name.

[Kate]

Some more secrets about Love’s Labour’s Lost are also surely yet to be discovered in Love’s Labour’s Won! 
 

Did you know the word love can represent the word God. It’s all linked to Jove and the interchangeable I (like in Ben Ionson), so Jove becomes Iove. 
 

Also three L’s in LLL in Gematria is 30, 30, 30 so the three times 3 is symbolised when the zero is a null and that all links back to the Triple Tau and eventually further back to Plato and geometry of the Earth, so God’s handiwork (Nature). 
 

I totally agree that Anthony may have been more involved than first thought. 

[Christie Waldman]

The section Ryan quotes is on p. 128 of Brian McClinton, The Shakespeare Conspiracies: Untangling a 400-Year Web of Myth and Deceit, 2d ed. (Belfast, Shanway Press, 2008), You used to be able to read it (or part of it, at least?) at the Irish Free Thinkers website, but the old website is no longer up. Brian passed away in 2019. This link takes you to a pdf of the site's homepage only (last updated 10/29/22, being today's date, incredibly). http://irishfreethinkers.com/.

Oxford: In his section on "Other Claimants," McClinton summarizes a case against the Earl of Oxford's being Shakespeare in seven pages (120-127) well worth visiting. "A Careful consideration, then, of the four sources that Oxfordians claim as evidence that Elizabethans considered Oxford a great poet contradicts that claim" (124) .... There are at least three major grounds for rejecting Oxford's candidature, and the first is the quality of his acknowledged work (125) .... Oxford's character is also against him (126) .... The ultimate blow to the Oxfordian case is a mortal one. He died in 1604 and therefore could not have written some of the works" (127).

Rutland: McClinton briefly treats the Earl of Rutland as an authorship candidate in one paragraph, proposed by a Russian professor, Pierre Porohovshikov, Shakespeare Unmasked (Arco, 1955) (McC., 127-128). McClinton dismisses Rutland's candidacy, however, saying he was born too late. Another Russian Shakespeare scholar, Ilya Gililov, author of The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix (New York: Algora Publishing, 2003), wrote about the Earl of Rutland and his wife, proposing a role for them as writers of Shakespeare within Mary Sidney's circle of poets with Bacon as editor. Prof. Gililov had come to America from Russia to study at the Folger Library on a fellowship. 

In comments on my website's home page (christinagwaldman.com), "Lev" commented there, leading me to find a youtube video in which Russian Shakespeare scholar Marina Litvinova was being interviewed by Prime Time Russia (6:08 minutes). I also commented (my website, 12/2020), that I heard her plainly say, in that interview, that she used to think Shakespeare was the Earl of Rutland but was now convinced it was Francis Bacon. Prime Time Russia did not question her on this and the video concluded directly thereafter. I do not speak or write Russian and so was unable to pursue these sources further. The video is apparently no longer available in the U.S.

The highly respected Italian legal historian Manlio Bellomo, has written an interesting paper on Shakespeare authorship and law. It is in Italian, but the Google translation feature for this paper worked surprisingly well so that I truly was able to understand the paper. Manlio Bellomo, "Ius Commune e Shakespeare: fra drammi e commedie," Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Commune 50 (2019), 11-27. Try this link: https://www.sikeedizioni.it › wp-content › uploads › 2021 › 03 › 01_-Bellomo1.pdf. Prof. Bellomo is the author of The Common Legal Past of Europe, 1000-1800, translated from the 2d ed. by Lydia G. Cochrane (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995. Orig. pub. in Rome, 1988).

It seems it would be wrong to think that all scholars outside the UK or US accepted the Stratfordian version on Shakespeare authorship.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Christie Waldman
misspelled Oxford; minor edit for clarity in 4th par., "question her on this"