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Homeless Shakespeare His Fabricated Life from Cradle to Grave

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“The biographers must re-write their Lives of Shakespeare.” — An Eighteenth Century Critic Homeless Shakespeare His Fabricated Life from Cradle to Grave By E. M. Dutton ―The biographers must re-write their Lives of Shakespeare.‖ —A Critic Homeless Shakespeare His Fabricated Life from Cradle to Grave By E. M. Dutton 1 The Idol By Dr. Holmes An idol? Man was born to worship such. An idol is the image of his thoughts; Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone, And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold. Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome, Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire. Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words. Or pays his priest to make it, day by day. For sense must have its god as well as soul. The time is racked with birth pangs. Every hour Brings forth some gasping truth; and truth new born Looks a misshapen and untimely growth; The terror of the household and its shame, A monster coiling in its nurse‘s lap That some would strangle, some would only starve; But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand. And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts. Comes slowly to its stature and its form; Welcomed by all that curst its hour of birth, And folded in the same encircling arms That cast it like a serpent from their hold. ―Be sure and smash the idol, Shakespere, if you can, with the powerful weapons of fact, before you attempt to set up any poetical divinity in his place.‖ —John H. Stotsenburg (1904) ―The faults of great authors are generally excellences carried to an excess.‖ —Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) 1 ―In sheer despair of ascertaining facts, the majority of biographers have been content to weave a tissue of fictions.‖ —C. M. Ingleby (1877) 2 ―The delusions are based upon prejudice and preconceived ideas, and die very hard.‖ —Sir George Greenwood 1 Miscellanies, p. 149. 2 Shakespeare: The Man & the Book (London: Trubner & Co.) Vol. I. 2 CONTENTS List of Illustrations 5 Acknowledgments 6 Introduction 7 Chapter One: Introduction to William Shakespeare‘s Biographies 9 I. Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718) 9 II. Sir Sydney Lee (1859–1926) 40 III. Edmond Malone (1741–1812) 72 Chapter Two: Facts not Myths 75 I. The Birthplace 75 II. The Droeshout Image 81 III. Shakespere‘s Religion 83 IV. Journey to London 90 V. Which Anne? 93 VI. John Shakespere‘s Religion 104 VII. Shakespere‘s Funeral 106 Chapter Three: Shakespearean References with Historical Facts 113 I. Elizabethan Times 115 II. Last Will & Testament of Willemi Shackspeare 127 III. Displeasure Entertains Fables 135 Chapter Four: The First Folio (1623) 141 I. The Editing 145 II. The Printers & Editors 146 III. The Publication 150 IV. The Plays 153 Chapter Five: The Forgers 163 I. Shakespeare‘s Alleged Portraits 164 II. Important Forgeries 171 III. John Payne Collier (b.1789) 178 Chapter Six: Palace of Myths 188 I. Shakespere‘s Coat-of-Arms 190 II. The Influence of Commercialism 192 III. Shakespere‘s Professions 197 Epilogue 207 Appendix A 213 Other biographers on Shakespeare‘s life Appendix B 216 The Alleged Marriage Appendix C 218 Thomas Vautrollier‘s Publications Appendix D 223 Richard Field‘s Publications 3 Appendix E 225 Schoolmasters and Clergymen of Stratford From 1546 to 1792 Bibliography 226 Index 233 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece: Sketch from Charles Knight‘s William Shakspere (1865) Digital Processing ©2011 Sergio Verrecchia Illustration 01: Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718) 10 Illustration 02: Thomas Betterton (1635–1710) 11 Illustration 03: William Oldys (1696–1761) 13 Illustration 04: John Aubrey (1626–1697) 16 Illustration 05: Additional passage about Shakespeare by John Aubrey 19 Illustration 06: Sir Sidney Lee (1859–1926) 40 Illustration 07: Samples of John Shakespere‘s mark 45 Illustration 08: Leonard Digges‘s Eulogy from the First Folio (1623) 52 Illustration 09: Wenceslas Hollar‘s Sketch (Dugdale‘s Warwickshire Antiquities 1656) 57 Illustration 10: Sir William Dugdale (1605–1686) 60 Illustration 11: Various Sketches of the ―Stratford Moniment‖ 61 Illustration 12: Edmond Malone (1741–1812) Painted by J. Reynolds c.1774 72 Illustration 13: Two left sleeves 83 Illustration 14: Marriage license for ―Wm Shaxpere and Annam Whateley of Temple Grafton‖ registered November 27, 1582 93 Illustration 15: Marriage Bond for ―Willm Shagspere and Anne Hathwey of Stratford in the diocese of Worcester, maiden‖ entered November 28, 1582 95 Illustration 16: Caricature sketch by Arthur Moreland (1915) 102 Illustration 17: The Mermaid Tavern 116 Illustration 18: Shakespeare‘s Folios 141 Illustration 19: Droeshout, Cobbe & Sir Thomas Overbury 165 Illustration 20: George Steevens (1736–1800) 175 Illustration 21: The Harleian Collection displayed at the British Library 177 Illustration 22: Alleged signature of Shakespeare on Ovid‘s Metamorphoses 183 Illustration 23: The Irelands: Samuel (the father) and William-Henry (the son) 186 Illustration 24: Sir William D‘Avenant (1606–1668) 217 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude for the use of all illustrations set in this work that are now in public domain. This would mean all images chosen is not protected by copyright and may be freely used by everyone, for the explicit reason the work is not protected: A term of copyright has expired. I express gratitude to my friend, Sergio Verrecchia, for his digital processing on the front-page image. Additional thanks go to the services of the Internet Archive Copyright Agent for their preservation of archives in collaboration with institutions, including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian; their assistance was indispensable as their material assisted in collecting information from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reprints of material have been quoted with sources indicated. A wide variety of references are listed, and reasonable efforts have been made to collect reliable data. For convenience, we have followed writing the surname ―Shakespeare‖ for the author of the Shakespeare Canon; thereafter, ―Shakespere‖ in reference to the actor of Stratford-upon-Avon, though spelling of the latter surname in legal documents, remains as given, that upholds the universal rule of quoting original documents as found. Finally, it gives me pleasure to thank family and friends who have assisted in the creation of this work, and feel indebted to their patience and good judgment. 6 INTRODUCTION ―When a thing is asserted as a fact, always ask who first reported it, and what means he had of knowing the truth.‖ —James Spedding 3 John Ward had noted: ―In ancient historic, if we will have anything of truth, we must have something of falsehood; it is as impossible to find antiquity without fables, as an old face without wrinkles.‖ 4 Without knowing it, John Ward could easily have said these same words if he was talking about William Shakespeare. In Chapter one, we unravel the very first instigators who created the pseudo-biography of Shakespeare: They were a late sixteenth, early seventeenth century clique of men bound by tradition to uphold the name of the British Bard. These men circulated various myths and produced the disinformation of what we know today in order to create a genealogy. The motive for this is dealt with in Chapter four with supporting evidence and references. As researchers of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, we have encountered many intrigues and machinations; plots and plotters who could organize a plot for as long as two years, which shall have no other importance but to dine with the squire of a neighbouring parish. It was such concepts of life that made all cunning persons superficial ones: The men of this clique we investigate, were no better. In Chapter two, the most important myths created and shown in chapter one are dispelled with the actual events to take their place. This offers the reader enough evidence to form an opinion of their own if the actor of Stratford is or is not the Shakespeare of literature. We do not cover the subject of the Authorship Controversy, since this is an immense field of pure guesswork by those who support Shakespeare to be Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Kit Marlowe, and others. There is no possibility of discovering any evidence on the Authorship Controversy (at least for the present), so we did not want the material we were working on to be shadowed with assumptions and/or circumstantial evidence. In Chapter three it was imperative to give some evidence of the Elizabethan era, their dwellings, their ways of printing, and other such activities of those times. This material helps the reader understand the Elizabethan attitude, in order to comprehend why the life of Shakespeare was fabricated in the seventeenth century with a pseudo-biography. In Chapter four we offer detailed evidence for the motive of the fabrication, which is the First Folio published in 1623. In Chapter five, we extend in depth on the forgers of the time, who they were, what their motives were for fabricating Shakespearean material, and what has become of those spurious 3 James Spedding (1808–1881) English author, chiefly known as the editor of the Works of Francis Bacon. 4 Charles Severn, Diary of the Rev. John Ward (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), 115. 7 documents. Unfortunately, modern biographers still use these forged documents to create their life of Shakespeare. In Chapter six, we offer the reader final evidence and proof that the actor of Stratford is not the author of the plays, sonnets, and poems. And, in the Appendices is material that would have disrupted the flow of events in all pre-mentioned chapters. 8 CHAPTER ONE Introduction to William Shakespeare‘s Biographies ―Of no man has so much that is unreliable been written as about William Shakespeare.
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