The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #85730   Message #1592587
Posted By: BaldEagle2
28-Oct-05 - 03:42 PM
Thread Name: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
Couldn't agree with you more, Donuel.

But let's get these out of the way, as well:

Upon Oxford's death in 1604 King James had eight Shakespeare plays produced at court as a final tribute.    When Oxford's widow died nine years later a group of Shakespeare plays (fourteen in this case) were produced in tribute.   When Bill died in 1616, they didn't even publish a notice of his death, possibly because he had retired from writing well before his death.   In fact, it was 10 or more years later that people started to realise that they had lost a great author.   

In the first folio, authorship of the plays was attributed by Ben Johnson to "the Bard of Avon."   This is assumed to clearly mean it was our Bill, and only our Bill, what writ them.   However, De Vere's estate at Bilston Hall (at the time he resided there) was bounded by the Avon on one side and the Forest of Arden on the other.

The only "evidence" that Shakespeare was other than a near illiterate ingrate, is that after the Puritans gave up their rule of England, it was then made official that our Bill was the true author of the plays and sonnets.   

(Honest, I am not making any of this up).

Incidentally, on the eight times he actually signed anything, our Bill used a different variation of the spelling of his name: the only consistent thing about them is that the first syllable is always "Shak" and never "Shake".

and so on, and so on, and so on .....