Sir Walter Raleigh and the School of Light
Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Bacon were two of the most famous Englishmen of the Elizabethan era who, on the face of it, seemed to share much in common. They both served at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I; they were both trained lawyers at the Inns of Court in London; they both spent time in France as young men – Raleigh fighting for three years with the French Huguenots and Bacon fulfilling an important diplomatic mission; they were both involved in the early exploration and colonisation of North America, they both knew and worked with the magus Doctor John Dee; they were both at the centre of schools or circles of learning; and both men were knights of the realm.
However, these two men would experience very different fates. One would go on to become Lord Chancellor of England and would be lauded as a polymath and the instaurator of modern science, the other would die a traitor’s death. One would help to found the first successful English colony in what is today the United States of America, whilst the other would see his American colony disappear without trace. Although fate can certainly be fickle, could there perhaps have been a hidden, unseen influence operating behind their lives, an influence that could even be said to be other worldly?
We have looked at Sir Francis Bacon’s life before on this thread and his possible links to the burial of the TDARM on Oak Island and I hope to expand on this subsequently. However, I wish in this article to concentrate more on Bacon’s rivalry with Sir Walter Raleigh, a rivalry that may even have cost William Shakespeare his life. I would like to start by looking closely at the life and times of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Sir Walter Raleigh
As Wikipedia informs us:
Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in the English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland. helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I.
To English schoolchildren he is perhaps best remembered by a story that when he was a young Elizabethan courtier, he once took off his cape to lay it in front of the Queen, so that she would not have to step into a puddle. The story is most likely a fiction, but it does serve to illustrate the outgoing flamboyance of the man.
He was the younger half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and a cousin of Sir Richard Grenville (who was a privateer, an explorer and a participant in the colonisation of America). Curiously, by some strange coincidence, both men would die at sea off the Azores. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539 – 1583) was, like his cousin Grenville and half-brother Raleigh, an English adventurer, explorer and pioneer of the English colonial empire in North America, as were his brothers, Sir John Gilbert and Adrian Gilbert. More importantly perhaps for us, Sir Humphrey Gilbert was also a close acquaintance of John Dee and even sat in with him on some of Dee’s scrying or channelling sessions with Edward Kelley (they also shared an interest in alchemy). Let us not forget that John Dee was, amongst other things, a celebrated navigator (being a personal friend of Gerardus Mercator one of the foremost map makers or cartographers of the period) who would help in the planning of exploratory sea voyages to the North American coast. In keeping with Dee’s designs to establish an English empire in North America, Gilbert would take possession of Newfoundland for the English crown on 5 August 1583. On the voyage back, however, he would drown at sea. Nevertheless, this shows that Raleigh and his extended family were heavily involved in the exploration and colonisation of North America (See more on this below).
In 1569, Raleigh left for France to serve with the Huguenots in the French religious civil wars. In 1572, he was registered as an undergraduate at Oriel College in Oxford, but he left a year later without a degree. Raleigh proceeded to finish his education in the Inns of Court. In 1575, he was admitted to the Middle Temple, having previously been a member of Lyon’s Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery. Bizarrely, at his trial in 1603, he stated that he had never studied law. Perhaps he shared a similar legal education to a recent president of the United States of America, who supposedly studied law at a certain university, but it seems no law students who were graduates of that university at the time can remember him ever being there or attending courses.
Sir Walter Raleigh, the School of Night and the Red Cross Knight
Although Raleigh is more famous as an explorer, soldier and adventurer, he was also an accomplished man of letters, being both a writer and a poet. His poetry contains strong personal treatments of themes such as love, loss, beauty, and time. Most of his poems, which were written in a plain, unornamented style (in stark contrast to the more florid and elaborate styles of other English poets of the period like
Edmund Spenser and
John Donne), are short lyrics that were often inspired by actual events. However, it is his membership of what has come to be known as ‘
The School of Night’ that most interests us here.
The ‘School of Night’ is the modern name for a group of men centred on Sir Walter Raleigh that was once referred to in 1592 as the
"School of Atheism". The group included poets and scientists such as
Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Thomas Nashe, Matthew Rodon, Sir George Carey, the Early of Derby (i.e., Lord Strange - who would die in mysterious circumstances after the
Hesketh affair – see earlier posts), Thomas Harriot (
MJF: a much overlooked polymath who made a number of key scientific breakthroughs, particularly in the fields of astronomy and mathematics and was also an alchemist. He acted in the capacity of the school’s master), Sir Francis Drake,
Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland (Laura’s ‘Wizard Earl’) and supposedly
John Dee. They were also called the ‘
Dragon Men’ - with all the possible connotations involved in such a description. There is in fact no firm evidence that these men were all known to each other, but speculation about their connections has featured prominently in writings about the Elizabethan era. The name "School of Night" is a modern appellation based around the theory that the school was a clandestine intellectual coterie. It is alleged that each of these men studied science, philosophy religion and all were suspected of atheism. Atheism at that time was a crime nearly the equivalent of treason, since to be against the church was,
ipso facto, to be against the monarch, who in England was the head of the Church of England. At a dinner party in 1593, Raleigh entered into a heated discussion about religion with a Reverend Ralph Ironsides. The argument later gave rise to charges of atheism against Raleigh, though the charges were subsequently dismissed. However, atheism was also a name for anarchy, and was a charge frequently brought against the politically troublesome.
As the American writer and researcher
Steven Sora states, although all these men worked towards the same goals, they were not necessarily united. Infighting over leadership, land and favours from the Queen and later King brought them to betrayal and even to murder. Collectively, however, they succeeded in their primary aim, which was the colonisation of the New World. The Spanish may have sailed for gold and silver, the French for furs but the English came to America to re-create Avalon and establish the
New Atlantis (which was the name of Sir Francis Bacon’s last posthumously published work). Looking at America today, one might conclude that they succeeded. However, let us not forget that when the old Atlantis perished, it did so, according to Plato, as an evil empire.
As to the School of Night, Sora notes that they would meet at Raleigh’s estate where Raleigh, as its central figure, had his finger on the pulse of the new ideas that were emerging at the time. Sora also points out that although to many Raleigh would seem to be more of a swashbuckler, he is credited as having written a book (he had plenty of time to do so whilst he was incarcerated for 13 long years in the Tower of London)
The History of the World, complete apparently with references to and discussion about Phoenician gods (
MJF: which may be a bit of a red flag for us). In it, he wrote that the stars were the determinant of man’s fate. He also believed that magic was a form of worship as well as believing in the importance of the god
Dagon (aka Triton). One could see why the Reverend Ralph Ironsides may have had problems with Raleigh’s religious views, which would have been equally unpalatable to Catholics and Protestants alike. According to Raleigh’s mythology, the goddess Derceta was impregnated by a young man and left her baby by a lake. The baby was changed by the goddess Venus into a fish. Dagon was, of course, the fish-man god worshipped throughout Mesopotamia by the Assyrians and by the Philistines. He can be compared in some ways to Merovee, the mythical ancestor of the Merovingians. Although the sources for this work are unknown, it is obvious by its contents that Raleigh was steeped in esoteric thought. which might suggest a link to the Rosicrucians.
To support this link, Sora states that Raleigh was aware of the
Rosicrucian enlightenment and fancied himself as the ‘
Red Cross Knight’. The Red Cross Knight is the protagonist of the first book of Edmund Spenser’s
The Faerie Queene, his most distinctive feature being his shield which features a red Christian cross, which is the origin of his name. The Red Cross Knight is in reality a version of St. George (a real religious figure with deep esoteric underpinnings), who, according to legend, slayed a dragon. Like the legendary St. George, the Red Cross Knight does eventually slay a dragon that is terrorizing his lover, the Lady Una, and her family at their castle. As his shield suggests, the Red Cross Knight embodies the virtue of holiness and though he can be temporarily misled by tricks or foiled by strong adversaries, he always triumphs in the end. However, the red cross also has a deep significance for the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in which the 18th degree is called ‘Knight of the Rose Croix’. And then, of course, there are the Rosicrucians for whom the rosy cross is their key symbol. Finally, I would mention that a character called the Red Knight also appears in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s
Parzival (a classic Grail story), where he is killed by the young Parzival who then takes his armour and horse.
Steve Sora in his book, Rosicrucian America delves into an issue we have touched on before in this thread and that is, who was really the author of the works of William Shakespeare? I don’t want to run through the list of candidates and the arguments for and against each of them* here but would instead just mention that Sora notes in his book that something very dramatic happened in the year 1592.
*Sora seems to take the view that Bacon, Essex, the Earl of Oxford, and others collaborated together to produce the works of Shakespeare. I am sympathetic to that view.
He claims that at this time Sir Walter Raleigh’s circle would split into two factions. On one side were Raleigh and Hariot and a handful of scientists, as well as Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. On the other side is what would become known as the Essex Circle. The Essex Circle included: Sir Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony; Henry Wriothesley – the Earl of Southampton; Edward de Vere – the Earl of Oxford (another prime candidate for the real Shakespeare); Roger Manners – the Earl of Rutland; the playwright (and spy) Christopher Marlowe; as well as its central figure, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. After inheriting Leicester House, Essex changed its name to Essex House and his estate became home to a circle of intellectuals who could freely speak about science and religion and about government and philosophy (MJF: One can perhaps see in this the seeds of the later ‘Invisible College’ that Bacon would help to inspire, which in turn would become the basis for the Royal Society instituted in the reign of King Charles II).
Sora rightly points out that Elizabeth I’s court was a snake pit and Raleigh’s success had drawn the wrath of others who would be happy to see him removed, primarily Essex, who was one of the Queen’s favourites and rumoured to be her lover. Essex could be brash, impetuous, and dangerous, traits that would eventually cost him his life.
Bacon and the Essex Circle did not appreciate the advances of Sir Francis Drake and Raleigh within Elizabeth’s court. Bacon wanted a New Atlantis based on philosophical ideals. However, as Sora points out, Raleigh, despite his attempts from the 1580’s onwards to settle Virginia, did not always share in the higher ideals espoused by freethinkers such as Bacon, and Drake was merely a pirate who enjoyed raiding the Spanish Main for whatever could be stolen. This distinction in approach could in part explain the C’s strange question to Laura in the session dated 21 February 1998: “Is Beechnut a company?” and might also explain why the Roanoke colony sponsored by Raleigh was to prove a failure (see more on this below). Could external forces have intervened to ensure that it was Bacon’s vision that was ultimately realised and not Raleigh’s?
In trying to effect Raleigh’s downfall, his enemies regularly told the Queen that Raleigh’s School of Night was a School of Atheism, which may not have been far removed from the truth given Raleigh’s beliefs as described above. This faction had great influence and much of what they did was done behind the scenes (MJF: Could we be seeing the Rosicrucians at work here?). Sora states that Raleigh knew he had enemies, but his suspicions would on more than one occasion cause him to blame the wrong person.
One particular enemy of Raleigh, who was a close friend of Sir Francis Bacon and part of his intellectual circle, was Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who was a favourite of the Queen. Oxford first met Raleigh when the latter was introduced to court in 1580. Oxford especially loathed Raleigh’s friend, Sir Philip Sydney. Raleigh and Sydney’s links went back to Paris when both men, whilst in the company of Sir Francis Walsingham (the Queen’s spymaster), witnessed the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French Protestants in April 1572. Oxford would soon find out that Raleigh was reporting to Walsingham. Whether Raleigh knew it or not at the time, he had made a great enemy of Oxford.
Did Essex’s Circle use Shakespeare as a Cover
Sora muses how such a small group of men could play some of the greatest roles in exploring and colonising the New World whilst at the same time playing an equally influential role in the development of English literature. However, he points out that although these men could meet together and speak freely on religious, philosophical and political topics, few of them would dare to publish under their own name. Moreover, at that time it was deemed completely unacceptable for men of noble standing and political high office to stoop to publishing plays and poetry. Hence, it would prove useful to have someone to act as a cover for publishing their works. This was where William Shakespeare came in.
According to Sora, it was the Earl of Southampton who first saw the opportunity. Thus, when Essex wished to see his sonnets to young Henry Wriothesley (MJF: many of these men were closet bisexuals, which probably included Sir Francis Bacon too), put into print, they were deemed the work of Shakespeare. When Oxford wished to fashion new iterations of tales he had read during his grand tours of Continental Europe, he could publish as “William Shakespeare”. When the Earl of Rutland was posted by Queen Elizabeth to Elsinore Castle in Denmark, he might have returned with enough ideas to enable a new version of the age-old tale of Hamlet to be produced by Shakespeare. The same was true of Sir Francis Bacon who in understanding that his political works threatened to ignite the Queen’s wrath, realised that a pen name (a ‘nomme de plume’) could save his neck.
Now the group had a front man in William Shakespeare, they were free to write and say whatever they wanted since Shakespeare would act as their paid decoy. Bearing in mind that playwrights earned very little in the Elizabethan age (and there was at that time no copyright in literary works to protect writers’ interests), making Shakespeare the richest man in Stratford was a mere trifle for men as wealthy as the noblemen in Essex’s circle. As Sora points out, historical works with political overtones offered little to an author when weighed against the risk but Essex would lose his life for backing the production of Richard II – where in comparison the author, reputed to be Shakespeare, was not even reprimanded.
Shakespeare’s Works used as a Weapon against Raleigh
During this time frame, two works attributed to Shakespeare were published, which contained scarcely veiled jibes at Raleigh and his School or Night. The first was The Rape of Lucrece loosely based on the expulsion of the Tarquin dynasty from Rome, as recounted by the Roman historian Livy in his The History of Rome. The point of publishing the tale at this time was to identify ‘Tarquin the Proud’ as ‘Raleigh the Proud’. The underlying message of The Rape of Lucrece was that, like Tarquin, Raleigh would soon be expelled from London.
The second work was the satirical comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost. It appears to be exposing the School of Night, given that Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland as the King of Navarre is depicted as the leader, and his lords take vows not to look at women for three years so they can advance their studies without distraction. Raleigh was also caricaturised in the play through the character Don Adriano de Armado, whilst the character of Holofernes can be identified with the astronomer Thomas Hariot. Other attending lords in the play who can be identified with friends of Raleigh include Lord Strange, the Earl of Derby (Ferdinando Stanley) and Sir George Carey. Dame Frances Yates, a noted English historian of the Renaissance who wrote books on esoteric history, was one of those who noted that a large portion of the play was given over to mocking Raleigh, Hariot and Chapman et al. and she suggested that it was their absorption in the field of new astronomy at the School of Night that influenced Shakespeare (the Essex Circle) to write the satire. In fairness, Essex’s Circle also included people like Bacon who took an interest in the new astronomy too. Below are a few lines from the play, which serve to illustrate Yates’ point:
These earthly godfathers of heavens lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining knights.
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Raleigh, as a proud man, was highly sensitive to criticism and when his enemies likened the School of Night to a School of Atheism, he may well have blamed William Shakespeare, not realising that Shakespeare was merely a front man for the literary work. However, Sora suggests there may have been another reason for Raleigh to seek revenge against Shakespeare.
Raleigh’s Secret Marriage and Imprisonment
Whilst at the peak of his career at the court of Queen Elizabeth, having been knighted in 1585, Raleigh entered into a secret marriage in 1591 with his lover Elizabeth Throckmorton, who was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, after she had become pregnant. Queen Elizabeth had insisted that all her ladies-in-waiting remain unmarried, and Raleigh was aware that, even for a man of his standing, he had no chance of changing the Queen’s mind over this. The pregnant Elizabeth made her excuses to the Queen and left London for her family home at Coughton Court, just outside the small town of Alcester. Halfway between Stratford (Shakespeare’s hometown) and Alcester lay the original home of Mary Arden, Shakespeare’s mother, who happened to be related to the Throckmorton family. The extended family kept an important secret which was that Shakespeare’s grandfather, father and mother were secretly Roman Catholics (at a time of acute Catholic persecution). Sora ponders whether the Shakespeare-Arden family may have let slip the secret marriage of Elizabeth to Raleigh. Although Elizabeth resumed her duties to the Queen after giving birth (sadly the child would die of plague in October 1592), the following year the unauthorised marriage was discovered, and the Queen ordered Raleigh to be imprisoned and Elizabeth dismissed from court. Both were imprisoned in the Tower of London in June 1592. However, Raleigh would be released from prison in August 1592 to manage a recently returned expedition and an attack on the Spanish coast. Afterwards he was sent back to the Tower, but by early 1593 he had been released again, whereupon he became a member of Parliament. However, the damage to Raleigh’s reputation and standing in court would be long lasting and it could be argued that he never really recovered from this episode.
Whether Shakespeare’s family had any role in divulging Raleigh’s secret marriage to Elizabeth and her pregnancy is impossible to prove at this distance in time but, if they had let slip the secret, then it would certainly be a good reason for Raleigh to seek revenge on Shakespeare. Whether Shakespeare suspected that Raleigh blamed him for the leak and might wish to seek revenge cannot be known now but Sora makes the interesting point that Shakespeare drew up his last will and testament shortly after Raleigh’s release from prison. Was this just mere coincidence?
Raleigh’s Second Imprisonment
It would be a long climb for Raleigh back into Queen Elizabeth’s favour, but Raleigh’s situation would gradually improve over time. However, his enemies still included Francis Bacon and the Earl of Southampton, who by this time were backing voyages to the New World. Sora claims that they were threatened by Raleigh’s fame and by his role in the settling of the first permanent English colony in Virginia. This may be true, but we should not forget that Francis Bacon also played a prominent role in the genesis of that colony and wrote the Virginia Company’s constitution. However, there can be little doubt that Bacon’s influence over the colony increased after Raleigh’s second imprisonment under King James I (see more below), which would last for 13 long years. How great an influence Bacon played on the evolution of what would become the United States of America can be measured perhaps by the statement of Thomas Jefferson (a Freemason and suspected Rosicrucian), the third President of the United States, who wrote:
"Bacon, [John] Locke and [Sir Isaac] Newton. whose pictures I will trouble you to have copied for me: and as I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical & Moral sciences.”
When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, James Stuart, the king of Scotland ascended the English throne as King James I. Various Catholic plots against him were uncovered. And although Raleigh had fought against the Spanish for decades, he was implicated in one of these plots (the ‘Bye Plot’) against the new king. He would be convicted on trumped up charges and recanted testimony, as a result of which he was imprisoned.
The Bye Plot was a conspiracy by English Catholics to kidnap James I and force him to convert to Catholicism or at least to put Catholics in powerful positions (James’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been an ardent Catholic). The plot, whose ringleader was a priest, William Watson, had been poorly planned and was actually reported by English Jesuits for fear that things would get worse for them if the plan proceeded. Watson and two others were arrested and tortured into confessing and were executed for their roles. However, Watson had implicated George Brooke, with whom he had discussed the plot. Brooke was arrested and tortured as well and would be executed in December 1603. Unfortunately, he may have cast suspicion on his older brother Henry Brooke, who as Lord Cobham was a friend of Robert Cecil, William Cecil’s (Lord Burghley) son, who may have felt threatened by both Bacon and Raleigh. As it so happened, Cobham had been in touch with Spanish agents and had a much more serious plot in the works. This came to be known as the ‘Main Plot’, a conspiracy by English courtiers to remove King James from the English throne and replace him with his cousin Lady Arbella Stuart. As an orphan Arbella had lived in Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire with her grandmother, the formidable and wealthy Bess of Hardwick, who had married George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, the owner of Alton Castle, on whose estate would later be built Alton Towers. Perhaps there was more going on behind the scenes then we realise since a dispatch from Bess of Hardwick to Lord Burghley, dated 21 September 1592 records that from early 1589 or thereabouts "one Morley ... attended on Arbell and read to her … [over] the space of three years and a half". There has been speculation that Morley was in fact the poet Christopher Marlowe, whose name was sometimes spelt that way. If true, this would be intriguing since Marlowe (another candidate for the real Shakespeare) was reputed to have been a member of Raleigh’s School of Night and was known to have been a spy in the service of Sir Francis Walsingham. He would be killed in strange circumstances on 30 May 1593 when at an English tavern of ill repute, he got involved in an argument over a bill and was murdered. One theory claims that the murder was initiated by Sir Walter Raleigh and yet another claims that Marlowe was not killed but hustled off to Italy where he continued his writing, which was passed on to Shakespeare to claim as his own. If Morley was Marlowe, then it might explain why he ceased reading to her after three and a half years.
Part of the Main Plot involved taking delivery of a large sum of money from Spain and carrying it through the British Channel Island of Jersey, where Raleigh was the governor, to England. It transpired that this was Raleigh’s only real connection with the plot. Indeed, it defies reason and logic why Raleigh should get involved, as he had fought against Catholic Spain for decades and had regularly raided their ships. Why would the Spanish trust him with control over their money? Moreover, Raleigh was an ardent Protestant who detested Catholicism and would have much preferred a Protestant king to sit upon the throne of England, even if he were a Scotsman.
Unfortunately for Raleigh, Cobham named him as a co-conspirator even though there is no other evidence for it. It did not matter that Cobham later recanted his testimony against Raleigh, as Raleigh was still imprisoned. Raleigh's trial began on 17 November 1603, and he conducted his own defence. The chief evidence against him was the signed and sworn confession of his friend Henry Brooke (Cobham). Raleigh repeatedly requested that Cobham be called to testify. but the tribunal refused to allow Cobham to testify and be cross-examined. Although Raleigh was convicted, King James spared his life. Since then, Raleigh's trial has been regularly cited as influential in establishing a common law right to confront one’s accusers in court. Given the legal irregularities involved in Raleigh’s trial (when Cobham was not allowed to give oral testimony in court under cross-examination, his evidence should have been viewed as ‘hearsay’, as Raleigh correctly argued), one can only conclude that the trial and conviction was a “stitch-up” to prevent Raleigh from wielding any influence at the court of the new king and over future colonisation plans for the New World. Could the hidden hand of history have deliberately moved against Raleigh?
However, this is where the story takes a strange turn since Cobham and his family had been, like Raleigh and his circle, the butt of Shakespeare’s jokes in The Merry Wives of Windsor and in a performance of Henry IV. Thus, both Cobham and Raleigh were victimised in works attributed to William Shakespeare. Raleigh might have blamed the secretly Catholic Arden-Shakespeare family for making him a scapegoat. According to Sora, he had suspected them of the same thing in the past.
The Mermaid Club
Before looking at the circumstances of Shakespeare’s death, I would like to explore the possibility that Raleigh may have met with Shakespeare at some stage in London before his fall from grace and imprisonment. Aside from the School of Night, Raleigh may also have been responsible for creating another salon of intellectuals under his leadership. Although controversial, there are historians and literary scholars who believe that Raleigh was responsible for establishing at the Mermaid Tavern located in Cheapside, London what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Mermaid Club’ or the ‘Friday Club’, since the Tavern had an entrance on Friday Street and the Club customarily met on the first Friday of every month. These gatherings of gentlemen at the tavern were essentially those of members of a literary club (comparable perhaps centuries later to C.S. Lewis’s and Tolkien’s Inklings Club in Cambridge). However, Raleigh may not have been just the founder of the club but an active participant too. These meetings at the Mermaid Tavern were attended by well known playwrights, authors and poets including Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare (whose Blackfriars Theatre was nearby), Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Seldon, Robert Bruce Compton, Richard Martin and John Donne amongst others. According to some commentators, it was a status symbol among the literary circle to gather at such taverns in the heart of London at that time.
The question we need to ask here is whether Shakespeare ever attended such literary gatherings at the Mermaid, particularly if he was a front man for the Essex Circle, the rivals of the Raleigh Circle. There is no doubt that such gatherings took place at the Mermaid because contemporaries like Thomas Middleton and the poet John Keats wrote about them. Moreover, the poet John Milton (famous for Paradise Lost) mentions both Ben Jonson and Shakespeare as frequenters of the Boar’s Head Tavern and The Mermaid – Milton’s father was also a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre, a Shakespearean enterprise. Alan and Veronica Palmer in their Who’s Who in Shakespeare’s England relate that:
“Shakespeare has been the subject of much legend, near contemporaries relating anecdotes of genial rivalry, for tales of drinking parties at The Mermaid and just before Shakespeare’s death tended to include the presence of Jonson as a matter of course”.
Furthermore, the Mermaid Tavern was owned by William Johnson at that time who was supposedly an acquaintance of Shakespeare. This point can be proven by the fact that The Blackfriars Theatre deed of agreement with Shakespeare’s signature upon it was attested and seconded by none other than William Johnson. It is unlikely that Johnson would have attested Shakespeare’s signature unless he knew him well, which suggests that Shakespeare must have frequented the Mermaid Tavern on a regular basis when Johnson was the landlord.
Thus, it seems Shakespeare was a regular at the Mermaid Tavern and may well, therefore, have participated in the gatherings of the Mermaid or Friday Club. If that is the case, he may well have met with Raleigh before the latter’s imprisonment. However, the big takeaway from all this is that Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were evidently established drinking pals. Indeed, Ben Jonson would prove to be one of the last people Shakespeare would ever have a drink with.
Shakespeare’s Death
While Sir Walter Raleigh was languishing in gaol, his literary nemesis, William Shakespeare, had settled down in provincial Stratford-upon-Avon playing the role of a small-town businessman. A great deal of water had passed under the bridge since Raleigh had been incarcerated. This had also allowed Shakespeare to lose touch with those he had known as a “player” (stage actor) but evidently not Ben Jonson.
However, what Shakespeare did not know was that Jonson had become the single best friend that Sir Walter Raleigh had, visiting him often in the Tower (although Thomas Harriot would also frequently visit Raleigh in gaol and was reputedly with him the night before his execution). Shakespeare may also not have been aware that Jonson had become his most outspoken critic. Indeed, Sora alleges that the full extent of the enmity that both Jonson and Raleigh felt for Shakespeare would never be known to the Bard.
On 23 April 1616, Jonson and Shakespeare would meet in Stratford to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday in the company of another famous poet of the day, Michael Drayton. Besides the Mermaid Tavern connection, Shakespeare and his company of actors had performed Jonson’s plays years before. It should be noted that Jonson was somewhat unusual for a poet in that he had started his working life as a bricklayer before becoming a soldier fighting in the Lowlands (Flanders and the Netherlands). He had therefore killed men before, including in hand-to-hand conflict and through duelling (which was against the law). He also had a reputation for excessive drinking and street fighting for which he had been arrested and imprisoned on four separate occasions.
What happened on the night of 23 April 1616 has not been recorded in any detail. It is said though that Shakespeare “drank too hard” and “died of a fever”. As Sora points out, since a night of overeating and drinking rarely results in death*, the tragic result may indicate that he was poisoned. Since no one else at their table was poisoned, it may have been the case, therefore, that he had been deliberately targeted by Jonson.
*This is not necessarily true as gluttony and overindulgence can induce a heart attack or, if one had an existing serious gastric ulcer condition, it might lead to a ruptured ulcer that would cause a fever due to septicaemia, which usually results in a quick and painful death without prompt medical intervention of a kind that was unavailable in that age.
It is curious that Shakespeare had only just drawn up his will the previous month and yet a month later he was dead after dinner with Jonson and his pals. It could be indicative though that Shakespeare knew he had a serious, possibly untreatable, malady and he was not long for this world. However, if he was poisoned by Jonson, this might suggest that the long arm of Raleigh vengeance had reached out to take revenge on Shakespeare through Raleigh’s point man. Unfortunately, we shall never know (unless we ask the C’s of course!).
Raleigh’s Voyages to South America
Raleigh was also famous as an explorer. Although he never visited North America (at least as far as we are aware), he did explore along the coast of South America, where he visited what is now Guyana and eastern Venezuela in search of Lake Parime and Manoa, the legendary city of gold supposedly at the headwaters of the Caroni River. When he arrived back in England, he published an account of his voyage in which he made exaggerated claims as to what had been discovered. The book can though be seen as a contribution to the
El Dorado legend. Turning to North America, even if he never visited it, he did contribute extensively to the early colonisation of the territory by the English, including financing the ill-fated colony of Roanoke
The Lost Colony of Roanoke
Sir Walter Raleigh has, featured before on this thread in a postscript to my article titled ‘
The Knights Templar, Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant’. I am therefore recapitulating below what I said about Raleigh in that article, save that I have updated the material (which is shown in red) with new information I have become aware of since I originally wrote the article:
According to the Warwickshire historian William Dugdale, who wrote in 1656, the Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh visited Herdewyke in 1600 and was told a story about the Templars hiding treasure in the area. For some reason or other, Raleigh took it seriously and spent months looking for treasure. He persuaded his wealthy wife (Elizabeth Throckmorton, Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth I) to buy the Herdewyke estate and had a gang of men excavate the ruins of the Templar preceptory. Apparently, nothing was found. Nevertheless, could this legendary treasure have been the same relics that had once been housed in the Herdewyke chapel in Ralph de Sudeley’s time?
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Of great interest to me though is the colony of Roanoke that Raleigh sought to establish first in 1585, which became known as the "Lost Colony". In 1587, Raleigh attempted a second expedition, again establishing a settlement on Roanoke Island. This time, a more diverse group of settlers was sent, including some entire families, under the governance of John White. After a short while in America, White returned to England to obtain more supplies for the colony, planning to return in a year. Unfortunately for the colonists at Roanoke, one year became three. When the supply ship arrived in Roanoke, three years later than planned, the colonists had disappeared. The only clue to their fate was the word "CROATOAN" and letters "CRO" carved into tree trunks. White had arranged with the settlers that if they should move, the name of their destination be carved into a tree or corner post. This suggested the possibility that they had moved to Croatoan Island, but a hurricane prevented John White from investigating the island for survivors. Other speculation includes their having starved or been swept away or lost at sea during the stormy weather of 1588. No further attempts at contact were recorded for some years. Whatever the fate of the settlers, the settlement is now remembered as the "Lost Colony of Roanoke Island". Modern research has still not produced the archaeological evidence necessary to solve the mystery*.
*I watched an archaeological programme recently on the Lost Colony of Roanoke and there is now evidence gradually emerging to support the theory that some of the colonists may have moved to Croatan Island at some stage. White had left instructions that, if necessary, the colonists should relocate 50 miles from the “Maine”. Some interpret this as meaning 50 miles inland since “Maine” means “coast”, but he could just as well have meant 50 miles along the coast. It just so happens that Croatan Island is exactly 50 miles from the site of the original colony. Although many of the local Native American tribes were hostile to the colonists, the natives on Croatan Island were friendly and the colonists had established a good relationship with them. An archaeological dig led by Bristol University (of England) and local amateur archaeologists has uncovered on Croatan Island evidence of an Elizabethan era presence, which includes pieces of English Elizabethan period pottery and a sword hilt also contemporary to that period. Although this is not definitive evidence, it is still circumstantial proof that they may have journeyed to Croatan Island (it is highly unlikely that an English gentleman would ever hand over a prized sword to a native unless it was forcibly seized from him). Whether the colonists were abducted from the original site of the colony located by John White or from Croatan Island we do not know. It is worth noting though that ufologists are aware that many Native American tribes have had a long-term relationship with aliens, who they often refer to as their “sky brothers”.
There is also a contemporary map of the region held by the British Museum showing the site of the original colony. There is, however, a subtle patch over part of the map, which covers part of the inland area. Under X-ray analysis, this patch reveals what may be the location of a star-shaped fort. Hence, other archaeologists are working on the theory that the colonists were instructed to move 50 miles inland to build a fort presumably for defence against potential Spanish or French attacks on the colony. I am not aware that they have discovered the location of a fort yet but if any reader is aware, please feel free to inform us.
It is interesting that the expedition's reports had described the region as a pleasant and bountiful land, alluding to the Golden Age (Arcadia) and the Garden of Eden, although these accounts may have been somewhat embellished by Raleigh. The Wikipedia entry for the Lost Colony of Roanoke sets out many theories on what may have happened to the colony see Roanoke Colony - Wikipedia. However, the C's cleared the matter up for Laura when they confirmed that the colony was abducted by aliens. This begs the question why they did so since. Given the state of the world right now, you would think that the aliens would have wanted the colony to succeed. Afterall, the Virginia Company of which Raleigh was a governor, would go on to become the means by which England would eventually come to dominate North America in opposition to its European rivals and lead to the creation of the present United States of America, a centre of power for the Illuminati/NWO and by extension the Quorum. Was it just opportunistic on the part of the aliens who may have simply been hungry at the time and wanted lunch or was there an ulterior motive behind their abduction of the colonists?
A: Laura has had much success in revealing encrypted information... it even raises one's FRV. You need a "recharging, my dear." All this attack has sapped ye!
Q: (L) In what sense, or any specific mode of recharging?
A: You and Ark must get on the right "track."
Q: Are you meaning 'track' as in 'treadmill'?
A: The time for deciphering is not now. [MJF: The reference to “deciphering” here may be a cryptic clue linking us to Sir Francis Bacon, since he was a cypher or code expert but see also below.]
[.......]
Q: Okay, I will! Anything else? I think we have about covered it for tonight...
A: Leaves on cover...
Q: (A) What about them?
A: Oak.
Q: Yes...
A: Is Beechnut a company?
Q: Interesting thought. Okay. Anything else?
You will note that the C's first make a pun when saying “You need a recharging, my dear. All this attack has sapped ye!" Sap is, of course, something which you extract from a tree like rubber for example and may link to their later clues in that session concerning Oaks and Beechnut. I only learned the other day that early medieval (13th Century) tanners or leather manufacturers had learned to extract sap from the bark of the oak tree to use in the manufacture of hardened leather. It just so happens that on the Curse of Oak Island, one of the Lagina brothers unearthed (literally) last year an old leather shoe sole from a gentleman’s boot that was almost certainly made from this process. Perhaps this is why the C’s said: “the time for deciphering is not now”.
“Ye” is also old English for “you”, as used in Elizabethan times. Their reference to “Oak” may tie us into Oak Island and Beechnut may link us with Sir Francis Bacon, whose name in old French means 'Beech' as in the tree. However, could there be a tenuous and cryptic link here to Sir Walter Raleigh and the Lost Colony of Roanoke? In the Wikipedia entry (see Roanoke Colony - Wikipedia) there is a reference to a theory that may provide a clue for us.
This is what Wikpedia has to say about the subject:
"Local legends in Dare County refer to an abandoned settlement called "Beechland", located within what is now the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The area has had reports of small coffins, some with Christian markings, encouraging speculation of a link to the Lost Colony. Based on these legends, engineer Phillip McMullan and amateur archaeologist Fred Willard concluded that Walter Raleigh dispatched the 1587 colonists to harvest sassafras along the Alligator River. All records suggesting the colony's intended destination was Chesapeake Bay, and that England had lost contact with the colony, were supposedly falsified to conceal the operation from Spanish operatives and other potential competitors.
According to McMullan, Raleigh quietly re-established contact with the colony by 1597, and his sassafras expeditions were simply picking up the colonists' harvests. In this view, the colony was not truly abandoned until the secret of the colony's location died with Raleigh in 1618. After that point, McMullan argued, the colonists would have begun to assimilate with the Croatan at Beechland.
This theory largely depends upon oral traditions and unsubstantiated reports about Beechland, as well as a 1651 map that depicts a sassafras tree near the Alligator River. A significant problem is that Raleigh supposedly planned a sassafras farm in 1587 to capitalize on a dramatic increase in crop prices, so that he could quickly compensate for the great expense of the failed 1585 colony. This overlooks the fact that Richard Grenville's privateering recovered the cost of the 1585 expedition. Additionally, sassafras prices did not skyrocket in value until the late 1590s, well after the establishment of the 1587 colony."
Well, if the C's are correct about the colony's abduction by aliens, then it is highly unlikely that Raleigh re-established contact with the colony in 1597, as there were seemingly no survivors. As for the Sassafras tree (see Sassafras - Wikipedia), medicinally, sassafras has been applied to insect bites and stings to relieve symptoms. The leaves and pith, when dried and powdered, have also been used as a thickener in soups. The roots often are dried and steeped for tea, and sassafras formerly was used as a flavouring in root beer. All parts of sassafras plants, including roots, stems, twig leaves, bark, flowers, and fruit, have been used for culinary, medicinal, and aromatic purposes. Is it possible that Sir Walter Raleigh had intended to establish a trade in the products of the Sassafras tree? Is 'Beechnut' an indirect reference to 'Beechland' perhaps? Certainly, the Virginia Company of the early 17th century was an English joint stock company set up to exploit the resources of the New World by establishing permanent colonies in what is now the Eastern United States. One cash product that the Virginia Company would subsequently exploit was, of course, tobacco. However, in contrast, Raleigh never set up a company to fund his expeditions, which were paid for directly by Raleigh and his friends. Hence, this may explain the C's question - "Is Beechnut a company?". It may not have been a company, but the “Beechland” colony could still be viewed as a deliberate commercial venture on Raleigh's part.
Beech trees do, of course, produce edible nuts that can be harvested. Beech nuts are tasty, nutrient-dense nuts produced in the fall or autumn by beech trees. If the C's were being cryptic, then there is a brand of chewing tobacco called 'Beech-Nut' produced by the Lorillard Tobacco Company. This may link us back to Sir Walter Raleigh who helped to popularise tobacco smoking and chewing in England, being a smoker himself. For the sake of completeness, there is also the Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation a US baby food company - see Beech-Nut - Wikipedia.
Was the C’s earlier reference to Oak trees and then to “
Beechnut” intended to link Sir Walter Raleigh to Oak Island perhaps or was the link just to Sir Francis Bacon? Recall here that Raleigh showed a great interest in the lost Templar treasure of Temple Herdewyke. Did he become aware perhaps of the Templars’ link to the Grail through his time in Huguenot-held France, whose territory overlapped with that of the by then extinct Cathars? Had he also become aware of a possible Templar link to Oak Island? If so, was he ultimately after the Holy Grail?
Raleigh’s Execution
In 1617, Raleigh was pardoned by King James and granted permission to conduct a second expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, a detachment of Raleigh's men under the command of his long-time friend Lawrence Kemys attacked the Spanish outpost of Santo Tomé de Guayana on the Orinoco River, in violation of peace treaties with Spain and against Raleigh's orders. A condition of Raleigh's pardon had been the avoidance of any hostility against Spanish colonies or shipping. In the initial attack on the settlement, Raleigh's son, Walter, was fatally shot. Kemys informed Raleigh of his son's death and begged for forgiveness, but did not receive it, and at once committed suicide. On Raleigh's return to England, an outraged Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, demanded that Raleigh's death sentence be reinstated by King James, who had little choice but to do so. Raleigh was brought to London from Plymouth during which he passed up numerous opportunities to make an effective escape. Raleigh was beheaded at the Palace of Westminster on 29 October 1618. Although his popularity had waned considerably since his Elizabethan heyday, his execution was seen by many, at the time and since, as both unnecessary and unjust.
Conclusion
For those who may think this article is merely a dry narration of Sir Walter Raleigh’s life and times, I would counter by saying that Raleigh and his supporters, as well as his enemies like Sir Francis Bacon, formed part of a very small English, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (“WASP”) elite, who would ultimately help to forge and shape the destiny of today’s United States of America. The fact that some of these men were also Rosicrucians should be of great significance to us for, given the Rosicrucians’ ancient origins as revealed by the C’s, one has to suspect that the hidden hand of history was operating behind the scenes to ensure the success of their mission in America. Afterall, the C’s have said that the Orions, the Lizard beings and the bio-robotic Greys have been traversing back and forth in time for over 40,000 years to set the present climax up in which the behemoth that is the present United States of America is playing a central role as the main military muscle of the New World Order. Thus, Raleigh may have been more than a victim of circumstances, since the hidden, cloak and dagger forces referred to above may have wanted to ensure Bacon’s more enlightened vision of America as a New Atlantis would prevail at Raleigh’s expense.
In my next article, I hope to expand upon this theme to show how it was ultimately Bacon’s vision that would help to shape the destiny of modern America.
