False Grails

Research with null results

The search for evidence among Shakespeare Deniers is unconventional, operating outside any branch of scientific or academic research.

In the late nineteenth century Orville Ward Owen invested years of his time building a cipher wheel to uncover hidden ciphers in Shakespeare, triggering a century of research into decrypting the claim that, in this case, Bacon’s autobiography was concealed in the plays. A similar claim is still made by some Oxfordians today. The quest for arcane indicators when no real evidence can be found is the common to all conspiracy theories from Oxford’s authorship to the death of Paul McCartney. It is a false grail. If Shakespeare had hidden secrets in his text, discovering them would not advance the cause of the Earl of Oxford. Since Doubters cannot find even an unsolved cryptic riddle, the entire search has produced nothing whatsoever.

In the late nineteenth century Orville Ward Owen invested years of his time building a cipher wheel to uncover hidden ciphers in Shakespeare, triggering a century of research into decrypting the claim that, in this case, Bacon’s autobiography was concealed in the plays. A similar claim is still made by some Oxfordians today. The quest for arcane indicators when no real evidence can be found is the common to all conspiracy theories from Oxford’s authorship to the death of Paul McCartney. It is a false grail. If Shakespeare had hidden secrets in his text, discovering them would not advance the cause of the Earl of Oxford. Since Doubters cannot find even an unsolved cryptic riddle, the entire search has produced nothing whatsoever.

The search for evidence among Shakespeare Deniers is unconventional, operating outside any branch of scientific or academic research. Doubters can and do use conventional techniques to uncover new information relating to Bankside theatre and even make valid discoveries, but the challenge of connecting these to Shakespeare, by any means other than legerdemain has proved beyond them all. Not a single item of tangible evidence connects Oxford or Bacon to the canon. Marlowe, the second most popular candidate, can be directly connected to some of the early plays but like De Vere, he requires resurrection to complete the canon and, as with De Vere, this is biologically and evidentially impossible.

Given that everything interesting in human nature caught Shakespeare’s eye, the business of isolating exotica is not a valid method of improving any one candidate’s claim.

Narrative synthesis demands new scenarios. It usually proves more sensible when engaging with Doubter voyages of discovery to question the starting place rather than argue the product of these investigations. The initial premises will always be the major point of weakness.

For example, checking the likelihood of De Vere having made all the marks in the copy of the Geneva Bible proved much more damning than arguing about how strongly the Merchant of Venice or King Lear were connected to annotations in the 1st Book of Samuel. Simply reading the definition of ‘encryption’ is enough to dismiss the majority of claims about secret messages encrypted into the text. Encrypted text looks like this JKAV COXH KHBS NGVV. Cipher text is meant to be read with a key. Doubter decryption techniques are the equivalent of marksmanship that draws the target round the bulletholes

Following the Earl on his travels hasn’t helped either. Proving the reality of a coastline in Bohemia or canal routes to Milan in Italy might help the cause of someone who has provably visited Venice over someone who possible never left England. Solid accurate background might prove suggestive but backdrops in Bankside theatre tend to be generic. Getting a few details right about old law cases does not make the playwright a lawyer. It simple means the details caught his eye. Given that everything interesting in human nature caught Shakespeare’s eye, the business of isolating exotica is not a valid method of improving any one candidate’s claim. Only Oxfordians argue that a visit to Venice was essential in the playwright’s CV. None ever question what might lie behind the singularity.

The grails sought by Doubters are always false

This section contains examples of Doubter quests which, even had they succeeded, would have moved no authorship needles.

All this creativity, these flights of fancy, produce huge amounts of discussion on which countless hours have been wasted. As a means of increasing their candidate’s chances, extemporisers have not baulked at rewriting the whole of Shakespeare scholarship or dragging the chronology back decades to fit them into a lifetime that fails to correspond to their production. Some have even gone as far as rewriting the whole of sixteenth century English history, inventing new Earls, giving Elizabeth six illegitimate children, even creating new hidden heirs to the throne. All of which historical mayhem then has to be covered with Byzantine conspiracy theories.

Moving the needle–Why they all fail

Did Oxford really count himself the 17th Earl? No he didn’t. A whole series of books on number theory were cancelled when it was shown that he didn’t’

Crucially, most fail to calculate before embarking on their researches whether success in validating their claims would actually provide the circumstantial evidence they are looking for. Discovering Romeo’s sycamore turned out not to prove the author was in Verona. An Oxfraud visitor then proved the tree they identified as Romeo’s wasn’t a sycamore. Amazingly complex numerological theories around the hidden appearance of 17 in the text (Oxford being the 17th Earl) attempted to weld the canon author to nature’s favourite prime. Doubter researchers repeatedly fail to test the assumptions on which their searches are based, guaranteeing a null result from the outset. Did Oxford really count himself the 17th Earl? No he didn’t. Would it make any difference to his claim one way or the other, no it would not. Before his lineage was sorted out mistakes made in the twelfth century were not corrected until 20 years after he died, he would have been counted 16th.

These are examples of just a few of the false grails which have consumed authorship debate even though none would have provided the tangible evidence their sponsors were looking for. A waste of everybody’s time. Absolute proof of their contention would have made no difference to anything. Time spent arguing is time wasted.

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