Shakespeare was a fake (...and I can prove it) | Brunel University London

[@cowboycave5071]

I'm just a dude who plays video games and works at a mall... this was the most insanely interesting thing I've learned all year. This tops National Treasure!

[@onefeather2]

Agree ☺️

[@Valkonnen]

Those video games will make you very limited. You'll understand when you're older and it hurts to move. All of those years of your young life that you wasted on these useless fantasies will be a regret, but it will be far too late. You NEVER get that time back.

[@claudius2049]

@@Valkonnen Could you elaborate why it's wrong playing video games in your free time?

[@Valkonnen]

@@claudius2049 What could be wrong with literally wasting the time that you have while you are young, playing games? If you cannot think of anything better to do, to occupy your life or it's so idle that all you can do is play these useless games, then I don't know what to tell you. I'm older than you are, so that allows me to make real-life comparisons that you cannot. The average 20 year old in 1967 would be pretty well rounded as far as education, and if you were to speak with them you could hold an adult conversation. The average 20 something and even 30 something today, first of all, all look the same. T-shirt, cap, and shorts. They ALL dress like little kids and see absolutely nothing wrong with that. A person with no real passion, who hasn't done the work to learn about things in a real way (Not Google) is very limited in what they know and how they behave. I can see it, but you can't. Just the fact that you are probably a guy over 20 years old who would even ask a question like that, shows it to be true.

[@eugenemartone7023]

@@Valkonnen Don’t think you can blame video games for all that. I do agree however that it’s a waste of time, but people were wasting time in 1967 too, nothing wrong with having some fun. The trick is moderation. I think internet knowlege is far worse when it comes to “limited” knowlege today, for several reasons. Just see how Google will provide easy and extraordinary shallow answers to almost any question. It hardly requires any thinking. I could find what date Napoleon died, without knowing a single thing about him, not even how to spell his name correctly. It’s a trade-off however, because the younger you are, the more well adapted to the multiple input stream of modern society you will be, and specialized knowlege should (in theory) be easier to attain. Look at how well versed young people are in the art of digital communication. Not a good trade perhaps, but older people created this world. Look at KZbin, it’s algorithms push videos of a certain length etc. for marketing reasons (based on marketing principles that were around in 1967). As a result you’d likely find several biographies of Napoleon that are under 20 min, which will do little more than career highlights that most won’t remember anyway (and probably some that claim he had ties to ancient aliens or illuminati or something). It’s not all bad though, but I recognize the general “lack” of well rounded knowlege you’re talking about. Thing is, people that grew up before internet and videogames were the ones to click celebrity news, and clickbait-y headlines. The ones to watch short cat videos and infomercial like documentaries. Later generations will take it their own ways, hopefully in a better direction. Like this guy here, he haf a great experience watching a 1,5h video of some old geezer talking, instead of entertaining himself with gaming, why criticize him for it? Young people aren’t stupid, they just grew/grow up in a different world, and while I think we should all point out when we think something important is being lost, it’s far too easy to blame it on young people “wasting their lives”.

[@MrAbzu]

The great Waugh. How did he miss a gigantic roadblock in 1611, Queen Anne's World of Words. Several hundred words which are in the First Folio did not enter the English lexicon until the publication of this book. While there were many versions of the plays, none were well enough written to make it into the First Folio without revising and editing to make them more readable as a book. Remember, "Shakespeare" was a linguist, the editor and revisor was also a linguist, John Florio, who gave us the voice of "Shakespeare". No doubt a hundred people had a hand in multiple revisions including Oxford, Bacon, Sidney and North before the final revisions. So no, there was no single genius author but there was a single genius editor. A work of this magnitude could only have been a collaborative effort with a genius touch at the end to provide a unifying voice.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

World of Words is a translation dictionary. Only an idiot would take a word nobody understands and translate it to a word he just made up.

[@joecurran2811]

​@Jeffhowardmeade Everytime you comment you boost the algorithm.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

​@@joecurran2811 Good! More idiots for me to heckle!

[@joecurran2811]

​@@JeffhowardmeadeGood for you to admit to everyone you are a troll

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@joecurran2811 And so what? I’m still a troll with logic and evidence on his side, where you’re still a moron no matter what you will admit to.

[@mokamo23]

Waugh takes over-analysis to a whole new level.

[@YourGreatPotential]

Even if there were nothing to the claim of hermeticsm, the analysis would still be brilliant. You got to give him that. But what are the odds?

[@Nullifidian]

@@YourGreatPotential The odds are 100% You can derive anything you like if you're prepared to make up the context by which you 'decode' your message, which is what Waugh does.

[@mithras666]

oh come on, open your mind a little. ​@@Nullifidian

[@Nullifidian]

​@@mithras666 Open my mind to what? "Open my mind", in this context, seems to mean "ignore the invalid means by which Waugh achieves his results". But why should I "open my mind" to an invalid method? It's not going to improve its accuracy or trustworthiness. All I could possibly gain from this is self-delusion, and I can't see any reason why I should want to be delusional.

[@edwardclarke3885]

People wonder why it took 7 years after Shakespeare died before the Folio was published. I have the answer. It took Ben three days to write his poem, but six years to work out the cryptograms.

[@amaxamon]

LoL!

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

well, Bacon was still alive, so... y'know Shakespeare was just an imaginary character who needed a death.

[@Nullifidian]

@@ExxylcrothEagle Are you kidding? Shakespeare's existence is testified to in the Stratford parish register. Richard Quiney wrote a letter to him. He purchased New Place and the Blackfriars Gatehouse. He's recorded as receiving four yards of scarlet cloth along with the rest of his company so that he could wear the livery of King James in a procession, as a member of the King's Men. He's recorded in the cast lists of _Every Man in His Humour_ and _Sejanus His Fall_ in Ben Jonson's _Workes_ . John Webster mentions Shakespeare, along with several other contemporaneous playwrights, in his letter to the reader that prefaced _The White Devil_ . You think all of this is "imaginary"?

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

@@Nullifidian you do realize how easy it would be to cook those books? the Stratford parish register??? hahahahah I'm saying that Bacon was the son of Elizabeth!!! That he had a lot of access to a lot of stuff. Honestly, the things you list are completely silly when seen from a different perspective. And I'm not saying that Bacon and De Vere didn't collaborate. It really likely is a collaboration....but I don't believe that deVere was the THRUST of this. He didn't have that big of a chip on his shoulder in 1590...but Bacon definitely did.... NO, All of this is not imaginary. It is just not difficult to write these things in a ledger etc when one has the proper security clearance. And we haven't even begun to discuss 'motive'. Hamlet makes much more sense when you read it or watch it with it in mind that Bacon is the son of Elizabeth and Dudley. Dudley was only recently deceased when the first hints of Hamlet arise..... allegedly..... What role if any did the Queen have in the death of Robert Dudley? The existential despair of this character, this child, this Bacon.... HAM-let...what was it like to realize that you are the son of the Queen and at what age did that happen? Would some scrub from Stratford really be poking fun at Lord Burghley William Cecil in the character of Polonius??? I'm just getting started but I have a lot of stuff to do today...

[@Nullifidian]

@@ExxylcrothEagle Yes, I do realize how easy: not easy at all. In fact, it would be virtually impossible, because the Stratford parish register existed to document all the baptisms, marriages, and burials for Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. Therefore, it was _constantly_ being added to, and going back decades after the putative birth of the playwright the conspirators would have found the page already filled up with entries and no place to make a new one, because nobody in 1564 knew that they were going to have to leave a blank space to forward a conspiracy that would happen decades in the future. And I don't care what brand of lunacy you're peddling, whether it be the Prince Tudor speculation or any other kind of speculation. Speculation doesn't overturn the known documentary record. Official, personal, and literary records all show that Shakespeare existed. If you want to see it for yourself, you can visit the site Shakespeare Documented run by the Folger Library. "Honestly, the things you list are completely silly when seen from a different perspective." And what you've listed is completely silly when seen from the fact that there's not an iota of evidentiary support for it. " Dudley was only recently deceased when the first hints of Hamlet arise....." Quite. He died in 1588 and the Q1 of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ was published in 1603. A mere fifteen years. Hardly any time at all. The earliest documented reference to _Hamlet_ is the Stationer's Register entry dated 26 July 1602 saying "James Robertes Entred for his Copie vnder the handes of mr Pasfeild and mr waterson warden A booke called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lo: Chamberleyne his servantes". "The existential despair of this character, this child, this Bacon.... HAM-let..." Yes, and clearly the conspiracy reached back to the 12th century and changed the name of the figure mentioned in Saxo Grammaticus' _Gesta Danorum_ to Amleth so that it could be Anglicized as Hamlet and used to make a porcine pun on Bacon's surname four centuries later. After all, we know how easy it is to cook those books... when you have a TARDIS. "Would some scrub from Stratford really be poking fun at Lord Burghley William Cecil in the character of Polonius???" This is immaterial because Polonius isn't a representation of Lord Burghley.

[@akranier]

Sorry, but this is not convincing at all. He simply twists and turns the text until it comes out what he wants. Example Oxford. Tauros means bull and not ox. He simply says that the tauros means ox and then puts it for the "ford", et voilà he has Oxford. In this way I can also work out from a Dutch ladies' bicycle that Edward De Vere wrote the poems.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

And Tau has no connection whatsoever with Taurus.

[@factandsuspicionpodcast2727]

My guy probably thought the Da Vinci Code was a documentary.

[@willrich3908]

And the entire royal court, the queen and her consorts, everyone in Stratford, the whole Globe theatre, everyone in London, they was all in on it, and never said a word.

[@nomdeplume2213]

Yea thats how a dictatorship works. What the king/queen says is what goes

[@rainblaze.]

why would anyone go to such extremes of complication,and subterfuge to hide something they wanted ultimately to be found?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Because they were poets and they just HAD to speak, but the Star Chamber would have persecuted them for doing do openly. I'm not being sarcastic here. That's actually what Alexander Waugh claims.

[@rainblaze.]

Caius Martius Coriolanus Yeah...i guess you just simply gotta love Alexander Waugh lol. But i think i would take him more seriously if he wasn't such a narcissist. And fitting the "evidence" to fit HIS hypnosis, instread of the other way around, and it wasn"t so self serving and convoluted, would have helped. But i guess you just gotta take what you get

[@the17thearlofoxford38]

It WAS found ultimately. The hiders would probably have been shocked that it took so long. They probably would have been shocked that anyone took the Stratford thing as seriously as they do.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@the17thearlofoxford38 Oxfordians should be rightly proud. They managed to find something that was never lost or hidden to begin with.

[@the17thearlofoxford38]

From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

[@edwarddunmore5583]

The real Shakespeare was the friends we made along the way❤

[@lairdhaynes1986]

I concur.

[@Hardrockkenny]

That's a great way to look at it.

[@qual10]

Sounds gay to me

[@mikereeks805]

What a total waste of time. Brunel has lowered its reputation as a serious university. Why does anyone give this Buffon Waugh any time. Misguided pseudo intellectual

[@jonmelon9792]

Vulgar eye, vulgar tongue.

[@darrenhoward6261]

The works are immensely more important then authorship. Shakespeare's children dyed completely illiterate. The author of such incredible works of the English language and his children were unable to read and write? That speaks volumes.

[@Nullifidian]

Yes, it says you've bought into bullshit. There is no evidence at all that William Shakespeare's children were illiterate, and there is as much evidence as anyone could reasonably ask for that Susanna Hall, Shakespeare's eldest daughter, was profoundly literate: there are two extant signatures from her, there is an account of her correctly describing a book belonging to her husband as a "book of physic" even though it was in Latin, she likely wrote her mother's epitaph, and her own epitaph calls her "witty [i.e., learned] above her sex". However, even if his children were both provably illiterate, all it would mean was that Shakespeare was a man of his time and didn't rate female education that highly. John Milton trained his daughters to read to him in various languages, including Latin, Greek, and English, but he never taught them how to understand what they were reading. Does his neglect of his daughters' literacy mean that he couldn't have written _Paradise Lost_ ? Not that it's apparent what Shakespeare could have done all the way from London to help his daughters' literacy. Was he supposed to tutor them via Skype?

[@we4r119]

A fascinating lecture on code breaking. I’m not that bright, so credit to the speaker for making it so easy for someone like me to be able to follow. Intriguing and fascinating.

[@timothyharris4708]

Well, I could say that I expect, if you are not so bright, that you would find this talk 'intriguing and fascinating'. But that would not be fair to you at all. I don't believe that you are anything like 'not so bright' as you claim, but there is such a thing as common sense and a feeling for reality that is part of intelligence (which is not the abstract sort of thing that an IQ test suggests), and in all honesty, I think a bit of common sense, a feeling for what is real and what is not, is quite sufficient to see that the little web of deception that Mr Waugh weaves is full of holes.

[@we4r119]

@@timothyharris4708 - I did say I find it fascinating and intriguing, I didn’t say I believed every word of it. ☺️ He did explain it clearly enough for me to follow where he was going, but I confess, I didn’t understand the 4 'Ts' theory, since some of the text he referred to has more than 4 'Ts' and I am too lazy to bother counting all of the characters. However, I am aware that there was a tremendous amount of sophisticated encryption used in those times. I’m not sure that I buy into the conflation of Greek mythology and Latin text, but as I say, I'm not that bright/intelligent and it isn’t anything that I have looked into. Perhaps you are correct and it is a common sense reaction.

[@we4r119]

@@timothyharris4708 - I also found the documentary film, Cracking the Shakespeare code fascinating too! 😉. I am particularly amazed that many academics cannot seem to accept that a grammar school educated person could be capable of penning his own works.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@we4r119 Dear We, thank you for your response. I suppose that the reason I find these ideas about 'encryption' and 'codes' so utterly dubious, is that I find it incredible a) that someone writing for the popular stage would want to add to the difficulty of writing (very good) plays the difficulty of adding in encrypted information in odd places which certainly would not be understood by the audience, were not deciphered at the time and if noticed and deciphered at all would be by those who were already in the know, and would only be discovered 400 years later by such as Alexander Waugh. And b) plays were not much regarded as 'literature', which is why many plays of the era were lost - Ben Jonson was the first playwright to publish a 'first folio' of some of his plays in 1616, Shakespeare''s First Folio was published in 1623, long after his death. It is not so much academics who are unable to accept that an Elizabethan grammar-schoolboy could have written the works, as people who understand little of the history of the time, or who (rather like those who find codes in the Bible or who avidly follow the latest QAnon conspiracy-mongering) like to pretend that they have found all sorts of coded references in the plays and elsewhere (something that is easier to do if you are sufficiently gullible than is generally supposed), or are incorrigible snobs.

[@JCO2002]

You're bright enough to know how to use proper punctuation and capitalization, which puts you ahead of about 75% of commenters. Don't sell yourself short.

[@professorsogol5824]

Bailey's Theorem? There is such a theorem but it has nothing to do with triangles and circles. Thee is a theorem that states any triangle inscribed in a circle with the diameter as its hypotenuse will be a right triangle. However, the closed curved line passing through the six points identified as corners of four triangles appears to be an eclipse, not a circle. (measured on my computer screen, if the minor axis of this elipse is 1 then the major axis is about 1.3.) That suggests that at least one of the triangles is not a right triangle.

[@olafshomkirtimukh9935]

Though not a mathematician myself (but a Shakespeare-lover), I had the same thought: it was manifestly an ellipse, not a circle!

[@andyhiggs6932]

@@olafshomkirtimukh9935 Find a reliable source image of the Sonnets and place a perfect circle over the points. It works perfectly and is not an elipse. In this youtube video the image is compressed. I would not trust any test without doing it for oneself using an original edition of the Sonnets.

[@douglashoover6473]

The theorem about a triangle inscribed in a circle, with a diameter as its hypotenuse, is called Thales theorem. Anyway, several of the marked "right angles" were visibly not white 90 degrees - maybe none of them were exactly 90 degrees.

[@ashcross]

Waugh was a pseud of the first order!

[@professorsogol5824]

@@ashcross I was suddenly reminded of this passage from James Joyce's Ulysses: "It’s quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.” (Telemachus episode)

[@dopplerdog6817]

The works of Shakespeare weren't written by Shakespeare but by someone else called Shakespeare

[@jimihendrix3143]

Yes, but he was just a front man for someone else called Shakespeare.

[@johnsmith-eh3yc]

We love Waugh really hope he gets better, that is most important. Also with his ever increasing -such and such knew' he will eventually be able to show that nothing but nothing was published in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries except for the specific reason of showing devere was Shakespeare.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

He'll have his work cut out for him in catching up to Robert Pretcher, who claims that just about everything PUBLISHED within spitting distance of 1604 was actually written by De Vere.

[@ralphclark]

I dare say with this type of “analysis” you could “prove” absolutely anything you want.

[@bakters]

" *you could “prove” absolutely anything* " Exactly. He dares people to figure out what are the odds of such a complicated message appearing *here* by chance, and that is rightfully unlikely. But it's the wrong question to ask. The correct question is to ask "what are the odds of finding an equally complicated message *somewhere* ? " It's not the only place he ever looked at, is it? Say, I wanted to prove that Santa Claus was Shakespeare. Could I find enough "evidence" for it if I dug deep enough? If that was my passion, and I was bright enough, I'm liking my odds. I mean, seriously. I looked at the first line of my post and I counted 15 words (on my screen). That's two references to Jesus already! XV, Christ/Cross and Veritas/Vicit What are the words following a period, for example? He, But, The, It's, Say. Could, If. What do we get, let me think... If He Could Say It's The But! I got it! It's the butt, It's all ASS! ;-) I'll repost it in a separate thread.

[@vikidprinciples]

🤣

[@bakters]

@@vikidprinciples With that said, they practically convinced me by now (two days later)... Not by this esoteric geometry, but by matching the plays to the real events. Hamlet seems the most convincing. Even if Shakspare of Stratfort wrote Hamlet, it's unlikely he didn't base it on the story of De Vere. Then he retired to Stratford, where he occupied himself with money-lending and suing people for petty debts, and finally scratched his "mark" on his last will, then died... I mean, those oxfordian guys have better arguments. This talk's potential impact is awfully overstated, right at the beginning.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@bakters Why is it 'unlikely' that the playwright who wrote Hamlet 'didn't base it on the story of de Vere'? Are you just pulling this out of your hat, or have any serious evidence to provide? The former, undoubtedly. And why do 'those oxfordian guys have better arguments'? On what grounds do you say this?

[@bakters]

@@timothyharris4708 Read what I wrote again. I said that even if the guy who could barely scratch his name actually wrote Hamlet, then it's unlikely he did not base it on De Vere's life. Re: better arguments' (sic!) I meant they have better arguments than "esoteric geometry". Now I'm more or less convinced that De Vere was Shakespeare and I still doubt this thing. While this talker here was sure he'll convince everybody who'd listen to him... Well, he failed at that. Somebody else had to step in.

[@sns8420]

Edward (6 letters) De (2 letters) Vere (4 letters)

[@Torvig]

I found that compelling as well. The 6-2-4 is the name itself, as well as the date of death (June 24)--and more, it seems. Well observed.

[@MrMartibobs]

@@Torvig Ooooh yes 6 2 4 I believe it's the wheel configuration of the first steam engine to run through Lower Missenden. And the sleepers were laid 16 inches apart, and 16 is the number you get when you add up the numeric values of 'Oxford' and then subtract the waist size of Oxford's Gaskins. How can these fools fail to see the significance of all this? Well spotted. Remember the song by Chicago? 25 or 6-2-4! They knew!

[@Torvig]

@@MrMartibobs It's clear as day!

[@michael-h8y8t]

It's called a coincidence you frickin' pseud.

[@mpgallogly]

Edward de Vere was tutored by Dr. John Dee in the esoteric arts: numerology, mathematics, cryptography, astrology, etc. Dr. John Dee started MI5 and signed his documents as 007. You really can't make this shit up lol!

[@fattsfatts7891]

Interesting but this dude is reaching. You can add or find patterns in any chart like this. Not convinced.

[@SKILLIUSCAESAR]

The chart is a cipher to decode the headstone I think that’s more of a normal impression that folks have when they’re not knowledgeable on cryptography, all due respect. I’d love to see u find anything like this in a randomly selected writing

[@fattsfatts7891]

@@SKILLIUSCAESAR TE HE TIDDLE OH HEETSIE WHEE!!!

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

​@@SKILLIUSCAESARThose who do have knowledge of cryptography think all of this hunting for ciphers is a joke.

[@SKILLIUSCAESAR]

@@Jeffhowardmeade I recall debating with u about this before and, again with all due respect, u did not come across as knowledgeable about cryptography

[@SKILLIUSCAESAR]

@@Jeffhowardmeade also I refer u to the documentary scene where Admundsen presents the Folio title page to the genius considered #2 mathematician alive, and he immediately recognized it as containing code. He was also a medieval printing press expert, and explained that all of the anomalies would only be greenlit by an insane person or one being very deliberate.

[@patkenlaws]

Evelyn Waugh could not written Evelyn Waugh because he was middle class. The true author must be an aristocrat. I say this because I'm a snob.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Would that Evelyn Waugh hadn't written Evelyn Waugh. I don't think I could survive reading Brideshead Revisited again.

[@patkenlaws]

@@Jeffhowardmeade I agree about Brideshead but Scoop, A Handful of Dust and others are good

[@erpthompsonqueen9130]

What?

[@JCO2002]

I'd like to watch all of this, but at 18 minutes in, it's starting to feel like I'm reading a QAnon forum where everything is a deep, complex conspiracy.

[@timothyharris4708]

You are absolutely right.

[@jdonalds1]

Delightful! But if you keep changing the rules that govern the logic of relation, choosing one here and another there, where convenient, the whole ends up looking like hyperoxygenated numerology.... it is the mastery of the magician that gives a shiver up the spine.

[@Ty91681]

Amen!

[@colinallan1962]

Sometimes it is a sentence beginning after a section of 17 lines- ie. line 18. Sometimes it is the 17th line. Once you have decided it is 17 you can find ways to make it fit. I have already pointed out that Oxford signed himself Edward OXENFORD. The signature being entirely his choice!

[@fractal_mind562]

My mind had an orgasm reading this !

[@13strange67]

What ? !

[@MichaelMarko]

But mastery of what? Symbols?

[@si29uk]

Given that Edward de Vere died before a number of the plays were written (which we know because they reference events that happened after his demise) and we know where de Vere is buried (Hackney),all of this is utter nonsense.

[@ericloscheider7433]

Oh. Thank god you cleared all of that up

[@Nullifidian]

​@@coolnamebro So you're saying that they baptized and buried a figment of the imagination and then erected a monument to that figment that praised him as a poet by likening him to Virgil, saying that "all that he hath writ | Leaves but living art page to serve his wit", and depicted him holding a pen and with a sheet of paper in the regulation subfusc of a scholar? That a figment of the imagination trod the boards as an actor as testified by multiple early modern sources, including two cast lists in the 1616 folio publication of Ben Jonson's _Works_ ? That this figment was praised for his writing by multiple contemporaries, including some who knew him personally or at least knew detailed information about him?

[@hieropontus]

6 2 4 are also the number of letters in the Earl of Oxford's name. Edward = 6 de = 2 Vere = 4

[@dormansroland8580]

Indeed. Furthermore : Earl of Oxford (4, 2 and 6 letters) !

[@colinallan1962]

He signed himself Edward Oxenford. If you are going to say the word Oxford is important that applies to the 16th 17th 18th. It's a family name.

[@jimihendrix3143]

If I ever have the time and inclination, I'd like to put together a similar theory proving that Bob Dylan was Shakespeare.

[@jimihendrix3143]

Now I come to think of it, he mentions Shakespeare in "Desolation Row". Just a coincidence? We all know what "desolation" means. Barreness, emptiness, something with no value or content. Is he saying that Shakspurr's claim to the "rows", or lines of text is a barren and empty one? Something to think about.

[@thomas-lo8pl]

You'd also have a chance at proving The Bard was Bob.

[@sislertx]

Shouldnt be hard to do using his method

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

Ironic, as "Bob Dylan" was not Bob Dylan. But while It's easy to prove that Bob Dylan was really Robert Zimmerman but it is still impossible to prove that William Shake-speare of London was Will Shasper of Stratford.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Balls.

[@joecurran2811]

Very sad to hear of Waugh's passing. This was superb!

[@swaters5127]

Can someone explain WHY? What was the point of hiding his identity behind a pseudonym only to have all these clues later? Motivations?

[@justinspicyrhino3075]

If you were part of the peerage and decided to publish some plays, it would be scandalous!

[@impostersyndrome3898]

There's less stretching in a Mr. Fantasic lecture.

[@bouncycastle955]

It's been shown time and time again, that if you're motivated to find something in a source, you can always find it. People did this with works like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and even Sesame Street in response to people doing exactly the same nonsense with the Bible Code. Give it up.

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

A tremendous number of motivated people have looked for Stratford-related ciphers in the same material but have come up with nothing. Were they simply not motivated enough? What was discovered hiding in Harry Potter...just wondering...

[@bouncycastle955]

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 the fact that you think the Stratford people don't put forward a similar case is very telling. Time to hit google, my friend.

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

@@bouncycastle955 Google comes up with nothing except Baconian ciphers. So what is you being wrong about "the fact" very telling of? And no we are not friends, but maybe we can be intellectual equals if you can come up with a better response that is based on truth.

[@bouncycastle955]

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 my grandma can't figure out facebook but even she doesn't have trouble performing a google search. We aren't going to be intellectual equals until you get that one down, chum.

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

@@bouncycastle955 Have YOU actually googled Shakespeare+cipher?

[@oldschool1993]

Across the hall in a different auditorium there was some guy with an apostrophe in his name claiming that Shakespeare was black.

[@BlowinFree]

Lol, there’s always one, isn’t there.

[@hans-joachimbierwirth4727]

A jewish black lesbian. With a pegleg. Descendant of a later misdeed of Henry V.

[@RHV617]

Shakespeare wasn't Black, he was a swarthy Englishmen.

[@frogmorely]

I can understand the elevation of autistic parlour games into an hour of distraction aided by our obliging furlough of incredulity, but what exercises my unease is the suspicion that it is all motivated by classist snobbery. Evelyn Waugh and the Earl of Oxford feature like a usurping comedy junta.

[@thecentralscrutinizerr]

Has anybody asked the question of why the author of Shakespeare's works wanted to hide his/her identity? Is something else encrypted into the works of Shakespeare that would bring harm to the author of the works should it be decrypted? If you wrote an epic literary work today, would you want your identity to be unknown?

[@siberiangirl1941]

The Shakespearian works had many authors working together to form a comprehensive new language..There were over 2000 “new” words that would have been completely unknown to the audience of the day. Every country of influence from the 15th century to the present has been subjected to a constant change of their native language to destroy our true history. Not unlike the Christian bible.

[@MichaelMarko]

That’s what I wonder. What’s the point? Ok maybe a writing project like many in the past. Many topical works have been attributed to some figure of renown associated with a school or movement. But why all the coding and mystery? What’s the point? Is it to promote Christian mysticism? I suppose people like these games and that’s enough to motivate clever elite people to do such things.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@siberiangirl1941 Well, you're good at writing total rubbish. What is 'our true history'?

[@timothyharris4708]

@@MichaelMarko The point is to excite people such as many, if not most, of the stupid and ignorant commenters here.

[@siberiangirl1941]

@@timothyharris4708 where would you like me to begin?

[@keepitsimple4629]

My question is: why was Shakespeare put forth as the author, instead of the real author? What was the purpose in that?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Oh, don't go there. You won't believe the can of peyote-laced worms you will open.

[@keepitsimple4629]

@@Jeffhowardmeade If you 'don't go there', you'll never learn squat. You're giving bad advice.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@keepitsimple4629 You'll never learn squat anyway. You'll just get a bunch of increasingly bizarre speculations. As the number of people who identified Shakespeare as the author of his works becomes more apparent, the size of the conspiracy which must have existed to suppress the "truth" grows. Eventually you have a bastard son of a "virgin" queen knocking up his own mother and an immortal being founding the Freemasons, the Rosecrucians, or both, and either or both of them taking time out to write plays. And then hiding the evidence in codes or on Oak Island. A faerie splashing love juice into the wrong eyes seems almost sane by comparison.

[@steffijmusic]

Because women were not allowed to write or be affiliated with the stage. William Shakespeare was a useful idiot and a male.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@keepitsimple4629 How much squat have you ever learned?

[@livescript4462]

When the Beatles wrote number 9 do you think they were talking about Jesus christ?

[@jimihendrix3143]

Yes

[@notoriouswhitemoth]

First argument: there are a lot of graves that don't have anything buried in them, especially from times of disease outbreak when bodies were generally cremated so they couldn't spread the disease. That said, the fact there's a hollow _at all_ says someone or something was buried there, and a disarticulated human skeleton would fit into that space. Second argument: it wasn't bad syntax in the seventeenth century when English spelling hadn't been standardized. Written language changes slower than speech, but it does change. Third argument: a headstone that reads "in this grave" doesn't mean inside the stone, it means under the ground next to it. I've already refuted the premise this entire argument is based on.

[@bjsmith5444]

Someone has too much time on his hands. Like a Covid test you're going to find what you're looking for if you look hard enough. De Vere either wanted posterity to know he was Shakespeare or he didn't. If he did, it would have been a lot simpler. He would have left some writing that said "I wrote Shakespeare's plays."

[@2degucitas]

Covid tests are more reliable

[@timothyharris4708]

@Jessica Murray Yes, 400 years after his death, he has been raised from his crypt by charlatans like Waugh to announce that he really wrote Shakespeare's plays. Would that he had remained encrypted. Then we wouldn't have to put up with dishonesties and special pleading that appears in this video.

[@Nullifidian]

@Jessica Murray No, he didn't. Other people have claimed to find "encrypted messages" in the works they want to attribute to de Vere, and they judge the success of their "decryption" by how much it tells them what they want to see. This is a recipe for self-delusion. Before the Oxfordians, the Baconians were mad for encryption and many of them still are. Others have thrown their hats into the encryption ring in support of other candidates. Any methodology that can yield so many mutually contradictory answers cannot possibly be valid.

[@AntonDee]

but why not have some fun?

[@timothyharris4708]

@@AntonDee What kind of fun? Do you find Waugh's charlatanism 'fun'? You do realise, don't you, that because of cynical, money-grubbing, conspiracy-mongers like Waugh, a great many, mostly rather ignorant people now believe that there is a serious case against Shakespeare's authorship when there is none? I suppose you believe that denying that the Holocaust took place, or denying climate-warming, or denying that Biden won the last election is just 'fun'. I am not, by the way, pretending that the denial of Shakespeare's authorship is in any moral way comparable to those examples, but the manner in which, via, in particular, the internet, people are led to believe in conspiracy theories is common to all these examples. Surely one can have 'fun' without supporting charlatans and misleading people?

[@fangbeer]

It was easy to decode. I already knew what I wanted the code to say.... Red flag.

[@davidstott1721]

Paul said "But by the grace of God I am what I am", not I am that I am. In the context of the scriptures there was nothing wrong with what he wrote.

[@nell6913]

How is it that the date 1609 is on the sonnets, but gives a map of where to find de Vere in Westminster if he wasn't moved there until 1619? It would seem if the map theory is correct, then he was moved there before 1609.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

And yet his second wife, Elizabeth Trentham, died in 1612 and asked to be buried next to him in the Hackney churchyard.

[@timmiltz2916]

I'm afraid if were aired as an episode of Blue's Clues- the producers would opt not to air it.

[@newlifenowife3522]

if aired,,,it s too late to opt not to !!!

[@neilroy7085]

Tedious and unnecessary introduction finally ends at 4:30.

[@TopShockers]

270 thank-yous'

[@Nullifidian]

Alternatively, "Tedious and unnecessary lunacy commences at 4:30".

[@helenamcginty4920]

The upper echelons of english society cannot stand the idea that a man nit if their class could write the plays. Those of his own time, pre Public School days, had no such difficulty.

[@nippernappertton]

If there ever was a more fallacious argument against this evidence, please let me know. Did you even watch the presentation? This was message coded by the peers of the author, and the odds of such a message being there by chance are 1 out of billions.

[@Nullifidian]

@@nippernappertton There is no message. Waugh's febrile hallucinations would require greater accuracy than was possible in early modern printing. Waugh supplies half the context for his supposed 'decryptions', makes up whatever he needs to get the results he wants, and then decides that he's successfully 'decoded' it by how much it tells him what he wants to see.

[@annarboriter]

@@Nullifidian As a biologist, you certainly do spend much your days posting about Stratfordian myths and defaming scholars outside your field

[@Nullifidian]

@@annarboriter So what if I do spend my time posting on this subject? It's a combination of having a general interest in early modern theatre, a specific interest in Shakespeare, and a general interest in pseudoscience/pseudohistory/etc. The last also includes an interest in creationism and its new "intelligent design" variant, relativity-denialism (in the scientific rather than the philosophical sense), geocentrism, the flat earth, the so-called "Church of Scientology", the 9/11 Truth movement, JFK assassination conspiracy theories, and Anatoly Fomenko's ludicrous idea that the events of the classical European civilizations happened 1,000 years later and that the intervening time is simply an elaborate fiction (e.g. Alexander the Great would have conquered in the 7th century CE, Julius Caesar would have been assassinated in the mid-10th century, etc.). I don't make a specific point of critiquing _only_ the claims of anti-Shakespearians. Are you still trying to imply that I'm a paid shill because nobody could possibly think that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare without being paid to think it? If that's the case, then the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust must be going bankrupt because Shakespeare's authorship is a consensus among everyone but an increasingly vanishingly small handful of cranks. The anti-Shakespearians are graying and dying and not being replaced at a commensurate rate. Furthermore, I don't "defame scholars outside my field". I leave that up to the anti-Shakespearians, who have more practice in it. Virtually none of them are trained scholars in relevant fields, but they're perfectly content to assert that the real scholars are either deluded or even consciously engaged in a conspiracy to suppress 'the truth'. The guy you cited elsewhere, Joseph Sobran, was a journalist who was so ignorant that he didn't know that Henslowe's Christian name (he of the famous diary) was Philip. None of the Ogburns were early modern scholars. Nor was J. Thomas Looney, who was just a schoolteacher who hadn't heard of Edward de Vere until he picked his name out of a classroom set of _Palgrave's Golden Treasury_ . Since this is a video featuring Alexander Waugh, it's worth pointing out that he has a history of defamation in its proper, literal, legal sense. On one occasion, he falsely claimed that one of his critics was in trouble with the police, which he was then obliged to delete because British libel law is dangerous territory. His primary response to criticism is to delete it if it's in the comments to his own videos and, failing that, to childishly insult the critic. The entire edifice of anti-Shakespearianism consists of a bunch of rank amateurs slinging feces at the people who have relevant expertise in the subject, almost all of whom accept that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him (even if some think that some of the plays were co-authored by other people as well). This is the _third_ chance you've had to present some evidence for Oxford (by far the least promising candidate with the possible exceptions of Daniel Defoe and Anne Whateley), or even the fourth since you could have forestalled me asking. It's starting to appear as if you're aware that nothing you have to present will stand up to scrutiny. But if you know that's the case, why continue with the charade of pretending that Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare's works?

[@sharonjackson5196]

The letter tau "T" does not come from a picture of an ox. The ox ideogram, rather, evolved into our letter "A".

[@brandonprescott5525]

In support of your comment aleph means ox in Hebrew which has similar cognates in terms of their alphabets (alpha-beta-gamma, aleph-bet-gimmel)

[@khsuki1]

Correct and if he lied about that, no need to go any further.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

You're the smart one. I've been following Waugh around for years, pointing out when he just makes stuff up to suit his purpose, which is frequently. I could have learned to play the piano in all the time I've spent on this foolishness.

[@gilgamars]

@@Jeffhowardmeade i suppose petter Amundsen is making it up too?! How many more times do you need to be shown? If the first letter of all the plays spelled out “Edward de vere wrote this” you’d still argue

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@gilgamars Petter Amundsen is making it up worse than most. His bonkers decryption methods are so absurd that I doubt any sane mind could have concocted them. And since the only way anything in Shakespeare would say Edward De Vere wrote this would be to twist it like a contortionist, yes, I would argue that you were adding your own context to bend random data to your predetermined end.

[@heliotropezzz333]

If there was incontrovertible proof that Shakespeare was not the author of his works, there would not be an ongoing debate about it. It would be accepted.

[@Nullifidian]

Ah, but you see there's a malign international cabal called the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust that exists to keep that sweet, sweet tourist money flowing into Stratford and they bribe academics to exclude anti-Shakespearean hypotheses from their classes and journals and pay people to debunk their arguments here on KZbin and other comments sections. If it weren't for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, they would win the day handily! I'm not kidding: this is seriously what these people believe.

[@9kat53]

I still keep thinking about the Northumberland Manuscript. Have never been able to buy the theory that it is just scribbling by some scribe. Also, when you said in the video that Bacon took over after Edward de Vere died, what did you mean, what did Bacon take over - sorry, did not understand that part. What about a joint Edward de Vere/Bacon partnership for Shakespeare, is this a possibility (and is this what you meant), don't the dates work better? Very interesting presentation! But, please, what is your opinion of the Northumberland Manuscript - it has always seemed to me that even if it was a scribe scribbling, the scribe had to put Bacon and Shakespeare's names together for a reason.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

The "Northumberland Manuscript" ended up as the temporary book binding, which tells me that it was originally in someone's book bindery. The script used was in a very practiced hand. Where does a bookbinder who needs to write pretty practice? On the sort of scrap paper that tends to end up as an ad hoc paper binding, of course.

[@nativevirginian8344]

Henry Neville’s name was also on the NM.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@nativevirginian8344 So what?

[@rodjones117]

"If we assume that he [Shakespeare] didn't, who did?" First, if you want to be taken even vaguely seriously, you have to explain why you would assume such a thing. What is your evidence?

[@rodjones117]

@@ThomasRonnberg All the world's a stage, actually, but how is that relevant here?

[@rodjones117]

@@ThomasRonnberg "why should Shakespeare be the original writer?" It is actually for you to prove why he was not the author. It is not good enough - not by a long chalk - to say as the man in the video does "if we assume he was not the writer". This video is just Dan Brown stuff to be honest.

[@rodjones117]

@@mithras666 It's all Da Vinci Code stuff.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@mithras666 Cracking the Shakespeare Code starts off with a fundamental error about typography, and goes downhill from there.

[@johnneville403]

@@ThomasRonnberg Because lots of people referered to him while he was alive as a very successful playwright?

[@30piecesofsilver64]

"poor fellow, for he is mad; quite mad." and, as an interesting little project, please tell me who authored the lines quoted and provide the evidence for your assumption.

[@martas9283]

genius and madness are the best of bedfellows..

[@chuckschillingvideos]

Numerology = complete silliness. Take this seriously at your own risk.

[@annascott3542]

Numerology, codes and ciphers might be silly to us moderns, but it wasn’t to people living in Elizabethan England.

[@nippernappertton]

@@annascott3542 yeah, they were dead serious about numbers and their properties.

[@Nullifidian]

@@annascott3542 And if you can demonstrate that Waugh's dribble parallels the early modern understanding of numerology, then you'll be doing more than Waugh himself has ever been able to do. Waugh simply makes up these associations himself, massaging the data and inventing the context freely, and then 'validating' the results because they tell him what he wants to hear. It's a textbook case of confirmation bias. If one were feeling unkind, one might ask him how these elaborate codes were supposed to be preserved when compositors chose the layout and the spelling of words themselves.

[@robertn800]

Alan Turing was obsessed with cryptography, numerical puzzles, ciphers etc. His knowledge of those “silly” things helped him break the German Enigma Code during WWar 2 and saved millions of lives by ending the war 2 years early, according to Historians . Alan Turing was instrumental in developing computers 💻 which enables you to watch this. Silly 😜 indeed

[@Nullifidian]

@@robertn800 A "numerical puzzle" is _not_ the same thing as numerology. Numerology is attaching supposedly "arcane" significance to the appearance of certain numbers. An example relevant to this video is the number of Oxfordians who go out of their way to find instances of the number 17 in Shakespeare texts because Oxford was the 17th earl. But the problem is that Oxford never knew he was the 17th earl, and the error in the genealogy wasn't corrected until after his death and wasn't generally accepted until the late 1600s. Numerology is sometimes allied with gematria, the process of assigning a numerical value to words and names, most often with a religious significance like the Tetragrammaton. Numerology was of no help whatsoever in the war, and Alan Turing never believed in it. But even if he did, eminence in science or maths is no guarantee against being a crank in other areas.

[@michaelhorning6014]

Cripes, this stupid cryptogram garbage again. Let it go, dude. Will Shakespeare wrote the plays.

[@p5rsona]

Wow so you were there in 1600??

[@michaelhorning6014]

@@p5rsona documented member and shareholder in Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men. Mentioned by contemporaries as a playwright, with specific titles mentioned. Plays published under his name. Zero evidence anyone else wrote them. Case closed.

[@p5rsona]

@@michaelhorning6014 Plays published under his name. i too can have plays published under my name. nothing of what you wrote proves HE wrote them. why would he abruptly retire back in his hometown, go into farming and never write again? why nothing found with his handwriting?

[@michaelhorning6014]

@@p5rsona now you're just flailing wildly.

[@p5rsona]

@@michaelhorning6014 am I? can you at least try refuting my points?

[@nicolelabram5575]

Isn't doubt about Shakespeare's authorship really about class prejudice and the intolerance of the British class system. ?

[@cogent28]

No.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Yes. Every criticism of Shakespeare includes his inability to have known this or that which only a highly-educated aristocrat could. Total snobbery.

[@we4r119]

Why did De Vere need a pseudonym?

[@barryseaton3121]

An absolute delight to listen to such a learned diatribe against what I have always hated, secrets.

[@thoutube9522]

What secret is that? Kid from Stratford turned out to be a good writer? Why are you surprised by this?

[@cathsrq]

CIVILIZATION IS BUILT ON SECRETS

[@veronica_._._._]

@@thoutube9522 Bunch of chinless toffs and their aspiring grooms of the stool.

[@Nullifidian]

@Attila the Pun The evidence has been so well-hidden that it's even been kept out of this video.

[@colinallan1962]

Fascinating but the sonnets were published in 1609. De Vere was buried in Hackney in 1604. In November 1612 his widow stated in her will that she wanted to be buried beside him in Hackney. She died in December 1612. There is a monument to a Vere relative in Westminster abbey in 1609 and there is a much later De Vere family tomb but Westminster has no record of reinterrment for Oxford. Or even Oxenford which is the name he used in his signature but that name wouldn't add up to 17. Oh pother!

[@gayealtier6201]

Since I started studying literature years ago, The "Shakespeare" always sounded and hinted a " shake-s- peare" to me . There are many reliable resources to this subj. Also this is one of the best digging research .

[@SiriusDraconis]

Thats because it is. For Gods Will I Am the goddess Pallas Athena the spear shaker. or Or By the will of (God (i am) ) Shakespear (Ophiuchus) the Center of it all.

[@ishmaelforester9825]

Shakespeare is an old English Midlands name. He came out of such a family. There is no ridiculous cryptogram or puzzle in his name. The Shakespeare's were a lineage in and around Stratford-upon-Avon. William obviously the most successful and famous.

[@nippernappertton]

the name of the stratford man appears as Shakspere, so there you have it

[@Bigwave2003]

"Churchill" always sounded and hinted a "Church-on-a-hill" to me.

[@thoutube9522]

You are very good at talking nonsense. There must be a PhD in this for you.

[@werels8895]

"One, two, three, but where is the fourth?" -Socrates, Timaeus

[@Len124]

I don't particularly care who wrote the plays, they stand on their own merits, but this is overly contrived nonsense. He's starting with a conclusion and working backwards from there. With enough time and very selective picking and choosing, you could twist these documents into saying anything you want.

[@IR240474]

Cracking the Shakespeare code. A 3 part video. A must view, remarkable.

[@TreasureByMeasure]

So right! How could anyone deny the evidence. It's RIGHT THERE!

[@frankjohansen9364]

Yes,the three parts documentary about the research of the norwegian organist Petter Amundsen,that is a must see for all that have a suspiction that Shakespeare did not write the works that has his name on.He most likely was illiterate,he did not travel a lot, and there is much wisdom and knowledge in them ,so it is must unlikely that he could have written the works with his name on.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@TreasureByMeasure When you're the one providing the decrypt key, you can rearrange any text to say whatever you like. In the case of a guy whose name contains the same letters found in popular poetic words like "every", "ever", "never", "venerate", "revere", etc, it's kind of hard NOT to find his name "hidden"...er...everywhere.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@frankjohansen9364 There's no evidence that he was illiterate, and much that he was not, there is no knowledge in the works which could not be found in popular books of the day, and wisdom is not the purview of the rich. Nearly every great writer in every age comes from the same class that created Shakespeare. The Middle Class.

[@brooke1496]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Hey Coriolanus, the commenters here are talking about Sir Francis Bacon, watch the documentary they refer to before you debunk them with mere bogus dribbles about silly Devere.

[@gustavmahler1466]

Just because you found the same sentence else where does not prove plagiarism

[@GreenMorningDragonProductions]

I think if Shakespeare was proved to be a fake/cypher/composite England would have an existential crisis.

[@we4r119]

Is there any similarity between the handwriting attributed to Shakespeare and De Vere?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

None whatsoever. The dialect was also different. De Vere's letters and his poetry make it clear that he spoke in an East Anglian dialect which was common for aristocrats. Oxford rhymes “was” with “case” and “face” with “glass”. Shakespeare rhymed 'face' with 'place'. Oxford rhymes “shows” with “lose”. Shakespeare rhymes it with 'rose'. Oxford rhymes “grief” with “strife”. Shakespeare rhymes 'grief' with 'chief and 'strife' with 'wife'. Unless he had dual personalities, De Vere did not write the works of Shakespeare.

[@MrMartibobs]

Oh yawn bloody yawn. You people must spend weeks working out the grid that suits your purposes. A bright kid from Stratford turned out to be able to write poems and plays. Why is that surprising? I could count the talented aristocrats on the fingers of one foot.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

It doesn't take nearly so long anymore. It can be done with a computer algorithm almost instantly. Imagine how much work would have gone into CREATING these codes, though, all by hand, with a quill and paper. And then, they had to be set by hand in order to be printed, without any errors, by typesetters who typically decided how to spell words and when and where to break lines. And yet EVERYBODY seemed to be doing it. Gawd, they must have been bored out of their minds.

[@susanwozniak6354]

My feeling is that when the Anti-Avonians are not resorting to quasi-religious organizations, they insist that no one without a university education can write. How about Bob Dylan? Richard Pryor? Woody Allen? Dolly Parton? My favorite Anti-Avonian is the guy who draws triangles on First Folio or else it may be the poetry. Well, what if a different type face were used? His triangles wouldn't work.

[@MrMartibobs]

@@susanwozniak6354 I think you're referring to Alexander Waugh, who (even more hilariously) draws around the dedication in the sonnets, turns it upside-down, and says it obviously represents a funerary urn.

[@susanwozniak6354]

@@MrMartibobs I typed the above response before he got into those circles, lines and odd shapes. The other guy is not Waugh but another youtuber who relies on drawing triangles and on Masonic references. I know little about Masonry but although it may have roots in guilds for Medieval stonemasons, the first Grand Lodge was founded in the 18th C. All that line drawing is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is how Waugh throws in geometry and Jesus and surprising forms worthy of a child's decoder ring from a 1950's corn flake box, then has the gall to come back it his earlier statements with the phrase, "Now we know." The correct phrase should be, "Now I assume."

[@harryselwind]

Norman Vowles of Gravesend wrote all of Shakespeare's plays and he and his wife wrote all the sonnets, even though those works were known to exist three hundred years before Norman was born.

[@kieranjames4696]

I don't know who really wrote Shakespeare but it seems to me that the anti-Stratfordians can't settle on a single candidate. There are impassioned arguments for the Earl Of Oxford, Francis Bacon and Henry Nevill (and probably other candidates I'm not aware of). It's the literary equivalent of 'who really was Jack The Ripper'. I don't think we'll ever know for sure...

[@jimnaz5267]

I dont know either, but there is a trend in thinking it was all of the above mentioned. You will noitice that VVilliam spells his name in several ways, and signed his name in more and different spellings, hmmmmmmm.

[@Sphere723]

The main problem is all the direct evidence of who is credited with writing the plays points to the man from Stratford. If you find that evidence uncompelling and start looking for an alternate candidate you're necessarily dealing with indirect evidence. Coincidences and innuendos. And such lines of evidence leave little to differentiate between candidates. Some parts of the plays will match Bacons life, others will match Oxfords life etc. One secret code will say "DeVere" the other "Marlowe". Really, you can make at least some case for any noble of the time.

[@Mooseman327]

Well, we do one thing...it wasn't the illiterate from Stratford.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@Mooseman327 He wasn't illiterate. Why do you say so?

[@nativevirginian8344]

Finally, someone else who has heard of Neville. Can’t his name be decoded from the dedication too?

[@anonymike8280]

I think this issue is being looked at entirely in the wrong way. The Globe theater was a business, ajd the people involved in the production of the plays there were people with a job to do. In relation to the stage plays in that era, authorship as we generally understand it did not exist, any more than authorship is that important in relations to movie scripts, television script and pop song in our era. William Shakespeare was an historic person and he was a principal in the Globe theater. He wrote the plays. There even is a surviving letter wherein the letter writer says something about how the Globe management and company are waiting for Shakespeare to finish the script for the next production. Did Shakespeare write every word of every play? No, and it didn't matter. These were people with a job to do, create and put on a show. It didn't matter who wrote every word of the script any more than it mattered who wrote every word of some Archie Bunker episode. Shakespeare had certain advantages we would not have if any of uswanted to create a work on par with Shakespeare. He had no anxiety. He didn't know that he was Shakespeare. He didn't have to consider whether was he was doing had any literary value or not. He wrote his poetry to secure his literary reputation, and if his dramatic work had been lost, he would have a reputation among scholars and _aficionados_ as a solid minor poet.

[@rhys3350]

I'm a descendant of the De Vere family, there are a lot of other descendants of the family currently living in Australia.

[@timothyharris4708]

I hope they stay there.

[@tullochgorum6323]

Yawn. There's the small issue that Shakespeare's plays mention events after De Vere was dead. Computer textual analysis excludes De Vere as a candidate. It also shows that many of the plays were collaborations with other working playwrights - why would an aristocrat do that? The plays contain Stratfordian dialect and use a lot of terms from glove-making. Shakespeare is one of the best documented commoners of the age. These people are basically snobs - they can't accept that the greatest writer in the language was a tradesman's son. So they come up with speculative drivel like this.

[@clevellbarney8917]

They can't accept it. That's the key in most Shakespeare conspiracies.

[@ishmaelforester9825]

That is it. You're exactly right. But ultimately more glory to Shakespeare. The idea an aristocrat wrote Shakespeare's wonderful comic commoners for the stage is ridiculous. They would have been insulted if you suggested it then. He was who he was always attributed as. An Earl wrote the likes of Bardolph, Pistol, Quickly and Doll? Fuck off. It's blatantly obvious he wasn't a noble.

[@ishmaelforester9825]

The fact (from a certain point of view) was one of the legitimate censures of Will Shakespeare. His 'native wood notes wild' in miltons phrase, associated with his commoner origins. I mean it's stunningly clear from the works he was relatively unconnected and rolling dice. It was only later people began to assimilate his style with genius or sublimity.

[@mushtaqbhat1895]

That a commoner could not have such an in-depth knowledge regarding courtly life is perhaps a valid argument, but by same token, how could a noble man have the in-depth knowledge of the emerging trader classes, artisans and the country folk? In fact the former could be looked up in most of the extant literature beginning from Homer. Most of it was there, cannonized in literature and (stll extant) history, whereas. the latter, especially that related to Stratford or greater England was just emerging. Beecher Stowe or Charles Dickens would appear centuries later. Homer or the bards who wrote the great epics certainly must have listened to the tales of the sea farers. It probably sets a categorical imperative to not being of noble birth, because the latter generally condones too much familiarity in relationships with the lower classes and generally implies only a canonnized, highly biased, historical text-book-aquired knowledge about the latter. I can not imagine a barons son ever showing any interest in the private lives of their serfs or servants, or paying visits to their country cottages, let alone learning their dialect or goings about their family lives. Just as today the boulevard papers make fortunes by gossip-printing about celebrities with higher incomes and life styles, I assume the doings at court were widely circulated, through mouth and print. And a poet and a genius would have no problem, weaving a tale about it, just as Homer or the bards, wove remarkable ones about palaces, courtly intrigues and far away lands and sea shores, places they probably had never seen.

[@tullochgorum6323]

@@mushtaqbhat1895 There's also some evidence that as a young man Shakespeare spent time as a tutor and actor with the aristocratic Hoghton family in Lancashire. If true, the family had extensive experience of court life. Plus he was, of course, literate - and there were plenty of sources he could have used. Later in life he had close court connections. So there's really no mystery to explain. On the other hand the De Vere theory has insuperable issues - I thought it had died a death until I saw this lecture. The computer textual analysis is decisive - De Vere had a totally different writing style to the man who wrote the plays and poems - it's not even close. This is a kind of textual fingerprint you can't consciously change - and on all the standard tests De Vere didn't write the plays. The same with all the other main candidates, by the way. And there's the small issue that Shakespeare was active and writing years after De Vere's death... As I said above - this is just snobbery. These people can't accept that the son of a glover was our greatest poet - so they had to award the mantle of greatness to some random aristo instead... shakespeareauthorship.com/elval.html

[@steveclark8538]

Couldn’t make it thru the ramshackle opening about crosses and T’s etc….sorry

[@Nullifidian]

Speaking as someone who watched the whole thing, you've missed nothing.

[@DanielTlen]

Oxford was born too late and died too early to be the author of the Shake-Speare canon.

[@joecurran2811]

Well he was born before Shaksper.

[@T0varisch]

Thanks as ever. I hadn't seen this one. You've answered Glenn's "I am that I am" unique quote, and gone further to help me imagine your thought process. From what you say it was spotting the D in the chapel that was the "let's procreate" moment. I scanned the comments. Guys, mainly, if you have a modest IQ of say 120+ and are incapable of looking at this without prejudice, certainly if you have any experience of statistical mechanics, please get yourself retested. This isn't a matter for debate. You can argue about whether it's still a lie, but what has been done is utterly incontrovertible. Alexander should be getting a wee bit more respect than cheap abuse, but he went to university in my home town, I think he can handle it. This is one of the most elaborate creations of its kind in existence. If you have anything to match it we'd all be delighted to look at it. The creator, believed to be Dee, deserves homage from anyone who has ever tackled a cryptic crossword puzzle.

[@synisterfish]

... What are you talking about, chief...?

[@T0varisch]

@@synisterfish kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXPCgnmpp66UhNU isd where were up to a week ago. Things have moved on since then.

[@yinyangyin]

heh heh english monarchies are a "most elaborate creation" 🏴‍☠️

[@timothyharris4708]

Yes, Waugh certainly procreates, as he makes nothing out of nothing.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@T0varisch Having watched a bit of your first video, which is so amateurish and, forgive me, unutterably stupid (not to mention the appalling sound and your inability to speak coherently or clearly), I am not surprised to lear that you admire that charlatan, Alexander Waugh. You speak of a 'modest IQ' of 120. Could I ask what your IQ is? And perhaps you could explain what Waugh's going to a university in your home town has to do with anything?

[@francesca9423]

The authorship question has always felt quite classist to me. Like it’s bordering on uncomfortable. Would there be this same kind of debate had it supposedly been a lord or an Earl who’d written the plays? I’m not so sure there would

[@johnrichardson6296]

A fascinating, brilliant and compelling talk (as always) by Alexander Waugh. One question I have never seen posed or answered, however, is the following: we now know that the Shakespeare grave in the Stratford church is empty (that has been technologically and logistically proven). So: where is old Will Shakspere of Stratford (the putative author of the Shakespeare canon) buried, then? And why does no one ever ask this rather obvious question?! If the alleged 'Shakespeare' (Will Shakspere) is NOT buried in that 'Shakespeare grave' in Stratford, then where IS he buried? (Alexander Waugh makes a persuasive case for Edward de Vere's being buried in Westminster Abbey - but what about that old businessman and theatre owner, William Shakspere?).

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

We don't know that Shakespeare's grave is empty. We know that his gravestone has been cut down from its original size and shored up. Groud-Penetrating Radar is not able to differentiate between a 400 year-old skeleton and the soil it's buried in.

[@mondomacabromajor5731]

In 2016 Ground Penetrating Radar scans were performed, and showed that there is definitely something like a body in the grave - but it has been disturbed in the past and may be missing a head. Folklore has long claimed that in 1794, a doctor robbed Shakespeare’s grave and made off with his head! Shakespeare’s skull had been rumoured to rest in a crypt in a nearby village called Beoley. But when researchers examined that skull they found it belonged to an unknown old woman! Where exactly Shakespeare’s skull might be remains a mystery - if it is Shakespeare's skull and body at all, as it is unknown who wrote his epitaph in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon, which claims the grave has a curse upon it. The epitaph reads, “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebeare/ To digg the dust enclosed heare/ Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, / And curst be he that moves my bones.” Sounds more like a silly Pirates curse than quality 'Shakespeare' !! Two more curious facts have bothered researches for hundreds of years: 1/ No name: Of the family members buried side by side, the supposed William Shakespeare’s ledger stone is the only one that never carried a name. 2/ Short grave: The stone itself is too short for a grave. At less than a meter in length, Shakespeare's ledger stone is shorter than the others, including that of his wife, Anne Hathaway. Was he buried standing up? Shakespeare’s mysteriously short ledger stone also corresponds to a repair that has been made underneath the stone floor to support it. Experts suggest that this is due to disturbance at the head end of the grave which has caused significantly more subsidence than elsewhere. Maybe those who cut the ledger stone down from its original size and shored up the form, also wrote the inscription in an attempt to 'suggest' the Stratford man was the London Playwright ... in the same way someone refashioned the Shakespeare monument from holding a sack of grain to writing on parchment, at some point in the past - maybe at the same time... We can see that modern Stratford-upon-Avon has been very commercially successful with the Shakespeare link - as loose as it is!!

[@douglashoover6473]

I liked the point the peculiar attitude of the Shakespeare monument in Westminster Abbey makes a Chi-Rho, like the old statue of a Templar. Perhaps a collection could be taken up to do a ground scan to see if anyone is buried underneath the monument.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

ground Penetrating Radar cannot see human remains. It only spots voids and “grave goods” such as jewelry or the nails in a coffin.

[@Kyusoath]

"hidden geometries and decoding grid patterns" ah yes because the people behind this really wanted to let people know in very vague and uncertain terms about it later, of course.

[@valq10]

Alexander Waugh is a great example of the fact that birth, not merit, determines whose voices get heard in British society. Calling him a 'scholar' is a bit much.

[@joecurran2811]

Oxfordians barely get any attention in the media.

[@afhickman]

I just read a book that says if Shakespeare had written about anything, he'd have written about gloves. Which explains why Ben Jonson only wrote about bricks and Christopher Marlowe only wrote about shoes.

[@Nullifidian]

Not to mention that allusions to the gloves and the glovers' trade are frequently encountered in the plays. In _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ , Falstaff's beard is likened to "a glover's paring-knife", in _Twelfth Night_ Feste says of Viola's banter with him that "[a] sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit", etc.

[@veronica_._._._]

This is 50% fraternal societies faking a their backstory, and 50% intense disdain for commoners.

[@kathydent2116]

Shakespeare did write about gloves. Or, rather, about the leather used in glovemaking. He also used many Warwickshire dialect words in his work. This is not something that the Oxfordians want to discuss.

[@T0varisch]

@@kathydent2116 no mention of Stratford, no school attended, no mention by a single person in Stratford of this greatest of poets. Most damning, John Hall, friend of Drayton who's huge chunk of marble in the South Transept just happens to be staring down at De Vere's grave, never mentions anything about his father in law. I've heard Oxfordians talk about De Vere's references to leather working, I'll find you the video if you want.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@T0varisch No, thank you.

[@davidhawk9678]

stopped watching at @40.47 when this supposedly intellectual started calling an ellipse a "perfect circle" up until then nothing he even said was about Shakespeare being a fake.

[@dakrontu]

I find it hard to believe that a group of scholars of Shakespeare's time could have succeeded in concocting such an elaborate encoding of information. It would be extremely difficult to find a suitable sequence of words that, grouped in rows of 19 letters, do what is required. And assuming they did so, they would be committing the information to obscurity, with little hope of anyone ever figuring it out. After all, it has taken 4 centuries so far.

[@anesu846]

The bible was way more impressive than this and written many years before these codes

[@dakrontu]

@@anesu846 The bible is more impressive in what way?

[@anesu846]

@@dakrontu in terms of codes

[@dakrontu]

@@anesu846 Codes in the bible? Like what? (Bear in mind that the KJV bible is not in the same language used by the original authors.)

[@anesu846]

@@dakrontu yeah ofcourse. The original Greek text. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head but look it up. It's insane

[@tamrielsknight]

Even if we believe that Shakespeare is a pseudonym then why would someone go to so much trouble to conceal his identity as the real Shakespeare? It's not like he was an especially hunted fugitive back in the day or an agent of rebellion.

[@Aethelvlad]

Because you don't understand the content Shakespeare included or how he encoded the secrets of the Universe. Those who have eyes can see it, and he would have been hunted for releasing what he did when he did, even if you today do not see the deeper coding. He appears to be a normal poet, and you can't see why they would persecute him. That's how effective he was.

[@bluebellwood4287]

In those days in higher echelons it was considered very poor taste to write plays. His court life and reputation were important to him.and so...

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@bluebellwood4287 He was publicly lauded as a writer of comic interludes performed at court. It was not considered beneath his station. Had he written any of Shakespeare's plays, literally hundreds of people at court would have known they were his, including many who hated him. SOMEBODY would have said something when De Vere's Hamlet suddenly appeared in print under the name "Shakespeare".

[@donaldanderson6604]

Thomas Looney was one of the first anti Stratfordians.

[@aristideau5072]

those angles aren't right angles. they are visibly off by several degrees

[@dogvom]

I'm surprised you didn't mention that there are 6 letters in Edward, 2 letters in De, and 4 letters in Vere. I also included an Oxford comma in the above sentence. In the end, it really doesn't matter who wrote the plays and poems. What matters is that they were written, and that we have them.

[@robertn800]

No 🚫 History & Truth demand that Genius is recognized by knowing who wrote Shakespeare -not a straw man or a ghost 👻

[@timothyharris4708]

@@robertn800 History & Truth say that a man named William Shakespeare wrote them. If you have evidence to the contrary, provide it.

[@menschkeit1]

this would be true with a lesser author but unfortunately in this case, if you get Shakespeare wrong you get the plays wrong

[@kookysis2741]

@@timothyharris4708 History has been whitewashed. Mr "shakespeare" said ALL the world is a stage and all men and women are merely players. His plays have been written by a black woman named Emilia Bassano. Imagine 24 years from now Michael Jackson's music was stolen by some man who dresses "like" michael and stole all his credit. Would you say that doesn't matter or does the TRUTH that it was stolen and not original matter?

[@timothyharris4708]

@@kookysis2741 I suggest, Sis, that you indulge in your Kookery in private.

[@bokhans]

I guess his estimate of 1000 viewers on internet was a bit pessimistic, it’s more than 27000 now. Internet is fantastic.

[@timothyharris4708]

It isn't when you see most of the comments.

[@susanwozniak6354]

Why do I feel like I have just watched a Monty Python skit?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

No you didn't.

[@johnbyrne1022]

Note to self: never play this guy in scrabble. Because he's a barking lunatic.

[@Nullifidian]

@Recuts If there is a fine line between genius and insanity, Waugh has gone galloping over it at top speed on the back of a unicorn on his way to the Mad Hatter's tea party.

[@Nullifidian]

@Recuts I do understand what's going on here. Waugh decides that there _must_ be a secret message in advance because all the documentary evidence and the contemporary testimony supports Shakespeare's authorship on its face. Therefore he's forced to posit that there _must_ be something under the surface. Then he supplies the entire context in the process of 'deciphering' the code, never bothers to demonstrate that the said code was actually _current_ in early modern England, and judges the success of his results by how much they tell him what he wants to believe. In short, what Waugh is doing is reading his prior beliefs into the text. It's a textbook case of confirmation bias. And the very complexity of Waugh's delusions is what kills his claims stone dead. In the early modern era, all typesetting was done by hand... by the compositors... who chose the layout and spelling of the text themselves. There is simply no way of achieving what Waugh wants to believe was achieved until substantially into the 20th century. It would be hard enough to get a simple substitution cipher through the early modern press given the possibility-indeed the probability-that a seemingly random string of letters would be placed in the wrong order. Edward de Vere would have had to be standing in the print shop himself to direct the compositors in their task in order to have a prayer of any sort of code or cipher being transmitted successfully, but Waugh finds 'codes' in works that were first printed long after de Vere's death like the sonnets (1609) and the First Folio (1623).

[@georginankansah5091]

The simplest solution is usually the best. This is high farce, much better than anything Shakespeare wrote

[@CurflanderHolyfield]

I began to watch and quickly gave up. Dude was being much too cheeky and too eager in the intro. The precision he demonstrates is the sales pitch thus giving himself away that this is a hustle and a fraud. Only way you could prove this would be with a time machine anyhow

[@steinwey]

In the same way, it has been "proven" that JS Bach predicted his own death.

[@patricktilton5377]

I've been fascinated for some time, now, by the findings of both Alan Green and Alexander Waugh, which complement each other, and it's nice to see Mr. Waugh give credit to Mr. Green -- and to John Rollett, for his "6-2-4" insight, which jump-started this decryption, one might say -- for his discovery of the hidden circle geometry on the Title page. Why "Brian's Bookshelves" has a problem with the letter "T" being a symbol for "God" is beyond me. I may not believe in the existence of God, but from my study of the Bible, including the languages in which Judaeo-Christian scripture was written -- Hebrew and Greek -- the very word (in Greek) translated "God" is Theos, spelled Theta-Epsilon-Omicron-Sigma; and, after the English language ceased using the archaic letter Thorn regularly, that meant that the single letter Theta was transliterated with the two English [i.e. Latin alphabetic] letters T and H . . . and perhaps Mr. Waugh might add this buttressing fact to his Triple Tau christogram, which also looks like a 'T' atop an 'H'. And when Jesus refers to himself as the Alpha and Omega, that's like saying -- in Hebrew -- that he's the Aleph and the Taw, Taw being equivalent to the Greek letter Tau; it would be like saying he's the "A" and the "Z" if using the English alphabet, the First and the Last. It makes perfect sense, and if "BB" can't see that, he's willfully blind. Waugh's presentation here -- as are his other KZbin videos -- is absolutely brilliant: it took a bit of latter day genius to rediscover the work of genius that John Dee (et al.) put into these two pages [Title and dedication] of SHAKESPEARES SONNETS. I became a Non-Stratfordian after reading the first part of Charlton Ogburn's THE MYSTERIOUS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, and I became an Oxfordian by the time I finished it: the brilliant work that Rollett, Waugh, and Green have done towards decrypting these two enigmatic pages has only proved to be the icing on the cake . . . the cherry on the top of the chocolate shake. How any thinking person can remain a Stratfordian after having the Big Secret decoded so magnificently . . . well, I just have to pity them. Every great mystery has a Red Herring in it, to throw you off-the-scent. The Red Herring of this mystery of mysteries was a chap named William Shakspere, and he's served his purpose. But the mystery's been solved. The true author of the immortal poems and plays was Edward de Vere, XVIIth Earl of Oxford. And now we all know where he's buried, thanks to Mr. Waugh. VERO NIHIL VERIUS indeed!

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

The fact that you had to jump through so many mental hoops to reach that conclusion is prima facie evidence that it's a bunch of made-up malarkey. If the letter T were somehow a symbol for God, there would be a documented history of this being the case, don't you think?

[@timothyharris4708]

Have you ever read de Vere's insipid verse & insipid prose (or read about his equally insipid life) and compared it to what Shakespeare does? No, you haven't. What appalls me is the appeal to ignorant and thoughtless people of the pitiful abstractions and fake 'discoveries' of someone like Waugh. Those who believe that Marlowe faked his death and wrote all of Shakespeare's plays are another example. I love Marlowe's work, and think him a great writer, but his sensibility and manner of writing are radically different from Shakespeare's. The supporters of Marlowe as Shakespeare seem wholly unable to comprehend how Marlowe's manner of writing both verse and plays differs from Shakespeare's. Waugh is descended from a family of unpleasant snobs, and he is continuing the tradition. Nobody supposes that because Dickens spent part of his childhood working in a blacking factory he was not the 'real' writer of his novels, or because Mark Twain finished his formal education at the age of twelve that somebody else must have written 'Huckleberry Finn'. But snobbish little men like Waugh spend their time wasting their own & others' time appealing to the pathetic snobbery of the ignorant and insensitive, and the fact that they no doubt receive fat fees for the rubbish that they propagate infuriates me. .

[@patricktilton5377]

@@timothyharris4708 I've said it before and I'll say it here again. Before 1920, when the first book suggesting that Edward de Vere was 'Shakespeare' was published, the few people who had ever read Oxford's extant poetry -- his juvenilia -- had generally only good things to say about his poetic talents. It wasn't until AFTER he was suggested to have gone on to write the 'Shakespeare' works under a pseudonym/allonym, that Stratfordians began to denigrate Oxford's juvenilia -- poems he wrote when he was a kid, just getting his feet wet in the art of versifying. Secondly: Waugh's discoveries are not 'fake'. They're THERE, for anyone to see who has eyes to see. Thirdly, it's interesting that you cite 'Mark Twain' -- a man whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a man who ridiculed the notion that William Shakspere of Stratford wrote the 'Shakespeare' works. At the time he died, the 'candidate' for Shakespeare's laurels whom most Non-Stratfordians gravitated to was Sir Francis Bacon; whether Twain would have shifted his allegiance to Edward de Vere -- had he lived another 10+ years and had the opportunity to read "SHAKESPEARE IDENTIFIED" (1920) -- is something we'll never know. Maybe he would have remained a Baconian. Maybe he would have become an Oxfordian. But he died believing that Shakspere of Stratford was not and could never have been the author of HAMLET. The accusations of 'snobbery' by you Stratfordian hacks is utterly abominable. The fact is that 'Shakespeare' was as great as he was because he was LUCKY, because he -- being born to privilege -- had access to an education that only the wealthiest people in England could provide for their children. A commoner like Ben Jonson, true, could acquire a great education, when granted the patronage of another -- but even he could not have had access to the best libraries of that day. There were no public libraries back then where anybody from any rank of society could go to peruse any and every book to their heart's content. When Edward's father died, he -- aged only 12 -- became a Ward of the Crown, living until his majority in the household of William Cecil, the most powerful man in England as well as the possessor of the greatest personal library in England. One of the tutors Cecil provided for his Ward was Laurence Nowell, an expert in Anglo-Saxon language and literature -- the very man who acquired the manuscript containing the only extant text of BEOWULF. Scholars have puzzled over the strange fact that Hamlet's dying words to Horatio bear an uncanny resemblance to Beowulf's dying words to Wiglaf . . . but it makes perfect sense for Edward de Vere, in a play written about a Danish Prince, to make use of BEOWULF as a source, going above and beyond the extant versions of the Hamlet/Amlodhi myth from Belleforest and Saxo Grammaticus. Oxford was UNIQUELY positioned to have an awareness of the contents of BEOWULF, given that his tutor (who was in possession of the manuscript) was able to translate it for him. Nobody else -- from Bacon to Marlowe to Kyd to Lyly to Jonson to Shakspere of Stratford, NOBODY ELSE -- was in such a position to become familiar with such an obscure source. Nobody but the privileged nobleman's son, raised as a Ward with access to all the books he could ever dream of having to pursue bookish interests. It's not 'snobbery' to recognize that the wealthy and privileged were born with advantages they didn't earn, yet nevertheless enjoyed through the accident of their aristocratic birth. Kudos to any enterprising person who accomplishes great things WITHOUT enjoying access to the best possible education society might have to offer. But let us -- if we're not mentally deranged -- admit that even in the ranks of the aristocracy there are those who occasionally pursue a passion that makes them "lose caste" among their own peers. Edward de Vere became not only the hidden author of the greatest dramas ever written in English, but he was also the principal patron of a school of poet-dramatists -- i.e. he was 'slumming it' with fellow poets devoted to the dramatic arts. The Queen herself thwarted his earlier aspirations of seeking military glory -- as his cousins Horace and Francis (the Fighting Veres) did -- because she cherished his gifts as a poet, she being a connoisseur of poetry and one who delighted in Plays. De Vere was allowed to achieve greatness as a writer, a poet-dramatist . . . a pursuit that his status as the premier Earl of England prevented him from receiving public acknowledgement for it. The 'rules' of the game demanded that he publish his works either ANONYMOUSLY (as the first 5 plays were), or PSEUDONYMOUSLY and/or ALLONYMOUSLY. Thus, he invented the name "William Shakespeare" and published the polished poem VENUS AND ADONIS in 1583 as "the first heir of my invention" -- i.e. the first work published using that invented name. And the rest is history.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@patricktilton5377 Yes no doubt you have said it before, and no doubt you have said it again. 'And the rest is history,' you write triumphantly at the end of your screed. It is not. Yes, I am well aware of Mark Twain's ideas about who wrote certain plays. But I was not discussing that, or interested in discussing that. The point is the snobbery (I mean it) of people who suppose that people born into relatively humble circumstances are unlikely to produce good or great work. The final words that Beowulf speaks are these: 'Þú eart endeláf ússes cynnes Waégmundinga ealle wyrd forswéop míne mágas tó metodsceafte eorlas on elne· ic him æfter sceal.' Hamlet's final words are as follows: O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit. I cannot live to hear the news from England, But I do prophesy th’election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited-the rest is silence. Perhaps it is the case that you are unable to read Old English. In case you cannot, which I suspect is so, let me assure you that it is both wrong and disingenuous to assert that Beowulf's dying words bear any resemblance to Hamlet's, and it is also wrong and disingenuous to assert that 'Scholars have puzzled over the strange fact that Hamlet's dying words to Horatio bear an uncanny resemblance to Beowulf's dying words to Wiglaf.' I very much doubt that you can, or will, provide a list of those 'scholars'. Your whole screed is riddled with this kind of ambiguous, vapid nonsense. You provide no evidence whatsoever for your claims - merely a sort of allusive, superficial knowingness that is designed to appeal to the ignorant, the foolish and the conspiracy-minded. It certainly does not appeal to me. I prefer honesty & truth.

[@timothyharris4708]

The first sentence should read: 'Yes no doubt you have said it before, and no doubt you will say it again.'

[@TheMangoDeluxe]

Very interesting. Complete bollocks but very interesting.

[@Horizon344]

agreed

[@GeorgiaAlbert]

After reading these comments I realized the secrets of the Twice Eleven Brethren are safe and will remain hidden from the Commoners.

[@leewuo4443]

Two man wrote for Shakespeare and he took credit for their work so he didn’t write the plays that was someone else like Edward and Christopher but mostly Christopher.

[@donrayjay]

Who’s madder the presenter of people watching it?

[@davidhannigan672]

Great work. The link with Alan Green’s work is important. It would be great if both Alexander and Alan could present together at some point. It is time to reunite de Vere and the manuscript of the first folio.

[@benpholmes]

Wow, what a beautiful mind! This reminds me of mathematician John Nash in the famous biopic . . . before he got mental help.

[@latifahafid7880]

I thought of the same thing.

[@delphilungwyn5308]

Shakespeare like Jesus, is not found in his grave.⚓👁🤫

[@ExposingBethel]

The 4th T has the Key to the Oak Island treasure. . .it is his 1729 World Trust...and as such is the King Solomons Cursed Gold. The financial backing for the 1 world NESARA/Gesara-Prosperity Funds. The Mark.

[@franklulatowskijr.6974]

My Apophenia Detector just went through the roof.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

And made a hole the shape of a rabbit.

[@olafshomkirtimukh9935]

Why would the earl use a pseudonym? was "writing" infra dig for the nobility? + the classic portrait that we all know of Shakespeare (from the 1st Folio), was it then also entirely imaginary or based on someone who actually lent his face to the construction of the myth -- for it, certainly, isn't the portrait of Earl de Vere.

[@geraldphillips1450]

Wow, Brunel doing their level best to discredit themselves as a serious university.

[@HarrySmith-hr2iv]

Why don't you study the subject in depth before making bland, supercilious comments?

[@geraldphillips1450]

@@HarrySmith-hr2iv Why don't you stop believing absolutely absurd conspiracy theories? I don't need to waste my time studying any nonsense some buffoon comes up with in his parent's basement "in depth" to know that it's nonsense. These are the same idiotic "codes" that every fool who disputes Shakepearian authorship uses to prove his favourite wrote it, and guess what, they all "work". Why do you think that is, Einstein? Have you studied it in depth?

[@timothyharris4708]

@@HarrySmith-hr2iv I doubt very much, Harry, that you have studied the subject in depth, if at all. That is why you are capable of writing such banal & ignorant comments.

[@HarrySmith-hr2iv]

@@timothyharris4708 You sound triggered. What triggered you? Where did you study? You bought your Doctorate from a fake online USA Uni. right?

[@timothyharris4708]

@@HarrySmith-hr2iv Ah, a banal little deflection strategy. Quite Trumpian in its banality.

[@peterrichards931]

Anti-Stratfordians have it all figured out. Anyone 400 years ago who wrote or said that Shakespeare of Stratford actually wrote the plays falls into one of the following categories: (1) They only knew-of Shakespeare by word of mouth or publication, and were tricked into thinking he wrote the plays. (2) They knew Shakespeare personally, but not close enough to know that Shakespeare was a phony. (3) They knew Shakespeare closely, and had to know he was a phony, but testified again and again that Shakespeare wrote the plays as part of the massive cover-up. The problem is that no person at all falls outside of those categories. No person falls between the cracks and says straight-out that Shakespeare actually didn't write the plays, and that instead there are many, many coded references indicating Shakespeare didn't write the plays.

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

There is another category: 4) They knew "Shakespeare" was a pen-name and that the real author could not be mentioned. If they knew the man from Stratford at all it would be as the front-man for the author who could not be mentioned. - There are exactly zero references about "Shakespeare" that indicate anything biographical about Shakespeare, - none of the references that do exist indicate that the writer of that reference actually knew The Author personally (although some may seem to suggest it) - it cannot be corroborated that any of the references that "seem to suggest" that the writer knew Shakespeare personally did actually know The Author personally.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 You forgot #5: They're barking mad, don't have any evidence whatsoever, and make up whatever they must in order to make their hypothesis work at a remove of 400 years.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Have you ever heard of, for example, Ben Jonson? Why do you so readily trot out these complete falsehoods?

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

@@timothyharris4708 If I said Stephen King is the master of suspense, it wouldn't indicate that I have ever met Stephen King, and if you did research you wouldn't be able to find evidence that I had ever met him. Because I never have. But it doesn't stop me from writing about him. All of the so-called personal references to Shakespeare are the same type of thing. They are essentially book reviews, and despite exhaustive searching not one of those leads has resulted in evidence that even suggest that anyone who commented on Shakespeare actually ever met the man. In fact, not only did no one save a letter that "Shakespeare" had ever written to them, no one even mentions him in the third person in any private correspondence. No one seems to have known him personally. It's you that is trotting out the falsehoods, like the one where Ben Jonson was friends with Shakespeare. There is just no evidence except for some published remarks that amount to the same thing as me saying Stephen King is the master of suspense. They don't indicate that anyone actually knew Shakespeare and follow up research has never proven that they actually did.

[@timothyharris4708]

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 You don't know what you are talking about, or you are deliberately lying. Your statement that 'follow-up research has never proven that they' (Ben Jonson or whoever and Shakespeare) knew each other is wholly false. You clearly know nothing about the historical records, and you clearly know nothing about the research that has been done. The 'personal references' to Shakespeare are not all 'essentially book reviews', and it is wholly untrue to say that 'despite exhaustive searching not one of those leads has resulted in evidence that even suggest that anyone who commented on Shakespeare actually ever met the man'. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the records before you come out with such falsehoods. But no doubt you will not. You will prefer to live with your ignorance and prejudice and lies.

[@abcde_fz]

His analysis of the wall plaque requires a little bit too much 'switching around' of the order of the words (the "with in" choice is one thing, but the OTHER spot to break the text in, he offers NO explanation for). He completely missed the "Socratem" mistake, and the out of place German words also.

[@onefeather2]

Love mystery and codes and clues, "Cracking The Shakespeare Code" was interesting and started me wanting to know more about Shakespeare, believing these theories or not it is interesting. When watching Petter Amundsen Cracking the Shakespeare Code, it is amazing how his thinking/mind works and how he sees all that he does, that to me is the most interesting even if one does not believe in what he finds, how he sees what he does and connects it and he goes so Deep into the writings of Shakespeare is amazing. Just my thoughts. But I think I would go for Francis Bacon before De Vere.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Bacon at least had the brain power and the drive, if not the sense of humor or the flair for writing. De Vere was a wastrel who never did any work in his life. Writing the works of Shakespeare would have required a great deal of labor.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@UC7mJxNi83F9oFDUUKAMUcEg I know it when I see it. Everything we have from De Vere tells us that he didn't have it.

[@koenvanvlaenderen5568]

Bacon had the right background and mind to "be" Shakespeare. Some say Bacon was the secret son of queen Elizabeth the first.

[@shellymaycock6676]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Only if you believe Nelson, the hired character assasin whose book is full of unwarranted, unsupported and blatantly, laughably obviously biased ad hominems... like most other de Vere trolls.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@shellymaycock6676 Or if I've read the original documents, like his own letters begging for government sinecures. He went from being one of the richest peers in England to relying on charity. He sold off his patrimony to finance his lifestyle. That's the hallmark of a wastrel. Would such a person put in the time it learn a craft such as theater and then actually sit down and do a lot of writing? The evidence says he was known for writing skits. I suppose a wastrel might manage that, with help from his hired pens.

[@Alanoffer]

Whether you believe this or not it’s a fascinating idea ,,I’m hooked at the first few minutes ,

[@timothyharris4708]

So long as you are not hooked in...

[@Steve-O-Resident-Expert]

I thought this was long known that Francis Bacon was the writer and used Shakespeare as a dupe

[@Nullifidian]

No, it's not "known" for the basic reason that nothing that is utterly without evidence can be said to be known. Sometimes I wonder if people who say things like these bother to read the work of the candidates they offer. Aside from the fact that Francis Bacon was far too busy with his own extensive body of writings to also write Shakespeare's plays, he was openly contemptuous of theatre in his writings, and his own dramatic works-because he occasionally wrote masques and devices-are very wretched things that don't come within hailing distance of Shakespeare's plays. Why should Bacon have presented inferior, trivial works to the court he was constantly trying to butter up and write his great dramatic creations for the public theatres? And if he had been the real author, what better way of ingratiating himself with James I and VI, who was the patron of the King's Men, by informing him that he wrote all the plays James so enjoyed himself? Nothing about this scenario makes any kind of sense.

[@Steve-O-Resident-Expert]

@@Nullifidian that's a very nice review but changes not my remark. Bacon sought to influence thru his writings not guarantee his own torture and execution. He thought Shakespeare the perfect dupe.

[@Nullifidian]

@@Steve-O-Resident-Expert So you think he would have been tortured and executed for his plays, but... Shakespeare could get away with them? I take it that you've never investigated the early modern theatre in any depth, otherwise you would have come across the Master of the Revels. Aside from being the man who organized entertainments for the court, he also functioned as the state censor for the plays produced in the public theatres. A play had to be passed as acceptable by the Master of the Revels to be staged publicly. If Bacon were including treasonable writings in his plays (of course, people like you never actually specifically identify anything treasonable in the plays, probably because you've never read them), then it wouldn't matter if Shakespeare's name were on them because they'd never be passed by the Master of the Revels anyway. And when did Bacon have the time to write these plays in between his extensive body of acknowledged work and his official government functions?

[@Steve-O-Resident-Expert]

@@Nullifidian I don't "think" any of these things . These are the beliefs of many who came before me and you are correct I have not the knowledge you reference. However, Bacon seems to have had plenty of time and you left out his editing of the King James bible. Do you dispute this as well?

[@Nullifidian]

@@Steve-O-Resident-Expert So then you're arguing that we know these things for a fact merely because they're "believed" by "many who came before [you]"? But Oxfordianism was also believed by many who came before you. Why not accept his candidacy? Essentially, this is a reason for accepting every authorship candidate proposed before a week last Tuesday. As far as Bacon editing the King James Bible, I "left it out" because I can't possibly foresee all the crackpot things you take for truth without any evidence to support them. I also left out Bigfoot, aliens building the pyramids, creationism, and the flat earth on the same basis. And yes, I do dispute it because there's no evidence Bacon had any role in creating the King James Bible. We know exactly who was on the translation teams of the KJV and Bacon's name was not among them. They were all theologians and churchmen, men with _relevant_ expertise in the subject of the Bible. Why would Bacon have been involved?