A Brief, Credible Scenario to Solve the Shakespeare Mysteries

A Brief, Credible Scenario to Explain the Shakespeare Mysteries by Helen Heightsman Gordon, M.A., Ed.D. My research over the past 20 years has led me to several independent conclusions, gathered from both official and unofficial sources, which form a credible scenario explaining the need for secrets and pseudonyms in Elizabethan England.  For all those interested in solving the mysteries accumulated over 300 years of obfuscation, suppression, and groupthink, I respectfully submit these ideas for consideration:          That the name “William Shakespeare” is a pseudonym, not a variant of “Shakspere.” The author of the works and the resident of Stratford are two different persons.          That Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was the most likely author who used the pen name of “William Shakespeare.”              That Edward de Vere wrote all the sonnets and the Dedication of the 1609 edition (the latter in the form of a riddle to escape destruction by his enemies). The supposed initials “T.T.” (mistakenly presumed to be those of Thomas Thorpe) are actually gammas, a clue that the author was using a sacred symbol of the Freemasons and Rosicrucians, representing the pillars of the temple of Solomon.          That the mysterious “Mr. W.H.” is Henry Wriothesley, with his initials anagrammed, the same dedicatee named  in Shakespeare’s narrative poems “Venus and Adonis” (1593) and “Rape of Lucrece”(1594).            That Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, is not Shakespeare’s patron, but his son by Queen Elizabeth, which explains the fatherly devotion expressed in the “Lucrece” dedication.          That the sonnets contain autobiographical elements matching closely with the life events of Edward de Vere, including his (historically documented) affair with Queen Elizabeth in 1572-73.          That the order of the sonnets was scrambled so that the narrative would not be too obviously construed as the love story of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth, the true love whose course “never did run smooth.”          That his natural son, raised as the Third Earl of Southampton, was the “Fair Youth” of the Sonnets.           That there were several rival poets who vied for the favor of Elizabeth, not for the “fair youth” ; (See Sonnet 78: “So oft have I invok’d thee as my muse/ . . . as every alien pen hath got my use/  and under thee their poetry disperse. ”)          That the chief rival poet was Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth’s “favorite” during 1582-1585 (“Was it the proud full sail of his great verse “–Sonnet 86) while Oxford was banned from court “in disgrace of fortune and men’s eyes” (Sonnet 29).          That many of the poems were written to women, including Oxford’s brunette mistress Ann Vavasor (Sonnet 127), Countess Anne Cecil de Vere (when Oxford reconciled with her in 1581; see Sonnets 110 and 117), and Queen Elizabeth (Sonnet 131 “In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds”) .           That Oxford reveals touchingly, in Sonnet 125, that unlike her fawning admirers, he loves Elizabeth not just as a queen, but as a woman: (“Let me be obsequious in thy heart/ and take thou my oblation, poor but free [which is not second-rate, not merely artful rhetoric] . . . but mutual render, only me for thee”).          That the theory called PT2, advocated by Paul Streitz and Charles Beauclerk, is flawed for several reasons.  Speculating  that Oxford was himself the son of the Queen, Streitz  would ask us to believe that Oxford was conceived in 1548 by the teen-age Princess Elizabeth and her step-father Thomas Seymour. But Oxford’s birth year is recorded as 1550, which must be accurate, since he came of age in 1571, the year when he married Anne Cecil. If Elizabeth did have a child in 1548, it was not the Earl of Oxford. Any implications of incest create disgust that alienates audiences, and it is not necessary for telling the more romantic love story.          That members of two secret societies helped to preserve the manuscripts of plays and sonnets for posterity, thus thwarting William Cecil and his son Robert, who tried to destroy them. The heroes include  Sir Francis Bacon of the Rosicrucians, whose Rosy Cross (or Rosicrosse) Literary Society sponsored the publication of “Shakespeare’s Poems” in 1640, using the printer John Benson.      That  two other Renaissance heroes were Freemasons: the “incomparable brethren” who sponsored the First Folio, Philip and William Herbert, 4th and 5th Earls of Pembroke. William Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, was married to Susan de Vere, youngest daughter of Edward de Vere. His wife was influential in his decision to publish Shakespeare’s plays in 1623, and she may have provided some play-scripts from a hiding place.  A paradigm shift is taking place gradually in Shakespeare studies, but such a shift takes a long time, as did the theory of a sun-centered universe. The icons of Shakespeare and the Virgin Queen have become so deified that any mention of a secret love story is considered heresy by many people who want to preserve the pleasant legends. Still, the personalities of Edward de Vere and Elizabeth Tudor are far more interesting when viewed as human beings with enormous talents and human flaws. In a more playful vein, I submit the following parody to Sonnet 116: Parody on University Veracity by Helen Heightsman Gordon Let me not to the carnage of closed minds Admit new evidence.  Truth is not true Which dares not see how orthodoxy binds And mummifies archaic points of view. O, no! These minds have ever-fixed locks, Untempered tempers not by logic shaken; They rust in static rest, like broken clocks That, twice correct, are otherwise mistaken. Truth’s not Time’s fool, though falsity accrues; Assumptions, oft repeated, come disguised As truth unvarnished, stifled by taboos; Doubters  are maligned and ostracized.      Though errors are rebutted and disproved,      Blind faith of gulled believers is unmoved.    Note: The Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre at Concordia University conferred the Vero Nihil Verius Award of Artistic Excellence on Lisa Wilson and Laura Wilson Matthias, directors of Last Will. & Testament, for distinguished achievements in the advancement of Shakespearean drama and for uncommon diligence and dedication in the quest to resolve the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Their main source for the “Prince Tudor” theory was the fine biography of Edward de Vere entitled This Star of England, by Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn. More detailed explication of the sonnets and how they conform to the life events of Edward de Vere can be found in my book The Secret Love Story in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 2008 edition.