Baconian theory

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Sir Francis Bacon is often cited as a possible author of Shakespeare's plays.

The Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon wrote
the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare.
The most popular view today is that William Shakespeare of Stratford, an actor in the
Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), wrote the poems and plays that bear his
name. The Baconians, however, hold that scholars are so focused on the details of
Shakespeare's life that they neglect to investigate the many facts that they see as
connecting Bacon to the Shakespearean work. "It is perfectly true," declared Harry
Stratford Caldecott in an 1895 Johannesburg lecture, "that the great bulk of English
critical opinion refuses to recognise or admit the fact that there is any question or
controversy about the matter. If it did so, it would find itself face to face with a problem
which it would be absolutely unable to determine in harmony with preconceived ideas.
Consequently, it endeavours to ignore or waive aside any suggestion of a doubt as to the
authorship of these immortal works, as if it were an ugly spectre or troublesome
nightmare. It is, notwithstanding, a perfectly tangible, flesh-and-blood difficulty and must
sooner or later be faced and grappled with in a manly and straightforward way."[1] The
Baconians' first objective is to establish reasonable doubt in the Stratford man's
authorship claim and then, having justified the need to examine an alternative candidate,
cite the many possible connections between Sir Francis Bacon and the Shakespearean
work. (See Shakespearean authorship.)
The main Baconian evidence is founded on the presentation of a motive for concealment,
the circumstances surrounding the first known performance of The Comedy of Errors, the

close proximity of Bacon to the William Strachey letter upon which many scholars think
The Tempest was based, perceived allusions in the plays to Bacon's legal acquaintances,
the many supposed parallels with the plays of Bacon's published work and entries in the
Promus (his private wastebook), Bacon's interest in civil histories, and ostensible
autobiographical allusions in the plays. Since Bacon had first-hand knowledge of
government cipher methods,[2] most Baconians see it as feasible that he left his signature
somewhere in the Shakespearean work.
As in the cases of every other candidate, the Stratford man is claimed to have acted as a
mask for the concealed author. Supporters of the standard view, often referred to as
"Stratfordian" or "Mainstream", dispute all contentions in favour of Bacon, and criticize
Bacon's poetry as not being comparable in quality with that of Shakespeare.

Contents
[hide] [hide]
1 Mainstream view
2 Terminology
3 History of Baconian theory
4 Autobiographical evidence
5 Credentials for authorship
6 The Tempest
7 Gray's Inn revels 1594-95
8 Verbal parallels
o 8.1 Gesta Grayorum
o 8.2 Promus
o 8.3 Published work
9 Raleigh's execution
10 Critical reception
11 See also
12 References
13 Notes
14 External links
o 14.1 General Non-Stratfordian
o 14.2 Baconian
o

14.3 Stratfordian

Mainstream view
The mainstream view is that William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in
1564. He then moved to London and became a poet, a playwright, an actor, and "sharer"
(part-owner) of the favoured acting company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later
the King's Men), which owned the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre in London.
He divided his time between London and Stratford, and retired there around 1613 before
his death in 1616.[3]In 1623, seven years after his death (and after the death of all of the

proposed candidates except Bacon), his plays were collected for publication in the First
Folio edition.
Shakespeare of Stratford is further identified by the following evidence: He left gifts to
actors from the London company in his will (although these words were interlined - i.e.:
inserted between previously written lines), the man from Stratford and the author of the
works share a common name; and commendatory poems in the 1623 First Folio of
Shakespeare's works refer to the "Swan of Avon" and his "Stratford monument".[4]
Mainstream scholars assume that the latter phrase refers to the funerary monument in
Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, which refers to Shakespeare as a writer (comparing him
to Virgil and calling his writing a "living art"), and was described as such by visitors to
Stratford as far back as the 1630s.[5] From the above evidence, the mainstream view is
that William Shakespeare of Stratford, who left his home town and became an actor and
playwright in London, wrote Shakespeare's plays.
Several pieces of circumstantial evidence support the Stratfordian view: firstly, in a 1592
pamphlet by the playwright Robert Greene called "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit", Greene
chastises a playwright whom he calls "Shake-scene", calling him "an upstart crow" and a
"Johannes factotum" (a "Jack-of-all-trades", a man able to feign skill), thus suggesting
that people were aware of a writer named Shakespeare.[6] Also, poet John Davies once
referred to Shakespeare as "our English Terence", though this is a mixed reference as
Cicero, Quintilian, Michel de Montaigne, and many of his contemporary Elizabethan
scholars knew Terence as a front man for one or more Roman aristocratic playwrights.[6]
Additionally, Shakespeare's grave monument in Stratford, built within a decade of his
death, currently features him with a pen in hand, suggesting that he was known as a
writer. However, researchers debate whether the monument itself was altered after its
original creation, and whether or not the original monument merely showed a man
holding a grain sack.[6]

Terminology
Sir Francis Bacon was a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist,
historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney
General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618).
Those who subscribe to the theory that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare work
generally refer to themselves as "Baconians", while dubbing those who maintain the
orthodox view that William Shakspeare of Stratford wrote them "Stratfordians".
Baptised as William Shakspere, the Stratford man used several variants of his name
during his lifetime, including "Shakespeare". Baconians use "Shakspere"[7] or
"Shakespeare" for the glover's son and actor from Stratford, and "Shake-speare" for the
author to avoid the assumption that the Stratford man wrote the work.

History of Baconian theory

Sir Francis Bacon's letter to John Davies "so desiring you to be good to concealed poets".
In a letter to the barrister and poet John Davies in 1603, Bacon refers to himself as a
"concealed poet".[8] Baconians claim that certain of his contemporaries knew of and
hinted at this secret authorship. The satirical poets Joseph Hall (1574-1656) and John
Marston (1575-1634) in the so-called Hall-Marston satires,[9][10] discuss between them a
character called Labeo in relation to Shakespeare's long poem "Venus and Adonis"
(1593). Perceiving that Hall is criticising "Venus and Adonis" as a lewd Mirror-genre
poem,[11] Marston writes "What, not mediocria firma from thy spight?", "mediocria
firma" being the Bacon family motto. In 1781, a Warwickshire clergyman and scholar
named James Wilmot, having failed to find significant evidence from his research in the
Stratford district relating to Shakspere's authorship, suspected that Shakspere could not
be the author of the works that bear his name. Wilmot was familiar with the writings of
Francis Bacon and formed the opinion that he was more likely the real author of the
Shakespearean canon. Persuaded of Bacon's authorship of the Shakespeare poems and
plays, he related his view to James Cowell, who revealed it in a paper read to the Ipswich
Philosophical Society in 1805.
The idea that Sir Francis Bacon penned the Shakespeare work was revived by William
Henry Smith in a letter to Lord Ellesmere in 1856.[12] This took the form of a sixteen-page
pamphlet entitled Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?[13] in which Smith
noted several letters to and from Francis Bacon that apparently hinted at his authorship. A
year later, both Smith and Delia Bacon published books expounding the Baconian theory.
[14][15]
In the latter work, Shakespeare was represented as a group of writers, including
Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, whose agenda was to propagate
an anti-monarchial system of philosophy by secreting it in the text.
In 1867, in the library of Northumberland House, one John Bruce happened upon a
bundle of bound documents, some of whose sheets had been ripped away. It had
comprised numerous of Bacon's oratories and disquisitions, and also, once, the
manuscripts of Richard II and Richard III, but these had been removed. On the outer
sheet was scrawled repeatedly the names of Bacon and Shakespeare. There were several
quotations from the latter's poems and one, too, from Love's Labour's Lost. The Earl of
Northumberland sent the bundle to James Spedding, who subsequently penned a thesis on
the subject, with which was published a facsimile of the aforementioned cover. Spedding
hazarded a 1592 date, making it possibly the earliest extant mention of the Swan of Avon.
The Northumberland manuscript, while not proving that Bacon wrote the plays, shows us
that Bacon was in possession of their manuscripts. It is not known how he came to own
them and why they were destroyed.
After a diligent deciphering of the Elizabethan handwriting in Francis Bacon's
wastebook, the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, Constance Mary Fearon Pott

(1833-1915) noted that many of the ideas and figures of speech in Bacon's book could
also be found in the Shakespearean plays. Pott founded the Francis Bacon Society in
1885 and published her Bacon-centered theory in 1891.[16] In this, Pott developed the
view of W.F.C. Wigston,[17] that Francis Bacon was the founding member of the
Rosicrucians, a secret society of occult philosophers, and claimed that they secretly
created art, literature and drama, including the entire Shakespeare canon, before adding
the symbols of the rose and cross to their work.
The late 19th-century interest in the Baconian theory continued the theme that Bacon had
secreted encoded messages in the plays. In 1888, Ignatius L. Donnelly, a U.S.
Congressman, science fiction author and Atlantis theorist, set out his notion of ciphers in
The Great Cryptogram, while Elizabeth Wells Gallup, having read Bacon's account of his
'bi-literal cipher' (in which two fonts were used as a method of encoding in binary
format), claimed to have found evidence that Bacon not only authored the Shakespearean
works but, along with the Earl of Essex, he was a child of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl
of Leicester, who had been secretly married. No-one else was able to discern these hidden
messages, and the cryptographers William and Elizabeth Friedman showed that the
method is unlikely to have been employed.[18]
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) expressed interest in and gave credence to the Baconian
theory in his writings. The German mathematician Georg Cantor believed that
Shakespeare was Bacon, but he was apparently suffering a bout of illness when he
researched the subject in 1884. He eventually published two pamphlets supporting the
theory in 1896 and 1897.
The American physician Dr Orville Ward Owen (1854-1924) had such conviction in his
own cipher method that, in 1909, he began excavating the bed of the River Wye, near
Chepstow Castle, in the search of Bacon's original Shakespearean manuscripts. Only his
death in 1924 prevented him from persisting with the project.
The American art collector Walter Conrad Arensberg (1878-1954) believed that Bacon
had concealed messages in a variety of ciphers, relating to a secret history of the time and
the esoteric secrets of the Rosicrucians, in the Shakespearean works. He published a
variety of decipherments between 1922 and 1930, concluding finally that, although he
had failed to find them, there certainly were concealed messages. He established the
Francis Bacon Foundation in California in 1937 and left it his collection of Baconiana.
More recent Baconian theory ignores the esoteric following that the theory had earlier
attracted.[19] Whereas, previously, the main proposed reason for secrecy was Bacon's
desire for high office, this theory posits that his main motivation for concealment was the
completion of his Great Instauration project.[20][21] The argument runs that, in order to
advance the project's scientific component, he intended to set up new institutes of
experimentation to gather the data (his scientific "Histories") to which his inductive
method could be applied. He needed to attain high office, however, to gain the requisite
influence,[22] and being known as a dramatist (a low-class profession) would have
impeded his prospects. Realising that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of

educating men's minds to virtue",[23] and being "strongly addicted to the theatre"[24]
himself, he is claimed to have set out the otherwise-unpublished moral philosophical
component of his Great Instauration project in the Shakespearean work (moral
"Histories"). In this way, he could influence the nobility through dramatic performance
with his observations on what constitutes "good" government (as in Prince Hal's
relationship with the Chief Justice in Henry IV, Part 2).

Autobiographical evidence
It is known that, as early as 1595, Bacon employed scriveners,[25] which, one could argue,
would protect his anonymity and account for Heminge and Condell, two actors in
Shakspeare's company, remarking about Shakspere that "wee [sic] have scarce received
from him a blot in his papers".[26] Baconians point out that Bacon's rise to the post of
Attorney General in 1613 coincided with the end of Shakespeare the author's output.
They also stress that he was the only authorship candidate still alive when the First Folio
was published and that it occurred in a period (1621-1626) when Bacon was publishing
his work for posterity after his fall from office gave him the free time.
Henry VIII (1613) may be interpreted as alluding to Bacon's fall from office in 1621,
suggesting that the play had been altered at least five years after Shakspere's death in
1616. The argument relates to Cardinal Wolsey's forfeiture of the Great Seal in the play,
which might be construed as departing from the facts of history to mirror Bacon's own
loss. Bacon lost office on a charge of accepting bribes to influence his judgment of legal
cases, whereas Wolsey's crime was to petition the Pope to delay sanctioning King Henry's
divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Nevertheless, in 3.2.125-8, just before the Great Seal
is reclaimed, King Henry's main concern is an inventory of Wolsey's wealth that has
inadvertently been delivered to him:
King Henry. [...] The several parcels of his Plate, his Treasure,
Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household, which
I find at such a proud rate, that it outspeaks
Possession of a subject.
A few lines later, Wolsey loses the Seal with the stage direction:
Enter to Cardinal Wolsey the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey
and the Lord Chamberlaine.
However, in history, only the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk performed this task,[27] and
Shakespeare has inexplicably added the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlaine. In
Bacon's case, King James "commissioned the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Steward, the Lord
Chamberlaine, and the Earl of Arundel, to receive and take charge of it".[28] Given that
Thomas Howard was the 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey, then the two noblemen that
Shakespeare has added may be construed as references to two of the four that attended
Bacon.

Credentials for authorship

"If we must look for an author outside of Shakespeare himself," said Caldecott, "the only
possible candidate that presents himself is Francis Bacon."[29] Proposed the illustrious
Shakespearean scholar Horace Howard Furness, "Had the plays come down to us
anonymously had the labour of discovering the author been imposed upon future
generations we could have found no one of that day but Francis Bacon to whom to
assign the crown. In this case it would have been resting now upon his head by almost
common consent."[30] "He was," agreed Caldecott, "all the things that the plays of
Shakespeare demand that the author should be a man of vast and boundless ambition
and attainments, a philosopher, a poet, a lawyer, a statesman."[31]
There is indeed much evidence to suggest that Bacon had the credentials to write the
Shakespearean work. In relation to the Stratford man's extensive vocabulary, we have the
words of Dr Samuel Johnson, author of the first dictionary: "[... A] Dictionary of the
English language might be compiled from Bacon's writing alone".[32] The poet Percy
Bysshe Shelly testifies against the notion that Bacon's was an unwaveringly dry legal
style: "Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet majestic rhythm, which satisfies
the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his intellect satisfies the
intellect [...]."[33] Ben Jonson writes in his First-Folio tribute to "The Author Mr William
Shakespeare",
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece and haughtie [sic] Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
"There can be no doubt," said Caldecott, "that Ben Jonson was in possession of the secret
composition of Shakespeare's works." An intimate of both Bacon and Shakespeare he
was for a time the former's stenographer and Latin interpreter, and had his debut as a
playwright produced by the latter[34] he was placed perfectly to be in the know. He did
not name Shakespeare among the sixteen greatest cards of the epoch but wrote of Bacon
that he "hath filled up all the numbers,[35] and performed that in our tongue which may be
compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or to haughty Rome [...] so that he may
be named, and stand as the mark[36] and acme of our language."[37] "If Ben Jonson knew
that the name 'Shakespeare' was a mere cloak for Bacon, it is easy enough to reconcile the
application of the same language indifferently to one and the other. Otherwise," declared
Caldecott, "it is not easily explicable."[38]
Some time subsequent to Shakespeare's expiry, Jonson tackled the panoptic task of
setting down the First Folio and casting away the originals. This was in 1623, when
Bacon had lapsed into penury. Jonson would have been keen to allay his friend's straits,
and the folio's yield would have fitted the bill nicely.
In 1645, there was printed a strange volume entitled The Great Assizes Holden in
Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours. Atop the mountain sat Apollo and, immediately
beneath him, Bacon ("The Lord Verulam, Chancellor of Parnassus"), followed by 25

writers and poets, and then, second last at number 26 (and only as a "juror"), "William
Shakespere". This artifact has frequently been interpreted as suggesting that Francis
Bacon was miles ahead of his coevals and second only to Apollo in the poetical stakes.
That Bacon took a keen interest in civil history is evidenced in his book History of the
Reign of Henry VII (1621), his article the Memorial of Elizabeth (1608) and his letter to
King James in 1610, lobbying for financial support to indite a history of Great Britain: "I
shall have the advantage which almost no writer of history hath had, in that I shall write
of times not only since I could remember, but since I could observe."[39]
Bacon and Shake-speare cover completely the monarchs of the period 1377 to 1603
without duplicating one another's historical ground. In 1623, Bacon gave different
excuses to Prince Charles for not working on a commissioned treatise on Henry VIII
(which had already been covered by the Shake-speare play in 1613).[40] In the end, he
wrote only two pages.

The Tempest
Numerous scholars believe that the main source for Shake-speare's The Tempest was a
letter written by William Strachey known as the True Reportory (TR)[41] sent back to the
Virginia Company from the newly established Virginia colony in 1610, about a year
before the play's first known performance.[42] It was discovered when Richard Hakluyt,
one of the eight names on the First Virginia Charter (1606), died in 1616 and a copy was
found among his papers. Scholars have suggested that the letter was circulated in
manuscript[43] without restriction and that there seems to have been an opportunity for
Shakespeare to see the unpublished report, or even to have met Strachey. [44] However,
Baconians point to evidence that the letter was restricted to members of the Virginia
Council which included Sir Francis Bacon (and 50 other Lords and Earls) but not William
Shakspere. For example, Item 27 of the governing Councils instructions to Deputy
Governor Sir Thomas Gates before he set out for the colony charges him to take especial
care what relacions [accounts] come into England and what lettres are written and that all
thinges of that nature may be boxed up and sealed and sent to first of [sic] the Council
here, ... and that at the arrivall and retourne of every shippinge you endeavour to knowe
all the particular passages and informacions given on both sides and to advise us
accordingly."[45] Louis B. Wright explains why the Virginia Company was so keen to
control information: [the TR gave] a discouraging picture of Jamestown, but it is
significant that it had to wait fifteen years to see print, for the Virginia Company just at
that time was subsidizing preachers and others to give glowing descriptions of Virginia
and its prospects".[46] Baconians argue that it would have been against the interests of any
Council member, whose investment was at risk, to present a copy of the TR to Shakspere,
whose business was public.
On November 1610, conscious that the criticisms of the returning colonists might
jeopardize the recruitment of new settlers and investment, the Virginia Company
published the propagandist True Declaration (TD) which was designed to confute such
scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise and was

intended to wash away those spots, which foul mouths (to justify their own disloyalty)
have cast upon so fruitful, so fertile, and so excellent a country.[47] The TD relied on the
TR and other minor sources and it is clear from its use of I that it had a single author.
There are also verbal parallels between (a) the TD, and (b) Bacon's Advancement of
Learning[48] that suggest that Sir Francis Bacon as Solicitor General might have written
the TD and so, by implication, had access to the TR which sourced The Tempest. Some
examples of these are presented together with their correspondence to (c) the Shakespeare work.
Parallel 1
(a) The next Fountaine [sic] of woes was secure negligence
(b) but to drink indeed of the true fountains of learning (p.121)
(c) Thersites. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
that I might water an ass at it!
(1602-3 Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.305-6)
Parallel 2
(a) For if the country be barren or the situation contagious as famine
and sickness destroy our nation, we strive against the stream of reason
and make ourselves the subjects of scorn and derision.
(b) whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art, as into a cistern, and
the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and derived from thence. (p.293)
(c) Timon. Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot!
(1604-7 Timon of Athens, 4.1.26-8)
Lysander. scorn and derision never come in tears:
(1594-5 A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3.2.123)
Parallel 3
(a) The emulation of Csar and Pompey watered the plains of Pharsaly
with blood and distracted the sinews of the Roman monarchy.
(b) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient
opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and distrust (p.273)
(c) Henry V. Now are we well resolved; and, by God's help,
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces:
(1599 Henry V, 1.2.222-5)
William Strachey went on to write The History of Travel into Virginia Britannica, a book
that avoided duplicating the details of the TR. First published in 1849, three manuscript
copies survive dedicated to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; Sir William Apsley,

Purveyor of his Majestys Navy Royal; and Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor. In the
dedication to Bacon, which must have been composed after he became Lord Chancellor
in 1618, Strachey writes Your Lordship ever approving himself a most noble fautor
[supporter] of the Virginia Plantation, being from the beginning (with other lords and
earls) of the principal counsel applied to propagate and guide it.[49]
The 1610-11 dating of The Tempest however, has been challenged by a number of
scholars, most recently by researchers Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky[50]who argue
that Strachey's narrative could not have furnished an inspiration for Shakespeare,
claiming that Strachey's letter was not put into its extant form until after The Tempest had
already been performed on Nov. 1, 1611. The notion of an early date for The Tempest has
in fact a long history in Shakespearean scholarship, going back to 19th century scholars
such as Hunter[51] and Elze,[52] who both critiqued the widespread belief that the play
depended on the Strachey letter.

Gray's Inn revels 1594-95

Gray's Inn law school traditionally held revels over Christmas: dancing and feasting were
complemented by plays and masques. The evidence suggests that, prior to the revels of
1594 and '95, all performed plays were amateur productions.[53] In his commentary on the
Gesta Grayorum, a contemporary account of the 1594-95 revels, Desmond Bland[54]
informs us that they were "intended as a training ground in all the manners that are
learned by nobility [...:] dancing, music, declamation, acting." James Spedding, the
Victorian editor of Bacon's Works, thought that Sir Francis Bacon was involved in the
writing of this account.[55]

William Shakespeare remunerated for a performance at Whitehall on Innocents Day

1594.
The Gesta Grayorum[56] is a pamphlet of 68 pages first published in 1688. It informs us
that The Comedy of Errors received its first known performance at these revels at 21:00
on 28 December 1594 (Innocents Day) when "a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his
Menechmus) was played by the Players [...]." Whoever the players were, there is
evidence that Shakespeare and his company were not among them: according to the royal
Chamber accounts, dated 15 March 1595 see Figure[57] he and the Lord
Chamberlain's Men were performing for the Queen at Greenwich on Innocents Day. E.K.
Chambers[58] informs us that "the Court performances were always at night, beginning
about 10pm and ending at 1am", so their presence at both performances is highly
unlikely; furthermore, the Gray's Inn Pension Book, which recorded all payments made
by the Gray's Inn committee, exhibits no payment either to a dramatist or to professional
company for this play.[59] Baconians interpret this as a suggestion that, following
precedent, The Comedy of Errors was both written and performed by members of the
Inns of Court as part of their participation in the Gray's Inn celebrations. One problem

with this argument is that the Gesta Grayorum refers to the players as "a Company of
base and common fellows",[60] which would apply well to a professional theatre company,
but not to law students. But, given the jovial tone of the Gesta, and that the description
occurred during a skit in which a "Sorceror or Conjuror" was accused of causing
"disorders with a play of errors or confusions", Baconians interpret it as merely a comic
description of the Gray's Inn players.
Gray's Inn actually had a company of players during the revels. The Gray's Inn Pension
Book records on 11 February 1595 that "one hyndred [sic] marks [66.67] [are] to be
layd [sic] out & bestowyd [sic] upon the gentlemen for their sports and shewes this
Shrovetyde [sic] at the court before the Queens Majestie [sic ...]."[61]
There is, most importantly to the Baconians' argument, evidence that Bacon had control
over the Gray's Inn players. In a letter to Lord Burghley, dated before 1598, he writes, "I
am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth [.... T]here are a dozen
gentlemen of Gray's Inn that will be ready to furnish a masque".[62] The dedication to a
masque by Francis Beaumont performed at Whitehall in 1613 describes Bacon as the
"chief contriver" of its performances at Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple.[63] He also
appears to have been their treasurer prior to the 1594-95 revels.[64]
The discrepancy surrounding the whereabouts of the Chamberlain's Men is normally
explained by theatre historians as an error in the Chamber Accounts. W.W. Greg
suggested the following explanation:
"[T]he accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber show payments to this company
[the Chamberlain's Men] for performances before the Court on both 26 Dec. and
28 Dec [...]. These accounts, however, also show a payment to the Lord Admiral's
men in respect of 28 Dec. It is true that instances of two court performances on
one night do occur elsewhere, but in view of the double difficulty involved, it is
perhaps best to assume that in the Treasurer's accounts, 28 Dec. is an error for 27
Dec."[65]

Verbal parallels
Gesta Grayorum

'Greater lessens the smaller' figure from Gesta Grayorum.

The final paragraph of the Gesta Grayorum see Figure uses a "greater lessens the
smaller" construction that occurs in an exchange from the Merchant of Venice (1594-97),
5.1.92-7:

Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle
Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less,
A substitute shines brightly as a King
Until a King be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brooke
Into the main of waters ...
The Merchant of Venice uses both the same theme as the Gesta Grayorum and the same
three examples to illustrate it a subject obscured by royalty, a small light overpowered
by that of a heavenly body and a river diluted on reaching the sea. In an essay[66] from
1603, Bacon makes further use of two of these examples: "The second condition [of
perfect mixture] is that the greater draws the less. So we see that when two lights do
meet, the greater doth darken and drown the less. And when a small river runs into a
greater, it loseth both the name and stream." A figure similar to "loseth both the name and
stream" occurs in Hamlet (1600-01), 3.1.87-8:
Hamlet. With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Bacon was usually careful to cite his sources but does not mention Shakespeare once in
any of his work. Baconians claim, furthermore, that, if the Gesta Grayorum was
circulated prior to its publication in 1688 and no one seems to know if it was it was
probably only among members of the Inns of Court.

Promus
In the 19th century, a notebook entitled the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies[67] was
discovered. It contained 1,655 hand written proverbs, metaphors, aphorisms, salutations
and other miscellany. Although some entries appear original, many are drawn from the
Latin and Greek writers Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Ovid; John Heywood's Proverbes (1562);
Michel de Montaigne's Essays (1575), and various other French, Italian and Spanish
sources. A section at the end aside, the writing was, by Sir Edward Maunde-Thompson's
reckoning, in Bacon's hand; indeed, his signature appears on folio 115 verso. Only two
folios of the notebook were dated, the third sheet (5 December 1594) and the 32nd (27
January 1595 [that is, 1596]). Many of these entries also appear in Shakespeare's First
Folio:
Parallel 1
Parolles. So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus (1603-5 All's Well That Ends Well,
2.3.11)
Galens compositions not Paracelsus separations (Promus, folio 84, verso)
Parallel 2

Launce. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living
(1589-93, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3.1.307-8)
Now toe on her distaff then she can spynne/The world runs on wheels (Promus,
folio 96, verso)
Parallel 3
Hostesse. O, that right should o'rcome might. Well of sufferance, comes ease
(1598, Henry IV, Part 2, 5.4.24-5)
Might overcomes right/Of sufferance cometh ease (Promus, folio 103, recto)
While the orthodox view is that these were commonplace phrases, the occurrence in the
last two examples of two ideas from the same Promus folio in the same Shakespeare
speech must decrease that probability.

Published work
There is an example in Troilus and Cressida (2.2.163) which shows that Bacon and
Shakespeare shared the same interpretation of an Aristotelian view:
Hector. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed, but superficially: not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy:
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemper'd blood
Bacon's similar take reads thus: "Is not the opinion of Aristotle very wise and worthy to
be regarded, 'that young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy', because the boiling
heat of their affections is not yet settled, nor tempered with time and experience?"[68]
What Aristotle actually said was slightly different: "Hence a young man is not a proper
hearer of lectures on political science; [...] and further since he tends to follow his
passions his study will be vain and unprofitable [...]."[69] The added coincidence of heat
and passion and the replacement of "political science" with "moral philosophy" is
employed by both Shakespeare and Bacon. One could argue that, since Shakespeare's
play precedes Bacon's publication, the latter probably borrowed from the former, but one
needs to consider that Bacon would likely have cited his source.

Raleigh's execution
Spedding suggests that lines in Macbeth refer to Sir Walter Raleigh's execution, which
occurred two years after Shakespeare of Stratford's death and fourteen years after the Earl
of Oxford's.[70] The lines in question are spoken by Malcolm about the execution of the
"disloyall traytor [sic] / The Thane of Cawdor" (1.2.53):

King. Is execution done on Cawdor?

Or not those in Commission yet return'd?
Malcolme. My Liege, they are not yet come back,
But I have spoke with one that saw him die:
Who did report, that very frankly hee [sic]
Confess'd his Treasons, implor'd your Highnesse [sic] Pardon
And set forth a deepe [sic] Repentance:
Nothing in his Life became him,
Like the leaving it. He dy'de [sic],
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a carelesse [sic] Trifle.(1.4.1)
Several sources have remarked upon Raleigh's frivolity in the face of his impending
execution[71][72] and the assertion that "[the Commission who tried him] are not yet come
back" could refer to the fact that his execution was swift: it took place the day after his
trial for treason.[73] Raphael Holinshed, the main source for Macbeth, mentions "the thane
of Cawder [sic] being condemned at Fores of treason against the king"[74] without further
details about his execution, so whoever wrote the lines in the play went beyond the
original source.
In Raleigh's trial at Winchester on 17 November 1603, his statement was read out: "Lord
Cobham offered me 10,000 crowns for the furthering the peace between England and
Spain".[75] In 1.2.60-4 of Macbeth, the King's messenger reports on the king of Norway,
who has been assisted by the thane of Cawdor:
Rosse. That now
Sweno, the Norwayes [sic] king, craves composition:
Nor would we deigne [sic] him burial of his men,
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch [sic],
Ten thousand Dollars to our general use.
Shake-speare was known for his use of anagrams (e.g. the character Moth in Love's
Labour's Lost represents Thomas Nashe)[76] and here he has altered Cawder to Cawdor, an
anagram of "coward". Was this an allusion to Raleigh's poem on the snuff of a candle,
written the night before his execution?
Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.[77]
Some scholars[78] believe that Macbeth was later altered by Middleton, but a reference to
Raleigh's execution would be particularly advantageous to the Baconian theory because
Bacon was one of the six Commissioners from the Privy Council appointed to examine
Raleigh's case.[79]

But more than one Elizabethan traitor put on a brave show for his execution. In 1793,
George Steevens suggested that the speech was an allusion to the death of the Earl of
Essex in 1601 (a date that does not conflict with Shakespeare's or Oxford's authorship):
"The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with
that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stow, p. 793. His asking the Queen's
forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on
the scaffold are minutely described."[80] As Steevens notes, Essex was a close friend of
Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton.[81] Essex also employed Bacon as an
adviser in the latter's early career in Parliament, until Essex fell out of favour and was
prosecuted with Bacon's help.
Most editors of Macbeth simply assume the speech to be fictional and not a deliberate
allusion to a specific event.

Critical reception
Mainstream scholars reject the Baconian theory (along with other "alternative authorship"
theories), citing a range of evidence not least its reliance on a conspiracy theory. They
spurn the anti-Stratfordian claim that Shakespeare had not the education,[82] to write the
plays: as the son of an Alderman, he grew up in a family of some importance in Stratford.
It would be surprising had he not attended the local grammar school, as such institutions
were founded to educate boys of Shakespeare's moderately well-to-do standing,
especially since his father John Shakespeare, one of the wealthiest men in Stratford, was
an Alderman and later High Bailiff of the corporation.
Stratfordian scholars also frequently cite Occam's razor, the principle that the simplest
and best-evidenced explanation (in this case that the plays were written by Shakespeare
of Stratford) is likely the correct one. A critique of all alternative authorship theories may
be found in Samuel Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives.[83]. Questioning Bacon's ability as
a poet, Sidney Lee asserted: "[...] such authentic examples of Bacon's efforts to write
verse as survive prove beyond all possibility of contradiction that, great as he was as a
prose writer and a philosopher, he was incapable of penning any of the poetry assigned to
Shakespeare." [84]
Oxfordian scholars (those who believe that Edward deVere, 17th Earl of Oxford wrote the
works of Shake-speare) have cited various examples they say imply that the writer of the
plays and poems was dead prior to 1609, when Shake-Speares Sonnets first appeared
with the enigmatic words our ever-living Poet on the title page. These researchers
claim that the words ever-living rarely, if ever, refer to someone who is actually alive.
[85]
Additionally, they assert that 1604 is the year that Shakespeare mysteriously stopped
writing.[86] Oxfordians assert these claims give a boost to the Oxfordian candidacy, as
Bacon, (and Shakespeare of Stratford)[87] lived well past the 1609 publication of the
Sonnets. See the article on Oxfordian theory for additional information on Oxfordian
issues that may relate to the Bacon candidacy.

See also
[hide][hide]
vde

Part of a series on the Shakespeare Authorship Question

Theories

Oxfordian theory Baconian theory Marlovian theory

Chronology of Shakespeare's plays Oxfordian

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford Francis Bacon Christopher Marlowe

Candidates William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby Edward Dyer Henry Neville Roger
Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland Mary Sidney Queen Elizabeth I
Theorists J. Thomas Looney Charlton Ogburn Irvin Leigh Matus James Wilmot
and
Calvin Hoffman James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance George Greenwood
supporters Mark Twain

References

Bacon, Delia: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857); The
Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded
Bacon, Francis: Advancement of Learning (1640)
Bacon, Francis, The Major Works (Oxford University Press: 2002)
Bland, Desmond: Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press, 1968)
Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740-1795
Caldecott, Harry Stratford: Our English Homer; or, the Bacon-Shakespeare
Controversy (Johannesburg Times, 1895)
Chambers, Edmund Kerchever: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press:
1945)
Dean, Leonard: Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers,
Brian, (ed.): Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick &
Jackson: 1972)
Dobson, Michael, and Wells, Stanley, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
(Oxford University Press: 2005)
Fletcher, Reginald (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1 (1901)
Friedman, William and Friedman, Elizabeth: The Shakespearian ciphers
examined (Cambridge University Press, 1957)
Heminge, John; Condell, Henry: First Folio (1623)
Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587)
Jonson, Ben: Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell:
1889)
Hall, Joseph: Virgidemarium (1597-1598)
Jardine, Lisa, and Stewart, Alan: Hostage to Fortune, The Troubled Life of Sir
Francis Bacon (Hill and Wang: 1999)
Kermode, F. (ed.), The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (London, Methuen: 1958)

Lambeth Palace MS 650.28

Lambeth Palace MS 976, folio 4
Marston, John: The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image And Certaine Satyres
(1598)
Michell, John: Who Wrote Shakespeare (Thames and Hudson: 2000)
Morgan, Appleton: The Shakespearean Myth: William Shakespeare and
Circumstantial Evidence (R. Clarke, 1888)
Pott, Constance: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (London, Sampson, Low
and Marston: 1891); Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott
Pott, Henry; Pott, Constance Mary Fearon: Did Francis Bacon Write
"Shakespeare"? (R. Banks & Son, 1893)
Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542,
f.107v
Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus posthumus; or, Purchas his pilgrimes (William
Stansby, London: 1625)
Shelly, Percy Bysse: Defense of Poetry (1821)
Smith, William Henry: Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players,
Playhouses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth (John Russell Smith, 1857)
Smith, William Henry, letter to Egerton, Francis: Was Lord Bacon the author of
Shakespeare's plays? (William Skeffington, 1856)
Spedding, James: "Of the Interpretation of Nature" in Life and Letters of Francis
Bacon, 1872
Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872)
Vaughan, V.M., and Vaughan A.T., The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (Thomson
Learning: 1999)
Various: A Mirror for Magistrates (1559)
Wigston, W.F.C.: Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (1890)
Wright, Louis B., A Voyage to Virginia 1609 (University Press of Virginia: 1904)
Wright, Louis B., The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (Courier Dover
Publications: 2002)

Notes
1. ^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 5.
2. ^ Jardine, Lisa; Stewart, Alan: Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Sir
Francis Bacon (Hill and Wang, 1999), p. 55.
3. ^ It was held until recently that this was the only certain fact about Shakespeare's
life see Caldecott, Henry Stratford: Our English Homer; or, the BaconShakespeare Controversy (Johannesburg Times, 1895), p. 7 , but it has of late
been oppugned by several scholars.
4. ^ For a full account of the documents relating to Shakespeare's life, see Samuel
Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (OUP, 1987)
5. ^ Shakespeare and his Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy" by
George McMichael and Edgar M. Glenn, a pair of college professors. It is

copyright 1962, and published by The Odyssey Press, in NY. lib of congress card
#62-11942., page 41.
6. ^ a b c Anderson, Mark [2005]. "Shakespeare" by Another Name. New York City:
Gotham Books, xxx. ISBN 1592402151.
7. ^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 7.
8. ^ Lambeth Palace MS 976, folio 4. The signature and docket is in Bacon's hand;
the body of the letter is a transcription by one of his scriveners.
9. ^ Hall, Joseph: Virgidemarium (1597-1598), Book 2, Satire 1 ("For shame write
better Labeo [...]."); Book 4, Satire 1 ("Labeo is whip't and laughs me in the face
[...]."); Book 6, Satire 1 ("Tho Labeo reaches right ...")
10. ^ Marston, John, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image And Certaine Satyres
(1598). See "The Authour in prayse" of his precedent poem, "So Labeo did
complain his love was stone ...", and "Reactio" Satire IV: "Fond Censurer! Why
should those mirrors seem [...]."
11. ^ A Mirror for Magistrates (1559) was a collection of about 100 Renaissance
moralistic poems on the subject of sinners suffering divine retribution. It is
arguable that "Venus and Adonis" fits into the genre because Adonis's lust and his
subsequent death in the boar hunt could be interpreted as divine retribution.
12. ^ PDF download of letter from William Henry Smith to Lord Ellesmere.
13. ^ Smith, William Henry: Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays?, a
pamphlet-letter addressed to Lord Ellesmere (William Skeffington, 1856).
14. ^ Smith, William Henry: Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players,
Playhouses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth (John Russell Smith,
1857).
15. ^ Bacon, Delia: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857);
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded.
16. ^ Pott, Constance: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (London, Sampson, Low
and Marston: 1891); Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott.
17. ^ Wigston, W.F.C.: Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (1890).
18. ^ Friedman, William and Friedman, Elizabeth: The Shakespearian ciphers
examined (Cambridge University Press, 1957).
19. ^ Michell, John: Who Wrote Shakespeare (Thames and Hudson: 2000) pp. 258259.
20. ^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.4, p.112 (Bacon
comments on whether his idea of compiling Histories (some of which he wrote up
himself for the natural sciences) and then applying his inductive method to them,
should only apply to natural science or whether Histories were also required for
ethics and politics: "It may be asked [...] whether I speak of natural philosophy
only, or whether I mean that the other sciences, logic, ethics, and politics, should
be carried on by this method. Now I certainly mean what I have said to be
understood of them all [...]."
21. ^ Dean, Leonard: Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers,
Brian, (ed.): Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick &
Jackson: 1972), p. 219: "Bacon believed that the chief functions of history are to
provide the materials for a realistic treatment of psychology and ethics, and to
give instruction by means of example and analysis in practical politics."

22. ^ Spedding, James: "Of the Interpretation of Nature" in Life and Letters of
Francis Bacon, 1872). Bacon writes, "I hoped that, if I rose to any place of
honour in the state, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to help
me in my work [...]."
23. ^ Bacon, Francis: Advancement of Learning (1640), Book 2, p. xiii.
24. ^ Pott; Pott: Did Francis Bacon Write "Shakespeare"?, p. 7.
25. ^ Lambeth Palace MS 650.28, written in Bacon's hand to his brother Anthony: "I
have here an idle pen or two [...] thinking to have got some money this term; I
pray send me somewhat else for them to write [...].') Some scholars believe that
Anthony and others contributed to the composition of the Shakespearean plays,
too, "content to see their work performed and preserved without the beggarly
ambition of advertising their names on the title pages". See Caldecott: Our
English Homer, pp. 10-11.
26. ^ Heminge, John; Condell, Henry: First Folio (1623), dedication "To the great
variety of Readers".
27. ^ Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587),
pp. 796-7: "the king sent the two dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to the cardinal's
place at Westminster [...] that he should surrender up the greate [sic] seal into their
hands".
28. ^ Spedding, James, Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 7, p. 262.
29. ^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 11. Caldecott held that the Shakespearean
work was of such an incalculably higher calibre than that of such contemporaries
as Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, George Peele, Robert Greene, John Marston,
George Chapman and John Ford that it could not possibly have been the making
of any of them.
30. ^ Quoted in Morgan: The Shakespearean Myth, p. 201.
31. ^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, pp. 11-12.
32. ^ Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740-1795, Chapter 13.
33. ^ Shelly, Percy Bysse: Defense of Poetry (1821), p. 10.
34. ^ Jonson's familiarity with Shakespeare is further evidenced in his
communication with Drummond of Hawthornden.
35. ^ Verses.
36. ^ Target.
37. ^ Jonson, Ben: Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell:
1889), pp. 60-61. (Definitions: number (n.) 1. (plural) verses, lines, e.g. "These
numbers will I tear and write in prose", Hamlet II, ii, 119; mark (n.) 1. target,
goal, aim, e.g. "that's the golden mark I seek to hit" (Henry VI, Part 2, I, i, 241).
Source: Crystal, David; Crystal, Ben: Shakespeare's Words (Penguin Books,
2002).
38. ^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 15.
39. ^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 6, p. 274.
40. ^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 6, p. 267. In a letter
to his friend Tobie Matthew, dated 16 June 1623, Bacon writes, "Since you say
the Prince hath not forgotten his commandment touching my history of Henry the
Eighth, I may not forget my duty. But I find Sir Robert Cotton, who poured forth
what he had in my former work, somewhat dainty in his materials in this". In a

letter to Prince Charles in late October 1623, he continues, "For Henry the Eighth,
to deal truly with your Highness, I did so despair of my health this summer, as I
was glad to choose some such work as I might encompass within days: so far was
I from entering into a work of any length".
41. ^ Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus posthumus; or, Purchas his pilgrimes, (William
Stansby, London: 1625), p.1758; in four volumes, beginning page 1734 in vol. IV.
Published as Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. 19 (James MacLehose and Sons: 1904).
Includes extracts from the True Declaration
42. ^ Vaughan, V.M., and Vaughan A.T., The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (Thomson
Learning: 1999), pp.41
43. ^ Dobson, Michael, and Wells, Stanley, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
(Oxford University Press: 2005), p.470
44. ^ Kermode, F. (ed.), The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (London, Methuen: 1958),
p. xxviii
45. ^ Swem, E.G., (Ed.), The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London,
in Jamestown 30th Anniversary Historical Booklets 14 (Virginia 350th
Anniversary Celebration Corporation: 1957), p.66
46. ^ Wright, Louis B., The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (Courier Dover
Publications: 2002), p.156
47. ^ A True Declaration of the estate of the Colony in Virginia, with a confutation of
such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an
enterprise. Published by advice and direction of the Council of Virginia, London.
Printed for William Barret, and are to be sold at the Black Bear in Pauls Church
yard, 1610.
48. ^ Bacon, Francis, The Major Works (Oxford University Press: 2002)
49. ^ "A True Declaration of the state of the Colony in Virginia with a confutation of
such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise"
in Wright, Louis B., A Voyage to Virginia 1609 (University Press of Virginia:
1904), p.xvii
50. ^ Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited, Stritmatter and Kositsky Review of
English Studies, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007; 58, abbreviated Web
version
51. ^ Hunter, Rev. Joseph, Disquisition on the Scene, Origin, Date & etc. of
Shakespeare's Tempest
52. ^ Elze, Karl. "The Date of the Tempest" in Essays on Shakespeare, translated with
the author's sanction by Dora L. Schmitz. London: Macmillan & Co., 1874
53. ^ Chambers, E.K.: The Elizabethan Stage (Clarendon Press, 1945), Vols I-IV.
Gordobuc was presented before the Queen at Whitehall on 12 January 1561,
written and acted by members of the Inner Temple. Gray's Inn members were
responsible for writing both Supposes and Jocasta five years later; Catiline was
performed by 26 actors from Gray's Inn before Lord Burghley on 16 January
1588, see British Library Lansdowne MS 55, No. iv )
54. ^ Bland, Desmond: Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press: 1968), pp.
xxiv-xxv.

55. ^ Spedding, James: The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.1, p. 325:
"his connexion with it, [al]though sufficiently obvious, has never so far been
pointed out".
56. ^ Gesta Grayorum, The History Of the High and Mighty Prince Henry (1688),
printed by W. Canning in London, reprinted by Malone Society (Oxford
University Press: 1914)
57. ^ Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542,
f.107v, p. 40: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, & Richard Burbage,
seruants [sic] to the Lord Chamberleyne [sic ...] upon the Councelle's [sic]
warrant dated at Whitehall xv. to Marcij [sic] 1595, for twoe severall [sic]
comedies or enterludes [sic] shewed by them before her majestie [sic] in
Christmas tyme laste [sic] past viz St. Stephens Day [sic] and Innocents Day
[...].")
58. ^ Chambers, Edmund Kerchever: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press:
1945), p. 225.
59. ^ Fletcher, Reginald, (Ed.) The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1
(1901).
60. ^ W.W. Greg (ed.): Gesta Grayorum, p. 23.
61. ^ Fletcher, Reginald (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1
(London: 1901), p. 107.
62. ^ British Library, Lansdown MS 107, folio 8
63. ^ Nichols, John: The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of
King James the First, Vol. II (AMS Press Inc, New York: 1828), pp. 589-92.
64. ^ Fletcher, Reginald, (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1
(London: 1901), p.101.
65. ^ W.W. Greg (ed.): Gesta Grayorum. Malone Society Reprints. Oxford University
Press (1914), p. vi. This theory is echoed by Charles Whitworth (ed.) The Comedy
of Errors (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 3.
66. ^ Spedding, James: A Brief Discourse tounching the Happy Union of the
Kingdom of England and Scotland (1603), in The Life and Letters of Francis
Bacon (1872), Vol. 3, p. 98.
67. ^ British Library MS Harley 7017. A transcription can be found in DurningLawrence, Edward, Bacon is Shakespeare (1910).
68. ^ Bacon, Francis: De Augmentis, Book VII (1623).
69. ^ Ross, W.D. (translator), Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, iii (Clarendon
Press, 1908). The translation "political science" is given by Griffith, Tom (ed.):
Aristotle: The Nichomachean Ethics (Wordsworth Editions: 1996), p. 5.
70. ^ Spedding, James: Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol.6, p. 372.
71. ^ Williams, Norman Lloyd, Sir Walter Raleigh (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1962), p.
254. The Dean of Westminster wrote to Sir John Isham, "when I began to
encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I
wondered at him [...].")
72. ^ Spedding, James: Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol. 6, p. 373. Dudley
Carelton wrote, "[H]e knew better how to die than to live; and his happiest hours
were those of his arraignment and execution."

73. ^ Stow, John: Annales, or Generall Chronicle of England (London, 1631), p.

1030.
74. ^ Holinshed, Raphael: Chronicles, Vol. V: Scotland (1587 ), p. 170.
75. ^ Williams, Norman Lloyd: Sir Walter Raleigh (Eyre and Spottiswoode: 1963), p.
188.
76. ^ Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, and Dover Wilson, John, Love's Labour's Lost
(Cambridge University Press: 1923), pp.xxi-xxiii
77. ^ Raleigh's Remains, (edited 1661), p.258
78. ^ Muir, Kenneth (Ed.), Macbeth, The Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning:
2005), p.xxxii
79. ^ Spedding, James: The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol. 6 (1872), p. 356.
80. ^ George Steevens's 1793 edition of Shakespeare, quoted in A New Variorum
Edition of Shakespeare: Vol. 2: Macbeth, ed. Horace Howard Furness
(Philadelphia: Lipincott, 1873), p. 44.
81. ^ Earls Southampton and Pembroke, to whom the poems of Shakespeare were
dedicated, were both friends of Bacon, but there is no evidence (the dedications
aside) that Shakespeare knew them. It is a notable fact that the dedication to
Southampton was withdrawn from subsequent editions of the poems "Venus and
Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece", after he had ended his friendship with
Bacon, whose involvement in Essex's schemes against the Queen riled him. See
Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 12.
82. ^ He would have had to have had a keen understanding of foreign languages,
modern sciences, warfare, aristocratic sports such as tennis, statesmanship,
hunting, natural philosophy, history, falconry and the law to have written the plays
ascribed to him. It is therefore significant, say Baconians, that Bacon, in his 1592
letter to Burghley, claims to have "taken all knowledge to be [his] province".
83. ^ Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives (OUP, New York, 1970)
84. ^ Bate, Jonathan, The Genius of Shakespeare, (Picador: 1997), p.88
85. ^ Miller/Looney, Volume 2, pgs 211-214
86. ^ Anderson, "Shakespeare by Another Name", 2005, pgs 400-405
87. ^ Shakespeare's death recorded in Stratford Parish Registry
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/life/death.html

External links
General Non-Stratfordian

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, home of the "Declaration of Reasonable

Doubt About the Identify of William Shakespeare" -- a concise, definitive
explanation of the reasons to doubt the case for the Stratford man. Doubters can
read, and sign, the Declaration online.
The Shakespeare Authorship Trust, survey of all the authorship candidates, a site
patronised by the acclaimed actor Mark Rylance and Dr William Leahy of Brunel
University, UK

Baconian

N. Cockburn, The BaconShakespeare Question, private publication 1998

(Contents) Baconian theory made sane, first part.
Barry R. Clarke, "The Shakespeare Puzzle - A Non-esoteric Baconian Theory"
http://www.baconsocietyinc.org - the first official champions of the Baconian
cause. Since 1886 the Francis Bacon Society has engaged with the authorship
question and publishes the journal Baconiana.[1]
Peter Dawkins: The Shakespeare Enigma, Polair Publ., London 2004, ISBN 09545389-4-3 (engl.)
Amelie Deventer von Kunow, Francis Bacon: Last of the Tudors, trans. Willard
Parker (1924)
Penn Leary, Cryptographic Shakespeare (n.d.)
Why I'm Not an Oxfordian, by Jerome Harner

Stratfordian

The Shakespeare Authorship Page

The Bard's Beard A Time Article