Research with null results
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 suggestivity 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 CO0H KHBS NGV?.
Following the Earl on his travels doesn’t help much 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 they 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.
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.
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. Amazingly complex numerological theories around the hidden appearance of 17 in the text (Oxford being the 17th Earl) failed 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.
