John Gerarde Knew...

[@Eudaimonia88]

Alexander, may I just express a heartfelt thank-you for all your wonderful videos and your articulate and in-depth explanations, decoding efforts and perseverance with making a case for de Vere being the Bard. I have doubted the orthodox theory since I first visited Stratford-upon-Avon. Your videos are an absolute delight. Keep the great content coming! Vero nihil verius!

[@Aspasia2929]

Thank you Alexander for another fascinating video! Watching this video makes me want to become an historian. I LOVE history, but too many videos are either dull or fatuous. Often they will state a as a FACT things that I know are incorrect, so how can I trust anything else that they are saying; and it’s always things that can be looked on Wikipedia, which makes it all the more maddening! I watch lots of history videos and read history books. I focus on one or two periods and/or topics at a time; this way I can get points of views from an array of historians, so I can ascertain who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t. You’re most definitely the former. Thanks again for sharing your insights!

[@brianminghella3312]

With the addition of the missing dog, the letter N, turkey becomes turnkey. If you turn the title page upside down the central frame is the shape of a keyhole. The bay leaf is considered a key to the kingdom of heaven because when the leaves of bay and laurel are burned and inhaled they are hallucinogenic. The hidden kingdom within is often referred to as a secret garden. Out of body experiences are a common phenomenon of taking hallucinogens such as ergot, derived from the ergot fungus that grows on sheaves of wheat.

[@wayneferris9022]

Great work!

[@jespermayland571]

Dear Alexander. Thank you for your continuing "battle" revealing this century long fraud..! I so admire your knowledge, dedication and wit and have enjoyed your videos and lectures immensely!

[@tomditto3972]

It was obvious from the start that Griffiths had inadvertently identified de Vere. He argued that a Latin scholar had contributed translations of the names of flowers, and that the official author, Gerarde (who had little Latin), needed such a ghost writer to make his Herball erudite. Griffiths then made the inexplicable claim that somehow Will Shaxpere had been that scholar and that the title page image of Apollo was Will's contemporaneous portrait. The co-incidence that these gardens were the playground for Edward de Vere as a ward and the son-in-law of William Cecil somehow went totally by the board while the clearly inappropriate Stratford was dragged across the Country Life pages like a red herring. When the incongruity stood out too far due to world-wide publicity, orthodox Stratfordians disowned Griffiths' revelation and left the fourth figure without any Tudor persona, notwithstanding that the other three figures remained indisputably identified in their era. The vast chasm left by this retreat from public acclaim is aptly filled with the video by A. Waugh, and I look forward with bated breath to his promised sequel. There is much more to be plucked here. One can imagine Ophelia wandering through Gerarde's garden composing her songs. Griffiths' initial article for Country Life Magazine is not as readily available on-line as his defense of the argument that the fourth figure is not Edward de Vere. Griffiths takes down the notion that the fourth figure could be Oxford by arguing that Gerarde entered the employ of William Cecil in 1577 after relations between de Vere and William Cecil had deteriorated. Griffiths writes, "...after the death of his beloved daughter Anne Oxford in 1588, Burghley would have nothing more to do with the Earl." www.countrylife.co.uk/country-life/the-true-face-of-shakespeare-why-the-fourth-man-cant-be-anybody-but-shakespeare-72456#mg0J8ZzwJY3D1mcf.99 The Cecils were given to preserving their correspondence, and the extant correspondence of de Vere with William Cecil is a central pillar to establishing Oxford's claim to authorship of the Shakespeare canon. "Seventy-seven of Oxford's letters and memoranda survive from the period 1563-1604, almost all written in his own distinctive italic hand and addressed to either his father-in-law, Lord Burghley, or his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Cecil. " www.oxford-shakespeare.com/oxfordsletters.html Whatever their animosity, Edward de Vere and William Cecil were in contact right up to William Cecil's death. When that ended, Robert Cecil picked up the thread, so Griffiths' assertion that Cecil and de Vere were cut off from each other cannot be true. Griffiths supplies us with a metastatus for the de Vere/Gerarde relationship, because he cannot find any record of the the two working together. Oddly, Griffiths is looking directly at the very evidence. As Waugh has shown, it is the flower held by the fourth figure that points to both the first published work under the name "Shakespeare" and to the meadows of Oxford. The entry on the Fritillaria meleagris and the remainder of the Herball in its entirety all point to a singular person who was in a position to both contribute Latin translations and provide patronage for this book.

[@tomditto3972]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Et tu Caius? To save the orthodoxy, Mark Griffiths had to be character assassinated. He stood up gamely for two more issues of Country Life Magazine, explaining his thesis, but he has not been heard from since on this matter. However, dear friends, Romans and countrymen, the course of history could not be altered simply by the pooh poohing, and the 400 year old attribution to Stratford is now in the midst of a civil war where Alexander Waugh's You Tube channel presses forward to favorable commentary from those of us who see it Griffiths' way. The flower held by the fourth character on the title page of Gerarde's Herball is identifiable even in black and white because of its checkered pattern. While it is named in Lyte's English translation of Dodoens' Dutch Herball, the Lyte wood print does not capture the pattern. Other than in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and here in Gerarde, it is otherwise unmentioned in the literature of the day. This is not surprising to Griffiths who characterizes it as a rare flower to be found solely in Burghley's gardens. Shakespeare left a fingerprint on the first publication in his name. The poet in the lower right corner of Gerarde must be Shakespeare who broke with Ovid to metamorphose Adonis - not into an anemone as per Ovid's classic text as translated into English by Golding - but into a turkey hen fritillary. Why the odd choice? Waugh's explanation deserves scrutiny.

[@tomditto3972]

@@Jeffhowardmeade I'd like Bate to show up and explain his fix on the V&A flower.

[@tomditto3972]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Bate claims that Shakespeare followed Ovid by choosing a purple flower and not the rose as Adonis. ( Chapter 1, footnote 28 p. 288). He writes: "Shakespeare follows Ovid in choosing the purple flower, not the rose, perhaps tells against a direct allusion, but there is no doubt that Shakespeare was the most famous teller of the Venus and Adonis tale in the 1590s." Golding's translation of Ovid mentions neither a rose nor a purple flower. Of all one colour with the blood a flowre she there did fynd, Even like the flowre of that same tree whose frute in tender rynde Have pleasant graynes inclosde. Howbeet the use of them is short. For why the leaves doo hang so looce through lightnesse in such sort, As that the windes that all things perce, with every little blast Doo shake them of and shed them so, as that they cannot last.

[@tomditto3972]

@@Jeffhowardmeade How do I lead you astray? Sandys' translation reads: From thence a Flowre, alike in colour, rose. Such as those trees produce, whose fruits inclose Within the limber rine their purple graines. The color is red, the graines purple. I have a fine photo of an anemone that fits the description. Waugh calls it "the wind flower," because as Golding describes it, it does not live for long. with every little blast Doo shake them of and shed them so, as that they cannot last. Is Bate departing from the long held belief that Shakespeare took his V&A from Golding's translation? You have Bate's book. I'm reading excerpts on-line, such as they are. All the footnotes are public domain. From what I've seen including your recitation, Bate never confronts the issue of Griffiths' discovery, that is, the image in V&A is the spitting image from Gerarde, both the title page and the chapter on the flower.

[@tomditto3972]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Your Sir Jonathan published a book on Shakespeare and Ovid in 1993, I took a look and immediately saw that as for making stuff up, he launches right into an entirely fictional account of how Shakespeare met Ovid. It starts off with the unproven notion that Will went to school, then he has his benevolent tutors conduct the introduction. Obviously that is conjecture, since there is no record. It is circular logic to say, "He wrote plays based on the classics, therefore he went to school," when the question is whether he ever did have formal schooling. I imagine you have Bate's book explicitly on the subject of Shakespeare and Ovid, so I won't go to the trouble of duplicating his fiction, but when it comes to making stuff up, he and everyone in your camp has no trouble imagining what the young Will o' Stratford did for the twenty odd years for which we have literally no record. In all accounts of Venus and Adonis beforehand, the Adon metamorphoses into a flower that is red, not purple. Why? Because it comes from his blood. No surprise there. In Shakespeare's V&A the flower is purple check'd in white. What? You can review Golding's description above, and if Sir Jonathan leans on anything, it is Golding. That translation is the Ovid bedrock to his 1993 book. Now I am to told that Giffiths' discussion on the rarity of the plant is wrong, because Gerarde describes it on the breasts of the beautiful people. Perhaps it was favored by the beautiful people from Burghley's set, but that doesn't filter down to Will before 1593. He was not in that set, and likely never would be. You fictionalized how he was a well known poet and player, so he could well have been in Burghley's gardens, but you made that assertion before it dawned on you that Shakespeare was unknown before 1593. Then you imagined he saw this flower in one of the multitude of gardens available to him and hit upon this incongruous flower for his poem. To this you add, without demonstrating any documentary evidence, that it was commonplace. The whole point of Griffiths' thesis was its rarity, and saying the Gerarde took pride in handing out cut flowers does nothing but reinforce the notion that one such beautiful person was a perfumed poet, the son-in-law to his (Gerarde's) boss. If Waugh has listed references to de Vere as Apollo, he will have to cough them up, but without doubt the many "Lives of William Shakespeare" that have him working as a para legal, a self-taught scholar tutoring the rich, a book worm with access to libraries in front of St. Paul's, a bon vivant in London society dropping in on the hurly Burghleys and nosing through their private gardens are all fictional on their face. These novelists are the ones falling down rabbit holes and going through the looking glass, because we all know documentary evidence simply does not exist. We have "William Shakespeare" dedicating his first heir of his invention to the Third Earl of Southampton. From our very first exchange, years ago, you called that dedication sufficient proof that the works of Shakespeare had to be authored by Stratford. Now you have to explain the flower, and you can't. Sir Jonathan doesn't even try.

[@RalphEllis]

And the text at 32:00 contains two V Vs, rather than two Ws. VV being the motto for Edward de Vere. .

[@onefeather2]

Refreshing, loved it, thank you.

[@chriscassin7232]

Enjoyed that Alexander. Very intriguing. I say that as a pronounced Shakespeare sceptic rather than an Oxfordian. Great to see consideration of subjects which the orthodox scholars don’t seem to touch for fear of what they might find.

[@77777aol]

I wonder whether Edward de Vere was related to William Shakespeare ? [A lucid and fascinating talk. Thank you Mr.Alexander Waugh]

[@milzner641]

The right leg of Apollo/Vere appears to be withered. Might this reflect a wound de Vere is said to have received?

[@the17thearlofoxford38]

Mark Griffiths found out first hand what it's like to draw the ire of the Stratfordians, who took great exception to his identification of Apollo as Shakespeare. Griffiths was perplexed to find sympathy from the Oxfordians, a group to whom he was wholly unsympathetic to, but which was, like Griffiths, quite used to having their discoveries derided by the so-called academics.

[@the17thearlofoxford38]

Sorry to offend you with my characterization, but the word "ire" comes to mind every time the usual suspects from Oxfruad (sic) gather to "disagree". You yourself can't even respond to something without displaying your own projection and employing ad hominem attacks. @@Jeffhowardmeade

[@the17thearlofoxford38]

Ad Hominem is an argument directed at a person or group, not the position of that person. Now you should look up "evidence" and "logic".@@Jeffhowardmeade

[@patricktilton5377]

Both "William Shakespeare" (in the Sonnets) and Edward de Vere (in a letter to William Cecil) reference themselves using the phrase God spoke to Moses of Himself: "I am that I am." The actual name of God, according to the Old Testament, used to be written as "Jehovah" and is nowadays usually written as "Yahweh" . . . but pious Jews will not actually vocalize the Divine Name, and -- unless I am mistaken -- they may say another word in lieu of the Tetragrammaton [YHWH] . . . the word "Adonai." I think it is commonly known amongst biblical scholars that there is a connection between the Greek name Adonis [i.e. "Adon" with the -is ending] and the Hebrew word "Adonai." Whereas the Hebrew two-word 'name' -- "YHWH Elohim" -- is usually translated as "LORD God," a pious Jew might rather voice this as "Adonai Elohim" . . . so that Adonai takes the place of YHWH or 'LORD'. Very few people in Elizabethan England could get away with being called a 'Lord'; as a title, it was undoubtedly applied to Earls. Hence, "Lord Oxford," "Lord Pembroke," etc. Thank you again, Mr. Waugh, for yet another excellent entry in this most insightful series of proofs that Edward de Vere indeed was the genius who published (some of) his works under the pseudonym "William Shakespeare." I hope I live long enough to see Westminster Abbey open the vault below the 'Shakespeare' statue in Poet's Corner, and reveal what is almost assuredly there: the mortal remains of the immortal Bard of 'Avon' [i.e. Hampton Court]. Who knows what else might be there? The statue depicts him pointing at a manuscript, doesn't it? What does THAT suggest?!

[@brianminghella3312]

Gerarde is very close to anagram of gardener. It was always my understanding that the priest kings code language allowed for the subtraction or addition of one letter per word. Or the substitution of one letter per word. Great work as usual Alex, very exciting stuff. Glad you enabled comments.

[@jonathon8725]

The chapter on the turkey hen is 89 and 8 plus 9 is 17

[@ermbokwenzer4533]

But where is William Shakspear buried?

[@72Yonatan]

Cannot hear due to low volume presentation.

[@rachelsmith-chopra212]

The chap on the bottom right looking away from the centre. Possibly thinking outside the box. Dressed like a Roman soldier. Possibly Paul from the New Testament book of Acts. Perhaps even Sir Walter Raleigh / Sir Francis Drake or Diego as they were all travellers.

[@andrewnielsen3178]

I think it's Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Prove me wrong.....

[@bushraabdiweliabdiweli7916]

i am learning about this

[@williamkerpan9542]

Notice Gerarde-Adam’s protruding elbow & crossed legs.

[@MrAlexsegal]

I have seen it suggested that the costume in the Pandolfini portrait (which appears at 16.21) is that of 1535-45, and that this portrait is therefore unlikely to be of de Vere, who was a fashionable young man of the 1570s.

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

It is likely that this portrait was painted by (or of the school of) Corneille de Lyons on Edward de Vere’s return trip from Italy in 1576. You will find a lot of information about this on David Shakespeare’s KZbin channel. m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3WonIqde5iXa9E

[@MrAlexsegal]

Thanks, Alexander, for your response and for the link to David Shakespeare’s video. I notice that in the comments beneath the video David does not attempt to refute Nat Whilk’s argument that the portrait is not a portrait of Edward de Vere. Whilk’s argument seems plausible to me.

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

​@@MrAlexsegal 'Nat Whilk' has been posting her opinions about Shakespeare/Vere on internet threads or many years, this is the first time I have ever heard any of them be described as 'plausible'. Having looked at all the fascinating evidence for and against I think it fair to say that Edward de Vere is at present the most likely sitter but hope more information may soon surface to confirm or refute the current hypothesis. Did you take in David Shakespeare's remarks on this point?

[@MrAlexsegal]

David Shakespeare describes Whilk’s comments that are in question here as “insightful” and “thoughtful” - and tellingly he makes no attempt to refute Whilk’s “counter argument”. I don’t detect a hint of irony in David Shakespeare’s praise.

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

@@MrAlexsegal I too consider 'Nat Whilk's' comments 'insightful' and "thoughtful' that does not make them 'plausible' though does it?

[@rachelsmith-chopra212]

The lady at the top possibly Queen Elizabeth I. The lady below her possibly Mary Queen of Scots. ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary how does your garden grow?...’

[@richardwood4884]

What about Venus? It's a bit difficult to tell from this video but it looks as though it could be a likeness of Queen Elizabeth.

[@thetawaves48]

Could you comment on the movie "Anonymous?"

[@lpt369]

Are we sure that's not Geraldo Rivera as Apollo?

[@thetawaves48]

What is the significance of the ear of corn or maize? Wasn't it brought from the new world?

[@rachelsmith-chopra212]

Christopher Columbus brought sweet corn to Spain in 1493. As the chap holding the sweet corn does not have a sun halo, he could be one of the travellers such as Sir Walter Raleigh / Sir Francis Drake or Diego. As his attire looks Roman, he could represent Paul from the New Testament book of Acts.

[@shellymaycock6676]

@@rachelsmith-chopra212 He is represented as the New Apollo as a poet and patron. Apollo was protector of herds, flocks and crops from diseases, pests and predators and had associations of being a sun-god.

[@MrDizzyvonclutch]

18:00 !!! HA!!!! Note I finally know why the Godzilla movie with monster X those weird aliens where dressed that crazy!!! The Japanese KNEW!!!! All the way back in the 60’s!! That the Brits were ALL ALIENS!!!! HA!!!

[@JoeLinux2000]

I can guarantee the engraving on the First Folio is without question based on the portrait of Edward de Vere, but it is a flip, which would make sense if a tracing was made from the portrait.