John Warren Knew...

[@chris.asi_romeo]

The amount of research you did is outstanding.👏👏👏👏

[@josephcampagnolo157]

It is important that the title page has Shake-Speare, but dedication has Shakespeare (no hyphen) -- so the man of Stratford. It makes sense.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Both are identified as holding the rank of "gentleman". Absolutely the same person.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

"Thyself twice lived" refers to his poetry having a separate life of its own. Shakespeare used similar imagery.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Also, why, if the hyphen implies a pseudonym, aren't all of the other mentions of Shakespeare hyphenated? John Warren's own poem on the opposite page doesn't do it.

[@ronroffel1462]

@@Jeffhowardmeade I interpret the two spellings as evidence the name was a pseudonym. You would not see two different ways of spelling a name if there wasn't some purpose to it and in the case of "Shakespeare", the name is sometimes spelled two ways within the same text such as Leonard Digges' poem in the First Folio or Ben Jonson's epistle in the same book (written under the pseudonyms of Hemminges and Condell). People were proud of their names and if someone spelled it wrong, there would be some objection, but curiously "Shakespeare" never complained and never once told printers or publishers to correct their mistakes, even in subsequent editions of quartos or the First Folio itself.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@ronroffel1462 That goes against the opinions of every qualified historian. Spelling was not set. But if you insist, here is Ben "Big Fat Liar" Jonson listing William Shakespeare as an actor in one of his plays: shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/details/245 Because two different spellings AND a hyphen is a doubly sure sign of a pseudonym, here's Jonson listing William Shake-speare as an actor in another play: shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/details/244 And here's John Shakespeare, William's father, claiming the spelling "Shakespeare" in the most official was possible, with the College of Heralds: shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/details/3851

[@ronroffel1462]

@@Jeffhowardmeade It may go against the opinions of some qualified historians, but I contend that people who wanted to honour poets would keep their surname consistently spelled. The fact that Jonson did not do this while editing the First Folio indicates strongly that he knew the name was a pseudonym. He was meticulous about how printers spelled his name: he always wanted the medial 'h' removed to distance himself from his roots (at least that is one theory). So why did he allow the surname in this case to be spelled so many ways if not to hint that the name was not real? You can also see this in the List of Principal Actors from the front matter of the Folio: he had Jaggard add an upper-case "i" after the decorative "w" in William as a further way of dishonouring the name. People were and still are proud of their names, which begs the question: why didn't any of the Stratford man's relatives request that the printers of the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios standardize the spelling to what the Stratford man used: "Shakspere"? Furthemore, why didn't they tell the publishers of all Folio editions to put a better likeness of the writer on the title page? I contend that they didn't care because 'their man' Shakspere did not write a word and had nothing to to with the writing published under a similar name as his.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@ronroffel1462 You are correct. What you wrote contradicts historical facts. You and I were raised in the age of dictionaries. There is correct way to spell everything. That was simply not true in 1623. If spelling someone's name differently than some hypothetical standard was a sign that it was a pseudonym, then was it a pseudonym who acted in two of Beniamin Jonson's plays? Will. Shakespeare leads one cast list, but Will. Shake-speare tops another. I've also heard that story about Jonson's preferred spelling. It makes you wonder who is really buried in his grave: exploringlondon.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/jonson-grave1.jpg Even in the 1640 second folio edition of Jonson's works, his name is spelled "Johnson" on the engraving opposite the title page, where it's "Jonson". As for the spelling in the folios, I'm not sure I understand your point. In both his grant of arms and in his charter as a member of The King's Men, his name is spelled "Shakespeare". This is how it appeared in the First and Second folios. The Third Folio (1663) and Fourth Folio (1685) dropped off the last "e". Since the family name died out with William in 1616 (his daughters were Susanna Hall and Judith Quiney, both of whom died before the Third Folio), I don't know who would have complained that there was a missing "e", even if such things did matter.

[@wayneferris9022]

Very nice!

[@Vortragskunst]

There is even more! The vers: "The labours his, the glory still thin owne" seems for me to be a clear allusion to De Veres poem "The labouring man", where you find the lines: "He gets the strawe, the Lord will have the seede". (This idea is expressed throughout the poem.) And in line 3 we meet again the four "T" letters in the forced combination: "that thus to thee".

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

Excellent observations - thank you!

[@jerrymalone8370]

On the title page, there are two capital Ts and a lowercase t in "Gent." so 3 Ts. And 3 more in the type on the bottom. Also notice that there's a vertical offset between "VVRIT" and "TEN" likely indicating steganography. The first T seems to line up with the period after "Gent." below it, and then line up with a circle in the inscription of the drawing, tangent to the center of the flower, and, continuing down, touching the cross of the T in "The". Also, notice the awkward gap in "W IL."; the "W" in "WIL" is directly below "VV" in "VVritten" likely indicating that a vertical line should be drawn between them; this line touches the t in "Printed" at the bottom of the page. Further: the L in "WIL." is bumped up, leaving an awkward gap below it. A line drawn from the corner of the L up along the left side of the second V is tangent to the loop in the P, and when extended down and to the right, is tangent to the C in "Cotes" and intersects the same circle in the drawing as the vertical line. No doubt something is hidden here.

[@buddyd1506]

Could you make up your mind? Was it a secret....or did everybody know? Why keep it a secret decades after they were dead? Even the dreaded Star Chamber was about to wrap things up in 1640. No one, in all this time, ever bothered, even in private diaries, to say that De vere did them. They all said, independently or conspiratorially, (whichever suits you), that it would be better to write elaborate ciphers and riddles that would remain unbroken for centuries? Revealing to this saga is that the Cambridge boys put on plays roasting Shakespeare for being a bumpkin, not an impostor. If they had sniffed out that he was a straw man they would have had no problem roasting them both.

[@taihastings3097]

Vert good.. 🌟🕯️

[@nativevirginian8344]

There are 4 Ts down the left side (I watched your Brunel presentation). Also, the large W on the right side is a double V (Mentioned at Brunel also).

[@jayhallcarpenter2508]

Dear Mr. Waugh, This is easily the most interesting discussion on KZbin. Thank you for presenting such intriguing and compelling testimony to the authorship by de Vere. As a recent convert to the Oxfordian perspective, I have some basic questions. Was William Shakespeare, the wool merchant, known to/of by the Earl? Was de Vere using the Pesudeonym prior to the merchant's appearance on the scene, or did de Vere find the merchant a convenient figure to hide behind, and adopt the pseudonym accordingly? Many thanks for all of your work.

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

Thank you for all your generous enthusiasm. I am sorry I cannot answer your questions with anything but speculation. I imagine Oxford and Stratford Shaxper did know one another. There is one theory they were distant cousins, but no evidence that they ever met. I do not believe for a second that the Warwickshire dude ever pretended to have written the plays and poems though I suspect that after Oxford’s death he exploited the similarity of his name to Oxford’s pseudonym by buying the residual rights to old plays and printing them as his - not meaning that he wrote them but he owned them. I am thinking of ‘Yorkshire Tragedy’ and ‘London Prodigal’ for instance which were not by the poet Shakespeare but had his name on them. In a presentation called ‘Monkey Business at Stratford-upon-Avon’ I go though this as well as an epigram by Ben Jonson that seems to be about Strat-Shax’s wheeler-dealings called ‘On Poet-Ape. Part two of that one will be uploaded tomorrow.

[@jayhallcarpenter2508]

@@alexanderwaugh7036 Dear Mr. Waugh. I thank you for your speedy reply. You are very kind to illuminate the matter further. So it would seem a coincidence that de Vere chose Shake-speare as his pen name (for the many good reasons you have revealed) and that there happened to be an actor with the same name who could be conveniently used as a surrogate for the true author. This is a most interesting coincidence indeed! I wonder if the odds have been worked out on that one. (I enjoyed the "Monkey Business" discussion very much. You see, I am a sculptor and poet who worked for many years on a Gothic cathedral. Hiding clues in the greenery is familiar fun.) Best, Jay

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

Shakspere of Stratford had a name akin to Saxby. He did not have precisely the same verb-object compound that Vere used as a pseudonym. The evidence of Shaksper’s acting is posthumous. What we do know is that he was a wool dealer who, according to the requirement of his day, would have bought his wool up to London to be weighed at the Grocers’ Hall, where, in all probability he met the grocer John Heminges who was an apprentice there. Later Heminges was in charge of weighing coal. Heminges invested in the theatres, his father-in-law was an actor, and no doubt Heminges encouraged his wool-dealing friend from Warwickshire to do the same. Heminges would certainly have recognised the similarity between the famous poet/playwright pseudonym and the name of his provincial colleague at Grocers’ Hall. There were at least eight William Shak or Shakespeares in England at the time.

[@zross8471]

I also love the 4 T's right down the left followed by LAY...followed by the initials for Westminster Abby.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

It wasn't known as "Westminster Abbey" at that time.

[@tobias9859]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Do you know when it the church of St.Peter started to be known by the name Westminster Abbey?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@tobias9859 It has been Westmister (Westmonastery) for at least a thousand years, but was referred to as an "ecclesia" until its dissolution in 1539. It was briefly a cathedral and then put under the direct control of the monarch in 1560. The earliest contemporary reference I can find of be being called "abbey" is 1749, but I'll keep looking.

[@tobias9859]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Thank you!

[@geoffreywilson6024]

Why do all these people 'who knew' continue, decades after the deaths of Elizabeth, James 1 etc. to be coy about telling the truth? They have no reason to continue to conceal anything.

[@chris.asi_romeo]

I do think Francis Bacon is the real William Shakespeare but Edward De Vere is so convincing too.

[@StephenFryer-t5b]

Perhaps "Deux Vere" for Virbis

[@MrAlexsegal]

I understand that in 1638, the name of Virbius was associated posthumously with Ben Jonson. So I think it would be worth pointing out that invoking the name of Virbius in connection with one person is not always a way of invoking another person. (In saying this, I am not disagreeing with Alexander Waugh’s interpretation of Warren’s use of the name Virbius.)

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

Thanks Alex, I think the reason that the name Virbius was invoked posthumously for Jonson was in order to allude to him as a reborn Vere (ie as a second Shakespeare), so the name Virbius may well have been intended in precisely the same way on both occasions.

[@MrAlexsegal]

Your interpretation of the intention behind the linking of Jonson and Virbius - a link which occurs in a book title - seems plausible to me. But if you were to propose further that making sense of this link requires your interpretation, then I would disagree. In 1958 Herbert Howarth argued that the the title conveys that the book “would restore Jonson to life as Aesculapius restored Hippolytus”; and that in addition to this clear meaning some connotations may have been intended. For example: “Jonson might be thought of as ‘vir bis’ because, weighing 278 pounds, he was physically two men rolled into one, and in learning and poetry he was as good as two men put together.” I think that what Howarth says suggests that one statement in the video may be a little too sweeping - the statement “To be like Virbius, you need to be living under a name that is not the name of someone you are a double of.”

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

Yes of course, you must always assume that anything stated by Jonson or his entourage involves a double or treble meaning. When Jonson is compared to Vere (as Virbius) it is also a reference to his position as ‘chief’ or leader of the younger poets. In Vere’s case the university wits - in Jonson’s the Sons of Ben. In the Jonson tribute his acolytes are bringing him back to life by memorialising him in verse, so Virbius there is trebly apt. I would be most surprised if it had anything to do with his fatness.

[@RalphEllis]

Vir-Bis, meaning ‘Double Vere’, as Waugh demonstrates. But on the opposite page ‘Written’ is spelled with a V V - with a double V. Another clue and confirmation, methinks... Ralph

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Most metal type during that era was cast in foundries on the Continent. Continental languages at that time had neither W nor J in their alphabets. As a result, printers usually used two Vs or an I to substitute. As type foundries were established in England, these letters became available, but larger typefaces, which were more durable, were not as quickly replaced. Double Vs continued to appear in printed matter into the late 17th Century.

[@bscottb8]

“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.” ― William Shakespeare

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

“Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing”. “You speak” is your addition. Are you claiming to be ‘Shakespeare’?

[@peterrichards931]

Oh for heaven's sake..!! I grew up studying Shakespeare; bought into the de Vere argument after first hearing it, but years later have come to understand that if you search enough, you'll be able to find any evidence and conspiracy you'll want to find. Collectively there's way too much evidence that the Stratford Man wrote the works. Considering all the then-contemporary writings by famous people about William Shakespeare the author which can be logically linked to Stratford man, as well as Ben Johnson's personal notes found after his death, and to top it off, the computer stylometric (sp?) studies which clearly distinguish the works from all those of other writers of that time, especially Oxford, I can't believe people are still looking for conspiracies and codes. If Oxford wrote the plays, don't you think there'd be someone, somewhere who'd have written explicitly that he wrote the plays instead of Shakespeare of Stratford?

[@kennyshortcake999]

Good point 🤔

[@vetstadiumastroturf5756]

Your argument goes both ways. If you believe Stratford was Shakespeare then you will be able to arrange the available evidence to support that position, and that includes so-called Stylometry. But there are no "then-contemporary writings" that link William Shakespeare with Writing and with Stratford in the same reference. Don't you think that if Stratford wrote the Works of Shakespeare that he would have somewhere explicitly claimed to have done so? Don't you think that if Stratford wrote anything he would have left behind more than just six barely legible signatures (3 from the same document) to prove that had actually ever picked up a quill?

[@no_rubbernecking]

I love this decipherment, but... does it not make as much or more sense thus: "De Vere: Tis love that thus to thee is showne [i.e., by Benson], "The labours his [i.e., Shaksper's], the glory still thine owne" Now line 6 can be seen as perhaps intended: the poems, containing encoded references to their true author, immortalize that author's true name within their characters -- a name that can only be read by the learned, i.e., those who've been taught the methods to discern it. And line 7 is now seen to comment how the younger learned people, having finally seen the true name via this printing, shall constitute the continuation of "the learned" marvelling that the extraordinary gifts of inspiration were actually infused on him who hadn't overtly been shown to have them. "Let Carping Momus barke and bite his fill, "and ignorant Davus slight thy learned skill:" "[T]hy" skill. Who is "thee" here? Not Shaksper, certainly. But in your reconstruction, you have Oxford referred to in the third person, which implies that these and the ensuing lines are addressed to Shaksper, when the only reasonable view is that they're addressed to the true author. And in each of lines 11-13, we again see the word "thy". With your construction, this can only refer to Shaksper, and thus be trying to credit him as the true author, rather than our mystery man. With mine, the verse entire Beneath the first two lines Itself addressed direct To that true author With whom, per Warren, the Glory therefor resides! ✌🏼

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

Thank you norubbernecking. It is clear to me that the poem is addressed in the second person and in a tone of high irony to the usurper William of Stratford. Oxford is absent as the 17th word but alluded to by the familiar and indicative ‘17 4T’ by the Virbius pun, by the word ‘his’ indicating his labour and by the fact of his work being ‘learned’. Benson has absolutely nothing to do with it. That was a fatuous and desperate attempt by Stratfordianists to get around the very obvious problems that Warren poses to their thesis.

[@no_rubbernecking]

@@alexanderwaugh7036 I see, thank you very much for your prompt and thorough explanation. Carry on!

[@christineherd3232]

In the title it looks to me as if the word "Written". Starts with V V rather than a W

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

I suspect number games, don't you? The double V and colon makes "POEMS: VVRITTEN BY" 17 characters. That the W of 'Wil.' is not a double V but a single character makes 'WIL. SHAKE-SPEARE." 17 characters also. So I think we are being told that the author of the poems has something to do with the number 17 - what could that be?

[@ronroffel1462]

The deception by Wells and Taylor should tell people that something is up with the orthodoxy.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

It would, if anyone thought they were being deceived. So far very few have been persuaded.

[@jono3697]

Wow sir !!!

[@colinallan1962]

I agree with the other Professors who suggest it was Benson’s name that was included and then excised. This introduction is about reintroducing Shakespeare’s poems for a second time - he perhaps having been forgotten by the younger generation since the 1609 edition hence the blurb. It is also about the person who put the work into getting it published- Benson. Benson also fiddled about with the order of the sonnets and made “ better “ alterations. The name was clearly removed by the publisher Benson no doubt on the grounds of “modesty forbids “. This was also clearly done without consulting the author or the line would have been rewritten- as AW suggests it could have been. The name however would not have been Oxford because 1. There is nothing in the poem suggesting Oxford and 2. Oxford had nothing to do with writing Shakespeare.

[@markhughes7927]

Sweet

[@williammoody9696]

Virbius... Double man. Twice lived. Near desth experience. ✔ ✅ ☑

[@keithsweet8840]

Thy self twice lived ,,,the labours his ,the glory still thine own,,.. He HAd A TWIN....

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

I tried trolling that one around a few years back. Nobody bit.

[@advancedfaces]

The header on left side has two rows of 11, double brethren perhaps as John Anthony suggest

[@advancedfaces]

DeVere known works, find anything in those?

[@rooruffneck]

Do you mean de Vere's poetry when he was young man?

[@advancedfaces]

@@rooruffneck yes and anything that is known to be from his hand. Waugh and I already solved his signature. Wonder if his known poems has a hidden 1740 in there:)

[@advancedfaces]

Also at the 3:00 minute mark, right page “written”. Notice 7 letters, the ten is superscript, so added together is 17. Then the W is two V’s, each V is 20..20 plus 20 is 40. So just in written there is 1740.

[@rooruffneck]

@@advancedfaces Did you discover the image of the 10 (formed from the 'd' in 'edward' and the "O" in "Oxford" that stands above the seven slashes?

[@advancedfaces]

@@rooruffneck no that was Waugh and I started down the path of why the coronet was shown with 4 pearls instead of the traditional 5, 4 was a lesser rank (I forget at this movement) and thought 4x10 gave us 40, not sure how that came about but Waugh was the one who saw the pre 1640 mark for multiplication giving us 40. There are no mistakes and Oxford using 4 pearls and not 5 was for a reason. I think the 4 dots and the “w” are John Dee’s PYTHAGOREAN QUARTERNARY. But the pearls are off set and I think if you take his signature and mirror image, there a 1 and 3 giving us a Roman numeral 10 and what appears to be a chi roe symbols. Not to mention the capital E when turns seems to be a micro version of the 4T.

[@keithsweet8840]

Shakespeare was a twin,,or possibly one of triplets..

[@JudgeJulieLit]

As twinning (and tripleting, etc.) has a gene origin, can you prove prior instances of twinning or tripleting in Will Shakespeare's ancestry? (True, he had "fraternal" twin children, Hamnet and Judith. But a gene for that may have come through Anne Hathaway.)

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

mmmm juicy like a baconator

[@keithsweet8840]

The word WRITTEN ,,is started with two Vs that are not quite touching ,,.

[@MundaSquire]

Also note on the title page it oddly has this spelling: Wil. Shake-speare. Count each item, they add up to 17. Now why would they spell it this way and use the punctuation in such a way if not deliberately? 17th Earl of Oxford.