t
-*
THE MYSTERY OF “Mr. W. H.”








EDwARD DE verº, SEVENTEENTH EARL of oxford, AGE 25.
From the portrait at Welbeck Abbey. Reproduced by
permission of His Grace the Duke of Portland.


THE MYSTERY OF
“Mr. W. H.”
By
COLONEL B. R. WARD, C.M.G.
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
CECIL PALMER


“No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; *
But let your love even with my life decay: }
Lest the wise world should look into your moan, -
And mock you with me after I am gone.”
Sonnet No. 71.
*
First Edition 1923 Copyright
PRINTED IN GREAt Britain. By the white FRIARs PRESS, LTD.,
London And ton BRIDGE.


PREFACE
THE following pages describe a series of Shakespeare
discoveries, principally connected with The Sonnets, made
at Hackney during the summer of 1922, followed by a
series of inferences drawn from these discoveries, all
tending to show the truth of the hypothesis first put forward
by Mr. J. Thomas Looney in 1920 that Edward de Vere,
seventeenth Earl of Oxford, and William Shakespeare are
identical personalities. To proclaim oneself a supporter
of the de Were theory of authorship is, under present
conditions, equivalent in the opinion of a large number of
people to a confession either of mental deficiency or of
moral obliquity. A short personal explanation may
perhaps, therefore, be permitted to me at this point, in order
to show how I found myself dans cette galère and why
I have been driven to found a society which actually goes
so far as to welcome free research on the subject of
Shakespearean authorship.
On the 13th February, 1922, I was invited to lecture
to a literary society in Gillingham, Kent, on “The Sonnet
in English Literature.” I went down to Gillingham by
an afternoon train from Victoria, and while looking at the
magazines on W. H. Smith's bookstall for something to
read in the train, I noticed an article in the National Review
entitled “Shakespeare: Lord Oxford or Lord Derby * *
by J. Thomas Looney. I bought the magazine and read
it on my way down.
I have been familiar for many years with the Baconian
controversy, but have never been a convinced Baconian,
as the evidence has not satisfied me that he could have been
the actual author, although I thought he might possibly
GG1
7 ºf
ly 25 €
*/


vi Preface
have been the editor of the plays. I was, therefore, a
Stratfordian—not an enthusiastic one, but a Stratfordian
for want of a better hypothesis.
The reading of Mr. Looney's article did not convert me,
but it decided me to go into the question later on. During
my lecture I quoted several of Shakespeare's sonnets in illus-
tration of my theme, and spoke of the author as the actor who
came up to London from Stratford in 1586 or thereabouts,
and who probably saw the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, who
was buried in old St. Paul's on the 16th February, 1587.
After the lecture, a Frenchman in the audience came up
to me and said: “You spoke very decidedly about Shake-
speare going here and going there, but do you know that a
Frenchman has written a book to show that the Earl of
Derby wrote the plays 2 and it looks very like it too !”
I said “Yes, I know about that, and intend to read what
he has to say. At the same time I am doubtful whether
any such hypothesis is necessary, as William Shakespeare's
bad handwriting can be explained as having been caused by
writer's cramp.” I had recently read a pamphlet entitled
Shakespeare's Handwriting, by the late Dr. Leftwich, M.D.
The Frenchman acknowledged this to be a point worth
consideration, but evidently he did not attach much
weight to it.
When I got back to London, I bought Mr. Looney's
book, and by the time I had got through about a third of
it, I felt convinced that he had practically proved his case.
I then read Professor Lefranc's two volumes, and came to
the conclusion that Derby had had a hand in the work as
well as Oxford, and that he may have written The Tempest
as an Introduction to the First Folio of 1623. As Edward
de Vere, Earl of Oxford, lived at Hackney for the last
eight, or possibly twelve, years of his life, I determined


Preface vii
to make some researches in that locality in order to find
out where he had lived, and any other details about his life
there. My researches were more fruitful than I ever
anticipated. The results may be summarised as follows.
I found in the parish register of St. John's Church an
entry which clears up—so far as I can see, conclusively—the
long debated mystery of the dedication of The Sonnets; and
I also found a remarkable series of correspondences between
Oxford's life and residence at Hackney and the dates and
circumstances of publication of the Shakespeare Quartos.
The first two chapters of the book describe in some
detail the foregoing discoveries, and show how strikingly
they confirm Mr. Looney's hypothesis as to the identity
of Edward de Were and William Shakespeare.
These chapters were originally published in the National
Review—in September and October, 1922—and I have to
thank the editor, Mr. L. J. Maxse, for his kind permission
to reproduce them in book form. Although the evidence
put forward in the National Review is far from being
negligible in character, no attempt has so far been made to
explain it away.
“La consigne est de tout ignorer,” as Professor Lefranc
expressed it in a recent number of the Belgian magazine
Le Flambeau. Or as Sir George Greenwood has wittily
put it in his introductory chapter to Mr. E. W. Smithson's
Baconian Essays : “The writer is guilty of vile and intoler-
able heresy (to wit, that he shares the conviction of the late
Henry James—and many others alive and dead—that the
author of Hamlet and Lear and Othello was actually a well-
educated man, of high position and the representative of
the highest culture of his day), and is therefore taboo to the
editors of all decent journals.”
After two months of complete silence, broken only by
a very kind and appreciative article in the Hackney Spectator


viii Preface
of the 8th September, 1922, I came to the conclusion that
this curious attitude on the part of all “decent journals'’
could only be dealt with by means of group action, which
might serve to encourage some of the many thousands of
doubters that exist up and down the country to join a society
definitely founded on the basis of free research.
Hence the organisation of the Shakespeare Fellowship on
the 6th November, 1922, with Sir George Greenwood as its
President, and the Hon. Sir John Cockburn, K.C.M.G.,
M.D., Professor Abel Lefranc, Mr. J. Thomas Looney,
Mr. L. J. Maxse, and Mr. William T. Smedley as Vice-
Presidents, the Hackney Spectator being our official organ.
As the foregoing names indicate, the Fellowship includes
the originators of the Derby and Oxford hypotheses, two
distinguished Baconians, as well as Shakespeare students who
are dissatisfied with Stratfordian orthodoxy.
A report of the Foundation Meeting of the Fellowship
is given in Appendix G at the end of this volume. This
Appendix also contains a statement of the objects of the
Fellowship.
So much for my personal explanation. I have, I hope,
shown how it has come about that this book is the manifesto
of a society as well as a record of research, and why it is
that I now call upon all Shakespeare students who set a
higher value on truth than on orthodoxy to join the Shake-
speare Fellowship and to judge all questions of evidence
“upon the oaths of judgment and reason ’’; for—as we all
profess to believe, even if Sir Toby Belch had not assured
us of it long ago—“ they have been grand-jurymen since
before Noah was a sailor.”
The first two chapters that follow are printed exactly
as they first appeared in the September and October numbers
of the National Review.
3rd January, 1923,


CONTENTS
PREFACE . - - - - - - - V
chapter
I. THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM HALL - - - I
II. EDWARD DE VERE AND WILLIAM SHAKSPERE–
A DUAL MYSTERY - - - - • 24
III. THE PUBLICATION OF THE FIRST FOLIO - . 4I
IV. THE DE VERE FAMILY AND THE FIRST FOLIO . 53
V. THE PERSONALITY OF EDWARD DE VERE . . 65
APPENDIx A. Robert SouTHWELL AND, Oxford's ATTI-
TUDE TowARDS ROMAN CATHOLICISM - - . 89
APPENDIx B. THE USE OF THE COMPOUND WoRD “EveR-
LIVING " IN ENGLISH LITERATURE . - - • 94
APPENDIx C. WILL OF ELIZABETH DE VERE, CountEss
DOWAGER OF OXFORD . - - - - . 99
APPENDIx D. THE FUNERAL of QUEEN ELIZABETH . IO8
APPENDIX E. LETTER FROM THE EARL OF OXFORD TO
LORD BURLEIGH . - - - - - . II.5
APPENDIX F. THE DE VERE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER
ABBEY . • * - - - - - - . II7
APPENDIx G. THE SHAKESPEARE FELLOWSHIP - . I22
M.W. h. b


ILLUSTRATIONS
TO face
Page
I. EDWARD DE WERE, SEVENTEENTH EARL OF OxFORD,
AGE TWENTY-FIVE . - - Frontispiece
II. DEDICATION OF THE SONNETS . - - - 8
III. BROOKE HOUSE, HACKNEY, 1797. - - • I2
IV. MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM HALL, I608 . - . 22
V. BIRTH OF HENRY DE VERE, 1593 - - . 27
VI. FUNERAL OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, 1603 . - • 34
VII. ST. AUGUSTINE’s CHURCH, HACKNEY, 1750 . . 38
VIII. HANDwRITING OF EDWARD DE VERE, I584 . 66
IX. BROOKE House, HACKNEY, SouTH-WEST VIEW . 82
X. BROOKE House, HACKNEY, INTERIOR OF STUDY . 86
XI. BRookE House, HACKNEY, THE CHAPEL, 1647 . 92
XII. ToMB OF SIR FRANCIS WERE - I2O


John, 15th Earl of Oxford
John, 16th l of Oxford, m. Margaret Golding Groffrey
|
|
Edward, b. 1550, 17th E. of Oxford,
m. Ist (1571) Anne Cecil; m, 2nd (1591) Eliz. Trentham
m. Eliz. Hardekyn I556
|
|
T--
FRANCIS, HoRAcE,
b. 1500 b. 156
(Ist Cousins to Edº
HENRY, 18th E. of Oxford
|
ELIZABETH, BRIDGET,
b. I 575 b. 1584
m. William Stanley m. Francis Norris
E. of Derby E. of Berkshire
| I593–1624
SUSAN,
b. 1587
m. Philip Herbert
E. of Montgomery
The de Vere Family


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
in the mind of a huntsman before he draws a covert is that
there may be a fox in it. If his working hypothesis is wrong,
he will not be able to show any sport.
Similarly, if a searcher among historical records starts
with an erroneous working hypothesis, he will not enjoy
any sport, or if he does start any game it will not be the
particular game he is after.
A good example of this is to be seen in that admirable
monument of patient research, Mrs. Stopes’ Third Earl of
Southampton, published in 1921. Mrs. Stopes writes in
her Preface :
I must confess that I did not start this work for the sake of
the Earl of Southampton, but in the hope that I might find more
about Shakespeare, which hope has not been satisfied.
All the more honour to Mrs. Stopes for sticking to her
self-imposed task, and for piling up yet higher the debt of
gratitude which all Shakespeare students owe her for her
splendid work among Elizabethan records.
Notwithstanding all this, a legitimate inference from a
study of Mrs. Stopes’ book is that the working hypothesis
with which she started was wrong.
I would not, of course, for one moment think of com-
paring my own amateur work in connection with Parish
Registers and local histories with Mrs. Stopes' magnificent
and valuable work among sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century MSS.; but, if I can show any successful result
4.


The Marriage of William Hall
following the use of my particular working hypothesis, I think
a fair inference to be drawn is that the hypothesis on which I
am working is true, and that Mrs. Stopes’ working hypothesis
about Shakespeare—the orthodox one—is not true.
Before discussing my particular researches, it will be advis-
able at this point to give a short résumé of Oxford's career.
For the first thirty-eight years of his life (1550–1588)
he led the life of a royal ward, courtier, poet and favourite
of Queen Elizabeth.
In 1571 he married the daughter of Lord Burleigh, Anne
Cecil, by whom he had three daughters, Elizabeth, Bridget
and Susan, the first of whom was born in 1575 and the last
in 1587. The Earl was one of the noblemen who possessed
a company of players—the “Oxford Boys’—with whom
he toured the provinces and acted in London at the Curtain
Theatre, and doubtless also at Court. He bore the reputa-
tion of being one of the best writers of comedy of the time.
Fleay, in his Chronicle of the London Stage (p. 86) is
of the opinion that the Earl of Oxford's players continued
to act at the Curtain until 1588. After that date, at all
events, they are no longer heard of. His wife,
“Anne Countess of Oxford died in Queen Elizabeth's Court the
6th of June 1588, and was honourably interred in Westminster
Abbey on the 25th of the same month, attended by many Persons
of great Quality and Honour.””
* Collins's Noble Families, p. 265.


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
A monument was erected by her father, Lord Burleigh,
in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, Westminster Abbey, to her
memory and to that of her mother, who died in the following
year.
As the Earl of Oxford does not appear to have been
present at the funeral of his wife, and had no share in the
erection of the memorial, it is quite clear that some estrange-
ment had occurred between the couple. Up to this date,
1588, there is no particular mystery about Oxford's life. But
a complete change took place after the death of his first wife.
It is known that he subsequently married Elizabeth
Trentham, one of the Maids of Honour of Queen Elizabeth,
and that their son Henry, afterwards the eighteenth Earl
of Oxford, was born in 1593, that he was summoned from
his retirement to act as one of the judges at the trial of Essex
in 1601, and that he died at Hackney on June 24, 1604.
So much is known. But this period of sixteen years,
from 1588 to 1604, is, compared with the first period, one
of complete retirement and obscurity.
The very date of his second marriage is unknown. This
is in striking contrast to the first marriage, which took
place in Westminster Abbey and was attended by Queen
Elizabeth herself.
We may, therefore, conveniently divide Oxford's life
into two periods, the Anne Cecil period up to 1588, a period
of prominence and brilliancy, associated with the Court;
6


The Marriage of William Hall
and, secondly, what we may call the Elizabeth Trentham
period, from 1588 to 1604, spent in retirement and almost
complete obscurity, this period of his life being associated
principally with the neighbourhood of Hackney.
It is this second period that I have selected for investiga-
tion. Covering, as it does, the first period of Shakespearean
publication, from the Venus and Adonis of 1593 to the
authentic Hamlet Quarto of 1604, it includes what must
be considered, ex hypothesi, the most productive period of
Oxford's life. Investigation promised to be all the easier
as it seemed to be confined to one locality.
This turned out to be the case, and as my first discovery
was in connection with The Sonnets, a short description of
the title, dedication and other details of the first edition
is necessary at this point.
On May 20, 1609, “a book called Shakespeares Son-
nettes” was entered on the Stationers’ Register, and was
shortly afterwards published in quarto, and priced at
fivepence, with the following title-page:
SHAKE-SPEARES
SONNETS
Never before imprinted
AT LONDON
By G.Eld for T.T. and are to be solde by
WILLIAM ASPLEY.
1609.


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
The most cursory examination of the first edition of The
Sonnets is sufficient to show that the book was published
as a business venture, without the knowledge or permission
of the author.
The very title, Shake-speares Sonnets, instead of The
Sonnets of William Shakespeare, displays what Sir Sidney
Lee characterizes as “a tradesman's collocation of words.”
The dedication runs as follows:
TO. THE. ONLIE. BEGETTER. OF.
THESE. INSVING. SONNETS.
MR. W. H. ALL. HAPPINESSE.
AND. THAT. ETERNITIE.
PROMISED.
BY.
OVR. EVER-LIVING. POET.
WISHETH.
THE WELL-WISHING.
ADVENTVRER. IN.
SETTING.
FORTH.
T.T.
Let us first endeavour to ascertain who “T.T.” may
have been, “the well-wishing adventurer,” or hopeful
speculator, who published or set forth “these insuing
sonnets" in 1609.
These initials stand for Thomas Thorpe, the publisher,
concerning whom the following details are taken from Sir
8


The Marriage of William Hall
Sidney Lee's article on him in the Dictionary of National
Biography.
In 1594 he took up the freedom of the Stationers’
Company, and in the year 1600 he signed the dedication
of Christopher Marlowe's First Book of Lucan to his friend
in the trade, Edward Blount, one of Marlowe's intimate
friends.
The dedication, which opens with the words: “Blunt,
I purpose to be blunt with you,” was a facetious one, the
usually selected noble but niggardly patron coming in for
some uncomplimentary remarks.
Thorpe's energies [Sir Sidney Lee tells us] seem to have been
mainly confined, as in his initial venture of Marlowe's Lucan, to
the predatory work of procuring, no matter how, unpublished and
neglected “copy.” In the absence of any legal recognition of an
author's right to control the publication of his work, the actual
holder of a MS. was its lawful and responsible owner, no matter
by what means it had fallen into his hands.
So much for “T.T.,” or Thomas Thorpe.
Now for “Mr. W. H.,” to whom the volume is dedicated
as the “onlie begetter’ of the sonnets, and on whose behalf
T.T. wishes “all happinesse and that eternitie promised by
our ever-living Poet.”
Many conjectures have been hazarded as to who this
mysterious “Mr. W. H.” can have been. One of the
points I hope to make in the following pages is the identi-
fication of this enigmatic personage. Some interpret the
9


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
He was born about 1560, and was sent to school at
Douay. In his fifteenth year he went to Paris, where he
studied under the Jesuit Thomas Darbyshire. In 1578 he
was enrolled at Rome “amongst the children’’ destined
to become Jesuits. In 1580 he was admitted to the first
vows, and was made Prefect of Studies in the English
College at Rome. In 1584 he was ordained priest and
nominated to the English Mission. In 1585 an Act of
Parliament, 27 Eliz., was passed. This Act laid it down
that any Roman Catholic priest ordained since the first
year of Queen Elizabeth's reign—1558—who should reside
more than forty days in England, was guilty of treason and
liable to suffer death.
In 1586 Robert Southwell set out for England accom-
panied by Father Henry Garnett, but his landing was
reported by a spy to Sir Francis Walsingham, and he was
closely watched.
He was welcomed at Lord Vaux's house at Hackney,
and for six years he led the life of a fugitive, carrying his
life in his hand, making use of many disguises, travelling
under the name of Cotton, and using terms of falconry in
his conversation in order to throw his pursuers off the
scent, until at last he was arrested at Harrow in 1592.
For the next three years he was kept in prison at
Westminster and in the Tower, being every now and then
subjected to torture in the vain hope that he would betray
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The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
London; and it is conjectured that he hired a residence at Hack-
ney (probably Brooke House), which is confirmed from the cir-
cumstance of his house at Hackney being mentioned * several
times in a book printed in 1603 (published by James Roberts,
dwelling in Barbican) entitled : A Declaration of Egregious Popish
Impostures.
We may therefore take it, in Dr. Robinson's opinion, as
being highly probable that the well-known Elizabethan
residence, Brooke House, was the harbour of refuge to
which Robert Southwell was welcomed in 1586.f
The confirmation of this, that Dr. Robinson accepts
from the frequent mention of Lord Vaux’s house at Hackney
in the Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, is probably
due to the fact that a local tradition of a “priest's hole"
or hiding-place has always connected itself with Brooke
House.
The existence of this local tradition, together with
another and most important piece of evidence connecting
both the Earl and Countess of Oxford with Brooke House,
are alluded to in the following quotations from a series of
articles by the late Mr. Henry Blundell-Heath, contributed
to the Hackney Spectator from February 22 to May Io,
1909, under the heading, “The Romance of Brooke House,
Hackney.”
* Pages 7, II, 37, 82, II 7, 131, 139, 193, 202, 203, 237, 246, 251, 254,
261, 267, 268, 260.
f See Appendix A.
I4


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
On May 17th (2 James I–i.e. in 1604) a true bill is found that
at Hackney in the dwelling house of the Most Noble the Earl of
Oxford certain persons robbed Agnes Thomas of various garments
and money. Sentenced to be hung. Again, on October 19th
(4 James I–i.e. in 1606) the recognizance is taken of John Freeon
of Hackney, gentleman, servant to the Countess of Oxford, to
appear at the next gaol delivery to witness against Rose Jones
committed on suspicion of a felony done to the said Countess.
The foregoing quotation contains evidence of the
occupation of King's Place by the Earl of Oxford on May 17,
1604, just a month before his death, and we know from
Shakespeare Identified, p. 239, where the Hatfield MSS.,
vol. xii, are quoted, that he was writing to Sir Robert Cecil
from Hackney on March 22, 1601.
Probably, therefore, the house was occupied from 1596
both by the Earl and Countess, the mention of the name of
the Countess alone as the incoming tenant in 1596 being
possibly due to some provision in the marriage settlement.
Her father, Sir Thomas Trentham, of Rocester, Stafford-
shire, was a wealthy man, his father having been granted
the lands of the Abbey at Rocester by Henry VIII on the
dissolution of the monasteries. In any case, Mr. Blundell-
Heath is clearly mistaken in speaking of the Countess of
Oxford as a widow in 1596.
The following quotation is from a MS. History of
Hackney, by John Thomas, 1832, under the heading
“Brooke House ’’:
I6


The Marriage of William Hall
In 1596 this Manor with the Capital Mansion was conveyed
by Anthony Ratcliffe and others to Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford,
who in 1609 alienated it with 4 Messuages, 2 Cottages, 2 Tofts,
etc., 100 acres of Land, 50 of meadow, Ioo of pasture, and 20 of
wood in the Parishes of Hackney and Tottenham to Fulke Greville,
afterwards Lord Brooke, his heirs and assigns.
It is at this point that the clue suggesting The Sonnets
comes in. It was on May 20, 1609, that “a book called
Shakespeares Sonnettes" was entered on the Stationers’
Register, and it was in 1609, according to Thomas, that
the Countess of Oxford alienated Brooke House—or King's
Place, as it was then called—to Fulke Greville.
The date, 1609, is so important in this connection that
any further evidence as to Lady Oxford's affairs at this time
is very desirable. A reference to Morant's History of Essex,
vol. ii, p. 295, supplies a further link in the chain. From
his account of the de Vere property of Castle-Hedingham,
in that county, we find that Lady Oxford's brother, Francis
Trentham, advanced £10,000 “to clear incumbrances on
the Oxford Estates. In consideration whereof, 8 July,
1609, by deed inrolled,” etc., etc. Oxford's three daughters
by his first wife conveyed Castle-Hedingham to their step-
mother, the Countess-Dowager.
We are now in a position to recapitulate the relevant
and probable facts before going on to any inferences from
those facts.
M.w.ri, c
17


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
For greater clearness let us put them down in chrono-
logical order and tabular form.
I586–1592.
I595.
I596.
I604.
I606.
Robert Southwell, a Jesuit, author of the poem
A Foure-fold Meditation, published after his
death, is at intervals welcomed by Lord Vaux
at his house in Hackney. This house, according
to Robinson, was probably King's Place.
Death of Lord Vaux.
Execution of Robert Southwell.
Occupation of King's Place by Lady Vaux, by
the Countess—and doubtless also by the Earl—
of Oxford.
Death of the Earl of Oxford at Hackney.
William Hall procures for publication Robert
Southwell's Foure-fold Meditation.
Sale of King's Place, and purchase of Castle-
Hedingham by Lady Oxford.
William Hall procures for publication a “book
called Shakespeares Sonnettes,” entered on the
Stationers' Register on May 20th. Thomas
Thorpe publishes The Sonnets, dedicating them
in an intimate and friendly way to a fellow pub-
lisher, whom he addresses as “Mr. W. H.,”
wishing him “all happinesse and that eternitie
promised by our ever-living Poet.”
What inferences may we draw from these facts 2
Working as we are on the hypothesis stated at the
commencement of this chapter, that the Earl of Oxford
was the author of The Sonnets, it may surely be inferred
with some confidence that the general clearing-up of the
18


The Marriage of William Hall
Oxford affairs in 1609, including the sale of King's Place,
when an inventory was made of its contents, brought the
MS. of these poems to light.
A second inference which may be drawn from the
Dedication of The Sonnets is that the author was not living
at the time of their publication. “Our ever-living Poet’”
is, as Mr. Looney has pointed out in Shakespeare Identified,
p. 419, a phrase only used of a man after he is actually dead.
If this inference be accepted, all other known claimants
to the authorship of The Sonnets are put out of court; for
William Shakspere the actor, the Earls of Rutland, Derby
and Southampton, as well as Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis
Bacon, were all living in 1609.
A third inference is that William Hall, who was the
procurer of The Sonnets, as well as of the Foure-fold Medita-
tion, probably obtained both MSS. from King's Place.
A fourth inference is that William Hall had probably
some local connection with Hackney, and may very well
have been a Hackney man.
A fifth inference, which may be drawn from the Dedica-
tion of The Sonnets, is that William Hall had been recently
married.
Mrs. Stopes, in her biography of The Third Earl of
Southampton, p. 344, makes the very plausible suggestion
that “all happinesse and that eternitie promised by our
* See Appendix B.
c 2 I9


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
ever-living Poet,” reads very like a wedding wish, the
particular eternity promised in many of the sonnets * being
the eternity to be gained by leaving posterity behind to
carry on one's name and memory.
Although I had not up to this time consulted the actual
Hackney Parish Registers, as the extracts given in Robinson's
History of Hackney gave the dates of death both of the
Earl and Countess of Oxford, I felt that my search would
not be complete without consulting the original Registers
on the offchance of their containing the name of a William
Hall who might have been the “onlie begetter’’ or procurer
of the MS. of The Sonnets in 1609.
In order, therefore, to leave no stone unturned in the
matter, I examined the Registers one afternoon after a long
morning spent in the Central Library, Hackney, where the
Chief Librarian, Mr. T. Aldred, had courteously placed at
my disposal all the MSS. and printed books dealing with
local history. The MS. notes contained extracts from the
old Registers, with occasional remarks, such as the following:
A.D. I590, were 23 marriages, none of note.
#: * *: sk × *
1607. 22 marriages, 38 Xtnings and 38 burials.
1608. 25 marriages, Sº R* Lovelace Kt. & Marg Dod-
worth, Jn" Brewster of the Temple & Lady
Deane Widow.
40 Xtnings. Nath' son of Sº Jn" Rae Kt.
7I burials, etc., etc.
* See Sonnets I, VI, XII, XIII, XIV, etc.
2O


The Marriage of William Hall
The chance of finding William Hall was so slight that
I very nearly contented myself with the extracts contained
in the Library, but decided at last to go to the church so
as to satisfy my mind that everything possible had been
done to find “Mr. W. H.”
I emphasize the fact that I went to the Registers to
find a definite individual to fit a particular case, because a
successful find under such circumstances is more valuable
as evidence than a chance discovery, for the reason that
it tends to confirm the hypothesis on the strength of which
the search was being conducted, namely, in this case, that
The Sonnets had been found at King's Place, and that
William Hall was a Hackney man.
Judge, therefore, of my delight when I came across the
following entry:
William Hall and Margery Gryffyn were joyned in matrymonye
on the 4th Aug. 1608.
The verger, Mr. George Merle, who helped me to look
through the voluminous list of names, was no less interested
and hardly less pleased than I was at the swift and dramatic
success of the search.
It was, however, some time before I fully realized the
import of this discovery. I have since searched some
twenty odd volumes of the Harleian Society's Reprints of
Registers of London Parishes, as well as Marriage Licenses,
London, 1520–1610, Marriage Licenses Granted by the
2 I


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
|
Faculty Office, etc., etc., and the only William Halls who
were either born, married, or died at a time to fit the case
of “Mr. W. H.” are the following:
St. Michael's, Cornhill. William Hall, son of George, bapt.
Jan. I5, I570.
St. James', Clerkenwell. William Hall, married Margaret
Townley, I593.
William Hall, buried July 22, 1625.
William Hall, buried July 19, 1636.
Any one of these entries may refer to our William Hall.
If the second entry refers to him, Margery Gryffyn must
have been his second wife, and either of the two burials may
also refer to him.
Two important points should, however, be noticed.
First, that no entry so completely fulfils all the conditions
as the record of the marriage of William Hall to Margery
Gryffyn at Hackney on August 4, 1608. And secondly,
that my theory or working hypothesis guided me straight
to the right Parish Register.
The “book called Shakespeares Sonnettes" was entered
on the Stationers' Register on May 20, 1609. William Hall
had been married just nine months before. What more
suitable wedding present for him than the volume of sonnets
which open with the quatrain :
From fairest creatures we desire increase
That thereby beauty's Rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory
22





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Edward de Vere and William Shakspere
1593 Henrye, Vicount Bulbecke sonne to the right honourable
Edw. Vere Earle of Oxford was borne the XXIIIIth
of february 1592 * and christened the XXXIst day
of march in the yere 1593.
As Stoke Newington and Hackney are adjacent parishes,
it is clear that from the time of his second marriage, that is
to say, not later than early in 1592, the Earl of Oxford was
living in the neighbourhood of Hackney.
The other facts, all of which were alluded to in the last
chapter, are as follows:
1596 Occupation of King's Place by Lord and Lady
Oxford.
1604 Death of the Earl of Oxford and burial in
Hackney Church.
1609 Sale of King's Place by Lady Oxford.
1612 Death of Lady Oxford and burial in Hackney
Church.
The most important single fact in the above list is,
without doubt, the sale of King's Place—now known as
Brooke House—in 1609. This fact was alluded to in the last
chapter, in connection with the publication of The Sonnets,
but as other important inferences may be drawn from it,
it will be advisable at this point to concentrate all the
evidence bearing on the question. -
Thomas, in his MS. History of Hackney, 1832, is the
original authority I have come across for the statement
* O.S.
27


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
that King's Place was conveyed by Anthony Ratcliffe and
others to Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, in 1596, and that in
1609 she alienated it with some 270 acres of land to Fulke
Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke.
Other transactions that took place in the year 1609 are
given in the following extracts from Morant's History of
Essex, vol. ii, page 295:
Edward, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, having taken to his
second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Trentham, of Rocester,
in Staffordshire; her brother, Francis Trentham, Esq., advanced
ten thousand pounds to clear incumbrances on the Oxford
Estates.
In consideration whereof, 8 July, 1609, by deed inrolled, and
recovery suffered pursuant thereto, the three daughters of the said
Earl Edward, by his first wife, with their husbands, William Earl
of Derby, Francis Lord Norris, and Philip Earl of Montgomery,
by the appointment of the forementioned Elizabeth Vere, Countess
dowager of Oxford, conveyed the Honor of Castle Hedingham to
her for life, remainder to her son Henry Earl of Oxford for his life,
and to his sons in taile male; remainder to Trustees to perform
contingent estates, remainder to Francis Trentham, Esq., brother
of the said Countess, and his heirs for ever.
The reason for this purchase of Castle-Hedingham by
Lady Oxford is given by Morant as follows (History of
Essex, vol. ii, p. 293). Castle-Hedingham had been sold
by Edward the seventeenth Earl :
but it was repurchased by his wife, or rather widow, Elizabeth,
daughter of Thomas Trentham, Esq., who got a private act in
28


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
above details is that in these business transactions we see
the Dowager Countess and the young Earl on the one side,
assisted by Francis Trentham ; and Elizabeth, Bridget,
and Susan, the three daughters of Edward, the seventeenth
Earl, together with their husbands, the Earl of Derby,
Lord Norris, and the Earl of Montgomery, acting together
on the other side.
Before going on to the inferences which may be drawn
from these facts, it will be necessary to consider briefly
the history of the “Shakespeare’’ publications.
From 1593 when Venus and Adonis was first published,
down to 1604, when the 2nd quarto edition of Hamlet
appeared, there was a continuous stream of Shakespearean
publication. In this period of eleven years two long poems
and thirteen plays were given to the world. Then occurred
a break of four years, when a quarto edition of King Lear
was published in 1608; Troilus, Pericles, and The Sonnets
coming out in 1609.
This revival of publication in 1608–09, which—be it
noted in passing—coincides in point of time with the
winding up of Lord Oxford's affairs, was followed after an
interval of thirteen years by the publication of Othello in
1622, and by the First Folio of 1623, when all the plays
were collected in one edition, twenty of them being then
published for the first time.
We have already seen that the Earl of Oxford was in
3o


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
Another set of coincidences concerns William Shak-
spere, the Stratford man. There is no direct evidence of
his having been in London at all until 1592–3. In 1592
Robert Greene wrote his attack on “Shake-scene,” and in
1593 Shakspere lodged at St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. This
is the period of the publication of Venus and Adonis, when
the name of William Shakespeare made its first appearance
in English literature. After this he disappears for a time
—even the tax-gatherers could not find him—and re-appears
in 1596, lodging at Southwark, near the Bear Garden.
This is the precise time when steps were being taken to
establish him at Stratford. In the following year he pur-
chased New Place for £60. Two years later, when Love's
Labour's Lost was published with the name William Shake-
speare on the title-page, he was evidently immersed in
business at Stratford. From this time till 1604–5 was his
busiest Stratford period ; he was in the very thick of the
work of establishing himself there.
Oxford died in July 1604, and in November of that
year Shakspere “laye in the house" of Mr. Mountjoy in
Silver Street.
This would appear to have been a temporary visit, for
on July 24, 1605, he laid out the large sum of £440—between
two and three thousand pounds of modern money—in the
purchase of Stratford tithes.
In 1608–09 the Trenthams were straightening out matters,
32


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
Next take the period 1596–1598.
(1) Oxford's occupation of King's Place (1596).
(2) The name William Shakespeare first appears on a
play: Love's Labour's Lost (1598).
(3) William Shakspere at Southwark near the Bear
Garden (1596). He purchases New Place, at Stratford
for £60 (1597).
Period 1603–1605.
(1) Death of Oxford at Hackney (July 1604).
(2) It is generally agreed that the last of The Sonnets
was written shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth
(March 1603). Sonnet No. 125, perhaps the latest of all
in date of composition, beginning :
Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
probably refers to the Royal funeral,” where Oxford's place
as Lord High Chamberlain of England would have certainly
been amongst the six Earls who “bore the canopy” over the
wax figure of the Queen, shown on Camden's engraving of the
funeral procession. Publication of 2nd quarto of Hamlet and
first great period of Shakespearean publication ends (1604).
(3) William Shakspere “laye in the house" of Mr.
Mountjoy in Silver Street, Cheapside (November 1604),
and purchases Stratford tithes for £440 (July 1605).
* See Appendix D.
34


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The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
Next take the period 1596–1598.
(1) Oxford's occupation of King's Place (1596).
(2) The name William Shakespeare first appears on a
play: Love's Labour's Lost (1598).
(3) William Shakspere at Southwark near the Bear
Garden (1596). He purchases New Place, at Stratford
for £60 (1597).
Period 1603–1605.
(1) Death of Oxford at Hackney (July 1604).
(2) It is generally agreed that the last of The Sonnets
was written shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth
(March 1603). Sonnet No. 125, perhaps the latest of all
in date of composition, beginning :
Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
probably refers to the Royal funeral,” where Oxford's place
as Lord High Chamberlain of England would have certainly
been amongst the six Earls who “bore the canopy” over the
wax figure of the Queen, shown on Camden's engraving of the
funeral procession. Publication of 2nd quarto of Hamlet and
first great period of Shakespearean publication ends (1604).
(3) William Shakspere “laye in the house" of Mr.
Mountjoy in Silver Street, Cheapside (November 1604),
and purchases Stratford tithes for £440 (July 1605).
* See Appendix D.
34





Edward de Vere and William Shakspere
Period 1608–16Io.
(1) Lady Oxford—Elizabeth Trentham—alienates King's
Place to Fulke Greville (1609).
(2) Revival of Shakespearean publications: King Lear
(1608), The Sonnets, Troilus and Cressida, and Pericles,
all in 1609.
(3) William Shakspere rounds off his Stratford purchases
by a payment of £100 (April 1610).
Period 1612–1614.
(1) Death of Lady Oxford (December 1612).
(2) A second edition of England's Helicon is published
(1614) containing fourteen new “Ignoto’’ ” poems, in
addition to eleven others which had been previously pub-
lished in the first edition (1600).
(3) William Shakspere purchases a house in Blackfriars
for £140 (March 1613).
A consideration of the foregoing coincidences tends to
strengthen the view that the life histories of Oxford and
William Shakspere mutually depend on one another; and
that the dual mystery of Oxford's life on the one hand and
of Shakspere's life on the other hand tends to become
less mysterious when the two are considered together.
To prove that William Shakspere's life is a mystery, it
* Probably a pseudonym of the Earl of Oxford.—See Mr. Looney's
Poems of Edward de Vere, pp. liii—lix.
D 2 35


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
is not necessary to go beyond Exhibit No. 91 at the Museum
at Stratford. This exhibit shows that his daughter Judith
signified her agreement to a deed of sale by making her
mark.
That Oxford's life, or at all events the second portion
of it, is mysterious must be obvious to anyone who en-
deavours to unravel it. To begin with, no date of his
second marriage has yet been found, and a thorough search
at Somerset House has failed to discover any trace of a will.
All this is in striking harmony with the following very
definite expressions scattered about in The Sonnets :
I, once gone, to all the world must die. (81)
My name be buried where my body is. (72)
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell :
2}: #: # # $ ::
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse. (71)
The earth can yield me but a common grave. (81)
This last quotation is strikingly confirmed by a statement
in the will of his second wife, Elizabeth, Countess Dowager
of Oxford.*
The will was drawn up on November 25, 1612, some
six weeks before her death, and she desires
* See Appendix C.
36


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
church and tower and for building another. In the following
year the new church was commenced, and was completed
in 1797.
Robinson in his History of Hackney, Vol. II, published
in 1842, tells us what followed :
The ancient fabric of St. Augustine was taken down in the year
1798, except the old tower, which still remains on the east side
of the High Street.
* × + +: × *
Along the frieze of the gallery there was an inscription pur-
porting that the church was repaired in the year 1720.
* × sk sk * ::
The monument of Lady Latimer, who died in 1582, with
inscriptions, was remaining in the north aisle of the old church
when it was taken down ; fragments of which, together with the
effigy of Lady Latimer, in a dilapidated state, are now (1842)
under the old tower, a place used as a toolhouse by the sexton,
concealed beneath dirt and rubbish.
*: * :: :: + *:
The church, before its demolition, was extremely rich in
monuments, some of which, being considered worth preserving,
were taken down and put up in the porches or vestibules of the
new Church of St. John. In most Christian countries the inscrip-
tions or epitaphs on the monuments, erected to perpetuate the
memory of the dead, are carefully preserved and registered in
their church books; but in England they are (to the shame of our
time, be it said) broken down and almost utterly destroyed and their
brass inscriptions erased, torn away and pilfered ; by which the
memory of many virtuous and noble persons deceased is extin-
guished, and the true understanding of families is darkened, as
38


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Edward de Vere and William Shakspere
the course of their inheritance is thereby in a great measure
interrupted.
The ancient monuments, brasses, and inscriptions, which were
formerly the pride and ornament of the old Church of St. Augustine
have suffered by the taste for modern improvements; and most
of them are scattered abroad, and not to be found but in the
private collections of individuals, and placed against the walls of
passages leading to conservatories and other places of recreation
and amusement.
Robinson provides a plan of the old church showing
the positions of all the memorials, so far as they could be
ascertained in 1842. No record is given on this plan of
any memorial to the Earl or Countess of Oxford. In
order to verify Robinson's plan, I made a thorough search
on the 13th September, 1922, through the large collection
of sketches, plans and elevations of the old church, which
are preserved in the Central Public Library at Hackney.
Several of these drawings contain lists of the memorials
in the church, as well as representations of the memorials
themselves. I was assisted in my search by Mr. A. Walrond
Clarke, the chief living authority on the history of Hackney.
We were unable to find a single reference either to the
Earl or Countess of Oxford. In any case it would seem
to be unlikely that any memorial—had it existed in the
church—would have been either destroyed or entirely lost
sight of when the old church was pulled down, and some of
the memorials removed first to the tower and afterwards
to the new Church of St. John. 39


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
A fifth partner in the enterprise was Edward Blount,
to whom, in association with Isaac Jaggard, the Stationers’
Company issued a formal licence dated the 8th November,
1623, to proceed with the publication of the famous volume.
Now that we are at the commencement of the tercen-
tenary year, it may be of interest to lovers of Shakespeare
to see how the posthumous publication of 1623 fits in with
the theory of the de Vere authorship of the Plays.
In Chapter I. attention was concentrated on the discovery
in the Hackney Parish Register of the marriage of William
Hall to Margery Gryffyn on the 4th August, 1608.
The search for William Hall in the Registry was made
on the supposition that he had obtained the MS. of The
Sonnets from King's Place when Lady Oxford moved out
of the house in 1609; and the success of the search furnished
evidence of the truth of the hypothesis on which it had been
conducted. In Chapter II. attention was directed to the
critical date, 1609, and emphasis was laid on the fact that not
only The Sonnets, but also King Lear, Troilus, and Pericles,
were all published at about the same time. This furnished
further circumstantial evidence connecting Oxford with the
second period of Shakespearean publication (1608–09).
Further on in the same chapter it was pointed out that
the first period of Shakespearean publication (1593–1604)
corresponded almost exactly with Oxford's life in retirement
at Hackney.
42


The Publication of the First Folio
All the foregoing may be called Oxford-Trentham
dates, occurring as they do either during the married life
or widowhood of Elizabeth Trentham.
The Shakespearean publications of 1608–09 have all the
appearance of being unauthorised and piratical. Sir Sidney
Lee says that “Butter's edition of King Lear followed a
badly transcribed playhouse copy, and abounds in gross
typographical errors.” He alludes to Troilus and Cressida
as being “obviously stolen wares,” and suggests that
Pericles was “derived from the notes of an irresponsible
shorthand reporter of a performance in the theatre.”
The Sonnets are not only seen to have been published
without any authorisation, but the publisher, “T.T.,”
seems to be unconsciously giving away the secret of their
authorship, obviously, however, without intending to do
anything of the kind.
It would, therefore, seem to be clear that Elizabeth
Trentham's responsibility for their publication does not
extend beyond the orders she must have given to have
King's Place cleared out before handing it over to Fulke
Greville. She herself was evidently not intrusted with any
responsibility in the matter. Besides, the small number of
MSS. found in the house—three Plays and The Sonnets—
would seem to indicate that the mass of the Shakespearean
MSS., including, no doubt, most of the twenty plays which
were published for the first time in the Folio Edition of
43


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
1623, must have been sent away from King's Place by
Oxford before his death in 1604. With regard to this mass
of unpublished material, the pirated edition of Troilus and
Cressida furnishes an interesting reference. Troilus is the
first case of a Shakespeare play being provided with a
Preface.
The Preface is headed :
“A never writer to an ever reader. News,”
and begins thus:
“Eternall reader, you have heere a new play, never stal’d
with the stage, never clapper-clawd with the palmes of the
vulgar.”
This claim, it may be stated in passing, was false. The
whole object of the Preface is to excite interest in a novelty,
and to urge people to buy.
The last sentences of the Preface are as follows:
“Amongst all (his Comedies) there is none more witty than
this : And had I time I would comment upon it, though I know
it needs not, (for so much as will make you thinke your testerne
well bestowd) but for so much worth, as even poore I know to be
stuft in it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best Commedy
in Terence or Plautus. And believe this, that when hee is gone,
and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and
set up a new English Inquisition. Take this for a warning, and
at the perill of your pleasures losse, and Judgements, refuse not,
nor like this the lesse, for not being sullied with the smoaky
breath of the multitude; but thank fortune for the scape it hath
made amongst you. Since by the grand possessors wills I beleeve
44


The Publication of the First Folio
you should have prayd for them rather than been prayd. And so
I leave all such to be prayd for (for the states of their wits healths)
that will not praise it.
Vale.”
This Preface to Troilus, besides being a bid for buyers,
seems also to indicate that the Play was regarded as a lucky
and somewhat illicit find ; the accidental unearthing of what
the publishers believed to be an unknown document. They
were evidently ignorant of the fact that it had been entered
on the Stationers’ Register in 1602.
At the close of the Preface the public are congratulated
on the scape that Troilus had made amongst them, and are
warned that the “grand possessors ” will require a lot of
persuasion before they consent to any further publication.
Sir Sidney Lee suggests that “the grand possessors ”
are the theatrical owners, but surely this is a very far-fetched
idea. That a publisher should look upon a theatrical owner
as a magnate seems highly improbable. The “grand
possessors ” are surely aristocrats.
The most likely literary executor for Oxford to have
selected is, I suppose most people would agree, his son-in-
law Derby. Professor Abel Lefranc's Sous le Masque de
William Shakespeare has rescued this nobleman from the
comparative oblivion of a two-line notice in the Dictionary
of National Biography to the position of a candidate for
Shakespearean honours whose claim at this moment stands
45


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
:
higher than any other on the Continent of Europe. The
book was brought out somewhat earlier than Mr. Looney's
Shakespeare Identified, and anyone who will take the trouble
to read it through will have no difficulty in understanding
the absolute confidence with which Professor Lefranc put
forward his case. -
I think it may fairly be described as the first sane way
hitherto discovered of getting round the “formidable
significance" of Mark Twain's “deadly fact ’’ that William
Shakspere “hadn't any history to record.” For more
than thirty years Professor Lefranc had been thinking
of the Shakespearean question, the authorship of The
Tempest being the particular problem which, to his mind,
seemed the most difficult one to solve on orthodox lines.
Here was a play written and acted in the time of James I.,
no action having apparently been taken against either author
or actors, and yet it was full of magic, astrology, and
occultism generally, all of which subjects were anathema to
the King, who was himself the author of a book against
witchcraft. No one, in Professor Lefranc's opinion, but
a powerful nobleman could have dared either to write or
publish such a work at a time when the burning of witches
was a punishment recognised in criminal law. The more
he thought over the subject the more he became convinced
that Dr. Dee, Queen Elizabeth's famous astrologer, must
have been on intimate terms with the author. It was while
46


The Publication of the First Folio
such thoughts as these were uppermost in his mind on the
Shakespearean problem that he came across the following
among “Notes of News” in State Papers, Domestic,
Elizabeth, vol. cclzxi, No. 35, under the date 30th June,
1599: “Our Earle of Darby is busye in penning commedyes
for the commoun players.””
A subsequent reference to Dr. Dee's diary showed the
Earl of Derby's name occurring no less than eight times.
These two initial discoveries started Professor Lefranc on
his investigations, of which the most remarkable are those
connected with Love's Labour's Lost. Whether Derby wrote
this play or whether he merely collaborated with his father-
in-law in its production, it may safely be said that no one
can with an open mind read Professor Lefranc's chapter
on the subject without admitting that he has proved Derby
to have been concerned in it past any possibility of doubt.f
Professor Lefranc has no such absolute proof in the
case of The Tempest, but his arguments are very weighty,
and, in the absence of further evidence, his theory may be
* In this connection it is interesting to note that out of the thirteen
plays published in quarto during the eleven years from 1594 to 1604, no
less than five, i.e., The Second Part of King Henry IV, King Henry V,
A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado
about Nothing, were published in the year 16oo. Derby's activity in
“penning commedyes " in 1599 may partly account for this.
f In Sous le Masque and in subsequent contributions to the periodical
press, Professor Lefranc has proved with equal conclusiveness that Derby
was intimately connected with A Midsummer Night's Dream. Vide Sous le
Masque, Vol. II., Chapter VIII. ; La Réalité dans Le Songe d'une Nuit
d'Été, Geneva, 1920; L'Opinion of 16th and 23rd October, 1920; The
Illustrated London News, 30th October, 1920.
47


The Publication of the First Folio
If this supposition is correct, we have Oxford's eldest
daughter, Elizabeth, closely connected with the First Folio.
Professor Lefranc's latest discovery is an undated letter
from this lady to her uncle, Robert Cecil, on the subject
of a certain Brown and his company of players. The letter
is published in L'Indépendance Belge of the 3rd August, 1922.
In this letter, which is signed “E. Derby,” she speaks of
her husband “taking delite in the players,” thus echoing
the words of Rosencrantz when introducing the players to
Hamlet.
If the connection between Oxford's eldest daughter,
Elizabeth, and the First Folio is a matter of conjecture only,
there is no doubt as to the existence of such a link in the
case of his youngest daughter, Susan, Countess of Mont-
gomery, for, as Mr. Looney has pointed out in The Poems
of Edward de Vere, p. xxxv, her husband, Philip, Earl of
Montgomery, is one of the “Incomparable Paire of
Brethren º’ to whom the work is dedicated. Is it possible
that Oxford's three daughters by Anne Cecil, associated with
the Earl of Derby, may be “the grand possessors” of the
MSS. of the plays
We see that Elizabeth, possibly, and Susan, certainly,
were connected with the patrons of the First Folio, but what
about Bridget, who married Lord Norris, subsequently
created first Earl of Berkshire 2
We saw the three sisters, together with their husbands,
M.w.n. E. 49


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
acting together in the matter of the deed executed on the
8th July, 1609, when they “conveyed the Honor of Castle-
Hedingham to Elizabeth Were Countess dowager of Oxford
for life, remainder to her son Henry Earl of Oxford for
his life . . . remainder to Francis Trentham Esq., brother
of the said Countess and his heirs for ever.” This shows
that what was called the “Honor of Castle-Hedingham ”
had by some means come into the possession of Oxford's
daughters by his first wife, Anne Cecil. Susan is spoken of
in Burke's Peerage, 1921, p. 1725, as “daughter and even-
tually co-heir of Ed. Vere, Earl of Oxford.” As Edward de
Vere does not appear to have made a will, he may possibly
have conveyed the “Honor of Castle-Hedingham ” to his
three daughters by deed of gift, and the MSS. of the plays
may have been disposed of in the same manner. The fact
that the Earl of Berkshire put an end to his life by shooting
himself with a cross-bow on the 29th January, 1623, may
perhaps account for the absence of his name from the title
page of the Folio of 1623. At the same time it is interesting
to note that Bridget was at one time practically engaged to
be married to the elder brother of the “incomparable
paire,” William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and that Oxford
wrote appreciatively of him (see article “W. Herbert,” in
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxvi, p. 226).
Altogether the circle round the First Folio seems to be
a family party affair.
5o


The Publication of the First Folio
If our surmise is correct as to the three daughters by
Anne Cecil being the “grand possessors” of the MSS. of
the plays which were published in 1623, the publication
of the four Quartos in 1608–09 would seem to have been
carried out in antagonism to them. We saw that these
four Quartos bore evident traces of unauthorised publication.
Were they handed over to the first comer as valueless
rubbish when King's Place was cleared out by Elizabeth
Trentham in 1609, or were they published or allowed to
be published in deliberate violation of the rights of the
“grand possessors ”?
There is little doubt that the Cecil and Trentham sides
of Oxford's family had very little to say to one another,
and were possibly actively hostile. Elizabeth Trentham's
will “gives an indication of this feeling, for although it con-
tains numerous personal legacies, some of them in the
nature of mementos, there is no allusion whatever to the
daughters of the first Lady Oxford, nor to any of the Cecils.
Although strained relations may have existed between
the two branches of the family, I am inclined, however,
to think that the publications of 1608–09 were less a
deliberate violation of rights than a careless disposal of
property considered to be of little or no value.
Let us now recapitulate the theory of the Shakespeare
publications based on the facts discovered about the Earl
* See Appendix C.
E 2 51


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
of Oxford's residence at Hackney, the sale of King's Place
in 1609, and Professor Lefranc's investigations into the
interests and hobbies of the Earl of Derby:
(1) The first great period of Shakespeare publication
(1593–1604) coincides with Oxford's residence at
Hackney. The two long poems and the thirteen
plays were, therefore, probably deliberately pub-
lished by him at intervals throughout this period.
(2) The second period of Shakespeare publication
(1608–09) coincides with Lady Oxford's sale of
King's Place. The Sonnets and the three plays
published at the same time were probably handed
over to William Hall and other procurers of MSS.
as things of little or no value.
(3) The publication of the First Folio of 1623 was
possibly undertaken by the Earl of Derby as
literary executor for his father-in-law, on behalf
of Oxford's three daughters by Anne Cecil, the
“grand possessors ” of the MSS.
The next chapter will be devoted to an investigation
of the third of the foregoing hypotheses, and evidence will
be examined to see what further connection can be found
between Oxford and any of his three daughters with the
promoters and publishers of the First Folio.
52


CHAPTER IV
THE DE WERE FAMILY AND THE FIRST FOLIO
“The manner of the publication of the First Folio places
beyond doubt the fact that William Shakspere of Stratford had
made no arrangement for it. The entire absence of any mention
either of his executors or a single member of his much-cared-for
family amongst the ten names appearing in connection with the
publication, reveals the same completely negative relationship of
everything Stratfordian towards the Shakespearean literature.”—
Shakespeare Identified, p. 43.
IN the three preceding chapters, emphasis has been laid
on three well-marked periods of “Shakespeare’’ publi-
cation :
1. The period 1593–1604.
2. The period 1608–09.
3. The year 1623.
No. 1 period coincides with Oxford's residence at
Hackney, from the birth of his son and heir, Henry, in 1593
to his death in 1604.
No. 2 period coincides with Lady Oxford's sale of
King's Place in 1609.
No. 3 period saw the publication of the First Folio.
53


The de Vere Family and the First Folio
“With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long
and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more
masques than all his competitors put together. . . . He gave
dramatic value to the antimasque. . . . He enhanced, as well, the
beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which
noble lords and ladies took their parts, to create, by their gorgeous
costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous
show.”—Jonson's Plays, Everyman edition, I, p. xix.
From the records in Fleay's Chronicle History of the
London Stage it is evident that Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones
were the great organisers of these displays.
In a chapter of Fleay's book entitled “Court Perform-
ances (1603–1614) "a list is given, from 1st November, 1604,
to the 12th February, 1605, of seven plays by Shakespeare,
two by Jonson, one by Heywood, one by Chapman, and two
masques.
One of the masques is the one that was performed at
the marriage on the 27th December, 1604, of “Sir Ed.
Herbert and Lady Susan Vere.” This masque is sand-
wiched in between two plays by “Shaxberd,” Measure for
Measure and The Play of Errors. Doubtless “Sir Ed.
Herbert’ is a mistake for Sir Philip Herbert, afterwards
Earl of Montgomery. On p. 183 of Fleay's book is given
a table of male performers in Court masques, from which
it is seen that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, took a
part in the masque produced at his brother's wedding,
and also in wedding masques on two subsequent occasions.
55


The de Vere Family and the First Folio
lines from both of his introductory poems to the First Folio,
| •' As this latter epigram contains unmistakable echoes of
{
* it will be quoted here in full :
“To SUSAN, COUNTESS OF MONTGOMERY
“Were they that named you prophets P Did they see
Even in the dew of Grace what you would be 2
Or did our times require it to behold
A new Susanna equal to that old 2
Or, because some scarce think that story true
To make those faithful did the Fates send you ?
And to your Scene lent no less dignity
Of birth, of match, of form, of chastity ?
Or, more than born for the comparison
Of former age, or glory of your own
Were you advanced past those times to be
The light and mark unto Posterity ?
Judge they that can : Here I have raised to show
A picture, which the world for yours must know ;
And like it too; if they look equally:
If not, 'tis fit for you, some should envy.”
The following are Ben Jonson's lines facing the
Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare in the 1623 Folio:
“To THE READER
“This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
57


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
His face ; the Print would then surpasse
All that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader look,
Not on his Picture, but his Booke.”
These lines are accepted by orthodox readers as Ben
Jonson's attestation to “the lifelike accuracy of the
portrait.”
More sceptical readers suspect a double meaning in the
words “out-doo" in the fourth line and “hit ’’ in the
sixth. To “out-doo the life " may mean to destroy the
life; and “hit ’’ is an old form of the word “hid,” so that
Ben Jonson may all the time be congratulating Martin
Droeshout on having so successfully destroyed the life and
concealed the features of the Earl of Oxford.
If we compare the two sets of verses—the one to Susan
de Vere and the other to William Shakespeare—it is difficult
to resist the feeling that they were written at about the same
time, and that the Shakespeare lines were distinctly in
Jonson's mind when he addressed the poem to Susan de
Vere.
When he says “Here I have raised to show A picture,
which the world for yours must know,” may he not be
alluding to some other picture that the world had not
recognised because of its unlikeness 2
There is also, it seems to me, a connection between
certain lines in the Countess of Montgomery epigram and
Ben Jonson's magnificent eulogy prefixed to the First Folio.
58


The de Vere Family and the First Folio
When he addresses the Countess as being “more than
born for the comparison Of former age, or glory of your
own,” is not an echo discernible of the lines in which he
declares he will leave Shakespeare “alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth,
or since did from their ashes come * *
Another and a more direct connection can be traced
between Ben Jonson and Edward de Vere.
Mr. J. Thomas Looney, in his edition of the Poems of
Edward de Vere, pp. liv-lviii, has shown it to be highly
probable that the poems signed “Ignoto’’ in England's
Helicon were written by him. They certainly bear a
strong resemblance both in spirit and form to Edward de
Vere's acknowledged poems.
A poem signed “Ignoto '' occurs at the end of the
Verses to the Author of the Faery Queen, just preceding the
Sonnets addressed by the author, Edmund Spenser, to his
friends and patrons. The poem consists of four stanzas
in de Vere's favourite Venus and Adonis metre, the first
three stanzas being to the following effect :
“To look upon a work of rare devise
The which a workman setteth out to view,
And not to yield it the deservèd prize
That unto such a workmanship is due,
Doth either prove the judgment to be naught,
Or else doth show a mind with envy fraught.
59


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
access to Lyly's MSS. ; in no earlier editions of the separate
plays were any of Lyly's lyrics inserted.”
John Lyly was for some years theatrical manager to the
Earl of Oxford, and the Lyly lyrics were in all probability
written by the master, and not by the manager (see The
Poems of Edward de Vere, pp. lxiv, 46–59, and Shakespeare
Identified, pp. 329-334).
Certainly the lyric commencing
“Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses. Cupid paid.”
seems beyond the reach of John Lyly.
Out of the ten names on the title page and Introduction
of the First Folio we have now shown more than half to
be more or less closely connected either with Edward de
Vere himself or with one of his daughters. If Professor
Lefranc is right in attributing the authorship of The Tempest
to the Earl of Derby, Oxford's daughter Elizabeth is brought
into the circle as well.
Of the two earls to whom the volume was dedicated
one was husband to Susan de Vere, and the other was her
brother-in-law.
The two dedicatory addresses signed by John Heminge
and Henry Condell have been by many critics attributed
to Ben Jonson. Sir Sidney Lee considers it “more probable
that they delegated much of their editorial duty to the
publisher, Edward Blount, who was not unversed in the
62


The de Vere Family and the First Folio
dedicatory art” (Life of William Shakespeare, Ed. of 1922,
p. 558).
Their personality may therefore be considered as being
absorbed either in that of Ben Jonson or of Edward Blount.
The former had for many years been in close touch with
Susan de Vere. The latter had been engaged in producing
Shakespeare work during Oxford's life, and his publication
of John Lyly's plays with the missing lyrics in 1632 shows
that he was probably well aware of the de Vere secret.
We are now in a position to sum up the various con-
clusions reached and coincidences detected in the foregoing
chapters. These results are based, in the first instance, on
the discovery of the marriage of William Hall at Hackney
on the 4th August, 1608.
This discovery was made during a search conducted
on the hypothesis that William Hall, the publisher of
Robert Southwell's Foure-fold Meditation in 1606 and the
procurer of Shakespeare's Sonnets in 1609, had obtained the
MSS. from King's Place and was himself a Hackney man.
The record of the marriage in the Hackney Parish
Register was a piece of circumstantial evidence pointing
to Edward de Vere as the author of The Sonnets, and most
probably, therefore, of the bulk of the plays of Shakespeare.
The following correspondences and coincidences have
since been brought out :
(1) The first period of Shakespeare publication (1593–
63





The Personality of Edward de Vere
he has left behind him. His nature was probably such that
he did not realise to what an extent envy was the motive of
this detraction; but there is reason to suspect, for instance,
that Burleigh, who recognised his abilities, kept him down
in order that he should not interfere with his son Robert
Cecil's prospects.
There is a document preserved in the Record Office
entitled “True declaration by Charles Arundel,” dated 1581,
which gives a good idea of the scandals spread abroad, and
doubtless largely credited at the time, about the young Earl
of Oxford. Two years before, he had had a quarrel in the
tennis court at Whitehall with Sir Philip Sidney, and this
is made the basis of a charge of cowardice and of attempting
to murder Sidney.
He is also accused of spreading scandalous reports
about Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester, and of
practising magical arts in the Tilt-yard at Greenwich.
“At his being in Flanders,” Charles Arundel goes on to
say, “the Duke of Alva, as he will constantly affirm, grew
so much to affect him as he made him his lieutenant-general
over all the army then in the Low Country.” He is thus
accused of being a coward, a murderer, a scandal-monger,
a wizard, and as having held a military appointment under
Philip II of Spain, England's great enemy.
The self-contradiction involved in some of these charges,
and the manifest absurdity and extravagance of others, do
r 2 67


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
not prevent a modern biographer of Sir Walter Raleigh,
Mr. J. A. St. John, writing in 1869, from commenting as
follows: “Dislodged from this position (i.e., the command
in the Netherlands) by the Queen's order, he returned to
England ; but, after a brief stay, again repaired to the
Continent, crossed the Alps, and in the quarrels of Genoa,
this ancestor of the renowned Captain Lemuel Gulliver
proceeded to Venice, by whose priests and courtesans he
appears to have been equally fascinated.”
All these details are given in a chapter entitled “Raleigh's
Gay Associates in London,” and Oxford is described as
having had the worst possible influence over him. The
loss of his good name, which Edward de Vere bemoaned
in 1576 in a striking poem parodied by Spenser in his
Shepherd's Calendar, had possibly made him reckless as to
public opinion. In any case, few people have suffered
more from detraction and envy than Edward de Vere, both
during his lifetime, and right up to the present day.
It almost looks as if Spenser had taken him for his
model in describing, in the Sixth Book of the Faery Queen,
the legend of Sir Calidore. Upton, a commentator on
the Faery Queen, thinks that Sir Philip Sidney is intended,
but the circumstances seem to fit de Vere's case much more
closely.
The prefatory sonnet addressed by Spenser “To the
Right Honourable the Earle of Oxenford, Lord High Cham-
68


The Personality of Edward de Vere
berlain of England, etc.” may with advantage be quoted
here in full ; for, in addition to recognising the love borne
to the Muses or Heliconian imps by Oxford, and their
love to him, Spenser suggests that the antique glory of
the de Vere ancestry, as well as Edward de Vere's “own
long living memory,” are treated of in the Faery Queen
“under a shady veil.”
In the sonnet addressed by Spenser to Sidney's sister,
the Countess of Pembroke, there is no suggestion that
Sidney himself is one of the figures portrayed in the Faery
Queen. This makes it more probable that it is Oxford,
and not Sidney, who is represented in Sir Calidore.
The following is Spenser's sonnet to Oxford:
“Receive, most noble Lord, in gentle gree,
The unripe fruit of an unready wit;
Which, by thy countenance, doth crave to be
Defended from foul envy's poisonous bit.
Which so to do may thee right well befit,
Sith th' antique glory of thine ancestry
Under a shady veil is therein writ,
And eke thine own long living memory,
Succeeding them in true nobility:
And also for the love which thou dost bear
To th’ Heliconian imps, and they to thee;
They unto thee, and thou to them, most dear:
Dear as thou art unto thyself, so love
That loves and honours thee, as doth behove.”
At the close of the fifth book of the Faery Queen Sir
Artegall, undoubtedly Lord Grey, is described as having
69


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
been recalled from Ireland on account of over-severity to
the Irish rebels. Two hags named Envy and Detraction
meet him, and proceed to rail at and abuse him, and at the
same time set on a foul monster, the Blatant Beast, to bark
and bay at him. In the first canto of the next book Sir
Calidore meets Sir Artegall, and the following conversation
begins:
“‘Now tell, if please you, of the good success
Which ye have had in your late enterprise.'
To whom Sir Artegall 'gan to express
His whole exploit and valorous emprise,
In order as it did to him arise.
‘Now, happy man,’ said then Sir Calidore,
“Which have, so goodly as ye can devise,
Achieved so hard a quest, as few before ;
That shall you most renownèd make for evermore.
“‘But, where ye ended have, now I begin
To tread an endless trace, withouten guide
Or good direction how to enter in,
Or how to issue forth in ways untried,
In perils strange, in labours long and wide;
In which although good fortune me befall,
Yet shall it not by none be testified.’”
The quest of Sir Calidore was the capture of the Blatant
Beast, and the twelfth canto contains a description of how,
after he had run him down after a long fight,
“At last, when as he found his force to shrink
And rage to quail, he took a muzzle strong
Of surest iron, made with many a link;
7o


The Personality of Edward de Vere
Therewith he muréd up his mouth along,
And therein shut up his blasphèmous tongue,
For never more 㺠gentle knight,
Or unto lovely lady doing wrong;
And thereunto a great long chain he tight,”
With which he drew him forth, even in his own
despite.”
It is certainly true that the Blatant Beast of Envy and
Detraction was never more systematically muzzled than he
was in the Shakespearean drama, and Edward de Vere, no less
than Sir Calidore, might have described his own quest as one
“‘In which although good fortune me befall,
Yet shall it not by none be testified.’”
Although most of the contemporary evidence as to
Edward de Vere seems to have been furnished by Envy
and Detraction and the barking of the Blatant Beast, there
are some exceptions to this rule. One of these exceptions
consists of a passage from George Chapman's play, The
Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois, published in 1613.
The hero of the tragedy is Clermont d'Ambois, whose
brother, Bussy d'Ambois, has been murdered before the
play opens. Clermont is a friend of the Duke de Guise,
and is therefore considered a dangerous man by the King.
The character of Clermont is that of a soldier, philosopher
and student combined.
The following conversation between Baligny, the Lord
* Tied.
71


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
Lieutenant of Cambray, and Guise illustrates this. King
Henry III has just given secret instructions to Baligny
to have Clermont arrested. Baligny has suggested that
Clermont should be invited by the King to a parade or
muster of troops to be held in his honour at Cambray,
arrangements being made for him to be apprehended by
some close stratagem :
“‘For otherwise,’ says Baligny, ‘your whole powers
there will fail
To work his apprehension : and with that
My hand needs never be discerned therein.'”
After having arranged this treacherous scheme together,
Henry goes out and Guise enters, and the following
conversation takes place between him and Baligny:
GUISE. My sure Friend Baligny
BAL. Noblest of Princes !
GUISE. How stands the State of Cambray ?
BAL. Strong, my Lord,
And fit for service : for whose readinesse
Your creature Clermont D'Ambois, and my selfe
Ride shortly downe.
GUISE. That Clermont is my love;
France never bred a nobler Gentleman
For all parts: he exceedes his Brother Bussy.
BAL. Aye, my Lord 2
GUISE. Farre : because (besides his valour)
Hee hath the crowne of man, and all his parts,
Which Learning is ; and that so true and vertuous,
72


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
1st Sol. Us two in person.
CHAL. Well sir, say it so.
And having brought him to the field, when I
Fall in with him, saluting, get you both
Of one side of his horse, and plucke him downe,
And I with th’ ambush laid, will second you.
Clermont suspects treachery, although he cannot bring
himself to believe his sister's husband to be such a villain
as to entrap him thus ; but, being well mounted, he decides
to attend the review.
The following soliloquy and conversation between
Clermont and his friend, the Marquis Renel, immediately
precedes Clermont's departure, mounted on his “Scotch
running horse,” to see the tactical scheme arranged in his
honour:
CLERMONT solus.
CLER. I had an aversation to this voyage
When first my Brother mov’d it; and have found
That native power in me was never vaine ;
Yet now neglected it, I wonder much
At my inconstancie in these decrees,
I every houre set downe to guide my life.
When Homer made Achilles passionate,
Wrathfull, revengefull, and insatiate
In his affections; what man will denie,
He did compose it all of industrie,
To let men see, that men of most renowne,
Strong'st, noblest, fairest, if they set not downe
Decrees within them, for disposing these,
74


The Personality of Edward de Vere
Heaven will not see it ill, how ere it show ;
But the pretext to see these Battailes rang'd
Is much your honour.
CLER. As the world esteemes it.
But to decide that ; you make me remember ~
An accident of high and noble note,
And fits the subject of my late discourse,
Of holding on our free and proper way.
I over-tooke, comming from Italie,
In Germanie, a great and famous Earle
Of England; the most goodly fashion'd man
I ever saw : from head to foot in forme
Rare, and most absolute ; hee had a face
Like one of the most ancient honour’d Romanes,
From whence his noblest Familie was deriv'd ;
He was beside of spirit passing great,
Valiant, and learn'd, and liberall as the Sunne,
Spoke and writ sweetly, or of learned subjects,
Or of the discipline of publike weales ;
And t'was the Earle of Oxford : and being offer'd
At that time, by Duke Cassimere, the view
Of his right royall Armie then in field ;
Refus'd it, and no foote was mov’d, to stirre
Out of his owne free fore-determin’d course :
I wondring at it, askt for it his reason,
It being an offer so much for his honour.
Hee, all acknowledging, said, t'was not fit
To take those honours that one cannot quit.*
RENEL. Twas answer'd like the man you have
describ'd.
* Repay.
77


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
CLER. And yet he cast it onely in the way,
To stay and serve the world. Nor did it fit
His owne true estimate how much it waigh'd,
For hee despis'd it ; and esteem'd it freer
To keepe his owne way straight, and swore that hee
Had rather make away his whole estate
In things that crost the vulgar, then he would
Be frozen up, stiffe, like a sir John Smith
(His Countrey-man) in common Nobles fashions;
Affecting, as the end of Noblesse were
Those servile observations.
RENEL. It was strange.
CLER. Otis a vexing sight to see a man
Out of his way, stalke, proud as hee were in ;
Out of his way to be officious,
Observant, wary, serious, and grave,
Fearefull, and passionate, insulting, raging,
Labour with iron Flailes, to thresh downe feathers
Flitting in ayre.
RENEL. What one considers this,
Of all that are thus out 2 or once endeavours,
Erring to enter, on mans Right-hand path 2
CLER. These are too grave for brave wits: give them
toyes,
Labour bestoºd on these is harsh and thriftlesse,
If you would Consull be (says one) of Rome,
You must be watching, starting out of sleepes;
Every way whisking; gloryfying Plebeians,
Kissing Patricians hands, Rot at their dores;
Speake and doe basely; every day bestow
Gifts and observance upon one or other:
78


The Personality of Edward de Vere
And what's th’ event of all 2 Twelve Rods before thee,
Three or foure times sit for the whole Tribunall.
Exhibite Circean Games; make publike feasts,
And for these idle outward things (sayes he)
Would'st thou lay on such cost, toile, spend thy spirits.
And to be voide of perturbation
For constancie: sleepe when thou would'st have sleepe,
Wake when thou would'st wake, feare nought, vexe for
nought,
No paines wilt thou bestow no cost 2 no thought 2
RENEL. What should I say ? as good comfort with you,
As with an Angell: I could heare you ever.
CLER. Well ; in, my Lord, and spend time with my
Sister;
And keepe her from the Field with all endeavour;
The Souldiers love her so ; and shee so madly
Would take my apprehension, if it chance,
That bloud would flow in rivers.
RENEL. Heaven forbid ;
And all with honour your arrivall speede.
(Exit.)
The foregoing extracts are given at some length, not only
on account of the direct reference they contain to a conversa-
tion with the Earl of Oxford, but also because George
Chapman would seem to have drawn the character of
Clermont d'Ambois with Edward de Vere in his mind.
Clermont is a Hamlet, without his tendency to inaction.
He carries out his task of avenging his brother's death
without any of the indecision shown by the Prince of
79


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
Denmark. It would almost seem as if George Chapman
felt that Edward de Vere had hardly done justice to one
side of his character in portraying himself as the dreamy,
poetical prince who cannot decide or make up his mind on
any definite line of action.*
The other quotation is from a rare pamphlet entitled
Honour in his Perfection, by G. M. (possibly Gervase
Markham), published in 1624.
This pamphlet appears to have been written partly as a
recruiting pamphlet, urging young fellows to join the
expedition to the Low Countries under the Earls of South-
ampton and Oxford, where Sir Horace Vere was upholding
the cause of Protestantism and the United Provinces against
the Spaniards. Henry, the eighteenth Earl of Oxford, had
succeeded his father in the title in 1604, when he was only
eleven years old, and had already for some years served
under his uncle, Sir Horace, to whom he had been probably
commended by Edward de Vere before his death. Honour
in his Perfection consists in part of a detailed eulogy of the
* Since writing the foregoing I have read Mr. Phelps' Preface to George
Chapman's Plays, edited by him in 1895. He also seems to have been
struck by Clermont's resemblance to Hamlet.
“The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois,” he writes, “published in 1613, is,
from the dramatic point of view, distinctly inferior to its predecessor,
Bussy D'Ambois ; but it is crowded with splendid declamation, and full of
the richest treasures of thought. It contains passages which make one
stop and reflect, and re-read only to ponder again. The hero, Clermont
D'Ambois, has little family resemblance to his brother. Bussy is like
Tamburlaine, but Clermont suggests Hamlet. He resembles the melancholy
Dane not only in his powers of reflection, and in his innate good breeding,
but in his constant postponement of revenge.”
8o


The Personality of Edward de Vere
de Vere family, the members of which are described
seriatim.
John, Edward de Vere's father, is described as a famous
sportsman who once, when in France, killed a wild boar
that attacked him in a narrow path, with a rapier, a feat that
astonished his French hosts above measure. The remaining
de Veres, commencing with the 17th Earl, are described as
follows:
“Descend but to the noble Father of this princely Oxford now
living, and you shall finde, that although the blessed armes of
Peace, in the blessed daies of the ever blessed Elizabeth, did so
foulde and imbrace our Kingdome about, that every valiant arme
for want of imployment, lay as it were manakled and fettered
from the use of weapon ; yet this nobleman, breakes off his
Gyves; and both in Italie, France, and other Nations, did more
Honour to this Kingdome, then all that have travelled since he
tooke his journey to heaven. It were infinite to speake of his
infinite expence, the infinite numbers of his attendants, or the
infinite house he kept to feede all people; were his president now
to be followed by all of his ranke, the Pope might hang himselfe
for an English Papist; discontentment would not feede our
enemies Armies, nor would there be either a Gentleman or Scholar
to make a Masse-Priest or a Jesuite ; that he was upright and
honest in all his dealings the few debts he left behind him to clog
his survivors, were safe pledges; and that hee was holy and
Religious the Chapels and Churches he did frequent, and from
whence no occasion could draw him ; the almes he gave (which at
this day would not only feede the poore, but the great man's
family also) and the bountie which Religion and Learning daily
tooke from him, are Trumpets so loude, that all eares know them ;
M.w.h. G 81





The Personality of Edward de Vere
allow him a Souldier unparaleld, and a Prince of infinite merit
but only to shew that the least spark of Vertue which is, cannot
chuse but repine when it finds a great Vertue injur'd by a pen
whose blaunching might make the whole World forgetfull.”
“Lastly, thou shalt not neede to reade, but with thy finger
point at the life of the now Earle of Oxford, of whom but to speake
reasonable truthes (such is the poison of Envy) every good word
would be accounted flattery, and to speake anything contrary to
goodnesse, Truth herselfe would swear it were meer Falshood ;
Therefore I will forbear his Chronicle, and only say thus, that his
Cradle did point him out a Souldier; for he brought that spirit
with him into the World, and that spirit he hath still nourisht;
for divide his Age into three parts, and I think two of them have
beene bestowed on Forraine Nations; neither has he let slip any
occasion (how great or low soever) which might put him into
action, hee hath hung about the neck of his noble Kinsman like a
rich Jewell, and the one hath so adorned the other, the one with
Counsell, the other with obedience, the one shewing what to doe,
the other doing what was fit to be done, that if there be a hope
whereon mortalitie may build, there is none more strong, than that
wee have of this Nobleman. Goe on then great Prince in this
brave careire of Honour, and fixe for thine object the designes of
thy famous Ancestour; and as he restored the lost House of
Lancaster, so I Prophesie, if thou beest not the head, yet thou
wilt bee the right arme to the body which shall bringe backe
againe to the royall owner the now wasted Palatinate.”
These two quotations—one from George Chapman, and
the other from Gervase Markham—are interesting in
several respects. George Chapman's posthumous eulogy
is a specially valuable document in our “Procès de réhabilita-
tion.”
G 2 83


The Personality of Edward de Vere
task unless he had deliberately sacrificed all outward honours
on the altar of his chosen art.
The last play, corrected and enlarged to almost half
as much again as it was in the edition of 1603, was the 1604
Hamlet, by almost universal consent allowed to be the
greatest of the masterpieces.
The quotation from Honour in his Perfection is interesting
in this respect, that it lends colour to the theory propounded
in Shakespeare Identified that Sir Horace Vere, under whom
Henry, the eighteenth Earl of Oxford, did his early soldiering
in the Low Countries, was the Horatio to whom Hamlet
committed the task of reporting him and his cause aright
to the unsatisfied.
If this be so, it would seem that Edward de Vere, before
he died, intended that his secret should be revealed to the
world, or possibly he did not go farther than voice his regret
that it was too late for such a revelation to be made. In
either case, what interest attaches to the old Elizabethan
manor, King's Place, where the true tragedy of Hamlet
was enacted !
A full description of the house as it exists at the present
time, with plans and drawings, is given under its modern
title in “Brooke House, Hackney. By Ernest A. Mann,
Architect. Being the fifth Monograph of the Committee
for the Survey of the Memorials of Greater London.”
37 Cheyne Walk, S.W. 1904.
85


Photo Albert Hester.
BROOKE HOUSE, HACKNEY, INTERIOR OF STUDY.
-


paid
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Eliz
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CQu
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*
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In
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Ol


The Personality of Edward de Vere
of two lights, with one casement and iron barres and
two shelves, etc., etc.
In the Great Chamber. Item.—The same chamber wayns-
cotted, etc., etc., three casements and two ende
lights in the study, within it a dore lock and key,
the study waynscotted with deal, and two windows
glased with XII lights, II casements iron bars, a
tabell with frame and III . . . etc.”
During the course of my investigations at Hackney I
paid a visit to the house, and was delighted to find it in
excellent condition, with many of its Elizabethan and pre-
Elizabethan rooms hardly changed since its occupancy by
the Earl and Countess of Oxford. It is now used as a
private hospital, and the director, Dr. Johnston, most
courteously showed me all over the building and gave me
every opportunity of endeavouring to reconstruct its
appearance and the position of the various rooms as they
existed in 1604. One room with two windows facing
south, a small room at the end of the Great Gallery, might,
I fancied, have been the “study’” alluded to in the
Inventory of 1609, where some of the most famous works
in English literature may have first seen the light.
It was strange to think that this was the very house,
perhaps even the very study with its two end lights, opening
out from the Great Chamber, where Edward de Vere sat
writing till arrested by the “fell sergeant death.”
Perhaps from this very room were issued those sheets of
87


APPENDIX A
ROBERT SOUTHWELL AND OXFORD’S AT TI-
TUDE TOWARDS ROMAN CATHOLICISM
THE unconscious witness of Robert Southwell forms an
important link in the identification of “our ever-living
Poet.”
He deserves remembrance, however, on his own account,
not only as a brave man who was faithful to his convictions,
but also as one of the Elizabethan singers who form the
chief glory of our literature.
In Aubrey de Vere's Select Specimens of the English
Poets, 1858, the following biographical notice and two short
poems are given as a record of his life and as specimens of
his work.
It will be noticed that the two poems are in the Venus
and Adonis metre, the metre by which Edward de Vere was
first identified (see Shakespeare Identified, p. 137).
“Robert Southwell was born A.D. 1560, and underwent his
martyrdom A.D. 1595. Of all the hundred and twenty-eight
Catholic priests put to death in Elizabeth's reign, not one was
more worthy of pious commemoration. Descended from an ancient
family in Norfolk, he was educated on the Continent, and became
a Jesuit at Rome. While on the English mission, he resided
chiefly at the house of Anne, Countess of Arundel, who died in the
89


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
“In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept,
Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe;
The Lazar pin'd, while Dives’ feast was kept,
Yet he to heaven—to hell did Dives go.
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May ;
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.”
It is interesting to note that the three names Oxford,
Southwell, Vaux, which in combination form the pivot of
the Brooke House argument in connection with events from
1586 to 1596, are, in a similar religious connection, found
in combination at the time of the Catholic mission under
the leadership of Parsons and Campion in 1581.
• The following quotation from Froude's Elizabeth,
Chapter XXVIII, refers to the revival of 1581 : “Lord
Oxford Burleigh's ill-conditioned son-in-law, Sir Francis
Southwell, Lord Vaux . . . and many more of high blood
were early ‘reconciled ' (to the Catholic Church).”
Although I have not been able to identify Sir Francis
Southwell, it is practically certain that he belonged to the
same aristocratic Norfolk family as the poet Robert South-
well. Thus in the Harleian Visitations of Norfolk, 1563,
1589, 1613, there are seven Southwells of the name of
Francis, any one of whom may have been subsequently
knighted.
William, the third Baron Vaux (1542 (?)-1595), was a
devoted Catholic, and in 1581 he offered the Jesuit Edmund
Campion an asylum in his houses at Hackney and Harrowden
(Dictionary of National Biography, vol. lviii, p. 196).
The chapel at King's Place, of which an engraving is
92


BROOKE
Hous E, HACKNEY,
Photo Albert Hester.
THE CHAPEL, 1647.
º
|
|


=


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
from Spenser and Fletcher given above, quotes the following
from R. W. Gilder, a modern American writer :
“The ever-living
High and most glorious poets.”
Call Me not Dead.
So far there is only one instance of the use of the word
in connection with an individual, namely, the quotation
from Shakespeare, where, in the First Part of King Henry
the Sixth, it is applied to the late King Henry V.
A reference to the Shakespeare Concordance shows that
the word is not used by him anywhere else. The following
concordances have been consulted, with results as shown
below :
The Authorised Version of the Bible. Nil.
Milton. Nil.
*Pope. One example.
“Ever-living lamps depend in rows.”
Temple of Fame, 144.
*Gray. Nil.
*Goldsmith. Nil.
Burns. Nil.
*Keats. Nil.
*Byron. Nil.
Shelley. Seven examples:
“With a wreath of ever-living flame.”
Queen Mab, WI, 37.
* These six concordances exist only in typescript. They have been
compiled by Mr. Frank Rawson, C.M.G., late Indian Public Works Depart-
ment, Oriental Club, Hanover Square, London, W. I. He has kindly
looked through them all, and has found that the word ever-living occurs
once only in Pope, and not at all in any of the others.
96


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
of my said late deare and noble lorde and husband as maye
bee and that to be done as privately and with as little pompe
and ceremonie as possible may be. Onlie I will that there
bee in the said Church erected for us a tombe fittinge
our degree and of such chardge as shall seem good to myne
Executors hereafter named, And whereas I stand indebted
in diverse Sommes of money, as namely unto my brother
Fraunces Trentham of Rocester whin the Countie of
Stafford esquire in foure hundred poundes, unto Mr Ferne
in twoe hundreth poundes principall debte, beside the use,
and to Mr Prescott gouldsmith in Cheapeside upon pawne
of part of my plate now remayning with him, in Twoe
hundreth and odd poundes I desire that all these debtes
may be carefullie dischardged and likewise all such other
as to my Executors hereafter named shall appear to bee due
and owinge by me if anie such shall happen to bee, with
allowance to bee made to everie of them for the forbearance
thereof after the rate of Tenne poundes for everie hundreth
poundes for one yeare untill such tyme as my said Executors
can raise money and make payment of my said debte out
of such estate and meanes as I shall leave unto them for that
purpose. Item I give unto my deare and lovinge sonne
Henrie de Vere Earle of Oxenforde to be kepte by him as
a remembrance of my motherlie love unto him my roape of
great pearle, my newe Jewell, my thirteene diamond buttons,
and all those rich garmente, Cloakes, bedding, and hous-
houldstuffe fyne diaper and damaske lynnen, wºh are now
in my cosen John Veres howse, All which Jewells and other
thinges, I will shall bee delivered to my said sonne whin
IOO


Appendix C
successivelie one after another in forme aforesaid And for
defalte of such issue Then to all and everie the daughters
of the bodie of my said sonne lawfullie to bee begotten and
to the heires of the bodies of the same daughters lawfullie
to bee begotten and for wante of such issue then to my said
brother Frauncis Trentham and unto his heires for ever the
said Frauncis Trentham or his heires payinge unto John
Posthumus Stanhope the youngest sonne of my sister the
ladie Stanhope if the said John Posthumus Stanhoppe
shalbee then livinge the full somme of one Thowsande
poundes of lawfull English money at the Fontestone wthin
the Temple Church London wthin one yeare next after the
same premisses shall accrue happen or come unto the said
Frauncis Trentham or his heires by such faylinge of the
issues of the bodie of my said sonne as is aforesaid And I
doe by these presentes revoake fustrate (sic) and make
voyde all former and other Willes whatsoever I have hereto-
fore made and have published this as my last Will and
Testament and sealed and subscribed the same the daye
and yeare first above written in the presence of Ka: Stan-
hoppe ff. Trentham Jo: Wright Willm Thorowgood Wil:
Hawkeridge, Eliza: Oxenforde.
Proved 15 Feb. 1612 * on the oath of Sir Edward
Moore Knt. Frauncis Trentham and John Wright Esq.
Executors named in the said Will Letters of Administration
of the goods of the said deceased granted by this Court as by
way of intestacy having been introduced and renounced, etc.
P. C. C. Io Capell.
* O.S.
IoW


APPENDIX D
(See Page 34 and Plate VI).
THE FUNERAL OF QUEEN ELIZABETH
“Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining 2
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent
For compound sweet ; foregoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent 2
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou suborn’d Informer 1 a true soul
When most impeach'd stands least in thy control.”
Sonnet No. 125.
THE funeral of Queen Elizabeth took place on the
28th April, 1603. The representation of the hearse in
Plate VI is taken from Plate No. 6 of a series of seven
plates published April 23rd, 1791, and described as follows:
“The Funeral Procession of Queen Elizabeth, from a
Drawing of the time, supposed to be by the hand of William
Camden, then Clarencieux King at Arms, which was in the
Io8


Appendix D
Possession of John Wilmot Esq., F.R.S. and by him
deposited in the British Museum.”
A detailed order of the funeral procession is given in
an old broadsheet published at the time by M. Lawe, and
doubtless sold in the streets for the information of the
general public.
The broadsheet is reprinted in full in Volume II. of
The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth,
by John Nichols, F.S.A., Edinburgh and Perth, 1788.
The title of the broadsheet is as follows:
“Elizabetha Quasi Vivens
Eliza's Funeral
A fewe Aprill Drops, showred on
the Hearse of dead Eliza.
Or, The funerall Tears of a true hearted Subject
By H.P.
London, Printed by E. Allde for
M. Lawe, dwelling in Paules Church-
yard, neere unto Saint Austens-gate
1603.”
The dedication is addressed :
“To the Worthy and Curteous Gentle-
man Mr Richard Hildersham, H.P.
wisheth increase of Worship and
Virtue.”
And is signed
“Your Worship's most obsequious,
HENRY PETOWE.
Io9


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
The pamphlet contains, after two introductory poems,
“The true Order and formall Proceeding at the Funerall of the
most high, renowned, famous, and mightye Princesse,
ELIZABETH, of England, France, and Ireland,
late Queene, from Whitehall to the
Cathedral Church of Westminster
The 28 day of Aprill 1603.”
After another poem, the order of the procession is given
as follows:
“These Persons heerafter named came in their place and order, as
was appointed. Also the names of such Noblemen
and Gentlemen as caryed the Standards and
other Ornaments at the Funerall.
First, knight marshals men, to make roome,
Then folowed 15 poore men. -
Next 260 poore women, foure and foure in a rank,
Then servants of gentlemen, esquires, and knights,
Two porters.
Four trumpeters.”
And so on for a page or so until we come to:
“Foure trumpeters.
Blewemantle
A Sergeant at arms.
The standard of the Greyhound borne by Master Herbert* brother
to the Erle of Pembroke.”
* Sir Philip Herbert, created Earl of Montgomery, May 4, 1605, and,
after the death of his brother, in 1630, Earl of Pembroke. He died
January 3, 1652.
IIO


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
Great Chamberlain, is, in itself, striking. The way in which his
name seems to elude us whenever we look for it in connections
where we might reasonably expect to find it, quite bears out the
assumption that he went out of his way to exclude or erase it from
contemporary records. The particular record which you repro-
duce in part, manifestly aims at precision and fullness of detail,
especially with respect to ‘the names of such noblemen and
gentlemen as carried Standards and other Ornaments at the
Funeral.” Yet there seems to be a very deliberate omission, in
their proper connection, of the names of what was in fact the
central group : an omission just as deliberately rectified, in part,
at the close, by a list of ‘the twelve barons who carried the twelve
bannerols.” The six earls who were “assistants unto the bodye,’
although of superior station, are the only noblemen occupying
prominent positions whose names do not appear in the record.
And, the more conspicuous posts having evidently been assigned
to others, this is just where we should have expected to find the
name of the Earl of Oxford, in view of his special office, some of the
functions of which we know he actually performed at the corona-
tion of Elizabeth's successor.
“Now the remarkable fact to me is that this document was
published by Matthew Lawe, who, precisely at this time (25th June
1603) took over the publication of several Shakespeare plays
(see Sidney Lee's Life of William Shakespeare, notes pp. I24
and 242, 1916 ed.), and must, therefore, have been in relationship,
direct or indirect, with ‘Shakespeare,” whoever he was.”
1 I4


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
to be ymposyd uppon ye same, yf god should call yor Lo.
and me away before her.
Your Lordships.
Edward OXEFORD.
My Lord, this other day yowre man stainner towld me,
that yow sent for Amis my man, and yf he wear absent, that
Lylle show.ld come unto yow. I sent Amis for he was in
ye way. And I thinke very strange yt yowre Lord, showld
enter into that course towards me, wherby I must lerne
I knew not before, bothe of yowre opinion and good will
towards me. But I pray, my lord, leave yt course, for I
mean not to be yowre ward nor yowre chyld, I serve her
magestie, and I am that I am, and by allyance neare to
yowre lordship, but fre, and scorne to be offred that iniurie,
to thinke I am so weake of government as to be ruled by
servants, or not able to governe my self. If yowre Lord.
take and follow this course, yow deceyve yowre self, and
make me take an other course than yet I have not thought
of. whearfore thes shalbe to desyre yowre Lordship yf yt
I may make account of yowre friendship that yow will
leauve that cours as hurtfull to us bothe.
Endorsed
To the right honorable my very good
Lorde the Lo. Theausorer of England.
xxx Octob. 1584.
The Erle of Oxford
by Amise his servant
For securing those yt had pur-
chased lands of him, his desire
to take a course to
pay his debt to ye Queen.
British Museum, Lansdowne MSS., 42 No. 39.
II6


mf
thiſ
Wid
: ſt
| |
APPENDIX F
(See Page 88 and Plate XII)
THE DE WERE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER
ABBEY
THE following members of Edward de Vere's family are
buried in the Chapel of St. Nicholas :
(1) Anne, daughter of Lord Burleigh, his first wife, who
died on the 6th June, 1588, and was buried on the
25th June.
(2) Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, wife of William
Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby. She died at Rich-
mond on the Ioth March, 1627, and was buried
on the following day.
(3) Susan, his youngest daughter, wife of Philip Herbert,
first Earl of Montgomery. She was buried on the
1st February, 1629.
Edward de Vere's second daughter, Bridget, who
married Francis, Lord Norris—afterwards created Earl of
Berkshire—does not appear to have been buried in the
Abbey, but her grand-daughter, Lady Bridget, Countess of
Lyndsy, was buried in St. Andrew's Chapel, Westminster
Abbey, on the 24th March, 1657.
The present Earls of Derby, Abingdon, and Pembroke
117


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
are the descendants of Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan
respectively.
A beautiful aquatint of St. Nicholas Chapel showing
Lady Oxford's recumbent figure in the light, Lady Burleigh's
being in the shade behind it, is given opposite p. 119 of
Vol. II of Ackerman's History of the Abbey Church of
St. Peter's, Westminster, 1812.
The following is the accompanying description:
“This is one of the most costly and splendid monuments
which the Abbey, that abounds in them, can boast. Columns
and pyramids, marble and porphyry, kneeling and recumbent
figures, with every suitable enrichment, compose this magnificent
memorial. In the lower compartment lies the effigies of Lady
Burleigh, with her daughter Anne, Countess of Oxford, and her
other children and grandchildren kneeling at her head and feet.
In the upper compartment is the figure of Lord Burleigh on his
knees, dressed in his parliamentary robes, and with the ensigns
of the Garter.
“The inscription represents Lady Burleigh as a person of
uncommon learning, and describes her various charities. She
died April 4, 1589, aged 63. Lady Oxford died June 5, 1588.”
The following résumé of the long Latin epitaph on the
memorial is given by Dean Stanley in his Memorials of
Westminster Abbey, 2nd Edition, pp. 214, 215.
“‘If anyone asks,’ says his epitaph, “who is that aged man,
on bended knees, venerable from his hoary hairs, in his robes of
state, and with the order of the Garter 2 –the answer is, that we
see the great minister of Elizabeth, ‘ his eyes dim with tears for
the loss of those who were dearer to him beyond the whole race of
womankind.'
I 18


Appendix F
“‘If any ask, who are those noble women, splendidly attired,
and who are they at their head and feet 2' the answer is that the
one is Mildred, daughter of Sir Antony Cook, ‘partner of her
husband's fortunes, through good and evil, during the reigns of
Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth.’
sk sk x : × + -
the other ‘Anne, his daughter, wedded to the Earl of Oxford';
at her feet, his second son, Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury,
and at her head her three daughters, Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan
Vere. But “neither they,’ nor his elder son Thomas, nor ‘all his
grand sons and granddaughters’ will efface the grief with which
the old man clings to the sad monument of his lost wife and
daughter.’”
The tomb of Sir Francis Were is in the Chapel of St.
John the Evangelist, at the south-east corner of the north
transept.
Henry, the eighteenth Earl of Oxford, who died on
active service in the Low Countries while serving under
his kinsman Sir Horace, was buried here in 1625.
Sir Horace Vere, afterwards Lord Were of Tilbury, was
also buried in this chapel, beside his brother Francis, in
1635.
The following description of Sir Francis Vere's memorial
is taken from Ackerman's Westminster Abbey, vol. ii. p. 187:
“On the pavement four kneeling esquires, in armour, bear on
their shoulders a heavy slab of black marble, on which are
battered alabaster portions of armour; the figure of Sir Francis,
clad in a loose gown, lies on a quilt beneath it. On the base of
the tomb is this inscription in letters of gold :
II9


Photo D. Weller.
IR FRANCIS W ERE.
s
TOMB or


Appendix G
about this, and in any case the tomb was not erected until
after 1612.
A meeting was subsequently held, attended by the
foregoing, and, in addition, by Mr. Thurkill Cooke and
Colonel M. W. Douglas, C.S.I., C.I.E.
Miss G. Mellor, Mr. Cecil Palmer, and Brig.-Gen.
E. M. Paul, C.B., C.B.E., expressed their regrets at being
unable to attend the meeting.
Colonel Ward opened the proceedings by a description
of his researches at Hackney, and gave reasons why a new
Shakespeare Society was necessary for research and propa-
ganda. He then proposed that Sir George Greenwood
take the chair.
This was seconded by Lieutenant R. Dubau and carried
unanimously.
The next resolution was proposed by Mr. Francis Clarke,
and seconded by Mr. Thurkill Cooke: “That a society be
founded called ‘The Shakespeare Fellowship,” for research
and propaganda. Subscription Ios. annually, and 5s. for
foreign members.”
This was carried unanimously.
It was next proposed by Mr. Albert Hester, and seconded
by Mr. C. W. Slade, that the officers of the Fellowship be
as follows:—President : Sir George Greenwood ; Vice-
Presidents: Professor Abel Lefranc, Mr. J. Thomas
Looney, and Mr. L. J. Maxse; Hon. Secretary and
Treasurer: Colonel B. R. Ward, 28, FitzGeorge Avenue,
W. 14.
&lone Ward read letters from Professor Abel Lefranc,
Mr. Looney, and Mr. Maxse, accepting the office of Vice-
President.
The above resolution was then carried unanimously.
I23


The Mystery of “Mr. W. H.”
It was proposed by Colonel M. W. Douglas, C.S.I.,
C.I.E., and seconded by Mr. Hester, “That the Hackney
Spectator, 44, Amhurst Road, E. 8, be the official organ of
the Fellowship.”
This was carried unanimously.
The Chairman then made a few remarks, saying that
his own work, ever since his Eton and Cambridge days,
when he first was attracted to Shakespeare, had been only
destructive, but that he hoped that we had now entered
upon a period of construction. He was highly honoured
by the invitation to act as the first President of “The
Shakespeare Fellowship.”
The Folio of 1623 was undoubtedly the work of many
pens and of one Great Master. Thus, Spedding showed
that Fletcher wrote all the best work in Henry VIII, and
it had since been shown that the rest was written by
Massinger. It was now accepted as a fact that Ben Jonson
wrote the Prefaces signed by Heminge and Condell.
The aim of the Fellowship was the truth, and the
methods of controversy must be courteous.
After a vote of thanks to Colonel Ward as founder of
the Fellowship, the meeting closed.
The following is reprinted from the Hackney Spectator
of the 1st December, 1922.
OBJECTS OF THE FELLOWSHIP
The Fellowship was founded at Hackney on the 6th
November, 1922, with the following objects:
(1) To unite in one brotherhood all lovers of Shake-
speare who are dissatisfied with the prevailing Stratfordian
orthodoxy, and who desire to see the principles of scientific
historical criticism applied to the problem of Shakespearean
authorship.
I24


Appendix G
(2) To encourage and to organise research among
parish registers, wills, and other documents likely to throw
light on the subject.
(3) To form the nucleus of a Shakespeare reference
library, and to collect lantern slides to be issued on loan for
lecturing purposes.
Membership
Membership is open to all persons who sympathise
with the objects of the Fellowship, as detailed above.
Subscriptions
The annual subscription is Ios., due on the 1st November
for the following year. Members joining at an intermediate
period pay the proportion of the subscription due. Thus
members joining on the 1st February, 1st May, and 1st
August in any year would pay 7s. 6d., 5s., and 2s. 6d.
respectively. Foreign members pay an annual subscription
of 5s.
Officers for 1923
President : Sir George Greenwood.
Vice-Presidents: The Hon. Sir John Cockburn,
K.C.M.G., M.D.; Professor Abel Lefranc; Mr. J. Thomas
Looney; Mr. L. J. Maxse; Mr. William T. Smedley,
Additional Vice-Presidents for 1923 may be elected by the
Executive Committee.
Executive Committee : Sir George Greenwood ; Mr.
Francis Clarke; Colonel M. W. Douglas, C.S.I., C.I.E.;
Colonel B. R. Ward, C.M.G.
Hon. Secretary and Treasurer: Colonel B. R. Ward,
C.M.G., 28, FitzGeorge Avenue, W. 14.
I25


Index
Casimir, Duke, 77
Castle-Hedingham, 17, 18, 28, 29, 31,
50, IO4
Cecil, Anne (Countess of Oxford), 3, 6,
49–52, 64
marriage of, 3, 5
death of, 5
burial of, 5, 117
tomb of, I 18, I 19
Cecil, Sir Robert, 16, 29, 49, 67, II9
Cecil, Thomas, I 19
Cecil, Sir William (see Burghley, Lord).
Century Dictionary, The, 94, 95
Challon, 73, 74
Chamberlain, Lord High, 34, 68, 112-
II.4
Chapman, George, 55, 71, 79, 80, 83
Cheapside, 34
Chester, Robert, 61
Chronicle History of the London Stage,
A, 5, 55
Clarke, Mr. A. Walrond, 39, 122
Cleopatra, 40
Cockburn, Sir John, x, 125
Collins, 6 n.
Combe, John, 33
Combe, William, 33
Concordance :
Burns, 96
Byron, 96
Goldsmith, 96
Gray, 96
Keats, 96
Longfellow, 97
Milton, 96
Pope, 96
Shakespeare, 97
Shelley, 96
Tennyson, 97
Wordsworth, 97
Condell, Henry, 62, 124
Cotton, 12
Covent Garden, 29
Coverdale, 95
Crashaw, II
Curtain, The, 5, 31
D.
Daniel, 56
Darbyshire, Thomas, 12
Deane, Lady, 20
Declaration of Egregious Popish Impos-
tures, A, 14
Dee, Dr. John, 47
Derby, Sixth Earl of (see Stanley,
William).
Dictionary of National Biography, The,
9, II, 13 n., 46, 50, 54, 6 I, 92
Dodworth, Margaret, 20
Douay, 12
Droeshoet, Martin, 57, 58
Dudley, Robert (see Leicester, Earl of).
F.
Earl of Oxford as Shakespeare, The, 66 n.
Edward VI., 15
Eld, George, 7, 11
Elizabeth Countess of Oxford (see
Trentham, Elizabeth).
Elizabeth, Queen, 5, 6, 12, 46, 48, 54,
67, 68, 81, 89, 120
at King's Place, 15
funeral of, 34, IoS-114
England's Helicon, 35
Epigrams, 56
Essex, Earl of, 6
Essex, History of, 17, 28
Euphorbus, 73 -
Everliving, 8, 18–20, 23, 25, 26, 94-98
F
Faery Queen, The, 60, 68, 69, 94
Falstaff, Sir John, 66
Feuillerat, Albert, 66 n.
First Folio, The, viii, 30, 41, 44, 48-50,
52–54, 57, 58, 61, 62, 124
Flambeau, Le, ix
Flanders, 67
Fleay, 5, 55, 56
Fleet Street, 41
128


Index
Fletcher, 95, 96, 124
Foure-fold Meditation, A, II, 13, 18, 19
France, 81
Freeon, John, 16
Froude, J. A., 92
G.
Garnett, Henry, 12
Gate House, 29
Genoa, 68
George Chapman's Plays, 8on.
Germany, 77, 82
Gilder, R. W., 96
Gillingham, vii
Golden Hind, The, 66 n.
Golding, Margaret, 3
Grand possessors, 45, 49, 51, 54
Greene, Robert, 26, 32, 33
Greenwich, 67
Greenwood, Sir George, ix, x, 122, 123,
I25
Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke), 17, 28,
35, 43, 86
Grey, Lord, 69
Gryffyn, Margery, 21-23, 25, 42
Guide to Westminster Abbey, 120
Guise, Duke de, 71–73
Gulliver, 68
H.
Hackney, vii, viii, 2, 6, 7, 12–14, 16–22,
25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 37, 39, 51, 52, 63,
64, 84, 87, 92, 93, 99, Io:3, 122, 124,
126
Hackney, History and Antiquities of the
Parish of, 13, 38
Hackney, History of, 16, 20, 27
Hackney Spectator, x, 14, 122, 124, 126
Hall, William, I I, II n., 13, 18–25, 42,
52, 63
Hamlet, 49, 79, 8on., 85
Hamlet, ix, 2, 7, 10, 30, 41, 84, 85, 88,
93
Hardekyn, Elizabeth, 3
.M.W.H. r
Harrow, 12
Harrowden, 92
Hatfield MSS., 16
Hayward, Sir Rowland, 15
Heminge, John, 62, 124
Henry III., King of France, 72
Henry V., King of England, 95, 96, 98
Henry VIII., 15, 16
Henry IV., Part I., 84
Henry IV., Part II., 47 n., 84
Henry V., 47 n., 84
Henry VI., Part I., 95, 96, 98
Henry VIII., 124
Herbert, Philip (see Montgomery, Earl
of).
Herbert, William (see Pembroke, Earl
of).
Heywood, 55
History of the World (Raleigh), 94
History of Westminster Abbey (see
Ackerman).
Holy Trinity Church, 24
Homer, 74
Honour in his Perfection, 8o, 85
Horatio, 85, 88
Hooker, 9.4
Horses and horsemanship, 48
Howard of Effingham, Lord, I I I
Humourous Lieutenant, The, 95
I.
“Ignoto,” 35, 59–61
Iliad, The, 95
Illustrated London News, The, 47 n.
Independance Belge, 49
“Inquisitio" post mortem, 29
Ireland, 7o
Is it Shakespeare P 1, 11 n.
Italy, 77, 81
J.
Jaggard, Isaac, 41, 42, 61
Jaggard, William, 41
James I., 46, 55, 86
I29


Index
Vere, Elizabeth (Countess of Derby), 2
3, 5, 30, 49, 54, 56, 62, 117–119
Vere, Sir Francis, 3, 82, 88, 119–121
Vere, Geoffrey, 3
Vere, Henry de (Eighteenth Earl of
Oxford), 3, 6, 27, 28, 50, 53, 80, 81,
83–85, 1oo, IoS, Iof
Vere, Sir Horace, 3, 8o, 82, 88, 119
Vere, John de (Fifteenth Earl of
Oxford), 3
Vere, John de (Sixteenth Earl of
Oxford), 3
Vere, John, Ioo
Vere, Lady (wife of Sir Francis), 12o
Vere, Susan, 3, 5, 30, 49, 50, 54–59, 62,
63, 117–119
Verses to the author of The Faery
Queen, 59
Visitations of Norfolk, 92
Voltaire (John Morley), 95
W.
Walsingham, Sir Francis, 12
West Ham, 29
Westminster, 12
Westminster Abbey, 5, 6, 88, 11o, 117
Wright, John, 37, Io:3—Io5, 107
Wriothesley, Henry (see Southampton,
Earl of).
Vere, Bridget, 3, 5, 30, 49, 54, 117-119
Vere, Edward de (Seventeenth Earl of
Oxford), vii, viii, ix, I, 7, 23, 25,
26, 36, 39, 43, 45, 49, 50, 58, 62,
63, 65, Ioo, IoS, II 3, 122
birth of, 3
résumé of career, 5, 6
first marriage of, 3
second marriage of, 3, 28
at King's Place, Hackney, 2, 14,
16, 18, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 42, 52,
53, 64, 87, 88
as Lord High Chamberlain, 34,
68, 112-114
and “Ignoto,” 35, 59–61
as a horseman, 48
letter to Lord Burghley, 66 n., 115,
II6
accusations against, by Charles
Arundel, 67
and Sir Walter Raleigh, 68
Spenser's Sonnet to, 69
eulogy of, by George Chapman, 71-
80, 83, 84
eulogy of, in Honour
Perfection, 80–83, 85
attitude towards Roman Catho-
licism, 89–93
death of, 6, 18, 27, 31, 32, 34, 37,
40, 44
“Inquisitio post mortem "on, 29
in his
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