Other Candidates

If you would like us to include a biography of a new candidate on this page, then please contact us at: info@shakespeareanauthorshiptrust.org.uk

Amelia Lanyer, 1569-1645

Amelia Lanyer, one of the first women to publish her own poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum in 1611, is one of the most recent candidates to be considered as author of the Shakespeare plays. For more information, visit
www.darkladyplayers.com or contact DarkLadyPlayers@aol.com

Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554-1628

Background:
Aristocrat, courtier, statesman, sailor, soldier, spymaster, literary patron, dramatist, historian and poet and Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon. Educated at Shrewsbury and Jesus College, Cambridge. After leaving university travelled abroad. Worked for Sir Francis Walsingham as an ‘intelligencer’ and ‘recruiter' and travelled all over Europe. A great favourite of Elizabeth I. Clerk to the Council of Wales. Treasurer of the Navy. Chancellor of the Exchequer. Murdered in 1628.

Famous for:

His friendship with Sir Philip Sidney.
His long love affair with Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke.
His close relationship with Queen Elizabeth.
His patronage of Bacon, Marlowe, Nashe, Daniel, Florio and three Poets Laureate; Spenser, Jonson and Davenant.
His claim to have been the ‘Master of Shakespeare’.
His claim to have written Antony and Cleopatra.

The Case:
The ‘Grevillian Theory’ was first advanced in The Master of Shakespeare, Volume 1, The Sonnets, by AWL Saunders (2007), which showed the results of a study which compared 354 biographical, source and stylistic profiles of Greville and the man of Stratford as claimed by the Stratfordian theory. The profiles showed a 100% match. The most powerful evidence is shown by comparison of Recorder Greville and the man clearly described in the First Folio poems by Jonson and Digges:

Greville was the Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon.
He had a house in Henley Street, Stratford.
He closely resembles the Droushout engraving.
He was the friend and patron of Ben Jonson.
He was ‘one of the finest sonneteers of his day’ (Lisle Cecil John) and ‘one of the two great masters of the short poem in the Renaissance’ (Winters).
He was a world-class intellectual and artistic genius (Bullough, Buxton, Rees, Rebholz, Ward & Waller, Lucas, Winters, Shelling, Holmes, Groshart, Lucas, Sampson, Cowley).
He built a ‘monument without a tomb’.
He lived by the River Avon.
His crest was a swan.

In the case of the Sonnets, the profiles showed conclusively that Fulke Greville is a mirror image of the author of the Sonnets who had a ‘quadrilateral affair’ with three people: a beautiful fair friend, a mistress, the ‘Dark Lady’, and a ‘Rival Poet’:

Greville was deeply in love with a fair friend to whom he wrote poems.
He did have a tempestuous affair with a ‘Dark Lady’ to whom he wrote poems.
He did have a famous rival poet to whom he wrote poems.
He did have literary works stolen from Kings Place, Hackney and piratically published in 1609.

Links
www.masterofshakespeare.com

Books
The Master of Shakespeare, Volume 1: The Sonnets
A W L Saunders, MoS Publishing, 2007

Sir Walter Ralegh/Raleigh, 1554-1618

Brief Background:
Education: Oriel College, Oxford. Middle Temple, Inns of Court, London.
Languages: Fluent French, Latin and Italian.
Born in a comparatively humble Devonshire farmhouse but related to the oldest and most influential families in the West Country. Half-brother to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, great-nephew to Katherine (Kat) Astley, governess, then First Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth 1st. Rose to become a favourite of Elizabeth but fell foul of King James 1st, was arrested on a trumped-up charge of treason, tried and sentenced to death but imprisoned in the Tower and regarded as ‘Civilly dead’ for twelve years. Released to sail to Guiana in search of gold, failed, and was executed on previous charge.

Ralegh was much more than a mere courtier who received monopolies and titles from his Queen. He was also a soldier, sailor, explorer, scholar, politician, philosopher, scientist, chemist, historian and student of astronomy. (Knowledge of all these pursuits is to be found in the Shakespeare plays). He read voraciously, even making room for a trunk-full of books on his sea voyages, and wrote at every stage of his eventful life – pamphlets, essays, poetry, a best-selling travel book, verse petitions, commendatory verses, epitaphs, a vast history book (also a best-seller) and innumerable letters.

A Taste Of The Case:
Ralegh had a connection to Shakespeare of Stratford – his wife’s cousin Mary married Edward Arden of Park Hall.
He was close to Christopher Marlowe, replying jokingly in verse to Marlowe’s Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
He was close to Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. She begged her younger son to plead with King James for Ralegh’s life, while her older son introduced Carew Ralegh (Sir Walter’s heir) at court after his father’s death. Both Herbert brothers were, of course, dedicatees of the First Folio.
Many of the sonnets mirror Ralegh’s life experiences, his philosophy and his (often despondent) moods.
Events in his life tarry surprisingly well with the accepted dates and spirit of the plays.
Several unusual phrases in the plays are used by him in his letters.
References to his voyages are to be found in: The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Love’s Labours lost, All’s Well That Ends Well and The Tempest.
Adaptations of his poems occur in Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice.
Ben Jonson, who must have known the true author, tutored Ralegh’s son Wat for a while and wrote a poem to accompany the front-piece of Ralegh’s History of the World.

Reason for hiding identity
Throughout his adult life, Ralegh sought to become a Privy Councillor. Even while in the Tower, he hoped and worked for release and eventual advancement. Writing for the public stage would hardly have improved his career while Elizabeth was on the throne. When James came to power he hated Ralegh ‘above all others’ - had he discovered him as author he would certainly have banned performance of the plays, as he attempted to ban Ralegh’s History of the World.

Angela McGarry is completing the final stage of a novel citing Ralegh as ‘Shakespeare’ and currently researching for her non-fiction book on the same subject.

Links
www.luminarium.org/renlit/raleghessay.htm

Books
Shakespeare and Sir Walter Ralegh
Henry Pemberton, Haskell House, June 1980
Sir Walter Raleigh
Raleigh Trevelyan, Allen Lane-Penguin, 2002
Sir Walter Ralegh
Robert Lacey, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973
The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh
Edited by Agnes Latham and Joyce Youings, University of Exeter Press, 1999

Candidates