“Queen Elizabeth in the Plays”: Re-Posting No. 48 of 100 Reasons Shake-speare was the Earl of Oxford

What are the chances of the Stratford man Shakspere creating allegorical portraits of Elizabeth I of England?  What are the chances he dared to depict this vain female ruler, an absolute monarch intensely protective of her public image, in accurate and often harshly negative detail? And if he had dared to be so bold, how could he have gotten away with it?

Edward de Vere had known Her Majesty from at least 1561, when he was eleven and she was twenty-eight.  The following year she became his legal mother. He reached his majority in 1571, entering the House of Lords, and quickly gained her highest favor at court.  He had a front-row seat for one of the most sensational tragicomedies in world history, the Golden Age of Elizabeth.

As Oxford was also a poet and dramatist, what are the chances of him creating allegorical portraits of the great Virgin Queen? Scholars of the traditional “Shakespeare” have fleetingly glimpsed such portraits of Elizabeth in the plays, but for them the full picture remains out of focus. Viewing the plays with the wrong author in mind, the images are blurry; on the other hand, knowledge of the true author creates a new lens through which vital aspects of the works emerge as wondrously clear. Much of what was obscure becomes obvious; through that new lens, the Shakespeare plays contain quite a few female characters that appear to reflect Elizabeth.

Once Oxford is viewed as the author, it appears he was actually obsessed with his sovereign Mistress and was constantly grappling with the extremes of her personality. Here are eight of his female characters that appear to represent her:

Cleopatra ………………… Antony and Cleopatra

Cressida ………………….. Troilus and Cressida

Gertrude …………………. Hamlet

Olivia ………………………. Twelfth Night

Portia ………………………. The Merchant of Venice

Rosalind …………………… Romeo and Juliet

Silvia ………………………… The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Titania ……………………… A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Titania, Queen of the Fairies, is the character most often cited in connection with Elizabeth, mainly because Oberon describes Cupid’s vain attempt to ensnare “a fair vestal throned by the west” (2.1). Many other aspects of Titania reflect Elizabeth, but the point of this “reason” is the sheer quantity of such characters. Taken together they reveal many sides of that extraordinary woman who ruled England for four and a half decades; some of the portraits could have been drawn only by an artist who had experienced those aspects of the queen “up close and personal.”

An image of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt on an ancient coin

For an accurate view of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the biographical and historical framework of the earliest versions must be moved back in time from the mid-1590’s to the early 1580’s.  In that perspective, it’s possible to see the love affair between Queen Titania and Bottom as depicting the courtship of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Alencon.

Other instances where Queen Elizabeth is being depicted include:

*  In Twelfth Night, the portrait of Elizabeth as Olivia stands beside Malvolio as a caricature of Sir Christopher Haton, Captain of the Queen’s Bodyguard.

* Elizabeth banished Oxford from court after discovering his affair with Anne Vavasour, who gave birth to his illegitimate child, Edward Vere; we can hear, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Oxford speaking of his queen as Silvia in Valentine’s words:

And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish’d from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her
Is self from self: a deadly banishment! (3.1)

*  The vows of constancy made by Troilus to Cressida reflect those Oxford had to make to the queen when his court banishment ended in 1583 and old Roger Manners reported, “The Earl of Oxford came into her the queen’s] presence, and after some bitter words and speeches, in the end all sins are forgiven.”

Elizabeth I of England, a potrait

* To the Elizabethans it would have been obvious that “Shakespeare” modeled Cleopatra on Elizabeth, who sometimes appeared to be modeling herself on the Queen of Egypt.

In the Shakespeare poems and sonnets are more aspects of Elizabeth through the Oxfordian lens.  She was the Queen of Love and Beauty, like Venus; she was the “chaste” queen, like Lucrece; she was the Phoenix; and, in my view, the Dark Lady of The Sonnets.

  1. Venus ………………………….. Venus and Adonis
  2. Lucrece ………………………… The Rape of Lucrece
  3. Phoenix ……………………….. The Phoenix and the Turtle
  4. Woman ………………………… A Lover’s Complaint
  5. Mistress (Dark Lady) …….. Shake-speares Sonnets

 

This post, with improvements made by editor Alex McNeil, is No. 51 of 100 Reasons Shake-speare was the Earl of Oxford.

Published in: on January 29, 2019 at 8:44 am  Leave a Comment  
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Towering Defiance of Time and the Official Record: “Thy Registers and Thee I Both Defy!”

The real story of the Shakespeare sonnets is that of one man howling in defiance of obliteration — the burial of his truth, the blotting out of his identity.  The man is Edward, Earl of Oxford, raging against the agents of his destruction and promising to overcome them by preserving the truth in this “monument” of verse for posterity.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead.
You still shall live! – such virtue hath my pen –
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men – 81

Speaking of defiance -- Oxford used this "crown signature" from 1569 until the Queen died in 1603 and James succeeded her, when he ceased to use it.

In a real way Oxford becomes a Christ figure who, in the course of the sequence, undergoes death and resurrection:

The offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s loss [cross] – 34

[Henry, Earl of Southampton’s sorrow for his role in the Essex Rebellion offers little relief to Oxford, who has agreed to suffer the consequences for him.]

And both for my sake lay on me this cross – 42

[Both Southampton and Queen Elizabeth, who holds him in her Tower prison, are causing Oxford to suffer]

Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken,
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed – 133

[They comprise a royal, dynastic family triangle; because Southampton has committed treason, all three of them are doomed.]

The 1609 dedication of the Sonnets (the inscription on the Monument) to "Mr. W. H." - a reversal of Lord Henry Wriothesley, reflecting his lowly status as "Mr." while in the Tower - from "our ever-living (deceased) poet" -

Oxford is volunteering to take on the burden of the guilt:

So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help be borne by me alone – 36

If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise – 38

[All praise will go to Southampton while Oxford disappears from view.]

To play the watchman ever for thy sake – 61

[He will save Southampton’s life and secure his freedom.]

And art made tongue-tied by authority – 66

[Oxford’s ability to speak directly through these private sonnets has been nullified by official decree; his art has been “tongue-tied” or silenced by the crown, in the person of Sir Robert Cecil, who now runs the Elizabethan government in its final years heading to an uncertain succession.

[He is using a special language, however, allowing him to speak here indirectly.  (“That every word doth almost tell my name” – 76) In effect, his words carry a double image, simultaneously conveying two (or more) meanings.]

He is fading away:

When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay,
Do not such much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay – 71

After my death, love, forget me quite…
My name be buried where my body is – 72

My spirit is thine, the better part of me – 74

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die – 81

The 1594 dedication of "Lucrece" to Southampton -- by "Shakespeare" the pen name and so-called rival poet of the sonnets...

The agent of Oxford’s obliteration is his own pen name, “William Shakespeare,” which he had used to dedicate his first works, Venus and Adonis of 1593 and Lucrece of 1594, to Southampton [the only one to whom “Shakespeare” dedicated anything]; and now that mask is being glued to Oxford’s face:

Was it his [“Shakespeare’s”] spirit by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch that struck me [Oxford] dead? – 86

The more that “Shakespeare” is seen to be praising Southampton, the less visible Oxford becomes:

When your [Southampton’s] countenance filled up his line,
Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine – 86

After Southampton’s liberation by King James on April 10, 1603, a climactic event celebrated by Sonnet 107, his defiance grows into a roar by an amazing compression of words, a literary feat that may well have no equal.  I would urge all to read over the final Sonnets of the “fair youth” sequence from 107 to 126.  Let’s just close with Sonnet 123, in which Edward de Vere tells Time itself, “Thy registers and thee I both defy!” — that is, he defies the official history to be written by the winners [Cecil]; he defies it and will be “true” [indicating his own identity, through his motto Nothing Truer Than Truth] despite all that has crushed him:

No!  Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,
They are but dressings of a former sight:
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them borne to our desire
Then think that we before have heard them told:
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wond’ring at the present, nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
This I do vow, and this shall ever be,
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

The day is coming sooner than later when students will be given the opportunity to appreciate the greatness of these sonnets.  Within the traditional paradigm there has been no possibility for such appreciation; the best that can be taught is the value of the poet’s rhetorical skills, as he puts forth his universal themes, while the severe limitations of Stratfordian authorship dictate that the genuine human drama remains unseen.

Well, it will be seen!  And then there will be new life in the classroom, new excitement in the lecture hall, and a kind of Shakespearean renaissance — as we crawl out of the long dark tunnel of tradition into the bright light of truth.

Published in: on February 10, 2011 at 4:09 am  Comments (7)  
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The Oxford Movie is on its way…

Here is my response to some great comments by Lee Crammond:

Hi Lee — First, again, congratulations on your findings about the two public dedications to Southampton, the means by which Oxford brought “Shakespeare” onto the printed page and into the world’s history.

[SEE BELOW]

When the paradigm of authorship finally shifts, your unique observations will be acknowledged by all — in the category of “Why didn’t I see (or say) that?”

On the movie “Anonymous” [see the Shakespeare Oxford Society – SOS – Blog for updated casting news] —

I know that Roland Emmerich had a copy of The Monument early on, in the fall of 2005, the year it was published; and that fall I did have a lunch meeting with him in London.  We did not discuss any details of his then-developing script, other than the context of the Rebellion of 1601 and Southampton’s confinement in the Tower for 26 months until the Queen’s death and the proclamation of James of Scotland as King James I of England.  And Robert Cecil’s key role in this history, which began with a performance of “Richard II” at the Globe, showing an English monarch handing over his crown — something being suggested for Elizabeth, who would say, it is reported, “I am Richard II, know ye not that!”

I expect in most movies to find some major distortions of history.  I don’t know how it will turn out but I am hoping nonetheless that the movie calls attention to the topic itself.  I’m hoping it will help open up the authorship topic for discussion.  I’m hoping for a lot — Emmerich’s intentions are good — but it’s not up to me.

There is great irony in the practical suggestion that Edward de Vere is recognized as Shakespeare and then the PT (Prince Tudor) theory (of Southampton as son of Oxford and Elizabeth) brought in as sequel.  The irony in my view is that it’s precisely the lack of Oxfordian acknowledgment of PT — or of Oxford’s political motives, even — that is preventing more swift acceptance of Oxford’s authorship.  He had the means, he had the opportunity — but what’s the MOTIVE for adopting such a warrior-like pen name and then allowing his identity to be obliterated.  The jury needs a motive to convict him not only of writing the works but of disappearing so completely.

The sonnets as a whole, as a sequence that was constructed at the far end of the story, supply the motive.  The subject matter is the author’s disappearance — “My name be buried where my body is.” (71)  The subject is also the pen name — the name “Shakespeare” was the force that rendered him speechless — “Was it his spirit by spirits taught to wright above a mortal pitch that struck me dead?” (86)

If there was a Prince Tudor who deserved the throne, and Robert Cecil was guiding James to the throne knowing that success made the difference for himself of life and death, and James knew the truth would destroy his peaceful succession and throw the country into the very civil war that it feared — would this not be a motive for silence?

The Oxfordian movement has been in existence for 90 years.  It’s growing and I do hope the paradigm can change under any circumstances.  I do think that it’s the History department where the change will occur more readily, since those folks have far less to lose.  It’s the English department that has rolled out miles and miles of sheer baloney and whole careers and reputations have been built on it.  What a mountain of b.s. will come tumbling down!

Ask those who profess to love Will of Stratford if they are at all interested in the two or three decades that led up to his entrance in 1593 and 1594 via those dedications.  Ask if they are eager to learn about Shakespeare’s predecessors, nearly all of whom worked directly with Edward de Vere, dedicating their efforts to him and testifying that he was not only their patron but their leader.  Ask if they are interested in the foreground of Shakespeare.  One in ten might have studied this history.  The others, who profess to have such love for Stratford Will, have no real interest whatsoever.  I believe this is another strong route to the paradigm change — studying, for example, how the Queen’s Men of the 1580’s produced no less than six plays that “Shakespeare” had either written himself or [not!] stole from later.  Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth – The Troublesome Reign of King John — and so on! — all written by the true “Shakespeare” in those years before he adopted that warrior-like pen name for reasons in the 1590’s that were, yes — political — that is, here was Oxford’s way of supporting Southampton in the power struggle against William and Robert Cecil to determine who would control the succession upon Elizabeth’s death.

That’s what any movie about Oxford as “Shakespeare” might be called – A MATTER OF SUCCESSION

All best,
Hank

On Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 9:36 am Lee Cramond Said:

Hi Hank,

Are you aware that Edward de Vere quite probably left a remarkable clue to his identity as the author of both Venus & Adonis and Lucrece, hidden in their dedications? One that lies in plain sight once you know where to look?

In V & A his name appears in lower case but in Lucrece, as if to re-assert his authorship he has shown his name beginning with a capital V. The two dedication references (in the bodies of text) are in the 2nd last line in V & A and the 4th last line in Lucrece. In fact, this latter reference could even plausibly be read as a mission statement…’Vere my worth greater, my duty would show greater’,…

Dedication of "Venus and Adonis" to Southampton - 1593

Knowing de Vere’s fascination with punning on his name, could this not be a valid reading of the text? It is unprovable of course, but it would amount to two more pieces of circumstantial evidence for de Vere.
I cannot find any references to this interpretation anywhere on the web, but I’m sure someone must have noticed it before.
Your thoughts on this theory are appreciated.

Regards, Lee

Dedication of "Lucrece" to Southampton - 1594

Published in: Uncategorized on January 28, 2010 at 2:53 pm  Comments (2)  
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