‘Shake-speare’: Still a Living Shaman for our Sacred Times?

Michael B-C

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Sonnet 146
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross:
Within be fed, without be rich no more,
So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.

***​

I’m tentatively opening this as a result of an exchange with Voyageur that sprung up here:

A 2020 VERSION OF THE PROTOCOLS – TRUE POLITICAL PONEROLOGY?

It does seem indicative of something, that even after all these years, there is still no dedicated thread on any topic relating to ‘Shake-speare’, especially considering the undeniable impact and influence his life’s work has had on the formation of the modern mind – especially in the west. Plenty of mentions in passing, but nothing to speak of by way of in-depth analysis.

Perhaps it is indicative that for so many even the mere mention of the name summons up nothing but tortuous memories of hated days at school, an all pervasive sense of personal irrelevance and maybe even a touch of open hostility (he’s for snobs! the language is so old fashioned and impenetrable!) I fully understand this possibility, though it perhaps says more about the way we are programmed to forget and ignore through the brain numbing education system than it does about the value of the topic itself.

The problem with starting out on such a vast subject is knowing how not to;

(1) exclude others by its apparent and deceptive ‘specialist’ knowledge​
(2) shape it in such a way as to appear not to be an unwelcome monologue​
(3) end up having to post so much in an effort to open up conversation that it overwhelms the senses and patience of the general reader.​


Anyway I’ll just give it a try. Forgive me if I fail in any of the above. The space is empty and there to be claimed and I’ll take up the challenge of kicking things off.

For now let me perhaps grab your attention with a few provocative suggestions that will arise at some point in the below:


1. We do not in truth know who he was: The whole narrative about who he really was is a demonstrable fabrication from top to bottom​
2. But we do know why he did what he did: To exorcise the legacy of The Fall and to offer humans a way out.​
3. His work is saturated from beginning to end in hidden codes and spiritual formulae: He was a truly great shaman – perhaps the greatest our civilisation has ever produced (other than Laura!) - and his life’s purpose was to save the collective human soul from impending spiritual and physical cosmic disaster.​
4. If he were a member of this forum, nothing we essentially share here would be a surprise to him: he was root and branch a Master Magus of The Work.​
5. He was most likely a member of - or perhaps ‘held’ in secret by - a secret society of some form, most likely the first Rosicrucians: There existed in secret what one researcher has called ‘The Shake-speare Project’ which inherently and deliberately obscured and occulted him and his/their true purpose.​
6. Oak Island may well be the end of the line: The C’s and Laura have talked about the importance of this remarkable and mysterious place off the east coast of America. At least one researcher has made a very convincing case that ‘Shake-speare’ was at the very heart of this high-strangeness.​


That I hope has pricked your interest at least! But please be patient; I’m not planning on writing the Wave series here (heaven forefend!) but to do this topic any kind of full justice it would undoubtedly take that kind of monumental effort.

I’ll start off by breaking the following into what I hope are a useful series of introductory posts that can be digested one by one and responded / added to by those who fancy is captured.
 
INTRODUCTION

Merely a conservative estimate of the number of books alone that have been written on the subject comes to around 150,000! And that doesn’t count the literally millions of academic papers, newspaper articles, documentaries, films, etc, that are produced year after year. It has been said that at any given time and in every minute of every hour of the 24 day, somewhere in the world at least one theatre or cinema is presenting one of his works to a packed house. It is fair to say his ‘cult’ is a global industry, with one study estimating the international ‘brand’ to be worth $600 million a year. Perhaps only the bible has had such monumental literary influence over the world at large (first clue!)

So 400+ years after his departure, his work still remains pivotal to our cultural landscape and outlook. Even those who claim they have no interest whatsoever in the subject will grudgingly admit they’ve heard of or remembered such phrases as:


To be or not to be…

Life’s but a walking shadow…

All the world’s a stage…

To thine own self be true...

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…

If music be the food of love, play on…

All that glisters is not gold…

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow…



I probably could have added another 100 lines to this list.

Yes, everyone has grudgingly heard of ‘the bard of Avon’. Everyone has some idea of the given importance of this man from an ordinary background in small country village in central England who went to London, wrote an estimated 40 plays (including titles that we have all heard of such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, etc), made his fortune, and then retired back home to his sleepy sheep.

I suspect if asked most would likely describe their impression of him as being a studious, dignified and sober man who was about as interesting a character as dried bread!

The problem with this narrative is that is demonstrably false!

Despite the cult, despite the massive world-wide ‘Shake-speare’ industry protection racket, from the get go, (and all down the intervening centuries), there have been those who have stubbornly refused to accept his given story as fact. Today there is a much derided but still vibrant cottage industry of professional doubters who, for example, posit that say Sir Francis Bacon was the actual writer not the man we know as ‘Shake-speare’.
 
THE PROBLEM OF BIOGRAPHY

I’m going to keep this section short as possible otherwise it will swamp this thread with irrelevant information before it’s gone anywhere and deflect from its real purpose.

However it does need to be addressed in some way from the outset as it’s obviously a pivotal question. Because if the man they sell as ‘Shake-speare’ is in fact a con, and indeed someone else we don’t know wrote the works, then what’s the great secret for? Why all this fuss and protection racket? Why would you go to all that unique trouble of producing such a vast literary output only to hide behind a false cover story? Smacks of that horrifying thought – a conspiracy! Shudder!

If you are interested, however, there are dozens and dozens of books, many of them of great length, which go into this issue in considerable forensic and technical detail. And each one is met with a howl of outrage from the high priests in the cult who respond in kind with dozens and dozens of new mainstream biographies proving beyond any shadow of doubt these theories are false and that their Stratffordian man is – obviously – the one and only great bard.

Still, in a nutshell, the contrarians point out that:

1. ‘Shake-speare’ wrote more than 2,000,000 words. 2,000,000! He is estimated to have had a vocabulary of at least 25,000 words with some scholars claiming 34,000 (!), (the average educated person does well to muster 7-8,000), including several thousand that he himself invented. As Hamlet dryly intones, his very life was made up of ‘words, words, words…’ Yet after all this we have not a single personal letter written in his hand, not one draft of a poem or play, not a diary entry, not a shopping list, nothing! Just 8 clearly illiterate and haphazardly scrawled signatures (each different by the way!) on various legal documents that have nothing whatsoever to do with writing for a living. For a man so apparently obsessed with money, there is not a single record of him ever being paid for any of his plays. His famous will and testament makes zero reference to his life as an artist; instead it’s all about sheep, property and leaving his wife his second best bed!

Think about it! There are literally dozens of lesser poets and playwrights from the time who we have examples of the above and in their droves. Handwriting was the only means of general communication at that time (think email / Twitter / FaceBook today) and a great deal of it has survived down the ages. As a matter of course people (let alone writers) sent each other notes, letters, shared drafts, etc every day of their adult lives. It was as normal as eating or sleeping. Yet the greatest wordsmith of all time has a totally blank personal page. When Sir Philip Sydney, a fine by far lesser poet, died his going was met with an outpouring of written grief, acknowledgment, shared memories, eulogies, and even a state funeral at Westminster Abbey with all attendant. When ‘Shake-speare’ passed – the greatest writer of all time - nothing! Not a single word. He had to wait near decades for that to come. This alone is a thunderous red flag.

2. The modern cult of ‘Shake-speare’ is completely founded on the concept of him being a self-made man from a humble background. This cannot be underestimated in its psychological and cultural importance. He is proudly proclaimed as the first modernist, a secular cult figure, and as such it is central tenant that he was just like you or me. Scholars proudly parade the story of him being the son of an illiterate glove maker, that he only attended a local grammar school (set up for the purposes of passing on the most basics to working class kids), and that he definitely did not go to university. It turns him into a kind of proletarian saint. The rest is just natural genius and a couple of trips to the library! Simple!

The problem with this idea is that its utter nonsense and simply impossible to sustain. Not only do they offer zero proof of the claimed fact of his attendance at even a grammar school, it defies all reason. There still exists this absurd belief that genius just arrives fully formed at birth… or something. That idea is bad enough but when you are talking about the scale of the genius we have here, it would be is as if it is acceptable to claim that Einstein hardly finished primary school but then went on to teach himself how to become a Nobel prize winning, epoch defining physicist. Or that Mozart didn’t come from a deeply musical family and was personally tutored 12 hours a day, year after year, from the age of two.

Yes it is indeed likely that genetics plays a significant role in the highly gifted but all cognitive research on the matter shows that long-term exposure to the right environment and repeated and sustained practise of the subject is of enormous importance in realising any such latent gifts. Without it these potential gifts will remain utterly dormant. In a study of The Beatles, for example, it was found that they not only started at a very young age, that they had absorbed an enormous and unique range of musical styles by the age of 19 (they had over 250 songs in their repertoire before they even recorded), and that they practised daily their developing craft up to 6 times longer than any comparable rival band for year upon year (including playing 100s of 8-12 hour concerts in Germany) – all this before they even began to reveal their personal and collective ‘genius’.

But apparently ‘Shake-speare’ alone could grow up in an illiterate family (with no books around him), leave school knowing nothing better than basic maths and able to just about read and write, before heading off to some toff’s library and then hay-presto – the greatest wordsmith of all time emerges, no bother!

Even more than this, a careful study of his work shows the following highly specialist and detailed knowledge/use of:

The fineries of law and statute

The known world’s religions

Royalty in all its forms

Court etiquette

Politics at the highest level of national and international courts/parliaments

English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish & European history

Classical history

Multiple languages (including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, German)

The geography of the known world,

Literature and art throughout the ages

All forms of drama and music

Detailed knowledge or architecture and architects technical knowledge

Neo-Platonism, alchemy, hermeticism, cabala and other esoteric schools

Engineering and the sciences

Philosophy – ancient and contemporary

Myths of the known world running way back to ancient Egypt

International travel and espionage

Classical and contemporary theories on landscapes

Horse riding and duelling

The natural world in detail – animals, plants, bird life, insects, etc



These are just some specialist knowledge he uses – for the list goes on and on…

As we know here detailed technical knowledge or skill is something you can only normally accumulate through early access or interest, a trained and/or highly developed personal aptitude and a life time’s hard effort. Think how many volumes Laura has stacked around her house! But apparently ‘Shake-speare’ didn’t even leave a small library to disperse at his death! Not one book!

For example, top barristers today have examined his knowledge of the law and declared it was clearly second nature to him, dealing regularly with some of the most abstruse aspects and without fail in every case using the appropriate arguments and terminology. These legal experts state categorically this could only happen if one was trained for years and regularly practised in court to learn the on-your-feet realities of using correctly such nuanced, technical information.

There is also a much quoted and always misinterpreted joke by fellow writer Ben Johnson that he knew ‘little Latin and less Greek’. Apart from this being a matter of him actually saying the opposite (lost in translation), we know he was able to read from the original source material in multiple languages (for many were not translated into English until after his death) including from documents that remained hidden in their original form in state archives across Europe until well into the 17th century. The influence of over 100 classical writers has been traced through his writings including Ovid, Virgil, Homer, Herodotus, Livy, Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, Seneca, etc, etc, etc, …

Enough!

It’s simply impossible you see for scholars to get around these problems – no matter how much they waffle, invent reasons (oh he had a great lord as patron who let him use his library…) and when all else fails simply go on the ad hominen attack. So they don’t; they just scoff mightily and collectively agree to ignore them.

Obviously there’s much, much more evidence that could have been added to the above argument, including the fact that careful and objective forensic examinations of the origins of all bar about 6 facts concerning his life turn up either utterly dead ends – being based on necessary but false assumptions and Chinese whispers - or they end at an original source dating to decades or even 100’s of years after the man died!

I’ll let all than sink in and move on with a quick personal explanation/justification of how and why I came to be so fascinated by this topic.
 
MY PERSONAL SWAN-CALLING

I will make this as concise as possible and you can skip if you like. The only reason its here at all is that without it none of my deliberations that precede or follow will make any sense as to why now, why here?

Like most here I would assume, ‘Shake-speare’ first consciously came to me via school. To be honest I struggled with it then (though some small candle was kindled, if dimly). It really only kicked off one Christmas when aged about 18 we got a TV for the duration – as a treat (god be the days!) - and I stumbled upon a broadcast of Laurence Olivier playing very prophetically Richard III (‘Now is the Winter of our discontent’, limp, limp…) Two hits with one stone – the bard and Larry planted forever in my mind (I blame both equally for what then transpired!)

Cut forward 12 years. I had just turned my back on a very prosperous career in – wait for it…. PR in the city of London (shriek!!!) - and was now lying, poverty stricken but FREE in a bedroom in my ‘ancestral’ home of Ireland where I had lately self-exiled (oh happy joy!), plotting and scheming how the hell I was going to turn this near blank page of a life into a professional career as a theatre director, when at a whim, I picked up the collected works (usually near by me then) and flicked casually through looking for something I hadn’t yet read. In that mood I stumbled upon Venus & Adonis. And my life and direction changed utterly.

Not many who are not plagued by this love affair know that besides all those plays, ‘Shake-speare’ also wrote poems – 154 Sonnets (we’ll be coming back to that number!) and several long verse poems, including Venus & Adonis.

It is the only purely and superficially obviously mythical project he presented. In playful, daring, and recklessly cavorting verse, it tells the ancient tale of the goddess of love Venus (or Aphrodite if you’re Greek!) and her unbridled longing and sexual desire for the handsome young buck Adonis (both her son and lover… we’ll come back to that!) Ovid’s version is the most famous and ‘Shake-speare‘ clearly used it as his source, though by changing just one fundamental detail, he absolutely shattered the safety net of decorative myth, primed it full with uranium and fizzed it right back into the lethal boiling pot of 16th century tribal conflict between Catholics and Protestants that was busy baking Europe dry at the time (again more on that anon – it’s key).

Still with me I hope?

Anyway, I mused to myself – “I don’t know that one! Might as well give it a read! I’ve all the time in the world now…” A couple of breathless hours later I slowly put down the volume, lay back and stared at the ceiling in utter shock!

What in god’s name was that! Nothing before in my reading of his work – or any other - had primed me for the utterly different world view, style or impact of the piece.

Above all else, the final verse struck my myth obsessed, ex-latent catholic heart like a thunder bolt:


Thus, weary of the world, away she (Venus) hies​
And yokes her silver doves, by whose swift aid 1190​
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies​
In her light chariot quickly is conveyed,​
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen.


Yes, I’m clearly a very strange man!

You see ‘to immure’ means literally to be walled, enclosed or confined in, normally against your will!

I knew there and then that:

(a) a great mystery had sprung up unheralded before my eyes and

(b) I had to stage the poem as a piece of theatre if only to find out what on earth (or in heaven) it was all about!


And so the synchronicities began…

Two days later, I met a colleague and told him about my confusion; “Sounds as if you need to read a new book coming out by the English poet Ted Hughes. Can’t remember what it’s called, but I think its all about that issue...”

A week on, I drop into the local college to see the head of the drama department and chairman of the theatre company he and I had quite recently established, and told him about my shocking discovery (he smiled, oblivious to what I was raving about!)

‘’Well if your that interested, I’ve just today received a copy of a new book by the poet Ted Hughes which I’ve been asked to review for some academic journal. It’s called ‘Shakespeare and the Goddess of Divine Being’. I gather it’s most bizarre and I doubt I’ll ever bother. I believe Venus & Adonis is central to his thesis. Here, you can have it to keep if you want!”

Stuff like this went on for years.

Yes I tried to read it – got only so far then indeed put on my staged version of Venus & Adonis and everything in my professional and personal life to come followed on inexorably from that (even finding Laura – no V&A, no Laura!)

Ted Hughes spent 11 years of his life on the book. It utterly exhausted him. When published it was met with near uniform derision and dismissal. One of the greatest poets of our age giving his best years to revealing the inner world of our greatest ever poet and it all came to nought… very rapidly the book fell from print and is now near forgotten. A total embarrassment to one and all in the ‘Shake-speare’ fraternity of true believers. “Hughes claims ‘Shake-speare’s’ work was all encoded myth? What nonsense! Not my ‘Shake-speare’! Over my dead body!”

Hughes died soon enough; broken-hearted.

In 2001, the night before 9/11, my production of Richard III opened (his earliest and most detailed assessment of the internal ways and external effects of a psychopath in power)…

I could go on.

Over the ensuing years I made 3 more attempts to finish this massive and massively complex tome. Each time I got a bit further up the beach before faltering in confusion – only to say lose my heavily notated copy (one in New York) and then to return home disgruntled and depressed to find a message on my answer machine from an actor friend saying “I’m clearing out my attic and I found a copy of that book you tried to make us all read when we did Venus & Adonis with you. I never got beyond the first chapter so here we are 10 years on and I’m only going to give it to a junk shop – do you want it…?” (by then it was out of print and hard to get)

There are several more of these stories.

Then finally, this year, after almost 25 years, having previously declared my interest in all things theatre done and dusted, I had a sudden urge out of nowhere to take it down for a 5th and final go – and with no effort at all and an utter thrilling joy, I read its 500 plus pages through to the end for the very first time – properly and with each leaf landing on me from the previous like the smell of honey suckle – and so I finally finished it, intoxicated!

And then I realised what had been simply beyond my comprehension but calling to me all these years.

‘Shake-speare’s’ is the true voice of the conscious universe!

From day one of starting to read the work back in 1996 I took fully on board Ted Hughes’s great suggestion: wouldn’t it be wonderful to condense and distil down the 15 pivotal plays and key verses from the sonnets and poems, into one single, titanic soul play! And maybe by performing it live it’s sacred vibration would change the destiny of the world!

Small matter… but I only half jest…

So that now is my task. That is what I plan to accomplish before I leave this earth, if only to pay due reverence and respect to the great man’s hidden purpose that has been so buried from public sight all these centuries. And all those years of personal haunting…

And at this time of COVID-19 hysteria it’s clear to me we need his voice from the depths of the ever deep well more than ever. His time of revelation is nigh. And I am your humble servant.

Humbug of course. But I think a suitably creative response to a time of crisis.
 
TO BEGIN… SOMEHOW, SOMEWHERE… AT THE DOOR TO THE LABYRINTH…

That’s enough by way of my monologue (and yes I agree, I failed my own test – it’s long!)

I’m simply going to post three (how appropriate!) short videos by a fellow initiated traveller on the road, Alan Green.

Pray watch and marvel at the implications!





 
Funny coincidence, I'm just watching a few videos on youtube about Shakespeare and Shake-speare.
Basically, "Shakespeare" is a pseudonyme for the author (or authors) of the Shakespearian corpus and contemporaries, most of whom are fellow poets and probably freemasons/rosicrucians coded his real identity in their works and a few monuments. He seems to be a noble, a certain Eduard de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (whatever that means, I don't know), who has been disgraced in court by a certain scandal to which he alluedes to through the works of the Shake-Speare persona (Shaking the Spear or lance being a military term associated to writing and related to Minerva, or something like that).
 
Funny coincidence, I'm just watching a few videos on youtube about Shakespeare and Shake-speare.
Basically, "Shakespeare" is a pseudonyme for the author (or authors) of the Shakespearian corpus and contemporaries, most of whom are fellow poets and probably freemasons/rosicrucians coded his real identity in their works and a few monuments. He seems to be a noble, a certain Eduard de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (whatever that means, I don't know), who has been disgraced in court by a certain scandal to which he alluedes to through the works of the Shake-Speare persona (Shaking the Spear or lance being a military term associated to writing and related to Minerva, or something like that).

:lol::lol::lol::wow: Welcome to my world mkrnhr! Join the coincidences... or rather I'm joining yours! Something in the air I think...

Well spoiler alert! Edward de vere..!!!? Well, if I was put over a flame and forced to name the most probable author (and I don't want to go there because its a bit like fixating on or saying you know where the shooters were in Dealey Plaza...!!!)

But a small clue - the family symbol of the de vere's (the most important and royal family in England at the time apart from the Queen herself! And perhaps they were even lovers... enough already)... was The Boar.

royal house Vere.jpg

And the occulted meaning of the Boar is absolutely central to this story.

For the boar kills Adonis and releases the tragic equation...


he was also a great poet, lawyer, courtier, dancer, reader, philosopher, traveler, etc, etc

And his death is totally shrouded in mystery...
 
I’m tentatively opening this as a result of an exchange with Voyageur that sprung up here:

I'm grateful you did. 🎩

I would have to go back to around 1981 to when a first questioning of mind came up; and not that Hall (as explained in the other thread) had the whole banana, yet enough to ask myself just, who the heck is on first base here anyway. So, I have to tip my hat to my one sister who passed along the shaking-spear ideas as my first introduction into the unforgivable, it then seemed (and still does).

From then on, what exactly do you do with it when trying to bring it up only to have people look at you sideways :umm:. Why you put it away, and yet you did not.

The influence of over 100 classical writers has been traced through his writings including Ovid, Virgil, Homer, Herodotus, Livy, Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, Seneca, etc, etc, etc, …

Enough!

It’s simply impossible you see for scholars to get around these problems – no matter how much they waffle, invent reasons (oh he had a great lord as patron who let him use his library…{lol} ) and when all else fails simply go on the ad hominen attack. So they don’t; they just scoff mightily and collectively agree to ignore them.

Indeed they do just that - read plenty of it. :-D

From day one of starting to read the work back in 1996 I took fully on board Ted Hughes’s great suggestion: wouldn’t it be wonderful to condense and distil down the 15 pivotal plays and key verses from the sonnets and poems, into one single, titanic soul play! And maybe by performing it live it’s sacred vibration would change the destiny of the world!

Small matter… but I only half jest…

So that now is my task. That is what I plan to accomplish before I leave this earth, if only to pay due reverence and respect to the great man’s hidden purpose that has been so buried from public sight all these centuries. And all those years of personal haunting…

And at this time of COVID-19 hysteria it’s clear to me we need his voice from the depths of the ever deep well more than ever. His time of revelation is nigh. And I am your humble servant.

Humbug of course. But I think a suitably creative response to a time of crisis.

That is a big endeavour and wonderful of you for doing just that.

I've not caught all the videos, just the one on the pyramid and capstone, and that sure had me pause. I'll go back to what I had and throw it into the pot - if only to dispel and help get reoriented.

Thank you, Michael B-C.
 
Those videos are absolutely brilliant, who can do that? Now I know what are matematicians doing in 'spear' time. I am gently smiling, delighted by mystery.

About an year ago, I bought in second-hand shop Shakespeare's complete works, with thought that I might read someday from this famous writer, but lol. it's just too difficult for me. I am east-european, so mostly what I know from Shakespeare, apart from school basics, came from pop culture, movies and such. With this thread I am getting up to speed. very intriguing.
 
Michael said:
Shake-Speare's' is the true voice of the conscious universe!
From the very first day I started reading the work in 1996, I took full account of Ted Hughes' great suggestion: wouldn't it be wonderful to condense and distil the 15 key works and key verses of the sonnets and poems, into one, titanic play of the soul! And perhaps by playing it live, its sacred vibration would change the destiny of the world!

So that's my task. That is what I plan to accomplish before I leave this earth, if only to pay due respect and honor to the hidden purpose of the great man who has been so hidden from public view for all these centuries. And all those years of personal concern...

And in this moment of COVID-19's hysteria, it is clear to me that we need his voice from the depths of the well, always deeper than ever. Your time of revelation is near. And I am your humble servant.

It is simply impossible for scholars to see these problems elude them: no matter how much they resonate, invent reasons ( oh, he had a great lord as patron who let him use his library ... and when all else fails, simply continue the ad hominen attack . Then they don't; they simply mock powerfully and collectively agree to ignore them .



I'm surprised. If a page contains all this complexity, how much more is inside your works? I can't imagine...

After having in mind this topic of 'Shake-speare', I found a video of a conference of Ark, extremely interesting. Apparently, it has no relation to the topic under discussion here, but...

Here's the video that brought me back in line with another view of Shake-speare


I think Ark's view of science and mysticism is important. When he mentioned Hinton, a mathematician and science fiction writer. His 1886 book called "Scientific Romances"
Looks like Hinton was a bit of a mystic,you can see that in the titles,says Ark.

He also talked about the mathematician Burkhard Heim and his book "Man and His World" (it has esoteric themes, like post mortem states and things like that)

So, I'm getting the idea that Shakespeare was possibly a mystic-scientist. There is something truly mysterious and complex behind this Shakespearean phenomenon.

I leave with a question in my mind:
Who is really Shakespeare?
For the moment, this is all I can offer, my little grain of sand. I'll keep studying this impressive riddle.:read:
 
I've not caught all the videos, just the one on the pyramid and capstone, and that sure had me pause.

Had earlier caught up and what an interesting presentation, Michael B-C! Never a dot, word, line, element, or in the case of some old art, an item or posture should be dismissed, least some type of revealing shall be missed. It is a big task to keep track of all those symbols, geometry/maths and cipher's of many kinds, so in the case above, who was it ultimately being written for? Certainly, it seems to be for the eyes of rarefied groups trained to read these things and communicate with these messages - hiding in plain sight, so to speak.

Have always enjoyed 'trying' to learn and follow some of the stuff laid down in old texts, while realizing a dozen lifetimes (or less if having a super-calculating mind like some - Green here) could indeed be spent in these pursuits without a key - fascinating as they are, and one might only just get snippets of these things. It can be like what Fulcanelli in his 'The Dwellings of the Philosophers' would reveal, and many others pointing out the unseen, or even something out of a more modern day Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco) novel for enjoyment.

Here in # 2 and 3 videos, it became prominent, starting off with the Pythagorean hypotenuse 3:4:5. This is the tool of choice for me finding ‘square’ when measuring, cutting and putting together simple 90's on a structure from the 345 dots in the trade for building stuff, yet Alan Green builds upon the very dots of the Sonnet page alone. Impressive.

In effort to add data, and polymath not being the line of force here, had a look back at what Laura and the C's also directly bring up Shakespeare-wize (rarely as it is), and 'Shake-speare' not at all.

Being that these are the only dedicated pages to the Shaking-spear, and not exactly following Sonnets as Michael-B.C has so eloquently laid down (yet perhaps there are connections), thus the following looks to a few entries in the Transcripts looked at some time ago, while never furthering, although, like anyone who is reading, things William Shakespeare are of interest.

Just a note: realize that there are so many scholars who work on the subject, authors of books, cryptographers, papers and articles, so the basis starts, as said, from a continuation of the Transcript questions and answers:

June 7 said:
Q: Now, I notice that the Celtic name for the town of St. Albans is Verulamium, and that is where Henry Percy, son of Hotspur, was killed in battle. I also notice that Sir Francis Bacon was Lord Verulam, and he was thought to be not only a Rosicrucian, but also the author of the Shakespearean plays, as well as some of the Rosicrucian manifestos...

A: Check out Alton Towers, for clues.

Which brings up:

[URL='https://cassiopaea.org/forum/threads/session-28-june-1997.39308/' said:
June 28, 1997[/URL]]Q: Okay, you also suggested that I research Alton Towers. I did. All I could find was that Alton Towers is, for God's sake, an amusement park! It is the DisneyWorld of England! What am I gonna find at Alton Towers?

A: Look into this.

So, followed through with this to July 19th of 1997:

July 19 said:
Q: Well, no. Well, is this reference to Alton Towers that Ark found on the internet, about psychic projectors. That was the only unusual thing we have found about this. Are we talking about some sort of place where they have rotating shifts of psychic projectors?

A: As you know... fiction is often the guise for the deliverance of the deepest of truths. And, on that note, good night.

Thus from over on this thread I had mentioned that there were 'possible' dots that might lead in fact, to nowhere, so not sure, however it was noted it the Session quoted above that this Alton business did not get expanded upon in that thread - yet there are further clues, osit. So, to continue that session, have a look here:

Q: Well, Cecil was the fellow who kidnapped me. And, when he was arrested, the Navy came and took him away saying he was "incompetent to stand trial" because he had "escaped from a Navy hospital." And that essentially ended any hope of finding out where I was taken or why. I just don't see. How does this relate to St. Augustine, the Canaries, to Oak Island - all of this? What are we doing here?

A: St. Albans.

Q: And there is more! My God! We aren't happy with Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine, and St. Anthony! Now we also have St. Albans! Of course I know that it is the place where there was a battle and one of the Percy's was killed there. It was also called Verulamian in the Celtic days, and Francis Bacon was Lord Verulam and some suspect that he was the son of Elizabeth I. But, there are only so many hours in the day, guys! I need some help here! I was hoping that I would be getting some help with the research...

A: Remain open to all, and look for others. But, suggest you "pick their brains" more thoroughly before you offer up your own information, thus allowing for less troublesome emotionally oriented rapids crossing. Enough until next time!

Spent a bunch of time delving into all things Alton, and going through the basics, Alton feedback's to Alton, Hampshire, and folks in the UK would have a better handle on this. Now is there a Tower(s)? From Wiki it states that "Alton was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 as Aoltone". It is a book about taxes owed to the King (William the Conqueror) from within the lands and the word doom meaning;

QUOTE]The word "doom" was the usual Old English term for a law or judgment; it did not carry the modern overtones of fatality or disaster.[/QUOTE]

The poet, Edmund Spenser, was said to have lived in Alton, a Shakespeare contemporary, and no mention of a Tower.

There was also a William de Alton, and although perhaps interesting (as an aside) "(born 1307) was a Dominican friar from Alton, Hampshire, who lived during the reign of Edward II. He is known for writing The Universality of the Pollution of Mankind by Original Sin. This tract on original sin argues that in its polluting all of mankind it must also have thereby polluted the Virgin Mary, thus contradicting the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception" will leave that there (note the original sin).

Alton (so it says) also appears once in Shakespeare works "Lord Verdun of Alton" related to Henry VI, Part I. Tower comes up 86 times (a number of them in Henry VI) - with a scan of some interesting uses.

Back to Alton Tower (Theme Park), at one time it was called Alton Abby, which does not have an old history (founded in 1895), so take that off the list perhaps.

There is something called "Hex – The Legend of the Towers" which is a amusement ride (walk-through) as a "dark ride experience at Alton Towers". This is what it says of it:

The legend says that the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury was cursed by an old beggarwoman to suffer a death in the family every time a branch fell from the old oak tree. Hex's version embellishes the end of the 'original' tale with the Earl experimenting on one of the fallen branches in a vault deep within the Towers themselves, and it is this vault, with its entrance bricked up behind a bookcase, that has supposedly been sealed up for two centuries and only recently discovered during renovation work. This is explained in several scenes during the experience.

This attraction was closed for the duration of the 2016 season, but underwent repairs in the winter before reopening in 2017.

So, yes, there is an Alton Towers ('attraction'), yet the reality, and might be mistaken here, seems to be focused on Alton Castle of old, and there is a great discussion of it here - with some surprising features (an Octagon wing and Stonehenge reproduction et cetera):

Alton Castle.

Here is the backdrop (with some snips):

This Earl of Shrewsbury, who so conspicuously figures in Shakespeare’s Henry VI., enjoyed, among his other titles, that of “Lord Verdon of Alton”—a title which continued in the family, the Alton estates having now for nearly five centuries uninterruptedly belonged to them.

The titles of this great Earl of Shrewsbury are thus set forth by Shakespeare, when Sir William Lucy, seeking the Dauphin’s tent, to learn what prisoners have been taken, and to “survey the bodies of the dead,” demands—

“Where is the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury?
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange, of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge;
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece;
Great Mareshal to Henry the Sixth
Of all his wars within the realm of France.”

To which, it will be remembered, La Pucelle contemptuously replies—

“Here is a silly stately style indeed!
The Turk, that two-and-fifty kingdoms hath—
Writes not so tedious a style as this—
Him that thou magnifiest with all these titles,
Stinking and fly-blown, lies here at our feet.”

From this John, Earl of Shrewsbury,—“the scourge of France,” “so much feared abroad that with his name the mothers still their babes,”—the manor and estates of Alton and elsewhere passed to his son, John, second earl, who married Elizabeth Butler, daughter of James, Earl of Ormond, and was succeeded by his son, John, third earl, who married Catherine Stafford, daughter of Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham; and was in like manner succeeded by his son, George, fourth earl, K.G., &c., who was only five years of age at his[6] father’s death. He was succeeded, as fifth earl, by his son, Francis; who, dying in 1560, was succeeded by his son, George, as sixth earl.

Adding a bit more begets, Mary:

This nobleman married, first, Gertrude Manners, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Rutland; and, second, Elizabeth (generally known as “Bess of Hardwick,” for an account of whom, see the article on Hardwick Hall in the present volume), daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, and successively widow, first, of Robert Barlow, of Barlow; second, of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth; and, third, of Sir William St. Loe. She was the builder of Chatsworth and of Hardwick Hall. To him was confided the care of Mary Queen of Scots. He was succeeded by his son Gilbert, as seventh earl. This young nobleman was married before he was fifteen to Mary,[7] daughter of Sir William Cavendish of Chatsworth. He left no surviving male issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Edward, as eighth earl, who, having married Jane, daughter of Cuthbert, Lord Ogle, died, without issue, being the last of this descent, in 1617. The title then passed to a distant branch of the family, in the person of George Talbot, of Grafton; who, being descended from Sir Gilbert Talbot, third son of the second earl, succeeded as ninth earl.

There was also, of course, a Library:

“The West Library is entered. This apartment, a fine, sombre, quiet-looking room, has a panelled ceiling, at the intersections of the ribs of which are carved heraldic bosses. In the centre is a large and massive dark oak table, and around the sides of the room are ranged fine old carved and inlaid cabinets and presses for books. Over these presses, and in different parts of this room and of the ‘North Library,’ are a number of well-chosen mottoes, than which for a library nothing could well be more appropriate. Thus, in these mottoes, among others we read

“‘Study wisdom and make thy heart joyful.’

“‘The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the portion of fools.’

“‘They that be wise shall shine as the firmament.’

“‘Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and is rich in prudence.’

“‘The heart of the wise shall instruct his mouth and add grace to his lips.’

“‘Take hold on instruction; leave it not; keep it because it is thy life.’

“‘Knowledge is a fountain of life to him that possesseth it.’

And a short sentence on Stonehenge:

Stonehenge.—This is an imitation “Druidic Circle” formed of stones, of about nine tons in weight each; it is highly picturesque, and forms a pleasing feature. Near to it is the upper lake.

Nine tons each is not insignificant.

So, again the Session looked to Alton Tower (aka Alton Castle), St. Albans, with Lord Verulam always hanging around, and then brings in Elisabeth 1 - and to note Mary Queen Scot - the Catholic (some say true Queen) later the beheaded one - and once, seemingly, a guest at Alton Tower/Castle, and then there are those in and around the Elizabethan court who are none other than John Dee (for a time) and Sir Edward Kelley (Kelly) - who also goes by Edward Talbot:

Legends began to surround Kelley shortly after his death. His flamboyant biography, his relationships with Queen Elizabeth I's royal magus Sir John Dee and the Emperor Rudolf II, and his claims of great alchemical skill and the ability to communicate with angels have all led to his relative notoriety among historians. This has made him (along with the German Faustus and Sir John Dee himself) one source for the folklorical image of the alchemist-medium-charlatan.

As for the bold, one perhaps and perhaps not, might wonder, yet Dee, Kelley/Talbot, Bacon (and there is discussion of Shakespeare's 'possible 'Catholic leanings also read) were in orbits around Elisabeth 1 (E-1) and Mary Queen Scot (imprisoned), and implications, although a day later, or so goes the scuttlebutt, of a young Francis born To E-1 as mentioned in the transcript by Laura as "some suspect."

Before getting into this (so I don't forget), something else of John Dee comes up in a number of videos (one in particular) which might be worth mentioning related to his talking with angels. So, note in the video they are talking about Dee/Kelley communicating with angels, although it was actually Kelley (the conduit), because Dee is said to have never seen or heard them. Yet Kelley is said to have seen a giant cosmic plane – with a large 'crystal board' with letters, and the letters are each being pointed out, one by one, with a long stick held by some angelic being, which forms the words of the communications (all written down and now lost or so they say) – interesting, as people here might think it relative to words and communications which Laura does with the C's. Here is video #4 of 4 (see 20:00):

1588362534565.png

http://jdoms.blogspot.com/p/john-dee-was-born-in-city-of-london.html

Video #4:

4 John Dee's Miraculous Mind


And from this site you can add in video’s #1, 2 and 3:

1 The Lost Library of John Dee

2 Janette Winterson opens the John Dee Exhibition

3 John Dee and Tudor code-breaking

Before leaving Dee, it is noted that he was buried at St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake:


Little has come down to us in terms of records of Francis Bacon and John Dee knowing each other but on the afternoon of August 11, 1582 there was an entry in Dee's journal that they met at Mortlake. Bacon was 21 years old at the time and was accompanied by a Mr. Phillipes, a top cryptographer in the employ of Sir Francis Walsingham who headed up the early days of England's secret service. They were there according to Ewen MacDuff, in an article, "After Some Time Be Past" in 'Baconiana', (Dec.1983)" to find out the truth about the ancient Hebrew art of the Gematria- one of the oldest cipher systems known, dating from 700 B.C. They were seeking to discuss this with Dee because he was not only one of the leading adepts of this field, but a regular practitioner in certain levels of Gematria." Also, David Kahn in The Codebreakers suggests that because of Dee's great interest in the 13th century alchemist Roger Bacon, that he may have introduced Bacon to the works of Roger Bacon,"which may help explain the similarities in their thought."

Quoting Laura and the C’s again:

A: St. Albans.

Q: And there is more! My God! We aren't happy with Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine, and St. Anthony! Now we also have St. Albans!


Saint Alban

1588359058732.png

Eastern Orthodox icon of Saint Alban
1588358728478.png


The Death of St. Alban

1588358772607.png

Note the lower right panel (part of the left is not show):

“Its beauty provided a place to be hallowed by blood”

There are other depictions perhaps worth noting, and other points and controversies, yet the Church itself seemed important.

So, of St Albans, Francis Bacon is the 1st Viscount St Alban – See here - “ Roman city of Verulamium (modern St Albans)”:

Continued….
 
... Continued (briefly):

Before I get any more confused with Towers and Castles at Alton, both are on the main estate. This confusion also goes for one crazy linage system of persons, who one minute are this (seem to be) and the next that - titles given, taken away, with marriages and illegitimate ones (not to mention children). I know all Brits have this history down pat, so bear with me.

Some clarity on Alton and Mary Queen of Scot:

From 1442, the castle was in the possession of the Earls of Shrewsbury, who from the beginning of the 19th-century made their home at nearby Alton Towers. By the mid-19th-Century the castle was mostly in ruins.

Both looked to be around 1600 meters from each other – I’m sure local UK peeps will correct things, yet for outsiders it can get super confusing, such as where was Mary Queen of Scot held – she seemed to have been held all over the place in and around Alton Towers/Castle.

So, with the mention of Mary Queen of Scot (MQS) above, it seemed she was at one point ‘confided in care’ by G Talbot.

Mary Stuart (MQS)

Mary Stuart was just six days old when she became Queen of Scots in 1542.

As a child she was engaged to the the Dauphin Francis - heir to the French throne - and was sent to be brought up at the French Court. But in 1561, whilst still a teenager, Mary’s husband died and she returned to Scotland as a widow.

Mary was a Catholic and her return to rule over Scotland – which was now officially Protestant – was regarded with suspicion.

In 1565, Mary married her first cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, but their union was unhappy and the following year, Darnley was found dead, presumed murdered.

Mary soon married James Hepburn, who was believed to be Darnley's murderer.

Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was forced to abdicate and she fled to England seeking the protection of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Mary had previously claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics. Perceiving her as a threat, Elizabeth had her arrested and imprisoned.

[…]

Mary was handed over to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, and his Derbyshire-born wife Elizabeth, known as Bess of Hardwick. They became her ‘jailers’ for the next 15 years.

George Talbot was chosen as the keeper of Mary due to his immense wealth - few would have been able to afford the cost of keeping a Queen for the 15 years of Mary’s 19 year imprisonment.

George Talbot and Bess of Hardwick built the Old Hall Hotel (then called the New Hall) in Buxton in 1572, and Mary petitioned Queen Elizabeth I for permission to be taken there.

{this Old Hall Hotel is due North of Alton, a short distance away – 20 km or so)

Mary suffered from a mystery illness – possibly rheumatism – and Buxton's thermal spa waters were believed to have healing properties.

In 1573, her request was granted and Mary Queen of Scots visited the Old Hall Hotel at Buxton most summers.

Although Mary had to give one hour’s notice if she wished to leave her apartment and was allowed no visitors after 9pm, evidence suggests she enjoyed her time there.

George Talbot hosted lavish banquets and gave gifts to Mary from his estates; all to the apparent annoyance of Queen Elizabeth I.

The hotel became the regular venue for the highest nobility of the land and the centre for alleged traitorous planning against the crown of England. It was said that the future of England was determined more at the Old Hall Hotel in Buxton than in London!

Whilst staying at the Old Hall Hotel, Mary etched writing onto the bedroom window panes - using a diamond ring! Copies of the writing can still be seen today, the most famous of which is called 'Farewell to Buxton':

George Talbot's wife, Elizabeth, better known as Bess of Hardwick, was the second most powerful woman in England during her time, and also one of the richest.

Bess built the first house on the Chatsworth estate, later constructed Hardwick Hall, ‘more glass than wall’ and also designed her own memorial in Derby Cathedral, where she was buried.

The couple deemed Chatsworth a suitable place to imprison the ill-fated queen and Mary Queen of Scots was held at Chatsworth at various times throughout the 1570s. {Chatsworth is not far (NE of Alton the main estate)}

Her lodgings were on the east side of the house where the rooms, although changed beyond recognition, are still called the Queen of Scots Apartments. The Hunting Tower, now luxury accommodation, is one of just two buildings that remain from this time.

Another building that remains from this time is Queen Mary’s Bower, which was allegedly constructed to provide a raised exercise ground for the captive queen.

After 19 years in custody – and 15 years captive in Derbyshire and the Peak District – Mary was executed for treason at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire in 1587, for her alleged involvement in three plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I.

Here is a short ‘trailer’ for I think a popular film (shot on location at Alton) that people may have seen. Is it correct?


A Vanity Fair article says of both MQS and E-1, they never actually met face to face. That seems odd.

There is a backstory here that involves Mary writing ciphers that, apparently, were intercepted and decoded. The ciphers were not complicated (often rows of alphabet with each following row moved over one place i.e. row 2 a=b et cetera. – see video #3 ‘John Dee and Tudor code-breaking’ in the post above (3:30min).

Going back to the Transcript Session June 7, 1997 on Bacon (“not only a Rosicrucian”), the Rosicrucian's were perhaps hanging around in E-1’s court and elsewhere (along with the Rose – rose buckle depicted on the shoe of Shakespeare), and Bacon, which comes back to how M.P. Hall wrote about him, allegedly vis being Shakespeare. There were other Shakespeare candidates, too, quite a few of them proposed - rather than Shakespeare himself.;-)

I'll get to this...
 
A: St. Albans.

Q: And there is more! My God! We aren't happy with Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine, and St. Anthony! Now we also have St. Albans!

Perhaps this is way off topic, or perhaps not. But why Mary Magdalene (or is the Roman Catholic myth of Magdalene)? I was always under the impression Magdalene is a gnostic superstar in the uncovered secret history of Christianity, etc.
 
There were other Shakespeare candidates, too, quite a few of them proposed - rather than Shakespeare himself.;-)

I'll get to this...

In looking at the Sonnets (1609) with aspects of the following, there seems to some mention of conflicts in the Sonnet orders, such as with Sonnet 19, I think (see well below). So again, whoever wrote the Sonnets, least the plays of Shakespeare – Shake-Speare, brings things back (as Alan Green shows) to ancient history of Egypt while being hidden from plain view – then extrapolated, as Green did, and looked at with the aim to broaden horizons of understanding. It is actually incredible how many things emanate from Egypt (a relatively stable civilization for thirty or so centuries); and therein that information traveled into the future right upon the 1609 opening page of the Sonnet – quite possibly it speaks to a wide network spanning time or some sort of superluminal communication, as discussed above, concerning John Dee and the conduit - can't know.

When M.P Hall discussed Shakespeare in 1929, had thought it interesting when first read – he made the case, IMO, yet now, the more I’ve looked into it, the more it was ‘common’ knowledge not discussed – the big open secret of those ages, and yet today the screen still covers the accepted narrative in the halls of academia with William. When one sees the thousands of books written on the Shakespearean subject, the path seems pretty beaten down – still questions remain.

In another post above, had asked the question 'who were these things being written for,' and it seems that at some ‘levels’ there was this fascination for ciphers et cetera to contain old knowledge, while also using less sophisticated methods to run the state and communicate political and religious messaging; it seemed pretty ingrained in the upper elite levels, perhaps not dissimilar (although much more technical) to today’s encryption programs of communications. Some things don’t change.

Of the above, I’m moving to the opinion that while many eyes were on F. Bacon, he, like a conductor, had many 'poet pens' at the ready, and he was narrating the injustices of state and the longing for the mother of he and his brother of Essex, that could never be. It can be considered that F. Bacon had help from his adopted brother, A. Bacon, just as there were teachers (like John Dee) and statesmen at the ready, too, and a country divided on so many levels - Queens, and the least, religion.

Was looking at what Michael B-C provided by Alan Green in a broader sense, and noted, speaking of John Dee, that Alan adds that name to his book 'Dee-Coding Shakespeare' which I'll read. Of course, and have come to agree with, who knows who was on first base as to the true author(s), yet Willy...:whistle:

I’ll soon leave this with the following, and big thank you, Michal B-C, for providing a place to put down these old Alton, Bacon, Shakespeare et al. bones (although the former is still an elusive Towers). As for Bacon (and all the other candidates for the mask of Shakespeare), one thing that can be easily overlooked – so I’ll place it up front, is the adopted brother, Anthony Bacon. So, as said, keep him in mind, too, as the focus often points elsewhere, or to strictly his brother, Francis.

frontispiece (1645), depicting Francis Bacon pointing with his right hand at an open page of his book whilst with his left hand he manipulates an actor carrying a 'mirror' book (i.e. a play or plays), thereby indicating that stage plays are an important part of his Great Instauration. Bacon's left hand/arm is in the shadow whilst his right hand/arm is in the light = the cabalistic symbolism for that which is veiled and that which is shown. It also refers to the light and shadow of the right and left-hand pillars respectively of the cabalistic Tree of Life, which forms the basis of Bacon's Great Instauration, and depicts the twinship of Part 1 of the Great Instauration (De Augmentis Scientiarum), which lies on the right-hand pillar, with Part 4 (the Shakespeare plays, etc.), which lies on the left-hand pillar, as portrayed in the titlepage illustration of the 1640 Advancement of Learning.

Anthony Bacon
1588576337370.png

Anthony Bacon in 1594 at age 36

Anthony Bacon (1558-1601) was the eldest son of Nicholas and Anne Bacon. He and Francis were foster-brothers who collaborated on plays, and advised the Earl of Essex.(Anthony was his secretary and foreign correspondent passing on secret political information from the Continent) Hepworth Dixon in his book Personal History of Francis Bacon says of Francis and Anthony:

...."day and night their tongues and pens are busy in this work of correspondence. Anthony writes the Earl's letters, instructs his spies, drafts for him dispatches to the agents in foreign lands. Francis shapes for him a plan of conduct at the Court, and writes for him a treatise of advice which should have been the rule and would have been the salvation of his life."

We learn from Lady Anne Bacon's letters that Anthony and Francis were having plays performed at Anthony's house near the Bull's Inn, Bishopgate, in 1594; and the Bull Inn itself was frequently used for this purpose. In a letter written by Essex to the Queen, he makes reference to Anthony and Francis, and says:

"Already they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they will play me in what form they list upon the stage."

This is direct proof that Francis was accustomed to producing plays, along with his step- brother, and that one or other (or both) of them was presumably the author of such plays.

The name Anthony occurs in no less than eight of the plays, including the Tempest, which has autobiographical references. In the Merchant of Venice Antonio figures as the generous brother. Not only were Anthony and Francis Bacon singularly devoted to each other, but on many occasions, such as in 1598, when Francis was in financial difficulties, and was actually seized and imprisoned at the instance of a Jewish creditor, Anthony came to his assistance and did everything in his power to help. This occurred shortly before the date usually assigned for the writing of this play.

----Reference:Enter Francis Bacon by Bertram Theobald,1932

********​

In a letter written to Anthony when he and Francis were attending Grays Inn Law School, just before the 1594 Revels of Gray's Inn, with it's first performance (December 28th) of the Comedy of Errors , Lady Anne Bacon in her narrow puritanical ways exhorts him and Francis that they may "not Mum, nor Mask, nor sinfully Revel." It is quite evident that she was strongly suspicious of Francis Bacon's connection with the stage.

********​

The story of Love's Labor's Lost concerns a youthful King of Navarre and three of his courtiers, the Lords Dumaine, Longaville and Berowne and three ladies of the court. The drama contains a real life love affair that existed between Francis Bacon and Marguerite Navarre when he was visiting France in 1576-8. The names of the three Lords are taken directly from the passport of Anthony when he was living in the Navarre territory (1583-92) The names are signed Dumain, Longaville, Biron (Berowne). The play also reflects Bacon's great interest in Freemasonry with numerous references to Masonic rites and rituals of the higher degrees. For more on the historical references of the Bacon brothers experience and the Shakespeare Play Love's Labor's Lost read The Great Vision, by Peter Dawkins.

*******​

A letter to Anthony Bacon on January 25, 1594, in which Francis asks his brother to send some new material for his private scriveners.

I have here an idle pen or two....I pray send me somewhat else for them to write... from my lodge at Twickenham Park.

Your entire loving brother,

Francis Bacon

*****

From the Dedication to
Essays and Councils
January 30, 1597

1588576538446.png

Between Twickenham, Gorhambury and Gray's Inn, there were possibly many “idle” pens (more on each of these places later). As for Alton Towers, do roads run through it, and when, why and who was there at the time, or is there something else?

Quickly, and back to John Dee with a reference to M.P Hall:

Manly P. Hall had a book, Orders of Universal Reformation in which a woodcut from 1655 by Jacob Cats, shows an emblem of an ancient man bearing likeness to John Dee, passing the lamp of tradition over an open grave to a young man with an extravagantly large rose on his shoe buckle. In Bacon's sixth book of the Advancement of Learning he defines his method as, Traditionem Lampadis, the delivery of the lamp.

1588576827644.png

Mrs. Henry Pott writes in "Francis Bacon and His Secret Society,"The organization or method of transmission he (Bacon) established was such as to ensure that never again so long as the world endured, should the lamp of tradition, the light of truth, be darkened or extinguished."

So, now to F. Bacon and much else during this particular century and more of time...St. Albans has a number of references, yet will add this Chronology Related to Francis Bacon's Life. With this last entry, it is broken down into two 'Spoiler' sections (as it will not fit in one). There has been a few small bits pulled out, and have bolded certain aspects for emphasis. There are also a few notes and added hyperlinks due to the subject at hand while a number of quote boxes were included offering linking data. The chronology starts well before F. Bacon and brings in E-1 and her alleged secret marriage (Dudley - Earl of Leicester) and the birth of two boys (Francis and the Earl of Essex - Robert Devereux), who then go through life wearing masks to cover their Tudor faces. Within there is MQS and E-1 (discussed above), and also when E-1 imprisoned MQS, which ultimately lead to her execution. Shakespeare comes in and out as reference in the Chronology, as does John Dee other Shakespeare/Shake-Speare candidates.

Lastly, there may be many errors in this Chronology, and the authors do place some question marks, yet it brings in much of the goings on of state - while tracking Shakespeare and the work that was going on behind masks. If anything (if read), it provides a rundown by date of many in the field during this period with some quotes from back in time from diaries et cetera.

The chronology begins before Queen E-1 starting AD 303 with St. Albans martyred, 1250 with Roger Bacon, and then later with what could possibly have been going on with E-1 moving along from 1560? Speculation provides that it first involved Robert Dudley:

Bacon


Thanks to Alfred Dodd &
Doris Davis for preparation of Text

A.D.303 St. Albans martyred.The first Christian Martyr in England.

1250 Roger Bacon, the English monk with the astonishingly modern mind wrote "A man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar." He listed seven different ways of writing secretly. To him is attributed the so-called Voynich Manuscript, parts of which have still not been deciphered.

1261-1321 Dante. One of the first intellectual rebels against the Holy Church. Wrote in cipher. Bacon adopted all of Dante's methods of secret writing: numbers, anagrams, printing errors, special type setting, hieroglyphics, allegorical pictures, emblematic head and tailpiece, watermarks, etc. ( He was a secret ethical teacher.)

1453 Capture of Constantinople by the Turks. Said to be the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe, which ends with the death of Elizabeth 1603 in England. (150 years)

1455 May -- The Wars of the Roses began in an open battle at St. Albans

1456
Guttenberg -- printing with movable type (Germany) {Alan Green discusses Guttenberg's presses briefly}

1485 The final battle of the Wars of the Roses. Won by a Lancastrian who had been in exile in Brittany, Henry of Richmond. Bottle of Bosworth Field. Richard III was killed. Henry of Richmond became Henry VII, the first of the Tudors, father of Henry VIII.

1492 Christopher Columbus sailing west to open up a new route to the east (since the Turks had blocked the trade routes in

1453) discovers the "new world"

1498
Erasmus (of Rotterdam) to Oxford. Friend of Sir Thomas More.

1510 Actual birth date of Edmund Spenser (but see 1553).

1516 Queen Mary born, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

1543-1607 Dates for Sir Edward
candidate for authorship of Shake-speare plays.

1532/33 Queen Elizabeth born, daughter of Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester born, fifth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland

1536 Ann Boleyn is beheaded. Her husband, Henry VIII, marries Jane Seymour and Princess Elizabeth is declared illegitimate.

1549 Sir Roger Ascham, the famous scholar, becomes tutor to Princess Elizabeth. {tutor of Greek and Latin – John Dee could transcribe Greek also. As an aside, other things that comes up is the Roger taught E-1 Cicero, and Dee also featured Cicero (as recalled) – so people were likely getting their views through the lens of Cicero it seemed.}

1550-1604
Dates for Edward De Vere 17th Earl of Oxford, candidate for Shakespeare authorship. Robert Dudley marries Amy Robsart.

1552-1618 Dates for Sir Walter Raleigh, another candidate for authorship

1557
Elizabeth and Dudley secretly married (the first time) in the Tower.

1558 Death of Queen Mary. On November 17 -- Elizabeth accedes to the throne. 25 years old. Empty treasury. The nation about equally divided between Catholic and Protestant, and therefore her legitimacy was doubted by about 1/2 of her subjects.

King Philip of Spain, husband of late Queen Mary had his Spanish watchdog in the Court. The Spanish policy was to subjugate England by fair means of foul; to make England a vassal state in the Imperial Empire. Protestants divided into 2 distinct parties, Puritans and Church of England.

Prudent policy of Elizabeth: She made the Bible the authority; interpretation left to conscience. Her personal views remained locked with the sanctity of her own breast, a policy which kept her enemies from openly declaring war. She saved the country from internecine strife (as in France and Germany) and made England a Protestant power.

One of Elizabeth's first acts after her Accession, is to appoint Robert Dudley Master of the Horse, an honourable and valuable post which gave him a Lodging at the Court and personal attendance on the Queen.
[…]
Eliz thus proclaims herself The Virgin Queen. She is "married to the State" Her father's policy also was hers: "Trust NO ONE." Letter of Count De Feria (Philip's watchdog): regarding behaviour of Elizabeth toward Dudley: "Her Majesty visits him in his Chamber day and night." (18th April)
[…]
Letter of Ambassador De Quadra (another of Philip's watchdogs) to Philip of Spain: "I have heard from a person who is in the habit of giving me veracious news that Lord Robert had sent to poison his wife. . .All the Queen has done. . .in the matter of her marriage. . is to keep Lord Robert's enemies and the country engaged with words until this wicked deed of killing his wife is consummated. I am told some extraordinary things about this intimacy." (November)

27 Dec, De Quadra: "She pretends to me that she would like to be a nun, and live in a cell, and tell her beads from morning till night. . .a true daughter of a wicked mother."

1560-1580 Growing patriotism, nationalism in England.

English language also growing up: coining of new words. Band of writers full of passionate utterance. Full orchestra of poets, wits, philosophers and learned men.

Early in 1560 Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, who had hitherto lived in the country, was removed to Cumnor Place, Berkshire, the house of Anthony Forster, a creature of her husband's She had a terminal illness -- or so it was given out.

Aug 13 -- See Calendar of State Papers (Report to Lord Burleigh as to the open assertions of Mother Anne Dowe of Brentwood, concerning the condition of the Queen. She said that the Queen was with child by Robert Dudley. She was sent to prison.)

Sept 8 -- Amy Robsart found lying dead with neck broken at the foot of a staircase. It is generally believed that Dudley or Elizabeth was accessory to the crime. It has also been said that she committed suicide to pave the way for his marriage. However, Froude believed that Dudley was innocent of any direct participation in the crime, but that she was murdered by persons who hoped to profit by his elevation to the Throne. Froude: "What followed is full of obscurity. De Quadra's letters for the next six weeks that followed the murder are lost. There remain only at Simancas abstracts of their contents which tell the story most imperfectly. That the Queen would attempt to marry Dudley now that she was free, was the immediate and universal expectation."

Sept 11 -- Letter of De Quadra, "I met the Secretary Cecil whom I know to be in disgrace. Lord Robert, I was made aware, was endeavouring to depose him of his place . . . He said . . . he perceived the most manifest ruin impending over the Queen through her intimacy with Lord Robert. [Dudley] "had made himself Master of the business of the State and of the person of the Queen, to the extreme injury of the realm, with the intention of marrying her; she herself was shutting herself up in her palace to the peril of her health and her life. . .He was therefore determined to retire in the country although he supposed they would send him to the Tower (Cecil).

{441 years later 9/11}
[…]
It is openly reported (See Dic. Nat. Biog.) that the Queen was secretly betrothed to Dudley, and that they were married at Lord Pembroke's House sometime in late September. Cecil, either in appearance or reality, consented to be reconciled to them.

Sept 12 -- Queen Eliz and Dudley wed secretly.

November. The Queen's "looks" are quite consistent with a pregnant woman.

31 December - Throckmorton (English Ambassador to French Court) concerned with the bruits and rumors. His letter to Cecil suggests that he was aware that the Queen was married secretly. . . .He was asked point blank by the Spanish Ambassador (at the French Court) if the Queen was not secretly married to Lord Robert. The bruits of her doings, be very strange in all courts and countries." The secret marriage was an accomplished fact, a State Secret.

December -- a secret despatch of the Spanish Envoy advises that the Queen is expecting a child by Dudley." (Escurial Papers.)

1561 Dictionary of National Biography XVI p. 114 "It is herein recorded that on Jan. 21 1560/1 Queen Elizabeth was secretly married to Robert Dudley in the House of Lord Pembroke before a number of witnesses." This is one day off from the date Francis Bacon is assumed to have been born. Marriage also took place on Sept. 12 (see above).

Jan. 22 -- De Quadra writes to Philip of Spain: "If she marry Lord Robert without his Majesty's sanction, your Majesty has but to give a hint to her subjects and she will lose her Throne. . . Without your Majesty's sanction she will do nothing in public; And it may be when she sees she has nothing to hope for from your Majesty, she will make a worse plunge to satisfy her appetite. She is infatuated to a degree which would be a notable fault in any woman, much more in one of her exalted rank." In the same letter De Quadra says that Dudley assured him that if the King of Spain would only countenance the marriage, they would restore the Roman Catholic religion. "Some say she is a Mother already, but this I do not believe."

Jan. 22 -- - Aquarius with Aquarius rising) Son Francis Bacon born to Sir Nicholas Bacon and Lady Anne, according to outer records. May have been named after Francois, the little French King who had recently died, leaving his young widow, little Mary Queen of Scots, to her strange destiny.

Francis Bacon is born either at "York House" (i.e. the home of Sir Nicholas Bacon) "or York Place" (i.e. Whitehall, the Queen's Palace), according to the statement of Francis Bacon's Chaplain and Secretary, Dr. Rawley, who took this method of telling the world that Francis Bacon was a Royal Tudor; and that there was a mystery regarding his birth and parentage.

25 Januarie Baptizatus fuit Mr. Franciscos Bacon. He was registered at St. Martin's Church, London, and was described as "Mr. Franciscus Bacon." Why should the word "Mr." be used in the registering of an infant's baptism? No other infant had such a distinction.

He was born to the Queen and Leicester, an adulterine bastard, morganatic marriage. (Morganatic means marriage of a king or queen to one of lesser rank with no possibility of their children being heirs to throne.) But if birth had been made public the Catholic reaction would have been severe, even the Protestants would have declared for Mary of Scotland!)

February -- De Quadra write to Philip that he had seen Elizabeth. He heard her confession. She was no angel, she had not resolved to marry Lord Robert or anyone. She promised to do nothing without Philip's sanction. "As there is danger, I would not leave her without hope. If we let this woman become desperate, she may do something which may fatally injure us, although she destroys herself at the same time."

1561-1621 Dates for Countess of Pembroke, another candidate for authorship of Shake-speare works.

1561-1642 Dates for William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, another candidate for authorship.

1563 Roger Ascham began to write his book, The Schoolmaster, on the education of young noblemen. His theory was that young children were "sooner allured by love than driven by beatings to attain learning." The Queen had requested that he write the book. He was her former schoolmaster, the most learned scholar in England. It was intended as a curriculum for the training of someone in particular. Francis would have been about five years old when the book was finished, 1566.

1564 April 26 -- William Shakspere baptized at Stratford. Son of John Shakspere and Mary Arden, illiterate parents.

The child Francis Bacon is taken to Court and the Queen calls him her "Little Lord Keeper."

Sir Nicholas Bacon is commanded to build a new home for himself at Gorhambury. The Queen visits this home repeatedly in the following years while young Francis is growing up.

Robert Dudley is created the Earl of Leicester and is the recipient of large grants of money and high offices.

Melville, the Scotch Ambassador, reports that Elizabeth "took me to her Bed chamber, and opened a little desk where there were divers little pictures wrapped in paper, their names written with her own hand. Upon the first she took up was written, "My Lord's Picture." This was Leicester's portrait."

1565-78 Queen pays numerous public and secret visits to Gorhambury (to keep an eye on Francis ?) "You have made your house too little for your Lordship," the Queen says to Nicholas Bacon. "Your Majesty hath made me too big for my house," he replies. (He later added a new wing for her benefit)

When Francis was about 5 years old the Queen asked him his age. He answered with much discretion, being but a Boy, that he was two years younger than Her Majesty's happy Reign: with which answer the Queen was much taken."

1566 August -- Leicester told the French Ambassador that he had "known her [the Queen] from her eighth year better than any man on earth. He added that he was as much in favour as ever, and was convinced the Queen would choose no other than himself, but was uncertain whether the Queen wished to marry him or not (i.e. publicly).

Roger Ascham's book The Schoolmaster finished. The dated preface (30 Oct, 1566) was kept in hiding with other manuscripts for 200 years, and was published by James Bennet in 1761. In it, Ascham compares the Queen's life with David's life. "Most Noble Princess . . . Thinking of David's life, his former miseries, his later felicities, of God's dealing with him to bring happiness to his present time, and safety to his Posterity, I have had for many like causes, many like thoughts one of the Life and State of your Majesty.

"God said to David . . . 'Thine own seed shall sit in thy seat,' which is the greatest comfort that can come to a great Prince . . . And in the end he had the joyful blessing from Nathan, which all true English hearts daily do pray that God will send the same to your Majesty, 'I will set up thy seed after thee.'

"Yet when God had shown him the greatest favour . . . God suffered him to fall into the deepest pit of wickedness, to commit the cruellest murder, the shame fullest adultery.". . .

"He did not stumble by ignorance, nor slide by weakness, nor only fall by wilfulness, but went to it advisedly . . . to bring mischief to pass . . . Yet God had not taken from David His Grace.

"So out of this foul matter is gathered the fairest example, and best lesson for Prince and private man . . . As in a fair glass your Majesty shall see and acknowledge, by God's dealing with David, even very many like dealings of God with your Majesty. And in the end have as David had . . . Prosperity and surest felicity for you, yours and your posterity." Dodd observes: This letter was written to a virgin Queen with no prospect of posterity openly in sight. What had the sin of David to do with an immaculate Virgin Queen?

1569
A passage from the Duke of Norfolk's Confession incidentally tells of a child in the Queen's Private Apartments: "When the Court was at Guildford, I went unaware into the Queen's Privy Chamber, and found Her Majesty sitting on the threshold of the door listening with one ear to a little child who was singing and playing on the lute to her, and with the other to Leicester who was kneeling by her side. Leicester rose and the Queen continued listening to the child." (Strickland, p. 265.) Francis would have been about 9 years old at the time the Duke is referring to.

1571 A statute is passed by Parliament at the behest of the Queen which makes it a penal offense to speak of any successor to the crown save her "natural issue" (she rejects the term "legal" heirs. This is an indication that she was not closing the doors to the possible succession of Francis or Essex.)

With the passage of this act P. Woodward states in Tudor Problems, that "... after many years of intimacy, the interests of their own preservation warranted that they should part company. Elizabeth's statement to her Council in 1571 that she was 'free to marry' points to a mutual understanding that they should go their respective ways." (She had chosen to release herself.)

Shortly afterwards, Leicester, who had apparently taken the Queen at her word, secretly gave a formal pledge to Lady Sheffield and secretly married her two days before the birth of a son, who had the greatest difficulty in proving his legitimacy. This son became Leicester's heir.

Queen gives Manor of Marks Hall near Braintree in Essex to Walter Hereford, Essex' reputed foster father.

1573 The Queen visits Sir Nicholas Bacon's new home in Gorhambury, which was completed in 1568 (she had visited it on completion, and in the previous year, 1572) and is royally entertained by Sir Nicholas. In March 1572/3 the Queen once more visited Gorhambury. The following month, Francis Bacon was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge.

April -- (10 June, Du Maurier) Francis enters Trinity college, Cambridge. 12 years old. Studies all the sciences then taught.

While in Cambridge, Francis was said to be dissatisfied with the methods of education then practiced, was devising a means for improving them. Acquired a knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French.

The Queen sends Lord Hereford (now first Earl of Essex) to Ireland to recover a barony there. She loans Walter Hereford 10,000. He (elder Essex) writes to Burleigh offering him the responsibility for the "direction, education and marriage of eldest son, Robert." Thus becoming a ward, Essex will get to be at court.

1575 Francis leaves Cambridge (before his birthday) where he had acquired a reputation for precocious learning. An outbreak of the plague may have something to do with his returning home. But he did not return. Must have been a happy time until September 1576

Eliz apparently unaware of the Secret Marriage with Lady Sheffield gave Leicester 50,000 pounds and he responded by giving her a magnificent entertainment at Kenilworth Castle.

Then, he privately married one of the queen's cousins -- Lettice, the widow of Walter, Earl of Essex. He was afterwards pressed into a more formal ceremony in the presence of her father, Sir Francis Knollys. When the Queen heard of the marriage, a year later "she was for putting him in the Tower." Eventually he was ordered to remain a prisoner at Greenwich Castle, and his wife was forbidden to attend Court.

1576-1612 Dates for Roger Manners 5th Earl of Rutland, another "Shake-speare" candidate

21 November
Francis and Anthony Bacon were admitted at Gray's Inn. But Francis appears to have spent a good deal of his time at the Court until September, when Francis was sent abroad, "Direct from Her Majesty's Royal Hand," as a result of a Bolt from the Blue: Inciting Incident -- (According to Cipher) The Queen reveals to Francis that he is her son. Makes him swear never to write or speak, or print secrets under his own name. Knowledge that he is unacknowledged "Prince of Wales" catapults him into a premature adulthood.

September 11 -- Sent to Paris by Queen. Arrives at Calais. Travels with the ambassador, Sir Amyas Paulet, to Paris, on the great ship Dreadnought .

In France Francis mingled with the most exalted statesmen and wits of the period, acquired knowledge of foreign courts and politics. For the next three years he visited Blois, Poictiers, Tours, also Italy and Spain.

His muse is Pallas Athena. He was known to be a poet in France. Ronsard's group, Pleiade.

Lord Hereford (first Earl of Essex) returns from Ireland unexpectedly and apparently makes things awkward by his demands and his actions. He is peremptorily ordered back to Ireland in July.

September, Lord Hereford dies suddenly in Ireland; it is said through poison, and that the Earl of Leicester had something to do with his death. (Was he threatening blackmail?)

Bacon conceives his "Theater Project."


Robert Devereux, fledgling Earl of Essex, age 10, lives with the Cecils at Theobalds. The first time he met the Queen, she leaned forward to give him a kiss. He, already fiercely independent, and not finding this aging, red-haired woman very appealing, turned his head aside and refused her kiss. The Queen was not amused.

W.S. at 13 apprenticed to a butcher.

1577 Garden of Eloquence by Sir Henry Peacham (One of Bacon's circle.)

Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, the Queen's alleged son, is sent to Trinity College, Cambridge in January.

1576-1623 The English Language was made (developed) from almost barbaric crudeness to the highest pitch which any language has realized. Practically everything worth knowing was made available in English. These editions were not produced for profit. How was the cost provided?

1578 John Lyly -- Anatomy of Wit appeared in England. Bears curious resemblance to Francis' experience in France. Young man has a fling at love. Returns sadder but wiser.

Francis toured independently

Eliz. refuses to allow him to wed Marguerite de Valois.

Learns how cipher is used in diplomacy, secret service.

Negotiation of treaty.

Francis has portrait painted by the Queen's artist, Hillyard, who writes on the portrait: "Could I but paint his mind." Francis was 18 years old. (Was he in France or England when portrait was painted? (Dodd suggests he may have returned to England with dispatches.) (Note: the same artist also painted the Queen in a strikingly similar style. He also painted a portrait of Essex. There were no other youths painted by Hilyard for the Queen.

Earl of Leicester secretly marries young Robert's foster-mother, Lady (Hereford) Essex.

1579 Francis' dream: that Bacon's house was plastered over with black mortar

Recalled from France upon death of father, Feb 20. Arrives in England March 20.

Nicholas' will leaves him penniless, which is remarkable, since all other children were well provided for. (Could this be a mute indication that his expectations lay elsewhere?)

Begins career in law, which he studies "against the bent of his genius." He writes to Lord and Lady Burleigh pointing out how incongruous it is for a person in his position to be employed in studying the common law. He says: "I do not understand how anyone well off or friended should be put to the study of the common law instead of studies of greater delight." Had Francis been the real son of a lawyer, it would have been impossible for him to feel it beneath him to study common law. As a Prince, though concealed, hoping he would be publicly called to the Succession of the English Throne, he would naturally feel such drudgery to be a little beneath him. To ease his discontent, Burleigh procures him a dispensation from his compulsory attendance of "keeping Commons." This meant that he declined to take his meals with the law students, barristers. Even six years later (1586) an order was again specially made, permitting him to take his meals at the Reader's or Master's table, although not entitled by seniority. He passed over the heads of barristers and ancients, care having to be taken to reserve their rights to pension in view of his supercession.

Resides at Gray's Inn.

Celestial visitation -- a clairaudient experience. "The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of a King is to find it out." "A flame of fire which fills all the room and obscures our eyes with its celestial glory -- heavenly voice. Follow the example of God. Put away popular applause. Compose a history of thy times and fold it into enigmatical writings and cunning mixtures of the theatre mingled as the colors in a painters shell and it will in due course of time be found."

His plan: 1) catalogue and systematize "all the world's knowledge." (in English Language) 2) appear as model son to the Queen. Aid and support the administration of her realm. Give good advice. Enhance her image. Stay hidden behind the scenes. 3) Commit the true story to several ciphers. Live a secret (double) concealed life.

The "A"-"A" device first appears.

Mother resides at Gorhambury, St. Albans.

The Shepherd's Calendar - "Spenser" (the first appearance of the Cipher, signed E.K., for "England's King."

Leicester marries Lettice Knollys in secret. Queen not pleased when she finds out.

1579-89 Nine early books, none of them under Francis' name, including Treatise: Anatomy of Melancholy. (Burton.)

1579-80 Abundant proof, according to Dodd, that Francis had begun the establishment of secret societies, and that Anthony was his agent.

1580 Anthony leaves for France.

Francis Bacon writes Four Letters to Lord Burleigh, Secretary of State, and Lady Burleigh, in which he presses them to recommend his "suit" to the Queen, while thanking them for, apparently, a promised monetary allowance, and other promises for the future. The first letter was dated 11 July, 1580

15 October he writes his uncle, Lord Burleigh, to "present his more than humble thanks to the Queen for her princely liberality."

18 October. "This last one seems to be one carefully written for submission to the Queen with a view to appease her anger which his importunity had aroused." says P. Woodward. [Dodd believes that the First Canto (of sonnets) had been sent to the Queen, and this letter was sent afterwards for fear she resented the Sonnets which she would understand only too well.] He is undoubtedly pressing for recognition as the Queen's Son and Heir in the Succession. That is the "suit" which historians are at a loss to explain. The 1580 letters are signed "B.Fra.", which signature is often used in Initial Capitals of his concealed works. The "suit" to Burghley, via Lady Burghley, his aunt was denied. It was pursued 18 months.

The letters which passed between Prof. Gabriel Harvey and "Immerito," which refer to "Immerito" as "a certain worshipful gentleman," and to "Right Worshipful and Thrice-Venerable Masters," indicate the establishment of Modern Freemasonry. Francis Bacon's correspondence indicates he was the Chief of a very busy group of literary workers at Gray's Inn and Twickenham Lodge, works being published anonymously and openly by the Secret Literary Society, the Rosicrosse.

Plas Mawr, Conway built. A fine Tudor building. Eliz and Leicester stayed there often. The bedrooms of the Queen and Leicester are in close proximity, and can both be approached by a private door, with access to the Queen's Sitting Room.. these two bedrooms are entirely apart from the rest of the building, being absolutely a wing on its own. (Booklet and photo-cards to be obtained from C.G. Dyall, Curator, The Royal Academy of Art, Plas Mawr, Conway, N. Wales.

1580-81-82?

When he attained 21, it was decided to send him for a year's travel abroad, according to the practice of the period for Princes and Noblemen's sons. There are records which show that Lord Burleigh was interested in the best routes he had to travel.

Evidence that F.B. was on continent: To observe. He was in Italy, Spain, Germany, Denmark. Sir Thomas Bodley paid the bill. He also wrote notes on the State of Christendom: Austria, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Florence, Venice, Mantua, Genoa, Savoy. (These papers discovered and published after his death)

1581 Essex receives M.A. degree at age 14. Leaves Cambridge.

1582 Made outer barrister at Gray's Inn. Resides at the Inns of Court as a gentleman pensioner of the Queen. He had no money of his own. "From the age of twenty, except for his allowance from the Queen, he had nothing to live on. The Bacon family had no responsibility and he was entirely a Pensioner on the Queen's Bounty." (Woodward.)

Nov 28 -- W.S.(William Shaxpur) marries Anne Hathaway, an illiterate (7 years older) under disreputable circumstances.

1583 William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby visited Navarre, where Love's Labors Lost took place. (Those who support his candidacy as author of Shakespeare plays cite this fact. But do they know that the names of several characters in Love's Labours Lost also appear on Anthony Bacon's passport now in the British Museum?)

Robert, Earl of Essex, resides at Langley, Pembrokeshire, and returns to Court under pressure by the Earl of Leicester.

Queen had her own group of players.

May 26 -- W.Shaksper daughter Susanna born.

Brotherhoods had been established, at least by this date.

The Birth of Merlin masque by Francis.

1584 Tempus Partus Maximus Francis writes a short Latin Tractate, "The Most Masculine Birth of Time," which is a covert hint that he has created a Masculine Brotherhood, the Modern Order of Freemasonry. Greatest (Masculine) Birth of Time, is a forerunner of Advancement of Learning

Leycester's Commonwealth, appears, printed in Antwerp. Copies filtered into England. A very circumstantial account is given of the lascivious nature of Leicester. His amours with various women are narrated at length, his characteristics being "dissimulation, hypocrisy, adultery, falsehood and what not."

Leicester formed an Association of the nobility and gentry of England, sworn to defend Elizabeth's person against the Catholic Party's new policy ... the assassination of the Queen. Dudley was the leading Protestant Puritan at E's Court, and the greatest businessman of his time, a man of great energy and ability. He owned mines, mills, and great forests. He could export woolens and held the monopoly of all sweet wines. He was always ready to contribute large sums of money to advance the fortunes of England. He believed that England could defeat Spain, He was the patron of the Drama, he gave Oxford University its first printing press, and was its chancellor.Yet he was reputed to be "brainless."

Francis is elected M.P. for Melcome in Dorsetshire, also for the pocket borough of Catton, belonging to Lord Burleigh. A penniless student at twenty-four could only have got into Parliament through powerful influence.

Essex now living at court. At age 14 has obtained his M.A. degree.

Essex has a very serious altercation with the Queen respecting Sir Walter Raleigh (35), Captain of the Guard, accusing her of being under his control and influence. (Makes one think that Essex must have known his identity, and was jealous of anyone coming between them.)

1585 Francis writes to Walshingham his enigmatical letter to "put him in remembrance" of his "poor suit," which is really a request to the Queen, through her Ministers, whether she intends formally to recognize him as her Heir and Successor to the Throne. Note: Leicester is out of favor with the Queen at this time, and Francis wonders whether this endangered his prospects of Recognition.

Francis addresses a long letter of caution to the Queen with reference to the attempts to poison her. t begins with a curious note, which is a virtual statement that he is one of the Queen's natural children... "Care, one of the Natural and True-bred Children of Unfeigned Affection, awaked with these late wicked and barbarous attempts, would needs exercise my pen to your Sacred Majesty."

Queen commissions F to write The Art of Poetry, which would give her opportunity to publish her own verses. Leicester takes Essex (his "stepson" with him on an expedition to Holland. He took part in battle Zutphen. Upon his return, Essex was constantly at court and on best terms with the Queen. She showed him considerable fondness.

W.S. children Hamnet and Judith born. (Twins?)

1586-87 Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots for treason
.

Bacon M.P. for Taunton

Leicester had command of the English operations in the Low Countries.

Leicester resigned his post of master of Horse, and Robert Essex was given the post at 1500 pounds per annum. Essex is in constant residence at the Court. He would then be twenty and the Queen fifty-four. Their relationship appears to be that of Mother and Son. Bagot wrote this year: "When she is alone, there is nobody near her but my Lord of Essex, and at night my Lord is at cards of some game or other with her."

Bacon made a bencher, one of the inner members who acts as governor to the Inn

W.S. flees on foot to London to escape prosecution for stealing deer and rabbits. (Left with a travelling company of players?) Finds employment in Burbage's stable. Factotum.

Hamlet, an anonymous play then on stage (but see 1581)

Love's Labours Lost -- shows court life of Navarre (ethical brotherhood)

1587 Assists in presenting at Gray's Inn Revels an anonymous play The Tragedy of Arthur, a reminiscence of King John, containing many extracts found in his notebook, the Promus (With The Promus alone might a brief be made for the plaintiff)

Can speculate that his Order of the Knights of the Helmet was forming with the University wits around this time?

Shake-speare a mature poet by this time (Sweet)

1588
The Spanish Armada appears in the English Channel, 20th July. The Earl of Leicester is made Lord Lieutenant of England and Ireland. He is invested with greater power than any Sovereign had even ventured to bestow upon any subject.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada -- in roaring tempest. Beached on Goodwin Sands.

Leicester dies suddenly on the 4th September. Queen Elizabeth immediately seized all his estates (on the plea of money lent), and put them up for auction. The Queen and Leicester acted as though she honestly regarded herself as his lawful wife by a private marriage, which she could not openly admit for State reasons. That she loved him, and him alone, to the very end, is beyond dispute. And many years after his death, when opening a private drawer in the presence of an intimate, she said, holding a piece of paper in her hand, "His last letter."

By his will he left Leicester House, also a George and Garter, to the Earl of Essex in the hope he would wear it shortly. The Earl of Essex is appointed a Knight of the Garter, and was made General of Horse.

After Leicester's death, (and even before, see 1587) Essex acts as though he knew the secret of his birth.

Essex and Queen have many temper flare-ups. He never knew where to draw the line between private and public relationship with the queen. Robert the "son" destroyed Essex the "subject". She tried to tame him like a wild horse. Pattern is established of his insubordination, her anger, then later forgiveness. Pattern often repeats.

Francis Bacon is elected M.P. for Liverpool, and is sworn Queen's Counsel Extraordinary. In Parliament, Writes Advertisement Touching the Controversies of the Church. Is given reversion of clerkship in Star Chamber yielding no immediate salary (he would have to wait until 1609 for it!)

Shakspere "a servitor" in the company of Burbage is mentioned in a bill of complaint against John Lambert of Stratford.

1589 February 4: The New Parliament meets and Francis takes a prominent part in its deliberations, serving on the most important committees, arranging between the Commons and the Queen the terms on which double subsidies were to be granted.

Henry III, king of France assassinated by Clement.

1590 Francis publishes works on shorthand. P. Woodward believes that Francis Bacon was putting shorthand into practice, and had many assistants working for him.

Essex receives a handsome revenue of sweet wines. (a monopoly)

October - Henry IV of France writes to Robert Essex personally, asking him to use his influence with the Queen for English assistance against Spain, as though he had some private Knowledge, of his actual position at Court ...

Essex secretly married to Sir Philip Sidney's widow. When the marriage came to the Queen's knowledge "her anger knew no bounds against Essex, not merely because he took a wife without asking her consent, but for marrying, as she said, below his degree." (Devereux.) His wife was the daughter of Sir Francis Walshigham, quite his equal in every respect unless the Queen regarded him as a Tudor Prince of the Blood Royal. It was not jealousy, but anger for marrying below his degree.

1591 Queen objects to Essex going to assist Henry IV. He goes anyway. Queen orders his return. He refuses. She vows to make him an example (insubordination) Later she forgave him, allows him to be present at siege of Rouen, but must remain out of harm's way.

Essex challenges Villiers, Governor of Rouen to a mortal duel. The Queen got the Council to write to him that, owing to his position, he had not right to engage in it."

Queen appoints Bacon to be confidential advisor to the Earl of Essex, along with Anthony. The thrust of Francis' advice is always, "Win the Queen. Win the Queen."

Shake-speare had no peer in dramatic writing by this date (Sweet)

1591-96
Complaints (Colin Clout) and Faerie Queene (E. Spenser)

1592-96 Essex at the pinnacle of his popular reputation and fortunes. The Queen became envious and jealous of his popularity. (Woodward, p. 13)

1592 Francis Bacon writes a letter to Lord Burleigh, Secretary of State, which is a veiled renunciation of his claims as the eldest of the Tudors to the English Throne. He is getting older: "I wax somewhat ancient. One and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour glass. . . I ever bear in mind -- in some middle place that I could discharge -- to serve Her Majesty. . . I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate Civil ends, for I have taken all knowledge to be my province. . . This Philanthropia is so fixed my mind as it cannot be removed. If your Lordship shall find, nor or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place . . . nearer to your Lordship . . . say, then, that I am a most dishonest man. . ." The writer thus lets it be known he no longer wants to rule over a Material Kingdom.

He is pressed with debts (through printing anonymous publications) and disappointed at the rejection of his "poor suit." (which he had begun in 1580!) He says he will become "a sorry Bookmaker" and throw up the legal profession. He appears quite resigned to live the life of a commoner, instead of a Prince.

Turning Point: This is the year that F.B. relinquishes his "suit" claim to the throne in favor of Essex. (Letter to Burleigh, which in effect, clears the way for Essex to succeed Eliz. -- if he plays his cards right.) Believes it is best for the kingdom: "Chose Essex as fittest instrument to do good to the state." He no longer seeks to rule over an earthly kingdom, but over a universal one. "To thine own self be true." This is the vow / resignation which allowed him to occupy the chair of Apollo. Residing at Gray's Inn with intervals at Gorhambury and Twickenham.


















 
Here is the second part and will have to add a last one - to finish it.

{Grey’s Inn can be further read about here and Gorhambury (St Albans, Hertfordshire, England) here – note the photos below and poems – added text discussing Shakespeare Quartos. Also, you can read a little on Twickenham here}:



E-1 Coat of Arms at Gorhambury
1588657108423.png


Note medallion on arch
1588657076866.png


This is where the English language found it's most noble hour . . . the English Renaissance . . . this is not another ordinary mediocre, "signifying nothing" moment. This is . . . and then suddenly one of the tour guides is bringing you back to the present and coaxing you to keep up with the tour. "You don't want to fall behind." Or do you? You wonder to yourself what could be better to beholden than this? What could possibly be an encore? Although the books are off limits to touch it is their numinosity that is in itself inviting enough to feel like your turning the pages, the very same pages that were once turned page by page by Sir Francis. This feeling does not occur to anyone while visiting Stratford on Avon because there was never any library to be found there! When the tour ends it takes you back to the reception room where there is a table of postcards, books about the history of Gorhambury for sale. It was getting very close to 5 pm and it was time for all to leave when....

I noticed along with Mr. Carr on another table in the middle of the reception room that there were eight Quartos of the Shakespeare plays: Titus Andronicus, Richard the Third, Richard the Second, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Henry the IV. They were facsimiles. Inquiry with one of the tour ladies revealed that the originals were actually discovered in Bacon's library inside the Verulam home in 1909.

The Quartos were found wrapped up in brown paper and stashed behind some bookshelves. They had been placed there and forgotten, when the belongings from the old Gorhambury house (where Bacon had lived to the end of his life) were transferred to the new Gorhambury house in 1754. They had lain dormant in the new house for 155 years!"

The originals were kept there until 1923 when the Bodleian Library stepped in to look after them and slow down the deterioration. Examining the facsimiles one could see the double AA on the headpiece of Richard the Third and a winged head image on the front page of Titus Andronicus. Two of the plays had no name associated on it. The implications of these quartos on Bacon's property are enormous. There is no record of them being purchased. If a discovery like this was found in Stratford it would have made international headlines even in 1909, the same year Mark Twain published his book on the authorship issue. Little has been written on the discovery. Jean Overton Fuller in her bio on Francis Bacon wrote on the last page, "The Gorhambury Quartos" and has associated the dates with the Shakespeare Quartos:


Fuller states,

"It is not known how they came to be there, The present family of Verulams think they must have formed part of Bacon's library, simply because they cannot think of anybody else who lived in that house who would have been likely to bring in Shakespeare Quartos. The binding could have been done by a more recent occupant, who thought good to secure together things of similar character."

"The likelihood of Shakespeare Quartos being acquired casually recedes with distance from the time in which they were produced. There are so few of them altogether, it is rather odd that seven should have as their provenance that house."


Fuller adds a footnote by saying,

"as the dates of the Hamlet Quarto are generally given as 1602, the "bad Quarto," and 1604, the "good Quarto," the 1605 puzzled me and I wrote about it to the Bodleian; the Keeper of Printed Books, Dr. R.T. Roberts, replied to me, "There are seven known copies of the second or "good" quarto of Hamlet. Of these, three bear the date 1604 and four the date of 1605. The Verulam copy is one of the latter. The texts are otherwise identical and the reason for the change of date is unknown. There is, I suppose, a possibility that the title-pages were printed about the turn of the year."





A Poem By Jean Overton Fuller

Gorhambury
Two mikes of the white umbrils of cow-parsley
Say and say not Bacon wrote Shakespeare,
Was the Queen's son.
The farmed fields are new.
Even the crumble of red brick does not talk to me.

Here I step in the tangle of his land, nettles,
Mint, brambles, briony, coltsfoot, xampion, a man-sized
Thistle, arms outstreched to seize,
And head as high as my eye.
These weeds' ancestors were perhaps his companions.

Scarlet angles on black, red admiral settles
On the purple. Novum Organum, he thought
The sun was of the nature of fire, because
When he brought butterflies stupid from cold indoors,
They revived before his fire as if in the sun.

{For illustration purposes, the below is one version of “Mediocria Firma means the middle way, the way of harmony peace and brotherhood. This was the Bacon family motto with the boar as the family emblem.”}

1588657182047.png

Note: Sonnet 19: Francis writes to Fulke Greville: "My matter is an endless question. . . I dare not go further. . . Her Majesty had by set speech more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her Service; which I could not understand but of the place I had been named to. . "I have a hard condition: to stand so that whatever service I do to Her Majesty, shall be thought to be lime-twigs and fetches to place myself. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop: And if Her Majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be the more gainful. For to be as I told you, like a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flyeth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so ad infinitum. I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends. Yet indeed I do confess the first love will not be easily cast off." (Dodd remarks that this image is like Sonnet CXLIII, which he has numbered 19)

1588657294248.png
The first two stanzas of Sonnet 19 in the 1609 Quarto

Q1



Q2



Q3



C
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d phœnix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.



4



8



12

14​
—William Shakespeare[1]

At Twickenham Park, Francis Bacon employs a staff and with him associate some of lawyer friends, Messrs. Dunch, Cecil, Gosnald, Field, etc.

The first Shakespeare plays, Henry VI, Part I, II, III, appear anonymously.

Queen visits him at Twickenham and he presents her with a sonnet.

Anthony Bacon returns from abroad 1591-92.

Francis takes seat in Parliament for Middlesex. (Generally assumed that uncle Burghley was responsible for getting these posts for the Bacon nephews.)

Essex had stepped into Leicester's shoes. Took his political role as enterprising man of action (businessman), soldier, opposed to the Cecils, cautious statesmen.

Essex' extravagance leaves Bacon brothers' salaries unpaid. Francis contracts debts, is sued and imprisoned by a Jew. Anthony relieves him by mortgage on his property.

Shakspere's personal description is given by Greene (factotum) Greene wrote A Groatsworth of Wit.

Just a brief pause here to look at Greene’s Groatswort of Wit, and other sources may say other things – will use Wiki here:

It was published as a short book or pamphlet, a form that was popular and which contributed to the lively intellectual life of the time. Greene's work is written as a moralistic tale, which, towards the end, is revealed to have been autobiographical. During the course of the story characters introduce song lyrics, fables, and some sharp and resentful criticisms of actors and playwrights. It appears to have been written with the idea that the contemporary reader would try to figure out which actual persons are being represented and satirised by the characters in the story.

The pamphlet is most famous for a passage which appears to allude to William Shakespeare, who was then starting out on his career as an actor and playwright.

[…]

Shakespeare reference

The comment about an "upstart crow beautified with our feathers" is generally accepted as a reference to Shakespeare, who is criticised as an actor who has the temerity to write plays (Iohannes fac totum being a Latin equivalent of "Jack of all trades"), and is possibly taken to task for plagiarism or excessive pride. The line in Groatsworth, "Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde", alludes to Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 (published 1591), which contains the line "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide". (I, iv, 137)

Scholars are not agreed as to what Greene meant by his cryptic comments or what motivated them. Greene complains of an actor who thinks he can write as well as university-educated playwrights, he alludes to a line in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, and he uses the term "Shake-scene," a term never used prior to Groatsworth. Most scholars agree that Greene had Shakespeare in mind, who in 1592 would have been an "upstart" actor writing and contributing to plays such as the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III, all of which were likely written and produced (although not published) prior to Greene's death. Hanspeter Born has argued that Greene's attack on the "upstart Crow" was provoked because, in his view, Shakespeare may have rewritten parts of Greene's play A Knack to Know a Knave. Believing that Thomas Nashe is "by far the stronger suspect" for having written the passage regarding the "upstart Crow", Katherine Duncan-Jones points to instances in which Nashe may have had reason to be provoked.

Baldwin Maxwell and Stephen Greenblatt have speculated that Greene was the model for Shakespeare's Falstaff. Greenblatt has also suggested that a line in Hamlet is a dig at Greene's phrase in Groatsworth, "beautified with our feathers". Polonius, reading a letter from Hamlet addressed to "the most beautified Ophelia", comments disparagingly that "beautified is a vile phrase". Jenny Sager calls the suggestion that Falstaff was based on Greene fanciful and "cringe-worthy".

It has also been argued that the reference to the 'Upstart Crow' who was also a 'Shake-scene' applies the famous Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn.

Venus and Adonis is published with name William Shakespeare on the title page. Dedication to Bacon's friend, Southampton

In Parliament Francis espouses popular cause at displeasure of Burghley and the Queen. She was deeply incensed. On matter of subsidies he locked horns with the government, but also espoused other popular causes: adverse to corruptions, advocated free parliaments, declares publicly that laws were made to guard the rights of the commons, not to feed lawyers and should be made so as to be read and understood by all.

Leaves Gray's Inn (obliged by plague) takes refuge at Twickenham "not to play and read, but to pursue philosophy, and to discuss the laws of thought."

Shakspere's name appears in a list of actors in a Christmas play before the Queen.

1593 Francis Bacon is returned M.P. for Middlesex. He opposes the collection of a triple subsidy in one year (money bill) and incurs the intense displeasure of the Queen. He is denied access to Court, has his allowance cut off by the Queen, and is compelled to borrow money from his foster-brother Anthony Bacon, who had just returned from the continent.

Essex still resident at court. Francis assists Essex in his Foreign Office Affairs. Anthony and Francis are providing him with good information from the continent regarding trend of affairs and secret events. They are running a secret service.

Queen still angry with Francis for opposing her money bill.

Office of Attorney General vacant. Essex cannot procure it for Francis. The more he pressed her, the more she refused. Cecils convince Queen that Essex is attempting to usurp her kingly seat and to assert ascendancy over her.

With death of Marlowe, Francis must seek a new "mask" or "vizard." William Shakspere "secured" as pen name.

Up to this time Francis has apparently accomplished nothing -- 32 years old.

Takes a seat in parliament for Middlesex.

Essex exposes Lopez conspiracy. Plot to poison Queen via Dr. Lopez, Portuguese Jew allegedly hired by Spanish. (It may have been a false accusation.)

1594 Francis Bacon is still out of favour at Court and not appointed to any office. 19th April Francis goes to Greenwich, where the Court was being held, hoping the Queen would allow him to interview her. She would not see him. He begins to practise as a barrister, and pleads his first case in Court, there being a "good assemblage of justices who showed him extraordinary respect."

Robert Cecil advances to his father's position as Secretary of Treasury. (Cecils had a deep-laid scheme to make premiership hereditary in the House of Cecil.)

Coke becomes Attorney General

Globe Theatre built. Shake-speare plays performed only at Globe and Blackfriars. "Theatres attracted adventurers, vagabonds, paupers, ruffians, thieves, pimps, prostitutes, dirty, stormy, quarrelsome crowd." (Dodd)

In July he was still without permission to attend the Court. He borrows money, with the help of Anthony Bacon, for a journey he was about to take North.

In the Autumn, the allowance from the Queen is still not being paid.

During these years Essex was the idol of the populace, and the Queen could scarce bar his absence from her side." (says Mr. Devereux, Essex' biographer.)

Correspondence between Robert and Francis show they were very intimate and affectionate towards each other.

Previous Christmas Masque at Gray's Inn had proven a failure. Bacon is solicited for aid "in recovering its "lost honour."

Anthony is living in Bishopsgate, close to the Bull Inn, where plays were performed

Lady Bacon is greatly disturbed at the connection of Anthony and Francis with dramatic performances, "mummeries," she called them.

Lucrece is published. Dedicated to Bacon's friend, Southampton.

Francis is poor and sick, working for bread. Francis earned his first $$ as a lawyer this year. (33 years old.)

Essex, in debt to Bacons for salary, asks the Queen to appoint F. Solicitor General. She refuses.

The Queen forgives Essex, who entertains on the Queen's Accession Day. Bacon composes The Device of an Indian Prince for the occasion. Bacon writes the masque in which Philautia, Goddess of Self Love is Q. Eliz, the Alone Queen. Veiled plea for public acknowledgement on the part of Essex/Francis to let them take their true name, Tudor, so that she will not be the Alone Queen any more.

To Essex: "Law drinketh too much time -- dedicated to better purposes." "Law for ye merry tales."

December 5
-- Promus begun. It contains 1560 phrases, poetical expressions, quotations, and proverbs from various languages for use in literary composition.

1595 Francis unburdens himself in a letter to Fulke Greville, which denotes that he had a claim on the Queen -- a suit for recognition, which he had been promised would receive attention -- but which was to be shelved in favour of his younger brother Essex. "My Matter must be an appendix to my Lord of Essex Suit...I have a hard condition... To be like a child, following a bird, which when he is nearest flyeth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so ad infinitum. I am weary of it."

Francis is sent for to the Court but he was not seen by the Queen, but, according to a letter sent to Anthony Bacon, he again appears to have received a small allowance from the Queen.

By the 17th November, better relations with the Queen are established. It signals the end of the Queen's long displeasure with Francis begun in 1592. (He never apologized for his behavior in Parliament. He was no sycophant.)

Twickenham Park granted to Francis for 21 years by the Queen when Edward Bacon's lease expired. (87 acres of enclosed park, gardens, orchards, lanes, streams and a lake. Ideal and much-loved retreat.)

The Earl of Essex again tries to obtain a legal post for him, and fails. He thereupon gives Francis an estate worth 1800 pounds. (Essex conveys to him land adjoining Twickenham.)

Francis writes to Essex 1595-96 "Consider first, whether I have not reason to think your fortune comprehendeth mine." But he also warns Robert that his own personal duty as a concealed son and a public citizen, lay first to the Queen and to the State, and that even their secret brotherhood would not permit him to join in or defend any rash act. "I see I must be your homager . . . but you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always with a saving of his faith to the King. I can be no more yours than I was..."

Fleming becomes Solicitor General (the post Essex wanted for Francis?)

July 14 - Queen creates a new office for Francis -- he becomes her personal advisor: "counsel learned in the law" with a retainer for his services. Important: he need not follow profession of a lawyer, financial provision was being made for him.

January 3 -- Entertainment at Gray's Inn The Order of the Helmet., or The Prince of Purpoolii. An extraordinary entertainment at Gray's Inn. Play called Comedy of Errors was presented as part of festivities.

Love's Labours Won (All's Well...) contains the phrase "law for ye merry tales," The play impressed Lord Campbell by the author's accurate knowledge of law.

W.S. listed on subsidies tax list in St. Helens, Bishopsgate.

1596 The year begins with improved relations with the Queen for Francis. He writes a letter of advice to Robert Essex, saying that his popularity might give offence to the Queen.

Essex a popular favorite -- plays to crowd on horseback. (Master of Horse) He was in command of a fleet that sailed to attack Cadiz. Brilliant victory. Spanish fleet scattered. Immediate threat of invasion smashed. Essex wanted to follow up with attack on Spanish fleet on its way home from India. Queen would not allow. In Essex' absence, Lord Cobham and Raleigh's friends publish an account giving Raleigh all the credit for the victory at Cadiz. They make mischief between the Queen and Essex. The populace takes his side, and this rekindles the Queen's jealousy as an "absolute Princess." Cecil is openly hostile to Essex, who, tired and beaten, falls ill.

Succession question still paramount

Queen has fears of coup d etat -- military dictatorship. Francis counsels E to concentrate on Civil matters. Essex rejects wiser counsels, begins to "gang his ain gait."

1596-1658
Descartes born

1596-97
Francis Bacon publishes his Essays along with Maxims of the Law, Colours of Good and Evil and the Meditationes Sacrae in his own name. However in many of his publications Francis Bacon kept his name from the Title pages because he had learned a lesson from what befell Sir Nicholas Bacon, whose known connection with the publishing of a book was the means of excluding him from the Privy Council."

The Lord Chamberlain's Company before the Queen. She pays Burbage, Shakspere, and Kempe the sum of twenty pounds.

W.S. returned as defaulter in subsidy tax in St. Helens
.

Aug 11 -- W.S. son, Hamnet dies.

The Earl of Essex a popular hero after the English retake Calais.

Discontinuance of privateness between Queen and Essex.

1597 M.P. for Southampton.

January 30 -- Francis Speaks in Parliament against enclosures.

Essex is anxious to retire to Wales but the Queen refuses to let him go. In June he is pushed into taking charge of another naval expedition against Spain. Essex to share command with Raleigh and Howard. didn't want to share command, especially with Raleigh. He sulked. He was later put in command of the expedition, and it failed. Queen displeased, and gives Howard precedence at court.

Essex falls ill. "Full fourteen days hath my Lord of Essex kept his chamber. Her Majesty has, I heard, resolved to break him of his will and pull down his great heart; who found it a thing impossible. He says he holds it from his mother's side. " (R. White, 25 February, 1597) The Queen visits him. And later in December, the Queen mollifies Essex, creating him Earl Marshall of England which restores his precedence. (However, it is one of the offices his brother had warned him against accepting.)

Francis writes to T. Matthews of "Works of his Recreation" and that "Tragedies and Comedies are made of one Alphabet."

Essays, dedicated to Anthony are published. His first open work.

Francis withdraws suit (via Essex) for marriage to Lady Hatton's daughter.

W.S. lives near "Bear Garden, Southwark."

W.S. Buys New Place, Stratford. 60 pounds.

W.S. is taxed at St. Helens.

W.S. is returned as householder in Chapel Street, Stratford, and as owner of ten quarters of corn.

Lord Mayor of London describes theatres as "ordinary places for vagrant persons, masterless men, thieves, horse stealers, whoremongers, cozeners, coney-catchers, contrivers of treason and other idle and dangerous persons."



1598 Political Relations with Ireland deteriorate Queen does not choose Essex' candidate for Lord Lieutenant (deputy) of Ireland. He becomes angry, overbears her opinion and advances his own. Famous scene wherein he turns his back on her, she boxes his ears. In retaliation, the Earl put his hand on his sword, and swore he would not take such an insult from her father, Henry VIII. "Go and be hanged," said the Queen. The pride of each had been wounded to the quick before the Courtiers. Essex was not received again at Court until November.

Richard II published (Shakespeare Quarto. More plays were added with each edition, first 10, then 38, then 58.)

Bacon embarrassed by the Queen's anger because of a pamphlet by Hayward based upon the play of Richard II.

Love's Labours Lost published as first drama bearing name "William Shake-speare" satires contemporary life in many ranks of society.

He proffers Burghley a masque at Gray's Inn.

Burghley dies; is succeeded by his son, Sir Robert Cecil, the hunchback.

May - "It happened that Her Majesty had a purpose to dine at Twickenham Park at which time I had prepared a sonnet, directly tending, and alluding to draw on Her Majesty's reconcilement to my lord." (of Essex)

W.Shaksper supposed to have played in Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour;" "supposed" part Old Knowell.

Reference to W.S. by Francis Meres "As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweete wittie soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare (witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared sonnets among his private friends.

W.S. again taxed in St. Helens.

W.S. bought stone to repair his house.

W.S. is written to by friends about buying some odd yardland at Shottery and loans of money. (It is certain [says Phillipps]... that his (referring to W.S.) thoughts were not at this time absorbed by literature, or the stage. So far from this being the case, there are good reasons for concluding that they were largely occupied with matters relating to pecuniary affairs. He was then considering the advisability of purchasing an "odd yard land or other" in the neighborhood.

1599 The Cecils trick Essex into accepting position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He privately negotiates a condition to be released from various debts due to the Crown. On 29th March Essex was placed in command of an expedition to subdue Ireland. It was his downfall. While he was in Ireland, his enemies got the upper hand. The jealousy of the Queen was fomented by his enemies at the Court owing to his masterful conduct of the campaign, and his free appointments to knighthood in the field. This angers the Queen for it is her prerogative. He does things "his way."

Irish campaign a failure. Essex' errors in Ireland cost the Queen 300,000 pounds. Nothing to show for it. Guerilla warfare. No definitive battle.

Essex accused of aiming to make himself King of Ireland with the aid of Tyrone, and/or aspiring to the throne of England. Julius Caesar performed this year. Shows the results of ill-fated attempt to depose the king.

Essex deemed it prudent to return without waiting for the Queen's instructions. His enemies induced the Queen to believe that his return was intended as a part of a planned attack upon the Throne.

Spenser dies
, but Shepheardes Calender won't be attributed to him for another 12 years (1611).

Bacon is busy with his literary work and a scriptorium which he and Anthony are carrying on.

Employs Ben Jonson and others writing for it.

B. Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humor shows uneducated rustic purchasing a crest: Boar without a head, rampant.

W.S. fraudulently obtains confirmation of coat of arms, formerly applied for by his father, which causes protest to be made to the Herald-at-Arms, and excites ridicule among the wits and writers of the metropolis
.

Essex returns from Ireland -- Queen displeased.

Francis drawn closer to Queen over the Essex affair. (She allegedly gives Francis a ring to give to Essex to use if he ever asks for the favor of a pardon.)

Queen helps Francis buy the Gorhambury house from Anthony.

Francis persuaded Q to set up disciplinary tribunal.

Essex was made a prisoner at York House. He falls ill. The Queen sends him broth and goes to see him privately. "The popular voice was loud in his favour."

December 13
- Essex returns patents as Master of Ordnance, Master of Horse. Warrant to be removed to Tower. Queen refuses to Sign. Essex ill. She sends soup.

Bacon endeavors to placate the Queen. Drafts letters for Essex to that end.

Essex is returned to favor, gradually. F. B. puts himself at great peril to plead for him. Queen grows cold to him (F.B.)

Bacon writes the Queen about the condition of Lady Bacon, who is lapsing into insanity, a subject so well treated in "Hamlet" and "Lear"

W.S. recovers debt of seven pounds of John Clayton, London.

1600 At the disciplinary hearing, Essex received justice mixed with mercy, but

Queen feels Essex is not sufficiently contrite.

Queen withdraws the monopoly of sweet wines, which puts Essex in dire straits financially.

The Earl is sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. Francis tries to bring about a reconcilement by writing a Sonnet. But the Queen has been definitely estranged. Nothing could stir the old, bitter woman, surrounded as she was by Essex' enemies, Cobham, Cecil, Raleigh. He appeals to the Queen repeatedly to permit him to see her in person. She refuses again and again. He gives himself up to despair since he cannot attend Court. In late Autumn Essex began holding hostile court. When he hears of the Queen's conditions he makes a remark variously quoted: "Her conditions are as crooked as her carcase." or "She is an old woman, crooked both in body and mind." These words of folly and ingratitude may be said to have sealed his fate, for if Elizabeth was anything, she was vain about her appearance, and jealous of her sceptre.

1601 At Essex' House, the Earl openly speaks of his wrongs, and plots a coup d'etat to obtain forcible control of the Queen, with the intention of requiring her to give up her present advisers and surround herself with his friends.

February 7 -- Richard II played (play about deposition of Richard II by Henry IV)

February 8 --
Essex leads a plot to kidnap the Queen in order to force her to dismiss his enemies from her court.

February 18-19 -- Arraigned for high treason.

Over and over again at his trial he repeats that he had no intention of doing harm to the Queen, but to rescue her from the enemies who had poisoned her mind against him.

"You sought to be Robert the First," shouted Coke at the trial, "but you shall be Robert the Last."

Francis pleaded for Essex privately, but she countered "When horses are unmanageable, it is necessary to tame them by stinting them in the quantity of their food."

By command of the Queen, Bacon required to be present at the trial, and was instrumental in securing a guilty verdict. He was sentenced to death. (Dodd says, Francis took a small part in the prosecution by the peremptory Order of the Queen. "There is little doubt that Francis never thought the sentence would be carried out. The Queen appears to have waited for a sign of contrition to be sent by Essex while confined in the Tower, a ring which was sent but was not delivered to the Queen.")

"The strong mind of Elizabeth was evidently shaken by the conflicting passions that assailed her at this agitating period and reason tottered." (Strickland, p. 669)

February 24 -- Essex is executed. The Queen had sent to countermand the Warrant for Execution, but Cecil had hurried the Earl to the block forthwith. He was executed in private... in a portion of the Tower reserved for Royal prisoners, when, as a traitor, he ought to have been hung and quartered at Tyburn.

ROBART TIDIR is carved by someone to commemorate the imprisonment and death of the unhappy son of Elizabeth Tudor (pronounced Tidir). "Tidir" is the Welsh form of "Tudor." The only State Prisoner to whom the inscription could apply was Robert, Earl of Essex. It must have been carved at the instigation of someone in authority and with the connivance of the Governor of the Tower.

The populace thereafter no longer received the Queen with cheers and her Ministers were insulted.

April 14 -- Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert Late Earl of Essex and his Complices, Against Her Majesty and Her Kingdoms. Revised document went to press.

April 29 -- Francis writes a letter of complaint to Cecil asking him to restrain Sir Edward Coke, from personally villifying him. "He (Coke) said, 'I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards you, you who are less than little; less than the least'; and other strange, light terms he gave me, with that insulting that cannot be expressed. Herewith stirred, yet I said no more than this: 'Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be again, when it please the Queen.'

"In the end he bade me not meddle with the Queen's business but with ine own; and that I was unsworn, etc. I told him, sworn or unsworn was all one to an honest man; and that I ever set my service first and myself second; and wished to God he would do the like. Then he said, it were good to clap a cap. utlegatum upon my back! To which I only said he could not; and that he was at fault, for he hunted upon an old scent. He gave me a number of disgraceful words besides; which I answered with silence, and showing that I was not moved with them."

Anthony Bacon dies.

May 7 -- Anthony Bacon buried at St. Olave's Hart Street, London.

Francis removes to Twickenham from his poor cell at Gray's Inn. (Exact date not known) Oct. 27, 1601 F.B. sent to House of Commons from Ipswitch & St. Albans, a "double return" (The burgesses knew that he was strait as a rush.) Was against monopolies. (They were O.K. if there were to protect the products of a man's wit.) He also defended charitable giving (freemasonry dependent upon charitable giving.) He was also against abuse of Weights and Measures; for repeal of superfluous laws. Spoke against the bill to curtail monopoly patents: "We ought not to meddle with her Majesty's Prerogative."

Francis writes Cecil to restrain Coke from villifying him. Coke said: "a capias ullagatum" should be pinned to his back (sign branding him as an outlaw)

1602 January, 41st birthday, Francis escaped to his retreat at Twickenham Park, creditors having been paid (from fines gotten from Essex affair)

Queen in decline after death of Essex. She lost her taste for dress, became thin and worn, and used to sit in the dark, sometimes with the shedding of tears to bewail Essex. In June Elizabeth confided to the French Ambassador, Count de Beaumont, that "she was aweary of life," and with sighs and tears alluded to the death of Essex. She said the "being aware of the impetuosity of his temper, she had warned him two years before...not to show such insolent contempt for her as he did on some occasions, but to take care not to touch her sceptre, lest she should be compelled to punish him according to the Laws of England and not according to her own... His neglect of this caution had caused his ruin."

Irish rebellion quelled. F.B. advocates leniency, toleration, a parliament in Ireland.

Hamlet first produced. (Entered Stationers' Register, 1602, printed 1603 and 1694.)

May 1
-- W.S. purchases 107 acres of land in Old Stratford.

Sept 28 -- W.S. purchases a cottage and garden near New Place; plants an orchard.

October -- Lady Bacon signed a deed in favour of her son -- surrendering to him her life interest in the manors and estates of Gorhambury.

1603 February -- Francis at Twickenham, with Richmond palace opposite. Letters to Cecil -- advice on how to rule Ireland. Queen's health failing

"All contemporary writers bear witness to the increased dejection of mind after visiting the Countess of Nottingham. It is said that the Countess... could not die in peace until she has revealed the truth about the detention of the Ring. After hearing that Robert had mutely asked for pardon, it is said that the Queen took the dying woman by the shoulders and shook her until she was breathless, flinging her back among the bed-pillows with terrible force. Her last words were "God may forgive you but I never can."

After this visit she was heard to say "I am tied, tied! And the case is altered with me. I am tied with a chain of iron about my neck," to her only confidential friend, Lord Admiral Howard. She waved the clerics from her chamber. How could she confess to them the real secret of her remorse?

March 24 -- Queen Elizabeth dies at Richmond Palace. Before her death she will not go to bed, but lays on floor on pillows. "If you were in the habit of seeing such things in your bed as I see, you would not press me to go there." Queen succeeded by James I.

Bacon writes to Cecil: "My ambitions will not rest only upon my pen."

Everybody about Court anxious to be brought to the notice of James, their living depending upon his favor. Bacon writes Sir John Davis, known as a poet, then on his way to meet the King, desiring him "to be good to concealed poets," and remember him with a good word when at Court.

Valerius Terminus published.

In Parliament speaks against abuses in weights and measures, and in favor of repealing superfluous laws.

Writes Certain Considerations Touching the Better Pacification of the Church of England

Beginning of Advancement of Learning

July 23 --
Francis is knighted by James I (in the rain) with 300 others at the King's Coronation ceremony.

1603-1604

Shake-speare strangely silent in this period (Sweet)

Feb 7 --
Troilus and Cressida at Stationer's Register. (First seen in print in 1623.) 1604 Writes Apology in Certain Imputations concerning the Late Earl of Essex

Mid August -- James concludes a treaty with Spain. Festivities. Prince Henry outraged by mauling of dogs in lion's cage.

August 25 -- is confirmed as member of the Learned Counsel. 60 pounds a year.

Southampton never forgives Francis for conviction of Essex. After the Essex affair, Southampton, a friend in his youth, always regarded Francis as an ungrateful, ungenerous enemy.

Francis again sent to Parliament in a "double return" (Ipswich and St. Albans.)

W.S. listed with other actors as licensed by the King.

W.S. supposedly acts in Jonson's play Sejanus

W.S. walks in procession from the Tower to Westminster with other actors and is allowed "four yards and a half of scarlet cloth to deck himself withal."

1605-06 Advocates the Union of England and Scotland

Time off Parliament for literary work.

Publishes two books of Advancement of Learning. (Note: For the first time the steps of scientific method are defined. He stresses the importance of seeking truth through reason rather than through revelation. The birth of scientific philosophy. Philosophy of Science.)

May 10, 1606 -- Francis marries Alice Barnham, daughter of Lady Packington at St. Marlebone Chapel. Pre Nuptial agreement. Marries for $$. He dresses all in purple, a color which has been forbidden to all but royalty. (He is 46 yrs., she is a few days shy of 14)

Robert, 3rd Earl of Essex married Frances Howard. He was 14, she was 13. (See Overbury affair in 1613)

Proposes to Lord Chancellor to write history of Great Britain.

Third edition of Essays published by Jaggard who printed the Shakespere Folio.

Lover's Complaint written about this time.

Volpone (The Fox) a black comedy by Ben Jonson.

Sonnet XII reveals thoughts on youth and age.

W.Shaksper buys moiety of the tithes of Old Stratford and adjoining parishes.

W.S. is bequeathed "a thirty shillinges peece in goold" by Phillips, a fellow actor..

The company to which W.S. belongs performs King Lear and Macbeth at Whitehall, Dec. 26, but his name is not mentioned.

W.S. is engaged in trade and agriculture.

1607 Countess of Southampton dies (Age shall not wither her..?)

25 June -- Bacon receives office of Solicitor-General -- finally after 13 years!

Has interest in founding colony in Virginia

Comparatively free from public business this year. Publication of King James Bible (Bacon may have been editor) W.S. daughter, Susanna, marries Dr. Hall at Stratford.

1608 A year of intense literary activity. Masculine Birth of Time; Cogitata et Visa. His ideas too advanced for academic approval. Bacon would have liked an academic appointment.

John Dee dies.

Twickenham sold. Francis Goes back to Gorhambury.

Is near nervous breakdown affecting his "imagination" seriously. Sir Tobie Matthews becomes a Roman Catholic, and is banished. Bacon secures suspension of decree, and subsequently, befriends him.

In correspondence with Matthews to whose critical judgment he submits his manuscripts, speaks of his scientific and historical works, and of "other writings" and "the little work of my recreation."

Commentarius Salutus: psychological studies for use in the Great Plays; definite indications that he has founded a Secret Brotherhood, etc.

Bacon Named treasurer of Gray's Inn.

Bacon Succeeds to the Clerkship of the Star Chamber with a revenue of about 2,000 pounds annually the gift of the late Queen Elizabeth.

W.S. recovers suit against John Adenbrook for seven pounds, four shillings, and, upon failure to pay, sues his bondsman.

W.S. godfather to son of William Walker, a neighbor.

W.S. purchases a twenty acres of pasture land of Combe.

W.S. company at the Blackfriars, but his name not mentioned.

1609 May 20 -- Sonnets entered at Stationers Hall (But first Sonnet Folio with 154 sonnets not published yet) -- Shake-speare with no first name given. (half of the Shakespeare Quartos use the hyphenated form) Dedicated to Bacon's lifelong friend, William Herbert. (W.H.) Sonnets generally assumed to have been written 1591-94. Dodd says that 1609 is the alleged date of the Sonnets. He gives the true date as 1625, "when the sonnets were compiled, printed and published privately to the Heads of Rosicrosse Masonry, who kept it as a Secret Book for many years.")

Francis, along with the Earls of Southampton, Pembroke and Montgomery are founders of, and hold shares in, the Newfoundland Company, and the Virginia Company. (Also active in founding of the Carolinas)
They send Sir John Somers to West Indies; whose ship becomes wrecked in the Bermudas; the "still vexed Bermoothes." Bacon was privy to the private records of the ship. To this voyage is due "The Tempest," written soon after, which embodies so many of the results of Bacon's studies as to distinctly fix its authorship (cf. Bacon's Heat and Cold; Ebb and Flow of the Sea; the Biform Figure of Nature; exhibited in Ariel and Caliban; History of the Winds; the Sailing of Ships; Dense and Rare.)

De Sapientia Veterum -- story of 31 fables and myths of ancient Greece, giving his own interpretation; how they came into being, and how they influenced the thought and actions of man throughout the ages. He favored legends of Orpheus, Bacchus, and Prometheus. Also notable were Pan, Perseus and Dionysus, representing Nature, The State, and Passion respectively. These correspond to Comedies, Histories and Tragedies.

1610 Feb 9 -- Parliament in session. Issue of King's finances. Crown debt was over 400,000. Thorny question of prerogative and privilege: the sovereignty of the Crown and the liberty of the subject. He speaks and votes against the superior law officers of the Crown and strongly favours the redress of the Commons list of grievances.

May 14 -- Assassination of Henry IV of France (Henry of Navarre, Francis' friend). He was stabbed to death by a fanatic who jumped on the running-board of his coach. He died instantly.

King agreed to the withdrawal of certain privileges and prerogatives in exchange for an annual grant of 200,000. The Great Contract. It later failed

August -- Lady Anne Bacon dies. 82 years.

1610-12 Begins a history of Great Britain.

"Winter's Tale" contains Bacon's horticultural observations.

1611 The King James Bible is published, edited by F.B., with the title page illustrated by Bacon. (Another of his talents was sketching and intricate designing.)

Faerie Queene published. Interest frontispiece: The royal eagle of the Stuarts comes to alight upon the empty stump of the Tudor rose. Two blooms and two buds are shown. One associated with the headsman's axe (Essex). The buds are presumed to be children of Eliz. that did not live. And the one rose that would stand for Francis has its bloom turned away from view (hidden).

{have a look here for further information on Faerie Queene}

Essays -- another edition bears a dedication to Henry Prince of Wales.

Three Shakespeare plays produced. Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, Tempest.

October 31 -- Tempest given before the King at Whitehall.

1612 Minerva Britannia by Henry Peacham. Frontispiece shows the hand of the poet behind the screen. Dedications to Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, are found with illustration performing symbolic Free-Mason ritual.

1588657648394.png

Emblematic picture dedicated "To the most judicious, and learned, Sir Francis Bacon, Knight" is found in the 1612 book, Minerva Britannia. "The emblem shows Bacon's direct connection with the Knights of the Helmet from which Freemasonry evolved. The Knight is wearing a high hat which simulates the Knight's Helmet and the Mason's high hat, to indicate his order and invisibilty; and he has the staff in his right hand in the act of destroying the Serpent of Ignorance."--from Bacon Masonry by George Tudhope
May 24 -- Lord Salisbury (Robert Cecil) died -- abdominal tumor. (Was Bacon's cousin.) Was not popular, ( corrupt)had steered the ship of state with a steady hand under two monarchs. While Secretary of State (it was only recently discovered) he had received secret payments from Spain in exchange for political favors.

November -- Prince Henry died of typhoid (tertian fever). Had overexerted himself entertaining guests come for wedding of his dear sister to the Elector Palatine of Bohemia.

Shakspere "retires" No new Shakespeare plays after this year.

1613 February 14 --
Marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James to Elector Palatine, Frederick. Lavish wedding cost 50,000. THE MARRIAGE OF THE THAMES AND THE RHINE {see top image Advancement of Leraning}. A masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn, devised by Sir Francis Bacon

A musical comedy which Bacon presented at Gray's Inn in honor of the marriage of the Earl of Somerset, (Robert Carr, the King's favourite),which cost him two thousand pounds; refused to permit others to contribute, though Yelverton desired to subscribe five hundred pounds

W.S. still at Stratford engaged in petty trade according to Phillipps; attentive to business, growing in estate, purchasing farms, houses, and tithes in Stratford, bringing suits for small sums against various persons for malt delivered, money loaned, and the like; carrying on agricultural pursuits, and other kinds of traffic.

(It seems that he must have practically deserted the stage shortly after the purchase of his Stratford home.)

Another edition of Essays. Number now increased from 10 to 38. Of Marriage and the Single Life: "He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, wither of virtue or mischief. Certainly, the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men."

April -- Overbury opposes the marriage of favorite Robert Carr (Somerset) and Frances Howard, young countess of Essex. She must divorce to wed him. Overbury is imprisoned and dies in the tower. Marriage proceeds (but it will be later found that Overbury was poisoned, and Somerset and his bride were responsible.)

June 29 -- the Globe Theater is burned; name of W.S. not mentioned.

Burbage is employed by Lord Rutland's steward to paint his master's cognizance, or "impresso," as it was called for a celebration at the castle of Belvoir. This was a coat of arms with coarse mantlings gaudily painted on canvas or boards to impress the gaping mob with the importance of their lord. Burbage W.S.'s former associate abiding in the vicinity procures his assistance, and W.S. is paid for his services forty-four shillings.

W.S. buys with three others house near Blackfriars in London (the gate-house) for one hundred and forty pounds; mortgages it back for sixty pounds; "was unpaid at his death."

26 October -- Appointed Attorney General. But he had to create a stir to do it, Coke appointed Chief Justice of King's bench, present Attorney General promoted to Chief Justice of Common pleas, and Francis would move to Attorney General. Had a fit of the stone -- panic when facing reality and his own future.

1614-15 King introduced to Sir George Villiers of Brooksby. (Old favourite, Robert Carr, Somerset, about to be eclipsed.)

Is returned Member of Parliament for Cambridge University, as well as Ipswich and St. Albans. A triple return is unprecedented. (Francis very popular with his constituency.)

Is engaged in the trial of Earl and Countess of Somerset for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury.

Publication of the Fama Fraternitatis - 1614. the brotherhood of the Rosy Cross - forerunner of Freemasons.

{here we come across, again, the Rosicrucians, and it might hearken back to John Dee and foreign influences out of Italy et cetera. It might bring one back to the original videos about the Sonnets by Green and what they contained as it relates to Egypt and the Pyramids – what they knew and how to hide it. I don’t know, just speculation. Bacon seemed to have a ‘circle’ of poets and pens writing; developing into a society – freemason like

Here is a quote from the Rosy Cross Manifesto according to who added it in wiki:}

The Legend presented in the Manifestos has been interpreted through centuries as texts full of symbolism. Rosicrucians clearly adopted through the Manifestos the Pythagorean tradition of envisioning objects and ideas in terms of their numeric aspects, and, on the other hand, they directly state in the Confessio Fraternitatis: "We speak unto you by parables, but would willingly bring you to the right, simple, easy and ingenuous exposition, understanding, declaration, and knowledge of all secrets."

Origin
In his book, The True Story of the Rosicrucians historian Tobias Churton brings into life new documents that prove the Fama was written by a group of Lutheran scholars at Tubingen in which Andrea took an active part. After one manuscript written in 1612, which was intended to be circulated privately escaped their control, the movement took a life in itself, prompting new theories and pure speculations such as those brought forward by Émile Dantinne (1884–1969) who theorised that the origins of the Rosicrucians might have had an Islamic connection. Rosenkreuz started his pilgrimage at the age of sixteen. This led him to Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, where he came into contact with sages of the East who revealed to him the "universal harmonic science". After learning Arabic philosophy in Jerusalem, he was led to Damcar. This place remains a mystery — it did not become Damascus, but is somewhere not too far from Jerusalem. Then he stopped briefly in Egypt. Soon afterwards, he embarked to Fes, a center of philosophical and occult studies, such as the alchemy of Abu-Abdallah, Gabir ben Hayan and Imam Jafar al Sadiq, the astrology and magic of Ali-ash-Shabramallishi, and the esoteric science of Abdarrahman ben Abdallah al Iskari. However, Dantinne states that Rosenkreuz may have found his secrets amongst the Brethren of Purity, a society of philosophers that had formed in Basra (Iraq) in the 10th century. Their doctrine had its source in the study of the ancient Greek philosophers, but it became more neo-Pythagorean. They adopted the Pythagorean tradition of envisioning objects and ideas in terms of their numeric aspects. Their theurgy and esoteric knowledge is expounded in an epistolary style in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity.

The Brethren of Purity and the Sufis were united in many points of doctrine. They both were mystical orders deriving from Quranic theology but supplanting dogma with a faith in the Divine Reality. There were many similarities between the Rosicrucian way as expressed in the manifestos and the way of life of the Brethren of Purity. Neither group wore special clothing, both practiced abstinence, they healed the sick, and they offered their teachings free of charge. Similarities also were evident in the doctrinal elements of their theurgy and the story of creation in terms of emanationism. However, if one studies the Fama which was written by Lutherans, the main idea of Islamic connection is easily disproved. What was intended with the Fama was a novel in which the idea of reformation of Sciences and Arts in which a Hermetic tradition of European origin is well established.
 
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