There’s a lot of interest in unveiling the real Shakespeare these days. That man from Avon was the business manager for one of the most famous acting companies of the day and had a well-documented life as a minor businessman, but no evidence he was actually a writer. The longest signed document was his will, in which he carefully catalogued all his possessions, which strangely, did not include a single book nor important manuscript. As a writer, I can assure you we keep copies of our creations.
When the man from Avon died, the world was silent. It wasn’t until seven years later that Ben Jonson wrote the intro to the first folio. But what if Jonson was really in on the gag and protecting the real story?
The man from Avon had two daughters, one of whom bizarrely appears to have been functionally illiterate. More important, however, for a commoner with no documented travel nor education, it is inconceivable the man from Avon could have absorbed all the details or had access to the wealth of information on a wide variety of subjects, or had such insight into the ways of the royals.
Delia Bacon was born in a log cabin in Ohio and went on to become America’s leading Shakespearean scholar. In the 1850s, she published The Philosophy of Shakespeare’s Plays Unfolded, in which she theorized a council led by Francis Bacon (no relation) had produced the Bard’s work. Many learned scholars, including Mark Twain believed she was onto something.
In 1920, however, Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere was published by J. Thomas Looney. This was the first attempt to place de Vere’s biography alongside the plays and the parallels were astonishing.
Women were not allowed involvement with the theater during Shakespeare’s time, which is why the actors are all men. However, royals like de Vere were also not supposed to be involved with the lowly craft of playwriting. And homosexuality was an even greater crime, so using beards was quite common. De Vere was a notorious bisexual and favorite whit of the Queen, and possibly even her lover. But later in life , he got involved with various plots causing him to be exiled from court, while some of his Catholic friends, Ben Johnson included, were bouncing in-and-out of jail and under threat of execution for plotting treason.
De Vere was also the patron of the greatest acting troupe of the day, known as Oxford’s Men (de Vere was the Earl of Oxford), while the other group, The King’s Men, included Shakespeare as actor and business manager.
The patron of the King’s Men was Henry Carey, who had a mistress 20 years younger than himself, Emilia Bassano, the most famous female poet of the age. Mary Sidney, whose groundbreaking play Antonius revived interest in classical soliloquy, founded the most influential literary salon in the history of English literature and the most creative minds communed at her salon at Wilton House.
The man from Avon died in 1616 and the first folio creating his legacy was not published until seven years later, when the mythology was first laid down by Jonson, who strangely had said nothing seven years earlier when his supposed great friend passed away. Strange also how the man from Avon knew no other famous writers, and never appeared at any of the literary salons of the era. No one else famous seems to have known him. And strange how new work continued to be published after his death, especially his love poems, most of which seem to have been written to male lovers.
Sonnet 20 is the most explicit evidence of the speaker’s same-sex infatuation as the writer addresses the young man as the “master-mistress of my passion.” The poem praises the youth for having the beauty of a woman but the body of a man. The speaker playfully laments that Nature “pricked thee out for women’s pleasure” (adding a phallic pun) but claims the young man’s spiritual and emotional love exclusively for himself.
When the first portrait of Shakespeare appeared, the facial features strongly resembled a mask, and, in fact, there is a striking resemblance to de Vere’s favorite daughter, Susan, underneath that mask.
Watch the video and see why many believe de Vere was secretly buried in Westminster Abbey:
Give credit to the Elf for pioneering the concept of a solar-powered trike that can replace gas-guzzling cars for commuting and shopping locally.
As for modifications, I replaced the Elf mirrors with larger ones that folded in completely. On the PEBL, I put a Batman logo over the BB logo on the front. I’d urge BetterBike to explore a better logo.