Many Oxfordians enumerate certain facts about the plays: they often closely mirror events in de Vere's life, or in the lives of his social circle.
But the Sonnets may offer other firm proofs. So firm that the traditionalists aver "Can't relate a sonnet to its author. Against the rules." Wow! Some of them literally focus on 'sonnet' here, rather than poem more generally! Yet many of the sonnets are total mystery if written by the glover's son, but almost autobiographical if written by de Vere.
I've already mentioned that the publication of the Sonnets -- in a way which would make sense only if the poet were dead and/or pseudonymous -- and its mysterious dedication was suspicious. But what about the contents?
There are four main characters in the Sonnets: Ego himself, a Fair Youth, a Dark Lady, and the so-called Rival Poet. There is also mention of a "She" whom Ego loves; I don't know which of these are associated with the so-called Dark Lady.
Stratfordians can't really explain any of it. It's logical that Southampton should be the Fair Youth, but the familiar and secret-sharing poem contents make those sonnets unlikely to be written at all
If Fair Youth is a nobleman, and Ego is a yeoman in Southampton's pay.
Oxfordians have Ego as de Vere of course, Fair Youth is still Southampton, and Dark Lady is(*) ...
Queen Elizabeth! (* - Not all Oxfordians agree on all matters!
)
Traditionalists are, as we have seen, utterly lacking in imagination and will answer "Duuh? Elizabeth was famous for her red hair and light-colored skin."
Precisely! If a genius like de Vere was in the mood to speak intimately of Her Majesty, what better ruse for discretion than to get her hair color wrong?
(While preparing this, I thought 'Why type all this? It's all at Wiki or whatever, and the experts in this thread are familiar with all of it to the point of boredom. But maybe one or two of you are interested, and typing is cheap anyway.)
Cast of Characters:
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton -- allegedly the Fair Youth.
Mary_Wriothesley,_Countess_of_Southampton Henry's mother, the Dowager Countess of Southampton, Mary nee Brown. Born the daughter of a Viscount and granddaughter of an Earl, Mary Brown married Earl Southampton (Fair Henry's father Henry) when he was 20 and she was 13. Husband died when she was 29, but she didn't remarry until she was 40, marrying the much older Thomas Heneage (Groom of the Stool under Henry VIII) who by then was very well connected with H.M. He soon died and in 1597 Mary married, as her 3rd husband and his 1st wife, William Hervey (knighted at Cadiz and already an M.P. She died in 1607 -- shortly before Sonnet publication! -- and W.H. re-married (was elevated to Baronet and, twice, Baron, but all three titles went extinct on his death in 1642).
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
Encyclopedia Britannica said:
From 1558 [] to 1598, the biography of Cecil is almost indistinguishable from that of Elizabeth and from the history of England.
When Edward's father died in 1562, William Cecil was already the most powerful commoner in England and Secretary of State. His many duties included acting as guardian for young Earls like Edward de Vere and, later, Henry of Southampton. In 1572 he was elevated to the Peerage and also made Lord High Treasurer. He may have been the country's de facto ruler; Her Majesty depended on him, called him "Sir Spirit", and was inconsolable at Cecil's deathbed, feeding him with her own hand.
Cecil was eager to marry his daughters and grand-daughters to wealthy or important Earls. Just as Polonius in the autobiographical Hamlet sought to marry his daughter Ophelia to the young Prince, so Cecil (supposedly nicknamed 'Pol') wanted to marry his daughter Anne to the young Oxford. And, just as Polonius' son Laertes opposed Hamlet, so Pol's son Robert Cecil was a constant thorn in Oxford's side. When his grand-daughter Elizabeth was still very young, Cecil contracted with Mary Dowager Countess to marry her to Henry, also then very young. The two children each spent much time at Cecil House, knew each other like cousins, but for some reason, as Henry grew into manhood he determined not to marry Elizabeth.
It is generally believed that Venus and Adonis and dozens of the Sonnets were expressly written to encourage Henry to fulfill the marriage contract negotiated between the wealthy Dowager Mary nee Brown and the powerful Baron Burghley. (Eventually Henry reneged on the contract; Cecil ordered him to pay a fine of £5000.)
In whose interest was this marriage? (Who had an interest in the writings of those poems?) The two obvious candidates were:
(1) Wm Cecil (aka Burghley) was happy to marry his grand-daughter to the wealthy Earl. Also Mary was an attractive and wealthy widow with useful connections in the Catholic community and with insiders like Thomas Heneage.
(2) Countess Mary knew her handsome wealthy son would have no trouble finding brides to his liking. As a Catholic, mightn't she have hoped her son would find a Catholic bride, rather than allying with Protestant Burghley, who had led violent purges against Catholics? (It was Burghley who convinced H.M. to behead Mary Q of Scots. Burghley was also a big supporter of the Stuart claim to England, and thereby unification of the Island.)
It seems to me that the marriage was more important to Cecil than to the Wriothesleys but traditionalists say that it was Countess Mary Wriothesley nee Brown who hired William Shake-speare to write the poems encouraging the marriage.
Yes, she supposedly commissioned Shaksper -- then an unknown playwright in his mid 20's whose only "fame" was being ridiculed by Jonson and Greene -- to write these poems. Yet there is zero evidence that she or her son were Shakespeare's patron. Because the Sonnets were supposedly written as a service for the Dowager Countess, she came into possession of them; they were published several months after her death; some say the "W.H" who was the sonnets' "onlie begetter" was the Countess's 3rd husband William Hervey. (Unexplained is why the poet also provided the Countess with many sonnets unrelated to Henry but instead very personal, and often expressing the poet's shame.)
More likely IMO is a 3rd person who wanted the marriage to proceed:
(3) The father of contracted bride Elizabeth de Vere, and therefore William Cecil's son-in-law, a nobleman who'd suffered heavily financially, due to bad luck and his and his father's profligacy. I speak of course of ...
Edward de Vere.
The relationship between Edward Oxford and Henry Southampton was much too complicated to summarize here, especially since Henry was intimately connected to the powerful Earl of Essex. (Powerful only before he was beheaded of course; at one point, H.M. threatened to behead Henry when she beheaded Essex. Supposedly some of the Sonnets shed light directly on Southampton's stay in the Tower of London.)
But there is one interesting, unexplained and often-overlooked incident, with which I will close this post.
Let me stress that this incident sheds no light directly on the Shakespeare Authorship controversy. But it does betoken that unsolved mysteries connect our players.
G.P. V. Akrigg in his orthodox biography of Southampton said:
Suddenly the even happy flow of Southampton's career came to a halt. Late on the evening of June 24th [1604] he was arrested, along with [four other knights or lords]. Southampton's papers were seized and scrutinized. He himself was interrogated. According to the French Ambassador, King James had gone into a complete panic and could not sleep that night even though he had a guard of his Scots posted around his quarters. Presumably to protect his heir, he sent orders to Prince Henry that he must not stir out of his chamber.
Next morning, while the Privy Council was examining its prisoners, wild rumours swept through the Court.
It seems interesting to me that there is no record of this "panic" or quintuple arrest in England; historians know of it only because at least two Ambassadors described it in letters home.
Only just a few decades ago, it appears that nobody connected the date of this incident to any other event. But something else happened on that same Sunday in June:
Complete Peerage said:
Edward de Vere died intestate at King's Hold, Hackney, Middlesex, 24 June 1604, buried 6 July 1604.
It had been barely a year since King James rode down to claim the throne; Oxford knew much about the Stuart succession. Had Shake-speare written about it?
Yes, when Edward of Oxford died -- on the same day Southampton's papers were seized -- no documents or manuscripts are reported to have turned up,
not even a last will and testament. He was called England's premier Earl; is it really likely he wouldn't write a will?
Common-sense tells me that King James seized Southampton's papers
because Oxford died. Surely he seized Oxford's papers as well. We can only guess what papers disappeared, but it is rather peculiar that Edward, who knew he was severely ill,
left no will. I think there were important secrets to be kept, and King James was worried about a "To be opened on my death" letter. We do know that Oxford was a writer and dedicated the final years of his life to writing, yet none of his manuscripts turned up in the days following his death.
