Shakespeare Authorship Question: Unravelling the Mystery

Who wrote the plays and why?

by Kate Cassidy


 

In 1621, Sir Francis Bacon celebrated his 60th birthday. His close friend Ben Jonson penned a tribute poem that hinted at a mysterious achievement. “Hail, happy Genius of this ancient pile! How comes it all things so about thee smile? The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst, Thou stand’st as if some Mystery thou did’st!”

Jonson’s cryptic words suggest Bacon had accomplished something monumental, yet undisclosed.

The Baconian belief is that this “mystery” relates to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays and sonnets. On SirBacon.org’s What’s New we feature a fascinating article by Kate Cassidy, which will be of interest to those who are completely new to the authorship question, and to anyone who wishes to understand why Bacon would have written the works in Shakespeare’s name and concealed his involvement.

https://the-power-paradox.shorthandstories.com/the-shakespeare-authorship-question-unravelling-the-mystery/index.html

The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: Part 3

Part 3 of the latest masterpiece by A. Phoenix.


THE SECRET OF THE DROESHOUT MASK SYNOPSIS

1 Minute Trailer The Secret of the Droeshout Mask

To the present day the life of Martin Droeshout the enigmatic engraver of the Droeshout engraving prefixed to the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio is completely shrouded in secrecy and mystery. The silence is deafening. What could be the reason for all this secrecy and silence?

The key central reason is the Droeshout engraving on the title page of the Shakespeare First Folio is a mask behind which its concealed author Francis Bacon is hidden in plain sight, which when removed reveals the truth behind the Rosicrucian-Freemasonic illusion and ludibrium that the illiterate/semi-illiterate William Shakspere was the author of the greatest literature in the history of the world.

Modern orthodox Shakespeare scholars have conspired in an enormous fraudulent conspiracy and very deliberately lied to the world about the so-called incompetence of its engraver Martin Droeshout to maintain the fiction and illusion William Shakspere wrote the Shakespeare plays.

The key elements of any fraud are very often simple and relatively easy to achieve and execute. The orthodox fraudulent Stratfordian scholar has numerous tools at their disposal. Firstly, they are simply able to take advantage of the trust of their naive uncritical readership who are easily persuaded by a perceived authoritative figure or so-called expert with the accompanying title of professor whose works are published by a prestigious university press. Pitifully, this itself is usually sufficient. Or alternatively, in the face of irrefutable facts and evidence the common response of orthodox Stratfordian scholars is either to simply maintain a wall of silence, or resort to crude systematic suppression and omission. Then there is their well-practiced method of arbitrary distortion and dismissal. Not forgetting of course, the blunt instrument of downright lies and mendacity, all of it skilfully woven into their false, deceitful, and fraudulent narratives.

For centuries the Stratfordian authorities have misled and lied to the world about the one critical fact literally staring us all in the face-the Droeshout engraving is very obviously and irrefutably a mask. The reason why they have repeatedly lied to the world and denied it is a mask is because it would immediately expose the illusion William Shakspere of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare works which in a single devastating and catastrophic stroke would bring the whole fraudulent Stratfordian edifice crashing down all around them.

The secret relationship which has remained hidden for centuries between Francis Bacon and Martin Droeshout the engraver responsible for the iconic image that adorns the title page of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio is here revealed for the first time, bringing out of the shadows into the brilliant light of day, our sublime poet-dramatist concealed behind the Droeshout mask, exposing and collapsing the greatest literary fraud of all time.

 

PAPER 1:

The Title Page and Droeshout Mask of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio Concealing its Secret Author Francis Bacon

VIDEO 1:

https://youtu.be/v82gTnhCkwI

 
 

PAPER 2:

To The Reader Prefixed to the Shakespeare First Folio Opposite the Droeshout Mask signed with the initials B. I. for Ben Jonson

VIDEO 2:

https://youtu.be/v82gTnhCkwI

The entire book by A. Phoenix will be shared over the coming weeks and the discussion will continue on the SirBacon.org B’Hive Forum.

Why Did Elizabeth Winkler Not Interview Any Baconians?

by Christina G. Waldman


https://christinagwaldman.com/2023/07/05/why-did-elizabeth-winkler-not-interview-any-baconians/

July 5, 2023.

Something must be said about Elizabeth Winkler’s new book, Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies in which she sets out–one would assume–to accurately and fairly present the current status of the Shakespeare authorship controversy. This would be a worthy goal. However, although she, an American journalist, interviewed people who might colloquially be called “Stratfordians,” “Oxfordians” (three of them), a “Marlovian,” general Shakespeare authorship doubters, and at least one indifferent, she did not interview any currently researching and writing Baconians! With the internet, we are not that hard to find. Unfortunately, this omission may mislead readers unfamiliar with the topic into assuming no one believes Bacon may have written Shakespeare anymore, or that no one is currently researching the evidence. Perhaps she would like to visit SirBacon.org which has recently hosted “The A. Phoenix PDF Library of Works,” https://sirbacon.org/the-a-phoenix-pdf-library-of-works/.

Yes, Winkler interviewed Mark Rylance the Shakespearean actor, but he did not come across in her book as a “Baconian” per se, but rather as a general doubter and, perhaps, “the most prominent person championing the idea of female authorship today” (p. 279). Even James Shapiro in his 2010 book Contested Will (Simon & Schuster) pointed readers to two resources for further reading on the case for Bacon: SirBacon.org and the (now late) Irish humanist Brian McClinton’s book, The Shakespeare Conspiracies: A 400-Year Web of Myth and Deceit, 2d ed. (Belfast: Shanway Press, 2008) (Shapiro, p. 282). There are other books, of course, that could be mentioned, such as the late British barrister N. B. Cockburn’s The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Question Made Sane (740 pp., 1998), Peter Dawkins, The Shakespeare Enigma (London: Polair Press, 2004), and my own, Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: A Study of Law, Rhetoric, and Authorship (New York: Algora Publishing, 2018).

It is interesting that Winkler and Shapiro’s publisher is Simon & Schuster, publisher for the Folger Shakespeare Library which has long held to a “Stratfordian” view, although they have stated: “we don’t really know what Shakespeare’s handwriting looks like.” (Folger Shakespeare Library Staff and Paul Werstine,“Shakespeare’s Handwriting: Hand D in The Booke of Sir Thomas More,” Shakespeare Documented, Folger Shakespeare Library, https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/shakespeares-handwriting-hand-d-booke-sir-thomas-more, accessed July 7, 2023). Except, that may not be true, for the highly-respected forensic expert Maureen Ward-Gandy in her 1992 report determined, to a high degree of probability, that a play fragment found in binder’s waste in a 1586 copy of Homer’s Odyssey (It was a draft scene analogous to The First Part of Henry the Fourth) was in Francis Bacon’s own handwriting. It is printed in full for the first time in my book, and is also now available at SirBacon.org (Maureen Ward-Gandy, “Elizabethan Era Writing Comparison for Identification of Common Authorship,” Oct. 11, 2022, https://sirbacon.org/elizabeth-era-writing-comparison-for-identification-of-common-authorship/).

While Winkler mentions a 2019 book published by Routledge, Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare), she leaves out the author’s name! It is Barry R. Clarke who has a Ph.D. in Shakespeare Studies from Brunel University. Nor does she mention Peter Dawkins’ recent book, Second-Seeing Shakespeare: Stay Passenger: “why goest thou by so fast?” (April 6, 2020, Kindle) or, if I am not mistaken, mention him by name. Instead, she refers to him (presumably) as “a Baconian researcher.” Dawkins is the founder/principal of the Francis Bacon Research Trust and its educational website. The Francis Bacon Society publishes videos on Youtube. The videos made by Jono Freeman are especially informative and entertaining. I wonder if Winkler has ever heard of them, or of my book? Through whose eyes is she seeing the authorship question?

There is other evidence of bias (Is it because he was born into a noble family? But his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was the son of a commoner.). She refers to the Northumberland Manuscript, an important piece of Baconian evidence because it bears the names of Bacon and Shakespeare together, as “a mass of “chaotic scribblings” (p. 163) (but see, e.g., “The Northumberland Manuscript: Bacon and Shakespeare Manuscripts in One Portfolio!” https://sirbacon.org/links/northumberland.html). She reported Oxfordian interpretations of the evidence, related by Oxfordians she interviewed, as if they were the only interpretations–unaware of, or considering there might be, other interpretations.

For example, she discusses Hall and Marston’s allusions to “Labeo” in their 16th century satires. There are several Labeos. Winkler knows of the poet Labeo, Labeo Attius (67-68), but not, apparently, of the great Roman jurist, Marcus Antistius Labeo, whose life parallels Bacon’s in notable ways (see my book, Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand, pp. 99-100). The Latin words labefacio (to cause to shake, to totter) and labefacto (to shake violently) make an interesting association with the name, something Virgil and other writers of his time used to do. (See James J. O’Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2017 [1996]). It seems Hall and Marson were on to this rhetorical device as well.

Arguably, any connection between Shakespeare and the law is one which points strongly to Francis Bacon, more than to any other “candidate” for Shakespeare authorship. Even Tom Regnier, the late “Oxfordian” researcher and a lawyer, has acknowledged the obvious, that Bacon’s legal accomplishments were much greater than Oxford’s (Thomas Regnier, “The Law in Hamlet: Death, Property, and the Pursuit of Justice (2011),” reprinted in Shakespeare and the Law: How the Bard’s Legal Knowledge Affects the Authorship Question, edited by Roger A. Strittmatter (June 2022), 231-251, 231. And no, Strittmatter did not make reference to my 2018 book, either.).

Bacon devoted much of his life to making lasting legal reforms to English law. He was a wise visionary humanitarian, arguably not the “stodgy old philosopher” Edward J. White saw him as, in trying to persuade readers that Bacon could not have been Shakespeare, ironically, while at the same time detailing an abundance of law found in Shakespeare, in his Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare (St. Louis: F. H. Thomas, 2d ed. 1913), a book in which he was much assisted by a woman, Shakespeare lecturer, Mary A. Wadsworth, to whom he dedicated the book. Today she would probably be given co-authorial status.

Winkler also left important information out of her historical treatment. For example, in naming “Baconian” authors, she left out Constance Pott, founder of the Francis Bacon Society in 1866. Pott is the author of the first edition of Bacon’s writer’s notebook, the Promus, with all of its Shakespeare parallels. Did she mention Baconiana, the journal of the Francis Bacon Society (FBS) which has published the literary and historical research of its members since 1866? It can be accessed from the FBS website or SirBacon.org. A bibliography would have helped this book. SirBacon.org provides lengthy bibliographies of Baconian scholarship. She left out so many good writers. “It is hard to remember all, ungrateful to pass by any.” –Francis Bacon.

Arguably, if you only look where the light is shining, you won’t see what is hidden in the dark. Bacon was not just any nobleman penning poetry and plays. If the reason for the secrecy is because it was Bacon and we don’t look into the matter deeply enough, we will never solve the mystery. I am not saying Bacon was the only writer, but it is illogical to assume this stellar writer, a major literary figure in his time, did not play a role. The word “author” can be used in a broader sense for the person in charge of a large-scale literary project. Abbess Herrad of Hohenbourg referred herself as the “author” of the Hortus Deliciarum, a twelfth century encyclopedic work she compiled for the edification of the nuns at her convent, although she herself wrote relatively little of it (see Fiona J. Griffiths, The Garden of Delights: Reform and Renaissance for Women in the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).

In truth, there is no logical, factual reason that would make Bacon’s authorship of Shakespeare a factual impossibility. The two reasons that are usually given do not hold up under close scrutiny. Contrary to what is often said, for much of his life, Bacon did have the time to write plays and poems (and he had his “good pens” to help him). It was only after his cousin Robert Cecil died, during the reign of King James, that he was burdened with public office. Moreover, it is not fair to compare a person’s prose works with their poetry. Of course, there will be a difference in style! A person varies his/her/their writing style depending on what they are writing. One would especially expect this of a skilled writer, which Bacon was. James Shapiro observed in Contested Will that the only genre of writing at which Bacon did not try his hand was play-writing (p. 90). Isn’t that interesting. James Spedding, Bacon’s nineteenth century biographer and editor, observed that Bacon had the “fine phrensy of a poet,” intriguingly using Shakespeare’s phrase (see OpenSourceShakespeare.org).

Not all Baconians think alike. I can speak only for myself. The truth does not have a label or denomination, to make a religious analogy. But all who are researching need to keep an open mind. It is the facts that matter. In fact, it was Bacon who helped develop the modern meaning of what a valid fact is (See abstract, Barbara Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: England, 1550‒1720 (Cornell University Press). He wrote about the “four idols” that keep us from seeing things as they really are in his New Organon. Jesus spoke of such things as “motes” in our eyes. Bacon called them eidola from the Greek (hence informing his use of the word “idol”).

If people do not look into the case for Bacon deeply enough, I fear they risk trying to solve a puzzle that has missing pieces. This is a scholarly subject. It is unfortunate that a journalist, by not interviewing Baconians and giving their case equal time, did not present the Shakespeare authorship controversy as it stands today fairly and accurately. The Baconians were the first to challenge William Shaxpere of Stratford’s authorship. Many of the arguments of the Oxfordians are derivative of those first posited by Baconians (e.g., So Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford was a ward of Lord Burghley? So was Francis Bacon, after his father died in 1579. In fact, Burghley was Bacon’s uncle (Added 7-8-23: Burghley’s wife Mildred was the sister of Francis’s mother, Anne Bacon. All the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke (tutor to Edward VI) had received a rigorous classical education from their father. Anne, a true scholar, translated Bishop John Jewel’s Apology for the Church of England (anonymously). She made sure her sons, too, received a rigorous classical education, even before they entered Cambridge.).

Critical thinking is imperative. If readers do not have sufficient background in the history of a topic such as this, they risk being misled. If you are looking for something that has been intentionally buried, you have to dig deep.

Granted, Winkler’s undertaking in this book was ambitious, and the goal of publicizing the aberrant “wall” against challenging the authorship of Shakespeare is worthy. The book seems to have touched a chord and to be have been well-received, generally, for the most part (by non-“Stratfordians,” at least). However, the reading public trusts those who write books to objectively give them the whole story; or at least refer them to other sources where they might find it, because no one writer or one book can do it all. Perhaps Winkler will agree with me that, the more we learn about this topic, the more we realize how much more there is to learn. However, getting better acquainted with all of Francis Bacon’s works is well worth the effort, in my opinion.

(First posted July 5, 2023. Slightly revised July 7, 2023; references added.)

https://christinagwaldman.com/2023/07/05/why-did-elizabeth-winkler-not-interview-any-baconians/

The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: A Baconian-Rosicrucian-Freemasonic Illusion

by A. Phoenix


Announcing The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: A Baconian-Rosicrucian-Freemasonic Illusion. The book is available at
The_1623_Shakespeare_First_Folio_A_Baconian_Rosicrucian_Freemasonic_Illusion

Coming in at 404 pages we are also publishing selected chapters as smaller stand alone papers with accompanying videos. Each paper and video will concentrate on a selected facet of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio.

Follow the discussion on the B’Hive Forum here on SirBacon.org:

https://sirbacon.org/bacon-forum/index.php?/forum/29-the-1623-shakespeare-first-folio-a-baconian-rosicrucian-freemasonic-illusion/

Introduction

On the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: A Baconian-Rosicrucian-Freemasonic Illusion uncovers and reveals unknown and untold secrets about the greatest work of literature in the history of humankind. Here for the first time, it brings forth the hidden and concealed connections of its secret author Francis Bacon and his Rosicrucian-Freemasonry Brotherhood with all the key members involved in its production, printing, and publication. It explores his hidden relationships with its printers William and Isaac Jaggard, and the other members of the First Folio consortium, John Smethwick, William Aspley, and its publisher Edward Blount. It is almost universally unknown that its dedicatee William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke was at the time of its dedication Grand Master of England, one of half of the ‘Incomparable Paire Of Brethren’, with his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, whose joint open and hidden relationships with Bacon went back decades. The other important critical member in the production of the 1623 First Folio was its editor and contributor of its two verses Ben Jonson who at the time the Folio was making its way through the Jaggard printing presses was living with Bacon at Gorhambury, where he was at the heart of the secret plans for bringing together this vast and complex enterprise.

The Droeshout engraving on the title page of the most famous secular work in English history is iconic and recognised the world over as the contemporary face of William Shakespeare the greatest poet and dramatist of all time. In strikingly marked contrast virtually nothing is known about Martin Droeshout the draughtsman responsible for the most recognisable literary image since time immemorial. A remarkable level of secrecy still surrounds his private life, friends and the social and professional circles he moved in, even though he self-evidently knew some of the most important figures in Jacobean England and moved in the highest circles of his times. This man who for the first thirty-three years of his life lived in the heart of London has scarcely left any documentary trace of his existence akin to him having been deliberately expunged from the records. To the present day his whole life is completely shrouded in secrecy and mystery. The silence is deafening. What could be the reason for all this secrecy and silence? The key reason is the Droeshout engraving on the title page of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio is a mask behind which its concealed author Francis Bacon is hidden in plain sight, which when lifted reveals the truth behind the Rosicrucian-Freemasonic illusion and ludibrium that the illiterate/semi-illiterate William Shakspere of Stratford was the author of the greatest literature in the history of the world. This illusion revealed, with one devastating stroke brings the whole Stratfordian fiction crashing to the ground.

For the first time, The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: A Baconian Rosicrucian-Freemasonic Illusion conveys an explosive secret in making known the concealed and hidden relationship between Francis Bacon and Martin Droeshout which has been suppressed for the last four hundred years. Their secret relationship is encapsulated in an earlier Droeshout engraving titled Doctor Panurgus (c. 1621) wherein one of its central figures is a depiction of Francis Bacon replete with a series of clues and indicators to confirm it.

The figure of Bacon in the Dr Panurgus engraving by Droeshout dating from the early 1620s is drawn from life, which points to Bacon sitting for it at Gorhambury. The complex engraving has clearly been carefully planned and must have involved Bacon giving Droeshout instructions and further directions that over a period of time necessitated numerous revision and amendments, not unlike the Droeshout in the First Folio, which exists in three known states, showing close attention to minor details as well as slight changes made to various aspects of it. This process was taking place around the time Bacon was planning and preparing his Shakespeare plays for the Jaggard printing house during the years 1621 to 1623 when it is likely that Droeshout made numerous visits to see Bacon at his country estate at Gorhambury where he was most likely residing for periods with Bacon and Ben Jonson as part of his entourage of good pens and other artists that made up his literary workshop.

The work also lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the hitherto unknown relationships between Francis Bacon and the other little-known figures Hugh Holland, James Mabbe and Leonard Digges who contributed verses to the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. Particularly, Bacon’s relationship with Leonard Digges, whose father Sir Nicholas Bacon was the special patron of his grandfather and father Leonard Digges and Thomas Digges, the poet whose verse prefixed to the First Folio refers to the Stratford Monument, which is adorned with Rosicrucian-Freemasonic symbols and Baconian ciphers, secretly commissioned by Francis Bacon and his Rosicrucian-Freemasonry Brotherhood.

It is little known that the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio contains a series of special Baconian-Rosicrucian-Freemasonic AA and Archer headpieces cryptically incorporating the monogram of Francis Bacon and in the case of the latter spelling out his name F. Bacon. Across the address by Ben Jonson in the First Folio ‘To the memory of my beloued, The AVTHOR Mr. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND what he hath left vs’, written during the period he was living with Bacon at Gorhambury, appears the Freemasonic Seven Set Squares headpiece, indicating to other members of the Brotherhood that Bacon was the concealed author behind the pseudonym Shakespeare and the secret Grand Master of all Freemasons who rules by the Square, with ‘what he has left vs’, alluding to the secret Freemasonic system left to the world for the future benefit of humankind. Beyond the fact that the Freemasonic Seven Set Squares appears over the Ben Jonson address in the Folio, the same headpiece appears numerous times throughout the volume over the following Shakespeare plays: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, King John, I Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Richard III, Henry VIII, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens and Hamlet.

In addition to all the above cryptic devices secretly inserted by Bacon in the Shakespeare First Folio there are also many remarkable and astonishing references and allusions to himself and members of the Bacon family, which for four hundred years have remained unfamiliar or unknown to the ordinary schoolmen, the casual student, and effectively the rest of the world. These include references and allusions to himself in several different plays where the character is in some instances named Francis and similarly where characters are named after his three brothers Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, and Anthony Bacon. Similarly in the First Folio there are references and allusions to his father and mother Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne Cooke Bacon, her sisters Lady Katherine Cooke Killigrew, Lady Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell and her husband John, Lord Russell, Lady Mildred Cooke Cecil and her husband William Cecil, Lord Burghley, as well as their offspring (Bacon’s cousins) Thomas Posthumous Hoby and Sir Robert Cecil, and the son of their brother William Cooke, named after his father, Bacon’s other cousin, known as William Cooke of Highnam Court in Gloucester.

In recent times a very substantial body of academic literature has been produced by orthodox critics and commentators surrounding the subject of Shakespeare and anagrams. Individually and collectively these writings illustrate and determine that not only was Shakespeare, the greatest poet of his age, but he was its greatest anagrammatist. In the First Folio Bacon secretly inserts numerous acrostics and anagrams confirming his authorship among them: I AM FRA[NCIS] BACON, FRANCIS BACON, FRAN [CIS] BACON, F BACON, BY ONE BACON, BY BACON, and BACON.

The Shakespeare First Folio embodies the philosophy and teachings of Freemasonry and contains overt and covert references and allusions to its secret practices, protocols, and customs. It is intimately familiar with knowledge of its degrees of initiations, and the constitution, rules, and regular workings of the Lodge. It is also familiar with the language and terminology of the Freemasonry Brotherhood, its secret signs, handshakes, and other forms of greetings and identification. It is most importantly saturated with the grand philosophical scheme of Bacon to regenerate the world and unite humankind into a truly global society based upon peace and love, the declared aim of his Rosicrucian-Freemasonry Brotherhood, to bring about over time the Universal Reformation of the Whole World.

Review of N. B. Cockburn, The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Theory Made Sane (1998): A Classic Worth Reprinting

by Christina G. Waldman


1998 does not seem so long ago to me. That was when N. B.Cockburn, late British barrister, devoted 740 pages to setting forth his evidence in favor of Francis Bacon’s authorship of the works traditionally attributed to “William Shakespeare,” based largely on that name/pseudonym’s being printed on the title page of the 1623 First Folio. Barry R. Clarke (Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare (New York: Routledge, 2019)), Brian McClinton (The Shakespeare Conspiracies, (Aubane: Aubane Historical Society, 2006 and Belfast: Shanway Press, 2008)), and other authors, including myself, have acknowledged their debt to Cockburn. Mather Walker has previously reviewed the book for SirBacon.org which prints in full its table of contents.

Read more: Download PDF

Brian McClinton critiques writers with a bias against Bacon

Thanks to Christina Waldman for pointing out Brian McClinton critiques writers with a bias against Bacon
Saving Bacon 4


Brian McClinton’s letter, Sept. 27, 2005, in Prospect Magazine, Nov. 20, 2005.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/7095-letters.

27th September 2005

In his travesty of the character and ideas of Francis Bacon, Terence Kealey describes him as an “unusually unpleasant” man “who collected… many bribes.” On the contrary, JG Crowther demonstrates (Francis Bacon: The First Statesman of Science, 1960) that Bacon was “fundamentally incorruptible.” Indeed he was almost alone among leading politicians in not paying James I for his offices and promotions. Nieves Mathews in Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination (1996), argues that he was completely innocent of the charges of bribery and that writers such as Macaulay were themselves guilty of slandering Bacon’s reputation and unfairly influencing later generations.

The best judges of Bacon’s character are those nearest to him. To his apothecary Peter Boener he was “a noteworthy example… of all virtue, gentleness, peacefulness, and patience.” To his editor Rawley, “if [ever] there were a beam of knowledge derived from God upon any man in these modern times, it was upon him.” Aubrey tells us that “all that were great and good loved and honoured him.”

As for his ideas, Kealey completely misrepresents his whole philosophy. Bacon’s lodestar was not power, as he suggests, but truth. He spells it out himself in his beautiful Proem: “For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point), and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth.”

In other words, Bacon’s “method” is as provisional as that of Popper, who completely misrepresents him. If modern science is based upon the presumption of error and fallibility, then Bacon remains its true trumpeter. Nor did he rely only on induction, as Kealey implies, for he insisted on a continual interchange between theory and experiment. When he wrote that “knowledge itself is power” he meant not worldly success or useful technology but the proof of scientific theories: “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule” (Novum Organum). In short, only by making nature act in a certain way—exercising power—can we be sure that we understand how it does act, and only by knowing that can we control it. Bacon realised that science could be useful for the good of mankind but he also believed in knowledge and work for their own sake as “pledges of truth.”

Finally, Kealey goes off the rails altogether in his paean to private funding of science. It was the co-operative and collaborative nature of scientific discovery that concerned Bacon, not the issue of the state’s role.

Frankly, it is a puzzle why so many writers in England persistently misrepresent one of the world’s greatest geniuses. Most of them would improve their scholarship if they read Bacon himself instead of parroting his unreliable commentators.

Brian McClinton, Author of

Lisburn, Northern Ireland
Academic journals

26th September 2005 Letters.

The Play That Solves the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery

A book by Don Elfenbein


 

One reader of www.sirbacon.org, Don Elfenbein of Morgantown, West Virginia, has recently self-published, through Lulu Press, a short print-on-demand book entitled The Play That Solves the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery: The Allegory of Francis Bacon’s Natural Philosophy in The Tempest.

Click here to read the PDF version.

This essay gathers together and documents a number of incontrovertible but little-noticed facts that speak Shakespeare’s true name loudly and clearly.

Written for general readers and scholars alike, the essay systematizes and extends the investigations of the pioneering researchers who first published, more than a century ago, the provocative contention that The Tempest allegorizes a body of Baconian thought. It demonstrates that fourteen elements of this play having to do with the magus Prospero, the spirit Ariel, and the witch Sycorax resemble and represent fourteen of Bacon’s natural-philosophical ideas, several of which are peculiar to him. Those ideas include not only the general methodological prescriptions for which Bacon is famous but also his unique and largely forgotten conjectures about the inner workings of nature.

These numerous and striking parallels between elements of the play and elements of Bacon’s philosophy, the author argues, together constitute persuasive proof that Bacon wrote this celebrated drama.

Don is a researcher and former law professor who has been interested in the Baconian theory since the 1970s. He is eager to discuss his study with anyone who is interested in examining it and perhaps offering him comments, corrections, or suggestions.

A printed copy of the essay can be ordered from the Lulu Press bookstore:The Play That Solves the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery

The Play That Solves the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery

Don’s email address is don.elfenbein@gmail.com.

UPDATE: June 1, 2023:

PDF – THE PLAY THAT SOLVES THE SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP MYSTERY

FBS: Shakespeare, aka Sir Francis Bacon – Sir Mark Rylance and Gary Cordice

Video by the Francis Bacon Society


Shakespeare, aka Sir Francis Bacon – Sir Mark Rylance and Gary Cordice celebrate 463 years of his legacy within world culture at his birthday bash in 2023 at the Royal Airforce Club, London
 
The Francis Bacon Society provides a platform for discussion of subjects connected with the Objects of the Society, but the Council does not necessarily endorse the opinions expressed by contributors or correspondents.
 
We welcome members of the public to pitch suitable videos they have made or will make which can be uploaded to the Francis Bacon website and/or YouTube Channel. Please contact us at francis.bacon.society@gmail.com