The Secret Shakespeare

The only person who fits the description of the author Shakespeare as given by the Shakespeare Monument and the internal evidence of the plays, as well as being the only person alive throughout the whole Shakespeare period and who had a definite motive and declared purpose for writing them, was Francis Bacon (1561-1626).

1. The Shakespeare Monument likens the author Shakespeare to Nestor, King of Pylus, a great judge, statesman and ruler who was renowned for his justice. This is confirmed by the Shakespeare plays, which are not only full of legal terms and references, but the author writes as if law was natural to him and true justice a major concern. Moreover, the plays and some of the sonnets display a profound comprehension of politics, statesmanship, rulership and even kingship. The jargon often used in the plays is that of the Inns of Court, the seats of legal training and practice in London.

Francis Bacon was a lawyer who trained, practised and had chambers at Gray's Inn. He was a legal adviser to both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I as one of their Counsel Extraordinary and Counsel Learned in the Law, and under King James became respectively Solicitor-General (1607-13), Attorney General (1613-17) and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (1617-21). He was also created Lord High Chancellor in 1618 for life. As Lord High Chancellor and Lord Keeper, Bacon was the supreme judge in the land and advisor to the king. For a short period he also acted as regent of England for James I whilst the king was visiting Scotland (March-Sept 1617).

2. The Shakespeare Monument likens the author Shakespeare to Socrates, the most celebrated philosopher of ancient Greece and a renowned orator, who was reputed to have written tragedies masked by his pupil Euripides. Socrates was the advocate of clarity and the inductive procedure, for which he was particularly famed. He introduced moral philosophy and was attended by a number of pupils. Such philosophy imbues the Shakespeare works. The Shakespeare plays and sonnets contain profound philosophical insights, teachings and wisdom, which have a basis in the philosophical schools of Christian Cabala, Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Druidism.

Francis Bacon was Socrates' equivalent on all these counts and proposed that all learning and its practice (e.g. science and technology) should be dedicated to charitable, philanthropic purposes. Bacon called his philosophical work, 'The Great Instauration' or 'Six Days' Work' , and the use of drama lies at its heart. (See Building Paradise.)

3. The Shakespeare Monument likens the author Shakespeare to Virgil, the greatest of the Roman poets, who was not only a highly learned scholar and refined writer but also an initiate of the Orphic Mysteries. Moreover, according to the English poet Edmund Spenser, Virgil also wrote pseudonymously under the name of Tityrus.

Francis Bacon was highly educated, with encyclopaedic knowledge and wide experience of many walks of life, and could speak, read and write Latin, Greek, Hebrew and several modern languages. He was referred to as a 'secret poet' by his contemporaries, which included writing comedies and tragedies for the stage, by means of which he is said to have renovated Philosophy. His philosophy, as published under his own name of Francis Bacon, indicates the important role of imagination and drama in his philosophical work. Moreover, as he himself declared and as his friends remarked, he tested out all his ideas in practice, as part of the inductive process that he was advocating, and did his best practically to make up for, or set in motion the reparation of, those aspects of learning that he saw as deficient. In his Advancement of Learning he identifies the stage as being deficient. Bacon was referred to as the Apollo or leader of all the poets and others inhabiting Parnassus, the Mount of Poetry and Illumination.

4. The Shakespeare plays indicate detailed and, often, seemingly first-hand knowledge of foreign places, customs, laws and people, particularly in France and Italy.

Francis Bacon travelled abroad extensively and with the direct purpose of studying the laws, customs, people, places, architecture, religion, commerce, roads and shipping. This was to gain knowledge not only for himself and his philosophical work, but also as an intelligencer for the Queen. He was aided in this by his brother Anthony Bacon, and at one time they headed an intelligence network that informed both the Earl of Essex and the Queen independantly of the one run by Burghley and his son Robert Cecil. Francis Bacon visited France, Spain and Italy principally, but also some other countries. In France he was based with the French Court, with whom he travelled as well as elsewhere independantly. His brother Anthony lived abroad for twelve years, mainly in France, part of that time being in Béarn with Henri of Navarre (later Henri IV of France) and his sister Catherine de Bourbon, who became good friends.

5. The Shakespeare plays indicate that the author was educated at Cambridge University, and this is supported by a reference in 'Polimanteia', a book published in 1595 at Cambridge by the Cambridge authorities.

Francis Bacon was an alumnus (graduate) of Trinity College, Cambridge, which he attended 1573-5, together with his brother Anthony.

6. The Shakespeare plays indicate that the author had inside knowledge of the affairs, manners, behaviour, entertainments, politics and way of life of Court and nobility, both in France and Italy as well as England, on which the plays are primarily focused. The settings of the plays are mostly in royal Courts or noble houses, or associated townscape and landscape, such as parkland and forest owned by the aristocracy.

Francis Bacon was a gentleman-courtier, an adviser and confidant of kings and princes, who had both aristocrats and non-aristocrats as friends, and who was famed for his love and knowledge of nature as well as of humanity. As a royal adviser and intelligencer, as well as a philosopher intent on studying divine, human and nature's nature, he took careful note of everything possible. His network of friends, and those of his brother Anthony, extended throughout Europe.

7. Various contemporaries of Shakespeare either knew or suspected that the actor Shakspere was not the author of the Shakespeare works. Some even hinted as to who the real author was.

Two of them were the satirical poets, Joseph Hall and John Marston, who during 1597-8 published comments on the Shakespeare poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Hall attacked the love poetry; Marston defended it. In doing so they identified the author 'Shakespeare' as being Francis Bacon. (See Labeo and Contemporary Suspicions.)

8. The Shakespeare plays contain many details connected with Francis Bacon's own life and that of his brother Anthony, as well as details and comments on the character, behaviour and certain life incidents of those he knew well, including Essex, Southampton, Oxford, Burghley and the Queen. The writing of the plays fits well with Bacon's life, and his sufferings, joys, hopes and otherwise are reflected in the drama.

The Shakespeare plays first begin appear more or less at the same time as Bacon is recorded as having begun his Great Instauration (c. 1587). The Shakespeare name was first used publicly just after Anthony Bacon had returned to England and helped Francis to establish a scrivenery. Nearly all of the light-hearted comedies are written during the time that Anthony was with Francis (1592-1601). The so-called dark tragedies span the period of Essex's rebellion and execution, and both Anthony's and the Queen's death, ceasing only on Francis' marriage to Alice Barnham in May 1606. The great romances began to be written thereafter, but the rate of writing lessened from an average of two plays a year to one per year when Francis became Solicitor-General in 1607. They ceased altogether when Bacon was appointed to the highly time-consuming office of Attorney-General in October 1613.

After his impeachment and fall from office in 1621, Francis Bacon had plenty of time to write, but under difficult circumstances. He was assisted by a few 'good pens', including Ben Jonson, and with Jonson's help he could organise the collection of the Shakespeare play manuscripts, so that they could be published and not lost to posterity, which was something that concerned Bacon greatly.

Bacon took great pains in setting up a treasure trail or game of hide-and-seek around the Shakespeare authorship, including the careful design of the Shakespeare Monument at Stratford-upon-Avon that would link with the Shakespeare Folio of plays. However, even if he had the time or the desire, he could not easily alter, amend or improve the text of the plays, lest it would give away the authorship secret too readily. But he did insert at least one little clue as to the authorship, and that is the inclusion of two extra lords who relieve Wolsey of the Great Seal in Henry VIII. Wolsey was relieved of the Great Seal by two peers, the Duke of Norfolk and Duke of Suffolk, which was reasonably well known historically. However, in the Shakespeare play the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlain are added to the original two lords. Like Wolsey, Francis Bacon was impeached as Lord Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal, but was relieved of the Great Seal by four lords - the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlain.

There are many other clues, including pictograms and ciphers, all of which are part of the treasure trail and awaiting discovery and rediscovery, until all is known. (See Treasure Trail.)

(See the author's book, The Shakespeare Enigma)