THE DEATH OF SHAKESPEARE
June 24, 2004

by Joe Sobran

     In this age of compulsive commemoration, you might 
expect the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death to 
attract some notice, but it has passed almost unobserved. 
That's because his pen name has been mistaken for his 
real name, and all the honor due to him has gone to the 
wrong man.

     "Shakespeare" -- Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford 
-- died exactly four centuries ago, on June 24, 1604, at 
age 54. In his own time he was known as a brilliant poet 
and playwright, though he preferred, as a gentleman, not 
to publish his work under his own name, deeming it 
beneath his dignity to write for money and popularity.

     Not that he couldn't have used the money. He was 
born very rich, became an earl at age 12 when his father 
died, and wasted his huge family fortune. He was a 
brilliant young man, a superb poet, scholar, and athlete 
as well as a generous patron of the arts; he became a 
star of the court and the favorite of Elizabeth I 
herself, who nicknamed him "my Turk." He attended 
Cambridge University, studied law at the Inns of Court, 
and spoke fluent French and Latin.

     But Oxford's personal life was turbulent. He married 
the young daughter of his guardian, the great Lord 
Burghley, when he was 21, she 15, and left the poor girl 
five years later after he came home from a tour of Italy 
to meet rumors that the daughter, born during his 
absence, was not his.

     This was almost certainly a slander, and Oxford 
himself apparently didn't believe it, but he was 
hypersensitive about his good name -- with the most 
ironic long-term result imaginable.

     His fiery temper got him into scrape after scrape. 
At 17 he stabbed a servant, who bled to death. An inquest 
found that the servant had drunkenly started the fight 
and ruled that Oxford had acted in self-defense, but that 
was only the beginning.

     While separated from his wife, he had a son by one 
of Elizabeth I's maids of honor. The queen threw him into 
the Tower of London, and the price of his release was to 
beg for Burghley's intercession and to reconcile with his 
wife. A violent feud with his mistress's relatives also 
commenced, and Oxford was seriously wounded in a 
swordfight.

     At about the same time, he launched another bitter 
feud by informing the queen that three of his old 
Catholic friends were acting as secret agents for Spain. 
They in reply accused him of outrageous crimes, including 
"buggering boys." No charges were brought, but these 
furors did his good name a bit of no good, and his 
standing at court plunged. As his fortune melted away, he 
had to rely on the queen for a large pension to keep him 
afloat.

     All along, he made a great literary reputation and 
supported his own troupes of actors. His writings 
inspired generous tributes from the leading literati of 
the day, among them Edmund Spenser, George Puttenham, 
John Lyly, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Watson, and Robert 
Greene. The tributes continued long after his death. Yet 
only a few short poems have come down to us under his own 
name.

     If he published works under the name "William 
Shakespeare," of course, his towering contemporary 
reputation is easy to understand. Those works imply an 
author of his background: intimate with the law, with 
Italy, with court intrigue, manners, and gossip, and with 
sheer opulence. The Sonnets reflect his personal life, 
particularly his sexual scandals and his despair; Oxford 
had some reason to wish that "My name [will] be buried 
where my body is." It was.

     And therein lies the tremendous irony of Oxford's 
life. While trying to shield his good name by writing 
under pseudonyms, he in effect gave away the greatest 
literary reputation of modern times, lending an unmerited 
glory to a minor actor from the little town of Stratford 
upon Avon who could barely sign his own name.

     Anyone who studies the Sonnets and HAMLET in the 
light of Oxford's life and letters should have no great 
difficulty deciding who the real author was. But a world 
that can honor mass murderers as national heroes may 
continue to honor a semiliterate actor as the greatest 
literary genius who ever lived.

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